title: Prison gang

text: The system of governance in prison gangs highlights the unusual mechanisms by which people (or groups of people) with no access to government institutions manage to facilitate exchange and establish property rights within their scope of influence. The emergence of informal governance systems within prison gangs runs parallel to successful systems of trade and control beyond bars. Skarbek (2011) uses the example of the illegal narcotics trade in Los Angeles to explain how an alternative system of governance behind bars can lead to successful socioeconomic organization. Focusing on the Mexican Mafia prison gang, Skarbek argues that the mafia holds substantial control within local jail systems which allows it to yield power over drug dealers on the streets. Drug dealers outside the prison walls anticipate future incarceration and thus future interaction with the mafia. Faced with the threat of these future run-ins with the Mafia, drug dealers on the street comply with the current demands of prison gangs in order to secure their own future.


title: Prison gang

text: Since prison gangs gain a long-term profit if transactions in the illicit market run smoothly, they have the incentive to ensure that there is order and cohesion between suppliers and consumers.


title: Prison gang

text: Similar to stationary bandits that form governance out of anarchy in the model presented by economist Marcur Olson, prison gangs are actors who have the ability to extract resources from their population by providing services. They act to maximize their profit, not only by restraining the amount they extort, but by providing services that facilitate exchange and imposing "gang taxes". The Mexican Mafia, for example, increases its tax revenue by providing three types of services: protect street gang members while they are incarcerated, protect taxpaying drug dealers on the street, and settling of disputes.


title: Prison gang

text: In the process of maximizing profit, gangs may provide public goods to ensure smooth production, such as working to resolve gang disputes inside and outside of the prison.


title: Prison gang

text: Moreover, by holding the monopoly on violence in prisons, they pose a credible threat to street gangs, which they leverage to extort their profits. So prison gangs can extort street gangs because they pose a credible threat to inmates in the county jail, and street gang members rationally anticipate spending time there. They effectively use incarcerated street gang members as hostages to force non-incarcerated gang members to pay. Furthermore, they can encourage street gangs to steal from and make war with other non-taxpaying street gangs.


title: Prison gang

text: However, prison gangs cannot extort drug dealers whom they cannot harm in jail; for American prison gangs, this usually means members of other races (the county jails segregate them based upon race). They also cannot extort taxes from people who do not anticipate incarceration because there is no threat of facing violence in prison. And they cannot tax those outside the jurisdiction of a jail controlled by the gang. Non-incarcerated prison gang members collect taxes and regulate fraud and imposters acting as tax collectors. Taxpayers also ensure that their money is going to the right hands because consequences otherwise would be severe.


title: Prison gang

text: Political scientist David Skarbeck writes, "Like the stationary bandit, prison gangs provide governance institutions that allow illicit markets to flourish. They adjudicate disputes and protect property rights. They orchestrate violence so that it is relatively less disruptive. They do not do this because they are benevolent dictators but because they profit from doing so. In addition to governing prisons, gangs are also an important source of governance to the criminal world outside of prison. They wield tremendous power over street gangs, specifically those participating in the drug trade. Because of this power, governance from behind bars helps illicit markets to flourish on the streets."


title: Prison gang

text: The way that prison gangs consolidate and maintain power is also comparable to how actors behave in Charles Tilly's predatory theory of state-building model. Prison gangs engage in "war making," or monopolizing on force and occupying the power vacuum of state authority. They eliminate rivals (in the US mostly along racial lines) within their territories, and in doing so they carry out "state making." Gangs offer protection to their members, affiliates, and clients. They also extract or collect taxes from client gangs and those in the trade to maintain and expand their system.


title: Prison gang

text: One of the cities in South Africa – Cape Town – has its own history of gang activity dating back to the 19th century. One of the authors that wrote about African gangs recorded in one of his books. Gang activity escalated with the establishment in an area known as the Cape Flats. Many young men turned to gangs for protection, opportunity, and a sense of belonging.


title: Prison gang

text: Prison gangs work to recruit members with street smarts and loyalty, and they look for inmates who will be able to carry out the gangs' functions and exercise force when necessary. They also create a structure to monitor activities of members and regulate the behavior of existing members within the gangs to ensure internal cohesion.


title: Prison gang

text: To ensure that high quality, dedicated members are being recruited, many prison gangs rely on existing members to vouch for or refer new members into the group. To enter gangs, members often have to prove their loyalty through costly activity, often violent hazing or committing some crime such as theft. Gang members mark themselves as part of the gang with tattoos (or colors, on the streets) so that taxpayers know they are credible collectors and so that gangs can keep track of their members as they move in and out of prison.


title: Prison gang

text: Prison gangs maintain a hierarchy and have written and unwritten rules of conduct. They have constitutions to define expectations and to guide laws for those they govern as well as to direct the process for the creation of new rules. In terms of the hierarchy, at the top of most US prison gangs is a group of "shot callers" who are like major stakeholders that make the major decisions about operations. Having a single dictator-like shot caller is unusual. Checks and balances within prison gang organizations are lucrative; internally, there ways to voice dissatisfaction towards any level of the organization. For example, when conflicts arise or abuses occur where a higher-ranked gang member commits an offense against a lower-ranked member, an internal court-like body receives complaints and determines punishments. Actions are punished with violence. In many gangs exit is not an option (or is a very costly one); many prison gangs require a lifetime membership.


title: Prison gang

text: Political scientist Ben Lessing differentiates between prison gangs that arise within the prison system, which he calls 'natives,' and those that were already formed outside, calling them 'imports'. He claims that norms and culture-like initiation rituals, rules about sex, and relations with guards and non-members are shaped by the direction of formation. Natives have a 'prison character' in their imagery, traits, and codes that they retain even when native gangs engage in operations beyond the prison system. On the other hand, import gangs arrive with a "strong group identity, behavioral norms, and often their publicly known histories and reputations." This gives these groups a stronger sense of solidarity and cohesion in prison, though they compensate in how well they navigate the system within prison. Imports have an advantage in their existing outside operations.


title: Prison gang

text: Discussing the organizational mechanism within prisoner gangs, Skarbek (2011) argues that both explicit and implicit rules govern behaviors within these groups. Explicit rules are those that are formally written and structured while implicit rules are those that are based on the values and norms of each group. Though the use of implicit and explicit rules (to what degree and to address which situations) may vary from group to group, Skarbek maintains that since codifying all rules is costly, prison gangs rely in great part, on the existence of implicit rules with values and norms forming a foundation from where informal governance begins. Other social scientists such as Ellickson (1991), echo similar claims but with key distinctions. Ellickson states that close-knit groups rely heavily on specific norms and informal rules to achieve cooperation and to minimize transaction costs within governance institutions based on property rights. However, while Ellickson's work focuses on non-hierarchical examples, Skarbek's example considers a hierarchical system of prison gangs. Nevertheless, Skarbek maintains that norms that govern small communities can also govern illegal markets such as those operated by prison gangs.


title: Prison gang

text: La Eme or the Mexican Mafia: (Blue) "Eme" is the Spanish name of the letter "M," and it is the 13th letter in the alphabet. The Mexican Mafia is composed mostly of Hispanics, although there rarely are some White members (at least associates). The Mexican Mafia and the Aryan Brotherhood are allies. They work together to control prostitution, drug-running, weapons, and "hits" or murders. Eme was originally formed in the 1956 in the Deuel Vocational Institute. by Hispanic prisoners from the southern part of that state. It has traditionally been composed of US-born and US-raised Hispanics with "Sureños" gangs of southern California paying tribute to it. During the 1970s and 1980s, Eme in California established the model of leveraging its power in prison to control and profit from criminal activity on the street. The gangs activities fall into two categories: conventional crimes - distributing drugs, robbery, and murder, and illicit market exchange - protecting property, enforcing agreements, and handling disputes. Members of the Mexican Mafia are recognized by a "black hand" tattoo commonly found across their back, chest, leg, or neck. (photo)


title: Prison gang

text: Nuestra Familia: (Red) ("Our family" in Spanish) "N," the 14th letter in the alphabet, along with the Roman numeral "XIV" is the symbol Nuestra Familia is another mostly Hispanic prison gang that is constantly at war with La Eme. It was originally formed by Northern-California- or rural-based Hispanic prisoners with "Norteños" gangs of Northern California paying tribute to it, opposing domination by La Eme which was started by and associated with Los Angeles gang members. Nuestra Familia was first established California's Soledad Prison in the 1960s.


title: Prison gang

text: The Texas Syndicate: A mostly Texas-based street and prison gang that includes mostly Hispanic members and does (albeit rarely) allow Caucasian members. The Texas Syndicate, more than La Eme or Nuestra Familia, has been associated or allied with Mexican immigrant prisoners, while Eme and Familia tend to be composed of, and associate with, US-born or US-raised Hispanics.


title: Prison gang

text: Mexikanemi: Also known as the Texas Mexican Mafia, is a Mexican-American prison and street gang established in the Texas Department of Criminal Justice in 1984. It functions separately from the original California Mexican Mafia, and members consider themselves primarily tied to the area of Aztlán, formerly Mexican territories in the southwestern United States. The group engages in a wide range of illegal activities including drug trafficking, loan sharking, and money laundering.


title: Prison gang

text: Ñetas: A Hispanic (mainly Puerto Rican) gang in Puerto Rico and on the eastern coast of the US. Originally formed in 1970 in Rio Pedras Prison, Puerto Rico.


title: Prison gang

text: Fresno Bulldogs: Mexican American street and prison gang. Fresno Bulldogs are largely conflicted with other prison gangs and are the biggest Hispanic gang in California unaffiliated with Sureños and Norteños.


title: Prison gang

text: The Barrio Azteca (), or Los Aztecas (), is a Mexican-American street, and prison gang originally based in El Paso, Texas.


title: Prison gang

text: Puro Tango Blast, or Tango Blast, is a term used to collectively describe various regionally based street, and prison gangs of generally Hispanic men from major Texas cities.


title: Prison gang

text: Trinitarios: The largest Dominican gang, Trinitarios, is the fastest-growing Hispanic gang on the northeastern region. Although as prison gang, the Trinitarios have members operating as a street gang, and it is known for violent crime and drug trafficking in the New York and New Jersey area.


