title: Zbigniew Brzezinski

text: In 1964, Brzezinski supported Lyndon Johnson's presidential campaign and the Great Society and civil rights policies, while on the other hand he saw Soviet leadership as having been purged of any creativity following the ousting of Khrushchev. Through Jan Nowak-Jezioranski, Brzezinski met with Adam Michnik, future Polish Solidarity activist.


title: Zbigniew Brzezinski

text: Brzezinski continued to support engagement with Eastern European governments, while warning against De Gaulle's vision of a "Europe from the Atlantic to the Urals." He also supported the Vietnam War. In 1966, Brzezinski was appointed to the Policy Planning Council of the U.S. Department of State (President Johnson's October 7, 1966, "Bridge Building" speech was a product of Brzezinski's influence). In 1968, Brzezinski resigned from the council in protest of President Johnson's expansion of the war. Next, he became a foreign policy advisor to Vice President Hubert Humphrey.


title: Zbigniew Brzezinski

text: Events in Czechoslovakia further reinforced Brzezinski's criticisms of the right's aggressive stance toward Eastern European governments. His service to the Johnson administration, and his fact-finding trip to Vietnam, made him an enemy of the New Left.


title: Zbigniew Brzezinski

text: For the 1968 U.S. presidential campaign, Brzezinski was chairman of the Humphrey's Foreign Policy Task Force.


title: Zbigniew Brzezinski

text: Brzezinski called for a pan-European conference, an idea that would eventually find fruition in 1973 as the Conference for Security and Co-operation in Europe. Meanwhile, he became a leading critic of both the Nixon-Kissinger détente condominium, as well as George McGovern's pacifism.


title: Zbigniew Brzezinski

text: In his 1970 piece "Between Two Ages: America's Role in the Technetronic Era", Brzezinski argued that a coordinated policy among developed nations was necessary in order to counter global instability erupting from increasing economic inequality. Out of this thesis, Brzezinski co-founded the Trilateral Commission with David Rockefeller, serving as director from 1973 to 1976. The Trilateral Commission is a group of prominent political and business leaders and academics primarily from the United States, Western Europe and Japan. Its purpose was to strengthen relations among the three most industrially advanced regions of the capitalist world. In 1974, Brzezinski selected Georgia Governor Jimmy Carter as a member.


title: Zbigniew Brzezinski

text: Carter announced his candidacy for the 1976 presidential campaign to a skeptical media and proclaimed himself an "eager student" of Brzezinski. Brzezinski became Carter's principal foreign policy advisor by late 1975. He became an outspoken critic of the Nixon-Kissinger over-reliance on détente, a situation preferred by the Soviet Union, favoring the Helsinki process instead, which focused on human rights, international law and peaceful engagement in Eastern Europe. Brzezinski was considered to be the Democrats' response to Republican Henry Kissinger. Carter engaged his incumbent opponent for the presidency, Gerald Ford, in foreign policy debates by contrasting the Trilateral vision with Ford's détente.


title: Zbigniew Brzezinski

text: After his victory in 1976, Carter made Brzezinski National Security Advisor. Earlier that year, major labor riots broke out in Poland, laying the foundations for Solidarity. Brzezinski began by emphasizing the "Basket III" human rights in the Helsinki Final Act, which inspired Charter 77 in Czechoslovakia shortly thereafter.


title: Zbigniew Brzezinski

text: Brzezinski assisted with writing parts of Carter's inaugural address, and this served his purpose of sending a positive message to Soviet dissidents. The Soviet Union and Western European leaders both complained that this kind of rhetoric ran against the "code of détente" that Nixon and Kissinger had established. Brzezinski ran up against members of his own Democratic Party who disagreed with this interpretation of détente, including Secretary of State Cyrus Vance. Vance argued for less emphasis on human rights in order to gain Soviet agreement to Strategic Arms Limitation Talks (SALT), whereas Brzezinski favored doing both at the same time. Brzezinski then ordered Radio Free Europe transmitters to increase the power and area of their broadcasts, a provocative reversal of Nixon-Kissinger policies. West German chancellor Helmut Schmidt objected to Brzezinski's agenda, even calling for the removal of Radio Free Europe from German soil.


title: Zbigniew Brzezinski

text: During the Carter (and Reagan) administrations, the access of Armand Hammer, petroleum industrialist and Soviet trade advocate, to the Oval Office was blocked. Brzezinski stated he "did what was necessary to keep him out of the White House."


title: Zbigniew Brzezinski

text: The State Department was alarmed by Brzezinski's support for dissidents in East Germany and objected to his suggestion that Carter's first overseas visit be to Poland. He visited Warsaw and met with Cardinal Stefan Wyszynski (against the objection of the U.S. Ambassador to Poland), recognizing the Roman Catholic Church as the legitimate opposition to communist rule in Poland.


title: Zbigniew Brzezinski

text: By 1978, Brzezinski and Vance were more and more at odds over the direction of Carter's foreign policy. Vance sought to continue the style of détente engineered by Nixon-Kissinger, with a focus on arms control. Brzezinski believed that détente emboldened the Soviets in Angola and the Middle East, and so he argued for increased military strength and an emphasis on human rights. Vance, the State Department, and the media criticized Brzezinski publicly as seeking to revive the Cold War.


title: Zbigniew Brzezinski

text: Brzezinski advised Carter in 1978 to engage the People's Republic of China and traveled to Beijing to lay the groundwork for the normalization of relations between the two countries. This also resulted in the severing of ties with the United States' longtime anti-Communist ally the Republic of China (Taiwan).


title: Zbigniew Brzezinski

text: 1979 saw two major strategically important events: the overthrow of U.S. ally the Shah of Iran, and the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. The Iranian Revolution precipitated the Iran hostage crisis, which would last for the rest of Carter's presidency. Brzezinski anticipated the Soviet invasion, and, with the support of Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, and the People's Republic of China, he created a strategy to undermine the Soviet presence. Using this atmosphere of insecurity, Brzezinski led the United States toward a new arms buildup and the development of the Rapid Deployment Forces—policies that are both more generally associated with Reagan's presidency now.


title: Zbigniew Brzezinski

text: In 1979, the Soviets intervened in the Second Yemenite War. The Soviet backing of South Yemen constituted a "smaller shock", in tandem with tensions that were rising due to the Iranian Revolution. This played a role in shifting Carter's viewpoint on the Soviet Union to a more assertive one, a shift that finalized with the Soviet-Afghan War.


title: Zbigniew Brzezinski

text: Brzezinski constantly urged either the restoration of the Shah of Iran to power or a military takeover, whatever the short-term costs in terms of values.


title: Zbigniew Brzezinski

text: On November 9, 1979, Brzezinski was woken at 3 am by a phone call with a startling message: The Soviets had just launched 250 nuclear weapons at the United States. Minutes later, Brzezinski received another call: The early-warning system actually showed 2,000 missiles heading toward the United States. As Brzezinski prepared to phone President Jimmy Carter to plan a full-scale response, he received a third call: It was a false alarm. An early warning training tape generating indications of a large-scale Soviet nuclear attack had somehow transferred to the actual early warning network, which triggered an all-too-real scramble.


title: Zbigniew Brzezinski

text: Brzezinski, acting under a lame duck Carter presidency—but encouraged that Solidarity in Poland had vindicated his style of engagement with Eastern Europe—took a hard-line stance against what seemed like an imminent Soviet invasion of Poland. He even made a midnight phone call to Pope John Paul II (whose visit to Poland in 1979 had foreshadowed the emergence of Solidarity) warning him in advance. The U.S. stance was a significant change from previous reactions to Soviet repression in Hungary in 1956 and Czechoslovakia in 1968.


title: Zbigniew Brzezinski

text: Brzezinski developed the Carter Doctrine, which committed the U.S. to use military force in defense of the Persian Gulf. In 1981 President Carter presented Brzezinski with the Presidential Medal of Freedom.


title: Zbigniew Brzezinski

text: President Carter chose Brzezinski for the position of National Security Adviser (NSA) because he wanted an assertive intellectual at his side to provide him with day-to-day advice and guidance on foreign policy decisions. Brzezinski would preside over a reorganized National Security Council (NSC) structure, fashioned to ensure that the NSA would be only one of many players in the foreign policy process.


title: Zbigniew Brzezinski

text: Initially, Carter reduced the NSC staff by one-half, and decreased the number of standing NSC committees from eight to two. All issues referred to the NSC were reviewed by one of the two new committees, either the Policy Review Committee (PRC) or the Special Coordinating Committee (SCC). The PRC focused on specific issues, and its chairmanship rotated. The SCC was always chaired by Brzezinski, a circumstance he had to negotiate with Carter to achieve. Carter believed that by making the NSA chairman of only one of the two committees, he would prevent the NSC from being the overwhelming influence on foreign policy decisions it had been under Kissinger's chairmanship during the Nixon administration.


title: Zbigniew Brzezinski

text: The SCC was charged with considering issues that cut across several departments, including oversight of intelligence activities, arms control evaluation, and crisis management. Much of the SCC's time during the Carter years was spent on SALT issues. The Council held few formal meetings, convening only 10 times, compared with 125 meetings during the eight years of the Nixon and Ford administrations. Instead, Carter used frequent, informal meetings as a decision-making device—typically his Friday breakfasts—usually attended by the Vice President, the secretaries of State and Defense, Brzezinski, and the chief domestic adviser.


title: Zbigniew Brzezinski

text: No agendas were prepared and no formal records were kept of these meetings, sometimes resulting in differing interpretations of the decisions actually agreed upon. Brzezinski was careful, in managing his own weekly luncheons with secretaries Vance and Brown in preparation for NSC discussions, to maintain a complete set of notes. Brzezinski also sent weekly reports to the President on major foreign policy undertakings and problems, with recommendations for courses of action. President Carter enjoyed these reports and frequently annotated them with his own views. Brzezinski and the NSC used these Presidential notes (159 of them) as the basis for NSC actions.


title: Zbigniew Brzezinski

text: From the beginning, Brzezinski made sure that the new NSC institutional relationships would assure him a major voice in the shaping of foreign policy. While he knew that Carter would not want him to be another Kissinger, Brzezinski also felt confident that the President did not want Secretary of State Vance to become another Dulles and would want his own input on key foreign policy decisions. Brzezinski's power gradually expanded into the operational area during the Carter Presidency. He increasingly assumed the role of a Presidential emissary. In 1978, for example, Brzezinski traveled to Beijing to lay the groundwork for normalizing U.S.–PRC relations.


title: Zbigniew Brzezinski

text: Like Kissinger before him, Brzezinski maintained his own personal relationship with Soviet Ambassador to the United States Anatoly Dobrynin. Brzezinski had NSC staffers monitor State Department cable traffic through the Situation Room and call back to the State Department if the President preferred to revise or take issue with outgoing State Department instructions. He also appointed his own press spokesman, and his frequent press briefings and appearances on television interview shows made him a prominent public figure, although perhaps not nearly as much as Kissinger had been under Nixon.


