title: Linux

text: Popular Linux distributions include Debian, Fedora Linux, and Ubuntu, the latter of which itself consists of many different distributions and modifications, including Lubuntu and Xubuntu. Commercial distributions include Red Hat Enterprise Linux and SUSE Linux Enterprise. Desktop Linux distributions include a windowing system such as X11 or Wayland, and a desktop environment such as GNOME or KDE Plasma. Distributions intended for servers may omit graphics altogether, or include a solution stack such as LAMP. Because Linux is freely redistributable, anyone may create a distribution for any purpose.


title: Linux

text: Linux was originally developed for personal computers based on the Intel x86 architecture, but has since been ported to more platforms than any other operating system. Because of the dominance of the Linux-based Android on smartphones, Linux, including Android, has the largest installed base of all general-purpose operating systems, . Although Linux is, , used by only around 2.6 percent of desktop computers, the Chromebook, which runs the Linux kernel-based ChromeOS, dominates the US K–12 education market and represents nearly 20 percent of sub-$300 notebook sales in the US. Linux is the leading operating system on servers (over 96.4% of the top 1 million web servers' operating systems are Linux), leads other big iron systems such as mainframe computers, and is used on all of the world's 500 fastest supercompters (since November 2017, having gradually displaced all competitors).


title: Linux

text: Linux also runs on embedded systems, i.e. devices whose operating system is typically built into the firmware and is highly tailored to the system. This includes routers, automation controls, smart home devices, video game consoles, televisions (Samsung and LG Smart TVs), automobiles (Tesla, Audi, Mercedes-Benz, Hyundai and Toyota), and spacecraft (Falcon 9 rocket, Dragon crew capsule and the "Perseverance" rover).


title: Linux

text: Linux is one of the most prominent examples of free and open-source software collaboration. The source code may be used, modified and distributed commercially or non-commercially by anyone under the terms of its respective licenses, such as the GNU General Public License (GPL). The Linux kernel, for example, is licensed under the GPLv2.


title: Linux

text: The Unix operating system was conceived and implemented in 1969, at AT&T's Bell Labs, in the United States by Ken Thompson, Dennis Ritchie, Douglas McIlroy, and Joe Ossanna. First released in 1971, Unix was written entirely in assembly language, as was common practice at the time. In 1973, in a key pioneering approach, it was rewritten in the C programming language by Dennis Ritchie (with the exception of some hardware and I/O routines). The availability of a high-level language implementation of Unix made its porting to different computer platforms easier.


title: Linux

text: Due to an earlier antitrust case forbidding it from entering the computer business, AT&T licensed the operating system's source code as a trade secret to anyone who asked. As a result, Unix grew quickly and became widely adopted by academic institutions and businesses. In 1984, AT&T divested itself of its regional operating companies, and was released from its obligation not to enter the computer business; freed of that obligation, Bell Labs began selling Unix as a proprietary product, where users were not legally allowed to modify it.


title: Linux

text: Onyx Systems began selling early microcomputer-based Unix workstations in 1980. Later, Sun Microsystems, founded as a spin-off of a student project at Stanford University, also began selling Unix-based desktop workstations in 1982. While Sun workstations didn't utilize commodity PC hardware like Linux was later developed for, it represented the first successful commercial attempt at distributing a primarily single-user microcomputer that ran a Unix operating system.


title: Linux

text: With Unix increasingly "locked in" as a proprietary product, the GNU Project, started in 1983 by Richard Stallman, had the goal of creating a "complete Unix-compatible software system" composed entirely of free software. Work began in 1984. Later, in 1985, Stallman started the Free Software Foundation and wrote the GNU General Public License (GNU GPL) in 1989. By the early 1990s, many of the programs required in an operating system (such as libraries, compilers, text editors, a command-line shell, and a windowing system) were completed, although low-level elements such as device drivers, daemons, and the kernel, called GNU Hurd, were stalled and incomplete.


title: Linux

text: MINIX was created by Andrew S. Tanenbaum, a computer science professor, and released in 1987 as a minimal Unix-like operating system targeted at students and others who wanted to learn operating system principles. Although the complete source code of MINIX was freely available, the licensing terms prevented it from being free software until the licensing changed in April 2000.


title: Linux

text: Although not released until 1992, due to legal complications, development of 386BSD, from which NetBSD, OpenBSD and FreeBSD descended, predated that of Linux.


title: Linux

text: Linus Torvalds has stated on separate occasions that if the GNU kernel or 386BSD had been available at the time (1991), he probably would not have created Linux.


title: Linux

text: While attending the University of Helsinki in the fall of 1990, Torvalds enrolled in a Unix course. The course utilized a MicroVAX minicomputer running Ultrix, and one of the required texts was "" by Andrew S. Tanenbaum. This textbook included a copy of Tanenbaum's MINIX operating system. It was with this course that Torvalds first became exposed to Unix. In 1991, he became curious about operating systems. Frustrated by the licensing of MINIX, which at the time limited it to educational use only, he began to work on his own operating system kernel, which eventually became the Linux kernel.


title: Linux

text: Torvalds began the development of the Linux kernel on MINIX and applications written for MINIX were also used on Linux. Later, Linux matured and further Linux kernel development took place on Linux systems. GNU applications also replaced all MINIX components, because it was advantageous to use the freely available code from the GNU Project with the fledgling operating system; code licensed under the GNU GPL can be reused in other computer programs as long as they also are released under the same or a compatible license. Torvalds initiated a switch from his original license, which prohibited commercial redistribution, to the GNU GPL. Developers worked to integrate GNU components with the Linux kernel, creating a fully functional and free operating system.


title: Linux

text: Linus Torvalds had wanted to call his invention "Freax", a portmanteau of "free", "freak", and "x" (as an allusion to Unix). During the start of his work on the system, some of the project's makefiles included the name "Freax" for about half a year. Initially, Torvalds considered the name "Linux" but dismissed it as too egotistical.


title: Linux

text: To facilitate development, the files were uploaded to the FTP server (codice_1) of FUNET in September 1991. Ari Lemmke, Torvalds' coworker at the Helsinki University of Technology (HUT) who was one of the volunteer administrators for the FTP server at the time, did not think that "Freax" was a good name, so he named the project "Linux" on the server without consulting Torvalds. Later, however, Torvalds consented to "Linux".


title: Linux

text: According to a newsgroup post by Torvalds, the word "Linux" should be pronounced ( ) with a short 'i' as in 'print' and 'u' as in 'put'. To further demonstrate how the word "Linux" should be pronounced, he included an audio guide () with the kernel source code. However, in this recording, he pronounces 'Linux' ( ) with a short but close front unrounded vowel.


title: Linux

text: Adoption of Linux in production environments, rather than being used only by hobbyists, started to take off first in the mid-1990s in the supercomputing community, where organizations such as NASA started to replace their increasingly expensive machines with clusters of inexpensive commodity computers running Linux. Commercial use began when Dell and IBM, followed by Hewlett-Packard, started offering Linux support to escape Microsoft's monopoly in the desktop operating system market.


title: Linux

text: Today, Linux systems are used throughout computing, from embedded systems to virtually all supercomputers, and have secured a place in server installations such as the popular LAMP application stack. Use of Linux distributions in home and enterprise desktops has been growing. Linux distributions have also become popular in the netbook market, with many devices shipping with customized Linux distributions installed, and Google releasing their own ChromeOS designed for netbooks.


title: Linux

text: Linux's greatest success in the consumer market is perhaps the mobile device market, with Android being the dominant operating system on smartphones and very popular on tablets and, more recently, on wearables. Linux gaming is also on the rise with Valve showing its support for Linux and rolling out SteamOS, its own gaming-oriented Linux distribution, and later the Steam Deck platform. Linux distributions have also gained popularity with various local and national governments, such as the federal government of Brazil.


title: Linux

text: Greg Kroah-Hartman is the lead maintainer for the Linux kernel and guides its development. William John Sullivan is the executive director of the Free Software Foundation, which in turn supports the GNU components. Finally, individuals and corporations develop third-party non-GNU components. These third-party components comprise a vast body of work and may include both kernel modules and user applications and libraries.


title: Linux

text: Linux vendors and communities combine and distribute the kernel, GNU components, and non-GNU components, with additional package management software in the form of Linux distributions.


title: Linux

text: Many open source developers agree that the Linux kernel was not designed but rather evolved through natural selection. Torvalds considers that although the design of Unix served as a scaffolding, "Linux grew with a lot of mutations – and because the mutations were less than random, they were faster and more directed than alpha-particles in DNA." Eric S. Raymond considers Linux's revolutionary aspects to be social, not technical: before Linux, complex software was designed carefully by small groups, but "Linux evolved in a completely different way. From nearly the beginning, it was rather casually hacked on by huge numbers of volunteers coordinating only through the Internet. Quality was maintained not by rigid standards or autocracy but by the naively simple strategy of releasing every week and getting feedback from hundreds of users within days, creating a sort of rapid Darwinian selection on the mutations introduced by developers." Bryan Cantrill, an engineer of a competing OS, agrees that "Linux wasn't designed, it evolved", but considers this to be a limitation, proposing that some features, especially those related to security, cannot be evolved into, "this is not a biological system at the end of the day, it's a software system."


title: Linux

text: A Linux-based system is a modular Unix-like operating system, deriving much of its basic design from principles established in Unix during the 1970s and 1980s. Such a system uses a monolithic kernel, the Linux kernel, which handles process control, networking, access to the peripherals, and file systems. Device drivers are either integrated directly with the kernel, or added as modules that are loaded while the system is running.


title: Linux

text: The GNU userland is a key part of most systems based on the Linux kernel, with Android being the notable exception. The Project's implementation of the C library works as a wrapper for the system calls of the Linux kernel necessary to the kernel-userspace interface, the toolchain is a broad collection of programming tools vital to Linux development (including the compilers used to build the Linux kernel itself), and the coreutils implement many basic Unix tools. The project also develops Bash, a popular CLI shell. The graphical user interface (or GUI) used by most Linux systems is built on top of an implementation of the X Window System. More recently, the Linux community seeks to advance to Wayland as the new display server protocol in place of X11. Many other open-source software projects contribute to Linux systems.


title: Linux

text: The user interface, also known as the shell, is either a command-line interface (CLI), a graphical user interface (GUI), or controls attached to the associated hardware, which is common for embedded systems. For desktop systems, the default user interface is usually graphical, although the CLI is commonly available through terminal emulator windows or on a separate virtual console.


title: Linux

text: CLI shells are text-based user interfaces, which use text for both input and output. The dominant shell used in Linux is the Bourne-Again Shell (bash), originally developed for the GNU project. Most low-level Linux components, including various parts of the userland, use the CLI exclusively. The CLI is particularly suited for automation of repetitive or delayed tasks and provides very simple inter-process communication.


