title: Drinking from shoes

text: Daniel Ricciardo introduced the trend to Formula One in 2016, when he celebrated a podium finish at the by performing a champagne shoey. Ricciardo repeated the stunt at the following , this time sharing it with Mark Webber. On the podium of the , winner Ricciardo shared his shoey with his second-placed teammate Max Verstappen and third-placed Nico Rosberg as well as his team boss Christian Horner. Scottish actor Gerard Butler drank Red Bull from a shoe with Ricciardo at the US Grand Prix podium, as did Patrick Stewart on the podium of the 2017 Canadian Grand Prix. Ricciardo shared his shoey with Canadian rookie driver Lance Stroll on the podium of the 2017 Azerbaijan Grand Prix, which was Stroll's first podium of his F1 career and Ricciardo's fifth win. Ricciardo credits the creation of the shoey to "a few Aussies called the Mad Hueys", saying that they "basically travel the world fishing and surfing and they like to drink a lot of beer – so that's where the shoey began". The shoey made its return to Formula One at the 2020 Emilia Romagna Grand Prix, where third-place finisher Daniel Ricciardo and race winner Lewis Hamilton drank champagne out of both of Ricciardo's race shoes. He then repeated it at the 2021 Italian Grand Prix, where Ricciardo led a McLaren 1-2, sharing the shoey with his teammate Lando Norris and McLaren CEO Zak Brown.


title: Drinking from shoes

text: On the podium of the 2017 Austrian Grand Prix, interviewer Martin Brundle drank from third-placed Ricciardo's shoe, but winner Valtteri Bottas and runner-up Sebastian Vettel declined the offer. Australian cricketer Andrew Tye had promised to do the shoey if his team Kings XI Punjab would have won the Indian Premier League in 2019.


title: Drinking from shoes

text: The shoey was popular during the Cronulla-Sutherland Sharks 2016 season when it became a tradition for fans to perform shoeys at games. This coincided with the club winning their first NRL premiership at the end of the season, with numerous players such as James Maloney doing shoeys at celebrations.


title: Drinking from shoes

text: Commonly, Hash House Harriers who wear new shoes to an event can be required to drink from that shoe.


title: Drinking from shoes

text: After ultramarathoner Des Linden won the 2018 Boston Marathon, she drank champagne from one of her running shoes. She did the same after setting the women's world record 50k time.


title: Drinking from shoes

text: Australian MMA fighter Tai Tuivasa is known for doing shoeys immediately after his victories. Tai Tuivasa once again celebrated the shoey after his second-round knockout of Derrick Lewis; thus, stapling (as it's called) is his signature win celebration.


title: Drinking from shoes

text: In 2021, Australian cricketers Matthew Wade and Marcus Stoinis did a shoey to celebrate after winning the T20 World Cup on 14th November.


title: Drinking from shoes

text: In February 2022, New Zealand racing driver Scott McLaughlin celebrated his first win in IndyCar at St. Petersburg with a shoey, using a can of beer in lieu of champagne.


title: Drinking from shoes

text: In April 2022, the AFLW coach for Brisbane, Craig Starcevich, did a shoey after being coaxed into doing one by Emily Bates to celebrate being voted as the league's best and fairest player for 2022.


title: Drinking from shoes

text: In December 2022, WWE Superstar Grayson Waller celebrated his win in the Iron Survivor Challenge at NXT Deadline with a shoey.


title: Drinking from shoes

text: Several ancient Islamic hadiths depict people offering water to animals in their shoes. One medieval Ethiopian story depicts the Virgin Mary kindly offering water to a thirsty dog in her shoe.


title: United States and state-sponsored terrorism

text: The United States has at various times in recent history provided support to terrorist and paramilitary organizations around the world. It has also provided assistance to numerous authoritarian regimes that have used state terrorism as a tool of repression.


text: American support for non-state terrorists has been prominent in Latin America and the Middle East. From 1981 to 1991, the United States provided weapons, training, and extensive financial and logistical support to the Contra rebels in Nicaragua, who used terror tactics in their fight against the Nicaraguan government. At various points the United States also provided training, arms, and funds to terrorists among Cuban exiles, such as Orlando Bosch and Luis Posada Carriles.


text: Various reasons have been given to justify this support. These include destabilizing political movements that might have aligned with the Soviet Union during the Cold War, including popular democratic and socialist movements. Such support has also formed a part of the war on drugs. Support was often geared toward ensuring a conducive environment for American corporate interests abroad, especially when these interests came under threat from democratic governments.


text: The Years of Lead was a period of socio-political turmoil in Italy that lasted from the late 1960s into the early 1980s. This period was marked by a wave of terrorism carried out by both right-wing and left-wing paramilitary groups. It was concluded that the former were supported by the United States as a strategy of tension.


text: General , commander of the counter-intelligence section of the Italian military intelligence service from 1971 to 1975, stated that his men in the region of Venice discovered a right-wing terrorist cell that had been supplied with military explosives from Germany, and alleged that US intelligence services instigated and abetted right-wing terrorism in Italy during the 1970s.


text: According to the investigation of Italian judge Guido Salvini, the neo-fascist organizations involved in the strategy of tension, ""La Fenice", "Avanguardia nazionale", "Ordine nuovo"" were the "troops" of "clandestine armed forces", directed by components of the "state apparatus related to the CIA."


text: Any relationship of the CIA to the terrorist attacks perpetrated in Italy during the Years of Lead is the subject of debate. Switzerland and Belgium have had parliamentary inquiries into the matter.


text: The Piazza Fontana Bombing was a terrorist attack that occurred on December 12, 1969 at 16:37, when a bomb exploded at the headquarters of Banca Nazionale dell'Agricoltura (National Agrarian Bank) in Piazza Fontana in Milan, killing 17 people and wounding 88. The same afternoon, three more bombs were detonated in Rome and Milan, and another was found undetonated.


text: In 1998, Milan judge Guido Salvini indicted U.S. Navy officer David Carrett on charges of political and military espionage for his alleged participation in the Piazza Fontana bombing et al. Salvini also opened up a case against Sergio Minetto, an Italian official of the U.S.-NATO intelligence network, and "collaboratore di giustizia" Carlo Digilio (Uncle Otto), who served as the CIA coordinator in Northeastern Italy in the sixties and seventies. The newspaper "la Repubblica" reported that Carlo Rocchi, CIA's man in Milan, was discovered in 1995 searching for information concerning Operation Gladio.


text: A 2000 parliamentary report published by the center-left Olive Tree coalition claimed that "U.S. intelligence agents were informed in advance about several right-wing terrorist bombings, including the December 1969 Piazza Fontana bombing in Milan and the Piazza della Loggia bombing in Brescia five years later, but did nothing to alert the Italian authorities or to prevent the attacks from taking place." It also alleged that Pino Rauti (current leader of the MSI Fiamma-Tricolore party), a journalist and founder of the far-right Ordine Nuovo (New Order) subversive organization, received regular funding from a press officer at the U.S. embassy in Rome. "So even before the 'stabilising' plans that Atlantic circles had prepared for Italy became operational through the bombings, one of the leading members of the subversive right was literally in the pay of the American embassy in Rome", the report says.


text: Paolo Emilio Taviani, the Christian Democrat co-founder of Gladio (NATO's stay-behind anti-Communist organization in Italy), told investigators that the SID military intelligence service was about to send a senior officer from Rome to Milan to prevent the bombing, but decided to send a different officer from Padua in order to put the blame on left-wing anarchists. Taviani also alleged in an August 2000 interview to "Il Secolo XIX" newspaper: "It seems to me certain, however, that agents of the CIA were among those who supplied the materials and who muddied the waters of the investigation."


text: Guido Salvini said "The role of the Americans was ambiguous, halfway between knowing and not preventing and actually inducing people to commit atrocities."


text: According to Vincenzo Vinciguerra, the terrorist attack was supposed to push then Interior Minister Mariano Rumor to declare a state of emergency.


text: From 1979 to 1990, the United States provided financial, logistical and military support to the Contra rebels in Nicaragua, who used terrorist tactics in their war against the Nicaraguan government and carried out more than 1300 terrorist attacks. This support persisted despite widespread knowledge of the human rights violations committed by the Contras.


text: In 1979, the Sandinista National Liberation Front (FSLN) overthrew the dictatorial regime of Anastasio Somoza Debayle, and established a revolutionary government in Nicaragua. The Somoza dynasty had been receiving military and financial assistance from the United States since 1936. Following their seizure of power, the Sandinistas ruled the country first as part of a Junta of National Reconstruction, and later as a democratic government following free and fair elections in 1984.


text: The Sandinistas did not attempt to create a communist society or communist economic system; instead, their policy advocated a social democracy and a mixed economy. The government sought the aid of Western Europe, who were opposed to the U.S. embargo against Nicaragua, to escape dependency on the Soviet Union. However, the U.S. administration viewed the leftist Sandinista government as undemocratic and totalitarian under the ties of the Soviet-Cuban model and tried to paint the Contras as freedom fighters.


text: The Sandinista government headed by Daniel Ortega won decisively in the 1984 Nicaraguan elections. The U.S. government explicitly planned to back the Contras, various rebel groups collectively that were formed in response to the rise of the Sandinistas, as a means to damage the Nicaraguan economy and force the Sandinista government to divert its scarce resources toward the army and away from social and economic programs.


text: The United States began to support Contra activities against the Sandinista government by December 1981, with the CIA at the forefront of operations. The CIA provided the Contras with planning and operational direction and assistance, weapons, food, and training, in what was described as the "most ambitious" covert operation in more than a decade.


text: One of the purposes the CIA hoped to achieve by these operations was an aggressive and violent response from the Sandinista government which in turn could be used as a pretext for further military actions.


text: The Contra campaign against the government included frequent and widespread acts of terror. The economic and social reforms enacted by the government enjoyed some popularity; as a result, the Contras attempted to disrupt these programs. This campaign included the destruction of health centers and hospitals that the Sandinista government had established, in order to disrupt their control over the populace. Schools were also destroyed, as the literacy campaign conducted by the government was an important part of its policy. The Contras also committed widespread kidnappings, murder, and rape. The kidnappings and murder were a product of the "low-intensity warfare" that the Reagan Doctrine prescribed as a way to disrupt social structures and gain control over the population. Also known as "unconventional warfare", advocated for and defined by the World Anti-Communist League's (WACL) retired U.S. Army Major General John Singlaub as, "low intensity actions, such as sabotage, terrorism, assassination and guerrilla warfare". In some cases, more indiscriminate killing and destruction also took place. The Contras also carried out a campaign of economic sabotage, and disrupted shipping by planting underwater mines in Nicaragua's Port of Corinto. The Reagan administration supported this by imposing a full trade embargo.


