title: Charminar

text: A mosque is located at the western end of the open roof. The remaining section of the roof served as a royal court during the Qutb Shahi times. The actual mosque occupies the top floor of the four-storey structure. A vault which appears from inside like a dome supports two galleries within the Charminar, one over another. Above those is a terrace that serves as a roof that is bordered with a stone balcony. The main gallery has 45 covered prayer spaces with a large open space in front to accommodate more people for Friday prayers.


title: Charminar

text: The clock on the four cardinal directions was added in 1889. There is a vazu (water cistern) in the middle with a small fountain for ablution before offering prayer in the Charminar mosque.


title: Charminar

text: The area surrounding Charminar is also known by the same name. It falls under the Charminar constituency.


title: Charminar

text: The monument overlooks another grand mosque called the Makkah Masjid. Muhammad Quli Qutb Shah, the 5th ruler of the Qutb Shahi dynasty, commissioned bricks to be made from the soil brought from Mecca, the holiest site of Islam, and used them in the construction of the central arch of the mosque, hence its name.


title: Charminar

text: A market exists around Charminar. Lad Bazaar is known for its jewelry, especially bangles, and the Pathar Gatti, which is known for its pearls. In its heyday, the Charminar market had some 14,000 shops. The Bazaars surrounding Charminar were described in the poem "In the Bazaars of Hyderabad" by Sarojini Naidu.


title: Charminar

text: Four arches to the north of Charminar are known as Char Kaman. These were built along with the Charminar in the 16th century. These are the "Kali Kaman", "Machli Kaman", "Seher-e-Batil ki Kaman" and "Charminar Kaman". At the centre of these arches is a fountain called the Gulzar Houz. The Char Kaman are in dire need of restoration, and protection from encroachments.


title: Charminar

text: In 2007, Hyderabadi Muslims living in Pakistan constructed a small-scaled quasi replica of the Charminar at the main crossing of the Bahadurabad neighbourhood in Karachi.


title: Charminar

text: Lindt chocolatier Adelbert Boucher created a scaled model of the Charminar out of 50 kilograms of chocolate. The model, which required three days' labour, was on display at The Westin, Hyderabad, India on 25 and 26 September 2010.


title: Charminar

text: The Charminar Express is an express train named after the Charminar, which runs between Hyderabad and Chennai.


title: Charminar

text: The Charminar also appears on coins and banknotes of the defunct Hyderabadi Rupee, the currency of the erstwhile Hyderabad State.


title: Charminar

text: As an icon of the city of Hyderabad as well as the Telangana State, the structure also appears on the Emblem of Telangana, along with the Kakatiya Kala Thoranam.


title: Charminar

text: The "Charminar Pedestrianization Project" was instituted by the then combined Government of Andhra Pradesh


title: Charminar

text: in partnership with the Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation. The project was initiated in 2006 with an investment of Rs 35 crore. However, the project did not see the light of day due to various factors such as Telangana movement, illegal encroachments by hawkers, vehicular traffic, and illegal street vendors. Later during January 2017, the new Government of Telangana introduced a 14-member French Delegation to take over the project to assess the feasibility in developing the monument as an eco-friendly tourism and heritage destination.


title: Charminar

text: The team has inspected surrounding areas such as the Gulzar house, Macca Masjid, Lad Bazar, and Sardar Mahal.


title: Charminar

text: Charminar, along with the Qutb Shahi Monuments of Hyderabad: the Golconda Fort, and the Qutb Shahi Tombs, were included in the "tentative list" of UNESCO World Heritage Site. The monument was submitted by the Permanent Delegation of India to UNESCO on September 10, 2010.


title: Charminar

text: A temple named Bhagyalakshmi Temple is located at the base of Charminar. The Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) which manages the Charminar has declared the temple structure as an unauthorised construction. Hyderabad High Court has stopped any further expansion of the temple. While the origin of the temple is currently disputed, the current structure that houses the idol was erected in the 1960s. In 2012, "The Hindu" newspaper published an old photograph showing that the temple structure never existed. The Hindu also released a note asserting the authenticity of the photographs, and clearly stated that there was no temple structure in photos taken in 1957 and 1962. Additionally, it showed photos that provide evidence that the temple is a recent structure - a temple structure can be seen in photos taken in 1990 and 1994. Also, a temple is seen in a photograph taken in 1986 which is kept in the Aga Khan Visual Archive, MIT Libraries’ collections, United States, but not in the earlier ones.


title: Katipunan

text: The Katipunan, officially known as the Kataastaasan, Kagalanggalangang Katipunan ng mga Anak ng Bayan or Kataastaasan Kagalang-galang na Katipunan ng mga Anak ng Bayan (KKK; ; ), was a Philippine revolutionary society founded by anti-Spanish colonialist Filipinos in Manila in 1892; its primary goal was to gain independence from Spain through a revolution.


title: Katipunan

text: Revolutionary documents from Archivo General Militar de Madrid rediscovered in the 21st century suggest that the society had been organized as early as January 1892 but may not have become active until July 7 of the same year; that was the date that Filipino writer José Rizal was to be banished to Dapitan.


title: Katipunan

text: Founded by Filipino patriots Deodato Arellano, Andrés Bonifacio, Valentin Diaz, Ladislao Diwa, José Dizon, and Teodoro Plata, the Katipunan was a secret organization until it was discovered in 1896. This discovery led to the outbreak of the Philippine Revolution.


title: Katipunan

text: The Katipunan being a secret organization, had its members subjected to the utmost secrecy and abidance to the rules established by the society. Aspiring applicants were given standard initiation rites in order to become members of the society. At first, membership in the Katipunan was only open to male Filipinos; later, women were accepted into the society. The Katipunan had its own publication, "Kalayaan" (Freedom) which issued its first and last printing in March 1896. Revolutionary ideals and works flourished within the society, and Filipino literature was expanded by some of its prominent members.


title: Katipunan

text: In planning the revolution, Bonifacio contacted Rizal for his full-fledged support for the Katipunan in exchange for a promise to rescue Rizal from his detention. In May 1896, the leadership of the Katipunan met with the Captain of a visiting Japanese warship in an attempt to secure a source of arms for the revolution, but without success. The Katipunan's existence was revealed to the Spanish authorities. Days after the Spanish authorities learned of the existence of the secret society, in August 1896, Bonifacio and his men tore up their "cédulas" during the Cry of Pugad Lawin that started the Philippine Revolution.


title: Katipunan

text: The name ""Katipunan"" is a short name for ""Kataastaasan, Kagalanggalangang Katipunan ng mga Anak ng Bayan"" (Supreme and Honorable Society of the Children of the Nation). The Tagalog word ""katipunan"" (literally, "association", "gathering", "assemblage", or "group") comes from the root word ""tipon"", a Tagalog word meaning "gathering" or "to gather".


title: Katipunan

text: The "Katipunan" and the "Cuerpo de Compromisarios" were, effectively, successor organizations of "La Liga Filipina", founded by José Rizal (Who himself was inspired by the martyrdom of his predecessors, the nationalist Priests: Gomez, Burgos and Zamora). This organization was part of the late 19th century Propaganda Movement in the Philippines. The founders of the Katipunan were Deodato Arrellano, Teodoro Plata, Valentin Diaz, Ladislao Diwa, Andres Bonifacio, and Jose Dizon. Katipunan founders Bonifacio, Diwa, and Plata were all members of "La Liga" and were influenced by the nationalistic ideals of the Propaganda Movement in Spain.


title: Katipunan

text: Marcelo H. del Pilar, another leader of the Propaganda Movement in Spain, also influenced the formation of the Katipunan. Modern-day historians believe that he had a direct hand in its organization because of his role in the Propaganda Movement and his eminent position in Philippine Masonry; many of the Katipunan's founders were freemasons. The "Katipunan" had initiation ceremonies that were copied from masonic rites. It also had a hierarchy of rank that was similar to that of freemasonry. Rizal's Spanish biographer Wenceslao Retana and Filipino biographer Juan Raymundo Lumawag saw the formation of the "Katipunan" as del Pilar's victory over Rizal: "La Liga dies, and the Katipunan rises in its place. Del Pilar's plan wins over that of Rizal. Del Pilar and Rizal had the same end, even if each took a different road to it.". Del Pilar is also said to have approved the Katipunan's statutes. Epifanio de los Santos, in the 1920's narrates: "It is very correctly stated that Andrés Bonifacio ordered Teodoro Plata to draw up the statutes of the Katipunan, and that he did this with the aid of Ladislao Diwa and Valentín Diaz. After the statutes had been discussed, Bonifacio, with the concurrence of Deodato Arellano, submitted them to Marcelo H. del Pilar for approval. Upon the latter’s letter approving the statutes, Bonifacio used the same for the purpose of gaining adepts."


title: Katipunan

text: Captured Katipunan members (also known as "Katipuneros"), who were also members of "La Liga", revealed to the Spanish colonial authorities that there was a difference of opinion among members of "La Liga". One group insisted on "La Liga's" principle of a peaceful reformation while the other espoused armed revolution.


title: Katipunan

text: On July 7, 1892, writer Jose Rizal was banished and exiled to Dapitan in Mindanao. That night Bonifacio, a member of the La Liga Filipina; with Plata, Diwa, Diaz, Arellano, and Dizon, founded the Katipunan in a house on Azcarraga St. (now Recto Avenue) near Elcano Street in San Nicolas, Manila. They established the Katipunan when anti-Spanish Filipinos had realized that societies such as the "La Liga Filipina" would be suppressed by colonial authorities. Despite their reservations about the peaceable reformation that Rizal espoused, they named Rizal as honorary president, without his knowledge. The Katipunan, established as a secret brotherhood organization, was known as the "Kataas-taasang, Kagalang-galangang Katipunan ng̃ mg̃á Anak ng̃ Bayan" (Supreme and Venerable Society of the Children of the Nation).


title: Katipunan

text: The rise of the Katipunan signalled the end of the crusade to secure reforms from Spain by means of a peaceful campaign. The Propaganda Movement led by Rizal, del Pilar, Jaena and others had failed its mission; hence, Bonifacio started the militant movement for independence.


title: Katipunan

text: The Katipunan was governed by the Supreme Council (Tagalog: "Kataas-taasang Sanggunian"). The first Supreme Council of the Katipunan was formed around August 1892, a month after the founding of the society. The Supreme Council was headed by an elected president ("pangulo"), followed by the secretary/secretaries ("kalihim"), the treasurer ("tagaingat-yaman") and the fiscal ("tagausig"). The Supreme Council also had its councilors ("kasangguni"); the number varied through presidencies. To distinguish from presidents of lower "sanggunian" or councils (below), the president of the Supreme Council was called the Supreme President (Tagalog: "Kataas-taasang Pangulo"; Spanish: "Presidente Supremo").


