title: Conway's Game of Life

text: Some variations on the Game of Life modify the geometry of the universe as well as the rule. The above variations can be thought of as a two-dimensional square, because the world is two-dimensional and laid out in a square grid. One-dimensional square variations, known as elementary cellular automata, and three-dimensional square variations have been developed, as have two-dimensional hexagonal and triangular variations. A variant using aperiodic tiling grids has also been made.


title: Conway's Game of Life

text: Conway's rules may also be generalized such that instead of two states, "live" and "dead", there are three or more. State transitions are then determined either by a weighting system or by a table specifying separate transition rules for each state; for example, Mirek's Cellebration's multi-coloured Rules Table and Weighted Life rule families each include sample rules equivalent to the Game of Life.


title: Conway's Game of Life

text: Patterns relating to fractals and fractal systems may also be observed in certain variations. For example, the automaton B1/S12 generates four very close approximations to the Sierpinski triangle when applied to a single live cell. The Sierpinski triangle can also be observed in the Game of Life by examining the long-term growth of an infinitely long single-cell-thick line of live cells, as well as in Highlife, Seeds (B2/S), and Wolfram's Rule 90.


title: Conway's Game of Life

text: Immigration is a variation that is very similar to the Game of Life, except that there are two "on" states, often expressed as two different colours. Whenever a new cell is born, it takes on the on state that is the majority in the three cells that gave it birth. This feature can be used to examine interactions between spaceships and other objects within the game. Another similar variation, called QuadLife, involves four different on states. When a new cell is born from three different on neighbours, it takes the fourth value, and otherwise, like Immigration, it takes the majority value. Except for the variation among on cells, both of these variations act identically to the Game of Life.


title: Conway's Game of Life

text: Various musical composition techniques use the Game of Life, especially in MIDI sequencing. A variety of programs exist for creating sound from patterns generated in the Game of Life.


title: Conway's Game of Life

text: Computers have been used to follow and simulate the Game of Life since it was first publicized. When John Conway was first investigating how various starting configurations developed, he tracked them by hand using a go board with its black and white stones. This was tedious and prone to errors. The first interactive Game of Life program was written in an early version of ALGOL 68C for the PDP-7 by M. J. T. Guy and S. R. Bourne. The results were published in the October 1970 issue of "Scientific American", along with the statement: "Without its help, some discoveries about the game would have been difficult to make."


title: Conway's Game of Life

text: A color version of the Game of Life was written by Ed Hall in 1976 for Cromemco microcomputers, and a display from that program filled the cover of the June 1976 issue of Byte. The advent of microcomputer-based color graphics from Cromemco has been credited with a revival of interest in the game.


title: Conway's Game of Life

text: Two early implementations of the Game of Life on home computers were by Malcolm Banthorpe written in BBC BASIC. The first was in the January 1984 issue of "Acorn User" magazine, and Banthorpe followed this with a three-dimensional version in the May 1984 issue. Susan Stepney, Professor of Computer Science at the University of York, followed this up in 1988 with Life on the Line, a program that generated one-dimensional cellular automata.


title: Conway's Game of Life

text: There are now thousands of Game of Life programs online, so a full list will not be provided here. The following is a small selection of programs with some special claim to notability, such as popularity or unusual features. Most of these programs incorporate a graphical user interface for pattern editing and simulation, the capability for simulating multiple rules including the Game of Life, and a large library of interesting patterns in the Game of Life and other cellular automaton rules.


title: Conway's Game of Life

text: Google implemented an easter egg of the Game of Life in 2012. Users who search for the term are shown an implementation of the game in the search results page.


title: Phineas Gage

text: Phineas P. Gage (18231860) was an American railroad construction foreman known for his improbable survival of an accident in which a large iron rod was driven completely through his head, destroying much of his brain's left frontal lobe, and for that injury's reported effects on his personality and behavior over the remaining 12 years of his lifeeffects sufficiently profound that friends saw him (for a time at least) as "no longer Gage".


title: Phineas Gage

text: Long known as the "American Crowbar Case"once termed "the case which more than all others is to excite our wonder, impair the value of prognosis, and even to subvert our doctrines"Phineas Gage influenced 19th-century discussion about the mind and brain, debate on cerebral, and was perhaps the first case to suggest the brain's role in , and that damage to specific parts of the brain might induce specific mental changes.


title: Phineas Gage

text: Gage is a fixture in the curricula of neurology, psychology, and neuroscience, one of "the great medical curiosities of all time" and "a living part of the medical folklore" frequently mentioned in books and scientific papers; he even has a minor place in popular culture. Despite this celebrity, the body of established fact about Gage and what he was like (whether before or after his injury) is small, which has allowed "the fitting of almost any theory [desired] to the small number of facts we have"Gage acting as a "Rorschach inkblot" in which proponents of various conflicting theories of the brain all saw support for their views. Historically, published accounts of Gage (including scientific ones) have almost always severely exaggerated and distorted his behavioral changes, frequently contradicting the known facts.


title: Phineas Gage

text: A report of Gage's physical and mental condition shortly before his death implies that his most serious mental changes were temporary, so that in later life he was far more functional, and socially far better adapted, than in the years immediately following his accident. A social recovery hypothesis suggests that his work as a stagecoach driver in Chile fostered this recovery by providing daily structure that allowed him to regain lost social and personal skills.


title: Phineas Gage

text: Gage was the first of five children born to Jesse Eaton Gage and Hannah Trussell (Swetland) Gage of Grafton County, New Hampshire. Little is known about his upbringing and education beyond that he was literate.


title: Phineas Gage

text: Physician John Martyn Harlow, who knew Gage before his accident, described him as "a perfectly healthy, strong and active young man, twenty-five years of age, nervo-bilious temperament, five feet six inches [] in height, average weight one hundred and fifty pounds [], possessing an iron will as well as an iron frame; muscular system unusually well developedhaving had scarcely a day's illness from his childhood to the date of [his] injury". (In the pseudoscience of phrenology, which was then just ending its vogue, "nervo-bilious" denoted an unusual combination of "excitable and active mental powers" with "energy and strength [of] mind and body [making] possible the endurance of great mental and physical labor".)


title: Phineas Gage

text: Gage may have first worked with explosives on farms as a youth, or in nearby mines and quarries. In July 1848 he was employed on construction of the Hudson River Railroad near Cortlandt Town, New York, and by September he was a blasting foreman (possibly an independent contractor) on railway construction projects. His employers' "most efficient and capable foreman ... a shrewd, smart business man, very energetic and persistent in executing all his plans of operation", he had even commissioned a custom-made tamping irona large iron rodfor use in setting explosive charges.


title: Phineas Gage

text: On September 13, 1848, Gage was for the south of the village of . Setting a blast entailed boring a hole deep into an of rock; adding and a fuse; then using the tamping iron to pack ("tamp") sand, clay, or other inert material into the hole above the powder in order to contain the blast's energy and direct it into surrounding rock.


title: Phineas Gage

text: Looking over his right shoulder, and bringing his head into line with the blast hole and tamping iron, Gage opened his mouth to speak; in that same instant the tamping iron sparked against the rock and (possibly because the sand had been omitted) the powder exploded. Rocketed from the hole, the tamping iron in diameter, long, and weighing entered the left side of Gage's face in an upward direction, just forward of the angle of the lower jaw. Continuing upward outside the upper jaw and possibly fracturing the cheekbone, it passed behind the left eye, through the left side of the brain, then completely out the top of the skull through the frontal bone.


title: Phineas Gage

text: Despite 19th-century references to Gage as the "American Crowbar Case", his tamping iron did not have the bend or claw with the term "crowbar;" rather, it was simply a pointed cylinder something like a javelin, round and fairly smooth:


title: Phineas Gage

text: Gage was thrown onto his back and gave some brief convulsions of the arms and legs, but spoke within a few minutes, walked with little assistance, and sat upright in an oxcart for the ride to his lodgings in town.


title: Phineas Gage

text: About 30 minutes after the accident, physician Edward H. Williams found Gage sitting in a chair outside the hotel and was greeted with "one of the great understatements of medical history":


title: Phineas Gage

text: With Williams' assistance Harlow shaved the scalp around the region of the tamping iron's exit, then removed coagulated blood, small bone fragments, and "an ounce or more" of protruding brain. After probing for foreign bodies and replacing two large detached pieces of bone, Harlow closed the wound with adhesive straps, leaving it partially open for drainage; the entrance wound in the cheek was bandaged only loosely, for the same reason. A wet compress was applied, then a nightcap, then further bandaging to secure these dressings. Harlow also dressed Gage's hands and forearms (which along with his face had been deeply burned) and ordered that Gage's head be kept elevated.


title: Phineas Gage

text: Late that evening Harlow noted: "Mind clear. Constant agitation of his legs, being alternately retracted and extended... Says he 'does not care to see his friends, as he shall be at work in a few days.


title: Phineas Gage

text: Despite his own optimism, Gage's convalescence was long, difficult, and uneven. Though recognizing his mother and unclesummoned from Lebanon, New Hampshire, 30 miles (50km) away on the morning after the accident, on the second day, he "lost control of his mind, and became decidedly delirious". By the fourth day, he was again "rational ... knows his friends", and after a week's further improvement Harlow entertained, for the first time, the thought "that it was "possible" for Gage to recover ... This improvement, however, was of short duration."


title: Phineas Gage

text: Beginning 12 days after the accident, Gage was semi-comatose, "seldom speaking unless spoken to, and then answering only in monosyllables", and on the 13th day Harlow noted, "Failing strength ... coma deepened; the globe of the left eye became more protuberant, with ["fungus"deteriorated, infected tissue] pushing out rapidly from the internal canthus [as well as] from the wounded brain, and coming out at the top of the head." By the 14th day, "The exhalations from the mouth and head [are] horribly fetid. Comatose, but will answer in monosyllables if aroused. Will not take nourishment unless strongly urged. The friends and attendants are in hourly expectancy of his death, and have his coffin and clothes in readiness."


title: Phineas Gage

text: Galvanized to action, Harlow "cut off the fungi which were sprouting out from the top of the brain and filling the opening, and made free application of caustic [i.e. crystalline silver nitrate] to them. With a scalpel I laid open the and immediately there were discharged eight ounces [250 ml] of ill-conditioned pus, with blood, and excessively fetid." ("Gage was lucky to encounter Dr. Harlow when he did", writes Barker. "Few doctors in 1848 would have had the experience with cerebral abscess with which Harlow left and which probably saved Gage's life." "See § Factors favoring Gage's survival, below.")


