title: Josip Broz Tito

text: Prime Minister Josip Broz Tito met with the president of the Bishops' Conference of Yugoslavia, Aloysius Stepinac on 4 June 1945, two days after his release from imprisonment. The two could not reach an agreement on the state of the Catholic Church. Under Stepinac's leadership, the bishops' conference released a letter condemning alleged Partisan war crimes in September 1945. The following year Stepinac was arrested and put on trial, which was perceived by some as a show trial. In October 1946, in its first special session for 75 years, the Vatican excommunicated Tito and the Yugoslav government for sentencing Stepinac to 16 years in prison on charges of assisting Ustaše terror and of supporting forced conversions of Serbs to Catholicism. Stepinac received preferential treatment in recognition of his status and the sentence was soon shortened and reduced to house arrest, with the option of emigration open to the archbishop. At the conclusion of the "Informbiro period", reforms rendered Yugoslavia considerably more religiously liberal than the Eastern Bloc states.


title: Josip Broz Tito

text: In the first post-war years, Tito was widely considered a communist leader very loyal to Moscow, indeed, he was often viewed as second only to Stalin in the Eastern Bloc. In fact, Stalin and Tito had an uneasy alliance from the start, with Stalin considering Tito too independent.


title: Josip Broz Tito

text: During the immediate post-war period, Tito's Yugoslavia had a strong commitment to orthodox Marxist ideas. Harsh repressive measures against dissidents and "enemies of the state" were common from government agents, although not known to be under Tito's orders, including "arrests, show trials, forced collectivisation, suppression of churches and religion". As the leader of Yugoslavia, Tito displayed a fondness for luxury, taking over the royal palaces that had belonged to the House of Karađorđević together with the former palaces used by the House of Habsburg that were located in Yugoslavia. Tito's governing style was very monarchical, as his tours across Yugoslavia in the former royal train closely resembled the royal tours of the Karađorđević kings and Habsburg emperors, and in Serbia, he adopted the traditional royal custom of being a godfather to every 9th son. Tito modified the custom by becoming a godfather to every 9th daughter as well after criticism was made that the practice was sexist. Just like a Serbian king, Tito would appear wherever a 9th child was born to the family to congratulate the parents and give them a gift of cash. Tito always spoke very harshly of the Karađorđević kings in both public and private (through in private, he sometimes had a kind word for the Habsburgs), but in many ways, he appeared to his people as a sort of king.


title: Josip Broz Tito

text: Unlike other states in east-central Europe liberated by allied forces, Yugoslavia liberated itself from Axis domination with limited direct support from the Red Army. Tito's leading role in liberating Yugoslavia not only greatly strengthened his position in his party and among the Yugoslav people, but also caused him to be more insistent that Yugoslavia had more room to follow its own interests than other Bloc leaders who had more reasons to recognise Soviet efforts in helping them liberate their own countries from Axis control. Although Tito was formally an ally of Stalin after World War II, the Soviets had set up a spy ring in the Yugoslav party as early as 1945, giving way to an uneasy alliance.


title: Josip Broz Tito

text: In the immediate aftermath of World War II, several armed incidents occurred between Yugoslavia and the Western Allies. Following the war, Yugoslavia acquired the Italian territory of Istria as well as the cities of Zadar and Rijeka. Yugoslav leadership was looking to incorporate Trieste into the country as well, which was opposed by the Western Allies. This led to several armed incidents, notably attacks by Yugoslav fighter planes on U.S. transport aircraft, causing bitter criticism from the West. In 1946 alone, Yugoslav air-force shot down two U.S. transport aircraft. The passengers and crew of the first plane were secretly interned by the Yugoslav government. The second plane and its crew were a total loss. The U.S. was outraged and sent an ultimatum to the Yugoslav government, demanding the release of the Americans in custody, U.S. access to the downed planes, and full investigation of the incidents. Stalin was opposed to these provocations, as he felt the USSR unready to face the West in open war so soon after the losses of World War II and at the time when U.S. had operational nuclear weapons whereas the USSR had yet to conduct its first test. In addition, Tito was openly supportive of the Communist side in the Greek Civil War, while Stalin kept his distance, having agreed with Churchill not to pursue Soviet interests there, although he did support the Greek communist struggle politically, as demonstrated in several assemblies of the UN Security Council. In 1948, motivated by the desire to create a strong independent economy, Tito modelled his economic development plan independently from Moscow, which resulted in a diplomatic escalation followed by a bitter exchange of letters in which Tito wrote that "We study and take as an example the Soviet system, but we are developing socialism in our country in somewhat different forms".


title: Josip Broz Tito

text: The Soviet answer on 4 May admonished Tito and the Communist Party of Yugoslavia (CPY) for failing to admit and correct its mistakes, and went on to accuse them of being too proud of their successes against the Germans, maintaining that the Red Army had saved them from destruction. Tito's response on 17 May suggested that the matter be settled at the meeting of the Cominform to be held that June. However, Tito did not attend the second meeting of the Cominform, fearing that Yugoslavia was to be openly attacked. In 1949 the crisis nearly escalated into an armed conflict, as Hungarian and Soviet forces were massing on the northern Yugoslav frontier. An invasion of Yugoslavia was planned to be carried out in 1949 via the combined forces of neighbouring Soviet satellite states of Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria and Albania, followed by the subsequent removal of Tito's government. On 28 June, the other member countries of the Cominform expelled Yugoslavia, citing "nationalist elements" that had "managed in the course of the past five or six months to reach a dominant position in the leadership" of the CPY. The Hungarian and Romanian armies were expanded in size and, together with Soviet ones, massed on the Yugoslav border. The assumption in Moscow was that once it was known that he had lost Soviet approval, Tito would collapse; "I will shake my little finger and there will be no more Tito," Stalin remarked. The expulsion effectively banished Yugoslavia from the international association of socialist states, while other socialist states of Eastern Europe subsequently underwent purges of alleged "Titoists". Stalin took the matter personally and arranged several assassination attempts on Tito, none of which succeeded. In one correspondence between them, Tito openly wrote:


title: Josip Broz Tito

text: One significant consequence of the tension arising between Yugoslavia and the Soviet Union was Tito's decision to begin large-scale repression against enemies of the government. This repression was not limited to known and alleged Stalinists, but also included members of the Communist Party or anyone exhibiting sympathy towards the Soviet Union. Prominent partisans, such as Vlado Dapčević and Dragoljub Mićunović, were victims of this period of strong repression, which lasted until 1956 and was marked by significant violations of human rights. Tens of thousands of political opponents served in forced labour camps, such as Goli Otok (meaning Barren Island), and hundreds died. An often disputed, but relatively feasible number that was put forth by the Yugoslav government itself in 1964 places the number of Goli Otok inmates incarcerated between 1948 and 1956 to be 16,554, with less than 600 having died during detention. The facilities at Goli Otok were abandoned in 1956, and jurisdiction of the now-defunct political prison was handed over to the government of the Socialist Republic of Croatia.


title: Josip Broz Tito

text: Tito's estrangement from the USSR enabled Yugoslavia to obtain U.S. aid via the Economic Cooperation Administration (ECA), the same U.S. aid institution that administered the Marshall Plan. Still, he did not agree to align with the West, which was a common consequence of accepting American aid at the time. After Stalin's death in 1953, relations with the USSR were relaxed, and Tito began to receive aid as well from the COMECON. In this way, Tito played East–West antagonism to his advantage. Instead of choosing sides, he was instrumental in kick-starting the Non-Aligned Movement, which would function as a "third way" for countries interested in staying outside of the East–West divide.


title: Josip Broz Tito

text: The event was significant not only for Yugoslavia and Tito, but also for the global development of socialism, since it was the first major split between Communist states, casting doubt on Comintern's claims for socialism to be a unified force that would eventually control the whole world, as Tito became the first (and the only successful) socialist leader to defy Stalin's leadership in the COMINFORM. This rift with the Soviet Union brought Tito much international recognition, but also triggered a period of instability often referred to as the Informbiro period. Tito's form of communism was labelled "Titoism" by Moscow, which encouraged purges against suspected "Titoites'" throughout the Eastern bloc.


title: Josip Broz Tito

text: On 26 June 1950, the National Assembly supported a crucial bill written by Milovan Đilas and Tito regarding "self-management" ("samoupravljanje"), a type of cooperative independent socialist experiment that introduced profit sharing and workplace democracy in previously state-run enterprises, which then became the direct social ownership of the employees. On 13 January 1953, they established that the law on self-management was the basis of the entire social order in Yugoslavia. Tito also succeeded Ivan Ribar as the President of Yugoslavia on 14 January 1953. After Stalin's death, Tito rejected the USSR's invitation for a visit to discuss the normalisation of relations between the two nations. Nikita Khrushchev and Nikolai Bulganin visited Tito in Belgrade in 1955 and apologised for wrongdoings by Stalin's administration. Tito visited the USSR in 1956, which signalled to the world that animosity between Yugoslavia and USSR was easing. Relations between Yugoslavia and the Soviet Union worsened in the late 1960s because of the Yugoslav economic reform and Yugoslav support for the Prague Spring.


title: Josip Broz Tito

text: The Tito-Stalin split had large ramifications for countries outside the USSR and Yugoslavia. It has, for example, been given as one of the reasons for the Slánský trial in Czechoslovakia, in which 14 high-level Communist officials were purged, with 11 of them being executed. Stalin put pressure on Czechoslovakia to conduct purges in order to discourage the spread of the idea of a "national path to socialism," which Tito espoused.


title: Josip Broz Tito

text: Under Tito's leadership, Yugoslavia became a founding member of the Non-Aligned Movement. In 1961, Tito co-founded the movement with Egypt's Gamal Abdel Nasser, India's Jawaharlal Nehru, Indonesia's Sukarno and Ghana's Kwame Nkrumah, in an action called The Initiative of Five (Tito, Nehru, Nasser, Sukarno, Nkrumah), thus establishing strong ties with third world countries. This move did much to improve Yugoslavia's diplomatic position. Tito saw the Non-Aligned Movement as a way of presenting himself as a world leader of an important bloc of nations that would improve his bargaining power with both the eastern and western blocs. On 1 September 1961, Josip Broz Tito became the first Secretary-General of the Non-Aligned Movement.


