title: Greek drachma

text: In 1868, Greece joined the Latin Monetary Union and the drachma became equal in weight and value to the French franc. The new coinage issued consisted of copper coins of 1λ, 2λ, 5λ and 10λ, with the 5λ and 10λ coins bearing the names "obolos" () and "diobolon" (), respectively; silver coins of 20λ and 50λ, ₯1, ₯2 and ₯5 and gold coins of ₯5, ₯10 and ₯20. (Very small numbers of ₯50 and ₯100 coins in gold were also issued.)


title: Greek drachma

text: In 1894, cupro-nickel 5λ, 10λ and 20λ coins were introduced. No 1λ or 2λ coin had been issued since the late 1870s. Silver coins of ₯1 and ₯2 were last issued in 1911, and no coins were issued between 1912 and 1922, during which time the Latin Monetary Union collapsed due to World War I.


title: Greek drachma

text: Between 1926 and 1930, a new coinage was introduced for the new Hellenic Republic, consisting of cupro-nickel coins in denominations of 20λ, 50λ, ₯1, and ₯2; nickel coins of ₯5; and silver coins of ₯10 and ₯20. These were the last coins issued for the first modern drachma, none were issued for the second.


title: Greek drachma

text: Notes were issued by the National Bank of Greece from 1841 until 1928. The Bank of Greece issued notes from 1928 until 2001, when Greece joined the Euro. Early denominations ranged from ₯10 to ₯500. Smaller denominations (₯1, ₯2, ₯3 and ₯5) were issued from 1885, with the first ₯5 notes being made by cutting ₯10 notes in half.


title: Greek drachma

text: When Greece finally achieved its independence from the Ottoman Empire in 1828, the phoenix was introduced as the monetary unit; its use was short-lived, however, and in 1832 the phoenix was replaced by the drachma, adorned with the image of King Otto of Greece, who reigned as modern Greece's first king from 1832 to 1862. The drachma was divided into 100 lepta. In 2002 the drachma ceased to be legal tender after the euro, the monetary unit of the European Union, became Greece's sole currency.


title: Greek drachma

text: From 1917 to 1920, the Greek government took control of issuing small change notes under Law 991/1917. During that time, the government issued denominations of 10 & 50 lepta, and ₯1, ₯2 & ₯5. The National Bank of Greece introduced ₯1,000 notes in 1901, and the Bank of Greece introduced ₯5,000 notes in 1928. The economic depression of the 1920s affected many nations around the globe, including Greece. In 1922, the Greek government issued a forced loan in order to finance their growing budget deficit. On 1 April 1922, the government decreed that half of all bank notes had to be surrendered and exchanged for 6.5% bonds. The notes were then cut in half, with the portion bearing the Greek crown standing in for the bonds while the other half was exchanged for a new issue of central bank notes at half the original value. The Greek government again issued notes between 1940 and 1944, in denominations ranging from 50 lepta to 20.


title: Greek drachma

text: During the German–Italian occupation of Greece from 1941 to 1944, catastrophic hyperinflation caused much higher denominations to be issued, culminating in ₯100,000,000,000 notes in 1944. The Italian occupation authorities in the Ionian Islands printed their own currency, the Ionian drachma.


title: Greek drachma

text: On 11 November 1944, following the liberation of Greece from Nazi Germany, old drachma were exchanged for new ones at the rate of ₯50,000,000,000 to ₯1. Only paper money was issued for the second drachma. The government issued notes of ₯1, ₯5, ₯10 and ₯20, with the Bank of Greece issuing ₯50, ₯100, ₯500, ₯1,000, ₯5,000, and ₯10,000 notes. This drachma also suffered from high inflation. The government later issued ₯100, ₯500, and ₯1,000-drachma notes, and the Bank of Greece issued ₯20,000 and ₯50,000 notes.


title: Greek drachma

text: On 9 April 1953, in an effort to halt inflation, Greece joined the Bretton Woods system. On 1 May 1954, the drachma was revalued at a rate of ₯1,000 to ₯1, and small change notes were abolished for the last time. The third drachma assumed a fixed exchange rate of ₯30 per dollar until 20 October 1973: over the next 25 years, the official exchange rate gradually declined, reaching 400 drachmae per dollar. On 1 January 2002, the Greek drachma was officially replaced as the circulating currency by the euro, and it has not been legal tender since 1 March 2002.


title: Greek drachma

text: The first issue of coins minted in 1954 consisted of holed aluminium 5-, 10- and 20-lepton pieces, with 50-lepton, ₯1, ₯2 and ₯5 pieces in cupro-nickel. ₯10 coins of a brighter alloy were issued in 1959 and a silver ₯20 piece was issued in 1960, replacing the corresponding banknotes. Coins in denominations from 50 lepta to ₯20 carried a portrait of King Paul (1947–1964). New coins were introduced in 1966, ranging from 50 lepta to ₯10, depicting King Constantine II (1964–1974). A silver ₯30 coin for the centennial of Greece's royal dynasty was minted in 1963. The following year a non-circulating coin of this value was produced to commemorate the royal wedding. The reverse of all coins was altered in 1971 to reflect the military junta which was in power from 1967 to 1974. This design included a soldier standing in front of the flames of the rising phoenix and the date of the coup d'état, April 21, 1967.


