title: Arrakis

text: In "Dune", Sietch Tabr is a major Fremen sietch originally led by Naib Stilgar. Paul Atreides and his mother Lady Jessica, safely escaping from the Harkonnen attack, come upon Sietch Tabr and are eventually accepted into the community. In these Fremen Paul finds an incomparable fighting force who are already disgruntled by Imperial rule. He shapes them into a resistance movement that eventually takes control of Arrakis, allowing Paul to depose the Emperor. Paul moves his base of operations to Arrakeen, but Sietch Tabr remains a center of Fremen culture and politics, as well as a religiously significant site for those who worship Paul as a messiah. All Fremen sietches but one are abandoned after the terraforming of Arrakis, their exact locations remaining a mystery for thousands of years.


title: Arrakis

text: During the reign of Muad'Dib until the ascension of his son Leto II, the Atreides home-base was a colossal megastructure in Arrakeen, designed to intimidate, known as the Keep. In "Dune Messiah", the fortress is described as being large enough to enclose entire cities.


title: Arrakis

text: In his 1985 short work "The Road to Dune" (published in the short story collection "Eye"), Frank Herbert described the Grand Palace of Arrakeen (and other sites) during the reign of Paul Atreides:


title: Arrakis

text: Your walking tour of Arrakis must include this approach across the dunes to the Grand Palace at Arrakeen. From a distance, the dimensions of this construction are deceptive [...] The largest man-made structure ever built, the Grand Palace could cover more than ten of the Imperium's most populous cities under one roof, a fact that becomes more apparent when you learn Atreides attendants and their families, housed spaciously in the Palace Annex, number some thirty-five million souls [...] When you walk into the Grand Reception Hall of the Palace at Arrakeen, be prepared to feel dwarfed before an immensity never before conceived. A statue of St. Alia Atreides, shown as "The Soother of Pains," stands twenty-two meters tall but is one of the smallest adornments in the hall. Two hundred such statues could be stacked one atop the other against the entrance pillars and still fall short of the doorway's capitol arch, which itself is almost a thousand meters below the first beams upholding the lower roof.


title: Arrakis

text: Alia's Fane (or Alia's Temple) is the two-kilometer wide temple Paul-Muad'Dib built for his sister Alia between the events of "Dune" and "Dune Messiah". Herbert described it in "The Road to Dune":


title: Arrakis

text: If you are numbered among "the heartfelt pilgrims," you will cross the last thousand meters of this approach to the Temple of Alia on your knees. Those thousand meters fall well within the sweeping curves leading your eyes up to the transcendent symbols dedicating this Temple to St. Alia of the Knife. The famed "Sun-Sweep Window" incorporates every solar calendar known to human history in the one translucent display whose brilliant colors, driven by the sun of Dune, thread through the interior on prismatic pathways.


title: Arrakis

text: The Tyrant Leto II rules the universe from the Citadel, a fortress built in the Last Desert of the Sareer. The Sareer is flanked by the Forbidden Forest, home of the ferocious D-wolves, the guardians of the Sareer. Beyond that lies the Idaho River, across which a bridge spans that leads to the festival city of Onn (once Arrakeen). Mount Idaho had been completely demolished to provide the raw materials to build the high walls surrounding the Sareer. The Citadel itself is taken apart in the Famine Times after the death of Leto II in search of his alleged hoard of spice.


title: Arrakis

text: All Imperial cities on Arrakis are in the far-northern latitudes of the planet and protected from the violent weather of Arrakis by a natural formation known as the Shield Wall. When the Harkonnens controlled the planet, they ruled from the Harkonnen-built "megalopolis" of Carthag, described by Jessica as "a cheap and brassy place some two hundred kilometers northeast across the Broken Land." Arrakeen was merely the titular capital until the arrival of the Atreides.


title: Arrakis

text: There are other cities scattered in the northern regions of the planet (especially near the ice cap, where water is harvested), as well as the Fremen sietch communities scattered throughout the desert.


title: Arrakis

text: Other notable sites on Arrakis throughout its history include Observatory Mountain, Mount Idaho, Dar-es-balat and the Kynes Sea.


title: Arrakis

text: The novel "Paul of Dune" (2008) by Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson establishes that the first known inhabitants of Arrakis had been the Muadru, who introduced the sandworms to the planet. They had settlements all over the galaxy which suddenly disappeared; the Zensunni Wanderers came later, ultimately becoming the Fremen. In the novel Paul notes, "There appears to be a linguistic connection between the Fremen and the Muadru."


title: Televisa

text: Grupo Televisa is a Mexican multimedia mass media company. A major Latin American mass media corporation, it often presents itself as the largest producer of Spanish-language content.


title: Televisa

text: In April 2021, Televisa and Univision Communications announced that they had proposed a merger between Televisa's media and entertainment assets with Univision, which would form a new company to be known as TelevisaUnivision. The transaction was completed on January 31, 2022, with Televisa owning a 45% stake of the company.


title: Televisa

text: Since its beginning, the company has been owned by the Azcárraga family. The company has been led and owned by three generations of Azcárraga; each has marked an era for the company and, until October 2017, each had passed the ownership of the company to his son upon his death.


title: Televisa

text: Grupo Televisa was founded in 1955 as Telesistema Mexicano, linking Mexico's first three television stations: XHTV-TV (founded in 1950), XEW-TV (1951) and XHGC-TV (1952). Along with Emilio Azcárraga Vidaurreta, the O'Farril family and Ernesto Barrientos Reyes, who had signed on Mexico's first radio station, XEW-AM, in 1930, were co-owners of the firm. Its headquarters, known as Televicentro, were originally located on Avenida Chapultepec in downtown Mexico City. The building opened on 10 February 1952.


title: Televisa

text: The channel was the first national network to be broadcast in color in 1963. Before the launch, Telesistema began airing in color in the late 1950s in select cities along the U.S.-Mexico border, given the fact that color signals were already present since the start of US color television in the decade starting from 1954.


title: Televisa

text: In 1968, Telesistema's main competitor, Televisión Independiente de México (TIM), entered Mexico City with XHTM-TV Canal 8. At the time, both Telesistema and TIM (which was based in Monterrey) competed with another new station, XHDF-TV channel 13, which also started transmissions in 1968. Over the next four years, both networks competed in content and image until they merged, taking on the name "Televisa" in 1973. In the merger deal, the owners of Telesistema had 75 percent of the stocks, while the owners of Televisión Independiente had the rest, which were sold to Telesistema later because of financial problems.


title: Televisa

text: On 7 September 1970, "24 Horas" debuted and became one of Mexico's most-watched news programs. The host, journalist Jacobo Zabludovsky, anchored the newscast for almost three decades.


title: Televisa

text: The 1973 merger brought in another new face who would later help revolutionize television and pop music: Raúl Velasco and his Sunday program "Siempre en Domingo", which was, from the start, being aired on Telesistema. Its successful run of 29 seasons (1969–98) not only featured the best pop artists from Spain and Latin America as well as from English-speaking countries, but also the most successful local singers, and its broadcast into many countries in both North and South America helped promote Latin pop to millions of television viewers.


title: Televisa

text: On 17 August 1972, Emilio Azcárraga Vidaurreta died, and Emilio Azcárraga Milmo succeeded him as company president and owner. On 8 January 1973, both Telesistema Mexicano and Televisión Independiente de México merged, taking on the name Televisa, an acronym for "Televisión Via Satélite" in Spanish. In 1975, brothers Emilio Diez Barroso and Fernando Diez Barroso began working in the presidency offices of Televisa.


title: Televisa

text: Televisa started to transmit several programs produced by the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México in 1977. On 3 March 1983, Channel 8 was reformatted to become a cultural channel, offering informative programs, debates and cultural shows. In 1985, a frequency swap moved the station from channel 8 to 9, and Televisa also decided to swap its callsign for that of XEQ-TV, which had been on channel 9 and broadcast from Altzomoni; the XHTM callsign was moved to that station, which was moved to channel 10. Canal 9 eventually became Galavisión, now known as Gala TV.


title: Televisa

text: On 19 September 1985, an earthquake measuring 8.1 on the Richter scale caused widespread damage in Mexico City and destroyed the south tower of Televisa's main building. Nonetheless, Televisa's transmissions were not seriously affected. However, several dubbed TV shows were lost.


title: Televisa

text: In 1991, Televisa, with help from Japanese public television network NHK (Nippon Hōsō Kyōkai), began its first broadcast in HDTV, using the Japanese Multiple sub-Nyquist sampling Encoding MUSE system, the first in Latin America. Between 1993 and 1994 Televisa was about to buy Italian local TV station GBR, based in Rome, planning to import in Italy the network's mixed sport-"telenovelas" formula, but the transaction was ultimately aborted.


title: Televisa

text: It was Azcárraga Milmo who presided over the launch of company owned Noticias ECO in 1988, which was the first Spanish language cable and satellite news network in Latin America.


title: Televisa

text: In April 1997, Milmo died and Emilio Azcárraga Jean succeeded him as the president of the company. Azcárraga Jean was 29 years old and he was one of the youngest executives in Mexico at that time. In December 1997, Televisa joined with other Mexican media companies to create a marathon known as "Teletón", whose mission is to provide knowledge about physical disabilities, giving a strong message about respect, equality and support to people in these conditions. This movement from media, enterprises and Mexicans is reflected in the buildings created with the money from this Marathon, named Centros de Rehabilitación Infantil (CRIT). It is said that sponsors use it as a way to deduce taxes as the Teletón takes place at the end of the fiscal year and therefore allows companies to deduce their donations before declaring their incomes. Televisa introduced a new logo on January 1, 2001, putting eight lines instead of ten, and it closely resembles the previous logo. Changes include the sun now being a 3D ball, which in turn making the logo an eye, and the wordmark was brought back and in Helvetica Black.


title: Televisa

text: Televisa is the largest mass media company in Latin America, and it is owned by the Azcárraga family. Televisa controls 66% of the 465 television concessions. Also Televisa owns television programing and broadcasting, programing pay television, publishing distribution, cable television, radio production and broadcasting, football teams (Club Necaxa and Club America), stadiums, Televisa editorial (that makes books, newspapers and magazines), paging services, professional sports and business promotion, film production and distribution, dubbing, operation of horizontal internet portal, DVD distribution, EMI Televisa music, Playcity casino, etc.


