title: Seamus Heaney

text: In 2003, the Seamus Heaney Centre for Poetry was opened at Queen's University Belfast. It houses the Heaney Media Archive, a record of Heaney's entire oeuvre, along with a full catalogue of his radio and television presentations. That same year, Heaney decided to lodge a substantial portion of his literary archive at Emory University as a memorial to the work of William M. Chace, the university's recently retired president. The Emory papers represented the largest repository of Heaney's work (1964–2003). He donated these to help build their large existing archive of material from Irish writers including Yeats, Paul Muldoon, Ciaran Carson, Michael Longley and other members of the Belfast Group.


title: Seamus Heaney

text: In 2003, when asked if there was any figure in popular culture who aroused interest in poetry and lyrics, Heaney praised American rap artist Eminem from Detroit, saying, "He has created a sense of what is possible. He has sent a voltage around a generation. He has done this not just through his subversive attitude but also his verbal energy." Heaney wrote the poem "Beacons at Bealtaine" to mark the 2004 EU Enlargement. He read the poem at a ceremony for the 25 leaders of the enlarged European Union, arranged by the Irish EU presidency.


title: Seamus Heaney

text: In August 2006, Heaney suffered a stroke. Although he recovered and joked, "Blessed are the pacemakers" when fitted with a heart monitor, he cancelled all public engagements for several months. He was in County Donegal at the time of the 75th birthday of Anne Friel, wife of playwright Brian Friel. He read the works of Henning Mankell, Donna Leon and Robert Harris while in hospital. Among his visitors was former President Bill Clinton.


title: Seamus Heaney

text: Heaney's "District and Circle" won the 2006 T. S. Eliot Prize. In 2008, he became artist of honour in Østermarie, Denmark, and Seamus Heaney Stræde (street) was named after him. In 2009, Heaney was presented with an Honorary-Life Membership award from the University College Dublin (UCD) Law Society, in recognition of his remarkable role as a literary figure.


title: Seamus Heaney

text: Faber and Faber published Dennis O'Driscoll's book "" in 2008; this has been described as the nearest thing to an autobiography of Heaney. In 2009, Heaney was awarded the David Cohen Prize for Literature. He recorded a spoken word album, over 12 hours long, of himself reading his poetry collections to commemorate his 70th birthday, which occurred on 13 April 2009.


title: Seamus Heaney

text: He spoke at the West Belfast Festival in July 2010 in celebration of his mentor, the poet and novelist Michael McLaverty, who had helped Heaney to first publish his poetry.


title: Seamus Heaney

text: In September 2010, Faber published "Human Chain", Heaney's twelfth collection. "Human Chain" was awarded the Forward Poetry Prize for Best Collection, one of the major poetry prizes Heaney had never previously won, despite having been twice shortlisted. The book, published 44 years after the poet's first, was inspired in part by Heaney's stroke in 2006, which left him "babyish" and "on the brink". Poet and Forward judge Ruth Padel described the work as "a collection of painful, honest and delicately weighted poems ... a wonderful and humane achievement." Writer Colm Tóibín described "Human Chain" as "his best single volume for many years, and one that contains some of the best poems he has written... is a book of shades and memories, of things whispered, of journeys into the underworld, of elegies and translations, of echoes and silences." In October 2010, the collection was shortlisted for the T. S. Eliot Prize.


title: Seamus Heaney

text: Heaney was named one of "Britain's top 300 intellectuals" by "The Observer" in 2011, though the newspaper later published a correction acknowledging that "several individuals who would not claim to be British" had been featured, of which Heaney was one. That same year, he contributed translations of Old Irish marginalia for "Songs of the Scribe", an album by Traditional Singer in Residence of the Seamus Heaney Centre for Poetry, Pádraigín Ní Uallacháin.


title: Seamus Heaney

text: In December 2011, he donated his personal literary notes to the National Library of Ireland. Even though he admitted he would likely have earned a fortune by auctioning them, Heaney personally packed up the boxes of notes and drafts and, accompanied by his son Michael, delivered them to the National Library.


title: Seamus Heaney

text: In June 2012, Heaney accepted the Griffin Trust for Excellence in Poetry's Lifetime Recognition Award and gave a speech in honour of the award.


title: Seamus Heaney

text: Heaney was compiling a collection of his work in anticipation of "Selected Poems 1988–2013" at the time of his death. The selection includes poems and writings from "Seeing Things", "The Spirit Level", the translation of "", "Electric Light", "District and Circle", and "Human Chain" (fall 2014).


title: Seamus Heaney

text: In February 2014, Emory University premiered "Seamus Heaney: The Music of What Happens", the first major exhibition to celebrate the life and work of Seamus Heaney since his death.


title: Seamus Heaney

text: Heaney died in August 2013, during the exhibition's curatorial process. Though the exhibit's original vision to celebrate Heaney's life and work remains at the forefront, there is a small section commemorating his death and its influence.


title: Seamus Heaney

text: In September 2015, it was announced that Heaney's family would posthumously publish his translation of Book VI of The Aeneid in 2016.


title: Seamus Heaney

text: Seamus Heaney died in the Blackrock Clinic in Dublin on 30 August 2013, aged 74, following a short illness. After a fall outside a restaurant in Dublin, he entered hospital for a medical procedure, but died at 7:30 the following morning before it took place. His funeral was held in Donnybrook, Dublin, on the morning of 2 September 2013, and he was buried in the evening at his home village of Bellaghy, in the same graveyard as his parents, young brother, and other family members. His son Michael revealed at the funeral mass that his father texted his final words, ""Noli timere"" (Latin: "Be not afraid"), to his wife, Marie, minutes before he died.


title: Seamus Heaney

text: His funeral was broadcast live the following day on RTÉ television and radio and was streamed internationally at RTÉ's website. RTÉ Radio 1 Extra transmitted a continuous broadcast, from 8 a.m. to 9:15 p.m. on the day of the funeral, of his "Collected Poems" album, recorded by Heaney in 2009. His poetry collections sold out rapidly in Irish bookshops immediately following his death.


title: Seamus Heaney

text: ...we in Ireland will once again get a sense of the depth and range of the contribution of Seamus Heaney to our contemporary world, but what those of us who have had the privilege of his friendship and presence will miss is the extraordinary depth and warmth of his personality...Generations of Irish people will have been familiar with Seamus' poems. Scholars all over the world will have gained from the depth of the critical essays, and so many rights organisations will want to thank him for all the solidarity he gave to the struggles within the republic of conscience.President Higgins also appeared live from Áras an Uachtaráin on the in a five-minute segment in which he paid tribute to Seamus Heaney.


title: Seamus Heaney

text: Both his stunning work and his life were a gift to the world. His mind, heart, and his uniquely Irish gift for language made him our finest poet of the rhythms of ordinary lives and a powerful voice for peace...His wonderful work, like that of his fellow Irish Nobel Prize winners Shaw, Yeats, and Beckett, will be a lasting gift for all the world.


title: Seamus Heaney

text: I am greatly saddened today to learn of the death of Seamus Heaney, one of the great European poets of our lifetime. ... The strength, beauty and character of his words will endure for generations to come and were rightly recognised with the Nobel Prize for Literature.Harvard University issued a statement: We are fortunate and proud to have counted Seamus Heaney as a revered member of the Harvard family. For us, as for people around the world, he epitomised the poet as a wellspring of humane insight and artful imagination, subtle wisdom and shining grace. We will remember him with deep affection and admiration.


title: Seamus Heaney

text: Poet Michael Longley, a close friend of Heaney, said: "I feel like I've lost a brother." Thomas Kinsella said he was shocked, but John Montague said he had known for some time that the poet was not well. Playwright Frank McGuinness called Heaney "the greatest Irishman of my generation: he had no rivals." Colm Tóibín wrote: "In a time of burnings and bombings Heaney used poetry to offer an alternative world." Gerald Dawe said he was "like an older brother who encouraged you to do the best you could do". Theo Dorgan said, "[Heaney's] work will pass into permanence. Everywhere I go there is real shock at this. Seamus was one of us." His publisher, Faber and Faber, noted that "his impact on literary culture is immeasurable." Playwright Tom Stoppard said, "Seamus never had a sour moment, neither in person nor on paper". Andrew Motion, a former UK Poet Laureate and friend of Heaney, called him "a great poet, a wonderful writer about poetry, and a person of truly exceptional grace and intelligence."


title: Seamus Heaney

text: Many memorial events were held, including a commemoration at Emory University, Harvard University, Oxford University and the Southbank Centre, London. Leading US poetry organisations also met in New York to commemorate the death.


title: Seamus Heaney

text: At one time, Heaney's books made up two-thirds of the sales of living poets in the UK. His work often deals with the local surroundings of Ireland, particularly in Northern Ireland, where he was born and lived until young adulthood. Speaking of his early life and education, he commented, "I learned that my local County Derry experience, which I had considered archaic and irrelevant to 'the modern world', was to be trusted. They taught me that trust and helped me to articulate it." "Death of a Naturalist" (1966) and "Door into the Dark" (1969) mostly focus on the details of rural, parochial life.


title: Seamus Heaney

text: In a number of volumes, beginning with "Door into the Dark" (1969) and "Wintering Out" (1972), Heaney also spent a significant amount of time writing on the northern Irish bog. Particularly of note is the collection of bog body poems in "North" (1975), featuring mangled bodies preserved in the bog. In a review by Ciaran Carson, he said that the bog poems made Heaney into "the laureate of violence—a mythmaker, an anthropologist of ritual killing...the world of megalithic doorways and charming noble barbarity." Poems such as "Bogland" and "Bog Queen" addressed political struggles directly for the first time.


title: Seamus Heaney

text: Allusions to sectarian difference, widespread in Northern Ireland through his lifetime, can be found in his poems. His books "Wintering Out" (1973) and "North" (1975) seek to interweave commentary on the Troubles with a historical context and wider human experience. While some critics accused Heaney of being "an apologist and a mythologiser" of the violence, Blake Morrison suggests the poet has written poems directly about the Troubles as well as elegies for friends and acquaintances who have died in them; he has tried to discover a historical framework in which to interpret the current unrest; and he has taken on the mantle of public spokesman, someone looked to for comment and guidance... Yet he has also shown signs of deeply resenting this role, defending the right of poets to be private and apolitical, and questioning the extent to which poetry, however "committed", can influence the course of history.


