title: Legazpi, Albay

text: To further boost the local economy, the city government is promoting the establishment of information technology (IT) parks and industrial estates such as the Embarcadero IT Park in Barangay Victory Village, City Light Industrial Park (CLIP) in Barangay Bogtong, Legazpi City Special Economic Zone in Barangay Banquerohan, Bicol Regional Agro-Industrial Center (BRAIC) and First Legazpi Industrial Estate, both in Barangay Homapon.


title: Legazpi, Albay

text: The city is also home to a number of retail establishments. Liberty Commercial Center, Inc. (LCC), a homegrown Albayano company established in nearby Tabaco City in 1945, operates a major mall (LCC Mall Legazpi), three supermarkets and five "Expressmarts" (grocery stores) in the city. Another notable mall is Pacific Mall Legazpi, the first full-sized mall in Bicol. Other malls in Legazpi include Embarcadero de Legazpi, A. Bichara Silverscreens and Entertainment Center, 101 Shopping Mall, Yashano Mall and Gregorian Mall. The city has also attracted investments from national retail chains including Metro Gaisano, SM Savemore, Robinsons Supermarket, Puregold, Ministop and 7-Eleven. Ayala Malls recently opened its Ayala Malls Legazpi – Liberty City Center. Meanwhile, SM City Legazpi, the second and largest SM Supermall in Bicol and the 71st in the Philippines, is located beside the Legazpi City Bus Terminal and opened on September 14, 2018.


title: Legazpi, Albay

text: The city has two public markets: Legazpi City Public Market, a recipient of the 'Huwarang Palengke Award' in 2006, and Old Albay Public Market. The Ibalong Pasalubong Center has shops selling souvenirs and local handicrafts.


title: Legazpi, Albay

text: As of December 2017, Legazpi had a total of 47 banks, with volume of bank deposits at Php35.4 billion. Legazpi Savings Bank, a thrift bank based in the city with eleven branches around the Bicol Region, was acquired by Robinsons Bank in 2012. The Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas also has a branch in the city, along Rizal Street in Barangay Cabangan.


title: Legazpi, Albay

text: Legazpi is recognized as one of the 'next wave cities' for business process outsourcing (BPO). The next wave cities are a list of ICT hubs beyond Metro Manila identified by the Information Technology and Business Process Association of the Philippines and the Department of Science and Technology, based on a set of criteria such as worker supply, telecom infrastructure and other factors needed to sustain the BPO industry. Legazpi is aiming to attract more BPO firms to put up offices in the city. , BPO companies in Legazpi include One Half Philippines.


title: Legazpi, Albay

text: The city currently has one IT park, the Embarcadero IT Park, which offers about 8,000 call center seats that could provide jobs to some 24,000 agents in three shifts. Pioneering the business in the city is the Incubation Center of Southern Luzon Technological College Foundation Inc. (SLTCFI), which is an extension of Embarcadero's P1.8-billion IT Park, the very first IT ecozone in the Bicol region inaugurated in July 2009. , the biggest locator in Embarcadero IT Park is Sutherland Global Services.


title: Legazpi, Albay

text: There are 141 residential subdivisions and housing sites (132 privately owned, 9 government owned) in Legazpi. National and local real estate developers have also invested in the city. These include Vista Land (Camella Legazpi), Deca Homes, and Sunwestville Realty and Development Corp. (Eco Homes Bayshores Condominium). In 2015, Taft Property Ventures Development Corp., the real estate arm of Gaisano Group, announced that it is building a condominium in Legazpi.


title: Legazpi, Albay

text: Located on the southern foothills of the scenic Mount Mayon, the city has a flourishing tourism industry. The province of Albay, whose center of trade and commerce is in the city, recorded a 66 percent growth rate in tourist arrivals for 2013. In the same year, the city had a total of 263,568 foreign tourist arrivals, the most in the region. In 2014, the city welcomed 666,210 tourists, an increase of 15 percent from the previous year. including Chinese tourists who arrived at the city via direct chartered flights from Xiamen, China. In 2015, Legazpi aims to reach its target of 900,000 tourist arrivals. Legazpi increased its tourist arrivals by 13.97% in 2017.


title: Legazpi, Albay

text: Legazpi has the tourism tagline the ""City of Fun and Adventure"", with a number of adventure tourism activities within the city including riding an ATV around Mt. Mayon, zip-lining, skydiving, scuba diving, and water sports. In an ATV adventure to Mt. Mayon, tourists drive an all-terrain vehicle over rough trails, including a dry riverbed, leading to the volcano's lower slopes where hardened lava rock from previous eruptions are deposited. The activity was featured in reality shows The Amazing Race Asia 4 in 2010 and The Amazing Race Philippines 1 in 2012. American actor Zac Efron visited Legazpi in October 2012 and drove an ATV around Mayon.


title: Legazpi, Albay

text: Hiking and climbing Mt. Mayon is allowed during peaceful spells but was prohibited following a phreatic explosion with casualties in May 2013. As part of its efforts to promote sports and adventure tourism, the city hosts annual sporting events such as Mt. Mayon Triathlon, Mayon 360 Ultramarathon and XTERRA Triathlon. The city also serves as a jump-off point to other adventure activities nearby including river rafting and waterfalls exploration in Malinao, spelunking in Camalig, island hopping in Bacacay, skimboarding in Santo Domingo, and whale shark interaction in Donsol, Sorsogon.


title: Legazpi, Albay

text: The city is home to 56 hotels and 110 bars and restaurants. , Legazpi had a total of 1,547 hotel rooms. Among the notable hotels in the city is The Oriental Legazpi. Located in the hills of Taysan, it offers a panoramic view of the city, the Albay Gulf and Mt. Mayon. It served as the venue of the joint conference meetings of the United Nations World Tourism Organization (UNWTO) and the Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN) from May 14 to 20, 2014 as well as the PATA New Tourism Frontiers Forum 2015.


title: Legazpi, Albay

text: Legazpi is also aiming to be one of the top five convention destinations in Luzon by 2020. The city has two public indoor arenas that can also serve as convention centers: Ibalong Centrum for Recreation (capacity: 7,000 persons) and Albay Astrodome (capacity: 5,000 persons) The Albay Astrodome was used as the venue for the Big Night of on November 7–8, 2015. The city government is also planning to build the Legazpi City Convention Center. There are also several privately owned and hotel-based convention facilities such as the Casablanca Convention Hall (capacity: 1,000 persons), The Oriental Grand Ballroom (capacity: 750 persons), and Top of St. Ellis (capacity: 300 persons). In 2015, Legazpi hosted 51 national and international conventions. Legazpi was a port of call for German cruise ship Hapag-Lloyd Cruises' MS Bremen in October 2018.


title: Legazpi, Albay

text: With a total trade value of US$129,423,764, the port of Legazpi is the leading port for exports in the entire Bicol Region for 2013. Among the 17 port districts in the country, Legazpi is one of only five port districts that posted positive collection goals for January to April 2015.


title: Legazpi, Albay

text: Legazpi is governed by a mayor, vice mayor, and ten councilors. Each city official is elected to serve for a three-year term. The representative of the Liga ng mga Barangay and the Sangguniang Kabataan also participates in the city council. The current city mayor of Legazpi is Noel Rosal, elected during the 2016 Philippine Elections. Oscar Robert H.Cristobal serves as vice mayor


title: Legazpi, Albay

text: The Ibalong Festival is a non-religious festival held annually each August. The festival celebrates the epic-fragment Ibalon, which narrates the exploits of three legendary heroes of Ibalon or Ancient Bikol: Baltog, Handyong, and Bantong. It was first held in October 1992. Yearly activities include the Ibalong Street Presentation, trade fairs, bazaars and weekend markets, Mutya ng Ibalong Pageant, and sports-related events such as the annual Mt. Mayon Triathlon.


title: Legazpi, Albay

text: The Magayon Festival is a month-long annual festival celebrating Mt. Mayon. It is held in May in the entire province of Albay with most of the activities held in Legazpi. The name comes from the Bikol word "'magayon'", which means beautiful, from which the name of Mt. Mayon is derived. The festival features agricultural products display and trade fairs, culinary shows, cultural events, street parades, photo/arts exhibits, and sports events.


title: Legazpi, Albay

text: During the Christmas season, the Karangahan Albay Green Christmas is held to emphasis on safe and environment-friendly celebration of the Yuletide season. First held in 2009, the festival runs from December 1 to 31.


title: Legazpi, Albay

text: Having different patron saints, the city's two districts have different "fiestas". Legazpi port district fiesta is held every October 24 in honor of St. Raphael the Archangel. Yearly activities include street parade and a maritime procession. The Albay district fiesta is held every September 3, in honor of St. Gregory the Great; it is usually declared a local non-working holiday. There are several local festivals held in the city's barangays including Santo Cristo Festival in Barangay Dap-Dap, Bankero Festival in Barangay San Roque, Biga Festival in Barangay Bigaa, Banua Festival in Barangay Binanuahan, Peñafrancia Festival in Barangay Sabang and Hikot Festival in Barangay Victory Village.


title: Legazpi, Albay

text: The Albay Vulcans are a Philippine rugby union and rugby league team based in Legazpi. They play in the Philippines National Rugby League Championship.


title: Legazpi, Albay

text: Legazpi is considered as the gateway to Bicol because of its relative proximity to the provinces of the region due to its geographical location. With an airport, seaport, bus and rail terminals, the city is accessible to all modes of transportation.


title: Legazpi, Albay

text: The city was formerly served by Legazpi Airport. It was the busiest domestic airport in mainland Southern Luzon and was ranked 15th busiest in the country in 2012, with total passenger traffic of 578,762. The Legazpi Airport has a runway length of and is capable of handling international aircraft. , Cebu Pacific flies three times daily between Manila and Legazpi four times weekly between Cebu and Legazpi. Philippine Airlines has two daily flights between Manila and Legazpi. Cebgo (formerly Tigerair Philippines), a subsidiary of Cebu Pacific, has one daily flight between Manila and Legazpi.


title: Legazpi, Albay

text: In 2015, the Legazpi Airport was renovated to expand and improve the passenger terminal, add separate arrival and pre-departure areas for domestic and international chartered flights, and provide office space for the Bureau of Immigration, customs and animal quarantine, and the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency. In October 2021, Legazpi Airport was replaced by the Bicol International Airport (IATA: LGP, ICAO: RPLP), in Barangay Alobo, Daraga, away from the former airport.


title: Legazpi, Albay

text: Legazpi is accessible by land transport. Modes of public transport within the city include jeepneys, tricycles, taxicabs and pedicabs. Several buses ply the route between Manila with stops in neighboring provinces. The city has an award-winning integrated bus and public utility vehicle terminal called Legazpi Grand Central Terminal, a public-private partnership project. Buses and public utility vehicles also have regular trips between Legazpi and neighboring cities.


