title: Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood

text: The Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood was greatly influenced by nature and its members used great detail to show the natural world using bright and sharp-focus techniques on a white canvas. In attempts to revive the brilliance of colour found in Quattrocento art, Hunt and Millais developed a technique of painting in thin glazes of pigment over a wet white ground in the hope that the colours would retain jewel-like transparency and clarity. Their emphasis on brilliance of colour was a reaction to the excessive use of bitumen by earlier British artists, such as Reynolds, David Wilkie and Benjamin Robert Haydon. Bitumen produces unstable areas of muddy darkness, an effect the Pre-Raphaelites despised.


title: Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood

text: In 1848, Rossetti and Hunt made a list of "Immortals", artistic heroes whom they admired, especially from literature, some of whose work would form subjects for PRB paintings, notably including Keats and Tennyson.


title: Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood

text: The first exhibitions of Pre-Raphaelite work occurred in 1849. Both Millais's "Isabella" (1848–1849) and Holman Hunt's "Rienzi" (1848–1849) were exhibited at the Royal Academy. Rossetti's "" was shown at a Free Exhibition on Hyde Park Corner. As agreed, all members of the brotherhood signed their work with their name and the initials "PRB". Between January and April 1850, the group published a literary magazine, "The Germ" edited by William Rossetti which published poetry by the Rossettis, Woolner, and Collinson and essays on art and literature by associates of the brotherhood, such as Coventry Patmore. As the short run-time implies, the magazine did not manage to achieve sustained momentum. (Daly 1989)


title: Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood

text: In 1850, the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood became the subject of controversy after the exhibition of Millais' painting "Christ in the House of His Parents" was considered to be blasphemous by many reviewers, notably Charles Dickens. Dickens considered Millais' Mary to be ugly. Millais had used his sister-in-law, Mary Hodgkinson, as the model for Mary in his painting. The brotherhood's medievalism was attacked as backward-looking and its extreme devotion to detail was condemned as ugly and jarring to the eye. According to Dickens, Millais made the Holy Family look like alcoholics and slum-dwellers, adopting contorted and absurd "medieval" poses.


title: Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood

text: After the controversy, James Collinson resigned from the Brotherhood due to his belief that it was bringing the Christian religion into disrepute. The remaining members met to discuss whether he should be replaced by Charles Allston Collins or Walter Howell Deverell, but were unable to make a decision. From that point the group disbanded, though its influence continued. Artists who had worked in the style initially continued but no longer signed works "PRB".


title: Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood

text: The brotherhood found support from the critic John Ruskin, who praised its devotion to nature and rejection of conventional methods of composition. The Pre-Raphaelites were influenced by Ruskin's theories. He wrote to "The Times" defending their work and subsequently met them. Initially, he favoured Millais, who travelled to Scotland in the summer of 1853 with Ruskin and Ruskin's wife, Euphemia Chalmers Ruskin, née Gray (now best known as Effie Gray). The main object of the journey was to paint Ruskin's portrait. Effie became increasingly attached to Millais, creating a crisis. In subsequent annulment proceedings, Ruskin himself made a statement to his lawyer to the effect that his marriage had been unconsummated.


title: Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood

text: By 1853 the original PRB had virtually dissolved, with only Holman Hunt remaining true to its stated aims. But the term "Pre-Raphaelite" stuck to Rossetti and others, including William Morris and Edward Burne-Jones, with whom he became involved in Oxford in 1857. Hence the term Pre-Raphaelite is associated with the much wider and long-lived art movement, including the dreamy, yearning images of women produced by Rossetti and several of his followers.


title: Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood

text: Artists influenced by the brotherhood include John Brett, Philip Calderon, Arthur Hughes, Gustave Moreau, Evelyn De Morgan, Frederic Sandys (who entered the Pre-Raphaelite circle in 1857) and John William Waterhouse. Ford Madox Brown, who was associated with them from the beginning, is often seen as most closely adopting the Pre-Raphaelite principles. One follower who developed his own distinct style was Aubrey Beardsley, who was pre-eminently influenced by Burne-Jones.


title: Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood

text: After 1856, Dante Gabriel Rossetti became an inspiration for the medievalising strand of the movement. He was the link between the two types of Pre-Raphaelite painting (nature and Romance) after the PRB became lost in the later decades of the century. Rossetti, although the least committed to the brotherhood, continued the name and changed its style. He began painting versions of femme fatales using models like Jane Morris, in paintings such as "Proserpine", "The Day Dream", and "La Pia de' Tolomei". His work influenced his friend William Morris, in whose firm Morris, Marshall, Faulkner & Co. he became a partner, and with whose wife Jane he may have had an affair. Ford Madox Brown and Edward Burne-Jones also became partners in the firm. Through Morris's company, the ideals of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood influenced many interior designers and architects, arousing interest in medieval designs and other crafts leading to the Arts and Crafts movement headed by William Morris. Holman Hunt was involved with the movement to reform design through the Della Robbia Pottery company.


title: Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood

text: After 1850, Hunt and Millais moved away from direct imitation of medieval art. They stressed the realist and scientific aspects of the movement, though Hunt continued to emphasise the spiritual significance of art, seeking to reconcile religion and science by making accurate observations and studies of locations in Egypt and Palestine for his paintings on biblical subjects. In contrast, Millais abandoned Pre-Raphaelitism after 1860, adopting a much broader and looser style influenced by Reynolds. William Morris and others condemned his reversal of principles.


title: Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood

text: Pre-Raphaelitism had a significant impact in Scotland and on Scottish artists. The figure in Scottish art most associated with the Pre-Raphaelites was the Aberdeen-born William Dyce (1806–1864). Dyce befriended the young Pre-Raphaelites in London and introduced their work to Ruskin. His later work was Pre-Raphaelite in its spirituality, as can be seen in his "The Man of Sorrows" and "David in the Wilderness" (both 1860), which contain a Pre-Raphaelite attention to detail. Joseph Noel Paton (1821–1901) studied at the Royal Academy schools in London, where he became a friend of Millais and he subsequently followed him into Pre-Raphaelitism, producing pictures that stressed detail and melodrama such as "The Bludie Tryst" (1855). His later paintings, like those of Millais, have been criticised for descending into popular sentimentality. Also influenced by Millais was James Archer (1823–1904), whose work includes "Summertime, Gloucestershire" (1860) and who from 1861 began a series of Arthurian-based paintings including "La Morte d'Arthur" and "Sir Lancelot and Queen Guinevere".


title: Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood

text: Pre-Raphaelism also inspired painters like Lawrence Alma-Tadema. The movement influenced many later British artists into the 20th century.


title: Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood

text: Rossetti came to be seen as a precursor of the wider European Symbolist movement. There is evidence to suggest that a number of paintings by the German artist Paula Modersohn-Becker were influenced by Rossetti.


title: Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood

text: Birmingham Museum & Art Gallery has a world-renowned collection of works by Burne-Jones and the Pre-Raphaelites that, some claim, strongly influenced the young J. R. R. Tolkien, who wrote "The Hobbit" and "The Lord of the Rings", with influences taken from the same mythological scenes portrayed by the Pre-Raphaelites. Tolkien considered his own group of school friends and artistic associates, the so-called TCBS, as a group in the vein of the Pre-Raphaelites.


title: Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood

text: In the 20th century artistic ideals changed, and art moved away from representing reality. After the First World War, Pre-Raphaelite art was devalued for its literary qualities and was scorned by critics as sentimental and concocted "artistic bric-a-brac". In the 1960s there was a major revival of Pre-Raphaelitism. Exhibitions and catalogues of works, culminating in a 1984 exhibition in London's Tate Gallery, re-established a canon of Pre-Raphaelite work. Among many other exhibitions, there was another large show at Tate Britain in 2012–13.


title: Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood

text: In the late 20th century the Brotherhood of Ruralists based its aims on Pre-Raphaelitism, while the Stuckists and the Birmingham Group have also derived inspiration from it.


title: Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood

text: Many members of the ‘inner’ Pre-Raphaelite circle (Dante Gabriel Rossetti, John Everett Millais, William Holman Hunt, Ford Madox Brown, Edward Burne-Jones) and ‘outer’ circle (Frederick Sandys, Arthur Hughes, Simeon Solomon, Henry Hugh Armstead, Joseph Noel Paton, Frederic Shields, Matthew James Lawless) were working concurrently in painting, illustration, and sometimes poetry. Victorian morality judged literature as superior to painting, because of its “noble grounds for noble emotion.” Robert Buchanan (a writer and opponent of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood) felt so strongly about this artistic hierarchy that he wrote: “The truth is that literature, and more particularly poetry, is in a very bad way when one art gets hold of another, and imposes upon it its conditions and limitations." This was the hostile environment in which Pre-Raphaelites were defiantly working in various media. The Pre-Raphaelites attempted to revitalize subject painting, which had been dismissed as artificial. Their belief that each picture should tell a story was an important step for the unification of painting and literature (eventually deemed the Sister Arts), or at least a break in the rigid hierarchy promoted by writers like Robert Buchanan.


title: Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood

text: The Pre-Raphaelite desire for more extensive affiliation between painting and literature also manifested in illustration. Illustration is a more direct unification of these media and, like subject painting, can assert a narrative of its own. For the Pre-Raphaelites, and Dante Gabriel Rossetti specifically, there was anxiety about the constraints of illustration. In 1855, Rossetti wrote to William Allingham about the independence of illustration: “I have not begun even designing for them yet, but fancy I shall try the ‘Vision of Sin’ and ‘Palace of Art’ etc. – those where one can allegorize on one's own hook, without killing for oneself and everyone a distinct idea of the poet's." This passage makes apparent Rossetti's desire to not just support the poet's narrative, but to create an allegorical illustration that functions separately from the text as well. In this respect, Pre-Raphaelite illustrations go beyond depicting an episode from a poem, but rather function like subject paintings within a text.


title: Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood

text: There are major collections of Pre-Raphaelite work in United Kingdom museums such as the Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery, the Tate Gallery, Victoria and Albert Museum, Manchester Art Gallery, Lady Lever Art Gallery, and Liverpool's Walker Art Gallery. The Art Gallery of South Australia and the Delaware Art Museum in the US have the most significant collections of Pre-Raphaelite art outside the UK. The Museo de Arte de Ponce in Puerto Rico also has a notable collection of Pre-Raphaelite works, including Sir Edward Burne-Jones' "The Last Sleep of Arthur in Avalon", Frederic Lord Leighton's "Flaming June", and works by William Holman Hunt, John Everett Millais, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, and Frederic Sandys. The Ger Eenens Collection The Netherlands includes a work by John Collier, Circe (signed and dated 1885), that was exhibited at the Chicago World Fair 1893. The British exhibit occupied 14 rooms, showcased a theme familiar with the Fair's outlook, hence they had a sizeable exhibit of Pre-Raphaelite and New-Classical painters. They were extremely well received.