title: Seamus Heaney

text: Shaun O'Connell in the "New Boston Review" notes that "those who see Seamus Heaney as a symbol of hope in a troubled land are not, of course, wrong to do so, though they may be missing much of the undercutting complexities of his poetry, the backwash of ironies which make him as bleak as he is bright." O'Connell notes in his "Boston Review" critique of "Station Island":


title: Seamus Heaney

text: Again and again Heaney pulls back from political purposes; despite its emblems of savagery, "Station Island" lends no rhetorical comfort to Republicanism. Politic about politics, "Station Island" is less about a united Ireland than about a poet seeking religious and aesthetic unity.


title: Seamus Heaney

text: Heaney is described by critic Terry Eagleton as "an enlightened cosmopolitan liberal", refusing to be drawn. Eagleton suggests: "When the political is introduced... it is only in the context of what Heaney will or will not say." Reflections on what Heaney identifies as "tribal conflict" favour the description of people's lives and their voices, drawing out the "psychic landscape". His collections often recall the assassinations of his family members and close friends, lynchings and bombings. Colm Tóibín wrote, "throughout his career there have been poems of simple evocation and description. His refusal to sum up or offer meaning is part of his tact."


title: Seamus Heaney

text: Heaney published "Requiem for the Croppies", a poem that commemorates the Irish rebels of 1798, on the 50th anniversary of the 1916 Easter Rising. He read the poem to both Catholic and Protestant audiences in Ireland. He commented, "To read 'Requiem for the Croppies' wasn't to say ‘up the IRA’ or anything. It was silence-breaking rather than rabble-rousing." He stated, "You don't have to love it. You just have to permit it."


title: Seamus Heaney

text: He turned down the offer of laureateship of the United Kingdom, partly for political reasons, commenting, "I’ve nothing against the Queen personally: I had lunch at the Palace once upon a time." He stated that his "cultural starting point" was "off-centre". A much-quoted statement was when he objected to being included in "The Penguin Book of Contemporary British Poetry" (1982). Although he was born in Northern Ireland, his response to being included in the British anthology was delivered in his poem "An Open Letter":


title: Seamus Heaney

text: He was concerned, as a poet and a translator, with the English language as it is spoken in Ireland but also as spoken elsewhere and in other times; he explored Anglo-Saxon influences in his work and study. Critic W. S. Di Piero noted Whatever the occasion, childhood, farm life, politics and culture in Northern Ireland, other poets past and present, Heaney strikes time and again at the taproot of language, examining its genetic structures, trying to discover how it has served, in all its changes, as a culture bearer, a world to contain imaginations, at once a rhetorical weapon and nutriment of spirit. He writes of these matters with rare discrimination and resourcefulness, and a winning impatience with received wisdom. Heaney's first translation was of the Irish lyric poem "Buile Suibhne", published as "Sweeney Astray: A Version from the Irish" (1984). He took up this character and connection in poems published in "Station Island" (1984). Heaney's prize-winning translation of "" (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2000, Whitbread Book of the Year Award) was considered groundbreaking in its use of modern language melded with the original Anglo-Saxon "music".


title: Seamus Heaney

text: His plays include "The Cure at Troy: A Version of Sophocles' Philoctetes" (1991). Heaney's 2004 play, "The Burial at Thebes," suggests parallels between Creon and the foreign policies of the Bush administration.


title: Seamus Heaney

text: Heaney's engagement with poetry as a necessary engine for cultural and personal change is reflected in his prose works "The Redress of Poetry" (1995) and "Finders Keepers: Selected Prose, 1971–2001" (2002).


title: Seamus Heaney

text: "When a poem rhymes," Heaney wrote, "when a form generates itself, when a metre provokes consciousness into new postures, it is already on the side of life. When a rhyme surprises and extends the fixed relations between words, that in itself protests against necessity. When language does more than enough, as it does in all achieved poetry, it opts for the condition of overlife, and rebels at limit."He continues: "The vision of reality which poetry offers should be transformative, more than just a printout of the given circumstances of its time and place". Often overlooked and underestimated in the direction of his work is his profound poetic debts to and critical engagement with 20th-century Eastern European poets, and in particular Nobel laureate Czesław Miłosz.


title: Seamus Heaney

text: Heaney's work is used extensively in the school syllabus internationally, including the anthologies "The Rattle Bag" (1982) and "The School Bag" (1997) (both edited with Ted Hughes). Originally entitled "The Faber Book of Verse for Younger People" on the Faber contract, Hughes and Heaney decided the main purpose of "The Rattle Bag" was to offer enjoyment to the reader: "Arbitrary riches." Heaney commented "the book in our heads was something closer to "The Fancy Free Poetry Supplement."" It included work that they would have liked to encountered sooner in their own lives, as well as nonsense rhymes, ballad-type poems, riddles, folk songs and rhythmical jingles. Much familiar canonical work was not included, since they took it for granted that their audience would know the standard fare. Fifteen years later, "The School Bag" aimed at something different. The foreword stated that they wanted "less of a carnival, more like a checklist." It included poems in English, Irish, Welsh, Scots and Scots Gaelic, together with work reflecting the African-American experience.


title: Seamus Heaney

text: The "Seamus Heaney HomePlace", in Bellaghy, is a literary and arts centre which commemorates Heaney's legacy.


title: Seamus Heaney

text: In 2017, it was announced that following an approach by the writer to the Heaney family, Fintan O'Toole had been authorised to write a biography of the poet, with access to family-held records. O'Toole had been somewhat acquainted with Heaney, and Heaney had, according to his son, admired O'Toole's work.


title: Seamus Heaney

text: In November 2019, the documentary "Seamus Heaney and the music of what happens" was aired on BBC Two. His wife Marie and his children talked about their family life and read some of the poems he wrote for them. For the first time, Heaney's four brothers remembered their childhood and the shared experiences that inspired many of his finest poems.


title: Special wards of Tokyo

text: Although the autonomy law today allows for special wards to be established in other prefectures, to date, they only exist in the Tokyo Metropolis which consists of 23 special wards and 39 other, ordinary municipalities (cities, towns, and villages). The occupy the land that was Tokyo City in its 1936 borders before it was abolished under the Tōjō Cabinet in 1943 to become directly ruled by the prefectural government, then renamed to "Metropolitan". During the Occupation of Japan, municipal autonomy was restored to former Tokyo City by the establishment of special wards, each with directly elected mayor and assembly, as in any other city, town or village in Tokyo and the rest of the country. Minority, mostly leftist calls for a were not answered. The question of whether special wards actually are municipalities with full local autonomy rights at all remained a political and legal issue for decades.


title: Special wards of Tokyo

text: In Japanese, they are collectively also known as , , or less formally the or just if the context makes obvious that this does not refer to the whole prefecture. Today, all wards refer to themselves as a "city" in English, but the Japanese designation of remains unchanged. They are a group of 23 municipalities; there is no associated single government body separate from the Tokyo Metropolitan Government which governs all 62 municipalities of Tokyo, not only the special wards.


title: Special wards of Tokyo

text: Analogues exist in historic and contemporary Chinese and Korean administration: "Special wards" are city-independent wards, analogously, "special cities/special cities" "(teukbyeol-si/tokubetsu-shi)" are province-/prefecture-independent cities and were intended to be introduced under SCAP in Japan, too; but in Japan, implementation was stalled, and in 1956 special cities were replaced in the Local Autonomy Law with designated major cities which gain additional autonomy, but remain part of prefectures. In everyday English, Tokyo as a whole is also referred to as a city even though it contains 62 cities, towns, villages and special wards. The closest English equivalents for the special wards would be the London boroughs or New York City boroughs if Greater London and New York City had been abolished in the same way as Tokyo City and they were immediate part of England or New York state, and this can help to understand their structures and functions.


title: Special wards of Tokyo

text: Although special wards are autonomous from the Tokyo metropolitan government, they also function as a single urban entity in respect to certain public services, including water supply, sewage disposal, and fire services. These services are handled by the Tokyo metropolitan government, whereas cities would normally provide these services themselves. This situation is identical between the Federal District and its 33 administrative regions in Brazil. To finance the joint public services it provides to the 23 wards, the metropolitan government levies some of the taxes that would normally be levied by city governments, and also makes transfer payments to wards that cannot finance their own local administration.


title: Special wards of Tokyo

text: Waste disposal is handled by each ward under direction of the metropolitan government. For example, plastics were generally handled as non-burnable waste until the metropolitan government announced a plan to halt burying of plastic waste by 2010; as a result, about half of the special wards now treat plastics as burnable waste, while the other half mandate recycling of either all or some plastics.


title: Special wards of Tokyo

text: Unlike other municipalities (including the municipalities of western Tokyo), special wards were initially not considered to be local public entities for purposes of the Constitution of Japan. This means that they had no constitutional right to pass their own legislation, or to hold direct elections for mayors and councilors. While these authorities were granted by statute during the US-led occupation and again from 1975, they could be unilaterally revoked by the National Diet; similar measures against other municipalities would require a constitutional amendment. The denial of elected mayors to the special wards was reaffirmed by the Supreme Court in the 1963 decision "Japan v. Kobayashi et al." (also known as Tokyo Ward Autonomy Case).


title: Special wards of Tokyo

text: In 1998, the National Diet passed a revision of the Local Autonomy Law (effective in the year 2000) that implemented the conclusions of the "Final Report on the Tokyo Ward System Reform" increasing their fiscal autonomy and established the wards as basic local public entities.


title: Special wards of Tokyo

text: The word "special" distinguishes them from the of other major Japanese cities. Before 1943, the wards of Tokyo City were no different from the wards of Osaka or Kyoto. These original wards numbered 15 in 1889. Large areas from five surrounding districts were merged into the city in 1932 and organized in 20 new wards, bringing the total to 35; the expanded city was also referred to as . By this merger, together with smaller ones in 1920 and 1936, Tokyo City came to expand to the current city area.


title: Special wards of Tokyo

text: On March 15, 1943, as part of wartime totalitarian tightening of controls, Tokyo's local autonomy (elected council and mayor) under the Imperial municipal code was eliminated by the Tōjō cabinet and the Tokyo city government and (Home ministry appointed) prefectural government merged into a single (appointed) prefectural government; the wards were placed under the direct control of the prefecture.


title: Special wards of Tokyo

text: The 35 wards of the former city were integrated into 22 on March 15, 1947 just before the legal definition of special wards was given by the Local Autonomy Law, enforced on May 3 the same year. The 23rd ward, Nerima, was formed on August 1, 1947 when Itabashi was split again. The postwar reorganization under the US-led occupation authorities democratized the prefectural administrations but did not include the reinstitution of Tokyo City. Seiichirō Yasui, a former Home Ministry bureaucrat and appointed governor, won the first Tokyo gubernatorial election against Daikichirō Tagawa, a former Christian Socialist member of the Imperial Diet, former vice mayor of Tokyo city and advocate of Tokyo city's local autonomy.