title: Legazpi, Albay

text: In order to spur development in the city, The Toll Regulatory Board declared Toll Road 5 the extension of South Luzon Expressway. A 420-kilometer, four lane expressway starting from the terminal point of the now under construction SLEX Toll Road 4 at Barangay Mayao, Lucena City in Quezon to Matnog, Sorsogon, near the Matnog Ferry Terminal. On August 25, 2020, San Miguel Corporation announced that they will invest the project which will reduce travel time from Lucena to Matnog from 9 hours to 5.5 hours.


title: Legazpi, Albay

text: The city was also served by Legazpi station, the southernmost terminus of the Philippine National Railways (PNR). Plans are underway to revive rail transport between Manila and Legazpi. In the mid-2010s, the PNR has started commuter rail service between Legazpi and Naga City, although this was short lived. Legazpi station was also the terminus of Legazpi – Tabaco branch line and the Legazpi Division Line.


title: Legazpi, Albay

text: It was later proposed in 2021 by Joey Salceda for his reelection bid that the Legazpi–Daraga alignment of the PNR South Main Line shall be replaced by the Metro Legazpi Tramway project, a light rail and streetcar line that will connect downtown Legazpi to the new Daraga station of the PNR South Long Haul project. The line will have 8 stations over an unspecified track length.


title: Legazpi, Albay

text: The port of Legazpi is classified as a national sub-port of entry catering to domestic and foreign cargo vessels. Its modern-day port, which was built by the engineering firm Pedro Siochi and Company during the era of President Quezon, played a great role in the liberation of Manila in 1945. , regular passenger trips from the port are between Legazpi and the island municipality of Rapu-Rapu and coastal villages of Bacon District, Sorsogon City. The city government has proposed the construction of an international cruise ship terminal under public-private partnership. The proposed passenger cruise terminal has received approval from the Department of Tourism and the Tourism Infrastructure and Enterprise Zone Authority (TIEZA).


title: Legazpi, Albay

text: The city government operates a sanitary landfill in barangay Banquerohan. Opened in 2011 through a grant from the Spanish government's Agencia Espanola Cooperacion Internacional para el Desarollo (AECID), the sanitary landfill has two cells that will contain the city's non-recyclable waste. In 2010, Legazpi implemented a solid waste management program with emphasis on reduction of waste in the household and business establishment level; resource recovery, recycling, and reusing at the barangay level; collection, transfer, transport and management of residual waste at the city level. The city also aims to reduce plastic waste by implementing the 'plastic for rice program' wherein citizens can exchange five kilos of residual plastic waste for a kilo of rice. The city government recognizes barangays that practice outstanding solid waste management.


title: Legazpi, Albay

text: As a result of its waste management programs, the city was able to successfully reduce solid waste generated per capita per day from in 2009 to in 2015. Meanwhile, the city is planning to build a septage and waste water treatment facility to protect its water resources. A Japanese firm has also proposed an organic fertilizer manufacturing project.


title: Legazpi, Albay

text: To prevent flooding in the city's main business center, the city government is building a flood control project that is envisioned to turn Legazpi into an 'all weather city'. Components of the project include three pumping stations located in barangays San Roque, Baybay and Victory Village, dikes and drainage systems along the Tibu and Macabalo Rivers, and a 2.7 kilometer coastal road in barangays Pigcale, Sabang, Baybay, San Roque and Rawis that will serve as protection from storm surges.


title: Legazpi, Albay

text: Legazpi is a center of education in the Bicol Region. It is home to two universities (Bicol University and University of Santo Tomas - Legazpi) and a number of colleges and technical-vocational schools. , there are 63 daycare/pre-schools, 57 elementary schools and 27 secondary schools in the city.


title: Legazpi, Albay

text: Bicol University, established in 1969 as the premier regional state and research university and the first certified public university in Bicol, has its main campus in Legazpi near the boundary with neighboring Daraga town. The BU Main Campus hosts the College of Education (BUCE), College of Nursing (BUCN), College of Arts and Letters (BUCAL), College of Science (BUCS), Graduate School (BUGS), Institute of Physical Education, Sports and Recreation (IPESR), College of Medicine (BUCM), Bicol University College of Education Integrated Laboratory School-Elementary Department and Bicol University College of Education Integrated Laboratory School-High School Department (BUCEILS-HS). The Bicol University Research Extension Program Center (BUREPC), the Amphitheatre and the Little Theater are also found on this campus. For the school year 2015–16, BU has 27,226 enrollees.


title: Legazpi, Albay

text: University of Santo Tomas - Legazpi formerly "Aquinas University of Legazpi" is the first Catholic University in Bicol Region and Southern Luzon run by the Dominican Fathers/Order of Preachers. Founded by Don Buenaventura de Erquiaga as the Legazpi Junior Colleges in 1948, UST-Legazpi became a university in 1968 when the administration of the college was passed on to the Dominicans. University of Santo Tomas – Legazpi offers pre-elementary, elementary, high school (General Curriculum, Special Program in the Arts, and PAASCU Level III-candidate Science High School), Senior High School, and twenty–three (23) programs (in the College of Arts, Sciences and Education; College of Business Management and Accountancy; College of Health Sciences; and College of Engineering, Architecture, and Fine Arts), the newest of which are the BS Pharmacy, the first and only program in the Region, and BS Medical Technology, both supervised by UST-Manila. The Peñaranda Campus hosts the College of Business Management and Accountancy, College of Law (the Center of Excellence in Legal Education in Bicol), the Graduate School, and the Center for Continuing Education.


title: Legazpi, Albay

text: St. Agnes' Academy, established in 1912 by the Missionary Benedictine Sisters as "Academia de Sta. Ines", is the oldest Catholic school in Albay and the second Benedictine school to be established in the Philippines after St. Scholastica's College Manila.


title: Legazpi, Albay

text: Divine Word College of Legazpi is a Catholic college run by the Societas Verbi Divini (SVD) Congregation. It started as Liceo de Albay, a diocesan parochial school for boys established in 1947 by Rev. Fr. Juan Carullo, a retired Army Chaplain. In 1960, the SVD led by Fr. Joseph L. Bates took over the administration of the school and renamed it Divine Word High School. It was elevated to tertiary level as Divine Word College of Legazpi (DWCL) in 1965.


title: Legazpi, Albay

text: Legazpi City Science High School, founded in 2004 as "Legazpi City High School" and became full-fledged science high school on January 15, 2016. Located in Bitano, Legazpi City, it provides education for junior and senior high school students. Its junior high school department offers SPSTE ("Special Program in Science, Technology, and Engineering"). Likewise, its senior high school offers two tracks with three strands. The academic track includes STEM ("Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics"), ABM ("Accounting and Business Management"), and ICT ("Information and Communications Technology") under the TVL ("Technical-vocational") strand.


title: Soviet Union–United States relations

text: Soviet Union–United States relations were fully established in 1933 as the succeeding bilateral ties to those between the Russian Empire and the United States, which lasted from 1776 until 1917; they were also the predecessor to the current bilateral ties between the Russian Federation and the United States that began in 1992. The relationship between the Soviet Union and the United States was largely defined by mistrust and tense hostility. The invasion of the Soviet Union by Nazi Germany as well as the attack on the U.S. Pacific Fleet at Pearl Harbor by Imperial Japan marked the Soviet and American entries into World War II on the side of the Allies in June and December 1941, respectively. As the Soviet–American alliance against the Axis came to an end following the Allied victory in 1945, the first signs of post-war mistrust and hostility began to immediately appear between the two countries. These bilateral tensions escalated into the Cold War, a decades-long period of tense hostile relations with short phases of détente that ended after the collapse of the Soviet Union and emergence of the present-day Russian Federation in 1991.


title: Soviet Union–United States relations

text: In wake of the February Revolution and Tsar Nicholas II's abdication, the United States was still largely ignorant of the underlying fractures in new Russian Provisional Government and believed that Russia would rapidly evolve into a stable democracy enthusiastic to join the western coalition in the war against Germany. With the establishment of the Provisional Government, United States Ambassador to Petrograd David R. Francis immediately requested from Washington authority to recognize the new government arguing the revolution "is the practical realization of that principle of government which we have championed and advocated. I mean government by consent of the governed. Our recognition will have a stupendous moral effect especially if given first." and was approved on 22 March 1917 making the United States the first foreign government to formally recognize the new government. A week and a half later when US President Woodrow Wilson addressed Congress to request a declaration of war against Germany, Wilson remarked "Does not every American feel that assurance has been added to our hope for the future peace of the world by the wonderful and heartening things that have been happening within the last few weeks in Russia? Russia was known by those who knew it best to have been always in fact democratic at heart... Here is a fit partner for a League of Honor."


title: Soviet Union–United States relations

text: Hoping the fledgling parliamentary democracy would reinvigorate Russian contributions to the war, President Wilson took sizable strides to build a relationship with the Provisional Government. The day following his request to Congress for a declaration of war on Germany, Wilson began offering American governmental credits to the new Russian government totaling $325 million — about half of which was actually used. Wilson also dispatched the Root Mission, a delegation led by Elihu Root and inclusive of leaders from the American Federation of Labor, YMCA, and the International Harvester Company, to Petrograd to negotiate means through which the United States could encourage further Russian commitment to the war. By product of poorly chosen delegates, a lack of interest from those delegates, and a significant inattention to the role and popular influence of the Petrograd Soviet (who was violently against the continuation of the Russian war effort), the mission made little benefit to either nation. Despite the satisfactory reports returning from the Embassy Chancery in Petrograd, whose impression of the nation's conditions came directly from the Provisional Government, American consular and military officials in closer contact with the populace and armed forces occasionally warned Washington to be more skeptical in their assumptions about the new government. Nonetheless, the American government and public were caught off-guard and bewildered by the fall of the Provisional Government in the October Revolution.


title: Soviet Union–United States relations

text: After the Bolshevik takeover of Russia in the October Revolution, Vladimir Lenin withdrew Russia from the First World War, allowing Germany to reallocate troops to face the Allied forces on the Western Front. This caused the Allied Powers to regard the new Russian government as traitorous for violating the Triple Entente terms against a separate peace. Concurrently, President Woodrow Wilson became increasingly aware of the human rights violations perpetuated by the new Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic, and opposed the new regime's atheism and advocacy of a command economy. He also was concerned that Marxism–Leninism would spread to the remainder of the Western world, and intended his landmark Fourteen Points partially to provide liberal democracy as an alternative worldwide ideology to Communism.


