title: Blue Peter

text: The programme's motif is a stylised sailing ship designed by Tony Hart. Hart's original design was never successfully used in a totally uniform fashion, with several different reproductions used in studio, on badges, the "Blue Peter" books and on-screen graphics. This was until the show's redesign in 1999, when the ship's rigging and hull detail was removed, and in 2000, the flags were subtly reshaped. For the 2008 series there has been a return to the original flag design on the ship, although some of the mast detail on the bow and stern has been removed.


title: Blue Peter

text: The original opening titles showed a Blue Peter flag being lowered on a ship. By the late 1960s, the opening sequence featured extracts of that edition's filmed inserts or an event in the studio where speech was absent accompanied by the signature tune and superimposed presenter credits. The presenter's names were always listed in 'seniority' based on the order in which they joined the programme. From 1972 to 1975, any edition that featured Valerie Singleton, whether she was in the studio co-presenting the show, being seen in a filmed insert or even featuring in a repeated film item from the archives, her name was always above the other presenters.


title: Blue Peter

text: From 1989, a 2D animation of the "Blue Peter" ship had been developed and used alongside the 1985-introduced word-logo and was used as a method of displaying both the ship and "Blue Peter" name to precede any film or episode footage as before. From 1992 a 3D animation was used and further replaced by another graphical sequence in 1994. Once again, these animations preceded any film, studio or episode footage. Occasionally, from the 1994 series onwards, the 3D animation of the "Blue Peter" ship would be followed by a preview of certain items on the day's programme with a "coming up" caption and a presenter commentary. Again, the theme music would either play in full or fade out at an appropriate time.


title: Blue Peter

text: From 1997, a more generic title sequence was used with the 1994 ship and title animation remaining, but was followed by clips of different action shots from a variety of the past years' filming assignments intermixed with specially filmed "posing" footage of the presenters. The traditional format of episode-specific film or studio setting scenes were still used, occasionally on their own, or mixed into the generic footage to varying degrees depending on the day's edition. The theme music tended to play out in full, and on days when a totally generic version of the titles were used, the opening was often "followed" by a "coming up" sequence narrated by the presenters.


title: Blue Peter

text: By 1999, a new "bubble ship" symbol and titles sequence had been developed to be used alongside the traditional ship emblem. These bubble ships were seen floating around the presenters who were displayed in specially posed shots, and appeared to be floating above a graphical ocean on their own blue coloured ships, and in 2003 when the presenters' shots were updated, they appeared to be waving, smiling and blowing the bubble ships. This footage was also mixed in with episode-specific film, introductory studio setting or more predominantly from the 2003 series onwards a preview of many items on the day's programme with a return to a "coming up" caption and presenter commentary.


title: Blue Peter

text: In 2004, a similar approach was adopted with each presenter posing with "ship's rigging" in their hands, appearing as though they were hoisting the sails of the "Blue Peter" ship. This sequence, designed by BBC Broadcast (now Red Bee Media) saw a return to the sole use of the original "Blue Peter" ship logo and also featured the "Blue Peter" pets in their own poses. Predominantly these titles would precede a "coming up" sequence or occasionally clips of the edition's filming assignment. The original version used from 2004 to 2005 opened with the ship logo and featured silhouettes of unidentified children also hoisting sails along with the presenters. This was discarded in 2005 for the last year of the sequence's run and opened with the ship and "Blue Peter" name for the first time in six years – allowing more flexibility for when the titles would merge into that day's edition without being completed in full, as in the 1950–1990s era – before flowing into the rest of the titles (minus children) as before.


title: Blue Peter

text: From September 2006 a new title sequence was introduced, opening with the traditional "Blue Peter" ship logo, followed by the presenters surrounded by "fact file boxes" displaying statistics and information about them and also pictures of the pets and snippets of previous assignment films. This also marked the end of the traditional format of the presenter credits being credited in order of seniority (although this is likely to be down to the stylistic dictation of the titles in their "girl boy girl boy" arrangement – the only irregularity being Gethin Jones appearing before Zöe Salmon who debuted on the show five months before him). As in previous years, this new graphical sequence precedes a "coming up" sequence or, alternatively, footage of that edition's filming assignment. From September 2007 the posed portion of the same opening titles followed a "coming up" clip of that day's programme and used a new theme tune to accompany it.


title: Blue Peter

text: Following Konnie Huq's departure in January 2008, the order of the opening sequence was rejigged slightly, with a filmed aerial pan of a cliff-face taken from a helicopter, featuring a lighthouse and large-scale impression of the "Blue Peter" ship on a grass lawn adjacent to it. The "chopper" sound of the helicopter's propellers imitates the traditional drum roll of the "Blue Peter" theme tune. The sequence then merges into a summary of what's coming up on the programme, with a quick cut at the end to the remaining three presenter poses, now having reverted to appearance order, i.e., Zöe > Gethin > Andy, before ending with the 2006–2008 logo board, minus Konnie's silhouette.


title: Blue Peter

text: This era of "Blue Peter" titles see a return to the original format without posing presenters. Instead, a fast moving graphical approach is taken where the main colour is light blue. The logo board with the new look word logo appears at the end and graphically 'flows' away to reveal the day's programme. 2008 sees a new word mark for the first time since 1999 and some of the detail has been altered on the ship logo – for example, a return to the original flag design. Small changes have also featured in the studio where the mezzanine wall is now red, the big screen has a new frame and the seating has been re-jigged slightly.


title: Blue Peter

text: In the same style to the 2008 titles; however, the presenters' pictures and first names were now featured in the titles, following the 'coming up' section.


title: Blue Peter

text: The new Blue Peter titles were created by Mighty Giant. The titles were meant to capture the essence of the show in 20 short seconds. The sequence Mighty Giant created had the presenters playing and throwing an object that changes throughout. As it transforms it captures another element of Blue Peter. These objects include for Helen, the Blue Peter adventure box, Technology screen and a ball. Barney's elements of Blue Peter in the titles include a globe, a piece of gaming technology and a keyboard. Mighty Giant shot the presenters against a green screen and then combined them with 3d objects back at its Northern Quarter base to create the desired effect. The logo also had a make over with the ship being put into a blue circle and the original designed ship in white inside the circle. The writing is the same as the 2008 logo.


title: Blue Peter

text: In 2015, the sequence had a colourful graphics with rainbow lines, as well as the letters of the logo and the "Blue Peter" ship logo were floating around in the titles. This sequence was designed by Liquid. It looked similar to the 1999–2004 and 2004–2006 ones.


title: Blue Peter

text: A new sequence has introduced in 2021, which featured modern-day objects (e.g. a hand writing the message to the series), flying badges, and various clips of the series. Like the previous sequence, it is designed by Liquid.


title: Blue Peter

text: General notes: The opening titles of every programme featured the list of the presenters in order of their first appearance on "Blue Peter", regardless of whether they actually appear in the edition in question (after 1995 and the introduction of the fourth presenter it was unusual to have all four presenters in the studio at the same time, save for special programmes). The only time this rule was not adopted is when the programme is a special pre-recorded assignment – for example a visit to a foreign country by two of the presenters, in which case the usual practice is just to credit the presenters appearing. Until 2004, the presenters were always credited by their full names. From September 2004, the opening titles only featured their first names, perhaps in a move to make the presenters appear more accessible to the audience. From September 2008, the titles went back to traditional style, not including presenters or their names. This however was changed again in 2009, when pictures of the presenters popped out from nowhere with their name by the side of them.


title: Blue Peter

text: For the new Technology themed titles for September 2011, the presenters Helen and Barney appeared with specially shot sequences. The names however did not make a return. For the first time the presenters were interacting with different objects in the titles.


title: Blue Peter

text: 1958–1992: The "Blue Peter" closing credits were put on screen over the final moments of the programme to the sound of the closing theme tune. Alternatively, once the programme had officially ended (i.e., the presenters had said their "goodbyes") the camera would focus on shots of the pets or aspects of the studio as a calmer backdrop against which to flash up the credits. The sequence would always end with the "Blue Peter" ship filling the screen (originally a simple flat image, latterly a more graphically interesting incarnation) and BBC copyright blurb. Before 1989 the "Editor" credit (for almost all this period it was Biddy Baxter) would also flash up over the final moments of the programme, but since Lewis Bronze's promotion the editor credit was saved for the final ship frame, starting from 1987 until 1989, the sequence cuts to the frame of the Blue Peter ship that lights up.


title: Blue Peter

text: 1992–2003: Once again during this period the credits maintained the practice of appearing during the final seconds of the programme's presentation or once the script had finished. The major difference was that the text scrolled along the bottom third of the screen from right to left, usually overlaid on a graphical bar in the style of the opening titles. The exception to this rule was when the programme was on permanent Outside Broadcast for the whole show. During these occasions the same "theme" of credits would be used – i.e. the same graphics and background etc. but the typeface would almost always change to a completely different font and colour, regardless of the regular typeface used at the time. Also, the credits would flash up on screen one by one, as opposed to scrolling. It is unknown why these anomalies occurred, but it is likely to be related to the reduced technical abilities whilst transmitting a live O.B. The final frame of the credits was always the "Blue Peter" ship as displayed in the opening titles of the time and the editor's credit, along with BBC branding.


title: Blue Peter

text: 2004–2007: This period saw a sequence which showed flashed up credits along the bottom third of the screen, whilst a photo of a recent "Blue Peter" badge winner, with or without the project that won them their badge, was shown above. One of the presenters' voices was also heard introducing the winner and explaining what they did to win their badge. Occasionally on certain programmes, for example the launch of an appeal, special guests in the studio or when out on location, the credits ran as pre-2004 over the closing moments of the programme with the music fading in. Again, the credits end with the "Blue Peter" ship, editor and BBC credit.


title: Blue Peter

text: 2004, 2007–2008: Early in 2004, the producers experimented with flashing up the credits over a background of "on the next "Blue Peter"" type footage. This was discarded later in 2004 when the new arrangement of signature tune and titles were introduced and a revised format was adopted that remained in use until 2007. September 2007 saw a return to the "coming up next time" sequence of footage, with credits text overlaid on a graphical bar at the bottom section of the screen. The same ship and editor credit is used as the final frame.


title: Blue Peter

text: 2008–present: There are no closing crew credits; instead, the programme ends with a five-second caption of "Blue Peter" logo, the "bbc.co.uk/cbbc" caption border and the CBBC logo (and later, BBC Children's Productions Limited.)


title: Blue Peter

text: General notes: The exceptions to the above were during the Christmas programme, when the credits still scrolled from right to left, often with Christmas-themed drawings separating each crew member. Until 2006, and again from 2010, the Christmas programme ends on a view of the children carol singers in the studio in the background, the Nativity scene in the foreground, studio lights dimmed, a star of Bethlehem glowing on the cyclorama and a sparkling silver "Blue Peter" ship overlaid on the screen (although the sparkling ship did not appear in the Christmas 2012 and 2013 editions).