title: Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood

text: There is a set of Pre-Raphaelite murals in the Old Library at the Oxford Union, depicting scenes from the Arthurian legends, painted between 1857 and 1859 by a team of Dante Gabriel Rossetti, William Morris, and Edward Burne-Jones. The National Trust houses at Wightwick Manor, Wolverhampton, and at Wallington Hall, Northumberland, both have significant and representative collections. Andrew Lloyd Webber is an avid collector of Pre-Raphaelite works, and a selection of 300 items from his collection were shown at an exhibition at the Royal Academy in London in 2003.


title: Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood

text: Kelmscott Manor, the country home of William Morris from 1871 until his death in 1896, is owned by the Society of Antiquaries of London and is open to the public. The Manor is featured in Morris' 1890 novel "News from Nowhere". It also appears in the background of "Water Willow", a portrait of his wife, Jane Morris, painted by Dante Gabriel Rossetti in 1871. There are exhibitions connected with Morris and Rossetti's early experiments with photography.


title: Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood

text: The story of the brotherhood, from its controversial first exhibition to being embraced by the art establishment, has been depicted in two BBC television series. The first, "The Love School", was broadcast in 1975; the second is the 2009 BBC television drama serial "Desperate Romantics" by Peter Bowker. Although much of the latter's material is derived from Franny Moyle's factual book "Desperate Romantics: The Private Lives of the Pre-Raphaelites", the series occasionally departs from established facts in favour of dramatic licence and is prefaced by the disclaimer: "In the mid-19th century, a group of young men challenged the art establishment of the day. The pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood were inspired by the real world around them, yet took imaginative licence in their art. This story, based on their lives and loves, follows in that inventive spirit."


title: Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood

text: Ken Russell's television film "Dante's Inferno" (1967) contains brief scenes on some of the leading Pre-Raphaelites but mainly concentrates on the life of Rossetti, played by Oliver Reed.


title: Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood

text: Chapter 36 of the 1952 novel "East of Eden" by John Steinbeck references pre-Raphaelite influenced images used to identify different classrooms: "The pictures identified the rooms, and the pre-Raphaelite influence was overwhelming. Galahad standing in full armor pointed the way for third–graders; Atalanta's race urged on the fourth, the "Pot of Basil" confused the fifth grade, and so on until the denunciation of Cataline sent the eighth–graders on to high school with a sense of high civic virtue.


title: Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood

text: Cal and Aron were assigned to the seventh grade because of their age, and they learned every shadow of its picture— Laocoön completely wrapped in snakes".


title: Atomic number

text: The atomic number or nuclear charge number (symbol "Z") of a chemical element is the charge number of an atomic nucleus. For ordinary nuclei, this is equal to the proton number ("n") or the number of protons found in the nucleus of every atom of that element. The atomic number can be used to uniquely identify ordinary chemical elements. In an ordinary uncharged atom, the atomic number is also equal to the number of electrons.


title: Atomic number

text: For an ordinary atom, the sum of the atomic number "Z" and the neutron number "N" gives the atom's atomic mass number "A". Since protons and neutrons have approximately the same mass (and the mass of the electrons is negligible for many purposes) and the mass defect of the nucleon binding is always small compared to the nucleon mass, the atomic mass of any atom, when expressed in unified atomic mass units (making a quantity called the "relative isotopic mass"), is within 1% of the whole number "A".


title: Atomic number

text: Atoms with the same atomic number but different neutron numbers, and hence different mass numbers, are known as isotopes. A little more than three-quarters of naturally occurring elements exist as a mixture of isotopes (see monoisotopic elements), and the average isotopic mass of an isotopic mixture for an element (called the relative atomic mass) in a defined environment on Earth, determines the element's standard atomic weight. Historically, it was these atomic weights of elements (in comparison to hydrogen) that were the quantities measurable by chemists in the 19th century.


title: Atomic number

text: The conventional symbol "Z" comes from the German word "" 'number', which, before the modern synthesis of ideas from chemistry and physics, merely denoted an element's numerical place in the periodic table, whose order was then approximately, but not completely, consistent with the order of the elements by atomic weights. Only after 1915, with the suggestion and evidence that this "Z" number was also the nuclear charge and a physical characteristic of atoms, did the word (and its English equivalent "atomic number") come into common use in this context.


title: Atomic number

text: Loosely speaking, the existence or construction of a periodic table of elements creates an ordering of the elements, and so they can be numbered in order.


title: Atomic number

text: Dmitri Mendeleev claimed that he arranged his first periodic tables (first published on March 6, 1869) in order of atomic weight ("Atomgewicht"). However, in consideration of the elements' observed chemical properties, he changed the order slightly and placed tellurium (atomic weight 127.6) ahead of iodine (atomic weight 126.9). This placement is consistent with the modern practice of ordering the elements by proton number, "Z", but that number was not known or suspected at the time.


title: Atomic number

text: A simple numbering based on periodic table position was never entirely satisfactory, however. Besides the case of iodine and tellurium, later several other pairs of elements (such as argon and potassium, cobalt and nickel) were known to have nearly identical or reversed atomic weights, thus requiring their placement in the periodic table to be determined by their chemical properties. However the gradual identification of more and more chemically similar lanthanide elements, whose atomic number was not obvious, led to inconsistency and uncertainty in the periodic numbering of elements at least from lutetium (element 71) onward (hafnium was not known at this time).


title: Atomic number

text: In 1911, Ernest Rutherford gave a model of the atom in which a central nucleus held most of the atom's mass and a positive charge which, in units of the electron's charge, was to be approximately equal to half of the atom's atomic weight, expressed in numbers of hydrogen atoms. This central charge would thus be approximately half the atomic weight (though it was almost 25% different from the atomic number of gold , ), the single element from which Rutherford made his guess). Nevertheless, in spite of Rutherford's estimation that gold had a central charge of about 100 (but was element on the periodic table), a month after Rutherford's paper appeared, Antonius van den Broek first formally suggested that the central charge and number of electrons in an atom was "exactly" equal to its place in the periodic table (also known as element number, atomic number, and symbolized "Z"). This proved eventually to be the case.


title: Atomic number

text: The experimental position improved dramatically after research by Henry Moseley in 1913. Moseley, after discussions with Bohr who was at the same lab (and who had used Van den Broek's hypothesis in his Bohr model of the atom), decided to test Van den Broek's and Bohr's hypothesis directly, by seeing if spectral lines emitted from excited atoms fitted the Bohr theory's postulation that the frequency of the spectral lines be proportional to the square of "Z".


title: Atomic number

text: To do this, Moseley measured the wavelengths of the innermost photon transitions (K and L lines) produced by the elements from aluminum ("Z" = 13) to gold ("Z" = 79) used as a series of movable anodic targets inside an x-ray tube. The square root of the frequency of these photons increased from one target to the next in an arithmetic progression. This led to the conclusion (Moseley's law) that the atomic number does closely correspond (with an offset of one unit for K-lines, in Moseley's work) to the calculated electric charge of the nucleus, i.e. the element number "Z". Among other things, Moseley demonstrated that the lanthanide series (from lanthanum to lutetium inclusive) must have 15 members—no fewer and no more—which was far from obvious from known chemistry at that time.


title: Atomic number

text: After Moseley's death in 1915, the atomic numbers of all known elements from hydrogen to uranium ("Z" = 92) were examined by his method. There were seven elements (with "Z" < 92) which were not found and therefore identified as still undiscovered, corresponding to atomic numbers 43, 61, 72, 75, 85, 87 and 91. From 1918 to 1947, all seven of these missing elements were discovered. By this time, the first four transuranium elements had also been discovered, so that the periodic table was complete with no gaps as far as curium ("Z" = 96).


title: Atomic number

text: In 1915, the reason for nuclear charge being quantized in units of "Z", which were now recognized to be the same as the element number, was not understood. An old idea called Prout's hypothesis had postulated that the elements were all made of residues (or "protyles") of the lightest element hydrogen, which in the Bohr-Rutherford model had a single electron and a nuclear charge of one. However, as early as 1907, Rutherford and Thomas Royds had shown that alpha particles, which had a charge of +2, were the nuclei of helium atoms, which had a mass four times that of hydrogen, not two times. If Prout's hypothesis were true, something had to be neutralizing some of the charge of the hydrogen nuclei present in the nuclei of heavier atoms.


title: Atomic number

text: In 1917, Rutherford succeeded in generating hydrogen nuclei from a nuclear reaction between alpha particles and nitrogen gas, and believed he had proven Prout's law. He called the new heavy nuclear particles protons in 1920 (alternate names being proutons and protyles). It had been immediately apparent from the work of Moseley that the nuclei of heavy atoms have more than twice as much mass as would be expected from their being made of hydrogen nuclei, and thus there was required a hypothesis for the neutralization of the extra protons presumed present in all heavy nuclei. A helium nucleus was presumed to be composed of four protons plus two "nuclear electrons" (electrons bound inside the nucleus) to cancel two of the charges. At the other end of the periodic table, a nucleus of gold with a mass 197 times that of hydrogen was thought to contain 118 nuclear electrons in the nucleus to give it a residual charge of +79, consistent with its atomic number.


title: Atomic number

text: All consideration of nuclear electrons ended with James Chadwick's discovery of the neutron in 1932. An atom of gold now was seen as containing 118 neutrons rather than 118 nuclear electrons, and its positive nuclear charge now was realized to come entirely from a content of 79 protons. Since Moseley had previously shown that the atomic number "Z" of an element equals this positive charge, it was now clear that "Z" is identical to the number of protons of its nuclei.


title: Atomic number

text: Each element has a specific set of chemical properties as a consequence of the number of electrons present in the neutral atom, which is "Z" (the atomic number). The configuration of these electrons follows from the principles of quantum mechanics. The number of electrons in each element's electron shells, particularly the outermost valence shell, is the primary factor in determining its chemical bonding behavior. Hence, it is the atomic number alone that determines the chemical properties of an element; and it is for this reason that an element can be defined as consisting of "any" mixture of atoms with a given atomic number.


title: Atomic number

text: The quest for new elements is usually described using atomic numbers. As of , all elements with atomic numbers 1 to 118 have been observed. Synthesis of new elements is accomplished by bombarding target atoms of heavy elements with ions, such that the sum of the atomic numbers of the target and ion elements equals the atomic number of the element being created. In general, the half-life of a nuclide becomes shorter as atomic number increases, though undiscovered nuclides with certain "magic" numbers of protons and neutrons may have relatively longer half-lives and comprise an island of stability.


title: Atomic number

text: A hypothetical element composed only of neutrons has also been proposed and would have atomic number 0.


title: Bo Dallas

text: Taylor Michael Rotunda (born May 25, 1990) is an American professional wrestler. He is best known for his tenure in WWE, where he performed under the ring name Bo Dallas. Rotunda is a third-generation professional wrestler; his grandfather Blackjack Mulligan, his father Mike Rotunda and uncles Barry and Kendall Windham were all professional wrestlers, while his brother Windham still is.


