title: Woody Johnson

text: In April 2022, the Jets pledged a $1 million donation to Ukraine, to be distributed in monthly instalments of $100,000 to various Ukrainian organizations. The first organization to receive money from the fund was Plast Scouting USA, a Ukrainian scouting organization working to provide first aid and medical supplies during the war. United24, a fundraising initiative created by Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy, was another beneficiary. In August 2022, the Jets announced plans to raise awareness for Ukraine's humanitarian crisis during their Week 3 match against the Cincinnati Bengals on September 25, including adding Ukrainian flag decals to their helmets. The Jets will also paint the Ukrainian flag onto each end zone at the MetLife Stadium.


title: Papal bull

text: A papal bull is a type of public decree, letters patent, or charter issued by a pope of the Catholic Church. It is named after the leaden seal ("bulla") that was traditionally appended to the end in order to authenticate it.


title: Papal bull

text: Papal bulls have been in use at least since the 6th century, but the phrase was not used until around the end of the 13th century, and then only internally for unofficial administrative purposes. However, it had become official by the 15th century, when one of the offices of the Apostolic Chancery was named the "register of bulls" (""registrum bullarum"").


title: Papal bull

text: By the accession of Pope Leo IX in 1048, a clear distinction developed between two classes of bulls of greater and less solemnity. The majority of the "great bulls" now in existence are in the nature of confirmations of property or charters of protection accorded to monasteries and religious institutions. In an epoch when there was much fabrication of such documents, those who procured bulls from Rome wished to ensure that the authenticity of their bull was above suspicion. A papal confirmation, under certain conditions, could be pleaded as itself constituting sufficient evidence of title in cases where the original deed had been lost or destroyed.


title: Papal bull

text: Since the 12th century, papal bulls have carried a leaden seal with the heads of the apostles Saint Peter and Saint Paul on one side and the pope's name on the other. Papal bulls were originally issued by the pope for many kinds of communication of a public nature, but by the 13th century, papal bulls were only used for the most formal or solemn of occasions. Papyrus seems to have been used almost uniformly as the material for these documents until the early years of the eleventh century, after which it was rapidly superseded by a rough kind of parchment.


title: Papal bull

text: Modern scholars have retroactively used the word "bull" to describe any elaborate papal document issued in the form of a decree or privilege, solemn or simple, and to some less elaborate ones issued in the form of a letter. Popularly, the name is used for any papal document that contains a metal seal.


title: Papal bull

text: Today, the bull is the only written communication in which the pope will refer to himself as ""Episcopus Servus Servorum Dei"" ("Bishop, Servant of the Servants of God").


title: Papal bull

text: While papal bulls always used to bear a metal seal, they now do so only on the most solemn occasions. A papal bull is today the most formal type of public decree or letters patent issued by the Vatican Chancery in the name of the pope.


title: Papal bull

text: A bull's format formerly began with one line in tall, elongated letters containing three elements: the pope's name, the papal title ""Episcopus Servus Servorum Dei"" ("Bishop, Servant of the Servants of God"), and its incipit, i.e., the first few Latin words from which the bull took its title for record-keeping purposes, but which might not be directly indicative of the bull's purpose.


title: Papal bull

text: The body of the text was often very simple in layout, and it had no specific conventions for its formatting. The closing section consisted of a short ""datum"" that mentioned the place of issuance, day of the month and year of the pope's pontificate on which issued, and signatures, near which was attached the seal.


title: Papal bull

text: For the most solemn bulls, the pope signed the document himself, in which case he used the formula ""Ego N. Catholicae Ecclesiae Episcopus"" ("I, N., Bishop of the Catholic Church"). Following the signature in this case would be an elaborate monogram, the signatures of any witnesses, and then the seal. In modern times, a member of the Roman Curia signs the document on behalf of the pope, usually the Cardinal Secretary of State, and thus the monogram is omitted.


title: Papal bull

text: The most distinctive characteristic of a bull was the metal seal ("bulla"), which was usually made of lead, but on very solemn occasions was made of gold, as those on Byzantine imperial instruments often were (see Golden Bull). On the obverse it depicted, originally somewhat crudely, the early Fathers of the Church of Rome, the apostles Saint Peter and Saint Paul, identified by the letters Sanctus PAulus" and Sanctus PEtrus" (thus, SPA •SPE or SPASPE). St. Paul, on the left, was shown with flowing hair and a long pointed beard composed of curved lines, while St. Peter, on the right, was shown with curly hair and a shorter beard made of dome-shaped "globetti" (beads in relief). Each head was surrounded by a circle of "globetti", and the rim of the seal was surrounded by an additional ring of such beads, while the heads themselves were separated by a depiction of a cross. On the reverse was the name of the issuing pope in the nominative Latin form, with the letters "PP", for "" ("Shepherd of Shepherds"). This disc was then attached to the document either by cords of hemp, in the case of letters of justice and executory letters, or by red and yellow silk, in the case of letters of grace, that was looped through slits in the vellum of the document. The term ""bulla"" derives from the Latin ""bullire"" ("to boil"), and alludes to the fact that, whether of wax, lead, or gold, the material making the seal had to be melted to soften it for impression.


title: Papal bull

text: In 1535, the Florentine engraver Benvenuto Cellini was paid 50 "scudi" to recreate the metal matrix which would be used to impress the lead "bullae" of Pope Paul III. Cellini retained definitive iconographic items like the faces of the two apostles, but he carved them with a much greater attention to detail and artistic sensibility than had previously been in evidence. On the reverse of the seal he added several fleurs-de-lis, a heraldic device of the Farnese family, from which Pope Paul III descended.


title: Papal bull

text: Since the late 18th century, the lead "bulla" has been replaced with a red ink stamp of Saints Peter and Paul with the reigning pope's name encircling the picture, though very formal letters, e.g. the bull of Pope John XXIII convoking the Second Vatican Council, still receive the leaden seal.


title: Papal bull

text: Original papal bulls exist in quantity only after the 11th century onward, when the transition from fragile papyrus to the more durable parchment was made. None survives in entirety from before 819. Some original lead "bullae", however, still survive from as early as the 6th century.


title: Papal bull

text: In terms of content, the bull is simply the format in which a decree of the pope appears. Any subject may be treated in a bull, and many were and are, including statutory decrees, episcopal appointments, dispensations, excommunications, apostolic constitutions, canonizations, and convocations.


title: Papal bull

text: The bull was the exclusive letter format from the Vatican until the 14th century, when the papal brief appeared. The brief is the less formal form of papal communication and was authenticated with a wax impression, now a red ink impression, of the Ring of the Fisherman. There has never been an exact distinction of usage between a bull and a brief, but nowadays most letters, including encyclicals, are issued as briefs.


title: Kronecker product

text: In mathematics, the Kronecker product, sometimes denoted by ⊗, is an operation on two matrices of arbitrary size resulting in a block matrix. It is a generalization of the outer product (which is denoted by the same symbol) from vectors to matrices, and gives the matrix of the tensor product linear map with respect to a standard choice of basis. The Kronecker product is to be distinguished from the usual matrix multiplication, which is an entirely different operation. The Kronecker product is also sometimes called matrix direct product.


title: Kronecker product

text: The Kronecker product is named after the German mathematician Leopold Kronecker (1823–1891), even though there is little evidence that he was the first to define and use it. The Kronecker product has also been called the "Zehfuss matrix", and the "Zehfuss product", after , who in 1858 described this matrix operation, but Kronecker product is currently the most widely used.


title: Kronecker product

text: Using formula_3 and formula_4 to denote truncating integer division and remainder, respectively, and numbering the matrix elements starting from 0, one obtains formula_5 and formula_6 For the usual numbering starting from 1, one obtains


title: Kronecker product

text: If A and B represent linear transformations and , respectively, then represents the tensor product of the two maps, .


title: Kronecker product

text: Kronecker sums appear naturally in physics when considering ensembles of non-interacting systems. Let "H" be the Hamiltonian of the "k"th such system. Then the total Hamiltonian of the ensemble is


title: Kronecker product

text: The Kronecker product can be used to get a convenient representation for some matrix equations. Consider for instance the equation , where A, B and C are given matrices and the matrix X is the unknown. We can use the "vec trick" to rewrite this equation as


title: Kronecker product

text: Here, vec(X) denotes the vectorization of the matrix X, formed by stacking the columns of X into a single column vector.


title: Kronecker product

text: It now follows from the properties of the Kronecker product that the equation has a unique solution, if and only if A and B are invertible .


title: Kronecker product

text: For an example of the application of this formula, see the article on the Lyapunov equation. This formula also comes in handy in showing that the matrix normal distribution is a special case of the multivariate normal distribution. This formula is also useful for representing 2D image processing operations in matrix-vector form.


title: Kronecker product

text: Another example is when a matrix can be factored as a Hadamard product, then matrix multiplication can be performed faster by using the above formula. This can be applied recursively, as done in the radix-2 FFT and the Fast Walsh–Hadamard transform. Splitting a known matrix into the Hadamard product of two smaller matrices is known as the "nearest Kronecker product" problem, and can be solved exactly by using the SVD. To split a matrix into the Hadamard product of more than two matrices, in an optimal fashion, is a difficult problem and the subject of ongoing research; some authors cast it as a tensor decomposition problem.


title: Kronecker product

text: In conjunction with the least squares method, the Kronecker product can be used as an accurate solution to the hand eye calibration problem.


title: Kronecker product

text: Two related matrix operations are the Tracy–Singh and Khatri–Rao products, which operate on partitioned matrices. Let the matrix A be partitioned into the blocks A and matrix B into the blocks B, with of course , , and .


title: Kronecker product

text: which means that the ("ij")-th subblock of the product is the matrix , of which the ("k")-th subblock equals the matrix . Essentially the Tracy–Singh product is the pairwise Kronecker product for each pair of partitions in the two matrices.


title: Kronecker product

text: where formula_31 is vector convolution and formula_32 is the Fourier transform matrix (this result is an evolving of count sketch properties),


title: José de San Martín

text: José Francisco de San Martín y Matorras (25 February 177817 August 1850), known simply as José de San Martín () or "the Liberator of Argentina, Chile and Peru", was an Argentine general and the primary leader of the southern and central parts of South America's successful struggle for independence from the Spanish Empire who served as the Protector of Peru. Born in Yapeyú, Corrientes, in modern-day Argentina, he left the Viceroyalty of the Río de la Plata at the early age of seven to study in Málaga, Spain.