title: Greek drachma

text: A ₯20 coin in cupro-nickel with an image of Europa on the obverse was issued in 1973. In late 1973, several new coin types were introduced: unholed aluminium (10λ and 20λ), nickel-brass (50 lepta, ₯1, and ₯2) and cupro-nickel (₯5, ₯10, and ₯20). These provisional coins carried the design of the phoenix rising from the flame on the obverse, and used the country's new designation as the "Hellenic Republic", replacing the coins also issued in 1973 as the Kingdom of Greece with King Constantine II's portrait. A new series of all 8 denominations was introduced in 1976 carrying images of early national heroes on the smaller values.


title: Greek drachma

text: Cupro-nickel ₯50 coins were introduced in 1980. In 1986, aluminium-bronze ₯50 coins were introduced, followed by copper ₯1 and ₯2 pieces in 1988 and aluminium-bronze coins of ₯20 and ₯100 in 1990. In 2000, a set of 6 themed ₯500 coins were issued to commemorate the 2004 Athens Olympic Games.


title: Greek drachma

text: The first issues of banknotes were in denominations of ₯10, ₯20 and ₯50, soon followed by ₯100, ₯500 and ₯1,000 by 1956. ₯5,000 notes were introduced in 1984, followed by ₯10,000 notes in 1995 and ₯200 notes in 1997.


title: Greek drachma

text: In Unicode, the currency symbol is . There is a special Attic numeral, , for the value of one drachma but it fails to render in most browsers.


title: Greek drachma

text: The Drachmi Greek Democratic Movement Five Stars, which was founded in 2013, aims to restore the Drachma as Greece's currency.


title: Twill

text: Twill is a type of textile weave with a pattern of diagonal parallel ribs. It is one of three fundamental types of textile weaves along with plain weave and satin. It is made by passing the weft thread over one or more warp threads then under two or more warp threads and so on, with a "step," or offset, between rows to create the characteristic diagonal pattern. Because of this structure, twill generally drapes well.


title: Twill

text: In a twill weave, each weft or filling yarn floats across the warp yarns in a progression of interlacings to the right or left, forming a pattern of distinct diagonal lines. This diagonal pattern is also known as a "wale". A "float" is the portion of a yarn that crosses over two or more perpendicular yarns.


title: Twill

text: A twill weave requires three or more harnesses, depending on its complexity and is the second most basic weave that can be made on a fairly simple loom.


title: Twill

text: Twill weave is often designated as a fraction, such as , in which the numerator indicates the number of harnesses that are raised (and thus threads crossed: in this example, two), and the denominator indicates the number of harnesses that are lowered when a filling yarn is inserted (in this example, one). The fraction is read as "two up, one down" (the fraction for plain weave is .). The minimum number of harnesses needed to produce a twill can be determined by totaling the numbers in the fraction; for the example described, the number of harnesses is three. Twill weave can be identified by its diagonal lines.


title: Twill

text: Twill fabrics technically have a front and a back side, unlike plain weave, whose two sides are the same. The front side of the twill is called the "technical face," and the back the "technical back." The technical face side of a twill weave fabric is the side with the most pronounced wale; it is usually more durable and more attractive, is most often used as the fashion side of the fabric, and is the side visible during weaving. If there are warp floats on the technical face (i.e. if the warp crosses over two or more wefts), there will be filling floats (the weft will cross over two or more warps) on the technical back. If the twill wale goes up to the right on one side, it will go up to the left on the other side. Twill fabrics have no "up" and "down" as they are woven.


title: Twill

text: Sheer fabrics are seldom made with a twill weave. Because a twill surface already has interesting texture and design, printed twills (where a design is printed on the cloth) are much less common than printed plain weaves. When twills are printed, this is typically done on lightweight fabrics.


title: Twill

text: Soiling and stains are less noticeable on the uneven surface of twills than on a smooth surface, such as plain weaves, and as a result twills are often used for sturdy work clothing and for durable upholstery. Denim, for example, is a twill.


title: Twill

text: The fewer interlacings in twills as compared to other weaves allow the yarns to move more freely, and therefore they are softer and more pliable, and drape better than plain-weave textiles. Twills also recover from creasing better than plain-weave fabrics do. When there are fewer interlacings, the yarns can be packed closer together to produce high-count fabrics. With higher counts, including high-count twills, the fabric is more durable, and is air- and water-resistant.