title: Special wards of Tokyo

text: Since the 1970s, the special wards of Tokyo have exercised a considerably higher degree of autonomy than the administrative wards of cities (that unlike Tokyo City retained their elected mayors and assemblies) but still less than other municipalities in Tokyo or the rest of the country, making them less independent than cities, towns or villages, but more independent than city subdivisions. Today, each special ward has its own elected and .


title: Special wards of Tokyo

text: In 2000, the National Diet designated the special wards as , giving them a legal status similar to cities.


title: Special wards of Tokyo

text: The wards vary greatly in area (from 10 to 60 km) and population (from less than 40,000 to 830,000), and some are expanding as artificial islands are built. Setagaya has the most people, while neighboring Ōta has the largest area.


title: Special wards of Tokyo

text: The total population census of the 23 special wards had fallen under 8 million as the postwar economic boom moved people out to suburbs, and then rose as Japan's lengthy stagnation took its toll and property values drastically changed, making residential inner areas up to 10 times less costly than during peak values. Its population was 8,949,447 as of October 1, 2010, about two-thirds of the population of Tokyo and a quarter of the population of the Greater Tokyo Area. As of December 2012, the population passed 9 million; the 23 wards have a population density of 14,485 per square kilometre (37,501 per square mile).


title: Special wards of Tokyo

text: The Mori Memorial Foundation put forth a proposal in 1999 to consolidate the 23 wards into six larger cities for efficiency purposes, and an agreement was reached between the metropolitan and special ward governments in 2006 to consider realignment of the wards, but there has been minimal further movement to change the current special ward system.


title: Special wards of Tokyo

text: Special wards do not currently exist outside Tokyo; however, several Osaka area politicians, led by Governor Tōru Hashimoto, are backing an Osaka Metropolis plan under which the city of Osaka would be replaced by special wards, consolidating many government functions at the prefectural level and devolving other functions to more localized governments. Under a new 2012 law, – sometimes informally called "Osaka Metropolis plan law", but not specifically referring to Osaka – major cities and their surrounding municipalities in prefectures other than Tokyo may be replaced with special wards with similar functions if approved by the involved municipal and prefectural governments and ultimately the citizens of the dissolving municipalities in a referendum. Prerequisite is a population of at least 2 million in the dissolving municipalities; three cities (Yokohama, Nagoya and Osaka) meet this requirement on their own, seven other major city areas can set up special wards if a designated city is joined by neighboring municipalities. However, where special wards are set up cannot style themselves as the Local Autonomy Law only allows Tokyo with that status. In Osaka, a 2015 referendum to replace the city with five special wards was defeated narrowly.


title: Shawn Porter

text: Shawn Christian Porter (born October 27, 1987) is an American former professional boxer who competed from 2008 to 2021. He is a two-time former welterweight world champion, having held the IBF title from 2013 to 2014 and the WBC title from 2018 to 2019. As of August 2021, he is ranked as the world's third best active welterweight by BoxRec and fourth by the Transnational Boxing Rankings Board and "The Ring" magazine. He is particularly known for his aggressive pressure fighting style, physical strength and high workrate.


title: Shawn Porter

text: As an amateur, Porter competed mostly as a middleweight and compiled an astounding amateur record of 276–14. In 2007 he won the United States Golden Gloves Championship, but at the PanAm Games Porter was knocked out in the second round by Cuban Emilio Correa. Though he boasts amateur victories over current pro prospects Daniel Jacobs, Demetrius Andrade, Edwin Rodriguez, Shawn Estrada, Jonathan Nelson, and Oleksandr Usyk he came up just short in qualifying for the 2008 U.S. Olympics team. Porter is a graduate of Stow-Munroe Falls High School. There he earned all conference in football his junior and senior year.


title: Shawn Porter

text: Trained and managed by his father Kenny, Porter began his pro career at 165½lbs on October 3, 2008 at the Wicomico Civic Center in Salisbury, Maryland, USA. His opponent was Norman Johnson. Porter won the fight via first-round TKO. In his 5th professional fight, Porter faced off against 31 year old Cory Jones (4–3, 1 KO) on February 6, 2009. Porter won the fight after 4 rounds via unanimous decision (40–33, 40–33, 39–35). Jones was knocked down twice in round 1. On April 3, 2009, Porter defeated Eloy Suarez (10–4, 5 KOs) via 1st-round TKO. Porter backed Suarez in a corner, landed several right hand power punches and sent him to the canvas. Suarez beat the count, but was out on his feet. The referee waved a halt at 2:59 of round 1.


title: Shawn Porter

text: In August 2009, Porter moved down to 154lbs, defeating Lamar Harris at the Fitzgerald's Casino & Hotel in Tunica, Mississippi. In December 2009, Porter took on undefeated 27 year old Jamar Patterson (8–0, 4 KOs) at the Grand Casino in Hinckley, Minnesota in a scheduled 8 round fight. Porter won the fight after the referee waved off the fight in round 4 after Porter knocked down Patterson.


title: Shawn Porter

text: Porter won his first Championship belt, the Interim WBO NABO Light Middleweight title against Russell Jordan (15–6, 10 KOs) on ESPN's Friday Night Fights on February 19, 2010. Jordan was deducted a point in 9th round after losing mouthpiece twice as the bout went full 10 rounds. The scorecards read 97–92, 97–92, 100–89. On April 16, 2010 he knocked out veteran Raul Pinzon (17–4, 16 KOs) in just one round. In July, Porter beat 24 year old Ray Robinson (11–1, 4 KOs) via unanimous decision (99–89, 97–92, 98–91) at DeSoto Civic Center in Southaven, Mississippi.


title: Shawn Porter

text: On October 15, 2010, Porter moved down to 147lbs. His first opponent was American Hector Munoz (18–3–4, 11 KOs) at the Buffalo Run Casino in Miami, Oklahoma. It was for the NABF welterweight title, left vacant by Saul Alvarez. Munoz was cut on the right side of his head by a barrage of punches in round 5. During round 9, Porter's promoter, Gary Shaw, ran over to Munoz's corner pleading for them to stop the fight which they finally agreed and threw in the towel at 2:05 of round 9.


title: Shawn Porter

text: On February 18, 2011, Porter successfully defended his title against Anges Adjaho (25–4, 14 KOs) via 10 round unanimous decision (99–91, 99–91, 97–93). The fight was on the undercard of Fernando Guerrero vs. Derrick Findley and was part of the first-ever televised live boxing card in 3D. At 144 lbs, Porter was fighting at the lightest weight of his professional career to date. Adjaho entered having lost four of his previous six bouts and having not won in just over two years.


title: Shawn Porter

text: In April 2012, after over a year out, Porter stopped veteran journeyman Patrick Thompson in round 6. Porter claimed the vacant WBO NABO welterweight title by defeating Alfonso Gómez (23–5–2, 12 KOs) on July 28 at the HP Pavilion in San Jose, California. This was the first fight for Gómez since suffering a sixth-round knockout loss to Saul Alvarez (37–0–1) ten months prior. Porter overcame a cut above his right eye in the opening round and a nasty gash in the tenth that spanned his left eyebrow to remain unbeaten. The judges scored the bout 98–92, 96–94, 97–93.


title: Shawn Porter

text: On December 15, Porter fought on the undercard of Khan-Molina at the Sports Arena in Los Angeles against veteran Mexican former world champion Julio Díaz (40–7, 29 KOs). The fight ended in a split decision draw after 10 rounds 96–94, 95–95, 94–96. Porter started the fight well winning the opening few rounds. It appeared as though Díaz was taking the opening rounds to adjust to Porter's style as he started to attack following the fourth round with body shots, which landed accurately.


title: Shawn Porter

text: On May 18, 2013, Porter fought undefeated Canadian Phil Lo Greco (25–0, 14 KOs) at the Boardwalk Hall in Atlantic City. Porter won the fight after 10 rounds winning a unanimous decision 99–89, 100–88, 100–88.


title: Shawn Porter

text: On August 18, 2013, it was announced that Porter would be part of a triple header on Fox Sports 2 on September 12, headlining against Julio Díaz (40–8–1, 29 KOs) in a rematch. Porter improved his record to 22–0–1 after defeating Díaz by decision, retaining the NABO title and winning the vacant IBF North American title as a result. At the end of 10 rounds, the judges scored it (97–93, 98–92, 97–93). Although it was still a tough fight, Porter put the work in and beat Díaz convincingly.


title: Shawn Porter

text: In October 2013, it was announced that Porter would challenge IBF Welterweight Champion Devon Alexander (25–1, 14 KOs) on November 30 at the Freeman Coliseum in San Antonio. Alexander was thought to be making his second title defense against England's Amir Khan but Instead had to settle for facing Porter in a much lower-profile bout. Alexander and Porter had met in the amateurs in the late 1990s, with Alexander winning a 3-round decision. The fight took place on December 7 at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn. Porter controlled most of the fight, beating Alexander via a unanimous decision to win the welterweight world title. The judges scored the bout 116–112, 116–112 and 115–113. ESPN.com also had Porter winning 117–111. Porter was delighted to capture his first world title, "We worked hard and it came through in the ring. We made it look easy tonight. This is a blessing. We wanted to come out here and establish that I was the better fighter and we made that happen." In the fight, Porter suffered a damaged right eye due to accidental clash of heads.


title: Shawn Porter

text: Golden Boy announced on March 12, 2014, Porter would defend his newly won world title on April 19, against former world welterweight champion Paulie Malignaggi (33–5, 7 KOs) on the undercard of Bernard Hopkins vs. Beibut Shumenov at the DC Armory in Washington. Porter entered as the # 6 welterweight contender in the world according to The Ring Magazine. Malignaggi was ranked as the # 8 contender. Porter won via 4th-round TKO. A double jab opened a cut under the left eye of Malignaggi in round one. Porter had a huge second round, badly rocking Malignaggi multiple times. In round four, Porter hurt Malignaggi with a lunging left hook moments later and a barrage, which included a couple of clean right hands which sent Malignaggi down and under the bottom rope. The referee waved an end to the bout without beginning a count. In the post fight, Porter said, "The objective was to use the jab and get to the body, and it all worked. The first knockdown, he knew that right hand was going to come all night. [In the fourth round], it was a big right hand. He knew it would land all night. We kept throwing it." Malignaggi was humble in defeat, "He has potential to be great, and I told him to go be great I'm not sure what I'm going to do. I don't want to lose to an average champion. I want to lose to a great champion. If this is my last fight, I hope I lost to a great champion."


