text: A 41-gun salute was observed in New Zealand from Point Jerningham at noon on 11 April. On 13 April, MPs in New Zealand convened to pay tribute to him, including performing a waiata.


title: Death and funeral of Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh

text: A state memorial service was also held at Wellington Cathedral of St. Paul on 21 April, led by Archbishop Philip Richardson. Speakers during the service included Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern and Governor-General Dame Patsy Reddy. The current and former governors-general, prime ministers, parliamentarians, and the high commissioners from Australia and the United Kingdom attended the congregation.


text: In Cyprus, where Philip spent a decade as a Royal Navy officer, churches were encouraged to hold a commemorative service before the funeral. A Sung Eucharist was conducted on 14 April at St Paul's Anglican Cathedral, Nicosia, in thanksgiving for the Duke's life. It was attended by Archbishop Michael Lewis and British High Commissioner to Cyprus Stephen Lillie.


text: On 17 April, a gun salute was held at noon at the Upper Barrakka Saluting Battery overlooking the Grand Harbour in Valletta. The nine-gun salute – one for each decade of the Duke of Edinburgh's life – was organised by the Wirt Artna Foundation and the Malta Tourism Authority. Tributes were also held at Villa Guardamangia in Pietà; a villa where Philip lived while serving in the navy in the late 1940s. The villa was the residence of the royal couple from 1949 to 1951, when Philip was stationed in Malta as the captain of . The tribute was organised by the Malta George Cross Movement; and saw members of the movement, the Royal Naval Association Malta branch, the Malta Command WW2 Living History Group, and members of the public lay flowers and wreaths at the steps of the villa.


text: The Kastom people around the villages of Yaohnanen and Yakel on the southern island of Tanna in Vanuatu, who worship Prince Philip, mourned his death. The Union Flag was flown at half mast on the grounds of the nakamal. A formal weeks-long mourning period was declared and many tribespeople gathered on 12 April in a ceremony to remember Philip. During their mourning period, villagers met periodically to conduct rites and display memorabilia, yams and kava plants. Many of the tribesmen believe that while his body lies at rest, the Duke's soul will return to "its spiritual home, the island of Tanna". Kirk Huffman, an anthropologist familiar with the group, said that after their period of mourning the group would probably transfer their veneration to Prince Charles, who had visited Vanuatu in 2018 and met with some of the tribal leaders.


text: As Philip was Greek by birth, the Greek president, Katerina Sakellaropoulou, shared a photograph of him as a young boy dressed in the uniform of an Evzone guard. The photograph had been presented to the nation by Prince Charles on a visit to Athens in March 2021. Constantine II, Philip's first cousin once removed and the last king of the Hellenes, praised Philip's dedication to his country and the Commonwealth. While the funeral was held at Windsor, Philip was honoured with a memorial prayer in Saint Spyridon Church in Corfu by the metropolitan of Corfu, Paxos and Diapontia, Nektarios.


text: From Denmark, a nation of which Philip was also born a prince, Queen Margrethe II sent condolences to Queen Elizabeth II. The Danish Royal House shared a portrait in which Philip was wearing the Danish Order of the Elephant. The flags over Margrethe's official residence at Amalienborg in Copenhagen were flown at half-mast, by her orders, for the funeral on 17 April.


text: Various heads of existing and former European monarchies, most of whom were related to the Duke (predominantly through Victoria of the United Kingdom and Christian IX of Denmark), shared their grief, including Philippe and Mathilde, the King and Queen of the Belgians; Margrethe II, the Queen of Denmark; Constantine II, the last King of the Hellenes; Henri, the Grand Duke of Luxembourg; Albert II, the Prince of Monaco; Willem-Alexander and Máxima, the King and Queen of the Netherlands, and Princess Beatrix of the Netherlands; Harald V, the King of Norway; Margareta, Custodian of the Crown of Romania; Maria Vladimirovna, Grand Duchess of Russia; Felipe VI and Letizia, the King and Queen of Spain; Carl XVI Gustaf and Silvia, the King and Queen of Sweden; and Alexander and Katherine, the former Crown Prince and Crown Princess of Yugoslavia.


text: Other monarchs and heads of royal houses from different parts of the world, including native monarchies of Commonwealth nations, also sent their condolences.


text: Flags were flown at half-mast at several royal palaces. The Norwegian Royal House announced that a flag would be flown at half-mast from the balcony of the Royal Palace, Oslo, on 9 April and on the day of the funeral. On the day of the funeral, flags at the Grand Ducal Palace and Berg Castle in Luxembourg, and the Royal Standard of Sweden at Stockholm Palace were also flown at half mast.


text: King Jigme Khesar Namgyel Wangchuck and Queen Jetsun Pema of Bhutan gave orders for special prayers to be held in monasteries across the nation in memory of the Duke, for about a week following his death. On 10 April, the King and Queen offered prayers before a portrait of the Duke at the Mongar Dzong, a Buddhist fortress-monastery in Mongar, and lit 1000 butterlamps, which in Tibetan Buddhism symbolises the hope that the person is free of suffering and that his soul will reach enlightenment. They were accompanied by Queen Mother Tshering Yangdon, Prince "Gyaltshab" Jigme Dorji Wangchuck, and "Ashi" Yeatso Lhamo.


text: In Thimphu, Prince "Dasho" Jigyel Ugyen Wangchuck, accompanied by the Foreign Minister Tandi Dorji, British residents in Bhutan, and Bhutanese who studied in the United Kingdom, also offered prayers and lit 1000 butterlamps at the Simtokha Dzong.


text: Sweden honoured the Duke, who was a Knight of the Royal Order of the Seraphim, the foremost order of Sweden, on the day of his funeral. The Duke was awarded the order by King Gustaf VI Adolf on 23 June 1954. The Duke was the 683rd Knight of the Order since its inception in 1748.


text: The Duke's coat of arms as a Knight of the Royal Order of the Seraphim was then taken from the palace to Riddarholmen Church in Stockholm, where the great bell rang a traditional Seraphim Toll ("Serafimerringningen") for one hour, from noon to 1 pm. The Vice-Chancellor delivered the eulogy for the deceased Knight of the Order. The Duke's coat of arms were then hung in the church. The Duke's sash and Order of the Seraphim was on display in St George's Chapel on the day of the funeral. The Swedish Royal Family sent wreaths to the British Royal Family.


text: Past and present representatives of the governments of many nations gave tribute to the life of the Duke and his impact around the world. Also sharing sympathy were the president of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, a spokesperson for Secretary-General of the United Nations António Guterres, Director-General of the World Health Organization Tedros Adhanom, Director-General of the World Trade Organization Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, President of the World Bank David Malpass, Secretary General of NATO Jens Stoltenberg, Pope Francis, and the 14th Dalai Lama, Tenzin Gyatso.


text: On the day of the funeral, the Irish National flag at all State buildings in the Republic of Ireland was flown at half-mast as a "mark of respect" for the Duke. Under Ireland's National Flag Guidelines, the flag is flown at half-mast on "all prominent government buildings" with a permanent flag pole on the death of a national or international figure.


text: The Irish National flag was previously flown at half-mast on all State buildings in 1997, on the day of Diana's funeral, and in 2002, to mark the death of the Queen Mother.


text: The press release was issued at midday. The BBC suspended all non-children's programming until at least 6 pm on 9 April, and replaced it with respectful programming following the announcement. Viewers watching programmes on other BBC channels or channels such as Gold (which is owned by a commercial subsidiary of the BBC, BBC Studios) were greeted with a black banner reading "Please tune to BBC News for a breaking news story." On the radio, the broadcasts were changed first to the national anthem, and then to sombre music. The BBC's television channels adopted special reports on the Duke's life. On BBC News, presenter Martine Croxall interrupted the rolling reports to announce the Duke's death. The channel then briefly cut to images of the Duke to allow her to remove her necklace and put on a black cardigan; all BBC channels then assumed the BBC News feed for the report, although BBC Two was already simulcasting the BBC News channel at the time of the announcement.


text: To formally announce the news on BBC One, the broadcast went dark, with a simple title card then appearing and announcing a news report would follow. Croxall announced the death of the Duke again before reading the press release. After the announcement, an image of the Duke was shown, with the national anthem played. Croxall continued to anchor the coverage before BBC News' lead anchor Huw Edwards took over from 1pm. Meanwhile, on ITV, a live interview on "This Morning" was interrupted, with host Eamonn Holmes quietly informed of the death by crew members in order to announce the news. He and Ruth Langsford brought the programme to an end and the network changed its feed to ITN for Lucrezia Millarini to announce the news. The other major British broadcasters, Sky News, Channel 4 and Channel 5, had similar responses, and all networks suspended regular programming until various times in the afternoon and evening of 9 April; programming on BBC Four was suspended for the entire day. BBC television presenters have black clothing on hand in the case of sudden high-profile deaths, and a BBC guideline saw all presenters and guests, during suspended programming, wearing black. On BBC channels, presenters were still dressed in black over the weekend following the Duke's death and on 12 April, while ITV presenters on "Good Morning Britain" on that date were not. Channel 4 was later criticised for continuing with much of its planned schedule on the evening of 9 April, but both the BBC and ITV received a flood of viewer complaints for postponing or cancelling their regular programmes to allow continuous coverage. Viewer ratings fell across the television networks except Channel 4, which gained viewers. By 13 April, the BBC had received nearly 111,000 complaints over its coverage, overtaking "" as Britain's most complained about broadcast.


text: On BBC Radio, all stations were forcibly cut-off at 12:10pm, and following a brief silence, Radio 4 continuity announcer Tom Sandars read the official announcement before the national anthem was played. Sandars then repeated the announcement and all stations then took a special BBC News programme presented by Evan Davis. The all-network simulcast continued until 4pm, when both Radio 1 and 1Xtra switched to a mix of instrumental music and regular announcements. Radios 2 and 3 broke away an hour later, and began playing easy listening and classical music respectively for the rest of the evening. Commercial radio networks had varying responses to the news - LBC broke the news at the time the official announcement was published; the rest of the Global networks, including Capital, Heart and Smooth, first broke the news in a special bulletin at 12:15pm. The Bauer Radio networks, such as Absolute Radio, Greatest Hits Radio, Hits Radio and Jazz FM, waited until 12:30pm to announce the news. Following the initial announcement, all commercial music stations suspended advertisements and continuously played easy listening songs with frequent announcements briefly informing listeners of the news.


text: In the United States, the American Broadcasting Company (ABC), CBS and NBC all broke into regular programming to announce the Duke's death. The Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) also put a halt into regular broadcasting to report the news.