title: Linux

text: On desktop systems, the most popular user interfaces are the GUI shells, packaged together with extensive desktop environments, such as KDE Plasma, GNOME, MATE, Cinnamon, LXDE, Pantheon and Xfce, though a variety of additional user interfaces exist. Most popular user interfaces are based on the X Window System, often simply called "X". It provides network transparency and permits a graphical application running on one system to be displayed on another where a user may interact with the application; however, certain extensions of the X Window System are not capable of working over the network. Several X display servers exist, with the reference implementation, X.Org Server, being the most popular.


title: Linux

text: Server distributions might provide a command-line interface for developers and administrators, but provide a custom interface towards end-users, designed for the use-case of the system. This custom interface is accessed through a client that resides on another system, not necessarily Linux based.


title: Linux

text: Several types of window managers exist for X11, including tiling, dynamic, stacking and compositing. Window managers provide means to control the placement and appearance of individual application windows, and interact with the X Window System. Simpler X window managers such as dwm, ratpoison, i3wm, or herbstluftwm provide a minimalist functionality, while more elaborate window managers such as FVWM, Enlightenment or Window Maker provide more features such as a built-in taskbar and themes, but are still lightweight when compared to desktop environments. Desktop environments include window managers as part of their standard installations, such as Mutter (GNOME), KWin (KDE) or Xfwm (xfce), although users may choose to use a different window manager if preferred.


title: Linux

text: Wayland is a display server protocol intended as a replacement for the X11 protocol; , it has received relatively wide adoption. Unlike X11, Wayland does not need an external window manager and compositing manager. Therefore, a Wayland compositor takes the role of the display server, window manager and compositing manager. Weston is the reference implementation of Wayland, while GNOME's Mutter and KDE's KWin are being ported to Wayland as standalone display servers. Enlightenment has already been successfully ported since version 19.


title: Linux

text: Linux currently has two modern kernel-userspace APIs for handling video input devices: V4L2 API for video streams and radio, and DVB API for digital TV reception.


title: Linux

text: Due to the complexity and diversity of different devices, and due to the large number of formats and standards handled by those APIs, this infrastructure needs to evolve to better fit other devices. Also, a good userspace device library is the key of the success for having userspace applications to be able to work with all formats supported by those devices.


title: Linux

text: The primary difference between Linux and many other popular contemporary operating systems is that the Linux kernel and other components are free and open-source software. Linux is not the only such operating system, although it is by far the most widely used. Some free and open-source software licenses are based on the principle of copyleft, a kind of reciprocity: any work derived from a copyleft piece of software must also be copyleft itself. The most common free software license, the GNU General Public License (GPL), is a form of copyleft, and is used for the Linux kernel and many of the components from the GNU Project.


title: Linux

text: Linux-based distributions are intended by developers for interoperability with other operating systems and established computing standards. Linux systems adhere to POSIX, SUS, LSB, ISO, and ANSI standards where possible, although to date only one Linux distribution has been POSIX.1 certified, Linux-FT.


title: Linux

text: Free software projects, although developed through collaboration, are often produced independently of each other. The fact that the software licenses explicitly permit redistribution, however, provides a basis for larger-scale projects that collect the software produced by stand-alone projects and make it available all at once in the form of a Linux distribution.


title: Linux

text: Many Linux distributions manage a remote collection of system software and application software packages available for download and installation through a network connection. This allows users to adapt the operating system to their specific needs. Distributions are maintained by individuals, loose-knit teams, volunteer organizations, and commercial entities. A distribution is responsible for the default configuration of the installed Linux kernel, general system security, and more generally integration of the different software packages into a coherent whole. Distributions typically use a package manager such as apt, yum, zypper, pacman or portage to install, remove, and update all of a system's software from one central location.


title: Linux

text: A distribution is largely driven by its developer and user communities. Some vendors develop and fund their distributions on a volunteer basis, Debian being a well-known example. Others maintain a community version of their commercial distributions, as Red Hat does with Fedora, and SUSE does with openSUSE.


title: Linux

text: In many cities and regions, local associations known as Linux User Groups (LUGs) seek to promote their preferred distribution and by extension free software. They hold meetings and provide free demonstrations, training, technical support, and operating system installation to new users. Many Internet communities also provide support to Linux users and developers. Most distributions and free software / open-source projects have IRC chatrooms or newsgroups. Online forums are another means for support, with notable examples being LinuxQuestions.org and the various distribution specific support and community forums, such as ones for Ubuntu, Fedora, and Gentoo. Linux distributions host mailing lists; commonly there will be a specific topic such as usage or development for a given list.


title: Linux

text: There are several technology websites with a Linux focus. Print magazines on Linux often bundle cover disks that carry software or even complete Linux distributions.


title: Linux

text: Although Linux distributions are generally available without charge, several large corporations sell, support, and contribute to the development of the components of the system and of free software. An analysis of the Linux kernel in 2017 showed that well over 85% of the code developed by programmers who are being paid for their work, leaving about 8.2% to unpaid developers and 4.1% unclassified. Some of the major corporations that provide contributions include Intel, Samsung, Google, AMD, Oracle and Facebook. A number of corporations, notably Red Hat, Canonical and SUSE, have built a significant business around Linux distributions.


title: Linux

text: The free software licenses, on which the various software packages of a distribution built on the Linux kernel are based, explicitly accommodate and encourage commercialization; the relationship between a Linux distribution as a whole and individual vendors may be seen as symbiotic. One common business model of commercial suppliers is charging for support, especially for business users. A number of companies also offer a specialized business version of their distribution, which adds proprietary support packages and tools to administer higher numbers of installations or to simplify administrative tasks.


title: Linux

text: Another business model is to give away the software to sell hardware. This used to be the norm in the computer industry, with operating systems such as CP/M, Apple DOS and versions of Mac OS prior to 7.6 freely copyable (but not modifiable). As computer hardware standardized throughout the 1980s, it became more difficult for hardware manufacturers to profit from this tactic, as the OS would run on any manufacturer's computer that shared the same architecture.


title: Linux

text: Most programming languages support Linux either directly or through third-party community based ports. The original development tools used for building both Linux applications and operating system programs are found within the GNU toolchain, which includes the GNU Compiler Collection (GCC) and the GNU Build System. Amongst others, GCC provides compilers for Ada, C, C++, Go and Fortran. Many programming languages have a cross-platform reference implementation that supports Linux, for example PHP, Perl, Ruby, Python, Java, Go, Rust and Haskell. First released in 2003, the LLVM project provides an alternative cross-platform open-source compiler for many languages. Proprietary compilers for Linux include the Intel C++ Compiler, Sun Studio, and IBM XL C/C++ Compiler. BASIC in the form of Visual Basic is supported in such forms as Gambas, FreeBASIC, and XBasic, and in terms of terminal programming or QuickBASIC or Turbo BASIC programming in the form of QB64.


title: Linux

text: A common feature of Unix-like systems, Linux includes traditional specific-purpose programming languages targeted at scripting, text processing and system configuration and management in general. Linux distributions support shell scripts, awk, sed and make. Many programs also have an embedded programming language to support configuring or programming themselves. For example, regular expressions are supported in programs like grep and locate, the traditional Unix MTA Sendmail contains its own Turing complete scripting system, and the advanced text editor GNU Emacs is built around a general purpose Lisp interpreter.


title: Linux

text: Most distributions also include support for PHP, Perl, Ruby, Python and other dynamic languages. While not as common, Linux also supports C# (via Mono), Vala, and Scheme. Guile Scheme acts as an extension language targeting the GNU system utilities, seeking to make the conventionally small, static, compiled C programs of Unix design rapidly and dynamically extensible via an elegant, functional high-level scripting system; many GNU programs can be compiled with optional Guile bindings to this end. A number of Java virtual machines and development kits run on Linux, including the original Sun Microsystems JVM (HotSpot), and IBM's J2SE RE, as well as many open-source projects like Kaffe and JikesRVM.


title: Linux

text: GNOME and KDE are popular desktop environments and provide a framework for developing applications. These projects are based on the GTK and Qt widget toolkits, respectively, which can also be used independently of the larger framework. Both support a wide variety of languages. There are a number of Integrated development environments available including Anjuta, , CodeLite, Eclipse, Geany, ActiveState Komodo, KDevelop, Lazarus, MonoDevelop, NetBeans, and Qt Creator, while the long-established editors Vim, nano and Emacs remain popular.


title: Linux

text: The Linux kernel is a widely ported operating system kernel, available for devices ranging from mobile phones to supercomputers; it runs on a highly diverse range of computer architectures, including the hand-held ARM-based iPAQ and the IBM mainframes System z9 or System z10. Specialized distributions and kernel forks exist for less mainstream architectures; for example, the ELKS kernel fork can run on Intel 8086 or Intel 80286 16-bit microprocessors, while the µClinux kernel fork may run on systems without a memory management unit. The kernel also runs on architectures that were only ever intended to use a manufacturer-created operating system, such as Macintosh computers (with both PowerPC and Intel processors), PDAs, video game consoles, portable music players, and mobile phones.


title: Linux

text: There are several industry associations and hardware conferences devoted to maintaining and improving support for diverse hardware under Linux, such as FreedomHEC. Over time, support for different hardware has improved in Linux, resulting in any off-the-shelf purchase having a "good chance" of being compatible.


title: Linux

text: In 2014, a new initiative was launched to automatically collect a database of all tested hardware configurations.


title: Linux

text: Many quantitative studies of free/open-source software focus on topics including market share and reliability, with numerous studies specifically examining Linux. The Linux market is growing, and the Linux operating system market size is expected to see a growth of 19.2% by 2027, reaching $15.64 billion, compared to $3.89 billion in 2019. Analysts and proponents attribute the relative success of Linux to its security, reliability, low cost, and freedom from vendor lock-in.


title: Linux

text: Linux kernel is licensed under the GNU General Public License (GPL), version 2. The GPL requires that anyone who distributes software based on source code under this license must make the originating source code (and any modifications) available to the recipient under the same terms. Other key components of a typical Linux distribution are also mainly licensed under the GPL, but they may use other licenses; many libraries use the GNU Lesser General Public License (LGPL), a more permissive variant of the GPL, and the X.Org implementation of the X Window System uses the MIT License.


title: Linux

text: Torvalds states that the Linux kernel will not move from version 2 of the GPL to version 3. He specifically dislikes some provisions in the new license which prohibit the use of the software in digital rights management. It would also be impractical to obtain permission from all the copyright holders, who number in the thousands.


