title: The Sandman (comic book)

text: "The Sandman Omnibus", a massive two-volume hardcover edition, was released in 2013 to commemorate the 25th anniversary of "The Sandman". "Volume 1" collects issues #1–37 and "The Sandman Special" No. 1 with "Volume 2" collecting issues #38–75 with stories from "Vertigo Jam" No. 1 and "Vertigo: Winter's Edge". Both volumes are printed with the "Absolute edition" recoloring, feature a leather-like cover in black and red, and have over 1000 pages.


title: The Sandman (comic book)

text: A special Silver version of "The Sandman Omnibus" was released as well. Limited to 500 copies and autographed by Gaiman, the "Silver edition" includes both volumes with a slipcase, silver-like finish and a numbered page with Gaiman's signature.


title: The Sandman (comic book)

text: In 2019, a third omnibus volume was released which "includes the acclaimed miniseries "Death: The High Cost of Living" and "Death: The Time of Your Life", the graphic novels "Sandman Midnight Theatre" and "The Sandman: Endless Nights", the prose and comics versions of "The Sandman: The Dream Hunters" and the award-winning miniseries "The Sandman: Overture", together with the artistic showcases of "A Death Gallery", "The Sandman: A Gallery of Dreams" and "The Endless Gallery"".


title: The Sandman (comic book)

text: "The Sandman" No. 19, "A Midsummer Night's Dream", won the World Fantasy Award in 1991 for Best Short Fiction. "The Sandman" and its spin-offs have won more than 26 Eisner Awards, including three for Best Continuing Series, one for Best Short Story, four for Best Writer (Neil Gaiman), seven for Best Lettering (Todd Klein), and two for Best Penciller/Inker (one each for Charles Vess and P. Craig Russell). "The Sandman: The Dream Hunters" was nominated for the Hugo Award for Best Related Book in 2000. "The Dream Hunters" and "Endless Nights" won the Bram Stoker Award for Best Illustrated Narrative in 1999 and 2003, respectively. That same year, "Season of Mists" won the Angoulême International Comics Festival Prize for Scenario. In 2005, IGN declared "The Sandman" as the best Vertigo comic ever. "The Sandman: Overture", a prequel mini-series, earned the 2016 Hugo Award for Best Graphic Story.


title: The Sandman (comic book)

text: Hillary Goldstein of IGN praised the comic book, saying that it "is truly the cream of the crop when it comes to Vertigo books. Neil Gaiman's work on the series is considered legendary for a reason. This story, in its entirety, is every bit as good as "Watchmen" and of equal (if not greater) literary merit. Were I to list the 100 best single comic-book issues I have ever read, three would come from this collection. Whether you have read "The Sandman" before or are a first timer, this is the one book you need to buy this fall. The stories within are magnificent and the care taken in reproducing Gaiman's work is the same you'd expect for any great work of literature."


title: The Sandman (comic book)

text: Throughout the late 1990s, a film adaptation of the comic was periodically planned by Warner Bros., parent company of DC Comics. Roger Avary was originally attached to direct after the success of "Pulp Fiction," collaborating with "" screenwriters Ted Elliott and Terry Rossio in 1996 on a revision of their first script draft, which merged the "Preludes and Nocturnes" storyline with that of "The Doll's House". Avary intended the film to be in part visually inspired by animator Jan Švankmajer's work. Avary was fired after disagreements over the creative direction with executive producer Jon Peters, best known for "Batman" and "Superman Lives". It was due to their meeting on the Sandman film project that Avary and Gaiman collaborated one year later on the script for "Beowulf". The project carried on through several more writers and scripts. A later draft by William Farmer, reviewed at Ain't It Cool News, was met with scorn from fans. Gaiman called the last screenplay that Warner Bros. would send him "not only the worst "Sandman" script I've ever seen, but quite easily the worst script I've ever read". Gaiman has said that his dissatisfaction with how his characters were being treated had dissuaded him from writing any more stories involving the Endless, although he has since written "Endless Nights" and "Sandman Overture".


title: The Sandman (comic book)

text: By 2001, the project had become stranded in development hell. In a Q&A panel at Comic-Con 2007, Gaiman remarked, "I'd rather see no "Sandman" movie made than a bad "Sandman" movie. But I feel like the time for a "Sandman" movie is coming soon. We need someone who has the same obsession with the source material as Peter Jackson had with "Lord of the Rings" or Sam Raimi had with "Spider-Man"." That same year, he stated that he could imagine Terry Gilliam as a director for the adaptation: "I would always give anything to Terry Gilliam, forever, so if Terry Gilliam ever wants to do "Sandman" then as far as I'm concerned Terry Gilliam should do Sandman." In 2013, DC President Diane Nelson said that a Sandman film would be as rich as the Harry Potter universe. David S. Goyer announced in an interview in early December that he would be producing an adaptation of the graphic novel, alongside Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Neil Gaiman. Jack Thorne was hired to write the script. On October 16, 2014, Gaiman clarified that while the film was not announced with the DC slate by Warner Bros., it would instead be distributed by Vertigo and announced with those slate of films. Goyer told "Deadline Hollywood" in an interview that the studio was very happy with the film's script. According to Deadline.com, the film was to be distributed by New Line Cinema. In October 2015, Goyer revealed that a new screenwriter was being brought on board to revise the script by Jack Thorne and stated that he believed the film would go into production the following year. In March 2016, "The Hollywood Reporter" revealed that Eric Heisserer was hired to rewrite the film's script. The next day, Gordon-Levitt announced that he had dropped out due to disagreements with the studio over the creative direction of the film. On November 9, 2016, i09 reported that Heisserer had turned in his draft of the script but left the film, stating that the film should be an HBO series instead.


title: The Sandman (comic book)

text: Due to the prolonged development period of the film, in 2010, DC Entertainment shifted focus onto developing a television series adaptation. Film director James Mangold pitched a series concept to cable channel HBO, whilst consulting with Gaiman himself on an unofficial basis, but this proved to be unsuccessful. It was reported in September 2010 that Warner Bros. Television was licensing the rights to produce a TV series, and that "Supernatural" creator Eric Kripke was their preferred candidate to adapt the saga. In March 2011, it was announced via Neil Gaiman's web blog that while he and DC liked Eric Kripke and his approach, it didn't feel quite right. The author hoped to launch the series in another form but plans for a television adaptation are on hold as production moves forward on the film. As the film adaptation of Morpheus' story was being planned, DC and Fox discussed a possible TV series based on the "Sandman" character Lucifer.


title: The Sandman (comic book)

text: Netflix announced in June 2019 that it had completed a deal with Warner Bros. to develop "Sandman" into a live-action television series. Allan Heinberg is set to be the showrunner, with Gaiman and Goyer to serve as executive producers. In January 2021, Tom Sturridge was announced to star in the series as the titular character Dream, with Gwendoline Christie as Lucifer, Vivienne Acheampong as Lucienne, Boyd Holbrook as the Corinthian, Charles Dance as Roderick Burgess, Asim Chaudhry as Abel, and Sanjeev Bhaskar as Cain. In May 2021, more cast members were announced, including Kirby Howell-Baptiste as Death, Mason Alexander Park as Desire, Donna Preston as Despair, Jenna Coleman as Johanna Constantine, Joely Richardson as Ethel Cripps, Niamh Walsh as young Ethel, David Thewlis as John Dee / Doctor Destiny, Kyo Ra as Rose Walker, Stephen Fry as Gilbert, Razane Jammal as Lyta Hall, Sandra James-Young as Unity Kinkaid, and Patton Oswalt as the voice of Matthew the Raven.


title: The Sandman (comic book)

text: On September 16, 2014, Deadline.com reported that DC and Fox were developing a television series based on the "Sandman" character Lucifer created by Neil Gaiman. On February 19, 2015, the official pilot order was given. According to the premise reported by "The Hollywood Reporter", the potential series would greatly differ from the comic book version of the character featured in "The Sandman" and his own solo comic book series. Lucifer would be featured in a ""-like or "Elementary" style television show with supernatural elements.


title: The Sandman (comic book)

text: On July 15, 2020, Audible released an adaptation of the comic book series as a multi-part audio drama directed by Dirk Maggs with music by James Hannigan, adapting "", "", and "". The voice cast included Gaiman as the Narrator, James McAvoy as Dream, Kat Dennings as Death, Taron Egerton as John Constantine, Michael Sheen as Lucifer, Riz Ahmed as the Corinthian, Andy Serkis as Matthew the Raven, Samantha Morton as Urania Blackwell, Bebe Neuwirth as the Siamese Cat, Arthur Darvill as William Shakespeare, and Justin Vivian Bond as Desire.


title: The Sandman (comic book)

text: "The Sandman: Act II" was released on September 22, 2021 and featured most of the original cast, adapting "", "", and seven stories of "". New additions to the cast included: Regé-Jean Page as Orpheus, Jeffrey Wright as Destiny, Brian Cox as Augustus, Emma Corrin as Thessaly, John Lithgow as Joshua Norton, David Tennant as Loki, Bill Nighy as Odin, Kristen Schaal as Delirium, Kevin Smith as Merv Pumpkinhead, and Niamh Walsh as Nuala. Neuwirth also returned, but portrayed Bast.


title: The Sandman (comic book)

text: "The Sandman: Act III" was released on September 28, 2022 without a prior announcement, and featured most of the cast from the first two acts, adapting "", and "". New additions to the cast included: David Harewood as Destruction, Wil Wheaton as Brant Tucker, and K.J. Apa as Prez.


title: Lucky Luciano

text: Charles "Lucky" Luciano (, ; born Salvatore Lucania ; November 24, 1897 – January 26, 1962) was an Italian-born gangster who operated mainly in the United States. Luciano started his criminal career in the Five Points gang and was instrumental in the development of the National Crime Syndicate. Luciano is considered the father of modern organized crime in the United States for the establishment of The Commission in 1931, after he abolished the boss of bosses title held by Salvatore Maranzano following the Castellammarese War. He was also the first official boss of the modern Genovese crime family.


title: Lucky Luciano

text: In 1936, Luciano was tried and convicted for compulsory prostitution and running a prostitution racket after years of investigation by District Attorney Thomas E. Dewey. He was sentenced to 30 to 50 years in prison, but during World War II an agreement was struck with the Department of the Navy through his Jewish Mob associate Meyer Lansky to provide naval intelligence. In 1946, for his alleged wartime cooperation, his sentence was commuted on the condition that he be deported to Italy. Luciano died in Italy on January 26, 1962, and his body was permitted to be transported back to the United States for burial.