title: Katipunan

text: At the outbreak of the 1896 Revolution, the Council was further reorganized into a 'cabinet' which the Katipunan regarded as a genuine revolutionary government, de facto and de jure.


title: Katipunan

text: In each province where there were Katipunan members, a provincial council called "Sangguniang Bayan" was established and in each town was an organized popular council called "Sangguniang Balangay". Each "bayan" and "balangay" had its own set of elected officials: "pangulo" (president); "kalihim" (secretary); "tagausig" (fiscal);" tagaingat-yaman" (treasurer); "pangalawang pangulo" (vice president); "pangalawang kalihim" (vice secretary); "mga kasangguni" (councilors); "mabalasig" (terrible brother); "taliba" (guard); "maniningil" (collector/auditor); "tagapamahala ng basahan ng bayan" (custodian of the people's library); "tagapangasiwa" (administrator); "manunulat" (clerk); "tagatulong sa pagsulat" (assistant clerk); "tagalaan" (warden) and "tagalibot" (patroller). Each "balangay" was given a chance to expand their own spheres of influence through the triangle system in order to elevate their status to "Sangguniang Bayan". Every "balangay" that did not gain "Sangguniang Bayan" status were dissolved and annexed by greater provincial or popular councils.


title: Katipunan

text: The towns/cities which supported the Katipunan cause were given symbolic names, such as "Magdiwang" (to celebrate) for Noveleta; "Magdalo" (to come) for Kawit; "Magwagi" (to win) for Naic; "Magtagumpay" (to succeed) for Maragondon; "Walangtinag" (never-diminished) for Indang and "Haligue" (wall) for Imus–all are in the province of Cavite.


title: Katipunan

text: Within the society functioned a secret chamber, called Camara Reina, which was presided over by Bonifacio, Jacinto and Pío Valenzuela. This mysterious chamber passed judgment upon those who had betrayed their oath and those accused of certain offenses penalized by Katipunan laws. Every "katipunero" stood in fearful awe of this chamber. According to José P. Santos, throughout the existence of the secret chamber, about five "katipuneros" were convicted and sentenced to die by it. The death sentence was handed down in the figure of a cup with a serpent coiled around it.


title: Katipunan

text: In 1892, after the "Katipunan" was founded, the members of the Supreme Council consisted of Arellano as president, Bonifacio as comptroller, Diwa as fiscal, Plata as secretary and Díaz as treasurer.


title: Katipunan

text: In 1893, the Supreme Council comprised Ramón Basa as president, Bonifacio as fiscal, José Turiano Santiago as secretary, Vicente Molina as treasurer and Restituto Javier, Briccio Pantas, Teodoro Gonzales. Gonzales, Plata and Diwa were councilors. It was during Basa's term that the society organized a women's auxiliary section. Two of its initial members were Gregoria de Jesús, whom Bonifacio had just married, and Marina Dizon, daughter of José Dizon. It was also in 1893 when Basa and Diwa organized the provincial council of Cavite, which would later be the most successful council of the society.


title: Katipunan

text: The Filipino scholar Maximo Kalaw reports that Basa yielded the presidency to Bonifacio in 1894 because of a dispute over the usefulness of the initiation rites and Bonifacio's handling of the society's funds. Basa contested Bonifacio's practice of lending their funds to needy members, complete with promissory notes. Moreover, Basa refused to induct his son into the organization.


title: Katipunan

text: It was also in 1894 when Emilio Jacinto, a nephew of Dizon who was studying law at the University of Santo Tomas, joined the Katipunan. He intellectualized the society's aims and formulated the principles of the society as embodied in its primer, called "Kartilla". It was written in Tagalog and all recruits were required to commit it to heart before they were initiated. Jacinto would later be called the "Brains of the Katipunan."


title: Katipunan

text: At the same time, Jacinto also edited "Kalayaan" (Freedom), the society's official organ, but only one edition of the paper was issued; a second was prepared but never printed due to the discovery of the society. "Kalayaan" was published through the printing press of the Spanish newspaper "Diario de Manila". This printing press and its workers would later play an important role in the outbreak of the revolution.


title: Katipunan

text: In 1895, José Turiano Santiago, a close personal friend of Bonifacio, was expelled because a coded message of the "Katipunan" fell into the hands of a Spanish priest teaching at the University of Santo Tomas. Since the priest was a friend of Santiago's sister, he and his half-brother Restituto Javier were suspected of betrayal, but the two would remain loyal to the "Katipunan" and Santiago would even join the Philippine revolutionary forces in the Philippine–American War. Jacinto replaced Santiago as secretary.


title: Katipunan

text: In early 1895, Bonifacio called for a meeting of the society and deposed Basa in an election that installed Bonifacio as president, Jacinto as fiscal, Santiago as secretary, Molina as secretary, Pío Valenzuela and Pantaleon Torres as physicians and Aguedo del Rosario and Doreteo Trinidad as councilors.


title: Katipunan

text: On December 31, 1895, another election named Bonifacio as president, Jacinto as fiscal, Santiago as secretary, Molina as secretary, Pío Valenzuela and Pantaleon Torres as physicians and Aguedo del Rosario and Doreteo Trinidad as councilors.


title: Katipunan

text: The members of the Supreme Council in 1895 were Bonifacio as president, Valenzuela as fiscal and physician, Jacinto as secretary and Molina as treasurer. Enrico Pacheco, Pantaleon Torres, Balbino Florentino, Francisco Carreón and Hermenegildo Reyes were named councilers.


title: Katipunan

text: Eight months later, in August 1896, the fifth and last supreme council was elected to rename offices. Bonifacio was named President, Jacinto as Secretary of State, Plata as Secretary of War, Bricco Pantas as Secretary of Justice, Aguedo del Rosario as Secretary of the Interior and Enrico Pacheco as Secretary of Finance.


title: Katipunan

text: Over the next four years, the "Katipunan" founders would recruit new members. By the time the society was uncovered, the American writer James Le Roy estimated the strength of the Katipunan at 100,000 to 400,000 members. Historian Teodoro Agoncillo estimated that the membership had increased to around 30,000 by 1896. The Ilocano writer Isabelo de los Reyes estimated membership at 15,000 to 50,000.


title: Katipunan

text: Aside from Manila, the "Katipunan" also had sizeable chapters in Batangas, Laguna, Cavite, Rizal, Bulacan, Pampanga, Tarlac and Nueva Ecija. There were also smaller chapters in Ilocos Sur, Ilocos Norte, Pangasinan and the Bicol region. The Katipunan founders spent their free time recruiting members. For example, Diwa, who was a clerk at a judicial court, was assigned to the office of a justice of the peace in Pampanga. He initiated members in that province as well as Bulacan, Tarlac, and Nueva Ecija. Most of the Katipuneros were plebeian although several wealthy patriots joined the society and submitted themselves to the leadership of Bonifacio.


title: Katipunan

text: "Katipunero" (plural, "mga Katipunero") is the demonym of a male member of the Katipunan. "Katipunera" (plural, "mga Katipunera") refers to female members.


title: Katipunan

text: It was the original plan of Bonifacio to increase the membership of the Katipunan by means of "sistemang patatsulok" or triangle system. He formed his first triangle with his two comrades, Teodoro Plata and Ladislao Diwa. Each of them re-instituted Katipunan thoughts into another two new converts. The founder of the triangle knew the other two members, but the latter did not know each other. In December 1892 the system was abolished after proving it to be clumsy and complicated. A new system of initiation, modelled after the Masonic rites was then adopted.


title: Katipunan

text: When the Katipuneros had expanded to more than a hundred members, Bonifacio divided the members into three grades: the "Katipon" (literally: Associate) which is the lowest rank, the "Kawal" (soldier), and the "Bayani" (Hero or Patriot). In the meeting of the society, "Katipon" wore a black hood with a triangle of white ribbon having the letters ""Z. Ll. B."", corresponding to the roman ""A. N. B."", meaning "Anak ng̃ Bayan" (Son of the People, see below). "Kawal" wore a green hood with a triangle having white lines and the letters ""Z. LL. B."" at the three angles of the triangle, and also wore a green ribbon with a medal with the letter ("ka") in Baybayin script above a depiction of a crossed sword and flag. The password was "Gom-Bur-Za", taken from the names of the three martyrs Mariano Gomez, Jose Burgos and Jacinto Zamora. "Bayani" (Hero) wore a red mask and a sash with green borders, symbolizing courage and hope. The front of the mask had white borders that formed a triangle with three "K"s arranged as if occupying the angles of a triangle within a triangle, and with the letters ""Z. Ll. B."" below. Another password was "Rizal". Countersigns enabled members to recognize one another on the street. A member meeting another member placed the palm of his right hand on his breast and, as he passed the other member, he closed the hands to bring the right index finger and thumb together.


title: Katipunan

text: "Katipon" could graduate to "Kawal" class by bringing several new members into the society. A "Kawal" could become a "Bayani" upon being elected an officer of the society.


title: Katipunan

text: Any person who wished to join the Katipunan was subjected to certain initiation rites, resembling those of Masonic rites, to test his courage, patriotism and loyalty. New recruits underwent the initiation rite three at a time so that no member knew more than two other members of the society. The neophyte was first blindfolded and then led into a dimly lighted room with black curtains where his folded cloth was removed from his eyes. An admonition, in Tagalog, was posted at the entrance to the room:


title: Katipunan

text: Inside the candle-lit room, they would be brought to a table adorned with a skull and a bolo. There, they would condemn the abuses of the Spanish government and vow to fight colonial oppression:


title: Katipunan

text: During Bonifacio's time, all of the Filipino people are referred collectively by the Katipunan as "Tagalogs", while the Philippines is referred to as the "Katagalugan".


title: Katipunan

text: The next step in the initiation ceremony was the lecture given by the master of ceremonies, called "Mabalasig/Mabalasik" (terrible brother), who informed the neophyte to withdraw if he lacked courage since he would be out of place in the patriotic society. If the neophyte persisted, he was presented to the assembly of the brethren, who subjected him to various ordeals such as blindfolding him and making him shoot a supposedly a revolver at a person, or forcing him to jump over a supposedly hot flame. After the ordeals came to final rite–the "pacto de sangre" or blood compact–in which the neophyte signed the following oath with the blood taken from his arm:


title: Katipunan

text: He was then accepted as a full-fledged member, with a symbolic name by which he was known within Katipunan circles. Bonifacio's symbolic name was "Maypagasa"; Jacinto was "Pingkian" and Artemio Ricarte was "Vibora".


title: Katipunan

text: At first, Katipunan was purely a patriotic society for men. Owing to the growing suspicion of the women regarding nocturnal absences of their husbands, the reduction of their monthly earnings and "long hours of work", Bonifacio had to bring them into the realms of the KKK. A section for women was established in the society: to become admitted, one must be a wife, a daughter, or a sister of a male "katipunero". It was estimated that from 20 to 50 women had become members of the society.


