title: Henry Miller

text: In 1948, Miller wrote a novella which he called his "most singular story," a work of fiction entitled "The Smile at the Foot of the Ladder".


title: Henry Miller

text: In February 1963, Miller moved to 444 Ocampo Drive, Pacific Palisades, Los Angeles, California, where he would spend the last 17 years of his life. In 1967, Miller married his fifth wife, Japanese born singer Hoki Tokuda (). In 1968, Miller signed the "Writers and Editors War Tax Protest" pledge, vowing to refuse tax payments in protest against the Vietnam War. After his move to Ocampo Drive, he held dinner parties for the artistic and literary figures of the time. His cook and caretaker was a young artist's model named Twinka Thiebaud who later wrote a book about his evening chats. Thiebaud's memories of Miller's table talk were published in a rewritten and retitled book in 2011.


title: Henry Miller

text: Only 200 copies of Miller's 1972 chapbook "On Turning Eighty" were published. Published by Capra Press, in collaboration with Yes! Press, it was the first volume of the "Yes! Capra" chapbook series and is 34 pages in length. The book contains three essays on topics such as aging and living a meaningful life. In relation to reaching 80 years of age, Miller explains:


title: Henry Miller

text: If at eighty you're not a cripple or an invalid, if you have your health, if you still enjoy a good walk, a good meal (with all the trimmings), if you can sleep without first taking a pill, if birds and flowers, mountains and sea still inspire you, you are a most fortunate individual and you should get down on your knees morning and night and thank the good Lord for his savin' and keepin' power.


title: Henry Miller

text: Miller and Tokuda divorced in 1977. Then in his late 80s, Miller filmed with Warren Beatty for the 1981 film "Reds", which was also directed by Beatty. He spoke of his remembrances of John Reed and Louise Bryant as part of a series of "witnesses". The film was released eighteen months after Miller's death. During the last four years of his life, Miller held an ongoing correspondence of over 1,500 letters with Brenda Venus, a young "Playboy" model and columnist, actress and dancer. A book about their correspondence was published in 1986.


title: Henry Miller

text: Miller died of circulatory complications at his home in Pacific Palisades, Los Angeles, on June 7, 1980, at the age of 88. His body was cremated and his ashes shared between his son Tony and daughter Val. Tony has stated that he ultimately intends to have his ashes mixed with those of his father and scattered in Big Sur.


title: Henry Miller

text: The publication of Miller's "Tropic of Cancer" in the United States in 1961 by Grove Press led to a series of obscenity trials that tested American laws on pornography. The U.S. Supreme Court, in "Grove Press, Inc., v. Gerstein", citing "Jacobellis v. Ohio" (which was decided the same day in 1964), overruled the state court findings of obscenity and declared the book a work of literature; it was one of the notable events in what has come to be known as the sexual revolution. Elmer Gertz, the lawyer who successfully argued the initial case for the novel's publication in Illinois, became Miller's lifelong friend; a volume of their correspondence has been published. Following the trial, in 1964–65, Miller's other books, which had also been banned in the US, were published by Grove Press: "Black Spring", "Tropic of Capricorn", "Quiet Days in Clichy", "Sexus", "Plexus" and "Nexus". Excerpts from some of these banned books, including "Tropic of Cancer", "Black Spring" and "Sexus", were first published in the US by New Directions in "The Henry Miller Reader" in 1959.


title: Henry Miller

text: In addition to his literary abilities, Miller produced numerous watercolor paintings and wrote books on this field. He was a close friend of the French painter Grégoire Michonze. It is estimated that Miller painted 2,000 watercolors during his life, and that 50 or more major collections of Miller's paintings exist. The Harry Ransom Center at the University of Texas at Austin holds a selection of Miller's watercolors, as did the Henry Miller Museum of Art in Ōmachi City in Nagano, Japan, before closing in 2001. Miller's daughter Valentine placed some of her father's art for sale in 2005. He was also an amateur pianist.


title: Henry Miller

text: Miller's friend Emil White founded the nonprofit Henry Miller Memorial Library in Big Sur in 1981. This houses a collection of his works and celebrates his literary, artistic and cultural legacy by providing a public gallery as well as performance and workshop spaces for artists, musicians, students, and writers.


title: Henry Miller

text: Miller is considered a "literary innovator" in whose works "actual and imagined experiences became indistinguishable from each other." His books did much to free the discussion of sexual subjects in American writing from both legal and social restrictions. He influenced many writers, including Lojze Kovačič, Richard Brautigan, Jack Kerouac, Norman Mailer, Vitomil Zupan, Philip Roth, Cormac McCarthy, Paul Theroux and Erica Jong.


title: Henry Miller

text: Throughout his novels he makes references to other works of literature; he cites Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Joris-Karl Huysmans, Balzac and Nietzsche as having a formative impact on him.


title: Henry Miller

text: "Tropic of Cancer" is referenced in Junot Díaz's 2007 book "The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao" as being read by Ana Obregón. Miller's legal difficulties, "Tropic of Cancer" and "Tropic of Capricorn" are mentioned in Denis Johnson's 2007 novel "Tree of Smoke", in a conversation between Skip Sands and his uncle, Colonel Sands. Miller is mentioned again later in the novel. Miller's relationship with June Mansfield is the subject of Ida Therén's 2020 novel "Att omfamna ett vattenfall".


title: A Farewell to Arms

text: A Farewell to Arms is a novel by American writer Ernest Hemingway, set during the Italian campaign of World War I. First published in 1929, it is a first-person account of an American, Frederic Henry, serving as a lieutenant () in the ambulance corps of the Italian Army. The novel describes a love affair between the expatriate from America and an English nurse, Catherine Barkley.


title: A Farewell to Arms

text: Its publication ensured Hemingway's place as a modern American writer of considerable stature. The book became his first best-seller and has been called "the premier American war novel from [...] World War I". The title might be taken from a 16thcentury poem of the same name by the English dramatist George Peele.


title: A Farewell to Arms

text: The novel has been adapted a number of times: initially for the stage in 1930; as a film in 1932, and again in 1957; and as a three-part television miniseries in 1966. The film "In Love and War", made in 1996, depicts Hemingway's life in Italy as an ambulance driver in events prior to his writing of "A Farewell to Arms".


title: A Farewell to Arms

text: The novel is divided into five sections, or "books". Frederic Henry narrates the story in the first-person.


title: A Farewell to Arms

text: Lieutenant Frederic Henry, an American medic, is serving in the Italian Army. The novel begins during the First World War. It is the start of winter, when a cholera epidemic kills thousands of soldiers. Frederic has a brief visit to Gorizia, where he meets with other army fellows and the priest. He finds there are two brothels one for officers and the other for lower-rank soldiers. On his return, he shares his experience with his friend, Surgeon Rinaldi, quite older than him. Rinaldi is fond of beautiful women. He has fallen in love with a nurse named Catherine Barkley, though not so seriously. Rinaldi takes Frederic to a British hospital, where Frederic is introduced to Catherine Barkley, an English nurse. Frederic feels attracted towards her. She tells him about her fiancé, who was killed in the battle, and also about her feeling uncomfortable in the rain, as it starts to rain. Frederic tries to kiss her, but she refuses and slaps him, feeling sorry thereafter. Eventually they kiss, as now she feels somewhat inclined towards him. Frederic, with his fellow drivers (Passini, Manera, Gordini and Gavuzzi) takes the ambulance in war. Passini is killed in a mortar attack, whereas Frederic is severely wounded in the knee on the Italian front and is sent to the hospital.


title: A Farewell to Arms

text: Surgeon Rinaldi visits Frederic in the hospital and praises him for his heroism. But Frederic denies of any display of heroism. Rinaldi also tells him that he will be shifted to a hospital in Milan soon for a better treatment. Frederic requests him to have Catherine there as a nurse. The priest pays a visit. In a discussion again, Frederic expresses his views against war. Meanwhile, America has declared war on Germany, and the Italian army is also anxious about war against Austria. Frederic reaches an American hospital in Milan. There he is nursed by Miss Gage, Mrs. Walker and their Superintendent Miss Van Campen. Miss Gage arranges wine for him. Catherine arrives there, and Frederic realizes a strong sense of love and passion for her. They make love for the first time. Doctor Valentini comes to examine his injury and X-rays. This book portrays the growth of Frederic's relationship with Catherine over the summer. They enjoy boating and horse races. Meanwhile, Frederic meets Helen Ferguson, a fellow nurse of Catherine. After his knee heals, Frederic is diagnosed with jaundice. A three-weeks convalescent leave is sanctioned for him. Miss Van Campen discovers some empty liquor bottle in Frederic's room and takes alcoholism as the cause for his condition. She also concludes that Frederic is knowingly keeping himself ill to avoid the war front. She files a report for the cancellation of convalescent leave, and Frederic is called back to the war front. Catherine informs him that she is three-months pregnant. They promise to reunite and marry after his return from war. Frederic asks her to take care of "Little Catherine".


title: A Farewell to Arms

text: Frederic returns to Gorizia. Rinaldi comes and examines his wounded leg. He further asks whether they have married or not. The priest notices a change in Frederic and also predicts that the war will end soon. Frederic travels to Bainsizza, where he meets Gino, who tells him about an artillery battery of terrifying guns that the Austrians have. Frederic realizes that Italians will not escape if the Austrians attack. It rains heavily, and the bombarding begins. Frederic discovers that morale has severely dropped. Not long afterwards, the Austro-Hungarians break through the Italian lines in the Battle of Caporetto, and the Italians retreat. The houses are evacuated. Women and children are loaded in trucks. At the villa, Henry discovers that Rinaldi has taken off for the hospital; everyone else has evacuated too. There is considerable delay and chaos on the road during the retreat, and Frederic, wishing to avoid a possible aerial attack while stuck on the main retreat route, decides to take an alternate path. He and his men quickly get lost, and their cars are stuck in the mud, Frederic orders the two engineering sergeants riding with Bonello to help. Afraid of being overtaken by the enemy, they refuse and try to leave. Frederic draws his gun and shoots one of them; the other escapes. One of the drivers, Aymo, is later killed, while another, Bonello, runs away to surrender to the Austrians. Frederic and his last companion, Piani, catch up to the main retreat across the Tagliamento river. As soon as they cross the bridge, Frederic is taken by the military police to a place on the river bank where officers are being interrogated and executed for the "treachery" that supposedly led to the Italian defeat. Frederic escapes by jumping into the river. Afterwards, he walks through the plains and jumps aboard a moving train to Milan to find Catherine.


