title: Case Keenum

text: During Week 8 against the Minnesota Vikings, Keenum threw for 130 yards before being knocked out with a concussion. In Week 16 against the Giants, Keenum entered the game in the third quarter after Haskins injured his ankle. During the game, Keenum threw for 158 yards and a touchdown and rushed for another touchdown during the 41–35 overtime loss. Keenum remained the starter for Week 17 and finished with 206 yards, a touchdown, and an interception in a 47–16 loss to the Cowboys. In ten games in the 2019 season, Keenum finished with 1,707 yards, 11 touchdowns, and five interceptions.


title: Case Keenum

text: On March 24, 2020, Keenum signed a three-year, $18 million contract with the Cleveland Browns. He served as the backup quarterback to Baker Mayfield. He made his season debut in Week 6 after Mayfield was pulled in the third quarter due to an aggravated rib injury. He completed 5 of 10 passes and threw for 46 yards in a 38–7 loss to the Pittsburgh Steelers over the course of three offensive drives.


title: Case Keenum

text: Keenum was named the starter for the Browns Week 7 matchup against the Denver Broncos on October 20, 2021, due to a shoulder injury from Mayfield. It was his first start since Week 17 of the 2019 season. Keenum went 21-of-33 for 199 yards and a touchdown in the 17–14 win. Keenum also started the season finale against the Cincinnati Bengals, throwing for 176 yards, two touchdowns, an interception, and losing a fumble during the 21–16 win.


title: Case Keenum

text: On March 20, 2022, the Browns traded Keenum to the Buffalo Bills for a 2022 seventh-round pick. The trade also reunited Keenum with Stefon Diggs, his partner in the Minneapolis Miracle, who had been on the team since 2020.


title: Case Keenum

text: Born in Brownwood, Texas, Keenum spent his childhood in Alpine, Texas for a few years until moving to Abilene, Texas, and is the son of Steve Keenum who served as an offensive lineman and later as head football coach and athletic director at McMurry University. The elder Keenum, known for an aggressive passing offensive strategy, was also head coach at Sul Ross State, offensive coordinator at Tarleton State, and offensive line coach at Hardin–Simmons.


title: Case Keenum

text: Keenum is a Christian, saying after the Vikings' "Minneapolis Miracle", which led to a Vikings' win, that the best moment of his life was giving his life to Jesus Christ.


title: Richard Huckle

text: Richard William Huckle (14 May 1986 – 13 October 2019) was an English serial child sex offender. He was arrested by Britain's National Crime Agency in 2014 after a tip-off from the Australian Federal Police and convicted in 2016 of 71 charges of sexual offences against children committed while he posed as a Christian teacher, and a freelance photographer in Malaysia.


title: Richard Huckle

text: The enormity of the charges against him has led to him being described by the press as Britain's most depraved paedophile. On 6 June 2016, he was sentenced to life imprisonment with a minimum term of twenty-five years before he would be eligible for parole.


title: Richard Huckle

text: On 13 October 2019, Huckle was tied up, sexually assaulted, strangled and then stabbed to death in his cell. On 13 January 2020, a fellow inmate, 29-year-old Paul Fitzgerald, was charged with Huckle's murder. Fitzgerald, who had several previous convictions for violent and sexual offences, was sentenced to life imprisonment with a minimum term of 34 years on 24 November 2020.


title: Richard Huckle

text: Richard Huckle was born into a middle-class family in Ashford, Kent, on 14 May 1986. He was educated at the Harvey Grammar School, Folkestone, where he was described as "a bit of a loner, but nothing out of the ordinary" by friends. At the age of 16, he took part in a month-long expedition to visit a school in Namibia, after which he began study at the nearby South Kent College.


title: Richard Huckle

text: Huckle was a regular worshipper at Ashford Baptist Church, where he was described as a quiet man. He was also a member of a church in London, which he continued to attend up until the time of his re-arrest in December 2014.


title: Richard Huckle

text: After leaving education, Huckle spent a gap year in Malaysia from 2005 to 2006. He returned to the country regularly, helping out at local churches and among local communities, before moving there in 2010.


title: Richard Huckle

text: Huckle enrolled in a short CELTA (Certificate in English Language Teaching to Adults) course with the British Council before starting work as a freelance photographer in local communities around Kuala Lumpur. Hoping to further his career and status within the community, he also enrolled in an information technology (IT) study course at Kuala Lumpur Metropolitan University College. He did not complete his studies.


title: Richard Huckle

text: During the years of 2011 and 2012, Huckle did part-time photography for Nike Football Club Malaysia. There were no reports of abuse in the club. In addition to Malaysia, where all of the crimes he was convicted of occurred, Huckle is known to have kidnapped two sisters, aged 4 and 6, in Cambodia in 2006. In India, he persuaded a pastor to invite him to an orphanage in Bangalore to take photos and make videos with the children, offering to make promotional videos for the orphanage.


title: Richard Huckle

text: On 19 December 2014, Huckle was arrested by officers from Britain's National Crime Agency at London's Gatwick Airport and questioned on suspicion of serious offences against children. His arrest followed an earlier tip-off from Task Force Argos, a highly specialised branch of Australia's Queensland Police Service responsible for the investigation of online child exploitation and abuse. Huckle initially refused to answer questions and was bailed under the condition that he stay at his parents' house, though his laptop was seized. The following day he admitted the child sex abuse to his mother.


title: Richard Huckle

text: Police officers from Task Force Argos had been aware of a network of paedophiles operating on a dark web network called The Love Zone (TLZ). They noticed one member who always made posts using the unusual greeting "hiyas" and had a distinctive freckle on one of his fingers. Officers used social media and chat rooms to track down the individual, eventually finding a Facebook page that appeared to be a match. The profile was fake but photos of a vehicle led police to Shannon McCoole, a care worker from Adelaide. A warrant was issued for the arrest of McCoole. Upon entering his house, police discovered that McCoole was online and running his website at the time.


title: Richard Huckle

text: Police assumed the identity of McCoole and ran his site to catch other paedophiles. In doing so, police rescued 85 children from ongoing abuse and arrested hundreds. One member that stood out was Huckle, due to the number of children he had abused and the attitude of his posts. After discovering his real identity, they learned that he was due to return to the United Kingdom to spend Christmas with his family and immediately alerted the National Crime Agency. He was arrested at Gatwick Airport on 19 December 2014.


title: Richard Huckle

text: Huckle had been granted bail under the conditions that he live at his parents' address whilst investigations were in progress. Huckle had no criminal record and was in no positions of responsibility concerning minors. The police therefore after interviewing him released him temporarily, as it would take time to analyse and retrieve evidence from seized computer equipment. In his initial police interview, Huckle made no comment throughout. On the following day, when out on bail, he was confronted by his mother about the allegations. Huckle drunkenly admitted raping children aged three to thirteen, at which point his parents refused to allow him to remain in the house. They contacted the police and implored them to arrest him. He returned to police custody.


title: Richard Huckle

text: After leaving his parents' house Huckle was re-arrested and charged with 91 counts including creation and possession of indecent images of children, rape of a child under the age of 13, digital penetration, sexual assault, and facilitating the commission of child sexual offences by creating a "pedophile manual". He was denied bail by the police and remanded to court where his latest application for bail was also denied, Huckle was imprisoned at HMP Lewes before, due to the severity of the charges, being transferred to HMP Belmarsh in London to await trial.


title: Richard Huckle

text: At an initial hearing at the Old Bailey, in January 2016, Huckle pleaded not guilty to all 91 charges, which took over an hour to read in court. Prosecutors started to prepare three separate trials as they did not believe a jury should be subjected to all of the graphic evidence that would be presented in a single trial. In April, during a preliminary trial hearing, Huckle pleaded guilty to 71 of the 91 charges he was facing after a request to watch all of the evidence against him in court.


title: Richard Huckle

text: During the hearings, the full scale of Huckle's crimes became apparent for the first time. The prosecution, led by Brian O'Neill QC, showed evidence of a long history of crimes that started during Huckle's gap year in 2006 and continued for eight to nine years until he was apprehended in 2014. They included rape of children under the age of 12, possession and distribution of child pornography, creation of child pornography, child abuse, creating a paedophile manual entitled "Paedophiles And Poverty: Child Lover Guide", digital penetration of a child under the age of 12, and raising money for his activities via a crowd-funding website. His victims ranged in age from 6 months to 12 years old; one was abused while wearing a diaper, and another was abused for a number of years between the ages of 5 and 12. Huckle belonged to a website called The Love Zone on the dark web, which is obscured from general discovery and only accessible by anonymised means. On the site, he shared photos of his crimes with other members. He boasted about his crimes to other paedophiles, posting such comments as "Hit the jackpot, a three-year-old girl as loyal to me as my dog and nobody seemed to care" and "impoverished kids are definitely much easier to seduce than middle-class kids".


title: Richard Huckle

text: In a series of postings in 2013 he admitted sexually abusing four girls from the same family. He awarded himself points for sexually abusing children, and could not win points if he abused the same child in the same week. Huckle wrote he wanted to marry a girl he had raped from the age of seven and have children with her, although he claimed he was "not a big fan of incest". In total, prosecutors unveiled 29 victims and more than 20,000 photos and videos, but believe there could be up to 200 victims across Southeast Asia and thousands more photos in encrypted areas of Huckle's laptop, for which Huckle refused to provide keys. Ultimately, the vast majority of child abuse on his laptop was never recovered.


title: Richard Huckle

text: The hearings revealed some of the stratagems Huckle employed to procure victims, such as taking children out on day trips from orphanages and escorting them home from their own birthday party. Huckle had even talked about marrying one of his young victims so that he could set up a foster home and abuse "a cycle of children" who would pass through his home and turn his pedophilia into a full-time job. Huckle also created a ledger of his abuses in which he scored the scale of abuse each victim suffered. It was from this ledger that the estimated number of children abused, 200, was derived, although to date authorities have only discovered photographic evidence of the abuse of 29 children due to Huckle refusing to give officers the passwords for encrypted areas of his hard drives.


title: Richard Huckle

text: Huckle was prosecuted under Section 72 of the Sexual Offences Act 2003, which allows British nationals to be tried and convicted in the United Kingdom for child sex crimes committed while overseas in an effort to prevent child sex tourism, a stratagem known as extraterritorial jurisdiction and a move welcomed by child protection charities.


title: Richard Huckle

text: It is a rarely used section of the Act. While no official tally is kept, Huckle was reportedly only the seventh person to be prosecuted under the measure, and his crimes the most serious to be prosecuted under it.


