title: Donda West

text: California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger subsequently signed the "Donda West Law" in 2009, legislation that makes it mandatory for patients to receive medical clearance through a physical examination before undergoing elective cosmetic surgery.


title: Donda West

text: West's memoir, "Raising Kanye: Life Lessons from the Mother of a Hip-Hop Star", was published in 2009. West wrote in her book that she always wanted her son to go to college, but after witnessing his passion for hip hop and his talent producing beats, she later supported his decision to pursue music.


title: Donda West

text: Kanye West and friend Rhymefest founded the non-profit Donda's House in 2013, a free music writing program with the goal of helping at-risk Chicago youth. It is aimed at students between 15 and 24, and includes lessons on how to write and record music. Their curriculum is based on the teaching philosophy and pedagogy of West with a focus on collaborative and experiential learning. Che Smith, better known as Rhymefest, grew up in Chicago. Donda mentored Smith as an educator. Donda's House was renamed Art of Culture, Incorporated after a contentious split between Rhymefest and West.


title: Donda West

text: In 2019, Garrard McClendon published "Donda's Rules: The Scholarly Works of Dr. Donda West – Mother of Kanye West". McClendon is an associate professor of Educational Leadership and Policy Studies at Chicago State University. In 2013, McClendon enlisted the students in his Philosophy of Education classes to help him mine various archives for Donda West's full body of work: "The students did a wonderful job helping me find all of this archival material. We're talking her scholarly works, her dissertation, her master's thesis. We found personal notes of hers, poems of hers, hundreds of hours of her audio speeches. So in those six years, we're compiling, we're editing, and having conference calls with Kanye," McClendon recounted.


title: Donda West

text: Mahalia Ann Hines, Common's mother, said, "Donda was beautiful. She was intelligent, patient, and generous. Her words were written with power and this book proves it." Brenda M. Greene, professor and mother of recording artist Talib Kweli, said, "Donda and I were kindred spirits as sisters in the network of hip-hop mothers. She was an unsung leader who infused culture and 'knowledge of self' into the curriculum. Donda loved her students."


title: Donda West

text: Kanye West's writing partner Rhymefest lamented West's death in an appearance on Chicago radio station WCGI. "She was everyone's mom," Rhymefest said. "A spirit never dies, a spirit lasts forever."


title: Donda West

text: She is the subject of Kanye's song "Hey Mama", which appeared on his 2005 album "Late Registration". On "Touch the Sky" from the same album, Kanye thanks his mom for always supporting him during the lean times, especially when she drove him to New York from Chicago in a rented U-Haul van.


title: Donda West

text: On January 5, 2012, Kanye announced his establishment of the creative content company DONDA, named after his mother.


title: Donda West

text: Kanye also named his tenth studio album, released in 2021, "Donda", after his mother. Kanye donated student tickets to Chicago State University for the listening session of the album.


title: Donda West

text: On February 23, 2022, Kanye released "Donda 2", his first sequel album to "Donda". Later that year, Ye launched a marketing agency and clothing line named "DONDA Sports." He also opened a pre-kindergarten to Grade 12 Christian private school, Donda Academy, in Simi Valley, California. The school's basketball team, the Donda Doves, includes top prospects from across the United States.


title: Angie Harmon

text: Angela Michelle Harmon (born August 10, 1972) is an American actress and model. She won "Seventeen"'s modeling contest in 1987 at age 15, signed with IMG Models, and appeared on covers for magazines such as "Cosmopolitan" and "Esquire". Her acting breakthrough came with the role of Ryan McBride on "Baywatch Nights" (1995–1997), and she earned four Screen Actors Guild Award nominations for playing Abbie Carmichael on "Law & Order" (1998–2001). Harmon also appeared in a number of film roles, which notably include Barbara Gordon in "" (2000) and Ronica Miles in "Agent Cody Banks" (2003).


title: Angie Harmon

text: Following the roles of Rose in the acclaimed-film "Seraphim Falls" (2006) and Lindsay Boxer in the short-lived series "Women's Murder Club" (2007–2008), Harmon earned praise for playing Jane Rizzoli on the TNT series "Rizzoli & Isles" (2010–2016), and won the Gracie Award for Outstanding Female Actor in a Leading Role in a Drama Series or Special in 2012 and the People's Choice Award for Favorite Cable TV Actress in 2015. She has starred in a number of "Lifetime" network's original projects, which include the biographical special "Video Voyeur" (2002) and the critically-acclaimed feature "Living Proof" (2008). In 2021, she signed an exclusive multi-picture deal with "Lifetime".


title: Angie Harmon

text: She was born in the Dallas suburb of Highland Park, Texas, the daughter of Daphne Demar ("née" Caravageli) and Lawrence Paul "Larry" Harmon, a hospital information network executive in Dallas, Texas. Her father has German and Irish ancestry, while her mother is of Greek descent. In an episode of "Who Do You Think You Are?", Harmon found that she had a German ancestor who served in George Washington's army during the American Revolutionary War, and that ancestor later acquired land in Mercer County, Kentucky. The land is still owned by a distant branch of her family.


title: Angie Harmon

text: Harmon worked as a child model, and in 1987 won a "Seventeen" modeling contest. She attended Highland Park High School until 1990, where she was a member of the Highland Belles. She won a Spectrum Model Search contest shortly afterward, subsequently pursued a successful modeling career, and became well known in the early 1990s. She worked as a runway model for Calvin Klein, Giorgio Armani, and Donna Karan and appeared on the covers of "ELLE", "Cosmopolitan", and "Esquire". She is signed with IMG Models in New York City.


title: Angie Harmon

text: Harmon began acting in 1995 after being discovered on a plane by David Hasselhoff. She then had a leading role in "Baywatch Nights" and the short-lived "". She also appeared in the 1998 film, "Lawn Dogs", which received only a limited theatrical release.


title: Angie Harmon

text: In the late 1990s, Harmon became better known when she joined the NBC series "Law & Order", playing ADA Abbie Carmichael from 1998 to 2001. During this time, she also voiced Barbara Gordon in the animated film "", succeeding Stockard Channing in that role. Harmon left "Law & Order" to concentrate on her film career, saying that she preferred working in film to television.


title: Angie Harmon

text: After appearing in the 2001 direct-to-video film "Good Advice", she had a supporting role in "Agent Cody Banks" (2003), playing the CIA handler of a teenage agent (Frankie Muniz). In 2006, Harmon co-starred with Cuba Gooding Jr. and James Woods in the direct-to-DVD political suspense drama "End Game", and appeared as Rose in the acclaimed Western film "Seraphim Falls".


title: Angie Harmon

text: In 2006, Harmon starred in an ABC pilot "Secrets of a Small Town", which did not go to series. She also starred in another failed television show on NBC, "Inconceivable", which was canceled after two episodes. The following year, she starred in another ABC pilot, "Women's Murder Club", which aired for thirteen episodes. Harmon was one of five actresses who posed discreetly nude for the May 2008 issue of "Allure" magazine, alongside Gabrielle Union, Zoe McLellan, Jill Scott, and Ana Ortiz.


title: Angie Harmon

text: Harmon appeared in the music video for Craig Morgan's "This Ole Boy", released in January 2012. In July 2012, during promotions for a new season of "Rizzoli and Isles", Harmon revealed on Conan O'Brien's late night series that she was a fan of and very interested in playing a movie version of the She-Hulk from Marvel Comics should such a movie become available.


title: Angie Harmon

text: In June 2021, Harmon had signed a multi-picture development deal with Lifetime where she hosted the documentary series "Cellmate Secrets" and starred as Hazel King in "Buried in Barstow".


title: Angie Harmon

text: On March 13, 2000, Harmon became engaged to former NFL player Jason Sehorn. She was appearing as a guest on "The Tonight Show with Jay Leno" when Leno called Sehorn out as a surprise guest. Sehorn immediately walked up to her, knelt down on one knee, and proposed. They were married on June 9, 2001. They have three daughters: Finley; Avery, and Emery. Both publicly support the Republican Party. In November 2014, Harmon and Sehorn announced their separation after 13 years of marriage.


title: Battle of Iwo Jima

text: The Battle of Iwo Jima (19 February – 26 March 1945) was a major battle in which the United States Marine Corps (USMC) and United States Navy (USN) landed on and eventually captured the island of Iwo Jima from the Imperial Japanese Army (IJA) during World War II. The American invasion, designated Operation Detachment, had the purpose of capturing the island with its two airfields: South Field and Central Field.


title: Battle of Iwo Jima

text: The Japanese Army positions on the island were heavily fortified, with a dense network of bunkers, hidden artillery positions, and of tunnels. The American ground forces were supported by extensive naval artillery and had complete air supremacy provided by U.S. Navy and Marine Corps aviators throughout the battle. The five-week battle saw some of the fiercest and bloodiest fighting of the Pacific War.


title: Battle of Iwo Jima

text: The Japanese combat deaths numbered three times the number of American deaths, but uniquely among Pacific War Marine battles, the American total casualties (dead and wounded) exceeded those of the Japanese. Of the 21,000 Japanese soldiers on Iwo Jima at the beginning of the battle, only 216 were taken prisoner, some of whom were captured only because they had been knocked unconscious or otherwise disabled. Most of the remainder were killed in action, but it has been estimated that as many as 3,000 continued to resist within the various cave systems for many days afterwards until they eventually succumbed to their injuries or surrendered weeks later. Despite the fighting and severe casualties on both sides, the American victory was assured from the start. Overwhelming American superiority in numbers and arms as well as air supremacy, coupled with the impossibility of Japanese retreat or reinforcement, sparse food and supplies, permitted no plausible circumstance in which the Japanese could have won the battle.


title: Battle of Iwo Jima

text: The action was controversial, with retired Chief of Naval Operations William V. Pratt stating that the island was useless to the Army as a staging base and useless to the Navy as a fleet base. The Japanese continued to have early-warning radar from Rota island, which was never invaded and the captured air field was barely used. Experiences with previous Pacific island battles suggested that the island would be well defended and thus casualties would be significant. Joe Rosenthal's Associated Press photograph of the raising of the U.S. flag at the top of the Mount Suribachi by five U.S. Marines and one Navy corpsman became a famous image of the battle and the American war effort in the Pacific.


title: Battle of Iwo Jima

text: After the American capture of the Marshall Islands and the devastating air attacks against the Japanese fortress island of Truk Atoll in the Carolines in January 1944, the Japanese military leaders reevaluated their situation. All indications pointed to an American drive toward the Mariana Islands and the Carolines. To counter such an offensive, the IJA and the Imperial Japanese Navy (IJN) established an inner line of defenses extending generally northward from the Carolines to the Marianas and then to Japan via the Volcano Islands and westward from the Marianas via the Carolines and the Palau Islands to the Philippines.