title: Televisa

text: There is complicity between Mexican media and government. Media and political power in México have a symbiotic relationship where the economic elites that control the media (Televisa and TV Azteca) are privileged in exchange for their support for the policies and actions of the government. In México the mass media owners are likely to have access to high levels of the Mexican government. On 3 May 2006, the community of San Salvador Atenco was violently repressed by the Mexican police who used excessive force and committed severe human rights violations. This event was one of the most violent repressions in the nation's history. This event is important because it shows how Televisa and TV Azteca were involved in inciting and supporting the repression of the people of Atenco by the government in México. The approval of the repression of Atenco by TV Azteca and Televisa can be seen as a clear example of the collaboration between mass media and government. Televisa and TV Azteca through their news programs support government policies without criticism and dismiss alternative voices to the dominant discourse. When this event occurred, mass media portrayed the farmers of Atenco as a radical social movement without reporting the reason behind the mobilization. In México the mass media are not there to provide objective information, México is under the shadow of authoritative journalism, in which they are only there to endorse an agenda that is aligned with the government.


title: Televisa

text: In August 2014, Televisa announced it would acquire the remaining shares in Mexican cable firm Cablecom that it did not already own for a fee of around $653.96 million. In September 2014, it was announced that Grupo Salinas would acquire Grupo Televisa's 50 percent stake in Mexico's third largest wireless operator Iusacell for a fee of $717 million. In January 2016, Televisa introduced a new branding, including a new logo design: an updated version of the company's logo from 1973, and a new slogan "Tu companía, tu más".


title: Televisa

text: Emilio Azcárraga Jean renounced the leadership of Televisa in October 2017, although he remains chairman of the company's board of directors. The newly appointed leader of the company will be the first not to be part of the Azcarraga family. The move was made to combat the massive decline in Televisa's viewership created by the rise in popularity of Netflix and other video streaming services, becoming more popular than cable television, as well as the end of the duopoly of private channels caused by the arrival of new players in the 2010s.


title: Televisa

text: On April 13, 2021, Televisa announced a merger deal with its longtime US partner, Univision Communications which it will combine its four free-to-air brands in Mexico, pay-TV networks, its Videocine movie studio, and the Televisa trademark; with Univision's broadcast and cable television, radio, and digital assets. The merger is targeted to be completed by the end of the year, subject to US and Mexican regulatory reviews, and the new company will be known as TelevisaUnivision. Televisa will own 45% of the combined company and will retain its Club America football team, telecommunication, pay-TV and publishing businesses, as well as the station licenses, news production, and other infrastructure for the company's four networks.


title: Televisa

text: The merger was approved by the Federal Telecommunications Institute (IFT) on September 15, 2021. The merger was approved by the US' FCC (Federal Communications Commission) on January 24, 2022, while the merger was completed on January 31 of that same year.


title: Televisa

text: Televisa is the second-largest media conglomerate in Latin America behind Grupo Globo, with interests in television broadcasting, programming for pay television, international distribution of television programming, direct-to-home satellite services, publishing and publishing distribution, cable television, radio production and broadcasting, professional sports and show business promotions, paging services, feature film production and distribution, dubbing, and the operation of a horizontal Internet portal. TelevisaUnivision Mexico's telenovelas generally run only one season and are broadcast internationally. The conglomerate has partially to complete interest in the following companies:


title: Televisa

text: In November 2006, an American embassy cable released through WikiLeaks listed Cablevisión and SKY México (both owned by Televisa), among "Mexico's monopolists", with control over a majority of Mexico's cable and satellite television, respectively.


title: Televisa

text: Televisa is the largest shareholder of TelevisaUnivision, which provides programming throughout Mexico through four networks, and in the United States via Univision and UniMás through local affiliates. 253 Mexican local television stations (54.8% of the total commercial stations), and 59 US local television stations air programming from all six terrestrial networks.


title: Televisa

text: TelevisaUnivision also operates a subsidiary called Televisa Networks (it's still often recognized within the entertainment industry by its previous moniker, Visat). This subsidiary is responsible for the distribution of Televisa programmes by satellite. The company also distributes the international feed of Las Estrellas via satellite to Latin America, Europe, Australia, and New Zealand.


title: Televisa

text: Due to Televisa's multiple and diverse areas of business and political interests around the country, Latin America and the U.S., it has been often accused of airing misleading information about individuals or organizations in which may exist a conflict of interest. Many remember the famous phrase from the former owner of Televisa Emilio Azcarraga Milmo referring to himself as a "soldado del Partido Revolucionario Institucional (PRI)" (soldier of the Institutional Revolutionary Party), the longtime ruling political party in Mexico that held presidency of Mexico uninterruptedly for 71 years from 1929 to 2000, however, with his death and the arrival of his son Emilio Azcarraga Jean to the head of the network, there was the promise to cut all political ties with the PRI. However, if the relationship ended or not has been widely disputed, along with their impartiality when it comes to their economic interests in diverse business areas.


title: Televisa

text: Long before 1991, Televisa exercised strong control over the Mexican Football Federation ("Federación Mexicana de Fútbol") in which they participated with the ownership of two teams (Club América and Necaxa). However, that year a rival group, Imevision (now TV Azteca) took control over the federation with Francisco Ibarra as the acting president and Emilio Maurer as Secretary, both of whom started a series of changes concerning mainly to the administration of a poll of money earned in sponsorships of the National Soccer Team; this fight resulted in a prosecution through several TV channels owned by the network resulting in Ibarra and Maurer being expelled from the Federation, even Maurer being incarcerated. Rumors of then President of Mexico Carlos Salinas de Gortari being involved in this prosecution began to circulate, however, this was never confirmed.


title: Televisa

text: In 2008, the approval of a series of laws that would enable the Federal Institute of Elections (IFE) to buy in exclusive airtime for political campaigns on TV networks, radio and newspapers for all political parties, that would undermine the economical revenue of Televisa and TV Azteca in marketing political candidates to public election posts, led to the virtual "disappearance" in news shows and other programming of Televisa network (along with TV Azteca) in retaliation to Santiago Creel Miranda and other lawmakers (senadores) of all political parties involved in the approval of these laws.


title: Televisa

text: In 2010, Televisa (along with competitor TV Azteca) began airing a series of reports in their news shows in which


title: Televisa

text: they claimed that businessman Isaac Saba Raffoul held a monopoly in the field of pharmaceuticals distribution along with the country with their enterprise Grupo Saba, those affirmations occurred as a consequence of the business partnership between Isaac Saba Raffoul and General Electric to become the third national television network. This partnership, in the potential case of becoming successful in acquiring rights from the Federal Government to transmit along the country, would have diminished the TV market share of Televisa and TV Azteca.


title: Televisa

text: In 2011, Televisa began airing a series of reports related to publication of classifieds on newspapers owned by Grupo Reforma (a large holding of businesses that includes newspapers, online news and others) of women offering sex service, often offered as massage service, escort service, etc. implying these could lead to various crimes like human trafficking, sexual slavery, kidnapping of women and others (prostitution laws in Mexico are very ambiguous). Although those classifieds are published in a wide range of newspapers around the country, Televisa specifically targeted Grupo Reforma's publications. Analysts say this was a retaliation against Grupo Reforma for their extense coverage of the affair of their star news anchor Carlos Loret de Mola, all of this, however, as a retaliation itself to the fact that Televisa obtained licenses to provide third and fourth generation wireless services in partnership with communications giant Nextel.


title: Televisa

text: In 2011, Televisa began airing reports concerning an allegedly monopoly of Telmex and America Movil (Telcel) on national cellular phone service and claiming that customers were being overcharged; also claiming that fees to interconnect to existing cellular grid and infrastructure to third parties were excessively high. This fight occurred when both companies were trying to obtain from the Federal Government the rights to offer to customers "Triple Play" which means that one carrier could provide cellular service, television and internet in one complete package. However, this matter resulted on interminable courtroom fights between both parties and the decision has been delayed so far.


title: Televisa

text: In 2011 Televisa began airing an extense coverage on the arrest and incarceration of Chiapas ex-governor Pablo Salazar Mendiguchia, accused of several crimes, this coverage was prolonged and very extensive. In an interview with journalist Carmen Aristegui, famed writer and analyst Rafael Loret de Mola accepted to some degree that perhaps a political prosecution was occurring, but that his main concern was that he had (and showed on air) a legal document in which Adela Micha Zaga (a news anchor with Televisa) gives legal power to then ex-governor Pablo Salazar Mendiguchia (also a lawyer) to act as an inmobiliary agent to sell a condo she possessed a few years ago. His concern was about a "perverse" relation between Salazar and Televisa journalists.


title: Televisa

text: On 19 May 2012 a series of rallies "Marchas Anti-Peña" (Rallies Against-Peña) were held across the country (D.F., Guadalajara, Monterrey, Pachuca, Aguascalientes, Chihuahua, Tuxtla Gutierrez, Jalapa, Colima, and others). In addition to proclaiming dislike of Enrique Peña Nieto (the political candidate of the PRI), the protest was also aimed at the news coverage of Peña Nieto, principally by the program Tercer Grado. The rally organizers claimed that Televisa was actively assisting Peña Nieto to win the forecoming election and that their intense coverage of his activities as the Governor of Estado de Mexico, helped him position as the No. 1 in opinion polls. Rallies also occurred outside of Televisa San Angel (Televisa headquarters), where some of the protesters were permitted to air their points of view on a nationwide telecast.


title: Televisa

text: As of 2011, its closest competitors are TV Azteca (also in Mexico) and TVE (Spain). In 2012, he was embroiled in controversy since the progressive movement, headed by leading left into Mexico Andrés Manuel López Obrador, was openly accused of sponsoring the PRI candidate Enrique Peña Nieto.


