title: USL Championship

text: The league also announced in 2015 that the league would be divided into two conferences. Teams would play a 28-game schedule with 22 games against all the teams in their conference, and the teams would be further assigned to four-club subdivisions for the other six games with an eye towards geographic rivalries between clubs.


title: USL Championship

text: On February 10, 2015, United Soccer Leagues announced a branding change for the league. It would now be called the United Soccer League or "USL" for short. They introduced a new logo and branding, and stated their intention to apply for Division II status within the United States Soccer Federation hierarchy.


title: USL Championship

text: During the 2015 season, USL announced several expansion teams for the 2016 season. The 25th franchise was awarded to Lone Star, LLC and the team would be named Rio Grande Valley FC. In a first for the USL, the team has a "hybrid" affiliation with the Houston Dynamo, who are responsible for the tactical part of the club, while the ownership group, Lone Star, is responsible for operations and management. FC Cincinnati was added as the 26th franchise and Bethlehem Steel FC, in the Lehigh Valley area and owned by the Philadelphia Union, became the 27th, Orlando City B (owned by Orlando City SC) as the 29th, the Swope Park Rangers (owned by Sporting Kansas City) as the 30th, and San Antonio FC as the 31st.


title: USL Championship

text: The Austin Aztex announced that they would go on hiatus for the 2016 USL season on October 2, 2015. Floods damaging House Park midway through the 2015 season forced the team to relocate to a high school facility. The team was intended to return in 2017, pending construction of a new, soccer-specific stadium. However, stadium and ownership issues continued to plague the franchise, and they did not return.


title: USL Championship

text: Expansion continued for the 2017 season with Reno 1868 FC, which had been announced during the 2015 season as the 28th franchise, starting play. On October 25, 2016, the USL added two teams from the North American Soccer League (NASL): the Tampa Bay Rowdies and Ottawa Fury FC. This was the first time a club moved from the NASL to the USL. The Montreal Impact also announced that it would fold its USL team, FC Montreal, in favor of affiliating with Ottawa Fury FC.


title: USL Championship

text: On August 31, 2016, Kyle Eng sold his majority share of Arizona United SC to an investment group led by Berke Bakay and was rebranded as Phoenix Rising FC. Ivory Coast Soccer Legend Didier Drogba later purchased a share of the team and played the final two seasons of his career there.


title: USL Championship

text: On January 6, 2017, the U.S. Soccer board of directors voted to grant provisional Division II status to the USL for the 2017 season, placing the league on the same tier as the North American Soccer League. The NASL was also downgraded from Division II sanctioning to a provisional status due to its membership decreasing below the 12 team minimum. Following the 2017 season, the USL gained two more NASL teams: Indy Eleven and North Carolina FC. For the 2018 season, the NASL's provisional sanctioning was not renewed by U.S. Soccer, while the USL was granted full sanctioning under Division II on a year-to-year basis. The NASL sued U.S. Soccer, asking a court to order U.S. Soccer to grant NASL Division II status, but the request was denied by the trial court, and denied again by the appeals court.


title: USL Championship

text: The USL's expansion efforts continued in the 2018 season with the additions of Nashville SC, Las Vegas Lights FC, Fresno FC (affiliated with the Vancouver Whitecaps FC) and Atlanta United 2 (owned by Atlanta United FC). The league also lost Orlando City B and the Rochester Rhinos, which each announced a hiatus, while the Whitecaps FC 2 were folded after its parent team in Vancouver decided to no longer run its own development team and affiliated with the new Fresno expansion.


title: USL Championship

text: Four teams left the USL top flight after the 2018 season. The ownership group of FC Cincinnati was awarded an MLS franchise that started play under the FC Cincinnati name in 2019. Penn FC, the Richmond Kickers, and Toronto FC II voluntarily dropped to USL League One, a new third-level league that United Soccer Leagues launched in 2019. The Kickers and Toronto FC II began League One play in 2019; Penn FC suspended professional operations for 2019 and will resume play in League One in 2020. In addition, the announced hiatuses for both the Rhinos and Orlando City B became permanent departures. The Rhinos originally announced they would extend their hiatus through 2019 before resuming play in League One in 2020, but ended up not resuming play until 2022, by which time the club had changed its name to Rochester New York FC and joined the new third-level MLS Next Pro. Orlando City B resumed play in 2019 in League One.


title: USL Championship

text: The league also approved several other expansion locations in Austin, Birmingham, Memphis, Chicago, Oakland East Bay, Hartford, Albuquerque, El Paso, Loudoun County, Virginia, and San Diego. All of these teams began play in 2019 except for San Diego, which began play in the 2020 season; Chicago and East Bay were both announced to launch by 2021, but were indefinitely put on hold when they had issues in securing stadium plans.


title: USL Championship

text: Following the end of the 2019 season, three teams left the USL Championship. Nashville SC was awarded a Major League Soccer franchise, Fresno FC announced that they would not be returning to Fresno, and Ottawa Fury FC announced that they would be suspending operations after not receiving sanctioning to remain in USL by CONCACAF and U.S. Soccer. An expansion team was announced for the New York City borough of Queens to be named Queensboro FC. On December 11, the Ottawa Fury announced the sale of its franchise rights to the ownership group of Miami FC, with Miami set to participate in the 2020 USL Championship season. This marked the entrance of another former NASL team into the league, with Miami having previously spent time in NPSL and the National Independent Soccer Association (NISA) after the NASL folded.


title: USL Championship

text: Saint Louis FC folded at the end of the 2020 season. The city is set to receive an MLS franchise, with St. Louis City SC set to start play in 2023. A spokesperson for SLFC told "Sports Illustrated" in August of that year, "The ownership decided that with the financial impact of COVID-19 and MLS on the horizon, it didn’t make sense to continue operations." Also at the end of the 2020 season, two MLS clubs, the Philadelphia Union and Portland Timbers, withdrew their reserve sides, Philadelphia Union II and Portland Timbers 2, from the United Soccer League system. The proposed East Bay club's bid had faltered due to stadium issues and its USL franchise rights were purchased by Oakland Roots SC, which had previously played in the NISA, with plans to debut in the USLC for the 2021 season. On November 6, 2020, Reno 1868 FC announced it was ceasing operations as a result of the financial and operational impacts of COVID-19. On January 10, 2021, North Carolina FC club chairman Stephen Malik announced that the club would make a "strategic move" to USL League One.


title: USL Championship

text: On February 1, 2021, Monterey Bay FC joined the USL Championship. Monterey Bay FC is a continuation of the USL Championship's Fresno FC franchise. Fresno FC, the original club owned by Ray Beshoff, ceased operations after the 2019 season because he was unable to secure construction of a soccer-specific stadium. Beshoff, however, retained the franchise rights and managed to land the franchise to play their home matches at Cardinale Stadium on the campus of California State University, Monterey Bay in Seaside, California. On November 13, 2021, it was announced that Detroit City would join the USL Championship for the 2022 USL Championship season, becoming the third NISA team to join the league after Miami FC and Oakland Roots SC. On December 2, 2021, Charlotte Independence decided to drop down to the third tier USL League One for 2022, with the goal of better serving its youth players, as well as the fact that a new expansion franchise in the city Charlotte FC was joining Major League Soccer that season, with whom several Independence players had signed for. On December 3, 2021, Oklahoma City Energy FC announced that it will temporarily suspend soccer operations and will not compete in the 2022 USL Championship season. The decision comes after Energy FC's home field at Taft Stadium, which is owned and operated by the Oklahoma City Public Schools, will undergo major renovations that directly overlap with the 2022 USL Championship season and will resume play for the 2023 USL Championship season in its temporary home at Taft Stadium. On December 6, 2021, Major League Soccer announced MLS Next Pro – a Division III league that will begin play in 2022. All MLS clubs with reserve teams in USL Championship or USL League One will be moving to MLS Next Pro by 2023. On December 10, 2021, the USL Championship has approved a new ownership group for USL Championship club Austin Bold FC. The new ownership group consists of Donnie Nelson, Neil Leibman, and Bobby Epstein. The team will not participate in the 2022 USL Championship season as it actively seeks relocation to another city in Texas.


title: USL Championship

text: On January 27, 2022, the USL officially awarded USL Pro Iowa an expansion team to be based in Des Moines, Iowa, that would join the league in the 2024 season. The team's majority owner is Kyle Krause, who has been the majority owner of USL League 2 side Des Moines Menace since 1998. On July 14, 2022, the USL announced a group that intended to bring USL Championship and Super League teams to New Orleans, Louisiana, with a goal for the Championship side to kick off by 2025. On August 12, 2022, ground was broken in Pawtucket, Rhode Island, on a stadium intended for a USL Championship expansion side that will begin play in 2024 when the stadium is completed. On August 30, 2022, the USL announced that a group of investors had formed to bring USL Championship and USL Super League expansion teams to Jacksonville, Florida, with the goal for the Championship side to kick off in 2025. On October 19, 2022, the USL awarded an expansion team to USL Milwaukee, set to begin play in 2025 with plans to build an 8,000-seat stadium in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.


title: USL Championship

text: ‡ Puerto Rico clubs Puerto Rico United, River Plate Puerto Rico, and Sevilla Puerto Rico began play in the league, but in May 2011 United Soccer Leagues announced that the teams would not finish the season due to financial difficulties.


title: USL Championship

text: USL Pro's scheduling format changed for the 2015 season to accommodate the expansion that took place during the 2014–2015 off-season, and the league's resulting need to divide teams into conferences – which eliminated the single table.


title: USL Championship

text: All teams played 28 regular-season matches stretching from March to September. This included a 22-game, double-round-robin schedule that pitted each team against all its conference opponents at home and on the road. The remaining six fixtures were played against regional rivals, which lead to some inter-conference regular season matches. The top six finishers in each conference went through to the October playoffs, which continued as a series of single-game knockout rounds. After three rounds of intra-conference play, the two conference champions met in the championship match, to be hosted by the team with the better regular-season record. For 2016 season the season was extended to 30 games.


title: USL Championship

text: Starting with the 2019 season, teams will play regular-season games only within their conference. Each team will play a home-and-home schedule within its conference, resulting in a 34-game schedule. The top 10 teams from each conference will qualify for the playoffs, which will continue to be held with separate brackets for each conference and conducted entirely as one-off knockout matches. The opening round, which the league calls the "play-in round", sees the bottom four teams in action, with the 7 seed hosting the 10 seed and 8 hosting 9. The survivors join the top six sides from their respective conferences, with the lowest remaining seed visiting the 1 seed and the other play-in survivor visiting the 2 seed. All matches through the conference finals will be hosted by the higher seed. The USL Cup will be the season's only match that involves teams from different conferences; it will be hosted by the conference champion with the better regular-season record.


