title: Battle of Remagen

text: In early 1945, SHAEF commander Eisenhower gave Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery and the British 21st Army Group the responsibility to be the first to cross the Rhine and capture Germany's Ruhr industrial heartland. Montgomery meticulously planned Operation Plunder through February and into early March with the offensive set to begin on 23 March. Mindful of Montgomery's plans, General Eisenhower ordered Omar Bradley to secure the Remagen bridgehead but to limit the expansion to an area that could be held by five divisions. On 9 March Bradley told General Hodges to attack to a maximum width of and a depth of . Bradley also told Hodges to limit the First Army's advance to per day with the goal of limiting the U.S. advance while preventing the German forces from consolidating their positions. The 9th Armored had captured a bridge and established a bridgehead with less than a battalion of men. Now they and the rest of First Army were instructed to hold once they reached the Ruhr-Frankfurt autobahn, about from the bridge.


title: Battle of Remagen

text: On the morning of 10 March, the 276th Engineer Combat Battalion, one of the III Corps units sent to Remagen, relieved Company C. Before it was relieved, Company C placed a large sign on the north tower on the western side of the bridge that welcomed soldiers: "CROSS THE RHINE WITH DRY FEET, COURTESY OF 9TH ARM'D DIV". The Pershing T26E3s that had been instrumental in capturing the bridge were too heavy to risk moving across the weakened bridge and too wide to use the pontoon bridges. They had to wait five days before they were transported across the river by pontoon ferry on Monday, 12 March.


title: Battle of Remagen

text: On the same day, the Belgian army's 16th Fusilier Battalion (16 Bataillon de Fusiliers) came under American command and one company crossed the Rhine at Remagen on 15 March.


title: Battle of Remagen

text: On the night of Saturday, 10 March, the 394th Infantry Regiment of the 99th Infantry Division were given the job of relieving the 9th Infantry Division on the east bank of the Rhine after they captured Linz am Rhein. They were trucked from Meckenheim, to the northwest, into Remagen along roads jammed with hundreds of jeeps, trucks, ambulances, and tanks. Driving on both sides of the road, the trucks crawled past tanks burning by the side of the road and dead bodies everywhere. Trucks struck by artillery were just pushed to the side with dead GIs still inside them. As the sun went down, the 394th IR/99 ID emerged from the woods on the ridge overlooking the town and could see that the bridge was being shelled by artillery. They hiked the last and as they moved spasmodically through Remagen, the streets were lit by burning buildings and vehicles. One street was marked by a sign: "This street subject to enemy shell fire," and dead GIs proved it was true. Artillery shells struck the western shore of the Rhine at the rate of one every 30 seconds that night.


title: Battle of Remagen

text: A platoon sheltered in the basement of a house just as the building next door was struck and destroyed by a shell. When another soldier crouched behind a trailer, a shell exploded nearby, sending a large fragment through the trailer immediately over his back. One GI witnessed a jeep and its driver take a direct hit by artillery and literally disappear. Boyd McCune described the artillery fire as "the most intense" he had experienced. Medic James Johnson described his efforts to save lives.


title: Battle of Remagen

text: The western approach to the bridge was managed by a platoon of the 9th Military Police Company. The foot soldiers dodged around discarded equipment, weapons, helmets, and packs. One soldier said it was "hard to walk without tripping over the wounded and dead". Every time a shell came down, the soldiers on the approaches and on the bridge itself were forced to drop where they were with no place to take shelter. The long approach ramp to the bridge was so exposed to German artillery, who successfully and repeatedly killed soldiers and destroyed equipment lined up to cross the bridge, that the GIs nicknamed it "Dead Man's Corner". Medics normally removed bodies as quickly as possible because of the negative impact it had on morale. But bodies accumulated so quickly on the approach to the bridge, and there were so many wounded for the medics to tend to, that corpses were stacked head high.


title: Battle of Remagen

text: The 99th Infantry Division was the first complete division to cross the Rhine. When its regiments were all across, they all were returned to control of their commanding general. They then pushed through to the Wied River and crossed it on the 23rd, advancing east on the Koln-Frankfurt highway to Giessen.


title: Battle of Remagen

text: Once the Ludendorff Bridge was captured, the Americans needed additional bridges as backups to the structurally weakened Ludendorff Bridge, and to get more troops and armor across the Rhine so they could expand and defend the bridgehead. On 8 March at 3:00 pm, they began constructing the first bridge. To procure the necessary bridge-building supplies, the First Army's 1111th Engineer Combat Group sent a man into Antwerp, where the supplies were dispatched by train to the front. He surreptitiously marked all of the bridge materials, including those destined for Patton's Third Army, as being destined for the First Army at Remagen.


title: Battle of Remagen

text: While the bridges were being prepared and constructed, a large fleet of vessels were employed. Within the next few days, the 819th Amphibian Truck Company arrived with DUKW amphibious trucks that were used to carry ammunition, gasoline, and rations across the river. The 86th Engineer Heavy Pontoon Battalion and the 291st Engineer Combat Battalion were assigned the mission to build three pontoon ferries. U.S. Naval Unit 1 brought up 24 U.S. Navy LCVP landing craft. The LCVPs were especially useful because they could ferry 32 men across the river in seven minutes, faster than they could walk across the bridge. All of these constantly shuttled across the river, delivering vehicles, equipment, and troops to one side and ferrying wounded to the other.


title: Battle of Remagen

text: The Germans targeted the pontoon bridges as soon as the U.S. troops began building them. Directed by forward artillery observers positioned on the steep hills overlooking the river, the Germans continually pounded the engineers, soldiers, and vehicles on the bridges and the roads leading to them.


title: Battle of Remagen

text: The 291st Engineer Combat Battalion commanded by David E. Pergrin began constructing at 10:30 am on 9 March a Class 40 M2 steel treadway bridge about down river of the bridge. They were supported by the 988th and 998th Engineer Treadway Bridge Companies. The crews and the bridge were repeatedly struck by artillery, suffering several direct hits that destroyed equipment and killed and wounded troops, and slowing work on the bridge. During one barrage, seventeen engineers were killed or wounded and 19 pontoon floats were destroyed. On 10 March, a direct hit from an artillery shell killed the battalion executive officer of the 276th Engineer Combat Battalion and injured 19 others. One engineer commented, "While working on that bridge, we were just fugitives from the law of averages." On the same day, the Luftwaffe attacked the bridge for six and a half hours; American anti-aircraft gunners claimed credit for about 28 of the 47 aircraft. When the engineers finished the heavy-duty bridge 32 hours later at 5:10 am on Saturday, 11 March, it was the first Allied bridge across the Rhine. A German forward artillery observer with a radio was captured in Remagen, and artillery fire decreased markedly over the next 24 hours.


title: Battle of Remagen

text: The 51st Engineer Combat Battalion, commanded by Lieutenant Colonel Harvey Fraser, built a Class 40, 25 Ton reinforced heavy pontoon bridge upstream on the bank of the Rhine between Kripp to Linz. Assisted by the 181st and 552nd Engineer Heavy Pontoon Battalions, they began construction at 4:00 pm on 10 March, while the far shore had not yet been captured. German planes bombed and strafed the bridges during construction, killing three men and injuring two others. On 11 March, the 9th AIB captured Linz and at 7:00 pm, 27 hours after beginning construction, the engineers completed the second bridge, the fastest built floating bridge ever completed by the engineers while under fire. It opened for traffic at 11:00 pm that night, and was reinforced the next day to carry heavier traffic. Once the second tactical bridge was open, the treadway bridge was used for eastbound traffic and the pontoon bridge for westbound traffic. Tracked vehicles were limited to and wheeled vehicles to . One vehicle crossed every two minutes, and within seven days, 2,500 vehicles had used it to reach the far bank. They named the bridge after the commanding officer of the 552nd Battalion, Major William F. Tompkins, Jr., who had been killed by enemy shelling during its construction.


title: Battle of Remagen

text: When the treadway and pontoon bridges were operational, the engineers closed the Ludendorff Bridge for repairs on Monday, 12 March. Its steel framework was more resistant to artillery and bombs and allowed it to carry heavier loads like the heavy M26 Pershing tanks, making it worth repairing. By 14 March, the Americans had 16 gun batteries and 33 Automatic Weapon batteries, totaling 672 anti-aircraft weapons, arrayed for miles around the bridgehead. It was the largest concentration of anti-aircraft weapons during World War II. Colonel E. Paul Semmens, Assistant Professor of History at the U.S. Air Force Academy, said it ranked among "the greatest antiaircraft artillery battles in American history". The anti-aircraft fire was so intense that shells falling back to earth caused 200 casualties to their own side. Of the 367 aircraft that attacked the bridge, the Americans shot down 109 (almost 30%) of them. Gefechtsverband Kowalewski lost 18 jet aircraft in combat, plus several more that were damaged on landing, about a third of its strength.


title: Battle of Remagen

text: On 15 March, engineers determined that the Ludendorff Bridge had sagged about and decided that extensive work would be needed before it would be ready for use. Meanwhile, the pontoon ferries, DUKWs and LCVPs continued to supplement the two tactical bridges. By 23 March, the LCVPs had carried 13,800 troops and 406 vehicles.


title: Battle of Remagen

text: The 78th expanded the bridgehead, taking Bad Honnef and cutting part of the Ruhr-Frankfurt autobahn on 16 March.


title: Battle of Remagen

text: From the day the bridge had been captured until the middle of March, III Corps Commander Millikin had never visited the eastern bank of the Rhine. Hodges and some of his staff had complained about the poor control of forces on both sides of the bridge and the lack of information on troop dispositions. Hodges also complained later that Millikin repeatedly disobeyed his orders including a directive to drive his forces north along the east bank and open a crossing for VII Corps, and that he failed to attach enough infantry support to the 9th Armored Division. First Army commander General Hodges relieved Millikin ten days after the bridge was captured, on 17 March, and promoted General James Van Fleet to the command instead. The Chief of Staff of the 9th ID, William Westmoreland later commented that, "So irresolute was the III Corps Commander, so lacking in confidence, that I feared for the safety of the bridgehead."


title: Battle of Remagen

text: After months of aircraft bombing, direct artillery hits, near misses, and deliberate demolition attempts, the Ludendorff Bridge finally collapsed on 17 March at about 3:00 pm. From its capture 10 days before, over 25,000 troops and thousands of vehicles had crossed the bridge and the other two newly built tactical bridges.


title: Battle of Remagen

text: The engineers working on the bridge first heard a long bang, like steel snapping, and then accompanied by the shrieking of broken metal, the center portion of bridge suddenly tipped into the Rhine, and the two end sections slumped off their piers. About 200 engineers and welders were working on the span when it fell.


