texts:
 victory at 1:12 in the first round. Kongo refused to tap and was rendered unconscious by the choke.In the post-fight press conference, <mask> expressed his desire to fight a rubber match with Brock Lesnar. <mask> later created controversy after commenting that he wanted to break Lesnar's neck, so that he would become the first mixed martial artist to die in competition. <mask> later made an apology for his comments after being admonished by Dana White. Interim Heavyweight Championship bout
<mask> faced Shane Carwin for the UFC Interim Heavyweight Championship on March 27, 2010, at UFC 111. After a brief standup exchange, Carwin pushed <mask> against the cage, where he delivered several short uppercuts to <mask>'s chin. <mask> lost the fight via knockout at 3:48 of the first round. Second rise back to title contention
At a UFC Fan Expo, <mask> said he briefly considered dropping down to the Light heavyweight division, although he later confirmed he would remain at Heavyweight.He was expected to face Antônio Rodrigo Nogueira on September 25, 2010, at UFC 119 in a rematch of the Interim Championship bout which <mask> won via TKO at UFC 92. Nogueira pulled out of this fight due to knee surgery and was replaced by <mask> Cro Cop. <mask> defeated <mask> Cro Cop via third-round knockout, earning the win with a knee from the clinch in a largely uneventful fight in which neither fighter was able to deliver any significant offense. <mask> faced former IFL Heavyweight Champion Roy Nelson on May 28, 2011, at UFC 130. He won via unanimous decision (30–27, 30–27, and 30–26) by using superior control and constant pressure. <mask> showed improved wrestling by pushing Nelson against the cage, completing a Judo hip throw and securing several takedowns in the third round. <mask> landed several hard knees and elbows from the Muay Thai clinch throughout the bout but was unable to finish the durable Nelson.A rematch with Antônio Rodrigo Nogueira took place on December 10, 2011, at UFC 140. In the bout, <mask> was dropped during the first round by a punch from Nogueira, and the bout was nearly stopped. <mask> quickly recovered and gained superior positioning, defeating Nogueira by kimura at 3:38 of round 1, snapping Nogueira's arm in the process, as Nogueira refused to tap. Along with being the first fighter to have finished Nogueira via knockout, <mask> became the first fighter to have defeated Nogueira via submission in mixed martial arts. The victory also earned <mask> Submission of the Night honors. UFC President Dana White called it the "submission of the century" at the post-fight press conference. Third title shot and beyond
<mask> was expected to face Cain Velasquez on May 25, 2012, at UFC 146.However, on April 20, 2012, Dana White announced that <mask> would face Brazilian Junior dos Santos for the UFC Heavyweight Championship, replacing kickboxer Alistair Overeem. On May 11, 2012, UFC Primetime returned to promote the fight between <mask> and dos Santos, and concluded on May 25. In their fight, dos Santos was able to use superior foot work to strike in and out before <mask> could mount any significant offense. <mask> lost the fight via TKO in the second round and said he would have to go back to the drawing board to continue his career. Later in 2012, the UFC announced that <mask> had been given a one fight sabbatical to compete under the Strikeforce banner to challenge Strikeforce Heavyweight Grand Prix Tournament Champion Daniel Cormier. The bout with Cormier was expected to take place on November 3, 2012, at Strikeforce: Cormier vs. <mask>. However, on September 19 it was revealed that <mask> suffered an injury in training and was forced to pull out of the bout.The bout with Cormier was rescheduled for April 20, 2013, at UFC on Fox 7. <mask> lost the fight by unanimous decision. <mask> faced returning former UFC Heavyweight Champion Josh Barnett on August 31, 2013, at UFC 164. <mask> lost via TKO in the first round. <mask> was scheduled to face Alistair Overeem on November 16, 2013, at UFC 167. However, the pairing was moved to February 1, 2014, at UFC 169. <mask> lost the fight via unanimous decision.<mask> was expected to face Antônio Silva on February 28, 2015, at UFC 184. However, the bout with Silva was moved up a week and served as the event headliner for UFC Fight Night 61. Despite being the betting underdog, <mask> won the fight via knockout in the first round, dropping Silva with a left hook and finishing him with a barrage of ground and pound. Subsequently, <mask> won a Performance of the Night bonus. <mask> faced Todd Duffee at UFC Fight Night 71 on July 15, 2015. He won the fight via knockout in the first round after dropping Duffee with a straight left. Referee "Big" John McCarthy immediately stepped in to stop the fight as Duffee face planted onto the mat.<mask> earned his second consecutive Performance of the Night bonus. <mask> faced Andrei Arlovski on September 5, 2015, at UFC 191. He lost the back-and-forth fight via unanimous decision, although some, including UFC president Dana White, scored the fight in his favor. 12 of 15 media outlets, however, scored the bout in favor of Arlovski. <mask> faced Mark Hunt on March 20, 2016, at UFC Fight Night 85 in Brisbane, Australia. He lost the fight via KO in the first round. On April 7, 2016, <mask> was notified by the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) that the sample he submitted the day of the fight tested positive for oral turinabol metabolites.In a statement, <mask> responded, "I don't know how that is possible as I do not take any performance enhancing drugs (PEDs)." He was nonetheless suspended for two years. Speaking in early 2017 <mask> opened up to a radio show about retirement rumors indicating he was still interested in actively competing, and a potential comeback. <mask> indicated interest in a third Brock Lesnar fight. On July 8, 2017, <mask> announced that he had been granted his release from the UFC after nearly 16 years with the promotion, despite having six fights left on his contract. Bellator MMA
On August 16, 2017, it was announced that <mask> had signed a multi-fight deal with Bellator MMA. In his debut fight for the promotion, <mask> faced Fedor Emelianenko at Bellator 198 on April 28, 2018.The bout was part of the opening round of the Bellator Heavyweight Tournament. He lost the fight via TKO in round one. In his second fight for the promotion, <mask> faced Javy Ayala at Bellator 212 on December 14, 2018. <mask> successfully won the first round by taking Ayala down and controlling him on the ground. However, Ayala rallied in the second round and <mask> eventually lost by TKO after tapping to punches that caused an alveolar ridge fracture. <mask> faced Roy Nelson in a rematch of their 2011 UFC bout on October 25, 2019, in the main event of Bellator 231. He won via unanimous decision.On April 1, 2020, <mask>'s contract with Bellator expired, making him a free agent. Professional wrestling
In January 2019, Josh Barnett announced via Twitter that <mask> would be making his professional wrestling debut for Game Changer Wrestling's Bloodsport event, an independent wrestling event that features worked matches presented in an MMA style. <mask>'s debut coincided with WrestleMania 35 weekend on Thursday, April 4. On March 17, it was announced that <mask>'s debut match would be against former UFC Superfight Champion and former NWA World Heavyweight Champion Dan Severn. <mask> defeated Severn, and post-match called out former UFC rival Brock Lesnar. Professional boxing
On February 25, 2021, <mask> announced he would be making his professional boxing debut against former multi-time light heavyweight and cruiserweight boxing champion Antonio Tarver on April 17 on the undercard of Jake Paul vs. Ben Askren. However, on March 23, it was revealed that Tarver was pulled from the bout after failing to meet the requirements to compete put forth by the Georgia Athletic and Entertainment Commission.<mask> instead faced former IBF cruiserweight champion Steve Cunningham at the event, losing by unanimous decision. Triad Combat
On November 27, 2021, <mask> faced Kubrat Pulev in the main event of a boxing vs MMA card promoted by Triller that featured other UFC veterans. <mask> lost the fight via TKO in the 1st round. Commentary and opinionist
<mask> was a color commentator for World Extreme Cagefighting until the 2010 WEC 47, when he was replaced by Stephan Bonnar. In June 2012, <mask> stated in an interview with The Chronicle-Journal that he wants to pursue commentary after he retires from fighting. "I like analyzing fights, and I like doing color commentating," he said. "It's an opportunity I would take advantage of when I run into it.Hopefully it's something I can do full time". <mask> was appointed in 2015 the color commentator for Absolute Championship Berkut. In February 2021 USA TODAY printed an op-ed in which <mask> and an executive director of the American Principles Project were hostile to the proposed Equality Act because "Our athlete daughters shouldn't have to compete with transgender women" who take female hormones. They raised the specter "of increased risk of severe injury based on physical differences" and noted that "biological male athletes have an insurmountable physical advantage over biological female athletes". They felt that "the entirety of women's athletics would be deeply imperiled". Personal life
<mask> and his wife Jennifer have three children together, and Jennifer has a son from a previous relationship whom <mask> adopted. <mask>'s oldest biological child, Bella, is also a professional mixed martial artist.<mask> is an atheist and a Libertarian. He followed a vegan diet for a year but switched to a Paleo diet due to lack of energy. He suffers from low testosterone and underwent testosterone replacement therapy from 2012 until its banning from combat sports in 2014. <mask>'s daughter, <mask>, has also embarked upon a professional MMA career, winning her debut in October, 2020 with her father in her corner. <mask> worked as a bouncer at the Spearmint Rhino in Las Vegas before entering the UFC and continued to work there as Director of Security while pursuing his UFC career. In January 2016, it was announced that <mask> would be inducted into the Southern Nevada Sports Hall of Fame. Championships and achievements

Mixed martial arts
Ultimate Fighting Championship
UFC Heavyweight Championship (One time)
Interim UFC Heavyweight Championship (One time)
Submission of the Night (Two times) vs. Brock Lesnar and Antônio Rodrigo Nogueira
Performance of the Night (Two times) vs. Antônio Silva and Todd Duffee
Second most wins in UFC Heavyweight division (16)
Second most fights in UFC Heavyweight division (27)
Most finishes in UFC Heavyweight division (13)
Second most first round finishes in UFC history (10)
Third most wins by submission in UFC (8)
Most wins by submission in UFC Heavyweight division (8)
First and only toe hold finish in UFC history
Fastest submission in UFC Heavyweight division (45 seconds)
Fought five different UFC Heavyweight Champions
Defeated three different UFC Heavyweight Champions
2011 Submission of the Year vs. Antônio Rodrigo Nogueira on December 10
 2011 Comeback Of The Year vs Antônio Rodrigo Nogueira on December 10
 Tied for the 2nd most Finishes in UFC History (13)
 Tied for the 4th most Victories in UFC History (16)
Tied for Most fights in UFC history (27) with Tito Ortiz and Michael

masks:
Mir
Mir
Mir
Mir
Mir
Mir
Mir
Mir
Mir
Mirko
Mir
Mirko
Mir
Mir
Mir
Mir
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Frank Mir
Mir
Mir
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Mir
Mir
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Mir
Mir
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Frank Mir
Mir
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Frank
Mir
Frank Mir
Bella Mir
Mir
Mir


type: original

texts:
<mask> (May 30, 1913 – October 24, 1969) was an American professional heavyweight boxer. He fought Joe Louis for the world heavyweight title twice. He was managed for most of his career by Jimmy Johnston, and trained by Freddie Brown. In 1940, he was rated the sixth best heavyweight in the world, and would rise higher in the next two years. After retiring, he became an actor and had roles in two of America's best known boxing movies, Academy Award winner On the Waterfront,  and Requiem for a Heavyweight. Early life
<mask> was born to  Jewish parents Max and Rose in Richmond Hill, Queens, New York on May 30, 1913, and attended John Adams High School. He was a star lineman on his high school football team and was an interscholastic shot-put champion before taking up boxing.During a High School football game, several boxing promoters in the crowd noticed his strength and told him if he pursued boxing, he could have a lucrative career and they could arrange for him to be trained by the legendary trainer and cut man Freddie Brown. Brown trained many of boxing's greatest including Italian champions Rocky Marciano, and Graziano, and later Larry Holmes and Robert Duran. While pursuing his boxing career in his 20s he worked as a police patrolman in Long Beach, New York. Professional boxing career

