title: Pope Pius IX

text: Beginning in October 1862, the Pope began sending public letters to Catholic bishops of the United States calling for an end to the "destructive Civil War." The Vatican never recognized the Confederate States of America or sent any diplomats to it. However, in 1863 the pope did meet privately with a Confederate envoy and emphasized the need for emancipation. A letter of Pius IX to Jefferson Davis in December 1863, addressing him as "Praesidi foederatorum Americae regionum" (President of an American regional federation), was not seen as recognition of the Confederacy, even by its own officials: Confederate Secretary of State Judah P. Benjamin interpreted it as "a mere inferential recognition, unconnected with political action or the regular establishment of diplomatic relations" without the weight of formal recognition.


title: Pope Pius IX

text: Pius IX elevated Archbishop John McCloskey of New York as the first American to the College of Cardinals on 15 March 1875.


title: Pope Pius IX

text: Pius IX increased the number of Canadian dioceses from 4 to 21, with 1,340 churches and 1,620 priests in 1874.


title: Pope Pius IX

text: Pius IX signed concordats with Spain, Austria, Tuscany, Portugal, Haiti, Honduras, Ecuador, Nicaragua, El Salvador, and Russia.


title: Pope Pius IX

text: The 1848 revolution had mixed results for the Catholic Church in Austria-Hungary. It freed the church from the heavy hand of the state in its internal affairs, which was applauded by Pius IX. Similar to other countries, Austria-Hungary had significant anti-Catholic political movements, mainly liberals, which forced the emperor Franz-Joseph I in 1870 to renounce the 1855 concordat with the Vatican. Austria had already in 1866 nullified several of its sections concerning the freedom of Catholic schools and prohibition of civil marriages. After diplomatic approaches failed, Pius responded with an encyclical on 7 March 1874, demanding religious freedom and freedom of education. Despite these developments, there was no equivalent to the German Kulturkampf in Austria, and Pius created new dioceses throughout Austria-Hungary.


title: Pope Pius IX

text: In Germany, the state of Prussia, under the leadership of Otto von Bismarck, saw Catholicism as a dangerous foreign influence, and in 1872–1878 fought hard to reduce the power of the pope and the bishops. After years of struggle in the Kulturkampf, the Catholics fought back by mobilising their voters in Prussia and in Germany as a whole. After Pius died, Bismarck came to terms with the new pope. He dropped his alliance with the anti-Catholic Liberals and instead formed a political coalition with the Catholic Centre Party.


title: Pope Pius IX

text: The Pontificate of Pius IX began in 1847 with an "Accomodamento", a generous agreement, which allowed Pius to fill vacant episcopal sees of the Latin rites both in Russia (specifically the Baltic countries) and in the Polish provinces of Russia. The short-lived freedoms were undermined by the Russian Orthodox Church, Polish political aspirations in the occupied lands, and the tendency of imperial Russia to act against any dissent. Pius first tried to position himself in the middle, strongly opposing revolutionary and violent opposition against the Russian authorities and appealing to them for more ecclesiastical freedom. After the failure of the Polish uprising in 1863, Pius sided with the persecuted Poles, protesting against their persecutions, and infuriating the Tsarist government to the point that all Catholic dioceses were eliminated by 1870. Pius criticized the Tsar – without naming him – for expatriating whole communities to Siberia, exiling priests, condemning them to labour camps and abolishing Catholic dioceses. He pointed to Siberian villages Tounka and Irkout, where in 1868, 150 Catholic priests were awaiting death.


title: Pope Pius IX

text: Several times during his pontificate, Pius IX considered moving from Rome. On 24 November 1848, facing a rebellion by Italian nationalists, he fled to Gaeta in Naples, returning in 1850.


title: Pope Pius IX

text: Another occurrence was in 1862, when Giuseppe Garibaldi was in Sicily gathering volunteers for a campaign to take Rome under the slogan "Roma o Morte" (Rome or Death). On 26 July 1862, before Garibaldi and his volunteers were stopped at Aspromonte, Pius IX asked the British envoy Odo Russell if he would be granted political asylum in England after the Italian troops had marched in. Russell assured him of asylum if the need arose, but said that he was sure that the Pope's fears were unfounded. In 1870, after the Capture of Rome and the suspension of the First Vatican Council, Otto von Bismarck confided that Pius IX had asked whether Prussia could grant him asylum. Bismarck did not object, adding "it would be very useful to us to be recognised by Catholics as what we really are, that is to say, the sole power now existing that is capable of protecting the head of their Church. ... But the King [Wilhelm I] will not consent. He is terribly afraid. He thinks all Prussia would be perverted and he himself would be obliged to become a Catholic. I told him, however, that if the Pope begged for asylum he could not refuse it."


title: Pope Pius IX

text: Pius was adamant about his role as the highest teaching authority in the church, as expressed in the dogma of Papal infallibility defined by the First Vatican Council in 1870.


title: Pope Pius IX

text: Marian doctrines featured prominently in 19th-century theology, especially the issue of the Immaculate Conception of Mary. During his pontificate, petitions increased requesting the dogmatization of the Immaculate Conception.


title: Pope Pius IX

text: In 1848, Pius appointed a theological commission to analyse the possibility for a Marian dogma. On 8 December 1854, he promulgated the apostolic constitution "Ineffabilis Deus", defining the dogma of the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary.


title: Pope Pius IX

text: Unlike popes in the 20th century, Pius IX did not use encyclicals to explain the faith, but to condemn what he considered errors. He was the first pope to popularize encyclicals on a large scale to foster his views.


title: Pope Pius IX

text: After prior consultation of the hierarchy in "Ubi primum" (see above), Pius decisively acted on the century-old disagreement between Dominicans and Franciscans regarding the Immaculate Conception of Mary, deciding in favour of the Franciscan view.


title: Pope Pius IX

text: However, his defining this infallible dogma raised a question: Can a pope make such decisions without the authority of the bishops? This doctrine of papal infallibility, enhancing the role of the papacy and decreasing the role of the bishops, became a topic of the First Vatican Council convened in 1869.


title: Pope Pius IX

text: Pius IX approved 74 new religious congregations for women alone. In France, he created over 200 new dioceses and created new hierarchies in several countries. He supported Catholic associations such as the Ambrosian Circle in Italy, the Union of Catholic Workers in France, and the Pius Verein and the Deutsche Katholische Gesellschaft in Germany, whose purpose was to bring the fullness of Catholic faith to people outside the church.


title: Pope Pius IX

text: Since 1868, the pope had been plagued first by facial erysipelas and then by open sores on his legs. Nevertheless, he insisted on celebrating daily Mass. The extraordinary heat of the summer of 1877 worsened the sores to the effect that he had to be carried. He underwent several painful medical procedures with remarkable patience. He spent most of his last few weeks in his library, where he received cardinals and held papal audiences. On 8 December, the Feast of the Immaculate Conception, his situation improved markedly to the point that he could walk again.


title: Pope Pius IX

text: By February, he could say Mass again on his own in a standing position, enjoying the popular celebration of the 75th anniversary of his First Communion. Bronchitis, a fall to the floor, and rising temperature worsened his situation after 4 February 1878. He continued joking about himself: when the Cardinal Vicar of Rome ordered bell-ringing and non-stop prayers for his recuperation, the pope asked, "Why do you want to stop me from going to heaven?" He told his doctor that his time had come.


title: Pope Pius IX

text: Pius IX lived just long enough to witness the death of his old adversary, Victor Emmanuel II of Italy, in January 1878. As soon as he learned about the seriousness of the situation of the king, he absolved him of all excommunications and other ecclesiastical punishments. Pius IX died one month later on 7 February 1878 at 5:40 pm, aged 85, while saying the rosary with his staff. The cause of death was epilepsy, which led to a seizure and a sudden heart attack. His last words were, "Guard the Church I loved so well and sacredly", as recorded by the cardinals kneeling beside his bedside. His death concluded the second-longest pontificate in papal history, after that of Saint Peter, who tradition holds had reigned for 37 years.


title: Pope Pius IX

text: His body was originally buried in Saint Peter's grotto, but was moved in a night procession on 13 July 1881 to the Basilica of Saint Lawrence outside the Walls. When the cortege approached the Tiber River, a group of anticlerical Romans screaming "Long live Italy! Death to the Pope! Death to the Priests!" threatened to throw the coffin into the river but a contingent of militia arrived to prevent this. The simple grave of Pius IX was changed by his successor John Paul II after his beatification.


title: Pope Pius IX

text: The process for his beatification, which in the early stages was strongly opposed by the Italian government, was begun on 11 February 1907, and recommenced three times. The Italian government had since 1878 strongly opposed beatification of Pius IX. Without Italian opposition, Pope John Paul II declared Pius IX to be Venerable on 6 July 1985 (upon confirming his life of heroic virtue), and beatified him on 3 September 2000 (his annual liturgical commemoration is 7 February, the date of his death).


title: Pope Pius IX

text: The beatification of Pius IX was controversial and was criticized by some Jews and Christians because of what was perceived as his authoritarian, reactionary politics; the accusation of abuse of episcopal powers; and antisemitism (most specifically the case of Edgardo Mortara, but also his reinstituting the Roman ghetto).


title: Pope Pius IX

text: Pius IX celebrated his silver jubilee in 1871, going on to have the longest reign in the history of the post-apostolic papacy, 31 years, 7 months, and 23 days. As his temporal sovereignty was lost, the Church rallied around him, and the papacy became more centralized, encouraged by his personal habits of simplicity. Pius IX's pontificate marks the beginning of the modern papacy: from his time on, it has become increasingly a spiritual rather than temporal authority.


title: Pope Pius IX

text: Having started as a liberal, Pius IX turned conservative after being chased from Rome. Thereafter, he was considered politically conservative, but a restless and radical reformer and innovator of Church life and structures. Church life, religious vocations, new foundations and religious enthusiasm all flourished at the end of his pontificate. Politically, he suffered the isolation of the papacy from most major world powers: "the prisoner of the Vatican" had poor relations with Russia, Germany, the United States, and France, and open hostility with Italy. Yet he was most popular with the remaining Catholic faithful in all these countries, in many of which Pope Pius associations were formed in his support. He made lasting ecclesiastical history with his 1854 infallible decision of the Immaculate Conception, which was the basis for the later dogma on the Assumption. His other lasting contribution is the invocation of the ecumenical council Vatican One, which promulgated the definition of Papal infallibility. With his advice he helped John Bosco found the Salesian Society, for which reason he is also called "don Bosco's Pope".