title: Katipunan

text: The first woman to become a member of the Katipunan was Gregoria de Jesús, wife of Bonifacio. Her codename was "Lakambini" (Princess). Initially, there were 29 women were admitted to the Katipunan: Gregoria de Jesús, Marina Dizon, president of the women's section; Josefa and Trinidad Rizal, sisters of Dr. José Rizal; Angelica Lopez and Delfina Herbosa Natividad, close relatives of Dr. Rizal; Carmén de Rodriguez; Marina Hizon; Benita Rodriguez; Semiona de Rémigio; Gregoria Montoya; Agueda Kahabagan, Teresa Magbanua, Trinidad Tecson, rendered as "Mother of Biak-na-Bato"; Nazaria Lagos; Patronica Gamboa; Marcela Agoncillo; Melchora Aquino, the "Grand Old Woman of Balintawak"; Marta Saldaña and Macaria Pañgilinan.


title: Katipunan

text: The women rendered valuable services to the Katipunan. They guarded the secret papers and documents of the society. Whenever the Katipunan held sessions in a certain house, they usually made merry, singing and dancing with some of the men in the living room so that the civil guard were led that there was nothing but a harmless social party within.


title: Katipunan

text: Though women are considered to be members of the Katipunan, information regarding the women's section were scarce and sometimes conflicting. Teodoro Agoncillo, for example, disregarded Marina Dizon and concluded that Josefa Rizal was the only president of the said section. Gregorio Zaide, on the other hand, mentioned Dizon's presidency in his 1939 publication "History of the Katipunan" but changed his mind when he adopted Dr. Pío Valenzuela's notion that women-members did not elect officers, hence there is no room for president.


title: Katipunan

text: Attracted by the universal appeal of the Katipunan's Kartilya, there were several members who were not native Filipinos at all yet joined the Katipunan and/or, later, the Philippine Revolutionary Army (PRA) in the spirit of national liberation. Among the foreign-born Katipuneros were: General Juan Cailles, a half Indian (From India) and French mestizo, General Jose Ignacio Paua who was a full-blooded Chinese, the famous African-American, PRA Captain David Fagen who defected from the Americans to join the Filipinos due to his disgust of racism and imperialism, Captain Camillo Richairdi an Italian who joined the rebel Filipinos and Vicente Catalan who was a Cuban Criollo captain of a ship but became the first Admiral of the Philippine Navy. There were also a large amount of former Latin-American officers in the Spanish army; mostly from Mexico and as well as from the now independent nations of Colombia, Venezuela, Peru, Chile, Argentina and Costa Rica that were dismissed on the context of the Andres Novales uprising, one of the precursors of the revolution. These Latin-American born officers who moved to the Philippines to militarily serve, allied with the revolutionaries. There were also several Spanish and American defectors to the Philippine side during the Philippine War of Independence and the Philippine–American War. To add to these were the Japanese militants supporting the Katipunan and the First Republic among which include Lieutenant Saburo Nakamori and Captain Chizuno Iwamoto who served on President Emilio Aguinaldo's staff.


title: Katipunan

text: During the Katipunan's existence, literature flourished through prominent writers of the Katipunan: Andrés Bonifacio, Emilio Jacinto and Dr. Pío Valenzuela. Each of the three's works stirred patriotism and are aimed to spread the revolutionary thoughts and ideals of the society.


title: Katipunan

text: "Kalayaan" (Liberty/Freedom) was the official organ and newspaper of the Katipunan. It was first published March 1896 (even though its masthead was dated January 1896.) The first "Kalayaan" issue has never been followed.


title: Katipunan

text: In 1895, the Katipunan bought an old hand-press with the money generously donated by two Visayan co-patriots Francisco del Castillo and Candido Iban–who returned to the country after working as shell and pearl divers in Australia and had some money from a lottery win. They bought the press and a small quantity of types from Antonio Salazar's "Bazar del Cisne" on Calle Carriedo, and Del Castillo transported it to the house of Andrés Bonifacio in Santa Cruz, Manila. On January 1, 1896, Valenzuela accepted the position as the Katipunan "fiscal" in exchange of Bonifacio's consent to send the printing press on his house in Calle de Lavezares, San Nicolas, Manila, "so that he could assist and edit a monthly publication which would be the Katipunan's main organ". Bonifacio agreed, and on mid-January, the press was delivered in San Nicolas.


title: Katipunan

text: The name "Kalayaan" was suggested by Dr. Pío Valenzuela, which was agreed both by Bonifacio and Emilio Jacinto. Even though Valenzuela was chosen to become the editor of the organ, they all decided to use the name of Marcelo H. del Pilar as its editor. To fool the Spanish authorities, the "Kalayaan" was also decided to carry a false masthead stating that it was being printed in Yokohama, Japan.


title: Katipunan

text: That very same month, January 1896, the publication of "Kalayaan" began. Valenzuela expected to complete it by the end of the month and so it was dated as such. The existence of the press was kept in utmost secrecy. Under the supervision of Valenzuela, two printers, Faustino Duque, a student from Colegio de San Juan de Letran, and Ulpiano Fernández, a part-time printer at "El Comercio", printed the revolutionary literature of the society and "Kalayaan".


title: Katipunan

text: When Valenzuela was appointed the physician-general of the Katipunan, he passed on his editorial duties to Jacinto. Jacinto edited the articles after his pre-law classes in University of Santo Tomas. Since the press was in the old orthography and not in the new "Germanized" alphabet, as called by the Spaniards, there were no Tagalog letters such as "k", "w", "h" and "y". To solve this problem, Jacinto obliged his mother, Josefa Dizon, to buy typefaces that resembled such letters. The typefaces used in its printing were purchased from publisher Isabelo de los Reyes, but many were taken surreptitiously from the presses of the "Diario de Manila" by Filipino employees who were also members of the Katipunan.


title: Katipunan

text: According to Valenzuela, the printing process was so laborious that setting eight pages required two months to complete. For weeks, Jacinto, Duque and Fernández (and sometimes Valenzuela) took turns in preparing the pages of the "Kalayaan", which was approximately nine by twelve inches in size.


title: Katipunan

text: In March 1896, the first copies of the January 1896 issue were secretly circulated with about 2,000 copies, according to Valenzuela. According to Epifanio de los Santos, only 1,000 copies were printed: 700 were distributed by Bonifacio, 300 by Aguinaldo, and some 100 by Valenzuela himself.


title: Katipunan

text: The first issue contained a supposed editorial done by del Pilar, which, in fact, was done by Jacinto himself. It also included Bonifacio's "Pag-ibig sa Tinubuang Lupa", Valenzuela's "Catuiran?" and several works that exposed Spanish abuses and promoted patriotism. Copies spread to nearby Manila provinces, including Cavite, Morong (now Rizal), Kalookan, and Malabon. Surprised by this initial success, Jacinto decided to print a second issue that would contain nothing but his works.


title: Katipunan

text: In August 1896, the second issue was prepared. It was during this time that Spanish authorities began to grow wary of anti-government activities and, suspecting the existence of a subversive periodical in circulation (see below), raided the place where "Kalayaan" was being printed, at No. 6 Clavel Street, San Nicolas, Manila. Fortunately, the printers Duque and Fernández were warned in time, destroyed the incriminating molds and escaped. Therefore, Spanish authorities never found any evidence of the "Kalayaan".


title: Katipunan

text: The teachings of the Katipunan were embodied in a document entitled "Kartilya ng Katipunan", a pamphlet printed in Tagalog language. Copies of which were distributed among the members of the society.


title: Katipunan

text: "Kartilya" was written by Emilio Jacinto, and later revised by Emilio Aguinaldo. The revised version consists of thirteen teachings (though some sources, such as the one provided by Philippine Centennial Commission, list only twelve). The term "kartilya" was derived from Spanish "cartilla", which was a primer for grade school students before going to school at that time.


title: Katipunan

text: According to Filipino writer and historian Hermenegildo Cruz, the official language of the Katipunan is Tagalog, and uses an alphabet nearly similar to Spanish alphabet but has a different meaning and the way it was read was changed. Diacritics were added, to emphasize the existence of ng and mga on Tagalog orthography. The following is an excerpt from Cruz' "Kartilyang Makabayan: Mga Tanong at Sagot Ukol Kay Andrés Bonifacio at sa KKK" (, Manila, 1922):


title: Katipunan

text: The night when Governor-General Eulogio Despujol exiled Dr. José Rizal to Dapitan, Katipunan was discovered.


title: Katipunan

text: In a secret meeting of the Katipunan by a small creek named Bitukang Manok (later known as Parian Creek, now nearly extinct) near Pasig on May 4, 1896, Bonifacio and his councilors decided to seek the advice of Rizal regarding a decision to revolt. Bonifacio delegated Dr. Pío Valenzuela as the Katipunan's emissary to Dapitan. This was done in order to inform Rizal of Katipunan's plan to launch a revolution and, if possible, a war against Spain. By the end of May 1896, Valenzuela had visited and interviewed Rizal in Dapitan. As cover, Valenzuela was accompanied by a blind man named Raymundo Máta, since Rizal is an ophthalmologist.


title: Katipunan

text: Valenzuela arrived in Dapitan on June 21, 1896, where Rizal welcomed him. After supper, Valenzuela told him his real purpose and the necessity of securing Rizal's support. According to Valenzuela, Rizal only answered, ""Huwag, huwag! Iya'y makasasama sa bayang Pilipino!"" (No, no! That will harm the Filipino nation!)


title: Katipunan

text: Rizal objected to Bonifacio's audacious plan to plunge the country into a bloody revolution. He believed it was premature for two reasons:


title: Katipunan

text: Because of this notion, Valenzuela made another proposal to Rizal: to rescue him. Rizal disapproved of this plan, because he had given his word of honor to the Spanish authorities, and he did not want to break it. Instead, Rizal advised Valenzuela to persuade wealthy Filipinos, so that they can solicit funds, where he recommended an elite army officer name Antonio Luna to be Katipunan's war general, should a revolution break out. According to Valenzuela's statement to the Spanish authorities, they almost quarreled over the matter and Valenzuela left the following day instead of staying for a month as originally planned.


title: Katipunan

text: When Valenzuela returned to Manila and informed the Katipunan of his failure to secure Rizal's sanction. Bonifacio, furious, warned Valenzuela not to tell anyone of Rizal's refusal to support the impending uprising. However, Valenzuela had already spread the word, so that much fund proposals to the society were canceled. Despite Rizal's rejection, the Katipunan was already trying to address its arms supply problem and had taken steps to smuggle in weapons from abroad.


title: Katipunan

text: At his trial, Rizal denied that he knew Valenzuela, saying only that he met him first at Dapitan and that he considered him a good friend because of what Valenzuela showed to him and his appreciation of medical tools Valenzuela gave to him. He also said that this was the last time they met.


