title: Tammany Hall

text: After Wood's service in Congress, he became a successful businessman through real estate dealings and was elected mayor of New York City in 1854. William Tweed said of Wood, "I never yet went to get a corner lot that I didn't find Wood had got in ahead of me." In his first term as mayor, Wood ensured the police force was responsive to his needs and convinced commissioners to allow him to fire officers not performing their duties. He was then accused of only hiring Democrats to replace those fired officers.


title: Tammany Hall

text: Wood defied tradition and ran for a second term as mayor in 1856, which irked some of his Tammany associates. During the campaign, his police force acted as his henchmen and Wood took a portion of their salary for his war chest ($15 to $25 for captains and a lesser amount for patrolmen). On election day, he gave his policemen some time off to vote, during which time his affiliated Dead Rabbits gang protected polling places. Wood won his second term.


title: Tammany Hall

text: The Republicans, who made gains upstate, created a new state charter for New York City in response to this concentration of power in one man, which included more elected (instead of appointed) city department heads and officers. The Republicans also consolidated a separate police force, the Metropolitan Police, from the police forces of Kings, Richmond, and Westchester counties. The Republicans in the state legislature also moved the city mayoral elections to odd years, making the next election for mayor in December 1857.


title: Tammany Hall

text: A power struggle followed between Wood's Municipal Police and the newly created Metropolitan Police, as well as between the Dead Rabbits and the nativist Bowery Boys. Tammany Hall did not put Wood up for reelection in December 1857 in light of the Panic of 1857 and a scandal involving him and his brother, Benjamin Wood.


title: Tammany Hall

text: As a result of the scandal, Fernando Wood left or was expelled from Tammany in 1858 to form a third party, the Mozart Hall Democracy, or Mozart Hall, named after their building at the corner of Broadway and Bleecker Street. Wood ran for mayor in 1859, with the backing of James Gordon Bennett's "New York Tribune", as the champion of workingclass Irish and German immigrants against the "kid glove, scented, silk stocking, poodle-headed, degenerate aristocracy." The Republicans attempted to combine their efforts with Tammany, but the deal could not be consummated, making it a three-candidate race, which Wood won with 38.3% of the vote. It was Wood's second and last term as mayor, serving until 1862.


title: Tammany Hall

text: Mozart Hall was a major player in city politics through the 1860s, and was successful in getting additional school wards for German communities. During the Civil War, Democrats were divided between "War Democrats" – who wanted victory on the battlefield but objected to what they considered radical Republican legislation and the erosion of civil rights by Lincoln – and "Peace Democrats", who favored the restoration of the Union as it existed before the war with slavery in place, or, alternately, peace without reunion (espoused by an extreme faction). new Tammany book William M. Tweed, most of Tammany's politicians, and many prominent businessmen were in the "War" faction, while Mozart Hall was the center of the "Peace" Democrats in New York. While the division between Tammany and Mozart had worked in Wood's favor in 1859, in 1861 it caused Republican George Opdyke to be elected, over Wood and Tammany's C. Godfrey Gunther, with barely more than a third of the vote.


title: Tammany Hall

text: After the war, Mozart Hall aligned itself more closely with Tammany, and gradually lost influence. It disbanded in 1867.


title: Tammany Hall

text: Tammany's control over the politics of New York City tightened considerably under Tweed. In 1858, Tweed capitalized on the efforts of Republican reformers to rein in the Democratic city government to obtain a position on the County Board of Supervisors, which he then used as a springboard to other appointments, and to have his friends placed in various offices. From this position of strength, he was elected "Grand Sachem" of Tammany, which he then used to take functional control of the city government. With his protégés elected governor of the state and mayor of the city, Tweed was able to expand the corruption and kickbacks of his "Ring" into practically every aspect of city and state governance.


title: Tammany Hall

text: Although Tweed was elected to the State Senate, his true sources of power were his appointed positions to various branches of the city government. These positions gave him access to city funds and contractors, thereby controlling public works programs. This benefitted his pocketbook and those of his friends, but also provided jobs for the immigrants, especially Irish laborers, who were the electoral base of Tammany's power.


title: Tammany Hall

text: It's hard not to admire the skill behind Tweed's system ... The Tweed ring at its height was an engineering marvel, strong and solid, strategically deployed to control key power points: the courts, the legislature, the treasury and the ballot box. Its frauds had a grandeur of scale and an elegance of structure: money-laundering, profit sharing and organization.


title: Tammany Hall

text: Under "Boss" Tweed's dominance, the city expanded into the Upper East and Upper West Sides of Manhattan, the Brooklyn Bridge was begun, land was set aside for the Metropolitan Museum of Art, orphanages and almshouses were constructed, and social services – both directly provided by the state and indirectly funded by state appropriations to private charities – expanded to unprecedented levels. All of this activity, of course, also brought great wealth to Tweed and his friends. It also brought them into contact and alliance with the rich elite of the city, who either fell in with the graft and corruption, or else tolerated it because of Tammany's ability to control the immigrant population, of whom the "uppertens" of the city were wary.


title: Tammany Hall

text: James Watson, who was a county auditor in Comptroller Dick Connolly's office and who also held and recorded the ring's books, died a week after his head was smashed by a horse in a sleigh accident on January 21, 1871. Although Tweed guarded Watson's estate in the week prior to Watson's death, and although another ring member attempted to destroy Watson's records, a replacement auditor, Matthew O'Rourke, associated with former sheriff James O'Brien provided city accounts to O'Brien. Further, Tammany demonstrated inability to control Irish laborers in the Orange riot of 1871 that also began Tweed's downfall. Campaigns to topple Tweed by "The New York Times" and Thomas Nast of "Harper's Weekly" began to gain traction in the aftermath of the riot, and disgruntled insiders began to leak the details of the extent and scope of the Tweed Ring's avarice to the newspapers. Specifically, O'Brien forwarded the city's financial accounts to "The New York Times". "The New York Times", at that time the only Republican associated paper in the city, was then able to reinforce stories they had previously published against the ring. The Committee of Seventy was formed in September 1871 by prominent reformers to examine the misdeeds of the Tweed ring.


title: Tammany Hall

text: Tweed was arrested and tried in 1872. After he died in Ludlow Street Jail in 1878 political reformers took over the city and state governments. Following Tweed's arrest, Tammany survived, but was no longer controlled by Protestants and was now dependent on leadership from bosses of Irish descent.


title: Tammany Hall

text: Tammany did not take long to rebound from Tweed's fall. Reforms demanded a general housecleaning, and former county sheriff "Honest John" Kelly was selected as the new leader. Kelly was not implicated in the Tweed scandals and was a religious Catholic related by marriage to Archbishop John McCloskey. He cleared Tammany of Tweed's people and tightened the Grand Sachem's control over the hierarchy.


title: Tammany Hall

text: His success at revitalizing the machine was such that in the election of 1874, the Tammany candidate, William H. Wickham, succeeded the unpopular outgoing reformist incumbent, William F. Havemeyer (who died shortly thereafter), and Democrats generally won their races, delivering control of the city back to Tammany Hall. A noted statue of John Kelly is located in the hall, the work of Irish sculptor Robert Cushing.


title: Tammany Hall

text: The mayoral election of 1886 was a seminal one for the organization. Union activists had founded the United Labor Party (ULP), which nominated political economist Henry George, the author of "Progress and Poverty", as its standard-bearer. George was initially hesitant about running for office, but was convinced to do so after Tammany secretly offered him a seat in Congress if he would stay out of the mayoral race. Tammany had no expectation of George being elected, but knew that his candidacy and the new party were a direct threat to their own status as the putative champions of the working man.


title: Tammany Hall

text: Having inadvertently provoked George into running, Tammany now needed to field a strong candidate against him, which required the cooperation of the Catholic Church in New York, which was the key to getting the support of middle-class Irish-American voters. Richard Croker, Kelly's right-hand man, had succeeded Kelly as Grand Sachem of Tammany, and he understood that he would also need to make peace with the non-Tammany "Swallowtail" faction of the Democratic Party to avoid the threat that George and the ULP posed, which was the potential re-structuring of the city's politics along class lines and away from the ethnic-based politics which had been Tammany's underpinning all along. To bring together these disparate groups, Croker nominated Abram Hewitt as the Democratic candidate for mayor. Not only was Hewitt the leader of the Swallowtails, but he was noted philanthropist Peter Cooper's son-in-law, and had an impeccable reputation. To counter both George and Hewitt, the Republicans put up Theodore Roosevelt, the former state assemblyman.


title: Tammany Hall

text: In the end, Hewitt won the election, with George out-polling Roosevelt, whose total was some 2,000 votes less than the Republicans had normally received. Despite their second-place finish, things seemed bright for the future of the labor political movement, but the ULP was not to last, and was never able to bring about a new paradigm in the city's politics. Tammany had once again succeeded and survived.


title: Tammany Hall

text: More than that, Croker realized that he could use the techniques of the well-organized election campaign that the ULP had run. Because Tammany's ward-heelers controlled the saloons, the new party had used "neighborhood meetings, streetcorner rallies, campaign clubs, Assembly District organizations, and trade legions – an entire political counterculture" to run their campaign. Croker now took these innovations for Tammany's use, creating political clubhouses to take the place of the saloons and involving women and children by sponsoring family excursions and picnics. The New Tammany appeared to be more respectable, and less obviously connected to saloon-keepers and gang leaders, and the clubhouses, one in every Assembly District, were also a more efficient way of providing patronage work to those who came looking for it; one simply had to join the club, and volunteer to put in the hours needed to support it.


title: Tammany Hall

text: Hewitt turned out to be a terrible mayor for Croker, due to his personality defects and his nativist views, and in 1888 Tammany ran Croker's hand-picked choice, Hugh J. Grant, who became the first New York-born Irish-American mayor. Although Hewitt ran an efficient government, Croker viewed Hewitt as being too self-righteous and did not grant Croker the patronage jobs he was expecting from a mayor. Hewitt had also offended Irish voters by deciding not to review a St. Patrick's Day parade they requested of him.


title: Tammany Hall

text: Grant allowed Croker free run of the city's contracts and offices, creating a vast patronage machine beyond anything Tweed had ever dreamed of, a status which continued under Grant's successor, Thomas Francis Gilroy. With such resources of money and manpower – the entire city workforce of 1,200 was essentially available to him when needed – Croker was able to neutralize the Swallowtails permanently. He also developed a new stream of income from the business community, which was provided with "one stop shopping": instead of bribing individual office-holders, businesses, especially the utilities, could go directly to Tammany to make their payments, which were then directed downward as necessary; such was the control Tammany had come to have over the governmental apparatus of the city.