title: Shawn Porter

text: Porter was ordered by the IBF to make his next mandatory defense against Kell Brook (32–0, 22 KOs). The fight took place on August 16, 2014 at the StubHub Center in Carson, California. Brook defeated Porter for the title via 12 round majority decision. Two American judges scored it (117–111 and 116–112) for Brook while the English judge scored it (114–114). Brook landed 158 of his 441 punches (36%), mostly jabs. Porter threw 308 more power punches, in total landing 156 of 626 thrown (25%). Porter felt as though he won the fight, "I thought that I was effective with my attack, but he was ready. I'm not giving any excuses. I want the rematch. I'll find him where he's at, and I'll take it from him." This was a Showtime debut for Porter. The fight did not generate as many viewers as expected, an average of 661,000 viewers. The whole card averaged just 514,000 viewers.


title: Shawn Porter

text: On March 13, 2015 Porter was scheduled to make his debut as a part of the Premier Boxing Champions series on Spike TV against veteran Roberto García. The fight took place in Ontario, California, at the Citizens Business Bank Arena. Garcia was hospitalized with an undisclosed illness prior to the weigh-in and was forced to withdraw. However, things came together and Erick Bone (16–1, 8 KOs) stepped in to face Porter on short notice at a contractually agreed-upon weight of 149lbs. Porter got off to a slow start to feel what Boné would offer. Boné was able to counter due to Porters reckless boxing. Porter then began to aim for the midsection, landing power shots, eventually dropping Boné in round 5. Boné got up but Porter went on the attack again dropping Boné once again. Clearly hurt, referee Jack Reiss made the 10 count. Porter admitted he had worked on the body shots in training, "I felt the body punches going in, I knew he was getting hurt. I knew it was gonna get him out. We focused on that in the gym."


title: Shawn Porter

text: On May 16, 2015, TGB Promotions and Mayweather Promotions announced that Porter would fight fellow Ohio boxer Adrien Broner (30–1, 22 KOs) on June 20 at the MGM Grand Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas on Premier Boxing Champions on NBC at a catchweight of 144lbs as per Broner's demand. Going into the fight, Broner was 4–0 at the arena. There was controversary around the catchweight. Leading up the fight the Welterweight champ Porter also criticized, that Broner had a 157lbs limit clause in the contract, which stopped Porter from rehydrating to his normal weight on fight day. Porter was quoted as saying,“You want to move up into my weight, then move up! Don’t be scared. Don’t be worried. Don’t be afraid. Put your skill on the line along with your record. Put it all on the line at 147. Don’t put it at 144, then not want to talk about it.” The remarks came as Broner had repeatedly refused to comment on the catchweight situation, which many believed would put Broner in a negative light. Porter dominated majority of the fight to win a unanimous decision over Broner. Broner was warned many times for holding during the bout and was deducted a point in round 11. Broner opened the 12th round with a clean left hand that connected and dropped Porter for the first time in his career. Porter recovered from the knockdown and improved his record to 26–1–1 despite the usual pre-fight trash talk by Broner. The 3 judges scored the bout 114–112, 118–108, 115–111. The fight drew close to 2.4 million viewers. Broner had a purse of $1.35 million compared to Porter's $1 million.


title: Shawn Porter

text: It was announced on February 17, that WBA welterweight champion Keith Thurman (26–0 (1), 22 KOs) would put his title on the line against Porter on March 12, 2016 at the Mohegan Sun Casino in Uncasville, Connecticut. On February 23, Thurman's promoter said he had been forced to postpone his upcoming fight with Porter after being injured in a car accident. Lou DiBella had insisted the injury is not serious or career threatening, but admits the American is lucky to have escaped major injury. Thurman had not been cleared to resume training by his doctors and is expected to be on the sidelines for between four and six weeks. Porter announced that his rescheduled world title clash against Thurman will take place on June 25 at the Barclays Center. The World Boxing Association has ordered the winner of the Thurman and Porter to face interim WBA Welterweight champion David Avanesyan (22–1–1, 11 KOs), who beat #3 WBA Shane Mosley (49–10–1, 41 KOs) on May 28.


title: Shawn Porter

text: In an old-fashioned fight of the year candidate, Porter was unsuccessful in winning the title as Thurman won by unanimous decision, before a crowd of 12,718, when all three judges scored an identical 115–113 in favor of Thurman. Porter earned a $1m purse. This was the first main event televised by CBS in prime time since February 15, 1978, when Muhammad Ali lost a 15-round split decision and the heavyweight title to Leon Spinks in a massive upset. Thurman landed 235 of 539 punches (44 percent) and Porter landed 236 of 662 (36 percent). After the fight, there were immediate talks of a rematch. The fight averaged 3.1 million viewers, according to ESPN. The card itself averaged 2.4 million viewers. The live gate was over $1.1 million in ticket sales, the highest gate in the history of Barclays Center to date, it was also the second highest attendance in the history of Barclays Center, with over 12,000 paying customers in attendance. Premier Boxing Champions voted the bout as their 'Fight of the Year'.


title: Shawn Porter

text: On February 13, 2017, it was announced that a deal was close to being made between Porter and former Welterweight world champion Andre Berto (31–4, 24 KOs). On March 5, it was officially confirmed the fight would take place on April 22, 2017 at the Barclays Center in New York City with CBS confirming Showtime would televise the bout. Halfway through the press conference, promoter Lou DiBella confessed that he received a phone call from WBC president Mauricio Sulaiman and he reported the fight would be a final eliminator. On March 4, Keith Thurman defeated Danny Garcia to become the new WBA and WBC unified Welterweight champion.


title: Shawn Porter

text: In front of 9,118, Porter earned another world title fight against Thurman after he stopped Berto inside the distance. Porter used power shots to the body of Berto to wear him down over the rounds. Berto was dropped in round 2, the same round Porter suffered a bad cut from clash of heads. After round 4, Porter was cut above both eyes and Berto was cut above the left eye, all due to clash of heads. Porter dropped Berto once again in round 9, forcing the stoppage. At the time of stoppage, Porter was ahead on all scorecards, 79–72 and 78–74 (twice). Porter was the busier fighter, landing 175 of 448 (39%) punches thrown, whilst Berto landed 81 of 254 thrown (32%). Many experts called the fight dirty due to constant clash of heads and blood pouring from both fighters. Porter said, "My intention is never to use my head as a weapon. This was a just very hard-fought battle by both of us and I'm blessed to get the victory."


title: Shawn Porter

text: Porter earned $1 million whilst Berto got the higher amount of $1.2 million for the fight. The fight averaged 468,000 viewers on Showtime.


title: Shawn Porter

text: Due to Keith Thurman being sidelined for the remainder of 2017, on July 17 the WBC president Mauricio Sulaiman told ESPN Deportes, that he would likely order a fight between the #1 Porter and #2 Danny Garcia (33–1, 19 KOs) for the Interim WBC title. He also went on to state, if Porter or García declined to take part in the interim title fight, he would move on to the next highest available ranked fighter. At that time, Manny Pacquiao was #3, Jessie Vargas was #4 and Konstantin Ponomarev was ranked #5 by the WBC. A day later, Porter added fuel to the speculation when he called out García in a WWE-esque promo on social media, "I just heard that the WBC will ask Showtime Shawn Porter to fight another title eliminator. And they want me to fight none other than the cherry picker himself - Danny Garcia. What I say to you Danny Garcia - let's get it on," Porter claimed the ball was now in García's court.


title: Shawn Porter

text: On July 30, Ringtv announced that Porter would fight on the undercard of the Floyd Mayweather Jr. vs. Conor McGregor undercard at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, however won't be part of the Showtime PPV card. Instead his fight against 27 year old former light welterweight contender Thomas Dulorme (24–2, 16 KOs), who last fought in a stoppage loss to Terence Crawford in April 2015, would headline the preliminary card on Fox. Porter pulled out of his fight with Dulorme on August 17, 9 days before the fight, due to a death in his family. Mayweather Promotions released a statement confirming 2008 Olympic bronze medalist Yordenis Ugás (19–3, 9 KOs) would take his place in fighting Dulorme. On August 2, 2017, the WBC president confirmed that he still had the intention of ordering the fight between Porter and García for the interim title.


title: Shawn Porter

text: On September 28, ESPN reported that Porter would fight again before the end of the year on the Wilder vs. Stiverne undercard on November 4 at the Barclays Center in New York City against 28 year old Adrían Granados (18–5–2, 12 KOs) in a 10-round bout. Porter praised Granados ahead of the fight, "Against Granados I'm getting into the ring with someone who is very established as an amateur and a professional, has great skills and isn't going to go in there and lay down. That's always going to bring out the best in me."


title: Shawn Porter

text: Before a crowd of 10,924, Porter fought hard to earn a 12-round unanimous decision over Granados to claim the vacant WBC Silver welterweight title. All three judges' scored the fight The judges scored the fight 117–111 in favour of Porter. Porter worked hard and did enough to claim the 10 rounds. Throughout the rounds, although Granados was also effective, Porter switched tactics, notably working on the inside and land some clean shots. Porter faded in the 11th and 12th rounds, and resorted to using movement to preserve his win. Granados had enough energy to withstand any punishment inflicted by Porter. The crowd began to jeer in the final round, usually the more excited rounds, as Porter moved and clinched, rather than thrown punches. At one point in the final round, Porter grabbed gold of Granados to avoid being hit. Granados looked at the crowd and shouted, “He won’t let go of me.” CompuBox Stats showed that Porter was the busier and more accurate boxer, landing 209 of 583 punches thrown (36%), while Granandos landed 166 of 680 thrown (24%). Porter explained the reason he slowed down towards the championship rounds saying, "I hurt my left hand in the sixth round, but I kept using it. I had to use my jab. It took a toll on me, and by the 10th round I just couldn't throw it anymore." For the win, Porter earned $500,000, while Granados took home a $200,000 purse. Granados thought he won the fight. The fight, which took place on a Showtime averaged 646,000 viewers and peaked at 696,000 viewers.


