title: Dawn of the Planet of the Apes

text: In an interview recorded after the release of "Rise", Wyatt stated, "We want to grow and evolve, in the films that will [hopefully] come after this, to the '68 original." Wyatt also stated that he wants it to take place eight years after "Rise", as a whole new ape generation can be born, and explore the dynamics of Caesar and Koba's relationship. According to screenwriter Rick Jaffa, a version of the spaceship from the 1968 "Planet of the Apes" under the name "Icarus" was in "Rise" as a deliberate hint to a possible sequel.


title: Dawn of the Planet of the Apes

text: In November 2011, Andy Serkis was the first to be announced as having closed a deal for a sequel to "Rise". It was reported to be a "healthy seven-figure deal" for him to reprise his role as Caesar, the ape leader. On May 15, 2012, it was announced Scott Z. Burns had been hired to do rewrites on the original screenplay by "Rise" writers Rick Jaffa and Amanda Silver. On May 31, 2012, 20th Century Fox announced that the sequel would be titled "Dawn of the Planet of the Apes".


title: Dawn of the Planet of the Apes

text: On September 17, 2012, there were reports that director Wyatt was considering leaving the sequel due to his concern that a May 2014 release date would not give him enough time to make the film properly. On October 1, "Cloverfield" director Matt Reeves was confirmed as his replacement. Reeves had been working on developing a new "Twilight Zone" film. On October 18, Mark Bomback, writer of "Live Free or Die Hard", was reported to be doing a re-write for Reeves.


title: Dawn of the Planet of the Apes

text: In December 2012, after the departure of director Wyatt, James Franco speculated that he would not return for the sequel as his character Will Rodman has died from a Simian Flu virus, saying "Now Rupert's not a part of it so My guess is I won't be in it." Freida Pinto, who played primatologist Caroline Aranha in "Rise", confirmed that she would not return for "Dawn" as her character Caroline Aranha has also died from a Simian Flu virus as well. In April 2014, when asked by IGN about the fate of Franco and Pinto's characters, producer Dylan Clark said, "I mean, they're the ones that died...They were ground zero of the virus."


title: Dawn of the Planet of the Apes

text: In February 2013, actors Gary Oldman, Jason Clarke, and Kodi Smit-McPhee were cast in lead roles for the sequel, set ten years after the events from the first film. In March 2013, actress Keri Russell was cast in a role. That same month, Judy Greer was cast as Cornelia, a female chimp and love interest for Caesar. Toby Kebbell, Enrique Murciano and Kirk Acevedo joined the cast during filming. On May 15, 2013, Jocko Sims was cast in a supporting role of military operative Werner.


title: Dawn of the Planet of the Apes

text: Filming began in April 2013 around the town of Campbell River, British Columbia. The location of Vancouver Island was chosen for its similarity to the locations depicted in the film, the forests, and the variety of landscapes. Filming in New Orleans started in May 2013 and continued in July 2013 at various locations such as the former Six Flags park Six Flags New Orleans.


title: Dawn of the Planet of the Apes

text: Like "Rise", visual effects for "Dawn" were done by Weta Digital. In addition to the apes, Weta created other digital animals, such as a herd of elk, a grizzly bear, and CG doubles of the live horses. The elk were created using key-frame animation and the digital crowd enhancement software MASSIVE, the bear through key-frame animation, and the horses with a mixture of key-frame animation and motion capture.


title: Dawn of the Planet of the Apes

text: The film score was composed by Michael Giacchino, whom he had collaborated with Reeves in "Cloverfield" (2008) and "Let Me In" (2010). Giacchino referenced Jerry Goldsmith's themes for the 1968 film and Danny Elfman's theme for the 2001 film, while also incorporating his own themes referencing the score for "Lost" (20042010) and "Super 8" (2011). The soundtrack was released by Sony Classical Records on July 8, 2014.


title: Dawn of the Planet of the Apes

text: On May 31, 2012, Fox announced that "Dawn of the Planet of the Apes" was scheduled for release on May 23, 2014. However, it was announced on June 20, 2013 that the release date for "Dawn" was being pushed back two months to July 18, 2014. On December 10, 2013, the film was pushed up one week to July 11, 2014. The film premiered at the Palace of Fine Arts in San Francisco, California on June 26, 2014. The film closed the 36th Moscow International Film Festival on June 28.


title: Dawn of the Planet of the Apes

text: In Hungary, the largest cinema chain called Cinema City could not agree with the film's distributor, InterCom, and as a result it opened on July 17, 2014, on 45 screens, significantly fewer than similar big-budget productions. However, the film still managed to top the weekend box office chart of the country beating "", which had been leading the chart for three weeks (on 105 screens distributed by UIP Duna).


title: Dawn of the Planet of the Apes

text: A viral marketing campaign for the film launched in July 2013 included a "simian flu" website and mock PSA videos. 20th Century Fox and Vice Media's Motherboard released three short films online in July 2014 which document the ten-year gap between the events of "Rise of the Planet of the Apes" and "Dawn of the Planet of the Apes". A novel titled "Dawn of the Planet of the Apes: Firestorm" which is also set between the events of the first two films was published in May 2014 by Titan Books. A partnership with 20th Century Fox and Ndemic Creations saw mobile/PC game "Plague Inc." get a "Dawn of the Planet of the Apes"-themed update on July 10, 2014. It allows players to create and customize a simian flu virus to infect the world and eradicate humanity whilst helping apes survive.


title: Dawn of the Planet of the Apes

text: "Dawn of the Planet of the Apes" was a success at the box office with many critics calling it "the summer's best popcorn film", and "Deadline Hollywood" commented saying it is "a franchise that will keep going and going, unless they screw it up". The film grossed $208,545,589 in the United States and Canada, and $500,290,000 in other countries, for a worldwide total of $708,835,589. Calculating in all expenses and revenues, "Deadline Hollywood" estimated that the film made a net profit of $182.18 million. It had a worldwide opening of $103.3 million which was the 11th-highest of 2014. Worldwide it is the highest-grossing film in the "Planet of the Apes" franchise and the eighth-highest-grossing film of 2014.


title: Dawn of the Planet of the Apes

text: In the United States and Canada, the film is the highest-grossing film in the "Planet of the Apes" franchise, unadjusted for inflation and the eighth-highest-grossing film of 2014. It opened on July 11, 2014 across 3,967 theaters and topped the box office on its opening day earning $27.7 million (including previews). During its traditional three-day opening, the film debuted at number one earning $72.6 million, which was 33% higher than its predecessor. Box Office Mojo pointed out that the film's good word of mouth as well as its predecessors', its darker tone, attachment of new characters and the first film's way of ending were all determining factors in the film's strong opening. It remained at the summit for two consecutive weekends in North America despite facing competition with "" in its second week.


title: Dawn of the Planet of the Apes

text: "Dawn of the Planet of the Apes" earned $31.3 million during its opening weekend internationally from 4,913 screens in 26 markets, where it opened at No. 1 in 14 of those. International opening weekend tallies of more than $5 million were witnessed in the UK ($14.88 million), Mexico ($12.94 million), South Korea ($11.5 million), Russia ($9.99 million), Brazil with ($9.2 million) and Australia ($6.6 million). The film topped the box office outside North America for two non-consecutive weekends.


title: Dawn of the Planet of the Apes

text: The film became a massive financial success in China, where it opened with $47 million on its opening weekend there. The robust debut helped the film top the international charts for the first time dethroning "Guardians of the Galaxy" and aided the film in passing $400 million internationally and $600 million globally. Fox reported that the sequel's debut in China was one of the best in history for a Western title, save for "Iron Man 3", "" and "" at that time. After playing for a month in theaters, it passed $100 million on its fourth weekend and became the fourth Hollywood film of the year to achieve such a milestone. In total, it went on to make $107.4 million there, of which the studio received $26.8 million profit.


title: Dawn of the Planet of the Apes

text: On review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds a 91% approval rating based on 316 reviews, with an average rating of 7.90/10. The website's critics consensus reads, "With intelligence and emotional resonance to match its stunning special effects, "Dawn of the Planet of the Apes" expands on its predecessor with an exciting and ambitious burst of sci-fi achievement." Metacritic, which uses a weighted average, assigned the film a score of 79 out of 100 based on 48 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews". Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "A−" on an A+ to F scale.


title: Dawn of the Planet of the Apes

text: Guy Lodge of "Variety" said, "An altogether smashing sequel to 2011's better-than-expected "Rise of the Planet of the Apes", this vivid, violent extension of humanoid ape Caesar's troubled quest for independence bests its predecessor in nearly every technical and conceptual department, with incoming helmer Matt Reeves conducting the proceedings with more assertive genre elan than "Rise" journeyman Rupert Wyatt." Todd McCarthy of "The Hollywood Reporter" stated that the film "manages to do at least three things exceptionally well that are hard enough to pull off individually: Maintain a simmering level of tension without let-up for two hours, seriously improve on a very good first entry in a franchise and produce a powerful humanistic statement using a significantly simian cast of characters. In the annals of sequels, "Dawn" is to "Rise of the Planet of the Apes" what "The Empire Strikes Back" was to "Star Wars"—it's that much better." Tim Robey of "The Daily Telegraph" said, "There's evident patience and intelligence to the filmmaking all over, as well as an engagement with genuine ideas about diplomacy, deterrence, law and leadership. However often it risks monkey-mad silliness, it's impressively un-stupid." Drew McWeeny of HitFix awarded the film an "A+" grade and said ""Dawn" is not just a good genre movie or a good summer movie. It's a great science-fiction film, full-stop, and one of the year's very best movies so far."


title: Dawn of the Planet of the Apes

text: Ty Burr of "The Boston Globe" wrote that "in bearing, speech, and agonized expressiveness, Serkis's Caesar conveys the conflicts of a king with almost Shakespearean grandeur." A. O. Scott of "The New York Times" praised the film for being able to balance out the action sequences and special effects with strong storytelling, writing that ""Dawn" is more than a bunch of occasionally thrilling action sequences, emotional gut punches and throwaway jokes arranged in predictable sequence. It is technically impressive and viscerally exciting, for sure, but it also gives you a lot to think, and even to care, about."


title: Dawn of the Planet of the Apes

text: Less favorable reviews included Andrew O'Hehir at Salon.com who wrote, "Here's a rule that has gradually become clear to me: Any film that begins with one of those fake-news montages, where snippets of genuine CNN footage are stitched together to concoct a feeling of semi-urgency around its hackneyed apocalypse, already sucks even before it gets started. This one makes a dutiful attempt to struggle back from that suckage, but it all ends in yelling."


title: Dawn of the Planet of the Apes

text: "Dawn of the Planet of the Apes" was released by 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment on Blu-ray 3D, Blu-ray, and DVD on December 2, 2014. According to Nielsen VideoScan, it subsequently became the best-selling home video release for the week.