title: Linux

text: A 2001 study of Red Hat Linux 7.1 found that this distribution contained 30 million source lines of code. Using the Constructive Cost Model, the study estimated that this distribution required about eight thousand person-years of development time. According to the study, if all this software had been developed by conventional proprietary means, it would have cost about to develop in in the United States. Most of the source code (71%) was written in the C programming language, but many other languages were used, including C++, Lisp, assembly language, Perl, Python, Fortran, and various shell scripting languages. Slightly over half of all lines of code were licensed under the GPL. The Linux kernel itself was 2.4 million lines of code, or 8% of the total.


title: Linux

text: In a later study, the same analysis was performed for Debian version 4.0 (etch, which was released in 2007). This distribution contained close to 283 million source lines of code, and the study estimated that it would have required about seventy three thousand man-years and cost (in dollars) to develop by conventional means.


title: Linux

text: In the United States, the name "Linux" is a trademark registered to Linus Torvalds. Initially, nobody registered it, but on August 15, 1994, William R. Della Croce, Jr. filed for the trademark "Linux", and then demanded royalties from Linux distributors. In 1996, Torvalds and some affected organizations sued him to have the trademark assigned to Torvalds, and, in 1997, the case was settled. The licensing of the trademark has since been handled by the Linux Mark Institute (LMI). Torvalds has stated that he trademarked the name only to prevent someone else from using it. LMI originally charged a nominal sublicensing fee for use of the Linux name as part of trademarks, but later changed this in favor of offering a free, perpetual worldwide sublicense.


title: Linux

text: The Free Software Foundation (FSF) prefers "GNU/Linux" as the name when referring to the operating system as a whole, because it considers Linux distributions to be variants of the GNU operating system initiated in 1983 by Richard Stallman, president of the FSF. They explicitly take no issue over the name Android for the Android OS, which is also an operating system based on the Linux kernel, as GNU is not a part of it.


title: Linux

text: A minority of public figures and software projects other than Stallman and the FSF, notably Debian (which had been sponsored by the FSF up to 1996), also use "GNU/Linux" when referring to the operating system as a whole. Most media and common usage, however, refers to this family of operating systems simply as "Linux", as do many large Linux distributions (for example, SUSE Linux and Red Hat Enterprise Linux). By contrast, Linux distributions containing only free software use "GNU/Linux" or simply "GNU", such as Trisquel GNU/Linux, Parabola GNU/Linux-libre, BLAG Linux and GNU, and gNewSense.


title: Linux

text: , about 8% to 13% of the lines of code of the Linux distribution Ubuntu (version "Natty") is made of GNU components (the range depending on whether GNOME is considered part of GNU); meanwhile, 6% is taken by the Linux kernel, increased to 9% when including its direct dependencies.


title: Kareem Abdul-Jabbar

text: Kareem Abdul-Jabbar ( ; born Ferdinand Lewis Alcindor Jr.; April 16, 1947) is an American former professional basketball player who played 20 seasons in the National Basketball Association (NBA) for the Milwaukee Bucks and the Los Angeles Lakers. During his career as a center, Abdul-Jabbar was a record six-time NBA Most Valuable Player (MVP), a record 19-time NBA All-Star, a 15-time All-NBA Team member, and an 11-time NBA All-Defensive Team member. He was a member of six NBA championship teams as a player and two more as an assistant coach, and was twice voted NBA Finals MVP. He was named to three NBA anniversary teams (35th, 50th, and 75th). Widely regarded as one of the greatest players of all time, he was called the greatest basketball player of all time by Pat Riley, Isiah Thomas, and Julius Erving.


title: Kareem Abdul-Jabbar

text: Lew Alcindor ( ) played at parochial high school Power Memorial in New York City, where he led their team to 71 consecutive wins. He was recruited by Jerry Norman, the assistant coach at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), where he played for coach John Wooden on three consecutive national championship teams. He was a record three-time MVP of the NCAA Tournament. Drafted with the first overall pick by the one-season-old Bucks franchise in the 1969 NBA draft, Alcindor spent six seasons in Milwaukee. After leading the Bucks to its first NBA championship at age 24 in 1971, he took the Muslim name Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. Using his trademark skyhook shot, he established himself as one of the league's top scorers. In 1975, he was traded to the Lakers, with whom he played the final 14 seasons of his career in which they won five additional NBA championships. Abdul-Jabbar's contributions were a key component in the Showtime era of Lakers basketball. Over his 20-year NBA career, his teams succeeded in making the playoffs 18 times and got past the first round 14 times; his teams reached the NBA Finals on ten occasions.


title: Kareem Abdul-Jabbar

text: At the time of his retirement at age 42 in 1989, Abdul-Jabbar was the NBA's all-time leader in points (38,387), games played (1,560), minutes (57,446), field goals made (15,837), field goal attempts (28,307), blocked shots (3,189), defensive rebounds (9,394), career wins (1,074), and personal fouls (4,657). He remains the all-time leader in points scored, field goals made, and career wins. He is ranked third all-time in both rebounds and blocked shots. ESPN named him the greatest center of all time in 2007, the greatest player in college basketball history in 2008, and the second best player in NBA history (behind Michael Jordan) in 2016. Abdul-Jabbar has also been an actor, a basketball coach, a best-selling author, and a martial artist, having trained in Jeet Kune Do under Bruce Lee and appeared in his film "Game of Death" (1972). In 2012, Abdul-Jabbar was selected by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to be a U.S. global cultural ambassador. In 2016, President Barack Obama awarded him the Presidential Medal of Freedom.


title: Kareem Abdul-Jabbar

text: Ferdinand Lewis Alcindor Jr. was born in Harlem, New York City, the only child of Cora Lillian, a department store price checker, and Ferdinand Lewis Alcindor Sr., a transit police officer and jazz musician. He grew up in the Dyckman Street projects in the Inwood neighborhood of Upper Manhattan, which he moved to at the age of 3 in 1950. At birth, Alcindor weighed and was long. He was always very tall for his age. By age nine, he was already tall. Alcindor was often depressed as a teenager because of the stares and comments about his height. By the eighth grade (age 13–14), he had grown to and could already slam dunk a basketball.


title: Kareem Abdul-Jabbar

text: Alcindor began his record-breaking basketball accomplishments when he was in high school, where he led coach Jack Donohue's Power Memorial Academy team to three straight New York City Catholic championships, a 71–game winning streak, and a 79–2 overall record. This earned him "The Tower from Power" nickname. His 2,067 total points were a New York City high school record. The team won the national high school boys basketball championship when Alcindor was in 10th and 11th grade and was runner-up his senior year. He had a strained relationship in his final year with Donohue after the coach called him a "nigger".


title: Kareem Abdul-Jabbar

text: Alcindor was not able to play professionally in the NBA out of high school. At the time, the league only accepted players beginning with the year that they could have hypothetically graduated from college. His other options to play pro ball would were to join the Harlem Globetrotters or play overseas. However, his goal was to attend college, and he chose the University of California, Los Angeles.


title: Kareem Abdul-Jabbar

text: By now tall, Alcindor was relegated to the freshman team in his first year with the Bruins, as freshman were ineligible to play varsity until 1972. The freshman squad included Lucius Allen, Kenny Heitz, and Lynn Shackelford, who were fellow high-school All-Americans . On November 27, 1965, Alcindor made his first public performance in UCLA's annual varsity–freshman exhibition game, attended by 12,051 fans in the inaugural game at the Bruins' new Pauley Pavilion. The 1965–66 varsity team was the two-time defending national champions and the top-ranked team in preseason polls. The freshman team won 75–60 behind Alcindor's 31 points and 21 rebounds. It was the first time a freshman team had beaten the UCLA varsity squad. The varsity had lost Gail Goodrich and Keith Erickson from the championship squad to graduation, and starting guard Freddie Goss was out sick. After the game, UPI wrote: "UCLA's Bruins open defense of their national basketball title this week, but right now they're only the second best team on campus." The freshman team was 21–0 that year, dominating against junior college and other freshman teams.


title: Kareem Abdul-Jabbar

text: Alcindor made his varsity debut as a sophomore in 1966 and received national coverage. "Sports Illustrated" described him as "The New Superstar" after he scored 56 points in his first game, which broke the UCLA single-game record held by Gail Goodrich. He averaged 29 points per game during the season and led UCLA to an undefeated 30–0 record and a national championship. After the season, the dunk was banned in college basketball in an attempt to curtail his dominance. The rule was not rescinded until the 1976–77 season. Alcindor was the main contributor to the team's three-year record of 88 wins and only two losses: one to the University of Houston in which Alcindor had an eye injury, and the other to crosstown rival USC who played a "stall game"; there was no shot clock in that era, allowing the Trojans to hold the ball as long as it wanted before attempting to score. They limited Alcindor to only four shots and 10 points.


title: Kareem Abdul-Jabbar

text: During his college career, Alcindor was a three-time national player of the year (1967–1969), a three-time unanimous first-team All-American (1967–1969), played on three NCAA basketball champion teams (1967, 1968, and 1969), was honored as the Most Outstanding Player in the NCAA Tournament three times, and became the first-ever Naismith College Player of the Year in 1969. He was the only player to win the Helms Foundation Player of the Year award three times. He had considered transferring to Michigan because of unfulfilled recruiting promises. UCLA player Willie Naulls introduced Alcindor and teammate Lucius Allen to athletic booster Sam Gilbert, who convinced the pair to remain at UCLA.


title: Kareem Abdul-Jabbar

text: During his junior year, Alcindor suffered a scratched left cornea on January 12, 1968, in a game against Cal when he was struck by Tom Henderson in a rebound battle. He would miss the next two games against Stanford and Portland. His cornea would again be scratched during his pro career, which subsequently caused him to wear goggles for eye protection. On January 20, the Bruins faced coach Guy Lewis's Houston Cougars in the first-ever nationally televised regular-season college basketball game, with 52,693 in attendance at the Astrodome. In a contest billed as the "Game of the Century", Cougar forward Elvin Hayes scored 39 points and had 15 rebounds, while Alcindor, suffering from his eye injury, was held to just 15 points as Houston won 71–69, ending UCLA's 47-game winning streak. Hayes and Alcindor had a rematch in the semifinals of the NCAA tournament, where UCLA, with a healthy Alcindor, defeated Houston 101–69 en route to the national championship. UCLA limited Hayes, who was averaging 37.7 points per game, to only ten points. Wooden credited his assistant, Jerry Norman, for devising the diamond-and-one defense that contained Hayes. "Sports Illustrated" ran a cover story on the game and used the headline: "Lew's Revenge: The Rout of Houston."