title: Josip Broz Tito

text: Tito's foreign policy led to relationships with a variety of governments, such as exchanging visits (1954 and 1956) with Emperor Haile Selassie of Ethiopia, where a street was named in his honour. In 1953, Tito visited Ethiopia and in 1954, the Emperor visited Yugoslavia. Tito's motives in befriending Ethiopia were somewhat self-interested as he wanted to send recent graduates of Yugoslav universities (whose standards were not up to those of Western universities, thus making them unemployable in the West) to work in Ethiopia, which was one of the few countries that was willing to accept them. As Ethiopia did not have much of a health care system or a university system, Haile Selassie from 1953 onward encouraged the graduates of Yugoslav universities, especially with medical degrees, to come work in his empire. Reflecting his tendency to pursue closer ties with Third World nations, from 1950 onward, Tito permitted Mexican films to be shown in Yugoslavia, where they become very popular, especially the 1950 film "Un día de vida", which become a huge hit when it premiered in Yugoslavia in 1952. The success of Mexican films led to the "Yu-Mex" craze of the 1950s–1960s as Mexican music become popular and it was fashionable for many Yugoslav musicians to don sombreros and sing Mexican songs in Serbo-Croatian.


title: Josip Broz Tito

text: Tito was notable for pursuing a foreign policy of neutrality during the Cold War and for establishing close ties with developing countries. Tito's strong belief in self-determination caused the 1948 rift with Stalin and consequently, the Eastern Bloc. His public speeches often reiterated that policy of neutrality and co-operation with all countries would be natural as long as these countries did not use their influence to pressure Yugoslavia to take sides. Relations with the United States and Western European nations were generally cordial.


title: Josip Broz Tito

text: In the early 1950s, Yugoslav-Hungarian relations were strained as Tito made little secret of his distaste for the Stalinist Mátyás Rákosi and his preference for the "national communist" Imre Nagy instead. Tito's decision to create a "Balkan bloc" by signing a treaty of alliance with NATO members Turkey and Greece in 1954 was regarded as tantamount to joining NATO in Soviet eyes, and his vague talk of a neutralist Communist federation of Eastern European states was seen as a major threat in Moscow. The Yugoslav embassy in Budapest was seen by the Soviets as a centre of subversion in Hungary as they accused Yugoslav diplomats and journalists, sometimes with justification, of supporting Nagy. However, when the revolt broke out in Hungary in October 1956, Tito accused Nagy of losing control of the situation, as he wanted a Communist Hungary independent of the Soviet Union, not the overthrow of Hungarian Communism. On 31 October 1956, Tito ordered the Yugoslav media to stop praising Nagy and he quietly supported the Soviet intervention on 4 November to end the revolt in Hungary, as he believed that a Hungary ruled by anti-communists would pursue irredentist claims against Yugoslavia, as had just been the case during the interwar period. To escape from the Soviets, Nagy fled to the Yugoslav embassy, where Tito granted him asylum. On 5 November 1956, Soviet tanks shelled the Yugoslav embassy in Budapest, killing the Yugoslav cultural attache and several other diplomats. Tito's refusal to turn over Nagy, despite increasingly shrill Soviet demands that he do so, served his purposes well with relations with the Western states, as he was presented in the Western media as the "good communist" who stood up to Moscow by sheltering Nagy and the other Hungarian leaders. On 22 November, Nagy and his cabinet left the embassy on a bus that took them into exile in Yugoslavia after the new Hungarian leader, János Kádár had promised Tito in writing that they would not be harmed. Much to Tito's fury, when the bus left the Yugoslav embassy, it was promptly boarded by KGB agents who arrested the Hungarian leaders and roughly handled the Yugoslav diplomats who tried to protect them. The kidnapping of Nagy, followed by his subsequent execution, almost led to Yugoslavia breaking off diplomatic relations with the Soviet Union and in 1957 Tito boycotted the ceremonials in Moscow for the 40th anniversary of the October Revolution, being the only communist leader who did not attend the occasion.


title: Josip Broz Tito

text: Yugoslavia had a liberal travel policy permitting foreigners to freely travel through the country and its citizens to travel worldwide, whereas it was limited by most Communist countries. A number of Yugoslav citizens worked throughout Western Europe. Tito met many world leaders during his rule, such as Soviet rulers Joseph Stalin, Nikita Khrushchev and Leonid Brezhnev; Egypt's Gamal Abdel Nasser, Indian politicians Jawaharlal Nehru and Indira Gandhi; British Prime Ministers Winston Churchill, James Callaghan and Margaret Thatcher; U.S. Presidents Dwight D. Eisenhower, John F. Kennedy, Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford and Jimmy Carter; other political leaders, dignitaries and heads of state that Tito met at least once in his lifetime included Che Guevara, Fidel Castro, Yasser Arafat, Willy Brandt, Helmut Schmidt, Georges Pompidou, Kwame Nkrumah, Queen Elizabeth II, Hua Guofeng, Kim Il Sung, Sukarno, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, Suharto, Idi Amin, Haile Selassie, Kenneth Kaunda, Gaddafi, Erich Honecker, Nicolae Ceaușescu, János Kádár and Urho Kekkonen. He also met numerous celebrities.


title: Josip Broz Tito

text: Yugoslavia provided major assistance to anti-colonialist movements in the Third World. The Yugoslav delegation was the first to bring the demands of the Algerian National Liberation Front to the United Nations. In January 1958, the French navy boarded the Slovenija cargo ship off Oran, whose holds were filled with weapons for the insurgents. Diplomat Danilo Milic explained that "Tito and the leading nucleus of the League of Communists of Yugoslavia really saw in the Third World's liberation struggles a replica of their own struggle against the fascist occupants. They vibrated to the rhythm of the advances or setbacks of the FLN or Vietcong.


title: Josip Broz Tito

text: Thousands of Yugoslav cooperants travelled Guinea after its decolonisation and as the French government tried to destabilise the country. Tito also supported the liberation movements of the Portuguese colonies in Africa. He saw the murder of Patrice Lumumba in 1961 as the "greatest crime in contemporary history". The country's military schools hosted activists from Swapo (Namibia) and the Pan Africanist Congress of Azania (South Africa). In 1980, the secret services of South Africa and Argentina planned to bring 1,500 anti-communist guerrillas to Yugoslavia. The operation was aimed at overthrowing Tito and was planned during the Olympic Games period so that the Soviets would be too busy to react. The operation was finally abandoned due to Tito's death and while the Yugoslav armed forces raised their alert level.


title: Josip Broz Tito

text: In 1953, Tito traveled to Britain for a state visit and met with Winston Churchill. He also toured Cambridge and visited the University Library.


title: Josip Broz Tito

text: Tito visited India from 22 December 1954 through 8 January 1955. After his return, he removed many restrictions on churches and spiritual institutions in Yugoslavia.


title: Josip Broz Tito

text: Tito also developed warm relations with Burma under U Nu, travelling to the country in 1955 and again in 1959, though he didn't receive the same treatment in 1959 from the new leader, Ne Win. Tito had an especially close friendship with Prince Norodom Sihanouk of Cambodia who preached an eccentric mixture of monarchism, Buddhism, and socialism and like Tito wanted his country to be neutral in the Cold War. Tito saw Sihanouk as something of a kindred soul who like him had to struggle to maintain his backward country's neutrality in face of rival power blocs. By contrast, Tito had a strong dislike of President Idi Amin of Uganda whom he saw as a thuggish and possibly insane leader.


title: Josip Broz Tito

text: Because of its neutrality, Yugoslavia would often be rare among Communist countries to have diplomatic relations with right-wing, anti-Communist governments. For example, Yugoslavia was the only communist country that had diplomatic relations with Alfredo Stroessner's Paraguay. One notable exception to Yugoslavia's neutral stance toward anti-communist countries was Chile under Pinochet; Yugoslavia was one of many countries that severed diplomatic relations with Chile after Salvador Allende was overthrown. Yugoslavia also provided military aid and arms supplies to staunchly anti-Communist regimes such as that of Guatemala under Kjell Eugenio Laugerud García.


title: Josip Broz Tito

text: Starting in the 1950s, Tito permitted Yugoslav workers to go to western Europe, especially West Germany as "Gastarbeiter" ("guest workers"). The exposure of many Yugoslavs to the West and its culture led many people in Yugoslavia to view themselves as culturally closer to Western Europe than Eastern Europe. In the autumn of 1960, Tito met President Dwight D. Eisenhower at the United Nations General Assembly meeting. Tito and Eisenhower discussed a range of issues from arms control to economic development. When Eisenhower remarked that Yugoslavia's neutrality was "neutral on his side", Tito replied that neutrality did not imply passivity but meant "not taking sides". On 7 April 1963, the country changed its official name to the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. Reforms encouraged private enterprise and greatly relaxed restrictions on religious expression. Tito subsequently went on a tour of the Americas. In Chile, two government ministers resigned over his visit to that country.


title: Josip Broz Tito

text: In 1966, an agreement with the Vatican, fostered in part by the death in 1960 of the anti-communist archbishop of Zagreb Aloysius Stepinac and shifts in the church's approach to resisting communism originating in the Second Vatican Council, accorded new freedom to the Yugoslav Roman Catholic Church, particularly to catechise and open seminaries. The agreement also eased tensions, which had prevented the naming of new bishops in Yugoslavia since 1945. Tito's new socialism met opposition from traditional communists culminating in conspiracy headed by Aleksandar Ranković. There exists a strong argument that Ranković was framed. Allegedly, the charge on which he was removed from power and expelled from the LCY was that he bugged the working and sleeping quarters of Josip Broz Tito as well as many other high government officials. Ranković was, for almost twenty years, at the head of the State Security Administration, as well as Federal Secretary of Internal Affairs. His position as a party whip and Tito's way of controlling and monitoring the government and, to a certain extent the people, bothered many, especially the younger, newer generation of government officials who were working towards a more liberal Yugoslav society. In the same year Tito declared that Communists must henceforth chart Yugoslavia's course by the force of their arguments (implying an abandonment of Leninist orthodoxy and development of liberal Communism). The State Security Administration (UDBA) saw its power scaled back and its staff reduced to 5000 after the removal of Ranković. Some historians argue that this shift from Communist orthodoxy and strong centralised government control to Communist liberalism and a more open, decentralised society played a role in the eventual break-up of the country.


title: Josip Broz Tito

text: On 1 January 1967, Yugoslavia was the first communist country to open its borders to all foreign visitors and abolish visa requirements. In the same year Tito became active in promoting a peaceful resolution of the Arab–Israeli conflict. His plan called for Arabs to recognise the state of Israel in exchange for territories Israel gained.


title: Josip Broz Tito

text: In 1968, Tito offered to fly to Prague on three hours' notice, if Czechoslovak leader Alexander Dubček needed help in facing down the Soviets. In April 1969, Tito removed generals Ivan Gošnjak and Rade Hamović in the aftermath of the invasion of Czechoslovakia due to the unpreparedness of the Yugoslav army to respond to a similar invasion of Yugoslavia.