title: Blue Peter

text: When a "make" was featured in the programme, the creator of the item (invariably the retired Margaret Parnell or Gillian Shearing) was credited first (until credits were discontinued in 2008). An example of this would be "Dolls House make by Margaret Parnell".


title: Blue Peter

text: In October 1998, Richard Bacon became the first presenter to have his contract terminated mid-run, after he admitted to taking cocaine and punching a wall, following reports in a tabloid newspaper. Lorraine Heggessey, then the Head of BBC Children's programmes, apologised on air.


title: Blue Peter

text: However, before Bacon, four previous presenters had left the programme when their contracts were not renewed, each for different reasons: these were Leila Williams in 1962, Christopher Wenner in 1980, Michael Sundin in 1985 and Romana D'Annunzio in 1998.


title: Blue Peter

text: It was revealed by the BBC that a phone-in competition supporting the UNICEF "Shoe Biz Appeal", held on 27 November 2006, was rigged. The person who appeared to be calling in the competition was actually a "Blue Peter" Team Player who was visiting that day. The visitor pretended to be a caller from an outside line who had won the phone-in and the chance to select a prize. The competition was rigged due to a technical error when receiving the calls.


title: Blue Peter

text: Former editor Biddy Baxter, described as still being influential with the programme today, explained the problem as an issue with a member of the production team on the studio floor and the Editor being oblivious to the situation in the studio gallery. She also went on to say that the programme would not feature premium rate telephone competitions in the future.


title: Blue Peter

text: It was announced on 16 May 2007 that "Blue Peter" editor and unofficial historian, Richard Marson, had stood down from his job, although any link to the controversy of March 2007 remains in doubt.


title: Blue Peter

text: In July 2007, "Blue Peter" was given a £50,000 fine by the Office of Communications (OFCOM) as a result of rigging the competition.


title: Blue Peter

text: In August 2007 while the programme was off air for its annual Summer Expedition, long-time presenter Konnie Huq was involved in a press conference to promote the health benefits of cycling along with Mayor of London, Ken Livingstone. The Conservative Party accused the BBC of political bias as a result of one of its employees appearing at what was construed as a pro-Labour Party event. The BBC claimed to have turned down the offer for Huq to appear, but this was unknown to both her and her agent.


title: Blue Peter

text: On 24 November 1988, Frank Ruse, a left-wing Labour councillor for Liverpool City Council, accompanied Liverpool's Pagoda Chinese Youth Orchestra to London for an appearance on "Blue Peter". He was given a "Blue Peter" badge and wore it proudly to his council meetings. However, he received a BBC headed letter requesting the return of the badge. The letter (which was later discovered to be a forgery) stated that "Blue Peter" had been approached by the office of Neil Kinnock (Labour leader at the time) who were alarmed that a councillor with hard-left views had been given a "Blue Peter" badge. On receiving the "Blue Peter" badge from Frank Ruse, the BBC wrote back to him stating that they had sent no such letter (thereby proving it was a hoax) and an angry Ruse started a local and national enquiry to find out who sent the hoax letter.


title: Blue Peter

text: In September 2007, an online vote on the BBC's "Blue Peter" official website took place to choose the name of the eighth "Blue Peter" kitten in January – the reported story was that, instead of calling the cat "Cookie" as chosen by a majority of the votes, the staff overruled the vote and called the kitten "Socks", citing problems with the voting system and a large surge in the former name. As a result of negative media coverage, the original cat, Socks, was joined by another kitten named Cookie, as had been chosen in the online vote. The BBC broadcast an apology on 25 September 2007 at the start of the new series.


title: Blue Peter

text: In a list of the 100 Greatest British Television Programmes drawn up by the British Film Institute in 2000, voted for by industry professionals, "Blue Peter" was placed 6th.


title: Blue Peter

text: Asteroid 16197 Bluepeter is named in its honour. The asteroid was discovered on 7 January 2000, the day that the "Blue Peter" time capsules from 1971 and 1984 were unearthed.


title: Angus Deayton

text: Gordon Angus Deayton (; born 6 January 1956) is an English actor, writer, musician, comedian, and broadcaster. He was the original presenter of the satirical panel game "Have I Got News for You," the host of British panel show "Would I Lie to You?" from 2007 to 2008, and a regular cast member of the David Renwick sitcom "One Foot in the Grave" from 1990 until 2000. He also played George Windsor in the series 8-10 of "Waterloo Road".


title: Angus Deayton

text: The youngest of three sons of a Prudential insurance broker/manager English father and a home economics school teacher Scottish mother, Deayton was brought up in Banstead, Surrey, and attended Oakhurst Grange School and Caterham School. He showed early promise as a footballer and had a trial with Crystal Palace. He was captain of the Caterham U16 Rugby team.


title: Angus Deayton

text: Deayton read French and German at New College, Oxford, where, in 1978, he was recruited into the Oxford Revue, performing with them at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe. This led to the creation of the parody band the Hee Bee Gee Bees in 1980, with the songs written by Richard Curtis and Philip Pope. Their best-selling single "Meaningless Songs (In Very High Voices)" (plus the B-side "Posing in the Moonlight") was a parody of the falsetto style of disco hits by the Bee Gees.


title: Angus Deayton

text: Deayton began his career on "Radio Active", a parody of British local radio stations broadcast on BBC Radio 4 between 1981 and 1987, which he co-wrote and performed. It transferred to television as "KYTV" between 1989 and 1993. Deayton presented a tribute to "Radio Active" and KYTV colleague and friend (and long-time BBC producer) Geoffrey Perkins for BBC Radio 4 on 4 October 2008.


title: Angus Deayton

text: Deayton was frequently a straight man alongside Rowan Atkinson. He starred with Atkinson as a pool attendant and a man on a park bench in the "Mr. Bean" episode "The Curse of Mr. Bean" and appeared opposite Atkinson in the "Black Adder" episode "Born to Be King" (1983) as one of the Jumping Jews of Jerusalem.


title: Angus Deayton

text: From 1988 to 1991, Deayton was a featured player in all three series of the Emmy award-winning sketch comedy programme "Alexei Sayle's Stuff." In 1990, Deayton was cast as the Meldrews' neighbour Patrick Trench in the British suburban sitcom "One Foot in the Grave" and was selected as host of "Have I Got News for You". The same year, he featured on television advertising the Vauxhall Nova. Andre Ptaszynski tried to persuade him to take the lead role in Steven Moffat's sitcom "Chalk", a role eventually taken by David Bamber. Deayton worked with David Renwick again appearing in the miniseries "If You See God, Tell Him".


title: Angus Deayton

text: In an episode of "Coupling", he appears in a fantasy sequence with Mariella Frostrup. He hosted the late-1990s BBC show "Before They Were Famous", which showed early and frequently embarrassing clips of TV and film stars (including Deayton himself) when they were relatively unknown. He was much in demand as a presenter of television specials including the BBC's New Year's Eve show and the BAFTA Awards. He also featured in a series of advertisements for Barclaycard and the films "Savage Hearts" and "Elizabeth".


title: Angus Deayton

text: Deayton's suave manner as host of "Have I Got News for You" led to his being nicknamed "TV's Mr Sex", by a "Time Out" listings writer.


title: Angus Deayton

text: In May 2002, the British tabloid newspaper the "News of the World" reported he had taken cocaine and had sex with prostitutes. He was ridiculed by Paul Merton and Ian Hislop in the following episode of "Have I Got News for You" but continued as presenter. Deayton began the episode with: "Good evening and welcome to "Have I Got News for You", where this week's loser is presenting it." He added later, "There is, by the way, no need to adjust your set, my face is this red." After more allegations in October, Deayton was dismissed two episodes into the new series. One online poll, on the BBC's own website, showed over three-quarters of respondents wanted Deayton to stay on as the programme's host. In April 2003, Stephen Fry supported Deayton by refusing to appear on the show again.


title: Angus Deayton

text: Responding to Merton's "I didn't stab him in the back, I stabbed him in the front" line regarding the episode, in 2016 Deayton said: "Yes, I've heard this and [his comment] is a way of not answering the question. But it's such a tangled web to describe what happened. And Merton and Hislop probably don't know what was happening in the background."


title: Angus Deayton

text: After his stint on "Have I Got News for You" ended, Deayton's work included a reunion of the "Radio Active" cast in a new episode in December 2002. In 2003, he guest-starred as Downing Street's spin doctor in an episode of the BBC comedy "Absolute Power", starring Stephen Fry and John Bird. In January 2004, he starred in the BBC comedy "Nighty Night". Deayton had a cameo role as a hotel receptionist in the 2004 film "Fat Slags". A few months later, he presented the quiz "Bognor or Bust". In January 2006, he hosted an ITV show based upon self-help videos called "Help Your Self".


title: Angus Deayton

text: Deayton is associated with Comic Relief/Sport Relief and featured in its broadcasts. He co-presented the Sport Relief charity programme "Only Fools on Horses" in July 2006. Deayton appeared for the England team as a second-half substitute in the Soccer Aid match in support of UNICEF on 27 May 2006. He returned as a starting player for England in a 7 September 2008 rematch.


title: Angus Deayton

text: In 2007, he was in "Casualty", playing an exaggerated version of himself in a Comic Relief-related story. In June 2007, Deayton returned to the BBC to host panel show, "Would I Lie to You?". In November 2007, he was censured by the BBC for making a "pungently personal" joke about Jimmy Savile and his mother on the show. Deayton left the show in 2009 and was replaced by Rob Brydon. On 3 September 2007, Deayton hosted the third series of "Hell's Kitchen", but was dismissed in 2009 after arguments with chef Marco Pierre White and was replaced by Claudia Winkleman.


title: Angus Deayton

text: In 2008, Deayton also presented "Comedy Sketchbook", a nostalgic look at classic comedy sketches, on BBC1. On 6 December 2008, he presented the 2008 British Comedy Awards, after host Jonathan Ross stepped down because of controversy surrounding "The Russell Brand Show" prank calls row.


title: Angus Deayton

text: His feature film appearances include the mysterious, all-knowing man in "That Deadwood Feeling" (2009, co-starring Jack Davenport, Dexter Fletcher and David Soul), "Swinging with the Finkels" (2011, written and directed by Jonathan Newman, with Mandy Moore and Martin Freeman), and "Playing the Moldovans at Tennis" (2012). He returned to BBC Radio 4 in 2011 to host the panel show "It's Your Round".


