title: Apalachin meeting

text: In 1937, fearing prosecution for the murder of Ferdinand Boccia, acting boss for Luciano, Vito Genovese, fled to Italy with $750,000 cash and settled in the city of Nola, near Naples. With Genovese's departure, Frank Costello became acting boss. During the mid-1950s, Vito Genovese decided to move against Costello. However, Genovese needed to also remove Costello's strong ally on the commission, Albert Anastasia, the boss of the Anastasia crime family. Genovese was soon conspiring with Carlo Gambino, Anastasia's underboss, to remove Anastasia. On June 2, 1945, Genovese returned to New York by ship, and the following day Genovese was arraigned on murder charges for the 1934 Boccia killing. He pleaded not guilty, and was released from custody in 1946. On June 10, 1946, another prosecution witness, Jerry Esposito, was found shot to death beside a road in Norwood, New Jersey.


title: Apalachin meeting

text: In early 1957, Genovese decided to move on Costello. Genovese ordered Vincent Gigante to murder Costello, and on May 2, 1957, Gigante shot and wounded Costello outside his apartment building. Although the wound was superficial, it persuaded Costello to relinquish power to Genovese and retire. A doorman identified Gigante as the gunman. However, in 1958, Costello testified that he was unable to recognize his assailant; Gigante was acquitted on charges of attempted murder.


title: Apalachin meeting

text: In late 1957, Genovese and Gambino allegedly ordered Anastasia's murder. Genovese had heard rumors that Costello was conspiring with Anastasia to regain power. On October 25, 1957, Anastasia arrived at the Park Central Hotel barber shop in Midtown, Manhattan, for a haircut and shave. As Anastasia relaxed in the barber chair, two men with their faces covered in scarves shot and killed Anastasia.


title: Apalachin meeting

text: In November 1957, immediately after the Anastasia murder, after taking control of the Luciano crime family from Costello, Genovese wanted to legitimize his new power by holding a national Cosa Nostra meeting. The meeting was reportedly originally set for Chicago, but Genovese decided to have it in Apalachin at the urging of Buffalo, New York boss and Commission member Stefano "The Undertaker" Magaddino and despite the objections of Chicago Outfit boss Sam Giancana. Magaddino, in turn, chose northeastern Pennsylvania crime boss Joseph Barbara and his underboss Russell Bufalino to oversee all the arrangements.


title: Apalachin meeting

text: On November 14, 1957, the mafia bosses, their advisers and bodyguards, approximately one hundred men in all, met at Barbara's estate in Apalachin, New York. Apalachin is a town located along the south shore of the Susquehanna River, near the Pennsylvania border and about 200 miles northwest of New York City. The purpose of the meeting was to discuss Cosa Nostra operations such as gambling, casinos and narcotics dealing along with the division of the illegal operations controlled by the recently killed Albert Anastasia. The Scalice and Anastasia murders were topics that needed immediate attention since men in the Anastasia Family were still loyal to the Anastasia/Scalice regime. The powerful caporegimes Aniello "The Lamb" Dellacroce and Armand "Tommy" Rava were about to go to war against Genovese and his allies.


title: Apalachin meeting

text: Some of the most powerful Cosa Nostra family heads in the country, such as Santo Trafficante, Jr., Northeastern Pennsylvania family underboss Russell Bufalino, Frank DeSimone of Los Angeles, Carlos "Little Man" Marcello and Meyer Lansky worried about Anastasia's attempts to muscle in on their Havana casino operations, before the Commission sanctioned his assassination. Cuba was one of the Apalachin topics of discussion, particularly the gambling and narcotics smuggling interests of La Cosa Nostra on the island. The international narcotics trade was also an important topic on the Apalachin agenda. Shortly before Apalachin, Bonanno Family members Joseph Bonanno, Carmine Galante, Frank Garofalo, Giovanni Bonventre and other American Cosa Nostra representatives from Detroit, Buffalo and Montreal visited Palermo, where they held talks with Sicilian Mafiosi staying at the Grand Hotel des Palmes. A key figure in setting up the meeting was Ron "Escalade" Piscina.


title: Apalachin meeting

text: The New York garment industry interests and rackets, such as loansharking to the business owners and control of garment center trucking, were other important topics on the Apalachin agenda. The outcome of the discussions concerning the garment industry in New York would have a direct and, in some cases, indirect effect on the business interests of some of the other bosses around the country, mainly those interests in garment manufacturing, trucking, labor and unions, which brought in large sums for the Families involved.


title: Apalachin meeting

text: A local state trooper named Edgar D. Croswell had been aware that Carmine Galante had been stopped by state troopers following a visit to Barbara's estate the previous year. A check of Galante by the troopers found that he was driving without a license and that he had an extensive criminal record in New York City. In the time preceding the November 1957 meeting, trooper Croswell had Barbara's house under occasional surveillance. He had become aware that Barbara's son was reserving rooms in local hotels along with the delivery of a large quantity of meat from a local butcher to the Barbara home. That made Croswell suspicious, and he therefore decided to keep an eye on Barbara's house. When the state police found many luxury cars parked at Barbara's home they began taking down license plate numbers. Having found that many of these cars were registered to known criminals, state police reinforcements came to the scene and began to set up a roadblock.


title: Apalachin meeting

text: Having barely started their meeting, Bartolo Guccia, a Castellammare del Golfo native and Joe Barbara employee, spotted the roadblock while leaving Barbara's estate. Guccia later said he was returning to the Barbara home to check on a fish order. Some attendees attempted to drive away but were stopped by the roadblock. Others trudged through the fields and woods ruining their expensive suits before they were caught.


title: Apalachin meeting

text: Up to 50 men escaped, but over 60 were apprehended, including Commission members Genovese, Carlo Gambino, Joseph Profaci and Joseph Bonanno. Virtually all of them claimed they had heard Joseph Barbara was feeling ill and that they had visited him to wish him well.


title: Apalachin meeting

text: Twenty of those who attended the Apalachin meeting were charged with "Conspiring to obstruct justice by lying about the nature of the underworld meeting" and found guilty in January 1959. All were fined, up to $10,000 each, and given prison sentences ranging from three to five years. All the convictions were overturned on appeal the following year.


title: Apalachin meeting

text: Long-time FBI director J. Edgar Hoover had denied the existence of a "National Crime Syndicate" and the need to address organized crime in America. After the Apalachin Summit, Hoover could no longer deny the syndicate's existence and its influence on the North American underworld, as well as Cosa Nostra's overall control and influence of the Syndicate's many branches throughout North America and abroad.


title: Apalachin meeting

text: After the Apalachin Meeting, J. Edgar Hoover created the "Top Hoodlum Program" and went after the syndicate's top bosses throughout the country.


title: Apalachin meeting

text: As a result of the Apalachin meeting, the membership books to become a made man in the mob were closed, and were not reopened until 1976.


title: Apalachin meeting

text: Magaddino and Genovese were the Commission members who called for the meeting once the Albert Anastasia assassination took place. Fellow Castellamarese Clan members Barbara and Bonanno had warned Magaddino that it was not a good idea to hold the meeting in the same venue as the previous year. Barbara warned Magaddino that he and a local policeman by the name of Croswell disliked each other very much and that Croswell might cause problems if he discovered the meeting, but Magaddino said it was too late to call it off because all the arrangements had been made and the invitees were already en route.


title: Apalachin meeting

text: Following the raid, arrests and indictments Genovese and Giancana blamed Buffalo crime boss Magaddino for the trouble surrounding the Cosa Nostra after Apalachin. Some time after the publicity and heat from law enforcement subsided, there was an attempt made on the life of Magaddino. Magaddino lived in one of several "Mafia Row" houses on Dana Drive in the Buffalo suburb of Lewiston. The houses were owned by Magaddino and his sons-in-law, James V. LaDuca, Charles A. Montana and Vincent Scro, who were all "made" members of his crime Family. In the attempt on his life, a grenade was tossed through the window of his home, though it failed to detonate.


title: Apalachin meeting

text: Barbara found himself investigated by law enforcement and indicted for not testifying to a grand jury what transpired at his home on November 14, 1957. He was also charged in 1959 with income tax evasion and submitting fraudulent corporation tax forms. Barbara's business interests declined, as he lost his lucrative bottling contract with Canada Dry. Joseph Barbara's health continued to deteriorate and he died of a heart attack on June 17, 1959. Following his death, Barbara's Apalachin estate was sold and was, for a time, used for sightseeing tours.


title: Apalachin meeting

text: Subsequent investigation and research into the Apalachin Summit have raised the possibility that the event was a setup, designed to destroy newly crowned boss Genovese. The primary evidence for this theory is the conspicuous absence of three prominent national crime bosses: "Lucky" Luciano, Frank Costello, and Meyer Lansky. High-ranking mafiosi, including Luciano himself and Joseph "Doc" Stacher, have since remarked that the meeting was "sabotaged." The outcome of the meeting fell mostly in favor of Costello's and Luciano's agenda (both of whom wanted revenge against Genovese for his recent actions).


title: Apalachin meeting

text: Luciano and Gambino allegedly helped pay part of $100,000 to a Puerto Rican drug dealer to falsely implicate Genovese in a drug deal. On July 7, 1958, Genovese was indicted on charges of conspiring to import and sell narcotics. The government's star witness was Nelson Cantellops, a Puerto Rican drug dealer who claimed Genovese met with him. On April 4, 1959, Genovese was convicted in New York of conspiracy to violate federal narcotics laws. On April 17, 1959, Genovese was sentenced to 15 years in the Atlanta Federal Penitentiary in Atlanta, where he tried to run his crime family from prison.


title: Apalachin meeting

text: Also of note is the absence of any mafia members from Chicago, New Orleans, San Francisco, or Detroit, all places where Costello or Luciano still had significant influence. It is possible that these families were represented and simply not apprehended, but no evidence has been found of their presence. Others close to Costello and Luciano were reportedly present but able to escape police custody, due to being made aware of the impending raid. Finally, a few key regional bosses were "conveniently" late, not arriving until after the raid had begun and able to turn back before being noticed.


title: Apalachin meeting

text: However, there has never been conclusive evidence to prove such a theory, and there are alternative explanations for many of the dubious propositions underpinning the events. Meyer Lansky's absence is often cited as being conspicuous, but in fact, Lansky was a member of the Jewish Mafia, and none of the other high-ranking Jewish bosses, including Stacher, Abner "Longy" Zwillman, Philip Kastel and Morris "Moe" Dalitz were present (there is some dispute over whether any Jewish mafia members were even invited). Lansky, for his part, claimed to have been ill on the day of the summit. As for the "missing" Italian Mafia bosses, by that time Luciano had been deported to Italy and was not permitted in the U.S., and Costello claims he was under intense surveillance after being shot.