title: Battle of Iwo Jima

text: In March 1944, the Japanese 31st Army, commanded by General Hideyoshi Obata, was activated to garrison this inner line. (Note that a Japanese army was about the size of an American, British Army, or Canadian Army corps. The Japanese Army had many armies, but the U.S. Army had only ten at its peak, with the 4th Army, the 6th Army, the 8th Army, and the 10th Army being in the Pacific Theater. Also, the 10th Army fought on Okinawa only in the spring of 1945.)


title: Battle of Iwo Jima

text: The commander of the Japanese garrison on Chichi Jima was placed nominally in command of Army and Navy units in the Volcano Islands. After the American conquest of the Marianas, daily bomber raids from the Marianas hit the mainland as part of Operation Scavenger. Iwo Jima served as an early warning station that radioed reports of incoming bombers back to mainland Japan. That allowed Japanese air defenses to prepare for the arrival of the American bombers.


title: Battle of Iwo Jima

text: After the U.S. seized bases in the Marshall Islands in the Battles of Kwajalein and Eniwetok in February 1944, Japanese Army and Navy reinforcements were sent to Iwo Jima: 500 men from the naval base at Yokosuka and 500 from Chichi Jima reached Iwo Jima during March and April 1944. At the same time, with reinforcements arriving from Chichi Jima and the home islands, the army garrison on Iwo Jima reached a strength of more than 5,000 men. The loss of the Marianas during the summer of 1944 greatly increased the importance of the Volcano Islands for the Japanese, who were afraid that the loss of those islands would facilitate American air raids against the Home Islands, disrupt war manufacturing, and severely damage civilian morale.


title: Battle of Iwo Jima

text: The final Japanese plans for the defense of the Volcano Islands were overshadowed by several factors:


title: Battle of Iwo Jima

text: In a postwar study, Japanese staff officers described the strategy used in the defense of Iwo Jima in the following terms:


title: Battle of Iwo Jima

text: At the end of the Battle of Leyte in the Philippines, the Allies were left with a two-month lull in their offensive operations before the planned invasion of Okinawa. Iwo Jima was considered strategically important since it provided an air base for Japanese fighter planes to intercept long-range B-29 Superfortress bombers. In addition, it was used by the Japanese to stage nuisance air attacks on the Mariana Islands from November 1944 to January 1945. The capture of Iwo Jima would eliminate those problems. The base would be available for P-51 Mustang fighters to escort and protect the bombers.


title: Battle of Iwo Jima

text: American intelligence sources were confident that Iwo Jima would fall in one week. In light of the optimistic intelligence reports, the decision was made to invade Iwo Jima, and the operation was codenamed Operation Detachment. American forces failed to anticipate that the Japanese would prepare a complex and deep defense, much like on Peleliu in the fall of 1944. So successful was the Japanese preparation that it was discovered after the battle that the hundreds of tons of Allied bombs and thousands of rounds of heavy naval gunfire had left the Japanese defenders almost undamaged and ready to inflict losses on the U.S. Marines.


title: Battle of Iwo Jima

text: By June 1944, Lieutenant General Tadamichi Kuribayashi was assigned to command the defense of Iwo Jima. Kuribayashi knew that Japan could not win the battle, but he hoped to inflict massive casualties on the American forces so that the United States, and its Australian and British allies, would reconsider carrying out their invasion of the Japanese home islands.


title: Battle of Iwo Jima

text: While drawing inspiration from the defense in the Battle of Peleliu, Kuribayashi designed a defense that broke with Japanese military doctrine. Rather than establishing his defenses on the beach to face the landings directly, he created strong mutually-supporting defenses in depth by using static and heavy weapons such as heavy machine guns and artillery. Takeichi Nishi's armored tanks were to be used as camouflaged artillery positions. Because the tunnel linking the mountain to the main forces was never completed, Kuribayashi organized the southern area of the island in and around Mount Suribachi as a semi-independent sector, with his main defensive zone built up in the north. The expected American naval and air bombardment further prompted the creation of an extensive system of tunnels that connected the prepared positions so that a pillbox that had been cleared could be reoccupied. This network of bunkers and pillboxes favored the defense. For instance, the Nano Bunker (Southern Area Islands Naval Air HQ), which was east of Airfield Number 2, had enough food, water, and ammunition for the Japanese to hold out for three months. The bunker was 90 feet deep and had tunnels running in various directions. Approximately five hundred 55-gallon drums filled with water, kerosene, and fuel oil for generators were inside the complex. Gasoline-powered generators allowed for radios and lighting to be operated underground.


title: Battle of Iwo Jima

text: By 19 February 1945, when the Americans invaded, of a planned of tunnel network had been dug. Besides the Nanpo Bunker, there were numerous command centers and barracks that were 75 feet deep. Tunnels allowed for troop movement to go undetected to various defense positions.


title: Battle of Iwo Jima

text: Hundreds of hidden artillery and mortar positions along with land mines were placed all over the island. Among the Japanese weapons were 320 mm spigot mortars and a variety of explosive rockets.


title: Battle of Iwo Jima

text: Nonetheless, the Japanese supply was inadequate. Troops were supplied 60% of the standard issue of ammunition sufficient for one engagement by one division and food and forage for four months.


title: Battle of Iwo Jima

text: Numerous Japanese snipers and camouflaged machine gun positions were also set up. Kuribayashi specially engineered the defenses so that every part of Iwo Jima was subject to Japanese defensive fire. He also received a handful of "kamikaze" pilots to use against the enemy fleet; their attacks during the battle killed 318 American sailors. However, against his wishes, Kuribayashi's superiors on Honshu ordered him to erect some beach defenses.


title: Battle of Iwo Jima

text: Starting on 15 June 1944, the U.S. Navy and the U.S. Army Air Forces began naval bombardments and air raids against Iwo Jima, which would become the longest and most intense in the Pacific Theater. They would contain a combination of naval artillery shellings and aerial bombings that went on for nine months. On 17 February, the destroyer escort sent Underwater Demolition Team 15 (UDT-15) toward Blue Beach for reconnaissance. The Japanese infantry fired on them, which killed one American diver. On the evening of 18 February, the "Blessman" was hit by a bomb from a Japanese aircraft, killing 40 sailors, including 15 members of her UDT.


title: Battle of Iwo Jima

text: Unaware of Kuribayashi's tunnel defense system, many of the Americans assumed that most of the Japanese garrison had been killed by the constant bombing raids.


title: Battle of Iwo Jima

text: Maj. Gen. Harry Schmidt, commander of the Marine landing force, requested a 10-day heavy shelling of the island immediately preceding the mid-February amphibious assault. However, Rear Adm. William H. P. Blandy, commander of the Amphibious Support Force (Task Force 52), did not believe such a bombardment would allow him time to replenish his ships' ammunition before the landings; he thus refused Schmidt's request. Schmidt then asked for nine days of shelling; Blandy again refused and agreed to a three-day bombardment. This decision left much hard feeling among the Marines. After the war, Lieut. Gen. Holland M. "Howlin' Mad" Smith, commander Expeditionary Troops (Task Force 56, which consisted of Schmidt's Fifth Amphibious Corps), bitterly complained that the lack of naval gunfire had cost Marine lives during the entire Allied island campaign.


title: Battle of Iwo Jima

text: Each heavy warship was given an area on which to fire that, combined with all the ships, covered the entire island. Each warship fired for approximately six hours before stopping for a certain amount of time. Poor weather on D minus 3 led to uncertain results for that day's bombardment. On D minus 2, the time and care that the Japanese had taken in preparing their artillery positions became clear. When heavy cruiser got within range of shore batteries, the ship was quickly hit 6 times and suffered 17 crew deaths. Later, 12 small craft attempting to land an underwater demolition team were all struck by Japanese rounds and quickly retired. While aiding these vessels, the destroyer was also hit and suffered 7 crew deaths. On D minus 1, Adm. Blandy's gunners were once again hampered by rain and clouds. Gen. Schmidt summed up his feelings by saying, "We only got about 13 hours worth of fire support during the 34 hours of available daylight."


title: Battle of Iwo Jima

text: The limited bombardment had a questionable impact on the enemy due to the Japanese being heavily dug-in and fortified. The craters left behind by the barrage also provided additional cover for the defenders, while hampering the attackers' advance. However, many bunkers and caves were destroyed during the bombing, giving it some limited success. The Japanese had been preparing for this battle since March 1944, which gave them a significant advantage. By the time of the landing, about 450 American ships were located off Iwo Jima, and the battle was to involve about 60,000 U.S. Marines and several thousand U.S. Navy Seabees.


title: Battle of Iwo Jima

text: During the night, Vice Adm. Marc Mitscher's Task Force 58, a huge carrier force, arrived off Iwo Jima. Also in this flotilla was Adm. Raymond A. Spruance, overall commander for the invasion, in his flagship, the heavy cruiser . "Howlin' Mad" Smith was once again deeply frustrated that Mitscher's powerful carrier group had been bombing the Japanese home islands instead of softening up the defenses of Iwo Jima. Mitscher's fliers however, did assist the additional surface-ship bombardment that accompanied the formation of the amphibious craft.


title: Battle of Iwo Jima

text: Unlike the days of the pre-landing bombardment, D-Day dawned clear and bright. At 08:59, one minute ahead of schedule, the first wave of Marines landed on the beaches of the southeastern coast of Iwo Jima. Major Howard Connor, 5th Marine Division signal officer, had six Navajo code talkers "Windtalkers" working around the clock during the first two days of the battle. These six sent and received over 800 messages, all without error. Connor later stated, "Were it not for the Navajos, the Marines would never have taken Iwo Jima."


title: Battle of Iwo Jima

text: Unfortunately for the landing force, the planners at Pearl Harbor had completely misjudged the situation that would face Gen. Schmidt's Marines. The beaches had been described as "excellent" and the thrust inland was expected to be "easy." In reality, after crossing the beach, the Marines were faced with slopes of soft black volcanic ash. This ash allowed for neither a secure footing nor the construction of foxholes to protect the Marines from hostile fire. However, the ash did help to absorb some of the fragments from Japanese artillery.


title: Battle of Iwo Jima

text: The lack of a vigorous response led the Navy to conclude that their bombardment had suppressed the Japanese defenses and in good order the Marines began deployment to the Iwo Jima beach. Gen. Kuribayashi was far from beaten, however. In the deathly silence, landed U.S. Marines began to slowly inch their way forward inland, oblivious to the danger. After allowing the Americans to pile up men and machinery on the beach for just over an hour, Kuribayashi unleashed the undiminished force of his countermeasures. Shortly after 10:00, everything from machine guns and mortars to heavy artillery began to rain down on the crowded beach, which was quickly transformed into a nightmarish bloodbath.