title: Zbigniew Brzezinski

text: The Soviet military invasion of Afghanistan in December 1979 significantly damaged the already tenuous relationship between Vance and Brzezinski. Vance felt that Brzezinski's linkage of SALT to other Soviet activities and the MX, together with the growing domestic criticisms in the United States of the SALT II Accord, convinced Brezhnev to decide on military intervention in Afghanistan. Brzezinski, however, later recounted that he advanced proposals to maintain Afghanistan's independence but was frustrated by the Department of State's opposition. An NSC working group on Afghanistan wrote several reports on the deteriorating situation in 1979, but Carter ignored them until the Soviet intervention destroyed his illusions. Only then did he decide to abandon SALT II ratification and pursue the anti-Soviet policies that Brzezinski proposed.


title: Zbigniew Brzezinski

text: The Iranian revolution was the last straw for the disintegrating relationship between Vance and Brzezinski. As the upheaval developed, the two advanced fundamentally different positions. Brzezinski wanted to control the revolution and increasingly suggested military action to prevent Ayatollah Khomeini from coming to power, while Vance wanted to come to terms with the new Islamic Republic of Iran. As a consequence, Carter failed to develop a coherent approach to the Iranian situation. Vance's resignation following the unsuccessful mission to rescue the American hostages in March 1980, undertaken over his objections, was the final result of the deep disagreement between Brzezinski and Vance.


title: Zbigniew Brzezinski

text: During the 1960s, Brzezinski articulated the strategy of peaceful engagement for undermining the Soviet bloc, and while serving on the State Department Policy Planning Council, persuaded President Lyndon B. Johnson to adopt (in October 1966) peaceful engagement as U.S. strategy, placing détente ahead of German reunification and thus reversing prior U.S. priorities.


title: Zbigniew Brzezinski

text: During the 1970s and 1980s, at the height of his political involvement, Brzezinski participated in the formation of the Trilateral Commission in order to more closely cement U.S.–Japanese–European relations. As the three most economically advanced sectors of the world, the people of the three regions could be brought together in cooperation that would give them a more cohesive stance against the communist world.


title: Zbigniew Brzezinski

text: While serving in the White House, Brzezinski emphasized the centrality of human rights as a means of placing the Soviet Union on the ideological defensive. With Jimmy Carter in Camp David, he assisted in the attainment of the Egypt–Israel peace treaty.


title: Zbigniew Brzezinski

text: He actively supported Polish Solidarity and the Afghan resistance to Soviet invasion, and provided covert support for national independence movements in the Soviet Union. He played a leading role in normalizing U.S.–PRC relations and in the development of joint strategic cooperation, cultivating a relationship with Deng Xiaoping, for which he is thought very highly of in mainland China to this day.


title: Zbigniew Brzezinski

text: In the 1990s he formulated the strategic case for buttressing the independent statehood of Ukraine, partially as a means to prevent a resurgence of the Russian Empire, and to drive Russia toward integration with the West, promoting instead "geopolitical pluralism" in the space of the former Soviet Union. He developed "a plan for Europe" urging the expansion of NATO, making the case for the expansion of NATO to the Baltic countries.


title: Zbigniew Brzezinski

text: He served as Bill Clinton's emissary to Azerbaijan in order to promote the Baku–Tbilisi–Ceyhan pipeline. Subsequently, he became a member of Honorary Council of Advisors of U.S.-Azerbaijan Chamber of Commerce (USACC). Further, he led, together with Lane Kirkland, the effort to increase the endowment for the U.S.-sponsored Polish-American Freedom Foundation from the proposed $112 million to an eventual total of well over $200 million.


title: Zbigniew Brzezinski

text: Communists under the leadership of Nur Muhammad Taraki seized power in Afghanistan on April 27, 1978. The new regime—divided between Taraki's extremist Khalq faction and the more moderate Parcham—signed a treaty of friendship with the Soviet Union in December of that year. Taraki's efforts to improve secular education and redistribute land were accompanied by mass executions (including of many conservative religious leaders) and political oppression unprecedented in Afghan history, igniting a revolt by mujahideen rebels.


title: Zbigniew Brzezinski

text: Following a general uprising in April 1979, Taraki was deposed by Khalq rival Hafizullah Amin in September. Amin was considered a "brutal psychopath" by foreign observers; even the Soviets were alarmed by the brutality of the Afghan communists, and suspected Amin of being an agent of the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), although that was not the case. By December, Amin's government had lost control of much of the country, prompting the Soviet Union to invade Afghanistan, execute Amin, and install Parcham leader Babrak Karmal as president.


title: Zbigniew Brzezinski

text: President Carter was surprised by the invasion, as the consensus of the U.S. intelligence community during 1978 and 1979—reiterated as late as September 29, 1979—was that "Moscow would not intervene in force even if it appeared likely that the Khalq government was about to collapse." Indeed, Carter's diary entries from November 1979 until the Soviet invasion in late December contain only two short references to Afghanistan, and are instead preoccupied with the ongoing hostage crisis in Iran. In the West, the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan was considered a threat to global security and the oil supplies of the Persian Gulf.


title: Zbigniew Brzezinski

text: Moreover, the failure to accurately predict Soviet intentions caused American officials to reappraise the Soviet threat to both Iran and Pakistan, although it is now known that those fears were overblown. For example, U.S. intelligence closely followed Soviet exercises for an invasion of Iran throughout 1980, while an earlier warning from Brzezinski that "if the Soviets came to dominate Afghanistan, they could promote a separate Baluchistan  ... [thus] dismembering Pakistan and Iran" took on new urgency.


title: Zbigniew Brzezinski

text: These concerns were a major factor in the unrequited efforts of both the Carter and Reagan administrations to improve relations with Iran, and resulted in massive aid to Pakistan's Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq. Zia's ties with the U.S. had been strained during Carter's presidency due to Pakistan's nuclear program and the execution of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto in April 1979, but Carter told Brzezinski and Secretary of State Cyrus Vance as early as January 1979 that it was vital to "repair our relationships with Pakistan" in light of the unrest in Iran.


title: Zbigniew Brzezinski

text: One initiative Carter authorized to achieve this goal was a collaboration between the CIA and Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI); through the ISI, the CIA began providing some $695,000 worth of non-lethal assistance to the mujahideen on July 3, 1979—several months prior to the Soviet invasion. The modest scope of this early collaboration was likely influenced by the understanding, later recounted by CIA official Robert Gates, "that a substantial U.S. covert aid program" might have "raise[d] the stakes" thereby causing "the Soviets to intervene more directly and vigorously than otherwise intended". The first shipment of U.S.weapons intended for the mujahideen reached Pakistan on January 10, 1980, shortly following the Soviet invasion.


title: Zbigniew Brzezinski

text: In the aftermath of the invasion, Carter was determined to respond vigorously to what he considered a dangerous provocation. In a televised speech, he announced sanctions on the Soviet Union, promised renewed aid to Pakistan, and committed the U.S. to the Persian Gulf's defense. The thrust of U.S. policy for the duration of the war was determined by Carter in early 1980: Carter initiated a program to arm the mujahideen through Pakistan's ISI and secured a pledge from Saudi Arabia to match U.S. funding for this purpose. U.S. support for the mujahideen accelerated under Carter's successor, Ronald Reagan, at a final cost to U.S. taxpayers of some $3 billion. The Soviets were unable to quell the insurgency and withdrew from Afghanistan in 1989, precipitating the dissolution of the Soviet Union itself.


title: Zbigniew Brzezinski

text: However, the decision to route U.S. aid through Pakistan led to massive fraud, as weapons sent to Karachi were frequently sold on the local market rather than delivered to the Afghan rebels; Karachi soon "became one of the most violent cities in the world". Pakistan also controlled which rebels received assistance: Of the seven mujahideen groups supported by Zia's government, four espoused Islamic fundamentalist beliefs—and these fundamentalists received most of the funding. Years later, in a 1997 CNN/National Security Archive interview, Brzezinski detailed the strategy taken by the Carter administration against the Soviets in 1979:


title: Zbigniew Brzezinski

text: We immediately launched a twofold process when we heard that the Soviets had entered Afghanistan. The first involved direct reactions and sanctions focused on the Soviet Union, and both the State Department and the National Security Council prepared long lists of sanctions to be adopted, of steps to be taken to increase the international costs to the Soviet Union of their actions. And the second course of action led to my going to Pakistan a month or so after the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, for the purpose of coordinating with the Pakistanis a joint response, the purpose of which would be to make the Soviets bleed for as much and as long as is possible; and we engaged in that effort in a collaborative sense with the Saudis, the Egyptians, the British, the Chinese, and we started providing weapons to the Mujaheddin, from various sources again—for example, some Soviet arms from the Egyptians and the Chinese. We even got Soviet arms from the Czechoslovak communist government, since it was obviously susceptible to material incentives; and at some point we started buying arms for the Mujaheddin from the Soviet army in Afghanistan, because that army was increasingly corrupt.


title: Zbigniew Brzezinski

text: Following the September 11 attacks, a theory that Brzezinski intentionally provoked the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in December 1979 was widely-repeated, with some adherents blaming Brzezinski (and the Carter administration) for the decades-long Afghanistan conflict (1978–present), the September 11 attacks, and the 2016 Orlando nightclub shooting. A 2020 review of declassified U.S. documents by Conor Tobin in the journal "Diplomatic History" contends that this theory—referred to as the "Afghan Trap" theory by the author—is a misrepresentation of the historical record based almost entirely on a "caricature" of Brzezinski as an anti-communist fanatic, a disputed statement attributed to Brzezinski by a "Le Nouvel Observateur" journalist in 1998 (which was "repeatedly den[ied]" by Brzezinski himself), "and the circumstantial fact that U.S. support antedated the invasion." In addition to Tobin, several academic or journalistic sources have questioned the veracity of aspects of the "Afghan Trap" theory, as have at least two former high-ranking Carter administration officials.


title: Zbigniew Brzezinski

text: While it is true that the March 1979 Herat uprising in Afghanistan and a desire to rebuild strained U.S. relations with Pakistani leader Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq in light of the Iranian Revolution prompted Carter to sign presidential findings in July 1979 permitting the CIA to spend $695,000 on non-military assistance (e.g., "cash, medical equipment, and radio transmitters") to Afghan mujahideen insurgents (and on a propaganda campaign targeting the Soviet-backed leadership of the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan or DRA), internal deliberations show that "U.S. policies were almost wholly reactive ... to the Soviets' escalating military presence" with policymakers rejecting "a "substantial" covert aid program" (including lethal provisions) "to avoid provoking Moscow." (The Soviet military and political presence in Afghanistan steadily increased throughout 1979, including "tens of millions of dollars in military aid provided by Moscow to the DRA.")