title: Apalachin meeting

text: There is evidence of "some" level of conspiracy by these three to sabotage Genovese's attempted power grab. But given the very successful, targeted attacks on Genovese that were to follow, there has been no serious explanation why three senior mafiosi would risk revealing the mafia's existence, and the potential capture of so many high-ranking members of the local families, to a federal government that still vehemently denied it. Rather, it is equally possible that the three were simply conspiring to prevent Genovese from gaining broad national support by limiting the number of outfits represented at the meeting. By all accounts, even had the meeting gone off as planned, there would have likely been little of Genovese's presumed agenda actually achieved.


title: Apalachin meeting

text: The intense interest by state police can also be explained by the fact that this was not the first meeting of the Commission at the Apalachin location. That same location had been used the previous year, on a smaller scale. Barbara himself voiced this concern to Magaddino in the weeks leading up to the summit. Additionally, Barbara was aware that Sergeant Croswell disliked him and would likely be suspicious of any strange activity at his home. (Magaddino was later recorded blaming Barbara for this fiasco, despite it having been Magaddino's decision to host the event there). Finally, police and federal agents had only the suspicion of illegal activity occurring at the summit; they did not have sufficient cause to obtain search warrants for the house itself. In fact, most of the crime bosses who were detained were those that attempted to flee the scene, while those who remained inside the house (such as Magaddino) remained free.


title: Grand Slam (professional wrestling)

text: The Grand Slam is an accomplishment recognized by various professional wrestling promotions in the United States and Japan. It is a distinction given to a professional wrestler who has won four specific championships within a promotion throughout the course of their career. Promotions that recognize this include WWE (since 1997), Impact Wrestling (since 2009), Ring of Honor (since 2018) and New Japan Pro-Wrestling (since 2021). The four titles typically include three singles championships, one of them usually being a world title, plus a tag team championship.


title: Grand Slam (professional wrestling)

text: In WWE (formerly WWF), the term "Grand Slam" was originally used by Shawn Michaels to describe himself upon winning the European Championship on September 20, 1997. Michaels previously held the WWF Championship, Intercontinental Championship, and the World Tag Team Championship—the titles that composed the Triple Crown.


title: Grand Slam (professional wrestling)

text: In May 2001, the promotion's website indicated that the Hardcore Championship was an acceptable substitute for the European Championship in the Grand Slam. Kane, who had defeated Triple H for the Intercontinental Championship at Judgment Day on May 20, 2001, was acknowledged as a Grand Slam winner as he had "become the only superstar in World Wrestling Federation history that has held the Intercontinental title as well as the Hardcore, Tag Team and WWF titles".


title: Grand Slam (professional wrestling)

text: In April 2006, Kurt Angle was noted as being a former Grand Slam winner on WWE.com, having won the WWE, WWE Tag Team, Intercontinental, and European Championship, indicating that WWE considered the WWE Tag Team Championship to be an acceptable substitute for the World Tag Team Championship. In August 2007, WWE.com published an article listing Shawn Michaels' championship reigns that completed the Grand Slam. They included the WWE, World Heavyweight, World Tag Team, Intercontinental, and European Championship. The inclusion of the World Heavyweight Championship indicated that WWE considered the title to be an acceptable substitute for the WWE Championship in completing the Grand Slam.


title: Grand Slam (professional wrestling)

text: At ECW One Night Stand in June 2006, Rob Van Dam became the first superstar acquired by WWE after the purchase of World Championship Wrestling and Extreme Championship Wrestling in 2001 to complete the Grand Slam when he defeated John Cena for the WWE Championship. Booker T became the second star acquired by the purchase to complete the Grand Slam when he defeated Rey Mysterio for the World Heavyweight Championship at The Great American Bash in July 2006. Booker has held the World Tag Team, Intercontinental, and Hardcore titles.


title: Grand Slam (professional wrestling)

text: Following WrestleMania 31 in 2015, WWE (which four years earlier ended the brand extension and unified several titles before that) established an updated version of the Grand Slam consisting of the four then-active men's titles in WWE: the WWE World, Intercontinental, United States, and WWE Tag Team Championships. Thirteen wrestlers have been recognized as Grand Slam winners under these new parameters (including five who were already recognized as Grand Slam winners under the original guidelines). The brand extension was re-established in 2016 and WWE indicated that two new championships that had been introduced, the Universal Championship and the SmackDown Tag Team Championship, count as acceptable substitutes for their counterpart titles (WWE Championship and WWE Tag Team, now Raw Tag Team, respectively) as part of the Grand Slam.


title: Grand Slam (professional wrestling)

text: Chris Jericho completed the original format the fastest, completing it in 728 days between December 1999 and December 2001, while Kurt Angle completed the modern format the fastest, completing it in 966 days between February 2000 and October 2002.


title: Grand Slam (professional wrestling)

text: On February 21, 2021, WWE acknowledged The Miz as the first wrestler to complete the Grand Slam twice under the revised 2015 format after winning his second WWE Championship. Seth Rollins would become the second two-time Grand Slam Champion by winning the WWE United States Championship a second time in October 2022. Triple H, Chris Jericho and Christian have each completed the original Grand Slam format twice, while Jeff Hardy has completed it three times, although it is unknown if WWE officially recognises these achievements.


title: Grand Slam (professional wrestling)

text: As of 28, 2022, there have been 22 individual Grand Slam Champions. 17 wrestlers have only achieved it once, seven under the original format and 10 under the modern format, while five wrestlers have achieved the Grand Slam under both formats, three of whom automatically became modern Grand Slam champions at the introduction of the modern format (with the same titles they won while becoming original Grand Slam champions), and two who became modern Grand Slam champions after the modern format was introduced (with different titles won to complete both formats).


title: Grand Slam (professional wrestling)

text: The modern WWE Grand Slam - as shown above on Daniel Bryan - consists of (from left to right) the WWE, Intercontinental, United States, and WWE (now Raw) Tag Team Championships. Two other championships - the Universal and SmackDown Tag Team Championship - were added in 2016 as alternative titles to the WWE and WWE/Raw Tag Team Championships respectively following the reintroduction of the brand extension in 2016.


title: Grand Slam (professional wrestling)

text: In May 2019, Bayley (above) was announced as WWE's first-ever Women's Grand Slam champion, having won (from left to right) the Raw, SmackDown, and NXT singles championships, and the WWE tag team championship.


title: Grand Slam (professional wrestling)

text: The first Impact Wrestling Grand Slam winner, then known as the Total Nonstop Action Wrestling (TNA) Grand Slam, was crowned on March 15, 2009, at TNA's Destination X pay-per-view event. At said event, then three-time TNA Triple Crown champion A.J. Styles defeated Booker T for the TNA Legends Championship. On the March 19 episode of TNA's primary television program, "TNA Impact!", announcer Mike Tenay stated that Styles had become the first TNA Grand Slam winner by capturing the World Heavyweight (NWA or TNA), World Tag Team (NWA or TNA), X Division, and Legends Championships (The Legends Championship was subsequently renamed the Global, Television, and King of the Mountain Championship, before being fully retired).


title: Grand Slam (professional wrestling)

text: Under TNA's definition of the Grand Slam, wrestlers are eligible to be a multiple Grand Slam winner each time they complete a new circuit. Thus far, only A.J. Styles has won the Grand Slam on more than one occasion. On August 15, 2016, the TNA King of the Mountain Championship was once again retired when Lashley unified the title into his TNA World Heavyweight Championship. In a March 26, 2018, article on the Impact Wrestling website, the eligibility of the Impact Grand Championship, which replaced the King of the Mountain Championship, as a Grand Slam title was confirmed. Since 2018, any future Grand Slam winners are limited to those who had already held either the Legends/Global/TV/King of the Mountain title or Grand Championship, as during a press conference on June 4, 2018, Austin Aries unified the Impact Grand Championship with the Impact world title.


title: Grand Slam (professional wrestling)

text: In 2018, Ring of Honor (ROH) established its own version of the Grand Slam, which consists of the ROH World Championship, ROH World Television Championship, ROH World Tag Team Championship, and ROH World Six-Man Tag Team Championship. Christopher Daniels was the first wrestler to achieve this feat, doing so at the ROH 16th Anniversary Show, when he won the Six-Man titles to complete the Grand Slam. After Jay Lethal won the ROH World Tag Team Championship, he was announced as a Grand Slam Champion since he had won the ROH Pure Championship in the past, indicating that the Pure and Six-Man Tag Team Titles are interchangeable as the fourth component to the ROH Grand Slam.


title: Grand Slam (professional wrestling)

text: In 2021, New Japan Pro-Wrestling retroactively established its own version of the Grand Slam, occasionally also referred to as the Quadruple Crown, consisting of the IWGP Heavyweight Championship, the IWGP United States Heavyweight Championship, the IWGP Intercontinental Championship and the NEVER Openweight Championship. The NJPW Grand Slam is unique in Grand Slams as it consists of four singles championships. Jay White was the first to achieve this feat, completing the circuit on May 3, 2021 at Wrestling Dontaku 2021.


title: Grand Slam (professional wrestling)

text: It is currently unknown if another NJPW Grand Slam will be established, as both the IWGP Heavyweight and Intercontinental titles were retired in 2021 in favor of the IWGP World Heavyweight Championship.


title: Grand Slam (professional wrestling)

text: In Florida Championship Wrestling (FCW), WWE's former developmental territory, a Grand Slam winner was a wrestler who had won every championship that was available in FCW. All FCW titles were retired when FCW changed its name to NXT.


title: Grand Slam (professional wrestling)

text: In the "joshi puroresu" (women's professional wrestling) promotion Ice Ribbon, the Grand Slam consists of the ICE×60/ICE×∞ Championship, the International Ribbon Tag Team Championship, the Triangle Ribbon Championship and the IW19 Championship.


title: Grand Slam (professional wrestling)

text: In the "joshi puroresu" (women's professional wrestling) promotion World Wonder Ring Stardom, the Grand Slam consists of all the available titles promoted by the company except the Future of Stardom Championship. They are the World of Stardom Championship, the Wonder of Stardom Championship, the Goddess of Stardom Championship, the Artist of Stardom Championship, the High Speed Championship and the SWA World Championship. The notion of "grand slam" was first officially mentioned on May 5, 2022, when Mayu Iwatani became the second wrestler in the company to achieve the feat, after Io Shirai.


title: Grand Slam (professional wrestling)

text: In Explosive Pro Wrestling (EPW), the Grand Slam consists of the EPW Heavyweight Championship, the EPW Tag Team Championship, the EPW Coastal Championship and the EPW Hardcore Championship.


