title: Kia

text: Kia Corporation, commonly known as Kia (, ; formerly known as Kyungsung Precision Industry and Kia Motors Corporation), is a South Korean multinational automobile manufacturer headquartered in Seoul, South Korea. It is South Korea's second largest automobile manufacturer, after its parent company, Hyundai Motor Company, with sales of over 2.8 million vehicles in 2019. the Kia Corporation is minority owned by Hyundai, which holds a 33.88% stake valued at just over US$6 billion. Kia in turn is a minority owner of more than twenty Hyundai subsidiaries ranging from 4.9% up to 45.37%, totaling more than US$8.3 billion.


title: Kia

text: According to the company, the name "Kia" derives from the Sino-Korean characters (, 'to arise') and (, which stands for 亞細亞, meaning 'Asia'); it is roughly translated as "Rising from (East) Asia."


title: Kia

text: Kia was founded on June 9, 1944, as Kyungsung Precision Industry, a manufacturer of steel tubing and bicycle parts, eventually producing Korea's first domestic bicycle, the Samchully, in 1951. In 1952, Kyungsung Precision Industry changed its name to Kia Industries, and later built Honda-licensed small motorcycles (starting in 1957) and Mazda-licensed trucks (1962) and cars (1974). The company opened its first integrated automotive assembly plant in 1973, the Sohari Plant. Kia built the small Mazda-based Brisa range of cars until 1981, when production came to an end after the new military dictator Chun Doo-hwan enforced industry consolidation. This forced Kia to give up passenger cars and focus entirely on light trucks. Kia assembled a few hundred more cars in 1982 and 1983, after the ban had taken effect, but no passenger cars were built in 1984 and 1985.


title: Kia

text: Prior to the forced 1981 shutdown, Kia had rounded out its passenger car lineup with two other foreign models assembled under license: the Fiat 132 and the Peugeot 604. The import of these knock-down kits was permitted as long as Kia exported five cars for every single Fiat or Peugeot brought in (Hyundai had to meet the same requirement).


title: Kia

text: Starting in 1986 (when only 26 cars were manufactured, followed by over 95,000 the next year), Kia rejoined the automobile industry in partnership with Ford. Kia produced several Mazda-derived vehicles for both domestic sales in South Korea and for export into other countries - where they were positioned at the budget end of the market. These models included the Kia Pride, based on the Mazda 121 and the Avella, which were sold in North America and Australasia as the Ford Festiva and Ford Aspire. In 1992, Kia Motors America was incorporated in the United States. The first Kia-branded vehicles in the United States were sold from four dealerships in Portland, Oregon, in 1992. Since then, Kia methodically expanded one region at a time. Dealers in 1994 sold the Sephia and a few years later the United States segment expanded their line with the Sportage. Over one hundred Kia dealerships existed across thirty states by 1995, selling a record 24,740 automobiles.


title: Kia

text: Kia declared bankruptcy in 1997, during the Asian financial crisis, and in 1998 reached an agreement with Hyundai Motor Company to diversify by exchanging ownership between the two companies. Hyundai Motor Company acquired 51% of the company, outbidding Ford Motor Company, which had owned an interest in Kia Motors since 1986. After subsequent divestments, Hyundai Motor Company owns about one third of Kia Motor Corporation. While Hyundai Motor Company remains Kia's largest stakeholder, Kia Motor Company also retains ownership in some 22 Hyundai Motor Company subsidiaries. Since 2005, Kia has focused on the European market and has identified design as its "core future growth engine"—leading to the hiring of Peter Schreyer in 2006 as chief design officer and his subsequent creation of a new corporate grille known as the 'Tiger Nose'. In October 2006, Kia Motors America broke ground for Kia Motors Manufacturing Georgia in West Point, Georgia, representing a US$1 billion investment for the company. Kia Motors Manufacturing Georgia opened in February 2010, after Kia recorded its 15th consecutive year of increased U.S. market share. In August 2014, the company received international attention when Pope Francis of the Catholic Church rode in one of their compact cars, the Kia Soul, during a five-day visit to South Korea. The Kia Soul drew bigger attention than two other vehicles used by the Pope, their Kia Carnival and Hyundai's Santa Fe, because it appeared in the high-profile welcoming ceremony of his arrival at the Seoul Airport on August 14. In 2016, Kia Motors model reliability was ranked first in the United States by J.D. Power and Associates, becoming the first non-luxury automaker since 1989 to top that list.


title: Kia

text: Kia started using an angular "KIA" wordmark logo in early 2021. The logo uses an "I" and an oblique "A" without a crossbar immediately next to each other, which some consumers have misread as "KN".


title: Kia

text: , the Hyundai Motor Company owns a 33.88% stake in Kia Motors. Likewise, as of December 31, 2015, Kia Motors is a part owner of 22 Hyundai companies. Its ownership percentages range from 4.9% to 45.37%.


title: Kia

text: Kia America, Inc. was incorporated in California on October 21, 1992, and became the American sales, marketing, and distribution arm of Kia Corporation. KMA is based in Irvine, California, and currently offers a complete line of vehicles through more than 755 dealers throughout the United States. The first two models that were introduced to the U.S. market in 1993 were KIA Sephia and Kia Sportage 4x4. In the United States, sales began in late 1993 for the 1994 model year. The two models most recently introduced to the U.S. market have both been highly awarded during the short time since their launch: the 2018 Stinger performance sedan gained recognition with J.D. Power's inaugural "Engineering Award for Highest Rated All-New Vehicle" as well as Business Insider's "Car of the Year Award", then the 2020 Telluride made its mark several times over by winning major awards from review organizations like Kelley Blue Book, MotorTrend, Hispanic Motor Press (www.hispanicmotorpress.org) also awarded the Telluride as the best SUV for 2020, and most recently Edmunds.


title: Kia

text: As a brand, KMA has continued to improve over the years as well; in 2013, Kia Motors America recorded its 18th consecutive year of increased U.S. market share, and for the past five consecutive years (2015-2019) it has been recognized by J.D. Power as the highest ranked mass market brand in initial quality.


title: Kia

text: In November 2009, Kia started production at the first U.S. Kia Motors plant, Kia Motors Manufacturing Georgia, in West Point. Though the Kia Sorento crossover vehicle was the only model to be assembled there at first, the facility has since expanded its production lines to include the Kia Optima mid-size sedan, now sold as the K5, in 2011 and the just-launched Kia Telluride crossover SUV in January 2019. As of September 2019, the location has successfully built over 3 million units of these three models altogether, and shortly after celebrated another milestone by reaching its 10th year of production in November 2019. Currently, the facility has a production capacity of 340,000 vehicles per year (largely dedicated to the Telluride and Sorento crossover SUVs) and is responsible for distributing them to hundreds of dealerships in the US and Canada, as well as fulfilling shipments across North America and even overseas.


title: Kia

text: Kia Central & South America Corp. is an incorporated division of Kia Corporation in charge of sales and marketing in 43 countries across Central and South America (including Brazil), and the Caribbean. The regional headquarters is located in Miami, Florida (US).


title: Kia

text: Kia Europe is the European sales and marketing division of Kia Corporation. It has been selling cars in Europe since the first half of 1991.


title: Kia

text: In 2007, KME moved from its previous location at Hauptstrasse 185, Eschborn (near Frankfurt), to a new purpose-built facility adjacent to the Messe, in Frankfurt city centre.


title: Kia

text: When Kia launched in Europe during 1991, it initially sold only the Pride supermini—a rebadged version of the late 1980s Mazda 121. It initially proved popular with buyers. By the end of 1991, Kia had sold nearly 1,800 Prides in the United Kingdom. The first full year, 1992, saw that figure double, and, in 1993, it increased again to nearly 5,500 units. However, sales fell towards the end of the decade, and the end of production was finally announced in May 2000, with its successor – the Rio – not going on sale for another year.


title: Kia

text: From 1995 to 1999, Kia produced left- and right-hand drive versions of the first generation Sportage SUV at the Karmann factory in Osnabrück, Germany. These have been popular across Europe, but, since 2002, Kia has gained more sales in this market thanks to the launch of the larger Sorento. From 1999 until production of the model ceased in 2003, all Sportage production reverted to South Korea.


title: Kia

text: The European range also expanded in the spring of 1994 when Kia began importing the larger Mentor, a range of medium-sized hatchbacks and sedans which were marketed as inexpensive and well-equipped alternatives to the likes of the Ford Escort and the Vauxhall/Opel Astra.


title: Kia

text: A facelift in 1999 saw the Mentor name retained for the saloon (sedan), but the hatchback was renamed Shuma. These models remained on sale until 2004, when the newer Cerato was launched and gave Kia one of its first serious competitors against mainstream brands. The Clarus saloon and Sedona MPV were also launched onto the UK market during 1999, helping Kia begin its rise in popularity.


title: Kia

text: Despite Kia's range increasing from one car as late as 1993, to three cars by the end of 1995, British sales actually decreased in that period, from nearly 5,500 in 1993 to less than 4,000 the following year. In 1998, Kia's future in Britain was thrown into serious doubt when it sold less than 3,000 of its whole range – the worst in any full year on the British market. Kia did not enter Europe's large family car market until the launch of its Clarus four-door sedan in 1999—a year behind schedule due to the financial difficulties that Kia was facing before it was taken over by Hyundai. This car was similar in size to the Ford Mondeo and the Opel/Vauxhall Vectra, but, on its launch, was actually less expensive to buy than the smaller Focus and the Astra. It had a spacious interior, large boot, competitive asking price, and high equipment levels, but it had little more appeal to sway buyers away from established European brands like Ford, Vauxhall/Opel and Peugeot.


title: Kia

text: Its successor, the Magentis, launched in 2001, was still nowhere near as popular as Kia might have hoped it would be, although with a sub-£14,000 asking price it offered the cheapest V6-engined car in the UK, by which time it was rare enough for a six-cylinder car to be priced at less than £20,000.


title: Kia

text: Kia entered the MPV market in 1999 with the Sedona. On its launch, it was the lowest-priced, full-size people carrier on sale in the United Kingdom. With the range expanded by 1999, sales for that year reached almost 6,400 – more than double the previous year's total. That annual sales figure had almost been matched in 2000 by the end of May, reflecting Kia's growing popularity with British buyers. By 2009, Kia was firmly established as a popular brand in Britain, when sales broke the 50,000 barrier for the first time and the brand now had a share of more than 2% in the new car market. The Picanto was the most popular single model with nearly 17,000 sales.