title: Josip Broz Tito

text: In 1971, Tito was re-elected as President of Yugoslavia by the Federal Assembly for the sixth time. In his speech before the Federal Assembly, he introduced 20 sweeping constitutional amendments that would provide an updated framework on which the country would be based. The amendments provided for a collective presidency, a 22-member body consisting of elected representatives from six republics and two autonomous provinces. The body would have a single chairman of the presidency and chairmanship would rotate among six republics. When the Federal Assembly fails to agree on legislation, the collective presidency would have the power to rule by decree. Amendments also provided for a stronger cabinet with considerable power to initiate and pursue legislation independently from the Communist Party. Džemal Bijedić was chosen as the Premier. The new amendments aimed to decentralise the country by granting greater autonomy to republics and provinces. The federal government would retain authority only over foreign affairs, defence, internal security, monetary affairs, free trade within Yugoslavia, and development loans to poorer regions. Control of education, healthcare, and housing would be exercised entirely by the governments of the republics and the autonomous provinces.


title: Josip Broz Tito

text: Tito's greatest strength, in the eyes of the western communists, had been in suppressing nationalist insurrections and maintaining unity throughout the country. It was Tito's call for unity, and related methods, that held together the people of Yugoslavia. This ability was put to a test several times during his reign, notably during the Croatian Spring (also referred as the "Masovni pokret", "maspok", meaning "Mass Movement") when the government suppressed both public demonstrations and dissenting opinions within the Communist Party. Despite this suppression, much of maspok's demands were later realised with the new constitution, heavily backed by Tito himself against opposition from the Serbian branch of the party. On 16 May 1974, the new Constitution was passed, and the 82-year-old Tito was named president for life.


title: Josip Broz Tito

text: Tito's visits to the United States avoided most of the Northeast due to large minorities of Yugoslav emigrants bitter about communism in Yugoslavia. Security for the state visits was usually high to keep him away from protesters, who would frequently burn the Yugoslav flag. During a visit to the United Nations in the late 1970s emigrants shouted "Tito murderer" outside his New York hotel, for which he protested to United States authorities.


title: Josip Broz Tito

text: Dominic McGoldrick writes that as the head of a "highly centralised and oppressive" regime, Tito wielded tremendous power in Yugoslavia, with his authoritarian rule administered through an elaborate bureaucracy that routinely suppressed human rights. The main victims of this repression were during the first years known and alleged Stalinists, such as Dragoslav Mihailović and Dragoljub Mićunović, but during the following years, even some of the most prominent among Tito's collaborators were arrested. On 19 November 1956 Milovan Đilas, perhaps the closest of Tito's collaborators and widely regarded as his possible successor, was arrested because of his criticism of Tito's regime. Victor Sebestyen writes that Tito "was as brutal as" Stalin. The repression did not exclude intellectuals and writers, such as Venko Markovski, who was arrested and sent to jail in January 1956 for writing poems considered anti-Titoist.


title: Josip Broz Tito

text: Even if, after the reforms of 1961, Tito's presidency had become comparatively more liberal than other communist regimes, the Communist Party continued to alternate between liberalism and repression. Yugoslavia managed to remain independent from the Soviet Union and its brand of socialism was in many ways the envy of Eastern Europe, but Tito's Yugoslavia remained a tightly controlled police state. According to David Matas, outside the Soviet Union, Yugoslavia had more political prisoners than all of the rest of Eastern Europe combined.


title: Josip Broz Tito

text: Tito's secret police was modelled on the Soviet KGB. Its members were ever-present and often acted extrajudicially, with victims including middle-class intellectuals, liberals and democrats. Yugoslavia was a signatory to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, but scant regard was paid to some of its provisions.


title: Josip Broz Tito

text: Tito's Yugoslavia was based on respect for nationality, although Tito ruthlessly purged any flowerings of nationalism that threatened the Yugoslav federation. However, the contrast between the deference given to some ethnic groups and the severe repression of others was sharp. Yugoslav law guaranteed nationalities to use their language, but for ethnic Albanians, the assertion of ethnic identity was severely limited. Almost half of the political prisoners in Yugoslavia were ethnic Albanians imprisoned for asserting their ethnic identity.


title: Josip Broz Tito

text: Yugoslavia's post-war development was impressive, but the country ran into economic snags around 1970 and experienced significant unemployment and inflation. Between 1961 and 1980, the external debt of Yugoslavia increased exponentially at the unsustainable pace of over 17% per year. By 1970 debt was no longer contracted to finance investment, but to cover current expenses. The structure of the economy had reached a point that it required indefinite debt growth to survive.


title: Josip Broz Tito

text: Declassified documents from the CIA state in 1967 it was already clear that although Tito's economic model had achieved growth of the gross national product around 7%, it also created frequently unwise industrial investment and a chronic deficit in the nation's balance of payment. In the 1970s, uncontrolled growth often created chronic inflation, both of which Tito and the party were unable to fully stabilise or moderate. Yugoslavia also paid high interest on loans compared to the LIBOR rate, but Tito's presence eased investors' fears since he had proven willing and able to implement unpopular reforms. By 1979 with Tito's passing on the horizon, a global downturn in the economy, consistently increasing unemployment and growth slowing to 5.9% throughout the 1970s, it had become likely that "the rapid economic growth to which the Yugoslavs [had] become accustomed" would aggressively decline.


title: Josip Broz Tito

text: After the constitutional changes of 1974, Tito began reducing his role in the day-to-day running of the state. He continued to travel abroad and receive foreign visitors, going to Beijing in 1977 and reconciling with a Chinese leadership that had once branded him a revisionist. In turn, Chairman Hua Guofeng visited Yugoslavia in 1979. In 1978, Tito travelled to the U.S. During the visit strict security was imposed in Washington, D.C. owing to protests by anti-communist Croat, Serb and Albanian groups.


title: Josip Broz Tito

text: Tito became increasingly ill over the course of 1979. During this time "Vila Srna" was built for his use near Morović in the event of his recovery. On 7 January and again on 12 January 1980, Tito was admitted to the Medical Centre in Ljubljana, the capital city of the SR Slovenia, with circulation problems in his legs. Tito's own stubbornness and refusal to allow doctors to follow through with the necessary amputation of his left leg played a part in his eventual death of gangrene-induced infection. His Adjutant later testified that Tito threatened to take his own life if his leg was ever to be amputated, and that he had to actually hide Tito's pistol in fear that he would follow through on his threats. After a private conversation with his two sons Žarko and Mišo Broz, he finally agreed, and his left leg was amputated due to arterial blockages. The amputation proved to be too late, and Tito died at the Medical Centre of Ljubljana on 4 May 1980, three days short of his 88th birthday. His funeral attracted government leaders from 129 states.


title: Josip Broz Tito

text: The funeral for Tito drew many world statesmen. Based on the number of attending politicians and state delegations, at the time it was the largest state funeral in history; this concentration of dignitaries would be unmatched until the funeral of Pope John Paul II in 2005 and the memorial service of Nelson Mandela in 2013. Those who attended included four kings, 31 presidents, six princes, 22 prime ministers and 47 ministers of foreign affairs. They came from both sides of the Cold War, from 128 countries out of 154 UN members at the time.


title: Josip Broz Tito

text: Tito was interred in a mausoleum in Belgrade, which forms part of a memorial complex in the grounds of the Museum of Yugoslav History (formerly called "Museum 25 May" and "Museum of the Revolution"). The actual mausoleum is called House of Flowers ("Kuća Cveća") and numerous people visit the place as a shrine to "better times". The museum keeps the gifts Tito received during his presidency. The collection includes original prints of "Los Caprichos" by Francisco Goya, and many others. The Government of Serbia planned to merge it into the Museum of the History of Serbia.


title: Josip Broz Tito

text: Tito is credited with transforming Yugoslavia from a poor nation to a middle-income one that saw vast improvements in women's rights, health, education, urbanization, industrialization, and many other areas of human and economic development. A 2010 poll found that as many as 81% of Serbs believe that life was better under Tito. Tito also ranked first in the "Greatest Croatian" poll which was conducted in Croatia, in 2003.


title: Josip Broz Tito

text: During his life and especially in the first year after his death, several places were named after Tito. Several of these places have since returned to their original names.


title: Josip Broz Tito

text: For example, Podgorica, formerly Titograd (though Podgorica's international airport is still identified by the code TGD), and Užice, formerly known as Titovo Užice, which reverted to its original name in 1992. Streets in Belgrade, the capital, have all reverted to their original pre–World War II and pre-communist names as well. In 2004, Antun Augustinčić's statue of Broz in his birthplace of Kumrovec was decapitated in an explosion. It was subsequently repaired. Twice in 2008, protests took place in what was then Zagreb's Marshal Tito Square (today the Republic of Croatia Square), organised by a group called Circle for the Square ("Krug za Trg"), with an aim to force the city government to rename it to its previous name, while a counter-protest by Citizens' Initiative Against Ustašism ("Građanska inicijativa protiv ustaštva") accused the "Circle for the Square" of historical revisionism and neo-fascism. Croatian president Stjepan Mesić criticised the demonstration to change the name.


title: Josip Broz Tito

text: In the Croatian coastal city of Opatija the main street (also its longest street) still bears the name of Marshal Tito. Rijeka, third largest city in Croatia, also refuses to change the name of one of the squares in the city centre named after Tito. There are streets named after Tito in numerous towns in Serbia, mostly in the country's north. One of the main streets in downtown Sarajevo is called Marshal Tito Street, and Tito's statue in a park in front of the university campus (ex. JNA barrack "Maršal Tito") in Marijin Dvor is a place where Bosnians and Sarajevans still today commemorate and pay tribute to Tito. The largest Tito monument in the world, about high, is located at Tito Square (Slovene: ), the central square in Velenje, Slovenia. One of the main bridges in Slovenia's second largest city of Maribor is Tito Bridge (). The central square in Koper, the largest Slovenian port city, is as well named Tito Square. The main-belt asteroid 1550 Tito, discovered by Serbian astronomer Milorad B. Protić at Belgrade Observatory in 1937, was named in his honour.


