title: Larry Page

text: Page responded to a question about corporations, noting that corporations largely get a "bad rap", which he stated was because they were probably doing the same incremental things they were doing "50 or 20 years ago". He went on to juxtapose that kind of incremental approach to his vision of Google counteracting calcification through driving technology innovation at a high rate. Page mentioned Elon Musk and SpaceX:"He [Musk] wants to go to Mars to back up humanity. That's a worthy goal. We have a lot of employees at Google who've become pretty wealthy. You're working because you want to change the world and make it better [...] I'd like for us to help out more than we are."Page also mentioned Nikola Tesla with regard to invention and commercialization:"Invention is not enough. [Nikola] Tesla invented the electric power we use, but he struggled to get it out to people. [You have to] combine both things []... invention and innovation focus, plus [...] a company that can really commercialize things and get them to people."Page announced a major management restructure in October 2014 so that he would no longer need to be responsible for day-to-day product-related decision making. In a memo, Page said that Google's core businesses would be able to progress in a typical manner, while he could focus on the next generation of ambitious projects, including Google X initiatives; access and energy, including Google Fiber; smart-home automation through Nest Labs; and biotechnology innovations under Calico. Page maintained that he would continue as the unofficial "chief product officer". Subsequent to the announcement, the executives in charge of Google's core products reported to then Google Senior Vice President Sundar Pichai, who reported directly to Page.


title: Larry Page

text: In a November 2014 interview, Page stated that he prioritized the maintenance of his "deep knowledge" of Google's products and breadth of projects, as it had been a key motivating factor for team members. About his then role as the company's CEO, Page said: "I think my job as CEO—I feel like it's always to be pushing people ahead."


title: Larry Page

text: On August 10, 2015, Page announced on Google's official blog that Google had restructured into a number of subsidiaries of a new holding company known as Alphabet Inc with Page becoming CEO of Alphabet Inc and Sundar Pichai assuming the position of CEO of Google Inc. In his announcement, Page described the planned holding company as follows:"Alphabet is mostly a collection of companies. The largest of which, of course, is Google. This newer Google is a bit slimmed down, with the companies that are pretty far afield of our main Internet products contained in Alphabet instead. [...] Fundamentally, we believe this allows us more management scale, as we can run things independently that aren't very related."As well as explaining the origin of the company's name:"We liked the name Alphabet because it means a collection of letters that represent language, one of humanity's most important innovations, and is the core of how we index with Google search! We also like that it means alpha‑bet (Alpha is investment return above benchmark), which we strive for!"Page wrote that the motivation behind the reorganization is to make Google "cleaner and more accountable." He also wrote that there was a desire to improve "the transparency and oversight of what we're doing" and to allow greater control of unrelated companies previously within the Google ecosystem.


title: Larry Page

text: Page has not been on any press conferences since 2015 and has not presented at product launches or earnings calls since 2013. The "Bloomberg Businessweek" termed the reorganization into Alphabet a clever retirement plan allowing Page to retain control over Google, at the same time relinquishing all responsibilities over it. Executives at Alphabet describe Page as a "futurist", highly detached from day-to-day business dealings, and more focused on moon-shot projects. While some managers of Alphabet companies speak of Page as intensely involved, others say that his rare office check-ins are "akin to a royal visit" .


title: Larry Page

text: On December 3, 2019, Larry Page announced that he will step down from the position of Alphabet CEO and would be replaced by Google CEO Sundar Pichai. Pichai will also continue as Google CEO. Page and Google co-founder and Alphabet president Sergey Brin announced the change in a joint blog post, "With Alphabet now well-established, and Google and the Other Bets operating effectively as independent companies, it's the natural time to simplify our management structure. We’ve never been ones to hold on to management roles when we think there's a better way to run the company. And Alphabet and Google no longer need two CEOs and a President."


title: Larry Page

text: Page is an investor in Tesla Motors. He has invested in renewable energy technology, and with the help of Google.org, Google's philanthropic arm, promotes the adoption of plug-in hybrid electric cars and other alternative energy investments. He is also a strategic backer in the Opener startup which is developing aerial vehicles for consumer travel.


title: Larry Page

text: Page is also interested in the socio-economic effects of advanced intelligent systems and how advanced digital technologies can be used to create abundance (as described in ), provide for people's needs, shorten the workweek, and mitigate the potential detrimental effects of technological unemployment.


title: Larry Page

text: Google is one of the institution's corporate founders and still funds scholarships at Singularity University.


title: Larry Page

text: On February 18, 2005, Page bought a Spanish Colonial Revival architecture house in Palo Alto, California, designed by American artistic polymath Pedro Joseph de Lemos, a former curator of the Stanford Art Museum and founder of the Carmel Art Institute, after the historic building had been on the market for years with an asking price of US$7.95 million. A two-story stucco archway spans the driveway and the home features intricate stucco work, as well as stone and tile in California Arts and Crafts movement style built to resemble de Lemos's family's castle in Spain. The Pedro de Lemos House was constructed between 1931 and 1941 by de Lemos. It is also on the National Register of Historic Places.


title: Larry Page

text: In 2007, Page married Lucinda Southworth on Necker Island, the Caribbean island owned by Richard Branson. Southworth is a research scientist and the sister of actress and model Carrie Southworth. Page and Southworth have two children, born in 2009 and 2011.


title: Larry Page

text: In 2009, Page began purchasing properties and tearing down homes adjacent to his home in Palo Alto to make room for a large ecohouse. The existing buildings were "deconstructed" and the materials donated for reuse. The ecohouse was designed to "minimize the impact on the environment." Page worked with an arborist to replace some trees that were in poor health with others that used less water to maintain. Page also applied for Green Point Certification, with points given for use of recycled and low or no-VOC (volatile organic compound) materials and for a roof garden with solar panels. The house's exterior features zinc cladding and plenty of windows, including a wall of sliding-glass doors in the rear. It includes eco-friendly elements such as permeable paving in the parking court and a pervious path through the trees on the property. The 6,000-square-foot (560 m²) house also observes other green home design features such as organic architecture building materials and low volatile organic compound paint.


title: Larry Page

text: In 2011, Page bought the $45-million 193-foot (59 m) superyacht "Senses". Later on, Page announced on his Google+ profile in May 2013 that his right vocal cord is paralyzed from a cold that he contracted the previous summer, while his left cord was paralyzed in 1999. Page explained that he has been suffering from a vocal cord issue for 14 years, and, as of his May 2013 post, doctors were unable to identify the exact cause. The Google+ post also revealed that Page had made a large donation to a vocal-cord nerve-function research program at the Voice Health Institute in Boston. An anonymous source stated that the donation exceeded $20 million.


title: Larry Page

text: In October 2013, "Business Insider" reported that Page's paralyzed vocal cords are caused by an autoimmune disease called Hashimoto's thyroiditis, and prevented him from undertaking Google quarterly earnings conference calls for an indefinite period.


title: Larry Page

text: In November 2014, Page's family foundation, the Carl Victor Page Memorial Fund, reportedly holding assets in excess of a billion dollars at the end of 2013, gave $15 million to aid the effort against the Ebola virus epidemic in West Africa. Page wrote on his Google+ page that "My wife and I just donated $15 million [...] Our hearts go out to everyone affected."


title: Larry Page

text: In August 2021 it was revealed that Page holds a New Zealand resident's visa and had traveled to the country on a medivac flight from Fiji for his son's treatment in New Zealand, despite New Zealand promulgating an act not to allow any outsiders while in a critical state due to worsened situation across the country due to pandemic. The flight took place on January 12, 2021. Page had been living in Fiji with his family during the duration of the COVID-19 pandemic.


title: Email

text: Electronic mail (email or e-mail) is a method of exchanging messages ("mail") between people using electronic devices. Email was thus conceived as the electronic (digital) version of, or counterpart to, mail, at a time when "mail" meant only physical mail (hence "e- + mail"). Email later became a ubiquitous (very widely used) communication medium, to the point that in current use, an email address is often treated as a basic and necessary part of many processes in business, commerce, government, education, entertainment, and other spheres of daily life in most countries.


title: Email

text: "Email" is the medium, and each message sent therewith is also called an "email." The term is a mass noun.


title: Email

text: Email operates across computer networks, primarily the Internet, and also local area networks. Today's email systems are based on a store-and-forward model. Email servers accept, forward, deliver, and store messages. Neither the users nor their computers are required to be online simultaneously; they need to connect, typically to a mail server or a webmail interface to send or receive messages or download it.


title: Email

text: Originally an ASCII text-only communications medium, Internet email was extended by Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions (MIME) to carry text in other character sets and multimedia content attachments. International email, with internationalized email addresses using UTF-8, is standardized but not widely adopted.


title: Email

text: The term "electronic mail" has been in use with its modern meaning since 1975, and variations of the shorter "E-mail" have been in use since 1979:


title: Email

text: The service is often simply referred to as "mail", and a single piece of electronic mail is called a "message". The conventions for fields within emails — the “To,” “From,” “CC,” “BCC” etc. — began with RFC-680 in 1975.


title: Email

text: An Internet email consists of an "envelope" and "content"; the content consists of a "header" and a "body".


title: Email

text: Computer-based messaging between users of the same system became possible after the advent of time-sharing in the early 1960s, with a notable implementation by MIT's CTSS project in 1965. Most developers of early mainframes and minicomputers developed similar, but generally incompatible, mail applications. In 1971 the first ARPANET network mail was sent, introducing the now-familiar address syntax with the '@' symbol designating the user's system address. Over a series of RFCs, conventions were refined for sending mail messages over the File Transfer Protocol.


title: Email

text: Proprietary electronic mail systems soon began to emerge. IBM, CompuServe and Xerox used in-house mail systems in the 1970s; CompuServe sold a commercial intraoffice mail product from 1978 and IBM and Xerox from 1981. DEC's ALL-IN-1 and Hewlett-Packard's HPMAIL (later HP DeskManager) were released in 1982; development work on the former began in the late 1970s and the latter became the world’s largest selling email system.