title: José de San Martín

text: In 1808, after taking part in the Peninsular War against France, San Martín contacted South American supporters of independence from Spain in London. In 1812, he set sail for Buenos Aires and offered his services to the United Provinces of the Río de la Plata, present-day Argentina. After the Battle of San Lorenzo and time commanding the Army of the North during 1814, he organized a plan to defeat the Spanish forces that menaced the United Provinces from the north, using an alternative path to the Viceroyalty of Peru. This objective first involved the establishment of a new army, the Army of the Andes, in Cuyo Province, Argentina. From there, he led the Crossing of the Andes to Chile, and triumphed at the Battle of Chacabuco and the Battle of Maipú (1818), thus liberating Chile from royalist rule. Then he sailed to attack the Spanish stronghold of Lima, Peru.


title: José de San Martín

text: On 12 July 1821, after seizing partial control of Lima, San Martín was appointed Protector of Peru, and Peruvian independence was officially declared on 28 July. On 26 July 1822, after a closed-door meeting with fellow " Simón Bolívar at Guayaquil, Ecuador, Bolívar took over the task of fully liberating Peru. San Martín unexpectedly left the country and resigned the command of his army, excluding himself from politics and the military, and moved to France in 1824. The details of that meeting would be a subject of debate by later historians.


title: José de San Martín

text: San Martín is regarded as a national hero of Argentina, Chile and Peru, a great military commander, and one of the Liberators of Spanish South America. The Order of the Liberator General San Martín ("), created in his honor, is the highest decoration conferred by the Argentine government.


title: José de San Martín

text: José de San Martín's father, Juan de San Martín, son of Andrés de San Martín and Isidora Gómez, was born in the town of Cervatos de la Cueza, in the current Province of Palencia (former Kingdom of León, in Spain) and was lieutenant governor of the department. He served as a military man to the Spanish Crown and in 1774 he was appointed Governor of the Yapeyú Department, part of the Government of the Guaraní Missions, created to administer the thirty Guaraní Jesuit missions, after the order was expelled from Hispanic America by Carlos III in 1767. based in Yapeyú reduction, and Gregoria Matorras del Ser. He was born in Yapeyú, Corrientes, an Indian reduction of Guaraní people. The exact year of his birth is disputed, as there are no records of his baptism. Later documents formulated during his life, such as passports, military career records and wedding documentation, gave him varying ages. Most of these documents point to his year of birth as either 1777 or 1778. The family moved to Buenos Aires in 1781, when San Martín was three or four years old.


title: José de San Martín

text: Juan requested to be transferred to Spain, leaving the Americas in 1783. The family settled in Madrid, but as Juan was unable to earn a promotion, they moved to Málaga. Once in the city, San Martín enrolled in Málaga's school of temporalities, beginning his studies in 1785. It is unlikely that he finished the six-year-long elementary education, before he enrolled in the Regiment of Murcia in 1789, when he reached the required age of 11. He began his military career as a cadet in the Murcian Infantry Unit.


title: José de San Martín

text: San Martín took part in several Spanish campaigns in North Africa, fighting in Melilla and in Oran against the Moors in 1791, among others. His rank was raised to Sub-Lieutenant in 1793, at the age of 15. He began a naval career during the War of the Second Coalition, when Spain was allied with France against Great Britain, during the French Revolution. His ship "Santa Dorotea" was captured by the Royal Navy, who kept him as a prisoner of war for some time. Soon afterward, he continued to fight in southern Spain, mainly in Cádiz and Gibraltar with the rank of Second Captain of light infantry. He continued to fight Portugal on the side of Spain in the War of the Oranges in 1801. He was promoted to captain in 1804. During his stay in Cádiz he was influenced by the ideas of the Spanish Enlightenment.


title: José de San Martín

text: At the outbreak of the Peninsular War in 1808, San Martín was named adjutant of Francisco María Solano Ortiz de Rosas. Rosas, suspected of being an "afrancesado", was killed by a popular uprising which overran the barracks and dragged his corpse in the streets. San Martín was appointed to the armies of Andalusia, and led a battalion of volunteers. In June 1808 his unit became incorporated into a guerrilla force led by Juan de la Cruz Mourgeón. He was nearly killed during the battle of Arjonilla, but was saved by Sergeant Juan de Dios. On 19 July 1808, Spanish and French forces engaged in the battle of Bailén, a Spanish victory that allowed the Army of Andalusia to attack and seize Madrid. For his actions during this battle, San Martín was awarded a gold medal, and his rank raised to lieutenant colonel. On 16 May 1811, he fought in the battle of Albuera under the command of general William Carr Beresford. By this time, the French armies held most of the Iberian Peninsula under their control, except for Cádiz.


title: José de San Martín

text: San Martín resigned from the Spanish army, for controversial reasons, and moved to South America, where he joined the Spanish American wars of independence. Historians propose several explanations for this action: the common ones are that he missed his native land, that he was in the employ of the British and the congruence of the goals of both wars. The first explanation suggests that when the wars of independence began San Martín thought that his duty was to return to his country and serve in the military conflict. The second explanation suggests that Britain, which would benefit from the independence of the South American countries, sent San Martín to achieve it. The third suggests that both wars were caused by the conflicts between Enlightenment ideas and absolutism, so San Martín still waged the same war; the wars in the Americas only developed separatist goals after the Spanish Absolutist Restoration.


title: José de San Martín

text: San Martín was initiated in the Lodge of Rational Knights in 1811. They met at the house of Carlos María de Alvear, other members were José Miguel Carrera, Aldao, Blanco Encalada and other "criollos", American-born Spaniards. They agreed to return to their home lands and join the local revolutionary movements. San Martín asked for his retirement from the military, and moved to Britain. He stayed in the country for a short time, and met many other South Americans at a lodge held at the house of Venezuelan general Francisco de Miranda at 27 Grafton Street (now 58 Grafton Way), Bloomsbury, London (the house now has a blue plaque with Miranda's name). Then he sailed to Buenos Aires aboard the British ship "George Canning", along with the South Americans Alvear, Francisco José de Vera and Matías Zapiola, and the Spaniards Francisco Chilavert and Eduardo Kailitz. They arrived on 9 March 1812, to serve under the First Triumvirate.


title: José de San Martín

text: A few days after his arrival in Buenos Aires in the United Provinces (formally named the Argentine Republic in 1826), San Martín was interviewed by the First Triumvirate. They appointed him a lieutenant colonel of cavalry, and asked him to create a cavalry unit, as Buenos Aires did not have good cavalry. He began to organize the Regiment of Mounted Grenadiers with Alvear and Zapiola. As Buenos Aires lacked professional military leaders, San Martín was entrusted with the protection of the whole city, but kept focused in the task of building the military unit.


title: José de San Martín

text: San Martín, Alvear and Zapiola established a local branch of the Lodge of Rational Knights, along with morenists, the former supporters of the late Mariano Moreno. This lodge sought to promote liberal ideas; its secrecy hides whether it was a real Masonic lodge, or a lodge with political goals. It had no ties to the Premier Grand Lodge of England. In September 1812, San Martín married María de los Remedios de Escalada, a 14-year-old girl from one of the local wealthy families.


title: José de San Martín

text: The lodge organized the Revolution of 8 October 1812 when the terms of office of the triumvirs Manuel de Sarratea and Feliciano Chiclana ended. Juan Martín de Pueyrredón promoted antimorenist new members, Manuel Obligado and Pedro Medrano, by preventing the vote of three deputies and thus achieving a majority. As this caused a commotion, San Martín and Alvear intervened with their military force, and the Buenos Aires Cabildo disestablished the triumvirate. It was replaced by the Second Triumvirate of Juan José Paso, Nicolás Rodríguez Peña and Antonio Álvarez Jonte. The new triumvirate called the Assembly of the Year XIII and promoted San Martín to colonel.


title: José de San Martín

text: Montevideo, on the other shore of the Río de la Plata, was still a royalist stronghold. Argentine general José Rondeau laid siege to it, but the Montevidean navy eluded it by pillaging nearby cities. San Martín was sent with the new Regiment to watch the activities in the Paraná River shore.


title: José de San Martín

text: The Regiment followed the navy from a distance, avoiding detection. They hid in the San Carlos Convent, in San Lorenzo, Santa Fe. San Martín watched the enemy ships from the top of the convent during the night. The royalists disembarked at dawn, ready to pillage and the regiment charged into battle. San Martín employed a pincer movement to trap the royalists. He led one column and Justo Bermúdez the other.


title: José de San Martín

text: San Martín's horse was killed during the battle, and his leg was trapped under the corpse of the animal after the fall. A royalist, probably Zabala himself, attempted to kill San Martín while he was trapped under his dead horse where he suffered a saber injury to his face, and a bullet wound to his arm. Juan Bautista Cabral and Juan Bautista Baigorria of San Martín's regiment intervened and saved his life; Cabral was mortally wounded, and died shortly afterwards.


title: José de San Martín

text: The battle did not have a notable influence on the war and did not prevent further pillage. Montevideo was finally subdued by Admiral William Brown during the Second Banda Oriental campaign. Antonio Zabala, the leader of the Montevidean army, served under San Martín during the crossing of the Andes years later.


title: José de San Martín

text: Once again in Buenos Aires, San Martín and his wife attended to the first official performance of the Argentine National Anthem, on 28 May 1813 at the Coliseo Theater. Oral tradition has it that the premiere took place on 14 May 1813 at the home of aristocrat Mariquita Sánchez de Thompson, with San Martín also attending, but there is no documentary evidence of that. The lyrics of the new anthem included several references to the secessionist will of the time.


title: José de San Martín

text: Although they were still allies, San Martín began to distance himself from Alvear, who controlled the Assembly and the lodge. Alvear opposed the merchants and the Uruguayan caudillo José Gervasio Artigas, San Martín thought that it was risky to open such conflicts when the royalists were still a threat. The Army of the North, which was operating at the Upper Peru, was defeated at the battles of Vilcapugio and Ayohuma, so the triumvirate appointed San Martín to head it, replacing Manuel Belgrano.


title: José de San Martín

text: San Martín and Belgrano met at the Yatasto relay. The army was in poor condition, and San Martín initially refused to remove Belgrano from the army, as it would hurt the soldiers' morale. However, the supreme director Gervasio Posadas (who replaced the triumvirate in government) insisted, and San Martín acted as instructed. San Martín stayed only a few weeks in Tucumán, reorganizing the army and studying the terrain. He also had a positive impression of the guerrilla war waged by Martín Miguel de Güemes against the royalists, similar to the Peninsular War. It was a defensive war, and San Martín trusted that they could prevent a royalist advance in Jujuy.


