title: Nico Hülkenberg

text: Hülkenberg failed to start the due to a leak in the fuel system of his Sauber C32; he had qualified eleventh for the race, but was withdrawn for safety reasons. At the , Hülkenberg qualified in twelfth, but finished the race in eighth place. Hülkenberg put in his best qualifying performance of the season to date at the Italian Grand Prix to put himself 3rd on the grid. After losing two places to the Ferraris of Felipe Massa and Fernando Alonso, he managed to keep 5th place even though harried by the Mercedes of Nico Rosberg towards the end of the race. By finishing in fifth place, he overtook Toro Rosso driver Jean-Éric Vergne in the Drivers' Championship. His best finish was at the Korean Grand Prix where he finished 4th after close battle with Hamilton and Alonso, in which he showed impressive defending skills and made no mistakes, in a battle where he overtook Hamilton more than once.


title: Nico Hülkenberg

text: On 3 December 2013, Force India confirmed they had signed Hülkenberg for 2014 to race alongside Sergio Pérez. In the first round, Hülkenberg finished the in seventh place – his first finish in Melbourne – but was promoted to sixth after the disqualification of second-placed Daniel Ricciardo. He later finished fifth at the , spending a large amount of time in fourth place, holding off Ferrari's Fernando Alonso before being overtaken. Another fifth place at Bahrain put Hülkenberg in third place of the drivers' standings, behind the two Mercedes drivers, Lewis Hamilton and Nico Rosberg.


title: Nico Hülkenberg

text: At the Hülkenberg took sixth place, taking eight points. He fell to fourth place in the Drivers' Championship after Fernando Alonso finished in third place. Force India lost second in the Constructors' Championship to Red Bull Racing.


title: Nico Hülkenberg

text: Consistent point scoring runs throughout the season meant that Hülkenberg finished the season in 9th place in the Drivers' Championship with 96 points, a career best, compared to his teammate's 59 points and helped Force India achieve sixth place in the Constructors' Championship, following the improvements of Williams and McLaren throughout the season. His best result of the season was fifth place, which he achieved four times.


title: Nico Hülkenberg

text: In the opening round in Australia, he finished seventh, a lap down. However, he would not score again, in an uncompetitive Force India, until Canada. In Hungary, mid-race, he suffered a big crash at turn one when his front wing detached and he drove over it, sending him slightly airborne and into the barriers, costing him a potential fourth place. He then failed to finish five of the next seven races. In Belgium, he had a power unit failure on the way to the grid, while in Singapore, he was tagged by Felipe Massa at turn three and spun into the barriers, and received a three place grid penalty after being deemed responsible. In Russia he spun at turn two at the start and collected Marcus Ericsson, potentially costing him a podium finish, and in the United States he slid into Daniel Ricciardo and broke his front right suspension.


title: Nico Hülkenberg

text: He finished the season 10th with 58 points, 20 points behind his teammate, and helped Force India to secure fifth place in the Constructors' Championship and his best result of the season was sixth, which he achieved three times.


title: Nico Hülkenberg

text: In the opening round in Australia, he finished seventh. He would finish the next two races in 15th position with the Force India being uncompetitive. In Russia, he was hit by his former teammate Esteban Gutiérrez and retired from the race. He would also retire from the next race with an oil leak. A podium, once again, escaped Hülkenberg's grasp in Monaco. He qualified fifth and was set to finish on the podium, when he got stuck in traffic following his pit stop and his teammate jumped him for the final podium place. He eventually finished sixth, passing the eventual World Champion Nico Rosberg, who had struggled throughout the race, just before the finish line on the last lap. This was followed by points finishes at the next two races. He spun in qualifying during the 2016 European Grand Prix held at Baku, when the Force India was very competitive. This caused him to qualify 13th and finish 9th while Pérez qualified 2nd (demoted to seventh after a grid penalty) and finished third. At the following race in Austria, he put in another strong qualifying performance to qualify third, which became second when Nico Rosberg served his five-place grid penalty. However, he had a poor start, and was overtaken by quicker cars as the race went on, until his brakes failed and he had to retire. This was followed by five consecutive points finishes, including fourth at the 2016 Belgian Grand Prix, his best result of the season, when he was initially running second after the first lap but was eventually passed by the faster cars of Daniel Ricciardo and Lewis Hamilton. At the following race in Singapore, he was involved in a first lap collision, where he was squeezed between two drivers, and had to retire from the race. Hülkenberg finished eighth at the next two races. Having announced his decision to move to Renault for the 2017 season before the 2016 United States Grand Prix, Hülkenberg put on some rejuvenated performances. He qualified seventh in the US, before retiring after being squeezed in between Valtteri Bottas and Sebastian Vettel. He then qualified fifth in Mexico, ahead of the Ferraris and finished seventh. He outqualified his teammate again in Brazil and was running fourth, but he picked up a puncture from debris on the track, following Kimi Räikkönen's crash, costing him a podium finish, and fell outside the points before recovering to seventh, fending off Daniel Ricciardo towards the end of the race. He capped off his season in Abu Dhabi by outqualifying Pérez again to seventh place and finishing in the same position, having survived a collision with Max Verstappen on the first lap.


title: Nico Hülkenberg

text: Hülkenberg scored 72 points in the season, finishing ninth in the Drivers' Championship and helping Force India finish the Constructors' Championship in fourth.


title: Nico Hülkenberg

text: On 14 October 2016, Renault Sport announced that Hülkenberg had signed a multiyear agreement to race with the Renault Sport Formula One team.


title: Nico Hülkenberg

text: For the 2018 season, Hülkenberg remained at Renault, alongside Carlos Sainz, who was competing in his first full season for the Renault F1 team.


title: Nico Hülkenberg

text: For the 2019 season, Hülkenberg was joined at Renault by multiple Grand Prix winner Daniel Ricciardo, who was signed from Red Bull. Hülkenberg, yet to score a podium in 158 races by the beginning of the 2019 season, said his "future in the sport depends on the outcome of the duel" as his ability could be measured "against a Grand Prix winner", for the first time since his rookie season in 2010, when he was teammate to Rubens Barrichello at Williams. Meanwhile, Renault managing director, Cyril Abiteboul, believed that the driver pairing was "one of the strongest - if not the strongest - driver line-up on the grid".


title: Nico Hülkenberg

text: Hülkenberg did not have a contract for the 2020 F1 season. He replaced Sergio Pérez at Racing Point for the British Grand Prix and 70th Anniversary Grand Prix after Pérez tested positive for SARS-2 coronavirus. For the British Grand Prix he qualified thirteenth but did not start the race due to an engine failure before the start of the race. Hülkenberg would get another chance to race for the team at the 70th Anniversary Grand Prix also at Silverstone Circuit after Pérez tested positive for COVID-19 again. He qualified in third behind the two Mercedes cars and although was on course to finish in 4th, Hülkenberg unexpectedly had high levels of tyre wear, which forced him to pit again. He then went on to finish seventh behind teammate Lance Stroll. Hülkenberg did not race at the Spanish Grand Prix as Sergio Pérez returned to racing after testing negative for COVID-19. He would replace the team's other driver, Lance Stroll, for the Eifel Grand Prix after the Canadian had sat out final practice due to feeling unwell. He finished the race in 8th after qualifying 20th, and last, on the grid, winning him the fans' vote of "Driver of the Day".


title: Nico Hülkenberg

text: Aston Martin F1 Team (previously Racing Point) signed Hülkenberg as a reserve and development driver for the season.


title: Nico Hülkenberg

text: After continuing as the reserve driver for the team in , he replaced Sebastian Vettel at the season opening Bahrain Grand Prix after Vettel tested positive for COVID-19. Hülkenberg started and finished the race in 17th place. Hülkenberg returned to Aston Martin in the following race, the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix starting in 17th and finishing in 12th place.


title: Nico Hülkenberg

text: Hülkenberg got back into the Aston Martin in the post-Hungarian GP Pirelli tests, alongside Lance Stroll to develop the 2023 tyres.


title: Nico Hülkenberg

text: In November 2022 it was confirmed Hülkenberg will drive as a full time F1-driver with Haas F1 Team during 2023, partnering Kevin Magnussen and replacing fellow German compatriot Mick Schumacher.


title: Nico Hülkenberg

text: It was confirmed in November 2014 that Hülkenberg would compete in the 2015 24 Hours of Le Mans in a third factory-backed Porsche 919 Hybrid. He also contested the Spa-Francorchamps round of the World Endurance Championship as preparation.


title: Nico Hülkenberg

text: On 14 June 2015, he won the 24 Hours of Le Mans race, driving alongside Britain's Nick Tandy and Earl Bamber of New Zealand. They completed 395 laps, one lap ahead of the car of their Porsche teammates Mark Webber, Brendon Hartley and Timo Bernhard, who took second place. This win was Porsche's first overall victory in the event since the 1998 24 Hours of Le Mans. Hülkenberg's triumph made him the first active Formula One driver to win at Le Mans since Johnny Herbert and Bertrand Gachot, who performed the same feat in 1991.


title: Nico Hülkenberg

text: On 25 October 2021, Hülkenberg took part in a private IndyCar test at Barber Motorsports Park, driving the No. 7 Arrow McLaren SP (AMSP) car, with AMSP team principal Taylor Kiel stating in a report that Hülkenberg was in consideration for a third part-time entry in 2022. After completing over 100 laps, he set a best time of 77.454 seconds in his first test, roughly a second off of the fastest time, which was set by 2021 Indy Lights runner-up David Malukas. Hülkenberg ultimately declined an opportunity to pursue a career in IndyCar with McLaren, stating that he was unwilling to race on ovals and that he found the Dallara DW12 to be significantly harder to drive physically than the Formula One cars he was used to.


title: Nico Hülkenberg

text: Hülkenberg lives in Monaco. He is married to Lithuanian fashion designer Eglė Ruškytė, having been in a relationship with her since 2015. Together they have one daughter born in 2021.


title: Nico Hülkenberg

text: Driver failed to finish the race, but was classified as he had completed more than 90% of the race distance.


title: Jesse Pinkman

text: Jesse Bruce Pinkman is a main character in the American television series "Breaking Bad", played by Aaron Paul. He is a crystal meth cook and dealer and works with his former high school chemistry teacher, Walter White (Bryan Cranston). Jesse is the only character besides Walter to appear in every episode of the show. Paul reprised the role for the 2019 spin-off film "", a sequel to the series set after its finale, and again in 2022 for the sixth and final season of the prequel series "Better Call Saul", being one of the few characters to appear across both shows and the movie.


title: Jesse Pinkman

text: Despite plans to kill off the character at the end of the first season, Paul's performance convinced the showrunner and head writer Vince Gilligan to keep Jesse in the show. The character and Paul's performance have received acclaim from critics and fans. Critics especially praised Jesse's character development from an unsympathetic drug dealer to the moral compass of the show as he becomes increasingly guilty and remorseful for his and Walter White's actions while involved in the drug trade. For his portrayal, Paul won the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Drama Series in 2010, 2012, and 2014, making him the first actor to win the category three times since its separation into drama and comedy.