title: Richard Huckle

text: Huckle's sentencing hearing began at the Old Bailey on 1 June 2016 and lasted until 3 June 2016, with the sentence itself being passed on 6 June 2016. At the start of the hearing, the judge stated that Huckle should expect to go to prison for a very long time, as he was considering multiple life sentences due to the gravity of the offences committed.


title: Richard Huckle

text: During the sentencing hearing, Huckle's lawyer, Philip Sapsford QC, read a statement from Huckle where he blamed his crimes on his immaturity:


title: Richard Huckle

text: Sapsford continued by asking the judge to take into consideration his client's young age, his claims of remorse, and the fact that he had no previous convictions. He also quoted from a psychiatric report that said Huckle had limited sexual experience with women and suffered depression as a teenager. He also stated that, despite the mitigating circumstances, this is the most extensive case of child sex crimes that he has ever been involved in.


title: Richard Huckle

text: It was also noted during the hearing, in a statement made by the prosecution, how convictions were only sought against crimes for which there was complete photographic evidence. It was noted how Huckle's ledger contained details of 200 children that had been abused but that they have been unable to access certain encrypted sections of his hard drive to obtain evidence.


title: Richard Huckle

text: At the Old Bailey on 6 June 2016, Judge Peter Rook QC sentenced Huckle to life imprisonment on 22 counts with a minimum prison term of 25 years before being eligible to apply for parole. Before passing down the sentence, the judge stated that Huckle carried out a campaign of rape and was driven by his own sexual gratification:


title: Richard Huckle

text: The National Crime Agency received criticism from the Malaysian Government, as well as a number of child protection charities in Malaysia, for their handling of the case. Officers from the NCA travelled to Malaysia to engage with local charities, who performed child protection workshops in the community where Huckle lived, but they were kept in the dark about the gravity of his crimes. The Malaysian Government stated that they would like further details of the victims so they can offer counselling. On 4 June 2016, the Attorney General of Malaysia, Tan Mohamed Apandi Ali, stated that he was in the process of contacting his counterpart in the UK, and the British High Commissioner in Kuala Lumpur, to obtain information about the case, which would help his investigation into the crimes and his efforts to help Huckle's victims.


title: Richard Huckle

text: The National Crime Agency responded to the comments from the Malaysian authorities, stating that they revealed enough details to be able to help the charities but were unable to provide full details until the prosecution was completed. For the same reason, severe media restrictions were put in place, which prevented anybody from reporting the story until the British Government had taken steps to ensure that all of Huckle's material had been taken down and that steps had been taken to protect his victims from other predators. On 6 June 2016, however, the National Crime Agency referred itself to the police watchdog the Independent Police Complaints Commission, due to the fact that they were aware of Huckle's continued attendance at two churches in the UK up until the time of his re-arrest in January 2015 but did not contact them until sentencing had already begun. The IPCC will look into whether the NCA had acted appropriately and whether more could have been done to determine whether Huckle abused any children in the UK through his relationship with the churches.


title: Richard Huckle

text: They also stated that procedures would be reviewed, but that pre-employment checks are the responsibility of future employers not their education provider.


title: Richard Huckle

text: After the gravity of Huckle's crimes became known, the Malaysian Government set up a telephone hotline for people to call if they had any information about Huckle or if they were abused themselves. The Malaysian Prime Minister, Najib Razak, added that he was angered and saddened by Huckle's sexual violation of Malaysian children and called for all parties involved to ensure that children are not exposed to situations where irresponsible people can take advantage of them.


title: Richard Huckle

text: Following the discovery of Huckle's crimes, the Malaysian Government came under fire from child protection charities for the lack of legislation regarding child abuse and child pornography. James Nayagam, chairman of Suriana Welfare Society for Children, was particularly critical of his government's relaxed nature in dealing with such crimes:


title: Richard Huckle

text: In August 2016, in response to the criticism, the prime minister Najib Razak formed a special task force to investigate how Malaysia's legislation could be updated to take paedophiles like Huckle into account. These efforts produced the Sexual Offences Against Children Act 2017. The act was the nation's first legislation to address child grooming, child pornography, and child rape specifically, codifying the investigative powers of the Royal Malaysian Police and prosecutorial discretion for these crimes.


title: Richard Huckle

text: While the media in the UK were largely supportive of Huckle's sentencing, the Malaysian press widely stated that the punishment was not severe enough, with statements such as "a thousand years is not enough", "We are horrified that the sex fiend [Huckle] will be eligible to appear before a parole board after 23 years", and "this monster could be out in 24 years" appearing in the days after his sentence was announced.


title: Richard Huckle

text: On 13 October 2019, Huckle was found strangled and stabbed to death in his cell at Full Sutton prison in East Yorkshire, aged 33. It was reported that he was beaten, stabbed and strangled repeatedly. Another prisoner was charged with his murder in January 2020.


title: Richard Huckle

text: After a trial lasting four days, Paul Fitzgerald, himself serving an indeterminate sentence for serious sexual assault, was found guilty of Huckle's murder on 23 November 2020 by a jury after only one hour of deliberation.


title: Richard Huckle

text: During the trial further details of Huckle's violent murder were revealed with it being made public that Huckle had his hands and feet bound before being gagged, strangled using electrical cable, raped, having his jaw broken, having a kitchen utensil inserted into his anus, and then having a pen with a blade attached inserted into his brain via the nose.


title: Richard Huckle

text: The attack was described by the prosecution as "a prolonged attack also designed to humiliate and degrade [Huckle]". Fitzgerald, who was discovered by prison staff straddling Huckle's body and surrounded by a pool of blood, later admitted that he had wanted to cook and eat parts of Huckle's body following the attack.


title: Richard Huckle

text: On 24 November 2020, Fitzgerald was sentenced to life imprisonment with the judge stating that he must serve a minimum of 34 years in prison before being eligible for parole due to the "sadistic" and pre-meditated nature of the attack which, it was revealed during sentencing, went on for over an hour before prison staff were made aware.


title: Mario Bros.

text: The arcade and Famicom/Nintendo Entertainment System versions were received positively by critics. Elements introduced in "Mario Bros." such as spinning bonus coins, turtles which can be flipped onto their backs, and Luigi were carried over to "Super Mario Bros." (1985) and became staples of the series.


title: Mario Bros.

text: An updated version of "Mario Bros." is included as a mini game in all of the "Super Mario Advance" series and numerous other games. "Mario Bros." has been re-released through Nintendo's online stores for later systems.


title: Mario Bros.

text: "Mario Bros." features two plumbers, Mario and Luigi, having to investigate the sewers of New York after strange creatures have been appearing down there. The objective of the game is to defeat all of the enemies in each phase. The mechanics of "Mario Bros." involve only running and jumping. Unlike future "Mario" games, players cannot jump on enemies and squash them, unless they were already turned on their back. Each phase is a series of platforms with pipes at each corner of the screen, along with an object called a "POW" block in the center. Phases use wraparound, meaning that enemies and players that go off to one side will reappear on the opposite side. The game continues until the player loses all lives.


title: Mario Bros.

text: The player gains points by defeating multiple enemies consecutively and can participate in a bonus round to gain more points. Enemies are defeated by kicking them over once they have been flipped on their back. This is accomplished by hitting the platform the enemy is on directly beneath them. If the player allows too much time to pass after doing this (about six seconds), the enemy will flip itself back over, changing in color and increasing speed. Each phase has a certain number of enemies, with the final enemy immediately changing color and increasing to maximum speed. Hitting a flipped enemy from underneath causes it to right itself and start moving again, but it does not change speed or color.


title: Mario Bros.

text: There are four enemies which emerge from the pipes: the Shellcreeper; the Sidestepper, which requires two hits to flip over; the Fighter Fly, which moves by jumping and can only be flipped when it is touching a platform; and the Slipice which turns platforms into slippery ice. When bumped from below, the Slipice disappears immediately instead of flipping over and does not count toward the total number that must be defeated to complete a phase. All iced platforms return to normal at the start of each new phase.


title: Mario Bros.

text: A fifth enemy, fireballs, fly around the screen instead of sticking to platforms. They come in two variants, red and green. The green ones are faster, but disappear after a short period of time, while the red ones bounce about and don't disappear until they are hit from below. Later in the game, icicles form under the platforms and at times on the top of the pipes and fall loose.


title: Mario Bros.

text: The "POW" block flips all enemies touching a platform or the floor when a player hits it from below. It can be used three times before it disappears. Bonus rounds give the players a chance to score extra points by collecting coins within a time limit. The "POW" block fills itself at the start of each bonus round.


title: Mario Bros.

text: "Mario Bros." was created by Shigeru Miyamoto and Gunpei Yokoi, two of the lead developers for the video game "Donkey Kong". In "Donkey Kong", Mario dies if he falls too far. For "Mario Bros.", Yokoi suggested to Miyamoto that Mario should be able to fall from any height, which Miyamoto was not sure of, thinking that it would make it "not much of a game." He eventually agreed, thinking it would be okay for him to have some superhuman abilities. He designed a prototype that had Mario "jumping and bouncing around", which he was satisfied with. The element of combating enemies from below was introduced after Yokoi suggested it, observing that it would work since there were multiple floors. However, it proved to be too easy to eliminate enemies this way, which the developers fixed by requiring players to touch the enemies after they've been flipped to defeat them. This was also how they introduced the turtle as an enemy, which they conceived as an enemy that could only be hit from below. Because of Mario's appearance in "Donkey Kong" with overalls, a hat, and a thick moustache, Shigeru Miyamoto thought that he should be a plumber as opposed to a carpenter, and designed this game to reflect that. Another contributing factor was the game's setting: it was a large network of giant pipes, so they felt a change in occupation was necessary for him. The game's music was composed by Yukio Kaneoka.


title: Mario Bros.

text: A popular story of how Mario went from Jumpman to Mario is that an Italian-American landlord, Mario Segale, had barged in on Nintendo of America's staff to demand rent, and they decided to name Jumpman after him. Miyamoto also felt that the best setting for this game was New York because of its "labyrinthine subterranean network of sewage pipes." The pipes were inspired by several manga, which Miyamoto states feature waste grounds with pipes lying around. In this game, they were used in a way to allow the enemies to enter and exit the stage through them to avoid getting enemies piled up on the bottom of the stage. The green coloring of the pipes, which Nintendo late president Satoru Iwata called an uncommon color, came from Miyamoto having a limited color palette and wanting to keep things colorful. He added that green was the best because it worked well when two shades of it were combined.