title: Prison gang

text: Aryan Brotherhood: A white prison gang that originated in California's San Quentin Prison amongst white American prisoners in 1964. Its emblem, "the brand," consists of a shamrock and the number 666. Other identifiers include the initials "AB," swastikas and the sigrune. Perhaps out of its ideology and the necessity to establish a presence among the more numerous Black and Hispanic gang members, the AB has a particular reputation for ruthlessness and violence. Since the 1990s, in part because of this reputation, the AB has been heavily targeted by state and federal authorities. Many key AB members have been moved to "supermax" control-unit prisons at both the federal and state level or they are under federal indictment.


title: Prison gang

text: Nazi Lowriders: A newer white prison gang that emerged after many Aryan Brotherhood members were sent to the Security Housing Unit at Pelican Bay or transferred to federal prisons. NLR is associated with members who are originally from the Antelope Valley and it is also known to accept some light-skinned or Caucasian-identified Hispanic members.


title: Prison gang

text: NorCal Peckerwoods (NCP): A Northern California-based White prison gang that began in San Joaquin County Jail and French Camp Honor Farm in Stockton, California in the mid 1990s. Unlike other White prison gangs who typically align with La EME (The Mexican Mafia) and the Southern California-based Surenos Mexican gang, with the Black Guerilla Family (BGF) and other black prison gangs and The Nuestra Familia / Nortenos Mexican gang as their primary enemies – NCP is closely aligned with The Nuestra Familia and the Nortenos Mexican gang but do share a common enemy of the Black prison gangs. NCP closely aligned with the PEN1 (Public Enemy Number One: pronounced PEE-NYE) and also affiliates with the Aryan Brotherhood (AB, aka "The Brand") and the Nazi Lowriders (NLR) as well but does not align with the Mexican Mafia and Surenos Mexican gangs the way the other White prison gangs do. This is primarily based on the fact that the NCP operates in Northern California only. Of course, depending on where the inmate is housed and who the dominant White prison gang is on the yard, if a Wood is NCP and ends up on a yard run by the PEN1, AB or NLR - a NCP is part of the overall Woodpile and affiliates with them and their allies primarily. Notable NCP member is Stockton California recording artist Brainwash.


title: Prison gang

text: Dirty White Boys: A white prison gang made up of inmates from Texas, and has a heavy presence in the federal prison system.


title: Prison gang

text: European Kindred (EK) is a white supremacist prison and street gang that began in the Oregon prison system, and is affiliated with the Aryan Brotherhood and the Ku Klux Klan.


title: Prison gang

text: Confederate Knights of America: A white supremacist prison gang in Texas that is affiliated with the KKK and the AB.


title: Prison gang

text: Aryan Circle: The Aryan Circle split from the Aryan Brotherhood to maintain criminal gang status and white supremacist beliefs, and to oppose black and Hispanic prison gangs.


title: Prison gang

text: Dead Man Incorporated (DMI): A predominantly white prison gang founded in the Maryland Correctional System, with branches in many other correctional facilities throughout the U.S.


title: Prison gang

text: Aryan Brotherhood of Texas: A white prison, and street gang. Despite the similarity of its name, the Aryan Brotherhood of Texas (A.B.T.) does not have ties with the original Aryan Brotherhood. Founded in Texas in the 1980s the A.B.T. was mainly created as a criminal enterprise.


title: Prison gang

text: Simon City Royals: A predominantly white street and prison gang, established in Chicago during the late 1950s.


title: Prison gang

text: Most African-American prison gangs retain their street gang names and associations. These commonly include Rollin' sets (named after streets, i.e., Rollin' 30s, Rollin' 40s, etc.) that can identify with either Blood or Crip affiliations.


title: Prison gang

text: The Black Guerilla Family represents an exception. It was originally a politically based group with a significant presence in prisons and prison politics. It was founded in 1966 at San Quentin State Prison in California by former Black Panther member George L. Jackson.


title: Prison gang

text: United Blood Nation: An African-American street, and prison gang on the east coast. They are rivals with the Netas and have ties with the Black Guerilla Family.


title: Prison gang

text: Folk Nation: Founded in Midwestern and Southern states, allied with Crips, bitter rivals with the People Nation.


title: Prison gang

text: People Nation: Founded in Midwestern and Southern states, allied with Bloods, bitter rivals with the Folk Nation.


title: Prison gang

text: D.C. Blacks: Founded in Washington D.C. by African-American inmates, are allied with the Black Guerilla Family and United Blood Nation, and enemies to the Aryan Brotherhood and Mexican Mafia.


title: Prison gang

text: Conservative Vice Lords (CVL): A primarily African-American gang that originated in the St. Charles, Illinois Youth Center outside Chicago. In Chicago, CVL operated primarily in the Lawndale section and used profits from drug sales to continue its operations and used prisons to train and recruit new members.


title: Prison gang

text: KUMI 415: A predominantly African-American prison gang that was originally formed in Folsom State Prison in the mid-1980s, and the founding members were mainly from the San Francisco Bay Area.


title: Prison gang

text: Prominent prison gangs in South Africa: 26s, 27s and 28s, collectively known as the Numbers, originate from a gang called The Ninevites, in the 19th- and early 20th-century. It was born in Johannesburg, and the leader of the Ninevites, "Nongoloza" Mathebula, is said to have created laws for the gang. "Nongoloza" became a supernatural figure and left behind an origin myth that shapes the current laws of the Numbers.


title: Prison gang

text: The gangs began to project outside the prison system starting in 1990, as globalization led to South Africa's illicit markets seeing the rise of large drug trafficking gangs. The Americans and the Firm, the two largest super gangs outside of prison made alliances with Numbers gangs. They imported imagery, laws, and parts of the Numbers's initiation system. Membership in these gangs is not determined by race as it is with US prison gangs, however, initiation is still a costly and violent process, sometimes involving sexual hazing.


title: Prison gang

text: The 26s, 27s, 28s by means of robbery, murder, extortion, brigandage, of their own culture, their own religious beliefs create a tradition handed down from generation to generation, which continues to exist to this day. They are the historically illegal group of individuals who united in gangs with numeric values mentioned above. They are formed a tradition located in South Africa and called South African criminal tradition originated in Southern Africa 200 years ago according to the official history, and it differs from other traditions with the case that it came first in the wild and then in prison, because most of other criminal traditions originated inside the prison.


title: Prison gang

text: The Primeiro Comando da Capital (or the PCC) is a Brazilian prison gang based in São Paulo. The gang rose in 1993 at a soccer game at Taubate Penitentiary to fight for prisoners' rights in the aftermath of the 1992 Carandiru Massacre, when São Paulo state military police killed more than 100 inmates.


title: Prison gang

text: The gang orchestrated rebellions in 29 São Paulo state prisons simultaneously in 2001, and since then it has caught the attention of the public for ensuing waves of violence. The Brazilian police and media estimate that at least 6,000 members pay monthly dues and are thus a base part of the organization. According to São Paulo Department of Investigation of Organized Crime, more than 140,000 prisoners are under their control in São Paulo.


title: Prison gang

text: The gang does not allow mugging, rape, extortion, or the use of the PCC to resolve personal conflicts. It maintains a strict hierarchy, led by Marcos Willians Herbas Camacho. All members inside and outside are required to pay taxes. Members can be soldiers, towers (gang leaders in particular prisons), or pilots (who specialize in communications). The PCC has strong ties with the Red Command, Rio's most powerful drug-trafficking organization which is rumored to supply them with cocaine.


title: Prison gang

text: Political scientist Benjamin Lessing predicts that crackdowns and harsher carceral sentences will increase prison gangs' control of outside actors, and that beyond a point, these policies limit state power. Lessing states, "the harsher, longer, and more likely a prison sentence, the more incentives outside affiliates have to stay on good terms with imprisoned leaders, and hence the greater the prison gangs' coercive power over those who anticipate prison."


title: Prison gang

text: Chart 6.1 from this article in the Small Arms Survey explores the effects of certain policy measures on the propagation of prison gangs through prison systems and their projection on streets.


title: Lucrezia de' Medici, Duchess of Ferrara

text: Lucrezia de' Medici (14 February 1545 – 21 April 1561) was a member of the House of Medici and by marriage Duchess consort of Ferrara, Modena and Reggio from 1558–1561.


title: Lucrezia de' Medici, Duchess of Ferrara

text: Married to the intended husband of her elder sister Maria, who died young, her marriage was short and unhappy. The Duchess died of pulmonary tuberculosis, but almost immediately after her death there were rumors that she had been poisoned on the orders of her husband. That suspicion inspired the English poet Robert Browning to create a dramatic monologue in verse "My Last Duchess" (1842).


title: Lucrezia de' Medici, Duchess of Ferrara

text: Born in Florence on 14 February 1545, Lucrezia was the fifth child and third daughter of Cosimo I de' Medici, Duke of Florence (and since 1569 Grand Duke of Tuscany), and Eleanor of Toledo. Her paternal grandparents were the famous Condottiere Giovanni delle Bande Nere and Maria Salviati (granddaughter of Lorenzo the Magnificent). Her maternal grandparents were Pedro Álvarez de Toledo, Viceroy of Naples, and Maria Osorio, 2nd Marchioness of Villafranca del Bierzo. Lucrezia was named after her great-grandmother Lucrezia de' Medici (1470–1553) (mother of Maria Salviati).


title: Lucrezia de' Medici, Duchess of Ferrara

text: Like all children of the Medici Ducal couple, Lucrezia received a good education and was brought up in strict accordance with Spanish court ceremonial, which her mother followed. The girls in this family could not leave their chambers without permission, and there only a "duenna" was permitted to be with them. In addition to their father and brothers, only elderly confessors were admitted to them privately.


title: Lucrezia de' Medici, Duchess of Ferrara

text: From childhood, her parents were seeking suitable marriage candidates for their daughters. In the period 1549–1550, it was planned to marry Lucrezia to Don Pedro de Aragona y Cardona, 3rd Duke of Montalto. And in 1552 she was betrothed to Fabio Dal Monte, nephew of Pope Julius III, but the engagement was canceled after the death of the Pope in 1555.


title: Lucrezia de' Medici, Duchess of Ferrara

text: In 1557, as a sign of reconciliation between Ercole II d'Este, Duke of Ferrara (who held a pro-French position), and King Philip II of Spain, it was decided that Alfonso d'Este, Hereditary Prince of Ferrara, would marry Maria de' Medici, the eldest daughter of Cosimo I, an ally of Spain. However, Maria died shortly thereafter and Lucrezia took her place.