title: Bo Dallas

text: While in WWE's developmental territories Florida Championship Wrestling (FCW) and NXT, he was a three-time FCW Florida Heavyweight Champion, a two-time FCW Florida Tag Team Champion with his brother, and a one-time NXT Champion. He was promoted to WWE's main roster in 2014, where he won the WWE Raw Tag Team Championship (with Curtis Axel as part of The B-Team) and the WWE 24/7 Championship once.


title: Bo Dallas

text: Rotunda attended Hernando High School, and graduated in 2008. During his final two years of high school, he qualified for the state wrestling championships. He also played football as a defensive tackle. Originally, he was offered a football scholarship at Webber International University in Babson Park, Florida, but when the offer fell through, he decided to become a wrestler instead. Rotunda always had a naturally large build and bulky physique, he was already 5’10 and 210 lbs at the age of 15 which is why he chose to compete in sports like football and wrestling which include a lot of physical strength and power.


title: Bo Dallas

text: In 2008, Rotunda signed a developmental contract with World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) and was assigned to Florida Championship Wrestling (FCW), where he debuted on November 15, 2008, by defeating Kaleb O'Neal. On December 16, Rotunda, wrestling under his real name, teamed with Kris Logan to defeat Ryback and Jon Cutler in a tag team match. Throughout early 2009, Rotunda continued wrestling in tag team matches, and changed his name to Tank Rotunda in February. In June, he began wrestling as Bo Rotunda and later Bo Rotundo, and the following month he began teaming with his brother, Duke Rotundo. At the FCW television tapings on June 23, The Rotundo Brothers defeated The Dude Busters (Caylen Croft and Trent Barretta) to become the number one contenders to the FCW Florida Tag Team Championship. That same night, they defeated Justin Angel and Kris Logan for the FCW Florida Tag Team Championship. They went on to successfully defend the championship against Dylan Klein and Vance Archer and the team of Curt Hawkins and Heath Slater. At the FCW television tapings on November 19, the Rotundos lost the championship to The Dude Busters (Hawkins and Croft). In early 2010, the Rotundos began feuding with The Usos (Jimmy and Jules), and their manager, Sarona Snuka. In April, they moved into a feud with Jackson Andrews and Curt Hawkins, which began when Rotunda faced Andrews in a singles match and won by disqualification when Hawkins interfered.


title: Bo Dallas

text: Rotunda was then absent from FCW due to injury, making his return in June. He moved into singles competition, defeating wrestlers including Derrick Bateman, Hawkins, Tyler Reks, and Brodus Clay. In August, FCW Florida Heavyweight Champion Mason Ryan issued an open challenge, which Rotundo accepted. He lost the subsequent championship match by submission. On February 3, 2011, Rotundo defeated Ryan to win the FCW Florida Heavyweight Championship for the first time, but lost the championship to Lucky Cannon immediately afterward. He regained the championship from Cannon three months later, on May 19. In July and August, Rotundo appeared in multiple untelevised matches before "Raw" and "SmackDown". On September 1, Rotundo vacated the FCW Florida Heavyweight Championship due to injury. Later that month, it was reported that Rotundo had suffered a lacerated kidney, and was expected to be absent for several months to recuperate.


title: Bo Dallas

text: Rotundo returned at the tapings of the January 29, 2012, episode of FCW television, declaring his intentions to reclaim the FCW Florida Heavyweight Championship. On February 2, Rotundo and his brother, renamed Husky Harris, defeated Brad Maddox and Eli Cottonwood to win the FCW Florida Tag Team Championship for the second time. The brothers held the championship until March 15, when they lost it to Corey Graves and Jake Carter. In May 2012, Rotundo made several appearances at WWE house shows, defeating Drew McIntyre. At an FCW live event on June 16 Rotundo defeated Rick Victor to win the FCW Florida Heavyweight Championship for the third time, right after Victor had just defeated Seth Rollins for the title. He re lost the title to Victor at another FCW live event on July 13, 2012.


title: Bo Dallas

text: In 2012, WWE rebranded FCW as NXT, Rotunda made his NXT television debut in the June 20 episode of "NXT", portraying a happy-go-lucky and resilient character under the ring name Bo Dallas, where he defeated Rick Victor. In August, Dallas competed in a tournament for the newly established NXT Championship; he was eliminated by Jinder Mahal in the quarter-finals. On the November 7 episode of "NXT", Dallas competed in a number one contenders fatal four-way elimination match against Mahal, Drew McIntyre, and Justin Gabriel; despite eliminating McIntyre and Gabriel, Dallas succumbed to Mahal.


title: Bo Dallas

text: On January 26, 2013, at WWE's Royal Rumble Fanfest, Dallas participated in an eight-man NXT tournament for a place in the Royal Rumble match; he defeated Luke Harper, Conor O'Brian, and Leo Kruger to win the tournament. The next day, Dallas entered the Rumble match at number 16, where he lasted over 20 minutes and eliminated the WWE Intercontinental Champion, Wade Barrett, who returned to the ring and eliminated Dallas. This provoked a brief feud, with Barrett challenging Dallas to a non-title match the next night on "Raw", in which Dallas earned an upset victory. On the February 11 episode of "Raw", Dallas appeared, attacking Barrett before Barrett's match against Kofi Kingston. Dallas later challenged Barrett for the Intercontinental Championship in a losing effort.


title: Bo Dallas

text: Simultaneously with his feud with Barrett, Dallas entered the NXT Tag Team Championship tournament alongside Michael McGillicutty. The pair defeated Primo & Epico to advance to the semi-finals, but lost to the Wyatt Family (Luke Harper and Erick Rowan) due to Bray Wyatt's interference. In an NXT Championship number one contender's three-way match against Conor O'Brian and Corey Graves, Dallas was prevented from winning by Wyatt, due to Dallas's earlier refusal to join The Wyatt Family. This resulted in a match between Dallas and Wyatt, which Dallas won. Starting in late April 2013, the NXT audience began to turn against Dallas (despite Dallas not changing his character) and started booing him. NXT Tag Team Champion Adrian Neville chose Dallas to replace his injured partner, Oliver Grey, but on May 8, they lost the title to The Wyatt Family. Soon after, Dallas's character began showing subtle villainous traits of being disingenuous.


title: Bo Dallas

text: On the May 29 episode of "NXT", Dallas won a battle royal to become the number one contender to the NXT Championship. On the June 12 "NXT" (taped on May 23), Dallas defeated Big E Langston to win the title. He successfully defended the championship against Antonio Cesaro and Leo Kruger during mid-2013. By then, the NXT audience's dislike of Dallas had grown to the point of the crowd literally turning their backs on him while cheering all his opponents, regardless of who he faced, thus turning him heel in the process. In September, Dallas held an open challenge to determine his next title contender but banned Sami Zayn from competing, so Zayn masqueraded as the masked El Local and defeated Dallas to earn his title shot. The match occurred on the October 16 episode of "NXT", and Dallas retained his title by sending Zayn into an exposed turnbuckle. Dallas then faced Adrian Neville in December and lost by countout to retain his title.


title: Bo Dallas

text: In a rematch at NXT Arrival in February 2014, Dallas lost the title to Neville, and failed to regain it in a rematch on "NXT" on March 27. The following month, Dallas attempted to "Occupy NXT", but the crowd turned their backs on him, and he was forced into a match against Justin Gabriel, which he won. Beginning to throw tantrums after failing to get his own way, he was put in a match against Big E on May 22. Dallas subsequently lost the match and was forced to leave NXT as a result. In June, he attempted to return to NXT by appearing as the masked character "Mr. NXT", but was exposed by Zayn and forced to leave.


title: Bo Dallas

text: On the April 7 episode of "Raw", WWE started airing motivational-style introductory vignettes for Dallas. On the May 23 episode of "SmackDown", Dallas made his official main roster debut by defeating Sin Cara. This was the start of a winning streak, which reached a third victory with the defeat of Xavier Woods on the May 30 episode of "SmackDown". Dallas made his first pay-per-view appearance at Payback, where he was scheduled to face Kofi Kingston. The match never happened due to interference from Kane. Dallas would defeat Kingston the following night on "Raw" for his fourth victory. Dallas continued his streak with wins over Santino Marella, Xavier Woods, R-Truth, Fandango and Titus O'Neil. Dallas attacked El Torito after his eleventh victory over Diego on the July 4 episode of "SmackDown". He would go on to defeat El Torito for his twelfth victory and then defeated both Diego and Torito in a handicap match as his thirteenth and fourteenth victories. WWE released a video of Bo highlighting the "14-Bo" streak he acknowledged. He continued his streak against The Great Khali, Damien Sandow, and Dolph Ziggler. At Battleground, Dallas participated in the 19-man battle royal for the vacant Intercontinental Championship; he managed to eliminate Sin Cara and Titus O'Neil before being the 16th person eliminated by Dolph Ziggler. Dallas's undefeated streak was ended by R-Truth on the July 28 episode of "Raw", prompting a small feud between the two.


title: Bo Dallas

text: In late August, Dallas began tormenting Jack Swagger about his loss to Rusev at SummerSlam after Swagger's matches. Dallas began feuding with Mark Henry after defeating him on the September 29 episode of "Raw", tormenting him like he did Swagger following Henry's losses to Rusev at Night of Champions. On the October 7 episode of "Main Event", Dallas unsuccessfully challenged Dolph Ziggler for the Intercontinental Championship. Dallas then scored three wins over Henry in both singles and tag team matches, before being quickly defeated by Henry in a match on the Hell in a Cell pre-show, ending their feud.


title: Bo Dallas

text: After a four-month absence due to a foot injury, Dallas made his televised return on the WrestleMania 31 pre-show in March 2015, competing in the André the Giant Memorial Battle Royal, where he was eliminated by Hideo Itami. The next night on Raw, Dallas came out and interrupted Sting, telling him to Bo-lieve before receiving a Scorpion Death drop. On the May 18 episode of "Raw", Dallas reignited his rivalry with Neville, attacking him before and after his match with King Barrett. At Elimination Chamber, Dallas faced Neville in a losing effort. On the August 24 episode of Raw, Dallas interrupted Brock Lesnar and brought up Lesnar's loss to The Undertaker at SummerSlam, before Lesnar attacked him.


title: Bo Dallas

text: On the Survivor Series pre-show, Dallas competed in a five-on-five traditional Survivor Series elimination tag team match where Dallas, The Cosmic Wasteland (Stardust, Konnor and Viktor) and The Miz lost to Goldust, The Dudley Boyz (Bubba Ray Dudley and D-Von Dudley, Neville and Titus O'Neil. At Tribute to the Troops, Bo Dallas, dressed as Uncle Sam, lost to Mark Henry.


title: Bo Dallas

text: On the January 4, 2016 episode of "Raw", Dallas, along with Heath Slater, Curtis Axel and Adam Rose, debuted as a new stable and went on to assist Slater in defeating Dolph Ziggler, calling themselves "Social Outcasts". They would remain as a stable for seven months, including all of them competing in the André the Giant Memorial Battle Royal at WrestleMania 32, which was won by Baron Corbin. In May, The Social Outcasts began filming "", taking them out of action.


