title: Ford Windstar

text: The front fascia underwent a facelift, adopting a trapezoidal grille and redesigned headlamps (with amber turn signal lenses); the optional fog lamps were moved out of the lower intake of the grille. The rear saw mild revisions, with revised tailgate badging, with larger model script and the centering of the Ford Blue Oval over the license plate). On all trim levels, new wheel covers and alloy wheel designs were introduced; the body side moldings were restyled, the GL and LX/Limited models featured specific bodyside moldings.


title: Ford Windstar

text: The interior saw a minor revision, coinciding with the addition of the tilt-slide driver's seat; while the dashboard remained unchanged, head restraints were added to the rear bench seats (already on rear bucket seats). Largely to make up for the retirement of the Aerostar Eddie Bauer, a "Northwoods" appearance package was offered for the GL and LX, offering leather (LX) or cloth/vinyl (GL) seats, gold-trimmed wheels, and luggage rack, and a unique two-tone exterior and bodyside moldings.


title: Ford Windstar

text: While adopting the front-wheel drive form factor similar to the Chrysler minivans, the Windstar adopted several design features from the Ford Aerostar and Mercury Villager, including rear-seat audio controls, rear air conditioning and middle-row bucket seats; a digital instrument panel was coupled with a trip computer, automatic headlamps, and an auto-dimming rearview mirror. Shared with Ford sedans, the Windstar offered a keyless entry system (using a door-mounted keypad) along with an alarm system.


title: Ford Windstar

text: In contrast to its lack of a driver-side sliding door, the Windstar introduced several features to the minivan segment, including a door lock control from the rear door (unless with the family security package, the rear button was omitted.) and a wide-angle mirror in the overhead console allowing a view of the rear passenger compartment.


title: Ford Windstar

text: In line with the Aerostar and the Econoline/Club Wagon, the Windstar was sold as both a passenger van and as a cargo van. In place of using the XL/XLT nomenclature used by Ford trucks and vans, the Windstar adopted the model nomenclature used by the majority of the Ford car lineup. For retail sales, the base trim Windstar was the GL, with the Windstar LX as the flagship model.


title: Ford Windstar

text: For 1998, the Limited trim was introduced, distinguished by its monochromatic exterior and five-spoke 16-inch chrome wheels; wood interior trim was added. Slotted above both the LX and the Mercury Villager LS, the Windstar was offered with all optional features from the LX as standard.


title: Ford Windstar

text: The 1995–1998 Ford Windstar, which was tested as a 1995 model received a "Excellent" (5-stars) rating from the IIHS in all marks, in which the driver survives the accident without any injuries.


title: Ford Windstar

text: During and after its production, this generation of the Windstar would become known for several notable reliability issues. The 3.8 L V6 Essex engine in 1995 models was susceptible to head gasket failure, as it was in its Taurus and Sable stablemates. However, the Windstar's problem was a cast iron block with aluminum heads, coupled with higher loads than the Taurus, the van being 700 pounds heavier. In response, Ford extended the warranty on the head gasket to 100,000 miles on most Windstars with this engine. The 3.0 L V6 Vulcan engine was not susceptible to head gasket failure, as it was a completely different engine design.


title: Ford Windstar

text: The Windstar was paired with an AX4S transaxle, which was prone to internal failure. The transmission suffered from cracked forward and reverse clutch pistons. These transmission failures were most susceptible with the 3.8L engine, as the transmission could not handle the extra torque and the extra vehicle weight.


title: Ford Windstar

text: The Windstar was also plagued with various suspension woes. Due to the heft of the overall vehicle, the tierod ends required constant replacement. The front springs were prone to breaking (Covered under safety recall) in specific markets where extreme cold and heavy salt use in winter months occurred.


title: Ford Windstar

text: Released in the summer of 1998 as an early 1999 model, the Ford Windstar was given a complete redesign. As one of the first Ford vehicles in North America to adopt the New Edge styling language, the redesign also was distinguished by the addition of a driver's side sliding door.


title: Ford Windstar

text: While retaining mechanical commonality with the Taurus/Sable, Ford shifted the Windstar to a dedicated chassis architecture, introducing the Ford V platform. Several major features made their debut, including front seat-mounted side airbags on vans with VINs starting with 2FMDA, dual power-sliding doors, and rear reverse sensors.


title: Ford Windstar

text: The 2002 Windstar was the most dependable minivan on the market in the JD Powers dependability survey at three years in service in the 2005 survey. The Windstar beat out the Toyota Sienna and the Honda Odyssey for these honors.


title: Ford Windstar

text: In 1999, Ford began a shift in trim levels that would be seen in many of its American-market sedans through the 2000s. In place of the GL, the LX was the new base model, with the SE and SEL making their debut as the highest trim levels, respectively.


title: Ford Windstar

text: Although all versions of the Windstar wagon were sold with 7-passenger seating, LX-trim Windstars are equipped with 2nd-row bench seats; SE and SEL-trim examples are equipped with 2nd-row bucket seats.


title: Ford Windstar

text: In August 2010, Ford issued a voluntary recall of 575,000 Windstar minivans for rear axle problems. This recall followed an investigation by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration which had begun in May 2010. The NHTSA preliminary evaluation stated the design of the rear axle beam, an inverted "U" channel design, appeared to provide a collection point for road slurry. In states which used much road salt, corrosion progressively weakened the axle until it fractured. The states covered by the recall were Connecticut, Delaware, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kentucky, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Utah, Vermont, West Virginia and Wisconsin, as well as Washington D.C. In May 2012, 27,000 of the minivans from Virginia were added to the axle recall, bringing the overall total to more than 600,000 vehicles between the U.S. and Canada.


title: Ford Windstar

text: A class action lawsuit was filed against Ford Motor Company in May 2010 proceeding Ford's recall. This lawsuit was filed by Plaintiff Aaron Martin against Defendant Ford Motor Company. In this lawsuit, documents were introduced which showed Ford's testing of the Benteler Axle in March 1998 resulted in failure of two out of the eleven axles tested. In August 1998, Ford determined the cause of this failure was improper heat treating. In September 1998, the axle manufacturer Bentley Automotive agreed with Ford's findings. In October 1999, Ford's internal documents show lab testing proved the axle life could be doubled by heat treating, but would require initial retooling cost and result in $3.45 piece cost increase. No changes were made until March 2003.


title: Ford Windstar

text: In March 2011, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration and Ford announced another Ford Windstar recall over corrosion concerns. 425,288 of the model year 1999–2003 Windstar vans originally sold or currently registered in some cold weather states are part of the recall. The problem involves rusting of the subframe. Most of the corrosion occurs on the passenger side of the subframe. If the subframe collapses while driving, the vehicle could potentially lose all steering control and end up in an accident. According to the NHTSA action #PE10026, some Ford Windstar owners had their drive axle detach from the transmission. Ford is offering alternative transportation to owners if their vehicle is unsafe to drive. If the minivan can't be repaired, Ford will repurchase the vehicle.


title: Ford Windstar

text: The 1999–2003 Ford Windstar received an "Acceptable" rating by the IIHS for fair structural performance, moderate injuries to the left foot, and fair dummy control. Although most redesigned vehicles outperform their predecessors to cut down insurance costs and possible injuries to the driver, this generation Windstar did not perform as well as its first generation predecessor. The NHTSA graded the minivan an overall rating of 5 stars in both the frontal and side impact tests.


title: Ford Windstar

text: For the 2004 model year, the third generation Ford Windstar was released; as part of a mid-2000s rebranding of the Ford car model line with nameplates starting with the letter "F", the Windstar was renamed the Ford Freestar.


title: Ford Windstar

text: Sharing the MV1 platform with the 2000-2003 Ford Windstar, the primary initiative of the $600 million redesign focused on driveline reliability, an issue that had plagued the Windstar since its 1994 introduction. In its development, the Freestar saw the addition of heavier-duty drive axles, larger wheel bearings, and the standardization of four-wheel disc brakes. The 3.0L and 3.8L V6 engines were both retired, in favor of two new engines. In the United States (only), the Freestar was powered by a 193 hp 3.9L V6 (shared with the Ford Mustang) while an optional 201 hp 4.2L V6 (the base engine of the Ford E-150) was standard for Canada and export vans. The 3.9L and 4.2L V6 engines were both enlarged versions of the long-running 3.8L V6. As part of the initiative to improve driveline reliability, the 4-speed automatic transmission saw upgrades for improved shifting and reliability.


title: Ford Windstar

text: Despite that, transmission failures were still common. NHTSA launched an investigation into the 2004-2005 Freestar and Monterey due to numerous complaints with regard to the equipped 4F50N transmission. Although the investigation is centered on the torque converter, specifically the failure of the torque converter spline shaft, these failures often required the entire transaxle be rebuilt or replaced. Ford later recalled 2004-2005 Freestars and Montereys to have the torque converter replaced free of charge, although 2006-2007 models still suffered from torque converter problems, despite not being recalled.


title: Ford Windstar

text: In the redesign, the Ford Freestar saw a minor exterior facelift. While retaining much of the roofline of the previous-generation Windstar, in a shift away from New Edge design language, the Freestar adopted styling elements from several Ford vehicles, including the Ford Explorer, Ford Freestyle, and Ford Five Hundred. Shifting from the trademark curved dashboard of the previous Ford Windstar, the Ford Freestar adopted a flat dashboard, sharing many design elements with the then-upcoming Ford Five Hundred. In line with a number of competitive minivans, the Ford Freestar introduced a third-row seat that folded flat into the floor.


title: Ford Windstar

text: The Freestar carried much of the trim lineup from the Windstar, with two exceptions. The "LX" and "Sport" trim levels were dropped in favor of the "SES" and "S" trims.


title: Ford Windstar

text: The 2004–2007 Ford Freestar received an "Excellent" rating in the offset frontal crash test from the IIHS and outperformed the 1999–2003 Ford Windstar, but resulted in moderate injuries only on the head and neck. In the side-impact tests, it received a "Poor" rating without the optional side airbags for poor structural performance, potential head and neck injuries, and high forces on the driver's torso, but fared better with the side airbags, earning an overall "Acceptable" rating, but resulted in a moderate head and neck injury to the driver.


title: Ford Windstar

text: In 2009, the 2005 Freestar scored second place in J.D. Power's Vehicle Dependability Study, behind the Dodge Caravan.