Early career
Making a stir in his professional debut in March, 1935, at the age of 21, he knocked out Jim Dowling at the Jamaica Arena in Queens, New York. According to most sources, in an impressive display, he won his next thirteen fights, and nearly all by knockout. His two most notable early career losses against well known adversaries came against Lou Nova in 1936 in a six-round points decision and the six-foot-six Buddy Baer, brother of Max, who knocked him out in three rounds in 1937. In a rare loss on January 22, 1940, he dropped a decision to Willie Reddish in a well-attended match in Philadelphia.<mask> was down twice in the match, and Reddish was given eight of the ten rounds. Reddish peppered <mask>'s body and jaw with left hooks and right swings, and won an easy decision. In the prior month on December 6, 1939, <mask> had defeated Reddish in a fourth-round TKO in Philadelphia. As was not uncommon in <mask>'s matches, he had a sizable weight advantage over his opponent, in this instance a remarkable fifty-six pounds. The match took a turn for the worse in the fourth when the two boxers' heads clashed, and Reddish received a bad gash on his forehead, leading to the referee ending the fight from a technical knockout in the fourth. Knockout of Jersey Joe Walcott
In one of his most memorable victories, in a ramp up to the heavyweight title, he knocked out the legendary Jersey Joe Walcott, a future heavyweight champion, in six rounds in Newark, New Jersey, on February 12, 1940. A heavyweight in every sense, he benefitted from a remarkable sixty-two pound weight advantage in the match.Behind in points in the first five rounds, <mask> unleashed a tremendous right to the mouth of Walcott 2:32 into the sixth causing the knockout, and Walcott barely moved as he was counted out by the referee. In a well-attended match against a known opponent, <mask> defeated Eddie Blunt in a ten-round points decision at the Meadowbrook Bowl in Newark, New Jersey on May 20, 1940. The last three rounds were fought in a heavy rain in the outdoor arena. <mask> outweighed Blunt by 28 pounds, and persevered to pull off the win with a points victory. In one of his best known victories against a highly rated adversary, he defeated Roscoe Toles on December 6, 1940, in a ten-round unanimous decision before 5000 at Detroit's Olympia Stadium. After the fight, boxing promoter Mike Jacobs announced his intention to match <mask> with Louis for the heavyweight championship. <mask> performed better fighting in close, and was unaffected by a few punches to the jaw.There were no knockdowns in the match. Though <mask> was the clear winner, the Detroit Free Press wrote that Toles more than held up his end of the fight looking far better in the fourth, and that only in the final rounds did <mask>, showing greater endurance, take the fight to Toles. He also had a heavily publicized win over Finland's Gunnar Barlund on October 7, 1940 in a ten-round points decision at New York's St. Nicholas Arena. Barlund was soundly defeated suffering a cut eye and chin early in the match, and winning no more than two of the ten rounds. World heavyweight contender
In his first attempt at the world heavyweight championship, on March 21, 1941, he lost to reigning heavyweight champion Joe Louis before a record crowd of 19,000 at Detroit's Olympia Stadium in a 13th-round technical knockout. He was assisted in training for that match by the first African-American World Heavyweight Champion, Jack Johnson. In the most valiant effort of his career against his greatest adversary, many ringside experts gave <mask> the second, fourth, sixth, tenth, and eleventh rounds.According to one source, when Louis knocked him down in the first round, it was the first knockdown of his professional career. <mask> even managed to stagger Louis briefly in the seventh. Though he was down repeatedly in the thirteenth before the referee called the fight, his ability to withstand the blows of Louis and win four rounds placed him as a serious heavyweight contender in his mid-career. After the fight, Louis told reporters, "for a big guy, he was pretty good and just about as tough as they come". He lost to Louis again in his second and final attempt at the heavyweight title, at the coveted venue of Madison Square Garden on March 27, 1942, in a sixth-round technical knockout. He was down at the bell in both the second and fifth rounds. Before 18,000 fans, <mask> fought through a bruising attack by Louis, lumbering into the fourth round and connecting with a few blows, before succumbing to a brutal attack in the opening of the sixth.Louis was fighting for the Army for the first time, and though he was fitter than in his first match with <mask>, he was hoping for a quick knockout to avoid injury as he received no purse for the fight. The match was a benefit for the Army Relief Fund, which helped both boxer's reputations and garnered a larger audience, including many servicemen. Film and television
Between 1940–1962, <mask> acted in short roles in several TV series, had parts in four movies and appeared in a documentary short featuring his 1942 world championship fight with Joe Louis. Careers after boxing and death
Continuing his career in law enforcement after his second loss to Louis, he was appointed Deputy Police Commissioner of Long Beach in 1942. From 1947–1956, he had a successful part-time career as a boxing referee in the New York area. For most of his adult life he lived on 215th Street in Long Island's Bayside Hills, in Queens, New York. He began working as a detective at Roosevelt Raceway in 1957, and after suffering from arthritis, switched to Public Relations around 1966.He died on October 24, 1969 at Meadowbrook Hospital in East Meadow, Long Island, leaving a wife, Rita (Siebel), whom he had married in 1942, and two children, Alfred and Kathleen. A week before his death, he had been working in his Public Relations job for the Roosevelt Raceway, when he suffered a serious heart attack. He was buried at Mount Ararat Cemetery in East Farmingdale, Suffolk County, New York. Selected bouts

|-
| align="center" colspan=8|6 Wins,5 Losses,1 Draw
|-
| align="center" style="border-style: none none solid solid; background: #e3e3e3"|Result
| align="center" style="border-style: none none solid solid; background: #e3e3e3"|Opponent
| align="center" style="border-style: none none solid solid; background: #e3e3e3"|Date
| align="center" style="border-style: none none solid solid; background: #e3e3e3"|Location
| align="center" style="border-style: none none solid solid; background: #e3e3e3"|Result/Duration
| align="center" style="border-style: none none solid solid; background: #e3e3e3"|Notes
|-
| Win
| Jim Dowling
| Mar 11, 1935
| Jamaica, Queens
| 2nd Rnd. KO
| Boxing debut
|-
| Loss
| Lou Nova
| Oct 21, 1936
| New York, New York
| 6 Rnds Points
| Rare early loss
|-
| Loss
| Buddy Baer
| Aug 30, 1937
| Yankee Stad., Bronx
| 3rd Rnd TKO
| Rare early loss
|-
| Win
| Willie Reddish
| Dec 6, 1939
| Philadelphia
| 4 Rnd TKO
| Reddish had gash on his forehead
|-
| Loss
| Willie Reddish
| Jan 22, 1940
| Philadelphia
| 10 Rnds Points
| Simon floored twice
|-
| Win
| Jersey Joe Walcott
| Feb 12, 1940
| Laurel Garden, Newark, NJ
| 6th Rnd KO
| Walcott, future heavywt. champ
|-
| Win
| Eddie Blunt
| May 20, 1940
| Newark, New Jersey
| 10 Rnd Points
| Fought in the rain
|-
| Win
| Roscoe Toles
| Dec 6, 1940
| Detroit, MI
| 10 Rnds
| Unanimous Dec.
|-
| Win
| Gunnar Barlund
| Oct. 7, 1940
| New York, New York
| 10 Rnd Points Dec.
| At St. Nicholas Arena
|-
| Loss
| Joe Louis
| Mar 21, 1941
| Detroit, Michigan
| 13th Rnd TKO
| Heavyweight title match*
|-
| style="background: #dae2f1"|*Draw*
| Turkey Thompson
| Oct 6, 1941
| Los Angeles, CA
| 10 Rnd Points
| Well-publicized match
|-
| Loss
| Joe Louis
| Mar 27, 1942
| Mad. Sq.Garden, NY
| 6th Rnd TKO
| Heavyweight title match*19,000 fans
|-

References

External links

1913 births
1969 deaths
Heavyweight boxers
Male actors from New York City
People from Bayside, Queens
People from Richmond Hill, Queens
Boxers from New York City
20th-century American male actors
American male boxers
Jewish boxers
Jewish American boxers
20th-century American Jews