title: Tammany Hall

text: Croker mended fences with labor as well, pushing through legislation which addressed some of the inequities which had fueled the labor political movement, making Tammany once again appear to be the "Friend of the Working Man" – although he was careful always to maintain a pro-business climate of "laissez-faire" and low taxes. Tammany's influence was also extended once again to the state legislature, where a similar patronage system to the city's was established after Tammany took control in 1892. With the Republican boss, Thomas Platt, adopting the same methods, the two men between them essentially controlled the state.


title: Tammany Hall

text: The 1890s began with a series of what would be three political investigations into Tammany operations, reminiscent of the early 1870s. Platt was the key organizer of most of these committees, the first of which was the Fassett Committee of 1890. This first committee featured testimony from Croker's brother-in-law, revealing gifts of cash surrounding his hotel business. The recorded testimonies resulted in no indictments and the Democrats would not suffer in the elections of 1890 or 1892.


title: Tammany Hall

text: In 1894, Tammany suffered a setback when, fueled by the public hearings on police corruption held by the Lexow Committee based on the evidence uncovered by the Rev. Charles Parkhurst when he explored the city's "demi monde" undercover, a Committee of Seventy was organized by Council of Good Government Clubs to break the stranglehold that Tammany had on the city. Full of some of the city's richest men – J.P. Morgan, Cornelius Vanderbilt II, Abram Hewitt and Elihu Root, among others – the committee supported William L. Strong, a millionaire dry-goods merchant, for mayor, and forced Tammany's initial candidate, merchant Nathan Straus, co-owner of Macy's and Abraham & Straus, from the election by threatening to ostracize him from New York society.


title: Tammany Hall

text: Tammany then put up Hugh Grant again, despite his being publicly dirtied by the police scandals. Backed by the committee's money, influence and their energetic campaign, and helped by Grant's apathy, Strong won the election handily, and spent the next three years running the city on the basis of "business principles", pledging an efficient government and the return of morality to city life. The election was a Republican sweep statewide: Levi Morton, a millionaire banker from Manhattan, won the governorship, and the party also ended up in control of the legislature. Croker was absent from the city for three years starting at the onset of the Lexow Committee, residing in his homes in Europe.


title: Tammany Hall

text: Still, Tammany could not be kept down for long, and in 1898 Croker, aided by the death of Henry George – which took the wind out of the sails of the potential re-invigoration of the political labor movement – and returned from his stay in Europe, shifted the Democratic Party enough to the left to pick up labor's support, and pulled back into the fold those elements outraged by the reformers' attempt to outlaw Sunday drinking and otherwise enforce their own authoritarian moral concepts on immigrant populations with different cultural outlooks. Tammany's candidate, Robert A. Van Wyck, easily outpolled Seth Low, the reform candidate backed by the Citizens Union, and Tammany was back in control. Its supporters marched through the city's streets chanting, "Well, well, well, Reform has gone to Hell!"


title: Tammany Hall

text: A final state investigation began in 1899 at the prompting of newly elected Theodore Roosevelt. This Mazet Investigation was chaired by Republican assemblyman Robert Mazet and led by chief counsel Frank Moss, who had also participated in the Lexow Committee. The investigation revealed further detail about Croker's corporate alliances and also yielded memorable quotes from police chief William Stephen Devery and Croker. This was also the committee that began probing Croker about his holdings in ice companies.


title: Tammany Hall

text: Despite occasional defeats, Tammany was consistently able to survive and prosper. Under leaders such as Charles Francis Murphy and Timothy Sullivan, it maintained control of Democratic politics in the city and the state.


title: Tammany Hall

text: The politics of the consolidated city from 1898 to 1945 revolved around conflicts between the political machines and the reformers. In quiet times the machines had the advantage of the core of solid supporters and usually exercised control of city and borough affairs; they also played a major role in the state legislature in Albany. Tammany, for example, from the 1880s onward built a strong network of local clubs that attracted ambitious middle-class ethnics.


title: Tammany Hall

text: In times of crisis however, especially in the severe depressions of the 1890s and the 1930s, the reformers took control of key offices, notably the mayor's office. The reformers were never unified; they operated through a complex network of independent civic reform groups, each focused its lobbying efforts on its own particular reform agenda. The membership included civic-minded, well-educated middle-class men and women, usually with expert skills in a profession or business, who deeply distrusted the corruption of the machines. The consolidation of Brooklyn, western Queens county and Staten Island with Manhattan and the Bronx in 1898 multiplied the power of these reform groups, so long as they could agree on a common agenda, such as consolidation itself.


title: Tammany Hall

text: There was no citywide machine. Instead Democratic machines flourished in each of the boroughs, with Tammany Hall in Manhattan the most prominent. They typically had strong local organizations, known as "political clubs", as well as one prominent leader often called the "boss". Charles Murphy was the highly effective but quiet boss of Tammany Hall from 1902 until his death in 1924. "Big Tim" Sullivan was the Tammany leader in the Bowery and the machine's spokesman in the state legislature.


title: Tammany Hall

text: Republican local organizations were much weaker, but they played key roles in forming reform coalitions. Most of the time they looked to Albany and Washington for their sphere of influence.


title: Tammany Hall

text: Seth Low, the president of Columbia University, was elected the reform mayor in 1901. He lacked the common touch, and lost much of his working class support when he listened to dry Protestants eager to crack down on the liquor business.


title: Tammany Hall

text: Murphy wanted to clean up Tammany's image and sponsored progressive era reforms benefiting the working class through his two protégés, Governor Al Smith and Robert F. Wagner. Ed Flynn, a protégé of Murphy who became the boss in the Bronx, said Murphy always advised that politicians should have nothing to do with gambling or prostitution and should steer clear of involvement with the police department or the school system.


title: Tammany Hall

text: A new challenge to Tammany came from William Randolph Hearst, a powerful newspaper publisher who wanted to be president. Hearst was elected to Congress with Tammany support, was defeated for mayor after a bitter contest with Tammany, and won Tammany support for his unsuccessful quest for the governorship of New York. Hearst did manage to dominate Tammany mayor John F. Hylan (1917–25), but he lost control when Smith and Wagner denied Hylan renomination in 1925. Hearst then moved back to his native California.


title: Tammany Hall

text: After Charles Francis Murphy's death in 1924, Tammany's influence on Democratic politics began its wane. Murphy's successor as the Boss in 1924 was George W. Olvany, the first Tammany Hall Boss to have received a college education. When Tammany's Jimmy Walker became the city mayor over Hylan in 1925, the hall was poised for advantage. Olvany was not an overbearing Boss, and the familiar Tammany Hall schemes from a pre-Murphy era began. Police received protection money from shopkeepers, rackets surrounded the fish and poultry markets, as well as the docks, and licensing fees for various professions were increased with Tammany Hall middlemen reaping the benefits.


title: Tammany Hall

text: This bright period of influence for Tammany Hall was short-lived. The population of Manhattan, Tammany's stronghold, no longer represented the population of the city as other boroughs such as Brooklyn and the Bronx made gains. Franklin D. Roosevelt's election as New York State Governor in 1928 further reduced Tammany Hall's power. Although Al Smith guided Roosevelt to the governorship, Roosevelt did not request Smith's advice once there and instead appointed Bronx Boss Edward J. Flynn as New York's Secretary of State. The stock market crash of 1929 and the increasing press attention on organized crime during the Prohibition era also contributed to the hall's decline.


title: Tammany Hall

text: Olvany resigned as the Boss in 1929, and John F. Curry was tapped to fill the role. Curry beat Eddy Ahearn for the role, Al Smith's choice and often considered to be an abler man. Although he looked the part, Curry was not considered smart enough to fill the role and proceeded to make a series of poor decisions on behalf of Tammany.


title: Tammany Hall

text: The organized crime robbery of a city judge and leader of the Tepecano Democratic Club, Albert H. Vitale, during a dinner party on December 7, 1929, and the subsequent recovery of the stolen goods from gangsters following a few calls from Magistrate Vitale, prompted the public to request a closer look at the ties of organized crime, law enforcement and the judicial system within the city. Vitale was accused of owing $19,600 to Arnold Rothstein, and was investigated by the Appellate Division of the Supreme Court for failing to explain how he accrued $165,000 over four years while receiving a total judicial salary of $48,000 during that same period. Vitale was removed from the bench.


title: Tammany Hall

text: A further investigation by U.S. district attorney Charles H. Tuttle discovered that Brooklyn Judge Bernard Vause was paid $190,000 in return for obtaining pier leases for a shipping company, and that another city judge, George Ewald had paid Tammany Hall $10,000 for the replacement seat of Judge Vitale. FDR responded by launching three investigations between 1930 and 1932, headed by Samuel Seabury, called the Seabury Commission. Another Tammany Hall associate, state Supreme Court Justice Joseph Force Crater, disappeared in August 1930, after the start of the first investigation, in what would become an unsolved case. Crater was president of a Tammany Hall Club on the Upper West Side.


title: Tammany Hall

text: During questioning, Tammany associate and New York County Sheriff Thomas M. Farley denied that gambling took place in his political clubs and could not account for the frequent presence of associates of Arnold Rothstein. Other questioning focused on the combined police, court, and bail bonding scheme surrounding the improper arrest of prostitutes and innocent women. The outcome of these investigations included the dismissal of several corrupt judges, including the city's first female judge, Jean H. Norris, the resignation of Mayor Jimmy Walker, the indictment of Deputy City Clerk James J. McCormick and the arrest of State Senator John A. Hastings. Sheriff Thomas M. Farley was removed from office by Governor Roosevelt.


title: Tammany Hall

text: In 1932, the machine suffered a dual setback when mayor Jimmy Walker was forced from office by scandal and reform-minded Democrat Franklin D. Roosevelt was elected president of the United States. Tammany Hall leader John F. Curry and Brooklyn political boss John H. McCooey had joined forces to support Al Smith's candidacy. Roosevelt and his lead campaign manager James Farley stripped Tammany of federal patronage, which had expanded under the New Deal, and passed it instead to Ed Flynn, boss of the Bronx, who had kept his district clean of corruption.


title: Tammany Hall

text: Roosevelt also helped Republican Fiorello LaGuardia become mayor on a Fusion ticket in 1933, thus removing even more patronage from Tammany's control. After becoming mayor, LaGuardia reorganized the city cabinet with non-partisan officials and sought to develop a clean and honest city government.