title: Ford Windstar

text: For the 2004 model year, the Ford Windstar/Freestar gained a Mercury counterpart with the introduction of the Mercury Monterey, replacing the Mercury Villager. In line with Ford introducing "F" nameplates during the early 2000s, Mercury revived a historic "M" nameplate for its minivan (the Monterey name was used from 1950 to 1974). In line with the Freestar, the Monterey adopted design elements from other Mercury vehicles, including the Mountaineer and Montego. Larger than the Villager, it was marketed as a competitor to the Buick Terraza (which replaced the Oldsmobile Silhouette) and the Chrysler Town & Country.


title: Ford Windstar

text: In line with the later Mariner, Milan, and Montego, three trim levels were offered for the Monterey: Convenience, Luxury, and Premier. Features such as power-sliding doors and a rear-seat DVD player were available on Luxury and Premier trim lines. Unique to the Premier was the option of heated and cooled front seats, a class exclusive at the time. The Monterey was offered solely with the 4.2 L V6 engine.


title: Ford Windstar

text: Sales of the Monterey fell far under projections, driven primarily by an overall decline of the minivan segment in North America. In total, 32,195 examples were sold over its three-year production run.


title: Ford Windstar

text: After selling far under sales projections, Ford discontinued the Freestar and Monterey after the 2007 model year. The final Monterey was produced by Oakville Assembly on August 25, 2006; the final Freestar was produced on December 29, 2006.


title: Ford Windstar

text: In Mexico and export markets, Ford largely replaced the Freestar by the V185 Ford Transit/Tourneo (front-wheel drive). In North America, Ford became the first American manufacturer to withdraw from the minivan segment entirely, with Ford shifting towards crossover wagons, with the Ford Taurus X (Freestyle) marketed as a 7-passenger vehicle by Ford; in 2009, the Taurus X was replaced by the Flex and Explorer.


title: Ford Windstar

text: For 2010, Ford began imports of the Ford Transit Connect compact MPV. While imported in passenger-van configuration, most sales were intended for cargo-van users. As part of a 2014 redesign, the Transit Connect gained a 7-passenger configuration; though offered with a 120-inch wheelbase (nearly identical to the Windstar/Freestar/Monterey), most other dimensions of the second-generation Transit Connect LWB more closely match the extended-length Aerostar in size.


title: Odysseas Vlachodimos

text: Odysseas Vlachodimos (Greek: Οδυσσέας Βλαχοδήμος, born 26 April 1994) is a professional footballer who plays as a goalkeeper for Primeira Liga club Benfica. Born in Germany, he plays for the Greece national team.


title: Odysseas Vlachodimos

text: Born in Stuttgart, Vlachodimos started his football career at VfL Wangen before joining VfB Stuttgart's youth system at the age of seven. Having progressed through the clubs' youth ranks, he then made his debut for VfB Stuttgart II on 25 February 2012 in a 1–0 loss to 1. FC Heidenheim in 3. Liga. At the end of the season he signed his first professional contract with the club, penning a deal until June 2015. Two years later, he extended his contract with VfB until June 2017. Having made over 50 appearances for VfB Stuttgart II, Vlachodimos was afforded his Bundesliga debut against Eintracht Frankfurt on 29 August 2015. With back-up 'keeper Mitchell Langerak out injured, Vlachodimos was included in Stuttgart's match day squad and was brought on as a substitute following the sending off of first-choice goalkeeper Przemysław Tytoń. He made three appearances in total for the senior side but by the end of 2015 had fallen out of favour of new club manager, and former VfB Stuttgart II coach, Jürgen Kramny. Vlachodimos voiced his disapproval of the situation in an interview with German new publication "Kicker" in December and the following month joined Greek Super League side Panathinaikos where he was reunited with his brother, Panagiotis, who had joined the club earlier in the month.


title: Odysseas Vlachodimos

text: On 26 January 2016, Stuttgart announced that Vlachodimos had completed a transfer to Panathinaikos. As part of the transfer, the full value of which remained undisclosed, it was agreed that Stuttgart would retain a 30% sell-on clause on Vlachodimos. He was handed his debut for the club on 3 April by manager Andrea Stramaccioni, and started in a 3–2 home win against Veria in the league. Having spent the majority of the first half of the following season behind regular 'keeper Luke Steele, Vlachodimos was handed his second start on 27 November and was named man of the match for his performance in a 1–1 draw against Panionios. He started again the following week and kept his first clean sheet for the club in a 1–0 win over PAOK. On 17 May, Vlachodimos was sent off in a play-off match against the same opposition for a spot in the following season's Champions League. PAOK's Amr Warda was dismissed minutes later before a brawl in the second half saw two more players sent off. During the incident, PAOK manager Vladimir Ivić was struck by a beer can thrown from the Panathinaikos crowd and required treatment, ultimately resulting in the match being abandoned.


title: Odysseas Vlachodimos

text: On 18 May 2018, Vlachodimos signed a five-year contract with Portuguese side S.L. Benfica. After he arrived in Lisbon, fellow teammate Bruno Varela seemed to be the first-choice goalkeeper for the 2018–19 season, but Vlachodimos' overall performance in the pre-season convinced manager Rui Vitória to promote him to the starting spot. That season, Vlachodimos was included in UEFA's Champions League breakthrough team of 2018 for making a "string of impressive saves" and being "one of Benfica's brightest sparks in a testing group stage campaign". On 3 February 2019, after 20 consecutive appearances with the club in Primeira Liga, he faced a red card as the last player for a foul committed to Bas Dost in a 4–2 away win over Lisbon rivals Sporting CP. Two weeks later, in the first leg of the UEFA Europa League round of 32 match against Galatasaray, Vlachodimos made a crucial save in the 85th minute to deny Christian Luyindama the equalizer, helping Benfica secure their first win in Turkey (2–1). He was elected Primeira Liga's Goalkeeper of the Month for February. During that month, he competed in four league matches, conceding two goals as Benfica defeated Sporting, Nacional (10–0), Desportivo das Aves (3–0) and Chaves (4–0). Moreover, he also helped his team eliminate Galatasaray 2–1 on aggregate in UEFA Europa League's Round of 32.


title: Odysseas Vlachodimos

text: Vlachodimos started the 2019–20 season again as a first-choice. On 29 August 2019, he extended his contract with Benfica until 2023, setting an annual salary of €1.2 million. On 5 November 2019, Vlachodimos has been at his best in the Portuguese Primeira Liga for Benfica, recording eight clean sheets in the opening 10 matches of the season. Overall, if we take all competitions during 2019 into account, Vlachodimos participated in 46 matches for Benfica, recording an impressive 21 clean sheets. Only Jan Oblak (24) and Marco Bizot (29) gained more shutouts, while Marc-André ter Stegen also tallied 24 clean sheets.


title: Odysseas Vlachodimos

text: On 5 October 2020, with the save of two consecutive penalty kicks from Ryan Gauld helped his team prevail over S.C. Farense with a score of 3-2 achieving the third victory in an equal number of matches in the beginning of the 2020-21 season. As a conclusion this season was a reality check for the 27-year-old as he played as a second fiddle to Helton Leite for most of the campaign. He has, however, regained his form and put up some excellent displays in the 2021-22 season. On 26 August 2021, Benfica qualified for the UEFA Champions League group stage after defeating PSV Eindhoven, a justification for the international Greek goalkeeper who in the summer was a step away from "Da Luz".


title: Odysseas Vlachodimos

text: On 4 November 2021, although he conceded five goals in the 5-2 defeat to FC Bayern Munich, Vlachodimos is included in the top 11 of the 4th matchday in the UEFA Champions League.


title: Odysseas Vlachodimos

text: On 26 January 2022, the Portuguese press praised Vlachodimos for his performance in the victory of Benfica over Boavista F.C. in the 2021–22 Taça da Liga final, where the Greek goalkeeper was voted man of the match. Benfica were led to the penalty shootout with Boavista (1–1 in the regular game), where they prevailed 3–2, with the 27-year-old goalkeeper repelling three of the five penalties. In fact, this was the first participation of the Greek international in the tournament, while he is in Portugal, while he reached a total of 150 appearances with the Benfica jersey and became just the second goalkeeper with so many appearances in the history of the club, after legendary Manuel Bento.


title: Odysseas Vlachodimos

text: Vlachodimos represented Germany at various youth levels. His first experience with the national team came on 21 May 2009 when he made his debut for the U15's in a 2–0 win over the United States. He made one more appearance for the U15's against Poland the following month before making his U16 debut in August, starting in a 4–2 win over Switzerland in new manager Steffen Freund's first match in charge at the 2009 U16 Tournament in Liechteinstein. Vlachodimos featured regularly throughout the tournament as Germany claimed the title, beating Austria 6–2 in the final.


title: Odysseas Vlachodimos

text: Two years later, Vlachodimos helped Germany to a runners-up finish at the 2011 UEFA European Under-17 Championship where they ultimately lost 5–2 to the Netherlands in the final. Soon after the tournament he was awarded the bronze U17 Fritz Walter Medal, awarded to the third best German under-17 player. Later in the year, he was part of the Germany squad which ended third at the 2011 FIFA U-17 World Cup. He made his debut for the U18 side in February 2012 before advancing to the U19 side in August. He then made his U20 debut on 12 October the following year against the Netherlands.


title: Odysseas Vlachodimos

text: On 15 March 2017, following his emergence as Panathinaikos' first-choice goalkeeper, Vlachodimos was called up by Stefan Kuntz to the U21 side for friendly matches against England and Portugal. He was voted man of the match for his performance during Germany's 1–0 defeat against Portugal, despite the defeat being the nation's first home loss in 32 matches.


title: Odysseas Vlachodimos

text: Vlachodimos' strong performances at club with Panathinaikos saw him selected in Stefan Kuntz's squad for the 2017 UEFA European U21 final tournament in Poland. Germany were ultimately crowned champions, beating Spain 1–0 in the final to claim the title.


title: Odysseas Vlachodimos

text: On 9 November 2018, four days after FIFA's approval of Vlachodimos' request to play for Greece, he was called up by Angelos Anastasiadis for the matches against Finland and Estonia in the UEFA Nations League. He debuted for Greece in a 1–0 win over Finland on 15 November that year.


title: Jesus (1979 film)

text: Jesus (also known as The Jesus Film) is a 1979 American Biblical drama film directed by Peter Sykes and John Krish, and produced by John Heyman. In "Jesus", the life of Jesus Christ is depicted, primarily using the Gospel of Luke as the main basis for the story. A voice-over narration is featured sporadically throughout the film, providing background information on characters and events.