text: In fiscal year 1984, the U.S. Congress approved $24 million in aid to the contras. However, the Reagan administration lost a lot of support for its Contra policy after CIA involvement in the mining of Nicaraguan ports became public knowledge, and a report of the Bureau of Intelligence and Research commissioned by the State Department found that Reagan had exaggerated claims about Soviet interference in Nicaragua. Congress cut off all funds for the contras in 1985 with the third Boland Amendment.


text: As a result, the Reagan administration sought to provide funds from other sources. Between 1984 and 1986, $34 million was routed through third countries and $2.7 million through private sources. These funds were run through the National Security Council, by Lt. Col. Oliver North, who created an organization called "The Enterprise" which served as the secret arm of the NSC staff and had its own airplanes, pilots, airfield, ship, and operatives. It also received assistance from other government agencies, especially from CIA personnel in Central America. These efforts culminated in the Iran-Contra Affair of 1986–1987, which facilitated funding for the Contras using the proceeds of arms sales to Iran. Money was also raised for the Contras through drug trafficking, which the United States was aware of. U.S. Senator John Kerry's 1988 Committee on Foreign Relations report on Contra drug links concluded that "senior U.S. policy makers were not immune to the idea that drug money was a perfect solution to the Contras' funding problems".


text: Throughout the Nicaraguan Civil War, the Reagan government conducted a campaign to shift public opinion to favor support for the Contras, and to change the vote in Congress to favor of that support. For this purpose, the National Security Council authorized the production and distribution of publications that looked favorably at the Contras, also known as "white propaganda," written by paid consultants who did not disclose their connection to the administration. It also arranged for speeches and press conferences conveying the same message. The U.S. government continually discussed the Contras in highly favorable terms; Reagan called them the "moral equivalent of the founding fathers." Another common theme the administration played on was the idea of returning Nicaragua to democracy, which analysts characterized as "curious," because Nicaragua had been a U.S.-supported dictatorship prior to the Sandinista revolution, and had never had a democratic government before the Sandinistas. There were also continued efforts to label the Sandinistas as undemocratic, although the 1984 Nicaraguan elections were generally declared fair by historians.


text: Commentators stated that this was all a part of an attempt to return Nicaragua to the state of its Central American neighbors; that is, where traditional social structures remained and American imperialist ideas were not threatened. The investigation into the Iran-Contra affair led to the operation being called a massive exercise in psychological warfare.


text: The CIA wrote a manual for the Contras, entitled Psychological Operations in Guerrilla Warfare (""), which focused mainly on how "Armed Propaganda Teams" could build political support in Nicaragua for the Contra cause through deceit, intimidation, and violence. The manual discussed assassinations. The CIA claimed that the purpose of the manual was to "moderate" the extreme violence already being used by the Contras.


text: Leslie Cockburn writes that the CIA, and therefore indirectly the U.S. government and President Reagan, encouraged Contra terrorism by issuing the manual to the contras, violating Reagan's own Presidential Directive. Cockburn wrote that "[t]he manual, "Psychological Operations in Guerrilla Warfare", clearly advocated a strategy of terror as the means to victory over the hearts and minds of Nicaraguans. Chapter headings such as 'Selective Use of Violence for propagandistic Effects' and 'Implicit and Explicit Terror' made that fact clear enough. ... The little booklet thus violated President Reagan's own Presidential Directive 12333, signed in December 1981, which prohibited any U.S. government employee—including the CIA—from having anything to do with assassinations."


text: In 1984, the Nicaraguan government filed a suit in the International Court of Justice (ICJ) against the United States. Nicaragua stated that the Contras were completely created and managed by the U.S. Although this claim was rejected, the court found overwhelming and undeniable evidence of a very close relationship between the Contras and the United States. The U.S. was found to have had a very large role in providing financial support, training, weapons, and other logistical support to the Contras over a lengthy period of time, and that this support was essential to the Contras.


text: In the same year, the ICJ ordered the United States to stop mining Nicaraguan harbors, and respect Nicaraguan sovereignty. A few months later, the court ruled that it did have jurisdiction in the case, contrary to what the U.S. had argued. The ICJ found that the U.S. had encouraged violations of international humanitarian law by assisting paramilitary actions in Nicaragua. The court also criticized the production of a manual on psychological warfare by the U.S. and its dissemination of the Contras. The manual, amongst other things, provided advice on rationalizing the killing of civilians, and on targeted murder. The manual also included an explicit description of the use of "implicit terror."


text: Having initially argued that the ICJ lacked jurisdiction in the case, the United States withdrew from the proceedings in 1985. The court eventually ruled in favor of Nicaragua, and judged that the United States was required to pay reparations for its violation of International law. The U.S. used its veto on the United Nations Security Council to block the enforcement of the ICJ judgement, and thereby prevented Nicaragua from obtaining any compensation.


text: Starting in 1961 the U.S. government, through the military and the Central Intelligence Agency, engaged in an extensive campaign of state-sponsored terrorism against civilian and military targets in Cuba. The terrorist attacks killed a significant number of civilians. The U.S. armed, trained, funded and directed the terrorists, largely Cuban expatriates. Andrew Bacevich, Professor of International Relations and History at Boston University, wrote of the campaign:


text: Among the most prominent of these terrorists were Orlando Bosch and Luis Posada Carriles, who were implicated in the 1976 bombing of a Cuban plane. Bosch was also held to be responsible for 30 other terrorist acts, while Carriles was a former CIA agent convicted of numerous terrorist acts committed while he was linked to the agency. Other Cuban exiles involved in terrorist acts, Jose Dionisio Suarez and Virgilio Paz Romero, two other Cuban exiles who assassinated the Chilean diplomat Orlando Letelier in Washington in 1976, were also released by the administration of George H.W. Bush.


text: Bosch was a contemporary of Fidel Castro at the University of Havana, where he was involved with the student cells that eventually became a part of the Cuban revolution. However, Bosch became disillusioned with Castro's regime, and participated in a failed rebellion in 1960. He became the leader of the Insurrectional Movement of Revolutionary Recovery (MIRR), and also joined efforts to assassinate Castro along with Luis Posada Carriles. The CIA later confirmed that they had received support from Bosch in 1962, but ceased contact with him after he requested financial support to mount airstrikes against Cuba in 1963. He was the head of Coordination of United Revolutionary Organizations, which the FBI has described as "an anti-Castro terrorist umbrella organization". Former U.S. Attorney General Dick Thornburgh called Bosch an "unrepentant terrorist".


text: In 1968, he was convicted of firing a bazooka at a Polish cargo ship bound for Havana that had been docked in Miami. He was sentenced to 10 years in prison and released on parole in 1974. He immediately broke parole and traveled around Latin America. He was eventually arrested in Venezuela for planning to bomb the Cuban embassy there. The Venezuelan government offered to extradite him to the United States, but the offer was declined. He was released quickly and moved to Chile, and according to the US government, spent two years attempting postal bombings of Cuban embassies in four countries.


text: Bosch eventually ended up in the Dominican Republic, where he joined the effort to consolidate Cuban exile militants into the Coordination of United Revolutionary Organizations (CORU). The CORU's operations included the failed assassination of the Cuban ambassador to Argentina, and the bombing of the Mexican Embassy in Guatemala City. Along with Posada, he worked with the DINA agent Michael Townley to plan the assassination of Letelier, which was carried out in September 1976. Two other Cuban exiles involved in the assassination, Jose Dionisio Suarez and Virgilio Paz Romero, were later released by the administration of George H.W. Bush. Bosch was also implicated in the 1976 bombing of a Cuban plane flying to Havana from Venezuela in which all 73 civilians on board were killed, although Posada and he were acquitted after a lengthy trial. Documents released subsequently showed that the CIA had a source with advance knowledge of the bombing. The U.S. Justice Department recorded that Bosch was also responsible for 30 other attacks. He returned to Miami, where he was arrested for violating parole. The Justice department recommended that he be deported. However, Bush overturned this recommendation, and had him released from custody with the stipulation that he "renounce" violence.


text: Luis Posada Carriles, a former CIA agent who has been designated by scholars and journalists as a terrorist, also came into contact with Castro during his student days, but fled Cuba after the 1959 revolution, and helped organize the failed Bay of Pigs invasion. Following the invasion, Carriles was trained for a time at the Fort Benning station of the U.S. Army. He then relocated to Venezuela, where he came into contact with Orlando Bosch. Along with Orlando Bosch and others, he founded the Coordination of United Revolutionary Organizations, which has been described as an umbrella of anti-Castro terrorist groups.


text: In 1976, Cubana Flight 455 was blown up in mid-air, killing all 73 people on board. Carriles was arrested for masterminding the operation, and later acquitted. He and several CIA-linked anti-Castro Cuban exiles and members of the Venezuelan intelligence agency DISIP were implicated by the evidence. Political complications quickly arose when Cuba accused the US government of being an accomplice to the attack. CIA documents released in 2005 indicate that the agency "had concrete advance intelligence, as early as June 1976, on plans by Cuban exile terrorist groups to bomb a Cubana airliner." Carriles denies involvement but provides many details of the incident in his book "Los caminos del guerrero" (The Warrior's Paths).


text: After a series of arrests and escapes, Carriles returned to the CIA fold in 1985 by joining their support operations to the Contra terrorists in Nicaragua, which were being run by Oliver North. His job included air dropping military supplies, for which he was paid a significant salary. He later admitted to playing a part in the Iran-Contra affair. In 1997, a series of terrorist bombings occurred in Cuba, and Carriles was implicated. The bombings were said to be targeted at the growing tourism there. Carriles admitted that the lone conviction in the case had been of a mercenary under his command, and also made a confession (later retracted) that he had planned the incident. Human Rights Watch stated that although Carriles might no longer receive active assistance, he benefited from the tolerant attitude of the U.S. government. In 2000, Carriles was arrested and convicted in Panama of attempting to assassinate Fidel Castro.