title: Email

text: The Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP) protocol was implemented on the ARPANET in 1983. LAN email systems emerged in the mid 1980s. For a time in the late 1980s and early 1990s, it seemed likely that either a proprietary commercial system or the X.400 email system, part of the Government Open Systems Interconnection Profile (GOSIP), would predominate. However, once the final restrictions on carrying commercial traffic over the Internet ended in 1995, a combination of factors made the current Internet suite of SMTP, POP3 and IMAP email protocols the standard.


title: Email

text: The following is a typical sequence of events that takes place when sender Alice transmits a message using a mail user agent (MUA) addressed to the email address of the recipient.


title: Email

text: Many MTAs used to accept messages for any recipient on the Internet and do their best to deliver them. Such MTAs are called "open mail relays". This was very important in the early days of the Internet when network connections were unreliable. However, this mechanism proved to be exploitable by originators of unsolicited bulk email and as a consequence open mail relays have become rare, and many MTAs do not accept messages from open mail relays.


title: Email

text: The basic Internet message format used for email is defined by , with encoding of non-ASCII data and multimedia content attachments defined in RFC 2045 through RFC 2049, collectively called "Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions" or "MIME". The extensions in International email apply only to email. RFC 5322 replaced the earlier RFC 2822 in 2008, then RFC 2822 in 2001 replaced RFC 822 – the standard for Internet email for decades. Published in 1982, RFC 822 was based on the earlier RFC 733 for the ARPANET.


title: Email

text: Internet email messages consist of two sections, "header" and "body". These are known as "content". The header is structured into fields such as From, To, CC, Subject, Date, and other information about the email. In the process of transporting email messages between systems, SMTP communicates delivery parameters and information using message header fields. The body contains the message, as unstructured text, sometimes containing a signature block at the end. The header is separated from the body by a blank line.


title: Email

text: RFC 5322 specifies the syntax of the email header. Each email message has a header (the "header section" of the message, according to the specification), comprising a number of fields ("header fields"). Each field has a name ("field name" or "header field name"), followed by the separator character ":", and a value ("field body" or "header field body").


title: Email

text: Each field name begins in the first character of a new line in the header section, and begins with a non-whitespace printable character. It ends with the separator character ":". The separator is followed by the field value (the "field body"). The value can continue onto subsequent lines if those lines have space or tab as their first character. Field names and, without SMTPUTF8, field bodies are restricted to 7-bit ASCII characters. Some non-ASCII values may be represented using MIME encoded words.


title: Email

text: Email header fields can be multi-line, with each line recommended to be no more than 78 characters, although the limit is 998 characters. Header fields defined by RFC 5322 contain only US-ASCII characters; for encoding characters in other sets, a syntax specified in RFC 2047 may be used. In some examples, the IETF EAI working group defines some standards track extensions, replacing previous experimental extensions so UTF-8 encoded Unicode characters may be used within the header. In particular, this allows email addresses to use non-ASCII characters. Such addresses are supported by Google and Microsoft products, and promoted by some government agents.


title: Email

text: RFC 3864 describes registration procedures for message header fields at the IANA; it provides for permanent and provisional field names, including also fields defined for MIME, netnews, and HTTP, and referencing relevant RFCs. Common header fields for email include:


title: Email

text: The "To:" field may be unrelated to the addresses to which the message is delivered. The delivery list is supplied separately to the transport protocol, SMTP, which may be extracted from the header content. The "To:" field is similar to the addressing at the top of a conventional letter delivered according to the address on the outer envelope. In the same way, the "From:" field may not be the sender. Some mail servers apply email authentication systems to messages relayed. Data pertaining to the server's activity is also part of the header, as defined below.


title: Email

text: SMTP defines the "trace information" of a message saved in the header using the following two fields:


title: Email

text: Internet email was designed for 7-bit ASCII. Most email software is 8-bit clean, but must assume it will communicate with 7-bit servers and mail readers. The MIME standard introduced character set specifiers and two content transfer encodings to enable transmission of non-ASCII data: quoted printable for mostly 7-bit content with a few characters outside that range and base64 for arbitrary binary data. The 8BITMIME and BINARY extensions were introduced to allow transmission of mail without the need for these encodings, but many mail transport agents may not support them. In some countries, e-mail software violates by sending raw non-ASCII text and several encoding schemes co-exist; as a result, by default, the message in a non-Latin alphabet language appears in non-readable form (the only exception is a coincidence if the sender and receiver use the same encoding scheme). Therefore, for international character sets, Unicode is growing in popularity.


title: Email

text: Most modern graphic email clients allow the use of either plain text or HTML for the message body at the option of the user. HTML email messages often include an automatic-generated plain text copy for compatibility.


title: Email

text: Advantages of HTML include the ability to include in-line links and images, set apart previous messages in block quotes, wrap naturally on any display, use emphasis such as underlines and italics, and change font styles. Disadvantages include the increased size of the email, privacy concerns about web bugs, abuse of HTML email as a vector for phishing attacks and the spread of malicious software.


title: Email

text: Some e-mail clients interpret the body as HTML even in the absence of a codice_1 header field; this may cause various problems.


title: Email

text: Some web-based mailing lists recommend all posts be made in plain text, with 72 or 80 characters per line for all the above reasons, and because they have a significant number of readers using text-based email clients such as Mutt.


title: Email

text: Various informal conventions evolved for marking up plain text in email and usenet posts, which later led to the development of formal languages like setext "(c. 1992)" and many others, the most popular of them being markdown.


title: Email

text: Some Microsoft email clients may allow rich formatting using their proprietary Rich Text Format (RTF), but this should be avoided unless the recipient is guaranteed to have a compatible email client.


title: Email

text: Messages are exchanged between hosts using the Simple Mail Transfer Protocol with software programs called mail transfer agents (MTAs); and delivered to a mail store by programs called mail delivery agents (MDAs, also sometimes called local delivery agents, LDAs). Accepting a message obliges an MTA to deliver it, and when a message cannot be delivered, that MTA must send a bounce message back to the sender, indicating the problem.


title: Email

text: Users can retrieve their messages from servers using standard protocols such as POP or IMAP, or, as is more likely in a large corporate environment, with a proprietary protocol specific to Novell Groupwise, Lotus Notes or Microsoft Exchange Servers. Programs used by users for retrieving, reading, and managing email are called mail user agents (MUAs).


title: Email

text: When opening an email, it is marked as "read", which typically visibly distinguishes it from "unread" messages on clients' user interfaces. Email clients may allow hiding read emails from the inbox so the user can focus on the unread.


title: Email

text: Mail can be stored on the client, on the server side, or in both places. Standard formats for mailboxes include Maildir and mbox. Several prominent email clients use their own proprietary format and require conversion software to transfer email between them. Server-side storage is often in a proprietary format but since access is through a standard protocol such as IMAP, moving email from one server to another can be done with any MUA supporting the protocol.


title: Email

text: Many current email users do not run MTA, MDA or MUA programs themselves, but use a web-based email platform, such as Gmail or Yahoo! Mail, that performs the same tasks. Such webmail interfaces allow users to access their mail with any standard web browser, from any computer, rather than relying on a local email client.


title: Email

text: Upon reception of email messages, email client applications save messages in operating system files in the file system. Some clients save individual messages as separate files, while others use various database formats, often proprietary, for collective storage. A historical standard of storage is the "mbox" format. The specific format used is often indicated by special filename extensions:


title: Email

text: Some applications (like Apple Mail) leave attachments encoded in messages for searching while also saving separate copies of the attachments. Others separate attachments from messages and save them in a specific directory.


title: Email

text: The URI scheme, as registered with the IANA, defines the codice_6 scheme for SMTP email addresses. Though its use is not strictly defined, URLs of this form are intended to be used to open the new message window of the user's mail client when the URL is activated, with the address as defined by the URL in the "To:" field. Many clients also support query string parameters for the other email fields, such as its subject line or carbon copy recipients.


title: Email

text: Many email providers have a web-based email client. This allows users to log into the email account by using any compatible web browser to send and receive their email. Mail is typically not downloaded to the web client, so can't be read without a current Internet connection.


title: Email

text: The Post Office Protocol 3 (POP3) is a mail access protocol used by a client application to read messages from the mail server. Received messages are often deleted from the server. POP supports simple download-and-delete requirements for access to remote mailboxes (termed maildrop in the POP RFC's). POP3 allows you to download email messages on your local computer and read them even when you are offline.


title: Email

text: The Internet Message Access Protocol (IMAP) provides features to manage a mailbox from multiple devices. Small portable devices like smartphones are increasingly used to check email while traveling and to make brief replies, larger devices with better keyboard access being used to reply at greater length. IMAP shows the headers of messages, the sender and the subject and the device needs to request to download specific messages. Usually, the mail is left in folders in the mail server.


title: Email

text: Messaging Application Programming Interface (MAPI) is used by Microsoft Outlook to communicate to Microsoft Exchange Server - and to a range of other email server products such as Axigen Mail Server, Kerio Connect, Scalix, Zimbra, HP OpenMail, IBM Lotus Notes, Zarafa, and Bynari where vendors have added MAPI support to allow their products to be accessed directly via Outlook.


title: Email

text: Email has been widely accepted by businesses, governments and non-governmental organizations in the developed world, and it is one of the key parts of an 'e-revolution' in workplace communication (with the other key plank being widespread adoption of highspeed Internet). A sponsored 2010 study on workplace communication found 83% of U.S. knowledge workers felt email was critical to their success and productivity at work.


title: Email

text: Email marketing via "opt-in" is often successfully used to send special sales offerings and new product information. Depending on the recipient's culture, email sent without permission—such as an "opt-in"—is likely to be viewed as unwelcome "email spam".