title: Televisa

text: On 23 August 2012, 18 alleged company employees were arrested in Nicaragua, accused of international drug trafficking, organized crime and money laundering; six vans that bore the logo of the media company also were seized which had professional production equipment for television transmission and registered in the name Televisa SA de CV, where drugs and $9.2 million in cash were transported. According to statements of the television itself, detainees do not belong to Televisa, and the vehicles were registered with false documents to the Ministry of Transport and Roads of the Federal District. Supposedly stationery used in these forgeries (especially some business cards and letterhead) involved Amador Narcia, a reporter who disappeared from Televisa News following this scandal.


title: Televisa

text: On 21 November 2016 Televisa released a telenovela (soap opera) titled "La candidata" (The candidate ["La" is a feminine noun]) portrayed by actress Silvia Navarro as Regina Bárcenas (whom acts as the speculated fictional stand-in for Margarita Zavala) and Rafael Sánchez Navarro as her husband Alonso San Roman (which acts as the speculated fictional stand-in for Felipe Calderón). It is heavily speculated this television program, was created in order to favor Zavala in the 2018 elections against MORENA's political candidate Andrés Manuel López Obrador whom Televisa supposedly does not want as president due to his left-leaning political viewpoints.


title: Televisa

text: Previous to the release of the telenovela, during the same year Televisa found in itself on another political bias controversy showing bias against Nuevo León's governor Jaime "El Bronco" Rodríguez Calderón who is a potential 2018 presidential candidate It happened on 11 September 2016, during a Live-Television News broadcast from "Monterrey al Dia" where Televisa news reporter, Karla Minaya, mistakenly said: "" ("we have to try that the governor, for sure, is mentioned the least possible") which was perceived to show clear signs of political bias from the network. The Mexican newspaper "El Universal" published on social media a video of the event, which was covered by national news media although Televisa did not cover the story and declined to comment. El Bronco's predecessor Rodrigo Medina de la Cruz had spent 4000 millions of pesos on payments to television news media (Televisa included), supposedly to clean his image. Sick of what he considered to be the corruption in the Mexican media, El Bronco had previously vowed to not spend a single peso on purchasing favorable media coverage. So supposedly in retaliation, the Mexican Televisa news mentioned him the least possible, or with biased news coverage of unfair criticisms and defamation. In El Bronco's own words: (There are 314 denouncements of stolen cars, we retrieved 229, but since we didn't pay Televisa, Multimedios and TV Azteca they don't show it. We have disbanded a band of thieves of cars and trucks. We have said it on every press round, but Televisa, Multimedios and TV Azteca don't show it.)


title: Televisa

text: In September 2017, an earthquake devastated Mexico City in the state of Mexico. During the news coverage of the devastation, Televisa reported there was a little girl named Frida Sofia trapped within the debris of a fallen school. However, soon after it was revealed that in fact Frida Sofia never existed. Outraged with the fake news within times of crisis, rival network TV Azteca whose television schedule of the day included "The Simpsons", decided to air the episode "Radio Bart". Because the plot of the Simpsons episode consisted on Bart Simpson doing a prank, where he fooled the people on Springfield to think a little kid named "Timmy O'Toole" was trapped in a hole, mirroring the way Televisa fooled Mexico about Frida Sofia. The usage of such airing choice to criticize their rival network's fake news was praised by their viewers and international news media alike, leading to Timmy O'Toole becoming a trending topic in social media, due to the Mexican people explaining their support through internet memes. Televisa was heavily criticized for sharing such fake news, because those news made rescue teams waste time initiating an effort to save the non-existing girl, distracting them from saving the real people who were trapped in the debris.


title: Televisa

text: In the Netflix documentary "" focused on the story of how actress Kate del Castillo met Mexican drug dealer Joaquín "El Chapo" Guzmán. The aforementioned former Televisa actress, along producer Epigmenio Ibarra, both stated that during the 90's Televisa treated actresses as sex objects, going as far as offering them to investors and publicists.


title: Televisa

text: Televisa has an ongoing relation with the US-based Univision network, dating back to the 1960s, when Univision's predecessor, the Spanish International Network (SIN), was owned by Telesistema Mexicano, Televisa's predecessor.


title: Televisa

text: In October 2010, Televisa agreed to take a 5% stake in Univision and to extend and expand the companies' long-term program license agreement. The new program license agreement will include Internet and mobile rights and cover key Mexican football (soccer) rights and will run through at least 2020.


title: Televisa

text: On 18 March 2008, Televisa and NBCUniversal announced a 10-year multiplatform agreement that would allow 1,000 hours of Telemundo programming from news, entertainment programs, specials, and sports to be broadcast over not only its Galavision channel (XEQ-TV), but also its SKY Channel and Cablevision cable system starting in April, as well as a planned Telemundo pay TV channel to be launched later in 2008. Marketingymedios


title: Televisa

text: In January 2010, Televisa announced an offer to acquire a 30% stake in Nextel Mexico from NII Holdings for US$1.44 billion. However, they later terminated the agreement.


title: Televisa

text: The perceived political favoritism of Televisa towards the PRI, and the concept of the "cortinas de humo (smoke screens)" was explored in the Mexican black-comedy film "The Perfect Dictatorship" (2014), directed and written by Luis Estrada, whose plot directly criticizes both the PRI and Televisa. Taking place in a Mexico with a tightly controlled media landscape, the plot centers around a corrupt politician (a fictional stand-in for Enrique Peña Nieto) from a political party (serving as a fictional stand-in for the PRI), and how he makes a deal with TV MX (which serves as a stand-in to Televisa) to manipulate the diffusion of news towards his benefit, in order to save his political career. The director made it based on the perceived media manipulation in Mexico.


title: Edmund Muskie

text: Edmund Sixtus Muskie (March 28, 1914March 26, 1996) was an American statesman and political leader who served as the 58th United States Secretary of State under President Jimmy Carter, a United States Senator from Maine from 1959 to 1980, the 64th Governor of Maine from 1955 to 1959, and a member of the Maine House of Representatives from 1946 to 1951. He was the Democratic Party's candidate for Vice President of the United States in the 1968 presidential election.


title: Edmund Muskie

text: Born in Rumford, Maine, he worked as a lawyer for two years before serving in the United States Naval Reserve from 1942 to 1945 during World War II. Upon his return, Muskie served in the Maine State Legislature from 1946 to 1951, and unsuccessfully ran for mayor of Waterville. Muskie was elected the 64th Governor of Maine in 1954 under a reform platform as the first Maine Democratic Party governor in almost 100 years. Muskie pressed for economic expansionism and instated environmental provisions. Muskie's actions severed a nearly 100-year Republican stronghold and led to the political insurgency of the Maine Democrats.


title: Edmund Muskie

text: His legislative work during his career as a Senator coincided with an expansion of modern liberalism in the United States. He promoted the 1960s environmental movement which led to the passage of the Clean Air Act of 1970 and the Clean Water Act of 1972. Muskie supported the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the creation of Martin Luther King Jr. Day, and opposed Richard Nixon's "Imperial Presidency" by advancing New Federalism. Muskie ran with Humphrey against Nixon in the 1968 presidential election, losing the popular vote by 0.7 percentage points—one of the narrowest margins in U.S. history. He would go on to run in the 1972 presidential election where he secured 1.84 million votes in the primaries coming in fourth out of 15 contesters. The release of the forged "Canuck letter" derailed his campaign and sullied his public image with Americans of French-Canadian descent.


title: Edmund Muskie

text: After the election, he returned to the Senate where he gave the 1976 State of the Union Response. Muskie served as first chairman of the new Senate Budget Committee from 1975 to 1980 where he established the United States budget process. Upon his retirement from the Senate, he became the 58th U.S. Secretary of State under President Carter. His tenure as Secretary of State was one of the shortest in modern history. His department negotiated the release of 52 Americans, thus concluding the Iran hostage crisis. He was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by Carter in 1981 and has been honored with a public holiday in Maine since 1987.


title: Edmund Muskie

text: Edmund Sixtus Muskie was born on Saturday, March 28, 1914 in Rumford, Maine. He was born after his parents' first child, Irene (born 1912), and before his brother Eugene (born 1918) and three sisters, Lucy (born 1916), Elizabeth (born 1923), and Frances (born 1921). His father, Stephen Marciszewski, was born and raised in Jasionówka, Russian Poland and worked as an estate manager for minor Russian nobility. He immigrated to America in 1903 and changed his name to Muskie from "Marciszewski" in 1914. He worked as a master tailor and Muskie's mother, Josephine (née Czarnecka) worked as a housewife. She was born to a Polish-American family in Buffalo, New York. Muskie's parents married in 1911, and Josephine moved to Rumford soon after.


title: Edmund Muskie

text: Muskie's first language was Polish; he spoke it as his only language until age 4. He began learning English soon after and eventually lost fluency in his mother language. In his youth he was an avid fisherman, hunter, and swimmer. He felt as though his given name was "odd" so he went by Ed throughout his life. Muskie was shy and anxious in his early life but maintained a sizable number of friends. Muskie attended Stephens High School, where he played baseball, participated in the performing arts, and was elected student body president in his senior year. He would go on to graduate in 1932 at the top of his class as valedictorian. A 1931 edition of the school's newspaper noted him with the following: "when you see a head and shoulders towering over you in the halls of Stephen's, you should know that your eyes are feasting on the future President of the United States."


title: Edmund Muskie

text: Influenced by the political excitement of Franklin D. Roosevelt's election to the White House, he attended Bates College in Lewiston, Maine. While at college, Muskie was a successful member of the debating team, participated in several sports, and was elected to student government. Although he received a small scholarship and New Deal subsidies, he had to work during the summers as a dishwasher and bellhop at a hotel in Kennebunk to finance his time at Bates. He would record in his diaries occasional feelings of insecurity among his wealthier Bates peers; Muskie was fearful of being kicked out of the college as a consequence of his socioeconomic status. His situation would gradually improve and he went on to graduate in 1936 as class president and a member of Phi Beta Kappa. Initially intending to major in mathematics he switched to a double major in history and government.


title: Edmund Muskie

text: Upon his graduation, he was given a partial merit-based scholarship to Cornell Law School. After his second semester there, his scholarship ran out. As he was preparing to drop out, he heard of an "eccentric millionaire" named William Bingham II who had a habit of randomly and sporadically paying the university costs, mortgages, car loans, and other expenses of those who wrote to him. After Muskie wrote to him about his immigrant origins he secured $900 from the man allowing him to finance his final years at Cornell. While in law school he was elected to Phi Alpha Delta and went on to graduate "cum laude", in 1939. Upon graduating from Cornell, Muskie was admitted to the Massachusetts Bar in 1939.