title: Kareem Abdul-Jabbar

text: During the summer of 1968, Alcindor took the "shahada" twice and converted to Sunni Islam from Catholicism. He adopted the Arabic name Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, though he did not begin using it publicly until 1971. He boycotted the 1968 Summer Olympics, deciding not to try out for U.S. Olympic basketball team, who went on to easily win the gold medal. Alcindor was protesting the unequal treatment of African Americans in the United States, stating that he was "trying to point out to the world the futility of winning the gold medal for this country and then coming back to live under oppression."


title: Kareem Abdul-Jabbar

text: As the NBA did not allow college underclassmen to make an early NBA draft declaration, Alcindor completed his studies and earned a Bachelor of Arts with a major in history in 1969. In his free time, he practiced martial arts. He studied aikido in New York between his sophomore and junior year before learning Jeet Kune Do under Bruce Lee in Los Angeles.


title: Kareem Abdul-Jabbar

text: As of the 2019–20 UCLA Bruins men's basketball team season, he still holds or shares a number of individual records at UCLA:


title: Kareem Abdul-Jabbar

text: He is represented in the top ten in a number of other school records, including season and career rebounds, second only to Bill Walton.


title: Kareem Abdul-Jabbar

text: The Globetrotters offered Alcindor $1 million to play for them, but he declined and was picked first overall in the 1969 NBA draft by the Milwaukee Bucks, who were in only their second season of existence. The Bucks had won a coin toss with the Phoenix Suns for the first pick. He was also chosen first overall in the 1969 American Basketball Association draft by the New York Nets. The Nets believed that they had the upper hand in securing Alcindor's services because he was from New York; however, when Alcindor told both the Bucks and the Nets that he would accept only one offer from each team, he rejected the Nets' bid as too low. Sam Gilbert negotiated the contract along with Los Angeles businessman Ralph Shapiro at no charge. After Alcindor chose the Milwaukee Bucks' offer of $1.4 million, the Nets offered a guaranteed $3.25 million. Alcindor declined the offer, saying: "A bidding war degrades the people involved. It would make me feel like a flesh peddler, and I don't want to think like that."


title: Kareem Abdul-Jabbar

text: Alcindor's presence enabled the Bucks to claim second place in the NBA's Eastern Division with a 56–26 record (improved from 27–55 the previous year). On February 21, 1970, he scored 51 points in a 140–127 win over the SuperSonics. Alcindor was an instant star, ranking second in the league in scoring (28.8 ppg) and third in rebounding (14.5 rpg), for which he was awarded the title of NBA Rookie of the Year. In the series-clinching game against the Philadelphia 76ers, he recorded 46 points and 25 rebounds. He was the second rookie to score at least 40 points and 25 rebounds in a playoff game, the first being Wilt Chamberlain. He also set an NBA rookie record with 10 or more games of 20+ points scored during the playoffs, tied by Jayson Tatum in 2018.


title: Kareem Abdul-Jabbar

text: The next season, the Bucks acquired All-Star guard Oscar Robertson. Milwaukee went on to record the best record in the league with 66 victories in the 1970–71 season, including a then-record 20 straight wins. Alcindor was awarded his first of six NBA Most Valuable Player Awards, along with his first scoring title (31.7 ppg). He also led the league in total points, with 2,596. The Bucks won the NBA title, sweeping the Baltimore Bullets 4–0 in the 1971 NBA Finals. Alcindor posted 27 points, 12 rebounds and seven assists in Game 4, and he was named the Finals MVP after averaging 27 points per game on 60.5% shooting in the series.


title: Kareem Abdul-Jabbar

text: During the offseason, Alcindor and Robertson joined Bucks head coach Larry Costello on a three-week basketball tour of Africa on behalf of the State Department. In a press conference at the State Department on June 3, 1971, he stated that going forward he wanted to be called by his Muslim name, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, its translation roughly "noble one, servant of the Almighty [i.e., servant of Allah]".


title: Kareem Abdul-Jabbar

text: Abdul-Jabbar remained a dominant force for the Bucks. The following year, he repeated as scoring champion (34.8 ppg and 2,822 total points) and became the first player to be named the NBA Most Valuable Player twice in his first three years. In 1974, Abdul-Jabbar led the Bucks to their fourth consecutive Midwest Division title, and he won his third MVP Award in four years. He was among the top five NBA players in scoring (27.0 ppg, third), rebounding (14.5 rpg, fourth), blocked shots (283, second), and field goal percentage (.539, second). Milwaukee advanced to the 1974 finals, losing to the Boston Celtics in seven games.


title: Kareem Abdul-Jabbar

text: Robertson, who became a free agent in the offseason, retired in September 1974 after he was unable to agree on a contract with the Bucks. On October 3, Abdul-Jabbar privately requested a trade to the New York Knicks, with his second choice being the Washington Bullets (now the Wizards) and his third, the Los Angeles Lakers. He had never spoken negatively of the city of Milwaukee or its fans, but he said that being in the Midwest did not fit his cultural needs. Two days later in a pre-season game before the 1974–75 season against the Celtics in Buffalo, New York, Abdul-Jabbar caught a fingernail in his left eye from Don Nelson and suffered a corneal abrasion; this angered him enough to punch the backboard stanchion, breaking two bones in his right hand. He missed the first 16 games of the season, during which the Bucks were 3–13, and returned in late November wearing protective goggles. On March 13, 1975, sportscaster Marv Albert reported that Abdul-Jabbar requested a trade to either New York or Los Angeles, preferably to the Knicks. The following day after a loss in Milwaukee to the Lakers, Abdul-Jabbar confirmed to reporters his desire to play in another city. He averaged 30.0 points during the season, but Milwaukee finished in last place in the division at 38–44.


title: Kareem Abdul-Jabbar

text: In 1975, the Lakers acquired Abdul-Jabbar and reserve center Walt Wesley from the Bucks for center Elmore Smith, guard Brian Winters, blue-chip rookies Dave Meyers and Junior Bridgeman, and cash. In the 1975–76 season, his first with the Lakers, he had a dominating season, averaging 27.7 points per game and leading the league in rebounding (16.9), blocked shots (4.12), and total minutes played (3,379). His 1,111 defensive rebounds remains the NBA single-season record (defensive rebounds were not recorded prior to the 1973–74 season). He earned his fourth MVP award, becoming the first winner in Lakers' franchise history, but missed the post-season for the second straight year as the Lakers finished 40–42.


title: Kareem Abdul-Jabbar

text: After acquiring a cast of no-name free agents, the Lakers were projected to finished near the bottom of the Pacific Division in 1976–77. Abdul-Jabbar helped lead the team to the best record (53–29) in the NBA, and he won his fifth MVP award, tying Bill Russell's record. Abdul-Jabbar led the league in field goal percentage (.579), was third in scoring (26.2), and was second in rebounds (13.3) and blocked shots (3.18). In the playoffs, the Lakers beat the Golden State Warriors in the Western Conference semifinals, setting up a confrontation with the Portland Trail Blazers. The result was a memorable matchup, pitting Abdul-Jabbar against a young, injury-free Bill Walton. Although Abdul-Jabbar dominated the series statistically, Walton and the Trail Blazers (who were experiencing their first-ever run in the playoffs) swept the Lakers, behind Walton's skillful passing and timely plays.


title: Kareem Abdul-Jabbar

text: Two minutes into the opening game of the 1977–78 season, Abdul-Jabbar broke his right hand punching Milwaukee's Kent Benson in retaliation to the rookie's elbow to his stomach. Benson suffered a black right eye and required two stitches. According to Benson, Abdul-Jabbar initiated the elbowing, but there were no witnesses and it was not captured on replays. Abdul-Jabbar, who broke the same bone in 1975 after he punched the backboard support, was out for almost two months and missed 20 games. He was fined a then-league record $5,000 but was not suspended. Benson missed one game but was not punished by the league. The Lakers were 8–13 when Abdul-Jabbar returned. He was not named to the 1978 NBA All-Star Game, the only time in his 20-year career he was not selected to an All-Star Game. Chicago's Artis Gilmore and Detroit's Bob Lanier were chosen as reserves for the West, with Walton starting


title: Kareem Abdul-Jabbar

text: at center. Amid criticism from the media over his performance, Abdul-Jabbar had 39 points, 20 rebounds, six assists and four blocks in a win over the Philadelphia 76ers the day the All-Star rosters were announced. He added 37 points and 30 rebounds in a victory over the New Jersey Nets (now Brooklyn) in the final game before the All-Star break.


title: Kareem Abdul-Jabbar

text: Abdul-Jabbar's play remained strong during the next two seasons, being named to the All-NBA Second Team twice, the All-Defense First Team once, and the All-Defense Second Team once. The Lakers, however, continued to be stymied in the playoffs, being eliminated by the Seattle SuperSonics in both 1978 (first round) and 1979 (semifinals).


title: Kareem Abdul-Jabbar

text: The Lakers selected Magic Johnson with the first overall pick of 1979 NBA draft. They had acquired the pick from the New Orleans Jazz (later Utah) in 1976, when league rules required that they compensate Los Angeles for their signing of free agent Gail Goodrich. The addition of Johnson paved the way for the Lakers' Showtime dynasty of the 1980s, appearing in the finals eight times and winning five NBA championships. While less dominant than in his younger years, Abdul-Jabbar reinforced his status as one of the greatest basketball players ever, adding an additional four All-NBA First Team selections and two All-Defense First Team honors. He won his record sixth MVP award in his first season with Johnson in 1979–80. In the 1980 finals, Abdul-Jabbar averaged 33.4 points in five games, spraining his ankle in Game 5, but returning to finish the contest with 40 points and leading the team to a win. He missed Game 6, when the Lakers clinched the title, and Johnson was named the Finals MVP after recording 42 points, 15 rebounds, and seven assists in the finale.


title: Kareem Abdul-Jabbar

text: Abdul-Jabbar continued to average 20 or more points per game in the following six seasons. The Lakers won another championship in 1981–82, but he suffered migraines in the finals, averaging just 18 points per game against Philadelphia. In 14 playoff games, he finished with a 20.4 point average, the lowest of his career at the time. The Lakers advanced to the 1983 NBA Finals in a rematch against the 76ers, who had acquired Moses Malone to shore up their center position after Abdul-Jabbar had outplayed their big-man duo of Darryl Dawkins and Caldwell Jones in the previous finals. The 76ers swept the Lakers 4–0, and Malone was named the Finals MVP after outrebounding Abdul-Jabbar 72–30 in the series. Malone had 27 offensive rebounds, which nearly equaled Abdul-Jabbar's total rebounds (30). On April 5, 1984, against Utah, Abdul-Jabbar broke Chamberlain's record for most career points in the NBA. He received a pass from Johnson and scored from on his patent skyhook over the Mark Eaton.