title: Battle of Remagen

text: Lieutenant Colonel Clayton A. Rust, battalion commander of the 276th ECB, was on the bridge when it collapsed. He fell into the Rhine, was briefly pinned underwater, and then floated downstream to the pontoon bridge, where he was pulled out of the water. He later reported:


title: Battle of Remagen

text: 28 Army Engineers were killed in the collapse while a further 63 were injured. Of those who died, 18 were actually missing but it was presumed they had drowned in the swift current of the Rhine River


title: Battle of Remagen

text: Before it collapsed, five U.S. divisions had already used it and two adjacent tactical bridges to cross into Germany, creating a well-established bridgehead almost long, extending from Bonn in the north almost to Koblenz in the south, and deep.


title: Battle of Remagen

text: Three hours after the bridge collapsed, the 148th Engineer Combat Battalion was ordered by the First Army to build a Class 40 floating Bailey bridge at Remagen to help carry critical traffic across the Rhine. A floating Bailey typically replaced a treadway or pontoon bridges and required substantially more time to build. The company had expected to start building their bridge on 25 March, after the start of Operation Plunder. But they had been practicing for weeks and all of the materials were on hand. The 148th ECB were assigned extra help from Company C, 291st Engineer Combat Battalion, and sixty men from the 501st Light Pontoon Company. At 7:30 pm on 18 March, they began replacing the heavy pontoon bridge downstream from the Remagen Bridge. They finished the bridge a day earlier than ordered at 7:15 am on 20 March.


title: Battle of Remagen

text: Another tactical bridge was constructed by the 254th Engineer Combat Battalion on 22 March, upstream at Bad Hönningen. The 990th, 988th and 998th Treadway Bridge Companies and Detachment 1 of the 508th Engineer Light Pontoon Company supported them. Later nicknamed the "Victor Bridge", it was—at in length—the longest tactical bridge built in the First Army's area of operations. Engineers built additional tactical bridges later in March at Bad Godesberg, Rolandseck, Rheinberg, Worms, Bonn, Wallach, Oppenheim, Mainz and other locations. They also built a two-way Bailey Bridge on barges across the Rhine at Bonn.


title: Battle of Remagen

text: When the Americans captured the Ludendorff Bridge on Wednesday 7 March, the Germans were caught completely by surprise and were unprepared to defend against it. The seizure of the bridge created a sudden added burden on German defenses and multiplied their confusion. They had been expecting a large build-up along the Rhine before a thrust across the river, and the breakthrough at Remagen meant that the beleaguered German forces lost a much-needed chance to regroup east of the Rhine. By the time the bridge collapsed 10 days later, more than 25,000 Allied troops had crossed the Ludendorff Bridge and three tactical bridges in the area above and below Remagen. By then the Remagen bridgehead was deep and wide, including of the vital Ruhr-Frankfurt autobahn. The unexpected attack across the Rhine allowed Eisenhower to change his plans to end the war.


title: Battle of Remagen

text: In the north, Montgomery's intelligence staff preparing for Operation Plunder estimated that their million-plus troops faced a seriously weakened Army Group H comprising about 85,000 troops and 35 tanks, but the actual numbers were likely much less. Army Group B commanded 27 seriously weakened divisions under the 5th Panzer Army (without significant armor), the 7th Army, and 15th Army, but many of its forces had been sent south to help contain the Remagen bridgehead, which made the other crossings during Operation Plunder in late March easier.


title: Battle of Remagen

text: On Monday, 19 March, Eisenhower ordered nine First Army divisions already across the river to prepare to join General George Patton's Third Army after it crossed the Rhine. Patton was determined to get his Third Army across the Rhine before his archrival Montgomery, whom he loathed and despised.


title: Battle of Remagen

text: On 22 March 1945 at 10:00 pm, the night before Montgomery's Operation Plunder began, Patton sent the 11th Infantry Regiment, 5th Infantry Division quietly across the Rhine, at Nierstein, without the aid of aircraft, artillery, or airborne troops. They used DUKW amphibious trucks, U.S. Navy landing craft, and a ferry for tanks. Patton's headquarters boasted to Omar Bradley that, "Without benefit of aerial bombing, ground smoke, artillery preparation, and airborne assistance, the Third Army at 2200 hours, Thursday evening, 22 March, crossed the Rhine River." By late afternoon on 23 March engineers completed a 40-ton treadway bridge. They quickly established a bridgehead and captured 19,000 German soldiers. Bradley, who also disliked Montgomery, gladly tweaked him and his Operation Plunder when he announced Patton's success, being sure to tell the press that Patton had crossed the Rhine without aerial bombardment, airborne assault, or even artillery fire.


title: Battle of Remagen

text: By 24 March, the U.S. First Army had "three corps, six infantry divisions, and three armored divisions across the Rhine River". It faced Model's Army Group B totaling about 325,000 men. The Allied breakout ended any hope the Germans had to reassert control of the area east of Remagen. After capturing Limburg, the 9th Armored Division's Combat Command B covered in one day during the drive to the north, and Combat Command A advanced in 11 hours. On 29 March, Combat Command A captured more than 1,200 Germans. By 31 March, three weeks after capturing the Ludendorff Bridge, all four American armies were across the Rhine River.


title: Battle of Remagen

text: Crossing the Ruhr River had held the Allies up for four months. Crossing the Rhine in a single day undoubtedly shortened the war in Europe.


title: Battle of Remagen

text: Eisenhower described capturing the bridge as "one of those rare and fleeting opportunities which occasionally arise in war and which, if grasped, have incalculable effects on determining future success". Later on, he commented, "We were across the Rhine, on a permanent bridge; the traditional defensive barrier to the heart of Germany was pierced. The final defeat of the enemy, which we had long calculated would be accomplished in the spring and summer campaigning of 1945, was suddenly now, in our minds, just around the corner." General George C. Marshall commented, "The bridgehead provided a serious threat to the heart of Germany, a diversion of incalculable value. It became a springboard for the final offensive to come."


title: Battle of Remagen

text: Various sources credit the capture of the Ludendorff Bridge with shortening the war in Europe by weeks to months and reducing the number of casualties that the Allies might otherwise have incurred. Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Hal Boyle wrote that capturing the bridge had "saved the American nation 5,000 dead and 10,000 wounded". War correspondent Wes Gallagher of the Associated Press exulted that the event had shortened the war by months. Historian and author Ken Hechler concluded that "the capture of the Ludendorff Bridge materially hastened the ending of the war". John Thompson, a reporter for the "Chicago Tribune", said seizing the bridge shortened the war against Germany by "several weeks". Another author credited the operation with shortening the war in Europe by approximately six months. Col. F. Russel Lyons, the III Corps engineer, said after the war that the Allies' ability to use the bridge saved the Allies two months and 35,000 casualties.


title: Battle of Remagen

text: General Albert Kesselring described the battle as the "Crime of Remagen. It broke the front along the Rhine." Hermann Göring said that the capture of the bridge "made a long defense impossible". Major General Carl Wagener, Chief of staff to Field Marshall Walter Model, said that capturing the bridge signaled the end of the war for the Germans:


title: Battle of Remagen

text: Adolf Hitler was incensed by the loss of the bridge. He summoned the "fanatical and reliable Nazi" Generalleutnant Rudolf Hübner from the Eastern Front and personally appointed him Commander of Fliegendes Sonder-Standgericht West ("Flying Special Court-Martial West"). He directed him to court-martial and execute the officers who failed to destroy the bridge. Hübner was accompanied by Lt. Colonel Anton Ernst Berger and Lt. Colonel Paul Penth. None of them had legal experience and they traveled to Army Group B headquarters with two military police who acted as the execution squad. On 11 March, in violation of German military rules of justice, Hübner was both prosecutor and judge. Col. Richter Janert, Army Group B's legal officer, offered Hübner a copy of the German military code of justice, but Hübner waved it aside, insisting that the only authority he needed was Hitler's. Hübner tried Captain Bratge "in absentia" and sentenced him to death for delaying the order to blow the bridge. But since Bratge was a prisoner of war, the sentence could not be carried out.


title: Battle of Remagen

text: Hübner then tried Maj. Scheller and after him Lt. Karl Heinz Peters. Scheller had only arrived at 11:15 am, two hours before the Americans attacked the bridge. Peters was a passerby trying to get his experimental anti-aircraft system back across the Rhine. But the outcome of the trial was predetermined. Scheller was convicted of failing to blow up the bridge and Peters of allowing his secret anti-aircraft weapon to fall into American hands. The men were executed the next day with a shot to the back of the neck in Rimbac and buried where they fell in shallow graves.


title: Battle of Remagen

text: On the day Scheller and Peters were sentenced, Maj. Herbert Strobel and Maj. August Kraft were summoned to Field Marshal Model's office in Oberirsen, unaware of the charges pending against them. Kraft and his commanding officer Strobel were in charge of the combat engineers in the Koblenz-Remagen sector covering of the Rhine. Kraft, commander of III Landes Pi Battalion, had laid the charges on the Remagen bridge. Kraft was away at the time the bridge was captured. Strobel had ordered Kraft to counterattack which had completely failed. On 17 March Hübner conducted a 20-minute trial for the two men at 11:00 am. He quickly found them guilty and sentenced them to be executed immediately. The two men were given about 45 minutes to write to their families before they were escorted to a wooded site and executed at 1:00 pm with a bullet to the back of the head. The executioners emptied their pockets, tore up the family letters, covered their bodies with a few shovel-fulls of dirt, and left them where they fell. A sixth officer, 12th Regiment Engineer Commander Capt. Friesenhahn, had been captured but not convicted, as he was found by the court to have done everything within his power to destroy the bridge.


title: Battle of Remagen

text: Hitler disciplined four other generals. Generalmajor Richard von Bothmer, commander of Bonn and Remagen, was prosecuted because he gave up Bonn without a fight. He was demoted to private and sentenced to five years in prison. His wife was already dead and his son had been killed in the war. Bothmer grabbed a pistol belonging to a court official and committed suicide in the courtroom on 10 March. Hitler replaced him with Field Marshal Albert Kesselring from the Italian Front. Kesselring rebuked the troops for their costly failure. "We have suffered unnecessary losses and our present military situation has become nearly catastrophic."


title: Battle of Remagen

text: Kesselring and Model sent out a special dispatch on 18 March to every unit in the German military describing the executions.


title: Battle of Remagen

text: Kesselring's new position lasted almost exactly two months from the day the Ludendorff Bridge was seized, to 8 May—the day the remaining German forces surrendered.


