title: Habsburg monarchy

text: Within the early modern Habsburg monarchy, each entity was governed according to its own particular customs. Until the mid 17th century, not all of the provinces were even necessarily ruled by the same person—junior members of the family often ruled portions of the Hereditary Lands as private apanages. Serious attempts at centralization began under Maria Theresa and especially her son Joseph II in the mid to late 18th century, but many of these were abandoned following large scale resistance to Joseph's more radical reform attempts, although a more cautious policy of centralization continued during the revolutionary period and the Metternichian period that followed.


title: Habsburg monarchy

text: Another attempt at centralization began in 1849 following the suppression of the various revolutions of 1848. For the first time, ministers tried to transform the monarchy into a centralized bureaucratic state ruled from Vienna. The Kingdom of Hungary was placed under martial law, being divided into a series of military districts, the centralized neo-absolutism tried to as well to nullify Hungary's constitution and Diet. Following the Habsburg defeats in the Wars of 1859 and 1866, these policies were step by step abandoned.


title: Habsburg monarchy

text: After experimentation in the early 1860s, the famous Austro-Hungarian Compromise of 1867 was arrived at, by which the so-called dual monarchy of Austria-Hungary was set up. In this system, the Kingdom of Hungary ("Lands of the Holy Hungarian Crown of St. Stephen.") was an equal sovereign with only a personal union and a joint foreign and military policy connecting it to the other Habsburg lands. Although the non-Hungarian Habsburg lands were referred to as "Austria", received their own central parliament (the "Reichsrat", or Imperial Council) and ministries, as their official name – the "Kingdoms and Lands Represented in the Imperial Council". When Bosnia and Herzegovina was annexed (after a long period of occupation and administration), it was not incorporated into either half of the monarchy. Instead, it was governed by the joint Ministry of Finance.


title: Habsburg monarchy

text: In the Dissolution of Austria-Hungary the nation collapsed under the weight of the various ethnic independence movements that came to the fore with its defeat in World War I. After its dissolution, the new republics of Austria (the German-Austrian territories of the Hereditary lands) and the First Hungarian Republic were created. In the peace settlement that followed, significant territories were ceded to Romania and Italy and the remainder of the monarchy's territory was shared out among the new states of Poland, Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes (later Yugoslavia), and Czechoslovakia.


title: Habsburg monarchy

text: A junior line ruled over the Grand Duchy of Tuscany between 1765 and 1801, and again from 1814 to 1859. While exiled from Tuscany, this line ruled at Salzburg from 1803 to 1805, and in Grand Duchy of Würzburg from 1805 to 1814. Another line ruled the Duchy of Modena from 1814 to 1859, while Empress Marie Louise, Napoleon's second wife and the daughter of Austrian Emperor Francis, ruled over the Duchy of Parma between 1814 and 1847. Also, the Second Mexican Empire, from 1863 to 1867, was headed by Maximilian I of Mexico, the brother of Emperor Franz Josef of Austria.


title: Habsburg monarchy

text: The so-called "Habsburg monarchs" or "Habsburg emperors" held many different titles and ruled each kingdom separately through a personal union.


title: Habsburg monarchy

text: The most famous memoir on the decline of the Habsburg Empire is Stefan Zweig's "The World of Yesterday".


title: TMNT (film)

text: TMNT is a 2007 computer-animated superhero film written and directed by Kevin Munroe (in his feature directorial debut), and based on the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles characters created by Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird. It is the first animated film in the "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles" film franchise. The film features an ensemble voice cast starring Chris Evans, Sarah Michelle Gellar, Mako, Kevin Smith, Patrick Stewart, and Ziyi Zhang with narration by Laurence Fishburne. The story sees the four Turtles —— Leonardo, Raphael, Donatello, and Michelangelo (voiced respectively by James Arnold Taylor, Nolan North, Mitchell Whitfield, and Mikey Kelley) —— having grown apart after their final defeat of their arch-enemy, the Shredder, but are set to reunite and overcome their faults to save the world from evil ancient creatures.


title: TMNT (film)

text: "TMNT" was released theatrically in the United States on March 23, 2007, by Warner Bros. Pictures, and internationally by The Weinstein Company. It was the first of two films produced by Imagi Animation Studios. The film received mixed reviews from critics, but it was a small commercial success, grossing $95 million worldwide against a budget of $34 million. Planned sequels were cancelled after Viacom acquired the franchise in 2009, rebooting the film series with the live-action "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles" in 2014.


title: TMNT (film)

text: In ancient times, warlord Yaotl opens a portal into a parallel universe that grants him immortality and petrifies his four generals. The portal also releases thirteen immortal monsters that destroy his army and his enemies while becoming famous mythical monsters as centuries pass.


title: TMNT (film)

text: In the present, the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles grow apart after defeating the Shredder. For training, Master Splinter sends Leonardo to Central America, where he becomes the protector of a village. Donatello works as an IT specialist, Michelangelo works as a birthday party entertainer named "Cowabunga Carl", and Raphael continues to fight crime as a masked vigilante known as the Nightwatcher, which he keeps a secret. The Turtles' old friend April O'Neil now operates a shipping company that acquires relics for collectors, assisted by her boyfriend, Casey Jones.


title: TMNT (film)

text: After traveling to Central America for work, April tells Leo his brothers have drifted apart. She then returns to New York City with a statue for wealthy tycoon Max Winters. Winters hires Shredder's former second-in-command, Karai and her ninja Foot Clan to search the city for the thirteen monsters before the portal opens again. Casey figures out Raph's double identity and joins him in hunting criminals. Winters, who is actually Yaotl, reanimates his four stone generals using technology created by his company.


title: TMNT (film)

text: Leo returns to the Turtles' sewer lair, reuniting with his family. Splinter forbids them from fighting crime until they can act as a team again. While training, the Turtles encounter one of the thirteen beasts, Bigfoot. They engage Bigfoot, disobeying Splinter's orders, and come into conflict with the Foot Clan in the process. While the Turtles and ninja fight, a fleeing Bigfoot is captured by the generals. The next day, Splinter admonishes his sons for their disobedience. Raphael later visits Casey, and they encounter Vampire Succubor, another one of the monsters. They witness its capture by the Foot and the Stone Generals but are spotted. Despite a successful escape, Raph is rendered unconscious. Casey and April take care of Raph and call the other Turtles for help. Together, they figure out the identities of Yaotl and his generals. After being revived, Raph suggests they pursue Yaotl, but Leonardo refuses to act until Splinter gives his permission. Raph decides to investigate alone.


title: TMNT (film)

text: Donatello discovers the next portal will open over Winters' tower, and Splinter tells Leonardo they need Raphael. Meanwhile, Yaotl reveals that he wishes to turn his generals back into humans and break the curse that keeps them alive. The generals conspire to betray Yaotl, wanting to remain immortal. As the Nightwatcher, Raph patrols the city. Leo, not recognizing his brother, pursues the Nightwatcher, believing him to be just a regular thug. In the ensuing fight, Leo discovers that the Nightwatcher's identity and Raph breaks his swords. After almost killing his brother, Raphael flees in a fit of guilt and shame. The generals seize a weakened Leo, intending to substitute him for the thirteenth beast, and Raph decides to make amends by rescuing Leo. As the portal opens, Yaotl discovers his generals' treachery, while Splinter and the Turtles, accompanied by Casey and April, fight their way through a Foot Clan cordon and breach the tower.


title: TMNT (film)

text: Refusing to betray Yaotl, Karai and the Foot Clan work together with April and Casey, searching for the final monster, the Sea Monster, while the Turtles fight the generals. April, Casey, and Karai arrive at the tower with the Sea Monster, which crashes into the Generals, dragging them into the portal before it closes. Karai warns them to enjoy their victory while it lasts, cryptically saying they will soon contend with faces from their past before vanishing. A now-mortal Yaotl thanks the heroes for fulfilling his wish and dissipates into the afterlife. As they return to their roles as the shadowy guardians of New York City, Raph says that the Turtles will always be brothers.


title: TMNT (film)

text: A computer-animated "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles" (TMNT) movie was first announced in 2000, with John Woo supposedly at the helm, with the project languishing in development hell and Woo ultimately moved on to other projects. "TMNT", executive produced by the characters' co-creator Peter Laird, departs from the previous films' live action style and is the first CG animated film in the series. Writer/director Kevin Munroe said that he wanted to do total CGI instead of live action and CGI turtles because it would be easier for the audience to "suspend disbelief for such an offbeat story" as there would be no break in the reality between CGI and live action. Producer Tom Gray explained that the decision to depart from the live action series was due to escalating budgets for the three films, and with each film making less than its predecessor, a CGI film became a reality. For example, the first film made $135.2 million on a budget of $13.5 million, and the third made $44 million on a budget of $21 million. Orange Sky Golden Harvest's rights to the franchise had expired, and Gray said the question arose there over a CGI TMNT film in 2004.


title: TMNT (film)

text: Munroe stated in terms of the story line that ideas were floated as extreme as the Turtles being in space, but eventually it just came back to New York City, and the theme of the family that had fallen apart. When developing the screenplay, Munroe wanted to take on a less lighthearted tone or "less Cowabunga" and place an emphasis on dark elements as shown in the original comics to appeal to the mature audience: "I had a very specific tone because mixing that sort of action and comedy is a very specific thing. Most people were just coming and wanting to make it too funny. I think that version of the movie could do really well, but we wanted to do something where it sort of pushes the envelope a little bit more and says that animation is more than just comedic animals bumping into each other and farting!"


title: TMNT (film)

text: Munroe said that in design and in the rendering of the animation, he was after the feel of a comic book. Karai was one of Munroe's favorite characters from the comics and he "was the one who really pushed for Karai" to appear in the film. TMNT co-creator Peter Laird stated it takes place in its own universe separate from the previous films, but director Munroe says the film exists in the same continuity as the other films, which was supported by the memento wall at the end of the film.


title: TMNT (film)

text: Development and pre-production for "TMNT" began in June 2005 at Imagi's Los Angeles facility and the CGI animation was produced in Hong Kong, followed by post-production in Hollywood. In designing the New York backdrop, art director/concept artist Simon Murton stylized the familiar Manhattan skyline and urban landscapes: "We began with cinematic cues from certain black-and-white films from the 1940s and '50s. I really wanted to push the lighting and the environments to create the look and feel of an alternate reality".