title: Zbigniew Brzezinski

text: According to Tobin, Brzezinski went to considerable lengths to dissuade the Soviets from invading Afghanistan, urging the Carter administration to publicize information regarding the growing Soviet military role in Afghanistan's nascent civil war and to explicitly warn the Soviets of severe sanctions in the event of an invasion; when his warnings were watered-down by the State Department under the leadership of Secretary of State Cyrus Vance, Brzezinski leaked information to a journalist, resulting in an August 1979 article in "The New York Times" headlined "U.S. Is Indirectly Pressing Russians to Halt Afghanistan Intervention." (Ironically, Soviet general Valentin Varennikov complained in 1995 that American officials had never made Afghanistan's strategic significance clear to their Soviet counterparts prior to December 1979, speculating—in line with the "Afghan Trap" theory—that this omission may have been deliberate as the U.S. "had an interest in us getting stuck in Afghanistan, and paying the greatest possible price for that.") Furthermore, Brzezinski attempted to discretely negotiate a withdrawal of Soviet troops with Soviet ambassador Anatoly Dobrynin during 1980, privately conceding that the country would likely remain within the Soviet sphere of influence following a diplomatic settlement, as he had little confidence in the mujahideen's ability to inflict a military defeat on the Red Army.


title: Zbigniew Brzezinski

text: Carter administration officials Robert Gates and Vice President Walter Mondale criticized the "Afghan Trap" theory between 2010 and 2012, the former stating that it had "no basis in fact" and the latter calling it "a huge, unwarranted leap". Tobin concludes: "The small-scale covert program that developed "in response" to the increasing Soviet influence was part of a contingency plan "if" the Soviets did intervene militarily, as Washington would be in a better position to make it difficult for them to consolidate their position, but not designed to induce an intervention." Steve Coll had previously stated in 2004 that "[c]ontemporary memos—particularly those written in the first days after the Soviet invasion—make clear that while Brzezinski was determined to confront the Soviets in Afghanistan through covert action, he was also very worried the Soviets would prevail. ... Given this evidence and the enormous political and security costs that the invasion imposed on the Carter administration, any claim that Brzezinski lured the Soviets into Afghanistan warrants deep skepticism." Coll's "specific debunking of the Brzezinski "Nouvel Observateur" interview" was cited by the National Security Archive in 2019. In 2016, Justin Vaïsse referred to "[t]he thesis according to which a trap was set having been dismissed" as "[s]uch a position would not be compatible with the archives". Elisabeth Leake, writing in 2022, agreed that "the original provision was certainly inadequate to force a Soviet armed intervention. Instead it adhered to broader US practices of providing limited covert support to anti-communist forces worldwide."


title: Zbigniew Brzezinski

text: In November 1979, revolutionary students stormed the Embassy of the United States, Tehran and took American diplomats hostage. Brzezinski argued against Secretary of State Cyrus Vance's proposed diplomatic solutions to the Iran hostage crisis, insisting they "would deliver Iran to the Soviets." Vance, struggling with gout, went to Florida on Thursday, April 10, 1980, for a long weekend.


title: Zbigniew Brzezinski

text: On Friday, Brzezinski held a newly scheduled meeting of the National Security Council and authorized Operation Eagle Claw, a military expedition into Tehran to rescue the hostages. Deputy Secretary Warren Christopher, who attended the meeting in Vance's place, did not inform Vance. Furious, Vance handed in his resignation on principle, calling Brzezinski "evil".


title: Zbigniew Brzezinski

text: President Carter aborted the operation after three of the eight helicopters he had sent into the Dasht-e Kavir desert crashed, and a fourth then collided with a transport plane, causing a fire that killed eight servicemen. The hostages were ultimately released on the day of the first inauguration of Ronald Reagan, after 444 days in captivity.


title: Zbigniew Brzezinski

text: Along with Kissinger and David Rockefeller, Brzezinski played a role in convincing Carter to admit the exiled Shah into the U.S.


title: Zbigniew Brzezinski

text: Shortly after taking office in 1977, President Carter again reaffirmed the United States' position of upholding the Shanghai Communiqué. In May 1978, Brzezinski overcame concerns from the State Department and traveled to Beijing, where he began talks that seven months later led to full diplomatic relations. The United States and People's Republic of China announced on December 15, 1978, that the two governments would establish diplomatic relations on January 1, 1979. This required that the United States sever relations with the Republic of China on Taiwan. Consolidating U.S. gains in befriending Communist China was a major priority stressed by Brzezinski during his time as National Security Advisor.


title: Zbigniew Brzezinski

text: Brzezinski "denied reports that he encouraged China to support the genocidal dictator Pol Pot in Cambodia, because Pol Pot's Khmer Rouge were the enemies of communist Vietnam." However, following the Vietnamese invasion of Cambodia which toppled the Khmer Rouge, Brzezinski prevailed in having the administration refuse to recognize the new Cambodian government due to its support by the Soviet Union.


title: Zbigniew Brzezinski

text: The most important strategic aspect of the new U.S.–Chinese relationship was in its effect on the Cold War. China was no longer considered part of a larger Sino-Soviet bloc but instead a third pole of power due to the Sino-Soviet Split, helping the United States against the Soviet Union.


title: Zbigniew Brzezinski

text: In the Joint Communiqué on the Establishment of Diplomatic Relations dated January 1, 1979, the United States transferred diplomatic recognition from Taipei to Beijing. The United States reiterated the Shanghai Communiqué's acknowledgment of the PRC position that there is only one China and that Taiwan is a part of China; Beijing acknowledged that the United States would continue to carry on commercial, cultural, and other unofficial contacts with Taiwan. The Taiwan Relations Act made the necessary changes in U.S. law to permit unofficial relations with Taiwan to continue.


title: Zbigniew Brzezinski

text: In addition the severing relations with the Republic of China, the Carter Administration also agreed to unilaterally pull out of the Sino-American Mutual Defense Treaty, withdraw U.S. military personnel from Taiwan, and gradually reduce arms sales to the Republic of China. There was widespread opposition in Congress, notably from Republicans, due to the Republic of China's status as an anti-Communist ally in the Cold War. In "Goldwater v. Carter", Barry Goldwater made a failed attempt to stop Carter from terminating the mutual defense treaty.


title: Zbigniew Brzezinski

text: On October 10, 2007, Brzezinski along with other influential signatories sent a letter to President George W. Bush and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice titled "Failure Risks Devastating Consequences." The letter was partly an advice and a warning of the failure of an upcoming U.S.-sponsored Middle East conference scheduled for November 2007 between representatives of Israelis and Palestinians. The letter also suggested to engage in "a genuine dialogue with Hamas" rather than to isolate it further.


title: Zbigniew Brzezinski

text: Presidential Directive 18 on U.S. National Security, signed early in Carter's term, signaled a fundamental reassessment of the value of détente, and set the United States on a course to quietly end Kissinger's strategy.


title: Zbigniew Brzezinski

text: Zbigniew Brzezinski played a major role in organizing Jimmy Carter's policies on the Soviet Union as a grand strategy. Brzezinski was a liberal Democrat and a committed anti-communist, favoring social justice while seeing world events in substantially Cold War terms. Additionally, according to "Foreign Policy", "Brzezinski’s outlook was anti-Soviet, but he also insisted, like George Kennan before him, on the necessity of cultivating a strong West."


title: Zbigniew Brzezinski

text: Brzezinski stated that human rights could be used to put the Soviet Union ideologically on the defensive:


title: Zbigniew Brzezinski

text: Brzezinski's policy on Iran was thoroughly connected to the Soviet Union, because it was observed that each coup and revolution in 1979 had advanced Soviet power towards the Persian Gulf. Brzezinski advised President Carter that the United States's "greatest vulnerability" lay on an arc "stretching from Chittagong through Islamabad to Aden." This played a role in the Carter Doctrine.


title: Zbigniew Brzezinski

text: Presidential Directive 59, "Nuclear Employment Policy", dramatically changed U.S. targeting of nuclear weapons aimed at the Soviet Union. Implemented with the aid of Defense Secretary Harold Brown, this directive officially set the United States on a countervailing strategy.


title: Zbigniew Brzezinski

text: Brzezinski left office concerned about the internal division within the Democratic party, arguing that the dovish McGovernite wing would send the Democrats into permanent minority. Ronald Reagan invited him to stay on as his National Security Adviser, but Brzezinski declined, feeling that the new president needed a fresh perspective on which to build his foreign policy. He had mixed relations with the Reagan administration. On the one hand, he supported it as an alternative to the Democrats' pacifism. On the other hand, he also criticized it as seeing foreign policy in overly black-and-white terms.


title: Zbigniew Brzezinski

text: By the 1980s, Brzezinski argued that the general crisis of the Soviet Union foreshadowed communism's end.


title: Zbigniew Brzezinski

text: He remained involved in Polish affairs, critical of the imposition of martial law in Poland in 1981, and more so of the Western European acquiescence to its imposition in the name of stability. Brzezinski briefed U.S. vice president George H. W. Bush before his 1987 trip to Poland that aided in the revival of the Solidarity movement.


title: Zbigniew Brzezinski

text: In 1985, under the Reagan administration, Brzezinski served as a member of the President's Chemical Warfare Commission. From 1987 to 1988, he worked on the U.S. National Security Council–Defense Department Commission on Integrated Long-Term Strategy. From 1987 to 1989 he also served on the President's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board.


title: Zbigniew Brzezinski

text: In 1988, Brzezinski was co-chairman of the Bush National Security Advisory Task Force, endorsing Bush for president, and breaking with the Democratic party. Brzezinski published "The Grand Failure" the same year, predicting the failure of Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev's reforms, and the collapse of the Soviet Union in a few more decades. He said there were five possibilities for the Soviet Union: successful pluralization, protracted crisis, renewed stagnation, coup (by the KGB or Soviet military), or the explicit collapse of the Communist regime. He called collapse "at this stage a much more remote possibility" than protracted crisis.


title: Zbigniew Brzezinski

text: He also predicted that the chance of some form of communism existing in the Soviet Union in 2017 was a little more than 50% and that when the end did come it would be "most likely turbulent". Conflicts such as Nagorno-Karabakh crisis and Soviet attempts to reinstate its authority in Lithuania and other republics were much less violent than Brzezinski and other observers anticipated. In the event, the Soviet system collapsed totally after the abortive August coup of 1991 launched against Gorbachev failed.


title: Zbigniew Brzezinski

text: In 1989, the Communists failed to mobilize support in Poland, and Solidarity swept the general elections. Later the same year, Brzezinski toured Russia and visited a memorial to the Katyn Massacre. This served as an opportunity for him to ask the Soviet government to acknowledge the truth about the event, for which he received a standing ovation in the Soviet Academy of Sciences. Ten days later, the Berlin Wall fell, and Soviet-supported governments in Eastern Europe began to totter. Strobe Talbott, one of Brzezinski's long-time critics, conducted an interview with him for "TIME" magazine entitled "Vindication of a Hardliner".