title: Battle of Remagen

text: An unintended consequence of the executions was that German officers of all grades spent a disproportionate amount of time, energy, and explosives in blowing all sorts of bridges, even senselessly. In many instances, bridges were blown in rear areas by high-ranking officers, thereby crippling the German war effort, but clearing the individual of responsibility for an unblown bridge.


title: Battle of Remagen

text: Maj. Gen. John W. Leonard awarded Brig. General Hoge the Oak Leaf Cluster to his Distinguished Service Medal for his unit's actions in capturing the bridge and establishing the bridgehead. On 21 March 1945 Hoge was transferred to assume command of the Fourth Infantry Division under General Patton. Leonard also awarded 13 soldiers Distinguished Service Crosses and 152 Silver Star medals for their success in capturing the bridge and related action.


title: Battle of Remagen

text: From Company A, 27th Armored Infantry Battalion, Sergeant Alexander A. Drabik, the first American enlisted man to cross this bridge, and German-born Lieutenant (LT) Timmermann, the first American officer to cross the bridge, were both recognized for their actions with the Distinguished Service Cross (DSC). Sergeants Joseph DeLisio, Michael Chinchar, Joseph S. Petrencsik, and Anthony Samele from Company A also received the DSC.


title: Battle of Remagen

text: LT Hugh Mott of the 2nd Platoon, Company B, 9th Armored Engineer Battalion, led Sergeants Eugene Dorland and John A. Reynolds onto the bridge to remove live demolition charges while under fire. All three were awarded the DSC for their actions in taking the bridge.


title: Battle of Remagen

text: Company A, 14th Tank Battalion, the first tank company to cross the Rhine, were instrumental in helping seize the railroad bridge and establishing the first Allied bridgehead over the Rhine. Once across, they established fighting positions on the eastern side, repelling multiple German counterattacks by armor and infantry. For their actions, Captain George P. Soumas, 1st LT C. Windsor Miller, Sergeant William J. Goodson, and 1st LT John Grimball were awarded the DSC. The entire battalion was awarded its second Presidential Unit Citation.


title: Battle of Remagen

text: From 9 to 17 March members of the 9th Military Police Company were positioned at both ends and all along the bridge to guide a steady stream of POWs, vehicles, and troops. Other MPs were detailed as snipers to watch for German frogmen who might attempt to blow up the bridge. When a vehicle was hit or the driver wounded, they helped get the vehicle off the bridge, even if it meant driving it. They manned aid stations and POW cages on both shores, and they installed and maintained wire communications across the bridge, all while under artillery fire. The 9th Military Police Platoon was recognized with the Meritorious Unit Citation, the Belgian Fourragère, and the Presidential Unit Citation for its performance at the Ludendorff Bridge. 1st LT John Hyde of the 9th Military Police Company was Bridge Control Officer. Hyde had famously denied General George Patton passage through a roadblock over the general's vigorous objections earlier in the war. Hyde implemented established rigid traffic patterns to maintain a constant flow of vehicles and troops for more than 15 days. Hyde received a Silver Star for his bravery and gallantry under fire at the Ludendorff Bridge.


title: Battle of Remagen

text: The 47th Infantry Regiment, which was the first to cross the Rhine on 8 March, bore the brunt of the aggressive German counterattack. For its actions in helping protect the bridgehead, it was recognized with a Presidential Unit Citation.


title: Battle of Remagen

text: All units of CCB/9 AIB of the 9th Armored Division were awarded the Presidential Unit Citation for their actions in taking and defending the bridge.


title: Battle of Remagen

text: Allied journalists called the capture of this bridge the "Miracle of Remagen". American military historian and biographer Carlo D'Este described capturing the "Remagen bridge as one of the great sagas of the war and an example of inspired leadership". The "New York Sun" reported:


title: Battle of Remagen

text: When the news of the bridge's capture was announced in the United States Senate, the leadership suspended its rule against hand clapping. The House of Representatives took a time out from their regular business to celebrate the good news. The Associated Press published a report on 8 March that stated, "The swift, sensational crossing was the biggest military triumph since the Normandy landings, and was a battle feat without parallel since Napoleon's conquering legions crossed the Rhine early in the last century." "Time" magazine called it a "moment in history".


title: Battle of Remagen

text: General Dwight D. Eisenhower described the First Army's success: "The whole Allied force is delighted to cheer the First Army whose speed and boldness have won the race to establish the first bridgehead over the Rhine. Please tell all ranks how proud I am of them." He later praised the actions of the individual soldiers who captured it:


title: Battle of Remagen

text: Eisenhower's Chief of Staff, Lt. Gen. Walter B. Smith, said the capture of Ludendorff Bridge was "worth its weight in gold". General Omar N. Bradley praised the capture of the bridge. It was "... a bold advance, characterized by a willingness to chance great risks for great rewards".


title: Battle of Remagen

text: In 1954, Captain Karl Friesenhahn, the German engineer in charge of the explosives on the bridge, commented that the soldiers who were awarded medals for capturing the bridge "... deserved them—and then some. They saw us trying to blow that bridge and by all odds it should have blown up while they were crossing it. In my mind they were the greatest heroes in the whole war."


title: Battle of Remagen

text: The bridge was not rebuilt after the war but the standing towers were preserved. The towers on the western side of the Rhine have been converted into a memorial museum and are open to the public. Remagen and Erpel were re-built after the war, restoring much of their historic character. Reconstruction was completed in Erpel during 1968 during the same year the village celebrated its 1500-year anniversary.


title: Battle of Remagen

text: On the 17th anniversary of the capture of the bridge on 7 March 1962, a few veterans of both sides of the battle commemorated the event, attended by about 400 townspeople and students. On the fortieth anniversary of the battle, 130 U.S. veterans visited the bridge for a memorial service. On 12 September 1991, veterans of the American and German units were added to the "Golden Book" of the community of Erpel during a commemorative ceremony. On 7 March 1995, about 600 veterans and family members from the Allied and German forces observed the 50th anniversary of the bridge's capture. During the gathering, German residents thanked the U.S. service members present for winning the war. Gerd Scheller, whose father Hans Scheller had been executed by a drumhead court-martial, told attendees, "In the name of two postwar generations, I want to thank the Americans for acting as resolutely as they did on 7 March 1945."


title: Battle of Remagen

text: In interviews after the war, Captain Karl Friesenhahn, who had been in charge of the demolition charges on the bridge, stated that he had successfully tested the electrical circuits controlling the charges shortly before the Americans attacked. He ruled out sabotage and stated that the circuit had definitely been cut by American artillery.


title: Battle of Remagen

text: When the Ruhr Pocket was captured, the Allies had over 660,000 prisoners-of-war to care for, including as of 8 May 252,592 POWs in the Golden Mile (German: Goldene Meile) camp between Remagen and Niederbreisig. The prisoners were forced to sleep on the ground. They had no sanitation and little food or water. The camp was taken over by the French on 11 July 1945, but by the time they closed it 9 days later, a total of 1,247 POW's had died of dysentery, malnutrition and exhaustion.


title: Battle of Remagen

text: The son of Maj. August Kraft, who had been executed after a drumhead trial for his alleged responsibility in allowing the Americans to capture the bridge, sued after the war to clear his father's name.


title: Battle of Remagen

text: In the cemetery at Birnbach, Germany, a memorial was created for the four German officers executed for their "responsibility" in the capture of the bridge.


title: Battle of Remagen

text: In Fort Jackson, South Carolina, a stone from the pier supporting the bridge has been erected as a memorial to the 60th Infantry Regiment, part of the 9th Infantry Division during the capture of the Ludendorff Bridge. An M-26 Pershing Tank used by Company A's second platoon is also permanently displayed on the fort.


title: Battle of Remagen

text: Plaques commemorating the battle for the bridge have been placed by the Belgian 12th Fusilier Battalion, U.S. 9th Armored Division Association, U.S. 99th Infantry Division, and the U.S. 78th Infantry Division on the wall of the towers on the western side of the Rhine.


title: Battle of Remagen

text: The 9th Infantry Division retained a foot-long piece of railroad track from the bridge as a memorial to what the division accomplished in its capture of the bridge. It is used in ceremonial activities to inspire current "Gila Battalion" engineers to "go out and perform the mission of the engineer".


title: Battle of Remagen

text: The sign that C/9th AIB placed on the north tower of the bridge is permanently displayed at the George Patton Museum at Fort Knox, Kentucky, above an M26 Pershing tank like that used to capture the bridge.


title: Battle of Remagen

text: In 1978, Remagen Mayor Hans Peter Kürten formulated a plan to raise money to fund a museum. When the German government decided to remove the piers because they were a navigation hazard, he persuaded the government to allow him to cast pieces of the piers into resin, which he sold. The town was able to raise more than 100.000 DM in profits.


title: Battle of Remagen

text: Kürten opened the "Friedensmuseum Brücke von Remagen" (Remagen Bridge Peace Museum) on 7 March 1980 in one of the western towers. Exhibits include a history of the bridge, a video documentary, information on the bridge's construction, and documentation about more than 200 wars in the region. In 2003, more than 200 German, American, and Belgian veterans of the World War II battle attended a commemorative event during the 35th anniversary of the museum. , an American flag flies from one of the west towers and a German flag flies from the other.


title: Battle of Remagen

text: The local art and cultural company "Ad Erpelle", founded in 2006, purchased the east bridge towers and the tunnel under Erpeler Ley in 2011 for use as a performance space, preserving it for public access. The prior owner DB Netz AG had decided to permanently close the tunnels.


title: Battle of Remagen

text: A cross to commemorate the victims of the battle for the Ludendorff Bridge was built on the top of Erpeler Ley.


title: Battle of Remagen

text: On 20 March 2005, sixty years after the battle, a plaque commemorating the event was placed near the bridge by Heinz Schwarz, Minister of the Interior to the State of Rhineland-Palatinate. As a 16-year-old boy, he had been assigned to the top floor of a stone tower on the east shore as a telephone messenger to the bridge commander. When the bridge was captured, he escaped out the basement of the tunnel and ran home.


title: Battle of Remagen

text: On 8 September 1945, the U.S. Post Office issued a three-cent stamp commemorating the Liberation of Paris from the Germans. First day covers were illustrated with images of the Ludendorff Bridge illustrating its capture. Other countries have issued stamps commemorating the bridge's capture, including Nicaragua, Guyana, Micronesia, and Republic of the Marshall Islands.