title: Email

text: Many users access their personal emails from friends and family members using a personal computer in their house or apartment.


title: Email

text: Email has become used on smartphones and on all types of computers. Mobile "apps" for email increase accessibility to the medium for users who are out of their homes. While in the earliest years of email, users could only access email on desktop computers, in the 2010s, it is possible for users to check their email when they are away from home, whether they are across town or across the world. Alerts can also be sent to the smartphone or other devices to notify them immediately of new messages. This has given email the ability to be used for more frequent communication between users and allowed them to check their email and write messages throughout the day. , there were approximately 1.4 billion email users worldwide and 50 billion non-spam emails that were sent daily.


title: Email

text: Individuals often check emails on smartphones for both personal and work-related messages. It was found that US adults check their email more than they browse the web or check their Facebook accounts, making email the most popular activity for users to do on their smartphones. 78% of the respondents in the study revealed that they check their email on their phone. It was also found that 30% of consumers use only their smartphone to check their email, and 91% were likely to check their email at least once per day on their smartphone. However, the percentage of consumers using email on a smartphone ranges and differs dramatically across different countries. For example, in comparison to 75% of those consumers in the US who used it, only 17% in India did.


title: Email

text: , the number of Americans visiting email web sites had fallen 6 percent after peaking in November 2009. For persons 12 to 17, the number was down 18 percent. Young people preferred instant messaging, texting and social media. Technology writer Matt Richtel said in "The New York Times" that email was like the VCR, vinyl records and film cameras—no longer cool and something older people do.


title: Email

text: A 2015 survey of Android users showed that persons 13 to 24 used messaging apps 3.5 times as much as those over 45, and were far less likely to use email.


title: Email

text: Email messages may have one or more attachments, which are additional files that are appended to the email. Typical attachments include Microsoft Word documents, PDF documents, and scanned images of paper documents. In principle, there is no technical restriction on the size or number of attachments. However, in practice, email clients, servers, and Internet service providers implement various limitations on the size of files, or complete email – typically to 25MB or less. Furthermore, due to technical reasons, attachment sizes as seen by these transport systems can differ from what the user sees, which can be confusing to senders when trying to assess whether they can safely send a file by email. Where larger files need to be shared, various file hosting services are available and commonly used.


title: Email

text: The ubiquity of email for knowledge workers and "white collar" employees has led to concerns that recipients face an "information overload" in dealing with increasing volumes of email. With the growth in mobile devices, by default employees may also receive work-related emails outside of their working day. This can lead to increased stress and decreased satisfaction with work. Some observers even argue it could have a significant negative economic effect, as efforts to read the many emails could reduce productivity.


title: Email

text: Email "spam" is unsolicited bulk email. The low cost of sending such email meant that, by 2003, up to 30% of total email traffic was spam, and was threatening the usefulness of email as a practical tool. The US CAN-SPAM Act of 2003 and similar laws elsewhere had some impact, and a number of effective anti-spam techniques now largely mitigate the impact of spam by filtering or rejecting it for most users, but the volume sent is still very high—and increasingly consists not of advertisements for products, but malicious content or links. In September 2017, for example, the proportion of spam to legitimate email rose to 59.56%. The percentage of spam email in 2021 is estimated to be 85%.


title: Email

text: A range of malicious email types exist. These range from various types of email scams, including "social engineering" scams such as advance-fee scam "Nigerian letters", to phishing, email bombardment and email worms.


title: Email

text: Email spoofing occurs when the email message header is designed to make the message appear to come from a known or trusted source. Email spam and phishing methods typically use spoofing to mislead the recipient about the true message origin. Email spoofing may be done as a prank, or as part of a criminal effort to defraud an individual or organization. An example of a potentially fraudulent email spoofing is if an individual creates an email that appears to be an invoice from a major company, and then sends it to one or more recipients. In some cases, these fraudulent emails incorporate the logo of the purported organization and even the email address may appear legitimate.


title: Email

text: Email bombing is the intentional sending of large volumes of messages to a target address. The overloading of the target email address can render it unusable and can even cause the mail server to crash.


title: Email

text: Today it can be important to distinguish between the Internet and internal email systems. Internet email may travel and be stored on networks and computers without the sender's or the recipient's control. During the transit time it is possible that third parties read or even modify the content. Internal mail systems, in which the information never leaves the organizational network, may be more secure, although information technology personnel and others whose function may involve monitoring or managing may be accessing the email of other employees.


title: Email

text: There are cryptography applications that can serve as a remedy to one or more of the above. For example, Virtual Private Networks or the Tor network can be used to encrypt traffic from the user machine to a safer network while GPG, PGP, SMEmail, or S/MIME can be used for end-to-end message encryption, and SMTP STARTTLS or SMTP over Transport Layer Security/Secure Sockets Layer can be used to encrypt communications for a single mail hop between the SMTP client and the SMTP server.


title: Email

text: Additionally, many mail user agents do not protect logins and passwords, making them easy to intercept by an attacker. Encrypted authentication schemes such as SASL prevent this. Finally, the attached files share many of the same hazards as those found in peer-to-peer filesharing. Attached files may contain trojans or viruses.


title: Email

text: It is possible for an exchange of emails to form a binding contract, so users must be careful about what they send through email correspondence. A signature block on an email may be interpreted as satisfying a signature requirement for a contract.


title: Email

text: Flaming occurs when a person sends a message (or many messages) with angry or antagonistic content. The term is derived from the use of the word "incendiary" to describe particularly heated email discussions. The ease and impersonality of email communications mean that the social norms that encourage civility in person or via telephone do not exist and civility may be forgotten.


title: Email

text: Also known as "email fatigue", email bankruptcy is when a user ignores a large number of email messages after falling behind in reading and answering them. The reason for falling behind is often due to information overload and a general sense there is so much information that it is not possible to read it all. As a solution, people occasionally send a "boilerplate" message explaining that their email inbox is full, and that they are in the process of clearing out all the messages. Harvard University law professor Lawrence Lessig is credited with coining this term, but he may only have popularized it.


title: Email

text: Originally Internet email was completely ASCII text-based. MIME now allows body content text and some header content text in international character sets, but other headers and email addresses using UTF-8, while standardized have yet to be widely adopted.


title: Email

text: The original SMTP mail service provides limited mechanisms for tracking a transmitted message, and none for verifying that it has been delivered or read. It requires that each mail server must either deliver it onward or return a failure notice (bounce message), but both software bugs and system failures can cause messages to be lost. To remedy this, the IETF introduced Delivery Status Notifications (delivery receipts) and Message Disposition Notifications (return receipts); however, these are not universally deployed in production.


title: Email

text: Many ISPs now deliberately disable non-delivery reports (NDRs) and delivery receipts due to the activities of spammers:


title: Email

text: In the absence of standard methods, a range of system based around the use of web bugs have been developed. However, these are often seen as underhand or raising privacy concerns, and only work with email clients that support rendering of HTML. Many mail clients now default to not showing "web content". Webmail providers can also disrupt web bugs by pre-caching images.


title: What If...? (TV series)

text: What If...? is an American animated anthology series created by A. C. Bradley for the streaming service Disney+, based on the Marvel Comics series of the same name. It is the fourth television series in the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) produced by Marvel Studios, and the studio's first animated series. The series explores alternate timelines in the multiverse that show what would happen if major moments from the MCU films occurred differently. Bradley serves as head writer for the first two seasons, with Bryan Andrews directing.


title: What If...? (TV series)

text: Jeffrey Wright stars as the Watcher, who narrates the series, alongside many MCU film actors reprising their roles. Marvel Studios was developing the series for Disney+ by the end of 2018, with Bradley and Andrews on board. It was officially announced in April 2019. Marvel Studios' head of visual development Ryan Meinerding helped define the series' cel-shaded animation style, which was designed to reflect the films and take inspiration from classic American illustrators. Animation for the first season is provided by Blue Spirit, Squeeze, Flying Bark Productions, and Stellar Creative Lab, with Stephan Franck as head of animation.


title: What If...? (TV series)

text: The first season of "What If...?" premiered on August 11, 2021, and ran for nine episodes until October 6 as part of of the MCU. A second nine-episode season is expected to premiere in early 2023 as part of , and a third season is in development. The series has received generally positive reviews, with praise for the voice acting, animation, creative storylines, and scenarios, although the episode length and writing received some criticism. A "Marvel Zombies" series, based on one of the "What If...?" episodes, is in development.


title: What If...? (TV series)

text: Following the establishment of the multiverse in the season one finale of "Loki", "What If...?" explores various alternate timelines across the multiverse in which major moments from the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) films occur differently, as observed by the Watcher. In the second season, following the formation of the Guardians of the Multiverse, the Watcher continues to explore more strange worlds, meeting new heroes and keeping the multiverse safe.


title: What If...? (TV series)

text: The series is narrated by Jeffrey Wright as the Watcher, a member of the alien Watcher race who observes the multiverse, in a similar role to Rod Serling's in "The Twilight Zone". Head writer A. C. Bradley said the character is "above everything else" and compared him to a viewer of the "pizza rat" video, observing and not interfering as he has "no interest in becoming friends with the rat, living amongst the rat, or doing rat things... That is the Watcher's relationship with humanity." Executive producer Brad Winderbaum felt Wright's performance inspired a sense of humanity while explaining the episodes, and Bradley explained that Wright was cast because his voice mixes power, charisma, and authority with a "warm personality". Wright approached the character like he would a live-action role, learning as much as he could about the Watcher so his voice could reflect the character's "uniquely powerful, all-seeing, sagely presence". Wright chose a contemporary American accent rather than having the character sound like "some Oxford-educated, old, fusty guy in a tudor parlor somewhere", and, aside from researching the character's comic book appearances, took inspiration from the series' tone, visuals, and animation when developing the character's voice. The comic book name "Uatu" is not used in the series because this would imply that there was more than one being watching the series' events when Bradley instead wanted to focus on the narrative of "the Watcher" observing the different characters and realities and how those affect him.