title: Tammany Hall

text: Tammany alderman Alford J. Williams died in December 1933; when the Board of Aldermen reconvened in January 1934 it defied party leadership and elected an ally of LaGuardia as his successor. The shock from this decision caused Tammany Bronx leader Augustus Pierce to collapse and die of a heart attack in the aldermanic chambers.


title: Tammany Hall

text: As mayor, LaGuardia successfully led the effort to have a new city charter adopted which would mandate a proportional representation method of electing members of the City Council. The measure won on a referendum in 1936. After the new charter went into effect in 1938, the ward system which had allowed only a small number of people to serve on the City Council since 1686 ceased to exist, and the new 26-member New York City Council now had certain functions governed by the Board of Estimate. LaGuardia's appointees filled the board of magistrates and virtually every other long-term appointive office, and the power of Tammany Hall had now been reduced to a shadow of what it once was.


title: Tammany Hall

text: LaGuardia also greatly increased the number of city jobs awarded by the civil service system: roughly three-quarters of city positions required job seekers to take an exam in 1939, compared to only about half in 1933. In 1937, LaGuardia defeated Jeremiah T. Mahoney to became the first anti-Tammany "reform" Mayor to ever be re-elected in the city's history and was again re-elected in 1941 before retiring in 1945. His extended tenure weakened Tammany in a way that previous reform mayors had not.


title: Tammany Hall

text: Tammany depended for its power on government contracts, jobs, patronage, corruption, and ultimately the ability of its leaders to control nominations to the Democratic ticket and swing the popular vote. The last element weakened after 1940 with the decline of relief programs such as the WPA and CCC that Tammany used to gain and hold supporters. Congressman Christopher "Christy" Sullivan was one of the last "bosses" of Tammany Hall before its collapse.


title: Tammany Hall

text: Tammany had close ties to street gangs throughout the 19th Century, who provided services to Tammany on Election Day in return for legal protection the rest of the year. Those relations largely collapsed with the rise of newer crime organizations that flourished during Prohibition; Tammany came to depend on figures such as Arnold Rothstein to maintain some measure of control, however limited, over them. Rothstein's murder in 1928 weakened Tammany; it also contributed to the election of Fiorello La Guardia in 1933 and the appointment of Thomas E. Dewey as Special Prosecutor, appointed by Governor Herbert H. Lehman, in 1935.


title: Tammany Hall

text: Dewey obtained the conviction of powerful mobster and strong Tammany ally Lucky Luciano on racketeering charges in 1936. Luciano was sentenced to 30 to 50 years; While Luciano was still able to maintain control of the powerful Luciano crime family from prison until his sentence was commuted to deportation to Italy in 1946, his conviction gave Dewey the prestige required to continue prosecution of organized crime figures and their political allies, particularly in Tammany Hall.


title: Tammany Hall

text: In 1939 Dewey, now Manhattan District Attorney, prosecuted longtime Tammany Hall boss Jimmy Hines on bribery charges.<ref name="google/books=YU8EAAAAMBAJ"></ref> Hines was convicted and sentenced to 4 to 8 years. The loss of Hines would serve as a major blow to Tammany, as he had given the political machine strong ties to the city's powerful organized crime figures since the 1920s. Several Tammany Hall officials affiliated with Hines and Luciano were also successfully prosecuted by Dewey.


title: Tammany Hall

text: In 1943, Manhattan District Attorney Frank Hogan provided a transcript of a recorded phone message between Frank Costello and Judge Thomas A. Aurelio, a Tammany associate running for the state Supreme Court -- the trial-level court within New York's judicial system -- on both the Republican and Democratic tickets, in which Aurelio pledged his undying loyalty to Costello. When Costello was called as a witness in Aurelio's disbarment proceedings he freely admitted that he had used his influence to make Michael Kennedy the new head of Tammany and to secure Aurelio's nomination. While Aurelio avoided disbarment and even won reelection to his position on the bench, Kennedy resigned his position within Tammany in January 1944.


title: Tammany Hall

text: Costello and Tammany went on to help elect former Brooklyn District Attorney William O'Dwyer to the mayorship in 1945. O'Dwyer was reelected in 1949, then resigned the following year due to a bribery scandal that implicated both O'Dwyer and Costello and that led to the resignations of hundreds of police officers accused of protecting gambling operations and the replacement of all 336 members of the New York City Police Department's plainclothes division.


title: Tammany Hall

text: Although the Kefauver hearings, an investigation into organized crime, did not directly impact Tammany, it did not help its image regarding its apparent connection to organized crime. O'Dwyer, now Ambassador to Mexico, returned in 1951 to testify about the bribery scandal and sought to deflect any accusations of wrongdoing, but was unable to offer any persuasive explanation for his visit to Costello's apartment in 1941, when he first sought Tammany's support in his campaign for Mayor. O'Dwyer resigned as ambassador the following year, following the conviction of one of his close associates for accepting bribes.


title: Tammany Hall

text: Tammany never recovered from prosecutions of the 1940s, but it staged a small-scale comeback in the early 1950s under the leadership of Carmine DeSapio, who succeeded in engineering the elections of Robert F. Wagner Jr., an outspoken liberal Democrat, as mayor in 1953 and W. Averell Harriman as governor in 1954, while simultaneously blocking his enemies, especially Franklin Delano Roosevelt Jr. in the 1954 race for state attorney general. Unlike previous Tammany bosses, however, DeSapio had promoted himself as a reformer and always made his decisions known to the public.


title: Tammany Hall

text: The fact that DeSapio was of Italian descent also demonstrated that Tammany was no longer dominated by Irish-American politicians. Under DeSapio's leadership, the nationality of Tammany Hall's leaders diversified. However, DeSapio's close ties with the city's lead mobster Frank Costello, Luciano's self-appointed successor, helped establish him as a corrupt figure. During DeSapio's reign, Costello was the main person who influenced the decisions made by Tammany Hall officials.


title: Tammany Hall

text: By 1956, however, Costello, who was convicted of tax evasion in 1954 and now controlled the Luciano family from prison, was engaged in a major power struggle with fellow associate Vito Genovese and his grip on power greatly weakened. In 1957, Costello was released from prison after winning an appeal but officially abandoned his role as head of the Luciano family following a failed assassination attempt.


title: Tammany Hall

text: In 1958, DeSapio's "reform" image was severely damaged after he ran his own candidate for the Senate, Frank Hogan. New Yorkers now saw DeSapio as an old-time Tammany Hall boss, and Hogan would lose the Senate election to Republican Kenneth Keating; Republican Nelson Rockefeller would also be elected governor the same year. Democrats who once praised De Sapio now excoriated him. In 1961, Wagner won re-election by running a reformist campaign that denounced his former patron, DeSapio, as an undemocratic practitioner of Tammany machine politics. After World War II, a group of young World War II veterans and other reform-minded Democrats began the Lexington Democratic Club in response to being denied access to Tammany Hall politics by the old guard. Eleanor Roosevelt organized a counterattack with Herbert H. Lehman and Thomas K. Finletter to form the New York Committee for Democratic Voters, a group dedicated to fighting Tammany. In 1961, the group helped remove DeSapio from power. The once mighty Tammany political machine, now deprived of its leadership, quickly faded from political importance, and by 1967 it ceased to exist; its demise as the controlling group of the New York Democratic Party was sealed when the Village Independent Democrats under Ed Koch wrested away control of the Manhattan party.


title: Tammany Hall

text: There were two distinct entities: the Tammany Society, headed by a Grand Sachem elected annually on May 23; and the Tammany Hall political machine headed by a "boss". The following list names the political bosses, as far as could be ascertained. Tammany Hall operated with obfuscation in mind, so these public leaders may not represent actual leadership.


title: Tammany Hall

text: In its very early days, the Tammany Society met in the back rooms of various taverns, most often in Barden's Tavern on Broadway near Bowling Green. These back rooms served as unofficial campaign headquarters on election days.


title: Tammany Hall

text: In 1791, the society opened a museum designed to collect artifacts relating to the events and history of the United States. Originally presented in an upper room of City Hall, it moved to the Merchant's Exchange when that proved to be too small. The museum was unsuccessful, and the Society severed its connections with it in 1795.


title: Tammany Hall

text: Then, in 1798, the Society moved to more permanent and spacious quarters, the "Long Room" of "Brom" Martling's Tavern, at Nassau Street and Spruce Street, near where City Hall is today. Tammany controlled the space, which it dubbed "The Wigwam", and let other responsible political organizations it approved of use the room for meetings. This space became commonly known as "Tammany Hall".


title: Tammany Hall

text: Their new headquarters had limitations as well as advantages, and in 1812 Tammany moved again, this time to a new five-story $55,000 building it built at the corner of Nassau and Frankfort streets, just a few blocks away. The new Tammany Hall had a large room that could accommodate up to 2,000 people for political and social events, and the rest of the building was run as a hotel. The Society was to remain there for 55 years.


title: Tammany Hall

text: By the 1860s, Tammany under Tweed had much greater influence – and affluence, so new headquarters was deemed desirable. The cornerstone for the new Tammany headquarters was laid on July 14, 1867, at 141 East 14th Street between Third Avenue and Fourth Avenue (the building at Nassau and Frankfort was sold to Charles Dana and his friends, who bought a newspaper, "The Sun", and moved it there).


title: Tammany Hall

text: When the leaders of the Society found that they had not raised enough funds, and needed $25,000 more, a meeting was held at which $175,000 was immediately pledged. The new Wigwam was completed in 1868. It was not just a political clubhouse:


title: Tammany Hall

text: Tammany Hall merged politics and entertainment, already stylistically similar, in its new headquarters. ... The Tammany Society kept only one room for itself, renting the rest to entertainment impresarios: Don Bryant's Minstrels, a German theater company, classical concerts and opera. The basement – in the French mode – offered the Café Ausant, where one could see tableaux vivant, gymnastic exhibitions, pantomimes, and Punch and Judy shows. There was also a bar, a bazaar, a Ladies' Cafe, and an oyster saloon. All this – with the exception of Bryant's – was open from seven till midnight for a combination price of fifty cents.


title: Tammany Hall

text: The building had an auditorium big enough to hold public meetings, and a smaller one that became Tony Pastor's Music Hall, where vaudeville had its beginnings. The structure was topped off by a large-than-life statue of Saint Tammany.