title: Bo Dallas

text: On July 19 at the 2016 WWE draft, Dallas was drafted to Raw in the 10th round (50th overall). Dallas then returned on the September 5 episode of "Raw", carrying a sign saying "Bo-lieve in Bo", speaking in rhymes and displaying a more vicious style as he defeated a local competitor. Dallas would continue defeating local competitors the following weeks. On the October 10 episode of "Raw", Bo Dallas teamed with Curtis Axel in a losing effort to Sami Zayn and Neville. The following week on "Raw", Dallas defeated Neville with Axel in his corner, and after the match, attacked Axel. The following week, Dallas defeated Axel by pinning him while grabbing Axel's tights. On April 2, 2017, at WrestleMania 33, Dallas was part of the André the Giant Memorial Battle Royal, from which he was eliminated by the eventual winner Mojo Rawley.


title: Bo Dallas

text: On the June 19 episode of "Raw", Intercontinental Champion The Miz approached Dallas and Curtis Axel, offering to make them "the stars [they] deserve to be" if they become his entourage, and later that night, Dallas and Axel appeared in bear costumes during a in ring segment between Miz and his wife Maryse, attacking Dean Ambrose. Dallas and Axel, now dubbed The Miztourage, began helping Miz in his matches and occasionally teamed him with him, including winning efforts against Dean Ambrose, Heath Slater and Rhyno on June 26 episode of "Raw" and Jason Jordan and The Hardy Boyz (Jeff Hardy and Matt Hardy) at SummerSlam. At No Mercy, they also helped Miz to defeat Jason Jordan to retain his title. At WrestleMania 34 on April 8, 2018, Dallas participated in the André the Giant Memorial Battle Royal, but he failed to win. As part of the Superstar Shake-Up, Miz was moved to the SmackDown brand, while Dallas and Axel remained on Raw. On the April 16 episode of "Raw", during a tag team match, Dallas and Axel turned on Miz, ending their alliance.


title: Bo Dallas

text: On the May 14 episode of "Raw", the duo adopted the new team name "The B-Team" and defeated Breezango (Tyler Breeze and Fandango), their first win as a team since August 2017. On the June 4 episode of "Raw," The B-Team won a tag team battle royal to determine the number one contenders for the Raw Tag Team Championships. At Extreme Rules, The B-Team defeated Bray Wyatt and Matt Hardy to win the Raw Tag Team Championship. On the July 23 episode of "Raw", they successfully retained their title against Wyatt and Hardy. In the following weeks, The B-Team transitioned into faces and adopted a new entrance theme and mannerisms, this would be Dallas' first time as a face since 2013. At SummerSlam on August 19, The B-Team successfully retained their title against The Revival (Dash Wilder and Scott Dawson). On the September 3 episode of "Raw", The B-Team lost the championships to Dolph Ziggler and Drew McIntyre, ending their reign at 50 days. The following week on "Raw", they received a rematch for the titles, but they were unsuccessful.


title: Bo Dallas

text: At Survivor Series, The B-Team made up part of Team Raw as they took on Team SmackDown in a 10-on-10 Survivor Series tag team elimination match, and Team Raw would go on to lose the match. At WrestleMania 35 on April 7, 2019, Dallas competed in the André the Giant Memorial Battle Royal but failed to win the match. As part of the Superstar Shake-up, both Dallas and Axel were moved to the SmackDown brand. On the April 30 episode of "SmackDown Live", The B-Team formed a brief alliance with Shane McMahon, thus turning heel once again. On the September 3 episode of "SmackDown", Dallas became the WWE 24/7 Champion by pinning Drake Maverick on the backstage area thanks to the help of Axel, only to lose it to Maverick again some minutes later. Dallas' final televised match was at Crown Jewel in October, where he and Axel failed to win the tag team turmoil match. On the November 15 episode of "SmackDown", Dallas and Axel were attacked by Braun Strowman, this would Dallas' final appearance in WWE.


title: Bo Dallas

text: In December, Rotunda asked WWE for time off, which was granted. He also suffered a neck injury which prevented him from working in the ring. On April 30, 2020, his tag team partner Curtis Axel was released by WWE. Rotunda was released almost one year later, on April 15, 2021, after over a year of absence, ending his 13-year tenure with the company.


title: Bo Dallas

text: Rotunda, as Bo Dallas, made his video game debut as a playable character in "WWE 2K15", and has since appeared in "WWE 2K16", "WWE 2K17", "WWE 2K18", "WWE 2K19", WWE 2K20 and WWE 2K Battlegrounds. He also appears in the mobile game "WWE SuperCard".


title: Bo Dallas

text: On February 19, 2012, Rotunda was arrested for driving under the influence in Tampa, Florida, with blood-alcohol levels of 0.166 and 0.178 according to two breathalyser tests, above the legal limit of 0.08. He was released later that day on a $500 bond.


title: Bo Dallas

text: In August 2016, Rotunda was arrested for public intoxication in Dallas, Texas after being ejected from a flight from Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport to Mexico City.


title: Bo Dallas

text: Rotunda's father is wrestler Mike Rotunda and his grandfather was wrestler Blackjack Mulligan, the latter being a member of the WWE Hall of Fame. His uncle Barry Windham and his brother Windham Rotunda (who performs as Bray Wyatt) are both wrestlers.


title: Bo Dallas

text: Rotunda was married to Swedish arm wrestling champion Sarah Bäckman from 2014 until their divorce in 2019. In February 2021, it was revealed that he was in a relationship with fellow wrestler Gionna Daddio, better known by the ring name Liv Morgan, with the two living on a farm and starting a real estate business to prepare for life after professional wrestling.


title: Joe Flacco

text: Joseph Vincent Flacco (born January 16, 1985) is an American football quarterback for the New York Jets of the National Football League (NFL). He played college football at Delaware after transferring from Pittsburgh and was drafted by the Baltimore Ravens in the first round of the 2008 NFL Draft. Flacco has also played for the Denver Broncos and Philadelphia Eagles.


title: Joe Flacco

text: Flacco was Baltimore's starting quarterback from 2008 until midway through the 2018 season, and helped lead the Ravens to the playoffs six times; during his tenure in Baltimore the Ravens won the AFC North twice, appeared in three AFC Championship Games, and beat the San Francisco 49ers to win Super Bowl XLVII following the 2012 season. Flacco was named Super Bowl XLVII's MVP, concluding a postseason run in which he tied Joe Montana's single postseason record for touchdown passes (11) without an interception. That off-season, he signed a six-year contract worth $120.6 million, a record high for a quarterback at the time. Following a 2014 campaign that saw his career high 27 touchdowns and nearly 4,000 passing yards, Flacco received a Pro Bowl invitation, but he turned it down as his wife was giving birth to one of his children the same weekend.


title: Joe Flacco

text: By the late 2017, Flacco's performance began to decline and he was eventually traded to the Denver Broncos in 2019 after a hip injury caused him to lose his starting position to Lamar Jackson. A neck injury eight games into the 2019 season ended his playing year prematurely and he was released by the Broncos after the team chose to start Drew Lock. He subsequently joined the New York Jets to back up Sam Darnold before becoming a starter for the Jets.


title: Joe Flacco

text: As of the 2021 NFL season, Flacco has the most career passing yards and touchdowns for any quarterback who has never been to a Pro Bowl. Flacco is also known for having one of the strongest arms in the NFL.


title: Joe Flacco

text: Flacco was born on January 16, 1985 in Audubon, New Jersey, the eldest of five sons to Karen (née Madden) and Steve Flacco. Flacco has four younger brothers. The Flacco family is originally from Haddon Township, New Jersey. Flacco played football, baseball, and basketball at Audubon High School and was the starting quarterback for the Green Wave. Regarded as a three-star recruit by "Rivals.com", Flacco was listed as No. 39 among quarterback prospects in the class of 2003.


title: Joe Flacco

text: In 2004, Flacco was the backup quarterback behind starter Tyler Palko, who led the team to an 8–4 record. He saw action in three games against Ohio University, University of Nebraska, and the University of South Florida. Flacco threw only four passes and finished the season with one completion for 11 yards and a 25-yard punt.


title: Joe Flacco

text: Flacco transferred to the University of Delaware in 2005, but was not eligible to play that season. He saw his first full-time action during the 2006 season, throwing for 2,783 yards, 18 touchdowns and 10 interceptions. Delaware's Fightin' Blue Hens ultimately struggled to a 5–6 record and failed to qualify for the FCS playoffs.


title: Joe Flacco

text: In the 2007 season, Flacco led his team to an 8–3 regular-season record while compiling 4,263 yards, 23 touchdowns and 5 interceptions. Arguably his best game came against Navy where he threw for 434 yards and four touchdowns. Flacco showed another solid performance in the first-ever meeting against the Delaware State Hornets in the first round of the playoffs. Behind Omar Cuff's record-setting day, Flacco threw efficiently for 189 yards and a touchdown, leading the Blue Hens to an easy 44–7 victory. Flacco continued Delaware's playoff run by upsetting the Northern Iowa Panthers 39–27 in the FCS quarterfinals and upsetting the Southern Illinois Salukis 20–17 the next weekend in the semifinals. Flacco threw two touchdowns to win against both the Panthers and Salukis, but went on to lose in the FCS National Championship Game to the Appalachian State Mountaineers 49–21.


title: Joe Flacco

text: At Delaware, Flacco was pessimistic about his chances to play in the NFL, and after his junior year asked his coach for permission to play baseball. The coach predicted that he would be selected in the NFL Draft, surprising Flacco. With a solid showing at the Senior Bowl and NFL Combine, Flacco solidified himself as a top five quarterback in the 2008 NFL Draft. Flacco won the long distance throw competition in ESPN's State Farm College Football All-Star Challenge with a 74-yard throw, beating out Matt Ryan, Colt Brennan, Chad Henne, and John David Booty, later winning the Taco Bell Quarterback Scramble with a time of 15.72 seconds.


title: Joe Flacco

text: Members of the Baltimore Ravens' front office, having attended Flacco's workout at the Senior Bowl, were impressed by his ability to throw in rainy and windy conditions. Flacco again impressed the Ravens' personnel in the poor weather conditions of his workout at Delaware, despite their low expectations given Delaware's small-school pedigree—Flacco performed the workout on an uncut, unlined field with his own footballs. Ravens assistant general manager Eric DeCosta later stated the workouts left him confident Flacco could succeed in the late-season conditions in Pittsburgh and Cleveland.


title: Joe Flacco

text: Flacco was drafted by the Ravens as the 18th overall pick in the 2008 NFL Draft after the team traded out of the eighth overall selection to the 26th, then up again. The selection made Flacco the highest drafted player ever from the University of Delaware. He was also the first Division I-FCS (formerly I-AA) quarterback selected in the first round of the draft since Steve McNair went third overall to the Houston Oilers in the 1995 NFL Draft. Draft commentators initially criticized the pick as a "reach", feeling Flacco would likely have still been available in the middle of the second round. DeCosta, however, stated waiting was too much of a gamble and that choosing Flacco in the first round was "an easy decision to make."