title: A Farewell to Arms

text: Reaching Milan, he learns that Catherine has left for Stresa. He goes to visit Ralph Simmons, one of the opera singers that he encountered earlier, and asks about the procedures for traveling to Switzerland. Ralph helps him, giving him civilian clothes. Frederic feels very odd in those clothes, as the people look at him scornfully. He reaches Stresa by train and goes to the hotel Isles Borromées. Emilio, a bartender, informs him that two English nurses are staying at a small hotel near the train station. Frederic meets Catherine and Helen Ferguson there. He also meets Count Greffi, a very old nobleman whom Frederic had met on his last visit to Stresa. Greffi is staying with his niece. Frederic avoids Catherine's question about the war experiences. He feels that he is a criminal, a war deserter. Emilio informs him that Italian police are looking to arrest him. Catherine and Frederic plan to flee to Switzerland as Emilio makes all possible arrangements for their travel in a rowboat. Because of a storm, the waters are choppy and rough. Frederic rows the boat all night, and Catherine also takes a turn rowing. Finally, they reach Switzerland. The guards verify their identity and provide them provisional visas for staying in Switzerland.


title: A Farewell to Arms

text: Frederic and Catherine live a quiet life in the mountains. They move to a wooden house on a mountain outside the village of Montreux. They develop new acquaintance with Mr. and Mrs. Guttingen. At times, Catherine starts getting concerned about their child, especially about its health. They move to the town of Lausanne to be closer to the hospital. Later, Catherine goes into labor and is taken to the hospital. The doctor tells Frederic that the best solution would be a Cesarean operation. She suffers a lot of pain and finally delivers a stillborn baby boy. Later the nurse tells him that Catherine is hemorrhaging. He is terrified. He goes to see her, and she dies in his arms. He leaves the hospital and walks back to his hotel in the rain.


title: A Farewell to Arms

text: The novel was based on Hemingway's own experiences serving in the Italian campaigns during the First World War. The inspiration for Catherine Barkley was Agnes von Kurowsky, a nurse who cared for Hemingway in a hospital in Milan after he had been wounded. He had planned to marry her, but she spurned his love when he returned to America. Kitty Cannell, a Paris-based fashion correspondent, became Helen Ferguson. The unnamed priest was based on Don Giuseppe Bianchi, the priest of the 69th and 70th regiments of the Brigata Ancona. Although the sources for Rinaldi are unknown, the character had already appeared in "In Our Time".


title: A Farewell to Arms

text: Much of the plot was written in correspondence with Frederic J. Agate. Agate, Hemingway's friend, had a collection of letters to his wife from his time in Italy, which were later used as inspiration.


title: A Farewell to Arms

text: Michael Reynolds, however, writes that Hemingway was not involved in the battles described. Because his previous novel, "The Sun Also Rises", had been written as a "roman à clef", readers assumed "A Farewell to Arms" to be autobiographical.


title: A Farewell to Arms

text: "A Farewell to Arms" was begun during his time at Willis M.  Spear's guest ranch in Wyoming's Bighorns. Some pieces of the novel were written in Piggott, Arkansas, at the home of his then-wife Pauline Pfeiffer, and in Mission Hills, Kansas, while she was awaiting delivery of their baby. Pauline underwent a caesarean section as Hemingway was writing the scene about Catherine Barkley's childbirth.


title: A Farewell to Arms

text: Hemingway struggled with the ending. By his count, he wrote 39 of them "before [he] was satisfied". However, a 2012 edition of the book included no less than 47 alternate endings.


title: A Farewell to Arms

text: The novel was first serialized in "Scribner's Magazine" in the May 1929 to October 1929 issues. The book was published in September 1929 with a first edition print-run of approximately 31,000 copies. The success of "A Farewell to Arms" made Hemingway financially independent.


title: A Farewell to Arms

text: "The Hemingway Library Edition" was released in July 2012, with a dust jacket facsimile of the first edition. The newly published edition presents an appendix with the many alternate endings Hemingway wrote for the novel in addition to pieces from early draft manuscripts.


title: A Farewell to Arms

text: The JFK Library Hemingway collection has two handwritten pages with possible titles for the book. Most of the titles come from "The Oxford Book of English Verse". One of the possible titles Hemingway considered was "In Another Country and Besides". This comes from "The Jew of Malta" by Christopher Marlowe. The poem "Portrait of a Lady" by T. S. Eliot also starts off by quoting this Marlowe work: "Thou hast committed / Fornication: but that was in another country, / And besides, the wench is dead." Hemingway's library included both works by Eliot and Marlowe.


title: A Farewell to Arms

text: There are at least two copies of the first edition in which Hemingway re-inserted the censored text by hand, so as to provide a corrected text. One of these copies was presented to Maurice Coindreau; the other, to James Joyce. Hemingway's corrected text has not been incorporated into modern published editions of the novel; however, there are some audiobook versions that are uncensored.


title: A Farewell to Arms

text: Also, the novel could not be published in Italy until 1948 because the Fascist regime considered it detrimental to the honor of the Armed Forces, both in its description of the Battle of Caporetto and for a certain anti-militarism implied in the work. More than one biographer suggests that at the base of the censorship of the Fascist regime in the novel there had also been a personal antipathy between the writer and Benito Mussolini. Hemingway had interviewed him in 1923, shortly after he seized power, and in his article in the "Toronto Star" he poured scorn on Mussolini, calling him "the biggest bluff in Europe". But, apart from the official reactions, it is known that Mussolini did not like the article at all: Hemingway described Mussolini as trying to impress the media by pretending to be deeply absorbed in reading, while in reality holding a French–English dictionary—held upside down. The Italian translation had in fact already been prepared illegally in 1943 by Fernanda Pivano, leading to her arrest in Turin.


title: A Farewell to Arms

text: "A Farewell to Arms" was met with favorable criticism and is considered one of Hemingway's best literary works.


title: A Farewell to Arms

text: Gore Vidal wrote of the text: "... a work of ambition, in which can be seen the beginning of the careful, artful, immaculate idiocy of tone that since has marked ... [Hemingway's] prose". The last line of the 1929 "New York Times" review reads: "It is a moving and beautiful book."


title: A Farewell to Arms

text: Baker remarks on the theme of "A Farewell to Arms": "After ten years of meditation and digestive of his experience, Hemingway lays before his readers a work which is far from a mere war experience, nor a store of love and death during the war."


title: A Farewell to Arms

text: However, since publication, "A Farewell to Arms" has also been the target of various controversy. Upon its flimsy publication—due to the medium of its release—through "Scribner's Magazine", it was banned from Boston newsstands due to accusations of a pornographic nature, despite Hemingway's deliberate exclusion of graphic descriptions of sex, using omission as a literary device.


title: A Farewell to Arms

text: The novel was first adapted for the stage by Laurence Stallings in 1930, then as a film in 1932, with a 1957 remake. A three-part television miniseries was made in 1966.


title: A Farewell to Arms

text: In Sam Raimi's 1987 film "Evil Dead 2", Ash's hand becomes possessed and begins attacking him. Ash amputates the offending extremity with a chainsaw, and the hand escapes, roaming free around the cabin Ash is holed up in. Ash traps the disembodied hand under a pile of books; "A Farewell to Arms" is the book on top, humorously commenting on Ash's condition.


title: A Farewell to Arms

text: The 1996 film "In Love and War", directed by Richard Attenborough and starring Chris O'Donnell and Sandra Bullock, depicts Hemingway's life in Italy as an ambulance driver in the events prior to his writing of "A Farewell to Arms".


title: Burlesque

text: A burlesque is a literary, dramatic or musical work intended to cause laughter by caricaturing the manner or spirit of serious works, or by ludicrous treatment of their subjects. The word derives from the Italian ', which, in turn, is derived from the Italian ' – a joke, ridicule or mockery.


title: Burlesque

text: Burlesque overlaps in meaning with caricature, parody and travesty, and, in its theatrical sense, with extravaganza, as presented during the Victorian era. "Burlesque" has been used in English in this literary and theatrical sense since the late 17th century. It has been applied retrospectively to works of Chaucer and Shakespeare and to the Graeco-Roman classics. Contrasting examples of literary burlesque are Alexander Pope's "The Rape of the Lock" and Samuel Butler's "Hudibras". An example of musical burlesque is Richard Strauss's 1890 Burleske for piano and orchestra. Examples of theatrical burlesques include W. S. Gilbert's "Robert the Devil" and the A. C. Torr – Meyer Lutz shows, including "Ruy Blas and the Blasé Roué".


title: Burlesque

text: A later use of the term, particularly in the United States, refers to performances in a variety show format. These were popular from the 1860s to the 1940s, often in cabarets and clubs, as well as theatres, and featured bawdy comedy and female striptease. Some Hollywood films attempted to recreate the spirit of these performances from the 1930s to the 1960s, or included burlesque-style scenes within dramatic films, such as 1972's "Cabaret" and 1979's "All That Jazz", among others. There has been a resurgence of interest in this format since the 1990s.


title: Burlesque

text: The word first appears in a title in Francesco Berni's "Opere burlesche" of the early 16th century, works that had circulated widely in manuscript before they were printed. For a time, burlesque verses were known as "poesie bernesca" in his honour. 'Burlesque' as a literary term became widespread in 17th century Italy and France, and subsequently England, where it referred to a grotesque imitation of the dignified or pathetic. Shakespeare's Pyramus and Thisbe scene in "Midsummer Night's Dream" and the general mocking of romance in Beaumont and Fletcher's "The Knight of the Burning Pestle" were early examples of such imitation.


title: Burlesque

text: In 17th century Spain, playwright and poet Miguel de Cervantes ridiculed medieval romance in his many satirical works. Among Cervantes' works are "Exemplary Novels" and the "Eight Comedies and Eight New Interludes" published in 1615. The term burlesque has been applied retrospectively to works of Chaucer and Shakespeare and to the Graeco-Roman classics.


title: Burlesque

text: Burlesque was intentionally ridiculous in that it imitated several styles and combined imitations of certain authors and artists with absurd descriptions. In this, the term was often used interchangeably with "pastiche", "parody", and the 17th and 18th century genre of the "mock-heroic". Burlesque depended on the reader's (or listener's) knowledge of the subject to make its intended effect, and a high degree of literacy was taken for granted.