title: Battle of Iwo Jima

text: The Japanese heavy artillery in Mount Suribachi opened their reinforced steel doors to fire, and then closed them immediately to prevent counterfire from the Marines and naval gunners. This made it difficult for American units to destroy a Japanese artillery piece. To make matters worse for the Americans, the bunkers were connected to the elaborate tunnel system so that bunkers that were cleared with flamethrowers and grenades were reoccupied shortly afterwards by Japanese troops moving through the tunnels. This tactic caused many casualties among the Marines, as they walked past the reoccupied bunkers without expecting to suddenly take fresh fire from them.


title: Battle of Iwo Jima

text: Amtracs, unable to do more than uselessly churn the black ash, made no progress up the slopes; their Marine passengers had to dismount and slog forward on foot. Men of the Naval Construction Battalions 31 and 133, braving enemy fire, eventually were able to bulldoze roads off the beach. This allowed the Marines and equipment to finally make some progress inland and get off the jam-packed beaches. "Even so, in virtually every shell hole there lay at least one dead Marine ..."


title: Battle of Iwo Jima

text: By 11:30, some Marines had managed to reach the southern tip of Airfield No. 1, whose possession had been one of the (now highly unrealistic in the face of the actual defences) original American objectives for the first day. The Marines endured a fanatical 100-man charge by the Japanese, but were able to keep their toehold on Airfield No. 1 as night fell.


title: Battle of Iwo Jima

text: In the left-most sector, the Americans did manage to achieve one of their objectives for the battle that day. Led by Col. Harry B. "Harry the Horse" Liversedge, the 28th Marines drove across the island at its narrowest width, around , thereby isolating the Japanese dug in on Mount Suribachi.


title: Battle of Iwo Jima

text: The right-most landing area was dominated by Japanese positions at the Quarry. The 25th Marine Regiment undertook a two-pronged attack to silence these guns. Their experience can be summarized by the ordeal of 2nd Lt. Benjamin Roselle, part of a ground team directing naval gunfire:


title: Battle of Iwo Jima

text: The 25th Marines' 3rd Battalion had landed approximately 900 men in the morning. Japanese resistance at the Quarry was so fierce that by nightfall only 150 Marines were left in fighting condition, an 83.3% casualty rate.


title: Battle of Iwo Jima

text: By the evening, 30,000 Marines had landed. About 40,000 more would follow. Aboard the command ship "Eldorado", "Howlin' Mad" Smith saw the lengthy casualty reports and heard of the slow progress of the ground forces. To the war correspondents covering the operation he confessed, "I don't know who he is, but the Japanese general running this show is one smart bastard."


title: Battle of Iwo Jima

text: In the days after the landings, the Marines expected the usual Japanese "banzai" charge during the night. This had been the standard Japanese final defense strategy in previous battles against enemy ground forces in the Pacific, such as during the Battle of Saipan. In those attacks, for which the Marines were prepared, the majority of the Japanese attackers had been killed and the Japanese strength greatly reduced. However, General Kuribayashi had strictly forbidden these "human wave" attacks by the Japanese infantrymen because he considered them to be futile.


title: Battle of Iwo Jima

text: The fighting on the beachhead at Iwo Jima was very fierce. The advance of the Marines was stalled by numerous defensive positions augmented by artillery pieces. There, the Marines were ambushed by Japanese troops who occasionally sprang out of tunnels. At night, the Japanese left their defenses under cover of darkness to attack American foxholes, but U.S. Navy ships fired star shells to deny them the cover of darkness. On Iwo Jima (and other Japanese held islands), Japanese soldiers who knew English were used to harass and or deceive Marines in order to kill them if they could; they would yell "corpsman" pretending to be a wounded Marine, in order to lure in U.S. Navy hospital corpsmen attached to Marine infantry companies.


title: Battle of Iwo Jima

text: The Marines learned that firearms were relatively ineffective against the Japanese defenders and effectively used flamethrowers and grenades to flush out Japanese troops in the tunnels. One of the technological innovations of the battle, the eight Sherman M4A3R3 medium tanks equipped with a flamethrower ("Ronson" or "Zippo" tanks), proved very effective at clearing Japanese positions. The Shermans were difficult to disable, such that defenders were often compelled to assault them in the open, where they would fall victim to the superior numbers of Marines.


title: Battle of Iwo Jima

text: Close air support was initially provided by fighters from escort carriers off the coast. This shifted over to the 15th Fighter Group, flying P-51 Mustangs, after they arrived on the island on 6 March. Similarly, illumination rounds (flares) which were used to light up the battlefield at night were initially provided by ships, shifting over later to landing force artillery. Navajo code talkers were part of the American ground communications, along with walkie-talkies and SCR-610 backpack radio sets.


title: Battle of Iwo Jima

text: After running out of water, food and most supplies, the Japanese troops became desperate toward the end of the battle. Kuribayashi, who had argued against banzai attacks at the start of the battle, realized that defeat was imminent.


title: Battle of Iwo Jima

text: Marines began to face increasing numbers of nighttime attacks; these were only repelled by a combination of machine-gun defensive positions and artillery support. At times, the Marines engaged in hand-to-hand fighting to repel the Japanese attacks. With the landing area secure, more troops and heavy equipment came ashore, and the invasion proceeded north to capture the airfields and the remainder of the island. Most Japanese soldiers fought to the death.


title: Battle of Iwo Jima

text: "Raising the Flag on Iwo Jima" is a black and white photograph taken by Joe Rosenthal depicting six Marines from E Company, 2nd Battalion, 28th Marines, raising a U.S. flag atop Mount Suribachi on 23 February 1945, which was the second of two flag-raisings on the site that day. The photograph was extremely popular, being reprinted in thousands of publications. Later, it became the only photograph to win the Pulitzer Prize for Photography in the same year as its publication, and ultimately came to be regarded as one of the most significant and recognizable images of the war, and possibly the most reproduced photograph of all time. The flag raising picture was later used by Felix de Weldon to sculpt the Marine Corps War Memorial which is located adjacent to Arlington National Cemetery since 1954.


title: Battle of Iwo Jima

text: Three of the six Marines depicted in the photograph, Sergeant Michael Strank, Corporal Harlon Block, and Private First Class Franklin Sousley, were killed in action days after the flag-raising. Surviving flag-raiser Private First Class Ira Hayes, together with Private First Class Rene Gagnon and Navy hospital corpsman Pharmacist's Mate Second Class John Bradley, became celebrities upon their participation in a war bond selling tour after the battle; three subsequent Marine Corps investigations into the identities of the six men in the photograph determined: in 1946 and 1947, that Harlon Block was incorrectly identified as Henry Hansen (both were killed six days after the photo was taken), in May and June 2016, that John Bradley was not in the photograph and Private First Class Harold Schultz was, and in 2019, that Rene Gagnon was not in the photograph and Private First Class Harold Keller was.


title: Battle of Iwo Jima

text: By the morning of 23 February, Mount Suribachi was effectively cut off above ground from the rest of the island. The Marines knew that the Japanese defenders had an extensive network of below-ground defenses, and that in spite of its isolation above ground, the volcano was still connected to Japanese defenders via the tunnel network. They expected a fierce fight for the summit. Two small patrols from two rifle companies from the 2/28 Marines were sent up the volcano to reconnoiter routes on the mountain's north face. The recon patrols made it to the summit and scrambled down again, reporting any contact to the 2/28 Marines commander, Lieutenant Colonel Chandler W. Johnson.


title: Battle of Iwo Jima

text: Popular accounts embroidered by the press in the aftermath of the release of the photo of the flag raising, had the Marines fighting all the way up to the summit. Although the Marine riflemen expected an ambush, the larger patrol going up afterwards encountered a few Japanese defenders once on top and after the flag was raised. The majority of the Japanese troops stayed in the tunnel network due to U.S. shelling, only occasionally attacking in small groups, and were generally all killed. Johnson called for a reinforced platoon size patrol from E Company to climb Suribachi and seize and occupy the crest. The patrol commander, 1st Lt. Harold Schrier, was handed the battalion's American flag to be raised on top to signal Suribachi's capture, if they reached the summit. Johnson and the Marines anticipated heavy fighting, but the patrol encountered only a small amount of sniper fire on the way up the mountain. Once the top was secured by Schrier and his men, a length of Japanese water pipe was found there among the wreckage, and the American flag was attached to the pipe and then raised and planted on top of Mount Suribachi which became the first foreign flag to fly on Japanese soil. Photographs of the flag and some of the patrol members around it were taken by Marine photographer Louis R. Lowery, the only photographer who had accompanied Lt. Schrier's patrol up the mountain.


title: Battle of Iwo Jima

text: As the flag went up, Secretary of the Navy James Forrestal had just landed on the beach at the foot of Mount Suribachi and decided that he wanted the flag as a souvenir. Colonel Johnson, the battalion's commander, believed that the flag belonged to the 2nd Battalion, 28th Marines, who had captured that section of the island. In the early afternoon, Johnson sent Pfc. Rene Gagnon, a runner (messenger) from his battalion for E Company, to take a larger flag up the volcano to replace the smaller and less visible flag. The replacement flag was attached to another and heavier section of water pipe and six Marines proceeded to raise it into place as the smaller flag was taken down and delivered to the battalion's headquarters down below. It was during this "second" flag-raising that Joseph Rosenthal took the renowned photograph ""Raising the Flag on Iwo Jima"". The second flag flew on Mount Suribachi until it was taken down on 14 March, when at the same time an American flag was officially raised during a ceremony at the V Amphibious Corps command post near Mount Suribachi. The official flag raising was ordered by Lt. Gen. Holland Smith, the commander of all the troops on Iwo Jima, and attended by some members of the 3rd Marine Division and their commander General Graves B. Erskine.


title: Battle of Iwo Jima

text: Despite Japan's loss of Mount Suribachi on the South end of the island, the Japanese still held strong positions on the north end. The rocky terrain vastly favored defense, even more so than Mount Suribachi, which was much easier to hit with naval artillery fire. Coupled with this, the fortifications constructed by Kuribayashi were more impressive than at the southern end of the island. Remaining under the command of Kuribayashi was the equivalent of eight infantry battalions, a tank regiment, and two artillery and three heavy mortar battalions. There were also about 5,000 gunners and naval infantry. The most arduous task left to the Marines was the taking of the Motoyama Plateau with its distinctive Hill 382 and Turkey knob and the area in between referred to as the Amphitheater. This formed the basis of what came to be known as the "meatgrinder". While this was being achieved on the right flank, the left was clearing out Hill 362 with just as much difficulty. The overall objective at this point was to take control of Airfield No. 2 in the center of the island. However, every "penetration seemed to become a disaster" as "units were raked from the flanks, chewed up, and sometimes wiped out. Tanks were destroyed by interlocking fire or were hoisted into the air on the spouting fireballs of buried mines". As a result, the fighting bogged down, with American casualties piling up. Even capturing these points was not a solution to the problem since a previously secured position could be attacked from the rear by the use of the tunnels and hidden pillboxes. As such, it was said that "they could take these heights at will, and then regret it".