title: USL Championship

text: The USL has been partnered with ESPN since the 2016 season. The first iteration of the deal brought 20 matches to ESPN3 and the championship match to one of its linear networks, while all remaining matches were broadcast directly by the league on its YouTube channel.


title: USL Championship

text: Beginning with the launch of ESPN+ on April 12, 2018, all USL matches moved to the over-the-top service, with 18 games of the week and the championship continuing to air on one of ESPN's linear channels. The 2019 final will also air on ESPN Deportes. The deal with ESPN expired after the 2019 season, but was subsequently renewed for three additional seasons. Although the ESPN+ match streams are not blacked out in-market, individual clubs are also allowed to syndicate the USL-produced broadcast to local television stations.


title: USL Championship

text: The English-language commentary team for the USL Championship on ESPN has included Mike Watts and Devon Kerr since 2018. Watts and Kerr also host a weekly program, "USL All-Access" on Sirius XM FC. Broadcasts on ESPN Deportes have been led by Jesús Eduardo Acosta and José Armando Rodriguez.


title: USL Championship

text: In August 2020, the USL announced their first international broadcast partner with Caribbean broadcaster Flow Sports.


title: USL Championship

text: FC Cincinnati played before a record crowd of 20,497 at Nippert Stadium on April 16, 2016, in a rivalry match against neighboring Louisville City FC. This broke the USL Pro's previous record for attendance at a regular-season match of 20,231 set by Sacramento Republic in its home debut on April 26, 2014, at Hughes Stadium. Cincinnati broke the record again on May 14, 2016, with a new all-time high of 23,375. Cincinnati broke the single game attendance record again on October 2, 2016, in their first ever playoff match against the Charleston Battery, losing 2–1 in the quarterfinals of the 2016 USL playoffs. The attendance of 30,187 also set the USL playoff record. Cincinnati broke the all time regular season record again on August 5, 2017, at Nippert Stadium, drawing 25,308 versus Orlando City B. They broke their own record again about six weeks later drawing 30,417 to a 4–2 win over the New York Red Bulls II. Cincinnati broke the record once more in their final home regular season game as a USL team on September 29, 2018, drawing 31,478 versus Indy Eleven


title: Elijah Muhammad

text: Elijah Muhammad (born Elijah Robert Poole; October 7, 1897 – February 25, 1975) was an African American religious leader, black separatist, and self-proclaimed Messenger of Allah, who led the Nation of Islam (NOI) from 1934 until his death in 1975. Muhammad was also the teacher and mentor of Malcolm X, Louis Farrakhan, Muhammad Ali, and his own son, Warith Deen Mohammed.


title: Elijah Muhammad

text: In the 1930s, Muhammad established the Nation of Islam, a religious movement that promoted black pride, economic empowerment, and separation of black and white Americans. His ideas were strongly influenced by Wallace Fard Muhammad, who was the founder of the NOI. After Fard's disappearance in 1934, Muhammad led the NOI and saw it grow from a small, struggling organization to a large movement. He was unique in his embrace of both black nationalism and pan-Africanism, as well as traditional Islamic themes.


title: Elijah Muhammad

text: During Muhammad's tenure, membership in the NOI rose dramatically, going from a mere handful of mosques to over sixty by the end of the decade. Muhammad's teachings promoted black self-sufficiency and self-reliance over integration, and he encouraged African Americans to return to their African homeland. Muhammad also rejected the civil rights movement for its emphasis on integration, instead promoting a separate black community.


title: Elijah Muhammad

text: Muhammad's controversial views on race and his call for black separatism made him a controversial figure, both within and outside the Nation of Islam. In the 1950s and 1960s, he was accused of promoting racism and antisemitism. He was also accused of being a black supremacist and encouraging violence against whites and police. In 1963, Muhammad was convicted of violating the United States' civil rights laws for ordering his followers to cross state lines to attack black civil rights activists in 1961. He was sentenced to ten years in prison, but served only a short time before being freed on appeal. He continued to head the NOI while in prison.


title: Elijah Muhammad

text: Muhammad died on February 25, 1975 after a period of declining health. He was succeeded as head of the NOI by his deputy, Wallace Muhammad, who renamed the organization as the World Community of al-Islam in the West. Wallace Muhammad later changed his name as part of his own transition to Sunni Islam (or "orthodox Islam") and is now known as Imam Warith Deen Mohammed.


title: Elijah Muhammad

text: Elijah Muhammad's legacy continues to be controversial. He has been variously described as a black nationalist, a black supremacist, and a religious leader who fought for the rights of African Americans. His ideas and teachings have been credited with inspiring the Nation of Islam, black pride, and black self-reliance, while also being criticized for promoting antisemitism and racism.


title: Elijah Muhammad

text: Elijah Muhammad was born Elijah Robert Poole in Sandersville, Georgia, the seventh of thirteen children of William Poole Sr. (1868–1942), a Baptist lay preacher and sharecropper, and Mariah Hall (1873–1958), a homemaker and sharecropper.


title: Elijah Muhammad

text: Elijah's education ended at the fourth grade, after which he went to work in sawmills and brickyards. To support the family, he worked with his parents as a sharecropper. When he was sixteen years old, he left home and began working in factories and at other businesses.


title: Elijah Muhammad

text: Elijah married Clara Evans (1899–1972) on March 7, 1917. In 1923, the Poole family was among hundreds of thousands of black families forming the First Great Migration leaving the oppressive and economically troubled South in search of safety and employment. Elijah later recounted that before the age of 20, he had witnessed the lynchings of three black men by white people. He said, "I seen enough of the white man's brutality to last me 26,000 years".


title: Elijah Muhammad

text: Moving his own family, parents and siblings, Elijah and the Pooles settled in the industrial north of Hamtramck, Michigan. Through the 1920s and 1930s, he struggled to find and keep work as the economy suffered during the post World War I and Great Depression eras. During their years in Detroit, Elijah and Clara had eight children, six boys and two girls.


title: Elijah Muhammad

text: While he was in Detroit, Poole began taking part in various black nationalist movements within the city. In August 1931, at the urging of his wife, Elijah Poole attended a speech on Islam and black empowerment by Wallace Fard Muhammad (Wallace D. Fard). Afterward, Poole said he approached Fard and asked if he was the "Mahdi" (redeemer), Fard responded that he was, but that his time had not yet come. Fard taught that black people, as original Asiatics, had a rich cultural history which was stolen from them in their enslavement. Fard stated that African Americans could regain their freedoms through self-independence and cultivation of their own culture and civilization.


title: Elijah Muhammad

text: Poole, having strong consciousness of both race and class issues as a result of his struggles in the South, quickly fell in step with Fard's ideology. Poole soon became an ardent follower of Fard and joined his movement, as did his wife and several brothers. Soon afterward, Poole was given a Muslim surname, first "Karriem", and later, at Fard's behest, "Muhammad". He assumed leadership of the Nation's Temple No. 2 in Chicago. His younger brother Kalot Muhammad became the leader of the movement's self-defense arm, the Fruit of Islam.


title: Elijah Muhammad

text: Fard turned over leadership of the growing Detroit group to Elijah Muhammad, and the Allah Temple of Islam changed its name to the Nation of Islam. Elijah Muhammad and Wallace Fard continued to communicate until 1934, when Wallace Fard disappeared. Elijah Muhammad succeeded him in Detroit and was named "Minister of Islam". After the disappearance, Elijah Muhammad told followers that Allah had come as Wallace Fard, in the flesh, to share his teachings that are a salvation for his followers.


title: Elijah Muhammad

text: In 1934, the Nation of Islam published its first newspaper, "Final Call to Islam", to educate and build membership. Children of its members attended classes at the newly created Muhammad University of Islam, but this soon led to challenges by boards of education in Detroit and Chicago, which considered the children truants from the public school system. The controversy led to the jailing of several University of Islam board members and Elijah Muhammad in 1934 and to violent confrontations with police. Elijah was put on probation, but the university remained open.


title: Elijah Muhammad

text: Elijah Muhammad took control of Temple No. 1, but only after battles with other potential leaders, including his brother. In 1935, as these battles became increasingly fierce, Elijah left Detroit and settled his family in Chicago. Still facing death threats, Elijah left his family there and traveled to Milwaukee, Wisconsin, where he founded Temple No. 3, and eventually to Washington, D.C., where he founded Temple No. 4. He spent much of his time reading 104 books suggested by Wallace Fard at the Library of Congress.


title: Elijah Muhammad

text: On May 8, 1942, Elijah Muhammad was arrested for failure to register for the draft during World War II. After he was released on bail, Muhammad fled Washington D.C. on the advice of his attorney, who feared a lynching, and returned to Chicago after a seven-year absence. Muhammad was arrested there, charged with eight counts of sedition for instructing his followers to not register for the draft or serve in the armed forces. Found guilty, Elijah Muhammad served four years, from 1942 to 1946, at the Federal Correctional Institution in Milan, Michigan. During that time, his wife, Clara, and trusted aides ran the organization; Muhammad transmitted his messages and directives to followers in letters.


title: Elijah Muhammad

text: Following his return to Chicago, Elijah Muhammad was firmly in charge of the Nation of Islam. While Muhammad was in prison, the growth of the Nation of Islam had stagnated, with fewer than 400 members remaining by the time of his release in 1946. However, through the conversion of his fellow inmates as well as renewed efforts outside prison, he was able to redouble his efforts and continue growing the Nation.


title: Elijah Muhammad

text: Muhammad preached his own version of Islam to his followers in the Nation. According to him, blacks were known as the "original" human beings, with "evil" whites being an offshoot race that would go on to oppress black people for 6,000 years. The origins of the white race would come to be known as Yacub's History within Elijah Muhammad's teachings. In "The Autobiography of Malcolm X", Malcolm X talks about when he first encounters this doctrine, though he would later come to regret that he ever believed in it.


title: Elijah Muhammad

text: He preached that the Nation of Islam's goal was to return the stolen hegemony of the inferior whites back to blacks across America. Much of Elijah Muhammad's teachings appealed to young, economically disadvantaged, African-American males from Christian backgrounds. Traditionally, black males would not go to church because the church did not address their needs. Elijah Muhammad's program for economic development played a large part in the growth in the Nation of Islam. He purchased land and businesses to provide housing and employment for young black males.