title: José de San Martín

text: San Martín had health problems in April 1814, probably caused by hematemesis. He temporarily delegated the command of the Army to colonel Francisco Fernández de la Cruz and requested leave to recover. He moved to Santiago del Estero, and then to Córdoba where he slowly recovered. During this time King Ferdinand VII returned to the throne, began the absolutist restoration and began to organize an attack on the rogue colonies. After an interview with Tomás Guido, San Martín came up with a plan: organize an army in Mendoza, cross the Andes to Chile, and move to Peru by sea; all while Güemes defended the north frontier. This would place him in Peru without crossing the harsh terrain of Upper Peru, where two campaigns had already been defeated. To advance this plan, he requested the governorship of the Cuyo province, which was accepted. He took office on 6 September.


title: José de San Martín

text: The absolutist restoration in Spain and the growing influence of Artigas generated a political crisis in Buenos Aires, forcing Posadas to resign. Alvear became the new Supreme Director, but had to resign after three months. San Martín's plan was complicated as well by the Disaster of Rancagua, a royalist victory that restored absolutism in Chile, ending the "Patria Vieja" period. San Martín initially proposed a regular-sized army, simply to reinforce Chile, but changed to propose a larger one, to liberate the country from the occupation. Chileans Bernardo O'Higgins, José Miguel Carrera, Luis Carrera and Manuel Rodríguez, the leaders of the deposed Chilean rule, sought refugee in Cuyo, along with their armies. O'Higgins and Rodríguez were well received, but the Carrera brothers intended to act as a government in exile. They ignored the local laws of Cuyo, and their soldiers committed acts of vandalism. San Martín imprisoned them and sent them to Buenos Aires. They proposed a plan to liberate Chile, different to the one outlined by San Martín, who rejected it as impractical. This initiated a rivalry between the Carreras and San Martín.


title: José de San Martín

text: San Martín immediately began to organize the Army of the Andes. He drafted all the citizens who could bear arms and all the slaves from ages 16 to 30, requested reinforcements to Buenos Aires, and reorganized the economy for war production. He took another leave to restore his health four months after taking power, so Alvear appointed Gregorio Perdriel. This appointment was resisted by the Mendoza Cabildo, which ratified San Martín.


title: José de San Martín

text: The government of San Martín repeated some of the ideas outlined in the "Operations plan", drafted by Mariano Moreno at the beginning of the war. A combination of incentives, confiscations and planned economy allowed the country to provision the army: gunpowder, pieces of artillery, mules and horses, food, military clothing, etc. Mining increased, with increased extraction of lead, copper, saltpeter, sulfur and borax, which had several uses and improved local finances. Hundreds of women wove clothing used by the soldiers. Father José Luis Beltrán headed a military factory of 700 men, which produced rifles and horseshoes. San Martín stayed on good terms with both the government of Buenos Aires and the provincial "caudillos", without fully allying with either one. He was able to receive provisions from both. He considered that the war of independence took priority over the civil wars.


title: José de San Martín

text: The army was not ready as of the summer of 1815, delaying the crossing. Given the harsh conditions on the mountains, the crossing could only be done in the summer season, when there is less snow. Buenos Aires did not send more provisions after the ousting of Alvear. San Martín proposed to resign and serve under Balcarce, if they would support the campaign. San Martín and Guido wrote a report in the autumn of 1816, detailing to the Supreme Director Antonio González de Balcarce the full military plan of operations.


title: José de San Martín

text: San Martín proposed that the country declare independence immediately, before the crossing. That way, they would be acting as a sovereign nation, and not as a mere rebellion. He had great influence over the Congress of Tucumán, a Congress with deputies from the provinces, which was established in March 1816. He opposed the appointment of José Moldes, a soldier from Salta who was against the policies of Buenos Aires, as he feared Moldes would break national unity. He rejected proposals to be appointed Supreme Director himself. He supported his friend and lodge member Juan Martín de Pueyrredón for the office. Pueyrredón resumed the military aid to Cuyo. The Congress of Tucumán declared independence on 9 July 1816. Congress discussed the type of government of the United Provinces of the Río de la Plata (modern Argentina). General Manuel Belgrano, who had made a diplomatic mission to Europe, informed them that independence would be more easily acknowledged by the European powers if the country established a monarchy. For this purpose, Belgrano proposed a plan to crown a noble of the Inca Empire as king (the Sapa Inca dynasty had been dethroned in the 16th century). San Martín supported this proposal, as well as Güemes and most deputies, except for those from Buenos Aires, who undermined the project and prevented its approval.


title: José de San Martín

text: Needing even more soldiers, San Martín extended the emancipation of slaves to the ages from 14 to 55, and even allowed them to be promoted to higher military ranks. He proposed a similar measure at the national level, but Pueyrredón encountered severe resistance. He included as well the Chileans who escaped Chile after the disaster of Rancagua, and organized them in four units, each one of infantry, cavalry, artillery and dragoons. At the end of 1816, the Army of the Andes had 5,000 men, 10,000 mules and 1,500 horses. San Martin organized military intelligence, propaganda and disinformation to confuse the royalist armies (such as the specific routes taken in the Andes), boost the national fervor of his army and promote desertion among the royalists.


title: José de San Martín

text: Although the Congress of Tucumán had already formalized the flag of Argentina, the Army of the Andes did not use it, choosing a banner with two columns, light blue and white, and a coat of arms roughly similar to the Coat of arms of Argentina. The army did not use the flag of Argentina because it was not exclusively an Argentine army.


title: José de San Martín

text: Contrary to the common understanding, the crossing of the Andes was not the first time that a military expedition crossed the mountain range. The difference from previous operations was the size of the army, and that it had to be ready for combat right after the crossing. The army was divided in six columns, each taking a different path. Colonel Francisco Zelada in La Rioja took the Come-Caballos pass towards Copiapó. Juan Manuel Cabot, in San Juan, moved to Coquimbo. Ramón Freire and José León Lemos led two columns in the south. The bulk of the armies left from Mendoza. San Martín, O'Higgins and Soler led a column across the Los Patos pass, and Juan Gregorio de Las Heras another one across the Uspallata Pass.


title: José de San Martín

text: The whole operation took nearly a month. The armies took dried food for the soldiers and fodder for the horses, because of the inhospitable conditions. They also consumed garlics and onions, to prevent altitude sickness. Only 4,300 mules and 511 horses survived, less than half the original complement.


title: José de San Martín

text: Manuel Rodríguez had returned to Chile before the crossing, and began a guerrilla war in Santiago de Chile against the royalists, in support of the upcoming army. He was supported in the south of the city and the countryside. The strategy was to occupy nearby villages, seize the royalists' weapons and flee. The attacks on Melipilla and San Fernando, and a failed one at Curicó, demoralized the royalists.


title: José de San Martín

text: The columns that crossed the Andes began to take military actions. The column in the north led by Cabot defeated the royalists in Salala, seized Coquimbo and then Copiapó. In the south, Ramón Freire captured Talca. Las Heras routed royalist outposts in Juncalito and Potrerillos. Bernardo O'Higgins, who came from Los Patos pass, defeated the royalists at Las Coimas. This allowed the main columns to gather at Aconcagua valley, meeting at the slopes of Chacabuco. Royalist commander Rafael Maroto converged his armies on that location as well. Maroto had 2,450 men and 5 pieces of artillery, San Martín had 3,600 men and 9 pieces of artillery. The misdirection that concealed the path of the bulk of the Army allowed San Martín this advantage, as other royalist forces were scattered in other regions of Chile.


title: José de San Martín

text: The battle began on 12 February. San Martín organized a pincer movement, with Soler leading the west column and O'Higgins the east one. O'Higgins, eager to avenge the defeat at Rancagua, rushed to the attack, instead of coordinating with Soler. This gave the royalists a brief advantage. San Martín instructed Soler to rush the attack as well. The combined attack was successful and San Martín's column secured the final victory. The battle ended with 600 royalists dead and 500 prisoners, with only 12 deaths and 120 injuries in the Army of the Andes.


title: José de San Martín

text: The army triumphantly entered Santiago de Chile the following day. Governor Francisco Marcó del Pont attempted to escape to Valparaíso and sail to Peru, but he was captured on 22 February and returned to Santiago. Several other officials were captured as well and sent as prisoners to San Luis, Argentina. San Martín sent Marcó del Pont prisoner to Mendoza.


title: José de San Martín

text: Three deputies from Coquimbo, Santiago and Concepción organized a new government, and proposed San Martín as Supreme Director of Chile. He declined the offer and proposed O'Higgins in his stead: he recommended that the Supreme Director should be someone from Chile. San Martín would instead organize the navy to take the fight to Peru. He established a local chapter of the Lodge of Rational Knights, named as Logia Lautaro, in reference to Mapuche leader Lautaro.


title: José de San Martín

text: The victory in Chacabuco did not liberate all Chile. Royalist forces still resisted in southern Chile, allied with local Mapuche chiefs. Las Heras occupied Concepción, but failed to occupy Talcahuano. The royalist resistance lasted for several months, and Talcahuano was only captured when most of the continent was already free.


title: José de San Martín

text: San Martín left O'Higgins in charge of the Army, and returned to Buenos Aires to request resources for the campaign to Peru. He did not have a good reception this time. Pueyrredón thought that Chile should compensate Buenos Aires for the money invested in their liberation, as the support to San Martín reduced the support to Belgrano, and the Portuguese-Brazilian invasion of the Eastern Bank menaced Buenos Aires. Incapable of financial support, Buenos Aires sent lawyer Manuel Aguirre to the United States, to request aid and acknowledge the declaration of independence. However, the mission failed, as the United States stayed neutral in the conflict because they negotiated the purchase of Florida with Spain. The Chilean José Miguel Carrera had obtained ships on his own after the disaster of Rancagua, which he intended to use to liberate Chile; but as San Martín had already done that, he refused to place his fleet under the Army of the Andes. Carrera was an enemy of O'Higgins and sought to navigate to Chile and depose him, so Pueyrredón imprisoned him, and confiscated his ships.


title: José de San Martín

text: San Martín requested help from British Admiral William Bowles. He wrote from Chile and expected to find him in Buenos Aires, but Bowles had embarked for Río de Janeiro. Bowles considered that San Martín was more trustworthy than Alvear, and praised his support for monarchism. San Martín did not obtain the ships and interrupted the correspondence with Bowles for some months. He returned to Chile; his wife Remedios stayed in Buenos Aires with her daughter Mercedes because of her health problems. Unable to get help from either Buenos Aires or foreign powers, San Martín promoted a more decisive commitment from Chile to finance the navy.