title: Josip Broz Tito

text: The Croat historian Marijana Belaj wrote that for some people in Croatia and other parts of the former Yugoslavia, Tito is remembered as a sort of secular saint, mentioning how some Croats keep portraits of Catholic saints together with a portrait of Tito on their walls as a way to bring hope. The practice of writing letters to Tito has continued after his death with several websites in former Yugoslavia devoted entirely as forums for people to send posthumous letters to him, where they often talk about various personal problems. Every year on 25 May, about 10,000 people from the former Yugoslavia gathered in Tito's hometown of Kumrovec to pay tribute to his memory in a quasi-religious ritual. Belaj wrote that much of the posthumous appeal of the Tito cult centres around Tito's everyman persona and how he was presented as a "friend" to ordinary people, in contrast to the way in which Stalin was depicted in his cult of personality as a cold, aloof god-like figure whose extraordinary qualities set him apart from ordinary people. The majority of those who come to Kumrovec on 25 May to kiss Tito's statue are women. Belaji wrote that the appeal of the Tito cult today centres less around communism, observing that most people who come to Kumrovec do not believe in communism, but rather due to nostalgia for their youth in Tito's Yugoslavia, and affection for an "ordinary man" who became great. Tito was not a Croat nationalist, but the fact that Tito became the world's most famous Croat, serving as the leader of the non-aligned movement and been seen as an important world leader, inspires pride in certain quarters of Croatia.


title: Josip Broz Tito

text: Every year a "Brotherhood and Unity" relay race is organised in Montenegro, Macedonia, and Serbia that ends at the "House of Flowers" in Belgrade on 25 May – the final resting place of Tito. At the same time, runners in Slovenia, Croatia, and Bosnia and Herzegovina set off for Kumrovec, Tito's birthplace in northern Croatia. The relay is a left-over from the Relay of Youth from Yugoslav times, when young people made a similar yearly trek on foot through Yugoslavia that ended in Belgrade with a massive celebration.


title: Josip Broz Tito

text: In the years following the dissolution of Yugoslavia, some historians stated that human rights were suppressed in Yugoslavia under Tito, particularly in the first decade up until the Tito–Stalin Split. On 4 October 2011, the Slovenian Constitutional Court found a 2009 naming of a street in Ljubljana after Tito to be unconstitutional. While several public areas in Slovenia (named during the Yugoslav period) do already bear Tito's name, on the issue of renaming an additional street the court ruled that:


title: Josip Broz Tito

text: The court, however, explicitly made it clear that the purpose of the review was "not a verdict on Tito as a figure or on his concrete actions, as well as not a historical weighing of facts and circumstances". Slovenia has several streets and squares named after Tito, notably "Tito Square" in Velenje, incorporating a 10-meter statue.


title: Josip Broz Tito

text: Some scholars have named Tito as responsible for systematic eradication of the ethnic German (Danube Swabian) population in Vojvodina by expulsions and mass executions following the collapse of the German occupation of Yugoslavia at the end of World War II, in contrast to his inclusive attitude towards other Yugoslav nationalities. Ten years after his death, Yugoslavia collapsed into multiple devastating civil wars.


title: Josip Broz Tito

text: Tito was married several times and engaged in numerous affairs. In 1918 he was brought to Omsk, Russia, as a prisoner of war. There he met Pelagija Belousova who was then fourteen; he married her a year later, and she moved with him to Yugoslavia. They had five children but only their son Žarko Leon (born 4 February 1924) survived. When Tito was jailed in 1928, Belousova returned to Russia. After the divorce in 1936, she later remarried.


title: Josip Broz Tito

text: In 1936, when Tito stayed at the Hotel Lux in Moscow, he met the Austrian Lucia Bauer. They married in October 1936, but the records of this marriage were later erased.


title: Josip Broz Tito

text: His next relationship was with Herta Haas, whom he married in 1940. Broz left for Belgrade after the April War, leaving Haas pregnant. In May 1941, she gave birth to their son, Aleksandar "Mišo" Broz. All throughout his relationship with Haas, Tito had maintained a promiscuous life and had a parallel relationship with Davorjanka Paunović, who, under the codename "Zdenka", served as a courier in the resistance and subsequently became his personal secretary. Haas and Tito suddenly parted company in 1943 in Jajce during the second meeting of AVNOJ after she reportedly walked in on him and Davorjanka. The last time Haas saw Broz was in 1946. Davorjanka died of tuberculosis in 1946 and Tito insisted that she be buried in the backyard of the Beli Dvor, his Belgrade residence.


title: Josip Broz Tito

text: His best-known wife was Jovanka Broz. Tito was just shy of his 60th birthday, while she was 27, when they finally married in April 1952, with state security chief Aleksandar Ranković as the best man. Their eventual marriage came about somewhat unexpectedly since Tito actually rejected her some years earlier when his confidante Ivan Krajacic brought her in originally. At that time, she was in her early 20s and Tito objected to her energetic personality. Not one to be discouraged easily, Jovanka continued working at Beli Dvor, where she managed the staff and eventually got another chance. Their relationship was not a happy one, however. It had gone through many, often public, ups and downs with episodes of infidelities and even allegations of preparation for a "coup d'état" by the latter pair. Certain unofficial reports suggest Tito and Jovanka even formally divorced in the late 1970s, shortly before his death. However, during Tito's funeral she was officially present as his wife, and later claimed rights for inheritance. The couple did not have any children.


title: Josip Broz Tito

text: Tito's grandchildren include Saša Broz, a theatre director in Croatia; Svetlana Broz, a cardiologist and writer in Bosnia and Herzegovina; Josip Broz – Joška, a politician in Serbia; Edvard Broz and Natali Klasevski, an artisan of Bosnia and Herzegovina.


title: Josip Broz Tito

text: As president, Tito had access to extensive (state-owned) property associated with the office and maintained a lavish lifestyle. In Belgrade he resided in the official residence, the Beli dvor, and maintained a separate private home. The Brijuni Islands were the site of the State Summer Residence from 1949 on. The pavilion was designed by Jože Plečnik, and included a zoo. Close to 100 foreign heads of state were to visit Tito at the island residence, along with film stars such as Elizabeth Taylor, Richard Burton, Sophia Loren, Carlo Ponti, and Gina Lollobrigida. On the island of Brijuni, a museum displays photos of the many visitors that Tito received over more than three decades.


title: Josip Broz Tito

text: Another residence was maintained at Lake Bled, while the grounds at Karađorđevo were the site of "diplomatic hunts". By 1974 the Yugoslav President had at his disposal 32 official residences, larger and small, the yacht "Galeb" ("seagull"), a Boeing 727 as the presidential aeroplane, and the Blue Train. After Tito's death the presidential Boeing 727 was sold to Aviogenex, the "Galeb" remained docked in Montenegro, while the Blue Train was stored in a Serbian train shed for over two decades. While Tito was the person who held the office of president for by far the longest period, the associated property was not private and much of it continues to be in use by Yugoslav successor states, as public property, or maintained at the disposal of high-ranking officials.


title: Josip Broz Tito

text: As regards knowledge of languages, Tito replied that he spoke Serbo-Croatian, German, Russian, and some English. Broz's official biographer and then fellow Central Committee-member Vladimir Dedijer stated in 1953 that he spoke "Serbo-Croatian ... Russian, Czech, Slovenian ... German (with a Viennese accent) ... understands and reads French and Italian ... [and] also speaks Kazakh."


title: Josip Broz Tito

text: In his youth, Tito attended Catholic Sunday school, and was later an altar boy. After an incident where he was slapped and shouted at by a priest when he had difficulty assisting the priest to remove his vestments, Tito would not enter a church again. As an adult, he identified as an atheist.


title: Josip Broz Tito

text: Every federal unit had a town or city with historic significance from the World War II period renamed to have Tito's name included. The largest of these was Titograd, now Podgorica, the capital city of Montenegro. With the exception of Titograd, the cities were renamed simply by the addition of the adjective "Tito's" (""Titov""). The cities were:


title: Josip Broz Tito

text: In the years after Tito's death up to the present, there has been some debate as to his identity. Tito's personal physician, Aleksandar Matunović, wrote a book about Tito in which he questioned his true origin, noting that Tito's habits and lifestyle could only mean that he was from an aristocratic family. Serbian journalist Vladan Dinić, in "Tito is not Tito", included several possible alternate identities of Tito, arguing that three separate people had identified as Tito.


title: Josip Broz Tito

text: In 2013, a lot of media coverage was given to a declassified NSA study in "Cryptologic Spectrum" that concluded Tito had not spoken Serbo-Croatian as a native. The report noted that his speech had features of other Slavic languages (Russian and Polish). The hypothesis that "a non-Yugoslav, perhaps a Russian or a Pole" assumed Tito's identity was included with a note that this had happened during or before the Second World War. The report notes Draža Mihailović's impressions of Tito's Russian origins after he had personally spoken with Tito.


title: Josip Broz Tito

text: However, the NSA's report was invalidated by Croatian experts. The report failed to recognise that Tito was a native speaker of the very distinctive local Kajkavian dialect of Zagorje. His acute accent, present only in Croatian dialects, and which Tito was able to pronounce perfectly, is the strongest evidence for his Zagorje origins.


title: Josip Broz Tito

text: As the Communist Party was outlawed in Yugoslavia starting on 30 December 1920, Josip Broz took on many assumed names during his activity within the Party, including "Rudi", "Walter", and "Tito". Broz himself explains:


title: Josip Broz Tito

text: Josip Broz Tito received a total of 119 awards and decorations from 60 countries around the world (59 countries and Yugoslavia). 21 decorations were from Yugoslavia itself, 18 having been awarded once, and the Order of the National Hero on three occasions. Of the 98 international awards and decorations, 92 were received once, and three on two occasions (Order of the White Lion, Polonia Restituta, and Karl Marx). The most notable awards included the French Legion of Honour and National Order of Merit, the British Order of the Bath, the Soviet Order of Lenin, the Japanese Order of the Chrysanthemum, the West German Federal Cross of Merit, and the Order of Merit of the Italian Republic.


title: Josip Broz Tito

text: The decorations were seldom displayed, however. After the Tito–Stalin split of 1948 and his inauguration as president in 1953, Tito rarely wore his uniform except when present in a military function, and then (with rare exception) only wore his Yugoslav ribbons for obvious practical reasons. The awards were displayed in full number only at his funeral in 1980. Tito's reputation as one of the Allied leaders of World War II, along with his diplomatic position as the founder of the Non-Aligned Movement, was primarily the cause of the favourable international recognition.


title: The Legend of Vox Machina

text: The Legend of Vox Machina is an American adult animated fantasy television series produced by Critical Role Productions, Titmouse, Inc., and Amazon Studios, which premiered on Amazon Prime Video on January 28, 2022. It is based on campaign one of the "Dungeons & Dragons" web series "Critical Role". The series stars Laura Bailey, Taliesin Jaffe, Ashley Johnson, Matthew Mercer, Liam O'Brien, Marisha Ray, Sam Riegel, and Travis Willingham reprising their roles from "Critical Role"s first campaign.