text: The BBC covered the funeral on BBC One and BBC News, and on Radio 4 and Radio 5 Live. The lead presenters for its television coverage were Huw Edwards, Sophie Raworth, former Royal Marine JJ Chalmers; Martha Kearney hosted the radio coverage alongside Jonny Dymond and Tracy Borman. The funeral was also broadcast on ITV, hosted by Tom Bradby, as well as on Sky News and Sky One, hosted by Dermot Murnaghan. ABC, CBS, CNN, Fox News, MSNBC, NBC and BBC America broadcast the funeral in the United States. An estimated 13.6 million people watched the event in the UK.


text: A service of thanksgiving for the Duke's life took place at Westminster Abbey on 29 March 2022 with the Queen in attendance. She was accompanied by her second son, the Duke of York, on her way from Windsor to the abbey's side entrance and on her way out of the abbey through the South Transept. It marked her first major public appearance after experiencing mobility issues and testing positive for COVID-19. The service was broadcast on BBC One and presented by Huw Edwards.


text: The service lasted for 45 minutes and included elements that could not have been implemented during the funeral service, including the Duke of Edinburgh's Gold Award recipients lining the entry to Westminster Abbey. The flowers decorating the abbey included roses, carnations, eryngium (sea holly) and dendrobium orchids. Orchids were a part of the Queen's wedding bouquet and sea holly was chosen in tribute to the Duke's naval career. The Queen, the Duchess of Cornwall, the Princess Royal, the Queen of Spain and Princess Beatrix of the Netherlands wore outfits with the shades of Edinburgh green, the Duke's official livery colour, and the Queen adorned her coat with a brooch given to her by Philip over 50 years ago, while the Duchess of Cornwall wore the silver Bugle Horn brooch of The Rifles, of which both she and the late Duke have been colonels-in-chief.


text: David Hoyle, Dean of Westminster; David Conner, Dean of Windsor; and Justin Welby, Archbishop of Canterbury, officiated at the thanksgiving service. The Westminster Abbey and the Chapel Royal Choirs performed at the service, while the Royal Marines provided the music at the beginning and the end of the ceremony. The Household Cavalry trumpeters and the Central Band of the Royal Air Force were also part of the service. Music before the service included ""Andante cantabile"" from "Symphony No 3" by Charles-Marie Widor, "Bist du bei mir BWV 508" by Gottfried Heinrich Stölzel (arranged by Johann Sebastian Bach), ""Salix"" from "Plymouth Suite" by Percy Whitlock, "Prelude "49th Parallel"" by Ralph Vaughan Williams, ""Elsa's Procession to the Cathedral"" by Richard Wagner, "Canterbury Chorale" by Jan Van der Roost, ""Lux Aurumque"" by Eric Whitacre, "Men of Honour Part 2" by Mark Isham, "Pacific", "Shepherd's Song" from Ludwig van Beethoven's Symphony No. 6; and ""Benedictus"" from "Sonata Britannica" by Charles Villiers Stanford. The hymn "To Be a Pilgrim" by John Bunyan was sung to an arrangement by James O'Donnell as the Queen made her way to her seat. In the bidding, the Dean of Westminster paid tribute to the Duke as a person who "put privilege to work and understood his rank as a spur to service". Doyin Sonibare, a gold award winner, paid tribute to Philip during her speech. The first lesson, Isaiah 40:25–31, was read by the Lord Wallace of Tankerness, followed by the choir singing William Byrd's "Prevent us, O Lord" from the "Book of Common Prayer". Dame Sarah Mullally read the second lesson, Philippians 4:4–9, after which the choir and attendees sang "All Creatures of Our God and King" by William Henry Draper to an arrangement by James O'Donnell. The Dean of Windsor delivered an address, mentioning that the Duke would have hated the idea of being remembered as a "plaster saint" as he had no tolerance for "pomposity or flattery" during his lifetime. Following his address the choir sang "Te Deum in C" by Benjamin Britten. Prayers were then delivered by Mark Birch, Minor Canon and Precentor; Kenneth MacKenzie, Minister of Crathie Church; Paul Fergusson, Dean of the Order of the Thistle and of the Chapel Royal, Scotland; Martin Poll, Chaplain to the Royal Chapel of All Saints, Windsor Great Park; Paul Wright, Sub-Dean of Her Majesty's Chapels Royal; James Hawkey, Canon in Residence. The choir and attendees sang William Williams Pantycelyn's "Guide Me, O Thou Great Redeemer" before the Archbishop of Canterbury gave the blessing. The event ended with the attendees singing "God Save the Queen". At the service's conclusion, the Queen thanked Doyin Sonibare and the clergy who took part in the service. Music after the service included "Allegro molto e ritmico" from Sonata Britannica, and "The Seafarers" played by the Band of Her Majesty's Royal Marines Portsmouth.


text: 1,800 people were present for the service at Westminster Abbey. Along with European and Asian royalty in attendance, 500 representatives of the charities and patronages affiliated with the Duke attended the service, along with members of the Queen and the Duke's household, representatives of the British and overseas governments, more than 100 members of the armed forces (including Highlanders Pipe Major and the Grenadier Guards Bearer Party who took part in the funeral), realm high commissioners, and the regiments associated with the Duke. Guests at the service included:


text: Philip's grandson and granddaughter-in-law, the Duke and Duchess of Sussex, who reside in the United States did not attend the memorial service due to self-expressed security concerns.


text: The King and Queen of Norway who were set to attend the service did not travel to the UK as the King was still recovering from COVID-19. The King is the Duke's second cousin once removed.


title: Saw II

text: Saw II is a 2005 horror film directed by Darren Lynn Bousman and written by Leigh Whannell and Bousman. It is the sequel to 2004's "Saw" and the second installment in the "Saw" film series. The film stars Donnie Wahlberg, Franky G, Glenn Plummer, Beverley Mitchell, Dina Meyer, Emmanuelle Vaugier, Erik Knudsen, Shawnee Smith, and Tobin Bell. In the film, a group of ex-convicts are trapped by the Jigsaw Killer inside a house and must pass a series of deadly tests to retrieve the antidote for a nerve agent that will kill them in two hours.


title: Saw II

text: After the successful opening weekend of 2004's "Saw", a sequel was immediately green-lit. Whannell and James Wan were busy preparing for their next film and were unable to write or direct. Bousman wrote a script called "The Desperate" before "Saw" was released and was looking for a producer but many studios rejected it. Gregg Hoffman received the script and showed it to his partners Mark Burg and Oren Koules. It was decided that, with some changes, it could be made into "Saw II". Whannell became available to provide rewrites of the script. The film was given a larger budget and was shot from May to June 2005 in Toronto.


title: Saw II

text: "Saw II" was released in the United States on October 28, 2005, by Lionsgate. It opened with $31.9 million and grossed $88 million in the United States and Canada. It has remained the highest grossing "Saw" film in those countries. Bell was nominated for "Best Villain" at the 2006 MTV Movie Awards for his role as Jigsaw in the film. "Saw II" was released to home media on February 14, 2006, and topped charts its first week, selling more than 3 million units. A sequel, titled "Saw III", was released in 2006.


title: Saw II

text: Police informant Michael Marks awakens in a room with a spike-filled mask locked around his neck. He refuses to retrieve the key from his eye and is killed when the mask closes. At the scene of Michael's murder, Detective Allison Kerry finds a message for her former partner, Detective Eric Matthews. Matthews joins Kerry and Officer Daniel Rigg in leading a SWAT team to the factory which produced the lock from Michael's trap. There they apprehend John Kramer, the Jigsaw Killer, who indicates computer monitors showing eight people trapped in a house, including his only known survivor Amanda Young, Matthews' son Daniel, and six other victims: Xavier Chavez, Jonas Singer, Laura Hunter, Addison Corday, Obi Tate, and Gus Colyard. A nerve agent filling the house will kill them all within two hours, but John assures Matthews that if he follows the rules of his own game, he will see Daniel again. At Kerry's urging, Matthews agrees to buy time for the tech team to arrive and trace the video signal. During their conversation, John reveals to Matthews that one of his main motivations to become Jigsaw was a suicide attempt after his cancer diagnosis, which led to a newfound appreciation for life; his games' purpose is to help his victims develop the same appreciation.


title: Saw II

text: The group is informed by a microcassette recorder that antidotes are hidden throughout the house; one is in the room's safe, and the tape provides a cryptic clue. Gus ignores a warning note and uses the key provided with the cassette on the door, which triggers a gun through the peephole that kills him. Once the door opens, they search the house and find a basement, where Obi, who helped with abducting the other victims, is killed in a furnace trap while trying to retrieve two antidotes. In another room, Xavier's test involves digging through a pit filled with syringes to retrieve a key to a steel door in two minutes, but he instead throws Amanda into the pit. She retrieves the key, but Xavier fails to unlock the door in time. Throughout the game, the group discuss connections between them and determine that each has been incarcerated before except Daniel. During his father's test, John reveals their affiliation to Matthews who was a corrupt police officer framing his suspects in various crimes recently.


title: Saw II

text: Xavier returns to the safe room and finds a number on the back of Gus' neck. After realizing the numbers are the combination for the safe, he kills Jonas and begins hunting the others. Laura succumbs to the nerve agent and dies, after finding the clue revealing Daniel's identity. Incensed by the revelation, Addison leaves on her own and finds a glass box containing an antidote, but her arms become trapped in the openings which are lined with hidden blades. Xavier enters the room and leaves her to die after reading her number. Amanda and Daniel find a tunnel from the first room leading to the dilapidated bathroom. After Xavier corners them, Amanda taunts him by implying that he will not learn his number because nobody will read it to him. Xavier responds by cutting off a piece of skin from the back of his neck to read his number. Xavier charges them, and Daniel slits his throat with the hacksaw.


title: Saw II

text: Having seen Xavier chasing his son, Matthews assaults John and forces him to lead him to the house. The tech team tracks the video's source and while Rigg's team searches the house, Kerry realizes that the game took place days before they captured John until the timer for Matthews' game expires to reveal Daniel inside a safe, bound and breathing in an oxygen mask. Unaware of these events, Matthews enters the house alone and makes his way to the bathroom, where he is subdued by a pig-masked figure. He awakens shackled at the ankle to a pipe and finds a tape recorder left by Amanda, who reveals she had become John's accomplice after surviving her first trap and helped him set up Matthews' test during the game at the house, intending to continue John's work after he dies. Amanda then appears and seals the door, leaving Matthews to die as John hears his screams outside and smiles.


title: Saw II

text: "Saw II" was immediately green-lighted after "Saw"s successful opening weekend a year earlier. Producers needed a script for a sequel but James Wan and Leigh Whannell, director and writer of "Saw", were working on Universal Pictures's "Dead Silence". Music video director Darren Lynn Bousman had just completed a script for his first film "The Desperate", and was trying to sell it to studios but was getting reactions that the script was very similar to "Saw". A German studio eventually approached him with an offer to produce the film for $1 million. Just as they were looking for a cinematographer, the American cinematographer David A. Armstrong, who had worked on "Saw", arrived on the scene and suggested showing the script to "Saw" producer Gregg Hoffman. Hoffman read the script and called Bousman wanting to produce "The Desperate". Bousman was initially upset when he heard about his script's similarities to "Saw", and feared at first that Lionsgate's call was due to complaints of plagiarism. After Hoffman showed the script to his partners Mark Burg and Oren Koules, the two decided that "The Desperate" was the starting script they needed for "Saw II" and two months later, Bousman was flown to Toronto to direct.