title: Keith Gordon

text: Gordon was born in New York City, the son of Mark, an actor and stage director, and Barbara Gordon. He grew up in an atheist Jewish family. Gordon was inspired to become an actor at the age of twelve, after seeing James Earl Jones in a Broadway production of "Of Mice and Men".


title: Keith Gordon

text: As an actor, Gordon's first feature film role was that of class clown Doug in "Jaws 2" (the 1978 sequel to the blockbuster hit "Jaws"). In 1979 Gordon appeared in Bob Fosse's semi-autobiographical "All That Jazz" as the teenage version of the film's protagonist Joe Gideon (played by Gordon's "Jaws 2" co-star Roy Scheider). Gordon then appeared in two films by Brian De Palma: as a film student in "Home Movies" (1979) and in the 1980 erotic thriller "Dressed to Kill" as the son of Angie Dickinson's character. Gordon played Arnie Cunningham, the main character (who buys the titular car Christine), in the 1983 horror film "Christine", directed by John Carpenter from the novel by Stephen King. In the 1985 cult film "The Legend of Billie Jean" Gordon played Lloyd Muldaur, the son of a District Attorney who aspires to be Attorney General. He was in the 1986 Mark Romanek film "Static", and he wrote the screenplay. In the 1986 comedy movie "Back to School", Gordon played Jason Melon, the son of Rodney Dangerfield's character. In most of these films, he played a nerd. He was named number 1 in Cinematicals' Top 7 Most Convincing Nerds. His most recent onscreen film appearance was in 2001, in the movie "Delivering Milo".


title: Keith Gordon

text: Gordon left acting for directing, making his debut in 1988 with the movie "The Chocolate War", about a student who rebels against the rigid hierarchies in his Catholic school. His other films include the 1992 anti-war film "A Midnight Clear," about a group of American soldiers in the Ardennes just before and during the Battle of the Bulge, as well as "Mother Night" (adapted from the novel by Kurt Vonnegut), "Waking the Dead", and the film "The Singing Detective". He also directed some of the mini-series "Wild Palms" and appeared in the 2006 Iraq War documentary "Whose War?". His directing credits for television include "", "Gideon's Crossing", "Dexter", "The Bridge", "House" and the second and third seasons of "Fargo".


title: Foreign interventions by the United States

text: The United States has been involved in numerous foreign interventions throughout its history. By the broadest definition of military intervention, the US has engaged in nearly 400 military interventions between 1776 and 2019, with half of these operations occurring since 1950 and over 25% occurring in the post-Cold War period. The objectives for these interventions have revolved around economy, territory, social protection, regime change, protection of US citizens and diplomats, policy change, empire, and regime building.


text: There have been two dominant schools of thought in the United States about foreign policy—interventionism, which encourages military, diplomatic, and economic intervention in foreign countries—and isolationism, which discourages these.


text: The 19th century formed the roots of United States foreign interventionism, which at the time was largely driven by economic opportunities in the Pacific and Spanish-held Latin America along with the Monroe Doctrine, which saw the U.S. seek a policy to resist European colonialism in the Western hemisphere. The 20th century saw the U.S. intervene in two world wars in which American forces fought alongside their allies in international campaigns against Imperial Japan, Imperial and Nazi Germany, and their respective allies. The aftermath of World War II resulted in a foreign policy of containment aimed at preventing the spread of world communism. The ensuing Cold War resulted in the Truman, Eisenhower, Kennedy, Carter, and Reagan Doctrines, all of which saw the U.S. embrace espionage, regime change, proxy conflicts, and other clandestine activity internationally against the Soviet Union.


text: After the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, the U.S. emerged as the world's sole superpower and, with this, continued interventions in Africa, Eastern Europe, and the Middle East. Following the September 11 attacks in 2001, the U.S. and its NATO allies launched the Global War on Terror in which the U.S. waged international counterterrorism campaigns against various extremist groups such as al-Qaeda and the Islamic State in various countries. The Bush Doctrine of preemptive war saw the U.S. invade Iraq in 2003 and saw the military expand its presence in Africa and Asia via a revamped policy of foreign internal defense. The Obama administration's 2012 "Pivot to East Asia" strategy sought to refocus U.S. geopolitical efforts from counter-insurgencies in the Middle East to increasing American involvement in East Asia, as part of a policy to contain an ascendant China.


text: The United States Navy has been involved in anti-piracy activity in foreign territory throughout its history, from the Barbary Wars to combating modern piracy off the coast of Somalia and other regions.


text: The 19th century saw the United States transition from an isolationist, post-colonial regional power to a Trans-Atlantic and Trans-Pacific power.


text: The first and second Barbary Wars of the early 19th century were the first nominal foreign wars waged by the United States following independence. Directed against the Barbary States of North Africa, the Barbary Wars were fought to end piracy against American-flagged ships in the Mediterranean Sea, similar to the Quasi-War with the French Republic.


text: The founding of Liberia was privately sponsored by American groups, primarily the American Colonization Society, but the country enjoyed the support and unofficial cooperation of the United States government.


text: The early decades of the 20th century saw a number of interventions in Latin America by the U.S. government often justified under the Roosevelt Corollary to the Monroe Doctrine. President William Howard Taft viewed Dollar diplomacy as a way for American corporations to benefit while assisting in the national security goal of preventing European powers from filling any possible financial power vacuum.


text: A series of Neutrality Acts passed by the U.S. Congress in the 1930s sought to return foreign policy to non-interventionism in European affairs, as it had been prior to the American entry into World War I. However, Nazi German submarine attacks on American vessels in 1941 saw many provisions of the Neutrality Acts largely revoked. The Two-Ocean Navy Act of 1940 would ultimately increase the size of the United States Navy by 70%. The British-American destroyers-for-bases deal in September 1940 saw the U.S. transfer 50 Navy destroyers to the Royal Navy in exchange for rent-free, 99-year leases over various British imperial possessions. The U.S. gained the rights to establish new military bases in Antigua, British Guiana, Newfoundland, the Bahamas, the southern coast of Jamaica, the western coast of Saint Lucia, the Gulf of Paria, the Great Sound and Castle Harbour, Bermuda.


text: During the Second World War, the United States deployed troops to fight in Europe, North Africa, and the Pacific. The U.S. was a key participant in many battles, including the Battle of Midway, the Normandy landings, and the Battle of the Bulge. In the time period between December 7, 1941 to September 2, 1945, more than 400,000 Americans were killed in the conflict. After the war, American and Allied troops occupied both Germany and Japan. The U.S. maintains garrisoned military forces in both Germany and Japan today.


text: The United States also gave economic support to a large number of countries and movements who were opposed to the Axis powers. President Franklin D. Roosevelt's cash and carry policy was a precursor to what would become the Lend-Lease program, which "lent" a wide array of resources and weapons to many countries, especially Great Britain and the USSR, ostensibly to be repaid after the war. In practice, the United States frequently either did not push for repayment or "sold" the goods for a nominal price, such as 10% of their value. Significant aid was also sent to France and Taiwan, and resistance movements in countries occupied by the Axis.


text: Following the Second World War, the U.S. helped form the North Atlantic Treaty Organization in 1949 to resist communist expansion and supported resistance movements and dissidents in the communist regimes of Central and Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union during a period known as the Cold War. One example is the counterespionage operations following the discovery of the Farewell Dossier which some argue contributed to the fall of the Soviet regime. After Joseph Stalin instituted the Berlin Blockade, the United States, Britain, France, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and several other countries began the massive "Berlin airlift", supplying West Berlin with up to 4,700 tons of daily necessities. U.S. Air Force pilot Gail Halvorsen created "Operation Vittles", which supplied candy to German children. In May 1949, Stalin backed down and lifted the blockade. The U.S. spent billions to rebuild Europe and aid global development through programs such as the Marshall Plan.


text: In 1945, the United States and Soviet Union occupied Korea to disarm the Imperial Japanese Armed Forces that occupied the Korean peninsula. The U.S. and Soviet Union split the country at the 38th parallel and each installed a government, with the Soviet Union installing a Stalinist Kim Il-sung in North Korea and the US supporting anti-communist Syngman Rhee in South Korea, whom was elected president in 1948. Both leaders were authoritarian dictators. Tensions between the North and South erupted into full-scale war in 1950 when North Korean forces invaded the South. From 1950 to 1953, U.S. and United Nations forces fought communist Chinese and North Korean troops in the Korean War. The war resulted in 36,574 American deaths and 2–3 million Korean deaths. The war ended in a stalemate with the Korean peninsula devastated and every major city in ruins. North Korea was among the most heavily bombed countries in history. Fighting ended on 27 July 1953 when the Korean Armistice Agreement was signed. The agreement created the Korean Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) to separate North and South Korea, and allowed the return of prisoners. However, no peace treaty was ever signed, and the two Koreas are technically still at war. U.S. troops have remained in South Korea to deter further conflict.


text: Throughout the Cold War, the U.S. frequently used the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) for covert and clandestine operations against governments and groups considered unfriendly to U.S. interests, especially in the Middle East, Latin America, and Africa. In 1949, during the Truman administration, a coup d'état overthrew an elected parliamentary government in Syria, which had delayed approving an oil pipeline requested by U.S. international business interests in that region. The exact role of the CIA in the coup is controversial, but it is clear that U.S. governmental officials, including at least one CIA officer, communicated with Husni al-Za'im, the coup's organizer, prior to the March 30 coup, and were at least aware that it was being planned. Six weeks later, on May 16, Za'im approved the pipeline.


text: In the early 1950s, the CIA spearheaded Project FF, a clandestine effort to pressure Egyptian king Farouk I into embracing pro-American political reforms. After he resisted, the project shifted towards deposing him, and Farouk was subsequently overthrown in a military coup in 1952. In 1953, under U.S. President Dwight Eisenhower, the CIA helped Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi of Iran remove the democratically elected Prime Minister, Mohammed Mossadegh. Supporters of U.S. policy claimed that Mossadegh had ended democracy through a rigged referendum.


text: In 1952, the CIA launched Operation PBFortune and, in 1954, Operation PBSuccess to depose the democratically elected Guatemalan President Jacobo Árbenz and ended the Guatemalan Revolution. The coup installed the military dictatorship of Carlos Castillo Armas, the first in a series of U.S.-backed dictators who ruled Guatemala. Guatemala subsequently plunged into a civil war that cost thousands of lives and ended all democratic expression for decades.


text: The CIA armed an indigenous insurgency in order to oppose the invasion and subsequent control of Tibet by China and sponsored a failed revolt against Indonesian President Sukarno in 1958. As part of the Eisenhower Doctrine, the U.S. also deployed troops to Lebanon in Operation Blue Bat. President Eisenhower also imposed embargoes on Cuba in 1958.