masks:
Abraham Simon
Simon
Simon
Simon
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texts:
<mask> (born 7 June 1966) is an English playwright, actor and journalist. <mask> is one of the most widely-performed playwrights in British theatre of the late-twentieth and twenty-first centuries. His major plays include Shopping and Fucking (first performed in 1996), Some Explicit Polaroids (1999), Mother Clap's Molly House (2000), The Cut (2006), Shoot Get Treasure Repeat (2007) and The Cane (2018). He made his professional acting debut in his own monologue Product, at the 2005 Edinburgh Festival Fringe. Early life
<mask> is the elder of two sons born to Ted and <mask>. He grew up in West Sussex, England and cultivated an early interest in theatre, putting on plays with his brother when they were eight and seven, respectively. He studied English and Drama at Bristol University from 1984–1987, and worked as a freelance director, workshop leader and drama teacher.In the mid-1990s, <mask> was diagnosed as HIV+, his partner of the early 1990s having died from AIDS. Career
His first short play, Fist, gained the attention of Max Stafford-Clark, artistic director of Out of Joint Theatre Company who asked to see his next play. <mask> quickly finished the play that would make his name: Shopping and Fucking. It is set among a mostly young, queer group of friends and captured a generation using sex, drugs, popular culture and therapy to replace a fundamental lack of history, value and political commitment. The play toured with two successful runs at the Royal Court Theatre and then the West End, before embarking on world tours. It was one of the British plays that were picked up by German theatres to establish a new generational wave of directors, writers, and audiences. <mask> followed this with a series of plays that shared Shopping and Fucking's punky, gender-queer aggression, including Faust Is Dead (1997), Handbag (1998), Some Explicit Polaroids (1999).The plays did not necessarily share the attitudes of their characters and contained ironic commentary beneath the violence and intensity. Faust is Dead explored some queer post-modern ideas, with nods to Jean Baudrillard; Some Explicit Polaroids adopted some features of the 'State of the Nation Play', an epic left-wing theatre style associated with the 1970s. Each play simultaneously endorsed and critiqued the intellectual styles and movements that they were working in. Handbag was a response to Oscar Wilde's The Importance of Being Earnest making more explicit a sense of contemporary identities being connected to a longer history. This was brought even more to the fore in Mother Clap's Molly House, set in an eighteenth-century Molly House and depicting a range of gender-nonconformists from a pre-gay, pre-queer era exploring dissident sexualities. The play was directed by Nick Hytner who became Artistic Director of the National Theatre the year after, bringing in <mask> as a key advisor. Through the 2000s, <mask> moved further away from naturalism, continually changing styles and forms.His play The Cut moves into Pinteresque territory, its metaphorical image of a near-future society organised around an unspecified surgical procedure (the 'cut' of the title) was an allegory of liberal authoritarianism. Shoot Get Treasure Repeat began as a series of short (usually 20-minute) plays performed over successive mornings at the Edinburgh Festival in 2007, under the title Breakfast with <mask> (for which he received the Spirit of the Fringe award). Retitled collectively Shoot Get Treasure Repeat they were performed across London by the Gate Theatre, the Royal Court, the National Theatre, Paines Plough and others. Most of the plays' titles are drawn from the western literary canon, and offered satirical commentaries on western complacency, the Iraq War, and more. Product (2005), his monologue for two people (the second actor is silent) was a satire of Hollywood and attitudes to terrorism post-9/11. <mask> himself performed the role in the original tour. pool (no water) was written for the physical theatre company Frantic Assembly and concerned a group of artists who lament and celebrate the death of their successful colleague; the text was written in fragments, observing the speech patterns of the Young British Artists and the hypocrisies of artistic rivalry.Each of these texts move away from direct representations of the contemporary world towards something more abstract, minimalist, metaphorical. Despite this he continued to resist definition, also writing a pantomime, Dick Whittington (2006), for the Barbican Theatre, a piece for, about and performed by the drag performer Bette Bourne entitled A Life in Three Acts (2009), and a series of plays for young people: Totally Over You (2003), Citizenship (2005) and Scenes from Family Life (2007). His range widened further in the 2010s. At the end of the 2000s, <mask> collaborated with Ramin Gray in directing his own Over There, a highly experimental play and performance about twins separated by the Berlin Wall for the Royal Court. He also worked in music theatre, creating libretti for Monteverdi's The Coronation of Poppea and a new music-theatre piece Ten Plagues written for Marc Almond (both 2011). As Writer-in-Residence for the Royal Shakespeare Company, he produced a new translation of Brecht's Life of Galileo and a dramatisation and response to Voltaire's Candide (both 2013). At the end of the decade he collaborated with Robbie Williams and Guy Chambers on a musical adaptation of David Walliams's The Boy in the Dress (2019).He was commissioned by the London Gay Men's Chorus for a piece to mark the choir's 21st anniversary in 2012. With the music composed by Conor Mitchell, the piece, entitled Shadow Time, explores the evolution of mentalities in respect of homosexuality in the lifetime of the Chorus and was premiered at the Royal Festival Hall in May 2012 during the Chorus' summer concert: A Band of Brothers. He returned to the Royal Court in 2018 with The Cane, about a schoolteacher whose distant history as an administer of corporal punishment threatens his reputation, his family even his life. He created ITV sitcom Vicious with Gary Janetti which aired between 2013 and 2016. and in 2014 wrote a Doctor Who audio story entitled Of Chaos Time The for Big Finish. In 2021, <mask> was appointed co-artistic director of the King's Head Theatre for 2022. In a 2021 interview with Benjamin Yeoh, <mask> explained he was looking to programme more queer and LGBTQ+ work as a co-artistic director. Plays

 Fist (1995)
 Shopping and Fucking (1996)
 Faust Is Dead (1997)
 Sleeping Around (1998)
 Handbag (1998)
 Some Explicit Polaroids (1999)
 Mother Clap's Molly House (2000)
 Feed Me (Radio Play) (2000)
 Totally Over You (2003)
 Education (2004)
 Citizenship (2005)
 Product (2005)
 The Cut (2006)
 Pool (No Water) (2006)
 Ravenhill For Breakfast (2007)
 Scenes From Family Life (2007)
 Shoot/Get Treasure/Repeat (2008)
 Over There (2009)
 The Experiment (2009)
 Ten Plagues - A Song Cycle (2011)
 Candide (2013)
 Ghost Story (2015)
 The Cane (2018)
The Boy in the Dress (2019)

Opera translations
 The Coronation of Poppea Monteverdi (2011)

References

External links
Biography at the Barbican homepage.<mask> at the website of the British Arts Council. Author's page, incl. "critical perspective." (Compiled and written by Dr. Peter Buse, 2003.) <mask> at the website of In-Yer-Face Theatre. Ravenhill 10. A symposium celebrating the tenth anniversary of Shopping & Fucking, The Pinter Centre for Performance and Creative Writing, Goldsmiths, University of London.Audio interview from OpenLearn
Literary Encyclopedia
Contemporary Writers, British Council
New York Entertainment
The Guardian
Barbican, <mask>
At the Playwright Database

1966 births
English dramatists and playwrights
Living people
Alumni of the University of Bristol
People with HIV/AIDS
LGBT writers from England
English male stage actors
English satirists
English television writers
English screenwriters
English male screenwriters
British gay writers
LGBT dramatists and playwrights
English male dramatists and playwrights
LGBT screenwriters
British male television writers

masks:
Mark Ravenhill
Ravenhill
Ravenhill
Angela Ravenhill
Ravenhill
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Mark Ravenhill


texts:
<mask> (born 1966) is an American contemporary artist and educator. Her work is situated between sculpture and image and engages with post-conceptual photography and Minimalism. Her work examines the fluidity of the medium of photography and expands on what constitutes the viewing of a photograph. <mask> has stated that she seeks to "enable the viewer to see the inconstancy of the conditions of display, which are always at play but sometimes hard to see." Her practice is not bound to a single technology, method, process, or subject, but to the fundamental elements of photography, such as light, paper, chemistry, and time. She has taught at Bennington College and was a visiting artist at Columbia University's School of Visual Arts and Yale University. In 2019, she was the Wolf Chair in Photography at Cooper Union.She currently teaches at the School of Visual Arts, New York. She lives and works in New York City. Early life and education
<mask> was born in 1966 in Boston, Massachusetts, and grew up on the South Shore, a largely homogeneous and conservative town. As a child, she frequently encountered and was fascinated by the Boston Gas Tank (Rainbow Tank) by artist and activist Corita Kent, situated prominently on the waterfront of Dorchester. In the mid-1980s, <mask> enrolled at the Rhode Island School of Design (RISD), intending to study painting or architecture but eventually changing her focus to photography. The pedagogical style of RISD at the time was very conservative and there were few female faculty members in the photography department. As a result, Deschenes sought other contexts for involvement with feminism, queer politics, AIDS activism, examining the power of representation within the medium of photography.Deschenes graduated from RISD in 1988 with a BFA degree in photography. Deschenes worked in photography labs as a technician throughout her career as a young artist, becoming adept at chemical and analogue printing processes. In this capacity, she also worked extensively documenting the artwork of others, which influenced her notion of mediation and the conditions of production and display. In 1997, Deschenes presented Elevation #1-#7 (1997), a set of seven monochrome dye transfer prints whose colors correspond to those developed by cartographers to represent the range of earth's elevation. In the work, by utilizing the process of dye color transfer color printing, which was discontinued by Kodak in 1994, Deschenes investigates the technological changes in the medium. In 2001, influenced by her visit to the National Association of Broadcasters' convention in Las Vegas, Deschenes created her series Blue and Green Screens (2001-2002), which foregrounded the invisible backdrops used for special effects in film production. Work
Deschenes explores the materials and properties of photography, light, and perception, often in relation to the architectural environments within which they are displayed.Curator and critic Matthew Witkovsky has written that Deschenes' work "pushes against the basic terms by which photography is conventionally defined: instantaneity, veracity, fixity, or reproducibility." At the same time, Deschenes engages with the legacy of Minimalism, drawing attention to the techniques of the observer by deploying old photographic methods and techniques such as the photogram and the daguerreotype. Deschenes "calibrates her works to the site" in order to reveal the spectator's relationship to the space, whether by encouraging new visual encounters or responding to and disrupting the architectural space. Major works
In 2007, Deschenes presented her series of photographs titled Moiré (2007) at Miguel Abreu Gallery's "Registration" exhibition. For the work, Deschenes photographed a sheet of perforated paper filtering the light coming through the window, and layered the negative with a duplicate in an enlarger to create an abstract image with illusions of movement. Moirés were paired with Red Transfer (1997), a diptych of monochromatic dye transfer prints with subtle differences in hue. The dye transfers' matrices alignment served as a counterpoint to the misregistration in the Moirés series.In an interview with Mousse Magazine in 2014, <mask> noted that the Moires series sought to "confound" the limitations of making something "with a property largely outside of the confines of photography and expectations that are brought to looking at a photographic work." Two years later, in 2009, Deschenes created Tilt / Swing (2009), an installation of six "silver mirror" panels arranged in a 360-degree floor-to-ceiling configuration. It was based on an unrealized exhibition design conceived by Herbert Bayer, a Bauhaus artist and architect, in The Fundamentals of Exhibition Design. While Bayer's schema sought to be "an inclusive picture of all [viewpoint] possibilities," Deschenes' installation resulted in a fragmentation of the surrounding environment. Commenting on the title of the work, Matthew Witkovsky has written that the words tilt and swing evoke "abstract issues of viewpoint and manipulation, for example the ways in which the spectatorial subject is turned or focused in the controlled setting of a museum building." At the same time, curator Eva Respini has remarked that in addition to the reference to Bayer, it is crucial to consider the influence of Conceptual and Performance Art in Tilt / Swing, as the work requires a physical "activation by the viewer." In her 2012-2013 exhibition at the Secession in Vienna, Deschenes staged a new series of photograms, Stereographs 1-16 (2012).In the installation, Deschenes mimicked the illusion of spatiality in the stereoscopes by converting the gallery into a camera. Deschenes moved the gallery's entrance to a previously unused exterior side door, leading the viewers through a long hallway (the viewfinder) to two adjacent rooms (the stereograph). Each room contained four Stereographs of the same size. Johanna Burton stated that the Stereographs "must be seen not only as dilating context and insisting on spatial occupation but also as moving speculatively: developing." In 2014, at the invitation of the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis, Deschenes created Gallery 7 (2014), a site-specific installation composed of three elements: eleven photographs in freestanding frames; three horizontal lines etched into the gallery walls; and the natural light from the floor-to-ceiling windows. The freestanding frames were located in the center of the space, relocating the viewing experience from the walls towards the windows. The exhibition was on view for a year, throughout which the light conditions changed and encouraged the oxidation of the light-sensitive photograms.The proportions of the photographs, furthermore, were based on those of an index card, in reference to Lucy Lippard's c. 7,500 exhibition of Conceptual art by women artists at the Walker Art Center in 1973. In 2018, Deschenes staged her Rates (Frames per Second) exhibition at Miguel Abreu Gallery. In the installation, Deschenes took the proto-cinematic experiments of Étienne-Jules Marey as the point of departure and presented two series, FPS (Frames per Second) and FPF (Frames per Feet). FPS was cut and mounted directly on vertical strips of dibond, and FPF was pressed in thin, horizontal frames. Both series progressed with the rhythm of the viewer's footsteps, akin to the body's movement being captured by the camera in time. The Brooklyn Rail described the show as centering on not "the specific atmospheric or environmental conditions that produced each print," but "how time is felt...and the specific weight that time can hold in space." Exhibitions
Deschenes has exhibited extensively in the United States and abroad, including solo shows at ICA/Boston (2016), MASS MoCA in North Adams, MA (2015), Walker Art Center in Minneapolis (2015), Campoli Presti in Paris  and London (2013), Secession, Vienna (2012), Sutton Lane, Brussels (2010), and Miguel Abreu Gallery in New York (2009).Her first solo presentation at an American museum, "Liz Deschenes: Gallery 7" was on view at the Walker Art Center from November 2014 to October 2015 and curated by Eric Crosby. Deschenes' work has been included in numerous group exhibitions at the Whitney Museum of American Art, Musee d'Art Moderne, the Centre Pompidou, and Extra City Kunsthal in Antwerp. Her work was also featured in "Sites of Reason: A Selection of Recent Acquisitions" at the Museum of Modern Art (2014), "What is a Photograph?" at the International Center of Photography in New York (2014), and "Cross Over. Photography of Science + Science of Photography" at Fotomuseum Winterthur, Switzerland (2013). Deschenes was also featured in the 2012 Whitney Biennial and "Parcours" (2012), a two-person exhibition at The Art Institute of Chicago that she co-curated with Florian Pumhösl and Matthew Witkovsky. Recent monographs dedicated to Deschenes' work includes <mask> (Boston: The Institute of Contemporary Art, 2016) and <mask>, Secession (Vienna: Secession, Berlin: Revolver, 2012).Collections
Deschenes' work is in the collections of the Centre Pompidou in France, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, the Museum of Modern Art, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Whitney Museum of American Art, and the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York, as well as The Art Institute of Chicago, the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis, the ICA/Boston, the CCS Bard Hessel Museum of Art, the Milwaukee Art Museum, and the Corcoran Museum of Art and the Hirschhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden in Washington, D.C. The Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston showed the first comprehensive survey of her work in 2016. References