title: Phineas Gage

text: On the 24th day, Gage "succeeded in raising himself up, and took one step to his chair". One month later, he was walking "up and down stairs, and about the house, into the piazza", and while Harlow was absent for a week Gage was "in the street every day except Sunday", his desire to return to his family in New Hampshire being "uncontrollable by his friends ... he went without an overcoat and with thin boots; got wet feet and a chill". He soon developed a fever, but by mid-November was "feeling better in every respect [and] walking about the house again". Harlow's prognosis at this point: Gage "appears to be in a way of recovering, if he can be controlled".


title: Phineas Gage

text: By November 25 (10 weeks after his injury), Gage was strong enough to return to his parents' home in Lebanon, New Hampshire, traveling there in a "close carriage" (an enclosed conveyance of the kind used for transporting the insane). Though "quite feeble and thin ... weak and childish" on arriving, by late December he was "riding out, improving both mentally and physically", and by February 1849 he was "able to do a little work about the horses and barn, feeding the cattle etc. [and] as the time for ploughing came [i.e. about May or June] he was able to do half a day's work after that and bore it well". In August his mother told an inquiring physician that his memory seemed somewhat impaired, though slightly enough that a stranger would not notice.


title: Phineas Gage

text: In April 1849, Gage returned to Cavendish and visited Harlow, who noted at that time loss of vision, and ptosis, of the left eye, a large scar on the forehead (from Harlow's draining of the abscess) and


title: Phineas Gage

text: Though a year later some weakness remained, Harlow wrote that "physically, the recovery was quite complete during the four years immediately succeeding the injury".


title: Phineas Gage

text: the Professor of Surgery at Harvard Medical School, brought Gage to Boston for several weeks and, after satisfying himself that the tamping iron had actually passed through Gage's head, presented him to a meeting of the Boston Society for Medical Improvement and (possibly) to the medical school class.


title: Phineas Gage

text: Unable to reclaim his railroad job Gage was for a time "a kind of living museum exhibit" at Barnum's American Museum in New York City. (This was not the later Barnum's circus; there is no evidence Gage ever exhibited with a troupe or circus, or on a fairground.) Advertisements have also been found for public appearances by Gagewhich he may have arranged and promoted himselfin New Hampshire and Vermont, supporting Harlow's statement that Gage made public appearances in "most of the larger New England towns". (Years later Bigelow wrote that Gage had been "a shrewd and intelligent man and quite disposed to do anything of that sort to turn an honest penny", but gave up such efforts because "[that] sort of thing has not much interest for the general public".)


title: Phineas Gage

text: For about 18 months, he worked for the owner of a stable and coach service in Hanover, New Hampshire.


title: Phineas Gage

text: In August 1852, Gage was invited to Chile to work as a long-distance stagecoach driver there, "caring for horses, and often driving a coach heavily laden and drawn by six horses" on the ValparaísoSantiago route. After his health began to fail in mid-1859, he left Chile for San Francisco, arriving (in his mother's words) "in a feeble condition, having failed very much since he left New Hampshire ... Had many ill turns while in Valparaiso, especially during the last year, and suffered much from hardship and exposure." In San Francisco he recovered under the care of his mother and sister, who had relocated there from New Hampshire around the time he went to Chile. Then, "anxious to work", he found employment with a farmer in Santa Clara.


title: Phineas Gage

text: In February 1860, Gage began to have epileptic seizures. He lost his job, and (wrote Harlow) as the seizures increased in frequency and severity he "continued to work in various places [though he] could not do much".


title: Phineas Gage

text: On May 18, 1860, Gage "left Santa Clara and went home to his mother. At 5 o'clock, A.M., on the 20th, he had a severe . The family physician was called in, and bled him. The were repeated frequently during the day and night," and he died in "status", in or near San Francisco,


title: Phineas Gage

text: About a year after the accident, Gage had given his tamping iron to Harvard Medical School's Warren Anatomical Museum, but he later reclaimed it and made what he called "my iron bar" his "constant companion during the remainder of his life";


title: Phineas Gage

text: now it too was delivered by Gage's family to Harlow. (Though some accounts assert that Gage's iron had been buried with him, there is no evidence for this.) After studying them for a triumphal 1868 retrospective paper on Gage Harlow redeposited the ironthis time with the skullin the Warren Museum, where they remain on display today.


title: Phineas Gage

text: The tamping iron bears the following inscription, commissioned by Bigelow in conjunction with the iron's original deposit in the Museum (though the date given for the accident is one day off):


title: Phineas Gage

text: The date "Jan 6 1850" falls within the period during which Gage was in Boston under Bigelow's observation.


title: Phineas Gage

text: In 1940 Gage's headless remains were moved to Cypress Lawn Memorial Park as part of a mandated relocation of San Francisco's cemeteries to outside city limits .


title: Phineas Gage

text: Gage may have been the first case to suggest the brain's role in determining personality and that damage to specific parts of the brain might induce specific personality changes, but the nature, extent, and duration of these changes have been difficult to establish. Only a handful of sources give direct information on what Gage was like (either before or after the accident), the mental changes published after his death were much more dramatic than anything reported while he was alive, and few sources are explicit about the periods of Gage's life to which their various descriptions of him (which vary widely in their implied level of functional impairment) are meant to apply.


title: Phineas Gage

text: Harlow ("virtually our only source of information" on Gage, according to psychologist Malcolm Macmillan) described the pre-accident Gage as hard-working, responsible, and "a great favorite" with the men in his charge, his employers having regarded him as "the most efficient and capable foreman in their employ"; he also took pains to note that Gage's memory and general intelligence seemed unimpaired after the accident, outside of the delirium exhibited in the first few days. Nonetheless these same employers, after Gage's accident, "considered the change in his mind so marked that they could not give him his place again":


title: Phineas Gage

text: This description ("now routinely quoted", says Kotowicz) is from Harlow's observations set down soon after the accident, but Harlowperhaps hesitant to describe his patient negatively while he was still alivedelayed publishing it until 1868, after Gage had died and his family had supplied "what we so much desired to see" (as Harlow termed Gage's skull).


title: Phineas Gage

text: In the interim, Harlow's 1848 report, published just as Gage was emerging from his convalescence, merely hinted at psychological symptoms:


title: Phineas Gage

text: But after Bigelow termed Gage "quite recovered in faculties of body and mind" with only "inconsiderable disturbance of function", a rejoinder in the "American Phrenological Journal"


title: Phineas Gage

text: was apparently based on information anonymously supplied by Harlow. Pointing out that Bigelow gave extensive verbatim quotations from Harlow's 1848 papers, yet omitted Harlow's promise to follow up with details of Gage's "mental manifestations", Barker explains Bigelow's and Harlow's contradictory evaluations (less than a year apart) by differences in their educational backgrounds, in particular their attitudes toward cerebral localization (the idea that different regions of the brain are specialized for different functions) and phrenology (the nineteenth-century pseudoscience that held that talents and personality can be inferred from the shape of a person's skull):


title: Phineas Gage

text: A reluctance to ascribe a biological basis to "higher mental functions" (functionssuch as language, personality, and moral judgmentbeyond the merely sensory and motor) may have been a further reason Bigelow discounted the behavioral changes in Gage which Harlow had noted.


title: Phineas Gage

text: In 1860, an American physician who had known Gage in Chile in 1858 and 1859 described him as still "engaged in stage driving [and] in the enjoyment of good health, with no impairment whatever of his mental faculties". Together with the fact that Gage was hired by his employer in advance, in New England, to become part of the new coaching enterprise in Chile, this implies that Gage's most serious mental changes had been temporary, so that the "fitful, irreverent ... capricious and vacillating" Gage described by Harlow immediately after the accident became, over time, far more functional and far better adapted socially.


title: Phineas Gage

text: Macmillan writes that this conclusion is reinforced by the responsibilities and challenges associated with stagecoach work such as that done by Gage in Chile, including the requirement that drivers "be reliable, resourceful, and possess great endurance. But above all, they had to have the kind of personality that enabled them to get on well with their passengers." A day's work for Gage meant "a 13-hour journey over 100 miles [160km] of poor roads, often in times of political instability or frank revolution. All thisin a land to whose language and customs Phineas arrived an utter strangermilitates as much against permanent disinhibition [i.e. an inability to plan and self-regulate] as do the extremely complex sensory-motor and cognitive skills required of a coach driver." (An American visitor wrote: "The departure of the coach was always a great event at Valparaisoa crowd of ever-astonished Chilenos assembling every day to witness the phenomenon of one man driving six horses.")


title: Phineas Gage

text: Macmillan writes that this contrastbetween Gage's early, versus later, post-accident behaviorreflects his "[gradual change] from the commonly portrayed impulsive and uninhibited person into one who made a reasonable 'social recovery, citing persons with similar injuries for whom "someone or something gave enough structure to their lives for them to relearn lost social and personal skills":


title: Phineas Gage

text: Thus Gage's stagecoach work"a highly structured environment in which clear sequences of tasks were required [but within which] contingencies requiring foresight and planning arose daily"resembles rehabilitation regimens first developed by Soviet neuropsychologist Alexander Luria for the reestablishment of self-regulation in World War II soldiers suffering frontal lobe injuries.


title: Phineas Gage

text: A neurological basis for such recoveries may be found in emerging evidence "that damaged [neural] tracts may re-establish their original connections or build alternative pathways as the brain recovers" from injury. Macmillan adds that if Gage made such a recoveryif he eventually "figured out how to live" (as Fleischman put it) despite his injurythen it "would add to current evidence that rehabilitation can be effective even in difficult and long-standing cases"; and if Gage could achieve such improvement without medical supervision, "what are the limits for those in formal rehabilitation programs?" As author Sam Kean put it, "If even Phineas Gage bounced backthat's a powerful message of hope."


title: Phineas Gage

text: Macmillan's analysis of scientific and popular accounts of Gage found that they almost always distort and exaggerate his behavioral changes well beyond anything described by anyone who had direct contact with him, concluding that the known facts are "inconsistent with the common view of Gage as a boastful, brawling, foul-mouthed, dishonest useless drifter, unable to hold down a job, who died penniless in an institution". In the words of Barker, "As years passed, the case took on a life of its own, accruing novel additions to Gage's story without any factual basis". Even today (writes Zbigniew Kotowicz) "Most commentators still rely on hearsay and accept what others have said about Gage, namely, that after the accident he became a psychopath"; Grafman has written that "the details of [Gage's] social cognitive impairment have occasionally been inferred or even embellished to suit the enthusiasm of the story teller";


title: Phineas Gage

text: and Goldenberg calls Gage "a (nearly) blank sheet upon which authors can write stories which illustrate their theories and entertain the public".


