title: Gillette

text: Two years after the introduction of the Gillette Stainless blades, the company brought out the Super Stainless blades – known in Europe as Super Silver – that were made from an improved steel alloy. Gillette also introduced the Techmatic, a new type of razor that used a continuous spool of stainless blade housed in a plastic cartridge.


title: Gillette

text: The success of the coated Super Blue blades marked the start of a period when chemistry became as important as metallurgy in Gillette's blade manufacturing. The Super Blue's coating was a result of teamwork between the Gillette's British and American scientists. As a result of the Wilkinson ordeal, Gillette's then-chairman Carl Gilbert increased the company's spending on research and development facilities in the U.S., championed the building of a research facility in Rockville, Maryland, and encouraged further expansion of R&D activities in England.


title: Gillette

text: The development of Gillette's first twin-blade razor began in early 1964 in the company's Reading laboratories in England when a new employee, Norman C. Welsh, experimented with tandem blades and discovered what he called the "hysteresis effect"; a blade pulling the whisker out of the hair follicle before cutting it, and enabling a second blade to cut the whisker even shorter before it retracted back into the follicle. For six years afterwards, Welsh and his colleagues worked on a means of utilizing the hysteresis effect, almost exclusively concentrating on what would later be known as the Atra twin-blade system. The Atra razor featured two blades set in a plastic cartridge with edges that faced each other. Using the razor required the user to move it in an up-and-down scrubbing motion, and whiskers were cut on both the up and down strokes. Another twin-blade system with blades set in tandem, codenamed "Rex", also existed, but it had too many technical problems and was behind Atra in development.


title: Gillette

text: In consumer tests, the Atra razor had outperformed existing razor systems, but Gillette's marketing executives feared the razor would meet resistance among shavers due to the unfamiliar scrubbing motion required to use it. Even though the Atra project was so far along in mid-1970 that packaging and production machinery was nearly ready for a full market introduction, Gillette decided to start a development drive to finish Rex instead as it did not require learning a new way to shave. The project succeeded, Atra was abandoned, and Gillette announced the first twin-blade razor – now renamed to Trac II – in the fall of 1971. The Trac II captured the premium shaving market and came out in time to counter Wilkinson Sword's Bonded Blade system that utilized single-blade cartridges.


title: Gillette

text: In 1974, the French Société Bic introduced the world's first disposable razor. The razor was first brought to the market in Greece, where it sold well, after which it was introduced to Italy and many other European countries. Gillette hurried to develop their own disposable before Bic could bring their razor to the United States. Gillette designed a single-blade razor similar to Bic's but soon abandoned the concept in favor of a razor that was essentially a Trac II cartridge molded into a blue plastic handle. Gillette introduced this disposable as the Good News in 1976, about a year before Bic's razor reached the United States, and managed to establish market leadership once Bic and other competitors came to market. Good News was released under various names in Europe and was equally and sometimes even more successful than Bic's razor. Gillette quickly brought its razor to markets Bic hadn't yet reached, such as Latin America where the razor was known as Prestobarba.


title: Gillette

text: In Latin America, Gillette used a so-called cannibalization strategy by selling the razor in several market segments: along with the heavily advertised Prestobarba, the razor was also sold under different names – such as Permasharp II in Mexico and Probak II in Brazil – and sold for at least 10 to 15 percent less. The less expensive variants were differentiated from the blue Prestobarba by manufacturing them from yellow plastic with handle less ergonomically comfortable, and in addition, they were not advertised or eventually has negative marketing aimed at promoting the sale of the most profitable products in Gillette's razors line. The strategy was successful and later market arrivals were unable to gain a major foothold. Once the approach proved to be a successful one, Gillette's subsidiaries in Russia, Poland, and multiple Asian and Near Eastern markets began utilizing the same strategy.


title: Gillette

text: While Gillette managed to retain market leadership against Bic and other competitors, the popularity of disposable razors, their higher production cost compared to cartridges, and price competition eroded the company's profits. Gillette had at first hoped that disposables would take no more than 10 percent of the total razor and blades market, but by 1980, disposables accounted for more than 27 percent of the world shaving market in terms of unit sales, and 22 percent of total revenue. John W. Symons began steering Gillette into a different direction after becoming the director of Gillette's European Sales Group in 1979. Despite Gillette's strong sales and a large share of the European razor and blades market – 70 percent, which was higher than in the United States – cash flow was declining. In Symons's view, the issue was Gillette's attempt to compete with Bic in the disposables market, which was eating into the sales of its more profitable cartridge razors. Symons reduced the marketing budget of disposables in Europe and hired the advertising agency BBDO's London branch to create an ad campaign to make Gillette's blade and razor systems – such as Contour – more desirable in the eyes of men. The new marketing strategy, combined with cutting costs and centralizing production increased profits. In 1985, Gillette's profits in the European market were $96 million, while two years previously they were $77 million.


title: Gillette

text: In 1980, Gillette introduced Atra – known in Europe as Contour – a twin-blade razor with a pivoting head. The razor became a best-seller in the United States during its first year and eventually became a market leader in Europe.


title: Gillette

text: In 1984, Gillette agreed to acquire Oral-B Laboratories from dental care company Cooper Laboratories for $188.5 million in cash. Revlon Group's Ronald Perelman offered to purchase 86.1 percent of Gillette for $3.8 billion in 1986, valuing the company at $4.1 billion. Gillette also bought back Revlon's stake in the company for $558 million. Revlon made two additional unsolicited requests to purchase Gillette for $4.66 billion and $5.4 billion in June and August 1987, respectively, both of which were rejected by Gillette's board of directors.


title: Gillette

text: In 1988, Coniston Partners acquired approximately 6 percent of Gillette. Hoping to acquire four directors' seats and pressure Gillette to sell, Coniston forced a proxy vote in April. The companies filed suits against one another, resulting in a settlement in August. Gillette repurchased approximately 16 million shares for $720 million and Coniston agreed not to purchase many Gillette shares, participate in proxy contests, or otherwise seek control of the company for three years.


title: Gillette

text: In 1989, Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway purchased $600 million worth of Gillette convertible preferred shares. Buffett filled a vacant seat on the company's board and agreed not to sell his stake "except in a change of control or if insurance regulators force a sale of the stock in the event Gillette's financial condition falters", reducing the chances of a takeover. During late 1989 and early 1990, Gillette launched the new product Sensor with a $175 million marketing campaign in 19 countries in North America and Western Europe.


title: Gillette

text: In 1990, Gillette attempted to purchase Wilkinson Sword's U.S. and non-European operations. The Department of Justice prevented the sale of Wilkinson's U.S. assets to prevent a significant reduction in competition by eliminating one of the top four blade suppliers when Gillette already controlled approximately half of the nation's razor market. Gillette launched the Series line of men's grooming products, including scented shaving gels, deodorants, and skin-care items, in 1992. The company's SensorExcel launched in Europe and Canada in 1993, followed by the United Kingdom and United States in 1994. In 1996, Gillette launched several new products for women and teenage boys, including the SensorExcel for Women, a moisturizer, a shaving gel, and a body spray.


title: Gillette

text: The company launched the new shaving system Gillette Mach3 in 1998, challenging the twin-blade system which dominated the market by introducing a third blade. Gillette promoted the product, which took five years to develop and was protected by 35 patents, with a $300 million marketing campaign. The Mach3 and replacement cartridges cost 35 percent more than the SensorExcel razor. By 1999, Gillette was worth US$43 billion, and the brand value of Gillette was estimated to be worth US$16 billion. This equated to 37% of the company's value. In 2000, Gillette's board fired CEO Michael Hawley; he was replaced by former Nabisco CEO James M. Kilts in early 2001. In 2003, Schick-Wilkinson Sword introduced the Quattro, a four-blade shaving system, increasing the company's market share to 17 percent. Gillette claimed the Quattro infringed on the Mach3 patents. Gillette's efforts were unsuccessful, but the company maintained approximately two-thirds of the global wet-razor market as of mid-2005.


title: Gillette

text: In 2005, Procter & Gamble announced plans to acquire Gillette for more than $50 billion, which would position P&G as the world's largest consumer products company. The deal was approved by the Federal Trade Commission. Gillette introduced the world's first 5-blade razor, called the Fusion, during 2005–2006, marking the company's first launch after the P&G acquisition. By 2010, the Fusion was the world's highest selling blade and razor brand, reaching $1 billion in annual sales faster than any prior P&G product. Gillette's Fusion ProSeries skincare line, launched in 2010, included a thermal facial scrub, a face wash, a lotion, and a moisturizer with sunscreen. The Gillette Fusion ProGlide Styler for facial hair grooming was introduced in 2012, with André 3000, Gael García Bernal, and Adrien Brody serving as brand ambassadors.


title: Gillette

text: In 2015, the company launched a subscription service called Gillette Shave Club and later filed a lawsuit against Dollar Shave Club for patent infringement. The Dollar Shave Club lawsuit was criticized for revealing flaws in Gillette's own patents and as a perceived attempt to drive away an upstart competitor; the lawsuit was dropped two months later after Dollar Shave Club filed a countersuit.


title: Gillette

text: In 2019, the company partnered with TerraCycle to create a U.S. recycling program for blades, razors, and packaging for any brand. In 2020, Gillette announced a commitment to reduce the use of virgin (unrecycled) plastics by 50 percent by 2030 and maintain zero waste to landfill status across all plants.


title: Gillette

text: The first safety razor using the new disposable blade went on sale in 1903. Gillette maintained a limited range of models of this new type razor until 1921 when the original Gillette patent expired. In anticipation of the event, Gillette introduced a redesigned razor and offered it at a variety of prices in different cases and finishes, including the long-running “aristocrat". Gillette continued to sell the original razor but instead of pricing it at $5, it was priced at $1, making a Gillette razor truly affordable to every man regardless of economic class. In 1932 the Gillette Blue Blade, so-named because it was dipped in blue lacquer, was introduced. It became one of the most recognizable blades in the world. In 1934 the "twist to open" (TTO) design was instituted, which featured butterfly-like doors that made blade changing much easier than it had been, wherein the razor head had to be detached from the handle.


title: Gillette

text: Razor handles continued to advance to allow consumers to achieve a closer shave. In 1947, the new (TTO) model, the ""Super Speed"", was introduced. This was updated in 1955, with different versions being produced to shave more closely – the degree of closeness being marked by the color of the handle tip.