title: The Legend of Vox Machina

text: The first season consists of twelve episodes; the first ten of which were funded via a Kickstarter campaign. In November 2019, ahead of the series premiere, the series was renewed by Amazon for a second season which is set to premiere on January 20, 2023. On October 6, 2022, Amazon renewed the series for a third season.


title: The Legend of Vox Machina

text: The series is set in Exandria, a fictional world created by Matthew Mercer in 2012 for his personal "Dungeons & Dragons" campaign which then launched as the actual play web series "Critical Role" in 2015. Most of the story takes place on the continent of Tal'Dorei in locations such as the metropolis of Emon and the city-state of Whitestone.


title: The Legend of Vox Machina

text: The first two episodes of the series depict "an all-new story about the seven-member Vox Machina team at "D&D" Level 7 on their first 'grown-up' mission, which occurs prior to Critical Role’s first RPG show". The series then adapts the Briarwood arc from the original web series, "in which the Vox Machina crew avenge the murder of the rulers of the town of Whitestone and most of their offspring by the evil Lord and Lady Briarwood". The series will also adapt "other classic Vox Machina story arcs", such as the Chroma Conclave arc.


title: The Legend of Vox Machina

text: On March 4, 2019, the "Critical Role" cast launched a Kickstarter campaign to raise funds for a 22-minute animation called "Critical Role: The Legend of Vox Machina Animated Special". The animated story was to be set just before the streaming portion of the campaign started—when the players were around level seven—during a time when, canonically, there is an in-game period of roughly six months when the members of Vox Machina were not all together at the same time. The cast projected a cost of US$750,000 for a single 22-minute animated short, fulfilling the other campaign rewards, and the fees associated with a crowdfunding campaign. Not knowing how long this would take to raise, the campaign length was set at 45 days.


title: The Legend of Vox Machina

text: Within an hour of launch, the Kickstarter had reached more than $1,000,000. At the end of the first full day, all of the announced stretch goals had been unlocked, and the total had reached more than $4.3 million. With four 22-minute episodes funded in the first 24 hours, additional stretch goals were added, expanding the project into an animated series. The first two episodes would cover the pre-stream story arc. The subsequent episodes would adapt the Briarwoods' arc, also from the Vox Machina campaign. By March 18, 2019, eight 22-minute episodes had been funded. Finally, on April 4, 2019, the last published stretch goal of $8.8 million was reached during the airing of episode 57 of campaign two, pushing the total length of the animated series to ten episodes. A "secret" $10M stretch goal of Willingham being filmed going around a haunted house was reached April 16. The final total raised by the Kickstarter when it closed on April 19, 2019, was $11,385,449 with 88,887 backers. When the campaign closed, it was one of the most quickly funded in Kickstarter history, and was the most funded Kickstarter for TV and film projects.


title: The Legend of Vox Machina

text: The "Critical Role" cast reprise their respective Vox Machina roles, with the exception of Orion Acaba. The animated series was written by Jennifer Muro and others with Brandon Auman as the showrunner; the series was animated by Titmouse, Inc with character design by Phil Bourassa and other animation renderings by South Korea's Production Reve. Willingham told "Inverse" that "it took outsider perspectives to make the stories they told in tabletop comprehensible for newcomers and fresh for existing fans"; Willingham said that "the Briarwood Arc was around 35 hours. We had to squish that down into about six". The music for the series was primarily composed by Neal Acree, with Sam Riegel and Mr. Fantastic contributing to Scanlan's songs.


title: The Legend of Vox Machina

text: In November 2019, Amazon Studios announced that they had acquired the streaming rights to "The Legend of Vox Machina", and had commissioned 14 additional episodes (two additional episodes for season 1 and a second season of 12 episodes). The cast went with Amazon as it "gave them the most freedom" in developing the show such as keeping it as an adult animation project. Ray, in an interview with "Polygon", said "we lucked out with Amazon. There were other potential distributors that we were talking about that were more interested in making it maybe a children’s show, or wanting to go a different direction, or [make it into a] more serious political fantasy, a la "Game of Thrones"". The project was originally slated for release in late 2020; however, in June 2020, it was announced that the debut would be missed due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The release was delayed to 2022.


title: The Legend of Vox Machina

text: A number of the Kickstarter tiers offered production credits. Backers at the $2,500 and higher tiers were given a ""crowd funding associate producer"" credit in the end credits of the first ten episodes of season one. Those who pledged more than $20,000 were listed as "crowd funding "executive" producer".


title: The Legend of Vox Machina

text: An update posted to the Kickstarter campaign in 2019 assured backers they would have free access to the first season. In January 2022, Critical Role announced that Kickstarter backers would have free early access to the first two episodes from January 25 to January 27. To access the first season, Kickstarter backers would need either an Amazon Prime subscription or would need to register for a free trial of Amazon Prime.


title: The Legend of Vox Machina

text: The first season premiered on January 28, 2022, on Amazon Prime Video; the soundtrack for the first season premiered the same day digitally. The second season is scheduled to premiere on January 20, 2023. As with the first season, the second season will be released in three episodes batches per week for a total of twelve episodes.


title: The Legend of Vox Machina

text: Multiple outlets, such as "Variety", the "Los Angeles Times", and "CNBC", reported that the Kickstarter became the largest one for Film & Video, surpassing the previous record holder "Mystery Science Theater 3000," with total funding of more than $11.3 million from more than 88,000 backers. "Variety" highlighted that "Critical Role started working on the project in the spring of 2018. [...] After getting snubbed by Hollywood, CR decided to take a crack at bringing the project to life on Kickstarter. [...] Critical Role knew they had a big and engaged fanbase but the team didn’t expect the flood of pledges that has poured in. On Twitch, between 30,000-40,000 people typically watch live with another 150,000 views on-demand, according to Willingham. The episodes on YouTube typically hit around 250,000 views in the first 24 hours. All told, each episode garners around 1 million views". The "Los Angeles Times" highlighted that the Kickstarter bested "bigger-name properties like 'Mystery Science Theater 3000,' revived by Netflix in 2017, and 'Veronica Mars,' which became a feature film [...]. Critical Role has evolved into a mini media empire, attracting more than half a million viewers every week to YouTube, Twitch and their own site, Critrole.com. The friends have transformed their homegrown characters into a top 10 comic book on Comixology; sell out their live shows; and draw lines around the block at comic book stores and convention signings. The Amazon deal follows a partnership with the animation studio Titmouse".


title: The Legend of Vox Machina

text: Cori McCreery, for "WWAC", highlighted that Orion Acaba and his character would not appear in the animated series. She wrote, "Part of the beauty of adaptations is that you can change things that no longer fit the story you want to tell. The "Critical Role" team had a falling out with the actor who played Tiberius, and the character wound up leaving the game pretty early on into the stream, and leaving a bit of a conundrum for adaptations like this and the upcoming cartoon. [...] So while I don’t know if they’re writing the character out in the comics earlier than he left the game, I do know that they do not plan to use him in the animated series, despite his being present for some of the adventures there. I’d be perfectly fine if this adaptation took a page from the medium it’s part of and provides everyone with a retcon of the group’s past".


title: The Legend of Vox Machina

text: The first six out of twelve episodes of the first season were given to critics to review ahead of the series premiere. The first season of "The Legend of Vox Machina" received a generally positive response from critics. . Multiple reviews highlighted the challenges in adapting the lengthy source material and that the show has some pacing issues, however, once it reaches the Briarwood arc the show takes off. According to market research company Parrot Analytics, the first season was the most in-demand animated streaming television show in the first-quarter of 2022, and that the show had "17.9 times the average demand of all other U.S. series".


title: The Legend of Vox Machina

text: In comparing the first season to the original "D&D" campaign, Glen Weldon of NPR stated that ""The Legend of Vox Machina" is what's left over, after all of that chaos energy has been distilled into pure story. Distilled, and greatly condensed: Storylines that stretched over hours and hours on the web series play out, here, over the course of one or two half-hour episodes. [...] The animated series can't be everything the web series is, but then, it's aiming for a wider audience. And at that respect at least, its certainly got everything it needs to hit its target". Kevin Johnson, for "The A.V. Club", stated that "the action is well-animated, and while this is indeed an adult show—with plenty of curse words, sexual innuendo, and brutal violence—nothing feels overwhelmingly crass or unnecessarily gratuitous. When things "do" escalate, it matters. In particular, the fourth episode is a sharp showcase of nuanced character beats, nerve-racking tension, and horrifyingly, putrid visuals. It’s good stuff, and perhaps most importantly, "Vox Machina" knows to let its moments–dramatic, comedic, or action-oriented–breathe for themselves". Kenneth Lowe, for "Paste", highlighted how the show is not a 1980s kids show à la the 1983 "Dungeons & Dragons" television series; instead, it has a similar level of graphic violence as Amazon's "Invincible". Lowe wrote that "if you wanted a show about D&D with the serial numbers filed off, it's got you covered. [...] While there isn't a whole lot of diversity in the principal Critical Role cast, the show comes down on the side of a kind of casual inclusivity, appearing [...], to studiously avoid the racial essentialism which forms more of the bedrock of tabletop roleplaying gaming than many like to admit. [...] "The Legend of Vox Machina" is a competently produced story decidedly informed by the sensibilities of a new generation of players".


title: The Legend of Vox Machina

text: Eric Francisco, for "Inverse", compared the show to "" and "" in the way it conveys ideas; he stated that "The Legend of Vox Machina" "effortlessly turns complicated lore into broadly accessible ideas. Of minor consequence is there’s not enough originality in Tal’Dorei itself [...]. That’s not to say there isn’t gravitas to "Vox Machina;" the story of Percy, the gunslinger who wrestles against his lust for revenge, is astonishing to witness. But the lines differentiating comedy and parody blurs too often, especially at how frequently the show flips its tones. Despite its sourcing from a long-running Twitch show, "The Legend of Vox Machina" stands as an accessible thing by itself. At its heart, "Vox Machina" is an action fantasy, only unusual in its marriage of Tolkien-lite settings and the lurid humor of a Deadpool comic book". Cass Marshall, for "Polygon", described the show as "a deeply indulgent story", "weirdly wholesome", and at times "frankly a little much". Marshall wrote, "I love it. Critical Role’s heart and good intentions overcame a lot of the initial problems with "The Legend of Vox Machina", and by the time the season’s major arc kicked off I was fully invested. The animation carries the plot quite well, albeit not perfectly. [...] This is D&D pulp at its best, and luckily, you don’t need to delve into the rich canon of Critical Role and its associated projects".