title: Battle of Iwo Jima

text: The Marines nevertheless found ways to prevail under the circumstances. It was observed that during bombardments, the Japanese would hide their guns and themselves in the caves only to reappear when the troops would advance and lay devastating fire on them. The Japanese had over time learned basic American tactics, which was to lay heavy bombardment before an infantry attack. Consequently, General Erskine ordered the 9th Marine Regiment to attack under the cover of darkness with no preliminary barrage. This came to be a resounding success with many Japanese soldiers killed while still asleep. This was a key moment in the capture of Hill 362. It held such importance that the Japanese organized a counterattack the following night. Although Kuribayashi had forbidden the suicide charges familiar with other battles in the Pacific, the commander of the area decided on a "banzai" charge with the optimistic goal of recapturing Mount Suribachi. On the evening of 8 March, Captain Samaji Inouye and his 1,000 men charged the American lines, inflicting 347 casualties (90 deaths). The Marines counted 784 dead Japanese soldiers the next day. The same day, elements of the 3rd Marine Division reached the northern coast of the island, splitting Kuribayashi's defenses in two. There was also a "kamikaze" air attack (the only one of the battle) on the ships anchored at sea on 21 February, which resulted in the sinking of the escort carrier , severe damage to , and slight damage to the escort carrier , an LST, and a transport.


title: Battle of Iwo Jima

text: Although the island was declared secure at 18:00 on 16 March (25 days after the landings), the 5th Marine Division still faced Kuribayashi's stronghold in a gorge long at the northwestern end of the island. On 21 March, the Marines destroyed the command post in the gorge with four tons of explosives and on 24 March, Marines sealed the remaining caves at the northern tip of the island. However, on the night of 25 March, a 300-man Japanese force launched a final counterattack in the vicinity of Airfield No. 2. Army pilots, Seabees, and Marines of the 5th Pioneer Battalion and 28th Marines fought the Japanese force for up to 90 minutes, suffering heavy casualties (53 killed, 120 wounded). Although still a matter of speculation because of conflicting accounts from surviving Japanese veterans, it has been said that Kuribayashi led this final assault, which unlike the loud "banzai" charge of previous battles, was characterized as a silent attack. If ever proven true, Kuribayashi would have been the highest ranking Japanese officer to have personally led an attack during World War II. Additionally, this would also be Kuribayashi's final act, a departure from the normal practice of the commanding Japanese officers committing seppuku behind the lines while the rest perished in the "banzai" charge, as happened during the battles of Saipan and Okinawa. The island was officially declared secure at 09:00 on 26 March.


title: Battle of Iwo Jima

text: Once the island was officially declared secure, the Army's 147th Infantry Regiment was ostensibly there to act as a garrison force, but they soon found themselves locked in a bitter struggle against thousands of stalwart defenders engaging in a last-ditch guerrilla campaign to harass the Americans. Using well-supplied caves and tunnel systems, the Japanese resisted American advances. For three months, the 147th slogged across the island, using flamethrowers, grenades, and satchel charges to dig out the enemy, killing some 1,602 Japanese soldiers in small unit actions (along with many others who died in sealed caves) while suffering fifteen men killed in action and another 144 wounded. The Ohioans were also credited with capturing 867 Japanese; combined with the number of enemy soldiers killed, this casualty figure represented over 10% of the original Japanese garrison.


title: Battle of Iwo Jima

text: The United States M2 flamethrower was heavily used in the Pacific. It features two tanks containing fuel and compressed gas respectively, which are combined and ignited to produce a stream of flaming liquid out of the tip.


title: Battle of Iwo Jima

text: These flamethrowers were used to kill Japanese holed into pillboxes, buildings and caves. A battalion would assign one flamethrower per platoon with one reserve flamethrower in each group. Flamethrower operators were usually in more danger than regular troops as the short range of their weapon required close combat, and the visibility of the flames on the battlefield made them a prominent target for snipers. Still they were essential to breaking the enemy and one battalion commander called the flamethrowing tanks the "best single weapon of the operation."


title: Battle of Iwo Jima

text: Prior to Saipan the Marine Corps had left flamethrowing tank development to the Army. They had placed an order with the Army for nine tanks per Division. At Schofield Barracks Col. Unmacht's Top secret "Flame Thrower Group" located eight M4A3 Sherman medium tanks to convert for Operation Detachment. His , from the 117th CB, worked to combine the best elements from three different flame units: the Ronson, the Navy model I and the Navy Mk-1. That first model was quickly superseded by the far better CB-H2. The U.S. Army Chemical Corps variously identified these tanks as POA-CWS-H1, (Pacific Ocean Area-Chemical Warfare Section-Hawaii) CWS-POA-H2, CWS-POA-H1 H2, OR CWS-"75"-H1 H2 mechanized flamethrowers. U.S. Marine and U.S. Army observer documents from Iwo Jima refer to them as the CB-Mk-1 or CB-H1. Marines on the lines simply called them the Mark I. The official USMC designation was "M4 A3R5". The Japanese referred to them as M1 tanks and it is speculated that they did so due to a poor translation of "MH-1". On Iwo Jima the flame tanks all landed D-day and went into action on D+2, sparingly at first. As the battle progressed, portable flame units sustained casualty rates up to 92%, leaving few troops trained to use the weapon. More and more calls came for the Mark-1s to the point that the Marines became dependent upon the tanks and would hold up their assault until a flame tank was available. Since each tank battalion had only four they were not assigned. Rather, they were "pooled" and would dispatch from their respective refueling locations as the battle progressed. Towards the end of the battle, 5th Marine tanks expended between of napalm per day. The Marines said that the flamethrowing tanks were the single best weapon they had in taking the island and that they were the only thing the Japanese feared.


title: Battle of Iwo Jima

text: The last of these holdouts on the island, two of Lieutenant Toshihiko Ohno's men, and , lasted four years without being caught and finally surrendered on 6 January 1949.


title: Battle of Iwo Jima

text: Though ultimately victorious, the American victory at Iwo Jima had come at a terrible price. According to the Navy Department Library, "the 36-day assault resulted in more than 26,000 American casualties, including 6,800 dead." By comparison, the much larger scale 82-day Battle of Okinawa lasting from early April until mid-June 1945 (involving five U.S. Army and two Marine Corps divisions) resulted in over 62,000 U.S. casualties, of whom over 12,000 were killed or missing. Iwo Jima was also the only U.S. Marine battle where the American casualties exceeded the Japanese, although Japanese combat deaths numbered three times as many as American deaths. Two U.S. Marines were captured during the battle, neither of whom survived their captivity. The was also lost, the last U.S. aircraft carrier sunk in World War II. 20 Grumman FM-2 Wildcat fighters and 11 Grumman TBM Avenger torpedo bombers went down with "Bismarck Sea". Also, the was so severely damaged that she no longer took part in either combat or transportation duties for the rest of the war. She became a training ship. 31 Grumman F6F Hellcat fighters and 9 Grumman TBM Avenger torpedo bombers were destroyed by the kamikaze attack on "Saratoga". Because all civilians had been evacuated, there were no civilian casualties at Iwo Jima, unlike at Saipan and Okinawa.


title: Battle of Iwo Jima

text: In hindsight, given the number of casualties, the necessity and long-term significance of the island's capture to the outcome of the war became a contentious issue and remains disputed. The Marines, who suffered the actual casualties, were not consulted in the planning of the operation. As early as April 1945, retired Chief of Naval Operations William V. Pratt stated in "Newsweek" magazine that considering the "expenditure of manpower to acquire a small, God-forsaken island, useless to the Army as a staging base and useless to the Navy as a fleet base ... [one] wonders if the same sort of airbase could not have been reached by acquiring other strategic localities at lower cost."


title: Battle of Iwo Jima

text: The lessons learned on Iwo Jima served as guidelines for the following Battle of Okinawa and the planned invasion of the Japanese homeland. For example, "because of the casualties taken at Iwo Jima on the first day, it was decided to make the preparatory bombardment the heaviest yet delivered on to a Pacific island". Also, in the planning for a potential attack on the Japanese home islands, it was taken into account that around a third of the troops committed to Iwo Jima and again at Okinawa had been killed or wounded.


title: Battle of Iwo Jima

text: The justification for Iwo Jima's strategic importance to the United States' war effort has been that it provided a landing and refueling site for long-range fighter escorts. These escorts proved both impractical and unnecessary, and only ten such missions were ever flown from Iwo Jima. By the time Iwo Jima had been captured, the bombing campaign against Japan had switched from daylight precision bombing to nighttime incendiary attacks, so fighter escorts were of limited utility.


title: Battle of Iwo Jima

text: Japanese fighter aircraft based on Iwo Jima sometimes attacked AAF planes, which were vulnerable on their way to Japan because they were heavily laden with bombs and fuel. However, although some Japanese interceptors were based on Iwo Jima, their impact on the American bombing effort was marginal; in the three months before the invasion only 11 B-29s were lost as a result. The Superfortresses found it unnecessary to make any major detour around the island. Capturing the island neutralized Japanese air attacks based from it on the Marianas, but they were too small to ever launch significant attacks.


title: Battle of Iwo Jima

text: The Japanese on Iwo Jima had radar and were thus able to notify their comrades at home of incoming B-29 Superfortresses flying from the Mariana Islands. However, the capture of Iwo Jima did not affect the Japanese early-warning radar system, which continued to receive information on incoming B-29s from the island of Rota (which was never invaded).


title: Battle of Iwo Jima

text: As early as 4 March 1945, while fighting was still taking place, the B-29 "Dinah Might" of the USAAF 9th Bomb Group reported it was low on fuel near the island and requested an emergency landing. Despite enemy fire, the airplane landed on the Allied-controlled section of the island (South Field), without incident, and was serviced, refueled and departed.


title: Battle of Iwo Jima

text: In all, 2,251 B-29 landings on Iwo Jima were recorded during the war. Author J. Robert Moskin records that 1,191 fighter escorts and 3,081 strike sorties were flown from Iwo Jima against Japan. A more recent Air Force study found the contribution of VII Fighter Command superfluous. Another rationale for capturing the island was to serve as a base for shorter-range B-24 Liberator bombers against Japan, but no significant B-24 bombing campaign ever materialized.


