title: Medium (website)

text: Medium does not publish official user stats on its website. According to US blogs, the platform had about 60 million monthly visitors in 2016. In 2015, the total numbers of users was about 25 million.


title: Medium (website)

text: The platform software provides a full WYSIWYG user interface when editing online, with various options for formatting provided as the user edits over rich text format.


title: Medium (website)

text: Once an entry is posted, it can be recommended and shared by other people, in a similar manner to Twitter. Posts can be upvoted in a similar manner to Reddit, and content can be assigned a specific theme, in the same way as Tumblr.


title: Medium (website)

text: In August 2017, Medium replaced their Recommend button with a "clap" feature, which readers can click multiple times to signify how much they enjoyed the article. Medium announced that payment to authors will be weighted based on how many "claps" they receive.


title: Medium (website)

text: Users can create a new account using a Facebook or Google account. Users may also sign up using an e-mail address, when they are signing up using the mobile app of Medium.com.


title: Medium (website)

text: Medium offers users subscriptions to become a member for a $5 monthly or $50 yearly fee. With a Medium membership, access to "exclusive content, audio narrations of popular stories, and an improved bookmark section" is enabled.


title: Medium (website)

text: The Medium Partner Program is Medium's compensation program for its writers. Partner Program writers are paid based on how deeply Medium members read their work. As members read longer, writers earn more. Medium distributes a portion of each member's subscription fee to the writers they read most each month.


title: Medium (website)

text: Posts on Medium are sorted by topic rather than by writer, unlike most blogging platforms, including Williams' earlier Blogger. The platform uses a system of "claps" (formerly "recommendations"), similar to "likes" on Facebook, to upvote the best articles and stories, called the Tag system, and divides the stories into different categories to let the audiences choose.


title: Medium (website)

text: "Publications" on Medium are shared spaces with a homepage on Medium's website that carry articles and blog posts, like a newspaper or magazine. The articles published or saved on it can be assigned editors, and can be saved as drafts.


title: Medium (website)

text: On February 23, 2016, it was announced that Medium had reached a deal to host the new Bill Simmons website, "The Ringer". In August 2017 it left Medium for Vox Media.


title: Medium (website)

text: In 2019, Medium acquired Bay Area website "The Bold Italic". Also in 2019, Medium launched seven new publications: GEN (politics, power, and culture), OneZero (tech and science), Marker (business), Elemental (health and wellness), Focus (productivity), Zora (women of color) and Level (men of color).


title: Medium (website)

text: Medium initially used holacracy as its structure of corporate governance. In 2016, they moved away from holacracy because they reported difficulty coordinating large-scale projects, dissatisfaction with the required record-keeping, and poor public perception of holacracy.


title: Medium (website)

text: Reviewing the service at its launch in 2012, "The Guardian" enjoyed some of the collections that had been created, particularly a collection of nostalgic photographs created by Williams. TechCrunch's Drew Olanoff suggested the platform might have taken its name from being a "medium"-sized platform in between Twitter and full-scale blogging platforms such as Blogger.


title: Medium (website)

text: Lawrence Lessig welcomed the platform's affordance of Creative Commons licensing for user content, a feature demonstrated in a Medium project with "The Public Domain Review"—an interactive online edition of "Alice's Adventures In Wonderland", annotated by a dozen Carroll scholars, allowing free remixes of the public domain and Creative Commons licensed text and art resources, with reader-supplied commentaries and artwork.


title: Medium (website)

text: However, in 2013 the service suffered criticism from writers, with some confused about exactly what it is expected to provide.


title: Medium (website)

text: A 2019 Nieman Lab article chronicling Medium's first seven years described the site as having "undergone countless pivots", becoming "an endless thought experiment into what publishing on the internet could look like".


title: Medium (website)

text: In January 2016, Medium received a take-down notice from the Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission (MCMC) for one of the articles published by the Sarawak Report. The "Sarawak Report" had been hosting its articles on Medium since July 2015, when its own website was blocked by the Malaysian government. It had reported allegations that money linked to a state investment fund, 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB), ended up in Prime Minister Najib Razak's bank accounts.


title: Medium (website)

text: Medium's legal team responded to the commission with a request for a copy of the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission's official statement that the post was untrue, for information on which parts of the article were found false, and for information on whether the dispute has been raised in court. The site declined to take the content down until directed to do so by an order from a court of competent jurisdiction. In response, on January 27, 2016, all content on Medium was made unavailable for Internet users in Malaysia.


title: Medium (website)

text: The ban has been lifted as of 18 May 2018, with the MCMC stating the ban lift was because "there was no reason (to block the website)" as the 1MDB report has been made public by the government.


title: Medium (website)

text: As of June 2017, Medium has been blocked in Egypt along with more than 60 media websites in a crackdown by the Egyptian government. The list of blocked sites also includes Al Jazeera, "The Huffington Post"s Arabic website and Mada Masr. Medium was made available again in late 2022 as of November 2022.


title: Medium (website)

text: In April 2016, Medium was blocked in mainland China after information from the leaked Panama Papers was published on the site.


title: Medium (website)

text: Medium's initial technology stack relied on a variety of AWS services including EC2, S3, and CloudFront. Originally, it was written in Node.js and the text editor that Medium users wrote blog posts with was based on TinyMCE. As of 2017, the blogging platform's technology stack included AWS services, including EBS, RDS for Aurora, and Route 53; its image server was written in Go; and the main app servers were still written in Node.


title: Privateer

text: A privateer is a private person or ship that engages in maritime warfare under a commission of war. Since robbery under arms was a common aspect of seaborne trade, until the early 19th century all merchant ships carried arms. A sovereign or delegated authority issued commissions, also referred to as a letter of marque, during wartime. The commission empowered the holder to carry on all forms of hostility permissible at sea by the usages of war. This included attacking foreign vessels and taking them as prizes, and taking prize crews as prisoners for exchange. Captured ships were subject to condemnation and sale under prize law, with the proceeds divided by percentage between the privateer's sponsors, shipowners, captains and crew. A percentage share usually went to the issuer of the commission (i.e. the sovereign).


title: Privateer

text: Privateering allowed sovereigns to raise revenue for war by mobilizing privately owned armed ships and sailors to supplement state power. For participants, privateering provided the potential for a greater income and profit than obtainable as a merchant seafarer or fisher. However, this incentive increased the risk of privateers turning to piracy when war ended.


title: Privateer

text: The commission usually protected privateers from accusations of piracy, but in practice the historical legality and status of privateers could be vague. Depending on the specific sovereign and the time period, commissions might be issued hastily; privateers might take actions beyond what was authorized in the commission, including after its expiry. A privateer who continued raiding after the expiration of a commission or the signing of a peace treaty could face accusations of piracy. The risk of piracy and the emergence of the modern state system of centralised military control caused the decline of privateering by the end of the 19th century.


title: Privateer

text: The commission was the proof the privateer was not a pirate. It usually limited activity to one particular ship, and specified officers, for a specified period of time. Typically, the owners or captain would be required to post a performance bond. The commission also dictated the expected nationality of potential prize ships under the terms of the war. At sea, the privateer captain was obliged to produce the commission to a potential prize ship's captain as evidence of the legitimacy of their prize claim. If the nationality of a prize was not the enemy of the commissioning sovereign, the privateer could not claim the ship as a prize. Doing so would be an act of piracy.


title: Privateer

text: In British law, under the Offences at Sea Act 1536, piracy was an act of treason, or raiding a ship without a valid commission. By the late 17th century, the prosecution of privateers loyal to the usurped King James II for piracy began to shift the legal framework of piracy away from treason towards crime against property. As a result, privateering commissions became a matter of national discretion. By the passing of the Piracy Act 1717, a privateer's allegiance to Britain overrode any allegiance to a sovereign providing the commission. This helped bring privateers under the legal jurisdiction of their home country in the event the privateer turned pirate. Other European countries followed suit. The shift from treason to property also justified the criminalisation of traditional sea-raiding activities of people Europeans wished to colonise.


title: Privateer

text: The legal framework around authorised sea-raiding was considerably murkier outside of Europe. Unfamiliarity with local forms of authority created difficulty determining who was legitimately sovereign on land and at sea, whether to accept their authority, or whether the opposing parties were, in fact, pirates. Mediterranean corsairs operated with a style of patriotic-religious authority that Europeans, and later Americans, found difficult to understand and accept. It did not help that many European privateers happily accepted commissions from the deys of Algiers, Tangiers and Tunis. The sultans of the Sulu archipelago (now present-day Philippines) held only a tenuous authority over the local Iranun communities of slave-raiders. The sultans created a carefully spun web of marital and political alliances in an attempt to control unauthorised raiding that would provoke war against them. In Malay political systems, the legitimacy and strength of their Sultan's management of trade determined the extent he exerted control over the sea-raiding of his coastal people.


title: Privateer

text: Privateers were implicated in piracy for a number of complex reasons. For colonial authorities, successful privateers were skilled seafarers who brought in much-needed revenue, especially in newly settled colonial outposts. These skills and benefits often caused local authorities to overlook a privateer's shift into piracy when a war ended. The French Governor of Petit-Goave gave buccaneer Francois Grogniet blank privateering commissions, which Grogniet traded to Edward Davis for a spare ship so the two could continue raiding Spanish cities under a guise of legitimacy. New York Governors Jacob Leisler and Benjamin Fletcher were removed from office in part for their dealings with pirates such as Thomas Tew, to whom Fletcher had granted commissions to sail against the French, but who ignored his commission to raid Mughal shipping in the Red Sea instead.


title: Privateer

text: Some privateers faced prosecution for piracy. William Kidd accepted a commission from King William III of England to hunt pirates but was later hanged for piracy. He had been unable to produce the papers of the prizes he had captured to prove his innocence.


title: Privateer

text: Privateering commissions were easy to obtain during wartime but when the war ended and sovereigns recalled the privateers, many refused to give up the lucrative business and turned to piracy.


title: Privateer

text: Boston minister Cotton Mather lamented after the execution of pirate John Quelch: "Yea, since the privateering stroke so easily degenerates into the piratical and the privateering trade is usually carried on with so un-Christian a temper and proves an inlet unto so much debauchery and iniquity and confusion, I believe I shall have good men concur with me in wishing that privateering may no more be practised except there may appear more hopeful circumstances to encourage it."