title: Battle of Remagen

text: Ken Hechler was a combat historian during World War II. He was at III Corps headquarters, from Remagen, when the bridge was captured. He arrived there shortly afterward and interviewed participants. He returned after the war twice to interview Germans who took part in the battle. He found Captain Willi Bratge, one of two officers who had not been executed at Hitler's orders because he had been captured, and spent a week with him in the Remagen area learning about details of the battle. Hechler published the book "The Bridge at Remagen" in 1957. The book was adapted into a Hollywood film also named "The Bridge at Remagen", produced by David L. Wolper in 1967.


title: Battle of Remagen

text: In "It's A Wonderful Life", George Bailey's friend and brother-in-law Marty Hatch is credited with helping the Allies to help capture the Remagen Bridge.


title: Yandex Music

text: Yandex Music ( tr. Yandeks Muzyka; stylised as Yandex.Music) is a Russian music streaming service developed by Yandex. Users select musical compositions, albums, collections of musical tracks to stream to their device on demand and receive personalized recommendations. The service is also available as web browser. Service is available in Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, Israel, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Moldova, Russia, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan. Subscription can only be paid from supported countries above, but the service is then available in all other countries.


title: Yandex Music

text: As of October 2017, over 40 million music tracks were available on Yandex Music. About 20 million people use the service at least once a month.


title: Yandex Music

text: The most popular feature of Yandex Music is the smart playlists , which is updated daily for each user and features recently played tracks, similar music to their favorites, and diverse tracks that are based on user's tastes.


title: Yandex Music

text: On September 22, 2010, Yandex announced the launch of a separate service, Yandex Music, which allowed streaming of songs, albums and collections of various artists to user device on demand. More than 50 rightholders provided content for the service, including Universal, EMI, Warner Music Group, Sony Music, First Music Publishing, Monolit, SBA Production etc.


title: Yandex Music

text: In September 2014, Yandex started using the system of personal recommendations. Playlist forming became sensitive to the personal musical preferences of the user and his friends on Vkontakte and Facebook. The interface also changed significantly.


title: Yandex Music

text: In October 2017, Yandex made a complete redesign of the service. The sections "New Releases", "Playlists with New Compositions", "Mood and Genres" and "Charts" were added to the main page. The player and the artist screen also changed.


title: Yandex Music

text: In June 2018, Yandex Music was launched in Armenia. By the time of the launch, the interface was translated into Armenian, the service’s editorial team prepared playlists with Armenian music, and daily updated charts with tracks popular in Armenia appeared on the main page.


title: Yandex Music

text: In October 2018, Yandex Music was launched in Israel. The catalog has been updated. Popular local artist have been added. The search started to understand queries in English and Hebrew.


title: Yandex Music

text: To form personal recommendations, the service uses artificial . Algorithms developed on the basis of the neural networks and similar developments of other companies allow computers to better understand how music works and to learn to perceive it in the same way as a person does.


title: Keisha Buchanan

text: Keisha Kerreece Fayeanne Buchanan (; born 30 September 1984) is an English singer and a founding member of the girl group Sugababes alongside Mutya Buena and Siobhán Donaghy. With the Sugababes, she had six number one singles and two number one studio albums, making them one of the most successful British pop acts of the 21st century. Buchanan was asked to leave the group in September 2009 and was replaced by Jade Ewen.


title: Keisha Buchanan

text: In 2012, she and her former Sugababes colleagues Buena and Donaghy confirmed their reunion. The original trio was not able to release music under the name "Sugababes" as it was still being used by the then-current members of the group. Instead they released music under the name Mutya Keisha Siobhan before securing the legal rights to the Sugababes name in 2019.


title: Keisha Buchanan

text: Keisha Buchanan was born on 30 September 1984 in Westminster, London, to parents of Jamaican descent. She first met and befriended future Sugababes member Mutya Buena in primary school. She recognised her from an appearance on a talent contest TV show presented by Michael Barrymore. Buchanan is a Christian.


title: Keisha Buchanan

text: In May 1998, Siobhán Donaghy and Mutya Buena, both aged just 13, had been signed as solo artists, but decided to work together after performing at the same showcase. While working in the studio, Buena invited her best friend Keisha Buchanan to watch them. Manager Tom decided the three girls were to be a trio, likening their different appearances to the United Colors of Benetton campaign. Originally dubbed "the Sugababies", the group's name was tweaked to "Sugababes" when they were signed by London Records to give the group a more mature image.


title: Keisha Buchanan

text: The group's debut single, "Overload", peaked at number 6 on the UK Singles Chart in 2000 and was nominated for a BRIT Award for Best Single. The group co-wrote most of the tracks on debut album "One Touch" with the help of All Saints producer Cameron McVey. "One Touch" peaked at number 26 on the UK Albums Chart. The album produced three more top 40 hits—"New Year", "Run for Cover" and "Soul Sound". The sales of "One Touch" did not meet London Records' expectations, and they dropped the group in 2001. The album was later certified gold by the BPI and had sold 220,000 copies in the UK by 2008 according to "Music Week".


title: Keisha Buchanan

text: During a Japanese promotional tour in August 2001, Donaghy left the group. She stated initially that she wanted to pursue a fashion career, but was eventually diagnosed with clinical depression amid reports of in-fighting amongst the group's members. Donaghy later stated that she was forced out of the group by Buchanan and called Buchanan the "first bully" in her life. Former Atomic Kitten member Heidi Range was announced as Donaghy's replacement.


title: Keisha Buchanan

text: Having already started work on a second album with new member Range, the trio looked for a new record label, eventually signing to Island Records. Their first single on the new label, "Freak like Me" scored the group their first UK number 1 single. Follow-up single "Round Round" also debuted on top of the UK Singles Chart and peaked at number 2 in Ireland, the Netherlands and New Zealand. Both singles were certified silver by the BPI. On the back of the success of the singles, the group's second album, "Angels with Dirty Faces", debuted at number 2 on the UK Albums Chart and was later certified triple platinum, selling almost a million copies in the UK alone. It is to date their highest-selling album. In the UK, the third single from the album, a ballad titled "Stronger", gained the girls their third consecutive top ten hit in their native country. The track was released as a double-A side with "Angels with Dirty Faces" in the UK, the latter song chosen as the theme tune to "The Powerpuff Girls Movie". A fourth single, the Sting-sampling "Shape", made the top ten in the Netherlands and Ireland in early 2003.


title: Keisha Buchanan

text: The group's third album, "Three", was released in late 2003 and reached number 3 on the UK Albums Chart, earning the group a BRIT Award nomination for Best Album. Certified double platinum, it has sold 855,000 copies to date. The album was preceded by lead single "Hole in the Head", which became the group's third UK number 1 single. It also reached number 2 in Ireland, the Netherlands and Norway, and became the Sugababes' first (and to date only) single to chart in the United States, reaching number 96 on the "Billboard" Hot 100. Follow-up single "Too Lost in You" appeared on the soundtrack to the film "Love Actually" and went top ten in Germany, the Netherlands, Norway and the UK. The album's third single, "In the Middle", was released in 2004 and garnered the group another BRIT Award nomination for Best Single; like its successor, the ballad "Caught in a Moment", it went to number 8 on the UK Singles Chart. In 2004, the trio sang on Band Aid 20's remake of "Do They Know It's Christmas?", which went to number 1 in the UK in December.


title: Keisha Buchanan

text: Around this time, the group's perceived "moodiness", alleged backstage catfights, and press junket tantrums were tabloid fodder in Britain. They were surrounded by continuous rumours of in-fighting within the group and constant split reports. Rumours suggested that Buchanan and Buena had bullied Range, although Range herself repeatedly denied such allegations; Buena later admitted that she "just didn't talk to her" when she first joined. Buchanan claimed there was only one serious fallout between herself and Range during a 2004 gig in Dublin, regarding Britney Spears' "Toxic".


title: Keisha Buchanan

text: After a hiatus, the Sugababes released their thirteenth single, "Push the Button" in October 2005. The song debuted at number 1 in the UK and remained in the position for three consecutive weeks. It also peaked at number one in Ireland, Austria and New Zealand, and reached the top three across Europe and in Australia. Certified silver in the UK, it was later nominated at the BRIT Awards for Best Single. Parent album "Taller in More Ways" became the group's first UK number 1 album. The group was number 1 on the singles, album, airplay and download charts simultaneously, making them the first girl group to achieve such a feat. "Taller in More Ways" was certified double platinum in the UK.


title: Keisha Buchanan

text: Following an apparent illness that prevented Buena from promoting follow-up single "Ugly", it was announced on 21 December 2005 that Buena had left the Sugababes. According to an announcement on their official website, Buena's decision was based purely on personal reasons following the birth of her daughter. Amelle Berrabah joined the Sugababes in late December 2005, having been chosen by the group's management to replace Buena.


title: Keisha Buchanan

text: The third single from "Taller in More Ways" was a re-recorded version of "Red Dress", which was released in early 2006, and gave the Sugababes their third consecutive top five hit from the album, entering the UK Singles Chart at number 4. Berrabah re-recorded three of the album's twelve tracks and co-wrote a new song with Buchanan and Range named "Now You're Gone". The tracks appeared on a re-release of "Taller in More Ways" that reached number 18 on the UK Albums Chart. The fourth and final single from "Taller in More Ways" was "Follow Me Home", released only in the UK in June, where it charted at number 32.


title: Keisha Buchanan

text: In mid-2006, the group recorded two new tracks for their first greatest hits collection, titled "". The lead single from the compilation, "Easy" peaked at number 8 on the UK Singles Chart, whilst the compilation album, released in November 2006, peaked at number 3. The album, certified platinum by the BPI, has sold 598,000 copies. In March 2007, the Sugababes collaborated with fellow British girl group Girls Aloud for their eighteenth single, a cover of the song "Walk This Way" by Aerosmith. The track was released as the official single for "Comic Relief". "Walk This Way" became the group's fifth UK number one single.


title: Keisha Buchanan

text: Following their Greatest Hits Tour, the Sugababes released "Change", their fifth studio album, and the first to feature Berrabah on all tracks. "About You Now" was released as the album's lead single in September 2007. Upon release, the song became the group's sixth UK number one hit and first Hungarian chart-topper. It remained atop the UK Singles Chart for four weeks. "About You Now" was nominated for a 2008 BRIT Award for Best British Single and is to date their highest-selling single, with sales standing at almost 500,000 copies. In the 2009 edition of the "Guinness Book of World Records", "About You Now" was listed as the "first track by a British pop act to top the singles chart solely on downloads". The song was also named as the "biggest chart mover to the number one position in the UK".