title: Dawn of the Planet of the Apes

text: After seeing his cut of "Dawn", 20th Century Fox and Chernin Entertainment signed Matt Reeves to return as director for a third installment of the reboot series. On January 6, 2014, Fox announced Reeves to direct as well as co-write along with Bomback, with a planned July 2016 release. Peter Chernin, Rick Jaffa and Amanda Silver will produce. In January 2015, Fox delayed the release to July 14, 2017. On May 14, 2015, the title was given as "War of the Planet of the Apes". In September 2015, it was announced that Woody Harrelson had been cast as the film's antagonist. In October 2015, Steve Zahn was cast as a new ape in the film, re-titled as "War for the Planet of the Apes".


title: Ronnie Spector

text: Veronica Yvette Greenfield (; August 10, 1943 – January 12, 2022) was an American singer who co-founded and fronted the girl group The Ronettes. She is sometimes referred to as the original "bad girl of rock and roll".


title: Ronnie Spector

text: Ronnie formed the singing group with her older sister, Estelle Bennett, and their cousin, Nedra Talley in the late 1950s. They were signed to Phil Spector's Philles label in 1963 and he produced the majority of their recording output. The Ronettes had a string of hits in the 1960s, including "Be My Baby" (1963), "Baby, I Love You" (1963), "(The Best Part of) Breakin' Up" (1964), "Do I Love You?" (1964), and "Walking in the Rain" (1964). Ronnie married Phil in 1968. Following the couple's divorce in 1974, Ronnie reformed the Ronettes and began performing again.


title: Ronnie Spector

text: In 1980, she released her debut solo album "Siren". Her career revived when she was featured on Eddie Money's song and video "Take Me Home Tonight" in 1986, a "Billboard" top five single. She went on to release the albums "Unfinished Business" (1987), "Something's Gonna Happen" (2003), "Last of the Rock Stars" (2006) and "English Heart" (2016). She also recorded one extended play, "She Talks to Rainbows" (1999). In 1990, Ronnie Spector published a memoir, "Be My Baby: How I Survived Mascara, Miniskirts, and Madness, Or, My Life as a Fabulous Ronette". She was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as a member of the Ronettes in 2007.


title: Ronnie Spector

text: Spector was born Veronica Yvette Bennett in East Harlem, New York City, and grew up in the Washington Heights section of Manhattan. She was the daughter of Beatrice and Louis Bennett, a subway worker. Her mother was Black and Cherokee, and her father was Irish. Bennett and her sister Estelle Bennett (1941–2009) were encouraged to sing by their large family, as was their cousin Nedra Talley (born 1946). The trio formed the Darling Sisters, known later as the Ronettes. They performed locally while attending George Washington High School in Washington Heights. Their look was fashioned by Estelle, who had a job at Macy's on the cosmetics counter. They sang at school events, and had a residency at the Peppermint Lounge, a nightspot in Manhattan, the birthplace of the Twist and go-go dancing.


title: Ronnie Spector

text: The Ronettes became a popular live attraction around the greater New York area in the early 1960s. Looking for a recording contract, they initially were signed to Colpix Records and produced by Stu Phillips. After releasing a few singles on Colpix without success, they tracked down record producer Phil Spector, who signed them to his label Philles Records in 1963. Their relationship with Spector brought chart success with their biggest hit "Be My Baby" in 1963, which peaked at No. 2 on the "Billboard" Hot 100. A string of top 40 pop hits followed with "Baby, I Love You" (1963), "(The Best Part of) Breakin' Up" (1964), "Do I Love You?" (1964), and "Walking in the Rain" (1964). The group had two entries on the "Billboard" Hot 100 in 1965 with "Born to Be Together" and "Is This What I Get for Loving You?".


title: Ronnie Spector

text: In 1965, the Ronettes were voted the third-top singing group in England behind the Beatles and the Rolling Stones. They opened for the Beatles on their 1966 US tour without their lead singer. Phil had forbidden Bennett to tour with the Beatles, so her cousin Elaine stood in as a third member. The group's last charting single, "I Can Hear Music", was produced by Jeff Barry and reached No. 100 on the "Billboard" Hot 100 in 1966.


title: Ronnie Spector

text: The Ronettes broke up in early 1967, following a European concert tour. After Bennett married Phil in 1968, she began to use the name Ronnie Spector, but she withdrew from the spotlight because Phil prohibited her from performing and limited her recordings. In 1969, Phil signed a production deal with A&M Records and he released her record "You Came, You Saw, You Conquered", credited as "The Ronettes Featuring the Voice of Veronica", with "Oh I Love You", an old Ronettes B-side, as the flip. Her vocals were used for the lead and backing vocals. Phil kept many of the group's unreleased songs in a vault for years.


title: Ronnie Spector

text: In February 1971, Ronnie Spector recorded the song "Try Some, Buy Some/Tandoori Chicken" at Abbey Road Studios during Phil's work with George Harrison. Written by Harrison, and produced by both Harrison and Phil, her debut solo single was released on Apple Records in April 1971. It peaked at No. 77 on the "Billboard" Hot 100 in May 1971. Although the single was not a big hit, its backing track was used two years later for Harrison's own version of the song, on his chart-topping "Living in the Material World" album. "Try Some, Buy Some" had another lasting influence when John Lennon recorded "Happy Xmas (War Is Over)" later the same year and asked Phil (co-producing again) to reproduce the mandolin-laden Wall of Sound he had created for that single. Lennon liked the rockabilly B-side too; he sang it at his birthday party in New York City in October 1971 (a recording of which has appeared on bootlegs). Ronnie Spector recorded other Harrison songs during those London sessions – including "You" and "When Every Song Is Sung" – but her versions were never released, even though a full album had been planned.


title: Ronnie Spector

text: After separating from Phil in 1972, she reformed the Ronettes (as Ronnie Spector and the Ronettes) with two new members (Chip Fields Hurd, the mother of actress Kim Fields, and Diane Linton) in 1973. They released a few singles on Buddah Records, but the records failed to chart. By 1975, Ronnie Spector was recording as a solo act. She released the single "You'd Be Good For Me" on Tom Cat Records in 1975.


title: Ronnie Spector

text: In 1976, she sang a duet with Southside Johnny on the recording "You Mean So Much To Me", penned by Southside's longtime friend Bruce Springsteen. This was the final track on the Southside Johnny & the Asbury Jukes' debut album "I Don't Want to Go Home". She also made appearances with the E Street Band the following year, including a cover version of Billy Joel's 1976 track "Say Goodbye to Hollywood".


title: Ronnie Spector

text: In her book, Ronnie Spector recounted several abortive attempts to recapture mainstream success throughout the 1970s and early 1980s, during which time she was perceived as an oldies act. She recorded her first solo album in 1980, "Siren", produced by Genya Ravan.


title: Ronnie Spector

text: In 1986, Ronnie Spector enjoyed a resurgence of popular radio airplay as the featured vocalist on Eddie Money's Top 5 hit, "Take Me Home Tonight", in which she answers Money's chorus lyric, "just like Ronnie sang", with, "be my little baby". The song's music video was one of the top videos of the year and in heavy rotation on MTV. During this period, she also recorded the song "Tonight You're Mine, Baby" (from the film "Just One of the Guys").


title: Ronnie Spector

text: In 1988, she began performing at the Ronnie Spector's Christmas Party, a seasonal staple at B.B. King Blues Club & Grill in New York City. In 1999, she released the EP, "She Talks to Rainbows", which featured a few covers of older songs. Joey Ramone acted as producer.


title: Ronnie Spector

text: In 1988, she and the other members of the Ronettes sued Phil Spector for nonpayment of royalties and for unpaid income he made from licensing of Ronettes’ music. In 2001, a New York court announced a verdict in favor of the Ronettes, ordering him to pay $2.6 million in back royalties. The judgment was overturned by a Court of Appeals in 2002 and remanded back to the New York State Supreme Court. The judges found that their contract gave Phil unconditional rights to the recordings. It was ruled that Ronnie Spector was entitled to her share of the royalties, which she had forfeited in her divorce settlement, but they reversed a lower court's ruling that the group were entitled to the music industry's standard 50 percent royalty rate. In the outcome, Phil paid in excess of $1 million to Ronnie Spector. In December 1998, having just signed to the Creation Records label, she appeared on the BBC's "Later... with Jools Holland".


title: Ronnie Spector

text: In 2003, Ronnie Spector provided backing vocals for The Misfits' album "Project 1950" on the songs "This Magic Moment" and "You Belong to Me." In 2004, the Ronettes were inducted into the Vocal Group Hall of Fame.


title: Ronnie Spector

text: She provided guest vocals on the track "Ode to LA", on The Raveonettes' album "Pretty in Black" (2005). Her album, "Last of the Rock Stars" (2006), was released by High Coin and featured contributions from members of The Raconteurs, Nick Zinner of the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, The Raveonettes, Patti Smith, and Keith Richards. Spector herself co-produced two of the songs. Despite objections from Phil Spector, who was awaiting trial for murder, the Ronettes were inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 2007.


title: Ronnie Spector

text: A Christmas EP, "Ronnie Spector's Best Christmas Ever", was released on Bad Girl Sounds in November 2010, featuring five new Christmas songs. In 2011, after the death of Amy Winehouse, Ronnie Spector released her version of Winehouse's single "Back to Black" (2006) as a tribute and for the benefit of the Daytop Village addiction treatment centers. She also performed this song as part of her live act, including in 2015 during a UK tour. She appeared on the 2014 New Year's Eve edition of the "Jools' Annual Hootenanny".


title: Ronnie Spector

text: In 2016, she released, through 429 Records, "English Heart", her first album of new material in a decade. The album features her versions of songs of the British Invasion by the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, the Yardbirds, the Bee Gees, and others, produced by Scott Jacoby. "English Heart" peaked at No. 6 on the "Billboard" Top Heatseekers chart. On August 9, 2017, "People" premiered a new single, "Love Power", produced by Narada Michael Walden by Ronnie Spector and The Ronettes, making it the first Ronettes single in decades.


title: Ronnie Spector

text: In 2018, Ronnie Spector appeared in the music documentary "" (2018), based on Winehouse and her final studio album "Back to Black". The album was inspired by 1960s girl groups Winehouse gathered inspiration from listening to, such as The Ronettes. It contained new interviews as well as archival footage. Ronnie Spector was a great inspiration for Amy Winehouse, who emulated her hair, as well as vocal style. In return, Ronnie Spector covered "Back to Black", the signature song of Amy Winehouse. She recalls that Winehouse turned up at a concert looking just like her while she sang her song. She recalled that she saw "a tear out of her eye and it made me cry".