title: What If...? (TV series)

text: Each episode features different versions of characters from the MCU films, with many actors reprising their roles for the series. The final two episodes bring together characters from earlier episodes to form the "Guardians of the Multiverse", including Benedict Cumberbatch as Doctor Strange Supreme, Hayley Atwell as Peggy Carter / Captain Carter, Lake Bell as Natasha Romanoff / Black Widow, Chadwick Boseman as Star-Lord T'Challa, Michael B. Jordan as Killmonger, and Chris Hemsworth as Thor. Other new versions of characters who also return for the finale include Kurt Russell's Ego and Brian T. Delaney's Peter Quill from the second episode, Tom Hiddleston's Loki and Samuel L. Jackson's Nick Fury from the third, Ozioma Akagha's Shuri from the sixth, and Toby Jones's Arnim Zola and Ross Marquand's Ultron from the eighth. Additionally, Cynthia McWilliams and Mick Wingert reprise their respective roles of Gamora and Tony Stark / Iron Man from an episode that was cut from the first season but will be included in the second.


title: What If...? (TV series)

text: By September 2018, Marvel Studios was developing several series for its parent company Disney's streaming service, Disney+; Marvel Studios President Kevin Feige was set to take a "hands-on role" in each series' development, focusing on "handling" the actors who would be reprising their roles from the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) films. One of these was an animated series for Disney+ based on the Marvel Comics run "What If...?". The anthology series, which would be produced by Feige, would explore how the MCU would be altered if certain events had occurred differently, such as if Loki wielded Thor's hammer Mjolnir. The hope was to have the actors who portray the characters in the MCU films voice them in the series as well. A. C. Bradley was suggested as head writer for the series by Marvel Studios executive Jonathan Schwartz after unsuccessfully pitching as a writer for "Captain Marvel" (2019). Bradley was eager to write a Marvel film due to her love for the franchise, and felt "What If...?" was her opportunity to create many Marvel stories. Marvel Studios was impressed that some of Bradley's ideas for the series matched concepts they were planning for films, and she joined the project in October 2018. Bryan Andrews, a storyboard artist on many of the major action sequences from the MCU films, met with Brad Winderbaum—the Marvel Studios executive in charge of the series—about directing the series as early as 2018. Bradley and Andrews were officially announced in their roles in August 2019.


title: What If...? (TV series)

text: In April 2019, Disney and Marvel officially announced the series. Marvel Studios had discussed adapting the "What If...?" comics in the past, but decided not to do so until after the conclusion of the Infinity Saga so they would have enough storylines to create alternate options of. Making the series animated allowed the studio to explore all of these ideas "unbounded". Winderbaum said it was not a coincidence that the series was set for release so soon after the first season finale of "Loki", which introduced the multiverse, since "What If...?" explores facets of the multiverse in a way that Winderbaum believed made the series as important as any other MCU property; Bradley confirmed that all episodes of the series are canon to the MCU multiverse, with most of the episodes taking place in their own universe. Since work began on "What If...?" before the development of "Loki" and "Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness" (2022), Bradley was unsure how those projects would be exploring and explaining the MCU version of the multiverse. She chose to focus on the possibilities within the alternate timelines of the multiverse, which she described as a "sampler of assorted chocolates", and left elements such as the Time Variance Authority to be explained by those other projects. Feige and Winderbaum kept the creative teams of "Loki" and "Multiverse of Madness" informed of what was happening in "What If...?" as work on those projects began. The creative team of "What If...?" met with "Loki" executive producers Stephen Broussard and Kevin Wright as well as "WandaVision" (2021) co-executive producer Mary Livanos to establish a "rule book" regarding the multiverse, its branch timelines, and nexus events.


title: What If...? (TV series)

text: Executive producers for the series include Winderbaum, Feige, Louis D'Esposito, Victoria Alonso, Andrews, and Bradley, with Carrie Wassenaar producing. The episodes are approximately 30 minutes in length. In December 2019, Feige revealed that the first season would consist of 10 episodes, and that work had already begun on a second 10-episode season. However, because of the production delays caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, the tenth episode of the first season was not completed in time and moved to the second season; the second season was also reduced to nine episodes. Work on a third season began by July 2022, when Bradley revealed that the second season was her final project with Marvel Studios. During Marvel Studios' animation panel at the 2022 San Diego Comic-Con, "What If...?" and the other projects discussed were introduced as being part of the "Marvel Animated Multiverse".


title: What If...? (TV series)

text: Feige explained with the series' announcement that it would take "pivotal moments" from throughout the MCU and change them. For example, the first episode features Peggy Carter taking the Super Soldier Serum instead of Steve Rogers. Winderbaum felt it was "creatively healthy" to think of "What If...?" as its own parallel world that "lives and breathes on its own terms" and did not need to have exact adaptions from the main MCU or comics. He added that it was liberating to work within the multiverse concept because the series could take greater risks or opportunities that other MCU projects are not afforded when they are concerned with connecting to future properties. Alonso said the series was an opportunity to introduce more diversity to the MCU and take advantage of more of the 6,000 characters that Marvel Studios had access to. The writers were initially unsure if they could use Spider-Man in the series due to Sony Pictures owning the character's live-action film rights, but they were ultimately allowed to. Marvel Comics characters who have yet to appear in the MCU are not introduced in the series, but the writers considered creating new characters if it helped the story.


title: What If...? (TV series)

text: Before considering "what if" scenarios, the writers examined all of the MCU heroes to determine "what makes them tick". They wanted to ensure that there was story potential beyond the inciting "what if" change of each episode, so they could use the different scenarios to explore "the hero behind the shield". Bradley described the series' balance between character examination and action as ""Die Hard" (1988) meets Wes Anderson". 30 potential episodes were conceived and written by Bradley, Andrews, Winderbaum, story editor Matthew Chauncey, junior executive Simona Paparelli, and script coordinator Ryan Little. The "What If...?" comics provided inspiration for potential story points, as did the Ultimate Marvel comic book imprint (which told alternate stories to the main Marvel universe) since it was an example of a fully realized alternate universe. Bradley first created simple scenarios out of concern for the series' budget, but was told by Marvel to "go nuts". Feige chose his favorite concepts from the 30 options, which were then narrowed down to the 10 episodes for the first season. After each episode was incorrectly rumored to focus on one film from the Infinity Saga, Bradley clarified that multiple films and characters would be represented in each episode and most of the characters from all the films would appear throughout the season. Winderbaum hoped the episodes would intrigue viewers to revisit the original films, like how reading a "What If" comic could lead a reader to the original comic story.


title: What If...? (TV series)

text: Each episode and its alternate storyline is introduced and concluded by the Watcher, presenting it as "a cautionary tale in the spirit of "The Twilight Zone"". The episode's tones vary, with some being darker or lighter than the MCU films that they play off. For example, one episode is a political thriller, the episode centered on Stephen Strange is a "dark... tragic love story", and another allowed Bradley to "goof off" and draw inspiration from films she enjoyed when growing up such as "Can't Hardly Wait" (1998) and the "National Lampoon" films. "What If...?" also has a horror, a heist, and a murder mystery episodes. Various films served as touchstones for each episode, such as 1940s serials and war films for the Peggy Carter episode. Some of the writers' concepts were rejected because they matched with story ideas that Marvel already planned to use, such as Professor Hulk, an older Steve Rogers, and Pepper Potts in the Rescue suit, who all appear in "" (2019); Loki becoming a hero as he does in "Loki"; Jane Foster becoming Thor, which was planned for "" (2022); and an episode that was "half the [planned] plot" of "Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3" (2023). Other unused pitches include an episode where Spider-Man turns into a real spider that was deemed "too dark and too body horror" for Marvel's target PG-13/TV-14 rating; a "Jurassic Park" (1993)-inspired episode featuring the Avengers as dinosaurs during prehistory; and a crossover with "Star Wars" characters like Luke Skywalker.


title: What If...? (TV series)

text: Despite the series' anthology format, the writers conceived a story device for the first season that allowed them to have some connectivity between the episodes; this begins to be revealed in the season's eighth episode before the finale in the ninth. Additionally, after the Watcher begins the season distant and appearing in the background, he becomes more apparent as the season progresses. Bradley likened the character to the audience, since "as he suffers [the heroes] triumphs and their tragedies, he becomes also more emotionally invested, and therefore becomes more and more part of their world and wants to be more part of their world even though he knows he's not supposed to". Each episode also ends with a twist or question that could potentially be resolved in a sequel episode, similar to the MCU films' post-credit scenes, though these endings are also a reference to the twist endings of the "What If...?" comics that were not always resolved. Bradley called these endings "fun" while differentiating them from post-credit teasers which she considered "a promise". Many of the endings for the first season's episodes are resolved in the final episode of the season. Regarding the dark tones and tragic plot points of the first season, Bradley explained that being able to feature things that would never happen in the live-action MCU, such as killing off heroes, was the "most liberating part" of the series, and that some of the episodes ended in tragedy for reasons tied into the first season's overall plan.


title: What If...? (TV series)

text: As the writers were developing the scripts, they realized that Captain Carter would "bubble up and became more important" alongside the Watcher, and decided to revisit her story in each future season. Bradley was asked to only explore "what if" concepts for existing MCU stories, so characters do not appear until the second season. Some of the initial 30 concepts that were not chosen for the first season also appear in future seasons. Andrews noted that following the first season, in which the "what if" concept were only small changes from what was established, further seasons were able to "expand out" beyond these small moments and "get a little bit wackier".