title: Burlesque

text: 17th and 18th century burlesque was divided into two types: High burlesque refers to a burlesque imitation where a literary, elevated manner was applied to a commonplace or comically inappropriate subject matter as, for example, in the literary parody and the mock-heroic. One of the most commonly cited examples of high burlesque is Alexander Pope's "sly, knowing and courtly" "The Rape of the Lock". Low burlesque applied an irreverent, mocking style to a serious subject; an example is Samuel Butler's poem "Hudibras", which described the misadventures of a Puritan knight in satiric doggerel verse, using a colloquial idiom. Butler's addition to his comic poem of an ethical subtext made his caricatures into satire.


title: Burlesque

text: In more recent times, burlesque true to its literary origins is still performed in revues and sketches. Tom Stoppard's 1974 play "Travesties" is an example of a full-length play drawing on the burlesque tradition.


title: Burlesque

text: Beginning in the early 18th century, the term burlesque was used throughout Europe to describe musical works in which serious and comic elements were juxtaposed or combined to achieve a grotesque effect. As derived from literature and theatre, "burlesque" was used, and is still used, in music to indicate a bright or high-spirited mood, sometimes in contrast to seriousness.


title: Burlesque

text: In this sense of farce and exaggeration rather than parody, it appears frequently on the German-language stage between the middle of the 19th century and the 1920s. Burlesque operettas were written by Johann Strauss II ("Die lustigen Weiber von Wien", 1868), Ziehrer ("Mahomed's Paradies", 1866; "Das Orakel zu Delfi", 1872; "Cleopatra, oder Durch drei Jahrtausende", 1875; "In fünfzig Jahren", 1911) and Bruno Granichstaedten ("Casimirs Himmelfahrt", 1911). French references to burlesque are less common than German, though Grétry composed for a "drame burlesque" ("Matroco", 1777). Stravinsky called his 1916 one-act chamber opera-ballet "Renard" ("The Fox") a ""Histoire burlesque chantée et jouée"" ("burlesque tale sung and played") and his 1911 ballet "Petrushka" a "burlesque in four scenes". A later example is the 1927 burlesque operetta by Ernst Krenek entitled "Schwergewicht" ("Heavyweight") (1927).


title: Burlesque

text: Some orchestral and chamber works have also been designated as burlesques, of which two early examples are the Ouverture-Suite "Burlesque de Quixotte", TWV 55, by Telemann and the Sinfonia Burlesca by Leopold Mozart (1760). Another often-performed piece is Richard Strauss's 1890 Burleske for piano and orchestra. Other examples include the following:


title: Burlesque

text: Burlesque can be used to describe particular movements of instrumental musical compositions, often involving dance rhythms. Examples are the Burlesca, in Partita No. 3 for keyboard (BWV 827) by Bach, the "Rondo-Burleske" third movement of Symphony No. 9 by Mahler, and the "Burlesque" fourth movement of Shostakovich's Violin Concerto No. 1.


title: Burlesque

text: The use of burlesque has not been confined to classical music. Well-known ragtime travesties include "Russian Rag", by George L. Cobb, which is based on Rachmaninoff's Prelude in C-sharp minor, and Harry Alford's "Lucy's Sextette" based on the sextet, 'Chi mi frena in tal momento?', from "Lucia di Lammermoor" by Donizetti.


title: Burlesque

text: Victorian burlesque, sometimes known as "travesty" or "extravaganza", was popular in London theatres between the 1830s and the 1890s. It took the form of musical theatre parody in which a well-known opera, play or ballet was adapted into a broad comic play, usually a musical play, often risqué in style, mocking the theatrical and musical conventions and styles of the original work, and quoting or pastiching text or music from the original work. The comedy often stemmed from the incongruity and absurdity of the classical subjects, with realistic historical dress and settings, being juxtaposed with the modern activities portrayed by the actors. Madame Vestris produced burlesques at the Olympic Theatre beginning in 1831 with "Olympic Revels" by J. R. Planché. Other authors of burlesques included H. J. Byron, G. R. Sims, F. C. Burnand, W. S. Gilbert and Fred Leslie.


title: Burlesque

text: Victorian burlesque related to and in part derived from traditional English pantomime "with the addition of gags and 'turns'." In the early burlesques, following the example of ballad opera, the words of the songs were written to popular music; later burlesques mixed the music of opera, operetta, music hall and revue, and some of the more ambitious shows had original music composed for them. This English style of burlesque was successfully introduced to New York in the 1840s.


title: Burlesque

text: Some of the most frequent subjects for burlesque were the plays of Shakespeare and grand opera. The dialogue was generally written in rhyming couplets, liberally peppered with bad puns. A typical example from a burlesque of "Macbeth": Macbeth and Banquo enter under an umbrella, and the witches greet them with "Hail! hail! hail!" Macbeth asks Banquo, "What mean these salutations, noble thane?" and is told, "These showers of 'Hail' anticipate your 'reign. A staple of burlesque was the display of attractive women in travesty roles, dressed in tights to show off their legs, but the plays themselves were seldom more than modestly risqué.


title: Burlesque

text: Burlesque became the speciality of certain London theatres, including the Gaiety and Royal Strand Theatre from the 1860s to the early 1890s. Until the 1870s, burlesques were often one-act pieces running less than an hour and using pastiches and parodies of popular songs, opera arias and other music that the audience would readily recognize. The house stars included Nellie Farren, John D'Auban, Edward Terry and Fred Leslie. From about 1880, Victorian burlesques grew longer, until they were a whole evening's entertainment rather than part of a double- or triple-bill. In the early 1890s, these burlesques went out of fashion in London, and the focus of the Gaiety and other burlesque theatres changed to the new more wholesome but less literary genre of Edwardian musical comedy.


title: Burlesque

text: American burlesque shows were originally an offshoot of Victorian burlesque. The English genre had been successfully staged in New York from the 1840s, and it was popularised by a visiting British burlesque troupe, Lydia Thompson and the "British Blondes", beginning in 1868. New York burlesque shows soon incorporated elements and the structure of the popular minstrel shows. They consisted of three parts: first, songs and ribald comic sketches by low comedians; second, assorted olios and male acts, such as acrobats, magicians and solo singers; and third, chorus numbers and sometimes a burlesque in the English style on politics or a current play. The entertainment was usually concluded by an exotic dancer or a wrestling or boxing match.


title: Burlesque

text: The entertainments were given in clubs and cabarets, as well as music halls and theatres. By the early 20th century, there were two national circuits of burlesque shows competing with the vaudeville circuit, as well as resident companies in New York, such as Minsky's at the Winter Garden. The transition from burlesque on the old lines to striptease was gradual. At first, soubrettes showed off their figures while singing and dancing; some were less active but compensated by appearing in elaborate stage costumes. The strippers gradually supplanted the singing and dancing soubrettes; by 1932 there were at least 150 strip principals in the US. Star strippers included Sally Rand, Gypsy Rose Lee, Tempest Storm, Lili St. Cyr, Blaze Starr, Ann Corio and Margie Hart, who was celebrated enough to be mentioned in song lyrics by Lorenz Hart and Cole Porter. By the late 1930s, burlesque shows would have up to six strippers supported by one or two comics and a master of ceremonies. Comics who appeared in burlesque early in their careers included Fanny Brice, Mae West, Eddie Cantor, Abbott and Costello, W. C. Fields, Jackie Gleason, Danny Thomas, Al Jolson, Bert Lahr, Phil Silvers, Sid Caesar, Danny Kaye, Red Skelton and Sophie Tucker.


title: Burlesque

text: The uninhibited atmosphere of burlesque establishments owed much to the free flow of alcoholic liquor, and the enforcement of Prohibition was a serious blow. In New York, Mayor Fiorello H. La Guardia clamped down on burlesque, effectively putting it out of business by the early 1940s. It lingered on elsewhere in the US, increasingly neglected, and by the 1970s, with nudity commonplace in theatres, reached "its final shabby demise." Both during its declining years and afterwards there have been films that sought to capture American burlesque, including "Lady of Burlesque" (1943), "Striporama" (1953), and "The Night They Raided Minsky's" (1968).


title: Burlesque

text: In recent decades, there has been a revival of burlesque, sometimes called Neo-Burlesque, on both sides of the Atlantic. A new generation, nostalgic for the spectacle and perceived glamour of the classic American burlesque, developed a cult following for the art in the early 1990s at Billie Madley's "Cinema" and later at the "Dutch Weismann's Follies" revues in New York City, "The Velvet Hammer" troupe in Los Angeles and The Shim-Shamettes in New Orleans. Ivan Kane's Royal Jelly Burlesque Nightclub at Revel Atlantic City opened in 2012. Notable Neo-burlesque performers include Dita Von Teese, and Julie Atlas Muz and Agitprop groups like Cabaret Red Light incorporated political satire and performance art into their burlesque shows. Annual conventions such as the Vancouver International Burlesque Festival and the Miss Exotic World Pageant are held.


title: Todd Kohlhepp

text: Todd Christopher Kohlhepp ( Sampsell; born March 7, 1971) is an American serial killer, sex offender, and mass murderer convicted of murdering seven people in South Carolina between 2003 and 2016. In addition, Kohlhepp kidnapped at least one woman, raped another, and claims to have killed many more.


title: Todd Kohlhepp

text: Todd Kohlhepp was born on March 7, 1971, in Florida, and was raised in South Carolina and Georgia. His parents divorced when he was two years old. His mother gained custody and married another man the following year. Later psychological reports found that Kohlhepp had an unhealthy relationship with his stepfather and often wanted to live with his biological father, whom he had not seen in eight years.


title: Todd Kohlhepp

text: Kohlhepp was described as a troublesome child. In nursery school, he was known to be aggressive toward other children and would destroy their property. At the age of nine, when he started undergoing counseling, Kohlhepp was described as being "explosive" and "preoccupied with sexual content". He also displayed cruelty to animals, shooting a dog with a BB gun and killing a goldfish with Clorox bleach.


title: Todd Kohlhepp

text: Kohlhepp's father later said the only emotion his son was capable of was anger. Kohlhepp spent three and a half months in a Georgia psychiatric hospital as an inpatient because of his inability to get along with other children.