title: Keisha Buchanan

text: In October 2007, "Change" became the group's second UK number 1 album. For the second time, the group topped the singles, album and download charts simultaneously. The album's title track "Change" was released as the second single in December 2007 and peaked at number 13 in the UK. The album sold 494,000 copies in the UK and was certified platinum. The third and final single from "Change" was "Denial", which reached number 15. From March to May 2008, the Sugababes travelled the UK on the thirty-date Change Tour, their biggest tour to date.


title: Keisha Buchanan

text: Following the Change Tour, Sugababes returned to the studio to write and record tracks for their sixth studio album, "Catfights and Spotlights". It was reported that producer Timbaland had approached the Sugababes to work on their sixth album, but due to time restrictions, a collaboration did not occur. "Girls", the lead single from "Catfights and Spotlights" was released in October 2008. The single peaked at number 3 in the UK, making it their first lead single since "One Touch" not to reach number 1. The album peaked at number 8 in the UK Albums Chart. Its second and final single, "No Can Do", was released in December and peaked at number 23 in the UK. In January 2009, the Performing Right Society named Sugababes the fourth hardest-working band of 2008 due to the number of concerts they had performed during that year.


title: Keisha Buchanan

text: After the release of "No Can Do", the group announced that there would be no 2009 tour in support of "Catfights and Spotlights" so that they could focus on writing and recording material for their seventh studio album. The Sugababes travelled to the United States to work on their seventh studio album, "Sweet 7". In April 2009, the Sugababes signed a contract with Jay-Z's label Roc Nation, resulting in working with high profile producers. The lead single from "Sweet 7", "Get Sexy", debuted at number 2 on the UK Singles Chart in September 2009.


title: Keisha Buchanan

text: On 21 September 2009, it was officially announced that Buchanan had exited the group, resulting in Sugababes retaining none of its original members. Buchanan was replaced by former-Eurovision entrant Jade Ewen. Buchanan revealed on Twitter that it was not her decision to leave, resulting in some journalists describing her as having been "sacked".


title: Keisha Buchanan

text: Critics and fans reacted very negatively to the news, and British broadsheet "The Guardian" ran an article named "Why the Sugababes' show can't go on without Keisha". Digital Spy ran an article called "Keisha Buchanan, We Salute You" in which they thanked her for her contribution to "incredible pop songs". However, it has been claimed by Berrabah and Range that they played no role in the ousting of Buchanan. Both women have claimed to quit the Sugababes themselves only to find that their group's management decided that they would follow them, rather than find two new members for Buchanan.


title: Keisha Buchanan

text: On 1 July 2011, Buchanan approached the subsequent line-up of Sugababes at the Barclaycard Wireless festival in London, where the girls were reported to have a "tear-eyed" reunion and put the past behind them. It was the first time in two years that Buchanan had seen former bandmates Heidi Range and Amelle Berrabah. It was also the first time Buchanan had officially met her 'replacement' Jade Ewen.


title: Keisha Buchanan

text: She features on the song "Far Away" from Jay Sean's UK edition of "All or Nothing". Following her departure from the Sugababes, Buchanan began recording her debut studio album. According to "Newsbeat", the album had been mostly produced by Future Cut. American producer Dallas Austin, who largely contributed to the Sugababes' fourth studio album "Taller in More Ways" was also confirmed to feature on the album. Buchanan revealed that she had recorded 50 tracks for the album as of August 2011. She stated during an interview for "Newsbeat" that "there is no particular musical direction, it's just a vibe". During an interview for "Metro", Buchanan explained what people could expect from the album, saying: "I wanted to showcase my vocals and I want to inspire people. It's a very honest album. Hopefully people will get to know me a bit more. There's a tongue-in-cheek vibe. It's got an international sound and I want my peers to like it. I don't want to hear myself on the radio and cringe, which can happen sometimes." Buchanan also revealed details about the album's sound and direction during an interview with "Very", saying: "It's raw, it's fresh. I think a lot of people would be quite shocked. It's not the typical direction people might expect from me." The album was initially supposed to be released in 2011, however according to Buchanan, "every time we lock down there's always someone else who wants to work with me." In June 2011, Buchanan performed songs at Jacques Townhouse in London, which was her first solo performance. Buchanan also appeared in the video for D'banj's single "Oliver Twist" in April 2012. However, Buchanan later left Island Records to reunite with her former colleagues Siobhan and Mutya, therefore her solo album was shelved and cancelled.


title: Keisha Buchanan

text: In October 2011, several news outlets reported that the original line-up of the Sugababes would reform. In January 2012, further circulations that the group would reunite were sparked, after both Buena and Buchanan tweeted that they were in the studio with "two other females" and British rapper Professor Green. However, Buena later denied this on Twitter, saying: "No track [with] keisha or professor G he was around tha studio. im jus workin on my stuff @ tha moment. (sic)" Despite this, Scottish singer-songwriter Emeli Sandé confirmed to MTV UK that she had written new songs for Buena, Buchanan and Donaghy, saying: "Yes, that is true. I've written for the original line-up of the Sugababes, which I'm very happy about because I just loved them when they first came out. I loved their sound, it was so cool. It was very different, so I'm happy to kind of be involved in what started the whole Sugababes journey. It sounds amazing." In April 2012, it was reported that the line-up had signed a £1 million record real with Polydor Records. In June 2012, Donaghy confirmed on Twitter that new music would be released, saying: "the soonest it'll be is in 2 weeks. The latest is 10 weeks."


title: Keisha Buchanan

text: In July 2012, the group reformed under the name Mutya Keisha Siobhan and were writing songs for a new album under Polydor. The group attended the 2012 Summer Olympics opening ceremony on 27 July 2012 and posted pictures on their official Instagram page, marked Buena, Buchanan and Donaghy's first public appearance together in eleven years. On 6 August the group confirmed they had written two songs with Shaznay Lewis, former member of All Saints. The next day, Siobhan Donaghy tweeted "With the girls in the studio. I think the album is finished!!!" before adding "Whoop!".


title: Keisha Buchanan

text: Behind the scenes, the members of MKS worked to regain control of the Sugababes name. Buena gained some merchandising rights in 2011, and Buchanan registered the trademark in the U.S. in 2015. After winning full control, the group reformed under the Sugababes banner in 2019. They released the single "Flowers" in October 2019, a cover of the Sweet Female Attitude hit from 2000. "Flowers" was a collaboration between Sugababes and DJ Spoony, and was included on Spoony's album "Garage Classical".


title: Keisha Buchanan

text: In May 2020, Buchanan launched her own vlogging channel on YouTube, speaking on her professional and personal experiences past and present.


title: Phyllis Gates

text: Phyllis Lucille Gates (December 7, 1925 – January 4, 2006) was an American secretary and interior decorator, known for her three-year marriage to the actor Rock Hudson. The story of their marriage was depicted in the TV film "Rock Hudson" (1990), starring Daphne Ashbrook as Gates and Thomas Ian Griffith as Hudson.


title: Phyllis Gates

text: Gates was born in Dawson, Minnesota to Leo Gates (1896–1970) and Mabel (née Johnson) Gates (1900–1999), and raised on a farm. She graduated from Clarkfield High School in June 1943. Early in her life, she worked as a sales clerk in a department store, airline stewardess, and secretary for a New York City talent agent, before moving to Hollywood to work for Hollywood talent agent Henry Willson, who represented actors Rock Hudson, Tab Hunter and Rory Calhoun.


title: Phyllis Gates

text: Gates met Rock Hudson in October 1954. They started dating some time later and were married in Santa Barbara, California, on November 9, 1955, shortly after he finished filming "Giant". Following a brief honeymoon in Jamaica, their marriage began to disintegrate. They separated in 1957, following rumors that Hudson had committed adultery while on location in Italy for the film "A Farewell to Arms". The rumors were later confirmed by a close friend of Gates's, who also revealed to her that the individual Hudson had the affair with was a man. The divorce was eventually finalized in 1958.


title: Phyllis Gates

text: Gates later became a successful interior decorator. She died from lung cancer at her home in Marina del Rey, California, aged 80. She was survived by her sister Marvis Ketelsen and brother Russell Gates.


title: Phyllis Gates

text: In her autobiography, published in 1987 after Hudson's 1985 death from AIDS, Gates wrote that she was in love with Hudson and that she did not know Hudson was gay when they married, and was not complicit in his deception.


title: Phyllis Gates

text: However, the author and journalist Robert Hofler wrote in the biography "The Man Who Invented Rock Hudson": "Those who knew her (Gates) say she was a lesbian who tried to blackmail her movie star husband (Hudson)" or "She then became addicted to being the wife of a star, and didn't want the divorce (...) Phyllis could play around with women, but Rock had to remain faithful to her. In a way, she was just being pragmatic: she feared that Rock's exposure would ruin his fame, which was in turn her gravy train."


title: Phyllis Gates

text: This was disputed by Gates in an interview with Larry King in which she also said that she had been the one to initiate the divorce based on her husband's behavior. Gates said she did not get much in the divorce because she did not want to take advantage of him. She also said that she had never stopped loving him, and that he was the 'love of her life'.


title: Majorian

text: Majorian (; died 7 August 461) was the western Roman emperor from 457 to 461. A prominent general of the Roman army, Majorian deposed Emperor Avitus in 457 and succeeded him. Majorian was the last emperor to make a concerted effort to restore the Western Roman Empire with its own forces. Possessing little more than Italy, Dalmatia, and some territory in northern Gaul, Majorian campaigned rigorously for three years against the Empire's enemies. His successors until the fall of the Empire, in 476–480, were actually instruments of their barbarian generals, or emperors chosen and controlled by the Eastern Roman court.


title: Majorian

text: After defeating a Vandal attack on Italy, Majorian launched a campaign against the Visigothic Kingdom in southern Gaul. Defeating king Theodoric II at the Battle of Arelate, Majorian forced the Goths to abandon their possessions in Septimania and Hispania and return to federate status. Majorian then attacked the Burgundian Kingdom, defeating them at the Siege of Lugdunum, expelling them from the Rhone valley and reducing them to federate status.


title: Majorian

text: In 460, Majorian left Gaul to consolidate his hold on Hispania. His generals launched a campaign against the Suebic Kingdom in northwest Hispania, defeating them at the battles of Lucus Augusti and Scallabis and reducing them to federate status as well. His fleet for his planned campaign to recover Africa from the Vandals was destroyed due to treachery.


title: Majorian

text: Majorian sought to reform the imperial administration in order to make it more efficient and just. The powerful general Ricimer deposed and killed Majorian, who had become unpopular with the senatorial aristocracy because of his reforms.


title: Majorian

text: To historian Edward Gibbon, Majorian "presents the welcome discovery of a great and heroic character, such as sometimes arise, in a degenerate age, to vindicate the honour of the human species".