title: Shawn Porter

text: Father and trainer, Ken stated that Porter's next fight would be against WBA and WBC champion Keith Thurman. On April 24, 2018, Thurman vacated his WBC title, forcing the organisation to mandate Porter vs. Danny Garcia for the vacant title. On May 9, the WBC ordered purse bids to take place on May 25 if no agreement had been made, although the WBC president Mauricio Sulaiman confirmed talks were going well and a deal could be finalized before the bids. On the morning of May 25, Tom Brown informed the WBC a deal was in place for the bout to take place, thus the purse bids were cancelled. Brown stated the fight would take place at the Barclays Center in either August or September 2018. On July 24, the long-awaited announcement was finally made confirming the bout to take place at the Barclays Center on September 8, 2018. Before a crowd of 13,058 in attendance, Porter became a two-time world champion after defeating García via unanimous decision. The official scores were 116–112, 115–113, 115–113 in Porter's favour. Porter started off slowly in the first four rounds but then came on in the second half and took over, dominating the remainder of the bout. Both boxers boxed in the first quarter of the fight. Porter had little success in doing this. He then made adjustments and began fighting more on the inside and connecting with body shots. One of Porter's main attributes was the way he doubled his jab. It appeared García slowed down in the second half of the fight. This was likely due to the body attack from Porter. García believed he won the fight, but did not complain about the result. IBF champion Errol Spence Jr. entered the ring during Porter's post-fight interview with Porter stating a fight between the pair would be the 'easiest to make' in boxing. CompuBox stats showed that Porter landed 180 of 742 punches thrown (24%) and García landed with 168 of his 472 thrown (36%). For the fight, Porter earned $1 million and García made $1.2 million. The fight averaged 619,000 viewers and peaked at 690,000 viewers.


title: Shawn Porter

text: On November 13, 2018, it was announced that Porter would make his first defence of his WBC title on March 9, 2019 against 32 year old Cuban contender and Mandatory challender Yordenis Ugás (23-3, 11 KOs). Ugas was ranked #6 by the WBC at the time. Premier Boxing Champions and FOX were due to confirm the announcements, as part of their new partnership via a huge press conference in Los Angeles. Ugás became the mandatory challenger after defeating Argentine boxer Cesar Barrionuevo via a 12 round unanimous decision in what was a final eliminator on the Porter vs. García undercard. Prior to the fight being made, Porter wanted a unification bout against Spence. He stated that 'mandatory obligations' came in the way of that bout happening next. The fight was set to take place at the T-Mobile Arena in Paradise, Nevada.


title: Shawn Porter

text: Porter fought Errol Spence Jr. on September 28, 2019 with Porter's WBC and Spence's IBF welterweight titles on the line. In a high-octane fight in which both men fought in the pocket, Porter started fast, sometimes overwhelming Spence Jr. in the early rounds. Spence Jr., however, began attacking Porter's body and was able to slowly gain a slight edge on the judges' scorecards. With the fight still close, Spence Jr. landed a short left hook to Porter's chin in round eleven, causing Porter's glove to touch the canvas and scoring the only knockdown of the fight. Porter remained on his feet and received an eight-count by referee Jack Reiss before resuming the contest, finishing the round, and engaging in an action-packed twelfth and final round. Porter lost by split decision with the judges scoring the bout 116–111, 116–111, 112–115. It was arguably a fight of the year candidate.


title: Shawn Porter

text: On August 22, 2020, Porter made his first appearance back in the ring since losing his WBC title in a bout against undefeated former IBO welterweight champion Sebastian Formella. Formella was ranked #8 by the IBF and #14 by the WBC. Porter dominated the fight, winning every round on all three judges' scorecards, with final scores of 120–108 across the board for a unanimous decision victory.


title: Shawn Porter

text: On July 31, 2021, the WBO ordered their welterweight champion Terence Crawford to defend his title against Porter, the #2 ranked WBO welterweight contender. As the two sides were unable to negotiate the terms of the fight, the WBO set a purse bid for September 2, 2021, which was later postponed until September 14. Crawford and Porter would adhere to a 60-40 purse split, rather than the usual 80-20 split for mandated matches, taking into account the earnings from their three previous fights. On September 14, 2021, it was announced that a deal had been agreed to stage the fight on November 20 at Michelob Ultra Arena in Las Vegas, airing on ESPN+ PPV. Porter lost the bout via tenth-round technical knockout after being knocked down twice in the tenth round, prompting his corner to pull him from the fight.


title: Shawn Porter

text: At the post fight press conference after the Crawford fight Porter announced his retirement from boxing, stating, "I was prepared to announce my retirement tonight, win, lose or draw. Even if it was a draw. I was not going to do it again. I'm announcing my retirement right now".


title: Shawn Porter

text: While still fighting at the top level in the welterweight division, Porter became a rising star in the boxing commentary field. He was a primary commentator for NBC's Ring City USA, plus the 2020 Summer Olympics boxing coverage. He's also worked on the broadcast team for Premier Boxing Champions' bouts on Fox, Fox Sports 1, and Fox Sports 2 and Triller Fite Club.


title: Shawn Porter

text: In 2020, Porter launched The Porter Way Podcast, a weekly podcast he hosts with two co-hosts that focuses on boxing and the world of sports.


title: Natural History Museum, London

text: The Natural History Museum in London is a museum that exhibits a vast range of specimens from various segments of natural history. It is one of three major museums on Exhibition Road in South Kensington, the others being the Science Museum and the Victoria and Albert Museum. The Natural History Museum's main frontage, however, is on Cromwell Road.


title: Natural History Museum, London

text: The museum is home to life and earth science specimens comprising some 80 million items within five main collections: botany, entomology, mineralogy, palaeontology and zoology. The museum is a centre of research specialising in taxonomy, identification and conservation. Given the age of the institution, many of the collections have great historical as well as scientific value, such as specimens collected by Charles Darwin. The museum is particularly famous for its exhibition of dinosaur skeletons and ornate architecture—sometimes dubbed a "cathedral of nature"—both exemplified by the large "Diplodocus" cast that dominated the vaulted central hall before it was replaced in 2017 with the skeleton of a blue whale hanging from the ceiling. The Natural History Museum Library contains an extensive collection of books, journals, manuscripts, and artwork linked to the work and research of the scientific departments; access to the library is by appointment only. The museum is recognised as the pre-eminent centre of natural history and research of related fields in the world.


title: Natural History Museum, London

text: Although commonly referred to as the Natural History Museum, it was officially known as British Museum (Natural History) until 1992, despite legal separation from the British Museum itself in 1963. Originating from collections within the British Museum, the landmark Alfred Waterhouse building was built and opened by 1881 and later incorporated the Geological Museum. The Darwin Centre is a more recent addition, partly designed as a modern facility for storing the valuable collections.


title: Natural History Museum, London

text: Like other publicly funded national museums in the United Kingdom, the Natural History Museum does not charge an admission fee.


title: Natural History Museum, London

text: The museum is an exempt charity and a non-departmental public body sponsored by the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport. The Princess of Wales, is a patron of the museum. There are approximately 850 staff at the museum. The two largest strategic groups are the Public Engagement Group and Science Group.


title: Natural History Museum, London

text: The foundation of the collection was that of the Ulster doctor Sir Hans Sloane (1660–1753), who allowed his significant collections to be purchased by the British Government at a price well below their market value at the time. This purchase was funded by a lottery. Sloane's collection, which included dried plants, and animal and human skeletons, was initially housed in Montagu House, Bloomsbury, in 1756, which was the home of the British Museum.


title: Natural History Museum, London

text: Most of the Sloane collection had disappeared by the early decades of the nineteenth century. Dr George Shaw (Keeper of Natural History 1806–1813) sold many specimens to the Royal College of Surgeons and had periodic "cremations" of material in the grounds of the museum. His successors also applied to the trustees for permission to destroy decayed specimens. In 1833, the Annual Report states that, of the 5,500 insects listed in the Sloane catalogue, none remained. The inability of the natural history departments to conserve its specimens became notorious: the Treasury refused to entrust it with specimens collected at the government's expense. Appointments of staff were bedevilled by gentlemanly favouritism; in 1862 a nephew of the mistress of a Trustee was appointed Entomological Assistant despite not knowing the difference between a butterfly and a moth.


title: Natural History Museum, London

text: J. E. Gray (Keeper of Zoology 1840–1874) complained of the incidence of mental illness amongst staff: George Shaw threatened to put his foot on any shell not in the 12th edition of Linnaeus' "Systema Naturae"; another had removed all the labels and registration numbers from entomological cases arranged by a rival. The huge collection of the conchologist Hugh Cuming was acquired by the museum, and Gray's own wife had carried the open trays across the courtyard in a gale: all the labels blew away. That collection is said never to have recovered.


title: Natural History Museum, London

text: The Principal Librarian at the time was Antonio Panizzi; his contempt for the natural history departments and for science in general was total. The general public was not encouraged to visit the museum's natural history exhibits. In 1835 to a Select Committee of Parliament, Sir Henry Ellis said this policy was fully approved by the Principal Librarian and his senior colleagues.


title: Natural History Museum, London

text: Many of these faults were corrected by the palaeontologist Richard Owen, appointed Superintendent of the natural history departments of the British Museum in 1856. His changes led Bill Bryson to write that "by making the Natural History Museum an institution for everyone, Owen transformed our expectations of what museums are for".


title: Natural History Museum, London

text: Owen saw that the natural history departments needed more space, and that implied a separate building as the British Museum site was limited. Land in South Kensington was purchased, and in 1864 a competition was held to design the new museum. The winning entry was submitted by the civil engineer Captain Francis Fowke, who died shortly afterwards. The scheme was taken over by Alfred Waterhouse who substantially revised the agreed plans, and designed the façades in his own idiosyncratic Romanesque style which was inspired by his frequent visits to the Continent. The original plans included wings on either side of the main building, but these plans were soon abandoned for budgetary reasons. The space these would have occupied are now taken by the Earth Galleries and Darwin Centre.Work began in 1873 and was completed in 1880. The new museum opened in 1881, although the move from the old museum was not fully completed until 1883.


title: Natural History Museum, London

text: Both the interiors and exteriors of the Waterhouse building make extensive use of architectural terracotta tiles to resist the sooty atmosphere of Victorian London, manufactured by the Tamworth-based company of Gibbs and Canning Limited. The tiles and bricks feature many relief sculptures of flora and fauna, with living and extinct species featured within the west and east wings respectively. This explicit separation was at the request of Owen, and has been seen as a statement of his contemporary rebuttal of Darwin's attempt to link present species with past through the theory of natural selection. Though Waterhouse slipped in a few anomalies, such as bats amongst the extinct animals and a fossil ammonite with the living species. The sculptures were produced from clay models by a French sculptor based in London, M Dujardin, working to drawings prepared by the architect.


title: Natural History Museum, London

text: The central axis of the museum is aligned with the tower of Imperial College London (formerly the Imperial Institute) and the Royal Albert Hall and Albert Memorial further north. These all form part of the complex known colloquially as Albertopolis.