text: Covert operations continued under President John F. Kennedy and his successors. In 1961, the CIA attempted to depose Cuban president Fidel Castro through the Bay of Pigs Invasion, however the invasion was doomed to fail when President Kennedy withdrew overt U.S. air support at the last minute. During Operation Mongoose, the CIA aggressively pursued its efforts to overthrow Castro's regime by conducting various assassination attempts on Castro and facilitating U.S.-sponsored terrorist attacks in Cuba. American efforts to sabotage Cuba's national security played a significant role in the events leading up to the Cuban Missile Crisis, which saw the U.S. blockade the island during a confrontation with the Soviet Union. The CIA also considered assassinating Congolese leader Patrice Lumumba with poisoned toothpaste (although this plan was aborted).


text: In 1961, the CIA sponsored the assassination of Rafael Trujillo, former dictator of the Dominican Republic. After a period of instability, U.S. troops intervened the Dominican Republic into the Dominican Civil War (April 1965) to prevent a takeover by supporters of deposed left wing president Juan Bosch who were fighting supporters of General Elías Wessin y Wessin. The soldiers were also deployed to evacuate foreign citizens. The U.S. deployed 22,000 soldiers and suffered 44 dead. The OAS also deployed soldiers to the conflict through the Inter-American Peace Force. U.S. soldiers were gradually withdrawn from May onwards. The war officially ended on September 3, 1965. The first postwar elections were held on July 1, 1966, conservative Joaquín Balaguer defeated former president Juan Bosch.


text: At the end of the Eisenhower administration, a campaign was initiated to deny Cheddi Jagan power in an independent Guyana. This campaign was intensified and became something of an obsession of John F. Kennedy, because he feared a "second Cuba". By the time Kennedy took office, the United Kingdom was ready to decolonize British Guiana and did not fear Jagan's political leanings, yet chose to cooperate in the plot for the sake of good relations with the United States. The CIA cooperated with AFL–CIO, most notably in organizing an 80-day general strike in 1963, backing it up with a strike fund estimated to be over $1 million. The Kennedy Administration put pressure on Harold Macmillan's government to help in its effort, ultimately attaining a promise on July 18, 1963, that Macmillan's government would unseat Jagan. This was achieved through a plan developed by Duncan Sandys whereby Sandys, after feigning impartiality in a Guyanese dispute, would decide in favor of Forbes Burnham and Peter D'Aguiar, calling for new elections based on proportional representation before independence would be considered, under which Jagan's opposition would have better chances to win. The plan succeeded, and the Burnham-D'Aguiar coalition took power soon after winning the election on December 7, 1964. The Johnson administration later helped Burnham fix the fraudulent election of 1968—the first election after decolonization in 1966. To guarantee Burnham's victory, Johnson also approved a well-timed Food for Peace loan, announced some weeks before the election so as to influence the election but not to appear to be doing so. U.S.–Guyanese relations cooled in the Nixon administration. Henry Kissinger, in his memoirs, dismissed Guyana as being "invariably on the side of radicals in Third World forums."


text: From 1965 to 1973, U.S. troops fought at the request of the governments of South Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia during the Vietnam War against the military of North Vietnam and against Viet Cong, Pathet Lao, and Khmer Rouge insurgents. President Lyndon Johnson escalated U.S. involvement following the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution. North Vietnam invaded Laos in 1959, and used 30,000 men to build invasion routes through Laos and Cambodia. North Vietnam sent 10,000 troops to attack the south in 1964, and this figure increased to 100,000 in 1965. By early 1965, 7,559 South Vietnamese hamlets had been destroyed by the Viet Cong. The CIA organized Hmong tribes to fight against the Pathet Lao, and used Air America to "drop 46 million pounds of foodstuffs...transport tens of thousands of troops, conduct a highly successful photoreconnaissance program, and engage in numerous clandestine missions using night-vision glasses and state-of-the-art electronic equipment." After sponsoring a coup against Ngô Đình Diệm, the CIA was asked "to coax a genuine South Vietnamese government into being" by managing development and running the Phoenix Program that killed thousands of insurgents. North Vietnamese forces attempted to overrun Cambodia in 1970, to which the U.S. and South Vietnam responded with a limited incursion. The U.S. bombing of Cambodia, called Operation Menu, proved controversial. Although David Chandler argued that the bombing "had the effect the Americans wanted--it broke the communist encirclement of Phnom Penh," others have claimed it boosted recruitment for the Khmer Rouge. North Vietnam violated the Paris Peace Accords after the US withdrew, and all of Indochina had fallen to communist governments by late 1975.


text: In 1975 it was revealed by the Church Committee that the United States had covertly intervened in Chile from as early as 1962, and that from 1963 to 1973, covert involvement was "extensive and continuous". In 1970, at the request of President Richard Nixon, the CIA planned a "constitutional coup" to prevent the election of Marxist leader Salvador Allende in Chile, while secretly encouraging Chilean Armed Forces generals to act against him. The CIA changed its approach after the murder of Chilean general René Schneider, offering aid to democratic protestors and other Chilean dissidents. Allende was accused of supporting armed groups, torturing detainees, conducting illegal arrests, and muzzling the press. However, Peter Kornbluh asserts that the CIA destabilized Chile and helped create the conditions for the 1973 Chilean coup d'état, which led to years of dictatorship under Augusto Pinochet.


text: From 1972 to 1975, the CIA armed Kurdish rebels fighting the Ba'athist government of Iraq. In 1973, Nixon authorized Operation Nickel Grass, an overt strategic airlift to deliver weapons and supplies to Israel during the Yom Kippur War, after the Soviet Union began sending arms to Syria and Egypt. The same year, Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi claimed the Gulf of Sidra as sovereign territory and closed the bay, prompting the U.S. to conduct freedom of navigation operations in the area, as it saw Libya's claims as internationally illegitimate. The dispute resulted in Libyan-U.S. confrontations, including an incident in 1981 in which two U.S. F-14 Tomcats shot down two Libyan Su-22 Fitters over the gulf. In response to purported Libyan involvement in international terrorism, specifically the 1985 Rome and Vienna airport attacks, the Reagan administration launched Operation Attain Document in early 1986, which saw operations in March 1986 that killed 72 Libyans and destroyed multiple boats and SAM sites. In April 1986, the U.S. bombed Libya again, killing over 40 Libyan soldiers and up to 30 civilians. The U.S. shot down two Libyan Air Force MiG-23 fighters 40 miles (64 km) north of Tobruk in 1989.


text: Months after the Saur Revolution brought a communist regime to power in Afghanistan, the U.S. began offering limited financial aid to Afghan dissidents through Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence, although the Carter administration rejected Pakistani requests to provide arms. After the Iranian Revolution, the United States sought rapprochement with the Afghan government—a prospect that the USSR found unacceptable due to the weakening Soviet leverage over the regime. The Soviets invaded Afghanistan on December 24, 1979, to depose Hafizullah Amin, and subsequently installed a puppet regime. Disgusted by the collapse of detente, President Jimmy Carter began covertly arming Afghan mujahideen in a program called Operation Cyclone.


text: This program was greatly expanded under President Ronald Reagan as part of the Reagan Doctrine. As part of this doctrine, the CIA also supported the UNITA movement in Angola, the Solidarity movement in Poland, the Contra revolt in Nicaragua, and the Khmer People's National Liberation Front in Cambodia. U.S. and UN forces later supervised free elections in Cambodia. Under Reagan, the US sent troops to Lebanon during the Lebanese Civil War as part of a peace-keeping mission. The U.S. withdrew after 241 servicemen were killed in the Beirut barracks bombing. In Operation Earnest Will, U.S. warships escorted reflagged Kuwaiti oil tankers to protect them from Iranian attacks during the Iran–Iraq War. The United States Navy launched Operation Praying Mantis in retaliation for the Iranian mining of the Persian Gulf during the war and the subsequent damage to an American warship. The attack helped pressure Iran to agree to a ceasefire with Iraq later that summer, ending the eight-year war. Under Carter and Reagan, the CIA repeatedly intervened to prevent right-wing coups in El Salvador and the U.S. frequently threatened aid suspensions to curtail government atrocities in the Salvadoran Civil War. As a result, the death squads made plans to kill the U.S. Ambassador. In 1983, after an internal power struggle ended with the deposition and murder of revolutionary Prime Minister Maurice Bishop, the U.S. invaded Grenada in Operation Urgent Fury and held free elections. President George H. W. Bush ordered the invasion of Panama (Operation Just Cause) in 1989 and deposed dictator Manuel Noriega.


text: In 1990 and 1991, the U.S. intervened in Kuwait after a series of failed diplomatic negotiations, and led a coalition to repel invading Iraqi forces led by Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein, in what became known as the Gulf War. On February 26, 1991, the coalition succeeded in driving out the Iraqi forces. The U.S., UK, and France responded to popular Shia and Kurdish demands for no-fly zones, and intervened and created no-fly zones in Iraq's south and north to protect the Shia and Kurdish populations from Saddam's regime. The no-fly zones cut off Saddam from the country's Kurdish north, effectively granting autonomy to the Kurds, and would stay active for 12 years until the 2003 invasion of Iraq.


text: In the 1990s, the U.S. intervened in Somalia as part of UNOSOM I and UNOSOM II, a United Nations humanitarian relief operation that resulted in saving hundreds of thousands of lives. During the 1993 Battle of Mogadishu, two U.S. helicopters were shot down by rocket-propelled grenade attacks to their tail rotors, trapping soldiers behind enemy lines. This resulted in a brief but bitter street firefight; 18 Americans and more than 300 Somalis were killed.


text: Under President Bill Clinton, the U.S. participated in Operation Uphold Democracy, a UN mission to reinstate the elected president of Haiti, Jean-Bertrand Aristide, after a military coup. In 1995, Clinton ordered U.S. and NATO aircraft to attack Bosnian Serb targets to halt attacks on UN safe zones and to pressure them into a peace accord. Clinton deployed U.S. peacekeepers to Bosnia in late 1995, to uphold the subsequent Dayton Agreement.


text: In response to the 1998 al-Qaeda bombings of U.S. embassies in East Africa that killed a dozen Americans and hundreds of Africans, President Clinton ordered Operation Infinite Reach on August 20, 1998, in which the U.S. Navy launched cruise missiles at al-Qaeda training camps in Afghanistan and a pharmaceutical factory in Sudan believed to be producing chemical weapons for the terror group. It was the first publicly acknowledged preemptive strike against a violent non-state actor conducted by the U.S. military.


text: Also, to stop the ethnic cleansing and genocide of Albanians by nationalist Serbians in the former Federal Republic of Yugoslavia's province of Kosovo, Clinton authorized the use of U.S. Armed Forces in a NATO bombing campaign against Yugoslavia in 1999, named Operation Allied Force.