title: Tammany Hall

text: In 1927 the building on 14th Street was sold, to make way for the new tower being added to the Consolidated Edison Building. The Society's new building at 44 Union Square, a few blocks north at the corner with East 17th Street, was finished and occupied by 1929. When Tammany started to lose its political influence, and its all-important access to graft, it could no longer afford to maintain the 17th Street building, and in 1943 it was bought by a local affiliate of the International Ladies Garment Workers Union. Tammany left, and its leaders moved to the National Democratic Club on Madison Avenue at East 37th Street, and the Society's collection of memorabilia went into a warehouse in the Bronx.


title: Tammany Hall

text: The building at 44 Union Square housed the New York Film Academy and the Union Square Theatre, and retail stores at street level, until a complete renovation of the building began in 2016. The New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission designated it in October 2013. The renovation, which included a gutting of the interior and the installation of a glass-domed roof, was substantially completed by July 2020.


title: Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba (season 1)

text: "" is an anime series based on the manga series of the same title, written and illustrated by Koyoharu Gotouge. The anime television series adaptation by studio Ufotable was announced in "Weekly Shōnen Jump" on June 4, 2018. The first season adapts the first seven volumes (chapters 1–54) of the manga series, and it aired from April 6 to September 28, 2019, on Tokyo MX, GTV, GYT, BS11, and other channels. Haruo Sotozaki directed the anime with scripts by the Ufotable staff. Yuki Kajiura and Go Shiina composed the music, and Akira Matsushima is the character designer. Hikaru Kondo is the producer.


text: The opening theme is by LiSA, while the ending theme is "from the edge" by FictionJunction feat. LiSA. The ending theme for episode 19 is by Go Shiina featuring Nami Nakagawa.


text: Aniplex of America announced that they have licensed the series, and streaming on Crunchyroll, Hulu, and FunimationNow. AnimeLab is simulcasting the series in Australia and New Zealand. The series ran for 26 episodes and adapted the manga from the beginning of the first volume to the first chapters of the seventh.


text: Prior to airing, the first five episodes screened theatrically in Japan for two weeks from March 29, 2019, under the title . Aniplex of America screened the film at the Aratani Theatre in Los Angeles on March 31, 2019. Madman Entertainment through AnimeLab screened the film in select theatres in Australia on April 2, 2019.


text: In July 2019, it was announced that the English dub would premiere on Adult Swim's Toonami block. The English dub premiered on October 13, 2019.


text: The series was released in Japan by Aniplex on eleven Blu-ray and DVD volumes beginning on July 31, 2019, and concluded on June 24, 2020. Each volume features cover art illustrated by the series' character designer, Akira Matsushima, and the limited-edition includes bonus CD containing original drama or soundtrack. Aniplex of America released the first limited-edition Blu-ray volume in North America on June 30, 2020, and the second volume was released on November 24, 2020. The company, in partnership with Funimation, released the standard-edition Blu-ray volumes in September 2020 and January 2021.


title: Take Me Home, Country Roads

text: "Take Me Home, Country Roads", also known simply as "Country Roads", is a song written by Bill Danoff, Taffy Nivert and John Denver about West Virginia. It was released as a single performed by Denver on April 12, 1971, peaking at number two on "Billboard"s US Hot 100 singles for the week ending August 28, 1971. The song was a success on its initial release and was certified Gold by the RIAA on August 18, 1971, and Platinum on April 10, 2017. The song became one of John Denver's most popular songs. It has continued to sell, with over 1.6 million digital copies sold in the United States.


title: Take Me Home, Country Roads

text: The song is considered a symbol of West Virginia. In March 2014, it became one of the four official state anthems of West Virginia.


title: Take Me Home, Country Roads

text: Inspiration for the title line had come while Nivert and Danoff, who were married, were driving along Clopper Road in Montgomery County, Maryland to a Nivert family gathering in Gaithersburg, with Nivert behind the wheel while Danoff played his guitar. "I just started thinking, country roads, I started thinking of me growing up in western New England and going on all these small roads," Danoff said. "It didn’t have anything to do with Maryland or anyplace."


title: Take Me Home, Country Roads

text: To Danoff, the lyric "(t)he radio reminds me of my home far away" in the bridge is quintessentially West Virginian, an allusion to when he listened to the program "Saturday Night Jamboree", broadcast from Wheeling, West Virginia, on WWVA at his home in Springfield, Massachusetts during his childhood in the 1950s.


title: Take Me Home, Country Roads

text: Danoff had some other West Virginia associations to draw from as well. He became friends with actor Chris Sarandon as well as a group of hippies from a West Virginia commune who sat in the front rows of the little clubs in which his groups played: "They brought their dogs and were a very colorful group of folks, but that is how West Virginia began creeping into the song," Danoff said. He briefly considered using his home state of "Massachusetts", rather than "West Virginia", as both four-syllable state names would have fit the song's meter. "I didn't want to write about Massachusetts because I didn't think the word was musical. And the Bee Gees, of course, had a hit record called "Massachusetts", but what did I know?" Danoff said.


title: Take Me Home, Country Roads

text: Starting December 22, 1970, Denver was heading the New Year's bill at The Cellar Door, with Fat City opening for him, just as Denver had opened at the same club for then headliner David Steinberg. After the club's post-Christmas reopening night on Tuesday, December 29 (Cellar Door engagements ran from Tuesday to Sunday and this booking was for two weeks), the three headed back to the couple's apartment for an impromptu jam. On the way, Denver's left thumb was broken in a collision. He was rushed to the emergency room, where the thumb was put in a splint. By the time they got back to the apartment, Denver said he was "wired, you know."


title: Take Me Home, Country Roads

text: When Danoff and Nivert ran through what they had of the song they had been working on for about a month, planning to sell to Johnny Cash, Denver "flipped." He decided he had to have it, prompting them to abandon plans for the sale. The verses and chorus were still missing a bridge, so the three of them went about finishing.


title: Take Me Home, Country Roads

text: Nivert got out an encyclopedia to learn more about West Virginia, and the first thing she came upon was the Rhododendron, the state flower, so she kept trying to work the word Rhododendron into the song. "Rhododendron" was the title that Nivert had written down on the lyric sheet, which they later sent to ASCAP. The three stayed up until 6:00 a.m., changing words and moving lines around.


title: Take Me Home, Country Roads

text: When they finished, on the morning of Wednesday, December 30, 1970, Denver announced that the song had to go on his next album. Later that night, during Denver's first set, Denver called his two collaborators back to the spotlight, where the trio changed their career trajectories, reading the lyrics from a single, handheld, unfolded piece of paper. According to Len Jaffe, a Washington, D.C.-based singer-songwriter who attended the show where Denver premiered the song, this resulted in a five-minute standing ovation. The next day was Denver's 28th birthday. They recorded it in New York City in January 1971.


title: Take Me Home, Country Roads

text: "Take Me Home, County Roads" is written in a Key of A major, and composed in a tempo of 82 beats per minute per common time.


title: Take Me Home, Country Roads

text: "Take Me Home, Country Roads" appeared on the LP "Poems, Prayers & Promises" and was released as a 45 in the spring of 1971. Original pressings credited the single to "John Denver with Fat City". It broke nationally in mid-April but moved up the charts very slowly. After several weeks, RCA Records called John and told him that they were giving up on the single. His response: "No! Keep working on it!" They did, and the single went to number 1 on the "Record World" Pop Singles Chart and the "Cash Box" Top 100, and number 2 on the U.S. "Billboard" Hot 100, topped only by "How Can You Mend a Broken Heart" by The Bee Gees.


title: Take Me Home, Country Roads

text: On August 18, 1971, it was certified Gold by the RIAA for a million copies shipped. The song continued to sell in the digital era. As of January 2020, the song has also sold 1,591,000 downloads since it became available digitally.


title: Take Me Home, Country Roads

text: "Take Me Home, Country Roads" received an enthusiastic response from West Virginians. On November 1, 2017, the West Virginia Tourism Office announced it had obtained the rights to use "Take Me Home, Country Roads", in its marketing efforts. "'Country Roads' has become synonymous with West Virginia all over the world," said West Virginia Tourism Commissioner Chelsea Ruby. "It highlights everything we love about our state: scenic beauty, majestic mountains, a timeless way of life, and most of all, the warmth of a place that feels like home whether you've lived here forever or are just coming to visit." The opening phrase of the song, "Almost heaven", became a primary tourism office slogan.


title: Take Me Home, Country Roads

text: The song is the theme song of West Virginia University and it has been performed during every home football pregame show since 1972. The song is played for other athletic events and university functions, including after football games, for which the fans are encouraged to stay in the stands and sing the song along with the team. On September 6, 1980, at the invitation of West Virginia Governor Jay Rockefeller, songwriters Danoff, Nivert, and Denver performed the song during pregame festivities to a sold-out crowd of Mountaineer fans. This performance marked the dedication of the current West Virginia University Mountaineer Field and the first game for head coach Don Nehlen.


title: Take Me Home, Country Roads

text: The popularity of the song inspired resolutions in the West Virginia Legislature to adopt "Take Me Home, Country Roads" as an official state song. On March 7, 2014, the West Virginia Legislature approved a resolution to make "Take Me Home, Country Roads" an official state song of West Virginia, alongside three other pieces: "West Virginia Hills", "This Is My West Virginia", and "West Virginia, My Home Sweet Home". Governor Earl Ray Tomblin signed the resolution into law on March 8, 2014.


title: Take Me Home, Country Roads

text: The song was played at the funeral for West Virginia Senator Robert Byrd at the state capitol in Charleston, West Virginia on July 2, 2010.


title: Take Me Home, Country Roads

text: The Mountain State Brewing Company based in Thomas, West Virginia produces an amber ale named "Almost Heaven," which it says is "named after John Denver's ode to West Virginia, Country Roads".


title: Take Me Home, Country Roads

text: Dutch pop band Hermes House Band covered the song and released it as "Country Roads". This version was first released in Germany on May 21, 2001, and was issued in the United Kingdom on December 3, 2001, where it was a contender for the 2001 Christmas number-one single. This version was a chart success in Europe, reaching number one in Scotland, number two in Germany and Ireland, and the top 10 in Austria, Denmark, and the United Kingdom.


title: Take Me Home, Country Roads

text: Olivia Newton-John released a cover version in January 1973 that reached number 6 in Japan and number 15 in the UK. It was the lead single from her third studio album, "Let Me Be There". This version, as well as the song itself, features prominently in the Japanese animated film, "Whisper of the Heart".