title: Lucky Luciano

text: Luciano was born Salvatore Lucania on November 24, 1897, in Lercara Friddi, Sicily, Italy. Luciano's parents, Antonio Lucania and Rosalia Capporelli, had four other children: Bartolomeo (born 1890), Giuseppe (born 1898), Filippa (born 1901), and Concetta. Luciano's father worked in a sulfur mine in Sicily.


title: Lucky Luciano

text: His father was very ambitious and persistent in eventually moving to the United States. In "The Last Testament of Lucky Luciano: The Mafia Story in His Own Words", a purported semi-autobiography that was published after Luciano's death, Luciano described how his father always had a new Palermo-based steamship company calendar each year and would save money for the boat trip by keeping a jar under his bed. He also mentions in the book that his father was too proud to ask for money, so instead his mother was given money in secret by Luciano's cousin, named Rotolo, who also lived in Lercara Friddi.


title: Lucky Luciano

text: Although the book has largely been regarded as accurate, there are numerous problems that point to the possibility that it is, in fact, fraudulent. The book was based on conversations that Luciano supposedly had with Hollywood producer Martin Gosch in the years before Luciano's death. As "The New York Times" reported shortly before the book's publication, the book quotes Luciano talking about events that occurred years after his death, repeats errors from previously published books on the Mafia, and describes Luciano's participation in meetings that occurred when he was in jail.


title: Lucky Luciano

text: In April 1906, when Luciano was eight years old, the family emigrated from Sicily to the United States. They settled in New York City in the borough of Manhattan on its Lower East Side, a popular destination for Italian immigrants. At age 14, Luciano dropped out of school and started a job delivering hats, earning $7 per week. However, after winning $244 in a dice game, Luciano quit his job and began earning money on the street. That same year, Luciano's parents sent him to the Brooklyn Truant School.


title: Lucky Luciano

text: As a teenager, Luciano started his own gang and was a member of the old Five Points Gang. Unlike other street gangs, whose business was petty crime, Luciano offered protection to Jewish youngsters from Italian and Irish gangs for 10 cents per week. He was also learning the pimping trade in the years around World War I. Luciano also met Meyer Lansky as a teenager when Luciano attempted to extort Lansky for protection money on his walk home from school. Luciano respected the younger boy's defiant responses to his threats, and the two formed a lasting partnership.


title: Lucky Luciano

text: It is not clear how Luciano earned the nickname "Lucky". It may have come from surviving a severe beating and throat slashing by three men in 1929 as the result of his refusal to work for another mob boss. The nickname may also be attributed to his gambling luck, or to a simple mispronunciation of his last name. From 1916 to 1936, Luciano was arrested 25 times on charges including assault, illegal gambling, blackmail and robbery but spent no time in prison. It is also not clear how his surname came to be rendered "Luciano". This too may have been the result of persistent misspellings by newspapers.


title: Lucky Luciano

text: On January 17, 1920, the Eighteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution took effect and Prohibition lasted until the amendment was repealed in 1933. The amendment prohibited the manufacture, sale, and transportation of alcoholic beverages. Demand for alcohol naturally continued, and the resulting black market for alcoholic beverages provided criminals with an additional source of income.


title: Lucky Luciano

text: By 1920, Luciano had met many future Mafia leaders, including Vito Genovese and Frank Costello, his longtime friend and future business partner through the Five Points Gang. That same year, Lower Manhattan gang boss Joe Masseria recruited Luciano as one of his gunmen. Around that same time, Luciano and his close associates started working for gambler Arnold "The Brain" Rothstein, who immediately saw the potential windfall from Prohibition and educated Luciano on running bootleg alcohol as a business. Luciano, Costello, and Genovese started their own bootlegging operation with financing from Rothstein.


title: Lucky Luciano

text: Rothstein served as a mentor for Luciano; among other things, Rothstein taught him how to move in high society. In 1923, Luciano was caught in a sting selling heroin to undercover agents. Although he saw no jail time, being outed as a drug peddler damaged his reputation among his high-class associates and customers. To salvage his reputation, Luciano bought 200 expensive seats to the Jack Dempsey–Luis Firpo boxing match in the Bronx and distributed them to top gangsters and politicians. Rothstein then took Luciano on a shopping trip to Wanamaker's Department Store in Manhattan to buy expensive clothes for the fight. The strategy worked, and Luciano's reputation was saved.


title: Lucky Luciano

text: By 1925, Luciano was grossing over $12 million per year, and made a personal income of about $4 million per year from running illegal gambling and bootlegging operations in New York that also extended into Philadelphia.


title: Lucky Luciano

text: Luciano soon became a top aide in Joe Masseria's criminal organization. In contrast to Rothstein, Masseria was uneducated, with poor manners and limited managerial skills. By the late 1920s, Masseria's main rival was boss Salvatore Maranzano, who had come from Sicily to run the Castellammarese clan. After one of Masseria's lieutenants Gaetano Reina switched sides to Maranzano, Masseria ordered Luciano to arrange Reina's murder. After Reina was murdered on February 26, 1930, the rivalry between Masseria and Maranzano escalated into the bloody Castellammarese War.


title: Lucky Luciano

text: Masseria and Maranzano were so-called "Mustache Petes": older, traditional Mafia bosses who had started their criminal careers in Italy. They believed in upholding the supposed "Old World Mafia" principles of "honor", "tradition", "respect", and "dignity". These bosses refused to work with non-Italians, and were skeptical of working with non-Sicilians. Some of the most conservative bosses worked with only those men with roots in their own Sicilian village. Luciano, in contrast, was willing to work with not only Italians, but also Jewish and Irish gangsters, as long as there was money to be made. Luciano was shocked to hear traditional Sicilian "mafiosi" lecture him about his dealings with close friend Costello, whom they called "the dirty Calabrian".


title: Lucky Luciano

text: Luciano soon began cultivating ties with other younger mobsters who had been born in Italy but began their criminal careers in the United States and chafed at their bosses' conservatism. Luciano wanted to use lessons he learned from Rothstein to turn their gang activities into criminal empires. As the war progressed, this group came to include future mob leaders such as Costello, Genovese, Albert Anastasia, Joe Adonis, Joe Bonanno, Carlo Gambino, Joe Profaci, Tommy Gagliano, and Tommy Lucchese. They believed that their bosses' greed and conservatism were keeping them poor while the Irish and Jewish gangs got rich. Luciano's vision was to form a national crime syndicate in which the Italian, Jewish, and Irish gangs could pool their resources and turn organized crime into a lucrative business for all – an organization he founded after a conference was hosted in Atlantic City by Luciano, Johnny Torrio, Lansky and Costello in May 1929.


title: Lucky Luciano

text: In October 1929, Luciano was forced into a limousine at gunpoint by three men, beaten and stabbed, and strung up by his hands from a beam in a warehouse in Staten Island. He survived the ordeal, but was forever marked with a scar and droopy eye. The identity of his abductors was never established. When picked up by the police after the beating, Luciano said that he had no idea who did it. However, in 1953, Luciano told an interviewer that it was the police who kidnapped and beat him in an attempt to find Jack "Legs" Diamond. Another story was that Maranzano ordered the attack.


title: Lucky Luciano

text: In early 1931, Luciano decided to eliminate Masseria. The war had been going poorly for Masseria, and Luciano saw an opportunity to switch allegiance. In a secret deal with Maranzano, Luciano agreed to engineer Masseria's death in return for receiving Masseria's rackets and becoming Maranzano's second-in-command. Joe Adonis had joined the Masseria faction and when Masseria heard about Luciano's betrayal, he approached Adonis about killing Luciano. However, Adonis instead warned Luciano about the murder plot. On April 15, 1931, Masseria was killed at Nuova Villa Tammaro, a Coney Island restaurant in Brooklyn. While they played cards, Luciano allegedly excused himself to go to the bathroom, at which point gunmen, reportedly Anastasia, Genovese, Adonis, and Benjamin "Bugsy" Siegel, entered the restaurant. Ciro "The Artichoke King" Terranova drove the getaway car, but legend has it that he was too shaken up to drive away and had to be shoved out of the driver's seat by Siegel. With Maranzano's blessing, Luciano took over Masseria's gang and became Maranzano's lieutenant, ending the Castellammarese War.


title: Lucky Luciano

text: With Masseria gone, Maranzano reorganized the Italian American gangs in New York City into Five Families headed by Luciano, Profaci, Gagliano, Vincent Mangano and himself. Maranzano called a meeting of crime bosses in Wappingers Falls, New York, where he declared himself "capo di tutti capi" ("boss of all bosses"). Maranzano also whittled down the rival families' rackets in favor of his own. Luciano appeared to accept these changes, but was merely biding his time before removing Maranzano. Although Maranzano was slightly more forward-thinking than Masseria, Luciano had come to believe that Maranzano was even more greedy and hidebound than Masseria had been.


title: Lucky Luciano

text: By September 1931, Maranzano realized Luciano was a threat, and hired Vincent "Mad Dog" Coll, an Irish gangster, to kill him. However, Lucchese alerted Luciano that he was marked for death. On September 10, Maranzano ordered Luciano, Genovese and Costello to come to his office at the Helmsley Building in Manhattan. Convinced that Maranzano planned to murder them, Luciano decided to act first. He sent to Maranzano's office four Jewish gangsters whose faces were unknown to Maranzano's people. They had been secured with the aid of Lansky and Siegel. Disguised as government agents, two of the gangsters disarmed Maranzano's bodyguards. The other two, aided by Lucchese who was there to point Maranzano out, stabbed the boss multiple times before shooting him. This assassination was the first of what would later be fabled as the "Night of the Sicilian Vespers".


title: Lucky Luciano

text: Several days later, on September 13, the corpses of two other Maranzano allies, Samuel Monaco and Louis Russo, were retrieved from Newark Bay, showing evidence of torture. Meanwhile, Joseph Siragusa, leader of the Pittsburgh crime family, was shot to death in his home. The October 15 disappearance of Joe Ardizonne, head of the Los Angeles family, would later be regarded as part of this alleged plan to quickly eliminate the old-world Sicilian bosses. However, the idea of an organized mass purge, directed by Luciano, has been debunked as a myth.


title: Lucky Luciano

text: With the death of Maranzano, Luciano became the dominant crime boss in the United States. He had reached the pinnacle of the underworld of the United States, setting policies and directing activities along with the other Mafia bosses. His own crime family controlled lucrative criminal rackets in New York City such as illegal gambling, extortion, bookmaking, loansharking, and drug trafficking. Luciano became very influential in labor union activities and controlled the Manhattan Waterfront, garbage hauling, construction, Garment District businesses, and trucking.