title: Privateer

text: Entrepreneurs converted many different types of vessels into privateers, including obsolete warships and refitted merchant ships. The investors would arm the vessels and recruit large crews, much larger than a merchantman or a naval vessel would carry, in order to crew the prizes they captured. Privateers generally cruised independently, but it was not unknown for them to form squadrons, or to co-operate with the regular navy. A number of privateers were part of the English fleet that opposed the Spanish Armada in 1588. Privateers generally avoided encounters with warships, as such encounters would be at best unprofitable. Still, such encounters did occur. For instance, in 1815 "Chasseur" encountered HMS "St Lawrence", herself a former American privateer, mistaking her for a merchantman until too late; in this instance, however, the privateer prevailed.


title: Privateer

text: The United States used mixed squadrons of frigates and privateers in the American Revolutionary War. Following the French Revolution, French privateers became a menace to British and American shipping in the western Atlantic and the Caribbean, resulting in the Quasi-War, a brief conflict between France and the United States, fought largely at sea, and to the Royal Navy's procuring Bermuda sloops to combat the French privateers.


title: Privateer

text: In Europe, the practice of authorising sea-raiding dated to at least the 13th century but the word 'privateer' was coined sometime in the mid-17th century. A seaman who shipped on a naval vessel was paid a wage and provided with victuals but the mariner on a merchantman or privateer received a share of the takings. Privateering thus offered otherwise working-class enterprises (merchant ships) with the chance at substantial wealth (prize money from captures). The opportunity mobilized local seamen as auxiliaries in an era when state capacity limited the ability of a nation to fund a professional navy via taxation.


title: Privateer

text: Privateers were a large part of the total military force at sea during the 17th and 18th centuries. In the first Anglo-Dutch War, English privateers attacked the trade on which the United Provinces entirely depended, capturing over 1,000 Dutch merchant ships. During the subsequent war with Spain, Spanish and Flemish privateers in the service of the Spanish Crown, including the Dunkirkers, captured 1,500 English merchant ships, helping to restore Dutch international trade. British trade, whether coastal, Atlantic, or Mediterranean, was also attacked by Dutch privateers and others in the Second and Third Anglo-Dutch wars. Piet Pieterszoon Hein was a brilliantly successful Dutch privateer who captured a Spanish treasure fleet. Magnus Heinason was another privateer who served the Dutch against the Spanish. While their and others' attacks brought home a great deal of money, they hardly dented the flow of gold and silver from Mexico to Spain.


title: Privateer

text: As the industrial revolution proceeded, privateering became increasingly incompatible with modern states' monopoly on violence. Modern warships could easily outrace merchantmen, and tight controls on naval armaments led to fewer private-purchase naval weapons. Privateering continued until the 1856 Declaration of Paris, in which all major European powers stated that "Privateering is and remains abolished". The United States did not sign the Declaration over stronger language that protects all private property from capture at sea, but has not issued letters of marque in any subsequent conflicts. In the 19th century, many nations passed laws forbidding their nationals from accepting commissions as privateers for other nations. The last major power to flirt with privateering was Prussia in the 1870 Franco-Prussian War, when Prussia announced the creation of a 'volunteer navy' of ships privately-owned and -manned, but eligible for prize money. (Prussia argued that the Declaration did not forbid such a force, because the ships were subject to naval discipline.)


title: Privateer

text: In England, and later the United Kingdom, the ubiquity of wars and the island nation's reliance on maritime trade enabled the use of privateers to great effect. England also suffered much from other nations' privateering. During the 15th century, the country "lacked an institutional structure and coordinated finance". When piracy became an increasing problem, merchant communities such as Bristol began to resort to self-help, arming and equipping ships at their own expense to protect commerce. The licensing of these privately owned merchant ships by the Crown enabled them to legitimately capture vessels that were deemed pirates. This constituted a "revolution in naval strategy" and helped fill the need for protection that the Crown was unable to provide.


title: Privateer

text: During the reign of Queen Elizabeth (1558–1603), she "encouraged the development of this supplementary navy". Over the course of her rule, the increase of Spanish prosperity through their explorations in the New World and the discovery of gold contributed to the deterioration of Anglo-Spanish relations. Elizabeth's authorisation of sea-raiders (known as Sea Dogs) such as Francis Drake and Walter Raleigh allowed her to officially distance herself from their raiding activities while enjoying the gold gained from these raids. English ships cruised in the Caribbean and off the coast of Spain, trying to intercept treasure fleets from the Spanish Main.


title: Privateer

text: Elizabeth was succeeded by the first Stuart monarchs, James I and Charles I, who did not permit privateering. Desperate to fund the expensive War of Spanish Succession, Queen Anne restarted privateering and even removed the need for a sovereign's percentage as an incentive. Sovereigns continued to license British privateers throughout the century, although there were a number of unilateral and bilateral declarations limiting privateering between 1785 and 1823. This helped establish the privateer's persona as heroic patriots. British privateers last appeared "en masse" in the Napoleonic Wars.


title: Privateer

text: England and Scotland practiced privateering both separately and together after they united to create the Kingdom of Great Britain in 1707. It was a way to gain for themselves some of the wealth the Spanish and Portuguese were taking from the New World before beginning their own trans-Atlantic settlement, and a way to assert naval power before a strong Royal Navy emerged.


title: Privateer

text: Sir Andrew Barton, Lord High Admiral of Scotland, followed the example of his father, who had been issued with letters of marque by James III of Scotland to prey upon English and Portuguese shipping in 1485; the letters in due course were reissued to the son. Barton was killed following an encounter with the English in 1511.


title: Privateer

text: Sir Francis Drake, who had close contact with the sovereign, was responsible for some damage to Spanish shipping, as well as attacks on Spanish settlements in the Americas in the 16th century. He participated in the successful English defence against the Spanish Armada in 1588, though he was also partly responsible for the failure of the English Armada against Spain in 1589.


title: Privateer

text: Sir George Clifford, 3rd Earl of Cumberland, was a successful privateer against Spanish shipping in the Caribbean. He is also famous for his short-lived 1598 capture of "Fort San Felipe del Morro", the citadel protecting San Juan, Puerto Rico. He arrived in Puerto Rico on June 15, 1598, but by November of that year, Clifford and his men had fled the island due to fierce civilian resistance. He gained sufficient prestige from his naval exploits to be named the official Champion of Queen Elizabeth I. Clifford became extremely wealthy through his buccaneering but lost most of his money gambling on horse races.


title: Privateer

text: Captain Christopher Newport led more attacks on Spanish shipping and settlements than any other English privateer. As a young man, Newport sailed with Sir Francis Drake in the attack on the Spanish fleet at Cadiz and participated in England's defeat of the Spanish Armada. During the war with Spain, Newport seized fortunes of Spanish and Portuguese treasure in fierce sea battles in the West Indies as a privateer for Queen Elizabeth I. He lost an arm whilst capturing a Spanish ship during an expedition in 1590, but despite this, he continued on privateering, successfully blockading Western Cuba the following year. In 1592, Newport captured the Portuguese carrack "Madre de Deus" (Mother of God), valued at £500,000.


title: Privateer

text: Sir Henry Morgan was a successful privateer. Operating out of Jamaica, he carried on a war against Spanish interests in the region, often using cunning tactics. His operation was prone to cruelty against those he captured, including torture to gain information about booty, and in one case using priests as human shields. Despite reproaches for some of his excesses, he was generally protected by Sir Thomas Modyford, the governor of Jamaica. He took an enormous amount of booty, as well as landing his privateers ashore and attacking land fortifications, including the sack of the city of Panama with only 1,400 crew.


title: Privateer

text: Other British privateers of note include Fortunatus Wright, Edward Collier, Sir John Hawkins, his son Sir Richard Hawkins, Michael Geare, and Sir Christopher Myngs. Notable British colonial privateers in Nova Scotia include Alexander Godfrey of the brig and Joseph Barss of the schooner . The latter schooner captured over 50 American vessels during the War of 1812.


title: Privateer

text: The English colony of Bermuda (or the "Somers Isles"), settled accidentally in 1609, was used as a base for English privateers from the time it officially became part of the territory of the Virginia Company in 1612, especially by ships belonging to the Earl of Warwick, for whom Bermuda's Warwick Parish is named (the Warwick name had long been associated with commerce raiding, as exampled by the Newport Ship, thought to have been taken from the Spanish by Warwick the Kingmaker in the 15th Century). Many Bermudians were employed as crew aboard privateers throughout the century, although the colony was primarily devoted to farming cash crops until turning from its failed agricultural economy to the sea after the 1684 dissolution of the Somers Isles Company (a spin-off of the Virginia Company which had overseen the colony since 1615). With a total area of and lacking any natural resources other than the Bermuda cedar, the colonists applied themselves fully to the maritime trades, developing the speedy Bermuda sloop, which was well suited both to commerce and to commerce raiding. Bermudian merchant vessels turned to privateering at every opportunity in the 18th century, preying on the shipping of Spain, France, and other nations during a series of wars, including the 1688 to 1697 Nine Years' War (King William's War); the 1702 to 1713 Queen Anne's War; the 1739 to 1748 War of Jenkins' Ear; the 1740 to 1748 War of the Austrian Succession (King George's War); the 1754 to 1763 Seven Years' War (known in the United States as the French and Indian War), this conflict was devastating for the colony's merchant fleet. Fifteen privateers operated from Bermuda during the war, but losses exceeded captures; the 1775 to 1783 American War of Independence; and the 1796 to 1808 Anglo-Spanish War. By the middle of the 18th century, Bermuda was sending twice as many privateers to sea as any of the continental colonies. They typically left Bermuda with very large crews. This advantage in manpower was vital in overpowering the crews of larger vessels, which themselves often lacked sufficient crewmembers to put up a strong defence. The extra crewmen were also useful as prize crews for returning captured vessels.


title: Privateer

text: The Bahamas, which had been depopulated of its indigenous inhabitants by the Spanish, had been settled by England, beginning with the Eleutheran Adventurers, dissident Puritans driven out of Bermuda during the English Civil War. Spanish and French attacks destroyed New Providence in 1703, creating a stronghold for pirates, and it became a thorn in the side of British merchant trade through the area. In 1718, Britain appointed Woodes Rogers as Governor of the Bahamas, and sent him at the head of a force to reclaim the settlement. Before his arrival, however, the pirates had been forced to surrender by a force of Bermudian privateers who had been issued letters of marque by the Governor of Bermuda.