title: Kareem Abdul-Jabbar

text: Abdul-Jabbar won his second Finals MVP in 1985, when he became the oldest to win the award at 38 years and 54 days old. He averaged 25.7 points, 9 rebounds, 5.2 assists and 1.5 blocks in the series against Boston. He was initially outplayed in Game 1, scoring 12 points with three rebounds against 30-year-old Celtics center Robert Parish, who had 18 points and eight rebounds in a 148–114 win over the Lakers, dubbed the "Memorial Day Massacre". At the team's film session the following day, Abdul-Jabbar—who normally sat near the back—was seated in the front row, and accepted all of head coach Pat Riley's criticism. Before Game 2, Abdul-Jabbar asked if his father could ride on the team bus to the game. Typically a hard-liner on rules, Riley agreed to make an exception. Abdul-Jabbar bounced back with 30 points, 17 rebounds, eight assists and three blocks in a 109–102 victory. In the Lakers’ four wins, he averaged 30.2 points, 11.3 rebounds, 6.5 assists and 2.0 blocks. The title ended the Celtics' streak of eight consecutive championships against the Lakers.


title: Kareem Abdul-Jabbar

text: While in Los Angeles, Abdul-Jabbar started doing yoga in 1976 to improve his flexibility, and was notable for his physical fitness regimen. He said: "There is no way I could have played as long as I did without yoga." Because of his metabolism, he had difficulty putting on weight. Prior to the 1979–80 season, he gained from 240 to after switching from free weights to Nauitilus equipment. He also switched that offseason from tai chi to yoga.


title: Kareem Abdul-Jabbar

text: In 1983, Abdul-Jabbar's house burned down. Many of his belongings, including his beloved jazz LP collection of about 3,000 albums, were destroyed. Many Lakers fans sent and brought him albums, which he found uplifting.


title: Kareem Abdul-Jabbar

text: Abdul-Jabbar played in his 17th season in 1985–86, breaking the previous NBA record for seasons played of 16, held by Dolph Schayes, John Havlicek, Paul Silas, and Elvin Hayes. Prior to the 1986–87 season, he gained , reaching close to , to compete against the growing number of 7-footers (2.1 m) in the league. The Lakers advanced to the NBA Finals in each of his final three seasons, defeating Boston in 1987, and Detroit in 1988. The Lakers lost to the Pistons in a four-game sweep in his final season. After winning Game 7 of the 1988 finals, the 41-year-old Abdul-Jabbar announced in the locker room that he would return for one more season before retiring. His points, rebounds, and minutes had dropped in his 19th season, and there were reports prior to the game that he was retiring after the contest. On his "retirement tour" he received standing ovations at games, both home and away, and gifts ranging from a yacht that said "Captain Skyhook" to framed jerseys from his career to a Persian rug. At the Forum against Seattle in his final regular season game, every Laker came onto the court wearing Abdul-Jabbar's trademark goggles.


title: Kareem Abdul-Jabbar

text: At the time of his retirement, Abdul-Jabbar held the record for most career games played in the NBA. He also was the all-time record holder for most points (38,387), most field goals made (15,837), and most minutes played (57,446).


title: Kareem Abdul-Jabbar

text: In 1995, Abdul-Jabbar began expressing an interest in coaching and imparting knowledge from his playing days. His opportunities were limited despite the success he enjoyed during his playing days. During his playing years, Abdul-Jabbar had developed a reputation for being introverted and sullen. He was often unfriendly with the media. His sensitivity and shyness created a perception of him being aloof and surly. At the time, his mentality was that he either did not have the time or did not owe anything to anyone. Magic Johnson recalled as a kid being brushed off after asking him for an autograph. Abdul-Jabbar might freeze out a reporter if they touched him, and he once refused to stop reading the newspaper while giving an interview.


title: Kareem Abdul-Jabbar

text: Abdul-Jabbar had spent most of his career with a reserved attitude towards media attention (since he did not have to deal with it as a star at UCLA) before he softened up near the end of his career. Abdul-Jabbar said: "I didn't understand that I also had affected people that way and that's what it was all about. I always saw it like they were trying to pry. I was way too suspicious and I paid a price for it." However, he believes it was his reputation as a "difficult person", alongside his attempts at trying to break into coaching while nearing the age of fifty, that affected his chances of becoming a head coach within the NBA or NCAA.


title: Kareem Abdul-Jabbar

text: Abdul-Jabbar worked as an assistant for the Los Angeles Clippers and the Seattle SuperSonics, helping mentor, among others, their young centers, Michael Olowokandi and Jerome James. Abdul-Jabbar was the head coach of the Oklahoma Storm of the United States Basketball League in 2002, leading the team to the league's championship that season, but he failed to land the head coaching position at Columbia University a year later. He then worked as a scout for the New York Knicks. He returned to the Lakers as a special assistant coach to Phil Jackson for six seasons (2005–2011). Early on, he mentored their young center, Andrew Bynum. Abdul-Jabbar also served as a volunteer coach at Alchesay High School on the Fort Apache Indian Reservation in Whiteriver, Arizona, in 1998. He moved on from coaching in 2013 after unsuccessfully lobbying for open head coach positions with UCLA and the Milwaukee Bucks.


title: Kareem Abdul-Jabbar

text: On offense, Abdul-Jabbar was a dominant low-post threat. In contrast to other low-post specialists like Wilt Chamberlain, Artis Gilmore, or Shaquille O'Neal, he was a relatively slender player, standing tall while weighing around to , although he bulked to in 1986; in his early years, he used that frame for agility and speed while in later years he utilized a bigger frame for trying to guard under the basket. Abdul-Jabbar was famous for his ambidextrous skyhook shot. It contributed to his high .559 field goal accuracy, making him the eighth-most accurate scorer of all time, as well as a feared clutch shooter. He shot above 50% in every season but his last.


title: Kareem Abdul-Jabbar

text: Abdul-Jabbar maintained a dominant presence on defense. He was selected to the NBA All-Defensive Team eleven times. He frustrated opponents with his superior shot-blocking ability and denied an average of 2.6 shots a game. He was not an aggressive rebounder, relying more on his size as a 7-footer instead of positioning. After the pounding he endured early in his career, his rebounding average fell to between six or eight a game in his latter years. As a teammate, Abdul-Jabbar exuded natural leadership and was affectionately called "Cap", or "Captain", by his colleagues. He had an even temperament, which Riley said made him coachable.


title: Kareem Abdul-Jabbar

text: A strict fitness regime made Abdul-Jabbar one of the most durable players of all time. He began a year-around conditioning program at age 26. To reduce wear during his later years, Riley did not have him inbound the ball on made baskets, and had him wait at the opposite end of the court on free throws. In what he described as playing a "smarter game" to conserve energy, Abdul-Jabbar sometimes would be the last player to set up on offense by several seconds after staying behind on defense to see if the Lakers scored on a fast break. In 1981, he responded to criticism that he did not hustle: "You have to understand I have to play 42 to 45 minutes a night, and it's like mowing a huge estate lawn. If you rush out and run around furiously, it's self-defeating. You'll be worn out just at the point when you're most needed." Addul-Jabbar finished his career with then-NBA records records of 20 seasons and 1,560 games played, later broken by former Celtics center Robert Parish.


title: Kareem Abdul-Jabbar

text: Abdul-Jabbar began wearing his trademark goggles after getting poked in the eye during preseason in 1975. He continued wearing them for years until abandoning them in the 1979 playoffs. He resumed wearing goggles in October 1980 after being accidentally poked in the right eye by Houston's Rudy Tomjanovich. After years of being jabbed in the eyes, Abdul-Jabbar developed corneal erosion syndrome, occasionally experiencing pain when his eyes dry up. He missed three games in December 1986 due to the condition.


title: Kareem Abdul-Jabbar

text: Abdul-Jabbar was well known for his trademark skyhook, a hook shot in which he raised the ball and released it at the highest point of his arm's arching motion. He could shoot the skyhook from up to . With his long arms and great height, he released the ball so high that it was difficult for a defender to block without committing a goaltending violation. His body being between the defender and the ball made it further difficult to block, as did extending his non-shooting arm to fend off opponents. He was stronger shooting the skyhook with his right hand than he was with his left, which he developed in his later years.


title: Kareem Abdul-Jabbar

text: According to Abdul-Jabbar, he learned the move in fifth grade after practicing with the ambidextrious Mikan Drill and soon learned to value it, as it was "the only shot I could use that didn't get smashed back in my face". He also watched Cliff Hagan shoot the hook with the St. Louis Hawks. To prevent his hook from being blocked from behind, he was advised by Wooden to do away with the typical sweeping motion of a hook shot, instead keeping the ball close to his body and shooting with a straighter motion. Addul-Jabbar's hook shot improved in his junior year at UCLA, after the dunk was banned. In his final college years, he often released the ball several feet above the rim.


title: Kareem Abdul-Jabbar

text: Abdul-Jabbar is the NBA all-time leading scorer with 38,387 points, and he won a record six MVP awards. He won six NBA championships and two Finals MVP awards, was voted to 15 All-NBA and 11 All-Defensive Teams, and was selected to a record 19 All-Star teams. He was named to the NBA's 35th, 50th, and 75th anniversary teams. He averaged 24.6 points, 11.2 rebounds, 3.6 assists, and 2.6 blocks per game. Abdul-Jabbar is ranked as the NBA's third leading all-time rebounder (17,440). He is the third all-time in registered blocks (3,189), which is impressive because this basketball statistic was not recorded until the fourth year of his career (1974). He had three straight seasons where he averaged at least 30 points and 16 rebounds, and six times he averaged at least 27 points and 14.5 rebounds in the same season.


title: Kareem Abdul-Jabbar

text: Abdul-Jabbar combined dominance during his career peak with the longevity and sustained excellence of his later years. He credited Bruce Lee with teaching him "the discipline and spirituality of martial arts, which was greatly responsible for me being able to play competitively in the NBA for 20 years with very few injuries". Abdul-Jabbar played in 95 percent of his team's regular-season games during his career. After claiming his sixth and final MVP in 1980, he continued to average above 20 points in the following six seasons, including 23 points per game in his 17th season at age 38. He earned first-team All-NBA selections that were 15 years apart and Finals MVPs 14 seasons from each other.