title: Majorian

text: The life of Majorian and his reign are better known than those of the other Western Emperors of the same period. The most important sources are the chronicles that cover the second half of the 5th century—those of Hydatius and Marcellinus Comes, as well as the fragments of Priscus and John of Antioch.


title: Majorian

text: Besides these sources, which are useful also for the biographies of the other emperors, some peculiar sources are available that make Majorian's life known in some detail, both before and after his rise to the throne. The Gallo-Roman aristocrat and poet Sidonius Apollinaris was an acquaintance of the Emperor and composed a panegyric that is the major source for Majorian's life up to 459. As regards his policy, twelve of his laws have been preserved: the so-called "Novellae Maioriani" were included in the "Breviarium" that was compiled for the Visigothic king Alaric II in 506, and help to understand the problems that pressed Majorian's government.


title: Majorian

text: Majorian was probably born after 420, as in 458 he is defined as a "iuvenis", a "young man". He belonged to the military aristocracy of the Roman Empire. His grandfather of the same name reached the rank of "magister militum" under Emperor Theodosius I and, as commander-in-chief of the Illyrian army, was present at his coronation at Sirmium in 379. The daughter of the "magister militum" then married an officer, probably called Domninus, who administered the finances of Aetius, the powerful "magister militum" of the West. The couple gave the name "Maiorianus" to their child in honour of his influential grandfather.


title: Majorian

text: It was under the same Aetius that Majorian started his military career. He followed Aetius to Gallia, where he met two officers also under Aetius' command who were to play an important role in Majorian's life: the Suevic-Visigoth Ricimer and the Gallo-Roman Aegidius. Majorian distinguished himself in the defence of the city of Turonensis (modern Tours) and in a battle against the Franks of king Clodio, near "Vicus Helena" (447 or 448). In the latter, Majorian fought at the head of his cavalry on a bridge, while Aetius controlled the roads leading to the battlefield:


title: Majorian

text: Around 450, the Western Roman Emperor Valentinian III considered the possibility of marrying his daughter Placidia to Majorian. Valentinian had two daughters but no sons, and therefore no heir to the throne. Having Majorian as son-in-law would have strengthened Valentinian in the face of other powerful generals and would have solved the problem of the succession. Furthermore, as Emperor, Majorian could have led the army himself, freed from the dangerous bond with a powerful general, such as Valentinian had been obliged to contract with Aetius.


title: Majorian

text: The intention of this plan was to avoid the possibility that barbarian generals like Huneric or Attila should succeed to Aetius, but clashed with the plans of Aetius himself. The Roman general, in fact, planned to marry his own son Gaudentius to Placidia. He therefore opposed Valentinian's plan, and put an end to Majorian's military career, expelling him from his staff and sending him to his country estate. According to the poet Sidonius Apollinaris, the cause of the fall of Majorian was the jealousy of Aetius' wife, who feared that Majorian could overshadow Aetius' prestige.


title: Majorian

text: It was only in 454 that Majorian was able to return to public life. In that year, Valentinian III killed Aetius with his own hands but, fearing that Aetius' troops might revolt, called Majorian back to office to quell any dissent. In the following year, Valentinian III was killed by two former officers of Aetius' staff. There was then a fight for the succession, as no heir existed. Majorian played the role of the candidate for the throne of Licinia Eudoxia, Valentinian's widow, and of Ricimer, who reserved for himself a role similar to Aetius'.


title: Majorian

text: In the end, the new Emperor was Petronius Maximus, a senator involved in Valentinian's murder, who outmanoeuvred the other candidates. To strengthen his position, he obliged Licinia to marry him and promoted Majorian to the rank of "comes domesticorum" (commander-in-chief of the imperial guard).


title: Majorian

text: Petronius ruled only for a few weeks, as he was killed during the Vandal sack of Rome (May 455). He was succeeded, not by Majorian, but by the Gallic-Roman noble Avitus, who had the support of the Visigoths. Both Majorian, "comes domesticorum", and Ricimer, "comes rei militaris" of Italy, initially supported Avitus, but when the Emperor lost the loyalty of the Italian aristocracy, the two generals revolted against him. First Majorian and Ricimer killed Remistus, the "magister militum" entrusted by Avitus with the defence of the capital, Ravenna. Then Ricimer defeated Avitus' troops near Placentia, taking the Emperor himself prisoner, and obliging him to abdicate. Finally, Majorian caused Avitus' death, possibly starving him, in early 457.


title: Majorian

text: Avitus was dead and the Western throne without a pretender. It was thus for the Eastern Roman Emperor to choose the successor, but Marcian could do nothing, as he died on 27 January 457. His successor on the Eastern throne was the general Leo I, who did not, however, select a colleague for the West, possibly because he intended to reign alone. On the other hand, Leo rewarded both Majorian and Ricimer: the former was appointed "magister militum", the latter "patricius" and "magister militum" (February 28, 457).


title: Majorian

text: While the situation was in a precarious equilibrium, a troop of 900 Alemanni invaded Italy. They entered from Raetia and penetrated Italian territory down to Lake Maggiore. There they were intercepted and defeated by the troops of "comes" Burco, sent by Majorian to stop them:


title: Majorian

text: This victory was celebrated as Majorian's own, and the "magister militum" was acclaimed Emperor by the army on 1 April, six miles outside Ravenna, at a place called "ad Columellas", "at the Little Columns". There were actually two "magistri militum" to choose between, Majorian and Ricimer, but the barbarian origin of the latter barred him from the throne. Ricimer could, however, expect to exert a great influence on the new Western Emperor, because of their relationship dating back to the time of their service under Aetius and because of his control of the army as "magister militum".


title: Majorian

text: In his panegyric to Majorian, the poet Sidonius Apollinaris tells that Majorian initially refused the election:


title: Majorian

text: Modern historians think that it was Leo I who initially refused to recognize Majorian as his colleague, although the general chosen by the army must have seemed the only viable candidate to the throne. The Eastern court was not displeased with the deposition of Avitus, an Emperor chosen by the Visigoths, whereas the only other candidate, Olybrius, had a politically difficult relationship with the Vandal king Genseric and no influence on the army. Majorian was formally declared emperor on 28 December, but apparently never obtained recognition from the eastern court. Leo I and Majorian jointly assumed the consulate for the year 458; it was customary that a new Emperor took this magistracy on the first year started as Emperor.


title: Majorian

text: The first problems Majorian had to handle were the consolidation of his rule over Italy and the recovery of Gaul, since this province had rebelled after the deposition of the Gallo-Roman emperor Avitus. The recovery of the lost provinces of Hispania and Africa was a project that Majorian had to leave for later.


title: Majorian

text: In summer 457, a group of Vandals, led by the brother-in-law of Genseric, landed in Campania, at the mouth of the Liri or the Garigliano river, and started devastating and sacking the region. Majorian personally led the Roman army to a victory over the invaders near Sinuessa and followed the defeated Vandals, loaded with their booty, as far as their own ships, killing many of them including their commander.


title: Majorian

text: After this event, Majorian understood that he had to take the initiative if he wanted to defend the heart of his Empire, the only territory he actually controlled. So he decided to strengthen its defences. First, he issued a law, the "Novella Maioriani" 8 known as "De reddito iure armorum" ("On the Return of the Right to Bear Arms"), concerning the personal right to bear arms; in 440, Valentinian III had already promulgated a law with the same name, "Novella Valentiniani" 9, after another attack of the Vandals. It is probably to this time that another law is to be dated, the "Novella Maioriani" 12 known as "De aurigis et seditiosis" ("Concerning Charioteers and Seditious Persons"), to quell the disorders that sprang up during the chariot races. Both these laws are now lost.


title: Majorian

text: He then strengthened the army, recruiting a large number of barbarian mercenaries, including Gepids, Ostrogoths, Rugii, Burgundians, Huns, Bastarnae, Suebi, Scythians and Alans. Finally, he rebuilt two fleets, probably those of Miseno and Ravenna, since the Vandals had a strong navy:


title: Majorian

text: After consolidating his position in Italy, Majorian concentrated on the recovery of Gaul. When news of the deposition of the Gallo-Roman emperor Avitus arrived in Gaul, the province refused to recognize Majorian as his successor. An important clue to this is an inscription found in Lugdunum (modern Lyons) and dating to 458: according to Roman custom, the inscriptions were dated reporting the name of the consuls in office, who that year were Leo I and Majorian. This inscription, instead, records only the name of Eastern Emperor, showing that Majorian was not recognized as lawful Emperor.


title: Majorian

text: Another clue is the fact that, at the death of Avitus, the citizens of Lugdunum had allowed the Burgundians of king Gondioc to occupy the city, and that they sent an envoy to Leo, and not to Majorian, to ask for a reduction of taxation. Finally, there is a record of a failed usurpation in Gaul, around this time.


title: Majorian

text: In late 458, Majorian entered Gaul, with an army strengthened by barbarian units. The Emperor personally led the army, leaving Ricimer in Italy and choosing Aegidius and the "magister militiae" Nepotianus as collaborators. The imperial army defeated the Visigoths under king Theodoric II at the Battle of Arelate, forcing the Visigoths to abandon Septimania and withdraw west to Aquitania. The Roman victory was decisive: under the new treaty the Visigoths had to relinquish their vast conquests in Hispania and return to federate status. Majorian chose his trusted general Aegidius as the new "magister militum per Gallias" (military commander of Gaul) and sent an envoy to Hispania, to report the victory over the Visigoths and the new treaty with Theodoric II.


title: Majorian

text: With the help of his new "foederati", Majorian entered the Rhone Valley, conquering its populations "some by arms and some by diplomacy". He defeated the Burgundians and besieged and conquered the city of Lugdunum: the rebel city was heavily fined, while the Bagaudae were forced to join the Empire. Despite the fact that the Gallo-Roman aristocracy had sided with Avitus, Majorian wanted a reconciliation, not a punishment. With the intercession of Majorian's "magister epistolarum" Petrus, Sidonius Apollinaris, the son-in-law of Avitus, was allowed to deliver a panegyric in honour of the Emperor (early January 459), receiving in reward the appointment to the rank of "comes spectabilis". Much more effective was, however, the granting of the tax remission that the citizens of Lugdunum had requested from Leo I.


title: Majorian

text: In the wake of the Vandal sack of Rome (455), the Visigoths had conquered Hispania, formally in the name of the new Western Emperor Avitus, actually controlling the territory themselves. Majorian planned to reconquer Hispania and use it as the base for the conquest of Africa. This rich province of the Western Empire, which provided for the very important grain supply to the city of Rome, was in fact under Vandal control.