title: Lucky Luciano

text: Although there would have been few objections had Luciano declared himself "capo di tutti capi," he abolished the title, believing the position created trouble between the families and made himself a target for another ambitious challenger. Instead, Luciano chose to quietly maintain control through the Commission by forging unofficial alliances with other bosses. However, Luciano did not discard all of Maranzano's changes. He believed that the ceremony of becoming a "made man" in a crime family was a Sicilian anachronism. However, Genovese persuaded Luciano to keep the title, arguing that young people needed rituals to promote obedience to the family. Luciano remained committed to "omertà", the oath of silence, to protect the families from legal prosecution. In addition, he kept Maranzano's structure of five crime families in New York City.


title: Lucky Luciano

text: Luciano elevated his most trusted Italian associates to high-level positions in what was now the Luciano crime family. Genovese became underboss and Costello "consigliere". Adonis, Michael "Trigger Mike" Coppola, Anthony Strollo, Willie Moretti and Anthony Carfano all served as "caporegimes". Because Lansky and Siegel were non-Italians, neither man could hold official positions within any Mafia family. However, Lansky was a top advisor to Luciano and Siegel a trusted associate.


title: Lucky Luciano

text: Later in 1931, Luciano called a meeting in Chicago with various bosses, where he proposed a Commission to serve as the governing body for organized crime. Designed to settle all disputes and decide which families controlled which territories, the Commission has been called Luciano's greatest innovation. Luciano's goals with the Commission were to quietly maintain his own power over all the families, and to prevent future gang wars; the bosses approved the idea of the Commission.


title: Lucky Luciano

text: The Commission was originally composed of representatives of the Five Families of New York City, the Buffalo crime family, and the Chicago Outfit; later, the crime families of Philadelphia and Detroit were added, with smaller families being formally represented by a Commission family. The Commission also provided representation for Jewish criminal organizations in New York.


title: Lucky Luciano

text: The group's first test came in 1935, when it ordered Dutch Schultz to drop his plans to murder Special Prosecutor Thomas E. Dewey. Luciano argued that a Dewey assassination would precipitate a massive law enforcement crackdown; the national crime syndicate had enacted a hard and fast rule stating that law enforcement and prosecutors were not to be harmed. An enraged Schultz said he would kill Dewey anyway and walked out of the meeting. Murder, Inc leader Albert Anastasia approached Luciano with information that Schultz had asked him to stake out Dewey's apartment building on Fifth Avenue. Upon hearing the news, the Commission held a discreet meeting to discuss the matter. After six hours of deliberations the Commission ordered Lepke Buchalter to eliminate Schultz. On October 23, 1935, before he could kill Dewey, Schultz was shot in a tavern in Newark, New Jersey, and succumbed to his injuries the following day.


title: Lucky Luciano

text: During the early 1930s, Luciano's crime family started taking over small scale prostitution operations in New York City. In June 1935, New York Governor Herbert H. Lehman appointed Dewey, a U.S. Attorney, as a special prosecutor to combat organized crime in the city. Dewey's assistant district attorney Eunice Carter led an investigation into prostitution racketeering that connected Luciano, the most powerful gangster in New York, to this prostitution network.


title: Lucky Luciano

text: Carter investigated the flow of money in the New York/New Jersey prostitution network, and she began to build a case of prostitution racketeering founded on evidence from interviews with prostitutes and wiretaps. On February 2, 1936, Dewey authorized Carter to raid 200 brothels in Manhattan and Brooklyn, earning him nationwide recognition as a major "gangbuster". Carter took measures to prevent police corruption from impeding the raids: she assigned 160 police officers outside of the vice squad to conduct the raids, and the officers were instructed to wait on street corners until they received their orders, minutes before the raids were to begin. Ten men and 100 women were arrested. However, unlike previous vice raids, the arrestees were not released, but taken to court, where a judge set bails of US$10,000, far beyond their means to pay. Carter had built trust with a number of the arrested prostitutes and madams, some of whom reported being beaten and abused by the Mafia. She convinced many to testify rather than serve additional jail time. By mid-March, several defendants had implicated Luciano. Three of these prostitutes implicated Luciano as the ringleader, who made collections. Luciano associate David Betillo was in charge of the prostitution ring in New York; any money that Luciano received was from Betillo.


title: Lucky Luciano

text: In late March 1936, Luciano received a tip that he was going to be arrested and fled to Hot Springs, Arkansas. A New York detective in Hot Springs on a different assignment spotted Luciano and notified Dewey. On April 3, Luciano was arrested in Hot Springs on a criminal warrant from New York. The next day in New York, Dewey indicted Luciano and his accomplices on 60 counts of compulsory prostitution. Luciano's lawyers in Arkansas began a fierce legal battle against extradition. On April 6, Owney Madden, one-time owner of the Cotton Club, offered a $50,000 bribe to Arkansas Attorney General Carl E. Bailey to facilitate Luciano's case. However, Bailey refused the bribe and immediately reported it.


title: Lucky Luciano

text: On April 17, after all of Luciano's legal options had been exhausted, Arkansas authorities handed him to three New York City Police Department detectives for transport by train back to New York for trial. When the train reached St. Louis, Missouri, the detectives and Luciano changed trains. During this switchover, they were guarded by 20 local policemen to prevent a mob rescue attempt. The men arrived in New York on April 18, and Luciano was sent to jail without bail.


title: Lucky Luciano

text: On May 13, 1936, Luciano's pandering trial began. Dewey prosecuted the case that Carter built against Luciano. He accused Luciano of being part of a massive prostitution ring known as "the Combination". During the trial, Dewey exposed Luciano for lying on the witness stand through direct quizzing and records of telephone calls; Luciano also had no explanation for why his federal income tax records claimed he made only $22,000 a year, while he was obviously a wealthy man. Dewey ruthlessly pressed Luciano on his long arrest record and his relationships with well-known gangsters such as Masseria, Terranova, and Buchalter. On June 7, Luciano was convicted on 62 counts of compulsory prostitution. On June 18, he was sentenced to 30 to 50 years in state prison, along with Betillo and others.


title: Lucky Luciano

text: In his book, "Five Families", longtime "The New York Times" organized-crime columnist Selwyn Raab wrote that a number of scholars have questioned whether Luciano was directly involved in "the Combination". According to Raab, there was evidence that Luciano profited from prostitution, and several members of his family ran a protection racket that ensnared many of New York City's madams and brothel keepers. However, Raab wrote, several Mafia and legal scholars believed that it would have been "out of character" for a crime boss of Luciano's stature to be directly involved in a prostitution ring. Raab wrote that the evidence Dewey presented against Luciano was "astonishingly thin", and argued that it would have been more appropriate to charge Luciano with extortion. However, Raab believed that Luciano's defense team erred in allowing him to take the stand in his own defense, opening the door for Dewey to attack his credibility on cross-examination.


title: Lucky Luciano

text: At least two of Luciano's contemporaries have denied that Luciano was ever part of "the Combination". In her memoirs, New York society madam Polly Adler wrote that if Luciano had been involved with "the Combination", she would have known about it. Bonanno, the last surviving contemporary of Luciano's who wasn't in prison, also denied that Luciano was directly involved in prostitution in his book, "A Man of Honor". Bonanno believed that several of Luciano's soldiers used Luciano's name to intimidate brothel keepers into paying for protection and argued that Dewey built his case "not so much against Luciano as against Luciano's name."


title: Lucky Luciano

text: However, key witnesses at Luciano's trial testified that Luciano was involved with prostitution racketeering, and frequently discussed the sex industry business, once describing it as "the same as the A & P stores are, a large syndicate... the same as chain stores", and ordering an underling to "[g]o ahead and crack the joint" when a brothel fell behind in its kickbacks. One witness testified that Luciano, working out of his Waldorf-Astoria suite, personally hired him to collect from bookers and madams.


title: Lucky Luciano

text: Luciano continued to run his crime family from prison, relaying his orders through acting boss Genovese. However, in 1937, Genovese fled to Naples to avoid an impending murder indictment in New York. Luciano appointed his "consigliere", Costello, as the new acting boss and the overseer of Luciano's interests.


title: Lucky Luciano

text: Luciano was first imprisoned at Sing Sing Correctional Facility in Ossining, New York. However, later in 1936, authorities moved him to Clinton Correctional Facility in Dannemora, a remote facility far away from New York City. At Clinton, Betillo prepared special dishes for Luciano in a kitchen set aside by authorities. Luciano was assigned a job in the prison laundry. Luciano used his influence to help get the materials to build a church at the prison, which became famous for being one of the only freestanding churches in the New York State correctional system and also for the fact that on the church's altar are two of the original doors from the "Victoria", the ship of Ferdinand Magellan.


title: Lucky Luciano

text: Luciano's legal appeals continued until October 10, 1938, when the U.S. Supreme Court refused to review his case. At this point, Luciano stepped down as family boss and Costello formally replaced him.


title: Lucky Luciano

text: During World War II, the US government struck a secret deal with the imprisoned Luciano. In 1942, the Office of Naval Intelligence was concerned about German and Italian agents entering the US through the New York waterfront. They also worried about sabotage in these facilities. Knowing that the Mafia controlled the waterfront, the US Navy contacted Lansky about a deal with Luciano. To facilitate negotiations, Luciano was transferred to Great Meadow Correctional Facility in Comstock, New York, which was much closer to New York City.


title: Lucky Luciano

text: The Navy, the State of New York and Luciano reached a deal: in exchange for a commutation of his sentence, Luciano promised the complete assistance of his organization in providing intelligence to the Navy. Anastasia, a Luciano ally who controlled the docks, allegedly promised no dockworker strikes during war. In preparation for the 1943 allied invasion of Sicily, Luciano allegedly provided the US military with Sicilian Mafia contacts. This collaboration between the Navy and the Mafia became known as Operation Underworld.


title: Lucky Luciano

text: The value of Luciano's contribution to the war effort is highly debated. In 1947, the naval officer in charge of Operation Underworld discounted the value of his wartime aid. A 1954 report ordered by now-Governor Dewey stated that Luciano provided many valuable services to Naval Intelligence. The enemy threat to the docks, Luciano allegedly said, was manufactured by the sinking of the SS "Normandie" in New York harbor, supposedly directed by Anastasia's brother, Anthony Anastasio. However, the official investigation of the ship sinking found no evidence of sabotage.