title: José de San Martín

text: The failure to liberate Talcahuano was followed by naval reinforcements from the North. The viceroy of Peru sent Mariano Osorio in an attempt to reconquer Chile. The royalists would then advance by land from south to north towards Santiago. San Martín thought that it was not possible to defend Concepción, so he ordered O'Higgins to leave the city. 50,000 Chileans took cattle and grain and moved north, burning everything else, so that they did not leave supplies for the royalists. As he had done with the Tucumán Congress, San Martín urged a declaration of independence, to legitimize the government and the military actions. The Chilean Declaration of Independence was issued on 18 February 1818, one year after the battle of Chacabuco.


title: José de San Martín

text: San Martín, Las Heras and Balcarce met in Curicó, and the royalists in Talca, in a plain known as "Cancha rayada". As the patriots had a numeric advantage, 7,000 against 4,600, Osorio tried to avoid open battle, and tried instead a stealth operation. A spy informed San Martín that Osorio would make a surprise attack in the night, but the army could not be prepared in time. 1,000 soldiers fled, 120 died, and San Martín's assistant was killed. O'Higgins tried to resist with his unit, but retired when he was shot in the arm. Las Heras managed to retire his army in order, saving his 3,500 men. The patriots escaped to Santiago.


title: José de San Martín

text: Despite the defeat, the soldiers were received as heroes in Santiago. Thanks to Las Heras, a potential disaster for the patriot armies turned into a minor setback. The army was reorganized again, but the deaths, injuries and desertions caused by the defeat at Cancha Rayada reduced its size to 5,000 soldiers, which was closer to the royalist forces. They took position next to the Maipo River, near Santiago.


title: José de San Martín

text: San Martín made a brief reconnaissance of the royalist army, and noticed several flaws in their organization. Feeling secure of victory, he claimed that "Osorio is clumsier than I thought. Today's triumph is ours. The sun as witness!". The battle began at 11:00 am. The patriot artillery on the right fired on the royalist infantry on the left. Manuel Escalada led mounted grenadiers to capture the royalist artillery, turning them against their owners. Burgos' regiment severely punished the patriot left wing, mainly composed of emancipated slaves, and took 400 lives. San Martín ordered the mounted grenadiers led by Hilarión de la Quintana to charge against the regiment. The firing suddenly ended and royalists began to fight with sword bayonets, under the cries "Long live the king!" and "Long live the homeland!" respectively. Finally, the royalists ended their cries and began to disperse.


title: José de San Martín

text: When the regiment of Burgos realized that their line was broken, they stopped resisting, and the soldiers began to disperse. The cavalry pursued and killed most of them. At the end of the battle, the royalists had been trapped among the units of Las Heras in the west, Alvarado in the middle, Quintana in the east and the cavalries of Zapiola and Freire. Osorio tried to fall back to the hacienda "Lo Espejo" but could not reach it, so he tried to escape to Talcahuano. Ordóñez made his last stand at that hacienda, where 500 royalists died.


title: José de San Martín

text: The battle ended in the afternoon. O'Higgins, still injured by the wound received in Cancha Rayada, arrived during the final action at the hacienda. He claimed "Glory to the savior of Chile!", in reference to San Martín, who praised him for going to the battlefield with his unhealed wound. They made an embrace on their horses, now known as the "Embrace of Maipú".


title: José de San Martín

text: The battle of Maipú secured Chilean independence. Except for Osorio, who escaped with 200 cavalry, all top royalist military leaders were captured. All their armed forces were either killed or captured, and all their artillery, weapons, military hospitals, money and resources were lost. The victory was praised by Güemes, Bolívar and the international press.


title: José de San Martín

text: San Martín made a new request for ships to Bowles, but received no answer. He moved again to Buenos Aires, to make a similar request. He arrived to Mendoza a few days after the execution of the Chileans Luis and Juan José Carrera, brothers of José Miguel Carrera. The specific initiative of those executions is controversial. Chilean historian Benjamín Vicuña Mackenna indicts San Martín, while J. C. Raffo de la Reta blames O'Higgins instead. Manuel Rodríguez was also imprisoned and then killed in prison; this death may have been decided by the Lautaro lodge. San Martín could not have taken part in it, as he was already on the way to Buenos Aires.


title: José de San Martín

text: San Martín was not well received in Buenos Aires. Pueyrredón initially declined to give further help, citing the conflicts with the federal caudillos and the organization of a huge royalist army in Cádiz that would try to reconquer the La Plata basin. He thought that Chile should organize the navy against Peru, not Buenos Aires. San Martín discussed with him and finally got financing of 500,000 pesos. He returned to Mendoza with his wife and daughter and received a letter from Pueyrredón, who said that Buenos Aires could only deliver one-third of the promised funds. This complicated the project, as neither Santiago de Chile nor Mendoza had the resources needed. San Martín resigned from the Army, but it is unclear whether his decision to resign was sincere or was to apply pressure to his backers. The government of Buenos Aires still considered San Martín vital to the national defense, so Pueyrredón agreed to pay the 500,000 pesos requested, and encouraged San Martín to withdraw his resignation.


title: José de San Martín

text: San Martín proposed to mediate between Buenos Aires and the Liga Federal led by Artigas. He thought that the civil war was counter-productive to national unity, and that an end to hostilities would free resources needed for the navy. He calculated that Artigas might condition the peace on a joint declaration of war to colonial Brazil; so San Martín proposed to defeat the royalists first and then demand the return of the Eastern Bank to the United Provinces. O'Higgins recommended caution, fearing that San Martín might be captured. Pueyrredón rejected the mediation, as he did not recognize Artigas as an equal to negotiate with him.


title: José de San Martín

text: Although Artigas was defeated by the Luso-Brazilian armies, his allies Estanislao López and Francisco Ramírez continued hostilities against Buenos Aires for its inactivity against the invasion. Pueyrredón called the Army of the Andes and the Army of the North (led by Belgrano) to aid Buenos Aires in the conflict. Guido noted to San Martín that if both armies did that, the north of Argentina and Chile would be easily reconquered by the royalists. San Martín also knew that most of the soldiers of the Army of the Andes would not be willing to aid Buenos Aires in the civil war, as most were from other provinces or from Chile. San Martín had doubts as well about the projected arrival of a large military expedition from Spain, as the absolutist restoration of Ferdinand VII had met severe resistance in Spain. San Martín finally kept the Army in Chile when Belgrano's lieutenant Viamonte signed an armistice with López; he thought that the conflict had ended.


title: José de San Martín

text: However, the minister of war Matías de Irigoyen ordered once more the return of the Army of the Andes, and appointed Francisco Fernández de la Cruz as its leader, displacing San Martín. San Martín resigned again, and observed that the Army would not be able to cross the Andes from Chile to Buenos Aires because the winter snow was blocking the trails. All the leaders of the military units of the Army of the Andes refused to go to Buenos Aires, as their soldiers would mutiny or desert. Facing both the resignation of San Martín and the refusals to obey the orders, the Supreme Director canceled the orders, and the Army of the Andes stayed in Chile. With the sanction of the Argentine Constitution of 1819, Pueyrredón ended his mandate as Supreme Director, replaced by José Rondeau.


title: José de San Martín

text: The navy was finally completed in Chile, and the British captain Thomas Cochrane was appointed to lead it. But it was not sent to Peru immediately: there were still rumors of an attack from Spain, and if needed the navy would move to Buenos Aires and fight the Spanish ships. The civil war resumed and San Martín attempted once more to mediate, to no effect. Rondeau again requested the return of the Army of the Andes, without success. San Martín returned to Chile and prepared to take part in the naval actions against Peru, ignoring Buenos Aires. The Army of the North refused to join the conflict as well, revolting in Arequito and disbanding. Without either reinforcements, Rondeau was defeated by federal forces in the Battle of Cepeda. The Congress of Tucumán and the office of the Supreme Director of the United Provinces of the Río de la Plata were dissolved and the country turned into a confederation of 13 provinces, without a central state. This period is known as the "Anarchy of the year XX". The rebellion of Spanish general Rafael del Riego and an outbreak of yellow fever in the punitive expedition organized in Cádiz ended the royalist threat to Buenos Aires. The Act of Rancagua invested San Martín with the full authority over the Army of the Andes, as it now lacked a national authority over it.


title: José de San Martín

text: Peru had armed forces nearly four times the strength of those of San Martín: 6,244 soldiers in Lima, 8,000 at the northern provinces, 1,263 in the coast, 1,380 in Arequipa and 6,000 in the Upper Peru; nearly 23,000 soldiers in total. The Army of the Andes had 4,000 soldiers instead, and Cochrane's navy another 1,600. With this disparity of forces, San Martín tried to avoid battles. He tried instead to divide the enemy forces in several locations, as he did during the Crossing of the Andes, and trap the royalists with a pincer movement with either reinforcements of the Army of the North from the South or the army of Simón Bolívar from the North. He also tried to promote rebellions and insurrection within the royalist ranks, and promised the emancipation of any slaves that deserted their Peruvian masters and join the army of San Martín. The spreading of the news of the Liberal Triennium, a liberal rebellion in Spain that reinstated the Spanish Constitution of 1812, also sought to undermine royalist loyalty.


title: José de San Martín

text: The navy sailed from Chile on 20 August 1820. It was composed of eight warships, eleven gunboats, 247 cannons and a crew of 1,600, most of them Chileans. There were 12 frigates, and a brig with the 4,000 soldiers of the Army of the Andes. San Martín was the leader of the military expedition. They landed in Paracas, 200 km to the south of Lima, on 7 September, and occupied the nearby city of Pisco, which was abandoned by the royalists.


title: José de San Martín

text: Peruvian viceroy Joaquín de la Pezuela had instructions from Spain to negotiate with the patriots. Under an armistice the opponents celebrated a meeting in Miraflores. The viceroy's deputies proposed to adopt the liberal Spanish constitution if San Martín left the country, but the patriots requested instead that Spain grant the independence of Peru. The negotiations did not bear fruit.


title: José de San Martín

text: San Martín isolated Lima from the surrounding countryside, and sent Juan Antonio Álvarez de Arenales to promote rebellions among the natives. The Army of the Andes moved north of Lima by sea. San Martín and Arenales besieged the city from two directions, and Cochrane attacked the port of El Callao. Cochrane captured the ship "Esmeralda", and the royalist regiment Numancia. Nearly 700 expeditionary soldiers of New Granada deserted and joined the patriots. Several populations in the north of Peru supported San Martín, and Arenales defeated the royalists at the Battle of Pasco. More than 300 royalists joined the patriots, including Andrés de Santa Cruz.