title: Zbigniew Brzezinski

text: In 1990, Brzezinski warned against post–Cold War euphoria. He publicly opposed the Gulf War, arguing that the United States would squander the international goodwill it had accumulated by defeating the Soviet Union, and that it could trigger wide resentment throughout the Arab world. He expanded upon these views in his 1992 work "Out of Control".


title: Zbigniew Brzezinski

text: Brzezinski was prominently critical of the Clinton administration's hesitation to intervene against the Serb forces in the Bosnian war. He also began to speak out against Russia's First Chechen War, forming the American Committee for Peace in Chechnya. Wary of a move toward the reinvigoration of Russian power, Brzezinski negatively viewed the succession of former KGB agent Vladimir Putin after Boris Yeltsin. In this vein, he became one of the foremost advocates of NATO expansion. He wrote in 1998 that "Without Ukraine, Russia ceases to be a Eurasian empire." He later came out in support of the 1999 NATO bombing of Serbia during the Kosovo war.


title: Zbigniew Brzezinski

text: After his role as National Security Adviser came to a close, Brzezinski returned to teaching, but remained an influential voice in international relations. Polish politician Radek Sikorski wrote that to Poles, Brzezinski was considered "our statesman" and his was one of the most revered voices in Poland: "During the decades when Poland was stuck against her will behind the Iron Curtain, he and the Polish pope were the two most important voices for a free Poland abroad. After liberation, he acted as an adviser and champion of the new democracies on their way to rejoining Western institutions."


title: Zbigniew Brzezinski

text: Though he rose to national prominence as a member of the Carter administration, Brzezinski avoided partisan politics and sometimes later voted Republican. In 1988, he endorsed George H. W. Bush for president over Democrat Michael Dukakis.


title: Zbigniew Brzezinski

text: Brzezinski argued against the 2003 invasion of Iraq and was outspoken in the then-unpopular opinion that the invasion would be a mistake. As recalled by David Ignatius, "Brzezinski paid a cost in the insular, self-reinforcing world of Washington foreign policy opinion, until it became clear to nearly everyone that he (joined in this Iraq War opposition by Scowcroft) had been right." He later called President George W. Bush's foreign policy "catastrophic."


title: Zbigniew Brzezinski

text: Brzezinski was a leading critic of the George W. Bush Administration's conduct of the War on Terror. In 2004, Brzezinski wrote "The Choice", which expanded upon his earlier work,"The Grand Chessboard" (1997), and sharply criticized George W. Bush's foreign policy. In 2007, in a column in "The Washington Post", Brzezinski excoriated the Bush administration, arguing that their post-9/11 actions had damaged the reputation of the United States "infinitely greater than any wild dreams entertained by the fanatical perpetrators of the 9/11 attacks" and destroyed any chance of uniting the world to defeat extremism and terrorism. He later stated that he had "visceral contempt" for British Prime Minister Tony Blair, who supported Bush's actions in Iraq. In September 2007, he defended the book "The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy" by John Mearsheimer.


title: Zbigniew Brzezinski

text: In August 2007, Brzezinski endorsed Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama. He stated that Obama "recognizes that the challenge is a new face, a new sense of direction, a new definition of America's role in the world" and that "What makes Obama attractive to me is that he understands that we live in a very different world where we have to relate to a variety of cultures and people." In September 2007 during a speech on the Iraq war, Obama introduced Brzezinski as "one of our most outstanding thinkers," but some pro-Israel commentators questioned his criticism of the Israel lobby in the United States.


title: Zbigniew Brzezinski

text: In a September 2009 interview with "The Daily Beast", Brzezinski replied to a question about how aggressive President Obama should be in insisting Israel not conduct an air strike on Iran, saying: "We are not exactly impotent little babies. They have to fly over our airspace in Iraq. Are we just going to sit there and watch?" This was interpreted by some supporters of Israel as supporting the downing of Israeli jets by the United States in order to prevent an attack on Iran.


title: Zbigniew Brzezinski

text: On October 1, 2009, Brzezinski delivered the Waldo Family Lecture on International Relations at Old Dominion University in Norfolk, Virginia. In 2011, Brzezinski supported the NATO intervention against the forces of Muammar Gaddafi in the Libyan Civil War, calling non-intervention "morally dubious" and "politically questionable".


title: Zbigniew Brzezinski

text: In early 2012, Brzezinski expressed disappointment and said he was confused by some of Obama's actions, such as the decision to send 2,500 U.S. troops to Australia, but supported him for re-election.


title: Zbigniew Brzezinski

text: On March 3, 2014, between the February 22 ousting of Ukraine President Viktor Yanukovych and the March 16, Crimean referendum, Brzezinski authored an op-ed piece for "The Washington Post" entitled "What is to be done? Putin's aggression in Ukraine needs a response." He led with a link on Russian aggression; he compared Russian President Vladimir Putin's "thuggish tactics in seizing Crimea" and "thinly camouflaged invasion" to Adolf Hitler's occupation of the Sudetenland in 1938, and characterized Putin as a cartoon Benito Mussolini, but stopped well short of advocating that the U.S. go to war. Rather, he suggested that NATO should be put on high alert and recommended "to avert miscalculations". He explicitly stated that reassurances be given to "Russia that it is not seeking to draw Ukraine into NATO."


title: Zbigniew Brzezinski

text: According to Ignatius and Sikorski, Brzezinski was "deeply troubled" by the election of Donald Trump as president of the United States and worried over the future. Two days after the election, on November 10, 2016, Brzezinski warned of "coming turmoil in the nation and the world" in a brief speech after he was awarded the Medal for Distinguished Public Service from the Department of Defense. On May 4, 2017, he sent out his final Tweet, saying, "Sophisticated US leadership is the "sine qua non" of a stable world order. However, we lack the former while the latter is getting worse."


title: Zbigniew Brzezinski

text: Brzezinski was married to Czech-American sculptor Emilie Benes (grand-niece of the second Czechoslovak president, Edvard Beneš), with whom he had three children. His younger son, Mark Brzezinski (b. 1965), is a lawyer who served on President Clinton's National Security Council as an expert on Russia and Southeastern Europe, and has served as the U.S. ambassador to Sweden (2011–2015) and Poland (from 2022). His daughter, Mika Brzezinski (b. 1967), is a television news presenter and co-host of MSNBC's weekday morning program, "Morning Joe", where she provides regular commentary and reads the news headlines for the program. His elder son, Ian Brzezinski (b. 1963), is a Senior Fellow in the International Security Program and is on the Atlantic Council's Strategic Advisors Group. Ian also served as Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Europe and NATO (2001–2005) and was a principal at Booz Allen Hamilton.


title: Zbigniew Brzezinski

text: Brzezinski was a past member of the Atlantic Council and the National Endowment for Democracy. At the time of his death, he was a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and the International Honorary Council of the European Academy of Diplomacy.


title: Zbigniew Brzezinski

text: Brzezinski appeared as himself in several documentary films and TV series, such as: the 1997 film "Eternal Memory: Voices from the Great Terror", directed by David Pultz; Episodes 17 ("Good Guys, Bad Guys"), 19 ("Freeze") and 20 ("Soldiers of God") of the 1998 CNN series "Cold War" produced by Jeremy Isaacs; the 2009 documentary ""; and the 2014 Polish biographical film "Strateg" ("The Strategist") directed by Katarzyna Kolenda-Zaleska and produced by TVN. The 2014 Polish film "Jack Strong" features Krzysztof Pieczyński as Brzezinski.


title: Zbigniew Brzezinski

text: Brzezinski died at Inova Fairfax Hospital in Falls Church, Virginia, on May 26, 2017, at the age of 89. His funeral was held June 9 at the Cathedral of St. Matthew in Washington, D.C. Former President Carter and former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright were among those who gave eulogies, while attendees included international diplomats and emissaries; journalists Carl Bernstein, Chuck Todd and David Ignatius; 100-year-old Gen. Edward Rowny; former National Security Adviser Susan E. Rice; and former National Security Advisor, Lt. Gen. H. R. McMaster.


title: Zbigniew Brzezinski

text: "If I could choose my seatmate, it would be Dr. Brzezinski," Carter said of his international flights on Air Force One. Former National Security Advisor Henry Kissinger, aged 94, was unable to attend, but a note he sent was read during a eulogy: "The world is an emptier place without Zbig pushing the limits of his insights."


title: Astronaut

text: An astronaut (from the Ancient Greek (), meaning 'star', and (), meaning 'sailor') is a person trained, equipped, and deployed by a human spaceflight program to serve as a commander or crew member aboard a spacecraft. Although generally reserved for professional space travelers, the term is sometimes applied to anyone who travels into space, including scientists, politicians, journalists, and tourists.


title: Astronaut

text: "Astronaut" technically applies to all human space travelers regardless of nationality. However, astronauts fielded by Russia or the Soviet Union are typically known instead as cosmonauts (from the Russian "kosmos" (космос), meaning "space", also borrowed from Greek). Comparatively recent developments in crewed spaceflight made by China have led to the rise of the term taikonaut (from the Mandarin "tàikōng" (), meaning "space"), although its use is somewhat informal and its origin is unclear. In China, the People's Liberation Army Astronaut Corps astronauts and their foreign counterparts are all officially called "hángtiānyuán" (, meaning "heaven navigator" or literally "heaven-sailing staff").


title: Astronaut

text: Since 1961, 600 astronauts have flown in space. Until 2002, astronauts were sponsored and trained exclusively by governments, either by the military or by civilian space agencies. With the suborbital flight of the privately funded SpaceShipOne in 2004, a new category of astronaut was created: the commercial astronaut.


title: Astronaut

text: The criteria for what constitutes human spaceflight vary, with some focus on the point where the atmosphere becomes so thin that centrifugal force, rather than aerodynamic force, carries a significant portion of the weight of the flight object. The Fédération Aéronautique Internationale (FAI) Sporting Code for astronautics recognizes only flights that exceed the Kármán line, at an altitude of . In the United States, professional, military, and commercial astronauts who travel above an altitude of are awarded astronaut wings.


title: Astronaut

text: , 552 people from 36 countries have reached or more in altitude, of whom 549 reached low Earth orbit or beyond.


title: Astronaut

text: Of these, 24 people have traveled beyond low Earth orbit, either to lunar orbit, the lunar surface, or, in one case, a loop around the Moon. Three of the 24—Jim Lovell, John Young and Eugene Cernan—did so twice.


title: Astronaut

text: , under the U.S. definition, 558 people qualify as having reached space, above altitude. Of eight X-15 pilots who exceeded in altitude, only one, Joseph A. Walker, exceeded 100 kilometers (about 62.1 miles) and he did it two times, becoming the first person in space twice. Space travelers have spent over 41,790 man-days (114.5 man-years) in space, including over 100 astronaut-days of spacewalks. , the man with the longest cumulative time in space is Gennady Padalka, who has spent 879 days in space. Peggy A. Whitson holds the record for the most time in space by a woman, 377 days.