title: Mario Bros.

text: "Mario Bros." introduced Mario's brother, Luigi, who was created for the multiplayer mode by doing a palette swap of Mario. The two-player mode and several aspects of gameplay were inspired by "Joust". To date, "Mario Bros." has been released for more than a dozen platforms. The first movement from Mozart's "Eine kleine Nachtmusik" is used at the start of the game. This song has been used in later video games, including "Dance Dance Revolution Mario Mix" and "Super Smash Bros. Brawl".


title: Mario Bros.

text: The arcade game was released in 1983, but there are conflicting release dates. "" magazine reported in 1983 that the game made its North American debut at the AMOA show during March 25–27 and entered mass-production in Japan on June 21. The book "Arcade TV Game List" (2006), authored by Masumi Akagi and published by the Amusement News Agency, lists the release dates as March 1983 in North America and June 1983 in Japan. The United States Copyright Office lists the original arcade publication date as April 4, 1983. Former Nintendo president Satoru Iwata stated in a 2013 "Nintendo Direct" presentation that the game first released in Japan on July 14, 1983.


title: Mario Bros.

text: Upon release, "Mario Bros." was initially labeled as being the third game in the "Donkey Kong" series. For home video game conversions, Nintendo held the rights to the game in Japan, while licensing the overseas rights to Atari, Inc.


title: Mario Bros.

text: "Mario Bros." was ported by other companies to the Atari 2600, Atari 5200, Atari 8-bit family, Atari 7800, Amstrad CPC, and ZX Spectrum. The Commodore 64 has two versions: an Atarisoft port which was not commercially released and a 1986 version by Ocean Software. The Atari 8-bit computer version by Sculptured Software is the only home port which includes the falling icicles. An Apple II version was never commercially released.


title: Mario Bros.

text: A port by Nintendo for the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) was released in North America on June 23, 1986. A later NES port was released exclusively in Europe in 1993, called "Mario Bros. (Classic Series)".


title: Mario Bros.

text: "Mario Bros." was ported via the Virtual Console service in North America, Australia, Europe and Japan for the Wii, Nintendo 3DS, and Wii U. On September 27, 2017, "Mario Bros." was released for the Nintendo Switch as part of the Arcade Archives series. The NES version was a launch title for Nintendo Switch Online.


title: Mario Bros.

text: and the Game Boy Advance's "Super Mario Advance" series as well as "", The NES version is included as a piece of furniture in "Animal Crossing" for the GameCube, along with many other NES games, though this one requires the use of a Nintendo e-Reader and a North America-exclusive "Animal Crossing" e-Card.


title: Mario Bros.

text: In 2004, Namco released an arcade cabinet containing "Donkey Kong", "Donkey Kong Jr." and "Mario Bros." "Mario Bros." was altered for the vertical screen used by the other games, with the visible play area cropped on the sides.


title: Mario Bros.

text: "Mario Bros." was initially a modest success in arcades, with an estimated 2,000 arcade cabinets sold in the United States by July 1983. It went on to be highly successful in American arcades. In Japan, "Game Machine" listed "Mario Bros." on their July 15, 1983, issue as being the third most-successful new table arcade unit of the month. In the United States, Nintendo sold 3,800 "Mario Bros." arcade cabinets. The arcade cabinets have since become mildly rare and hard to find. Despite being released during the video game crash of 1983, the arcade game (as well as the industry) was not affected. Video game author Dave Ellis considers it one of the more memorable classic games. To date in Japan, the Famicom version of "Mario Bros." has sold more than 1.63 million copies, and the "Famicom Mini" re-release has sold more than 90,000 copies. The Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) version went on to sell cartridges worldwide. The Atari 2600 version also sold cartridges, making it one of the best-selling games of 1983. This brings total Atari 2600, NES and "Famicom Mini" cartridge sales to units sold worldwide.


title: Mario Bros.

text: The NES and Atari versions of "Mario Bros." received positive reviews from "Computer and Video Games" in 1989. They said the NES version is "incredibly good fun" especially in two-player mode, the Atari VCS version is "just as much fun" but with graphical restrictions, and the Atari 7800 version is slightly better.


title: Mario Bros.

text: The 2009 Virtual Console re-release of the NES version later received mixed reviews, but received positive reviews from gamers. In a review of the Virtual Console release, GameSpot criticized the NES version for being a poor port of the arcade version. GameSpot criticized it, saying that not only is it a port of an inferior version, but it retains all of the technical flaws found in this version. It also criticizes the "Mario Bros." ports in general, saying that this is just one of many ports that have been made of it throughout Nintendo's history. IGN complimented the Virtual Console version's gameplay, even though it was critical of Nintendo's decision to release an "inferior" NES port on the Virtual Console. IGN also agreed on the issue of the number of ports. They said that since most people have "Mario Bros." on one of the "Super Mario Advance" games, this version is not worth 500 Wii Points. The Nintendo e-Reader version of "Mario Bros." was slightly more well received by IGN, who praised the gameplay, but criticized it for lack of multiplayer and for not being worth the purchase because of the "Super Mario Advance" versions.


title: Mario Bros.

text: The "Super Mario Advance" releases and "" all featured the same version of "Mario Bros. ("titled "Mario Bros. Classic)." The mode was first included in "Super Mario Advance", and was praised for its simplicity and entertainment value. IGN called this mode fun in its review of "Super Mario World: Super Mario Advance 2", but complained that it would have been nice if the developers had come up with a new game to replace it. Their review of "" criticizes it more so than in the review of "Super Mario Advance 2" because Nintendo chose not to add multiplayer to any of the mini-games found in that game, sticking instead with an identical version of the "Mario Bros." game found in previous versions. GameSpot's review of "" calls it a throwaway feature that could have simply been gutted. Other reviewers were not as negative on the feature's use in later "Super Mario Advance" games. Despite its use being criticized in most "Super Mario Advance" games, a GameSpy review called the version found in "Super Mario Advance 2" a blast to play in multi-player because it only requires at least two Game Boy Advances, one copy of the game, and a link cable.


title: Mario Bros.

text: A version called was released in Japan for the Family Computer Disk System, with added features and revisions to gameplay. It includes cutscenes and advertisements, being sponsored by the food company Nagatanien. It was only available as a Disk Writer promotion.


title: Mario Bros.

text: In 1984, Hudson Soft made two different games based on "Mario Bros." is a reimagining with new phases and gameplay. includes a new gameplay mechanic: punching small balls to stun enemies. Both games were released for the NEC PC-8801, FM-7, and Sharp X1.


title: Mario Bros.

text: "Mario Clash", released in 1995 for the Virtual Boy, was developed as a straight remake, with the working title "Mario Bros. VB". It was the first stereoscopic 3D "Mario" game. Instead of bumping them from below, like in "Mario Bros.", the player must hit enemies using Shellcreeper shells.


title: Mario Bros.

text: "Super Mario 3D World" for the Wii U contains a version of "Mario Bros." starring Luigi: "Luigi Bros".


title: Mario Bros.

text: On October 16, 2015, Steve Kleisath obtained the world record for the arcade version at 5,424,920 points verified by Twin Galaxies.


title: Sugar Ray

text: Sugar Ray is an American rock band formed in Newport Beach, California, in 1986. Originally playing heavier funk metal and nu metal style music, the band achieved mainstream popularity in 1997 with their more pop-influenced single "Fly". The song's success led the band to shift its style dramatically to the more radio-friendly pop sound with their subsequent releases. Their best-selling album, "", was released in 1999, and featured popular singles "Every Morning", "Someday", followed by a self-titled album in 2001 featuring the single "When It's Over". The band would release two further albums, "In the Pursuit of Leisure" (2003) and "Music for Cougars" (2009), though the albums and respective singles generally sold far less. The band continued to tour into the 2010s.


title: Sugar Ray

text: In 2019, ten years after the band's last album, they announced their seventh studio album, "Little Yachty", in June 2019. The lead single, "Make It Easy", was released the same month.


title: Sugar Ray

text: The band members grew up in Orange County. Rodney Sheppard played in a number of reggae bands, including working with future Good Charlotte drummer Dean Butterworth. In the late 1980s, prior to Sugar Ray, Sheppard and Stan Frazier played together in a band under the name The Tories. Later additions Murphy Karges and Mark McGrath changed the band's name to Shrinky Dinx – they were initially named Shrinky Dinks. After signing with Atlantic Records, the name was changed to Sugar Ray upon threat of a lawsuit from the Milton Bradley Company, maker of the Shrinky Dinks toy.


title: Sugar Ray

text: The band's debut album, "Lemonade and Brownies", was released in 1995 and though it failed to produce a major hit single it did earn them recognition in alternative circles.


title: Sugar Ray

text: After they gained fame with the 1997 album "Floored" in 1998, the single "Speed Home California" and "Mean Machine" from "Lemonade and Brownies" was featured in the PlayStation game "Road Rash 3D", and its Nintendo 64 counterpart "Road Rash 64", respectively.


title: Sugar Ray

text: Sugar Ray's first mainstream hit came in the summer of 1997 with their song "Fly", which was released from the album "Floored" and featured reggae musician Super Cat. "Fly" did not sound anything at all like the rest of the tracks on the album and received frequent radio play, resulting in a number one rank on the Billboard's Airplay List. As a result of the success of "Fly", "Floored" sold well and was certified double platinum. However, by the end of 1997, critics were skeptical that Sugar Ray could put out another successful song and labeled them a one-hit wonder. The same year, Sugar Ray was featured in the movie "Father's Day", starring Billy Crystal and Robin Williams.


title: Sugar Ray

text: Their 1999 album "" was the band's reply to suggestions that they were a one-hit wonder, with the title implying that their 15 minutes of fame were not quite up — their "fame clock" read 14:59. "Every Morning", which was widely compared to "Fly", had similar success during the spring of 1999, reaching number 3 on the U.S. "Billboard" Hot 100 chart. Their follow-up single "Someday" also enjoyed extensive airplay later that year and reached number 7 in the U.S. The next follow-up single "Falls Apart (Run Away)" reached number 29 in early 2000. "14:59" outsold its predecessor and was certified triple platinum. The band toured in support of the album, and were scheduled to perform at Woodstock 99. However, Mark fell ill and they had to cancel. After "14:59" in 2000, Sugar Ray teamed up with The Alkaholiks to contribute the track "Make Room" on the Rap Rock collaboration album, "Loud Rocks", with other artists with a similar style such as Crazy Town and Incubus. In 2000, Sugar Ray did a cover version of John Cale and Brian Eno's song "Spinning Away" for the soundtrack to the film "The Beach".