title: Katipunan

text: Despite Rizal's rejection of an armed revolution, Bonifacio continued to plan for an armed conflict with Spain. The Katipunan cast its eyes on Japan, which loomed then as the probable champion of Asian liberties against Western oppression at the time. In May 1896, after Valenzuela's visit to Rizal, a delegation of Katipunan members, headed by Jacinto and Bonifacio, conferred with a visiting Japanese naval officer and captain of a Japanese ship, named "Kongo", and the Japanese consul at a Japanese bazaar in Manila. The interpreter, a friend of Valenzuela, was José Moritaro Tagawa who was married to a Filipino woman of Bocaue, Bulacan.


title: Katipunan

text: After the usual exchange of courtesies, Jacinto submitted the Katipunan memorial for the Emperor of Japan in which the Filipinos prayed for Japanese aid in their projected revolution, "so that the light of liberty that illuminates Japan may also shed its rays over the Philippines."


title: Katipunan

text: It was with good reason that the Katipunan solicited Japan's aid and alliance. Japan had been friendly to the Filipinos since the Spanish colonial era. Many Filipinos who had fled from Spanish persecution had been welcomed there and given full protection of Japanese laws. Bonifacio tried to purchase arms and ammunition from Japan, but failed due to lack of funds and the uncovering of the Katipunan, José Dizon was part of the committee that the Katipunan formed to secure arms from Japan with the connivance of the Japanese ship captain. Three months later, however, the Katipunan was uncovered and Dizon was among the hundreds who were arrested for rebellion.


title: Katipunan

text: As the Katipunan was busy preparing for the revolt, various denunciations regarding its existence reached the Spanish authorities. On July 5, 1896, Manuél Sityar, a Spanish lieutenant of the Guardia Civil stationed at Pasig, reported to Governor-General Ramón Blanco the mysterious activities of certain natives who had been gathering arms and recruiting men for some unknown purposes. On August 13, 1896, Fr. Agustín Fernández, an Augustinian curate of San Pedro, Makati, wrote to Don Manuél Luengo, the civil governor (mayor) of Manila, denouncing anti-Spanish meetings in his parish.


title: Katipunan

text: The Katipunan was finally discovered by the Spanish authorities six days after Fr. Fernández's letter to Luengo. In early August 1896, Teodoro Patiño and Apolonio de la Cruz, both working for the "Diario de Manila" printing press (leading newspaper during those times) had undergone misunderstanding regarding wages. Press foreman de la Cruz and typesetter Patiño fought over salary increase of two pesos. De la Cruz tried to blame Patiño for the loss of the printing supplies that were used for the printing of "Kalayaan". In retaliation, Patiño revealed the secrets of the society to his sister, Honoria Patiño, an inmate nun at the Mandaluyong Orphanage. That afternoon, on August 19, 1896, Honoria grew shocked and very upset of the revelation. The mother portress of the Orphanage, "Sor" (Sister) Teresa de Jesus saw Honoria crying so she approached her. Honoria told everything she heard from her brother. At around 6:15 pm that day, "Sor" Teresa called Patiño and advised him to tell everything he knew about the Katipunan through confession to Fr. Mariano Gíl.


title: Katipunan

text: Controlled by his fear of Hell, Patiño went to Fr. Gíl, an Augustinian parish curate of the Tondo convent. Though he is willed to tell anything about the Katipunan, Patiño confessed that a lithographic stone was hidden in the press room of the "Diario de Manila", which was used by the society for printing receipts. He also said that aside from the lithographic stone, there were also documents of membership (that uses member's blood for signing) hidden, together with a picture of Dr. José Rizal and several daggers that was made for the "Katipunero"-employees of the newspaper.


title: Katipunan

text: Alarmed by the stunning truth of the existence of a secret society, Fr. Gíl, accompanied by local Spanish authorities, searched the printing office of "Diario de Manila" and found the incriminating evidence. They also found de la Cruz in possession of a dagger used in Katipunan initiation rites and some list of newly accepted members. After the arrest, Fr. Gíl rushed to Governor-General Blanco to denounce the revolutionary plot of the Katipunan. The Spanish unleashed a crackdown and arrested dozens of people, where many innocent citizens were forced to go to Fort Santiago.


title: Katipunan

text: Patiño's alleged betrayal has become the standard version of how the revolution broke out in 1896. In the 1920s, however, the Philippine National Library commissioned a group of former "Katipuneros" to confirm the truth of the story. José Turiano Santiago, Bonifacio's close friend who was expelled in 1895, denied the story. He claimed that Bonifacio himself ordered Patiño to divulge the society's existence to hasten the Philippine revolution and preempt any objection from members.


title: Katipunan

text: Historian Teodoro Agoncillo gives a differing version of events, writing that Patiño revealed the secrets of the society to his sister, Honoria, following on a misunderstanding with de la Cruz, another society member who worked with him in the Spanish-owned "Diario de Manila" periodical. Honoria, an orphanage inmate, was upset at the news and informed Sor Teresa, the orphanage "madre portera", who suggested that Patiño tell all to Fr. Gíl. On August 19, Patiño told Fr. Gíl what he knew of the secret society. Fr. Gíl and the owner of the "Diario de Manila" searched the printing shop, discovering the lithographic stone used to print Katipunan receipts. After this discovery, the locker of Policarpio Turla, whose signature appeared on the receipts, was forced open and found to contain a dagger, the rules of the society, and other pertinent documents. These were turned over to the Guardia Civíl, leading to the arrest and conviction on charges of illegal association and treason of some 500 prominent men.


title: Katipunan

text: In another version, the existence of the Katipunan became known to the authorities through Patiño, who revealed it to the general manager, La Font. Patiño was engaged in a bitter dispute over pay with de la Cruz and exposed the Katipunan to La Font, in retaliation. La Font led a Spanish police lieutenant to the shop and the desk of de la Cruz, where they "found Katipunan paraphernalia such as a rubber stamp, a little book, ledgers, membership oaths signed in blood, and a membership roster of the Maghiganti chapter of the Katipunan."


title: Katipunan

text: When the "Katipunan" leaders learned of the arrests, Bonifacio called an assembly of all provincial councils to decide the start of the armed uprising. The meeting was held at the house of Apolonio Samson at a place called Kangkong in Balintawak. About 1,000 "Katipuneros" attended the meeting but they were not able to settle the issue.


title: Katipunan

text: They met again at another place in Balintawak the following day. Historians are still debating whether this event took place at the yard of Melchora Aquino or at the house of her son Juan Ramos. The meeting took place either on August 23 or August 24. It was at this second meeting where the Katipuneros in attendance decided to start the armed uprising and they tore their "cedulas" (residence certificates and identity papers) as a sign of their commitment to the revolution. The "Katipuneros" also agreed to attack Manila on August 29.


title: Katipunan

text: But Spanish civil guards discovered the meeting and the first battle occurred with the Battle of Pasong Tamo. While the "Katipunan" initially had the upper hand, the Spanish civil guards turned the fight around. Bonifacio and his men retreated toward Marikina via Balara (now in Quezon City). They then proceeded to San Mateo (in the province now called Rizal) and took the town. The Spanish, however, regained it three days later. After regrouping, the "Katipuneros" decided not to attack Manila directly but agreed to take the Spanish powder magazine and garrison at San Juan.


title: Katipunan

text: On August 30, the "Katipunan" attacked the 100 Spanish soldiers defending the powder magazine in the Battle of San Juan del Monte or Battle of Pinaglabanan. About 153 Katipuneros were killed in the battle, but the "Katipunan" had to withdraw upon the arrival of Spanish reinforcements. More than 200 were taken prisoners. At about the same time, Katipuneros in other suburban Manila areas, like Caloocan, San Pedro de Tunasan (now Makati), Pateros and Taguig, rose up in arms. In the afternoon of the same day, the Spanish Gov. Gen. Camilo de Polavieja declared martial law in Manila and the provinces of Cavite, Laguna, Batangas, Bulacan, Pampanga, Tarlac and Nueva Ecija. The Philippine Revolution had begun.


title: Katipunan

text: In Bulacan, the Bulacan Revolutionary Movement was attacked by the strongest artillery forces ever converged in the capital town of Bulacan. This subsequently led to the Battle of San Rafael, where Gen. Anacleto Enriquez and his men were surrounded and attacked in the Church of San Rafael.


title: Katipunan

text: Pandi, Bulacan played a vital and historical role in the fight for Philippine independence. Pandi is known for the Réal de Kakarong de Sili Shrine – "Inang Filipina Shrine", the site of the bloodiest battle in Bulacan, where more than 3,000 Katipunero revolutionaries died. Likewise, it is on this site where the "Republic of Réal de Kakarong de Sili" of 1896, one of the first Philippine revolutionary republics, was established.


title: Katipunan

text: It was in Kakarong de Sili—which about 6,000 Katipuneros from various towns of Bulacan headed by Brigadier General Eusebio Roque, better known as "Maestrong Sebio" or "Dimabungo" (see list of Filipino generals in the Philippine Revolution and the Philippine–American War)—that the "Kakarong Republic" was organized shortly after the Cry of Pugad Lawin, referred to as the "Cry of Balintawak".


title: Katipunan

text: History and researchers, as well as records of the National Historical Commission, tells that the "Kakarong Republic" was the first and truly organized revolutionary government established in the country to overthrow the Spaniards antedating event the famous Malolos Republic and the Biak-na-Bato Republic. In recognition thereof, these three "republics" established in Bulacan have been incorporated in the seal of the province of Bulacan.


title: Katipunan

text: According to available records including the biography of General Gregorio del Pilar entitled "Life and Death of a Boy General" written by Teodoro Kalaw, former director of the National Library of the Philippines, a fort was constructed at "Kakarong de Sili" that was like a miniature city. It had streets, an independent police force, a musical band, a factory of falconets, bolos and repair shops for rifles and cartridges. The 'Kakarong Republic' had a complete set of officials with Canuto Villanueva as Supreme Chief and 'Maestrong Sebio'—Eusebio Roque as Brigadaier General of the Army. The fort was attacked and totally destroyed on January 1, 1897, by a large Spanish force headed by the Commandant Olaguer-Feliu. Del Pilar was only a lieutenant at the time and the Battle of Kakarong de Sili was his "baptism of fire." This was where he was first wounded and escaped to nearby barangay 'Manatal.'


title: Katipunan

text: The Kakarong Lodge No. 168 of the 'Legionarios del Trabajo', named in memory of the 1,200 Katipuneros who perished in the battle, erected a monument named the "Inang Filipina" Shrine – (Mother Philippines Shrine) in 1924 in the barrio of Kakarong of Pandi, Bulacan.


title: Katipunan

text: The actual site of the Battle of Kakarong de Sili is now a part of the barangay of Réal de Kakarong. No less than one of the greatest generals in the Philippines' history, General Emilio Aguinaldo who became the first Philippine president visited this sacred ground in the late 1950s.