title: Lucky Luciano

text: On January 3, 1946, as a presumed reward for his alleged wartime cooperation, Dewey reluctantly commuted Luciano's pandering sentence on condition that he not resist deportation to Italy. Luciano accepted the deal, although he still maintained that he was a US citizen and not subject to deportation. On February 2, 1946, two federal immigration agents transported Luciano from Sing Sing prison to Ellis Island in New York Harbor for deportation proceedings. On February 9, the night before his departure, Luciano shared a spaghetti dinner on his freighter with Anastasia and five other guests.


title: Lucky Luciano

text: On February 10, Luciano's ship sailed from Brooklyn Harbor for Italy. On February 28, after a 17-day voyage, Luciano's ship arrived in Naples. On arrival, Luciano told reporters he would probably reside in Sicily.


title: Lucky Luciano

text: In October 1946, Luciano secretly moved to Havana, Cuba, first taking a freighter from Naples to Caracas, Venezuela, then a flight to Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, before flying to Mexico City and doubling back to Caracas, where he took a private plane to Camagüey, Cuba, finally arriving on October 29. He was then driven to Havana, where he moved into an estate in the Miramar section of the city. His objective was to be closer to the US so that he could resume control over American Mafia operations and eventually return home. Lansky was already established as a major investor in Cuban gambling and hotel projects.


title: Lucky Luciano

text: In 1946, Lansky called a meeting of the heads of the major crime families in Havana that December, dubbed the Havana Conference. The ostensible reason was to see singer Frank Sinatra perform. However, the real reason was to discuss mob business with Luciano in attendance. The three topics under discussion were: the heroin trade, Cuban gambling, and what to do about Siegel and his floundering Flamingo Hotel project in Las Vegas. The Conference took place at the Hotel Nacional de Cuba and lasted a little more than a week.


title: Lucky Luciano

text: On December 20, during the conference, Luciano had a private meeting with Genovese in Luciano's hotel suite. The year before, Genovese had been returned from Italy to New York to face trial on his 1934 murder charge. However, in June 1946, the charges were dismissed and Genovese was free to return to mob business. Unlike Costello, Luciano had never trusted Genovese. In the meeting, Genovese tried to convince Luciano to become a titular "boss of bosses" and let Genovese run everything. Luciano calmly rejected Genovese's suggestion:


title: Lucky Luciano

text: Soon after the Conference began, the US government learned that Luciano was in Cuba. Luciano had been publicly fraternizing with Sinatra as well as visiting numerous nightclubs, so his presence was no secret in Havana. The US started putting pressure on the Cuban government to expel him. On February 21, 1947, U.S. Narcotics Commissioner Harry J. Anslinger notified the Cubans that the US would block all shipment of narcotic prescription drugs while Luciano was there. Two days later, the Cuban government announced that Luciano was in custody and would be deported to Italy within 48 hours. Luciano was placed on a freighter that was sailing to Genoa.


title: Lucky Luciano

text: After Luciano's secret trip to Cuba, he spent the rest of his life in Italy under tight police surveillance. When he arrived in Genoa on April 11, 1947, Italian police arrested him and sent him to a jail in Palermo. On May 11, a regional commission in Palermo warned Luciano to stay out of trouble and released him.


title: Lucky Luciano

text: In early July 1949, police in Rome arrested Luciano on suspicion of involvement in the shipping of narcotics to New York. On July 15, after a week in jail, police released Luciano without filing any charges. The authorities also permanently banned him from visiting Rome. On June 9, 1951, he was questioned by Naples police on suspicion of illegally bringing $57,000 in cash and a new American car into Italy. After 20 hours of questioning, police released Luciano without any charges.


title: Lucky Luciano

text: In 1952, the Italian government revoked Luciano's passport after complaints from US and Canadian law enforcement officials. On November 1, 1954, an Italian judicial commission in Naples applied strict limits on Luciano for two years. He was required to report to the police every Sunday, to stay home every night, and not to leave Naples without police permission. The commission cited Luciano's alleged involvement in the narcotics trade as the reason for these restrictions.


title: Lucky Luciano

text: By 1957, Genovese felt strong enough to move against Luciano and his acting boss, Costello. He was aided in this move by Anastasia family underboss Carlo Gambino. On May 2, 1957, following Genovese's orders, Vincent "Chin" Gigante ambushed Costello in the lobby of his Central Park apartment building, The Majestic. Gigante called out, "This is for you, Frank," and as Costello turned, shot him in the head. After firing his weapon, Gigante quickly left, thinking he had killed Costello. However, the bullet had just grazed Costello's head and he was not seriously injured. Although Costello refused to cooperate with the police, Gigante was arrested for attempted murder. Gigante was acquitted at trial, thanking Costello in the courtroom after the verdict. Costello was allowed to retire after conceding control of what is called today the Genovese crime family to Genovese. Luciano was powerless to stop it.


title: Lucky Luciano

text: On October 25, 1957, Genovese and Gambino successfully arranged the murder of Anastasia, another Luciano ally. The following month, Genovese called a meeting of bosses in Apalachin, New York to approve his takeover of the Luciano family and to establish his national power. Instead, the Apalachin Meeting turned into a fiasco when law enforcement conducted a raid. Over 65 high-ranking mobsters were arrested and the Mafia was subjected to publicity and numerous grand jury summonses. The enraged mobsters blamed Genovese for the disaster, opening a window of opportunity for Genovese's opponents.


title: Lucky Luciano

text: Luciano allegedly attended a meeting in a hotel in Palermo to discuss heroin trade as part of the French Connection. After their meeting, Luciano allegedly helped pay part of $100,000 to a Puerto Rican drug dealer to falsely implicate Genovese in a drug deal. On April 4, 1959, Genovese was convicted in New York of conspiracy to violate federal narcotics laws. Sent to prison for 15 years, Genovese tried to run his crime family from prison until his death in 1969. Meanwhile, Gambino now became the most powerful man in the Cosa Nostra.


title: Lucky Luciano

text: On January 26, 1962, Luciano died of a heart attack at Naples International Airport. He had gone to the airport to meet with American producer Martin Gosch about a film based on his life. To avoid antagonizing other Mafia members, Luciano had previously refused to authorize a film, but reportedly relented after the death of his longtime lover, Igea Lissoni. After the meeting with Gosch, Luciano had a heart attack and died. He was unaware that Italian drug agents had followed him to the airport in anticipation of arresting him on drug smuggling charges.


title: Lucky Luciano

text: Three days later, 300 people attended a funeral service for Luciano in Naples. His body was conveyed along the streets of Naples in a horse-drawn black hearse. With the permission of the US government, Luciano's relatives took his body back to New York for burial. He was buried in St. John's Cemetery in Middle Village, Queens. More than 2,000 mourners attended his funeral. Gambino, Luciano's longtime friend, gave his eulogy.


title: Lucky Luciano

text: In 1998, "Time" characterized Luciano as the "criminal mastermind" among the top 20 most influential builders and titans of the 20th century.


title: Lucky Luciano

text: In 1929, Luciano met Gay Orlova, a featured dancer in one of Broadway's leading nightclubs, Hollywood. They were inseparable until he went to prison, but were never married. In early 1948, he met , a Milanese ballerina 20 years his junior, whom he later described as the love of his life. In the summer, Lissoni moved in with him. Although some reports said the couple married in 1949, others state that they only exchanged rings. Luciano and Lissoni lived together in Luciano's house in Naples. He continued to have affairs with other women, resulting in many arguments with Lissoni during which he physically struck her. In 1959, Lissoni died of breast cancer.


title: Lucky Luciano

text: Luciano never had children. He once provided his reasons for that: "I didn't want no son of mine to go through life as the son of Luciano, the gangster. That's one thing I still hate Dewey for, making me a gangster in the eyes of the world."


title: Opossum

text: Opossums () are members of the marsupial order Didelphimorphia () endemic to the Americas. The largest order of marsupials in the Western Hemisphere, it comprises 93 species in 18 genera. Opossums originated in South America and entered North America in the Great American Interchange following the connection of North and South America.


title: Opossum

text: The Virginia opossum is the only species found in the United States and Canada. It is often simply referred to as an opossum, and in North America it is commonly referred to as a possum (; sometimes rendered as "possum" in written form to indicate the dropped "o"). Possums should not be confused with the Australasian arboreal marsupials of suborder Phalangeriformes that are also called possums because of their resemblance to the Didelphimorphia. The opossum is typically a nonaggressive animal.


title: Opossum

text: The word "opossum" is borrowed from the Powhatan language and was first recorded between 1607 and 1611 by John Smith (as "opassom") and William Strachey (as "aposoum"). Siebert reconstructs the word phonemically as /a·passem/. "Possum" was first recorded in 1613. Both men encountered the language at the British settlement of Jamestown, Virginia, which Smith helped to found and where Strachey later served as its first secretary. Strachey's notes describe the opossum as a "beast in bigness of a pig and in taste alike," while Smith recorded it "hath an head like a swine ... tail like a rat ... of the bigness of a cat." The Powhatan word ultimately derives from a Proto-Algonquian word ("*wa·p-aʔθemwa") meaning "white dog or dog-like beast."


title: Opossum

text: Following the arrival of Europeans in Australia, the term "possum" was borrowed to describe distantly related Australian marsupials of the suborder Phalangeriformes, which are more closely related to other Australian marsupials such as kangaroos.


title: Opossum

text: They similarly have didelphimorphia, two ("di") wombs ("delphus"), the second being a non-bilateral marsupial womb (nursing-pouch).


title: Opossum

text: Opossums are frequently considered to be "living fossils", and as a result are often used to approximate the ancestral therian condition in comparative studies. However, this is inaccurate, as the oldest opossum fossils are from the early Miocene (roughly 20 million years old). The last common ancestor of all living opossums approximately dates to the Oligocene-Miocene boundary (23 million years ago) and is at most no older than Oligocene in age. Many extinct metatherians once considered early opossums, such as "Alphadon", "Peradectes", "Herpetotherium", and "Pucadelphys", have since been recognized to have been previously grouped with opossums on the basis of plesiomorphies and are now considered to represent older branches of Metatheria only distantly related to modern opossums.