title: Elijah Muhammad

text: By the 1970s, the Nation of Islam owned bakeries, barber shops, coffee shops, grocery stores, laundromats, night-clubs, a printing plant, retail stores, numerous real estate holdings, and a fleet of tractor trailers, plus farmland in Michigan, Alabama, and Georgia. In 1972 the Nation of Islam took controlling interest in a bank, the Guaranty Bank and Trust Co. Nation of Islam-owned schools expanded until, by 1974, the group had established schools in 47 cities throughout the United States. In 1972, Muhammad told followers that the Nation of Islam had a net worth of $75 million.


title: Elijah Muhammad

text: On January 30, 1975, Muhammad entered Mercy Hospital in Chicago, Illinois, suffering from a combination of heart disease, diabetes, bronchitis, and asthma. He died there of congestive heart failure nearly one month later at age 77 on February 25, 1975, the day before Saviours' Day. He was survived by many children, including his two daughters and six sons by his wife, most notably future leader Warith Deen Muhammad.


title: Elijah Muhammad

text: During his time as leader of the Nation of Islam, Muhammad had developed the Nation of Islam from a small movement in Detroit to an empire consisting of banks, schools, restaurants, and stores across 46 cities in America. The Nation also owned over 15,000 acres of farmland, their own truck- and air- transport systems, as well as a publishing company that printed the country's largest black newspaper.


title: Elijah Muhammad

text: As a leader, Muhammad served as a mentor to many notable members, including Malcolm X, Muhammad Ali, Louis Farrakhan and his son Warith Deen Mohammed. The Nation of Islam is estimated to have between 20,000 and 50,000 members, and 130 mosques offering numerous social programs.


title: Elijah Muhammad

text: Upon his death, his son Warith Deen Mohammed succeeded him. Warith disbanded the Nation of Islam in 1976 and founded an orthodox mainstream Islamic organization, that came to be known as the American Society of Muslims. The organization would dissolve, change names and reorganize many times.


title: Elijah Muhammad

text: In 1977, Louis Farrakhan resigned from Warith Deen's reformed organization and reinstituted the original Nation of Islam upon the foundation established by Wallace Fard Muhammad and Elijah Muhammad. Farrakhan regained many of the Nation of Islam's original properties including the National Headquarters Mosque #2 (Mosque Maryam) and Muhammad University of Islam in Chicago.


title: Elijah Muhammad

text: Ernest 2X McGee was the first national secretary of the NOI and had been ousted in the late 1950s. McGee went on to form a Sunni Muslim sect and changed his name to Hamaas Abdul Khaalis. Khaalis attracted Lew Alcindor, whom Khaalis renamed Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. Jabbar donated a house for use as the Hanafi Madh-Hab Center. Khaalis sent letters that were critical of Muhammad and Fard to Muhammad, his ministers, and the media.


title: Elijah Muhammad

text: came along because it weaned them from Christianity to a fabricated form of Islam. Both, in his opinion, were bad. His letters also revealed what he knew of Fard, alleging he was John Walker of Gary who had come to America at 27 from Greece, had served prison time for stealing, and raping a 17-year-old girl, and had died in Chicago, Illinois at 78.


title: Elijah Muhammad

text: After the letters were sent, 7 of Khaalis' family members were murdered at the Hanafi Madh-Hab Center. Four men from NOI Mosque No. 12 were accused of the crime.


title: Elijah Muhammad

text: Rumors were circulating among Nation of Islam members that Elijah was conducting extramarital affairs with young Nation secretarieswhich would constitute a serious violation of Nation teachings. After first discounting the rumors, MalcolmX came to believe them after he spoke with Elijah's son Wallace and with the women making the accusations. Malcolm X publicly accused Elijah of "having 8 children with six different teenage girls" who "were his private secretaries." Elijah confirmed the rumors in 1963, attempting to justify his behavior by referring to precedents set by biblical prophets.


title: Elijah Muhammad

text: On December1, 1963, when asked for a comment about the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, MalcolmX said that it was a case of "chickens coming home to roost". He added that "chickens coming home to roost never did make me sad; they've always made me glad." "The New York Times" wrote, "in further criticism of Mr. Kennedy, the Muslim leader cited the murders of Patrice Lumumba, Congo leader, of Medgar Evers, civil rights leader, and of the Negro girls bombed earlier this year in a Birmingham, Alabama church. These, he said, were instances of other 'chickens coming home to roost'." The remarks prompted a widespread public outcry. The Nation of Islam, which had sent a message of condolence to the Kennedy family and ordered its ministers not to comment on the assassination, publicly censured their former shining star. MalcolmX retained his post and rank as minister, but was prohibited from public speaking for 90 days.


title: Elijah Muhammad

text: The extramarital affairs, the suspension, and other factors caused a rift between the two men, with MalcolmX leaving the Nation of Islam in March 1964 to form his own religious organization, Muslim Mosque Inc. After dealing with death threats and attempts on his life for a year, MalcolmX was assassinated on February21, 1965. Many people suspected that the Nation of Islam was responsible for the killing of Malcolm X. Five days after Malcolm X was murdered, in a public speech at the Nation of Islam's annual Saviours' Day on February 26, Elijah justified the assassination by quoting that "Malcolm got just what he preached", but at the same time denied any involvement with the murder by asserting in the same speech: "We didn't want to kill Malcolm and didn't try to kill him. We know such ignorant, foolish teaching would bring him to his own end."


title: Elijah Muhammad

text: Elijah's pro-separation views were compatible with those of some white supremacist organizations in the 1960s. He met with leaders of the Ku Klux Klan in 1961 to work toward the purchase of farmland in the Deep South. For more than ten years Elijah received major financial support from white supremacist Texas oil baron H. L. Hunt due to Elijah's belief in racial separation from whites. The money helped Elijah to acquire opulent homes for himself and his family and establish overseas bank accounts.


title: Elijah Muhammad

text: He eventually established Temple Farms, now Muhammad Farms, on a tract in Terrell County, Georgia. George Lincoln Rockwell, founder of the American Nazi Party, once called Elijah "the Hitler of the black man." At the 1962 Saviours' Day celebration in Chicago, Rockwell addressed Nation of Islam members. Many in the audience booed and heckled him and his men, for which Elijah rebuked them in the April 1962 issue of "Muhammad Speaks".


title: Elijah Muhammad

text: Elijah married Clara Muhammad in Georgia in 1917, with whom he had eight children. Elijah also fathered at least nine children from extra-marital relationships. In total, it is estimated that he had 23 children of which 21 are documented.


title: Elijah Muhammad

text: After Elijah's death, nineteen of his children filed lawsuits against the Nation of Islam's successor, the World Community of Islam, seeking status as heirs. Ultimately the court ruled against them.


title: Elijah Muhammad

text: In 2002, scholar Molefi Kete Asante listed Elijah Muhammad on his list of 100 Greatest African Americans.


title: Elijah Muhammad

text: Elijah Muhammad was portrayed by Al Freeman Jr. in Spike Lee's 1992 motion picture "Malcolm X". Albert Hall, who played the composite character "Baines" in "Malcolm X", later played Muhammad in Michael Mann's 2001 film, "Ali". He was also portrayed by Clifton Davis in the series "Godfather of Harlem".


title: FedEx

text: FedEx Corporation, formerly Federal Express Corporation and later FDX Corporation, is an American multinational conglomerate holding company focused on transportation, e-commerce and business services based in Memphis, Tennessee. The name "FedEx" is a syllabic abbreviation of the name of the company's original air division, Federal Express, which was used from 1973 until 2000. FedEx today is best known for its air delivery service, FedEx Express, which was one of the first major shipping companies to offer overnight delivery as a flagship service. Since then, FedEx also started FedEx Ground, FedEx Office (originally known as Kinko's), FedEx Supply Chain, FedEx Freight, and various other services across multiple subsidiaries, often meant to respond to its main competitor, UPS. FedEx is also one of the top contractors of the US government and assists in the transport of some United States Postal Service packages through their Air Cargo Network contract.


title: FedEx

text: FedEx's prominence in both the United States and the world have made it a common topic in popular culture, with examples including the film "Cast Away" as well as some of its marketing slogans (most famously ""when it absolutely positively has to be there overnight""). In addition, FedEx has purchased the naming rights to FedExField of the NFL's Washington Commanders and FedExForum of the NBA's Memphis Grizzlies. FedEx's air shipping services have made its main hub (aka the "Superhub") at Memphis International Airport the busiest cargo airport in the world by 2020.


title: FedEx

text: The company was founded in Little Rock, Arkansas in 1971 as Federal Express Corporation by Frederick W. Smith, a graduate of Yale University. He drew up the company's concept in a term paper at Yale, in which he called for a system specifically designed for urgent deliveries. While his professor didn't think much of the idea, Smith pressed on. He began formal operations in 1973, when he moved operations to Memphis. Smith said he chose Memphis International Airport for being near the mean population center of the country and for its placid weather.


title: FedEx

text: The company grew rapidly, and by 1983 had a billion dollars in revenues, a rarity for a startup company that had never taken part in mergers or acquisitions in its first decade. It expanded to Europe and Asia in 1984. In 1988, it acquired one of its major competitors, Flying Tiger Line, creating the largest full-service cargo airline in the world. In 1994, Federal Express shortened its name to "FedEx" for marketing purposes, officially adopting a nickname that had been used for years.


title: FedEx

text: On October 2, 1997, FedEx reorganized as a holding company, FDX Corporation, a Delaware corporation. The new holding company began operations in January 1998, with the acquisition of Caliber System Inc. by Federal Express. With the purchase of Caliber, FedEx started offering other services besides express shipping. Caliber subsidiaries included RPS, a small-package ground service; Roberts Express, an expedited shipping provider; Viking Freight, a regional, less-than-truckload freight carrier serving the Western United States; Caribbean Transportation Services, a provider of airfreight forwarding between the United States and the Caribbean; and Caliber Logistics and Caliber Technology, providers of logistics and technology services. FDX Corporation was founded to oversee all of the operations of those companies and its original air division, Federal Express.