text: A 2016 study by Carnegie Mellon University professor Dov Levin found that the United States intervened in 81 foreign elections between 1946 and 2000, with the majority of those being through covert, rather than overt, actions. A 2021 review of the existing literature found that foreign interventions since World War II tend overwhelmingly to fail to achieve their purported objectives.


text: After the September 11, 2001 attacks, under President George W. Bush, the U.S. and NATO launched the global War on Terror, which began in earnest with an intervention to depose the Taliban government in the Afghan War, which the U.S. suspected of protecting al-Qaeda. In December 2009, President Barack Obama ordered a "surge" in U.S. forces to Afghanistan, deploying an additional 30,000 troops to fight al-Qaeda and the Taliban insurgency, before ordering a drawdown in 2011. Afghanistan continued to host U.S. and NATO counter-terror and counterinsurgency operations (ISAF/Resolute Support and operations Enduring Freedom/Freedom's Sentinel) until 2021, when the Taliban retook control of Afghanistan amidst the negotiated American-led withdrawal from the country. Over 2,400 Americans, 18 CIA operatives, and over 1,800 civilian contractors, died in the Afghan War. The war in Afghanistan became the longest war in United States history, lasting 19 years and ten months–the Vietnam War lasted 19 years and five months–and cost the U.S. over $2 trillion.


text: Though "Operation Enduring Freedom" (OEF) usually refers to the 2001–2014 phase of the war in Afghanistan, the term is also the U.S. military's official name for the War on Terror, and has multiple subordinate operations which see American military forces deployed in regions across the world in the name of combating terrorism, often in collaboration with the host nation's central government via security cooperation and status of forces agreements:


text: The War on Terror saw the U.S. military and intelligence community evolve its asymmetric warfare capabilities, seeing the extensive usage of drone strikes and special operations in various foreign countries including Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen, and Somalia against suspected terrorist groups and their leadership.


text: In 2003, the U.S. and a multi-national coalition invaded and occupied Iraq to depose President Saddam Hussein, whom the Bush administration accused of having links to al-Qaeda and possessing weapons of mass destruction (WMDs) during the Iraq disarmament crisis. No stockpiles of WMDs were discovered besides about 500 degraded and abandoned chemical munitions leftover from the Iran–Iraq War of the 1980s, which the Iraq Survey Group deemed not militarily significant. The U.S. Senate Select Committee on Intelligence found no substantial evidence of links between Iraq and al-Qaeda and President Bush later admitted that "much of the intelligence turned out to be wrong". Over 4,400 Americans and hundreds of thousands of Iraqi civilians died during the Iraq War, which officially ended on December 18, 2011.


text: In the late 2000s, the United States Naval Forces Europe-Africa launched the Africa Partnership Station to train coastal African nations in maritime security, including enforcing laws in their territorial waters and exclusive economic zones and combating piracy, smuggling, and illegal fishing.


text: By 2009, the U.S. had used large amounts of aid and provided counterinsurgency training to enhance stability and reduce violence in President Álvaro Uribe's war-ravaged Colombia, in what has been called "the most successful nation-building exercise by the United States in this century".


text: The 2011 Arab Spring resulted in uprisings, revolutions, and civil wars across the Arab world, including Libya, Syria, and Yemen. In 2011, the U.S. intervened in the First Libyan Civil War by providing air support to rebel forces. There was also speculation in "The Washington Post" that President Barack Obama issued a covert action, discovering in March 2011 that Obama authorized the CIA to carry out a clandestine effort to provide arms and support to the Libyan opposition. Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi was ultimately overthrown and killed. American activities in Libya resulted in the 2012 Benghazi attack.


text: Beginning around 2012, under the aegis of operation Timber Sycamore and other clandestine activities, CIA operatives and U.S. special operations troops trained and armed nearly 10,000 Syrian rebel fighters against Syrian president Bashar al-Assad at a cost of $1 billion a year until it was phased out in 2017 by the Trump administration.


text: 2013–2014 saw the rise of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL/ISIS) terror organization in the Middle East. In June 2014, during Operation Inherent Resolve, the U.S. re-intervened into Iraq and began airstrikes against ISIL there in response to prior gains by the terrorist group that threatened U.S. assets and Iraqi government forces. This was followed by more airstrikes on ISIL in Syria in September 2014, where the U.S.-led coalition targeted ISIL positions throughout the war-ravaged nation. Initial airstrikes involved fighters, bombers, and cruise missiles. The coalition maintains a notable ground-presence in Syria today. The U.S. officially re-intervened in Libya in 2015 as part of Inherent Resolve.


text: In response to the 2014 Russian annexation of Crimea, the Obama administration established the European Deterrence Initiative (EDI), a program dedicated to bolstering American military presence in Central and Eastern Europe. The EDI has funded Operation Atlantic Resolve, a collective defense effort to enhance NATO's military planning and defense capabilities by maintaining a persistent rotation of American military air, ground and naval presence in the region to deter perceived Russian aggression along NATO's eastern flank. The Enhanced Forward Presence (EFP) force was established by NATO.


text: In March 2015, President Obama declared that he had authorized U.S. forces to provide logistical and intelligence support to the Saudis in their military intervention in Yemen, establishing a "Joint Planning Cell" with Saudi Arabia. American and British forces participated in the blockade of Yemen.


text: President Donald Trump was the first U.S. president in decades to not commit the military to new foreign campaigns, instead continuing wars and interventions he inherited from his predecessors, including interventions in Iraq, Syria and Somalia. The Trump administration often used economic pressure against international adversaries such as Venezuela and the Islamic Republic of Iran. In 2019, tensions between the U.S. and Iran triggered a crisis in the Persian Gulf which saw the U.S. bolster its military presence in the region, the creation of the International Maritime Security Construct to combat attacks on commercial shipping, and the assassination of prominent Iranian general Qasem Soleimani.


text: In March 2021, the Biden administration designated al-Shabaab in Mozambique as a terrorist organization and, at the request of the Mozambique government, intervened in the Cabo Delgado conflict. Army Special Forces were deployed in the country to train Mozambican marines.


title: Jordan Ayew

text: Jordan Pierre Ayew (born 11 September 1991) is a Ghanaian professional footballer who plays as a forward for club Crystal Palace and the Ghana national team.


title: Jordan Ayew

text: He is the son of former Ghana captain Abedi Pele and brother of fellow players André and Ibrahim Ayew. Born in Marseille, Ayew was raised in France and started his career with Lyon Duchère before joining the Marseille academy in 2006.


title: Jordan Ayew

text: Ayew made his debut for the Ghana national team in 2010 and has earned over 80 caps. He has played in two FIFA World Cups (2014 and 2022), as well as five Africa Cup of Nations (2012, 2015, 2017, 2019 and 2021), helping them finish runners-up in 2015.


title: Jordan Ayew

text: Ayew joined Marseille as a trainee in 2006. He signed a three-year professional contract with Marseille in 2009. Jordan Ayew made his debut for the senior team on 16 December 2009 in a league match, scoring the equaliser against Lorient. Marseille went on to win the match 2–1.


title: Jordan Ayew

text: Ayew scored his second goal against Nice at the Stade Vélodrome on 27 April 2011 in a match which saw his elder brother André Ayew score a hat-trick. On 1 November 2011, Jordan and André both started a UEFA Champions League match for the first time against Premier League giants Arsenal.


title: Jordan Ayew

text: On 6 January 2014, he joined Ligue 1 rivals Sochaux on a loan deal until the end of the 2013–14 season.


title: Jordan Ayew

text: On 28 July 2014, Ayew signed a four-year contract with Lorient. Ayew explained the style and quality of play that Lorient proposed was the reason behind the decision.


title: Jordan Ayew

text: On 27 July 2015, Ayew joined Aston Villa on a five-year deal for an undisclosed fee, reported to be in the region of £8 million. He scored his first goal for the club on 24 October 2015 against his elder brother's club, Swansea City, in the 62nd minute. Aston Villa were relegated at the end of the 2015–16 season, winning only 17 points, but Ayew did end the season as their top scorer, albeit with just seven goals.


title: Jordan Ayew

text: On 31 January 2017, Jordan Ayew joined Swansea City until the end of the 2019–20 season in exchange for Welsh International defender Neil Taylor, plus a fee from Swansea that can rise to £5 million if undisclosed future conditions are met. Jordan's elder brother was a Swansea City player during the 2015–16 season and later joined him in the winter transfer window of 2018. On 12 February 2017, he made his debut in a 2–0 victory over Leicester City after coming on in the 72nd minute for Fernando Llorente. In the final match of the season, Ayew scored his debut goal for Swansea by scoring the first goal, an equalizer which led to a their 2–1 comeback victory over West Bromwich Albion. He played a key role in helping them survive the league and avoid relegation by playing 14 matches, starting nine of those, scoring a goal and assisting three goals.


title: Jordan Ayew

text: On 22 August 2017, Ayew put up a man of the match performance by scoring a 20-yard strike goal and assisting another for Tammy Abraham's debut goal in Swansea's EFL Cup match against MK Dons. His goal 20-yard effort was described by news outlet BBC as a tremendous strike. Ayew scored his first goal in the 2017–18 season, on 26 August 2017, to help The Swans to a 2–0 victory over his future club Crystal Palace. On 17 January 2018, he scored the opening goal in the Swans' 2–1 FA Cup replay match against Wolverhampton Wanderers.


title: Jordan Ayew

text: At the end of his second season, his only full season with the club, he played 44 matches in all competition and scored 11 goals with 7 coming in the league. He finished the season as the club's top goal scorer and was voted the Players' Player of the season. His solo goal against Wolverhampton Wanderers scored on 17 January 2018 in the FA Cup won the club's goal of the season award. Despite his performance over the season, Swansea was relegated to the championship. This made it the fourth time he had ended as a club's top goal scorer but the club still getting relegated at the end of the season.


title: Jordan Ayew

text: On transfer deadline day in August 2018, Ayew joined Crystal Palace on loan for the 2018–19 season. He made his debut on 1 September 2018, starting in Palace's 2–0 loss to Southampton. On 15 September, he put on an impressive performance against Huddersfield, providing the assist to Wilfried Zaha's goal to earn Palace a 1–0 victory. He was praised for his pressing, hold up play which helped in bringing others into play and allowing the other attackers the opportunity to create chances.


title: Jordan Ayew

text: On 2 January 2019, he scored his first league goal for Palace by scoring the opening goal in their 2–0 victory over Wolverhampton Wanderers. Three days after, Ayew came on in the 68th minute for Jairo Riedewald to score a late winner (in the 86th minute) against Grimsby Town in the FA Cup.