text: In 2005, Posada was held by U.S. authorities in Texas on a charge of illegal presence on national territory, but the charges were dismissed on May 8, 2007. On September 28, 2005 a U.S. immigration judge ruled that Posada could not be deported, finding that he faced the threat of torture in Venezuela. Likewise, the US government has refused to send Posada to Cuba, saying he might face torture. His release on bail on April 19, 2007 elicited angry reactions from the Cuban and Venezuelan governments. The U.S. Justice Department had urged the court to keep him in jail because he was "an admitted mastermind of terrorist plots and attacks", a flight risk and a danger to the community. On September 9, 2008 the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit reversed the District Court's order dismissing the indictment and remanded the case to the District Court. On April 8, 2009 the United States Attorney filed a superseding indictment in the case. Carriles' trial ended on April 8, 2011 with a jury acquitting him on all charges. Peter Kornbluh described him as "one of the most dangerous terrorists in recent history" and the "godfather of Cuban exile violence."


text: The first Colombian paramilitary groups were organized by the Colombian government following recommendations made by U.S. military counterinsurgency advisers who were sent to Colombia in the early 1960s during the Cold War to combat leftist politicians, activists and guerrillas.


text: Paramilitary groups were responsible for most of the human rights violations in the latter half of the ongoing Colombian conflict. According to several international human rights and governmental organizations, right-wing paramilitary groups were responsible for at least 70 to 80% of political murders in Colombia in a given year during the 80s and 90s. Paramilitary violence and terrorism there was principally targeted to peasants, unionists, indigenous people, human rights workers, teachers and left-wing political activists or their supporters.


text: In October 1959, the United States sent a "Special Survey Team", composed of counterinsurgency experts, to investigate Colombia's internal security situation, due to the increased prevalence of armed communist groups in rural Colombia which formed during and after "La Violencia". Three years later, in February 1962, a Fort Bragg top-level U.S. Special Warfare team headed by Special Warfare Center commander General William P. Yarborough, visited Colombia for a second survey.


text: In a secret supplement to his report to the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Yarborough encouraged the creation and deployment of a paramilitary force to commit sabotage and terrorist acts against communists, stating:


text: The new counter-insurgency policy was instituted as Plan Lazo in 1962 and called for both military operations and civic action programs in violent areas. Following Yarborough's recommendations, the Colombian military recruited civilians into paramilitary "civil defense" groups which worked alongside the military in its counter-insurgency campaign, as well as in civilian intelligence networks to gather information on guerrilla activity. Among other policy recommendations, the US team advised that "in order to shield the interests of both Colombian and US authorities against 'interventionist' charges, any special aid given for internal security was to be sterile and covert in nature." It was not until the early part of the 1980s that the Colombian government attempted to move away from the counterinsurgency strategy represented by Plan Lazo and Yarborough's 1962 recommendations.


text: In 1990, the United States formed a team that included representatives of the U.S. Embassy's Military Group, U.S. Southern Command, the DIA, and the CIA in order to give advice on the reshaping of several of the Colombian military's local intelligence networks, ostensibly to aid the Colombian military in "counter-narcotics" efforts. Advice was also solicited from the British and Israeli military intelligence, but the U.S. proposals were ultimately selected by the Colombian military. The result of these meetings was "Armed Forces Directive 200-05/91", issued by the Colombian Defense Ministry in May 1991. However, the order itself made no mention of drugs or counter-narcotics operations at all, and instead focused exclusively on creating covert intelligence networks to combat the insurgency.


text: Human Rights Watch concluded that these intelligence networks subsequently laid the groundwork for an illegal, covert partnership between the military and paramilitaries. Human Rights Watch argued that the restructuring process solidified links between members of the Colombian military and civilian members of paramilitary groups, by incorporating them into several of the local intelligence networks and by cooperating with their activities. In effect, HRW believed that this further consolidated a "secret network that relied on paramilitaries not only for intelligence, but to carry out murder". Human Rights Watch argued that this situation allowed the Colombian government and military to plausibly deny links to or responsibility for paramilitary human rights abuses. Human Rights Watch stated that the military intelligence networks created by the U.S. reorganization appeared to have dramatically increased violence, stating that the "recommendations were given despite the fact that some of the U.S. officials who collaborated with the team knew of the Colombian military's record of human rights abuses and its ongoing relations with paramilitaries".


text: Human Rights Watch stated that while "not all paramilitaries are intimate partners with the military", the existing partnership between paramilitaries and the Colombian military was "a sophisticated mechanism, in part supported by years of advice, training, weaponry, and official silence by the United States, that allows the Colombian military to fight a dirty war and Colombian officialdom to deny it." As an example of increased violence and "dirty war" tactics, Human Rights Watch cited a partnership between the Colombian Navy and the MAS, in Barrancabermeja where: "In partnership with MAS, the navy intelligence network set up in Barrancabermeja adopted as its goal not only the elimination of anyone perceived as supporting the guerrillas, but also members of the political opposition, journalists, trade unionists, and human rights workers, particularly if they investigated or criticized their terror tactics."


text: In 1992, Pablo Escobar escaped from his luxury prison, La Catedral. Shortly thereafter, the Calí drug cartel, dissidents within the Medellín cartel and the MAS worked together to create a new paramilitary organization known as "Perseguidos por Pablo Escobar" ("People Persecuted by Pablo Escobar", Los Pepes) with the purpose of tracking down and killing Pablo Escobar and his associates. The leader of the organization was Fidel Castaño. The Calí cartel provided $50 million for weapons, informants, and assassins, with in hope of wiping out their primary rivals in the cocaine business. Both Colombian and U.S. government agencies (including the DEA, CIA and State Department) provided intelligence to Los Pepes.


text: The Institute for Policy Studies is searching for details of connections the CIA and DEA had to Los Pepes. They have launched a lawsuit under the Freedom of Information Act against the CIA. That suit has resulted in the declassification of thousands of documents from the CIA as well as other U.S. agencies, including the Department of State, Drug Enforcement Administration, Defense Intelligence Agency and the U.S Coast Guard. These documents have been made public at the website "Pepes Project"


text: The FR Yugoslav authorities regarded the ethnic Albanian Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) as a terrorist group, although many European governments did not. In February 1998, U.S. President Bill Clinton's special envoy to the Balkans, Robert Gelbard, condemned both the actions of the Yugoslav government and of the KLA, and described the KLA as "without any questions, a terrorist group". UN resolution 1160 took a similar stance. At first, NATO had stressed that KLA was "the main initiator of the violence" and that it had "launched what appears to be a deliberate campaign of provocation".


text: The United States (and NATO) directly supported the KLA. The CIA funded, trained and supplied the KLA (as they had earlier trained and supplied the Bosnian Army). As disclosed to "The Sunday Times" by CIA sources, "American intelligence agents have admitted they helped to train the Kosovo Liberation Army before NATO's bombing of Yugoslavia". In 1999, a retired colonel said that KLA forces had been trained in Albania by former US military working for MPRI.


text: James Bissett, Canadian Ambassador to Yugoslavia, Bulgaria and Albania, wrote in 2001 that media reports indicated that "as early as 1998, the Central Intelligence Agency assisted by the British Special Air Service were arming and training Kosovo Liberation Army members in Albania to foment armed rebellion in Kosovo. ... The hope was that with Kosovo in flames NATO could intervene ...". According to Tim Judah, KLA representatives had already met with American, British, and Swiss intelligence agencies in 1996, and possibly "several years earlier".


text: After the war, the KLA was transformed into the Kosovo Protection Corps, which worked alongside NATO forces patrolling the province. In the following years, however, an ethnic Albanian insurgency emerged in southern Serbia (1999–2001) and in Macedonia (2001). The EU condemned what it described as the "extremism" and use of "illegal terrorist actions" by the group active in southern Serbia. Since the war, many of the KLA leaders have been active in the political leadership of the Republic of Kosovo.


text: The United States has provided extensive lethal and non-lethal aid to many Syrian militant groups fighting against the Syrian government, an ally of Russia, during the Syrian Civil War. The Syrian government has directly accused the United States of sponsoring terrorism in Syria. The United States government was also criticized by Iran for its silence following the beheading of a child by the Islamist group Nour al-Din al-Zenki, a group that is a recipient of US military aid and is accused of many war crimes by Amnesty International.


text: Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has also accused the United States of supporting ISIS in Syria, claiming Turkey has evidence of U.S. support for ISIS through pictures, photos, and videos, without further elaborating on said evidence or providing any.


text: An investigation by journalists Phil Sands and Suha Maayeh revealed that rebels supplied with weapons from the Military Operations Command in Amman sold a portion of them to local arms dealers, often to raise cash to pay additional fighters. Some MOC-supplied weapons were sold to Bedouin traders referred to locally as "The Birds" in Lajat, a volcanic plateau northeast of Daraa, Syria. According to rebel forces, the Bedouins would then trade the weapons to ISIL, who would place orders using the encrypted WhatsApp messaging service. Two rebel commanders and a United Kingdom weapons monitoring organization maintain that MOC–supplied weapons have made their way to ISIL forces.


text: Another study conducted by private company Conflict Armament Research at the behest of the European Union and Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit found that external support for anti-Assad Syrian rebels "significantly augmented the quantity and quality of weapons available to [ISIL] forces", including, in the most rapid case diversion they documented, "anti-tank weapons purchased by the United States that ended up in possession of the Islamic State within two months of leaving the factory."


title: Peter Sinfield

text: Peter John Sinfield (born 27 December 1943) is an English poet and songwriter. He is best known as the co-founder and former lyricist of King Crimson, whose debut album "In the Court of the Crimson King" is considered one of the first and most influential progressive rock albums ever released.


title: Peter Sinfield

text: Sinfield's lyrics are known for their surreal imagery, often involving common fantasy concepts, nature, or the sea. They often also deal with emotional concepts and, sometimes, storyline concepts. Later in his career, he adapted his songwriting to better suit pop music, and wrote a number of successful songs for artists such as Celine Dion, Cher, Cliff Richard, Leo Sayer, Five Star, and Bucks Fizz.


title: Peter Sinfield

text: In 2005, Sinfield was referred to as a "prog rock hero" in "Q" magazine for his lyrical work and influence in the music industry.


title: Peter Sinfield

text: Sinfield was born at Fulham, London, to mixed English-Irish ancestry and a bohemian activist mother Deidre (also known as Joey or Daphne). He seldom had contact with his father Ian. Up until the age of eight, he was raised largely by his mother's German housekeeper Maria Wallenda, a high wire walker from the circus act the Flying Wallendas, after which he was sent to Danes Hill School in Oxshott. It was there that Sinfield discovered a love of words and their uses and meanings, with the guidance of his tutor John Mawson. He came to devour books of all kinds, especially poetry. He later attended Ranelagh Grammar School in Bracknell, Berkshire. He left school at sixteen and worked briefly as a travel agent, believing that this would "allow him to see the world".