title: Joe Flacco

text: On July 16, 2008, he signed a five-year contract with a maximum value of around $30 million, and $8.75 million guaranteed.


title: Joe Flacco

text: Due to a season-ending injury to incumbent starter Kyle Boller and an illness to former Heisman Trophy winner Troy Smith, Flacco became the starting quarterback in the 2008 season opener against the Cincinnati Bengals. He completed 15 of 29 passes for 129 yards, his longest pass being a 15-yard play to Derrick Mason. He threw no touchdowns and no interceptions in his debut, but he had a 38-yard rushing touchdown, which was the longest rushing touchdown by a quarterback in Ravens' franchise history at the time (the record has since been broken several times by Lamar Jackson). Flacco's touchdown put the Ravens up by 17–3; the team eventually won the game 17–10.


title: Joe Flacco

text: In his first season, Flacco was named AFC Offensive Player of the Week in Week 9, NFL Rookie of the week, the NFLPA Rookie of the week, and NFL Rookie of the Month for November. Flacco finished his rookie season 257/428 for 2,971 yards with a total of 16 touchdowns (14 passing, 2 rushing), and 14 turnovers (12 interceptions and 2 lost fumbles).


title: Joe Flacco

text: In the wild card round of the 2008–09 NFL playoffs, Flacco became only the third rookie quarterback in NFL history to win his first post-season start, and the first to do it on the road, when his Ravens defeated the Miami Dolphins, 27–9. Flacco completed 9-of-23 attempted passes, accumulating 135 yards without throwing a touchdown or interception. He also scored the victory-sealing rushing touchdown on a quarterback draw in the 4th quarter. Shaun King, Ben Roethlisberger, Russell Wilson, and Mark Sanchez are the only other rookie quarterbacks to ever win their debut playoff game.


title: Joe Flacco

text: He then won his second game versus the Tennessee Titans. Flacco led the Ravens to a 13–10 win in the divisional playoff round. Flacco made tight-window throws to Todd Heap and Mark Clayton on the go ahead scoring drive in the 4th quarter to set up a game-winning field goal from Matt Stover. On the day, Flacco was 11-of-22 for 148 yards and a touchdown, without turning the ball over for the second straight game. He became the first rookie quarterback to win two playoff games.


title: Joe Flacco

text: In the versus the Pittsburgh Steelers, the Ravens lost 14–23, with Flacco throwing for 141 yards, being sacked three times and throwing three interceptions, one being the game clincher to Troy Polamalu, who returned the pass for a touchdown.


title: Joe Flacco

text: In the season opening game in Baltimore against the Kansas City Chiefs, Flacco led the Ravens to their first win of the season. He threw for 307 yards and three touchdowns, both career highs, along with 18 yards rushing. He also threw one interception and had a quarterback rating of 95.8. During this game, the Ravens broke the franchise record for most offensive yards in a game with a total of 501.


title: Joe Flacco

text: In Week 15 against the Chicago Bears, Flacco broke his personal record for most touchdowns thrown in a game with four, while throwing for 234 passing yards and completing 72 percent of his passes, earning him a career-high passer rating of 135.6. The Ravens would go on to win the game 31–7. With 3,613 yards and 21 touchdowns, Flacco became the first Ravens quarterback since Vinny Testaverde to throw for more than 3,000 yards and 20 touchdowns in a single season. He also tied his interception number from his rookie season of 12.


title: Joe Flacco

text: An injury limited Flacco's performance on Wild Card Weekend against the New England Patriots. The Ravens routed the Patriots 33–14 despite Flacco throwing 4-of-10 for just 34 yards and one interception.


title: Joe Flacco

text: In the season opener, Flacco and the Ravens opened New Meadowlands Stadium against the New York Jets. Flacco threw for 248 yards while completing 52.6% of his passes, throwing one interception and losing a fumble. In a defensive contest, the Ravens came away with the 10–9 win over their former defensive coordinator Rex Ryan.


title: Joe Flacco

text: In Week 2 at the Cincinnati Bengals, Flacco had arguably his worst NFL start of his young career, throwing for 154 yards while completing just 43.6% of his passes and throwing a career-high four interceptions, while throwing one touchdown and accumulating a passer rating of 23.8. Coming off of the worst start of his career, Flacco and the Ravens had their home opener against the Cleveland Browns. Flacco bounced back from his Week 2 loss to the Bengals and had his best game of the young season, throwing for 262 yards and completing 71% of his passes. He then hooked up with prized offseason acquisition wide receiver Anquan Boldin for three touchdowns while throwing no interceptions and accumulating a passer rating of 128.7. The Ravens won the contest 24–17.


title: Joe Flacco

text: On December 26, 2010, with a win against the Cleveland Browns, Flacco became one of only four NFL quarterbacks to lead his team to the playoffs in all three of his first three seasons. During this game, Flacco reached 10,000 career passing yards. Ending the season, Flacco set season highs in passing yards (3,622), passing touchdowns (25), passer rating (93.6), and a season low in interceptions (10), yet set a career-high with four lost fumbles.


title: Joe Flacco

text: In defeating the Kansas City Chiefs (30–7) in the Wild Card Round of the 2010–11 NFL playoffs, Flacco completed 25 of 34 passes for 265 yards and two touchdowns, with no interceptions, for a post-season-high passer rating of 115.4. With the win, Flacco became the first quarterback in NFL history to start and win a playoff game in each of his first three seasons, and tied Len Dawson, Roger Staubach, Jake Delhomme, and Mark Sanchez for most career post-season road wins by a quarterback.


title: Joe Flacco

text: In the Divisional Round , Flacco and the Ravens would once again head to Pittsburgh to play their arch-rival Steelers. The difference this time would be the season was on the line. The Ravens got out to an early 21–7 lead after a 12-yard rush by running back Ray Rice, a fumble recovery run back for a touchdown by defensive end Cory Redding, and a four-yard touchdown pass from Flacco to tight end Todd Heap. But in the third quarter, which the Ravens had been dominant in all of the regular season, Baltimore fell apart. The Ravens turned the ball over three times in their own territory with an uncharacteristic fumble by Rice, an interception by Flacco, and a fumbled snap by center Matt Birk (Flacco was credited with the lost fumble), and with those the Steelers took a 31–24 lead. But even after all of the Ravens miscues and errors, the Ravens still had a shot to tie it at the end when Flacco threw a dart to T.J. Houshmandzadeh on 4th and 18, but it was dropped. Flacco finished the game 16-of-30 for 125 yards, one touchdown, and one interception. He was ranked 90th by his fellow players on the NFL Top 100 Players of 2011.


title: Joe Flacco

text: Flacco had his best game of the season in Week 3 against the St. Louis Rams. He went 27-of-48 with a season-high 389 yards through the air and three touchdowns, all in the first quarter and to rookie wideout Torrey Smith (who actually finished the game with a five catch, 152-yard breakout performance). Flacco had a 103.6 rating, as well as 27 yards rushing and a lost fumble. The Ravens scored a season-high 37 points in the 30-point blowout victory, and also gained a franchise record 553 offensive yards.


title: Joe Flacco

text: Flacco had three more 300-yard games during the regular season: against the Houston Texans, Arizona Cardinals and Steelers. He won all three of these games, sweeping Pittsburgh for the first time in his career, but also lost fumbles in each one. Despite losing to the San Diego Chargers in Week 15, the Ravens clinched the playoffs for the fourth straight year that week. The Ravens clinched their division, along with the number 2 seed in the AFC, in a Week 17 win over the rival Cincinnati Bengals. Flacco threw for 130 yards and a touchdown.


title: Joe Flacco

text: Flacco finished the season starting all 16 games. He had 312 completions on 542 attempts (57.6%). He threw for 3,610 yards, 20 touchdowns, 12 interceptions, and had one rushing score. He averaged 225.6 yards per game, was sacked 31 times over the course of the season and set a new career high with six lost fumbles. He finished the year with an 80.9 QB rating.


title: Joe Flacco

text: Flacco continued his playoff dominance that year. In the against the Houston Texans, he threw for 176 yards and two touchdowns, with no turnovers. In the , Flacco completed 22 out of his 36 attempts while throwing for two touchdowns and one interception along with 306 yards passing. These stats were enough to outplay New England Patriots quarterback Tom Brady, who threw for 67 fewer yards, two fewer touchdowns, and one more interception than Flacco. Despite Flacco's performance, the Patriots won to advance to the Super Bowl.


title: Joe Flacco

text: On the NFL Network's Top 100 Players of 2012 list, Flacco was ranked 74th by his fellow players. Despite Flacco's success—the Ravens were in the playoffs each of his first four seasons—few saw him as among the NFL's best quarterbacks. Before January 2015, he had never been selected for the Pro Bowl. In April 2012, Flacco was, as "The New York Times" later stated, "almost universally mocked" when he stated that he was the best quarterback in the NFL, superior to Brady, Peyton Manning, or Aaron Rodgers. "I don’t think I’d be very successful at my job if I didn’t feel that way", Flacco said. In July, he turned down the Ravens’ offer of a new contract, reportedly for $16 million a year, telling his agent that he believed he could improve and earn more.


title: Joe Flacco

text: In the opening week, Flacco passed for 299 yards and two touchdowns in a 44–13 victory over the Cincinnati Bengals to earn his second AFC Offensive Player of the Week honor. By Week 11, the Ravens had amassed a 9–2 record. Flacco played poorly, however, once again in a Week 12 rematch with the Steelers, completing only 16 of 34 passes for 188 yards with one touchdown and an interception. The game saw the Ravens squander a ten-point lead and lose 20–23, despite their division rival starting backup Charlie Batch at quarterback. The following week against the Washington Redskins, Flacco went 16-of-21 with three touchdowns but again amassed less than 200 passing yards in the season's first back-to-back losses. With the offense remaining inconsistent and the team missing opportunities to win their division with each loss, offensive coordinator Cam Cameron was unexpectedly fired and replaced by quarterbacks coach – and former Indianapolis Colts head coach – Jim Caldwell. The change at coordinator was followed by a lopsided loss to the Denver Broncos, leading to widespread criticism of Flacco in the media.


title: Joe Flacco

text: Flacco and the Ravens responded with a decisive 33–14 win over the defending Super Bowl-champion New York Giants in which Flacco threw for 309 yards and two touchdowns, with another rushing. Despite the victory over New York, much of the local and national media wrote the team off as Super Bowl contenders, with ESPN writing that the team had "backed into the playoffs with a disastrous December."


title: Joe Flacco

text: On January 6, 2013, in the Wild Card Playoffs round against the Indianapolis Colts, Flacco finished the game 12 of 23 for 282 yards, two touchdowns, and a career postseason high 125.6 passer rating. The 24–9 win at home set up a Divisional round rematch with the Broncos, who entered the game as nine-point favorites after their regular season win over the Ravens, which included a 98-yard interception touchdown return by Broncos' cornerback Chris Harris that marked the lowest point of Flacco's season. Continuing his postseason success, Flacco played one of the best games in his career, throwing for 331 yards and 3 touchdowns. In the fourth quarter, the Ravens were down 35–28 and had one last chance to tie the game. After an incomplete pass and a 7-yard scramble, on 3rd down and 3, Flacco heaved a 70-yard touchdown pass to Jacoby Jones, sending the game into overtime. The pass has been called the "Mile High Miracle", and "one of the greatest plays in NFL history" and drew comparisons to Roger Staubach's "Hail Mary", Terry Bradshaw's "Immaculate Reception", and Joe Montana's "The Catch". The Ravens would go on to win the game in double overtime 38–35 after an interception by Corey Graham from Peyton Manning and a 47-yard field goal from Justin Tucker, sending the Ravens to face the New England Patriots in the AFC Championship for a second straight year.