title: Kia

text: In late 2006, Kia opened its first own plant in Europe at a cost of approximately EUR 1.7 billion in Žilina, Slovakia, in the village of Teplička nad Váhom, after construction between October 2004 and December 2005. It has since produced over 2.5 million units of the Kia Cee'd, Kia Sportage and Kia Venga, as well as seven types of engines. In 2016, 339,500 cars and 612,915 engines were manufactured. The area of the plant is 166 ha and Mobis Slovakia, the largest supplier, is situated right on the carmaker's premises. As of December 31, 2016, 3,625 employees worked in the facility, while their average age was 35. The relatively low number of employees working in three shifts is related to a high degree of automation as well as high integration with Mobis Slovakia. In 2016, Kia Motors Slovakia recorded revenue of EUR 5.56 billion. Although the European car market knew significant difficulties, Kia announced increased sales in 2013.


title: Kia

text: The company has built a $1 billion manufacturing plant in the northern Mexican state of Nuevo León, which produces 300,000 cars a year. Details of the factory, built in the city of Pesquería, were revealed in a joint press conference given by Kia CEO Hyoung-Keun Lee and the President of Mexico Enrique Peña Nieto in Mexico City on August 28, 2014. The plant was expected to be completed in the first half of 2016. This factory is involved in controversies because it was built on unevenly purchased land, and the construction agreement was made with advantage conditions and out of the local dispositions to Kia.


title: Kia

text: The company has entered the Indian market in July 2019 with their 'Made for India' SUV- SP2 Concept now announced as the global mid-sized SUV Kia Seltos. N. Chandrababu Naidu is lauded to have signed an MOU for the government of Andhra Pradesh which came to be one of the biggest FDI's with a total investment of Rs.12,900 crore. The company has built a production facility on a Greenfield land in Anantpur district, Andhra Pradesh near Penukonda. The annual production capacity is 300,000 units. Kia has appointed Kookhyun Shim as MD & CEO for its Indian arm. In his new role, Shim will be responsible for leading the carmaker's expansion in the Indian market. Shim will play a leading role in ensuring KI's projected timeline and schedule of operations is achieved. He also oversaw the construction of Kia's first manufacturing facility in India, to help strengthen the company's position in the fifth largest global automotive market. Kia has committed investments to the tune of $1.1 billion to develop operations in India including investing in a network of over 250 customer touch-points that include service, sales and spares establishments.


title: Kia

text: On 31 July 2020, Kia crossed 100,000 car sales in India becoming the fastest car manufacturer to do so.


title: Kia

text: Kia Lucky Motors (KLM) is a joint venture in Pakistan between Kia Motors and Lucky Cement. Kia Lucky Motors Pakistan began selling cars in 2018 when they launched their All New Grand Carnival in Pakistan. In quarter 4 2019, Kia Pakistan introduced two new locally manufactured products known as Kia Sportage and Kia Picanto.


title: Kia

text: Kia Motors has specialized in the production of military vehicles with variants and other transportation equipment and by supplying them as a sole maker of military vehicles designated by the South Korean Government since 1976, when Kia Heavy Industry Co. Ltd. (now known as Hyundai Wia) was established. Kia is currently designing a Kaiser Jeep M715-type vehicle named the KM450 for the South Korean Army on license from the U.S. Government. Kia is also the owner of the former ex-Asia Motors factory in Gwangju.


title: Kia

text: Beginning in 2006 Kia identified design as its "core future growth engine" – leading to the 2006 hiring of Peter Schreyer and to the 2005 hiring Tom Kearns as Chief Design Officer. Schreyer had previously worked at Audi (designing the Audi TT) and Volkswagen and had won the Design Award of the Federal Republic of Germany. Kearns had previously worked at Cadillac as Chief Design Officer and was responsible for influencing Cadillac's direction of hard angles and sharp lines within their design. Schreyer has since been central to a complete restyling of Kia's line-up, overseeing design activities at Kia's design centers in Frankfurt, Los Angeles, Tokyo, and the Namyang Design Center in South Korea. With the Kee concept vehicle, shown at the Frankfurt Motor Show in 2007, Kia introduced a new corporate grille to create a recognizable 'face' for the brand. Known as the "Tiger Nose", Schreyer indicated he wanted "a powerful visual signal, a seal, an identifier. The front of a car needs this recognition, this expression. A car needs a face and I think the new Kia face is strong and distinctive. Visibility is vital and that face should immediately allow you to identify a Kia even from a distance." Schreyer described how the Kia Tiger Nose came to be as he explained, "I was just working on the car and just thinking about different possibilities, and suddenly I found it." Commenting on the new signature grille in 2009: "From now on, we'll have it on all our cars". Kia has since featured the Tiger Nose on all of their vehicles, ranging from the compact Kia Soul, on to the edgy new design of the Kia Optima, and to the larger SUV, the Kia Telluride. Kia cars won Road & Travel Magazine's International Car of the Year award in 2013, 2014 and 2015.


title: Kia

text: In late 2012, Kia Motors was forced to admit error in inflating its United States Environmental Protection Agency mileage claims and had to reduce its fuel economy claims in the U.S. by about 3 percent across the board and to offer compensation to previous vehicle buyers.


title: Kia

text: Since 2014, Kia Motors has been involved in controversies in Mexico due to alleged irregularities in the construction of one of its manufacturing plants, located in the municipality of Pesquería, Nuevo León. The construction of the plant was done in an irregularly purchased land agreement between Kia Motors Mexico and the State of Nuevo León, then headed by Rodrigo Medina de la Cruz, was signed with unfairly advantageous conditions, such as bigger tax incentives than those allowed by Mexican law (tax exemptions for 20 years when the standard is 5), extended to the Mexican providers of Kia. A copy of the full agreement was published in Facebook by current Nuevo León governor, Jaime Rodríguez Calderón, as part of a prosecution case against Medina and he declared that the signed agreement with his predecessor would be cancelled. A new agreement was then reached with Rodriguez's administration in June 2016. Former governor Medina de la Cruz and 30 other officials of the former state administration were investigated by an anti-corruption prosecutor for alleged embezzlement, improper exercise of public functions and damage to Nuevo León State assets. Medina was then taken into custody on January 26, 2017, in relation to this case and others in which he is involved.


title: Regina Hall

text: Regina Lee Hall (born December 12, 1970) is an American actress. She rose to prominence for her role as Brenda Meeks in the comedy horror "Scary Movie" film series (2000–2006). She has since appeared in the television series "Ally McBeal" (2001–2002), "" (2010–2011), "Grandfathered" (2016), and "Black Monday" (2019–2021), and in the films "The Best Man" (1999), its 2013 sequel "The Best Man Holiday", "About Last Night" (2014), "Vacation" (2015), "Girls Trip" (2017), "The Hate U Give" (2018), and "Little" (2019). For the comedy film "Support the Girls" (2018), Hall received critical acclaim, and became the first African American to win the New York Film Critics Circle Award for Best Actress.


title: Regina Hall

text: Hall was born the daughter of a contractor and electrician father, Odie Hall, and a teacher mother, Ruby. After graduating from Immaculata College High School, Hall enrolled at Fordham University in the Bronx, where she graduated with a bachelor's degree in English in 1992. She later enrolled at New York University, where she earned a master's degree in journalism in 1997. Reflecting on college, Hall said: "I loved being a student. I could've gone to school until I was 75 years old as long as somebody would've paid my rent. I would've been a professional student."


title: Regina Hall

text: She wanted a career with impact and envisioned a career in writing or journalism, but Hall's first semester of graduate school changed drastically when her father died of a stroke. "It was sudden. And I think when sudden events that are painful happen in your life, you know, they redirect your course," Hall reflected. "When you’re young, you don’t grasp the gravity of life. But when you lose someone that you spend most of your life with, and you’re young, you do. And so I think that started me thinking about what I really wanted to do in life. And I know my father would have wanted me to finish school. So I did that." She began a career in the entertainment industry, starting off with a guest appearance on Sadat X's 1996 album "Wild Cowboys" on the track, "The Interview".


title: Regina Hall

text: In 1997, Hall appeared in her first television commercial at the age of 26. Her television career began with a role on the soap opera "Loving", and guest appearances on the Fox police drama "New York Undercover". She played Candy in the 1999 film "The Best Man". She left a lasting impression on viewers with her portrayal of the character Candace "Candy" Sparks. Hall reflected: "It was my very first movie. I met Sanaa Lathan on it, and we did "Love and Basketball" together, which was my second film. And then, at that point, I was visiting L.A. to stay and it led to a third film and a fourth film. And it was really a big deal because I'd never been on a set before." It signaled a pivotal point for Hall's career. As a key member of the all-star cast, she welcomed rising-star status in "black-Hollywood".


title: Regina Hall

text: Hall gained more recognition with her role in the comedy-horror-spoof "Scary Movie" (and the sequels "Scary Movie 2", "Scary Movie 3", and "Scary Movie 4") portraying the sex-crazed Brenda Meeks, and the TV movie "Disappearing Acts". The "Scary Movie" films would become some of her best known roles. In 2001, Hall landed the role of Coretta Lipp on the prime-time drama "Ally McBeal", which was originally a recurring role over several episodes but was made a main character in the 5th season of the show. A year later, she starred in the action-drama "Paid in Full", a film directed by Charles Stone III. Since then, she has appeared in leading roles in films such as "Malibu's Most Wanted", "King's Ransom" and "The Honeymooners".


title: Regina Hall

text: She had a role in the 2010 Danneel Harris and Arielle Kebbel film "Mardi Gras". From its fall 2010 debut until a series overhaul in January 2011, Regina Hall portrayed Deputy District Attorney Evelyn Price on "".


title: Regina Hall

text: In 2012, she portrayed Candace Hall in Steve Harvey's movie "Think Like a Man", a romantic comedy based on his book "Act Like a Lady, Think Like a Man". Hall reprised her role as Candace Sparks in "The Best Man Holiday" in 2013. She believed the characters had evolved from the first film. Hall felt "The Best Man Holiday" was different from any sequel she had ever done before since it was not "immediate" and it had been fourteen years since the release of the original. Hall felt the first film had "the joy of the wedding" and in the sequel "they come together for the holidays, but it's deeper than that. This one's definitely different, but we still laughed. There was so much laughter behind the scenes." Hall joked about how all of the male members of the cast were married while all of the women were not, stating that Morris Chestnut was happily married while walking around "with his shirt off!"