title: Jesus (1979 film)

text: Shot on location in Israel, the film was financed primarily by Campus Crusade for Christ with a budget of $6 million, and was released without production or cast credits, as producer John Heyman declared that the creators of this picture were “simply being translators” of the New Testament's Gospel of Luke, “so nobody will know who produced or directed the film.” The end of the film states that the Good News Bible (Today's English Version) was used during filming, and instead of telling a parallel story or embellishing the Biblical account like other Biblical films, the filmmakers chose to adhere to the Gospel of Luke as closely as possible.


title: Jesus (1979 film)

text: "Jesus" is sometimes described as the most-watched motion picture of all time, in addition to being the most translated film of all time.


title: Jesus (1979 film)

text: During the days of Emperor Augustus and King Herod the Great, Mary is visited by the angel Gabriel who tells her that she will give birth to Jesus, the Son of God. Later, Mary visits Elizabeth, the mother of John the Baptist, who tells her that she is the most blessed of women and that her child is blessed.


title: Jesus (1979 film)

text: When the Romans hold a census, Mary travels with her husband Joseph to his hometown of Bethlehem to register. There, Jesus is born in a manger. A week later, Mary and Joseph travel to Jerusalem to present Jesus at the Temple. There, they are greeted by Simeon, who blesses Jesus as the Christ. At the age of twelve, Jesus becomes separated from his parents during a Passover trip to Jerusalem. When Mary asks about his whereabouts, Jesus tells them that he was in His Father's house. Years later, during the reign of Emperor Tiberius and King Herod Antipas, John the Baptist baptizes Jesus in the Jordan River and the Holy Spirit descends upon Jesus.


title: Jesus (1979 film)

text: Jesus is subsequently tempted in the wilderness by Satan but withstands the Devil's trials. Travelling to Capernaum, Jesus recruits the disciples Peter, James, and John after helping them to find a large haul of fish. During his preaching ministry, Jesus resurrects the daughter of Jairus. Jesus then recruits twelve apostles from among His disciples including Matthew and Judas Iscariot. Jesus' followers also include several women including Mary Magdalene, Joanna, and Susanna.


title: Jesus (1979 film)

text: The film covers several of Jesus' teachings and messages including the parable of the Pharisee and the tax collector, the Beatitudes, the Golden Rule, loving your enemy, and the Parable of the Sower. While visiting the home of the Pharisee Simon, a sinful woman anoints Jesus' feet, prompting Jesus to forgive her sins. Jesus and his disciples later travel across the Sea of Galilee where he calms the storm. At Gerasa, Jesus exorcises a demon-possessed man and the demons enter a herd of swine. At Bethsaida, Jesus feeds five thousand with five loaves and two pieces of fish. Later, Jesus and his disciples travel up a mountain where Jesus encounters the prophets Moses and Elijah and is transfigured.


title: Jesus (1979 film)

text: As Jesus' preaching and healing ministry grows, he reaches out to the sinners and outcasts including prostitutes and tax collectors, earning the ire of the Pharisees and religious teachers. Jesus also befriends the tax collector Zaccheus, convincing him to repay people he has extorted. While preaching the Parable of the Good Samaritan, Jesus befriends a little girl and tells his disciples not to forbid the little children from coming to Him. Jesus draws the attention of the Pharisees, Jewish religious leaders, and Romans after he drives the merchants out of the Temple. In Jerusalem, Jesus teaches the Parable of the Tenants and to pay taxes to Caesar. At the Last Supper, Jesus warns his disciples of his impending betrayal and death. Judas conspires with the religious leaders to betray Jesus.


title: Jesus (1979 film)

text: At the Garden of Gethsemane, Jesus is betrayed by Judas and captured by the Jewish authorities. Peter denies knowing Jesus three times before the cock crows. The following day, Jesus is condemned by the religious leaders. He is then brought before Pontius Pilate, who sends him to Herod. While Pilate exonerates Jesus of wrongdoing, the religious leaders and crowd demand Jesus' death. After being scourged, Jesus is forced to carry his cross through the streets. When he collapses from exhaustion, Simon of Cyrene is obliged to carry his cross. At Golgotha, Jesus is crucified besides two robbers, one of whom recognizes him as the Messiah. Following Jesus' death at noon, the sky is plunged into darkness and the curtain of the Temple is ripped through the middle. Joseph of Arimathea buries Jesus in a tomb. Jesus rises from the dead on the third day. Before ascending back to Heaven, Jesus tells his disciples that all power and authority has been given to Him and commands them to go and make disciples of all nations.


title: Jesus (1979 film)

text: Bill Bright, founder of the Campus Crusade for Christ, spent a lot of time in his early career trying to convert Hollywood celebrities in Los Angeles, and he aspired to make a compelling film about the life of Christ. In 1976, the British Jewish film and television producer John Heyman approached Bright to fund his Genesis Project to put the entire Bible on film and to obtain financing for his feature-length film on Jesus. After meeting Heyman, Bright asked the-then campus ministry director Paul Eshleman to consult with the filmmaker.


title: Jesus (1979 film)

text: Eshleman was pleased with Heyman's short film on the first two chapters of the Gospel of Luke and convinced Bright to endorse the project despite objections from other Campus Crusade leaders who objected to a non-Christian making a film about the Bible. Most of the film's dialogue comes from Luke, which was chosen after Heyman sought advice from clergy and scholars. On his motivation about the Jesus film, Heyman said: "I believed the best-selling book in the world would sell a lot of 8-millimeter and 16-millimeter films." Instead of creating a parallel story for the film or embellishing the biblical account, as is the case with other biblical films such as "The Ten Commandments" or "The Greatest Story Ever Told", the filmmakers chose to adhere as closely as possible to the Gospel of Luke.


title: Jesus (1979 film)

text: After failing to canvass funding from Hollywood studios, the "Jesus" film would be financed primarily by Campus Crusade supporters Bunker and Caroline Hunt for a sum of $6 million. Almost every line spoken by Jesus in the film is quoted directly from the gospel of Luke, with over 450 leaders and scholars who had reassessed the script for biblical accuracy. Historical accuracy also was assured by implementing clothing, pottery and other props which were made with 1st century techniques to depict a 2,000-year-old Galilean culture.


title: Jesus (1979 film)

text: Brian Deacon, a Shakespearean actor, was cast as Jesus for his "ethnically correct" olive complexion. In addition to 45 main actors, who were mainly Israelis, another 5,000 extras were involved in the filming. The filmmakers cast Yemenite Jews as background extras because, according to Eshleman, "their facial features have changed the least over 2,000 years." Filming began late November 1978 on location in Tiberias, Israel, which continued for 31 weeks throughout the country, including the cities of Tel Aviv and Jerusalem. During the production, Heyman revealed that the filmmakers "were required to re-film three days' work," because they "had shown eucalyptus trees in a variety of shots," when, "Eucalyptus trees were introduced to Palestine very much later".


title: Jesus (1979 film)

text: Deacon grew his hair and beard during the production, but producer John Heyman had decided for Deacon to wear a wig over his hair, and as well as a prosthetic nose so that he had a Mediterranean look. Former Jesus Film Project director Paul Eshleman, who was on location during much of the principal photography, revealed in the DVD's audio commentary that Deacon was so committed to the film and its message that he read several Bible translations a day in order to make certain that he properly presented Christ's teachings. Because Deacon developed pneumonia during principal photography, doubles were used in certain scenes. Deacon's dialogue mostly comprises full-length passages of scripture, and he is scarcely depicted doing anything other than making miracles and uttering speeches.


title: Jesus (1979 film)

text: Eshleman revealed that Niko Nitai, the actor who played Simon Peter, became a believer during the shooting. As for special effects, the film features puffs of smoke and transparent halos to indicate miracles and angel figures, and a hissing snake and a deep voiceover represent Satan. Heyman's original cut of the "Jesus" film ran for more than four hours. However, in consultation with Bright and Eshleman, he edited a shorter version for Campus Crusade. Just after filming, Heyman was not satisfied with the accent of the Israeli cast members and decided that they all should be dubbed over by English voice actors using the Received Pronunciation accent.


title: Jesus (1979 film)

text: "Jesus" was released by Warner Bros. in the United States in 330 theaters principally in the South and West, which delineated a rare instance of a major studio releasing an “overtly religious picture.” To promote the film, Paul Eshleman worked with both evangelical and Catholic churches to arrange group trips and discounts. Four million viewers reportedly watched the "Jesus" film in late 1979 and 1980. However, though the film was popular with Christian audiences, it failed to attract mainstream audiences. It was not a financial success and left John Heyman's Genesis Project US$4 million in debt.


title: Jesus (1979 film)

text: In Australia, it was released on April 3, 1980; in Portugal on April 9, 1981; in Sweden on November 1, 1985; in Finland on March 14, 1986; in Hungary on 13 December 1990; and in Czechoslovakia in 1991. Nonetheless, the film has been presented in 229 nations, being screened in dozens of large cities to the smallest villages in a lot of different countries.


title: Jesus (1979 film)

text: Warner Bros. received backlash for distributing the film simultaneously with "Monty Python's Life of Brian" (1979), a Warner Bros. release that was stigmatised by some religious leaders for its satirical characterisation of events surrounding Jesus Christ, although the studio considered the coinciding releases as “‘something for everybody.’” Yet the producers of this film evaluated whether to take legal action against the studio for a conflict of interest.


title: Jesus (1979 film)

text: Despite the crucifixion and flagellation scenes, the film was rated G by the MPAA and, likewise in Australia, it was rated G by the ACB. In the UK, however, the film was rated PG by the BBFC for "mild violence and horror".


title: Jesus (1979 film)

text: To make the film more relevant for younger viewers, new footage for "The Story of Jesus for Children" was filmed in 1999. Being less violent than the original, it was interwoven into an edited version of the original film "Jesus" and released in 2000. In 2001, a new opening sequence depicting the creation of humans, the expulsion from Eden, Abraham's blocked sacrifice of his son, and the prophesies of Isaiah was filmed to show, as Paul Eshleman states in the audio commentary, how Jesus' life fits into the span of history. In 2002, a special edition of "Jesus" commemorating the September 11 attacks was distributed in the VHS format. It contains introductions by New York City firefighters and police officers and has a running time of 83 minutes.


title: Jesus (1979 film)

text: An edited DVD version of "Jesus" was also packaged with "JESUS: Fact or Fiction?", which was produced in 2003 by Inspirational Films. This features a section called the "Journey of Spiritual Discovery". Biblical scholars, historians, philosophers, authors, and ministers answer specific questions relating to God, Jesus, Christianity, the archaeological, scientific and historical accuracy of the Bible, and testimony from many Christians. Viewers can browse the numerous topics individually or they can watch the film and, when prompted by a "discovery glass" icon, can access relevant comments. After they are finished, the viewer is returned to the scene they were watching.