title: Opossum

text: Opossums probably originated in the Amazonia region of northern South America, where they began their initial diversification. They were minor components of South American mammal faunas until the late Miocene, when they began to diversify rapidly. Prior to this time the ecological niches presently occupied by opossums were occupied by other groups of metatherians such as paucituberculatans and sparassodonts


title: Opossum

text: Large opossums like "Didelphis" show a pattern of gradually increasing in size over geologic time as sparassodont diversity declined. Several groups of opossums, including "Thylophorops", "Thylatheridium", "Hyperdidelphys", and sparassocynids developed carnivorous adaptations during the late Miocene-Pliocene, prior to the arrival of carnivorans in South America. Most of these groups with the exception of "Lutreolina" are now extinct.


title: Opossum

text: Didelphimorphs are small to medium-sized marsupials that grow to the size of a house cat. They tend to be semi-arboreal omnivores, although there are many exceptions. Most members of this order have long snouts, a narrow braincase, and a prominent sagittal crest. The dental formula is: teeth. By mammalian standards, this is an unusually full jaw. The incisors are very small, the canines large, and the molars are tricuspid.


title: Opossum

text: Didelphimorphs have a plantigrade stance (feet flat on the ground) and the hind feet have an opposable digit with no claw. Like some New World monkeys, opossums have prehensile tails. Like that of all marsupials, the fur consists of awn hair only, and the females have a pouch. The tail and parts of the feet bear scutes. The stomach is simple, with a small cecum. Like most marsupials, the male opossum has a forked penis bearing twin glandes.


title: Opossum

text: Although all living opossums are essentially opportunistic omnivores, different species vary in the amount of meat and vegetation they include in their diet. Members of the Caluromyinae are essentially frugivorous; whereas the lutrine opossum and Patagonian opossum primarily feed on other animals. The water opossum or yapok ("Chironectes minimus") is particularly unusual, as it is the only living semi-aquatic marsupial, using its webbed hindlimbs to dive in search of freshwater mollusks and crayfish. The extinct "Thylophorops", the largest known opossum at 4–7 kg, was a macropredator. Most opossums are scansorial, well-adapted to life in the trees or on the ground, but members of the Caluromyinae and Glironiinae are primarily arboreal, whereas species of "Metachirus", "Monodelphis", and to a lesser degree "Didelphis" show adaptations for life on the ground. "Metachirus nudicaudatus", found in the upper Amazon basin, consumes fruit seeds, small vertebrate creatures like birds and reptiles and invertebrates like crayfish and snails, but seems to be mainly insectivorous.


title: Opossum

text: As a marsupial, the female opossum has a reproductive system that includes a bifurcated vagina, a divided uterus and a marsupium, which is her pouch. The average estrous cycle of the opossum is about 28 days. Opossums do possess a placenta, but it is short-lived, simple in structure, and, unlike that of placental mammals, not fully functional. The young are therefore born at a very early stage, although the gestation period is similar to that of many other small marsupials, at only 12 to 14 days. They give birth to litters of up to 20 young. Once born, the offspring must find their way into the marsupium to hold on to and nurse from a teat. Baby opossums, like their Australian cousins, are called joeys. Female opossums often give birth to very large numbers of young, most of which fail to attach to a teat, although as many as thirteen young can attach, and therefore survive, depending on species. The young are weaned between 70 and 125 days, when they detach from the teat and leave the pouch. The opossum lifespan is unusually short for a mammal of its size, usually only one to two years in the wild and as long as four or more years in captivity. Senescence is rapid.


title: Opossum

text: The species are moderately sexually dimorphic with males usually being slightly larger, much heavier, and having larger canines than females. The largest difference between the opossum and non-marsupial mammals is the bifurcated penis of the male and bifurcated vagina of the female (the source of the term "didelphimorph", from the Greek "didelphys", meaning "double-wombed"). Opossum spermatozoa exhibit sperm-pairing, forming conjugate pairs in the epididymis. This may ensure that flagella movement can be accurately coordinated for maximal motility. Conjugate pairs dissociate into separate spermatozoa before fertilization.


title: Opossum

text: Opossums are usually solitary and nomadic, staying in one area as long as food and water are easily available. Some families will group together in ready-made burrows or even under houses. Though they will temporarily occupy abandoned burrows, they do not dig or put much effort into building their own. As nocturnal animals, they favor dark, secure areas. These areas may be below ground or above.


title: Opossum

text: When threatened or harmed, they will "play possum", mimicking the appearance and smell of a sick or dead animal. This physiological response is involuntary (like fainting), rather than a conscious act. In the case of baby opossums, however, the brain does not always react this way at the appropriate moment, and therefore they often fail to "play dead" when threatened. When an opossum is "playing possum", the animal's lips are drawn back, the teeth are bared, saliva foams around the mouth, the eyes close or half-close, and a foul-smelling fluid is secreted from the anal glands. The stiff, curled form can be prodded, turned over, and even carried away without reaction. The animal will typically regain consciousness after a period of a few minutes to four hours, a process that begins with a slight twitching of the ears.


title: Opossum

text: Some species of opossums have prehensile tails, although dangling by the tail is more common among juveniles. An opossum may also use its tail as a brace and a fifth limb when climbing. The tail is occasionally used as a grip to carry bunches of leaves or bedding materials to the nest. A mother will sometimes carry her young upon her back, where they will cling tightly even when she is climbing or running.


title: Opossum

text: Threatened opossums (especially males) will growl deeply, raising their pitch as the threat becomes more urgent. Males make a clicking "smack" noise out of the side of their mouths as they wander in search of a mate, and females will sometimes repeat the sound in return. When separated or distressed, baby opossums will make a sneezing noise to signal their mother. The mother in return makes a clicking sound and waits for the baby to find her. If threatened, the baby will open its mouth and quietly hiss until the threat is gone.


title: Opossum

text: Opossums eat dead animals, insects, rodents and birds. They also feed on eggs, frogs, plants, fruits and grain. One source notes their need for high amounts of calcium. To fulfill this need, opossums eat the skeletal remains of rodents and roadkill animals. They will also eat dog food, cat food and human food waste.


title: Opossum

text: Many large opossums (Didelphini) are immune to the venom of rattlesnakes and pit vipers (Crotalinae) and regularly prey upon these snakes. This adaptation seems to be unique to the Didelphini, as their closest relative, the brown four-eyed opossum, is not immune to snake venom. Similar adaptations are seen in other small predatory mammals such as mongooses and hedgehogs. Didelphin opossums and crotaline vipers have been suggested to be in an evolutionary arms race. Some authors have suggested that this adaptation originally arose as a defense mechanism, allowing a rare reversal of an evolutionary arms race where the former prey has become the predator, whereas others have suggested it arose as a predatory adaptation given that it also occurs in other predatory mammals and does not occur in opossums that do not regularly eat other vertebrates. The fer-de-lance, one of the most venomous snakes in the New World, may have developed its highly potent venom as a means to prey on or a defense mechanism against large opossums.


title: Opossum

text: A widely publicized 2009 study by the Cary Institute indicated that Virginia opossums in a laboratory setting could eat thousands of ticks per week grooming. However, subsequent studies of the stomach contents of wild Virginia opossums have not found any ticks in their diet.


title: Opossum

text: Opossums are found in North, Central, and South America. The Virginia opossum lives in regions as far north as Canada and as far south as Central America, while other types of opossums only inhabit countries south of the United States. The Virginia opossum can often be found in wooded areas, though its habitat may vary widely. Opossums are generally found in areas like forests, shrubland, mangrove swamps, rainforests and eucalyptus forests. Opossums have been found moving northward in recent years.


title: Opossum

text: The Virginia opossum was once widely hunted and consumed in the United States. Opossum farms have been operated in the United States in the past. Sweet potatoes were eaten together with the opossum in the American South. In 1909, a "Possum and 'Taters" banquet was held in Atlanta to honor President-elect William Howard Taft. South Carolina cuisine includes opossum, and President Jimmy Carter hunted opossums in addition to other small game. Raccoon, opossum, partridges, prairie hen and frogs were among the fare Mark Twain recorded as part of American cookery.


title: Opossum

text: In Dominica, Grenada, Trinidad, Saint Lucia and Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, the common opossum or "manicou" is popular and can only be hunted during certain times of the year owing to overhunting. The meat is traditionally prepared by smoking, then stewing. It is light and fine-grained, but the musk glands must be removed as part of preparation. The meat can be used in place of rabbit and chicken in recipes. Historically, hunters in the Caribbean would place a barrel with fresh or rotten fruit to attract opossums that would feed on the fruit or insects.


title: Opossum

text: In northern/central Mexico, opossums are known as "tlacuache" or "tlacuatzin". Their tails are eaten as a folk remedy to improve fertility. In the Yucatán peninsula they are known in the Yucatec Mayan language as "och" and they are not considered part of the regular diet by Mayan people, but still considered edible in times of famine.


title: Opossum

text: Opossum oil (possum grease) is high in essential fatty acids and has been used as a chest rub and a carrier for arthritis remedies given as topical salves.


title: Opossum

text: Classification based on Voss and Jansa (2009), species based on the American Society of Mammalogists (2021)


title: Blue whale

text: The blue whale (Balaenoptera musculus) is a marine mammal and a baleen whale. Reaching a maximum confirmed length of and weighing up to , it is the largest animal known to have ever existed. The blue whale's long and slender body can be of various shades of greyish-blue dorsally and somewhat lighter underneath. Four subspecies are recognized: "B. m. musculus" in the North Atlantic and North Pacific, "B. m. intermedia" in the Southern Ocean, "B. m. brevicauda" (the pygmy blue whale) in the Indian Ocean and South Pacific Ocean, "B. m. indica" in the Northern Indian Ocean. There is also a population in the waters off Chile that may constitute a fifth subspecies.


title: Blue whale

text: In general, blue whale populations migrate between their summer feeding areas near the poles and their winter breeding grounds near the tropics. There is also evidence of year-round residencies, and partial or age/sex-based migration. Blue whales are filter feeders; their diet consists almost exclusively of krill. They are generally solitary or gather in small groups, and have no well-defined social structure other than mother-calf bonds. The fundamental frequency for blue whale vocalizations ranges from 8 to 25 Hz and the production of vocalizations may vary by region, season, behavior, and time of day. Orcas are their only natural predators.


title: Blue whale

text: The blue whale was once abundant in nearly all the Earth's oceans until the end of the 19th century. It was hunted almost to the point of extinction by whalers until the International Whaling Commission banned all blue whale hunting in 1966. The International Union for Conservation of Nature has listed blue whales as Endangered as of 2018. It continues to face numerous man-made threats such as ship strikes, pollution, ocean noise and climate change.