title: Todd Kohlhepp

text: Eventually, in 1983, Kohlhepp was sent to live with his biological father in Arizona after his mother and stepfather separated. He took his father's surname and began working a number of local jobs. He also inherited his father's hobby of collecting weapons and was taught by him to "blow things up and make bombs". Despite this, their relationship deteriorated due to his father's absence with a number of girlfriends, and Kohlhepp expressed desires to return to his mother, though she reportedly made excuses to extend his stay.


title: Todd Kohlhepp

text: On November 25, 1986, 15-year-old Kohlhepp kidnapped a 14-year-old girl in Tempe, Arizona. He threatened her with a .22-caliber revolver, brought her back to his home, tied her up, taped her mouth shut, and raped her. Afterwards, he walked her home and threatened to kill her younger siblings if she told anyone about what had happened. Kohlhepp was charged with kidnapping, sexual assault, and committing a dangerous crime against children.


title: Todd Kohlhepp

text: In 1987, he pleaded guilty to the kidnapping charge and the other charges were dropped. He was sentenced to fifteen years in prison and registered as a sex offender. According to court records, Kohlhepp was diagnosed with borderline personality disorder and was noted as having an above average IQ of 118 (percentile rank 88.5 at σ = 15).


title: Todd Kohlhepp

text: The judge in the case said Kohlhepp was "very bright and should be advanced academically", but "behaviorally and emotionally dangerous" and likely could not be rehabilitated. Kohlhepp's probation officer wrote a similar description in court papers and added that he "felt the world owed him something". Kohlhepp's attorney in that case later went on to say that, while defending him "he did not believe his client would go on to harm others" in the future. During his imprisonment, Kohlhepp was initially cited for violations that included some violent behavior; after turning twenty, however, he had no other records of disobedience.


title: Todd Kohlhepp

text: In August 2001, Kohlhepp was released from prison after serving fourteen years and moved to South Carolina, where his mother was living. During his imprisonment, he attended and graduated from Central Arizona College with a bachelor's degree in computer science. From January 2002 to November 2003, he worked as a graphic designer for a company in Spartanburg. He began studying at Greenville Technical College in 2003. Kohlhepp transferred to the following year, and graduated in 2008 with a Bachelor of Science degree in business administration-marketing.


title: Todd Kohlhepp

text: Despite being registered as a sex offender, Kohlhepp was able to get a real estate license on June 30, 2006, after lying about the felony charge on his application. From this, he built a firm that had a dozen agents in its employ. He had been recognized as a top-selling agent in the Carolina region. The firm was closed down following his arrest. Kohlhepp also acquired a private pilot license and several properties out of state. In May 2014, he purchased nearly of land, located in an area nine miles (fourteen kilometers) from the community of Moore, for $305,632. He then set a fence which cost $80,000 around the property.


title: Todd Kohlhepp

text: A customer who sold her home to Kohlhepp remembered him as extremely outgoing and professional, but noted that he would often talk about his firearms and sometimes subtly used sexual innuendo during their conversations. Conversely, a woman who assisted one of Kohlhepp's employees described him as angry and condescending towards her partner. A banker who worked with Kohlhepp said he often watched pornographic videos, even at work.


title: Todd Kohlhepp

text: Kohlhepp frequented a Waffle House restaurant in Roebuck, where his behavior disturbed the waitresses to the point where the male cook began to take Kohlhepp's orders for them. According to this employee, one of the waitresses was Meagan Leigh McCraw-Coxie, one of Kohlhepp's victims.


title: Todd Kohlhepp

text: On November 6, 2003, a customer found four people shot dead inside Superbike Motorsports, a motorcycle shop in Chesnee. The victims were identified as owner Scott Ponder, 30; service manager Brian Lucas, 29; mechanic Chris Sherbert, 26; and bookkeeper Beverly Guy, 52, who was Ponder's mother. All four died from multiple gunshot wounds. Before Kohlhepp confessed to the shootings in 2016, investigators believed that the gunman, armed with a pistol, entered the shop from the back and killed Sherbert as he worked.


title: Todd Kohlhepp

text: He then killed Guy in the middle of the showroom, Lucas at the main doorway, and Ponder in the parking lot. According to Ponder's wife, Kohlhepp was a disgruntled customer who had been in the shop several times. According to Kohlhepp's mother, he attempted to return a motorcycle there, but the employees laughed at him, would not return the money he had paid for the motorcycle, and embarrassed him for not knowing how to ride one properly.


title: Todd Kohlhepp

text: On August 31, 2016, Kala Brown, 30, and her boyfriend Charles David Carver, 32, went missing after they went to remove brush from one of Kohlhepp's properties. Carver was later found dead of multiple gunshots on the property. Interest in the disappearance of Brown and Carver increased as a result of posts on Carver's Facebook account following their disappearance, the unusual nature of which prompted speculation that another party had taken control of his Facebook account.


title: Todd Kohlhepp

text: On November 3, Brown was found by authorities, chained to the wall inside a metal storage container on the property. Investigators had tracked her down after tracing the couple's last known cellphone signals, after which they heard banging noises coming from inside the container. A search of Kohlhepp's property recovered Carver's vehicle, which was found in a ravine covered in brush.


title: Todd Kohlhepp

text: According to Brown, she witnessed Carver being shot by Kohlhepp. Kohlhepp's mother claimed Carver was killed for having a "really smart mouth", which Kohlhepp did not like. He also said he kept Brown captive because she did not do anything wrong and that he did not want to hurt her. However, Brown stated to police just after her rescue that Kohlhepp had killed Carver because Kohlhepp was "mad at her". During her captivity, Brown was raped repeatedly, and intimidated into not escaping after having been shown the graves of Kohlhepp's other victims.


title: Todd Kohlhepp

text: Two bodies were discovered on Kohlhepp's property following his arrest, on November 6–7. They were later identified as husband and wife Johnny Joe Coxie, 29, and Meagan Leigh McCraw-Coxie, 26, residents of Spartanburg who were reported missing on December 22, 2015. They were allegedly hired by Kohlhepp to work on his property. McCraw-Coxie had been killed by a gunshot wound to the head on December 25 or 26, while Coxie had been killed a week earlier by a gunshot wound to the torso. According to the county coroner, they were identified through their extensive tattoos.


title: Todd Kohlhepp

text: Kohlhepp was arrested shortly after Brown's rescue. He later confessed to the Chesnee shootings and the murders of the Coxies, in exchange for allowing him to talk to his mother, give her a photograph, and transfer money to the college fund of a friend's child. While meeting with his mother, he reportedly confessed to the killings and kidnapping. When he confessed to the Chesnee shootings, Kohlhepp said he shot each of the victims once in the forehead, a detail in the investigation that was never released to the public.


title: Todd Kohlhepp

text: A search of Kohlhepp's property also uncovered numerous weapons, including 9mm pistols outfitted with suppressors, semi-automatic rifles, and an undetermined amount of ammunition. Because there was no record of a background check under Kohlhepp's name for the purchase of a firearm, investigators believe he likely acquired the weapons illegally.


title: Todd Kohlhepp

text: Shortly following Kohlhepp's arrest, authorities in Spartanburg County discovered a number of seemingly joking product reviews for various items such as padlocks, shovels, tasers, and gun accessories on retail website Amazon.com written by a user known simply as "me". One review about a padlock stated, "solid locks.. have 5 on a shipping container.. wont stop them.. but sure will slow them down til they are too old to care." Another, written for a folding shovel, read, "keep in car for when you have to hide the bodies and you left the full size shovel at home... does not come with a midget, which would have been nice." The reviewer's "wish list" page was listed as Todd Kohlhepp.


title: Todd Kohlhepp

text: Following his arrest, Kohlhepp claimed to his mother that there were many other victims aside from the aforementioned. When his mother asked how many, his response was, "You do not have enough fingers." During interrogation, he claimed to have shot a victim in Arizona. On November 18, 2016, it was reported that the Tempe Police Department had begun an investigation into Kohlhepp's claim, searching through unsolved homicides in the past three decades. They said they would focus on cases dated from 1983 to 1986, when Kohlhepp was living with his father; and also between August 2001, when Kohlhepp completed his sentence for kidnapping, and November 2001, when he moved back to South Carolina.


title: Todd Kohlhepp

text: On November 25, 2016, police in Greer, South Carolina, announced that they had named Kohlhepp as a person of interest in an unsolved 2003 bank robbery and triple homicide at the local Blue Ridge Savings Bank. This crime was separated from the Chesnee shootings by six months. However, as of May 16, 2018, no definitive link between Kohlhepp and the killings was established, and Kohlhepp has denied any involvement in the case.


title: Todd Kohlhepp

text: In December 2017, Kohlhepp wrote to the "Spartanburg Herald-Journal" claiming that he had more victims who have not been discovered.


title: Todd Kohlhepp

text: Kohlhepp was charged with four counts of murder in relation to the Chesnee shootings, and one count of kidnapping in relation to Brown's abduction. He was later charged with three additional counts of murder for the murders of Carver and the Coxies, along with one additional count of kidnapping and three counts of possession of a weapon during the commission of a violent crime. Kohlhepp's next court appearance was scheduled for January 19, 2017, where Kohlhepp's attorney waived their right to appearance.


title: Todd Kohlhepp

text: According to a report by WLTX, relatives of the Chesnee shooting victims filed a wrongful death lawsuit against him. On December 1, it was announced that Brown also filed a civil lawsuit against him.


title: Todd Kohlhepp

text: On May 26, 2017, Kohlhepp pleaded guilty to seven counts of murder, two counts of kidnapping and one count of criminal sexual assault and was sentenced to seven consecutive life sentences without the possibility of parole in a plea bargain that spared him from capital punishment.


title: Todd Kohlhepp

text: Although his defense swore at his sentencing that there were no other victims to be found, Kohlhepp has since repeatedly admitted there were at least two other murders. As of August 2018, he has yet to give authorities the details. Kohlhepp is currently imprisoned in the Broad River Correctional Institution.


title: Todd Kohlhepp

text: In August 2020, some of Kohlhepp's belongings went to auction and the proceeds were donated to the victims' families.


title: Todd Kohlhepp

text: Dustan Lawson, a man accused of buying firearms and silencers for Kohlhepp despite knowing he was a convicted felon, faced federal charges. Lawson admitted to buying at least 12 guns and five silencers from 2012 to 2016, lying that they were for himself. In 2018, he pleaded guilty to 36 federal firearm charges and was sentenced to eight years and three months in prison. Lawson is serving his sentence at Butner Medium I FCI, and is scheduled for release on November 12, 2024.


