title: Medieval cuisine

text: Fruits were popular and could be served fresh, dried, or preserved, and was a common ingredient in many cooked dishes. Since honey and sugar were both expensive, it was common to include many types of fruit in dishes that called for sweeteners of some sort. The fruits of choice in the south were lemons, citrons, bitter oranges (the sweet type was not introduced until several hundred years later), pomegranates, quinces, and grapes. Farther north, apples, pears, plums, and wild strawberries were more common. Figs and dates were eaten all over Europe, but remained rather expensive imports in the north.


title: Medieval cuisine

text: While grains were the primary constituent of most meals, vegetables such as cabbages, chard, onions, garlic, and carrots were common foodstuffs. Many of these were eaten daily by peasants and workers and were less prestigious than meat. Cookbooks, which appeared in the late Middle Ages and were intended mostly for those who could afford such luxuries, contained only a small number of recipes using vegetables as the main ingredient. The lack of recipes for many basic vegetable dishes, such as potages, has been interpreted not to mean that they were absent from the meals of the nobility, but rather that they were considered so basic that they did not require recording. Carrots were available in many variants during the Middle Ages: among them a tastier reddish-purple variety and a less prestigious green-yellow type. Various legumes, like chickpeas, fava beans, and field peas were also common and important sources of protein, especially among the lower classes. With the exception of peas, legumes were often viewed with some suspicion by the dietitians advising the upper class, partly because of their tendency to cause flatulence but also because they were associated with the coarse food of peasants. The importance of vegetables to the common people is illustrated by accounts from 16th century Germany stating that many peasants ate sauerkraut from three to four times a day.


title: Medieval cuisine

text: Common and often basic ingredients in many modern European cuisines like potatoes, kidney beans, cacao, vanilla, tomatoes, chili peppers, and maize were not available to Europeans until after 1492, after European contact with the Americas, and even then it often took considerable time, sometimes several centuries, for the new foodstuffs to be accepted by society at large.


title: Medieval cuisine

text: Milk was an important source of animal protein for those who could not afford meat. It would mostly come from cows, but milk from goats and sheep was also common. Plain fresh milk was not consumed by adults except the poor or sick, and was usually reserved for the very young or elderly. Poor adults would sometimes drink buttermilk or whey or milk that was soured or watered down. Fresh milk was overall less common than other dairy products because of the lack of technology to keep it from spoiling. On occasion it was used in upper-class kitchens in stews, but it was difficult to keep fresh in bulk and almond milk was generally used in its stead.


title: Medieval cuisine

text: Cheese was far more important as a foodstuff, especially for common people, and it has been suggested that it was, during many periods, the chief supplier of animal protein among the lower classes. Many varieties of cheese eaten today, like Dutch Edam, Northern French Brie and Italian Parmesan, were available and well known in late medieval times. There were also whey cheeses, like ricotta, made from by-products of the production of harder cheeses. Cheese was used in cooking for pies and soups, the latter being common fare in German-speaking areas. Butter, another important dairy product, was in popular use in the regions of Northern Europe that specialized in cattle production in the latter half of the Middle Ages, the Low Countries and Southern Scandinavia. While most other regions used oil or lard as cooking fats, butter was the dominant cooking medium in these areas. Its production also allowed for a lucrative butter export from the 12th century onward.


title: Medieval cuisine

text: While all forms of wild game were popular among those who could obtain it, most meat came from domestic animals. Domestic working animals that were no longer able to work were slaughtered but not particularly appetizing and therefore were less valued as meat. Beef was not as common as today because raising cattle was labor-intensive, requiring pastures and feed, and oxen and cows were much more valuable as draught animals and for producing milk. Lamb and mutton were fairly common, especially in areas with a sizeable wool industry, as was veal. Far more common was pork, as domestic pigs required less attention and cheaper feed. Domestic pigs often ran freely even in towns and could be fed on just about any organic waste, and suckling pig was a sought-after delicacy. Just about every part of the pig was eaten, including ears, snout, tail, tongue, and womb. Intestines, bladder, and stomach could be used as casings for sausage or even illusion food such as giant eggs. Among the meats that today are rare or even considered inappropriate for human consumption are the hedgehog and porcupine, occasionally mentioned in late medieval recipe collections. Rabbits remained a rare and highly prized commodity. In England, they were deliberately introduced by the 13th century and their colonies were carefully protected. Further south, domesticated rabbits were commonly raised and bred both for their meat and fur. It is frequently and falsely claimed that they were of particular value for monasteries because newborn rabbits were allegedly declared fish (or at least not meat) by church officials, allowing them to be eaten during Lent.


title: Medieval cuisine

text: A wide range of birds were eaten, including pheasants, swans, peafowl, quail, partridge, storks, cranes, pigeons, larks, finches, and other songbirds that could be trapped in nets, and just about any other wild bird that could be hunted. Swans and peafowl were domesticated to some extent, but were only eaten by the social elite, and more praised for their fine appearance as stunning entertainment dishes, entremets, than for their meat. As today, ducks and geese had been domesticated but were not as popular as the chicken, the poultry equivalent of the pig. Curiously enough the barnacle goose was believed to reproduce not by laying eggs like other birds, but by growing in barnacles, and was hence considered acceptable food for fast and Lent. But at the Fourth Council of the Lateran (1215), Pope Innocent III explicitly prohibited the eating of barnacle geese during Lent, arguing that they lived and fed like ducks and so were of the same nature as other birds.


title: Medieval cuisine

text: Meats were more expensive than plant foods. Meat could be up to four times as expensive as bread. Fish was up to 16 times as costly, and was expensive even for coastal populations. This meant that fasts could mean an especially meager diet for those who could not afford alternatives to meat and animal products like milk and eggs. It was only after the Black Death had eradicated up to half of the European population that meat became more common even for poorer people. The drastic reduction in many populated areas resulted in a labor shortage, meaning that wages dramatically increased. It also left vast areas of farmland untended, making it available for pasture and putting more meat on the market.


title: Medieval cuisine

text: Although less prestigious than other animal meats, and often seen as merely an alternative to meat on fast days, seafood was the mainstay of many coastal populations. "Fish" to the medieval person was also a general name for anything not considered a proper land-living animal, including marine mammals such as whales and porpoises. Also included were the beaver, due to its scaly tail and considerable time spent in water, and barnacle geese, due to the belief that they developed underwater in the form of barnacles. Such foods were also considered appropriate for fast days, though rather contrived classification of barnacle geese as fish was not universally accepted. The Holy Roman Emperor Frederick II examined barnacles and noted no evidence of any bird-like embryo in them, and the secretary of Leo of Rozmital wrote a very skeptical account of his reaction to being served barnacle goose at a fish-day dinner in 1456.


title: Medieval cuisine

text: Especially important was the fishing and trade in herring and cod in the Atlantic and the Baltic Sea. The herring was of unprecedented significance to the economy of much of Northern Europe, and it was one of the most common commodities traded by the Hanseatic League, a powerful north German alliance of trading guilds. Kippers made from herring caught in the North Sea could be found in markets as far away as Constantinople. While large quantities of fish were eaten fresh, a large proportion was salted, dried, and, to a lesser extent, smoked. Stockfish, cod that was split down the middle, fixed to a pole and dried, was very common, though preparation could be time-consuming, and meant beating the dried fish with a mallet before soaking it in water. A wide range of mollusks including oysters, mussels, and scallops were eaten by coastal and river-dwelling populations, and freshwater crayfish were seen as a desirable alternative to meat during fish days. Compared to meat, fish was much more expensive for inland populations, especially in Central Europe, and therefore not an option for most. Freshwater fish such as eel, pike, carp, bream, perch, lamprey, salmon, and trout were common.


title: Medieval cuisine

text: While in modern times, water is often drunk with a meal, in the Middle Ages, however, concerns over purity, medical recommendations and its low prestige value made it less favored, and alcoholic beverages were preferred. They were seen as more nutritious and beneficial to digestion than water, with the invaluable bonus of being less prone to putrefaction due to the alcohol content. Wine was consumed on a daily basis in most of France and all over the Western Mediterranean wherever grapes were cultivated. Further north it remained the preferred drink of the bourgeoisie and the nobility who could afford it, and far less common among peasants and workers. The drink of commoners in the northern parts of the continent was primarily beer or ale.


title: Medieval cuisine

text: Juices, as well as wines, of a multitude of fruits and berries had been known at least since Roman antiquity and were still consumed in the Middle Ages: pomegranate, mulberry and blackberry wines, perry, and cider which was especially popular in the north where both apples and pears were plentiful. Medieval drinks that have survived to this day include "prunellé" from wild plums (modern-day slivovitz), mulberry gin and blackberry wine. Many variants of mead have been found in medieval recipes, with or without alcoholic content. However, the honey-based drink became less common as a table beverage towards the end of the period and was eventually relegated to medicinal use. Mead has often been presented as the common drink of the Slavs. This is partially true since mead bore great symbolic value at important occasions. When agreeing on treaties and other important affairs of state, mead was often presented as a ceremonial gift. It was also common at weddings and baptismal parties, though in limited quantity due to its high price. In medieval Poland, mead had a status equivalent to that of imported luxuries, such as spices and wines. Kumis, the fermented milk of mares or camels, was known in Europe, but as with mead was mostly something prescribed by physicians.


title: Medieval cuisine

text: Plain milk was not consumed by adults except the poor or sick, being reserved for the very young or elderly, and then usually as buttermilk or whey. Fresh milk was overall less common than other dairy products because of the lack of technology to keep it from spoiling. Tea and coffee, both made from plants found in the Old World, were popular in East Asia and the Muslim world during the Middle Ages. However, neither of these non-alcoholic social drinks were consumed in Europe before the late 16th and early 17th centuries.


title: Medieval cuisine

text: Wine was commonly drunk and was also regarded as the most prestigious and healthy choice. According to Galen's dietetics it was considered hot and dry, but these qualities were moderated when wine was watered down. Unlike water or beer, which were considered cold and moist, consumption of wine in moderation (especially red wine) was, among other things, believed to aid digestion, generate good blood and brighten the mood. The quality of wine differed considerably according to vintage, the type of grape and more importantly, the number of grape pressings. The first pressing was made into the finest and most expensive wines which were reserved for the upper classes. The second and third pressings were subsequently of lower quality and alcohol content. Common folk usually had to settle for a cheap white or rosé from a second or even third pressing, meaning that it could be consumed in quite generous amounts without leading to heavy intoxication. For the poorest (or the most pious), watered-down vinegar (similar to Ancient Roman "posca") would often be the only available choice.