title: Ronnie Spector

text: In September 2020, "Deadline" reported that actress Zendaya would portray Ronnie Spector in a biopic adapted from her memoir "Be My Baby". In December 2021, the Ronettes returned to the Top 10 for the first time in 58 years with their 1963 recording of "Sleigh Ride". Following her death in January 2022, the BBC broadcast the compilation tribute "Ronnie Spector at the BBC".


title: Ronnie Spector

text: Ronnie and Phil Spector began having an affair soon after she was signed to his label in 1963. Early in their relationship, she was unaware that he was married. Once, Ronnie was apprehended by house detectives for prostitution at the Delmonico Hotel in New York City after leaving a room they had booked. She was allowed to call Phil, who threatened the hotel, and then they allowed her to leave. After Phil divorced his wife in 1965, he purchased a home in Beverly Hills, where he lived with Ronnie. They married at Beverly Hills City Hall on April 14, 1968. Ronnie changed her surname and became known as Ronnie Spector. Their son Donté Phillip was adopted in 1969. Two years later, Phil surprised her for Christmas with adopted twins, Louis and Gary.


title: Ronnie Spector

text: Ronnie alleged in her 1990 memoir, "Be My Baby", that following their marriage, Phil subjected her to years of psychological torment and sabotaged her career by forbidding her to perform. She said he surrounded their house with barbed wire and guard dogs, and confiscated her shoes to prevent her from leaving; on the rare occasions he allowed her out alone, she had to drive with a life-size dummy of Phil. She stated that Phil installed a gold coffin with a glass top in the basement, promising that he would kill her and display her corpse if she ever left him. She began drinking and attending Alcoholics Anonymous meetings to escape the house.


title: Ronnie Spector

text: In 1972, Ronnie fled their mansion barefoot and without any belongings through a broken window, with the help of her mother. "I knew that if I didn't leave I was going to die there," she said. In their 1974 divorce settlement, Ronnie forfeited all future record earnings, alleging that Phil had threatened to have a hit man kill her. She received $25,000, a used car, and monthly alimony of $2,500 for five years. She later testified that Phil had frequently pulled a gun on her during their marriage and threatened to kill her unless she surrendered custody of their children.


title: Ronnie Spector

text: She tried to rebuild her career, keeping Spector's surname professionally because "I needed any way I could to get back in, I'd been kept away so long." According to her, Phil hired lawyers to prevent her singing her popular songs and denied her royalties. In 1988, the Ronettes sued Phil for $10 million in damages, rescission of the contract, the return of the masters, and recoupment of money received from the sale of Ronettes masters. It took 10 years for the case to make it to trial, and after a prolonged legal battle, Phil was ordered to pay Ronnie over $1 million in royalties.


title: Ronnie Spector

text: In 1982, she married her manager Jonathan Greenfield. They had two sons, and lived in Danbury, Connecticut. She released her memoir "Be My Baby: How I Survived Mascara, Miniskirts, and Madness, Or, My Life as a Fabulous Ronette" in 1990; the book was later named by "Rolling Stone" as one of the greatest rock biographies of all time. An updated version titled "Be My Baby: A Memoir" was completed in late 2021, just two months before Spector's death, and was released in May 2022.


title: Ronnie Spector

text: Spector died at her home in Danbury on January 12, 2022, after a short battle with cancer, at the age of 78.


title: Amit Shah

text: Amit Anil Chandra Shah (born 22 October 1964) is an Indian politician currently serving as the Minister of Home Affairs since 2019 and the first Minister of Co-operation of India since 2021. He served as the President of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) from 2014 to 2020. He has also served as chairman of the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) since 2014. He was elected to the lower house of Parliament, Lok Sabha, in the 2019 Indian general elections from Gandhinagar. Earlier, he had been elected as a member of the upper house of Parliament, Rajya Sabha, from Gujarat in 2017. Sworn in at the age of 54, he is the youngest serving full-time Home Minister. He is the chief strategist of the BJP and a close aide to Narendra Modi.


title: Amit Shah

text: During his college days, Shah was a member of the ABVP, the student wing of the RSS. At the age of 18, he secured a position in the ABVP and joined the BJP in 1987. Shah was first elected in Gujarat as the MLA for a seat partly covering Ahmedabad, Sarkhej in 1997 (a by-election). He continued to hold it in the 1998, 2002 and 2007 elections until the seat's dissolution in 2008; he then got elected from the nearby Naranpura in 2012. As a close associate of Chief Minister Narendra Modi, he held executive portfolios in the Gujarat state government.


title: Amit Shah

text: Shah was the BJP's in-charge for India's largest and politically most crucial state, Uttar Pradesh, during the 2014 Lok Sabha elections. The BJP and its NDA won 73 out of 80 seats. As a result, Shah rose to national prominence and was appointed as the party's national president in July 2014.


title: Amit Shah

text: He has played an organising and membership-promotional role in the elections of many states since 2014. In his initial two years, the BJP achieved success in Legislative Assembly elections in Maharashtra, Haryana, Jammu and Kashmir, Jharkhand and Assam but lost ground in Delhi and the large eastern state of Bihar in 2015.


title: Amit Shah

text: In 2017, he was partly credited with the party victories in Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Gujarat and Manipur, but the Akali-BJP alliance lost power in the larger Punjab election. In 2018, the party lost power in the states of Chhattisgarh, Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh. A year later, the BJP won 303 seats to get a majority in the 2019 Indian general election under Shah's leadership.


title: Amit Shah

text: Amit Anil Chandra Shah was born in Mumbai on 22 October 1964. He came from a Gujarati Hindu Vaishnava family, who were Baniyas. His great grandfather was the Nagarseth (Capital city chief) of the small state of Mansa. His father, Anil Chandra Shah, a businessman from Mansa, owned a successful PVC pipe business. He went to school in Mehsana and moved to Ahmedabad to study biochemistry at CU Shah Science College. He graduated with a BSc degree in biochemistry and then worked for his father's business. He also worked as a stockbroker and in co-operative banks in Ahmedabad.


title: Amit Shah

text: Shah was involved with the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) since childhood; he participated in the neighbourhood "shakhas" (branches) as a boy. He formally became an RSS "swayamsevak" (volunteer) during his college days in Ahmedabad. He first met Narendra Modi in 1982 through the Ahmedabad RSS circles. At that time, Modi was an RSS "pracharak" (propagator), working as in-charge of youth activities in the city.


title: Amit Shah

text: Shah started his political career as a leader of the student wing of the RSS, the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad, in 1983. He joined BJP in 1987, one year before Modi joined the party. He became an activist of the BJP's youth wing, Bharatiya Janata Yuva Morcha (BJYM), in 1987. He gradually rose in the BJYM hierarchy, in which he held various posts including ward secretary, taluka secretary, state secretary, vice-president and general secretary. He became known for his management skills when he was the election campaign manager for Lal Krishna Advani in Gandhinagar during the 1991 Lok Sabha elections.


title: Amit Shah

text: In 1995, the BJP formed its first government in Gujarat, with Keshubhai Patel as Chief Minister. At that time, the Indian National Congress, the BJP's main rival, was highly influential in rural Gujarat. Modi and Shah worked together to eliminate Congress in the rural areas. Their strategy was to find the second-most influential leader in every village and get them to join the BJP. They created a network of 8,000 influential rural leaders who had lost elections to the "pradhan" (village chief) post in various villages.


title: Amit Shah

text: Modi and Shah used the same strategy to reduce Congress' influence over the state's powerful co-operatives, which played an important role in the state's economy. In 1999, Shah was elected as the president of the Ahmedabad District Cooperative Bank (ADCB), the biggest cooperative bank in India. In Gujarat, such elections had traditionally been won on caste considerations, and the co-operative banks had traditionally been controlled by Patels, Gaderias and Kshatriyas. Despite not belonging to any of these castes, Shah won the election. At that time, the bank was on the verge of collapse, as they had accumulated losses of 36 crores. Shah turned around the bank's fortune within a year; the following year, the bank registered a profit of 27 crores. By 2014, its profit had increased to around 250 crores. Shah also ensured that 11 of the bank's 22 directors were BJP loyalists.


title: Amit Shah

text: Modi and Shah also sought to reduce Congress' hold over sports bodies in the state. Shah served as the president of the Gujarat State Chess Association. In 2009, he became the vice-president of the profitable Gujarat Cricket Association (GCA), while Modi served as its president. In 2014, after Modi became Prime Minister of India, Shah became the president of GCA.


title: Amit Shah

text: Modi, who had become a general secretary in the party's state unit by the early 1990s, used his influence to get bigger roles for Shah. He convinced Patel to appoint Shah as the chairman of the Gujarat State Financial Corporation, a public sector financial institution that finances small and medium-scale enterprises. After Shankersinh Vaghela and some other leaders complained about Modi's growing popularity in the Gujarat government, the party leadership moved Modi out of Gujarat to the BJP headquarters in Delhi. During this time (1995–2001), Shah served as Modi's confidante in Gujarat.


title: Amit Shah

text: In 1997, Modi lobbied to get Shah a BJP ticket for the Gujarat Legislative Assembly by-election in Sarkhej. Shah became an MLA in February 1997 after winning the by-election. He retained his seat in the 1998 Assembly elections.


title: Amit Shah

text: In October 2001, the BJP replaced Keshubhai Patel with Narendra Modi as the chief minister of Gujarat after allegations of inefficient administration. Over the next few years, Modi and Shah gradually sidelined their political rivals.


title: Amit Shah

text: Shah contested the 2002 Assembly election from the Sarkhej constituency in Ahmedabad. He won by the highest margin among all candidates, with 158,036 votes. He improved his margin of victory in the 2007 Assembly election, in which he won from Sarkhej again.


title: Amit Shah

text: During Modi's twelve-year tenure as the Gujarat CM, Shah emerged as one of the most powerful leaders in Gujarat. After winning the 2002 elections, he became the youngest minister in the Modi government and was given multiple portfolios. At one time, he held 12 portfolios: Home, Law and Justice, Prison, Border Security, Civil Defence, Excise, Transport, Prohibition, Home Guards, Gram Rakshak Dal, Police Housing and Legislative and Parliamentary Affairs.


title: Amit Shah

text: In 2004, the Congress-led government announced its intention to repeal the Prevention of Terrorism Act, which they called regressive. Shah piloted the Gujarat Control of Organised Crime (Amendment) Bill through the Gujarat State Assembly amid an opposition walk-out.


title: Amit Shah

text: Shah also played an important role in convincing the Modi government to pass the Gujarat Freedom of Religion Bill, which made religious conversions difficult in the state of Gujarat.


title: Amit Shah

text: Shah was accused of sidelining the police officers who testified against the Gujarat government in cases related to the fake encounters and the 2002 riots. Shah has also been accused of manipulating the electoral constituency delimitation exercise in Gujarat to favour the BJP.