title: Saw II

text: Whannell polished the script, with input from Wan, in order to bring it into the "Saw" universe, but kept the characters, traps and deaths from "The Desperate" script. Bousman said, "But you could read the script for "The Desperate" and watch "Saw II", and you would not be able to draw a comparison". Bousman's first draft for "The Desperate" consisted in an X-rated violent film, but after Bousman's agent found difficult to have the script bought because most studios were turned off due to the level of violence, Bousman modified his script to be an R-rated film, which is when the executives of Lionsgate were turned on his potential. Overall, the framework of "The Desperate" had a similar bleak, disgusting atmosphere and a twist ending, which is why the executives found parallels in the script's style. Wan and Whannell also served as executive producers. All the previous film's crew members returned: editor Kevin Greutert, cinematographer Armstrong, and composer Charlie Clouser. This would be Hoffman's last film; He died unexpectedly on December 4, 2005.


title: Saw II

text: Only those key cast and crew members who were involved in the film's ending were given the full script; the rest received only the first 88 pages. If a particular page was rewritten, the old page was shredded. Members were also required to sign confidentiality agreements requiring them not to release any plot details. Reportedly, "four or five" alternate endings were shot in order to keep the ending a surprise. Bousman gave the actors freedom to change dialogue in the script. He said that 95% of the time, the actors went by the script, with about 5% being adlibs, which he said "made all of the difference in the world". Donnie Wahlberg was allowed to modify some pieces of dialogue, especially those of Eric Matthews' interactions with his son Daniel and Jigsaw. For the former, Wahlberg added the line of what was the last thing Eric told Daniel basing it on what he says to his first son before hanging up the phone. For the latter, Wahlberg felt that the relationship between Eric and Jigsaw was "too dicey" and should emphasize Eric's need to sit with Jigsaw to rescue his son; Tobin Bell agreed with most of these changes, which Wahlberg added after finishing shooting every day, and the two improsived together on set. Hoffman said in an interview with "Fangoria" that they listened to fans' suggestions. For instance, instead of only showing the aftermath of a character violently dying in a flashback, they would allow it to unfold as it happened. This was in contrast to "Saw", in which most of the violence was implied off-screen.


title: Saw II

text: From the first film, Tobin Bell returned to play Jigsaw even though he wasn't obligated to return. Bell found it fascinating to reprise his role, but played the role like any of his, feeling that he needed to put himself on Jigsaw's side to get into character and play him properly. Shawnee Smith similarly returned to play Amanda Young even though she never imagined ever reprising the role as she didn't expect the first film to be such a hit. Bousman served as a stand-in for the hooded figure who places a key behind Michael Marks' eye, who the fans immediately theorized to be the first film's protagonist Dr. Lawrence Gordon, to add "flavor" to the performance, though Bousman didn't intend the figure to be Gordon.


title: Saw II

text: Donnie Wahlberg was cast as Eric Matthews out of attraction to the character and the script. At sixteen years old, Erik Knudsen was cast as Daniel Matthews in his first major feature film appearance; Knudsen auditioned hard to get the role and was excited upon being notified that he had won the part, as the first "Saw" was one of his favorite horror films along with the "Scream" series.


title: Saw II

text: Beverley Mitchell was cast as Laura Hunter despite her dislike for horror films and her inability to watch the first film full until trying for the fifth time, but she accepted the role nonetheless because she was looking for a challenging and frightening part to push her limits, which she found in Laura physically due to the requirement to play sick and coughing. Lyriq Bent originally auditioned for the role of Xavier Chavez, but was cast as Daniel Rigg instead out of fear for racial stereotypes of casting an African-American as a drug dealer, leading to Franky G's casting as Xavier, though Bent still found stereotypical of making the character Puerto-Rican.


title: Saw II

text: "Saw II" was given a larger production budget of $4 million, compared to "Saw"s budget of a little over $1 million. The marketing budget was an additional $2 million. The first shot, which involved shooting police cars and a SWAT van driving around the industrial docklands outside the soundstage, was filmed on in Toronto. Principal photography took place over 25 days at Toronto's Cinespace Film Studios from to . The film was initially given 21 days to be shot. The nerve gas house scenes were shot in an abandoned warehouse in Toronto and the actors who played the Jigsaw victims there worked sixteen hours each day. At the time of filming, in addition to having an on-set tutor for two hours, Erik Knudsen caught the flu, so he filmed his part while sick, which he mused that actually worked due to his character's apparent poisoning throughout the film. The ending was filmed on May 25 and 26. The music and sound was recorded in July and "Saw II" was locked on . It was completely finished by . Visual effects were performed by C.O.R.E. Digital Pictures and post-production services were provided by Deluxe.


title: Saw II

text: David Hackl, the film's production designer, took three weeks to construct 27 sets on a single sound stage. The puppet Billy, used in the series to give instructions to Jigsaw's victims, was originally created by Wan out of paper towel rolls and papier-mâché. Given the larger budget for the sequel, Billy was upgraded with remote-controlled eyes and a servo-driven mouth. In one trap, "The Needle Room", Smith's character Amanda is thrown into a pit of needles to find a key. In order for this to be done safely, four people, over a period of four days, removed the needle tips from syringes and replaced them with fiber optic tips. They modified a total of 120,000 fake needles. However, this number was insufficient, and the pit had to be filled with styrofoam and other materials to make it appear to have more needles. The needles that were apparently stuck into Smith were actually blunted syringes stuck into padding under her clothing. For certain shots, a fake arm was used.


title: Saw II

text: Bousman came up with an idea whereby a character's hands would get stuck in some sort of vessel, and this resulted in the "Hand Trap". It proved to be a challenge, but after much discussion, Hackl, property master Jim Murray and art director Michele Brady came up with a suitable design. They arranged a glass box suspended by chains from the ceiling which contained a hypodermic needle with the antidote and which had two hand-holes on the underside. As soon as Emmanuelle Vaugier's character Addison Corday puts her hands into the holes, razor blades would close in on her hands, and any attempt to withdraw from the trap would cause her to bleed to death. In order for the trap to be used safely, the prop builders made the handcuffs move inside the box and fake blades that would retract from the actress's hands, thus allowing her to slide her hands out. Hackl subsequently commented that the character did not have to put her hands into the trap, as there was a lock with a key on the other side of the box that would have opened the contraption.


title: Saw II

text: The original idea for the "Furnace Trap" came from the house having been a crematorium at some point, but this would have involved turning the house into a funeral parlor, so it was instead decided that the furnace would be part of the house's boiler system. The furnace was visualized in the form of a computer model so that Bousman could better understand how shots could be filmed. Using the computer model as a guide, the furnace was constructed in three days using cement board and tin with removable sides and top so Timothy Burd's character Obi Tate could be filmed crawling inside. The furnace produced real flames and, in place of Burd, a stuntman using a fire retardant gel crawled into the fire.


title: Saw II

text: "Saw II" was released in New Zealand, the United States, and the United Kingdom on ; and in Australia. The original teaser poster showing two bloody, severed fingers, representing the Roman numeral, II, was rejected by the Motion Picture Association of America. Since the poster was already released and managed to "slip by" the MPAA, they issued a release stating the poster was not approved and was unacceptable; Lionsgate Films removed the poster from their websites. The image was used instead for the film's soundtrack cover. Lionsgate held the second annual "Give Til It Hurts" blood drive for the Red Cross and collected 10,154 pints of blood.


title: Saw II

text: The "Saw II" soundtrack was released on October 25, 2005 by Treadstone Records. Johnny Loftus from AllMusic gave the soundtrack two and a half out of five stars, writing, "The remixer and occasional NIN member's music was overdone, mysterious, tense, and capably chilling, just like the horror-camp of the film itself." The video for "Forget to Remember" was also directed by Bousman.


title: Saw II

text: "Saw II" was released on DVD, VHS, and Universal Media Disc on February 14, 2006, through Lions Gate Home Entertainment. The DVD debuted as number one selling 2.5 million units in its first day. It went on to sell 3.9 million units its first week, becoming the fastest selling theatrical DVD in Lions Gate's history. In rentals, "Saw II" topped the charts its first week bringing in $9.96 million in combined rentals, pushing "Just Like Heaven" ($5.96 million) to number 2. Its second week, it placed first on rental charts with $5.29 million despite a 47% drop from its first week.


title: Saw II

text: On October 24, 2006, a DVD "Unrated Special Edition" was released, while an Unrated Blu-ray edition was also released with various special features on January 23, 2007.


title: Saw II

text: "Saw II" opened with $31.7 million on 3,879 screens across 2,949 theaters. The three-day Halloween opening weekend set a Lionsgate record. It became at the time, the widest release for the distubtor and one of the best opening weekends for a horror sequel. For its second weekend it fell 47% making $16.9 million.


title: Saw II

text: "Saw II" opened in the United Kingdom with $3.8 million on 305 screens, 70% larger than the first instalment. It opened in Japan on 67 screens with $750,000. Opening to $1.3 million on 173 screens it was the number one film in Australia. The film grossed $87 million in the United States and Canada and $60.7 million in other markets for a worldwide total of $147.7 million. In the United States and Canada, "Saw II" is the highest-grossing film of the "Saw" series.


title: Saw II

text: Robert Koehler of "Variety" wrote, "cooking up new Rube Goldberg torture contraptions isn't enough to get "Saw II" out of the shadow of its unnerving predecessor". Gregory Kirschling of "Entertainment Weekly" gave the film a B minus, saying ""Saw II" is just barely a better B flick than "Saw"" and that both films are "more clever and revolting than they are actually chilling". He praised Bell's performance as Jigsaw, saying "As the droopy-lidded maniac in the flesh, Tobin Bell is, for all the film's gewgaws, "Saw II" sturdiest horror, a Terence Stamp look-alike who calls to mind a seedy General Zod lazily overseeing the universe from his evildoer's lair". He ended his review: "Where "Saw II" lags behind in Saw's novelty, it takes the lead with its smoother landing, which is again primed to blow the movie wide open, but manages a more compelling job of it than the original's cheat finish".