title: Gillette

text: In 1955, the first "adjustable" razor was produced. This allowed for an adjustment of the blade to increase the closeness of the shave. The model, in various versions, remained in production until 1988.


title: Gillette

text: The Super Speed razor was again redesigned in 1966 and given a black resin coated metal handle. It remained in production until 1988. A companion model the, ""Knack"", with a longer plastic handle, was produced from 1966 to 1975. In Europe, the Knack was sold as "Slim Twist" and "G2000" from 1978 to 1988, a later version known as "G1000" was made in England and available until 1998. A modern version of the Tech, with a plastic thin handle, is still produced and sold in several countries under the names 7 O'clock, Gillette, Nacet, Minora, Rubie, and Economica.


title: Gillette

text: The desire to release ever more expensive products, each claiming to be the "best ever", has led Gillette to make disputed claims for its products. In 2005, an injunction was brought by rival Wilkinson Sword which was granted by the Connecticut District Court which determined that Gillette's claims were both "unsubstantiated and inaccurate" and that the product demonstrations in Gillette's advertising were "greatly exaggerated" and "literally false". While advertising in the United States had to be rewritten, the court's ruling does not apply in other countries.


title: Gillette

text: Procter & Gamble (P&G) shaving products have been under investigation by the UK Office of Fair Trading as part of an inquiry into alleged collusion between manufacturers and retailers in setting prices.


title: Gillette

text: Gillette was fined by Autorité de la concurrence in France in 2016 for price fixing on personal hygiene products.


title: Gillette

text: In January 2019, Gillette began a new marketing campaign, "The Best Men Can Be", to mark the 30th anniversary of the "Best a Man Can Get" slogan. The campaign was introduced with a long-form commercial entitled "We Believe", and aims to promote positive values among men – condemning acts of bullying, sexism, sexual assault, and toxic masculinity. While the campaign received praise for its acknowledgement of current social movements and for promoting positive values of masculinity, it also faced a negative response – including from right-wing critics – being called left-wing propaganda, accusatory towards its customers, and misandrist and there were calls for boycotts of Gillette.


title: Gillette

text: In June 2019, P&G wrote-down Gillette business by $8 billion, a move which company executives attributed to currency exchange, new competitors in the market, and increased popularity of growing beards. Share prices increased following the write-down.


title: Gillette

text: Gillette first introduced its long-time slogan, "The Best a Man Can Get", during a commercial first aired during Super Bowl XXIII in 1989.


title: Gillette

text: The company has sponsored Major League Baseball (MLB), the 2010 Gillette Fusion ProGlide 500, and the Olympic Games, and has naming rights to Gillette Stadium in Foxborough, Massachusetts, home venue for the National Football League's New England Patriots. Athletes such as Roger Federer, Tiger Woods, Shoaib Malik, Derek Jeter, Thierry Henry, Kenan Sofuoğlu, Park Ji-sung, Rahul Dravid, Raheem Sterling, Karl-Anthony Towns, and Michael Clarke have been sponsored by the company, as well as video gaming personality Dr Disrespect.


title: Gillette

text: In November 2009, Gillette became the subject of a proposed boycott in Ireland due to its endorsement by French soccer player Thierry Henry; his undetected handball foul during a FIFA World Cup qualifying match contributed to a game-winning goal by France, eliminating Ireland from contention. The following month, expanding upon the controversy, media outlets observed a "curse" associated with top athletes who endorse Gillette, also citing Tiger Woods (who became the subject of an infidelity scandal in late-2009), and Roger Federer losing in an upset to Nikolay Davydenko during the 2009 ATP World Tour Finals.


title: Gillette

text: Since its opening in 2002, Gillette has held naming rights to Gillette Stadium in nearby Foxborough, home of the New England Patriots of the National Football League. The original agreement lasted through 2017; in 2010, P&G negotiated a 15-year extension, lasting through 2031.


title: Gillette

text: Since the 1990s, the company has used a marketing list to send a free sample of a Gillette razor in promotional packages to men in celebration of their 18th birthday. The campaign has occasionally resulted in the samples accidentally being sent to recipients outside of the demographic, such as a 50-year-old woman (exacerbated by the package containing the slogan "Welcome to Manhood").


title: Gillette

text: In 2019, Gillette and Twitch partnered to form the esports group Gillette Gaming Alliance, as well as the Bits for Blades campaign which gave Twitch Bits (the site's digital currency) to those who purchased Gillette products online. The 2019 team had eleven streamers, each representing a different country, and the 2020 team had five streamers including DrLupo. During 2020–2021, Gillette enlisted NFL players Saquon Barkley, Ashtyn Davis, Jalen Hurts, Cole Kmet, and Tua Tagovailoa as brand ambassadors.


title: Gillette

text: In laser research and development, Gillette razor blades are used as a non-standard measurement as a rough estimate of a particular laser beam's penetrative ability; a "four-Gillette laser", for example, can burn through four blades.


title: Gillette

text: Science isn't the only unusual setting far removed from hygiene in which a Gillette razor blade has been used. It was used as a tool to achieve a certain sound by the English rock band The Kinks. Kinks member Dave Davies became "really bored with this guitar sound – or lack of an interesting sound" so he purchased "a little green amplifier...an Elpico" from a radio spares shop in Muswell Hill, and "twiddled around with it", including "taking the wires going to the speaker and putting a jack plug on there and plugging it straight into my AC30" (a larger amplifier), but did not get the sound he wanted until he got frustrated and "got a single-sided Gillette razorblade and cut round the cone [from the center to the edge]... so it was all shredded but still on there, still intact. I played and I thought it was amazing." The sound was replicated in the studio by having the Elpico plugged into the Vox AC30. It was this sound, courtesy of a Gillette razor blade that became a mainstay on many of The Kinks early recordings, including "You Really Got Me" and "All Day and All of the Night".


title: Gillette

text: In late 1988, Gillette announced plans to eliminate manufacturing operations in Montreal and Toronto. The Canadian unit's executive offices remained in Montreal, with administrative, distribution, marketing, and sales operations continuing in both cities. Approximately 600 employees in Canada were laid off as part of the global restructure, which followed a $720 million share repurchase and sought to "rationalize worldwide production". As of 2005, Gillette was not producing products in Canada and employed approximately 200 people in Edmonton, Mississauga, and Montreal.


The National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum is a history museum and hall of fame in Cooperstown, New York, operated by private interests. It serves as the central point of the history of baseball in the United States and displays baseball-related artifacts and exhibits, honoring those who have excelled in playing, managing, and serving the sport. The Hall's motto is "Preserving History, Honoring Excellence, Connecting Generations". Cooperstown is often used as shorthand (or a metonym) for the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum, similar to "Canton" for the Pro Football Hall of Fame in Canton, Ohio.


title: National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum

text: The Hall of Fame was established in 1939 by Stephen Carlton Clark, an heir to the Singer Sewing Machine fortune. Clark sought to bring tourists to a city hurt by the Great Depression, which reduced the local tourist trade, and Prohibition, which devastated the local hops industry. Clark constructed the Hall of Fame's building, and it was dedicated on June 12, 1939. (His granddaughter, Jane Forbes Clark, is the current chairman of the board of directors.) The erroneous claim that Civil War hero Abner Doubleday invented baseball in Cooperstown was instrumental in the early marketing of the Hall.


text: An expanded library and research facility opened in 1994. Dale Petroskey became the organization's president in 1999. In 2002, the Hall launched "Baseball as America", a traveling exhibit that toured ten American museums over six years. The Hall of Fame has since also sponsored educational programming on the Internet to bring the Hall of Fame to schoolchildren who might not visit. The Hall and Museum completed a series of renovations in spring 2005. The Hall of Fame also presents an annual exhibit at FanFest at the Major League Baseball All-Star Game.


text: Among baseball fans, "Hall of Fame" means not only the museum and facility in Cooperstown, New York, but the pantheon of players, managers, umpires, executives, and pioneers who have been inducted into the Hall. The first five men elected were Ty Cobb, Babe Ruth, Honus Wagner, Christy Mathewson and Walter Johnson, chosen in 1936; roughly 20 more were selected before the entire group was inducted at the Hall's 1939 opening. , 340 people had been elected to the Hall of Fame, including 239 former Major League Baseball players, 39 Negro league baseball players and executives, 23 managers, 10 umpires, and 36 pioneers, executives, and organizers. 118 members of the Hall of Fame have been inducted posthumously, including four who died after their selection was announced. Of the 39 Negro league members, 31 were inducted posthumously, including all 26 selected since the 1990s. The Hall of Fame includes one female member, Effa Manley.


text: The newest members, inducted on July 24, 2022, are players David Ortiz, Tony Oliva, Jim Kaat, Gil Hodges and Minnie Minoso; and executives Buck O'Neil and Bud Fowler,


text: In 2019, former Yankees closer Mariano Rivera became the first player to be elected unanimously. Derek Jeter, Marvin Miller, Ted Simmons, and Larry Walker were to be inducted in 2020, but their induction ceremony was delayed by the COVID-19 pandemic until in July 24, 2021. The ceremony was open to the public, as COVID restrictions had been lifted.


text: Players are currently inducted into the Hall of Fame through election by either the Baseball Writers' Association of America (or BBWAA), or the Veterans Committee, which now consists of four subcommittees, each of which considers and votes for candidates from a separate era of baseball. Five years after retirement, any player with 10 years of major league experience who passes a screening committee (which removes from consideration players of clearly lesser qualification) is eligible to be elected by BBWAA members with 10 years' membership or more who also have been actively covering MLB at any time in the 10 years preceding the election (the latter requirement was added for the 2016 election). From a final ballot typically including 25–40 candidates, each writer may vote for up to 10 players; until the late 1950s, voters were advised to cast votes for the maximum 10 candidates. Any player named on 75% or more of all ballots cast is elected. A player who is named on fewer than 5% of ballots is dropped from future elections. In some instances, the screening committee had restored their names to later ballots, but in the mid-1990s, dropped players were made permanently ineligible for Hall of Fame consideration, even by the Veterans Committee. A 2001 change in the election procedures restored the eligibility of these dropped players; while their names will not appear on future BBWAA ballots, they may be considered by the Veterans Committee. Players receiving 5% or more of the votes but fewer than 75% are reconsidered annually until a maximum of ten years of eligibility (lowered from fifteen years for the 2015 election).