title: Regina Hall

text: She and Hart were seen as the film's highlight as they had a "great dynamic together" and the two were credited with having the funniest lines in the film. All of the cast was seen as having a "perfect mix of charisma and likability". Jessica Herndon of the "Associated Press" stated "Hart and Hall are the best part of this film. They play the couple you know all too well: fiery, able to press one another's buttons and always caught in the makeup to breakup game." Negative reviews of the film also praised the pairing of Hall with Kevin Hart. Mick LaSalle of "The San Francisco Chronicle" expressed that Hart was "well paired for Hall, who matches him for comedy." At the time of the film's release, both Hall and Hart expressed interest in working on other projects together. "About Last Night" was her third ensemble film and Hall reflected that she learned from actors she worked with in ensembles.


title: Regina Hall

text: Hall reprised her role as Candace Hall in "Think Like a Man Too". She revealed what members of the cast partied the most in the film shortly before the movie's release. "Everyone kind of had their fun, I'm not gonna lie. We went out, we gambled. Kevin [Hart] parties. There were parties, and we all went. It was good fun". In July 2014, it was announced Hall would star in a Lifetime film, entitled "With This Ring", with Eve and Jill Scott.


title: Regina Hall

text: In the 2015 film "People Place Things", Hall had a major role as the love interest of a newly divorced man. In 2016, Hall was in "". She played the role of Angie, one of the hair stylists, alongside Ice Cube, Common, and Eve"." In 2017, Hall co-starred in the comedy film "Girls Trip", which became a critical and commercial success. In 2018, Hall was part of the ensemble cast of the drama film "The Hate U Give", based on the 2017 novel.


title: Regina Hall

text: Hall had the lead in "Support the Girls", a film directed by Andrew Bujalski. For the latter, she received critical praise, and was nominated for several awards, winning the New York Film Critics Circle Award for Best Actress. She is the first African-American to win the award. That same year she was invited to join the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. In 2019, Hall hosted the 2019 BET Awards. She signed a deal with Showtime to do a comedy special through the company RH Negative. A mere months later, her company signed a deal with ViacomCBS.


title: Regina Hall

text: Around 2004, Hall's mother was diagnosed with scleroderma, a rare autoimmune disease. When not working in Hollywood, Hall can be found volunteering for the care of senior citizens at a Sherman Oaks, California, convalescent home twice a week as well as raising public awareness for the disease. "When my mom was diagnosed, I didn’t know much about the condition. But Dana Delany, who is an actress and now a friend of mine, put me in touch with Bob Saget. Bob had made a television movie about scleroderma years ago because his sister had died from it. That was back when they didn’t even know what it was. Anyway, Bob had a group called the Scleroderma Research Foundation, so I donated to that and my mother even went to the doctor Bob had suggested, who happened to be over at Johns Hopkins." Regina Hall announced in November 2010 that she would be writing for ABILITY Magazine.


title: Regina Hall

text: In 2010, when she was 40, Hall unsuccessfully tried to become a Catholic nun after a bad break-up, having previously wanted to become one at the age of 14. In the latter case, she was refused for being too old, as the cut-off age is 39.


title: Kevin Garnett

text: Kevin Maurice Garnett ( ; born May 19, 1976) is an American former professional basketball player who played for 21 seasons in the National Basketball Association (NBA). Nicknamed KG by his initials, and the "Big Ticket" for his emphatic dunking and athleticism, Garnett is considered one of the greatest power forwards of all time, being known for his intensity, defensive ability, and versatility. As of 2020, he is one of five NBA players to have won both the NBA Most Valuable Player Award and the NBA Defensive Player of the Year Award.


title: Kevin Garnett

text: In high school, Garnett was a 1995 McDonald's All-American at Farragut Career Academy and won a national player of the year award. He entered the 1995 NBA draft, where he was selected with the fifth overall pick by the Minnesota Timberwolves and became the first NBA player drafted directly out of high school in 20 years.


title: Kevin Garnett

text: Garnett made an immediate impact with the Minnesota Timberwolves, leading them to eight consecutive playoff appearances. In 2004, he led the Timberwolves to the Western Conference Finals and won the NBA MVP Award. He was named the NBA Defensive Player of the Year in 2007–08.


title: Kevin Garnett

text: In 2007, after 12 seasons with the Timberwolves, Garnett joined the Boston Celtics in a blockbuster trade. In his first year with the Celtics, he helped lead them to the 2008 NBA Finals, beating the Los Angeles Lakers, while also finishing in third place for the MVP award. In 2013, Garnett was included in a second headline trade that sent him to the Brooklyn Nets with longtime Celtic Paul Pierce. In 2015, Garnett was traded back to Minnesota. He announced his retirement from professional basketball in September 2016. In October 2021, Garnett was honored as one of the league's greatest players of all time by being named to the NBA 75th Anniversary Team.


title: Kevin Garnett

text: During his NBA career, Garnett was named to 15 All-Star Games, winning the All-Star MVP award in 2003. He was named to the All-NBA Team nine times and to the NBA All-Defensive Team 12 times. Garnett also holds several Timberwolves franchise records.


title: Kevin Garnett

text: Garnett made his feature film debut, playing a fictionalized version of himself, in the 2019 film "Uncut Gems".


title: Kevin Garnett

text: Garnett was born on May 19, 1976, in Greenville, South Carolina, to Shirley Garnett. He was the second of his mother's three children. Garnett's mother never married his father, O'Lewis McCullough, with their relationship ending shortly after his birth. Garnett grew up with his mother and stepfather, Ernest Irby, with whom he did not get along, and two sisters.


title: Kevin Garnett

text: Garnett fell in love with the sport of basketball while attending Hillcrest Middle School, although he did not play organized basketball until high school. In his first three years of high school, Garnett attended Mauldin High School in Mauldin, South Carolina, and played on the school's basketball team. However, during the summer before his senior year of high school, Garnett was in the general vicinity of a fight between black and white students. Although not directly involved, Garnett was one of three students arrested for second-degree lynching, a charge that was expunged through a pre-trial intervention. Due to the racially charged incident and fearful of being a target, Garnett decided to leave Mauldin High and transferred to Farragut Career Academy in Chicago's West Side, for his senior year of high school.


title: Kevin Garnett

text: Living with his sister in Chicago, Garnett led Farragut to a 28–2 record and was named National High School Player of the Year by "USA Today". He was also named Mr. Basketball for the state of Illinois after averaging 25.2 points, 17.9 rebounds, 6.7 assists and 6.5 blocks while shooting 66.8% from the field. In four years of high school, Garnett posted an impressive 2,553 points, 1,809 rebounds and 737 blocked shots. In high school, Garnett played alongside Ronnie Fields, who also became a professional basketball player. Garnett was named the Most Outstanding Player at the McDonald's All-American Game after registering 18 points, 11 rebounds, 4 assists, and 3 blocked shots, and then declared himself eligible for the 1995 NBA draft. To mark the 35th anniversary of the McDonald's All-American High School Boys Basketball Game, Garnett was honored as one of 35 Greatest McDonald's All-Americans. Garnett's decision not to play college basketball was influenced in part by his failure to score well enough on the ACT to meet NCAA requirements for freshman eligibility. Garnett told "Student Sports Magazine" in 1995 that if he went to college, he would have played college basketball for the University of Maryland.


title: Kevin Garnett

text: A Chicago area high school coach referred Garnett to Eric Fleisher, then agent for 18 NBA players and son of first National Basketball Players Association head Larry Fleisher, to discuss the possibility of going to the NBA straight out of high school. Two weeks later at the Lakeshore Athletic Club, Fleisher ran a small tryout where Garnett dominated against older, more experienced competition. Fleisher then set Detroit Pistons assistant John Hammond to run the drills at another workout at the University of Illinois-Chicago to gauge NBA interest. Representatives from the 13 teams with lottery picks, with Kevin McHale, Elgin Baylor, Flip Saunders, and Kevin Loughery among them, were in the workout that was scheduled around the same time as a pre-draft tryout camp. The workout included Garnett touching the box painted on the backboard above the rim multiple times, and McHale giving Garnett tips on shooting jump shots. An hour before going to the 1995 NBA Draft in the Toronto SkyDome, his coach at Farragut, William (Wolf) Nelson, gave encouragement and told Garnett that he passed the last SAT test he took with a score of 970.


title: Kevin Garnett

text: Garnett was drafted with the fifth overall pick in the 1995 NBA draft by the Minnesota Timberwolves, and became the first player to be drafted directly out of high school since 1975. Since joining the NBA for the 1989–90 season, the Timberwolves had not won more than 29 games in any season. In Garnett's rookie season, the Timberwolves were in the midst of a transition phase; they replaced Bill Blair with Flip Saunders as head coach early in the season, and made several trades. Garnett initially came off the bench in his rookie year, but moved into the starting lineup soon after Saunders became head coach and with the urging of Sam Mitchell. In the final 42 games of the year, averaged 14 points, 8.4 rebounds and 2.26 blocks as a starter. In his rookie year, Garnett and fellow newcomer Tom Gugliotta carried the scoring load. Garnett did not immediately leap to stardom as later prep-to-pro prospects such as Amar'e Stoudemire, LeBron James and Dwight Howard would, but he did have a very respectable rookie year. He was voted to the All-Rookie Second Team on averages of 10.4 points, 6.3 rebounds, and 1.8 assists per game. Despite having some promising players, the Timberwolves suffered through their seventh consecutive sub-30 win season and failed to make the playoffs. At the time, Garnett was the youngest NBA player in history at 19 years and 11 months of age.


title: Kevin Garnett

text: Before the 1996–97 season, the Timberwolves made a draft-day trade for point guard Stephon Marbury of the Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets. During the season, Garnett posted improved averages of 17.0 points, 8.0 rebounds, 3.1 assists, 2.1 blocks and 1.7 steals. He also had two games where he registered eight blocks. With a 40–42 record, the Timberwolves made their first playoff appearance in franchise history, Garnett and Gugliotta made their first All-Star appearances, and Marbury established himself as a valuable young lead guard. However, the Houston Rockets, led by Hakeem Olajuwon, Clyde Drexler, and Charles Barkley, proved to be too much as the Timberwolves were swept 3–0 in the first round of the 1997 NBA Playoffs.