title: Soviet Union–United States relations

text: However, President Wilson also believed that the new country would eventually transition to a free-market economy after the end of the chaos of the Russian Civil War, and that intervention against Soviet Russia would only turn the country against the United States. He likewise advocated a policy of noninterference in the war in the Fourteen Points, although he argued that the former Russian Empire's Polish territory should be ceded to the newly independent Second Polish Republic. Additionally many of Wilson's political opponents in the United States, including the Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee Henry Cabot Lodge, believed that an independent Ukraine should be established. Despite this the United States, as a result of the fear of Japanese expansion into Russian-held territory and their support for the Allied-aligned Czech Legion, sent a small number of troops to Northern Russia and Siberia. The United States also provided indirect aid such as food and supplies to the White Army.


title: Soviet Union–United States relations

text: At the Paris Peace Conference in 1919 President Wilson and British Prime Minister David Lloyd George, despite the objections of French President Georges Clemenceau and Italian Foreign Minister Sidney Sonnino, pushed forward an idea to convene a summit at Prinkipo between the Bolsheviks and the White movement to form a common Russian delegation to the Conference. The Soviet Commissariat of Foreign Affairs, under the leadership of Leon Trotsky and Georgy Chicherin, received British and American envoys respectfully but had no intentions of agreeing to the deal due to their belief that the Conference was composed of an old capitalist order that would be swept away in a world revolution. By 1921, after the Bolsheviks gained the upper hand in the Russian Civil War, executed the Romanov imperial family, repudiated the tsarist debt, and called for a world revolution by the working class, it was regarded as a pariah nation by most of the world. Beyond the Russian Civil War, relations were also dogged by claims of American companies for compensation for the nationalized industries they had invested in.


title: Soviet Union–United States relations

text: Leaders of American foreign policy remain convinced that the Soviet Union was a hostile threat to American values. Republican Secretary of State Charles Evans Hughes rejected recognition, telling labor union leaders that, "those in control of Moscow have not given up their original purpose of destroying existing governments wherever they can do so throughout the world." Under President Calvin Coolidge, Secretary of State Frank B. Kellogg warned that the Kremlin's international agency, the Communist International (Comintern) was aggressively planning subversion against other nations, including the United States, to "overthrow the existing order." Herbert Hoover in 1919 warned Wilson that, "We cannot even remotely recognize this murderous tyranny without stimulating action is to radicalism in every country in Europe and without transgressing on every National ideal of our own." Inside the U.S. State Department, the Division of Eastern European Affairs by 1924 was dominated by Robert F. Kelley, a zealous enemy of communism who trained a generation of specialists including George Kennan and Charles Bohlen. Kelley was convinced the Kremlin planned to activate the workers of the world against capitalism.


title: Soviet Union–United States relations

text: Meanwhile, Great Britain took the lead in reopening relations with Moscow, especially trade, although they remain suspicious of communist subversion, and angry at the Kremlin's repudiation of Russian debts. Outside Washington, there was some American support for renewed relationships, especially in terms of technology. Henry Ford, committed to the belief that international trade was the best way to avoid warfare, used his Ford Motor Company to build a truck industry and introduce tractors into Russia. Architect Albert Kahn became a consultant for all industrial construction in the Soviet Union in 1930. A few intellectuals on the left showed an interest. After 1930, a number of activist intellectuals have become members of the Communist Party USA, or fellow travelers, and drummed up support for the Soviet Union. The American labor movement was divided, with the American Federation of Labor (AFL) an anti-communist stronghold, while left-wing elements in the late 1930s formed the rival Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO). The CPUSA played a major role in the CIO until its members were purged beginning in 1946, and American organized labor became strongly anti-Soviet.


title: Soviet Union–United States relations

text: Under Herbert Hoover, very large scale food relief was distributed to Europe after the war through the American Relief Administration. In 1921, to ease famine in Russia, the ARA's director in Europe, Walter Lyman Brown, began negotiating with the Soviet People's Commissar for Foreign Affairs, Maxim Litvinov, in Riga, Latvia. An agreement was reached on August 21, 1921, and an additional implementation agreement was signed by Brown and People's Commissar for Foreign Trade Leonid Krasin on December 30, 1921. The U.S. Congress appropriated $20,000,000 for relief under the Russian Famine Relief Act of late 1921. Hoover strongly detested Bolshevism, and felt the American aid would demonstrate the superiority of Western capitalism and thus help contain the spread of communism.


title: Soviet Union–United States relations

text: At its peak, the ARA employed 300 Americans, more than 120,000 Russians and fed 10.5 million people daily. Its Russian operations were headed by Col. William N. Haskell. The Medical Division of the ARA functioned from November 1921 to June 1923 and helped overcome the typhus epidemic then ravaging Russia. The ARA's famine relief operations ran in parallel with much smaller Mennonite, Jewish and Quaker famine relief operations in Russia.


title: Soviet Union–United States relations

text: The ARA's operations in Russia were shut down on June 15, 1923, after it was discovered that Russia renewed the export of grain.


title: Soviet Union–United States relations

text: Founded in 1924, Amtorg Trading Corporation, based in New York, was the main organization governing trade between the USSR and the USA. By 1946, Amtorg organized a multi-million dollar trade. Amtorg handled almost all exports from the USSR, comprising mostly lumber, furs, flax, bristles, and caviar, and all imports of raw materials and machinery for Soviet industry and agriculture. It also provided American companies with information about trade opportunities in the USSR and supplied Soviet industries with technical news and information about American companies. Amtorg was also involved in Soviet espionage against the United States. It was joined, in both its trade and espionage roles, by the Soviet Government Purchasing Commission from 1942 onward.


title: Soviet Union–United States relations

text: During Lenin's tenure, Armand Hammer established a pencil factory in the Soviet Union, hiring German craftsmen and shipping American grain into the Soviet Union. Hammer also established asbestos mines and acquired fur trapping facilities east of the Urals. During Lenin's New Economic Policy, Armand Hammer became the mediator for 38 international companies in their dealings with the USSR. Before Lenin's death, Hammer negotiated the import of Fordson tractors into the USSR, which served a major role in agricultural mechanization in the country. Later, after Stalin came to power, additional deals were negotiated with Hammer as an American–Soviet negotiator.


title: Soviet Union–United States relations

text: In 1929, Henry Ford made an agreement with the Soviets to provide technical aid over nine years in building the first Soviet automobile plant, GAZ, in Gorky (now Nizhny Novgorod). The plant would construct Ford Model A and Model AA trucks. An additional contract for construction of the plant was signed with The Austin Company on August 23, 1929. The contract involved the purchase of $30,000,000 worth of knocked-down Ford cars and trucks for assembly during the first four years of the plant's operation, after which the plant would gradually switch to Soviet-made components. Ford sent his engineers and technicians to the Soviet Union to help install the equipment and train the workforce, while over a hundred Soviet engineers and technicians were stationed at Ford's plants in Detroit and Dearborn "for the purpose of learning the methods and practice of manufacture and assembly in the Company's plants".


title: Soviet Union–United States relations

text: By 1933, old fears of Communist threats had faded, and the American business community, as well as newspaper editors, were calling for diplomatic recognition. The business community was eager for large-scale trade with the Soviet Union. The US government hoped for some repayment on the old tsarist debts, and a promise not to support subversive movements inside the U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt took the initiative, with the assistance of his close friend and advisor Henry Morgenthau, Jr. and Russian expert William Bullitt, bypassing the State Department. Roosevelt commissioned a survey of public opinion, which at the time meant asking 1100 newspaper editors; 63 percent favored recognition of the USSR and 27 percent were opposed. Roosevelt met personally with Catholic leaders to overcome their objections. He invited Foreign Minister Maxim Litvinov to Washington for a series of high-level meetings in November 1933. He and Roosevelt agreed on issues of religious freedom for Americans working in the Soviet Union. The USSR promised not to interfere in internal American affairs, and to ensure that no organization in the USSR was working to hurt the U.S. or overthrow its government by force. Both sides agreed to postpone the debt question to a later date. Roosevelt thereupon announced an agreement on resumption of normal relations. There were few complaints about the move.


title: Soviet Union–United States relations

text: However, there was no progress on the debt issue, and little additional trade. Historians Justus D. Doenecke and Mark A. Stoler note that, "Both nations were soon disillusioned by the accord." Many American businessmen expected a bonus in terms of large-scale trade, but it never materialized.


title: Soviet Union–United States relations

text: Roosevelt named William Bullitt as ambassador from 1933 to 1936. Bullitt arrived in Moscow with high hopes for Soviet–American relations, his view of the Soviet leadership soured on closer inspection. By the end of his tenure, Bullitt was openly hostile to the Soviet government. He remained an outspoken anti-communist for the rest of his life.


title: Soviet Union–United States relations

text: Before the Germans decided to invade the Soviet Union in June 1941, relations remained strained, as the Soviet invasion of Finland, Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact, Soviet invasion of the Baltic states and the Soviet invasion of Poland stirred, which resulted in Soviet Union's expulsion from the League of Nations. Come the invasion of 1941, the Soviet Union entered a Mutual Assistance Treaty with the United Kingdom, and received aid from the American Lend-Lease program, relieving American-Soviet tensions, and bringing together former enemies in the fight against Nazi Germany and the Axis powers.


title: Soviet Union–United States relations

text: Though operational cooperation between the United States and the Soviet Union was notably less than that between other allied powers, the United States nevertheless provided the Soviet Union with huge quantities of weapons, ships, aircraft, rolling stock, strategic materials, and food through the Lend-Lease program. The Americans and the Soviets were as much for war with Germany as for the expansion of an ideological sphere of influence. During the war, President Harry S. Truman stated that it did not matter to him if a German or a Soviet soldier died so long as either side is losing.


title: Soviet Union–United States relations

text: The American Russian Cultural Association (Russian: Американо–русская культурная ассоциация) was organized in the US in 1942 to encourage cultural ties between the Soviet Union and the United States, with Nicholas Roerich as honorary president. The group's first annual report was issued the following year. The group does not appear to have lasted much past Nicholas Roerich's death in 1947.


title: Soviet Union–United States relations

text: In total, the U.S. deliveries through Lend-Lease amounted to $11 billion in materials: over 400,000 jeeps and trucks; 12,000 armored vehicles (including 7,000 tanks, about 1,386 of which were M3 Lees and 4,102 M4 Shermans); 11,400 aircraft (4,719 of which were Bell P-39 Airacobras) and 1.75 million tons of food.


title: Soviet Union–United States relations

text: Roughly 17.5 million tons of military equipment, vehicles, industrial supplies, and food were shipped from the Western Hemisphere to the Soviet Union, with 94 percent coming from the United States. For comparison, a total of 22 million tons landed in Europe to supply American forces from January 1942 to May 1945. It has been estimated that American deliveries to the USSR through the Persian Corridor alone were sufficient, by US Army standards, to maintain sixty combat divisions in the line.