title: Jesus (1979 film)

text: To celebrate the 35th anniversary of the film's release, a digitally remastered, high definition DVD and Blu-ray version was released in April 2014, with its 173,000 frames being retouched and re-colored. Featuring a new musical score by John Bisharat and Dolby Digital 5.1 sound, all of the voices in the film were dubbed over by unknown British voice actors, though Brian Deacon returned to do the voice-over for Jesus. With a running time of 128 minutes, the remastered version contains language tracks for English, Arabic, French, Korean, German, Japanese, Chinese, Vietnamese and Portuguese languages. Bonus features include "The Making of The Jesus Film", "The Impact of the Jesus Film", and "Historical Notes".


title: Jesus (1979 film)

text: While praising its "meticulous attention to authenticity", critics criticized "Jesus" for being "painfully monotonous" and "little more than an illustrated gospel, with nothing in the way of historical and social context." The "Los Angeles Times" called it a "...dull Sunday-School treatment of the life of Christ, meticulously but unimaginatively culled from Luke 3-24."


title: Jesus (1979 film)

text: Despite Bright's endorsement of the "Jesus" film, Heyman's relationship with his former Campus Crusade collaborators deteriorated due to his perception that the latter overlooked his contributions to the film. Heyman also objected to Campus Crusade making multiple different versions of his film. When Campus Crusade produced a shorter version "The Story of Jesus for Children", which included new footage, Heyman sued Crusade on the grounds that the new version damaged his reputation. Though the dispute was settled by the parties out of court, relations between Heyman and Campus Crusade remained poor.


title: Jesus (1979 film)

text: Regarding the foreign reception, documentary maker Seghal said "The events we witnessed were often bewildering," he says. "But what struck us most was the utter normality of those who were willing to risk their lives for Christ." After the film's reels were sent to remote settlements in Africa, Asia and Latin America, they returned with reports of audiences being in tears during screening with others instantly converting. In Phaphamani, a small village in South Africa with no electricity, the film was screened on a projector which attracted over 350 people, who had probably never watched a motion picture in their life. According to distributor Brian Helstrom, "You could see them physically jump back at the sight of the serpent tempting Jesus. When soldiers whip Jesus, you could hear grown adults crying."


title: Jesus (1979 film)

text: Project leaders state that as of May 2020 it has been viewed over 8.1 billion times by over 4 billion people, making it overwhelmingly the most watched movies of all time. This claim, however, has detractors such as the evangelical leader, Vinay Samuel, former executive director of the International Fellowship of Evangelical Mission Theologians, who claimed: "These numbers are, to say the least, not gathered in a social-scientific way", and "They have no way of knowing this". However, according to the Jesus Film Project, a research firm calculated the known viewings of the film from 1979 to 2015 as greater than 7.3 billion.


title: Jesus (1979 film)

text: It is officially accredited by "The Guinness Book of World Records" as the "Most Translated Film" in history, having been translated and available for download in 1,977 languages as of May 2022, with many others in process.


title: Jesus (1979 film)

text: Regarding the film's popularity, Campus Crusade executive director Erick Schenkel said that foreigners and non-believers "saw Jesus speaking their language, they understood that Jesus saw them and loved them... And so we saw movements of people coming to Christ in every one of these people groups." Furthermore, he said, "[In t]hirty-five years, there have [been] 6 billion viewings of the film and over 200 million people have indicated they wanted to become followers of Jesus after seeing the film. So the reach is just more than we could have asked and it really has been a privilege to see how God has used this tool."


title: Jesus (1979 film)

text: In agreement with his missionary agenda, Bill Bright created the Jesus Video Project (JVP) in 1981, which not only spread Jesus to global evangelical activities, but also began on a goal to distribute a copy to every U.S. household. Based on the distribution rate by 2005, JVP did not expect to reach countrywide status until 2040 or later. As of August 2018, over 8 billion viewers were reported through in-person film showings, online platforms and apps.


title: Jesus (1979 film)

text: In 1980, Bill Bright created the Jesus Film Project organization with the goal of accurately translating "Jesus" into other languages and showing them around the world. The first translation was done for the Tagalog-speaking people of the Philippines. One of the group's first projects, they ordered for the broadcast of a Hindi version in Indian television. The organization works with thousands of missionaries around the world to show the film, sometimes to audiences who have never seen a motion picture. The Mandarin Chinese version of the film is widely distributed in China by the government-linked China Christian Council's Amity Foundation in Nanjing, both on VCDs and DVD.


title: Jesus (1979 film)

text: Distribution in the United States has included direct mail campaigns sponsored by churches to deliver a copy of the film to every address in select ZIP codes across the country, with more than 4.8 million copies sent to Ohio and Texas alone. In 2004, the organization made the film available for viewing on its website in over 300 languages. Both "Jesus" and "The Story of Jesus for Children" are available in DVD and VHS formats. Audio dramatizations in a number of languages are also available. It is the only film that has been dubbed into more than 1000 languages of the world. As of now, more than 1600 languages spoken all over the world have the "Jesus" film, including in all major international languages. Also in 2004, 300 employees at an office in Orlando, FL translated the film into languages such as Kwanyama, spoken in Angola and Namibia, and as well as the seven varieties of Quechua, a tongue of Quechua people in the Andes.


title: Jesus (1979 film)

text: Regarding its worldwide spread and translations, Eshleman states, "People ask 'Why do you go to those far away places?' It's because those people haven't had a chance. That's all we want to do - to give them a chance to hear the message of Christ in an understandable language near where they live." John Meyer, one of the team members who has helped distributing and translating the film, has said, "I'm willing to lay down my life for Jesus, should it come to that," he told the documentary maker Sehgal. "So if there's a recording in a war-torn country, I'm more than willing to go. Or anywhere else, to be honest."


title: Jesus (1979 film)

text: Incidentally, American aid workers in Afghanistan, who hadn't been working for the Jesus film project, were arrested by the Taliban in 2001 for showing the film to a family there. They were ultimately rescued by US Marines, and president George W. Bush welcomed them back to America, saying: "It's been an uplifting experience to talk to these courageous souls".


title: Cynthia Spencer, Countess Spencer

text: Cynthia Ellinor Beatrix Spencer, Countess Spencer ("née" Hamilton; 16 August 1897 – 4 December 1972) was a British peeress and the paternal grandmother of Diana, Princess of Wales.


title: Cynthia Spencer, Countess Spencer

text: Cynthia Hamilton was the daughter of James Hamilton, Marquess of Hamilton, later 3rd Duke of Abercorn (30 November 1869 – 12 September 1953) and Lady Rosalind Cecilia Caroline Bingham (26 February 1869 – 18 January 1958). Her maternal grandparents were Charles Bingham, 4th Earl of Lucan, and Lady Cecilia Catherine Gordon-Lennox, a daughter of Charles Gordon-Lennox, 5th Duke of Richmond, and Lady Caroline Paget.


title: Cynthia Spencer, Countess Spencer

text: Countess Spencer was appointed a Lady of the Bedchamber to Queen Elizabeth in 1937. She continued in the role after Elizabeth became Queen Mother in 1952, and remained in post until her death.


title: Cynthia Spencer, Countess Spencer

text: She was the grandmother of Diana, Princess of Wales. Lady Spencer died at the Spencers' ancestral home, Althorp, of a brain tumour on 4 December 1972, aged 75. The Cynthia Spencer Hospice in Northampton is named in her memory.


title: Cynthia Spencer, Countess Spencer

text: Countess Spencer was little known outside court and local circles until, twenty years after her death, Andrew Morton wrote that the Princess of Wales "believes that her grandmother looks after her in the spirit world."


title: The Tourists

text: The Tourists were a British rock and pop band. They achieved brief success in the late 1970s before the band split in 1980. Two of its members, singer Annie Lennox and guitarist Dave Stewart, went on to international success as Eurythmics.


title: The Tourists

text: Guitarists Peet Coombes and Dave Stewart were members of the folk rock band Longdancer, which was on Elton John's Rocket Records label. They moved to London, where they met singer Annie Lennox, who had dropped out of a course at the Royal Academy of Music to pursue her ambitions in pop music.


title: The Tourists

text: Forming a band in 1976, the three of them initially called themselves The Catch. In 1977 the band released a single named "Borderline/Black Blood" on Logo Records. It was released in the UK, The Netherlands, Spain and Portugal, but was not a commercial success.


title: The Tourists

text: By 1976, they had recruited bass guitarist Eddie Chin and drummer Jim Toomey, and renamed themselves The Tourists. This saw the beginning of a productive period for the band and they released three albums: "The Tourists" (1979), "Reality Effect" (1979) and "Luminous Basement" (1980), as well as half a dozen singles, including "Blind Among the Flowers" (1979), "The Loneliest Man in the World" (1979), "Don't Say I Told You So" (1980) and two hits, the Dusty Springfield cover "I Only Want to Be with You" (1979) and "So Good to Be Back Home Again" (1980), both of which reached the top 10 in the UK.


title: The Tourists

text: "I Only Want to Be with You" was also a top 10 hit in Australia and reached number 83 on the US "Billboard" Hot 100. Coombes was the band's main songwriter, although later releases saw the first compositions by Lennox and Stewart.


title: The Tourists

text: In 1980, the band signed to RCA Records. They toured extensively in the UK and abroad, including as support for Roxy Music on their 1979 Manifesto Tour. The group disbanded in late 1980.


title: The Tourists

text: Coombes and Chin began a new project named Acid Drops but this met with little success and Coombes, despite originally being the main artistic force behind the Tourists, drifted out of the music business after the disbanding.


title: The Tourists

text: Lennox and Stewart soon split as a couple but decided to continue working as an experimental musical partnership, under the name Eurythmics. They retained their RCA recording contract and links with Conny Plank, who produced their first album "In the Garden" in 1981.


title: The Tourists

text: Coombes' death in late 1997 acted as a catalyst for Lennox and Stewart to revive their friendship and musical partnership, after they had previously disbanded Eurythmics in 1990.