title: Peter Sinfield

text: Sinfield then went on to work for a computer company for six years, travelling around Europe when he could and hanging around with friends from the Chelsea School of Art. To compete with his art school friends, Sinfield began learning to play the guitar, and write poetry in the mid 1960s, and made a living on market stalls selling handmade kites, lampshades, paintings and customised clothing. He spent a number of years drifting around Morocco and Spain before returning to England. Sometime in 1967, he formed The Creation, a band he said he envisioned as a cross between Donovan and The Who. One of the members, Ian McDonald, convinced Sinfield to switch from singer/guitarist to lyricist.


title: Peter Sinfield

text: In 1968, Ian McDonald joined Giles, Giles and Fripp, a progressive pop trio consisting of Michael Giles, Peter Giles, and Robert Fripp, who were looking to do more with music than their three-man line-up could manage. McDonald let the others know that he was already working with someone who could write lyrics. In their primordial form, Giles, Giles & Fripp, augmented by McDonald and ex-Fairport Convention vocalist Judy Dyble, recorded an early version of the McDonald-Sinfield song "I Talk to the Wind", which later became part of King Crimson's repertoire.


title: Peter Sinfield

text: Peter Giles left the group at about this time, to be replaced by Greg Lake, and Sinfield joined around the same time. In his own words, "I became their pet hippie, because I could tell them where to go to buy the funny clothes that they saw everyone wearing". Sinfield also came up with the name King Crimson. Sinfield loved working with the band and, in addition to writing the phantasmagorical lyrics that came to be part of King Crimson's trademark, he also ran the group's light-show at their concerts, and offered advice on artwork, album design, and other details of the band's releases. Sinfield's performance role in the band was limited to occasionally playing EMS VCS 3 synthesizer.


title: Peter Sinfield

text: Fripp became involved with other projects (most notably the Centipede orchestra), which left Sinfield with much of the responsibility for the final version and design of the album, including the uniquely ornate jacket. The relationship between Sinfield and Fripp became increasingly strained as the band progressed. On their fourth album, "Islands", Sinfield began exploring new lyrical territory, with more sexual imagery juxtaposed with the languidly surreal title track. On 1 January 1972, following a tour of the United States, Fripp told Sinfield he could no longer work with him and asked him to leave the group.


title: Peter Sinfield

text: In 1972, Sinfield remained associated with E.G. Records, which represented King Crimson and Roxy Music, and it was while Sinfield was producing Roxy Music's debut album and their hit single "Virginia Plain" that he first decided to try his own hand at recording a solo album. In 1973 he wrote English lyrics for the Italian group Premiata Forneria Marconi (also known as PFM) and produced their first album for ELP's Manticore Records, titled, "Photos of Ghosts" as well as "The World Became the World".


title: Peter Sinfield

text: In 1973, Sinfield formed a band provisionally called A Bowl of Soup and featuring Phil Jump on keyboards, Richard Brunton on guitar, Allan "Min" Mennie on drums, Steve Dolan on bass, and Sinfield himself on vocals, guitar, and synthesizer. A Bowl of Soup were booked to record an album at Command Studios. This album, "Still", was ultimately credited as a Pete Sinfield solo album, and in addition to the five members of A Bowl of Soup it featured input from numerous former (Greg Lake, Mel Collins, Ian Wallace), and future (John Wetton) Crimson alumni. While working on "Still", he was approached by Emerson, Lake & Palmer, who needed a lyricist of Sinfield's calibre. Sinfield put it more bluntly: "Greg [Lake] called me. 'I need help with the lyrics.' And, boy, did he need help." "Still" was originally released on ELP's own Manticore label in 1973, but Sinfield found himself subsumed into Emerson, Lake & Palmer. Already having a fear of the stage which he had little time to overcome due to writing demands, his solo career was put on hold and he worked with ELP for the next few years.


title: Peter Sinfield

text: During this time, Sinfield lived with his first wife Stephanie in The Mill House, Surrey, which was loaned to him by ELP. His neighbour was Gary Brooker of Procol Harum, with whom he co-wrote five songs on Brooker's first solo album "No More Fear of Flying". He also released a book containing his previous lyrics and poems titled "Under the Sky" (named after one of the lyrics from "Still"). In 1975, "I Believe in Father Christmas", a song co-written with Greg Lake was released.


title: Peter Sinfield

text: After overestimating his wealth and underestimating his percentage of royalties from ELP, he moved to Ibiza to live as a tax exile, and enjoyed his first interruption from continual work in the music industry. There he met a circle of artists, actors, painters, and members of the Chelsea Arts Club such as Peter Unsworth and Barry Flanagan, and eventually parted from his first wife. During his time in Ibiza, Sinfield's break from songwriting allowed him to spend his time travelling, socialising, and reflecting, which he had been unable to do for the previous decade.


title: Peter Sinfield

text: During the late 1970s, he continued to move in communities around Spain. In 1978, following the success of his previous lyrics for Emerson, Lake & Palmer, Sinfield was asked by ELP to produce lyrics for their album "Love Beach", now regarded by many (including Sinfield himself) to be the weakest of all ELP's albums. In 1978 he also narrated Robert Sheckley's "In a Land of Clear Colours", an audio sci-fi story released the following year on a limited edition of 1000 vinyl records. The backing music for the story was provided by Brian Eno, with whom Sinfield had previously worked while producing Roxy Music. By the time he returned to London in 1980, with his new Spanish wife (a model and runner-up for Miss Spain), he discovered that progressive rock music was no longer in demand, and that punk had emerged in the UK.


title: Peter Sinfield

text: Sinfield also wrote the lyrics, in 1978–1980, for the English versions of "Alla fiera dell'est" ("Highdown Fair") and "La pulce d'acqua" ("Fables and Fantasies"), by Italian singer-songwriter Angelo Branduardi and, in 1981–1983, for "It's Your Dream" ("Nikka Costa"), "My First Love", "I Believe in Fairy Tales", and "Trick or Treat" ("Fairy Tales"), by the American child singer Nikka Costa.


title: Peter Sinfield

text: Upon his return to London in 1980, his publisher introduced him to Andy Hill, a composer and fellow songwriter. He and Sinfield collaborated on such hits as "The Land of Make Believe" by Bucks Fizz, which reached No. 1 in the UK Singles Chart, and became one of the biggest-selling hits of the decade. While re-educating himself to adapt to the pop music industry with the help of Hill, he returned to Spain, where he was already established in the communities within Ibiza and Barcelona, and as his career progressed, moved into a house in Majorca. At this time, he appeared on Spanish television programme "Musical Express", where he was interviewed and performed a set with Boz Burrell, Tim Hinkley, Michael Giles, Bobby Tench, Mel Collins, and Gary Brooker.


title: Peter Sinfield

text: In the United Kingdom, he continued to release hits with Hill, including "I Hear Talk" by Bucks Fizz and "Have You Ever Been in Love" by Leo Sayer (which they wrote with John Danter). He also co-wrote Five Star's "Rain or Shine" with Billy Livsey. After divorcing his wife and leaving Majorca, he returned to the UK around 1990 to a flat in Holland Park and continued to write lyrics for popular music. In 1993, he re-released his solo album as "Stillusion". In the same year, he and Hill released "Think Twice" by Celine Dion, which went on to become a massive hit and won an Ivor Novello Award for "Best Song Musically and Lyrically". Sinfield and Hill had also won an Ivor Novello a decade previously for the Leo Sayer track, "Have You Ever Been in Love".


title: Peter Sinfield

text: There had been rumours of a second solo album, and Sinfield worked on it for a couple of years with vibraphone player and programmer Poli Palmer, formerly of Family. It was always a challenging project, made more so by Sinfield's quadruple bypass operation in 2005. After a period of convalescence, Sinfield attempted to restart the project, but it failed to take off.


title: Peter Sinfield

text: During this time Sinfield wrote an increasing number of haiku. After his appearance at the Genoa Poetry Festival at the Ducal Palace in June 2010, he has turned his creative energies more towards poetry.


title: Peter Sinfield

text: Sinfield is still active as a writer and appeared in the 2009 BBC documentary "Prog Rock Britannia: An Observation in Three Movements".


title: Peter Sinfield

text: Sinfield now lives in Aldeburgh, Suffolk. He is still active within the songwriting community and is a member of the British Academy of Songwriters, Composers and Authors committee. He underwent heart surgery in 2005, from which he is now fully recovered.


title: Peter Sinfield

text: Sinfield had a fairly unusual and colourful upbringing, being an only child (bar his adopted brother, Dennis) of a bisexual mother who ran a hair salon and one of the first burger bars in London in the 1950s. He grew up in a bohemian household, and claims to have vivid memories of extravagant and wonderful Christmases, later inspiring the lyrics for his hit "I Believe in Father Christmas", which recalled a lost and naive faith in Father Christmas. Sinfield claimed that "A Poet's Notebook" by Edith Sitwell had an important influence on his writing, as well as the works of Arthur Rimbaud, Paul Verlaine, William Blake, Kahlil Gibran, and Shakespeare.


title: Peter Sinfield

text: Musically he was largely influenced by Bob Dylan and Donovan. Hearing Donovan's opening line of "Colours": "Yellow is the colour of my true love's hair"' was, Sinfield stated, the defining moment when he decided he had the desire and ability to start writing songs.


title: Cryolite

text: Cryolite (NaAlF, sodium hexafluoroaluminate) is an uncommon mineral identified with the once-large deposit at Ivittuut on the west coast of Greenland, mined commercially until 1987.


title: Cryolite

text: Cryolite was first described in 1798 by Danish veterinarian and physician Peder Christian Abildgaard (1740–1801); it was obtained from a deposit of it in Ivigtut (old spelling) and nearby Arsuk Fjord, Southwest Greenland. The name is derived from the Greek language words "κρύος" (cryos) = frost, and "λίθος" (lithos) = stone. The Pennsylvania Salt Manufacturing Company used large amounts of cryolite to make caustic soda and fluorine compounds, including hydrofluoric acid at its Natrona, Pennsylvania works, and at its integrated chemical plant in Cornwells Heights, Pennsylvania, during the 19th and 20th centuries.