title: Privateer

text: Bermuda was in de facto control of the Turks Islands, with their lucrative salt industry, from the late 17th century to the early 19th. The Bahamas made perpetual attempts to claim the Turks for itself. On several occasions, this involved seizing the vessels of Bermudian salt traders. A virtual state of war was said to exist between Bermudian and Bahamian vessels for much of the 18th century. When the Bermudian sloop "Seaflower" was seized by the Bahamians in 1701, the response of the Governor of Bermuda, Captain Benjamin Bennett, was to issue letters of marque to Bermudian vessels. In 1706, Spanish and French forces ousted the Bermudians but were driven out themselves three years later by the Bermudian privateer Captain Lewis Middleton. His ship, the "Rose", attacked a Spanish and a French privateer holding a captive English vessel. Defeating the two enemy vessels, the "Rose" then cleared out the thirty-man garrison left by the Spanish and French.


title: Privateer

text: Despite strong sentiments in support of the rebels, especially in the early stages, Bermudian privateers turned as aggressively on American shipping during the American War of Independence. The importance of privateering to the Bermudian economy had been increased not only by the loss of most of Bermuda's continental trade but also by the Palliser Act, which forbade Bermudian vessels from fishing the Grand Banks. Bermudian trade with the rebellious American colonies actually carried on throughout the war. Some historians credit the large number of Bermuda sloops (reckoned at over a thousand) built-in Bermuda as privateers and sold illegally to the Americans as enabling the rebellious colonies to win their independence. Also, the Americans were dependent on Turks salt, and one hundred barrels of gunpowder were stolen from a Bermudian magazine and supplied to the rebels as orchestrated by Colonel Henry Tucker and Benjamin Franklin, and as requested by George Washington, in exchange for which the Continental Congress authorised the sale of supplies to Bermuda, which was dependent on American produce. The realities of this interdependence did nothing to dampen the enthusiasm with which Bermudian privateers turned on their erstwhile countrymen.


title: Privateer

text: An American naval captain, ordered to take his ship out of Boston Harbor to eliminate a pair of Bermudian privateering vessels that had been picking off vessels missed by the Royal Navy, returned frustrated, saying, "the Bermudians sailed their ships two feet for every one of ours". Around 10,000 Bermudians emigrated in the years prior to American independence, mostly to the American colonies. Many Bermudians occupied prominent positions in American seaports, from where they continued their maritime trades (Bermudian merchants controlled much of the trade through ports like Charleston, South Carolina, and Bermudian shipbuilders influenced the development of American vessels, like the Chesapeake Bay schooner), and in the Revolution they used their knowledge of Bermudians and of Bermuda, as well as their vessels, for the rebels' cause. In the 1777 Battle of Wreck Hill, brothers Charles and Francis Morgan, members of a large Bermudian enclave that had dominated Charleston, South Carolina and its environs since settlement, captaining two sloops (the "Fair American" and the "Experiment", respectively), carried out the only attack on Bermuda during the war. The target was a fort that guarded a little used passage through the encompassing reef line. After the soldiers manning the fort were forced to abandon it, they spiked its guns and fled themselves before reinforcements could arrive.


title: Privateer

text: When the Americans captured the Bermudian privateer "Regulator", they discovered that virtually all of her crew were black slaves. Authorities in Boston offered these men their freedom, but all 70 elected to be treated as prisoners of war. Sent as such to New York on the sloop "Duxbury", they seized the vessel and sailed it back to Bermuda. One-hundred and thirty prizes were brought to Bermuda in the year between 4th day of April 1782 and the 4th day of April 1783 alone, including three by Royal Naval vessels and the remainder by privateers.


title: Privateer

text: The War of 1812 saw an encore of Bermudian privateering, which had died out after the 1790s. The decline of Bermudian privateering was due partly to the buildup of the naval base in Bermuda, which reduced the Admiralty's reliance on privateers in the western Atlantic, and partly to successful American legal suits and claims for damages pressed against British privateers, a large portion of which were aimed squarely at the Bermudians. During the course of the War of 1812, Bermudian privateers captured 298 ships, some 19% of the 1,593 vessels captured by British naval and privateering vessels between the Great Lakes and the West Indies.


title: Privateer

text: Among the better known (native-born and immigrant) Bermudian privateers were Hezekiah Frith, Bridger Goodrich, Henry Jennings, Thomas Hewetson, and Thomas Tew.


title: Privateer

text: Bermudians were also involved in privateering from the short-lived English colony on Isla de Providencia, off the coast of Nicaragua. This colony was initially settled largely via Bermuda, with about eighty Bermudians moved to Providence in 1631. Although it was intended that the colony be used to grow cash crops, its location in the heart of the Spanish controlled territory ensured that it quickly became a base for privateering.


title: Privateer

text: Bermuda-based privateer Daniel Elfrith, while on a privateering expedition with Captain Sussex Camock of the bark "Somer Ilands" (a rendering of "" Somers Isles"", the alternate name of the Islands of Bermuda) in 1625, discovered two islands off the coast of Nicaragua, apart from each other. Camock stayed with 30 of his men to explore one of the islands, San Andrés, while Elfrith took the Warwicke back to Bermuda bringing news of Providence Island. Bermuda Governor Bell wrote on behalf of Elfrith to Sir Nathaniel Rich, a businessman and cousin of the Earl of Warwick (the namesake of Warwick Parish), who presented a proposal for colonizing the island noting its strategic location "lying in the heart of the Indies & the mouth of the Spaniards". Elfrith was appointed admiral of the colony's military forces in 1631, remaining the overall military commander for over seven years. During this time, Elfrith served as a guide to other privateers and sea captains arriving in the Caribbean. Elfrith invited the well-known privateer Diego el Mulato to the island. Samuel Axe, one of the military leaders, also accepted letters of marque from the Dutch authorizing privateering.


title: Privateer

text: The Spanish did not hear of the Providence Island colony until 1635 when they captured some Englishmen in Portobelo, on the Isthmus of Panama. Francisco de Murga, Governor and Captain-General of Cartagena, dispatched Captain Gregorio de Castellar y Mantilla and engineer Juan de Somovilla Texada to destroy the colony. The Spanish were repelled and forced to retreat "in haste and disorder". After the attack, King Charles I of England issued letters of marque to the Providence Island Company on 21 December 1635 authorizing raids on the Spanish in retaliation for a raid that had destroyed the English colony on Tortuga earlier in 1635 (Tortuga had come under the protection of the Providence Island Company. In 1635 a Spanish fleet raided Tortuga. 195 colonists were hung and 39 prisoners and 30 slaves were captured). The company could in turn issue letters of marque to subcontracting privateers who used the island as a base, for a fee. This soon became an important source of profit. Thus the company made an agreement with the merchant Maurice Thompson under which Thompson could use the island as a base in return for 20% of the booty.


title: Privateer

text: In March 1636 the Company dispatched Captain Robert Hunt on the "Blessing" to assume the governorship of what was now viewed as a base for privateering. Depredations continued, leading to growing tension between England and Spain, which were still technically at peace.


title: Privateer

text: Nathaniel Butler, formerly Governor of Bermuda, was the last full governor of Providence Island, replacing Robert Hunt in 1638. Butler returned to England in 1640, satisfied that the fortifications were adequate, deputizing the governorship to Captain Andrew Carter.


title: Privateer

text: In 1640, don Melchor de Aguilera, Governor and Captain-General of Cartagena, resolved to remove the intolerable infestation of pirates on the island. Taking advantage of having infantry from Castile and Portugal wintering in his port, he dispatched six hundred armed Spaniards from the fleet and the presidio, and two hundred black and mulatto militiamen under the leadership of don Antonio Maldonado y Tejada, his Sergeant Major, in six small frigates and a galleon. The troops were landed on the island, and a fierce fight ensued. The Spanish were forced to withdraw when a gale blew up and threatened their ships. Carter had the Spanish prisoners executed. When the Puritan leaders protested against this brutality, Carter sent four of them home in chains.


title: Privateer

text: The Spanish acted decisively to avenge their defeat. General Francisco Díaz Pimienta was given orders by King Philip IV of Spain, and sailed from Cartagena to Providence with seven large ships, four pinnaces, 1,400 soldiers and 600 seamen, arriving on 19 May 1641. At first, Pimienta planned to attack the poorly defended east side, and the English rushed there to improvise defenses. With the winds against him, Pimienta changed plans and made for the main New Westminster harbor and launched his attack on 24 May. He held back his large ships to avoid damage, and used the pinnaces to attack the forts. The Spanish troops quickly gained control, and once the forts saw the Spanish flag flying over the governor's house, they began negotiations for surrender.


title: Privateer

text: On 25 May 1641, Pimienta formally took possession and celebrated mass in the church. The Spanish took sixty guns, and captured the 350 settlers who remained on the island – others had escaped to the Mosquito Coast. They took the prisoners to Cartagena. The women and children were given a passage back to England. The Spanish found gold, indigo, cochineal and six hundred black slaves on the island, worth a total of 500,000 ducats, some of the accumulated booty from the raids on Spanish ships. Rather than destroy the defenses, as instructed, Pimienta left a small garrison of 150 men to hold the island and prevent occupation by the Dutch. Later that year, Captain John Humphrey, who had been chosen to succeed Captain Butler as governor, arrived with a large group of dissatisfied settlers from New England. He found the Spanish occupying the islands, and sailed away. Pimienta's decision to occupy the island was approved in 1643 and he was made a knight of the Order of Santiago.