title: Lucrezia de' Medici, Duchess of Ferrara

text: The marriage between a prince from the House of Este and a princess from the House of Medici was opposed by a pro-French party at the groom's court. Margaret and Elisabeth, sister and daughter, respectively of King Henry II of France, were suggested instead to the Ferrarese court as wives for the hereditary Prince. And the ambassadors who arrived in Florence from Ferrara, who had not yet seen Lucrezia, had heard rumors, deliberately spread around the Ferrara court, as to her plain appearance and poor health.


title: Lucrezia de' Medici, Duchess of Ferrara

text: Nevertheless, on 13 April 1558 a marriage contract was signed in Pisa, according to which a dowry of 200,000 gold "scudi" was given for the bride. On 11 May Alessandro Fiaschi, the chief representative of Ferrara, presented a ring to Lucrezia as a sign of the betrothal. The ambassadors saw her then for the first time and were pleased with the appearance of the princess. She seemed to them a well-mannered and virtuous girl.


title: Lucrezia de' Medici, Duchess of Ferrara

text: Alfonso d'Este solemnly entered Florence on 18 May 1558. On 3 July, 24-year-old Alfonso and 13-year-old Lucrezia were married in the chapel in the Palazzo Pitti (or according to another version in the Basilica of Santa Maria Novella), by the bishop of Cortona, Giovan Battista di Simone Ricasoli. At the request of his mother-in-law, the hereditary Prince of Ferrara agreed to postpone the wedding night until such time as his bride reached her sexual maturity.


title: Lucrezia de' Medici, Duchess of Ferrara

text: According to an oral agreement between him and his father-in-law, which they reached at the conclusion of the marriage contract three days after the wedding, Alfonso left Florence. He went to the French court in Paris, who promised to pay off a sovereign debt to the Duchy of Ferrara of 300,000 ducats. Lucrezia, despite the invitation of her father-in-law to move to Ferrara, remained in Florence at the request of her mother, to wait for her husband to come for her.


title: Lucrezia de' Medici, Duchess of Ferrara

text: Together with her sister Isabella, the new hereditary Princess of Ferrara continued to live in the chambers of the Palazzo Pitti, isolated from the rest of the world. Lucrezia had fallen in love with her husband; however, he was indifferent to her. Her numerous letters to him often went unanswered. While waiting for Alfonso to come to her, she ate almost nothing and spoke little, and every day she prayed for him for a long time at the morning service. The hereditary Princess desperately wanted to leave her strict maternal care and start an independent life.


title: Lucrezia de' Medici, Duchess of Ferrara

text: After some time, Duke Cosimo I expressed dissatisfaction to his son-in-law at the manner in which he was delaying his return to collect his wife. Only after the death of Duke Ercole II on 3 October 1559, when Alfonso became Duke of Ferrara, Modena and Reggio under the name of Alfonso II, and his spouse became, accordingly, Duchess consort, did he leave France and come to take her away with him. On 17 February 1560, Lucrezia solemnly entered Ferrara.


title: Lucrezia de' Medici, Duchess of Ferrara

text: Once in Ferrara, the already frail Duchess spent almost all her time in her rooms. Less than a year after her arrival, on 21 April 1561, she died, after suffering a month of fever, severe weight loss, constant coughing and a permanently bleeding nose. According to Dr. Andrea Pascvali, sent to the Duchess by her father from Florence, during the entire period of Lucrezia's illness, her husband continued to be concerned at her state of health. An autopsy by the same doctor revealed that the Duchess had died of "putrid fever"; modern historians believe that her death was caused by pulmonary tuberculosis. Despite this, after her death, there were rumors that she had been poisoned.


title: Lucrezia de' Medici, Duchess of Ferrara

text: Lucrezia was buried in the Corpus Domini Monastery, the ancestral mausoleum of the House of Este in Ferrara. Her marriage to Alfonso II was childless, and the widowed Duke married twice more: in 1565 to the Archduchess Barbara of Austria and in 1579 to Margherita Gonzaga. In both marriages he had no children. With the death of Alfonso II, the Duchy of Ferrara became part of the Papal States, and the Duchies of Modena and Reggio passed to his nephew Cesare d'Este, a descendant of the d'Este family through an illegitimate line.


title: Lucrezia de' Medici, Duchess of Ferrara

text: A portrait of Lucrezia has survived, now kept in the North Carolina Museum of Art in the city of Raleigh, North Carolina. According to some experts, it was the work of Bronzino; according to others, was painted by Bronzino's nephew Alessandro Allori. A copy of this painting is kept in the Palazzo Pitti. Other portraits of Lucrezia are in the collections of the Uffizi Gallery and the Ambras Castle; the half-length image in the Uffizi has been attributed to Alessandro Allori.


title: Lucrezia de' Medici, Duchess of Ferrara

text: There are several medals depicting the Duchess of Ferrara: three works by Pastorino dei Pastorini and one by Domenico Poggini. All of them were made to commemorate the wedding of Lucrezia and Alfonso II.


title: Lucrezia de' Medici, Duchess of Ferrara

text: Shocked at the death of the young Duchess, Bronzino dedicated a posthumous sonnet to her. Lucrezia is also the heroine of the dramatic monologue in verse "My Last Duchess" by Robert Browning, first published under the title ""Italy"" in 1842, and under the more well-known title in 1845. She is also the subject of the 2022 novel "The Marriage Portrait" by award-winning author Maggie O'Farrell. Inspired by Browning's poem, her marriage to Alfonso is the subject of Gabrielle Kimm's 2010 novel "His Last Duchess".


title: Low-intensity conflict

text: A low-intensity conflict (LIC) is a military conflict, usually localised, between two or more state or non-state groups which is below the intensity of conventional war. It involves the state's use of military forces applied selectively and with restraint to enforce compliance with its policies or objectives.


title: Low-intensity conflict

text: The term can be used to describe conflicts where at least one or both of the opposing parties operate along such lines.


title: Low-intensity conflict

text: As the name suggests, in comparison with conventional operations the armed forces involved operate at a greatly reduced tempo, with fewer soldiers, a reduced range of tactical equipment and limited scope to operate in a military manner. For example, the use of air power, pivotal in modern warfare, is often relegated to transport and surveillance, or used only by the dominant side of conflict in asymmetric warfare such as a government forces against insurgents. Artillery and multiple rocket launchers are often not used when LIC occurs in populated areas. The role of the armed forces is dependent on the stage of the insurrection, whether it has progressed to armed struggle or is in an early stage of propaganda and protests. Improvised explosive devices are commonly used by insurgents, militias and sometimes government forces such as barrel bombs in low intensity conflicts. The majority of casualties in low intensity conflicts tend to be resulting from small arms and improvised explosive devices.


title: Low-intensity conflict

text: Intelligence gathering is essential to an efficient basis of LIC operation instructions. Electronic and signal gathering intelligence, ELINT and SIGINT, proves largely ineffective against low-intensity opponents. LIC generally requires more "hands-on" HUMINT methods of information retrieval.


title: Low-intensity conflict

text: In the first stages of insurrection, much of an army's work is "soft" – working in conjunction with civil authorities in psychological operations, propaganda, counter-organizing, so-called "hearts and minds." If the conflict progresses, possibly into armed clashes, the role develops with the addition of the identification and removal of the armed groups – but again, at a low level, in communities rather than throughout entire cities.


title: Low-intensity conflict

text: Myanmar (Burma) has regularly conducted limited low-intensity military campaigns against the independence movement of the Karen people in an area of southeast Burma (roughly corresponding to a Burmese administrative region called the Kayin State), which has actively pursued independence since January 1949. While allegedly limited and low-intensity in that the territories occupied in force by central government forces are returned (as they cannot be held permanently as yet) at the end of the offensives (with the stated, but sometimes unstated, purpose of weakening the opposition and independence movements), human rights organizations and national governments outside of Burma question the veracity of, and sometimes outright refute, these claims.


title: Low-intensity conflict

text: The governments of Sudan have also engaged in limited military offensives (analogous to Burma's "annual dry season offensives") against various armed opposition and independence movements, which have often escalated into full-scale warfare, particularly in the south and Darfur, but also until recently in the east. These military actions (First Sudanese Civil War and Second Sudanese Civil War) have, over time, continued to ravage the areas in dispute and contribute greatly to the poor conditions in those regions as well as the various human rights violations that have occurred (and in some cases are still occurring) there.


title: Low-intensity conflict

text: German occupation of Western Europe during World War II, notably the occupation of France, shared many aspects with more recent cases of LIC, such as the "Hearts and minds" stage early on, establishment of puppet governments, strong propaganda aimed at isolating resistance movements, and support to domestic friendly forces (such as the Milice in France).


title: Low-intensity conflict

text: In Poland from 1939 to 1945 there was a strong partisan movement. Partisan forces (mainly AK and BCh organizations), although less numerous than the German army, organized a strong resistance movement; in the years 1941-44 a successful action was carried out against the expulsion of Poles from the Zamość region. Besides, the "Polish underground" destroyed hundreds of German transports of military supplies throughout the war. In Poland there was also a secret order and many non-military resistance organizations like "Zegota" which helped thousands of Jews save their lives. When the Red Army entered Poland in 1944, the Poles wanted to support them in the fight against the Germans, but the Soviets betrayed them, even though during Operation Tempest, the partisans significantly accelerated the Russian attack, the Russians arrested or killed thousands of members of the Polish Underground State, nor did the Soviets also help support the Warsaw Uprising. In total, throughout the war, hundreds of thousands of people (up to 700,000) served in the ranks of the Polish underground, and even every sixth Pole helped polish partizants but partizantes did not have more than 50,000 firearms.