title: TMNT (film)

text: The animators that worked on the fight sequences were inspired by Hong Kong action films. Animation director Kim Ooi explains said that because of CGI they were able to "push and stylize beyond the limits of live action." Imagi used Autodesk Maya with Pixar's RenderMan for the production pipeline's back-end.


title: TMNT (film)

text: Jim Cummings was the only past TMNT actor to appear in this film, where he had previously contributed voice-work in the 1987 "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles" series. The film also features three voice actors in the "Ratchet & Clank" series, Mikey Kelley and Kevin Michael Richardson from the first game, and James Arnold Taylor from the others, playing Michelangelo, General Aguila, and Leonardo, respectively.


title: TMNT (film)

text: "TMNT" would be Mako Iwamatsu's final acting role. Mako was announced as the voice of Splinter at the San Diego Comic-Con on July 20, 2006. He then died the next day, aged 72. A dedication to Mako appears at the end of the film's credits. Although Mako is the only actor credited in the role, Greg Baldwin performs a substantial portion of Splinter's dialogue in the finished film; Baldwin had already mimicked Mako's voice when he took up the late actor's role as Iroh in the concurrently-produced animated series "", and used this precedent to successfully lobby to join the cast of "TMNT" as Splinter following Mako's death.


title: TMNT (film)

text: The licensed soundtrack "TMNT: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles" was released by Atlantic Records in 2007.


title: TMNT (film)

text: At the 2006 San Diego Comic-Con, the "TMNT" panel screened an exclusive preview that contained a Splinter voice-over with facial tests, concept art, muscle and dynamic fight tests, and a few comedic scenes. A sneak peek booklet containing storyboards, environment designs and character designs by comic artist Jeff Matsuda was also distributed at the convention.


title: TMNT (film)

text: Several tie-in products were released in 2007. The McDonald's fast-food chain had the film-based toys to collect with the purchase of a Happy Meal. A series of action figures based in the film's characters was released by Playmates Toys. A novelization, adapted from Munroe's screenplay by Steve Murphy, was published by Simon Spotlight. A five-issue prequel comic miniseries was published by Mirage Comics.


title: TMNT (film)

text: The trailer was released in July 2006, and it was shown in front of The Ant Bully. The trailer was also shown in front of Unaccompanied Minors in December 2006.


title: TMNT (film)

text: "TMNT" was released theatrically in the United States on March 23, 2007, by Warner Bros. Pictures, and internernationally by The Weinstein Company. The film was originally set for release domestically (USA and Canada) on March 30, 2007, which would have been the 17th anniversary of the release of the first TMNT film. The March 30 date was advertised in the teaser trailer and early posters, but the release was moved up to March 23.


title: TMNT (film)

text: A home media edition of "TMNT" was released on August 7, 2007, for the DVD, HD DVD and Blu-ray. In 2009, a box set with all four "TMNT" films was released to celebrate the franchise's 25th anniversary.


title: TMNT (film)

text: The DVD release contains several special features, including commentary on the feature by writer/director Kevin Munroe; an alternate opening and an alternate ending to the film, and interviews with some of the featured voice talent as well as the filmmakers.


title: TMNT (film)

text: "TMNT" ranked number one at the box office on its opening weekend, beating "300" (the top film of the previous two weeks), "The Last Mimzy", "Shooter", "Pride", "The Hills Have Eyes 2", and "Reign Over Me". Weekend estimates showed that the film made $25.45 million over the weekend of March 23–25, 2007. The film grossed over $95 million worldwide, including over $54 million domestically during its 91-day run in the 3,120 North American theaters.


title: TMNT (film)

text: On the review aggregation website Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds an approval rating of based on reviews with an average rating of . The critical consensus states, ""TMNT"'s art direction is splendid, but the plot is non-existent and the dialogue lacks the irony and goofy wit of the earlier TMNT movies." On Metacritic the film has a score of 41 out of 100 based on reviews from 21 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews". Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film a grade "A−" on a scale from A+ to F.


title: TMNT (film)

text: Claudia Puig of "USA Today" gave a negative review, stating that the film "is trying for a new image. But it takes more than an awkward title attempting to sound cool to overcome its mundane plot and silly dialogue". Michael Ordona of the "Los Angeles Times" wrote that "despite the doll-like cartoonishness of the human figures, the filmmakers seem to expect us to take this animated romp seriously. Too seriously". Wesley Morris of the "Boston Globe" called the film "a junk-food pastry. The plot is the wrapper. The action is the oily sponge cake. And the message—family, family, family—is the processed cream filling".


title: TMNT (film)

text: Todd Gilchrist of IGN gave the film a positive review, calling it "a fun, action-filled adventure that will satisfy longtime fans and generate a legion of new ones, whether it be by virtue of simple storytelling, solid CGI, choreographed action, or just the spirit and energy that only the Turtles can create".


title: TMNT (film)

text: Stephen Hunter of "The Washington Post" felt that the film "is technically superb and quite enjoyable as long as you don't bang your head against the plot, which will cause hot flashes, premature aging and fallen arches".


title: TMNT (film)

text: According to Steven Rea of "The Philadelphia Inquirer", the film is "not so dark or scary as to keep most kids away" and it "has a cool, noirish sheen. There's an attention to detail in the visuals and sound design that pushes it up several notches above most kiddie fare".


title: TMNT (film)

text: At the 35th Annie Awards, "TMNT" received a nomination for Outstanding Storyboarding in a Feature Production (Sean Song). It was nominated for Best Comic Book Movie at the 2007 Scream Awards.


title: TMNT (film)

text: Three beat'em up/action adventure game/platformer adaptations of the film were developed and released by Ubisoft in 2007 for a variety of video game consoles. A mobile game "TMNT: The Power of 4" was also developed by Overloaded and released by uClick that same year. In addition, characters from the film are available in Ubisoft's 2009 Wii and PlayStation 2 fighting game "", while artworks from the film are available in this game as unlockable content.


title: TMNT (film)

text: In 2007, Munroe stated that he would like to direct a possible sequel to "TMNT", possibly involving the return of the Shredder. Munroe planned a trilogy. "TMNT 2" would have loosely adapted the Turtles’ 13-part comic book saga "City At War". Michelangelo would have felt rejected and joined the Foot Clan, while the Turtles would have traveled to Japan and would have crossed paths with Karai and Shredder. "TMNT 3" would have featured the Triceratons as well as the Technodrome’s arrival from Dimension X. Munroe wanted Michael Clarke Duncan to voice the Triceraton's leader, Commander Mozar. YouTube commentator RebelTaxi noted that these sequels couldn't materialize due to Munroe leaving the studio, layoffs and "Astro Boy" (2009) being a box office bomb. In an interview, Peter Laird stated he was interested in the idea of having the next film be a live-action and CGI hybrid film, with the Turtles rendered in CGI and Sarah Michelle Gellar and Chris Evans reprising their "TMNT" roles in live-action. This concept would later evolve into "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles", an unrelated reboot released in 2014 produced by Michael Bay.


title: Young Turks

text: Young Turks ( or ) was a political reform movement in the early 20th century that favored the replacement of the Ottoman Empire's absolute monarchy with a constitutional government. They led a rebellion against the absolute rule of Sultan Abdulhamid II in the 1908 Young Turk Revolution. With this revolution, the Young Turks helped to establish the Second Constitutional Era in the same year, ushering in an era of multi-party democracy for the first time in the country's history.


title: Young Turks

text: Despite working with the Young Ottomans to promulgate a constitution, Abdulhamid II had dissolved the parliament by 1878 and returned to an absolutist regime, marked by extensive use of secret police to silence dissent, and by massacres committed against minorities. Constitutionalist opponents of his regime, most prominently Prince Sabahaddin and Ahmet Rıza, among other intellectuals, came to be known as Young Turks. Despite the name, Young Turks included many Arabs, Albanians, Jews, and initially, Armenians and Greeks. To organize the opposition, forward-thinking medical students Ibrahim Temo, Abdullah Cevdet and others formed a secret organization named the Committee of Ottoman Union (later Committee of Union and Progress - CUP), which grew in size and included exiles, civil servants, and army officers. Finally, in 1908 in the Young Turk Revolution, pro-CUP officers marched on Istanbul, forcing Abdulhamid to restore the constitution. An attempted countercoup resulted in his deposition.


title: Young Turks

text: Young Turks were a heterodox group of secular liberal intellectuals and revolutionaries, united by their opposition to the absolutist regime of Abdulhamid and desire to reinstate the constitution. After the revolution, the Young Turks began to splinter and two main factions formed: more liberal and pro-decentralization Young Turks (including the CUP's original founders) formed the , the Ottoman Liberty Party and later the Freedom and Accord Party (also known as the Liberal Union or Liberal Entente). The Turkish nationalist, pro-centralization and radical wing among the Young Turks remained in the Committee of Union and Progress. The groups' power struggle continued until 1913, when the Grand Vizier Mahmut Şevket Pasha was assassinated, allowing the CUP to take over all institutions. The new CUP leadership (Three Pashas) established a one party state and exercised absolute control over the Ottoman Empire, overseeing the Empire's entry into World War I on the side of the Central Powers during the war. The CUP regime also planned and executed the Late Ottoman genocides as part of their Turkification policies.


title: Young Turks

text: Following the war, the struggle between the two groups of Young Turks revived, with the Freedom and Accord Party regaining control of the Ottoman government and conducting a purge of Unionists with assistance from the Allied powers. The Three Pashas fled into exile. Freedom and Accord rule was short-lived, and with Mustafa Kemal Pasha (Atatürk) stirring up nationalist sentiment in Anatolia, the Empire soon collapsed.


title: Young Turks

text: The term "Young Turk" is now used to signify "an insurgent person trying to take control of a situation or organization by force or political maneuver," and various groups in different countries have been named Young Turks because of their rebellious or revolutionary nature. Members of the CUP were known as Unionists, while for most of the world, the Unionists were conflated with the larger Young Turks movement.


title: Young Turks

text: Inspired by the Young Italy political movement, the Young Turks had their origins in secret societies of "progressive medical university students and military cadets," namely the Young Ottomans, driven underground along with all political dissent after the Constitution of 1876 was abolished and the First Constitutional Era brought to a close by Abdulhamid II in 1878 after only two years. The Young Turks favored a reinstatement of the Ottoman Parliament and the 1876 constitution, written by the reformist Midhat Pasha.