title: JPMorgan Chase

text: JPMorgan Chase & Co. is an American multinational investment bank and financial services holding company headquartered in New York City and incorporated in Delaware. As of 2022, JPMorgan Chase is the largest bank in the United States, the world's largest bank by market capitalization, and the fifth largest bank in the world in terms of total assets, with total assets of US$3.774 trillion. Additionally, JPMorgan Chase is ranked 24th on the Fortune 500 list of the largest United States corporations by total revenue. It is considered a systemically important bank by the Financial Stability Board.


title: JPMorgan Chase

text: As a "Bulge Bracket" bank, it is a major provider of various investment banking and financial services. It is one of America's Big Four banks, along with Bank of America, Citigroup, and Wells Fargo. JPMorgan Chase is considered to be a universal bank and a custodian bank. The J.P. Morgan brand is used by the investment banking, asset management, private banking, wealth management, commercial banking, and treasury services divisions. Fiduciary activity within private banking and private wealth management is done under the aegis of JPMorgan Chase Bank, N.A.—the actual trustee.


title: JPMorgan Chase

text: The Chase brand is used for credit card services in the United States, and the bank's retail banking activities in the United States and United Kingdom. Commercial Banking at JPMorgan Chase operates under both the Chase and J.P. Morgan brands. The bank's corporate headquarters are currently located at 383 Madison Avenue in Midtown Manhattan, New York City, since the prior headquarters building directly across the street, 270 Park Avenue, was demolished and a larger replacement headquarters is being built on the same site.


title: JPMorgan Chase

text: The current company was originally known as Chemical Bank, which acquired Chase Manhattan and assumed that company's name. The present company was formed in 2000, when Chase Manhattan Corporation merged with J.P. Morgan & Co.


title: JPMorgan Chase

text: JPMorgan Chase, in its current structure, is the result of the combination of several large U.S. banking companies since 1996, including Chase Manhattan Bank, J.P. Morgan & Co., Bank One, Bear Stearns and Washington Mutual. Going back further, its predecessors include major banking firms among which are Chemical Bank, Manufacturers Hanover, First Chicago Bank, National Bank of Detroit, Texas Commerce Bank, Providian Financial and Great Western Bank. The company's oldest predecessor institution, The Bank of the Manhattan Company, was the third oldest banking corporation in the United States, and the 31st oldest bank in the world, having been established on September 1, 1799, by Aaron Burr.


title: JPMorgan Chase

text: The Chase Manhattan Bank was formed upon the 1955 purchase of Chase National Bank (established in 1877) by The Bank of the Manhattan Company (established in 1799), the company's oldest predecessor institution. The Bank of the Manhattan Company was the creation of Aaron Burr, who transformed the company from a water carrier into a bank.


title: JPMorgan Chase

text: According to page 115 of "An Empire of Wealth" by John Steele Gordon, the origin of this strand of JPMorgan Chase's history runs as follows:


title: JPMorgan Chase

text: At the turn of the nineteenth century, obtaining a bank charter required an act of the state legislature. This of course injected a powerful element of politics into the process and invited what today would be called corruption but then was regarded as business as usual. Hamilton's political enemy—and eventual murderer—Aaron Burr was able to create a bank by sneaking a clause into a charter for a company, called The Manhattan Company, to provide clean water to New York City. The innocuous-looking clause allowed the company to invest surplus capital in any lawful enterprise. Within six months of the company's creation, and long before it had laid a single section of water pipe, the company opened a bank, the Bank of the Manhattan Company. Still in existence, it is today JPMorgan Chase, the largest bank in the United States.


title: JPMorgan Chase

text: Led by David Rockefeller during the 1970s and 1980s, Chase Manhattan emerged as one of the largest and most prestigious banking concerns, with leadership positions in syndicated lending, treasury and securities services, credit cards, mortgages, and retail financial services. Weakened by the real estate collapse in the early 1990s, it was acquired by Chemical Bank in 1996, retaining the Chase name. Before its merger with J.P. Morgan & Co., the new Chase expanded the investment and asset management groups through two acquisitions. In 1999, it acquired San Francisco-based Hambrecht & Quist for $1.35 billion. In April 2000, UK-based Robert Fleming & Co. was purchased by the new Chase Manhattan Bank for $7.7 billion.


title: JPMorgan Chase

text: The New York Chemical Manufacturing Company was founded in 1823 as a maker of various chemicals. In 1824, the company amended its charter to perform banking activities and created the Chemical Bank of New York. After 1851, the bank was separated from its parent and grew organically and through a series of mergers, most notably with Corn Exchange Bank in 1954, Texas Commerce Bank (a large bank in Texas) in 1986, and Manufacturer's Hanover Trust Company in 1991 (the first major bank merger "among equals"). In the 1980s and early 1990s, Chemical emerged as one of the leaders in the financing of leveraged buyout transactions. In 1984, Chemical launched Chemical Venture Partners to invest in private equity transactions alongside various financial sponsors. By the late 1980s, Chemical developed its reputation for financing buyouts, building a syndicated leveraged finance business and related advisory businesses under the auspices of the pioneering investment banker, Jimmy Lee. At many points throughout this history, Chemical Bank was the largest bank in the United States (either in terms of assets or deposit market share).


title: JPMorgan Chase

text: In 1996, Chemical Bank acquired Chase Manhattan. Although Chemical was the nominal survivor, it took the better-known Chase name. To this day, JPMorgan Chase retains Chemical's pre-1996 stock price history, as well as Chemical's former headquarters site at 270 Park Avenue (the current building was demolished and a larger replacement headquarters is being built on the same site).


title: JPMorgan Chase

text: The House of Morgan was born out of the partnership of Drexel, Morgan & Co., which in 1895 was renamed J.P. Morgan & Co. (see also: J. Pierpont Morgan). J.P. Morgan & Co. financed the formation of the United States Steel Corporation, which took over the business of Andrew Carnegie and others and was the world's first billion dollar corporation. In 1895, J.P. Morgan & Co. supplied the United States government with $62 million in gold to float a bond issue and restore the treasury surplus of $100 million. In 1892, the company began to finance the New York, New Haven and Hartford Railroad and led it through a series of acquisitions that made it the dominant railroad transporter in New England.


title: JPMorgan Chase

text: Built in 1914, 23 Wall Street was the bank's headquarters for decades. On September 16, 1920, a terrorist bomb exploded in front of the bank, injuring 400 and killing 38. Shortly before the bomb went off, a warning note was placed in a mailbox at the corner of Cedar Street and Broadway. The case has never been solved, and was rendered inactive by the FBI in 1940.


title: JPMorgan Chase

text: In August 1914, Henry P. Davison, a Morgan partner, made a deal with the Bank of England to make J.P. Morgan & Co. the monopoly underwriter of war bonds for the UK and France. The Bank of England became a "fiscal agent" of J.P. Morgan & Co., and vice versa. The company also invested in the suppliers of war equipment to Britain and France. The company profited from the financing and purchasing activities of the two European governments. Since the U.S. federal government withdrew from world affairs under successive isolationist Republican administrations in the 1920s, J.P. Morgan & Co. continued playing a major role in global affairs since most European countries still owed war debts.


title: JPMorgan Chase

text: In the 1930s, J.P. Morgan & Co. and all integrated banking businesses in the United States were required by the provisions of the Glass–Steagall Act to separate their investment banking from their commercial banking operations. J.P. Morgan & Co. chose to operate as a commercial bank.


title: JPMorgan Chase

text: In 1935, after being barred from the securities business for over a year, the heads of J.P. Morgan spun off its investment-banking operations. Led by J.P. Morgan partners, Henry S. Morgan (son of Jack Morgan and grandson of J. Pierpont Morgan) and Harold Stanley, Morgan Stanley was founded on September 16, 1935, with $6.6 million of nonvoting preferred stock from J.P. Morgan partners. In order to bolster its position, in 1959, J.P. Morgan merged with the Guaranty Trust Company of New York to form the Morgan Guaranty Trust Company. The bank would continue to operate as Morgan Guaranty Trust until the 1980s, before migrating back to the use of the J.P. Morgan brand. In 1984, the group purchased the Purdue National Corporation of Lafayette, Indiana. In 1988, the company once again began operating exclusively as J.P. Morgan & Co.


title: JPMorgan Chase

text: In 2004, JPMorgan Chase merged with Chicago-based Bank One Corp., bringing on board current chairman and CEO Jamie Dimon as president and COO. He succeeded former CEO William B. Harrison, Jr. Dimon introduced new cost-cutting strategies, and replaced former JPMorgan Chase executives in key positions with Bank One executives—many of whom were with Dimon at Citigroup. Dimon became CEO in December 2005 and chairman in December 2006.


title: JPMorgan Chase

text: Bank One Corporation was formed with the 1998 merger of Banc One of Columbus, Ohio and First Chicago NBD. This merger was considered a failure until Dimon took over and reformed the new firm's practices. Dimon effected changes to make Bank One Corporation a viable merger partner for JPMorgan Chase.


title: JPMorgan Chase

text: Bank One Corporation, formerly First Bancgroup of Ohio, was founded as a holding company for City National Bank of Columbus, Ohio, and several other banks in that state, all of which were renamed "Bank One" when the holding company was renamed Banc One Corporation. With the beginning of interstate banking they spread into other states, always renaming acquired banks "Bank One." After the First Chicago NBD merger, adverse financial results led to the departure of CEO John B. McCoy, whose father and grandfather had headed Banc One and predecessors. JPMorgan Chase completed the acquisition of Bank One in the third quarter of 2004.


title: JPMorgan Chase

text: At the end of 2007, Bear Stearns was the fifth largest investment bank in the United States but its market capitalization had deteriorated through the second half of the year. On Friday, March 14, 2008, Bear Stearns lost 47% of its equity market value as rumors emerged that clients were withdrawing capital from the bank. Over the following weekend, it emerged that Bear Stearns might prove insolvent, and on March 15, 2008, the Federal Reserve engineered a deal to prevent a wider systemic crisis from the collapse of Bear Stearns.


title: JPMorgan Chase

text: On March 16, 2008, after a weekend of intense negotiations between JPMorgan, Bear, and the federal government, JPMorgan Chase announced its plans to acquire Bear Stearns in a stock swap worth $2.00 per share or $240 million pending shareholder approval scheduled within 90 days. In the interim, JPMorgan Chase agreed to guarantee all Bear Stearns trades and business process flows. On March 18, 2008, JPMorgan Chase formally announced the acquisition of Bear Stearns for $236 million. The stock swap agreement was signed that night.