title: Majorian

text: According to the historian Procopius, Majorian, "who surpassed in every virtue all who ever were emperors of the Romans", wanted to know personally the military readiness of the Vandals and how the local populations would react to the Roman invasion. He dyed black his fair hair, for which he was famous, and went to Genseric claiming to be an envoy of the Western Emperor. Genseric tried to impress the enemy ambassador by showing him the arms collected in the warehouses and sent him back. This story is probably only a legend of Italian folklore, but it is a clue to the care with which the expedition was prepared. Majorian collected information on the enemy and gathered a fleet of three hundred ships to support the army in the reconquest of Hispania and in the invasion of Africa.


title: Majorian

text: It was probably during the preparation of this operation that Majorian sent the "comes" and "patricius Occidentis" Marcellinus to Sicily with an army of Huns, to take the island back from the Vandals. Marcellinus was the "comes rei militaris" (governor) of Illyricum, but he had become practically independent since the death of Aetius, not recognizing the imperial authority. Majorian convinced him to accept him as Emperor and even to collaborate with his troops in the military recovery of the Empire.


title: Majorian

text: The campaign started with an operation against the Suebi in North-Western Hispania, lasting the whole of 459, led by the "magister militiae" Nepotianus and the Gothic "comes" Sunieric. Majorian gathered the main part of the army in Liguria, then entered Aquitaine and "Novempopulania" coming from Theodoric's court in Toulouse (May 460). Genseric, fearing the Roman invasion, tried to negotiate a peace with Majorian, who rejected the proposal. The Vandal king then decided to devastate Mauretania, his own territory, because he thought that the Roman army would land there, and also ordered his navy to prepare incursions in the waters near the probable invasion area.


title: Majorian

text: In the meantime, Majorian was conquering Hispania. While Nepotianus and Sunieric defeated the Suebi at "Lucus Augusti" (modern Lugo) and conquered "Scallabis" in Lusitania (modern Santarém, Portugal), the Emperor passed through "Caesaraugusta" (Saragossa), where he performed a formal imperial "adventus". Finally he reached Carthaginiensis, where his fleet, docked at "Portus Illicitanus" (near Elche), was destroyed by traitors paid by the Vandals:


title: Majorian

text: Majorian, deprived of the fleet that was necessary for the invasion, cancelled the attack on the Vandals. He received the ambassadors of Genseric, with whom he agreed to conclude peace, which probably included the recognition of the "de facto" occupation of Mauretania by the Vandals. On his way back to Italy, the Emperor stopped at Arelate.


title: Majorian

text: Majorian's domestic policy is known thanks to some of the laws he issued, the so-called "Novellae Maioriani", that were included in a collection of Roman law entitled "Breviarium", requested from some Gallo-Roman jurists in 506 by the Visigothic king Alaric II .


title: Majorian

text: Majorian understood that he could reign effectively only with the support of the senatorial aristocracy, whom he wanted to return to its pristine political prominence. At the same time, he planned to reduce the abuses perpetrated by the senators, many of whom cultivated their local interests disregarding the imperial policies, even refusing to pay taxes and keeping for themselves the taxes they had exacted. This fiscal evasion had a cascade effect that affected the small landowners, the citizens and the local civil magistrates.


title: Majorian

text: For example, the decurions had personally to compensate the imperial treasury for all taxes not exacted. Sometimes, oppressed by the debts accumulated in this way, the decurions abandoned their status, a problem already addressed by Emperor Julian (361–363). Majorian also cancelled tax arrears, knowing that fiscal policy could not be effective if taxpayers had to pay large accumulated arrears.


title: Majorian

text: On March 11, 458, Majorian issued a law entitled "De indulgentiis reliquorum", "On the Remission of Past-Due Accounts" ("Novella Maioriani" 2). This law remitted all the tax arrears of the landowners. This same law explicitly prohibited public administrators, who had a record of keeping the collected money for themselves, from collecting taxes. This task was to be reserved to the governors alone. Another law issued to reorganise the tax system was issued on September 4 of the same year, and was entitled "De bonis caducis sive proscriptorum", "On Abandoned Property and That of Proscribed Persons" ("Novella Maioriani" 5): the "comes privatae largitionis" Ennodius was to admonish the provincial judges against defrauding the imperial treasure by keeping for themselves a part of the money collected.


title: Majorian

text: The Emperor was also interested in repairing the backbone of the imperial administration. On 8 May 458, Majorian issued a law entitled "De defensoribus civitatum", "The Defenders of the Municipalities" ("Novella Maioriani" 3), to re-establish the office of the "defensor civitatis". This city magistrate represented the interests of the citizens in trials against the public administration, particularly in fiscal matters; this magistracy was still in existence, but actually ineffective, since it was often held by the same officials who cheated the population.


title: Majorian

text: Another law was issued on November 6 to strengthen the magistracy of the decurions. "De curialibus et de agnatione vel distractione praediorum et de ceteris negotiis", "Decurions, Their Children and The Sale of Their Landed Estates" ("Novella Maioriani" 7), was issued to forgive past abuses perpetrated by the decurions. This forbade them from leaving their status (going into hiding or marrying slave or tenant farmers) or alienating their own properties.


title: Majorian

text: Majorian minted coins in gold, silver and bronze. Gold coinage was minted in great quantities. On these coins the Emperor is depicted, with few exceptions, with a combat helmet, a spear, a shield and a chi-rho, looking towards right; this typology was derived from a rare type minted in Ravenna for Honorius and used in great quantities only by Majorian, while it was dropped by his successors. The first series of solidi were minted probably in Ravenna, and bear at the obverse the joint portrait of Majorian and Leo I, thus celebrating the mutual recognition of the two Roman emperors. The mints of Ravenna and Milan issued both solidi and tremisses from the beginning of Majorian's reign.


title: Majorian

text: No series of semisses are attested for these two mints, probably because the semisses were typically minted by the mint of Rome and this mint was not active under Majorian, who never visited the ancient capital of his Empire during his four years of rule. The minting of solidi is attested for the mint of Arelate in 458, a fact compatible with the presence of Majorian in Gaul in that year. This mint was again active in 460, when the Emperor returned from his campaign in Hispania. The Visigoths minted some reproductions of his solidi, modelled after the issues of the Arelate mint: as Arelate issued only solidi, the Visigoths used those designs also for the tremissis.


title: Majorian

text: Silver coinage was issued almost exclusively by the Gallic mints; it has been suggested that these series were not issued by Majorian, but by Aegidius after the Emperor's death, to mark the fact that he did not recognize his successor, Libius Severus. Majorian also produced great quantities of nummi of great weight, mostly minted at Ravenna and Milan, and some contorniates, mostly in Rome, but probably also in Ravenna.


title: Majorian

text: The diffusion of Christianity in the Empire caused some social changes within the aristocratic families. In several wealthy families, daughters were obliged to take religious vows and never marry, so that the family wealth would not be dispersed in dowries. Majorian thought that this behaviour was harmful to the State, because it reduced the number of Roman children, and because it caused the girls to start illicit affairs. On October 26, 458, the Emperor addressed a law, the "Novella Maioriani" 6, to the Praetorian prefect of Italy, Caecina Decius Basilius.


title: Majorian

text: This law, titled "De sanctimonialibus vel viduis et de successionibus earum" ("Holy Maidens, Widows, and Their Succession"), imposed a minimum age of 40 for taking religious vows, considering that at this age the sexual drives of the initiated would be dormant. The law also granted women who had been forced to take religious vows, and were subsequently disinherited, the same rights on the legacy of parents as their brothers and sisters.


title: Majorian

text: In order to solve this same problem of the decline of the Roman population, in particular compared with the growth of the barbarians allocated within the imperial boundaries, Majorian addressed the problem of young women widowed and without children who never remarried because of the influence of the clergy, to whom they destined their goods in their will. The young widows were prohibited from taking religious vows.


title: Majorian

text: By the same measure, departing in this from the policy of the Eastern Empire, Majorian insisted that a marriage without dowry and pre-wedding exchange of gifts (first from the bride's family to the groom, then in the opposite direction) was invalid; he simultaneously ended the practice of requesting pre-wedding gifts of a value considerably higher than the dowry.


title: Majorian

text: When Majorian took power by deposing Avitus, the province of Gaul, where Avitus' power was based, did not recognize the new Emperor. When Majorian re-conquered the province, he chose to forgive this rebellion. The reason was that Majorian understood that one of the mistakes of his predecessor was to promote and trust only the senatorial aristocracy of Gaul, the region he came from, favouring it over the senatorial aristocracy of Italy.


title: Majorian

text: Majorian, instead, decided to gain the favour of the wealthy and noble families of the recovered province by involving them in the imperial administration, together with the Italian aristocracy that had supported him since the beginning. For evidence of this policy, one can point to the origins of the high civil servants of his administration, in particular of the consuls, whom the Emperor appointed jointly with his Eastern colleague.


title: Majorian

text: In the first year (458) Majorian reserved the honour for himself, as was usual for the "augusti", while in the second year he appointed his former colleague and powerful "magister militum", Ricimer. Then, for the year 460, he choose the Gallic senator Magnus, and for the next year the Italian senator Severinus. Magnus had been appointed Praetorian prefect of Gaul in 458, while the Praetorian prefect of Italy was Caecina Decius Basilius, who was the patron of the Gallic senator (and poet) Sidonius Apollinaris, while the "comes privatae largitionis", Ennodius, was related to a family with interests in Arelate.


title: Majorian

text: Majorian also showed great respect towards the Roman senate, as suggested by the message he addressed to it on the eve of his coronation: he promised the senators he would not take into account the accusations of informers, which were much feared as they might be used by the Emperor to cause the fall of influential figures. He followed through on his promises, as told by Sidonius Apollinaris, who had been anonymously accused of the authorship of a pamphlet against some influential figures: during a dinner together, Majorian defused the risky situation with a witticism.


title: Majorian

text: From the beginning of the 4th century, the monuments of Rome, and more generally all buildings of some value that were in a state of neglect for various reasons, were increasingly used as quarries for valuable building materials. This practice, in fact, was cheaper and more convenient than import from remote locations, which was sometimes rendered difficult or impossible by the control of the sea by the Vandals. Roman officials conceded upon petition the use for construction of marble, stone and brick recovered from demolition of ancient monuments:


title: Majorian

text: To cope with this phenomenon, Majorian promulgated a law, "Novella Maioriani" 4, "De aedificiis pubblicis" ("Public Buildings"), in Ravenna on July 11, 459, addressed to Aemilianus, "praefectus urbi" of Rome. The punishment for judges who had allowed the destruction of ancient public buildings was 50 pounds of gold, while their subordinates were whipped and had both hands amputated. Those who had removed materials from public buildings were to return them. The Senate had the power to decide whether there were extreme conditions that justified the demolition of an old building and, if it decided for the demolition, the Emperor still had the right to order that the resulting materials should be used to decorate other public buildings.