title: Kareem Abdul-Jabbar

text: Among the most graceful basketball players ever, Abdul-Jabbar is regarded as one of the best centers ever and one of the greatest players in NBA history; he was voted the best center of all time by ESPN ahead of Wilt Chamberlain in 2007, and ranked 4 in "Slam"s "Top 100 Players Of All-Time" in 2018, and No. 3 in ESPN's list of the top 74 NBA players of all time in 2020, the best center ever ahead of Bill Russell and Chamberlain. League experts and basketball legends frequently mentioned him when considering the greatest player of all time. Former Lakers coach Pat Riley once said: "Why judge anymore? When a man has broken records, won championships, endured tremendous criticism and responsibility, why judge? Let's toast him as the greatest player ever." Isiah Thomas remarked: "If they say the numbers don't lie, then Kareem is the greatest ever to play the game." In 2013, Julius Erving said: "In terms of players all-time, Kareem is still the number one guy. He's the guy you gotta start your franchise with." In 2015, ESPN named Abdul-Jabbar the best center in NBA history, and ranked him No. 2 behind Michael Jordan among the greatest NBA players ever. While Jordan's shots were enthralling and considered unfathomable, Abdul-Jabbar's skyhook appeared automatic, and he himself called the shot "unsexy". In 2016, Abdul-Jabbar's only recognized rookie card became the most expensive basketball card ever sold (the record has since been surpassed) when it went for $501,900 at auction. In 2022, he was ranked No. 3 (first in his position) in ESPN's NBA 75th Anniversary Team list, and No. 3 (behind Jordan and LeBron James) in a similar list by "The Athletic".


title: Kareem Abdul-Jabbar

text: Playing in Los Angeles facilitated Abdul-Jabbar's trying his hand at acting. He made his film debut in Bruce Lee's 1972 film "Game of Death", in which his character Hakim fights Billy Lo (played by Lee).


title: Kareem Abdul-Jabbar

text: In 1980, Abdul-Jabbar played co-pilot Roger Murdock in "Airplane!" He has a scene in which a little boy looks at him and remarks that he is in fact Abdul-Jabbar, spoofing the appearance of football star Elroy "Crazylegs" Hirsch as an airplane pilot in the 1957 drama that served as the inspiration for "Airplane!", "Zero Hour!" Staying in character, Abdul-Jabbar states that he is merely Roger Murdock, an airline co-pilot; the boy continues to insist that Abdul-Jabbar is "the greatest", but that according to his father he does not "work hard on defense" and that he does not "really try, except during the playoffs". This causes Abdul-Jabbar's character to snap: "The hell I don't!" He then grabs the boy and snarls that he has "been hearing that crap ever since I was at UCLA" and been "busting my buns every night!" He instructs the boy: "Tell your old man to drag [Bill] Walton and [Bob] Lanier up and down the court for 48 minutes." When Murdock loses consciousness later in the film, he collapses at the controls wearing Abdul-Jabbar's goggles and yellow Lakers' shorts. In 2014, Abdul-Jabbar and "Airplane!" co-star Robert Hays (character Ted Striker) reprised their "Airplane!" roles in a parody commercial promoting Wisconsin tourism.


title: Kareem Abdul-Jabbar

text: Abdul-Jabbar has had numerous other television and film appearances, often playing himself. He has had roles in movies such as "Fletch", "Troop Beverly Hills" and "Forget Paris", and television series such as "Full House", "Living Single", "Amen", "Everybody Loves Raymond", "Martin", "Diff'rent Strokes" (his height humorously contrasted with that of diminutive child star Gary Coleman), "The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air", "Scrubs", "21 Jump Street", "Emergency!", "Man from Atlantis", and "New Girl". Abdul-Jabbar played a genie in a lamp in a 1984 episode of "Tales from the Darkside". He also played himself on the February 10, 1994, episode of the sketch comedy television series "In Living Color".


title: Kareem Abdul-Jabbar

text: Abdul-Jabbar appeared in the television version of Stephen King's "The Stand", played the Archangel of Basketball in "Slam Dunk Ernest", and had a brief non-speaking cameo appearance in "BASEketball". Abdul-Jabbar was also the co-executive producer of the 1994 TV film "The Vernon Johns Story". He has also made appearances on "The Colbert Report" in a 2006 skit called "HipHopKetball II: The ReJazzebration Remix '06", and in 2008 as a stage manager who is sent out on a mission to find Nazi gold. Abdul-Jabbar also voiced himself in a 2011 episode of "The Simpsons" titled "Love Is a Many Strangled Thing". He had a recurring role as himself on the NBC series "Guys with Kids", which aired from 2012 to 2013. On Al Jazeera English he expressed his desire to be remembered not just as a player, but also as somebody who used their mind and made other contributions.


title: Kareem Abdul-Jabbar

text: In February 2019, he appeared in season 12 episode 16 of "The Big Bang Theory", "The D&D Vortex". In 2021, Abdul-Jabbar made a guest appearance as himself in a season 2 episode of "Dave". The episode he appeared in was also named after him. Abdul-Jabbar makes a cameo appearance as himself in the 2022 Netflix film "".


title: Kareem Abdul-Jabbar

text: In September 2018, Abdul-Jabbar was announced as one of the writers for the July 2019 revival of "Veronica Mars".


title: Kareem Abdul-Jabbar

text: On February 10, 2011, Abdul-Jabbar debuted his film "On the Shoulders of Giants", documenting the tumultuous journey of the famed yet often-overlooked New York Renaissance professional basketball team, at Science Park High School in Newark, New Jersey. The event was simulcast live throughout the school, city, and state. In 2015, he appeared in "Kareem: Minority of One", an HBO documentary on his life. In 2020, Abdul-Jabbar was the executive producer and narrator of the History channel special "Black Patriots: Heroes of the Revolution". He was nominated for an Emmy Award for his narration.


title: Kareem Abdul-Jabbar

text: Abdul-Jabbar participated in the 2013 ABC reality series "Splash", a celebrity diving competition. In April 2018, Abdul-Jabbar competed in the all-athlete season of season 26 of "Dancing with the Stars" and partnered with professional dancer Lindsay Arnold.


title: Kareem Abdul-Jabbar

text: Abdul-Jabbar became a best-selling author and cultural critic. He published several books, mostly on African-American history. His first book, his autobiography "Giant Steps", was written in 1983 with co-author Peter Knobler. The book's title is an homage to jazz great John Coltrane, referring to his album "Giant Steps". Others include "On the Shoulders of Giants: My Journey Through the Harlem Renaissance", co-written with Raymond Obstfeld, and "Brothers in Arms: The Epic Story of the 761st Tank Battalion, World War II's Forgotten Heroes", co-written with Anthony Walton, which is a history of the first black armored unit to fight in World War II.


title: Kareem Abdul-Jabbar

text: A regular contributor to discussions about issues of race and religion, among other topics, in national magazines and on television, Abdul-Jabbar has written a regular column for "Time". He appeared on "Meet the Press" on January 25, 2015, to talk about a column saying that Islam should not be blamed for the actions of violent extremists, just as Christianity has not been blamed for the actions of violent extremists who profess Christianity. When asked about being Muslim, he said: "I don't have any misgiving about my faith. I'm very concerned about the people who claim to be Muslims that are murdering people and creating all this mayhem in the world. That is not what Islam is about, and that should not be what people think of when they think about Muslims. But it's up to all of us to do something about all of it."


title: Kareem Abdul-Jabbar

text: In November 2014, Abdul-Jabbar published an essay in "Jacobin" calling for just compensation for college athletes, writing that "in the name of fairness, we must bring an end to the indentured servitude of college athletes and start paying them what they are worth." Commenting on Donald Trump's 2017 travel ban, he condemned it, saying: "The absence of reason and compassion is the very definition of pure evil because it is a rejection of our sacred values, distilled from millennia of struggle."


title: Kareem Abdul-Jabbar

text: In January 2012, United States Secretary of State Hillary Clinton announced that Abdul-Jabbar had accepted a position as a cultural ambassador for the United States. During the announcement press conference, Abdul-Jabbar commented on the historical legacy of African-Americans as representatives of U.S. culture: "I remember when Louis Armstrong first did it back for President Kennedy, one of my heroes. So it's nice to be following in his footsteps." As part of this role, Abdul-Jabbar has traveled to Brazil to promote education for local youths.


title: Kareem Abdul-Jabbar

text: Former President Barack Obama announced in his last days of office that he has appointed Abdul-Jabbar along with Gabrielle Douglas and Carli Lloyd to the President's Council on Fitness, Sports, and Nutrition.


title: Kareem Abdul-Jabbar

text: In January 2017, Abdul-Jabbar was appointed to the Citizens Coinage Advisory Committee by United States Secretary of the Treasury Steven Mnuchin. According to the United States Mint, Abdul-Jabbar is a keen coin collector whose interest in the life of Alexander Hamilton had led him into the hobby. He resigned in 2018 due to what the Mint described as "increasing personal obligations".


title: Kareem Abdul-Jabbar

text: Abdul-Jabbar met Habiba Abdul-Jabbar (born Janice Brown) at a Lakers game during his senior year at UCLA. They eventually married and together had three children: daughters Habiba and Sultana and son Kareem Jr., who played basketball at Western Kentucky after attending Valparaiso. Abdul-Jabbar and Janice divorced in 1978. He has another son, Amir, with Cheryl Pistono. Another son, Adam, made an appearance on the TV sitcom "Full House" with him.


title: Kareem Abdul-Jabbar

text: At age 24 in 1971, he converted to Islam and became Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, which means "noble one, servant of the Almighty." He was named by Hamaas Abdul Khaalis. Abdul-Jabbar purchased and donated 7700 16th Street NW, a house in Washington, D.C., for Khaalis to use as the Hanafi Madh-Hab Center; a few years later, the location would become the place of the 1973 Hanafi Muslim massacre. Eventually, Kareem "found that [he] disagreed with some of Hamaas' teachings about the Quran, and [they] parted ways." He then studied the Quran on his own, and "emerged from this pilgrimage with [his] beliefs clarified and [his] faith renewed." Abdul-Jabbar was also heavily influenced by Malcolm X, a leader of the Nation of Islam. Abdul-Jabbar was invited to join the group, but he refused.


title: Kareem Abdul-Jabbar

text: Abdul-Jabbar has spoken about the thinking that was behind his name change when he converted to Islam. He stated that he was "latching on to something that was part of my heritage, because many of the slaves who were brought here were Muslims. My family was brought to America by a French planter named Alcindor, who came here from Trinidad in the 18th century. My people were Yoruba, and their culture survived slavery ... My father found out about that when I was a kid, and it gave me all I needed to know that, hey, I was somebody, even if nobody else knew about it. When I was a kid, no one would believe anything positive that you could say about black people. And that's a terrible burden on black people, because they don't have an accurate idea of their history, which has been either suppressed or distorted." His name change further eroded his public image in the United States, mostly in white areas.