title: Omar Bongo

text: El Hadj Omar Bongo Ondimba (born Albert-Bernard Bongo; 30 December 1935 – 8 June 2009) was a Gabonese politician who was the second President of Gabon for 42 years, from 1967 until his death in 2009. Omar Bongo was promoted to key positions as a young official under Gabon's first President Léon M'ba in the 1960s, before being elected Vice-President in his own right in 1966. In 1967, he succeeded M'ba to become the second Gabon President, upon the latter's death.


title: Omar Bongo

text: Bongo headed the single-party regime of the Gabonese Democratic Party (PDG) until 1990, when, faced with public pressure, he was forced to introduce multi-party politics into Gabon. His political survival despite intense opposition to his rule in the early 1990s seemed to stem once again from consolidating power by bringing most of the major opposition leaders at the time to his side. The 1993 presidential election was extremely controversial but ended with his re-election then and the subsequent elections of 1998 and 2005. His respective parliamentary majorities increased and the opposition becoming more subdued with each succeeding election. After Cuban President Fidel Castro stepped down in February 2008, Bongo became the world's longest-ruling non-royal leader. He was one of the longest serving non-royal rulers since 1900.


title: Omar Bongo

text: Bongo was criticized for in effect having worked for himself, his family and local elites and not for Gabon and its people. For instance, French green politician Eva Joly claimed that during Bongo's long reign, despite an oil-led GDP per capita growth to one of the highest levels in Africa, Gabon built only 5 km of freeway a year and still had one of the world's highest infant mortality rates by the time of his death in 2009.


title: Omar Bongo

text: After Bongo's death in June 2009, his son Ali Bongo—who had long been assigned key ministerial responsibilities by his father—was elected to succeed him in August 2009.


title: Omar Bongo

text: The youngest of twelve siblings, Albert-Bernard Bongo was born on 30 December 1935 in Lewai (since renamed Bongoville), French Equatorial Africa, a town of the Haut-Ogooué province in what is now southeastern Gabon near the border with the Republic of the Congo. He was a member of the small Bateke ethnic group. He changed his name to El Hadj Omar Bongo when he converted to Islam in 1973. After completing his primary and secondary education in Brazzaville (then the capital of French Equatorial Africa), Bongo held a job at the Post and Telecommunications Public Services, before joining the French military where he served as a second lieutenant and then as a first lieutenant in the Air Force, in Brazzaville, Bangui and Fort Lamy (present-day N'djamena, Chad) successively, before being honorably discharged as captain.


title: Omar Bongo

text: After Gabon's independence in 1960, Albert-Bernard Bongo began his political career, rapidly rising through a succession of positions under President Léon M'ba. Bongo campaigned for M. Sandoungout in Haut Ogooué in the 1961 parliamentary election, choosing not to run for election in his own right; Sandoungout was elected and became Minister of Health. Bongo worked at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs for a time, and he was named Assistant Director of the Presidential Cabinet in March 1962; he was named Director seven months later. In 1964, during the only coup attempt in Gabon's history, M'ba was kidnapped and Bongo was held in a military camp in Libreville, though M'ba was restored to power two days later.


title: Omar Bongo

text: On 24 September 1965, he was appointed as Presidential Representative and placed in charge of defense and coordination. He was then appointed Minister of Information and Tourism, initially on an interim basis, then formally holding the position in August 1966. M'ba, whose health was declining, appointed Bongo as Vice-President of Gabon on 12 November 1966. In the presidential election held on 19 March 1967, M'ba was re-elected as President and Bongo was elected as Vice-President during the same election. Bongo was in effective control of Gabon since November 1966 during President Léon M'ba's long illness.


title: Omar Bongo

text: Bongo became President on 2 December 1967, following the death of M'ba four days earlier, and was installed by de Gaulle and influential French leaders. Aged 32, Bongo was Africa's fourth youngest president at the time, after captain Michel Micombero of Burundi and sergeant Gnassingbé Eyadéma of Togo. In March 1968 Bongo decreed Gabon to be a one-party state and changed the name of the Gabonese Independence Party, the Bloc Democratique Gabonais (BDG), to the Parti Democratique Gabonais (PDG). In the 1973 elections for the national assembly and the presidency, Bongo was the sole candidate for president. He and all PDG candidates were elected by 99.56% of the votes cast. In April 1975 Bongo abolished the post of vice-president and appointed his former vice-president, Léon Mébiame, as prime minister, a position Bongo had held concurrently with his presidency from 1967. Mebiame would remain as prime minister until his resignation in 1990.


title: Omar Bongo

text: In addition to the presidency, Bongo held several ministerial portfolios from 1967 onward, including Minister of Defense (1967–1981), Information (1967–1980), Planning (1967–1977), Prime Minister (1967–1975), the Interior (1967–1970), and many others. Following a Congress of the PDG in January 1979 and the December 1979 elections, Bongo gave up some of his ministerial portfolios and surrendered his functions as head of government to Prime Minister Mebiame. The PDG congress had criticized Bongo's administration for inefficiency and called for an end to the holding of multiple offices. Bongo was again re-elected for a seven-year term in 1979, receiving 99.96% of the popular vote.


title: Omar Bongo

text: Opposition to President Bongo's regime first appeared in the late 1970s, as economic difficulties became more acute for the Gabonese. The first organized, but illegal, opposition party was MORENA, the Movement for National Restoration (Mouvement de redressement national). This moderate opposition group sponsored demonstrations by students and academic staff at the Universite Omar Bongo in Libreville in December 1981, when the university was temporarily closed. MORENA accused Bongo of corruption and personal extravagance and of favoring his own Bateke tribe; the group demanded that a multi-party system be restored. Arrests were made in February 1982, when the opposition distributed leaflets criticizing the Bongo regime during a visit by Pope John Paul II. In November 1982, 37 MORENA members were tried and convicted of offenses against state security. Severe sentences were handed out, including 20 years of hard labor for 13 of the defendants; all were pardoned, however, and released by mid-1986.


title: Omar Bongo

text: Despite these pressures, Omar Bongo remained committed to one-party rule. In 1985, legislative elections were held which followed past procedures; all nominations were approved by PDG, which then presented a single list of candidates. The candidates were ratified by popular vote on 3 March 1985. In November 1986 Bongo was re-elected by 99.97% of the popular vote.


title: Omar Bongo

text: On 22 May 1990, after strikes, riots and unrest, the PDG central committee and the National Assembly approved constitutional amendments to facilitate the transition to a multi-party system. The existing presidential mandate, effective through 1994, was to be respected. Subsequent elections to the presidency would be contested by more than one candidate, and the presidential term of office was changed to five years with a term limit consisting of one re-election to the office.


title: Omar Bongo

text: The next day, 23 May 1990, a vocal critic of Bongo and the leading political opposition leader, Joseph Rendjambe, was found dead in a hotel, reportedly murdered by poison. The death of Rendjambe, a prominent business executive and secretary-general of the opposition group "Parti gabonais du progres" (PGP), touched off the worst rioting in Bongo's 23-year rule. Presidential buildings in Libreville were set on fire and the French consul-general and ten oil company employees were taken hostage. French troops evacuated foreigners and a state of emergency was declared in Port Gentil, Rendjambe's hometown and a strategic oil production site. During this emergency Gabon's two main oil producers, Elf and Shell, cut output from to 20,000. Bongo threatened to withdraw their exploration licenses unless they restored normal output, which they soon did. France sent in 500 troops to reinforce the 500-man battalion of Marines permanently stationed in Gabon "to protect the interests of 20,000 resident French nationals". Tanks and troops were deployed around the presidential palace to halt rioters.


title: Omar Bongo

text: In December 1993, Bongo won the first presidential election held under the new multi-party constitution, by a considerably narrower margin of around 51.4%. Opposition candidates refused to validate the election results. Serious civil disturbances led to an agreement between the government and opposition factions to work toward a political settlement. These talks led to the Paris Accords in November 1994, under which several opposition figures were included in a government of national unity. This arrangement soon broke down, however, and the 1996 and 1997 legislative and municipal elections provided the backdrop for renewed partisan politics. The PDG won a landslide victory in the legislative election, but several major cities, including Libreville, elected opposition mayors during the 1997 local election. Bongo was eventually successful in consolidating power again, with most of the major opposition leaders being either co-opted by being given high-ranking posts in the government or bought off, ensuring his comfortable re-election in 1998.


title: Omar Bongo

text: In 2003, Bongo secured a change in the Constitution allowing him to seek re-election as many times as he wanted, and changing the Presidential term to seven years, up from five. Bongo's critics accused him of intending to rule for life. On 27 November 2005 Bongo won a seven-year term as president, receiving 79.2 percent of the vote, comfortably ahead of his four challengers. He was sworn in for another seven-year term on 19 January 2006 and remained president until his death in 2009.


title: Omar Bongo

text: French culture, economy, and polity have long dominated the small African country of Gabon. The French control of the colonial era ... has been replaced, since independence in 1960, by an insidious rapprochement with Paris, fashioned by Gabon's leadership. A French journalist long familiar with the continent wrote that "Gabon is an extreme case, verging on caricature, of neocolonialism. Bongo's international relations and affairs were dominated by his, and by extension Gabon's, relations with France, Gabon falling within the ambit of Françafrique. With its oil, a fifth of the world's known uranium (Gabonese uranium supplied France's nuclear bombs, which French president Charles de Gaulle tested in the Algerian deserts in 1960), big iron and manganese deposits, and plenty of timber, Gabon was always important to France. Bongo reportedly said: "Gabon without France is like a car with no driver. France without Gabon is like a car with no fuel..."


title: Omar Bongo

text: In 1964 when renegade soldiers arrested him in Libreville and kidnapped president M'ba, French paratroopers rescued the abducted president and Mr Bongo, restoring them to power. Bongo became Vice President in 1966 after what was effectively an interview and subsequent approval by then French President Gen. Charles de Gaulle in 1965 in Paris.


title: Omar Bongo

text: In 1988, the "New York Times" reported that "Last year, French aid to Gabon amounted to US$360 million. This included subsidizing a third of Gabon's budget, extending low-interest trade loans, paying the salaries of 170 French advisers and 350 French teachers and paying scholarships for most of the roughly 800 Gabonese who study in France every year... [A]ccording to "Le Canard enchaîné", a French opposition weekly, US$2.6 million of this aid also went for the interior decoration of a DC-8 jet belonging to President Bongo."