title: Edmund Muskie

text: He then worked as a high school substitute teacher while he was studying for the Maine Bar examination; he passed in 1940. Muskie moved to Waterville and purchased a small law practice—renamed "Muskie & Glover"—for $2,000 in March 1940. He helped write Waterville's first zoning ordinance and was elected secretary of the Zoning Board of Appeals.


title: Edmund Muskie

text: Jane Frances Gray was born February 12, 1927 in Waterville to Myrtie and Millage Guy Gray. Growing up she was voted "prettiest in school" in high school and at age 15, started her first job in a dress shop. At age 18, she was hired to be a bookkeeper and saleswoman in an exclusive haute couture boutique in Waterville. While there a mutual friend tried to introduce her to Muskie while he was working in the city as a lawyer. She had Gray model the dresses in the shop window while he was walking to work. Muskie came into the shop one day and invited her to a gala event. At the time she was 19 and he was 32; their difference in age stirred controversy in the town. However, after eighteen months of courting Gray and her family, she agreed to marry him in a private ceremony in 1948. Gray and Muskie had five children: Stephen (born 1949), Ellen (born 1950), Melinda (born 1956), Martha (born 1958, d. 2006), and Edmund Jr. (born 1961). The Muskies lived in a yellow cottage at Kennebunk Beach while they lived in Maine.


title: Edmund Muskie

text: In June 1940, President Roosevelt created the V-12 Navy College Training Program to prepare men under the age of 28 for the eventual outbreak of World War II. Muskie formally registered for the draft in October 1940 and was formally called to deck officer training on March 26, 1942. At 28, he was assigned to work as a diesel engineer in the Naval Reserve Midshipmen's School. On September 11, 1942 he was called to Annapolis, Maryland to attend the United States Naval Academy. He left his law practice running so "his name would continue to circulate in Waterville" while he was gone. He trained as an apprentice seaman for six weeks before being assigned the rank of midshipman.


title: Edmund Muskie

text: In January 1943, he attended diesel engineering school for sixteen weeks before being assigned to First Naval District, Boston in May. Muskie worked on the for a month. In June he was assigned to the at Fort Schuyler in New York where he worked as an indoctrinator. In November 1943 he was promoted to Deck Officer. He trained for two weeks in Miami, Florida at the Submarine Chaser Training Center. After that he was relocated to Columbus, Ohio to study reconnaissance in February 1944. In March, he was promoted to Lieutenant (junior grade). Muskie was stationed at California's Mare Island in April temporarily before formally engaging in active duty warfare.


title: Edmund Muskie

text: He began his active duty tour aboard the destroyer escort . His vessel was in charge of protecting U.S. convoys traveling from the Marshal and Gilbert Islands from Japanese submarines. The "Brackett" escorted ships to and from the islands for the majority of summer 1944. In January 1945, the ship engaged and eventually sunk a Japanese cargo ship headed for Taroa Island. After a few more months of escorting ships to and from the two islands, the ship was decommissioned. He was discharged from the Navy on December 18, 1945.


title: Edmund Muskie

text: He returned to Maine in January 1946 and began rebuilding his law practice. Convinced by others to run for political office as a way of expanding his law practice, he formally entered politics. He ran against Republican William A. Jones in an election for the Maine House of Representatives for the 110th District. Muskie secured 2,635 votes and won the election to most people's surprise on September 9, 1946. During this time the Maine Senate was stacked 30-to-3 and the House was stacked 127-to-24 Republicans against Democrats.


title: Edmund Muskie

text: He was assigned to the committees on federal and military relations during his first year. Muskie advocated for bipartisanship which won him over widespread support across political parties. On October 17, 1946, his law practice sustained a large fire costing him an estimated $2,300 in damages. However a yearly stipend of $800 and help from other business leaders who were affected by the fire quickly restarted his practice.


title: Edmund Muskie

text: His work with city ordinances in Waterville prompted locals to ask him to run in the 1947 election to become Mayor of Waterville against banker Russel W. Squire. Perhaps due to incumbency advantage, Muskie lost the election with 2,853 votes, 434 votes behind Squire. Some historians believe that his loss had to do with his inability to gain traction with Franco-American voters.


title: Edmund Muskie

text: Muskie continued his political involvement locally by securing a position on the Waterville Board of Zoning Adjustment in 1948 and stayed in this part-time position until he became governor. He later returned to the House to start his second term in 1948 as Minority Leader against heavy Republican opposition. Muskie was appointed the chairman of the platform committee during the 1949 Maine Democratic Convention. During the convention, he brought together a variety of the political elite of Maine—notably Frank M. Coffin and Victor Hunt Harding—to plan a comeback for the party. On February 8, 1951, Muskie resigned from the Maine House of Representatives to become acting director for the Maine Office of Price Stabilization. He moved to Portland soon after and was assigned the inflation-control and price-ceiling divisions. His job required him to move across Maine to spread word about economic incentives which he used to increase his name recognition. He served as the regional director at the Office of Price Stabilization from 1951 to 1952. Upon leaving the Office he was asked to join the Democratic National Committee as a member; he served on the committee from 1952 to 1956.


title: Edmund Muskie

text: In April 1953, while working on renovations for his family home in Waterville, Muskie broke through a balcony railing falling two flights of stairs. He landed on his back, knocked


title: Edmund Muskie

text: unconscious. He was rushed to the hospital where he remained unconscious for two days. Doctors believed that he was in a coma so they gave him comatose-specific medication which caused him to regain consciousness but start to hallucinate. Muskie tried to jump out of the hospital window but was restrained by staff members. After a couple of months, through physical rehabilitation and corrective braces, he was able to walk once more.


title: Edmund Muskie

text: After establishing a prominent presence in the Maine State Legislature and with the Office of Price Stabilization, he officially launched his bid in the 1954 Maine gubernatorial race as a Democrat. Burton M. Cross, the Republican incumbent governor, was seeking reelection. Had he won, he would have been the fifth consecutive Governor to be reelected. Throughout the election Muskie was viewed as the underdog because of the Republican stronghold in Maine. Muskie acknowledged this himself by saying, "[this is] more as a duty than an opportunity because there was no chance of a Democrat winning." A variety of personal reasons motivated his run. Muskie was deeply in debt owing five thousand dollars in hospital bills and maintained a rising mortgage. At the time of his election, the salary for the Governor of Maine was set at ten thousand dollars annually. While he was campaigning he was offered a position involving full partnership at a prestigious Rumford law firm that maintained "clients and income that [Muskie] had not achieved in fourteen years of practice in Waterville." His final choice reflected his 'society over self' mentality and decided to pursue the election. He announced his candidacy for the office on April 8, 1954.


title: Edmund Muskie

text: Muskie ran on a party platform of environmentalism and public investment. His environmental platform argued for the establishment of the Maine Department of Conservation to "have jurisdiction of forestry, inland fish and game, sea and shore fisheries, mineral, water, and other natural resources" and the creation of anti-pollution legislation. He stressed the need for "a two-party" approach to Maine politics with resonated with both Democratic and Republican voters wishing to see change. Muskie's central campaign slogan was "Maine Needs A Change" referencing the multi-year Republican stronghold. He criticized the Republican Party for neglecting the environment, failing to restart the economy, underutilizing skilled labor forces, and ignoring public investment.


title: Edmund Muskie

text: He successively won the Democratic gubernatorial nomination, and then the general election by a majority popular vote on September 13, 1954. The upset victory made Muskie the first Democrat to be elected chief executive of Maine since Louis J. Brann in 1934. His election has been viewed as a causal link to the end of Republican political dominance in Maine and the rise of the Democratic Party. After his win, he was asked by other Democrats running in elections outside of Maine to make a series of campaign stops.


title: Edmund Muskie

text: Muskie was inaugurated as the 64th Governor of Maine on January 6, 1955. He was the state's first Roman Catholic governor. Shortly after his assumption of the office, the next election cycle stacked the legislature with a 4-to-1 Republican-Democrat ratio against Muskie. Through bipartisanship and his aggressive personality he managed to pass the majority of his party platform. Constituents pressured him to more aggressively pursue water control and anti-pollution legislation. In August, the Maine State Legislature authorized him to take extraordinary action to control the state's pollution standards. He used this authority to sign the New England Interstate Water Pollution Control Compact on August 31, 1955. This compact required member states to pay for anti-pollution measures collectively. Conservative members of the Chamber of Commerce fought back against Muskie in his attempt to allocate money to the compact and greatly reduced the amount paid. One of the chief concerns of Muskie during this time was economic development. Maine's population was aging, putting pressure on welfare services. He expanded certain programs and cut down on others in order rebalance state spending. Before leaving office Muskie signed an executive order extending the gubernatorial term to four years.


title: Edmund Muskie

text: He expanded the territory comprising Baxter State Park by 3,569 acres and purchased 40 acres (1.7 million ft) of Cape Elizabeth from the federal government for $28,000. He also created the Department of Development of Commerce and Industry and Maine Industrial Building Authority. In February 1955, he was briefed on atomic energy power by the United States Atomic Energy Commission leading him to limit the expansion of atomic-powered electrical facilities.


title: Edmund Muskie

text: On September 10, 1956, Muskie was re-elected Governor of Maine with 180,254 votes (59% of the vote) against Republican Willis A. Trafton. He won 14 of the 16 counties. He began his second term by aggressively enforcing environmental standards. In 1957, he sanctioned a $29 million highway bond. This bond funded the largest road construction ever undertaken by Maine. The highway included 91 bridges and was extended in 1960 and 1967 by Interstate 95.


title: Edmund Muskie

text: During his tenure as Governor he retained a reputation for increased spending in public education, subsidized hospitals, modernized state facilities, and cumulatively raised state sale taxes by 1%. He added $4 million to infrastructure development focusing on roads and river maintenance. Muskie pushed aggressive economic expansionism. In 1957, he founded the Maine Guarantee Authority which combated economic maturation-related job loss making capital more accessible for business owners. Muskie also sporadically lowered sales tax, increased the minimum wage and furthered labor protections leading to a marked increase in consumer spending. He amended the constitution of Maine in order divert $20 million in public funds into private investment. He increased subsidies to expensive institutions such as public primary and secondary schools as well as universities. Although initially founded in 1836, the Maine State Museum was closed and reopened six time before Muskie permanently endowed it in 1958.