title: Jesse Pinkman

text: Jesse Bruce Pinkman was born into a middle-class family in Albuquerque, New Mexico. At the time the series starts, he has long been estranged from his parents due to his drug addiction and lifestyle as a drug dealer. After being forced to leave his parents' residence, Jesse moved in with his Aunt Ginny, for whom he cared until her death from cancer. Afterward, he was allowed to stay in her home, the ownership of which fell to Jesse's parents.


title: Jesse Pinkman

text: Jesse was a poor student in high school and preferred hanging out with his friends and smoking marijuana to studying. Walter White, whom Jesse almost always calls "Mr. White", was his chemistry teacher and gave Jesse a failing grade in his class. Walt himself later says that he never thought Jesse would amount to much, although Jesse's mother Diane (Tess Harper) recalls that Walt "must have seen some potential in Jesse; he really tried to motivate him. He was one of the few teachers who cared." Despite his poor academic standing, Jesse was able to graduate, with Walt present on stage when he received his diploma.


title: Jesse Pinkman

text: In his first chronological appearance, taking place in 2004 during the "Better Call Saul" episode "Waterworks", Jesse is outside of Saul Goodman's office when Kim Wexler (Rhea Seehorn) emerges after having signed her divorce papers with Saul. Taking a cigarette from Kim, Jesse recognizes her as the public defender who had gotten his friend Christian "Combo" Ortega out of trouble as a juvenile for stealing the Baby Jesus from a Nativity display. Jesse asks if Saul is any good, having visited his office with Emilio Koyama (John Koyama) who is facing serious jail time, and decided upon Saul as his lawyer based on a TV advertisement. Kim tells Jesse that "when I knew him, he was," before she leaves.


title: Jesse Pinkman

text: When Walt is diagnosed with lung cancer and considers making methamphetamine to provide for his family, he tries to learn the illegal drug business by accompanying his brother-in-law Hank Schrader (Dean Norris), a Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) agent, on a ridealong. During a drug bust, he spots Jesse running away from the scene but Jesse's partner Emilio Koyama (John Koyama) is arrested. Walt subsequently realizes that Jesse is "Cap'n Cook", a meth cook Hank is investigating. Walt uses student records to track down Jesse, his former pupil, and blackmails him into letting Walt "cook" in the production side of Jesse's illegal drug trade. Walt plans to use his knowledge of chemistry to cook potent meth that Jesse will distribute, and he gives Jesse $7,000 to purchase a recreational vehicle (RV) which will be used as a rolling meth lab. Jesse wastes most of the money while partying at a strip club, but one of his friends, Combo (Rodney Rush), lets Jesse purchase his family's RV for $1,400.


title: Jesse Pinkman

text: After Walt cooks his first batch of meth, Jesse is struck by its quality, calling it the purest he has ever seen. He approaches Emilio's cousin Domingo "Krazy-8" Molina (Maximino Arciniega), an Albuquerque meth distributor, to propose doing business with him. Krazy-8 is suspicious, so Emilio and he make Jesse bring them to meet Walt. Emilio recognizes Walt as having been with Hank during the DEA bust, and they attempt to kill Walt, but he produces phosphine gas that kills Emilio and incapacitates Krazy-8, allowing Walt to flee with the unconscious Jesse. Once back in town, Walt has Jesse shop for a plastic container in which he plans to dissolve Emilio's body with hydrofluoric acid. Jesse cannot find a container big enough, so he dissolves the body in the upstairs bathtub of Ginny's house, which burns a hole through the bathroom floor and spills the remains into the downstairs hallway. After cleaning up the scene and killing Krazy-8, Walt and Jesse attempt to carry out meth distribution on their own.


title: Jesse Pinkman

text: Walt and Jesse move their lab from the RV to Jesse's basement. Their product becomes a big enough presence in Albuquerque's drug scene that it becomes the focus of Hank's investigation. Dissatisfied with the amount of money Jesse is making as a low-level dealer, Walt convinces him to find a high-end distributor. Skinny Pete (Charles Baker), one of Jesse's friends, puts him in contact with Tuco Salamanca (Raymond Cruz), a powerful Mexican drug kingpin operating in Albuquerque. At their first meeting, Tuco beats Jesse badly enough that he has to be hospitalized. After Walt strong-arms Tuco into a lucrative, albeit unstable, partnership, Walt and Jesse expand their operations by stealing a large drum of methylamine. This enables them to produce even more potent meth in larger quantities.


title: Jesse Pinkman

text: The second season begins with Walt and Jesse delivering a fresh batch to Tuco, who senselessly beats one of his henchmen, "No Doze" (Cesar Garcia), to death as the stunned duo watch helplessly. After the DEA conducts a raid on his Albuquerque operations, the increasingly paranoid Tuco believes that Walt and Jesse are about to betray him. Tuco kidnaps the pair and takes them to a remote house in the desert, where he cares for his paralyzed uncle, Hector Salamanca. There, Walt and Jesse are held against their will for several days, with Tuco stating his intention to take them to a "superlab" in Mexico. However, Walt and Jesse escape after a struggle with Tuco; they flee the scene and watch as Hank—who has been guided to the house by the LoJack on Jesse's car, while searching for the missing Walt—kills Tuco in a firefight outside the house. Walt and Jesse, undetected by Hank, wander on foot through the desert before hitching a ride back to civilization. The DEA seizes Jesse's car and money.


title: Jesse Pinkman

text: Realizing the authorities will track him down, Jesse seeks help from his friend, Brandon "Badger" Mayhew (Matt Jones). They move the lab from Jesse's house back to the RV. The RV is subsequently towed away by Badger's cousin, Clovis (Tom Kiesche), and stored on his lot for a $1,000 storage fee, for which Jesse can only pay half of upfront. The next day, Jesse's parents evict him from his home after discovering he had been cooking meth in the basement. He cannot find a friend to stay with, and his remaining few belongings and his motorcycle are stolen. With nowhere else to go, Jesse breaks into Clovis' lot and passes out in the RV. Resolving to get his life back together, Jesse buys an inconspicuous Toyota Tercel and finds a new apartment. The landlord, Jane Margolis (Krysten Ritter), is a part-time tattoo artist and a recovering heroin addict. She and Jesse soon become romantically involved. Jane, however, tries to hide this relationship from her father, Donald (John de Lancie), who owns their building.


title: Jesse Pinkman

text: When Skinny Pete is robbed by a pair of addicts, Walt tells Jesse to "handle it". Jesse goes to the addicts' house to confront them, but the plan goes awry when one of the addicts kills the other in front of him. While traumatic for Jesse, the incident ultimately helps his business; a rumor quickly spreads that Jesse killed the addict, giving him a fearsome reputation on the streets. Jesse is also instrumental in retaining the services of corrupt lawyer Saul Goodman (Bob Odenkirk) to help him and Walt launder their money and get out of legal trouble.


title: Jesse Pinkman

text: After Combo is murdered by rival dealers, Jesse starts using heroin with Jane to cope with his grief. His behavior nearly costs Walt a $1.2 million drug transaction with the powerful meth distributor Gus Fring (Giancarlo Esposito). Angered, Walt refuses to give Jesse his half of the money until he enters rehab. When Jane learns about the money, she blackmails Walt into giving Jesse his share, hoping to use the money to escape to New Zealand. Walt later returns to Jesse's apartment hoping to reconcile and finds Jesse and Jane asleep after getting high. He accidentally rolls Jane onto her back, and when she starts to choke on her vomit, Walt allows her to die. When Jesse discovers her dead body the next morning, he blames himself and goes on another drug binge. Walt rescues him from a crack house and checks him into a rehabilitation clinic.


title: Jesse Pinkman

text: While in rehab, Jesse is told by a drug counselor to accept himself for who he is. At this point, Jesse has learned that Jane's father, an air traffic controller, was so distraught over her death that he inadvertently caused a deadly mid-air collision. Jesse tells Walt that he has taken the counselor's advice and accepted himself as the "bad guy". Jesse leaves rehab clean and sober and decides to settle unfinished business. First, with help from Saul, Jesse dupes his parents into selling him his aunt's house, at a drastically reduced price.


title: Jesse Pinkman

text: Hank correctly deduces that Jesse's RV is the rolling meth lab he has been looking for and tracks it down to a local junkyard, where Walt has brought it so it can be destroyed before Hank searches it. Jesse believes that Walt is stealing the RV from him, and goes to the junkyard as Hank follows. Walt and Jesse lock themselves inside, and Walt and Saul arrange a fake emergency phone call to Hank, which says his wife Marie (Betsy Brandt) is in the hospital. Hank leaves without searching the RV, giving Walt and Jesse enough time to destroy it in a vehicle compactor. A furious Hank follows Jesse home and beats him into unconsciousness. The incident leads to Hank not only getting suspended, but Jesse threatening to sue him for everything he has. While Jesse is hospitalized, Walt—who is now working for Gus as a meth cook—persuades Gus to renew Jesse and Walt's partnership so Jesse will drop the lawsuit. Jesse and Walt cook larger amounts of meth in Gus' underground "superlab", earning considerably more money.


title: Jesse Pinkman

text: Jesse becomes romantically involved with Andrea Cantillo (Emily Rios), a single mother and recovering meth addict from his Narcotics Anonymous meetings. He eventually discovers that her 11-year-old brother, Tomas (Angelo Martinez), had killed Combo on behalf of two rival dealers. Jesse concocts a plan to kill the dealers with ricin that Walt had earlier created, but Jesse is forced to cancel the plan after learning the dealers work for Gus. However, after Tomas is found murdered, an enraged Jesse sets out to kill the dealers anyway. Walt intervenes at the last moment, killing the two dealers and telling Jesse to run.


title: Jesse Pinkman

text: After Jesse goes into hiding, Gus replaces him with Gale Boetticher (David Costabile), Walt's previous assistant in the superlab. Walt realizes Gus is plotting to have Gale master his and Jesse's meth formula as part of a larger plan to be rid of him. To prevent this, Walt plots to have Jesse pre-emptively kill Gale. Jesse begs Walt to go to the police instead, insisting that he does not have it in him to kill someone. When Walt is cornered by Gus' men Mike Ehrmantraut (Jonathan Banks) and Victor (Jeremiah Bitsui) at the superlab, he calls Jesse and tells him that he will have to kill Gale. Jesse shows up at Gale's apartment and, after a moment's hesitation, shoots him dead.


title: Jesse Pinkman

text: Immediately after Gale's murder, Walt and Jesse are brought back to the superlab. Stuck with Walt and Jesse because he does not have Gale, and angry at Victor for being recognized at the scene of Gale's murder, Gus slices Victor's throat with a box cutter in a gruesome show of force. Jesse attempts to distract himself from the guilt of killing Gale by setting up a perpetual drug rave at his house. He also places a large amount of drug money in Andrea's mailbox, urging her to leave Albuquerque with her young son, Brock (Ian Posada). Jesse becomes increasingly indifferent to his own welfare and steals meth from the superlab to fuel his drug-laden parties.