title: Omar Bongo

text: In 1990, France, which has always maintained a permanent military base in Gabon as well as in some of its other ex-colonies, helped maintain Bongo in power in the face of sustained pro-democracy protests that threatened to oust him from power. When Gabon found itself on the brink of a civil war after the first multiparty presidential elections in 1993, with the opposition staging violent protests, Paris hosted the talks between Bongo and the opposition, resulting in the Paris Agreement/Accords which restored calm.In France, his old ally, Mr. Bongo and his family lived in the rarefied air of the super-rich. At their disposal were 39 luxurious properties, 70 bank accounts and at least 9 luxury vehicles worth about US$2 million, according to Transparency International...


title: Omar Bongo

text: Former French president Valéry Giscard d'Estaing claimed that Bongo helped bankroll Jacques Chirac's 1981 presidential campaign. Giscard said Bongo had developed a "very questionable financial network" over time. "I called Bongo and told him 'you're supporting my rival's campaign' and there was a dead silence that I still remember to this day and then he said 'Ah, you know about it', which was extraordinary. From that moment on, I broke off personal relations with him", said Giscard. Socialist French parliamentarian André Vallini reportedly claimed that Bongo had bankrolled numerous French electoral campaigns, both Right and Left. In 2008, French President, Nicolas Sarkozy demoted his minister in charge of looking after the ex-colonies, Jean-Marie Bockel, after the latter noted the "squandering of public funds" by some African regimes, provoking Mr. Bongo's fury.He made his country and his oil industry available as a source of offshore slush funds", said political analyst Nicholas Shaxson, the author of a book on Africa's oil states. "These were used by all the French political parties — from the left to the right — for secret party financing, and as a source of bribes in support of French commercial bids all over the world.


title: Omar Bongo

text: After Bongo's demise, President Sarkozy expressed his "sadness and emotion" ... and pledged that France would remain "loyal to its long relationship of friendship" with Gabon. "It is a great and loyal friend of France who has left us — a grand figure of Africa," Sarkozy said in a statement.


title: Omar Bongo

text: Italian fashion designer Francesco Smalto admitted providing Bongo with Parisian prostitutes to secure a tailoring business worth $600,000 per year.


title: Omar Bongo

text: Bongo was one of the wealthiest heads of state in the world, his wealth attributed primarily to oil revenue and alleged corruption. In 1999, an investigation by the US Senate Permanent Subcommittee on investigations into Citibank estimated that the Gabonese President held US$130 million in the bank's personal accounts, money the Senate report said was "sourced in the public finances of Gabon".


title: Omar Bongo

text: In 2005, an investigation by the United States Senate Indian Affairs Committee into fundraising irregularities by lobbyist Jack Abramoff revealed that Abramoff had offered to arrange a meeting between U.S. President George W. Bush and Bongo for the sum of US$9,000,000. Although such an exchange of funds remains unproven, Bush met with Bongo 10 months later in the Oval Office.


title: Omar Bongo

text: In 2007, his former daughter-in-law, Inge Lynn Collins Bongo, the second wife of his son Ali Bongo Ondimba, caused a stir when she appeared on the US music channel VH1's reality show, Really Rich Real Estate. She was featured trying to buy a US$25,000,000 mansion in Malibu, California.


title: Omar Bongo

text: Bongo was cited in recent years during French criminal inquiries into hundreds of millions of euros of illicit payments by Elf Aquitaine, the former French state-owned oil group. One Elf representative testified that the company was giving 50 million euros per year to Bongo to exploit the petrol lands of Gabon. As of June 2007, Bongo, along with President Denis Sassou Nguesso of the Republic of the Congo, Blaise Compaoré of Burkina Faso, Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo of Equatorial Guinea and José Eduardo dos Santos from Angola was being investigated by the French magistrates after the complaint made by French NGOs Survie and Sherpa due to claims that he has used millions of pounds of embezzled public funds to acquire lavish properties in France. The leaders all denied wrongdoing.


title: Omar Bongo

text: The "Sunday Times" (UK) reported on 20 June 2008 as follows:A mansion worth £15m in one of Paris's most elegant districts has become the latest of 33 luxury properties bought in France by President Omar Bongo Ondimba of Gabon ... a French judicial investigation has discovered that Bongo, 72, and his relatives also bought a fleet of limousines, including a £308,823 Maybach for his wife, Edith, 44. Payment for some of the cars was taken directly from the treasury of Gabon ... The Paris mansion is in the Rue de la Baume, near the Elysée Palace ... The home was bought in June last year by a property company based in Luxembourg. The firm's partners are two of Bongo's children, Omar, 13, and Yacine, 16, his wife Edith and one of her nephews... [T]he residence is the most expensive in his portfolio, which includes nine other properties in Paris, four of which are on the exclusive Avenue Foch, near the Arc de Triomphe. He also rents a nine-room apartment in the same street. Bongo has a further seven properties in Nice, including four villas, one of which has a swimming pool. Edith has two flats near the Eiffel Tower and another property in Nice. Investigators identified the properties through tax records. Checks at Bongo's houses, in turn, allowed them to find details of his fleet of cars. Edith used a cheque, drawn on an account in the name of "Prairie du Gabon en France" (part of the Gabon treasury), to buy the Maybach, painted Côte d'Azur blue, in February 2004. Bongo's daughter Pascaline, 52, used a cheque from the same account for a part-payment of £29,497 towards a £60,000 Mercedes two years later. Bongo bought himself a Ferrari 612 Scaglietti F1 in October 2004 for £153,000 while his son Ali acquired a Ferrari 456 M GT in June 2001 for £156,000. Bongo's fortune has repeatedly come under the spotlight. According to a 1997 US Senate report, his family spends £55m a year. In a separate French investigation into corruption at the former oil giant Elf Aquitaine, an executive testified that it paid Bongo £40m a year via Swiss bank accounts in exchange for permission to exploit his country's reserves. Bongo denied this. The latest inquiry, by the French antifraud agency OCRGDF, followed a lawsuit that accused Bongo and two other African leaders of looting public funds to finance their purchases. 'Whatever the merits and qualifications of these leaders, no one can seriously believe that these assets were paid for out of their salaries', alleges the lawsuit brought by the Sherpa association of judges, which promotes corporate social responsibility.


title: Omar Bongo

text: In 2009, Bongo spent his last months in a major row with France over the French inquiry. A French court decision in February 2009 to freeze his bank accounts added fuel to the fire and his government accused France of waging a "campaign to destabilize" the country. It is for this reason that he was hospitalized and spent his last days in Barcelona, Spain and not in France.


title: Omar Bongo

text: [W]ith a neat mustache and piercing gaze often hidden behind dark glasses, he ruled... He was a short man, like many of his minority Bateke ethnic group, and often wore raised platform shoes so as to appear taller... But his diminutive height belied his towering stature: on Gabon's political stage – which he ruled shrewdly for nearly 42 years -; and on the African continent, as one of the last of the so-called "big men".


title: Omar Bongo

text: Omar Bongo, Africa's "little Big Man", described as "a diminutive, dapper figure who conversed in flawless French, a charismatic figure surrounded by a personality cult", was one of the last of the African "Big Man" rulers. The pillars of his long rule were France, revenues from Gabon's of oil reserves, and his political skills.


title: Omar Bongo

text: An ardent Francophile, Bongo was at the inception of his Presidency happy to strike a favorable bargain with the old colonial power, France. He gave the French oil company, Elf Aquitaine, privileged rights to exploit Gabon's oil reserves while Paris returned the favor by guaranteeing his grip on power for the indefinite future.


title: Omar Bongo

text: Bongo went on to preside over an oil boom that undoubtedly fueled an extravagant lifestyle for him and his family—dozens of luxurious properties in and around France, a US$800 million presidential palace in Gabon, fancy cars, etc. This enabled him to amass enough wealth to become one of the world's richest men. He carefully allowed just enough oil money to trickle down to the general population of 1.4 million, thus avoiding mass unrest. He built some basic infrastructure in Libreville and, ignoring advice to establish a road network instead, constructed the US$4bn Trans-Gabon Railway line deep into the forested interior. Petrodollars funded the salaries of a bloated civil service, spreading enough of the state's wealth among the population to keep most of them fed and dressed. Gabon under Bongo was described in 2008 by the UK Guardian newspaper:Gabon produces some sugar, beer and bottled water. Despite the rich soil and tropical climate, there is only a tiny amount of agricultural production. Fruit and vegetables arrive on trucks from Cameroon. Milk is flown in from France. And years of dependence on relatives with civil service jobs means that many Gabonese have no interest in seeking work outside the state sector – most manual jobs are taken by immigrants.


title: Omar Bongo

text: Bongo used part of the money to build up a fairly large circle of people who supported him such as government ministers, high administrators, and army officers. He had learned from Léon M'ba how to give government ministries to different tribal groups so that someone from every important group had a representative in the government. Bongo had no ideology beyond self-interest, but there was no opposition with an ideology either. He ruled by knowing how the self-interest of others could be manipulated. He was skilled at persuading opposition figures to become his allies. He offered critics modest slices of the nation's oil wealth, co-opting or buying off opponents rather than crushing them outright. He became the most successful of all Africa's Francophone leaders, comfortably extending his political dominance into the fifth decade.


title: Omar Bongo

text: When multi-party presidential elections were held in 1993, which he won, the poll was marred by allegations of rigging, with the opposition claiming that chief rival, Father Paul Mba Abessole, was robbed of victory. Gabon found itself on the brink of a civil war, as the opposition staged violent demonstrations. Determined to prove that he was not a dictator who relied on brute force for his political survival, Bongo entered into talks with the opposition, negotiating what became known as the Paris Agreement. When Bongo won the second presidential elections held in 1998, similar controversy raged over his victory. The president responded by meeting some of his critics to discuss revising legislation to guarantee free and fair elections. After Bongo's Gabonese Democratic Party scored a landslide victory in the 2001 legislative elections, Bongo offered government posts to influential opposition members. Father Abessole accepted a ministerial post in the name of "friendly democracy".


title: Omar Bongo

text: The main opposition leader, Pierre Mamboundou of the Gabonese People's Union, refused to attend the post 1998 elections meetings, claiming that they were merely a ploy by Bongo to lure opposition leaders. Mamboundou called for a boycott of the legislative elections held in December 2001, and his supporters burned ballot boxes and papers in a polling station in his hometown of Ndende. He then rejected offers for a senior post after the 2001 legislative elections. But despite threats from Bongo, Mamboundou was never arrested. The president declared that a "policy of forgiveness" was his "best revenge". "In 2006, however, Maboundou, stopped his public criticisms of Mr. Bongo. The former brand made no secret that the president pledged to give him US$21.5 million for the development of his constituency of Ndende". As time went on, Bongo depended on more and more on his close family members. By 2009, his son Ali by his first wife had been the Minister of Defense since 1999, while his daughter, Pascaline, was the head of the President's administration and her husband the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Paul Toungui.