title: Take Me Home, Country Roads

text: A cover version of the song, a collaboration between Copilot Music and Sound and the vocal group Spank, was commissioned for and featured in both the teaser and full E3 2018 trailers for the 2018 video game "Fallout 76", with its plot events are set in West Virginia. Released as an iTunes-only single on July 4, 2018, the song reached No. 1 on the iTunes singles chart. It debuted at No. 41 on "Billboard's" Hot Country Songs chart that week and at No. 21 on "Billboard's" Country Digital Songs the following week. The official YouTube upload of the original John Denver recording, initially uploaded in 2013, would later edit its description in response to the song's use for the game. In Australia, a promotional "Fallout 76" vinyl featuring the cover was included with the December 2018 issue of "STACK Magazine" exclusively from retailer JB Hi-Fi.


title: Take Me Home, Country Roads

text: The song found further chart success as part of the Forever Country medley and video, created in 2016 to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Country Music Association Awards.


title: Sunil Gavaskar

text: Sunil Manohar Gavaskar (Marathi pronunciation: ]; ; born 10 July 1949), is an Indian cricket commentator and former cricketer who represented India and Bombay from 1971 to 1987. Gavaskar is acknowledged as one of the greatest opening batsmen of all time.


title: Sunil Gavaskar

text: Gavaskar was widely admired for his technique against fast bowling, with a particularly high average of 65.45 against the West Indies, who possessed a four-pronged fast bowling attack regarded as the most vicious in Test history. However, most of Gavaskar's centuries against West Indies were against their second string team when their four-pronged attack were not playing together.


title: Sunil Gavaskar

text: His captaincy of the Indian team, however, was mentioned as less successful despite of team winning the Benson & Hedges World Championship of Cricket in 1985. Turbulent performances of the team led to multiple exchanges of captaincy between Gavaskar and Kapil Dev, with one of Gavaskar's sackings coming just six months before Kapil led India to victory at the 1983 Cricket World Cup. He is also a former Sheriff of Mumbai.


title: Sunil Gavaskar

text: Gavaskar is a recipient of the Indian sports honour of the Arjuna Award and the civilian honour of the Padma Bhushan. He was inducted into the ICC Cricket Hall of Fame in 2009. In 2012, he was awarded the Col CK Nayudu Lifetime Achievement Award for Cricket in India.


title: Sunil Gavaskar

text: Born in Mumbai in a middle class Marathi Family and a student of St Xavier's High School young Sunil Gavaskar was named "India's Best Schoolboy Cricketer of the year" in 1966 while playing for his school. He scored 246*, 222 and 85 in school cricket in his final year of secondary education before striking a century against the touring London schoolboys. He made his first-class debut for Vazir Sultan Colts XI against an XI from Dungarpur in 1966–67 but remained in Bombay's Ranji Trophy squad for the next two years without playing a match. An alumnus of Bombay's St. Xavier's College, he made his debut in the 1968–69 season against Karnataka but made a duck and was the subject of derisive claims that his selection was due to the presence of his uncle Madhav Mantri, a former Indian Test wicket keeper on Bombay's selection committee. He responded with 114 against Rajasthan in his second match and two other consecutive centuries saw him being selected in the 1970–71 Indian team to tour the West Indies.


title: Sunil Gavaskar

text: After missing the first Test due to nail infection, Gavaskar scored 65 and 67 not out in the second Test in Port-of-Spain, Trinidad, hitting the winning runs which gave India its first-ever win over the West Indies.


title: Sunil Gavaskar

text: He followed this with his first century, 116 and 64* in the third Test in Georgetown, Guyana, and 1 and 117* in the Fourth Test in Bridgetown, Barbados. He returned to Trinidad for the fifth Test and scored 124 and 220 to help India to its first ever series victory over the West Indies, and the only one until 2006. His performance in the Test made him the second player after Doug Walters to score a century and double century in the same match and remains the only Indian until date to achieve this feat. He also became the first Indian to make four centuries in one Test series, the second Indian after Vijay Hazare to score two centuries in the same Test, and the third after Hazare and Polly Umrigar to score centuries in three consecutive innings. He was the first Indian to aggregate more than 700 runs in a series and until date remains the only Indian to do so. This 774 runs at 154.80 also remains the most runs scored in a debut series by any batsman. Trinidad Calypso singer Lord Relator (Willard Harris) wrote a song in Gavaskar's honour, the "Gavaskar Calypso".


title: Sunil Gavaskar

text: Gavaskar's arrival in England in 1971 for a three-Test series generated substantial publicity in light of his debut series. He was unable to maintain his performance, making only two half-centuries. He was involved in controversy when taking a quick single from the bowling of John Snow. They collided, and Gavaskar fell over. Snow was charged with deliberately barging into Gavaskar and was suspended. Gavaskar's 144 runs at the low average of 24, led some to question Gavaskar's worthiness for international cricket.


title: Sunil Gavaskar

text: In 1972–73, England toured India for a five-Test series, Gavaskar's first on home soil. He was ineffective in the first three Tests, accumulating only sixty runs in five innings as India took a 2–1 lead. He scored some runs in the final two Tests which India drew to complete consecutive series wins over England. His first home series was largely disappointing, aggregating 224 runs at 24.89. His English critics were placated when India returned in 1974 and Gavaskar scored 101 and 58 in the second Test at Old Trafford. He managed 227 runs at 37.83 as India were whitewashed 3–0.


title: Sunil Gavaskar

text: Gavaskar's 1974–75 series against the West Indies was interrupted, playing in only the First and fifth and final Test of the series against the West Indies. He scored 108 runs at 27, with an 86 bowled by Lance Gibbs at Bombay's Wankhede Stadium hosting the first test on this ground, the closest the Indian public got to see a century. The Test was the start of a world record streak of 106 Test appearances.


title: Sunil Gavaskar

text: The 1975–76 season saw three and four Test tours of New Zealand and the West Indies, respectively. Gavaskar led India in a Test for the first time in January 1976 against New Zealand during the First Test in Auckland when regular captain Bishen Singh Bedi was suffering from a leg injury. Standing in despite having scored only 703 runs at 28.12 since his debut series, Gavaskar rewarded the selectors with 116 and 35*. As a result, India secured an eight-wicket victory. He ended the series with 266 runs at 66.33. On the West Indian leg of the tour, Gavaskar scored consecutive centuries of 156 and 102 in the Second and Third Tests, both in Port of Spain, Trinidad. These were his third and fourth centuries at the grounds. In the Third Test, his 102 helped India post 4/406 to set a world record for the highest winning fourth innings score. The Indians' mastery of the Caribbean spinners on a turning track reportedly led West Indian captain Clive Lloyd to vow that he would rely on pace alone in future Tests. Gavaskar totalled 390 runs at 55.71 for the series.


title: Sunil Gavaskar

text: Gavaskar was not to score a century on home soil until November 1976. In an eight-Test season, three and five against New Zealand and England, respectively, Gavaskar scored centuries in the first and last Tests of the season. The first was 119 in front of his home crowd at the Wankhede Stadium, helping India to a victory. Gavaskar scored another half-century in the Second Test to end the series with 259 at 43.16. In the First Test against England at Delhi, he was mobbed upon becoming the first Indian to reach 1,000 Test runs in a calendar year. A steady series saw him finish with 394 runs at 39.4 with a century coming in the Fifth Test and two half-centuries.


title: Sunil Gavaskar

text: In 1977–78 he toured Australia, scoring three consecutive Test centuries (113, 127, 118) in the second innings of the first three Tests at Brisbane, Perth and Melbourne, respectively. India won the third but lost the earlier two. He finished the Five Test series with 450 runs at 50, failing twice as India lost the final Test and the series 3–2.


title: Sunil Gavaskar

text: 1978–79 saw India tour Pakistan for the first series between the arch-rivals for 17 years. For the first time, Gavaskar faced Pakistani pace spearhead Imran Khan, who described him as "The most compact batsman I've bowled to." Gavaskar scored 89 in the First Test and 97 in the Second, which India drew and lost, respectively. Gavaskar saved his best for the Third Test in Karachi, scoring 111 and 137 in the Third, but was unable to prevent a defeat and series loss. His twin centuries made him the first Indian to score two centuries in one Test on two occasions, and saw him pass Umrigar as India's leading Test run-scorer. Gavaskar finished the series with 447 runs at 89.40.


title: Sunil Gavaskar

text: Gavaskar was captain of the Indian team on several occasions in the late 1970s and early 1980s, although his record is less than impressive. Often equipped with unpenetrative bowling attacks he tended to use conservative tactics which resulted in a large number of draws. During his tenure, Kapil Dev emerged as a leading pace bowler for the country. He captained India to nine victories and eight losses, but most of the games were drawn, 30.


title: Sunil Gavaskar

text: His first series in charge was a West Indian visit to India for a six Test series. Gavaskar's several large centuries contrasted with several failures. His 205 in the First Test made him the first Indian to score a double century in India against the West Indies. He added a further 73 in the second innings of a high scoring draw. After failing to score in the Second Test, he scored 107 and 182 not out in the Third Test at Calcutta, another high scoring draw. This made him the first player in Test history to achieve centuries in both innings of a Test three times. He managed only 4 and 1 in the Fourth Test in Madras as India forced the only win of the series. He posted a fourth century for the series, scoring 120 in the Fifth Test at Delhi, becoming the first Indian to pass 4000 Test runs. He aggregated 732 runs at 91.50 for the series, securing India a 1–0 win in his first series as captain.


title: Sunil Gavaskar

text: Despite this, he was stripped of the captaincy when India toured England in 1979 for a four Test tour. The official reason given was that Srinivas Venkataraghavan was preferred due to his superior experience on English soil, but most observers believed that Gavaskar was punished because he was believed to be considering defecting to World Series Cricket. He started consistently, scoring four half-centuries in five innings of the first three Tests. It was in the Fourth Test at The Oval that he produced his finest innings on English soil. India was 1–0 down needed to reach a world record target of 438 to square the series. They reached 76/0 at stumps on the fourth day. Led by Gavaskar, India made steady progress to be 328/1 with 20 overs remaining on the final day with a record-breaking victory still possible. An Ian Botham led fightback saw Gavaskar removed, with India still needing 49 runs from 46 balls. With three balls left in the match, all four results were possible. India ended nine runs short with two wickets in hand when stumps were drawn. According to Sanjay Manjrekar, it was "Vintage Gavaskar, playing swing bowling to perfection, taking his time initially and then opening up. Nothing in the air, everything copybook." He ended the series with 542 runs at 77.42 and was named as one of the Wisden Cricketers of the Year.