title: FedEx

text: In January 2000, FDX Corporation changed its name to FedEx Corporation and re-branded all of its subsidiaries. Federal Express became FedEx Express, RPS became FedEx Ground, Roberts Express became FedEx Custom Critical, and Caliber Logistics and Caliber Technology were combined to comprise FedEx Global Logistics. A new subsidiary, called FedEx Corporate Services, was formed to centralize the sales, marketing, and customer service for all of the subsidiaries. In February 2000, FedEx acquired Tower Group International, an international logistics company. FedEx also acquired WorldTariff, a customs duty and tax information company; TowerGroup and WorldTariff were re-branded to form FedEx Trade Networks.


title: FedEx

text: FedEx Corp. acquired privately held Kinko's, Inc. in February 2004 and re-branded it FedEx Kinko's. The acquisition was made to expand FedEx's retail access to the general public. After the acquisition, all FedEx Kinko's locations offered only FedEx shipping. In June 2008, FedEx announced that they would be dropping the Kinko's name from their ship centers; FedEx Kinko's would now be called FedEx Office. In September 2004, FedEx acquired Parcel Direct, a parcel consolidator, and re-branded it FedEx SmartPost.


title: FedEx

text: In April 2015, FedEx acquired their rival firm TNT Express for €4.4 billion ($4.8 billion; £3.2 billion) as it looked to expand their operations in Europe.


title: FedEx

text: In February 2016, FedEx announced the launch of FedEx Cares, a global giving platform, and committed to invest $200 million to strengthen more than 200 communities by 2020.


title: FedEx

text: In March 2018, FedEx announced the acquisition of P2P Mailing Limited, a last-mile delivery service, for £92 million to expand their portfolio.


title: FedEx

text: In June 2019, FedEx announced they would not be renewing their $850 million contract with Amazon for the company's U.S. domestic express delivery business. Amazon accounted for 1.3 percent of 2018 revenues. In August 2019, FedEx announced the termination of ground deliveries for Amazon as well.


title: FedEx

text: On March 29, 2022, founder Frederick W. Smith announced he would be retiring as CEO and become executive chairman effective June 1, 2022. The company named Raj Subramaniam, FedEx's current president and COO, as Smith's successor.


title: FedEx

text: FedEx Express is the company's original overnight courier services, providing next day air service within the US and time-definite international service. It operates one of the largest civil aircraft fleets in the world, has the largest fleet of wide bodied civil aircraft, and carries more freight than any other airline. Included in this unit are:


title: FedEx

text: FedEx Ground provides day-definite mail and package delivery to commercial locations in the US and Canada and residential locations in Canada. Its services are cheaper than the time-definite services offered by FedEx Express. The company was formerly Roadway Package System (RPS), a division of Caliber System. The unit also includes:


title: FedEx

text: FedEx Freight is the largest less-than-truckload (LTL) freight carrier in the US, reporting in revenue for 2021, and operates LTL and other freight services in the US and Canada. The unit was formed in 2002 when FedEx bought regional US LTL carrier American Freightways (AF) and established FedEx Freight as a parent company for AF, renamed FedEx Freight East, and FedEx's existing regional LTL subsidiary, Viking Freight, renamed FedEx Freight West. Viking had been a Caliber subsidiary when Caliber was acquired by FedEx in 1998. FedEx bought Lakeland, Florida-based national LTL carrier Watkins Motor Lines in 2006 and renamed it FedEx National LTL. All three operated as an independent subsidiaries of FedEx Freight until January 2010 when they were merged with their parent to form a single entity, FedEx Freight Inc. The unit is the parent of:


title: FedEx

text: FedEx Logistics provides supply chain, specialty transportation, cross border e-commerce, customs brokerage, and trade management technology and services. The division was known as FedEx Trade Networks until January 2019 and is composed of a number of FedEx acquisitions as well as the operations of former Caliber subsidiaries Caliber Logistics and Caliber Technology. Divisions include:


title: FedEx

text: FedEx Services provides corporate services to other FedEx operating companies. Specifically, all marketing, sales, pricing, data analytics, forecasting, finance, customer service, information technology, and their respective organizations (and cost centers) reside inside FedEx Services. Customer facing transportation services and support managed by teams within FedEx Services include:


title: FedEx

text: A spin-off of FedEx Services, FedEx Dataworks is the youngest of FedEx's Operating Companies. FDW is focused on harnessing the power of the rich FedEx data ecosystem to transform the digital and physical customer experience creating solutions that build the network for what’s next by collaborating across the enterprise to integrate technology and services using Data Science and Machine Learning to help make shipping more efficient. Their first product was Surround, a software solution based on proactive monitoring and intervention controls across a delivery network whose first use was used in tracking critical shipments of COVID-19 vaccines.


title: FedEx

text: FedEx Office is the retail arm of the corporation offering print and photocopy services, business services including signage and marketing, and retail sales of FedEx shipping services. The unit also includes FedEx SameDay City, a same-day delivery service. FedEx Office was formerly an independent company, Kinko's, until it was acquired by FedEx in 2004 and rebranded FedEx Kinko's. It was again rebranded in June 2008 becoming FedEx Office. Its divisions include:


title: FedEx

text: FedEx's primary competitor in the United States and most of its international destinations is United Parcel Service (UPS). Both companies employ generally similar strategies; both companies' largest hubs for its air delivery are in the southern United States (Memphis for FedEx and Louisville for UPS), both offer overnight, 2-day, and ground delivery as default options, both frequently use Ted Stevens Anchorage International Airport for trans-pacific shipments, and both of their main hubs are some of the world's busiest airports by cargo traffic. FedEx's other main competitor is the United States Postal Service (USPS), as USPS offers an overnight service (Priority Mail Express), a 2-5 day service (Priority Mail), and an economy/ground service (First Class, Parcel Select Ground). To a lesser extent in the US, FedEx competes with SF Express and DHL, and while DHL's market share in the United States is rising, the shipping industry (not including USPS) in the United States is primarily dominated by UPS and FedEx; DHL is only a strong competitor to FedEx outside of the United States.


title: FedEx

text: Amazon, with its airline Amazon Air, its fleet of trucks, vans and ships and its worldwide staff of more than 1.4 million, plans to become the largest delivery service in the U.S.A.


title: FedEx

text: The FedEx logo is a wordmark designed in 1994 by Lindon Leader of Landor Associates, of San Francisco. It consists of "Fed" in purple and "Ex" in orange. The FedEx wordmark is notable for containing a subliminal right-pointing arrow in the negative space between the "E" and the "X", which was achieved by designing a proprietary font, based on Univers and Futura, to emphasize the arrow shape. Leader believed the logo promoted FedEx as "getting from point A to point B reliably with speed and precision".


title: FedEx

text: In the early 2000s, the "Ex" was in a different color for each division and platinum for the overall corporation use. However, in August 2016, FedEx announced that all operating units would adopt the purple and orange color logo over the next five years (the same as the original FedEx logo, and later used by FedEx Express).


title: FedEx

text: In 1981, FedEx's advertising firm Ally & Gargano hired performer John Moschitta, Jr., known for his fast speech delivery, to do an ad for Federal Express titled "Fast Paced World". This single commercial was cited years later by "New York" as one of the most memorable ads ever.


title: FedEx

text: The firm was named by "Fortune" magazine as one of the top 100 companies to work for in 2013, citing the company's choice to downsize with voluntary buyouts rather than involuntary layoffs.


title: FedEx

text: For the fiscal year 2020, FedEx reported earnings of US$1.286 billion, with an annual revenue of US$69.217 billion, a decline of 0.7% over the previous fiscal cycle. FedEx's shares traded at over $273 per share, and its market capitalization was valued at over US$2,459 billion in December 2020. FedEx ranked No. 50 in the 2018 Fortune 500 list of the largest United States corporations by total revenue.


title: FedEx

text: In early March 2021, FedEx announced plans to make its operations carbon-neutral by 2040. It's investing $2 billion in sustainable energy initiatives, including $100M for a new Yale Center for Natural Carbon Capture and upgrading its aircraft and ground transportation fleets. It will be the first customer to take delivery of GM's electric Zevo delivery vans, as part of the goal of an all-electric ground fleet by 2040.


title: FedEx

text: FedEx currently takes responsibility for contributing to climate change through FedEx Express and FedEx Ground services. Their use of kerosene jet-fuel to power their airplanes and diesel to power their trucks emit carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. FedEx's emissions from its global transportation services contribute to air pollution. This increase in air pollution, including carbon dioxide and nitrous oxide, impacts human health including respiratory issues, heart disease and cancer. The combustion of jet fuel from airplanes releases carbon dioxide and nitrous oxide, which are all harmful to the environment and are a contributing factor to climate change. Similarly, the combustion of diesel in trucks releases these same hazardous gases into the atmosphere.


title: FedEx

text: FedEx's initiatives to be carbon-neutral by 2040 will allow them to reduce their negative contributions to climate change drastically, however they may fall short of this goal. As mentioned in their 2021 10-K filling, they are at risk of being unable to achieve being carbon neutral by 2040 due to potential inability to execute the business operations as planned. Such risks are the costs associated with vehicle electrification and renewable energies. Additionally, the pace at which research and technological developments occur at pose a threat to FedEx's goal. In the event of this happening, FedEx will continue to emit carbon dioxide and other harmful gases into the atmosphere through their use of diesel and kerosene jet-fuel to power their vehicles.


title: FedEx

text: FedEx's current practices have allowed them to avoid several amounts of emissions. Their current fleet of electric vehicles and more efficient delivery routes have avoided roughly 950,000 metric tons of carbon dioxide emissions. Additionally, through the FedEx Fuel Sense program, FedEx was able to save about 221 million gallons of fuel and avoided nearly 2 million metric tons of carbon dioxide.


title: FedEx

text: According to OpenSecrets, FedEx Corp is the 174th largest campaign contributor in the United States, having donated over $35.96 million to federal candidates and committees since 1990, 37% of which went to Democrats and 63% to Republicans. Strong ties to the White House and members of Congress allow access to international trade and tax cut rebates as well as the rules of the business practices of the United States Postal Service. In 2001, FedEx sealed a $9 billion deal with the USPS to transport all of the post office's overnight and express deliveries.


title: FedEx

text: In 2005, FedEx was among 53 entities that contributed the maximum of $250,000 to sponsor the second inauguration of President George W. Bush.


title: FedEx

text: During the 2018 calendar year, FedEx spent nearly $10.2 million lobbying the federal government, its lowest total since 2008 but more than any other company in the air transport industry.