title: Medieval cuisine

text: The aging of high-quality red wine required specialized knowledge as well as expensive storage and equipment, and resulted in an even more expensive end product. Judging from the advice given in many medieval documents on how to salvage wine that bore signs of going bad, preservation must have been a widespread problem. Even if vinegar was a common ingredient, there was only so much of it that could be used. The 14th-century cookbook "Le Viandier", describes several methods for salvaging spoiling wine; making sure that the wine barrels are always topped up or adding a mixture of dried and boiled white grape seeds with the ash of dried and burnt lees of white wine were both effective bactericides, even if the chemical processes were not understood at the time. Spiced or mulled wine was not only popular among the affluent, but was also considered especially healthy by physicians. Wine was believed to act as a kind of vaporizer and conduit of other foodstuffs to every part of the body, and the addition of fragrant and exotic spices would make it even more wholesome. Spiced wines were usually made by mixing an ordinary (red) wine with an assortment of spices such as ginger, cardamom, pepper, grains of paradise, nutmeg, cloves and sugar. These would be contained in small bags which were either steeped in wine or had liquid poured over them to produce hypocras and "claré". By the 14th century, bagged spice mixes could be bought ready-made from spice merchants.


title: Medieval cuisine

text: While wine was the most common table beverage in much of Europe, this was not the case in the northern regions where grapes were not cultivated. Those who could afford it drank imported wine, but even for nobility in these areas it was common to drink beer or ale, particularly towards the end of the Middle Ages. In England, the Low Countries, northern Germany, Poland and Scandinavia, beer was consumed on a daily basis by people of all social classes and age groups. By the mid-15th century, barley, a cereal known to be somewhat poorly suited for breadmaking but excellent for brewing, accounted for 27% of all cereal acreage in England. However, the heavy influence from Arab and Mediterranean culture on medical science (particularly due to the Reconquista and the influx of Arabic texts) meant that beer was often disfavoured. For most medieval Europeans, it was a humble brew compared with common southern drinks and cooking ingredients, such as wine, lemons and olive oil. Even comparatively exotic products like camel milk and gazelle meat generally received more positive attention in medical texts. Beer was just an acceptable alternative and was assigned various negative qualities. In 1256, the Sienese physician Aldobrandino described beer in the following way:


title: Medieval cuisine

text: But from whichever it is made, whether from oats, barley or wheat, it harms the head and the stomach, it causes bad breath and ruins the teeth, it fills the stomach with bad fumes, and as a result anyone who drinks it along with wine becomes drunk quickly; but it does have the property of facilitating urination and makes one's flesh white and smooth.


title: Medieval cuisine

text: The intoxicating effect of beer was believed to last longer than that of wine, but it was also admitted that it did not create the "false thirst" associated with wine. Though less prominent than in the north, beer was consumed in northern France and the Italian mainland. Perhaps as a consequence of the Norman Conquest and the travelling of nobles between France and England, one French variant described in the 14th century cookbook "Le Menagier de Paris" was called "godale" (most likely a direct borrowing from the English 'good ale') and was made from barley and spelt, but without hops. In England there were also the variants "poset ale", made from hot milk and cold ale, and "brakot" or "braggot", a spiced honey ale prepared much like hypocras.


title: Medieval cuisine

text: That hops could be used for flavoring beer had been known at least since Carolingian times, but was adopted gradually due to difficulties in establishing the appropriate proportions. Before the widespread use of hops, gruit, a mix of various herbs, had been used. Gruit had the same preserving properties as hops, though less reliable depending on what herbs were in it, and the end result was much more variable. Another flavoring method was to increase the alcohol content, but this was more expensive and lent the beer the undesired characteristic of being a quick and heavy intoxicant. Hops may have been widely used in England in the tenth century; they were grown in Austria by 1208 and in Finland by 1249, and possibly much earlier.


title: Medieval cuisine

text: Before hops became popular as an ingredient, it was difficult to preserve this beverage for any time, so it was mostly consumed fresh. It was unfiltered, and therefore cloudy, and likely had a lower alcohol content than the typical modern equivalent. Quantities of beer consumed by medieval residents of Europe, as recorded in contemporary literature, far exceed intakes in the modern world. For example, sailors in 16th-century England and Denmark received a ration of of beer per day. Polish peasants consumed up to of beer per day.


title: Medieval cuisine

text: In the Early Middle Ages, beer was brewed primarily in monasteries, and on a smaller scale, in individual households. By the High Middle Ages, breweries in the fledgling medieval towns of northern Germany began to take over production. Though most of the breweries were small family businesses that employed at most eight to ten people, regular production allowed for investment in better equipment and increased experimentation with new recipes and brewing techniques. These operations later spread to the Netherlands in the 14th century, then to Flanders and Brabant, and reached England by the 15th century. Hopped beer became very popular in the last decades of the Late Middle Ages. In England and the Low Countries, the per capita annual consumption was around , and it was consumed with practically every meal: low alcohol-content beers for breakfast, and stronger ones later in the day. When perfected as an ingredient, hops could make beer keep for six months or more, and facilitated extensive exports. In Late Medieval England, the word beer came to mean a hopped beverage, whereas ale had to be unhopped. In turn, ale or beer was classified as "strong" or "small", the latter less intoxicating, regarded as a drink of temperate people, and suitable for consumption by children. As late as 1693, John Locke stated that the only drink he considered suitable for children of all ages was small beer, while criticizing the apparently common practice among Englishmen of the time to give their children wine and strong alcohol.


title: Medieval cuisine

text: By modern standards, the brewing process was relatively inefficient, but capable of producing quite strong alcohol when that was desired. A 1998 attempt to recreate medieval English "strong ale" using recipes and techniques of the era (albeit with the use of modern yeast strains) yielded a strongly alcoholic brew with original gravity of 1.091 (corresponding to a potential alcohol content over 9%) and "pleasant, apple-like taste".


title: Medieval cuisine

text: The ancient Greeks and Romans knew of the technique of distillation, but it was not practiced on a major scale in Europe until after the invention of alembics, which feature in manuscripts from the ninth century onwards. Distillation was believed by medieval scholars to produce the essence of the liquid being purified, and the term "aqua vitae" ('water of life') was used as a generic term for all kinds of distillates. The early use of various distillates, alcoholic or not, was varied, but it was primarily culinary or medicinal; grape syrup mixed with sugar and spices was prescribed for a variety of ailments, and rosewater was used as a perfume and cooking ingredient and for hand washing. Alcoholic distillates were also occasionally used to create dazzling, fire-breathing entremets (a type of entertainment dish after a course) by soaking a piece of cotton in spirits. It would then be placed in the mouth of the stuffed, cooked and occasionally redressed animals, and lit just before presenting the creation.


title: Medieval cuisine

text: "Aqua vitae" in its alcoholic forms was highly praised by medieval physicians. In 1309, Arnaldus of Villanova wrote that "[i]t prolongs good health, dissipates superfluous humours, reanimates the heart and maintains youth." In the Late Middle Ages, the production of moonshine started to pick up, especially in the German-speaking regions. By the 13th century, "Hausbrand" (literally 'home-burnt' from "gebrannter wein, brandwein" 'burnt [distilled] wine') was commonplace, marking the origin of brandy. Towards the end of the Late Middle Ages, the consumption of spirits became so ingrained even among the general population that restrictions on sales and production began to appear in the late 15th century. In 1496, the city of Nuremberg issued restrictions on the selling of "aquavit" on Sundays and official holidays.


title: Medieval cuisine

text: Spices were among the most luxurious products available in the Middle Ages, the most common being black pepper, cinnamon (and the cheaper alternative cassia), cumin, nutmeg, ginger, and cloves. They all had to be imported from plantations in Asia and Africa, which made them extremely expensive, and gave them social cachet such that pepper, for example, was hoarded, traded and conspicuously donated in the manner of gold bullion. It has been estimated that around 1,000 tons of pepper and 1,000 tons of the other common spices were imported into Western Europe each year during the late Middle Ages. The value of these goods was the equivalent of a yearly supply of grain for 1.5 million people. While pepper was the most common spice, the most exclusive (though not the most obscure in its origin) was saffron, used as much for its vivid yellow-red color as for its flavor, for according to the humours, yellow signified hot and dry, valued qualities; turmeric provided a yellow substitute, and touches of gilding at banquets supplied both the medieval love of ostentatious show and Galenic dietary lore: at the sumptuous banquet that Cardinal Riario offered the daughter of the King of Naples in June 1473, the bread was gilded. Among the spices that have now fallen into obscurity are grains of paradise, a relative of cardamom which almost entirely replaced pepper in late medieval north French cooking, long pepper, mace, spikenard, galangal, and cubeb. Sugar, unlike today, was considered to be a type of spice due to its high cost and humoral qualities. Few dishes employed just one type of spice or herb, but rather a combination of several different ones. Even when a dish was dominated by a single flavor it was usually combined with another to produce a compound taste, for example parsley and cloves or pepper and ginger.


title: Medieval cuisine

text: Common herbs such as sage, mustard, and parsley were grown and used in cooking all over Europe, as were caraway, mint, dill, and fennel. Many of these plants grew throughout all of Europe or were cultivated in gardens, and were a cheaper alternative to exotic spices. Mustard was particularly popular with meat dishes and was described by Hildegard of Bingen (1098–1179) as poor man's food. While locally grown herbs were less prestigious than spices, they were still used in upper-class food, but were then usually less prominent or included merely as coloring. Anise was used to flavor fish and chicken dishes, and its seeds were served as sugar-coated comfits.


title: Medieval cuisine

text: Surviving medieval recipes frequently call for flavoring with a number of sour, tart liquids. Wine, verjuice (the juice of unripe grapes or fruits) vinegar and the juices of various fruits, especially those with tart flavors, were almost universal and a hallmark of late medieval cooking. In combination with sweeteners and spices, it produced a distinctive "pungeant, fruity" flavor. Equally common, and used to complement the tanginess of these ingredients, were (sweet) almonds. They were used in a variety of ways: whole, shelled or unshelled, slivered, ground and, most importantly, processed into almond milk. This last type of non-dairy milk product is probably the single most common ingredient in late medieval cooking and blended the aroma of spices and sour liquids with a mild taste and creamy texture.