title: Amit Shah

text: In 2010, Shah was accused of having orchestrated the extrajudicial killings of Sohrabuddin Sheikh, his wife Kauser Bi and his criminal associate Tulsiram Prajapati. According to the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), Sheikh had been harassing some marble traders of Rajasthan by demanding protection money. The CBI claimed that two of these marble traders paid Shah to eliminate Sheikh, along with police officers DIG D.G. Vanzara and SP Rajkumar Pandian.


title: Amit Shah

text: The CBI presented phone call records, which showed that Shah had been in touch with the accused police officers when the victims were in their custody. It also presented videotapes of Patel brothers' conversations with two of Shah's associates at the Ahmedabad District Cooperative Bank (ADCB). The Patel brothers, who had several criminal cases against them, also spoke against Shah.


title: Amit Shah

text: Shah dismissed all the accusations against him as politically motivated. He pointed out that during his tenure as Home Minister, Gujarat was one of the states with a small number of police encounters in the country. He stated that he kept in touch with the police officers on the phone in the normal course of his duties as Home Minister. He accused Congress of misusing the CBI and claimed that only the cases in Gujarat were being scrutinised, while the rest of the country had witnessed around 1,500 encounters during the same period. He said if the CBI had any solid evidence against him, it would have been able to frame charges against him. In 2010, Police Commissioner Geeta Johri, who first investigated the case, claimed that the CBI was pressurising her to falsely implicate Shah in the Sohrabuddin case.


title: Amit Shah

text: Shah was arrested on 25 July 2010 in connection with the Sohrabuddin case. At one time, Shah was considered one of the main contenders for Gujarat Chief Minister. However, his political career was hurt by the arrest; many leaders in the Gujarat government distanced themselves from him. His fellow ministers considered him an autocratic person, who did not have good relations with his colleagues.


title: Amit Shah

text: When Shah applied for bail, the CBI raised concerns that he would use his political power to prevent justice from taking its course. On 29 October 2010, the Gujarat High Court granted him bail three months after his arrest. However, the next day, when the courts were closed, Justice Aftab Alam took a petition at his residence to bar him from entering Gujarat. Shah was thus forcibly exiled from the state from 2010 to 2012. He and his wife moved to a room in Gujarat Bhavan, Delhi. Later, the Supreme Court cancelled his bail on a CBI plea. In September 2012, the Supreme Court granted him bail and allowed him to return to Gujarat. He then contested and won the 2012 Assembly election from the Naranpura constituency. (The Sarkhej constituency had ceased to exist after delimitation.) In 2014, Shah was effectively discharged from the Sohrabuddin case by a special CBI court noting a lack of evidence and political undertones to the accusations.


title: Amit Shah

text: In 2013, Shah was accused of having ordered illegal surveillance on a woman in 2009 during his tenure as a home minister. The investigative websites Cobrapost and Gulail released a set of taped audio conversations between Shah and police officer GL Singhal. The tapes had been submitted to the CBI in the Ishrat Jahan case and were leaked to these portals. The calls detail how the state machinery was used to surveil the woman and the IAS officer Pradeep Sharma (who was suspended by the Gujarat government). In the recordings, both Singhal and Shah repeatedly refer to a higher authority as "Saheb", which is believed to be Chief Minister Narendra Modi. Shah denied all the accusations against him; he called them political propaganda by his opponents. The BJP's political opponents demanded a probe in the "Snoopgate" case. However, in May 2014, the woman approached the Supreme Court and stated that the surveillance on her was based on a "personal request", and she was thankful to the Gujarat government for ensuring her safety. She requested the court to block any investigation, stating it would violate her privacy.


title: Amit Shah

text: After Modi became the prime-ministerial candidate of the BJP, Shah's influence also increased in the party. They had been accused of sidelining other BJP leaders, such as Lal Krishna Advani, Sushma Swaraj, Murli Manohar Joshi and Jaswant Singh. By this time, Shah had gained recognition as an excellent election campaign manager and was dubbed a "modern-day Chanakya and master strategist". Shah was appointed as a BJP general secretary and given charge of Uttar Pradesh (UP). He was chosen not by Modi, but by Rajnath Singh, who had been impressed by the skills Shah displayed in wresting control of various Congress-controlled organisations in Gujarat. The decision did not go down well with many of the party members, who saw him as a liability owing to the criminal charges against him. Political analysts such as Shekhar Gupta termed the decision as a blunder.


title: Amit Shah

text: Shah's political career, which had declined after his arrest in 2010, revived after the BJP's victory in the 2014 general election. In Uttar Pradesh, where Shah was the in-charge, the BJP and its allies won 73 out of 80 seats. Shah had been made in-charge of the BJP's campaign in Uttar Pradesh on 12 June 2013, less than a year before the elections. Since February 2012, Shah had spent considerable time in Uttar Pradesh, where he tried to understand the reasons for the Samajwadi Party's victory in the 2012 UP Assembly elections. Shah realised the voters were dissatisfied with the Samajwadi Party, which he believed had failed to keep its election promises after the win. He also took advantage of the OBC voters' displeasure with the UP government's decision to create a 4.5% reservation for the minorities within the 27% OBC quota in government jobs and education.


title: Amit Shah

text: Shah oversaw the candidate selection, emphasising the candidate's local popularity and winning potential as the only criteria for selection, as opposed to the candidate's party loyalty or ideology. His team estimated that only 35% of the BJP's traditional supporters had voted in the UP elections. Therefore, he focused on door-to-door campaigning at the booth-level. He set up a 7-to-10 member management committee for each of the 140,000 voting booths in the state. For each booth, his team collated lists of voters and reached out to them. Shah's team used 450 GPS-enabled mobile vans (video raths) to reach out to the masses in remote areas, where media reach was negligible. Shah covered 76 out of the 80 Lok Sabha constituencies. He also insisted on Modi contesting election from Varanasi.


title: Amit Shah

text: Shah convinced Modi to utilise RSS volunteers for grassroots campaigning, which proved highly beneficial for the BJP. Although the RSS officially were not involved in electioneering, Shah used its volunteers to mobilise and monitor the campaigners. For example, the RSS volunteers would cross-check a BJP worker's claims of having targeted a given number of households. Shah also helped organise "mega rallies" for Modi. Like other major political parties, the BJP provisioned one van per village to transport people to the rally venue. However, unlike others, Shah decided that the BJP would not provide money for hiring these vehicles. Instead, he declared that the party workers organising the transportation would be the leaders of the BJP units in their villages. This strategy ensured several local village leaders developed a stake in Modi's victory.


title: Amit Shah

text: Critics accused Shah of trying to polarise the UP voters along the religious lines. While visiting Ayodhya for a meeting with the party's local committee, he raised the Ayodhya dispute. The BJP fielded three candidates accused of inciting violence during the 2013 Muzaffarnagar riots. These were seen as attempts to target the party's Hindu nationalist base. An FIR was registered against Shah for a speech in Muzaffarnagar, where he urged the voters to seek "revenge" through their votes. He also took advantage of Shia Muslim antipathy towards Sunni Muslims in Lucknow.


title: Amit Shah

text: Shah also played an important role in the BJP's election campaigning strategy outside Uttar Pradesh. He focused on building Modi's image as a strong leader. At times, he opposed even Modi on several strategic campaigning issues. For example, when Modi praised his opponent and prospective post-poll ally Mamata Banerjee, Shah insisted that the BJP must not divert from the "Modi-versus-all" tactic. Shah was also responsible for forging the BJP's alliances with regional parties like Pattali Makkal Katchi.


title: Amit Shah

text: In July 2014, the BJP's central parliamentary board unanimously approved Shah's appointment as president of the party. He was re-elected as the party's president unanimously on 24 January 2016. After becoming the party president, Shah started an aggressive membership drive, and by March 2015, BJP had claimed 100 million members.


title: Amit Shah

text: In 2014 to 2016, BJP achieved success in Legislative Assembly elections in Maharashtra, Haryana, Jammu & Kashmir, Jharkhand and Assam but lost the elections in Delhi and Bihar.


title: Amit Shah

text: Shah also spearheaded campaigning in the 2017 assembly elections, which resulted in the party's success in Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand. This was the BJP's greatest run in recent elections; they won 312 seats out of 403. The BJP also progressed in Manipur. The BJP won the 2017 Gujarat Legislative Assembly polls for a record six times and wrested power from Congress during the 2017 Himachal Pradesh Legislative Assembly polls. In March 2018, the BJP won for the first time in the left-ruled north-eastern state of Tripura, where they won two-thirds of the votes. The BJP also made gains in Nagaland and Meghalaya and formed a government in both states with its allies.


title: Amit Shah

text: Shah led the BJP to victory in the 2019 Indian general election; he became the most successful BJP president. During the election campaign, he visited 312 of the 543 Lok Sabha constituencies, holding 18 roadshows, 161 public meetings and over 1,500 BJP meetings. Shah had given BJP workers a seemingly audacious target of crossing 300 seats (Ab ki Baar 300 paar) an initiative he called “Mission 300 Par”. The mission was accomplished under his leadership as party president cementing BJP undisputed king of India's political terrain.


title: Amit Shah

text: He is an admirer of Chanakya and often referred to as a modern-day Chanakya, who had skilfully replaced the Nanda dynasty by the young Chandragupta Maurya. Responding to questions about a portrait of Chanakya at his New Delhi residence in 2016, he said: "[I admire] Chanakya because he was knowledgeable. His sutras are eternal. Economics, politics, and the problem of governance are all there.” The Bhagavata Purana is another of his favourite books, which he studied when he was in prison in 2010 in connection with the death of Sohrabuddin Sheikh.


title: Amit Shah

text: Shah took oath as Cabinet Minister on 30 May 2019 and took office as Minister of Home Affairs on 1 June 2019. On 5 August 2019, Shah moved a resolution to scrap Article 370 in the Rajya Sabha and divide the state of Jammu and Kashmir into two, with Jammu and Kashmir serving as one of the union territories, and Ladakh serving as a separate union territory.


title: Amit Shah

text: In September 2019, Shah talked about how India needs one unifying language; he said the Hindi language should be spoken to unite the country and represent India in the world. In a tweet, he also appealed the Indians to increase the use of the Hindi language.


title: Amit Shah

text: On 19 November 2019, Shah declared in the Rajya Sabha of the Indian parliament that the National Register of Citizens (NRC) would be implemented throughout the country.


title: Amit Shah

text: In December 2019, he introduced the Citizenship (Amendment) Act, 2019, which grants Indian citizenship to religiously persecuted minority communities who migrated to the country before 2015 from the Muslim-majority countries of Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan. In Northeast India, the act raised concerns about the impact of immigration on local culture and politics, which caused people to protest against the Act. Elsewhere, the opposition parties criticised the Act's exclusion of Muslims as detrimental to India's pluralism. Shah insisted the bill was not anti-Muslim, because it did not change their existing path to citizenship.