title: Kevin Garnett

text: In August 1997, Garnett and Fleisher turned down the Timberwolves' offer of a contract worth $102 million over six years. They thought there would be more offered to them on the basis of the signings of $105 million over seven years for Alonzo Mourning of the Miami Heat and $100.8 million over seven years for Juwan Howard with the Washington Bullets. To get out of the spotlight while negotiations were ongoing, Garnett stayed in Fleisher's Westchester County home, north of New York City. One hour before the deadline on 1 October 1997, the Timberwolves and Garnett agreed on a six-year contract extension that was worth an unparalleled $126 million. The contract was considered a risky move and many analysts speculated that the deal would make it impossible for the Wolves to sign new players or even keep their own. The enormous size of Garnett's contract was considered, by numerous sports writers, a major cause of labor tensions between players and owners that led to a lockout which shortened the 1998–99 NBA season. Despite the furor over his new contract, Garnett continued to improve, averaging 18.5 points, 9.6 rebounds, 4.2 assists, 1.8 blocks, and 1.7 steals per game. Again, he was an All-Star, and the Timberwolves finished with their first winning record in franchise history (45–37 for the season). For the second consecutive year, the young Timberwolves bowed out of the playoffs in the first round, this time losing 3–2 to the Seattle SuperSonics and superstar point guard Gary Payton. The two wins against the Sonics marked the Wolves' first-ever playoff game wins. The off-season started poorly for the Timberwolves though as 20-point per game scorer Tom Gugliotta left for the Phoenix Suns.


title: Kevin Garnett

text: In the lockout-shortened season that followed, Garnett broke through as a superstar. Putting up stats of 20.8 points, 10.4 rebounds, 4.3 assists, and 1.8 blocks per game, he was named to the All-NBA Third Team. However, midway through the season, Stephon Marbury was traded to the New Jersey Nets. Although the Wolves received two-time All-Star Terrell Brandon in return, they were not able to overcome the discord and limped into the playoffs as the eighth seed with a 25–25 record. The Wolves were defeated in the first round again, this time losing 3–1 to the eventual champion San Antonio Spurs who were led by young superstar and eventual NBA Finals MVP Tim Duncan. In the 1999–2000 NBA season, Garnett continued his notable play, averaging 22.9 points, 11.8 rebounds, 5.0 assists, 1.6 blocks, and 1.5 steals per game. Garnett also made the first of his four All-NBA First Team appearances and came in second place in the MVP voting. Assisted by sharpshooting rookie forward Wally Szczerbiak and steady veteran Terrell Brandon, the Wolves posted a franchise-best 50–32 record, but succumbed in the first round to the Portland Trail Blazers 3–1.


title: Kevin Garnett

text: On May 20, 2000, Timberwolves' guard and Garnett's close friend Malik Sealy was killed by a drunk driver shortly after celebrating Garnett's 24th birthday. Later that year, the NBA ruled that the free-agent signing of Joe Smith was illegal. The league punished the team for the illegal signing by stripping them of three first-round draft picks, fining Glen Taylor (the owner of the team) $3.5 million, and banning general manager Kevin McHale for one year. In the 2000–01 NBA season, Garnett led the Wolves to a 47–35 record and made the All-NBA Second Team, but again, the Wolves did not survive the first round of the playoffs, losing to the Spurs 3–1.


title: Kevin Garnett

text: In the 2001–02 season, Garnett posted another notable season, his averages of 21.2 points, 12.1 rebounds, 5.2 assists, 1.6 blocks and 1.2 steals per game enough for another All-NBA Second Team nomination. However, the Timberwolves bowed out in the first round for the sixth consecutive time, this time getting swept 3–0 by the Dallas Mavericks led by Michael Finley, Steve Nash, and Dirk Nowitzki. Garnett's next season was one of the best of his career, his 23.0 ppg / 13.4 rpg / 6.0 apg / 1.6 bpg / 1.4 spg season earning him his second All-NBA First Team nomination and second place in the MVP voting. The Timberwolves posted a good 51–31 record, but for the seventh consecutive time, they did not make it out of the first round, this time losing to the Los Angeles Lakers 4–2.


title: Kevin Garnett

text: In the 2003–04 season, things finally seemed to come together for Garnett. In past years, the Wolves had practically been a one-man show, but now, the Timberwolves had made two valuable acquisitions: highly talented but volatile swingman Latrell Sprewell and the seasoned two-time NBA champion Sam Cassell, who supplanted Troy Hudson at point guard. In addition, defensive center Ervin Johnson complemented the inconsistent Michael Olowokandi. Powered by the best supporting cast up to this point in his career, Garnett averaged 24.2 points, 13.9 rebounds, 5.0 assists, 2.2 blocks and 1.5 steals per game for the season. Having recorded career-highs in points, rebounds, blocks and leading the league rebounds, Garnett was named the league Most Valuable Player for the first time in his career. With a franchise-record 58 wins, the Wolves stormed into the playoffs, and finally conquered their playoff bane by defeating the Denver Nuggets 4–1 in the first round. After disposing of the strong Sacramento Kings 4–3 in the Western Conference semi-finals, Garnett and the Timberwolves met the Lakers in the Western Conference Finals. There, playmaker Cassell went down with a back injury. With reserve point guard Hudson also injured, the Timberwolves alternated between third playmaker Darrick Martin and shooting guard Fred Hoiberg at the "one", or even running Garnett himself as point forward or a real point guard. The Los Angeles Lakers pulled off a 4–2 victory in the series.


title: Kevin Garnett

text: On January 4, 2005, Garnett scored a career high 47 points to go along with 17 rebounds in a 115–122 loss to the Phoenix Suns. He was also named to the All-NBA Second Team, but the Timberwolves failed to make the playoffs for the first time in eight years with a record of 44–38. The 2005–06 season brought more frustration for Garnett. Sprewell turned down a three-year, $21 million extension, and the Wolves wary of his injuries and age, traded Cassell for the much less effective Marko Jarić, and the team's record for 2005–06 fell to 33–49. Despite Garnett's play, the team logged the second-worst record since Garnett joined the franchise. The Timberwolves' record dropped further in 2006–07, going 32–50 that season. In both of those seasons, Garnett earned All-NBA Third Team honors.


title: Kevin Garnett

text: During the 2007 off-season, Glen Taylor admitted that although he planned on retaining Garnett, he finally listened to trade offers. Garnett's name was mentioned in various trade rumors involving the Chicago Bulls, Los Angeles Lakers, Golden State Warriors, Indiana Pacers, Boston Celtics, Phoenix Suns, and Dallas Mavericks. Garnett later confirmed that his preferred trade destinations were the Lakers, Celtics, and Suns. He had initially contacted Lakers superstar Kobe Bryant about joining the team as the Lakers were his initial top choice but Bryant didn't answer or return the calls. Garnett stated, "I’m just being honest with everybody. I wanted to link with Kobe. Kobe and I had a different connect. When Kobe-Shaq went on their little thing, a lot of people went with Shaq. A lot of people didn’t even fuck with Kobe. You know, Kobe, whatever. One of the very few to just stay with him. I was a neutral guy, anyway. I show everybody love. I tried to link with him, and I couldn’t get him on the line." The Lakers originally had a trade framework in place that involved Lamar Odom and Andrew Bynum.


title: Kevin Garnett

text: On July 31, 2007, in exchange for Al Jefferson, Ryan Gomes, Sebastian Telfair, Gerald Green, Theo Ratliff, cash considerations, Boston's 2009 first-round draft pick (top 3 protected), and the 2009 first-round pick which Minnesota traded to Boston in the Ricky Davis–Wally Szczerbiak trade of 2006. The 7-for-1 deal constitutes the largest number of players traded for a single player in league history. At the time of the trade, Garnett had the longest current tenure of any player in the NBA with one team, having played for the Timberwolves for his first 12 seasons (a total of 927 games). Garnett said that he was proud to be a part of the Celtics and hoped to continue its proud tradition and basketball success. On the day the trade was announced, Garnett signed a three-year, $60 million contract extension that would start after his prior deal ran out in 2009. On August 1, the day after signing with the Celtics, Garnett threw the ceremonial first pitch at Fenway Park prior to a Red Sox–Orioles game.


title: Kevin Garnett

text: The trade for Garnett had many experts speculating that the Celtics would have a resurgence during the 2007–08 season. The combination of Paul Pierce, Ray Allen, and Garnett were almost automatically nicknamed "The Big Three" by the media, after the Larry Bird, Kevin McHale, and Robert Parish trio. Garnett wore jersey number 5 for the Celtics since his number with the Timberwolves, number 21, was retired by the Celtics, previously worn by Bill Sharman. He made his Boston debut with a strong performance against the Washington Wizards, with 22 points and 20 rebounds. He also led all players in voting for the 2008 NBA All-Star Game. Garnett received 2,399,148 votes, the sixth highest total in NBA All-Star balloting history. However, Garnett was unable to play due to an abdominal strain, and Detroit Pistons forward Rasheed Wallace was named to replace him. Garnett passed 20,000 points for his career, becoming the 32nd player in NBA history to reach the mark, with a layup in the second quarter against the Memphis Grizzlies on March 8. On April 22, Garnett was named the NBA Defensive Player of the Year for the 2007–08 season. It was the only major award a Celtic player had not claimed since the franchise's foundation in 1946. Garnett said it was a team effort which helped him win the award. Garnett was also third in MVP voting for the year, behind only Kobe Bryant and Chris Paul. Garnett helped the Celtics to their 17th NBA Championship, with 26 points and 14 rebounds in Game 6 of the NBA Finals. During that championship season, Garnett and Celtics legend Bill Russell developed a relationship, which Garnett credited as a major influence in helping him succeed during his first season as a Celtic. On June 18, 2008, Garnett and Ray Allen appeared on the "Late Show with David Letterman", soon after winning the championship.


title: Kevin Garnett

text: In the 2008–09 season, Garnett started all of the 57 games he was able to suit up for. He averaged 15.8 points, 8.5 rebounds and 2.5 assists. On October 31, 2008, Garnett became the youngest player in NBA history to reach 1,000 career games, at 32 years and 165 days. Garnett earned his twelfth consecutive All-Star Game start on February 15, 2009. Following the All-Star Game, during a game against the Utah Jazz, Garnett injured his right knee late in the second quarter. The injury occurred on February 19, 2009 while attempting to go up for an alley-oop. He was forced to miss the next 14 games. Upon his return, he averaged nine points and 4.5 rebounds in four games before being shut down for the season, missing the final 25 games of the regular season as well as the 2009 playoffs due to his injured knee. In May 2009, he underwent knee surgery. Without Garnett, the Celtics advanced to the Eastern Conference semi-finals, but were eliminated by the Orlando Magic.


title: Kevin Garnett

text: In the 2009–10 season, Garnett and the Celtics, joined by newly signed free agent Rasheed Wallace, struggled with injuries and inconsistency throughout much of the regular season and earned the fourth seed in the Eastern Conference playoffs. Garnett was selected to play in the 2010 NBA All-Star Game (his 13th All-Star Game selection). Despite being written off by nearly every major sports analyst, the Celtics elevated their play and consistency, and dominated opponents much as they did during their 2008 championship run. They eliminated the Miami Heat, Cleveland Cavaliers, and Orlando Magic to advance to face the Los Angeles Lakers in the 2010 NBA Finals. In Game 6 against the Cavaliers, Garnett recorded 22 points, 12 rebounds and 3 assists in the series-clinching win. The 2010 Finals went to a decisive seventh game in Los Angeles, where the Celtics led well into the third quarter before the Lakers mounted a comeback and held on for the victory.