External links

CAMPOLI PRESTI - LIZ DESCHENES

Interview

American women photographers
Rhode Island School of Design alumni
Bennington College faculty
School of Visual Arts faculty
1966 births
20th-century American photographers
Living people
21st-century American photographers
20th-century American women artists
21st-century American women artists
Artists from Boston
Photographers from Massachusetts
20th-century women photographers
21st-century women photographers
American women academics

masks:
Liz Deschenes
Deschenes
Deschenes
Deschenes
Deschenes
Liz Deschenes
Liz Deschenes


texts:
<mask>. (born May 27, 1952) is an American serial killer from Spokane, Washington. From 1975 to 1998, <mask> is known to have murdered at least 11 women in Spokane. <mask> also confessed to two murders committed in Walla Walla in 1975 and a 1988 murder committed in Skagit County. In 2002, <mask> was convicted of killing two women in Pierce County and sentenced to death, but it was commuted to life without parole after Washington outlawed the death penalty in 2018. He is currently serving life in prison at the Washington State Penitentiary. Early life
<mask> was born on May 27, 1952, and grew up in Oak Harbor, Washington in a middle-class family that attended a local Seventh-day Adventist church. Before his birth, his grandmother murdered his grandfather with an axe in 1945.<mask> graduated from Oak Harbor High School in 1970. In 1975, he was hired by the Washington State Department of Corrections to work as a correction officer at the Washington State Penitentiary in Walla Walla. In October 1977, <mask> enlisted in the United States Army, in which he became certified to fly civilian transport airplanes and helicopters. <mask> was stationed in various countries outside the continental United States, including Germany and later Somalia and Haiti during the United Nations peacekeeping missions of the 1990s. <mask> also served three years in the Army National Guard as a Helicopter Pilot from April 1997 through April 2000. He earned several commendation and service medals during his military career, including the US Army Master Aviator Badge. <mask> left the active duty Army in April 1996, apparently a year and a half short of being eligible for his full retirement benefits and pension.At this time, the military was reducing its numbers, so he got his full retirement despite being short of the customary 20 years served. He then joined the Army National Guard in April 1997 and served three years until his arrest in April 2000. He served a total of 21.5 years in the military. He has five children (four daughters and one son) with second wife Linda, whom he married in 1976. The children's birth years range from 1974 to 1989. Murders
The murders <mask> committed between 1975 and 1998 in Spokane all involved sex workers who worked along Spokane's East Sprague Avenue. The victims were initially solicited for sex work by <mask>, who would have sex with them (often in his 1979 Ford van), sometimes do drugs with them, then kill them and dump their bodies in rural locations.All of his victims died of gunshot wounds to the head. Eight of the murders were committed with a Raven .25-caliber handgun, and one attempted murder was linked to the same model of handgun. Autopsies of two of the victims indicated that the killer was a marksman aiming for the heart. One particularly bizarre detail of <mask>' murders involved the case of Melody Murfin, whose body was buried just outside the bedroom window of <mask>' family home, while his wife was sleeping in the room

On August 1, 1998, <mask> picked up sex worker Christine Smith, who managed to escape after being shot, assaulted and robbed. She is <mask>' only known attempted murder survivor. On September 19, 1998, <mask> was asked to give a DNA sample to Spokane police after being stopped. He refused, stating that it was too extreme of a request for a "family man."Convictions and appeals
<mask> was arrested on April 18, 2000, for the murder of Jennifer Joseph. After his arrest, a search warrant was executed on a 1977 white Corvette that he had previously owned. A white Corvette had been identified as the vehicle in which one of the victims had last been seen. Coincidentally, <mask> had been pulled over in this vehicle while the Task Force was searching for it, but the field interview report was misread as saying "Camaro" not "Corvette," thus the incident was not realized until after <mask> had been arrested. After searching the Corvette, police discovered blood that they linked to Jennifer Joseph and DNA from <mask> that they then tied to 12 other victims. In 2000, he was charged with 13 counts of first-degree murder and one count of attempted first-degree murder in Spokane County Superior Court. As part of a plea bargain in which <mask> confessed to the murders to avoid the death penalty, he was sentenced to 408 years in prison.Charges were dropped in the murder of Shawn McClenahan, however in a statement made by <mask>, he apologized to her family and the other victims. In 2001 <mask> was charged in Pierce County with the murders of two additional women. The prosecution sought the death penalty for the deaths of Melinda L. Mercer in 1997 and Connie Ellis in 1998, which were thought to be linked to the killings in Spokane County. On September 19, 2002, <mask> was convicted of those murders and subsequently sentenced to death by lethal injection on October 3, 2002. The 2002 death sentence was appealed on grounds that <mask> believed his 2000 plea bargain to be "all-encompassing" and that a life sentence for 13 murders and a death sentence for two constituted "disproportionate, freakish, wanton and random" application of the death penalty. The arguments were rejected in 2007 by the Washington Supreme Court. A September 19, 2008 execution date was stayed by Chief Justice Gerry L. Alexander pending additional appeals.In 2013, <mask>'s attorneys filed a habeas corpus petition in federal district court, stating that <mask> is mentally ill and, "through no fault of his own ... suffers from a severe paraphilic disorder" that predisposed him to commit murder. The still-pending motion is regarded as a "long shot" by most observers. "I don't think Mr. <mask> helps his cause by relying on the fact that he's a necrophiliac," said Pierce County Prosecutor Mark Lindquist. <mask> remains incarcerated at the Washington State Penitentiary. His case was further complicated by Washington Governor Jay Inslee's 2013 declaration that he would not sign death warrants for anyone on death row while he is in office. Inslee cited the high cost of the appeals process, the randomness with which death sentences are sought, and a lack of evidence that the penalty serves as a deterrent to other criminals. In July 2015, the Washington Supreme Court once again rejected an effort by <mask> to overturn his conviction and death sentence.After the Washington State Supreme Court ruled in 2018 that the death penalty violated the state constitution, <mask>'s death sentence, as well as that of Washington's other death row inmates, was commuted to life in prison without the possibility of parole. Victims

See also
 List of serial killers in the United States
 List of serial killers by number of victims

References

External links
<mask> <mask>, Jr. at Crime Library
Kari & Associates – <mask> <mask>, Jr.

1952 births
American aviators
United States Army personnel of the Gulf War
American murderers of children
American people convicted of murder
American prisoners sentenced to death
American serial killers
Crimes against sex workers in the United States
Male serial killers
Living people
Necrophiles
People convicted of murder by Washington (state)
People from Spokane, Washington
People from Walla Walla, Washington
Prisoners sentenced to death by Washington (state)
United States Army soldiers
American male criminals
Violence against women in the United States

masks:
Robert Lee Yates Jr
Yates
Yates
Yates
Yates
Yates
Yates
Yates
Yates
Yates
Yates
Yates
Yates
Yates
Yates
Yates
Yates
Yates
Yates
Yates
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Yates
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Yates
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Yates
Yates
Yates
Yates
Robert Lee
Yates
Robert Lee
Yates


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<mask>, IKI (born <mask>, 29 November 1933) is a  Hungarian painter, professor emerita, Kossuth Prize winner. Life and career