title: Omar Bongo

text: In 2000, he put an end to a student strike by providing about US$1.35m for the purchase of the computers and books they were demanding. "[He] was a self-proclaimed nature lover in a country with the largest percentage of the untrammeled virgin jungle of all the nations in the Congo Basin. In 2002, he set aside 10 percent of Gabon's land as national parks, pledging that they would never be logged, mined, hunted or farmed." He was not beyond some measure of self-aggrandisement, "thus, Gabon acquired Bongo University, Bongo Airport, numerous Bongo Hospitals, Bongo Stadium and Bongo Gymnasium. The president's hometown, Lewai, was inevitably renamed Bongoville."


title: Omar Bongo

text: On the international stage, Bongo cultivated an image as a mediator, playing a pivotal role in attempts to solve the crises in the Central African Republic, Republic of the Congo, Burundi and the Democratic Republic of Congo. In 1986, Bongo's image was boosted abroad when he received the Dag Hammarskjold Peace Prize for efforts to resolve the Chad-Libya border conflict. He was popular among his own people as his reign had guaranteed peace and stability. Under Mr. Bongo's rule, Gabon never had a coup or a civil war, a rare achievement for a nation surrounded by unstable, war-torn states. Fueled by oil, the country's economy was more like that of an Arabian emirate than a Central African nation. For many years Gabon was said, perhaps apocryphally, to have the world's highest per capita consumption of Champagne.


title: Omar Bongo

text: According to the political scientist Thomas Atenga, despite the large oil revenues, "the Gabonese rentier state has functioned for years on the predation of resources for the benefit of its ruling class, around which a parasitic capitalism has developed that has hardly improved the living conditions of the population".


title: Omar Bongo

text: Bongo converted to Islam and took the name Omar while on a visit to Libya in 1973. At the time Muslims constituted a tiny minority of the native population; following Bongo's conversion the numbers grew, although they remained a small minority. He added Ondimba as a surname on 15 November 2003 in recognition of his father, Basile Ondimba, who died in 1942.


title: Omar Bongo

text: Bongo's first marriage was to Louise Mouyabi-Moukala. They had a daughter, Pascaline, born at Franceville in 1957. Pascaline was Gabon's Foreign Minister and subsequently Director of the Presidential Cabinet.


title: Omar Bongo

text: Bongo's second marriage was to Marie Josephine Kama, later known as Josephine Bongo. He divorced her in 1987, after which she went on to launch a music career under a new name, Patience Dabany. They had a son, Alain Bernard Bongo, and a daughter, Albertine Amissa Bongo. Born at Brazzaville in 1959, Alain Bernard Bongo (later known as Ali-Ben Bongo) served as Foreign Minister from 1989 to 1992, then as Defence Minister from 1999 to 2009, and was then elected President in August 2009 to replace his father.


title: Omar Bongo

text: Bongo then married Edith Lucie Sassou-Nguesso, nearly 30 years his junior, in 1989. She was the daughter of Congolese President Denis Sassou-Nguesso. She was a trained pediatrician, known for her commitment to fighting AIDS. She bore Bongo two children. Edith Lucie Bongo died on 14 March 2009, four days after her 45th birthday in Rabat, Morocco, where she had been undergoing treatment for several months. The statement announcing her death did not specify the cause of death or the nature of her illness. She had not appeared in public for around three years preceding her death. She was buried on 22 March 2009 in the family cemetery in the northern town of Edou, in her native Congo.


title: Omar Bongo

text: Peru is investigating claims that a beauty pageant contestant was lured to Gabon to become the lover of its 67-year-old president, Omar Bongo, and was stranded for nearly two weeks after she refused. A spokesman for Mr. Bongo said he was unaware of the allegations. The Peruvian Foreign Ministry said that Ivette Santa Maria, a 22-year-old Miss Peru America contestant, was invited to Gabon to be a hostess for a pageant there. In an interview, Ms. Santa Maria said that she was taken to Mr. Bongo's presidential palace hours after her Jan. 19 arrival and that as he joined her, "he pressed a button and some sliding doors opened, revealing a large bed." She said, "I told him I was not a prostitute, that I was a Miss Peru." She fled and guards offered to drive her to a hotel. Without money to pay the bill, however, she was stranded in Gabon for 12 days until international women's groups and others intervened.


title: Omar Bongo

text: On 7 May 2009, the Gabonese Government announced that Bongo had temporarily suspended his official duties and taken time off to mourn his wife and rest in Spain.


title: Omar Bongo

text: International media, however, reported that he was seriously ill, and undergoing treatment for cancer in hospital in Barcelona, Spain. The Gabonese government maintained that he was in Spain for a few days of rest following the "intense emotional shock" of his wife's death, but eventually admitted that he was in a Spanish clinic "undergoing a medical check up".


title: Omar Bongo

text: On 7 June 2009, unconfirmed reports quoting French media and citing sources "close to the French government" reported that Bongo had died in Spain of complications from advanced cancer. The Government of Gabon denied the reports, which had been picked up by numerous other news sources, and continued to insist that he was well. His death was eventually confirmed by then Gabonese Prime Minister Jean Eyeghe Ndong, who said in a written statement that Bongo had died of a heart attack shortly before 12:30 GMT on 8 June 2009.


title: Omar Bongo

text: Bongo's body was flown back to Gabon, where it lay in state for five days, as thousands of people came to pay their respects. A state funeral followed on 16 June 2009 in Libreville which was attended by nearly two dozen African heads of state, including several of the continent's strongmen who themselves have ruled for decades, and by Nicolas Sarkozy and Jacques Chirac—the current and former French presidents (and the only Western heads of state to attend).


title: Omar Bongo

text: Bongo's body was then flown to Franceville, the main town in the southeastern province of Haut-Ogooue, where he was born, where he was buried in a private family burial on 18 June 2009.


title: History of the Philippines (1946–1965)

text: This article covers the history of the Philippines from the recognition of independence in 1946 to the end of the presidency of Diosdado Macapagal that covered much of the Third Republic of the Philippines, which ended on January 17, 1973, with the ratification of the 1973 Constitution of the Republic of the Philippines.


title: History of the Philippines (1946–1965)

text: The United States of America granted independence to the Philippines on July 4, 1946. In accordance with the Philippine Independence Act (more popularly known as the "Tydings–McDuffie Act"), President Harry S. Truman issued Proclamation 2695 of July 4, 1946, officially recognizing the independence of the Philippines.


title: History of the Philippines (1946–1965)

text: On the same day, representatives of the United States of America and of the Republic of the Philippines signed a Treaty of General Relations between the two governments. The treaty provided for the recognition of the independence of the Republic of the Philippines as of July 4, 1946, and the relinquishment of American sovereignty over the Philippine Islands.


title: History of the Philippines (1946–1965)

text: The U.S. retained dozens of military bases, including a few major ones. In addition, independence was qualified by legislation passed by the U.S. Congress. For example, the Bell Trade Act provided a mechanism whereby U.S. import quotas might be established on Philippine articles which "are coming, or are likely to come, into substantial competition with like articles the product of the United States". It further required U.S. citizens and corporations be granted equal access to Philippine minerals, forests, and other natural resources. In hearings before the Senate Committee on Finance, Assistant Secretary of State for Economic Affairs William Clayton described the law as "clearly inconsistent with the basic foreign economic policy of this country" and "clearly inconsistent with our promise to grant the Philippines genuine independence."


title: History of the Philippines (1946–1965)

text: The Philippine government had little choice but to accept these terms for independence. Congress was threatening to withhold post-World War II rebuilding funds unless the Bell Act was ratified. The Philippine Congress obliged on July 2, 1946.


title: History of the Philippines (1946–1965)

text: After independence, the US continued to direct the country through Central Intelligence Agency operatives like Edward Lansdale. As Raymond Bonner and other historians note, Lansdale strongly influenced President Ramon Magsaysay, going so far as to knock him out when the Philippine leader delivered a speech written by a Filipino and that American agents also drugged sitting President Elpidio Quirino and discussed assassinating Senator Claro Recto. Prominent Filipino historian Roland G. Simbulan has called the CIA "US imperialism's clandestine apparatus in the Philippines."


title: History of the Philippines (1946–1965)

text: The Philippines currently celebrates its Independence Day on June 12, the anniversary of Emilio Aguinaldo's declaration of independence from Spain in 1898. The declaration was not recognised by the United States which, after defeating the Spanish in the Battle of Manila Bay in May that year, acquired the Philippine Islands via the Treaty of Paris that ended the Spanish–American War.


title: History of the Philippines (1946–1965)

text: From 1946 to 1961, the Philippines observed Independence Day on July 4. On May 12, 1962, President Macapagal issued Presidential Proclamation No. 28 proclaiming June 12, 1962, as a special public holiday throughout the Philippines. In 1964, Republic Act No. 4166 changed the date of Independence Day from July 4 to June 12 and renamed the July 4 holiday as Philippine Republic Day.


title: History of the Philippines (1946–1965)

text: When the Congress of the Philippines was convened in 1945, the legislators elected in 1941 chose Manuel Roxas as Senate President. In the Philippine national elections of 1946, Roxas ran for president as the nominee of the liberal wing of the Nacionalista Party. He had the staunch support of General MacArthur. His opponent was Sergio Osmeña, who refused to campaign, saying that the Filipino people knew his reputation. In the April 23, 1946, election, Roxas won 54 percent of the vote, and the Liberal Party won a majority in the legislature. When the Philippines gained independence from the United States on July 4, 1946, Roxas became the first president of the new republic.


title: History of the Philippines (1946–1965)

text: Although Roxas was successful in getting rehabilitation funds from the United States after independence, he was forced to concede military bases (23 of which were leased for 99 years), trade restrictions for the Philippine citizens, and special privileges for U.S. property owners and investors. His administration was marred by graft and corruption; moreover, the abuses of the provincial military police contributed to the rise of the left-wing Hukbalahap (Huk) movement in the countryside. His heavy-handed attempts to crush the Huks led to widespread peasant disaffection.