title: Joe Flacco

text: On January 20, 2013, Flacco and the Ravens avenged the previous year's AFC Championship Game loss to the New England Patriots with a 28–13 win, securing their spot in the 2013 Super Bowl. Flacco threw for 240 yards and three touchdowns, notching his third straight game with a passer rating over 100. With this win, Flacco became the second NFL quarterback to defeat both Peyton Manning (with the Broncos) and Tom Brady in the same postseason since both became starting quarterbacks in 2001 (the first to do so was Mark Sanchez in 2010).


title: Joe Flacco

text: On February 3, 2013, the Ravens faced the San Francisco 49ers in Super Bowl XLVII. The 49ers were a 4-point favorite to win the game, but Flacco completed 22 of 33 passes for 287 yards and three touchdowns to lead the Ravens to a 34–31 win. Flacco’s three touchdowns in the game tied him for first place on the list of most consecutive playoff games with at least three touchdown passes (3 games). With a record fourth playoff game with a 100+ passer rating in a single postseason, Flacco was named the game's Most Valuable Player and was awarded a brand-new 2014 Chevrolet Corvette.


title: Joe Flacco

text: Flacco finished the postseason having completed 73-of-126 (57.9 percent) passes for 1,140 yards with 11 touchdowns and zero interceptions, tying Montana and Kurt Warner for the most touchdowns in a single postseason and additionally tying Montana for the most touchdowns without an interception in a single postseason. Flacco's 117.2 passer rating tied him for third place all-time with Steve Young in a Super Bowl-winning postseason.


title: Joe Flacco

text: These accomplishments gave Flacco what "The New York Times" stated, "might be the best start to a player's free agency in the history of professional sports", as his contract expired after the season. He was ranked 19th by his fellow players on the NFL Top 100 Players of 2013.


title: Joe Flacco

text: On March 4, 2013, Flacco became the highest-paid quarterback in NFL history when he signed a six-year contract worth $120.6 million. However, within months, he was surpassed by the Packers' Aaron Rodgers and the Falcons' Matt Ryan.


title: Joe Flacco

text: Flacco's 2013 season was statistically the worst of his career. For the first time as an NFL quarterback, Flacco threw more interceptions than touchdowns. His 22 interceptions in the season were 10 more than he had thrown in any other season. His 19 touchdowns were also his lowest since his rookie year. His passer rating was a career low 73.1, approximately 7 points lower than Flacco's previous worst season passer rating. He was also sacked more times (48) than he was in any other season in his career. Despite all this, he also set a high in passing yards, with 3,912. The Ravens finished 8–8 for the season and Flacco missed the playoffs for the first time in his career. He was ranked 58th by his fellow players on the NFL Top 100 Players of 2014.


title: Joe Flacco

text: In their 2014 season home opener, the Ravens played against the division rival Cincinnati Bengals. The game saw the Ravens trailing practically the entire time; however, their one lead of the game came off of an 80-yard touchdown pass from Flacco to wide receiver Steve Smith Sr. At the time, it was the longest touchdown throw of Flacco's career. However, the Ravens would go on to lose the game 16–23, after Bengals' quarterback Andy Dalton connected with receiver A. J. Green for an even more stupendous 77-yard touchdown that would ultimately be the game winner. It would be the first time since 2005 that the Ravens lost their home opener. Flacco finished the game completing 35 of 62 passes and throwing for a season-high 345 passing yards along with a touchdown and an interception, with a passer rating of 71.0.


title: Joe Flacco

text: Flacco had his best game of the season in Week 6, and one of the best games of his career. He completed 21 of 28 passes for 306 yards and a career-high five touchdown passes to four different receivers (Smith Sr., Torrey Smith, Kamar Aiken, and Michael Campanaro) with no interceptions. He once again wasn't sacked and had a season-high passer rating of 149.7. Flacco became the fastest quarterback to throw five touchdown passes, as it only took him 16 minutes and 3 seconds. The Ravens blew out the Tampa Bay Buccaneers 48–17. He earned AFC Offensive Player of the Week honors for the third time in his career.


title: Joe Flacco

text: In Week 16, the Ravens took on the Houston Texans with a chance to clinch the playoffs. Flacco played his worst game of the season, and arguably the worst of his career. He ended the first half with only 27 passing yards and two interceptions, as the Ravens trailed 0–16 going into halftime. The Ravens would rally in the second half, as Flacco threw two touchdown passes to Torrey Smith, but the Ravens never held a lead in the entire game and ended up losing 13–25. Flacco finished completing 21 of 50 passes for 195 yards, two touchdowns and three interceptions with a season-low passer rating of 41.7. He was also sacked twice.


title: Joe Flacco

text: In Week 17, the Ravens took on the Cleveland Browns in Baltimore. They had the chance to clinch the final playoff seed, but they needed a win and for the Kansas City Chiefs to beat or tie the San Diego Chargers. Trailing 10–6 in the fourth quarter, Flacco stepped up big time, heaving a deep pass to Torrey Smith, who caught the ball at the Browns' 16 yard line. On the next play of the game, Flacco connected with Smith again, this time for a touchdown, which put the Ravens up 13–10 for good with 7:33 left in the game. With 3:44 left in the game, Flacco threw another touchdown pass to Kamar Aiken, sealing a 20–10 win. Kansas City would beat San Diego 19–7, giving Baltimore the final AFC playoff spot. Flacco finished the game with 22 of 36 completed passes, 312 passing yards, 2 touchdowns and no interceptions with a passer rating of 107.6. Flacco was also sacked one time, which caused one of his two fumbles in the game (he did not lose either).


title: Joe Flacco

text: 2014 saw Flacco have the best regular season of his career. He set highs in passing yards (3,986), passing touchdowns (27), times sacked (19), fumbles (5), and fumbles lost (0). He also attempted and completed the second most single-season passes in his career (344 completions out of 554 attempts) and tied his mark for second fewest interceptions thrown in a regular season (12). From Weeks 2 through 4, Flacco was not sacked at all. In 5 of Flacco's last 6 games of the season, his passer rating was 99 or higher, with the one exception being the 13–25 loss to Houston. He led Baltimore to a 10–6 record.


title: Joe Flacco

text: In the Wild Card round of the playoffs, the Ravens faced the AFC North-winning Pittsburgh Steelers at Heinz Field. Flacco completed 18 of 29 passes for 259 yards, two touchdowns and no interceptions with a passer rating of 114.0, as the Ravens beat the Steelers 30–17. He was sacked once, after getting tripped up by his offensive lineman on the Ravens' first offensive play of the game. This became the first time that the Ravens beat the Steelers in the postseason. Flacco also continued his streak of winning a game in his team's first round of the playoffs. His biggest accomplishment, however, may have been that he became the first quarterback in NFL history to start and win a playoff game in six of their first seven seasons.


title: Joe Flacco

text: In the Divisional round of the playoffs, the Ravens traveled to Foxborough to take on the number-one seeded New England Patriots, where they lost to the eventual Super Bowl champions in a 31–35 shootout, despite two back-to-back 14-point leads. Flacco still performed well, going 28/45 with 292 passing yards, a career-postseason-high 4 touchdown passes, 2 interceptions and a 92.1 passer rating. Once again, he was not sacked.


title: Joe Flacco

text: For his efforts during the 2014 season, Flacco was invited to the 2015 Pro Bowl as an alternate but turned down the opportunity to play because his wife, Dana, was due to give birth to the couple's third child the same month.


title: Joe Flacco

text: On the NFL Top 100 Players of 2015, Flacco was ranked number 97, the lowest that he has ever been ranked, on the NFL's Top 100 Players list. He fell 39 spots from the previous year, where he was ranked number 58.


title: Joe Flacco

text: The Ravens began their 2015 season in a road game against the Denver Broncos, the place where Flacco had his breakout playoff performance nearly three years earlier. Leading the game, 13–9, with less than a minute left in the third quarter, Flacco threw a pass down the middle of the field, aiming for Steve Smith Sr., but missed the pass terribly, as it was intercepted by Broncos cornerback Aqib Talib and returned 51 yards for a touchdown. It was Flacco's first pick-six since the 2013 season finale. With less than a minute left in the game, the Ravens had the ball at the Denver 16-yard line and were trailing, 13–19. Flacco threw a pass into the end zone, intended for double-covered tight end Crockett Gillmore, which was intercepted by safety, and former Raven, Darian Stewart, officially ending the game for Baltimore.


title: Joe Flacco

text: In Week 2, against the Oakland Raiders, Flacco bounced back by going 32-of-45 with 384 yards and two touchdown passes to Crockett Gillmore, with a 102.5 passer rating. However, while trying to rally the Ravens back at the end of the game, he was picked off by cornerback Neiko Thorpe with less than 30 seconds left, giving the Raiders a 37–33 upset win. It was the first time in his NFL career that Flacco had started out a season with a 0–2 record.


title: Joe Flacco

text: On the final drive of the Ravens' Week 11 game versus the St. Louis Rams, Flacco suffered a torn ACL and MCL, ending his 2015 season. He stayed in the game to complete the drive and put Baltimore into a position to kick the game-winning field goal, giving the Ravens a 16–13 win at home.


title: Joe Flacco

text: The Ravens had a 3–7 record with Flacco at starting quarterback. Flacco finished the season with 266 completed passes out of 413 attempts, 2,791 yards, 14 touchdowns, 12 interceptions, an 83.1 passer rating, three rushing touchdowns and five fumbles, losing two. Flacco's injury ended his streak of consecutive starts at 122 games.


title: Joe Flacco

text: On March 2, 2016, Flacco agreed to a three-year extension to remain with the team. After their Week 3 victory against the Jacksonville Jaguars, Flacco and the Ravens had accrued a 3–0 record, their best record after three games since 2009, but the Ravens would struggle down the stretch, finishing with an 8–8 record and missing the playoffs for the second straight season, the first consecutive playoff misses for the franchise since 2004–2005. Flacco posted a career-high and franchise record 4,317 passing yards, the first time he reached at least 4,000 yards, but only threw 20 touchdowns and 15 interceptions, the second highest of his career. Flacco posted a 6.4 average per attempt, tying his career worst. Flacco also completed a career-high and franchise best 436 completions, and a career-high and franchise best 672 attempts. The 672 pass attempts currently rank fifth most in a single season in league history. The longest touchdown pass of his career came in Week 9 of the 2016 season against the Pittsburgh Steelers. In the first quarter of the game, Flacco's short pass to Mike Wallace went for a 95-yard touchdown, and is the longest pass play in Ravens history.