title: Blue whale

text: The genus name, "Balaenoptera", means "winged whale" while the species name, "musculus", could mean "muscle" or a diminutive form of "mouse", possibly a pun by Carl Linnaeus when he named the species in "Systema Naturae". One of the first published descriptions of a blue whale comes from Robert Sibbald's "Phalainologia Nova", after Sibbald found a stranded whale in the estuary of the Firth of Forth, Scotland, in 1692. The name "blue whale" was derived from the Norwegian ""blåhval"", coined by Svend Foyn shortly after he had perfected the harpoon gun. The Norwegian scientist G. O. Sars adopted it as the common name in 1874.


title: Blue whale

text: Blue whales were referred to as 'Sibbald's rorqual', after Robert Sibbald, who first described the species. Herman Melville called the blue whale "sulphur bottom" in his novel Moby Dick because of the accumulation of diatoms creating a yellowish appearance on their pale underside.


title: Blue whale

text: Blue whales are rorquals in the family Balaenopteridae. A 2018 analysis estimates that the Balaenopteridae family diverged from other families in between 10.48 and 4.98 million years ago during the late Miocene.


title: Blue whale

text: The earliest discovered anatomically modern blue whale is a partial skull fossil found in southern Italy, dating to the Early Pleistocene, roughly 1.5–1.25 million years ago. The Australian pygmy blue whale diverged during the Last Glacial Maximum. Their more recent divergence has resulted in the subspecies having a relatively low genetic diversity, and New Zealand blue whales have an even lower genetic diversity.


title: Blue whale

text: Whole genome sequencing suggests that blue whales are most closely related to sei whales with gray whales as a sister group. This study also found significant gene flow between minke whales and the ancestors of the blue and sei whale. Blue whales also displayed high genetic diversity.


title: Blue whale

text: Blue whales are known to interbreed with fin whales. The earliest description of a possible hybrid between a blue and fin whale was a anomalous female whale with the features of both the blue and the fin whales taken in the North Pacific. A whale captured off northwestern Spain in 1984, was found to have been the product of a blue whale mother and a fin whale father.


title: Blue whale

text: Two live blue-fin whale hybrids have since been documented in the Gulf of St. Lawrence, (Canada), and in the Azores, (Portugal). DNA tests done in Iceland on a blue whale killed in July 2018 by the Icelandic whaling company Hvalur hf, found that the whale was the offspring of a male fin whale and female blue whale; however, the results are pending independent testing and verification of the samples. Because the International Whaling Commission classified blue whales as a "Protection Stock", trading their meat is illegal, and the kill is an infraction that must be reported. Blue-fin hybrids have been detected from genetic analysis of whale meat samples taken from Japanese markets. Blue-fin whale hybrids are capable of being fertile. Molecular tests on a pregnant female whale caught off Iceland in 1986 found that it had a blue whale mother and a fin whale father, while its fetus was sired by a blue whale.


title: Blue whale

text: There is reference to a humpback-blue whale hybrid in the South Pacific, attributed to marine biologist Michael Poole.


title: Blue whale

text: At least four subspecies of blue whale are recognized, some of which are divided into population stocks or "management units". They have a worldwide distribution, but are mostly absent from the Arctic Ocean and the Mediterranean, Okhotsk, and Bering Sea.


title: Blue whale

text: Blue whales off the Chilean coast may be a separate subspecies based on geographic separation, genetics, and unique song types. Chilean blue whales may overlap in the Eastern Tropical Pacific with Antarctica blue whales and Eastern North Pacific blue whales. Chilean blue whales are genetically differentiated from Antarctica blue whales and are unlikely to be interbreeding. However, the genetic distinction is less with the Eastern North Pacific blue whale and there may be gene flow between hemispheres.


title: Blue whale

text: The blue whale is a slender-bodied cetacean with a broad U-shaped head; thin, elongated flippers; a small sickle-shaped dorsal fin located close to the tail and a large tail stock at the root of the wide and thin flukes. The upper jaw is lined with 70–395 black baleen plates. The throat region has 60–88 grooves which allows the skin to expand during feeding. It has two blowholes that can squirt up in the air. The skin has a mottled grayish-blue coloration, appearing blue underwater. The mottling patterns near the dorsal fin vary between individuals. The underbelly has lighter pigmentation and can appear yellowish due to diatoms in the water, which historically earned them the nickname "sulphur bottom". The male blue whale has the largest penis in the animal kingdom, at around long and wide.


title: Blue whale

text: The blue whale is the largest known animal to have ever existed. The International Whaling Commission (IWC) whaling database reports 88 individuals longer than , including one of , but problems with how the measurements were taken suggest that any longer than are suspect. The Discovery Committee reported lengths up to ; however, the longest scientifically measured individual blue whale was from rostrum tip to tail notch. Female blue whales are larger than males. Hydrodynamic models suggest a blue whale could not exceed 108 ft (33 m) because of metabolic and energy constraints.


title: Blue whale

text: The average length of sexually mature female blue whales is for Eastern North Pacific blue whales, for central and western North Pacific blue whales, for North Atlantic blue whales, for Antarctic blue whales, for Chilean blue whales, and for pygmy blue whales.


title: Blue whale

text: In the Northern Hemisphere, males weigh an average and females . Eastern North Pacific blue whale males average and females . Antarctic males average and females . Pygmy blue whale males average to . The weight measured of the heart from a stranded North Atlantic blue whale was , the largest known in any animal.


title: Blue whale

text: Blue whales live around 80–90 years or more. Scientists look at a blue whale's earwax or ear plug to estimate its age. Each year, a light and dark layer of wax is laid corresponding with fasting during migration and feeding time. Each set is thus an indicator of age. The maximum age of a pygmy blue whale determined this way is 73 years. In addition, female blue whales develop scars or corpora albicantia on their ovaries every time they ovulate. In a female pygmy blue whale, one corpus albicans is formed on average every 2.6 years.


title: Blue whale

text: The blue whale is usually solitary, but can be found in pairs. When productivity is high enough, blue whales can be seen in gatherings of more than 50 individuals. Populations may go on long migrations, traveling to their summer feeding grounds towards the poles and then heading to their winter breeding grounds in more equatorial waters. The animals appear to use memory to locate the best feeding areas. There is evidence of alternative strategies, such as year-round residency, and partial (where only some individuals migrate) or age/sex-based migration. Some whales have been recorded feeding in breeding grounds. The traveling speed for blue whales ranges .


title: Blue whale

text: The greatest dive depth reported from tagged blue whales was . Their theoretical aerobic dive limit was estimated at 31.2 minutes, however, the longest dive measured was 15.2 minutes. The deepest confirmed dive from a pygmy blue whale was . A blue whale's heart rate can drop to 2 beats per minute (bpm) at deep depths, but upon surfacing, can rise to 37 bpm, which is close to its peak heart rate.


title: Blue whale

text: The blue whale's diet consists almost exclusively of krill. Blue whales capture krill through lunge feeding, they swim towards them at high speeds as they open their mouths up to 80° They may engulf of water at one time. They squeeze the water out through their baleen plates with pressure from the throat pouch and tongue, and swallow the remaining krill. Blue whales have been recorded making 180° rolls during lunge-feeding, possibly allowing them to search the prey field and find the densest patches.


title: Blue whale

text: While pursuing krill patches, blue whales maximize their calorie intake by increasing the number of lunges while selecting the thickest patches. This provides them enough energy for everyday activities while storing additional energy necessary for migration and reproduction. Blue whales have to engulf densities greater than 100 krill/m3 to maintain the cost of lunge feeding. They can consume from one mouthful of krill, which can provide up to 240 times more energy than used in a single lunge. It is estimated that an average-sized blue whale must consume of krill a day.


title: Blue whale

text: Blue whales appear to avoid directly competing with other baleen whales. Different whale species select different feeding spaces and times as well as different prey species. In the Southern Ocean, baleen whales appear to feed on Antarctic krill of different sizes, which may lessen competition between them.


title: Blue whale

text: Blue whales generally reach sexual maturity at 8–10 years. In the Northern Hemisphere, the length of which they reach maturity is for females and for males. In the Southern Hemisphere, the length of maturity is and for females and males respectively. Male pygmy blue whales average at sexual maturity. Female pygmy blue whales are in length and roughly 10 years old at the age of sexual maturity. Little is known about mating behavior, or breeding and birthing areas. Blue whales appear to be polygynous, with males competing for females. A male blue whale typically trails a female and will fight off potential rivals. The species mates from fall to winter.


title: Blue whale

text: Pregnant females eat roughly four percent of their body weight daily, amounting to 60% of their overall body weight throughout summer foraging periods. Gestation may last 10–12 months with calves being long and weighing at birth. Estimates suggest that because calves require milk per kg of mass gain, blue whales likely produce of milk per day (ranging from of milk per day). The first video of a calf thought to be nursing was filmed in New Zealand in 2016. Calves may be weaned when they reach 6–8 months old at a length of . They gain roughly during the weaning period. Interbirth periods last two to three years, they average 2.6 years in pygmy blue whales.


title: Blue whale

text: Blue whales produce some of the loudest and lowest frequency vocalizations in the animal kingdom. and their inner ears appear well adapted for detecting low-frequency sounds. The fundamental frequency for blue whale vocalizations ranges from 8 to 25 Hz. Blue whale songs vary between populations.


title: Blue whale

text: Vocalizations produced by the Eastern North Pacific population have been well studied. This population produces pulsed calls ("A") and tonal calls ("B"), upswept tones that precede type B calls ("C") and separate downswept tones ("D"). A and B calls are often produced in repeated co-occurring sequences and sung only by males, suggesting a reproductive function. D calls may have multiple functions. They are produced by both sexes during social interactions while feeding. and by males when competing for mates.


title: Blue whale

text: Blue whale calls recorded off Sri Lanka have a three‐unit phrase. The first unit is a 19.8 to 43.5 Hz pulsive call, and is normally 17.9 ± 5.2 seconds long. The second unit is a 55.9 to 72.4 Hz FM upsweep that is 13.8 ± 1.1 seconds long. The final unit is 28.5 ± 1.6 seconds long with a tone of 108 to 104.7 Hz. A blue whale call recorded off Madagascar, a two‐unit phrase, consists of with 5–7 pulses with a center frequency of 35.1 ± 0.7 Hz lasting 4.4 ± 0.5 seconds proceeding a 35 ± 0 Hz tone that is 10.9 ± 1.1 seconds long. In the Southern Ocean, blue whales' produce 18 second vocals which start with a 9-second-long, 27 Hz tone, and then a 1-second downsweep to 19 Hz, followed by a downsweep further to 18 Hz. Other vocalizations include 1–4 second long, frequency-modulated calls with a frequency of 80 and 38 Hz.