title: What If...? (TV series)

text: Marvel's plan for the series was to have actors who portray characters in the MCU films reprise their roles in "What If...?", with more than 50 doing so. Feige revealed half of these actors at San Diego Comic-Con in July 2019: Michael B. Jordan as Erik "Killmonger" Stevens, Sebastian Stan as James "Bucky" Barnes, Josh Brolin as Thanos, Mark Ruffalo as Bruce Banner / Hulk, Tom Hiddleston as Loki, Samuel L. Jackson as Nick Fury, Chris Hemsworth as Thor, Hayley Atwell as Peggy Carter / Captain Carter, Chadwick Boseman as Star-Lord T'Challa, Karen Gillan as Nebula, Jeremy Renner as Clint Barton, Paul Rudd as Scott Lang, Michael Douglas as Hank Pym / Yellowjacket, Neal McDonough as Dum Dum Dugan, Dominic Cooper as Howard Stark, Sean Gunn as Kraglin Obfonteri, Natalie Portman as Jane Foster, David Dastmalchian as Kurt, Stanley Tucci as Abraham Erskine, Taika Waititi as Korg, Toby Jones as Arnim Zola, Djimon Hounsou as Korath the Pursuer, Jeff Goldblum as the Grandmaster, Michael Rooker as Yondu Udonta, and Chris Sullivan as Taserface. Feige also announced that Jeffrey Wright had been cast as the Watcher, who narrates the series. Boseman was one of the first actors to agree to appear in the series.


title: What If...? (TV series)

text: Voice recording began by August 2019 and continued into early 2020, taking place remotely when on-site work at the Walt Disney Studios lot was suspended during the COVID-19 pandemic. Wright did some recording in a make-shift recording studio at his home. In January 2021, Frank Grillo said he had worked on the series, reprising his role of Brock Rumlow. Additional voice recording was planned for February. By July, Seth Green was reprising his role as Howard the Duck, as was Andy Serkis as Ulysses Klaue.


title: What If...? (TV series)

text: Ahead of the series' premiere, additional actors were revealed to be reprising their roles in the series, including Angela Bassett as Ramonda, Benedict Cumberbatch as Dr. Stephen Strange and Doctor Strange Supreme, Benedict Wong as Wong, Benicio del Toro as Taneleer Tivan / The Collector, Bradley Whitford as John Flynn, Carrie Coon as Proxima Midnight, Clancy Brown as Surtur, Clark Gregg as Phil Coulson, Cobie Smulders as Maria Hill, Danai Gurira as Okoye, Don Cheadle as James Rhodes, Emily VanCamp as Sharon Carter, Evangeline Lilly as Hope van Dyne, Georges St-Pierre as Georges Batroc, Jaimie Alexander as Sif, John Kani as T'Chaka, Jon Favreau as Harold "Happy" Hogan / Zombie Happy, Kat Dennings as Darcy Lewis, Kurt Russell as Ego, Leslie Bibb as Christine Everhart, Ophelia Lovibond as Carina, Paul Bettany as Vision and J.A.R.V.I.S., Rachel House as Topaz, Rachel McAdams as Christine Palmer, Tilda Swinton as the Ancient One, and Tom Vaughan-Lawlor as Ebony Maw.


title: What If...? (TV series)

text: In July 2021, "Variety" reported that several characters, such as Tony Stark, Steve Rogers, and Carol Danvers, would be voiced by different actors than those who portrayed them in MCU films. Winderbaum attributed some of the replacements to scheduling conflicts with the original actors, and explained that the creatives did not want the series to be "defined by the actors we thought we could get". When casting replacements, they looked to prioritize the performance for this series over an actor sounding the same as the original. He felt the series' exploration of the multiverse gave a "cerebral justification" for the different actors. Dave Bautista, who portrays Drax in the films, indicated that he was not asked by Marvel to be a part of the series, despite the character's inclusion. Winderbaum expressed surprise at Bautista's claims, assuming that there was some miscommunication at some point as all MCU actors were asked through their agents or directly to participate in the series. Josh Keaton voices Skinny Steve Rogers / Hydra Stomper and Steve Rogers; Ross Marquand voices Johann Schmidt / Red Skull and Ultron; Fred Tatasciore voices Drax, Corvus Glaive, and Volstagg; Brian T. Delaney voices Peter Quill; Lake Bell voices Natasha Romanoff / Black Widow; Mick Wingert voices Tony Stark / Iron Man; Stephanie Panisello voices Betty Ross; Mike McGill voices Thaddeus Ross; Alexandra Daniels voices Carol Danvers / Captain Marvel; Hudson Thames voices Peter Parker / Spider-Man; Kiff VandenHeuvel voices Obadiah Stane; Beth Hoyt voices Pepper Potts; Ozioma Akagha voices Shuri; Josette Eales voices Frigga; David Chen voices Hogun; Max Mittelman voices Fandral; and Cynthia McWilliams voices Gamora.


title: What If...? (TV series)

text: In November 2022, Cate Blanchett was revealed to be reprising her role as Hela for the second season.


title: What If...? (TV series)

text: Stephan Franck serves as head of animation on the series, which features a cel-shaded animation style with character likenesses based on the actors from the films. Ryan Meinerding, the head of visual development at Marvel Studios, developed the animation style for the series with Andrews. They considered using different styles for each episode, or basing the look on comic art by Jack Kirby or Steve Ditko, before settling on a single style inspired by classic American illustrators such as J. C. Leyendecker, Norman Rockwell, Tom Lovell, and Mead Schaeffer. Andrews felt this resulted in a "kind of heroic, hyper-realized, super-idealized look that feels iconic" while not being "pushed or cartoony", while Meinerding felt this was a unique approach to translating cinematic superheroes into animation that took advantage of the medium's stylization without losing the realistic, "monumental and powerful" feeling of the films. Disney's "Lady and the Tramp" (1955) was also an influence due to its lack of "harsh line work" and because they felt it was "beautifully painted". Traditional 2D animation was considered, but was abandoned when Marvel could not find studios who could handle the necessary work. Instead, the animation is "2.5D", with 3D models rendered with 2D lighting to appear like flat drawings.


title: What If...? (TV series)

text: Alonso said the medium of animation allowed Marvel Studios to work with new companies around the world. Blue Spirit worked on two of the first season's episodes, with Squeeze handling animation for four episodes, Flying Bark Productions working on four, and Stellar Creative Lab working on one. Bradley said Marvel was "trying to use the color palette, the lighting, [and] the character design to tell as much story as you can" like they do in live-action films, adjusting the camera and color palettes between each episode. Production Designer Paul Lasaine and his team painted all of the backgrounds for the series, basing these on frames from the films as well as the concept art and set plans from those productions. Discussing the apparent exaggeration of action and abilities in the series, Franck said they were trying to be consistent with what is seen in the films, but "every medium has its own poetry and reads differently, and there's a level of abstraction and exaggeration that is inherent to animation". Andrews enjoyed the opportunity to mix his knowledge of animation with the MCU, believing there was "an embarrassment of riches" in the storytelling they were able to achieve. Graham Fisher and Joel Fisher edit the series, starting during the storyboard phase.


title: What If...? (TV series)

text: By October 2020, Laura Karpman was set to compose music for the series, which she called "the perfect composer playground" since she was able to reference existing MCU scores but also deviate from them. Karpman and the producers were inspired by Alan Silvestri's approach to the for how to incorporate existing music from different MCU films. She explained that Silvestri weaved his own music into other composer's themes, and generally just touched on different elements from the existing music, so her approach for the series became "touch on [existing themes], then go on". Karpman had access to the sheet music and recordings of previous MCU scores but also adapted some elements by ear. For each episode, she looked at how the story aligned with the MCU, how it deviated from the MCU, and what the story itself required musically.


title: What If...? (TV series)

text: When writing the series' main theme, Karpman knew that the opening sequence would feature images of shattered glass. She recorded the sound of shattering glass and manipulated it to create sound effects that were added to the theme. The main melody is played on a French horn, with Karpman singing in the background as a reference to 1960s science fiction scores that featured female vocalists. Additional choir is also used in the main theme, singing phrases backwards such as "what if", "Marvel", and "Stan Lee". Soundtrack albums for each episode of "What If...?", featuring Karpman's score, were released digitally by Marvel Music and Hollywood Records. The first episode's album was released on August 13, with subsequent albums releasing shortly after their corresponding episode.


title: What If...? (TV series)

text: Footage from the series' first episode was shown during the D23 2019, with footage from the series also included in "Expanding the Universe", a Marvel Studios special that debuted on Disney+ on November 12. The first trailer was released in December 2020. Based on the trailer, "io9"s James Whitbrook felt the series was "looking great". Chris Evangelista at "/Film" also thought it looked "pretty damn cool" and felt "What If...?" was a good "excuse to essentially blow up the MCU as we know it and tell completely new, weirder stories that would never get their own feature films". Writing for "Polygon", Petrana Radulovic felt the trailer showed "the full extent of [narrative] possibilities". An extended look at the first episode of the series was shown during the Women In Animation panel at the Annecy International Animation Film Festival in June 2021. Also in the month, Hyundai Motor Company partnered with Marvel Studios for a marketing campaign to promote the Hyundai Tucson along with "What If...?", "WandaVision", "The Falcon and the Winter Soldier", and "Loki". The commercials were produced by Marvel and were meant to tell an "in-world" story set within the narrative of the series. The "What If...?" commercial was released in August 2021, which saw Party Thor driving the Hyundai Tucson into a battle against Ultron's robots with Captain Carter, Star-Lord T'Challa, and Doctor Strange Supreme. Adam Bentz at "Screen Rant" felt Hyundai's "Question Everything" campaign was the perfect match for "What If...?" and its concept, and added the content of the commercial likely was not a spoiler for the series, since the ads for the other MCU series did not correlate with actual plot lines. Barney Goldberg, executive creative director of Innocean, the creative agency working with Hyundai, noted there was "an incredible amount of coordination" to get the ad released at the proper time, in order for them to be relevant and not too late, while not spoiling aspects of the series.