title: Phineas Gage

text: For example, Harlow's statement that Gage "continued to work in various places; could not do much, changing often, and always finding something that did not suit him in every place he tried" refers only to Gage's final months, after convulsions had set in. But it has been misinterpreted as meaning that Gage "never" held a regular job after his accident, "was prone to quit in a capricious fit or be let go because of poor discipline", "never returned to a fully independent existence", "spent the rest of his life living miserably off the charity of others and traveling around the country as a sideshow freak", and ("dependent on his family" or "in the custody of his parents") died "in careless dissipation". In fact, after his initial post-recovery months spent traveling and exhibiting, Gage supported himselfat a total of just two different jobsfrom early 1851 until just before his death in 1860.


title: Phineas Gage

text: Other behaviors ascribed, by various authors, to the post-accident Gage that are either unsupported by, or in contradiction to, the known facts include the following:


title: Phineas Gage

text: and as Kotowicz put it, "Harlow does not report a single act that Gage should have been ashamed of." Gage is "a great story for illustrating the need to go back to original sources", writes Macmillan, most authors having been "content to summarize or paraphrase accounts that are already seriously in error".


title: Phineas Gage

text: Nonetheless (write Daffner and Searl) "the telling of [Gage's] story has increased interest in understanding the enigmatic role that the frontal lobes play in behavior and personality", and Ratiu has said that in teaching about the frontal lobes, an anecdote about Gage is like an "ace [up] your sleeve. It's just like whenever you talk about the French Revolution you talk about the guillotine, because it's so cool."


title: Phineas Gage

text: Benderly suggests that instructors use the Gage case to illustrate the importance of critical thinking.


title: Phineas Gage

text: In addition, Ratiu et al. noted that the hole in the base of the cranium (created as the tamping iron passed through the sphenoidal sinus into the brain) has a diameter about half that of the iron itself; combining this with the hairline fracture beginning behind the exit region and running down the front of the skull, they concluded that the skull "hinged" open as the iron entered from below, then was pulled closed by the resilience of soft tissues once the iron had exited through the top of the head.


title: Phineas Gage

text: Van Horn et al. concluded that damage to Gage's white matter (of which they made detailed estimates) was as or more significant to Gage's mental changes than cerebral cortex (gray matter) damage. Thiebaut de Schotten et al. estimated white-matter damage in Gage and two other case studies ("Tan" and "H.M."), concluding that these patients "suggest that social behavior, language, and memory depend on the coordinated activity of different [brain] regions rather than single areas in the frontal or temporal lobes."


title: Phineas Gage

text: Harlow saw Gage's survival as demonstrating "the wonderful resources of the system in enduring the shock and in overcoming the effects of so frightful a lesion, and as a beautiful display of the recuperative powers of nature", and listed what he saw as the circumstances favoring it:


title: Phineas Gage

text: Despite its very large diameter and mass (compared to a weapon-fired projectile) the tamping iron's relatively low velocity drastically reduced the energy available to compressive and concussive "shock waves".


title: Phineas Gage

text: Barker writes that "[Head injuries] from falls, horse kicks, and gunfire, were well known in preCivil War America [and] every contemporary course of lectures on surgery described the diagnosis and treatment" of such injuries. But to Gage's benefit, surgeon Joseph Pancoast had performed "his most celebrated operation for head injury before Harlow's medical class, to drain the pus, resulting in temporary recovery. Unfortunately, symptoms recurred and the patient died. At autopsy, reaccumulated pus was found: granulation tissue had blocked the opening in the dura." By keeping the exit wound open, and elevating Gage's head to encourage drainage from the cranium into the sinuses (through the hole made by the tamping iron), Harlow "had not repeated Professor Pancoast's mistake".


title: Phineas Gage

text: Precisely what Harlow's "several reasons" were is unclear, but he was likely referring, at least in part, to the understanding (slowly developing since ancient times) that injuries to the front of the brain are less dangerous than those to the rear, because the latter frequently interrupt vital functions such as breathing and circulation. For example, surgeon James Earle wrote in 1790 that "a great part of the cerebrum may be taken away without destroying the animal, or even depriving it of its faculties, whereas the cerebellum will scarcely admit the smallest injury, without being followed by mortal symptoms."


title: Phineas Gage

text: Ratiu et al. and Van Horn et al. both concluded that the tamping iron passed left of the superior sagittal sinus and left it intact, both because Harlow does not mention loss of cerebrospinal fluid through the nose, and because otherwise Gage would almost certainly have suffered fatal blood loss or air embolism.


title: Phineas Gage

text: Harlow's moderate (in the context of medical practice of the time) use of emetics, purgatives, and (in one instance) bleeding would have "produced dehydration with reduction of intracranial pressure [which] may have favorably influenced the outcome of the case", according to Steegmann.


title: Phineas Gage

text: As to his own role in Gage's survival, Harlow merely averred, "I can only say ... with good old Ambroise Paré, I dressed him, God healed him", but Macmillan calls this self-assessment far too modest. Noting that Harlow had been a "relatively inexperienced local physician ... graduated four and a half years earlier", Macmillan's discussion of Harlow's "skillful and imaginative adaptation [of] conservative and progressive elements from the available therapies to the particular needs posed by Gage's injuries" emphasizes that Harlow "did not apply rigidly what he had learned", for example forgoing an exhaustive search for bone fragments (which risked hemorrhage and further brain injury) and applying caustic to the "fungi" instead of excising them (which risked hemorrhage) or forcing them into the wound (which risked compressing the brain).


title: Phineas Gage

text: "A distinguished Professor of Surgery in a distant city", Harlow continued, had even dismissed Gage as a "Yankee invention".


title: Phineas Gage

text: According to the "Boston Medical and Surgical Journal" (1869) it was the 1850 report on Gage by BigelowHarvard's Professor of Surgery and "a majestic and figure on the medical scene of those times"that "finally succeeded in forcing [the case's] authenticity upon the credence of the as could hardly have been done by any one in whose sagacity and surgical knowledge his "confrères" had any less confidence". Noting that, "The leading feature of this case is its This is the sort of accident that happens in the pantomime at the theater, not elsewhere", Bigelow emphasized that though "at first wholly skeptical, I have been personally convinced".


title: Phineas Gage

text: Nonetheless (Bigelow wrote just before Harlow's 1868 presentation of Gage's skull) though "the nature of [Gage's] injury and its "reality" are now "beyond doubt" ... Ihave received a letter within a month [purporting] to prove that ... the accident "could not have happened"."


title: Phineas Gage

text: As the reality of Gage's accident and survival gained credence, it became "the standard against which other injuries to the brain were judged", and it has retained that status despite competition from a growing list of other unlikely-sounding brain-injury accidents, including encounters with axes, bolts, low bridges, exploding firearms, a revolver shot to the nose, further tamping irons, and falling Eucalyptus branches.


title: Phineas Gage

text: For example, after a miner survived traversal of his skull by a gas pipe in diameter (extracted "not without considerable difficulty and force, owing to a bend in the portion of the rod in his skull") his physician invoked Gage as the "only case comparable with this, in the amount of brain injury, that I have seen reported".


title: Phineas Gage

text: Often these comparisons carried hints of humor, competitiveness, or both. The "Boston Medical and Surgical Journal", for example, alluded to Gage's astonishing survival by referring to him as "the patient whose cerebral organism had been comparatively so little disturbed by its abrupt and intrusive visitor"; and a Kentucky doctor, reporting a patient's survival of a gunshot through the nose, bragged, "If you Yankees can send a tamping bar through a fellow's brain and not kill him, I guess there are not many can shoot a bullet between a man's mouth and his brains, stopping just short of the medulla oblongata, and not touch either."


title: Phineas Gage

text: Similarly, when a lumbermill foreman returned to work soon after a saw cut into his skull from just between the eyes to behind the top of his head, his surgeon (who had removed from this wound "thirty-two pieces of bone, together with considerable sawdust") termed the case "second to none reported, save the famous tamping-iron case of Dr. Harlow", though apologizing that "I cannot well gratify the desire of my professional brethren to possess [the patient's] skull, until he has no further use for it himself."


title: Phineas Gage

text: As these and other remarkable brain-injury survivals accumulated, the "Boston Medical and Surgical Journal" pretended to wonder whether the brain has any function at all: "Since the antics of iron bars, gas pipes, and the like skepticism is discomfitted, and dares not utter itself. Brains do not seem to be of much account now-a-days." The "Transactions of the Vermont Medical Society" was similarly facetious: The times have been,' says Macbeth , 'that when the brains were out the man would die. But now they rise again.' Quite possibly we shall soon hear that some German professor is exsecting it."


title: Phineas Gage

text: Though Gage is considered the "index case for personality change due to frontal lobe damage", the uncertain extent of his brain damage and the limited understanding of his behavioral changes render him "of more historical than neurologic [sic] interest". Thus, Macmillan writes, "Phineas' story is [primarily] worth remembering because it illustrates how easily a small stock of facts becomes transformed into popular and scientific myth", the paucity of evidence having allowed "the fitting of almost any theory [desired] to the small number of facts we have". A similar concern was expressed as early as 1877, when British neurologist David Ferrier (writing to Harvard's Henry Pickering Bowditch in an attempt "to have this case definitely settled") complained that, "In investigating reports on diseases and injuries of the brain, I am constantly being amazed at the inexactitude and distortion to which they are subject by men who have some pet theory to support. The facts suffer so frightfully ..."


title: Phineas Gage

text: More recently, neurologist Oliver Sacks refers to the "interpretations and misinterpretations [of Gage] from 1848 to the present",


title: Phineas Gage

text: and Jarrett discusses the use of Gage to promote "the myth, found in hundreds of psychology and neuroscience textbooks, plays, films, poems, and YouTube skits[:] Personality is located in the frontal lobes... and once those are damaged, a person is changed forever."


title: Phineas Gage

text: In the 19th-century debate over whether the various mental functions are or are not localized in specific regions of the brain , both sides managed to enlist Gage in support of their theories. For example, after Eugene Dupuy wrote that Gage proved that the brain is not localized (characterizing him as a "striking case of destruction of the so-called speech centre without consequent aphasia") Ferrier replied by using Gage (along with the woodcuts of his skull and tamping iron from Harlow's 1868 paper) to support his thesis that the brain "is" localized.