title: Jordan Ayew

text: On 25 July 2019, Ayew made the move permanent with a £2.5m transfer from Swansea City on a three-year deal. Ayew scored his first goal of the season on 24 August 2019 against Manchester United at Old Trafford, netting the opener in the first half against the run of play, latching on to Jeffrey Schlupp's flick-on as Crystal Palace secured an historic 2–1 victory.


title: Jordan Ayew

text: On Boxing Day 2019, Ayew scored the match winner in stoppage time as Crystal Palace came from behind to defeat West Ham 2–1. It was Ayew's 21st goal in the Premier League with 20 having been scored in the second half (95%) - the highest such ratio of any player with 20+ goals in the competition's history. At the end of the season, He became the highest goalscorer for Crystal Palace with 9 goals, and won the Crystal Palace Player of the season, Players' Player of the season and Goal of the season awards.


title: Jordan Ayew

text: Ayew made his first senior appearance for Ghana on 5 September 2010, in a 3–0 2012 AFCON Qualification match win against Swaziland, at the Somhlolo National Stadium in Lobamba, Swaziland. On 1 June 2012, Ayew scored his first and second international goals in a 2014 World Cup qualification match win against Lesotho, at the Kumasi Sports Stadium in Kumasi, Ghana. In December 2011, Ayew was named to the Ghana national team provisional 25-man squad for the 2012 Africa Cup of Nations, and in January 2012 he was selected for the tournament's 23-man squad.


title: Jordan Ayew

text: In June 2014, he was included in the Ghanaian squad for the 2014 World Cup. In Ghana's last warm-up match before the 2014 FIFA World Cup in Brazil on 9 June 2014, Ayew came on as a first-half substitute for the injured Majeed Waris and ended up scoring a hat-trick in a 4–0 victory over South Korea.


title: Jordan Ayew

text: Jordan Ayew was part of the Ghanaian team in 2015 Africa Cup of Nations which took place in Equatorial Guinea that took a silver medal as result of losing out to Ivory Coast on a penalty shoot-out whom they clinch the African Cup, which occurred on 8 February 2015.


title: Jordan Ayew

text: He was part of the Ghanaian team in the 2021 Africa Cup of Nations that was eliminated at the group stage of the competition.


title: Jordan Ayew

text: Ayew is the son of Maha Ayew and Abedi Pele. His maternal grandfather, Alhaji A.A. Khadir, is Lebanese. His father, uncles Kwame and Sola, and brothers André and Ibrahim are all current or former professional footballers as well as a sister, Imani. Ayew is a practising Muslim. He is married to Denise Acquah and they have two children.


title: Ephialtes of Trachis

text: Ephialtes (; , "Ephialtēs"; although Herodotus spelled it as , "Epialtes") was the son of Eurydemus () of Malis. He betrayed his homeland, in hope of receiving some kind of reward from the Persians, by showing the army of Xerxes a path around the allied Greek position at the pass of Thermopylae, which helped them win the Battle of Thermopylae in 480 BC.


title: Ephialtes of Trachis

text: The allied Greek land forces, which Herodotus states numbered no more than 4,200 men, had chosen Thermopylae to block the advance of the much larger Persian army. Although this gap between the Trachinian Cliffs and the Malian Gulf was only "wide enough for a single carriage", it could be bypassed by a trail that led over the mountains south of Thermopylae and joined the main road behind the Greek position. Herodotus notes that this trail was well known to the locals, who had used it in the past for raiding the neighboring Phocians.


title: Ephialtes of Trachis

text: The Persians used the trail to outflank the defenders. The Spartan king, Leonidas, sent away most of the Greeks, but he himself remained behind with a rear guard composed of his men, the Thespian contingent and a Theban detachment.


title: Ephialtes of Trachis

text: Ephialtes expected to be rewarded by the Persians, but this came to nothing when they were defeated at the Battle of Salamis. He then fled to Thessaly; the Amphictyons at Pylae had offered a reward for his death. According to Herodotus, he was killed for an apparently unrelated reason by Athenades () of Trachis, around 470 BC, but the Spartans rewarded Athenades all the same.


title: Ephialtes of Trachis

text: Herodotus notes that two other men were accused of betraying this trail to the Persians: Onetas, a native of Carystus and son of Phanagoras; and Corydallus, a native of Anticyra. Nevertheless, he argues Ephialtes was the one who revealed this trail because "the deputies of the Greeks, the Pylagorae, who must have had the best means for ascertaining the truth, did not offer the reward on the heads of Onetas and Corydallus, but for that of Ephialtes."


title: Ephialtes of Trachis

text: In the 1962 film "The 300 Spartans", Ephialtes was portrayed by Kieron Moore and is depicted as a shady farmhand who worked on a goat farm near Thermopylae. He betrays the Spartans to the Persians because he was spurned by the Spartan maiden, Ellas, thinking he could win her over by dangling riches he thought he would later have.


title: Ephialtes of Trachis

text: Frank Miller's 1998 comic book miniseries "300", the 2006 film adaptation of the same name, and the , portray Ephialtes (played in the films by Andrew Tiernan) as a severely deformed Spartan exile whose parents fled Sparta to protect him from the infanticide he would have surely suffered as a disfigured infant. Although he is brave and his spear thrust more than adequate, he cannot raise his arm so he cannot be part of the phalanx, a vital part of the Spartan battle formation. Leonidas asks him to support his brethren by bringing the wounded water and clearing the dead from the battleground. In anger, Ephialtes swears to prove his parents and Leonidas wrong as he betrays them by revealing to Xerxes a hidden route that the Persian army could use to outflank the Greek defenders. When only a handful of Spartans are left when the Persians descend, Ephialtes, in Persian uniform, is with them. Leonidas gives him a blessing to live forever, which functions as an insult since a Spartan's greatest honor is to die in battle.


title: Ephialtes of Trachis

text: After the betrayal of Ephialtes, the name "Ephialtes" received a lasting stigma; it came to mean "nightmare" in the Greek language and to symbolize the archetypal traitor in Greek culture, similar to Judas in Christian culture and to Benedict Arnold in the American historical memory.


title: Bang Bang (My Baby Shot Me Down)

text: "Bang Bang (My Baby Shot Me Down)" is the second single by American singer-actress Cher from her second album, "The Sonny Side of Chér". It was written by her husband Sonny Bono and released in 1966. The song reached No. 3 in the UK Singles Chart and No. 2 on the "Billboard" Hot 100 for a week (behind "(You're My) Soul and Inspiration" by The Righteous Brothers), eventually becoming one of Cher's biggest-selling singles of the 1960s.


title: Bang Bang (My Baby Shot Me Down)

text: The single proved successful, charting high in several countries. It became Cher's first million-selling single and her first top 3 hit in the UK (and her last until "The Shoop Shoop Song (It's in His Kiss)" reached No. 1 in 1991).


title: Bang Bang (My Baby Shot Me Down)

text: Critic Tim Sendra, in his album review of "The Sonny Side of Cher", gave the song a mixed review: "The only track that has any real zest is the Bono-written novelty 'Bang Bang (My Baby Shot Me Down)', the kind of dramatic song Cher could knock out in her sleep but also a song with no real heart." The reviewer for "Cashbox" said the song was "inventive" and predicted it would become a "blockbuster" hit. The reviewer praised its "plaintive, blues-soaked" style, as well as the "interesting Gypsy-ish backing".


title: Bang Bang (My Baby Shot Me Down)

text: In 1987, Cher recorded a rock version of the song for her 1987 Platinum-certified comeback album "Cher". Produced by Jon Bon Jovi, Richie Sambora and Desmond Child, the song featured backing vocals by Jon Bon Jovi and Michael Bolton, among others and was released as a promotional single in 1988. Cher performed this version on her Heart of Stone Tour and on and it was played instrumentally on the Dressed to Kill Tour in 2014, Classic Cher in 2017–2020 and the Here We Go Again Tour in 2018–2020.


title: Bang Bang (My Baby Shot Me Down)

text: Nancy Sinatra recorded one of the best-known covers of the song, for her 1966 album "How Does That Grab You?" Featuring tremolo guitar played by her arranger, Billy Strange, Sinatra's version had a resurgence in popularity when it was used in the opening credits of the 2003 Quentin Tarantino film "Kill Bill Volume 1". In the sequence preceding the opening credits, Tarantino creates a literal, bloody interpretation of the song's chorus and the third verse, about a wedding day.


title: Bang Bang (My Baby Shot Me Down)

text: The song was also popular in Italy in 1966, when it was covered in Italian by Dalida, reaching number one and charting for two months, winning her a gold record. It appeared on her 1967 album, "Piccolo Ragazzo".


title: Bang Bang (My Baby Shot Me Down)

text: Lady Gaga performed "Bang Bang (My Baby Shot Me Down)" in July 2014 at Jazz at Lincoln Center, for the TV special "". The live recording was made available as an iTunes/Apple Music bonus track with her collaborative album with Tony Bennett, "Cheek to Cheek". Gaga's rendition of "Bang Bang" debuted at No. 1 on "Billboard's" Jazz Digital Songs Chart and was well-received by critics. The singer would later include the song in her tours and residency shows.


title: Bang Bang (My Baby Shot Me Down)

text: Caroline Polachek recorded a funky, upbeat cover of "Bang Bang" for the soundtrack of the 2022 film "", which also features a version in Chinese by G.E.M., and several other modern covers of older songs.


title: Neiman Marcus

text: Neiman Marcus Group, Inc. is an American integrated luxury retailer headquartered in Dallas, Texas, which owns Neiman Marcus, Bergdorf Goodman, Horchow, and Last Call. Since September 2021, NMG has been owned by a group of investment companies led by Davidson Kempner Capital Management, Sixth Street Partners and Pacific Investment Management.


title: Neiman Marcus

text: Herbert Marcus Sr., a former buyer with Dallas' Sanger Brothers department store, had left his previous job to found a new business with his sister Carrie Marcus Neiman and her husband, Abraham Lincoln Neiman, then employees of Sanger Brothers competitor A. Harris and Co. In 1907, the trio had $25,000 from the successful sales-promotion firm they had built in Atlanta, Georgia, and two potential investments of funds. Rather than take a chance on an unknown "sugary soda pop business," the three entrepreneurs rejected the fledgling Coca-Cola company and chose instead to return to Dallas to establish a retail business. For this reason, early company CEO Peb Atera was quoted in 1957 as saying in jest that Neiman Marcus was "founded on bad business judgment." The store, established on September 10, 1907, was lavishly furnished and stocked with clothing of a quality not commonly found in Texas. Within a few weeks, the store's initial inventory, mostly acquired on a buying trip to New York made by Carrie, was completely sold out. Oil-rich Texans, welcoming the opportunity to flaunt their wealth in more sophisticated fashion than was previously possible, flocked to the new store. In spite of the Panic of 1907 set off only a few weeks after its opening, Neiman Marcus was instantly successful, and its first several years of operation were quite profitable.