title: Young Turks

text: The was held on 4 February 1902, at 20:00, at the house of Germain Antoin Lefevre-Pontalis a member of the Institut de France. The opposition was performed in compliance with the French government. Closed to the public, there were 47 delegates present. The Armenians wanted to have the conversations held in French, but other delegates rejected this proposition.


title: Young Turks

text: The Second Congress of Ottoman Opposition took place in Paris, France, in 1907. Opposition leaders including Ahmed Rıza, Sabahaddin Bey, and Khachatur Malumian of the Armenian Revolutionary Federation were in attendance. The goal was to unite all the parties, including the Young Turks' Committee of Union and Progress, in order to bring about a revolution to reinstate the constitution.


title: Young Turks

text: The Young Turks became a truly organized movement with the Committee of Union and Progress (CUP) as an organizational umbrella. They recruited individuals hoping for the establishment of a constitutional monarchy in the Ottoman Empire. In 1906, the Ottoman Freedom Society (OFS) was established in Thessalonica by Mehmed Talaat. The OFS actively recruited members from the Third Army base, among them Major Ismail Enver. In September 1907, OFS announced they would be working with other organizations under the umbrella of the CUP. In reality, the leadership of the OFS would exert significant control over the CUP.


title: Young Turks

text: In 1908, the Macedonian Question was facing the Ottoman Empire. Tsar Nicholas II and Franz Joseph, who were both interested in the Balkans, started implementing policies, beginning in 1897, which brought on the last stages of the Balkanization process. By 1903, there were discussions on establishing administrative control by Russian and Austrian advisory boards in the Macedonian provinces. Abdulhamid was forced to accept this idea, although for quite a while he was able to subvert its implementation.


title: Young Turks

text: However, eventually, signs were showing that this policy game was coming to an end. On May 13, 1908, the leadership of the CUP, with the newly gained power of its organization, was able to communicate to Sultan Abdulhamid II the unveiled threat that "the [Ottoman] dynasty would be in danger" if he were not to bring back the Ottoman constitution that he had previously suspended since 1878. On June 12, 1908, the Third Army, which was in Macedonia, began its march towards the Palace in Constantinople. Although initially resistant to the idea of giving up absolute power, Abdulhamid was forced on July 24, 1908, to restore the constitution, beginning the Second Constitutional Era of the Ottoman Empire.


title: Young Turks

text: During the parliamentary recess of this era, the Young Turks held their first open Congress at Salonica, on September–October 1911. There, they proclaimed a series of policies involving the disarming of Christians and preventing them from buying property, Muslim settlements in Christian territories, and the complete Ottomanization of all Turkish subjects, either by persuasion or by the force of arms. The unity among the Young Turks that originated from the Young Turk Revolution began to splinter in face of the realities of the ongoing dissolution of the Ottoman Empire, especially with the onset of the Balkan Wars in 1912. By 1913, the CUP banned all other political parties, creating a one party state. The Ottoman Parliament became a rubber stamp and real policy debate was held within the CUP's Central Committee.


title: Young Turks

text: On November 2, 1914, the Ottoman Empire entered World War I on the side of the Central Powers. The Middle Eastern theatre of World War I became the scene of action. The combatants were the Ottoman Empire, with some assistance from the other Central Powers, against primarily the British and the Russians among the Allies. Rebuffed elsewhere by the major European powers, the Young Turks, through highly secret diplomatic negotiations, led the Ottoman Empire to ally itself with Germany. The Young Turks needed to modernize the Empire's communications and transportation networks without putting themselves in the hands of European bankers. Europeans already owned much of the country's railroad system, and since 1881, the administration of the defaulted Ottoman foreign debt had been in European hands. During the War, the Young Turk empire was "virtually an economic colony on the verge of total collapse."


title: Young Turks

text: At the end of the War, with the collapse of Bulgaria and Germany's capitulation, Talaat Pasha and the CUP ministry resigned on October 13, 1918, and the Armistice of Mudros was signed aboard a British battleship in the Aegean Sea. On November 2, Enver, Talaat and Cemal, along with their German allies, fled from Istanbul into exile.


title: Young Turks

text: The conflicts at the Caucasus Campaign, the Persian Campaign, and the Gallipoli Campaign affected places where Armenians lived in significant numbers. Before the declaration of war at the Armenian congress at Erzurum, the Ottoman government asked Ottoman Armenians to facilitate the conquest of Transcaucasia by inciting a rebellion among the Russian Armenians against the tsarist army in the event of a Caucasian Front.


title: Young Turks

text: Jakob Künzler, head of a missionary hospital in Urfa, documented the large scale ethnic cleansing of both Armenians and Kurds under the Three Pashas during World War I. He gave a detailed account of deportation of Armenians from Erzurum and Bitlis in the winter of 1916. The Armenians were perceived to be subversive elements (a fifth column) that would take the Russian side in the war. In order to eliminate this threat, the Ottoman government embarked on a large scale deportation of Armenians from the regions of Djabachdjur, Palu, Musch, Erzurum, and Bitlis. Around 300,000 Armenians were forced to move southwards to Urfa and then westwards to Aintab and Marash. In the summer of 1917, Armenians were moved to the Konya region in central Anatolia. Through these measures, the CUP leaders aimed to eliminate the ostensible Armenian threat by deporting them from their ancestral lands and by dispersing them in small pockets of exiled communities. By the end of World War I, up to 1,200,000 Armenians were forcibly deported from their home vilayets. As a result, about half of the displaced died of exposure, hunger, and disease, or were victims of banditry and forced labor.


title: Young Turks

text: Around this period, the CUP's relationship to the Armenian genocide shifted. Early on, Armenians had perceived the CUP as allies; and the beginnings of the genocide, in the 1909 Adana massacre, had been rooted in reactionary Ottoman backlash against the Young Turks' revolution. But during World War I, the CUP's increasing nationalism began to lead them to participate in the genocide. In 2005, the International Association of Genocide Scholars affirmed that scholarly evidence revealed the CUP "government of the Ottoman Empire began a systematic genocide of its Armenian citizens and unarmed Christian minority population. More than a million Armenians were exterminated through direct killing, starvation, torture, and forced death marches."


title: Young Turks

text: A guiding principle for the Young Turks was the transformation of their society into one in which religion played no consequential role, a stark contrast from the theocracy that had ruled the Ottoman Empire since its inception. However, the Young Turks soon recognized the difficulty of spreading this idea among the deeply religious Ottoman peasantry and even much of the elite. The Young Turks thus began suggesting that Islam itself was materialistic. As compared with later efforts by Muslim intellectuals, such as the attempt to reconcile Islam and socialism, this was an extremely difficult endeavor. Although some former members of the CUP continued to make efforts in this field after the revolution of 1908, they were severely denounced by the Ulema, who accused them of "trying to change Islam into another form and create a new religion while calling it Islam".


title: Young Turks

text: Positivism, with its claim of being a religion of science, deeply impressed the Young Turks, who believed it could be more easily reconciled with Islam than could popular materialistic theories. The name of the society, Committee of Union and Progress, is believed to be inspired by leading positivist Auguste Comte's motto "Order and Progress". Positivism also served as a base for the desired strong government.


title: Young Turks

text: After the Committee of Union and Progress grabbed power in the 1913 coup and Mahmud Şevket Pasha's assassination, it embarked on a series of reforms in order to increase centralization in the Empire, an effort that had been ongoing since the last century's Tanzimat reforms under sultan Mahmud II. Many of the original Young Turks rejected this idea, especially those that had formed the Freedom and Accord Party against the CUP. Other opposition parties against the CUP like Prince Sabahaddin’s and the Arab Ottoman Party for Administrative Decentralization, both of which made opposition to the CUP’s centralization their main agenda.


title: Young Turks

text: In regards to nationalism, the Young Turks underwent a gradual transformation. Beginning with the Tanzimat with ethnically non-Turkish members participating at the outset, the Young Turks embraced the official state ideology: Ottomanism. However, Ottoman patriotism failed to strike root during the First Constitutional Era and the following years. Many ethnically non-Turkish Ottoman intellectuals rejected the idea because of its exclusive use of Turkish symbols. Turkish nationalists gradually gained the upper hand in politics, and following the 1902 Congress, a stronger focus on nationalism developed. It was at this time that Ahmed Rıza chose to replace the term "Ottoman" with "Turk," shifting the focus from Ottoman nationalism to Turkish nationalism.


title: Young Turks

text: The founder of modern Turkey, Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, is quoted on the front page of the 1 August 1926 "The Los Angeles Examiner" as denouncing the Young Turks and especially the CUP (the "Young Turk Party"):


title: Young Turks

text: Historian Uğur Ümit Üngör, in his book "The Making of Modern Turkey: Nation and State in Eastern Anatolia", has claimed that the "Republican People's Party, which was founded by Mustafa Kemal, was the successor of CUP and continued ethnic cleansing policies of its predecessor in Eastern Anatolia until the year 1950. Thus, Turkey was transformed into an ethnically homogenous state."


title: Young Turks

text: As to the fate of the Three Pashas, two of them, Talaat Pasha and Cemal Pasha, were assassinated by Armenian nationals shortly after the end of World War I while in exile in Europe during Operation Nemesis, a revenge operation against perpetrators of the Armenian genocide. Soghomon Tehlirian, whose family was killed in the Armenian genocide, assassinated the exiled Talaat Pasha in Berlin and was subsequently acquitted on all charges by a German jury. Cemal Pasha was similarly killed by Stepan Dzaghikian, Bedros Der Boghosian, and Ardashes Kevorkian for "crimes against humanity" in Tbilisi, Georgia. The third pasha, Enver Pasha, was killed in fighting against the Red Army unit under the command of Hakob Melkumian near Baldzhuan in Tajikistan (then Turkistan).


title: AMC Theatres

text: AMC Entertainment Holdings, Inc. (d/b/a AMC Theatres, originally an abbreviation for American Multi-Cinema; often referred to simply as AMC and known in some countries as AMC Cinemas or AMC Multi-Cinemas) is an American movie theater chain founded in Kansas City, Missouri and now headquartered in Leawood, Kansas. It is the largest movie theater chain in the world. Founded in 1920, AMC has the largest share of the U.S. theater market ahead of Regal and Cinemark Theatres.