title: Sunil Gavaskar

text: Gavaskar was restored to the captaincy for the gruelling 1979–80 season, with six Test home series against both Australia and Pakistan. The first two Tests against Australia were high scoring draws where only 45 wickets fell, with India taking a first-innings lead in both after making scores over 400. India broke through for a 153-run win in the Third Test at Kanpur, where Gavaskar scored 76. He made 115 in the Fourth Test in Delhi, where India were unable to convert a 212-run first innings lead, resulting in a draw. After another stalemate in the Fifth Test, Gavaskar scored 123 in the Sixth Test, where Australia collapsed by an innings after India posted their fourth first innings in excess of 400 for the series. The series against Pakistan was similarly high scoring, with four draws, three of which did not reach the fourth innings. India won the Third and Fifth Tests in Bombay and Madras. At Madras, he made 166 in the first innings and was unbeaten on 29 when India brought up the winning runs. Having secured the series 2–0, Gavaskar was removed from the captaincy for the drawn Sixth Test. This occurred because Gavaskar had refused to tour the West Indies for another series immediately afterwards, asking for a rest. As a result, Gundappa Viswanath was appointed so that he could prepare his leadership skills for the tour. In the end the tour did not go ahead as the West Indian board were not interested in a team without Gavaskar. The season ended with a one-off Test against England in Bombay, which India lost. In the 13 Tests that season, he made 1027 runs at 51.35 with three centuries and four half-centuries. This ended a 14-month span in which Gavaskar played in 22 Tests and the 1979 Cricket World Cup. In that time, he scored 2301 Test runs including eight centuries.


title: Sunil Gavaskar

text: The 1980–81 season saw Gavaskar returned as captain for the Australasian tour, but it was to be the start of an unhappy reign for Gavaskar and India. He managed only 118 runs at 19.66 in the three Tests against Australia, but his impact in Australia was for a controversial incident. At the Melbourne Cricket Ground, when Gavaskar was given out by the Australian umpire Rex Whitehead , he ordered his fellow opener Chetan Chauhan off the field. Instead of abandoning the match, the Indian manager, SK Durani persuaded Chauhan to return to the match which India went on to win by 59 runs as Australia collapsed to 83 in their second innings. India drew the series 1–1 but the following three-Test series in New Zealand was to signal the start of a barren run of 19 Tests under Gavaskar of which India were to win only one and lose five. India lost to New Zealand 1–0, with Gavaskar managing 126 runs at 25.2. He finished the Oceania tour with 244 runs at 22.18, with only two half-centuries, making little impact.


title: Sunil Gavaskar

text: The 1981–82 Indian season saw a hard-fought 1–0 series win over England in six Tests. India took the First Test, before five consecutive draws resulted, four of which did not even reach the fourth innings. Gavaskar made 172 in the Second Test at Bangalore and reached a half-century on three further occasions to compile 500 runs at 62.5. India reciprocated England's visit in 1982 for a three-Test series, which was lost 1–0. Gavaskar made 74 runs at 24.66 but was unable to bat in the Third Test.


title: Sunil Gavaskar

text: The 1982–83 subcontinental season started well for Gavaskar on an individual note, as he made 155 in a one-off Test against Sri Lanka in Madras. It was the first Test between the two nations, with Sri Lankan having only recently been awarded Test status. Despite this, India were unable to finish off their novice opponents, the draw heralding a start of a winless summer. India played in twelve Tests, losing five and drawing seven. The first series was a six Test tour to Pakistan. India started well enough, drawing the First Test in Lahore, with Gavaskar scoring 83. Pakistan then defeated India in three consecutive matches. In the Third Test in Faisalabad, Gavaskar managed an unbeaten 127 in the second innings to force Pakistan into a run chase, but the other two losses were substantial, both by an innings. Despite holding on for draws in the last two Tests, Gavaskar was replaced by Kapil Dev as captain after the 3–0 loss. Despite his team's difficulties, Gavaskar remained productive with 434 runs at 47.18 with a century and three half centuries. Gavaskar went on to the West Indies for a five Test tour purely as a batsman, but could not reproduce the form that he had shown in the Caribbean in 1971 and 1976. He managed only 240 runs at 30, as India were crushed 2–0 by the world champions. Apart from an unbeaten 147 in the drawn Third Test in Georgetown, Guyana, his next best effort was 32.


title: Sunil Gavaskar

text: The 1983–84 season started with a home series against Pakistan, with all three matches being drawn. Gavaskar scored an unbeaten 103 in the First Test in Bangalore, and made two further half centuries to total 264 runs at 66.


title: Sunil Gavaskar

text: The Pakistan series was followed by a six Test series against the touring West Indies at the height of their powers. The First Test was held in Kanpur and India were crushed by an innings. Gavaskar had his bat knocked out of his hand by a hostile delivery from Malcolm Marshall before being dismissed. In the Second Test in Delhi, Gavaskar delivered his riposte to Marshall, hooking him for a consecutive four and six to start his innings. Gavaskar, unwilling to be dictated to by the Caribbean pacemen, hooked the short-pitched barrage relentlessly, reaching his half century in 37 balls. He then went on to score 121, his 29th Test century in 94 balls in his 95th test match, equalling Don Bradman's world record. He also passed 8,000 Test runs in the innings, and was personally honoured by Indira Gandhi, the Prime Minister of India at the ground. The match was drawn. Gavaskar's 90 in the Third Test at Ahmedabad saw him pass Geoff Boycott's Test world record of 8,114 career runs, but was insufficient to prevent another defeat. During the Fifth Test in the series, India were defeated by an innings at Calcutta to concede a 3–0 series lead. India had won only one of their 32 most recent Tests and none of their last 28. The crowd singled out Gavaskar, who had made a golden duck and 20. Angry spectators pelted objects onto the playing arena and clashed with police, before stoning the team bus. In the Sixth Test in Madras, he compiled his 30th Test century in his 99th test match, with an unbeaten 236 which was the highest Test score by an Indian. It was his 30th Test century and third double century against the West Indies, propelling him to overtake Donald Bradman's 29 test centuries record. He scored a total of 505 runs at an average of 50.50 for the series.


title: Sunil Gavaskar

text: With India having failed to win for 29 successive Tests, Kapil was sacked as captain and Gavaskar resumed leadership at the start of the 1984–85 season. The two Test tour of Pakistan resulted in two further draws, with Gavaskar compiling 120 runs at 40. The First Test against England saw India break through for its first Test victory in 32 matches. It proved to be a false dawn, with England squaring the series 1–1 in Delhi before another controversial Third Test at Eden Gardens in Calcutta. The hostile crowd watched as India batted for over two days to reach 7/437 after 203 overs. Angry with the slow pace of India's innings, the crowd chanted "Gavaskar down! Gavaskar out!" blaming him for India' performance. The local police chief reportedly asked Gavaskar to declare to placate the angry crowd. When Gavaskar led his team onto the field, he was pelted with fruit.


title: Sunil Gavaskar

text: Gavaskar vowed never to play at Eden Gardens again, and duly withdrew from the team for India's next fixture at the Bengali capital two years later, ending his record of 106 consecutive Tests. The match was drawn, but India conceded the series after losing the Fourth. The series ended 1–2, and with a poor display of 140 runs at 17.5, Gavaskar resigned, although he had already announced his intention to relinquish the leadership before the series. The change of captain improved the form of neither Gavaskar nor India as they toured Sri Lanka for a three-Test series. India were embarrassed 1–0 by the Test minnows at the time, with Gavaskar managing only 186 runs at 37.2.


title: Sunil Gavaskar

text: In 1985–86, India toured Australia. All three Tests were drawn. Gavaskar scored an unbeaten 166 in the First Test in Adelaide and 172 in the Third Test in Sydney, ending the series with 352 runs at 117.33. A three-Test tour of England saw him score only 185 runs at 30.83, which India won 2–0 despite his lack of production. In 1986–87, Gavaskar's final season in Test cricket, India faced a long season of eleven home Tests. Against an Australian team, Gavaskar made 90 in the second innings of the First Test in Madras (now Chennai), giving India a chance to reach the target of 348, which ended in a tie. He scored 103 in the Third Test to end the series with 205 runs at 51.66. The First Test against Sri Lanka in Kanpur saw Gavaskar's 34th and final Test century of 176. He scored 74 and 5 in the next two Tests as India won the three-match series 2–0. The five-Test series against arch enemies Pakistan was to be his last. Gavaskar scored 91 in the drawn First Test in Madras before withdrawing from the Second Test in Calcutta as he had promised. In the Fourth Test in Ahmedabad, Gavaskar's 63 made him the first batsman to pass 10,000 runs. With the teams locked 0–0 leading into the final Test in Bangalore, there was to be no fairytale. Gavaskar was dismissed for 96 in the second innings as India were bowled out to give Pakistan a 1–0 series win.


title: Sunil Gavaskar

text: Gavaskar rounded out his international career with the 1987 Cricket World Cup. He scored 300 runs at an average of 50 at the tournament. Against New Zealand in the league phase he recorded his highest ODI score of 103*. The good form however did not continue into the semifinals where Phil Defreitas bowled him for 4 runs in his last international innings.


title: Sunil Gavaskar

text: Gavaskar was also a fine slip fielder and his safe catching in the slips helped him become the first Indian (excluding wicket-keepers) to take over a hundred catches in Test matches. In one ODI against Pakistan in Sharjah in 1985, he took four catches and helped India defend a small total of 125. Early in his Test career, when India rarely used pace bowlers, Gavaskar also opened the bowling for a short spell on occasions if only one pace bowler was playing, before a three-pronged spin attack took over. The only wicket claimed by him is that of Pakistani Zaheer Abbas in 1978–79.


title: Sunil Gavaskar

text: While Gavaskar could not be described as an attacking batsman, he had the ability of keeping the scoreboard ticking with unique shots such as the "late flick". His focus of technical correctness over flair meant that his style of play was usually less suited to the shorter form of the game, at which he had less success. His infamous 36 not out in the 1975 World Cup, carrying his bat through the full 60 overs against England, led Indian supporters to storm the field and confront him for scoring so slowly when India needed nearly a run a ball to win; at the end of the game India had lost only three wickets but scored 200 runs less than England. Gavaskar almost went through his career without scoring a one-day century. He managed his first (and only ODI century) in the 1987 World Cup, when he hit 103 not out in 88 balls against New Zealand in his penultimate ODI innings at Vidarbha Cricket Association Ground, Nagpur.