title: Saw II

text: Kevin Crust of the "Los Angeles Times" called "Saw II" a "worthy follow-up to its grisly predecessor". He said the story was "much more focused on an endgame than the original film. There are fewer credibility gaps and there are plenty of reversals to satisfy fans". He criticized the use of numerous flashbacks, saying that it "rob[s] us of the pleasure of actually remembering for ourselves". Laura Kern, writing for "The New York Times", said that Bousman "delivers similar hard-core, practically humorless frights and hair-raising tension, but only after getting past a shaky beginning that plays more like a forensics-themed television show than a scary movie" and called Greutert's editing "crafty". She called the sequel "more trick than treat" and that it "doesn't really compare to its fine predecessor - though it still manages to be eye-opening (and sometimes positively nauseating) in itself". "Empire"s Kim Newman gave the film three out of five stars. He said that the film improves upon "Saw" "perverse fascination with "Seven"-style murders and brutally violent puzzles" and that Jigsaw's intellectual games make "Hannibal Lecter look like the compiler of "The Sun"s quick crossword". He ended his reviews saying, "Morally dubious it may be, but this gory melange of torture, terror and darkly humorous depravity appeals to the sick puppy within us all".


title: Saw II

text: Tobin Bell was nominated for "Best Villain" at the 2006 MTV Movie Awards for his role as Jigsaw, though the award went to Hayden Christensen for his role as Darth Vader in "".


title: The Cat Returns

text: A spin-off of "Whisper of the Heart", it was theatrically released in Japan on July 20, 2002 through Toho and in 2005 in the United States through Walt Disney Home Entertainment. It received an Excellence Prize at the 2002 Japan Media Arts Festival. GKIDS re-issued the film on Blu-ray and DVD on January 16, 2018 under a new deal with Studio Ghibli.


title: The Cat Returns

text: Haru Yoshioka is a shy but noble high school student who has a suppressed ability to talk with cats. One day, she saves a cat from being hit by a truck on a busy road. The cat she saved turns out to be Lune, Prince of the Cat Kingdom. As a thanks, the cats give Haru gifts of catnip and mice, and she is offered the Prince's hand in marriage. Her mixed reply is taken as a yes.


title: The Cat Returns

text: Wanting none of this, Haru hears a kind female voice which tells her to seek out Muta, a large white cat, and to get directions to the Cat Bureau from him. Muta leads her there to meet Baron Humbert von Gikkingen (the same Baron from "Whisper of the Heart"), who is a cat figurine given life by the work of his artist, and Toto, a stone raven who comes to life much like the Baron. Soon after meeting them, Haru and Muta are forcefully taken to the Cat Kingdom, leaving Toto and the Baron in the human world to follow the group from the air; they find the entrance to the Cat Kingdom on Earth: five lakes forming a cat's paw.


title: The Cat Returns

text: Haru is treated to a feast at the castle of the Cat King. She begins to slowly turn into a cat (with tan paws, ears, nose, tail, and whiskers; (for a second, she also gets fangs), though she still remains mostly human. The King hopes that she will make a suitable bride for the Prince. At the feast, the Baron (in disguise) dances with Haru as part of the entertainment. He reveals to her that the more she loses herself in the kingdom, the more cat-like she will become, and that she has to rediscover her true self. When the Baron is discovered and is forced to fight the guards, he and Haru are helped by Yuki, a white cat maiden in the palace who had previously tried to warn Haru to leave the Cat Kingdom. After Yuki shows them an escape tunnel, Haru, the Baron, and Muta move through a maze to a tower, which contains a portal to Haru's world. The King goes through a series of efforts to keep them in the kingdom long enough for Haru to remain trapped in her cat- form; his ultimate plan is still to force her to become his daughter-in-law.


title: The Cat Returns

text: Prince Lune and his guards return to the Cat Kingdom, revealing the King was not acting on his behalf and that he planned on proposing to Yuki. Muta is revealed to be Renaldo Moon, a notorious criminal in the Kingdom (having devoured a whole lake of fish in one session). Haru learns that the strange voice who had advised her to go to the Cat Bureau was Yuki's. In her childhood, Haru had saved Yuki from starvation by giving her the fish crackers she was eating, and thus, Yuki has now repaid her kindness. After she rejects the King's marriage proposal outright, Muta tells Haru, "I respect a woman who stands up for herself," and proceeds to help her escape from the King's soldiers.


title: The Cat Returns

text: Eventually, the Baron, Haru and Muta escape the cats' realm, with the aid of Prince Lune and Toto, and Haru discovers her true self, telling the Baron how much she has come to like him. He tells her the doors of the Cat Bureau will be open for her again if the need ever arises. Haru returns to the human world with more self-confidence; after learning from her friend, Hiromi, that her former crush has broken up with his girlfriend, she simply replies "it doesn't matter anymore."


title: The Cat Returns

text: Yōko Honna, who voiced Shizuku in the original "Whisper of the Heart" film, provides the minor voice role of Chika, one of Haru's classmates.


title: The Cat Returns

text: In 1995, Studio Ghibli released a film entitled "Whisper of the Heart", based on a manga by Aoi Hiiragi, of a girl writing a fantasy novel. Although the girl's life had no magical elements, the film featured short fantasy scenes depicting that the girl was writing of the Baron, a character of her novel, which were so popular that an indirect sequel was made, featuring the Baron and another girl, a high school student, named Haru. Muta also returned. "The Cat Returns" began as the "Cat Project" in 1999. Studio Ghibli received a request from a Japanese theme park to create a 20-minute short starring cats. Hayao Miyazaki wanted three key elements to feature in the short — these were the Baron, Muta (Moon) and a mysterious antique shop. Hiiragi was commissioned to create the manga equivalent of the short, which is called and is published in English by Viz Media. The theme park later canceled the project. Miyazaki then took the existing work done by the "Cat Project" and used it as testing for future Ghibli directors — the short was now to be 45 minutes long. Responsibility was given to Hiroyuki Morita, who had started as an animator in 1999 for the film "My Neighbors the Yamadas". Over a nine-month period he translated Hiiragi's "Baron" story into 525 pages of storyboards for what was to be "The Cat Returns". Miyazaki and Toshio Suzuki decided to produce a feature-length film based entirely on Morita's storyboard; this was partly because Haru, the main character, had a "believable feel to her". It became the second theatrical (third overall) Studio Ghibli feature to be directed by someone other than Miyazaki or Isao Takahata. Telecom Animation Film, Production I.G, and DR Movie helped animate the film.


title: The Cat Returns

text: The film was released on July 20, 2002 as the highest-grossing domestic film at the Japanese box office in 2002 and the 7th highest-grossing film of the year overall. As of January 5, 2015, it is the 86th highest-grossing film in Japan, with ¥6.46 billion. The film grossed a total of at the box office.


title: The Cat Returns

text: On review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, 91% of 23 critic reviews are positive for "The Cat Returns", and the average rating is 7.0/10. The website's critics consensus reads, "Sweetly charming and beautifully animated, "The Cat Returns" offers anime adventure suitable for the very young and young at heart." According to Metacritic, which gave a score of 70 out of 100 based on 11 critics, the film received "generally favorable reviews".


title: The Cat Returns

text: Lisa Nesselson of "Variety" described the film as "catchy entertainment for kids and adults" and highlighted the "thrillingly imaginative" finale. Michael Booth of "The Denver Post" noted that director Morita "has a slightly cruder, more realistic sense of the world and its looniness than does Miyazaki, and you can see where "The Cat Returns" moves on a different track even as it pays homage to Japan's current animation master." Neil Smith of the BBC noted that while the film "can't quite match the invention of 2003 Oscar-winner "Spirited Away"... "The Cat Returns" is still an enchanting, magical fable with a twisted vein of surrealism."


title: The Cat Returns

text: The film was dubbed in English by Walt Disney Pictures with the voices of Anne Hathaway, Cary Elwes, Peter Boyle, Elliott Gould, Tim Curry, Judy Greer, and Kristen Bell, for a release on DVD on February 22, 2005 alongside "Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind" and "Porco Rosso". Walt Disney Studios Home Entertainment released the film on Blu-ray in the United States was on June 16, 2015. GKIDS re-released the film on DVD and Blu-ray on January 16, 2018.


title: The Cat Returns

text: is a 2002 manga written by Aoi Hiiragi and published by Tokuma Shoten. The story in the manga is largely the same as in its film adaptation, with a few minor differences, including a comedic ending in which the cat Natoru comes into Haru's room and pesters her, as well as a mildly dark revelation involving Haru's cat friend from childhood, Yuki (that Yuki was struck and killed by a vehicle and is in a kind of cat heaven, helping Haru out of gratitude for feeding her fish crackers when she was a little girl). The visual design for Baron, as originally illustrated by Hiiragi in the manga, featured him as a dark gray cat with large blue eyes and long pointed ears, while in the Studio Ghibli version, Baron is orange-and-yellow with smaller green eyes and shorter ears, a design change carried over from the way Baron was visually portrayed in the film adaptation of "Whisper of the Heart". Haru's hair was visually longer and darker in Hiiragi's illustrations, although the character Muta retained his general appearance from the manga in the film adaptation. Muta is a side protagonist in both Hiiragi's manga and the film adaptation, while in "Whisper of the Heart", he is an antagonistic villain called "Moon". Hiiragi alluded to this in the manga, which was mildly referenced in the film; Muta in the film was said to have been a morbidly obese cat who ate every fish in the kingdom, as rogue outlaw "Renaldo Moon", a fact he uses to frighten the Cat Kingdom into leaving Haru alone so she can run away and escape. The film portrays the Cat Kingdom as a physically real dimension parallel to Haru's home city, whereas Hiiragi portrays the Cat Kingdom as a heaven for cats who have passed away.


title: Yuan Shikai

text: Yuan Shikai (; 16 September 1859 – 6 June 1916) was a Chinese military and government official who rose to power during the late Qing dynasty and eventually ended the Qing dynasty rule of China in 1912, later becoming the Emperor of China. He first tried to save the dynasty with a number of modernization projects including bureaucratic, fiscal, judicial, educational, and other reforms, despite playing a key part in the failure of the Hundred Days' Reform. He established the first modern army and a more efficient provincial government in North China during the last years of the Qing dynasty before forcing the abdication of the Xuantong Emperor, the last monarch of the Qing dynasty in 1912. Through negotiation, he became the first President of the Republic of China in 1912. This army and bureaucratic control were the foundation of his autocratic rule. In 1915 he attempted to restore the hereditary monarchy in China, with himself as the Hongxian Emperor (). His death in 1916 shortly after his abdication led to the fragmentation of the Chinese political system and the end of the Beiyang government as China's central authority.


title: Yuan Shikai

text: On 16 September 1859, Yuan Shikai was born in the village of Zhangying () to the Yuan Clan which later moved 16 kilometers southeast of Xiangcheng to a hilly area that was easier to defend against bandits. There the Yuans had built a fortified village, Yuanzhaicun ().