title: Robert F. Smith (investor)

text: Robert Frederick Smith (born December 1, 1962) is an American billionaire businessman and philanthropist. He is the founder, chairman, and CEO of private equity firm Vista Equity Partners.


title: Robert F. Smith (investor)

text: Smith was born to Dr. William Robert Smith and Dr. Sylvia Myrna Smith, who were both school teachers. He grew up in a predominantly African American, middle-class neighborhood in Denver, Colorado. When he was an infant, his mother apparently carried him at the March on Washington, where the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. delivered his "I Have a Dream" speech. He attended Carson Elementary School and East High School in Denver.


title: Robert F. Smith (investor)

text: In high school, he applied for an internship at Bell Labs but was told the program was intended for college students. Smith persisted, calling each Monday for five months. When a student from M.I.T. did not show up, he got the position, and that summer he developed a reliability test for semiconductors. Smith earned a bachelor's degree in chemical engineering from Cornell University in 1985. In 1994, he received his Master of Business Administration from Columbia University with concentrations in finance and marketing.


title: Robert F. Smith (investor)

text: After graduating from Cornell, Smith worked at Goodyear Tire and Rubber Company, Air Products & Chemicals and later at Kraft General Foods as a chemical engineer, where he registered two United States and two European patents. From 1994 to 2000, he worked for Goldman Sachs in technology investment banking, first in New York City and then in Silicon Valley. He advised on mergers and acquisition activity with companies such as Apple and Microsoft. In 2018, Smith was included in Vanity Fair's New Establishment List, which is an annual ranking of individuals who have made impactful business innovations.


title: Robert F. Smith (investor)

text: In 2000, Smith founded Vista Equity Partners, a private equity and venture capital firm of which he is the principal founder, chairman and chief executive. According to "Black Enterprise" magazine, Smith is credited with consistently generating a 30 percent rate of return for his investors from the company's inception to 2020. As of 2019, Vista Equity Partners was the fourth largest enterprise software company after Microsoft, Oracle, and SAP, including all their holdings. Vista has invested in companies such as STATS, Ping Identity, and Jio. As of 2019, Vista Equity Partners had closed more than $46 billion of funding.


title: Robert F. Smith (investor)

text: In 2016, Smith was named as Private Equity International's Game Changer of the Year for his work with Vista.


title: Robert F. Smith (investor)

text: On May 19, 2019, during his 2019 commencement speech at Morehouse College, Smith pledged a reported $34M in student loan debt, "(including) the debt of parents and guardians incurred" over the educational pursuit of each member of the 2019 graduating class. In a June 2020 report, "Time" reported the launch of The Student Freedom Initiative, a nonprofit led by Smith, to benefit HBCU students. According to "Forbes", "Smith is the first African-American to sign the Giving Pledge, a commitment to contribute the majority of his wealth to philanthropic causes."


title: Robert F. Smith (investor)

text: In August 2020, "Bloomberg" reported that Smith was facing a tax inquiry regarding a potential failure to pay U.S. taxes on $200 million in assets, intended for U.S. charities, that were transferred through offshore entities. In October 2020, Smith reached a non-prosecution agreement with the United States Department of Justice (DOJ), agreeing to pay a fine of $139 million. This agreement came alongside Smith agreeing to assist the DOJ in creating a separate case against Robert T. Brockman, who had been charged with hiding $2 billion in income. According to the DOJ, Brockman, the backer of Smith’s first private equity fund, led him to use the offshore trust that concealed income.


title: Robert F. Smith (investor)

text: According to reports in "Bloomberg" and "The Washington Post", Brockman approached Smith in the 1990s about creating a private equity fund and offered to back the initial fund. As part of the deal, Brockman required an offshore trust be set up to conceal earnings from tax authorities and avoid litigation in US courts. Brockman also required the first fund to be located in the Cayman Islands and set aside some of the interest earned to protect him against losses. According to "The Wall Street Journal" and "The New York Times", Brockman's lawyer helped Smith set up the offshore entity.


title: Robert F. Smith (investor)

text: The reports state that Brockman's proposal was a "take-it-or-leave-it offer". According to Smith's non-prosecution agreement, Brockman dictated "the unique terms and unorthodox structure to the arrangement" and he accepted the offer as a "unique business opportunity he eagerly wanted to pursue".


title: Robert F. Smith (investor)

text: In early October 2021, Smith and Brockman were both among those listed in the Pandora Papers revelation, exposing the offshore sheltering of financial assets by hundreds of politicians, businesspeople, and celebrities.


title: Robert F. Smith (investor)

text: In 2014, Smith became the founding director and president of the Fund II Foundation, which has invested in organizations such as Cornell, the National Park Foundation, and Susan G. Komen. Also in 2014, Smith received an honorary doctorate from Huston-Tillotson University.


title: Robert F. Smith (investor)

text: Smith has also served as the chairman of Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights, on the board of overseers of Columbia Business School, as a member of the Cornell Engineering College Council, on the Cornell University Tech Board, and as a Trustee of the Boys & Girls Clubs of San Francisco. He has donated to The Sphinx Organization, which supports diversity in the arts.


title: Robert F. Smith (investor)

text: Smith became the board chairman of Carnegie Hall in 2016, the first African American to hold that position.


title: Robert F. Smith (investor)

text: Also that year, Cornell University named the Robert Frederick Smith School of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering after him, following a donation. He was later recognized as a distinguished alumnus by the college.


title: Robert F. Smith (investor)

text: Smith was named in "The Chronicle of Philanthropy"'s ""Philanthropy 50"" in 2017. In May 2017, The Giving Pledge announced that Smith had joined as its first African-American signatory. That year, Smith was awarded an honorary doctorate from the University of Denver.


title: Robert F. Smith (investor)

text: In 2018, Fund II Foundation gave a $2.7 million grant to the Louis Armstrong House Museum, and Smith has served as a board member since. This grant helped digitize Armstrong's collection to make it available to the public.


title: Robert F. Smith (investor)

text: In 2018, Smith was the largest individual donor at the City of Hope Gala, which funds prostate cancer treatment and breast cancer research for black men and women. That same year, Smith donated $2.5 million to the Prostate Cancer Foundation to advance prostate cancer research among African-American men. Also in 2018, Smith donated $1 million to the Cultural Performance Center at the Denny Farrell Riverbank State Park in Harlem, which was later renamed the Robert Frederick Smith Center for Performing Arts.


title: Robert F. Smith (investor)

text: Smith has received the Candle in Business and Philanthropy Award from Morehouse College, the International Medical Corps Humanitarian of the Year Award, "Ebony"’s John H. Johnson Award, and the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation's Chairman's Award, among others. He was awarded an honorary doctorate of International Affairs from American University's School of International Service and an honorary doctorate from Morehouse College.


title: Robert F. Smith (investor)

text: In May 2019, while at Morehouse College to receive an honorary doctorate and deliver the commencement address, he announced that he and his family would pay off the entire student loan debt of the 2019 Morehouse College graduating class of 396 students. He had previously donated $1.5 million to the school in January 2019, to be used for scholarships and a park.


title: Robert F. Smith (investor)

text: In October 2019, Smith received the "Carnegie Medal of Philanthropy," which is given to individuals who have donated private wealth to the public. Smith was also inducted into the "Texas Business Hall of Fame" as a Class of 2019 Legend. In April 2020, Governor Greg Abbott named Smith to the Strike Force to Open Texas – a group "tasked with finding safe and effective ways to slowly reopen the state" amid the COVID-19 pandemic. Smith was included on the "Time" 100, "Time"s list of the 100 most influential people in the world, in 2020.


title: Robert F. Smith (investor)

text: In February 2022, Smith’s non-profit organization, the Student Freedom Initiative, partnered with Prudential Financial to provide up to  $1.8 million in microgrants to students of HBCUs.


title: Robert F. Smith (investor)

text: In April 2022, Smith launched the Mount Sinai Robert F. Smith Mobile Prostate Cancer Screening Bus in Harlem, NY, in partnership with Mount Sinai Hospital.


title: Robert F. Smith (investor)

text: In May 2022, Cornell University announced a $15 million donation from Robert Frederick Smith that will provide financial aid to engineering students from historically underrepresented communities. The gift will support an undergraduate scholarship fund to provide at least 7 students a year from urban high schools with up to $45,000 in grants, in addition to setting up a graduate fellowship fund to support 12 master’s students and five doctoral students who attended historically black colleges and universities.


title: Robert F. Smith (investor)

text: In October 2022, media outlets including TMZ, Revolt TV, Variety Magazine and Vibe Magazine, published an article highlighting Robert F. Smith being nominated by Floyd Mayweather, Jr. to serve as executive producer of a series of film and television projects aimed to tell Mayweather's life story. In a statement about the project titled "The GOAT", Mayweather had this to say about Robert F. Smith and the collective parties in partnership: “As someone who owns his own brand, I can’t think of better partners than Deon (Deon Taylor), Roxanne (Roxanne Avent Taylor), Robert F. Smith — the wealthiest African American in the world — and Hidden Empire Films, a prolific Black-owned production company. This is going to be incredibly special!”


title: Robert F. Smith (investor)

text: In 1988, Smith married his first wife, fellow Cornell alum Suzanne McFayden. They divorced in 2014. Smith married Hope Dworaczyk, the founder and CEO of skincare company MUTHA, a former "Playboy" playmate, healthy living advocate, and fashion editor, on July 25, 2015 after she gave birth to their first child in December 2014.


title: Robert F. Smith (investor)

text: Smith has three children with his first wife. He also has two sons and two daughters with his wife Hope.


title: KissAnime

text: KissAnime was an anime-focused file streaming website that hosted links and embedded videos, allowing users to stream or download movies and TV shows illegally for free. It was a sister site to a related manga viewing website, KissManga. KissAnime was described as "one of the world’s biggest streaming anime websites". TorrentFreak reported that the sites had audiences of millions and that for a time, KissAnime was "the most visited pirate site in the world".


title: KissAnime

text: The website, as well as KissManga, was shut down on 14 August 2020 after about 8 years of existence (the .com website had been registered in 2012 and a more recent .ru domain in 2016), and it has been suggested this was done due to copyright complaints, and the threat of the new, stricter Japanese laws on online piracy. In 2017 the site was also a target of a subpoena by US company Funimation, which described its actions as aimed at "someone... disseminating infringing content on a MASSIVE scale, for profit."