title: Sunil Gavaskar

text: After retirement, he has been a popular, if sometimes controversial commentator, both on TV and in print. In 1987, he participated in Prince Edward of the United Kingdom's charity television special "The Grand Knockout Tournament". In 2003, he became the first Indian to deliver the MCC Spirit of Cricket Cowdrey Lecture. He also served as an advisor to the India national cricket team during the home series against Australia in 2004. He was the Chairman of the ICC cricket committee until the time he was forced to choose between commenting and being on the committee. He left the committee to continue his career as a broadcaster.


title: Sunil Gavaskar

text: The inaugural Mansur Ali Khan Pataudi Memorial Lecture was given by Gavaskar on 20 February 2013 at Taj Coromandel, Chennai.


title: Sunil Gavaskar

text: On 28 March 2014 the Supreme Court of India appointed Gavaskar as the interim President of the BCCI, primarily to oversee the seventh Season of the Indian Premier League. At the same time the Court directed him to give up his job as a commentator.


title: Sunil Gavaskar

text: Gavaskar also tried his hand at acting on the silver screen. He played the lead role in the Marathi movie "Savli Premachi". The movie did not receive much appreciation though. After many years he appeared in a guest role in (1988) Hindi movie "Maalamaal". with Naseeruddin Shah and Satish Shah. He has sung a Marathi song "Ya Duniyemadhye Thambayaala Vel Konala" which was written by noted Marathi lyricist . The song depicted the similarities between a cricket match and real life.


title: Sunil Gavaskar

text: On 25 March 2008, Malcolm Speed, ICC chief executive, told Gavaskar "very clearly", during a meeting between the two at Dubai, that he would have to quit his post at the ICC if he failed to give up his job of commentator and newspaper columnist, in which capacity he has frequently criticised his employers and levelled serious accusations of racism. He sparked a controversy in early 2008 for his comments on the contentious Sydney Test Match: "Millions of Indians want to know if it (match referee Mike Procter's verdict against Harbhajan Singh) was a 'white man' taking the 'white man's' word against that of the 'brown man'. Quite simply, if there was no audio evidence, nor did the officials hear anything, then the charge did not stand." Despite the fact that Gavaskar's comment referenced Mike Procter and not the ICC, Australian writer Gideon Haigh said that, if Gavaskar genuinely believed this, "then he should almost certainly resign, for if the ICC is a bastion of 'white man's justice', Gavaskar bears some of the blame for having failed to change it.


title: Sunil Gavaskar

text: Born in a Marathi speaking family to Meenal (née Mantri) & Manohar Gavaskar, Gavaskar is married to Marshneill Gavaskar (née Mehrotra), daughter of a leather industrialist from Kanpur. Their son, Rohan, was also a cricketer who played 11 One Day Internationals for India, but could not cement his spot in the team. Rohan was given the name "Rohan Jaivishwa" by his father as a tribute to his 3 favourite cricketers—"Rohan" Kanhai; M. L. "Jai"simha; and Rohan's uncle, Gundappa "Vishwa"nath—although his name is usually recorded as Rohan Sunil Gavaskar.


title: Sunil Gavaskar

text: Sunil Gavaskar was exchanged with a fisherman's baby at birth. It was his uncle who spotted that the child was not Sunil as he had a birthmark near his ear. "Perhaps, I would have grown up to be an obscure fisherman, toiling somewhere along the west coast," Gavaskar wrote.


title: Sunil Gavaskar

text: His maternal uncle was retired Indian cricketer Madhav Mantri. His sister Kavita Viswanath is married to cricketer Gundappa Viswanath. His other sister—Nutan Gavaskar was the honorary general secretary of Women's Cricket Association of India (WCAI).


title: Sunil Gavaskar

text: According to a recollection by his son Rohan, Gavaskar saved a family from a violent mob during the 1993 Bombay riots. “We were standing on our terrace right after the bomb blasts, a few days later, when we saw a hate mob, and they had cornered a family. We knew they did not have any good intentions towards the family and dad saw that, ran down and confronted the hate mob. He told the mob, ‘whatever you are going to do that family, you are going to do to me first’, and then better sense prevailed and the family was allowed to go its way."


title: Peter Zeihan

text: Zeihan was born in 1973 and grew up adopted to a Jewish family in Iowa. He is Jewish. In 1995, he obtained a BS degree in Political Science from what was then Northeast Missouri State University, a postgraduate degree in Asian studies from the University of Otago (Dunedin, New Zealand) in 1997, and from the Patterson School of Diplomacy and International Commerce of the University of Kentucky in 1999. He was previously an analyst and later Vice President for the Austin-based geopolitical intelligence firm Stratfor.


title: Peter Zeihan

text: The book was reviewed by "The Washington Post", and "The Wall Street Journal" and given praise by Kirkus Reviews.


title: Peter Zeihan

text: The book focuses on topographical and geographical landmarks (rivers, oceans, mountains, etc.) as distinct advantages in a nation's ability to dominate others economically, industrially and militarily. With the use of maps, Zeihan is able to point out that navigable rivers, or access to the oceans, along with a reliable road or rail network make a critical difference, of which the USA is featured to have twelve navigable rivers, two oceans on either of its flanks, which are key in relying less on large land infrastructure projects, which in turn encourage small government.


title: Monk

text: A monk (, from , "monachos", "single, solitary" via Latin ) is a person who practices religious asceticism by monastic living, either alone or with any number of other monks. A monk may be a person who decides to dedicate their life to serving other people and serving God, or to be an ascetic who voluntarily chooses to leave mainstream society and live their life in prayer and contemplation. The concept is ancient and can be seen in many religions and in philosophy.


title: Monk

text: In the Greek language, the term can apply to women, but in modern English it is mainly in use for men. The word "nun" is typically used for female monastics.


title: Monk

text: Although the term "monachos" is of Christian origin, in the English language "monk" tends to be used loosely also for both male and female ascetics from other religious or philosophical backgrounds. However, being generic, it is not interchangeable with terms that denote particular kinds of monk, such as cenobite, hermit, anchorite, hesychast, or solitary.


title: Monk

text: Traditions of Christian monasticism exist in major Christian denominations, with religious orders being present in Catholicism, Lutheranism, Oriental Orthodoxy, Eastern Orthodoxy, Reformed Christianity, Anglicanism and Methodism. Indian religions, including Hinduism, Buddhism and Jainism, also have monastic traditions as well.


title: Monk

text: In Theravada Buddhism, "bhikkhu" is the term for monk. Their disciplinary code is called the "patimokkha", which is part of the larger "Vinaya". They live lives of mendicancy, and go on a morning almsround (Pali: "pindapata") every day. The local people give food for the monks to eat, though the monks are not permitted to positively ask for anything. The monks live in monasteries, and have an important function in traditional Asian society. Young boys can be ordained as samaneras. Both bhikkhus and samaneras eat only in the morning, and are not supposed to lead a luxurious life. Their rules forbid the use of money, although this rule is nowadays not kept by all monks. The monks are part of the "Sangha", the third of the Triple Gem of Buddha, Dhamma, Sangha.


title: Monk

text: In Mahayana Buddhism, the term 'Sangha' strictly speaking refers to those who have achieved certain levels of understanding. They are therefore called 'community of the excellent ones' (); however, these in turn need not be monks (i.e., hold such vows). Several Mahayana orders accept female practitioners as monks, instead of using the normal title of "nun", and they are considered equal to male ascetics in all respects.


title: Monk

text: The Bhikkhus are only allowed 4 items "(other than their robes)": a razor, a needle, an alms bowl and a water strainer.


title: Monk

text: In Vajrayana Buddhism, monkhood is part of the system of 'vows of individual liberation'; these vows are taken in order to develop one's own personal ethical discipline. The monks and nuns form the (ordinary) "sangha". As for the Vajrayana vows of individual liberation, there are four steps: A lay person may take the 5 vows called 'approaching virtue' (in Tibetan <nowiki>'</nowiki>"genyen"<nowiki>'</nowiki> < "dge snyan">). The next step is to enter the monastic way of life (Tib. "rabjung") which includes wearing monk's or nun's robes. After that, one can become a 'novice' (Pali "samanera", Tib. "getshül"); the last and final step is to take all vows of the 'fully ordained monk' ("gelong"). This term 'gelong' (Tib. < "dge long">, in the female form "gelongma") is the translation of Skt. "bikshu" (for women "bikshuni") which is the equivalent of the Pali term "bhikkhuni"; "bhikkhu" is the word used in Theravada Buddhism (Sri Lanka, Burma, Thailand).


title: Monk

text: Chinese Buddhist monks have been traditionally and stereotypically linked with the practice of the Chinese martial arts or "Kung fu", and monks are frequently important characters in martial arts films. This association is focused around the Shaolin Monastery. The Buddhist monk Bodhidharma, traditionally credited as the founder of Zen Buddhism in China, is also claimed to have introduced Kalaripayattu (which later evolved into Kung Fu) to the country. This latter claim has however been a source of much controversy (see Bodhidharma, the martial arts, and the disputed India connection). One more feature about the Chinese Buddhist monks is that they practice the burning marks on their scalp, finger or part of the skin on their anterior side of the forearm with incense as a sign of ordination.


title: Monk

text: In Thailand and Burma, it is common for boys to spend some time living as a monk in a monastery. Most stay for only a few years and then leave, but a number continue on in the ascetic life for the rest of their lives.


title: Monk

text: In Mongolia during the 1920s, there were about 110,000 monks, including children, who made up about one-third of the male population, many of whom were killed in the purges of Choibalsan.


title: Monk

text: Within Catholicism, a monk is a member of a religious order who lives a communal life in a monastery, abbey, or priory under a monastic rule of life (such as the Rule of St. Benedict). St. Benedict of Nursia, (480-543 or 547 AD) is considered to be the founder of western monasticism. He authored the Rule of St. Benedict, which is the foundation for the Order of St. Benedict and all of its reform groups such as the Cistercians and the Trappists. He founded the great Benedictine monastery, Monte Cassino, in 529.


title: Monk

text: The religious vows taken in the West were first developed by St. Benedict. These vows were three in number: obedience, conversion of life, and stability. Obedience calls for the monk to obey Christ, as represented by the superior person of the monastery, which is an abbot or prior. Conversion of life means, generally, that the monk convert himself to the way of a monk, which is death to self and to the world and life to God and to his work. A Christian monk is to be an instrument of God's work. Stability entails that the monk commit himself to the monastery for the remainder of his life, and so, upon death, will be buried at its cemetery. The vow of stability is unique to Benedictines.