title: Low-intensity conflict

text: The conflict, known as The Troubles, was a sectarian and ethno-nationalistic conflict, fuelled by historical events and longstanding oppression by the UK’s military and security services. By the mid 1960’s, the Northern Ireland civil rights movement began organizing Irish Catholics to protest, among other factors, disenfranchisement, abuses of power such as discrimination in the housing and job markets perpetuated by the ruling governments in the United Kingdom & its devolved subsidiary, known as Stormont. When these peaceful protests were met with brutal attacks by both the police and loyalist gangs given free reign to attack these protesters. On its face, it had a religious dimension although despite use of the terms 'Protestant' and 'Catholic' to refer to the two warring sides, it was not a religious conflict. For most, these were mostly just terms of identity. A key issue was the status of Northern Ireland. Unionists and loyalists, who descended from colonists who arrived during the Ulster Plantation, displacing all but a handful of native clans and farmers, were Ulster Protestants and wanted Northern Ireland to remain within the United Kingdom. Irish nationalists and republicans, who were mostly Irish Catholics, wanted to end the Partition of Ireland, leave the United Kingdom and reunite with the 26 counties that had formed the Republic of Ireland following partition.


title: Low-intensity conflict

text: The main participants in the Troubles were republican paramilitaries such as the Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA) and the Irish National Liberation Army (INLA); loyalist paramilitaries such as the Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF) and Ulster Defence Association (UDA); British state security forces such as the British Army, Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC), Ulster Defense Regiment, MI5, and lesser known groups like the Force Research Unit; and political activists. The security forces of the Republic of Ireland played a smaller role. Republicans carried out a guerrilla campaign against British forces as well as a bombing campaign against infrastructural, commercial and political targets. Loyalists attacked occasionally republicans/nationalists, but focused primarily on the wider Catholic community in what they described as retaliation. At times, there were bouts of sectarian tit-for-tat violence, as well as feuds within and between paramilitary groups. The British security forces undertook policing and counter-insurgency, primarily against suspected republicans. This included the internment without trial of anyone accused of being, or supporting, Republicans. Investigations also revealed significant collusion between British state forces and loyalist paramilitaries, and furthermore loyalist paramilitaries such as the Glenanne gang included serving members of the Ulster Defense Regiment and Royal Ulster Constabulary.


title: Low-intensity conflict

text: Low-intensity warfare's main opponent is the guerrilla, or irregular fighter. This opponent may be state sponsored, or private non-state actors driven by religious or other ideology in urban, semi-urban and rural areas. Modern guerrilla warfare at its fullest elaboration is an integrated process, complete with sophisticated doctrine, organization, specialist skills and propaganda capabilities. Guerrillas can operate as small, scattered bands of raiders, but they can also work side by side with regular forces or combine for far-ranging mobile operations in squad, platoon or battalion sizes or even form conventional units. Based on their level of sophistication and organization, they can shift between all those modes as the situation demands, as guerrilla warfare is flexible, not static.


title: Low-intensity conflict

text: Guerrilla tactics are based on intelligence, ambush, deception, sabotage, and espionage, undermining an authority by long, low-intensity confrontation. It can be quite successful against an unpopular foreign or local regime, as demonstrated by the Vietnam War. A guerrilla army may increase the cost of maintaining an occupation or a colonial presence above what the foreign power may wish to bear. Against a local regime, guerrillas may make governance impossible by terror strikes and sabotage or even a combination of forces to depose their local enemies in conventional battle. Those tactics are useful in demoralizing an enemy and raising the morale of the guerrillas. In many cases, guerrilla tactics allow a small force to hold off a much larger and better equipped enemy for a long time, as in Russia's Second Chechen War and the Second Seminole War fought in the swamps of Florida, United States. Guerrilla tactics and strategy are summarized below and are discussed extensively in standard reference works such as Mao's "On Guerrilla Warfare".


title: Low-intensity conflict

text: Mao's theory of people's war divides warfare into three phases. In the first phase, the guerrillas gain the support of the population by attacking the machinery of government and distributing propaganda. In the second phase, escalating attacks are made on the government's military and vital institutions. In the third phase, conventional fighting is used to seize cities, overthrow the government, and take control of the country. Mao's seminal work "On Guerrilla Warfare", has been widely distributed and applied, nowhere more successfully than in Vietnam, under the military leader and theorist Võ Nguyên Giáp. Giap's "People's War, People's Army" closely followed the Maoist three-stage approach but with greater emphasis on flexible shifting between mobile and guerrilla warfare, and opportunities for a spontaneous "general uprising" of the masses, in conjunction with guerrilla forces.


title: Low-intensity conflict

text: Guerrilla organization can range from small local rebel groups with a few dozen participants to tens of thousands of fighters, deploying from tiny cells to formations of regimental strength. In most cases, there is a leadership aiming for a clear political objective. The organization is typically structured into political and military wings, sometimes allowing the political leadership plausible deniability of military attacks. The most fully elaborated guerrilla warfare structure was seen by the Chinese and Vietnamese communists during the revolutionary wars of East and Southeast Asia.


title: Low-intensity conflict

text: A simplified example of this more sophisticated organizational type, which was used by revolutionary forces during the Vietnam War, is shown below.


title: Low-intensity conflict

text: Guerrilla operations typically include a variety of attacks on transportation routes, individual groups of police or military, installations and structures, economic enterprises, and targeted civilians. Attacking in small groups and using camouflage and often captured weapons of that enemy, the guerrilla force can constantly keep pressure on its foes and diminish its numbers and still allow escape with relatively few casualties. The intention of such attacks is only military but also political in aiming to demoralize target populations or governments or by goading an overreaction that forces the population to take sides for or against the guerrillas. Examples range from chopping off limbs in various internal African rebellions to the suicide bombings of Palestine and Sri Lanka to sophisticated maneuvers by Viet Cong and NVA forces against military bases and formations.


title: Low-intensity conflict

text: For successful operations, surprise must be achieved by guerrillas. If the operation has been betrayed or compromised, it is usually called off immediately. Intelligence is also extremely important, and detailed knowledge of the target's dispositions, weaponry, and morale is gathered before any attack. Intelligence can be harvested in several ways. Collaborators and sympathizers usually provide a steady flow of useful information. If working clandestinely, guerrilla operatives may disguise their membership in the insurgent operation and use deception to ferret out needed data. Employment or enrollment as a student may be undertaken near the target zone, community organizations may be infiltrated, and even romantic relationships struck up in intelligence gathering. Public sources of information are also invaluable to the guerrilla, from the flight schedules of targeted airlines, to public announcements of visiting foreign dignitaries, to US Army Field Manuals. Modern computer access via the World Wide Web makes harvesting and collation of such data relatively easy. The use of on the spot reconnaissance is integral to operational planning. Operatives will "case" or analyze a location or potential target in depth- cataloging routes of entry and exit, building structures, the location of phones and communication lines, the presence of security personnel, and a myriad of other factors. Finally, intelligence is concerned with political factors such as the occurrence of an election or the impact of the potential operation on civilian and enemy morale.


title: Low-intensity conflict

text: Relationships with civil populations are influenced by whether the guerrillas operate among a hostile or friendly population. A friendly population is of immense importance to guerrillas, providing shelter, supplies, financing, intelligence, and recruits. The "base of the people" is thus the key lifeline of the guerrilla movement. In the early stages of the Vietnam War, American officials "discovered that several thousand supposedly government-controlled 'fortified hamlets' were in fact controlled by Viet Cong guerrillas, who 'often used them for supply and rest havens.'" Popular mass support in a confined local area or country, however, is not always strictly necessary. Guerrilla and revolutionary groups can still operate by using the protection of a friendly regime, drawing supplies, weapons, intelligence, local security, and diplomatic cover. The Al Qaeda organization is an example of the latter type, drawing sympathizers and support primarily from the wide-ranging Muslim world, even after American attacks eliminated the umbrella of a friendly Taliban regime in Afghanistan.


title: Low-intensity conflict

text: An apathetic or hostile population makes life difficult for guerrillas, and strenuous attempts are usually made to gain their support. They may involve not only persuasion but also a calculated policy of intimidation. Guerrilla forces may characterize a variety of operations as a liberation struggle, but that may or may not result in sufficient support from affected civilians. Other factors, including ethnic and religious hatreds, can make a simple national liberation claim untenable. Whatever the exact mix of persuasion or coercion used by guerrillas, relationships with civil populations are one of the most important factors in their success or failure.


title: Low-intensity conflict

text: Terror is used to focus international attention on the guerrilla cause, liquidate opposition leaders, extort cash from targets, intimidate the general population, create economic losses, and keep followers and potential defectors in line. The widespread use of terror by guerrillas and their opponents is a common feature of modern guerrilla conflicts, with civilians attempting to mollify both sides. At times, a civil population may be the main targets of guerrilla attacks, as in Palestinian operations against Israeli civilians, or Israeli and local allies operations against Palestinian refugee civilians during the Lebanon conflict like the Sabra and Shatila massacre. Such tactics may backfire and cause the civil population to withdraw its support or to back countervailing forces against the guerrillas .


title: Low-intensity conflict

text: Guerrillas must plan carefully for withdrawal once an operation has been completed or if it is going badly. The withdrawal phase is sometimes regarded as the most important part of a planned action, as getting entangled in a lengthy struggle with superior forces is usually fatal to insurgent, terrorist or revolutionary operatives. Withdrawal is usually accomplished using a variety of different routes and methods and may include quickly the scouring of the area for loose weapons, the cleaning-up of evidence, and the disguising as peaceful civilians. In the case of suicide operations, withdrawal considerations by successful attackers are moot, but such activity as eliminating traces of evidence and hiding materials and supplies must still be done.


title: Low-intensity conflict

text: Guerrillas typically operate with a smaller logistical footprint than to conventional formations, but their logistical activities can be elaborately organized. A primary consideration is to avoid depending on fixed bases and depots, which are comparatively easy for conventional units to locate and destroy. Mobility and speed are the keys; wherever possible, the guerrilla must live off the land or draw support from the civil population in which it is embedded. In that sense, "the people" become the guerrilla's supply base. The financing of terrorist or guerrilla activities ranges from direct individual contributions (voluntary or non-voluntary) to the actual operation of business enterprises by insurgent operatives to bank robberies and kidnappings to the complex financial networks that are based on kin, ethnic and religious affiliation used by modern jihadist/jihad organizations.


title: Low-intensity conflict

text: Permanent and semi-permanent bases form part of the guerrilla logistical structure, which are usually located in remote areas or in cross-border sanctuaries that are sheltered by friendly regimes. They can be quite elaborate, such as in the tough VC/NVA fortified base camps and tunnel complexes encountered by US forces during the Vietnam War. Their importance can be seen by the hard fighting sometimes engaged in by communist forces to protect those sites. However, when it became clear that defense was untenable, communist units typically withdrew without sentiment.