title: Phineas Gage

text: Throughout the 19th century, adherents of phrenology contended that Gage's mental changes (his profanity, for example) stemmed from destruction of his mental "organ of Benevolence"as phrenologists saw it, the part of the brain responsible for "goodness, benevolence, the gentle character ... [and] to dispose man to conduct himself in a manner conformed to the maintenance of social order"and/or the adjacent "organ of Veneration"related to religion and God, and respect for peers and those in authority. (Phrenology held that the organs of the "grosser and more animal passions are near the base of the brain; literally the lowest and nearest the animal man [while] highest and farthest from the sensual are the moral and religions feelings, as if to be nearest heaven". Thus Veneration and Benevolence are at the apex of the skullthe region of exit of Gage's tamping iron.)


title: Phineas Gage

text: Harlow wrote that Gage, during his convalescence, did not "estimate size or money accurately[,] would not take $1000 for a few pebbles" and was not particular about prices when visiting a local store; by these examples Harlow may have been implying damage to phrenology's "Organ of Comparison".


title: Phineas Gage

text: It is frequently asserted that what happened to Gage played a role in the later development of various forms of psychosurgeryparticularly lobotomyor even that Gage's accident constituted "the first lobotomy". Aside from the question of why the unpleasant changes usually (if hyperbolically) attributed to Gage would inspire surgical imitation, there is no such link, according to Macmillan:


title: Phineas Gage

text: Antonio Damasio, in support of his "somatic marker hypothesis" (relating decision-making to emotions and their biological underpinnings), draws parallels between behaviors he ascribes to Gage and those of modern patients with damage to the orbitofrontal cortex and amygdala. But Damasio's depiction of Gage has been severely criticized, for example by Kotowicz:


title: Phineas Gage

text: As Kihlstrom put it, "[M]any modern commentators exaggerate the extent of Gage's personality change, perhaps engaging in a kind of retrospective reconstruction based on what we now know, or think we do, about the role of the frontal cortex in self-regulation."


title: Phineas Gage

text: Macmillan gives detailed criticism of Antonio Damasio's various presentations of Gage (some of which are joint work with Hannah Damasio and others).


title: Phineas Gage

text: Two daguerreotype portraits of Gage, identified in 2009 and 2010, are the only of him known other than a plaster head cast taken for Bigelow in late 1849 (and now in the Warren Museum along with Gage's skull and tamping iron).


title: Phineas Gage

text: The first portrait shows a "disfigured yet still-handsome" Gage with left eye closed and scars clearly visible, "well dressed and confident, even proud" and holding his iron, on which portions of its inscription can be made out. (For decades the portrait's owners had believed that it depicted an injured whaler with his harpoon.)


title: Phineas Gage

text: The second portrait, copies of which are in the possession of two branches of the Gage family, shows Gage in a somewhat different pose wearing the same waistcoat and possibly the same jacket, but with a different shirt and tie.


title: Phineas Gage

text: Authenticity of the portraits was confirmed by overlaying the inscription on the tamping iron, as seen in the portraits, against that on the actual tamping iron, and matching the subject's injuries to those preserved in the head cast. However, about when, where, and by whom the portraits were taken nothing is known, except that they were created no earlier than January 1850 (when the inscription was added to the tamping iron), on different occasions, and are likely by different photographers.


title: Phineas Gage

text: The portraits support other evidence that Gage's most serious mental changes were temporary . "That [Gage] was any form of vagrant following his injury is belied by these remarkable images", wrote Van Horn et al. "Although just one picture," Kean commented in reference to the first image discovered, "it exploded the common image of Gage as a dirty, disheveled misfit. This Phineas was proud, well-dressed, and disarmingly handsome."


title: Roberto Firmino

text: Roberto Firmino Barbosa de Oliveira (born 2 October 1991) is a Brazilian professional footballer who plays as a forward or attacking midfielder for club Liverpool and the Brazil national team.


title: Roberto Firmino

text: After starting his career with Figueirense in 2009, he spent four-and-a-half seasons at Hoffenheim. His 16 goals in 33 games for the 2013–14 Bundesliga season earned him the award for the league's Breakthrough Player. In July 2015, he signed for Liverpool. His creativity, goalscoring and work rate have earned him plaudits at Liverpool, with manager Jürgen Klopp referring to Firmino as the "engine" that propels the club's counter-pressing system. In the 2018–19 season he won the UEFA Champions League, and the following season won the UEFA Super Cup, the FIFA Club World Cup after scoring the winner in the final, and the 2019–20 Premier League title, Liverpool's first league title in 30 years.


title: Roberto Firmino

text: Firmino made his international debut for Brazil in November 2014. He represented the nation at the 2015, 2019 and 2021 Copa Américas, as well as the 2018 FIFA World Cup.


title: Roberto Firmino

text: Born in Maceió, Alagoas, Firmino joined Figueirense's youth setup in 2008, aged 17, after starting out at CRB. He was discovered by a dentist, Marcellus Portella. With the latter, he was mainly used as a defensive midfielder.


title: Roberto Firmino

text: Firmino made his professional debut on 24 October 2009, coming on as a half-time substitute for Toninho in a 1–2 home loss against Ponte Preta, for the Série B championship. In January 2010 he was promoted to the main squad.


title: Roberto Firmino

text: Firmino scored his first professional goal on 8 May 2010, netting the winner in an away success against São Caetano. He contributed with eight goals in 36 appearances during the season, as "Figueira" returned to Série A after a two-year absence.


title: Roberto Firmino

text: Firmino signed with Hoffenheim in December 2010, with the contract running until June 2015. He formally arrived at Hoffenheim on 1 January 2011. Then Hoffenheim manager Ernst Tanner commented that they were "pleased to hire a Brazilian talent". He made his debut a month later in a Bundesliga defeat against Mainz, where he came on as a 75th-minute substitute for Sebastian Rudy. He scored his first goal for the club on 16 April, the only goal of a league victory against Eintracht Frankfurt.


title: Roberto Firmino

text: He was dropped from the first-team squad along with Chinedu Obasi at the end of November 2011 for showing up late for training, missing the league match against Bayer Leverkusen. He scored two more goals that season, against Wolfsburg and Borussia Mönchengladbach. In the 2012–13 season, Firmino made 36 appearances and scored seven goals.


title: Roberto Firmino

text: In July 2013, Russian club Lokomotiv Moscow made a €12 million bid for Firmino. Hoffenheim captain Andreas Beck hailed Firmino's development as "outstanding" in August 2013. On 27 March 2014, Firmino extended his contract with the club, signing a three-year extension. He finished the 2013–14 Bundesliga season tied as the fourth highest scorer with 16 goals, and was named the league's Breakthrough Player.


title: Roberto Firmino

text: On 23 June 2015, while he was competing for Brazil at the Copa América, Hoffenheim and Firmino agreed terms for him to transfer to Premier League club Liverpool for up to £29 million on conclusion of the tournament, subject to a work permit. Liverpool confirmed the signing the following day, subject to a medical. The deal was finalised on 4 July.


title: Roberto Firmino

text: Firmino made his Liverpool debut in a pre-season friendly away to Swindon Town on 2 August, and his league debut a week later, replacing Jordon Ibe for the final 12 minutes of a 1–0 win at Stoke City. On 21 November, Firmino scored his first goal for Liverpool in a 4–1 victory over Manchester City at the City of Manchester Stadium. In January 2016, Firmino was described by Paul Little of the "Irish Examiner" as steadily improving during his first season in England, although an inability to combine with centre forward Christian Benteke drew criticism.


title: Roberto Firmino

text: However, in 2016, Firmino's form improved as manager Jürgen Klopp played him alone up front in a false 9 role. He scored braces against Arsenal and Norwich City that month; the latter performance, in which he also assisted in a 5–4 win, earned comparisons to Raheem Sterling. With his form improved, Firmino was voted to be Liverpool's Player of the Month in January. Firmino ended the season as Liverpool's league top scorer with ten goals.


title: Roberto Firmino

text: On 23 August, Firmino scored his first goal of the 2016–17 season, scoring in a 5–0 win over Burton Albion in the second round of the EFL Cup. Firmino scored his first league goals of the season in a 4–1 win over Leicester City, scoring a brace, on 10 September. On 29 October, Firmino scored in a 4–2 win over Crystal Palace, and on 6 November he scored in a 6–1 over Watford; the latter result saw Liverpool move to 1st position in the league table, the first time under Klopp. On 27 December, he scored in a 4–1 win over Stoke City. On 21 January 2017, Firmino scored a brace in a 2–3 home defeat to Swansea City. On 4 March, he scored the opening goal in a 3–1 win over Arsenal. On 8 April, Firmino scored the winning goal in a 2–1 win over Stoke City, and also scored the winning goal in the game against West Bromwich Albion, which Liverpool won 1–0, on 16 April. Firmino finished the season with 12 goals in 38 appearances.


title: Roberto Firmino

text: Before the start of the 2017–18 season, Firmino switched his shirt number to 9, with new signing Mohamed Salah taking his number 11. Firmino scored his first goal of the new season on 12 August, scoring a penalty in a 3–3 draw with Watford. On 17 December, he scored in a 4–0 away win over AFC Bournemouth; a result which saw Liverpool become the first team in Premier League history to win four consecutive away games by a margin of at least three goals.


title: Roberto Firmino

text: On 5 January 2018, during a FA Cup match against rivals Everton, Firmino was the subject of controversy following a clash with Everton defender Mason Holgate. Holgate pushed Firmino into the advertising boards, which was followed by the pair exchanging words, with Firmino seemingly insulting the player. Following the match, Holgate accused Firmino of racially abusing him, which he denied. A day later, the Football Association opened an investigation on the matter. Nearly two months later, after they had taken statements from 12 different players, several referees and consulted two Portuguese lip-readers, the Football Association cleared Firmino of any offence as a result of "insufficient evidence".


title: Roberto Firmino

text: On 14 January, Firmino scored in a 4–3 home win over Manchester City; which saw Liverpool end City's unbeaten league run. On 10 April, he scored in a 2–1 win over Manchester City in the second leg of the quarter-finals of the Champions League; which saw Liverpool advance to the semi-finals with a 5–1 aggregate win. Firmino started and played the whole 90 minutes in the 2018 UEFA Champions League Final, with Liverpool losing 3–1.


title: Roberto Firmino

text: During the season, Firmino, Mohamed Salah, Philippe Coutinho and Sadio Mané made up a prolific attacking quarter, dubbed the "Fab Four", in reference to the rock band The Beatles, also from the same city as the club. Following the mid-season exit of Coutinho, the three remaining players were dubbed as the "Fab Three", with the trio having a total of 91 goals between them at the end of the season. Firmino was Liverpool's joint top goalscorer in the UEFA Champions League, together with Salah, with 11 goals. Firmino was also included in the 2017–18 UEFA Champions League Squad of the Season. The 2017–18 season was Firmino's most prolific in his Liverpool career; as he scored 27 goals in all competitions.