title: Jesse Pinkman

text: Mike informs Gus of Jesse's recklessness, but instead of ordering Jesse's death, Gus has Mike take Jesse on an errand to collect drop money. On the last pickup, Jesse sees a man with a shotgun approaching the car and attempts to run him over, then rams the man's car and drives away. It is revealed that the man with the shotgun was working for Mike, and this was designed to test Jesse's loyalty. Walt correctly guesses that Gus is trying to drive a wedge into their partnership, but Jesse dismisses him. During Jesse's next assignment with Mike, which involves the retrieval of stolen meth from two addicts, Jesse gets one addict fixated on digging a hole in the yard and disarms the other, which impresses Gus. Shortly afterward, Jesse resumes his relationship with Andrea and becomes a father figure to Brock.


title: Jesse Pinkman

text: Walt tasks Jesse with killing Gus with a vial of ricin, which Jesse hides in a cigarette. Later on, when Gus is meeting with members of the cartel, Jesse considers spiking Gus' coffee with the ricin but refrains from doing so upon realizing that he could poison the third parties present (and might end up drinking the coffee himself). Walt pushes Jesse to try to set up a meeting when Walt learns Hank is investigating Gus, but Walt backs off when he sees a text message implying that Jesse has been lying about not meeting Gus. Walt puts a tracking device on Jesse's vehicle and learns that Jesse had dinner at Gus' house the night before. Walt confronts Jesse, leading to a physical fight. Jesse gains the upper hand and commands Walt to leave and never come back.


title: Jesse Pinkman

text: Gus and Mike take Jesse on a trip to Mexico to have him teach Walt's formula to the cartel's chemists. Impressed with Jesse's skill, Gus seemingly arranges to have Jesse become their permanent cook. However, during a party, Gus uses a poisoned bottle of tequila to kill off the cartel's leadership, including its chieftain, Don Eladio Vuente (Steven Bauer). Jesse saves Mike, who is shot during the chaos, and Gus, who purposely drank the poisoned tequila to get the cartel to do the same. Afterward, Gus offers to hire Jesse as his full-time cook. Jesse accepts on the condition that Gus spares Walt's life. When Walt's wife Skyler (Anna Gunn) and his children receive protection from the DEA following a threat on Hank's life, Gus uses the information to portray Walt as an informant, further attempting to widen the gap between Walt and Jesse. Walt goes to Jesse's house to plead for help, but Jesse throws him off his property.


title: Jesse Pinkman

text: Shortly afterward, Brock falls deathly ill. Jesse guesses that Brock has been poisoned by ricin and immediately assumes Walt is responsible. Jesse shows up at Walt's house and confronts him at gunpoint. However, Walt convinces Jesse that it was Gus who poisoned Brock, reminding him of Gus' willingness to kill children. Jesse eventually tells Saul about Gus' visits to cartel enforcer Hector Salamanca (Mark Margolis) at the latter's nursing home, leading Walt to visit Hector himself and talk him into luring Gus to the location. Gus is subsequently killed when Walt sets up and Hector activates a pipe bomb beneath the elderly drug lord's wheelchair. After learning of Gus' death, Walt storms Gus' superlab and rescues Jesse.


title: Jesse Pinkman

text: After they destroy the superlab, Jesse reveals that Brock was not poisoned by ricin, but by lily-of-the-valley berries. Jesse realizes that Gus could not have poisoned Brock, but Walt assures him that killing Gus was the only course of action they could have taken. The final scene of the fourth season shows a potted lily-of-the-valley plant in Walt's backyard, revealing that Walt had poisoned Brock in order to regain Jesse's loyalty and spur him into action as part of Walt's plan to kill Gus.


title: Jesse Pinkman

text: Jesse is upset by what happened to Brock and becomes obsessed with finding out what happened to the ricin. Jesse has Walt help him search Jesse's house for the cigarette containing the poison. Walt plants a replica of the ricin cigarette in Jesse's vacuum cleaner, which Jesse finds. Jesse then agrees to continue cooking meth with Walt. Soon afterward, Walt's manipulations of Jesse's feelings for Andrea and Brock cause him to break up with her so that Andrea and Brock will be safe from the effects of his involvement in selling drugs.


title: Jesse Pinkman

text: He and Walt join forces with Mike to establish their own meth operation. After their supplier, Lydia Rodarte-Quayle (Laura Fraser), is unable to continue stealing methylamine precursor by the barrel, she puts them onto a way to steal 1,000 gallons from a train traveling through New Mexico. During the heist, their accomplice, Todd Alquist (Jesse Plemons), shoots and kills a young boy, Drew Sharp (Samuel Webb), who was witness to the crime. Jesse is horrified and decides to quit the meth business. Mike and Jesse want to get out of the business, and arrange for rival drug lord Declan (Louis Ferreira) to purchase the methylamine for $15 million. Walt refuses to sell his share, and Declan will not buy unless he gets it all. Instead, Walt makes a deal that enables Jesse and Mike to be paid, while Walt continues to cook for Declan. Hoping to lure Jesse back as his assistant, Walt refuses to pay him, and Jesse leaves, saying he would rather give up the money than continue in the drug business. When Walt decides to stop cooking, he goes to Jesse's house and pays him his share of the buyout.


title: Jesse Pinkman

text: Overwhelmed with guilt for Drew's death, and correctly guessing that Mike is dead, Jesse tries to give his money to Saul with instructions to give half to Drew's parents and the other half to Mike's granddaughter. When Saul refuses because doing so will draw too much attention, Jesse drives around town randomly tossing bundles of cash onto sidewalks and front lawns. He is quickly arrested and interrogated by the APD, who then allows Hank – who now knows that Walt is "Heisenberg", the meth kingpin he has been trying to catch – to question him. Jesse does not confess anything and Saul soon posts his bail. Saul, Walt, and Jesse meet in the desert, where Walt suggests that Jesse skip town and start over with a new identity. Jesse agrees, but just as he is about to be picked up by Saul's "disappearer", he realizes that Saul's bodyguard Huell Babineaux (Lavell Crawford) took his ricin cigarette, meaning that Walt was the one who orchestrated Brock's poisoning. Jesse goes back to Saul's office and beats him up until he admits that Walt told him to steal the ricin. Jesse then goes to Walt's house and douses it in gasoline, intending to burn it down. Before Jesse can light the fire, Hank arrives and convinces him that the best way to get Walt is for them to work together.


title: Jesse Pinkman

text: Hank allows Jesse to stay at his house so he can tape Jesse's confession. Hank plans to have Jesse wear a wire in order to record Walt making incriminating statements. Jesse goes to the meeting, while Hank and his partner Steve Gomez (Steven Michael Quezada) watch in surveillance trucks. Jesse notices a suspicious man near Walt, mistakenly assuming that Walt has hired an assassin to kill him. He walks to a pay phone, calls Walt, and says he intends to end Walt's drug business. Jesse then tells Hank he has a better way to get to Walt: through his drug money.


title: Jesse Pinkman

text: Hank interrogates Huell and deduces that Walt buried his money in the desert. Jesse calls Walt claiming that he has found the money and threatens to burn it if Walt does not show up. Walt falls for the ruse and drives into the desert to check on the cash, with Hank and Jesse in pursuit. Walt realizes Jesse has tricked him and calls Todd's uncle, Jack Welker (Michael Bowen), the head of a biker gang with ties to the Aryan Brotherhood, with a request to come to the site and kill Jesse. Walt calls it off when he sees Hank and Gomez are accompanying Jesse, and Walt surrenders to Hank. Walt is arrested and Jesse spits in his face. Jack's crew then arrive despite being told not to, and a gunfight ensues in which Hank and Gomez are killed. Jesse hides under Walt's car, but Walt gives away Jesse's location. Just before Jack's gang takes Jesse away, Walt spitefully tells Jesse that he watched Jane die. At Todd's headquarters, the gang tortures Jesse until he reveals all he knows, and then locks him in a cell. Todd escorts the chained Jesse to a meth lab, where Jesse notices a photograph of Andrea and Brock before Todd tells him he must cook meth for the gang.


title: Jesse Pinkman

text: Jesse escapes but is quickly recaptured. As punishment, Todd takes Jesse to Andrea's house and kills her right in front of him. Jack threatens to kill Brock if he attempts to escape again.


title: Jesse Pinkman

text: A few months later, Walt returns from his hiding place in New Hampshire. After discovering that Jesse is alive, Walt goes to Jack's compound, claiming to have a new meth formula to sell. Jack intends to kill Walt, but Walt accuses Jack of partnering with Jesse to sell meth. Jack has Jesse brought in so he can prove Jesse is forced to work for him and is not a partner. Walt tackles Jesse to the floor just as gunfire from a machine gun Walt had hidden in his car erupts on the building, killing Jack's entire gang except for Jack and Todd. Jesse strangles Todd to death using the chain from his shackles, then takes the key from Todd's pocket and frees himself. After shooting Jack dead, Walt hands Jesse the gun and asks Jesse to kill him. Noticing that Walt has been mortally wounded by the gunfire, Jesse tells Walt that if he wants to die, he should kill himself. Before Jesse leaves, Walt answers a call from Lydia on Todd's phone and tells her she will soon be dead because he poisoned her with ricin. Walt gives Jesse a final nod before he drives off in Todd's El Camino, laughing and crying with relief.


title: Jesse Pinkman

text: After fleeing the Brotherhood compound in Todd's El Camino, Jesse drives to the home of Skinny Pete and Badger, who hide the car and give Jesse a place to sleep. The next morning, Jesse calls Old Joe to dispose of the El Camino, but Joe leaves after finding its LoJack. Pete and Badger give Jesse the money they got from Walt, and Badger gives Jesse his Pontiac Fiero. Badger drives Pete's Ford Thunderbird several hours south to make it appear that Jesse fled to Mexico. Pete stays home and awaits police, intending to cover for Jesse by claiming he traded the Thunderbird for the El Camino.


title: Jesse Pinkman

text: Jesse sneaks into Todd's apartment and searches for the rest of the drug money. He finds it after several hours, but Brotherhood henchmen Neil Kandy (Scott MacArthur) and Casey (Scott Sheperd) arrive, disguised as police, and search for the money as well. Neil disarms Jesse, who reveals he found the cash and offers to split it with him. As they depart, Jesse recognizes Neil as the welder who built the tether he was fastened to while forced to cook meth for the Brotherhood.


title: Jesse Pinkman

text: Jesse finds Saul's "disappearer", Ed Galbraith (Robert Forster), who wants $250,000 to help Jesse leave town. Jesse is $1,800 short and Ed refuses to help until he is paid in full. Knowing they are being surveilled, Jesse calls his parents and feigns willingness to surrender, drawing them and the police away from the Pinkman house. Jesse enters unseen and takes two pistols from his father's safe.


title: Jesse Pinkman

text: Jesse drives to Neil's shop. He asks for $1,800, but Neil refuses. Seeing the pistol in Jesse's waistband, Neil, high on cocaine, challenges him to a duel for his share of the cash. Jesse agrees, and in the ensuing gunfight kills both Neil and Casey. Jesse recovers Neil's cash and departs after setting an explosion to cover his tracks.