title: Fidel V. Ramos

text: Fidel Valdez Ramos (, ; March 18, 1928 – July 31, 2022), popularly known as FVR and Eddie Ramos, was a Filipino general and politician who served as the 12th president of the Philippines from 1992 to 1998. He was the only career military officer who reached the rank of five-star general/admiral "de jure". Rising from second lieutenant to commander-in-chief of the armed forces, Ramos was widely credited and admired by many for revitalizing and renewing international confidence in the Philippine economy during his six years in office. He is the third oldest to assume the presidency, together with the current 17th president, Bongbong Marcos, next to Sergio Osmeña and Rodrigo Duterte.


title: Fidel V. Ramos

text: Ramos rose through the ranks in the Philippine military early in his career and became Chief of the Philippine Constabulary and Vice Chief-of-Staff of the Armed Forces of the Philippines during the term of President Ferdinand Marcos. During the 1986 EDSA People Power Revolution, Ramos was hailed as a hero by many Filipinos for his decision to break away from the administration of Marcos, and pledge allegiance and loyalty to the newly established government of President Corazon Aquino. Prior to his election as president, Ramos served in the cabinet of President Corazon Aquino, first as chief-of-staff of the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP), and later as Secretary of National Defense from 1986 to 1991. He was credited with the creation of the Philippine Army's Special Forces and the Philippine National Police Special Action Force. After his retirement, he remained active in politics, serving as adviser to his successors. He died at the age of 94 from complications of COVID-19.


title: Fidel V. Ramos

text: Fidel Valdez Ramos was born on March 18, 1928, in Lingayen, Pangasinan and grew up in Asingan town during his childhood. His father, Narciso Ramos (1900–1986), was a lawyer, journalist and five-term legislator of the House of Representatives, who eventually rose to the position of Secretary of Foreign Affairs. As such, Narciso Ramos was the Philippine signatory to the ASEAN declaration forged in Bangkok in 1967, and was a founding member of the Liberal Party. According to Fidel Ramos's biography for his presidential inauguration in 1992, Narciso Ramos also served as one of the leaders of the anti-Japanese guerrilla group the Maharlika founded by Ferdinand Marcos. His mother, Angela Valdez (1905–1978), was an educator, woman suffragette, and member of the Valdez clan of Batac, Ilocos Norte, making him a second degree cousin of former President Ferdinand E. Marcos.


title: Fidel V. Ramos

text: He received elementary education in a Lingayen public school. Ramos began secondary education at the University of the Philippines High School in the City of Manila, and continued in the High School Department of Mapúa Institute of Technology. He graduated high school from Centro Escolar University Integrated School in 1945. Afterwards, he went to the United States as he received an appointment to the United States Military Academy, where he graduated with a Bachelor of Science in Military Engineering degree. He also earned his master's degree in civil engineering at the University of Illinois and later took Civil Engineering Board Exam in 1953, where he placed 8th overall. He also held a master's degree in National Security Administration from the National Defense College of the Philippines and a master's degree in Business Administration from Ateneo de Manila University. In addition, he received a total of 29 honorary doctorate degrees.


title: Fidel V. Ramos

text: He married Amelita Martinez on October 21, 1954, at the Central Church (now known as Central United Methodist Church) in Ermita, Manila. Together, they had five daughters: Angelita Ramos-Jones, Josephine Ramos-Samartino, Carolina Ramos-Sembrano, Cristina Ramos-Jalasco, and Gloria Ramos. They also have five grandsons and three granddaughters.


title: Fidel V. Ramos

text: During his stint at the Philippine Army, Ramos founded the Philippine Army Special Forces. Later, he was named as the commander of the Army's 3rd Division based in Cebu City, Cebu.


title: Fidel V. Ramos

text: Ramos received several military awards including the Philippine Legion of Honor (March 18, 1988, and July 19, 1991), the Distinguished Conduct Star (1991), the Distinguished Service Star (May 20, 1966, December 20, 1967, and August 3, 1981), Philippine Military Merit Medal (May 23, 1952), the U.S. Military Academy Distinguished Graduate Award and Legion of Merit (August 1, 1990), and the French Legion of Honor.


title: Fidel V. Ramos

text: Ramos was a member of the Philippines' 20th Battalion Combat Team of the Philippine Expeditionary Forces to Korea (PEFTOK) that fought in the Korean War. He was an Infantry Reconnaissance Platoon Leader. Ramos was one of the heroes of the Battle of Hill Eerie, where he led his platoon to sabotage the enemy in Hill Eerie.


title: Fidel V. Ramos

text: Ramos was also in the Vietnam War as a non-combat civil military engineer and Chief of Staff of the Philippine Civil Action Group (PHILCAG). It was during this assignment where he forged his lifelong friendship with his junior officer Maj. Jose T. Almonte, who went on to become his National Security Advisor during his administration from 1992 to 1998.


title: Fidel V. Ramos

text: Ramos was head of the Philippine Constabulary, then a major service branch of the Armed Forces of the Philippines which functioned as the country's national police until 1972, when Ferdinand Marcos imposed Martial Law.


title: Fidel V. Ramos

text: In his capacity as PC Chief, Ramos was head of the Command for the Administration of Detainees (CAD), which oversaw the arrest and detention of the Marcos regime's political prisoners, which included prominent politicians, journalists, academics, and student leaders. In addition to arresting journalists, Ramos also took on the task of enforcing the closure of Media outlets on the eve of Martial Law. Upon their arrest in the opening hours of Martial Law, prominent journalists Teodoro Locsin Sr., Chino Roces, Amando Doronila, Luis Beltran, Maximo Soliven, Juan Mercado, and Luis Mauricio were met by Ramos, who is quoted as having said ""Nothing personal, gentlemen. I was ordered to neutralize you. Please cooperate. We'll try to make things easier for you.""


title: Fidel V. Ramos

text: Because he was in command of the PC and was the person who issued arrest orders, Ramos is broadly acknowledged as bearing command responsibility for some of military brutality during this period. In an obituary for online news website Rappler, his niece Lila Ramos Shahani brought the matter up, saying "The general sense I have gotten is that, as chief of the now-defunct Philippine Constabulary under Marcos Sr., FVR had an idea about what was happening under his watch, but he did not directly order – let alone orchestrate – torture sessions, unlike General Fabian Ver, Marcos’ chief henchman. For this reason, several detainees have described my uncle to me as having treated them with far more decency (“mas matino”). This was eventually corroborated by official documents in the human rights class action suit against Marcos Sr. in Hawaii, where Ver is explicitly named, among others."


title: Fidel V. Ramos

text: In 1975, all civic and municipal police forces in the country were integrated by decree, and it became known as the Integrated National Police (INP), which was under the control and supervision of the Philippine Constabulary. As head of the PC, Ramos was "ex officio" the INP's first concurrent Director-General.


title: Fidel V. Ramos

text: Martial Law was formally lifted nine years later on January 17, 1981, but Marcos retained absolute powers. Due to his accomplishments, Ramos was one of the candidates for the position of Chief of Staff of the Armed Forces of the Philippines in 1981, as replacement to the retiring General Romeo Espino who was the nation's longest serving chief of staff. Ramos lost to General Fabian Ver a graduate of the University of the Philippines, whom Marcos appointed to the top military post. Instead Ramos, a cousin of Marcos was named AFP Vice-Chief of staff in 1982, and promoted to the rank of three-star general.


title: Fidel V. Ramos

text: On May 12, 1983, a new unit in the former Philippine Constabulary was organized to deal with so-called "terrorist-related" crimes, and named as the Philippine Constabulary Special Action Force as a requirement of General Order 323 of Philippine Constabulary Headquarters. Fidel Ramos and Gen. Renato de Villa were the founders of the unit. De Villa tasked Col. Rosendo Ferrer and Gen. Sonny Razon to organize a Special Action Force. Subsequently, a training program called the SAF Ranger Course, was used to train the 1st generation of SAF troopers, which numbered 149. Of that number, 26 were commissioned officers while the rest were enlisted personnel recruited from a wide range of PC units such as the defunct PC Brigade, the Long Range Patrol Battalion (LRP), the K-9 Support Company, PC Special Organized Group, the Light Reaction Unit (LRU) of PC METROCOM, the Constabulary Off-shore Action Command (COSAC), and other PC Units. Later on, they changed the name of the course to the SAF Commando Course.


title: Fidel V. Ramos

text: On August 8, 1983, during a speech in Camp Crame to commemorate Philippine Constabulary Day, Marcos announced his removal of Defense Minister Juan Ponce Enrile from the chain of command, and the creation of a new arrangement with himself as Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces replacing AFP Chief of Staff Gen. Fabian Ver. Marcos also removed the operational control of the Integrated National Police from the Philippine Constabulary under Gen. Ramos and transferred it under the direct control of Gen. Ver; the Constabulary then had only administrative supervision over the INP.


title: Fidel V. Ramos

text: When Ver was implicated in the August 21, 1983 assassination of former opposition Senator Benigno Aquino Jr., Ramos became acting AFP Chief of Staff until Ver's reinstatement in 1985 after he was acquitted of charges related to the killing. Ramos later admitted he completely knew of the tortures committed during martial law, of which he had participated in.


title: Fidel V. Ramos

text: On February 22, 1986, Defense Minister Juan Ponce Enrile protested alleged fraud committed by Marcos in the 1986 snap elections, withdrawing support and triggering the non-violent People Power Revolution. General Ramos later also defected and followed Enrile into Camp Crame, and the duo shifted their fealty to Corazón Aquino, the widow of Senator Benigno Aquino and Marcos' main election rival. On February 25, the "EDSA Revolution" reached its peak when Marcos, along with his family and some supporters, fled into exile in Hawaii with the assistance of the United States government, ending his 20-year rule, leaving Corazon Aquino to accede as the country's first female President.


title: Fidel V. Ramos

text: Later in life, Ramos would say he considered his role in the EDSA revolution as his "atonement" for his role in the implementation of Martial Law. He also called on the Marcos family to apologize for the atrocities of the period, and said that those who question those atrocities should visit the Bantayog ng mga Bayani in Quezon City, where the names of some of the victims of those atrocities are inscribed.


title: Fidel V. Ramos

text: When belittled by the press regarding his combat record, Ramos responded with trademark sarcasm (July 31, 1987):


title: Fidel V. Ramos

text: After Corazon Aquino assumed the Presidency, she appointed Ramos as Chief of Staff of the Armed Forces of the Philippines (1986–1988), and later Secretary of National Defense as well as Chairman of the National Disaster Coordinating Council (1988–1991).


title: Fidel V. Ramos

text: During this time, Ramos personally handled the military operations that crushed nine coup attempts against the Aquino government.