title: Low-intensity conflict

text: Guerrilla warfare is often associated with a rural setting, which was indeed the case with the definitive operations of Mao and Giap, and the mujahadeen of Afghanistan. Guerrillas, however, have successfully operated in urban settings, such as in Argentina and Cyprus. In both cases, guerrillas rely on a friendly population to provide supplies and intelligence. Rural guerrillas prefer to operate in regions providing plenty of cover and concealment, especially heavily forested and mountainous areas. Urban guerrillas, rather than melting into the mountains and jungles, blend into the population and also depend on a support base among the people. Rooting guerrillas out of both types of areas can be difficult.


title: Low-intensity conflict

text: Foreign support in the form of soldiers, weapons, sanctuary, or statements of sympathy for guerrillas is not strictly necessary, but it can greatly increase the chances of an insurgent victory. Foreign diplomatic support may bring the guerrilla cause to international attention, putting pressure on local opponents to make concessions or garnering sympathetic support and material assistance. Foreign sanctuaries can add heavily to guerrilla chances, furnishing weapons, supplies, materials, and training bases. Such shelter can benefit from international law, particularly if the sponsoring regime is successful in concealing its support and in claiming plausible deniability for attacks that are by operatives based in its territory.


title: Low-intensity conflict

text: The VC and NVA made extensive use of such international sanctuaries during their conflict, and the complex of trails, way-stations and bases snaking through Laos and Cambodia (the famous Ho Chi Minh Trail) was the logistical lifeline that sustained their forces in South Vietnam. Another case in point is the Mukti Bahini guerrillas, who fought alongside the Indian Army in the 14-day Bangladesh Liberation War in 1971 against Pakistan, which led to the independence of Bangladesh. In the post-Vietnam era, al-Qaeda also made effective use of remote territories, such as Afghanistan under the Taliban regime, to plan and execute its operations. That foreign sanctuary eventually broke down with American attacks against the Taliban and al-Qaeda after operatives pulled off the September 11, 2001 attacks.


title: Low-intensity conflict

text: As they can choose when and where to strike, guerrillas usually have the tactical initiative and the element of surprise. The planning for an operation may take weeks, months, or even years with a constant series of cancelations and restarts, as the situation changes. Careful rehearsals and "dry runs" are usually conducted to work out problems and details. Many guerrilla strikes are not undertaken unless clear numerical superiority can be achieved in the target area, a pattern typical of VC/NVA and other "people's war" operations. Individual suicide bomb attacks offer another pattern, typically involving only the individual bomber and his support team, but they too are spread or metered out based on prevailing capabilities and political winds.


title: Low-intensity conflict

text: Whatever approach is used, the guerrilla holds the initiative and can prolong his survival by varying the intensity of combat. Attacks are spread out over quite a range of time, from weeks to years. During the interim periods, the guerrilla can rebuild, resupply, and plan. During the Vietnam War, most communist units, including mobile NVA regulars using guerrilla tactics, spent only a few days per month fighting. While they might be forced into an unwanted battle by an enemy sweep, most of the time was spent in training, intelligence gathering, political and civic infiltration, propaganda indoctrination, construction of fortifications, or foraging for supplies and food. The large numbers of such groups striking at different times, however, gave the war its "around-the-clock" quality.


title: Low-intensity conflict

text: The low-intensity fighter or guerrilla can be difficult to beat, but certain principles of counter-insurgency warfare are well known since the 1950s and 1960s and have been successfully applied.


title: Low-intensity conflict

text: The widely distributed and influential work of Sir Robert Thompson, counter-insurgency expert in Malaysia, offers several such guidelines. Thompson's underlying assumption is that of a country minimally committed to the rule of law and better governance. Numerous other regimes, however, give such considerations short shrift, and their counterguerrilla operations have involved mass murder, genocide, starvation as well as the massive spread of terror, torture and execution. The totalitarian regimes of Stalin and Hitler are classic examples, as are the lesser but comparable measures of dictatorships fighting "dirty wars" in South America. Elements of Thompson's moderate approach are adapted here:


title: Low-intensity conflict

text: Low-intensity operations consist of the deployment and use of soldiers in situations other than war. For states, these operations are usually conducted against non-state actors and are given terms like counter-insurgency, anti-subversion, and peacekeeping. Violent non-state actors often conduct low-intensity operations against states, often in insurgencies.


title: Bernhard von Bülow

text: Bernhard Heinrich Karl Martin, Prince of Bülow ( ; 3 May 1849 – 28 October 1929) was a German statesman who served as the foreign minister for three years and then as the chancellor of the German Empire from 1900 to 1909. A fervent supporter of "Weltpolitik", Bülow single-mindedly devoted his chancellorship to making Germany a leading power on the world stage. Despite presiding over sustained economic growth and technological advancement within his country, his government's foreign policy did much to antagonize the international community and significantly contributed to the outbreak of the First World War.


title: Bernhard von Bülow

text: He was born at Klein-Flottbeck, Holstein (now part of Altona, Hamburg). His father, Bernhard Ernst von Bülow, was a Danish and German statesman and member of an old House of Bülow, while his mother was a wealthy heiress, Louise Victorine Rücker (1821-1894). His brother, Major-General Karl Ulrich von Bülow, was a cavalry commander during World War I. Bülow attributed his grasp of English and French to having learnt it from governesses as a young child. His father spoke French, and his mother spoke English, as was common in Hamburg society.


title: Bernhard von Bülow

text: In 1856, his father was sent to the Federal Diet in Frankfurt to represent Holstein and Lauenburg, when Otto von Bismarck was also there to represent Prussia. He became a great friend of Bismarck's son Herbert when they played together. At 13, the family moved to Neustrelitz when his father became Chief Minister to the Grand Duke of Mecklenburg, where Bernhard attended the Frankfort gymnasium, before attending Lausanne, Leipzig and Berlin Universities.


title: Bernhard von Bülow

text: He volunteered for military service during the Franco-Prussian War and became a lance-corporal in the King's Hussar Regiment. In December 1870, the squadron was in action near Amiens, and he later described charging and killing French riflemen with his sabre. He was promoted to lieutenant and was invited to remain in the army after the war but declined. He completed his law degree at the University of Greifswald in 1872. Afterwards, he entered first the Prussian Civil Service and then the diplomatic service.


title: Bernhard von Bülow

text: In 1873 his father became Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs in the German government, serving under Bismarck. Bülow entered the diplomatic corps. His first short assignments were to Rome, St. Petersburg, Vienna and then Athens. In 1876, he was appointed attaché to the German embassy in Paris, attended the Congress of Berlin as a secretary and became second secretary to the embassy in 1880.


title: Bernhard von Bülow

text: In 1884, he had hoped to be posted to London but instead became first secretary at the embassy in St. Petersburg. On the way to his new assignment, he stayed for a couple of days at Varzin with the Bismarck family. Bismarck explained that he considered relations with Russia much more important than with Britain and so he had posted Bülow there. Bismarck reported himself as impressed by Bülow's calmness and demeanour during the interview. In Russia, he acted as "chargé d'affaires" in 1887 and advocated the ethnic cleansing of Poles from Polish territories of the German Empire in a future armed conflict. Bülow wrote regularly to the Foreign Office, complaining about his superior, Ambassador Schweinitz, who, however, was well-liked. Bülow earned for himself a reputation as only a schemer. In 1885, Friedrich von Holstein noted that Bülow was attempting to have Prince Chlodwig von Hohenlohe-Schillingsfürst removed as ambassador to France to get the post despite meanwhile exchanging friendly letters with him.


title: Bernhard von Bülow

text: On 9 January 1886, still in St. Petersburg, he married Maria Anna Zoe Rosalia Beccadelli di Bologna, Principessa di Camporeale, Marchesa di Altavilla, whose first marriage with Count Karl von Dönhoff had been annulled by the Holy See in 1884. The princess, an accomplished pianist and pupil of Franz Liszt, was a stepdaughter of Marco Minghetti and the daughter of Donna Laura Minghetti (née Acton). She had been married for sixteen years and had three children. Bülow previously had numerous love affairs, but the marriage was intended to further his career. In 1888, he was offered the choice of appointments to Washington, DC, or Bucharest, and chose Bucharest, as Maria objected to the prospect of traveling to the United States and leaving her family behind. He spent the next five years scheming to be appointed to Rome, where his wife was well connected. King Umberto I of Italy was persuaded to write to Kaiser Wilhelm that he would be pleased if Bülow became ambassador there, which occurred in 1893.


title: Bernhard von Bülow

text: On 21 June 1897 Bülow received a telegram instructing him to go to Kiel to speak to Wilhelm. On the way, he stopped at Frankfurt while changing trains and spoke to Philipp, Prince of Eulenburg. Eulenburg explained that Wilhelm wanted a new State Secretary for Foreign Affairs and urged Bülow to take the post, which his father had once held. Eulenburg also passed on advice about how best to manage Wilhelm, who lived on praise and could not stand to be contradicted. In Berlin, Bülow first spoke to Friedrich von Holstein, who was head of the political department of the German Foreign Office. Holstein advised him that although he would have preferred the present Secretary, Adolf Marschall von Bieberstein, to stay in his post, Wilhelm was determined to replace him and that he would prefer the successor to be Bülow. Perhaps Bülow might be able to find him an ambassador's post in due course. Chancellor Hohenlohe, desperate to retire because of old age, urged Bülow to take the position with an eye to succeeding him as chancellor. Bülow urged Hohenlohe to continue in office for as long as he could.


title: Bernhard von Bülow

text: On 26 June, Bülow met with the Kaiser, who advised that it would be one of the new secretary's main tasks to set about building a world-class fleet capable of taking on the British without precipitating a war. Bülow asked for time to consider the offer, and on 3 August, he accepted. The two men formed a good working relationship. Rather than oppose Wilhelm, which some of his predecessors had done, Bülow agreed with him on all matters by sometimes privately relying on Wilhelm's bad memory and frequent changes of opinion to take the action that he thought best and ignore Wilhelm had instructed. The post of Secretary of State was subordinate to that of the Chancellor and under Bismarck's chancellorship, it had been only a functionary. Under Bülow, that was largely reversed, Hohenlohe being content to let Bülow manage foreign affairs with his principal adviser, Holstein. Wilhelm would call on Bülow every morning to discuss state affairs but would rarely see the chancellor.