title: Sugar Ray

text: Their 2001 self-titled album "Sugar Ray" produced another hit with "When It's Over", which, although it failed to achieve the same level of success as their previous singles, still reached number 13 in the U.S. Other singles such as "Answer the Phone", "Under the Sun" and "Words to Me" gained some popularity as well. Sugar Ray also made several movie appearances, including "Scooby-Doo" in 2002.


title: Sugar Ray

text: Sugar Ray's 2003 effort "In the Pursuit of Leisure", and the first single from the album, "Mr. Bartender (It's So Easy)", received a lukewarm reception. The album also contained the band's cover of Joe Jackson's famous "Is She Really Going Out With Him?". ProHoeZak guested live with the band in 2003 having appeared on "Mr. Bartender (It's So Easy)". In 2005, Sugar Ray released a greatest hits album, with three new songs, "Shot of Laughter", "Time After Time", and "Psychedelic Bee".


title: Sugar Ray

text: After releasing their greatest hits album – "The Best of Sugar Ray", in 2005, the band went into a period of relative inactivity for a number of years, with Mark McGrath starting a new job as an anchor on the television show "Extra". In January 2006, Sugar Ray was released from their recording contract with Atlantic Records. In mid-2007, their previously unreleased song "Into Yesterday" was used on the "Surf's Up" movie soundtrack, and the band made brief tour in Asia in August 2007 where they headlined SingFest, Singapore's first international music festival.


title: Sugar Ray

text: Sugar Ray appeared on the May 18, 2008, season 3 finale of "American Dad!", titled "Spring Break-Up", as themselves, playing "Fly" at a Spring Break party.


title: Sugar Ray

text: On May 19, 2008, the band announced they would be entering the studio to record their first album of new material since 2003. Jason Bernard, a friend of the band (who also happened to be a music producer) brought them a deal to sign with his label. It was announced that the band signed Pulse Recordings and that the new album should be released in the summer of 2009. On March 6, 2009, Mark McGrath announced that the new album would be titled "Music for Cougars". It was released on July 21, 2009. The first single was "Boardwalk".


title: Sugar Ray

text: Some critics noted that McGrath aimed to lower people's expectations for the album during its promotion by saying things like: "I know people aren't sitting on the edge of their seats waiting for a Sugar Ray album, but that wasn't the point." In another interview, Murphy Karges, bassist said, "We've never had any credibility. Nobody ever gave us any so how could we lose any?"


title: Sugar Ray

text: On August 22, 2010, Sugar Ray's Twitter page announced that Craig "DJ Homicide" Bullock had left the band. In 2011, the band had what McGrath described as not "the highest-grossing year for Sugar Ray". Murphy Karges and Stan Frazier also left, one not wanting to tour anymore, and the other taking a job with Aaron Rodgers. This left Rodney Sheppard and McGrath as the remaining original members. The band recruited replacements in percussionist Al Keith, bassist Justin Bivona and drummer Jesse Bivona, the latter two being touring support members in the past.


title: Sugar Ray

text: In 2012, McGrath worked with Art Alexakis, frontman and vocalist of the band Everclear, on starting up a 1990s nostalgia tour, something they had discussed in the past but had always felt was too soon to be successful. The result was the "Summerland" tour, featuring a line-up of alternative rock bands that "at least had a big hit or two" in the 1990s, containing McGrath and Alexakis's own bands along with Marcy Playground, Gin Blossoms, and Lit. Percussionist Al Keith (Khalil Al-Rashad) injured his foot on July 2, 2012 at Del Mar Fairgrounds in Del Mar, California, during the song "Fly". He was absent from shows until August 2012. The tour was deemed a success, and McGrath initially spoke of the possibility of it becoming a yearly event. Initial plans to expand the nostalgia touring into 2013 faced issues. McGrath announced a "Mark McGrath & Friends" tour, in which the band would perform alongside other 1990s alternative rock bands Smash Mouth, Spin Doctors, and Vertical Horizon, on a cruise ship. though the plans were cancelled, with the idea losing support after the Carnival Triumph cruise ship disaster. Additionally, McGrath and Alexakis did not see eye to eye on the future direction for the "Summerland" tour, leading to Sugar Ray leaving its 2013 incarnation in favor of starting their own rival nostalgia tour called "Under the Sun" instead. The tour ran three separate years – 2013, 2014, and 2015.


title: Sugar Ray

text: As early as 2013, McGrath spoke of recording and releasing an EP, though at the time, he was unsure if it would be released as a band release or a solo release. On April 9, 2013, Mark McGrath announced via Twitter that he would be "heading to Pulse Recording Studios" to record the new material, he stated July to be a hopeful release date. For the tour, and drummer Jesse Bivona and bassist Justin Bivona were temporarily replaced by drummer Dean Butterworth and bassist Serg Dimitrijevic, as the Bivona brothers' band The Interrupters are opening for Rancid. On September 9, 2013, former members Stan Frazier (drums, percussion, programming, backing vocals) and Murphy Karges (bass guitar, backing vocals) performed with Scott Foster (lead vocals, guitar), Lewis Richards (guitar, backing vocals), and Damon Tucker (guitar, backing vocals) during Keep Calm and Beat H.E.A.T. Rocking & Rally. They performed some of Foster's solo material, and some Sugar Ray classics. They performed from 5:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m. at Twila Reid Park, 3100 West Orange Avenue, Anaheim. On November 9, 2013, Sugar Ray was to play a benefit for the Greater Los Angeles Fisher House


title: Sugar Ray

text: The band continued its "Under the Sun" tour through 2014. However, in June 2014, McGrath revealed that the band had been struggling with legal wranglings with Karges and Frazier since their departure in 2012, and that because of it, he felt there would never be another Sugar Ray album. McGrath would later release the EP as a solo EP entitled "Summertime's Coming" in 2015. As of the fall of 2014, drummer Jesse Bivona and bassist Justin Bivona are no longer in Sugar Ray (leaving officially in 2016); drummer Dean Butterworth became a full member in fall 2014, while bassist Kristian Attard became a full member in 2016.


title: Sugar Ray

text: In August 2017, McGrath spoke of writing and recording another album, of which he hoped he would be able to release within the next year.


title: Sugar Ray

text: In June 2019, ten years after the band last released music, Sugar Ray signed with BMG Rights Management and announced a new album, "Little Yachty"; with the lead single "Make it Easy" debuting on June 7, 2019. The album title is a reference to both the rapper Lil Yachty and the fact that McGrath views Sugar Ray as a "yacht rock" band. The album was released on July 26, 2019.


title: Sugar Ray

text: Sugar Ray originally began their career as a hardcore punk band, before introducing a DJ into the band's musical composition, resulting in their first shift in style. This new sound fused glam metal and hardcore punk with funk, sample-based hip-hop, new wave, disco, dub, reggae, R&B and soul music. This sound has been predominately categorized as nu metal and funk metal, as well as alternative metal, hard rock, punk rock and rap metal. Music critic Stephen Thomas Erlewine says that after the success of their crossover hit "Fly" they "no longer tried to ape the Red Hot Chili Peppers." Regarding the band's first two albums, singer Mark McGrath stated, "we were the Chili Peppers with zero talent. [...] Out of necessity we kind of became known as a metal band, a little pre nu-metal type rap rock thing before there was rap rock."


title: Sugar Ray

text: Sugar Ray shifted to a pop rock sound following the mainstream success of "Fly", beginning with their third album "". The band's later music has also been categorized as skate punk, pop, and alternative pop. The band's new sound occasionally incorporated elements of genres such as power pop and disco. The band's overall sound, throughout its shifts in style, has been characterized as alternative rock. The band's music is generally tongue-in-cheek.


title: Dimetrodon

text: Dimetrodon ( or ,) meaning "two measures of teeth,” is an extinct genus of non-mammalian synapsid that lived during the Cisuralian (Early Permian), around 295–272 million years ago (Mya). It is a member of the family Sphenacodontidae. The most prominent feature of "Dimetrodon" is the large neural spine sail on its back formed by elongated spines extending from the vertebrae. It walked on four legs and had a tall, curved skull with large teeth of different sizes set along the jaws. Most fossils have been found in the Southwestern United States, the majority coming from a geological deposit called the Red Beds of Texas and Oklahoma. More recently, its fossils have been found in Germany. Over a dozen species have been named since the genus was first erected in 1878.


title: Dimetrodon

text: "Dimetrodon" is often mistaken for a dinosaur or as a contemporary of dinosaurs in popular culture, but it became extinct some 40 million years before the first appearance of dinosaurs. Reptile-like in appearance and physiology, "Dimetrodon" is nevertheless more closely related to mammals than to modern reptiles, though it is not a direct ancestor of mammals. "Dimetrodon" is assigned to the "non-mammalian synapsids", a group traditionally – but incorrectly – called "mammal-like reptiles", and now known as stem mammals. This groups "Dimetrodon" together with mammals in a clade (evolutionary group) called Synapsida, while placing dinosaurs, reptiles, and birds in a separate clade, the Sauropsida. Single openings in the skull behind each eye, known as temporal fenestrae, and other skull features distinguish "Dimetrodon" and mammals from most of the earliest sauropsids.


title: Dimetrodon

text: "Dimetrodon" was probably one of the apex predators of the Cisuralian ecosystems, feeding on fish and tetrapods, including reptiles and amphibians. Smaller "Dimetrodon" species may have had different ecological roles. The sail of "Dimetrodon" may have been used to stabilize its spine or to heat and cool its body as a form of thermoregulation. Some recent studies argue that the sail would have been ineffective at removing heat from the body due to large species being discovered with small sails and small species being discovered with large sails, essentially ruling out heat regulation as its main purpose. The sail was most likely used in courtship display with methods such as threatening rivals or showing off to potential mates.


title: Dimetrodon

text: "Dimetrodon" was a quadrupedal, sail-backed synapsid. Most "Dimetrodon" species ranged in length from and are estimated to have weighed between . The largest known species of "Dimetrodon" is "D. angelensis", around and the smallest is "D. teutonis" at . The larger species of "Dimetrodon" were among the largest predators of the Early Permian, although the closely related "Tappenosaurus", known from skeletal fragments in slightly younger rocks, may have been even larger at an estimated in total body length. Although some "Dimetrodon" species could grow very large, many juvenile specimens are known.