title: Yuan Shikai

text: Yuan's family was affluent enough to provide Yuan with a traditional Confucian education. As a young man he enjoyed riding, dogging, boxing, and entertainment with friends. Though hoping to pursue a career in the civil service, he failed the Imperial examinations twice, leading him to decide on an entry into politics through the Huai Army, where many of his relatives served. His career began with the purchase of a minor official title in 1880, which was a common method of official promotion in the late Qing. Using his father's connections, Yuan travelled to Tengzhou, Shandong, and sought a post in the Qing Brigade. Yuan's first marriage was in 1876 to a woman of the Yu family who bore him a first son, Keding, in 1878. Yuan Shikai married nine more concubines throughout the course of his life.


title: Yuan Shikai

text: In the early 1870s, Korea under the Joseon dynasty was in the midst of a struggle between isolationists under King Gojong's father Heungseon Daewongun, and progressives, led by Empress Myeongseong, who wanted to open trade. After the Meiji Restoration, Japan had adopted an aggressive foreign policy, contesting Chinese domination of the peninsula. Under the Treaty of Ganghwa, which the Koreans signed with reluctance in 1876, Japan was allowed to send diplomatic missions to Hanseong, and opened trading posts in Incheon and Wonsan. Amidst an internal power struggle which resulted in the queen's exile, the Viceroy of Zhili, Li Hongzhang, sent the 3,000 strong Qing Brigade into Korea. The Korean king proposed training 500 troops in the art of modern warfare, and Yuan Shikai was appointed to lead this task in Korea. Li Hongzhang also recommended Yuan's promotion, with Yuan given the rank of "sub-prefect".


title: Yuan Shikai

text: Following the suppression of Gapsin Coup. In 1885, Yuan was appointed Imperial Resident of Seoul. On the surface the position equalled that of ambassador but in practice, as head official from the suzerain, Yuan had become the supreme adviser on all Korean government policies. Perceiving China's increasing influence on the Korean government, Japan sought more influence through co-suzerainty with China. A series of documents were released to Yuan Shikai, claiming the Korean government had changed its stance towards Chinese protection and would rather turn to Russia for protection. Yuan was outraged yet skeptical and asked Li Hongzhang for advice.


title: Yuan Shikai

text: In a treaty signed between Japan and Qing, the two parties agreed only to send troops into Korea after notifying the other. Although the Korean government was stable, it was still a protectorate of Qing. Koreans emerged advocating modernization. Another more radicalised group, the Donghak Society, promoting an early nationalist doctrine based partly upon Confucian principles, rose in rebellion against the government. Yuan and Li Hongzhang sent troops into Korea to protect Seoul and Qing's interests, and Japan did the same under the pretext of protecting Japanese trading posts. Tensions boiled over between Japan and China when Japan refused to withdraw its forces and placed a blockade at the 38th Parallel. Li Hongzhang wanted at all costs to avoid a war with Japan and attempted this by asking for international pressure for a Japanese withdrawal. Japan refused, and war broke out. Yuan, having been put in an ineffective position, was recalled to Tianjin in July 1894, before the official outbreak of the First Sino-Japanese War ().


title: Yuan Shikai

text: Yuan Shikai had three Korean concubines, one of whom was Korean Princess Li's relative, concubine Kim. 15 of Yuan's children came from these three Korean women.


title: Yuan Shikai

text: Yuan's rise to fame began with his nominal participation in the First Sino-Japanese War as commander of the Chinese garrison forces in Korea. Unlike other officers, however, he avoided the humiliation of Chinese defeat by having been recalled to Peking several days before the outbreak of conflict.


title: Yuan Shikai

text: As an ally of Li Hongzhang, Yuan was appointed the commander of the first New Army in 1895. Yuan's training program modernized the army, creating enormous pride, and earning him the loyalty of capable senior officers. By 1901, five of China's seven divisional commanders and most other senior military officers in China were his protégés. The Qing court relied heavily on his army due to the proximity of its garrison to the capital and their effectiveness. Of the new armies that formed part of the Self-Strengthening Movement, Yuan's was the best trained and most effective. His success opened the way for his rise to the top in both military and political sectors.


title: Yuan Shikai

text: The Qing Court at the time was divided between progressives under the leadership of the Guangxu Emperor, and conservatives under the Empress Dowager Cixi, who had temporarily retreated to the Summer Palace as a place of "retirement". After the Guangxu Emperor's Hundred Days' Reform in 1898, however, Cixi decided that the reforms were too drastic, and plotted to restore her own regency through a coup d'état. Plans of the coup spread early, and the Emperor was very aware of the plot. He asked reform advocates Kang Youwei, Tan Sitong and others to develop a plan to save him. Yuan's involvement in the coup remains a matter of debate among historians. Tan Sitong reportedly spoke with Yuan several days before the coup, asking Yuan to assist the Emperor against Cixi. Yuan refused a direct answer, but insisted he was loyal to the Emperor. Meanwhile, Manchu General Ronglu was planning manoeuvres for his army to stage the coup.


title: Yuan Shikai

text: According to sources, including the diary of Liang Qichao and contemporary Chinese news sources, Yuan Shikai arrived in Tianjin on 20 September 1898 by train. It was certain that by the evening, Yuan had talked to Ronglu, but what was revealed to him remains ambiguous. Most historians suggest that Yuan had told Ronglu of all details of the Reformers' plans, and asked him to take immediate action. The plot being exposed, Ronglu's troops entered the Forbidden City at dawn on 21 September, forcing the Emperor into seclusion in a lake palace.


title: Yuan Shikai

text: Making a political alliance with the Empress Dowager, and becoming a lasting enemy of the Guangxu Emperor, Yuan left the capital in 1899 for his new appointment as Governor of Shandong. During his three-year tenure the Boxer Rebellion (1899–1901) erupted; Yuan ensured the suppression of Boxers in the province, though his troops took no active part outside Shandong itself. Yuan took the side of the pro-foreign faction in the Imperial Court, along with Prince Qing, Li Hongzhang, and Ronglu. He refused to side with the Boxers and attack the Eight-Nation Alliance forces, joining with other Chinese governors who commanded substantial modernized armies like Zhang Zhidong not participating in the Boxer Rebellion. He and Zhang ignored Empress Dowager Cixi's declaration of war against the foreign powers and continued to suppress the Boxers. This clique was known as The Mutual Protection of Southeast China. In addition to not fighting the Eight-Nation Alliance and suppressing the Boxers in Shandong, Yuan and his army (the Right Division) also helped the Eight-Nation Alliance suppress the Boxers after the Alliance captured Peking in August 1900. Yuan Shikai's forces massacred tens of thousands of people in their anti-Boxer campaign in Zhili. Yuan operated out of Baoding during the campaign, which ended in 1902.


title: Yuan Shikai

text: He also founded a provincial junior college (Shandong College, the forerunner of Shandong University) in Jinan, which adopted western ideas of education.


title: Yuan Shikai

text: In June 1902 he was promoted to Viceroy of Zhili, the lucrative commissioner for North China Trade, and Minister of Beiyang (), comprising the modern regions of Liaoning, Hebei, and Shandong. Having gained the regard of foreigners after helping crush the Boxer Rebellion, he successfully obtained numerous loans to expand his Beiyang Army into the most powerful army in China. He created a 2,000-strong police force to keep order in Tianjin, the first of its kind in Chinese history, as a result of the Boxer Protocol forbidding any troops to be staged close to Tianjin. Yuan was also involved in the transfer of railway control from Sheng Xuanhuai, leading railways and their construction to become a large source of his revenue. Yuan played an active role in late-Qing political reforms, including the creation of the Ministry of Education () and Ministry of Police (). He further advocated ethnic equality between Manchus and Han Chinese.


title: Yuan Shikai

text: In 1905, acting on Yuan's advice, Dowager-Empress Cixi issued a decree ending the traditional Confucian examination system that was formalized in 1906. She ordered the Ministry of Education to implement a system of primary and secondary schools and universities with state-mandated curriculum, modeled after the educational system of Meiji-period Japan. On 27 August 1908, the Qing court promulgated "Principles for a Constitution", which Yuan helped to draft. This document called for a constitutional government with a strong monarchy (modeled after Meiji Japan and Bismarck's Germany), with a constitution to be issued by 1916 and an elected parliament by 1917.


title: Yuan Shikai

text: Yuan Shikai's Han-dominated New Army was primarily responsible for the defense of Beijing, as most of the modernized Eight Banner divisions were destroyed in the Boxer Rebellion and the new modernized Banner forces were token in nature.


title: Yuan Shikai

text: The Empress Dowager and the Guangxu Emperor died within a day of each other in November 1908. Sources indicate that the will of the emperor ordered Yuan's execution. Nonetheless, he avoided death. In January 1909, he was relieved of all his posts by the regent, Prince Chun. The public reason for Yuan's resignation was that he was returning to his home in the village of Huanshang (), the prefecture-level city of Anyang, due to a foot disease.


title: Yuan Shikai

text: During his three years of effective exile, Yuan kept contact with his close allies, including Duan Qirui, who reported to him regularly about army proceedings. Yuan had arranged for the marriage of his niece (whom he had adopted) to Duan as a means to consolidate power. The loyalty of the Beiyang Army was still undoubtedly behind him. Having this strategic military support, Yuan held the balance of power between various revolutionaries (like Sun Yat-sen) and the Qing court. Both wanted Yuan on their side.


title: Yuan Shikai

text: The Wuchang Uprising took place on 10 October 1911 in Hubei province. The southern provinces subsequently declared their independence from the Qing court, but neither the northern provinces nor the Beiyang Army had a clear stance for or against the rebellion. Both the Qing court and Yuan were fully aware that the Beiyang Army was the only Qing force powerful enough to quell the revolutionaries. The court requested Yuan's return on 27 October, but he repeatedly declined offers from the Qing court for his return, first as the Viceroy of Huguang, and then as Prime Minister of the Imperial Cabinet. Time was on Yuan's side, and Yuan waited, using his "foot ailment" as a pretext to his continual refusal.


title: Yuan Shikai

text: After further pleas by the Qing Court, Yuan agreed and eventually left his village for Beijing on 30 October, becoming prime minister on 1 November 1911. Immediately after that he asked the regent to withdraw from politics, which forced Zaifeng to resign as regent. This made way for Yuan to form a new, predominantly Han Chinese, cabinet of confidants, with only one Manchu as Minister of Suzerainty. To further reward Yuan's loyalty to the court, the Empress Dowager Longyu offered Yuan the noble title Marquis of the First Rank (), an honour only previously given to 19th century General Zeng Guofan for his raising of the Xiang Army to suppress the Taiping Rebellion. Meanwhile, in the Battle of Yangxia, Yuan's forces recaptured Hankou and Hanyang from the revolutionaries. Yuan knew that complete suppression of the revolution would end his usefulness to the Qing regime. Instead of attacking Wuchang, he began to negotiate with the revolutionaries.