title: Privateer

text: When Spain issued a decree blocking foreign countries from trading, selling or buying merchandise in its Caribbean colonies, the entire region became engulfed in a power struggle among the naval superpowers. The newly independent United States later became involved in this scenario, complicating the conflict. As a consequence, Spain increased the issuing of privateering contracts. These contracts allowed an income option to the inhabitants of these colonies that were not related to the Spanish conquistadores. The most well-known privateer corsairs of the eighteenth century in the Spanish colonies were Miguel Enríquez of Puerto Rico and José Campuzano-Polanco of Santo Domingo. Miguel Enríquez was a Puerto Rican mulatto who abandoned his work as a shoemaker to work as a privateer. Such was the success of Enríquez, that he became one of the wealthiest men in the New World. His fleet was composed of approx. 300 different ships during a career that spanned 35 years, becoming a military asset and reportedly outperforming the efficiency of the Armada de Barlovento. Enríquez was knighted and received the title of Don from Philip V, something unheard of due to his ethnic and social background. One of the most famous privateers from Spain was Amaro Pargo.


title: Privateer

text: "Corsairs" (French: corsaire) were privateers, authorized to conduct raids on shipping of a nation at war with France, on behalf of the French Crown. Seized vessels and cargo were sold at auction, with the corsair captain entitled to a portion of the proceeds. Although not French Navy personnel, corsairs were considered legitimate combatants in France (and allied nations), provided the commanding officer of the vessel was in possession of a valid Letter of Marque (fr. "Lettre de Marque" or "Lettre de Course"), and the officers and crew conducted themselves according to contemporary admiralty law. By acting on behalf of the French Crown, if captured by the enemy, they could claim treatment as prisoners of war, instead of being considered pirates. Because corsairs gained a swashbuckling reputation, the word "corsair" is also used generically as a more romantic or flamboyant way of referring to privateers, or even to pirates. The Barbary pirates of North Africa as well as Ottomans were sometimes called "Turkish corsairs".


title: Privateer

text: Corsairing () was an important aspect of Malta's economy when the island was ruled by the Order of St. John, although the practice had begun earlier. Corsairs sailed on privately owned ships on behalf of the Grand Master of the Order, and were authorized to attack Muslim ships, usually merchant ships from the Ottoman Empire. The corsairs included knights of the Order, native Maltese people, as well as foreigners. When they captured a ship, the goods were sold and the crew and passengers were ransomed or enslaved, and the Order took a percentage of the value of the booty. Corsairing remained common until the end of the 18th century.


title: Privateer

text: During King George's War, approximately 36,000 Americans served aboard privateers at one time or another. During the Nine Years War, the French adopted a policy of strongly encouraging privateers, including the famous Jean Bart, to attack English and Dutch shipping. England lost roughly 4,000 merchant ships during the war. In the following War of Spanish Succession, privateer attacks continued, Britain losing 3,250 merchant ships.


title: Privateer

text: In the subsequent conflict, the War of Austrian Succession, the Royal Navy was able to concentrate more on defending British ships. Britain lost 3,238 merchantmen, a smaller fraction of her merchant marine than the enemy losses of 3,434. While French losses were proportionally severe, the smaller but better protected Spanish trade suffered the least and it was Spanish privateers who enjoyed much of the best-allied plunder of British trade, particularly in the West Indies.


title: Privateer

text: During the American Revolutionary War, the Continental Congress, and some state governments (on their own initiative), issued privateering licenses, authorizing "legal piracy", to merchant captains in an effort to take prizes from the British Navy and Tory (Loyalist) privateers. This was done due to the relatively small number of commissioned American naval vessels and the pressing need for prisoner exchange.


title: Privateer

text: About 55,000 American seamen served aboard the privateers. They quickly sold their prizes, dividing their profits with the financier (persons or company) and the state (colony). Long Island Sound became a hornets' nest of privateering activity during the American Revolution (1775–1783), as most transports to and from New York went through the Sound. New London, Connecticut was a chief privateering port for the American colonies, leading to the British Navy blockading it in 1778–1779. Chief financiers of privateering included Thomas & Nathaniel Shaw of New London and John McCurdy of Lyme. In the months before the British raid on New London and Groton, a New London privateer took "Hannah" in what is regarded as the largest prize taken by any American privateer during the war. Retribution was likely part of Gov. Clinton's (NY) motivation for Arnold's Raid, as the "Hannah" had carried many of his most cherished items.


title: Privateer

text: American privateers are thought to have seized up to 300 British ships during the war. The British ship "Jack" was captured and turned into an American privateer, only to be captured again by the British in the naval battle off Halifax, Nova Scotia. American privateers not only fought naval battles but also raided numerous communities in British colonies, such as the Raid on Lunenburg, Nova Scotia (1782).


title: Privateer

text: The United States Constitution authorized the U.S. Congress to grant letters of marque and reprisal. Between the end of the Revolutionary War and the War of 1812, less than 30 years, Britain, France, Naples, the Barbary States, Spain, and the Netherlands seized approximately 2,500 American ships. Payments in ransom and tribute to the Barbary states amounted to 20% of United States government annual revenues in 1800 and would lead the United States to fight the Barbary states in the First Barbary War and Second Barbary Wars.


title: Privateer

text: During the War of 1812, both the British and the American governments used privateers, and the established system was very similar. U.S. Congress declared that war be and the same is hereby declared to exist between the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland and the dependencies thereof, and the United States of America and their Territories; and that the President of the United States is herby authorized to use the whole land and naval force of the United States to carry the same into effect, and to issue to private armed vessels of the United States commissions of marque and general reprisal, in such forms as he shall think proper, and under the seal of the United States, against the vessels, goods, and effects of the Government of the said United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, and the subjects thereof.President Madison issued 500 letters of marque authorizing privateers. Overall some 200 of the ships took prizes. The cost of buying and fitting of a large privateer was about $40,000 and prizes could net $100,000.


title: Privateer

text: Captain Thomas Boyle was one of the famous and successful American privateers. He commanded the Baltimore schooner "Comet" and then later in the war the Baltimore clipper "Chasseur". He captured over 50 British merchant ships during the war. One source estimated a total damage to the Royal Navy from "Chasseur"'s 1813-1815 activities at one and a half million dollars. In total, the Baltimore privateer fleet of 122 ships sunk or seized 500 British ships with an estimated value of $16 million, which accounts about one-third of all the value of all prizes taken over the course of the whole war.


title: Privateer

text: On April 8, 1814, the British attacked Essex, Connecticut, and burned the ships in the harbor, due to the construction there of a number of privateers. This was the greatest financial loss of the entire War of 1812 suffered by the Americans. However, the private fleet of James De Wolf, which sailed under the flag of the American government in 1812, was most likely a key factor in the naval campaign of the war. De Wolf's ship, the "Yankee", was possibly the most financially successful ship of the war. Privateers proved to be far more successful than their US Navy counterparts, claiming three-quarters of the 1600 British merchant ships taken during the war (although a third of these were recaptured prior to making landfall). One of the more successful of these ships was the "Prince de Neufchatel", which once captured nine British prizes in swift succession in the English Channel.


title: Privateer

text: Jean Lafitte and his privateers aided US General Andrew Jackson in the defeat of the British in the Battle of New Orleans in order to receive full pardons for their previous crimes. Jackson formally requested clemency for Lafitte and the men who had served under him, and the US government granted them all a full pardon on February 6, 1815.


title: Privateer

text: However, many of the ships captured by the Americans were recaptured by the Royal Navy. British convoy systems honed during the Napoleonic Wars limited losses to singleton ships, and the effective blockade of American and continental ports prevented captured ships being taken in for sale. This ultimately led to orders forbidding US privateers from attempting to bring their prizes in to port, with captured ships instead having to be burnt. Over 200 American privateer ships were captured by the Royal Navy, many of which were turned on their former owners and used by the British blockading forces. Nonetheless, during the War of 1812 the privateers "swept out from America’s coasts, capturing and sinking as many as 2,500 British ships and doing approximately $40 million worth of damage to the British economy."


title: Privateer

text: The US was not one of the initial signatories of the 1856 Declaration of Paris which outlawed privateering, and the Confederate Constitution authorized use of privateers. However, the US did offer to adopt the terms of the Declaration during the American Civil War, when the Confederates sent several privateers to sea before putting their main effort in the more effective commissioned raiders.


title: Privateer

text: During the American Civil War privateering took on several forms, including blockade running while privateering, in general, occurred in the interests of both the North and the South. Letters of marque would often be issued to private shipping companies and other private owners of ships, authorizing them to engage vessels deemed to be unfriendly to the issuing government. Crews of ships were awarded the cargo and other prizes aboard any captured vessel as an incentive to search far and wide for ships attempting to supply the Confederacy, or aid the Union, as the case may be.


title: Privateer

text: During the Civil War Confederate President Jefferson Davis issued letters of marque to anyone who would employ their ship to either attack Union shipping or bring badly needed supplies through the Union blockade into southern ports.


title: Privateer

text: Most of the supplies brought into the Confederacy were carried aboard privately owned vessels. When word came about that the Confederacy was willing to pay almost any price for military supplies, various interested parties designed and built specially designed lightweight seagoing steamers, blockade runners specifically designed and built to outrun Union ships on blockade patrol.


title: Privateer

text: Warships were recruited by the insurgent governments during Spanish American wars of independence to destroy Spanish trade, and capture Spanish Merchant vessels. The private armed vessels came largely from the United States. Seamen from Britain, the United States, and France often manned these ships.


title: Privateer

text: Modern-day computer hackers have been compared to the privateers of by-gone days. These criminals hold computer systems hostage, demanding large payments from victims to restore access to their own computer systems and data. Furthermore, recent ransomware attacks on industries, including energy, food, and transportation, have been blamed on criminal organizations based in or near a state actor — possibly with the country’s knowledge and approval. Cyber theft and ransomware attacks are now the fastest-growing crimes in the United States. Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies facilitate the extortion of huge ransoms from large companies, hospitals and city governments with little or no chance of being caught.


title: Tetsuya Nomura

text: Nomura's father influenced his interest in art and games early on, creating little drawings and unique Sugoroku board games for him. Nomura started drawing at the age of three years and developed his own Sugoroku games during his elementary school years. As a child, he spent much of his free time playing baseball, swimming, fishing and building fortresses. When he was in middle school, his father told him that an era of computers would come and bought him his own computer. Nomura played "Legends of Star Arthur: Planet Mephius" on it and started creating his own video games by learning programming. He first tried a Nintendo product with the tennis and ping-pong variant of the Color TV Game console and later borrowed a Family Computer in high school. Around that time, "Dragon Quest" became Nomura's favorite because it surprised him and introduced him to video games with story elements. His art teacher in high school pointed him towards the works of "Final Fantasy" illustrator Yoshitaka Amano. Nomura also created his own manga during class and intended to do this as a profession although he ultimately abandoned the idea. Nomura went to vocational school to learn magazine and advertising artwork. Nomura then looked for an advertising job at a publishing company. However, he eventually applied to Square after he had seen a job advertisement with a drawing by Yoshitaka Amano.