title: Cryolite

text: It was historically used as an ore of aluminium and later in the electrolytic processing of the aluminium-rich oxide ore bauxite (itself a combination of aluminium oxide minerals such as gibbsite, boehmite and diaspore). The difficulty of separating aluminium from oxygen in the oxide ores was overcome by the use of cryolite as a flux to dissolve the oxide mineral(s). Pure cryolite itself melts at 1012 °C (1285 K), and it can dissolve the aluminium oxides sufficiently well to allow easy extraction of the aluminium by electrolysis. Substantial energy is still needed for both heating the materials and the electrolysis, but it is much more energy-efficient than melting the oxides themselves. As natural cryolite is now too rare to be used for this purpose, synthetic sodium aluminium fluoride is produced from the common mineral fluorite.


title: Cryolite

text: Besides Ivittuut, on the west coast of Greenland where cryolite was once found in commercial quantities, small deposits of cryolite have also been reported in some areas of Spain, at the foot of Pikes Peak in Colorado, Francon Quarry near Montreal in Quebec, Canada and also in Miask, Russia.


title: Cryolite

text: Molten cryolite is used as a solvent for aluminium oxide (AlO) in the Hall–Héroult process, used in the refining of aluminium. It decreases the melting point of aluminium oxide from 2000 to 2500 °C to 900–1000 °C, and increases its conductivity thus making the extraction of aluminium more economical.


title: Cryolite

text: Cryolite is used as an insecticide and a pesticide. It is also used to give fireworks a yellow color.


title: Cryolite

text: Cryolite occurs as glassy, colorless, white-reddish to gray-black prismatic monoclinic crystals. It has a Mohs hardness of 2.5 to 3 and a specific gravity of about 2.95 to 3.0. It is translucent to transparent with a very low refractive index of about 1.34, which is very close to that of water; thus if immersed in water, cryolite becomes essentially invisible.


title: Cat lady

text: A cat lady is a cultural archetype or stock character, most often depicted as a woman, a middle-aged or elderly spinster or widow, who has many cats. The term may be pejorative, or it may be affectionately embraced.


title: Cat lady

text: Women who have cats have long been associated with the concept of spinsterhood. In more recent decades, the concept of a cat lady has been associated with "romance-challenged (often career-oriented) women". Specifically, it has also been embraced by lesbians.


title: Cat lady

text: A cat lady may also be an animal hoarder who keeps large numbers of cats without having the ability to properly house or care for them. They may be ignorant about their situation, or generally unaware of their situation. People who are aware of it are not normally considered cat ladies.


title: Cat lady

text: Depending on context, the ordinarily pejorative word "crazy" may be prepended to "cat lady" to indicate either a pejorative or a humorous and affectionate label. Some writers, celebrities, and artists have challenged the gender-based "Crazy Cat Lady" stereotype, and embraced the term to mean an animal lover or rescuer who cares for one or multiple cats, and who is psychologically healthy.


title: Cat lady

text: A 2019 study found no differences between cat owners and non-cat owners for anxiety, depression or experiences in relationships: "We suggest that our findings are, therefore, not consistent with a description of cat-owners as depressed, anxious or as having difficulty with human relationships." However, a separate 1983 study found that pet owners tended to score higher than non-owners on social sensitivity and interpersonal trust, though there was no appreciative difference between dog and cat owners.


title: Cat lady

text: The documentary "Cat Ladies" (2009) tells the stories of four women whose lives became dedicated to their cats. The film was directed by Christie Callan-Jones and produced by Chocolate Box Entertainment, originally for TVOntario. It was an official selection at the 2009 Hot Docs Festival, Silverdocs Festival, and San Francisco's DocFest.


title: Cat lady

text: Naftali Berrill, Ph.D., Director of the New York Center for Neuropsychology and Forensic Behavioral Science, told AOL Health, "These may be people who have a very hard time expressing themselves to other people. They may find the human need for affection is met most easily through a relationship with a pet." This devotion can sometimes signal mental or emotional issues such as depression.


title: Cat lady

text: Some studies indicate a link between the parasite "Toxoplasma gondii", which sexually reproduces exclusively in cats, and numerous psychiatric conditions, including obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD) and schizophrenia,


title: Cat lady

text: The compulsive hoarding of cats, a symptom of obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD), has long been associated with "crazy cat ladies". Mass media has drawn on this stereotype to coin the term crazy cat lady syndrome to refer to the association between "T. gondii" and psychiatric conditions.


National Day (), officially the National Day of the People's Republic of China (), is a public holiday in China celebrated annually on 1 October as the national day of the People's Republic of China, commemorating the formal proclamation of the establishment of the People's Republic of China on 1 October 1949. The Chinese Communist Party victory in the Chinese Civil War resulted in the Kuomintang "retreat" to Taiwan and the Chinese Communist Revolution whereby the People's Republic of China "replaced" the Republic of China.


title: National Day of the People's Republic of China

text: Although it is observed on 1 October, another six days are added to the official holiday, normally in lieu of the two weekend breaks around 1 October, making it a de facto public holiday comprising seven consecutive days also known as Golden Week () with specifics regulated by the State Council. Festivities and concerts are usually held nationwide on this day, with a grand military parade and mass pageant event held on select years.


text: The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) defeated the incumbent Kuomintang (KMT) nationalist government of the Republic of China in the Chinese Civil War that took place from 1927 to 1950 except for a brief alliance against Japan in the Second Sino-Japanese War. In its aftermath, the nationalist government withdrew to the island of Taiwan, previously a prefecture of the Qing Empire that was ceded to Japan under its colonial rule from 1895 to 1945.


text: The People's Republic of China was founded on 1 October 1949, with a ceremony celebrating the forming of the Central People's Government taking place in Tiananmen Square in its new national capital of Peking (previously Peiping) on the same day that year. The first public parade of the new People's Liberation Army took place there, following the address by the country's first Chairman Mao Zedong officially declaring the formal establishment of the Republic. The Central People's Government passed the "Resolution on the National Day of the People's Republic of China" on 3 December 1949, and declared that 1 October is the National Day.


text: The day is celebrated throughout mainland China, Hong Kong, and Macau with a variety of government-organized festivities, including fireworks and concerts, as well as sports events and cultural events. Public places, such as Tiananmen Square in Beijing, are decorated in a festive theme. Portraits of revered leaders, such as Mao Zedong, are publicly displayed. The Chinese government uses the celebrations to promote political goals.


text: From 2004 to 2013, a national wreath-laying ceremony was held on National Day in Tiananmen Square following the flag raising ceremony on years with no parades. The ceremony was centered on the Monument to the People's Heroes, built in 1958 in remembrance of the millions of Chinese who perished during the long years of national struggle. Beginning in 2014, they have been held on a new holiday, Martyrs' Day, set on the eve of National Day, 30 September, and is presided by party and state leaders.


text: The special civil-military parade of the People's Liberation Army, People's Armed Police and the Militia together with representatives of the people of all walks of life including the Young Pioneers of China is held on special years in the morning of National Day itself. It has since 1984 been televised on China Central Television since 1984 (and broadcast around the world from that year as well via satellite and cable television), is a key highlight of the national celebrations in Beijing. The parade was annual from 1950-59 and terminated until 1984. There was a parade planned for 1989 but was cancelled following the June 4th crackdown. Parades were held again in 1999 and 2009.


text: The parade is overseen by the president of the People's Republic of China as well as other top leadership.


text: Open conversation on issues related to National Day has been suppressed as the anniversary has been deemed by the Chinese government to be a sensitive event. According to Yang, the majority of Chinese social networking services sites “automatically strengthen their technical regulations and control” during the celebration despite already conducting “strict self-censorship” as required by the government. Deibert et al. has said the occasion has been a target of a “just-in-time” type of content filtering, with ramifications for self-censorship and economically induced censorship. Chang has said national celebrations like National Day have been enabled by the country’s “all-pervasive control system mounted by the authoritarian state.” An article by the Financial Times said that while tighter internet controls were expected in preparation for China’s 60th anniversary celebration, the restrictions had still been in place “more than a month after National Day” had passed.


text: On the mainland, protests involving National Day has been suppressed. A study by Steinhardt found that protest activity was depressed in the period both before and during the observation of "national focal events" such as National Day, which he said "strongly suggests that preemptive repression is taking place.” Research by Tong and Lei found that during “crucial dates” like National Day “township officials are on duty for 24 hours, being highly alert for any potential social protest or petition visit to upper-level government. An article by Wu said that “in the name of celebrating the PRC’s 60th anniversary,” the People’s Armed Police forced petitioners who had converged on Beijing to seek national-level recourse for their mistreatment by local government to “leave their own capital”.


text: Outside the mainland, protests have been held to mark the occasion. Reasons for and factors driving the protests include the ongoing conflict between Hong Kongers and Mainlanders, the ongoing conflict between the PRC and ROC, the annexation of Tibet by China and the human rights abuses committed by the Chinese government in Xinjiang.


title: Barbara Sukowa

text: Barbara Sukowa (; born 2 February 1950) is a German actress of screen and stage and singer. She has received three German Film Awards for Best Actress, three Bavarian Film Awards, Cannes Film Festival Award for Best Actress, Venice Film Festival Award, and well as nomination for European Film Awards, César Awards and Grammy Awards.


title: Barbara Sukowa

text: Sukowa is best known for her work with directors Rainer Werner Fassbinder and Margarethe von Trotta. She rose to prominence after starring in the West German miniseries "Berlin Alexanderplatz" directed by Fassbinder, and the following year went to star in his drama film "Lola", for which she received her first German Film Award for Best Actress. Also in 1981, Sukowa starred in "Marianne and Juliane" directed by Margarethe von Trotta. They would go on to work on six more films together. For her performance, she also received German Film Award and Venice Film Festival Award for Best Actress. In 1986, she won the Cannes Film Festival Award for Best Actress for performance in the drama film "Rosa Luxemburg".


title: Barbara Sukowa

text: In 1990s, Sukowa starred in a number of international films, most notable, "Europa" (1991) directed by Lars von Trier, "Voyager" (1991) by Volker Schlöndorff, "M. Butterfly" by David Cronenberg, and "Johnny Mnemonic" (1995) by Robert Longo. In later career, she played Hildegard of Bingen in 2009 drama film "Vision", and Hannah Arendt in the biographical film "Hannah Arendt" (2012). In 2019, she starred in French drama film "Two of Us", for which she received Lumières Award for Best Actress and César Award for Best Actress nomination.