title: Astronaut

text: In 1959, when both the United States and Soviet Union were planning, but had yet to launch humans into space, NASA Administrator T. Keith Glennan and his Deputy Administrator, Hugh Dryden, discussed whether spacecraft crew members should be called "astronauts" or "cosmonauts". Dryden preferred "cosmonaut", on the grounds that flights would occur in and to the broader "cosmos", while the "astro" prefix suggested flight specifically to the stars. Most NASA Space Task Group members preferred "astronaut", which survived by common usage as the preferred American term. When the Soviet Union launched the first man into space, Yuri Gagarin in 1961, they chose a term which anglicizes to "cosmonaut".


title: Astronaut

text: A professional space traveler is called an "astronaut". The first known use of the term "astronaut" in the modern sense was by Neil R. Jones in his 1930 short story "The Death's Head Meteor". The word itself had been known earlier; for example, in Percy Greg's 1880 book "Across the Zodiac", "astronaut" referred to a spacecraft. In "Les Navigateurs de l'infini" (1925) by J.-H. Rosny aîné, the word "astronautique" (astronautics) was used. The word may have been inspired by "aeronaut", an older term for an air traveler first applied in 1784 to balloonists. An early use of "astronaut" in a non-fiction publication is Eric Frank Russell's poem "The Astronaut", appearing in the November 1934 "Bulletin of the British Interplanetary Society".


title: Astronaut

text: The first known formal use of the term astronautics in the scientific community was the establishment of the annual International Astronautical Congress in 1950, and the subsequent founding of the International Astronautical Federation the following year.


title: Astronaut

text: NASA applies the term astronaut to any crew member aboard NASA spacecraft bound for Earth orbit or beyond. NASA also uses the term as a title for those selected to join its Astronaut Corps. The European Space Agency similarly uses the term astronaut for members of its Astronaut Corps.


title: Astronaut

text: By convention, an astronaut employed by the Russian Federal Space Agency (or its Soviet predecessor) is called a "cosmonaut" in English texts. The word is an Anglicization of "kosmonavt" ( ). Other countries of the former Eastern Bloc use variations of the Russian kosmonavt, such as the (although Polish also uses , and the two words are considered synonyms).


title: Astronaut

text: Coinage of the term has been credited to Soviet aeronautics (or "cosmonautics") pioneer Mikhail Tikhonravov (1900–1974). The first cosmonaut was Soviet Air Force pilot Yuri Gagarin, also the first person in space. He was part of the first six Soviet citizens, with German Titov, Yevgeny Khrunov, Andriyan Nikolayev, Pavel Popovich, and Grigoriy Nelyubov, who were given the title of pilot-cosmonaut in January 1961. Valentina Tereshkova was the first female cosmonaut and the first and youngest woman to have flown in space with a solo mission on the Vostok 6 in 1963. On 14 March 1995, Norman Thagard became the first American to ride to space on board a Russian launch vehicle, and thus became the first "American cosmonaut".


title: Astronaut

text: In Chinese, the term (, "cosmos navigating personnel") is used for astronauts and cosmonauts in general, while (, "navigating celestial-heaven personnel") is used for Chinese astronauts. Here, (, literally "heaven-navigating", or spaceflight) is strictly defined as the navigation of outer space within the local star system, i.e. Solar System. The phrase (, "spaceman") is often used in Hong Kong and Taiwan.


title: Astronaut

text: The term "taikonaut" is used by some English-language news media organizations for professional space travelers from China. The word has featured in the Longman and Oxford English dictionaries, and the term became more common in 2003 when China sent its first astronaut Yang Liwei into space aboard the "Shenzhou 5" spacecraft. This is the term used by Xinhua News Agency in the English version of the Chinese "People's Daily" since the advent of the Chinese space program. The origin of the term is unclear; as early as May 1998, Chiew Lee Yih () from Malaysia, used it in newsgroups.


title: Astronaut

text: For its 2022 Astronaut Group, the European Space Agency envisioned recruiting an astronaut with a physical disability, a category they called "parastronauts", with the intention but not guarantee of spaceflight. The categories of disability considered for the program were individuals with lower limb deficiency (either through amputation or congenital), leg length difference, or a short stature (less than ). On 23 November 2022, John McFall was selected to be the first ESA parastronaut.


title: Astronaut

text: With the rise of space tourism, NASA and the Russian Federal Space Agency agreed to use the term "spaceflight participant" to distinguish those space travelers from professional astronauts on missions coordinated by those two agencies.


title: Astronaut

text: While no nation other than Russia (and previously the Soviet Union), the United States, and China have launched a crewed spacecraft, several other nations have sent people into space in cooperation with one of these countries, e.g. the Soviet-led Interkosmos program. Inspired partly by these missions, other synonyms for astronaut have entered occasional English usage. For example, the term "spationaut" () is sometimes used to describe French space travelers, from the Latin word for "space"; the Malay term (deriving from "angkasa" meaning 'space') was used to describe participants in the Angkasawan program (note its similarity with the Indonesian term "antariksawan"). Plans of the Indian Space Research Organisation to launch its crewed Gaganyaan spacecraft have spurred at times public discussion if another term than "astronaut" should be used for the crew members, suggesting "vyomanaut" (from the Sanskrit word / meaning 'sky' or 'space') or "gagannaut" (from the Sanskrit word for 'sky'). In Finland, the NASA astronaut Timothy Kopra, a Finnish American, has sometimes been referred to as , from the Finnish word . Across Germanic languages, "astronaut" is used in conjunction with locally derived words like German's "Raumfahrer", Dutch's "ruimtevaarder", Swedish's "rymdfarare" and Norwegian's "romfarer".


title: Astronaut

text: As of 2021 in the United States, astronaut status is conferred on a person depending on the authorizing agency:


title: Astronaut

text: On July 20, 2021, the FAA issued an order redefining the eligibility criteria to be an astronaut in response to the private suborbital spaceflights of Jeff Bezos and Richard Branson. The new criteria states that one must have "[d]emonstrated activities during flight that were essential to public safety, or contributed to


title: Astronaut

text: human space flight safety" in order to qualify as an astronaut. This new definition excludes Bezos and Branson.


title: Astronaut

text: The first human in space was Soviet Yuri Gagarin, who was launched on 12 April 1961, aboard Vostok 1 and orbited around the Earth for 108 minutes. The first woman in space was Soviet Valentina Tereshkova, who launched on 16 June 1963, aboard Vostok 6 and orbited Earth for almost three days.


title: Astronaut

text: Alan Shepard became the first American and second person in space on 5 May 1961, on a 15-minute sub-orbital flight aboard "Freedom 7". The first American to orbit the Earth was John Glenn, aboard "Friendship 7" on 20 February 1962. The first American woman in space was Sally Ride, during Space Shuttle "Challenger"'s mission STS-7, on 18 June 1983. In 1992, Mae Jemison became the first African American woman to travel in space aboard STS-47.


title: Astronaut

text: Cosmonaut Alexei Leonov was the first person to conduct an extravehicular activity (EVA), (commonly called a "spacewalk"), on 18 March 1965, on the Soviet Union's Voskhod 2 mission. This was followed two and a half months later by astronaut Ed White who made the first American EVA on NASA's Gemini 4 mission.


title: Astronaut

text: The first crewed mission to orbit the Moon, Apollo 8, included American William Anders who was born in Hong Kong, making him the first Asian-born astronaut in 1968.


title: Astronaut

text: The Soviet Union, through its Intercosmos program, allowed people from other "socialist" (i.e. Warsaw Pact and other Soviet-allied) countries to fly on its missions, with the notable exceptions of France and Austria participating in Soyuz TM-7 and Soyuz TM-13, respectively. An example is Czechoslovak Vladimír Remek, the first cosmonaut from a country other than the Soviet Union or the United States, who flew to space in 1978 on a Soyuz-U rocket. Rakesh Sharma became the first Indian citizen to travel to space. He was launched aboard Soyuz T-11, on 2 April 1984.


title: Astronaut

text: On 23 July 1980, Pham Tuan of Vietnam became the first Asian in space when he flew aboard Soyuz 37. Also in 1980, Cuban Arnaldo Tamayo Méndez became the first person of Hispanic and black African descent to fly in space, and in 1983, Guion Bluford became the first African American to fly into space. In April 1985, Taylor Wang became the first ethnic Chinese person in space. The first person born in Africa to fly in space was Patrick Baudry (France), in 1985. In 1985, Saudi Arabian Prince Sultan Bin Salman Bin AbdulAziz Al-Saud became the first Arab Muslim astronaut in space. In 1988, Abdul Ahad Mohmand became the first Afghan to reach space, spending nine days aboard the "Mir" space station.


title: Astronaut

text: With the increase of seats on the Space Shuttle, the U.S. began taking international astronauts. In 1983, Ulf Merbold of West Germany became the first non-US citizen to fly in a US spacecraft. In 1984, Marc Garneau became the first of eight Canadian astronauts to fly in space (through 2010).


title: Astronaut

text: In 1985, Rodolfo Neri Vela became the first Mexican-born person in space. In 1991, Helen Sharman became the first Briton to fly in space.


title: Astronaut

text: In 2002, Mark Shuttleworth became the first citizen of an African country to fly in space, as a paying spaceflight participant. In 2003, Ilan Ramon became the first Israeli to fly in space, although he died during a re-entry accident.


title: Astronaut

text: On 30 May 2020, Doug Hurley and Bob Behnken became the first astronauts to launch on a private crewed spacecraft, Crew Dragon.


title: Astronaut

text: The youngest person to reach space is Oliver Daemen, who was 18 years and 11 months old when he made a suborbital spaceflight on Blue Origin NS-16. Daemen, who was a commercial passenger aboard the New Shepard, broke the record of Soviet cosmonaut Gherman Titov, who was 25 years old when he flew Vostok 2. Titov remains the youngest human to reach orbit; he rounded the planet 17 times. Titov was also the first person to suffer space sickness and the first person to sleep in space, twice. The oldest person to reach space is William Shatner, who was 90 years old when he made a suborbital spaceflight on Blue Origin NS-18. The oldest person to reach orbit is John Glenn, one of the Mercury 7, who was 77 when he flew on STS-95. For greater detail on age records, see .


title: Astronaut

text: As of 2006, the most spaceflights by an individual astronaut is seven, a record held by both Jerry L. Ross and Franklin Chang-Diaz. The farthest distance from Earth an astronaut has traveled was , when Jim Lovell, Jack Swigert, and Fred Haise went around the Moon during the Apollo 13 emergency.


title: Astronaut

text: The first civilian in space was Valentina Tereshkova aboard Vostok 6 (she also became the first woman in space on that mission).