title: KissAnime

text: In 2018 the site was blocked in Australia. It was also blocked in India in 2020, along with other pirate streaming and torrent websites, after a decision by the Delhi High Court in favour of the plaintiff, Disney India. The court order provided for "dynamic" blocking meaning that Disney could ask for further bans on websites violating copyrights other than the ones in the order.


title: KissAnime

text: The site has been criticized for its copyright infringement and occasionally for advertising that contained malware, but it has been praised for popularizing anime and manga, and for providing access to content that is not legally available in certain areas, particularly in parts of Europe, Southeast Asia and India.


title: KissAnime

text: Its main site, KissAnime.ru, was shut down on August 14, 2020. One commentator noted that "fans are furious" as "in many countries they really have nowhere to go" for the kind of content that was hosted on the site. Another commentator has described the outcome as both "a major strike to media piracy [and] a blow to the history of anime", noting that the website has also been an archive of rare titles, such as the 1993 original video animation, "Battle Angel". Many of the works that have been available on the website can be considered lost, as not only are many titles not distributed legally in many countries, but in some cases, they are only available on physical media, which is subject to degradation over time, and are not possible to legally stream anywhere in the world. Even though the main website has shut down, many mirrors of the original websites still exist.


title: Googol

text: A googol is the large number 10. In decimal notation, it is written as the digit 1 followed by one hundred zeroes: 10,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000.


title: Googol

text: The term was coined in 1920 by 9-year-old Milton Sirotta (1911–1981), nephew of U.S. mathematician Edward Kasner. He may have been inspired by the contemporary comic strip character Barney Google. Kasner popularized the concept in his 1940 book "Mathematics and the Imagination". Other names for this quantity include "ten duotrigintillion" on the short scale, "ten thousand sexdecillion" on the long scale, or "ten sexdecilliard" on the Peletier long scale.


title: Googol

text: A googol has no special significance in mathematics. However, it is useful when comparing with other very large quantities such as the number of subatomic particles in the visible universe or the number of hypothetical possibilities in a chess game. Kasner used it to illustrate the difference between an unimaginably large number and infinity, and in this role it is sometimes used in teaching mathematics. To give a sense of how big a googol really is, the mass of an electron, just under , can be compared to the mass of the visible universe, estimated at between and . It is a ratio in the order of about 10 to 10, or at most one ten-billionth of a googol (0.00000001% of a googol).


title: Googol

text: Another way of illustrating the immense size of a googol is to picture the Frontier supercomputer, which as of 2022 is the most powerful supercomputer in the world and measures 680 m (7,300 sq ft), almost exactly the same size of a basketball court with run-offs and sidelines. The Frontier is capable of making 1,102,000 TFLOPs (1.1 quintillion calculations per second). Imagine if the supercomputer, which cost approximately US$600 million to build, was shrunk down to the size of an atom (for reference, a typical grain of sand might have 37 quintillion atoms). If every atom in the observable universe (~ atoms total) was as powerful as a Frontier supercomputer, it would take approximately 100 seconds of parallel computing to manually add up all the digits like an adding machine (instead of using shorthand calculations).


title: Googol

text: Carl Sagan pointed out that the total number of elementary particles in the universe is around 10 (the Eddington number) and that if the whole universe were packed with neutrons so that there would be no empty space anywhere, there would be around 10. He also noted the similarity of the second calculation to that of Archimedes in "The Sand Reckoner". By Archimedes's calculation, the universe of Aristarchus (roughly 2 light years in diameter), if fully packed with sand, would contain 10 grains. If the much larger observable universe of today were filled with sand, it would still only equal 10 grains. Another 100,000 observable universes filled with sand would be necessary to make a googol.


title: Googol

text: The decay time for a supermassive black hole of roughly 1 galaxy-mass (10 solar masses) due to Hawking radiation is on the order of 10 years. Therefore, the heat death of an expanding universe is lower-bounded to occur at least one googol years in the future.


title: Googol

text: A googol is approximately "70!" (factorial of 70). Using an integral, binary numeral system, one would need 333 bits to represent a googol, i.e., 1 googol = formula_1 ≈ 2. However, a googol is well within the maximum bounds of an IEEE 754 double-precision floating point type, but without full precision in the mantissa.


title: Googol

text: Using modular arithmetic, the series of residues (mod "n") of one googol, starting with mod 1, is as follows:


title: Googol

text: This sequence is the same as that of the residues (mod n) of a googolplex up until the 17th position.


title: Googol

text: Widespread sounding of the word occurs through the name of the company Google, with the name "Google" being an accidental misspelling of "googol" by the company's founders, which was picked to signify that the search engine was intended to provide large quantities of information. In 2004, family members of Kasner, who had inherited the right to his book, were considering suing Google for their use of the term "googol"; however, no suit was ever filed.


title: Googol

text: Since October 2009, Google has been assigning domain names to its servers under the domain "1e100.net", the scientific notation for 1 googol, in order to provide a single domain to identify servers across the Google network.


title: Googol

text: The word is notable for being the subject of the £1 million question in a 2001 episode of the British quiz show "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?", when contestant Charles Ingram cheated his way through the show with the help of a confederate in the studio audience.


title: Lymphedema

text: Lymphedema, also known as lymphoedema and lymphatic edema, is a condition of localized swelling caused by a compromised lymphatic system. The lymphatic system functions as a critical portion of the body's immune system and returns interstitial fluid to the bloodstream. Lymphedema is most frequently a complication of cancer treatment or parasitic infections, but it can also be seen in a number of genetic disorders. Though incurable and progressive, a number of treatments may improve symptoms. Tissues with lymphedema are at high risk of infection because the lymphatic system has been compromised.


title: Lymphedema

text: While there is no cure, treatment may improve outcomes. This commonly include compression therapy, good skin care, exercise, and manual lymphatic drainage (MLD), which together are known as combined decongestive therapy. Diuretics are not useful.


title: Lymphedema

text: The most common manifestation of lymphedema is soft tissue swelling, edema. As the disorder progresses, worsening edema and skin changes including discoloration, verrucous (wart-like) hyperplasia, hyperkeratosis, papillomatosis, dermal thickening, and ulcers may be seen. Additionally, there is increased risk of infection of the skin, known as Erysipelas.


title: Lymphedema

text: When lymphatic impairment becomes so great that the lymph fluid exceeds the lymphatic system's ability to transport it, an abnormal amount of protein-rich fluid collects in the tissues. Left untreated, this stagnant, protein-rich fluid causes tissue channels to increase in size and number, reducing oxygen availability. This interferes with wound healing and provides a rich culture medium for bacterial growth that can result in infections, cellulitis, lymphangitis, lymphadenitis, and, in severe cases, skin ulcers. It is vital for lymphedema patients to be aware of the symptoms of infection and to seek immediate treatment, since recurrent infections or cellulitis, in addition to their inherent danger, further damage the lymphatic system and set up a vicious circle.


title: Lymphedema

text: In rare cases, lymphedema may lead to a form of cancer called lymphangiosarcoma, although the mechanism of carcinogenesis is not understood. Lymphedema-associated lymphangiosarcoma is called Stewart–Treves syndrome. Lymphangiosarcoma most frequently occurs in cases of long-standing lymphedema. The incidence of angiosarcoma is estimated to be 0.45% in patients living five years after radical mastectomy. Lymphedema is also associated with a low grade form of cancer called retiform hemangioendothelioma (a low grade angiosarcoma).


title: Lymphedema

text: Lymphedema can be disfiguring, and may result in a poor body image, which can cause psychological distress. Complications of lymphedema can cause difficulties in activities of daily living.


title: Lymphedema

text: It is most frequently seen after lymph node dissection, surgery and/or radiation therapy, in which damage to the lymphatic system is caused during the treatment of cancer, most notably breast cancer. In many patients with cancer, this condition does not develop until months or even years after therapy has concluded. Lymphedema may also be associated with accidents or certain diseases or problems that may inhibit the lymphatic system from functioning properly. In tropical endemic areas of the world, a common cause of secondary lymphedema is filariasis, a parasitic infection. It can also be caused by damage to the lymphatic system from infections such as cellulitis.


title: Lymphedema

text: Primary lymphedema may be congenital or arise sporadically. Multiple syndromes are associated with primary lymphedema, including Turner syndrome, Milroy's disease, and Klippel–Trénaunay syndrome. It is generally thought to occur as a result of absent or malformed lymph nodes and/or lymphatic channels. Lymphedema may be present at birth, develop at the onset of puberty (praecox), or not become apparent for many years into adulthood (tarda). In men, lower-limb primary lymphedema is most common, occurring in one or both legs. Some cases of lymphedema may be associated with other vascular abnormalities.


title: Lymphedema

text: Secondary lymphedema affects both men and women. In women, it is most prevalent in the upper limbs after breast cancer surgery, in particular after axillary lymph node dissection, occurring in the arm on the side of the body in which the surgery is performed. Breast and trunk lymphedema can also occur but go unrecognised as there is swelling in the area after surgery, and its symptoms (peau d'orange and/or an inverted nipple) can be confused with post surgery fat necrosis. In Western countries, secondary lymphedema is most commonly due to cancer treatment. Between 38 and 89% of breast cancer patients have lymphedema due to axillary lymph node dissection and/or radiation. Unilateral lymphedema occurs in up to 41% of patients after gynecologic cancer. For men, a 5-66% incidence of lymphedema has been reported in patients treated with incidence depending on whether staging or radical removal of lymph glands was done in addition to radiotherapy.


title: Lymphedema

text: Head and neck lymphedema can be caused by surgery or radiation therapy for tongue or throat cancer. It may also occur in the lower limbs or groin after surgery for colon, ovarian or uterine cancer, in which removal of lymph nodes or radiation therapy is required. Surgery or treatment for prostate, colon and testicular cancers may result in secondary lymphedema, particularly when lymph nodes have been removed or damaged.


title: Lymphedema

text: The onset of secondary lymphedema in patients who have had cancer surgery has also been linked to aircraft flight (likely due to decreased cabin pressure or relative immobility). For cancer survivors, therefore, wearing a prescribed and properly fitted compression garment may help decrease swelling during air travel.