title: Bernhard von Bülow

text: Bülow also held a seat in the Prussian government. Although Wilhelm was emperor of all Germany, he was also king of Prussia. As Foreign Secretary, Bülow was chiefly responsible for carrying out the policy of colonial expansion with which the emperor was identified. He was welcomed by the Foreign Office because he was the first professional diplomat to be placed in charge since Bismarck's resignation in 1890. Bülow had been wary of accepting the post if Holstein remained as Imperial First Councillor, as Holstein had in practice held great authority in recent years. Holstein was regarded as indispensable because of his long experience in office, rank, cunning and phenomenal memory. Eulenburg advised Bülow to stake out a firm but working relationship immediately on his arrival, and both succeeded in working together. In 1899, on bringing to a successful conclusion the negotiations by which Germany acquired the Caroline Islands, he was raised to the rank of Count.


title: Bernhard von Bülow

text: In October 1900, Bülow was summoned to Wilhelm's hunting retreat at Hubertsstock, where Wilhelm asked Bülow to become Chancellor of the German Empire and Prime Minister of Prussia. Bülow queried whether he was the best man for the job. Wilhelm admitted he would have preferred Eulenburg on a personal level but was not sure he was sufficiently able. On 16 October, Bülow was summoned again to Homburg, where the Kaiser met his train in person. Wilhelm explained that Hohenlohe had announced he could no longer be and so Bülow accepted the job. A replacement State Secretary was necessary, which was first offered to Holstein, who turned it down since he preferred not to take a position that required appearing before the Reichstag. The post was given to Baron Oswald von Richthofen, who had already been serving as undersecretary to Bülow. It was made clear that the State Secretary's post would now revert to the subordinate role it had played in Bismarck's time, with Holstein remaining the more important adviser on foreign affairs.


title: Bernhard von Bülow

text: Bülow's mornings were reserved for Wilhelm, who would visit the chancellery every morning when in Berlin. His determination to remain on Wilhelm's good side was remarkable, even for those accustomed to his irascible manner. Wilhelm's household controller noted, "Whenever, by oversight, he expresses an opinion in disagreement with the emperor, he remains silent for a few moments and then says the exact contrary, with the preface, 'as Your Majesty so wisely remarked'". He gave up tobacco, beer, coffee and liqueurs and took 35 minutes of exercise every morning and would ride in good weather through the Tiergarten. He would, on Sundays, take long walks in the woods. In 1905, at 56, he led his old Hussars regiment at the gallop in an imperial parade and was rewarded by an appointment to the rank of major general. Wilhelm remarked to Eulenburg in 1901, "Since I have Bülow I can sleep peacefully". His first conspicuous act as chancellor was a masterly defence in the Reichstag of German imperialism in China. Bülow often spent his time defending German foreign policy there, to say nothing of covering for the Kaiser's many undiplomatic gaffes. In a speech on November 1906, Bülow introduced the concept of "encirclement" to the Reichstag that triggered the Teutonic press to blame "Der Krieg in der Gegenwart". To Germany, the Triple Entente was a disaster, but he put a brave face on it.


title: Bernhard von Bülow

text: Various reforms were also introduced during his reign, including an extension of the period in which workers could claim accident insurance (1900), the making of industrial arbitration courts compulsory for towns with a population of more than 20,000 (1901) and an extension of health insurance and further controls on child labour (1903). A polling booth law was introduced that improved the secret ballot in 1904. Two years later, payment for Reichstag deputies was introduced.


title: Bernhard von Bülow

text: In preparation for the 1906 election, Bülow created the "Bülow Bloc" of parties that were fervently antisocialist and anticlerical, devoutly patriotic, enthusiastically imperialist, and loyal to the Kaiser and the Fatherland. What Bebel labeled the "Hottentot election" was a disaster for the Social Democrats, who lost almost half their seats. However, Bülow was unable to turn the election coalition into a stable bloc in parliament


title: Bernhard von Bülow

text: Under pressure from the Junker-dominated Agrarian League, Bülow passed a tariff in 1902 that increased the duties on agriculture. As a result, the German grain production became one of the most protected in the world. Bülow's government also negotiated a series of commercial treaties with other European countries that came into force in March 1906.


title: Bernhard von Bülow

text: Bülow served as foreign minister, 1897-1909. To gain a stronger voice in world affairs he encouraged Admiral Tirpitz's naval expansion policy. Expecting Britain to be defeated by Russia he planned to pick up some colonies of the British Empire. He miscalculated, and alienated Britain even more, as it moved closer to an alliances with France and Russia.


title: Bernhard von Bülow

text: Britain still held the balance of power in Europe. France and Britain had been colonial rivals and had a long mutual opposition, but King Edward VII was determined to boost British popularity in France by a personal tour. Serious negotiations for the Entente Cordiale began between the French ambassador to London, Paul Cambon, and the British Foreign Secretary, Henry Petty-Fitzmaurice, 5th Marquess of Lansdowne. As part of settling differences, France agreed not to dispute British control of Egypt if Britain agreed to France's claims to Morocco.


title: Bernhard von Bülow

text: On 24 March 1904, France formally informed the German ambassador of the new Anglo-French Convention. Prince Hugo von Radolin, the ambassador, responded that he felt the agreement natural and justified. The German press noted that the deal in Morocco did not harm national interests and that the French intervention to restore order in the country might help German trade. Still, Bülow was cynical and took the Social Darwinist's view that expansion was a fact of life. His policy was unclear, even to the generals.


title: Bernhard von Bülow

text: Although not swayed by bellicose generals, he followed a central planning agenda. If Prussia was euphoric, Bülow remained ambitious for imperial grandiosity and world power. Commercial growth in iron, steel, mining, railways and ironclads, and a new navy was driven by huge outputs and highly-competitive contractors. His chauvinism was extensive, a defensive embrasure against British alliance-building on which Germany would reject negotiations. He had promised to reply directly to British Colonial Secretary Joseph Chamberlain but thought better of it: "it is the English who must make advances to us". That unintentionally entrenched the Entente.


title: Bernhard von Bülow

text: Bülow assured the British ambassador that he was pleased to see Britain and France settling their differences. He informed the Reichstag that Germany had no objections to the deal and no concerns about German interests in Morocco. Holstein had a different view: intervention in Moroccan affairs was governed by the Treaty of Madrid. Holstein argued that Germany had been sidelined by not being included in the negotiations and that Morocco was a country that showed promise for German influence and trade, which must eventually suffer if it came under French control. Previously he had dismissed any possibility of agreement between France and Britain. France now offered military assistance to Morocco to improve order in the country. Bülow responded by supporting the position of an independent Morocco, encouraging the United States to become involved and threatened war if France intervened. He was now convinced that the new friendliness between France and Britain was a threat to Germany, particularly if the accord deepened, but France was ill-prepared for war. Despite the possible risks of assassination, Bülow persuaded Wilhelm to make a visit to Tangier in 1905, where he made a speech supporting Morocco's independence, but his presence there simultaneously demonstrated Germany's determination to maintain its own influence.


title: Bernhard von Bülow

text: A friendly German naval presence in Morocco and a military base nearby could threaten the British or the important trade routes through the Mediterranean. The British continued to support beleaguered French Foreign Minister Theophile Delcassé. Lansdowne had been surprised by the German reaction, but Britain might take on the fledgling German fleet before it grew too large. On 3 June 1905, Abdelaziz of Morocco, prompted by Germany, rejected the French offer of assistance and called for an international conference. On 6 June, after Delcassé had resigned, news spread to Berlin. The following morning, Bülow was elevated to the rank of prince ("Fürst"). The occasion coincided with the marriage of the crown prince and echoed the elevation of Bismarck to prince in the Hall of Mirrors at the Palace of Versailles. Germany continued to press for further French concessions. Bülow carefully instructed Radolin and also spoke to the French ambassador in Berlin. However, the effect was somewhat the reverse of what he intended by hardening the resolve of French Premier Maurice Rouvier to resist further demands for "rapprochement". The Algeciras Conference commenced on 16 January 1906 at Algeciras Town Hall. During the conference, a British fleet of 20 battleships, with accompanying cruisers and destroyers, visited the port town, and all of the delegates were invited on board.


title: Bernhard von Bülow

text: The conference went badly for Germany, with a vote against German proposals that was 10–3. Holstein wished to threaten war against France, but Bülow ordered Holstein to take no further part in the conference. No satisfactory outcome for Germany was in sight by April, which left the only course of action to wind it down as best he could. The result was received badly in Germany, with objections raised in the press. On 5 April 1906, Bülow was obliged to appear before the Reichstag to defend the outcome, and during a heated exchange, he collapsed and was carried from the hall. At first, it was thought he had suffered a fatal stroke. Lord Fitzmaurice, in the British House of Lords, compared the incident with that of the death of William Pitt, 1st Earl of Chatham, a compliment that was much appreciated in Germany. Bülow's collapse was ascribed to overwork and influenza but, after a month's rest, he was able to resume his duties.


title: Bernhard von Bülow

text: In 1907, during the Harden–Eulenburg Affair, Adolf Brand, the founding editor of the homosexual periodical "Der Eigene", printed a pamphlet alleging that Bülow had been blackmailed for engaging in homosexual practices and was morally obligated to oppose Paragraph 175 of the German penal code, which outlawed homosexuality. Sued for slander and brought to trial on 7 November 1907, Brand asserted that Bülow had embraced and kissed his private secretary, Privy Councilor Max Scheefer, at all-male gatherings hosted by Eulenburg. Testifying in his own defense, Bülow denied the accusation but remarked he had heard unsavoury rumours about Eulenburg. Taking the stand, Eulenburg defended himself against Brand's charge by denying that he had ever held such events and claimed that he had never engaged in same-sex acts, which subsequently led to a perjury trial. Despite concluding testimony by the chief of the Berlin police that Bülow may have been the victim of a homosexual blackmailer, he easily prevailed in court, and Brand was sent to prison.