title: Dimetrodon

text: A single large opening on either side of the back of the skull links "Dimetrodon" with mammals and distinguishes it from most of the earliest sauropsids, which either lack openings or have two openings. Features such as ridges on the inside of the nasal cavity and a ridge at the back of the lower jaw are thought to be part of an evolutionary progression from early four-limbed land-dwelling vertebrates to mammals.


title: Dimetrodon

text: The skull of "Dimetrodon" is tall and compressed laterally, or side-to-side. The eye sockets are positioned high and far back in the skull. Behind each eye socket is a single hole called an infratemporal fenestra. An additional hole in the skull, the supratemporal fenestra, can be seen when viewed from above. The back of the skull (the occiput) is oriented at a slight upward angle, a feature that it shares with all other early synapsids. The upper margin of the skull slopes downward in a convex arc to the tip of the snout. The tip of the upper jaw, formed by the premaxilla bone, is raised above the part of the jaw formed by the maxilla bone to form a maxillary "step". Within this step is a diastema, or gap in the tooth row. Its skull was more heavily built than a dinosaur's.


title: Dimetrodon

text: The size of the teeth varies greatly along the length of the jaws, lending "Dimetrodon" its name, which means "two measures of tooth" in reference to sets of small and large teeth. One or two pairs of caniniforms (large pointed canine-like teeth) extend from the maxilla. Large incisor teeth are also present at the tips of the upper and lower jaws, rooted in the premaxillae and dentary bones. Small teeth are present around the maxillary "step" and behind the caniniforms, becoming smaller further back in the jaw.


title: Dimetrodon

text: Many teeth are widest at their midsections and narrow closer to the jaws, giving them the appearance of a teardrop. Teardrop-shaped teeth are unique to "Dimetrodon" and other closely related sphenacodontids, and help distinguish them from other early synapsids. As in many other early synapsids, the teeth of most "Dimetrodon" species are serrated at their edges. The serrations of "Dimetrodon" teeth were so fine that they resembled tiny cracks. The dinosaur "Albertosaurus" had similarly crack-like serrations, but, at the base of each serration was a round void, which would have functioned to distribute force over a larger surface area and prevent the stresses of feeding from causing the crack to spread through the tooth. Unlike "Albertosaurus", "Dimetrodon" teeth lacked adaptations that would stop cracks from forming at their serrations. The teeth of "D. teutonis" lack serrations, but still have sharp edges.


title: Dimetrodon

text: A 2014 study shows that "Dimetrodon" was in an arms race against its prey. The smaller species, "D. milleri", had no serrations, since it ate small prey. As prey grew larger, several "Dimetrodon" species started developing serrations on their teeth and increasing in size. For instance, "D. limbatus" had enamel serrations that helped it cut through flesh (which were similar to the serrations that can be found on "Secodontosaurus"). The second-largest species, "D. grandis", has denticle serrations similar to those of sharks and theropod dinosaurs, making its teeth even more specialized for slicing through flesh. As "Dimetrodon"'s prey grew larger, the various species responded by evolving into larger sizes and developing ever-sharper teeth.


title: Dimetrodon

text: On the inner surface of the nasal section of skull are ridges called nasoturbinals, which may have supported cartilage that increased the area of the olfactory epithelium, the layer of tissue that detects odors. These ridges are much smaller than those of later synapsids from the Late Permian and Triassic, whose large nasoturbinals are taken as evidence for warm-bloodedness because they may have supported mucous membranes that warmed and moistened incoming air. Thus, the nasal cavity of "Dimetrodon" is transitional between those of early land vertebrates and mammals.


title: Dimetrodon

text: Another transitional feature of "Dimetrodon" is a ridge in the back of the jaw called the reflected lamina, which is found on the articular bone, which connects to the quadrate bone of the skull to form the jaw joint. In later mammal ancestors, the articular and quadrate separated from the jaw joint, while the articular developed into the malleus bone of the middle ear. The reflected lamina became part of a ring called the tympanic annulus that supports the ear drum in all living mammals.


title: Dimetrodon

text: The tail of "Dimetrodon" makes up a large portion of its total body length and includes around 50 caudal vertebrae. Tails were missing or incomplete in the first described skeletons of "Dimetrodon"; the only caudal vertebrae known were the 11 closest to the hip. Since these first few caudal vertebrae narrow rapidly as they progress farther from the hip, many paleontologists in the late 19th and early 20th centuries thought that "Dimetrodon" had a very short tail. A largely complete tail of "Dimetrodon" was not described until 1927.


title: Dimetrodon

text: The sail of "Dimetrodon" is formed by elongated neural spines projecting from the vertebrae. Each spine varies in cross-sectional shape from its base to its tip in what is known as "dimetrodont" differentiation. Near the vertebra body, the spine cross section is laterally compressed into a rectangular shape, and closer to the tip, it takes on a figure-eight shape as a groove runs along either side of the spine. The figure-eight shape is thought to reinforce the spine, preventing bending and fractures. A cross section of the spine of one specimen of "Dimetrodon giganhomogenes" is rectangular in shape but preserves figure-eight shaped rings close to its center, indicating that the shape of spines may change as individuals age. The microscopic anatomy of each spine varies from base to tip, indicating where it was embedded in the muscles of the back and where it was exposed as part of a sail. The lower or proximal portion of the spine has a rough surface that would have served as an anchoring point for the epaxial muscles of the back, and also has a network of connective tissues called Sharpey's fibers that indicate it was embedded within the body. Higher up on the distal (outer) portion of the spine, the bone surface is smoother. The periosteum, a layer of tissue surrounding the bone, is covered in small grooves that presumably supported the blood vessels that vascularized the sail.


title: Dimetrodon

text: The large groove that runs the length of the spine was once thought to be a channel for blood vessels, but since the bone does not contain vascular canals, the sail is not thought to have been as highly vascularized as once thought. Some specimens of "Dimetrodon" preserve deformed areas of the neural spines that appear to be healed-over fractures. The cortical bone that grew over these breaks is highly vascularized, suggesting that soft tissue must have been present on the sail to supply the site with blood vessels. Layered lamellar bone makes up most of the neural spine's cross-sectional area, and contains lines of arrested growth that can be used to determine the age of each individual at death. In many specimens of "D. gigashomogenes" the distal portions of spines bend sharply, indicating that the sail would have had an irregular profile in life. Their crookedness suggests that soft tissue may not have extended all the way to the tips of the spines, meaning that the sail's webbing may not have been as extensive as it is commonly imagined.


title: Dimetrodon

text: No fossil evidence of "Dimetrodon"'s skin has yet been found. Impressions of the skin of a related animal, "Estemmenosuchus", indicate that it would have been smooth and well-provided with glands, but this form of skin may not have applied to "Dimetrodon", as its lineage is fairly distant. "Dimetrodon" also may have had large scutes on the underside of its tail and belly as other synapsids did. Evidence from the varanopid "Ascendonanus" suggests that some early synapsids may have had squamate-like scales. However, some recent studies have put varanopids as taxonomically closer to diapsid reptiles.


title: Dimetrodon

text: The earliest discovery of "Dimetrodon" fossils were of a maxilla recovered in 1845 by a man named Donald McLeod, living in the British colony of Prince Edward Island. These fossils were purchased by John William Johnson, a Canadian geologist, and then described by Joseph Leidy in 1854 as the mandible of "Bathygnathus borealis", a large carnivore related to "Thecodontosaurus," although it was later reclassified as a species of "Dimetrodon" in 2015, as "Dimetrodon borealis".


title: Dimetrodon

text: Fossils now attributed to "Dimetrodon" were first studied by American paleontologist Edward Drinker Cope in the 1870s. Cope had obtained the fossils along with those of many other Permian tetrapods from several collectors who had been exploring a group of rocks in Texas called the Red Beds. Among these collectors were Swiss naturalist Jacob Boll, Texas geologist W. F. Cummins, and amateur paleontologist Charles Hazelius Sternberg. Most of Cope's specimens went to the American Museum of Natural History or to the University of Chicago's Walker Museum (most of the Walker fossil collection is now housed in the Field Museum of Natural History).


title: Dimetrodon

text: Sternberg sent some of his own specimens to German paleontologist Ferdinand Broili at Munich University, although Broili was not as prolific as Cope in describing specimens. Cope's rival Othniel Charles Marsh also collected some bones of "Dimetrodon", which he sent to the Walker Museum. The first use of the name "Dimetrodon" came in 1878 when Cope named the species "Dimetrodon incisivus", "Dimetrodon rectiformis", and "Dimetrodon gigas" in the scientific journal "Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society".


title: Dimetrodon

text: The first description of a "Dimetrodon" fossil came a year earlier, though, when Cope named the species "Clepsydrops limbatus" from the Texas Red Beds. (The name "Clepsydrops" was first coined by Cope in 1875 for sphenacodontid remains from Vermilion County, Illinois, and was later employed for many sphenacontid specimens from Texas; many new species of sphenacodontids from Texas were assigned to either "Clepsydrops" or "Dimetrodon" in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.) "C. limbatus" was reclassified as a species of "Dimetrodon" in 1940, meaning that Cope's 1877 paper was the first record of "Dimetrodon".


title: Dimetrodon

text: Cope was the first to describe a sail-backed synapsid with the naming of "C. natalis" in his 1878 paper, although he called the sail a fin and compared it to the crests of the modern basilisk lizard ("Basilicus"). Sails were not preserved in the specimens of "D. incisivus" and "D. gigas" that Cope described in his 1878 paper, but elongated spines were present in the "D. rectiformis" specimen he described. Cope commented on the purpose of the sail in 1886, writing, "The utility is difficult to imagine. Unless the animal had aquatic habits, and swam on its back, the crest or fin must have been in the way of active movements... The limbs are not long enough nor the claws acute enough to demonstrate arboreal habits, as in the existing genus "Basilicus", where a similar crest exists."


title: Dimetrodon

text: In the first few decades of the 20th century, American paleontologist E. C. Case authored many studies on "Dimetrodon" and described several new species. He received funding from the Carnegie Institution for his study of many "Dimetrodon" specimens in the collections of the American Museum of Natural History and several other museums. Many of these fossils had been collected by Cope but had not been thoroughly described, as Cope was known for erecting new species on the basis of only a few bone fragments.