title: Angus Deayton

text: On 12 December 2012, Deayton joined the BBC drama series "Waterloo Road" as a cynical teacher and for a further series as deputy head, George Windsor. He made his first appearance in episode 27 of the eighth series in 2013. In December 2012, he appeared on the BBC Two programme "World's Most Dangerous Roads", in which he and Mariella Frostrup were filmed driving along the east coast of Madagascar. He co-starred with Anna Chancellor in the BBC sitcom "Pramface" (2013).


title: Angus Deayton

text: In August 2016, at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, Deayton wrote and performed in a revival of "Radio Active".


title: Angus Deayton

text: In 2017 he featured in Moray Hunter's radio sitcom "Alone" on BBC Radio 4 playing as Mitch, a widower and part-time therapist.


title: Angus Deayton

text: At Oxford, Deayton was in a relationship with Helen Atkinson-Wood (later an actress and co-star on "Radio Active" and KYTV). While touring with the HeeBeeGeeBees in Australia in the 1980s, Deayton saved Atkinson-Wood's life when he rescued her after she was caught in a rip tide while swimming off Sydney's Manly Beach.


title: Angus Deayton

text: From 1991 to 2015, he was in a relationship with scriptwriter Lise Mayer and they had a son, to whom Richard Wilson is godfather.


title: Altria

text: Altria Group, Inc. (previously known as Philip Morris Companies, Inc.) is an American corporation and one of the world's largest producers and marketers of tobacco, cigarettes and related products. It operates worldwide and is headquartered in Henrico County, Virginia, just outside the city of Richmond.


title: Altria

text: Altria is the parent company of Philip Morris USA (producer of Marlboro cigarettes), John Middleton, Inc., U.S. Smokeless Tobacco Company, Inc., and Philip Morris Capital Corporation. Altria also maintains large minority stakes in Belgium-based brewer AB InBev, the Canadian cannabis company Cronos Group, and the e-cigarette maker Juul. It is a component of the S&P 500 and was a component of the Dow Jones Industrial Average from 1985 to 2008, dropping due to spin-offs of Kraft Foods Inc. in 2007 and Philip Morris International in 2008.


title: Altria

text: Altria emerged from Philip Morris. The onset of "rebranding" of Philip Morris Companies to Altria took place in 2003 (Philip Morris would later split, with PM USA remaining Altria's primary and only consistently held asset). Altria was created because Philip Morris wished to emphasize that its business portfolio had come to consist of more than Philip Morris USA and Philip Morris International; at the time, it owned an 84% stake in Kraft, although that business has since been spun off. The name "Altria" is claimed to come from the Latin word for "high" and was part of a trend of companies rebranding to names that previously did not exist, Accenture (previously


title: Altria

text: Andersen Consulting) and Verizon being notable examples, though linguist Steven Pinker suggests that in fact the name is an "egregious example" of phonesthesia—with the company attempting to "switch its image from bad people who sell addictive carcinogens to a place or state marked by altruism and other lofty values".


title: Altria

text: The company's branding consultants, the Wirthlin Group, said: "The name change alternative offers the possibility of masking the negatives associated with the tobacco business", thus enabling the company to improve its image and raise its profile without sacrificing tobacco profits.


title: Altria

text: Philip Morris executives thought a name change would insulate the larger corporation and its other operating companies from the political pressures on tobacco.


title: Altria

text: The rebranding took place amidst social, legal, and financially troubled circumstances. In 2003 Altria was ranked "Fortune" number 11, and has steadily declined since. In 2010 Altria Group (MO) ranked at "Fortune" number 137, whereas its former asset, Philip Morris International, was ranked 94th.


title: Altria

text: In 2006, a United States court found that Philip Morris "publicly ... disputed scientific findings linking smoking and disease knowing their assertions were false." In a 2006 ruling, a federal court found that Altria, along with R. J. Reynolds Tobacco, Lorillard and Philip Morris were found guilty of misleading the public about the dangers of smoking. Within this ruling, it was noted that "defendants altered the chemical form of nicotine delivered in mainstream cigarette smoke for the purpose of improving nicotine transfer efficiency and increasing the speed with which nicotine is absorbed by smokers." This was done by manipulating smoke pH with ammonia. Adding ammonia increases the smoke pH, in a process called "freebasing" which causes smokers to be "exposed to higher internal nicotine doses and become more addicted to the product."


title: Altria

text: On March 30, 2007, Altria's 88.1% stake in Kraft Foods was spun off, through a distribution of the remaining stake of shares (88.1%) to Altria shareholders. That same year, Altria began selling all its shares of Philip Morris International to Altria stockholders, a spin-off that was completed on March 28, 2008. Again in 2007 the company began the acquisition of cigar manufacturer John Middleton Co. from Bradford Holdings, which was complete in 2008. After Philip Morris International spun off, the former international subsidiaries halted the purchase of tobacco from America, which was a major factor in the closing of a newly renovated plant in North Carolina, an approximately 50% reduction in manufacturing, large-scale layoffs, and induced early retirements.


title: Altria

text: In 2008, Altria officially moved its headquarters from New York City to Richmond, Virginia, after Philip Morris sold its downtown offices in New York City a decade earlier. With a few exceptions, all manufacturing, commercial, and executive employees had long been based in and around Richmond. Currently the company is headquartered in an unincorporated area within Henrico County, less than five miles west of the city limits of Richmond and less than ten miles from its downtown Richmond campus.


title: Altria

text: Aside from the Philip Morris/Altria headquarters, some of their other buildings included the Altria Center for Research and Technology in downtown Richmond, their manufacturing center in South Richmond, and the adjacent operations center which began shutting down in 2007–2008, as a result of the loss of demand from PMI member companies. The layoffs beginning in 2007 affected thousands of Altria, Altria Client Services, Philip Morris USA, and contracted employees in Richmond and North Carolina.


title: Altria

text: In 2009, Altria finalized its purchase of UST Inc., whose products included smokeless tobacco (made by U.S. Smokeless Tobacco Company) and wine (made by Chateau Ste. Michelle). This ended a short era of competition between the new Marlboro smokeless tobacco products such as snus, and those produced by UST Inc.


title: Altria

text: On December 8, 2018, Altria announced its intent to acquire a 45% stake in Cronos Group for $1.8 billion.


title: Altria

text: On December 20, 2018, Altria finalized the acquisition of a 35% stake in JUUL Labs, an e-cigarette company based out of San Francisco, California, for $12.8 billion. On November 3, 2019, it was reported that Altria was taking a $4.5 billion writedown on its stake in Juul, 35% of its original value. On July 28, 2022 it was reported that Altria's investment in Juul is now worth only 5% of the original amount of $12.8 billion. Despite the losses, Altria has announced that it will continue to support Juul and avoid investing in competing products.


title: Altria

text: Altria and Japan Tobacco announced a joint venture called Horizon Innovations LLC on October 27, 2022. Horizon, owned 75 percent by Altria and 25 percent by Japan Tobacco, intends to sell Ploom heated tobacco sticks in the United States. FDA approval was expected to take until 2025, with customers able to buy Ploom by 2027.


title: Altria

text: For the fiscal year 2020, Altria reported earnings of US$4.45 billion, with an annual revenue of US$26.15 billion. Altria's shares traded at over $66 per share, and its market capitalization was valued at over US$118.5 billion in October 2018. As of 2018, the company ranked 154th on the Fortune 500 list of the largest United States corporations by revenue.


title: Altria

text: Prior to being based in Virginia, Philip Morris had its headquarters in Midtown Manhattan, New York City. In 2003, Philip Morris announced that it would move its headquarters to Virginia. The company said that it planned to keep around 750 employees in its former headquarters. Brendan McCormick, a spokesperson for Philip Morris, said that the company estimated that the move would save the company over $60 million each year. The company now has its head offices in an unincorporated area of Henrico County, Virginia, near Richmond. In addition, the company has a 450,000-square-foot, $350 million Center for Research and Technology located in downtown Richmond at the Virginia BioTechnology Research Park that employs approximately 600 scientists, engineers and support staff.


title: Altria

text: According to the Center for Public Integrity, Altria spent around $101 million on lobbying the United States government between 1998 and 2004, the second-highest such figure for any organization in the nation.


title: Altria

text: Altria also funded The Advancement of Sound Science Coalition which lobbied against the scientific consensus on anthropogenic climate change.


title: Altria

text: Daniel Smith, representing Altria, sits on the Private Enterprise Board of the American Legislative Exchange Council.


title: Altria

text: In August 2006, the Altria group was found guilty of civil fraud and racketeering. The lawsuit claimed that Altria's marketing of "light" and "low tar" cigarettes constituted fraudulent misrepresentations under the Maine Unfair Trade Practices Act (MUTPA) because it deceived smokers into thinking the products are safer than regular cigarettes.


title: House of Wittelsbach

text: The House of Wittelsbach () is a German dynasty, with branches that have ruled over territories including Bavaria, the Palatinate, Holland and Zeeland, Sweden (with Finland), Denmark, Norway, Hungary (with Romania), Bohemia, the Electorate of Cologne and other prince-bishoprics, and Greece. Their ancestral lands of the Palatinate and Bavaria were Prince-electorates, and the family had three of its members elected emperors and kings of the Holy Roman Empire. They ruled over the Kingdom of Bavaria which was created in 1805 and continued to exist until 1918.


title: House of Wittelsbach

text: The House of Windsor, the reigning royal house of the British monarchy, are descendants of Sophia of Hanover, a Wittelsbach Princess of the Palatinate by birth and Electress of Hanover by marriage, who had inherited the succession rights of the House of Stuart and passed them on to the House of Hanover.


title: House of Wittelsbach

text: When Otto I, Count of Scheyern, died in 1072, his third son Otto II, Count of Scheyern, acquired the castle of Wittelsbach (near Aichach). The Counts of Scheyern left Scheyern Castle (constructed around 940) in 1119 for Wittelsbach Castle and the former was given to monks to establish Scheyern Abbey. The origins of the counts of Scheyern are unclear. Some rather speculative theories link them to margrave Henry of Schweinfurt and his father Berthold whose background is also disputed; some guess the Schweinfurters may be descendants of the Luitpolding dynasty, the Bavarian dukes of the 10th century.


title: House of Wittelsbach

text: The Wittelsbach Conrad of Scheyern-Dachau, a great-grandson of Otto I, Count of Scheyern, became Duke of Merania in 1153 and was succeeded by his son Conrad II. It was the first Duchy held by the Wittelsbach family (until 1180/82).


title: House of Wittelsbach

text: Otto I's eldest son Eckhard I, Count of Scheyern, was father of the Count palatine of Bavaria Otto IV (died 1156), who was the first Count of Wittelsbach and whose son Otto was invested with the Duchy of Bavaria in 1180 after the fall of Henry the Lion and hence the first Bavarian ruler from the House of Wittelsbach. Duke Otto's son Louis I, Duke of Bavaria, acquired also the Electorate of the Palatinate in 1214.