title: What If...? (TV series)

text: An official trailer and poster for the first season were released on July 8, 2021. Nick Romano of "Entertainment Weekly" felt they provided more insight into the various "what if" stories the series would be exploring, and said it would be "one to watch" along with MCU films that explore the multiverse like "" (2021) and "Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness". Chaim Gartenberg at "The Verge" called the trailer "the best look yet" at the series. Writing for "Screen Rant", Rachel Labonte said the trailer was a "wild ride" and felt like "almost every MCU character imaginable is glimpsed for at least a few seconds... it's clear there are a lot of exciting stories ahead". Vanessa Armstrong of "/Film" said she was not a fan of animation, but, after seeing the trailer, believed "What If...?" would "convert a lot of folks [like her] who are resistant" to the medium. Armstrong was "excited to see how these different realities play out" and noted the impressive amount of content and questions that were posed in the trailer. Three episodes of the series "" were released on August 4, exploring Peggy Carter, the Avengers Initiative, and the Ravagers using footage from their MCU film appearances.


title: What If...? (TV series)

text: In January 2021, Marvel announced their "Marvel Must Haves" program, which reveals new toys, games, books, apparel, home decor, and other merchandise related to each episode of "What If...?" following an episode's release. In July, Funko Pops, Lego sets, and Marvel Legends figures based on the series were revealed. The "Must Haves" merchandise for the episodes began on August 13, 2021.


title: What If...? (TV series)

text: "What If...?" debuted on Disney+ on August 11, 2021; the first season consists of nine episodes that were released weekly until October 6. It is part of of the MCU. A second season will also consist of nine episodes, and is scheduled to be released in early 2023. Winderbaum said it was their intention to release a new season of "What If...?" annually.


title: What If...? (TV series)

text: The review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes reports a 94% approval rating with an average rating of 7.95/10, based on 102 reviews for the first season. The site's critical consensus reads: ""What If...?" may not add much to the larger MCU narrative, but surprising takes on beloved characters and some of the best action sequences in the entire franchise make for engaging viewing." Metacritic, which uses a weighted average, assigned the first season a score of 69 out of 100 based on 16 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews".


title: What If...? (TV series)

text: Liz Shannon Miller at "Collider", reviewing the first three episodes, felt the series lived up to the promise of showing "totally fresh but familiar spins" on the MCU. Regarding the animation, though Miller felt at times it "lacks depth" and wished varying styles were used to fit each story being told, the action sequences were "beautifully executed, with an extra bit of comic book flare to heighten the reality of the show, enhancing the whole aesthetic". For Miller, while some of the returning voice actors were not able to capture "the essence of their characters" as well as others, simply having them return enhanced the series, with praise also going to the new actors voicing established characters and noting Wright was a "pitch-perfect" casting as the Watcher. She concluded that "What If...?" was "seriously an MCU superfan's dream at times, though once you get past the initial discovery of each short's "What if...", it's sometimes hard to stay invested". Giving the first three episodes 3.5 out of 5 stars, Alan Sepinwall of "Rolling Stone" said the series was "uneven in the way almost any anthology series is. It's fun simply because the level of quality control at Marvel is pretty high these days... and because some of the ideas are either inherently appealing or are used to cleverly tweak what we know from the films. But not every installment lives up to the title's seemingly limitless potential." In his review of the first three episodes, Tyler Hersko from "IndieWire" felt the series was a "paradox" since it was both "the Marvel Cinematic Universe title yet" while also "the first MCU installment in years that doesn't feel burdened by the need to meticulously fit into the franchise's canon or blatantly tease future installments". He called this "a breath of fresh air", with "What If...?" "offer[ing] the fans exactly what they want while still clinging to a few surprises", presenting plenty of in-universe references and jokes for long time fans, while still creating standalone stories that could appeal to all viewers. Hersko called the animation "an absolute pleasure to witness in motion", and gave the episodes a "B+".


title: What If...? (TV series)

text: "The Hollywood Reporter"s Angie Han believed "for a series set in the infinite vastness of a multiverse, "What If…?" is dreaming awfully small", with some "what if" concepts were not as compelling as others. She added that Wright gave each episode "a boost of gravitas", but noted the animation was awkward at times, with some scenes approaching the uncanny valley and that some of the returning actors gave "robotic" voice performances without the charisma of their live-action portrayals. She concluded, "Dare to hope for more than superficial amusement, though, and "What If…?" tends to disappoint... It's possible future episodes will do a better job of balancing big concepts with a half-hour run time, or that the season is building to some grander design. If that's the case, "What If…?" is taking its sweet time showing what it can do." Etan Anderson of "/Film" called the results of the first three episodes "mixed" with "some glaring shortcomings", such as the "clunky" animation when it was not showing action sequences, the voice acting from some of the returning stars, and the short run times which did not allow enough time for viewers to "fully engage" with these new versions of characters. Anderson added that some of the humor struggled and felt "awkwardly contrived" and believed "the creators seem to be trying too hard to keep the secrets of the series instead of being more forthcoming about the exciting twists and turns within". He concluded that this appeared to be the first Marvel Studios series that might not be "necessary viewing" and one that could be "an uphill battle" for general audiences to continue watching, though dedicated fans would find "What If...?" to be "a satisfying remix". Following the release of the first season, Adam B. Vary of "Variety" said the season had been "a fascinating experiment for Marvel Studios", with "fizzy adventures... [that] also leaned into real darkness".


title: What If...? (TV series)

text: In February 2021, the documentary series "Marvel Studios: Assembled" was announced. The special on this series, "Assembled: The Making of What If...?", goes behind the scenes of the making of the series, and was released on Disney+ on October 27, 2021.


title: What If...? (TV series)

text: In November 2021, a "Marvel Zombies" animated series was announced, with Andrews returning to direct and Zeb Wells serving as head writer, focusing on "a new generation of heroes" battling zombies. It is a continuation of the reality first introduced in the fifth episode of the series, that "look[s] at that universe with a different lens". It is scheduled to debut on Disney+ in 2024, and will consist of four episodes.


title: What If...? (TV series)

text: Winderbaum said there was potential for the variant characters in the series to appear in live-action, just as "what if" concepts from the Marvel Comics eventually made their way into the main comics continuity. Andrews and Hayley Atwell both expressed interest in a live-action film starring the latter as Captain Carter, though Atwell wanted the right creative team that could "pave the way for [Carter] to tap into the cultural consciousness of today and become a modern heroine of our times". Atwell first reprised the role in live-action in "Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness" as an alternate version of the character from Earth-838 (separate from the versions seen in "What If...?" and the main MCU) who is a member of the Illuminati. A spin-off series centered on Star-Lord T'Challa had been in development but was left in "limbo" after Boseman's death.


title: John Adams

text: John Adams (October 30, 1735 – July 4, 1826) was an American statesman, attorney, diplomat, writer, and Founding Father who served as the second president of the United States from 1797 to 1801. Before his presidency, he was a leader of the American Revolution that achieved independence from Great Britain, and during the war served as a diplomat in Europe. He was twice elected vice president, serving from 1789 to 1797 in a prestigious role with little power. Adams was a dedicated diarist and regularly corresponded with many important contemporaries, including his wife and adviser Abigail Adams as well as his friend and rival Thomas Jefferson.


title: John Adams

text: A lawyer and political activist prior to the Revolution, Adams was devoted to the right to counsel and presumption of innocence. He defied anti-British sentiment and successfully defended British soldiers against murder charges arising from the Boston Massacre. Adams was a Massachusetts delegate to the Continental Congress and became a leader of the revolution. He assisted Jefferson in drafting the Declaration of Independence in 1776. As a diplomat in Europe, he helped negotiate a peace treaty with Great Britain and secured vital governmental loans. Adams was the primary author of the Massachusetts Constitution in 1780, which influenced the United States constitution, as did his essay "Thoughts on Government".


title: John Adams

text: Adams was elected to two terms as vice president under President George Washington and was elected as the United States' second president in 1796. He was the only president elected under the banner of the Federalist Party. During his single term, Adams encountered fierce criticism from the Jeffersonian Republicans and from some in his own Federalist Party, led by his rival Alexander Hamilton. Adams signed the controversial Alien and Sedition Acts, and built up the Army and Navy in the undeclared naval war (called the "Quasi-War") with France. During his term, he became the first president to reside in the executive mansion now known as the White House.


title: John Adams

text: In his bid for reelection, opposition from Federalists and accusations of despotism from Jeffersonians led to Adams losing to his vice president and former friend Jefferson, and he retired to Massachusetts. He eventually resumed his friendship with Jefferson by initiating a correspondence that lasted fourteen years. He and his wife generated the Adams political family, a line of politicians, diplomats, and historians. It includes their son John Quincy Adams, the sixth president. John Adams died on July 4, 1826 – the fiftieth anniversary of the adoption of the Declaration of Independence – hours after Jefferson's death. Adams and his son are the only presidents of the first twelve who never owned slaves. Surveys of historians and scholars have favorably ranked his administration.


title: John Adams

text: John Adams was born on October 30, 1735 (October 19, 1735, Old Style, Julian calendar), to John Adams Sr. and Susanna Boylston. He had two younger brothers: Peter (1738–1823) and Elihu (1741–1775). Adams was born on the family farm in Braintree, Massachusetts. His mother was from a leading medical family of present-day Brookline, Massachusetts. His father was a deacon in the Congregational Church, a farmer, a cordwainer, and a lieutenant in the militia. Adams often praised his father and recalled their close relationship. Adams's great-great-grandfather Henry Adams immigrated to Massachusetts from Braintree, Essex, England, around 1638.


title: John Adams

text: Adams' formal education began at age six at a dame school for boys and girls, conducted at a teacher's home, and was centered upon "The New England Primer". He then attended Braintree Latin School under Joseph Cleverly, where studies included Latin, rhetoric, logic, and arithmetic. Adams's early education included incidents of truancy, a dislike for his master, and a desire to become a farmer. All discussion on the matter ended with his father's command that he remain in school: "You shall comply with my desires." Deacon Adams hired a new schoolmaster named Joseph Marsh, and his son responded positively. Adams later noted that "As a child I enjoyed perhaps the greatest of blessings that can be bestowed upon men – that of a mother who was anxious and capable to form the characters of her children."