title: Jesse Pinkman

text: Ed provides Jesse with a new identity with the surname "Driscoll" and smuggles him to Haines, Alaska. Jesse hands Ed a letter for Brock and says there is no one else he wants to say goodbye to. As Jesse drives off, he has a flashback to his time with Jane. He tells her he admires what she said about going wherever the universe takes her, but she dismisses it as "metaphorical" and encourages him to make his own decisions. Jesse drives on, smiling.


title: Jesse Pinkman

text: Two months after the events of "El Camino", Francesca Liddy (Tina Parker) uses a payphone to receive a call from Saul Goodman, who had been hiding under the name Gene Takavic in Omaha, Nebraska. As Walt and Jesse had done, Saul used Ed Galbraith to disappear to a new location under an assumed identity. Francesca tells him that with everyone connected to Walt is either dead or cooperating with the authorities, and that Saul and Jesse Pinkman are the two biggest targets remaining. However, she also says that Jesse's car was found "near the border", implying that Skinny Pete's plan to throw the authorities off Jesse's trail worked.


title: Jesse Pinkman

text: In the original pilot script for "Breaking Bad", Jesse's name was Marion Alan Dupree. Series creator Vince Gilligan originally intended for Jesse Pinkman's character to be killed at the end of "Breaking Bad"<nowiki>'</nowiki>s first season. Gilligan wanted Jesse to die in a botched drug deal, as a plot device to plague Walt with guilt. However, Gilligan said by the second episode of the season, he was so impressed with Jesse's character and Aaron Paul's performance that "it became pretty clear early on that it would be a huge, colossal mistake to kill off Jesse". Gilligan also liked the chemistry between Paul and Bryan Cranston. The character has been said to become the "flawed moral center" to Walter White in later seasons. Paul has said that he initially saw the character as "black-and-white", but that over time it had become evident that Jesse "has a huge heart; it just got messed up".


title: Jesse Pinkman

text: Paul felt that he had a "lock" onto who the character was when making the episode "Cancer Man" in which Jesse's family is introduced. Paul also noted how after Jesse's parents disown him, the character looks for a father figure in Walt and Mike.


title: Jesse Pinkman

text: The writers wrestled with the question of how long Jesse's innocence would survive Walt's influence. Gilligan has said that Jesse's naïvete makes him a better man than Walt.


title: Jesse Pinkman

text: Paul found it difficult to play Jesse sober in the third season. Paul says it "really threw me for a loop. It was hard to nail him. I had no idea where they were going with this character. He's so numb and cut off from everything." Paul prepared by spending time at a rehabilitation clinic, observing its patients, and interviewing its director.


title: Jesse Pinkman

text: The fourth season premiere, "Box Cutter", showed Walt pleading with Gus to save Jesse, demonstrating Walt's paternal relationship with and loyalty to Jesse. Walt tells Gus that he refuses to continue cooking if Gus kills Jesse. Paul felt this was "the first moment that Jesse realizes that Walt's loyalty is to Jesse."


title: Jesse Pinkman

text: The party scenes at Jesse's house in "Thirty-Eight Snub" and "Open House" were created as a way for Jesse to cope with his guilt and self-hatred after murdering Gale Boetticher in the third-season finale, "Full Measure". Gilligan said these scenes were written because he wanted to demonstrate that the actions of the characters in "Breaking Bad" have major consequences. The writers discussed how Jesse would react to having killed Gale, and they chose the party story arc, in part, because they felt it would be the most unexpected for the audience. Bryan Cranston says of those scenes, "I thought it was a great way to show a person going through a private hell. That everybody suffers, deals with their own personal loss in many different ways."


title: Jesse Pinkman

text: The party scenes continued in the next episode, "Open House," though the party was darker and more decrepit in this episode.


title: Jesse Pinkman

text: In "Open House," Jesse goes go-karting by himself. The idea was inspired by Paul and other crew members going kart racing between filming episodes. The idea for Jesse to have his head shaved in "Bullet Points" was also Paul's, as he felt it was appropriate for Jesse's inner struggle.


title: Jesse Pinkman

text: Gilligan has said that he deliberately left Jesse's ultimate fate ambiguous at the end of "Felina", preferring to let the viewer decide what happens to him. However, on November 6, 2018, rumors began that a feature "Breaking Bad" sequel film was in the works, with the logline stating that the film "tracks the escape of a kidnapped man and his quest for freedom". Many speculated that this would reveal the fate of Jesse Pinkman from immediately after the events of the "Breaking Bad" season finale. This sequel eventually became "" which focused on Jesse immediately following his escape from the compound.


title: Jesse Pinkman

text: Regarding Pinkman's new life after the events of the film in Haines, Alaska, Gilligan speculated that Pinkman "would enjoy the brewery and maybe get a job with the ski manufacturer ... the very nice people of Alaska would welcome him into the community." Paul believed that Jesse is "going to keep his nose clean. He has quite a bit of cash on hand. And he’s going to live a very modest lifestyle. He’s moving to a very small place in Alaska, so he doesn’t need all that much money. He knows how to work with his hands, and so he just needs to refresh those skills and become the artist that he was always meant to be."


title: Jesse Pinkman

text: After reprising Jesse Pinkman a final time in "Better Call Saul", Paul said he felt confident that this marked Jesse's final appearances and called it a farewell to his character.


title: Jesse Pinkman

text: Jesse's character development has received universal acclaim. Alan Sepinwall noticed a gradual shift of the audience's sympathies from Walt to Jesse, who had received mixed reception in the first season. Aaron Paul thinks some of the major turnaround episodes for this are "Peekaboo" and "ABQ". In his review for "Peekaboo," Erik Kain of "Forbes" wrote that as Walt grows increasingly less sympathetic, Jesse grows more human and complex, as evidenced by his relationship with the neglected son of two drug addicts. Emma Rosenblum of "New York Magazine" wrote that Jesse started as an "absurd screwup" with a "defiant gait" and the bravado of a wannabe gangster. Her opinion changed beginning with "Peekaboo". Gilligan said the writers' decision to write that episode was to get into Jesse's mind-set. Emily Nussbaum of "The New Yorker" noted that "Gilligan "swivel[ed] background characters into the spotlight, where they can absorb the sympathy we once extended to Walt." Critics thought "Blood Money" expanded Jesse's role as a contrast to Walt's and the moral conscience of the series. "The Hollywood Reporter"s Tim Goodman also noted Jesse's role and character development as a contrast to Walt's. Alyssa Rosenberg of "ThinkProgress" contrasts Walt with Jesse's growing moral conscience.


title: Jesse Pinkman

text: Seth Amitin of IGN wrote of the episode: though Jesse was close to rock bottom, he still could not admit or accept his problems. Amitin called Jesse the "coward in all of us in tough situations". Amitin was, nonetheless, sympathetic to Jesse's pain, misery, and feelings of meaninglessness, in part because of Paul's "fantastic acting". In his review for "Breakage," Amitin wrote that the episode "rehumaniz[ed] Jesse". He noted that though Jesse is rebuilding his life, he has not learned from his mistakes.


title: Jesse Pinkman

text: Jesse's role in "Full Measure" garnered positive reviews. Tim Goodman of the "San Francisco Chronicle" called the episode "an exclamation mark on the tortured journey of Jesse." "Entertainment Weekly" called "Full Measure" one of Jesse's best episodes, and noted his killing Gale cost Jesse the last of his innocence. Quentin B. Huff of "PopMatters" called Jesse's story arc an "emotional rollercoaster animated by intense grief."


title: Jesse Pinkman

text: Michael Arbeiter praised Paul's performance in "Box Cutter," calling him "phenomenal" despite barely speaking any dialogue in the episode. Seth Amitin, reviewing for IGN, called Paul's performance in "Problem Dog" as "the performance of the series". Myles McNutt of "Cultural Learnings" praised Paul's performance in the episode, observing: "Jesse descends further into a place from which he might never escape." "USA Today"<nowiki>'</nowiki>s Robert Bianco wrote of the character in his review for "Blood Money": "Aaron Paul's Jesse, the show's sometimes wonky moral compass, only has to leave a room to set your nerves on edge, wondering what will happen when he returns. That's a tribute to the writers, obviously, but it's also a tribute to Paul, who always seems to be on the verge of either imploding or exploding – and may even be able to pull off both at once. I wouldn't assume he can't."


title: Jesse Pinkman

text: Aaron Paul's reprisal of the role in "" also drew positive reviews. Judy Berman of "Time" called his portrayal "mesmerizing", citing Paul's ease at "fully re-inhabiting a role he hadn't played for years ... endowing Jesse with the same mix of (waning) goofiness and (escalating) existential terror that propelled him through the finale". Liz Shannon Miller elaborated, in her review from "The Verge", that "[Paul's] work in "El Camino" is staggering, given the high difficulty factor that comes with having to play so many variations of this character" and followed this by stating "what makes "El Camino" so compelling is the way it engages with how he's changed since those early days".


title: Jesse Pinkman

text: In an interview with David Whitehouse of "The Guardian", Paul remarked on his character's popularity with "Breaking Bad" fans: "It's crazy [that people side with Jesse]. At the beginning, everyone – including me – saw him as just a drug burn-out. A kid with no sorta brains. But as each episode was revealed to everybody, it showed quite the opposite. It's incredible how Walt and Jesse are completely trading positions. Walt has no morals whatsoever any more, and Jesse, who wants to try to be good, is terrified of him."


title: Jesse Pinkman

text: Robert Downs Schultz of "PopMatters" notes that while Jesse and Walt are both murderous liars, thieves, con-men, and drug dealers filled with selfishness and a desire for respect, only Jesse feels it. While both characters damage the lives of their loved ones, only Jesse is consumed by guilt, remorse, and self-hatred. Schultz writes that Jesse knows he is a bad person who can never properly repent for his sins. A life of crime, however, seems to be the only way for Jesse to not be a failure. Schultz disagrees, saying that Jesse is not simply the "conscience of the show, the moral center, the heart," but rather a more complex character.


title: Jesse Pinkman

text: Alyssa Rosenberg of "ThinkProgress" deemed Jesse and Walt's relationship "powerful because of its contradictions rather than its clarity." Walt is a paternal figure to Jesse, but a manipulative, "judging, brow-beating, perpetually disappointed" one, making their relationship more tragic than anything else. Donna Bowman of "The A.V. Club" remarked that in freeing his ambitions from Walter White's manipulations during "El Camino", Jesse found his own redemption and avoided his mentor's fate, finally giving himself a chance for a future.


title: Jesse Pinkman

text: In 2010, 2012, and 2014, Aaron Paul won the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Drama Series, and was nominated in 2009 and 2013. Paul won for the episodes "Half Measures" (2010), "End Times" (2012), and "Confessions" (2014).


title: Jesse Pinkman

text: In addition, Paul won the Saturn Award for Best Supporting Actor on Television in 2010 and 2012. In 2010, Paul was nominated for the Television Critics Association Award for Individual Achievement in Drama and the Satellite Award for Best Supporting Actor in a Series, Miniseries, or Television Film for the third season.


title: Jesse Pinkman

text: In 2012, Paul was nominated for the Critics' Choice Television Award for Best Supporting Actor in a Drama Series for the fourth season, but lost to fellow "Breaking Bad" cast member Giancarlo Esposito. Paul would later win the award in 2014, for the show's second half of the final season.