title: Barbara Sukowa

text: Sukowa was born in Bremen, Germany, in 1950. She speaks German, English and French. After studying acting at the Max Reinhardt Seminar in Berlin, Sukowa's stage debut was in Berlin in 1971, in a production of Peter Handke's "Der Ritt über den Bodensee". The same year, Günter Beelitz invited her to join the ensemble of the Darmstädter National Theatre. She also worked in Frankfurt am Main and Hamburg, in collaboration with directors such as Luc Bondy, playing Marion in Büchner's "Danton's Death" and Helena in "A Midsummer Night's Dream". Other Shakespeare roles in Europe were Rosalind in "As You Like It" and Desdemona in "Othello". She performed in Ibsen's "The Master Builder".


title: Barbara Sukowa

text: In addition to her stage work, Sukowa is associated with the New German Cinema. Her performance as Mieze in Rainer Werner Fassbinder's miniseries "Berlin Alexanderplatz" (1980) earned her the German Best Young Actress Award. The following year, her performance of the title role in Fassbinder's drama film "Lola" earned her a German Film Award for Best Actress. Also that year, she starred in "Marianne and Juliane" directed by Margarethe von Trotta. For this performance she also received German Film Award for Best Actress and Venice Film Festival Golden Phoenix Award for Best Actress. She starred in "Die Jäger" (1982) directed by Károly Makk, "Un dimanche de flic" (1983) by Michel Vianey, and "Équateur" by Serge Gainsbourg. In 1985, Sukowa made her American television debut starring in the CBS miniseries "Space", based on James A. Michener's novel.


title: Barbara Sukowa

text: In 1986, Sukowa played Polish socialist Rosa Luxemburg in the biographical drama film "Rosa Luxemburg" directed by Margarethe von Trotta. She received Cannes Film Festival Award for Best Actress for her performance, and well as another German Film Award for Best Actress. In 1987, she starred in "Days to Remember" directed by Jeanine Meerapfel, receiving nomination for a German Film Award for Best Actress, and appeared in American action film "The Sicilian" opposite Christopher Lambert. In 1990, she starred in "The African Woman" directed by Margarethe von Trotta.


title: Barbara Sukowa

text: Sukowa moved to Brooklyn, New York City in 1991. In 1991, she starred opposite Sam Shepard in "Voyager" directed by Volker Schlöndorff, and "Europa" by Lars von Trier. Both films received positive reviews from critics. Sukowa was nominated for European Film Award for Best Supporting Actress for "Voyager", and European Film Award for Best European Actress of the Year for "Europa". In 1993, she starred in "M. Butterfly" directed by David Cronenberg. In 1995, she appeared in "Johnny Mnemonic" directed by Robert Longo. In 1997, she returned in Germany for starring in "Im Namen der Unschuld", for which she received Bavarian Film Award for Best Actress In 1999, she appeared in Tim Robbins's "Cradle Will Rock", and "The Third Miracle" directed by Agnieszka Holland. Sukowa also starred in a made-for-television films "Lost Souls" (1998) and "The Lady in Question" (1999).


title: Barbara Sukowa

text: Sukowa has developed a parallel career as a classical music narrator and speaker. She has performed the Speaker's role in Arnold Schönberg's "Pierrot lunaire", first with the Schoenberg Ensemble under Reinbert de Leeuw, and later with ensembles in Paris, London, Berlin, St. Petersburg, Madrid, Rome, Tokyo, Salzburg, Los Angeles, and New York City. She has performed the Speaker's role in Schönberg's "Gurrelieder" with the Berlin Philharmonic under Claudio Abbado, and is featured on the recordings with Abbado and the Vienna Philharmonic, and Esa-Pekka Salonen and the Philharmonia. She narrated Prokofiev's "Peter and the Wolf" both in concert and on record, as well as on a recording of Mendelssohn's music for "A Midsummer Night's Dream". In English, she has worked in a production of "The Cherry Orchard" (Princeton, New Jersey, 2000). Sukowa has performed in Arthur Honegger's "Jeanne d'Arc au bûcher" and Kurt Weill's "The Threepenny Opera". She performed speaking and singing role in de Leeuw's "Im wunderschönen Monat Mai" in 2004. She performed the speaking role in the US premiere of Michael Jarrell's "Cassandre" in March 2006, and in the New York City premiere that month, with musicians from the Saint Louis Symphony Orchestra. At the 51st Annual Grammy Awards, she received Grammy Award nomination for "Im wunderschönen Monat Mai". Sukowa is also the front singer of the Band the X-Patsys , which she founded with visual artists Jon Kessler and Robert Longo.


title: Barbara Sukowa

text: In 2004, Sukowa was a member of the jury at the 26th Moscow International Film Festival. In 2012, she was on the jury for the 62nd Berlin International Film Festival.


title: Barbara Sukowa

text: In 2009, Sukowa played the role of Hildegard of Bingen in 2009 drama film "Vision" directed by Margarethe von Trotta, receiving another Bavarian Film Award for Best Actress. In 2012, Sukowa starred as German-Jewish philosopher and political theorist Hannah Arendt in the German-Luxembourgian-French biographical film "Hannah Arendt" directed by Margarethe von Trotta. The film and her performance received positive reviews from critics. Sukowa received another Bavarian Film Award for Best Actress and German Film Award for Best Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role, and well as European Film Award for Best Actress nomination. In 2016, she appeared on Maria Schrader' drama film "", and later had supporting roles in "Atomic Blonde" (2017), "Gloria Bell" (2018) and "Native Son" (2019).


title: Barbara Sukowa

text: From 2015 to 2018, Sukowa starred as Katarina Jones in the American television series "12 Monkeys". She continued appearing on American television guest-starring on "Hunters" starring Al Pacino, and had a recurring role on the Apple TV+ series "Servant". In 2022, she was cast in the thriller "The Swarm" based on the Frank Schätzing best-seller.


title: Barbara Sukowa

text: In 2019, Sukowa starred in French romance drama film "Two of Us", for which she received Lumières Award for Best Actress and César Award for Best Actress nomination.


title: Barbara Sukowa

text: In 2022, Sukowa starred opposite Ben Kingsley in the biographical film "Dalíland" about Salvador Dalí, playing Gala Dalí. It premiered at the 2022 Toronto International Film Festival.


title: Barbara Sukowa

text: She is married to the artist and director Robert Longo, with whom she has performed as a singer. She has three sons, one from her earlier marriage to Hans-Michael Rehberg, one from her relationship with Daniel Olbrychski, and one with Longo.


title: Second Anglo-Mysore War

text: The Second Anglo-Mysore War was a conflict between the Kingdom of Mysore and the British East India Company from 1780 to 1784. At the time, Mysore was a key French ally in India, and the conflict between Britain against the French and Dutch in the American Revolutionary War sparked Anglo-Mysorean hostilities in India. The great majority of soldiers on the company side were raised, trained, paid and commanded by the company, not the British government. However, the company's operations were also bolstered by Crown troops sent from Britain, and by troops from Hanover, which was also ruled by Britain's King George III.


title: Second Anglo-Mysore War

text: Following the British seizure of the French port of Mahé in 1779, Mysorean ruler Hyder Ali opened hostilities against the British in 1780, with significant success in early campaigns. As the war progressed, the British recovered some territorial losses. Both France and Britain sent troops and naval squadrons from Europe to assist in the war effort, which widened later in 1780 when Britain declared war on the Dutch Republic. In 1783 news of a preliminary peace between France and Britain reached India, resulting in the withdrawal of French support from the Mysorean war effort. The British consequently also sought to end the conflict, and the British government ordered the Company to secure peace with Mysore. This resulted in the 1784 Treaty of Mangalore, restoring the "status quo ante bellum" under terms that company officials, such as Warren Hastings, found extremely unfavourable.


title: Second Anglo-Mysore War

text: Hyder Ali ruled Mysore (though he did not have the title of king). Stung by what he considered a British breach of faith during an earlier war against the Marathas, Hyder Ali committed himself to a French alliance to seek revenge against the British. Upon the French declaration of war against Britain in 1778, aided by the popularity of ambassador Benjamin Franklin, the British East India Company resolved to drive the French out of India by taking the few enclaves of French possessions left on the subcontinent. The company began by capturing Pondicherry and other French outposts in 1778. They then captured the French-controlled port at Mahé on the Malabar Coast in 1779. Mahé was of great strategic importance to Hyder, who received French-supplied arms and munitions through the port, and Hyder had not only told the British that it was under his protection, he had also provided troops for its defence. Hyder set about forming a confederacy against the British, which, in addition to the French, included the Marathas and the Nizam of Hyderabad.


title: Second Anglo-Mysore War

text: In July 1780 Hyder Ali invaded the Carnatic with an army of 80,000. He descended through the passes of the Eastern Ghats, burning villages as he went, before laying siege to British forts in northern Arcot. The British responded by sending a force of 5,000 to lift the sieges. From his camp at Arcot, Hyder Ali sent part of his army under the command of his eldest son, Tipu Sultan, to intercept a British force from Guntur, under the command of Colonel William Baillie, which had been sent to reinforce Colonel Hector Munro's army to the north at Madras. On the morning of 10 September 1780, Baillie's force came under heavy fire from Tipu's guns near Pollilur. Baillie formed his force into a long square formation and began to move slowly forward. However, Hyder Ali's cavalry broke through the formation's front, inflicting many casualties and forcing Baillie to surrender. Out of the British force of 3,820 men, 336 were killed. The defeat was considered to be the East India Company's most crushing loss in India up to that time. Munro reacted to the defeat by retreating to Madras, abandoning his baggage and dumping his cannons in the water tank at Kanchipuram, a small town some south of Madras. Naravane states in fact that it was a massacre with only 50 officers and 200 men taken prisoner, including Baille.


title: Second Anglo-Mysore War

text: Instead of following up the victory and pressing on for a decisive victory at Madras, Hyder Ali renewed the siege at Arcoty, which he captured on 3 November. This decision gave the British time to shore up their defences in the south, and to despatch reinforcements under the command of Sir Eyre Coote to Madras.


title: Second Anglo-Mysore War

text: Coote, though repulsed at Chidambaram, defeated Hyder Ali in succession in the battles of Porto Novo and Sholinghur, while Tipu was forced to raise the siege of Wandiwash, and besieged Vellore instead. The arrival of Lord Macartney as governor of Madras in the summer of 1781 included news of war with the Dutch Republic. Macartney ordered the seizure of Dutch outposts in India, and the British captured the main Dutch outpost at Negapatam after three weeks of siege in November 1781 against defenses that included 2,000 of Hyder Ali's men. This forced Hyder Ali to realize that he could never completely defeat a power that had command of the sea, since British naval support contributed to the victory.