title: Blue whale

text: There is evidence that some blue whale songs have temporally declined in tonal frequency. The vocalization of blue whales in the Eastern North Pacific decreased in tonal frequency by 31% from the early 1960s to the early 21st century. The frequency of pygmy blue whales in the Antarctic has decreased by a few tenths of a hertz every year starting in 2002. It is possible that as blue whale populations recover from whaling, this is increasing sexual selection pressure (i.e., a lower frequency indicates a larger body size).


title: Blue whale

text: The only known natural threat to blue whales is the orca, although the rate of fatal attacks by orcas is unknown. Photograph-identification studies of blue whales have estimated that a high proportion of the individuals in the Gulf of California have rake-like scars, indicative of encounters with orcas. Off southeastern Australia, 3.7% of blue whales photographed had rake marks and 42.1% of photographed pygmy blue whales off western Australia had rake marks. Documented predation by orcas has been rare. A blue whale mother and calf were first observed being chased at high speeds by orcas off southeastern Australia. The first documented attack occurred in 1977 off southwestern Baja California, Mexico, but the injured whale escaped after five hours. Four more blue whales were documented as being chased by a group of orcas between 1982 and 2003. The first documented predation event by orcas occurred September 2003, when a group of orcas in the Eastern Tropical Pacific was encountered feeding on a recently killed blue whale calf. In March 2014, a commercial whale watch boat operator recorded an incident involving a group of orcas harassing a blue whale in Monterey Bay. The blue whale defended itself by slapping its tail. A similar incident was recorded by a drone in Monterey Bay in May 2017. The first direct observations of orca predation occurred off the south coast of Western Australia, two in 2019 and one more in 2021. The first victim was estimated to be .


title: Blue whale

text: In Antarctic waters, blue whales accumulate diatoms of the species "Cocconeis ceticola" and the genera "Navicola", which are normally removed when the whales enter warmer waters. Other external parasites include barnacles such as "Coronula diadema", "Coronula reginae" and "Cryptolepas rhachianecti", which latch on their skin deep enough to leave behind a pit if removed. Whale lice species make their home in cracks of the skin and are relatively harmless. The copepod species "Pennella balaenopterae" digs in and attaches itself to the blubber to feed on. Intestinal parasites include the trematode genera "Ogmogaster" and "Lecithodesmus", the tapeworm genera "Priapocephalus", "Phyllobotrium", "Tetrabothrius", "Diphyllobotrium" and "Diplogonoporus" and the thorny-headed worm genus "Bolbosoma". In the North Atlantic, blue whales also contain the protozoans "Entamoeba", "Giardia" and "Balantidium".


title: Blue whale

text: The global blue whale population is estimated to be 5,000–15,000 mature individuals and 10,000-25,000 total as of 2018. By comparison, there were at least 140,000 mature whales in 1926. There are an estimated total of 1,000–3,000 whales in the North Atlantic, 3,000–5,000 in the North Pacific and 5,000–8,000 in the Antarctic. There are possibly 1,000–3,000 whales in the eastern South Pacific while the pygmy blue whale may number 2,000–5,000 individuals. Blue whales have been protected in areas of the Southern Hemisphere since 1939. In 1955 they were given complete protection in the North Atlantic under the International Convention for the Regulation of Whaling; this protection was extended to the Antarctic in 1965 and the North Pacific in 1966. The protected status of North Atlantic blue whales was not recognized by Iceland until 1960. In the US, the species is protected under the Endangered Species Act.


title: Blue whale

text: Blue whales are formally classified as "endangered" under both the US Endangered Species Act and the IUCN Red List. They are also listed on Appendix I under the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) and the Convention on the Conservation of Migratory Species of Wild Animals. Although for some populations there is not enough information on current abundance trends (e.g., Pygmy blue whales), others are critically endangered (e.g., Antarctic blue whales).


title: Blue whale

text: Blue whales were initially difficult to hunt because of their size and speed. This began to change in the mid-19th century with the development of harpoons that can be shot as projectiles. Blue whale whaling peaked between 1930 and 1931 with 30,000 animals taken. Harvesting of the species was particularly high in the Antarctic, with 350,000–360,000 whales taken in the first half of the 20th century. In addition, 11,000 North Atlantic whales (mostly around Iceland) and 9,500 North Pacific whales were killed during the same period. The International Whaling Commission banned all hunting of blue whales in 1966 and gave them worldwide protection. However, the Soviet Union continued to illegally hunt blue whales and other species through to the 1970s.


title: Blue whale

text: Ship strikes are a significant mortality factor for blue whales, especially off the U.S. West Coast, A total of 17 blue whales were killed or suspected to have been killed by ships between 1998 and 2019 off the US West Coast. Five deaths in 2007 off California were considered an unusual mortality event, as defined under the Marine Mammal Protection Act. Lethal ship strikes are also a problem in Sri Lankan waters, where their habitat intersects with one of the world's most active shipping routes. Here, strikes caused the deaths of eleven blue whales in 2010 and 2012, and at least two in 2014. Ship strike mortality claimed the lives of two blue whales off southern Chile in the 2010s. Possible measures for reducing future ship strikes include better predictive models of whale distribution, changes in shipping lanes, vessel speed reductions, and seasonal and dynamic management of shipping lanes. Few cases of blue whale entanglement in commercial fishing gear have been documented. The first report in the U.S. occurred off California in 2015, reportedly some type of deep-water trap/pot fishery. Three more entanglement cases were reported in 2016. In Sri Lanka, a blue whale was documented with a net wrapped through its mouth, along the sides of its body, and wound around its tail.


title: Blue whale

text: Increasing man-made underwater noise impacts blue whales. They may be exposed to noise from commercial shipping and seismic surveys as a part of oil and gas exploration. Blue whales in the Southern California Bight decreased calling in the presence of mid-frequency active (MFA) sonar. Exposure to simulated MFA sonar was found to interrupt blue whale deep-dive feeding but no changes in behavior were observed in individuals feeding at shallower depths. The responses also depended on the animal's behavioral state, its (horizontal) distance from the sound source and the availability of prey.


title: Blue whale

text: The potential impacts of pollutants on blue whales is unknown. However, because blue whales feed low on the food chain, there is a lesser chance for bioaccumulation of organic chemical contaminants. Analysis of the earwax of a male blue whale killed by a collision with a ship off the coast of California showed contaminants like pesticides, flame retardants, and mercury. Reconstructed persistent organic pollutant (POP) profiles suggested that a substantial maternal transfer occurred during gestation and/or lactation. Male blue whales in the Gulf of St. Lawrence, Canada were found to have higher concentrations of PCBs, dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane (DDT), metabolites, and several other organochlorine compounds relative to females, reflecting maternal transfer of these persistent contaminants from females into young.


title: Constitutional monarchy

text: A constitutional monarchy, parliamentary monarchy, or democratic monarchy is a form of monarchy in which the monarch exercises their authority in accordance with a constitution and is not alone in decision making. Constitutional monarchies differ from absolute monarchies (in which a monarch is the only decision-maker) in that they are bound to exercise powers and authorities within limits prescribed by an established legal framework.


title: Constitutional monarchy

text: Constitutional monarchies range from countries such as Liechtenstein, Monaco, Morocco, Jordan, Kuwait, and Bahrain, where the constitution grants substantial discretionary powers to the sovereign, to countries such as Australia, the United Kingdom, Canada, the Netherlands, Spain, Belgium, Sweden, Malaysia, Thailand, Cambodia, and Japan, where the monarch retains significantly less personal discretion in the exercise of their authority.


title: Constitutional monarchy

text: "Constitutional monarchy" may refer to a system in which the monarch acts as a non-party political head of state under the constitution, whether codified or uncodified. While most monarchs may hold formal authority and the government may legally operate in the monarch's name, in the form typical in Europe the monarch no longer personally sets public policy or chooses political leaders. Political scientist Vernon Bogdanor, paraphrasing Thomas Macaulay, has defined a constitutional monarch as "A sovereign who reigns but does not rule".


title: Constitutional monarchy

text: In addition to acting as a visible symbol of national unity, a constitutional monarch may hold formal powers such as dissolving parliament or giving royal assent to legislation. However, such powers generally may only be exercised strictly in accordance with either written constitutional principles or unwritten constitutional conventions, rather than any personal political preferences of the sovereign. In "The English Constitution", British political theorist Walter Bagehot identified three main political rights which a constitutional monarch may freely exercise: the right to be consulted, the right to encourage, and the right to warn. Many constitutional monarchies still retain significant authorities or political influence, however, such as through certain reserve powers, and may also play an important political role.


title: Constitutional monarchy

text: The United Kingdom and the other Commonwealth realms are all constitutional monarchies in the Westminster system of constitutional governance. Two constitutional monarchies – Malaysia and Cambodia – are elective monarchies, in which the ruler is periodically selected by a small electoral college.


title: Constitutional monarchy

text: Strongly limited constitutional monarchies, such as the United Kingdom and Australia, have been referred to as crowned republics by writers H. G. Wells and Glenn Patmore.


title: Constitutional monarchy

text: The concept of semi-constitutional monarch identifies constitutional monarchies where the monarch retains substantial powers, on a par with a president in a presidential or semi-presidential system. As a result, constitutional monarchies where the monarch has a largely ceremonial role may also be referred to as 'parliamentary monarchies' to differentiate them from semi-constitutional monarchies.


title: Constitutional monarchy

text: The oldest constitutional monarchy dating back to ancient times was that of the Hittites. They were an ancient Anatolian people that lived during the Bronze Age whose king had to share his authority with an assembly, called the "Panku", which was the equivalent to a modern-day deliberative assembly or a legislature. Members of the "Panku" came from scattered noble families who worked as representatives of their subjects in an adjutant or subaltern federal-type landscape.


title: Constitutional monarchy

text: In the Kingdom of England, the Glorious Revolution of 1688 furthered the constitutional monarchy, restricted by laws such as the Bill of Rights 1689 and the Act of Settlement 1701, although the first form of constitution was enacted with the Magna Carta of 1215. At the same time, in Scotland, the Convention of Estates enacted the Claim of Right Act 1689, which placed similar limits on the Scottish monarchy.