title: John Adams

text: At age sixteen, Adams entered Harvard College in 1751, studying under Joseph Mayhew. As an adult, Adams was a keen scholar, studying the works of ancient writers such as Thucydides, Plato, Cicero, and Tacitus in their original languages. Though his father expected him to be a minister, after his 1755 graduation with an A.B. degree, he taught school temporarily in Worcester, while pondering his permanent vocation. In the next four years, he began to seek prestige, craving "Honour or Reputation" and "more from [his] fellows", and was determined to be "a great Man". He decided to become a lawyer to further those ends, writing his father that he found among lawyers "noble and gallant achievements" but, among the clergy, the "pretended sanctity of some absolute dunces". He had reservations about his self-described "trumpery" and failure to share the "happiness of [his] fellow men".


title: John Adams

text: When the French and Indian War began in 1754, Adams, aged nineteen, felt guilty he was the first in his family not to be a militia officer. He did not go to war, but said "I longed more ardently to be a Soldier than I ever did to be a Lawyer".


title: John Adams

text: In 1756, Adams began reading law under James Putnam, a leading lawyer in Worcester. In 1758, he earned an A.M. from Harvard, and in 1759 was admitted to the bar. He developed an early habit of writing about events and impressions of men in his diary; this included James Otis Jr.'s 1761 legal argument challenging the legality of British writs of assistance, allowing the British to search a home without notice or reason. Otis's argument inspired Adams to the cause of the American colonies.


title: John Adams

text: A group of Boston businessmen had been appalled at the writs of assistance that the crown had started issuing to clamp down on colonial smuggling. Writs of assistance were not only search warrants without any limits, they also required local sheriffs, and even local citizens, to assist in breaking into colonists' houses or lend whatever assistance customs officials desired. The outraged businessmen engaged lawyer James Otis Jr. to challenge writs of assistance in court. Otis gave the speech of his life, making references to the Magna Carta, classical allusions, natural law, and the colonists' "rights as Englishmen".


title: John Adams

text: The court ruled against the merchants. However, the case lit the fire that became the American Revolution. Otis's arguments were published in the colonies, and stirred widespread support for colonial rights. As a young lawyer, John Adams was observing the case in the packed courtroom, and was moved by Otis's performance and legal arguments. Adams later said that "Then and there the child Independence was born."


title: John Adams

text: In 1763, Adams explored various aspects of political theory in seven essays written for Boston newspapers. He offered them anonymously, under the pen name "Humphrey Ploughjogger", and in them ridiculed the selfish thirst for power he perceived among the Massachusetts colonial elite. Adams was initially less well known than his older cousin Samuel Adams, but his influence emerged from his work as a constitutional lawyer, his analysis of history, and his dedication to republicanism. Adams often found his own irascible nature a constraint in his political career.


title: John Adams

text: In the late 1750s, Adams fell in love with Hannah Quincy; while they were alone, he was poised to propose but was interrupted by friends, and the moment was lost. In 1759, he met 15-year-old Abigail Smith, his third cousin, through his friend Richard Cranch, who was courting Abigail's older sister. Adams initially was not impressed with Abigail and her two sisters, writing that they were not "fond, nor frank, nor candid". In time, he grew close to Abigail and they were married on October 25, 1764, despite the opposition of Abigail's haughty mother. They shared a love of books and kindred personalities that proved honest in their praise and criticism of each other. After his father's death in 1761, Adams had inherited a farm and a house where they lived until 1783. John and Abigail had six children: Abigail "Nabby" in 1765, future president John Quincy Adams in 1767, Susanna in 1768, Charles in 1770, Thomas in 1772, and Elizabeth in 1777. Susanna died when she was one year old, while Elizabeth was stillborn. All three of his sons became lawyers. Charles and Thomas were unsuccessful, became alcoholics, and died before old age, while John Quincy excelled and launched a career in politics. Adams's writings are devoid of his feelings about the sons' fates.


title: John Adams

text: Adams rose to prominence leading widespread opposition to the Stamp Act of 1765. The Act was imposed by the British Parliament without consulting the American legislatures. It required payment of a direct tax by the colonies for stamped documents, and was designed to pay for the costs of Britain's war with France. Power of enforcement was given to British vice admiralty courts, rather than common law courts. These Admiralty courts acted without juries and were greatly disliked. The Act was despised for both its monetary cost and implementation without colonial consent, and encountered violent resistance, preventing its enforcement. Adams authored the "Braintree Instructions" in 1765, in the form of a letter sent to the representatives of Braintree in the Massachusetts legislature. In it, he explained that the Act should be opposed since it denied two fundamental rights guaranteed to all Englishmen (and which all free men deserved): rights to be taxed only by consent and to be tried by a jury of one's peers. The instructions were a succinct and forthright defense of colonial rights and liberties, and served as a model for other towns' instructions.


title: John Adams

text: Adams also reprised his pen name "Humphrey Ploughjogger" in opposition to the Stamp Act in August of that year. Included were four articles to the "Boston Gazette". The articles were republished in "The London Chronicle" in 1768 as "True Sentiments of America", also known as "A Dissertation on the Canon and Feudal Law". He also spoke in December before the governor and council, pronouncing the Stamp Act invalid in the absence of Massachusetts representation at Parliament. He noted that many protests were sparked by a popular sermon of Boston minister Jonathan Mayhew, invoking Romans 13 to justify insurrection. While Adams took a strong stand against the Act in writing, he rebuffed attempts by Samuel Adams, a leader in the popular protest movements, to involve him in mob actions and public demonstrations. In 1766, a town meeting of Braintree elected Adams as a selectman.


title: John Adams

text: With the repeal of the Stamp Act in early 1766, tensions with Britain temporarily eased. Putting politics aside, Adams moved his family to Boston in April 1768 to focus on his law practice. The family rented a clapboard house on Brattle Street that was known locally as the "White House". He, Abigail, and the children lived there for a year, then moved to Cold Lane; still, later, they moved again to a larger house in Brattle Square in the center of the city. In 1768, Adams successfully defended the merchant John Hancock, who was accused of violating British acts of trade in the Liberty Affair. With the death of Jeremiah Gridley and the mental collapse of Otis, Adams became Boston's most prominent lawyer.


title: John Adams

text: Britain's passage of the Townshend Acts in 1767 revived tensions, and an increase in mob violence led the British to dispatch more troops to the colonies. On March 5, 1770, when a lone British sentry was accosted by a mob of men and boys, eight of his fellow soldiers reinforced him, and the crowd around them grew to several hundred. The soldiers were struck with snowballs, ice, and stones, and in the chaos the soldiers opened fire, killing five civilians, bringing about the infamous Boston Massacre. The accused soldiers were arrested on charges of murder. When no other attorneys would come to their defense, Adams was impelled to do so despite the risk to his reputation – he believed no person should be denied the right to counsel and a fair trial. The trials were delayed so that passions could cool.


title: John Adams

text: The week-long trial of the commander, Captain Thomas Preston, began on October 24 and ended in his acquittal, because it was impossible to prove that he had ordered his soldiers to fire. The remaining soldiers were tried in December when Adams made his legendary argument regarding jury decisions: "Facts are stubborn things; and whatever may be our wishes, our inclinations, or the dictates of our passion, they cannot alter the state of facts and evidence." He added, "It is more important that innocence be protected than it is that guilt be punished, for guilt and crimes are so frequent in this world that they cannot all be punished. But if innocence itself is brought to the bar and condemned, perhaps to die, then the citizen will say, 'whether I do good or whether I do evil is immaterial, for innocence itself is no protection,' and if such an idea as that were to take hold in the mind of the citizen that would be the end of security whatsoever." Adams won an acquittal for six of the soldiers. Two, who had fired directly into the crowd, were convicted of manslaughter. Adams was paid a small sum by his clients.


title: John Adams

text: According to biographer John E. Ferling, during jury selection Adams "expertly exercised his right to challenge individual jurors and contrived what amounted to a packed jury. Not only were several jurors closely tied through business arrangements to the British army, but five ultimately became Loyalist exiles." While Adams's defence was helped by a weak prosecution, he also "performed brilliantly." Ferling surmises that Adams was encouraged to take the case in exchange for political office; one of Boston's seats opened three months later in the Massachusetts legislature, and Adams was the town's first choice to fill the vacancy.


title: John Adams

text: The prosperity of his law practice increased from this exposure, as did the demands on his time. In 1771, Adams moved his family to Braintree but kept his office in Boston. He noted on the day of the family's move, "Now my family is away, I feel no Inclination at all, no Temptation, to be any where but at my Office. I am in it by 6 in the Morning – I am in it at 9 at night. ... In the Evening, I can be alone at my Office, and no where else." After some time in the capital, he became disenchanted with the rural and "vulgar" Braintree as a home for his family – in August 1772, he moved them back to Boston. He purchased a large brick house on Queen Street, not far from his office. In 1774, Adams and Abigail returned the family to the farm due to the increasingly unstable situation in Boston, and Braintree remained their permanent Massachusetts home.


title: John Adams

text: Adams, who had been among the more conservative of the Founders, persistently held that while British actions against the colonies had been wrong and misguided, open insurrection was unwarranted and peaceful petition with the ultimate view of remaining part of Great Britain was a better alternative. His ideas began to change around 1772, as the British Crown assumed payment of the salaries of Governor Thomas Hutchinson and his judges instead of the Massachusetts legislature. Adams wrote in the "Gazette" that these measures would destroy judicial independence and place the colonial government in closer subjugation to the Crown. After discontent among members of the legislature, Hutchinson delivered a speech warning that Parliament's powers over the colonies were absolute and that any resistance was illegal. Subsequently, John Adams, Samuel, and Joseph Hawley drafted a resolution adopted by the House of Representatives threatening independence as an alternative to tyranny. The resolution argued that the colonists had never been under the sovereignty of Parliament. Their original charter, as well as their allegiance, was exclusive to the King.