title: Jesse Pinkman

text: In 2014, Paul received his first Golden Globe Award nomination for Best Supporting Actor in a Series, Miniseries, or Television Film for the final season, losing to Jon Voight for the first season of "Ray Donovan". However, on February 23, 2014, Paul won the Satellite Award for Best Supporting Actor in a Series, Miniseries, or Television Film for the final season. On June 19, 2014, Paul won the Critics' Choice Television Award for Best Supporting Actor in a Drama Series for the final season. On June 26, 2014, Paul won his third and final Saturn Award for his portrayal of Jesse Pinkman for the final season, making him the only actor to win this award three times.


title: Jesse Pinkman

text: In 2019, Paul was nominated again for a Satellite Award for his reprisal as Jesse Pinkman in "", this time for Best Actor in a Miniseries or Television Film, but lost to Jared Harris for "Chernobyl". In 2021, he received his final nomination for the role in "El Camino" for the Saturn Award for Best Actor in a Film, but lost to John David Washington for "Tenet".


title: Jesse Pinkman

text: Bronze statues of Pinkman and Walter White were commissioned and donated by creator Vince Gilligan and Sony Television Pictures to the city of Albuquerque in July 2022, which are housed in the Albuquerque Convention Center.


title: Isoroku Yamamoto

text: Yamamoto held several important posts in the IJN, and undertook many of its changes and reorganizations, especially its development of naval aviation. He was the commander-in-chief during the early years of the Pacific War and oversaw major engagements including the attack on Pearl Harbor and the Battle of Midway.


title: Isoroku Yamamoto

text: Yamamoto was killed in April 1943 after American code breakers identified his flight plans, enabling the United States Army Air Forces to shoot down his plane. His death was a major blow to Japanese military morale during World War II.


title: Isoroku Yamamoto

text: Yamamoto was born in Nagaoka, Niigata. His father, Sadayoshi Takano (高野 貞吉), was an intermediate-rank "samurai" of the Nagaoka Domain. "Isoroku" is an old Japanese term meaning "56"; the name referred to his father's age at Isoroku's birth.


title: Isoroku Yamamoto

text: In 1916, Isoroku was adopted into the Yamamoto family (another family of former Nagaoka samurai) and took the Yamamoto name. It was a common practice for samurai families lacking sons to adopt suitable young men in this fashion to carry on the family name, the rank and the income that went with it. Isoroku married Reiko Mihashi in 1918; they had two sons and two daughters.


title: Isoroku Yamamoto

text: Yamamoto graduated from the Imperial Japanese Naval Academy in 1904, ranking 11th in his class. He then subsequently served on the armored cruiser during the Russo-Japanese War. He was wounded at the Battle of Tsushima, losing two fingers (the index and middle fingers) on his left hand, as the cruiser was hit repeatedly by the Russian battle line. He returned to the Naval Staff College in 1914, emerging as a lieutenant commander in 1916. In December 1919, he was promoted to commander.


title: Isoroku Yamamoto

text: Yamamoto was part of the Japanese Navy establishment, who were rivals of the more aggressive Army establishment, especially the officers of the Kwantung Army. He promoted a policy of a strong fleet to project force through gunboat diplomacy, rather than a fleet used primarily for the transport of invasion land forces, as some of his political opponents in the Army wanted. This stance led him to oppose the invasion of China. He also opposed war against the United States, partly because of his studies at Harvard University (1919–1921) and his two postings as a naval attaché in Washington, D.C., where he learned to speak fluent English. Yamamoto traveled extensively in the United States during his tour of duty there, where he studied American customs and business practices.


title: Isoroku Yamamoto

text: He was promoted to captain in 1923. On February 13, 1924, Captain Yamamoto was part of the Japanese delegation visiting the United States Naval War College. Later that year, he changed his specialty from gunnery to naval aviation. His first command was the cruiser in 1928, followed by the aircraft carrier .


title: Isoroku Yamamoto

text: He participated in the London Naval Conference 1930 as a rear admiral and the London Naval Conference 1935 as a vice admiral, as the growing military influence on the government at the time deemed that a career military specialist needed to accompany the diplomats to the arms limitations talks. Yamamoto was a strong proponent of naval aviation and served as head of the Aeronautics Department, before accepting a post as commander of the First Carrier Division. Yamamoto opposed the Japanese invasion of northeast China in 1931, the subsequent full-scale land war with China in 1937, and the Tripartite Pact with Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy in 1940. As Deputy Navy Minister, he apologized to United States Ambassador Joseph C. Grew for the bombing of the gunboat USS "Panay" in December 1937. These issues made him a target of assassination threats by pro-war militarists.


title: Isoroku Yamamoto

text: Throughout 1938, many young army and naval officers began to speak publicly against Yamamoto and certain other Japanese admirals, such as Mitsumasa Yonai and Shigeyoshi Inoue, for their strong opposition to a tripartite pact with Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy, which the admirals saw as inimical to "Japan's natural interests". Yamamoto received a steady stream of hate mail and death threats from Japanese nationalists. His reaction to the prospect of death by assassination was passive and accepting. The admiral wrote:


title: Isoroku Yamamoto

text: To die for Emperor and Nation is the highest hope of a military man. After a brave hard fight the blossoms are scattered on the fighting field. But if a person wants to take a life instead, still the fighting man will go to eternity for Emperor and country. One man's life or death is a matter of no importance. All that matters is the Empire. As Confucius said, "They may crush cinnabar, yet they do not take away its color; one may burn a fragrant herb, yet it will not destroy the scent." They may destroy my body, yet they will not take away my will.


title: Isoroku Yamamoto

text: The Japanese Army, annoyed at Yamamoto's unflinching opposition to a Rome-Berlin-Tokyo treaty, dispatched military police to "guard" him, a ruse by the Army to keep an eye on him. He was later reassigned from the naval ministry to sea as the commander-in-chief of the Combined Fleet on August 30, 1939. This was done as one of the last acts of acting Navy Minister Mitsumasa Yonai, under Baron Hiranuma Kiichirō's short-lived administration. It was done partly to make it harder for assassins to target Yamamoto. Yonai was certain that if Yamamoto remained ashore, he would be killed before the year [1939] ended.


title: Isoroku Yamamoto

text: Yamamoto was promoted to admiral on November 15, 1940. This was in spite of the fact that when Hideki Tojo was appointed Prime Minister on October 18, 1941, many political observers thought that Yamamoto's career was essentially over. Tojo had been Yamamoto's old opponent from the time when the latter served as Japan's deputy naval minister and Tojo was the prime mover behind Japan's takeover of Manchuria. It was believed that Yamamoto would be appointed to command the Yokosuka Naval Base, "a nice safe demotion with a big house and no power at all". However, after a brief stint in the post, a new Japanese cabinet was announced, and Yamamoto found himself returned to his position of power despite his open conflict with Tojo and other members of the Army's oligarchy who favored war with the European powers and the United States.


title: Isoroku Yamamoto

text: Two of the main reasons for Yamamoto's political survival were his immense popularity within the fleet, where he commanded the respect of his men and officers, and his close relations with the imperial family. He also had the acceptance of Japan's naval hierarchy:


title: Isoroku Yamamoto

text: There was no officer more competent to lead the Combined Fleet to victory than Admiral Yamamoto. His daring plan for the Pearl Harbor attack had passed through the crucible of the Japanese naval establishment, and after many expressed misgivings, his fellow admirals had realized that Yamamoto spoke no more than the truth when he said that Japan's hope for victory in this [upcoming] war was limited by time and oil. Every sensible officer of the navy was well aware of the perennial oil problems. Also, it had to be recognized that if the enemy could seriously disturb Japanese merchant shipping, then the fleet would be endangered even more.


title: Isoroku Yamamoto

text: Consequently, Yamamoto stayed in his post. With Tojo now in charge of Japan's highest political office, it became clear the Army would lead the Navy into a war about which Yamamoto had serious reservations. He wrote to an ultranationalist:


title: Isoroku Yamamoto

text: Should hostilities once break out between Japan and the United States, it would not be enough that we take Guam and the Philippines, nor even Hawaii and San Francisco. To make victory certain, we would have to march into Washington and dictate the terms of peace in the White House. I wonder if our politicians [who speak so lightly of a Japanese-American war] have confidence as to the final outcome and are prepared to make the necessary sacrifices.


title: Isoroku Yamamoto

text: This quote was spread by the militarists, minus the last sentence, so it was interpreted in America as a boast that Japan would conquer the entire continental United States. The omitted sentence showed Yamamoto's counsel of caution towards a war that could cost Japan dearly. Nevertheless, Yamamoto accepted the reality of impending war and planned for a quick victory by destroying the United States Pacific Fleet at Pearl Harbor in a preventive strike, while simultaneously thrusting into the oil- and rubber-rich areas of Southeast Asia, especially the Dutch East Indies, Borneo, and Malaya. In naval matters, Yamamoto opposed the building of the super battleships and as an unwise investment of resources.


title: Isoroku Yamamoto

text: Yamamoto was responsible for a number of innovations in Japanese naval aviation. Although remembered for his association with aircraft carriers, Yamamoto did more to influence the development of land-based naval aviation, particularly the Mitsubishi G3M and G4M medium bombers. His demand for great range and the ability to carry a torpedo was intended to conform to Japanese conceptions of bleeding the American fleet as it advanced across the Pacific. The planes did achieve long range, but long-range fighter escorts were not available. These planes were lightly constructed and when fully fueled, they were especially vulnerable to enemy fire. This earned the G4M the sardonic nickname the "flying cigarette lighter". Yamamoto would eventually die in one of these aircraft.


title: Isoroku Yamamoto

text: The range of the G3M and G4M contributed to a demand for great range in a fighter aircraft. This partly drove the requirements for the A6M Zero, which was as noteworthy for its range as for its maneuverability. Both qualities were again purchased at the expense of light construction and flammability that later contributed to the A6M's high casualty rates as the war progressed.


title: Isoroku Yamamoto

text: As Japan moved toward war during 1940, Yamamoto gradually moved toward strategic as well as tactical innovation, again with mixed results. Prompted by talented young officers such as Lieutenant Commander Minoru Genda, Yamamoto approved the reorganization of Japanese carrier forces into the First Air Fleet, a consolidated striking force that gathered Japan's six largest carriers into one unit. This innovation gave great striking capacity, but also concentrated the vulnerable carriers into a compact target. Yamamoto also oversaw the organization of a similar large land-based organization in the 11th Air Fleet, which would later use the G3M and G4M to neutralize American air forces in the Philippines and sink the British Force Z.


title: Isoroku Yamamoto

text: In January 1941, Yamamoto went even further and proposed a radical revision of Japanese naval strategy. For two decades, in keeping with the doctrine of Captain Alfred T. Mahan, the Naval General Staff had planned in terms of Japanese light surface forces, submarines, and land-based air units whittling down the American fleet as it advanced across the Pacific until the Japanese Navy engaged it in a climactic "Kantai Kessen" ("decisive battle") in the northern Philippine Sea (between the Ryukyu Islands and the Marianas), with battleships fighting in traditional battle lines.