title: José de San Martín

text: However, the plans did not fully work as intended. The native populations that joined Arenales could not resist the royalist counter-attacks, and the slaves did not join the army in the expected numbers. The Argentine provinces could not send the supporting army that San Martín had requested earlier, and the Army of the North no longer existed. As a result, he wrote to Simón Bolívar, trying to coordinate actions with him.


title: José de San Martín

text: Pezuela was deposed by a military-liberal coup, and José de la Serna e Hinojosa became the new viceroy. De la Serna called San Martín to negotiate an end of hostilities. The result was the same than with Pezuela: De la Serna proposed to enact the 1812 Spanish constitution (Perú inside Spain), and San Martín demanded the independence of Peru (with an independent monarchy). The rejection of the Spanish constitution was motivated by the disproportional representation of the Americas in the Constituent Assembly that wrote it. Both armies agreed a temporary armistice. San Martín proposed to establish a constitutional monarchy with a European monarch, with a regency ruling in the interim. The proposal was rejected, on the grounds that they could not accept it without Ferdinand's approval.


title: José de San Martín

text: As hostilities renewed, San Martín organized several guerrilla groups in the countryside, and laid siege to Lima, but did not force his entry, as he did not want to appear as a conqueror to the local population. However, De la Serna suddenly left the city with his army, for unknown reasons. San Martín called for an open cabildo to discuss the independence of the country, which was agreed. With this approval, the authority in Lima, the support of the northern provinces and the port of El Callao under siege, San Martín declared the independence of Peru on 28 July 1821. The war, however, had not ended yet.


title: José de San Martín

text: Unlike Chile, Peru had no local politicians of the stature of O'Higgins, so San Martín became the leader of the government, even though he did not want to. He was appointed Protector of Peru. As Peruvian society was highly conservative, San Martín did not take the liberal ideas too far immediately. The provisional statutes contained few changes and ratified several existing laws. All the types of servitude imposed on the natives, such as mita and yanaconazgo, were abolished, and the natives received citizenship. He did not abolish slavery completely, as Peru had 40,000 slaveowners, and declared "freedom of wombs" instead, which emancipated the sons of slaves; he emancipated as well the slaves of the royalists who left Lima. He also abolished the Inquisition and corporal punishment, and enacted freedom of speech. During his stay in Peru, San Martín had a romance with Rosa Campuzano, a woman from Guayaquil.


title: José de San Martín

text: The royalist armies that stayed in the Peruvian countryside headed to Lima, led by Canterac. In a confusing episode, there was no battle, as neither one attacked. Canterac changed his path to El Callao, took resources from it, and returned to his base. There was no battle during their return either. Without resources, El Callao surrendered in a few days. Both armies took inadvisable actions: San Martín allowed Canterac to receive reinforcements, and Canterac left a key military objective incapable to resist. There is no known documentation that provides a reasonable explanation of those events.


title: José de San Martín

text: Cochrane had several disputes with San Martín. He discussed several of his actions and tried to bypass his authority. During the blockade of El Callao, he proposed that O'Higgins take control of the mission and send any spoils of battle to Chile. As San Martín was appointed Protector of Peru, Cochrane reasoned that San Martín was no longer under Chilean command, and took the navy away. In later years Cochrane made accusations against San Martín in Chile.


title: José de San Martín

text: Bolívar took control of Caracas with his victory at the battle of Carabobo, and the Congress of Cúcuta issued laws similar to those in Perú. Guayaquil declared independence, and Bolívar sent Antonio José de Sucre to reinforce them. Sucre's forces were not enough, and requested help from San Martín. Peru sent a military force of 1,300 men. Bolívar entered the city a month later, and claimed that for historical reasons Quito should be part of Colombia. San Martín and Bolívar sought to generate Latin American integration, but disagreed on the type of government: Bolívar proposed a republic, and San Martín a constitutional monarchy, reasoning that it would be easier to receive international recognition for the now-independent South American nations. Peru and Colombia signed a treaty of integration, to be proposed to Chile, the United Provinces of the Río de la Plata and Paraguay, and at a later point to the United Provinces of Central America and the Empire of Brazil.


title: José de San Martín

text: San Martín thought that if he joined forces with Bolívar he would be able to defeat the remnant royalist forces in Peru. Both liberators would meet in Quito, so San Martín appointed Torre Tagle to manage the government during his absence. Bolívar was unable to meet San Martín at the arranged date, so San Martín returned to Lima, but still left Tagle in government. Bolívar moved from Quito to Guayaquil, which secured its independence. There were discussions on the future of the region: some factions wanted to join Colombia, others to join Peru, and others to become a new nation. Bolívar ended the discussion by annexing Guayaquil into Colombia. There was Peruvian pressure on San Martín to do a similar thing, to annex Guayaquil to Peru.


title: José de San Martín

text: The Guayaquil conference took place on 26 July 1822. They had two private meetings, on that day and the following one. As there were no witnesses or minutes, the content of their discussions can only be inferred from their later actions and their letters to other people. Some likely topics of discussion may have been a request of reinforcements, and an offer to combine the armies into a single one, with San Martín ranked second to Bolívar.


title: José de San Martín

text: The minister Bernardo Monteagudo was removed from office by a Peruvian rebellion, during San Martín's absence. San Martín resigned as Protector of Peru a few days later and returned to Valparaíso, Chile. Several reasons influenced him to resign. The military discipline of the Army of the Andes was compromised, but San Martín was reluctant to take drastic action against his officers. The authority of San Martín and Bolívar, and the local rivalry of their respective countries Peru and Colombia, limited their options for joint work: Colombians would not have liked Bolívar to give many of his forces to San Martín, whilst Peruvians would not have liked their Protector to be second in command to Bolívar, and a joint command would complicate the maintenance of military discipline. Unlike Bolívar, backed up by the Colombian government, San Martín did not have more resources than those he already had: Buenos Aires denied him any support, the other Argentine governors (such as Juan Bautista Bustos) supported him but did not have resources to provide, O'Higgins was about to be deposed in Chile, and Cochrane took the navy and left him without naval power. Finally, he felt that only a very strong authority would be able to prevent balkanization, but refused to rule as a dictator himself.


title: José de San Martín

text: After his retirement, San Martín intended to live in Cuyo. Although the war of independence had ended in the region, the Argentine Civil Wars continued. The unitarians wanted to organize the country as a unitary state centered on Buenos Aires, and the federalists preferred a federation of provinces. San Martín had good relations with the federal "caudillos" and a personal feud with unitarian leader Bernardino Rivadavia, but tried to stay neutral. San Martín's wife, María de los Remedios de Escalada, died in 1823, so he returned to Buenos Aires. He took his daughter Mercedes Tomasa, who was living with her mother's family, and sailed to Europe.


title: José de San Martín

text: After a failed attempt to settle in France, he moved to Britain and then to the capital of present-day Belgium, Brussels, where he settled. He intended to live there until Mercedes completed her education and then return to Argentina. Rivadavia visited Brussels and San Martín intended to challenge him to a duel, but was dissuaded by Diego Paroissien.


title: José de San Martín

text: Despite his feud with Rivadavia, who was appointed President of Argentina, San Martín offered his military services in the War with Brazil, but received no response. He sailed to the country when Rivadavia was deposed and replaced by the federal Manuel Dorrego, and the war ended in the interim. He intended to return anyway, as a federal government would spare him the persecution he would otherwise have received from the unitarians. He was unable to do as he planned. When his ship docked in Río de Janeiro he was informed that the unitarian Juan Lavalle had deposed Dorrego, and when he reached Montevideo he was informed that Lavalle had captured and executed Dorrego and begun a campaign of terror against all federals in the country. The ship arrived in Buenos Aires, but San Martín did not leave it, instead returning to Montevideo. Lavalle was unable to put down the federal rebellion against him, and offered San Martín the government. San Martín declined and returned to Brussels.


title: José de San Martín

text: By this time the federal Juan Manuel de Rosas had begun to pacify the civil war started by Lavalle and earned San Martín's admiration. They began to exchange friendly letters. The Belgian Revolution and the cholera epidemic of 1831 made San Martín leave Brussels and move to Paris, where both San Martín and his daughter became ill. They were helped by Mariano Balcarce. Mariano married Mercedes, and they had a daughter, María Mercedes.


title: José de San Martín

text: In 1837 France began a blockade of the Rio de la Plata against Rosas. San Martín offered his military services to Rosas, which was declined because of San Martín's advanced age, and condemned the role of the unitarians in that conflict, as they had allied themselves with France against their own nation. San Martín bequeathed his curved saber to Rosas, because of his successful defense of the country. The conflict between France and Argentina renewed in the Anglo-French blockade of the Río de la Plata, which San Martín condemned as well. During this time he met Florencio Varela and Domingo Faustino Sarmiento.


title: José de San Martín

text: During the French 1848 revolution, San Martin left Paris and moved to Boulogne-sur-Mer, a small city in northern France. He was almost blind and had many health problems because of his advanced age, but continued to write letters and keep in touch with the news from South America. Shortly after receiving the news of the Argentine victory against the Anglo-French blockade, he died, three o'clock on 17 August 1850.


title: José de San Martín

text: José de San Martín died on 17 August 1850, in his house at Boulogne-sur-Mer, France. Between 1850 and 1861, his corpse was buried in the crypt of the Basilica of Notre-Dame de Boulogne. He requested in his will to be taken to the cemetery without any funeral, and to be moved to Buenos Aires thereafter. Balcarce informed Rosas and the foreign minister Felipe Arana of San Martín's death. Balcarce oversaw the embalming of his remains and their temporary stay in a chapel of the city. He also sent San Martin's saber to Rosas.


title: José de San Martín

text: However, the rebellion of Justo José de Urquiza against Rosas in 1851, Rosas' defeat at the battle of Caseros and the resulting chaos delayed the move of San Martín's remains to Buenos Aires. Still, both Rosas and Urquiza organized public homages to San Martín, despite the conflict. Buenos Aires seceded from Argentina as the state of Buenos Aires, dominated by Unitarians who despised San Martín. Thus, the move of his remains was postponed indefinitely. Aware that there were no favorable conditions for the project, Balcarce arranged a creation of a tomb in the Boulogne-sur-Mer cemetery.


title: José de San Martín

text: San Martín's remains were finally repatriated on 29 May 1880, during the presidency of Nicolás Avellaneda. The mausoleum was placed inside the Buenos Aires Metropolitan Cathedral. As San Martín was suspected of being a freemason, the mausoleum was placed in an expanded wing of the cathedral.