title: Natural History Museum, London

text: Even after the opening, the Natural History Museum legally remained a department of the British Museum with the formal name British Museum (Natural History), usually abbreviated in the scientific literature as "B.M.(N.H.)". A petition to the Chancellor of the Exchequer was made in 1866, signed by the heads of the Royal, Linnean and Zoological societies as well as naturalists including Darwin, Wallace and Huxley, asking that the museum gain independence from the board of the British Museum, and heated discussions on the matter continued for nearly one hundred years. Finally, with the passing of the British Museum Act 1963, the British Museum (Natural History) became an independent museum with its own board of trustees, although – despite a proposed amendment to the act in the House of Lords – the former name was retained. In 1989 the museum publicly re-branded itself as the Natural History Museum and stopped using the title British Museum (Natural History) on its advertising and its books for general readers. Only with the Museums and Galleries Act 1992 did the museum's formal title finally change to the Natural History Museum.


title: Natural History Museum, London

text: In 1985, the museum merged with the adjacent Geological Museum of the British Geological Survey, which had long competed for the limited space available in the area. The Geological Museum became world-famous for exhibitions including an active volcano model and an earthquake machine (designed by James Gardner), and housed the world's first computer-enhanced exhibition ("Treasures of the Earth"). The museum's galleries were completely rebuilt and relaunched in 1996 as "The Earth Galleries", with the other exhibitions in the Waterhouse building retitled "The Life Galleries". The Natural History Museum's own mineralogy displays remain largely unchanged as an example of the 19th-century display techniques of the Waterhouse building.


title: Natural History Museum, London

text: The central atrium design by Neal Potter overcame visitors' reluctance to visit the upper galleries by "pulling" them through a model of the Earth made up of random plates on an escalator. The new design covered the walls in recycled slate and sandblasted the major stars and planets onto the wall. The museum's 'star' geological exhibits are displayed within the walls. Six iconic figures were the backdrop to discussing how previous generations have viewed Earth. These were later removed to make place for a "Stegosaurus" skeleton that was put on display in late 2015.


title: Natural History Museum, London

text: The Darwin Centre (named after Charles Darwin) was designed as a new home for the museum's collection of tens of millions of preserved specimens, as well as new work spaces for the museum's scientific staff and new educational visitor experiences. Built in two distinct phases, with two new buildings adjacent to the main Waterhouse building, it is the most significant new development project in the museum's history.


title: Natural History Museum, London

text: Phase one of the Darwin Centre opened to the public in 2002, and it houses the zoological department's 'spirit collections'—organisms preserved in alcohol. Phase Two was unveiled in September 2008 and opened to the general public in September 2009. It was designed by the Danish architecture practice C. F. Møller Architects in the shape of a giant, eight-story cocoon and houses the entomology and botanical collections—the 'dry collections'. It is possible for members of the public to visit and view non-exhibited items for a fee by booking onto one of the several Spirit Collection Tours offered daily.


title: Natural History Museum, London

text: Arguably the most famous creature in the centre is the 8.62-metre-long giant squid, affectionately named Archie.


title: Natural History Museum, London

text: As part of the museum's remit to communicate science education and conservation work, a new multimedia studio forms an important part of Darwin Centre Phase 2. In collaboration with the BBC's Natural History Unit (holder of the largest archive of natural history footage) the Attenborough Studio—named after the broadcaster Sir David Attenborough—provides a multimedia environment for educational events. The studio holds regular lectures and demonstrations, including free Nature Live talks on Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays.


title: Natural History Museum, London

text: One of the most famous and certainly most prominent of the exhibits—nicknamed "Dippy"—is a -long replica of a "Diplodocus carnegii" skeleton which was on display for many years within the central hall. The cast was given as a gift by the Scottish-American industrialist Andrew Carnegie, after a discussion with King Edward VII, then a keen trustee of the British Museum. Carnegie paid £2,000 () for the casting, copying the original held at the Carnegie Museum of Natural History. The pieces were sent to London in 36 crates, and on 12 May 1905, the exhibit was unveiled to great public and media interest. The real fossil had yet to be mounted, as the Carnegie Museum in Pittsburgh was still being constructed to house it. As word of Dippy spread, Mr Carnegie paid to have additional copies made for display in most major European capitals and in Central and South America, making Dippy the most-viewed dinosaur skeleton in the world. The dinosaur quickly became an iconic representation of the museum, and has featured in many cartoons and other media, including the 1975 Disney comedy "One of Our Dinosaurs Is Missing". After 112 years on display at the museum, the dinosaur replica was removed in early 2017 to be replaced by the actual skeleton of a young blue whale, a 128-year-old skeleton nicknamed "Hope". Dippy went on a tour of various British museums starting in 2018 and concluding in 2020 at Norwich Cathedral.


title: Natural History Museum, London

text: The blue whale skeleton, Hope, that has replaced Dippy, is another prominent display in the museum. The display of the skeleton, some long and weighing 4.5 tonnes, was only made possible in 1934 with the building of the New Whale Hall (now the Mammals (blue whale model) gallery). The whale had been in storage for 42 years since its stranding on sandbanks at the mouth of Wexford Harbour, Ireland in March 1891 after being injured by whalers. At this time, it was first displayed in the Mammals (blue whale model) gallery, but now takes pride of place in the museum's Hintze Hall. Discussion of the idea of a life-sized model also began around 1934, and work was undertaken within the Whale Hall itself. Since taking a cast of such a large animal was deemed prohibitively expensive, scale models were used to meticulously piece the structure together. During construction, workmen left a trapdoor within the whale's stomach, which they would use for surreptitious cigarette breaks. Before the door was closed and sealed forever, some coins and a telephone directory were placed inside—this soon growing to an urban myth that a time capsule was left inside. The work was completed—entirely within the hall and in view of the public—in 1938. At the time it was the largest such model in the world, at in length. The construction details were later borrowed by several American museums, who scaled the plans further. The work involved in removing Dippy and replacing it with Hope was documented in a BBC Television special, "Horizon: Dippy and the Whale", narrated by David Attenborough, which was first broadcast on BBC Two on 13 July 2017, the day before Hope was unveiled for public display.


title: Natural History Museum, London

text: The Darwin Centre is host to Archie, an 8.62-metre-long giant squid taken alive in a fishing net near the Falkland Islands in 2004. The squid is not on general display, but stored in the large tank room in the basement of the Phase 1 building. It is possible for members of the public to visit and view non-exhibited items behind the scenes for a fee by booking onto one of the several Spirit Collection Tours offered daily. On arrival at the museum, the specimen was immediately frozen while preparations commenced for its permanent storage. Since few complete and reasonably fresh examples of the species exist, "wet storage" was chosen, leaving the squid undissected. A 9.45-metre acrylic tank was constructed (by the same team that provide tanks to Damien Hirst), and the body preserved using a mixture of formalin and saline solution.


title: Natural History Museum, London

text: The museum holds the remains and bones of the "River Thames whale", a northern bottlenose whale that lost its way on 20 January 2006 and swam into the Thames. Although primarily used for research purposes, and held at the museum's storage site at Wandsworth.


title: Natural History Museum, London

text: Dinocochlea, one of the longer-standing mysteries of paleontology (originally thought to be a giant gastropod shell, then a coprolite, and now a concretion of a worm's tunnel), has been part of the collection since its discovery in 1921.


title: Natural History Museum, London

text: The museum keeps a wildlife garden on its west lawn, on which a potentially new species of insect resembling Arocatus roeselii was discovered in 2007.


title: Natural History Museum, London

text: The museum is divided into four sets of galleries, or zones, each colour coded to follow a broad theme.


title: Natural History Museum, London

text: This is the zone that can be entered from Exhibition Road, on the East side of the building. It is a gallery themed around the changing history of the Earth.


title: Natural History Museum, London

text: "Earth's Treasury" shows specimens of rocks, minerals and gemstones behind glass in a dimly lit gallery. "Lasting Impressions" is a small gallery containing specimens of rocks, plants and minerals, of which most can be touched.


title: Natural History Museum, London

text: This zone is accessed from the Cromwell Road entrance via the Hintze Hall and follows the theme of the evolution of the planet.


title: Natural History Museum, London

text: Enables the public to see science at work and also provides spaces for relaxation and contemplation. Accessible from Queens Gate.


title: Natural History Museum, London

text: The museum runs a series of educational and public engagement programmes. These include for example a highly praised "How Science Works" hands on workshop for school students demonstrating the use of microfossils in geological research. The museum also played a major role in securing designation of the Jurassic Coast of Devon and Dorset as a UNESCO World Heritage Site and has subsequently been a lead partner in the Lyme Regis Fossil Festivals.


title: Natural History Museum, London

text: In 2005, the museum launched a project to develop notable gallery characters to patrol display cases, including 'facsimiles' of Carl Linnaeus, Mary Anning, Dorothea Bate and William Smith. They tell stories and anecdotes of their lives and discoveries and aim to surprise visitors.


title: Natural History Museum, London

text: In 2010, a six-part BBC documentary series was filmed at the museum entitled "Museum of Life" exploring the history and behind the scenes aspects of the museum.


title: Natural History Museum, London

text: Since May 2001, the Natural History Museum admission has been free for some events and permanent exhibitions. However, there are certain temporary exhibits and shows that require a fee.


title: Natural History Museum, London

text: The Natural History museum combines the museum's life and earth science collections with specialist expertise in "taxonomy, systematics, biodiversity, natural resources, planetary science, evolution and informatics" to tackle scientific questions.


title: Natural History Museum, London

text: In 2011, the museum led the setting up of an International Union for Conservation of Nature Bumblebee Specialist Group, chaired by Dr. Paul H. Williams, to assess the threat status of bumblebee species worldwide using Red List criteria.


title: Natural History Museum, London

text: The closest London Underground station is South Kensington — there is a tunnel from the station that emerges close to the entrances of all three museums. Admission is free, though there are donation boxes in the foyer.


title: Natural History Museum, London

text: A connecting bridge between the Natural History and Science museums closed to the public in the late 1990s.


title: Natural History Museum, London

text: The museum plays an important role in the 1975 London-based Disney live-action feature "One of Our Dinosaurs Is Missing"; the eponymous skeleton is stolen from the museum, and a group of intrepid nannies hide inside the mouth of the museum's blue whale model (in fact a specially created prop – the nannies peer out from behind the whale's teeth, but a blue whale is a baleen whale and has no teeth). Additionally, the film is set in the 1920s, before the blue whale model was built.


title: Natural History Museum, London

text: The museum features as a base for Prodigium, a secret society which studies and fights monsters, first appearing on "".