title: Lymphedema

text: Some cases of lower-limb lymphedema have been associated with the use of tamoxifen, due to the blood clots and deep vein thrombosis (DVT) that can be associated with this medication. Resolution of the blood clots or DVT is needed before lymphedema treatment can be initiated.


title: Lymphedema

text: Hereditary lymphedema is a primary lymphedema – swelling that results from abnormalities in the lymphatic system that are present from birth. Swelling may be present in a single affected limb, several limbs, genitalia, or the face. It is sometimes diagnosed prenatally by a nuchal scan or post-natally by lymphoscintigraphy. The most common form is Meige disease that usually presents at puberty. Another form of hereditary lymphedema is Milroy's disease caused by mutations in the VEGFR3 gene. Hereditary lymphedema is frequently syndromic and is associated with Turner syndrome, lymphedema–distichiasis syndrome, yellow nail syndrome, and Klippel–Trénaunay syndrome.


title: Lymphedema

text: One defined genetic cause for hereditary lymphedema is GATA2 deficiency. This deficiency is a grouping of several disorders caused by common defect, viz., familial or sporadic inactivating mutations in one of the two parental "GATA2" genes. These autosomal dominant mutations cause a reduction, i.e. a haploinsufficiency, in the cellular levels of the gene's product, GATA2. The GATA2 protein is a transcription factor critical for the embryonic development, maintenance, and functionality of blood-forming, lympathic-forming, and other tissue-forming stem cells. In consequence of these mutations, cellular levels of GATA2 are deficient and individuals develop over time hematological, immunological, lymphatic, and/or other disorders. GATA2 deficiency-induced defects in the lymphatic vessels and valves underlies the development of lymphedema which is primarily located in the lower extremities but may also occur in other places such as the face or testes (i.e. hydrocele). This form of the deficiency, when coupled with sensorineural hearing loss which may also be due to faulty development of the lymphatic system, is sometimes termed the Emberger syndrome.


title: Lymphedema

text: Primary lymphedema has a quoted incidence of approximately 1-3 births out of every 10,000 births, with a particular female preponderance to male ratio of 3.5:1 In North America, the incidence of primary lymphedema is approximately 1.15 births out of every 100,000 births Compared to secondary lymphedema, primary lymphedema is relatively rare.


title: Lymphedema

text: Bilateral lower extremity inflammatory lymphedema (BLEIL) is a distinct type of lymphedema occurring in a setting of acute and prolonged standing, such as in new recruits during basic training. The possible underlying mechanisms are thought to be venous congestion and inflammatory vasculitis.


title: Lymphedema

text: Lymph is formed from the fluid that filters out of the blood circulation and contains proteins, cellular debris, bacteria, etc. The collection of this fluid is carried out by the initial lymph collectors that are blind-ended endothelial-lined vessels with fenestrated openings that allow fluids and particles as large as cells to enter. Once inside the lumen of the lymphatic vessels, the fluid is guided along increasingly larger vessels, first with rudimentary valves to prevent backflow, which later develops into complete valves similar to the venous valve. Once the lymph enters the fully valved lymphatic vessels, it is pumped by a rhythmic peristaltic-like action by smooth muscle cells within the lymphatic vessel walls. This peristaltic action is the primary driving force, moving lymph within its vessel walls. The regulation of the frequency and power of contraction is regulated by the sympathetic nervous system. Lymph movement can be influenced by the pressure of nearby muscle contraction, arterial pulse pressure and the vacuum created in the chest cavity during respiration, but these passive forces contribute only a minor percentage of lymph transport. The fluids collected are pumped into continually larger vessels and through lymph nodes, which remove debris and police the fluid for dangerous microbes. The lymph ends its journey in the thoracic duct or right lymphatic duct, which drain into the blood circulation.


title: Lymphedema

text: Diagnosis is generally based on signs and symptoms, with testing used to rule out other potential causes. An accurate diagnosis and staging may help with management. A swollen limb can result from different conditions that require different treatments. Diagnosis of lymphedema is currently based on history, physical exam, and limb measurements. Imaging studies such as lymphoscintigraphy and indocyanine green lymphography are only required when surgery is being considered. However, the ideal method for lymphedema staging to guide the most appropriate treatment is controversial because of several different proposed protocols. Lymphedema can occur in both the upper and lower extremities, and in some cases, the head and neck. Assessment of the extremities first begins with a visual inspection. Color, presence of hair, visible veins, size and any sores or ulcerations are noted. Lack of hair may indicate an arterial circulation problem. Given swelling, the extremities' circumference is measured for reference as time continues. In early stages of lymphedema, elevating the limb may reduce or eliminate the swelling. Palpation of the wrist or ankle can determine the degree of swelling; assessment includes a check of the pulses. The axillary or inguinal nodes may be enlarged due to the swelling. Enlargement of the nodes lasting more than three weeks may indicate infection or other illnesses such as sequela from breast cancer surgery requiring further medical attention.


title: Lymphedema

text: Diagnosis or early detection of lymphedema is difficult. The first signs may be subjective observations such as a feeling of heaviness in the affected extremity. These may be symptomatic of early-stage lymphedema where accumulation of lymph is mild and not detectable by changes in volume or circumference. As lymphedema progresses, definitive diagnosis is commonly based upon an objective measurement of differences between the affected or at-risk limb at the opposite unaffected limb, e.g. in volume or circumference. No generally accepted criterion is definitively diagnostic, although a volume difference of 200 ml between limbs or a 4-cm difference (at a single measurement site or set intervals along the limb) is often used. Bioimpedance measurement (which measures the amount of fluid in a limb) offers greater sensitivity than existing methods.


title: Lymphedema

text: Chronic venous stasis changes can mimic early lymphedema, but the changes in venous stasis are more often bilateral and symmetric. Lipedema can also mimic lymphedema, however lipedema characteristically spares the feet beginning abruptly at the medial malleoli (ankle level). As a part of the initial work-up before diagnosing lymphedema, it may be necessary to exclude other potential causes of lower extremity swelling such as kidney failure, hypoalbuminemia, congestive heart-failure, protein-losing nephropathy, pulmonary hypertension, obesity, pregnancy and drug-induced edema.


title: Lymphedema

text: According to the Fifth WHO Expert Committee on Filariasis the most common method of classification of lymphedema is as follows: (The same classification method can be used for both primary and secondary lymphedema)


title: Lymphedema

text: The International Society of Lymphology (ISL) Staging System is based solely on subjective symptoms, making it prone to substantial observer bias. Imaging modalities have been suggested as useful adjuncts to the ISL staging to clarify the diagnosis. The lymphedema expert Dr. Ming-Huei Cheng developed a Cheng's Lymphedema Grading tool to assess the severity of extremity lymphedema based on objective limb measurements and providing appropriate options for management.


title: Lymphedema

text: As described by the Fifth WHO Expert Committee on Filariasis, and endorsed by the American Society of Lymphology., the staging system helps to identify the severity of lymphedema. With the assistance of medical imaging apparatus, such as MRI or CT, staging can be established by the physician, and therapeutic or medical interventions may be applied:


title: Lymphedema

text: Lymphedema should not be confused with edema arising from venous insufficiency, which is caused by compromise of the venous drainage rather than lymphatic drainage. However, untreated venous insufficiency can progress into a combined venous/lymphatic disorder.


title: Lymphedema

text: While there is no cure, treatment may improve outcomes. This commonly include compression therapy, good skin care, exercise, and manual lymphatic drainage (MLD), which together is known as combined decongestive therapy. MLD is most effective in mild to moderate disease. In breast cancer-related lymphedema, MLD is safe and may offer added benefit to compression bandages for reducing swelling. Most people with lymphedema can be medically managed with conservative treatment. Diuretics are not useful. Surgery is generally only used in those who are not improved with other measures.


title: Lymphedema

text: Once a person is diagnosed with lymphedema, compression becomes imperative in the management of the condition. Garments are often intended to be worn all day but may be taken off for sleeping unless otherwise prescribed. Elastic compression garments are worn on the affected limb following complete de-congestive therapy to maintain edema reduction. Inelastic garments provide containment and reduction. Available styles, options, and prices vary widely. A professional garment fitter or certified lymphedema therapist can help determine the best option for the patient.


title: Lymphedema

text: Compression bandaging, also called wrapping, is the application of layers of padding and short-stretch bandages to the involved areas. Short-stretch bandages are preferred over long-stretch bandages (such as those normally used to treat sprains), as the long-stretch bandages cannot produce the proper therapeutic tension necessary to safely reduce lymphedema and may in fact end up producing a tourniquet effect. Compression bandages provide resistance that assists in pumping fluid out of the affected area during exercise. This counter-force results in increased lymphatic drainage and therefore a decrease in size of the swollen area.


title: Lymphedema

text: Intermittent pneumatic compression therapy (IPC) utilizes a multi-chambered pneumatic sleeve with overlapping cells to promote movement of lymph fluid. Pump therapy should be used in addition to other treatments such as compression bandaging and manual lymph drainage. Pump therapy has been used a lot in the past to help with controlling lymphedema. In some cases, pump therapy helps soften fibrotic tissue and therefore potentially enable more efficient lymphatic drainage. However, reports link pump therapy to increased incidence of edema proximal to the affected limb, such as genital edema arising after pump therapy in the lower limb. Current literature has suggested the use of IPC treatment in conjunction with Kinesiotape (KT) is more effective in the overall reduction of lymphedema as well as increasing shoulder ROM than the traditional treatment of IPC paired with complete decongestive therapy. Kinesiotape (KT) is an elastic cotton strip with an acrylic adhesive that is used commonly used to relieve the discomfort and disability associated with sports injuries, but in the context of lymphedema, this increases the space between the dermis and the muscle which increases the opportunity for lymphatic fluid to flow out naturally. The use of IPC treatments with KT tape as well as subsequent lymphatic drainage has proven to significantly reduce the circumference of lymphatic limbs in patients experiencing lymphedema secondary to breast cancer postmastectomy.


title: Lymphedema

text: In those with lymphedema or at risk of developing lymphedema, following breast cancer treatment, resistance training did not increase swelling and decreases in some, in addition to other potential beneficial effects on cardiovascular health. Moreover, resistance training and other forms of exercise were not associated with an increased risk of developing lymphedema in people who previously received breast cancer-related treatment. Compression garments should be worn during exercise (with the possible exception of swimming).