title: Medieval cuisine

text: Salt was ubiquitous and indispensable in medieval cooking. Salting and drying was the most common form of food preservation and meant that fish and meat in particular were often heavily salted. Many medieval recipes specifically warn against oversalting and there were recommendations for soaking certain products in water to get rid of excess salt. Salt was present during more elaborate or expensive meals. The richer the host, and the more prestigious the guest, the more elaborate would be the container in which it was served and the higher the quality and price of the salt. Wealthy guests were seated "above the salt", while others sat "below the salt", where salt cellars were made of pewter, precious metals or other fine materials, often intricately decorated. The rank of a diner also decided how finely ground and white the salt was. Salt for cooking, preservation or for use by common people was coarser; sea salt, or "bay salt", in particular, had more impurities, and was described in colors ranging from black to green. Expensive salt, on the other hand, looked like the standard commercial salt common today.


title: Medieval cuisine

text: The term "dessert" comes from the Old French "desservir", 'to clear a table', literally 'to un-serve', and originated during the Middle Ages. It would typically consist of dragées and mulled wine accompanied by aged cheese, and by the Late Middle Ages could also include fresh fruit covered in honey, sugar, or syrup and boiled-down fruit pastes. Sugar, from its first appearance in Europe, was viewed as much as a drug as a sweetener; its long-lived medieval reputation as an exotic luxury encouraged its appearance in elite contexts accompanying meats and other dishes that to modern taste are more naturally savoury. There were a wide variety of fritters, crêpes with sugar, sweet custards and darioles, almond milk and eggs in a pastry shell that could also include fruit and sometimes even bone marrow or fish. German-speaking areas had a particular fondness for "krapfen": fried pastries and dough with various sweet and savory fillings. Marzipan in many forms was well-known in Italy and southern France by the 1340s, and is assumed to be of Arab origin. Anglo-Norman cookbooks are full of recipes for sweet and savory custards, potages, sauces, and tarts with strawberries, cherries, apples, and plums. The English chefs also had a penchant for using flower petals such as roses, violets, and elder flowers. An early form of quiche can be found in "Forme of Cury", a 14th-century recipe collection, as a "Torte de Bry" with a cheese and egg yolk filling. "Le Ménagier de Paris" ("Parisian Household Book"), written in 1393, includes a quiche recipe made with three kinds of cheese, eggs, beet greens, spinach, fennel fronds, and parsley.


title: Medieval cuisine

text: In northern France, a wide assortment of waffles and wafers was eaten with cheese and hypocras or a sweet malmsey as "issue de table" ('departure from the table'). The ever-present candied ginger, coriander, aniseed and other spices were referred to as "épices de chambre" ('parlor spices') and were taken as digestibles at the end of a meal to "close" the stomach. Like their Muslim counterparts in Spain, the Arab conquerors of Sicily introduced a wide variety of new sweets and desserts that eventually found their way to the rest of Europe. Just like Montpellier, Sicily was once famous for its "comfits", nougat candy ("torrone", or "turrón" in Spanish) and almond clusters ("confetti"). From the south, the Arabs also brought the art of ice cream-making that produced sorbet and several examples of sweet cakes and pastries; "cassata alla Siciliana" (from Arabic "qas'ah", the term for the terracotta bowl with which it was shaped), made from marzipan, sponge cake with sweetened ricotta, and "cannoli alla Siciliana", originally "cappelli di turchi" ('Turkish hats'), fried, chilled pastry tubes with a sweet cheese filling.


title: Medieval cuisine

text: Research into medieval foodways was, until around 1980, a somewhat neglected field of study. Misconceptions and outright errors were quite common among historians, and are still present in as a part of the popular view of the Middle Ages as a backward, primitive and barbaric era. Medieval cookery was described as revolting due to the often unfamiliar combination of flavors, the perceived lack of vegetables and a liberal use of spices. The heavy use of spices has been popular as an argument to support the claim that spices were employed to disguise the flavor of spoiled meat, a conclusion without support in historical fact and contemporary sources. Fresh meat could be procured throughout the year by those who could afford it. The preservation techniques available at the time, although crude by today's standards, were perfectly adequate. The astronomical cost and high prestige of spices, and thereby the reputation of the host, would have been effectively undone if wasted on cheap and poorly handled foods.


title: Medieval cuisine

text: The common method of grinding and mashing ingredients into pastes and the many potages and sauces has been used as an argument that most adults within the medieval nobility lost their teeth at an early age, and hence were forced to eat nothing but porridge, soup and ground-up meat. But, naturally, this is a totally unfounded theory. The image of nobles gumming their way through multi-course meals of nothing but mush has lived side by side with the contradictory apparition of the "mob of uncouth louts (disguised as noble lords) who, when not actually hurling huge joints of greasy meat at one another across the banquet hall, are engaged in tearing at them with a perfectly healthy complement of incisors, canines, bicuspids and molars".


title: Medieval cuisine

text: The numerous descriptions of banquets from the later Middle Ages concentrated on the pageantry of the event rather than the minutiae of the food, which was not the same for most banqueters as those choice "mets" served at the high table. Banquet dishes were apart from mainstream of cuisine, and have been described as "the outcome of grand banquets serving political ambition rather than gastronomy; today as yesterday" by historian Maguelonne Toussant-Samat.


title: Medieval cuisine

text: Cookbooks, or more specifically, recipe collections, compiled in the Middle Ages are among the most important historical sources for medieval cuisine. The first cookbooks began to appear towards the end of the 13th century. The "Liber de Coquina", perhaps originating near Naples, and the "Tractatus de modo preparandi" have found a modern editor in Marianne Mulon, and a cookbook from Assisi found at Châlons-sur-Marne has been edited by Maguelonne Toussaint-Samat. Though it is assumed that they describe real dishes, food scholars do not believe they were used as cookbooks might be today, as a step-by-step guide through the cooking procedure that could be kept at hand while preparing a dish. Few in a kitchen, at those times, would have been able to read, and working texts have a low survival rate.


title: Medieval cuisine

text: The recipes were often brief and did not give precise quantities. Cooking times and temperatures were seldom specified since accurate portable clocks were not available and since all cooking was done with fire. At best, cooking times could be specified as the time it took to say a certain number of prayers or how long it took to walk around a certain field. Professional cooks were taught their trade through apprenticeship and practical training, working their way up in the highly defined kitchen hierarchy. A medieval cook employed in a large household would most likely have been able to plan and produce a meal without the help of recipes or written instruction. Due to the generally good condition of surviving manuscripts it has been proposed by food historian Terence Scully that they were records of household practices intended for the wealthy and literate master of a household, such as "Le Ménagier de Paris" from the late 14th century. Over 70 collections of medieval recipes survive today, written in several major European languages.


title: Medieval cuisine

text: The repertory of housekeeping instructions laid down by manuscripts like the "Ménagier de Paris" also include many details of overseeing correct preparations in the kitchen. Towards the onset of the early modern period, in 1474, the Vatican librarian Bartolomeo Platina wrote "De honesta voluptate et valetudine" ("On honourable pleasure and health") and the physician Iodocus Willich edited "Apicius" in Zürich in 1563.


title: Medieval cuisine

text: High-status exotic spices and rarities like ginger, pepper, cloves, sesame, citron leaves and "onions of Escalon" all appear in an eighth-century list of spices that the Carolingian cook should have at hand. It was written by Vinidarius, whose excerpts of "Apicius" survive in an eighth-century uncial manuscript. Vinidarius' own dates may not be much earlier.


title: Eltz Castle

text: Eltz Castle () is a medieval castle nestled in the hills above the Moselle between Koblenz and Trier, Germany. It is still owned by a branch of House of Eltz who have lived there since the 12th century. Eltz Castle along with Bürresheim Castle and Lissingen Castle are the only castles in the Eifel region which have never been destroyed.


title: Eltz Castle

text: The castle stands on a -high rock spur that is bounded on three sides by the river Elzbach, a tributary on the north side of the Moselle. The surrounding Eltz Forest has been declared a nature reserve by Flora-Fauna-Habitat and Natura 2000.


title: Eltz Castle

text: The castle is a so-called "Ganerbenburg", or castle belonging to a community of joint heirs. This is a castle divided into several parts, which belong to different families or different branches of a family; this usually occurs when multiple owners of one or more territories jointly build a castle to house themselves. Only wealthy medieval European lords could afford to build castles or equivalent structures on their lands; many of them only owned one village or even only part of a village. This was an insufficient base to afford castles. Such lords usually lived in "knight's houses", which were fairly simple houses, scarcely bigger than those of their tenants. In some parts of the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation, inheritance law required that the estate be divided among all successors. These successors, each of whose individual inheritance was too small to build a castle of his own, could build a castle together, where each owned one separate part for housing, and all of them together shared the defensive fortification. In the case of Eltz, the family comprised three branches and the existing castle was enhanced with three separate complexes of buildings.


title: Eltz Castle

text: The main part of the castle consists of the family portions. At up to eight stories, these eight towers reach heights of between . They are fortified with strong exterior walls; to the yard, they present a partial framework. About 100 members of the owners' families lived in the over 100 rooms of the castle. A village once existed below the castle, on its south side, which housed servants, craftsmen, and their families supporting the castle.


title: Eltz Castle

text: The castle was founded in a region that was an important trade route between rich farmlands and their markets in the Roman period. With the collapse of the Western Roman Empire in the late 5th Century BE, the area was conquered by the Franks. However with the division of Charlemagne's empire the land was given to his son Louis the Pious (814). It was during this period that the site was occupied by a simple manor hall with an earthen palisade.


title: Eltz Castle

text: Several hundred years later, House of Eltz began work on the Platteltz, a Romanesque keep, which was built on the site of the old manor hall. This remains the oldest part of the castle. By 1157 the fortress was an important part of the Holy Roman Empire under Frederick Barbarossa. It continued to protect the trade routes from the Moselle Valley and the Eifel region.


title: Eltz Castle

text: Between 1331–1336, the castle endured the only serious military conflicts in its history during the Eltz Feud when lords in the region including Johann of Eltz, together with free imperial knights, opposed the territorial policies of Balduin von Trier who was the Elector and Prince-Archbishop of Trier. As a result of the standoff, Balduin lay siege to Johann at Eltz Castle. It was bombarded by primitive cannons known as Pot-de-fer and catapults from a small siege castle, Trutzeltz Castle, which was built on a rocky outcrop on the hillside above the castle (the remains can still be seen today as a few ruined walls on the northern side of the castle). The siege of Eltz ended after two years when the free imperial knights agreed to accept the laws and sovereignty of Trier. Archbishop Balduin reinstated Johann to the Burgrave, but only as his vassal and no longer as a free knight.