title: Kevin Garnett

text: In the 2010–11 NBA season, Garnett and the Celtics started strong, winning 23 of their first 26 games. On December 30, 2010, Garnett injured his right knee after he tried to dunk. He missed two weeks with the injury. Garnett returned on January 17, 2011 to face the Orlando Magic. The Celtics ended the regular season third in the Eastern Conference behind the Chicago Bulls and the Miami Heat. Garnett averaged under 15 points, under 9 rebounds, and a career low 0.8 blocks per game. After sweeping the New York Knicks in the first round, they faced the Heat in the semi-finals. After losing the first two games of the series, Garnett's playoff high 28 points helped the Celtics take Game 3. However, the Heat won the next two games, winning the series 4–1.


title: Kevin Garnett

text: In the lockout shortened 2011–12 NBA season, Garnett and the Celtics started off slowly, being below .500 with a 15–17 record by the All-Star break. Garnett was not selected for the All-Star game for the first time in 11 years. After, however, Boston quickly became one of the best teams in the league, finishing the second half of the season with a 24–10 record, entering the playoffs as the fourth seed in the Eastern Conference with a 39–27 record. Boston made a deep run in the playoffs, going all the way to the Eastern Conference Finals. They faced the Atlanta Hawks in the first round, defeating them in six games. Boston then defeated the Philadelphia 76ers after a challenging seven-game series. Boston made the Eastern Conference Finals for the third time in five years, and faced another superstar trio in Chris Bosh, Dwyane Wade, and LeBron James of the Miami Heat. The Celtics lost the first two games, but came back strong to win the next three games. However, the Heat were too strong in Games 6 and 7, defeating the Celtics 4–3. Garnett found a resurgence in the playoffs, averaging 19.2 points, 10.3 rebounds and 1.4 blocks per game.


title: Kevin Garnett

text: On June 30, 2012, Garnett agreed to a three-year contract extension with the Celtics worth an estimated $34 million. On January 17, 2013, it was announced that Garnett was voted to start in the 2013 All-Star Game in Houston. On February 7, 2013, Garnett recorded his 25,000th point in a 116–95 victory over the Los Angeles Lakers.


title: Kevin Garnett

text: On August 20, 2021, the Celtics announced that they would retire Garnett's number 5 jersey on March 13, 2022, in a game against the Dallas Mavericks.


title: Kevin Garnett

text: On June 27, 2013, the day of the NBA draft, the Boston Celtics and the Brooklyn Nets reached a deal to trade Garnett, Paul Pierce, and Jason Terry for future first-round picks in the 2014, 2016, and 2018 drafts, as well as Kris Humphries, Gerald Wallace, Kris Joseph, MarShon Brooks, and Keith Bogans. One of the Celtics' picks eventually became future All-Star Jaylen Brown. The deal was finally completed on July 12 with Brooklyn also receiving D. J. White. Garnett chose to wear number 2 to honor his former Minnesota Timberwolves teammate Malik Sealy.


title: Kevin Garnett

text: On December 13, 2013, Garnett surpassed 14,000 career rebounds, becoming only the tenth player in NBA history to do so. In reaching the milestone, Garnett also joined Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Karl Malone as the only players to reach 25,000 points, 14,000 rebounds, and 5,000 assists. He reached the milestone in the third quarter of a 103–99 road loss to the Detroit Pistons. The Nets cherished Garnett's leadership and passion. Despite boasting a starting line-up of Deron Williams, Joe Johnson, Brook Lopez, Paul Pierce, and Garnett, the Nets were unable to advance past the second round of the playoffs, while Garnett finished his 19th NBA season with career low averages of 6.5 points and 6.6 rebounds per game.


title: Kevin Garnett

text: On November 1, 2014, Garnett had arguably his best game for the Nets as he recorded 18 points and 14 rebounds in 35 minutes of action in the Nets' 102–90 win over the Detroit Pistons. Six days later, he recorded five rebounds in a 110–99 win over the New York Knicks and by doing so, passed Walt Bellamy for ninth place on the all-time rebounding list.


title: Kevin Garnett

text: On February 19, 2015, Garnett agreed to waive his no-trade clause in order to be traded back to Minnesota in exchange for Thaddeus Young. Six days later, he made his return for the Timberwolves against the Washington Wizards at the Target Center, recording five points on two-of-seven shooting with eight rebounds and two blocks in 19 minutes in his first game for Minnesota since 2007. He appeared in just five games for the Timberwolves in 2014–15, before sitting out the team's final 21 games of the season due to a nagging knee injury.


title: Kevin Garnett

text: On July 11, 2015, Garnett re-signed with the Timberwolves to a two-year deal. On November 15, 2015, against the Memphis Grizzlies, Garnett became the fifth player in NBA history to play at least 50,000 minutes, joining Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Karl Malone, Jason Kidd, and Elvin Hayes. On December 1, against the Orlando Magic, Garnett surpassed Kidd (50,110) for third on the NBA's career minutes list. Four days later, in a loss to the Portland Trail Blazers, he became the 15th player in NBA history to surpass 26,000 career points. On December 11, Garnett passed Malone as the NBA's all-time leader in defensive rebounds during Minnesota's 111–108 overtime loss to the Denver Nuggets. He finished the game with four defensive boards to give him 11,409 for his career, three ahead of Malone. Garnett appeared in 38 of the team's first 45 games of the season before missing the entire second half of the season with a right knee injury, the same knee that kept him out of 25 games in 2008–09 when he was playing for Boston, as well as much of his post-trade time in Minnesota during the 2014–15 season.


title: Kevin Garnett

text: On September 23, 2016, Garnett announced his retirement after 21 seasons in the NBA. While Garnett did express interest in playing for one more season with the Timberwolves, primarily with the goal in helping the team make it to the playoffs again with its promising young players and new head coach, he also told the team's owner that he was not sure that his knees would hold up for one more season.


title: Kevin Garnett

text: In the 2000 Summer Olympics, Garnett won a gold medal as a member of the United States national team. In his first and only FIBA tournament, Garnett averaged 10.8 points, 9.1 rebounds, and 2.1 assists per game.


title: Kevin Garnett

text: In October 2016, Garnett joined the crew on TNT's "Inside the NBA". The following month, he became the host of his own segment "Area 21". In January 2017, Garnett joined the Los Angeles Clippers as a consultant. He also consulted with the Milwaukee Bucks during the 2016–17 season.


title: Kevin Garnett

text: Garnett plays a fictionalized version of himself in the 2019 crime thriller "Uncut Gems", directed by the Safdie brothers. The movie is set in 2012 and revolves around the Eastern Conference Semi-finals series between the Boston Celtics and Philadelphia 76ers. While playing in Philadelphia, Garnett makes a trip to a New York City jewelry store owned by Howard Ratner (Adam Sandler) in the Diamond District. Garnett takes a liking to an Ethiopian opal which Ratner shows off. The story revolves around Garnett's performance in the series and relationship with the Opal, alongside Ratner's chaotic and intense personal life.


title: Kevin Garnett

text: Garnett's performance received positive reviews from critics. The Safdie brothers picked Garnett after a series of rewrites based on available players. Prior to securing Garnett, the duo approached Amar'e Stoudemire, who refused to cut his hair to match the period; and Kobe Bryant, whose representation said he wanted to direct and not act, though Bryant said he wasn't contacted; and Joel Embiid, whose active NBA schedule could not accommodate filming. Garnett was among the first non-active athletes they approached. Garnett said the process of filming "felt special, but you didn't know it."


title: Kevin Garnett

text: Garnett wore clothing branded as "OBF", standing for Official Block Family. The name came from what he called his close group of friends from Beechwood Court in Mauldin, South Carolina. He brought OBF members to live with him in his Minnesota home, and let some on board some team's charter flights during road trips. He met Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis, the Grammy-winning record producers for Janet Jackson and Boyz II Men, early in his career in Minnesota and considers them as mentors.


title: Kevin Garnett

text: In July 2004, Garnett married his longtime girlfriend Brandi Padilla during a private ceremony in California. Due to the wedding, Garnett did not take part in the Athens Olympic Games. The couple has two daughters. On July 12, 2018, Garnett's wife filed for divorce, asking for custody of the children. Garnett is the half-brother of former basketball player Louis McCullough. Another professional basketball player, former Los Angeles Laker Shammond Williams, is his cousin.


title: Kevin Garnett

text: His nicknames include "The Big Ticket", "KG", "The Kid", and formerly "The Franchise" (after being known as the Minnesota Timberwolves' franchise player). He mentally prepared himself before games by banging his head against a padded basketball stanchion. Although Garnett is officially listed as by the NBA, he is widely accepted to be at least tall. During the 2007 NBA All-Star Game, Garnett admitted in an interview with Craig Sager to be "6 ft 11 in and some quarters" tall. Measurements from the 1995 NBA draft indicated that Garnett, who was 19 years old at the time, was tall barefoot. In 1997, Garnett was measured by the Minnesota Timberwolves training staff to be tall in his basketball shoes. In December 2011, Garnett agreed to become a limited shareholder of American-owned Italian Serie A football team A.S. Roma.


title: Kevin Garnett

text: In February 2021, Simon & Schuster published Garnett's autobiography "KG: A to Z: An Uncensored Encyclopedia of Life, Basketball, and Everything in Between", written with David Ritz. In part of the work, Garnett describes his successive involvement with various sneaker manufacturers.


title: January Jones

text: January Kristen Jones (born January 5, 1978) is an American actress and model. She played Betty Draper in "Mad Men" (2007–2015), for which she was nominated for two Golden Globe Awards for Best Actress – Television Series Drama and a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama Series. She also portrayed Melissa Chartres in "The Last Man on Earth" (2015–2018) and has starred in films such as "American Wedding" (2003), "We Are Marshall" (2006), "The Boat That Rocked" (2009), "Unknown" (2011), "Seeking Justice" (2011), and "" (2011).


title: January Jones

text: January Kristen Jones was born in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, on January 5, 1978, the daughter of store manager Karen Cox and exercise physiologist Marvin Jones. She was named after January Wayne, a character in the 1973 Jacqueline Susann novel "Once Is Not Enough". The names of her two sisters also start with the letter J, Jina and Jacey. In 1979, her family moved to Hecla, South Dakota, but moved back to Sioux Falls in 1996, where she graduated from Roosevelt High School.