text: Under special circumstances, certain players may be deemed eligible for induction even though they have not met all requirements. Addie Joss was elected in 1978, despite only playing nine seasons before he died of meningitis. Additionally, if an otherwise eligible player dies before his fifth year of retirement, then that player may be placed on the ballot at the first election at least six months after his death. Roberto Clemente set the precedent: the writers put him up for consideration after his death on New Year's Eve, 1972, and he was inducted in 1973.


text: The five-year waiting period was established in 1954 after an evolutionary process. In 1936 all players were eligible, including active ones. From the 1937 election until the 1945 election, there was no waiting period, so any retired player was eligible, but writers were discouraged from voting for current major leaguers. Since there was no formal rule preventing a writer from casting a ballot for an active player, the scribes did not always comply with the informal guideline; Joe DiMaggio received a vote in 1945, for example. From the 1946 election until the 1954 election, an official one-year waiting period was in effect. (DiMaggio, for example, retired after the 1951 season and was first eligible in the 1953 election.) The modern rule establishing a wait of five years was passed in 1954, although those who had already been eligible under the old rule were grandfathered into the ballot, thus permitting Joe DiMaggio to be elected within four years of his retirement.


text: Contrary to popular belief, no formal exception was made for Lou Gehrig (other than to hold a special one-man election for him): there was no waiting period at that time, and Gehrig met all other qualifications, so he would have been eligible for the next regular election after he retired during the 1939 season. However, the BBWAA decided to hold a special election at the 1939 Winter Meetings in Cincinnati, specifically to elect Gehrig (most likely because it was known that he was terminally ill, making it uncertain that he would live long enough to see another election). Nobody else was on that ballot, and the numerical results have never been made public. Since no elections were held in 1940 or 1941, the special election permitted Gehrig to enter the Hall while still alive.


text: If a player fails to be elected by the BBWAA within 10 years of his retirement from active play, he may be selected by the Veterans Committee. Following changes to the election process for that body made in 2010 and 2016, it is now responsible for electing all otherwise eligible candidates who are not eligible for the BBWAA ballot — both long-retired players and non-playing personnel (managers, umpires, and executives). From 2011 to 2016, each candidate could be considered once every three years; now, the frequency depends on the era in which an individual made his greatest contributions. A more complete discussion of the new process is available below.


text: From 2008 to 2010, following changes made by the Hall in July 2007, the main Veterans Committee, then made up of living Hall of Famers, voted only on players whose careers began in 1943 or later. These changes also established three separate committees to select other figures:


text: Players of the Negro leagues have also been considered at various times, beginning in 1971. In 2005, the Hall completed a study on African American players between the late 19th century and the integration of the major leagues in 1947, and conducted a special election for such players in February 2006; seventeen figures from the Negro leagues were chosen in that election, in addition to the eighteen previously selected. Following the 2010 changes, Negro leagues figures were primarily considered for induction alongside other figures from the 1871–1946 era, called the "Pre-Integration Era" by the Hall; since 2016, Negro leagues figures are primarily considered alongside other figures from what the Hall calls the "Early Baseball" era (1871–1949).


text: Predictably, the selection process catalyzes endless debate among baseball fans over the merits of various candidates. Even players elected years ago remain the subjects of discussions as to whether they deserved election. For example, Bill James' 1994 book "Whatever Happened to the Hall of Fame?" goes into detail about who he believes does and does not belong in the Hall of Fame.


text: The selection rules for the Baseball Hall of Fame were modified to prevent the induction of anyone on Baseball's "permanently ineligible" list, such as Pete Rose or "Shoeless Joe" Jackson. Many others have been barred from participation in MLB, but none have Hall of Fame qualifications on the level of Jackson or Rose.


text: Jackson and Rose were both banned from MLB for life for actions related to gambling on their own teams—Jackson was determined to have cooperated with those who conspired to intentionally lose the 1919 World Series, and for accepting payment for losing, and Rose voluntarily accepted a permanent spot on the ineligible list in return for MLB's promise to make no official finding in relation to alleged betting on the Cincinnati Reds when he was their manager in the 1980s. (Baseball's Rule 21, prominently posted in every clubhouse locker room, mandates permanent banishment from the MLB for having a gambling interest of any sort on a game in which a player or manager is directly involved.) Rose later admitted that he bet on the Reds in his 2004 autobiography. Baseball fans are deeply split on the issue of whether these two should remain banned or have their punishment revoked. Writer Bill James, though he advocates Rose eventually making it into the Hall of Fame, compared the people who want to put Jackson in the Hall of Fame to "those women who show up at murder trials wanting to marry the cute murderer".


text: The actions and composition of the Veterans Committee have been at times controversial, with occasional selections of contemporaries and teammates of the committee members over seemingly more worthy candidates.


text: In 2001, the Veterans Committee was reformed to comprise the living Hall of Fame members and other honorees. The revamped Committee held three elections, in 2003 and 2007, for both players and non-players, and in 2005 for players only. No individual was elected in that time, sparking criticism among some observers who expressed doubt whether the new Veterans Committee would ever elect a player. The Committee members, most of whom were Hall members, were accused of being reluctant to elect new candidates in the hope of heightening the value of their own selection. After no one was selected for the third consecutive election in 2007, Hall of Famer Mike Schmidt noted, "The same thing happens every year. The current members want to preserve the prestige as much as possible, and are unwilling to open the doors." In 2007, the committee and its selection processes were again reorganized; the main committee then included all living members of the Hall, and voted on a reduced number of candidates from among players whose careers began in 1943 or later. Separate committees, including sportswriters and broadcasters, would select umpires, managers and executives, as well as players from earlier eras.


text: In the first election to be held under the 2007 revisions, two managers and three executives were elected in December 2007 as part of the 2008 election process. The next Veterans Committee elections for players were held in December 2008 as part of the 2009 election process; the main committee did not select a player, while the panel for pre–World War II players elected Joe Gordon in its first and ultimately only vote. The main committee voted as part of the election process for inductions in odd-numbered years, while the pre-World War II panel would vote every five years, and the panel for umpires, managers, and executives voted as part of the election process for inductions in even-numbered years.


text: Further changes to the Veterans Committee process were announced by the Hall on July 26, 2010, effective with the 2011 election.


text: All individuals eligible for induction but not eligible for BBWAA consideration were considered on a single ballot, grouped by the following eras in which they made their greatest contributions:


text: The Hall used the BBWAA's Historical Overview Committee to formulate the ballots for each era, consisting of 12 individuals for the Expansion Era and 10 for the other eras. The Hall's board of directors selected a committee of 16 voters for each era, made up of Hall of Famers, executives, baseball historians, and media members. Each committee met and voted at the Baseball Winter Meetings once every three years. The Expansion Era committee held its first vote in 2010 for 2011 induction, with longtime general manager Pat Gillick becoming the first individual elected under the new procedure. The Golden Era committee voted in 2011 for the induction class of 2012, with Ron Santo becoming the first player elected under the new procedure. The Pre-Integration Era committee voted in 2012 for the induction class of 2013, electing three figures. Subsequent elections rotated among the three committees in that order through the 2016 election.


text: In July 2016, the Hall of Fame announced a restructuring of the timeframes to be considered, with a much greater emphasis on modern eras. Four new committees were established:


text: All committees' ballots now include 10 candidates. At least one committee is scheduled to convene each December as part of the election process for the following calendar year's induction ceremony. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the December 2020 meetings of the Early Baseball and Golden Days committees were postponed, apparently pushing back the rotation of all committee meetings by a year.


text: The eligibility criteria for Era Committee consideration differ between players, managers, and executives.


text: While the text on a player's or manager's plaque lists all teams for which the inductee was a member in that specific role, inductees are usually depicted wearing the cap of a specific team, though in a few cases, like umpires, they wear caps without logos. (Executives are not depicted wearing caps.) Additionally, as of 2015, inductee biographies on the Hall's website for all players and managers, and executives who were associated with specific teams, list a "primary team", which does not necessarily match the cap logo. The Hall selects the logo "based on where that player makes his most indelible mark."


text: Although the Hall always made the final decision on which logo was shown, until 2001 the Hall deferred to the wishes of players or managers whose careers were linked with multiple teams. Some examples of inductees associated with multiple teams are the following:


text: In all of the above cases, the "primary team" is the team for which the inductee spent the largest portion of his career except for Ryan, whose primary team is listed as the Angels despite playing one fewer season for that team than for the Astros.


text: In 2001, the Hall of Fame decided to change the policy on cap logo selection, as a result of rumors that some teams were offering compensation, such as number retirement, money, or organizational jobs, in exchange for the cap designation. (For example, though Wade Boggs denied the claims, some media reports had said that his contract with the Tampa Bay Devil Rays required him to request depiction in the Hall of Fame as a Devil Ray.) The Hall decided that it would no longer defer to the inductee, though the player's wishes would be considered, when deciding on the logo to appear on the plaque. Newly elected members affected by the change include the following:


text: Sam Crane (who had played a decade in 19th century baseball before becoming a manager and sportswriter) had first approached the idea of making a memorial to the great players of the past in what was believed to have been the birthplace of baseball: Cooperstown, New York, but the idea did not muster much momentum until after his death in 1925. In 1934, the idea for establishing a Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum was devised by several individuals, such as Ford Frick (president of the National League) and Alexander Cleland, a Scottish immigrant who decided to serve as the first executive secretary for the Museum for the next seven years that worked with the interests of the Village and Major League Baseball. Stephen Carlton Clark (a Cooperstown native) paid for the construction of the museum, which was planned to open in 1939 to mark the "Centennial of Baseball", which included renovations to Doubleday Field. William Beattie served as the first curator of the museum.


text: According to the Hall of Fame, approximately 260,000 visitors enter the museum each year, and the running total has surpassed 17 million. These visitors see only a fraction of its 40,000 artifacts, 3 million library items (such as newspaper clippings and photos) and 140,000 baseball cards.


text: The Hall has seen a noticeable decrease in attendance in recent years. A 2013 story on ESPN.com about the village of Cooperstown and its relation to the game partially linked the reduced attendance with Cooperstown Dreams Park, a youth baseball complex about away in the town of Hartwick. The 22 fields at Dreams Park currently draw 17,000 players each summer for a week of intensive play; while the complex includes housing for the players, their parents and grandparents must stay elsewhere. According to the story,


text: Prior to Dreams Park, a room might be filled for a week by several sets of tourists. Now, that room will be taken by just one family for the week, and that family may only go into Cooperstown and the Hall of Fame once. While there are other contributing factors (the recession and high gas prices among them), the Hall's attendance has tumbled since Dreams Park opened. The Hall drew 383,000 visitors in 1999. It drew 262,000 last year.