title: Yuan Shikai

text: The revolutionaries had elected Sun Yat-sen as the first Provisional President of the Republic of China, but they were in a weak position militarily, so they negotiated with the Qing, using Yuan as an intermediary. Yuan arranged for the abdication of the child emperor Puyi in return for being granted the position of President of the Republic of China. Puyi recalled in his autobiography the meeting between Longyu and Yuan:


title: Yuan Shikai

text: Sun agreed to Yuan's presidency after some internal bickering, but asked that the capital be situated in Nanjing. Yuan, however, wanted the geographic advantage of having the nation's capital close to his base of military power. Many theorized that Cao Kun, one of his trusted subordinate Beiyang military commanders, fabricated a coup d'état in Beijing and Tianjin, apparently under Yuan's orders, to provide an excuse for Yuan not to leave his sphere of influence in Zhili (present-day Hebei province). However, the claim that the coup was organized by Yuan has been challenged by others. The revolutionaries compromised again, and the capital of the new republic was established in Beijing. Yuan Shikai was elected Provisional President of the Republic of China by the Nanjing Provisional Senate on 14 February 1912, and sworn in on 10 March of that year.


title: Yuan Shikai

text: In February 1913, democratic elections were held for the National Assembly in which the "Kuomintang" (KMT – "Chinese Nationalist Party") scored a significant victory. Song Jiaoren of the KMT zealously supported a cabinet system and was widely regarded as a candidate for prime minister.


title: Yuan Shikai

text: One of Song's main political goals was to ensure that the powers and independence of China's Parliament be properly protected from the influence of the office of the president. Song's goals in curtailing the office of the president conflicted with the interests of Yuan, who, by mid-1912, clearly dominated the provisional cabinet and was showing signs of a desire to hold overwhelming executive power. During Song's travels through China in 1912, he had openly and vehemently expressed the desire to limit the powers of the president in terms that often appeared openly critical of Yuan's ambitions. When the results of the 1913 elections indicated a clear victory for the KMT, it appeared that Song would be in a position to exercise a dominant role in selecting the premier and cabinet, and the party could have proceeded to push for the election of a future president in a parliamentary setting. On 20 March 1913, Song Jiaoren was shot by a lone gunman in Shanghai, and died two days later. The trail of evidence led to the secretary of the cabinet and the provisional premier of Yuan's government. Although Yuan was considered by contemporary Chinese media sources as the man most likely behind the assassination, the main conspirators investigated by authorities were either themselves assassinated or disappeared mysteriously. For lack of evidence, Yuan was not implicated.


title: Yuan Shikai

text: Tensions between the KMT and Yuan continued to intensify. After arriving in Peking, the elected Parliament attempted to gain control over Yuan, to develop a permanent constitution, and to hold a legitimate, open presidential election. Because he had authorized $100 million of "reorganization loans" from a variety of foreign banks, the KMT in particular were highly critical of Yuan's handling of the national budget. Yuan's crackdown on the KMT began in 1913, with the suppression and bribery of KMT members in the two legislative chambers. Anti-Yuan revolutionaries also claimed Yuan orchestrated the collapse of the KMT internally and dismissed governors interpreted as being pro-KMT.


title: Yuan Shikai

text: Seeing the situation for his party worsen, Sun Yat-sen fled to Japan in August 1913, and called for a Second Revolution, this time against Yuan Shikai. Subsequently, Yuan gradually took over the government, using the military as the base of his power. He dissolved the national and provincial assemblies, and the House of Representatives and Senate were replaced by the newly formed "Council of State", with Duan Qirui, his trusted Beiyang lieutenant, as prime minister. He relied on the American-educated Tsai Tingkan for English translation and connections with western powers. Finally, Yuan had himself elected president to a five-year term, publicly labelled the KMT a seditious organization, ordered the KMT's dissolution, and evicted all its members from Parliament. The KMT's "Second Revolution" ended in failure as Yuan's troops achieved complete victory over revolutionary uprisings. Provincial governors with KMT loyalties who remained willingly submitted to Yuan. Because those commanders not loyal to Yuan were effectively removed from power, the Second Revolution cemented Yuan's power.


title: Yuan Shikai

text: In January 1914, China's Parliament was formally dissolved. To give his government a semblance of legitimacy, Yuan convened a body of 66 men from his cabinet who, on 1 May 1914, produced a "constitutional compact" that effectively replaced China's provisional constitution. The new legal status quo gave Yuan, as president, practically unlimited powers over China's military, finances, foreign policy, and the rights of China's citizens. Yuan justified these reforms by stating that representative democracy had been proven inefficient by political infighting.


title: Yuan Shikai

text: After his victory, Yuan reorganized the provincial governments. Each province was supported by a military governor () as well as a civil authority, giving each governor control of their own army. This helped lay the foundations for the warlordism that crippled China over the next two decades.


title: Yuan Shikai

text: During Yuan's presidency, a silver "dollar" (yuan in Chinese) carrying his portrait was introduced. This coin type was the first "dollar" coin of the central authorities of the Republic of China to be minted in significant quantities. It became a staple silver coin type during the first half of the 20th century and was struck for the last time as late as the 1950s. They were also extensively forged.


title: Yuan Shikai

text: In 1914, Japan captured the German colony at Qingdao. In January 1915, Japan sent a secret ultimatum, known as the Twenty-one Demands, to Beijing. Japan demanded an extension of extraterritoriality, the sale of businesses in debt to Japan and the cession of Qingdao to Japan, and virtual control of finance and the local police. When these demands were made public, hostility within China was expressed in nationwide anti-Japanese demonstrations and an effective national boycott of Japanese goods. With support from Britain and the United States Yuan secured Japan's dropping part five of the demands, which would have given Japan a general control of Chinese affairs. However he did accept the less onerous terms and that led to a decline in the popularity of Yuan's government.


title: Yuan Shikai

text: To build up his own authority, Yuan began to re-institute elements of state Confucianism. As the main proponent of reviving Qing state religious observances, Yuan effectively participated as emperor in rituals held at the Qing Temple of Heaven. In late 1915, rumors were floated of a popular consensus that the hereditary monarchy should be revived. With his power secure, many of Yuan's supporters, notably monarchist Yang Du, advocated for a revival of the hereditary monarchy, asking Yuan to take on the title of Emperor. Yang reasoned that the Chinese masses had long been used to monarchic rule, the Republic had only been effective as a transitional phase to end Manchu rule, and China's political situation demanded the stability that only a dynastic monarchy could ensure. The American political scientist Frank Johnson Goodnow suggested a similar idea. Negotiators representing Japan had also offered to support Yuan's ambitions as one of the rewards for Yuan's support of the Twenty-One Demands.


title: Yuan Shikai

text: On 20 November 1915, Yuan held a specially convened "Representative Assembly" which voted unanimously to offer Yuan the throne. On 12 December 1915, Yuan "accepted" the invitation and proclaimed himself Emperor of the Chinese Empire () under the era name of Hongxian (; i.e. "Constitutional Abundance"). The new Empire of China was to formally begin on 1 January 1916, when Yuan, the Hongxian Emperor, intended to conduct the accession rites. Soon after becoming emperor, the Hongxian Emperor placed an order with the former imperial potters for a 40,000-piece porcelain set costing 1.4 million yuan, a large jade seal, and two imperial robes costing 400,000 yuan each.


title: Yuan Shikai

text: The Hongxian Emperor expected widespread domestic and international support for his reign. British diplomats and bankers worked hard to help them succeed. They had set up a banking consortium that loaned his government £25 million in April 1913. However, he and his supporters had badly miscalculated. Many of the emperor's closest supporters abandoned him, and the solidarity of the emperor's Beiyang clique of military protégés dissolved. There were open protests throughout China denouncing the Hongxian Emperor. Foreign governments, including Japan, suddenly proved indifferent or openly hostile to him, not giving him the recognition anticipated. Sun Yat-sen, who had fled to Tokyo and set up a base there, organized efforts to overthrow the Hongxian Emperor. The emperor's sons publicly fought over the title of "Crown Prince", and formerly loyal subordinates such as Duan Qirui and Xu Shichang left him to create their own factions.


title: Yuan Shikai

text: Faced with widespread opposition, the Hongxian Emperor repeatedly delayed the accession rites in order to appease his foes, but his prestige was irreparably damaged and province after province continued to voice disapproval. On 25 December 1915, Yunnan's military governor, Cai E, rebelled, launching the National Protection War. The governor of Guizhou followed in January 1916, and Guangxi declared independence in March. Funding for the Hongxian Emperor's accession ceremony was cut on 1 March.


title: Yuan Shikai

text: Yuan formally abandoned the empire on 22 March after being emperor for only 83 days; primarily due to these mounting revolts as well as declining health from uremia. This was not enough for his enemies, who called for his resignation as president, causing more provinces to rebel. Yuan died of uremia at 10 a.m. on 6 June 1916, at the age of fifty-six.


title: Yuan Shikai

text: Yuan's remains were moved to his home province and placed in a large mausoleum in Anyang. In 1928, the tomb was looted by Feng Yuxiang and his soldiers during the Northern Expedition.


title: Yuan Shikai

text: Yuan had a wife and nine concubines, who bore him 17 sons and 15 daughters, but only three were prominent: Prince Yuan Keding, Prince Yuan Kewen, and Prince Yuan Keliang.


title: Yuan Shikai

text: Historians in China have considered Yuan's rule mostly negatively. He introduced far-ranging modernizations in law and social areas, and trained and organized one of China's first modern armies; but the loyalty Yuan had fostered in the armed forces dissolved after his death, undermining the authority of the central government. Yuan financed his regime through large foreign loans, and is criticized for weakening Chinese morale and international prestige, and for allowing the Japanese to gain broad concessions over China.


title: Yuan Shikai

text: Jonathan Spence, however, notes in his influential survey that Yuan was "ambitious, both for his country and for himself", and that "even as he subverted the constitution, paradoxically he sought to build on late-Qing attempts at reforms and to develop institutions that would bring strong and stable government to China." To gain foreign confidence and end the hated system of extraterritoriality, Yuan strengthened the court system and invited foreign advisers to reform the penal system.


title: Yuan Shikai

text: After Yuan's death, there was an effort by Li Yuanhong to revive the Republic by recalling the legislators who had been ejected in 1913, but this effort was confused and ineffective in asserting central control. Li lacked any support from the military. There was a short-lived effort in 1917 to revive the Qing dynasty led by the loyalist general Zhang Xun, but his forces were defeated by rival warlords later that year.


title: Yuan Shikai

text: After the collapse of Zhang's movement, all pretense of strength from the central government collapsed, and China descended into a period of warlordism. Over the next several decades, the offices of both the president and parliament became the tools of militarists, and the politicians in Peking became dependent on regional governors for their support and political survival. For this reason, Yuan is sometimes called "the Father of the Warlords". However, it is not accurate to attribute China's subsequent age of warlordism as a personal preference, since in his career as a military reformer he had attempted to forge a modern army based on the Japanese model. Throughout his lifetime, he demonstrated an understanding of staffing, military education, and regular transfers of officer personnel, combining these skills to create China's first modern military organisation. After his return to power in 1911, however, he seemed willing to sacrifice his legacy of military reform for imperial ambitions, and instead ruled by a combination of violence and bribery that destroyed the idealism of the early Republican movement.