title: Monk

text: The solemn vows in other religious communities were eventually established as vows of obedience, poverty, and chastity. Poverty requires that they renounce any ownership of property or assets, except for items that were allowed to them by their superior (such as a religious habit, shoes, a cloak, etc.), and to live meekly, sharing whatever they might have with the poor. Chastity requires that since they were willing to dedicate their lives to God, they sacrificed the love between men and women and would not marry. Also, they give up any act of sexual conduct.


title: Monk

text: To become a monk, one first must become a postulant, during which time the man lives at the monastery to evaluate whether he is called to become a monk. As a postulant, the man is not bound by any vows, and is free to leave the monastery at any time. If the postulant and the community agree that the postulant should become a monk, the man is received as a novice, at which time he is given his religious habit, and begins to participate more fully in the life of the monastery. Following a period as a novice, usually six months to a year, the novice professes temporary vows, which can be renewed for a period of years. After a few years, the monk professes permanent vows, which are binding for life.


title: Monk

text: The monastic life generally consists of prayer in the form of the Liturgy of the Hours (also known as the Divine Office) and divine reading ("lectio divina") and manual labor. Among most religious orders, monks live in simple, austere rooms called cells and come together daily to celebrate the Conventual Mass and to recite the Liturgy of the Hours. In most communities, the monks take their meals together in the refectory. While there is no vow of silence, many communities have a period of silence lasting from evening until the next morning and some others restrict talking to only when it is necessary for the monks to perform their work and during weekly recreation.


title: Monk

text: Monks who have been or will be ordained into Holy Orders as priests or deacons are referred to as "choir monks", as they have the obligation to recite the entire Divine Office daily in choir. Those monks who are not ordained into Holy Orders are referred to as lay brothers. In most monastic communities today, little distinction exists between the lay brothers and the choir monks. However, historically, the roles of the two groups of monks within the monastery differed. The work of the choir monks was considered to be prayer, chanting the seven hours of the Divine Office and celebrating the Mass daily whereas the lay brothers provided for the material needs of the community by growing food, preparing meals, maintaining the monastery and the grounds. This distinction arose historically because generally those monks who could read Latin typically became choir monks, while those monks who were illiterate or could not read Latin became lay brothers. Since the lay brothers could not recite the Divine Office in Latin, they would instead pray easily memorizable prayers such as the Our Father or the Hail Mary as many as 150 times per day. Since the Second Vatican Council, the distinction between choir monks and lay brothers has been deemphasized, as the council allowed the Divine Office to be said in the vernacular language, effectively opening participation to all of the monks.


title: Monk

text: Within western monasticism, it is important to differentiate between monks and friars. Monks generally live a contemplative life of prayer confined within a monastery while friars usually engage in an active ministry of service to the outside community. The monastic orders include all Benedictines (the Order of Saint Benedict and its later reforms including the Cistercians and the Trappists) and the Carthusians, who live according to their own Statutes, and not according to the Rule of St. Benedict proper. Orders of friars include the Franciscans, Dominicans, Carmelites, and Augustinians. Although the Canons Regular, such as the Norbertines, live in community, they are neither monks nor friars as they are characterized by their clerical state and not by any monastic vows.


title: Monk

text: Loccum Abbey and Amelungsborn Abbey have the longest traditions as Lutheran monasteries; after the Reformation, many monasteries and convents were received into the Lutheran Church and continued religious life, existing to this day.


title: Monk

text: Since the 19th and 20th century, there has been a renewal in the monastic life among Lutheranism. Lutheran religious orders in the Franciscan, Benedictine and other traditions exist, with some Lutheran monasteries having third orders and accepting oblates.


title: Monk

text: In American Lutheran traditions, "The Congregation of the Servants of Christ" was established at St. Augustine's House in Oxford, Michigan, in 1958 when some other men joined Father Arthur Kreinheder in observing the monastic life and offices of prayer. These men and others came and went over the years. The community has always remained small; at times the only member was Father Arthur. During the 35 years of its existence over 25 men tested their vocations to monastic life by living at the house for some time, from a few months to many years, but at Father Arthur's death in 1989 only one permanent resident remained. At the beginning of 2006, there was 2 permanent professed members and 2 long-term guests. Strong ties remain with this community and their brothers in Sweden (Östanbäck monastery) and in Germany (Priory of St. Wigbert).


title: Monk

text: There is also the Order of Lutheran Franciscans, a religious community of friars and sisters within the tradition of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America.


title: Monk

text: Monastic life in England came to an abrupt end when King Henry VIII broke from the Catholic Church and made himself the head of the Church of England. He initiated the Dissolution of the Monasteries, during which all of the monasteries within England were destroyed. A large number of monks were executed, others fled to continental European monasteries where they were able to continue their monastic life.


title: Monk

text: Shortly after the beginning of the Anglo-Catholic Movement in the Church of England, there was felt to be a need for a restoration of the monastic life. In the 1840s, the then Anglican priest and future Catholic Cardinal John Henry Newman established a community of men at Littlemore near Oxford. From then on, there have been established many communities of monks, friars and other religious communities for men in the Anglican Communion. There are Anglican Benedictines, Franciscans, Cistercians, and in the Episcopal Church in the United States, Dominicans. There are also uniquely Anglican monastic orders such as the Society of Saint John the Evangelist and the Community of the Resurrection at Mirfield.


title: Monk

text: Some Anglican religious communities are contemplative, some active, but a distinguishing feature of the monastic life among Anglicans is that most practice the so-called "mixed life". Anglican monks recite the Divine Office in choir daily, either the full eight services of the Breviary or the four offices found in the Book of Common Prayer and celebrate the Eucharist daily. Many orders take on external works such as service to the poor, giving religious retreats, or other active ministries within their immediate communities. Like Catholic monks, Anglican monks also take the monastic vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience.


title: Monk

text: In the early 20th century when the Oxford Movement was at its height, the Anglican Communion had hundreds of orders and communities and thousands of religious followers. However, since the 1960s there has been a sharp falling off in the numbers of religious in many parts of the Anglican Communion. Many once large and international communities have been reduced to a single convent or monastery composed of elderly men or women. In the last few decades of the 20th century, novices have for most communities been few and far between. Some orders and communities have already become extinct.


title: Monk

text: There are however, still several thousand Anglican monks working today in approximately 200 communities around the world. The most surprising growth has been in the Melanesian countries of the Solomon Islands, Vanuatu and Papua New Guinea. The Melanesian Brotherhood, founded at Tabalia, Guadalcanal, in 1925 by Ini Kopuria, is now the largest Anglican community in the world with over 450 brothers in the Solomon Islands, Vanuatu, Papua New Guinea, the Philippines and the United Kingdom.


title: Monk

text: The Saint Brigid of Kildare Monastery is a double monastery of the United Methodist Church rooted in the Benedictine tradition, being located in Collegeville, Minnesota. Besides monastic orders, the Order of Saint Luke is a dispersed religious order within Methodism, though being ecumenical, it accepts believers of other Christian denominations.


title: Monk

text: The Emmanuel Sisters is a convent of the Presbyterian Church in Cameroon that was founded by Rev Mother Magdaline Marie Handy. These nuns are engaged in prayer, teaching, and healthcare.


title: Monk

text: In Eastern Orthodoxy, monasticism holds a very special and important place: "Angels are a light for monks, monks are a light for laymen" (St. John Klimakos). Eastern Orthodox monastics separate themselves from the world in order to pray unceasingly for the world. They do not, in general, have as their primary purpose the running of social services, but instead are concerned with attaining theosis, or union with God. However, care for the poor and needy has always been an obligation of monasticism, so not all monasteries are "cloistered". The level of contact will vary from community to community. Hermits, on the other hand, have little or no contact with the outside world.


title: Monk

text: Eastern Orthodox monasticism does not have religious orders as are found in the West, nor do they have Rules in the same sense as the Rule of St. Benedict. Rather, Eastern monastics study and draw inspiration from the writings of the Desert Fathers as well as other Church Fathers; probably the most influential of which are the "Greater Asketikon" and "Lesser Asketikon" of St. Basil the Great and the "Philokalia", which was compiled by St. Nikodemos of the Holy Mountain and St. Makarios of Corinth. Hesychasm is of primary importance in the ascetical theology of the Eastern Orthodox Church.


title: Monk

text: Most communities are self-supporting, and the monastic's daily life is usually divided into three parts: (a) communal worship in the catholicon (the monastery's main church); (b) hard manual labour; and (c) private prayer, spiritual study, and rest when necessary. Meals are usually taken in common in a sizable dining hall known as a trapeza (refectory), at elongated refectory tables. Food is usually simple and is eaten in silence while one of the brethren reads aloud from the spiritual writings of the Holy Fathers. The monastic lifestyle takes a great deal of serious commitment. Within the cenobitic community, all monks conform to a common way of living based on the traditions of that particular monastery. In struggling to attain this conformity, the monastic comes to realize his own shortcomings and is guided by his spiritual father in how to deal honestly with them. For this same reason, bishops are almost always chosen from the ranks of monks.


title: Monk

text: Eastern monasticism is found in three distinct forms: anchoritic (a solitary living in isolation), cenobitic (a community living and worshiping together under the direct rule of an abbot or abbess), and the "middle way" between the two, known as the skete (a community of individuals living separately but in close proximity to one another, who come together only on Sundays and feast days, working and praying the rest of the time in solitude, but under the direction of an elder). One normally enters a cenobitic community first, and only after testing and spiritual growth would one go on to the skete or, for the most advanced, become a solitary anchorite. However, one is not necessarily expected to join a skete or become a solitary; most monastics remain in the cenobium the whole of their lives.


title: Monk

text: In general, Eastern Orthodox monastics have little or no contact with the outside world, including their own families. The purpose of the monastic life is union with God, the means is through leaving the world (i.e., the life of the passions). After tonsure, Eastern Orthodox monks and nuns are never permitted to cut their hair. The hair of the head and the beard remain uncut as a symbol of the vows they have taken, reminiscent of the Nazarites from the Old Testament. The tonsure of monks is the token of a consecrated life, and symbolizes the cutting off of their self-will.


title: Monk

text: The process of becoming a monk is intentionally slow, as the vows taken are considered to entail a lifelong commitment to God, and are not to be entered into lightly. In Eastern Orthodox monasticism after completing the novitiate, there are three ranks of monasticism. There is only one monastic habit in the Eastern Orthodox Church (with certain slight regional variations), and it is the same for both monks and nuns. Each successive grade is given a portion of the habit, the full habit being worn only by those in the highest grade, known for that reason as the "Great Schema", or "Great Habit".