title: Second Anglo-Mysore War

text: Tipu also defeated Colonel Braithwaite at Annagudi near Tanjore on 18 February 1782. This army consisted of 100 Europeans, 300 cavalry, 1400 sepoys and 10 field pieces. Tipu seized all the guns and took the entire detachment as prisoners. In December 1781 Tipu seized Chittur from British hands. These operations gave Tipu valuable military experience. Both Hyder Ali and Tipu Sultan gained alliances with Ali Raja Bibi Junumabe II and the Mappila Muslim community and later met with Muslim Malay from Malacca under Dutch service.


title: Second Anglo-Mysore War

text: During the summer of 1782 company officials in Bombay sent additional troops to Tellicherry, from whence they began operations against Mysorean holdings in the Malabar. Hyder Ali sent Tipu and a strong force to counter this threat, and the latter had pinned this force at Panianee when he learned of Hyder Ali's sudden death from cancer. Tipu's precipitate departure from the scene provided some relief to the British force, but Bombay officials had sent further reinforcements under General Richard Matthews to the Malabar in late December to relieve it before they learned of Hyder Ali's death. When they received this news, they immediately ordered Matthews to cross the Western Ghats and take Bednore. He felt compelled to do so despite a lack of sound military footing for the effort. He entered Bednore, which surrendered after Matthews drove Mysorean forces from the Ghats. However, Matthews had so overextended his supply lines that he was soon thereafter besieged in Bednore by Tipu, and forced to capitulate. Matthews and seventeen other officers were taken to Seringapatam, and from there to the remote hilltop prison of Gopal Drooge (Kabbaldurga) where they were seemingly forced to imbibe a lethal poison.


title: Second Anglo-Mysore War

text: On the east coast, an army led by General James Stuart marched from Madras to resupply besieged fortifications and to dispute Cuddalore, where French forces had arrived and joined with those of Mysore. Stuart besieged Cuddalore even though the forces were nearly equal in size. The French fleet of the Baillie de Suffren drove away the British fleet, and landed marines to assist in Cuddalore's defence. However, when word arrived of a preliminary peace between France and Britain, the siege was ended. General Stuart, who was engaged in disputes with Lord Macartney, was eventually recalled and sent back to England.


title: Second Anglo-Mysore War

text: The British captured Mangalore in March 1783, but Tipu brought his main army, and after recapturing Bednore, besieged and eventually captured Mangalore. At the same time, troops from Stuart's army were joined with those of Colonel William Fullarton in the Tanjore region, where he captured the fortress at Palghautcherry in November, and then entered Coimbatore against little resistance.


title: Second Anglo-Mysore War

text: During this time, company officials received orders from company headquarters in London to bring an end to the war, and entered negotiations with Tipu. Pursuant to a preliminary cease fire, Colonel Fullarton was ordered to abandon all of his recent conquests. However, due to allegations that Tipu violated terms of the cease fire at Mangalore, Fullarton remained at Palghautcherry. On 30 January the garrison of Mangalore surrendered to Tipu Sultan.


title: Second Anglo-Mysore War

text: The war was ended on 11 March 1784 with the signing of the Treaty of Mangalore, in which both sides agreed to restore the others' lands to the "status quo ante bellum". The treaty is an important document in the history of India, because it was the last occasion when an Indian power dictated terms to the company.


title: Second Anglo-Mysore War

text: It was the second of four Anglo-Mysore Wars, which ultimately ended with British control over most of southern India. Pursuant to the terms of the Treaty of Mangalore, the British did not participate in the conflict between Mysore and its neighbours, the Maratha Empire and the Nizam of Hyderabad, that began in 1785. In Parliament, the Pitt administration passed Pitt's India Act that gave the government control of the East India Company in political matters.


title: Second Anglo-Mysore War

text: A battle honour, "Carnatic" was awarded for two periods: 1780–1784, during the Second Anglo-Mysore War, when Hyder Ali threatened Madras; and 1790–1792, during the Third Anglo-Mysore War, up to the siege of Mysore. Originally awarded to three battalions of Bengal Native Infantry in 1829, it lapsed after their disbandment due to participation in the 1857 uprising. In 1889, it was awarded to twenty units of the Madras Presidency Army. The battle honour is considered repugnant, an official term of opprobrium used by the Government of India.


title: Leon Vitali

text: Alfred Leon Vitali (26 July 1948 – 19 August 2022) was an English actor, best known for his collaborations with film director, Stanley Kubrick, as his personal assistant, and as an actor, most notably as Lord Bullingdon in "Barry Lyndon".


title: Leon Vitali

text: As he was growing up Vitali became interested in drama and decided to attend the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art after his English teacher sent him a prospectus. Vitali guest-starred in a number of TV series in the early 1970s, appearing in "Softly, Softly", "Follyfoot", "Roads to Freedom", "Z Cars", "Public Eye", "The Fenn Street Gang," and "Notorious Woman", among others. In 1973, he made his feature film debut in two movies: the Italian "Super Bitch", directed by Massimo Dallamano, who had previously worked with Sergio Leone as a cinematographer in the first two of his Dollars Trilogy, and the television film "Catholics", alongside Martin Sheen and Michael Gambon.


title: Leon Vitali

text: In 1974 Vitali met Stanley Kubrick, with whom he had a professional relationship for the rest of Kubrick's career. Vitali played Lord Bullingdon in "Barry Lyndon", the title character's stepson. Kubrick and Vitali bonded during the shoot. As filming concluded, Vitali asked Kubrick if he could stay on, without pay, to observe the editing process, to which Kubrick agreed. Five years later, Kubrick sent Vitali a copy of Stephen King's "The Shining" and asked him to join the production of his next film. Vitali is credited in "The Shining" (1980) as "personal assistant to director".


title: Leon Vitali

text: In 1977 he portrayed Victor Frankenstein in "Terror of Frankenstein", Calvin Floyd's adaptation of Mary Shelley's "Frankenstein", where he met his future wife Kersti, who worked as costume designer on the shoot. The Vitalis then worked as costume designers in Birgitta Svensson's "Mackan", after which Leon played a bit part in Svensson's next film, "Inter Rail" (1981). Leon and Kersti had two children, actress Vera Vitali and a son, videographer Max Vitali. Vitali also had a daughter, producer Masha Vitali, from his previous marriage to Helen Broom. Leon and Kersti eventually divorced. Leon was married to Sharon Messer from 2005 to his death in 2022.


title: Leon Vitali

text: Vitali teamed up with Kubrick again for "Full Metal Jacket" (1987), where he served both as casting director and assistant to the director. Twelve years later, Vitali was credited with the same titles in Kubrick's last film, "Eyes Wide Shut" (1999), in which Vitali also played Red Cloak. In the film, the words "fashion designer Leon Vitali" appear in a newspaper article that Tom Cruise's character reads.


title: Leon Vitali

text: After Kubrick's death, Vitali oversaw the restoration of both picture and sound elements for most of Kubrick's films. In 2004, Vitali was honoured with the Cinema Audio Society's President's Award for this work.


title: Leon Vitali

text: In 2017, Vitali was the subject of a documentary, "Filmworker", directed by Tony Zierra and produced by Elizabeth Yoffe which premiered at The Cannes Film Festival and screened at many U.S. and international film festivals including the London Film Festival in October 2017. In "Filmworker", Vitali was interviewed at length about his work with Kubrick. The film was broadcast by Film4 in the UK on 7 March 2019, followed by a showing of Kubrick's "The Killing" (1956).


title: Leon Vitali

text: Vitali died on 19 August 2022 in Los Angeles, as announced by his family, The official social media presence for the Kubrick estate announced Vitali's death citing the incorrect date of 20 August 2022.


title: Leon Vitali

text: Vitali worked with filmmaker Todd Field, with whom he appeared in "Eyes Wide Shut". Vitali is credited as "technical consultant" on Field's "In the Bedroom" (2001), and as "associate producer" on Field's "Little Children" (2006), where he also made a cameo appearance as "The Oddly Familiar Man".


title: Benjamin Butler

text: Benjamin Franklin Butler (November 5, 1818 – January 11, 1893) was an American major general of the Union Army, politician, lawyer, and businessman from Massachusetts. Born in New Hampshire and raised in Lowell, Massachusetts, Butler is best known as a political major general of the Union Army during the American Civil War and for his leadership role in the impeachment of U.S. President Andrew Johnson. He was a colorful and often controversial figure on the national stage and on the Massachusetts political scene, serving five terms in the U.S. House of Representatives and running several campaigns for governor before his election to that office in 1882.


title: Benjamin Butler

text: Butler, a successful trial lawyer, served in the Massachusetts legislature as an antiwar Democrat and as an officer in the state militia. Early in the Civil War he joined the Union Army, where he was noted for his lack of military skill and his controversial command of New Orleans, which brought him wide dislike in the South and the "Beast" epithet. Although freeing an enemy's slaves in wartime was nothing new, Butler created the legal idea of doing so by designating them as contraband of war, which led to ending slavery becoming an official war goal. His commands were marred by financial and logistical dealings across enemy lines, some of which may have taken place with his knowledge and to his financial benefit.


title: Benjamin Butler

text: Butler was dismissed from the Union Army after his failures in the First Battle of Fort Fisher, but he soon won election to the United States House of Representatives from Massachusetts. As a Radical Republican he considered President Johnson's Reconstruction agenda to be too weak, advocating harsher punishments of former Confederate leadership and stronger stances on civil rights reform. He was also an early proponent of the prospect of impeaching Johnson. After Johnson was impeached in early 1868, Butler served as the lead prosecutor among the House-appointed impeachment managers in the Johnson impeachment trial proceedings. Additionally, as Chairman of the House Committee on Reconstruction, Butler authored the Ku Klux Klan Act of 1871 and coauthored the landmark Civil Rights Act of 1875.


title: Benjamin Butler

text: In Massachusetts, Butler was often at odds with more conservative members of the political establishment over matters of both style and substance. Feuds with Republican politicians led to his being denied several nominations for the governorship between 1858 and 1880. Returning to the Democratic fold, he won the governorship in the 1882 election with Democratic and Greenback Party support. He ran for president on the Greenback Party and the Anti-Monopoly Party tickets in 1884.