title: Edmund Muskie

text: His governorship exploited multi-factionalism in the Republican Party leading to a vast expansion of the Democratic Party in Maine. From 1954 to 1974, the party doubled in size, while the Republican Party steadily decreased from 262,367 to 227,828 registered members. Numerous state politicians mimicked his political style to push their programs through various local governments and garnered electoral success. His executive appointments of moderate politicians shifted the entire Republican establishment in the state to the left. This shift garnered comparisons to Hubert Humphrey's influence in Minnesota and George McGovern's impact in South Dakota. During his last months as governor he changed his office's term from two years to four years. Shortly before leaving office he moved Maine's general election date from September to November conclusively ending the notion that "as Maine goes, so goes the nation". This was attempted thirty-six times before Muskie brought about a constitutional amendment that moved the date.


title: Edmund Muskie

text: Muskie resigned on January 2, 1959 to take his seat in the United States Senate after the 1958 Senate election. He was succeeded by Republican Robert Haskell in an interim capacity until the Governor-elect, Democrat Clinton Clauson, was inaugurated. Muskie was officially succeeded by Clauson on January 6, 1959.


title: Edmund Muskie

text: Muskie's first contestation for the Senate of the United States was in 1958. He ran in the 1958 elections against incumbent Republican Senator Frederick G. Payne. Muskie won the election with 60% of the vote against Payne's 39%. He was one of the 12 Democrats who overtook Republican incumbents and established the party as the party-of-house during the election cycle. "The New York Times" reported that during this election that the absentee ballots requested for Democrats increased considerable signaling voter-discontent with Republican ideology. This election was considered the largest single-party gain in the Senate's history.


title: Edmund Muskie

text: He ran for a second term in 1964, running against Republican Clifford McIntire. Muskie won with 67% of the vote. The election was called "The Senate Race That Couldn't Be Lost" because of the outpouring of Democratic support following the assassination of President John F. Kennedy.


title: Edmund Muskie

text: His third campaign and election to the Senate occurred in 1970. During the 1970 elections, Muskie secured 62% of the vote against Republican Neil S. Bishop's 38%. The elections were seen as tumultuous due to the United States' involvement in the Vietnam War and rising unpopularity of incumbent president Richard Nixon. On the night of poll-opening Muskie gave a nationwide, 14 minute speech to addressed American voters following a similar address by Nixon. Dubbed the "election eve speech" it spoke to American exceptionalism and against "torrents of falsehood and insinuation". The speech was considered bipartisan and was well received by both parties. Political analysts believed that the speech influenced voting patterns during the election as there were thirty million listeners. Commentators received the speech as "essentially evangelical" and indicative of "a volcanic private temper but a soothing public manner". The most famous passage from the speech was widely commented on by the public for its biting nature and critique of "politics of fear":


title: Edmund Muskie

text: I am speaking from Cape Elizabeth, Maine to discuss with you the election campaign which is coming to a close. In the heat of our campaigns, we have all become accustomed to a little anger and exaggeration. That is our system. It has worked for almost two hundred years—longer than any other political system in the world. But in these elections of 1970, something has gone wrong. There has been name-calling and deception of almost unprecedented volume. Honorable men have been slandered. Faithful servants of the country have had their motives questioned and their patriotism doubted. It has been led . . . inspired . . . and guided . . . from the highest offices in the land. ... We cannot make America small. ... Ordinarily that division is not between parties, but between men and ideas. But this year the leaders of the Republican party have intentionally made that line a party line. They have confronted you with exactly that choice. Thus—in voting for the Democratic party tomorrow—you cast your vote for trust—not just in leaders or policies—but for trusting your fellow citizens . . . in the ancient traditions of this home for freedom . . . and most of all, for trust in yourself.


title: Edmund Muskie

text: The "Portland Press Herald" on November 4, 1970 noted it akin to Franklin D. Roosevelt's fire-side chats "with video". The speech has been the subject of numerous studies regarding "the dimensions of the televised public address as an emerging rhetorical genre of pervasive influence in contemporary affairs".


title: Edmund Muskie

text: In his fourth and final election, Muskie ran against Republican Robert A. G. Monks in 1976; he won 60% of the vote compared to Monk's 40%. The elections coincided with the election of Jimmy Carter as president leading to a large influx of Democratic support, though Carter lost Maine to incumbent President Gerald Ford in the 1976 presidential election.


title: Edmund Muskie

text: Edmund Muskie was sworn into office as U.S. Senator from Maine on January 3, 1959. His first couple of months in the Senate earned a reputation for being combative and often sparred with Majority Leader, Lyndon B. Johnson, who subsequently relegated him to outer seats in the Senate. In the next five years, he gained significant power and influence and was considered among the most effective legislators in the Senate. However, increased power and influence prompted supporters in Maine to label him "an honorary Kennedy", alluding to the indifference John F. Kennedy had to Massachusetts when first gaining political traction. Muskie used the influence gain in his first two terms to push a vast expansion of environmentalism in the late 1950s and early 1960s. His specific goals were to curb pollution and provide a cleaner environment. Occasional speeches on environmental preservation earned him the nickname "Mr. Clean".


title: Edmund Muskie

text: He served his entire career in the Senate as a member of the Committee on Public Works, a committee he used to execute the majority of his environmental legislation. He served on the Committee on Banking and Currency from 1959 to 1970; the Committee on Government Operations until 1978. As a member of the Public Works Committee, he traveled to the Soviet Union in 1959. He sponsored the Intergovernmental Relations Act, later that year.


title: Edmund Muskie

text: In 1962, he co-founded the United States Capital Historical Society along with other members of congress. The same year, members of Congress elected him to serve as the first chair of the Subcommittee on Air and Water Pollution. In 1963, he was the first to sponsor a new Act to regulate air pollution. The Clean Air Act of 1963 was written and developed by Muskie and his aide Leon Billings.


title: Edmund Muskie

text: His first major accomplishment was the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. He assembled more than one hundred votes for the proposed legislation eventually passing it. Also during 1964, he was critical of J. Edgar Hoover's management of the Federal Bureau of investigation. Muskie was upset by its "overzealous surveillance and its director's intemperance". Muskie also sponsored the construction of the Roosevelt Campobello International Park near Franklin Delano Roosevelt's New Brunswick estate. Due to its international nature, Muskie was asked to chair a joint U.S.-Canada commission to maintain the park. In 1965, he was again sponsored the Water Quality Act (later to be known as the Clean Water Act). He was the floor manager for the discussion and led to its passage in 1965 and its successful amendments in 1970.


title: Edmund Muskie

text: Alongside President Johnson's Great Society and War on Poverty programs, Muskie drafted the Model Cities Bill which eventually passed both houses of Congress in 1966. Previously, combative with Johnson, Muskie began developing a more cooperative relationship with him. During Johnson's signing of the Intergovernmental Cooperation Act he said: I am pleased that Senator Muskie could be with us this afternoon. I believe that no man has done more to encourage cooperation among the National Government, the States, and the cities." Also in 1966, Muskie was elected assistant Democratic whip and served as the floor manager for the Clean Water Restoration Act.


title: Edmund Muskie

text: During 1967 the popular sentiment in the U.S. was anti-war, which prompted Muskie to visit Vietnam to inform his political stance in 1968. Prior to his visiting the country, he debated with a congressman on a pro-war platform. After the trip, he became a leading voice for the anti-war movement and entered into the ongoing debate by speaking at the year's Democratic Convention. His speech was followed by "tens of thousands of protestors surrounded the convention and violent clashes with police carried on for five days." He wrote to Johnson personally asserting his position on the Vietnam War. He made the case that the U.S. ought to withdraw from Vietnam as quickly as possible. Months later, he wrote to the president again urging him to end the bombing of North Vietnam. During the same year, he traveled with other Senators to the Republic of South Vietnam to validate their elections.


title: Edmund Muskie

text: Later, at the 1968 Democratic National Convention, he led the debate for the administration plank on Vietnam, which sparked public outrage. On October 15, 1969, he was welcomed to the green at Yale University to address the issues regarding his vote but chose to decline the offer and speak that night at his alma mater, Bates College, in Lewiston, Maine. His decision to do so was widely criticized by the Democratic party and Yale University officials. From 1967 to 1969, he served as the chair of Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee. He voted against the appointment of Clement Haynsworth to the U.S. Supreme Court.


title: Edmund Muskie

text: His third term began in 1970 by co-sponsoring the McGovern-Hatfield resolution to limit military intervention in the Vietnam War. During this time Harold Carswell was seeking appointment to the U.S. Supreme Court. Muskie voted against him and Carswell failed the confirmation process. Muskie also proposed a six-month ban on domestic and Soviet Union development of nuclear technologies to taper the nuclear arms race. As chair of the congressional environmental committee, he and fellow committee members including Howard Baker introduced the Clean Air Act of 1970, which was co-written by the committee's staff director Leon Billings and minority staff director Tom Jorling. As part of the act, he told the automobile industry it would need to reduce its tailpipe air pollution emissions by 90% by 1977. He also co-wrote amendments to the Federal Water Pollution Act, more commonly known as the Clean Water Act, and urged his fellow Congress members to adopt it, saying "The country was once famous for its rivers ... But today, the rivers of this country serve as little more than sewers to the seas. ... The danger to health, the environmental damage, the economic loss can be anywhere." The bill enjoyed bipartisan support in the U.S. Congress and was passed by the House on November 29, 1971 and the Senate on March 29, 1972. While congressional support was enough to enact it into law President Richard Nixon exercised his executive veto on the bill and stopped it from becoming law. However, after further campaigning by Muskie, the Senate and House of Representatives passed the bill 247–23 to override Nixon's veto. The bill was historic in that it established the regulation of pollutants in the federal and state waters of the U.S., created extended authority for the Environmental Protection Agency, and created water health standards. Also in 1971, Muskie was asked to join the Senate Foreign Relations Committee; he traveled to Europe and the Middle East in this capacity.