text: A controversy erupted in 1982, when it emerged that some historic items given to the Hall had been sold on the collectibles market. The items had been lent to the Baseball Commissioner's office, gotten mixed up with other property owned by the Commissioner's office and employees of the office, and moved to the garage of Joe Reichler, an assistant to Commissioner Bowie Kuhn, who sold the items to resolve his personal financial difficulties. Under pressure from the New York Attorney General, the Commissioner's Office made reparations, but the negative publicity damaged the Hall of Fame's reputation, and made it more difficult for it to solicit donations.


text: In 2012, Congress passed and President Barack Obama signed a law ordering the United States Mint to produce and sell commemorative, non-circulating coins to benefit the private, non-profit Hall. The bill, , was introduced in the United States House of Representatives by Rep. Richard Hanna, a Republican from New York, and passed the House on October 26, 2011. The coins, which depict baseball gloves and balls, are the first concave designs produced by the Mint. The mintage included 50,000 gold coins, 400,000 silver coins, and 750,000 clad (nickel-copper) coins. The Mint released them on March 27, 2014, and the gold and silver editions quickly sold out. The Hall receives money from surcharges included in the sale price: a total of $9.5 million if all the coins are sold.


title: Kubera

text: Kubera () also known as Kuvera, Kuber and Kuberan, is the god of wealth, and the god-king of the semi-divine yakshas in Hinduism. He is regarded as the regent of the north ("Dikpala"), and a protector of the world ("Lokapala"). His many epithets extol him as the overlord of numerous semi-divine species, and the owner of the treasures of the world. Kubera is often depicted with a plump body, adorned with jewels, and carrying a money-pot and a club.


title: Kubera

text: Originally described as the chief of evil spirits in Vedic-era texts, Kubera acquired the status of a "deva" (god) only in the "Purana"s and the Hindu epics. The scriptures describe that Kubera once ruled Lanka, but was overthrown by his half-brother Ravana, later settling in the city of Alaka in the Himalayas. Descriptions of the "glory" and "splendour" of Kubera's city are found in many scriptures.


title: Kubera

text: Kubera has also been assimilated into the Buddhist and Jain pantheons. In Buddhism, he is known as Vaisravana, the patronymic used of the Hindu Kubera and is also equated with Pañcika, while in Jainism, he is known as Sarvanubhuti.


title: Kubera

text: Kubera is often depicted as a dwarf, with complexion of lotus leaves and a big belly. He is described as having three legs, only eight teeth, one eye, and being adorned with jewels. He is sometimes depicted riding a man. The description of deformities like the broken teeth, three legs, three heads and four arms appear only in the later "Puranic" texts. Kubera holds a mace, a pomegranate, or a money bag in his hand. He may also carry a sheaf of jewels or a mongoose with him. In Tibet, the mongoose is considered a symbol of Kubera's victory over nāgas—the guardians of treasures. Kubera is usually depicted with a mongoose in Buddhist iconography.


title: Kubera

text: In the "Vishnudharmottara Purana", Kubera is described as the embodiment of both "Artha" ("wealth, prosperity, glory") and "Arthashastra"s, the treatises related to it—and his iconography mirrors it. Kubera's complexion is described as that of lotus leaves. He rides a man—the state personified, adorned in golden clothes and ornaments, symbolizing his wealth. His left eye is yellow. He wears an armour and a necklace down to his large belly. The "Vishnudharmottara Purana" further describes his face to be inclined to the left, sporting a beard and mustache, and with two small tusks protruding from the ends of his mouth, representing his powers to punish and to bestow favours. His wife Riddhi, representing the journey of life, is seated on his left lap, with her left hand on the back of Kubera and the right holding a "ratna-patra" (jewel-pot). Kubera should be four-armed, holding a "gada" (mace: symbol of "dandaniti"—administration of justice) and a "shakti" (power) in his left pair, and standards bearing a lion—representing "Artha" and a "shibika" (a club, the weapon of Kubera). The "nidhi" treasures Padma and Shankha stand beside him in human form, with their heads emerging from a lotus and a conch respectively.


title: Kubera

text: The "Agni Purana" states that Kubera should be installed in temples as seated on a goat, and with a club in his hand. Kubera's image is prescribed to be that of gold, with multi-coloured attributes. In some sources, especially in Jain depictions, Kubera is depicted as a drunkard, signified by the "nectar vessel" in his hand.


title: Kubera

text: The exact origins of the name Kubera are unknown. "Kubera" or "Kuvera" (कुवेर) as spelt in later Sanskrit, means "deformed or monstrous" or "ill-shaped one"; indicating his deformities. Another theory suggests that Kubera may be derived from the verb root "kumba", meaning to conceal. Kuvera is also split as "ku" (earth), and "vira" (hero).


title: Kubera

text: As the son of Vishrava ("Fame"), Kubera is called "Vaisravana" (in the Pali language, Vessavana) and as the son of Ilavila, "Ailavila". Vaisravana is sometimes translated as the "Son of Fame". The "Sutta Nitapa" commentary says that "Vaisravana" is derived from a name of Kubera's kingdom, "Visana". Once, Kubera looked at Shiva and his wife Parvati with jealousy, so he lost one of his eyes. Parvati also turned this deformed eye yellow. So, Kubera gained the name "Ekaksipingala" ("one who has one yellow eye"). He is also called "Bhutesha" ("Lord of spirits") like Shiva. Kubera usually is drawn by spirits or men ("nara"), so is called "Nara-vahana", one whose "vahana" (mount) is "nara". Hopkins interprets "nara"s as being water-spirits, although Mani translates "nara" as men. Kubera also rides the elephant called "Sarvabhauma" as a "loka-pala". His garden is named Chaitrarath.


title: Kubera

text: Kubera also enjoys the titles "king of the whole world", "king of kings" ("Rajaraja"), "Lord of wealth" ("Dhanadhipati") and "giver of wealth" ("Dhanada"). His titles are sometimes related to his subjects: "king of yakshas" ("Yaksharajan"), "Lord of rakshasas" ("Rakshasadhipati"), "Lord of Guhyakas" ("Guhyakadhipa"), "king of Kinnaras"("Kinnararaja"), "king of animals resembling men" ("Mayuraja"), and "king of men" ("Nararaja"). Kubera is also called "Guhyadhipa" ("Lord of the hidden"). The "Atharvaveda" calls him the "god of hiding".


title: Kubera

text: In the "Atharvaveda"—where he first appears—and the "Shatapatha Brahmana", Kubera is the chief of evil spirits or spirits of darkness, and son of Vaishravana. The "Shatapatha Brahmana" calls him the Lord of thieves and criminals. In the "Manusmriti", he becomes a respectable "lokapala" ("world protector") and the patron of merchants. In the epic "Mahabharata", Kubera is described as the son of "Prajapati" Pulastya and his wife Idavida, and the brother of sage Vishrava. Kubera is described as born from a cow. However, from the "Purana"s, he is described as the grandson of Pulastya and the son of Vishrava and his wife Ilavida (or Ilivila or Devavarnini), daughter of the sage Bharadvaja or Trinabindu.


title: Kubera

text: By this time, though still described as an "asura", Kubera is offered prayers at the end of all ritual sacrifices. His titles, such as "best of kings" and "Lord of kings" (The"Harivamsa" indicates that Kubera is made "Lord of kings"), in contrast to the god-king of heaven, Indra, whose title of "best of gods" led to the later belief that Kubera was a man. The early texts "Gautama Dharmashastra" and "Apastamba" describe him as a man. Only the "Grihyasutra"s of Shankhayana and Hiranyakesin call him a god, and suggest offerings of meat, sesame seeds and flowers to him.


title: Kubera

text: The "Purana"s and the epics "Mahabharata" and "Ramayana" grant Kubera unquestioned godhood. Kubera also acquired the status of the "Lord of riches" and the wealthiest Deva. He also becomes a "lokapala" ("world protector") and guardian ("dikapala") of the North direction, although he is also sometimes associated with the East. Kubera's status as a "lokapala" and a "dikpala" is assured in the "Ramayana", but in the "Mahabharata", some lists do not include Kubera. Thus, Kubera is considered a later addition to the original list of "Loka-pala"s, where the gods Agni or Soma appear in his place. This status, the "Ramayana" records, was granted to Kubera by Brahma—the creator-god and father of Pulastya—as a reward for his severe penance. Brahma also conferred upon Kubera the riches of the world ("Nidhis"), "equality with gods", and the Pushpaka Vimana, a flying chariot. Kubera then ruled in the golden city of Lanka, identified with modern-day Sri Lanka. The "Mahabharata" says that Brahma conferred upon Kubera the lordship of wealth, friendship with Shiva, godhood, status as a world-protector, a son called "Nalakubera"/"Nalakubara", the Pushpaka Vimana and the lordship of the "Nairrata" demons.


title: Kubera

text: Both the "Purana"s and the "Ramayana" feature the half-blood siblings of Kubera. Vishrava, Kubera's father, also married the "rakshasa" (demigod) princess Kaikesi, who mothered four "rakshasa" children: Ravana, the chief antagonist of the Ramayana, and his siblings, Kumbhakarna, Vibhishana, and Shurpanaka. The "Mahabharata" regards Vishrava as the brother of Kubera, so Kubera is described as the uncle of Ravana and his siblings. It records that when Kubera approached Brahma for the favour of superseding his father Pulastya, Pulastya created Vishrava. To seek the favour of Vishrava, Kubera sent three women to him, by whom Vishrava begot his demon children. Ravana, after acquiring a boon of Brahma, drove Kubera away from Lanka and seized his Pushpaka Vimana, which was returned to Kubera after Ravana's death. Kubera then settled on Gandhamandana mountain, near Mount Kailash – the abode of the god Shiva—in the Himalayas. Sometimes, Kailash itself is called Kubera's residence. His city is usually called Alaka or Alaka-puri ("curl-city"), but also "Prabha" ("splendour"), "Vasudhara" ("bejeweled") and "Vasu-sthali" ("abode of treasures"). There, Kubera had a grove called "Caitraratha", where the leaves were jewels and the fruits were girls of heaven. There is also a charming lake called "Nalini" in the grove. Kubera is often described as a friend of Shiva in the epics. The "Padma Purana" says that Kubera prayed to Shiva for many years, and Shiva granted him the kingship of yakshas.