title: Lymphedema

text: Physical therapy treatment of patients with lymphedema may include trigger point release, soft tissue massage, postural improvement, patient education on condition management, strengthening, and stretching exercises. Exercises may increase in intensity and difficulty over time, beginning with passive movements to increase range of motion and progressing towards using external weights and resistance in various postures.


title: Lymphedema

text: The treatment of lymphedema is usually conservative, however the use of surgery is proposed for some cases.


title: Lymphedema

text: Suction assisted lipectomy (SAL), also known as liposuction for lymphedema, may help improve chronic non pitting edema if present. The procedure removes fat and protein and is done along with continued compression therapy.


title: Lymphedema

text: Vascularized lymph node transfers (VLNT) and lymphovenous bypass are supported by tentative evidence but is associated with a number of complications.


title: Lymphedema

text: Low-level laser therapy (LLLT) was cleared by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for the treatment of lymphedema in November 2006.


title: Lymphedema

text: According to the US National Cancer Institute, LLLT may be effective in reducing lymphedema in some women. Two cycles of laser treatment were found to be reduce the volume of the affected arm in approximately one-third of people with postmastectomy lymphedema at three months post-treatment.


title: International Labour Organization

text: The International Labour Organization (ILO) is a United Nations agency whose mandate is to advance social and economic justice by setting international labour standards. Founded in October 1919 under the League of Nations, it is the first and oldest specialised agency of the UN. The ILO has 187 member states: 186 out of 193 UN member states plus the Cook Islands. It is headquartered in Geneva, Switzerland, with around 40 field offices around the world, and employs some 3,381 staff across 107 nations, of whom 1,698 work in technical cooperation programmes and projects.


title: International Labour Organization

text: The ILO's standards are aimed at ensuring accessible, productive, and sustainable work worldwide in conditions of freedom, equity, security and dignity. They are set forth in 189 conventions and treaties, of which eight are classified as fundamental according to the 1998 Declaration on Fundamental Principles and Rights at Work; together they protect freedom of association and the effective recognition of the right to collective bargaining, the elimination of forced or compulsory labour, the abolition of child labour, and the elimination of discrimination in respect of employment and occupation. The ILO is a major contributor to international labour law.


title: International Labour Organization

text: Within the UN system the organization has a unique tripartite structure: all standards, policies, and programmes require discussion and approval from the representatives of governments, employers, and workers. This framework is maintained in the ILO's three main bodies: The International Labour Conference, which meets annually to formulate international labour standards; the Governing Body, which serves as the executive council and decides the agency's policy and budget; and the International Labour Office, the permanent secretariat that administers the organization and implements activities. The secretariat is led by the Director-General, Guy Ryder of the United Kingdom, who was elected by the Governing Body in 2012.


title: International Labour Organization

text: In 1969, the ILO received the Nobel Peace Prize for improving fraternity and peace among nations, pursuing decent work and justice for workers, and providing technical assistance to other developing nations. In 2019, the organization convened the Global Commission on the Future of Work, whose report made ten recommendations for governments to meet the challenges of the 21st century labour environment; these include a universal labour guarantee, social protection from birth to old age and an entitlement to lifelong learning. With its focus on international development, it is a member of the United Nations Development Group, a coalition of UN organizations aimed at helping meet the Sustainable Development Goals.


title: International Labour Organization

text: Unlike other United Nations specialized agencies, the International Labour Organization (ILO) has a tripartite governing structure that brings together governments, employers, and workers of 187 member States, to set labour standards, develop policies and devise programmes promoting decent work for all women and men. The structure is intended to ensure the views of all three groups are reflected in ILO labour standards, policies, and programmes, though governments have twice as many representatives as the other two groups.


title: International Labour Organization

text: The Governing Body is the executive body of the International Labour Organization. It meets three times a year, in March, June and November. It takes decisions on ILO policy, decides the agenda of the International Labour Conference, adopts the draft Programme and Budget of the Organization for submission to the Conference, elects the Director-General, requests information from the member states concerning labour matters, appoints commissions of inquiry and supervises the work of the International Labour Office.


title: International Labour Organization

text: The Governing Body is composed of 56 titular members (28 governments, 14 employers and 14 workers) and 66 deputy members (28 governments, 19 employers and 19 workers).


title: International Labour Organization

text: Ten of the titular government seats are permanently held by States of chief industrial importance: Brazil, China, France, Germany, India, Italy, Japan, the Russian Federation, the United Kingdom and the United States. The other Government members are elected by the Conference every three years (the last elections were held in June 2017). The Employer and Worker members are elected in their individual capacity.


title: International Labour Organization

text: India assumed the Chairmanship of the Governing Body of International Labour Organization in 2020. Apurva Chandra, Secretary (Labour and Employment) has been elected as the Chairperson of the Governing Body of the ILO for the period October 2020-June 2021.


title: International Labour Organization

text: On 25 March 2022 Gilbert Fossoun Houngbo was elected Director-General of ILO. On 1 October 2022 he will succeed Guy Ryder, who was elected by the ILO Governing Body in October 2012, and re-elected for a second five-year-term in November 2016. He will be the organization's first African Director-General.


title: International Labour Organization

text: Once a year, the ILO organises the International Labour Conference in Geneva to set the broad policies of the ILO, including conventions and recommendations. Also known as the "international parliament of labour", the conference makes decisions about the ILO's general policy, work programme and budget and also elects the Governing Body.


title: International Labour Organization

text: Each member state is represented by a delegation: two government delegates, an employer delegate, a worker delegate and their respective advisers. All of them have individual voting rights and all votes are equal, regardless of the population of the delegate's member State. The employer and worker delegates are normally chosen in agreement with the most representative national organizations of employers and workers. Usually, the workers and employers' delegates coordinate their voting. All delegates have the same rights and are not required to vote in blocs.


title: International Labour Organization

text: Delegates have the same rights, they can express themselves freely and vote as they wish. This diversity of viewpoints does not prevent decisions from being adopted by very large majorities or unanimously.


title: International Labour Organization

text: Heads of State and prime ministers also participate in the Conference. International organizations, both governmental and others, also attend but as observers.


title: International Labour Organization

text: The 109th session of the International Labour Conference was delayed from 2020 to May 2021 and was held online because of the COVID-19 pandemic. The first meeting was on 20 May 2021 in Geneva for the election of its officers. Further sittings were held in June, November and December. The 110th session took place from 27 May to 11 June 2022.


title: International Labour Organization

text: The ILO has 187 state members. 186 of the 193 member states of the United Nations plus the Cook Islands are members of the ILO. The UN member states which are not members of the ILO are Andorra, Bhutan, Liechtenstein, Micronesia, Monaco, Nauru, and North Korea.


title: International Labour Organization

text: The ILO constitution permits any member of the UN to become a member of the ILO. To gain membership, a nation must inform the director-general that it accepts all the obligations of the ILO constitution. Other states can be admitted by a two-thirds vote of all delegates, including a two-thirds vote of government delegates, at any ILO General Conference. The Cook Islands, a non-UN state, joined in June 2015.


title: International Labour Organization

text: Members of the ILO under the League of Nations automatically became members when the organization's new constitution came into effect after World War II.


title: International Labour Organization

text: The ILO is a specialized agency of the United Nations (UN). As with other UN specialized agencies (or programmes) working on international development, the ILO is also a member of the United Nations Development Group.


title: International Labour Organization

text: Through July 2018, the ILO had adopted 189 conventions. If these conventions are ratified by enough governments, they come in force. However, ILO conventions are considered international labour standards regardless of ratification. When a convention comes into force, it creates a legal obligation for ratifying nations to apply its provisions.


title: International Labour Organization

text: Every year the International Labour Conference's Committee on the Application of Standards examines a number of alleged breaches of international labour standards. Governments are required to submit reports detailing their compliance with the obligations of the conventions they have ratified. Conventions that have not been ratified by member states have the same legal force as recommendations.


title: International Labour Organization

text: In 1998, the 86th International Labour Conference adopted the "Declaration on Fundamental Principles and Rights at Work". This declaration contains four fundamental policies:


title: International Labour Organization

text: The ILO asserts that its members have an obligation to work towards fully respecting these principles, embodied in relevant ILO conventions. The ILO conventions that embody the fundamental principles have now been ratified by most member states.


title: International Labour Organization

text: This device is employed for making conventions more flexible or for amplifying obligations by amending or adding provisions on different points.


title: International Labour Organization

text: Protocols are always linked to Convention, even though they are international treaties they do not exist on their own. As with Conventions, Protocols can be ratified.


title: International Labour Organization

text: Recommendations do not have the binding force of conventions and are not subject to ratification. Recommendations may be adopted at the same time as conventions to supplement the latter with additional or more detailed provisions. In other cases recommendations may be adopted separately and may address issues separate from particular conventions.


title: International Labour Organization

text: While the ILO was established as an agency of the League of Nations following World War I, its founders had made great strides in social thought and action before 1919. The core members all knew one another from earlier private professional and ideological networks, in which they exchanged knowledge, experiences, and ideas on social policy. Prewar "epistemic communities", such as the International Association for Labour Legislation (IALL), founded in 1900, and political networks, such as the socialist Second International, were a decisive factor in the institutionalization of international labour politics.


title: International Labour Organization

text: In the post–World War I euphoria, the idea of a "makeable society" was an important catalyst behind the social engineering of the ILO architects. As a new discipline, international labour law became a useful instrument for putting social reforms into practice. The utopian ideals of the founding members—social justice and the right to decent work—were changed by diplomatic and political compromises made at the Paris Peace Conference of 1919, showing the ILO's balance between idealism and pragmatism.


title: International Labour Organization

text: Over the course of the First World War, the international labour movement proposed a comprehensive programme of protection for the working classes, conceived as compensation for labour's support during the war. Post-war reconstruction and the protection of labour unions occupied the attention of many nations during and immediately after World War I. In Great Britain, the Whitley Commission, a subcommittee of the Reconstruction Commission, recommended in its July 1918 Final Report that "industrial councils" be established throughout the world. The British Labour Party had issued its own reconstruction programme in the document titled "Labour and the New Social Order". In February 1918, the third Inter-Allied Labour and Socialist Conference (representing delegates from Great Britain, France, Belgium and Italy) issued its report, advocating an international labour rights body, an end to secret diplomacy, and other goals. And in December 1918, the American Federation of Labor (AFL) issued its own distinctively apolitical report, which called for the achievement of numerous incremental improvements via the collective bargaining process.