title: Edmund Muskie

text: After concluding his 1968 campaign for the White House he returned to the Senate. While in Chattanooga, the shooting of two black students at Jackson State College in 1970 by the Mississippi State Police, prompted Muskie to hire a jet airliner to take approximately one hundred people to see the bullet holes and attend a funeral of one of the victims. The people of Maine said this was "rash and self serving" but Muskie has stated his lack of regret for his actions publicly. At an event in Los Angeles, he publicly stated his support for several black empowerment movements in California, which garnered the attention of numerous media outlets, and black city councilman Thomas Bradley. In 1970, Muskie was chosen to articulate the Democratic party's message to congressional voters before the midterm elections. His national stature was raised as a major candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination in 1972. In 1973, he gave the Democratic response to Nixon's State of the Union address. During this time, he was appointed the chair of the intergovernmental relations subcommittee. Considered "a backwater assignment", Muskie used it to advocate for a widening of governmental responsibilities, limiting the power of Richard Nixon's "Imperial Presidency" and advancing New Federalism ideals.


title: Edmund Muskie

text: He served as the chairman of the Senate Budget Committee through the Ninety-third to the Ninety-sixth Congresses from 1973 to 1980. During this time, Congress founded the Congressional Budget Office in order to challenge Nixon's budget request. Prior to 1974, there was no formal process for establishing a federal budget so Congress founded the office under the auspices of the Senate Budget Committee. As chairman, Muskie presided over, formulated, and approved of the creation of the United States budget process.


title: Edmund Muskie

text: In 1977, he amended Federal Water Pollution Control Act of 1972 along with others, to pass the Clean Water Act of 1977. These new additions incorporated "non-degradation" or "clean growth" policies intended to limit negative externalities. In 1978, he made minor adjustments to the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act and the "Superfund".


title: Edmund Muskie

text: In 1968, Muskie was nominated for vice president on the Democratic ticket with sitting Vice President Hubert Humphrey. Humphrey asked Muskie to be his running mate because he was a more reserved contrast personality-wise, from a Catholic background and of Polish origin.


title: Edmund Muskie

text: The Humphrey-Muskie ticket narrowly lost the popular vote to Richard Nixon and Spiro Agnew. Humphrey and Muskie received 42.7% of the popular vote and carried 13 states and 191 electoral votes; Nixon and Agnew won 43.4% of the popular vote and carried 32 states and 301 electoral votes, while the third party ticket of George Wallace and Curtis LeMay, running as candidates of the American Independent Party, took 14% of the popular vote and took five states in the Deep South and their 46 votes in the electoral college. Because of Agnew's apparent weakness as a candidate relative to Muskie, Humphrey was heard to remark that voters' uncertainties about whom to choose between the two major presidential candidates should be resolved by their attitudes toward the Vice-Presidential candidates. While on the vice-presidential campaign trail in Chattanooga, Tennessee, he was quoted as saying:


title: Edmund Muskie

text: The truth is that Americans, born in this great tradition of humanism, still yield to prejudice and practice discrimination against other Americans. The truth is, having developed patterns and ways of living which reflect these shortcomings and weaknesses, we find it burdensome and difficult to – and all too often unacceptable to – do the uncomfortable things that we all must do to right the wrongs of our society.


title: Edmund Muskie

text: Before the 1972 election, Muskie was viewed as a front-runner for the Democratic presidential nomination. Despite his political rise in the polls he continued to engage in tiring day-after-day speeches in various parts of the country. During an August 17, 1969 appearance on "Meet the Press", Muskie said his entry into the presidential primary would depend on his being convinced that he could meet the challenges as well as his comfort: "I don't think I'll answer either question for a year or two." On November 8, 1970, Muskie said he would only declare himself as a presidential candidate in the event he became convinced he was best suited for unifying the country through the presidency.


title: Edmund Muskie

text: In August 1971, Harris polling amid a growing economic crisis, Muskie came out on top of incumbent Nixon if the election had been held that day. In late 1971, Muskie gave an anti-war speech in Providence. The nation was at war in Vietnam and President Richard Nixon's foreign policy promised to be a major issue in the campaign.


title: Edmund Muskie

text: The 1972 Iowa caucuses, however, significantly altered the race for the presidential nomination. Senator George McGovern from South Dakota, initially a dark horse candidate, made a strong showing in the caucuses which gave his campaign national attention. Although Muskie won the Iowa caucuses, McGovern's campaign left Iowa with momentum. Muskie himself had never participated in a primary election campaign, and it is possible that this led to a weakening of his campaign. Muskie went on to win the New Hampshire primary, the victory was by only a small margin, and his campaign took a hit after the release of the "Canuck letter".


title: Edmund Muskie

text: On February 24, 1972, a staffer from the White House forwarded a letter about Muskie to the "Manchester Union-Leader". The forged letter—reportedly the successful sabotage work of Donald Segretti and Ken W. Clawson—asserted that Muskie had made disparaging remarks about French Canadians which were likely to injure his support among the French-American population in northern New England. The letter contained reference to French Canadians as "Canucks"—a term used affectionately by some Canadians but which may be regarded as offensive when referring to French Canadians —leading to its sobriquet, "The Canuck letter".


title: Edmund Muskie

text: A day later, the same paper released an article that contained accusatory reference to his wife, Jane, as a drunkard and racially intolerant. On the morning of February 26, Muskie gave a speech to supporters outside of the "Manchester Union-Leader" offices in Manchester, New Hampshire. His speech was viewed as emotional and defensive; he called the newspaper's editor a "gutless coward". Muskie gave the speech during a snowstorm which created the appearance of him crying. Though Muskie later attempted to claim that what had appeared to the press as tears were actually melted snowflakes, the press reported that Muskie broke down and cried, shattering the candidate's image as calm and reasoned.


title: Edmund Muskie

text: Evidence later came to light during the Watergate scandal investigation that, during the 1972 presidential campaign, the Nixon campaign committee maintained a "dirty tricks" unit focused on discrediting Nixon's strongest challengers. Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) investigators revealed that the Canuck Letter was a forged document as part of the dirty-tricks campaign against Democrats orchestrated by the Nixon campaign. Nixon was also reported to have ordered men to follow Muskie around and gather information. He tried to connect Muskie's acquaintance with singer Frank Sinatra to an abuse of office. Muskie often flew on Sinatra's private plane while traveling around California.


title: Edmund Muskie

text: In early July 1976, Muskie spoke with Jimmy Carter in a "productive" and "harmonious" discussion that was followed by Carter confirming that he considered Muskie qualified for the vice-presidential nomination. Carter ultimately selected Walter Mondale as his running mate.


title: Edmund Muskie

text: In late April 1980, he was tapped by President Jimmy Carter to serve as secretary of state, following the resignation of Cyrus Vance. Vance had opposed Operation Eagle Claw, a secret rescue mission intended to rescue American hostages held by Iran. After that mission failed with the loss of eight U.S. servicemen, Vance resigned. Muskie was picked by Carter for his accomplishments with senatorial foreign policy. He was appointed and soon after confirmed by the Senate on May 8, 1980 by a margin of 94–2.


title: Edmund Muskie

text: In June 1980, there was a "draft Muskie" movement among Democratic voters within the primaries of the 1980 presidential election. President Carter was running against Senator Ted Kennedy, and opinion polls ranked Muskie more favorably against Kennedy. One poll showed that Muskie would be a more popular alternative to Carter than Ted Kennedy, implying that the attraction was not so much to Kennedy as to the fact that he was not Carter. Moreover, Muskie was polled against Republican challenger Ronald Reagan at the time showing Carter seven points down. Due to a political allegiance with Carter, he backed out of the contention. Pressured by the Carter Administration, Muskie released the following public statement to Democratic voters: "I accepted the appointment as secretary of state to serve the country and to serve the president. I continue to serve the president, and I will support him all the way! I have a commitment to the president. I don't make such commitments lightly, and I intend to keep it." An article by "The New Yorker" speculated that the move to back Muskie was a temporary flex of political power by the Democratic voter base to unease Carter.


title: Edmund Muskie

text: In December 1979, the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan which prompted NATO to trigger its ally contract. Muskie began his tenure as secretary of state five months into the invasion. He assigned Deputy Secretary Warren Christopher the tasks of managing the domestic side of the department while he participated in international deliberations. Muskie met with Soviet diplomat Andrei Gromyko who categorically rejected a compromise that would secure the Soviet Union's withdrawal from Afghanistan. Gromyko wanted the state department to formally recognize Kabul as a part of the Soviet Union.


title: Edmund Muskie

text: Muskie was against the rapid accumulation of highly developed weaponry during the 1950s and 1960s as he thought that would inevitably lead to a nuclear arms race that would erode international trust and cooperation. He spoke frequently with the government executives of Cold War allies and that of the Soviet Union urging them to suspend their programs in pursuit of global security. Muskie's inclinations were confirmed during the early 1970s when Russia split from the U.S. and accumulated more warheads and anti-ballistic missile systems. In November 1980, Muskie stated that Russia was interested in pursuing a "more stable, less confrontational' relationship with the United States." He criticized the stances undertaken by Ronald Reagan multiple times during his presidential campaign expressing disdain for the calls to reject the SALT II treaty. Muskie, throughout his political career, was deeply afraid of global nuclear war with the Soviet Union.


title: Edmund Muskie

text: On November 4, 1979, 52 American diplomats and citizens were held hostage by an Iranian student group in Tehran's U.S. Embassy. After the resignation of Cyrus Vance left a gap in the negotiations for the hostages, Muskie appealed to the United Nations (U.N.) and the government of Iran to release the hostages to little success. Already six months into the hostage crisis, he was pressed to reach a diplomatic solution. Before he assumed the position, the Delta Force rescue attempt called Operation Eagle Claw resulted in the death of multiple soldiers, leaving military intervention a sensitive course of action for the American public. He established diplomatic ties with the Iranian government and attempted to have the hostages released yet was initially unsuccessful. On January 15, as Muskie was flying to address the Maine Senate in Augusta, President Carter called him as his jet was touching down at Andrews Air Force Base. Carter alerted him that there was a possible breakthrough in the negotiations conducted by his deputy secretary Warren Christopher. After the negotiations failed, Muskie instructed the state department to continue seeking an agreement for the hostages' release. On January 20—the inauguration day of Ronald Reagan—the fifty-two hostages were handed over to U.S. authorities, a solution that had eluded Muskie and the entire Carter administration for 444 days and contributed to Carter's defeat.