title: January Jones

text: Jones appears in the video "Love is Blind" from the album "Into the Light" (2000) by David Coverdale. and had supporting roles in "Anger Management" (2003), "Love Actually" (2003), and "" (2004). In 2005, she appeared as a U.S. border guard's wife in the film "The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada", directed by and starring Tommy Lee Jones. She has remarked that working on this film was one of the most creative experiences of her entire working life. In "We Are Marshall" (2006), she played the role of Carol Dawson, wife of American football coach William "Red" Dawson. Jones also starred in "Good Kill" (2014), opposite Ethan Hawke.


title: January Jones

text: She played the lead female role in the movie "Love's Enduring Promise" as a pioneer family's oldest child. Her character falls in love with a mysterious man who saves her father's life. She also appeared in the AMC original television drama series "Mad Men" for seven seasons as young suburban housewife and mother Betty Draper Francis. She received two Golden Globe nominations and one Emmy nomination for her performances.


title: January Jones

text: Jones is also known for her role as Cadence Flaherty, the love interest of both Steve Stifler and Paul Finch in the 2003 comedy film "American Wedding", the third installment of the "American Pie" film series. She played a con artist in the "Law & Order" episode "Quit Claim" who, as a lone surviving suspect connected to a real estate scam involving organized crime, frustrates the efforts of Assistant District Attorney Michael Cutter. She also appeared in "The Boat That Rocked", a British film about offshore pirate radio in the 1960s, renamed "Pirate Radio" for North American release in 2009.


title: January Jones

text: Jones was ranked No. 82 on the "Maxim" Hot 100 Women of 2002. She appeared on the cover of "The Hot Issue" of British "GQ" magazine in May 2009. She appeared on the cover of the November 2009 issue of American "GQ" magazine, and has been a 'topic' in the magazine several times. On November 14, 2009, Jones hosted an episode of "Saturday Night Live," which featured the musical guest The Black Eyed Peas.


title: January Jones

text: In 2011, Jones starred in two thriller films, first in "Unknown" alongside Liam Neeson and Diane Kruger, directed by Jaume Collet-Serra, and later in "Seeking Justice" alongside Nicolas Cage and Guy Pearce. She portrayed Emma Frost in "".


title: January Jones

text: Jones appeared as Melissa Chartres in the Fox television comedy series "The Last Man on Earth" (2015–18). In 2019, she joined the cast of Netflix's comedy-drama series "The Politician", playing the role of a bored and rich housewife Lizbeth Sloan. In 2020, Jones joined the cast of the Netflix series "Spinning Out" as Carol Baker, a former figure skater and a single mother who suffers from bipolar disorder. The series concluded after one season.


title: January Jones

text: Jones began her modeling career in New York at the age of 18, after a modeling scout expressed interest while she was in high school. She noted that modelling was not her passion and she never took it seriously. Her first agency claimed she owed them money when she decided to move to Los Angeles. Jones has modeled for Abercrombie & Fitch, Versace, Clearasil and Kérastase. She has been on the covers of numerous international fashion magazines, including "Interview", "Allure", "Rolling Stone", "Town & Country", "The Hollywood Reporter" and "W" in the United States; "Harper's Bazaar", "Marie Claire", "Tatler", "Glamour" and "Red" in the United Kingdom; "Cosmopolitan" in Germany; "Grazia" in Italy; and "Tu Style" and "GQ" in Italy.


title: January Jones

text: In 2009, Jones joined the marine conservation organization Oceana as a celebrity spokesperson, working to save endangered sharks and to inform others about sharks' vital importance in nature. She has gone swimming with sharks for a public service announcement for the group. She served food with fellow actress Malin Åkerman at the Los Angeles Mission's annual Thanksgiving event on November 24, 2021.


title: January Jones

text: Jones dated Ashton Kutcher when they were both models for Abercrombie & Fitch in the late 1990s. She was in a relationship with singer Josh Groban from 2003 to 2006.


title: January Jones

text: In September 2011, she gave birth to a son named Xander, whose father's identity was not publicly disclosed.


title: January Jones

text: One of Jones's favorite actors is Robert Stack. During her relationship with Jim Carrey in 2002, he presented her with Stack's autograph as a birthday present.


title: January Jones

text: Jones has an interest in unsolved mysteries and believes she has seen a UFO. She has a tattoo that says "Bellatrix", the Latin word for female warrior.


title: Great Leap Forward

text: The Great Leap Forward (Second Five Year Plan) of the People's Republic of China (PRC) was an economic and social campaign led by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) from 1958 to 1962. CCP Chairman Mao Zedong launched the campaign to reconstruct the country from an agrarian economy into a communist society through the formation of people's communes. Mao decreed that efforts to multiply grain yields and bring industry to the countryside should be increased. Local officials were fearful of Anti-Rightist Campaigns and they competed to fulfill or over-fulfill quotas which were based on Mao's exaggerated claims, collecting non-existent "surpluses" and leaving farmers to starve to death. Higher officials did not dare to report the economic disaster which was being caused by these policies, and national officials, blaming bad weather for the decline in food output, took little or no action. Millions of people died in China during the Great Leap, with estimates ranging from 15 to 55 million, making the Great Chinese Famine the largest or second-largest famine in human history.


title: Great Leap Forward

text: The major changes which occurred in the lives of rural Chinese people included the incremental introduction of mandatory agricultural collectivization. Private farming was prohibited, and those people who engaged in it were persecuted and labeled counter-revolutionaries. Restrictions on rural people were enforced with public struggle sessions and social pressure, and forced labor was also exacted from people. Rural industrialization, while officially a priority of the campaign, saw "its development ... aborted by the mistakes of the Great Leap Forward". The Great Leap was one of two periods between 1953 and 1976 in which China's economy shrank. Economist Dwight Perkins argues that "enormous amounts of investment only produced modest increases in production or none at all. ... In short, the Great Leap was a very expensive disaster".


title: Great Leap Forward

text: In 1959, Mao Zedong ceded day-to-day leadership to pragmatic moderates like Chinese President Liu Shaoqi and Vice Premier Deng Xiaoping, and the CCP studied the damage which was done at conferences which it held in 1960 and 1962, especially at the "Seven Thousand Cadres Conference". Mao did not retreat from his policies; instead, he blamed problems on bad implementation and "rightists" who opposed him. He initiated the Socialist Education Movement in 1963 and the Cultural Revolution in 1966 in order to remove opposition and re-consolidate his power. In addition, dozens of dams constructed in Zhumadian, Henan during the Great Leap Forward collapsed in 1975 (under the influence of Typhoon Nina) and resulted in the 1975 Banqiao Dam failure, with a death toll which ranged from tens of thousands to 240,000.


title: Great Leap Forward

text: In October 1949 after the defeat of the Kuomintang (Chinese Nationalist Party, pinyin: Guomindang), the Chinese Communist Party proclaimed the establishment of the People's Republic of China. Immediately, landlords and wealthier farmers had their land holdings forcibly redistributed to poorer peasants. In the agricultural sectors, crops deemed by the Party to be "full of evil", such as opium, were destroyed and replaced with crops such as rice.


title: Great Leap Forward

text: Within the Party, there were major debates about redistribution. A moderate faction within the party and Politburo member Liu Shaoqi argued that change should be gradual and any collectivization of the peasantry should wait until industrialization, which could provide the agricultural machinery for mechanized farming. A more radical faction led by Mao Zedong argued that the best way to finance industrialization was for the government to take control of agriculture, thereby establishing a monopoly over grain distribution and supply. This would allow the state to buy at a low price and sell much higher, thus raising the capital necessary for the industrialization of the country.


title: Great Leap Forward

text: Before 1949, peasants had farmed their own small pockets of land and observed traditional practices—festivals, banquets, and paying homage to ancestors. It was realized that Mao's policy of using a state monopoly on agriculture to finance industrialization would be unpopular with the peasants. Therefore, it was proposed that the peasants should be brought under Party control by the establishment of agricultural collectives which would also facilitate the sharing of tools and draft animals.


title: Great Leap Forward

text: This policy was gradually pushed through between 1949 and 1958 in response to immediate policy needs, first by establishing "mutual aid teams" of 5–15 households, then in 1953 "elementary agricultural cooperatives" of 20–40 households, then from 1956 in "higher co-operatives" of 100–300 families. From 1954 onward peasants were encouraged to form and join collective-farming associations, which would supposedly increase their efficiency without robbing them of their own land or restricting their livelihoods.


title: Great Leap Forward

text: By 1958 private ownership was abolished and all households were forced into state-operated communes. Mao demanded that the communes increase grain production to feed the cities and to earn foreign exchange through exports. These reforms were generally unpopular with the peasants and usually implemented by summoning them to meetings and making them stay there for days and sometimes weeks until they "voluntarily" agreed to join the collective.


title: Great Leap Forward

text: Apart from progressive taxation on each household's harvest, the state introduced a system of compulsory state purchases of grain at fixed prices to build up stockpiles for famine-relief and meet the terms of its trade agreements with the Soviet Union. Together, taxation and compulsory purchases accounted for 30% of the harvest by 1957, leaving very little surplus. Rationing was also introduced in the cities to curb 'wasteful consumption' and encourage savings (which were deposited in state-owned banks and thus became available for investment), and although food could be purchased from state-owned retailers the market price was higher than that for which it had been purchased. This too was done in the name of discouraging excessive consumption.


title: Great Leap Forward

text: Besides these economic changes the Party implemented major social changes in the countryside including the banishing of all religious and mystic institutions and ceremonies, replacing them with political meetings and propaganda sessions. Attempts were made to enhance rural education and the status of women (allowing them to initiate divorce if they desired) and ending foot-binding, child marriage and opium addiction. The old system of internal passports (the "hukou") was introduced in 1956, preventing inter-county travel without appropriate authorization. Highest priority was given to the urban proletariat for whom a welfare state was created.


title: Great Leap Forward

text: The first phase of collectivization resulted in modest improvements in output. Famine along the mid-Yangzi was averted in 1956 through the timely allocation of food-aid, but in 1957 the Party's response was to increase the proportion of the harvest collected by the state to insure against further disasters. Moderates within the Party, including Zhou Enlai, argued for a reversal of collectivization on the grounds that claiming the bulk of the harvest for the state had made the people's food-security dependent upon the constant, efficient, and transparent functioning of the government.


title: Great Leap Forward

text: In 1957, Mao responded to the tensions in the Party by promoting free speech and criticism under the Hundred Flowers Campaign. In retrospect, some have come to argue that this was a ploy to allow critics of the regime, primarily intellectuals but also low ranking members of the party critical of the agricultural policies, to identify themselves.