title: Natural History Museum, London

text: In the 2014 film "Paddington", Millicent Clyde is a devious and trecherous taxidermist at the museum. She kidnaps Paddington, intending to kill and stuff him, but is thwarted by the Brown family after scenes involving chases inside and on the roof of the building.


title: Natural History Museum, London

text: The museum features prominently in the level Lud's Gate from Tomb Raider III, with Core Design launching the game with Jonathan Ross at the museum on 15 October 1998.


title: Natural History Museum, London

text: Andy Day's CBeebies shows, "Andy's Dinosaur Adventures" and "Andy's Prehistoric Adventures" are filmed in the Natural History Museum.


title: Natural History Museum, London

text: The NHM also has an outpost in Tring, Hertfordshire, built by local eccentric Lionel Walter Rothschild. The NHM took ownership in 1938. In 2007, the museum announced that the name would be changed to the Natural History Museum at Tring, though the older name, the Walter Rothschild Zoological Museum, is still in widespread use.


title: 2022 UEFA Super Cup

text: The 2022 UEFA Super Cup was the 47th edition of the UEFA Super Cup, an annual football match organised by UEFA and contested by the reigning champions of the top two European club competitions, the UEFA Champions League and the UEFA Europa League. The match featured Spanish club Real Madrid, winners of the 2021–22 UEFA Champions League, and German club Eintracht Frankfurt, winners of the 2021–22 UEFA Europa League. It was played at the Olympic Stadium in Helsinki, Finland on 10 August 2022. The match was also a repeat of the 1960 European Cup Final between both clubs, which was won 7–3 by Real Madrid. The match was the first European club competition fixture featuring the Semi-Automated Offside Technology (SAOT).


title: 2022 UEFA Super Cup

text: Real Madrid won the match 2–0 for their fifth UEFA Super Cup title, a competition record shared with Barcelona and Milan.


title: 2022 UEFA Super Cup

text: This was Real Madrid's eighth participation in the UEFA Super Cup, winning it four times previously and finishing as runners-up on three previous occasions. It was also Eintracht Frankfurt's first UEFA Super Cup appearance as they attempted to win it for the first time.


title: 2022 UEFA Super Cup

text: The Helsinki Olympic Stadium was selected as the final host by the UEFA Executive Committee during their meeting in Amsterdam, Netherlands on 2 March 2020. The Albanian Football Association also had bid for the match to be hosted in Tirana, but withdrew prior to the vote, instead focusing on securing the 2022 UEFA Europa Conference League Final.


title: 2022 UEFA Super Cup

text: The match was the first UEFA club competition final to be held in Finland. The stadium was previously used as a venue for the UEFA Women's Euro 2009, where it hosted four group stage matches and the final.


title: 2022 UEFA Super Cup

text: On 3 August 2022, UEFA named English official Michael Oliver as the referee for the match. Oliver had been a FIFA referee since 2012, officiated at UEFA Euro 2020 and was the referee for the 2015 FIFA U-17 World Cup final. He was joined by fellow countrymen Stuart Burt and Simon Bennett as assistant referees, while Donatas Rumšas of Lithuania served as the fourth official. Tomasz Kwiatkowski of Poland was selected as the video assistant referee (VAR), with compatriot Bartosz Frankowski and Tiago Martins of Portugal serving as the assistant VAR officials.


title: 2022 UEFA Super Cup

text: Eintracht Frankfurt had the first chance in the match in the 14th minute with Thibaut Courtois saving in a one-on-one from Daichi Kamada. In the 36th minute Kevin Trapp got down to his left to save a low shot from Vinícius Júnior. From the resulting corner Real Madrid went in front when Casemiro headed back from the end line on the right to David Alaba who tapped into the net from close range. Trapp made another save in the 55th minute before Casemiro hit the crossbar from the edge of the box two minutes later. In the 65th minute Vinícius played the ball in from the left to Karim Benzema who made it 2–0 with a shot which the goalkeeper failed to keep out.


title: Road Dogg

text: Brian Girard James (born May 20, 1969) is an American professional wrestler currently signed with the WWE where he serves as the Senior Vice President of Live Events.


title: Road Dogg

text: James was best known for his initial tenure with World Wrestling Federation (WWF, now WWE) as The Roadie from 1994 to 1995 and as "Road Dogg" Jesse James from 1996 to 2001. He is also known for his appearances with Total Nonstop Action Wrestling (TNA) as B.G. James from 2002 to 2009, and has also made appearances for several other promotions such as Smoky Mountain Wrestling, World Championship Wrestling, the United States Wrestling Association, the Catch Wrestling Association, and World Wrestling All-Stars (WWA).


title: Road Dogg

text: James has held numerous championships in a career spanning more than three decades. In the WWF/E, he achieved mainstream notoriety as half of The New Age Outlaws (who became part of D-Generation X): he and partner Billy Gunn won the WWF World Tag Team Championship five times, and later held the WWE Tag Team Championship once. Additionally, James found success in singles competition, becoming a one-time Intercontinental Champion and a one-time Hardcore Champion.


title: Road Dogg

text: Following his 2001 departure from the WWF, James became the inaugural WWA World Heavyweight Champion before once again finding success as a tag team wrestler in TNA, where he was a two-time National Wrestling Alliance (NWA) World Tag Team Champion with Konnan and Ron Killings under the Freebird Rule as the 3 Live Kru. He twice competed for the NWA World Heavyweight Championship on pay-per-view.


title: Road Dogg

text: WWE commentator John Layfield charted James's transition from "a cornerstone of the Attitude Era; one of its greatest stars and one of its architects", to "one of the prime creative forces behind WWE". James is a second generation wrestler; his father Bob wrestled, as did his brothers Scott, Brad, and Steve. He was inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame (Class of 2019) as part of D-Generation X.


title: Road Dogg

text: James, under the ring name Brian Armstrong, made his professional wrestling debut on December 1, 1986, where he defeated Kevin Sullivan in a match for NWA Southeast Championship Wrestling. Following this, James put his wrestling career on hold in order to enlist in the United States Marine Corps in 1987.


title: Road Dogg

text: Brian was mentioned on WCW programming during the WrestleWar 91 PPV on February 24, 1991, when the commentary team mentioned that Brad's brother Brian was serving in Operation Desert Storm during a match between Brad and Bobby Eaton. Following his tour of duty, Brian wrestled his first match in five years and lost to Terrance Taylor on July 7, 1991, during the final night of World Championship Wrestling's The Great American Bash house show tour. After completing another tour of duty, James made his debut for Smoky Mountain Wrestling on November 20, 1992, under a mask as The Dark Secret, where he lost to Tracy Smothers. As The Dark Secret, James was relegated to jobbing, as he would lose continuously in both singles and tag team matches throughout the rest of 1992 and into 1993.


title: Road Dogg

text: Following another tour of duty, James returned to SMW on July 2, 1993, where he lost to Bobby Blaze. On July 19, James, now using the Brian Armstrong ring name, defeated Killer Kyle in a dark match. Following this, James would alternate between the Brian Armstrong and The Dark Secret ring names, where he would find success in singles and tag team matches under the former and continue to job under the latter. In addition to SMW, James returned to WCW under his Brian Armstrong ring name on the November 30 episode of "Saturday Night" in a losing effort to Steve Austin.


title: Road Dogg

text: Beginning in 1994, James wrestled more frequently for WCW, including a championship match against the World Television Champion Lord Steven Regal which he lost. On the March 5, 1994 edition of the WCW Power Hour, Armstrong lost to Terra Ryzing – who would go on to become James' DX stablemate Triple H – in the latter's debut match for the promotion. Brian wrestled primarily on television tapings, and began to team frequently with his brother Brad, albeit in losing efforts.


title: Road Dogg

text: Meanwhile, his time in Smoky Mountain Wrestling was drawing to a close. Following a tag team match where he (as The Dark Secret) and Killer Kyle lost to The Rock 'n' Roll Express (Ricky Morton and Robert Gibson) on April 4, James left SMW and began competing solely for WCW as Brian Armstrong. However, he would find little success, as his only victories were in tag team dark matches where he teamed with his brother Brad while he, along with his brothers, were relegated to being jobbers on television, with the most notable example being a rematch with Lord Steven Regal for the World Television Championship on the August 10 episode of "Saturday Night". Around that time, he would adopt his signature undercut braids.


title: Road Dogg

text: On the November 14, 1994 edition of WCW Pro Armstrong again lost to the future Triple H, who by that time had been repackaged as Jean-Paul Lévesque. Both men left the promotion before long. James wrestled his final match for WCW on the December 17 episode of "WorldWide", as he and his brothers Brad and Scott lost a six-man tag team match to The Three Faces of Fear (Kevin Sullivan, The Butcher, and Avalanche).


title: Road Dogg

text: After defeating Barry Hardy in a dark match on the August 16, 1994 episode of "WWF Wrestling Challenge", James signed with the World Wrestling Federation towards the end of 1994. He was billed as The Roadie, an assistant to "Double J" Jeff Jarrett, a would-be country singer. He wrestled on several pay-per-views and television shows, but most of his first WWF tenure was spent accompanying Jarrett and interfering in his matches. In early 1995, Jarrett released the song "With My Baby Tonight", which Jarrett claimed he had sung himself. The planned angle was to reveal that it was The Roadie, not Jarrett, who had really performed the vocals on this song, sparking a feud between the two wrestlers. Before this revelation could take place, James and Jarrett suddenly left the WWF following the second pay-per-view on July 23, 1995.


title: Road Dogg

text: After leaving the WWF, James joined the United States Wrestling Association under the ring name Jesse James Armstrong alongside Jarrett, where he won its Heavyweight, Television, and World Tag Team Championships before losing a Loser Leaves Town match to Jarrett.


title: Road Dogg

text: James, without Jarrett, returned to the WWF in 1996 under the ring name Jesse James, where he revealed himself as "The Real Double J" and the true singer of "With My Baby Tonight". He languished as an undercard singles wrestler until beginning a feud with The Honky Tonk Man. After denying Honky Tonk Man's offer at becoming his manager by destroying his guitar, James also began feuding with Honky Tonk Man's protégé Rockabilly. After trading wins against each other on television and pay-per-view, James, now referring to himself as "The Road Dogg" Jesse James, originally spelled "Jammes" as a play on the way Jarrett spelled his name. (J E double S E, J A double M E S) suggested to Rockabilly that they form a tag team in order to end their unsuccessful runs as singles competitors. A change in creative direction in the WWF in late 1997 led Rockabilly to accept James' offer after subsequently attacking Honky Tonk Man with his own guitar to cement their alliance. Soon after, Rockabilly reverted to his Billy Gunn ring name and adopted the nickname "Badd Ass", while Road Dogg began to grow out and braid his hair, resurrecting his old look from his days in WCW. In addition to these esthetic changes, their mannerisms became consistently more controversial and antisocial, with the team ultimately becoming known as the New Age Outlaws following their victory over The Legion of Doom for their first Tag Team Championship. The Outlaws would continue to feud with the Legion of Doom and later the short-lived tag team of Cactus Jack and Chainsaw Charlie before joining D-Generation X the night after WrestleMania XIV.