title: JPMorgan Chase

text: On March 24, 2008, after public discontent over the low acquisition price threatened the deal's closure, a revised offer was announced at approximately $10 per share. Under the revised terms, JPMorgan also immediately acquired a 39.5% stake in Bear Stearns using newly issued shares at the new offer price and gained a commitment from the board, representing another 10% of the share capital, that its members would vote in favor of the new deal. With sufficient commitments to ensure a successful shareholder vote, the merger was completed on May 30, 2008.


title: JPMorgan Chase

text: On September 25, 2008, JPMorgan Chase bought most of the banking operations of Washington Mutual from the receivership of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation. That night, the Office of Thrift Supervision, in what was by far the largest bank failure in American history, had seized Washington Mutual Bank and placed it into receivership. The FDIC sold the bank's assets, secured debt obligations, and deposits to JPMorgan Chase & Co for $1.836 billion, which re-opened the bank the following day. As a result of the takeover, Washington Mutual shareholders lost all their equity.


title: JPMorgan Chase

text: JPMorgan Chase raised $10 billion in a stock sale to cover writedowns and losses after taking on deposits and branches of Washington Mutual. Through the acquisition, JPMorgan now owns the former accounts of Providian Financial, a credit card issuer WaMu acquired in 2005. The company announced plans to complete the rebranding of Washington Mutual branches to Chase by late 2009.


title: JPMorgan Chase

text: Chief executive Alan H. Fishman received a $7.5 million sign-on bonus and cash severance of $11.6 million after being CEO for 17 days.


title: JPMorgan Chase

text: Chase paid out over $2 billion in fines and legal settlements for their role in financing Enron Corporation with aiding and abetting Enron Corp.'s securities fraud, which collapsed amid a financial scandal in 2001. In 2003, Chase paid $160 million in fines and penalties to settle claims by the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Manhattan district attorney's office. In 2005, Chase paid $2.2 billion to settle a lawsuit filed by investors in Enron.


title: JPMorgan Chase

text: In December 2002, Chase paid fines totaling $80 million, with the amount split between the states and the federal government. The fines were part of a settlement involving charges that ten banks, including Chase, deceived investors with biased research. The total settlement with the ten banks was $1.4 billion. The settlement required that the banks separate investment banking from research, and ban any allocation of IPO shares.


title: JPMorgan Chase

text: JPMorgan Chase, which helped underwrite $15.4 billion of WorldCom's bonds, agreed in March 2005 to pay $2 billion; that was 46 percent, or $630 million, more than it would have paid had it accepted an investor offer in May 2004 of $1.37 billion. J.P. Morgan was the last big lender to settle. Its payment is the second largest in the case, exceeded only by the $2.6 billion accord reached in 2004 by Citigroup. In March 2005, 16 of WorldCom's 17 former underwriters reached settlements with the investors.


title: JPMorgan Chase

text: In 2008 and 2009, 14 lawsuits were filed against JPMorgan Chase in various district courts on behalf of Chase credit card holders claiming the bank violated the Truth in Lending Act, breached its contract with the consumers, and committed a breach of the implied covenant of good faith and fair dealing. The consumers contended that Chase, with little or no notice, increased minimum monthly payments from 2% to 5% on loan balances that were transferred to consumers' credit cards based on the promise of a fixed interest rate. In May 2011, the United States District Court for the Northern District of California certified the class action lawsuit. On July 23, 2012, Chase agreed to pay $100 million to settle the claim.


title: JPMorgan Chase

text: In November 2009, a week after Birmingham, Alabama Mayor Larry Langford was convicted for financial crimes related to bond swaps for Jefferson County, Alabama, JPMorgan Chase & Co. agreed to a $722 million settlement with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission to end a probe into the sales of derivatives that allegedly contributed to the near-bankruptcy of the county. JPMorgan had been chosen by the county commissioners to refinance the county's sewer debt, and the SEC had alleged that JPMorgan made undisclosed payments to close friends of the commissioners in exchange for the deal and made up for the costs by charging higher interest rates on the swaps.


title: JPMorgan Chase

text: In June 2010, J.P. Morgan Securities was fined a record £33.32 million ($49.12 million) by the UK Financial Services Authority (FSA) for failing to protect an average of £5.5 billion of clients' money from 2002 to 2009.


title: JPMorgan Chase

text: FSA requires financial firms to keep clients' funds in separate accounts to protect the clients in case such a firm becomes insolvent. The firm had failed to properly segregate client funds from corporate funds following the merger of Chase and J.P. Morgan, resulting in a violation of FSA regulations but no losses to clients. The clients' funds would have been at risk had the firm become insolvent during this period. J.P. Morgan Securities reported the incident to the FSA, corrected the errors, and cooperated in the ensuing investigation, resulting in the fine being reduced 30% from an original amount of £47.6 million.


title: JPMorgan Chase

text: In January 2011, JPMorgan Chase admitted that it wrongly overcharged several thousand military families for their mortgages, including active-duty personnel in the War in Afghanistan. The bank also admitted it improperly foreclosed on more than a dozen military families; both actions were in clear violation of the Servicemembers Civil Relief Act which automatically lowers mortgage rates to 6 percent, and bars foreclosure proceedings of active-duty personnel. The overcharges may have never come to light were it not for legal action taken by Captain Jonathan Rowles. Both Captain Rowles and his spouse Julia accused Chase of violating the law and harassing the couple for nonpayment. An official stated that the situation was "grim" and Chase initially stated it would be refunding up to $2,000,000 to those who were overcharged, and that families improperly foreclosed on have gotten or will get their homes back. Chase has acknowledged that as many as 6,000 active duty military personnel were illegally overcharged, and more than 18 military families homes were wrongly foreclosed. In April, Chase agreed to pay a total of $27 million in compensation to settle the class-action suit. At the company's 2011 shareholders' meeting, Dimon apologized for the error and said the bank would forgive the loans of any active-duty personnel whose property had been foreclosed. In June 2011, lending chief Dave Lowman was forced out over the scandal.


title: JPMorgan Chase

text: On August 25, 2011, JPMorgan Chase agreed to settle fines with regard to violations of the sanctions under the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) regime. The U.S. Department of Treasury released the following civil penalties information under the heading: "JPMorgan Chase Bank N.A. Settles Apparent Violations of Multiple Sanctions Programs":


title: JPMorgan Chase

text: On February 9, 2012, it was announced that the five largest mortgage servicers (Ally/GMAC, Bank of America, Citi, JPMorgan Chase, and Wells Fargo) agreed to a historic settlement with the federal government and 49 states. The settlement, known as the National Mortgage Settlement (NMS), required the servicers to provide about $26 billion in relief to distressed homeowners and in direct payments to the states and federal government. This settlement amount makes the NMS the second largest civil settlement in U.S. history, only trailing the Tobacco Master Settlement Agreement. The five banks were also required to comply with 305 new mortgage servicing standards. Oklahoma held out and agreed to settle with the banks separately.


title: JPMorgan Chase

text: In 2012, JPMorgan Chase & Co was charged for misrepresenting and failing to disclose that the CIO had engaged in extremely risky and speculative trades that exposed JPMorgan to significant losses.


title: JPMorgan Chase

text: In July 2013, The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) approved a stipulation and consent agreement under which JPMorgan Ventures Energy Corporation (JPMVEC), a subsidiary of JPMorgan Chase & Co., agreed to pay $410 million in penalties and disgorgement to ratepayers for allegations of market manipulation stemming from the company's bidding activities in electricity markets in California and the Midwest from September 2010 through November 2012. JPMVEC agreed to pay a civil penalty of $285 million to the U.S. Treasury and to disgorge $125 million in unjust profits. JPMVEC admitted the facts set forth in the agreement, but neither admitted nor denied the violations. The case stemmed from multiple referrals to FERC from market monitors in 2011 and 2012 regarding JPMVEC's bidding practices. FERC investigators determined that JPMVEC engaged in 12 manipulative bidding strategies designed to make profits from power plants that were usually out of the money in the marketplace. In each of them, the company made bids designed to create artificial conditions that forced California and Midcontinent Independent System Operators (ISOs) to pay JPMVEC outside the market at premium rates. FERC investigators further determined that JPMVEC knew that the California ISO and Midcontinent ISO received no benefit from making inflated payments to the company, thereby defrauding the ISOs by obtaining payments for benefits that the company did not deliver beyond the routine provision of energy. FERC investigators also determined that JPMVEC's bids displaced other generation and altered day ahead and real-time prices from the prices that would have resulted had the company not submitted the bids. Under the Energy Policy Act of 2005, Congress directed FERC to detect, prevent, and appropriately sanction the gaming of energy markets. According to FERC, the Commission approved the settlement as in the public interest.


title: JPMorgan Chase

text: FERC's investigation of energy market manipulations led to a subsequent investigation into possible obstruction of justice by employees of JPMorgan Chase. Various newspapers reported in September 2013 that the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and US Attorney's Office in Manhattan were investigating whether employees withheld information or made false statements during the FERC investigation. The reported impetus for the investigation was a letter from Massachusetts Senators Elizabeth Warren and Edward Markey, in which they asked FERC why no action was taken against people who impeded the FERC investigation. At the time of the FBI investigation, the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations was also looking into whether JPMorgan Chase employees impeded the FERC investigation. Reuters reported that JPMorgan Chase was facing over a dozen investigations at the time.


title: JPMorgan Chase

text: In August 2013, JPMorgan Chase announced that it was being investigated by the United States Department of Justice over its offerings of mortgage-backed securities leading up to the financial crisis of 2007–08. The company said that the Department of Justice had preliminarily concluded that the firm violated federal securities laws in offerings of subprime and Alt-A residential mortgage securities during the period 2005 to 2007. On November 19, 2013, the Justice Department announced that JPMorgan Chase agreed to pay $13 billion to settle investigations into its business practices pertaining to mortgage-backed securities. Of that amount, $9 billion was penalties and fines, and the remaining $4 billion was consumer relief. This was the largest corporate settlement to date. Conduct at Bear Stearns and Washington Mutual prior to their 2008 acquisitions accounted for much of the alleged wrongdoing. The agreement did not settle criminal charges.


title: JPMorgan Chase

text: In November 2016, JPMorgan Chase agreed to pay $264 million in fines to settle civil and criminal charges involving a systematic bribery scheme spanning 2006 to 2013 in which the bank secured business deals in Hong Kong by agreeing to hire hundreds of friends and relatives of Chinese government officials, resulting in more than $100 million in revenue for the bank.