title: Astronaut

text: Tereshkova was only honorarily inducted into the USSR's Air Force, which did not accept female pilots at that time. A month later, Joseph Albert Walker became the first American civilian in space when his X-15 Flight 90 crossed the line, qualifying him by the international definition of spaceflight. Walker had joined the US Army Air Force but was not a member during his flight.


title: Astronaut

text: The first people in space who had never been a member of any country's armed forces were both Konstantin Feoktistov and Boris Yegorov aboard Voskhod 1.


title: Astronaut

text: The first non-governmental space traveler was Byron K. Lichtenberg, a researcher from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology who flew on STS-9 in 1983. In December 1990, Toyohiro Akiyama became the first paying space traveler and the first journalist in space for Tokyo Broadcasting System, a visit to Mir as part of an estimated $12 million (USD) deal with a Japanese TV station, although at the time, the term used to refer to Akiyama was "Research Cosmonaut". Akiyama suffered severe space sickness during his mission, which affected his productivity.


title: Astronaut

text: The first self-funded space tourist was Dennis Tito on board the Russian spacecraft Soyuz TM-3 on 28 April 2001.


title: Astronaut

text: The first person to fly on an entirely privately funded mission was Mike Melvill, piloting SpaceShipOne flight 15P on a suborbital journey, although he was a test pilot employed by Scaled Composites and not an actual paying space tourist. Seven others have paid the Russian Space Agency to fly into space:


title: Astronaut

text: The first NASA astronauts were selected for training in 1959. Early in the space program, military jet test piloting and engineering training were often cited as prerequisites for selection as an astronaut at NASA, although neither John Glenn nor Scott Carpenter (of the Mercury Seven) had any university degree, in engineering or any other discipline at the time of their selection. Selection was initially limited to military pilots. The earliest astronauts for both the US and the USSR tended to be jet fighter pilots, and were often test pilots.


title: Astronaut

text: Once selected, NASA astronauts go through twenty months of training in a variety of areas, including training for extravehicular activity in a facility such as NASA's Neutral Buoyancy Laboratory. Astronauts-in-training (astronaut candidates) may also experience short periods of weightlessness (microgravity) in an aircraft called the "Vomit Comet," the nickname given to a pair of modified KC-135s (retired in 2000 and 2004, respectively, and replaced in 2005 with a C-9) which perform parabolic flights. Astronauts are also required to accumulate a number of flight hours in high-performance jet aircraft. This is mostly done in T-38 jet aircraft out of Ellington Field, due to its proximity to the Johnson Space Center. Ellington Field is also where the Shuttle Training Aircraft is maintained and developed, although most flights of the aircraft are conducted from Edwards Air Force Base.


title: Astronaut

text: Astronauts in training must learn how to control and fly the Space Shuttle and, it is vital that they are familiar with the International Space Station so they know what they must do when they get there.


title: Astronaut

text: Mission Specialist Educators, or "Educator Astronauts", were first selected in 2004, and as of 2007, there are three NASA Educator astronauts: Joseph M. Acaba, Richard R. Arnold, and Dorothy Metcalf-Lindenburger.


title: Astronaut

text: Astronauts are susceptible to a variety of health risks including decompression sickness, barotrauma, immunodeficiencies, loss of bone and muscle, loss of eyesight, orthostatic intolerance, sleep disturbances, and radiation injury. A variety of large scale medical studies are being conducted in space via the National Space Biomedical Research Institute (NSBRI) to address these issues. Prominent among these is the Advanced Diagnostic Ultrasound in Microgravity Study in which astronauts (including former ISS commanders Leroy Chiao and Gennady Padalka) perform ultrasound scans under the guidance of remote experts to diagnose and potentially treat hundreds of medical conditions in space. This study's techniques are now being applied to cover professional and Olympic sports injuries as well as ultrasound performed by non-expert operators in medical and high school students. It is anticipated that remote guided ultrasound will have application on Earth in emergency and rural care situations, where access to a trained physician is often rare.


title: Astronaut

text: A 2006 Space Shuttle experiment found that "Salmonella typhimurium", a bacterium that can cause food poisoning, became more virulent when cultivated in space. More recently, in 2017, bacteria were found to be more resistant to antibiotics and to thrive in the near-weightlessness of space. Microorganisms have been observed to survive the vacuum of outer space.


title: Astronaut

text: On 31 December 2012, a NASA-supported study reported that human spaceflight may harm the brain and accelerate the onset of Alzheimer's disease.


title: Astronaut

text: In October 2015, the NASA Office of Inspector General issued a health hazards report related to space exploration, including a human mission to Mars.


title: Astronaut

text: Over the last decade, flight surgeons and scientists at NASA have seen a pattern of vision problems in astronauts on long-duration space missions. The syndrome, known as visual impairment intracranial pressure (VIIP), has been reported in nearly two-thirds of space explorers after long periods spent aboard the International Space Station (ISS).


title: Astronaut

text: On 2 November 2017, scientists reported that significant changes in the position and structure of the brain have been found in astronauts who have taken trips in space, based on MRI studies. Astronauts who took longer space trips were associated with greater brain changes.


title: Astronaut

text: Being in space can be physiologically deconditioning on the body. It can affect the otolith organs and adaptive capabilities of the central nervous system. Zero gravity and cosmic rays can cause many implications for astronauts.


title: Astronaut

text: In October 2018, NASA-funded researchers found that lengthy journeys into outer space, including travel to the planet Mars, may substantially damage the gastrointestinal tissues of astronauts. The studies support earlier work that found such journeys could significantly damage the brains of astronauts, and age them prematurely.


title: Astronaut

text: Researchers in 2018 reported, after detecting the presence on the International Space Station (ISS) of five "Enterobacter bugandensis" bacterial strains, none pathogenic to humans, that microorganisms on ISS should be carefully monitored to continue assuring a medically healthy environment for astronauts.


title: Astronaut

text: A study by Russian scientists published in April 2019 stated that astronauts facing space radiation could face temporary hindrance of their memory centers. While this does not affect their intellectual capabilities, it temporarily hinders formation of new cells in brain's memory centers. The study conducted by Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology (MIPT) concluded this after they observed that mice exposed to neutron and gamma radiation did not impact the rodents' intellectual capabilities.


title: Astronaut

text: A 2020 study conducted on the brains of eight male Russian cosmonauts after they returned from long stays aboard the International Space Station showed that long-duration spaceflight causes many physiological adaptions, including macro- and microstructural changes. While scientists still know little about the effects of spaceflight on brain structure, this study showed that space travel can lead to new motor skills (dexterity), but also slightly weaker vision, both of which could possibly be long lasting. It was the first study to provide clear evidence of sensorimotor neuroplasticity, which is the brain's ability to change through growth and reorganization.


title: Astronaut

text: An astronaut on the International Space Station requires about mass of food per meal each day (inclusive of about packaging mass per meal).


title: Astronaut

text: Space Shuttle astronauts worked with nutritionists to select menus that appealed to their individual tastes. Five months before flight, menus were selected and analyzed for nutritional content by the shuttle dietician. Foods are tested to see how they will react in a reduced gravity environment. Caloric requirements are determined using a basal energy expenditure (BEE) formula. On Earth, the average American uses about of water every day. On board the ISS astronauts limit water use to only about per day.


title: Astronaut

text: In Russia, cosmonauts are awarded Pilot-Cosmonaut of the Russian Federation upon completion of their missions, often accompanied with the award of Hero of the Russian Federation. This follows the practice established in the USSR where cosmonauts were usually awarded the title Hero of the Soviet Union.


title: Astronaut

text: At NASA, those who complete astronaut candidate training receive a silver lapel pin. Once they have flown in space, they receive a gold pin. U.S. astronauts who also have active-duty military status receive a special qualification badge, known as the Astronaut Badge, after participation on a spaceflight. The United States Air Force also presents an Astronaut Badge to its pilots who exceed in altitude.


title: Astronaut

text: , eighteen astronauts (fourteen men and four women) have died during four space flights. By nationality, thirteen were American, four were Russian (Soviet Union), and one was Israeli.


title: Astronaut

text: , eleven people (all men) have died training for spaceflight: eight Americans and three Russians. Six of these were in crashes of training jet aircraft, one drowned during water recovery training, and four were due to fires in pure oxygen environments.


title: Astronaut

text: Astronaut David Scott left a memorial consisting of a statuette titled "Fallen Astronaut" on the surface of the Moon during his 1971 Apollo 15 mission, along with a list of the names of eight of the astronauts and six cosmonauts known at the time to have died in service.


title: Astronaut

text: The Space Mirror Memorial, which stands on the grounds of the Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex, is maintained by the Astronauts Memorial Foundation and commemorates the lives of the men and women who have died during spaceflight and during training in the space programs of the United States. In addition to twenty NASA career astronauts, the memorial includes the names of an X-15 test pilot, a U.S. Air Force officer who died while training for a then-classified military space program, and a civilian spaceflight participant.


title: Linda Kozlowski

text: Linda Kozlowski (born January 7, 1958) is an American former actress. She is best known for her role as Sue Charlton in the "Crocodile Dundee" film series (1986–2001), with the first installment earning her a Golden Globe Award nomination.


title: Linda Kozlowski

text: Kozlowski was born and raised in a Polish American family in Fairfield, Connecticut, the daughter of Helen E. (née Helena Parniawska) and Stanley M. Kozlowski (né Stanisław Kozłowski). She is a 1976 graduate of Fairfield's Andrew Warde High School. Kozlowski graduated from the Juilliard School's drama division in 1981.


title: Linda Kozlowski

text: Kozlowski debuted in the 1981–1982 off-Broadway production "How It All Began". She played "Miss Forsythe" on Broadway in "Death of a Salesman" and in 1984 took the same role in the film version of 1985.


title: Linda Kozlowski

text: Her big break came in 1986 when she was cast as the female lead, opposite Paul Hogan, in the Australian film "Crocodile Dundee", during the filming of which their on-screen chemistry resulted in a real relationship. In 1987, Kozlowski was nominated for a Golden Globe award in the Best Supporting Actress category for her performance as Sue Charlton. Two years later, she revisited her starring role with Hogan in "Crocodile Dundee II". Also in 1988 she starred with Bill Paxton, Tim Curry and Annie Potts in "Pass the Ammo" and the TV miniseries "Favorite Son".


title: Linda Kozlowski

text: Since that time, she has appeared in "Almost an Angel" in 1990, "Backstreet Justice" (with Paul Sorvino) and "The Neighbor" (with Rod Steiger) in 1994, and "Village of the Damned" in 1995. In 2001, she starred again with Hogan in "Crocodile Dundee in Los Angeles".


title: Linda Kozlowski

text: She has largely left the acting business because of dissatisfaction with the roles she was gaining, stating: "These straight-to-video, schlocky films I was getting were giving me an ulcer, basically because I was the only one on the set that cared about anything... Between that and my biological clock, I decided to give it all away."