title: Amit Shah

text: The bill aims to replace the Identification of Prisoners Act 1920. In the 1980s, the Law Commission of India, in its 87th report, had recommended significant changes to the existing law. The new bill will allow the police and prison authorities to collect, store and analyse physical and biological samples, including retina and iris scans, of convicts and persons arrested on various charges. While moving the bill in the lok sabh, Shah said “The Criminal Procedure (Identification) Bill, 2022, will not only fill those obsolete gap, but it will also widen the scope of evidence for conviction.”


title: Amit Shah

text: During his time as a general secretary of the BJP, party members credited Shah with promoting Hindutva, encouraging Hindu voters to reject "protectors of minorities", and opposing Modi's attempts to reconcile with the Muslim community. Shah convinced the Modi government in Gujarat to pass the Gujarat Freedom of Religion Act in 2003, which requires religious conversions in the state – most of which are from Hinduism to other religions – to be approved by a district magistrate. Shah portrayed the bill as a measure against forced conversions, although critics claimed that the bill undermined the Indian Constitution. Between 2011 and 2016, approximately half of the applications for religious conversion in Gujarat were declined by the local government.


title: Amit Shah

text: In 2014, EC barred Shah from conducting any public processions, marches, gatherings and roadshows in Uttar Pradesh due to speeches that were made to outrage the religious feelings and beliefs of different classes. In 2018, Shah said: "Infiltrators are like termites in the soil of Bengal," and regarding the solution of this, stated: "A Bharatiya Janata Party government will pick up infiltrators one by one and throw them into the Bay of Bengal."


title: Amit Shah

text: In December 2019, the US Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) asked the US administration to consider imposing sanctions against Shah if the Indian parliament passed the Citizenship (Amendment) Bill. USCIRF in its statement said: "CAB is a dangerous turn in the wrong direction; it runs counter to India's rich history of secular pluralism and the Indian Constitution, which guarantees equality before the law regardless of faith." The commission said that the CAB "enshrines a pathway to citizenship for immigrants that specifically excludes Muslims, setting a legal criterion for citizenship based on religion". The external affairs ministry issued a counter-statement in response to USCIRF by saying it was not based on facts and the bill was to grant citizenship to persecuted religious minorities who arrived in India and does not aim to strip citizenship.


title: Amit Shah

text: Shah is married to Sonal Shah and the couple have a son named Jay. Shah's mother died from an illness on 8 June 2010. People close to Shah have described him as someone who does not like to socialise much. He has six sisters, two of whom live in Chicago. In September 2019, he was operated for lipoma at the backside of his neck. On 2 August 2020, Shah tested positive for COVID-19 and was admitted to the hospital.


title: Sandra Day O'Connor

text: Sandra Day O'Connor (born March 26, 1930) is an American retired attorney and politician who served as the first female associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States from 1981 to 2006. She was both the first woman nominated and the first confirmed to the court. Nominated by President Ronald Reagan, she was considered the swing vote for the Rehnquist Court and the first five months of the Roberts Court.


title: Sandra Day O'Connor

text: Prior to O'Connor's tenure on the Court, she was a judge and an elected official in Arizona, serving as the first female majority leader of a state senate as the Republican leader in the Arizona Senate. Upon her nomination to the Court, O'Connor was confirmed unanimously by the Senate. On July 1, 2005, she announced her intention to retire effective upon the confirmation of a successor. Samuel Alito was nominated to take her seat in October 2005 and joined the Court on January 31, 2006.


title: Sandra Day O'Connor

text: O'Connor most frequently sided with the Court's conservative bloc but demonstrated an ability to side with the Court's liberal members. She often wrote concurring opinions that sought to limit the reach of the majority holding. Her majority opinions in landmark cases include "Grutter v. Bollinger" and "Hamdi v. Rumsfeld". She also wrote in part the "per curiam" majority opinion in "Bush v. Gore", and was one of three co-authors of the lead opinion in "Planned Parenthood v. Casey".


title: Sandra Day O'Connor

text: During her time on the Court, some publications ranked O'Connor among the most powerful women in the world. After retiring, she succeeded Henry Kissinger as the Chancellor of the College of William & Mary. On August 12, 2009, she was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Barack Obama.


title: Sandra Day O'Connor

text: Sandra Day was born in El Paso, Texas, the daughter of Harry Alfred Day, a rancher, and Ada Mae (Wilkey). She grew up on a 198,000-acre cattle ranch near Duncan, Arizona. The ranch was nine miles from the nearest paved road. The family home did not have running water or electricity until Sandra was seven years old. As a youth she owned a .22-caliber rifle and would shoot coyotes and jackrabbits. She began driving as soon as she could see over the dashboard and had to learn to change flat tires herself. Sandra had two younger siblings, a sister and a brother, respectively eight and ten years her junior. Her sister was Ann Day, who served in the Arizona Legislature. She later wrote a book with her brother, H. Alan Day, "Lazy B: Growing up on a Cattle Ranch in the American West" (2002), about her childhood experiences on the ranch. For most of her early schooling, Day lived in El Paso with her maternal grandmother, and attended school at the Radford School for Girls, a private school. The family cattle ranch was too far from any schools, although Day was able to return to the ranch for holidays and the summer. Day spent her eighth-grade year living at the ranch and riding a bus 32 miles to school. She graduated sixth in her class at Austin High School in El Paso in 1946.


title: Sandra Day O'Connor

text: When she was 16 years old, Day enrolled at Stanford University. She graduated "magna cum laude" with a B.A. in economics in 1950. She continued at Stanford Law School for her law degree in 1952. There, she served on the "Stanford Law Review" with its presiding editor-in-chief, future Supreme Court chief justice William Rehnquist. Day and Rehnquist dated in 1950. Although the relationship ended before Rehnquist graduated early and moved to Washington, D.C., he wrote to her in 1951 and proposed marriage. Day did not accept the proposal from Rehnquist, one of four she received while a student at Stanford. Day was Order of the Coif, indicating she was in the top 10 percent of her class. O'Connor was also made an honorary member of Phi Beta Kappa by the College of William and Mary in 2008.


title: Sandra Day O'Connor

text: While in her final year at Stanford Law School, Day began dating John Jay O'Connor III who was one class year behind her. Six months after her graduation, on December 20, 1952, Day and O'Connor married at her family's ranch.


title: Sandra Day O'Connor

text: Upon graduation from law school O'Connor had difficulty finding a paying job as an attorney because of her gender. O'Connor found employment as a deputy county attorney in San Mateo, California, after she offered to work for no salary and without an office, sharing space with a secretary. After a few months she began drawing a small salary as she performed legal research and wrote memos. She worked with San Mateo County district attorney Louis Dematteis and deputy district attorney Keith Sorensen.


title: Sandra Day O'Connor

text: When her husband was drafted, O'Connor decided to pick up and go with him to work in Germany as a civilian attorney for the Army's Quartermaster Corps. They remained there for three years before returning to the states where they settled in Maricopa County, Arizona, to begin their family. They had three sons: Scott (born 1958), Brian (born 1960), and Jay (born 1962). Following Brian's birth, O'Connor took a five-year hiatus from the practice of law.


title: Sandra Day O'Connor

text: She volunteered in various political organizations, such as the Maricopa County Young Republicans, and served on the presidential campaign for Arizona Senator Barry Goldwater in 1964.


title: Sandra Day O'Connor

text: O'Connor served as assistant Attorney General of Arizona from 1965 to 1969. In 1969, the governor of Arizona appointed O'Connor to fill a vacancy in the Arizona Senate. She ran for and won the election for the seat the following year. By 1973, she became the first woman to serve as Arizona's or any state's Majority Leader. She developed a reputation as a skilled negotiator and a moderate. After serving two full terms, O'Connor decided to leave the Senate.


title: Sandra Day O'Connor

text: In 1974, O'Connor was appointed to the Maricopa County Superior Court, serving from 1975 to 1979 when she was elevated to the Arizona State Court of Appeals. She served on the Court of Appeals-Division One until 1981 when she was appointed to the Supreme Court by President Ronald Reagan.


title: Sandra Day O'Connor

text: On July 7, 1981, Reagan – who had pledged during his 1980 presidential campaign to appoint the first woman to the Court – announced he would nominate O'Connor as an associate justice of the Supreme Court to replace the retiring Potter Stewart. O'Connor received notification from President Reagan of her nomination on the day prior to the announcement and did not know that she was a finalist for the position.


title: Sandra Day O'Connor

text: Reagan wrote in his diary on July 6, 1981: "Called Judge O'Connor and told her she was my nominee for supreme court. Already the flak is starting and from my own supporters. Right to Life people say she is pro abortion. She declares abortion is personally repugnant to her. I think she'll make a good justice." O'Connor told Reagan she did not remember whether she had supported repealing Arizona's law banning abortion. However, she had cast a preliminary vote in the Arizona State Senate in 1970 in favor of a bill to repeal the state's criminal-abortion statute. In 1974, O'Connor had opined against a measure to prohibit abortions in some Arizona hospitals. Anti-abortion and religious groups opposed O'Connor's nomination because they suspected, correctly, she would not be willing to overturn "Roe v. Wade." U.S. Senate Republicans, including Don Nickles of Oklahoma, Steve Symms of Idaho, and Jesse Helms of North Carolina called the White House to express their discontent over the nomination; Nickles said he and "other profamily Republican senators would not support O'Connor". Helms, Nickles, and Symms nevertheless voted for confirmation.


title: Sandra Day O'Connor

text: Conservative activists such as the Reverend Jerry Falwell, Howard Phillips, and Peter Gemma also spoke out against the nomination. Gemma called the nomination "a direct contradiction of the Republican platform to everything that candidate Reagan said and even President Reagan has said in regard to social issues." Gemma, the executive director of the National Pro-Life Political Action Committee, had sought to delay O'Connor's confirmation by challenging her record, including support for the Equal Rights Amendment.


title: Sandra Day O'Connor

text: O'Connor's confirmation hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee began on September 9, 1981. It was the first televised confirmation hearing for a Supreme Court justice. The confirmation hearing lasted three days and largely focused on the issue of abortion. When asked, O'Connor refused to telegraph her views on abortion, and she was careful not to leave the impression that she supported abortion rights. The Judiciary Committee approved O'Connor with seventeen votes in favor and one vote of present.


title: Sandra Day O'Connor

text: On September 21, O'Connor was confirmed by the U.S. Senate with a vote of 99–0. Only Senator Max Baucus of Montana was absent from the vote, and he sent O'Connor a copy of "A River Runs Through It" by way of apology. In her first year on the Court she received over 60,000 letters from the public, more than any other justice in history.