title: Soviet Union–United States relations

text: The United States delivered to the Soviet Union from October 1, 1941, to May 31, 1945, the following: 427,284 trucks, 13,303 combat vehicles, 35,170 motorcycles, 2,328 ordnance service vehicles, 2,670,371 tons of petroleum products (gasoline and oil) or 57.8 percent of the high-octane aviation fuel, 4,478,116 tons of foodstuffs (canned meats, sugar, flour, salt, etc.), 1,911 steam locomotives, 66 diesel locomotives, 9,920 flat cars, 1,000 dump cars, 120 tank cars, and 35 heavy machinery cars. Provided ordnance goods (ammunition, artillery shells, mines, assorted explosives) amounted to 53 percent of total domestic production. One item typical of many was a tire plant that was lifted bodily from the Ford's River Rouge Plant and transferred to the USSR. The 1947 money value of the supplies and services amounted to about eleven billion dollars.


title: Soviet Union–United States relations

text: The end of World War II saw the resurgence of previous divisions between the two nations. The expansion of communist influence into Eastern Europe following Germany's defeat worried the liberal free market economies of the West, particularly the United States, which had established virtual economic and political primacy in Western Europe. The two nations promoted two opposing economic and political ideologies and the two nations competed for international influence along these lines. This protracted a geopolitical, ideological, and economic struggle—lasting from the announcement of the Truman Doctrine on March 12, 1947, until the dissolution of the Soviet Union on December 26, 1991—is known as the Cold War, a period of nearly 45 years.


title: Soviet Union–United States relations

text: The Soviet Union detonated its first nuclear weapon in 1949, ending the United States' monopoly on nuclear weapons. The United States and the Soviet Union engaged in a conventional and nuclear arms race that persisted until the collapse of the Soviet Union. Andrei Gromyko was Minister of Foreign Affairs of the USSR, and is the longest-serving foreign minister in the world.


title: Soviet Union–United States relations

text: After Germany's defeat, the United States sought to help its Western European allies economically with the Marshall Plan. The United States extended the Marshall Plan to the Soviet Union, but under such terms, the Americans knew the Soviets would never accept, namely the acceptance of, what the Soviets viewed as, a bourgeoisie democracy, not characteristic of Stalinist communism. With its growing influence on Eastern Europe, the Soviet Union sought to counter this with the Comecon in 1949, which essentially did the same thing, though was more an economic cooperation agreement instead of a clear plan to rebuild. The United States and its Western European allies sought to strengthen their bonds and spite the Soviet Union. They accomplished this most notably through the formation of NATO which was essentially a military agreement. The Soviet Union countered with the Warsaw Pact, which had similar results with the Eastern Bloc.


title: Soviet Union–United States relations

text: In 1949 the Coordinating Committee for Multilateral Export Controls (CoCom) was established by Western governments to monitor the export of sensitive high technology that would improve military effectiveness of members of the Warsaw Pact and certain other countries.


title: Soviet Union–United States relations

text: Détente began in 1969, as a core element of the foreign policy of president Richard Nixon and his top advisor Henry Kissinger. They wanted to end the containment policy and gain friendlier relations with the USSR and China. Those two were rivals and Nixon expected they would go along with Washington as to not give the other rival an advantage. One of Nixon's terms is that both nations had to stop helping North Vietnam in the Vietnam War, which they did. Nixon and Kissinger promoted greater dialogue with the Soviet government, including regular summit meetings and negotiations over arms control and other bilateral agreements. Brezhnev met with Nixon at summits in Moscow in 1972, in Washington in 1973, and, again in Moscow in 1974. They became personal friends. Détente was known in Russian as разрядка ("razryadka", loosely meaning "relaxation of tension").


title: Soviet Union–United States relations

text: The period was characterized by the signing of treaties such as SALT I and the Helsinki Accords. Another treaty, START II, was discussed but never ratified by the United States. There is still ongoing debate amongst historians as to how successful the détente period was in achieving peace.


title: Soviet Union–United States relations

text: After the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962, the two superpowers agreed to install a direct hotline between Washington D.C. and Moscow (the so-called red telephone), enabling leaders of both countries to quickly interact with each other in a time of urgency, and reduce the chances that future crises could escalate into an all-out war. The U.S./USSR détente was presented as an applied extension of that thinking. The SALT II pact of the late 1970s continued the work of the SALT I talks, ensuring further reduction in arms by the Soviets and by the U.S. The Helsinki Accords, in which the Soviets promised to grant free elections in Europe, has been called a major concession to ensure peace by the Soviets.


title: Soviet Union–United States relations

text: The pro-Soviet American business magnate Armand Hammer of Occidental Petroleum often mediated trade relations. Author Daniel Yergin, in his book "The Prize", writes that Hammer "ended up as a go-between for five Soviet General Secretaries and seven U.S. Presidents." Hammer had extensive business relationship in the Soviet Union stretching back to the 1920s with Lenin's approval. According to "Christian Science Monitor" in 1980, "although his business dealings with the Soviet Union were cut short when Stalin came to power, he had more or less single-handedly laid the groundwork for the [1980] state of Western trade with the Soviet Union." In 1974, Brezhnev "publicly recognized Hammer's role in facilitating East-West trade." By 1981, according to the "New York Times" in that year, Hammer was on a "first-name basis with Leonid Brezhnev."


title: Soviet Union–United States relations

text: Despite the otherwise improvement in relations, various tensions would appear during détente. These included the Brezhnev Doctrine, the Sino-Soviet split, an apparent rapprochement between the United States and China with Nixon's visit to China in 1972. However, Nixon's international relations priority was Soviet détente even after the visit to China. In 1973, Nixon announced his administration was committed to seeking most favored nation trade status with the USSR, which was challenged by Congress in the Jackson-Vanik Amendment. The United States had long linked trade with the Soviet Union to its foreign policy toward the Soviet Union and, especially since the early 1980s, to Soviet human rights policies. The Jackson-Vanik Amendment, which was attached to the 1974 Trade Act, linked the granting of most-favored-nation to the right of Soviet Jews to emigrate. Because the Soviet Union refused the right of emigration to refuseniks, the ability of the President to apply most-favored nation trade status to the Soviet Union was restricted.


title: Soviet Union–United States relations

text: Détente, also described as linkage policy in the West, was challenged by proxy conflicts and increasing Soviet interventions, which included the Second Yemenite War of 1979. The period of détente ended after the Soviet intervention in Afghanistan, which led to the United States boycott of the 1980 Olympics in Moscow. The United States, Pakistan, and their allies supported the rebels. To punish Moscow, President Jimmy Carter imposed a grain embargo. Carter also recalled the US Ambassador Thomas J. Watson from Moscow, suspended high-technology exports to the Soviet Union and limited ammonia imports from the Soviet Union. According to a 1980 paper, the grain embargo hurt American farmers more than it did the Soviet economy. Other nations sold their own grain to the USSR, and the Soviets had ample reserve stocks. and President Ronald Reagan resumed sales in 1981. Ronald Reagan's election as president in 1980 was further based in large part on an anti-détente campaign. In his first press conference, President Reagan said "Détente's been a one-way street that the Soviet Union has used to pursue its aims." Following this, relations turned increasingly sour with the unrest in Poland, end of the SALT II negotiations, and the NATO exercise in 1983 that brought the superpowers almost on the brink of nuclear war.


title: Soviet Union–United States relations

text: Reagan escalated the Cold War, accelerating a reversal from the policy of détente which had begun in 1979 after the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. Reagan feared that the Soviet Union had gained a military advantage over the United States, and the Reagan administration hoped that heightened military spending would grant the U.S. military superiority and weaken the Soviet economy. Reagan ordered a massive buildup of the United States Armed Forces, directing funding to the B-1 Lancer bomber, the B-2 Spirit bomber, cruise missiles, the MX missile, and the 600-ship Navy. In response to Soviet deployment of the SS-20, Reagan oversaw NATO's deployment of the Pershing missile in West Germany. The president also strongly denounced the Soviet Union and Communism in moral terms, describing the Soviet Union an "evil empire."


title: Soviet Union–United States relations

text: At the Malta Summit of December 1989, both the leaders of the United States and the Soviet Union declared the Cold War over. In 1991, the two countries were partners in the Gulf War against Iraq, a longtime Soviet ally. On 31 July 1991, the START I treaty cutting the number of deployed nuclear warheads of both countries was signed by Gorbachev and Bush. START negotiated the largest and most complex arms control treaty in history, and its final implementation in late 2001 resulted in the removal of about 80% of all strategic nuclear weapons then in existence.


title: Soviet Union–United States relations

text: Reagan and Gorbachev had eased Cold War tensions during Reagan's second term, but Bush was initially skeptical of Soviet intentions. During the first year of his tenure, Bush pursued what Soviets referred to as the "pauza", a break in Reagan's détente policies. While Bush implemented his "pauza" policy in 1989, Soviet satellites in Eastern Europe challenged Soviet domination. Bush helped convince Polish Communist leaders to allow democratic elections in June, won by the anti-Communists. In 1989, Communist governments fell in all the satellites, with significant violence only in Romania. In November 1989, massive popular demand forced the government of East Germany to open the Berlin Wall, and it was soon demolished by gleeful Berliners. Gorbachev refused to send in the Soviet military, effectively abandoning the Brezhnev Doctrine. Within a few weeks Communist regimes across Eastern Europe collapsed, and Soviet supported parties across the globe became demoralized. The U.S. was not directly involved in these upheavals, but the Bush administration avoided the appearance of gloating over the NATO victory to avoid undermining further democratic reforms especially in the USSR.


title: Soviet Union–United States relations

text: Bush and Gorbachev met in December 1989 in summit on the island of Malta. Bush sought cooperative relations with Gorbachev throughout the remainder of his term, putting his trust in Gorbachev to suppress the remaining Soviet hard-liners. The key issue at the Malta Summit was the potential reunification of Germany. While Britain and France were wary of a re-unified Germany, Bush pushed for German reunification alongside West German Chancellor Helmut Kohl. Gorbachev resisted the idea of a reunified Germany, especially if it became part of NATO, but the upheavals of the previous year had sapped his power at home and abroad. Gorbachev agreed to hold "Two-Plus-Four" talks among the U.S., the Soviet Union, France, Britain, West Germany, and East Germany, which commenced in 1990. After extensive negotiations, Gorbachev eventually agreed to allow a reunified Germany to be a part of NATO. With the signing of the Treaty on the Final Settlement with Respect to Germany, Germany officially reunified in October 1990.


title: Soviet Union–United States relations

text: While Gorbachev acquiesced to the democratization of Soviet satellite states, he suppressed nationalist movements within the Soviet Union itself. Stalin had occupied and annexed the Baltic states of Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia in the 1940s. The old leadership was executed or deported or fled; hundreds of thousands of Russians moved in, but nowhere were they a majority. Hatreds simmered. Lithuania's March 1990 proclamation of independence was strongly opposed by Gorbachev, who feared that the Soviet Union could fall apart if he allowed Lithuania's independence. The United States had never recognized the Soviet incorporation of the Baltic states, and the crisis in Lithuania left Bush in a difficult position. Bush needed Gorbachev's cooperation in the reunification of Germany, and he feared that the collapse of the Soviet Union could leave nuclear arms in dangerous hands. The Bush administration mildly protested Gorbachev's suppression of Lithuania's independence movement, but took no action to directly intervene. Bush warned independence movements of the disorder that could come with secession from the Soviet Union; in a 1991 address that critics labeled the "Chicken Kiev speech", he cautioned against "suicidal nationalism".