title: Road Dogg

text: The Outlaws amassed five Tag Team Championship reigns and managed to become singles champions while still together, with Road Dogg and Gunn each winning the Hardcore Championship once in 1998 and 1999, respectively, while Road Dogg would also go on to win the Intercontinental Championship in 1999. The team came to an end when Gunn was legitimately injured in early 2000 and, to explain the absence needed for his recovery, Gunn was expelled from DX due to losing his temper. James then teamed with fellow DX member X-Pac throughout the summer of 2000, but failed to regain any championship success. The team eventually split, with Road Dogg and X-Pac subsequently feuding with each other before the entirety of DX fell apart. Road Dogg then formed a tag team with newcomer K-Kwik, and competed in his last televised match on December 23. He was then indefinitely suspended, and later released from his contract in January 2001, due to personal problems. On March 26, 2001, James arrived at the final "WCW Monday Nitro" taping in Panama City, Florida, in order to negotiate a return to World Championship Wrestling, only to find out that the promotion had been purchased by the WWF, thus ruling out both companies as employment options.


title: Road Dogg

text: After being fired from WWF, James worked in the independent circuit. He would at times make no shows due to his substance abuse. On May 26, 2001, James appeared on an indy show at a high school in Conway, South Carolina where he was supposed to wrestle against The Barbarian for the main event. During that event, James was signing autographs and taking Polaroids during intermission when he became belligerent after being asked to leave the gymnasium due to the intermission being over due to the other matches going on. James became irritated, started swearing and refused to leave. Police came and arrested him. He was charged for disorderly conduct.


title: Road Dogg

text: He also worked for IWA Mid-South. Then James worked for the short-lived World Wrestling All-Stars (WWA) promotion in Australia with former WWF and WCW wrestlers. On October 23, 2001, he defeated former WWF colleague and tag team partner Jeff Jarrett for the vacant WWA World Heavyweight Champion where he was the inaugural champion. He dropped the title to Jarrett three days later. He continued feuding with Jarrett and Scott Steiner.


title: Road Dogg

text: James debuted for the Total Nonstop Action Wrestling promotion on September 18, 2002, wrestling as B.G. James, as the Road Dogg gimmick was owned by WWE. He was initially a heel and one of the founding members of Vince Russo's Sports Entertainment Xtreme faction.


title: Road Dogg

text: In 2003, James formed the stable known as the 3 Live Kru alongside Konnan and Ron Killings. The stable was popular from the outset and, as a nod to James' and Killings' brief tag team in the World Wrestling Federation, they sang their own entrance music as they approached the ring. In addition to popularity, the Kru found championship success as well, as Killings won his second and final NWA World Heavyweight Championship as a member while all three men held the NWA World Tag Team Championship twice under the Freebird Rule.


title: Road Dogg

text: Tension arose when James' former partner Billy Gunn joined TNA as The New Age Outlaw (later shortened to The Outlaw) in 2005. The Outlaw repeatedly courted James, seeking to split the Kru and recreate the New Age Outlaws. When The Outlaw began feuding with the Kru, James repeatedly found his loyalties divided, unwilling to fight either his former or current tag team partners. For a time, James stopped appearing with the Kru but did not align himself with The Outlaw, who had by then changed his name to Kip James as a "tribute" to James' father. At Sacrifice, he reasserted his allegiance with 3 Live Kru as the special guest referee in a match between the other members of 3LK and the team of Kip James and Monty Brown. Kip tried to warm up to 3LK again in the lead-up to Bound for Glory by saving James several times from Team Canada. At Bound for Glory, he offered his protective services to them against Team Canada to neutralize Scott D'Amore. When they lost, Kip came down to the ring, appearing ready to hit Konnan with a steel chair since he originally vetoed Kip's offer. Kip instead saved Konnan from Team Canada, thus proving his original intentions.


title: Road Dogg

text: On the November 26 episode of "Impact!", James brought Kip and the 3LK to the ring and asked Killings and Konnan to give Kip a yes/no vote to be accepted into the group. After James got heated with Konnan, both gave Kip yes votes and the 4 Live Kru was born. The 4 Live Kru was short lived as Konnan, still apparently upset at Kip's induction into the Kru, hit both James and Kip over the head with a steel chair at Turning Point. Konnan, still wanting Killings to be his "family", tried talking with Killings. Killings told Konnan that he was done with the Kru and wanted to leave it all behind him.


title: Road Dogg

text: After the incident, James and Kip regrouped, reformed their old tag team as The James Gang, and feuded with Konnan's new stable, The Latin American Xchange (LAX), which he formed with Homicide and Apolo. Apolo was sent home from Against All Odds after complaining about being used as a jobber and was quickly replaced by a relative unknown named Machete.


title: Road Dogg

text: On a subsequent edition of "Impact!", James' real life father "Bullet" Bob Armstrong informed The James Gang that he was sick of the shenanigans of LAX and how they always used strength in numbers to their advantage. He informed them that he was going to see Larry Zbyszko to have himself added to the Destination X match as their partner, effectively making it a three-man tag team. "Bullet" was in fact added to the team and they won the match at Destination X. The following month, an arm wrestling match was booked between Armstrong and Konnan, where the losing team would get hit ten times with a leather whip. Armstrong prevailed with the victory, resulting in LAX being whipped several times upon trying to scramble out of the cage for survival.


title: Road Dogg

text: Following their feud with LAX, James and Kip began feuding with Team 3D. The two teams cut promos arguing over their long-term histories with past promotions such as World Wrestling Entertainment and Extreme Championship Wrestling. The rivalry came to a head at Sacrifice when The James Gang beat Team 3D using a lead pipe. The James Gang and Team 3D feuded throughout the summer. They were scheduled for a number one contendership match at Hard Justice but, due to a fire, the match was canceled. The match was rescheduled for "Impact!", which the Gang lost.


title: Road Dogg

text: On the November 2, 2006 edition of "Impact!", Kip and James announced that they were going to quit TNA. While attempting to speak about it, their microphones were cut off. When the show returned, the announcers speculated that they may have been frustrated due to the influx of new talent entering TNA. It was later reported that the segment was a worked shoot that Vince Russo had written in order to renew interest upon their eventual return.


title: Road Dogg

text: On the November 16 airing of "Impact!", The James Gang announced that they would now be known as Voodoo Kin Mafia (VKM) (a pun on the name Vincent Kennedy McMahon). They spent their airtime bashing McMahon and both members of D-Generation X, using their real names: Paul Levesque and Michael Hickenbottom. After calling Triple H "Triple Hollywood" and Shawn Michaels "Shawn Kiss-My-Bottom", VKM claimed they were declaring war on DX and Vincent Kennedy McMahon. On the November 23 airing of "Impact!", they drove around searching for their targets, but they ended up arriving at a Target store. At the end of the episode, VKM argued, and Kip pointed straight ahead to the WWE World Headquarters, which prompted James to respond, "We're back!" In 2006, as acknowledged by TNA's website, VKM accepted The Hardys' open challenge to a match at December to Dismember. WWE never acknowledged their acceptance, however. Over the following weeks, VKM aired several more videos bashing DX and Vince McMahon. They also made a $1 million challenge to DX as announced on the TNA website. They declared "victory" at Final Resolution, after receiving no answer from WWE. In early 2007, however, James said in a shoot interview along with his tag team partner Kip that he would jump back to WWE if he could get out of his TNA contract and get a WWE offer.


title: Road Dogg

text: On August 4, James returned to the Boston-based Millennium Wrestling Federation's Soul Survivor IV wrestling event and fanfest. James worked for the promotion when it opened in 2001, but no-showed a benefit for Superstar Billy Graham in 2002 due to his drug and personal issues. MWF subsequently brought the legitimate situation into a storyline. Despite this, James teamed with Beau Douglas to win the promotion's Tag Team Championship from the Canadian Superstars (J-Busta and Dave Cole). During a pre-event question and answer session, James went into his hatred of Jim Ross and his feelings that WWE ruins families and lives. James and Douglas lost the title back to the Canadians on October 27, 2007, at a Special Olympics fundraiser in Salem, Massachusetts. After five years of bad blood, James made peace with the MWF's promoter Dan Mirade for sabotaging the Graham benefit and agreed to return in the future.


title: Road Dogg

text: At Turning Point, James won one of the cases in the Feast or Fired match, which was later revealed to contain a contract for a World Tag Team Championship match. Instead of teaming with Kip, he chose his father "Bullet" Bob Armstrong to be his tag team partner. B.G. and Bullet Bob lost their title match against A.J. Styles and Tomko in the opening match of Against All Odds. He and Kip had turned face but on the February 21, 2008 edition of "Impact!", Kip turned on James and Armstrong by hitting them both with a crutch, turning heel in the process. At Lockdown, he finally defeated Kip in a six-sides of steel match.


title: Road Dogg

text: At Final Resolution, James returned to TNA television for the first time in months and participated in the Feast or Fired Match, which was won by Curry Man, Homicide, Hernandez, and Jay Lethal. James was also seen on "Impact!" two weeks later as he was trying to hold back Jeff Jarrett from fighting Kurt Angle. The week afterwards, he was punched by Angle while he and Jarrett were fighting. On the January 8, 2009 edition of "Impact!", James faced off against Angle, but lost via submission due to Angle's ankle lock.


title: Road Dogg

text: Upon leaving TNA, James returned to the independent circuit and resumed using his Jesse James ring name. On January 30, 2010, he teamed with Dysfunction to defeat Mason Quinn and J-Ca$h, who substituted for Quinn's tag team partner Dave Demone, to win the All-Star Championship Wrestling Tag Team Championship for the first time. On May 1, James lost his half of the title when Dysfunction picked Quinn as his new partner when Dysfunction and Quinn scored a double pin against each other during a title defense. On April 19, James resumed using his Road Dogg name and reformed the New Age Outlaws with Billy Gunn to compete in the Canadian Wrestling's Elite promotion.


title: Road Dogg

text: On May 28, James appeared at One Pro Wrestling's event The Last Stand, where he teamed with Kevin Nash in an unsuccessful attempt at winning the Tag Team Championship.