title: Sandra Day O'Connor

text: O'Connor has said she felt a responsibility to demonstrate women could do the job of justice. She faced some practical concerns, including the lack of a woman's restroom near the Courtroom.


title: Sandra Day O'Connor

text: Two years after O'Connor joined the Court, "The New York Times" published an editorial which mentioned the "nine men" of the "SCOTUS", or Supreme Court of the United States. O'Connor responded with a letter to the editor reminding the "Times" that the Court was no longer composed of nine men and referred to herself as FWOTSC (First Woman On The Supreme Court).


title: Sandra Day O'Connor

text: O'Connor was a proponent of collegiality among justices on the court, often insisting that the justices eat lunch together.


title: Sandra Day O'Connor

text: In 1993, Ruth Bader Ginsburg became the second female Supreme Court justice. O'Connor said she felt relief from the media clamor when she was no longer the only woman on the Court. In May 2010, O'Connor warned female Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan about the "unpleasant" process of confirmation hearings.


title: Sandra Day O'Connor

text: Initially, O'Connor's voting record aligned closely with the conservative William Rehnquist (voting with him 87% of the time her first three years at the Court). From that time until 1998, O'Connor's alignment with Rehnquist ranged from 93.4% to 63.2%, hitting above 90% in three of those years. In nine of her first sixteen years on the Court, O'Connor voted with Rehnquist more than with any other justice.


title: Sandra Day O'Connor

text: Later on, as the Court's make-up became more conservative (e.g., Anthony Kennedy replacing Lewis Powell, and Clarence Thomas replacing Thurgood Marshall), O'Connor often became the swing vote on the Court. However, she usually disappointed the Court's more liberal bloc in contentious 5–4 decisions: from 1994 to 2004, she joined the traditional conservative bloc of Rehnquist, Antonin Scalia, Anthony Kennedy, and Thomas 82 times; she joined the liberal bloc of John Paul Stevens, David Souter, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, and Stephen Breyer only 28 times.


title: Sandra Day O'Connor

text: O'Connor's relatively small shift away from conservatives on the Court seems to have been due at least in part to Thomas's views. When Thomas and O'Connor were voting on the same side, she would typically write a separate opinion of her own, refusing to join his. In the 1992 term, O'Connor did not join a single one of Thomas's dissents.


title: Sandra Day O'Connor

text: On February 22, 2005, with Rehnquist and Stevens (who were senior to her) absent, she became the senior justice presiding over oral arguments in the case of "Kelo v. City of New London" and becoming the first woman to do so before the Court.


title: Sandra Day O'Connor

text: Justice O'Connor was unpredictable in many of her court decisions, especially those regarding First Amendment Establishment Clause issues. Avoiding ideology, she decided on a case-by-case basis and voted with careful deliberation in a way that she felt benefited individual rights and the Constitution (which she viewed to be "an ever changing work in progress"). Barry Lynn, executive director of Americans United for Separation of Church and State, said, "O'Connor was a conservative, but she saw the complexity of church-state issues and tried to choose a course that respected the country's religious diversity" (Hudson 2005). O'Connor voted in favor of religious institutions, such as in "Zelman v. Simmons-Harris", "Mitchell v. Helms", and "Rosenberger v. University of Virginia". Conversely, in "Lee v. Weisman" she was part of the majority in the case that saw religious prayer and pressure to stand in silence at a graduation ceremony as part of a religious act that coerced people to support or to participate in religion, which is strictly prohibited by the Establishment Clause. This is consistent with a similar case, "Santa Fe Independent School District v. Doe", involving prayer at a school football game. In this case, O'Connor joined the majority opinion that stated prayer at school football games violates the Establishment Clause. O'Connor was the first justice to articulate the "no endorsement" standard for the Establishment Clause. In "Lynch v. Donnelly", O'Connor signed onto a five-justice majority opinion holding that a nativity scene in a public Christmas display did not violate the First Amendment. She penned a concurrence in that case, opining that the crèche was not violative of the Establishment Clause because it did not express an endorsement or disapproval of any religion.


title: Sandra Day O'Connor

text: According to law professor Jeffrey Rosen, "O'Connor was an eloquent opponent of intrusive group searches that threatened privacy without increasing security. In a 1983 opinion upholding searches by drug-sniffing dogs, she recognized that a search is most likely to be considered constitutionally reasonable if it is very effective at discovering contraband without revealing "innocent but embarrassing" information." Washington College of Law law professor Andrew Taslitz, referencing O'Connor's dissent in a 2001 case, said of her Fourth Amendment jurisprudence: "O'Connor recognizes that needless humiliation of an individual is an important factor in determining Fourth Amendment reasonableness." O'Connor once quoted the social contract theory of John Locke as influencing her views on the reasonableness and constitutionality of government action.


title: Sandra Day O'Connor

text: In the 1990 and 1995 "Missouri v. Jenkins" rulings, O'Connor voted with the majority that district courts had no authority to require the state of Missouri to increase school funding in order to counteract racial inequality. In the 1991 "Freeman v. Pitts" case, O'Connor joined a concurring opinion in a plurality, agreeing that a school district that had formerly been under judicial review for racial segregation could be freed of this review, even though not all desegregation targets had been met. Law professor Herman Schwartz criticized these rulings, writing that in both cases "both the fact and effects of segregation were still present."


title: Sandra Day O'Connor

text: In "McCleskey v. Kemp" in 1987, O'Connor joined a 5–4 majority that voted to uphold the death penalty for an African American man, Warren McCleskey, convicted of killing a white police officer, despite statistical evidence that black defendants were more likely to receive the death penalty than others both in Georgia and in the U.S. as a whole.


title: Sandra Day O'Connor

text: In 1996's "Shaw v. Hunt" and "Shaw v. Reno", O'Connor joined a Rehnquist opinion, following an earlier precedent from an opinion she authored in 1993, in which the Court struck down an electoral districting plan designed to facilitate the election of two black representatives out of twelve from North Carolina, a state that had not had any black representative since Reconstruction, despite being approximately 20% blackthe Court held that the districts were unacceptably gerrymandered and O'Connor called the odd shape of the district in question, North Carolina's 12th, "bizarre".


title: Sandra Day O'Connor

text: Law Professor Herman Schwartz called O'Connor "the Court's leader in its assault on racially oriented affirmative action," although she joined with the Court in upholding the constitutionality of race-based admissions to universities.


title: Sandra Day O'Connor

text: In 2003, she authored a majority Supreme Court opinion ("Grutter v. Bollinger") saying racial affirmative action shouldn't be constitutional permanently, but long enough to correct past discriminationwith an approximate limit of around 25 years.


title: Sandra Day O'Connor

text: The Christian right element in the Reagan coalition strongly supported him in 1980, in the belief that he would appoint Supreme Court justices to overturn "Roe v. Wade". They were astonished and dismayed when his first appointment was O'Connor, whom they feared would tolerate abortion. They worked hard to defeat her confirmation but failed. In her confirmation hearings and early days on the Court, O'Connor was carefully ambiguous on the issue of abortion, as some conservatives questioned her anti-abortion credentials on the basis of some of her votes in the Arizona legislature. O'Connor generally dissented from 1980s opinions which took an expansive view of "Roe v. Wade"; she criticized that decision's "trimester approach" sharply in her dissent in 1983's "City of Akron v. Akron Center for Reproductive Health." She criticized "Roe" in "Thornburgh v. American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists": "... I dispute not only the wisdom but also the legitimacy of the Court's attempt to discredit and pre-empt state abortion regulation regardless of the interests it serves and the impact it has." In 1989, O'Connor stated during the deliberations over the "Webster" case that she would not overrule "Roe". While on the Court, O'Connor did not vote to strike down any restrictions on abortion until "Hodgson v. Minnesota" in 1990.


title: Sandra Day O'Connor

text: O'Connor allowed certain limits to be placed on access to abortion, but supported the right to abortion established by "Roe". In "Planned Parenthood v. Casey", O'Connor used a test she had originally developed in "City of Akron v. Akron Center for Reproductive Health" to limit the holding of "Roe v. Wade", opening up a legislative portal where a State could enact measures so long as they did not place an "undue burden" on a woman's right to an abortion. "Casey" revised downward the standard of scrutiny federal courts would apply to state abortion restrictions, a major departure from "Roe". However, it preserved "Roe"'s core constitutional precept: that the Fourteenth Amendment implies and protects a woman's fundamental right to control the outcomes of her reproductive actions. Writing the plurality opinion for the Court, O'Connor, along with justices Kennedy and Souter, famously declared: "At the heart of liberty is the right to define one's own concept of existence, of meaning, of the universe, and of the mystery of human life. Beliefs about these matters could not define the attributes of personhood were they formed under compulsion of the State."


title: Sandra Day O'Connor

text: O'Connor was a vigorous defender of the citing of foreign laws in judicial decisions. On October 28, 2003, O'Connor spoke at the Southern Center for International Studies:


title: Sandra Day O'Connor

text: The impressions we create in this world are important and can leave their mark ... [T]here is talk today about the "internationalization of legal relations". We are already seeing this in American courts, and should see it increasingly in the future. This does not mean, of course, that our courts can or should abandon their character as domestic institutions. But conclusions reached by other countries and by the international community, although not formally binding upon our decisions, should at times constitute persuasive authority in American courtswhat is sometimes called "transjudicialism".


title: Sandra Day O'Connor

text: In the speech she noted the 2002 Court case "Atkins v. Virginia", in which the majority decision (which included her) cited disapproval of the death penalty in Europe as part of its argument. This speech, and the general concept of relying on foreign law and opinion, was widely criticized by conservatives. In May 2004, a committee in the U.S. House of Representatives responded by passing a non-binding resolution, the "Reaffirmation of American Independence Resolution", stating that "U.S. judicial decisions should not be based on any foreign laws, court decisions, or pronouncements of foreign governments unless they are relevant to determining the meaning of American constitutional and statutory law."


title: Sandra Day O'Connor

text: O'Connor once quoted the constitution of the Middle Eastern nation of Bahrain, which states that "[n]o authority shall prevail over the judgement of a judge, and under no circumstances may the course of justice be interfered with." Further, "[i]t is in everyone's interest to foster the rule-of-law evolution." O'Connor proposed that such ideas be taught in American law schools, high schools and universities. Critics contend that such thinking is contrary to the U.S. Constitution and establishes a rule of man, rather than law. In her retirement, she has continued to speak and organize conferences on the issue of judicial independence.


title: Sandra Day O'Connor

text: O'Connor's case-by-case approach routinely placed her in the center of the Court and drew both criticism and praise. "Washington Post" columnist Charles Krauthammer, for example, described her as lacking a judicial philosophy and instead displaying "political positioning embedded in a social agenda." Conservative commentator Ramesh Ponnuru wrote that, even though O'Connor "has voted reasonably well", her tendency to issue very case-specific rulings "undermines the predictability of the law and aggrandizes the judicial role."