title: Isoroku Yamamoto

text: Correctly pointing out this plan had never worked even in Japanese war games, and painfully aware of American strategic advantages in military production capacity, Yamamoto proposed instead to seek parity with the Americans by first reducing their forces with a preventive strike, then following up with a "decisive battle" fought offensively, rather than defensively. Yamamoto hoped, but probably did not believe, that if the Americans could be dealt terrific blows early in the war, they might be willing to negotiate an end to the conflict. The Naval General Staff proved reluctant to go along, and Yamamoto was eventually driven to capitalize on his popularity in the fleet by threatening to resign to get his way. Admiral Osami Nagano and the Naval General Staff eventually caved in to this pressure, but only insofar as approving the attack on Pearl Harbor.


title: Isoroku Yamamoto

text: The First Air Fleet commenced preparations for the Pearl Harbor raid, solving a number of technical problems along the way, including how to launch torpedoes in the shallow waters of Pearl Harbor and how to craft armor-piercing bombs by machining down battleship gun projectiles.


title: Isoroku Yamamoto

text: Though the United States and Japan were officially at peace, the First Air Fleet of six carriers attacked on December 7, 1941, launching 353 aircraft against Pearl Harbor and other locations within Honolulu in two waves. The attack was a complete success according to the parameters of the mission, which sought to sink at least four American battleships and prevent the United States from interfering in Japan's southward advance for at least six months. Three American aircraft carriers were also considered a choice target, but these were at sea at the time.


title: Isoroku Yamamoto

text: In the end, four American battleships were sunk, four were damaged, and eleven other cruisers, destroyers, and auxiliaries were sunk or seriously damaged, 188 American aircraft were destroyed and 159 others damaged, and 2,403 people were killed and 1,178 others wounded. The Japanese lost 64 servicemen and only 29 aircraft, with 74 others damaged by anti-aircraft fire from the ground. The damaged aircraft were disproportionately dive and torpedo bombers, seriously reducing the ability to exploit the first two waves' success, so the commander of the First Air Fleet, Naval Vice Admiral Chuichi Nagumo, withdrew. Yamamoto later lamented Nagumo's failure to seize the initiative to seek out and destroy the American carriers or further bombard various strategically important facilities on Oahu.


title: Isoroku Yamamoto

text: Nagumo had absolutely no idea where the American carriers were, and remaining on station while his forces looked for them ran the risk of his own forces being found first and attacked while his aircraft were absent searching. In any case, insufficient daylight remained after recovering the aircraft from the first two waves for the carriers to launch and recover a third before dark, and Nagumo's escorting destroyers lacked the fuel capacity to loiter long. Much has been made of Yamamoto's hindsight, but in keeping with Japanese military tradition not to criticize the commander on the spot, he did not punish Nagumo for his withdrawal.


title: Isoroku Yamamoto

text: On the strategic, moral, and political level, the attack was a disaster for Japan, rousing Americans' thirst for revenge due to what is now famously called a "sneak attack". The shock of the attack, coming in an unexpected place with devastating results and without a declaration of war, galvanized the American public's determination to avenge the attack. When asked by Prime Minister Fumimaro Konoe in mid-1941 about the outcome of a possible war with the United States, Yamamoto made a well-known and prophetic statement: If ordered to fight, he said, "I shall run wild considerably for the first six months or a year, but I have utterly no confidence for the second and third years." His prediction would be validated, as Japan easily conquered territories and islands in Asia and the Pacific for the first six months of the war, before suffering a major defeat at the Battle of Midway on June 4–7, 1942, which ultimately tilted the balance of power in the Pacific towards the United States.


title: Isoroku Yamamoto

text: As a strategic blow intended to prevent American interference in the Dutch East Indies for six months, the Pearl Harbor attack was a success, but unbeknownst to Yamamoto, it was a pointless one. In 1935, in keeping with the evolution of War Plan Orange, the United States Navy had abandoned any notion of charging across the Pacific towards the Philippines at the outset of a war with Japan. In 1937, the United States had further determined even fully manning the fleet to wartime levels could not be accomplished in less than six months, and the extensive logistical support required to advance across the Pacific simply did not exist and would require two years to construct.


title: Isoroku Yamamoto

text: In 1940, American Chief of Naval Operations Admiral Harold Stark had penned the Plan Dog memo, which recommended a defensive war in the Pacific while the country concentrated on defeating Nazi Germany first, and consigned Admiral Husband Kimmel's Pacific Fleet to merely keeping the Imperial Japanese Navy out of the eastern Pacific and away from the shipping lanes to Australia. Moreover, it is questionable whether the United States would have gone to war at all had Japan attacked only British and Dutch possessions in the Far East.


title: Isoroku Yamamoto

text: With the American fleet largely neutralized at Pearl Harbor, Yamamoto's Combined Fleet turned to the task of executing the larger Japanese war plan devised by the Imperial Japanese Army and Navy General Staff. The First Air Fleet made a circuit of the Pacific, striking American, Australian, Dutch, and British installations from Wake Island to Australia to Ceylon in the Indian Ocean. The 11th Air Fleet caught the United States Fifth Air Force on the ground in the Philippines hours after Pearl Harbor, and then sank the British Force Z's battleship and battlecruiser at sea.


title: Isoroku Yamamoto

text: Under Yamamoto's able subordinates, Vice Admirals Jisaburō Ozawa, Nobutake Kondō, and Ibō Takahashi, the Japanese swept the inadequate remaining American, British, Dutch and Australian naval assets from the Dutch East Indies in a series of amphibious landings and surface naval battles culminating in the Battle of the Java Sea on February 27, 1942. Along with the occupation of the Dutch East Indies came the fall of Singapore on February 15, and the eventual reduction of the remaining American-Filipino defensive positions in the Philippines on the Bataan peninsula on April 9 and Corregidor Island on May 6. The Japanese had secured their oil- and rubber-rich "southern resources area".


title: Isoroku Yamamoto

text: By late March, having achieved their initial aims with surprising speed and little loss, albeit against enemies ill-prepared to resist them, the Japanese paused to consider their next moves. Yamamoto and a few Japanese military leaders and officials waited, hoping that the United States or Great Britain would negotiate an armistice or a peace treaty to end the war. But when the British, as well as the Americans, expressed no interest in negotiating, Japanese thoughts turned to securing their newly seized territory and acquiring more with an eye to driving one or more of their enemies out of the war.


title: Isoroku Yamamoto

text: Competing plans were developed at this stage, including thrusts to the west against British India, south against Australia, and east against the United States. Yamamoto was involved in this debate, supporting different plans at different times with varying degrees of enthusiasm and for varying purposes, including "horse-trading" for support of his own objectives.


title: Isoroku Yamamoto

text: Plans included ideas as ambitious as invading India or Australia, or seizing Hawaii. These grandiose ventures were inevitably set aside, as the Army could not spare enough troops from China for the first two, which would require a minimum of 250,000 men, nor shipping to support the latter two (transports were allocated separately to the Navy and Army, and jealously guarded). Instead, the Imperial General Staff supported an army thrust into Burma in hopes of linking up with Indian nationalists revolting against British rule, and attacks in New Guinea and the Solomon Islands designed to imperil Australia's lines of communication with the United States. Yamamoto argued for a decisive offensive strike in the east to finish off the American fleet, but the more conservative Naval General Staff officers were unwilling to risk it.


title: Isoroku Yamamoto

text: On April 18, in the midst of these debates, the Doolittle Raid struck Tokyo and surrounding areas, demonstrating the threat posed by American aircraft carriers, and giving Yamamoto an event he could exploit to get his way, and further debate over military strategy came to a quick end. The Naval General Staff agreed to Yamamoto's Midway Island (MI) Operation, subsequent to the first phase of the operations against Australia's link with America, and concurrent with its plan to invade the Aleutian Islands.


title: Isoroku Yamamoto

text: Yamamoto rushed planning for the Midway and Aleutians missions, while dispatching a force under Vice Admiral Takeo Takagi, including the Fifth Carrier Division (the large new carriers and ), to support the effort to seize the islands of Tulagi and Guadalcanal for seaplane and airplane bases, and the town of Port Moresby on Papua New Guinea's south coast facing Australia.


title: Isoroku Yamamoto

text: The Port Moresby (MO) Operation proved an unwelcome setback. Although Tulagi and Guadalcanal were taken, the Port Moresby invasion fleet was compelled to turn back when Takagi clashed with an American carrier task force in the Battle of the Coral Sea in early May. Although the Japanese sank the carrier and damaged the , the Americans damaged the carrier "Shōkaku" so badly that she required dockyard repairs, and the Japanese lost the light carrier . Just as importantly, Japanese operational mishaps and American fighters and anti-aircraft fire devastated the dive bomber and torpedo plane formations of both "Shōkaku"s and "Zuikaku"s air groups. These losses sidelined "Zuikaku" while she awaited replacement aircraft and aircrews, and saw to tactical integration and training. These two ships would be sorely missed a month later at Midway.


title: Isoroku Yamamoto

text: Yamamoto's plan for Midway Island was an extension of his efforts to knock the American Pacific Fleet out of action long enough for Japan to fortify its defensive perimeter in the Pacific island chains. Yamamoto felt it necessary to seek an early, offensive decisive battle.


title: Isoroku Yamamoto

text: This plan was long believed to have been to draw American attention—and possibly carrier forces—north from Pearl Harbor by sending his Fifth Fleet (one carrier, one light carrier, four battleships, eight cruisers, 25 destroyers, and four transports) against the Aleutians, raiding Dutch Harbor on Unalaska Island and invading the more distant islands of Kiska and Attu.


title: Isoroku Yamamoto

text: While Fifth Fleet attacked the Aleutians, First Mobile Force (four carriers, two battleships, three cruisers, and 12 destroyers) would attack Midway and destroy its air force. Once this was neutralized, Second Fleet (one light carrier, two battleships, 10 cruisers, 21 destroyers, and 11 transports) would land 5,000 troops to seize the atoll from the United States Marines.


title: Isoroku Yamamoto

text: The seizure of Midway was expected to draw the American carriers west into a trap where the First Mobile Force would engage and destroy them. Afterwards, First Fleet (one light carrier, three battleships, one light cruiser and nine destroyers), in conjunction with elements of Second Fleet, would mop up remaining US surface forces and complete the destruction of the American Pacific Fleet.


title: Isoroku Yamamoto

text: To guard against failure, Yamamoto initiated two security measures. The first was an aerial reconnaissance mission (Operation K) over Pearl Harbor to ascertain if the American carriers were there. The second was a picket line of submarines to detect the movement of enemy carriers toward Midway in time for First Mobile Force, First Fleet, and Second Fleet to combine against it. In the event, the first measure was aborted and the second delayed until after the American carriers had already sortied.