title: AMC Theatres

text: After acquiring Odeon Cinemas, UCI Cinemas, and Carmike Cinemas in 2016, it became the largest movie theater chain in the world. It has 2,807 screens in 353 theatres in Europe and 7,755 screens in 593 theatres in the United States.


title: AMC Theatres

text: The company is listed on the New York Stock Exchange; from 2012 to 2018, the Chinese conglomerate Wanda Group owned a majority stake in the company. Private equity firm Silver Lake Partners made a $600 million investment in AMC in September 2018, but the voting power of AMC shares is structured in such a way that Wanda Group still controlled the majority of AMC's board of directors.


title: AMC Theatres

text: Amid financial downturns caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, in January 2021 Wanda's ownership was increasingly diluted due to new financing by AMC, as well as short squeezes which resulted in Silver Lake converting its $600 million debt holding to equity. In early-February 2021, Wanda converted its Class B shares to Class A shares, thus reducing its voting power to less than 50%.


title: AMC Theatres

text: AMC Theatres was formed in 1920 by Maurice, Edward, and Barney Dubinsky, who had been traveling the Midwest performing melodramas and tent shows with actress Jeanne Eagels. They purchased the Regent Theatre on 12th Street between Walnut and Grand in downtown Kansas City, Missouri. The Dubinskys eventually changed their name to Durwood, and the company they formed eventually became known as Durwood Theatres. The chain also had theaters in St. Joseph and Jefferson City, Missouri and Leavenworth and Topeka, Kansas.


title: AMC Theatres

text: When Edward's son Stanley left the U.S. Air Force after World War II he joined the company in 1945. He persuaded his father to build drive-in theaters and built them in St. Joseph, Jefferson City and Leavenworth. In 1947 they expanded further with the acquisition of the Liberty Theater in downtown Kansas City which they remodeled and renamed the Roxy. They won an anti-trust suit to enable them to show first-run product at the Roxy and went on to acquire all of the downtown cinemas in Kansas City including The Empire Theater, the Capri Theatre, the Midland Theatre and the Paramount Theatre.


title: AMC Theatres

text: In 1961, after Ed died, Stanley took control of Durwood Theatres, which by then was a small ten-theatre chain. With an interstate planned around Kansas City, Durwood looked to sites outside downtown and acquired two sites at a shopping center on Kansas City's Ward Parkway to build a 700-seat theater. As the sites could not be combined, they opened two theaters side-by-side as the Parkway Twin theatre in 1963. This was the company's first foray into using the multiplex model. According to "Variety", Stanley Durwood later claimed in 1962 that he "was standing in the lobby of his 600-seat Roxy in Kansas City mulling over its poor grosses, when he realized he could double his box office by adding a second screen and still operate with the same size staff."


title: AMC Theatres

text: Following the success of the Parkway Twin, AMC followed up with the Embassy 3 triplex at the Country Club Plaza; the Metro Plaza, a four-screen theater in Kansas City in 1966; and a six-screen theater in Omaha in 1969.


title: AMC Theatres

text: The industry quickly embraced the multiplex concept, where additional screens meant very little difference in staff and operating costs but resulted in a significant increase in profits. The concept also provided more film choices at one location, drawing bigger crowds. It also gave owners the flexibility to show big hits on more screens, and less reliance on any individual film that could turn out to be a bust.


title: AMC Theatres

text: Stanley renamed Durwood Theatres as American Royal Cinema on October 1, 1968 after the American Royal livestock and horse show, but the latter's producers sought an injunction and the name was changed to American Multi-Cinema, Inc.


title: AMC Theatres

text: Stanley began to apply military management and the insights of management science to revolutionize the movie theatre industry. As he later explained to "Variety" magazine, "We needed to define what our company was doing in the (exhibition) business. My dad wasn't that organized." It was structured under the belief that every customer was a "guest".


title: AMC Theatres

text: By the 1980s, the company was experiencing strong growth and in 1983 it had its initial public offering. AMC Theatres built its first multiplex overseas in 1985, the 10-screen multiplex at The Point, Milton Keynes in the United Kingdom, and later opened additional sites in the UK such as in Dudley and Tamworth, Staffordshire. In October 1988, they announced a joint venture with United Artists and Cinema International Corporation (a partnership of Paramount Pictures and Universal Studios), to run their combined cinemas in the UK, Ireland under the AMC name, however, AMC pulled out of the joint venture in December 1988, and sold their U.K. assets, including their 12 cinemas, to the new entity (later called United Cinemas International) for $98 million and withdrew from the UK market.


title: AMC Theatres

text: In 1995, AMC Theatres pioneered the first North American megaplex, a theater that could accommodate thousands, when it opened the AMC Grand 24 in Dallas, Texas; the first megaplex in the world had been built by European chain Kinepolis in 1988. AMC continued to open other megaplex theaters, such as the AMC Hampton Towne Center 24 in Hampton, Virginia, and the chain's busiest theater in the US, the AMC Empire 25 in New York City near Times Square.


title: AMC Theatres

text: On December 13, 1996, AMC opened the Ontario Mills 30, a 30-screen theater in Ontario, California, which at the time was the largest multiplex in the world. AMC Theatres' megaplex theatres were a success overseas as well. In April 1996, they opened Canal City 13 in Fukuoka, Japan which was followed on December 20, 1996, by the AMC Arrábida 20 in Porto, Portugal. In January 2002, the 16-screen Great Northern theatre was opened in Manchester in the U.K., which was later supplemented by the opening of a 12-screen cinema on the Broadway Plaza site in Birmingham in October 2003. AMC Theatres sometimes serve a dual function; in addition to the normal cinema functions, they also cater to companies' business conferences which can make use of their projectors for displaying presentations.


title: AMC Theatres

text: In 2004, AMC Theatres was acquired by Marquee Holdings Inc., an investment vehicle controlled by affiliates of J.P. Morgan Partners, LLC, the private equity arm of JPMorgan Chase, and Apollo Global Management, a private investment firm. At the time, AMC was publicly traded on AMEX under the code AEN.


title: AMC Theatres

text: In 2006, the company announced a new initial public offering (IPO) expected to be worth approximately $789 million; however, adverse market conditions convinced the company's management to withdraw from such an offering on May 3, 2007. The company filed for a $450 million IPO in its third such filing since 2006 on July 14, 2010.


title: AMC Theatres

text: Stanley Durwood died in 1999, and his successor was Peter Brown, the first non-Dubinsky/Durwood family member to head the company. Gerardo I. Lopez succeeded Brown as president and CEO of AMC Theatres on March 2, 2009. Previously, Lopez was the Executive Vice President of President Consumer Products Group, Seattle's Best Coffee, and Foodservice at Starbucks. Under new leadership, one of the first major announcements came in March of the same year; the company announced that it would equip 1,500 of its screens with Real D projectors. In the same month, AMC Theatres announced it had closed on a $315 million deal with Sony to replace all of its reel projectors with digital cinema projectors, starting in the second quarter of 2009 and completing in 2012.


title: AMC Theatres

text: The company was formerly headquartered in downtown Kansas City. In September 2011, AMC Theatres announced plans to move its headquarters to a new $30 million four-story building designed by 360 Architecture in the Park Place development at 117th Street and Nall Avenue in Leawood, Kansas in suburban Kansas City. The state of Kansas had offered $47 million in incentives to get the 400 jobs to move.


title: AMC Theatres

text: After reaching a settlement with the state of Illinois regarding complaints from a disability rights organization in April 2012, AMC pledged to equip all of its theaters in the state with captioning and description services by 2014. The disability rights group had accused the company of only providing closed captioning or audio description systems at some of its locations in the state.


title: AMC Theatres

text: In May 2012, AMC Theatres was acquired by Chinese conglomerate Wanda Group, headquartered in Dalian, who paid $2.6 billion to acquire AMC's 5,048 screens in 347 theaters in the U.S. and Canada. The deal was finalized on September 4, 2012. The acquisition made Wanda the world's largest cinema chain. Wang Jianlin, CEO of Dalian Wanda Group, announced that the company would plan to spend $500 million renovating AMC locations.


title: AMC Theatres

text: AMC Theatres had eight movie theatres in Canada. In July 2012, four locations were sold to Cineplex Entertainment, and two more locations were sold to Empire Theatres and later acquired by Landmark Cinemas. The two remaining locations have since closed.


title: AMC Theatres

text: Gerardo I. Lopez announced his resignation as CEO of AMC in August 2015. Craig Ramsey was appointed as the interim CEO by the company board. In December 2015, AMC announced that Adam Aron would be the company's president and chief executive officer, as well as a member of the company's board of directors, beginning on January 4, 2016.


title: AMC Theatres

text: In March 2016, AMC Theatres announced it would acquire competitor Carmike Cinemas. In July 2016, Carmike's management accepted a revised offer, pending regulatory and shareholder approval. The deal was closed on December 25, 2016, making AMC the largest cinema chain in the United States.


title: AMC Theatres

text: On March 1, 2017, AMC Theatres CEO Adam Aron stated that the company would rebrand Carmike Cinemas locations under the AMC name; smaller locations were rebranded under the new banner AMC Classic (which repurposes trademarks associated with Carmike). Aron also announced a plan to rebrand its kitchen-equipped theaters as AMC Dine-In.


title: AMC Theatres

text: In July 2017, AMC Theatres announced they would be cutting $30 million in expenses by the end of the year. This cost reduction would be accomplished by reducing operating hours, cutting staffing levels, and other measures.


title: AMC Theatres

text: In September 2018, Silver Lake Partners made a $600 million investment in AMC Theatres, whose proceeds were used to repurchase approximately 32% of Wanda Group's class B common stock. However, the voting power of AMC's shares is structured in such a way (granting three votes per-share for each Class B share if its stake in the company is above 30%) that, even after reducing its ownership of AMC common stock to just under 50% by the end of 2019, Wanda Group continued to retain majority control over AMC's board of directors.


title: AMC Theatres

text: In October 2019, AMC began to offer on-demand rentals and purchases of digital film releases under the banner AMC Theatres On Demand. The service is tied to the company's Stubs loyalty program.


title: AMC Theatres

text: On March 18, 2020, AMC announced the closure of all of its theaters due to the COVID-19 pandemic, in compliance with CDC guidance against any gathering of over ten people. AMC said this shutdown would last for at least six to twelve weeks. On March 25, 2020, AMC furloughed all of its 600 corporate employees, including CEO Adam Aron. All furloughed corporate AMC employees and associates retain their active employment status, including all health benefits.