title: Sandra Day O'Connor

text: Law clerks serving the Court in 2000 speculated that the decision she reached in "Bush v. Gore" was based on a desire to appear fair, rather than on any legal rationale, pointing to a memo she sent out the night before the decision was issued that used entirely different logic to reach the same result. They also characterized her approach to cases as deciding on "gut feelings".


title: Sandra Day O'Connor

text: In 2003, she wrote a book titled "The Majesty of the Law: Reflections of a Supreme Court Justice" (). In 2005, she wrote a children's book, "Chico", named for her favorite horse, which offered an autobiographical depiction of her childhood.


title: Sandra Day O'Connor

text: On December 12, 2000, "The Wall Street Journal" reported that O'Connor was reluctant to retire with a Democrat in the presidency: "At an Election Night party at the Washington, D.C., home of Mary Ann Stoessel, widow of former Ambassador Walter Stoessel, the justice's husband, John O'Connor, mentioned to others her desire to step down, according to three witnesses. But Mr. O'Connor said his wife would be reluctant to retire if a Democrat were in the White House and would choose her replacement. Justice O'Connor declined to comment."


title: Sandra Day O'Connor

text: By 2005, the composition of the Court had been unchanged for eleven years, the second-longest period in American history without any such change. Rehnquist was widely expected to be the first justice to retire during Bush's term, owing to his age and his battle with cancer, although rumors of O'Connor's possible retirement circulated as well.


title: Sandra Day O'Connor

text: On July 1, 2005, O'Connor announced her intention to retire. In her letter to Bush, she stated that her retirement from active service would take effect upon the confirmation of her successor. Her letter did not provide a reason for her departure; however, a Supreme Court spokeswoman confirmed O'Connor was leaving to spend time with her husband.


title: Sandra Day O'Connor

text: On July 19, Bush nominated D.C. Circuit Judge John Roberts to succeed O'Connor. O'Connor heard the news over the car radio on the way back from a fishing trip. She felt he was an excellent and highly qualified choicehe had argued numerous cases before the Court during her tenure. However, she was disappointed that her replacement was not a woman.


title: Sandra Day O'Connor

text: O'Connor had expected to leave the Court before the next term started on October 3, 2005. However, Rehnquist died on September 3, creating an immediate vacancy on the Court. Two days later, Bush withdrew Roberts as his nominee for her seat and instead appointed him to fill the vacant office of chief justice. O'Connor agreed to stay on the Court until her replacement was named and confirmed. She spoke at the late chief justice's funeral. On October 3, Bush nominated White House Counsel Harriet Miers to replace O'Connor. After much criticism and controversy over her nomination, on October 27, Miers asked Bush to withdraw her nomination. Bush accepted, reopening the search for O'Connor's successor.


title: Sandra Day O'Connor

text: The continued delays in confirming a successor further extended O'Connor's time on the Court. She continued to hear oral argument on cases, including cases dealing with controversial issues such as physician-assisted suicide and abortion. O'Connor's last Court opinion, "Ayotte v. Planned Parenthood of New England", written for a unanimous court, was a procedural decision that involved a challenge to a New Hampshire abortion law.


title: Sandra Day O'Connor

text: On October 31, Bush nominated Third Circuit Judge Samuel Alito to replace O'Connor; Alito was confirmed by a 58–42 vote and was sworn in on January 31, 2006. After retiring, she continued to hear cases and rendered over a dozen opinions in federal appellate courts across the country, filling in as a substitute judge when vacations or vacancies left their three-member panels understaffed. On Alito's nomination, O'Connor said, "I've often said, it's wonderful to be the first to do something but I didn't want to be the last. If I didn't do a good job, it might've been the last and indeed when I retired, I was not replaced, then, by a woman which gives one pause to think 'Oh, what did I do wrong that led to this.'"


title: Sandra Day O'Connor

text: During a March 2006 speech at Georgetown University, O'Connor said some political attacks on the independence of the courts pose a direct threat to the constitutional freedoms of Americans. She said "any reform of the system is debatable as long as it is not motivated by retaliation for decisions that political leaders disagree with", also noting that she was "against judicial reforms driven by nakedly partisan reasoning." "Courts interpret the law as it was written, not as the congressmen might have wished it was written", and "it takes a lot of degeneration before a country falls into dictatorship, but we should avoid these ends by avoiding these beginnings." She echoed her concerns for an independent judiciary during the dedication address at the Elon University School of Law in September of that same year.


title: Sandra Day O'Connor

text: On November 19, 2008, O'Connor published an introductory essay to a themed issue on judicial accountability in the "Denver University Law Review". She called for a better public understanding of judicial accountability. On November 7, 2007, at a conference on her landmark opinion in "Strickland v. Washington" (1984) sponsored by the Constitution Project, O'Connor highlighted the lack of proper legal representation for many of the poorest defendants. O'Connor also urged the creation of a system for "merit selection for judges," a cause for which she had frequently advocated.


title: Sandra Day O'Connor

text: On August 7, 2008, O'Connor and Abdurrahman Wahid, former President of Indonesia, wrote an editorial in the "Financial Times" stating concerns about the threatened imprisonment of Malaysian opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim.


title: Sandra Day O'Connor

text: In October 2008, O'Connor spoke on racial equality in education at a conference hosted by the Charles Hamilton Houston Institute for Race and Justice at Harvard Law School. Later in the conference, she was awarded the Charles Hamilton Houston Justice Award alongside Desmond Tutu and Dolores Huerta.


title: Sandra Day O'Connor

text: Following the Court's "Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission" decision on corporate political spending, O'Connor offered measured criticism of the decision, telling Georgetown law students and lawyers, "that the Court has created an unwelcome new path for wealthy interests to exert influence on judicial elections."


title: Sandra Day O'Connor

text: O'Connor argued in favor of President Barack Obama naming the replacement for Antonin Scalia in February 2016, mere days after Scalia's death, opposing Republican arguments that the next president should get to fill the vacancy. She said, "I think we need somebody there to do the job now and let's get on with it"; and that "[y]ou just have to pick the best person you can under the circumstances, as the appointing authority must do. It's an important position and one that we care about as a nation and as a people. And I wish the president well as he makes choices and goes down that line. It's hard."


title: Sandra Day O'Connor

text: Judge William H. Pryor Jr., a conservative jurist, has criticized O'Connor's speeches and op-eds for hyperbole and factual inaccuracy, based in part on O'Connor's opinions as to whether judges face a rougher time in the public eye today than in the past.


title: Sandra Day O'Connor

text: O'Connor has reflected on her time on the Supreme Court by saying that she regrets the Court hearing the "Bush v. Gore" case in 2000 because it "stirred up the public" and "gave the Court a less-than-perfect reputation." The former justice told the "Chicago Tribune" that "Maybe the Court should have said, 'We're not going to take it, goodbye,' ... It turned out the election authorities in Florida hadn't done a real good job there and kind of messed it up. And probably the Supreme Court added to the problem at the end of the day."


title: Sandra Day O'Connor

text: As a retired Supreme Court Justice, O'Connor continued to receive a full salary, maintained a staffed office with at least one law clerk, and heard cases on a part-time basis in federal district courts and courts of appeals as a visiting judge. By 2008, O'Connor had sat for cases with the 2nd, 8th, and 9th Circuits. O'Connor heard an Arizona voting rights case which the Supreme Court later reviewed. In "Arizona v. Inter Tribal Council of Arizona", a 7–2 majority affirmed O'Connor and the rest of 9th Circuit panel, and struck down a provision of Arizona's voting registration law. O'Connor hired a law clerk for the October 2015 term, but did not hire a law clerk for the subsequent term.


title: Sandra Day O'Connor

text: The Sandra Day O'Connor Project on the State of the Judiciary, named for O'Connor, held annual conferences from 2006 through 2008 on the independence of the judiciary.


title: Sandra Day O'Connor

text: On October 4, 2005, the College of William & Mary announced that O'Connor had accepted the largely ceremonial role of becoming the 23rd Chancellor of the college. O'Connor continued in the role until 2012.


title: Sandra Day O'Connor

text: O'Connor chaired the Jamestown 2007 celebration, commemorating the 400th anniversary of the founding of the colony at Jamestown, Virginia in 1607.


title: Sandra Day O'Connor

text: O'Connor was a member of both the American Philosophical Society and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.


title: Sandra Day O'Connor

text: As of Spring 2006, O'Connor taught a two-week course called "The Supreme Court" at the University of Arizona's James E. Rogers College of Law every spring semester. In the fall of 2007, O'Connor and W. Scott Bales taught a course at the Sandra Day O'Connor College of Law at Arizona State University.


title: Sandra Day O'Connor

text: On May 15, 2006, O'Connor gave the commencement address at the William & Mary School of Law, where she said that judicial independence is "under serious attack at both the state and national level".


title: Sandra Day O'Connor

text: In 2008, O'Connor was named an inaugural Harry Rathbun Visiting Fellow by the Office for Religious Life at Stanford University. On April 22, 2008, she gave "Harry's Last Lecture on a Meaningful Life" in honor of the former Stanford Law professor who shaped her undergraduate and law careers.


title: Sandra Day O'Connor

text: On September 17, 2014, O'Connor appeared on the television show "Jeopardy!" and provided a couple of video answers to the category 'Supreme Court' which appeared on the show. On the same day in Concord, New Hampshire, she gave a talk alongside her former colleague Justice David Souter about the importance of meaningful civics education in the United States.


title: Sandra Day O'Connor

text: In February 2009, O'Connor launched Our Courts, a website she created to offer interactive civics lessons to students and teachers because she was concerned about the lack of knowledge among most young Americans about how their government works. She also serves as a co-chair with Lee H. Hamilton for the Campaign for the Civic Mission of Schools. On March 3, 2009, O'Connor appeared on the satirical television program "The Daily Show" with Jon Stewart to promote the website. In August 2009, the website added two online interactive games. The initiative expanded, becoming iCivics in May 2010 offering free lesson plans, games, and interactive videogames for middle and high school educators. By 2015, the iCivics games had 72,000 teachers as registered users and its games had been played 30 million times.


title: Sandra Day O'Connor

text: She served on the board of trustees of the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia, a museum dedicated to the U.S. Constitution. By November 2015, O'Connor had transitioned to being a Trustee Emeritus for the center. In April 2013, the Board of Directors of Justice at Stake, a national judicial reform advocacy organization, announced that O'Connor would be joining the organization as Honorary Chair."