title: Roberto Firmino

text: After going goalless in all three matches played in August, Firmino scored his first goal of the season in a 2–1 Premier League win over Leicester City on 1 September. On 15 September he scored in Liverpool's 2–1 league win over Spurs at Wembley, a game that saw him leave the field 15 minutes before the end with an eye injury. Three days later he came off the bench to score the stoppage time winner in Liverpool's 3–2 Champions League win against Paris Saint-Germain at Anfield. On 29 December, Firmino scored his first Liverpool hat-trick in a 5–1 win over Arsenal, scoring two goals in three minutes and a second half penalty. On 19 January 2019, he scored Liverpool's 1000th goal at Anfield in the Premier League era when he netted in a 4–3 win over Crystal Palace.


title: Roberto Firmino

text: On 1 June, Firmino started for Liverpool in the 2019 UEFA Champions League Final against Tottenham, making a comeback after missing the last few weeks of the season with injury. Firmino lasted 60 minutes before being substituted as Liverpool won the match 2–0 to claim the title.


title: Roberto Firmino

text: On 14 August 2019, Firmino came off the bench in the 2019 UEFA Super Cup final against Chelsea in a match that Liverpool won 5–4 on penalties. The game had finished 2–2 after 120 minutes, with Firmino setting up both goals for Sadio Mané, before Firmino scored the first penalty in the shoot-out win. On 31 August 2019, Firmino became the first Brazilian player to score 50 goals in the Premier League when he netted the third and final goal in a 3–0 win over Burnley.


title: Roberto Firmino

text: At the 2019 FIFA Club World Cup in December, Firmino scored the winning goal in a 2–1 semi-final win over Monterrey. Three days later he was named man of the match in the final after scoring the winner against Flamengo as Liverpool won the competition for the first time.


title: Roberto Firmino

text: On 13 May 2021, he scored two goals in a 4–2 away win over Manchester United, in Liverpool's first away at Old Trafford since March 2014. During their following match at West Bromwich Albion, Firmino captained Liverpool for the first time, as he was the longest serving player in the team.


title: Roberto Firmino

text: On 16 October 2021, Firmino scored his second hat-trick for Liverpool’s in a 5–0 win away to Watford.


title: Roberto Firmino

text: On 27 August 2022, Firmino scored his 100th goal for Liverpool when he got two in the 9–0 win against Bournemouth.


title: Roberto Firmino

text: Firmino said that it was his "dream" to play in the national team though he had no "contact with national team manager Dunga". On 23 October 2014, Firmino received his first call up to Brazil national football team for the friendly matches against Turkey and Austria. He commented, "I'm very happy about the nomination and would especially like to thank the team". He debuted in a 4–0 win over Turkey on 12 November, replacing fellow debutant Luiz Adriano for the last 17 minutes. Firmino scored his first goal six days later in the latter match, a 2–1 away win.


title: Roberto Firmino

text: In May 2015, Firmino was included in Brazil's 23-man squad for the 2015 Copa América to be held in Chile. On 21 June, he scored in a 2–1 defeat of Venezuela to qualify the "Seleção" for the knockout stage as Group C winners.


title: Roberto Firmino

text: In May 2018 he was named in Tite's final 23 man squad for the 2018 World Cup in Russia. On 2 July, Firmino scored Brazil's second goal in a 2–0 win over Mexico in the round of sixteen having come on as a late substitute.


title: Roberto Firmino

text: In May 2019, Firmino was included in Brazil's 23-man squad for the 2019 Copa América. Firmino played all 90 minutes of the final against Peru as Brazil won 3–1 to lift their ninth Copa América title.


title: Roberto Firmino

text: In June 2021, he was included in Brazil's squad for the 2021 Copa América on home soil. He made a substitute appearance in his nation's 1–0 defeat to rivals Argentina in the final on 10 July.


title: Roberto Firmino

text: At Hoffenheim, Firmino primarily played as an attacking midfielder, or as a second striker, but was also used as a forward, winger or central midfielder, with Firmino using his speed, close control and vision wherever he is deployed. After initially starting as a left winger at Liverpool under Brendan Rodgers, new manager Jürgen Klopp used Firmino more centrally, initially as a False 9. However, after impressing under Klopp's pressing system, Firmino established himself as Liverpool's first choice centre-forward by the 2017–18 season. Ian Doyle of the "Liverpool Echo" referred to him as "a true Liverpool number nine", whose "numbers are up there with Harry Kane and Sergio Agüero."


title: Roberto Firmino

text: Ryan Babel, a teammate of Firmino's at Hoffenheim, described him as "A tricky player. He can dribble, shoot, he has a great shot, he can play a lot of through balls and his assists are very good", while also praising a heading ability which would not be common amongst other players of Firmino's slender build and relatively small stature, a unique trait which journalist and ESPN contributor Michael Cox has also noted. Babel also stated that Firmino had a humble mentality and no problems with attitude. Manager Hemerson Maria also stated that he was impressed with Firmino's "strong personality and mentality." In addition to his technical skills, creativity, link-up play, and goalscoring, Firmino has also been praised by his managers, teammates, and pundits for his positional sense, mobility, intelligent movement, and ability to make attacking runs off the ball, which often draws opposing players out of position and creates space for his teammates.


title: Roberto Firmino

text: Due to his energy and defensive work-rate off the ball, Klopp has referred to Firmino as the "engine" that propels the team's relentless counter-attacking system; "If he loses the ball, he fights for it back. If he loses it again, he fights for it. He looks like the engine of the team." The suitability of Firmino's playing style to Klopp's pressing system has meant that Firmino was referred to as "Liverpool's most important player" on several occasions during the 2016–17 and 2017–18 seasons. Due to Firmino's wide range of skills, Thierry Henry described him as “the most complete striker in the [Premier] League."


title: Roberto Firmino

text: Firmino is also well known for his popular "no-look" goals. One of his best known goal celebrations, 'the Matador', features in the "FIFA" video game "FIFA 19".


title: Roberto Firmino

text: Firmino married Larissa Pereira in his hometown in June 2017. They have three daughters. In November 2022 the couple announced they were expecting a fourth child.


title: Roberto Firmino

text: Firmino has been given the nickname "Bobby" by Liverpool fans and players – a shortening of his first name "Roberto".


title: Roberto Firmino

text: In December 2016, Firmino was arrested for drink driving. He was fined £20,000 and had his driving licence revoked for a year when sentenced at Liverpool Magistrates' Court in February 2017.


title: Rambo (franchise)

text: Rambo is an American media franchise centered on a series of action films featuring John J. Rambo. The five films are "First Blood" (1982), "" (1985), "Rambo III" (1988), "Rambo" (2008), and "" (2019). Rambo is a United States Army Special Forces veteran played by Sylvester Stallone, whose Vietnam War experience traumatized him but also gave him superior military skills, which he has used to fight corrupt police officers, enemy troops and drug cartels. "First Blood" is an adaptation of the 1972 novel "First Blood" by David Morrell.


title: Rambo (franchise)

text: The film series has grossed $819 million in total, $300 million of which is from the most successful film, "Rambo: First Blood Part II". Stallone co-wrote the screenplays of all five films, and directed "Rambo". The franchise also spawned an animated television series, "", and comic books, novels, video games, and a Bollywood remake.


title: Rambo (franchise)

text: Upon returning to the United States, Vietnam veteran John Rambo has difficulty adjusting to civilian life and wanders the country as a drifter for almost a decade. In December 1981, Rambo travels to a small town in rural Washington (filmed in Hope, British Columbia, Canada), in search of a fellow U.S. Army Green Beret buddy. He learns that his friend died from cancer the previous summer due to exposure to Agent Orange.


title: Rambo (franchise)

text: He attempts to find a diner in town, and maybe a temporary job. The overconfident town sheriff Will Teasle (Brian Dennehy) does not welcome Rambo, judging the military hero negatively because of his long hair and scruffy look. Rambo disobeys the sheriff's order to stay away from town, as he has done nothing wrong and believes such banishment to be a violation of his freedom of movement, and most of all he is hungry. Rambo returns to town soon afterwards and is promptly charged with vagrancy and subject to harassment from the deputies.


title: Rambo (franchise)

text: The harassment triggers flashbacks of Rambo's memories of his torture at the hands of the North Vietnamese when he was a prisoner of war. Rambo fights his way out of the sheriff's department with his bare hands and makes his way into the wilderness. A manhunt ensues, with the sheriff and his deputies all badly wounded. Rambo chooses not to kill any of them, but unintentionally kills a police officer in self-defense by throwing a rock at a helicopter, causing the pilot to lose control and an officer to fall out. The State Police and National Guard are called in.


title: Rambo (franchise)

text: Colonel Samuel Trautman (Richard Crenna), Rambo's former commanding officer, arrives. He suggests giving Rambo a chance to escape; if Rambo is allowed to slip away, he'll be given time to calm down and he can be arrested without incident. Teasle allows Trautman to contact Rambo through a stolen police radio, but Rambo refuses to surrender, stating that "They (the deputies) drew first blood not me" and then hangs up.


title: Rambo (franchise)

text: The authorities reject Trautman's recommendation for a wait-and-see attitude and continue the manhunt, and Rambo's subsequent rampage culminates in him returning to town with guns and bombs from a commandeered Army truck. This results in the destruction of the sheriff's office and more of the town's main street. Rambo stands poised to eliminate the sheriff, but Trautman finally confronts Rambo face-to-face, and ultimately convinces his former soldier to surrender to the authorities.


title: Rambo (franchise)

text: Between the first and second films, Rambo is convicted and remanded to a civilian maximum-security prison where hard labor is the norm. Despite being a convict, the rigid routine and discipline of prison life provides Rambo with some measure of much-needed stability, as it reminds him of his past in the military and its own rigid hierarchy.


title: Rambo (franchise)

text: The film opens with Colonel Samuel Trautman (Richard Crenna) offering Rambo his freedom if Rambo will return to Vietnam to search for American prisoners of war remaining in Vietnamese captivity. Marshall Murdock (Charles Napier), the official in charge of the mission, is portrayed as a corrupt political figure who doesn't want to expose the truth. Rambo is not to engage the enemy and instead is ordered to take photographs of a North Vietnamese camp, the same camp he himself had been held prisoner in, to prove to the American public there are no more POWs in Vietnam, although Murdock knows that there are.