title: Constitutional monarchy

text: Queen Anne was the last monarch to veto an Act of Parliament when, on 11 March 1708, she blocked the Scottish Militia Bill. However Hanoverian monarchs continued to selectively dictate government policies. For instance King George III constantly blocked Catholic Emancipation, eventually precipitating the resignation of William Pitt the Younger as prime minister in 1801. The sovereign's influence on the choice of prime minister gradually declined over this period. King William IV was the last monarch to dismiss a prime minister, when in 1834 he removed Lord Melbourne as a result of Melbourne's choice of Lord John Russell as Leader of the House of Commons. Queen Victoria was the last monarch to exercise real personal power, but this diminished over the course of her reign. In 1839, she became the last sovereign to keep a prime minister in power against the will of Parliament when the Bedchamber crisis resulted in the retention of Lord Melbourne's administration. By the end of her reign, however, she could do nothing to block the unacceptable (to her) premierships of William Gladstone, although she still exercised power in appointments to the Cabinet. For example in 1886 she vetoed Gladstone's choice of Hugh Childers as War Secretary in favour of Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman.


title: Constitutional monarchy

text: Today, the role of the British monarch is by convention effectively ceremonial. The British Parliament and the Government – chiefly in the office of Prime Minister of the United Kingdom – exercise their powers under "Royal (or Crown) Prerogative": on behalf of the monarch and through powers still formally possessed by the monarch.


title: Constitutional monarchy

text: No person may accept significant public office without swearing an oath of allegiance to the King. With few exceptions, the monarch is bound by constitutional convention to act on the advice of the Government.


title: Constitutional monarchy

text: Poland developed the first constitution for a monarchy in continental Europe, with the Constitution of 3 May 1791; it was the second single-document constitution in the world just after the first republican Constitution of the United States. Constitutional monarchy also occurred briefly in the early years of the French Revolution, but much more widely afterwards. Napoleon Bonaparte is considered the first monarch proclaiming himself as an embodiment of the nation, rather than as a divinely appointed ruler; this interpretation of monarchy is germane to continental constitutional monarchies. German philosopher Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, in his work "Elements of the Philosophy of Right" (1820), gave the concept a philosophical justification that concurred with evolving contemporary political theory and the Protestant Christian view of natural law. Hegel's forecast of a constitutional monarch with very limited powers whose function is to embody the national character and provide constitutional continuity in times of emergency was reflected in the development of constitutional monarchies in Europe and Japan.


title: Constitutional monarchy

text: There exist at least two different types of constitutional monarchies in the modern world — executive and ceremonial. In executive monarchies, the monarch wields significant (though not absolute) power. The monarchy under this system of government is a powerful political (and social) institution. By contrast, in ceremonial monarchies, the monarch holds little or no actual power or direct political influence, though they frequently have a great deal of social and cultural influence.


title: Constitutional monarchy

text: Executive constitutional monarchies: Bhutan, Bahrain, Jordan, Kuwait, Liechtenstein, Monaco, Morocco, Qatar, and Tonga.


title: Constitutional monarchy

text: Ceremonial constitutional monarchies (informally referred to as crowned republics): Andorra, Antigua and Barbuda, Australia, The Bahamas, Belgium, Belize, Cambodia, Canada, Denmark, Grenada, Jamaica, Japan, Lesotho, Luxembourg, Malaysia, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Papua New Guinea, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Saint Lucia, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Solomon Islands, Spain, Sweden, Thailand, Tuvalu and the United Kingdom.


title: Constitutional monarchy

text: Ceremonial and executive monarchy should not be confused with democratic and non-democratic monarchical systems. For example, in Liechtenstein and Monaco, the ruling monarchs wield significant executive power. However, while they are theoretically very powerful within their small states, they are "not" absolute monarchs and have very limited de facto power compared to the Islamic monarchs, which is why their countries are generally considered to be liberal democracies. For instance, when Hereditary Prince Alois of Liechtenstein threatened to veto a referendum to legalize abortion in 2011, it came as a surprise because the prince had not vetoed any law for over 30 years (in the end, this referendum failed to make it to a vote).


title: Constitutional monarchy

text: As originally conceived, a constitutional monarch was head of the executive branch and quite a powerful figure even though their power was limited by the constitution and the elected parliament. Some of the framers of the U.S. Constitution may have envisioned the president as an elected constitutional monarch, as the term was then understood, following Montesquieu's account of the separation of powers.


title: Constitutional monarchy

text: The present-day concept of a constitutional monarchy developed in the United Kingdom, where the democratically elected parliaments, and their leader, the prime minister, exercise power, with the monarchs having ceded power and remaining as a titular position. In many cases the monarchs, while still at the very top of the political and social hierarchy, were given the status of "servants of the people" to reflect the new, egalitarian position. In the course of France's July Monarchy, Louis-Philippe I was styled "King of the French" rather than "King of France".


title: Constitutional monarchy

text: Following the unification of Germany, Otto von Bismarck rejected the British model. In the constitutional monarchy established under the Constitution of the German Empire which Bismarck inspired, the Kaiser retained considerable actual executive power, while the Imperial Chancellor needed no parliamentary vote of confidence and ruled solely by the imperial mandate. However, this model of constitutional monarchy was discredited and abolished following Germany's defeat in the First World War. Later, Fascist Italy could also be considered a constitutional monarchy, in that there was a king as the titular head of state while actual power was held by Benito Mussolini under a constitution. This eventually discredited the Italian monarchy and led to its abolition in 1946. After the Second World War, surviving European monarchies almost invariably adopted some variant of the constitutional monarchy model originally developed in Britain.


title: Constitutional monarchy

text: Nowadays a parliamentary democracy that is a constitutional monarchy is considered to differ from one that is a republic only in detail rather than in substance. In both cases, the titular head of state—monarch or president—serves the traditional role of embodying and representing the nation, while the government is carried on by a cabinet composed predominantly of elected Members of Parliament.


title: Constitutional monarchy

text: However, three important factors distinguish monarchies such as the United Kingdom from systems where greater power might otherwise rest with Parliament. These are:


title: Constitutional monarchy

text: Other privileges may be nominal or ceremonial (e.g. where the executive, judiciary, police or armed forces act on the authority of or owe allegiance to the Crown).


title: Constitutional monarchy

text: Today slightly more than a quarter of constitutional monarchies are Western European countries, including the United Kingdom, Spain, the Netherlands, Belgium, Norway, Denmark, Luxembourg, Monaco, Liechtenstein and Sweden. However, the two most populous constitutional monarchies in the world are in Asia: Japan and Thailand. In these countries, the prime minister holds the day-to-day powers of governance, while the monarch retains residual (but not always insignificant) powers. The powers of the monarch differ between countries. In Denmark and in Belgium, for example, the monarch formally appoints a representative to preside over the creation of a coalition government following a parliamentary election, while in Norway the King chairs special meetings of the cabinet.


title: Constitutional monarchy

text: In nearly all cases, the monarch is still the nominal chief executive, but is bound by convention to act on the advice of the Cabinet. Only a few monarchies (most notably Japan and Sweden) have amended their constitutions so that the monarch is no longer even the nominal chief executive.


title: Constitutional monarchy

text: There are fifteen constitutional monarchies under King Charles III, which are known as Commonwealth realms. Unlike some of their continental European counterparts, the Monarch and his Governors-General in the Commonwealth realms hold significant "reserve" or "prerogative" powers, to be wielded in times of extreme emergency or constitutional crises, usually to uphold parliamentary government. For example, during the 1975 Australian constitutional crisis, the Governor-General dismissed the Australian Prime Minister Gough Whitlam. The Australian Senate had threatened to block the Government's budget by refusing to pass the necessary appropriation bills. On 11 November 1975, Whitlam intended to call a half-Senate election to try to break the deadlock. When he sought the Governor-General's approval of the election, the Governor-General instead dismissed him as Prime Minister. Shortly after that, he installed leader of the opposition Malcolm Fraser in his place. Acting quickly before all parliamentarians became aware of the government change, Fraser and his allies secured passage of the appropriation bills, and the Governor-General dissolved Parliament for a double dissolution election. Fraser and his government were returned with a massive majority. This led to much speculation among Whitlam's supporters as to whether this use of the Governor-General's reserve powers was appropriate, and whether Australia should become a republic. Among supporters of constitutional monarchy, however, the event confirmed the monarchy's value as a source of checks and balances against elected politicians who might seek powers in excess of those conferred by the constitution, and ultimately as a safeguard against dictatorship.


title: Constitutional monarchy

text: In Thailand's constitutional monarchy, the monarch is recognized as the Head of State, Head of the Armed Forces, Upholder of the Buddhist Religion, and Defender of the Faith. The immediate former King, Bhumibol Adulyadej, was the longest-reigning monarch in the world and in all of Thailand's history, before passing away on 13 October 2016. Bhumibol reigned through several political changes in the Thai government. He played an influential role in each incident, often acting as mediator between disputing political opponents. (See Bhumibol's role in Thai Politics.) Among the powers retained by the Thai monarch under the constitution, lèse majesté protects the image of the monarch and enables him to play a role in politics. It carries strict criminal penalties for violators. Generally, the Thai people were reverent of Bhumibol. Much of his social influence arose from this reverence and from the socioeconomic improvement efforts undertaken by the royal family.


title: Constitutional monarchy

text: In the United Kingdom, a frequent debate centres on when it is appropriate for a British monarch to act. When a monarch does act, political controversy can often ensue, partially because the neutrality of the crown is seen to be compromised in favour of a partisan goal, while some political scientists champion the idea of an "interventionist monarch" as a check against possible illegal action by politicians. For instance, the monarch of the United Kingdom can theoretically exercise an absolute veto over legislation by withholding royal assent. However, no monarch has done so since 1708, and it is widely believed that this and many of the monarch's other political powers are lapsed powers.


title: Constitutional monarchy

text: a. Indonesia, as a presidential republic, has two special regions with monarchies as heads of the regions.


title: Yoga

text: Yoga (; ) is a group of physical, mental, and spiritual practices or disciplines which originated in ancient India and aim to control (yoke) and still the mind, recognizing a detached witness-consciousness untouched by the mind ("Chitta") and mundane suffering ("Duḥkha"). There is a wide variety of schools of yoga, practices, and goals in Hinduism, Buddhism, and Jainism, and traditional and modern yoga is practiced worldwide.


title: Yoga

text: Two general theories exist on the origins of yoga. The linear model holds that yoga originated in the Vedic period, as reflected in the Vedic textual corpus, and influenced Buddhism; according to author Edward Fitzpatrick Crangle, this model is mainly supported by Hindu scholars. According to the synthesis model, yoga is a synthesis of non-Vedic and Vedic elements; this model is favoured in Western scholarship.