title: Soviet Union–United States relations

text: In July 1991, Bush and Gorbachev signed the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START I) treaty, the first major arms agreement since the 1987 Intermediate Ranged Nuclear Forces Treaty. Both countries agreed to cut their strategic nuclear weapons by 30 percent, and the Soviet Union promised to reduce its intercontinental ballistic missile force by 50 percent. In August 1991, hard-line Communists launched a coup against Gorbachev; while the coup quickly fell apart, it broke the remaining power of Gorbachev and the central Soviet government. Later that month, Gorbachev resigned as general secretary of the Communist party, and Russian president Boris Yeltsin ordered the seizure of Soviet property. Gorbachev clung to power as the President of the Soviet Union, until 25 December 1991, when the Soviet Union dissolved. Fifteen states emerged from the Soviet Union, and of those states, Russia was the largest and most populous. Bush and Yeltsin met in February 1992, declaring a new era of "friendship and partnership". In January 1993, Bush and Yeltsin agreed to START II, which provided for further nuclear arms reductions on top of the original START treaty.


title: Chu (state)

text: Chu, or Ch'u in Wade–Giles romanization, (, Hanyu Pinyin: Chǔ, Old Chinese: "*s-r̥aʔ") was a Zhou dynasty vassal state. Their first ruler was King Wu of Chu in the early 8th century BCE. Chu was located in the south of the Zhou heartland and lasted during the Spring and Autumn period. At the end of the Warring States period it was destroyed by the Qin in 223 BCE during the Qin's wars of unification.


title: Chu (state)

text: Also known as Jing () and Jingchu (), Chu included most of the present-day provinces of Hubei and Hunan, along with parts of Chongqing, Guizhou, Henan, Anhui, Jiangxi, Jiangsu, Zhejiang, and Shanghai. For more than 400 years, the Chu capital Danyang was located at the junction of the Dan and Xi Rivers near present-day Xichuan County, Henan, but later moved to Ying. The house of Chu originally bore the clan name Nai ( OC: /*rneːlʔ/) which was later written as Mi ( OC: /*meʔ/). They also bore the lineage name Yan ( OC: /*qlamʔ/, /*qʰɯːm/) which would later be written Xiong ( OC: /*ɢʷlɯm/).


title: Chu (state)

text: In Chinese mythology, according to legends recounted in Sima Qian's "Records of the Grand Historian", the ruling family of Chu descended from the Yellow Emperor and his grandson and successor Zhuanxu. Zhuanxu's great-grandson Wuhui () was put in charge of fire by Emperor Ku and given the title Zhurong. Wuhui's son Luzhong () had six sons, all born by Caesarian section. The youngest, Jilian, adopted the ancestral surname Mi. 's descendant Yuxiong was the teacher of King Wen of Zhou (r. 1099–1050 BCE). After the Zhou overthrew the Shang dynasty, King Cheng (r. 1042–1021 BCE) enfeoffed Yuxiong's great-grandson Xiong Yi with the fiefdom of Chu in the Nanyang Basin and the hereditary title of ("zǐ", "viscount"). Then the first capital of Chu was established at Danyang (present-day Xichuan in Henan).


title: Chu (state)

text: In 977 BCE, during his campaign against Chu, King Zhao of Zhou's boat sank and he drowned in the Han River. After this death, Zhou ceased to expand to the south, allowing the southern tribes and Chu to cement their own autonomy much earlier than the states to the north. The Chu viscount Xiong Qu overthrew E in 863 BCE but subsequently made its capital Ezhou one of his capitals. In either 703 or 706, the ruler Xiong Tong became the ruler of Chu.


title: Chu (state)

text: Under the reign of King Zhuang, Chu reached the height of its power and its ruler was considered one of the five Hegemons of the era. After a number of battles with neighboring states, sometime between 695 and 689 BCE, the Chu capital moved south-east from Danyang to Ying. Chu first consolidated its power by absorbing other states in its original area (modern Hubei), then it expanded into the north towards the North China Plain. In the summer of 648 BCE, the State of Huang was annexed by the state of Chu.


title: Chu (state)

text: The threat from Chu resulted in multiple northern alliances under the leadership of Jin. These alliances kept Chu in check, and the Chu kingdom lost their first major battle at the Chengpu in 632 BCE. During the 6th century BCE, Jin and Chu fought numerous battles over the hegemony of central plain. In 597 BCE, Jin was defeated by Chu in the battle of Bi, causing Jin's temporary inability to counter Chu's expansion. Chu strategically used the state of Zheng as its representative in the central plain area, through the means of intimidation and threats, Chu forced Zheng to ally with itself. On the other hand, Jin had to balance out Chu's influence by repeatedly allying with Lu, Wey, and Song. The tension between Chu and Jin did not loosen until the year of 579 BCE when a truce was signed between the two states.


title: Chu (state)

text: At the beginning of the sixth century BCE, Jin strengthened the state of Wu near the Yangtze delta to act as a counterweight against Chu. Wu defeated Qi and then invaded Chu in 506 BCE. Following the Battle of Boju, it occupied Chu's capital at Ying, forcing King Zhao to flee to his allies in Yun and "Sui". King Zhao eventually returned to Ying but, after another attack from Wu in 504 BCE, he temporarily moved the capital into the territory of the former state of Ruo. Chu began to strengthen Yue in modern Zhejiang to serve as allies against Wu. Yue was initially subjugated by King Fuchai of Wu until he released their king Goujian, who took revenge for his former captivity by crushing and completely annexing Wu.


title: Chu (state)

text: Freed from its difficulties with Wu, Chu annexed Chen in 479 BCE and overran Cai to the north in 447 BCE. By the end of the 5th century BCE, the Chu government had become very corrupt and inefficient, with much of the state's treasury used primarily to pay for the royal entourage. Many officials had no meaningful task except taking money and Chu's army, while large, was of low quality.


title: Chu (state)

text: In the late 390s BCE, King Dao of Chu made Wu Qi his chancellor. Wu's reforms began to transform Chu into an efficient and powerful state in 389 BCE, as he lowered the salaries of officials and removed useless officials. He also enacted building codes to make the capital Ying seem less barbaric. Despite Wu Qi's unpopularity among Chu's ruling class, his reforms strengthened the king and left the state very powerful until the late 4th century BCE, when Zhao and Qin were ascendant. Chu's powerful army once again became successful, defeating the states of Wei and Yue. Yue was partitioned between Chu and Qi in either 334 or 333 BCE. However, the officials of Chu wasted no time in their revenge and Wu Qi was assassinated at King Dao's funeral in 381 BCE. Prior to Wu's service in the state of Chu, Wu lived in the state of Wei, where his military analysis of the six opposing states was recorded in his magnum opus, "The Book of Master Wu". Of Chu, he said:


title: Chu (state)

text: During the late Warring States period, Chu was increasingly pressured by Qin to its west, especially after Qin enacted and preserved the Legalistic reforms of Shang Yang. In 241 BCE, five of the seven major warring states–Chu, Zhao, Wei, Yan and Han–formed an alliance to fight the rising power of Qin. King Kaolie of Chu was named the leader of the alliance and Lord Chunshen the military commander. According to historian Yang Kuan, the Zhao general Pang Nuan () was the actual commander in the battle. The allies attacked Qin at the strategic Hangu Pass but were defeated. King Kaolie blamed Lord Chunshen for the loss and began to mistrust him. Afterwards, Chu moved its capital east to Shouchun, farther away from the threat of Qin.


title: Chu (state)

text: As Qin expanded into Chu's territory, Chu was forced to expand southwards and eastwards, absorbing local cultural influences along the way. Lu was conquered by King Kaolie in 223 BCE. By the late 4th century BCE, however, Chu's prominent status had fallen into decay. As a result of several invasions headed by Zhao and Qin, Chu was eventually completely wiped out by Qin.


title: Chu (state)

text: According to the "Records of the Warring States", a debate between the Diplomat strategist Zhang Yi and the Qin general Sima Cuo led to two conclusions concerning the unification of China. Zhang Yi argued in favor of conquering Han and seizing the Mandate of Heaven from the powerless Zhou king would be wise. Sima Cuo, however, considered that the primary difficulty was not legitimacy but the strength of Qin's opponents; he argued that "conquering Shu is conquering Chu" and, "once Chu is eliminated, the country will be united".


title: Chu (state)

text: The importance of Shu in the Sichuan Basin was its great agricultural output and its control over the upper reaches of the Yangtze River, leading directly into the Chu heartland. King Huiwen of Qin opted to support Sima Cuo. In 316 BCE, Qin invaded and conquered Shu and nearby Ba, expanding downriver in the following decades. In 278 BCE, the Qin general Bai Qi finally conquered Chu's capital at Ying. Following the fall of Ying, the Chu government moved to various locations in the east until settling in Shouchun in 241 BCE. After a massive two-year struggle, Bai Qi lured the main Zhao force of 400,000 men onto the field, surrounding them and forcing their surrender at Changping in 260 BCE. The Qin army massacred their prisoners, removing the last major obstacle to Qin dominance over the Chinese states.


title: Chu (state)

text: By 225 BCE, only four kingdoms remained: Qin, Chu, Yan, and Qi. Chu had recovered sufficiently to mount serious resistance. Despite its size, resources, and manpower, though, Chu's corrupt government worked against it. In 224 BCE, Ying Zheng called for a meeting with his subjects to discuss his plans for the invasion of Chu. Wang Jian said that the invasion force needed to be at least 600,000 strong, while Li Xin thought that less than 200,000 men would be sufficient. Ying Zheng ordered Li Xin and Meng Wu to lead the army against Chu.


title: Chu (state)

text: The Chu army, led by Xiang Yan secretly followed Li Xin's army for three days and three nights, before launching a surprise offensive and destroying Li Xin army. Upon learning of Li's defeat, Ying Zheng replaced Li with Wang Jian, putting Wang in command of the 600,000-strong army he had requested earlier and placing Meng Wu beneath him as a deputy. Worried that the Qin tyrant might fear the power he now possessed and order him executed upon some pretense, Wang Jian constantly sent messengers back to the king in order to remain in contact and reduce the king's suspicion.