title: FedEx

text: The Standard Carrier Alpha Code (SCAC) is a unique code used to identify transportation companies. It is typically two to four alphabetic letters long. It was developed by the National Motor Freight Traffic Association in the 1960s to help the transportation industry for computerizing data and records. FedEx's codes include:


title: FedEx

text: In December 2007, the U.S. Internal Revenue Service "tentatively decided" the FedEx Ground Division might be facing a tax liability of $319 million for 2002, due to misclassification of its operatives as independent contractors. Reversing a 1994 decision which allowed FedEx to classify its operatives that own their own vehicles as independent contractors, the IRS audited the years 2003 to 2006, with a view to assessing whether similar misclassification of operatives had taken place. FedEx denied that any irregularities in classification had occurred, but faced legal action from operatives claiming benefits that would have accrued had they been classified as employees.


title: FedEx

text: In June 2009, FedEx began a campaign against UPS and the Teamsters union, accusing its competitor of receiving a bailout in an advertising campaign called "Brown Bailout". FedEx claimed that signing the Federal Aviation Administration re-authorization bill, which would let some of its workers unionize more easily (and, according to the Memphis-based company, "could expose [its] customers at any time to local work stoppages that interrupted the flow of their time-sensitive, high-value shipments"), was equivalent to giving UPS a "bailout". Independent observers heavily criticized FedEx's wording, claiming that it was "an abuse of the term". FedEx Express employees are regulated under the Railway Labor Act.


title: FedEx

text: In July 2020, the Air Line Pilots Association International (ALPA), the union that represents FedEx Corp pilots, called for a suspension on the company's Hong Kong operations. According to the union, some members were subject to "extremely difficult conditions" at hospitals urged by government mandates due to the COVID-19 pandemic. FedEx was criticized more broadly for providing inadequate protections and sick leave during the pandemic.


title: FedEx

text: On July 17, 2014, FedEx was indicted for conspiracy to distribute controlled substances in cooperation with the Chhabra-Smoley Organization and Superior Drugs. According to the U.S. Department of Justice, "FedEx is alleged to have knowingly and intentionally conspired to distribute controlled substances and prescription drugs, including Phendimetrazine (Schedule III); Ambien, Phentermine, Diazepam, and Alprazolam (Schedule IV), to customers who had no legitimate medical need for them based on invalid prescriptions issued by doctors who were acting outside the usual course of professional practice." A representative for the company contested these claims, stating that it would violate personal rights of customers to deny service and that "We are a transportation company — we are not law enforcement". On July 17, 2016 the Department of Justice U.S. Attorney's Office confirmed in a statement that it had asked U.S. District Court Judge Charles Breyer to dismiss the indictment but also did not say why.


title: FedEx

text: Safe streets activists have criticized FedEx, along with other parcel delivery services, for frequently illegally parking their vehicles in bike lanes while making deliveries, a practice that endangers cyclists. They were criticized alongside peers in a letter from Washington, D.C.'s transportation agency in 2018.


title: FedEx

text: FedEx was criticized for its partnership with the National Rifle Association, which it terminated in 2018 under pressure from activists.


title: FedEx

text: On June 1, 2019, China filed a case against FedEx for allegedly undermining the rights of Chinese clients. The investigation stemmed from allegations by Huawei that FedEx attempted to divert the shipping route of its packages without the company's prior authorization. which in turn have been denied by FedEx. It has been reported that FedEx refused to deliver a used Huawei phone into the US. Writers at PC Magazine tried to ship a Huawei P30 from a UK office to a US one to find it sent back a few days later.


title: FedEx

text: In July 2019, China accused FedEx of holding back more than 100 packages that Huawei was trying to deliver to China. Chinese regulators said that the company committed "violations" when it diverted Huawei parcels.


title: FedEx

text: In December 2019, CNBC listed FedEx along with 378 additional "Fortune" 500 companies that "paid an effective federal tax rate of 0% or less" as a result of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017. "The New York Times" reported that FedEx paid $1.5 billion in taxes after the 2017 fiscal year (effective tax rate of 34%) and then $0 after the 2018 fiscal year (effective tax rate of 0%) as a result of lobbying done by the company.


title: FedEx

text: A FedEx Ground facility was the site of a mass shooting in Indianapolis on April 15, 2021, causing nine deaths (including the perpetrator) and at least 6 injuries. FedEx released a statement early the next morning, saying they were "deeply saddened" by the loss of their team members.


title: Charles Edward Stuart

text: Charles Edward Louis John Sylvester Maria Casimir Stuart (20 December 1720 – 30 January 1788) was the elder son of James Francis Edward Stuart, grandson of James II and VII, and the Stuart claimant to the thrones of England, Scotland and Ireland from 1766 as Charles III. During his lifetime, he was also known as "the Young Pretender" and "the Young Chevalier"; in popular memory, he is known as Bonnie Prince Charlie.


title: Charles Edward Stuart

text: Born in Rome to the exiled Stuart court, he spent much of his early and later life in Italy. In 1744, he travelled to France to take part in a planned invasion to restore the Stuart monarchy under his father. When the French fleet was partly wrecked by storms, Charles resolved to proceed to Scotland following discussion with leading Jacobites. This resulted in Charles landing by ship on the west coast of Scotland, leading to the Jacobite rising of 1745. The Jacobite forces under Charles initially achieved several victories in the field, including the Battle of Prestonpans in September 1745 and the Battle of Falkirk Muir in January 1746. However, by April 1746, Charles was defeated at Culloden, which effectively ended the Stuart cause. While there were subsequent attempts such as a planned French invasion in 1759, Charles was unable to restore the Stuart monarchy.


title: Charles Edward Stuart

text: With the Jacobite cause lost, Charles spent the remainder of his life on the continent, except for one secret visit to London. On his return, Charles lived briefly in France before he was exiled in 1748 under the terms of the Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle. Charles eventually returned to Italy, where he spent much of his later life living in Florence and Rome. He had a number of mistresses before marrying Princess Louise of Stolberg-Gedern in 1772. In his later life, Charles's health declined greatly and he was said to be an alcoholic. However, his escapades during the 1745 and 1746 uprising, as well as his escape from Scotland, led to his portrayal as a romantic figure of heroic failure. His life and the once possible prospects of a restored Stuart monarchy have left an enduring historical legend that continues to have a legacy today.


title: Charles Edward Stuart

text: Charles was born in the Palazzo Muti in Rome, Italy, on 20 December 1720, where his father had been given a residence by Pope Clement XI. Historians differ as to who carried out his baptism ceremony. Kybett reports that it was presided over by Pope Clement, whereas Douglas and Pininski state it was carried out by the Bishop of Montefiascone. Regardless, he was given the names Charles for his great-grandfather, Edward after Edward the Confessor, Louis for the King of France, Casimir after the Kings of Poland and Sylvester as he was born on Saint Sylvester's Day.


title: Charles Edward Stuart

text: Charles was the son of the Old Pretender, James Francis Edward Stuart (himself son of the exiled Stuart King James II and VII), and Maria Clementina Sobieska, a Polish noblewoman (the granddaughter of John III Sobieski). Charles Edward's grandfather, James II of England and Ireland and VII of Scotland, ruled the kingdoms from 1685 to 1688. He was deposed when the English Parliament invited the Dutch Protestant William III and his wife, Princess Mary, King James's eldest daughter, to replace him in the Revolution of 1688. Many Protestants, including a number of prominent parliamentarians, had been worried that King James aimed to return England fully to the Catholic faith. Since the exile of James and the Act of Settlement, the "Jacobite Cause" had striven to return the Stuarts to the thrones of England and Scotland, which had been united in 1603 under James VI and I, with the parliaments joined by the Acts of Union in 1707 as the Kingdom of Great Britain.


title: Charles Edward Stuart

text: Charles was said to have suffered from weak legs at an early age, potentially as a result of rickets. However, Charles was instructed in a regime of exercise and dancing to help improve his constitution, which strengthened his legs by later years. Charles spent much of his early childhood in Rome and Bologna in the environment of a small retinue and a close but often argumentative family. His brother Henry Benedict Stuart was born 5 years later on 6 March 1725. His mother and father were regularly at disagreement with each other, leading to one notable incident in which Clementina left the palace shortly after Henry's birth in 1725 and moved to a convent, not returning until 1727. As the legitimate heirs to the thrones of England, Scotland, and Ireland—according to the Jacobite succession, James and his household lived with a sense of pride, and staunchly believed in the divine right of kings. Charles spent much of his early years in the company of older men, several of which acted as his tutors. Charles Edward's governor was the Protestant James Murray, Jacobite Earl of Dunbar. While the pope had raised initial concerns over Charles's religious education under a Protestant governor, James agreed that Charles would be raised as a Catholic. Among his tutors were the Chevalier Ramsay, Sir Thomas Sheridan and Father Vinceguerra, a Catholic priest. He quickly became conversant in English, French and Italian, although it was said that he never fully mastered any language and was partially illiterate. During his childhood, he was reported to enjoy hunting, horsemanship, a form of golf, music and dancing.


title: Charles Edward Stuart

text: In 1734, his cousin, the Duke of Liria, who was proceeding to join Don Carlos in his struggle for the crown of Naples, passed through Rome. He offered to take Charles on his expedition, and the boy of thirteen, having been appointed general of artillery by Don Carlos, observed the French and Spanish siege of Gaeta, his first exposure to war. In January 1735, shortly after his fourteenth birthday, Charles's mother Clementina died of scurvy.


title: Charles Edward Stuart

text: Back in Rome, Charles Edward was introduced by his father and the pope to Italian society. In 1737, James sent his son on a tour through major Italian cities to complete his education as a prince and man of the world. Charles proceeded to visit Genoa, Florence, Parma, Bologna and Venice. The Italian tour was a shock for Charles, who had believed he would be welcomed as a royal prince. Instead, most European courts would only receive him as the "Duke of Albany" (an historic title adopted by Scottish royals in the 14th century). Despite being Catholic, many European states wished to avoid antagonising Britain, the only exception being Venice. By the time he had reached 20, he had become a notable member of upper-class society in Rome and had developed a fondness for alcohol and fine clothes, often in excess of his allowance. He had become increasingly distant from his brother due to Henry's devotion to prayer and religious study. His father continued to rely on foreign aid in his attempts to restore himself to the British and Irish thrones. However, Charles became increasingly supportive of the idea of rebellion unassisted by invasion or by support of any kind from abroad. On 23 December 1743, owing to his limited ability to travel to Britain, James named his son Charles prince regent, giving him the authority to act in his name.