title: Benjamin Butler

text: Benjamin Franklin Butler was born in Deerfield, New Hampshire, the sixth and youngest child of John Butler and Charlotte Ellison Butler. His father served under General Andrew Jackson at the Battle of New Orleans during the War of 1812 and later became a privateer, dying of yellow fever in the West Indies not long after Benjamin was born. He was named after Founding Father Benjamin Franklin. His elder brother, Andrew Jackson Butler (1815–1864), served as a colonel in the Union Army during the Civil War and joined him in New Orleans. Butler's mother was a devout Baptist who encouraged him to read the Bible and prepare for the ministry. In 1827, at the age of nine, Butler was awarded a scholarship to Phillips Exeter Academy, where he spent one term. He was described by a schoolmate as "a reckless, impetuous, headstrong, boy", and regularly got into fights.


title: Benjamin Butler

text: Butler's mother moved the family in 1828 to Lowell, Massachusetts, where she operated a boarding house for workers at the textile mills. He attended the public schools there, from which he was almost expelled for fighting, the principal describing him as a boy who "might be led, but could not be driven." He attended Waterville (now Colby) College in pursuit of his mother's wish that he prepare for the ministry, but eventually rebelled against the idea. In 1836, Butler sought permission to go instead to West Point for a military education, but he did not receive one of the few places available. He continued his studies at Waterville, where he sharpened his rhetorical skills in theological discussions and began to adopt Democratic Party political views. He graduated in August 1838. Butler returned to Lowell, where he clerked and read law as an apprentice with a local lawyer. He was admitted to the Massachusetts bar in 1840 and opened a practice in Lowell.


title: Benjamin Butler

text: After an extended courtship, Butler married Sarah Hildreth, a stage actress and daughter of Dr. Israel Hildreth of Lowell, on May 16, 1844. They had four children: Paul (1845–1850), Blanche (1847–1939), Paul (1852–1918) and Ben-Israel (1855–1881). Butler's business partners included Sarah's brother Fisher, and her brother-in-law, W. P. Webster.


title: Benjamin Butler

text: Butler quickly gained a reputation as a dogged criminal defense lawyer who seized on every misstep of his opposition to gain victories for his clients, and also became a specialist in bankruptcy law. His trial work was so successful that it received regular press coverage, and he was able to expand his practice into Boston. George Riley worked at his Boston law office.


title: Benjamin Butler

text: Butler's success as a lawyer enabled him to purchase shares in Lowell's Middlesex Mill Company when they were cheap. Although he generally represented workers in legal actions, he also sometimes represented mill owners. This adoption of both sides of an issue manifested itself when he became more politically active. He first attracted general attention by advocating the passage of a law establishing a ten-hour day for laborers, but he also opposed labor strikes over the matter. He instituted a ten-hour work day at the Middlesex Mills.


title: Benjamin Butler

text: During the debates over the ten-hour day a Whig-supporting Lowell newspaper published a verse suggesting that Butler's father had been hanged for piracy. Butler sued the paper's editor and publisher for that and other allegations that had been printed about himself. The editor was convicted and fined $50, but the publisher was acquitted on a technicality. Butler blamed the Whig judge, Ebenezer Rockwood Hoar, for the acquittal, inaugurating a feud between the two that would last for decades and significantly color Butler's reputation in the state.


title: Benjamin Butler

text: Butler, as a Democrat, supported the Compromise of 1850 and regularly spoke out against the abolition of slavery. At the state level, he supported the coalition of Democrats and Free Soilers that elected George S. Boutwell governor in 1851. This garnered him enough support to win election to the state legislature in 1852. His support for Franklin Pierce as president, however, cost him the seat the next year. He was elected a delegate to the 1853 state constitutional convention with strong Catholic support, and was elected to the state senate in 1858, a year dominated by Republican victories in the state. Butler was nominated for governor in 1859 and ran on a pro-slavery, pro-tariff platform. He lost to incumbent Republican Nathaniel Prentice Banks.


title: Benjamin Butler

text: In the 1860 Democratic National Convention at Charleston, South Carolina, Butler initially supported John C. Breckinridge for president but then shifted his support to Jefferson Davis, believing that only a moderate Southerner could keep the Democratic party from dividing. A conversation he had with Davis prior to the convention convinced him that Davis might be such a man, and he gave him his support before the convention split over slavery. Butler ended up supporting Breckinridge over Douglas against state party instructions, ruining his standing with the state party apparatus. He was nominated for governor in the 1860 election by a Breckinridge splinter of the state party, but trailed far behind other candidates.


title: Benjamin Butler

text: Although he sympathized with the South, Butler stated, "I was always a friend of southern rights but an enemy of southern wrongs" and sought to serve in the Union Army. His military career before the Civil War began as a private in the Lowell militia in 1840. Butler eventually rose to become colonel of a regiment of primarily Irish American men. In 1855, the nativist Know Nothing Governor Henry J. Gardner disbanded Butler's militia, but Butler was elected brigadier general after the militia was reorganized. In 1857 Secretary of War Jefferson Davis appointed him to the Board of Visitors of West Point. These positions did not give him any significant military experience.


title: Benjamin Butler

text: After Abraham Lincoln was elected president in November 1860, Butler traveled to Washington, D.C. When a secessionist South Carolina delegation arrived there he recommended to lameduck President James Buchanan that they be arrested and charged with treason. Buchanan rejected the idea. Butler also met with Jefferson Davis and learned that he was not the Union man that Butler had previously thought he was. Butler then returned to Massachusetts, where he warned Governor John A. Andrew that hostilities were likely and that the state militia should be readied. He took advantage of the mobilization to secure a contract with the state for his mill to supply heavy cloth to the militia. Military contracts would constitute a significant source of profits for Butler's mill throughout the war.


title: Benjamin Butler

text: Butler also worked to secure a leadership position should the militia be deployed. He first offered his services to Governor Andrew in March 1861. When the call for militia finally arrived in April, Massachusetts was asked for only three regiments, but Butler managed to have the request expanded to include a brigadier general. He telegraphed Secretary of War Simon Cameron, with whom he was acquainted, suggesting that Cameron issue a request for a brigadier and general staff from Massachusetts, which soon afterward appeared on Governor Andrew's desk. He then used banking contacts to ensure that loans that would be needed to fund the militia operations would be conditioned on his appointment. Despite Andrew's desire to assign the brigadier position to Ebenezer Peirce, the bank insisted on Butler, and he was sent south to ensure the security of transportation routes to Washington. The nation's capital was threatened with isolation from free states because it was unclear whether Maryland, a slave state, would also secede.


title: Benjamin Butler

text: The two regiments Massachusetts sent to Maryland were the 6th and 8th Volunteer Militia. The 6th departed first and was caught up in a secessionist riot in Baltimore, Maryland on April 19. Butler traveled with the 8th, which left Philadelphia the next day amid news that railroad connections around Baltimore were being severed. Butler and the 8th traveled by rail and ferry to Maryland's capital, Annapolis, where Governor Thomas H. Hicks attempted to dissuade them from landing. Butler landed his troops (who needed food and water), occupying the Naval Academy. When Hicks informed Butler that no one would sell provisions to his force, Butler pointed out that armed men did not necessarily have to pay for needed provisions, and he would use all measures necessary to ensure order.


title: Benjamin Butler

text: After being joined by the 7th New York Militia, Butler directed his men to restore rail service between Annapolis and Washington via Annapolis Junction, which was accomplished by April 27. He also threatened Maryland legislators with arrest if they voted in favor of secession, and he seized the Great Seal of Maryland, "without which no legislation could become law." Butler's prompt actions in securing Annapolis were received with approval by the US Army's top general, Winfield Scott, and he was given formal orders to maintain the security of the transit links in Maryland. In early May, Scott ordered Butler to lead the operations that occupied Baltimore. On May 13 he entered Baltimore on a train with 1000 men and artillery, with no opposition. That was done in contravention of Butler's orders from Scott, which had been to organize four columns to approach the city by land and sea. General Scott criticized Butler for his strategy (despite its success) as well as his heavy-handed assumption of control of much of the civil government, and he recalled him to Washington. Butler shortly after received one of the early appointments as major general of the volunteer forces. His exploits in Maryland also brought nationwide press attention, including significant negative press in the South, which concocted stories about him that were conflations of biographical details involving not just Butler but also a namesake from New York and others.


title: Benjamin Butler

text: When two Massachusetts regiments had been sent overland to Maryland, two more were dispatched by sea under Butler's command to secure Fort Monroe at the mouth of the James River. After being dressed down by Scott for overstepping his authority, Butler was next assigned command of Fort Monroe and of the Department of Virginia. On May 27, Butler sent a force north to occupy the lightly defended adjacent town of Newport News, Virginia at Newport News Point, an excellent anchorage for the Union Navy. The force established and significantly fortified Camp Butler and a battery at Newport News Point that could cover the entrance to the James River ship canal and the mouth of the Nansemond River. Butler also expanded Camp Hamilton, established in the adjacent town of Hampton, Virginia, just beyond the confines of the fort and within the range of its guns.


title: Benjamin Butler

text: The Union occupation of Fort Monroe was considered a potential threat on Richmond by Confederate General Robert E. Lee, and he began organizing the defense of the Virginia Peninsula in response. Confederate General John B. Magruder, seeking to buy time while awaiting men and supplies, established well-defended forward outposts near Big and Little Bethel, only from Butler's camp at Newport News as a lure to draw his opponent into a premature action. Butler took the bait, and suffered an embarrassing defeat in the Battle of Big Bethel on June 10. Butler devised a plan for a night march and operation against the positions but chose not to lead the force in person for which he was later criticized. The plan proved too complex for his inadequately trained subordinates and troops to carry out, especially at night, and was further marred by the failure of staff to communicate all passwords and precautions. A friendly fire incident during the night gave away the Union position, which was further harmed the advance without knowledge of the layout or the strength of the Confederate positions. Massachusetts militia general Ebenezer Peirce, who commanded in the field, received the most criticism for the failed operation. With the withdrawal of many of his men for use elsewhere, Butler was unable to maintain the camp at Hampton although his forces retained the camp at Newport News. Butler's commission, which required approval from Congress, was vigorously debated after Big Bethel, with critical comment raised about his lack of military experience. His commission was narrowly approved on July 21, the day of the First Battle of Bull Run, the war's first large-scale battle. The battle's poor Union outcome was used as cover by General Scott to reduce Butler's force to one incapable of substantive offense, and it was implicit in Scott's orders that the troops were needed nearer to Washington.