title: Battle of Iwo Jima

text: Some downed B-29 crewmen were saved by air-sea rescue aircraft and vessels operating from the island, but Iwo Jima was only one of many islands that could have been used for such a purpose. As for the importance of the island as a landing and refueling site for bombers, Marine Captain Robert Burrell, then a history instructor at the United States Naval Academy, suggested that only a small proportion of the 2,251 landings were for genuine emergencies, the great majority possibly being for minor technical checkups, training, or refueling. According to Burrell,


title: Battle of Iwo Jima

text: The "emergency landing" thesis counts every B-29 landing on Iwo Jima as an emergency and asserts that capturing the island saved the lives of the nearly 25,000 crewmen of all 2,251 planes (2,148 B-29 crewmen were killed in combat during the whole war in all theaters). However, of the nearly 2,000 B-29s which landed from May–July 1945, more than 80% were for routine refueling. Several hundred landings were made for training purposes, and most of the remainder were for relatively minor engine maintenance. During June 1945 which saw the largest number of landings, none of the more than 800 B-29s that landed on the island did so due to combat damage. Of the aircraft that would have been lost without being able to land, air-sea rescue figures indicate that 50% of crewmen who ditched at sea survived, so even if Iwo Jima was never taken the estimate of the supposedly potential 25,000 dead crewmen from airplanes crashing into the ocean should be dwindled down to 12,500.


title: Battle of Iwo Jima

text: In publishing "The Ghosts of Iwo Jima", Texas A&M University Press said that the very losses formed the basis for a "reverence for the Marine Corps" that not only embodied the "American national spirit" but ensured the "institutional survival" of the Marine Corps.


title: Battle of Iwo Jima

text: The following table lists for each ship badly damaged in the Battle of Iwo Jima, the dates they received hits, the cause, the type of ship, and the casualties inflicted during 17–28 February. The carrier , which received light damage, was listed because of the importance of escort carriers in the battle.


title: Battle of Iwo Jima

text: The Medal of Honor is the highest military decoration awarded by the United States government. It is bestowed on a member of the United States armed forces who distinguishes himself by "... conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity at the risk of his life above and beyond the call of duty while engaged in an action against an enemy of the United States ..." Because of its nature, the medal is commonly awarded posthumously; since its creation during the American Civil War it has been presented only 3,464 times.


title: Battle of Iwo Jima

text: The Medal of Honor was awarded to 27 U.S. Marines and U.S. sailors (14 posthumously), during the battle of Iwo Jima. 22 medals were presented to Marines (12 posthumously) and 5 were presented to sailors, 4 of whom were hospital corpsmen (2 posthumously) attached to Marine infantry units; 22 Medals of Honor was 28% of the 82 awarded to Marines in World War II.


title: Battle of Iwo Jima

text: At the time of his death on 29 June 2022, Hershel W. Williams (Marine Corps) was the last living Medal of Honor recipient from World War II. He received his medal for actions in the Battle of Iwo Jima.


title: Battle of Iwo Jima

text: On 19 February 1985, the 40th anniversary of the landings on Iwo Jima, an event called the "Reunion of Honor" was held (the event has been held annually since 2002). The veterans of both sides who fought in the battle of Iwo Jima attended the event. The place was the invasion beach where U.S. forces landed. A memorial on which inscriptions were engraved by both sides was built at the center of the meeting place. Japanese attended at the mountain side, where the Japanese inscription was carved, and Americans attended at the shore side, where the English inscription was carved. After unveiling and offering of flowers were made, the representatives of both countries approached the memorial; upon meeting, they shook hands. The combined Japan-U.S. memorial service of the 50th anniversary of the battle was held in front of the monument in February 1995. Further memorial services have been held on later anniversaries.


title: Battle of Iwo Jima

text: The importance of the battle to Marines today is demonstrated in pilgrimages made to the island, and specifically the summit of Suribachi. Marines will often leave dog tags, rank insignia, or other tokens at the monuments in homage. Iwo Jima Day is observed annually on 19 February in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts with a ceremony at the State House.


title: Battle of Iwo Jima

text: The Japanese government continues to search for and retrieve the remains of Japanese military personnel who were killed during the battle.


title: Battle of Iwo Jima

text: The Battle of Iwo Jima has been featured in numerous films and documentaries. The U.S. military produced the 1945 documentaries "To the Shores of Iwo Jima" and "Glamour Gal", a film about a Marine artillery piece and its crew. John Wayne starred in the feature film "Sands of Iwo Jima" in 1949.


title: Battle of Iwo Jima

text: "Iwo Jima", part eight of the 2010 HBO miniseries "The Pacific" produced by Tom Hanks and Steven Spielberg, includes part of the Battle of Iwo Jima from the point of view of John Basilone, from the beginning of the invasion until his death later in the day. Basilone was the only enlisted Marine to receive both the Medal of Honor and the Navy Cross in World War II.


title: Battle of Iwo Jima

text: Ira Hayes, one of the Marines who appeared in Joe Rosenthal's "Raising the Flag on Iwo Jima" photograph, was the subject of the 1961 film "The Outsider", starring Tony Curtis as the conflicted flag raiser. Hayes was also depicted, along with Marine Rene Gagnon and Navy corpsman John Bradley in the 2006 film "Flags of Our Fathers", directed by Clint Eastwood. "Flags of Our Fathers" is filmed from the American perspective and is based on the 2000 book by James Bradley and Ron Powers, "Flags of Our Fathers". The 2006 film "Letters from Iwo Jima", also directed by Clint Eastwood, depicts the battle from the Japanese perspective.


title: Hilaria Baldwin

text: Hilaria Baldwin (born Hillary Lynn Hayward-Thomas, January 6, 1984) is an American yoga instructor, entrepreneur, podcaster, and author. She was the co-founder of a chain of New York-based yoga studios called Yoga Vida, and has released an exercise DVD and a wellness-focused book. She has been married to actor Alec Baldwin since 2012.


title: Hilaria Baldwin

text: In December 2020, she faced allegations that she faked her Spanish accent and misled people about her nationality and ethnic background.


title: Hilaria Baldwin

text: Baldwin was born Hillary Lynn Hayward-Thomas in Boston, Massachusetts, on January 6, 1984, the daughter of Kathryn Hayward and David Thomas Jr. Her mother grew up in Massachusetts and spent her career practicing medicine there; she was an associate physician at Massachusetts General Hospital and assistant professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School before retiring from both positions in 2012. Her father was an attorney with an undergraduate degree in Spanish literature from Haverford College and a law degree from Georgetown University. The couple founded International Integrators, an integrative health organization, after moving to Spain and settling in Mallorca in 2011, not long before their daughter married Alec Baldwin. She has a brother named Jeremy Hayward-Thomas. Baldwin claims that she was raised in a Spanish-speaking household and traveled to Spain annually. Baldwin stated she has been vegetarian since age five.


title: Hilaria Baldwin

text: Baldwin is of English, French-Canadian, German, Irish, and Slovak descent. Her paternal grandfather was David L. Thomas Sr. (1927/1928–2020), an "American with roots in the country that pre-dated the American Revolution", and her paternal grandmother Mary Lou (Artman) Thomas was from Nebraska. Thomas Sr. was a native of Ames, Iowa and traveled extensively to Argentina as an auditor for General Electric and at one point lived there. He exposed his children to world cultures and raised them to be proficient in Spanish.


title: Hilaria Baldwin

text: She attended the Cambridge School of Weston, a private co-educational high school in Weston, Massachusetts. She later started college at age 19 at New York University, where she was on the ballroom dance team.


title: Hilaria Baldwin

text: Baldwin started practicing yoga around age 20. While attending New York University, Baldwin opened the yoga studio Yoga Vida in 2009 along with Michael "Mike" Patton in the West Village of New York City, which eventually opened three other locations in the Noho, DUMBO, and Tribeca neighborhoods. The "Tribeca Citizen" wrote in 2016 that their location had a range of classes, including "pre- and post-natal, restorative, and heated by infrared light". In 2013, Spencer Wolff, a former student in one of her classes, sued Baldwin in Manhattan Supreme Court for an injury he allegedly sustained in the class. The lawsuit was settled a year later, with Wolff signing a non-disclosure agreement.


title: Hilaria Baldwin

text: In 2012, after marrying Alec, Baldwin became a lifestyle correspondent for the entertainment show "Extra". "The New York Times" wrote that Baldwin got the position because Alec was a friend of Steve Sunshine, a producer for the show. In 2014, she shared a Daytime Emmy Award for Outstanding Entertainment News Program with her "Extra" colleagues. She periodically worked with "Extra" in that role through 2014.


title: Hilaria Baldwin

text: In October 2013, Baldwin released an exercise DVD titled "@ Home with Hilaria Baldwin: Fit Mommy-to-Be Prenatal Yoga". Alec appears during a five-minute "bonus section". In June 2014, "El País" described Baldwin as the "Gwyneth Paltrow" of New York City in reference to being a working wealthy mother.


title: Hilaria Baldwin

text: Baldwin wrote the book "The Living Clearly Method", which was released December 2016. When the book released, Baldwin started an associated website under the same name to promote it.


title: Hilaria Baldwin

text: In 2017, Baldwin was awarded the Wellness Foundation's Illumination Award at that organization's summer benefit in the Hamptons.


title: Hilaria Baldwin

text: In 2018, Baldwin partnered with podcaster Daphne Oz to create "Mom Brain", a motherhood-focused podcast. Refinery29 described it as "a deep-dive into every single corner of motherhood, ranging from the serious moments to the hilarious ones, and everything in between". The two hosts went on "The Rachael Ray Show" in November 2018 to talk about the project, followed by the "Today" show in December of that year. As of May 2021, Baldwin had not recorded any more episodes since the start of the allegations of cultural appropriation in December 2020.


title: Hilaria Baldwin

text: In February 2019, Baldwin and her husband spoke to a United Nations panel about food choices and a sustainable planet at the launch of the EAT-Lancet Commission on Food, Health and Planet initiative. Baldwin was identified as a "wellness expert" on the panel.


title: Hilaria Baldwin

text: Baldwin has been on the cover of multiple magazines, the most notable of which include "Hello!", "Fit Pregnancy", "¡Hola!", "Parents"; and Belgium's "Télépro".


title: Hilaria Baldwin

text: In February 2011, she met Alec Baldwin at Sarma Melngailis' New York restaurant Pure Food and Wine. Around August that year, the two began dating. They moved from the Upper West Side to Greenwich Village that August. The couple became engaged in April 2012 and married on June 30, 2012, in a Catholic ceremony at St. Patrick's Old Cathedral in New York City. On their wedding bands, they had "Somos un buen equipo" () engraved in Spanish inscribed on the inside. The couple have seven children together: Carmen Gabriela (born August 23, 2013), Rafael Thomas (born June 17, 2015), Leonardo Angel Charles (born September 12, 2016), Romeo Alejandro David (born May 17, 2018), Eduardo Pau Lucas (born September 8, 2020), María Lucía Victoria (born February 25, 2021 via surrogate), and Ilaria Catalina Irena (born September 22, 2022).


title: Hilaria Baldwin

text: She is also stepmother to Ireland Baldwin, daughter of Alec's from previous marriage to American actress Kim Basinger.