title: José de San Martín

text: San Martín was first acclaimed as a national hero of Argentina by the Federals, both during his life and immediately after his death. The unitarians still resented his refusal to aid the Supreme Directors with the Army of the Andes and his constant support to Rosas. The unitarian Bartolomé Mitre wrote a biography of San Martín, ""Historia de San Martín y de la emancipación sudamericana"" (). By that time, several accounts of San Martín were under way in many countries: Valentín Ledesma from Lima wrote in 1853 about San Martín's campaign in Peru, and Benjamín Vicuña Mackenna from Chile wrote in 1856 about the Chilean War of Independence. With Mitre's book, San Martín was universally acclaimed as the Liberator of Argentina, but his work introduced several inaccuracies to make San Martín's campaign support Mitre's political project. These inaccuracies were detected and fixed by later historians.


title: José de San Martín

text: Statues of San Martín appear in most cities of Argentina, as well as in Santiago and Lima. José Gil de Castro made the first portrait of San Martín, and several other artists made works about him. The most important films featuring San Martín are the 1970 "El Santo de la Espada" and the 2010 "".


title: José de San Martín

text: The neighbourhood of San Martín in Bogotá, Colombia's Centro Internacional area is named for the large equestrian statue of the General situated in a small plaza also named for him.


title: José de San Martín

text: Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic has an avenue named Jose de San Martin in his honor that connects the colonial zone to the west of the city.


title: José de San Martín

text: An equestrian statue of the General was erected in Boulogne-sur-Mer; the statue was inaugurated on 24 October 1909, at a ceremony attended by several units from the Argentine military. The statue was erected through purely private initiative, with the support of national government of Argentina, the municipal council of Buenos Aires and a public funding campaign. The statue is 10m high, on a 4m by 6m base; it is well known to locals. Located on the beach, it was virtually untouched by the numerous bombings campaigns during both world wars.


title: José de San Martín

text: There is a equestrian statue of General San Martín in Washington D.C. along NW Virginia Street. It is a copy of a statue in Buenos Aires. It was “presented by the Argentine people to the people of the United States (...) unveiled with appropriate ceremony on October 28, 1925.”


title: José de San Martín

text: There is also an equestrian statue of General San Martín in New York City, on the southern side of Central Park. It was dedicated in 1951 and was donated by the City of Buenos Aires, Argentina.


title: José de San Martín

text: There is a memorial featuring a bust of General San Martín in Beverly Hills, CA. The bust was designed by Fernando Di Zitti and dedicated in 2001.


title: José de San Martín

text: There is also a bust of San Martin at the Intramuros or Walled City of Manila, which was erected in 1950 at the request of the Perón government as a reminder that San Martin's brother, Juan Fermin, served in the Philippines from 1801 to 1822 and left descendants there.


title: Plastic Man

text: Plastic Man (Patrick "Eel" O'Brian) is a superhero first appearing in "Police Comics" #1, originally published by Quality Comics and later acquired by DC Comics. Created by cartoonist Jack Cole, Plastic Man was one of the first superheroes to incorporate humor into mainstream action storytelling. This character has been published in several solo series and has interacted with other characters such as Batman and many others in the mainstream DC Universe as a member of the Justice League. He has additionally appeared in several television and video game adaptations, including a short-lived television show of his own named "The Plastic Man Comedy/Adventure Show".


title: Plastic Man

text: One of Quality Comics' signature characters during the Golden Age of Comic Books, Plastic Man can stretch his body into any imaginable form, for example a ball or a car, etc. His adventures were known for their quirky, offbeat structure and surreal slapstick humor. When Quality Comics was shut down in 1956, DC Comics acquired many of its characters, integrating Plastic Man into the mainstream DC Universe and giving him a short-lived series in the 1960s.


title: Plastic Man

text: The character starred in his own Saturday morning cartoon titled "The Plastic Man Comedy/Adventure Show" from 1979 to 1981 and was also a recurring character on "" from 2008 to 2011. He was also mentioned in an episode of "Justice League Unlimited" but was never shown owing to ownership arguments and copyright complaints. To get around these problems, the show used Elongated Man as a replacement.


title: Plastic Man

text: Although the character has never been a significant commercial success, Plastic Man has been a favorite character of many modern comic book creators, including writer Grant Morrison, who included him in their 1990s revival of the Justice League; Art Spiegelman, who profiled Cole for "The New Yorker" magazine; painter Alex Ross, who has frequently included him in covers and stories depicting the Justice League; writer-artist Kyle Baker, who wrote and illustrated an award-winning "Plastic Man" series; and Frank Miller, who included him in the Justice League in the comics "All Star Batman and Robin the Boy Wonder" and "".


title: Plastic Man

text: Plastic Man was a crook named Patrick "Eel" O'Brian. Orphaned at age 10 and forced to live on the streets, he fell into a life of crime. As an adult, he became part of a burglary ring, specializing as a safecracker. During a late-night heist at the Crawford Chemical Works, he and his three fellow gang members were surprised by a night watchman. During the gang's escape, Eel was shot in the shoulder and doused with a large drum of unidentified chemical liquid. He escaped to the street only to discover that his gang had driven off without him.


title: Plastic Man

text: Fleeing on foot and suffering increasing disorientation from the gunshot wound and the exposure to the chemical, Eel eventually passed out on the foothills of a mountain near the city. He awoke to find himself in a bed in a mountain retreat, being tended to by a monk who had discovered him unconscious that morning. This monk, sensing a capacity for great good in O'Brian, turned away police officers who had trailed Eel to the monastery. This act of faith and kindness—combined with the realization that his gang had left him to be captured without a moment's hesitation—fanned Eel's longstanding dissatisfaction with his criminal life and his desire to reform.


title: Plastic Man

text: During his short convalescence at the monastery, he discovered that the chemical had entered his bloodstream and caused a radical physical change. His body now had all of the properties of rubber, allowing him to stretch, bounce and mold himself into any shape. He immediately determined to use his new abilities on the side of law and order, donning a red, black and yellow (later red and yellow) rubber costume and capturing criminals as Plastic Man. He concealed his true identity with a pair of white goggles and by re-molding his face. As O'Brian, he maintained his career and connections with the underworld as a means of gathering information on criminal activity.


title: Plastic Man

text: Plastic Man soon acquired comic-relief sidekick Woozy Winks, who was originally enchanted so that nature itself would protect him from harm. This power was eventually removed from the character and Woozy became simply a bumbling yet loyal friend to Plastic Man.


title: Plastic Man

text: In his original Golden Age/Quality Comics incarnation, Plastic Man eventually became a member of the city police force and then the FBI. By the time he became a federal officer, he had nearly completely abandoned his Eel O'Brian identity.


title: Plastic Man

text: After the 1985 "Crisis on Infinite Earths", a 1988–1989 four-issue "Plastic Man" miniseries by Phil Foglio introduced a new version of Plastic Man: Eel O'Brian, abandoned by his criminal gang after being shot and exposed to the unidentified chemical, wandered the streets as his new powers developed, frightening others and bringing the police and National Guard down on him as a dangerous monster. Eel was at first oblivious to the changes to his body, but after realizing that he was the monster at large, he used his new abilities to escape his pursuers. Eel soon became so despondent over his new condition that he attempted suicide by jumping off a bridge.


title: Plastic Man

text: Fortunately, he was interrupted by Woozy Winks, a former mental patient who was kicked out of an institution due to lack of funding (or as Woozy put it, "something called Reaganomics"), who desired nothing more than to return to the warm safety of a straitjacket and padded room. Eel and Woozy decided to work together and capitalize on Eel's new powers to make their fortunes (Eel wanting to get rich quick, Woozy just wanting his "old room" back), but couldn't decide whether there was more money in crime or crime-fighting, and resorted to flipping a coin to choose serving the law (though Woozy had his doubts early on). Eel ended up with the name 'Plastic Man' after a reporter misinterpreted his first choice of 'Elastic Man'. Eel and Woozy set up a detective agency in New York City and go on to have various misadventures together.


title: Plastic Man

text: Plastic Man was made a prominent member of the Justice League during Grant Morrison's run on the title. The story arc "Rock of Ages" shows Batman recruiting Eel to infiltrate Lex Luthor's Injustice League in the guise of the Joker, which he does successfully. He notably engages in combat with the goddess Circe, proving immune to her magical ability to turn humans into animals. He is later made a full-time member of the League and aids the League in several battles, including against Prometheus, Julian September, General Wade Eiling, an upgraded version of Amazo, a White Martian who assumes the identity of Bruce Wayne, and Queen Bee. During this period he becomes close friends with fellow new members Steel (due to the fact that they are both "lateral thinkers") and Zauriel (Plastic Man later implies in the "JLA: Heaven's Ladder" graphic novel that his Catholic upbringing is a factor behind this, and Zauriel's existence is a testament to his faith). After the extended League dissolves at the end of the "World WarIII" arc, he is the only member other than the 'Big Seven' heroes (Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, Aquaman, The Flash, Martian Manhunter and Green Lantern) to retain full-time membership in the JLA.


title: Plastic Man

text: Plastic Man has also been instrumental in defeating several foes by himself, such as a Jokerized version of Dr. Polaris and the 'Burning Martian' persona of J'onn J'onzz (Martian Manhunter). He has played substantial roles in nearly every major team-up and crossover featuring the League of this era: with the Titans (The Technis Imperative), Young Justice (World Without Grownups), the Justice Society of America (Virtue and Vice, where he is one of the heroes to be possessed by one of the Seven Deadly Sins), the Avengers (the "JLA/Avengers" crossover) and even the Looney Tunes (in the humorous "Superman & Bugs Bunny" miniseries). In the arc, Plastic Man is frozen and shattered into pieces by Ra's al Ghul's League of Assassins, as part of an attack against the Justice League. Though he is put together again, this experience traumatizes him severely and when it is discovered that the assassins were following methods devised by Batman, Eel joins Wonder Woman and Aquaman in voting Batman out of the League. The heroes reconcile in following issues.