<mask> was born in Pécs, Hungary. She studied at the Free School of Art (Pécs) between 1946 and 1950, then at the High School of Fine and Applied Art (Budapest) between 1950 and 1952. She was accepted to the Academy of Fine Art in 1952, where, after completing the painting and mural courses, she graduated in 1958. During the first three years at the College her professor had been László Bencze, followed by István Szőnyi. However, she considers Ferenc Martyn as her real master, who had been overseeing her professional development from as early as 1945. From 1960 she worked for the Belles-lettres and the Ferenc Móra Publishing Houses as an illustrator.In 1962 she received a scholarship from the Italian government and followed the courses of the Accademia di Belle Arti in Rome for a year. There she had her first show at the Galleria Bars in 1963. She then returned to Hungary and besides painting, she dedicated herself to designing sets and costumes for performances at the National Theatre, the Katona József Theatre, the Opera House, and the Ódry Stage in Budapest, the Gergely Csíky Theatre in Kaposvár, the Katona József Theatre in Kecskemét and the Hungarian Theatre in Targu Mures (Romania). <mask> Keserü <mask> showed her first abstract paintings at the Jókai Klub in Budapest in 1964, then regularly thereafter in Budapest and various Hungarian cities. In 1972 she exhibited in Czechoslovakia, then, in the summer of 1974 she painted a mural in Vence (France). She also worked on a mural for the new Sports Palace in Budapest in 1979. From 1963 onwards she has taken part in numerous group-shows throughout the world.For example, at the Olympiade des Arts in Seoul, South Korea in 1988, at the Das Offene Bild in Münster, Germany in 1992. <mask> <mask> <mask> taught drawing and painting at the University of Pécs from 1983 to 2003 (from 1991 as professor). From 2003 to 2008, as professor emerita, she organized short painting courses and exhibitions for Doctorate students entitled Színerő (Colour Force), a platform for creating and presenting works of large scale at the unused great halls of the Zsolnay Factory in Pécs. She is one of the founders of the Master School of Fine Arts in Pécs. She also gave lectures at universities abroad as a guest professor: at the École des Beaux Arts (Cergy-Pontoise, France) in 1985, and at the University of Hertfordshire (UK) in 1998. Throughout her life, <mask> took part in study trips to various countries from Poland to the US. <mask> <mask> <mask> received the Mihály Munkácsy Prize in 1984, became an Artist of Merit in 1989, and was awarded the Cross Order of Merit of the Hungarian Republic in 1996.She became a member of the Széchenyi Academy of Letters and Arts in 1993. In 2000 she was awarded the Kossuth Prize and in 2014 the Artist of the Nation Award. <mask> <mask> <mask> lives and works in Budapest and Pécs, Hungary. Secolo, Palazzo Reale, Milano, Italy
 1976 International Biennial of Graphic Design, Florence, Italy
 1980 XXXIX. Biennale di Venezia, Hungarian Pavilon, Venice, Italy
 1982 Musée Cantini, Marseille, France
 1982 L’art hongrois contemporain, L’Espace Pierre Cardin, Paris, France
 1985 Drei Generationen ungarischer Künstler, Neue Galerie am Landesmuseum Joanneum, Graz, Austria
 1988 Olympiade of Arts, National Museum of Contemporary Art, Seoul, South Korea
 1992 Das offene Bild. Ilona Keserü Ilona Works 1982-2008 - published by MODEM Modern Debreceni Művészeti Közhasznú Társaság, 2009. Ilona Keserü Ilona Works 1959-1982 - edited and published by <mask> Keserü <mask>,
 Ilona Keserü Ilona Approach Tangle Stream - An investigation of Causes and Effects in Ilona Keserü Ilona's Oeuvre - published by Katalin Néray, director of Ludwig Museum - Museum of Contemporary Art, Budapest, 2004.Women in the Arts - published by the National Museum of Women in the Arts, Fall 2008 (volume 26, no. 3)
 Groupe Iparterv - Le progrés de l'illusion 1968-69 - The third generation of the Hungarian avant-garde - published by András Ecsedi-Derdák, Institut hongrois de Paris, 2010. Studio - International Journal of Modern Art - published by Studio International Publications Ltd., London, edited by Peter Townsend, March 1974 (volume 184, n.o.964) p. 105
 Aktuelle Kunst aus Ungarn, László Fehér - István Haász - <mask> Keserü <mask> - Károly Klimó - published by 2006. External links
 Ilona Keserü Ilona's website
 University of Pécs
 Danubiana Meulensteen Art Museum
 Ludwig Museum
 AL Gallery, Budapest
 Uffizi Gallery, Florence
 National Museum of Women in the Arts
 Mondriaanhuis, Amersfoort, Netherlands
 Work no.1. at the Hungarian National Gallery
 Work no.2. at the Hungarian National Gallery
 Artportal (in Hungarian)
 Museum of Fine Art - The Use of Cangiante Colour Technique in Ilona Keserü Ilona's New Paintings (in Hungarian)
 Kieselbach Gallery and Auction House, Budapest
 Approach - Tangle - Stream, An Investigation of Causes and Effects in Ilona Keserü Ilona's Ouvre (excerpts in English)

1933 births
Living people
20th-century Hungarian women artists
21st-century Hungarian women artists
People from Pécs

masks:
Ilona Keserü Ilona
Ilona Keserü
Ilona Keserü Ilona
Ilona
Ilona
Ilona
Keserü
Ilona
Keserü
Ilona
Keserü
Ilona
Ilona
Keserü
Ilona
Ilona
Ilona
Ilona
Ilona


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Bayinnaung Kyawhtin Nawrahta ( ; ,  ; 16 January 1516 – 10 October 1581) was king of the Toungoo Dynasty of Myanmar from 1550 to 1581. During his 31-year reign, which has been called the "greatest explosion of human energy ever seen in Burma", Bayinnaung assembled what was probably the largest empire in the history of Southeast Asia, which included much of modern-day Myanmar, the Chinese Shan states, Lan Na, Lan Xang, Manipur and Siam. Although he is best remembered for his empire building, Bayinnaung's greatest legacy was his integration of the Shan states into the Irrawaddy Valley-based kingdoms. After the conquest of the Shan states in 1557–1563, the king put in an administrative system that reduced the power of hereditary Shan saophas, and brought Shan customs in line with lowland norms. It eliminated the threat of Shan raids into Upper Burma, an overhanging concern since the late 13th century. His Shan policy was followed by Burmese kings right up to the final fall of the kingdom to the British in 1885. Bayinnaung could not replicate this administrative policy everywhere in his far-flung empire, however.His empire was a loose collection of formerly sovereign kingdoms, whose kings were loyal to him as the Cakkavatti ("Universal Ruler"), rather than to the Kingdom of Toungoo itself. Indeed, Ava and Siam revolted just over two years after his death. By 1599, all the vassal states had revolted, and the Toungoo Empire completely collapsed. Bayinnaung is considered one of the three greatest kings of Burma, along with Anawrahta and Alaungpaya. Some of the most prominent places in modern Myanmar are named after him. He is also well known in Thailand as the Phra Chao Chana Sip Thit (พระเจ้าชนะสิบทิศ, "Conqueror of the Ten Directions"). Early life

Ancestry

The future king Bayinnaung was born Ye Htut (ရဲထွတ်, ) on 16 January 1516 to Mingyi Swe and Shin Myo Myat.His exact ancestry is unclear. No extant contemporary records, including Hanthawaddy Hsinbyushin Ayedawbon, the extensive chronicle of the king's reign written two years before his death, mention his ancestry. It was only in 1724, some 143 years after the king's death, that Maha Yazawin, the official chronicle of the Toungoo Dynasty, first proclaimed his genealogy. According to Maha Yazawin, he was born to a gentry family in Toungoo (Taungoo), then a former vassal state of the Ava Kingdom. He was descended from viceroys of Toungoo Tarabya (r. 1440–1446) and Minkhaung I (r. 1446–1451) on his father's side; and from King Thihathu of Pinya (r. 1310–1325) and his chief queen Mi Saw U of the Pagan Dynasty on his mother's side. Furthermore, Ye Htut was distantly related to then presiding ruler of Toungoo Mingyi Nyo and his son Tabinshwehti through their common ancestor, Tarabya I of Pakhan. Later chronicles simply repeat Maha Yazawin account.In all, the chronicles (perhaps too) neatly tie his ancestry to all the previous main dynasties that existed in Upper Burma: the Ava, Sagaing, Myinsaing–Pinya and Pagan dynasties. Despite the official version of royal descent, oral traditions speak of a decidedly less grandiose genealogy: that his parents were commoners from Ngathayauk in Pagan district or Htihlaing village in Toungoo district, and that his father was a toddy palm tree climber, then one of the lowest professions in Burmese society. The commoner origin narrative first gained prominence in the early 20th century during the British colonial period as nationalist writers like Po Kya promoted it as proof that even a son of a toddy tree climber could rise to become the great emperor in Burmese society. To be sure, the chronicle and oral traditions need not be mutually exclusive, since being a toddy tree climber does not preclude his having royal ancestors. Childhood and education
Whatever their origin and station in life may have been, both of his parents were chosen to be part of the seven-person staff to take care of the royal baby Tabinshwehti in April 1516. Ye Htut's mother was chosen to be the wet nurse of the prince and heir apparent. The family moved into the Toungoo Palace precincts, where the couple had three more sons, the last of whom died young.Ye Htut had an elder sister Khin Hpone Soe, and three younger brothers: Minye Sithu, Thado Dhamma Yaza II, and the youngest who died young. He also had two half-brothers, Minkhaung II and Thado Minsaw, who were born to his aunt (his mother's younger sister) and his father. Ye Htut grew up playing with the prince and the king's other children, including Princess Thakin Gyi, who would later become his chief queen. He was educated in the palace along with the prince and the other children. King Mingyi Nyo required his son to receive an education in military arts. Tabinshwehti along with Ye Htut and other young men at the palace received training in martial arts, horseback riding, elephant riding, and military strategy. Ye Htut became the prince's right-hand man.Deputy of Tabinshwehti

Rise to power
On 24 November 1530, Mingyi Nyo died and Tabinshwehti ascended the throne. The 14-year-old new king took Ye Htut's elder sister Khin Hpone Soe as one of his two principal queens, and rewarded his childhood staff and friends with royal titles and positions. Ye Htut, already a close confidant of the new king, instantly became a powerful figure in the kingdom which was surrounded by increasingly hostile states. In the north, the Confederation of Shan States had conquered the Ava Kingdom just three and a half years earlier. To the west was the Confederation's ally the Prome Kingdom. To the south lay the Hanthawaddy Kingdom, the wealthiest and most powerful of all post-Pagan kingdoms. The impending threat became more urgent after the Confederation defeated its former ally Prome in 1532–1533.Tabinshwehti and the Toungoo leadership concluded that their kingdom "had to act quickly if it wished to avoid being swallowed up" by the Confederation. It was during the kingdom's mobilizations that Ye Htut made his mark, and was noticed for "his deeds of valor and strength of character." Ye Htut was by the king's side in 1532 when the king and his 500 most skillful horsemen made an uninvited foray into the Shwemawdaw Pagoda at the outskirts of Pegu, the capital of Hanthawaddy, ostensibly for the king's ear-piercing ceremony. The audacious intrusion went unpunished by Hanthawaddy's weak ruler, King Takayutpi. Ye Htut became the constant companion and adviser to the young king. However, the close relationship between the two was severely tested in 1534, as they prepared for war against Hanthawaddy. Ye Htut had become romantically involved with Thakin Gyi, the king's younger half-sister, and the affair was discovered around April 1534.The commoner's affair with the king's sister under Burmese law constituted an act of treason. Ye Htut spurned suggestions of mutiny and submitted to arrest. Tabinshwehti deliberated at length with his ministers, and finally came to the conclusion that Ye Htut should be given his sister in marriage, and a princely title of Kyawhtin Nawrahta. With this decision, Tabinshwehti won the loyalty of his brother-in-law "without parallel in Burmese history". Military leadership