title: Dimetrodon

text: Beginning in the late 1920s, paleontologist Alfred Romer restudied many "Dimetrodon" specimens and named several new species. In 1940, Romer coauthored a large study with Llewellyn Ivor Price called "Review of the Pelycosauria" in which the species of "Dimetrodon" named by Cope and Case were reassessed. Most of the species names considered valid by Romer and Price are still used today.


title: Dimetrodon

text: In the decades following Romer and Price's monograph, many "Dimetrodon" specimens were described from localities outside Texas and Oklahoma. The first was described from the Four Corners region of Utah in 1966 and another was described from Arizona in 1969. In 1975, Olson reported "Dimetrodon" material from Ohio. A new species of "Dimetrodon" called "D. occidentalis" (meaning "western "Dimetrodon"") was named in 1977 from New Mexico. The specimens found in Utah and Arizona probably also belong to "D. occidentalis".


title: Dimetrodon

text: Before these discoveries, a theory existed that a midcontinental seaway separated what is now Texas and Oklahoma from more western lands during the Early Permian, isolating "Dimetrodon" to a small region of North America, while a smaller sphenacodontid called "Sphenacodon" dominated the western area. While this seaway probably did exist, the discovery of fossils outside Texas and Oklahoma show that its extent was limited and that it was not an effective barrier to the distribution of "Dimetrodon".


title: Dimetrodon

text: In 2001, a new species of "Dimetrodon" called "D. teutonis" was described from the Lower Permian Bromacker locality at the Thuringian Forest of Germany, extending the geographic range of "Dimetrodon" outside North America for the first time.


title: Dimetrodon

text: Twenty species of "Dimetrodon" have been named since the genus was first described in 1878. Many have been synonymized with older named species, and some now belong to different genera.


title: Dimetrodon

text: "Dimetrodon limbatus" was first described by Edward Drinker Cope in 1877 as "Clepsydrops limbatus". (The name "Clepsydrops" was first coined by Cope in 1875 for sphenacodontid remains from Vermilion County, Illinois, and was later employed for many sphenacontid specimens from Texas; many new species of sphenacodontids from Texas were assigned to either "Clepsydrops" or "Dimetrodon" in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.) Based on a specimen from the Red Beds of Texas, it was the first known sail-backed synapsid. In 1940, paleontologists Alfred Romer and Llewellyn Ivor Price reassigned "C. limbatus" to the genus "Dimetrodon", making "D. limbatus" the type species of "Dimetrodon".


title: Dimetrodon

text: The first use of the name "Dimetrodon" came in 1878 when Cope named the species "Dimetrodon incisivus" along with "Dimetrodon rectiformis" and "Dimetrodon gigas".


title: Dimetrodon

text: "Dimetrodon rectiformis" was named alongside "Dimetrodon incisivus" in Cope's 1878 paper, and was the only one of the three named species to preserve elongated neural spines. In 1907, paleontologist E. C. Case moved "D. rectiformis" into the species "D. incisivus". "D. incisivus" was later synonymous with the type species "Dimetrodon limbatus", making "D. rectiformis" a synonym of "D. limbatus".


title: Dimetrodon

text: Described in 1881 on the basis of upper jaw bones, "Dimetrodon semiradicatus" was the last species named by Cope. In 1907, E. C. Case synonymized "D. semiradicatus" with "D. incisivus" based on similarities in the shape of the teeth and skull bones. "D. incisivus"' and "D. semiradicatus" are now considered synonyms of "D. limbatus".


title: Dimetrodon

text: "Dimetrodon dollovianus" was first described by Edward Drinker Cope in 1888 as "Embolophorus dollovianus". In 1903, E. C. Case published a lengthy description of "E. dollovianus", which he later referred to "Dimetrodon".


title: Dimetrodon

text: Paleontologist E. C. Case named a new species of sail-backed synapsid, "Theropleura grandis", in 1907. In 1940, Alfred Romer and Llewellyn Ivor Price reassigned "Theropleura grandis" to "Dimetrodon", erecting the species "D. grandis".


title: Dimetrodon

text: In his 1878 paper on fossils from Texas, Cope named "Clepsydrops gigas" along with the first named species of "Dimetrodon", "D. limbatus", "D. incisivus", and "D. rectiformis". Case reclassified "C. gigas" as a new species of "Dimetrodon" in 1907. Case also described a very well preserved skull of "Dimetrodon" in 1904, attributing it to the species "Dimetrodon gigas". In 1919, Charles W. Gilmore attributed a nearly complete specimen of "Dimetrodon" to "D. gigas". "Dimetrodon gigas" is now recognized as a synonym of "D. grandis".


title: Dimetrodon

text: "Dimetrodon giganhomogenes" was named by E. C. Case in 1907 and is still considered a valid species of "Dimetrodon".


title: Dimetrodon

text: "Dimetrodon macrospondylus" was first described by Cope in 1884 as "Clepsydrops macrospondylus". In 1907, Case reclassified it as "Dimetrodon macrospondylus".


title: Dimetrodon

text: "Dimetrodon platycentrus" was first described by Case in his 1907 monograph. It is now considered a synonym of "Dimetrodon macrospondylus".


title: Dimetrodon

text: Paleontologist Alfred Romer erected the species "Dimetrodon natalis" in 1936, previously described as "Clepsydrops natalis". "D. natalis" was the smallest known species of "Dimetrodon" at that time, and was found alongside remains of the larger-bodied "D. limbatus".


title: Dimetrodon

text: "Dimetrodon booneorum" was first described by Alfred Romer in 1937 on the basis of remains from Texas.


title: Dimetrodon

text: "Dimetrodon kempae" was named by Romer in 1937, in the same paper as "D. booneorum", "D. loomisi", and "D. milleri". "Dimetrodon kempae" was named on the basis of a single humerus and a few vertebrae, and may therefore be a "nomen dubium" that cannot be distinguished as a unique species of "Dimetrodon". In 1940, Romer and Price raised the possibility that "D. kempae" may not fall within the genus "Dimetrodon", preferring to classify it as Sphenacodontidae "incertae sedis".


title: Dimetrodon

text: "Dimetrodon loomisi" was first described by Alfred Romer in 1937 along with "D. booneorum", "D. kempae", and "D. milleri". Remains have been found in Texas and Oklahoma.


title: Dimetrodon

text: "Dimetrodon milleri" was described by Romer in 1937. It is one of the smallest species of "Dimetrodon" in North America and may be closely related to "D. occidentalis", another small-bodied species. "D. milleri" is known from two skeletons, one nearly complete (MCZ 1365) and another less complete but larger (MCZ 1367). "D. milleri" is the oldest known species of "Dimetrodon".


title: Dimetrodon

text: Besides its small size, "D. milleri" differs from other species of "Dimetrodon" in that its neural spines are circular rather than figure-eight shaped in cross-section. Its vertebrae are also shorter in height relative to the rest of the skeleton than those of other "Dimetrodon" species. The skull is tall and the snout is short relative to the temporal region. A short vertebrae and tall skull are also seen in the species "D. booneorum", "D. limbatus" and "D. grandis", suggesting that "D. milleri" may be the first of an evolutionary progression between these species.


title: Dimetrodon

text: "Dimetrodon angelensis" was named by paleontologist Everett C. Olson in 1962. Specimens of the species were reported from the San Angelo Formation of Texas. It is also the largest species of Dimetrodon.


title: Dimetrodon

text: "Dimetrodon occidentalis" was named in 1977 from New Mexico. Its name means "western "Dimetrodon"" because it is the only North American species of "Dimetrodon" known west of Texas and Oklahoma. It was named on the basis of a single skeleton belonging to a relatively small individual. The small size of "D. occidentalis" is similar to that of "D. milleri", suggesting a close relationship. "Dimetrodon" specimens found in Utah and Arizona probably also belong to "D. occidentalis".


title: Dimetrodon

text: "Dimetrodon teutonis" was named in 2001 from the Thuringian Forest of Germany and was the first species of "Dimetrodon" to be described outside North America. It is also the smallest species of "Dimetrodon".


title: Dimetrodon

text: In 1878, Cope published a paper called "The Theromorphous Reptilia" in which he described "Dimetrodon cruciger". "D. cruciger" was distinguished by the small projections that extended from either side of each neural spine like the branches of a tree. In 1886, Cope moved "D. cruciger" to the genus "Naosaurus" because he considered its spines so different from those of other "Dimetrodon" species that the species deserved its own genus. "Naosaurus" would later be synonymized with "Edaphosaurus", a genus which Cope named in 1882 on the basis of skulls that evidently belonged to herbivorous animals given their blunt crushing teeth.


title: Dimetrodon

text: E. C. Case named the species "Dimetrodon longiramus" in 1907 on the basis of a scapula and elongated mandible from the Belle Plains Formation of Texas. In 1940, Romer and Price recognized that the "D. longiramus" material belonged to the same taxon as another specimen described by paleontologist Samuel Wendell Williston in 1916, which included a similarly elongated mandible and a long maxilla. Williston did not consider his specimen to belong to "Dimetrodon" but instead classified it as an ophiacodontid. Romer and Price assigned Case and Williston's specimens to a newly erected genus and species, "Secodontosaurus longiramus", that was closely related to "Dimetrodon".


title: Dimetrodon

text: "Dimetrodon" is an early member of a group called synapsids, which include mammals and many of their extinct relatives, though it is not an ancestor of any mammal (which appeared millions of years later). It is often mistaken for a dinosaur in popular culture, despite having become extinct some 40 million years (Ma) before the first appearance of dinosaurs in the Triassic period. As a synapsid, "Dimetrodon" is more closely related to mammals than to dinosaurs or any living reptile. By the early 1900s most paleontologists called "Dimetrodon" a reptile in accordance with Linnean taxonomy, which ranked Reptilia as a class and "Dimetrodon" as a genus within that class. Mammals were assigned to a separate class, and "Dimetrodon" was described as a "mammal-like reptile". Paleontologists theorized that mammals evolved from this group in (what they called) a reptile-to-mammal transition.


title: Dimetrodon

text: Under phylogenetic systematics, the descendants of the last common ancestor of "Dimetrodon" and all living reptiles would include all mammals because "Dimetrodon" is more closely related to mammals than to any living reptile. Thus, if it is desired to avoid the clade that contains both mammals and the living reptiles, then "Dimetrodon" must not be included in that clade—nor any other "mammal-like reptile". Descendants of the last common ancestor of mammals and reptiles (which appeared around 310 Ma in the Late Carboniferous) are therefore split into two clades: Synapsida, which includes "Dimetrodon" and mammals, and Sauropsida, which includes living reptiles and all extinct reptiles more closely related to them than to mammals.