title: Fidel V. Ramos

text: In December 1991, Ramos declared his candidacy for president. However, he lost the nomination of the then-dominant party Laban ng Demokratikong Pilipino (LDP) to House Speaker Ramon Mitra, Jr. Days later, he bolted from the party LDP and cried foul and founded his own party, the Partido Lakas Tao (People Power Party), inviting Cebu Governor Emilio Mario Osmeña to be his running mate as his vice presidential candidate. The party formed a coalition with the National Union of Christian Democrats (NUCD) of Senator Raul Manglapus and the United Muslim Democrats of the Philippines (UMDP) of Ambassador Sanchez Ali. Ramos and Osmeña, together with Congressman (later House Speaker) Jose de Venecia, campaigned for economic reforms and improved national security and unity.


title: Fidel V. Ramos

text: He won the seven-way race on May 11, 1992, narrowly defeating popular Agrarian Reform Secretary Miriam Defensor Santiago. His running mate, Governor Osmeña, lost to Senator Joseph Estrada as vice president. Despite winning, he garnered only 23.58% of the vote, the lowest plurality in the country's history. The election results were marred by allegations of fraud as Santiago was leading the race for the first five days of counting but became second after a nationwide energy black-out, putting Ramos in first place. International media were already calling Santiago as the president-elect but withdrew their declarations because of the sudden change in positions in the vote tally. Santiago filed an electoral protest, but it was eventually junked by the Supreme Court. The quote, "Miriam won in the elections, but lost in the counting" became popular nationwide.


title: Fidel V. Ramos

text: These allegations were resurrected when WikiLeaks, in September 2011, leaked 1994 diplomatic note from the U.S. Embassy in Manila, recounting a private conversation between a diplomat and Joel de los Santos, a retired Filipino university professor who specialized in Islamic affairs. De los Santos alleged that Libyan leader Muammar al-Qaddafi had channeled $200,000 (5 million pesos) to Ramos' 1992 election campaign. Philippine election laws prohibit accepting contribution from foreigners. Ramos dismissed the claim as "hearsay by itself, and is further based on a string of successive hearsay conversations" and challenged anyone who believed the claim to produce evidence.


title: Fidel V. Ramos

text: At the time of his accession in 1992, he was the first and only Protestant to date to be elected President of the Roman Catholic majority country and the only Filipino officer in history to have held every rank in the Philippine military from Second Lieutenant to Commander-in-Chief.


title: Fidel V. Ramos

text: The first three years of his administration were characterized by an economic boom, technological development, political stability, and efficient delivery of basic needs to the people. He advocated party platforms as an outline and agenda for governance. He was the first Christian Democrat to be elected in the country, being the founder of Lakas-CMD (Christian-Muslim Democrats Party). He was one of the most influential leaders and the unofficial spokesman of liberal democracy in Asia.


title: Fidel V. Ramos

text: Ramos' policies were organized around a socio-economic program dubbed "Philippines 2000," which envisioned the Philippines achieving a newly industrialized country status by the year 2000 and beyond.


title: Fidel V. Ramos

text: Contrary to expectations as a former military general, Ramos made peace with the country's various armed rebel groups, kickstarting the process by creating a National Unification Commission (NUC) and appointing Haydee Yorac to be its chair.


title: Fidel V. Ramos

text: Upon the recommendation of the NUC, Ramos eventually decided to grant amnesty to the rebel military officers of the Reform the Armed Forces Movement (RAM) led by Col. Gregorio "Gringo" Honasan and Capt. Proceso Maligalig.


title: Fidel V. Ramos

text: Ramos was instrumental in the signing of the final peace agreement between the government and the Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF) led by Nur Misuari in 1996.


title: Fidel V. Ramos

text: Although he battled Communist rebels as a young lieutenant in the 1950s, Ramos signed into law the Republic Act No. 7636, which repealed the Anti-Subversion Law. With its repeal, membership in the once-outlawed Communist Party of the Philippines became legal.


title: Fidel V. Ramos

text: During his administration, Ramos began implementing economic reforms intended to open up the once-closed national economy, encourage private enterprise, invite more foreign and domestic investment, and reduce corruption. Ramos was also known as the most-traveled Philippine President compared to his predecessors with numerous foreign trips abroad, generating about worth of foreign investments to the Philippines. To ensure a positive financial outlook on the Philippines, Ramos led the 4th Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Leaders' Summit in the Philippines in November 1996.


title: Fidel V. Ramos

text: Under his administration, the Philippines enjoyed economic growth and stability. The Philippine Stock Exchange in the mid-1990s was one of the best in the world and his visions of 'Philippines 2000' that led the country into a newly industrialized country in the world and the "Tiger Cub Economy in Asia".


title: Fidel V. Ramos

text: During Ramos' tenure, the Philippines was experiencing widespread blackouts due to huge demand for electricity, the antiquity of power plants, the abolishment of the Department of Energy, and the discontinuation of the Bataan Nuclear Power Plant during the Corazon Aquino administration. During his State of the Nation address on July 27, 1992, he requested that the Congress enact a law that would create an Energy Department that would plan and manage the Philippines' energy demands. Congress not only created an Energy Department but gave him special emergency powers to resolve the power crisis. Using the powers given to him, Ramos issued licenses to independent power producers (IPP) to construct power plants within 24 months. Ramos issued supply contracts that guaranteed the government would buy whatever power the IPPs produced under the contract in U.S. dollars to entice investments in power plants. This became a problem during the East Asian Financial Crisis when the demand for electricity contracted and the Philippine peso lost half of its value.


title: Fidel V. Ramos

text: Ramos personally pushed for the speedy approval of some of the most expensive power deals, and justified signing more contracts despite warnings from within the government and the World Bank that an impending oversupply of electricity could push up prices, a situation that persists in the Philippines up to the present. Individuals linked to Ramos lobbied for the approval of some of the contracts for independent power producers (IPPs), which came with numerous other deals, including lucrative legal, technical, and financial consultancies that were given to individuals and companies close to the late president. Among the deals tied to IPP projects were insurance contracts in which companies made millions of dollars in commissions alone. All the IPP contracts came with attractive incentives and guarantees. Every contract was designed to give IPP creditors some degree of comfort in financing ventures that would usually involve huge capital and risks. Most IPPs were funded by foreign loans secured with a form of government guarantee or performance undertaking, which meant that the Philippine government would pay for the loans if the IPPs defaulted. The Ramos government continued signing IPP contracts even after the end of 1993 when the power crisis was considered solved. The World Bank came up with a report in 1994 warning that power rates would rise if the government continued to enter into more IPP contracts that would mean excess power. The World Bank questioned the ambitious projections of the government on economic growth and power demand from 1994 to 1998. It also warned that the power generated by private utilities' IPPs could duplicate those of the National Power Corporation and create an overcapacity. The World Bank said that the factors created considerable uncertainty in power demand, like substantial overcapacity, particularly under take-or-pay conditions and would require considerable tariff increases that would be unpopular with the public. It was said that, presidents since Corazon Aquino catered mostly to the needs of big business for power and allowed the private sector to profit from this lucrative industry rather than craft an energy plan that would meet the needs of the Filipinos.


title: Fidel V. Ramos

text: The country was considered risky by investors due to previous coup attempts by military adventurists led by Gregorio Honasan, and experienced blackouts at an almost daily basis lasting 4–12 hours during the term of President Aquino. The low supply of power and perceived instability had previously held back investments and modernization in the country. Under Ramos, the Philippines was a pioneer in the Build-Operate-Transfer (BOT) scheme where private investors are invited to build certain government projects (i.e. tollways, powerplants, railways, etc.), make money by charging users, and transfer operation to the government after a set amount of time.


title: Fidel V. Ramos

text: While campaigning for the presidency, Fidel Ramos declared his support for reinstating the death penalty. Capital punishment was abolished for all crimes in 1987, making the Philippines the first Asian country to do so. In 1996, Ramos signed a bill that returned capital punishment with the electric chair (method used from 1923 to 1976, making Philippines the only country to do so outside U.S.) ""until the gas chamber could be installed"". However, no one was electrocuted or gassed, because the previously used chair was destroyed earlier and the Philippines adopted the method of lethal injection. Some people were put to death by this means, until the death penalty was abolished again in 2006.


title: Fidel V. Ramos

text: In early 1995, the Philippines discovered a primitive PRC military structure on Mischief Reef in the Spratly Islands, one hundred and thirty nautical miles off the coast of Palawan. The Philippine government issued a formal protest over the PRC's occupation of the reef and the Philippine Navy arrested sixty-two Chinese fishermen at Half Moon Shoal, eighty kilometers from Palawan. A week later, following confirmation from surveillance pictures that the structures were of military design, President Fidel Ramos had the military forces in the region strengthened. He ordered the Philippine Air Force to dispatch five F-5 fighters backed by four jet trainers and two helicopters, while the navy sent two additional ships. The People's Republic of China had claimed that the structures were shelters for fishermen but these small incidents could have triggered a war in the South China Sea.


title: Fidel V. Ramos

text: A perceived weakness of his administration was the situation in handling migrant workers' protection, a very major issue in the Philippines, as there are millions of Filipinos abroad throughout the world serving as workers in foreign countries, and their remittances to relatives at home are very important to the Filipino economy. On the eve of his 67th birthday on March 17, 1995, Ramos was on a foreign trip when Flor Contemplación was hanged in Singapore. His last-minute effort to negotiate with Singapore President Ong Teng Cheong and Prime Minister Goh Chok Tong never succeeded and Ramos' return home was marred with protests after his arrival in Manila. The protests also caused the resignation of Foreign Affairs Secretary Roberto Romulo and Labor Secretary Nieves Confesor from the cabinet. He immediately recalled Philippine ambassador to Singapore Alicia Ramos and suspended diplomatic relations with Singapore. He created a special commission to look into the case, which was in part an effort to try to rescue his sagging popularity. The commission was led by retired Supreme Court Justice Emilio Gancayco.


title: Fidel V. Ramos

text: As recommended by the Gancayco Commission, Ramos facilitated the enactment of Republic Act No. 8042, better known as the "Magna Carta for Overseas Workers" or more formally as the Migrant Workers Act, which was signed into law on June 7, 1995. Learning from the lessons of the Contemplación case, Ramos immediately ordered the Philippines Ambassador to the UAE Roy Señeres to facilitate negotiations after learning of the death penalty verdict of Sarah Balabagan in September 1995. Balabagan's sentence was reduced and she was released in August 1996. After tensions cooled off, Ramos restored diplomatic relations with Singapore after meeting Goh Chok Tong on the sidelines during the 50th anniversary of the United Nations in New York City.