title: House of Wittelsbach

text: Throughout history, members of the royal house have reigned as: Dukes of Merania (1153–1180/82), Dukes, Electors and Kings of Bavaria (1180–1918), Counts Palatine of the Rhine (1214–1803 and 1816–1918), Margraves of Brandenburg (1323–1373), Counts of Holland, Hainaut and Zeeland (1345–1433), Elector-Archbishops of Cologne (1583–1761), Dukes of Jülich and Berg (1614–1794/1806), Kings of Sweden (1441–1448 and 1654–1720) and Dukes of Bremen-Verden (1654–1719).


title: House of Wittelsbach

text: The family also provided two Holy Roman Emperors (1328–1347/1742–1745), one King of the Romans (1400–1410), two Anti-Kings of Bohemia (1619–20/1742–43), one King of Hungary (1305–1308), one King of Denmark and Norway (1440–1448) and one King of Greece (1832–1862).


title: House of Wittelsbach

text: The Wittelsbach dynasty ruled the German territories of Bavaria from 1180 to 1918 and the Electorate of the Palatinate from 1214 until 1805. In both countries they had succeeded rulers from the House of Welf. Napoleon elevated Bavaria to a kingdom in 1806 and in 1815 the Palatinate became incorporated as Rhine Palatinate.


title: House of Wittelsbach

text: On Duke Otto II's death in 1253, his sons divided the Wittelsbach possessions between them: Henry became Duke of Lower Bavaria, and Louis II Duke of Upper Bavaria and Count Palatine of the Rhine. When Henry's branch died out in 1340 the Emperor Louis IV, a son of Duke Louis II, reunited the duchy.


title: House of Wittelsbach

text: The family provided two Holy Roman Emperors: Louis IV (1314–1347) and Charles VII (1742–1745), both members of the Bavarian branch of the family, and one German King with Rupert of the Palatinate (1400–1410), a member of the Palatinate branch.


title: House of Wittelsbach

text: The House of Wittelsbach split into these two branches in 1329: Under the Treaty of Pavia, Emperor Louis IV granted the Palatinate including the Bavarian Upper Palatinate to his brother Duke Rudolf's descendants, Rudolf II, Rupert I and Rupert II. Rudolf I in this way became the ancestor of the older (Palatinate) line of the Wittelsbach dynasty, which returned to power also in Bavaria in 1777 after the extinction of the younger (Bavarian) line, the descendants of Louis IV.


title: House of Wittelsbach

text: The Wittelsbach Emperor Louis IV acquired Brandenburg (1323), Tyrol (1342), Holland, Zeeland and Hainaut (1345) for his House but he had also released the Upper Palatinate for the Palatinate branch of the Wittelsbach in 1329. His six sons succeeded him as Duke of Bavaria and Count of Holland and Hainaut in 1347. The Wittelsbachs lost the Tyrol with the death of duke Meinhard and the following Peace of Schärding – the Tyrol was finally renounced to the Habsburgs in 1369. In 1373 Otto, the last Wittelsbach regent of Brandenburg, released the country to the House of Luxembourg. On Duke Albert's death in 1404, he was succeeded in the Netherlands by his eldest son, William. A younger son, John III, became Bishop of Liège. However, on William's death in 1417, a war of succession broke out between John and William's daughter Jacqueline of Hainaut. This last episode of the Hook and Cod wars finally left the counties in Burgundian hands in 1433.


title: House of Wittelsbach

text: Emperor Louis IV had reunited Bavaria in 1340 but from 1349 onwards Bavaria was split among the descendants of Louis IV, who created the branches "Bavaria-Landshut", "Bavaria-Straubing", "Bavaria-Ingolstadt" and "Bavaria-Munich". With the Landshut War of Succession Bavaria was reunited in 1505 against the claim of the Palatinate branch under the Bavarian branch "Bavaria-Munich".


title: House of Wittelsbach

text: Strictly Catholic by upbringing, the Bavarian dukes became leaders of the German Counter-Reformation. From 1583 to 1761, the Bavarian branch of the dynasty provided the Prince-electors and Archbishops of Cologne and many other Bishops of the Holy Roman Empire, namely Liège (1581–1763). Wittelsbach princes served for example as Bishops of Regensburg, Freising, Liège, Münster, Hildesheim, Paderborn and Osnabrück, and as Grand Masters of the Teutonic Order.


title: House of Wittelsbach

text: In 1623 under Maximilian I the Bavarian dukes were invested with the electoral dignity and the duchy became the Electorate of Bavaria. His grandson Maximilian II Emanuel, Elector of Bavaria served also as Governor of the Habsburg Netherlands (1692–1706) and as Duke of Luxembourg (1712–1714). His son Emperor Charles VII was also king of Bohemia (1741–1743). With the death of Charles' son Maximilian III Joseph, Elector of Bavaria the Bavarian branch died out in 1777.


title: House of Wittelsbach

text: The Palatinate branch kept the Palatinate until 1918, having succeeded also to Bavaria in 1777. With the Golden Bull of 1356 the Counts Palatine were invested with the electoral dignity, their county became the Electorate of the Palatinate. Princes of the Palatinate branch served as Bishops of the Empire and also as Elector-Archbishops of Mainz and Elector-Archbishops of Trier.


title: House of Wittelsbach

text: After the death of the Wittelsbach king Rupert of Germany in 1410 the Palatinate lands began to split under numerous branches of the family such as "Neumarkt", "Simmern", "Zweibrücken", "Birkenfeld", "Neuburg" and "Sulzbach". When the senior branch of the Palatinate branch died out in 1559, the Electorate passed to Frederick III of "Simmern", a staunch Calvinist, and the Palatinate became one of the major centers of Calvinism in Europe, supporting Calvinist rebellions in both the Netherlands and France.


title: House of Wittelsbach

text: The "Neuburg" cadet branch of the Palatinate branch also held the Duchy of Jülich and Berg from 1614 onwards: When the last duke of Jülich-Cleves-Berg died without direct heirs in 1609, the War of the Jülich succession broke out, ended by the 1614 Treaty of Xanten, which divided the separate duchies between "Palatinate-Neuburg" and the Margraviate of Brandenburg. Jülich and Berg fell to the Wittelsbach Count Palatine Wolfgang William of Neuburg.


title: House of Wittelsbach

text: In 1619, the Protestant Frederick V, Elector Palatine became King of Bohemia but was defeated by the Catholic Maximilian I, Elector of Bavaria, a member of the Bavarian branch. As a result, the Upper Palatinate had to be ceded to the Bavarian branch in 1623. When the Thirty Years' War concluded with the Treaty of Münster (also called the Peace of Westphalia) in 1648, a new additional electorate was created for the Count Palatine of the Rhine. During their exile Frederick's sons, especially Prince Rupert of the Rhine, gained fame in England.


title: House of Wittelsbach

text: The house of "Palatinate of Zweibrücken-Kleeburg" as heir to the Swedish throne ruled simultaneously the duchy of Bremen-Verden (1654–1719).


title: House of Wittelsbach

text: In 1685, the "Simmern" line died out, and the Catholic Philip William, Count Palatine of "Neuburg" inherited the Palatinate (and also Duke of Jülich and Berg). During the reign of Johann Wilhelm (1690–1716) the Electoral residence moved to Düsseldorf in Berg. His brother and successor Charles III Philip, Elector Palatine moved the Palatinate's capital back to Heidelberg in 1718 and then to Mannheim in 1720. To strengthen the union of all lines of the Wittelsbach dynasty Charles Philip organized a wedding on 17 January 1742 when his granddaughters were married to Charles Theodore of Palatinate-Sulzbach and to the Bavarian prince Clement. In the imperial election a few days later Charles III Philip voted for his Bavarian cousin Prince-Elector Charles Albert. After extinction of the "Neuburg" branch in 1742, the Palatinate was inherited by Duke Charles Theodore of the branch "Palatinate-Sulzbach".


title: House of Wittelsbach

text: After the extinction of the Bavarian branch in 1777, a succession dispute and the brief War of the Bavarian Succession, the Palatinate-Sulzbach branch under Elector Charles Theodore succeeded also in Bavaria.


title: House of Wittelsbach

text: With the death of Charles Theodore in 1799 all Wittelsbach land in Bavaria and the Palatinate was reunited under Maximilian IV Joseph, a member of the branch "Palatinate-Zweibrücken-Birkenfeld". At the time there were two surviving branches of the Wittelsbach family: "Palatinate-Zweibrücken" (headed by Maximilian Joseph) and "Palatinate-Birkenfeld" (headed by Count Palatine William). Maximilian Joseph inherited Charles Thedore's title of Elector of Bavaria, while William was compensated with the title of Duke "in" Bavaria. The form Duke in Bavaria was selected because in 1506 primogeniture had been established in the House of Wittelsbach resulting in there being only one Reigning Duke of Bavaria at any given time. Maximillian Joseph assumed the title of king as Maximilian I Joseph on 1 January 1806. The new king still served as a Prince-elector until the Kingdom of Bavaria left the Holy Roman Empire (1 August 1806).


title: House of Wittelsbach

text: Under Maximilian's descendants, Bavaria became the third most powerful German state, behind only Prussia and Austria. It was also far-and-away the most powerful secondary state. When the German Empire was formed in 1871, Bavaria became the new empire's second most powerful state after Prussia. The Wittelsbachs reigned as kings of Bavaria until 1918. On 12 November 1918 Ludwig III issued the "Anif declaration" (German: "Anifer Erklärung") at Anif Palace, Austria, in which he released his soldiers and officials from their oath of loyalty to him and ended the 738-year rule of the House of Wittelsbach in Bavaria. The republican movement thereupon declared a republic.


title: House of Wittelsbach

text: Before and during the Second World War, the Wittelsbachs were anti-Nazi. Crown Prince Rupert earned Hitler's eternal enmity by opposing the Beer Hall Putsch in 1923. The family initially left Germany for Hungary, but were eventually arrested. Family members spent time in several Nazi concentration camps including Oranienburg and Dachau.


title: House of Wittelsbach

text: With Duke Otto III of Lower Bavaria, who was a maternal grandson of Béla IV of Hungary and was elected anti-king of Hungary and Croatia as Bela V (1305–1308) the Wittelsbach dynasty came to power outside the Holy Roman Empire for the first time. Otto had abdicated the Hungarian throne by 1308.


title: House of Wittelsbach

text: Christopher III of the House of Palatinate-Neumarkt was king of Denmark, Sweden and Norway in 1440/1442–1448, but he left no descendants. The House of Palatinate-Zweibrücken contributed to the monarchy of Sweden again 1654–1720 under Charles X, Charles XI, Charles XII and Ulrika Eleonora. Sophia from the House of Palatinate-Simmern was a presumptive Queen of Great Britain, with her eldest son succeeding the throne.