title: Dimetrodon

text: Within clade Synapsida, "Dimetrodon" is part of the clade Sphenacodontia, which was first proposed as an early synapsid group in 1940 by paleontologists Alfred Romer and Llewellyn Ivor Price, along with the groups Ophiacodontia and Edaphosauria. All three groups are known from the Late Carboniferous and Early Permian. Romer and Price distinguished them primarily by postcranial features such as the shapes of limbs and vertebrae. Ophiacodontia was considered the most primitive group because its members appeared the most reptilian, and Sphenacodontia was the most advanced because its members appeared the most like a group called Therapsida, which included the closest relatives to mammals. Romer and Price placed another group of early synapsids called varanopids within Sphenacodontia, considering them to be more primitive than other sphenacodonts like "Dimetrodon". They thought varanopids and "Dimetrodon"-like sphenacodonts were closely related because both groups were carnivorous, although varanopids are much smaller and more lizard-like, lacking sails.


title: Dimetrodon

text: The modern view of synapsid relationships was proposed by paleontologist Robert R. Reisz in 1986, whose study included features mostly found in the skull rather than in the postcranial skeleton. "Dimetrodon" is still considered a sphenacodont under this phylogeny, but varanodontids are now considered more basal synapsids, falling outside clade Sphenacodontia. Within Sphenacodontia is the group Sphenacodontoidea, which in turn contains Sphenacodontidae and Therapsida. Sphenacodontidae is the group containing "Dimetrodon" and several other sail-backed synapsids like "Sphenacodon" and "Secodontosaurus", while Therapsida includes mammals and their mostly Permian and Triassic relatives.


title: Dimetrodon

text: Below is the cladogram Clade Synapsida, which follows this phylogeny of Synapsida as modified from the analysis of Benson (2012).


title: Dimetrodon

text: The below cladogram shows the relationships of a few "Dimetrodon" species, from Brink "et al.", (2015).


title: Dimetrodon

text: Paleontologists have proposed many ways in which the sail could have functioned in life. Some of the first to think about its purpose suggested that the sail may have served as camouflage among reeds while "Dimetrodon" waited for prey, or as an actual boat-like sail to catch the wind while the animal was in the water. Another is that the long neural spines could have stabilized the trunk by restricting up-and-down movement, which would allow for a more efficient side-to-side movement while walking.


title: Dimetrodon

text: In 1940, Alfred Romer and Llewellyn Ivor Price proposed that the sail served a thermoregulatory function, allowing individuals to warm their bodies with the Sun's heat. In the following years, many models were created to estimate the effectiveness of thermoregulation in "Dimetrodon". For example, in a 1973 article in the journal "Nature", paleontologists C. D. Bramwell and P. B. Fellgett estimated that it took a individual about one and a half hours for its body temperature to rise from . In 1986, Steven C. Haack concluded that the warming was slower than previously thought and that the process probably took four hours. Using a model based on a variety of environmental factors and hypothesized physiological aspects of "Dimetrodon", Haack found that the sail allowed "Dimetrodon" to warm faster in the morning and reach a slightly higher body temperature during the day, but that it was ineffective in releasing excess heat and did not allow "Dimetrodon" to retain a higher body temperature at night. In 1999, a group of mechanical engineers created a computer model to analyze the ability of the sail to regulate body temperature during different seasons, and concluded that the sail was beneficial for capturing and releasing heat at all times in the year.


title: Dimetrodon

text: Most of these studies give two thermoregulatory roles for the sail of "Dimetrodon": one as a means of warming quickly in the morning, and another as a way to cool down when body temperature becomes high. "Dimetrodon" and all other Early Permian land vertebrates are assumed to have been cold-blooded or poikilothermic, relying on the sun to maintain a high body temperature. Because of its large size, "Dimetrodon" had high thermal inertia, meaning that changes in body temperature occurred more slowly in it than in smaller-bodied animals. As temperatures rose in the mornings, the small-bodied prey of "Dimetrodon" could warm their bodies much faster than could something the size of "Dimetrodon". Many paleontologists including Haack have proposed that the sail of "Dimetrodon" may have allowed it to warm quickly in the morning in order to keep pace with its prey. The sail's large surface area also meant heat could dissipate quickly into the surroundings, useful if the animal needed to release excess heat produced by metabolism or absorbed from the sun. "Dimetrodon" may have angled its sail away from the sun to cool off or restricted blood flow to the sail to maintain heat at night.


title: Dimetrodon

text: In 1986, J. Scott Turner and C. Richard Tracy proposed that the evolution of a sail in "Dimetrodon" was related to the evolution of warm-bloodedness in mammal ancestors. They thought that the sail of "Dimetrodon" enabled it to be homeothermic, maintaining a constant, albeit low, body temperature. Mammals are also homeothermic, although they differ from "Dimetrodon" in being endothermic, controlling their body temperature internally through heightened metabolism. Turner and Tracy noted that early therapsids, a more advanced group of synapsids closely related to mammals, had long limbs which can release heat in a manner similar to that of the sail of "Dimetrodon". The homeothermy that developed in animals like "Dimetrodon" may have carried over to therapsids through a modification of body shape, which would eventually develop into the warm-bloodedness of mammals.


title: Dimetrodon

text: Recent studies on the sail of "Dimetrodon" and other sphenacodontids support Haack's 1986 contention that the sail was poorly adapted to releasing heat and maintaining a stable body temperature. The presence of sails in small-bodied species of "Dimetrodon" such as "D. milleri" and "D. teutonis" does not fit the idea that the sail's purpose was thermoregulation because smaller sails are less able to transfer heat and because small bodies can absorb and release heat easily on their own. Moreover, close relatives of "Dimetrodon" such as "Sphenacodon" have very low crests that would have been useless as thermoregulatory devices. The large sail of "Dimetrodon" is thought to have developed gradually from these smaller crests, meaning that over most of the sail's evolutionary history, thermoregulation could not have served an important function.


title: Dimetrodon

text: Although the function of its sail remains uncertain, "Dimetrodon" and other Sphenacodontids were likely to have been whole-body endotherms, characterised by a high energy metabolism (tachymetabolism) and probably a capacity for maintaining a high and stable body temperature. This conclusion was part of an amniote-wide study that found tachymetabolic endothermy to have been widespread throughout, and likely plesiomorphic to both synapsids and sauropsids. For "Dimetrodon" the evidence was the endothermy-indicative size of the foramina through which blood was delivered to their long bones and the high blood pressure that would have been necessary to provide blood to the tops of the well-vascularised spines supporting the sail.


title: Dimetrodon

text: Larger bodied specimens of "Dimetrodon" have larger sails relative to their size, an example of positive allometry. Positive allometry may benefit thermoregulation because it means that, as individuals get larger, surface area increases faster than mass. Larger-bodied animals generate a great deal of heat through metabolism, and the amount of heat that must be dissipated from the body surface is significantly greater than what must be dissipated by smaller-bodied animals. Effective heat dissipation can be predicted across many different animals with a single relationship between mass and surface area. However, a 2010 study of allometry in "Dimetrodon" found a different relationship between its sail and body mass: the actual scaling exponent of the sail was much larger than the exponent expected in an animal adapted to heat dissipation. The researchers concluded that the sail of "Dimetrodon" grew at a much faster rate than was necessary for thermoregulation, and suggested that sexual selection was the primary reason for its evolution.


title: Dimetrodon

text: The allometric exponent for sail height is similar in magnitude to the scaling of interspecific antler length to shoulder height in cervids. Furthermore, as Bakker (1970) observed in the context of "Dimetrodon", many lizard species raise a dorsal ridge of skin during threat and courtship displays, and positively allometric, sexually dimorphic frills and dewlaps are present in extant lizards (Echelle et al. 1978; Christian et al. 1995). There is also evidence of sexual dimorphism both in the robustness of the skeleton and in the relative height of the spines of "D. limbatus" (Romer and Price 1940).


title: Dimetrodon

text: "Dimetrodon" may have been sexually dimorphic, meaning that males and females had slightly different body sizes. Some specimens of "Dimetrodon" have been hypothesized as males because they have thicker bones, larger sails, longer skulls, and more pronounced maxillary "steps" than others. Based on these differences, the mounted skeletons in the American Museum of Natural History (AMNH 4636) and the Field Museum of Natural History may be males and the skeletons in the Denver Museum of Nature and Science (MCZ 1347) and the University of Michigan Museum of Natural History may be females.


title: Dimetrodon

text: Fossils of "Dimetrodon" are known from the United States (Texas, Oklahoma, New Mexico, Arizona, Utah and Ohio) and Germany, areas that were part of the supercontinent Euramerica during the Early Permian. Within the United States, almost all material attributed to "Dimetrodon" has come from three geological groups in north-central Texas and south-central Oklahoma: the Clear Fork Group, the Wichita Group, and the Pease River Group. Most fossil finds are part of lowland ecosystems which, during the Permian, would have been vast wetlands. In particular, the Red Beds of Texas is an area of great diversity of fossil tetrapods, or four-limbed vertebrates. In addition to "Dimetrodon", the most common tetrapods in the Red Beds and throughout Early Permian deposits in the southwestern United States, are the amphibians "Archeria", "Diplocaulus", "Eryops", and "Trimerorhachis", the reptiliomorph "Seymouria", the reptile "Captorhinus", and the synapsids "Ophiacodon" and "Edaphosaurus". These tetrapods made up a group of animals that paleontologist Everett C. Olson called the "Permo-Carboniferous chronofauna", a fauna that dominated the continental Euramerican ecosystem for several million years. Based on the geology of deposits like the Red Beds, the fauna is thought to have inhabited a well-vegetated lowland deltaic ecosystem.