title: Plastic Man

text: The fact that Plastic Man was initially in the superhero business for the money has had an effect on his character development, notably in the storyline "Divided We Fall" by Mark Waid where he, along with other Justice League members, was separated into two people, his normal "civilian" identity and his superhero persona, by the manipulative wish-granting Id. While Plastic Man devolved from a person with a sense of humor into a constantly wisecracking and almost ineffectual idiot, the now "normal" Eel O'Brian struggled with the criminal tendencies he had suppressed as he had become comfortable with his role as a superhero and wondered if he had actually changed for the better at all or this was just part of the super-hero "act". Ultimately, Eel was the driving force behind the other transformed Leaguers banding together to re-join with their superheroic selves, noting that Bruce Wayne in particular was approaching a mental breakdown as he struggled with his rage over his parents' murder – having lacked the ability to do anything about it, as Batman was the identity that had 'inherited' his skills. Eel demonstrates this to the other divided Leaguers by savagely beating Bruce Wayne with a gun in the guise of a mugger to prove Wayne's ineffectiveness, and demonstrate the degree of psychological damage he has suffered due to the split. Later, Batman comments that it was a wise move "under the circumstances". Later, Plastic Man approaches Batman for help when he learns that Eel's estranged ten-year-old son Luke has fallen in with a gang of criminals, and has inherited his father's shape-shifting abilities, possibly to an even greater degree than Plastic Man's own. Plastic Man admits to Batman that he doesn't know if he ran away from being a father because he was enjoying his new life as a hero, or because he was afraid of becoming a parent for his son. Batman later intimidates Luke into returning home, and informs Plastic Man that he is disappointed in his cowardice, imagining that Eel would have shown Luke fatherly love; in reality, Plastic Man chose only to hide in Batman's utility belt during the whole encounter with Luke.


title: Plastic Man

text: During the story arc "The Obsidian Age", Plastic Man and the other main members of the JLA were transported through time thousands of years earlier to the beginning days of Atlantis. During a battle with the antagonists, Plastic Man was frozen and then shattered into pieces. Having no way to locate all the pieces, much less fix him, with the technology of the day, the JLA returned to their own time. There they were eventually successful in finding all the pieces and restoring Plastic Man. Plas had been conscious the entire time but unable to move, which had a profoundly negative effect on his mind. He admitted he had lost his nerve and quit the JLA, hoping to live a regular life. This return to normalcy was made easier after a new encounter with his now-teenage son, which made Eel feel that the boy needed a father and a normal life. Eventually, Batman convinced Plas to return to his life as a super hero again when they needed his shape-shifting skills and immunity to telepathy to defeat the Martian Manhunter, who had regressed to a racial memory of the long-forgotten 'Burning Martians' after overcoming his weakness to fire. After a few more cases, Plastic Man is present at the memorial service held after this incarnation of the Justice League officially disbands during the "Infinite Crisis" storyline.


title: Plastic Man

text: In the 2006 "One Year Later" DC Comics crossover storyline that followed the "Infinite Crisis" crossover, a young man with similar appearance and powers as Plastic Man appears briefly in the superteam series "Teen Titans" Vol. 3, #34 written by R.J. Carter. The character wears a white costume with red goggles, similar to that of Offspring, Plastic Man's son in the earlier 1999 DC miniseries "The Kingdom" by Mark Waid. While the Teen Titans story itself does not identify the character, page two of a published script supposedly by writer Geoff Johns' specifies it is "Plastic Man's son, Offspring". Plastic Man's son is also shown in costume, and identified as Offspring, in the 2006 weekly series "52" in Week 35 (written by Geoff Johns, Grant Morrison, Greg Rucka and Mark Waid) when he is injured while rescuing a number of the depowered Everyman heroes. Eventually, Plastic Man and Offspring come together as father and son and briefly even had an idyllic family set up until Plas was convinced that he couldn't deny his destiny as a super hero.


title: Plastic Man

text: In "Countdown to Mystery" #1 (2007) written by Matthew Sturges, Plastic Man is seduced by Eclipso, being made to believe he is a joke among his fellow heroes, and the only way for him to get some respect is through Eclipso. He is later freed of this corruption by Bruce Gordon. Plastic Man makes his next appearance within the pages of "Green Arrow/Black Canary" #8 by Judd Winick, having been freed from a stasis tube by Green Arrow. His DNA is taken by Sivana and used to augment an amnesiac Connor Hawke, in a bid to turn the young hero into a brainwashed slave with a strong healing factor.


title: Plastic Man

text: Plastic Man appeared for a brief period in the 2009 "Justice League of America" vol. 2 series written by Len Wein. After joining up with the team following the events of "Final Crisis", Plastic Man has his effectiveness questioned by his teammate Dr. Light, which starts a fight between the two, which Vixen breaks up. Vixen reassigns Plastic Man to team up with Dr. Light to stop the Royal Flush Gang robbery. Though they experience some control issues between them, the Royal Flush Gang is defeated and Plastic Man and Dr. Light finally stop arguing.


title: Plastic Man

text: During a massive battle at the Justice League Satellite in "", Prometheus injected Plastic Man with a chemical that badly damaged his plastic body. The chemicals caused Eel to suffer from a condition where it took great concentration to keep himself in his usual, semi-solid state and caused him pain when he even thought about changing shape, thus leaving him in an infirm state.


title: Plastic Man

text: In the "Blackest Night" crossover, while still suffering from his deteriorating state, Plastic Man had his heart torn out by the Black Lantern, Vibe, seemingly killing him. However, due to his power of near-invulnerability, he was able to survive such an attack, albeit badly wounded. Vixen states that Plastic Man was being taken care of at STAR Labs, and that he would be unable to return to the League.


title: Plastic Man

text: Plastic Man later appeared in "", helping a large coalition of heroes on an unsuccessful mission to trace Maxwell Lord. He had been seemingly cured of his condition, and was shown retaining his normal shape without issue or pain.


title: Plastic Man

text: Later, he aids the JLA on their mission into Hell, where he helps Batman defeat Geryon. The League learns Satanus' plans to use Dante's mask to become powerful. Plastic Man grabs the mask, which possesses him. The Leagues combines forces to remove the mask, which is incinerated, seemingly killing Plastic Man. It is later revealed that Zauriel transported him into another dimension before helping the League escape Hell.


title: Plastic Man

text: In September 2011, The New 52 rebooted DC's continuity. In this new timeline, Plastic Man is considered as one of the candidates for the United Nations-sponsored Justice League International. He is denied a spot on the team for being too unpredictable. This cameo appearance was later retconned by "Eel" O'Brian's proper New 52 introduction in "Justice League" (Vol. 2) #25 (February 2014).


title: Plastic Man

text: In "Dark Days: The Forge", Batman unveils a containment unit to Mister Terrific in The Lunar Batcave bearing the Plastic Man logo and suggests it is time to release him.


title: Plastic Man

text: Plastic Man assists Mister Terrific into thwarting Simon Stagg's plot to open the portal to the Dark Multiverse using Metamorpho who had been transmuted to Nth Metal. While trying to get Simon Stagg to close the portal with the help of Plastic Man, Mister Terrific is sucked into the portal with Plastic Man and Metamorpho as Plastic Man shields them from the Dark Multiverse energy which he is immune to. Upon arriving on a lifeless world, they encounter Phantom Girl who has been trapped in her intangible form and who has no knowledge of sending a signal. When the four of them find a computer in the gut of a giant dead creature, they are greeted by a hologram of Tom Strong who states that they are needed to save the universe. Mister Terrific, Plastic Man, and Metamorpho learn from Phantom Girl that she was stuck in an intangible form since she was a child. After the four of them make it back to their world, Mister Terrific tries to leave the three of them at Simon Stagg's compound only to be drawn back to them. Due to the effects of the Dark Multiverse energy, Mister Terrific concludes that they can't go their separate ways due to this inescapable bond. The team goes through several adventures whilst being attacked by a figure known as Doctor Dread, who is later revealed to be Java. This revelation, coupled with the team being cured of their condition, causes everyone to split up. Plastic Man attempts to connect with his ex Angel and their son Luke, who has inherited his stretching powers. Initially reluctant, the two bond over a game of basketball and stealing the Batmobile. They are then called upon by the rest of the team to band together and save Mr. Terrifc from the Terribles, a team of their evil doppelgängers put together by Doctor Dread. Plas and Luke, now suited up in his Offspring look, work together to take down a vampiric version of Plastic Man from another dimension. Following the Terribles' defeat and imprisonment, the Terrifics officially reunite as a team, with Luke, Element Dog, and Miss Terrifics joining the roster.


title: Plastic Man

text: Plastic Man was later recruited by Obscura to help investigate a multi-dimensional conspiracy. This led them to find that it was being committed by a group of villains called the Cabal.


title: Plastic Man

text: Plastic Man's powers are derived from an accident in which his body was bathed in an unknown industrial chemical mixture that also entered into his bloodstream through a gunshot wound. This caused a body-wide mutagenic process that transformed his physiology. Eel exists in a fluid state, neither entirely liquid nor solid. He has complete control over his entire molecular structure. He can stretch his limbs and body to superhuman lengths and sizes. There is no known limit to how far Plastic Man can stretch his body. He can shrink himself down to a few inches tall (posed as one of Batman's utility belt pockets) or become a titan (the size of skyscrapers). He can contort his body into various positions and sizes impossible for ordinary humans, such as being entirely flat so that he can slip under a door or using his fingers to pick conventional lock, compressing himself into a ball to ricochet off things, and inflating his body. He can also use it for disguise by changing the shape of his face and body. Due to his fluid state, Plastic Man can open holes in his body and turn himself into objects with mobile parts. In addition, he can alter his bodily mass and physical constitution at will, creating virtually no limit to the sizes and shapes he can contort himself into. There is nothing he cannot alter his body into, which includes basic shapes or dangerous weapons, avatars of other superheroes and cars. These stretching capabilities grant Plastic Man agility, flexibility, and coordination far beyond the natural limits of the human body. He can alter his strength by growing or adding more muscle. Plastic Man's powers extraordinarily augment his durability. Some stories, perhaps of anecdotal quality, have showed him susceptible to surprise attack by bullets, in one case oozing a substance similar to liquid plastic. In most stories, though, he is able to withstand corrosives, punctures, and concussions without sustaining any injury (although he can be momentarily stunned). He is resistant to high velocity impacts that would kill an ordinary person, insusceptible to blasts from energy weapons (Batman once mentioned that he could presumably even withstand a nuclear detonation), and is bulletproof. This is mainly due to the fact that he has full control over his density, so he can willfully increase his durability as he wishes. His bodily mass can be dispersed, but for all intents and purposes, it is invulnerable, even from many forms of magic in the DC Universe. He is able to regenerate and/or assimilate lost or damaged tissue, although he needs to be reasonably intact for this process to begin. For example, Plastic Man was once reduced to individual, separate molecules and scattered across the Atlantic Ocean for centuries. He was only capable of returning to his usual form after the rest of the League were able to gather enough of his molecules and restore approximately 80% of his body mass, after which he began to regenerate the remaining 20% on his own. Plastic Man has proven impervious to telepathy. As stated by Batman (in "JLA" #88, Dec. 2003), "Plastic Man's mind is no longer organic. It's untouchable by telepathy". Plastic Man does not appear to age; if he does, it is at a rate far slower than that of normal human beings. In the aftermath of the "Justice League" story Arc "Obsidian Age", Plastic Man was discovered to have survived for 3,000 years scattered into separate, individual molecules on the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean without decaying or being otherwise affected at all. He can autonomically detect ultrasonic frequencies because his body will start to "ripple" when an ultrasonic frequency is triggered.