title: Hilaria Baldwin

text: Baldwin struggled with anorexia nervosa and bulimia in her high school years and early twenties. In her book Baldwin recounted she suffered health issues and was miserable; feeling that way motivated her future career as a healthy lifestyle advocate. Baldwin stated she started getting better when she started "thinking of weight and health separately".


title: Hilaria Baldwin

text: After her husband accidentally fatally shot cinematographer Halyna Hutchins with a prop gun in October 2021, Baldwin posted on her Instagram, "My heart is with Halyna. Her husband. Her son. Their family and loved ones. And my Alec."


title: Hilaria Baldwin

text: In December 2020, a Twitter user accused Baldwin of "impersonat[ing] a Spanish person" and posted a number of video clips of Baldwin speaking with a contrived Spanish accent, including a clip from the "Today Show" in which Baldwin seemingly forgot the English word for "cucumber". The tweets prompted a number of news articles and accusations of cultural appropriation, since at other times she was heard speaking American accented English. Her agency's website listed her birthplace as Mallorca rather than Boston, and commentators noted that Baldwin is often misidentified as either Mallorcan, Spanish, or Latina, encouraging positive press by Hispanic media such as the Spanish-language celebrity gossip magazine "¡Hola!"


title: Hilaria Baldwin

text: BuzzFeed writer Natasha Jokic wrote, "Looking through Hilaria's tweets, it does seem like she's gone to great lengths to never explicitly say that she's Spanish – but she has gotten pretty close." An article from "The Things" mentioned that Baldwin's cousin stated that her visits to Spain were for vacations only and that she is "zero percent Spanish". Former classmates have alleged she had "much paler skin and blonde hair" before she changed her name from Hillary to Hilaria. Some Twitter users and members of the press compared Baldwin to Rachel Dolezal, an American woman who identifies as "black" despite having white parents. In March 2021, "The Atlantic" listed Baldwin as an "identity hoaxer" along with Dolezal and Jessica Krug.


title: Hilaria Baldwin

text: Baldwin responded that she identifies as white, and her ethnic background includes "many, many, many things". She said she spent "some" of her childhood in Spain and "some" in Massachusetts, but had never been enrolled in school in Spain, only spending time there during family holidays. Baldwin also asserted in a "New York Times" interview that her inability to remember the word "cucumber" on "Today" came from stage fright during one of her first television appearances, and that she is bilingual and her accent comes and goes depending on stress and other factors. In July 2021 Baldwin described herself as "multi" and culturally "fluid". In response, gossip blogger Perez Hilton said Baldwin was "back on her bull s**t!" and commented "Transracial is NOT a thing!"


title: Hilaria Baldwin

text: A Reddit area of interest, or subreddit, is dedicated to the cultural appropriation scandal and conspiracy theories surrounding Baldwin. As of April 2022, the r/HilariaBaldwin subreddit had gained 25,000 followers. Baldwin has never addressed the subreddit or the conspiracy theories directly.


title: Anthony Davis

text: Anthony Marshon Davis Jr. (born March 11, 1993) is an American professional basketball player for the Los Angeles Lakers of the National Basketball Association (NBA). He plays the power forward and center positions. Davis is an eight-time NBA All-Star and has been named to four All-NBA First Teams and four NBA All-Defensive Teams. In his first season with the Lakers, he won an NBA championship in 2020. In 2021, he was named to the NBA 75th Anniversary Team. Davis is regarded as one of the greatest power forwards of all time.


title: Anthony Davis

text: Davis played one season of college basketball for the University of Kentucky, when he was first team All-American and the Consensus National Player of the Year. He also won the USBWA National Freshman of the Year, NABC Defensive Player of the Year and the Pete Newell Big Man Award. Davis led the NCAA in blocks and set Southeastern Conference and NCAA Division I freshman single-season blocked shots records. He led Kentucky to a national championship and was named the most outstanding player of the 2012 NCAA Division I men's basketball tournament.


title: Anthony Davis

text: Davis left college for the NBA after one season and was drafted as the first overall pick in the 2012 NBA draft by the New Orleans Pelicans, known then as the New Orleans Hornets, and was selected that summer to play in the 2012 Olympics. After his rookie season, he was named to the NBA All-Rookie First Team. The next season, he became an All-Star for the first time and led the NBA in blocked shots per game. He has since become the youngest player to score at least 59 points in an NBA game. In 2017, he was named the recipient of the NBA All-Star Game MVP Award after setting an All-Star Game scoring record of 52 points. Davis was traded to the Lakers in 2019. He has won gold medals with the United States national team on their 2012 Olympic team and 2014 World Cup team, making him the first player in basketball history to win an NCAA title, NBA title, Olympic Gold Medal, and FIBA World Cup.


title: Anthony Davis

text: Born in Chicago, Davis grew up in the South Side and played high school basketball for Perspectives Charter School, where he had attended school since sixth grade. The team plays in the Blue Division of the Chicago Public High School League, which is ignored by the media because of its lower level of competition. Perspectives is a charter school that operates as a math and science academy; it has a strong academic reputation, but minimal athletic success. The school had no gymnasium and Davis' middle school basketball teams practiced at the nearby Second Presbyterian Church in Chicago's historic South Loop District. In junior high school, he was known as "the little guy who would shoot threes from the corner". He ended his freshman year at a height of . By the beginning of his sophomore year, he had grown another , and he finished the year at .


title: Anthony Davis

text: Davis began his junior basketball season at , saying he felt fortunate to have had such a rapid growth spurt without any knee pains. During his junior year, his family considered having him transfer to one of Chicago's basketball powerhouses, but Hyde Park Career Academy head coach Donnie Kirksey advised against it, saying "If you're good enough, they'll find you wherever you are". Perspectives finished the season 8–15. Although he remained unnoticed nationally and locally after three seasons of Chicago Public League play, he was soon thereafter rated as the number one player in the class of 2011 by Scout.com and was listed in the ESPNU 100. Attention came when he started playing on Tai Streets' Meanstreets (AAU team) traveling system in the spring of his junior year. In late April, Syracuse University offered him a scholarship. That spring, NBA Top 100 Camp Director Dave Telep invited him to the camp based on his dominant first half performance of the first game of the Fort Wayne, Indiana Spiece Fieldhouse event. In August 2010, Davis played in the Nike Global Challenge in Hillsboro, Oregon. In the opening game, he had 23 points and 9 rebounds.


title: Anthony Davis

text: Davis verbally committed to Kentucky on August 13, 2010, choosing it over DePaul, Ohio State, and Syracuse. On August 24, 2010, he became the number one rated player in the national class of 2011 at Scout.com.


title: Anthony Davis

text: Before Davis committed to Kentucky, the "Chicago Sun-Times" reported that his father had asked Kentucky for $200,000 in exchange for a commitment from Davis. The report was initially released on Wednesday August 4, 2010 by "Sun-Times" reporter Michael O'Brien. Citing "a reliable source", he posted the following text: "Rumors/sources that have Davis choosing Kentucky are also alleging that the commitment cost $200,000." The sentence was later edited to say "rumors that Davis' commitment is for sale have surfaced since he cut his list of schools down about a month ago." The sentence was removed later that day from the "Sun-Times"<nowiki>'</nowiki> high school sports website following a threat from a University of Kentucky lawyer. Anthony Davis Sr. declined to speak to the "Chicago Tribune" on August 4 regarding the allegation; on July 30, however, he denied the allegations to the "Sun-Times", stating, "We haven't asked anyone for anything, and no one has offered us anything".


title: Anthony Davis

text: The article was reposted on the "Sun-Times"<nowiki>'</nowiki> website and included in the print edition on Friday August 6. O'Brien wrote "sources from three separate universities told the Sun-Times that Davis Sr. asked for money in return for his son's commitment, with the amounts ranging from $125,000 to $150,000." The University of Kentucky and the Davis family both threatened to sue the "Sun-Times" over the article, however, no lawsuits were filed by Kentucky or the Davis family. The Davises and Kentucky claim the restated publication was false. Illinois' one-year statute of limitations on libel cases expired before any lawsuits were filed.


title: Anthony Davis

text: Davis signed his National Letter of Intent on November 10, 2010. He began his senior season on the "Chicago Sun-Times" area 2010 Top 50 list. He was a pre-season first team all-state selection by the "Sun-Times". By that time, he stood at . His team's game against Whitney M. Young Magnet High School was nationally televised on ESPNU. Perspectives finished the season with a 6–19 record. Despite his growth, Davis continued to perform aspects of the role of a guard during the season by bringing the ball up the court and shooting outside shots. For the season, he averaged 32 points, 22 rebounds and 7 blocks.


title: Anthony Davis

text: In high school, Davis earned numerous honors for his basketball abilities, including being named to the 2011 McDonald's All-American Game and the 10th annual Jordan Brand Classic. He was a first team USA Today All-USA high school basketball team selection. He was a first-team "Parade" All-American. He was also a first team All-American selection by "SLAM Magazine" (along with Gilchrist, Rivers, Beal, Quincy Miller and Marquis Teague) and "Dime Magazine" (along with Gilchrist, Rivers, Beal and Myles Mack). He was a first team selection to the ESPN Rise boys' high school basketball All-American team. In the statewide voting for Illinois Mr. Basketball by coaches and media, he placed fourth. The "Chicago Sun-Times" selected him as a Class 3A first team All-State selection. The "Chicago Sun-Times" selected him as an all-Public League selection. The Illinois Basketball Coaches Association included him in the Class 3A/4A boys all-state first team.


title: Anthony Davis

text: In the March 30, 2011 McDonald's All-American Game, in front of a hometown crowd at the United Center, Davis made his first five field goals on his way to a 14-point, 6-rebound, 2-steal and 4-block performance. In the April 9 Nike Hoops Summit, Davis led the USA Basketball team to a 92–80 victory over the world team with a team-high 10 rebounds to go with 16 points and two blocks. He was named co-MVP of the April 16 Jordan Brand Classic game after posting 29 points (on 13-for-15 shooting), 11 rebounds and four blocks in a losing effort. Davis' 29 points was the second-highest point total in the first 10 years of the Jordan Brand Classic, following only LeBron James' 34-point performance.


title: Anthony Davis

text: Davis committed to the Kentucky Wildcats, coached by John Calipari. Before his college career began, he was being mentioned as the first overall selection in the 2012 NBA draft. In late February Dick Vitale mentioned the possibility that Davis might complete the men's college basketball awards Grand Slam of National Player of the Year, Defensive Player of the Year, Freshman of the Year and the No. 1 overall pick in the upcoming draft." During the exhibition portion of the season for the 2011–12 Wildcats, Calipari described Davis as follows: "He's 6–10 with a 7–3 wingspan and he can shoot the 3 and dribble the ball and lead the break. . ." Less than a month into the season, ESPN's Andy Katz described him similarly: "Davis offers a multitude of skills for the Wildcats with his ability to block shots, run the floor, score in the low post and face up to the basket." Since Calipari had coached Marcus Camby, who was also a tall shot-blocker, Davis drew comparisons to Camby. ESPN selected Davis as a preseason All-American along with teammate Terrence Jones. Some sources, such as "Blue Ribbon", selected Connecticut's Andre Drummond as the preseason Freshman/Newcomer of the Year ahead of Davis, although Davis was the only freshman on the ESPN 10-man preseason team. Davis only received one vote for the Associated Press preseason All-America team.