title: Sandra Day O'Connor

text: In 2009, O'Connor founded the 501(c)(3) non-profit organization now known as the Sandra Day O'Connor Institute. Its programs are dedicated to promoting civil discourse, civic engagement, and civics education. In 2019, her former adobe residence in Arizona, curated by the O'Connor Institute, was listed on the National Register of Historic Places. In 2020, the Institute launched O'Connor U, its multigenerational digital platform. O'Connor serves as Founder and Advisor to the O'Connor Institute.


title: Sandra Day O'Connor

text: O'Connor was a founding co-chair of the National Advisory Board at the National Institute for Civil Discourse (NICD). The institute was created at the University of Arizona after the 2011 shooting of former Congresswoman Gabby Giffords that killed six people and wounded 13 others.


title: Sandra Day O'Connor

text: Upon her appointment to the Supreme Court, O'Connor and her husband moved to the Kalorama area of Washington, D.C. The O'Connors became active in the Washington D.C. social scene. O'Connor played tennis and golf in her spare time. She is a baptized member of the Episcopal Church.


title: Sandra Day O'Connor

text: O'Connor was successfully treated for breast cancer in 1988 (she also had her appendix removed that year). That same year, John O'Connor left the Washington, D.C. law firm of Miller & Chevalier for a practice which required him to split his time between Washington, D.C., and Phoenix.


title: Sandra Day O'Connor

text: Her husband suffered from Alzheimer's disease for nearly 20 years, until his death in 2009, and she became involved in raising awareness of the disease. After retiring from the Court, O'Connor moved back to Phoenix, Arizona.


title: Sandra Day O'Connor

text: Around 2013, O'Connor's friends and colleagues noticed that O'Connor was becoming more forgetful and less conversational. By 2017, back problems led to O'Connor needing to use a wheelchair and led to her moving to an assisted living facility. In October 2018, O'Connor announced her effective retirement from public life after disclosing that she had been diagnosed with the early stages of Alzheimer's-like dementia.


title: Sandra Day O'Connor

text: On May 7, 2016, her younger sister, Ann Day, was killed in a car accident in Tucson, Arizona as a result of a collision with a drunk driver.


title: Sandra Day O'Connor

text: Following the death of John Paul Stevens in 2019, O'Connor became the last living Justice to have served on the Burger Court.


title: Ken Watanabe

text: In 2014, he starred in the reboot "Godzilla" as Dr. Ishiro Serizawa, a role he reprised in the sequel, "". He lent his voice to the fourth and fifth installments of the "Transformers" franchise respectively, "" and "", as Decepticon-turned-Autobot Drift. In 2022, he starred in the HBO Max crime drama series "Tokyo Vice".


title: Ken Watanabe

text: He made his Broadway debut in April 2015 in Lincoln Center Theater's revival production of "The King and I" in the title role. In 2015, Watanabe received his first Tony Award nomination for Best Performance by a Leading Actor in a Musical at the 69th Tony Awards for his role as The King. He is the first Japanese actor to be nominated in this category. Watanabe reprised his role at the London Palladium in June 2018.


title: Ken Watanabe

text: Watanabe was born on October 21, 1959 in the mountain village of Koide in Niigata Prefecture, Japan. His mother was a school teacher and his father taught calligraphy. Due to a number of relocations for his parents' work, he spent his childhood in the villages of Irihirose and Sumon, both now part of the city of Uonuma, and in Takada, now part of the city of Jōetsu. He attended Niigata Prefectural Koide High School, where he was a member of the concert band club, playing trumpet, which he had played since childhood.


title: Ken Watanabe

text: After graduation from high school, in 1978 he aimed to enter Musashino Academia Musicae, a conservatory in Tokyo. However, he had never received a formal musical education, and because his father became seriously ill when he was in junior high school and was unable to work, which meant that his family could no longer afford to pay for his music lessons. Because of these problems, Watanabe was forced to give up his intention of entering the conservatory. He said of the decision: "I had to give up my musical aspirations. I realised I had no talent as a musician. But I still wanted to find a way to be creative, so I decided to try acting".


title: Ken Watanabe

text: After graduating from high school in 1978, Watanabe moved to Tokyo to begin his acting career, by enrolling in the drama school run by the En theatre troupe. While with the troupe, he was cast as the hero in the play "Shimodani Mannencho Monogatari", directed by the acclaimed Yukio Ninagawa. The role attracted critical and popular notice.


title: Ken Watanabe

text: In 1982, he made his first TV appearance in "Michinaru Hanran" ("Unknown Rebellion"), and his first appearance on TV as a samurai in "Mibu no koiuta". He made his feature-film debut in 1984 with "MacArthur's Children".


title: Ken Watanabe

text: Watanabe is mostly known in Japan for playing samurai, as in the 1987 "Dokuganryu Masamune" ("One eyed dragon, Masamune") the 50-episode NHK taiga drama. He played the lead character, Matsudaira Kurō, in the television jidaigeki "Gokenin Zankurō", which ran for several seasons. He has gone on to garner acclaim in such historical dramas as "Oda Nobunaga", "Chūshingura", and the movie "Bakumatsu Junjo Den".


title: Ken Watanabe

text: In 1989, while filming Haruki Kadokawa's "Heaven and Earth", Watanabe was diagnosed with acute myelogenous leukemia. He returned to acting while simultaneously undergoing chemotherapy treatments, but in 1991 suffered a relapse.


title: Ken Watanabe

text: As his health improved his career picked back up. He co-starred with Kōji Yakusho in the 1998 "Kizuna", for which he was nominated for the Japanese Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor.


title: Ken Watanabe

text: In 2002, he quit the En (Engeki-Shudan En) theatre group where he had his start and joined the K Dash agency. The film "Sennen no Koi" ("Thousand-year Love", based on "The Tale of Genji") earned him another Japanese Academy Award nomination.


title: Ken Watanabe

text: In 2006, he won Best Lead Actor at the Japanese Academy Awards for his role in "Memories of Tomorrow (Ashita no Kioku)", in which he played a patient with Alzheimer's disease.


title: Ken Watanabe

text: Watanabe was introduced to most Western audiences in the 2003 American film "The Last Samurai", set in 19th Century Japan. His performance as Lord Katsumoto earned him an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actor.


title: Ken Watanabe

text: Watanabe appeared in the 2005 film "Memoirs of a Geisha", playing Chairman Iwamura. That same year, he also played the decoy of Ra's al Ghul in Christopher Nolan's Batman film reboot, "Batman Begins". In 2006, he starred in Clint Eastwood's "Letters from Iwo Jima", playing Tadamichi Kuribayashi. He has voiced Ra's al Ghul in the "Batman Begins" video game. He has filmed advertisements for American Express, Yakult, Canon and NTT DoCoMo. In 2004, he was featured in "People Magazine"s "50 Most Beautiful People" edition. In 2009, he appeared in "". In 2010, he co-starred in "Inception", where he stars as Saito, a mark-turned-benefactor businessman of the film's heist team. In 2014, he starred in two Hollywood blockbusters "Godzilla" and "". In 2019, he starred in two other Hollywood blockbusters "Pokémon Detective Pikachu" and "".


title: Ken Watanabe

text: Watanabe appears in "Tokyo Vice", a television series based on the non-fiction book by Jake Adelstein and written for television by J.T. Rogers. The ten-part series was produced by HBO Max and is distributed by HBO Max and in Japan by Wowow. Tokyo Vice stars Ansel Elgort as Adelstein, an American journalist who embeds himself into the Tokyo Vice police squad to expose corruption. Ken is currently starring in the NHK World Japan's comedy "You're a Genius!".


title: Ken Watanabe

text: In April 2019, it was announced that Warner Bros. International Television Production and Japan's TV Asahi network were teaming up to remake "The Fugitive" (1993). Watanabe is set to star in the upcoming remake, taking place in present-day Tokyo just before the opening of the 2020 Tokyo Olympics. The broadcast date has yet to be announced.


title: Ken Watanabe

text: On March 13, 2011, he launched a YouTube page to raise awareness about the 2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami and invited celebrities to add their videos. In his video in English, he made a call to action to support the victims and to raise funds in the relief effort. In conjunction, he has created his own website for the cause.


title: Ken Watanabe

text: In 1983, Watanabe married his first wife, Yumiko. In September 2005, following two years of arbitration, he and Yumiko were divorced. The couple had two children, a son, Dai Watanabe (born 1984), who is an actor, and his daughter Anne Watanabe (born 1986) who is an actress and fashion model. In August 2008, Dai had his first child, a son, making Ken a grandfather at the age of 48. A daughter was born to Dai in March 2010. In May 2016, Watanabe's daughter by his first marriage, Anne, gave birth to twin girls. In November 2017 she gave birth to a son, giving Watanabe five grandchildren altogether.


title: Ken Watanabe

text: He met his second wife, Kaho Minami, when they were both acting in a suspense drama for TV Tokyo. They married on 3 December 2005. The marriage was announced by their agencies on 7 December, just after they had attended a New York City premiere of his film "Sayuri" together.


title: Ken Watanabe

text: Watanabe formally adopted Minami's son from her previous marriage to director Jinsei Tsuji, and for a time the three of them lived in Los Angeles. In order to increase the amount of time the family could spend together, considering Ken's work requiring him to travel so much, they later returned to Japan. Initially Minami and Ken did not hold a wedding ceremony, but in 2010 they announced that they had held a ceremony on August 1 in Los Angeles.


title: Ken Watanabe

text: On May 17, 2018, Kaho Minami's agency announced that Minami and Watanabe had divorced after he had admitted to having an extramarital affair.


title: Ken Watanabe

text: In 1989 Watanabe was diagnosed with acute myeloid leukemia. The cancer returned in 1994, but he later recovered.


title: Ken Watanabe

text: In 2006 Watanabe revealed in his autobiography "Dare? - Who Am I?" that prior to commencing work on "The Last Samurai", it was discovered that he had contracted hepatitis C from a blood transfusion he received while undergoing treatment for his leukaemia. At a press conference held May 23, 2006 in Tokyo's Ginza district, he said he was in good condition but was still undergoing treatment.


title: Ken Watanabe

text: In 2016, while on a break from performing in a Broadway production of "The King and I", Watanabe was diagnosed with stomach cancer. He subsequently announced on February 9, 2016, that he would postpone scheduled performances in order to undergo the necessary treatment. Due to the early diagnosis, surgery was successfully able to remove the cancer.


title: Lolita (1962 film)

text: Lolita is a 1962 psychological comedy-drama film directed by Stanley Kubrick and based on the 1955 novel of the same title by Vladimir Nabokov, who is also credited with writing the screenplay. The film follows Humbert Humbert, a middle-aged literature lecturer who becomes sexually infatuated with Dolores Haze (nicknamed "Lolita"), a young adolescent girl. It stars James Mason, Shelley Winters, Peter Sellers and, as the titular character, Sue Lyon.