title: Eltz Castle

text: Started in 1470 by Philipp zu Eltz, the 10-story Greater Rodendorf House takes its name from the family's land holding in Lorraine. The oldest part is the flag hall with its late Gothic vaulted ceiling, which was probably originally a chapel. Construction was completed around 1520. The (so-called) Little Rodendorf house was finished in 1540, also in Late Gothic style. It contains the vaulted "banner-room". In 1472 the House of Rübenach completed the castle wing that has Late Gothic architecture. The buildings include the Rübenach Lower Hall, living room, and the bedchamber with its opulently decorated walls.


title: Eltz Castle

text: In 1615 the House of Kempenich house replaced castle's original hall. Every room in this part of the castle could be heated; in contrast, other castles might only have one or two heated rooms.


title: Eltz Castle

text: During the Palatinate War of Succession from 1688 to 1689, many of the early Rhenish castles were destroyed. However, the castle was saved from destruction because its lord as the time was Hans Anton zu Eltz-Üttingen who was also a senior officer in the Royal French Army of Louis XIV. Eltz-Üttingen was able to use his position to delete the castle bearing his name from the list of buildings and fortifications to be destroyed.


title: Eltz Castle

text: Count Hugo Philipp zu Eltz was thought to have fled during the French rule on the Rhine from 1794 to 1815. The French confiscated his possessions on the Rhine and nearby Trier which included Eltz castle, as well as the associated goods which were held at the French headquarters in Koblenz. In 1797, when Count Hugo Philipp later turned out to have remained hidden in Mainz, he came back to reclaim his lands, goods and wealth. In 1815 he became the sole owner of the castle through the purchase of the Rübenacher house and the landed property of the barons of Eltz-Rübenach.


title: Eltz Castle

text: In the mid 19th century, Count Karl zu Eltz restored the castle. Between 1845 and 1888, 184,000 marks (about 15 million euros in 2015) was spent on extensive construction work that carefully preserved the existing architecture.


title: Eltz Castle

text: Extensive security and restoration work took place between the years 2009 to 2012. Among other things, the vault of flags hall was secured after it was at risk of partially collapsing walls and the porch of the Kempenich section. In addition to these static repairs, almost all the slate roofs were replaced. Structural problems were remedied in the ceiling and wood damage was repaired. In the interior, heating and sanitary facilities, windows and fire alarm system were renewed, and also historic plaster was restored. The half-timbered facades and a spiral staircase were renovated at the costs of around €4.4 million. The measures were supported by a €2 million grant from an economic stimulus package provided by the German federal government. The state of Rhineland-Palatinate, the German Foundation for Monument Protection and the owners provided further funds.


title: Eltz Castle

text: The Rübenach and Rodendorf family wings in the castle are open to the public, while the Kempenich branch continue to use their third of the castle. Public visits are seasonal: from April to November. Exhibits include the treasury, which contains gold, silver and porcelain artifacts, and the armory which hosts historic weapons and suits of armor.


title: Eltz Castle

text: The castle was used as the exterior for the fictional American military lunatic asylum in the 1979 William Peter Blatty movie, "The Ninth Configuration", starring Stacy Keach.


title: Eltz Castle

text: The opening sequences of "Le Feu de Wotan", a Belgian bande dessinée (comic book) in the Yoko Tsuno series, take place in Eltz Castle. Eltz castle also inspired the castle featured chiefly on the Himmelsdorf map and its winter derivative of the MMO "World of Tanks". The model of the castle is also reused on the maps Westfield and Erlenberg.


title: Eltz Castle

text: Eltz Castle decorates the homepage of the German Whitepages as a symbol of German culture next to BMW, Nivea Cream, a Thurn and Taxis postcoach or the facade of Deutsches Museum.


title: Eltz Castle

text: The Eltz Castle (ingame name Elzbach Palace) is the Defensive Imperial Age Landmark of the Holy Roman Empire Civilization in "Age of Empires IV".


title: Yeonwoo

text: Lee Da-bin (born August 1, 1996), better known by her stage name Yeonwoo, is a South Korean singer and actress managed by 9ato Entertainment. She is best known as a former member of the girl group Momoland. Yeonwoo has acted in television dramas, including "Pegasus Market" (2019), "Touch" (2020), and "Cheat on Me If You Can" (2020).


title: Yeonwoo

text: Yeonwoo was born on August 1, 1996, in Chungju, North Chungcheong Province, South Korea. She attended School of Performing Arts Seoul.


title: Yeonwoo

text: In 2016, Yeonwoo became a contestant on Mnet's reality survival show "Finding Momoland" to select the members of MLD Entertainment's new girl group Momoland. She finished the competition in fifth place and officially debuted in Momoland on November 10, 2016, with the mini-album "Welcome to Momoland". Yeonwoo departed from Momoland in November 2019.


title: Yeonwoo

text: On January 19, 2022, it was confirmed that Yeonwoo signed an exclusive contract with 9ato Entertainment.


title: Pancho Villa Expedition

text: The Pancho Villa Expedition—now known officially in the United States as the Mexican Expedition, but originally referred to as the "Punitive Expedition, U.S. Army"—was a military operation conducted by the United States Army against the paramilitary forces of Mexican revolutionary Francisco "Pancho" Villa from March 14, 1916, to February 7, 1917, during the Mexican Revolution of 1910–1920.


title: Pancho Villa Expedition

text: The expedition was launched in retaliation for Villa's attack on the town of Columbus, New Mexico, and was the most remembered event of the Mexican Border War. The declared objective of the expedition by the Wilson administration was the capture of Villa. Despite locating and defeating the main body of Villa's command who were responsible for the Columbus raid, U.S. forces were unable to achieve Wilson's stated main objective of preventing Villa's escape.


title: Pancho Villa Expedition

text: The active search for Villa ended after a month in the field when troops sent by Venustiano Carranza, the head of the Constitutionalist faction of the revolution and then head of the Mexican government, resisted the U.S. incursion. The Constitutionalist forces used arms at the town of Parral to resist passage of a U.S. Army column. The U.S. mission was changed to prevent further attacks on it by Mexican troops and to plan for the possibility of war. When war was averted diplomatically, the expedition remained in Mexico until February 1917 to encourage Carranza's government to pursue Villa and prevent further raids across the border.


title: Pancho Villa Expedition

text: Trouble between the United States and Pancho Villa had been growing since October 1915, when the United States government officially recognized Villa's rival and former ally Venustiano Carranza as head of the government of Mexico. The U.S. also provided rail transportation through the United States, from Eagle Pass, Texas to Douglas, Arizona, for the movement of more than 5,000 Carrancista forces to fight Villa at the Battle of Agua Prieta; Villa's seasoned "División del Norte" was smashed. Feeling betrayed, Villa began attacking U.S. nationals and their property in northern Mexico. On November 26, 1915, Villa sent a force to attack the city of Nogales and in the course of the ensuing battle, engaged with American forces before withdrawing.


title: Pancho Villa Expedition

text: On January 11, 1916, sixteen American employees of the American Smelting and Refining Company were removed from a train near Santa Isabel, Chihuahua, and summarily stripped and executed. Brigadier General John J. Pershing, commanding the district headquartered at Fort Bliss, Texas, received information that Villa with a new force was on the border and about to make an attack that would force the United States to intervene, embarrassing the Carranza government. Raids were so commonplace, however, that the rumor was not seen as credible.


title: Pancho Villa Expedition

text: However, at about 4:00 am on March 9, 1916, Villa's troops attacked Columbus, New Mexico, and Camp Furlong, the U.S. Army post there, where four troops (about 240 soldiers) of the 13th Cavalry Regiment had been stationed since September 1912. Ten civilians and eight soldiers were killed in the attack, and two civilians and six soldiers wounded. The raiders burned the town, stole horses and mules, and seized machine guns, ammunition and merchandise, before fleeing back to Mexico.


title: Pancho Villa Expedition

text: However, Villa's soldiers had suffered considerable losses, with at least sixty-seven dead and dozens more wounded. Many of the casualties were inflicted when the machine gun troop of the 13th Cavalry led by 2nd Lt. John P. Lucas set up its Hotchkiss M1909 Benét–Mercié machine guns under fire along the north boundary of Camp Furlong, firing over 5,000 rounds apiece using the glow of burning buildings to illuminate targets. About thirteen of Villa's wounded later died of their wounds, and five wounded Villistas taken prisoner by the Americans were tried and hanged for murder. Local lore in Columbus holds that the attack may have been caused by a merchant in Columbus who supplied Villa with arms and ammunition. Villa is said to have paid several thousand dollars in cash for the weapons, but the merchant refused to deliver them unless he was paid in gold, giving "cause" for the raid.


title: Pancho Villa Expedition

text: The next day, acting on the recommendations of the commanders of his cavalry regiments, Southern Department commanding general Frederick Funston recommended an immediate pursuit in force into Mexico. U.S. President Woodrow Wilson concurred, designating Pershing to command the force and releasing a statement to the press:


title: Pancho Villa Expedition

text: An adequate force will be sent at once in pursuit of Villa with the single object of capturing him and putting a stop to his forays. This can and will be done in entirely friendly aid to the constituted authorities in Mexico and with scrupulous respect for the sovereignty of that Republic.


title: Pancho Villa Expedition

text: Pershing assembled an expeditionary force consisting primarily of cavalry and horse artillery, the cavalry units armed with M1909 machine guns, M1903 Springfield rifles, and M1911 semi-automatic pistols. On March 15, 1916, organized into a provisional division of three brigades (four regiments of cavalry, two of infantry, and 6,600 men), the expedition crossed the border into Mexico to search for Villa, marching in two columns from Columbus and Culberson's Ranch.


title: Pancho Villa Expedition

text: The 2nd Provisional Cavalry Brigade reached Colonia Dublán after dark on March 17, where Pershing established the main base of operations for the campaign. The 1st Aero Squadron, included in the expedition for liaison duties and aerial reconnaissance on the orders of United States Secretary of War Newton D. Baker, departed San Antonio, Texas, on March 13 by rail with eight Curtiss JN3 airplanes and flew the first aerial reconnaissance of the area from Columbus on March 16, the day after it arrived. The entire squadron flew to the advanced camp at Colonia Dublán on March 19–20, losing two aircraft in the process.