title: Yuan Shikai

text: In the CCTV Production "Towards the Republic", Yuan is portrayed through most of his early years as an able administrator, although a very skilled manipulator of political situations. His self-proclamation as Emperor is largely depicted as being influenced by external forces, especially that of his son, prince Yuan Keding.


title: Yuan Shikai

text: A "bixi" (stone tortoise) with a stele in honor of Yuan Shikai, which was installed in Anyang's Huanyuan Park soon after his death, was (partly) restored in 1993.


title: Yuan Shikai

text: Chinese men before 1949 customarily used and were referred to by various names. Yuan's courtesy name was "Weiting" (Wade-Giles spelling: Wei-ting; ), and he used the pseudonym "Rong'an" (Wade-Giles spelling: Jung-an; ). He was sometimes referred to by the name of his birthplace, "Xiangcheng" (), or by a title for tutors of the crown prince, "Kung-pao" ().


title: Thebes, Greece

text: Thebes (; , "Thíva" ; , "Thêbai" ) is a city in Boeotia, Central Greece. It played an important role in Greek myths, as the site of the stories of Cadmus, Oedipus, Dionysus, Heracles and others. Archaeological excavations in and around Thebes have revealed a Mycenaean settlement and clay tablets written in the Linear B script, indicating the importance of the site in the Bronze Age.


title: Thebes, Greece

text: Thebes was the largest city of the ancient region of Boeotia and was the leader of the Boeotian confederacy. It was a major rival of ancient Athens, and sided with the Persians during the 480 BC invasion under Xerxes I. Theban forces under the command of Epaminondas ended Spartan hegemony at the Battle of Leuctra in 371 BC, with the Sacred Band of Thebes, an elite military unit of male lovers celebrated as instrumental there. Macedonia would rise in power at the Battle of Chaeronea in 338 BC, bringing decisive victory to Philip II over an alliance of Thebes and Athens. Thebes was a major force in Greek history prior to its destruction by Alexander the Great in 335 BC, and was the most dominant city-state at the time of the Macedonian conquest of Greece. During the Byzantine period, the city was famous for its silks.


title: Thebes, Greece

text: The modern city contains an archaeological museum, the remains of the Cadmea (Bronze Age and forward citadel), and scattered ancient remains. Modern Thebes is the largest town of the regional unit of Boeotia.


title: Thebes, Greece

text: Thebes is situated in a plain, between Lake Yliki (ancient "Hylica") to the north, and the Cithaeron mountains, which divide Boeotia from Attica, to the south. Its elevation is above mean sea level. It is about northwest of Athens, and southeast of Lamia. Motorway 1 and the Athens–Thessaloniki railway connect Thebes with Athens and northern Greece. The municipality of Thebes covers an area of , the municipal unit of Thebes and the community .


title: Thebes, Greece

text: In 2011, as a consequence of the Kallikratis reform, Thebes was merged with Plataies, Thisvi, and Vagia to form a larger municipality, which retained the name Thebes. The other three become units of the larger municipality.


title: Thebes, Greece

text: The record of the earliest days of Thebes was preserved among the Greeks in an abundant mass of legends that rival the myths of Troy in their wide ramification and the influence that they exerted on the literature of the classical age. Five main cycles of story may be distinguished:


title: Thebes, Greece

text: The Greeks attributed the foundation of Thebes to Cadmus, a Phoenician king from Tyre (now in Lebanon) and the brother of Queen Europa. Cadmus was famous for teaching the Phoenician alphabet and building the Acropolis, which was named the Cadmeia in his honor and was an intellectual, spiritual, and cultural center.


title: Thebes, Greece

text: Archaeological excavations in and around Thebes have revealed cist graves dated to Mycenaean times containing weapons, ivory, and tablets written in Linear B. Its attested name forms and relevant terms on tablets found locally or elsewhere include , "te-qa-i", understood to be read as *"Tʰēgʷai̮s" (Ancient Greek: , "Thēbais", i.e. "at Thebes", "Thebes" in the dative-locative case), , "te-qa-de", for *"Tʰēgʷasde" (, "Thēbasde", i.e. "to Thebes"), and , "te-qa-ja", for *"Tʰēgʷaja" (, "Thēbaia", i.e. "Theban woman").


title: Thebes, Greece

text: It seems safe to infer that *"Tʰēgʷai" was one of the first Greek communities to be drawn together within a fortified city, and that it owed its importance in prehistoric days—as later—to its military strength. Deger-Jalkotzy claimed that the statue base from Kom el-Hetan in Amenhotep III's kingdom (LHIIIA:1) mentions a name similar to Thebes, spelled out quasi-syllabically in hieroglyphs as "d-q-e-i-s", and considered to be one of four "tj-n3-jj" (Danaan?) kingdoms worthy of note (alongside Knossos and Mycenae). *"Tʰēgʷai" in LHIIIB lost contact with Egypt but gained it with "Miletus" (Hittite: "Milawata") and "Cyprus" (Hittite: "Alashija"). In the late LHIIIB, according to Palaima, *"Tʰēgʷai" was able to pull resources from Lamos near Mount Helicon, and from Karystos and Amarynthos on the Greek side of the isle of Euboia.


title: Thebes, Greece

text: As a fortified community, it attracted attention from the invading Dorians, and the fact of their eventual conquest of Thebes lies behind the stories of the successive legendary attacks on that city.


title: Thebes, Greece

text: The central position and military security of the city naturally tended to raise it to a commanding position among the Boeotians, and from early days its inhabitants endeavoured to establish a complete supremacy over their kinsmen in the outlying towns. This centralizing policy is as much the cardinal fact of Theban history as the counteracting effort of the smaller towns to resist absorption forms the main chapter of the story of Boeotia. No details of the earlier history of Thebes have been preserved, except that it was governed by a land-holding aristocracy who safeguarded their integrity by rigid statutes about the ownership of property and its transmission over time.


title: Thebes, Greece

text: As attested already in Homer's "Iliad", Thebes was often called "Seven-Gated Thebes" (Θῆβαι ἑπτάπυλοι, "Thebai heptapyloi") ("Iliad", IV.406) to distinguish it from "Hundred-Gated Thebes" (Θῆβαι ἑκατόμπυλοι, "Thebai hekatompyloi") in Egypt ("Iliad", IX.383).


title: Thebes, Greece

text: In the late 6th century BC, the Thebans were brought for the first time into hostile contact with the Athenians, who helped the small village of Plataea to maintain its independence against them, and in 506 BC repelled an inroad into Attica. The aversion to Athens best serves to explain the apparently unpatriotic attitude which Thebes displayed during the Persian invasion of Greece (480–479 BC). Though a contingent of 400 was sent to Thermopylae and remained there with Leonidas before being defeated alongside the Spartans, the governing aristocracy soon after joined King Xerxes I of Persia with great readiness and fought zealously on his behalf at the Battle of Plataea in 479 BC. The victorious Greeks subsequently punished Thebes by depriving it of the presidency of the Boeotian League and an attempt by the Spartans to expel it from the Delphic amphictyony was only frustrated by the intercession of Athens.


title: Thebes, Greece

text: In 457 BC Sparta, needing a counterpoise against Athens in central Greece, reversed her policy and reinstated Thebes as the dominant power in Boeotia. The great citadel of Cadmea served this purpose well by holding out as a base of resistance when the Athenians overran and occupied the rest of the country (457–447 BC). In the Peloponnesian War, the Thebans, embittered by the support that Athens gave to the smaller Boeotian towns, and especially to Plataea, which they vainly attempted to reduce in 431 BC, were firm allies of Sparta, which in turn helped them to besiege Plataea and allowed them to destroy the town after its capture in 427 BC. In 424 BC, at the head of the Boeotian levy, they inflicted a severe defeat on an invading force of Athenians at the Battle of Delium, and for the first time displayed the effects of that firm military organization that eventually raised them to predominant power in Greece.


title: Thebes, Greece

text: After the downfall of Athens at the end of the Peloponnesian War, the Thebans, having learned that Sparta intended to protect the states that Thebes desired to annex, broke off the alliance. In 404 BC, they had urged the complete destruction of Athens; yet, in 403 BC, they secretly supported the restoration of its democracy in order to find in it a counterpoise against Sparta. A few years later, influenced perhaps in part by Persian gold, they formed the nucleus of the league against Sparta. At the Battle of Haliartus (395 BC) and the Battle of Coronea (394 BC), they again proved their rising military capacity by standing their ground against the Spartans. The result of the war was especially disastrous to Thebes, as the general settlement of 387 BC stipulated the complete autonomy of all Greek towns and so withdrew the other Boeotians from its political control. Its power was further curtailed in 382 BC, when a Spartan force occupied the citadel by a treacherous "coup de main". Three years later, the Spartan garrison was expelled and a democratic constitution was set up in place of the traditional oligarchy. In the consequent wars with Sparta, the Theban army, trained and led by Epaminondas and Pelopidas, proved itself formidable (see also: Sacred Band of Thebes). Years of desultory fighting, in which Thebes established its control over all Boeotia, culminated in 371 BC in a remarkable victory over the Spartans at Leuctra. The winners were hailed throughout Greece as champions of the oppressed. They carried their arms into Peloponnesus and at the head of a large coalition, permanently crippled the power of Sparta, in part by freeing many helot slaves, the basis of the Spartan economy. Similar expeditions were sent to Thessaly and Macedon to regulate the affairs of those regions.


title: Thebes, Greece

text: The predominance of Thebes was short-lived, as the states that it protected refused to subject themselves permanently to its control. Thebes renewed rivalry with Athens, who had joined with them in 395 BC in fear of Sparta, but since 387 BC had endeavoured to maintain the balance of power against its ally, prevented the formation of a Theban empire. With the death of Epaminondas at the Battle of Mantinea (362 BC), the city sank again to the position of a secondary power.


title: Thebes, Greece

text: In the Third Sacred War (356–346 BC) with its neighbor Phocis, Thebes lost its predominance in central Greece. By asking Philip II of Macedon to crush the Phocians, Thebes extended the former's power within dangerous proximity to its frontiers. The revulsion of popular feeling in Thebes was expressed in 338 BC by the orator Demosthenes, who persuaded Thebes to join Athens in a final attempt to bar Philip's advance on Attica. The Theban contingent lost the decisive battle of Chaeronea and along with it every hope of reassuming control over Greece.


title: Thebes, Greece

text: Philip was content to deprive Thebes of its dominion over Boeotia; but an unsuccessful revolt in 335 BC against his son Alexander the Great while he was campaigning in the north was punished by Alexander and his Greek allies with the destruction of the city (except, according to tradition, the house of the poet Pindar and the temples), and its territory divided between the other Boeotian cities. Moreover, the Thebans themselves were sold into slavery.