title: House of Wittelsbach

text: Today, under the Bill of Rights 1689 and the Act of Settlement 1701, the line of succession to the throne stems from the Protestant descendants of Sophia of Hannover (1630–1714). She was heiress presumptive of Great Britain but died before her succession to the British throne. Her eldest son succeeded the throne in her place as George I of Great Britain, a descendant of the Houses of Hanover and Wittelsbach.


title: House of Wittelsbach

text: The line of Jacobite succession, which recognises the right for a Catholic monarch from the House of Stuart, acknowledges Franz, Hereditary Prince of Bavaria to be the rightful heir as "Francis II". However, no claimant since Henry Benedict Stuart has publicly taken up the claim.


title: House of Wittelsbach

text: Queen Christina of Sweden abdicated her throne on 5 June 1654 in favour of her cousin Charles X Gustavus, a member of the Wittelsbach branch Palatinate-Zweibrücken. It was the second term for the rule of the House of Wittelsbach in Sweden since 1448 when Christopher III of the Palatinate branch was king of Denmark, Sweden and Norway.


title: House of Wittelsbach

text: Sweden reached its largest territorial extent under the rule of Charles X after the Treaty of Roskilde in 1658. Charles's son, Charles XI, rebuilt the economy and refitted the army. His legacy to his son, Charles XII, was one of the finest arsenals in the world, a large standing army and a great fleet. Charles XII was a skilled military leader and tactician. However, although he was also skilled as a politician, he was reluctant in making peace. While Sweden achieved several large scale military successes early on, and won the most battles, the Great Northern War eventually ended in Sweden's defeat and the end of the Swedish Empire. Charles was succeeded to the Swedish throne by his sister, Ulrika Eleonora. Her abdication in 1720 marked the end of Wittelsbach rule in Sweden.


title: House of Wittelsbach

text: Prince Otto of Bavaria was elected king of newly independent Greece in 1832 and was forced to abdicate in 1862. King Otto I of the House of Wittelsbach was made the first King of modern Greece in 1832 under the Convention of London, whereby Greece became a new independent kingdom under the protection of the Great Powers (the United Kingdom, France and the Russian Empire). Throughout his reign, Otto faced political challenges concerning Greece's financial weakness and the role of the government in the affairs of the Church. The politics of Greece of this era was based on affiliations with the three Great Powers, and Otto's ability to maintain the support of the powers was key to his remaining in power. To remain strong, Otto had to play the interests of each of the Great Powers’ Greek adherents against the others, while not aggravating the Great Powers. When Greece was blockaded by the (British) Royal Navy in 1850 and again in 1853, to stop Greece from attacking the Ottoman Empire during the Crimean War, Otto's standing amongst Greeks suffered. As a result, there was an assassination attempt on the Queen and finally, in 1862, Otto was deposed while in the countryside. In 1863 the Greek National Assembly elected Prince William of Denmark, aged only 17, "King of the Hellenes" under the regal name of George I.


title: House of Wittelsbach

text: The law of succession to the throne of Greece was defined by a supplementary article to the convention of 7 May 1832 awarding the Greek Throne to Otto I. It instituted a semi-salic order with an important rule preventing the union of the crown on the same head with any other crown, especially that of Bavaria. The 1844 constitution further made provision for his succession by his two younger brothers (Luitpold and Prince Adalbert of Bavaria) and their descendants.


title: House of Wittelsbach

text: Under the terms of the succession law, a Wittelsbach claim to the throne would have passed on Otto's death in 1867 to his younger brother Luitpold, who was regent of Bavaria from 1886 to 1912; and theoritically after him to Ludwig who became king Ludwig III of Bavaria in 1913. At this point, tracing the claim becomes problematic as the same branch of the Wittelsbach became heir to both thrones, and a subsequent monarch or pretender should have issued a renunciation to one of the two thrones, which none did. In the end, neither Luitpold nor his son Ludwig actively pursued a claim to the Greek throne inherited from Otto, and the throne of Bavaria itself disappeared in 1918, leaving the future of the claim to be decided by a further arrangement that never occurred.


title: House of Wittelsbach

text: However, Ludwig's marriage to Maria Theresia of Austria-Este in 1868 came with a caveat. Maria Theresa's uncle, Duke Francis V of Modena, was a staunch Roman Catholic. He required that as part of the marriage agreement Ludwig renounce his rights to the throne of Greece, and so ensure that his children would be raised Roman Catholic. In addition, the 1844 Greek Constitution forbade the Greek sovereign to be simultaneously ruler of another country. Consequently, Ludwig's younger brother Prince Leopold of Bavaria technically succeeded upon their father's death in 1912 to the rights of the deposed Otto of Greece.


title: House of Wittelsbach

text: The line of succession under Leopold didn't survive for long. Following Leopold's death in 1930, the throne technically passed to his son Prince Georg of Bavaria who died in 1943 (who might renounced the throne anyway because of his status as Catholic priest) without issue. After Prince Georg's death, the throne passed to his younger brother Prince Konrad of Bavaria who died in 1969. Konrad's only child, Prince Eugen of Bavaria died in 1997 without issue. As the line Ludwig III and Leopold's younger brother, Prince Arnulf of Bavaria, ended earlier by the death of his son, Prince Heinrich of Bavaria, in 1916. In 1997 the throne would pass to a descendant of Prince Adalbert of Bavaria


title: House of Wittelsbach

text: Prince Adalbert had two sons, Prince Ludwig Ferdinand of Bavaria and Prince Alfons of Bavaria. However, Prince Alfons' only son, Prince Joseph Clemens of Bavaria died in 1990 without issue. Thus only a descendant of Prince Ludwig Ferdinand could potentially ascend the throne. Prince Ludwig Ferdinand had two sons, Prince Ferdinand of Bavaria and Prince Adalbert of Bavaria (1886–1970).


title: House of Wittelsbach

text: However, as Prince Ferdinand renounced his rights to the throne of the Kingdom of Bavaria on 29 June 1914, it was likely that Prince Ferdinand would also renounce his rights to the throne of the Kingdom of Greece. This is perhaps due to his marriage in 1905 to Infanta María Teresa of Spain, the second eldest child and daughter of Alfonso XII of Spain, which gave him royal rank in Spain, and his planned second marriage which happened on 1 October 1914 (three months after the World War started). It is worth noting that he renounced his dynastic rights on 29 June 1914, only a day after the assassination of Franz Ferdinand, and thus the reasons spelled out here might not come to play. The issue is moot anyway, as of Prince Ferdinand's two sons, Infante Luis Alfonso died unmarried in 1983, and Infante Jose Eugenio's marriage to María de la Asunción Solange de Messía y Lesseps (only made a countess of Odiel a day before their marriage) was considered morganatic. Even if Infante Jose Eugnio's children are considered as the Greek throne has no concept of morganatic marriage, his two sons, Ferdinand of Bavaria and Mesía (1937-1999) only had a daughter, while Luis Alfonso of Bavaria and Mesía (1942-1966) died without issue. Thus the throne would only pass for two short years since 1997 to 1999 from Prince Eugen to Don Ferdinand of Bavaria and Mesía.


title: House of Wittelsbach

text: Prince Adalbert of Bavaria (1886–1970) had two sons, Prince Konstantin of Bavaria (1920–1969) and Prince Alexander of Bavaria (1923-2001). Prince Konstantin had two sons, Prince Leopold of Bavaria (born 1943) and Prince Adalbert (born 1944). Thus from the long line, the throne would either pass from Prince Eugen in 1997 or 1999 Don Ferdinand of Bavaria and Mesía to Prince Leopold as the current pretender.


title: House of Wittelsbach

text: Joseph Ferdinand, a son of Maximilian II Emanuel, was the favored choice of England and the Netherlands to succeed as the ruler of Spain, and young Charles II of Spain chose him as his heir. Due to the unexpected death of Joseph Ferdinand in 1699 the Wittelsbach did not come to power in Spain, leaving the Spanish Succession uncertain again.


title: House of Wittelsbach

text: Duke Franz's patriline is the line from which he is descended father to son. Patrilineal descent is the principle behind membership in royal houses, as it can be traced back through the generations.


title: House of Wittelsbach

text: Some of the most important Bavarian castles and palaces that were built by Wittelsbach rulers, or served as seats of ruling branch lines, are the following:


title: House of Wittelsbach

text: From 1597 to 1794, Bonn was the capital of the Electorate of Cologne and residence of the Archbishops and Prince-electors of Cologne, most of them belonging to the Bavarian branch of the House of Wittelsbach (continuously from 1583 to 1761).


title: Noma (restaurant)

text: Noma is a three-Michelin-star restaurant run by chef René Redzepi, and co-founded by Claus Meyer, in Copenhagen, Denmark. The name is a syllabic abbreviation of the two Danish words "" (Nordic) and "" (food). Opened in 2003, the restaurant is known for its focus on foraging, invention and interpretation of New Nordic Cuisine. In 2010, 2011, 2012, and 2014, it was ranked as the Best Restaurant in the World by "Restaurant" magazine. In 2021 it won the first spot in the World's 50 Best Restaurants Awards.


title: Noma (restaurant)

text: Noma's original location was at Strandgade 93, in an old warehouse on the waterfront in the Christianshavn neighbourhood in central Copenhagen.


title: Noma (restaurant)

text: The building is situated by the Greenlandic Trading Square (Danish: Grønlandske Handels Plads), which for 200 years was a centre for trade to and from the Faroe Islands, Finnmark, Iceland, and in particular, Greenland. Dry fish, salted herring, whale oil and skins are among the goods that were stored in and around the warehouse before being sold off to European markets.


title: Noma (restaurant)

text: In 2003, the warehouse was turned into North Atlantic House, a centre for the art and culture of the North Atlantic region. Noma was opened at the same time by Redzepi and Claus Meyer. The restaurant's interior was designed by Space Copenhagen.


title: Noma (restaurant)

text: Between 12 and 16 February 2013, 63 of 435 diners became ill after eating at Noma, according to a Danish Food Administration report. The symptoms were attributed to norovirus, which was believed to have been unintentionally spread by an infected kitchen employee.


title: Noma (restaurant)

text: Redzepi planned to close Noma after 31 December 2016 and reopen it in 2017 as an urban farm near Copenhagen.


title: Noma (restaurant)

text: Noma reopened on 15 February 2018 after a year hiatus. The restaurant itself also moved from its previous Strandgade location, now housing Restaurant Barr, to its current location at Refshalevej 96.