title: Kubera

text: A description of Kubera's magnificent court appears in the "Mahabharata" as well as the "Meghaduta". Here, gandharvas and apsaras entertain Kubera. Shiva and his wife Parvati often frequent Kubera's court, which is attended by semi-divine beings like the "vidyadharas"; "kimpurushas"; rakshasas; "pishachas"; as well as Padma and Shankha; personified treasures ("nidhi"); and Manibhadra, Kubera's chief attendant and chief of his army. Like every world-protector, Kubera has seven seers of the North in residence. Alaka is recorded to be plundered by Ravana once, and attacked by the Pandava prince, Bhima once. Kubera's "Nairrata" army is described to have defeated king Mucukunda, who then defeated them by the advice of his guru Vashishta. Shukra, the preceptor of the asuras, is also recorded to have defeated Kubera and stolen his wealth. Another major tale in the scriptures records how Kubera entertained the sage Ashtavakra in his palace.


title: Kubera

text: Kubera is the treasurer of the gods, and the overlord of the semi-divine yakshas, the "guhyaka"s, "kinnara"s and gandharvas, who act as his assistants and protectors of the jewels of the earth, as well as guardians of his city. Kubera is also the guardian of travelers and the giver of wealth to individuals, who please him. The rakshasas also serve Kubera, however, some cannibalistic rakshasas are described to have sided with Ravana in the battle against Kubera. Kubera also developed as minor marriage-divinity. He is invoked with Shiva at weddings and is described as "Kameshvara" ("Lord of "Kama" – pleasure, desire etc."). He is associated with fertility of the aquatic type.


title: Kubera

text: The "Purana"s and the "Mahabharata" record that Kubera married Bhadra ("auspicious"), or Kauberi ("wife of Kubera"), daughter of the demon Mura. She is also called "Yakshi" – a female yaksha and "Charvi" ("splendour"). They had three sons: Nalakubara ("Reed-axle"), Manigriva ("Bejewled-neck") or Varna-kavi ("Colourful poet"), and Mayuraja ("king of animals resembling men"); and a daughter called Minakshi ("fish-eyed").


title: Kubera

text: As the treasurer of the riches of the world, Kubera is prescribed to be worshipped. Kubera is also credited money to the deity Venkateshwara (a form of Vishnu) for his marriage with Padmavati. In remembrance of this, the reason devotees go to Tirupati to donate money in Venkateshwara's "Hundi" ("Donation pot"), is so that he can pay it back to Kubera. He is also associated with Lakshmi for this reason, and is sometimes represented with her as Kubera Lakshmi.


title: Kubera

text: While Kubera still enjoys prayers as the god of wealth, his role is largely taken by the god of wisdom, fortune and obstacle-removal, Ganesha, with whom he is generally associated.


title: Kubera

text: Kubera is recognized outside India and Hinduism as well. Kubera is a popular figure in Buddhist as well as Jain mythology. The Orientalist Dr. Nagendra Kumar Singh remarked that, "Every Indian religion has a Kubera after the Hindu prototype".


title: Kubera

text: Kubera is the Buddhist Vaiśravaṇa or Jambhala, and the Japanese Bishamon. The Buddhist Vaisravana, like the Hindu Kubera, is the regent of the North, a "lokapala" and the Lord of yakshas. He is one of the Four Heavenly Kings, each associated with a cardinal direction. In Buddhist legends, Kubera is also equated with Pañcika, whose wife Hariti is the symbol of abundance. The iconography of Kubera and Pancika is so similar that in certain cases, A. Getty comments, it is extremely difficult to distinguish between Pancika and Kubera. The Japanese Bishamon, also known as Tamon-Ten, is one of the Jūni-Ten (十二天), a group of 12 Hindu deities adopted in Buddhism as guardian deities ("deva" or "ten") who are found in or around Buddhist shrines. The Juni-Ten group of twelve deities were created by adding four deities to the older grouping of Happou-Ten, the eight guardians of the directions. Bishamon rules over the north, like his Hindu counterpart Kubera.


title: Kubera

text: In Jainism, Kubera is the attendant yaksha of the 19th Tirthankar Mallinath. He is usually called "Sarvanubhuti" or "Sarvahna", and may be depicted with four faces, rainbow colours and eight arms. The Digambara sect of Jainism gives him six weapons and three heads; while the Svetambaras portray him with four to six arms, numerous choices of weapons, though his attributes, the money bag and citron fruit are consistent. He may ride a man or an elephant. He is related to the Buddhist Jambhala rather than the Hindu Kubera.


title: Ryan Haddon

text: Ryan Haddon (born April 17, 1971) is an American journalist, news presenter, and television producer.


title: Ryan Haddon

text: Haddon is the daughter of businessman Glenn Souham and former model Dayle Haddon. She grew up in Toronto and Paris, and graduated from Boston University with a degree in communications.


title: Ryan Haddon

text: Haddon had a series of entertainment-based reporting jobs for various newspapers, magazines, and eventually television.


title: Ryan Haddon

text: She has also worked at "MacNeill/Lehrer NewsHour," on Roseanne Barr's talk show "The Roseanne Show," and on "Good Morning America." She has hosted the French television show "Chronicles from California," NBC's "Extra!," and Court TV's "Hollywood Heat."


title: Ryan Haddon

text: In 1998, Haddon started dating actor Christian Slater. The couple married on February 12, 2000, and have two children, Jaden Christopher (1999) and Eliana Sophia (2001). They announced their separation over Christmas 2004, while Slater was performing in a stage play of "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" in London's West End. They officially separated in 2005 and divorced in November 2007.


title: Abdul Ghaffar Khan

text: Abdul Ghaffār Khān (; 6 February 1890 – 20 January 1988), also known as Bacha Khan () or Badshah Khan (), and honourably addressed as Fakhr-e-Afghan (), was a Pakistani Pashtun, independence activist, and founder of the Khudai Khidmatgar resistance movement against British colonial rule in India. He was a political and spiritual leader known for his nonviolent opposition and lifelong pacifism; he was a devout Muslim and an advocate for Hindu–Muslim unity in the subcontinent Due to his similar ideologies and close friendship with Mahatma Gandhi, Khan was nicknamed Sarhadi Gandhi (). In 1929, Khan founded the Khudai Khidmatgar, an anti-colonial nonviolent resistance movement. The Khudai Khidmatgar's success and popularity eventually prompted the colonial government to launch numerous crackdowns against Khan and his supporters; the Khudai Khidmatgar experienced some of the most severe repression of the entire Indian independence movement.


title: Abdul Ghaffar Khan

text: Khan strongly opposed the proposal for the Partition of India into the Muslim-majority Dominion of Pakistan and the Hindu-majority Dominion of India, and consequently sided with the pro-union Indian National Congress and All-India Azad Muslim Conference against the pro-partition All-India Muslim League. When the Indian National Congress reluctantly declared its acceptance of the without consulting the Khudai Khidmatgar leaders, he felt deeply betrayed, telling the Congress leaders "you have thrown us to the wolves." In June 1947, Khan and other Khudai Khidmatgar leaders formally issued the Bannu Resolution to the British authorities, demanding that the ethnic Pashtuns be given a choice to have an independent state of Pashtunistan, which was to comprise all of the Pashtun territories of British India and not be included (as almost all other Muslim-majority provinces were) within the state of Pakistan—the creation of which was still underway at the time. However, the British government openly refused to comply with the demands of this resolution. In response, Khan and his elder brother, Abdul Jabbar Khan, boycotted the 1947 North-West Frontier Province referendum on deciding whether the province should be merged with India or Pakistan, citing that it did not have the options for the Pashtun-majority province to become independent or to join neighbouring Afghanistan.


title: Abdul Ghaffar Khan

text: After the Partition of India was brought into effect by the British government on 14 August 1947, Khan pledged allegiance to the newly created nation of Pakistan, and stayed in the now-Pakistani North-West Frontier Province; he was frequently arrested by the Pakistani government between 1948 and 1954. In 1956, he was arrested for his opposition to the One Unit program, under which the government announced its plan to merge all the provinces of West Pakistan into a single unit to match the political structure of erstwhile East Pakistan (present-day Bangladesh). Khan was jailed or in exile during much of the 1960s and 1970s. Following his will upon his death in Peshawar while under house arrest in 1988, he was buried at his house in Jalalabad, Afghanistan. Tens of thousands of mourners attended his funeral, marching through the Khyber Pass from Peshawar towards Jalalabad. It was marred by two bomb explosions that killed 15 people; despite the heavy fighting at the time due to the Soviet–Afghan War, both sides, namely the Soviet–Afghan government coalition and the Afghan mujahideen, declared an immediate ceasefire to allow Khan's burial.


title: Abdul Ghaffar Khan

text: Abdul Ghaffar Khan was born on 6 February 1890 into a prosperous Sunni Muslim Pashtun family from Utmanzai, Hashtnagar; they lived by the Jindee-a, a branch of the Swat River, in what was then British India's Punjab province. His father, Abdul Bahram Khan, was a land owner in Hashtnagar. Khan was the second son of Bahram to attend the British-run Edward's Mission School, which was the only fully-functioning school in the region and which was administered by Christian missionaries. At school, Khan did well in his studies, and was inspired by his mentor, Reverend Wigram, into seeing the crucial role education played in service to the local community. In his tenth and final year of secondary school, he was offered a highly prestigious commission in the Corps of Guides regiment of the British Indian Army. Khan declined due to his observational feelings that even Guides' Indian officers were still second-class citizens in their own nation. He subsequently followed through with his initial desire to attend university, and Reverend Wigram (Khan's teacher) offered him the opportunity to follow his brother, Abdul Jabbar Khan, to study in London, England. After graduating from Aligarh Muslim University, Khan eventually received permission from his father to travel to London. However, his mother wasn't willing to let another son go to London, so he began working on his father's lands in the process of figuring out his next steps.


title: Abdul Ghaffar Khan

text: At the age of 20 in 1910, Khan opened a madrasa in his hometown of Utmanzai. In 1911, he joined the independence movement of the Pashtun activist Haji Sahib of Turangzai. By 1915, the British colonial authorities had shut down Khan's madrasa, deeming its pro-Indian independence activism to be a threat to their authority. Having witnessed the repeated failure of Indian revolts against British rule, Khan decided that social activism and reform would be more beneficial for the ethnic Pashtuns. This led to the formation of the "Anjuman-e Islāh-e Afghānia" (Pashto: ) in 1921, and the youth movement "Pax̌tūn Jirga" () in 1927. After Khan's return from the Islamic Hajj pilgrimage to Mecca, Hejaz−Nejd (present-day Saudi Arabia) in May 1928, he founded the Pashto-language monthly political journal "Pax̌tūn" (). Finally, in November 1929, Khan founded the "Khudāyī Khidmatgār" () movement, which would strongly advocate for the end of British colonial rule and establishment of a unified and independent India.