title: Majorian

text: Just as Avitus had been betrayed by Ricimer and Majorian and by the dismissal of his German guard, so the fate of Majorian himself was decided by the disbandment of his army and a plot organized by Ricimer. In fact, while the Emperor was busy away from Italy, the barbarian "patricius et magister militum" had gathered around himself the aristocratic opposition to his former comrade with whom, just a few years earlier, he had cultivated dreams of power. Majorian's legislation had shown that he intended to intervene decisively on issues that plagued the empire, even if they countered the interests of influential aristocrats.


title: Majorian

text: After spending some time at Arelate, his base at the end of the operation against the Vandals in Hispania, Majorian disbanded his barbarian mercenaries and, accompanied by some guards, set off to Rome, where he intended to carry out reforms. Ricimer went to meet Majorian with a military detachment; the "magister militum" met the Emperor near Tortona (not far from Piacenza, where Avitus had been killed), and had him arrested and deposed (3 August).


title: Majorian

text: The Emperor was deprived of his dress and diadem, beaten and tortured. After five days, Majorian was beheaded near the river Iria (August 7, 461): He was about forty years old and had reigned for four years. The city of Tortona now hosts, in the church of St. Matthew, a building traditionally identified as the "mausoleum of Majorian".


title: Majorian

text: After the death of Majorian, Ricimer waited for three months before placing on the imperial throne a person he believed he could manipulate. He finally chose Libius Severus, a senator of no political distinction, probably selected to please the Italian senatorial aristocracy. The new emperor was not recognized by the Eastern Emperor Leo I, nor by any of the generals who had served under Majorian: not by Aegidius in Gaul, not by Marcellinus in Sicily and Illyria, and not by Nepotianus in Hispania.


title: Majorian

text: According to historian Edward Gibbon, Majorian "presents the welcome discovery of a great and heroic character, such as sometimes arise, in a degenerate age, to vindicate the honour of the human species". The "Encyclopædia Britannica" likewise calls him "the only man to hold that office [i.e. the imperial throne] in the 5th century who had some claim to greatness."


title: Tacitus (emperor)

text: Marcus Claudius Tacitus (; died June 276) was Roman emperor from 275 to 276. During his short reign he campaigned against the Goths and the Heruli, for which he received the title "Gothicus Maximus".


title: Tacitus (emperor)

text: His early life is largely unknown. An origin story which claimed Tacitus to be the heir of an old Umbrian family and one of the wealthiest men of the empire with a total wealth of 280 million sestertii circulated after his coronation. His faction distributed copies of the historian Publius Cornelius Tacitus' work, which was barely read at the time, perhaps contributing to its partial survival. Modern historiography rejects his alleged descent from the historian as a fabrication. It is more likely that he emerged from the Illyrian military, which made him a representative of the army in imperial politics.


title: Tacitus (emperor)

text: In the course of his long life he held various civil offices, including the consulship twice, once under Valerian and again in 273, earning universal respect.


title: Tacitus (emperor)

text: After the assassination of Aurelian, the army, apparently showing remorse towards its role in the death of the beloved emperor, relinquished the right of choosing his successor to the Senate. After a few weeks, the throne was offered to the aged "Princeps Senatus", Tacitus.


title: Tacitus (emperor)

text: According to the "Historia Augusta", Tacitus, after ascertaining the sincerity of the Senate's regard for him, accepted their nomination on 25 September 275, and the choice was cordially ratified by the army. If true, Tacitus would have been the last emperor elected by the Senate. However, it's possible that much of this narrative is fictitious, as Zosimus and Zonaras report that Tacitus was actually proclaimed by the army without any intervention of the Senate. His proclamation as emperor should have happened in late November or early December.


title: Tacitus (emperor)

text: In older historiography, it was generally accepted that Aurelian's wife, Ulpia Severina, ruled in her own right before the election of Tacitus which could indicate an interregnum which lasted as long as six months. Contemporary bibliography considers that no interregnum may have existed between Aurelian's death and the coronation of the new Emperor. Tacitus had been living in Campania before his election, and returned only reluctantly to the assembly of the Senate in Rome, where he was elected. He immediately asked the Senators to deify Aurelian, before arresting and executing Aurelian's murderers. In ancient sources, he was described as very old at that time, but in reality he was possibly in his fifties.


title: Tacitus (emperor)

text: Amongst the highest concerns of the new reign was the restoration of the ancient Senatorial powers. He granted substantial prerogatives to the Senate, securing to them by law the appointment of the emperor, of the consuls, and the provincial governors, as well as supreme right of appeal from every court in the empire in its judicial function, and the direction of certain branches of the revenue in its long-abeyant administrative capacity. Probus respected these changes, but after the reforms of Diocletian in the succeeding decades not a vestige would be left of them.


title: Tacitus (emperor)

text: Next he moved against the barbarian mercenaries that had been gathered by Aurelian to supplement Roman forces for his Eastern campaign. These mercenaries had plundered several towns in the Eastern Roman provinces after Aurelian had been murdered and the campaign cancelled. His half-brother, the Praetorian Prefect Florian, and Tacitus himself won a victory against these tribes, among which were the Heruli, gaining the emperor the title "Gothicus Maximus".


title: Tacitus (emperor)

text: On his way back to the west to deal with a Frankish and Alamannic invasion of Gaul, according to Aurelius Victor, Eutropius and the Historia Augusta, Tacitus died of fever at Tyana in Cappadocia around June 276, after a rule of just over 6 months. In a contrary account, Zosimus claims he was assassinated, after appointing one of his relatives to an important command in Syria.


title: Priyanshu Chatterjee

text: Priyanshu Chatterjee (born 20 February 1973) is an Indian actor and former model known for his works in Bollywood, and Bengali cinema. He made his Hindi film debut in the box-office big success "Tum Bin" in 2001. His other recognized work includes "Aapko Pehle Bhi Kahin Dekha Hai", "Dil Ka Rishta", "Pinjar", "Bhootnath", "Hate Story 3", "Baadshaho" and "Shikara".


title: Priyanshu Chatterjee

text: Priyanshu Chatterjee started his modelling career working with projects such as Digjam's Print Campaign, Wills Cigarettes, Levi's and Four Square. Following this, he appeared in a Udit Narayan music video . Chatterjee made his acting debut with "Tum Bin" (2001), a romantic drama. Bollywood Hungama while reviewing "Tum Bin", wrote of Chatterjee's performance "Priyanshu has the meatier role and he performs it with utmost sincerity." After the success of "Tum Bin", the director of the film, Anubhav Sinha, decided to cast Priyanshu Chatterjee in his next project, which was "Aapko Pehle Bhi Kahin Dekha Hai", co-starring Sakshi Shivanand, Om Puri and Farida Jalal. In the same year, he starred in two more films; "Dil Ka Rishta", co-starring Aishwarya Rai and the other film being "Pinjar", which once again starred Sandali Sinha. In 2004, he starred in two unsuccessful films; "Woh", and "Madhoshi". In 2008, he got a small role in the multi-starrer "Bhoothnath", where he played the son of Bhoothnath, portrayed by Amitabh Bachchan. In 2015, he was seen in a cameo in "Hate Story 3".


title: Gary Merrill

text: Gary Fred Merrill (August 2, 1915 – March 5, 1990) was an American film and television actor whose credits included more than 50 feature films, a half-dozen mostly short-lived TV series, and dozens of television guest appearances. He starred in "All About Eve" and married his costar Bette Davis.


title: Gary Merrill

text: Merrill was born in Hartford, Connecticut, and attended Bowdoin College in Brunswick, Maine, and Trinity College in Hartford. He began acting in 1944, while still in the United States Army Air Forces, in the play "Winged Victory".


title: Gary Merrill

text: Before entering films, Merrill's deep cultured voice won him a recurring role as Batman in the "Superman" radio series. His film career began promisingly, with roles in films such as "Twelve O'Clock High" (1949) and "All About Eve" (1950), but he rarely moved beyond supporting roles in his many Westerns, war movies, and medical dramas. His television career was extensive. He appeared from 1954 to 1956 as Jason Tyler on the crime drama "Justice".


title: Gary Merrill

text: In 1958, Merrill guest starred with June Lockhart in the roles of Joshua and Emily Newton in the episode "Medicine Man" of the series "Cimarron City".


title: Gary Merrill

text: Merrill had recurring roles in "Then Came Bronson" with Michael Parks and "Young Doctor Kildare", both of which lasted less than a season.


title: Gary Merrill

text: In addition to Merrill's starring roles in several episodes of "Alfred Hitchcock Presents", in November 1963 he starred with Phyllis Thaxter and Fess Parker ("Daniel Boone") in an episode of "The Alfred Hitchcock Hour" ("Nothing Ever Happens in Linvale").


title: Gary Merrill

text: Aside from an occasional role as narrator, Merrill essentially retired from the entertainment business after 1980. Shortly before his death, he authored the autobiography "Bette, Rita and the Rest of My Life" (1989).


title: Gary Merrill

text: Merrill's first marriage, to Barbara Leeds in 1941, ended in divorce in Mexico on July 28, 1950. That same day, he married Bette Davis, his costar from "All About Eve", and adopted her daughter, Barbara, from a previous marriage. They adopted two more children, Margot and Michael, but they had a bitter divorce in 1960.


title: Gary Merrill

text: Often politically active, he campaigned in 1958 to elect the Democrat Edmund Muskie as governor of Maine. He also took part in the Selma to Montgomery marches in 1965 to promote Black voter registration. In response to U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson's Vietnam War policy, he unsuccessfully sought nomination to the Maine legislature as an anti-war, pro-environmentalist primary candidate.


title: Gary Merrill

text: Merrill survived his second ex-wife, Bette Davis, by only five months, dying of lung cancer in Falmouth, Maine, on March 5, 1990. He is buried in the Pine Grove Cemetery. He was survived by a son, Michael; a daughter, Margot; a brother, Jerry; and two grandchildren.


title: Gary Merrill

text: Merrill's television work spanned from 1953 to 1980. Most of his appearances were in guest-star roles in episodic and anthology series. Among the programs he appeared in were:


title: Westport, Connecticut

text: Westport is a town in Fairfield County, Connecticut, United States, along the Long Island Sound within Connecticut's Gold Coast. It is northeast of New York City. The town had a population of 27,141 according to the 2020 U.S. Census.