title: Fidel V. Ramos

text: The 1997 Asian Financial Crisis, which started in Thailand, was a major blow to the end of the Ramos administration, with him stepping down with a negative GDP growth. The economy was hit by currency devaluation with the Philippine Peso dropped to ₱46 in 1998 from ₱26 in 1997. The same was true for the Thai baht, Malaysian ringgit, and Indonesian rupiah. Growth fell to about −0.6% in 1998 from 5.2% in 1997, but recovered to 3.4% by 1999. It also resulted to the shutdown of some businesses, a decline in importation, a rising unemployment rate, and an unstable financial sector.


title: Fidel V. Ramos

text: Supposedly, one of his notable contributions to the Philippines was the revival of nationalistic spirit by embarking on a massive promotion campaign for the centennial of Philippine Independence celebrated on June 12, 1998. However, charges of alleged massive corruption or misuse of funds blemished the resulting programs and various projects, one of which was the Centennial Expo and Amphitheater at the former Clark Air Base in Angeles City, supposedly Ramos's pet project. The commemorative projects, particularly those undertaken at Clark, were hounded by illegal electioneering and corruption controversies even years after the Centennial celebrations. Clark Air Base at that point was already completely free of American interference and therefore conceived as a suitable venue for Independence Day. Since in 1992, all American military bases were expelled from the country due to the continuing protests of the Anti-Bases Coalition (ABC), founded by the late Sen. Jose W. Diokno and Sen. Lorenzo M. Tañada.


title: Fidel V. Ramos

text: Later on it was revealed through a media exposé that a special report by the Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism (PCIJ) showed how the projects relating to the Expo site not only revealed the extravagance and inefficiency of the administration, but also served as a convenient vehicle to affect election fund-raising for the LAKAS political party of Ramos, which came at the expense of tax-paying citizens and was in direct violation of the Election Code. The "Centennial Expo Pilipino" project, intended to be the centerpiece for celebrating the 100th anniversary of the country's independence from Spain, also earned extensive criticisms for being an expensive white elephant project that disadvantaged the government at the cost of P9 billion, or 1.7 percent of the country's 1998 national budget. Six ranking Ramos cabinet members and officials, headed by Salvador Laurel (former vice-president), chairman of the Centennial Commission, were cleared by the Ombudsman and the Sandiganbayan (People's Court). Ramos appeared before a Congressional Committee in October 1998 to help exonerate said officials of any wrongdoing.


title: Fidel V. Ramos

text: During his final years in office, Ramos tried to amend the country's 1987 constitution through a process popularly known to many Filipinos as charter change or "cha-cha". Widespread protests led by Corazon Aquino and the Roman Catholic Church stopped him from pushing through with the plan. Political analysts were divided as to whether Ramos really wanted to use charter change to extend his presidency or only to imbalance his opponents as the next presidential election neared. He also intended to extend the term limits of the presidency to remain in power but his political rival Miriam Defensor Santiago went to the Supreme Court and negated extending the term limit of the president, which preserved democracy at the time.


title: Fidel V. Ramos

text: In January 2001, Ramos was instrumental in the success of the so-called Second EDSA Revolution that deposed Philippine president Joseph Estrada and installed then-Vice President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo as president.


title: Fidel V. Ramos

text: Estrada was later acquitted of perjury but found guilty of plunder and sentenced to reclusion perpetua with the accessory penalties of perpetual disqualification from public office and forfeiture of ill-gotten wealth on September 12, 2007, and pardoned by President Arroyo on October 26, 2007.


title: Fidel V. Ramos

text: Ramos was Chairman Emeritus of the Lakas CMD (Christian-Muslim Democrats) Party, formerly known as Lakas NUCD-UMDP or the Partido Lakas Tao-National Union of Christian Democrats-Union of Muslim Democrats of the Philippines.


title: Fidel V. Ramos

text: At the height of the election-rigging scandal in July 2005, Ramos publicly convinced President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo not to resign from office. Ramos, who was also hounded by charges of electoral fraud during the 1992 elections which were never proven in the Supreme Court, repeatedly stated that the scandal is nowhere as grave as that of People Power Revolutions of 1986 and 2001, citing factors such as the stagnant Philippine economy in the final years of the Marcos regime as well as the allegedly massive corruption of the Estrada administration. According to Arroyo, he also showed full support to her during the failed coups in the latter part of her presidency.


title: Fidel V. Ramos

text: Ramos also unveiled his proposals for constitutional change of the country. Citing the need to be more economically competitive in the midst of globalization and the need to improve governance for all Filipinos, Ramos suggested that government should start the process of Charter Change with a set deadline in 2007 (by which time the new charter and new government would take effect). Ramos supported the transformation of the country's political system from the Philippine presidential-bicameral-system into a unicameral parliament in transition to a federal form.


title: Fidel V. Ramos

text: Ramos represented the Philippines in the ASEAN Eminent Persons Group, tasked to draft the Charter of the Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN). He was also a member of numerous international groups and fora, and was the chairman of the Board of Directors of the Boao Forum for Asia (also one of the co-founders of BFA) and co-chairman of the Global Meeting of the Emerging Markets Forum (EMF). Ramos was heavily recommended for the position of the United Nations envoy to Myanmar (formerly known as Burma) in June 2006.


title: Fidel V. Ramos

text: He served as the Carlyle Group Asia Advisor Board Member until the board was disbanded in February 2004. More recently, as a private citizen, Ramos was engaged in various private sector advocacies where he played prominent roles. These included; Chairman, Ramos Peace and Development Foundation; chairman, Boao Forum for Asia; Trustee, International Crisis Group (ICG); Member, Advisory Group, UN University for Peace; Honorary Director, General Douglas MacArthur Foundation; Founding Member, Policy Advisory Commission, World Intellectual Property Organization (PAC-WIPO); Honorary Member, World Commission on Water for the 21st century; Member, International Advisory Council, Asia House; Patron, Opportunity International (Philippines); Global Advisor, University of Winnipeg; Honorary Chairman, Yuchengco Center, De La Salle University; Member, Advisory Board, Metrobank; Honorary President, Human Development Network (HDN) Philippines; Lifetime Honorary President, Christian Democrats International (CDI); and Chairman Emeritus, Lakas-Christian Muslim Democrats (CMD) Party.


title: Fidel V. Ramos

text: Ramos was also a firm backer of the proposed Philippine Reproductive Health bill. During a meet-up with fellow RH bill supporters in May 2011, he urged President Benigno Aquino III to certify the RH bill as urgent, saying it is the "right thing" to do. During his administration, the Department of Health under Juan Flavier launched an intense drive to promote family planning. "Asiaweek" reported in August 1994 that under Ramos, "family planning funding has quintupled." They also noted that President Ramos "has gone the farthest of any administration in opposing the Church's positions on contraception and abortion." At present, Ramos was listed by the Forum for Family Planning and Development as one of its Eminent Persons.


title: Fidel V. Ramos

text: Ramos was a member of the Global Leadership Foundation, an organization which works to support democratic leadership, prevent and resolve conflict through mediation and promote good governance in the form of democratic institutions, open markets, human rights and the rule of law. It does so by making available, discreetly and in confidence, the experience of former leaders to today's national leaders. It is a not-for-profit organization composed of former heads of government, senior governmental and international organization officials who work closely with Heads of Government on governance-related issues of concern to them.


title: Fidel V. Ramos

text: After his presidency, Ramos founded the Ramos Foundation for Peace and Development (RPDEV) with offices located in the Urban Bank Building (now ExportBank Plaza) in Makati. The foundation is a non-partisan, nonprofit, non-stock organization dedicated to promoting peace and development in the Philippines and the larger Asia-Pacific region. RPDEV supports Philippine national interests and people empowerment.


title: Fidel V. Ramos

text: Operating as a network of individuals and institutions inside and outside the country will serve as a catalyst for constructive change, a medium for fostering unity, stability, and progress, and a force for mutual understanding.


title: Fidel V. Ramos

text: President-elect Rodrigo Duterte revealed in June 2016 that Ramos was the one who pushed him to run for office so that 'Mindanao will finally have a Filipino president'. On July 23, 2016, Ramos was appointed by President Duterte as the Philippine Envoy to China to strengthen bilateral ties again after a much-heated diplomatic war over the South China Sea.


title: Fidel V. Ramos

text: On November 1, 2016, however, Ramos, stating that he miscalculated the possibilities and effects of a Duterte presidency, sent his resignation due to Duterte's drug war which has killed at least 8,000 Filipino drug suspects at the time. President Duterte accepted his resignation from the post on the same day. He was replaced by veteran journalist Jose Santiago "Chito" Sta. Romana.


title: Fidel V. Ramos

text: After stepping down, while he continued to show support to President Rodrigo Duterte, he had been vocal in raising concerns and criticisms to his administration. In February 2017, Ramos raised his concern about impunity and unilateralism amidst the drug war. In May 2017, Ramos criticized government officials who went with Duterte to Russia, claiming they turned the President's official visit into a “junket,” which the Palace later denied. In September 2017, Ramos said the Philippines continued to “lose badly” under the Duterte administration. Despite his criticisms, Duterte still saw him as his "number one supporter" and at the same time his "number one critic," and even called him his "everything."


title: Fidel V. Ramos

text: During the COVID-19 pandemic in the Philippines, he stayed under strict home quarantine and kept himself updated of the latest news including the pandemic. On June 25, 2021, he completed his COVID-19 vaccination by receiving his second dose in Ayala Alabang, Muntinlupa.


title: Fidel V. Ramos

text: On March 18, 2022, on Ramos' 94th birthday, the Fidel V. Ramos Presidential Library was launched online. It became the first and so far the only online presidential library in the Philippines. It was later revealed that Ramos was already ill at this time, and was unable to take on visitors.


title: Fidel V. Ramos

text: During the 2022 elections, Ramos did not make public his endorsement but had pledged support for the presidential bid of Leni Robredo, whom he also endorsed her successful vice presidential campaign in 2016. This was despite the fact that his party Lakas–CMD had earlier adopted her rival, Bongbong Marcos, who was the running mate of Lakas chairperson Sara Duterte, as its presidential candidate.


title: Fidel V. Ramos

text: Ramos died on July 31, 2022, at the age of 94, at Makati Medical Center. His family announced his passing in a statement on Sunday, stating he died of complications from COVID-19, according to the radio station DZRH. His family confirmed that he suffered from a heart condition and dementia.