title: Abdul Ghaffar Khan

text: In response to his inability to continue his own education, Bacha Khan turned to helping others start theirs. Like many such regions of the world, the strategic importance of the newly formed North-West Frontier Province (now Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan), as a buffer for the British Raj from Russian influence was of little benefit to its residents. Opposition to British colonial rule, the authority of the mullahs, and an ancient culture of violence and vendetta prompted Bacha Khan to want to serve and uplift his fellow men and women by means of education. At 20 years of age, Bacha Khan opened his first school in Utmanzai. It was an instant success and he was soon invited into a larger circle of progressively minded reformers.


title: Abdul Ghaffar Khan

text: While he faced much opposition and personal difficulties, Bacha Khan Khan worked tirelessly to organise and raise the consciousness of his fellow Pashtuns. Between 1915 and 1918 he visited 500 villages in all part of the settled districts of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa. It was in this frenzied activity that he had come to be known as "Badshah (Bacha) Khan" (King of Chiefs).


title: Abdul Ghaffar Khan

text: Being a secular Muslim he did not believe in religious divisions. He married his first wife Meharqanda in 1912; she was a daughter of Yar Mohammad Khan of the Kinankhel clan of the Mohammadzai tribe of Razzar, a village adjacent to Utmanzai. They had a son in 1913, Abdul Ghani Khan, who would become a noted artist and poet. Subsequently, they had another son, Abdul Wali Khan (17 January 1917 – 2006), and daughter, Sardaro. Meharqanda died during the 1918 influenza epidemic. In 1920, Bacha Khan remarried; his new wife, Nambata, was a cousin of his first wife and the daughter of Sultan Mohammad Khan of Razzar. She bore him a daughter, Mehar Taj (25 May 1921 – 29 April 2012), and a son, Abdul Ali Khan (20 August 1922 – 19 February 1997). Tragically, in 1926 Nambata died early as well from a fall down the stairs of the apartment where they were staying in Jerusalem.


title: Abdul Ghaffar Khan

text: In time, Bacha Khan's goal came to be the formulation of a united, independent, secular India. To achieve this end, he founded the "Khudai Khidmatgar" ("Servants of God"), commonly known as the "Red Shirts" ("Surkh Pōsh"), during the 1920s.


title: Abdul Ghaffar Khan

text: The "Khudai Khidmatgar" was founded on a belief in the power of Gandhi's notion of Satyagraha, a form of active non-violence as captured in an oath. He told its members:


title: Abdul Ghaffar Khan

text: I am going to give you such a weapon that the police and the army will not be able to stand against it. It is the weapon of the Prophet, but you are not aware of it. That weapon is patience and righteousness. No power on earth can stand against it.


title: Abdul Ghaffar Khan

text: The organisation recruited over 100,000 members and became influential in the independence movement for their resistance to the colonial government. Through strikes, political organisation and non-violent opposition, the "Khudai Khidmatgar" were able to achieve some success and came to dominate the politics of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa. His brother, Dr. Khan Abdul Jabbar Khan (known as Dr. Khan Sahib), led the political wing of the movement, and was the Chief Minister of the province (from 1937 and then until 1947 when his government was dismissed by Mohammad Ali Jinnah of the Muslim League).


title: Abdul Ghaffar Khan

text: On 23 April 1930, Bacha Khan was arrested during protests arising out of the Salt Satyagraha. A crowd of Khudai Khidmatgar gathered in Peshawar's Kissa Khwani (Storytellers) Bazaar. The colonial government ordered troops to open fire with machine guns on the unarmed crowd, killing an estimated 200–250. The Khudai Khidmatgar members acted in accord with their training in non-violence under Bacha Khan, facing bullets as the troops fired on them. Two platoons of The Garhwal Rifles regiment under Chandra Singh Garhwali refused to fire on the non-violent crowd. They were later court-martialled and sentenced to a variety of punishments, including life imprisonment.


title: Abdul Ghaffar Khan

text: Bacha Khan forged a close, spiritual, and uninhibited friendship with Gandhi, the pioneer of non-violent mass civil disobedience in India. The two had a deep admiration towards each other and worked together closely till 1947.


title: Abdul Ghaffar Khan

text: "Khudai Khidmatgar" (servants of God) agitated and worked cohesively with the Indian National Congress(INC), the leading national organisation fighting for independence, of which Bacha Khan was a senior and respected member. On several occasions when the Congress seemed to disagree with Gandhi on policy, Bacha Khan remained his staunchest ally. In 1931 the Congress offered him the presidency of the party, but he refused saying, "I am a simple soldier and Khudai Khidmatgar, and I only want to serve." He remained a member of the Congress Working Committee for many years, resigning only in 1939 because of his differences with the Party's War Policy. He rejoined the Congress Party when the War Policy was revised.


title: Abdul Ghaffar Khan

text: Bacha Khan was a champion of women's rights and non-violence. He became a hero in a society dominated by violence; notwithstanding his liberal views, his unswerving faith and obvious bravery led to immense respect. Throughout his life, he never lost faith in his non-violent methods or in the compatibility of Islam and non-violence. He recognised as a jihad struggle with only the enemy holding swords. He was closely identified with Gandhi because of his non-violence principles and he is known in India as the 'Frontier Gandhi'. One of his Congress associates was Pandit Amir Chand Boambwal of Peshawar.


title: Abdul Ghaffar Khan

text: Khan strongly opposed the partition of India. Accused as being anti-Muslim by some politicians, Khan was physically assaulted in 1946, leading to his hospitalisation in Peshawar. On 21 June 1947, in Bannu, a loya jirga was held consisting of Bacha Khan, the Khudai Khidmatgars, members of the Provincial Assembly, Mirzali Khan (Faqir of Ipi), and other tribal chiefs, just seven weeks before the partition. The loya jirga declared the Bannu Resolution, which demanded that the Pashtuns be given a choice to have an independent state of Pashtunistan composing all Pashtun territories of British India, instead of being made to join either India or Pakistan. However, the British Raj refused to comply with the demand of this resolution.


title: Abdul Ghaffar Khan

text: The congress party refused last-ditch compromises to prevent the partition, like the Cabinet Mission plan and Gandhi's suggestion to offer the position of Prime Minister to Jinnah. As a result, Bacha Khan and his followers felt a sense of betrayal by both Pakistan and India. Bacha Khan's last words to Gandhi and his erstwhile allies in the Congress party were: "You have thrown us to the wolves."


title: Abdul Ghaffar Khan

text: When the 1947 North-West Frontier Province referendum over accession to Pakistan was held, Bacha Khan, the Khudai Khidmatgars, the then Chief Minister Dr Khan Sahib, and the Indian National Congress Party boycotted the referendum. Some have argued that a segment of the population was barred from voting.


title: Abdul Ghaffar Khan

text: Bacha Khan took the oath of allegiance to the new nation of Pakistan on 23 February 1948 at the first session of the Pakistan Constituent Assembly.


title: Abdul Ghaffar Khan

text: He pledged full support to the government and attempted to reconcile with the founder of the new state Muhammad Ali Jinnah. Initial overtures led to a successful meeting in Karachi, however a follow-up meeting in the Khudai Khidmatgar headquarters never materialised, allegedly due to the role of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa Chief Minister, Abdul Qayyum Khan Kashmiri who warned Jinnah that Bacha Khan was plotting his assassination.


title: Abdul Ghaffar Khan

text: Following this, Bacha Khan formed Pakistan's first National opposition party, on 8 May 1948, the Pakistan Azad Party. The party pledged to play the role of constructive opposition and would be non-communal in its philosophy.


title: Abdul Ghaffar Khan

text: However, suspicions of his allegiance persisted and under the new Pakistani government, Bacha Khan was placed under house arrest without charge from 1948 till 1954. Released from prison, he gave a speech again on the floor of the constituent assembly, this time condemning the massacre of his supporters at Babrra.


title: Abdul Ghaffar Khan

text: He was arrested several times between late 1948 and in 1956 for his opposition to the One Unit scheme. The government attempted in 1958 to reconcile with him and offered him a Ministry in the government, after the assassination of his brother, he however refused. He remained in prison till 1957 only to be re-arrested in 1958 until an illness in 1964 allowed for his release.


title: Abdul Ghaffar Khan

text: In 1962, Bacha Khan was named an "Amnesty International Prisoner of the Year". Amnesty's statement about him said, "His example symbolizes the suffering of upward of a million people all over the world who are prisoners of conscience."


title: Abdul Ghaffar Khan

text: In September 1964, the Pakistani authorities allowed him to go to United Kingdom for treatment. During the winter, his doctor advised him to go to United States. He then went into exile to Afghanistan, he returned from exile in December 1972 to popular support, following the establishment of a National Awami Party provincial government in North West Frontier Province and Balochistan.


title: Abdul Ghaffar Khan

text: He was arrested by Prime Minister Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto's government at Multan in November 1973 and described Bhuttos government as "the worst kind of dictatorship".


title: Abdul Ghaffar Khan

text: In 1984, increasingly withdrawing from politics he was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize. He visited India and participated in the centennial celebrations of the Indian National Congress in 1985; he was awarded the Jawaharlal Nehru Award for International Understanding in 1967 and later Bharat Ratna, India's highest civilian award, in 1987.


title: Abdul Ghaffar Khan

text: His final major political challenge was against the Kalabagh dam project, fearing that the project would damage the Peshawar valley, his hostility to it would eventually lead to the project being shelved after his death.


title: Abdul Ghaffar Khan

text: Bacha Khan died in Peshawar under house arrest in 1988 from complications of a stroke and was buried in his house at Jalalabad, Afghanistan. Over 200,000 mourners attended his funeral, including the Afghan president Mohammad Najibullah. The then Indian Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi went to Peshawar, to pay his tributes to Bacha Khan despite the fact that General Zia ul-Haq attempted to stall his attendance citing security reasons. Additionally, the Indian government declared a five-day period of mourning in his honour.


title: Abdul Ghaffar Khan

text: Although he had been repeatedly imprisoned and persecuted, tens of thousands of mourners attended his funeral, described by one commentator as "a caravan of peace, carrying a message of love" from Pashtuns east of the Khyber to those on the west, marching through the historic Khyber Pass from Peshawar to Jalalabad. This symbolic march was planned by Bacha Khan, to affirmatively demonstrate his dream of Pashtun unification and to help that dream live on after his death. A cease-fire was announced in the Afghan Civil War to allow the funeral to take place, even though it was marred by bomb explosions killing fifteen people.