title: Great Leap Forward

text: By the completion of the first 5 Year Economic Plan in 1957, Mao had come to doubt that the path to socialism that had been taken by the Soviet Union was appropriate for China. He was critical of Khrushchev's reversal of Stalinist policies and alarmed by the uprisings that had taken place in East Germany, Poland and Hungary, and the perception that the USSR was seeking "peaceful coexistence" with the Western powers. Mao had become convinced that China should follow its own path to communism. According to Jonathan Mirsky, a historian and journalist specializing in Chinese affairs, China's isolation from most of the rest of the world, along with the Korean War, had accelerated Mao's attacks on his perceived domestic enemies. It led him to accelerate his designs to develop an economy where the regime would get maximum benefit from rural taxation.


title: Great Leap Forward

text: In November 1957, party leaders of communist countries gathered in Moscow to celebrate the 40th anniversary of the October Revolution. Soviet Communist Party First Secretary Nikita Khrushchev proposed not only to catch up with but exceed the United States in industrial output in the next 15 years through peaceful competition. Mao Zedong was so inspired by the slogan that China put forward its own objective: to catch up with and surpass the United Kingdom in 15 years.


title: Great Leap Forward

text: The Great Leap Forward campaign began during the period of the Second Five Year Plan which was scheduled to run from 1958 to 1963, though the campaign itself was discontinued by 1961. Mao unveiled the Great Leap Forward at a meeting in January 1958 in Nanjing.


title: Great Leap Forward

text: The Great Leap Forward was grounded in a logical theory of economic development and represented an unambiguous social invention. The central idea behind the Great Leap was that rapid development of China's agricultural and industrial sectors should take place in parallel. The hope was to industrialize by making use of the massive supply of cheap labour and avoid having to import heavy machinery. The government also sought to avoid both social stratification and technical bottlenecks involved in the Soviet model of development, but sought political rather than technical solutions to do so. Distrusting technical experts, Mao and the party sought to replicate the strategies used in its 1930s regrouping in Yan'an following the Long March: "mass mobilization, social leveling, attacks on bureaucratism, [and] disdain for material obstacles". Mao advocated that a further round of collectivization modeled on the USSR's "Third Period" was necessary in the countryside where the existing collectives would be merged into huge People's Communes.


title: Great Leap Forward

text: An experimental commune was established at Chayashan in Henan in April 1958. Here for the first time private plots were entirely abolished and communal kitchens were introduced. At the Politburo meetings in August 1958, it was decided that these people's communes would become the new form of economic and political organization throughout rural China. By the end of the year approximately 25,000 communes had been set up, with an average of 5,000 households each. The communes were relatively self-sufficient co-operatives where wages and money were replaced by work points.


title: Great Leap Forward

text: Based on his fieldwork, Ralph A. Thaxton Jr. describes the people's communes as a form of "apartheid system" for Chinese farm households. The commune system was aimed at maximizing production for provisioning the cities and constructing offices, factories, schools, and social insurance systems for urban-dwelling workers, cadres and officials. Citizens in rural areas who criticized the system were labeled "dangerous". Escape was also difficult or impossible, and those who attempted were subjected to "party-orchestrated public struggle", which further jeopardized their survival. Besides agriculture, communes also incorporated some light industry and construction projects.


title: Great Leap Forward

text: Mao saw grain and steel production as the key pillars of economic development. He forecast that within 15 years of the start of the Great Leap, China's industrial output would surpass that of the UK. In the August 1958 Politburo meetings, it was decided that steel production would be set to double within the year, most of the increase coming through backyard steel furnaces. Major investments in larger state enterprises were made: 1,587, 1,361, and 1,815 medium- and large-scale state projects were started in 1958, 1959, and 1960 respectively, more in each year than in the first Five Year Plan.


title: Great Leap Forward

text: Millions of Chinese became state workers as a consequence of this industrial investment: in 1958, 21 million were added to non-agricultural state payrolls, and total state employment reached a peak of 50.44 million in 1960, more than doubling the 1957 level; the urban population swelled by 31.24 million people. These new workers placed major stress on China's food-rationing system, which led to increased and unsustainable demands on rural food production.


title: Great Leap Forward

text: During this rapid expansion, coordination suffered and material shortages were frequent, resulting in "a huge rise in the wage bill, largely for construction workers, but no corresponding increase in manufactured goods". Facing a massive deficit, the government cut industrial investment from 38.9 to 7.1 billion yuan from 1960 to 1962 (an 82% decrease; the 1957 level was 14.4 billion).


title: Great Leap Forward

text: With no personal knowledge of metallurgy, Mao encouraged the establishment of small backyard steel furnaces in every commune and in each urban neighborhood. Mao was shown an example of a backyard furnace in Hefei, Anhui, in September 1958 by provincial first secretary Zeng Xisheng. The unit was claimed to be manufacturing high quality steel.


title: Great Leap Forward

text: Huge efforts on the part of illiterate peasants and other workers were made to produce steel out of scrap metal. To fuel the furnaces, the local environment was denuded of trees and wood taken from the doors and furniture of peasants' houses. Pots, pans, and other metal artifacts were requisitioned to supply the "scrap" for the furnaces so that the wildly optimistic production targets could be met. Many of the male agricultural workers were diverted from the harvest to help the iron production as were the workers at many factories, schools, and even hospitals. Although the output consisted of low quality lumps of pig iron which was of negligible economic worth, Mao had a deep distrust of intellectuals, engineers and technicians who could have pointed this out and instead placed his faith in the power of the mass mobilization of the peasants.


title: Great Leap Forward

text: Moreover, the experience of the intellectual classes following the Hundred Flowers Campaign silenced those aware of the folly of such a plan. According to his private doctor, Li Zhisui, Mao and his entourage visited traditional steel works in Manchuria in January 1959 where he found out that high quality steel could only be produced in large-scale factories using reliable fuel such as coal. However, he decided not to order a halt to the backyard steel furnaces so as not to dampen the revolutionary enthusiasm of the masses. The program was only quietly abandoned much later in that year.


title: Great Leap Forward

text: Substantial effort was expended during the Great Leap Forward on a large-scale, but too often in the form of poorly planned capital construction projects, such as irrigation works built without input from trained engineers. Mao was well aware of the human cost of these water conservancy campaigns. In early 1958, while listening to a report on irrigation in Jiangsu, he mentioned that:


title: Great Leap Forward

text: Though Mao "criticized the excessive use of corvée for large-scale water conservancy projects" in late 1958, mass mobilization on irrigation works continued unabated for the next several years, and claimed the lives of hundreds of thousands of exhausted, starving villagers. The inhabitants of Qingshui and Gansu referred to these projects as the "killing fields."


title: Great Leap Forward

text: On the communes, a number of radical and controversial agricultural innovations were promoted at the behest of Mao. Many of these were based on the ideas of now discredited Soviet agronomist Trofim Lysenko and his followers. The policies included close cropping, whereby seeds were sown far more densely than normal on the incorrect assumption that seeds of the same class would not compete with each other. Deep plowing (up to 2 meters deep) was encouraged on the mistaken belief that this would yield plants with extra large root systems. Moderately productive land was left unplanted with the belief that concentrating manure and effort on the most fertile land would lead to large per-acre productivity gains. Altogether, these untested innovations generally led to decreases in grain production rather than increases.


title: Great Leap Forward

text: Meanwhile, local leaders were pressured into falsely reporting ever-higher grain production figures to their political superiors. Participants at political meetings remembered production figures being inflated up to 10 times actual production amounts as the race to please superiors and win plaudits—like the chance to meet Mao himself—intensified. The state was later able to force many production groups to sell more grain than they could spare based on these false production figures.


title: Great Leap Forward

text: The ban on private holdings ruined peasant life at its most basic level, according to Mirsky. Villagers were unable to secure enough food to go on living because they were deprived by the commune system of their traditional means of being able to rent, sell, or use their land as collateral for loans. In one village, once the commune was operational the Party boss and his colleagues "swung into manic action, herding villagers into the fields to sleep and to work intolerable hours, and forcing them to walk, starving, to distant additional projects".


title: Great Leap Forward

text: Edward Friedman, a political scientist at the University of Wisconsin; Paul Pickowicz, a historian at the University of California, San Diego, and Mark Selden, a sociologist at Binghamton University, wrote about the dynamic of interaction between the Party and villagers:


title: Great Leap Forward

text: The authors present a similar picture to Thaxton in depicting the Communist Party's destruction of the traditions of Chinese villagers. Traditionally prized local customs were deemed signs of "feudalism" to be extinguished, according to Mirsky. "Among them were funerals, weddings, local markets, and festivals. The Party thus destroyed much that gave meaning to Chinese lives. These private bonds were social glue. To mourn and to celebrate is to be human. To share joy, grief, and pain is humanizing." Failure to participate in the CCP's political campaigns—though the aims of such campaigns were often conflicting—"could result in detention, torture, death, and the suffering of entire families".


title: Great Leap Forward

text: Public criticism sessions were often used to intimidate the peasants into obeying local officials; they increased the death rate of the famine in several ways, according to Thaxton. "In the first case, blows to the body caused internal injuries that, in combination with physical emaciation and acute hunger, could induce death." In one case, after a peasant stole two cabbages from the common fields, the thief was publicly criticized for half a day. He collapsed, fell ill, and never recovered. Others were sent to labor camps.


title: Great Leap Forward

text: Around 6 to 8% of those who died during the Great Leap Forward were tortured to death or summarily killed.


title: Great Leap Forward

text: Benjamin Valentino notes that "communist officials sometimes tortured and killed those accused of failing to meet their grain quota".


title: Great Leap Forward

text: However, J. G. Mahoney, Professor of Liberal Studies and East Asian Studies at Grand Valley State University, has said that "there is too much diversity and dynamism in the country for one work to capture ... rural China as if it were one place." Mahoney describes an elderly man in rural Shanxi who recalls Mao fondly, saying "Before Mao we sometimes ate leaves, after liberation we did not." Regardless, Mahoney points out that Da Fo villagers recall the Great Leap Forward as a period of famine and death, and among those who survived in Da Fo were precisely those who could digest leaves.


title: Great Leap Forward

text: The initial impact of the Great Leap Forward was discussed at the Lushan Conference in July–August 1959. Although many of the more moderate leaders had reservations about the new policy, the only senior leader to speak out openly was Marshal Peng Dehuai. Mao responded to Peng's criticism of the Great Leap by dismissing Peng from his post as Defence Minister, denouncing Peng (who came from a poor peasant family) and his supporters as "bourgeois", and launching a nationwide campaign against "rightist opportunism". Peng was replaced by Lin Biao, who began a systematic purge of Peng's supporters from the military.