title: Chu (state)

text: Wang Jian's army passed through southern Chen (; present-day Huaiyang in Henan) and made camp at Pingyu. The Chu armies under Xiang Yan used their full strength against the camp but failed. Wang Jian ordered his troops to defend their positions firmly but avoid advancing further into Chu territory. After failing to lure the Qin army into an attack, Xiang Yan ordered a retreat; Wang Jian seized this opportunity to launch a swift assault. The Qin forces pursued the retreating Chu forces to Qinan (; northwest of present-day Qichun in Hubei) and Xiang Yan was either killed in the action or committed suicide following his defeat.


title: Chu (state)

text: The next year, in 223 BCE, Qin launched another campaign and captured the Chu capital Shouchun. King Fuchu was captured and his state annexed. The following year, Wang Jian and Meng Wu led the Qin army against Wuyue around the mouth of the Yangtze, capturing the descendants of the royal family of Yue. These conquered territories became the Kuaiji Prefecture of the Qin Empire.


title: Chu (state)

text: At their peak, Chu and Qin together fielded over 1,000,000 troops, more than the massive Battle of Changping between Qin and Zhao 35 years before. The excavated personal letters of two regular Qin soldiers, Hei Fu () and Jing (), tell of a protracted campaign in Huaiyang under Wang Jian. Both soldiers wrote letters requesting supplies of clothing and money from home to sustain the long waiting campaign.


title: Chu (state)

text: The Chu populace in areas conquered by Qin openly ignored the stringent Qin laws and governance, as recorded in the excavated bamboo slips of a Qin administrator in Hubei. Chu aspired to overthrow the painful yoke of Qin rule and re-establishing a separate state. The attitude was captured in a Chinese expression about implacable hostility: "Though Chu have but three clans, Qin surely be perished by none other but Chu" ().


title: Chu (state)

text: After Ying Zheng declared himself the First Emperor (Shi Huangdi) and reigned briefly, the people of Chu and its former ruling house organized the first violent insurrections against the new Qin administration. They were especially resentful of the Qin corvée; folk poems record the mournful sadness of Chu families whose men worked in the frigid north to construct the Great Wall of China.


title: Chu (state)

text: The Dazexiang Uprising occurred in 209 BCE under the leadership of a Chu peasant, Chen Sheng, who proclaimed himself "King of Rising Chu" ("Zhangchu"). This uprising was crushed by the Qin army but it inspired a new wave of other rebellions. One of the leaders, Jing Ju of Chu, proclaimed himself the new king of Chu. Jing Ju was defeated by another rebel force under Xiang Liang. Xiang installed Xiong Xin, a scion of Chu's traditional royal family, on the throne of Chu under the regnal name King Huai II. In 206 BCE, after the fall of the Qin Empire, Xiang Yu, Xiang Liang's nephew, proclaimed himself the "Hegemon-King of Western Chu" and promoted King Huai II to "Emperor Yi". He subsequently had Yi assassinated. Xiang Yu then engaged with Liu Bang, another prominent anti-Qin rebel, in a long struggle for supremacy over the lands of the former Qin Empire, which became known as the Chu–Han Contention. The conflict ended in victory for Liu Bang: he proclaimed the Han dynasty and was later honored with the temple name Gaozu, while Xiang Yu committed suicide in defeat.


title: Chu (state)

text: Liu Bang immediately enacted a more traditional and less intrusive administration than the Qin before him, made peace with the Xiongnu through heqin intermarriages, rewarded his allies with large fiefdoms, and allowed the population to rest from centuries of warfare. The core Chu territories centered in Pengcheng was granted first to general Han Xin and then to Liu Bang's brother Liu Jiao as the Kingdom of Chu. By the time of Emperor Wu of Han, the southern folk culture and aesthetics were mixed with the Han-sponsored Confucian tradition and Qin-influenced central governance to create a distinct "Chinese" culture.


title: Chu (state)

text: Based on the archaeological finds, Chu's culture was initially quite similar to that of the other Zhou states of the Yellow River basin. However, subsequently, Chu absorbed indigenous elements from the Baiyue lands that it conquered to the south and east, developing a blended culture compared to the northern plains.


title: Chu (state)

text: During the Western Zhou period, the difference between the culture of Chu and the Central Plains states to the north was negligible. Only in the late Spring and Autumn Period does Chu culture begin to diverge, preserving some older aspects of the culture and developing new phenomena. It also absorbed some elements from annexed areas. The culture of Chu had significant internal diversity from locality to locality. Chu, like Qin and Yan, was often described as being not as cultured by people in the Central plains. However, this image originated with the later development of Chu relative to the Central plains, and the stereotype was retrospectively cultivated by Confucian scholars in the Qin dynasty, to indirectly criticise the ruling regime, and the Han dynasty as a means of curbing their ideological opponents who were associated with such cultural practices. As the founder of the Han dynasty was from the state, Chu culture would later become a basis of the culture of the later Han dynasty, along with that of the Qin dynasty's and other preceding states' from the Warring States period.


title: Chu (state)

text: Early Chu burial offerings consisted primarily of bronze vessels in the Zhou style. The bronze wares of the state of Chu also have their own characteristics. For example, the bronze Jin (altar table) unearthed from the Chu tomb in Xichuan, Henan Province are complex in shape. Dated to the mid sixth century BCE, it was one of the early confirmed lost-wax cast artifacts discovered in China proper. Later Chu burials, especially during the Warring States, featured distinct burial objects, such as colorful lacquerware, iron, and silk, accompanied by a reduction in bronze vessel offerings.


title: Chu (state)

text: A common Chu motif was the vivid depiction of wildlife, mystical animals, and natural imagery, such as snakes, dragons, phoenixes, tigers, and free-flowing clouds and serpent-like beings. Some archaeologists speculate that Chu may have had cultural connections to the previous Shang dynasty, since many motifs used by Chu appeared earlier at Shang sites such as serpent-tailed gods.


title: Chu (state)

text: Later Chu culture was known for its affinity for shamans. The Chu culture and government supported Taoism and native shamanism supplemented with some Confucian glosses on Zhou ritual. Chu people affiliated themselves with the god of fire Zhurong in Chinese mythology. For this reason, fire worshiping and red coloring were practiced by Chu people.


title: Chu (state)

text: The naturalistic and flowing art, the "Songs of Chu", historical records, excavated bamboo documents such as the Guodian slips, and other artifacts reveal heavy Taoist and native folk influence in Chu culture. The disposition to a spiritual, often pleasurable and decadent lifestyle, and the confidence in the size of the Chu realm led to the inefficiency and eventual destruction of the Chu state by the ruthless Legalist state of Qin. Even though the Qin realm lacked the vast natural resources and waterways of Chu, the Qin government maximized its output under the efficient minister Shang Yang, installing a meritocracy focused solely on agricultural and military might.


title: Chu (state)

text: Archaeological evidence shows that Chu music was annotated differently from Zhou. Chu music also showed an inclination for using different performance ensembles, as well as unique instruments. In Chu, the "se" was preferred over the zither, while both instruments were equally preferred in the northern Zhou states.


title: Chu (state)

text: Chu came into frequent contact with other peoples in the south, most notably the Ba, Yue, and the Baiyue. Numerous burials and burial objects in the Ba and Yue styles have been discovered throughout the territory of Chu, co-existing with Chu-style burials and burial objects.


title: Chu (state)

text: Some archaeological records of the Chu appear at Mawangdui. After the Han dynasty, some Confucian scholars considered Chu culture with distaste, criticizing the "lewd" music and shamanistic rituals associated with Chu culture.


title: Chu (state)

text: Chu artisanship includes color, especially the lacquer woodworks. Red and black pigmented lacquer were most used. Silk-weaving also attained a high level of craftsmanship, creating lightweight robes with flowing designs. These examples (as at Mawangdui) were preserved in waterlogged tombs where the lacquer did not peel off over time and in tombs sealed with coal or white clay.


title: Chu (state)

text: Chu used the calligraphic script called "Birds and Worms" style, which was borrowed by the Wu and Yue states. It has a design that embellishes the characters with motifs of animals, snakes, birds, and insects. This is another representation of the natural world and its liveliness. Chu produced broad bronze swords that were similar to Wuyue swords but not as intricate.


title: Chu (state)

text: Chu created a riverine transport system of boats augmented by wagons. These are detailed in bronze tallies with gold inlay regarding trade along the river systems connecting with those of the Chu capital at Ying.


title: Chu (state)

text: Although bronze inscriptions from the ancient state of Chu show little linguistic differences from the "Elegant Speech" (yǎyán 雅言) during the Eastern Zhou period, the variety of Old Chinese spoken in Chu has long been assumed to reflect lexical borrowings and syntactical interferences from non-Sinitic substrates, which the Chu may have acquired as a result of its southern migration into what Tian Jizhou believed to be a Kra-Dai or (para-) Hmong-Mien area in southern China. Recent excavated texts, corroborated by dialect words recorded in the "Fangyan", further demonstrated substrate influences, but there are competing hypotheses on their genealogical affiliation.


title: Chu (state)

text: Noticing that both 荆 "Jīng" and 楚 "Chǔ" refer to the thorny chaste tree (genus Vitex), Schuessler (2007) proposes two Austroasiatic comparanda:


title: Chu (state)

text: The Mo'ao () and the Lingyin () were the top government officials of Chu. Sima was the military commander of Chu's army. Lingyin, Mo'ao and Sima were the San Gong () of Chu. In the Spring and Autumn period, Zuoyin () and Youyin () were added as the undersecretaries of Lingyin. Likewise, Sima () was assisted by Zuosima () and Yousima () respectively. Mo'ao's status was gradually lowered while Lingyin and Sima became more powerful posts in the Chu court.


title: Chu (state)

text: Ministers whose functions vary according to their titles were called Yin (). For example: Lingyin (Prime minister), Gongyin (Minister of works), and Zhenyin were all suffixed by the word "Yin". Shenyin () was the minister of religious duties or the high priest of Chu, multiple entries in Zuo Zhuan indicated their role as oracles. Other Yins recorded by history were: Yuyin, Lianyin, Jiaoyin, Gongjiyin, Lingyin, Huanlie Zhi Yin (Commander of Palace guards) and Yueyin (Minister of Music). In counties and commanderies, Gong (), also known as Xianyin (minister of county) was the chief administrator.


title: Chu (state)

text: In many cases, positions in Chu's bureaucracy were hereditarily held by members of a cadet branch of Chu's royal house of Mi. Mo'ao, one of the three chancellors of Chu, was exclusively chosen from Qu () clan. During the early spring and autumn period and before the Ruo'ao rebellion, Lingyin was a position held by Ruo'aos, namely Dou () and Cheng ().