title: Katipunan

text: Even before the discovery of the "Katipunan", Rizal applied for a position as a doctor in the Spanish army in Cuba in a bid to persuade the Spanish authorities of his loyalty to Spain. His application was accepted and he arrived in Manila to board a ship for Spain in August 1896, shortly before the secret society was exposed. But while Rizal was en route to Spain, the "Katipunan" was unmasked and a telegram overtook the steamer at Port Said, recalling him to the Philippines to face charges that he was the mastermind of the uprising. He was later executed by musketry on December 30, 1896, at the field of Bagumbayan (now known as Luneta).


title: Katipunan

text: While Rizal was being tried by a military court for treason, the prisoners taken in the Battle of Pinaglabanan—Sancho Valenzuela, Ramón Peralta, Modesto Sarmiento, and Eugenio Silvestre—were executed on September 6, 1896, at Bagumbayan.


title: Katipunan

text: The Spanish colonial authorities also pressed the prosecution of those who were arrested after the raid on the "Diario de Manila" printing press, where they found evidence incriminating not only common folk but also wealthy Filipino society leaders.


title: Katipunan

text: The Bicol Martyrs were executed by firing squad on January 4, 1897, at Bagumbayan. They were Manuel Abella, Domingo Abella, priests Inocencio Herrera, Gabriel Prieto and Severino Díaz, Camio Jacob, Tomas Prieto, Florencio Lerma, Macario Valentin, Cornelio Mercado and Mariano Melgarejo.


title: Katipunan

text: They arrested and seized the properties of prominent businessmen Francisco Roxas, Telesforo Chuidián and Jacinto Limjáp. While there may be circumstantial evidence pointing to Chuidián and Limjáp as financiers of the revolution, the record showed no evidence against Roxas except that he was involved in funding the Propaganda Movement. Even Mariano Ponce, another leader of the Propaganda Movement, said the arrest of Roxas was a "fatal mistake". Nonetheless, Roxas was found guilty of treason and shot on January 11, 1897, at Bagumbayan.


title: Katipunan

text: Roxas was executed with Numeriano Adriáno, José Dizon, Domíngo Franco, Moisés Salvadór, Luis Enciso Villaréal, Braulio Rivera, Antonio Salazar, Ramón P. Padilla, Faustino Villaruél and Faustino Mañalac. Also executed with the group were Lt. Benedicto Nijaga and Corporal Gerónimo Cristóbal, both of the Spanish army.


title: Katipunan

text: On February 6, 1897, Apolonio de la Cruz, Román Bása, Teodoro Pláta, Vicente Molina, Hermenegildo de los Reyes, José Trinidad, Pedro Nicodemus, Feliciano del Rosario, Gervasio Samson and Doroteo Domínguez were also executed at Bagumbayan.


title: Katipunan

text: But the executions, particularly Rizal's, only added fuel to the rebellion, with the "Katipuneros" shouting battle cries: ""Mabuhay ang Katagalugan"!" ("Long Live the Tagalog Nation!" – "Katagalugan" (Tagalog Nation) being the Katipunan term for the Philippines) and ""Mabuhay si Dr. José Rizal"!" ("Long Live Dr. José Rizal!"). To the Katipuneros, Rizal was the honorary president of the Katipunan.


title: Katipunan

text: In the course of the revolution against Spain, a split developed between the "Magdiwang" faction (led by Gen. Mariano Álvarez) and the "Magdalo" faction (led by Gen. Baldomero Aguinaldo, cousin of General Emilio Aguinaldo), both situated in Cavite.


title: Katipunan

text: At a convention in Tejeros, Cavite, the revolutionaries assembled to form a revolutionary government. There, on March 22, 1897, it was decided to dissolve the Katipunan and establish a republic. Bonifacio lost his bid for the presidency of the revolutionary government to Emilio Aguinaldo, who was in Pasong Santol, fighting the Spanish forces and instead was elected Secretary of the Interior. When members of the "Magdalo" faction tried to discredit him as uneducated and unfit for the position, Bonifacio declared the results of the convention as null and void, speaking as the "Supremo" of the Katipunan. Despite this, Aguinaldo took his oath of office as president the next day in Santa Cruz de Malabon (present-day Tanza) in Cavite, as did the rest of the officers, except for Bonifacio. Bonifacio and a few others issued the Acta de Tejeros, proclaiming the events at the Tejeros Convention to have been "disorderly and tarnished by chicanery.", followed by the Naic Military Agreement characterizing actions at Tejeros to have been treasonous. This led to Andrés Bonifacio and his brother Procopio being arrested due to alleged incidents in Indang and, upon the orders of the Council of War and approved by Gen. Aguinaldo, they were both executed on May 10, 1897, at Mount Buntis in Maragondon, Cavite. He and his brother were buried in an unmarked grave.


title: Katipunan

text: The Katipunan revolution led to the eventual establishment of the First Philippine Republic. The Philippine Republic, more commonly known as the First Philippine Republic or the Malolos Republic was a short-lived nascent revolutionary government in the Philippines. It was formally established with the proclamation of the Malolos Constitution on January 23, 1899, in Malolos, Bulacan, and endured until the capture of Emilio Aguinaldo by the American forces on March 23, 1901, in Palanan, Isabela, which effectively dissolved the First Republic. The United States eventually destroyed the First Philippine Republic in the Philippine–American War. Afterwards, the Americans exterminated any remaining vestige of the Katipunan.


title: Know Nothing

text: The Know Nothing party was a nativist political party and movement in the United States in the mid-1850s. The party was officially known as the "Native American Party" prior to 1855 and thereafter, it was simply known as the "American Party". Members of the movement were required to say "I know nothing" whenever they were asked about its specifics by outsiders, providing the group with its colloquial name.


title: Know Nothing

text: Supporters of the Know Nothing movement believed that an alleged "Romanist" conspiracy by Catholics to subvert civil and religious liberty in the United States was being hatched. Therefore, they sought to politically organize native-born Protestants in defense of their traditional religious and political values. The Know Nothing movement is remembered for this theme because Protestants feared that Catholic priests and bishops would control a large bloc of voters. In most places, the ideology and influence of the Know Nothing movement lasted only one or two years before it disintegrated due to weak and inexperienced local leaders, a lack of publicly proclaimed national leaders, and a deep split over the issue of slavery. In the South, the party did not emphasize anti-Catholicism as frequently as it emphasized it in the North and it stressed a neutral position on slavery, but it became the main alternative to the dominant Democratic Party.


title: Know Nothing

text: Know Nothings are occasionally referred to as an antisemitic movement due to their zealous xenophobia and religious bigotry; however, the movement was not openly hostile towards Jews because its members and supporters believed that Jews did not allow "their religious feelings to interfere with their political views." The Know Nothing Party, prioritizing a zealous disdain for Irish Catholic immigrants, reportedly "had nothing to say about Jews", according to historian Hasia Diner. In New York, the virulently anti-Catholic Know Nothings supported a Jewish candidate for governor.


title: Know Nothing

text: The Know Nothings supplemented their xenophobic views with populist appeals. The party was progressive in its stances on "issues of labor rights and the need for more government spending" and furnished "support for an expansion of the rights of women, the regulation of industry, and support of measures which were designed to improve the status of working people." It was a forerunner of the temperance movement in the United States. The Know Nothing movement briefly emerged as a major political party in the form of the American Party.


title: Know Nothing

text: The collapse of the Whig Party after the passage of the Kansas–Nebraska Act left an opening for the emergence of a new major political party in opposition to the Democratic Party. The Know Nothing movement managed to elect congressman Nathaniel P. Banks of Massachusetts and several other individuals into office in the 1854 elections, and it subsequently coalesced into a new political party which was known as the American Party. Particularly in the South, the American Party served as a vehicle for politicians who opposed the Democrats. Many of the American Party's members and supporters also hoped that it would stake out a middle ground between the pro-slavery positions of Democratic politicians and the radical anti-slavery positions of the rapidly emerging Republican Party. The American Party nominated former President Millard Fillmore in the 1856 presidential election, but he kept quiet about his membership in it, and he personally refrained from supporting the Know Nothing movement's activities and ideology. Fillmore received 21.5% of the popular vote in the 1856 presidential election, finishing behind the Democratic and Republican nominees. Henry Winter Davis, an active Know-Nothing, was elected on the American Party ticket to Congress from Maryland. He told Congress the un-American Irish Catholic immigrants were to blame for the recent election of Democrat James Buchanan as president, stating: The recent election has developed in an aggravated form every evil against which the American party protested. Foreign allies have decided the government of the country -- men naturalized in thousands on the eve of the election. Again in the fierce struggle for supremacy, men have forgotten the ban which the Republic puts on the intrusion of religious influence on the political arena. These influences have brought vast multitudes of foreign-born citizens to the polls, ignorant of American interests, without American feelings, influenced by foreign sympathies, to vote on American affairs; and those votes have, in point of fact, accomplished the present result.


title: Know Nothing

text: The party entered a period of rapid decline after Fillmore's loss. In 1857 the "Dred Scott v. Sandford" pro-slavery decision of the Supreme Court of the United States further galvanized opposition to slavery in the North, causing many former Know Nothings to join the Republicans. The remnants of the American Party largely joined the Constitutional Union Party in 1860 and they disappeared during the American Civil War.


title: Know Nothing

text: Anti-Catholicism was widespread in colonial America, but it played a minor role in American politics until the arrival of large numbers of Irish and German Catholics in the 1840s. It then reemerged in nativist attacks on Catholic immigration. It appeared in New York City politics as early as 1843 under the banner of the American Republican Party. The movement quickly spread to nearby states using that name or Native American Party or variants of it. They succeeded in a number of local and Congressional elections, notably in 1844 in Philadelphia, where the anti-Catholic orator Lewis Charles Levin was elected Representative from Pennsylvania's 1st district. In the early 1850s, numerous secret orders grew up, of which the Order of United Americans and the Order of the Star Spangled Banner came to be the most important. They emerged in New York in the early 1850s as a secret order that quickly spread across the North, reaching non-Catholics, particularly those non-Catholics who were lower middle class or skilled workers.


title: Know Nothing

text: The name "Know Nothing" originated in the semi-secret organization of the party. When a member of the party was asked about his activities, he was supposed to say, "I know nothing." Outsiders derisively called the party's members "Know Nothings", and the name stuck. In 1855, the Know Nothings first entered politics under the American Party label.


title: Know Nothing

text: The immigration of large numbers of Irish and German Catholics to the United States in the period between 1830 and 1860 made religious differences between Catholics and Protestants a political issue. Violence occasionally erupted at the polls. Protestants alleged that Pope Pius IX had contributed to the failure of the liberal Revolutions of 1848 in Europe and they also alleged that he was an enemy of liberty, democracy and republicanism. One Boston minister described Catholicism as "the ally of tyranny, the opponent of material prosperity, the foe of thrift, the enemy of the railroad, the caucus, and the school". These fears encouraged conspiracy theories regarding papal intentions of subjugating the United States through a continuing influx of Catholics controlled by Irish bishops obedient to and personally selected by the Pope.