title: Charles Edward Stuart

text: In January 1744, his father believed he had managed to obtain the de facto renewed support of the French government. Following this mistaken belief, Charles Edward travelled covertly to France from Rome, initially under the guise of a hunting party. However, neither the French Government or King Louis XV had officially invited Charles. However, by February, the French government had agreed to support a planned invasion of England, hoping to remove British forces from the War of the Austrian Succession. Charles then travelled to Dunkirk with the purpose of accompanying a French Army across to England. The invasion never materialised, as the French fleet was scattered by a storm in the spring equinox, losing 11 ships. By the time it regrouped, the British fleet realised the diversion that had deceived them and resumed their position in the Channel.


title: Charles Edward Stuart

text: After the failure of the planned invasion, Charles remained in France, staying at several places, including Gravelines, Chantilly and Paris, leasing a hilltop house in Montmartre in May 1744. Owing to his expenditure on his wardrobe, attendants and drinking, Charles became in debt to the amount of 30,000 livres. With news of this and following the failed invasion, the French attempted to encourage Charles to return to Italy by refusing to pay him a monthly subsidy. However, when he could no longer afford the rent on the house in Montmartre, the Archbishop of Cambrai agreed to lend him his country estate near Paris where he stayed until January 1745. Charles then moved to the country house of Anne, Duchess of Berwick in Soissons, following repeated attempts by the French to encourage him to leave the Paris region. However, Charles continued to travel regularly to Paris during this period, often incognito and frequenting the hotels of the city to meet with supporters.


title: Charles Edward Stuart

text: In both Rome and Paris, Charles met numerous supporters of the Stuart cause; he was aware that there were Jacobites representatives in every key European court. He had now taken a considerable share in correspondence and other actual work connected with the promotion of his own and his father's interests. While in Paris and Soissons, Charles sought funding and support for the restoration of the monarchy. Following conversations with Irish and Scottish exiles such as Sir Thomas Sheridan who assured him of the strength of the Jacobite movement in Scotland, as well as following receipt of a petition to Charles from Sir Hector Maclean on behalf of intervention, Charles resolved to launch an expedition to Scotland. The ultimate aim was to instigate a rebellion that would place his father on the thrones of England, Scotland and Ireland. To assist with funding the expedition, Charles borrowed some 180,000 livres from the Paris bankers John Waters and George Waters. Part of these funds had been raised through support from loyalists in Britain such as Sir Henry Bedingfield of Oxburgh Hall. As security for the loans, Charles was able to use the Sobieski crown jewels of his great-grandfather John III Sobieski, which had passed down to him through his mother. He used these extensive funds to purchase weapons and fit out the "Elisabeth", an old man-of-war of 66 guns, and the "Du Teillay" (sometimes called "Doutelle"), a 16-gun privateer.


title: Charles Edward Stuart

text: Encouraged by the French victory in May 1745 at the Battle of Fontenoy, Charles and his party set sail on 5 July for Scotland. During the voyage north, Charles's squadron were fired upon by HMS Lion in the Celtic Sea. The "Du Teillay", with Charles on board, made sail to escape, while the "Elisabeth", with her greater firepower, engaged "HMS Lion". When "HMS Lion" withdrew, the "Elisabeth" was forced to return to Brest for repairs, taking the majority of Charles's supplies, including some 1,800 broadswords, 8 artillery pieces and most of the 1,500 muskets he had purchased. The "Du Teillay" successfully landed him and seven companions at Eriskay on 23 July 1745. The group would later be known as the Seven Men of Moidart and included John O'Sullivan, an Irish exile and former French officer, and Charles's secretary George Kelly. Many Highland clans, both Catholic and Protestant, still supported the Jacobite cause, and Charles hoped for a warm welcome from these clans to start an insurgency by Jacobites throughout Britain. However, receiving a cool reception from the clan leaders there, many of those contacted advised him to return to France, including MacDonald of Sleat and Norman MacLeod. Aware of the potential impact of defeat, they felt that by arriving without French military support, Charles had failed to keep his commitments and were unconvinced by his personal qualities. Undetered, Charles set sail again and arrived at the bay of Loch nan Uamh. He had hoped for support from a French fleet, but it was not forthcoming and he decided to raise an army in Scotland.


title: Charles Edward Stuart

text: Although several clan chiefs initially discouraged him, he gained the crucial support of Donald Cameron of Lochiel after Charles provided "security for the full value of his estate should the rising prove abortive." Thereafter, support continued to grow. It is recorded that during this time, Charles began to take lessons in conversational Gaelic under the tutorship of Alasdair mac Mhaighstir Alasdair. On 19 August, he raised his father's standard at Glenfinnan and gathered a force large enough to enable him to march towards Edinburgh. The force proceeded westwards, reaching Invergarry Castle by the last week of August. Charles's forces continued on via the Corrieyairack Pass, where their control of the pass persuaded advancing government forces to withdraw from the area. Stopping briefly first at Blair Castle, Charles and his forces reached Perth on 4 September. At Perth, his ranks were joined by more sympathisers, including Lord George Murray. Previously pardoned for his participation in the 1715 and 1719 risings, Murray took over from O'Sullivan due to his better understanding of Highland military customs and the Jacobites spent the next week re-organising their forces. On 14 September, Charles and his forces took Falkirk and Charles stayed at Callendar House, where he persuaded the Earl of Kilmarnock to join him.


title: Charles Edward Stuart

text: Charles's progress onto Edinburgh was helped by the action of the British leader, General Sir John Cope, who had marched to Inverness, leaving the south country undefended. On 16 September, Charles and his army encamped outside the city at Gray's Mill in Longstone. Lord Provost Archibald Stewart controlled the city, which quickly surrendered, although the castle under the command of George Preston did not surrender and was blockaded until Charles later called off the siege owing to a lack of artillery. On 17 September, Charles entered Edinburgh, accompanied by around 2,400 men. During this time, Charles also gave trophies to his supporters, a prominent example being Prince Charlie's Targe. Allan Ramsay painted a portrait of Charles while he was in Edinburgh, which survived in the collection of the Earl of Wemyss at Gosford House and, , was on display at the Scottish National Portrait Gallery.


title: Charles Edward Stuart

text: Meanwhile, Sir John Cope had brought his forces by sea to Dunbar, a decision he would soon regret. On 20 September, Charles mustered and joined his forces at Duddingston. On 21 September, Charles and his forces defeated Cope's army, the only government army in Scotland, at the Battle of Prestonpans. Charles was said to have been only 50 paces from the front-line of the battle, and he later expressed remorse that the victory involved killing his own subjects. It was reported during the battle that Charles and Lord Murray had argued with each other over the disposition of forces. The historian Hugh Douglas argues this was to result in an ever worsening relationship between the two that would culminate with ultimate defeat later at Culloden.


title: Charles Edward Stuart

text: Morale was high following the battle at Prestonpans, and Charles returned to Edinburgh, holding court at Holyrood Palace. Jacobite morale was further boosted in mid-October when the French landed with supplies of money and weapons, together with an envoy, which seemed to validate claims of French backing. However, Lord Elcho later claimed that his fellow Scots were already concerned by Charles's autocratic style and fears he was overly influenced by his Irish advisors. A "Prince's Council" of senior leaders was established; Charles resented it as an imposition by the Scots on their divinely appointed monarch, while the daily meetings accentuated divisions between the factions. The council was said to include Perth, Lord George Murray, Thomas Sheridan, John O'Sullivan, Murray of Broughton, Lochiel, Keppoch, Clanranald, Glencoe, Ardsheal and Lochgarry. After much discussion, Charles persuaded his council to agree to an invasion of England. By November, Charles was marching south at the head of an army numbering approximately 6,000 men. On 10 November, Carlisle surrendered to Charles. Continuing south, Charles and his army reached Penrith on 21 November, then Preston on the 26 November and Manchester on the 29 November. His army progressed as far south as Swarkestone Bridge in Derbyshire, arriving there on the 4 December.


title: Charles Edward Stuart

text: After reaching Derbyshire, despite Charles's objections, his council decided to return to Scotland given the lack of English Jacobite and French support, as well as rumours that large government forces were being amassed. Charles admitted that he had not heard from the English Jacobites since leaving France despite claiming the contrary; this caused his relationship with some of the Scots became irretrievably damaged. The Jacobites marched north back to Scotland, winning the skirmish at Clifton Moor on 18 December 1745. Charles and his forces then reached Glasgow on 26 December where they rested until 3 January 1746. The decision was then made to lay siege to Stirling and Stirling Castle. However, while the town surrendered immediately, the castle's artillery proved too strong for the Jacobite forces to approach and seize the castle. Government forces also attempted a relief of the siege, which resulted in a victory for Charles in the ensuing Battle of Falkirk Muir in January 1746. A failure to take the castle, however, resulted in the abandonment of the siege and the Jacobite forces moving northward to Crieff then Inverness. With a halt in operations until the weather improved, Charles forces then rested at Inverness, but they were later pursued by the forces of George II's son Prince William, Duke of Cumberland.


title: Charles Edward Stuart

text: The British forces caught up with Charles and his army at the ensuing Battle of Culloden on 16 April. Charles ignored the advice of general Lord George Murray and chose to fight on flat, open, marshy ground, where his forces were exposed to superior government firepower. To ensure his safety, his officers requested that Charles command his army from a position behind the front lines, which prevented him from gaining a clear view of the battlefield. He hoped that Cumberland's army would attack first, and he had his men stand exposed to the accurate fire of the British artillery. Seeing the error in this, he quickly ordered an attack, but his messenger was killed before the order could be delivered. The Jacobite attack was uncoordinated, charging into withering musket fire and grapeshot fired from the cannons, and it was met with little success. In the center, the Jacobites reached the bayonets of the redcoats, but they were shot down by a second line of soldiers. The remaining Jacobite survivors in the front line then fled. However, the north-eastern regiments, as well as Irish and Scots regulars in the second line, retired in good order, allowing Charles and his personal retinue to escape northwards.