title: Linda Kozlowski

text: Kozlowski co-starred in "Crocodile Dundee" (1986) with Australian actor Paul Hogan, and two years later in "Crocodile Dundee II", when they became a couple. They married on May 5, 1990, after he divorced his wife Noelene. They tried to settle in Australia but moved to Los Angeles in late 1990s.


title: Linda Kozlowski

text: Kozlowski and Hogan have one son, Chance. Kozlowski had been married once prior to her marriage to Hogan. In October 2013, Kozlowski filed for divorce from Hogan, citing irreconcilable differences, with the divorce finalized in 2014.


title: Holly Holm

text: Holly Rene Holm (born October 17, 1981) is an American mixed martial artist, who competes in the Ultimate Fighting Championship. She is the former UFC Women's Bantamweight Champion, and a former professional boxer. She was a multiple-time world champion in boxing, defending her titles 18 times in three weight classes, and a two-time "Ring" magazine fighter of the year (2005, 2006). She is ranked by BoxRec as the best female professional boxer of all time. She has the notable distinction of being the only fighter to have won a boxing world title and a UFC title.


title: Holly Holm

text: Holm's most notable win in mixed martial arts (MMA) occurred at UFC 193 (November 15, 2015), in front of a record-breaking crowd for a UFC event (56,215 people) in Melbourne, when she captured the bantamweight title and gave Ronda Rousey her first loss in the sport. This fight is generally considered to be one of the biggest upsets in combat-sports history. As of May 23, 2022, she is ranked #3 in the UFC women's bantamweight rankings, and as of November 21, 2022, she is #10 in the UFC women's pound-for-pound rankings.


title: Holly Holm

text: Holm was born in Albuquerque, New Mexico, the youngest of three children. Her father, Roger, is a Church of Christ preacher—as a fighter, Holly would later be nicknamed "The Preacher's Daughter"—and her mother, Tammy, is a massage therapist. Holm is of primarily Irish descent.


title: Holly Holm

text: Growing up, Holm played soccer and participated in gymnastics, swimming and diving. Her parents divorced shortly before she graduated from Manzano High School in 2000; after graduation, she studied for a year at the University of New Mexico.


title: Holly Holm

text: Holm's path to a career in boxing and kickboxing began with aerobics classes when she was 16 years old. Her cardio-kickboxing instructor, Mike Winkeljohn, recognized Holm's potential as a fighter and began training her.


title: Holly Holm

text: In September 2001, Holm won the championship title in the International Rules Adult Women's Welterweight Division at the International Kickboxing Federation (IKF) USA National Amateur Championship Tournament, held in Kansas City, Missouri. She fought two bouts in the tournament. She won the first by technical knockout at 34 seconds in the first round. She won the second by unanimous decision. This was Holm's last amateur competition. Her overall amateur kickboxing record is 6–0–2.


title: Holly Holm

text: Holm has held several welterweight boxing titles, been highly regarded as one of the best female welterweights in the world, and is considered among the best of all time, by some. She also has been named Ring Magazine female Fighter of the Year, twice in consecutive years in 2005 and 2006. She is a big draw in her hometown of Albuquerque, having all but three of her fights there and just one of her fights outside of her home state of New Mexico.


title: Holly Holm

text: In June 2008 she became the undisputed welterweight champion and holder of belts from 140 to 154 by defeating former champ Mary Jo Sanders by decision. They had a rematch on October 17, 2008, at the Palace of Auburn Hills in suburban Detroit, which ended in a draw.


title: Holly Holm

text: On December 2, 2011, Holm took on knockout artist Anne Sophie Mathis of France for the vacant IBA female and WBAN welterweight titles. Holm was badly beaten by the stronger Mathis without the referee interfering, even going into the canvas without a count. She finally lost by knockout in the 7th round, which would be dubbed the upset of the year in women's boxing. The two fought again on June 15, 2012, for Mathis's WBF female, IBA female, and WBAN welterweight titles. Holm took a unanimous decision to win over Mathis, becoming the new champion and avenging her earlier KO loss.


title: Holly Holm

text: Holm made her mixed martial arts debut on March 4, 2011, against Christina Domke at an event organized by her boxing promoter, Lenny Fresquez. She headlined the card with Jackson's Submission Fighting teammate Keith Jardine. Holm won the fight via TKO in the second round after her opponent was unable to continue due to leg kicks inflicted by Holm.


title: Holly Holm

text: Holm returned to MMA on September 9, 2011, at Fresquez Productions: Clash in the Cage against Strikeforce veteran Jan Finney. She defeated Finney by TKO in the third round.


title: Holly Holm

text: On February 28, 2013, Holm made her Bellator MMA debut against Katie Merrill at Bellator 91 in Rio Rancho, New Mexico. Holm won the bout via TKO in the second round.


title: Holly Holm

text: Holm announced that she would retire from boxing after her May 11, 2013, boxing match against Mary McGee so that she can fully concentrate on her MMA career. The message came as a punctuation in the negotiations to arrange a title-battle between Holm and the Norwegian champion Cecilia Brækhus. Holm went on to defeat McGee via unanimous decision, for her boxing retirement bout.


title: Holly Holm

text: On July 19, 2013, Holm faced Allanna Jones at Legacy Fighting Championship 21. She won the fight by head-kick knockout in the second round.


title: Holly Holm

text: Holm was expected to face Erica Paes at Legacy Fighting Championship 24 on October 11, 2013. However, Paes was removed from the card and Holm instead faced Nikki Knudsen. Holm won the fight via TKO due to a body kick and knees in round two.


title: Holly Holm

text: On December 6, 2013, Holm faced Angela Hayes at Fresquez Productions: Havoc. She won the fight via unanimous decision.


title: Holly Holm

text: On April 4, 2014, Holm faced Juliana Werner for the inaugural Legacy FC Women's Bantamweight Championship. She won the bout and title via TKO in the fifth round due to a head kick and punches. Holm broke her left arm during the first round of the bout.


title: Holly Holm

text: On July 10, 2014, the media announced that Holm had signed a multi-fight deal with the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC). Later in an interview with MMA Junkie, Holm's manager Lenny Fresquez disclosed that Holm's contract is for five fights.


title: Holly Holm

text: Holm was expected to make her debut at UFC 181 against Raquel Pennington. However, on November 13, Holm was forced to pull out due to an undisclosed injury. The two fighters faced each other at UFC 184. Holm won the bout by split decision (29–28, 28–29, and 30–27).


title: Holly Holm

text: Holm faced Marion Reneau on July 15, 2015, at UFC Fight Night 71. Holm won the fight by unanimous decision (30–27, 30–26, and 29–28).


title: Holly Holm

text: In her highest-profile MMA fight to date, Holm faced defending women's bantamweight champion Ronda Rousey before a record-setting crowd in the main event of UFC 193 on November 14, 2015. Despite being a massive betting underdog, Holm controlled a majority of the bout with her striking and defended all of Rousey's takedowns. The second fighter to take Rousey past the first round (after Miesha Tate), she won the fight via knockout in the second with a high kick, ending Rousey's undefeated streak and three-year reign as champion, causing her to spend the night in the hospital.


title: Holly Holm

text: Holm was also awarded her first "Fight of the Night" and "Performance of the Night" bonus awards (totalling $100,000). By winning the title, she became the first person to win championships in both boxing and MMA. Following the bout, UFC fighter Jon Jones said he thought Holm was "already the G.O.A.T. (greatest of all time) of women's combat sports". Her hometown, Albuquerque, New Mexico, proclaimed November "Holly Holm Month".


title: Holly Holm

text: In her first title defense, Holm lost to Miesha Tate in the fifth round on March 5, 2016, at UFC 196. After four rounds of back-and-forth fighting, Tate defeated Holm in the fifth with a rear-naked choke. Holm was strong in the first round of the fight standing up but was less effective grappling with Tate on the mat. After Tate took Holm down in the second round, Holm almost submitted to a guillotine choke but wriggled out just before the bell. In the fifth round, Tate scored another takedown and locked in another rear-naked choke. Holm refused to submit, was rendered unconscious, and the referee declared a technical submission.


title: Holly Holm

text: Holm faced Valentina Shevchenko on July 23, 2016, at UFC on Fox 20. She lost the bout via unanimous decision.


title: Holly Holm

text: Holm faced Germaine de Randamie at UFC 208 for the inaugural women's featherweight championship on February 11, 2017. She lost the fight via unanimous decision. At the end of the second and third rounds, de Randamie continued to throw punches after the horn had sounded and the referee stepped in, the first of which was a right hand that visibly wobbled Holm, who had already stopped fighting. The referee did not take a point on either occasion. 14 out of 23 media outlets and a majority of MMA fans still scored the fight in favor of Holm. Holm said post-fight that she believed both instances were intentional. She appealed to the New York State Athletic Commission (NYSAC) to review the referee's decisions and determine an "appropriate result." On February 28, the NYSAC denied the appeal, finding "no clear error or violation of statute or rule."


title: Holly Holm

text: Holm returned to bantamweight division after losing the featherweight title bout. Holm faced Bethe Correia at on June 17, 2017, in Singapore. She won the fight via knockout in the third round via a head kick that dropped Correia and then a punch. The win earned Holm her second "Performance of the Night" bonus award. This also set up her bout against UFC Women's Featherweight Champion Cris Cyborg at UFC 219


title: Holly Holm

text: In a return to the women's featherweight division, Holm challenged Cris Cyborg for the UFC Featherweight Championship on December 30, 2017, in the main event at UFC 219. She lost the fight via unanimous decision. This fight earned Holm her second Fight of the Night bonus.


title: Holly Holm

text: Holm was expected to face Aspen Ladd in a bantamweight bout on March 2, 2019, at UFC 235. However, on January 31, 2019, it was reported the pairing was no longer taking place at the event.


title: Holly Holm

text: Holm faced Amanda Nunes for the Women's bantamweight championship on July 6, 2019, at UFC 239. She lost the fight via technical knockout in round one after being dropped by a head kick and finished with follow-up punches by Nunes.


title: Holly Holm

text: Holm was scheduled to face Raquel Pennington on October 6, 2019, at UFC 243. However, on September 27, it was revealed that Holm withdrew from the bout due to a hamstring injury and the bout was cancelled. The pair was rescheduled to fight on January 18, 2020, at UFC 246. She won the fight via unanimous decision.


title: Holly Holm

text: Holm was scheduled to face Irene Aldana on August 1, 2020, at , but Aldana withdrew after testing positive for COVID-19. Holm was removed from the card as well and the pairing was rescheduled for October 4, 2020 at . Holm won the fight by a unanimous decision.


title: Holly Holm

text: Holm was scheduled to face Julianna Peña on May 8, 2021, at UFC on ESPN 24. However, Holm was forced to withdraw from the bout, citing hydronephrosis.