title: AMC Theatres

text: On April 28, 2020, AMC announced they would no longer carry films from Universal Pictures after NBCUniversal CEO Jeff Shell commented in "The Wall Street Journal" that the studio wanted to release films via premium video on-demand simultaneously with theatrical releases. The company threatened that this will also be done with any other studio "who unilaterally abandons current windowing practices absent good faith negotiations between us, so that they as distributor and we as exhibitor both benefit and neither are hurt from such changes."


title: AMC Theatres

text: On June 3, 2020, AMC stated that it had "substantial doubt" that it would remain in business. On July 28, 2020, AMC and Universal were able to resolve their dispute, with AMC agreeing to a shorter theatrical window of 17 days before Universal could release their films via premium VOD, as well as revenue sharing on the premium VOD window.


title: AMC Theatres

text: On August 20, 2020, AMC began the process of reopening selected locations in the United States where allowed under local health orders. In honor of the company's centennial year, AMC also offered a special 15-cent ticket promotion that day, promoted as "Movies in 2020 at 1920 Prices." The company aimed for at least two thirds of its locations to be open in time for the September 3 release of "Tenet". The company upgraded its air filtration systems to four times the rates before the pandemic and installed electrostatic sprayers in the auditoriums. In October 2020, the company reported that its existing cash resources "would be largely depleted by the end of 2020 or early 2021."


title: AMC Theatres

text: On January 26, 2021, AMC stated that it had raised $917 million in new funding, including $506 million in equity and new common shares, and commitments for $411 million in debt financing. The company stated that this new funding "should allow the company to make it through this dark coronavirus-impacted winter". The next day, as part of a wider series of short squeezes coordinated by the Reddit community r/wallstreetbets (which primarily targeted video game retailer GameStop), AMC experienced a major, 300% surge in its share price to a peak of $20.36. The surge triggered Silver Lake Partners' convertible bonds; on January 28, it reached an agreement to convert $600 million of its debt holdings in AMC to equity at $13.51 per-share. Mudrick Capital Management made nearly $200 million in profit off its holdings of AMC debt.


title: AMC Theatres

text: On February 5, 2021, a U.S.-based subsidiary of Wanda Group issued a filing with the SEC, stating that it had converted its Class B common stock to Class A shares to permit their sale. While Wanda remains AMC's largest single shareholder, the conversion, as well as AMC's financing efforts taking its stake below 37%, effectively surrenders its majority control since Class A stock only provides one vote per-share.


title: AMC Theatres

text: During its fourth-quarter earnings call in March 2021, the company reported that its revenue had fallen by 88% year-over-year. CEO Adam Aron stated that AMC was facing the "most challenging market conditions in the 100-year history of the company", but cited progress on COVID-19 vaccinations, decisions to allow cinemas in New York City and Los Angeles to re-open, and a "significant" number of upcoming blockbuster films as signs of optimism. Aron also confirmed that Wanda no longer had majority control, and the company would now "be governed like most other publicly traded companies with a wide array of shareholders".


title: AMC Theatres

text: In June 2021, retail investors poured into AMC stock reaching an all time high of over $70. AMC issued more shares in June, but warned potential investors against buying the shares "unless you are prepared to incur the risk of losing all or a substantial portion of your investment". The cinema chain operator said it believed current prices reflected "market and trading dynamics unrelated to our underlying business".


title: AMC Theatres

text: In the year to date, shares in AMC had soared 2,421% – despite its cinemas being largely shut during the pandemic.


title: AMC Theatres

text: In August 2021, the company revealed plans to begin accepting cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin for purchases in the future, which it would do in November 2021 for online purchases via PayPal. In April 2022, AMC added integration with BitPay as a payment provider to its mobile app.


title: AMC Theatres

text: On August 4, 2022, AMC Entertainment Holdings Inc. took Wall Street by surprise with the announcement of its “APE” special dividend after market close. The AMC Preferred Equity Units will list on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol “APE,” a nod to the investors who turned the company into a meme stock, who often refer to themselves as “apes” or “ape nation.” The stock gained 19% to $22.18 at the close in New York on Friday after initially falling following the announcement of the new units on Thursday. The preferred shares started trading under the “APE” ticker on the New York Stock Exchange starting Aug. 22. AMC CEO Adam Aron stated "We are making great strides on our path towards pandemic recovery".


title: AMC Theatres

text: AMC patented cup holder armrests in 1981. AMC also introduced stadium-style seating. The seats are placed on risers so that each person has an unobstructed view of the screen. In 1995, they introduced "Love Seat" style seating with retractable armrests so that there can be no barrier between two seats.


title: AMC Theatres

text: In July 1994, AMC signed an agreement with Sony to begin installing SDDS (Sony Dynamic Digital Sound) in auditoriums, and began upgrading selected older auditoriums in 2003. On March 26, 2009, AMC announced an agreement to convert 1,500 existing auditoriums to fully digital 3D screens using RealD technology. On March 30, 2009, they announced they would convert all 4,500 screens in their chain to 4K digital projectors provided by Sony.


title: AMC Theatres

text: Selected AMC locations offer premium screens and features for a higher ticket price, including large-screen formats. Most theater locations are equipped to show 3D films in RealD 3D.


title: AMC Theatres

text: AMC Theatres created the now-defunct MovieWatcher program that rewarded frequent movie-goers similar to other rewards programs but featured innovative aspects. It was based on a points-per-movie-ticket-purchased system, with rewards varying from concessions to movie passes based on point-based level. However, points were limited to a maximum of four points per three-hour time period, which was equal to two tickets. For those AMC cinemas which were not part of the Loews Cineplex acquisition, and therefore, ticketed by MovieTickets.com, the website's surcharge was waived for MovieWatcher members.


title: AMC Theatres

text: On April 1, 2011, AMC started a new rewards program known as AMC Stubs, which could be purchased for a fee of $12 for an entire year. For that initial fee, members would receive $5 on every $50 spent between the box office and the concession stand at any AMC theater nationwide. AMC Stubs members also received a free size upgrade with every popcorn and drink they purchase (for example, an AMC Stubs member can get a large popcorn for the price of a regular).


title: AMC Theatres

text: Other perks include birthday gifts and waived ticketing fees for online ticketing sites such as MovieTickets.com and Fandango and also online ticket purchases through AMC's own website and mobile app. Receipts or ticket stubs were required for manual adjustments. No more than four manual adjustments would be allowed per account in a single calendar month. Manual adjustments would be made for purchases made within 30 calendar days from date of original purchase.


title: AMC Theatres

text: As of March 29, 2012, AMC Stubs had 3.2 million members, which represents approximately 18% of AMC attendance during fiscal 2012. In July 2018, AMC Stubs was split into three programs which are currently still in-place: the free AMC Stubs Insider; the yearly fee-based AMC Stubs Premiere, which costs $15 annually and provides the same benefits as the original Stubs plus an expedited line at tickets and concessions; and the monthly fee-based AMC Stubs A-List, which includes up to 3 movie tickets a week to any film in any format for $19.95 to $23.95 a month, depending on the state the member plans to watch movies in. Discount Tuesdays is another feature every Tuesday for members to purchase tickets typically for just $6 to any film in most locations, with occasional exclusions, plus surcharges for premium formats such as 3D, IMAX, and Dolby Cinema, as well as special events.


title: AMC Theatres

text: Some AMC locations have a bar service under the MacGuffins brand. These are primarily offered at AMC and AMC Dine-in locations, but some AMC Classic locations with liquor licenses offer their alcoholic beverages under this brand. Drinks can be ordered to be drunk in the bar and lounge area or taken into the theater. Some AMC Dine-in theaters have their MacGuffins set up as a full-service restaurant that can be accessed without having to pay for a movie ticket.


title: AMC Theatres

text: Following the acquisition of Carmike Cinemas, AMC began to unify its cinemas under one of three main banners in 2017:


title: AMC Theatres

text: AMC also formed a short-lived partnership with Planet Hollywood which failed due to that company's bankruptcy. The Planet Movies by AMC venture planned to open complexes worldwide with the objective of having icon locations in major metropolitan and other select areas, like Orlando and Columbus. Initially, seven existing, unnamed AMC megaplex theaters with more than 150 combined screens were to be re-branded under a license arrangement to incorporate certain elements of the new concept. The initial seven re-branded locations were to include markets such as Orlando, Florida. The AMC Pleasure Island 24 megaplex in Orlando, situated directly across from Planet Hollywood's most successful restaurant and retail unit and adjacent to Disney's Pleasure Island (now Disney Springs) was to be the first Planet Movies location.


title: AMC Theatres

text: After the initial seven, the joint-venture planned to own and operate all subsequent units including 8 to 10 complexes with 200 to 250 screens planned to open over the next 18 to 24 months. Over the longer term, the venture anticipated rolling out units at the rate of 5 to 10 per year. From almost the very start, the well-publicized financial strains on Planet Hollywood hindered the project. The only Planet Movies location to actually open, a 30 screen megaplex, did so in the summer of 1999 at Easton Town Center in Columbus, Ohio. The location was also located alongside an Official All Star Café and Planet Hollywood restaurant.


title: AMC Theatres

text: The continued poor financial performance of Planet Hollywood led the company to declare bankruptcy in December 1998, and even before the first location had opened stated that "the joint venture has no definitive plans to expand this concept once the Columbus site is completed". As Planet Hollywood was preparing to emerge from bankruptcy in October 1999 their re-organization plan emphasized focus back on their core restaurant business and away from side-ventures like Planet Movies and their Cool Planet ice cream chain. The Planet Hollywood restaurant and All Star Café in Columbus were closed in late 2000, and the film memorabilia were also removed from the theater as it was rebranded AMC Easton 30, and continues to operate. The Planet Movies by AMC joint venture was formally dissolved on January 9, 2001.