title: Charles Edward Stuart

text: After the defeat, Murray managed to lead a group of Jacobites to Ruthven, intending to continue the fight. Charles thought that he was betrayed, however, and decided to abandon the Jacobite cause. Some 20 miles from the battlefield, Charles rested briefly at Gorthleck, the home of his dubious supporter Lord Lovat, before retreating to Invergarry Castle, by way of Fort Augustus, on 16 April. Charles then hid in the moors of the Highlands of Scotland, before making a flight to the Hebrides, always barely ahead of the government forces. Many Highlanders aided him during his escape, and none of them betrayed him for the £30,000 reward. Charles was assisted by supporters such as the pilot Donald Macleod of Galtrigill and Captain Con O'Neill, who took him to Benbecula. From 16 April until 28 June, Charles travelled through Benbecula, South Uist, North Uist, Harris, and the Isle of Lewis. On 28 June, Charles was aided by Flora MacDonald, who helped him sail to the Isle of Skye by taking him in a boat disguised as her maid "Betty Burke". Charles remained on Skye until July, when he then crossed back to the mainland. With the aid of a few loyal servants and local supporters, Charles hid from government forces in the western Grampian Mountains for several weeks. He ultimately evaded capture and on 19 September, he left the country aboard the French frigate "L'Heureux", commanded by Richard Warren. The Prince's Cairn marks the traditional spot on the shores of Loch nan Uamh in Lochaber from which he made his final departure from Scotland.


title: Charles Edward Stuart

text: Charles landed back in France on 29 September 1746. On his return, he was initially received warmly by King Louis XV, but as far as obtaining additional military or political assistance was concerned, his efforts proved fruitless. However, he became at once the popular hero and idol of many Parisians on account of his exploits in Scotland. In March 1747, he travelled briefly to Madrid via Lyon for an audience with Ferdinand VI of Spain, but the King rejected the idea of Spain providing help to restore the Stuarts. His relationship with his brother Henry deteriorated during this time, when Henry accepted a cardinal's hat in July 1747. He also deliberately broke off communication with his father in Rome (who had approved of his brother's action).


title: Charles Edward Stuart

text: While back in France, Charles had numerous mistresses. He had a relationship with his first cousin Marie Louise de La Tour d'Auvergne, wife of Jules, Prince of Guéméné, that resulted in a short-lived son named Charles (born 28 July 1748, died 18 January 1749). In December 1748, he was arrested by the French authorities while attending the opera at the Théâtre du Palais-Royal. Briefly imprisoned at the Château de Vincennes, he was then expelled from France under the terms of the Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle that ended the War of the Austrian Succession. He moved first to the Papal territory at Avignon, and then in 1749 to Lunéville in the Duchy of Lorraine. In the following years, he was reported to have made several visits in secret to Paris, but was not discovered by the French authorities.


title: Charles Edward Stuart

text: After his defeat, Charles indicated to the remaining supporters of the Jacobite cause in England that, accepting the impossibility of his recovering the English and Scottish crowns while he remained a Roman Catholic, he was willing to commit himself to reigning as a Protestant. Accordingly, he visited London incognito in 1750, staying for several weeks primarily at the Essex Street London residence of Lady Primrose, the widow of the 3rd Viscount of Primrose. While in London, Charles abjured the Roman Catholic faith, and conformed to the Protestant faith by receiving Anglican communion, likely at one of the remaining non-juring chapels. Bishop Robert Gordon, a staunch Jacobite whose house in Theobald's Row was one of Charles's safe-houses for the visit, is the most likely to have celebrated the communion, and a chapel in Gray's Inn was suggested as the venue as early as 1788. This is said to rebutt David Hume's suggestion that it was a church in the Strand. However, biographers such as Kybett have argued the ceremony was carried out at St Martin-in-the-Fields.


title: Charles Edward Stuart

text: Charles lived for several years in exile with his Scottish mistress, Clementina Walkinshaw (later known as Countess von Alberstrof), whom he met, and may have begun a relationship with, during the 1745 rebellion. She was suspected by many of Charles's supporters of being a spy planted by the Hanoverian government of Great Britain. On 29 October 1753, the couple had a daughter, Charlotte. Charles's inability to cope with the collapse of the Jacobite cause led to his problem with alcohol, and mother and daughter separated from Charles with his father James's assistance.


title: Charles Edward Stuart

text: In 1759, at the height of the Seven Years' War, Charles was summoned to a meeting in Paris with the French foreign minister, the Duc De Choiseul. Charles failed to make a good impression, being argumentative and idealistic in his expectations. Choiseul was planning a full-scale invasion of England involving upwards of 100,000 men, to which he hoped to add a number of Jacobites led by Charles. However, he was so little impressed with Charles that he dismissed the prospect of Jacobite assistance. The French invasion, which was Charles's last realistic chance to recover the thrones of England, Scotland and Ireland for the Stuart dynasty, was ultimately thwarted by naval defeats at Quiberon Bay and Lagos.


title: Charles Edward Stuart

text: In 1766, Charles's father died. Pope Clement XI had recognised James as King of England, Scotland, and Ireland as "James III and VIII", but over 40 years later Pope Clement XIII did not give Charles the same recognition as "Charles III". However, on 23 January, with the pope's permission, Charles moved into the Palazzo Muti, which his father had lived in for over 40 years. Charles wrote to both the Kings of France and Spain on his accession, but recognition as King Charles III was not granted by either monarch. Charles returned to his social life in Rome, making visits to the pope and indulging in pastimes such as hunting, shooting, balls, concerts and plays. However, he would periodically shut himself away in his rooms, and was said to have formed no new friendships in his later life. He made visits to Florence and Pisa in 1770, where he took to the waters at the city's thermal baths. Charles returned to Paris in early 1771 with the permission of the French authorities under the Duc de Choiseul, who once again wished to discuss the possibility of a Jacobite invasion. However, on the day of the meeting, Charles was reported to be so intoxicated that he was unable to speak coherently, so the discussions were abandoned.


title: Charles Edward Stuart

text: By the time Charles entered his 51st year, concern was raised by his Jacobite supporters and the French that he had not yet married, and that only his brother, a priest sworn to celibacy, remained as the only male heir. The French also wished to continue the Stuart line as a potential weapon against the government in Britain. In 1771, while he was in Paris, Charles dispatched Sir Edmund Ryan, an Irish officer in Berwick's regiment, to seek out a bride for him. Despite some potential negotiations with prospective brides, he was unable to find a wife. A few months later, Charles's companion, the Duc d'Aiguillion, and his cousin Charles Fitz-James Stuart suggested the latter's sister-in-law Princess Louise of Stolberg-Gedern as a prospective bride. Accordingly, on 28 March 1772, Charles married Princess Louise by proxy. The couple met shortly after for the first time at Macerata on 17 April 1772, where the marriage was reported to have been consummated.


title: Charles Edward Stuart

text: They lived first in Rome and then moved to Florence in 1774, where he was provided with a residence by Prince Corsini, the Palazzo di San Clemente, now known as the "Palazzo del Pretendente". In Florence, he used the title "Count of Albany" as an alias, and his wife Louise was normally referred to as the "Countess of Albany". Charles's health deteriorated in later life, and he was reported to have suffered from asthma, high blood pressure, swollen legs and ulcers. In 1744, while in Florence, he suffered constantly from his illnesses, which required him to be carried by his servants to and from his carriage. Charles was also known to be an alcoholic, a condition that worsened with age.


title: Charles Edward Stuart

text: Charles and Louise left Florence in 1777 and returned to Rome. Their relationship had become increasingly quarrelsome. One cause was said to be the speculation regarding Louise's adulterous relationships with the courtiers Carl Bonstetten and the Italian poet count Vittorio Alfieri. Another cause was stated to be Charles himself, who was reported as becoming increasingly irrational and drunk. In November 1780, Louise formally left Charles. After separating, she claimed that Charles had physically abused her. This claim was generally believed by contemporaries. The historian Douglas states that Charles had been drinking following Saint Andrew's Day celebrations, and after accusing Louise of infidelities, may have attempted to rape her, resulting in her screaming to the extent that the household servants intervened. In the years that followed, the pope awarded Louise half of Charles's papal pension, and Charles's international reputation was greatly damaged. He was said to live an increasingly isolated and unhappy life, especially after his brother Henry agreed to house Louise at his estate.


title: Charles Edward Stuart

text: By 1783, Charles's health continued to decline, and for a time, he fell seriously ill such to the extent that he was given the Sacraments. Although Charles recovered, he agreed to create a new will, and signed an act of legitimation for his illegitimate daughter Charlotte. Charles also gave her the title "Duchess of Albany" in the peerage of Scotland and the style "Her Royal Highness", but these honours did not give Charlotte any right of succession to the throne. Charlotte lived with her father in Florence and Rome for the next five years. Eventually, she survived her father by less than two years, dying unmarried at Bologna in November 1789. In April 1784, Charles was persuaded by the visiting King Gustav III of Sweden to grant Louise a decree of separation. While not a formal divorce, as no such legal procedure existed in the Papal States, Louise was thereby legally permitted to live separately from her husband, even though she had been doing so for some time. Charles spent the majority of his last years living between Florence and Rome. However, he left Florence for the last time in 1785 and returned to Rome. It was reported that he was limited to light travelling by his doctors owing to his fragility.


title: Charles Edward Stuart

text: Charles died in Rome of a stroke on 30 January 1788, aged 67. The cardinals stated officially that he died on the morning of 31 January, as it was deemed unlucky to have him declared dead on the same date as his great-grandfather, King Charles I, who had met his end on the scaffold at Whitehall Palace. Charles's will left most of his estate to his heir, his daughter Charlotte. There were a few exceptions, including some plate for his brother Henry, as well as some annuities for his servants.


title: Charles Edward Stuart

text: On his death, a cast of his face was made, and his body was embalmed and placed in a coffin of cypress wood. Adorned with the Order of the Thistle, the Cross of St Andrew, the Order of the Garter and the Cross of St George, Charles was first buried in Frascati Cathedral near Rome, where his brother Henry was bishop. At Henry's death in 1807, Charles's remains (except his heart) were moved to the crypt of St. Peter's Basilica in the Vatican, where they were laid to rest next to those of his brother and father. This was below the spot where the monument to the Royal Stuarts by Antonio Canova would later be erected. His mother Maria is also buried nearby at St Peter's. Charles's heart remained in Frascati Cathedral, where it is contained in a small urn beneath the floor, under a monument.


title: Charles Edward Stuart

text: Charles has been depicted on stage as well as in film and television. He was portrayed by David Niven in the 1948 semi-biographical film "Bonnie Prince Charlie". Charles was also portrayed by Andrew Gower in the historical dramatic series "Outlander", based upon Diana Gabaldon's book series. His life has formed a component of numerous historical plays, including "For Bonnie Prince Charlie" (1897), the "Young Pretender" (1996) and "The Glory" (2000).