title: History of the Philippines (1946–1965)

text: During Roxas' term of office administration of the Turtle Islands and Mangsee Islands was transferred by the United Kingdom to the Republic of the Philippines. By an international treaty concluded in 1930 between the United States (in respect of its then overseas territory, the Philippine Archipelago) and the United Kingdom (in respect of its then protectorate, the State of North Borneo) the two powers agreed the international boundaries between those respective territories. In that treaty the United Kingdom also accepted that the Turtle Islands as well as the Mangsee Islands were part of the Philippines Archipelago and therefore under US sovereignty. However, by a supplemental international treaty concluded at the same time, the two powers agreed that those islands, although part of the Philippines Archipelago, would remain under the administration of the State of North Borneo's British North Borneo Company. The supplemental treaty provided that the British North Borneo Company would continue to administer those islands unless and until the United States government gave notice to the United Kingdom calling for administration of the islands to be transferred to the U.S. The U.S. never gave such a notice. On the 4th of July, 1946, the Republic of the Philippines was born. It became the successor to the U.S. under the treaties of 1930. On July 15, 1946, the United Kingdom annexed the State of North Borneo and, in the view of the United Kingdom, became the sovereign power with respect to what had been the State of North Borneo. On September 19, 1946, the Republic of the Philippines notified the United Kingdom that it wished to take over the administration of the Turtle Islands, Tawi-Tawi and the Mangesse Islands. Pursuant to a supplemental international agreement, the transfer of administration became effective on October 16, 1947.


title: History of the Philippines (1946–1965)

text: Roxas did not stay long in office because of a heart attack as he was speaking at Clark Air Base on April 15, 1948. He was succeeded by his vice president Elpidio Quirino.


title: History of the Philippines (1946–1965)

text: Quirino assumed the presidency on April 17, 1948, taking his oath of office two days after the death of Manuel Roxas. In 1949 the wartime president, Jose P. Laurel of the Nacionalista Party, ran against Quirino in what has been described as a particularly corrupt and venal exercise in democracy. Although historians in general accept that Laurel was elected, he refused to challenge Quirino's declared victory with force.


title: History of the Philippines (1946–1965)

text: Since Quirino was a widower, his surviving daughter Vicky would serve as the official hostess and perform the functions traditionally ascribed to the First Lady.


title: History of the Philippines (1946–1965)

text: Quirino's administration faced a serious threat in the form of the communist Hukbalahap movement. Though the Huks originally had been an anti-Japanese guerrilla army in Luzon, communists steadily gained control over the leadership, and when Quirino's negotiation with Huk commander Luis Taruc broke down in 1948, Taruc openly declared himself a communist and called for the overthrow of the government.


title: History of the Philippines (1946–1965)

text: His five years as president were marked by notable postwar reconstruction, general economic gains, and increased economic aid from the United States. Basic social problems, however, particularly in the rural areas, remained unsolved, and his administration was tainted by widespread graft and corruption.


title: History of the Philippines (1946–1965)

text: In 1953, in his second term, the Korean War began and resulted in over 7,450 Filipino soldiers being sent to Korea under the designation of the Philippine Expeditionary Forces to Korea or PEFTOK.


title: History of the Philippines (1946–1965)

text: Although ill, Quirino ran for re-election in 1953, but he was overwhelmingly defeated by Ramon Magsaysay.


title: History of the Philippines (1946–1965)

text: In the Election of 1953, Magsaysay was elected president over the incumbent Elpidio Quirino, with the scarcely concealed help of American officials and funds. He was sworn into office wearing the Barong Tagalog, a first by a Philippine president.


title: History of the Philippines (1946–1965)

text: As president, he was a close friend and supporter of the United States and a vocal spokesman against communism during the Cold War. He led the foundation of the Southeast Asia Treaty Organization also known as the Manila Pact of 1954, that aimed to defeat Marxist–Leninist movements in Southeast Asia, South Asia, and Oceania. During his term, he made Malacañang Palace literally a "house of the people", opening its gates to the public.


title: History of the Philippines (1946–1965)

text: One example of his integrity followed a demonstration flight aboard a new plane belonging to the Philippines Air Force (PAF). President Magsaysay asked what the operating costs per hour were for that type of aircraft, then wrote a personal check to the PAF, covering the cost of his flight.


title: History of the Philippines (1946–1965)

text: On March 16, 1957, Magsaysay left Manila for Cebu City where he spoke at three educational institutions. That same night, at about 1 a.m., he boarded the presidential plane "Mt. Pinatubo", a C-47, heading back to Manila. In the early morning hours of March 17, his plane was reported missing. It was late in the afternoon that day that newspapers reported that the airplane had crashed on Mt. Manunggal in Cebu and that 25 of the 26 passengers and crew aboard were killed. Only newspaperman Nestor Mata survived. Vice President Carlos P. Garcia, who was on an official visit to Australia at the time, assumed the presidency to serve out the last eight months of Magsaysay's term.


title: History of the Philippines (1946–1965)

text: Garcia assumed the presidency after Ramón Magsaysay died in a plane crash on March 17, 1957, and was elected later the same year, in the Election 1957, to a full term.


title: History of the Philippines (1946–1965)

text: During his administration, he acted on the Bohlen–Serrano Agreement which shortened the lease of the US Bases from 99 years to 25 years and made it renewable after every five years.


title: History of the Philippines (1946–1965)

text: He was well known when he exercised the Filipino First policy during his term in office. This policy heavily favored Filipino businessmen over foreign investors. He was also responsible for changes in retail trade which greatly affected the Chinese businessmen in the country. He also made a program focused on thriftiness.


title: History of the Philippines (1946–1965)

text: At the end of his second term, he ran for re–election in the Election 1961 in November 1961, but was defeated by Diosdado Macapagal, who served as vice-president under him, but belonged to the opposing Liberal Party — in the Philippines the president and the vice-president are elected separately.


title: History of the Philippines (1946–1965)

text: In the 1961 presidential election, Macapagal ran against Garcia and defeated the incumbent president by a 55% to 45% margin. Seeking to stimulate economic development, Macapagal took the advice of supporters and allowed the Philippine peso to float on the free currency exchange market. His reform efforts were blocked by the Nacionalistas, who dominated the House of Representatives and the Senate at that time. Nonetheless, his presidency achieved growth and prosperity for the nation.


title: History of the Philippines (1946–1965)

text: Among the most significant achievements of Macapagal as president were the abolition of tenancy and accompanying land reform program in the Agricultural Land Reform Code of 1963. He also changed the date of celebration of Philippine independence from July 4 to June 12, the latter date having been the day when in 1898, Emilio Aguinaldo declared independence from Spain. Later, Macapagal told author Stanley Karnow that the reason for the change was that American embassy celebrations were visited more than the Filipino reception on the July 4 American independence day.


title: History of the Philippines (1946–1965)

text: Macapagal was defeated for re-election in 1965 by Senate President Ferdinand Marcos, a former Liberal Party ally who defected to the Nacionalista Party to challenge the incumbent president.


title: Corked bat

text: In baseball, a corked bat is a specially modified baseball bat that has been filled with cork or other lighter, less dense substances to make the bat lighter. A lighter bat gives a hitter a quicker swing and may improve the hitter's timing. Despite popular belief that corking a bat creates a "trampoline effect" causing a batted ball to travel farther, physics researchers have shown that this is not the case. In Major League Baseball, modifying a bat with foreign substances and using it in play is illegal and subject to ejection and further punishment.


title: Corked bat

text: To cork a bat, a hole in diameter is drilled down through the thick end of the bat roughly deep. Crushed cork, bouncy balls, sawdust, or other similar material is compacted into the hole and the end is typically patched up with glue and sawdust. However, this weakens the bat's structural integrity and makes it more susceptible to breakage, even more so if the cork is placed beyond six inches into the bat. Corked bats are sometimes discovered when they break during the moment of impact upon hitting a baseball.


title: Corked bat

text: (5) He uses or attempts to use a bat that, in the umpire's judgment, has been altered or tampered with in such a way to improve the distance factor or cause an unusual reaction on the baseball. This includes bats that are filled, flat-surfaced, nailed, hollowed, grooved or covered with a substance such as paraffin, wax, etc.


title: Corked bat

text: It has been a popular belief that the material used to cork a bat creates a "trampoline effect", causing a ball hit with a corked bat to travel farther than one hit with an uncorked bat. Research has shown this not to be the case. Another perceived advantage of using a corked bat is its effect on the bat's weight. Corking a bat causes the bat to be lighter, which in turn allows the batter to swing it more quickly. However, the reduction in weight negatively affects the velocity of the ball as it leaves the bat, effectively cancelling out the advantage gained from a quicker bat speed. A lighter bat can, however, create an advantage by allowing the batter to delay a swing for a fraction of a second, which would allow for more accuracy.


title: Corked bat

text: Since 1970, six players have been caught using corked bats. The following table summarizes these events:


title: Corked bat

text: In addition, former player and Major League manager Phil Garner admitted in January 2010 on a Houston radio station that he used a corked bat against Gaylord Perry and "hit a home run" with it. Garner also admitted that the 2005 Houston Astros used corked bats during the 2005 MLB season and 2005 World Series.


title: Corked bat

text: In 2010, "Deadspin" reported that Pete Rose used corked bats during his 1985 pursuit of Ty Cobb's all-time hits record. Two sports memorabilia collectors who owned Rose's game-used bats from that season had the bats x-rayed and found the telltale signs of corking. Rose had previously denied using corked bats.


title: S. R. Nathan

text: Sellapan Ramanathan (; 3 July 1924 – 22 August 2016), often known as S. R. Nathan, was a Singaporean politician who served as the sixth president of Singapore between 1999 and 2011. He was also the longest-serving president in Singapore's history.


title: S. R. Nathan

text: Nathan contested in the 1999 presidential election and won by an uncontested walkover. He was re-elected as president after winning the 2005 presidential election uncontested again.


title: S. R. Nathan

text: In 2009, Nathan surpassed Benjamin Sheares to become Singapore's longest-serving president. Nathan was reportedly considering for a re-election, but announced on 2 July 2011, that he would not seek for a third term in office.


title: S. R. Nathan

text: Nathan suffered a stroke on 31 July 2016 and was taken to Singapore General Hospital before he died in the hospital on 22 August 2016, at the age of 92.


title: S. R. Nathan

text: Nathan, who was of Indian descent, was born in Singapore on 3 July 1924. He spent his childhood with his parents, V. Sellapan and Abirami, and two older brothers in Muar, Johor, in a house overlooking the sea. Nathan would eventually be one of seven siblings; his three older brothers died in childhood. His father had been posted to the Malayan town as a lawyer's clerk for a firm that serviced rubber plantations, but the Great Depression and rubber slump of the 1930s sent the family's fortunes crashing. Nathan's father accrued debts and eventually committed suicide when Nathan was eight.