title: Noma (restaurant)

text: In May 2020, during the COVID-19 crisis, Noma re-opened as a wine and burger bar, with takeaway options. It is sometimes referred as "Noma 3.0" by the food media. Redzepi plans to keep this open for at least a part of the summer 2020.


title: Noma (restaurant)

text: The cuisine of Noma is Nordic/Scandinavian; the restaurant's founders René Redzepi and Claus Meyer have attempted to redefine this Nordic cuisine. Its cuisine can be considered more an interpretation of Nordic food than classical Nordic food itself, according to Meyer in the book "Noma – Nordic Cuisine". Famous dishes include 'The Hen and the Egg', a meal cooked by the diners themselves which consists of potato chips, a wild duck egg, slightly wet hay, salt, herbs, wild forest plants, hay oil, thyme, butter, and wild garlic sauce.


title: Noma (restaurant)

text: Redzepi formerly worked at restaurants including The French Laundry, elBulli, Kong Hans Kælder and Le Jardin des Sens. The head chef is currently Kenneth Foong, replacing Canadian Benjamin Ing in July 2020. Prior head chefs include Dan Giusti and Matt Orlando. The head sommelier is Ava Mees List.


title: Noma (restaurant)

text: From 28 July to 6 August 2012, Noma decamped to London for a 10-day pop-up restaurant hosted by Claridge's hotel in Mayfair, while the restaurant in Copenhagen was closed from 22 July to 13 August for refurbishment. Redzepi, along with head chef Matt Orlando and staff from the restaurant, served up a £195-per-head nine-course menu that included their versions of scones and clotted cream, Lancashire hotpot with British ingredients, as well as live ants foraged in Denmark and flown to London.


title: Noma (restaurant)

text: On 29 March 2014, Noma announced that the restaurant would be relocating to Japan for two months at the beginning of 2015.


title: Noma (restaurant)

text: On 24 July 2015, Noma announced that the restaurant would be relocating to Australia for 10 weeks at the beginning of 2016.


title: Noma (restaurant)

text: On 12 April 2017, Noma Mexico was opened in Tulum, Quintana Roo, Mexico. Each multi-course dinner costs US$600. Noma partnered with Traspatio Maya, a nonprofit network of 15 Maya communities to provide Yucatecan ingredients such as white Naal Teel corn, Ixil onions, Xtop pepita, bee larva, and Melipona honey from the Calakmul Biosphere Reserve. Products from the rest of the country are also included, such as Baja California wine, Chiapas coffee and Oaxaca artisanal plateware. The pop-up closed on 28 May.


title: Noma (restaurant)

text: On April 13, 2022 it was announced that a popup Noma would open in Brooklyn, New York operating from May 16 - May 20th of that year.


title: Noma (restaurant)

text: In 2010, the restaurant, as a relative newcomer, startlingly stole the crown that El Bulli had held for four consecutive years. This came soon after previous first and second place chefs Ferran Adria and Heston Blumenthal announced that they would be temporarily closing their restaurants. At the time, Noma was viewed as the head of a new movement to spread New Nordic cuisine.


title: Noma (restaurant)

text: In 2011, with El Bulli having withdrawn from the competition because they would be permanently closing, Noma was easily named the Best Restaurant for the second straight year. It was selected by a worldwide panel of journalists, chefs, restaurateurs, and food lovers. The restaurant continued its dominance without having earned a third Michelin Star.


title: Noma (restaurant)

text: In 2012, Redzepi won the award for Noma yet again, being praised by "Restaurant" as being "the standard bearer for the New Nordic movement" and winning respect for his attention to detail and innovative approach. His use of local and seasonal ingredients foraged from the seashore and forest was also recognized.


title: Noma (restaurant)

text: In 2013, Noma was voted the second best restaurant in the world, having lost the first-place position to El Celler de Can Roca in Girona, Catalonia, Spain. In 2014, Noma regained the title.


title: South Park (season 24)

text: The twenty-fourth season of the American animated sitcom series "South Park" is the show's shortest season by episode count, consisting of two extended-length episodes and two streaming films. The season began with "The Pandemic Special" and ended with "". The production of the season, as well as the topics of each episode were shaped by the COVID-19 pandemic.


title: South Park (season 24)

text: While broadcast rights have remained with Comedy Central, this is the first season where the exclusive streaming rights have been held by HBO Max.


title: South Park (season 24)

text: This season began with two extended-length episodes addressing the COVID-19 pandemic. Sources originally conflicted on whether the episodes were part of the season or standalone specials. This conflict was resolved when season twenty-five was officially announced in January 2022.


title: South Park (season 24)

text: On August 5, 2021, Comedy Central announced that Parker and Stone signed a $900 million deal for extending the series to 30 seasons through 2027 and 14 feature films, exclusive to the Paramount+ streaming platform owned and operated by Comedy Central's parent company, ViacomCBS. Two films were confirmed to be released at the end of 2021. Parker and Stone later clarified that the projects were television films, and that it was ViacomCBS who decided to advertise them as feature films. The films' production codes are subsequent to those of the previous episodes, and are considered the third and fourth episodes of the season, respectively.


title: South Park (season 24)

text: On Rotten Tomatoes, the season holds a 63% approval rating based on eight reviews; the site editors characterize five as positive and three as negative.


title: South Park (season 24)

text: The first two episodes of the season were released on Blu-ray and DVD on August 16, 2022. "South Park: Post Covid" and "South Park: Post Covid: The Return of Covid" followed on December 6, 2022.


title: Decimal separator

text: A decimal separator is a symbol used to separate the integer part from the fractional part of a number written in decimal form (e.g., "." in 12.45). Different countries officially designate different symbols for use as the separator. The choice of symbol also affects the choice of symbol for the thousands separator used in digit grouping.


title: Decimal separator

text: Any such symbol can be called a decimal mark, decimal marker, or decimal sign. Symbol-specific names are also used; decimal point and decimal comma refer to an (either baseline or middle) dot and comma respectively, when it is used as a decimal separator; these are the usual terms used in English, with the aforementioned generic terms reserved for abstract usage.


title: Decimal separator

text: In many contexts, when a number is spoken, the function of the separator is assumed by the spoken name of the symbol: "comma" or "point" in most cases. In some specialized contexts, the word "decimal" is instead used for this purpose (such as in International Civil Aviation Organization-regulated air traffic control communications). In mathematics, the decimal separator is a type of radix point, a term that also applies to number systems with bases other than ten.


title: Decimal separator

text: In the Middle Ages, from the original Indian decimal writing, before printing, a bar ( ¯ ) over the units digit was used to separate the integral part of a number from its fractional part, as in 995 (meaning 99.95 in decimal point format). A similar notation remains in common use as an underbar to superscript digits, especially for monetary values without a decimal separator, as in 99. Later, a "separatrix" (i.e., a short, roughly vertical ink stroke) between the units and tenths position became the norm among Arab mathematicians (e.g. 99ˌ95), while an L-shaped or vertical bar (|) served as the separatrix in England. When this character was typeset, it was convenient to use the existing comma (99,95) or full stop (99.95) instead.


title: Decimal separator

text: Positional decimal fractions appear for the first time in a book by the Arab mathematician Abu'l-Hasan al-Uqlidisi written in the 10th century. The practice is ultimately derived from the decimal Hindu–Arabic numeral system used in Indian mathematics, and popularized by the Persian mathematician Al-Khwarizmi, when Latin translation of his work on the Indian numerals introduced the decimal positional number system to the Western world. His "Compendious Book on Calculation by Completion and Balancing" presented the first systematic solution of linear and quadratic equations in Arabic.


title: Decimal separator

text: Gerbert of Aurillac marked triples of columns with an arc (called a "Pythagorean arc"), when using his Hindu–Arabic numeral-based abacus in the 10th century. Fibonacci followed this convention when writing numbers, such as in his influential work "Liber Abaci" in the 13th century. Tables of logarithms prepared by John Napier in 1614 and 1619 used the period (full stop) as the decimal separator, which was then adopted by Henry Briggs in his influential 17th century work.


title: Decimal separator

text: In France, the full stop was already in use in printing to make Roman numerals more readable, so the comma was chosen.


title: Decimal separator

text: Many other countries, such as Italy, also chose to use the comma to mark the decimal units position. It has been made standard by the ISO for international blueprints. However, English-speaking countries took the comma to separate sequences of three digits. In some countries, a raised dot or dash ("") may be used for grouping or decimal separator; this is particularly common in handwriting.


title: Decimal separator

text: In the nations of the British Empire (and, later, the Commonwealth of Nations), the full stop could be used in typewritten material and its use was not banned, although the interpunct (a.k.a. decimal point, point or mid dot) was preferred as a decimal separator, in printing technologies that could accommodate it, e.g. However, as the mid dot was already in common use in the mathematics world to indicate multiplication, the SI rejected its use as the decimal separator.


title: Decimal separator

text: During the beginning of British metrication in the late 1960s and with impending currency decimalisation, there was some debate in the United Kingdom as to whether the decimal comma or decimal point should be preferred: the British Standards Institution and some sectors of industry advocated the comma and the Decimal Currency Board advocated for the point. In the event, the point was chosen by the Ministry of Technology in 1968.


title: Decimal separator

text: When South Africa adopted the metric system, it adopted the comma as its decimal separator, although a number of house styles, including some English-language newspapers such as "The Sunday Times", continue to use the full stop.


title: Decimal separator

text: Previously, signs along California roads expressed distances in decimal numbers with the decimal part in superscript, as in 3, meaning 3.7 . Though California has since transitioned to mixed numbers with common fractions, the older style remains on postmile markers and bridge inventory markers.


title: Decimal separator

text: The three most spoken international auxiliary languages, Ido, Esperanto, and Interlingua, all use the comma as the decimal separator.


title: Decimal separator

text: Esperanto also uses the comma as its official decimal separator, while thousands are separated by non-breaking spaces; e.g. .


title: Decimal separator

text: Ido's "Kompleta Gramatiko Detaloza di la Linguo Internaciona Ido" (Complete Detailed Grammar of the International Language Ido) officially states that commas are used for the decimal separator while full stops are used to separate thousands, millions, etc. So the number 12,345,678.90123 (in American notation) for instance, would be written "12.345.678,90123" in Ido.


title: Decimal separator

text: The 1931 grammar of Volapük uses the comma as its decimal separator, and – somewhat unusually – uses the middle dot as the thousands separator (12·345·678,90123).


title: Decimal separator

text: In 1958, disputes between European and American delegates over the correct representation of the decimal separator nearly stalled the development of the ALGOL computer programming language. ALGOL ended up allowing different decimal separators, but most computer languages and standard data formats (e.g., C, Java, Fortran, Cascading Style Sheets (CSS)) specify a dot.