title: Plastic Man

text: As stated by the Black Lantern Vibe, Plastic Man's internal organs (such as his heart when Black Lantern Vibe tried to rip it out) couldn't be removed, unlike many of the Black Lanterns' victims. This perhaps implies that Plastic Man is himself more like one giant, living organ than he is a "whole" made of component parts and organs, etc.


title: Plastic Man

text: His semi-liquid form remains stable at relatively high and low temperatures, provided that the temperature change is gradual. A sudden change induces a complete change of state, creating a truly solid or truly liquid form. Plastic Man was incapacitated in the "JLA" story arc "Tower of Babel" when mercenaries froze and shattered his body. Once thawed and reassembled, he was physically unharmed. In the "JLA" story arc "Divided We Fall", Plastic Man is shown to have some weakness to extreme heat (intense heat vision attack from a Martian) and was temporarily melted. In some versions, Plastic Man is also vulnerable to chemicals such as acetone, which melts and destabilizes his malleable form, although he eventually regenerated when the chemicals are gone. A famous hindrance of Plastic Man’s abilities is that the only colors he can mimic are the colors of his body and costume (i.e. red, black, yellow, white, and flesh tone), although he can use these colors in various ways, once even managing to exactly duplicate the appearance of the Flash. Whether this is an inherent flaw in his powers or a mental block has never been explained, whereas, his son, Offspring, also gained his father's powers, but is able to willfully mimic any color he chooses. During Offspring's introduction, it was revealed that Plastic Man could change color, turning his nose blue to prove to Batman that he could. This color change, however, was possible only with a great deal of Plastic Man's concentration, even for such a very small area.


title: Plastic Man

text: Plastic Man was once a very talented professional thief, specializing as a safecracker. Although no longer a criminal, he has thorough insight into their mindset, enabling him to be an effective sleuth. He is also considered to be a lateral thinker and much smarter than he lets on.


title: Plastic Man

text: In "" (2001—2002), Frank Miller's miniseries (set on DC's new Earth-31 in post-Infinite Crisis continuity), Plastic Man was betrayed and locked in Arkham Asylum for years with his body forced into a perpetual egg-like shape by a pressurizing machine. The imprisonment and confinement drove him insane, and upon his release he lashed out at those around him. He fights Elongated Man, having the upper hand until Batman brings Plastic Man to his senses with a punch to the face. Batman declares that Plastic Man is the most powerful superhero in the room. Carrie Kelley (as Catgirl) describes him as being: "Immeasurably "powerful". Absolutely "nuts"". In this continuity, he appears with silver hair and a few wrinkles.


title: Plastic Man

text: In "All Star Batman and Robin", also written by Miller, Plastic Man has only appeared in issue #5 where he is a founding member of a proto-Justice League along with Wonder Woman, Superman, and Green Lantern Hal Jordan. He constantly changes shape and cracks jokes causing the other members to repeatedly tell him to "shut up".


title: Plastic Man

text: "Plastic Man" (2004–2006), written and illustrated by Kyle Baker, harkens back to the Jack Cole version of Plastic Man featuring Eel O'Brian tended to by a monk in a mountain retreat following the events of his normal origin story. Inspired by the monk's kindness, Eel resolves to use his powers for good, becoming the crime fighter Plastic Man, and works for the FBI. In this series, Plastic Man gets a girlfriend (FBI Special Agent Morgan, later revealed as the surgically-altered fiancée named Nancy who Plas' alter ego had left in the 1940s), and adopts a Goth teenage daughter, Edwina. The series won five Eisner Awards for Best New Series, Best Title for Younger Readers, Best Writer/Artist: Humor and one Harvey Award for Best New Series.


title: Plastic Man

text: In the Tangent Comics imprint, set on the alternate universe Earth-9, Plastic Man is a member of the Secret Six. He is scientist Gunther Ganz, whose consciousness has been transferred to a "living polymer".


title: Plastic Man

text: In the DC Comics/Marvel Comics intercompany crossover "JLA/Avengers", Plastic Man is a member of the JLA and teams with Martian Manhunter in the Marvel locale of Wakanda, where the two encounter the Marvel characters the Wasp and the Black Panther. Plastic Man is replaced by DC Comics' Elongated Man after the merging of worlds.


title: Plastic Man

text: In the alternate timeline of the "Flashpoint" event, Eel O'Brian is a villain. After Heat Wave was sent to death row for killing Jason Rusch, O'Brian arrives to break him out in the flying fortress of the military Doom prison, having been hiding, disguised in the body of his cellmate Cluemaster. During the prison break, O'Brian dislikes being called "Plastic Man", when inmate Sportsmaster calls him this. While O'Brian helps him to retrieve his weapons, he discovers Heat Wave attacking the guards' control room and attempting to ram the flying prison at Cyborg's home city of Detroit. O'Brian refuses to let him destroy the city, but Heat Wave turns on him and seems to kill Plastic Man by using his flame gun to melt his body. After Heat Wave is defeated by Cyborg and imprisoned in Belle Reve, O'Brian is revealed to have survived the flame gun attack and smuggles himself into the prison in Heat Wave's new cellmate's body, where he is later shown advancing on Heat Wave.


title: Plastic Man

text: Plastic Man appears in "" comic. He is seen among the gathered super-heroes at Congress after Lara Lane-Kent delivers a speech to them, mingling among the heroes and politicians in the continuity where Lois didn't die.


title: Plastic Man

text: In this story, Plastic Man is against Superman's changed ethics after the Metropolis bombing but doesn't physically try to stop him until Superman arrests Plastic Man's son Luke (Offspring) for opposing him. He breaks into the Regime's underwater prison, rescues his son, and frees the captured super villains and Green Lantern Corps while encouraging them to focus their efforts on bringing down Superman.


title: Plastic Man

text: In the collected edition of "Wednesday Comics" (200 pages, DC Comics, June 2010, ; Titan Books, July 2010, ), Plastic Man is featured in a story by Evan Dorkin with art by Stephen DeStefano. Plastic Man and Woozy battle Professor Grushenko at the museum over a magic elixir with resulting hijinks.


title: Plastic Man

text: Warner Bros. Pictures began development on a film centered around Plastic Man, in the early 1990s with Amblin Entertainment producing and Bryan Spicer directing. The Wachowskis wrote the screenplay in 1995.


title: Plastic Man

text: In December 2018, development for a new Plastic Man film was announced, with Amanda Idoko writing the screenplay and Robert Shaye as executive producer. Years later in December, it was reported that Cat Vasko was hired to rewrite Idoko's screenplay while the project is being reworked to be a female-centered movie.


title: Plastic Man

text: The April 19, 1999, issue of "The New Yorker" features Plastic Man on the cover gawking at a Picasso painting. This issue ran a biography of Jack Cole by Art Spiegelman, which two years later would comprise much of the text in his and Chip Kidd's book "Jack Cole and Plastic Man: Forms Stretched to Their Limits". In the 499th issue of "Mad Magazine", Plastic Man can be seen in the magazine's "Watchmen" spoof during Funnyman's (spoof of Edward Blake/Comedian) funeral.


title: Stephen Tompkinson

text: Stephen Phillip Tompkinson (born 15 October 1965) is an English actor, known for his television roles as Marcus in "Chancer " (1990), Damien Day in "Drop the Dead Donkey" (1990–1998), Father Peter Clifford in "Ballykissangel" (1996–98), Trevor Purvis in "Grafters" (1998–1999), Danny Trevanion in "Wild at Heart" (2006–2013) and Alan Banks in "DCI Banks" (2010–2016). He won the 1994 British Comedy Award for Best TV Comedy Actor. He also starred in the films "Brassed Off" (1996) and "Hotel Splendide" (2000).


title: Stephen Tompkinson

text: Tompkinson was born in Stockton-on-Tees. When he was about age 4, his family moved to Scarborough, North Riding of Yorkshire and then to Lytham St Annes, Lancashire, where he grew up and attended St Bede's Roman Catholic High School in Lytham and St Mary's Sixth Form in Blackpool. Tompkinson's first lead was as a red admiral butterfly in "The Plotters of Cabbage Patch Corner".


title: Stephen Tompkinson

text: He went on to train at the Central School of Speech and Drama in London, alongside James Nesbitt and Rufus Sewell, and graduated in 1988. Tompkinson's acting career began straight out of drama school. During his last year at the London School of Speech and Drama he won the 1987 Carleton Hobbs Bursary, gaining a contract as a member of the BBC's Radio Drama Company, and had roles in radio dramas.


title: Stephen Tompkinson

text: Along with Ewan Bailey, he performed a two-part radio drama titled "Say What You Want to Hear" (Swywth), written by Tim Wright and broadcast in 2010 on BBC Radio 4. His narrated radio documentaries include "Brass Britain", which aired in 2008 and was reprised in 2010 on BBC Radio 2.


title: Stephen Tompkinson

text: In 1988, Tompkinson appeared with Ken Goodwin and Freddie Davies in a Channel 4 short titled "Treacle", directed by Peter Chelsom. It received a 1988 BAFTA nomination in the category of Best Short Film.


title: Stephen Tompkinson

text: During the next few years he was cast in several single-episode parts on "All at No 20", "Shelley", "After Henry", "Casualty", "Made in Heaven", and "Boon". He also played in three episodes of "The Manageress" (1989).


title: Stephen Tompkinson

text: Also in 1989 he appeared in his first full-length made-for-TV movie. Based on a 1977 play by C.P. Taylor, "And a Nightingale Sang" was a romantic comedy-drama adapted for television by Jack Rosenthal.


title: Stephen Tompkinson

text: He was cast in three episodes of "Tales of Sherwood Forest" (1989), nine episodes of "Chancer" (1990), and nine episodes of "Minder" (1991) It received the 1990 Prix Europa Special award for the film in the category "TV Fiction".


title: Stephen Tompkinson

text: Between 1990 and 1998, Tompkinson starred in 66 episodes of the satirical comedy "Drop The Dead Donkey". He played the ambitious but unethical reporter Damien Day, and won the 1994 British Comedy Awards "Best TV Comedy Actor" award.