title: Tetsuya Nomura

text: In the early 1990s, Nomura was hired by Square and at first worked as a debugger for "Final Fantasy IV". Some time later, the company's staff was divided and he was placed in the team in charge of "Final Fantasy". After he had received some training by artist Tetsuya Takahashi, Nomura designed the monsters for "Final Fantasy V". At that time, each "Final Fantasy" developer had their own plan book as a compilation of ideas to present to the director of a game. While the others typed their plan books at the computer and then printed them out, Nomura wrote his by hand and attached many drawings which impressed director Hironobu Sakaguchi and event planner Yoshinori Kitase. Nomura then became the graphic director of "Final Fantasy VI". For this game, he conceived the characters Shadow and Setzer as well as their background stories. Their designs were reused from some of Nomura's abandoned concepts for "Final Fantasy V". Following several smaller projects, Nomura was asked to be the principal character designer of "Final Fantasy VII" in replacement for Amano. Nomura drew the game's characters in a stylized and super deformed way and came up with the idea for the "Limit Break" attacks. He also took part in the making of the story and had a hand in plot elements such as Aerith's death. In 1998, Nomura worked on both "Parasite Eve" and "Brave Fencer Musashi". He then designed characters and monsters for "Final Fantasy VIII" in what he described as his "actual style of drawing", working alongside art director Yusuke Naora to realize the more realistic approach to the game's graphics. Additionally, he wrote the character's background stories and was the battle visual director in charge of designing fight sequences. Afterwards, Nomura worked on several different projects for Square, for example as a character designer of the 1998 fighting game "Ehrgeiz" which also used characters from "Final Fantasy VII".


title: Tetsuya Nomura

text: Nomura was the character designer for 2000's beat 'em up "The Bouncer" before he returned to the "Final Fantasy" series in the same capacity with 2001's "Final Fantasy X". He worked with the staff so that the characters' clothes would be identical in full motion videos and in-game scenes, unlike in "Final Fantasy VIII". In February 2000, he started working as the director of "Kingdom Hearts" with the production team consisting of over one hundred members from both Square and Disney Interactive. Nomura first heard of the game during a discussion between Shinji Hashimoto and Hironobu Sakaguchi regarding the use of the character of Mickey Mouse in a video game. He was inspired to work on "Kingdom Hearts" by Nintendo's platforming game "Super Mario 64". After discussing with the Disney staff, Nomura convinced them to use original characters with him as the character designer. The game's protagonist, Sora, became his favorite character he had designed so far. Following "Kingdom Hearts", Nomura worked once again on the "Final Fantasy" series with "Final Fantasy XI" and "Final Fantasy X-2".


title: Tetsuya Nomura

text: For the "Compilation of Final Fantasy VII" metaseries which featured new titles based on "Final Fantasy VII", Nomura was once again the character designer. A sequel to "Kingdom Hearts" started development around the completion of "Kingdom Hearts Final Mix", an international version which added more foreshadowing elements regarding the series' plot. Nomura continued his work on the series with "" for the Game Boy Advance in 2004. He had originally planned to work directly on the PlayStation 2 sequel "Kingdom Hearts II". However, desire from fans to play the original game on a portable console resulted in the creation of "Chain of Memories" which would bridge the gap between "Kingdom Hearts" and "Kingdom Hearts II". Afterwards, Nomura was the director and lyricist for the CGI animated film "" which was released in 2005 in Japan. This marked his film debut, and he redesigned the characters as well. Nomura joined the film's crew after producer Yoshinori Kitase called him and eventually became the director because of his attachment to the character of Cloud Strife. He split the role of directing with Takeshi Nozue.


title: Tetsuya Nomura

text: "Kingdom Hearts II" was released in 2005, resolving the elements foreshadowed in the first game's secret ending. As a result of being set a year after previous titles, Nomura was careful to make the plot accessible to newcomers. After Square Enix had finished development of the updated version "Kingdom Hearts II Final Mix+", Nomura was approached by Disney which expressed interest in a sequel. He said "We have various ideas, but we're not at the point where we can say that." Wishing to stop using the character of Sora temporarily, Nomura instead wanted to continue the series with games that explained different subplots. This resulted in the creation of "Kingdom Hearts 358/2 Days" for the Nintendo DS in 2008 which explored events that set up the story of "Kingdom Hearts II". In mid-2007, Nomura mentioned a desire to create a spin-off Kingdom Hearts game on a mobile platform and wanted it to play slightly differently from other titles in the series. The resulted was "Kingdom Hearts Coded", a game set after the events of "Kingdom Hearts II", which was later remade for the Nintendo DS in 2010.


title: Tetsuya Nomura

text: In the meantime, Nomura was also responsible for the main character designs and orchestration of "The World Ends with You" for the Nintendo DS. In 2009, he was also the main character designer of "Final Fantasy XIII". The graphics capabilities of the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 compared to previous consoles allowed Nomura to use more complex elements in the character designs than before, such as Lightning's cape and detailed facial features. This in turn meant that the art team had to do much more work for each character or area than in previous games. Nomura did not take an involved role in the creation of the non-playable characters. In 2008, he was the character designer of "Dissidia Final Fantasy". The game was originally envisioned by Nomura as a "Kingdom Hearts" spin-off featuring a cast of Disney characters. He later felt uncomfortable with the Disney characters fighting each other and instead opted to use "Final Fantasy" characters. Nomura was responsible for the character designs, which changed much of the look and style of Amano's illustrations.


title: Tetsuya Nomura

text: In 2010, Square released "Kingdom Hearts Birth By Sleep", a prequel of the first "Kingdom Hearts" that explained scenes shown in "Kingdom Hearts II" and its updated version. In early 2011, Square released a follow up to "Dissidia" titled "Dissidia 012 Final Fantasy". The game carried several ideas Nomura had ever since early development, such as the inclusion of new characters and new gameplay mechanics. For 2011's "Final Fantasy XIII-2", Nomura only created the new characters' faces as other staff members designed their clothes. Once the "Kingdom Hearts coded" remake was released, Nomura and his companions had already thought about creating "", a game that would set up the events of "Kingdom Hearts III". The game was released for the Nintendo 3DS owing to the team's positive reaction to the console's quality. Nomura confirmed that he would be considering what he called an "HD Technical Test" in order to commemorate the series' tenth anniversary and to entice players new to the series. This occurred on March 3, 2012 in the form of a premiere event where footage from the game, including its full CGI introduction sequence, was showcased to celebrate the game's release. In May 2012, Nomura revealed he was working as the director of a new "Kingdom Hearts" game that had yet to be announced by Square Enix. He was directing "Final Fantasy XV" which originally entered production as "Final Fantasy Versus XIII" shortly before its announcement in May 2006. Nomura left his position of director on "Final Fantasy XV" following "changes in development structure" by Square Enix in December 2013. After his departure from "Final Fantasy XV", development of "Final Fantasy VII Remake" began, with Nomura directing the project and other key members of the original "Final Fantasy VII" development team, Kitase and Kazushige Nojima returning as producer and scenario writer. At E3 2015, "Final Fantasy VII Remake" was announced with Nomura confirmed to be the director of the game. Nomura designed the "Torna" organization for "Xenoblade Chronicles 2", finally working with Tetsuya Takahashi again who had wanted to work with Nomura for over 20 years since it was decided Nomura would work on "Final Fantasy VII" instead of "Xenogears".


title: Tetsuya Nomura

text: In 2019, Nomura also contributed to "Final Fantasy XIV"'s third expansion "Shadowbringers". The raid series Eden (featuring elements of "Final Fantasy VIII") features a character named Gaia, along with bosses designed by Nomura.


title: Tetsuya Nomura

text: In April 2020, Tetsuya Nomura and Square Enix launched the critically acclaimed "Final Fantasy VII Remake". He worked as the director of the project, character designer, and concept designer. After a successful launch, Nomura would go on to work on downloadable content for the game called "intermission", which released in 2021. During this, he was also working on the next installation, "Final Fantasy VII Rebirth". Work for that project began in 2019, however it was revealed in an interview with him that progress for the game would be shown in the year 2022. As for a specific date on when it would be shown, or a release date for the project, one was not announced. He would begin working on it as the Creative director ( the person in charge of the creative vision for the game), as well as the concept designer and the character designer.  He is also working on the recently announced "Kingdom Hearts IV". Just as the previous game, he will be in charge of the character design, the story, and the concept design. as for this projects release date, and when more news would be shared, no release date was given, and any more visual showcases for the game will come at a later date, and not during the summer. Testsuya Nomura also created art pieces for his characters, on post cards which can be purchased in October. He also created artwork which was used to introduce Kingdom Hearts IV, which displayed many of the characters he has created through the games long timespan


title: Tetsuya Nomura

text: Nomura considers Yoshitaka Amano one of his biggest inspirations when doing artwork. His four "seniors" Hironobu Sakaguchi, Yoshinori Kitase, Hiroyuki Ito and Tetsuya Takahashi were also described as major influences. He even compared Sakaguchi to something "like a godly figure" during his early days at Square. At that time, Nomura was also taught the basics of game design by Ito. He told Nomura never to stick to existing concepts but rather to reuse just specific ideas and explained concepts such as ease of control and effortless accessibility of magic spells. Ito's work as a battle system designer inspires Nomura when thinking of the gameplay system for the "Kingdom Hearts" games. When designing characters, Nomura wants their names and outfits to be related with their personalities. An example occurs in "Final Fantasy X" where the protagonist Tidus was given a colorful uniform in order to reflect his cheerful personality and to contrast with the previous moody "Final Fantasy" characters. His name as well as Yuna's, another character appearing in the game, also have a common theme, the former being Okinawan for "Sun" and the latter Okinawan for "night". Various characters such as Squall Leonheart and Lulu are given multiple accessories, making the games more challenging for the programmers. When directing "Advent Children", Nomura explained how the film was different from Western films due to the lack of direct answers from the plot. He added that he wants viewers to interpret certain scenes themselves and then discuss them with friends as another way to enjoy the film. The same occurs within the "Kingdom Hearts" series where the scenes that show unknown characters are left to the player's imagination until the following scene reveals it.