title: Bernhard von Bülow

text: In November 1907, Wilhelm made a long-planned state visit to Britain. He had attempted to cancel the visit because of the recent scandals, but it went ahead and was so successful that he decided to remain in Britain for a holiday. He rented a house for the purpose from Colonel Edward Montague Stuart-Wortley and spoke freely to its owner while he was there. After he had departed, Stuart-Wortley wrote an article for "The Daily Telegraph" about the conversations, submitted it to Wilhelm and requested approval for its publication. The English manuscript was passed to Bülow to review for publication. Wilhelm had asked Bülow not to pass on the article to the Foreign Office, but Bülow instead sent it unread to State Secretary Wilhelm von Schoen and requested an official translation and the addition of any amendments that might be necessary.


title: Bernhard von Bülow

text: Since Schoen was away, it instead went to the undersecretary, Stemrich. He read it but passed it without comment to Reinhold Klehmet, who interpreted his instructions as meaning to correct any errors of fact but not otherwise to comment. The manuscript was returned to Bülow, still unread, to Wilhelm, who saw no reason not to publish. It duly appeared in print and caused a storm. In the interview, Wilhelm expressed many controversial and offensive opinions:


title: Bernhard von Bülow

text: Wilhelm thus managed to offend Japanese, French, Russian and especially British sensibilities. Even Germans were outraged, as he claimed to have helped the British with their war against the Boers, whom most Germans had supported.


title: Bernhard von Bülow

text: Bülow accused the Foreign Office of failing to comment properly on the article. The office responded that it was his role to decide on publication in such a situation. Although Bülow denied having read the article, how he could have failed to do so remained unclear because of Wilhelm's continuous record of public gaffes. Questions arose as to Wilhelm's competence to rule and the role he should be permitted under the constitution. The matter was to be debated in the Reichstag, where Bülow would have to defend his own position and that of Wilhelm. Bülow wrote to Wilhelm and successfully offered to resign unless Wilhelm could give him full support in the matter. Bülow arranged the publication of a defence of the events in "Norddeutsch Allgemeine Zeitung", which glossed over Wilhelm's remarks and concentrated on the failings of the Foreign Office in not examining the article properly. It explained that Bülow had offered to take full responsibility for the office's failings, but Wilhelm had refused to accept his resignation.


title: Bernhard von Bülow

text: Bülow succeeded in turning away criticism from himself in the Reichstag and finished his speech to cheering from the assembly. Holstein observed that the nature of the comments meant that he could almost certainly not have defended Wilhelm for making them and that Bülow could not have done otherwise: disputing the factual accuracy of much of what Wilhelm had said and leaving blame for events squarely with him. His explanation was that the comments had been made with the best of intentions and would certainly not be repeated. He declared his conviction that the disastrous effects of the interview would induce Wilhelm to observe strict reserve, even in private conversations, or neither he nor any successor could assume responsibility.


title: Bernhard von Bülow

text: Wilhelm was due to be away from Germany during the Reichstag debate, on a trip to Austria, and received much criticism for not staying at home. Wilhelm queried whether he ought to cancel the trip, but Bülow advised him to continue with it. Holstein asked Bülow about Wilhelm's absence; Bülow denied advising Wilhelm to go. Matters were not improved when during the visit, Count Dietrich von Hülsen-Haeseler, the chief of the German Imperial Military Cabinet, died from a heart attack at Donaueschingen, the estate of Prince Max von Fürstenberg. On Wilhelm's return, Bülow persuaded him to endorse a statement that he concurred with Bülow's statements to the Reichstag. Wilhelm was now close to breakdown and considering abdication.


title: Bernhard von Bülow

text: Wilhelm withdrew from public appearances for six weeks, which was generally seen as an act of penitence rather than the consequence of his depression. Public opinion began to reflect on whether the Chancellor had failed to advise him properly and then failed to defend Wilhelm's actions in the Reichstag. Wilhelm's own view of the affair began to change to blaming Bülow for failing to warn him of the difficulties that the article would cause. He determined that Bülow would have to be replaced. In June 1909, difficulties arose in obtaining additional finance for ongoing ship construction. Wilhelm warned Bülow that if he failed to carry a majority for imposing inheritance taxes, Bülow would have to resign. He was defeated by eight votes. On board the royal yacht, "Hohenzollern", on 26 June, Bülow offered his resignation, exactly twelve years after accepting the office.


title: Bernhard von Bülow

text: On 14 July, the resignation was announced, and Theobald von Bethmann-Hollweg became the new Chancellor. Wilhelm dined with the Bülows and expressed his regret that the prince was determined to resign. He observed that he had been informed that some of those who voted against the inheritance tax had done so out of animosity against Bülow and his handling of the "Telegraph" affair, rather out of opposition to the tax. For his services to the state, Bülow was awarded the Order of the Black Eagle set in diamonds.


title: Bernhard von Bülow

text: After his resignation in 1909, Bülow lived principally at the villa in Rome, which he had purchased for his retirement. Part of the summer was usually spent by him at Klein Flottbek, near Hamburg, or on the island of Norderney. A large fortune left him by a cousin, a Hamburg merchant, enabled him to live in elegant leisure and to make his house in Rome a centre of literary and political society.


title: Bernhard von Bülow

text: He employed his leisure in writing for the centenary celebrations of the Wars of Liberation, a remarkable book on Imperial Germany, extolling its achievements and defending the main lines of his own foreign policy. In a revised edition of his book on Imperial Germany, published after the start of the First World War, he omitted or altered many passages that seemed compromising in light of the war like his policy of lulling Britain into a false sense of security while the German Navy was being constructed. He was understood to be in deeply malodorous company with Wilhelm, who never forgave him his attitude and action with regard to a 1908 interview in "The Daily Telegraph".


title: Bernhard von Bülow

text: In 1914–1915, Bülow was the ambassador to Italy but failed to bring King Victor Emmanuel III to join the Central Powers. Italy had declared its neutrality at the outbreak of the war but intimated on 5 July 1914 through diplomatic channels that Austria-Hungary's ultimatum to Serbia was aggressive and provocative. On 9 December 1914, Sidney Sonnino addressed the Austrian Note to the Austro-Hungarian Foreign Minister, Count Berchtold, to call attention to Article VII of the treaty by which Italy participated in the Triple Alliance, with particular reference to the clause that bound Austria-Hungary, if it disturbed the status quo in the Balkans even by a temporary occupation of Serbian territory, to come to an agreement with Italy and to arrange for compensations. The questions of the Trentino Agreement and Trieste were thus formally opened.


title: Bernhard von Bülow

text: Austria-Hungary manifested great reluctance to enter upon the question of compensations, but Germany was more alert to its own concerns. Bülow was, therefore, entrusted with the temporary charge of the German embassy in Rome since the actual ambassador, Flotow, went on sick leave (19 December 1914). Bülow at once plunged into active negotiations and was sympathetic with Italian demands for compensation. He had, however, to fight the intransigence of Hungarian Prime Minister István Tisza, and Tisza's nominee, who was Berchtold's successor, Baron von Burian. Bülow was from the first for the complete cession of the Trentino region to Italy, but Austria-Hungary was willing to cede only part of it. Sonnino pointed out that Italian feeling would not be satisfied even with the whole of the Trentino but would also, in accordance with its irredentism, demand Trieste. Bülow continued to urge that all he could mediate for was the Trentino but that Austria would fight to keep Trieste.


title: Bernhard von Bülow

text: In early April 1915, Italy's secret negotiations demanded the Trentino, Trieste and the , off the coast of Dalmatia. Austria-Hungary recognised Italian sovereignty over Valona. However, negotiations dragged on until the middle of May, when Bülow made a grave but characteristic tactical mistake. He induced the former Italian Prime Minister Giovanni Giolitti to come to Rome from Turin in the hope of preventing a rupture and bringing about the acceptance of the Austro-Hungarian terms.


title: Bernhard von Bülow

text: Prime Minister Antonio Salandra suddenly resigned. There was a great outburst of popular indignation, fanned by the impassioned eloquence of d'Annunzio and expressed in demonstrations in front of the Quirinal, the royal palace, and on the Capitoline Hill, the centre of Rome. After a great majority in the Italian Parliament had on 20 May supported Salandra, a general mobilisation was ordered on 22 May, and the formal declaration of war against Austria-Hungary followed on 23 May 1915. The next day, Bülow left Rome. He regarded his task as impossible in any case, and on returning, he remarked: "Morale and attitude of the German people: A-1. Political leadership: Z-Minus".


title: Bernhard von Bülow

text: He lived in Berlin, but after the peace he again resided in Rome for part of every year and spent the rest of the year in Germany. His name was mentioned in a ministerial crisis of 1921, as a possible chancellor. Although many of the leading figures in the Reichstag, including Matthias Erzberger, hoped that Bülow would succeed Bethmann-Hollweg, who was dismissed in 1917, he was entirely unacceptable to the vast majority of both the German people and the Reichstag.


title: Bernhard von Bülow

text: Bülow spoke several languages and was a charming conversationalist. He was comfortably at home in high society and could entertain and impress even his opponents. He was thought by some colleagues to be untrustworthy: Alfred von Kiderlen-Waechter referred to him as "the Eel". Once he had obtained power and position in the German government, he had no overarching ideas of what to do with them, allowing others to guide policy. His character made him a good choice to work with Kaiser Wilhelm II, who required agreement and flattery from his senior ministers, even if they sometimes then ignored his instructions. He wrote four volumes of autobiography, to be published after his death, which markedly altered public perception of his character, as they included his candid and malicious descriptions of others. He was a fine debater in the Reichstag but was generally lazy in carrying out his duties. He was described by Friedrich von Holstein, who was for 30 years the first councillor in the foreign department and a major influence on policy throughout that time, as having "read more Machiavelli than he could digest". His mother-in-law claimed, "Bernhard makes a secret out of everything".


title: It's Not Unusual

text: "It's Not Unusual" is a song written by Les Reed and Gordon Mills, first recorded by a then-unknown Tom Jones, after having first been offered to Sandie Shaw. He intended it as a demo for her, but when she heard it she was so impressed with his delivery that she recommended he sing it instead.


title: It's Not Unusual

text: The record was the second Jones single Decca released, reaching No. 1 on the UK Singles Chart in 1965. It was his first hit in the United States, peaking at No. 10 in May of that year. It was released in the US by Parrot Records and reached No. 3 on "Billboard"<nowiki>'</nowiki>s easy listening chart. The BBC initially refused to play it because of his sexy image, but UK pirate radio did not. He sang the song twice in 1965 on "The Ed Sullivan Show" in New York City, on 2 May and 13 June. He did it again on 21 April 1968.