title: Isoroku Yamamoto

text: The plan was a compromise and hastily prepared, apparently so it could be launched in time for the anniversary of the Battle of Tsushima, but appeared well thought out, well organized, and finely timed when viewed from a Japanese viewpoint. Against four fleet carriers, two light carriers, seven battleships, 14 cruisers and 42 destroyers likely to be in the area of the main battle, the United States could field only three carriers, eight cruisers, and 15 destroyers. The disparity appeared crushing. Only in numbers of carrier decks, available aircraft, and submarines was there near parity between the two sides. Despite various mishaps developed in the execution, it appeared that—barring something unforeseen—Yamamoto held all the cards.


title: Isoroku Yamamoto

text: Unknown to Yamamoto, the Americans had learned of Japanese plans thanks to the code breaking of Japanese naval code D (known to the US as JN-25). As a result, Admiral Chester Nimitz, the Pacific Fleet commander, was able to place his outnumbered forces in a position to conduct their own ambush. By Nimitz's calculation, his three available carrier decks, plus Midway, gave him rough parity with Nagumo's First Mobile Force.


title: Isoroku Yamamoto

text: Following a nuisance raid by Japanese flying boats in May, Nimitz dispatched a minesweeper to guard the intended refueling point for Operation K near French Frigate Shoals, causing the reconnaissance mission to be aborted and leaving Yamamoto ignorant of whether the Pacific Fleet carriers were still at Pearl Harbor. It remains unclear why Yamamoto permitted the earlier attack, and why his submarines did not sortie sooner, as reconnaissance was essential to success at Midway. Nimitz also dispatched his carriers toward Midway early, and they passed the Japanese submarines "en route" to their picket line positions. Nimitz's carriers positioned themselves to ambush the "Kidō Butai" (striking force) when it struck Midway. A token cruiser and destroyer force was sent toward the Aleutians, but otherwise Nimitz ignored them. On June 4, 1942, days before Yamamoto expected them to interfere in the Midway operation, American carrier-based aircraft destroyed the four carriers of the "Kidō Butai", catching the Japanese carriers at especially vulnerable times.


title: Isoroku Yamamoto

text: With his air power destroyed and his forces not yet concentrated for a fleet battle, Yamamoto maneuvered his remaining forces, still strong on paper, to trap the American forces. He was unable to do so because his initial dispositions had placed his surface combatants too far from Midway, and because Admiral Raymond Spruance prudently withdrew to the east to further defend Midway Island, believing (based on a mistaken submarine report) the Japanese still intended to invade. Not knowing several battleships, including the powerful , were in the Japanese order of battle, he did not comprehend the severe risk of a night surface battle, in which his carriers and cruisers would be at a disadvantage. However, his move to the east avoided that possibility. Correctly perceiving he had lost and could not bring surface forces into action, Yamamoto withdrew. The defeat marked the high tide of Japanese expansion.


title: Isoroku Yamamoto

text: Yamamoto's plan has been the subject of much criticism. Some historians state it violated the principle of concentration of force and was overly complex. Others point to similarly complex Allied operations, such as Operation MB8, that were successful, and note the extent to which the American intelligence "coup" derailed the operation before it began. Had Yamamoto's dispositions not denied Nagumo adequate pre-attack reconnaissance assets, both the American cryptanalytic success and the unexpected appearance of the American carriers would have been irrelevant.


title: Isoroku Yamamoto

text: The Battle of Midway checked Japanese momentum, but the Japanese Navy was still a powerful force, capable of regaining the initiative. It planned to resume the thrust with Operation FS, aimed at eventually taking Samoa and Fiji to cut the American lifeline to Australia.


title: Isoroku Yamamoto

text: Yamamoto remained as commander-in-chief, retained at least partly to avoid diminishing the morale of the Combined Fleet. However, he had lost face as a result of the Midway defeat, and the Naval General Staff were disinclined to indulge in further gambles. This reduced Yamamoto to pursuing the classic defensive "decisive battle strategy" he had attempted to avoid.


title: Isoroku Yamamoto

text: Yamamoto committed Combined Fleet units to a series of small attrition actions across the south and central Pacific that stung the Americans, but in return suffered losses he could ill afford. Three major efforts to beat the Americans moving on Guadalcanal precipitated a pair of carrier battles that Yamamoto commanded personally: the Battles of the Eastern Solomons and Santa Cruz Islands in September and October, respectively, and finally a wild pair of surface engagements in November, all timed to coincide with Japanese Army pushes. The effort was wasted when the Army could not hold up its end of the operation. Yamamoto's naval forces won a few victories and inflicted considerable losses and damage to the American fleet in several battles around Guadalcanal which included the Battles of Savo Island, Cape Esperance, and Tassafaronga, but he could never draw the United States into a decisive fleet action. As a result, Japanese naval strength declined.


title: Isoroku Yamamoto

text: To boost morale following the defeat at Guadalcanal, Yamamoto decided to make an inspection tour throughout the South Pacific. It was during this tour that U.S. officials commenced an operation to kill him. On April 14, 1943, the United States naval intelligence effort, codenamed "Magic", intercepted and decrypted a message containing specifics of Yamamoto's tour, including arrival and departure times and locations, as well as the number and types of aircraft that would transport and accompany him on the journey. Yamamoto, the itinerary revealed, would be flying from Rabaul to Balalae Airfield, on an island near Bougainville in the Solomon Islands, on the morning of April 18, 1943.


title: Isoroku Yamamoto

text: President Franklin D. Roosevelt may have authorized Secretary of the Navy Frank Knox to "get Yamamoto," but no official record of such an order exists, and sources disagree whether he did so. Knox essentially let Admiral Chester W. Nimitz make the decision. Nimitz first consulted Admiral William Halsey Jr., Commander, South Pacific, and then authorized the mission on April 17 to intercept and shoot down Yamamoto's flight "en route". A squadron of United States Army Air Forces Lockheed P-38 Lightning aircraft were assigned the task as only they possessed sufficient range. Select pilots from three units were informed that they were intercepting an "important high officer", with no specific name given.


title: Isoroku Yamamoto

text: On the morning of April 18, despite urging by local commanders to cancel the trip for fear of ambush, Yamamoto's two Mitsubishi G4M bombers, used as fast transport aircraft without bombs, left Rabaul as scheduled for the trip. Sixteen P-38s intercepted the flight over Bougainville, and a dogfight ensued between them and the six escorting Mitsubishi A6M Zeroes. First Lieutenant Rex T. Barber engaged the first of the two Japanese transports, which turned out to be "T1-323" (Yamamoto's aircraft). He fired on the aircraft until it began to spew smoke from its left engine. Barber turned away to attack the other transport as Yamamoto's plane crashed into the jungle.


title: Isoroku Yamamoto

text: Yamamoto's body, along with the crash site, was found the next day in the jungle of the island of Bougainville by a Japanese search-and-rescue party, led by army engineer Lieutenant Tsuyoshi Hamasuna. According to Hamasuna, Yamamoto had been thrown clear of the plane's wreckage, his white-gloved hand grasping the hilt of his katana, still upright in his seat under a tree. Hamasuna said Yamamoto was instantly recognizable, head dipped down as if deep in thought. A post-mortem disclosed that Yamamoto had received two .50-caliber bullet wounds, one to the back of his left shoulder and another to the left side of his lower jaw that exited above his right eye. The Japanese navy doctor examining the body determined that the head wound had killed Yamamoto. The more violent details of Yamamoto's death were hidden from the Japanese public. The medical report was changed "on orders from above", according to biographer Hiroyuki Agawa.


title: Isoroku Yamamoto

text: Yamamoto's staff cremated his remains at Buin, Papua New Guinea, and his ashes were returned to Tokyo aboard the battleship , his last flagship. He was given a full state funeral on June 5, 1943, where he received, posthumously, the title of Marshal Admiral and was awarded the Order of the Chrysanthemum (1st Class). He was also awarded Nazi Germany's Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross with Oak Leaves and Swords. Some of his ashes were buried in the public Tama Cemetery, Tokyo (多摩霊園) and the remainder at his ancestral burial grounds at the temple of Chuko-ji in Nagaoka City. He was succeeded as commander-in-chief of the Combined Fleet by Admiral Mineichi Koga.


title: Isoroku Yamamoto

text: In the years following Admiral Yamamoto's death, debate has arisen regarding whether he was assassinated rather than legally killed. Colonel Hays Parks, one of the U.S. government's foremost legal experts, wrote in his "Memorandum of Law: Executive Order 12333 and Assassination" that Admiral Yamamoto was killed because of his status as an enemy combatant in compliance with the applicable laws of war. Parks wrote that "enemy combatants are legitimate targets at all times, regardless of their duties or activities at the time of their attack. Such attacks do not constitute assassination unless carried out in a 'treacherous' manner, as prohibited by article 23(b) of the Annex to the Hague Regulations (Hague Convention IV) of 1907."


title: Isoroku Yamamoto

text: Yamamoto practiced calligraphy. He and his wife, Reiko, had four children: two sons and two daughters. Yamamoto was an avid gambler, enjoying "Go", "shogi", billiards, bridge, mahjong, poker, and other games that tested his wits and sharpened his mind. He frequently made jokes about moving to Monaco and starting his own casino.


title: Isoroku Yamamoto

text: He enjoyed the company of "geisha", and his wife Reiko revealed to the Japanese public in 1954 that Yamamoto was closer to his favorite "geisha" Kawai Chiyoko than to her, which stirred some controversy. His funeral procession passed by Kawai's quarters on the way to the cemetery. Yamamoto was close friends with Teikichi Hori, a Navy admiral and Yamamoto's classmate from the Imperial Japanese Naval Academy who was purged from the Navy for supporting the Washington Naval Treaty. Before and during the war Yamamoto frequently corresponded with Hori, these personal letters would become the subject of the NHK documentary "The Truth of Yamamoto".


title: Isoroku Yamamoto

text: The claim that Yamamoto was a Catholic is likely due to confusion with retired Admiral Shinjiro Stefano Yamamoto, who was a decade older than Isoroku, and died in 1942.


title: Isoroku Yamamoto

text: Since the end of the Second World War, a number of Japanese and American films have depicted the character of Isoroku Yamamoto.


title: Isoroku Yamamoto

text: One of the most notable films is the 1970 movie "Tora! Tora! Tora!", which stars Japanese actor Sô Yamamura as Yamamoto, who states after the attack on Pearl Harbor:


title: Isoroku Yamamoto

text: The first film to feature Yamamoto was Toho's 1953 film "", (later released in the United States as "Eagle of the Pacific"), in which Yamamoto was portrayed by Denjirô Ôkôchi.


title: Isoroku Yamamoto

text: The 1960 film "The Gallant Hours" depicts the battle of wits between Vice-Admiral William Halsey, Jr. and Yamamoto from the start of the Guadalcanal Campaign in August 1942 to Yamamoto's death in April 1943. The film, however, portrays Yamamoto's death as occurring in November 1942, the day after the Naval Battle of Guadalcanal, and the P-38 aircraft that killed him as coming from Guadalcanal.


title: Isoroku Yamamoto

text: In Daiei Studios's 1969 film "Aa, kaigun" (later released in the United States as "Gateway to Glory"), Yamamoto was portrayed by Shôgo Shimada.