title: Chu (state)

text: Progenitors of Chu such as viscount Xiong Yi were said to originate from the Jing Mountains; a chain of mountains located in today's Hubei province. Rulers of Chu systematically migrated states annexed by Chu to the Jing mountains in order to control them more efficiently. East of Jing mountains are the Tu () mountains. In the north-east part of Chu are the Dabie mountains; the drainage divide of Huai river and Yangtse river. The first capital of Chu, Danyang () was located in today's Zhijiang, Hubei province. Ying (), one of the later capitals of Chu, is known by its contemporary name Jingzhou. In Chu's northern border lies the Fangcheng mountain. Strategically, Fangcheng is an ideal defense against states of central plain. Due to its strategic value, numerous castles were built on the Fangcheng mountain.


title: Chu (state)

text: Yunmeng Ze in Jianghan Plain was an immense freshwater lake that historically existed in Chu's realm, It was crossed by Yanzi river, the northern Yunmeng was named Meng (), the southern Yunmeng was known as Yun (). The lake's body covers parts of today's Zhijiang, Jianli, Shishou, Macheng, Huanggang, and Anlu.


title: Chu (state)

text: Shaoxi Pass was an important outpost in the mountainous western border of Chu. It was located in today's Wuguan town of Danfeng County, Shaanxi. Any forces that marched from the west, mainly from Qin, to Chu's realm would have to pass Shaoxi.


title: Chu (state)

text: In traditional Chinese astronomy, Chu is represented by a star in the "Twelve States" asterism, part of the "Girl" lunar mansion in the "Black Turtle" symbol. Opinions differ, however, as to whether that star is Phi or 24 Capricorni. It is also represented by the star Epsilon Ophiuchi in the "Right Wall" asterism in the "Heavenly Market" enclosure.


title: Days Like These (TV series)

text: Days Like These is a British TV remake of the popular American sitcom "That '70s Show". Directed by Bob Spiers, it was broadcast Fridays at 8.30 pm on ITV in 1999 and used many of the same names (Eric Forman, Kitty Forman), or slight alterations (Donna Palmer instead of Donna Pinciotti, Jackie Burget instead of Jackie Burkhart, etc.). It was set in the real-life town of Luton, England, in the 1970s. It was cancelled after six episodes and only 10 of the 13 produced episodes were aired.


title: Robert Plant discography

text: After the breakup of Led Zeppelin in 1980 (following the death of drummer John Bonham), Robert Plant pursued a successful solo career comprising eleven studio albums, two compilation albums, three video albums, four collaborative albums, and 42 singles. He began his solo career with "Pictures at Eleven" in 1982, followed by 1983's "The Principle of Moments". Popular tracks from this period include "Big Log" (a Top 20 hit in 1983), "In the Mood" (1984), "Little by Little" (from 1985's "Shaken 'n' Stirred"), "Tall Cool One" (a No. 25 hit off 1988's "Now and Zen"), "Manic Nirvana" "Hurting Kind (I've Got My Eyes on You)" (1990), and "I Believe" (from 1993's "Fate of Nations"), another song written for and dedicated to his late son, Karac. In 1984, Plant formed a short-lived all-star group with Jimmy Page and Jeff Beck called the Honeydrippers, who had a No. 3 hit with a remake of the Phil Phillips' tune, "Sea of Love" and a follow-up hit with a cover of Roy Brown's "Rockin' at Midnight". Although Plant avoided performing Led Zeppelin songs through much of this period, his tours in 1983 (with drummer Phil Collins) and 1985 were very successful, often performing to sold-out arena-sized venues.


title: Robert Plant discography

text: In 2007, Plant collaborated with bluegrass and country music artist Alison Krauss. They released the critically accepted "Raising Sand" on 23 October 2007, via Krauss' record label, Rounder Records. The album proved to be a success, debuting at No. 2 on the all-genre "Billboard" 200 and No. 2 on the Top Country Albums chart. It was an international success as well, being certified Platinum in many countries. In 2008, the album's first single, "Gone, Gone, Gone (Done Moved On)", won the Grammy Award for Best Pop Collaboration with Vocals at the 50th Grammy Awards. At the 51st Grammy Awards, the album won all five categories in which it was nominated – Album of the Year, Best Contemporary Folk Album, Record of the Year (for "Please Read the Letter"), Best Pop Collaboration with Vocals (for "Rich Woman"), and the Grammy Award for Best Country Collaboration with Vocals (for "Killing the Blues").


title: Giphy

text: Giphy ( ), styled as GIPHY, is an American online database and search engine that allows users to search for and share short looping videos with no sound that resemble animated GIF files.


title: Giphy

text: Giphy was founded by Alex Chung and Jace Cooke in February 2013. The idea for the business came when the pair was having breakfast, musing on the rising trend of purely visual communication.


title: Giphy

text: When Chung and Cooke first launched Giphy, the website functioned solely as a search engine for GIFs. According to Chung, Giphy attracted around a million users during its first week and the figure leveled out to 300,000.


title: Giphy

text: Giphy features what its founders called as "conversational search" wherein contents are brought to users' conversations through a search box found in their messaging applications.


title: Giphy

text: In August 2013, Giphy expanded beyond a search engine to allow users to post, embed and share GIFs on Facebook. Giphy was then recognized as a Top 100 Website of 2013, according to "PC Magazine". Three months later, Giphy integrated with Twitter to enable users to share GIFs by simply sharing a GIF's URL.


title: Giphy

text: In May 2014, Giphy raised $2.4 million in a Series A funding round from investors, including Quire, CAA Ventures, RRE Ventures, Lerer Hippeau Ventures, and Betaworks.


title: Giphy

text: In March 2015, Giphy acquired Nutmeg, a GIF messaging service, as one of the company's first major steps towards the mobile industry. This coincided with the launch of Facebook Messenger's own development platform, in which Giphy joined a few exclusive apps in its debut.


title: Giphy

text: In August 2015, Giphy launched its second mobile app, GIPHY Cam, which allows users to create and share GIFs on a social network.


title: Giphy

text: In October 2016, Giphy announced several statistics, including the statement that it had 100 million daily active users, that it served over 1 billion GIFs per day, and that visitors watched more than 2 million hours of GIF content every day.


title: Giphy

text: In July 2017, Giphy announced that it had 200 million daily active users between both the API and website, with around 250 million monthly active users on the website.


title: Giphy

text: Chung announced in a February 2019 New York event that Giphy was exploring an advertising scheme that is distinguished from the Google model, which shows ads according to users' search histories. The idea is to embed advertising in private messages. Giphy is seeking to take advantage of this landscape since the GIG database has been integrated into most messaging services.


title: Giphy

text: In May 2020, it was announced that Giphy had agreed to be acquired by Facebook Inc. (now Meta Platforms), with a reported purchase price of $400 million. Facebook services had accounted for roughly half of Giphy's overall traffic. Giphy was to be integrated with the staff of Facebook subsidiary Instagram, although Facebook stated that there would be no immediate changes to the service. Facebook discontinued Giphy's display advertising program upon the purchase.


title: Giphy

text: The acquisition faced scrutiny due to recent privacy scandals surrounding Facebook. The United Kingdom's Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) argued that the deal was potentially anti-competitive and began a probe. In June 2020, the CMA issued an enforcement order prohibiting Giphy from being fully integrated into Facebook, pending a future ruling.


title: Giphy

text: In August 2021, the CMA issued preliminary findings, arguing that there was the risk that Facebook could pull Giphy's services from competitors, or require them to provide more user data as a condition of service. It also showed concerns over the market share of Facebook's advertising services. On November 30, 2021, the CMA ruled that Meta would be required to divest Giphy. On July 18, 2022, the Competition Appeal Tribunal ordered the CMA to re-evaluate its decision on procedural grounds, as it "failed to properly consult" and "wrongly excised portions" of its decision. It otherwise upheld most of the CMA's original decision.


title: Giphy

text: On October 18, 2022, the CMA ruled for a second time that Meta be required to divest Giphy, stating that Meta already controls half of the advertising in the UK. Meta agreed to the sale, though it stated that it disagrees with the decision itself.


title: Giphy

text: Giphy partners with brands to host GIFs that can be shared as marketing promotions via social media channels. The company also created artist profiles on the website, which allow GIFs to be attributed to the artist(s) who created them.


title: Giphy

text: In September 2014, Giphy partnered with Line to host the inaugural sticker design competition. LINE and GIPHY enlisted a team of digital partners, including Tumblr, Fox ADHD, Frederator, Cut & Paste, New Museum, Eyebeam, Rhizome, The Webby Awards, Pratt, The Huffington Post and Dribbble to support the event.


title: Giphy

text: In August 2015, Universal Studios partnered with Giphy to release six GIFs promoting the new N.W.A-based movie, Straight Outta Compton.


title: Giphy

text: Giphy has partnered with over 200 companies and brands to host all their existing content on their own branded channel. Giphy's partners include Disney, Calvin Klein, GE, and Pepsi.


title: Rodney Hood

text: Rodney Michael Hood (born October 20, 1992) is an American professional basketball player who last played for the Los Angeles Clippers of the National Basketball Association (NBA). He played college basketball for Mississippi State and Duke before declaring for the NBA Draft. Hood was drafted in 2014 by the Utah Jazz; and in 2018, he was dealt to the Cleveland Cavaliers. He was then traded to the Portland Trail Blazers in 2019. He was further traded to the Toronto Raptors in 2021. He signed with the Milwaukee Bucks as a free agent for the 2021-2022 season.


title: Rodney Hood

text: Hood attended Meridian High School in the city of Meridian, Mississippi. As a junior in the 2009–10 season, he averaged 22.1 points, 6.2 rebounds, and 4.4 assists per game while leading the Wildcats to the Class 6A finals. Thus Meridian advanced past each school in the Mississippi High School Activities Association's tournament, only to fall to Starkville in the championship game, 57–51.


title: Rodney Hood

text: As a senior, Hood posted averages of 24.8 points, 8.6 rebounds, 6.4 assists, 3.1 steals, and 2 blocks per contest, as he propelled Meridian to a 29–2 record and helped them capture a Class 6A championship. During the semifinals of that 2010-11 campaign, he tallied 27 points when Meridian defeated Starkville, 72–43; and in the title game against Vicksburg, he scored 24 points en route to the 62–47 victory.


title: Rodney Hood

text: Considered a five-star recruit by Rivals.com, Hood was ranked as the No. 5 small forward and the No. 16 player in the nation in 2011. In October 2010, he committed to Mississippi State University.


title: Rodney Hood

text: Hood's childhood neighbor was Paramore lead singer Hayley Williams; Hood did not know this until March 2021.


title: Rodney Hood

text: As a freshman at Mississippi State, Hood started in 29 of the 32 games that he played for the Bulldogs in 2011–12. He was named to the Southeastern Conference (SEC) All-Freshman Team after averaging 10.3 points, 4.8 rebounds, and 2 assists per contest while shooting 44.3 percent from the field and 36.4 percent from three-point range.


title: Rodney Hood

text: In July 2012, Rodney transferred to Duke University. Despite having to sit out the 2012-13 Duke Blue Devils men's basketball team season in accordance with NCAA transfer rules, he consistently helped the team improve in practice and quickly established himself as one of the top players on the team.