title: Anthony Davis

text: After most of the pre-conference schedule but before the 2011–12 Southeastern Conference men's basketball schedule, Davis' teammate, Michael Kidd-Gilchrist was mentioned as a possible Southeastern Conference Men's Basketball Player of the Year. However, after less than a month of Southeastern Conference play, Davis was not only being mentioned as conference player of the year, but also National Player of the Year. By mid February, he was considered a National Player of the Year front-runner with his primary competition coming from Thomas Robinson of Kansas. As the season progressed, he continued to battle Robinson while developing a college level offensive game. Davis averaged a double double and 6.5 blocks in the two games (November 15, 2011 and April 2, 2012) they played against each other, both on neutral courts. Davis led the Wildcats to a perfect 16–0 record in conference play "en route" to the SEC conference regular season championship. Davis finished the year with averages of 14.2 points per game, 10.4 rebounds per game, 4.7 blocks per game and a field goal percentage of 62.3%. The Wildcats entered the SEC Tournament as heavy favorites and defeated LSU and Florida before losing to the Vanderbilt Commodores in the championship game. Despite the loss, the Wildcats earned the number one overall seed in the 2012 NCAA Division I men's basketball tournament. In the Wildcats' six NCAA Tournament games, Davis averaged 15.2 points, 11.2 rebounds, and 4.6 blocks per game, and led the team to its eighth NCAA championship.


title: Anthony Davis

text: Davis was named the 2012 "Sporting News" Men's College Basketball Player of the Year. On March 19, he won the US Basketball Writers Association's (USBWA) Robertson trophy. The Commonwealth Athletic Club of Kentucky named Davis the Adolph Rupp Trophy winner on March 22. CBSSports.com recognized Davis as their national player of the year. On March 30, he became the second freshman (Kevin Durant) to win the Associated Press College Basketball Player of the Year. On March 31, he won the John R. Wooden Award. The following day he won the Naismith College Player of the Year. He was Kentucky's first Naismith winner and the first from the SEC in 42 years (Pete Maravich).


title: Anthony Davis

text: Davis was named to the 2012 "Sporting News" All-American first team. He was also named first team All-American by the United States Basketball Writers Association. On March 20, the National Association of Basketball Coaches (NABC) chose him as a first team All-American. Davis was a CBSSports.com first team All-American. Davis was named a first team Associated Press All-American, making him a unanimous first team All-American selection.


title: Anthony Davis

text: During the 2012 NCAA Tournament, Davis was selected to the NCAA South Regional All-Tournament Team. Then, in the 2012 NCAA Division I men's basketball tournament final four, he posted 18 points, 14 rebounds and 5 blocks against Louisville. In the championship game, he had 16 rebounds, 6 blocks, 5 assists, 3 steals and 6 points against Kansas. He won the NCAA basketball tournament Most Outstanding Player and was selected to that All-Tournament team. He was the fourth freshman to win the Most Outstanding Player award.


title: Anthony Davis

text: Davis was named the USBWA National Freshman of the Year. He was selected by the USBWA as the Player of the Year for its 10-man 2011–12 Men's All-District IV (Kentucky, Tennessee, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, Florida) Team. Davis was a first team selection to the NABC Division I All‐District 21 team on March 14. On April 1, he was also awarded the Pete Newell Big Man Award and the NABC Defensive Player of the Year. CollegeInsider.com recognized him with the Lefty Driesell Award as Defensive Player of the Year and the Kyle Macy Award as Freshman of the Year.


title: Anthony Davis

text: Davis twice earned SEC Player of the Week (POTW) honors (Week of February 6 and 27, 2012) and four times, when he was not Player of the Week, he earned SEC Freshman of the Week (FOTW) honors (November 14, 2011, February 1, 2012, January 16, 2012, and May 3, 2012). He earned his first FOTW honor for debuting with a double double, including 23 points, 10 rebounds, 5 blocks and 3 assists against Marist on November 11, 2011. Only Jones and Sam Bowie had previously had 20 or more points and 10 or more rebounds in their Kentucky Freshman debut. His second FOTW came in a week in which he averaged 14.0 points, 11.5 rebounds, six blocks, 1.5 steals and 1 assist in wins over Lamar and fourth-rated Louisville. His third FOTW award came when he averaged 16 points, 7 rebounds, 4 blocks, 2.5 steals and 2 assists in wins at Auburn and at Tennessee where both his point totals were game highs. He earned his fourth FOTW when he averaged 15.5 points, 10 rebounds and 4 blocks in wins over Georgia and at Florida. He earned his first POTW recognition for averaging 20 points, eight rebounds, 7.5 blocks and 2 assists in wins over Tennessee and at South Carolina. For Davis' second POTW he posted a pair of double doubles to average 20.5 points, 11 rebounds, 3.5 blocks and two steals in wins at Mississippi State and over Vanderbilt. The February 25 win against Vanderbilt clinched the 2011–12 SEC championship for Kentucky as Davis tallied a career-high 28 points as well as 11 rebounds and 5 blocked shots. ESPN's Andy Katz described his SEC title-clinching performance as the most complete performance of his career.


title: Anthony Davis

text: He was also selected as the SEC Player of the Year, SEC Freshman of the Year, SEC Defensive Player of the Year and a first team All-SEC honoree. The SEC awards were selected by the league's 12 coaches who were not permitted to vote for their own players. Thus, no awards were unanimous. "Sporting News" also selected him as Freshman and Player of the Year for the SEC. Also, the Associated Press selected him as Player and Newcomer of the Year for the SEC as well as an All-SEC performer. Following the 2012 SEC tournament, he was selected to the SEC All-Tournament Team.


title: Anthony Davis

text: During the 2011–12 NCAA Division I men's basketball season, Davis blocked more shots per game than most Division I men's teams. In the January 17 contest against Arkansas, Davis set the Kentucky men's basketball record for single-season blocked shots surpassing Melvin Turpin and Andre Riddick, who each had 83. In the game, he established a career high with 27 points and added 14 rebounds and 5 blocked shots. On February 4, against South Carolina, Davis established the SEC freshman record with 116 blocks surpassing Shaquille O'Neal's total set for LSU. One of the most notable blocks of the season was a block of John Henson with four seconds left to preserve a 73–72 victory when number one Kentucky hosted number five North Carolina on December 3. On March 15, Davis established a Kentucky single-game record for the NCAA Division I men's basketball tournament by blocking 7 against Western Kentucky. On March 25, Davis established the SEC single-season blocked shots record in the NCAA Tournament South Regional Championship game victory over Baylor, surpassing Jarvis Varnado's total of 169. On March 31, he tied DeMarcus Cousins with 20 double doubles for the Kentucky freshman-season record. He also surpassed Cousins' Kentucky freshman rebounds record of 374 with 415 rebounds. With six blocks in the championship game, he achieved a total of 186 for the season, surpassing Hassan Whiteside's 2010 total of 182, to set an NCAA Division I freshman record. This also tied the NCAA Men's Division I Basketball Championship Game record for blocks established by Joakim Noah in the 2006 NCAA Division I men's basketball tournament. Starting in the championship game gave him a total of 40 starts for the season, which tied Kentucky's single-season record along with teammate Marquis Teague.


title: Anthony Davis

text: Davis declared for the 2012 NBA draft alongside the rest of the national championship team starting five: fellow freshmen Kidd-Gilchrist and Teague, and sophomores Jones and Doron Lamb. At the 2012 NBA Draft Combine, Davis measured at , and had the second longest wingspan——of any player participating. On June 28, the New Orleans Hornets selected Davis with the first overall pick. Davis became the fifth Chicago-area first overall selection following Cazzie Russell (1966), LaRue Martin (1972), Mark Aguirre (1981) and Derrick Rose (2008). On July 24, 2012, Davis signed a three-year $16 million guaranteed contract with the Hornets as prescribed by the NBA's collective bargaining agreement.


title: Anthony Davis

text: On November 1, 2012, Davis made his debut against the San Antonio Spurs. He scored a team high 21 in a losing effort. On November 2, Davis suffered a concussion that sidelined him for 2 and a half games until November 9. In his November 9 return, he posted his first double double with 23 points and 11 rebounds as well as 5 blocks, 2 steals and 2 assists in a victory over the Charlotte Bobcats. On November 17, he totaled 28 points and 11 rebounds against the Milwaukee Bucks. On November 20, Davis was announced to be out of the lineup for "a stress reaction" on his ankle. He was cleared to play on December 11, 2012 after missing 11 games. On December 18, he posted a career high 4 steals to go along with 15 points and a then career-high 16 rebounds against the Golden State Warriors in his first start since being disabled on November 20.


title: Anthony Davis

text: Davis appeared in the February 15, 2013 Rising Stars Challenge during the 2013 NBA All-Star Game weekend. Davis was removed from the Hornets' lineup on February 27 following a collision with Brook Lopez the prior night in which he sprained his left shoulder. On March 5, Davis returned to the starting lineup with 17 points, 15 rebounds and 4 blocked shots against the Orlando Magic. On March 9, Davis established a career high in rebounds with 18 to go along with 20 points against the Memphis Grizzlies. On March 20, Davis tipped in the game-winning basket over Kevin Garnett against the Boston Celtics with 0.3 seconds remaining. On April 10, Davis suffered a season-ending left knee medial collateral ligament sprain and bone bruise. He was injured in a collision with Marcus Thornton of the Sacramento Kings. He was a 2013 NBA All-Rookie First Team selection, and finished second in NBA Rookie of the Year voting (with 306 points) to Damian Lillard (605). His 20 double-doubles was the most in his rookie class.


title: Anthony Davis

text: As a rookie, he proved to be mostly a pick and roll threat on offense, but was effective in fast break transition and on the offensive boards. He needed to develop his isolation and post-up skills. His rookie skill set was said to resemble a young Lamar Odom, but he added over following his rookie season.


title: Anthony Davis

text: After the 2012–13 season, the Hornets renamed themselves the Pelicans. Davis donated $65,000 toward the construction of a basketball court at his alma mater, Perspectives. On October 16, 2013, during the preseason of Davis' sophomore year for the 2013–14 New Orleans Pelicans', the Pelicans exercised the team's 3rd-year option on Davis' contract.