title: Isoroku Yamamoto

text: Professional wrestler Harold Watanabe adopted the villainous Japanese gimmick of Tojo Yamamoto in reference to both Yamamoto and Hideki Tojo.


title: Isoroku Yamamoto

text: Award-winning Japanese actor Toshiro Mifune (star of "The Seven Samurai") portrayed Yamamoto in three films:


title: Isoroku Yamamoto

text: A fictionalized version of Yamamoto's death was portrayed in the "Baa Baa Black Sheep" episode "The Hawk Flies on Sunday", though only photos of Yamamoto were shown. In this episode, set much later in the war than in real life, the Black Sheep, a Marine Corsair squadron, joins an army squadron of P-51 Mustangs. The Marines intercepted fighter cover while the army shot down Yamamoto.


title: Isoroku Yamamoto

text: In Shūe Matsubayashi's 1981 film "" (lit. "Combined Fleet", later released in the United States as "The Imperial Navy"), Yamamoto was portrayed by Keiju Kobayashi.


title: Isoroku Yamamoto

text: In the 1993 OVA series "Konpeki no Kantai" (lit. "Deep Blue Fleet"), instead of dying in the plane crash, Yamamoto blacks out and suddenly wakes up as his younger self, Isoroku Takano, after the Battle of Tsushima in 1905. His memory from the original timeline intact, Yamamoto uses his knowledge of the future to help Japan become a stronger military power, eventually launching a "coup d'état" against Hideki Tōjō's government. In the subsequent Pacific War, Japan's technologically advanced navy decisively defeats the United States, and grants all of the former European and American colonies in Asia full independence. Later on, Yamamoto convinces Japan to join forces with the United States and Britain to defeat Nazi Germany. The series was criticized outside Japan as a whitewash of Imperial Japan’s intentions towards its neighbors, and distancing itself from the wartime alliance with Nazi Germany.


title: Isoroku Yamamoto

text: In Neal Stephenson's 1999 book "Cryptonomicon", Yamamoto's final moments are depicted, with him realizing that Japan's naval codes have been broken and that he must inform headquarters.


title: Isoroku Yamamoto

text: In the 2001 film "Pearl Harbor", Yamamoto was portrayed by Oscar-nominated Japanese-born American actor Mako Iwamatsu. Like "Tora! Tora! Tora!", this film also features a version of the sleeping giant quote.


title: Isoroku Yamamoto

text: In the 2004 anime series "Zipang", Yamamoto (voiced by ) works to develop the uneasy partnership with the crew of the JMSDF "Mirai", which has been transported back sixty years through time to the year 1942.


title: Isoroku Yamamoto

text: In the Axis of Time trilogy by author John Birmingham, after a naval task force from the year 2021 is accidentally transported back through time to 1942, Yamamoto assumes a leadership role in the dramatic alteration of Japan's war strategy.


title: Isoroku Yamamoto

text: In "The West Wing" episode "We Killed Yamamoto", the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff uses the killing of Yamamoto to advocate for an assassination.


title: Isoroku Yamamoto

text: In Douglas Niles' 2007 book "MacArthur's War: A Novel of the Invasion of Japan" (written with Michael Dobson), which focuses on General Douglas MacArthur and an alternate history of the Pacific War (following a considerably different outcome of the Battle of Midway), Yamamoto is portrayed sympathetically, with much of the action in the Japanese government seen through his eyes, though he could not change the major decisions of Japan in World War II.


title: Isoroku Yamamoto

text: In Toei's 2011 war film "" (Blu-Ray titles:- English "The Admiral"; German "Der Admiral"), Yamamoto was portrayed by Kōji Yakusho. The film portrays his career from Pearl Harbor to his death in Operation Vengeance.


title: Isoroku Yamamoto

text: In Robert Conroy's 2011 book "Rising Sun", Yamamoto directs the IJN to launch a series of attacks on the American West Coast, in the hope the United States can be convinced to sue for peace and securing Japan's place as a world power; but cannot escape his lingering fear the war will ultimately doom Japan.


title: Medina

text: Medina, officially Al Madinah Al Munawwarah (, ) and also commonly simplified as Madīnah or Madinah (, ), is the second-holiest city in Islam, and the capital of the Medina Province of Saudi Arabia. , the estimated population of the city is 1,488,782, making it the fourth-most populous city in the country. Located at the core of the Medina Province in the western reaches of the country, the city is distributed over , of which constitutes the city's urban area, while the rest is occupied by the Hejaz Mountains, empty valleys, agricultural spaces and older dormant volcanoes.


title: Medina

text: Medina is generally considered to be the "cradle of Islamic culture and civilization". The city is considered to be the second-holiest of three key cities in Islamic tradition, with Mecca and Jerusalem serving as the holiest and third-holiest cities respectively. "Al-Masjid al-Nabawi" () is of exceptional importance in Islam and serves as burial site of the last Islamic prophet, Muhammad, by whom the mosque was built in 622 CE. Observant Muslims usually visit his tomb, or "rawdhah", at least once in their lifetime during a pilgrimage known as Ziyarat, although this is not obligatory. The original name of the city before the advent of Islam was Yathrib (; ), and it is referred to by this name in Chapter 33 ("Al-Aḥzāb", ) of the Quran. It was renamed to ' () after Muhammad's death and later to ' () before being simplified and shortened to its modern name, ' (), from which the English-language spelling of "Medina" is derived. Saudi road signage uses ' and "" interchangeably.


title: Medina

text: The city existed for over 1,500 years before Muhammad's migration from Mecca, known as the Hijrah. Medina was the capital of a rapidly-increasing Muslim caliphate under Muhammad's leadership, serving as its base of operations and as the cradle of Islam, where Muhammad's "Ummah" ()—composed of Medinan citizens ("Ansar") as well as those who immigrated with Muhammad ("Muhajirun"), who were collectively known as the "Sahabah"—gained huge influence. Medina is home to three prominent mosques, namely al-Masjid an-Nabawi, Masjid Qubaʽa, and Masjid al-Qiblatayn, with the Masjid Quba'a being the oldest in Islam. A larger portion of the Qur'an was revealed in Medina in contrast to the earlier Meccan surahs.


title: Medina

text: Much like most of the Hejaz, Medina has seen numerous exchanges of power within its comparatively short existence. The region has been controlled by Jewish-Arabian tribes (up until the 5th century CE), the ʽAws and Khazraj (up until Muhammad's arrival), Muhammad and the Rashidun (622–660), the Umayyads (660–749), the Abbasids (749–1254), the Mamluks of Egypt (1254–1517), the Ottomans (1517–1805), the First Saudi State (1805–1811), Muhammad Ali Pasha (1811–1840), the Ottomans for a second time (1840–1918), the Sharifate of Mecca under the Hashemites (1918–1925) and finally is in the hands of the present-day Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (1925–present).


title: Medina

text: In addition to visiting for Ziyarah, tourists come to visit the other prominent mosques and landmarks in the city that hold religious significance such as Mount Uhud, Al-Baqiʽ cemetery and the Seven Mosques among others. Recently, after the Saudi conquest of Hejaz.


title: Medina

text: Medina is home to several distinguished sites and landmarks, most of which are mosques and hold historic significance. These include the three aforementioned mosques, Masjid al-Fath (also known as Masjid al-Khandaq), the Seven Mosques, the Baqi' Cemetery where the graves of many famous Islamic figures are presumed to be located; directly to the southeast of the Prophet's Mosque, the Uhud mountain, site of the eponymous Battle of Uhud and the King Fahd Glorious Qur'an Printing Complex where most modern Qur'anic Mus'hafs are printed.


title: Medina

text: Before the advent of Islam, the city was known as Yathrib (; ), supposedly named after an Amalekite king, Yathrib Mahlaeil. The word "Yathrib" appears in an inscription found in Harran, belonging to the Babylonian king Nabonidus (6th century BCE) and is well asserted in several texts in the subsequent centuries. The name has also been recorded in Āyah (verse) 13 of Surah (chapter) 33 of the Qur'an. and is thus known to have been the name of the city up to the Battle of the Trench. According to Islamic tradition, Muhammad later forbade calling the city by this name.


title: Medina

text: Sometime after the battle, Muhammad renamed the city "Taybah" (the Kind or the Good) (; ) and "Tabah" () which is of similar meaning. This name is also used to refer to the city in the popular folk song, ""Ya Taybah!"" (O Taybah!). The two names are combined in another name the city is known by, "Taybat at-Tabah" (the Kindest of the Kind).


title: Medina

text: The city has also simply been called Al-Madinah (i.e. 'The City') in some "ahadith""." The names "" () and "Madīnat un-Nabī" (both meaning "City of the Prophet" or "The Prophet's City") and "al-Madīnat ul-Munawwarah" ("The Enlightened City") are all derivatives of this word. This is also the most commonly accepted modern name of the city, used in official documents and road signage, along with Madinah.


title: Medina

text: Medina has been inhabited at least 1500 years before the Hijra, or approximately the 9th century BCE. By the fourth century CE, Arab tribes began to encroach from Yemen, and there were three prominent Jewish tribes that inhabited the city around the time of Muhammad: the Banu Qaynuqa, the Banu Qurayza, and Banu Nadir. Ibn Khordadbeh later reported that during the Persian Empire's domination in Hejaz, the Banu Qurayza served as tax collectors for the Persian Shah.


title: Medina

text: The situation changed after the arrival of two new Arab tribes, the 'Aws or Banu 'Aws and the Khazraj, also known as the Banu Khazraj. At first, these tribes were allied with the Jewish tribes who ruled the region, but later revolted and became independent.


title: Medina

text: Toward the end of the 5th century, the Jewish rulers lost control of the city to the two Arab tribes. The Jewish Encyclopedia states that "by calling in outside assistance and treacherously massacring at a banquet the principal Jews", Banu Aus and Banu Khazraj finally gained the upper hand at Medina.


title: Medina

text: Most modern historians accept the claim of the Muslim sources that after the revolt, the Jewish tribes became clients of the 'Aws and the Khazraj. However, according to Scottish scholar, William Montgomery Watt, the clientship of the Jewish tribes is not borne out by the historical accounts of the period prior to 627, and he maintained that the Jewish populace retained a measure of political independence.


title: Medina

text: Early Muslim chronicler Ibn Ishaq tells of an ancient conflict between the last Yemenite king of the Himyarite Kingdom and the residents of Yathrib. When the king was passing by the oasis, the residents killed his son, and the Yemenite ruler threatened to exterminate the people and cut down the palms. According to Ibn Ishaq, he was stopped from doing so by two rabbis from the Banu Qurayza tribe, who implored the king to spare the oasis because it was the place "to which a prophet of the Quraysh would migrate in time to come, and it would be his home and resting-place." The Yemenite king thus did not destroy the town and converted to Judaism. He took the rabbis with him, and in Mecca, they reportedly recognized the Ka'bah as a temple built by Abraham and advised the king "to do what the people of Mecca did: to circumambulate the temple, to venerate and honor it, to shave his head and to behave with all humility until he had left its precincts." On approaching Yemen, tells Ibn Ishaq, the rabbis demonstrated to the local people a miracle by coming out of a fire unscathed and the Yemenites accepted Judaism.