title: Charles Edward Stuart

text: The legacy of Charles Stuart and his role in Jacobitism has also influenced songs and music. Examples include the folk songs "", "Bonnie Charlie", and "Wha'll be King but Charlie?". Charles's subsequent flight from Scotland is commemorated in "The Skye Boat Song" by the English author Sir Harold Edwin Boulton and in the Irish song "Mo Ghile Mear" by Seán Clárach Mac Domhnaill.


title: Charles Edward Stuart

text: During his pretence as Prince of Wales, Charles claimed a coat of arms consisting of those of the kingdom, differenced by a "label argent of three points".


title: Health and appearance of Michael Jackson

text: Michael Jackson (August 29, 1958 – June 25, 2009) was an American entertainer who spent over four decades in the public eye, first as a child star with the Jackson 5 and later as a solo artist. From the mid-1980s, Jackson's appearance began to change dramatically. The changes to his face, particularly his nose, triggered widespread speculation of extensive cosmetic surgery, and his skin tone became much lighter. He was diagnosed with the skin disorder vitiligo, which results in white patches on the skin and sensitivity to sunlight. To treat the condition, he used fair-colored makeup and likely skin-bleaching prescription creams to cover up the uneven blotches of color caused by the illness. The creams would have further lightened his skin. The lighter skin resulted in criticism that he was trying to appear white. Jackson said he had not purposely bleached his skin and that he was not trying to be anything he was not.


text: Jackson and some of his siblings said they had been physically and psychologically abused by their father Joe Jackson. In 2003, Joe admitted to whipping them as children, but he emphatically rejected the longstanding abuse allegations. The whippings deeply traumatized Jackson and may have led to the onset of further health problems later in his life. Physicians speculated that he had body dysmorphic disorder.


text: At some point during the 1990s, it appeared that Jackson had become dependent on prescription drugs, mainly painkillers and strong sedatives. The drug use was later linked to second- and third-degree burns he had suffered years before. Jackson gradually became dependent on these drugs, and his health deteriorated. He went into rehabilitation in 1993.


text: While preparing for a series of comeback concerts scheduled to begin in July 2009, Jackson died of acute propofol and benzodiazepine intoxication after suffering cardiac arrest on June 25, 2009. His personal physician was convicted of involuntary manslaughter in his death and sentenced to four years in prison.


text: Jackson's skin had been medium-brown during his youth, but from the mid-1980s gradually grew paler. The change drew widespread media coverage, including speculation that he had been bleaching his skin. Jackson's dermatologist, Arnold Klein, said he observed in 1983 that Jackson had vitiligo, a condition characterized by patches of the skin losing their pigment. He also identified discoid lupus erythematosus in Jackson. He diagnosed Jackson with lupus that year, and with vitiligo in 1986.


text: Vitiligo's drastic effects on the body can cause psychological distress. Jackson used fair-colored makeup, and possibly skin-bleaching prescription creams, to cover up the uneven blotches of color caused by the illness. The creams would have further lightened his skin, and, with the application of makeup, he could appear very pale. The cause of vitiligo is unknown, but it is believed to be due to genetic susceptibility triggered by an environmental factor such that an autoimmune disease occurs. Biographer J. Randy Taraborrelli said the lupus was in remission.


text: Jackson's physical changes gained widespread media coverage and provoked criticism from the public. Some African-American psychologists argued Jackson was "a lousy role model for black youth". Dr. Dennis Chestnut said Jackson had given "black youth a feeling that they can achieve", but might encourage them to believe they had to be esoteric and idiosyncratic to be successful. Dr. Halford Fairchild said Jackson and other African-American celebrities would try "to look more like white people in order to get in films and on television". Jackson has also been confronted with the reaction of the people around him. Filmmaker John Landis, who directed two music videos for Jackson, said when Jackson showed him his bleached chest, he told him the doctor who had done it was a criminal.


text: However, in 1993, Jackson told Oprah Winfrey "there, as I know of, there is no such thing as skin bleaching. I've never seen it, I don't know what it is." He said he had a hereditary skin disorder (vitiligo), and would use make-up to even out the uneven skin tone. "It is something I cannot help," said Jackson. "When people make up stories that I don't want to be who I am, it hurts me. It's a problem for me. I can't control it. But what about all the millions of people who sit in the sun to become darker, to become other than what they are. Nobody says nothing about that." Winfrey's interview of Jackson was watched by 62 million Americans. It also started a public discourse on the topic of vitiligo, then a relatively unknown condition.


text: Jackson publicly said that he was proud to be black. He also wrote a letter to photographer William Pecchi Jr. in 1988 which reads: "Maybe I look at the world through rose colored glasses but I love people all over the world. That is why stories of racism really disturb me. [...] Because in truth I believe ALL men are created equal, I was taught that and will always believe it. I just can't conceive of how a person could hate another because of skin color. I love every race on the planet earth. Prejudice is the child of ignorance. Naked we come into the world and naked we shall go out. And a very good thing too, for it reminds me that I am naked under my shirt, whatever its color."


text: Shortly following Jackson's death, tubes of Benoquin and hydroquinone were found in Jackson's home. Both creams are commonly used to treat vitiligo; Dr. David Sawcer said some patients with vitiligo remove dark areas of skin when most of their skin has become pale. Darkening depigmented skin is also extremely difficult. Depigmentation causes a permanent and extreme sensitivity to the sun. Vitiligo patients are at risk to contract melanoma, and an annual cancer check-up is recommended. Jackson also covered his skin disorder with clothing wearing long sleeves and long pants. In the music video for "Remember the Time", all dancers and actors except for Jackson are lightly dressed following the example set by ancient Egyptians. Jackson usually avoided wearing patterned clothing to avoid attention to the disorder.


text: Jackson's autopsy confirmed that he had vitiligo. His skin was found to have reduced (though not absent) melanocytes, the cells active in skin pigmentation. Vitiligo occurs in three different patterns. Segmental depigmentation means only one side of the body is affected, whereas generalized depigmentation means many parts of the body are affected. Jackson's autopsy report states a "focal depigmentation of the skin" (i.e., the depigmentation occurs on one or a few areas of the body).


text: In Jackson's case, there were five affected areas. When Jackson was diagnosed with vitiligo in the mid-1980s, he started to learn more about the disease. He would often call his dermatologist's nurse and future wife Debbie Rowe to get medical information as well as emotional support. Jackson's autopsy did not confirm or refute the claim that he had lupus.


text: Media reports state Jackson had extensive surgery on his nose. Jackson contradicted those reports in his 1988 autobiography "Moonwalk", saying he only had had two rhinoplasties.


text: Shortly after Jackson's death Klein stated that he had rebuilt Jackson's nose because its cartilage had totally collapsed and that he had been 'exquisitely sensitive to pain'. Medical records show that Klein administered Jackson Demerol during procedures. Jackson had told Patrick Treacy that he had had a facial hypersensitivity caused by a botched cosmetic surgery. Jackson's second wife Debbie Rowe, who had met Jackson while she had been working for Klein, said she had been designated to help him through procedures.


text: In 2017, British broadcaster Sky canceled the airing of an episode of "Urban Myths" which cast Joseph Fiennes to portray Jackson with heavy white makeup and a constructed nose. The cancelation came after Jackson's family had expressed concerns in public.


text: Jackson however, said that he had a dimple created in his chin attributing the other changes in the structure of his face to puberty, a strict vegetarian diet, weight loss, a change in hair style and stage lighting. He also denied allegations that he had altered his eyes. Jackson said he had a tough time when he reached puberty. People hadn't recognized expecting 'cute Michael' they used to know, and Jackson said they had seemed to be surprised that he was undergoing natural changes during puberty. In the unedited version of the documentary "Living With Michael Jackson", Jackson was asked about his cheeks; he answered: "These cheekbones? No. My father has the same thing. We have Indian blood."


text: In early 1984, Jackson's hair caught fire during a commercial shoot. Jackson stated the fire had been caused by sparks of magnesium flash bombs exploding only two feet away from either side of his head, totally disregarding safety regulations. Later that day the hospital announced that Jackson was in stable condition and doing well. A spokesman said the patient had suffered second-degree burns on his skull and would be transferred to Brotman Medical Center's special burn unit.


text: Jackson said he had suffered third-degree burns on the back of his head that had almost gone through his skull, and that it had caused him a lot of problems. Over a period of several years balloon implants had been inserted to stretch the affected area and cut out the scars in order to restore his hair. In November 1993, Jackson announced the cancellation of the remaining Dangerous Tour due to a dependence on painkillers which had been prescribed after a recent constructive scalp surgery. The efforts to restore his hair failed and Jackson finally decided to wear a wig.


text: In August 1993, two shows of Jackson's Dangerous Tour in Thailand had to be canceled due to dehydration. Following these cancellations Coca-Cola, rival of Jackson's sponsor Pepsi, ran a controversial advertisement in Bangkok's English-language newspapers posing "Dehydrated? There's always a Coke". On August 27, 1993, Jackson "returned to the concert stage". A few days later Jackson complained of nausea and a severe headache. His physician stated Jackson had had a migraine a few weeks before and that the dehydration might have intensified it. Jackson underwent a MRI scan which was entirely normal.


text: A specialist confirmed Forecast's diagnosis of "late-onset migraine," and medication was prescribed for Jackson. Jackson consumed a lot of water, preventing dehydration and voice problems.


text: In late 1995, Jackson was rushed to a hospital after collapsing during rehearsals for a televised performance. Medics cited irregular beats, gastro-intestinal inflammation, dehydration, and kidney and liver irregularities.


text: In June 2003 Jackson had been briefly hospitalized before a deposition in a copyright matter. A physician had stated Jackson was weak, dizzy and dehydrated. He had been treated with intravenous fluids and a tranquilizer. A lawyer for Jackson stated Jackson "sometimes became nervous and failed to eat when faced with depositions". An emergency physician and Jackson's personal physician had provided affidavits regarding Jackson's health. The deposition was postponed.


text: In June 1990, Jackson was admitted to a Santa Monica hospital with chest pains. According to Mark Zatzkis, "laboratory and X-ray tests of Jackson's heart and lungs revealed no abnormalities"; the pains "were caused by bruised ribs suffered during a vigorous dance practice".


text: The first concert in Santiago de Chile, scheduled for October 21, 1993, was canceled due to lumbar problems; two days later, Jackson performed at Estadio Nacional. Another concert in Lima, Peru, scheduled for October 26, 1993, was canceled due to a torn muscle suffered during a show in Brazil.


text: Jackson suffered a back injury in July 1997 after one of the stages collapsed during a concert in Munich, Germany. However, the History Tour continued.