Tabinshwehti's decision would pay enormous dividends in the following years. Between 1534 and 1549, Toungoo would bring war to all its neighbors and in the process found the largest polity in Burma since the fall of Pagan in 1287. Ye Htut would win many key battles for his king, and help administer the growing kingdom.In late 1534, Toungoo attacked Hanthawaddy, the larger, wealthier but disunited kingdom to their south. It was Toungoo's gambit to break out of its narrow landlocked realm before the Confederation's attention turned to the last remaining holdout in Upper Burma. While Toungoo did not yet have any foreign firearms, due to receiving a constant flow of refugees from elsewhere in Upper Burma for the last three decades, Toungoo did have more manpower than it normally could have enlisted. Tabinshwehti and Ye Htut (now styled as Kyawhtin Nawrahta) were to cut their teeth in failure however. Their maiden annual dry-season campaigns (1534–1537) all failed against Pegu's well armed, heavily fortified defenses. But their performance got better with each successive campaign, penetrating deeper and deeper into Hanthawaddy territory. They finally broke through in their 1538–1539 campaign, and captured Pegu.Kyawhtin Nawrahta made his name in the Battle of Naungyo in which his light forces decisively defeated numerically superior Hanthawaddy forces in the Irrawaddy delta. The battle, one of the most famous in Burmese military history, has been called "the first characteristic touch" of the great Bayinnaung. After the battle, a grateful Tabinshwehti bestowed upon his brother-in-law the title of Bayinnaung ("King's Elder Brother"), the name by which he would be remembered. Toungoo went on to conquer all of Hanthawaddy by mid-1541, gaining complete control of Lower Burma's manpower, access to foreign firearms and maritime wealth to pay for them. And Tabinshwehti would use these new assets for further expansions. By incorporating Portuguese mercenaries, firearms and military tactics into the Toungoo armed forces, Tabinshwehti and Bayinnaung continued to grow as military leaders. The duo also benefited from having experienced former Hanthawaddy military commanders like Saw Lagun Ein and Smim Payu serve as their top military advisers and generals.With their help, Bayinnaung delivered key decisive victories at the Battle of Padaung Pass (1542) against Prome's ally Arakan and the Battle of Salin (1544) against the Confederation, enabling Toungoo to take over central Burma as far north as Pagan (Bagan). After Bayinnaung crushed the Arakanese forces in April 1542, Tabinshwehti was so pleased with the victory that he made Bayinnaung the heir-apparent of the kingdom. The duo's later campaigns against Arakan (1545–1547) and Siam (1547–1549), however, fell short. In both campaigns, Toungoo forces won all major open battles, and went on to lay siege to the capitals, Mrauk-U and Ayutthaya respectively. But they still had no answer to heavily fortified defenses equipped with Portuguese firearms, and had to retreat both times. Toungoo's own Portuguese supplied cannon had little impact on the walls of both capitals. Nor did they have enough manpower (19,000 and 12,000 troops respectively in the Arakanese and Siamese campaigns) for long-term sieges.Nonetheless, despite the setbacks, Tabinshwehti and Bayinnaung had by 1549 built up the largest polity in Burma since the fall of the Pagan Empire in 1287, stretching from Pagan in the north to Tavoy in the south. Administrative duties
Bayinnaung was also entrusted to administer the kingdom. Tabinshwehti appointed him chief minister in 1539. In the then prevailing administrative model, the role of the prime minister was limited to managing and coordinating semi-independent tributaries, autonomous viceroys, and governors who actually had control over day-to-day administration and manpower. Trusted local rulers like Smim Payu and Saw Lagun Ein were appointed by the king to assist Bayinnaung with central administration. In 1549, Tabinshwehti, who had developed a liking to wine, gave up all administrative duties to Bayinnaung, and spent much of his time on long hunting trips away from the capital. Concerned by the king's erratic behavior, ministers at the court urged Bayinnaung to take over the throne but he declined, saying he would try to "win back the king to his old sense of duty to his own kingdom".He was unsuccessful. Even when faced with a serious rebellion by Smim Htaw, the king asked Bayinnaung in January 1550 to suppress the rebellion, and went on another months-long hunting trip. Restoration of the Toungoo Empire

Interregnum
On 30 April 1550, Tabinshwehti was assassinated by his own bodyguards on the order of Smim Sawhtut, one of the king's close advisers. Smim Sawhtut naturally proclaimed himself king. But so did all other major governors and viceroys—including Bayinnaung's own brother Minkhaung II. Although Bayinnaung had been Tabinshwehti's chosen heir apparent since 1542, none of them acknowledged Bayinnaung as the rightful successor. When Bayinnaung received the news of the assassination, he was in Dala (modern Yangon) chasing after Smim Htaw's rebel forces.The Toungoo Empire, which he had helped found and expand for the last 16 years, lay in ruins. He, as a colonial era historian noted, was "a king without a kingdom". Bayinnaung would have to rebuild the kingdom all anew. At Dala, with "few but faithful" troops, he plotted his next moves. His two eldest younger brothers Minye Sithu and Thado Dhamma Yaza II were with him and remained loyal. Also in his service was an ethnic Mon commander named Binnya Dala who would become his most trusted adviser and "best commander". Because he did not yet have any foreign mercenaries who could handle firearms, he sent for his favorite Portuguese mercenary Diogo Soares de Mello who had greatly impressed him in the Siamese campaign.Soares, who was abroad, returned with his men (all 39 of them), and he was warmly received by Bayinnaung. Two months after the assassination, Bayinnaung was ready to start the restoration project. He faced the following adversaries:

Central Burma (1550–1551)

Toungoo (1550–1551)
After much deliberation, Bayinnaung and his advisers decided that their war of restoration would begin at Toungoo, the original home of the dynasty. It was a calculated gamble since they would have to pass through the heart of Pegu-controlled territory. But they decided to take the gamble because they felt Bayinnaung would find the best support in his native Toungoo rather than deep in the Mon country they found themselves in. In late June, Bayinnaung and his small but cohesive unit of fighting men left Dala for Toungoo. They marched north to Hinthada, and then crossed over to the eastern side of Bago Yoma, north of Pegu.Smim Sawhtut, now "king" of Pegu, came out with his army to stop them. Bayinnaung, as recounted by the chronicles, paid "no more heed than a lion does to jackals", and marched on. Discovering that Bayinnaung's target was not Pegu, Sawhtut did not engage them. Bayinnaung set up camp at Zeyawaddy (), 50 km (31 miles) outside of Toungoo. Once there, Bayinnaung received many of the ministers and soldiers of Tabinshwehti's old court, who fled Pegu and Martaban. The new arrivals were of all ethnic backgrounds, Burmans, Shans and Mons, demonstrating that in 16th-century Burma, "vertical patron-client structures often preempted horizontal ones, even those as strong as ethnic identity and cultures". By late August, he had collected a serious fighting force (9600 men, 200 horses, 20 elephants, 200 war boats).His land and naval forces began the attack on 2 September 1550, and laid siege to the city. Minkhaung resisted for four months but finally surrendered on 11 January 1551. Remarkably, Bayinnaung forgave his brother. On the same day, he was crowned king at the temporary palace. He rewarded


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 his men with upgraded titles and positions. His eldest son Nanda was made the heir apparent. Prome (1551)
The Toungoo command selected Prome as their next target.In March 1551, Bayinnaung's army (9000 troops, 300 horses, 25 elephants) attacked the city. But the city's musket and artillery fire kept them at bay for over three months. He retreated on 19 June 1551, and regrouped with men from central Burma (up to Myede and Sagu) whose rulers now submitted to the new rising power. Another 9000-strong army resumed the siege on 21 August 1551, and took the city on 30 August 1551. Bayinnaung ordered the execution of Prome's ruler Thado Dhamma Yaza I but regretted the decision immediately afterwards. He appointed his second eldest younger brother as viceroy of Prome with the style of Thado Dhamma Yaza II. Pagan (1551)
Bayinnaung then proceeded to complete the conquest of northernmost central Burma up to Pagan (Bagan) by mid-September 1551.He appointed his uncle Min Sithu governor. He then marched to Ava, hoping to take advantage of the civil war between King Mobye Narapati and Sithu Kyawhtin, governor of Sagaing. But he was forced to withdraw speedily as Pegu forces marched toward Toungoo. Lower Burma (1552)
Pegu's forces withdrew from his territory but Bayinnaung now decided that Pegu must be eliminated first. Meanwhile, Mobye Narapati, who had been driven out of Ava, came to join Bayinnaung. After five months of preparation, Bayinnaung's army (11,000 men, 500 horses, 40 elephants) left Toungoo for Pegu on 28 February 1552 and arrived before the city on 12 March 1552. Smim Htaw, who had taken over Pegu in August 1550, came out and challenged Bayinnaung to single combat, which Bayinnaung accepted.The two men on their respective war elephants fought. Bayinnaung was victorious, driving Htaw and his elephant off the field. Htaw's men fled following their leader. Htaw and his small army fell back to the Irrawaddy delta. The Toungoo armies followed up, taking eastern delta towns by the end of March. Htaw's army briefly retook Dala in a daring attack but they were finally defeated near Bassein (Pathein) in mid-May. His entire army, including his chief queen and father-in-law, were captured.Htaw barely escaped. He would be on the run as a fugitive until he was captured and executed in March 1553. By mid-1552, Bayinnaung had gained control of all three Mon-speaking regions (Bassein, Pegu, and Martaban). He appointed his eldest younger brother Minye Sithu as viceroy of Martaban on 6 June 1552. Upper Burma (1553)
Two years after Tabinshwehti's death, Bayinnaung had restored the late king's empire. But he considered his job unfinished because Siam, which according to him had been remiss in sending him, the rightful successor of Tabinshwehti, tribute. He seriously considered invading Siam but his advisers led by Binnya Law, governor of Bassein, recommended that he should attack Ava instead.Taking their advice, the king sent 14,000-strong combined land and naval forces led by his heir apparent Nanda on 14 June 1553. But Ava's new king Sithu Kyawhtin (of the House of Mohnyin) was ready. He had enlisted troops from five allied Shan states (Mohnyin, Mogaung, Momeit, Onbaung, and Bhamo) and from his own vassal states throughout the Mu valley and Kyaukse districts. Arrayed against overwhelming defenses, Nanda called off the invasion. Coronation
Bayinnaung decided to consolidate his gains instead. He commissioned a new palace, called Kanbawzathadi, in his capital Pegu on 17 November 1553. On 12 January 1554, he was formally crowned king with the reign name of Thiri Thudhamma Yaza ().His chief queen, Thakin Gyi, was crowned with the reign name of Agga Mahethi (). Expansion of the Toungoo Empire

The reconquest of Lower Burma gave him complete control of much needed access to foreign firearms and maritime wealth to pay for them. In the next two decades, he would use these assets for further expansions, and by pyramiding manpower and resources from newly conquered lands, he would found the largest empire in the history of Southeast Asia. Upper Burma (1554–1555)
By late 1554, Bayinnaung had assembled a large invasion force (18,000 men, 900 horses, 80 elephants, 140 war boats), the largest mobilization to date. Precautions were taken on the frontiers to guard against attacks from Lan Na, Siam and Arakan. In November 1554, Toungoo forces launched a two-pronged invasion, one up the Sittaung valley and the other up the Irrawaddy valley. Avan defenses, supported by nine Confederation armies (from Bhamo, Kale, Mogaung, Mohnyin, Momeik, Mone, Nyaungshwe, Theinni and Thibaw-Onbaung), could not stop the advance, and the capital Ava fell to the southern forces on 22 January 1555.King Sithu Kyawhtin was sent to Pegu. Bayinnaung appointed his younger brother Thado Minsaw viceroy of Ava. Toungoo forces then drove out the remaining Confederation armies from the Chindwin valley up to Monywa, the Mu valley up to Myedu and the Kyaukse valley up to Singu by late March. Bayinnaung now controlled both the Irrawaddy and Sittaung river valleys, the corridors to and from the "heartland" where most of the food of the country was produced and its population lived. Still, his hold on Upper Burma was small—his northernmost outpost Myedu was only about 160 km (100 miles) from Ava—and tenuous since he had not secured the allegiance of the surrounding Shan states, which had been the source of constant raids into the upcountry since the 14th century, and indeed dominated much of it since the early 16th century. He needed to bring the surrounding unruly states under control if his hold on Upper Burma was to last. Cis-Salween Shan states (1557)
By 1556, the king and his court had decided that all the Shan states immediately surrounding the Irrawaddy valley needed to be reduced in one shot.They also recognized that they may need to take on Lan Na (Chiang Mai), which was an ally of the powerful state of Mone. The Toungoo command spent the year assembling the largest army yet (36,000 men, 1200 horses, 60 elephants, 180 war boats, and 100 cargo boats) for the invasion. The invasion of the Shan country began in January 1557. (The armies left their Ava base between 24 December 1556 and 8 January 1557.) The massive show of force worked. States submitted one after another with minimal resistance. By March 1557, Bayinnaung in one stroke controlled most of the cis-Salween Shan states from the Patkai range at the Assamese border in the northwest to Mohnyin (Mong Yang), Mogaung (Mong Kawng) in present-day Kachin State to Momeik (Mong Mit), and Thibaw (Hsipaw) in the northeast.But order broke down right after the army left. The powerful state of Mone (Mong Nai), which sent in tribute in 1556 and thus did not face the invasion, revolted with the support of Lan Na, which was ruled by Mekuti, a brother of Mone's ruler. Mone forces went on to occupy Thibaw, and executed the new saopha appointed by Bayinnaung. In November 1557, five Toungoo armies (33,000 men, 1800 horses, 170 elephants) led by the king himself invaded, and easily occupied Mone and Thibaw. By the end of 1557, of the cis-Salween states, only the Chinese vassals—Theinni (Hsenwi; present-day northern Shan State), Mowun, Kaingma, Sanda, and Latha (present-day Dehong and Baoshan prefectures in Yunnan, China)—remained outside Bayinnaung's grasp. The Toungoo command seriously considered attacking Theinni as Thado Minsaw's army was already in neighboring Thibaw. But they decided not to open another front while Lan Na remained a threat to the southern Shan states.Lan Na (1558)