title: AMC Theatres

text: Both of the Disney Parks in the United States at one time included AMC movie theaters at their Downtown Disney sections: AMC Dine-In Disney Springs 24 all-stadium-seating megaplex with Dolby Cinema and Dine-In Theatres (opened in 1996) (formerly AMC Pleasure Island 24) at Walt Disney World Resort and AMC Downtown Disney 12 at Disneyland Resort stadium-seating multiplex (opened in 2001, closed in 2018). The AMC Citywalk Stadium 19 located on Universal Studios Hollywood's Citywalk was relaunched after a renovation as "Universal Cinema, an AMC Theatre", on April 21, 2017. This location includes a seven-story IMAX screen with IMAX Laser and IMAX 70mm film, as well as "Black Box"–inspired auditoriums. It has one Christie Laser Projector per auditorium, with Dolby Atmos speakers. At Universal Studios Florida, AMC had the Universal Cineplex 20 (also a former Cineplex Odeon), until September 2018 when it became a Cinemark.


title: AMC Theatres

text: AMC Independent (also known as AMCi) is an AMC film distribution program that aims to help independent films reach a theatrical audience. The program was announced in 2010 via the AMC Blog, and has been responsible for promoting and distributing all independent films to AMC theaters since.


title: AMC Theatres

text: AMC has acquired multiple other theater chains throughout its history, resulting in a total of 385 theaters with 5,128 screens in six countries:


title: AMC Theatres

text: In March 2002, AMC bought General Cinema Corporation, which added 66 theaters with 621 screens to the company assets, as well as Gulf States Theaters, which had five theaters with 68 screens in the greater New Orleans area. In late 2003, AMC acquired MegaStar Theatres, adding additional theaters in the Atlanta and Minneapolis–St. Paul markets.


title: AMC Theatres

text: On January 26, 2006, AMC merged with Loews Cineplex Entertainment to form AMC Entertainment; the deal brought into AMC's fold the entire Loews and American Cineplex chains, along with Magic Theatres (named after NBA player Magic Johnson) and Star Theatres, based in Metro Detroit. In 2010, AMC acquired Chicago-based Kerasotes Showplace Theatres, LLC for $275 million, combining the nation's second and sixth largest movie theater chains, except for the Showplace 14 in New Jersey and the Showplace ICON theatres.


title: AMC Theatres

text: In December 2015, Starplex Cinemas was sold to AMC for approximately $175 million. Most of these theaters now operate as AMC Classic as of July 2017.


title: AMC Theatres

text: On March 3, 2016, AMC announced its intent to acquire Carmike Cinemas in a $1.1 billion deal, pending regulatory and shareholder approval, which would allow it to overtake Regal as the United States' largest movie theater chain. The merger officially closed in December 2016.


title: AMC Theatres

text: In July 2016, UCI & Odeon Cinema Group was sold to AMC for approximately $1.21 billion, subject to European Commission approval. The acquisition was approved by the European Commission and the deal closed in November 2016.


title: AMC Theatres

text: In January 2017, Nordic Cinema Group, the leading movie theater operator in the Nordic and Baltic area, was sold to AMC for approximately $929 million. The deal was completed in March 2017 after AMC received clearance from the European Commission.


title: AMC Theatres

text: In July 2021, AMC Theatres announced that it would acquire the leases to the Americana at Brand in downtown Glendale and The Grove at Farmers Market in Los Angeles locations, formerly owned by Pacific Theatres, and that they would reopen in August as part of the AMC chain. The company has not ruled out acquiring the leases of other Pacific Theatres locations. In December 2021, AMC Theaters also announced that they had acquired the leases to the former Pacific Theaters location at Northridge Fashion Center in Northridge, Los Angeles and the Arclight Chicago 14 in Lincoln Park, Chicago, which both opened in 2022. In February 2022, AMC Theaters reached a deal to acquire the leases to the Arclight Montgomery 16 at Westfield Montgomery in Washington D.C. and the Westfield UTC mall's Arclight UTC 14 in La Jolla, with the former reopening that month and the latter in March of that year. During the same month, the company reached an agreement to acquire the lease to the Century 12 Evanston, previously owned by Cinemark Theatres, in Evanston, Illinois. In December 2022, the company reached a deal on the acquisition of the former Arclight Cinemas located at The Hub on Causeway in Boston.


title: AMC Theatres

text: In April 2022, AMC Theaters acquired seven Bow Tie Cinemas locations in Connecticut, New York, and Maryland.


title: AMC Theatres

text: The early versions of stadium-style seating as built by AMC in 1995 had auditoriums configured with an entrance to a flat area immediately in front of the screen for wheelchair users. People seated there had to either lean back or look up at an uncomfortable angle to see the screen. Able-bodied guests had to ascend the stairs to sit in the middle of the risers in order to have a comfortable line-of-sight with the screen. Since some wheelchair users have limited neck movement range, this configuration made AMC a popular target for Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) lawsuits. AMC subsequently solved the problem in newer theaters by building full-stadium auditoriums where the main entrance is through a ramp that emerges onto a platform in the middle of the risers so that wheelchair users can enjoy optimal line-of-sight. However, the U.S. Department of Justice sued the company, and obtained an order requiring AMC to retrofit over 1,990 screens in 95 multiplexes and megaplexes across the United States.


title: AMC Theatres

text: The company successfully appealed the order to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, which ruled on December 5, 2008 that the order was excessive and violated AMC's due process rights under the Constitution of the United States. AMC won by pointing out that the United States Access Board had not yet amended its guidelines for movie theaters to specifically require them to provide wheelchair guests sightlines that were as good as those from elevated risers, versus merely providing an unobstructed view of the screen. Therefore, the court ruled that it was unfair to AMC to retroactively hold it to a standard which did not exist at the time it began building stadium-style theaters.


title: AMC Theatres

text: When AMC announced that most of their theaters would reopen in mid-July 2020 during the COVID-19 pandemic, the initial announcement said masks would be recommended but not mandatory. AMC CEO Adam Aron stated, "We are strongly encouraging our guests to wear masks all across the country, but not requiring it" and "We did not want to be drawn into a political controversy... We thought it might be counterproductive if we forced mask wearing on those people who believe strongly that it is not necessary." After massive pushback from the public, Aron changed the policy to require masks: "This announcement prompted an intense and immediate outcry from our customers, and it is clear from this response that we did not go far enough on the usage of masks," Aron said.


title: United States in the Vietnam War

text: United States involvement in the Vietnam War began shortly after the end of World War II, first in an extremely limited capacity and escalated over a period of 20 years. Troop involvement peaked in April 1969, with 543,000 American combat troops stationed in Vietnam. By the conclusion of the United States's involvement in 1973, over 3.1 million Americans had been stationed in Vietnam.


title: United States in the Vietnam War

text: The Civil Rights Movement and the shifts in popular culture had a direct impact on the public perception of the United States President. This impacted most clearly, President Nixon, whose approval rating continued to drop throughout his term due to the United States involvement in the Vietnam War (among other factors such as the Watergate scandal). Nixon’s second term is an example of how fast the public can turn against their elected leaders. Richard Nixon won an electoral landslide victory in the election of 1972, entering the new term with record approval ratings. Shortly after his second term starting, President Richard Nixon’s approval rating entered a free fall in the face of scandal.


title: United States in the Vietnam War

text: The U.S. involvement in South Vietnam stemmed from a combination of factors: Joseph Stalin and Mao Zedong's pledge in 1950 to support Ho Chi Minh and the Viet Minh's guerrilla forces against France's colonial occupation, the U.S. war with Japan in the Pacific, and domestic pressure to act against communism after the loss of mainland China and indecisive conclusion of the Korean War. The U.S. was initially adamantly against providing any aid to France that would prop up France's struggle to maintain its pre-WWII colonial empire. However, Stalin and Mao's offering their support to the Viet Minh in 1950, changed the battlefield dynamic and geopolitical character of the conflict from a struggle for independence from a colonial power, to one of a global conflict against communist expansionism. It was at the time, in September 1950, that French forces began to be moderately backed by America.


title: United States in the Vietnam War

text: Records reported that the conflict resulted in 58,279 U.S. military personnel deaths before the official end of U.S. combat operations in 1973. As of 2019, it was estimated that approximately 610,000 Vietnam Veterans are still alive, making them the second largest group of American Veterans behind those of the Global War on Terror. The war's lasting impact can be seen in the thousands of movies, books, and video games centered on the conflict.


title: United States in the Vietnam War

text: In 1961, the new administration of President John F. Kennedy took a new approach to aiding anti-communist forces in Vietnam which differed from the administrations of Presidents Truman and Eisenhower, who felt the neighboring country Laos was the "cork in the bottle" in combating the threat of Communism in southeast Asia. During 1961, his first year in office, Kennedy assigned $28.4M to the enlargement of the South Vietnamese army and $12.7M to enhance the civil guard. He also found himself faced with a three-part crisis: The failure of the Bay of Pigs invasion in Cuba; the construction of the Berlin Wall by the Soviets; and a negotiated settlement between the pro-Western government of Laos and the Pathet Lao communist movement. Fearing that another failure on the part of the U.S. to stop communist expansion would fatally damage U.S. credibility with its allies, Kennedy realized, "Now we have a problem in making our power credible... and Vietnam looks like the place."


title: United States in the Vietnam War

text: The commitment to defend South Vietnam was reaffirmed by Kennedy on May 11 in National Security Action Memorandum 52, which became known as "The Presidential Program for Vietnam". Its opening statement reads:


title: United States in the Vietnam War

text: U.S. objectives and concept of operations [are] to prevent communist domination of South Vietnam; to create in that country a viable and increasingly democratic society, and to initiate, on an accelerated basis, a series of mutually supporting actions of a military, political, economic, psychological, and covert character designed to achieve this objective.


title: United States in the Vietnam War

text: Kennedy was intrigued by the idea of utilizing United States Army Special Forces for counterinsurgency conflicts in Third World countries threatened by the new "wars of national liberation". Originally intended for use behind front lines after a conventional invasion of Europe, Kennedy believed that the guerrilla tactics employed by Special Forces would be effective in the "brush fire" war in South Vietnam. Thus, in May 1961, Kennedy sent detachments of Green Berets to South Vietnam.


title: United States in the Vietnam War

text: The Diệm regime had been initially able to cope with the insurgency of the National Front for the Liberation of South Vietnam (NLF, or derogatively, Viet Cong) in South Vietnam with the aid of U.S. matériel and advisers, and, by 1962, seemed to be gaining the upper hand. Senior U.S. military leaders received positive reports from the U.S. commander, General Paul D. Harkins of the Military Assistance Command, Vietnam, or MACV. By the following year, however, cracks began to appear in the façade of success. In January, a possible victory that was turned into a stunning defeat for government forces at the Battle of Ap Bac caused consternation among both the military advisers in the field and among politicians in Washington, D.C. JFK also indicated to Walter Cronkite that the war may be unwinnable, and that it was ultimately a Vietnamese war, not an American war.