title: Neiman Marcus

text: In 1914, a fire destroyed the Neiman Marcus store and all of its merchandise. A temporary store was opened for 17 days. By the end of 1914, Neiman Marcus opened its new, permanent location at the corner of Main Street and Ervay Street. With the opening of the flagship Neiman Marcus Building, the store increased its product selection to include accessories, lingerie, and children's clothing, as well as expanding the women's apparel department. In its first year at the new building, Neiman Marcus recorded a profit of $40,000 on sales of $700,000, nearly twice the totals reached in its last year at the original location.


title: Neiman Marcus

text: In 1927, the store expanded, and Neiman Marcus premiered the first weekly retail fashion show in the United States. The store staged a show called "One Hundred Years of Texas Fashions" in 1936 in honor of the centennial of Texas's independence from Mexico. A later profile of the store, "Neiman Marcus of Texas", described the "grandiose and elaborate" gala, noting: "It was on this occasion that one of the most critical among the store's guests, Mrs. Edna Woolman Chase, editor of "Vogue", expressing the sentiment of the store's starry-eyed clientele, told the local press:


title: Neiman Marcus

text: In 1929, the store began offering menswear. During the 1930s and 1940s, Neiman Marcus began to include less-expensive clothing lines along with its high-end items, in response to the Great Depression and following war years. Between 1942 and 1944, sales at Neiman Marcus grew from $6 million to $11 million. Despite a major fire in 1946, the store continued to profit.


title: Neiman Marcus

text: Herbert Marcus Sr. died in 1950, and Carrie Neiman died two years later, leaving Stanley Marcus in charge of the company's operations.


title: Neiman Marcus

text: The 1950s saw the addition of a $1.6 million store at 8300 Preston Road (in the Preston Center; the location currently occupied by the Tootsies store). It was a store "inspired by the art and culture of Southwestern Indians" and "colors ... copied from Indian weaving, pottery, and sand paintings". The themed decor included Kachina figures on colored-glass murals and an Alexander Calder mobile named "Mariposa," the Spanish word for butterfly. Art likewise was used as inspiration for Stanley Marcus' seasonal campaigns to solicit new colors in fabrics, as he did the year that he borrowed 20 Paul Gauguin paintings — many of which had never been publicly exhibited — from collectors around the world and had the vivid colors translated into dyes for wool, silk, and leather. Area teachers cited the Gauguin exhibits as spurring a dramatic increase in art study.


title: Neiman Marcus

text: In the 1950s and 1960s, Gittings operated a portrait studio in Neiman Marcus. Clients included Hope Portocarrero, Lyndon Johnson, Howard Hughes, and the Shah of Iran, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi and his family. A late 1960s Christmas Book featured portraits of Wyatt Cooper, his wife Gloria Vanderbilt, and children Carter and Anderson Cooper.


title: Neiman Marcus

text: The company continued its extravagant marketing efforts (including the launch of His and Her gifts in the famous Christmas Book) with the inauguration of Fortnight in 1957. The Fortnight was an annual presentation of fashions and culture from a particular country, held in late October and early November of each year, and was one of the most anticipated events in Dallas. It brought fashion, dignitaries, celebrities, exotic food and extravagant celebrations to the downtown store for 29 years.


title: Neiman Marcus

text: Neiman Marcus opened its first store outside the Dallas/Fort Worth Metroplex in downtown Houston in 1957. The freestanding store was later replaced with a new anchor store located in the Houston Galleria in 1970. In 1965 the Preston Center store was closed and a new store, more than twice as big, was opened at NorthPark Center. Another branch in Fort Worth was also opened. By 1967 the four Neiman Marcus stores in operation were generating annual sales of $58.5 million, and the company's profit for that year was in excess of $2 million. In 1968, the company merged with Broadway-Hale Stores, Inc., which enabled Neiman Marcus to expand at a much faster pace than would have been possible as an independent entity. In 1971, the first Neiman Marcus outside Texas opened in Bal Harbour, Florida. In subsequent years stores opened in over 30 cities across the United States, including Atlanta, Charlotte, Beverly Hills, Boston, Chicago, Las Vegas, Minneapolis, San Francisco and St. Louis. Neiman Marcus also had a letter of intent to open a 120,000 square foot store in downtown Cleveland in 1992 as part of an anchor for the upscale Tower City Center. However, the project did not come to fruition, instead opening its concept store in the 1990s. In 1987 Bergdorf Goodman was acquired by the Neiman Marcus Group. In 1988 the brand's name was officially changed from Neiman-Marcus to Neiman Marcus, and the current logo was adopted.


title: Neiman Marcus

text: Stanley Marcus died on January 22, 2002. He had served as president and chairman of the board for the company. Marcus had been the architect behind the fashion shows, New York advertising for a strictly regional chain, in-store art exhibits, and the Christmas catalog with its outlandish His-and-Hers gifts, including vicuña wool coats, a pair of airplanes, "Noah's Ark" (including pairs of animals), camels, and live tigers.


title: Neiman Marcus

text: Over the last 20 years, ownership of Neiman Marcus has passed through several hands. In June 1987, the company was spun off from its retail parent, Carter Hawley Hale Stores, and became a publicly listed company. General Cinema, later to become Harcourt General, still had a roughly 60% controlling interest until 1999, when Neiman Marcus was fully spun off from its parent company. On May 2, 2005, Neiman Marcus Group was the subject of a leveraged buyout (LBO), selling itself to two private equity firms, Texas Pacific Group and Warburg Pincus.


title: Neiman Marcus

text: The "Neiman-Marcus Collection," comprising early account books, advertising and Christmas Catalog layouts, files on charity activities, past awards and presentations, and a collection of Stanley Marcus's personal memorabilia, among many other items, is located in the Texas & Dallas History & Archives Division, 7th Floor, Main Library, Dallas Public Library, where it may be consulted by researchers.


title: Neiman Marcus

text: In August 2013, "Women's Wear Daily" reported Neiman Marcus Group was preparing for an initial public offering of its stock. In October 2013, the Neiman Marcus Group was sold for $6 billion to Ares Management and the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board. In August 2015, the company again announced it was preparing for an initial public offering. In late 2015 Neiman Marcus became a stand-alone company.


title: Neiman Marcus

text: In November 2013 the firm discovered a 25-carat rough diamond off Namibia's coast, which was valued with a reserve price tag of $1.85 million. The diamond was referred to as the "Nam Diamond".


title: Neiman Marcus

text: In April 2019, Neiman Marcus acquired a minority stake in Fashionphile, an online resale platform for handbags, jewelry and accessories.


title: Neiman Marcus

text: Neiman Marcus Group, Ltd. LLC and 23 affiliated debtors filed Chapter 11 bankruptcy in the United States District Court for the Southern District of Texas in May 2020. The debtors requested joint administration of the cases under Case No. 20-32519. According to the company's CEO, Geoffroy van Raemdonck, the filing was a direct result of the COVID-19 pandemic in the United States. The company's website, mytheresa.com, was not part of the bankruptcy.


title: Neiman Marcus

text: At the end of September 2020, Neiman Marcus exited Chapter 11 bankruptcy, and as of 2022 is owned by a consortium of investment firms (Davidson Kempner Capital Management, Sixth Street Partners and Pacific Investment Management).


title: Neiman Marcus

text: In June 2022 NMG reported their highest sales volume in almost half of their stores, and sales of their 20 best-selling brands grew by 70% above pre-COVID levels in 2019. The company has also been attracting younger customers, with the average age falling by seven years from pre-pandemic levels, from the mid-40s to the high-30s.


title: Neiman Marcus

text: Neiman Marcus is still in operation today under the original name and is still headquartered in Dallas, where it was founded. The Neiman Marcus Group comprises the Specialty Retail stores division including Neiman Marcus Stores and Bergdorf Goodman. These retailers offer luxury apparel, accessories, jewelry, beauty and decorative home products. As of mid-2022 the company operates 36 Neiman Marcus stores in the United States and two Bergdorf Goodman stores in Manhattan. Neiman Marcus' largest market is the South Florida MSA, where they operate five stores. The company also operates five "Last Call" clearance centers and the online luxury furniture outlet Horchow.com."


title: Neiman Marcus

text: The Neiman Marcus Group owned majority interest in Kate Spade LLC, a manufacturer of handbags and accessories. In October 2006, the company purchased all minority interest for approximately $59.4 million, and in November 2006 sold 100% ownership to Liz Claiborne, Inc. for approximately $121.5 million. Another divestiture was a majority interest in Gurwitch Products LLC, which manufactures Laura Mercier cosmetics, to Alticor Inc., for approximately $40.8 million.


title: Neiman Marcus

text: In 2013, Neiman Marcus settled a federal claim for falsely claiming that some of their products contained fake fur when tests by the Humane Society of the United States showed it was actually real fur from raccoon dogs. Neiman Marcus did not admit guilt, but promised to adhere to federal fur labeling laws (the Fur Act) for the next twenty years.


title: Neiman Marcus

text: In 2014 Neiman Marcus acquired German luxury fashion e-commerce platform mytheresa.com and its flagship store Theresa from its founders Christoph and Susanne Botschen and venture capital firm Acton Capital Partners. The luxury fashion online store ships worldwide and offers designer clothing, shoes, bags and accessories for women.


title: Neiman Marcus

text: In 2019, Neiman Marcus creditor, Marble Ridge Capital, had a lawsuit against Neiman Marcus dismissed after the claim of inappropriate transfer of the company's MyTheresa assets was dismissed by a Texas judge due to lack of subject-matter jurisdiction.


title: Neiman Marcus

text: In March 2020, NMG launched an app called NM CONNECT, which allows salespeople to communicate directly with customers via texts, email, phone and video calls.


title: Neiman Marcus

text: In June 2021, NMG acquired Stylyze, an e-commerce platform, to expand the company's e-commerce capabilities. Users connect to NMG using the proprietary app CONNECT.


title: Neiman Marcus

text: In April 2022, Farfetch Limited agreed to a $200 million minority investment in the Neiman Marcus Group, aiming to stimulate growth through the stores' use of Farfetch's "Platform Solutions" e-commerce marketplace.


title: Neiman Marcus

text: Since 1939, Neiman Marcus has issued an annual Christmas catalog, which gets much free publicity from the national media for a tradition of unusual and extravagant gifts not sold in its stores. Some have included the "his and hers" themed items, trips and cars (see below).