Bayinnaung now eyed the once powerful Kingdom of Lan Na, which had been involved in dynastic struggles between two branches of the Mengrai dynasty. The rule of King Mekuti of the House of Mone had been resisted by King Setthathirath of Lan Xang, grandson of King Ketklao of Lan Na. When Bayinnaung and his armies showed up at the gates of Chiang Mai on 31 March 1558, Mekuti surrendered without a fight on 2 April 1558. The Burmese king allowed Mekuti to remain ruler of Lan Na, and brought several artisans, many of whom were notable lacquerware workers, back to Pegu. He left a small garrison of 1000 men commanded by Binnya Dala and Binnya Set at Chiang Mai. Order broke down soon after the main armies left. Setthathirath occupied eastern provinces of Lan Na (Phrae, Nan, Chiang Rai and Chiang Saen).In November 1558, a 14,000-strong army led by Thado Minsaw reinforced Chiang Mai's defenses, and from there the combined armies then successfully drove out the Lan Xang forces from the territories. Cis-Salween Chinese Shan states (1558–1559)
Lan Xang's defeat cemented Toungoo Burma's emergence as the premier power in the Shan country. The remaining cis-Salween Shan states fell in line even if they probably continued paying tribute to China. Theinni sent preemptive tribute, received on 26 July 1558. It was followed by tributary missions by the smaller Chinese vassal states of Mowun, Kaingma, Latha and Sanda in early 1559. Manipur (1560)
Bayinnaung immediately put manpower from the newly acquired territories to acquire yet more territory. On 2 December 1559, he ordered an invasion of Manipur, ostensibly to address the small kingdom's alleged transgressions into Kale's territory.He had recalled Binnya Dala from Chiang Mai to lead the invasion. The three armies (10,000 men, 300 horses, 30 elephants), mostly made up of conscripts from Kale, Mohnyin, Mogaung, Momeik and Sanda, faced minimal resistance. The Manipuri raja surrendered around February 1560. Trans-Salween Chinese Shan states (1562–1563)
The king spent the next two years preparing for war against Siam, which he considered his unfinished business. He set up a garrison at Tavoy (Dawei) on 17 June 1562. But he first wanted to bring the trans-Salween Shan states into his fold, probably to get more manpower as well as to secure the rear. The Burmese chronicles states that he was merely responding to a July 1562 rebellion by his cis-Salween Chinese Shan states with support from trans-Salween Shan states.However, as with Manipur, it may just have been a pretext. He sent four 12,000-strong armies, led respectively by Nanda, Thado Dhamma Yaza II, Minkhaung II and Thado Minsaw. The southernmost trans-Salween state of Kengtung submitted prior to the invasion on 16 December 1562. The armies launched a two-pronged invasion of the Taping valley in March/April 1563. The armies faced minimal resistance, and secured the allegiance of the local saophas. Bayinnaung now had at least nominal suzerainty over the Chinese Shan states from the cis-Salween states in the Taping valley to Kenghung (present-day Xishuangbanna Dai Autonomous Prefecture, Yunnan) in the east. Siam (1563–1564)

With much of western mainland Southeast Asia under his control, Bayinnaung now felt ready to take on Siam.He needed an overwhelming advantage in manpower over Siam because unlike interior Shan states, Siam could not be overwhelmed by the strength of his Portuguese firearms alone. Siam was a prosperous coastal power in its own right, and its forces included Portuguese firearms, ships and mercenaries. On 16 July 1563, he sent an embassy to Siam, demanding one of the four white elephants in possession of the Siamese king as tribute. As expected, King Maha Chakkraphat duly refused. On 1 November 1563, five armies (60,000 men, 2400 horses and 360 elephants) left Pegu to start the campaign. Another army from Lan Na was supposed to come down but King Mekuti of Lan Na had revolted. The invasion route was via central Siam.The armies took the key central town of Kamphaeng Phet on 4 December 1563. Three of the armies then fanned out to acquire the key central Siam cities of Sukhothai, Phitsanulok, and Sawankhalok. Aside from a five-day battle at Phitsanulok, the armies faced minimal opposition. The rulers of the three cities as well as the ruler of Phichit submitted, and were reappointed to their positions. The armies then marched down to Ayutthaya. There, they were kept at bay for weeks by the Siamese fort, aided by three Portuguese warships and artillery batteries at the harbor. The invaders finally captured the Portuguese ships and batteries on 7 February 1564, after which the fort promptly fell.The Siamese king surrendered on 18 February 1564. Bayinnaung took all four white elephants, among other loot, and sent the fallen king to Pegu. He appointed Mahinthrathirat, a son of the fallen king, vassal king of Siam, and left a garrison of 3000. Thai sources state that Bayinnaung also took Prince Ramesuan (ราเมศวร), the eldest son of Maha Chakkraphat, back with him as well as Phraya Chakkri (พระยาจักรี), the chancellor of Ayutthaya, and Phra Sunthon Songkhram (พระสุนทรสงคราม), the military chief of Ayutthaya. Lan Na and Lan Xang (1564–1565)
Although he had finally conquered Siam, he still needed to deal with the middle Tai country. King Mekuti of Lan Na had allied himself with his old rival Setthathirath of Lan Xang. On 23 October 1564, Bayinnaung himself led five massive armies (64,000 men, 3600 horses, 330 elephants) and began a two-pronged invasion of Lan Na.The levies hailed from all over the empire, including Siam whose troops were led by Ramesuan, the former crown prince of Siam. The massive show of force worked. When four southern armies showed up at Lamphun, 20 km south of Chiang Mai, on 25 November 1564, the commanders leading Chiang Mai's defenses simply fled the city. Mekuti now submitted, asking for forgiveness. Bayinnaung spared the broken king's life, and sent him to Pegu. The Burmese king then stayed in Lan Na for the next four months, administering the country. He appointed Queen Visuddhadevi, as the vassal ruler of Lan Na before leaving Chiang Mai on 10 April 1565 to deal with a serious rebellion in Pegu.Lan Xang proved a much more difficult project however. Three armies led by the crown prince himself invaded Lan Xang, and easily captured Vientiane on 2 January 1565. But King Setthathirath escaped. For the next several months, the Burmese troops fruitlessly chased him and his small band of men around the Laotian countryside. Many troops died of starvation and disease. The Burmese command finally gave up, and the armies left Vientiane on 1 August 1565. They had installed a son-in-law of Setthathirath as vassal king.They also brought back many members of the Lan Xang royalty, including Setthathirath's 18-year-old brother, Maha Ouparat. Lan Na was to be at peace for the rest of Bayinnaung's reign. At Vientiane, however, the vassal king's authority did not extend much beyond the capital, backed by the Burmese garrison. Setthathirath remained active in the countryside, and would return to Vientiane in late 1567. Maintaining the empire
After the Lan Xang campaign, Bayinnaung had at least nominal control over the lands stretching from Manipur in the northwest to Lan Xang in the east; and from the Chinese Shan states in the north to the Malay peninsula in the south. After a brief lull, he was to spend nearly a decade (1568–1576) keeping the empire intact. Interlude (1565–1567)

After


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 the 1565 rebellion by resettled Shans in Pegu, he faced no new rebellions for the next two years (1565–1567).Because the rebellion burned down major swaths of the capital, including the entire palace complex, he had the capital and the palace rebuilt. The new capital had 20 gates, each named after the vassal who built it. Each gate had a gilded two-tier pyatthat and gilded wooden doors. The newly rebuilt Kanbawzathadi Palace was officially opened on 16 March 1568, with every vassal ruler present. He even gave upgraded titles to four former kings living in Pegu: Mobye Narapati of Ava, Sithu Kyawhtin of Ava, Mekuti of Lan Na, and Maha Chakkraphat of Siam. Lan Xang and Siam (1568–1569)