title: Rambo (franchise)

text: Rambo is flown into the country with the purpose of parachuting into the jungle, but a malfunction during his exit from the plane causes him to have to cut away much of his equipment. He then meets his in-country contact, anti-communist Vietnamese rebel Co Bao (Julia Nickson), who is serving as an intelligence agent. Rambo discovers that there are POWs being held in the camp where he was dropped and that POWs were rotated between camps. Rambo breaks one POW out of the camp and attempts to escape, only to be abandoned at the moment of a pick up by helicopter on a hilltop on the orders of Murdock, after which both he and the POW are recaptured by the Vietnamese soldiers. Rambo is immobilized in a pit of sewage and leeches, then tortured by Soviet soldiers, who are allied with the Vietnamese and training Vietnamese soldiers. Co enters the base under the guise of a prostitute for hire, where she aids Rambo in escaping. After Rambo expresses his deepest gratitude for his rescue, the two share a kiss, after Co implores him to take her back to America with him. As they prepare to move on, Co is shot by surprise gunfire.


title: Rambo (franchise)

text: Enraged, Rambo then acts on his own initiative and starts a one-man war, hunting the Vietnamese and Soviet soldiers searching for him in the jungle and stealing a Soviet-captured helicopter. He flies the helicopter back to the camp, destroying it and killing the remaining Vietnamese and Soviet soldiers in the camp. He frees all the POWs and is pursued by a Soviet Mi-24 Hind helicopter. After destroying the Hind with an RPG, he returns to the US base in Thailand with all the POWs. Rambo is enraged at how the United States government has ignored the existence of surviving soldiers being held captive, and grabs an M-60 machine gun and proceeds into the headquarters building, destroying all of the electronic gear within. Rambo then threatens Murdock and tells him to be forthright with the American public regarding the truth of the POWs and to spare no expense in rescuing them all, or else he will return for Murdock. When Trautman says Rambo will be honored once again, he declines, saying the POWs deserve the accolades more. For his actions in Vietnam, Rambo is granted a presidential pardon and decides to remain in Thailand.


title: Rambo (franchise)

text: The film opens with Colonel Samuel Trautman (Richard Crenna) returning to Thailand to once again enlist Rambo's help. After witnessing Rambo's victory in a stick-fighting match, Trautman visits the temple Rambo is helping to build and asks him to join him on a mission to Afghanistan. This brings Rambo into the realm of the CIA's Special Activities Division which primarily hires Army Special Forces soldiers. The mission is meant to supply weapons, including FIM-92 Stinger missiles, to Afghan freedom fighters, the Mujahideen, who are fighting the Soviets. Despite having been shown photos of civilians suffering under Soviet rule, Rambo refuses and Trautman chooses to go on his own.


title: Rambo (franchise)

text: While in Afghanistan, Trautman's troops are ambushed by Soviet troops while passing through the mountains at night. Trautman is imprisoned in a Soviet base and tortured for information by commanding officer Zaysen (Marc de Jonge) and his henchman Kourov (Randy Raney). Rambo learns of the incident from embassy field officer Robert Griggs (Kurtwood Smith) and immediately flies to Pakistan where he meets up with Mousa (Sasson Gabai), a weapons supplier who agrees to take him to a village deep in the Afghan desert, close to the Soviet base where Trautman is kept. The Mujahideen in the village are already hesitant to help Rambo in the first place, but are convinced not to help him when their village is attacked by Soviet helicopters after one of Mousa's shop assistants informed the Russians of Rambo's presence. Aided only by Mousa and a young boy named Hamid (Doudi Shoua), Rambo makes his way to the Soviet base and starts his attempts to free Trautman. The first attempt is unsuccessful and results in Hamid getting shot in the leg, and Rambo himself getting hit by wooden shrapnel. After escaping from the base, Rambo tends to Hamid's wounds and sends him and Mousa away to safety.


title: Rambo (franchise)

text: The next day, Rambo returns to the base once again, just in time to rescue Trautman from being tortured with a flamethrower. After rescuing several other prisoners, Rambo steals a helicopter and escapes from the base. The helicopter crashes and Rambo and Trautman are forced to continue on foot. After a confrontation in a cave, where Rambo and Trautman kill several Russian soldiers including Kourov, they are confronted by an entire army of Russian tanks, headed by Zaysen. Just as they are about to be overwhelmed by the might of the Soviet Army, the Mujahideen warriors, together with Mousa and Hamid, ride onto the battlefield in a cavalry charge, overwhelming the Russians despite their numerical and technological superiority. In the ensuing battle, in which both Trautman and Rambo are wounded, Rambo manages to kill Zaysen by driving a tank into the helicopter in which Zaysen is flying.


title: Rambo (franchise)

text: At the end of the battle Rambo and Trautman say goodbye to their Mujahideen friends and leave Afghanistan to go home.


title: Rambo (franchise)

text: The film opens with news footage of the crisis in Burma. Burma (also known as Myanmar) is under the iron fist rule of Than Shwe and takes harsher stances against the nation's pro-democracy movement. Rebels are thrown into a mine-infested marsh and then gunned down by a Burmese army unit, overseen by Major Pa Tee Tint.


title: Rambo (franchise)

text: Former U.S. soldier John Rambo still lives in Thailand, now residing in a village near the Burmese border and makes a living capturing snakes and selling them in a nearby village. A missionary, Michael Burnett (Paul Schulze), asks Rambo to take him and his associates down the Salween River to Burma on a humanitarian mission to help the Karen people. Rambo initially refuses but is convinced by another missionary in the group, Sarah Miller (Julie Benz), to take them.


title: Rambo (franchise)

text: The boat is stopped by pirates who demand Sarah in exchange for passage. After taking advantage of the pirates' complacency, Rambo kills them all. Although his actions save the missionaries, it greatly disturbs them. Upon arrival, Michael says that they will travel by road and will not need Rambo's help for the return trip. The mission goes well until the Burmese army, led by Major Tint, attacks the village, killing most of the villagers and two missionaries, and capturing the rest. When the missionaries fail to come back after ten days, their pastor, Arthur Marsh (Ken Howard), comes to Rambo to ask for his help in guiding hired mercenaries to the village where the missionaries were last seen.


title: Rambo (franchise)

text: Troubled by Sarah's potential fate, Rambo decides to accompany the soldiers. After seeing the destroyed village filled with mutilated humans and animals, the mercenaries spot some soldiers forcing several surviving villagers to run through a minefield. The mercenaries are hesitant to rescue the villagers, but not Rambo, who shoots the soldiers with a bow and arrow. Rambo reminds his colleagues of the rescue mission and encourages the team to move on. Hijacking a truck, they create a plan to save the hostages at the P.O.W. camp, doing so within fifteen minutes to avoid alerting the army. Rambo helps Sarah and the others to escape.


title: Rambo (franchise)

text: The Burmese Army (Tatmadaw) unit finds their hostages missing and organizes a massive manhunt. Everyone except for Rambo, Sarah, and "School Boy" (Matthew Marsden), the mercenary team's sniper, is captured. Just as the group is to be executed, Rambo hijacks a truck-mounted .50-caliber machine gun and engages the Burmese army. A group of Karen rebels joins the fight to help Rambo and the mercenaries defeat the Burmese unit. Seeing that the battle is lost, Major Tint decides to flee, only to run into Rambo's machete, which Rambo then uses to disembowel the Major.


title: Rambo (franchise)

text: Encouraged by Sarah's words, Rambo returns to the United States. The last scene shows him walking along a rural highway, past a horse farm and a rusted mailbox with the name "R. Rambo" on it. He makes his way down the gravel driveway as the credits roll.


title: Rambo (franchise)

text: Eleven years after the events in Burma, Vietnam War veteran John Rambo lives in Bowie, Arizona at his deceased father's horse ranch, which he manages with his old friend, Maria Beltran, and her granddaughter, Gabriela. Gabriela tells Rambo that a friend of hers, Gizelle, has found Gabriela's biological father, Miguel, in Mexico. Both Rambo and Maria tell her not to go to Mexico, but Gabriela secretly drives there to ask Miguel why he abandoned her and her mother years ago. Gizelle leads Gabriela to Miguel's apartment, where he coldly tells her that he never really cared for Gabriela or her mother.


title: Rambo (franchise)

text: Gizelle takes a heartbroken Gabriela to a nearby club, where Gabriela is drugged and kidnapped by the enforcers of a Mexican cartel. Meanwhile, Maria informs Rambo of Gabriela's disappearance in Mexico. Rambo rushes to Mexico and interrogates both Miguel and Gizelle about Gabriela's whereabouts. Gizelle reluctantly leads Rambo to the club where Gabriela was last seen and confronts El Flaco, the man who last spoke with Gabriela. A mysterious woman, Carmen Delgado, tails Rambo as El Flaco leads him to Gabriela's location. Rambo is immediately confronted, beaten and marked by the cartel, led by the brothers Hugo and Victor Martinez. They take his driver's license with the location of Rambo's ranch and a photo of Gabriela, whom Victor recognizes. The cartel vow to mistreat Gabriela further due to Rambo's actions.


title: Rambo (franchise)

text: Carmen takes Rambo back to her home where she cares for him until he fully recovers after four days. While Rambo is cared for by Carmen, Gabriela is stripped and consistently dosed with heroin and sold to be raped repeatedly. Carmen says she is an independent journalist who has been investigating the Martinez brothers, who kidnapped and murdered her sister. Rambo later raids one of the brothels, killing several men until he finds a drugged Gabriela. While driving back home in his pickup, Rambo thanks Gabriela for giving him hope for ten years but she dies from the forced overdose. An enraged Rambo sends Maria away and rigs the ranch with traps for a confrontation, and later returns to Mexico to ask Carmen's help in finding Victor. Carmen initially refuses and tells Rambo that it will solve nothing, but is convinced after he appeals to her grief and frustration.


title: Rambo (franchise)

text: Rambo raids Victor's home, killing several guards and decapitating Victor. In retaliation, Hugo leads a large train of 7 SUVs filled with mercenaries to Rambo's ranch, but each eventually falls victim to Rambo's rigged traps. Saving Hugo for the last, Rambo mutilates him and rips his heart out, killing him instantly. In the aftermath, a weakened Rambo sits on the porch of his father's house, vowing to continue fighting and keep the memories of his loved ones alive. During the credits, flashbacks to scenes from the first four movies in the franchise are shown, with Rambo finally saddling up his horse and riding off into the sunset.


title: Rambo (franchise)

text: In June 2019 at Cannes, Stallone stated he would continue portraying John Rambo if the fifth film succeeds. Grunberg however, said that "Rambo: Last Blood" "closes the circle" and concludes the film series. In September 2019, Stallone expressed interest in a sixth "Rambo" film, where the character takes refuge at a Native American reservation. Stallone later elaborated that the story would explore Rambo's return to the reservation where he had grown up.