title: Pancho Villa Expedition

text: Pershing immediately sent the 7th Cavalry (seven troops in two squadrons) south just after midnight on March 18 to begin the pursuit, followed by the 10th Cavalry moving by rail two days later. From March 20 to March 30, as the 11th Cavalry arrived in Columbus by train from Fort Oglethorpe, Georgia, and then forced marched into Mexico, Pershing dispatched four additional "flying columns" through the mountainous territory into the gaps between the original three columns. Persistent winter weather through early April, particularly bitterly cold nights at high altitude, made both pursuit and logistics more difficult. An additional regiment of cavalry and two of infantry were added to the expedition in late April, bringing its total size to 4,800 men. Ultimately more than 10,000 men—virtually every available unit of the Regular Army and additional National Guard troops—were committed to the expedition either in Mexico or its supporting units at Columbus.


title: Pancho Villa Expedition

text: Because of disputes with the Carranza administration over the use of the Mexico North Western Railway to supply Pershing's troops, the United States Army employed trucks to convoy supplies to the encampment where the Signal Corps also set up wireless telegraph service from the border to Pershing's headquarters. This was the first use of truck convoys in a U.S. military operation and provided useful experience for World War I. During this phase of the campaign Pershing maintained a small mobile headquarters of 30 men using a Dodge touring car for personal transportation, to keep abreast of the moving columns and control their movements, employing aircraft of the 1st Aero Squadron as messengers. His headquarters advanced as far as the 1st Aero Squadron's field at Satevó, southeast of Chihuahua City, before falling back at the end of April.


title: Pancho Villa Expedition

text: Villa had a six-day head start on the pursuit, all but ensuring that his forces would successfully break up into smaller bands and he would be able to hide in the trackless mountains. Nevertheless, he was nearly caught by the forced marches of the pursuing cavalry columns when he recklessly paused in his retreat to attack a Carrancista garrison. The Battle of Guerrero was fought on March 29, 1916, after a 55-mile night march through the snowy Sierra Madre by Colonel George A. Dodd and 370 men of the 7th Cavalry. 360 Villistas had remained in Guerrero celebrating the victory won over the Carrancista garrison and 160 more were in the next valley in nearby San Ysidro.


title: Pancho Villa Expedition

text: Dodd's force was unexpected by the Villistas, who hastily dispersed when the U.S. troops appeared on the steep eastern bluffs overlooking the town. Dodd immediately attacked, sending one squadron west around the town to block escape routes and advancing with the other. A planned charge was thwarted when the fatigued horses were unable to attain the proper gait. During a five-hour pursuit of fleeing Villista elements, over 75 of Villa's men were killed or wounded and he was forced to retreat into the mountains. Only five of the Americans were hurt, none of them fatally. The battle is considered the single most successful engagement of the expedition and possibly the closest Pershing's men came to capturing Villa.


title: Pancho Villa Expedition

text: After advancing from Namiquipa on March 24 to San Diego del Monte, the 10th Cavalry became isolated from Pershing's headquarters by a fierce snow storm on March 31. A squadron of the 10th marched toward Guerrero after receiving reports of the action there and at midday April 1 a meeting engagement resulted with one of the retreating Villista groups, 150 strong, under Francisco Beltran at a ranch near Agua Caliente. Breaking up into even smaller groups and retreating over a wooded ridge, some of the Villistas attempted to defend themselves behind a stone wall, resulting in what was purported to be the first mounted cavalry charge by U.S. troops since 1898, led by Major Charles Young. The pursuit lasted until darkness and the Buffalo Soldiers killed at least two Villistas left on the field and routed the remainder, without loss. The action also was the first time the U.S. Army used plunging fire by machine guns to support an attack.


title: Pancho Villa Expedition

text: The columns pushed deeper into Mexico, increasing tensions between the United States and the Carranza government. On April 12, 1916, Major Frank Tompkins and Troops K and M, 13th Cavalry, numbering 128 men, were attacked by an estimated 500 Mexican troops as they were leaving the town of Parral, 513 miles into Mexico and almost to the state of Durango, following violent protests by the civilian populace. Tompkins had been personally ordered to avoid a straight-up engagement with de facto government troops to prevent war between the countries and so used a rear guard to keep the Carrancistas at a distance during a retreat to his starting point, the fortified village of Santa Cruz de Villegas. Two Americans were killed in the skirmishing, one was missing from the rear guard, and another six were wounded, while the Carrancistas lost between fourteen and seventy men, according to conflicting accounts.


title: Pancho Villa Expedition

text: The battle marked a turning point in the campaign. Military opposition by Carranza forced a halt in further pursuit while diplomatic conversations took place by both nations to avoid war. Only four days earlier, on April 8, Army Chief of Staff General Hugh L. Scott had expressed to Secretary of War Baker that Pershing had virtually accomplished his mission and that it was "not dignified for the United States to be hunting one man in a foreign country". Baker concurred and so advised Wilson, but following the fight at Parral the administration refused to withdraw the expedition, not wanting to be seen as caving in to Mexican pressure during an election year. Instead, on April 21 Pershing ordered the four columns that had converged near Parral to withdraw to San Antonio de Los Arenales. A week later he assigned the cavalry regiments, including the newly arrived 5th Cavalry, to five districts created in central Chihuahua in which to patrol and seek out the smaller bands.


title: Pancho Villa Expedition

text: While executing the withdrawal order, Dodd and a portion of the 7th Cavalry fought an engagement on April 22 with about 200 Villistas under Candelaro Cervantes at the small village of Tomochic. As the Americans entered the village, the Mexicans opened fire from the surrounding hills. Dodd first sent patrols out to engage the Villistas' rear guard, to the east of Tomochic, and after these were "scattered", located the main body on a plain to the north and brought it into action. Skirmishing continued, but after dark the Villistas retreated and the Americans moved into Tomochic. The 7th Cavalry lost two men killed and four wounded, while Dodd reported his men had killed at least thirty Villistas.


title: Pancho Villa Expedition

text: The five districts that Pershing established west of the Mexican Central Railway on April 29, 1916, were:


title: Pancho Villa Expedition

text: The next significant engagement took place on May 5. A small Carrancista garrison at the silver mining town of Cusihuiriachic was attacked by Villa's forces on May 4, prompting the garrison commander to request help from U.S. forces at nearby San Antonio. Six troops of the 11th Cavalry, its machine gun platoon, and a detachment of Apache Scouts under 1st Lt. James A. Shannon, totaling 14 officers and 319 men, began a night march under Major Robert L. Howze. Arriving at Cusihuirischic, Howze found that 140 Villistas under Julio Acosta had pulled back into the mountains to the west to a ranch at Ojos Azules, and that the garrison commander had received orders not to cooperate with the Americans. Howze was delayed three hours in finding a guide and by the time he located the ranch and was deploying to attack, day had broken. When Acosta's guards and Howze's advance guard exchanged fire, Howze with Troop A immediately ordered a charge with pistols through the hacienda. Unable to deploy on line, the charge was made in column of fours and closed with the fleeing elements of Villistas. The other troops deployed to either side of the hacienda attempting to block escape and were supported by plunging fire from the machine gun troop. Friedrich Katz called the action the "greatest victory that the Punitive Expedition would achieve." Without a single casualty, the Americans killed forty-four Villistas and wounded many more. The survivors, including Acosta, were dispersed.


title: Pancho Villa Expedition

text: Also on May 5, several hundred Mexican raiders, under a Villista officer, attacked the geographically isolated towns of Glenn Springs and Boquillas in the Big Bend region of Texas. At Glenn Springs the Mexicans overwhelmed a squad of just nine 14th Cavalry troopers guarding the town, set fire to it, then rode on to Boquillas where they killed a boy, looted the town and took two captives. Local commanders pursued the Mexicans 100 miles into the state of Coahuila to free the captives and regain the stolen property. On May 12, Major George T. Langhorne and two troops of the 8th Cavalry from Fort Bliss, Texas, reinforced by Colonel Frederick Sibley and Troops H and K of the 14th Cavalry from Fort Clark, rescued the captives at El Pino without a fight. Three days later a small detachment of cavalry encountered the raiders at Castillon, killing five of the Villistas and wounding two; the Americans had no casualties. The cavalry force returned to the United States May 21 after ten days in Mexico.


title: Pancho Villa Expedition

text: On May 14, 2nd Lt. George S. Patton raided the San Miguelito Ranch, near Rubio, Chihuahua. Patton, a Pershing aide and a future World War II general, was out looking to buy some corn from the Mexicans when he came across the ranch of Julio Cárdenas, an important leader in the Villista military organization. With fifteen men and three Dodge touring cars, Patton led America's first motorised military action, in which Cárdenas and two other men were shot dead. The young lieutenant then had the three Mexicans strapped to the hood of the cars and driven back to General Pershing's headquarters. Patton is said to have carved three notches into the twin Colt Peacemakers he carried, representing the men he claimed to have killed that day. General Pershing nicknamed him the "Bandito".


title: Pancho Villa Expedition

text: The Villistas launched an attack of their own on May 25. This time a small force of ten men from the 7th Cavalry were out looking for stray cattle and correcting maps when they were ambushed by twenty rebels just south of Cruces. One American corporal was killed and two other men were wounded, though they killed two of the "bandit leaders" and drove off the rest.


title: Pancho Villa Expedition

text: On June 2, Shannon and twenty Apache scouts fought a small skirmish with some of Candelaro Cervantes' men who had stolen a few horses from the 5th Cavalry. Shannon and the Apaches found the rebels' trail, which was a week old by then, and followed it for some time until finally catching up with the Mexicans near Las Varas Pass, about forty miles south of Namiquipa. Using the cover of darkness, Shannon and his scouts attacked the Villistas' hideout, killing one of them and wounding another without losses to themselves. The Villista who died was thought to be the leader as he carried a sword during the fight.


title: Pancho Villa Expedition

text: Another skirmish was fought on June 9, north of Pershing's headquarters and the city of Chihuahua. Twenty men from the 13th Cavalry encountered an equally small force of Villistas and chased them through Santa Clara Canyon. Three of the Mexicans were killed and the rest escaped. There were no American casualties.