Even as he triumphantly entered the new palace as the universal ruler, or cakkavatti, trouble was already brewing in Lan Xang. About a month earlier, he had been informed that Setthathirath's forces not only had retaken Vientiane but were also raiding eastern districts of central Siam and Lan Na.In response, he had rushed down troops from the Shan states and Upper Burma to the border. But it was a rush job. The army could only muster 6000 troops on short notice, and was thoroughly routed at the border. More bad news piled up. He learned on 12 May 1568 that southern Siam (Ayutthaya) too had revolted, and entered into an alliance with Lan Xang. The rebellion was led by Maha Chakkraphat, the deposed king of Siam whom Bayinnaung had just showered with honors and permitted to return to Ayutthaya on pilgrimage as a monk. No sooner had the monk arrived at Ayutthaya than he flung off the robe, and declared independence.But all was not lost. The ruler of central Siam (Phitsanulok), Maha Thammarachathirat, remained loyal to him. On 29 May 1568, a dismayed Bayinnaung sent an army of 6000 to reinforce Phitsanulok. The war began in June. Desperate to consolidate the Chao Phraya valley before the expected dry-season invasion, combined Ayutthaya and Lan Xang forces braved unforgiving rainy season conditions and laid siege to Phitsanulok. But Phitsanulok's reinforced defenses held. In late October/early November, the besiegers retreated to their respective cities before the upcoming invasion.<mask>'s five armies (54,600 men, 5300 horses, 530 elephants) arrived at Phitsanulok on 27 November 1568. Reinforced at Phitsanulok, combined armies of 70,000 marched down along the Chao Phraya to Ayutthaya, and laid siege to the city in December 1568. But the Burmese armies, despite taking immense losses, could not break through for months. When Setthathirath and his army approached to relieve the city, <mask> left Binnya Dala in command of the siege, and left with half his force to meet the enemy. On 8 May 1569, he decisively defeated Setthathirath northeast of the city, after which Lan Xang ceased to be of concern to the siege operations. Meanwhile, Maha Chakkraphat had died, and his son Mahinthrathirat made an offer of conditional surrender. It was refused.Bayinnaung demanded an unconditional surrender. Instead he sent one of his Siamese nobles to the city, pretending to be a deserter. King Mahinthrathirat promptly appointed him to a high command. Through the spy's treacherous machinations, one of the city's gates was opened. The city fell on that very night on 2 August 1569. Bayinnaung appointed Maha Thammarachathirat king of Siam on 29 September 1569. Remote regions
While Bayinnaung had decisively defeated Siam, his most powerful rival in the region, his greatest challenge would turn out to be keeping remote, mountainous states in the farthest corners of his empire in check.Guerrilla warfare by small rebel armies combined with difficult terrain and starvation caused more problems for the king's armies than the armies of Siam ever did. Lan Xang (1569–1570)
The remote hilly Lan Xang proved most troublesome. He personally led the two-pronged invasion of Lan Xang in October 1569. Setthathirath made a stand at Vientiane for a few months before retreating into the jungle in February 1570 to conduct his tried-and-true guerrilla warfare. <mask> and his men spent the next two months combing the Lao countryside. Setthathirath was nowhere to be found but many Burmese troops died of starvation and from long marches. Bayinnaung finally called off the search in April 1570, and returned home.When the king arrived back at Pegu, very few men of the original army had survived to reach their own country. Northern Shan states (1571–1572)
Lan Xang was not the only remote, mountainous region the Burmese king had trouble controlling. The northernmost Shan states of Mohnyin and Mogaung (and their vassals in present-day Kachin State and Sagaing Region) collectively revolted in July 1571. He sent two 12,000-strong armies led by Nanda and Thado Dhamma Yaza II. The armies easily recaptured the states. But, like in Lan Xang, the troops spent five punishing months fruitlessly chasing after the renegade saophas in the snow-clad foothills of the Himalayas. Lan Xang (1572–1573)

Meanwhile, Setthathirath's forces sacked the Burmese garrison at Vientiane.Fortunately for the Burmese, so it seemed, the Lan Xang king was killed shortly after—sometime before mid-1572, and a senior minister and general named Sen Soulintha seized the throne. (In Laotian history, the events took place a year earlier. Setthathirath retook Vientiane in the dry season of 1570–1571, and died in 1571.) Much to his surprise, Soulintha refused Bayinnaung's ultimatum to submit. Incredulous, Bayinnaung sent Binnya Dala to lead an invasion with a small army of 6000, with the majority of troops coming from Lan Na and Siam. But he and the Toungoo court had underestimated the opposition. Lan Xang's strength was more than Setthathirath, and Soulintha proved no pushover.The small Burmese army suffered from guerrilla attacks, and had to retreat in early 1573. At Pegu, the king was furious at Binnya Dala, hitherto his most trusted adviser and favorite general, despite the fact that he had given the general little to work with. He sent Binnya Dala into exile "to a sickly place" in central Siam, where the general who had won him many a battle died from illness six months later. Lan Xang and northern Shan states (1574–1577)
He immediately ordered the levy to be raised to invade Lan Xang in the following dry season of 1573–1574. But the kingdom had been in constant campaign mode, and his annual demands of more levies were pushing his vassals to the breaking point. Even his senior advisers murmured loudly, and the king reluctantly agreed to postpone the expedition for a year. The respite did little to restore the ranks of depleted vassals.When the conscription drive came in 1574, the northernmost states of Mohnyin and Mogaung refused, and revolted. The king was unfazed. He ordered Thado Minsaw, the ruler of Ava, to take care of the northern states while he personally led the Lan Xang campaign. On 1 October 1574, Thado Minsaw's army (6000 men, 800 horses, 80 elephants), made up of regiments from Upper Burma and the Shan states, marched north. Six days later, Bayinnaung's four armies (34,000 men, 1800 horses, 180 elephants), with regiments from Lower Burma, Lan Na and Siam, began the Lan Xang campaign. The armies arrived before Vientiane after 60 days marching. On 6 December 1574, the king and his massive armies faced no opposition entering Vientiane, as Soulintha had already evacuated to the countryside.Fortunately for the Burmese king, Soulintha was viewed as a usurper by his own officers, who arrested him and presented him to the conqueror. Burmese armies again fanned out to and received tribute from the Lao countryside, including easternmost Lan Xang, which is now part of present-day Vietnam. The Burmese king appointed a younger brother of Setthathirath, Maha Oupahat (Chao Tha Heua), king of Lan Xang with the regnal name Voravongsa I, and returned to Pegu on 16 April 1575. Since he was a true high Lan Xang royal he was accepted by the populace as the rightful successor to Setthathirath. Lan Xang was finally under control. The low-grade rebellion in Mohnyin and Mogaung remained a pesky thorn in Bayinnaung's side. The rebel chiefs simply retreated to the jungle when the army showed up, returning right after the army left.The king was particularly annoyed that the leader of the rebellion, the young saopha of Mogaung, had been raised at the Pegu palace, and that he himself had appointed him to the office in 1572. He personally marched north in late 1575, and sent several battalions to comb the jungles. One battalion ran into the rebels deep in the hills, and killed the saopha of Mohnyin. But the saopha of Mogaung escaped and remained at large for another year and a half. When the renegade saopha was finally captured, and brought before the king on 30 September 1577, the king ordered that the young chief be exhibited in fetters for a week at each of the twenty gates of Pegu, and that he and his followers be sold as slaves in India. Later years

Ceylon

By 1576, almost no one wanted to challenge Bayinnaung's rule, and the rest of his reign was to be relatively quiet. Other states in the region—in particular, rival Ceylonese kingdoms—were keen to receive his support.For his part, Bayinnaung viewed himself as the protector of Theravada Buddhism, and had long tried to promote and protect the religion in Ceylon. Two decades earlier, in November 1555, he sent rich presents to the Tooth of Kandy, and bought land there to keep lights continually burning at the shrine. His craftsmen beautified the temple and swept it with the broom made of his and his chief queen's hair. In 1560, upon hearing that the Portuguese had seized and taken the tooth relic to Goa, he sent envoys to secure the relic for 800,000 silver kyats (41,000 pounds sterling) and shiploads of rice, whenever needed, to provision the Portuguese garrison at Malacca. Viceroy Constantino de Bragança was interested but the Archbishop of Goa, Gaspar de Leão Pereira, overruled him by threatening the viceroy with an Inquisition style trial. In 1561, "while the Burmese envoys gazed in frozen horror, the archbishop placed the Tooth in a mortar, grounded it to powder, burned it in a brazier, and cast the ashes into the river." The Ceylonese however claimed that the destroyed relic had been a replica, and that the true Tooth had remained in Ceylon.Two teeth, claimed to be the real Tooth, appeared in Ceylon, one at Colombo and the other at Kandy. By the 1570s, both Kotte and Kandy were jockeying for Bayinnaung's support. King Dharmapala of Kotte was the most active. He presented who he said was his daughter to Bayinnaung. The princess was received with great fanfare at Bassein (Pathein) on 24 September 1573. According to G.E. Harvey, however, the Kotte king's action was not voluntary: the Burmese king had demanded a princess to fulfill a prophecy given by his astrologers, and Dharmapala, who had no daughters, complied by sending the daughter of a chamberlain, whom he had treated as his own.At any rate, Dharmapala, who had converted to Catholicism, continued to curry favor by sending what he claimed was the real Tooth relic, ostensibly to be safeguarded under the protection of the great Buddhist king. The main purpose of his mission was to seek military help against a rebellion. The Tooth was received on 14 July 1576. While it is unclear whether Bayinnaung actually believed in the authenticity of the relic, the possession of a holy Tooth, which many millions of subjects believed in, was of the highest importance. In return, Bayinnaung sent 2500 of his best "invulnerables" from all parts of the empire in five ships to Colombo. The king's best troops easily defeated the rebellion, which was noticed by the other three rulers on the island. Chronicles say that the Burmese generals then received the rulers of the four kingdoms of Ceylon in Colombo, and instructed them to safeguard the religion.King Karaliyadde Bandara of Kandy, offered a daughter and what he claimed was the real Tooth. But His Majesty, seeing no reason to reopen the case, would not enter into controversy with skeptics and dismissed them with thanks. Lan Na and Lan Xang (1579)
No troubles arose when Queen Visuddhadevi of Lan Na, who had successfully kept the middle Tai country quiet for over 13 years, died on 2 January 1579. Bayinnaung's choice Nawrahta Minsaw, one of his sons, faced no problems taking over the Lan Na throne. When instabilities arose in Lan Xang, he took no chances. On 17 October 1579, he sent a sizable army (22,000 men, 1200 horses, 120 elephants), which faced no opposition. According to Laotian history, the vassal king of Lan Xang Maha Ouparat died in 1580, and Bayinnaung installed Sen Soulintha, the usurper whom he had kept in Pegu since 1574, as the successor.The Burmese chronicles make no mention of any change for the rest of the king's reign. The Chronicles' lone post-1579 entry on Lan Xang during his reign simply states that on 2 September 1581, the king commissioned a Buddhist pagoda in Lan Xang. The Chronicles say that the vassal king died in September/October 1588. Arakan (1580–1581)
By 1580, not only had the "universal ruler" subdued all the countries which had occupied his attention for the last three decades but he also had the respect of neighboring states. He faced no internal or external threats (although Portuguese Goa considered itself technically at war with Burma for her interference in Ceylon). Instead of resting, he turned his gaze on Arakan, the kingdom he and Tabinshwehti unsuccessfully tried to conquer in 1545–1547. He determined that it was now time to reduce the western coastal kingdom to the vassal status it held under the Pagan kings once more.A year earlier, he had sent an embassy to Emperor Akbar of the Mughal Empire, which had just acquired Bengal in 1576, perhaps to ascertain whether his occupation of Arakan would be viewed as an act of hostility to the Mughals. At any rate, the king sent an 8000-strong naval invasion force on 15 October 1580. The fleet, which consisted of 200 ships, went on to occupy Sandoway in November 1580. The king had probably planned to lead the assault on the Arakanese capital Mrauk-U by himself but could not because of his failing health. The invasion force remained inactive at Sandoway for a year. The king sent additional land and naval forces (29,000 troops, 1600 horses, 120 elephants) on 28 August 1581 in preparation for the coming dry season campaign. But the king died six weeks later, and the invasion forces withdrew soon after.Administration

Emperor without an empire

Bayinnaung successfully assembled the largest empire in Burmese history. The empire spanned "from Manipur to Cambodian marches and the borders of Arakan to Yunnan," and likely received "propitiatory homage" from states as far east as Vietnam and Cambodia. Notwithstanding its fragility, his realm was certainly the largest empire in the history of mainland Southeast Asia and "probably the largest empire in the history of Southeast Asia." The Portuguese called Pegu "the most powerful monarchy in Asia except that

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