title: Joe Flacco

text: On July 26, 2017, it was revealed that Flacco was diagnosed with a back injury, ruling him out for 3–6 weeks of training camp. Against the Miami Dolphins in Week 8, Flacco suffered a concussion after a hit from Kiko Alonso. Flacco left the game, and was relieved by Ryan Mallett for the rest. The Ravens nevertheless won 40–0. The Ravens finished the season with a 9–7 record and just missed the playoffs after losing 27–31 to the Cincinnati Bengals in Week 17, allowing the Buffalo Bills to qualify for the postseason. Flacco finished the season starting all 16 games, throwing for 3,141 yards and 18 touchdowns with 13 interceptions.


title: Joe Flacco

text: On September 9, 2018, Flacco threw for three touchdowns and had a passer rating of 121.7 in the season-opening blowout against the Buffalo Bills 47–3. The next week he recorded 376 yards and two touchdowns along with two interceptions against the Cincinnati Bengals, losing his seventh game in Cincinnati. He fumbled the ball in the fourth quarter, ending the chance for a comeback.


title: Joe Flacco

text: After suffering a hip injury during a Week 9 loss to the Pittsburgh Steelers, Flacco was replaced by rookie Lamar Jackson as the Ravens' starting quarterback. Jackson performed well going 6–1 at the helm, and Flacco served in a backup role for the first time in his NFL career after he was cleared to play. During the at home against the Los Angeles Chargers, in which the Ravens were trailing as much as 3–23 due to early struggles by Jackson, many fans chanted for Flacco to return to the field and replace Jackson. Flacco would not see action in the game, as Jackson's late comeback bid down 17–23 was stopped following a fumble with 0:28 remaining in the fourth quarter. Overall, Flacco finished the season with 2,465 passing yards, 12 touchdowns, and 6 interceptions.


title: Joe Flacco

text: On February 13, 2019, the Ravens agreed to trade Flacco to the Denver Broncos in exchange for their fourth-round pick in the 2019 NFL Draft. The deal became official on March 13, 2019.


title: Joe Flacco

text: In his Broncos debut, Flacco threw for 268 yards and a touchdown in a 24-16 road loss to the Oakland Raiders. Flacco made his debut at Empower Field at Mile High in Week 2 against the Chicago Bears. In the game, Flacco threw for 292 yards, one touchdown, and one interception as the Broncos lost 16–14. With 31 seconds left in the game, Flacco threw a seven-yard touchdown pass and a two-point conversion, both to wide receiver Emmanuel Sanders to take a 14–13 lead. However, the Bears quickly drove down the field and Eddy Piñeiro kicked a 53-yard game winning field goal, spoiling Flacco's home debut. In Week 4 against the Jacksonville Jaguars, Flacco threw for 303 yards, three touchdowns, and one interception in the 26–24 loss. In Week 5 against the Los Angeles Chargers, Flacco threw for 182 yards, one touchdown, and one interception as the Broncos won their first game of the season by a score of 20–13. In Week 7 against the Kansas City Chiefs, Flacco threw for 213 yards. During the game, Flacco was sacked a career high nine times in a single game. In a Week 8 loss to the Indianapolis Colts, Flacco threw for 174 yards in the 15-13 loss. In the game, he suffered a neck injury which prematurely ended his season. Flacco finished the 2019 season posting 1,822 passing yards, six touchdowns, five interceptions, and an 85.1 passer rating in eight games.


title: Joe Flacco

text: On March 19, 2020, the Broncos released Flacco with a failed physical designation. He underwent neck surgery in April 2020.


title: Joe Flacco

text: On May 27, 2020, Flacco signed a one-year, $1.5 million deal with the New York Jets as the backup quarterback to 2018 first-round pick Sam Darnold. He was placed on the active/physically unable to perform list at the start of training camp on July 30, 2020. He was activated from the list at the start of the regular season on September 5, 2020. Flacco made his Jets debut when he briefly entered the Week 4 matchup on October 2 after starter Sam Darnold injured his shoulder late in the first quarter. He played only four snaps, going 2 for 2 for 16 yards before Darnold returned in the second quarter in the 28–37 loss to the Denver Broncos. On October 7, 2020, Flacco was named the starter against the Arizona Cardinals due to Darnold's shoulder injury. Making his first start with the Jets in Week 5 against the Arizona Cardinals, Flacco finished with 195 passing yards and a touchdown as the Jets lost 10–30. In the next game against the Miami Dolphins, Flacco finished with 186 passing yards, an interception, and a fumble that he recovered. The Jets again lost 0–24, the first time Flacco had ever been shut out in his NFL career. In Week 9 against the New England Patriots, Flacco was again thrust into the starting role after Darnold re-injured his shoulder the previous week. He had his best game of the season, going 18 for 25 for 262 yards and three touchdowns while also passing Joe Montana for 20th on the all-time passing yards list. However, he also threw a costly fourth quarter interception that allowed the Patriots to rally and eventually beat the Jets 27–30. In Week 11 against the Los Angeles Chargers, Flacco completed 15 of 30 passes for 205 passing yards, two touchdowns, and an interception as the Jets lost 28–34 despite an attempted comeback.


title: Joe Flacco

text: On March 25, 2021, Flacco signed a one-year, $3.5 million contract with the Philadelphia Eagles as a backup to 2020 second-round pick Jalen Hurts.


title: Joe Flacco

text: On October 25, 2021, the Eagles traded Flacco back to the Jets for a conditional sixth-round draft pick, after Jets starting quarterback Zach Wilson suffered a knee injury. Flacco served as a backup to Mike White and Josh Johnson for his first three games back with the Jets, coming into the Week 10 game against the Buffalo Bills in relief of White. He completed all three of his pass attempts for 47 yards and a touchdown. On November 17, 2021, Flacco was named the starting quarterback for the Jets' Week 11 game against the Miami Dolphins. He was placed on the reserve/COVID-19 list by the Jets on November 23 as a close contact with White, who tested positive for COVID-19. Flacco was activated on November 30.


title: Joe Flacco

text: On March 16, 2022, Flacco re-signed with the Jets for one year and $3.5 million. He was announced as the starter for the first three weeks of the season due to an injury to starter Zach Wilson. Making the start in Week 1 against his former team, the Baltimore Ravens, Flacco completed 37 of 59 passes for 307 yards, a touchdown, and an interception as the Jets lost 9–24. During Week 2 against the Cleveland Browns, Flacco finished with 307 passing yards and four touchdowns. With 1:22 left of regulation, trailing 17–30, Flacco made a 66-yard touchdown pass to Corey Davis and the Jets successfully executed an onside kick, allowing Flacco to throw another touchdown with 14 seconds left in their 31–30 win.


title: Joe Flacco

text: Flacco signed a three-year contract with Reebok as a rookie in 2008. In 2009–2010, Flacco was a spokesperson for Pizza Hut, which sold a product called "Flacco's Favorites". Flacco has also endorsed Nike and 1st Mariner Bank, as well as Haribo since January 2013. Also in 2013, Flacco signed an endorsement deal with McDonald's to promote their new menu item, the Mighty Wings. Flacco has also teamed up with opendorse to promote a Zynga mobile application called "NFL Showdown: Football Manager" as well as a line of women's apparel for Spirit Football Jersey.


title: Joe Flacco

text: Flacco married his wife Dana in 2011. Together they have five children; their first child, a son, was born in June 2012. Their second son was born September 15, 2013, about an hour before the start of the Ravens' home opener. Their third son was born in January 2015 and their fourth son was born in April 2018. The Flaccos' only daughter was born in September 2016.


title: Joe Flacco

text: While playing for the Ravens, Flacco lived in the Baltimore suburb of Reisterstown, Maryland until selling his home for $1.6 million in 2019 after being traded to the Denver Broncos.


title: Joe Flacco

text: Flacco is the oldest of the five boys in his family. His brothers are named Mike, John, Brian, and Tom, and he also has a sister named Stephanie. His brother Mike was selected in the 31st round of the 2009 Major League Baseball draft by the Baltimore Orioles. Another brother, John, was a walk-on receiver with the Stanford Cardinal football team. Joe's youngest brother, Tom Flacco, enrolled in 2015 at Western Michigan University, where he played quarterback for two seasons before transferring to Rutgers in 2017 and then Towson in 2018. In 2021, Tom was signed by the Saskatchewan Roughriders of the Canadian Football League.


title: Joe Flacco

text: In a survey by Fanatics in January 2017, Flacco was elected as the most attractive player in the NFL.


title: Joe Flacco

text: In 2018, Flacco made a donation of an undisclosed amount to University of Delaware athletics. It was the largest donation from a Delaware alumnus in the NFL.


title: Ram Mohan Roy

text: Raja Ram Mohan Roy (; 22 May 1772 – 27 September 1833) was an Indian reformer who was one of the founders of the Brahmo Sabha in 1828, the precursor of the Brahmo Samaj, a social-religious reform movement in the Indian subcontinent. He was given the title of Raja by Akbar II, the Mughal emperor. His influence was apparent in the fields of politics, public administration, education and religion. He was known for his efforts to abolish the practices of sati and child marriage. Roy is considered to be the "Father of the Bengal Renaissance" by many historians.


title: Ram Mohan Roy

text: Ram Mohan Roy was born in Radhanagar, Hooghly District, Bengal Presidency. His great grandfather Krishnakanta Bandyopadhyay was a Rarhi Kulin (noble) Brahmin. Among Kulin Brahmins descendants of the six families of Brahmins imported from Kannauj by Ballal Sen in the 12th centurythose from the Rarhi district of West Bengal were notorious in the 19th century for living off dowries by marrying several women. Kulinism was a synonym for polygamy and the dowry system, both of which Rammohan campaigned against. His father, Ramkanta, was a Vaishnavite, while his mother, Tarini Devi, was from a Shaivite family. He was a great scholar of Sanskrit, Persian and English languages and also knew Arabic, Latin and Greek. One parent prepared him for the occupation of a scholar, the "Shastri", while the other secured for him all the worldly advantages needed to launch a career in the "laukik" or worldly sphere of public administration. Torn between these two parental ideals from early childhood, Ram Mohan vacillated between the two for the rest of his life.


title: Ram Mohan Roy

text: During his childhood Ram Mohan Roy witnessed death of his sister in law through sati. The seventeen year old girl was dragged towards the pyre where Ram Mohan Roy witnessed her terrified state. He tried to protest but to no avail. She was burned alive. The people chanted "Maha Sati! Maha Sati! Maha Sati!" (great wife) over her painful screams.


title: Ram Mohan Roy

text: Ram Mohan Roy was married three times. His first wife died early. He had two sons, Radhaprasad in 1800, and Ramaprasad in 1812 with his second wife, who died in 1824. Roy's third wife outlived him.