title: United States in the Vietnam War

text: Diệm was already growing unpopular with many of his countrymen because of his administration's nepotism, corruption, and its apparent bias in favor of the Catholic minority—of which Diệm was a part—at the expense of the Buddhist majority. This contributed to the impression of Diệm's rule as an extension of the French Colonial regime. Promised land reforms were not instituted, and Diệm's strategic hamlet program for village self-defense (and government control) was a disaster. The Kennedy administration grew increasingly frustrated with Diệm. In 1963, a crackdown by Diệm's forces was launched against Buddhist monks protesting discriminatory practices and demanding a political voice. Diệm's repression of the protests sparked the so-called Buddhist crisis, during which several monks committed self-immolation, which was covered in the world press. The communists took full advantage of the situation and fueled anti-Diệm sentiment to create further instability.


title: United States in the Vietnam War

text: Though reluctant to immediately launch full scale U.S. involvement in the Vietnam conflict, the Kennedy Administration would escalate the number of U.S. troops in Vietnam who acted as advisors to the South Vietnamese military. At the time of Kennedy's assassination in 1963, the number of U.S. military advisors in Vietnam had grown to at least 16,000.


title: United States in the Vietnam War

text: On July 27, 1964, 5,000 additional U.S. military advisers were ordered to the Republic of Vietnam (RVN or South Vietnam), bringing the total American troop level to 21,000. Shortly thereafter an incident occurred off the coast of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (North Vietnam) that was destined to escalate the conflict to new levels and lead to the full scale Americanization of the war.


title: United States in the Vietnam War

text: On the evening of August 2, 1964, the destroyer was conducting an electronic intelligence collection mission in international waters (even as claimed by North Vietnam) in the Gulf of Tonkin when it was attacked by three P-4 torpedo boats of the North Vietnamese Navy. Reports later reached the Johnson administration saying that the "Maddox" was under attack. Two nights later, after being joined by the destroyer USS "Turner Joy", the "Maddox" again reported that both vessels were under attack. Regardless, President Johnson addressed Congress asking for more political power to utilize American military forces in South Vietnam, using the attack on the "Maddox" as cause to get what he wanted.


title: United States in the Vietnam War

text: There was rampant confusion in Washington, but the incident was seen by the administration as the perfect opportunity to present Congress with "a pre-dated declaration of war" in order to strengthen weakening morale in South Vietnam through reprisal attacks by the U.S. on the North. Even before confirmation of the phantom attack had been received in Washington, President Johnson had decided that an attack could not go unanswered.


title: United States in the Vietnam War

text: Just before midnight he appeared on television and announced that retaliatory air strikes were underway against North Vietnamese naval and port facilities. Neither Congress nor the American people learned the whole story about the events in the Gulf of Tonkin until the publication of the "Pentagon Papers" in 1969. It was on the basis of the administration's assertions that the attacks were "unprovoked aggression" on the part of North Vietnam, that the United States Congress approved the Southeast Asia Resolution (also known as the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution) on August 7. The law gave the President broad powers to conduct military operations without an actual declaration of war. The resolution passed unanimously in the House of Representatives and was opposed in the Senate by only two members.


title: United States in the Vietnam War

text: National Security Council members, including United States Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara, Secretary of State Dean Rusk, and General Maxwell Taylor, agreed on November 28 to recommend that Johnson adopt a plan for a two-stage escalation of the bombing of North Vietnam.


title: United States in the Vietnam War

text: In February 1965, a U.S. air base at Pleiku, in the Central Highlands of South Vietnam, was attacked twice by the NLF, resulting in the deaths of over a dozen U.S. personnel. These guerrilla attacks prompted the administration to order retaliatory air strikes against North Vietnam.


title: United States in the Vietnam War

text: Operation "Rolling Thunder" was the code name given to a sustained strategic bombing campaign targeted against the North by aircraft of the U.S. Air Force and Navy that was inaugurated on March 2, 1965. Its original purpose was to bolster the morale of the South Vietnamese and to serve as a signaling device to Hanoi. U.S. airpower would act as a method of "strategic persuasion", deterring the North Vietnamese politically by the fear of continued or increased bombardment. "Rolling Thunder" gradually escalated in intensity, with aircraft striking only carefully selected targets. When that did not work, its goals were altered to destroying North Vietnam's will to fight by destroying the nation's industrial base, transportation network, and its (continually increasing) air defenses. After more than 300,000 sorties were flown and three-quarters of a million tons of bombs were dropped, "Rolling Thunder" was ended on November 11, 1968.


title: United States in the Vietnam War

text: Other aerial campaigns (Operation Barrel Roll, Operation Steel Tiger, Operation Tiger Hound, and Operation Commando Hunt) were directed to counter the flow of men and material down the PAVN logistical system that flowed from North Vietnam through southeastern Laos, and into South Vietnam known as the Ho Chi Minh Trail.


title: United States in the Vietnam War

text: President Johnson had already appointed General William C. Westmoreland to succeed General Harkins as Commander of MACV in June 1964. Under Westmoreland, the expansion of American troop strength in South Vietnam took place. American forces rose from 16,000 during 1964 to more than 553,000 by 1969. With the U.S. decision to escalate its involvement it had created the Many Flags program to legitimize intervention and ANZUS Pact allies Australia and New Zealand agreed to contribute troops and matériel to the conflict. They were joined by the Republic of Korea, Thailand, and the Philippines. The U.S. paid for (through aid dollars) and logistically supplied all of the allied forces. As the manpower demand increased to meet these obligations McNamara initiated Project 100,000 which witnessed a significant reduction in recruiting standards for the U.S. military.


title: United States in the Vietnam War

text: Meanwhile, political affairs in Saigon were finally settling down — at least as far as the Americans were concerned. On February 14 the most recent military junta, the National Leadership Committee, installed Air Vice-Marshal Nguyễn Cao Kỳ as prime minister. In 1966, the junta selected General Nguyễn Văn Thiệu to run for president with Ky on the ballot as the vice-presidential candidate in the 1967 election. Thieu and Ky were elected and remained in office for the duration of the war. In the presidential election of 1971, Thieu ran for the presidency unopposed. With the installation of the Thieu and Ky government (the Second Republic), the U.S. had a pliable, stable, and semi-legitimate government in Saigon with which to deal.


title: United States in the Vietnam War

text: With the advent of "Rolling Thunder", American airbases and facilities needed to be constructed and manned for the aerial effort. On March 8, 1965, 3,500 United States Marines came ashore at Da Nang as the first wave of U.S. combat troops into South Vietnam, adding to the 25,000 U.S. military advisers already in place. The US Government deployment of ground forces to Da Nang had not been consulted with the South Vietnamese government. Instead the initial deployment and gradual build-up was a unilateral decision by the US government. On May 5 the U.S. 173rd Airborne Brigade became the first U.S. Army ground unit committed to the conflict in South Vietnam. On August 18, Operation Starlite began as the first major U.S. ground operation, destroying an NLF stronghold in Quảng Ngãi Province.


title: United States in the Vietnam War

text: The North Vietnamese had already sent units of their regular army into southern Vietnam beginning in late 1964. Some officials in Hanoi had favored an immediate invasion of the South, and a plan was developed to use PAVN units to split southern Vietnam in half through the Central Highlands. The two imported adversaries first faced one another during Operation "Silver Bayonet", better known as the Battle of the Ia Drang. During the savage fighting that took place, both sides learned important lessons. The North Vietnamese, began to adapt to the overwhelming American superiority in air mobility, supporting arms, and close air support by moving in as close as possible during confrontations, thereby negating the effects of the above.


title: United States in the Vietnam War

text: On November 27, 1965, the Pentagon declared that if the major operations needed to neutralize North Vietnamese and NLF forces were to succeed, U.S. troop levels in South Vietnam would have to be increased from 120,000 to 400,000. In a series of meetings between Westmoreland and the President held in Honolulu in February 1966, Westmoreland claimed that the U.S. presence had succeeded in preventing the immediate defeat of the South Vietnamese government but that more troops would be necessary if systematic offensive operations were to be conducted. The issue then became in what manner American forces would be used.


title: United States in the Vietnam War

text: The nature of the American military's strategic and tactical decisions made during this period colored the conflict for the duration of the American commitment. The logistical system in Laos and Cambodia should be cut by ground forces, isolating the southern battlefield. However, political considerations limited U.S. military actions, mainly because of the memory of Chinese reactions during the Korean War. Ever present in the minds of diplomats, military officers, and politicians was the possibility of a spiraling escalation of the conflict into a superpower confrontation and the possibility of a nuclear exchange. Therefore, there would be no invasion of North Vietnam, the "neutrality" of Laos and Cambodia would be respected, and "Rolling Thunder" would not resemble the bombing of Germany and Japan during the Second World War.


title: United States in the Vietnam War

text: These limitations were not foisted upon the military as an afterthought. Before the first U.S. soldiers came ashore at Da Nang, the Pentagon was cognizant of all of the parameters that would be imposed by their civilian leaders, yet they still agreed that the mission could be accomplished within them. Westmoreland believed that he had found a strategy that would either defeat North Vietnam or force it into serious negotiations. Attrition was to be the key. The general held that larger offensive operations would grind down the communists and eventually lead to a "crossover point" in PAVN/NLF casualties after which a decisive (or at least political) victory would be possible.


title: United States in the Vietnam War

text: It is widely held that the average U.S. serviceman was nineteen years old, as evidenced by the casual reference in a pop song ("19" by Paul Hardcastle); the figure is cited by Lt. Col. Dave Grossman ret. of the Killology Research Group in his 1995 book "" (p. 265). However, it is disputed by the Vietnam Helicopter Flight Crew Network Website, which claims the average age of MOS 11B personnel was 22. This compares with 26 years of age for those who participated in World War II. Soldiers served a one-year tour of duty. The average age of the U.S. military men who died in Vietnam was 22.8 years old.