title: Edmund Muskie

text: Muskie left office on January 18, 1981, two days before Carter's last day as president and the inauguration of Ronald Reagan.


title: Edmund Muskie

text: Muskie retired to his home in Bethesda, Maryland, in 1981. He continued to work as a lawyer for some years. After leaving public office, he was a partner with Chadbourne & Parke, a law firm in Washington. Muskie also served as the chairman of the Institute for the Study of Diplomacy at Georgetown University as well as the chairman Emeritus of the Center for National Policy.


title: Edmund Muskie

text: In 1981, he was awarded the Laetare Medal by the University of Notre Dame, considered the most prestigious award for American Catholics.


title: Edmund Muskie

text: In 1987, Muskie was appointed a member of the President's Special Review Board known as the "Tower Commission" to investigate President Ronald Reagan's administration's role in the Iran-Contra affair. Muskie and the commission issued a highly detailed report of more than 300 pages that was critical of the president's actions and blamed the White House chief of staff, Donald T. Regan, for unduly influencing the president's activities. The panel was notable as the findings of the report were directly critical of the president who appointed the commission.


title: Edmund Muskie

text: Muskie was critical of the commission decrying the "over-obsession with secrecy," noting that "there are occasions when it's necessary to hold closely information about especially covert operations, but even possibly other operations of the Government. But every time that you are over-concerned about secrecy, you tend to abandon process." While underfunded, the commission did find that the Reagan administration ran a parallel policy directive at the same time they were publicly condemning negotiating for hostages.


title: Edmund Muskie

text: Muskie died at 4:06 AM EST on the morning of March 26, 1996 at the Georgetown University Medical Center in Washington, D.C., after seeking treatment for bouts of congestive heart failure. He died two days shy of his 82nd birthday. Eight days prior he underwent a carotid endarterectomy in his right neck. His assistant reported that he had suffered a myocardial infarction. Some historians believe that his blood clots were brought on from frequent 8,421 mile (13,552 km) flights to Cambodia; he was asked to assist in stabilizing its government on behalf of President Bill Clinton.


title: Edmund Muskie

text: Due to his service in the United States Naval Reserve during World War II, he was eligible to be buried at Arlington National Cemetery in Arlington County, Virginia. His ultimate rank of lieutenant had him placed in Section 25 of the cemetery. Although he died on March 26, his grave stone initially noted that he died on the 25th. His wife, Jane, died on December 25, 2004, due to health complications brought on by Alzheimer's disease. She was buried next to Muskie and his grave stone was corrected to read "March 26, 1996".


title: Edmund Muskie

text: Muskie was memorialized in Washington D.C., Lewiston, Maine, and Bethesda, Maryland. At his Washington memorial, he was paid tribute to by a variety of U.S. senators and house representatives. His "alma mater—"Bates College—held a memorial presided over by its president, Donald Harward. On March 30, 1996, a publicly broadcast, Roman Catholic funeral was held in Bethesda at the Church of the Little Flower. He was eulogized by U.S. president Jimmy Carter; U.S. Senator, George J. Mitchell; 20th United States Ambassador to the United Nations, Madeleine Albright; a political aide, Leon G. Billings; and one of Muskie's sons, Stephen.


title: Edmund Muskie

text: Historical evaluations of Edmund Muskie focus on the impact his actions and legislation had in the United States and the greater world. His accomplishments in his home state have had him noted as one of the most influential politicians in the history of Maine. Depending on the metric he is coupled with Hannibal Hamlin and James Blaine as the three most important politicians from Maine. Muskie occupied all offices available in the Maine political system excluding state senator and United States representative. His political status in Maine is generally perceived favorably. During his four-year term as Governor of Maine he initiated a constitutional amendment, invested heavily in infrastructure, and institutionalized economic development—effectively bringing Maine into the Golden Age of Capitalism. Muskie ended the "as Maine goes, so goes the nation" political sentiment in the United States by moving Maine's general election date to November instead of September. He preserved the cultural integrity of the state by endowing the Maine State Museum which was seen as critical to his public perception. Although economic expansionism was historically seen negatively by the people of Maine, Muskie's policies were seen favorably as they were coupled with environmental provisions. His advocation for minimum wage increases, increased labor protections, and sales tax exemptions boosted consumer spending. Muskie has been widely characterized as the catalyst for the political renaissance of the Democratic Party in Maine. His election to the governorship signaled a fracturing of the Republican Party in the state and nearly tripled the number of Democrats in Maine between 1954 and 1974.


title: Edmund Muskie

text: Since Muskie left office as the U.S. Secretary of State, writers, historians, scholars, political analysts and the general public have debated his legacy. Particular emphasis is placed on his impact in the environmentalist and civil rights movement; bureaucratic advancement, and diplomacy. Overall supporters of Muskie point to an expansion of environmental protection, preservation, and security. Numerous historians have noted him as "the father of the 1960s environmental movement in America". His accomplishments in environmentalism established two of the foremost measures in U.S. environmental policy: the Clean Water Act Amendments of 1972 and 1977 and Clean Air Act Amendments of 1970 and 1977. His contributions to the Clean Air Act were so great that the bill was nicknamed the "Muskie Act". These two laws have been credited as the first major step to launching the wider environmentalism movement both in the U.S. and to some extent, the rest of the Free World. Harvard University law professor Richard Lazarus summarized Muskie's legislative legacy with the following:


title: Edmund Muskie

text: Senator Muskie's environmental law legacy is no less than stunning in terms of positive impact on the nation's natural environment. It takes little imagination to speculate what our national landscape would now look like if the economic growth we witnessed in the past four decades had not been accompanied by the environmental protections for air, land, and water provided by the laws that Senator Muskie championed in the 1970s.


title: Edmund Muskie

text: Muskie's influence on American diplomacy was detailed by the Office of the Historian with the following: "In the nine months Muskie served as Secretary of State, he conducted the first high-level meeting with the Soviet government after its . During these negotiations, Secretary Muskie unsuccessfully attempted to secure the withdrawal of Soviet forces from Afghanistan. [He] also assisted President Carter in the implementation of the "Carter Doctrine", which aimed to limit Soviet expansion into the Middle East and Persian Gulf. Finally, under Muskie's leadership, the State Department negotiated the release of the remaining American hostages held by Iran." Many political commentators believed the bestowing of the Presidential Medal of Freedom by Carter to be an affirmation of this assertion.


title: Edmund Muskie

text: The public perception of his civil rights advancement has endured. A champion of the civil rights movement in the United States, he publicly criticized J. Edgar Hoover's Federal Bureau of Investigation, which was at the time considered political suicide as Hoover often spied and attempted to smear his opponents. Muskie also was instrumental in the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the creation of Martin Luther King Jr. Day, and developed the reform of lobbying. His time as the chairman of the Senate Budget Committee from 1975 to 1980 include the formation of the United States budget process. Because of this, he is known as the "father of the federal budget process". David Broder of "The Washington Post", noted that Muskie's leadership of the Senate's intergovernmental relations subcommittee was, in part, responsible for countering Richard Nixon's "Imperial Presidency" and advancing "New Federalism".


title: Edmund Muskie

text: Muskie's early political career was helped by his physical appearance. Voters could relate to his public persona in ways that translated to relatively high voter turnout. R. W. Apple Jr. described Muskie as "long-jawed and craggy-faced" later noting that he "looked like the typical New Englander [with] a classic Down East accent." Muskie's height has variously been recorded as 6 ft 4 in (1.93 m) to 6 ft 6 in (1.98 m). His height had him often compared to U.S. President Abraham Lincoln and referred to by voters and media alike as "Lincolnesque". He was often seen as "towering over" political candidates creating symbolic superiority and power.


title: Edmund Muskie

text: Known as a recluse, he disliked public attention and media speculation. Voters often associated with his "trademark directness, homespun integrity, and apolitical candor". However, political aides have described him as having a "hot temper" and being demanding. A notorious micro-manager, Muskie often required his aides to have "every speech and every position researched, analyzed and reported directly back to him." While reserved and polite in public, when roused, it was reported that Muskie "had the vocabulary of a sailor". His ability to command an argument was taken positively by voters as it signaled good leadership ability. Political opponents noted his "cutting intellect" as in-conducive to lengthy debates and voters noted it as a good quality to possess when negotiating with foreign leaders. An official publication by Cornell University commented on his political image by saying: "he will be remembered for the quality of his mind; the toughness, the rigor, the common sense; and for another quality: the courage to take risks for what he saw as right".


title: Edmund Muskie

text: Known to be punctual, he was present 90% of Senate roll-call votes. Although he was portrayed as socially rigid, he often broke from this mold and showed a personable side. While campaigning in cities, he often let students from the crowd run up to the stage and present a case for policy reform, unheard of at the time.


title: Edmund Muskie

text: He was awarded the Guardian of Berlin's Freedom Award from the U.S. Army Berlin Command in 1961. In 1969, he was inducted in the American Academy of Arts and Sciences alongside Ted Kennedy, George McGovern, Walter Mondale, Shirley Chisholm, and Bella Abzug.


title: Edmund Muskie

text: At the conclusion of his political career, he held the highest political office by a Polish American in U.S. history, and also was the only Polish American ever nominated by a major party for vice president. On the 100th birthday of Edmund Muskie, U.S. Senator Angus King spoke on the floor of the United States Senate in memoriam. King noted the following: "if you would see Ed Muskie's memorial, look around you. Take a deep breath. Experience our great rivers. Experience the environment that we now have in the country that we treasure." Muskie received the keys to all three major cities in Maine: Portland, Lewiston, and Augusta. He was given honorary citizenship to the State of Texas in 1968. Numerous days have been named "Edmund S. Muskie Day": September 25, 1968 (Michigan), January 20, 1980 (New York), March 28, 1988 (Maine), March 1928, 1994 (Maine), and March 20, 1995 (Maine). In 1987, the Maine State Legislature enacted Statute §A7 enacting "Edmund S. Muskie Day" on March 28. The statute was amended in 1989; Edmund S. Muskie Day is celebrated annually and is a public holiday in Maine.