title: Rodney Hood

text: In his second year at Duke, he was selected as the team captain for the Blue Devil's 2013–14 campaign. The six-foot-eight small forward would play in 35 games, starting in 33 of them. He would average 16.1 points, 3.9 rebounds, and 2.1 assists in 32.9 minutes per game. He did so while shooting 46.4 percent from the field, including 42 percent from distance on the season. He earned second-team All-Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC) honors for his performance.


title: Rodney Hood

text: On June 26, 2014, Hood was selected with the 23rd pick in the 2014 NBA draft by the Utah Jazz, later signing his rookie-scale contract with the team on July 11. On March 16, 2015, he finished with a season-best 24 points after converting 9-of-11 shots from the field and 5-of-5 from behind the arc; thus he helped the Jazz beat the Charlotte Hornets, 94–66, their sixth consecutive win.


title: Rodney Hood

text: Having solidified his role in the starting lineup, Hood started in all 79 of the games that he played in 2015–16. He established himself as a go-to offensive option and reliable asset all around. Hood had 61 outings with double digits and 15 with 20-plus points. On January 2, 2016, he posted a career-high 32 points against the Memphis Grizzlies as the Jazz secured a 92–87 win in overtime.


title: Rodney Hood

text: In the 2016–17 season opener on October 25, Hood added 26 points, to include a rim-rattling dunk and consecutive jumpers in the third quarter to give Utah a 77–71 lead, though the Jazz ultimately fell to the Portland Trail Blazers, 113–104. On December 16, 2016, he hit the first game-clincher of his NBA career, pulling up for a three-pointer in transition with 0.8 seconds left; the shot secured a 103–100 victory over the Dallas Mavericks. He finished the contest with 15 points. On January 13, 2017, he scored a season-high 27 points during a 110–77 win over the Detroit Pistons. He recorded a new season-best 28 points on March 5 as the Jazz defeated the Sacramento Kings, 110–109, in overtime.


title: Rodney Hood

text: In the 2017–18 campaign, Hood scored a season-high 25 points, 15 of which were in the third quarter, as he helped the Jazz rally and defeat the Dallas Mavericks, 104–89, on October 30, 2017. On November 18, during a 125–85 victory over the Orlando Magic, he set a new season high with 31 points and did so coming off the bench. Hood did not finish the season with Utah before being traded.


title: Rodney Hood

text: On February 8, 2018, Hood was acquired by the Cleveland Cavaliers in a three-team trade that also involved the Jazz and the Sacramento Kings. In his debut for the Cavaliers three days later, he scored 15 points during a 121–99 win over the Boston Celtics.


title: Rodney Hood

text: On May 7, 2018, Hood refused to enter Game 4 vs the Toronto Raptors with the Cavaliers up 110-80 with 7:38 left in the 4th Quarter over frustrations relating to a lack of playing time. He later apologized.


title: Rodney Hood

text: On September 10, 2018, Hood re-signed with the Cavaliers. On October 30, in a 136–114 victory over the Atlanta Hawks, he scored a season-high 26 points to help snap Cleveland's six-game losing streak.


title: Rodney Hood

text: On February 4, 2019, Hood was traded to the Portland Trail Blazers in exchange for Nik Stauskas, Wade Baldwin IV, and two future second-round picks. On March 3, 2019, he scored a season-high 27 points, all in the second half, in a 118–108 win over the Charlotte Hornets. In Game 6 of the Trail Blazers' second-round playoff series against the Denver Nuggets, Hood scored a playoff career-high 25 points in a 119–108 victory. For the third consecutive season all with different teams, Hood was eliminated from the playoffs in a 4-game sweep by the Golden State Warriors. On December 6, 2019, the Trail Blazers announced that Hood would be out for the rest of the 2019–2020 season and may miss the start of next season as well since he incurred a torn left Achilles during a 136–113 loss to the Los Angeles Lakers.


title: Rodney Hood

text: On March 25, 2021, Hood along with Gary Trent Jr. were traded to the Toronto Raptors in exchange for Norman Powell. On August 3, he was waived by the Raptors.


title: Rodney Hood

text: On August 6, 2021, Hood signed with the Milwaukee Bucks on a one-year, veteran's minimum contract. On December 12, Hood scored a season high 14 points, while shooting 100% from the field, in a 112-97 win over the New York Knicks.


title: Rodney Hood

text: On January 3, 2016, Hood's fiancée and college sweetheart, Richa Jackson, gave birth to the couple's first child, a son.


title: Paul McGrath (footballer)

text: Paul McGrath (born 4 December 1959) is an Irish former professional footballer, who played as a defender. Mainly a centre back, he also played as defensive midfielder. McGrath is widely considered to be one of the greatest Irish players of all time. He spent the majority of his career at Aston Villa and Manchester United (seven seasons apiece). He is one of only six defenders to have won the PFA Players' Player of the Year award. He also played for St Patrick's Athletic, Derby County and Sheffield United.


title: Paul McGrath (footballer)

text: Also a long-time member of the Republic of Ireland national team, he appeared at the 1990 and 1994 FIFA World Cups, as well as UEFA Euro 1988, the team's first-ever international tournament.


title: Paul McGrath (footballer)

text: McGrath was born in Greenford, Middlesex, to a Nigerian father who met his Irish mother during his medical studies in Dublin. His father disappeared soon after his conception. His mother, Betty McGrath, was terrified that her father would find out she had become pregnant outside marriage and in an interracial relationship. She travelled in secret to London to have her child, who was considered illegitimate. She was strongly advised to give her son up for adoption at the Mother and Baby home in Acton, where she refused to do so numerous times. Upon her arrival back in her hometown Paul was forcibly taken away from her, placed with a foster family and later transferred to the Smyly Trust Home. This was arranged and carried out by the Catholic Crusade members in Dublin. It was assumed that Betty McGrath gave him up for fostering in Ireland when he was four weeks old.


title: Paul McGrath (footballer)

text: When he was five years old, one of the daughters of the family he had been fostered by came to Betty to say they could not control him. At that stage his mother had him back for a number of days before having to put him into an orphanage. Despite being Paul McGrath on his birth certificate, the admission form required the name of the father, hence he was known as Paul Nwobilo for a time.


title: Paul McGrath (footballer)

text: McGrath made his debut in a League of Ireland Cup clash with the Shamrock Rovers on 30 August 1981 at Richmond Park. Manager Charlie Walker stated in his notes in the match programme that "Since the end of last season I have been acquiring new players: three are local lads from junior clubs- Billy Reid (Fatima Rangers), Paul McGrath (Dalkey United) and John Cleary (Ballyfermot United). Given a time and a little encouragement I feel that by the end of the season they will have done the club proud." He ultimately excelled at The Saints, earning the nickname "The Black Pearl of Inchicore".


title: Paul McGrath (footballer)

text: In 1982, McGrath moved to Manchester United, then managed by Ron Atkinson. He missed out on a place in the FA Cup victory over Brighton & Hove Albion the following year, but soon ousted Gordon McQueen to become the regular partner to Kevin Moran in the centre of defence.


title: Paul McGrath (footballer)

text: In 1985–86, it appeared that McGrath was on course to pick up a league title medal after United won their first 10 league games of the season, but injuries to key players including Bryan Robson soon took their toll on the side and they eventually finished fourth in the table, 12 points behind champions Liverpool. A dismal start to the 1986–87 season saw Ron Atkinson sacked as manager and replaced by Alex Ferguson in November 1986, but McGrath initially remained a regular member of the first team. United finished second behind Liverpool in the league a year later.


title: Paul McGrath (footballer)

text: By the 1988–89 season, McGrath was struggling with knee injuries and was becoming a less regular member of the first team, facing competition from new signings Steve Bruce and Mal Donaghy. His relationship with manager Ferguson was becoming strained.


title: Paul McGrath (footballer)

text: During the late 1980s McGrath was offered terms at S.S.C. Napoli, but the deal did not come to fruition. McGrath signed for Aston Villa in August 1989. While at Villa, McGrath played some of the best football of his career, despite recurrent problems in his knees. Villa came close to winning the title in McGrath's first season, finishing second to Liverpool. The next season saw the club fighting relegation for much of the campaign, after boss Graham Taylor left to take control of England. Despite the managerial upheaval, McGrath's performances continued to impress. Under Jozef Vengloš, the first top flight manager to hail from the European mainland, McGrath became a consistent mainstay of the Villa line up. After Vengloš' solitary season (1990–91) at Villa, Ron Atkinson took over, building one of the finest sides of the early Premier League era. In the inaugural season of the Premier League (1992–93), Aston Villa again finished as runners-up, behind Manchester United. As a sign of the regard he was now held in by his fellow professionals, McGrath won the PFA Players' Player of the Year award at the end of the season.


title: Paul McGrath (footballer)

text: He played his final game as a professional for Sheffield United against Ipswich Town on 9 November 1997, just before his 38th birthday. He officially retired at the end of the season.


title: Paul McGrath (footballer)

text: In 1990, the Republic of Ireland qualified for its first FIFA World Cup, in 1990 in Italy, eventually reaching the quarter-finals, where they lost to the hosts (1–0 in Rome), with McGrath ever present in the lineups (five matches, 480 minutes played). He captained the team four times in 1992 after the retirement of Mick McCarthy.


title: Paul McGrath (footballer)

text: In the Republic of Ireland's opening game of the 1994 World Cup – a 1–0 win against favourites Italy, thanks to Ray Houghton's early goal – in a perfect example of his commitment to the game, McGrath put up an astonishing defensive performance in spite of excruciating knee problems, including blocking a shot from Roberto Baggio with his face.


title: Paul McGrath (footballer)

text: McGrath suffers from alcoholism, and missed occasional matches as a result. In an interview with FourFourTwo, he admitted to playing football while still under the influence of alcohol; additionally, his recurrent knee problems resulted in him undergoing a total of eight operations during his career. McGrath's autobiography, "Back from the Brink", co-written with journalist Vincent Hogan, was the inaugural winner of the William Hill Irish Sports Book of the Year (2006).


title: Paul McGrath (footballer)

text: Upon retiring, he settled in Monageer, County Wexford. In 2004, one year after being taken to court, charged with a breach of the peace, McGrath returned to the football world after five years, moving to Waterford United in Ireland as director of football.


title: Paul McGrath (footballer)

text: In 2011, McGrath recorded a cover version of the Gerry Goffin and Carole King song "Goin' Back". He followed that single up with an 11 track album released in 2011 with profits going to his two designated charities the Acquired Brain Injury Foundation and the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation of Ireland.


title: Paul McGrath (footballer)

text: On 29 June 2013, McGrath was arrested over an alleged public order offence at a hotel in County Offaly. He was bailed and appeared at Tullamore district court on 17 July.