title: Pancho Villa Expedition

text: On May 9, at a face-to-face meeting in El Paso, Texas, Carranza's Secretary of War and Navy, General Álvaro Obregón, threatened to send a massive force against the expedition's supply lines and forcibly drive it out of Mexico. Funston reacted by ordering Pershing to withdraw all his troops from San Antonio de Los Arenales to Colonia Dublán. Although the order was rescinded on the evening of May 11 when no evidence of Carrancista troop movements was found, the southernmost supply depots had been closed and materiel sent north that could not easily be turned around. Pershing was ordered to halt in place at Namiquipa, making tactical dispositions of his forces there and on El Valle to the north. The movements began a gradual withdrawal of the expedition to Dublán. On May 19 units of the 10th and 11th Cavalry returned to the base to guard the supply lines with Columbus and conduct reconnaissance in the absence of the temporarily grounded 1st Aero Squadron. As the threat of war with the de facto government increased, the northward movement continued. Pershing's headquarters left Namiquipa on June 21, setting up again in Dublán, after which the advanced supply depot at Namiquipa closed June 23. June 29 found the expedition concentrated on the main base and a forward camp at El Valle 60 miles to the south.


title: Pancho Villa Expedition

text: The last and most costly engagement of the Mexican Expedition was fought on June 21 when 3 officers and 87 men of Troops C and K of the 10th Cavalry, sent separately to scout Carrancista dispositions reported along the Mexican Central Railway, combined into a single column and encountered a blocking force of 300 soldiers. They were soundly defeated at the Battle of Carrizal, with Captain Charles T. Boyd, 1st Lt. Henry R. Adair, and ten enlisted men killed, ten wounded and another 24 (23 soldiers and 1 civilian guide) taken prisoner. The remainder, including the sole surviving officer, Capt. Lewis S. Morey, were rescued four days later by a relief squadron of the 11th Cavalry. The Mexicans did not do much better; they reported the loss of 24 men killed and 43 wounded, including their commander, General Félix Uresti Gómez, while Pershing listed 42 Carrancistas killed and 51 wounded. When General Pershing learned of the battle he was furious and asked for permission to attack the Carrancista garrison of Chihuahua City. President Wilson refused, knowing that it would certainly start a war.


title: Pancho Villa Expedition

text: The action at Parral in April had made the destruction of Villa and his troops secondary to the objective of preventing further attacks on U.S. forces by Carrancistas. The battle at Carrizal brought the countries to the brink of war and forced both governments to make immediate overt gestures clearly showing their intent to avoid it. Although the United States deployed 100,000 troops on the border, by July 4 the major crisis had passed. The Punitive Expedition, U.S. Army remained at Colonia Dublán indefinitely as a fixed-base operation to be a negative incentive to the Carranza government to take seriously its obligation to catch Villa. The Carranza government proved unequal to the task but nevertheless U.S. operations inside Mexico virtually ceased over the next six months.


title: Pancho Villa Expedition

text: A Joint High Commission for negotiations with the Carranza government was agreed upon in July, and the first of 52 sessions met on September 6 in New London, Connecticut. Although the commission reached accord on all issues, the negotiations failed to result in a formal agreement for withdrawal of U.S. forces signed by the Mexican government. Despite this, Pershing was ordered on January 18, 1917 to prepare the expedition for return to the United States, which was executed between January 28 and February 5. While the expedition made a dozen successful contacts with Villista groups in the first two months of the campaign, killing many of his important subordinates and 169 of his men, all of whom had participated in the attack on Columbus, it failed in its other major objective of capturing Villa. However, between the date of the American withdrawal and Villa's retirement in 1920, Villa's troops did not again successfully raid the United States.


title: Pancho Villa Expedition

text: Between June 1915 and June 1916 raiders from Mexico attacked people on U.S. soil 38 times, resulting in the deaths of 26 soldiers and 11 civilians. Reacting to the Glenn Springs raid, the Army transferred three regiments of regulars to the border and also called up state militia units from Texas, Arizona, and New Mexico on May 8. On June 15, 1916, another attempted raid by Mexican border-crossers, this at San Ygnacio, Texas, 30 miles downstream from Laredo, was repulsed by soldiers with casualties to both sides. As a result, using powers granted by passage of the National Defense Act of 1916, Wilson on June 18 fully mobilized Guard units from the remainder of the states and the District of Columbia for duty on the border. More than 140,000 National Guard troops were called up, but only two regiments, the 1st New Mexico Infantry and the 2nd Massachusetts Infantry, were actually assigned to the Mexican Expedition, and those to guard the base at Columbus. Historian Clarence C. Clendenen asserts that although no Guard units officially crossed into Mexico at any time, soldiers from the two regiments at Columbus did enter Mexico to perform various tasks.


title: Pancho Villa Expedition

text: Wide differences in proficiency existed between various guard units in training, leadership and equipment, so that for the most part units came to the border with only basic drilling as experience. Units were initially assigned as static guards for railroad bridges and border crossing points, but as training made them more proficient, they were assigned an increasing responsibility for the patrolling the border that resulted in encounters with smugglers and bandits who still posed an occasional threat. Records of the Utah National Guard indicate that it participated in three skirmishes after it arrived at Camp Stephen J. Little on the Arizona border in July 1916. The final action of the three, occurring January 26, 1917, resulted in an all-day border skirmish between Utah cavalrymen and Mexicans in which the guardsmen were reinforced and ten Mexicans were killed or wounded. While incapable of conducting organized combat operations with other units, the border security mission proved a training environment for the officers and men of the National Guard, who were again inducted into federal service after the United States entered World War I in April 1917. Many National Guard leaders in both World Wars traced their first federal service to the Mexican Expedition. In their history of the call-up, Charles Harris and Louis Sadler reveal its significance:


title: Pancho Villa Expedition

text: Between June 1916 and April 1917 the guard received intensive field training. Units from different states were sometimes grouped into large provisional units. Not only did the men become more proficient, but many officers gained invaluable experience commanding large formations. At the same time the guard was receiving badly needed equipment and supplies. The great call-up transformed the national guard into a much more effective fighting force, for it was as close as the United States came to the large-scale military maneuvers in which European armies traditionally engaged.


title: Pancho Villa Expedition

text: After U.S. forces were withdrawn in January 1917, Pershing publicly claimed the expedition to be a success, which in light of the public declarations by President Wilson was clearly not the case since Villa eluded capture by the U.S. Army. Pershing complained privately to his family that Wilson had imposed too many restrictions, which made it impossible for him to fulfill that portion of his mission. In the sting of the moment, having been compelled to withdraw out of political considerations and before much larger events in Europe put the episode behind him, he wrote that "Having dashed into Mexico with the intention of eating the Mexicans raw, we turned back at the first repulse and are now sneaking home under cover, like a whipped curr with its tail between its legs," referring to the massive rules of political restrictions put on him by President Wilson. During the three months of active operations, American forces killed or captured 292 Villistas and captured 605 rifles, 5 pistols, 14 machine guns, and 139 horses and mules from the Villistas. Most of the horses and mules were returned to local residents and the pistols kept as souvenirs.


title: Pancho Villa Expedition

text: Pershing was permitted to bring into New Mexico 527 Chinese refugees who had assisted him during the expedition, despite the ban on Chinese immigration at that time under the Chinese Exclusion Act. The Chinese refugees, known as "Pershing's Chinese", were allowed to remain in the U.S. if they worked under the supervision of the military as cooks and servants on bases. In 1921, Congress passed Public Resolution 29, which allowed them to remain in the country permanently under the conditions of the 1892 Geary Act. Most of them settled in San Antonio, Texas.


title: Pancho Villa Expedition

text: The chase after Villa was a small military episode, but it had important long-term implications. It enabled Carranza to mobilize popular anger, strengthen his political position, and permanently escalate anti-American sentiment in Mexico. On the American side, it made Pershing a national figure and, when Funston died of a heart attack shortly after the expedition returned to the United States, an obvious choice to lead the American forces in France in 1917. It gave the inexperienced American army some needed experience in dealing with training, logistics, and command using national guardsmen in a foreign land. It gave the American public a way to work out its frustrations over the European stalemate and it showed that the United States was willing to defend its borders while keeping that demonstration on a small scale.


title: Dino Stamatopoulos

text: Konstantinos Pollux Alexandros "Dino" Stamatopoulos (born December 14, 1964) is an American writer, producer, and actor. He has worked on TV programs such as "Mr. Show", "TV Funhouse", "Mad TV", "The Dana Carvey Show", "Late Show with David Letterman", and "Late Night with Conan O'Brien". He has also created multiple animated TV shows such as "Moral Orel", "Mary Shelley's Frankenhole", and "High School USA!". As an actor, he is best known for his recurring role as the character Alex "Star-Burns" Osbourne on the NBC comedy series "Community", on which he also worked as a producer and consulting writer.


title: Dino Stamatopoulos

text: Stamatopoulos was born into a Greek-American family in Norridge, Illinois as Konstantinos Pollux Alexandros Stamatopoulos. He attended Ridgewood High School in Norridge, where he wrote for his school variety show and was astounded that he could get laughs with the material he had written. While attending Columbia College Chicago, he performed a duo act with comedian Andy Dick, in which Stamatopoulos played a ventriloquist and Dick played a dummy under the influence of sleeping pills.


title: Dino Stamatopoulos

text: Stamatopoulos was hired on "The Ben Stiller Show" after Andy Dick convinced him to submit a spec script for a "Simpsons" episode. There, he met and worked with Bob Odenkirk. After Stiller's show was canceled, he moved to New York City, where he wrote during the 1990s for "The Dana Carvey Show", "Late Night with Conan O'Brien" (also with Odenkirk), "Late Show with David Letterman", and "Mr. Show with Bob and David".


title: Dino Stamatopoulos

text: In 2000 Stamatopoulos and Robert Smigel pitched Comedy Central a spin-off of Smigel's "TV Funhouse" cartoons (which were appearing singly as animated shorts on "Saturday Night Live" episodes) as a half-hour sketch comedy show. The standalone "TV Funhouse" show premiered in 2000 but was canceled after one season. He later joined the writing staff on "Mad TV".