title: Thebes, Greece

text: Alexander spared only priests, leaders of the pro-Macedonian party and descendants of Pindar. The end of Thebes cowed Athens into submission. According to Plutarch, a special Athenian embassy, led by Phocion, an opponent of the anti-Macedonian faction, was able to persuade Alexander to give up his demands for the exile of leaders of the anti-Macedonian party, and most particularly Demosthenes and not sell the people into slavery.


title: Thebes, Greece

text: Ancient writings tend to treat Alexander's destruction of Thebes as excessive. Plutarch, however, writes that Alexander grieved after his excess, granting them any request of favors, and advising they pay attention to the invasion of Asia, and that if he failed, Thebes might once again become the ruling city-state. Although Thebes had traditionally been antagonistic to whichever state led the Greek world, siding with the Persians when they invaded against the Athenian-Spartan alliance, siding with Sparta when Athens seemed omnipotent, and famously derailing the Spartan invasion of Persia by Agesilaus. Alexander's father Philip had been raised in Thebes, albeit as a hostage, and had learnt much of the art of war from Pelopidas. Philip had honoured this fact, always seeking alliances with the Boeotians, even in the lead-up to Chaeronea. Thebes was also revered as the most ancient of Greek cities, with a history of over 1,000 years. Plutarch relates that, during his later conquests, whenever Alexander came across a former Theban, he would attempt to redress his destruction of Thebes with favours to that individual.


title: Thebes, Greece

text: Following Alexander the Great's death in 323 BC, Thebes was re-established in 315 BC by Cassander, one of the diadochi who was ruling in Greece. In restoring Thebes, Cassander sought to rectify the perceived wrongs of Alexander – a gesture of generosity that earned him much goodwill throughout Greece. In addition to currying favor with the Athenians and many of the Peloponnesian states, Cassander's restoration of Thebes provided him with loyal allies in the Theban exiles who returned to resettle the site.


title: Thebes, Greece

text: Cassander's plan for rebuilding Thebes called for the various Greek city-states to provide skilled labor and manpower, and ultimately it proved successful. The Athenians, for example, rebuilt much of Thebes' wall. Major contributions were sent from Megalopolis, Messene, and as far away as Sicily and Italy.


title: Thebes, Greece

text: Despite the restoration, Thebes never regained its former prominence. The death of Cassander in 297 BC created a power vacuum throughout much of Greece, which contributed, in part, to Thebes' besiegement by Demetrius Poliorcetes in 293 BC, and again after a revolt in 292 BC. This last siege was difficult and Demetrius was wounded, but finally he managed to break down the walls and to take the city once more, treating it mildly despite its fierce resistance. The city recovered its autonomy from Demetrius in 287 BC, and became allied with Lysimachus, the king of Thrace, and the Aetolian League.


title: Thebes, Greece

text: During the early Byzantine period it served as a place of refuge against foreign invaders. From the 10th century, Thebes became a centre of the new silk trade, its silk workshops boosted by imports of soaps and dyes from Athens. The growth of this trade in Thebes continued to such an extent that by the middle of the 12th century, the city had become the biggest producer of silks in the entire Byzantine empire, surpassing even the Byzantine capital, Constantinople. The women of Thebes were famed for their skills at weaving. Theban silk was prized above all others during this period, both for its quality and its excellent reputation.


title: Thebes, Greece

text: Though severely plundered by the Normans in 1146, Thebes quickly recovered its prosperity and continued to grow rapidly until its conquest by the Latins of the Fourth Crusade in 1204.


title: Thebes, Greece

text: Thanks to its wealth, the city was selected by the Frankish dynasty de la Roche as its capital, before it was permanently moved to Athens. After 1240, the Saint Omer family controlled the city jointly with the de la Roche dukes. The castle built by Nicholas II of Saint Omer on the Cadmea was one of the most beautiful of Frankish Greece. After its conquest in 1311 the city was used as a capital by the short-lived state of the Catalan Company.


title: Thebes, Greece

text: In 1379, the Navarrese Company took the city with the aid of the Latin Archbishop of Thebes, Simon Atumano.


title: Thebes, Greece

text: Latin hegemony in Thebes lasted to 1458, when the Ottomans captured it. The Ottomans renamed Thebes "İstefe" and managed it until the War of Independence (1821, nominally to 1832) except for a Venetian interlude between 1687 and 1699.


title: Thebes, Greece

text: In the modern Greek State, Thebes was the capital of the prefecture of Boeotia until the late 19th century, when Livadeia became the capital.


title: Thebes, Greece

text: Today, Thebes is a bustling market town, known for its many products and wares. Until the 1980s, it had a flourishing agrarian production with some industrial complexes. However, during the late 1980s and 1990s the bulk of industry moved further south, closer to Athens. Tourism in the area is based mainly in Thebes and the surrounding villages, where many places of interest related to antiquity exist such as the battlefield where the Battle of Plataea took place. The proximity to other, more famous travel destinations, like Athens and Chalkis, and the undeveloped archaeological sites have kept the tourist numbers low.


title: Tammy Baldwin

text: Tammy Suzanne Green Baldwin (born February 11, 1962) is an American lawyer and politician who has served as the junior United States senator from Wisconsin since 2013. A member of the Democratic Party, she served three terms in the Wisconsin State Assembly, representing the 78th district, and from 1999 to 2013 represented Wisconsin's 2nd congressional district in the United States House of Representatives. In 2012, Baldwin was elected to the United States Senate, defeating Republican nominee Tommy Thompson. In 2018, Baldwin was reelected, defeating Republican nominee Leah Vukmir.


title: Tammy Baldwin

text: Baldwin, who is a lesbian, became the first openly LGBT woman elected to the House of Representatives and to the Senate in 1999 and 2013, respectively. She also was the first woman to be elected to either chamber from Wisconsin. Baldwin identifies as a progressive, and she has a consistently progressive voting record. She supports Medicare for All, LGBTQ rights, and gun control, and opposed the Iraq War.


title: Tammy Baldwin

text: Baldwin was born and grew up in Madison, Wisconsin. Her mother, who died in 2017, was 19 and going through a divorce when Baldwin was born. Baldwin was raised by her grandparents and spent Saturdays with her mother, who suffered from mental illness and opioid addiction. Her maternal grandfather, biochemist David E. Green, was Jewish (the son of immigrants from Russia and Germany), and her maternal grandmother, who was Anglican, was English-born. Baldwin's aunt is biochemist Rowena Green Matthews. Through her maternal grandfather, Baldwin is a third cousin of comedian Andy Samberg.


title: Tammy Baldwin

text: Baldwin graduated from Madison West High School in 1980 as the class valedictorian. She earned a B.A. from Smith College in 1984 and a J.D. from the University of Wisconsin Law School in 1989. She was a lawyer in private practice from 1989 to 1992.


title: Tammy Baldwin

text: Baldwin was first elected to political office in 1986 at the age of 24, when she was elected to the Dane County Board of Supervisors, a position she held until 1994. She also served one year on the Madison City Council to fill a vacancy in the coterminous district.


title: Tammy Baldwin

text: In 1992, Baldwin ran to represent Wisconsin's 78th Assembly district in western Madison. She won the Democratic primary with 43% of the vote. In the general election, Baldwin defeated Mary Kay Baum (Labor and Farm Party nominee) and Patricia Hevenor (Republican Party nominee) by a vote of 59%-23%-17%. She was one of just six openly gay political candidates nationwide to win a general election in 1992.


title: Tammy Baldwin

text: In 1994, Baldwin won election to a second term with 76% of the vote. In 1996, she was elected to a third term with 71% of the vote.


title: Tammy Baldwin

text: Baldwin was the first openly lesbian member of the Wisconsin Assembly and one of a very few openly gay politicians in the country at the time. In 1993, she said she was disappointed by Democratic President Bill Clinton's support of the military's "don't ask, don't tell" policy. In early 1994, she proposed legalizing same-sex marriage in Wisconsin. In 1995, she proposed domestic partnerships in Wisconsin.


title: Tammy Baldwin

text: In 1998, U.S. Congressman Scott Klug of the 2nd district, based in Madison, announced he would retire, prompting Baldwin to run for the seat. She won the Democratic primary with a plurality of 37% of the vote. In the general election she defeated Republican nominee Josephine Musser 53%-47%.


title: Tammy Baldwin

text: Baldwin was the first woman elected to Congress from Wisconsin. She was also the first openly gay person elected to the House of Representatives, and the first open lesbian elected to Congress. In 2008, Baldwin and Representative Barney Frank co-founded the Congressional LGBTQ+ Equality Caucus.


title: Tammy Baldwin

text: In 2000, Baldwin won reelection to a second term, defeating Republican John Sharpless 51%-49%, a difference of 8,902 votes. She lost eight of the district's nine counties, but carried the largest, Dane County, with 55% of the vote.


title: Tammy Baldwin

text: After the 2000 census the 2nd district was made significantly more Democratic in redistricting. Baldwin won reelection to a third term in the newly redrawn 2nd district with 66% of the vote against Republican Ron Greer. In 2004, she beat Dave Magnum 63%-37%. She won a 2006 rematch against Magnum, again winning 63%-37%. In 2008, she defeated Peter Theron 69%-31%, and in 2010 she won a seventh term with 62% of the vote against Chad Lee.


title: Tammy Baldwin

text: Baldwin ran as the Democratic nominee against Republican nominee Tommy Thompson, who had formerly been governor and Secretary of Health and Human Services. She announced her candidacy on September 6, 2011, in a video emailed to supporters. She ran uncontested in the primary election, and spoke at the 2012 Democratic National Convention about tax policy, campaign finance reform, and equality in the United States.


title: Tammy Baldwin

text: She was endorsed by Democracy for America, and she received campaign funding from EMILY's List, the Gay & Lesbian Victory Fund, and LPAC. Baldwin was endorsed by the editorial board of "The Capital Times", who wrote that "Baldwin's fresh ideas on issues ranging from job creation to health care reform, along with her proven record of working across lines of partisanship and ideology, and her grace under pressure mark her as precisely the right choice to replace retiring U.S. Senator Herb Kohl".


title: Tammy Baldwin

text: The candidates had three debates, on September 28, October 18, and October 26. According to Baldwin's Federal Election Commission filings, she raised about $12 million, over $5 million more than her opponent.


title: Tammy Baldwin

text: On November 6, 2012, Baldwin became the first openly gay candidate to be elected to the U.S. Senate, with 51.4% of the vote. Because of her 14 years in the House of Representatives, under Senate rules she had the highest seniority in her entering class of senators. She was succeeded in Congress by State Assemblyman Mark Pocan, who had earlier succeeded her in the state legislature.