title: Kareem Abdul-Jabbar

text: In 1998, Abdul-Jabbar reached a settlement after he sued Miami Dolphins running back Karim Abdul-Jabbar (now Abdul-Karim al-Jabbar, born Sharmon Shah) because he felt Karim was profiting off the name he made famous by having the Abdul-Jabbar moniker and number 33 on his Dolphins jersey. As a result, the younger Abdul-Jabbar had to change his jersey nameplate to "Abdul" while playing for the Dolphins. The football player had also been an athlete at UCLA.


title: Kareem Abdul-Jabbar

text: Abdul-Jabbar suffers from migraines, and his use of cannabis to reduce the symptoms has had legal ramifications. In November 2009, Abdul-Jabbar announced that he was suffering from a form of leukemia, Philadelphia chromosome-positive chronic myeloid leukemia, a cancer of the blood and bone marrow. The disease was diagnosed in December 2008, but Abdul-Jabbar said his condition could be managed by taking oral medication daily, seeing his specialist every other month, and having his blood analyzed regularly. He expressed in a 2009 press conference that he did not believe the illness would stop him from leading a normal life. Abdul-Jabbar is a spokesman for Novartis, the company that produces Gleevec, his cancer medication.


title: Kareem Abdul-Jabbar

text: In February 2011, Abdul-Jabbar announced via Twitter that his leukemia was gone and he was "100% cancer free". A few days later, he clarified his misstatement: "You're never really cancer-free and I should have known that. My cancer right now is at an absolute minimum." In April 2015, Abdul-Jabbar was admitted to hospital when he was diagnosed with cardiovascular disease. Later that week, on his 68th birthday, he underwent quadruple coronary bypass surgery at the UCLA Medical Center.


title: Kareem Abdul-Jabbar

text: In 2011, Abdul-Jabbar was awarded the Double Helix Medal for his work in raising awareness for cancer research. Also in 2011, Abdul-Jabbar received an honorary degree from New York Institute of Technology. In 2016, Abdul-Jabbar was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by outgoing U.S. President Barack Obama. In 2020, Abdul-Jabbar was nominated for the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Narrator for his work on the documentary special "Black Patriots: Heroes of The Revolution".


title: Nicholas II of Russia

text: Nicholas II or Nikolai II Alexandrovich Romanov ( 186817 July 1918), known in the Russian Orthodox Church as Saint Nicholas the Passion-Bearer, was the last Emperor of Russia, King of Congress Poland and Grand Duke of Finland, ruling from 1 November 1894 until his abdication on 15 March 1917. During his reign, Nicholas gave support to the economic and political reforms promoted by his prime ministers, Sergei Witte and Pyotr Stolypin. He advocated modernization based on foreign loans and close ties with France, but resisted giving the new parliament (the Duma) major roles. Ultimately, progress was undermined by Nicholas's commitment to autocratic rule, strong aristocratic opposition and defeats sustained by the Russian military in the Russo-Japanese War and World War I. By March 1917, public support for Nicholas had collapsed and he was forced to abdicate the throne, thereby ending the Romanov dynasty's 304-year rule of Russia (1613–1917).


title: Nicholas II of Russia

text: Nicholas signed the Anglo-Russian Convention of 1907, which was designed to counter Germany's attempts to gain influence in the Middle East; it ended the Great Game of confrontation between Russia and the British Empire. He aimed to strengthen the Franco-Russian Alliance and proposed the unsuccessful Hague Convention of 1899 to promote disarmament and solve international disputes peacefully. Domestically, he was criticised for his government's repression of political opponents and his perceived fault or inaction during the Khodynka Tragedy, anti-Jewish pogroms, Bloody Sunday and the violent suppression of the 1905 Russian Revolution. His popularity was further damaged by the Russo-Japanese War, which saw the Russian Baltic Fleet annihilated at the Battle of Tsushima, together with the loss of Russian influence over Manchuria and Korea and the Japanese annexation of the south of Sakhalin Island.


title: Nicholas II of Russia

text: During the July Crisis, Nicholas supported Serbia and approved the mobilization of the Russian Army on 30 July 1914. In response, Germany declared war on Russia on 1 August 1914 and its ally France on 3 August 1914, starting the Great War, later known as the First World War. The severe military losses led to a collapse of morale at the front and at home; a general strike and a mutiny of the garrison in Petrograd sparked the February Revolution and the disintegration of the monarchy's authority. After abdicating for himself and his son, Nicholas and his family were imprisoned by the Russian Provisional Government and exiled to Siberia. After the Bolsheviks took power in the October Revolution, the family was held in Yekaterinburg, where they were executed on 17 July 1918.


title: Nicholas II of Russia

text: In 1981, Nicholas, his wife, and their children were recognized as martyrs by the Russian Orthodox Church Outside Russia, based in New York City. Their gravesite was discovered in 1979, but this was not acknowledged until 1989. After the fall of the Soviet Union, the remains of the imperial family were exhumed, identified by DNA analysis, and re-interred with an elaborate state and church ceremony in St. Petersburg on 17 July 1998, exactly 80 years after their deaths. They were canonized in 2000 by the Russian Orthodox Church as passion bearers. In the years following his death, Nicholas was reviled by Soviet historians and state propaganda as a "callous tyrant" who "persecuted his own people while sending countless soldiers to their deaths in pointless conflicts". Despite being viewed more positively in recent years, the majority view among historians is that Nicholas was a well-intentioned yet poor ruler who proved incapable of handling the challenges facing his nation.


title: Nicholas II of Russia

text: Grand Duke Nicholas was born on 1868, in the Alexander Palace in Tsarskoye Selo south of Saint Petersburg, during the reign of his grandfather Emperor Alexander II. He was the eldest child of then-Tsesarevich Alexander Alexandrovich and his wife, Tsesarevna Maria Feodorovna (née Princess Dagmar of Denmark). Grand Duke Nicholas' father was heir apparent to the Russian throne as the second but eldest surviving son of Emperor Alexander II of Russia. His paternal grandparents were Emperor Alexander II and Empress Maria Alexandrovna (née Princess Marie of Hesse and by Rhine). His maternal grandparents were King Christian IX and Queen Louise of Denmark.


title: Nicholas II of Russia

text: The young grand duke was christened in the Chapel of the Resurrection of the Catherine Palace at Tsarskoye Selo on 1868 by the confessor of the imperial family, protopresbyter Vasily Borisovich Bazhanov. His godparents were Emperor Alexander II (his paternal grandfather), Queen Louise of Denmark (his maternal grandmother), Crown Prince Frederick of Denmark (his maternal uncle), and Grand Duchess Elena Pavlovna (his great great-aunt). The boy received the traditional Romanov name "Nicholas" and was named in memory of his father’s older brother and mother’s first fiancé, Tsesarevich Nicholas Alexandrovich of Russia, who had died young in 1865. Informally, he was known as "Nikki" throughout his life.


title: Nicholas II of Russia

text: Nicholas was of primarily German and Danish descent, his last ethnically Russian ancestor being Grand Duchess Anna Petrovna of Russia (1708–1728), daughter of Peter the Great. On the other hand, Nicholas was related to several monarchs in Europe. His mother's siblings included Kings Frederick VIII of Denmark and George I of Greece, as well as the United Kingdom's Queen Alexandra (consort of King Edward VII). Nicholas, his wife Alexandra, and German emperor Wilhelm II were all first cousins of King George V of the United Kingdom. Nicholas was also a first cousin of both King Haakon VII and Queen Maud of Norway, as well as King Christian X of Denmark and King Constantine I of Greece. Nicholas and Wilhelm II were in turn second cousins once-removed, as each descended from King Frederick William III of Prussia, as well as third cousins, as they were both great-great-grandsons of Tsar Paul I of Russia. In addition to being second cousins through descent from Louis II, Grand Duke of Hesse and his wife Princess Wilhelmine of Baden, Nicholas and Alexandra were also third cousins once-removed, as they were both descendants of King Frederick William II of Prussia.


title: Nicholas II of Russia

text: Tsar Nicholas II was the first cousin once-removed of Grand Duke Nicholas Nikolaevich. To distinguish between them, the Grand Duke was often known within the imperial family as "Nikolasha" and "Nicholas the Tall", while the Tsar was "Nicholas the Short".


title: Nicholas II of Russia

text: Grand Duke Nicholas was to have five younger siblings: Alexander (1869–1870), George (1871–1899), Xenia (1875–1960), Michael (1878–1918) and Olga (1882–1960). Nicholas often referred to his father nostalgically in letters after Alexander's death in 1894. He was also very close to his mother, as revealed in their published letters to each other.


title: Nicholas II of Russia

text: In his childhood, Nicholas, his parents and siblings made annual visits to the Danish royal palaces of Fredensborg and Bernstorff to visit his grandparents, the king and queen. The visits also served as family reunions, as his mother's siblings would also come from the United Kingdom, Germany and Greece with their respective families. It was there in 1883, that he had a flirtation with one of his British first cousins, Princess Victoria. In 1873, Nicholas also accompanied his parents and younger brother, two-year-old George, on a two-month, semi-official visit to the United Kingdom. In London, Nicholas and his family stayed at Marlborough House, as guests of his "Uncle Bertie" and "Aunt Alix", the Prince and Princess of Wales, where he was spoiled by his uncle.


title: Nicholas II of Russia

text: On 1 March 1881, following the assassination of his grandfather, Tsar Alexander II, Nicholas became heir apparent upon his father's accession as Alexander III. Nicholas and his other family members bore witness to Alexander II's death, having been present at the Winter Palace in Saint Petersburg, where he was brought after the attack. For security reasons, the new Tsar and his family relocated their primary residence to the Gatchina Palace outside the city, only entering the capital for various ceremonial functions. On such occasions, Alexander III and his family occupied the nearby Anichkov Palace.


title: Nicholas II of Russia

text: In 1884, Nicholas's coming-of-age ceremony was held at the Winter Palace, where he pledged his loyalty to his father. Later that year, Nicholas's uncle, Grand Duke Sergei Alexandrovich, married Princess Elizabeth, daughter of Louis IV, Grand Duke of Hesse and his late wife Princess Alice of the United Kingdom (who had died in 1878), and a granddaughter of Queen Victoria. At the wedding in St. Petersburg, the sixteen-year-old Tsesarevich met with and admired the bride's youngest surviving sister, twelve-year-old Princess Alix. Those feelings of admiration blossomed into love following her visit to St. Petersburg five years later in 1889. Alix had feelings for him in turn. As a devout Lutheran, she was initially reluctant to convert to Russian Orthodoxy to marry Nicholas, but later relented.