title: Edmund Muskie

text: Muskie was given honorary degrees from Portland University (1955), Suffolk University (1955), University of Maine (1956), University of Buffalo (1960), Saint Francis College (1961), Nasson College (1962), Hanover College (1967), Syracuse University (1969), Boston University (1969), John Carroll University (1969), Notre Dame University (1969), Middlebury College (1969), Providence College (1969), University of Maryland (1969), George Washington University (1969), Northeastern University (1969), College of William and Mary (1970), Ricker College (1970), St. Joseph's College (1970), University of New Hampshire (1970), St. Anselm College (1970), Washington and Jefferson College (1971), Rivier College (1971), Thomas College (1973), Husson College (1974), Unity College (1975), Marquette University (1982), Rutgers University (1986), Bates College (1986), Washington College (1987), and University of Southern Maine (1992).


title: Edmund Muskie

text: Muskie was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom—the nation's highest honor—by President Jimmy Carter on January 16, 1981 for his work during the Iran hostage crisis, four days before stepping down from the presidency. In 1984, the House of Representatives designated the Edmund S. Muskie Federal Building in Augusta.


title: Edmund Muskie

text: The American Bar Association honors lawyers who under take "pro bono" work with the annual Edmund S. Muskie Pro Bono Service Award. From 1993 to 2013, the United States Department of State ran the Edmund S. Muskie Graduate Fellowship Program in an effort to increase international study abroad. In 1996, the Edmund S. Muskie Distinguished Public Service Award was founded by the Truman National Security Project to honor current or former elected officials.


title: Edmund Muskie

text: The Edmund S. Muskie School of Public Service at the University of Southern Maine was named in his honor in 1990. Muskie's papers and personal effects are kept at the Edmund S. Muskie Archives and Special Collections Library at Bates College in Lewiston, Maine.


title: Shay Given

text: Séamus John James Given (born 20 April 1976) is an Irish former professional footballer who played as a goalkeeper. With 134 caps, he is the second-highest capped Republic of Ireland player.


title: Shay Given

text: Given started his career at Celtic, however he never made a first-team appearance and he was released by Celtic and signed by Blackburn Rovers on a free transfer in 1994. Given was part of both the Sunderland team who won the Football League First Division title in 1995–96 and the Swindon Town team who won the Football League Second Division title that same season, while on loan from Blackburn. He was signed by Newcastle United in 1997 for a fee of £1.5 million, and it was there that he began competing to be a first-choice Premier League goalkeeper. Given was part of the teams who were runners-up in the 1998 and 1999 FA Cup campaigns, and was named in the Premier League Team of the Season for 2001–02 and 2005–06. He played in the UEFA Champions League and UEFA Cup with Newcastle, and was involved in the club's title challenge in 2001–02. Although he submitted a transfer request during the 2000–01 campaign after losing his position in the starting line-up, it was denied, and Given went on to regain his place.


title: Shay Given

text: On 1 February 2009, Given transferred to Manchester City for £6 million on a four-and-a-half-year contract. While Given was at Manchester City, the club qualified for the UEFA Champions League for the first time in its history after finishing third in the Premier League, as well as winning the FA Cup, though he did not appear in the league in the campaign that City reached the Champions League, nor did he play in the FA Cup. On 18 July 2011, he joined Aston Villa for a fee believed to be around £3.5 million, signing a five-year contract. Given joined Stoke City in July 2015, remaining with the club for two seasons.


title: Shay Given

text: Having surpassed the total of 100 caps required for membership, he is part of the FIFA Century Club. Given gained his first international cap in 1996 and played in goal during every match for his country during the 2002 FIFA World Cup campaign, helping them reach the knockout stage. He was later on the pitch in Paris when the Republic of Ireland were knocked out of the play-offs for a spot in the 2010 FIFA World Cup by France before helping his team qualify for UEFA Euro 2012. Given played at UEFA Euro 2012 and was selected in Martin O'Neill's 23-man squad for UEFA Euro 2016 but didn't appear in any of Ireland's four matches at the tournament. Given is the second-highest capped Republic of Ireland player (after Robbie Keane). He announced his international retirement in July 2016, having amassed 134 caps for his country and kept 52 clean sheets.


title: Shay Given

text: Born in Lifford, County Donegal, Given's footballing career began at local amateur side Lifford Celtic where he shot to notoriety for conceding seven goals on his debut. He was propelled into the limelight when he played in an FAI Junior Cup semi-final for Lifford Celtic. At 14, his performances for the club attracted attention from Scottish club Celtic, and he was invited to train with their youth side during a pre-season tour of Ireland in 1991. Given signed for the club a year later. Despite being named to the substitutes bench for the Old Firm derby against Rangers on 1 January 1994, Given never made a first-team appearance.


title: Shay Given

text: His performances for Celtic's youth team did bring him to the attention of Blackburn Rovers manager Kenny Dalglish, and he signed for the English side on a free transfer in the summer of 1994.


title: Shay Given

text: The season after Given's arrival saw Blackburn win the Premier League title and Given was unable to oust first-choice goalkeeper and England international Tim Flowers from the team. He made two loan moves to Swindon Town. Given acted as understudy during his first spell at the Wiltshire club but helped them start their Championship winning Division Two campaign during the 1995–96 season. He played in five games for Swindon before returning to Blackburn at the end of 1995. Given was sent on loan again in January 1996, this time to Division One side Sunderland. Given kept 12 clean sheets during his 17 games for the club, and formed part of the team who won promotion to the Premier League as champions. His performances on loan impressed Kenny Dalglish, who had recently been appointed manager of Newcastle United, and prompted him to sign Given again. Given signed for the North-East club in the summer of 1997 for a fee of £1.5 million. Given had earlier made his Premier League debut for Blackburn in a game against Wimbledon on 14 December 1996.


title: Shay Given

text: Given was one of the first signings of then-newly appointed manager Dalglish. Given made his debut in Newcastle's 2–1 home victory over Sheffield Wednesday on 9 August 1997 and immediately established himself in the first team, beating fellow goalkeepers Pavel Srníček, Shaka Hislop and Steve Harper to the position. Newcastle advanced to the final of the FA Cup, and Given played the whole match as the team were defeated 2–0 by league champions Arsenal. The club also progressed to the final the following year, but Given was replaced by Steve Harper as Newcastle lost 2–0 in the final, this time to Manchester United.


title: Shay Given

text: In November 1997, Given conceded a strange goal against Coventry City when, after collecting a cross, he rolled the ball out in preparation to make a long clearance. However, he had forgotten that Coventry striker Dion Dublin was still behind him, and Dublin quickly took advantage of the situation by rolling the ball into the empty net. The coincidence of the goalscorer's name quickly led to the popular word game among football fans that Given "is the only Irishman who doesn't know where Dublin is" and the goal itself is still regularly featured on lists compiled of bizarre goals.


title: Shay Given

text: Given submitted a written transfer request in December 2000, after failing to regain his place in the first team from Steve Harper after a thigh injury had ruled him out of a match against Leeds United. Manager Sir Bobby Robson stated at the time: "A lot of clubs have a very good goalkeeper and one who stands by. I think we have two keepers — and Harper is proving that — who can play in the Premiership". The club rejected Given's request, which was then withdrawn by the goalkeeper, who later stated that his "intention was simply to express [his] frustration at being left out of the team," and that he "never had any intention of actually leaving the club." An injury to Harper led to Given being recalled to the first team, and he kept his place for the rest of the season.


title: Shay Given

text: In the 2001–02 season, Given played in every Premier League match as Newcastle's previously unexpected title challenge ended in a fourth-place finish in the league. A highlight of the season was Given saving a Fabrizio Ravanelli penalty in a 1–0 win over Derby County on 24 November 2001. Given was selected in the PFA Team of the Year and Newcastle's league position meant that they would enter the qualifying stages of the UEFA Champions League the following season.


title: Shay Given

text: During the summer he competed in the 2002 FIFA World Cup, but could not prevent the Republic of Ireland being eliminated by Spain after a penalty shoot-out.


title: Shay Given

text: Given again found himself competing with Steve Harper during the following season. After a 5–0 qualifying round win, Newcastle progressed to the group stages of the Champions League. He played in the first three group matches, all of which Newcastle lost. Given found himself out of the team for the next two games, as Harper replaced him in goal. Given returned for the final group match against Feyenoord in the Netherlands, and Newcastle's 3–2 win meant that they qualified for the second round. Internazionale scored four times past Given as Newcastle lost 4–1 in their opening match in the second group stage. Newcastle conceded a further three times away to Barcelona, beat Bayer Leverkusen at home and in Germany (with Given saving an Oliver Neuville penalty in the home tie), and drew with Inter at San Siro, however a 2–0 loss at home against Barcelona meant that the club finished third in their group and failed to qualify for the knockout stages. Given played every game in the second round. Given played all 38 league games for the club, as well as his 12 European appearances, as the team finished in third place in the Premier League, meaning the club would enter the Champions League qualifying round in 2003–04.


title: Shay Given

text: Having finished third in the league in May 2003, Given and Newcastle lost 4–3 on penalties to Partizan Belgrade early in the 2003–04 season, meaning that Newcastle failed to reach the group stages of the Champions League. The club instead qualified for the UEFA Cup, where they reached the semi-finals. A fifth-place finish in the league meant that the club qualified for the following season's UEFA Cup competition. Given played in every one of the club's league matches for a third successive season, as well as all 13 European games.


title: Shay Given

text: After a poor start to the 2004–05 season, Graeme Souness replaced Sir Bobby Robson as Newcastle manager. Given overtook Alan Shearer as having played in the most European matches for the club on 16 September 2004 in a game against Bnei Sakhnin, and Given's 12 European and 3 FA Cup appearances helped Newcastle reach the UEFA Cup quarter-final and the FA Cup semi-final. Given missed two Premier League games as the club finished in 14th place.