title: Decimal separator

text: In mathematics and computing, a radix point or radix character is a symbol used in the display of numbers to separate the integer part of the value from its fractional part. In English and many other languages (including many that are written right-to-left), the integer part is at the left of the radix point, and the fraction part at the right of it.


title: Decimal separator

text: A radix point is most often used in decimal (base 10) notation, when it is more commonly called the decimal point (the prefix deci- implying base 10). In English-speaking countries, the decimal point is usually a small dot (.) placed either on the baseline, or halfway between the baseline and the top of the digits (·)


title: Decimal separator

text: These conventions are generally used both in machine displays (printing, computer monitors) and in handwriting. It is important to know which notation is being used when working in different software programs. The respective ISO standard defines both the comma and the small dot as decimal markers, but does not explicitly define universal radix marks for bases other than 10.


title: Decimal separator

text: Fractional numbers are rarely displayed in other number bases, but, when they are, a radix character may be used for the same purpose. When used with the binary (base 2) representation, it may be called "binary point".


title: Decimal separator

text: The 22nd General Conference on Weights and Measures declared in 2003 that "the symbol for the decimal marker shall be either the point on the line or the comma on the line". It further reaffirmed that


title: Decimal separator

text: ( for example). This use has therefore been recommended by technical organizations, such as the United States' National Institute of Standards and Technology.


title: Decimal separator

text: Past versions of ISO 8601, but not the 2019 revision, also stipulated normative notation based on SI conventions, adding that the comma is preferred over the full stop.


title: Decimal separator

text: ISO 80000-1 stipulates that "The decimal sign is either a comma or a point on the line." The standard does not stipulate any preference, observing that usage will depend on customary usage in the language concerned, but adds a note that as per ISO/IEC directives, all ISO standards should use the comma as the decimal marker.


title: Decimal separator

text: For ease of reading, numbers with many digits may be divided into groups using a delimiter, such as comma "," or dot ".", half-space (or thin space) " ", space " ", underbar "_" (as in maritime "21_450") or apostrophe «'». In some countries, these "digit group separators" are only employed to the left of the decimal separator; in others, they are also used to separate numbers with a long fractional part. An important reason for grouping is that it allows rapid judgement of the number of digits, via telling at a glance ("subitizing") rather than counting (contrast, for example, with 100000000 for one hundred million).


title: Decimal separator

text: The use of spaces as separators, not dots or commas (for example: and for "twenty thousand" and "one million"), has been official policy of the International Bureau of Weights and Measures since 1948 (and reaffirmed in 2003) stating


title: Decimal separator

text: as well as by the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (IUPAC), the American Medical Association's widely followed "AMA Manual of Style", and the Metrication Board, among others.


title: Decimal separator

text: The groups created by the delimiters tend to follow the use of the local language, which varies. In European languages, large numbers are read in groups of thousands, and the delimiter – which occurs every three digits when it is used – may be called a "thousands separator". In East Asian cultures, particularly China, Japan, and Korea, large numbers are read in groups of myriads (10,000s) but the delimiter commonly separates every three digits.


title: Decimal separator

text: The Indian numbering system is somewhat more complex: It groups the rightmost three digits together (until the hundreds place) and thereafter groups by sets of two digits. For example, one trillion would thus be written as 10,00,00,00,00,000 or 10 kharab.


title: Decimal separator

text: The convention for digit group separators historically varied among countries, but usually seeking to distinguish the delimiter from the decimal separator. Traditionally, English-speaking countries employed commas as the delimiter – 10,000 – and other European countries employed periods or spaces: 10.000 or . Because of the confusion that could result in international documents, in recent years the use of spaces as separators has been advocated by the superseded SI/ISO 31-0 standard, as well as by the International Bureau of Weights and Measures and the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry, which have also begun advocating the use of a "thin space" in "groups of three".


title: Decimal separator

text: Within the United States, the American Medical Association's widely followed "AMA Manual of Style" also calls for a thin space. In some online encoding environments (for example, ASCII-only) a thin space is not practical or available, in which case a regular word space or no delimiter are the alternatives.


title: Decimal separator

text: Digit group separators can occur either as part of the data or as a mask through which the data is displayed. This is an example of the separation of presentation and content, making it possible to display numbers with spaced digit grouping in a way that does not insert any whitespace characters into the string of digits in the content. In many computing contexts, it is preferred to omit digit group separators from the data and instead overlay them as a mask (an input mask or an output mask).


title: Decimal separator

text: Common examples include spreadsheets and databases in which currency values are entered without such marks but are displayed with them inserted. (Similarly, phone numbers can have hyphens, spaces or parentheses as a mask rather than as data.) In web content, such digit grouping can be done with CSS style. It is useful because the number can be copied and pasted into calculators (including a web browser's omnibox) and parsed by the computer as-is (i.e., without the user manually purging the extraneous characters). For example, Wikipedia content can display numbers this way, as in the following examples:


title: Decimal separator

text: In some programming languages, it is possible to group the digits in the program's source code to make it easier to read; see Integer literal: Digit separators.


title: Decimal separator

text: Julia, Swift, and free-form Fortran 90 use the underscore (_) character for this purpose; as such, these languages allow seven hundred million to be entered as 700_000_000.


title: Decimal separator

text: Fixed-form Fortran ignores whitespace (in all contexts), so 700 000 000 has always been accepted. Fortran 90 and its successors allow (ignored) underscores in numbers in free-form.


title: Decimal separator

text: C++14, Rebol, and Red all allow the use of an apostrophe for digit grouping, so 700'000'000 is permissible.


title: Decimal separator

text: The International Bureau of Weights and Measures states that "when there are only four digits before or after the decimal marker, it is customary not to use a space to isolate a single digit". Likewise, some manuals of style state that thousands separators should not be used in normal text for numbers from to inclusive where no decimal fractional part is shown (in other words, for four-digit whole numbers), whereas others use thousands separators and others use both. For example, APA style stipulates a thousands separator for "most figures of or more" except for page numbers, binary digits, temperatures, etc.


title: Decimal separator

text: There are always "common-sense" country-specific exceptions to digit grouping, such as year numbers, postal codes, and ID numbers of predefined nongrouped format, which style guides usually point out.


title: Decimal separator

text: In binary (base-2), a full space can be used between groups of four digits, corresponding to a nibble, or equivalently to a hexadecimal digit. For integer numbers, dots are used as well to separate groups of four bits.


title: Decimal separator

text: Alternatively, binary digits may be grouped by threes, corresponding to an octal digit. Similarly, in hexadecimal (base-16), full spaces are usually used to group digits into twos, making each group correspond to a byte. Additionally, groups of eight bytes are often separated by a hyphen.


title: Decimal separator

text: In countries with a decimal comma, the decimal point is also common as the "international" notation because of the influence of devices, such as electronic calculators, which use the decimal point. Most computer operating systems allow selection of the decimal separator; programs that have been carefully internationalized will follow this, but some programs ignore it and a few may even fail to operate if the setting has been changed.


title: Decimal separator

text: Computer interfaces may be set to the Unicode international "Common locale" using as defined at Details of the current (2020) definitions may be found at


title: Decimal separator

text: Unicode defines a "decimal separator key symbol" (⎖ in hex U+2396, decimal 9110) which looks similar to the apostrophe. This symbol is from ISO/IEC 9995 and is intended for use on a keyboard to indicate a key that performs decimal separation.


title: Decimal separator

text: In the Arab world, where Eastern Arabic numerals are used for writing numbers, a different character is used to separate the integer and fractional parts of numbers. It is referred to as an Arabic decimal separator (U+066B, rendered: ) in Unicode. An Arabic thousands separator (U+066C, rendered: ) also exists. Example: (9,999.99)


title: Decimal separator

text: In Persian, the decimal separator is called "momayyez". The Unicode Consortium's investigation concluded that "computer programs should render U+066B as a shortened, lowered, and possibly more slanted slash (); this should be distinguishable from the slash at the first sight." To separate sequences of three digits, an Arabic thousands separator (rendered as: ), a Latin comma, or a blank space may be used; however this is not a standard. Example: (9,999.99)


title: Decimal separator

text: The following examples show the decimal separator and the thousands separator in various countries that use the Arabic numeral system.


title: Nick Leeson

text: Nicholas William Leeson (born 25 February 1967) is an English former derivatives trader whose fraudulent, unauthorized and speculative trades resulted in the 1995 collapse of Barings Bank, the United Kingdom's oldest merchant bank. Leeson was convicted of financial crime in Singapore court and served over four years in Changi Prison.


title: Nick Leeson

text: Between 2005 and 2011, Leeson had senior management roles at League of Ireland club Galway United. After it suffered financial difficulties, he resigned from his position as chief executive officer. He is also active on the keynote and after-dinner speaking circuit, where he advises companies about risk and corporate responsibility.


title: Nick Leeson

text: Nick Leeson was born in Watford, Hertfordshire, and attended Parmiter's School in nearby Garston. Born to working-class parents on a council estate, his father was a self-employed plasterer, his mother a nurse. After finishing sixth form in 1985 with six O Levels and two A level passes in English Literature and History with C and D grades respectively, failing his third subject, Mathematics, he was hired as a clerk with the Lombard Street branch of the Coutts private bank, where he settled paper cheques, crediting and debiting client accounts.


title: Nick Leeson

text: In 1987, Leeson moved to Morgan Stanley's Futures and Options back office, clearing and settling listed derivatives transactions. With few prospects for a front office role, he joined Barings Bank two years later, at £12,000 () a year. With four other settlement specialists, he was briefly seconded to Hong Kong to troubleshoot Barings' back office in the Indonesian capital of Jakarta. He returned to London in September 1991 to investigate a case of fraud in which a Barings employee had used a client's account to trade on a proprietary basis until margin calls from the clearinghouses unraveled the scheme.


title: Nick Leeson

text: In April 1992, Barings decided to open a Future and Options office in Singapore, executing and clearing transactions on the Singapore International Monetary Exchange (SIMEX). Barings had held a seat on SIMEX for some time, but did not activate it until Leeson, appointed general manager, was sent over to head both front office and back office operations. Prior to leaving, Leeson was denied a broker's licence in the UK because of committing fraud on his application. He had failed to report a judgment against him entered by the National Westminster Bank. Neither Leeson nor Barings disclosed this denial when he applied for his licence in Singapore.


title: Nick Leeson

text: From 1992, Leeson made unauthorised speculative trades that at first made large profits for Barings: £10 million, which accounted for 10% of Barings' annual profit. He earned a bonus of £130,000 on his salary of £50,000 for that year. Leeson's luck soon went sour and he used one of Barings' error accounts (accounts used to correct mistakes made in trading) to hide his losses. He says that this account was first used to hide an error made by one of his subordinates; she had been assigned to buy twenty futures contracts for Fuji Bank, but had sold them instead, costing Barings £20,000.