title: Fidel V. Ramos

text: President Bongbong Marcos declared July 31 to August 9 as "national days of mourning", whereas all national flags are "flown at half-mast from sunrise to sunset" as a sign of mourning. As per prevailing policies about COVID-19-related deaths in the country, Ramos' remains were cremated, making him the second Philippine president to have been cremated before initial burial after former President Benigno Aquino III in June 2021. His wake was held on August 4–8 at The Chapels at Heritage Park in Taguig. On August 9, he was accorded a state funeral, which was the first for a former Philippine president since Diosdado Macapagal in 1997, and his remains were inurned at the Libingan ng mga Bayani near former presidents Macapagal, Carlos P. Garcia, Elpidio Quirino and Ferdinand Marcos Sr.


title: Rae Sremmurd

text: Rae Sremmurd ( ; "Drummers Ear" spelled backwards) is an American hip hop duo originating from Tupelo, Mississippi, formed by two brothers, Slim Jxmmi and Swae Lee. In 2013, they signed a record deal with Mike Will Made It's EarDrummers imprint. In January 2015, the duo released their debut album, "SremmLife", which was certified platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA). In August 2016, the duo released their second album, "SremmLife 2". During that same year, the duo also created their own record label, called SremmLife Crew Records. The duo is best known for their single "Black Beatles" from "SremmLife 2", which topped the US "Billboard" Hot 100, while also charting internationally in the top ten in many countries. The duo also released other platinum-certified singles such as "No Type", "No Flex Zone" and "Swang". Their third studio album, "SR3MM", was released on May 4, 2018, and served as a triple album.


title: Rae Sremmurd

text: Aaquil Iben Shamon "Slim Jxmmi" Brown and his younger brother, Khalif Malik Ibn Shaman "Swae Lee" Brown, were born in Whittier, California.


title: Rae Sremmurd

text: Their mother Bernadette Walker worked for the United States Army and her family was frequently relocated, with stays in Mississippi, Maryland, and Texas. Slim Jxmmi and Swae Lee started practicing, dancing, and writing music together at an early age.


title: Rae Sremmurd

text: While they were in middle school, the family moved to the Ida Street housing projects in Tupelo, Mississippi, to join Walker's new companion, a man named Floyd Sullivan.


title: Rae Sremmurd

text: The Brown brothers met Jemiah Middlebrooks in Tupelo while he was playing basketball at a local park. They decided to found a hip hop band called "Dem Outta St8 Boyz" with him. Aaquil took the stage name "CaliBoy," Khalif "Kid Krunk," and Jemiah "Lil Pantz." They used money from their part-time jobs to buy equipment and to produce music at home. The two brothers were composing their own beats and the trio were rapping. Visibly inspired by Soulja Boy Tell'Em, the boys released songs and dance videos on social media. It was at the same time that the group first met, and then later became friends with Jermarcus Jackson, aka JJ (today known as Jay Sremm), a young disc jockey, who was studying at Tupelo High School with the two brothers. He since became the DJ of the group.


title: Rae Sremmurd

text: Shortly after, Bernadette Walker and her companion split up. Following the breakup, the two brothers started skipping school and working more seriously on music. They would return home at late hours, even when they had school the next morning. Their mother, fed up with their schedules, eventually kicked them out of her house, leaving them homeless. They began squatting in an abandoned house in the city with a friend of their stepfather's. They took advantage of the opportunity and organized parties in their new home in order to spread their music.


title: Rae Sremmurd

text: At the beginning of 2010, the group released the single "Party Animal", which gave them a local fame, allowing them to perform at local festivals and to broadcast their tracks on local radios. Thanks to their savings, the group took part in the auditions of the "Wild Out Wednesday" segment on BET's show "106 & Park" in Memphis, Tennessee and succeeded to qualify. They participated on the show of December 8 in New York City and performed "Party Animal". Later, the group met a young rapper, named Andre "King Dre" Harris (today known as BoBo Swae), while he was freestyling in the high school courtyard. Andre, originally from West Point, Mississippi, started collaborating with the trio. Months later, the group finally released their first project, distributed locally.


title: Rae Sremmurd

text: In the middle of 2011, Lil Pantz left the group due to legal problems and was replaced by Andre. Aaquil and Khalif took the opportunity to change their stage names from "CaliBoy" and "Kid Krunk" to "Weirdo" and "Kid The Great," respectively. In August 2011, the trio once again participated in "106 & Park" and performed an original song "My Diddy". They finished second place overall in the competition, and arranged meetings with representatives from record labels Def Jam Recordings and Sony Music. However, they did not sign any record deals at that time.


title: Rae Sremmurd

text: Around this time, Jemarcus put the group in touch with producer Pierre "P-Nazty" Slaughter, a cousin of his, who had grown up in Tupelo but had moved to Atlanta to work with Mike Will Made It's record label EarDrummers. P-Nazty appreciated the teenagers' music and decided to work with them. Thereby, the three rappers left Tupelo and spent a few months with P-Nazty and Marquel "Marz" Middlebrooks (another EarDrummers producer) in Georgia. They took the opportunity to perform in talent shows and recorded the track "I Dip", produced by Marz, and which increased their popularity a little more. They released their second project ""Three Stooges Mixtape"" at the beginning of 2012.


title: Rae Sremmurd

text: Unfortunately, due to financial problems, the boys had to return to their hometown, causing the group to temporarily dissolve. The brothers began working to save money; Aaquil worked at a mattress factory, and Khalif worked at a fast food restaurant where he served burgers. They were working about 12 hours per day. When Aaquil turned 21, he rented an apartment into which Khalif and Andre moved. They began recording music and organizing parties on weekends again. Despite this, the rappers had problems with the police due to noise complaints and with their landlord when they stopped mowing their lawn. Meanwhile, P-Nazty and Marz, aware of the potential and motivation of the trio, tried to convince the rappers to leave their work and to return to Atlanta to try again to succeed in music. After that Aaquil resigned, anticipating that he wouldn't pass a drug test, the trio decided to return to Atlanta thanks to Andre, who had a car.


title: Rae Sremmurd

text: Back in Georgia, the group worked a lot, performed in local shows, and got attention in the Atlanta indie hip hop scene. P-Nazty introduced them to Mike Will Made It, who decided to sign them on his indie label, Made-It Mafia. In the meantime, King Dre decided to leave the group due to familial reasons and moved to Florida to focus on his studies.


title: Rae Sremmurd

text: The now-duo decided to change their stage names again. The group took as their new name "Rae Sremmurd", derived from Mike Will Made It's production team "EarDrummers" by spelling both words backwards. Aaquil chose the name of "Slim Jimmy" (later stylized as "Slim Jxmmi"), and Khalif opted for first "iHipster Lee" then a few months later "Swae Lee." When Mike Will Made It finalized the creation of his major label "EarDrummers Entertainment" in partnership with Interscope Records, the two brothers became the first artists to sign.


title: Rae Sremmurd

text: Rae Sremmurd was discovered by the hip hop audience in December 2013, due to their appearance on Mike Will Made It's mixtape ""#MikeWiLLBeenTriLL"" on the track "We". The track was released as the duo's first promotional single two months later. They also released their second single, "Throw Sum Mo" in the same period. These two songs gave them the opportunity to perform at local clubs and to appear on radio.


title: Rae Sremmurd

text: In March, they participated in the South by Southwest music festival with Mike Will Made It and performed their first official single, "No Flex Zone", for the first time. At the end of the month, the track was releasing to digital retailers and progressively became popular. The music video of the song was released on August 11, with a guest appearance by American comedian Mike Epps. Finally, the single entered the Billboard Hot 100 on the chart issue dated August 16 and peaked at number 36 on September 20. They also released a remix of the track featuring American rappers Pusha T and Nicki Minaj which helped to increase its popularity. The group was invited to perform the hit single during 2014 BET Hip Hop Awards ceremony, their first performance at a major event.


title: Rae Sremmurd

text: In the middle of September, they released their second single "No Type" along with its music video shot in Venice Beach. The Mike Will Made It and Swae Lee-produced track quickly became more popular than "No Flex Zone" and entered the U.S. Hot 100 on the chart issue dated October 11 and climbed to number 16 at the beginning of December. It is also the duo's first single to chart outside the US, charting in numerous European countries. Both singles were certified platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) on January 28, 2015. In October, Brooklyn music producer Baauer released the track "One Touch" featuring AlunaGeorge and Rae Sremmurd as lead single from his EP "ß". The song failed to chart but was the first collaboration of major artists with the Tupeloan brothers.


title: Rae Sremmurd

text: In early December, the duo announced the release of their debut album, "SremmLife" (originally announced as an EP) on January 6, 2015 and re-released "Throw Sum Mo" as their third single, adding guest vocals of Young Thug and Nicki Minaj to promote the project. The new single debuted at number 92 on the Billboard Hot 100 on January 17 and peaked at number 30 in its fifteenth week of gradually climbing up the chart.


title: Rae Sremmurd

text: 2015 was the breakthrough year for Rae Sremmurd. "SremmLife" was welcomed with surprise and enthusiasm from public and music critics. Pushed by the success of the two first singles, the album debuted at number five on the "Billboard" 200 chart, with first-week sales of 49,000 copies, powered by 34,000 in traditional album sales. It received positive reviews from music journalism praising the energy and the cleverness of the duo. At the same time, Swae and Jxmmi received their first certifications with the platinum certifications of the two first singles of the album by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) on January 28, 2015.


title: Rae Sremmurd

text: In May, they released "This Could Be Us" as the fourth single off their project with a music video shot during a trip in South Africa. The track peaked at number 49 on the Hot 100 in September. In June, Ty Dolla Sign teamed up with the duo and Future on his DJ Spinz produced single "Blasé" which peaked at number 63 in November. In July, they participated in their first concert tour as opening acts to Nicki Minaj's North American leg of "The Pinkprint Tour" along with Meek Mill, Dej Loaf and Tinashe.


title: Rae Sremmurd

text: Shortly after Minaj's tour, they debuted their own first worldwide concert tour, "SremmLife Tour". The tour began in September and brought them to Oceania, American colleges and finally Europe at the end of the year. During the Oceanian leg of the tour, they released the fifth and last single off ""SremmLife"", "Come Get Her" along with its music video. It peaking at number 56 on the "Billboard" Hot 100 in November.


title: Rae Sremmurd

text: Increasingly popular, the duo was nominated for numerous musical awards ceremonies during the year, including the BET Awards, the "Billboard" Music Awards, and the BET Hip Hop Awards, and won their first award, the BET Award for Best Group in June.


title: Rae Sremmurd

text: At the end of 2015, ""SremmLife"" had been nominated by numerous magazines as one of the best albums of the year. "Complex" ranked the album as the third best of the year. This decision sparked a feud between the duo and Hot 97 radio presenter Ebro Darden, who thought that the album should not appear on the list.