title: Dino Stamatopoulos

text: Stamatopoulos worked as a creative consultant and contributing writer on the first season of "Tom Goes to the Mayor", with Tim & Eric and Bob Odenkirk. He also provided the voice of Drinky Crow on "The Drinky Crow Show", which aired for one season on Adult Swim. His stop motion animated series "Moral Orel" premiered on Adult Swim on Christmas 2005 and aired for three seasons, airing its final episode in December 2008; a follow-up special aired in 2012. Following "Moral Orel", Stamatopoulos created "Mary Shelley's Frankenhole", a stop motion series, for Adult Swim. It ran for two seasons from 2010 to 2012.


title: Dino Stamatopoulos

text: Stamatopoulos was a writer and producer on the 2009 NBC sitcom "Community". He also played the recurring role of Alex "Star-Burns" Osbourne, a character whose nickname derived from his large star-shaped sideburns and his tendency to define himself by them. Together with "Community" creator Dan Harmon, Stamatopoulos started production company Starburns Industries.


title: Dino Stamatopoulos

text: A long-time fan of radio personality Steve Dahl, Stamatopoulos hosted a podcast, "Sorry About Everything", from May 2012 until June 2013 on Dahl's Steve Dahl Network.


title: Dino Stamatopoulos

text: Stamatopoulos and friend Andy Dick hosted a weekly podcast, "Dino and Andy's Skull Juice", which premiered in late 2016 and was initially produced by Feral Audio. Due to an on-air incident of hostility in mid-2018, Dick was asked to leave the podcast. Stamatopoulos asked friend and recurring guest Dana Snyder to replace Dick as co-host, and the podcast was renamed "Dino & Dana's Safe Space". Additional co-hosts Laetitia "Tish" Burns and Spencer Crittenden were also given billing in the podcast.


title: Dino Stamatopoulos

text: Stamatopoulos was married and has one daughter. He is a vocalist and guitarist in a rock band called Sorry About Everything.


title: LFO (American band)

text: LFO (an acronym for Lyte Funkie Ones) were an American pop and hip hop band consisting of singers Devin Lima (born Harold Lima; March 18, 1977 – November 21, 2018), Brad Fischetti (born September 11, 1975), and Rich Cronin (August 30, 1974 – September 8, 2010). Before Lima joined the group in 1999, the third member was Brian Gillis (known as "Brizz"), who was with the group from its start in 1995; the group disbanded after Cronin's death in 2010 but briefly reunited (with Fischetti and Lima as a duo) in 2017 before Lima's own death a year later. Their single "Summer Girls" reached number 3 on the "Billboard" charts, and the band has sold over four million records worldwide.


title: LFO (American band)

text: In 1995, New Bedford, Massachusetts, Rich Cronin and Brad Fischetti met Brian "Brizz" Gillis. LFO had marginal success with the remake of the Yvonne Elliman song "If I Can't Have You", which missed the Top 40, reaching No. 54 on the UK Singles Chart. In 1997, they released a cover of the 1990 New Kids on the Block hit "Step By Step" as a single.


title: LFO (American band)

text: In 1999, Gillis was frustrated with the lack of progress that the group had made so he left to pursue a solo career, which led him to multiple college tours and a job in the music industry, with a radio promotion position in Florida with BMG.


title: LFO (American band)

text: After Gillis left, Fischetti and Cronin still wanted to continue to pursue their dreams of making it big, so they headed back to the United States and had an open audition. Devin Lima, an employee of a hardware store at the time, was chosen in place of Gillis. Lima decided the group should go by the initials LFO rather than Lyte Funkie Ones.


title: LFO (American band)

text: In the UK, however, they were unable to use the abbreviated name of LFO due to an IDM act on the Warp Records label who had been using the name since 1988.


title: LFO (American band)

text: Still signed with Trans Continental and now with Arista Records, LFO recorded some new material with Dow Brain, Brad Young and Danny Wood of New Kids on the Block, at Underground Studios' second location; the basement of a 200+ year old house in Needham, Massachusetts.


title: LFO (American band)

text: Wood had been a long-time friend of original member Brian Gillis. Among the songs LFO had recorded in an attempt to make a demo, was a track entitled "Summer Girls" (produced by Dow Brain and Brad Young of Underground Productions).


title: LFO (American band)

text: This song, "Summer Girls" made its way to the Top 10, eventually reaching the number 3 position on the "Billboard" Hot 100, and the number 1 position on the "Billboard" single sales chart.


title: LFO (American band)

text: New York City radio station Z100 (WHTZ 100.3FM-MHZ), also helped LFO's popularity through frequent promotion and airings of the song "Summer Girls" before the song's national Top 10 status.


title: LFO (American band)

text: Their debut album, "LFO", sold over 2.5 million copies worldwide, with two Top 10 hits on the Billboard Hot 100; "Summer Girls" and "Girl on TV". In 1999, "Summer Girls" was nominated for a Billboard Music Award for Top Selling Single of the Year; the song sold over 1.5 million copies in the US. The song itself contained numerous non sequiturs, such as "you're the best girl that I ever did see/the great Larry Bird, jersey 33" and "fell deep in love, but now we ain't speakin'/Michael J. Fox was Alex P. Keaton".


title: LFO (American band)

text: This album featured many vocals from original member Brian. The label loved the original versions of the records, they left all of the vocals from Brian, including his lead on "Can't Have You". The group was a part of a show called LFO Live from Orlando (1999).


title: LFO (American band)

text: The year 2000 was a busy year for LFO, featuring tours, with over 230 concerts. They also served as opening act for Britney Spears, and co-headlined Nickelodeon's "All That Music & More" summer tour. They also found success in the UK at the same time when second single, the Dow Brain and Brad Young co-written "Girl on TV", entered the UK chart at #6. In 2000, the band won the Nickelodeon Kids' Choice Award for Favorite Group of the Year. Play Along Toys made dolls of the group in 2001.


title: LFO (American band)

text: They appeared on "The Amanda Show" as guest stars, singing a song while Amanda danced in the background with the show's signature "dancing lobsters". At the end, LFO described Amanda as "the most beautiful girl in the world".


title: LFO (American band)

text: In the summer of 2001, the group released their sophomore and final album, "Life Is Good", with the release of only two singles "Life Is Good" and "Every Other Time", which was the only commercial release from the album.


title: LFO (American band)

text: After lackluster record sales of the album and the late-1990s/early-2000s boyband trend nearing its end, LFO parted ways in February 2002.


title: LFO (American band)

text: In an attempt to form a pop group without it being labeled as a boy band, Cronin founded Bad Mood Mike in 2003. The project failed, as it never produced an album, and ended after a few months. Cronin was later in a group called Loose Cannons, with Doug Ray. He was also part of the TV show, "", which aired on VH1.


title: LFO (American band)

text: In March 2005, Cronin sought treatment for constant headaches, and was diagnosed with leukemia. He underwent chemotherapy in Boston, and by January 2006, his leukemia was in remission. In 2008, Cronin launched his first solo-studio album entitled, "Billion Dollar Sound".


title: LFO (American band)

text: Lima released his first solo track back in 2006, it being a cover of the Sly & the Family Stone song, “If You Want Me to Stay” for the tribute album "Different Strokes by Different Folks". This led to him performing as part of a tribute to Sly Stone, on the 2006 Grammy Awards, alongside Steven Tyler and Joe Perry of Aerosmith, Maroon 5, Joss Stone, John Legend and will.i.am.


title: LFO (American band)

text: Lima, along with his new band The Cadbury Diesel, released their debut record, "Mozart Popart" in July 2008. The release was more rock-oriented with songs such as, “Hangin’ With You” and the soulful R&B tune “Me Veda". Cadbury Diesel performed a song entitled "Rocky Road" for the film, American Pie Presents Beta House (2007). Lima later performed music under the alias Live From Orlando.


title: LFO (American band)

text: In late 2013, Lima formed a group with electronic artists DJ Shakka and Ayj as The Mack Pack, releasing two singles in 2014, "Golden" and "Out of Control" (including a video). The group later changed its name to Rogue Cherry with the addition of Alexandra Foster which produced a post mortem album, Harold Lima: Rockwell.


title: LFO (American band)

text: Brad Fischetti has since become an anti-abortion activist. During a 2012 religious group protest he was live tweeting from outside an abortion clinic. Included in his tweets were the doctor's name, and apparent quote from a nurse claiming financial motives for the services offered there. In a statement to E! News, Fischetti denied harassing any women outside the clinic, but adamantly stood by his views and said he regrets not speaking out more when LFO was at the height of its fame. He is also the music director for a church.


title: LFO (American band)

text: Fischetti and Lima collaborated on a new hip-hop project called The Xiles. They released the two-song "Xiles X-mas" EP on December 13, 2009, and revealed that they’d already begun recording their debut album, "American Genie: Volume 1".


title: LFO (American band)

text: On June 3, 2009, LFO posted a blog entitled "LFO is Back" on their unofficial MySpace page which announced that they had reunited and were going on the Malcolm Douglas Tribute tour beginning September 23, 2009, with Rookie of the Year, Go Crash Audio, and Kiernan McMullan. A new song titled "Summer of My Life" was also announced in association with the reunion.


title: LFO (American band)

text: However, the reunion was short-lived. On September 28, 2009, LFO announced through their YouTube page LFOVIDEOS that they had permanently disbanded. They never had a chance to record a third studio album due to Cronin's death. The individual members of the band planned to continue making music with their various side projects. Rich Cronin died, at the Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston, Massachusetts on September 8, 2010, after battling leukemia. He was 36.


title: LFO (American band)

text: In July 2017, LFO released their first new song after 15 years, titled "Perfect 10". It featured then-surviving members Lima and Fischetti, with Fischetti telling "Entertainment Weekly" that "We're sincerely thankful and excited to have the opportunity to create new music and tour again. We miss the presence of our late great brother bandmate Rich Cronin. We will do our best to make him proud, carry on his legacy, and to usher LFO into the future."


title: LFO (American band)

text: In October 2017, Devin Lima was diagnosed with stage four adrenal cancer and had one kidney removed. The news was confirmed by Fischetti. Lima died of his cancer on November 21, 2018, at age 41.


title: LFO (American band)

text: The final living member Brad Fischetti began touring with pop group O-Town in a series of dates during the Y2K tour. He performed LFO songs in memory of Rich and Devin and vowed to keep the LFO legacy alive.