title: Anthony Davis

text: Davis began the 2013–14 NBA season with the newly-renamed Pelicans with a pair of double-doubles, posting 20 points and 12 rebounds against Indiana on October 30 and 26 points and 17 rebounds against Orlando on November 1. In the Orlando game, Davis became the youngest player in franchise history to record 25 points and 15 rebounds in a game. In the third game of the season against Charlotte on November 2, Davis established career-highs with 6 blocks and 6 steals, while helping New Orleans to its first victory. He also became the first player with 6 blocks, 6 steals and 25 points in a game in the last 20 years and only the fifth with at least 5 blocks, 5 steals and 25 points in that period. For the week, Davis earned an NBA Player of the Week nomination, but lost out to Kevin Love. On November 8, against the Los Angeles Lakers, Davis scored a career-high 32 points and tied a career high with 6 blocks, along with 12 rebounds, becoming the youngest player ever to have at least 30 points, 10 rebounds and 5 blocks in an NBA game. On November 16, he established a new career high with 8 blocks against Philadelphia. He again had 8 blocks on November 20 against the Utah Jazz. With two 8-block games in the Pelicans' first 11 games of the 2013–14 NBA season, Davis matched the number of 8-block games that Roy Hibbert had at that time in the 2012–13 and 2013–14 NBA seasons combined. No other players had two 8-block games as recently. According to ESPN, while drawing a charging foul from Amar'e Stoudemire, Davis suffered a non-displaced fracture in his left hand in the first quarter against the New York Knicks on December 1. Yahoo! Sports claims the injury came on an attempted alley oop. On December 3, the Pelicans announced a 4–6 week layoff was expected. The injury came the night before he was supposed to play in his hometown of Chicago, marking the second year in a row that he was sidelined for his chance to play in his hometown.


title: Anthony Davis

text: Davis returned to the lineup on December 18 against the Los Angeles Clippers with 24 points, 12 rebounds and 3 steals. He returned to the starting lineup in the next game with 21 points, 9 rebounds, 2 blocks and a steal against Portland on December 21. He missed 7 games due to the injury. In his seventh consecutive 20-point game (all losses), Davis posted 31 points and 17 rebounds against Golden State. In the subsequent game on January 20, he helped the Pelicans snap an 8-game losing streak with 27 points, 10 rebounds, 4 assists and 4 blocks against Memphis. On January 26, Davis established a new career high with 19 rebounds, in addition to posting 22 points and 7 blocks, in a 100–92 victory over the Orlando Magic. On January 27, Davis was a finalist for Western Conference Player of the Week but lost out to Kevin Durant. The January 28 contest against the Cleveland Cavaliers featuring the last three first overall NBA draft picks (Anthony Bennett, Davis, and Kyrie Irving), Davis posted 30 points, 8 blocks, 7 rebounds and 3 assists. However, he dislocated his left index finger causing him to miss the next game the following night. On January 29, he was named a Rising Stars Challenge participant as part of the 2014 NBA All-Star Game weekend. On February 7, he was selected to replace Kobe Bryant in the 2014 NBA All-Star Game. On February 26, Davis sprained his left shoulder late in the first half against the Dallas Mavericks. He did not play in the rest of the game, and his subsequent availability was listed as day-to-day. Despite his shoulder sprain, Davis matched his career high with 32 points on February 28 against the Phoenix Suns. He was one of six Western Conference Player of the Week nominees on March 10. On March 14, Davis established a career high with 36 points against Portland. On March 16, 2014, (the very next game) Davis scored a career-high 40 points along with a career-high 21 rebounds in a 121–120 overtime win against the Boston Celtics. The performance was the first 40-point, 20-rebound effort of the 2013–14 NBA season. Davis was the fourth-youngest player (21 years and 5 days) to achieve 40/20 in a game and the youngest since Shaquille O'Neal in 1993. In addition to his career game, Davis set a New Orleans' franchise record with six straight games of at least 28 points. Glen Rice set the previous best stretch with five straight in the 1990s. It was also the first 40-point performance by a Pelican/Hornet since David West on February 26, 2010. Davis was again a finalist for NBA Player of the Week on March 17 and 24.


title: Anthony Davis

text: In late March, Davis began suffering a series of injuries. On March 28, Davis injured his left ankle, after four minutes of play against the Jazz. He missed the rest of the game and the next one. Davis returned to the lineup on March 31 against Sacramento. However, on April 2, Davis endured back spasms that caused him to miss the second half against the Nuggets. Davis saw limited minutes on April 4 and missed a game on April 9 due to his back. On April 10, the team announced that Davis would miss the remaining four games. Davis finished the season as the NBA leader in blocked shots per game (2.82). Because of his improved performance this season against his rookie season, Davis finished third in the NBA Most Improved Player Award voting behind Lance Stephenson and Goran Dragić.


title: Anthony Davis

text: Davis began the 2014–15 NBA season against the Orlando Magic with one of the best season opening performances of all time: 26 points, 17 rebounds, 9 blocks, 3 steals and 2 assists. It was the first 9-block season opener since Nate Thurmond had 12 to open the 1974–75 NBA season. The performance also marked the first 26-point/17-rebound/9-block/3-steal effort since Hakeem Olajuwon during the 1989–90 NBA season. On November 8, against the San Antonio Spurs, he posted 27 points, 11 rebounds and 6 blocks, including the game-winning basket with 6.6 seconds remaining. It marked the 5th time Davis had 25 points, 10 rebounds and 5 blocks since the beginning of the prior season. No other player has had multiple such games in that time. On November 22, Davis scored a career-high 43 points along with 14 rebounds against the Utah Jazz. He was a finalist for October/November Western Conference Player of the Month. On December 2, Davis fell one assist and one block short of becoming the youngest NBA player to ever record a five-by-five with a 25-point, 10-rebound, 4-assist, 6 -steal, 4-block performance against the Oklahoma City Thunder. Davis entered the December 12, 2014 contest against the Cleveland Cavaliers with a player efficiency rating (PER) of 32.9, which would be the highest in NBA history if maintained for the full season. Davis was injured in the game and left in the first quarter. Davis was sidelined in the subsequent contest. He was a finalist for December Western Conference Player of the Month. On February 6, despite having missed his last 11 three point shots and having a career 2-for-23 three point career record, Davis made a game winning three point buzzer beater against Oklahoma City Thunder as part of a 41-point, 10-rebound double-double. The 41-point performance marked a New Orleans record 13th consecutive 20-point performance, surpassing Pete Maravich of the 1976–77 New Orleans Jazz.


title: Anthony Davis

text: On February 7, 2015, Davis injured his shoulder after falling off the rim when he received an alley-oop. As a result of the injury, he withdrew from the 2015 NBA All-Star Game, and was replaced on the roster by Dirk Nowitzki and in the starting lineup by LaMarcus Aldridge. Davis missed five games in late February and early March to the shoulder sprain. He returned against the Detroit Pistons with a very dominant game performance of 39 points, 13 rebounds, and 8 blocks, numbers that only Hakeem Olajuwon and Dwight Howard had achieved in a game in the prior 30 years. Davis also reached 437 career blocks, a franchise record. On March 9, Davis tied his career high with 43 points and added 10 rebounds, 2 blocks and a steal in a 114–103 win against the Milwaukee Bucks. On March 15 in a double overtime game against the Denver Nuggets, Davis became the first player in NBA history to tally 36 points, 14 rebounds, 9 blocks and 7 assists in a game since blocks became a statistic in 1973. Only David Robinson has had at least 30 points, 11 rebounds, 8 blocks and 7 assists in a game. On March 16, Davis earned Western Conference Player of the Week for games played Monday, March 9, through Sunday, March 15 and was a finalist for Western Conference Player of the Month of March. In the final game of the regular season, a must-win game that would send the Pelicans to the 2015 NBA Playoffs, Davis recorded 31 points, 13 rebounds, and 3 blocks in a 108–103 victory over the defending-champion San Antonio Spurs. The playoff berth was Davis' first and the franchise's first since 2011. Davis' season was one of the most impressive in NBA history, finishing the season averaging 24.4 points, 10.2 rebounds, 2.9 blocks, and leading the league in player efficiency rating with 30.89. He was a finalist for Western Conference Player of the Month again in April.


title: Anthony Davis

text: In his first career playoff series, Davis averaged 31.5 points and 11.0 rebounds, and 3.0 blocks per game. Although swept by the overall number one seeded Golden State Warriors, who went on to win the NBA championship, Davis joined Shaquille O'Neal, Hakeem Olajuwon, and Karl Malone as the only players in the past 20 seasons to average 30 points and 10 rebounds in the playoffs. Davis also became the first player in 40 years to average 30 points and 10 rebounds in a player's first playoff series, with the only other players to do so being Wilt Chamberlain, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, and Bob McAdoo. At the end of the season, Davis finished 4th in the NBA Defensive Player of the Year Award voting, 5th in the NBA Most Valuable Player Award voting, sixth in the NBA Most Improved Player Award voting. He was selected to the All-NBA First Team for the first time in his career, becoming the first player to make the first team in his first three seasons since Derrick Rose did so in the 2010–11 NBA season. He was also an NBA All-Defensive Team second team selection.


title: Anthony Davis

text: On July 9, 2015, Davis signed a five-year, $145 million contract extension with the Pelicans. On November 6, he tied his career-high of 43 points in a loss to the Atlanta Hawks. On December 1, he tied a career-high 9 blocked shots in an offensive off night against the Memphis Grizzlies. On December 20, in a win over the Denver Nuggets, Davis scored a single-quarter career-high 19 first quarter points to finish the game with 27. On January 15, Davis converted an alley oop dunk from Jrue Holiday with 2 seconds remaining to give New Orleans a 109–107 victory over the Charlotte Hornets. On January 28, Davis was named as a reserve for the 2016 NBA All-Star Game. He again came close to a five-by-five with a 28-point, 10-rebound, 4-assist, 4-block, 4-steal effort on February 3 against the San Antonio Spurs. The following day, he was named to the NBA All-Star Weekend Skills Challenge lineup.


title: Anthony Davis

text: On February 21, in a win over the Detroit Pistons, Davis scored a franchise-record 59 points and pulled down 20 rebounds. The previous franchise record was 50 points by Jamal Mashburn exactly 13 years earlier against the Memphis Grizzlies. Davis joined Shaquille O'Neal and Chris Webber as the only NBA players with 50 points and 20 rebounds in a game since 1983. Davis also became just the 20th player in NBA history to score at least 59 points in a game, and became the youngest player in NBA history to score 59 points in a game, and the second youngest (behind Bob McAdoo) to record 50 points and 20 rebounds in a game. The 59 points was an NBA-wide season high at the time. The total was not surpassed until the final night of the season when Kobe Bryant posted 60 in his final career game. Davis posted a third 40-point game (40 points and 13 rebounds) on March 9 against the Charlotte Hornets. On March 20, he was ruled out for the rest of the season with a left knee injury and a torn labrum in his left shoulder. Upon being deactivated, Davis claimed that he had been playing through left shoulder pain since his rookie season.