title: Abdul Ghaffar Khan

text: Abdul Ghaffar Khan took an oath of allegiance to Pakistan in 1948 in the legislation assembly. When during his speech he was asked by the PM Liaquat Ali Khan about Pashtunistan, he replied that it was just a name for the Pashtun province in Pakistan, just like Punjab, Bengal, Sindh and Baluchishtan are the names of provinces of Pakistan as ethno-linguistic names, However, this compromise was apparently contrary to what he believed in and strived for: Pashtunistan as an independent state.


title: Abdul Ghaffar Khan

text: Later on in 1980, during an interview with an Indian journalist, Haroon Siddiqui, Abdul Ghaffar Khan said that the "idea of Pashtunistan never helped Pashtuns". According to him, the idea of Pashtunistan was never a reality. He further said that "successive Afghan governments have exploited the idea for their own political ends. It was only towards the end of Mohammed Daoud Khan regime that he stopped talking about Pashtunistan. Later on, even Nur Muhammad Taraki also talked about the idea of Pashtunistan and caused trouble for Pakistan". He said that "Pashtun people greatly suffered because of all this". Abdul Ghaffar Khan gave this interview while he was in Jalalabad, Afghanistan.


title: Abdul Ghaffar Khan

text: His eldest son Ghani Khan was a poet. Ghani Khan's wife, Roshan, was from a Parsi family and was the daughter of Nawab Rustam Jang a prince of Hyderabad. His second son Abdul Wali Khan was the founder and leader of Awami National Party from 1986 to 2006 and was the Leader of the Opposition in the Pakistan National Assembly from 1988 to 1990.


title: Abdul Ghaffar Khan

text: His third son Abdul Ali Khan was non-political and a distinguished educator, and served as Vice-Chancellor of University of Peshawar. Ali Khan was also the head of Aitchison College, Lahore and Fazle Haq college, Mardan.


title: Abdul Ghaffar Khan

text: His niece Mariam married Jaswant Singh in 1939. Jaswant Singh was a young British Indian airforce officer and was Sikh by faith. Mariam later converted to Christianity.


title: Abdul Ghaffar Khan

text: Asfandyar Wali Khan is the grandson of Abdul Ghaffar Khan, and leader of the Awami National Party. The party was in power from 2008 to 2013.


title: Abdul Ghaffar Khan

text: Zarine Khan Walsh, who lives in Mumbai, is the granddaughter of Abdul Ghaffar Khan and was the second daughter of Abdul Ghaffar Khan's eldest son Abdul Ghani Khan.


title: Abdul Ghaffar Khan

text: The All India Pakhtoon Jirga-e-Hind is chaired by Yasmin Nigar Khan, who claims to be the great-granddaughter of Abdul Ghaffar Khan. Awami National Party leader Asfandyar Wali Khan rejected the claim, though a cultural ministry official clarified that Yasmin Nigar Khan was a descendant of Abdul Ghaffar Khan's "adopted" son.


title: Abdul Ghaffar Khan

text: Salma Ataullahjan is the great grand niece of Abdul Ghaffar Khan and a member of the Senate of Canada.


title: Abdul Ghaffar Khan

text: Bacha Khan's political legacy is renowned amongst Pashtuns and those in modern Republic of India as a leader of a non-violent movement. Within Pakistan, however, the vast majority of society have questioned his stance with the All India Congress over the Muslim League as well as his opposition to the partition of India and Jinnah. In particular, people have questioned where Bacha Khan's patriotism rests.


title: Abdul Ghaffar Khan

text: In 2008, a documentary, titled "The Frontier Gandhi: Badshah Khan, a Torch for Peace", by film-maker and writer T.C. McLuhan, premiered in New York. The film received the 2009 award for Best Documentary Film at the Middle East International Film Festival (see film page).


title: Abdul Ghaffar Khan

text: In 1990, a 30 Minutes Biographical Documentary film On Badshah Khan "The Majestic Man" in English Language Which was telecast On Doordarshan (National channel ) Produced by Mr. Abdul Kabeer Siddiqui, Producer/Director from New Delhi who works for Indian National TV Channel.


title: Abdul Ghaffar Khan

text: Bacha Khan was listed as one of 26 men who changed the world in a recent children's book published in the United States, alongside Tiger Woods and Yo Yo Ma. He also wrote an autobiography (1969), and has been the subject of biographies by Eknath Easwaran (see article) and Rajmohan Gandhi (see "References" section, below). His philosophy of Islamic pacifism was recognised by US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, in a speech to American Muslims.


title: Abdul Ghaffar Khan

text: In the Indian city of Delhi, the popular Khan Market is named in his honour, along with another market in the Karol Bagh area of New Delhi, Ghaffar Market. In Mumbai, a seafront road and promenade in the Worli neighbourhood was named Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan Road after him.


title: Great Barrington Declaration

text: The Great Barrington Declaration was an open letter published in October 2020 in response to the COVID-19 pandemic and lockdowns. It claimed harmful COVID-19 lockdowns could be avoided via the fringe notion of "focused protection", by which those most at risk could purportedly be kept safe while society otherwise continued functioning normally. The envisaged result was herd immunity within three months, as SARS-CoV-2 swept through the population. Authored by Sunetra Gupta of the University of Oxford, Jay Bhattacharya of Stanford University, and Martin Kulldorff of Harvard University, it was drafted at the American Institute for Economic Research (AIER) in Great Barrington, Massachusetts, signed there on 4 October 2020, and published on 5 October. At the time, COVID-19 vaccines were considered to be months away from general availability. The document presumed that the disease burden of mass infection could be tolerated, that any infection would confer long term sterilizing immunity, and it made no mention of physical distancing, masks, contact tracing, or long COVID, which has left patients with debilitating symptoms months after the initial infection.


title: Great Barrington Declaration

text: The World Health Organization (WHO) and numerous academic and public-health bodies have stated that the strategy is dangerous and lacks a sound scientific basis. They say that it would be challenging to shield all those who are medically vulnerable, leading to a large number of avoidable deaths among both older people and younger people with pre-existing health conditions. As of October 2020, they warn that the long-term effects of COVID-19 are still not fully understood. Moreover, the WHO said that the herd immunity component of the proposed strategy is undermined by the unknown duration of post-infection immunity. They say that the more likely outcome would be recurrent epidemics, as was the case with numerous infectious diseases before the advent of vaccination. The American Public Health Association and 13 other public-health groups in the United States warned in a joint open letter that the "Great Barrington Declaration is not grounded in science and is dangerous". The Great Barrington Declaration received support from some scientists, the Donald Trump administration, British Conservative politicians, and from "The Wall Street Journal"'s editorial board.


title: Great Barrington Declaration

text: The Great Barrington Declaration was sponsored by the American Institute for Economic Research, a libertarian free-market think tank associated with climate change denial.


title: Great Barrington Declaration

text: The ideas to issue a declaration came from a conference run by the American Institute for Economic Research (AIER). Gupta, one of the authors, said that no journal would publish ideas that were "repeatedly dismissed as fringe or pseudoscience" so an open letter was chosen as the publication route out of necessity.


title: Great Barrington Declaration

text: The declaration says that lockdowns have adverse effects on physical and mental health, for example, because people postpone preventive healthcare. They propose reducing these harms by ending mandatory restrictions on most activities for most people. Without these restrictions, more people will develop COVID-19. They believe that these infections will produce herd immunity (the idea that when enough people become immune, then the virus will stop circulating widely), which will eventually make it less likely that high-risk people will be exposed to the virus.


title: Great Barrington Declaration

text: The authors say that, instead of protecting everyone, the focus should instead be on "shielding" those most at risk, with few mandatory restrictions placed on the remainder of the population. Stanford epidemiologist Yvonne Maldonado said that 40% of Americans have an elevated risk of dying from COVID-19, so this would require keeping the 40% of people with known risk factors away from the 60% of people without known risk factors.


title: Great Barrington Declaration

text: The declaration names specific economic changes that the signatories favour: resuming "life as normal", with schools and universities open for in-person teaching and extracurricular activities, re-opening offices, restaurants, and other places of work, and resuming mass gatherings for cultural and athletic activities. By October 2020, many of these things had already happened in some parts of the world, but likewise were being restricted elsewhere; for instance the UK saw quarantines of students, travel advisories, restrictions on meeting other people, and partial closures of schools, pubs and restaurants.


title: Great Barrington Declaration

text: The declaration does not provide practical details about who should be protected or how they can be protected. For instance, it does not mention testing any people outside of nursing homes, contact tracing, wearing masks, or social distancing. It mentions multi-generational households but does not provide any information about how, for example, low-risk people can get infected without putting high-risk members of their household at risk of dying.


title: Great Barrington Declaration

text: The declaration does not provide any references to published data that support the declaration's strategy.


title: Great Barrington Declaration

text: Sunetra Gupta is a Professor of Theoretical Epidemiology at the Oxford University Department of Zoology. Gupta has been a critic of early COVID-19 lockdown strategy, arguing that the cost is too high for the poorest in society, and expressing concern about the risk of widespread starvation in many countries because of lockdown-related disruptions in food supply chains. In 2020, Gupta led a group which in March released a widely criticized modelling study suggesting, in one of its scenarios, that half the population of the United Kingdom might already have been infected with COVID-19, and in September a preprint study which argued herd immunity thresholds might be lower than expected due to pre-existing immunity in the population. Rupert Beale of the Francis Crick Institute described the March preprint as "ridiculous" and "not even passed by peer review". Gupta was one author of a 21 September letter to the British prime minister, Boris Johnson, recommending shielding of vulnerable groups of people rather than the lockdown method of the British government response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Of the declaration's signatories, Gupta said: "We're saying, let's just do this for the three months that it takes for the pathogen to sweep through the population", arguing that the situation would only be temporary. Gupta has dismissed claims of having a right-wing perspective, claiming to be "more Left than Labour".