title: United States in the Vietnam War

text: The one-year tour of duty deprived units of experienced leadership. As one observer put it, "we were not in Vietnam for 10 years, but for one year 10 times." As a result, training programs were shortened. Some NCOs were referred to as "Shake 'N' Bake" to highlight their accelerated training. Unlike soldiers in World War II and Korea, there were no secure rear areas in which to get rest and relaxation. One unidentified soldier said to United Press International that there was nothing to do in Vietnam and therefore many of the men smoked marijuana. He said, "One of the biggest reasons that a lot of GIs do get high over here is there is nothing to do. This place is really a drag; it's a bore over here. Like right now sitting around here, we are getting loaded. Whereas, it doesn't really get you messed up; that's I guess the main reason why we smoke it."


title: United States in the Vietnam War

text: American forces would conduct operations against PAVN forces, pushing them further back into the countryside away from the heavily populated coastal lowlands. In the backcountry the U.S. could fully utilize its superiority in firepower and mobility to bleed the enemy in set-piece battles. The cleaning-out of the NLF and the pacification of the villages would be the responsibility of the South Vietnamese military. The adoption of this strategy, however, brought Westmoreland into direct conflict with his Marine Corps commander, General Lewis W. Walt, who had already recognized the security of the villages as the key to success. Walt had immediately commenced pacification efforts in his area of responsibility, but Westmoreland was unhappy, believing that the Marines were being underutilized and fighting the wrong enemy. In the end, MACV won out and Westmoreland's search and destroy concept, predicated on the attrition of enemy forces, won the day.


title: United States in the Vietnam War

text: Both sides chose similar strategies. PAVN, which had been operating a more conventional, large-unit war, switched back to small-unit operations in the face of U.S. military capabilities. The struggle moved to the villages, where the "hearts and minds" of the South Vietnamese peasants, whose cooperation was absolutely necessary to military success, would be won or lost. The U.S. had given responsibility for this struggle to the Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN), whose troops and commanders were notoriously unfit for the task.


title: United States in the Vietnam War

text: For the American soldier, whose doctrine was one of absolute commitment to total victory, this strategy led to a frustrating small-unit war. Most of the combat was conducted by units smaller than battalion-size (the majority at the platoon level). Since the goal of the operations was to kill the enemy, terrain was not taken and held as in previous wars. Savage fighting and the retreat of the communists was immediately followed by the abandonment of the terrain just seized. Combined with this was the anger and frustration engendered among American troops by the effective tactics of the NLF, who conducted a war of sniping, booby traps, mines, and terror against the Americans.


title: United States in the Vietnam War

text: As a result of the conference held in Honolulu, President Johnson authorized an increase in troop strength to 429,000 by August 1966. The large increase in troops enabled MACV to carry out numerous operations that grew in size and complexity during the next two years. For U.S. troops participating in these operations ("Operation Masher/White Wing", "Operation Attleboro", "Operation Cedar Falls", "Operation Junction City" and dozens of others) the war boiled down to hard marching through some of the most difficult terrain on the planet and weather conditions that were alternately hot and dry, or cold and wet. It was the PAVN/NLF that actually controlled the pace of the war, fighting only when their commanders believed that they had the upper hand and then disappearing when the Americans and/or ARVN brought their superiority in numbers and firepower to bear. North Vietnam, utilizing the Ho Chi Minh and Sihanouk Trails, matched the U.S. at every point of the escalation, funneling manpower and supplies to the southern battlefields.


title: United States in the Vietnam War

text: During the Vietnam War, the use of the helicopter, known as "Air Mobile", was an essential tool for conducting the war. In fact, the whole conduct and strategy of the war depended on it. Vietnam was the first time the helicopter was used on a major scale, and in such important roles. Search and destroy missions, for example, would have been nearly impossible without it. Helicopters allowed American commanders to move large numbers of troops to virtually anywhere, regardless of the terrain or roads. Troops could also be easily resupplied in remote areas. The helicopter also provided another new and vital capability: medical evacuation. It could fly wounded soldiers to aid stations very quickly, usually within the critical first hour. This gave wounded soldiers a higher chance of survival in Vietnam than in any previous war. The helicopter was also adapted for many other roles in Vietnam, including ground attack, reconnaissance, and electronic warfare. Without the helicopter, the war would have been fought very differently.


title: United States in the Vietnam War

text: Although the use of nuclear weapons was proposed as a contingency plan by the military, President Johnson shut this idea down, approving instead the use of cluster bombs (termed "Controlled Fragmentation Munition" or "COFRAM" by the military) In the 1964 presidential campaign, Johnson presented himself as the candidate who would be less willing to use nuclear weapons (see "Daisy" ad). As President, LBJ urged the military not to give the president the authority to use tactical nuclear weapons in Vietnam. Throughout the war, President Johnson did not change his stance on the use of tactical nuclear weapons against the Vietcong.


title: United States in the Vietnam War

text: By mid-1967, Westmoreland said that it was conceivable that U.S. forces could be phased out of the war within two years, turning over progressively more of the fighting to the ARVN. That fall, however, savage fighting broke out in the northern provinces. Beginning below the DMZ at Con Tien and then spreading west to the Laotian border near Dak To, large PAVN forces began to stand their ground and fight. This willingness of the communists to remain fixed in place inspired MACV to send reinforcements from other sectors of South Vietnam. The Border Battles had begun.


title: United States in the Vietnam War

text: Most of the PAVN/NLF operational capability was possible only because of the unhindered movement of men along the Ho Chi Minh Trail. To threaten this flow of supplies, the Marine Corps established a combat base on the South Vietnamese side of the Laotian frontier, near the village of Khe Sanh. The U.S. used the base as a border surveillance position overlooking Route 9, the only east–west road that crossed the border in the province. Westmoreland also hoped to use the base as a jump-off point for any future incursion against the Trail system in Laos. During the spring of 1967, a series of small-unit actions near Khe Sanh prompted MACV to increase its forces. These small unit actions and increasing intelligence information indicated that the PAVN was building up significant forces just across the border.


title: United States in the Vietnam War

text: Indeed, PAVN was doing just that. Two regular divisions (and later elements of a third) were moving toward Khe Sanh, eventually surrounding the base and cutting off its only road access. Westmoreland, contrary to the advice of his Marine commanders, reinforced the outpost. As far as he was concerned, if the communists were willing to mass their forces for destruction by American air power, so much the better. He described the ideal outcome as a "Dien Bien Phu in reverse". MACV then launched the largest concentrated aerial bombardment effort of the conflict (Operation Niagara) to defend Khe Sanh. Another massive aerial effort was undertaken to keep the beleaguered Marines supplied. There were many comparisons (by the media, Americans military and political officials, and the North Vietnamese) to the possibility of PAVN staging a repeat of its victory at Dien Bien Phu, but the differences outweighed the similarities in any comparison.


title: United States in the Vietnam War

text: MACV used this opportunity to field its latest technology against the North Vietnamese. A sensor-driven, anti-infiltration system known as Operation Igloo White was in the process of being field tested in Laos as the siege of Khe Sanh began. Westmoreland ordered that it be employed to detect PAVN troop movements near the Marine base and the system worked well. By March, the long-awaited ground assault against the base had failed to materialize and communist forces began to melt back toward Laos. MACV (and future historians) were left with only questions. What was the goal of the PAVN? Was the siege a real attempt to stage another Dien Bien Phu? Or had the battles near the border (which eventually drew in half of MACV's maneuver battalions) been a diversion, meant to pull forces away from the cities, where another PAVN offensive would soon commence?


title: United States in the Vietnam War

text: General Westmoreland's public reassurances that "the light at the end of the tunnel" was near were countered when, on January 30, 1968, PAVN and NLF forces broke the truce that accompanied the Tết holiday and mounted their largest offensive thus far, in hopes of sparking a general uprising among the South Vietnamese. These forces, ranging in size from small groups to entire regiments, attacked nearly every city and major military installation in South Vietnam. The Americans and South Vietnamese, initially surprised by the scope and scale of the offensive, quickly responded and inflicted severe casualties on their enemies. The NLF was essentially eliminated as a fighting force and the places of the dead within its ranks were increasingly filled by North Vietnamese.


title: United States in the Vietnam War

text: The PAVN/NLF attacks were speedily and bloodily repulsed in virtually all areas except Saigon, where the fighting lasted for three days, and in the old imperial capital of Huế, where it continued for a month. During the occupation of the historic city, 2,800 South Vietnamese were murdered by the NLF in the single worst massacre of the conflict. The hoped-for uprising never took place; indeed, the offensive drove some previously apathetic South Vietnamese to fight for the government. Another surprise for the communists was that the ARVN did not collapse under the onslaught, instead turning in a performance that pleased even its American patrons.


title: United States in the Vietnam War

text: After the Tet Offensive, influential news magazines and newspapers, including the "Wall Street Journal", "Time" and "The New York Times", increasingly began to characterize the war as a stalemate. What shocked and dismayed the American public was the realization that either it had been lied to or that the American military command had been dangerously overoptimistic in its appraisal of the situation in Vietnam. The public could not understand how such an attack was possible after being told for several years that victory was just around the corner. The Tet Offensive came to embody the growing credibility gap at the heart of U.S. government statements. These realizations and changing attitudes forced the American public (and politicians) to face hard realities and to reexamine their position in Southeast Asia. Moreover, the U.S. media coverage made it even more clear that an overall victory in Vietnam was not imminent. It also massively weakened the domestic support for the Johnson administration at the time. The days of an open-ended commitment to the conflict were over.


title: United States in the Vietnam War

text: The psychological impact of the Tet Offensive effectively ended the political career of Lyndon Johnson. On March 11, Senator Eugene McCarthy won 42 percent of the vote in the Democratic New Hampshire primary. Although Johnson was not on the ballot, commentators viewed this as a defeat for the President. Shortly thereafter, Senator Robert F. Kennedy announced his intention to seek the Democratic nomination for the 1968 presidential election. On March 31, in a speech that took America and the world by surprise, Johnson announced that "I shall not seek, and I will not accept the nomination of my party for another term as your President" and pledged himself to devoting the rest of his term in office to the search for peace in Vietnam. Johnson announced that he was limiting bombing of North Vietnam to just north of the Demilitarized Zone and that U.S. representatives were prepared to meet with North Vietnamese counterparts in any suitable place "to discuss the means to bring this ugly war to an end". A few days later, much to Johnson's surprise, North Vietnam agreed to contacts between the two sides. On May 13, what became known as the Paris peace talks began.