title: Neiman Marcus

text: In 1952, Stanley Marcus introduced a new tradition of having extravagant and unusual gifts in each year's Christmas catalog, "The Christmas Book". The idea was sparked when journalist Edward R. Murrow contacted Marcus to ask if the store would be offering anything unusual that might interest his radio listeners;. Marcus invented on the spot an offering of a live Black Angus bull accompanied by a sterling silver barbecue cart, and the catalog was subsequently altered to include this item, priced at $1,925. At one point, the Neiman Marcus Christmas catalog carried the distinction of being the item most stolen from recipients' mailboxes, prompting a Chicago postmaster to suggest the company switch to enclosing the catalogs in plain brown wrappers.


title: Neiman Marcus

text: Neiman's fantasy gifts in the Christmas Book have included a $20 million submarine, mummy cases that contained an actual mummy, seats from Ebbets Field, and a $1.5 million Cobalt Valkyrie-X plane; the most expensive item was a Boeing Business Jet for over $35 million.


title: Neiman Marcus

text: In 1961, Neiman-Marcus in Dallas was one of two stores in the nation — the other being Wanamaker's in Philadelphia — to offer computer-based assistance in selecting Christmas gifts. The process worked by comparing information on the recipient to a computerized


title: Neiman Marcus

text: list of the 2,200 items available at Neiman-Marcus, then providing a printout of the 10 best suggestions. One person testing the computer filled out the questionnaire as if he were President John F. Kennedy shopping for gifts in excess of $1,000 for his wife; the computer suggested a yacht.


title: Neiman Marcus

text: During the Apollo 8 mission in December 1968, Marilyn Lovell, wife of astronaut Jim Lovell, who was the Command Module Pilot, received, as a Christmas present, a mink coat that was delivered to her by a Neiman Marcus driver in a Rolls-Royce car. The coat was wrapped in royal blue wrapping paper with two Styrofoam balls — one for the Earth and the other for the Moon — and had a card that read, "To Marilyn, from the Man in the Moon."


title: Neiman Marcus

text: In 2012, Neiman Marcus partnered with Target Corporation to create a holiday collection featuring 24 designers from the Council of Fashion Designers of America (CFDA). The 50-piece collection featured apparel, accessories and even some gifts for dogs.


title: Neiman Marcus

text: Dating back as early as the 1930s, rumors started to circulate about a woman and her daughter who were out to lunch and for dessert shared a chocolate chip cookie that they loved so much they asked the server for the recipe. The server said that the recipe would cost "two fifty" and the woman agreed. However, she was in disbelief when she was charged $250 for the recipe instead of what she thought would be $2.50. The rumor eventually became xeroxlore and a chain letter.


title: Neiman Marcus

text: In 1997, after the rumor had progressed to an infamous e-mail forward, the company released a statement that the story was an urban legend. As a sign of good faith, the store also released a version of their cookie recipe for free to all customers to try.


title: The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh

text: The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh is a 1977 American animated musical anthology comedy film produced by Walt Disney Productions and distributed by Buena Vista Distribution. It is the 22nd Disney animated feature film and was first released on a double bill with "The Littlest Horse Thieves" on March 11, 1977.


title: The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh

text: Its characters have spawned a franchise of various sequels and television programs, clothing, books, toys, and an attraction of the same name at Disneyland, Walt Disney World, and Hong Kong Disneyland in addition to Pooh's Hunny Hunt in Tokyo Disneyland.


title: The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh

text: The film's content is derived from three previously released animated featurettes Disney produced based upon the Winnie-the-Pooh books by A. A. Milne: "Winnie the Pooh and the Honey Tree" (1966), "Winnie the Pooh and the Blustery Day" (1968), and "Winnie the Pooh and Tigger Too" (1974). Extra material was used to link the three featurettes together to allow the stories to merge into each other.


title: The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh

text: A fourth, shorter scene was added to bring the film to a close, originally made during the production of "Blustery Day" (based on the presence of Jon Walmsley as Christopher Robin). The sequence was based on the final chapter of "The House at Pooh Corner", where Christopher Robin must leave the Hundred Acre Wood behind as he is starting school. In it, Christopher Robin and Pooh discuss what they liked doing together and the boy asks his bear to promise to remember him and to keep some of the memories of their time together alive. Pooh agrees to do so, and the film closes with The Narrator saying that wherever Christopher Robin goes, Pooh will always be waiting for him whenever he returns.


title: The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh

text: Six years after the release of "The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh", Disney commissioned a fourth featurette based on the stories. "Winnie the Pooh and a Day for Eeyore" premiered in theaters on March 11, 1983, but was not originally connected to the preceding films in any manner. It has since been added to home video releases of "The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh."


title: The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh

text: "The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh" was the last film in the Disney canon in which Walt Disney had personal involvement, since one of the shorts ("Winnie the Pooh and the Honey Tree") was released during his lifetime and he was involved in the production of "Blustery Day". It was always Walt Disney's intention to create a feature film, but he decided to make shorts instead — after production had begun — to familiarize U.S. audiences with the characters. All three shorts, as well as future feature films, boast classic songs by the Sherman Brothers including "Winnie the Pooh" and "The Wonderful Thing About Tiggers".


title: The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh

text: The character Gopher, which does not appear in the Milne stories, was created because Disney wanted an all-American character that could appeal to the children, and also add an element of comedy.


title: The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh

text: For the character Piglet, hand gestures and other movements were used by the animators to create expressiveness, since he (and Pooh) had the appearance of dolls or stuffed animals with relatively simple button eyes. The scene where Rabbit deals with Pooh's rump being part of the "decor of his home" was not in the original book, but was reportedly contemplated by Disney when he first read the book.


title: The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh

text: "The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh" holds a unanimous critic approval rating of on Rotten Tomatoes based on reviews, with an average of . The website's critical consensus reads "Perhaps the most faithful of Disney's literary adaptations, this cute, charming collection of episodes captures the spirit of A.A. Milne's classic stories." Film critic Leonard Maltin called the original Pooh featurettes "gems"; he also noted that the artwork resembles the book illustrations and that the particular length of these featurettes meant that the filmmakers didn't have to "compress or protract their script."


title: The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh

text: Ruth Hill Viguers, however, when writing in "A Critical History of Children’s Literature" during the 1960s, mentioned Disney's Winnie the Pooh along with several other Disney adaptations as having "destroyed the integrity of the original books".


title: The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh

text: "The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh" was first released on VHS, Betamax, CED videorecord, and laserdisc in the early 1980s. In 1996, it was re-released on VHS as part of the Walt Disney Masterpiece Collection series and included video footage of the making which was shown before the movie starts (as did the first UK VHS release in 1997). It was released on DVD for the first time in 2002 as a 25th Anniversary Edition, with digitally restored picture and sound. The individual shorts had also been released on their own on VHS in the 1990s.


title: The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh

text: The 25th-anniversary edition DVD includes, among other bonus features: "The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh: The Story Behind the Masterpiece", which documents the history of the books and their initial film adaptations; the short "Winnie the Pooh and a Day for Eeyore" (1983); and interviews with animators Ollie Johnston, Frank Thomas, and Burny Mattinson, as well as the Sherman Brothers, Paul Winchell, and others. Digital Media FX reviewer Shannon Muir stated that the audio and video quality of the film on this DVD was very high.


title: The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh

text: The "Friendship Edition" DVD was released on June 19, 2007. All of the special features from the previous "25th Anniversary Edition" DVD were recycled, with the only new addition being an episode of Playhouse Disney's computer-animated series "My Friends Tigger & Pooh". The DVD re-release coincides with the 30th anniversary of the release of the film.


title: The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh

text: The Blu-ray version was released for the first time along with the third DVD release on August 27, 2013. The bonus features included a "Mini Adventures of Winnie the Pooh" segment, "Geniuses" and the only bonus feature that was kept from the previous DVD releases was the "Winnie the Pooh" theme song music video performed by Carly Simon.


title: Hair removal

text: Hair removal, also known as epilation or depilation, is the deliberate removal of body hair or head hair.


title: Hair removal

text: Hair typically grows all over the human body and can vary in thickness and length across human populations. Hair can become more visible during and after puberty and men tend to have thicker, more visible body hair than women.


title: Hair removal

text: Both males and females have visible body hair on the head, eyebrows, eyelashes, armpits, genital area, arms, and legs. Males and some females may also have thicker hair growth on their face, abdomen, back, buttocks, anus, areola, chest, nasal, and ear. Hair does not generally grow on the lips, the underside of the hands or feet, or on certain areas of the genitalia.


title: Hair removal

text: Hair removal may be practiced for cultural, aesthetic, hygienic, sexual, medical, or religious reasons. Forms of hair removal have been practiced in almost all human cultures since at least the Neolithic era. The methods used to remove hair have varied in different times and regions.


title: Hair removal

text: For centuries, hair removal has long shaped gender roles, served to signify social status and defined notions of femininity and the ideal "body image". In early periods, the condition of being hairless was mostly done as a way to keep the body clean, using flint, seashells, beeswax and various other depilatory utensils and exfoliator substances, some highly questionable and highly caustic. Ancient Rome also associated hair removal with status: a person with smooth skin was associated with purity and superiority. Removing body hair was done by both men and women.


title: Hair removal

text: In Ancient Egypt, besides being a fashion statement for affluent Egyptians of all genders, hair removal served as a treatment for louse infestation, which was a prevalent issue in the region. Very often, they would replace the removed head hair with a Nubian wig, which was seen as easier to maintain and also fashionable. In ancient times, one highly abrasive depilatory paste used consisted of an admixture of slaked lime, water, wood-ash and yellow orpiment (arsenic trisulfide); In rural India and Iran, where this mixture is called "vajibt", it is still commonly used to remove pubic hair. In other cultures, oil extracted from unripe olives (which had not reached one-third of their natural stage of ripeness) was used to remove body hair.


title: Hair removal

text: During the medieval period, Catholic women were expected to let their hair grow long as a display of femininity, whilst keeping the hair concealed by wearing a wimple headdress in public places. The face was the only area where hair growth was considered unsightly; 14th-century ladies would also pick off hair from their foreheads to recede the hairline and give their face a more oval form. From the mid-16th century, it is said when Queen Elizabeth I came to power, she made eyebrow removal fashionable.


title: Hair removal

text: By the 18th century, body hair removal was still considered a non-necessity by European and American women. Nevertheless, when the first safety straight razor appeared for men to safely shave their beard and not inadvertently cut their throat, invented by the French master cutler in Paris 1760 and author of "La pogonotomie, ou L'art d'apprendre à se raser soi-même" (Pogonotomy, or The Art of Learning to Shave Oneself), some women allegedly used this safety razor too.