title: Rae Sremmurd

text: "SremmLife" was finally certified platinum in June 2016, along with the three last singles of the album.


title: Rae Sremmurd

text: On June 16, 2016, Rae Sremmurd announced that their next album, "SremmLife 2", would be released on August 12, 2016. The album included their first "Billboard" Hot 100 number-one song "Black Beatles", which topped the chart in the issue dated November 26, 2016. It also gave Gucci Mane his first number one.


title: Rae Sremmurd

text: The two brothers began working on their own solo albums. Slim Jxmmi announced his "Uncle Jxm" project, and on August 12, 2016, Swae Lee announced his debut solo album, "Swaecation". Swae Lee also announced that the two brothers were working on a new album, called "SremmLife 3". On August 4, 2017, the duo released a new single titled "Perplexing Pegasus".


title: Rae Sremmurd

text: In early 2018, Rae Sremmurd and Mike Will Made It announced that Swae Lee and Slim Jxmmi would release their solo albums—"Swaecation" and "Jxmtroduction"—in the same package as "SremmLife 3", as a triple album package called "SR3MM". The duo released "T'd Up" as "SremmLife 3"'s second single on February 5, 2018, and released three singles from "SR3MM" on March 1, 2018 - Swae Lee's "Hurt to Look", Slim Jxmmi's "Brxnks Truck", and the duo's "Powerglide" featuring previous collaborator Juicy J. On May 4, 2018, the duo released "SR3MM", a triple disc set that included solo projects for each of the members. Overall, "SR3MM" received mainly positive reviews from critics.


title: Rae Sremmurd

text: On May 31, 2022, the brothers teased their upcoming fourth studio album, titled "Sremm4Life." They followed this up on June 6 with announcing their first single of the album, and first release since 2018, "Denial," which was released on June 8, 2022. The second single, "Community D**k" featuring Flo Milli was released with an accompanying music video on August 8.


title: Rae Sremmurd

text: SremmLife Crew Records is a record label founded by Rae Sremmurd in 2016. They signed Mississippi native rappers with whom they worked before their major success. The label's first official release was the collective project "Trail Mix" in March 2016, introducing all members of the crew.


title: Rae Sremmurd

text: The BET Hip Hop Awards are hosted annually by BET for hip hop performers, producers and music video directors.


title: Rae Sremmurd

text: The "Billboard" Music Award is an honor given by "Billboard", a publication and music popularity chart covering the music business. Rae Sremmurd has won one award from five nominations.


title: Rae Sremmurd

text: The MTVU Woodie Awards are semi-annual awards presented by MTVU which it states recognizes "the music voted best by college students."


title: Rae Sremmurd

text: The Nickelodeon Kids' Choice Awards, is an annual awards show that airs on the Nickelodeon cable channel, that honors the year's biggest television, movie, and music acts, as voted by Nickelodeon viewers.


title: Dave Brubeck

text: David Warren Brubeck (; December 6, 1920 – December 5, 2012) was an American jazz pianist and composer. Often regarded as a foremost exponent of cool jazz, Brubeck's work is characterized by unusual time signatures and superimposing contrasting rhythms, meters, and tonalities.


title: Dave Brubeck

text: Born in Concord, California, Brubeck was drafted into the US Army, but was spared from combat service when a Red Cross show he had played at became a hit. Within the US Army, Brubeck formed one of the first racially diverse bands. In 1951, Brubeck formed the Dave Brubeck Quartet, which kept its name despite shifting personnel. The most successful—and prolific—lineup of the quartet was the one between 1958 and 1968. This lineup, in addition to Brubeck, featured saxophonist Paul Desmond, bassist Eugene Wright and drummer Joe Morello. A U.S. Department of State-sponsored tour in 1958 featuring the band inspired Brubeck to record the 1959 album "Time Out". Despite its esoteric theme and contrarian time signatures, "Time Out" became Brubeck's highest-selling album, and the first jazz album to sell over one million copies. The lead single from the album, "Take Five", a tune written by Desmond in time, similarly became the highest-selling jazz single of all time. The quartet followed up "Time Out" with four other albums in non-standard time signatures, and some of the other songs from this series became hits as well, including "Blue Rondo à la Turk" (in ) and "Unsquare Dance" (in ). Brubeck continued releasing music until his death in 2012.


title: Dave Brubeck

text: Brubeck's style ranged from refined to bombastic, reflecting both his mother's classical training and his own improvizational skills. He expressed elements of atonality and fugue. Brubeck, with Desmond, used elements of West Coast jazz near the height of its popularity, combining them with the unorthodox time signatures seen in "Time Out". Like many of his contemporaries, Brubeck played into the style of the French composer Darius Milhaud, especially his earlier works, including "Serenade Suite" and "Playland-At-The-Beach". Brubeck's fusion of classical music and jazz would come to be known as "third stream", although Brubeck's use of third stream would predate the coining of the term. John Fordham of "The Guardian" commented: "Brubeck's real achievement was to blend European compositional ideas, very demanding rhythmic structures, jazz song-forms and improvisation in expressive and accessible ways."


title: Dave Brubeck

text: Brubeck was the recipient of several music awards and honors throughout his lifetime. In 1996, Brubeck received a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award. In 2008, Brubeck was inducted into the California Hall of Fame, and a year later, he was given an honorary Doctor of Music degree from Berklee College of Music. Brubeck's 1959 album "Time Out" was added to the Library of Congress' National Recording Registry in 2005. Noted as "one of Jazz's first pop stars" by the "Los Angeles Times", Brubeck rejected his fame, and felt uncomfortable with "Time" magazine featuring him on the cover before Duke Ellington.


title: Dave Brubeck

text: Brubeck had Swiss ancestry (the family surname was originally Brodbeck), and possibly Native American Modoc lineage, while his maternal grandparents were English and German. He was born on December 6, 1920, in Concord, California, and grew up in Ione, California. His father, Peter Howard "Pete" Brubeck, was a cattle rancher, while his mother, Elizabeth (née Ivey), who had studied piano in England under Myra Hess and intended to become a concert pianist, taught piano for extra money.


title: Dave Brubeck

text: Brubeck did not intend to become a musician, although his two older brothers, Henry and Howard, were already on that track. Brubeck did, however, take lessons from his mother. He could not read music during these early lessons, attributing the difficulty to poor eyesight, but "faked" his way through well enough that his deficiency went mostly unnoticed. Planning to work with his father on their ranch, Brubeck entered the liberal arts college College of the Pacific in Stockton, California in 1938 to study veterinary science. He switched his major to music at the urging of the head of zoology at the time, Dr. Arnold, who told him, "Brubeck, your mind's not here. It's across the lawn in the conservatory. Please go there. Stop wasting my time and yours." Later, Brubeck was nearly expelled when one of his professors discovered that he was unable to sight-read. Several others came forward to his defense, however, arguing that his ability to write counterpoint and harmony more than compensated, and demonstrated his skill with music notation. The college was still concerned, but agreed to allow Brubeck to graduate only after he promised never to teach piano.


title: Dave Brubeck

text: After graduating in 1942, Brubeck was drafted into the United States Army, serving in Europe in the Third Army under George S. Patton. He volunteered to play piano at a Red Cross show; the show was a resounding success, and Brubeck was spared from combat service. He created one of the U.S. armed forces' first racially integrated bands, "The Wolfpack". It was in the military, in 1944, that Brubeck met Paul Desmond. After serving nearly four years in the army, he returned to California for graduate study at Mills College in Oakland. He was a student of Darius Milhaud, who encouraged him to study fugue and orchestration, but not classical piano. While on active duty, he received two lessons from Arnold Schoenberg at UCLA in an attempt to connect with high modernist theory and practice. However, the encounter did not end on good terms since Schoenberg believed that every note should be accounted for, an approach which Brubeck could not accept, although according to his son Chris Brubeck, there is a twelve-tone row in "The Light in the Wilderness", Dave Brubeck's first oratorio. In it, Jesus's Twelve Disciples are introduced each singing their own individual notes; it is described as "quite dramatic, especially when Judas starts singing 'Repent' on a high and straining dissonant note".


title: Dave Brubeck

text: Jack Sheedy owned San Francisco-based Coronet Records, which had previously recorded area Dixieland bands. (This Coronet Records is distinct from the late 1950s New York-based budget label, and also from Australia-based Coronet Records.) In 1949, Sheedy was convinced to make the first recording of Brubeck's octet and later his trio. But Sheedy was unable to pay his bills and in 1949 gave up his masters to his record stamping company, the Circle Record Company, owned by Max and Sol Weiss. The Weiss brothers soon changed the name of their business to Fantasy Records.


title: Dave Brubeck

text: The first Brubeck records sold well, and he made new records for Fantasy. Soon the company was shipping 40,000 to 50,000 copies of Brubeck records each quarter, making a good profit.


title: Dave Brubeck

text: In 1951, Brubeck organized the Dave Brubeck Quartet, with Paul Desmond on alto saxophone. The two took up residency at San Francisco's Black Hawk nightclub and had success touring college campuses, recording a series of live albums.


title: Dave Brubeck

text: The first of these live albums, "Jazz at Oberlin", was recorded in March 1953 in the Finney Chapel at Oberlin College. Brubeck's live performance was credited with legitimizing the field of jazz music at Oberlin, and the album is one of the earliest examples of cool jazz. Brubeck returned to College of the Pacific to record "Jazz at the College of the Pacific" in December of that year.


title: Dave Brubeck

text: Following the release of "Jazz at the College of the Pacific", Brubeck signed with Fantasy Records, believing that he had a stake in the company and worked as an artists and repertoire promoter for the label, encouraging the Weiss brothers to sign other contemporary jazz performers, including Gerry Mulligan, Chet Baker and Red Norvo. Upon discovering that the deal was for a half interest in his own recordings, Brubeck quit to sign with another label, Columbia Records.


title: Dave Brubeck

text: In June 1954, Brubeck released "Jazz Goes to College", with double bassist Bob Bates and drummer Joe Dodge. The album is a compilation of the quartet's visits to three colleges: Oberlin College, University of Michigan, and University of Cincinnati, and features seven songs, two of which were written by Brubeck and Desmond. "Balcony Rock", the opening song on the album, was noted for its timing and uneven tonalities, themes that would be explored by Brubeck later.


title: Dave Brubeck

text: Brubeck was featured on the cover of "Time" in November 1954, the second jazz musician to be featured, following Louis Armstrong in February 1949. Brubeck personally found this acclaim embarrassing, since he considered Duke Ellington more deserving and was convinced that he had been favored as a Caucasian. In one encounter with Ellington, he knocked on the door of Brubeck's hotel room to show him the cover; Brubeck's response was, "It should have been you."