title: Holly Holm

text: Holm was scheduled to face Norma Dumont in a featherweight bout on October 16, 2021, at UFC Fight Night 195. However, Holm withdrew from the bout due to a knee injury, and she was replaced by Aspen Ladd.


title: Holly Holm

text: Holm faced Ketlen Vieira on May 21, 2022, at UFC Fight Night 206. She lost the fight via controversial split decision. 18 out of 20 media outlets scored the bout as a win for Holm.


title: Holly Holm

text: Holm employs frequent lateral movement while working stiff jabs to an opponent's head. When standing within the pocket, she often waits to attack with counter-strikes, usually employing a straight left hand. Holm is also known for her punching combinations, typically done while her opponents are against the cage.


title: Holly Holm

text: Decorated boxer and ONE Championship fighter Ana Julaton has described Holm as a "natural mover", noting her footwork as an asset in setting up strikes. At UFC 193, Ronda Rousey took several blows while struggling to close the distance against Holm. Holm uses a variety of kicking techniques, often targeting the body with a fast side kick, pushing back a rush with a low oblique kick, and attacking the head with a left high kick.


title: Holly Holm

text: Holm is one of several boxers photographed by artist Delilah Montoya and profiled in the publication "Women Boxers: The New Warriors". She appeared in the 2016 feature film "Fight Valley" alongside Miesha Tate and Cris Cyborg.


title: Holly Holm

text: Holm has close relationships with her parents and brothers. Her father always attends her fights, and for years assisted in her corner during her boxing matches. She and her father are partners in a real estate company and sold Jon Jones his home. Holm is a Christian and her faith background is in Churches of Christ. Her mother, Tammy Bredy, has seen little of Holm in the cage and rarely attends Holm's bouts.


title: Holly Holm

text: In 2012, she married Jeff Kirkpatrick, also from Albuquerque, whom she met in college. In the beginning of 2020, it was revealed that the couple had separated in July 2019. Holm filed for a divorce and sought to get her maiden name back.


title: Chappie (film)

text: Chappie (stylized as CHAPPiE) is a 2015 American dystopian science fiction action film directed by Neill Blomkamp and written by Blomkamp and Terri Tatchell. It stars Sharlto Copley, Dev Patel, Hugh Jackman, Ninja, Yolandi Visser, Jose Pablo Cantillo, and Sigourney Weaver. The film, set and shot in Johannesburg, is about an artificial general intelligence law enforcement robot captured and taught by gangsters, who nickname it Chappie.


title: Chappie (film)

text: "Chappie" premiered in New York City on March 4, 2015, and was released in U.S. cinemas on March 6, 2015. The film grossed $102 million worldwide against a $49 million budget.


title: Chappie (film)

text: A skyrocketing crime rate leads the city of Johannesburg, South Africa to buy a squadron of scouts—state-of-the-art armour-plated attack robots—from weapons manufacturer Tetravaal. These autonomous androids are developed by British scientist Deon Wilson and largely supplant the overwhelmed human police force. A competing project within the company is the remote-controlled MOOSE, developed by Australian soldier-turned-engineer Vincent Moore. Deon is praised for Tetravaal's success but Vincent grows envious when the police are unwilling to give his heavy weapons platform equal attention.


title: Chappie (film)

text: At home, Deon creates a prototype artificial intelligence that mimics a human mind to the point of feeling emotions and having opinions, but Tetravaal CEO Michelle Bradley refuses to let him test the A.I. on a police robot. Undeterred, Deon steals a recently damaged robot before it is destroyed and puts it in his van, along with the "guard key" needed to update the robot's software.


title: Chappie (film)

text: On his way home with the damaged police robot, he is kidnapped by gang members Ninja, Yolandi, and Amerika. When he mentions that Tetravaal doesn't have remote controls for the police robots, they order him to reprogram the robot instead. Deon installs the new software into the damaged robot, which responds with childlike trepidation upon powering up. Deon and Yolandi calm the robot teaching it words and naming it "Chappie". Despite Deon wanting to stay with the robot, Ninja forces him out of their hideout.


title: Chappie (film)

text: Ninja's gang only has a few days to pay a debt of 20 million rand to Hippo. Yolandi sees Chappie as a child and wants to mother him, but Ninja grows impatient with his development due to both the impending deadline for the debt and Chappie's irreplaceable battery running out, giving him days to live. Ninja tries to train Chappie to be a gangster by leaving him in a dangerous neighborhood to fend for himself. After being wounded by thugs, he is followed by Vincent, who plans to deactivate all Tetravaal scouts except for MOOSE. Vincent successfully extracts the guard key for his own use, but the traumatized Chappie escapes and returns to the hideout. Yolandi scolds Ninja for this mistreatment, but he manages to earn Chappie's forgiveness by training him in martial arts and weapon handling. Ninja and Amerika trick Chappie into stealing cars for them, and lie about needing the money to replace his dying body.


title: Chappie (film)

text: At Tetravaal, Vincent uses the guard key to upload a virus, thus sabotaging and disabling all scouts including Chappie. Johannesburg's criminals immediately run rampant in the streets and Deon brings Chappie to the Tetravaal factory to fix him. After being restarted, Chappie notices a helmet used to control MOOSE. At the hideout, he re-engineers it to allow him to transfer his consciousness into a computer, so he can change bodies when his current one dies.


title: Chappie (film)

text: Ninja's gang uses Chappie to rob an armored car, an act which is caught on the news, prompting Tetravaal to pursue him. When Chappie learns that Ninja's plan to acquire the body was a lie, he prepares to kill Ninja for betrayal. However, Deon arrives to warn them that Michelle Bradley has ordered that Chappie be destroyed. At that moment, the MOOSE robot (controlled remotely by Vincent) is launched to assassinate Deon and Chappie at the hideout, at the same time that Hippo arrives to collect his debt. Amerika and Hippo are killed in the ensuing battle while Deon is mortally wounded. When Ninja is about to be killed, Yolandi sacrifices herself to save him and Chappie destroys MOOSE by detonating a bomb.


title: Chappie (film)

text: Enraged by Yolandi's death, Chappie drives Deon to the factory, storms into an office, and fiercely beats Vincent close to death. He then transfers the dying Deon's consciousness into a spare robot through the modified MOOSE helmet. In return, the now-robotic Deon wirelessly transfers Chappie's consciousness into one of the nearby disabled scouts. Deon and Chappie go into hiding as the police discontinue their contract with Tetravaal.


title: Chappie (film)

text: While burning memorabilia of Yolandi, the grieving Ninja finds a box containing a doll copy of her and a flash drive marked "Mommy's Consciousness Test Backup" which contains a copy of Yolandi's consciousness that Chappie took while testing the device on her. Chappie hacks into Tetravaal's manufacturing facility, builds a robot resembling Yolandi, and uploads the flash drive's contents.


title: Chappie (film)

text: "Chappie" is Blomkamp's third feature-length film as director. He wrote the screenplay along with his wife Terri Tatchell, who also co-wrote "District 9". It was unofficially based on Blomkamp's 2004 short film "Tetra Vaal". They wrote "Chappie" in two weeks, while Blomkamp was doing "Elysium". Filming began at the end of October 2013 in Johannesburg, South Africa. One scene was shot at the Ponte building. Filming was completed in February 2014. Re-shooting for the film took place in British Columbia, Canada in April 2014. The film was shot with Red Epic cameras, using Panavision anamorphic primes. Richard Muller said:


title: Chappie (film)

text: Lighting was handled by Kino Flo Celebs. The visual effects company was Image Engine, located in Vancouver. The name of the weapons company in "Chappie" – "Tetravaal" – is a reference to Blomkamp's 2003 short film of the same name, which centers on a police robot in Johannesburg with a similar design to Chappie. Blomkamp has said that "Chappie" is "basically based" on "Tetra Vaal". Blomkamp also employed a robot with a similar design in his 2005 short "Tempbot", and both "Tempbot" and his 2006 short/advertisement "Yellow" deal with a thinking and learning robot which tries to assimilate into society.


title: Chappie (film)

text: On February 6, 2015, IMAX Corporation and Sony announced that the film would be digitally re-mastered into the IMAX format and released into IMAX theatres domestically on March 6, 2015. The film was released in the United States on March 6, 2015.


title: Chappie (film)

text: "Chappie" grossed $31.6 million in North America and $70 million in other territories for a total gross of $102.1 million, against a budget of $49 million.


title: Chappie (film)

text: The film earned $4.6 million in its opening day, $5.3 million on its second day, and $3.5 million on its third day, totaling $13.4 million in its opening weekend, while playing in 3,201 theaters. It had a $4,155 per-theater average and finished first at the box office.


title: Chappie (film)

text: Review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes reported a 32% approval rating, based on 227 reviews, and a rating average of 4.90/10. The website's critical consensus reads, ""Chappie" boasts more of the big ideas and visual panache that director Neill Blomkamp has become known for – and, sadly, more of the narrative shortcomings." On Metacritic, the film has a score of 41 out of 100, based on 39 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews". According to CinemaScore, audiences gave the film a grade of "B" on an A+ to F scale.


title: Chappie (film)

text: Justin Chang of "Variety" wrote, "Intelligence, artificial or otherwise, is one of the major casualties of "Chappie", a robot-themed action movie that winds up feeling as clunky and confused as the childlike droid with which it shares its name." Todd McCarthy of "The Hollywood Reporter" wrote, "With unappealing one-note characters, retread concepts and implausible motivations, "Chappie" is a further downward step for director Neill Blomkamp."


title: Chappie (film)

text: Tim Grierson of "Screen International" wrote, "...despite his ambitions, "Chappie" is a bucket of bolts, Blomkamp's desire to say meaningful things outdistancing his ability to say them compellingly." Manohla Dargis of "The New York Times" wrote that Blomkamp "struggles with the material" but "even at his shakiest, Mr. Blomkamp holds your attention". Kenneth Turan of the "Los Angeles Times" called it "cartoonish and preposterous, and not in a good way".


title: Chappie (film)

text: Mick LaSalle of the "San Francisco Chronicle" rated it three out of four stars and wrote of Blomkamp, "It's hard to say how much he's doing consciously and how much he's doing through intuition, but he's doing really interesting things in "Chappie", and right from the beginning." Tom Huddleston of "Time Out London" rated it four out of five stars and wrote that "this hugely entertaining oddity could never be mistaken for the work of any other filmmaker".


title: Chappie (film)

text: Ryan Lambie, from denofgeek.com, gave the film a positive review stating, "Despite the ragged edges of its story, "Chappie" nevertheless has real heart beating under its shabby exterior. If you liked the director's previous films, you owe it to yourself to see this one too." IGN reviewer Josh Lasser also gave Chappie a positive review, with a 'Good' score of 7.6 out of 10. He praised Sharlto Copley's performance and the "big questions" it asks, but criticized its failure to answer those questions.