title: It's Not Unusual

text: "It's Not Unusual" is the theme song of his late 1960s–early 1970s television musical variety series, "This Is Tom Jones". The first studio version was released in 1995 on the compilation album, "The Legendary Tom Jones – 30th Anniversary Album".


title: It's Not Unusual

text: The musical arranger was Les Reed. Although the guitarist has been cited as Jimmy Page of Led Zeppelin, Reed has said the only guitarist was Joe Moretti, who also played on "Shakin' All Over" and "Brand New Cadillac". Page lists the session in his online discography. Drums were played by Scottish percussionist Andy White, who had previously drummed on a Beatles recording session, or possibly by Ronnie Verrell, and Alan Grahame has said he was involved.


title: It's Not Unusual

text: Jones's group, "Tom Jones and the Squires", were missing their regular keyboard player for the session. Future AC/DC drummer, Chris Slade, ran across the street to the "La Giaconda" coffee house, and recruited the then-unknown Reginald Dwight (who later adopted the stage name Elton John) for the one-day recording session.


title: It's Not Unusual

text: As was standard practice in the 1960s, session musicians were used instead of Jones's regular backing band. There are conflicting reports about who actually played on the record, but the most likely candidates are:


title: It's Not Unusual

text: The song enjoyed a resurgence in the mid-1990s, as it was used in the hit sitcom "The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air" on several occasions. It typically features Carlton Banks, one of the lead characters, lip-syncing to the lyrics and performing comedic choreography (which came to be known as "the Carlton dance"). Jones had guest-starred on the show on a few occasions, also performing and dancing alongside Carlton in the episodes. Jones later made a guest appearance in the third season episode "The" as Carlton's guardian angel, who performed the song with Carlton's actor Alfonso Ribeiro.


title: John Zimmer

text: John Zimmer is the co-founder and president of Lyft, an on-demand transportation company, which he founded with Logan Green in 2012.


title: John Zimmer

text: Zimmer grew up in Greenwich, Connecticut. In 2006, Zimmer graduated at Cornell University School of Hotel Administration where he was a member of Sigma Pi Fraternity. After graduation, Zimmer worked as an analyst in real estate finance at Lehman Brothers in New York City.


title: John Zimmer

text: Zimmer left Lehman Brothers three months before it declared bankruptcy. In 2007, while Zimmer was working at Lehman Brothers, he and Logan Green founded Zimride, a ridesharing platform across college campuses.


title: John Zimmer

text: While at Cornell, Zimmer was inspired to develop a rideshare program by filling the empty seats he had during his rides home over school breaks: “I was driving from Upstate New York to New York City and all around me were these empty seats.” As a student at Cornell, Zimmer took a City and Regional Planning Class, called Green Cities (taught by Dr. Robert Young, now at the University of Texas at Austin). The class discussed the principles of simple design changes to large infrastructure, which would later influence the development of Zimride.


title: John Zimmer

text: Zimmer and Green were introduced through a mutual friend on Facebook. Green had posted details about his new company called “Zimride,” which interested Zimmer, who had been keeping a journal about carpooling ideas.


title: John Zimmer

text: Within a week of being introduced, Green flew out to New York City to meet with Zimmer. Zimride launched the first version of its rideshare program at Cornell University where, after six months, the service had signed up 20% of the student body. Later in 2007, Zimride was active on both the Cornell and UCSB campuses. Green and Zimmer promoted the service through guerilla marketing campaigns; in particular, the pair would dress in frog and beaver suits and hand out flyers to students on the Cornell campus. Later, while on a Lehman Brothers recruiting trip, Zimmer was recognized by a potential recruit, who asked "I swear I recognize you—were you in a beaver suit on Saturday on campus?"


title: John Zimmer

text: Zimmer quit his job at Lehman Brothers to work with Green full-time on Zimride. When asked why he quit, Zimmer said, "The feelings I had about what I wanted to do and what was important to me didn’t match up with the culture in Wall Street. There was a focus on money, there was a focus on what people were wearing, and things that didn’t seem to lead to productivity."


title: John Zimmer

text: Green and Zimmer focused the service on carpooling between connected users and making carpooling fun and interesting. By April 2012, Lyft (formerly Zimride) had raised $7.5 million in funding and was active at over 125 universities.


title: John Zimmer

text: After leaving his job at Lehman Brothers, Zimmer moved to Silicon Valley with Green to work on Zimride full-time. Lyft was launched in the summer of 2012 as a service of Zimride. The change from Zimride to Lyft was the result of a hackathon that sought a means of daily engagement with its users, instead of once or twice a year. In May 2013, Zimmer and Green officially changed the name of the company from Zimride to Lyft. Zimmer did not take a salary during the first three years of Lyft's operation, and he and Green worked on the company out of an apartment they shared.


title: John Zimmer

text: In June 2013, Lyft completed a $60 million Series C venture financing round led by Andreessen Horowitz, bringing its total amount raised to $83 million. In July 2013, Lyft sold Zimride to Enterprise Holdings, the parent company of Enterprise Rent-A-Car, enabling the company to focus exclusively on the growth of Lyft. In April 2014, Lyft completed a $250 million Series D financing round led by Coatue, Alibaba, and Andreessen Horowitz, bringing its total amount raised to $332.5 million. In January 2016, Lyft announced the closing of a 1 billion Series F financing round led by GM, which contributed $500 million of the total, bringing its total amount raised to date to $2.01 billion. On April 11, 2017, Lyft closed a $600 million Series G financing round which included investors such as Kohlberg Kravis Roberts and PSP Investments. On December 5, 2017, Lyft announced a Series H financing round worth $1.5 billion led by Alphabet Inc.


title: John Zimmer

text: In August 2014, Lyft introduced Lyft Line, a ridesharing product that utilizes its existing driver network to transport passengers going the same direction at the same time. To incentivize riding together, Lyft Line offers passengers discounted costs. This feature harkens back to Zimmer and Green’s original goal for Zimride.


title: John Zimmer

text: Zimmer is married. He met his wife while studying abroad in Seville, Spain. They have a daughter named Penélope, who was born in December 2015. Zimmer supports the ACLU.


title: John Zimmer

text: In 2009, Zimmer and Logan Green were named finalists in "Business Week"’s list of America’s Best Young Entrepreneurs.


title: John Zimmer

text: In 2014, Zimmer was named in Forbes’ “30 Under 30: Technology” list, and both he and Green were named in Inc. Magazine’s “35 Under 35” list.


title: John Zimmer

text: In 2017, Zimmer received the Cornell Hospitality Innovator Award from the Cornell University School of Hotel Administration.


title: Religious festival

text: A religious festival is a time of special importance marked by adherents to that religion. Religious festivals are commonly celebrated on recurring cycles in a calendar year or lunar calendar. The science of religious rites and festivals is known as heortology.


title: Religious festival

text: Festivals "(feriae)" were an important part of Roman religious life during both the Republican and Imperial eras, and were one of the primary features of the Roman calendar. "Feriae" ("holidays" in the sense of "holy days") were either public "(publicae)" or private "(privatae)". State holidays were celebrated by the Roman people and received public funding. "Feriae privatae" were holidays celebrated in honor of private individuals or by families.


title: Religious festival

text: The 1st-century BC scholar Varro defined "feriae" as "days instituted for the sake of the gods." A deity's festival often marked the anniversary ("dies natalis," "birthday") of the founding of the deity's temple, or a rededication after a major renovation. Public business was suspended for the performance of religious rites on the "feriae". Cicero says that people who were free should not engage in lawsuits and quarrels, and slaves should get a break from their labors. On calendars of the Republic and early Empire, the religious statusdays were marked by letters such as "F" (for "fastus)", and "N" (for "nefastus", when political activities and the administration of justice were prohibited). By the late 2nd century AD, extant calendars no longer show these letters, probably as a result of calendar reforms undertaken by Marcus Aurelius that recognized the changed religious environment of the empire.


title: Religious festival

text: On surviving Roman calendars, festivals that appear in large capital letters (such as the Lupercalia and Parilia) are thought to have been the most ancient holidays, becoming part of the calendar before 509 BC. Some of the oldest festivals are not named for deities. During the Imperial period, several traditional festivals localized at Rome became less important, and the birthdays and anniversaries of the emperor and his family gained prominence as Roman holidays. Games "(ludi)", such as the Ludi Apollinares, were often dedicated to particular deities, but were not technically "feriae", although they might be holidays in the modern sense of days off work "(dies festi)". After the mid-1st century AD, there were more frequent spectacles and games "(circenses)" held in the venue called a "circus", in honor of various deities or for imperial anniversaries "(dies Augusti)". A religious festival held on a single day, such as the Floralia, might be expanded with games over multiple days "(Ludi Florae)"; the festival of Flora is seen as a precursor of May Day festivities.


title: Religious festival

text: A major source for Roman holidays is Ovid's "Fasti", a poem that describes and provides origins for festivals from January to June at the time of Augustus. Because it ends with June, less is known about Roman festivals in the second half of the year, with the exception of the Saturnalia, a religious festival in honor of Saturn on December 17 that expanded with celebrations through December 23. Probably the best-known Roman festival, some of its customs, such as gift-giving and the prevalence of candles, are thought to have influenced popular celebrations of Christmas.


title: Religious festival

text: Japanese festivals and Barua festivals often involve Buddhist culture, as do pagoda festivals held as fairs held at Buddhist temples in countries such as Thailand. Features of Buddhist Tibetan festivals may include the traditional cham dance, which is also a feature of some Buddhist festivals in India and Bhutan. Many festivals of Nepal are religious festivals involving Buddhism.


title: Religious festival

text: The central festival of Christianity is Easter, on which Christians celebrate their belief that Jesus Christ rose from the dead on the third day after his crucifixion. Even for Easter, however, there is no agreement among the various Christian traditions regarding the date or manner of the observance, less for Christmas, Pentecost, or various other holidays. Both Protestants and Catholics observe certain festivals commemorating events in the life of Christ, and as well as Eastern Orthodox they often celebrate patronal festivals. Of these, the two most important are Christmas, which commemorates the Birth of Jesus, and Easter, which marks his resurrection.