title: Dave Brubeck

text: Early bassists for the group included Ron Crotty, Bates, and Bates' brother Norman; Lloyd Davis and Dodge held the drum chair. In 1956, Brubeck hired drummer Joe Morello, who had been working with Marian McPartland; Morello's presence made possible the rhythmic experiments that were to come. In 1958, African-American bassist Eugene Wright joined for the group's Department of State tour of Europe and Asia. The group visited Poland, Turkey, India, Ceylon, Pakistan, Iran and Iraq on behalf of the Department of State. They spent two weeks in Poland, giving thirteen concerts and visiting with Polish musicians and citizens as part of the People-to-People program. Wright became a permanent member in 1959, finishing the "classic era" of the quartet's personnel. During this time, Brubeck was strongly supportive of Wright's inclusion in the band, and reportedly canceled several concerts when the club owners or hall managers objected to presenting an integrated band. He also canceled a television appearance when he found out that the producers intended to keep Wright off-camera.


title: Dave Brubeck

text: In 1959, the Dave Brubeck Quartet recorded "Time Out". The album, which featured pieces entirely written by members of the quartet, notably uses unusual time signatures in the field of music—and especially jazz—a crux which Columbia Records was enthusiastic about, but which they were nonetheless hesitant to release.


title: Dave Brubeck

text: The release of "Time Out" required the cooperation of Columbia Records president Goddard Lieberson, who underwrote and released "Time Out", on the condition that the quartet record a conventional album of the American South, "Gone with the Wind", to cover the risk of "Time Out" becoming a commercial failure.


title: Dave Brubeck

text: Featuring the cover art of S. Neil Fujita, "Time Out" was released in December 1959, to negative critical reception. Nonetheless, on the strength of these unusual time signatures, the album quickly went Platinum, and peaked at number two on the "Billboard" 200. It was the first jazz album to sell more than a million copies. The single "Take Five" off the album quickly became a jazz standard, despite its unusual composition and its time signature: time.


title: Dave Brubeck

text: "Time Out" was followed by several albums with a similar approach, including "Time Further Out: Miro Reflections" (1961), using more , , and , plus the first attempt at ; "Countdown—Time in Outer Space" (dedicated to John Glenn, 1962), featuring and more ; "Time Changes" (1963), with much , and ; and "Time In" (1966). These albums (except "Time In") were also known for using contemporary paintings as cover art, featuring the work of Joan Miró on "Time Further Out", Franz Kline on "Time in Outer Space", and Sam Francis on "Time Changes".


title: Dave Brubeck

text: On a handful of albums in the early 1960s, clarinetist Bill Smith replaced Desmond. These albums were devoted to Smith's compositions and thus had a somewhat different aesthetic than other Brubeck Quartet albums. Nonetheless, according to critic Ken Dryden, "[Smith] proves himself very much in Desmond's league with his witty solos". Smith was an old friend of Brubeck's; they would record together, intermittently, from the 1940s until the final years of Brubeck's career.


title: Dave Brubeck

text: In 1961, Brubeck and his wife, Iola, developed a jazz musical, "The Real Ambassadors", based in part on experiences they and their colleagues had during foreign tours on behalf of the Department of State. The soundtrack album, which featured Louis Armstrong, Lambert, Hendricks & Ross, and Carmen McRae was recorded in 1961; the musical was performed at the 1962 Monterey Jazz Festival.


title: Dave Brubeck

text: At its peak in the early 1960s, the Brubeck Quartet was releasing as many as four albums a year. Apart from the "College" and the "Time" series, Brubeck recorded four LP records featuring his compositions based on the group's travels, and the local music they encountered. "Jazz Impressions of the U.S.A." (1956, Morello's debut with the group), "Jazz Impressions of Eurasia" (1958), "Jazz Impressions of Japan" (1964), and "Jazz Impressions of New York" (1964) are less well-known albums and they produced Brubeck standards such as "Summer Song", "Brandenburg Gate", "Koto Song", and "Theme from Mr. Broadway". (Brubeck wrote, and the Quartet performed, the theme song for this Craig Stevens CBS drama series; the music from the series became material for the "New York" album.) In 1961, Brubeck appeared in a few scenes of the British jazz/beat film "All Night Long", which starred Patrick McGoohan and Richard Attenborough. Brubeck merely plays himself, with the film featuring close-ups of his piano fingerings. Brubeck performs "It's a Raggy Waltz" from the "Time Further Out" album and duets briefly with bassist Charles Mingus in "Non-Sectarian Blues".


title: Dave Brubeck

text: Brubeck also served as the program director of WJZZ-FM (now WEZN-FM) while recording for the quartet. He achieved his vision of an all-jazz format radio station along with his friend and neighbor John E. Metts, one of the first African Americans in senior radio management.


title: Dave Brubeck

text: The final studio album for Columbia by the Desmond/Wright/Morello quartet was "Anything Goes" (1966), featuring the songs of Cole Porter. A few concert recordings followed, and "The Last Time We Saw Paris" (1967) was the "Classic" quartet's swan-song.


title: Dave Brubeck

text: Brubeck produced "The Gates of Justice" in 1968, a cantata mixing Biblical scripture with the words of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.


title: Dave Brubeck

text: In 1971, the new senior management at Columbia Records decided not to renew Brubeck's contract, as they wished to focus on rock music. He moved to Atlantic Records.


title: Dave Brubeck

text: Brubeck's music was used in the 1985 film "Ordeal by Innocence". He also composed for—and performed with his ensemble on—"The NASA Space Station", a 1988 episode of the CBS TV series "This Is America, Charlie Brown".


title: Dave Brubeck

text: Brubeck founded the Brubeck Institute with his wife, Iola, at their alma mater, the University of the Pacific in 2000. What began as a special archive, consisting of the personal document collection of the Brubecks, has since expanded to provide fellowships and educational opportunities in jazz for students, also leading to having one of the main streets on which the school resides named in his honor, Dave Brubeck Way.


title: Dave Brubeck

text: In 2008, Brubeck became a supporter of the Jazz Foundation of America in its mission to save the homes and the lives of elderly jazz and blues musicians, including those who had survived Hurricane Katrina. Brubeck supported the Jazz Foundation by performing in its annual benefit concert "A Great Night in Harlem".


title: Dave Brubeck

text: Dave Brubeck married jazz lyricist Iola Whitlock in September 1942; the couple were married for 70 years, until his death in 2012. Iola died at age 90 on March 12, 2014 from cancer in Wilton, Connecticut.


title: Dave Brubeck

text: Brubeck had six children with Iola. Four of his children have been professional musicians. Darius, named after Brubeck's mentor Darius Milhaud and the eldest, is a pianist, producer, educator and performer. Dan is a percussionist, Chris is a multi-instrumentalist and composer, and Matthew, the youngest, is a cellist with an extensive list of composing and performance credits. Another son, Michael, died in 2009. Brubeck's children often joined him in concerts and in the recording studio.


title: Dave Brubeck

text: Brubeck became a Catholic in 1980, shortly after completing the Mass "To Hope" which had been commissioned by Ed Murray, editor of the national Catholic weekly "Our Sunday Visitor". Although he had spiritual interests before that time, he said, "I didn't convert to Catholicism, because I wasn't anything to convert from. I just joined the Catholic Church." In 1996, he received the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award. In 2006, Brubeck was awarded the University of Notre Dame's Laetare Medal, the oldest and most prestigious honor given to American Catholics, during the university's commencement. He performed "Travellin' Blues" for the graduating class of 2006.


title: Dave Brubeck

text: Brubeck died of heart failure on December 5, 2012, in Norwalk, Connecticut, one day before his 92nd birthday. He was on his way to a cardiology appointment, accompanied by his son Darius. A birthday party concert had been planned for him with family and famous guests. A memorial tribute was held in May 2013.


title: Dave Brubeck

text: The "Los Angeles Times" noted that he "was one of Jazz's first pop stars", even though he was not always happy with his fame. He felt uncomfortable, for example, that "Time" magazine had featured him on the cover before it did so for Duke Ellington, saying, "It just bothered me." "The New York Times" noted he had continued to play well into his old age, performing in 2011 and in 2010 only a month after getting a pacemaker, with "Times" music writer Nate Chinen commenting that Brubeck had replaced "the old hammer-and-anvil attack with something almost airy" and that his playing at the Blue Note Jazz Club in New York City was "the picture of judicious clarity".


title: Dave Brubeck

text: In "The Daily Telegraph", music journalist Ivan Hewett wrote: "Brubeck didn't have the réclame of some jazz musicians who lead tragic lives. He didn't do drugs or drink. What he had was endless curiosity combined with stubbornness", adding: "His work list is astonishing, including oratorios, musicals and concertos, as well as hundreds of jazz compositions. This quiet man of jazz was truly a marvel."


title: Dave Brubeck

text: In "The Guardian", John Fordham said "Brubeck's real achievement was to blend European compositional ideas, very demanding rhythmic structures, jazz song-forms and improvisation in expressive and accessible ways. His son Chris told "The Guardian" "when I hear Chorale, it reminds me of the very best Aaron Copland, something like Appalachian Spring. There's a sort of American honesty to it." Robert Christgau dubbed Brubeck the "jazz hero of the rock and roll generation".


title: Dave Brubeck

text: "The Economist" wrote: "Above all they found it hard to believe that the most successful jazz in America was being played by a family man, a laid-back Californian, modest, gentle and open, who would happily have been a rancher all his days—except that he couldn't live without performing, because the rhythm of jazz, under all his extrapolation and exploration, was, he had discovered, the rhythm of his heart."


title: Dave Brubeck

text: While on tour performing "Hot House" in Toronto, Chick Corea and Gary Burton completed a tribute to Brubeck on the day of his death. Corea played "Strange Meadow Lark", from Brubeck's album "Time Out".


title: Dave Brubeck

text: In the United States, May 4 is informally observed as "Dave Brubeck Day". In the format most commonly used in the U.S., May 4 is written "5/4", recalling the time signature of "Take Five", Brubeck's best-known recording. In September 2019, musicologist Stephen A. Crist's book, "Dave Brubeck's Time Out", provided the first scholarly book length analysis of the seminal album. In addition to his musical analyses of each of the album's original compositions, Crist provides insight into Brubeck's career during a time he was rising to the top of the jazz charts.