title: JPMorgan Chase

text: In January 2017, the United States sued the company, accusing it of discriminating against "thousands" of black and Hispanic mortgage borrowers between 2006 and at least 2009.


title: JPMorgan Chase

text: On December 26, 2018, as part of an investigation by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) into abusive practices related to American depositary receipts (ADRs), JPMorgan agreed to pay more than $135 million to settle charges of improper handling of "pre-released" ADRs without admitting or denying the SEC's findings. The sum consisted of $71 million in ill-gotten gains plus $14.4 million in prejudgment interest and an additional penalty of $49.7 million.


title: JPMorgan Chase

text: On November 24, 2022, two women who accused Jeffrey Epstein of sex trafficking and sexual abuse also sued JPMorgan and Deutsche Bank, accusing them of benefiting and closing their eyes to Epstein's sex trafficking operations. According to the lawsuits, banks knew that Epstein's accounts were used to finance sex trafficking crimes.


title: JPMorgan Chase

text: Bernie Madoff opened a business account at Chemical Bank in 1986 and maintained it until 2008, long after Chemical acquired Chase.


title: JPMorgan Chase

text: In 2010, Irving Picard, the SIPC receiver appointed to liquidate Madoff's company, alleged that JPMorgan Chase failed to prevent Madoff from defrauding his customers. According to the suit, Chase "knew or should have known" that Madoff's wealth management business was a fraud. However, Chase did not report its concerns to regulators or law enforcement until October 2008, when it notified the UK Serious Organised Crime Agency. Picard argued that even after Morgan's investment bankers reported its concerns about Madoff's performance to UK officials, Chase's retail banking division did not put any restrictions on Madoff's banking activities until his arrest two months later. The receiver's suit against JPMorgan Chase was dismissed by the Court for failing to set forth any legally cognizable claim for damages.


title: JPMorgan Chase

text: In the fall of 2013, JPMorgan Chase began talks with prosecutors and regulators regarding compliance with anti-money-laundering and know-your-customer banking regulations in connection with Madoff.


title: JPMorgan Chase

text: On January 7, 2014, JPMorgan Chase agreed to pay a total of $2.05 billion in fines and penalties to settle civil and criminal charges related to its role in the Madoff scandal. The government filed a two-count criminal information charging JPMorgan Chase with Bank Secrecy Act violations, but the charges would be dismissed within two years provided that JPMorgan Chase reforms its anti-money laundering procedures and cooperates with the government in its investigation. The bank agreed to forfeit $1.7 billion.


title: JPMorgan Chase

text: The lawsuit, which was filed on behalf of shareholders against Chief Executive Jamie Dimon and other high-ranking JPMorgan Chase employees, used statements made by Bernie Madoff during interviews conducted while in prison in Butner, North Carolina claiming that JPMorgan Chase officials knew of the fraud. The lawsuit stated that "JPMorgan was uniquely positioned for 20 years to see Madoff's crimes and put a stop to them ... But faced with the prospect of shutting down Madoff's account and losing lucrative profits, JPMorgan - at its highest level - chose to turn a blind eye."


title: JPMorgan Chase

text: JPMorgan Chase also agreed to pay a $350 million fine to the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency and settle the suit filed against it by Picard for $543 million.


title: JPMorgan Chase

text: In 2006, JPMorgan Chase purchased Collegiate Funding Services, a portfolio company of private equity firm Lightyear Capital, for $663 million. CFS was used as the foundation for the Chase Student Loans, previously known as Chase Education Finance.


title: JPMorgan Chase

text: In April 2006, JPMorgan Chase acquired Bank of New York Mellon's retail and small business banking network. The acquisition gave Chase access to 339 additional branches in New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut. In 2008, J.P. Morgan acquired the UK-based carbon offsetting company ClimateCare. In November 2009, J.P. Morgan announced it would acquire the balance of J.P. Morgan Cazenove, an advisory and underwriting joint venture established in 2004 with the Cazenove Group. In 2013, J.P. Morgan acquired Bloomspot, a San Francisco-based startup. Shortly after the acquisition, the service was shut down and Bloomspot's talent was left unused. In 2021, the company made more than over 30 acquisitions including OpenInvest and Nutmeg. In March 2022, JPMorgan Chase announced that would acquire Global Shares, a cloud-based provider of share plan software management.


title: JPMorgan Chase

text: The following is an illustration of the company's major mergers and acquisitions and historical predecessors, although this is not a comprehensive list:


title: JPMorgan Chase

text: In 2013, after teaming up with the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, GlaxoSmithKline and Children's Investment Fund, JPMorgan Chase, under Jamie Dimon launched a $94 Million fund with a focus on "late-stage healthcare technology trials". The "$94 million Global Health Investment Fund will give money to a final-stage drug, vaccine, and medical device studies that are otherwise stalled at companies because of their relatively high failure risk and low consumer demand. Examples of problems that could be addressed by the fund include malaria, tuberculosis, HIV/AIDS, and maternal and infant mortality, according to the Gates and JPMorgan Chase led-group"


title: JPMorgan Chase

text: The 2014 JPMorgan Chase data breach, disclosed in September 2014, compromised the JPMorgan Chase accounts of over 83 million customers. The attack was discovered by the bank's security team in late July 2014, but not completely halted until the middle of August.


title: JPMorgan Chase

text: In October 2014, J.P. Morgan sold its commodities trader unit to Mercuria for $800 million, a quarter of the initial valuation of $3.5 billion, as the transaction excluded some oil and metal stockpiles and other assets.


title: JPMorgan Chase

text: In March 2016, J.P. Morgan decided not to finance coal mines and coal power plants in wealthy countries.


title: JPMorgan Chase

text: In December 2016, 14 former executives of the Wendel investment company faced trial for tax fraud while JPMorgan Chase was to be pursued for complicity. Jean-Bernard Lafonta was convicted December 2015 for spreading false information and insider trading, and fined 1.5 million euros.


title: JPMorgan Chase

text: In March 2017, Lawrence Obracanik, a former JPMorgan Chase & Co. employee, pleaded guilty to criminal charges that he stole more than $5 million from his employer to pay personal debts. In June 2017, Matt Zames, the now-former COO of the bank decided to leave the firm. In December 2017, J.P. Morgan was sued by the Nigerian government for $875 million, which Nigeria alleges was transferred by J.P. Morgan to a corrupt former minister. Nigeria accused J.P. Morgan of being "grossly negligent".


title: JPMorgan Chase

text: In February 2019, J.P. Morgan announced the launch of JPM Coin, a digital token that will be used to settle transactions between clients of its wholesale payments business. It would be the first cryptocurrency issued by a United States bank.


title: JPMorgan Chase

text: On May 14, 2020, "Financial Times", citing a report which revealed how companies are treating employees, their supply chains and other stakeholders, during the COVID-19 pandemic, documented that J.P. Morgan Asset Management alongside Fidelity Investments and Vanguard have been accused of paying lip services to cover human rights violations. The UK based media also referenced that a few of the world's biggest fund houses took the action in order to lessen the impact of abuses, such as modern slavery, at the companies they invest in. However, J.P. Morgan replying to the report said that it took "human rights violations very seriously" and "any company with alleged or proven violations of principles, including human rights abuses, is scrutinised and may result in either enhanced engagement or removal from a portfolio."


title: JPMorgan Chase

text: In September 2020, the company admitted that it manipulated precious metals futures and government bond markets in a span period of eight years. It settled with the United States Department of Justice, U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission for $920 million. J.P. Morgan will not face criminal charges, however, it will launch into a deferred prosecution agreement for three years.


title: JPMorgan Chase

text: In 2021, J.P. Morgan funded the failed attempt to create a European Super League in European soccer, which, if successful, would have ended the meritocratic European pyramid soccer system. J.P. Morgan's role in the creation of the Super League was instrumental; the investment bank was reported to have worked on it for several years. After a strong backlash, the owners/management of the teams that proposed creating the league pulled out of it. After the attempt to end the European football hierarchy failed, J.P. Morgan apologized for its role in the scheme. JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon said the company "kind of missed" that football supporters would respond negatively to the Super League.


title: JPMorgan Chase

text: In September 2021, JPMorgan Chase entered the UK retail banking market by launched an app-based current account under the Chase brand. This is the company's first retail banking operation outside the of United States.


title: JPMorgan Chase

text: In March 2022, JPMorgan Chase announced to wind down its business in Russia in compliance with regulatory and licensing requirements.


title: JPMorgan Chase

text: On May 20, 2022, JPMorgan Chase used blockchain for collateral settlements, the latest Wall Street experimentation with the technology in the trading of traditional financial assets.


title: JPMorgan Chase

text: In September 2022, the company announced it was acquiring California-based Renovite Technologies to expand its payments processing business amid heavy competition from fintech firms like Stripe and Ayden. This comes on top of previous, similar moves of buying a 49% stake in fintech Viva Wallet and a majority sake in Volkswagen's payments business, among many other acquisitions in other areas of finance.


title: JPMorgan Chase

text: JPMorgan Chase was the biggest bank at the end of 2008 as an individual bank (not including subsidiaries). , JPMorgan Chase is ranked 24 on the Fortune 500 rankings of the largest United States corporations by total revenue.


title: JPMorgan Chase

text: For the first time in 2018, a U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission rule mandated under the Dodd–Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act requires publicly traded companies to disclose how their CEOs are compensated in comparison with their employees. In public filings, companies have to disclose their pay ratios, or the CEO's compensation divided by the median employee's.


title: JPMorgan Chase

text: According to SEC filings, JPMorgan Chase & Co. paid its CEO $28,320,175 in 2017, while the average worker employed by JPMorgan Chase & Co. was paid $77,799 in 2017, marking a CEO-to-worker pay ratio of 364 to 1. As of April 2018, steelmaker Nucor represented the median CEO-to-worker pay ratio from SEC filings with values of 133 to 1. On May 2, 2013, "Bloomberg BusinessWeek" found the ratio of CEO pay to the typical worker rose from about 20-to-1 in the 1950s to 120-to-1 in 2000.


title: JPMorgan Chase

text: Total 2018 compensation for CEO Jamie Dimon was $30,040,153, and total compensation of the median employee was determined to be $78,923; the resulting pay ratio was estimated to be 381 to 1.


title: JPMorgan Chase

text: For management reporting purposes, J P Morgan Chase's activities are organized into a corporate segment and 4 business segments:


title: JPMorgan Chase

text: The company, known previously as Chase Manhattan International Limited, was founded on September 18, 1968.