title: Tetsuya Nomura

text: Nomura received the "Excellence in Visual Arts" award by the International Game Developers Association for his work on the first "Kingdom Hearts" game, alongside Shinji Hashimoto. In IGN's "The Top 100 Video Game Creators of all Time" Nomura was listed at number 84.


title: Faizon Love

text: Faizon Andre Love (born Langston Faizon Santisima; June 14, 1968) is a Cuban-born American actor and comedian. He is best known for his roles in the comedy films "The Meteor Man", "Don't Be a Menace", "Friday", "B*A*P*S", "Elf", "The Replacements", "Made", and "Couples Retreat", as well as the voice of Sean "Sweet" Johnson in the video game "" and his role as Wendell Wilcox on "The Parent 'Hood".


title: Faizon Love

text: Love was born Langston Faizon Santisima in Santiago de Cuba on June 14, 1968. He has described himself as a military brat who was raised in Southeast San Diego, California and Newark, New Jersey because of his father's career in the U.S. Navy. He graduated from Morse High School in Southeast San Diego.


title: Faizon Love

text: Love got his start as a stand-up comedian at age 15 and made his acting debut in an off-Broadway at the age of 19. His film debut, "Bebe's Kids", saw him provide the voice of comedian Robin Harris, who died before production began on the film; Love offered a close vocal impression of Harris. He then had a role in "The Meteor Man", starring Robert Townsend. Townsend then cast Love in a co-starring role on his sitcom "The Parent 'Hood".


title: Faizon Love

text: He followed up this role with a breakout performance as the drug supplier Big Worm in the 1995 film "Friday". Follow-up films have included "3 Strikes", "Elf", "Don't Be a Menace to South Central While Drinking Your Juice in the Hood", "Money Talks", "Wonderland", "The Fighting Temptations", and "Idlewild". In 2001, Love guest-starred in the Ludacris single "Freaky Thangs" from the album "Word of Mouf". The same year, he made a cameo appearance as a bus driver, in the music video for Lil Jon & The East Side Boys' single "Put Yo Hood Up".


title: Faizon Love

text: Love lent his voice to the video game "" (2004), portraying Sean "Sweet" Johnson, the leader of the Grove Street Families and the older brother of the game's protagonist. He co-starred in "Couples Retreat" (2009), a comedy film chronicling four couples who partake in therapy sessions at a tropical island resort.


title: Faizon Love

text: In 2012, he played Stringer Bell in a satirical trailer for "The Wire: The Musical". In June of that year, he started to appear in a series of commercials for Boost Mobile, promoting its new 4G phones.


title: Faizon Love

text: In 2014, Love posted a series of controversial tweets in the wake of the sexual assault allegations against Bill Cosby. Defending Cosby against the charges, he used profanity and racial slurs against Cosby's accusers as well as comedian Hannibal Buress, who had been credited with bringing wider attention to the allegations in a stand-up routine. In 2015, Love once again posted tweets in defense of Cosby, dismissing his fellow African-Americans who believed the allegations as "spineless monkeys".


title: Faizon Love

text: On March 7, 2017, Love was arrested on a charge of misdemeanor assault in Columbus, Ohio. An altercation with a valet had occurred at John Glenn Columbus International Airport, with video evidence showing Love grabbing the valet behind the neck in the baggage claim area and throwing him onto the ground and into a desk. Love pled not guilty, but later pled no contest and received a $500 fine and a 180-day suspended jail sentence.


title: T-shirt

text: A T-shirt (also spelled tee shirt), or tee, is a style of fabric shirt named after the T shape of its body and sleeves. Traditionally, it has short sleeves and a round neckline, known as a "crew neck", which lacks a collar. T-shirts are generally made of a stretchy, light, and inexpensive fabric and are easy to clean. The T-shirt evolved from undergarments used in the 19th century and, in the mid-20th century, transitioned from undergarment to general-use casual clothing.


title: T-shirt

text: They are typically made of cotton textile in a stockinette or jersey knit, which has a distinctively pliable texture compared to shirts made of woven cloth. Some modern versions have a body made from a continuously knitted tube, produced on a circular knitting machine, such that the torso has no side seams. The manufacture of T-shirts has become highly automated and may include cutting fabric with a laser or a water jet.


title: T-shirt

text: T-shirts are inexpensive to produce and are often part of fast fashion, leading to outsized sales of T-shirts compared to other attire. For example, two billion T-shirts are sold per year in the United States, or the average person from Sweden buys nine T-shirts a year. Production processes vary but can be environmentally intensive, and include the environmental impact caused by their materials, such as cotton which is both pesticide and water intensive.


title: T-shirt

text: Simple, T-shaped top garments have been a part of human clothing since ancient times; garments similar to the T-shirt worn earlier in history are generally called tunics.


title: T-shirt

text: The modern T-shirt evolved from undergarments used in the 19th century. First, the one-piece "union suit" underwear was cut into separate top and bottom garments, with the top long enough to tuck under the waistband of the bottoms. With and without buttons, they were adopted by miners and stevedores during the late 19th century as a convenient covering for hot environments.


title: T-shirt

text: As slip-on garments without buttons, the earliest T-shirt dates back to sometime between the 1898 Spanish–American War and 1904, when the Cooper Underwear Company ran a magazine ad announcing a new product for bachelors. In the "before" photo, a man averts his eyes from the camera as if embarrassed; he has lost all the buttons on his undershirt and has safety-pinned its flaps together. In the "after" photo, a virile gentleman wears a "bachelor undershirt" stretchy enough to be pulled over the head. "No safety pins — no buttons — no needle — no thread", ran the slogan aimed at men with no wives who lacked sewing skills.In 1913, the U.S. Navy first issued them as undergarments. These were a crew-necked, short-sleeved, white cotton undershirt to be worn under a uniform. It became common for sailors and Marines in work parties, the early submarines, and tropical climates to remove their uniform jacket, thus wearing (and soiling) only the undershirt. They soon became popular as a bottom layer of clothing for workers in various industries, including agriculture. The T-shirt was easily fitted, easily cleaned, and inexpensive; for those reasons, it became the shirt of choice for young boys. Boys' shirts were made in various colors and patterns. The word "T-shirt" became part of American English by the 1920s, and appeared in the "Merriam-Webster Dictionary".


title: T-shirt

text: By the Great Depression, the T-shirt was often the default garment to be worn when doing farm or ranch chores, as well as other times when modesty called for a torso covering but conditions called for lightweight fabrics. Following World War II, it was worn by Navy men as undergarments and slowly became common to see veterans wearing their uniform trousers with their T-shirts as casual clothing. The shirts became even more popular in the 1950s after Marlon Brando wore one in "A Streetcar Named Desire", finally achieving status as fashionable, stand-alone, outerwear garments. Often boys wore them while doing chores and playing outside, eventually opening up the idea of wearing them as general-purpose casual clothing.


title: T-shirt

text: Printed T-shirts were in limited use by 1942 when an Air Corps Gunnery School T-shirt appeared on the cover of "Life" magazine. In the 1960s, printed T-shirts gained popularity for self-expression as well as for advertisements, protests, and souvenirs.


title: T-shirt

text: Current versions are available in many different designs and fabrics, and styles include crew-neck and V-neck shirts. T-shirts are among the most worn garments of clothing used today. T-shirts are especially popular with branding for companies or merchandise, as they are inexpensive to make and purchase.


title: T-shirt

text: T-shirts were originally worn as undershirts, but are now worn frequently as the only piece of clothing on the top half of the body, other than possibly a brassiere or, rarely, a waistcoat (vest). T-shirts have also become a medium for self-expression and advertising, with any imaginable combination of words, art and photographs on display.


title: T-shirt

text: A T-shirt typically extends to the waist. Variants of the T-shirt, such as the V-neck, have been developed. Hip hop fashion calls for "tall-T" shirts which may extend down to the knees. A similar item is the T-shirt dress or T-dress, a dress-length T-shirt that can be worn without pants. Long T-shirts are also sometimes worn by women as nightgowns. A 1990s trend in women's clothing involved tight-fitting "cropped" T-shirt or crop tops short enough to reveal the midriff. Another less popular trend is wearing a short-sleeved T-shirt of a contrasting color over a long-sleeved T-shirt, which is known as "layering". T-shirts that are tight to the body are called "fitted", "tailored" or "baby doll" T-shirts.


title: T-shirt

text: With the rise of social media and video sharing sites also came numerous tutorials on DIY T-shirt projects. These videos typically provided instructions on how to modify an old shirt into a new, more fashionable form.


title: T-shirt

text: Since the 1960s, T-shirts have flourished as a form of personal expression. Screen printed T-shirts have been a standard form of marketing for major American consumer products, such as Coca-Cola and Mickey Mouse, since the 1970s. It has also been commonly used to commemorate an event or to make a political or personal statement. Since the 1990s, it has become common practice for companies of all sizes to produce T-shirts with their corporate logos or messages as part of their overall advertising campaigns. Since the late 1980s and especially the 1990s, T-shirts with prominent designer-name logos have become popular, especially with teenagers and young adults. These garments allow consumers to flaunt their taste for designer brands in an inexpensive way, in addition to being decorative. Examples of designer T-shirt branding include Calvin Klein, FUBU, Ralph Lauren, American Apparel, and The Gap. These examples also include representations of rock bands, among other obscure pop-culture references. Licensed T-shirts are also extremely popular. Movie and TV T-shirts can have images of the actors, logos, and funny quotations from the movie or TV show. Often, the most popular T-shirts are those that characters wore in the film itself (e.g., Bubba Gump from "Forrest Gump" and Vote For Pedro from "Napoleon Dynamite").