title: Ram Mohan Roy

text: The nature and content of Ram Mohan Roy's early education is disputed. One view is that Ram Mohan started his formal education in the village "pathshala" where he learned Bengali and some Sanskrit and Persian. Later he is said to have studied Persian and Arabic in a "madrasa" in Patna and after that he was sent to Benares to learn the intricacies of Sanskrit and Hindu scripture, including the Vedas and Upanishads. The dates of his time in both these places are uncertain. However, it is believed that he was sent to Patna when he was nine years old and two years later he went to Benares.


title: Ram Mohan Roy

text: The Persian and Arabic studies influenced his thinking about One God more than studies of European deism, which he didn't know at least while writing his first scriptures because at that stage he couldn't speak or understand English.


title: Ram Mohan Roy

text: Ram Mohan Roy's impact on modern Indian history was his revival of the pure and ethical principles of the Vedanta school of philosophy as found in the Upanishads. He preached the unity of God, made early translations of Vedic scriptures into English, co-founded the Calcutta Unitarian Society and founded the Brahma Samaj. The Brahma Samaj played a major role in reforming and modernizing the Indian society. He successfully campaigned against sati, the practice of burning widows. He sought to integrate Western culture with the best features of his own country's traditions. He established a number of schools to popularize a modern system (effectively replacing Sanskrit based education with English-based education) of education in India. He promoted a rational, ethical, non-authoritarian, this-worldly, and social-reform Hinduism. His writings also sparked interest among British and American Unitarians.


title: Ram Mohan Roy

text: During early rule of the East India Company, Ram Mohan Roy acted as a political agitator whilst employed by the company.


title: Ram Mohan Roy

text: In 1792, the British Baptist shoemaker William Carey published his influential missionary tract, "An Enquiry of the obligations of Christians to use means for the conversion of heathens".


title: Ram Mohan Roy

text: In 1793, William Carey landed in India to settle. His objective was to translate, publish and distribute the Bible in Indian languages and propagate Christianity to the Indian peoples. He realised the "mobile" (i.e. service classes) Brahmins and Pandits were most able to help him in this endeavour, and he began gathering them. He learnt the Buddhist and Jain religious works to better argue the case for Christianity in a cultural context.


title: Ram Mohan Roy

text: In 1795, Carey made contact with a Sanskrit scholar, the Tantric Saihardana Vidyavagish, who later introduced him to Ram Mohan Roy, who wished to learn English.


title: Ram Mohan Roy

text: Between 1796 and 1797, the trio of Carey, Vidyavagish, and Roy created a religious work known as the "Maha Nirvana Tantra" (or "Book of the Great Liberation") and positioned it as a religious text to "the One True God". Carey's involvement is not recorded in his very detailed records and he reports only learning to read Sanskrit in 1796 and only completed a grammar in 1797, the same year he translated part of The Bible (from Joshua to Job), a massive task. For the next two decades this document was regularly augmented. Its judicial sections were used in the law courts of the English Settlement in Bengal as Hindu Law for adjudicating upon property disputes of the zamindari. However, a few British magistrates and collectors began to suspect and its usage (as well as the reliance on pandits as sources of Hindu Law) was quickly deprecated. Vidyavagish had a brief falling out with Carey and separated from the group, but maintained ties to Ram Mohan Roy.


title: Ram Mohan Roy

text: In 1797, Raja Ram Mohan reached Calcutta and became a "bania" (moneylender), mainly to lend to the Englishmen of the Company living beyond their means. Ram Mohan also continued his vocation as pandit in the English courts and started to make a living for himself. He began learning Greek and Latin.


title: Ram Mohan Roy

text: In 1799, Carey was joined by missionary Joshua Marshman and the printer William Ward at the Danish settlement of Serampore.


title: Ram Mohan Roy

text: From 1803 until 1815, Ram Mohan served the East India Company's "Writing Service", commencing as private clerk "Munshi" to Thomas Woodroffe, Registrar of the Appellate Court at Murshidabad (whose distant nephew, John Woodroffe—also a magistrate—and later lived off the Maha Nirvana Tantra under the pseudonym Arthur Avalon). Roy resigned from Woodroffe's service and later secured employment with John Digby, a Company collector, and Ram Mohan spent many years at Rangpur and elsewhere with Digby, where he renewed his contacts with Hariharananda. William Carey had by this time settled at Serampore and the old trio renewed their profitable association. William Carey was also aligned now with the English Company, then head-quartered at Fort William, and his religious and political ambitions were increasingly intertwined.


title: Ram Mohan Roy

text: While in Murshidabad, in 1804 Raja Ram Mohan Roy wrote "Tuhfat-ul-Muwahhidin" (A Gift to Monotheists) in Persian with an introduction in Arabic. Bengali had not yet become the language of intellectual discourse. The importance of "Tuhfatul Muwahhidin" lies only in its being the first known theological statement of one who achieved later fame and notoriety as a vendantin. On its own, it is unremarkable, perhaps of interest only to a social historian because of its amateurish eclecticism. "Tuhfat" was, after all, available as early as 1884 in the English translation of Maulavi Obaidullah EI Obaid, published by the Adi Brahmo Samaj. Raja Ram Mohan Roy did not know the Upanishad at this stage in his intellectual development.


title: Ram Mohan Roy

text: In 1814, he started Atmiya Sabha (i.e. society of friends) a philosophical discussion circle in Kolkata (then Calcutta) to propagate the monotheistic ideals of the vedanta and to campaign against idolatry, caste rigidities, meaningless rituals and other social ills.


title: Ram Mohan Roy

text: The East India Company was draining money from India at a rate of three million pounds a year by 1838. Ram Mohan Roy was one of the first to try to estimate how much money was being taken out of India and to where it was disappearing. He estimated that around one-half of all total revenue collected in India was sent out to England, leaving India, with a considerably larger population, to use the remaining money to maintain social well-being. Ram Mohan Roy saw this and believed that the unrestricted settlement of Europeans in India governing under free trade would help ease the economic drain crisis.


title: Ram Mohan Roy

text: During the next two decades, Ram Mohan along with William Carey, launched his attack at the behest of the church against the bastions of Hinduism of Bengal, namely his own Kulin Brahmin priestly clan (then in control of the many temples of Bengal) and their priestly excesses. The Kulin excesses targeted include sati (the co-cremation of widows), polygamy, child marriage, and dowry.


title: Ram Mohan Roy

text: From 1819, Ram Mohan's battery increasingly turned against William Carey, a Baptist Missionary settled in Serampore, and the Serampore missionaries. With Dwarkanath's munificence, he launched a series of attacks against Baptist "Trinitarian" Christianity and was now considerably assisted in his theological debates by the Unitarian faction of Christianity.


title: Ram Mohan Roy

text: In 1828, he launched Brahmo Sabha with Devendranath Tagore. By 1828, he had become a well known figure in India. In 1830, he had gone to England as an envoy of the Mughal Emperor, Akbar Shah II, who invested him with the title of Raja to the court of King William IV.


title: Ram Mohan Roy

text: This was Ram Mohan's most controversial period. Commenting on his published works Sivanath Sastri writes:


title: Ram Mohan Roy

text: "The period between 1820 and 1830 was also eventful from a literary point of view, as will be manifest from the following list of his publications during that period:


title: Ram Mohan Roy

text: He publicly declared that he would emigrate from the British Empire if Parliament failed to pass the Reform Bill.


title: Ram Mohan Roy

text: In 1830, Ram Mohan Roy travelled to the United Kingdom as an ambassador of the Mughal Empire to ensure that Lord William Bentinck's Bengal Sati Regulation, 1829 banning the practice of Sati was not overturned. In addition, Roy petitioned the King to increase the Mughal Emperor's allowance and perquisites. He was successful in persuading the British government to increase the stipend of the Mughal Emperor by £30,000. He also visited France. While in England, he embarked on cultural exchanges, meeting with members of Parliament and publishing books on Indian economics and law. Sophia Dobson Collet was his biographer at the time.


title: Ram Mohan Roy

text: The religious reforms of Roy contained in some beliefs of the Brahmo Samaj expounded by Rajnarayan Basu are:


title: Ram Mohan Roy

text: Having studied the Qur’an, the Vedas and the Upanishads, Roy's beliefs were derived from a combination of monastic elements of Hinduism, Islam, eighteenth-century Deism, Unitarianism, and the ideas of the Freemasons.


title: Ram Mohan Roy

text: Roy founded the Atmiya Sabha and the Unitarian Community to fight the social evils, and to propagate social and educational reforms in India. He was the man who fought against superstitions, a pioneer in Indian education, and a trend setter in Bengali Prose and Indian press.


title: Ram Mohan Roy

text: Roy's political background and Devandra's Christian influence influenced his social and religious views regarding reforms of Hinduism. He writes,


title: Ram Mohan Roy

text: The present system of Hindus is not well calculated to promote their political interests…. It is necessary that some change should take place in their religion, at least for the sake of their political advantage and social comfort.


title: Ram Mohan Roy

text: Roy's experience working with the British government taught him that Hindu traditions were often not credible or respected by western standards and this no doubt affected his religious reforms. He wanted to legitimise Hindu traditions to his European acquaintances by proving that "superstitious practices which deform the Hindu religion have nothing to do with the pure spirit of its dictates!" The "superstitious practices", to which Ram Mohan Roy objected, included sati, caste rigidity, polygamy and child marriages. These practices were often the reasons British officials claimed moral superiority over the Indian nation. Ram Mohan Roy's ideas of religion actively sought to create a fair and just society by implementing humanitarian practices similar to the Christian ideals professed by the British and thus seeking to legitimise Hinduism in the eyes of the Christian world.


title: Ram Mohan Roy

text: He died at Stapleton, then a village to the northeast of Bristol (now a suburb), on 27 September 1833 of meningitis or a chronic respiratory ailment.


title: Ram Mohan Roy

text: Ram Mohan Roy was originally buried on 18 October 1833, in the grounds of Stapleton Grove, where he had lived as an ambassador of the Mughal Empire and died of meningitis on 27 September 1833. Nine years later he was reburied on 29 May 1843 in a grave at the new Arnos Vale Cemetery, in Brislington, East Bristol. A large plot on The Ceremonial Way there had been bought by William Carr and William Prinsep, and the body in its lac and a lead coffin was placed later in a deep brick-built vault, over seven feet underground. Two years after this, Dwarkanath Tagore helped pay for the chhatri raised above this vault, although there is no record of his ever visiting Bristol. The chhatri was designed by the artist William Prinsep, who had known Ram Mohan in Calcutta.


title: Ram Mohan Roy

text: Bristol Arnos Vale cemetery have been holding remembrance services for Raja Ram Mohan Roy every year on a Sunday close to his death anniversary date of 27 September. The Indian High Commission at London often come to Raja's annual commemoration and Bristol's Lord Mayor is also regularly in attendance. The commemoration is a joint Brahmo-Unitarian service, in which, prayers and hymns are sung, flowers laid at the tomb, and the life of the Raja is celebrated via talks and visual presentations. In 2013, a recently discovered ivory bust of Ram Mohan was displayed. In 2014, his original death mask at Edinburgh was filmed and its history was discussed. In 2017, Raja's commemoration was held on 24 September.