title: Nicholas II of Russia

text: In 1890 Nicholas, his younger brother George, and their cousin Prince George of Greece, set out on a world tour, although Grand Duke George fell ill and was sent home partway through the trip. Nicholas visited Egypt, India, Singapore, and Siam (Thailand), receiving honors as a distinguished guest in each country. During his trip through Japan, Nicholas had a large dragon tattooed on his right forearm by Japanese tattoo artist Hori Chyo. His cousin George V of the United Kingdom had also received a dragon tattoo from Hori in Yokohama years before. It was during his visit to Otsu, that Tsuda Sanzō, one of his escorting policemen, swung at the Tsesarevich's face with a sabre, an event known as the Ōtsu incident. Nicholas was left with a 9 centimeter long scar on the right side of his forehead, but his wound was not life-threatening. The incident cut his trip short. Returning overland to St. Petersburg, he was present at the ceremonies in Vladivostok commemorating the beginning of work on the Trans-Siberian Railway. In 1893, Nicholas traveled to London on behalf of his parents to be present at the wedding of his cousin the Duke of York to Princess Mary of Teck. Queen Victoria was struck by the physical resemblance between the two cousins, and their appearances confused some at the wedding. During this time, Nicholas had an affair with St. Petersburg ballerina Mathilde Kschessinska.


title: Nicholas II of Russia

text: Though Nicholas was heir-apparent to the throne, his father failed to prepare him for his future role as Tsar. He attended meetings of the State Council; however, as his father was only in his forties, it was expected that it would be many years before Nicholas succeeded to the throne. Sergei Witte, Russia's finance minister, saw things differently and suggested to the Tsar that Nicholas be appointed to the Siberian Railway Committee. Alexander argued that Nicholas was not mature enough to take on serious responsibilities, having once stated "Nikki is a good boy, but he has a poet's soul...God help him!" Witte stated that if Nicholas was not introduced to state affairs, he would never be ready to understand them. Alexander's assumptions that he would live a long life and had years to prepare Nicholas for becoming Tsar proved wrong, as by 1894, Alexander's health was failing.


title: Nicholas II of Russia

text: In April 1894, Nicholas joined his Uncle Sergei and Aunt Elizabeth on a journey to Coburg, Germany, for the wedding of Elizabeth's and Alix's brother, Ernest Louis, Grand Duke of Hesse, to their mutual first cousin Princess Victoria Melita of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha. Other guests included Queen Victoria, Kaiser Wilhelm II, the Empress Frederick (Kaiser Wilhelm's mother and Queen Victoria's eldest daughter), Nicholas's uncle, the Prince of Wales, and the bride's parents, the Duke and Duchess of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha.


title: Nicholas II of Russia

text: Once in Coburg Nicholas proposed to Alix, but she rejected his proposal, being reluctant to convert to Orthodoxy. But the Kaiser later informed her she had a duty to marry Nicholas and to convert, as her sister Elizabeth had done in 1892. Thus once she changed her mind, Nicholas and Alix became officially engaged on 20 April 1894. Nicholas's parents initially hesitated to give the engagement their blessing, as Alix had made poor impressions during her visits to Russia. They gave their consent only when they saw Tsar Alexander's health deteriorating.


title: Nicholas II of Russia

text: That summer, Nicholas travelled to England to visit both Alix and the Queen. The visit coincided with the birth of the Duke and Duchess of York's first child, the future King Edward VIII. Along with being present at the christening, Nicholas and Alix were listed among the child's godparents. After several weeks in England, Nicholas returned home for the wedding of his sister, Xenia, to a cousin, Grand Duke Alexander Mikhailovich ("Sandro").


title: Nicholas II of Russia

text: By that autumn, Alexander III lay dying. Upon learning that he would live only a fortnight, the Tsar had Nicholas summon Alix to the imperial palace at Livadia. Alix arrived on 22 October; the Tsar insisted on receiving her in full uniform. From his deathbed, he told his son to heed the advice of Witte, his most capable minister. Ten days later, Alexander III died at the age of forty-nine, leaving twenty-six-year-old Nicholas as Emperor of Russia. That evening, Nicholas was consecrated by his father's priest as Tsar Nicholas II and, the following day, Alix was received into the Russian Orthodox Church, taking the name Alexandra Feodorovna with the title of Grand Duchess and the style of "Imperial Highness".


title: Nicholas II of Russia

text: Nicholas may have felt unprepared for the duties of the crown, for he asked his cousin and brother-in-law, Grand Duke Alexander, "What is going to happen to me and all of Russia?" Though perhaps under-prepared and unskilled, Nicholas was not altogether untrained for his duties as Tsar. Nicholas chose to maintain the conservative policies favoured by his father throughout his reign. While Alexander III had concentrated on the formulation of general policy, Nicholas devoted much more attention to the details of administration.


title: Nicholas II of Russia

text: Leaving Livadia on 7 November, Tsar Alexander's funeral procession—which included Nicholas's maternal aunt through marriage and paternal first cousin once removed Queen Olga of Greece, and the Prince and Princess of Wales—arrived in Moscow. After lying in state in the Kremlin, the body of the Tsar was taken to St. Petersburg, where the funeral was held on 19 November.


title: Nicholas II of Russia

text: Nicholas and Alix's wedding was originally scheduled for the spring of 1895, but it was moved forward at Nicholas's insistence. Staggering under the weight of his new office, he had no intention of allowing the one person who gave him confidence to leave his side. Instead, Nicholas's wedding to Alix took place on 26 November 1894, which was the birthday of the Dowager Empress Marie Feodorovna, and court mourning could be slightly relaxed. Alexandra wore the traditional dress of Romanov brides, and Nicholas a hussar's uniform. Nicholas and Alexandra, each holding a lit candle, faced the palace priest and were married a few minutes before one in the afternoon.


title: Nicholas II of Russia

text: Despite a visit to the United Kingdom in 1893, where he observed the House of Commons in debate and was seemingly impressed by the machinery of constitutional monarchy, Nicholas turned his back on any notion of giving away any power to elected representatives in Russia. Shortly after he came to the throne, a deputation of peasants and workers from various towns' local assemblies ("zemstvos") came to the Winter Palace proposing court reforms, such as the adoption of a constitutional monarchy, and reform that would improve the political and economic life of the peasantry, in the Tver Address.


title: Nicholas II of Russia

text: Although the addresses they had sent in beforehand were couched in mild and loyal terms, Nicholas was angry and ignored advice from an Imperial Family Council by saying to them:


title: Nicholas II of Russia

text: On 26 May 1896, Nicholas's formal coronation as Tsar was held in Uspensky Cathedral located within the Kremlin.


title: Nicholas II of Russia

text: In a celebration on 27 May 1896, a large festival with food, free beer and souvenir cups was held in Khodynka Field outside Moscow. Khodynka was chosen as the location as it was the only place near Moscow large enough to hold all of the Moscow citizens. Khodynka was primarily used as a military training ground and the field was uneven with trenches. Before the food and drink was handed out, rumours spread that there would not be enough for everyone. As a result, the crowd rushed to get their share and individuals were tripped and trampled upon, suffocating in the dirt of the field. Of the approximate 100,000 in attendance, it is estimated that 1,389 individuals died and roughly 1,300 were injured. The Khodynka Tragedy was seen as an ill omen and Nicholas found gaining popular trust difficult from the beginning of his reign. The French ambassador's gala was planned for that night. The Tsar wanted to stay in his chambers and pray for the lives lost, but his uncles believed that his absence at the ball would strain relations with France, particularly the 1894 Franco-Russian Alliance. Thus Nicholas attended the party; as a result the mourning populace saw Nicholas as frivolous and uncaring.


title: Nicholas II of Russia

text: During the autumn after the coronation, Nicholas and Alexandra made a tour of Europe. After making visits to the emperor and empress of Austria-Hungary, the Kaiser of Germany, and Nicholas's Danish grandparents and relatives, Nicholas and Alexandra took possession of their new yacht, the "Standart, "which had been built in Denmark. From there, they made a journey to Scotland to spend some time with Queen Victoria at Balmoral Castle. While Alexandra enjoyed her reunion with her grandmother, Nicholas complained in a letter to his mother about being forced to go shooting with his uncle, the Prince of Wales, in bad weather, and was suffering from a bad toothache.


title: Nicholas II of Russia

text: The first years of his reign saw little more than continuation and development of the policy pursued by Alexander III. Nicholas allotted money for the All-Russia exhibition of 1896. In 1897 restoration of gold standard by Sergei Witte, Minister of Finance, completed the series of financial reforms, initiated fifteen years earlier. By 1902 the Trans-Siberian Railway was nearing completion; this helped the Russians trade in the Far East but the railway still required huge amounts of work.


title: Nicholas II of Russia

text: Nicholas always believed God chose him to be the tsar and therefore the decisions of the tsar reflected the will of God and could not be disputed. He was convinced that the simple people of Russia understood this and loved him, as demonstrated by the display of affection he perceived when he made public appearances. His old-fashioned belief made for a very stubborn ruler who rejected constitutional limitations on his power. It put the tsar at variance with the emerging political consensus among the Russian elite. It was further belied by the subordinate position of the Church in the bureaucracy. The result was a new distrust between the tsar and the church hierarchy and between those hierarchs and the people. Thereby the tsar's base of support was conflicted.


title: Nicholas II of Russia

text: In 1903, Nicholas threw himself into an ecclesiastical crisis regarding the canonisation of Seraphim of Sarov. The previous year, it had been suggested that if he were canonised, the imperial couple would beget a son and heir to throne. While Alexandra demanded in July 1902 that Seraphim be canonised in less than a week, Nicholas demanded that he be canonised within a year. Despite a public outcry, the Church bowed to the intense imperial pressure, declaring Seraphim worthy of canonisation in January 1903. That summer, the imperial family travelled to Sarov for the canonisation.


title: Nicholas II of Russia

text: Emperor Franz Joseph of Austria-Hungary paid a state visit in April 1897 that was a success. It produced a "gentlemen's agreement" to keep the status quo in the Balkans, and a somewhat similar commitment became applicable to Constantinople and the Straits. The result was years of peace that allowed for rapid economic growth.


title: Nicholas II of Russia

text: Nicholas followed the policies of his father, strengthening the Franco-Russian Alliance and pursuing a policy of general European pacification, which culminated in the famous Hague peace conference. This conference, suggested and promoted by Nicholas II, was convened with the view of terminating the arms race, and setting up machinery for the peaceful settlement of international disputes. The results of the conference were less than expected due to the mutual distrust existing between great powers. Nevertheless, the Hague conventions were among the first formal statements of the laws of war. Nicholas II became the hero of the dedicated disciples of peace. In 1901 he and the Russian diplomat Friedrich Martens were nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize for the initiative to convene the Hague Peace Conference and contributing to its implementation. However historian Dan L. Morrill states that "most scholars" agree that the invitation was "conceived in fear, brought forth in deceit, and swaddled in humanitarian ideals...Not from humanitarianism, not from love for mankind."