title: Rambo (franchise)

text: "Rambo: The Force of Freedom" was an animated series that ran in 1986 in which John Rambo leads a team called The Force of Freedom to fight an evil organization called S.A.V.A.G.E. (short for Specialist-Administrators of Vengeance, Anarchy and Global Extortion). 65 episodes were aired. "Rambo and the Forces of Freedom" spawned a line of toys.


title: Rambo (franchise)

text: In August 2013, it was announced that a "Rambo" television series was in development. The project was stated to include Avi Lerner and Sylvester Stallone in creative capacities. Stallone was contractually in negotiations to reprise his role from the film series, with John Morayniss and Lerner serving as executive producers. Lerner described the project as "the next phase of the "Rambo" legacy." The series was stated to be a joint-venture production between Nu Image, Millennium Media and eOne, while being shopped around to various television networks. By December 2015, the series was ordered by FOX Network and was officially titled "Rambo: New Blood". Written by Jeb Stuart, the series would center around the complex relationship between John Rambo and an ex-Navy SEAL named J.R., his estranged son. Stallone and Stuart joined the production as additional executive producers. Later that month, Stallone stated that he would pass on reprising his role.


title: Rambo (franchise)

text: By October 2016, the project was temporarily repurposed as a described reboot film with the same title. Ariel Vromen joined the production as director, with a script written by Brooks McLaren. The project never materialized, in favor of "". In November 2018, David Morrell revealed that he was commissioned by Stallone to write the script for the television series, after the previous attempts at launching the project had not succeeded. Morrell stated that the reason it had never been filmed, is that creatives had a difficult time completing the story on the story; reiterating that Rambo's son was an ex-Navy SEAL civilian, and comparing the character to "The Equalizer". Miramax Television was attached to the project during his involvement.


title: Rambo (franchise)

text: In September 2019, Stallone announced plans for a prequel project. Though he would not reprise the title role, he would like to explore who Rambo was before the war: "the perfect guy", a Jim Thorpe-type super athlete captain of the sports team, and popular kid at school. Stallone stated that the series would explore the juxtaposition that took place, to show that joining the military and involved in war, completely changed John Rambo. Stallone later teamed with author Chuck Dixon to tell this story in the form of a graphic novel entitled "First Kill".


title: Rambo (franchise)

text: In November 2021, Head of Millennium Media Jeffrey Greenstein announced that the studio is once again actively developing a "Rambo" television series. By November 2022, Stallone stated that development on the prequel series is ongoing. He said that he would like the project to resemble a Vietnam documentary, with the series showing how war changes a person. The plot has John Rambo change from being popular athlete, to what he became in the film series. He also stated that the project may end in modern-day, where he "pass[es] the torch", which may resemble the original "New Blood" project.


title: Rambo (franchise)

text: Among the Kamula of Wawoi Falls in Western Province, Papua New Guinea, Rambo was very popular in the late 1990s. His figure was imported into local legends. For example, Rambo is rumored to have de-escalated the Bougainville conflict. Rambo is also said to have had sex with the daughter of Queen Elizabeth II. When threatened with execution, a Papua New Guinea lawyer pleaded in his favor, so Rambo promised to help Papua New Guinea in the Third World War.


title: Rambo (franchise)

text: The original scores for the first three films were composed and conducted by Jerry Goldsmith. The music from the first and second films was performed by the National Philharmonic Orchestra and the music from the third by the Hungarian State Opera Orchestra. Goldsmith's main theme for "Rambo" was the basis for the end title song "It's a Long Road", performed by Dan Hill, part of the "First Blood" soundtrack.


title: Rambo (franchise)

text: All five existing films in the "Rambo" franchise are available from Lionsgate by virtue of the studio's output deal with StudioCanal (the company that currently holds the underlying rights to the first three films) and Lionsgate itself co-producing the latter film (in partnership with The Weinstein Company). Paramount Pictures (via Paramount Worldwide Television Licensing & Distribution and Trifecta Entertainment and Media) holds the television rights to the first three films, while Debmar-Mercury handles television distribution for the latter film on behalf of parent company Lionsgate.


title: Rambo (franchise)

text: "First Blood", "Rambo: First Blood Part II" and "Rambo III"; David Morrell, author of the original "First Blood" novel, wrote novelizations (book adaptations) for the first two "Rambo" sequels. Morrell has said that he wrote the novelizations because he wanted to include characterization that is not in "Rambo: First Blood Part II" and "Rambo III". Morrell did not write a novelization for the 2008 film, "Rambo", as he said the film's characterization matched that of the original "First Blood" novel.


title: Rambo (franchise)

text: In May 2013, Original Entertainment confirmed to have sealed a five-picture deal with Millennium Films to produce Bollywood remakes of "First Blood", "The Expendables", "16 Blocks", "88 Minutes", and "Brooklyn's Finest", with the productions for "First Blood" and "The Expendables" expected to start at the end of that year.


title: Rambo (franchise)

text: In early 2016, Siddharth Anand was announced as the director and the film will be co-produced by Anand, Daljit DJ Parmar, Samir Gupta, Hunt Lowry, Saurabh Gupta and Gulzar Inder Chahal. The film will specifically remake "First Blood" and will follow the last member of an elite unit in the Indian Armed forces returning home only to discover a different war waiting for him, forcing Rambo to the jungles and mountains of the Himalayas and unleash mayhem and destruction.


title: Rambo (franchise)

text: In May 2017, Tiger Shroff was cast in the role of Rambo while production was scheduled for a late 2018 release date. By October 2017, the film was placed on hold while Shroff and Anand completed other projects.


title: Rambo (franchise)

text: The film was scheduled to be released in October 2020, with Shroff expected to star in Hindi remakes of all five films in the "Rambo" franchise.


title: Juan Carlos I

text: Juan Carlos I (; Juan Carlos Alfonso Víctor María de Borbón y Borbón-Dos Sicilias, born 5 January 1938) is a member of the Spanish royal family who reigned as King of Spain from 22 November 1975 until his abdication on 19 June 2014. In Spain, since his abdication, Juan Carlos has usually been referred to as the ('King Emeritus').


title: Juan Carlos I

text: Juan Carlos is the grandson of Alfonso XIII, the last king of Spain before the abolition of the monarchy in 1931 and the subsequent declaration of the Second Spanish Republic. Juan Carlos was born in Rome during his family's exile. Francisco Franco took over the government of Spain after his victory in the Spanish Civil War in 1939, yet in 1947 Spain's status as a monarchy was affirmed and a law was passed allowing Franco to choose his successor. Juan Carlos's father, Infante Juan, Count of Barcelona, was the third son of King Alfonso XIII and assumed his claims to the throne after Alfonso died in February 1941. However, Franco saw Juan to be too liberal and in 1969 declared Juan Carlos his successor as head of state.


title: Juan Carlos I

text: Juan Carlos spent his early years in Italy and came to Spain in 1947 to continue his studies. After completing his secondary education in 1955, he began his military training and entered the General Military Academy at Zaragoza. Later, he attended the Naval Military School and the General Academy of the Air, and finished his tertiary education at the University of Madrid. In 1962, Juan Carlos married Princess Sophia of Greece and Denmark in Athens. The couple had two daughters and a son together: Elena, Cristina, and Felipe. Due to Franco's declining health, Juan Carlos first began periodically acting as Spain's head of state in the summer of 1974. Franco died in November the following year and Juan Carlos became king on 22 November 1975, two days after Franco's death, the first reigning monarch since 1931, although his exiled father did not formally renounce his claims to the throne in favor of his son until 1977.


title: Juan Carlos I

text: Juan Carlos was expected to continue Franco's legacy. However, Juan Carlos introduced reforms to dismantle the Francoist regime and to begin the Spanish transition to democracy soon after his accession. This led to the approval of the Spanish Constitution of 1978 in a referendum which re-established a constitutional monarchy. In 1981, Juan Carlos played a major role in preventing a coup that attempted to revert Spain to Francoist government in the King's name. In 2008, he was considered the most popular leader in all Ibero-America. Hailed for his role in Spain's transition to democracy, the King and the monarchy's reputation began to suffer after controversies surrounding his family arose, exacerbated by the public controversy centering on an elephant-hunting trip he undertook during a time of financial crisis in Spain.


title: Juan Carlos I

text: In June 2014, Juan Carlos, citing personal reasons, abdicated in favour of his son, who acceded to the throne as Felipe VI. Since August 2020, Juan Carlos has lived in self-imposed exile from Spain over allegedly improper ties to business deals in Saudi Arabia.


title: Juan Carlos I

text: Juan Carlos Alfonso Víctor María was born to Infante Juan, Count of Barcelona, and Princess María de las Mercedes of Bourbon-Two Sicilies in their family home in Rome, where his grandfather King Alfonso XIII of Spain and other members of the Spanish royal family lived in exile following the proclamation of the Second Spanish Republic in 1931. He was baptized as Juan Carlos Alfonso Víctor María de Borbón y Borbón-Dos Sicilias by Cardinal Eugenio Pacelli, the future Pope Pius XII.


title: Juan Carlos I

text: His early life was dictated largely by the political concerns of his father and General Franco. He moved to Spain in 1948 to be educated there after his father persuaded Franco to allow it. He began his studies in San Sebastián and finished them in 1954 at the Instituto San Isidro in Madrid. He then joined the army, doing his officer training from 1955 to 1957 at the Military Academy of Zaragoza.


title: Juan Carlos I

text: He has two sisters: Infanta Pilar, Duchess of Badajoz (1936–2020); and Infanta Margarita, Duchess of Soria (born 1939). He also had a younger brother, Alfonso.


title: Juan Carlos I

text: The rendering of his name as "Juan Carlos" (the first and second particles of his baptismal name) was a modification by choice of Francisco Franco. He was always known in his familiar circle simply as "Juan" or "Juanito".