title: T-shirt

text: Designer Katharine Hamnett, in the early 1980s, pioneered outsize T-shirts with large-print slogans. The early first decade of the 21st century saw the renewed popularity of T-shirts with slogans and designs with a strong inclination to the humorous and/or ironic. The trend has only increased later in this decade, embraced by celebrities, such as Britney Spears and Paris Hilton, and reflected back on them, too ('Team Aniston'). The political and social statements that T-shirts often display have become, since the first decade of the 21st century, one of the reasons that they have so deeply permeated different levels of culture and society. The statements also may be found to be offensive, shocking, or pornographic to some. Examples of T-shirt store known for using offensive and shocking messages T-Shirt Hell. Many different organizations have caught on to the statement-making trend, including chain and independent stores, websites, and schools.


title: T-shirt

text: A popular phrase on the front of demonstrating the popularity of T-shirts among tourists is the humorous phrase "I went to _____ and all I got was this lousy T-shirt." Examples include "My parents went to Las Vegas and all I got was this lousy T-shirt." T-shirt exchange is an activity where people trade the T-shirts that they are wearing.


title: T-shirt

text: Artists like Bill Beckley, Glen Baldridge and Peter Klashorst use T-shirts in their work. Models such as Victoria Beckham and Gisele Bundchen wore T-shirts through the 2000s. Paris Fashion Week 2014 featured a grunge style T-shirt.


title: T-shirt

text: In the early 1950s, several companies based in Miami, Florida, started to decorate T-shirts with different resort names and various characters. The first company was Tropix Togs, under founder Sam Kantor, in Miami. They were the original licensee for Walt Disney characters in 1976 including Mickey Mouse and Davy Crockett. Later, other companies expanded into the T-shirt printing business, including Sherry Manufacturing Company, also based in Miami. Sherry was founded in 1948 by its owner and founder Quentin H. Sandler as a screen printer of Souvenir Scarf's to the souvenir resort market. Shortly, the company evolved into one of the largest screen printed resort and licensed apparel companies in the United States. The company now (2018) runs automatic Screen Print presses and produces up to 10,000 to 20,000 T-shirts each day.


title: T-shirt

text: In the 1960s, the ringer T-shirt appeared and became a staple fashion for youth and rock-n-rollers. The decade also saw the emergence of tie-dyeing and screen-printing on the basic T-shirt and the T-shirt became a medium for wearable art, commercial advertising, souvenir messages, and protest art messages. Psychedelic art poster designer Warren Dayton pioneered several political, protest, and pop-culture art printed large and in color on T-shirts featuring images of Cesar Chavez, political cartoons, and other cultural icons in an article in the "Los Angeles Times" magazine in late 1969 (ironically, the clothing company quickly cancelled the experimental line, fearing there would not be a market). In the late 1960s, Richard Ellman, Robert Tree, Bill Kelly, and Stanley Mouse set up the Monster Company in Mill Valley, California, to produce fine art designs expressly for T-shirts. Monster T-shirts often feature emblems and motifs associated with the Grateful Dead and marijuana culture. Additionally, one of the most popular symbols to emerge from the political turmoil of the 1960s were T-shirts bearing the face of Marxist revolutionary Che Guevara.


title: T-shirt

text: Today, many notable and memorable T-shirts produced in the 1970s have become ensconced in pop culture. Examples include the bright yellow happy face T-shirts, The Rolling Stones tops with their "tongue and lips" logo, and Milton Glaser's iconic "I ♥ N Y” design. In the mid-1980s, the white T-shirt became fashionable after the actor Don Johnson wore it with an Armani suit in "Miami Vice".


title: T-shirt

text: A V-neck T-shirt has a V-shaped neckline, as opposed to the round neckline of the more common crew neck shirt (also called a U-neck). V-necks were introduced so that the neckline of the shirt does not show when worn beneath an outer shirt, as would that of a crew neck shirt.


title: T-shirt

text: The most common form of commercial T-shirt decoration is screen printing. In screen printing, a design is separated into individual colors. Plastisol or water based inks are applied to the shirt through mesh screens which limits the areas where ink is deposited. In most commercial T-shirt printing, the specific colors in the design are used. To achieve a wider color spectrum with a limited number of colors, process printing (using only cyan, magenta, yellow and black ink) or simulated process (using only white, black, red, green, blue, and gold ink) is effective. Process printing is best suited for light colored shirts. The simulated process is best suited for dark colored shirts.


title: T-shirt

text: In 1959, the invention of plastisol provided an ink more durable and stretchable than water-based ink, allowing much more variety in T-shirt designs. Very few companies continue to use water-based inks on their shirts. The majority of companies that create shirts prefer plastisol due to the ability to print on varying colors without the need for color adjustment at the art level.


title: T-shirt

text: Specialty inks trend in and out of fashion and include shimmer, puff, discharge, and chino based inks. A metallic foil can be heat pressed and stamped onto any plastisol ink. When combined with shimmer ink, metallics give a mirror like effect wherever the previously screened plastisol ink was applied. Specialty inks are more expensive to purchase as well as screen and tend to appear on garments in boutiques.


title: T-shirt

text: Other methods of decoration used on T-shirts include airbrush, applique, embroidery, impressing or embossing, and the ironing on of either flock lettering, heat transfers, or dye-sublimation transfers. Laser printers are capable of printing on plain paper using a special toner containing sublimation dyes which can then be permanently heat-transferred to T-shirts.


title: T-shirt

text: In the 1980s, thermochromatic dyes were used to produce T-shirts that changed color when subjected to heat. The Global Hypercolour brand of these was a common sight on the streets of the UK for a few years but has since mostly disappeared. These were also very popular in the United States among teenagers in the late 1980s. A downside of color-change garments is that the dyes can easily be damaged, especially by washing in warm water or dye other clothes during washing.


title: T-shirt

text: Tie dye originated in India, Japan, Jamaica, and Africa as early as the sixth century. Some forms of tie dye are Bandhani (the oldest known technique) used in Indian cultures, and Shibori primarily used in Japanese cultures. It was not until the 1960s that tie dye was introduced to America during the hippie movement.


title: T-shirt

text: Another form of T-shirt decoration is heat transfer vinyl, also called HTV. HTV is a polyurethane material that allows apparel designers to create unique layered designs using a specialized software program. Once the design is created, it is then cut through the material using a vinyl cutter (or Cut n Press) machine.


title: T-shirt

text: There are dozens of different colors available, as well as glitter, reflective, and now even unique patterns (such as mermaid skin) which come in rolls and sheets.


title: T-shirt

text: After the design is cut, there is a process called “weeding” whereby the areas of the design that do not represent the design are picked away from the transfer sheet and removed so that the intended design remains. HTV is typically smooth to the touch and does not feel rubbery or stiff. The edges are typically clean cut and produce high contrast.


title: T-shirt

text: Designers can also create multiple color designs, or multi-layered designs using HTV. This process would be done in the design software before the design is sent to the cutter for the different materials. A heat press is then used to apply pressure and heat to the vinyl so that the material permanently adheres to the garment. The temperature and pressure vary according to the manufacturers specifications.


title: T-shirt

text: Dye-sublimation printing is a direct-to-garment digital printing technology using full color artwork to transfer images to polyester and polymer-coated substrate based T-shirts. Dye-sublimation (also commonly referred to as all-over printing) came into widespread use in the 21st century, enabling some designs previously impossible. Printing with unlimited colors using large CMYK printers with special paper and ink is possible, unlike screen printing which requires screens for each color of the design. All-over print T-shirts have solved the problem with color fading and the vibrancy is higher than most standard printing methods but requires synthetic fabrics for the ink to take hold. The key feature of dye-sublimated clothing is that the design is not printed on top of the garment, but permanently dyed into the threads of the shirt, ensuring that it will never fade.


title: T-shirt

text: Dye-sublimation is economically viable for small-quantity printing; the unit cost is similar for short or long production runs. Screen printing has higher setup costs, requiring large numbers to be produced to be cost-effective, and the unit cost is higher.


title: T-shirt

text: Solid ink is changed into a gas without passing through a liquid phase (sublimation), using heat and pressure. The design is first produced in a computer image file format such as jpg, gif, png, or any other. It is printed on a purpose-made computer printer ( most commonly Epson or Ricoh brands) using large heat presses to vaporize the ink directly into the fabric. By mid-2012, this method had become widely used for T-shirts.


title: T-shirt

text: Other methods of decorating shirts include using paints, markers, fabric transfer crayons, dyes and spray paint. Some techniques that can be used include sponging, stenciling, daubing, stamping, screen printing, bleaching, and many more. Some new T-shirt creators have used designs with multiple advanced techniques, which includes using glow-in-the-dark inks, heat-sensitive fabrics, foil printing and all-over printing. Other designers like Robert Geller, a German-born American fashion designer, has created a T-shirt collection which feature oversized graphic T-shirts made from super soft jersey materials. Alexander Wang came out with variations of T-shirts from oversized scoop necks, tanks to striped, slouchy rayon jerseys. Terence Koh T-shirts feature an upside down portrait with a real bullet hole hand.


title: Katharine, Duchess of Kent

text: Katharine, Duchess of Kent, (born Katharine Lucy Mary Worsley, 22 February 1933) is a member of the British royal family. She is married to Prince Edward, Duke of Kent, a grandson of King George V.


title: Katharine, Duchess of Kent

text: The Duchess of Kent gained attention for her conversion to Roman Catholicism in 1994; she was the first member of the royal family to convert publicly since the passing of the Act of Settlement 1701. The Duchess is strongly associated with the world of music and has performed as a member of several choirs.


title: Katharine, Duchess of Kent

text: She became the oldest living member of the British royal family following the death of Queen Elizabeth II.


title: Katharine, Duchess of Kent

text: Katharine Lucy Mary Worsley was born at Hovingham Hall, Yorkshire, the fourth child and only daughter of Sir William Arthington Worsley, 4th Baronet, Lord-lieutenant of North Riding, and his wife Joyce Morgan Brunner (1895–1979). Her mother was the daughter of Sir John Brunner, 2nd Baronet, and granddaughter of Sir John Brunner, 1st Baronet, the founder of Brunner Mond, which later became ICI (Imperial Chemical Industries). She is a descendant of Oliver Cromwell. Worsley was christened at All Saints' Church, Hovingham, on 2 April 1933. Her godparents were her maternal uncle Sir Felix Brunner, 3rd Baronet, Major Sir Digby Lawson, 2nd Baronet, her paternal aunt Lady Colegate, and Margaret D'Arcy Fife of Nunnington Hall.