title: Great Leap Forward

text: The failure of agricultural policies, the movement of farmers from agricultural to industrial work, and weather conditions led to millions of deaths from severe famine. The economy, which had improved since the end of the civil war, was devastated, and in response to the severe conditions, there was resistance among the populace.


title: Great Leap Forward

text: The effects on the upper levels of government in response to the disaster were complex, with Mao purging the Minister of National Defense Peng Dehuai in 1959, the temporary promotion of Lin Biao, Liu Shaoqi, and Deng Xiaoping, and Mao losing some power and prestige following the Great Leap Forward, which led him to launch the Cultural Revolution in 1966.


title: Great Leap Forward

text: Despite the harmful agricultural innovations, the weather was very favorable in 1958 and the harvest was also good. However, the amount of labor which was diverted to steel production and construction projects meant that much of the harvest was left to rot because it was not collected in some areas. This problem was exacerbated by a devastating locust swarm, which was caused when their natural predators were killed as part of the Four Pests Campaign.


title: Great Leap Forward

text: Although actual harvests were reduced, local officials, under tremendous pressure to report record harvests to central authorities in response to the innovations, competed with each other to announce increasingly exaggerated results. These results were used as the basis for determining the amount of grain which would be taken by the State, supplied to the towns and cities and exported. This barely left enough grain for the peasants, and in some areas, starvation set in. A 1959 drought and flooding from the Yellow River in the same year also contributed to the famine.


title: Great Leap Forward

text: During 1958–1960 China continued to be a substantial net exporter of grain, despite the widespread famine which was being experienced in the countryside, as Mao sought to maintain face and convince the outside world of the success of his plans. Foreign aid was refused. When the Japanese foreign minister told his Chinese counterpart Chen Yi about an offer of 100,000 tonnes of wheat which was going to be shipped away from public view, he was rebuffed. John F. Kennedy was also aware that the Chinese were exporting food to Africa and Cuba during the famine and he said "we've had no indication from the Chinese Communists that they would welcome any offer of food."


title: Great Leap Forward

text: With dramatically reduced yields, even urban areas received greatly reduced rations; however, mass starvation was largely confined to the countryside, where, as a result of drastically inflated production statistics, very little grain was left for the peasants to eat. Food shortages were bad throughout the country, but the provinces which had adopted Mao's reforms with the most vigor, such as Anhui, Gansu and Henan, tended to suffer disproportionately. Sichuan, one of China's most populous provinces, known in China as "Heaven's Granary" because of its fertility, is thought to have suffered the highest number of deaths from starvation due to the vigor with which provincial leader Li Jingquan undertook Mao's reforms. There are widespread oral reports, though little official documentation, of human cannibalism being practiced in various forms as a result of the famine. Author Yan Lianke also claims that, while growing up in Henan during the Great Leap Forward, he was taught to "recognize the most edible kinds of bark and clay by his mother. When all of the trees had been stripped and there was no more clay, he learned that lumps of coal could appease the devil in his stomach, at least for a little while."


title: Great Leap Forward

text: The agricultural policies of the Great Leap Forward and the associated famine continued until January 1961, when, at the Ninth Plenum of the 8th Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party, the restoration of agricultural production through a reversal of the Great Leap policies was started. Grain exports were stopped, and imports from Canada and Australia reduced the impact of the food shortages, at least in the coastal cities.


title: Great Leap Forward

text: The exact number of famine deaths is difficult to determine, and estimates range from upwards of 15 million to 55 million people. Because of the uncertainties involved in estimating famine deaths caused by the Great Leap Forward or any famine, it is difficult to compare the severity of different famines. If an estimate of 30 million deaths is accepted, the Great Leap Forward was the deadliest famine in the history of China and in the history of the world. This was partly due to China's large population. To put things into absolute and relative numerical perspective: in the Great Irish Famine, approximately 1 million of a population of 8 million people died, or 12.5%. If, on the Great Chinese Famine, approximately 23 million of a population of 650 million people died, the percentage would be 3.5%. Hence, the famine during the Great Leap Forward probably had the highest absolute death toll, though not the highest relative (percentage) one.


title: Great Leap Forward

text: The Great Leap Forward reversed the downward trend in mortality that had occurred since 1950, though even during the Leap, mortality may not have reached pre-1949 levels. Famine deaths and the reduction in number of births caused the population of China to drop in 1960 and 1961. This was only the third time in 600 years that the population of China had decreased. After the Great Leap Forward, mortality rates decreased to below pre-Leap levels and the downward trend begun in 1950 continued.


title: Great Leap Forward

text: The severity of the famine varied from region to region. By correlating the increase in the death rates of different provinces, Peng Xizhe found that Gansu, Sichuan, Guizhou, Hunan, Guangxi, and Anhui were the hardest-hit regions, while Heilongjiang, Inner Mongolia, Xinjiang, Tianjin, and Shanghai had the lowest increase in death rates during the Great Leap Forward (there was no data for Tibet). Peng also noted that the increase in death rates in urban areas was about half the increase in death rates in rural areas. Fuyang, a region in Anhui with a population of 8 million in 1958, had a death rate that rivaled Cambodia under the Khmer Rouge; According to Chinese government reports in the "Fuyang Party History Research Office", between the years 1959 and 1961, 2.4 million people from Fuyang died from the famine. On the other hand, the Gao Village in the Jiangxi Province there was a famine, but no one actually died of starvation.


title: Great Leap Forward

text: Not all deaths during the Great Leap were from starvation. Frank Dikötter, in his book "Mao's Great Famine", estimates that at least 2.5 million people were beaten or tortured to death and one million to three million committed suicide. He provided some illustrative examples and claimed that in Xinyang, where over a million died in 1960, 6–7% (around 67,000) of these were beaten to death by the militias. In Daoxian county, 10% of those who died had been "buried alive, clubbed to death or otherwise killed by party members and their militia". In Shimen county, around 13,500 died in 1960, of these 12% were "beaten or driven to their deaths". Dikötter's claims have been disputed by Felix Wemheur. In accounts documented by Yang Jisheng, people were beaten or killed for rebelling against the government, reporting the real harvest numbers, for sounding alarm, for refusing to hand over what little food they had left, for trying to flee the famine area, for begging food or as little as stealing scraps or angering officials.


title: Great Leap Forward

text: In the book "Tombstone", a cycle of starvation and violence was documented during the Great Leap Forward.


title: Great Leap Forward

text: Some outlier estimates include 11 million by Utsa Patnaik, an Indian Marxist economist, 3.66 million by Sun Jingxian (孙经先), a Chinese mathematician, and 2.6–4 million by Yang Songlin (杨松林), a Chinese historian and political economist.


title: Great Leap Forward

text: The number of famine deaths during the Great Leap Forward has been estimated with different methods. Banister, Coale, and Ashton "et al." compare age cohorts from the 1953, 1964, and 1982 censuses, yearly birth and death records, and results of the 1982 1:1000 fertility survey. From these they calculate excess deaths above a death rate interpolated between pre- and post-Leap death rates. All involve corrections for perceived errors inherent in the different data sets. Peng uses reported deaths from the vital statistics of 14 provinces, adjusts 10% for under reporting, and expands the result to cover all of China assuming similar mortality rates in the other provinces. He uses 1956/57 death rates as the baseline death rate rather than an interpolation between pre- and post-GLF death rates.


title: Great Leap Forward

text: Houser, Sands, and Xiao in their 2005 research study using "provincial-level demographic panel data and a Bayesian empirical approach in an effort to distinguish the relative importance of weather and national policy on China's great demographic disaster" conclude that "in aggregate, from 1959 to 1961 China suffered about 14.8 million excess deaths. Of those, about 69% (or 10.3 million) seem attributable to effects stemming from national policies."


title: Great Leap Forward

text: Cao uses information from "local annals" to determine for each locality the expected population increase from normal births and deaths, the population increase due to migration, and the loss of population between 1958 and 1961. He then adds the three figures to determine the number of excess deaths during the period 1959–1961. Chang and Halliday use death rates determined by "Chinese demographers" for the years 1957–1963, subtract the average of the pre-and post-Leap death rates (1957, 1962, and 1963) from the death rates of each of the years 1958–1961, and multiply each yearly excess death rate by the year's population to determine excess deaths.


title: Great Leap Forward

text: Chen was part of a large investigation by the System Reform Institute think tank (Tigaisuo) which "visited every province and examined internal Party documents and records."


title: Great Leap Forward

text: Becker, Rummel, Dikötter, and Yang each compare several earlier estimates. Becker considers Banister's estimate of 30 million excess deaths to be "the most reliable estimate we have". Rummel initially took Coale's 27 million as a "most likely figure", then accepted the later estimate of 38 million by Chang and Halliday after it was published. Dikötter judged Chen's estimate of 43 to 46 million to be "in all likelihood a reliable estimate." He also claimed that at least 2.5 million of these deaths were caused by beatings, tortures, or summary executions. On the other hand, Daniel Vukovich asserts that this claim is coming from a problematic and unverified reference, because Chen simply threw that number as an "estimate" during an interview and because Chen hasn't published any scholarly work on the subject. Yang takes Cao's, Wang Weizhi's, and Jin Hui's estimates ranging from 32.5 to 35 million excess deaths for the period 1959–1961, adds his own estimates for 1958 (0.42 million) and 1962 (2.23 million) "based on official figures reported by the provinces" to get 35 to 37 million, and chooses 36 million as a number that "approaches the reality but is still too low."


title: Great Leap Forward

text: Estimates contain several sources of error. National census data was not accurate and even the total population of China at the time was not known to within 50 million to 100 million people. The statistical reporting system had been taken over by party cadre from statisticians in 1957, making political considerations more important than accuracy and resulting in a complete breakdown in the statistical reporting system. Population figures were routinely inflated at the local level, often in order to obtain increased rations of goods. During the Cultural Revolution, a great deal of the material in the State Statistical Bureau was burned.


title: Great Leap Forward

text: According to Jasper Becker, under-reporting of deaths was also a problem. The death registration system, which was inadequate before the famine, was completely overwhelmed by the large number of deaths during the famine. In addition, he claims that many deaths went unreported so that family members of the deceased could continue to draw the deceased's food ration and that counting the number of children who both were born and died between the 1953 and 1964 censuses is problematic. However, Ashton, "et al." believe that because the reported number of births during the GLF seems accurate, the reported number of deaths should be accurate as well. Massive internal migration made both population counts and registering deaths problematic, though Yang believes the degree of unofficial internal migration was small and Cao's estimate takes internal migration into account.