title: Juan Carlos I

text: On the evening of Holy Thursday, 29 March 1956, Juan Carlos's younger brother Alfonso died in a gun accident at the family's home Villa Giralda in Estoril, on the Portuguese Riviera. The Spanish Embassy in Portugal then issued the following official communiqué:


title: Juan Carlos I

text: Alfonso had won a local junior golf tournament earlier in the day, then went to evening Mass and rushed up to the room to see Juan Carlos who had come home for the Easter holidays from military school. Both Juan Carlos, age 18, and Alfonso, age 14, had been apparently playing with a .22 caliber Long Automatic Star revolver owned by Alfonso. As they were alone in the room, it is unclear how Alfonso was shot, but according to Josefina Carolo, dressmaker to Juan Carlos's mother, Juan Carlos pointed the pistol at Alfonso and pulled the trigger, unaware that it was loaded. Bernardo Arnoso, a Portuguese friend of Juan Carlos, also said that Juan Carlos had told him he had fired the pistol not knowing that it was loaded, and adding that the bullet ricocheted off a wall, hitting Alfonso in the face. Helena Matheopoulos, a Greek author who spoke with Juan Carlos's sister Pilar, said that Alfonso had been out of the room and when he returned and pushed the door open, the door knocked Juan Carlos in the arm, causing him to fire the pistol.


title: Juan Carlos I

text: After learning this news, his father Juan of Bourbon reportedly grabbed Juan Carlos by the neck and shouted at him angrily, "Swear to me that you didn't do it on purpose!", sending him back to the military academy two days later.


title: Juan Carlos I

text: Following a later declaration of María de las Mercedes, Paul Preston argues that the content of the former testimony implies that Juan Carlos had pointed the gun at Alfonso and, apparently not knowing that the gun was loaded, he had pulled the trigger.


title: Juan Carlos I

text: In 1957, Juan Carlos spent a year in the naval school at Marín, Pontevedra, and another in the Air Force school in San Javier in Murcia. In 1960–61, he studied law, international political economy and public finance at the University of Madrid. He then went to live in the Palace of Zarzuela and began carrying out official engagements.


title: Juan Carlos I

text: Juan Carlos was married in Athens on 14 May 1962, to Princess Sophia of Greece and Denmark, daughter of King Paul of Greece, firstly in a Roman Catholic ceremony at the Church of St. Denis, followed by a Greek Orthodox ceremony at the Metropolitan Cathedral of Athens. She converted from Greek Orthodoxy to Roman Catholicism. They had three children: Elena (b. 1963), Cristina (b. 1965) and Felipe (b. 1968).


title: Juan Carlos I

text: The dictatorial regime of Francisco Franco came to power during the Spanish Civil War, which pitted a government of democrats, anarchists, socialists, and communists, supported by the Soviet Union and international volunteers, against a rebellion of conservatives, monarchists, nationalists, and fascists, supported by both Hitler and Mussolini, with the rebels ultimately winning. Franco's authoritarian government remained dominant in Spain until the 1960s. With Franco's increasing age, left-wing protests increased, while at the same time, the far right factions demanded the return of a hardline absolute monarchy. At the time, the heir to the throne of Spain was Infante Juan, Count of Barcelona, the son of the late Alfonso XIII. However, General Franco viewed him with extreme suspicion, believing him to be a liberal who was opposed to his regime.


title: Juan Carlos I

text: Juan Carlos's first cousin Alfonso, Duke of Anjou and Cádiz was also briefly considered as a candidate. Alfonso was known to be an ardent Francoist and married Franco's granddaughter, Doña María del Carmen Martínez-Bordiú y Franco in 1972.


title: Juan Carlos I

text: Ultimately, Franco decided to skip a generation and name Juan de Borbón's son, Prince Juan Carlos, as his personal successor. Franco hoped the young prince could be groomed to take over the nation while still maintaining the ultraconservative and authoritarian nature of his regime. In 1969, Juan Carlos was officially designated heir-apparent and was given the new title of Prince of Spain (not the traditional Prince of Asturias). As a condition of being named heir-apparent, he was required to swear loyalty to Franco's Movimiento Nacional, which he did with little outward hesitation. His choice was ratified by the Spanish parliament on 22 July 1969.


title: Juan Carlos I

text: Juan Carlos met and consulted Franco many times while heir apparent and often took part in official and ceremonial state functions, standing alongside the dictator, much to the anger of hardline republicans and more moderate liberals, who hoped that Franco's death would bring in an era of reform. During 1969–1975, Juan Carlos publicly supported Franco's regime. Although Franco's health worsened during those years, whenever he did appear in public, from state dinners to military parades, it was in Juan Carlos's company. Juan Carlos continued to praise Franco and his government for the economic growth and positive changes in Spain. However, as the years progressed, Juan Carlos began meeting secretly with political opposition leaders and exiles, who were fighting to bring liberal reform to the country. He also had secret conversations with his father over the telephone. Franco, for his part, remained largely oblivious to the prince's actions and denied allegations from his ministers and advisors that Juan Carlos was in any way disloyal to his vision of the regime.


title: Juan Carlos I

text: During periods of Franco's temporary incapacity in 1974 and 1975, Juan Carlos was acting head of state. On 30 October 1975, Franco gave full control to Juan Carlos. According to declassified CIA reports, during this time Juan Carlos secretly acquiesced and arranged with Moroccan king Hassan II the terms of the so-called Green March, the partial invasion of the Spanish Sahara by Moroccan civilians, followed by the Madrid Accords handing over the control of the territory to Morocco and Mauritania.


title: Juan Carlos I

text: Franco died on 20 November 1975, and two days later on 22 November the Cortes Españolas proclaimed Juan Carlos King of Spain. In his address to the Cortes, Juan Carlos spoke of three factors: historical tradition, national laws, and the will of the people, and in so doing referred to a process dating back to the Civil War of 1936–39. He swore using the following formula: "I swear to God and the Gospels to comply and enforce compliance to the Fundamental Laws of the Realm and to remain loyal to the Principles of the National Movement".


title: Juan Carlos I

text: On 27 November, a Mass of the Holy Spirit was celebrated in the church of San Jerónimo el Real in Madrid to inaugurate his reign. He opted not to call himself Juan III or Carlos V, but Juan Carlos I. Juan Carlos is reported to have been pressured by Valéry Giscard d'Estaing to personally tell Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet, who had traveled to Spain for Franco's funeral, not to attend his inauguration.


title: Juan Carlos I

text: Juan Carlos's accession met with relatively little parliamentary opposition. Some members of the Movimiento Nacional voted against recognizing him, and even more voted against the 1976 Law for Political Reform. But a majority of Movimiento members supported both measures. Juan Carlos quickly instituted reforms, to the great displeasure of Falangist and conservative (monarchist) elements, especially in the military, who had expected him to maintain the authoritarian state.


title: Juan Carlos I

text: In July 1976, Juan Carlos dismissed prime minister Carlos Arias Navarro, who had been attempting to continue Francoist policies in the face of the King's attempts at democratization. He instead appointed Adolfo Suárez, a former leader of the Movimiento Nacional, as prime minister, who went on to win the following year's election and become the first democratically elected leader of the new regime.


title: Juan Carlos I

text: Further legitimacy was restored to Juan Carlos's position on 14 May 1977, when his father (whom many monarchists had recognized as the legitimate, exiled King of Spain during the Franco era) formally renounced his claim to the throne and recognized his son as the sole head of the Spanish Royal House, transferring to him the historical heritage of the Spanish monarchy, thus making Juan Carlos both "de facto" and "de jure" king in the eyes of the traditional monarchists.


title: Juan Carlos I

text: On 20 May 1977, the leader of the only recently legalized Spanish Socialist Workers' Party (PSOE), Felipe González, accompanied by Javier Solana, visited Juan Carlos in the Zarzuela Palace. The event represented a key endorsement of the monarchy from Spain's political left, who had been historically republican. Left-wing support for the monarchy grew when the Communist Party of Spain was legalized shortly thereafter, a move Juan Carlos had pressed for, despite enormous right-wing military opposition at that time, during the Cold War.


title: Juan Carlos I

text: On 15 June 1977, Spain held its first post-Franco democratic elections. Juan Carlos had played a role as middleman in order to channel $10 million from the Shah of Iran to Adolfo Suárez's election campaign, reportedly asking the Shah for the money to "save Spain from Marxism".


title: Juan Carlos I

text: In 1978, the government promulgated a new constitution that acknowledged Juan Carlos as rightful heir of the Spanish dynasty and king; specifically, Title II, Section 57 asserted Juan Carlos's right to the throne of Spain by dynastic succession in the Bourbon tradition, as "the legitimate heir of the historic dynasty" rather than as the designated successor of Franco. The Constitution was passed by the democratically elected Constituent Cortes, ratified by the people in a referendum (6 December) and then signed into law by the King before a solemn meeting of the Cortes.


title: Juan Carlos I

text: There was an attempted military coup, known as 23-F, on 23 February 1981, when the Cortes were seized by members of the Guardia Civil in the parliamentary chamber. During the coup, the King, wearing his uniform as Captain-General of the Armed Forces, gave a public television broadcast calling for unambiguous support for the legitimate democratic government. The broadcast is believed to have been a major factor in foiling the coup. The coup leaders had promised many of their potential supporters that they were acting in the King's name and with his approval, but were unable to demonstrate either, and the broadcast – coming just after midnight on the night of the coup – definitively showed the King's opposition to the coup makers.


title: Juan Carlos I

text: When Juan Carlos became king, Communist leader Santiago Carrillo nicknamed him "Juan Carlos the Brief", predicting that the monarchy would soon be swept away with the other remnants of the Franco era. After the collapse of the attempted coup, however, in an emotional statement, Carrillo remarked: "Today, we are all monarchists." Public support for the monarchy among democrats and leftists before 1981 had been limited; following the king's handling of the coup it increased significantly.


title: Juan Carlos I

text: The victory of the PSOE in 1982 under González marked the effective end of the King's active involvement in Spanish politics. González governed for 14 years, longer than any other democratically elected Prime Minister. His administration helped consolidate Spanish democracy and thus maintained the stability of the nation.


title: Juan Carlos I

text: On paper, Juan Carlos retained fairly extensive reserve powers. He was the guardian of the Constitution and was responsible for ensuring that it was obeyed. In practice, since the passage of the Constitution (and especially since 1982), he took a mostly non-partisan and representative role, acting almost entirely on the advice of the government. However, he commanded great moral authority as an essential symbol of the country's unity.


title: Juan Carlos I

text: Under the Constitution, the King has immunity from prosecution in matters relating to his official duties. Consequently, he exercised most of his powers through the ministers; his acts as King (and not as a citizen) were not valid unless countersigned by a minister, who became politically responsible for the act in question.


title: Juan Carlos I

text: The honour of the royal family is specifically protected from insult by the Spanish Penal Code. Under this protection, Basque independentist Arnaldo Otegi and cartoonists from "El Jueves" were tried and punished.


title: Juan Carlos I

text: The King gives an annual speech to the nation on Christmas Eve. He is the commander-in-chief of the Spanish armed forces.