title: Great Barrington Declaration

text: Jay Bhattacharya is a professor of medicine at Stanford University whose research focuses on the economics of health care. Before he co-authored the declaration, Bhattacharya co-wrote an opinion piece in "The Wall Street Journal" titled "Is the Coronavirus as Deadly as They Say?", in which he claimed that there was little evidence to support shelter-in-place orders and quarantines of the COVID-19 pandemic in the United States, and was a lead author of a serology study released in April which suggested that as many as 80,000 residents of Santa Clara County, California might have already been infected with COVID-19. The study and conduct of the research drew wide criticism for statistical and methodological errors and apparent lack of disclosure of conflicts. The study was later revealed to have received undisclosed funding from JetBlue's founder David Neeleman, according to an anonymous whistle blower. Bhattacharya said that he received racist attacks and death threats during the pandemic, and he also claimed that "Big tech outlets like Facebook and Google" suppressed "our ideas, falsely deeming them 'misinformation'". He also said that "I started getting calls from reporters asking me why I wanted to 'let the virus rip', when I had proposed nothing of the sort." Bhattacharya argued that the declaration did not take "a contrarian position, but represents the standard way of dealing with respiratory virus pandemics that the world has followed for a century until 2020."


title: Great Barrington Declaration

text: Martin Kulldorff is a professor of medicine and a biostatistician at Harvard University. He has defended Sweden's response to the pandemic and, along with Bhattacharya, wrote a "Wall Street Journal" editorial arguing against testing the young and healthy for SARS-CoV-2. Kulldorff had previously claimed that people under 50 years old "should live their normal lives unless they have some known risk factor" while "anybody above 60, whether teacher or bus driver or janitor I think should not be working – if those in their 60s can't work from home they should be able to take a sabbatical (supported by social security) for three, four or whatever months it takes before there is immunity in the community that will protect everybody." He did not provide a detailed explanation about what people between these ages should do. While Gupta has said in a promotional video that less vulnerable people should be allowed "to get out there and get infected and build up herd immunity", Kulldorff cautioned against deliberately seeking out infection; he said that "everybody should wash their hands and stay home when sick". Kulldorff disagreed with criticism that the plan would lead to more deaths, calling it "nonsense". He said "fewer older people – not zero, but fewer old people – would be infected. But you'll have more young people infected, and that's going to reduce the mortality." Kulldorff has discussed the Declaration on "The Richie Allen Show", a radio programme that has previously featured antisemites and Holocaust deniers, although Kulldorff said he had no knowledge of the show prior to being invited on.


title: Great Barrington Declaration

text: Since 2021, Bhattacharya, Kulldorff and Gupta have worked with the Brownstone Institute, a think tank that has opposed COVID-19 masking and vaccine mandates. The institute was started in 2021 by Jeffrey Tucker, the AIER editorial director who helped organize the Great Barrington Declaration. It has described itself as the declaration's "spiritual child". Bhattacharya and Kulldorff were named senior scholars there. Gupta has been an author.


title: Great Barrington Declaration

text: The declaration was sponsored by the American Institute for Economic Research (AIER), a libertarian free market think tank based in Great Barrington, Massachusetts. AIER has published controversial studies with dubious conclusions, such as downplaying the risks of climate change, and arguing that sweatshops are beneficial to their workers. "Byline Times" journalist Nafeez Ahmed has described the AIER as an "institution embedded in a Koch-funded network that denies climate science while investing in polluting fossil fuel industries".


title: Great Barrington Declaration

text: While the authors' website claims that over 14,000 scientists, 40,000 medical practitioners, and more than 800,000 members of the public signed the declaration, this list—which anyone could sign online and which required merely clicking a checkbox to claim the status of "scientist"—contains some evidently-fake names, including: "Mr Banana Rama", "Harold Shipman", and "Prof Cominic Dummings". More than 100 psychotherapists, numerous homeopaths, physiotherapists, massage therapists, and other non-relevant people were found to be signatories, including a performer of Khoomei—a Mongolian style of overtone singing—described as a "therapeutic sound practitioner". An article in "The Independent" reported that the false signatures put claims about the breadth of support in doubt. Bhattacharya responded by saying that the authors "did not have the resources to audit each signature," and that people had "abused our trust" by adding fake names.


title: Great Barrington Declaration

text: Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the Director-General of the World Health Organization, warned against the idea of letting the virus spread in order to achieve herd immunity at a 12 October 2020 press briefing, calling the notion "unethical". He said: "Herd immunity is a concept used for vaccination, in which a population can be protected from a certain virus if a threshold of vaccination is reached … Herd immunity is achieved by protecting people from a virus, not by exposing them to it." Tedros said that trying to achieve herd immunity by letting the virus spread unchecked would be "scientifically and ethically problematic", especially given that the long-term effects of the disease are still not fully understood. He said that though "there has been some discussion recently about the concept of reaching so-called 'herd immunity' by letting the virus spread", "never in the history of public health has herd immunity been used as a strategy for responding to an outbreak, let alone a pandemic."


title: Great Barrington Declaration

text: The British Government Chief Scientific Adviser, Patrick Vallance told the House of Commons's Science and Technology Select Committee on 3 November that the government's Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies, having examined the declaration's proposal, had found "fatal flaws in the argument". Concerns about the declaration had been issued on behalf of the British Academy of Medical Sciences by its president, Robert Lechler, who similarly described the declaration's proposals as "unethical and simply not possible". Martin McKee, professor of European public health at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, compared the declaration to "the messaging used to undermine public health policies on harmful substances, such as tobacco". On 7 October the British Prime Minister's Official Spokesperson said that while at 10 Downing Street "we have considered the full range of scientific opinion throughout the course of this pandemic and we will continue to do so", it was "not possible to rely on an unproven assumption that it is possible for people who are at lower risk, should they contract the virus, to avoid subsequently transmitting it to those who are at a higher risk and would face a higher risk of ending up in hospital, or worse in an intensive care unit." The spokesman reiterated that the Chief Medical Adviser to the British Government and Chief Medical Officer for England, Chris Whitty, had stressed that the effects on the rest of the healthcare system were already considered in the formulation of public health advice. British Secretary of State for Health and Social Care Matt Hancock said in the House of Commons on 13 October that the Great Barrington Declaration's two central claims – that widespread infection would lead to herd immunity and that it would be possible to segregate the old and vulnerable – were both "emphatically false". On 15 October, Jacob Rees-Mogg, the Leader of the House of Commons, told parliament: "The Government are sceptical about the Barrington declaration." On 3 November, Chris Whitty told the Science and Technology Select Committee that the declaration was "dangerously flawed", "scientifically weak", and "ethically really difficult". He explained that "Focused Protection" was operationally impractical and would "inevitably" cause the deaths of "a very large number of people".


title: Great Barrington Declaration

text: The then-U.S. National Institutes of Health director, Francis Collins, told "The Washington Post" that the proposed strategy was "a fringe component of epidemiology. This is not mainstream science. It's dangerous. It fits into the political views of certain parts of our confused political establishment." In a private email to Fauci, Collins called the authors of the declaration "fringe epidemiologists" and said that "There needs to be a quick and devastating published take down of its premises". "The Wall Street Journal"'s editorial board accused Collins of "work[ing] with the media to trash the Great Barrington Declaration" and of "Shut[ting] down covid debate".


title: Great Barrington Declaration

text: William Haseltine, a former Harvard Medical School professor and founder of Harvard's cancer and HIV/AIDS research departments, told CNN, "Herd immunity is another word for mass murder. If you allow this virus to spread … we are looking at 2 to 6 million Americans dead. Not just this year, but every year."


title: Great Barrington Declaration

text: David Naylor, co-chair of the Government of Canada's COVID-19 Immunity Task Force, told the "National Post": "Obviously, the Great Barrington fix will excite the minimizers who pretend COVID-19 is not much worse than the flu and enliven the libertarians who object to public health measures on principle … So be it: they've been offside all along." Naylor also pointed out that a study published in August in the "Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine" examined Sweden's "no-lockdown" policy's effect on herd immunity among the Swedish population, finding it did not improve herd immunity despite higher rates of hospitalization and death than in neighbouring countries. According to Naylor, the policy advocated by signatories of the declaration would never be the "controlled demographic burn that some zealots imagine", and because of exponential growth of infections would lead to a situation where "with masses of people sick in their 40s and 50s; hospitals will be over-run and deaths will skyrocket as they did in Italy and New York". With the prospect of a vaccine available within months, Naylor questioned the logic of the Great Barrington strategy, asking: "Why on earth should we rush to embrace a reckless prescription for a demographically-selective national 'chickenpox party' involving a dangerous pathogen?".


title: Great Barrington Declaration

text: Deena Hinshaw, Chief Medical Officer of Health of Alberta, said that the declaration would lead to increased deaths, hospitalizations and cases of Long COVID. Hinshaw also said that it was unclear if infection with COVID-19 would create long-term immunity and that being able to successfully implement the declaration's focused protection strategy "is not supported by evidence."


title: Great Barrington Declaration

text: Harvard University professor of epidemiology William Hanage criticized the logic of the declaration's signatories: "After pointing out, correctly, the indirect damage caused by the pandemic, they respond that the answer is to increase the direct damage caused by it", and attacked the feasibility of the idea of "Focused Protection" for those vulnerable to severe infection, saying that "stating that you can keep the virus out of places by testing at a time when the White House has an apparently ongoing outbreak should illustrate how likely that is." He asked, "How would you keep the virus out if 10 percent of the younger population is infected at peak prevalence and with tests that cannot keep the virus out of the White House?" He called the declaration "quite dangerous, for multiple reasons", explaining that "if you do this, you'll get more infections, more hospitalizations and more deaths" and that "the greatest risk of introduction to the most vulnerable communities will be when the rate of infection is really high in younger age groups." Hanage cautioned that uncontrolled infections among the young run the risk of long-term medical effects of the disease. He added that "we tend to make contacts with people around our own age, and given that none of the older generations would have immunity, they'd be in contact networks at risk of devastating outbreaks" and further explained that blanket lockdowns were not argued for by most experts in any case.


title: Great Barrington Declaration

text: David Nabarro, a special envoy of the World Health Organization, said governments should refrain from using "lockdowns as the primary method to control the virus", a comment cited with approval by the American president, Donald Trump. However, Nabarro rejected Trump's interpretation of his comments, saying that the lockdowns in the spring had been necessary as emergency measures, to buy time, and emphasized the need to find a "middle way", with "masks, social distancing, fewer crowds, testing and tracing" the right way forward. Commenting on the fact that 20 per cent of people killed by COVID-19 have been people aged under 65, and that about a third of recovered COVID-19 patients, including young patients, continue to have symptoms weeks after their infection, Nabarro said it was "amazingly irresponsible" not to take these risks into consideration.