title: Nick Leeson

text: However, Leeson used this error account to cover further bad trades by himself and others. For example, he used it to cover a number of mistakes made by one of his traders who frequently came to work after long nights of partying. Leeson believes that he first crossed into out-and-out criminal conduct when he forgot to reconcile a discrepancy of 500 contracts, costing Barings US$1.7 million. He concluded that the only way to hide such a massive error and keep his job was to hide it in the error account. Leeson insists that he never used the account for his own gain, but in 1996 investigators had located approximately $35 million in various bank accounts tied to him.


title: Nick Leeson

text: By the end of 1992, the error account's losses exceeded £2 million, increasing to £23 million in late 1993. This amount ballooned to £208 million by the end of 1994. Leeson had followed a "doubling" strategy: every time he lost money, he would bet double the amount that was lost in order to recoup the amount. This had been successful for him in the past, including once in 1993 where he was able to cover a £6 million negative balance in the error account and after which he vowed not to use the account again. However, Leeson had to maintain his reputation as a trading genius and soon found himself hiding his losses there again. As the losses grew higher and higher, Leeson fabricated cover stories to explain why he needed more cash from London; his sterling reputation protected him from close scrutiny.


title: Nick Leeson

text: The beginning of the end occurred on 16 January 1995, when Leeson placed a short straddle in the Singapore and Tokyo stock exchanges, essentially betting that the Japanese stock market would not move significantly overnight. However, the Great Hanshin earthquake hit early in the morning on 17 January, sending Asian markets, and Leeson's trading positions, into a tailspin. Leeson attempted to recoup his losses by making a series of increasingly risky new trades (using a long-long future arbitrage), this time betting that the Nikkei Stock Average would make a rapid recovery. However, the recovery failed to materialise.


title: Nick Leeson

text: Leeson left a note reading, "I'm sorry" and fled Singapore on 23 February. Losses eventually reached £827 million (US$1.4 billion), twice Barings' available trading capital. After a failed bailout attempt, Barings, which had been the UK's oldest merchant bank, was declared insolvent on 26 February. After fleeing to Malaysia, Thailand and finally Germany, Leeson was arrested in Frankfurt and extradited back to Singapore on 20 November 1995.


title: Nick Leeson

text: Leeson pleaded guilty to two counts of "deceiving the bank's auditors and of cheating the Singapore exchange", including forging documents. District judge Richard Magnus, who convicted Leeson, decided to sentence Leeson to six and a half years in Changi Prison in Singapore. Leeson was released in July 1999 after serving at least two-thirds of his sentence (4 years and 4 months) for good behaviour, and having been diagnosed with colon cancer, which he survived despite grim forecasts at the time. In 1996, Leeson published an autobiography, "Rogue Trader", detailing his acts. A review in the financial columns of "The New York Times" stated, "This is a dreary book, written by a young man very taken with himself, but it ought to be read by banking managers and auditors everywhere." In 1999, the book was made into a film of the same name starring Ewan McGregor and Anna Friel. The events also form the subject matter of a 1996 television documentary made by Adam Curtis, titled "Inside Story Special: £830,000,000 – Nick Leeson and the Fall of the House of Barings".


title: Nick Leeson

text: In 2003, as a mature student, Leeson completed a BSc in Psychology at Middlesex University, and then married Leona Tormay, an Irish beautician. He is a guest on the after-dinner and keynote speaking circuits, stating in 2019 that "two events a month is enough to keep me in the manner to which I'm accustomed". Leeson still deals in the stock markets, but only with his own money.


title: Nick Leeson

text: Leeson was appointed commercial manager of Galway United F.C. in April 2005, rising to the position of general manager in November 2005. By July 2007 he had become the club's chief executive officer. In February 2011, after the club encountered financial problems, he resigned his position.


title: Nick Leeson

text: In June 2005, Leeson released a new book, "Back from the Brink: Coping with Stress". It picks up his story where "Rogue Trader" left off, including in-depth conversations with psychologist Ivan Tyrrell. In 2013 he appeared in "Celebrity Apprentice Ireland" on TV3.


title: Nick Leeson

text: In July 2015, Singapore's national daily newspaper "The Straits Times" published an e-book titled "Guilty As Charged: 25 Crimes That Have Shaken Singapore Since 1965", which included the Nick Leeson case as one of the top 25 crimes that shocked the nation since its independence in 1965. The book was borne out of collaboration between the Singapore Police Force and the newspaper itself. The paperback edition of the book was published and first appeared on the bookshelves in late June 2017. The paperback edition first entered the ST bestseller list on 8 August 2017, a month after its publication.


title: Nick Leeson

text: On 5 April 2007, "The Guardian" reported that KPMG, the liquidators of Barings, had sold a trading jacket thought to have been worn by Leeson while trading on SIMEX in Singapore. The jacket was offered for sale on eBay but it failed to reach its reserve price despite a highest bid of £16,100. It was subsequently sold for £21,000. In October 2007 a similar jacket used by Leeson's team but not thought to have been worn by Leeson himself sold at auction for £4,000.


title: Nick Leeson

text: His name is mentioned in the credits of the Rogue Trader (film) together with Barings Bank losses of 1.400.000.000 US$.


title: Makati

text: Makati ( ), officially the City of Makati (), is a 1st class highly urbanized city in the National Capital Region of the Philippines.


title: Makati

text: Makati is the financial center of the Philippines; it has the highest concentration of multinational and local corporations in the country. Major banks, corporations, department stores as well as foreign embassies are based in Makati. The biggest trading floor of the Philippine Stock Exchange used to be situated along the city's Ayala Avenue, before the stock exchange moved their headquarters to the Bonifacio Global City in Taguig. Makati is also known for being a major cultural and entertainment hub in Metro Manila.


title: Makati

text: According to the 2020 census, it has a population of 629,616 people making it as the 17th most populous city in the country and ranked as the 41st most densely populated city in the world with 19,336 inhabitants per square kilometer. Although its population is just above half a million, the daytime population of the city is estimated to be more than one million during a typical working day because of the large number of people who go to the city to work, shop, and do business.


title: Makati

text: Parts of the city were once subject to the pre-Hispanic Kingdom of Namayan, whose capital is now in the Santa Ana district of Manila. While under the jurisdiction of the Franciscan friars during the 17th century, it was established as a town in 1670 under the name "San Pedro Macati" out of the southern barangays of the then-town of Santa Ana.


title: Makati

text: In 1851, Don José Bonifacio Róxas (an ancestor of the Zóbel de Ayala family) purchased the Jesuit estate of "Hacienda San Pedro de Macati" for 52,800 pesos. Since then, the development of Makati has remained linked with the Zóbel de Ayala family and their company, Ayala Corporation. In 1890, San Pedro de Macati was proclaimed as a public town of Manila. In 1901, it was incorporated into the newly-established province of Rizal. On February 28, 1914, the name of the town was shortened to its present name of "Makati", by virtue of Philippine Legislature Act No. 2390.


title: Makati

text: On January 1, 1942, Makati was one of the municipalities of Rizal merged alongside Manila and Quezon City to form the City of Greater Manila as an emergency measure by President Manuel L. Quezon. It regained its pre-war status as a municipality of Rizal when the City of Greater Manila was dissolved by President Sergio Osmeña effective August 1, 1945.


title: Makati

text: After the destruction Second World War had brought upon Manila, and the subsequent closure of Nielson Field, the town grew rapidly, and real estate values boomed. The first of the planned communities (in what are now the barangays Forbes Park, Urdaneta, San Lorenzo and Bel-Air) were established in the 1950s with the efforts of its landowner, Ayala y Compañía. At the same time, Fort McKinley, then renamed Fort Bonifacio, and the then Philippine Army headquarters, became the starting point for the building up of seven more communities by military families who worked in the base area. The first office buildings were built on what is now the Makati Central Business District. Since the late 1960s, Makati has transformed into the financial and commercial capital of the country.


title: Makati

text: In 1975, Makati was separated from Rizal province along with Caloocan, Malabon, Navotas, Quezon City, Marikina, San Juan, Pasig, Mandaluyong, Pateros, Taguig, Pasay, Parañaque, Las Piñas, and Muntinlupa, to become part of the National Capital Region as a component municipality.


title: Makati

text: Makati was the setting of what is believed to be the single biggest case of involuntary disappearance during martial law – the case of the "Southern Tagalog 10" – ten activists from the nearby Southern Tagalog region, mostly in their twenties, who were abducted in late July 1977 at the Makati Medical Center.


title: Makati

text: Following the assassination of opposition senator Benigno Aquino Jr. on August 21, 1983, Makati became a nexus for protests against the dictatorship of President Ferdinand Marcos. Known as the "Confetti Revolution", the demonstrations held in the central business district were led partly by employees of major corporations based in the area, culminating in the 1986 People Power Revolution that toppled Marcos’ 20-year authoritarian regime. His political rival and successor, Corazon Aquino–the wife of the deceased senator Aquino–became the eleventh and first female president of the Philippines.


title: Makati

text: In January 1986, Fort Bonifacio and the Embo barangays of Cembo, South Cembo, West Rembo, East Rembo, Comembo, Pembo and Pitogo were transferred to the control of Makati.


title: Makati

text: After Mayor Nemesio Yabut had become ill in February 1986 and eventually died on February 25, coinciding with the last day of the People Power Revolution. Aquino appointed Jejomar Binay as acting mayor of the town of Makati two days later; he was subsequently elected as mayor in 1988.


title: Makati

text: On January 2, 1995, President Fidel V. Ramos signed Republic Act No. 7854, making Makati the seventh city in Metro Manila. The law was approved by a plebiscite one month later, on February 2, 1995, by majority of voters.


title: Makati

text: On May 17, 2000, at 5:02 p.m., the Glorietta Mall located inside the Ayala Center was bombed, injuring 13 persons. According to local authorities, the homemade bomb originated from the restroom of a restaurant and affected an adjacent video arcade. The bombing was said to be the precursor of the May 21, 2000 SM Megamall bombing and the Rizal Day bombings. On October 19, 2007, an explosion in Glorietta 2 left eleven people dead and injured more than a hundred. Initially, authorities said that it was caused by a liquefied petroleum gas explosion at a restaurant, but later began investigating the possibility that the explosion may have been a C-4 bomb.


title: Makati

text: Makati is located within the circle of 14′40″ °north and 121′3″ °E right at the center of Metro Manila. The city is bounded on the north by the Pasig River, facing Mandaluyong, on the northeast by Pasig, on the southeast by Pateros and Taguig, on the northwest by the city of Manila, and on the southwest by Pasay. Makati has a total land area of .