title: Know Nothing

text: In 1849, an oath-bound secret society, the Order of the Star Spangled Banner, was founded by Charles B. Allen in New York City. At its inception, the Order of the Star Spangled Banner only had about 36 members. Fear of Catholic immigration caused some Protestants to become dissatisfied with the Democratic Party, whose leaders included Catholics of Irish descent in many cities. Activists formed secret groups, coordinating their votes and throwing their weight behind candidates who were sympathetic to their cause:


title: Know Nothing

text: In the spring of 1854, the Know Nothings carried Boston and Salem, Massachusetts, and other New England cities. They swept the state of Massachusetts in the fall 1854 elections, their biggest victory. The Whig candidate for mayor of Philadelphia, editor Robert T. Conrad, was soon revealed as a Know Nothing as he promised to crack down on crime, close saloons on Sundays and only appoint native-born Americans to office—he won the election by a landslide. In Washington, D.C., Know Nothing candidate John T. Towers defeated incumbent Mayor John Walker Maury, triggering opposition of such a high proportion that the Democrats, Whigs, and Freesoilers in the capital united as the "Anti-Know-Nothing Party". In New York, where James Harper had been elected mayor of New York City as an American Republican the previous year, the Know Nothing candidate Daniel Ullman came in third in a four-way race for governor by gathering 26% of the vote. After the 1854 elections, they exerted a large amount of political influence in Maine, Indiana, Pennsylvania, and California, but historians are unsure about the accuracy of this information due to the secrecy of the party, because all parties were in turmoil and the anti-slavery and prohibition issues overlapped with nativism in complex and confusing ways. They helped elect Stephen Palfrey Webb as mayor of San Francisco and they also helped elect J. Neely Johnson as governor of California. Nathaniel P. Banks was elected to Congress as a Know Nothing candidate, but after a few months he aligned with Republicans. A coalition of Know Nothings, Republicans and other members of Congress opposed to the Democratic Party elected Banks to the position of Speaker of the House.


title: Know Nothing

text: The results of the 1854 elections were so favorable to the Know Nothings, up to then an informal movement with no centralized organization, that they formed officially as a political party called the American Party, which attracted many members of the by then nearly defunct Whig party as well as a significant number of Democrats. Membership in the American Party increased dramatically, from 50,000 to an estimated one million plus in a matter of months during that year.


title: Know Nothing

text: In San Francisco, a Know Nothing chapter was founded in 1854 to oppose Chinese immigration—members included a judge of the state supreme court, who ruled that no Chinese person could testify as a witness against a white man in court.


title: Know Nothing

text: In the spring of 1855, Know Nothing candidate Levi Boone was elected mayor of Chicago and barred all immigrants from city jobs. Abraham Lincoln was strongly opposed to the principles of the Know Nothing movement, but did not denounce it publicly because he needed the votes of its membership to form a successful anti-slavery coalition in Illinois. Ohio was the only state where the party gained strength in 1855. Their Ohio success seems to have come from winning over immigrants, especially German-American Lutherans and Scots-Irish Presbyterians, both hostile to Catholicism. In Alabama, Know Nothings were a mix of former Whigs, discontented Democrats and other political outsiders who favored state aid to build more railroads. Virginia attracted national attention in its tempestuous 1855 gubernatorial election. Democrat Henry Alexander Wise won by convincing state voters that Know Nothings were in bed with Northern abolitionists. With the victory by Wise, the movement began to collapse in the South.


title: Know Nothing

text: Know Nothings scored victories in Northern state elections in 1854, winning control of the legislature in Massachusetts and polling 40% of the vote in Pennsylvania. Although most of the new immigrants lived in the North, resentment and anger against them was national and the American Party initially polled well in the South, attracting the votes of many former southern Whigs.


title: Know Nothing

text: The party name gained wide but brief popularity. Nativism became a new American rage: Know Nothing candy, Know Nothing tea, and Know Nothing toothpicks appeared. Stagecoaches were dubbed "The Know Nothing". In Trescott, Maine, a shipowner dubbed his new 700-ton freighter "Know Nothing." The party was occasionally referred to, contemporaneously, in a slightly pejorative shortening, "Knism".


title: Know Nothing

text: Historian John Mulkern has examined the party's success in sweeping to almost complete control of the Massachusetts legislature after its 1854 landslide victory. He finds the new party was populist and highly democratic, hostile to wealth, elites and to expertise, and deeply suspicious of outsiders, especially Catholics. The new party's voters were concentrated in the rapidly growing industrial towns, where Yankee workers faced direct competition with new Irish immigrants. Whereas the Whig Party was strongest in high income districts, the Know Nothing electorate was strongest in the poor districts. They expelled the traditional upper-class, closed, political leadership, especially the lawyers and merchants. In their stead, they elected working-class men, farmers and a large number of teachers and ministers. Replacing the moneyed elite were men who seldom owned $10,000 in property.


title: Know Nothing

text: Nationally, the new party leadership showed incomes, occupation, and social status that were about average. Few were wealthy, according to detailed historical studies of once-secret membership rosters. Fewer than 10% were unskilled workers who might come in direct competition with Irish laborers. They enlisted few farmers, but on the other hand they included many merchants and factory owners. The party's voters were by no means all native-born Americans, for it won more than a fourth of the German and British Protestants in numerous state elections. It especially appealed to Protestants such as the Lutherans, Dutch Reformed and Presbyterians.


title: Know Nothing

text: The most aggressive and innovative legislation came out of Massachusetts, where the new party controlled all but three of the 400 seats—only 35 had any previous legislative experience. The Massachusetts legislature in 1855 passed a series of reforms that "burst the dam against change erected by party politics, and released a flood of reforms." Historian Stephen Taylor says that in addition to nativist legislation, "the party also distinguished itself by its opposition to slavery, support for an expansion of the rights of women, regulation of industry, and support of measures designed to improve the status of working people".


title: Know Nothing

text: It passed legislation to regulate railroads, insurance companies and public utilities. It funded free textbooks for the public schools and raised the appropriations for local libraries and for the school for the blind. Purification of Massachusetts against divisive social evils was a high priority. The legislature set up the state's first reform school for juvenile delinquents while trying to block the importation of supposedly subversive government documents and academic books from Europe. It upgraded the legal status of wives, giving them more property rights and more rights in divorce courts. It passed harsh penalties on speakeasies, gambling houses and bordellos. It passed prohibition legislation with penalties that were so stiff—such as six months in prison for serving one glass of beer—that juries refused to convict defendants. Many of the reforms were quite expensive; state spending rose 45% on top of a 50% hike in annual taxes on cities and towns. This extravagance angered the taxpayers, and few Know Nothings were reelected.


title: Know Nothing

text: The highest priority included attacks on the civil rights of Irish Catholic immigrants. After this, state courts lost the power to process applications for citizenship and public schools had to require compulsory daily reading of the Protestant Bible (which the nativists were sure would transform the Catholic children). The governor disbanded the Irish militias and replaced Irish holding state jobs with Protestants. It failed to reach the two-thirds vote needed to pass a state constitutional amendment to restrict voting and office holding to men who had resided in Massachusetts for at least 21 years. The legislature then called on Congress to raise the requirement for naturalization from five years to 21 years, but Congress never acted. The most dramatic move by the Know Nothing legislature was to appoint an investigating committee designed to prove widespread sexual immorality underway in Catholic convents. The press had a field day following the story, especially when it was discovered that the key reformer was using committee funds to pay for a prostitute. The legislature shut down its committee, ejected the reformer, and saw its investigation become a laughing stock.


title: Know Nothing

text: The Know Nothings scored a landslide in New Hampshire in 1855. They won 51 % of the vote, including 94% of the Free Soilers (an anti-slavery faction of Democrats), and 79% of the Whigs, plus 15% of Democrats and 24% of those who abstained in the previous election for governor the year before. In full control of the legislature, the Know Nothings enacted their entire agenda. According to Lex Renda, they battled traditionalism and promoted rapid modernization. They extended the waiting period for citizenship to slow down the growth of Irish power; they reformed the state courts. They expanded the number and power of banks; they strengthened corporations; they defeated a proposed 10-hour law that would help workers. They reformed the tax system; increased state spending on public schools; set up a system to build high schools; prohibited the sale of liquor; and they denounced the expansion of slavery in the western territories.


title: Know Nothing

text: The Whigs and Free Soil parties both collapsed in New Hampshire in 1854-55. In the 1855 fall elections the Know Nothings again swept New Hampshire against the Democrats and the small new Republican party. When the Know Nothing ("American" Party) collapsed in 1856 and merged with the Republicans, New Hampshire now had a two party system with the Republicans edging out the Democrats.


title: Know Nothing

text: The Know Nothings also dominated politics in Rhode Island, where in 1855 William W. Hoppin held the governorship and five out of every seven votes went to the party, which dominated the Rhode Island legislature. Local newspapers such as "The Providence Journal" fueled anti-Irish and anti-Catholic sentiment.


title: Know Nothing

text: Fearful that Catholics were flooding the polls with non-citizens, local activists threatened to stop them. On 6 August 1855, rioting broke out in Louisville, Kentucky, during a hotly contested race for the office of governor. Twenty-two were killed and many injured. This "Bloody Monday" riot was not the only violent riot between Know Nothings and Catholics in 1855. In Baltimore, the mayoral elections of 1856, 1857, and 1858 were all marred by violence and well-founded accusations of ballot-rigging. In the coastal town of Ellsworth Maine in 1854, Know Nothings were associated with the tarring and feathering of a Catholic priest, Jesuit Johannes Bapst. They also burned down a Catholic church in Bath, Maine.


title: Know Nothing

text: In the Southern United States, the American Party was composed chiefly of ex-Whigs looking for a vehicle to fight the dominant Democratic Party and worried about both the pro-slavery extremism of the Democrats and the emergence of the anti-slavery Republican party in the North. In the South as a whole, the American Party was strongest among former Unionist Whigs. States-rightist Whigs shunned it, enabling the Democrats to win most of the South. Whigs supported the American Party because of their desire to defeat the Democrats, their unionist sentiment, their anti-immigrant attitudes and the Know Nothing neutrality on the slavery issue.


title: Know Nothing

text: David T. Gleeson notes that many Irish Catholics in the South feared that the arrival of the Know-Nothing movement portended a serious threat. He argues:


title: Know Nothing

text: The southern Irish, who had seen the dangers of Protestant bigotry in Ireland, had the distinct feeling that the Know-Nothings were an American manifestation of that phenomenon. Every migrant, no matter how settled or prosperous, also worried that this virulent strain of nativism threatened his or her hard-earned gains in the South and integration into its society. Immigrants fears were unjustified, however, because the national debate over slavery and its expansion, not nativism or anti-Catholicism, was the major reason for Know-Nothing success in the South. The southerners who supported the Know-Nothings did so, for the most part, because they thought the Democrats who favored the expansion of slavery might break up the Union.