title: Katharine, Duchess of Kent

text: Worsley received no formal education until she was 10. She was educated at Queen Margaret's School, York, and at Runton Hill School in North Norfolk. At school she was introduced to music, and was taught to play the piano, organ and violin, which she still plays today. In her final year at Runton Hill, she was formally elected music secretary; in this role, she organized school recitals in Norwich. She left school with a pass in oral French and a "very good" in English literature.


title: Katharine, Duchess of Kent

text: The Duchess has stated her admiration for the late cellist Jacqueline du Pré in the documentary "Who is Jacqueline du Pré?" by Christopher Nupen. She later worked for some time in a children's home in York and worked at a nursery school in London. She failed to gain admission to the Royal Academy of Music, but followed her brothers to Oxford – where they were at the University – to study at Miss Hubler's Finishing School, 22 Merton Street, devoting much of her time to music. She was one of only eight pupils there and was instructed by three different teachers: The principal, Miss Hubler, taught French literature, painting, and history; a French woman taught cookery; and a Viennese lady taught music.


title: Katharine, Duchess of Kent

text: Worsley met Prince Edward, Duke of Kent, the eldest son of Prince George, Duke of Kent, and Princess Marina of Greece and Denmark, while he was based at Catterick Camp. On 8 June 1961, the couple married at York Minster, the first royal marriage in that location in 633 years (the last one being between Edward III and Philippa of Hainault). The bride's father escorted her, and the best man was Edward's brother Prince Michael of Kent. Princess Anne was one of the bridesmaids. The Archbishop of York Michael Ramsey conducted the marriage service. Guests included actors Noël Coward and Douglas Fairbanks Jr. as well as members of the British, Greek, Danish, Norwegian, Yugoslavian, Romanian and Spanish royal families. Her white silk gauze dress was designed by John Cavanagh, used 273 yards of fabric and had "a high neckline and long sleeves and a commanding train". The Kent Diamond and Pearl Fringe Tiara secured her veil.


title: Katharine, Duchess of Kent

text: The couple have three children: George Windsor, Earl of St Andrews (born 26 June 1962); Lady Helen Taylor (born 28 April 1964); and Lord Nicholas Windsor (born 25 July 1970).


title: Katharine, Duchess of Kent

text: Katharine had an abortion in 1975 due to rubella and gave birth to a stillborn son, Patrick, in 1977; this loss sent her into a severe depression about which she has spoken publicly. "It had the most devastating effect on me," she told "The Daily Telegraph" in 1997. "I had no idea how devastating such a thing could be to any woman. It has made me extremely understanding of others who suffer a stillbirth."


title: Katharine, Duchess of Kent

text: The Duchess moved to the married quarters in Hong Kong and Germany while her husband was serving in the military. The couple later took numerous royal engagements on behalf of the Queen, including the Ugandan independence celebrations and the coronation of the King of Tonga.


title: Katharine, Duchess of Kent

text: The Duchess of Kent was received into the Catholic Church in 1994. This was a personal decision, and she received the approval of the Queen. As she explained in an interview on BBC, "I do love guidelines and the Catholic Church offers you guidelines. I have always wanted that in my life. I like to know what's expected of me. I like being told: You shall go to church on Sunday and if you don't you're in for it!" Basil Hume, then Cardinal Archbishop of Westminster and thus spiritual leader of the Catholic Church in England and Wales, warned the Church against triumphalism over the Duchess's conversion.


title: Katharine, Duchess of Kent

text: Although the Act of Settlement 1701 means a member of the royal family marrying a Catholic relinquishes their right of succession to the British throne, the Act does not include marriage to an Anglican who subsequently becomes a Catholic. Therefore, the Duke of Kent did not lose his place in the line of succession to the British throne.


title: Katharine, Duchess of Kent

text: Since then, the couple's younger son, Lord Nicholas, their grandson Lord Downpatrick, and their granddaughter Lady Marina have also become Catholics. Their elder son, Earl of St Andrews, father of Lord Downpatrick, married a Catholic and thus, had been excluded from the succession until the Succession to the Crown Act revoked that exclusion in 2015. The Dukedom of Kent is not subject to the Act of Settlement, so Downpatrick is in line to become the duke of Kent.


title: Katharine, Duchess of Kent

text: In 1978, the Duchess was hospitalised for several weeks owing to "nervous strain". Reports by the BBC stated that the Duchess suffered from coeliac disease and Epstein–Barr virus, whose symptoms resemble those of ME (myalgic encephalomyelitis, also known as "chronic fatigue syndrome"). She stepped down from her role as head of the ME Society in the UK, and has since energetically worked with various charities and schools.


title: Katharine, Duchess of Kent

text: In 1999, the Duchess was refused permission to seat the 12-year-old son of a bereaved friend in the Royal Box at the All England Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club. Alternative seating outside the box was offered. She later received what "The Daily Telegraph" reported in a front-page story was a "curt letter" from club chairman John Curry, reminding her that children, other than members of the royal family, were not permitted in the Royal Box. She, in turn, threatened a boycott of the Royal Box.


title: Katharine, Duchess of Kent

text: The Duchess of Kent decided in 2002 not to use the style "Her Royal Highness" herself and to reduce her royal duties. Since then, she has been informally known as Katharine Kent or Katharine, Duchess of Kent, although her formal style (e.g., in the Court Circular) remains HRH The Duchess of Kent. Despite her decision to stay away from public life, the Duchess continued to appear at major events including the wedding of Prince William and Catherine Middleton in 2011, the concert at Buckingham Palace and thanksgiving service at St Paul's Cathedral during the Queen's Diamond Jubilee celebrations in 2012, and the wedding of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle in 2018. However, she did not attend the celebrations for the Queen's Platinum Jubilee nor her state funeral in 2022.


title: Katharine, Duchess of Kent

text: In December 1989, Katharine was a guest on the BBC Radio 4 programme "Desert Island Discs". In keeping with her withdrawal from full royal duties in 1996, the Duchess took a position as a music teacher in Wansbeck Primary School in Kingston upon Hull. She also gave piano lessons in a rented studio flat near her official residence at Kensington Palace. The Duchess of Kent had served as the president of the Royal Northern College of Music, and was the director of National Foundation for Youth Music from 1999 to 2007. In March 2004, Katharine was the subject of "Real Story" on BBC One. She talked about her career as a music teacher saying "teaching [the children] is very satisfying. It's a privilege. To me it's one of the most exciting jobs anyone can do." In 2005, the Duchess spoke in an interview on BBC Radio 3 of her liking of rap music and of the singer/songwriter Dido, whose song "Thank You" she chose as one of her favourite pieces of music. She is patron of the charity Making Music, the National Federation of Music Societies, an umbrella organisation for amateur and voluntary music groups. Katharine is among the co-founders of Future Talent, a charity that helps young children with low-income backgrounds pursue a career in music.


title: Katharine, Duchess of Kent

text: In 2011, close associates of Jonathan Rees, a private investigator connected to the "News International" phone hacking scandal, stated that he had penetrated Katharine and Edward's bank accounts.


title: Katharine, Duchess of Kent

text: In May 2016, she hosted a concert for young children at Buckingham Palace in her capacity as founder of Future Talent. In August 2016, the Duchess became an ambassador for Samaritans after a volunteer at the Teesside branch contacted her. She had previously been its Royal Patron from 1971 until 1999. The Duchess is also a supporter of UNICEF. In 2022, the Duchess expressed her love and penchant for gangsta rap, typified by Eminem and Ice Cube.


title: Alawites

text: The Alawis, Alawites ( "Alawīyah"), or pejoratively Nusayris ( "Nuṣayrīyah") are an ethnoreligious group that lives primarily in Levant and follows Alawism, a sect of Islam that originated from Shia Islam. The Alawites venerate Ali ibn Abi Talib, revered as the first Imam in the Twelver school, as the physical manifestation of God. The group is believed to have been founded by Ibn Nusayr during the 9th century. Ibn Nusayr was a disciple of the tenth Twelver Imam, Ali al-Hadi and of the eleventh Twelver Imam, Hasan al-Askari. For this reason, Alawites are also called "Nusayris".


title: Alawites

text: Surveys suggest Alawites represent an important portion of the Syrian population and are a significant minority in the Hatay Province of Turkey and northern Lebanon. There is also a population living in the village of Ghajar in the Golan Heights. Alawites form the dominant religious group on the Syrian coast and towns near the coast, which are also inhabited by Sunnis, Christians, and Ismailis. They are often confused with the Alevis, a distinct religious sect in Turkey.


title: Alawites

text: Alawites identify as a separate ethnoreligious group. The Quran is only one of their holy books and texts, and their interpretation thereof has very little in common with the Shia Muslim interpretation but is in accordance with the early Batiniyya and other "ghulat" sects. Alawite theology and rituals break from mainstream Shia Islam in several important ways. For one, the Alawites drink wine as Ali's transubstantiated essence in their rituals; while other Muslims generally abstain from alcohol, Alawites are encouraged to drink socially in moderation. Finally, some of them believe in reincarnation, but it is not essential in their doctrine.


title: Alawites

text: Alawites have historically kept their beliefs secret from outsiders and non-initiated Alawites, so rumours about them have arisen. Arabic accounts of their beliefs tend to be partisan (either positively or negatively). However, since the early 2000s, Western scholarship on the Alawite religion has made significant advances. At the core of Alawite creed is the belief in a divine Trinity, comprising three aspects of the one God. The aspects of the Trinity are "Mana" (meaning), "Ism" (Name) and "Bab" (Door). Alawi beliefs hold that these emanations underwent re-incarnation cyclically seven times in human form throughout history. According to Alawites, the seventh incarnation of the triad consists of Ali, Muhammad and Salman al-Farisi.


title: Alawites

text: The establishment of the French Mandate of Syria marked a turning point in Alawi history. It gave the French the power to recruit Syrian civilians into their armed forces for an indefinite period and created exclusive areas for minorities, including the Alawite State. The Alawite State was later dismantled, but the Alawites continued to be a significant part of the Syrian Armed Forces. Since Hafez al-Assad took power through the 1970 Corrective Movement, the government has been dominated by a political elite led by the Alawite al-Assad family. During the Islamist uprising in Syria in the 1970s and 1980s, the establishment came under pressure. Even greater pressure has resulted from the Syrian Civil War.