title: Death squad

text: A death squad is an armed group whose primary activity is carrying out extrajudicial killings or forced disappearances as part of political repression, genocide, ethnic cleansing, or revolutionary terror. Except in rare cases in which they are formed by an insurgency, domestic or foreign governments actively participate in, support, or ignore the death squad's activities. Death squads are distinct from assassination from their permanent organization and the larger number of victims (typically thousands or more) who may not be prominent individuals. Other violence, such as rape, torture, arson, or bombings may be carried out alongside murders. They may comprise a secret police force, paramilitary militia groups, government soldiers, policemen, or combinations thereof. They may also be organized as vigilantes, bounty hunters, mercenaries, or contract killers. When death squads are not controlled by the state, they may consist of insurgent forces or organized crime, such as the ones used by cartels.


title: Death squad

text: Although the term "death squad" did not rise to notoriety until the activities of such groups became widely known in Central and South America during the 1970s and 80s, death squads have been employed under different guises throughout history. The term was first used by the fascist Iron Guard in Romania. It officially installed Iron Guard death squads in 1936 in order to kill political enemies. It was also used during the Battle of Algiers by Paul Aussaresses.


title: Death squad

text: In Latin America, death squads first appeared in Brazil where a group called "Esquadrão da Morte" (literally "Death Squad") emerged in the 1960s; they subsequently spread to Argentina and Chile in the 1970s, and they were later used in Central America during the 1980s. Argentina used extrajudicial killings as a way of crushing the liberal and communist opposition to the military junta during the "Dirty War" of the 1970s. For example, Alianza Anticomunista Argentina was a far-right death squad mainly active during the "Dirty War". The Chilean military regime of 1973–1990 also committed such killings. See Operation Condor for examples.


title: Death squad

text: During the Salvadoran Civil War, death squads achieved notoriety on 24 March 1980, when a sniper assassinated Archbishop Óscar Romero as he said Mass inside a convent chapel. In December 1980, three American nuns, Ita Ford, Dorothy Kazel, and Maura Clarke, and a lay worker, Jean Donovan, were gang raped and murdered by a military unit later found to have been acting on specific orders. Death squads were instrumental in killing hundreds of real and suspected Communists. Priests who were spreading liberation theology, such as Father Rutilio Grande, were often targeted as well. The murderers were found to have been soldiers of the Salvadoran military, which was receiving U.S. funding and military advisors during the Carter administration. These events prompted outrage in the U.S. and led to a temporary cutoff in military aid at the end of his presidency. Death Squad activity stretched well into the Reagan years (1981–1989) as well.


title: Death squad

text: Honduras also had death squads active through the 1980s, the most notorious of which was the army unit Battalion 316. Hundreds of people, teachers, politicians, and union leaders were assassinated by government-backed forces. Battalion 316 received substantial training from the United States Central Intelligence Agency.


title: Death squad

text: After being caught dumping the bodies of his victims during the Tet Offensive in Saigon, Nguyễn Văn Lém, the commander of a Viet Cong unit tasked with murdering South Vietnamese police officers and their families, was extrajudicially executed on camera by Police General Nguyễn Ngọc Loan on 1 February 1968.


title: Death squad

text: , death squads have continued to be active in several locations, including Chechnya, Afghanistan, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, the Central African Republic, Nigeria, Colombia, Iraq, Yemen, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, South Sudan, Syria, Somalia, Kenya, Tanzania, India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Myanmar and the Philippines, among others.


title: Death squad

text: During the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, Russian soldiers captured by the Ukrainian army stated that Russian death squads have been activated by Vladimir Putin to kill soldiers that returned after entering Ukraine. When contacting their parents, they learnt that they have started making preparations for the soldier's funeral. As a result, Russian soldiers who decide not to fight chose to surrender rather than desert.


title: Death squad

text: The Iron Guard of Egypt was a pro-palace political movement or a secret palace organization of the Kingdom of Egypt which assassinated Farouk of Egypt's enemies or a secret unit with a licence to kill, which was believed to personally take orders from Farouk. It was involved in several deadly incidents.


title: Death squad

text: This has been condemned by the US but appears to be difficult to stop. Moreover, there is no proof as to whom is behind the killings.


title: Death squad

text: In an interview with the Pan-African magazine "Jeune Afrique", Laurent Gbagbo accused one of the opposition leaders, Alassane Ouattara (ADO), to be the main organizer of the media frenzy around his wife's involvement in the killing squads. He also successfully sued and won, in French courts, in cases against the French newspapers that made the accusations.


title: Death squad

text: In December 2014, Kenyan Anti-Terrorism Police Unit officers confessed to "Al-Jazeera" that they were responsible for almost 500 of the extrajudicial killings. The murders reportedly totalled several hundred homicides every year. They included the assassination of Abubaker Shariff Ahmed "Makaburi", an Al-Shabaab associate from Kenya, who was among 21 Islamic extremists allegedly murdered by the Kenyan police force since 2012. According to the agents, they resorted to the killing after the Kenya Police could not successfully prosecute terror suspects. In doing so, the officers indicated that they were acting on the direct orders of Kenya's National Security Council, which consisted of the Kenyan President, Deputy President, Chief of the Defence Forces, Inspector General of Police, National Security Intelligence Service Director, Cabinet Secretary of Interior, and Principal Secretary of Interior. Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta and the National Security Council of Kenya members denied operating an extrajudicial assassination program. Additionally, the officers suggested that Western security agencies provided intelligence for the program, including the whereabouts and activities of government targets- alleging that the British government supplied further logistics in the form of equipment and training. One Kenyan officer within the council's General Service Unit also indicated that Israeli instructors taught them how to kill. The head of the International Bar Association, Mark Ellis, cautioned that any such involvement by foreign nations would constitute a breach of international law. The United Kingdom and Israel denied participation in the Kenyan National Security Council's reported death squads, with the UK Foreign Office indicating that it had approached the Kenyan authorities over the charges.


title: Death squad

text: Beginning in the 1960s, the African National Congress (ANC) and its ally, the South African Communist Party (SACP), and the Pan-Africanist Congress (PAC), began a campaign to topple South Africa's National Party (NP)-controlled Apartheid Government. Both the ANC's armed wing, Umkhonto we Sizwe (MK), and South African security forces routinely engaged in bombings and targeted killings, both at home and abroad. Particularly notorious apartheid death squads were the Civil Cooperation Bureau (CCB) and the South African Police's counter-insurgency unit C10, commanded by Colonel Eugene de Kock and based at the Vlakplaas farm west of Pretoria, itself also a center for torture of prisoners.


title: Death squad

text: After the end of Apartheid, death squad violence conducted by both the National Party and the ANC was investigated by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission.


title: Death squad

text: Rafael Trujillo's Dominican government employed a death squad, known as "la 42" and led by Miguel Angel Paulino, that tooled around in a stylish red Packard called the Carro de la Muerte (Death Car). During the 12-year regime of Joaquín Balaguer, the "Frente Democrático Anticomunista y Antiterrorista", most known as "La Banda Colorá", continued the practices of "la 42". He was also known for having the SIM to kill Haitians in the Parsley massacre.


title: Death squad

text: The "Tonton Macoute" was a paramilitary force created in 1959 by Haitian dictator François "Papa Doc" Duvalier that murdered 30,000 to 60,000 Haitians.


title: Death squad

text: In a way similar to the American Indian Wars, the Centralist Republic of Mexico struggled against Apache raids. Between 1835 and 1837, only 15 years after the Mexican War of Independence and in the midst of the Texan Revolution, the Mexican state governments of Sonora and Chihuahua (that border with the U.S. states of Texas, New Mexico and Arizona ) put a bounty on the Apache bands that were in the area. In the case of Chihuahua the bounty attracted "bounty hunters" from the United States, that were often Anglo Americans, runaway slaves and even from other Indian tribes. It was paid based on Apache scalps, 100 pesos per warrior, 50 pesos per woman, and 25 pesos per child. As historian Donald E. Worcester wrote: "The new policy attracted a diverse group of men, including Anglos, runaway slaves led by Seminole John Horse, and Indians — Kirker used Delawares and Shawnees; others, such as Terrazas, used Tarahumaras; and Seminole Chief Coacoochee led a band of his own people who had fled from Indian Territory.".


title: Death squad

text: During Benito Juarez's regime and his comeback as president, he used a death squad to kill Maximilian I of Mexico, Tomás Mejía, and Miguel Miramón for treason and reforms Maximilian made and for his support to French emperor Napoleon III. One of the soldiers on the death squad named Aureliano Blanquet would then later be sentenced to death by firing squad under Francisco I. Madero 45 years later in 1912. Francisco was then later executed a few months later in 1913.


title: Death squad

text: For more than seven decades following the Mexican Revolution, Mexico was a one-party state ruled by the "Partido Revolucionario Institucional" (PRI). During this era, death squad tactics were routinely used against suspected enemies of the state.


title: Death squad

text: During the 1920s and 1930s, the PRI's founder, President Plutarco Elías Calles, used death squads against Mexico's Roman Catholic majority in the Cristero War. Calles explained his reasons in a private telegram to the Mexican Ambassador to the French Third Republic, Alberto J. Pani. ""...Catholic Church in Mexico is a political movement, and must be eliminated ... free of religious hypnotism which fools the people... within one year without the sacraments, the people will forget the faith...""


title: Death squad

text: Calles and his adherents used the Mexican Army and police, as well as paramilitary forces like the Red Shirts, to abduct, torture, and execute priests, nuns, and actively religious laity. Mexican Catholics were also routinely hanged from telegraph poles along the railroad lines. Prominent victims of the Mexican State's campaign against Catholicism include the teenager Jose Sanchez del Rio, the Jesuit priest Father Miguel Pro, and the Christian Pacifist Anacleto González Flores (see also Saints of the Cristero War).


title: Death squad

text: In response, an armed revolt against the Mexican State, the Cristero War, began in 1927. Composed largely of peasant volunteers and commanded by retired General Enrique Gorostieta Velarde, the Cristeros were also responsible for atrocities. Among them were the assassination of former Mexican President Álvaro Obregón, train robberies, and violent attacks against rural teachers. The uprising largely ended after the Holy See and the Mexican State negotiated a compromise agreement. Refusing to lay down his arms despite offers of amnesty, General Gorostieta was killed in action by the Mexican Army in Jalisco on 2 June 1929. Following the cessation of hostilities, more than 5,000 Cristeros were summarily executed by Mexican security forces. The events of the Cristero War are depicted in the 2012 film "For Greater Glory".