title: Know Nothing

text: In 1855, the American Party challenged the Democrats' dominance. In Alabama, the Know Nothings were a mix of former Whigs, malcontented Democrats and other political misfits; they favored state aid to build more railroads. In the fierce campaign, the Democrats argued that Know Nothings could not protect slavery from Northern abolitionists. The Know Nothing American Party disintegrated soon after losing in 1855.


title: Know Nothing

text: In Virginia, the Know Nothing movement came under sharp attack from both established parties. Democrats published a 12,000-word, point-by-point denunciation of Know Nothingism. The Democrats nominated ex-Whig Henry A. Wise for governor. He denounced the "lousy, godless, Christless" Know Nothings and instead he advocated an expanded program of internal improvements.


title: Know Nothing

text: In Maryland, growing anti-immigrant sentiment fueled the party's rise. Despite the state's Catholic roots, by the 1850s about 60 percent of the population was Protestant and open to the Know Nothing's anti-Catholic, anti-immigrant appeal. On August 18, 1853, the party held its first rally in Baltimore with about 5,000 in attendance, calling for secularization of public schools, complete separation of church and state, freedom of speech, and regulating immigration. The first Know-Nothing candidate elected into office in Baltimore was Mayor Samuel Hinks in 1855. The following year, ethnic and secular conflicts fueled riots around municipal and federal elections in Maryland with Know-Nothing–affiliated gangs clashing with Democratic-aligned gangs.


title: Know Nothing

text: Historian Michael F. Holt argues that "Know Nothingism originally grew in the South for the same reasons it spread in the North—nativism, anti-Catholicism, and animosity toward unresponsive politicos—not because of conservative Unionism". Holt cites William B. Campbell, former governor of Tennessee, who wrote in January 1855: "I have been astonished at the widespread feeling in favor of their principles—to wit, Native Americanism and anti-Catholicism—it takes everywhere". Despite this, in Louisiana and Maryland, prominent Know Nothings remained loyal to the Union. In Maryland, American Party's former governor and later senator Thomas Holliday Hicks, Representative Henry Winter Davis, and Senator Anthony Kennedy, along with his brother, former Representative John Pendleton Kennedy, all supported the Union in a border state. Louisiana Know Nothing congressman John Edward Bouligny, a Catholic Creole, was the only member of the Louisiana congressional delegation who refused to resign his seat after the state seceded from the Union.


title: Know Nothing

text: Despite the national American Party's anti-Catholicism, the Know Nothings found strong support in Louisiana, including in largely Catholic New Orleans. The Whig Party in Louisiana had a strong anti-immigrant bent, making the Native American Party the natural home for Louisiana's former Whigs. Louisiana Know Nothings were pro-slavery and anti-immigrant, but, in contrast to the national party, refused to include a religious test for membership. Instead, the Louisiana Know Nothings insisted that "loyalty to a church should not supersede loyalty to the Union." Similarly, the broader Know Nothing movement viewed Louisiana Catholics, and in particular the Creole elite who supported the American Party, as adhering to a Gallican Catholicism and therefore opposed to papal authority over matters of state.


title: Know Nothing

text: The party declined rapidly in the North after 1855. In the presidential election of 1856, it was bitterly divided over slavery. The main faction supported the ticket of presidential nominee Millard Fillmore and vice presidential nominee Andrew Jackson Donelson. Fillmore, a former president, had been a Whig and Donelson was the nephew of Democratic President Andrew Jackson, so the ticket was designed to appeal to loyalists from both major parties, winning 23% of the popular vote and carrying one state, Maryland, with eight electoral votes. Fillmore did not win enough votes to block Democrat James Buchanan from the White House. During this time, Nathaniel Banks decided he was not as strongly for the anti-immigrant platform as the party wanted him to be, so he left the Know Nothing Party for the more anti-slavery Republican Party. He contributed to the decline of the Know Nothing Party by taking two-thirds of its members with him.


title: Know Nothing

text: Many were appalled by the Know Nothings. Abraham Lincoln expressed his own disgust with the political party in a private letter to Joshua Speed, written 24 August 1855. Lincoln never publicly attacked the Know Nothings, whose votes he needed:


title: Know Nothing

text: Historian Allan Nevins, writing about the turmoil preceding the American Civil War, states that Millard Fillmore was never a Know Nothing nor a nativist. Fillmore was out of the country when the presidential nomination came and had not been consulted about running. Nevins further states:


title: Know Nothing

text: However, Fillmore had sent a letter for publication in 1855 that explicitly denounced immigrant influence in elections[117] and Fillmore stated that the American Party was the "only hope of forming a truly national party, which shall ignore this constant and distracting agitation of slavery."


title: Know Nothing

text: After the Supreme Court's controversial "Dred Scott v. Sandford" ruling in 1857, most of the anti-slavery members of the American Party joined the Republican Party. The pro-slavery wing of the American Party remained strong on the local and state levels in a few southern states, but by the 1860 election they were no longer a serious national political movement. Most of their remaining members supported the Constitutional Union Party in 1860.


title: Know Nothing

text: The nativist, anti-Catholic spirit of the Know Nothing movement was revived by later political movements such as the American Protective Association of the 1890s and the Second Ku Klux Klan of the 1920s. However, the Know Nothing Party was not a mouthpiece for anti-black racism and anti-Semitism in the manner in which the 1920s-era Klan was. In the late 19th century, Democrats called the Republicans "Know Nothings" in order to secure the votes of Germans which is exactly what they did in the Bennett Law campaign in Wisconsin in 1890. A similar culture war took place in Illinois in 1892, where Democrat John Peter Altgeld denounced the Republicans:


title: Know Nothing

text: Some historians and journalists "have found parallels with the Birther and Tea Party movements, seeing the prejudices against Latino immigrants and hostility towards Islam as a similarity". Historians Steve Fraser and Joshue B. Freeman lend their opinion on the Know Nothing and the Tea Party movements, arguing:


title: Know Nothing

text: Tea Party populism should also be thought of as a kind of identity politics of the right. Almost entirely white, and disproportionately male and older, Tea Party advocates express a visceral anger at the cultural and, to some extent, political eclipse of an America in which people who looked and thought like them were dominant (an echo, in its own way, of the anguish of the Know-Nothings). A black President, a female speaker of the house, and a gay head of the House Financial Services Committee are evidently almost too much to bear. Though the anti-immigration and Tea Party movements so far have remained largely distinct (even with growing ties), they share an emotional grammar: the fear of displacement.


title: Know Nothing

text: "Know Nothing" has become a provocative slur, suggesting that the opponent is both nativist and ignorant. George Wallace's 1968 presidential campaign was said by "Time" to be under the "neo-Know Nothing banner". Fareed Zakaria wrote that politicians who "encourage[d] Americans to fear foreigners" were becoming "modern incarnations of the Know-Nothings". In 2006, an editorial in "The Weekly Standard" by neoconservative William Kristol accused populist Republicans of "turning the GOP into an anti-immigration, Know-Nothing party". The lead editorial of the 20 May 2007 issue of "The New York Times" on a proposed immigration bill referred to "this generation's Know-Nothings". An editorial written by Timothy Egan in "The New York Times" on 27 August 2010 and titled "Building a Nation of Know-Nothings" discussed the birther movement, which falsely claimed that Barack Obama was not a natural-born United States citizen, which is a requirement for the office of president of the United States.


title: Know Nothing

text: In the 2016 United States presidential election, a number of commentators and politicians compared candidate Donald Trump to the Know Nothings due to his anti-immigration policies.


title: Know Nothing

text: The American Party was represented in the 2002 film "Gangs of New York", led by William "Bill the Butcher" Cutting (Daniel Day-Lewis), the fictionalized version of real-life Know Nothing leader William Poole. The Know Nothings also play a prominent role in the historical fiction novel "Shaman" by novelist Noah Gordon.


title: Titania (Marvel Comics)

text: Titania (Mary MacPherran) is a fictional character appearing in American comic books published by Marvel Comics. Created by then-Editor-in-Chief Jim Shooter and introduced in the 1984 crossover limited series "Secret Wars," Titania has since then become a rival of She-Hulk, and has also been a member of several incarnations of the Masters of Evil and the Frightful Four. Originally a supervillain, in later years, she has reformed into more of an antihero.


title: Titania (Marvel Comics)

text: MacPherran is the second Marvel supervillainess to use the name. The first Titania (Davida DaVito) was a female wrestler and member of the Grapplers who was murdered by the Scourge of the Underworld. Upon DaVito's resurrection, her powers were expanded and she took the name Lascivious, as MacPherran had become much more strongly identified with the name Titania.


title: Titania (Marvel Comics)

text: Titania has been described as one of Marvel's most notable and powerful female antiheroes, being labelled as one of She-Hulk's greatest rivals.


title: Titania (Marvel Comics)

text: Titania made her live action debut in the Marvel Cinematic Universe Disney+ series "" (2022), portrayed by actress Jameela Jamil.


title: Titania (Marvel Comics)

text: Titania was introduced in "Secret Wars" #3 (July 1984), and has appeared in many Marvel comics since then.


title: Titania (Marvel Comics)

text: Mary MacPherran is the name of a real-life Marvel production assistant who was asked by Jim Shooter if it was permissible to name a character after her. In 2011, Shooter posted a photo on his blog of a group of Marvel staffers, with a caption identifying the real MacPherran. In a comment, Shooter said of MacPherran:


title: Titania (Marvel Comics)

text: Born prematurely in a suburb of Denver, Colorado, Mary MacPherran grew up scrawny and short-statured, inspiring the popular Vanessa Ashwood at school to nickname her "Skeeter" (a slang word for mosquito). While a high school senior, Mary works as a salesclerk alongside her only friend, Marsha Rosenberg, to support her struggling family. Consistently bullied since childhood by the wealthy and cruel Vanessa and her friends, Mary grows resentful and fantasizes about gaining superpowers to become admired, and exact retribution on her tormentors.


title: Titania (Marvel Comics)

text: After the second Spider-Woman (Julia Carpenter) makes one of her early appearances in their town, Marsha remarks that the new superheroine's reddish-blonde hair color matches Mary's. Mary then falsely confides to her friend that she is secretly Spider-Woman. Shortly afterward, Mary is invited to a fancy party at Vanessa's house where she realizes that her newfound popularity is due to Marsha spreading the false Spider-Woman rumor.


title: Titania (Marvel Comics)

text: In the middle of the party, their section of Denver is torn from Earth and becomes part of the composite planet Battleworld, created by the Beyonder as a stage for a selected group of superheroes and supervillains to battle each other. When the real Spider-Woman arrives on the scene to save the guests from a collapsing structure, the now-enraged Vanessa and her guests turn on Mary and Marsha, chasing them into the forests of Battleworld.