title: Dave Brubeck

text: Brubeck recorded five of the seven tracks of his album "Jazz Goes to College" in Ann Arbor, Michigan. He returned to Michigan many times, including a performance at Hill Auditorium where he received a Distinguished Artist Award from the University of Michigan's Musical Society in 2006. Brubeck was presented with a "Benjamin Franklin Award for Public Diplomacy" by United States Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice in 2008 for offering an American "vision of hope, opportunity and freedom" through his music. "As a little girl I grew up on the sounds of Dave Brubeck because my dad was your biggest fan", said Rice. The State Department said in a statement that "as a pianist, composer, cultural emissary and educator, Dave Brubeck's life's work exemplifies the best of America's cultural diplomacy". At the ceremony, Brubeck played a brief recital for the audience at the State Department. "I want to thank all of you because this honor is something that I never expected. Now I am going to play a cold piano with cold hands", Brubeck stated.


title: Dave Brubeck

text: California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and First Lady Maria Shriver announced on May 28, 2008, that Brubeck would be inducted into the California Hall of Fame, located at The California Museum for History, Women and the Arts. The induction ceremony occurred December 10, and he was inducted alongside eleven other famous Californians.


title: Dave Brubeck

text: On October 18, 2008, Brubeck received an honorary Doctor of Music degree from the prestigious Eastman School of Music in Rochester, New York. Similarly, at the Monterey Jazz Festival in September 2009, Brubeck was awarded an honorary Doctor of Music degree (D.Mus. "honoris causa") from Berklee College of Music. On May 16, 2010, Brubeck was awarded an honorary Doctor of Music degree (honoris causa) from the George Washington University in Washington, D.C. The ceremony took place on the National Mall.


title: Dave Brubeck

text: In September 2009, the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts announced Brubeck as a Kennedy Center Honoree for exhibiting excellence in performance arts. The Kennedy Center Honors Gala took place on Sunday, December 6 (Brubeck's 89th birthday), and was broadcast nationwide on CBS on December 29 at 9:00 pm EST. When the award was made, President Barack Obama recalled a 1971 concert Brubeck had given in Honolulu and said, "You can't understand America without understanding jazz, and you can't understand jazz without understanding Dave Brubeck."


title: Dave Brubeck

text: On July 5, 2010, Brubeck was awarded the Miles Davis Award at the Montreal International Jazz Festival. In 2010, Bruce Ricker and Clint Eastwood produced "", a documentary about Brubeck for Turner Classic Movies (TCM) to commemorate his 90th birthday in December 2010.


title: Dave Brubeck

text: The Concord Boulevard Park in his hometown of Concord, California, was posthumously renamed to "Dave Brubeck Memorial Park" in his honor. Mayor Dan Helix favorably recalled one of his performances at the park, saying: "He will be with us forever because his music will never die."


title: Reichstag fire

text: The Reichstag fire (, ) was an arson attack on the Reichstag building, home of the German parliament in Berlin, on Monday 27 February 1933, precisely four weeks after Nazi leader Adolf Hitler was sworn in as Chancellor of Germany. Marinus van der Lubbe, a Dutch "council communist", was the apparent culprit; however, Hitler attributed the fire to Communist agitators. He used it as a pretext to claim that Communists were plotting against the German government, and induced President Paul von Hindenburg to issue the Reichstag Fire Decree suspending civil liberties, and pursue a "ruthless confrontation" with the Communists. This made the fire pivotal in the establishment of Nazi Germany.


title: Reichstag fire

text: The first report of the fire came shortly after 9:00p.m., when a Berlin fire station received an alarm call. By the time police and firefighters arrived, the Chamber of Deputies (the lower house) was engulfed in flames. The police conducted a thorough search inside the building and found Van der Lubbe, who was arrested.


title: Reichstag fire

text: After the Fire Decree was issued, the Nazi-controlled police made mass arrests of communists, including all of the communist Reichstag delegates. This severely crippled communist participation in the 5 March elections. After the 5 March elections, the absence of the communists gave the Nazi Party a majority in the Reichstag, greatly assisting the Nazi seizure of total power.


title: Reichstag fire

text: As part of the effort to blame the Fire on the communists, on 9 March the Prussian state police arrested Bulgarians Georgi Dimitrov, Vasil Tanev, and Blagoy Popov, who were known Comintern operatives (though the police did not know it, Dimitrov was head of all Comintern operations in Western Europe). Ernst Torgler, head of the Communist Party, had surrendered himself to police on 28 February.


title: Reichstag fire

text: They and Van Der Lubbe were the defendants in the Leipzig Trial. All four communists were acquitted. The responsibility for the Reichstag fire remains a topic of debate and research. The Nazis accused the Comintern of the act. However, some historians believe, based on archive evidence, that the arson had been planned and ordered by the Nazis as a false flag operation. The building remained in its damaged state until it was partially repaired from 1961 to 1964 and completely restored from 1995 to 1999. In 2008, Germany posthumously pardoned Van der Lubbe under a law introduced in 1998 to lift unjust verdicts dating from the Nazi era.


title: Reichstag fire

text: After the November 1932 German federal election, the Nazi Party had a plurality, not a majority; the communists posted gains. Adolf Hitler was sworn in as Chancellor and head of the coalition government on 30 January 1933. As chancellor, Hitler asked President Paul von Hindenburg to dissolve the Reichstag and call for a new parliamentary election. The date set for the elections was 5 March 1933.


title: Reichstag fire

text: Hitler hoped to abolish democracy in a quasi-legal fashion, by passing the Enabling Act. The Enabling Act was a special law that gave the Chancellor the power to pass laws by decree, without the involvement of the "Reichstag". These special powers would remain in effect for four years, after which time they were eligible to be renewed. Under the Weimar Constitution, the President could rule by decree in times of emergency using Article 48.


title: Reichstag fire

text: During the election campaign, the Nazis alleged that Germany was on the verge of a communist revolution and that the only way to stop the communists was to put the Nazis securely in power. The message of the campaign was simple: increase the number of Nazi seats.


title: Reichstag fire

text: Shortly after 9p.m. on 27 February 1933, the Reichstag building was reported as on fire, and firefighters were dispatched. Despite their efforts, most of the building was gutted. By 11:30 p.m., the fire was put out. The firefighters and police inspected the ruins and found 20 bundles of flammable material (firelighters) unburned lying about. At the time the fire was reported, Hitler was having dinner with Joseph Goebbels at Goebbels' apartment in Berlin. When Goebbels received an urgent phone call informing him of the fire, he regarded it as a "tall tale" at first and hung up. Only after the second call did he report the news to Hitler. Both left Goebbels' apartment and arrived by car at the "Reichstag", just as the fire was being put out. They were met at the site by Hermann Göring, Interior Minister of Prussia, who told Hitler, "This is communist outrage! One of the communist culprits has been arrested." Hitler called the fire a "sign from God" and claimed it was a signal meant to mark the beginning of a communist revolt. The next day, the Prussian Press Service reported that "this act of incendiarism is the most monstrous act of terrorism carried out by Bolshevism in Germany". The "Vossische Zeitung" newspaper warned its readers that "the government is of the opinion that the situation is such that a danger to the state and nation existed and still exists".


title: Reichstag fire

text: Walter Gempp was head of the Berlin fire department at the time of the Reichstag fire on 27 February 1933, personally directing the operations at the incident. On 25 March he was dismissed for presenting evidence that suggested Nazi involvement in the fire. Gempp asserted that there had been a delay in notifying the fire brigade and that he had been forbidden from making full use of the resources at his disposal. In 1937, Gempp was arrested for abuse of office. Despite his appeal, he was imprisoned. Gempp was strangled and killed in prison on 2 May 1939.


title: Reichstag fire

text: The day after the fire, at Hitler's request, President Hindenburg signed the Reichstag Fire Decree into law by using Article 48 of the Weimar Constitution. The Reichstag Fire Decree suspended most civil liberties in Germany, including "habeas corpus", freedom of expression, freedom of the press, the right of free association and public assembly, and the secrecy of the post and telephone. These rights were not reinstated during Nazi reign. The decree was used by the Nazis to ban publications not considered "friendly" to the Nazi cause. Despite the fact that Marinus van der Lubbe claimed to have acted alone in the Reichstag fire, Hitler, after having obtained his emergency powers, announced that it was the start of a wider communist effort to take over Germany. Nazi Party newspapers then published this fabricated "news". This sent the German population into a panic and isolated the communists further among the civilians; additionally, thousands of communists were imprisoned in the days following the fire (including leaders of the Communist Party of Germany) on the charge that the Party was preparing to stage a "putsch". Speaking to Rudolph Diels about communists during the Reichstag fire, Hitler said "These sub-humans do not understand how the people stand at our side. In their mouse-holes, out of which they now want to come, of course they hear nothing of the cheering of the masses." With communist electoral participation also suppressed (the communists previously polled 17% of the vote), the Nazis were able to increase their share of the vote in the 5 March 1933 "Reichstag" elections from 33% to 44%. This gave the Nazis and their allies, the German National People's Party (who won 8% of the vote), a majority of 52% in the "Reichstag".


title: Reichstag fire

text: While the Nazis emerged with a majority, they fell short of their goal, which was to win 50–55% of the vote that year. The Nazis thought that this would make it difficult to achieve their next goal, passage of the Enabling Act giving Hitler the right to rule by decree, which required a two-thirds majority. However, several important factors weighed in the Nazis' favour, mainly the continued suppression of the Communist Party and the Nazis' ability to capitalize on national security concerns. Moreover, some deputies of the Social Democratic Party (the only party that would vote against the Enabling Act) were prevented from taking their seats in the "Reichstag", due to arrests and intimidation by the Nazi SA. As a result, the Social Democratic Party would be under-represented in the final vote tally. The Enabling Act passed easily on 23 March 1933, with the support of the right-wing German National People's Party, the Centre Party, and several fragmented middle-class parties. The measure went into force on 24 March, effectively making Hitler dictator of Germany.


title: Reichstag fire

text: The Kroll Opera House, sitting across the "Königsplatz" from the burned-out Reichstag building, functioned as the Reichstag's venue for the remaining 12 years of the Third Reich's existence.


title: Reichstag fire

text: In July 1933, Marinus van der Lubbe, Ernst Torgler, Georgi Dimitrov, Blagoi Popov, and Vasil Tanev were indicted on charges of setting the "Reichstag" on fire. From 21 September to 23 December 1933, the Leipzig Trial took place and was presided over by judges from the German Supreme Court, the "Reichsgericht". This was Germany's highest court. The presiding judge was Judge Dr. Wilhelm Bünger of the Fourth Criminal Court of the Fourth Penal Chamber of the Supreme Court. The accused were charged with arson and with attempting to overthrow the government.


title: Reichstag fire

text: The Leipzig Trial was widely publicized and was broadcast on the radio. It was expected that the court would find the communists guilty on all counts.