title: Dimetrodon

text: Olson made many inferences on the paleoecology of the Texas Red beds and the role of "Dimetrodon" within its ecosystem. He proposed several main types of ecosystems in which the earliest tetrapods lived. "Dimetrodon" belonged to the most primitive ecosystem, which developed from aquatic food webs. In it, aquatic plants were the primary producers and were largely fed upon by fish and aquatic invertebrates. Most land vertebrates fed on these aquatic primary consumers. "Dimetrodon" was probably the top predator of the Red Beds ecosystem, feeding on a variety of organisms such as the shark "Xenacanthus", the aquatic amphibians "Trimerorhachis" and "Diplocaulus", and the terrestrial tetrapods "Seymouria" and "Trematops". Insects are known from the Early Permian Red Beds and were probably involved to some degree in the same food web as "Dimetrodon", feeding small reptiles like "Captorhinus". The Red Beds assemblage also included some of the first large land-living herbivores like "Edaphosaurus" and "Diadectes". Feeding primarily on terrestrial plants, these herbivores did not derive their energy from aquatic food webs. According to Olson, the best modern analogue for the ecosystem "Dimetrodon" inhabited is the Everglades. The exact lifestyle of "Dimetrodon" (amphibious to terrestrial) has long been controversial, but bone microanatomy supports a terrestrial lifestyle, which implies that it would have fed mostly on land, on the banks, or in very shallow water. Evidence also exists for "Dimetrodon" preying on aestivating "Diplocaulus" during times of drought, with three partially eaten juvenile "Diplocaulus" in a burrow of eight bearing teeth marks from a "Dimetrodon" that unearthed and killed them.


title: Dimetrodon

text: The only species of "Dimetrodon" found outside the southwestern United States is "D. teutonis" from Germany. Its remains were found in the Tambach Formation in a fossil site called the Bromacker locality. The Bromacker's assemblage of Early Permian tetrapods is unusual in that there are few large-bodied synapsids serving the role of top predators. "D. teutonis" is estimated to have been only in length, too small to prey on the large diadectid herbivores that are abundant in the Bromacker assemblage. It more likely ate small vertebrates and insects. Only three fossils can be attributed to large predators, and they are thought to have been either large varanopids or small sphenacodonts, both of which could potentially prey on "D. teutonis". In contrast to the lowland deltaic Red Beds of Texas, the Bromacker deposits are thought to have represented an upland environment with no aquatic species. It is possible that large-bodied carnivores were not part of the Bromacker assemblage because they were dependent on large aquatic amphibians for food.


title: China–United States relations

text: The relationship between the People's Republic of China (PRC) and the United States of America (USA) has been complex since 1949 with mutual distrust leading to complications. The relationship is one of close economic ties (economic ties grew rapidly after 1980), as well as hegemonic rivalry in the Asia-Pacific. It has been described by world leaders and academics as the world's most important bilateral relationship of the 21st century.


title: China–United States relations

text: , the United States and China are the world's largest and second largest economies respectively, although China has a larger GDP when measured by PPP. Historically, relations between the two countries have been stable with some periods of open conflict, most notably during the Korean War and the Vietnam War. Currently, the United States and China have mutual political, economic, and security interests, such as the non-proliferation of nuclear weapons, but there are unresolved concerns relating to the PRC's cross-strait relations with Taiwan and whether the US continues to acknowledge the One China policy, the role of democracy in government in China and human rights in China. China is the second largest foreign creditor of the United States, after Japan. The two countries remain in dispute over territorial issues in the South China Sea; China claims sovereignty over virtually the entire South China Sea, while the United States sees it as international waters and asserts the right for its warships and aircraft to conduct operations in the area.


title: China–United States relations

text: Relations with China began slowly until the 1845 Treaty of Wangxia. The US opposed spheres of influence by outside powers by promoting the Open Door Policy after 1900. It joined the powers in suppressing the Boxer Rebellion. Washington efforts to encourage American banks to invest in Chinese railways was unsuccessful in the 1900s. President Franklin Roosevelt made support of China against Japan a high priority after 1938. The US was allied to the Republic of China during the Pacific War against Japan (1941–1945). Washington tried and failed to negotiate a compromise between the Nationalist government and Chinese Communist Party (CCP) in 1945–1947. After the victory of Mao Zedong's CCP in Mainland China during the Chinese Civil War, relations soured. The US and China fought each other during Korean War. The US continued to recognize the Republic of China in exile on Taiwan as the legitimate government of China, and blocked the PRC's membership in the United Nations until President Richard Nixon's 1972 visit to China marked an unexpected reversal of positions. On January 1, 1979, the US established diplomatic relations with the PRC and recognized it as the sole legitimate government of China; at the same time, it continued unofficial relations with Taiwan within the framework of the Taiwan Relations Act. The political status of Taiwan continues to be a major source of tension between the two countries.


title: China–United States relations

text: Since Nixon's visit, every US president, with the exception of Jimmy Carter, has toured China. Relations with China have strained under President Barack Obama's Asia pivot strategy. Despite tensions during his term, the Chinese population's favorability of the US stood at 51% in Obama's last year of 2016, only to fall during the Trump administration. According to a 2020 survey by the Pew Research Center, 22% of Americans have a favorable view of China, with 73% expressing an unfavorable view, one of the most negative perceptions of China. The poll also found that 24% (plurality) of Americans see China as the top threat to the US. Furthermore, surveys of the Chinese public also found a corresponding decrease in favorability towards the US, with 61% to 72% of them expressing an unfavorable view. However, despite the mutually negative views, publics on both sides overwhelmingly want the relationship to improve.


title: China–United States relations

text: The relationship deteriorated sharply under U.S. president Donald Trump and CCP general secretary Xi Jinping, with issues such as China's militarization of the South China Sea and Chinese espionage in the United States arising. The Trump administration labeled China a "strategic competitor" starting with the 2017 National Security Strategy. It subsequently launched a trade war against China, banned US companies from selling equipment to Huawei and other companies linked to human rights abuses in Xinjiang, increased visa restrictions on Chinese nationality students and scholars and designated China as a currency manipulator. During the Trump administration, and especially since the US-China trade war began, political observers have started to warn that a new Cold War is emerging.


title: China–United States relations

text: Tensions between the United States and China have remained under the Biden administration, which made China one of its focal points in implementing U.S. foreign policy. Some areas of focus of the Biden administration's policy on China include its treatment of Hong Kong, its threats against Taiwan, its genocide against the Uyghurs, and its cyber warfare against the US. In response, China has adopted "wolf warrior diplomacy" to deny all accusations of human rights abuses.


title: China–United States relations

text: Harold Isaacs published "Scratches on our Minds: American Images of China and India" in 1955. By reviewing the popular and scholarly literature on Asia that appeared in the United States and by interviewing many American experts, Isaacs identified six stages of American attitudes toward China. They were "respect" (18th century), "contempt" (1840–1905), "benevolence" (1905 to 1937), "admiration" (1937–1944); "disenchantment" (1944–1949), and "hostility" (after 1949). In 1990, historian Jonathan Spence updated Isaac's model to include "reawakened curiosity" (1970–1974); "guileless fascination" (1974–1979), and "renewed skepticism" (1980s).


title: China–United States relations

text: Political scientist Peter Rudolf said that Americans see China as a threat to the established order in its drive for regional hegemony in East Asia now, and a future aspirant for global supremacy. Beijing rejects these notions, but continues its assertive policies and its quest for allies.


title: China–United States relations

text: As the Chairman of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), Mao Zedong was able to impose his views on the Communist Party, the government, the armed forces and the media. Washington ignored the possibility that its decision in June 1950 to defend South Korea, and then in September to invade North Korea, would alarm China, but it did. In November 1950, the Chinese responded by a massive invasion of North Korea that pushed the Allies south of the 38th parallel. By 1951 the situation had stabilized close to the original 38th parallel dividing line. The new Eisenhower administration in Washington in 1953 made it clear the fighting had to stop, hinting it might use nuclear weapons if needed. Finding a solution to the problem of repatriating prisoners of war, both sites settled for an armistice in 1953, and China removed its forces from North Korea. No peace treaty was ever signed, and North Korean and South Korean forces remained into the 21st century in a face-off, with a large American contingent still based in South Korea.


title: China–United States relations

text: In the late 1950s, Mao could not tolerate the anti-Stalinist program led by Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev. Ideological tensions escalated between Beijing and Moscow almost to the verge of war. In nearly all capitalist countries and colonies, communist movements split between the old established pro-Moscow element, and the more radical upstart pro-Beijing Maoists. Although still not friendly to the United States, Mao realized that the American anti-Soviet posture in the Cold War was to his advantage as long as China was militarily much less powerful than neighboring Soviet Union.


title: China–United States relations

text: According to Cai Xia, a retired professor and political theorist formerly at the CCP Central Party School, it was Mao Zedong who "opened the door", but it was Deng Xiaoping who founded the strategic framework for the "engagement" between the U.S. and China. By the end of the Cultural Revolution, China's economy was at the edge of collapse, shaking the foundation of the CCP's rule. China's subsequent rapid economic development and tremendous changes are inseparable from the help of the US government and the American people in areas such as science, technology, education, culture, and economics. Cai said that Deng also chose the "engagement policy" because China could rely on the strength of the US to hedge against Soviet threats.


title: China–United States relations

text: Cai argued that the "engagement policy" had already ended because there was "fundamental misjudgment by the United States about the nature of the Chinese Communist Party and regime, which in turn has made the US a victim of its own policy." She added, "Wishful thinking about 'engagement' must be replaced by hardheaded defensive measures to protect the United States from the CCP's aggression—while bringing offensive pressures to bear on it, as the Chinese Communist Party is much more fragile than Americans assume."


title: China–United States relations

text: Mao planned for the United States to be the first country with which the People's Republic of China (PRC) established diplomatic relations. In a 1946 speech, Premier Zhou Enlai explained, "It has been rumored recently that Chairman Mao is going to pay a visit to Moscow. Learning this, Chairman Mao laughed and half-jokingly said that if he would ever take a furlough abroad, which would certainly do much good to his present health condition, he would rather go to the United States because he thinks that there he can learn lots of things useful to China."


title: China–United States relations

text: In early 1949, the People's Liberation Army launched its successful campaign to cross the Yangtze River and capture of the KMT capital, Nanjing. Afterwards, American ambassador John Leighton Stuart remained in the embassy in Nanjing and met twice with Zhou's personal aide Huang Hua. The two made plans for discussions between Zhou and Stuart regarding diplomatic recognition, but when Stuart cabled Secretary of State Dean Rusk for permission to do so, Dusk refused, instructing Stuart to close the embassy and return to the United States.


title: China–United States relations

text: In December 1950, the People's Republic seized all American assets and properties, totaling $196.8 million. Prior to this, the US had frozen Chinese assets in America following the PRC's entry into the Korean War in November.


title: China–United States relations

text: The United States did not formally recognize the People's Republic of China PRC for 30 years after its founding. Instead, the US maintained diplomatic relations with the Republic of China government on Taiwan, recognizing it as the sole legitimate government of China.