title: Titania (Marvel Comics)

text: Scared and exhausted, the two girls are found by Doctor Doom in need of further metahuman operatives to further his ambitions. Mary and Marsha both agree to Doom's offer of power in exchange for serving in his army of supervillains.


title: Titania (Marvel Comics)

text: Using the highly advanced alien technologies found in Doombase, the villain headquarters, powered by immense energies from the ferocious alien storm outside, Doom recreates both girls by inducing high-level metahuman abilities of specific and particular design. While Rosenberg (now known as Volcana) receives a fiery form composed of ionized plasma, MacPherran gains powers diametrically opposed to her previous self – where once she had been "the scrawny one who got her face rubbed in the dirt", she becomes taller, more muscular, and buxom.


title: Titania (Marvel Comics)

text: Titania's physical changes come with changes in personality. Where Mary MacPherran had been small and timid, the newly named Titania (seemingly as strong as a Titan) is brash and confident. When Volcana melts machinery into a large pile of red-hot slag, Titania picks it up, boldly ignoring the possibility of injury and hurls it through the wall. Soon after, she challenges Carl "Crusher" Creel, the Absorbing Man, to a fight which he refuses, stating that he has "nothing to prove... to a dame." Titania begins to work for Doom in earnest, and is one of the villains ordered by Doom to attack the superheroes. She battles Thor, Rogue and Wolverine, as well as the X-Men. She eventually gets the better of She-Hulk beginning a long rivalry between the two.


title: Titania (Marvel Comics)

text: When the heroes later storm Doombase to rescue She-Hulk, Titania tries to face up against veteran superhero Spider-Man. Initially extremely confident due to her massive strength and durability, she panics upon realizing that Spider-Man's vastly superior speed, agility, reflexes, intelligence and years of experience against more powerful foes allow him to not only easily avoid her, but also attack her with complete impunity. The fight ends when Spider-Man beats her into the ground, then picks her up and disdainfully tosses her through an exterior wall. During this fight, Titania's newfound arrogance quickly evaporates, giving way to what Spider-Man mockingly calls the "whining little wimp-ette" — it is clear that her arrogance masks an insecure, fragile personality. Mindful of this beating, Titania avoids coming into contact with Spider-Man while on Battleworld, and harbors a fear of him for some time after returning to Earth.


title: Titania (Marvel Comics)

text: After her run-in with Spider-Man, the Absorbing Man and Titania begin a relationship. Once Owen Reece, the Molecule Man, manages to seal off the chunk of Denver and navigate it toward Earth, Creel and MacPherran reveal that they are done with Doom and his war and simply want to go home.


title: Titania (Marvel Comics)

text: During the return to Earth, Titania beats up Vanessa Ashwood and destroys her house, but gets no satisfaction out of getting revenge on her childhood tormentor.


title: Titania (Marvel Comics)

text: Once back on Earth, Titania and Absorbing Man continue to work as professional criminals by joining Baron Helmut Zemo's latest incarnation of the Masters of Evil. Their first assignment is to recruit the powerful Moonstone, which also prevents them from joining the main group in the assault on Avengers Mansion. To kill time, Titania robs a jewelry store and attracts the attention of Spider-Man. Too afraid to fight him, she runs but encounters him again at LaGuardia Airport. Titania avoids fighting, having Creel do so on her behalf. The sight of his near-defeat at Spider-Man's hands proves enough for Titania to temporarily overcome her 'arachnophobia', charging in to save her boyfriend. Creel ends the fight by threatening to destroy a plane full of innocents if Spider-Man refuses to leave the scene, which he reluctantly does.


title: Titania (Marvel Comics)

text: The villain couple receive another assignment from the Masters: to kill Hercules who had been gravely injured by the Masters, and was hospitalized. Despite being guarded by only Ant-Man (Scott Lang) and the Wasp, Hercules survives. Creel is stung by insects in human form and Titania is shrunk to the size of Wasp. She is taken to the Vault, a superhuman penitentiary.


title: Titania (Marvel Comics)

text: The stay in the Vault does not last long. When Iron Man begins the Armor Wars (the battle to destroy or disable all enhanced armor types based on stolen Iron Man designs), it inevitably leads him to the Guardsmen, The Vault's wardens. The ensuing conflict creates a power failure, allowing Titania and Mister Hyde to escape. While Captain America manages to subdue and capture Mister Hyde, his colleague D-Man is unsuccessful in apprehending Titania. When allowed the opportunity for a rematch, D-Man simply lets her escape because she is far stronger than him.


title: Titania (Marvel Comics)

text: Using her newfound freedom, Titania travels to Washington D.C. After losing a succession of battles with She-Hulk, Titania promises to never attack her again and returns to jail.


title: Titania (Marvel Comics)

text: Broken out yet again, Titania joins with the Wizard, Klaw and Hydro-Man to become the new Frightful Four. Battling the Fantastic Four with Titania taking on the Thing and Ms. Marvel, the team only wins due to help from Professor Gregson Gilbert's creation Dragon Man and Aron, the Renegade Watcher. In the rematch, the Fantastic Four prevails only to have both teams imprisoned by Aron in suspended animation, using clones of the Fantastic Four to act out adventures he wished to witness. When both teams are freed, Aron chooses to witness the dreams of his clones instead and transports the Frightful Four back to The Vault, as a service to the Fantastic Four.


title: Titania (Marvel Comics)

text: Titania permanently overcomes her fear of Spider-Man during the 1989-1990 "Acts of Vengeance" crossover, in which a conspiracy between Loki and the Wizard teams supervillains to fight enemies not usually their own. Titania is dismayed when Doctor Doom, her partner, tells her she would face She-Hulk and not Spider-Man. With the help of a behavior modification device secretly affixed to Titania, Doom stokes her pride and anger, allowing her to engage Spider-Man at the Daily Bugle offices. After the Puma's claws tear Doom's device from her she cowers from Spider-Man, but he makes her realize that she had been fighting him the whole time, and resumes attacking. At the time, Spider-Man was temporarily bonded with the Uni-Power, making him Captain Universe. This grants him the power to render Titania unconscious in one massive energy discharge.


title: Titania (Marvel Comics)

text: She is freed on the way to the Vault by Graviton who also collects the Trapster and the Brothers Grimm. All had been humiliated by Spider-Man in the Captain Universe guise and along with Chameleon and Goliath, they make a failing attempt to take revenge. Titania is humiliatingly defeated by a collision with a speeding bus.


title: Titania (Marvel Comics)

text: Escaping The Vault once again, Titania joins Superia's Femizons, as foes of Captain America and the Paladin. This does not work out and Titania resolves to track down her old flame – the Absorbing Man, finding him battling the Eric Masterson Thor. When she appears injured by a blow from Mjolnir, Creel admits his love for her which she gladly reciprocates. Seeing this, Thor allows them to leave.


title: Titania (Marvel Comics)

text: While Creel makes an attempt to live a normal life, Titania goes back to robbing jewelry stores. Concerned, Creel attempts to "scare her straight", collaborating with Thor in a ploy involving an exhibit at the Guggenheim Museum. While the appearance of Spider-Man and special police unit Code: Blue complicates matters, ultimately Titania remembers her love for Creel.


title: Titania (Marvel Comics)

text: Creel continues to get mad at Mary for not managing to stay legal and violating their parole. In order to alleviate her stress he arranges an official bout with She-Hulk, but Titania nonetheless decides to cheat and ends up losing the fight.


title: Titania (Marvel Comics)

text: Titania and the Absorbing Man's wedding is attended by many supervillains. While the Avengers interrupt the ceremony, they ultimately leave the couple alone. Titania quickly grows bored with her law-abiding reform, and after Absorbing Man tries to buy her a Valentine's present but is nonetheless attacked by the police, they accept having to live a life on the run from the law.


title: Titania (Marvel Comics)

text: In need of funds the pair assumes the guises of Thunder Girl and Lightning Bolt in order to hunt Spider-Man for the reward offered by Norman Osborn. Despite Titania briefly contracting severe skin burns as a result of this escapade, the pair remains unable to reform and commit more robberies. Titania also continues to clash with She-Hulk.


title: Titania (Marvel Comics)

text: Despite her enhanced durability, Titania contracts cancer. Lacking both health insurance and money, Creel is quickly forced to move her from the hospital to an abandoned building. Creel kidnaps Dr. Jane Foster and brings her to the abandoned building to treat Titania, whose condition is rapidly deteriorating. Due to a battle between Creel and Thor, the building collapses upon the two women. Weakened and barely conscious, but still massively strong, Titania is nonetheless able to save Foster from being killed by holding up the falling debris. Foster subsequently helps treat Titania's cancer at the hospital.


title: Titania (Marvel Comics)

text: In a "silent" story containing no word balloons, Captain America fights the Absorbing Man on Christmas Eve, then learns that Creel was trying to get enough money to buy a Christmas present for Titania. Cap then secretly delivers the present in Creel's place, and remains outside their apartment window long enough to watch Titania pick up the gift. In an accompanying script excerpt, writer Dan Jurgens explains that Titania's illness has been cured.


title: Titania (Marvel Comics)

text: During Christopher Priest's run on "Deadpool", Titania appears as a roommate of Deadpool and the supervillain Constrictor, but is later revealed to be the shapeshifter Copycat. She was originally intended to be the real Titania, but Marvel editors came up with the Copycat explanation in order to resolve the continuity conflict with Dan Jurgens' cancer storyline simultaneously occurring in "Thor".


title: Titania (Marvel Comics)

text: Titania proves unable to stay away from She-Hulk, and undergoes an intense physical regimen to boost her abilities. However, She-Hulk had done so more efficiently, briefly reaching levels almost approaching those of the Hulk himself. Battered and inadvertently humiliated by her, Titania is offered the chance at revenge after obtaining the Power Gem, one of the legendary Infinity Gems, from its former owner, the former Champion of the Universe, now known as the Fallen One because of his own defeat at She-Hulk's hands. The Fallen One had agreed to cease using the Power Gem as a condition of his defeat, but was free to gain his own revenge by proxy through Titania. After an initial defeat by the newly empowered Titania, She-Hulk tricks her into believing that she had killed the Jade Giantess in a second battle; Titania's initial rush of triumph suddenly melts into uncertainty, as she realized that her life now had no meaning or focus without the object of her obsessive hatred. She-Hulk (in her normal form as Jennifer Walters) then takes advantage of Titania's confusion to pluck the Power Gem from the criminal's forehead, and uses the Gem's power to knock Titania out with a single punch.


title: Titania (Marvel Comics)

text: Titania is incarcerated in the Lang Memorial Penitentiary, a.k.a. the Pym Experimental Prison #2, a prison in which superhuman inmates are shrunk with Pym particles to less than an inch in height, to reduce both their chances of escape and their threat to guards and the public.