title: John Adams

text: The Boston Tea Party, a historic demonstration against the British East India Company's tea monopoly over American merchants, took place on December 16, 1773. The British schooner "Dartmouth", loaded with tea to be traded subject to the new Tea Act, had previously dropped anchor in Boston harbor. By 9:00 PM, the work of the protesters was done – they had demolished 342 chests of tea worth about ten thousand pounds. The "Dartmouth" owners briefly retained Adams as legal counsel regarding their liability for the destroyed shipment. Adams applauded the destruction of the tea, calling it the "grandest Event" in the history of the colonial protest movement, and writing in his diary that the dutied tea's destruction was an "absolutely and indispensably" necessary action.


title: John Adams

text: In 1774, at the instigation of John's cousin Samuel Adams, the First Continental Congress was convened in response to the Intolerable Acts, a series of deeply unpopular measures intended to punish Massachusetts, centralize authority in Britain, and prevent rebellion in other colonies. Four delegates were chosen by the Massachusetts legislature, including John Adams, who agreed to attend, despite an emotional plea from his friend, Attorney General Jonathan Sewall, not to.


title: John Adams

text: Shortly after he arrived in Philadelphia, Adams was placed on the 23-member Grand Committee tasked with drafting a letter of grievances to King George III. The members of the committee soon split into conservative and radical factions. Although the Massachusetts delegation was largely passive, Adams criticized conservatives such as Joseph Galloway, James Duane, and Peter Oliver who advocated a conciliatory policy towards the British or felt that the colonies had a duty to remain loyal to Britain, although his views at the time did align with those of conservative John Dickinson. Adams sought the repeal of objectionable policies, but at this early stage he continued to see benefits in maintaining the ties with Britain. He renewed his push for the right to a jury trial. He complained of what he considered the pretentiousness of the other delegates, writing to Abigail, "I believe if it was moved and seconded that We should come to a Resolution that Three and two make five We should be entertained with Logick and Rhetorick, Law, History, Politicks and Mathematicks, concerning the Subject for two whole Days, and then We should pass the Resolution unanimously in the Affirmative." Adams ultimately helped engineer a compromise between the conservatives and the radicals. The Congress disbanded in October after sending the final petition to the King and showing its displeasure with the Intolerable Acts by endorsing the Suffolk Resolves.


title: John Adams

text: Adams's absence from home was hard on Abigail, who was left alone to care for the family. She still encouraged her husband in his task, writing: "You cannot be, I know, nor do I wish to see you an inactive Spectator, but if the Sword be drawn I bid adieu to all domestick felicity, and look forward to that Country where there is neither wars nor rumors of War in a firm belief that thro the mercy of its King we shall both rejoice there together."


title: John Adams

text: News of the opening hostilities with the British at the Battles of Lexington and Concord made Adams hope that independence would soon become a reality. Three days after the battle, he rode into a militia camp and, while reflecting positively on the high spirits of the men, was distressed by their poor condition and lack of discipline. A month later, Adams returned to Philadelphia for the Second Continental Congress as the leader of the Massachusetts delegation. He moved cautiously at first, noting that the Congress was divided between Loyalists, those favoring independence, and those hesitant to take any position. He became convinced that Congress was moving in the proper direction – away from Great Britain. Publicly, Adams supported "reconciliation if practicable," but privately agreed with Benjamin Franklin's confidential observation that independence was inevitable.


title: John Adams

text: In June 1775, with a view of promoting union among the colonies against Great Britain, he nominated George Washington of Virginia as commander-in-chief of the army then assembled around Boston. He praised Washington's "skill and experience" as well as his "excellent universal character." Adams opposed various attempts, including the Olive Branch Petition, aimed at trying to find peace between the colonies and Great Britain. Invoking the already-long list of British actions against the colonies, he wrote, "In my opinion Powder and Artillery are the most efficacious, Sure, and infallibly conciliatory Measures We can adopt." After his failure to prevent the petition from being enacted, he wrote a private letter derisively referring to Dickinson as a "piddling genius." The letter was intercepted and published in Loyalist newspapers. The well-respected Dickinson refused to greet Adams and he was for a time largely ostracized. Ferling writes, "By the fall of 1775 no one in Congress labored more ardently than Adams to hasten the day when America would be separate from Great Britain." In October 1775, Adams was appointed the chief judge of the Massachusetts Superior Court, but he never served, and resigned in February 1777. In response to queries from other delegates, Adams wrote the 1776 pamphlet "Thoughts on Government", which laid out an influential framework for republican constitutions.


title: John Adams

text: Throughout the first half of 1776, Adams grew increasingly impatient with what he perceived to be the slow pace of declaring independence. He kept busy on the floor of the Congress, helping push through a plan to outfit armed ships to launch raids on enemy vessels. Later in the year, he drafted the first set of regulations to govern the provisional navy. Adams drafted the preamble to the Lee Resolution of colleague Richard Henry Lee. He developed a rapport with delegate Thomas Jefferson of Virginia, who had been slower to support independence but by early 1776 agreed that it was necessary. On June 7, 1776, Adams seconded the Lee Resolution, which stated that the colonies were "free and independent states."


title: John Adams

text: Prior to independence being declared, Adams organized and selected a Committee of Five charged with drafting a Declaration of Independence. He chose himself, Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, Robert R. Livingston and Roger Sherman. Jefferson thought Adams should write the document, but Adams persuaded the committee to choose Jefferson. Many years later, Adams recorded his exchange with Jefferson: Jefferson asked, "Why will you not? You ought to do it." To which Adams responded, "I will not – reasons enough." Jefferson replied, "What can be your reasons?" and Adams responded, "Reason first, you are a Virginian, and a Virginian ought to appear at the head of this business. Reason second, I am obnoxious, suspected, and unpopular. You are very much otherwise. Reason third, you can write ten times better than I can." "Well," said Jefferson, "if you are decided, I will do as well as I can." The Committee left no minutes, and the drafting process itself remains uncertain. Accounts written many years later by Jefferson and Adams, although frequently cited, are often contradictory. Although the first draft was written primarily by Jefferson, Adams assumed a major role in its completion. On July 1, the resolution was debated in Congress. It was expected to pass, but opponents such as Dickinson made a strong effort to oppose it anyhow. Jefferson, a poor debater, remained silent while Adams argued for its adoption. Many years later, Jefferson hailed Adams as "the pillar of [the Declaration's] support on the floor of Congress, [its] ablest advocate and defender against the multifarious assaults it encountered." After editing the document further, Congress approved it on July 2. Twelve colonies voted in the affirmative, while New York abstained. Dickinson was absent. On July 3, Adams wrote to Abigail that "yesterday was decided the greatest question which was ever debated in America, and a greater perhaps never was nor will be decided among men." He predicted that "[t]he second day of July, 1776, will be the most memorable epoch in the history of America," and would be commemorated annually with great festivities.


title: John Adams

text: During the congress, Adams sat on ninety committees, chairing twenty-five, an unmatched workload among the congressmen. As Benjamin Rush reported, he was acknowledged "to be the first man in the House." In June 1776, Adams became head of the Board of War and Ordnance, charged with keeping an accurate record of the officers in the army and their ranks, the disposition of troops throughout the colonies, and ammunition. He was referred to as a "one man war department," working up to eighteen-hour days and mastering the details of raising, equipping and fielding an army under civilian control. As chairman of the Board, Adams functioned as a "de facto" Secretary of War. He kept extensive correspondences with a wide range of Continental Army officers concerning supplies, munitions, and tactics. Adams emphasized to them the role of discipline in keeping an army orderly. He also authored the "Plan of Treaties," laying out the Congress's requirements for a treaty with France. He was worn out by the rigor of his duties and longed to return home. His finances were unsteady, and the money that he received as a delegate failed even to cover his own necessary expenses. However, the crisis caused by the defeat of the American soldiers kept him at his post.


title: John Adams

text: After defeating the Continental Army at the Battle of Long Island on August 27, 1776, British Admiral Richard Howe determined that a strategic advantage was at hand, and requested that Congress send representatives to negotiate peace. A delegation consisting of Adams, Franklin, and Edward Rutledge met with Howe at the Staten Island Peace Conference on September 11. Howe's authority was premised on the states' submission, so the parties found no common ground. When Lord Howe stated he could view the American delegates only as British subjects, Adams replied, "Your lordship may consider me in what light you please, ... except that of a British subject." Adams learned many years later that his name was on a list of people specifically excluded from Howe's pardon-granting authority. Adams was unimpressed with Howe and predicted American success. He was able to return home to Braintree in October before leaving in January 1777 to resume his duties in Congress.


title: John Adams

text: Adams advocated in Congress that independence was necessary to establish trade, and conversely, trade was essential for the attainment of independence; he specifically urged negotiation of a commercial treaty with France. He was then appointed, along with Franklin, Dickinson, Benjamin Harrison of Virginia and Robert Morris of Pennsylvania, "to prepare a plan of treaties to be proposed to foreign powers." While Jefferson was laboring over the Declaration of Independence, Adams worked on the Model Treaty. The Model Treaty authorized a commercial agreement with France but contained no provisions for formal recognition or military assistance. There were provisions for what constituted French territory. The treaty adhered to the provision that "free ships make free goods," allowing neutral nations to trade reciprocally while exempting an agreed-upon list of contraband. By late 1777, America's finances were in tatters, and that September a British army had defeated General Washington and captured Philadelphia. More Americans came to determine that mere commercial ties between the U.S. and France would not be enough, and that military assistance would be needed to end the war. The defeat of the British at Saratoga was expected to help induce France to agree to an alliance.