title: Twill

text: Twills can be divided into "even-sided" and "warp-faced". Even-sided twills include foulard or surah, herringbone, houndstooth, serge, sharkskin, and twill flannel. Warp-faced twills include cavalry twill, chino, covert, denim, drill, fancy twill, gabardine, and lining twill.


title: Ruby Ashbourne Serkis

text: Ashbourne Serkis was born in Hackney, East London, to actors Andy Serkis and Lorraine Ashbourne and grew up in North London with her younger brothers Sonny and Louis. She attended the City of London School for Girls.


title: Ruby Ashbourne Serkis

text: Ashbourne Serkis began her career with small cameos before landing a titular role in the 2015 BBC One television film adaptation of Laurie Lee's memoir "Cider with Rosie", for which she received critical acclaim. The following year, she portrayed a young version of Susan Lynch's character in the Channel 4 miniseries "National Treasure".


title: Ruby Ashbourne Serkis

text: Ashbourne Serkis returned to television in 2020 as Lavinia in the Netflix fantasy series "The Letter for the King", an English-language adaptation of the classic Dutch book by Tonke Dragt. She appeared opposite Alice Englert in the first episode of the crime drama "The Serpent". She and her brother Sonny portrayed siblings in the film "La Cha Cha". Although the film received mixed reviews, Ashbourne Serkis' performance was praised. In November 2021, Ashbourne Serkis joined the cast of the upcoming Apple TV+ film "The Greatest Beer Run Ever".


title: Mani (prophet)

text: Mani (in Middle Persian: 𐭌𐭀𐭍𐭉/𐭬𐭠𐭭𐭩/𐮋𐮀𐮌𐮈/𐬨𐬁𐬥𐬌/𐫖𐫀𐫗𐫏 "Māni", New Persian: "Māni", Chinese: "Móní", Syriac "Mānī", Greek , Latin '; also , Latin ', from Syriac "Mānī ḥayyā" "Living Mani", –2 March AD 274 or 26 February AD 277) was an Iranian prophet and the founder of Manichaeism, a religion most prevalent in late antiquity strongly influenced by Gnosticism, Christianity, Zoroastrianism, and Buddhism, which was once widespread but is now confined to small areas of China, such as Fujian.


title: Mani (prophet)

text: Mani was born in or near Seleucia-Ctesiphon (south of modern Baghdad) in Mesopotamia, at the time part of the Parthian Empire. Seven of his major works were written in Syriac, and the eighth, dedicated to the Sasanian emperor Shapur I, was written in Middle Persian. He died in Gundeshapur.


title: Mani (prophet)

text: The exact meaning of the name is a question still unsolved. It may have derived from Babylonian-Aramaic "Mânâ" [luminescence]. Mandaeans used the term "mânâ rabba", which means "Enlightened Lord/King". Ancient Greek interpretations were "skeuos" (σκεῦος, "vessel, instrument") and "homilia" (ὁμιλία, intercourse, company, communion, instruction)"."


title: Mani (prophet)

text: The same slightly contemptuous "a certain" (Manes quidam) also appears in Hegemonius' Acta Archelai (4th century), however, Hegemonius contributes a detailed description of Mani's looks. Mani’s names became the object of uplifting transformation (Greek, Coptic Mannichaios, Latin Mannichaeus, i.e., Mannam fundens "pouring out Manna").


title: Mani (prophet)

text: In 1969 in Upper Egypt a Greek parchment codex dating to was discovered. It is now designated "Codex Manichaicus Coloniensis" because it is conserved at the University of Cologne. Combining a hagiographic account of Mani's career and spiritual development with information about Mani's religious teachings, and containing fragments of his writings, it is now considered the most reliable source of information about the historical Mani.


title: Mani (prophet)

text: All other medieval and pre-medieval accounts of his life are either legendary or hagiographical, such as the account in "Fihrist" by Ibn al-Nadim, purportedly by al-Biruni, or were anti-Manichaean polemics, such as the 4th-century "Acta Archelai". Among these medieval accounts, Ibn al-Nadim's account of Mani's life and teachings is generally speaking the most reliable and exhaustive. Notably, the (in other accounts prominent) image of the "Third Ambassador" is only represented through a brief mention of the name "bašīr", "messenger of good news", and the topos of "Mani the Painter" (which in other Islamic accounts almost completely replaces that of "the founder of a religion") is completely absent.


title: Mani (prophet)

text: This work and other evidence discovered in the 20th century establishes Mani as a historical individual.


title: Mani (prophet)

text: Mani was born near Seleucia-Ctesiphon, perhaps in the town Mardinu in the Babylonian district of Nahr Kutha; according to other accounts in the town Abrumya. Mani's father Pātik (Middle Persian "Pattūg"; , ), a native of Ecbatana (now Hamadan, Iran), was a member of the Jewish Christian sect of the Elcesaites. His mother was of Parthian descent (from "the Armenian Arsacid family of Kamsarakan"); her name is reported variously, among others "Maryam".


title: Mani (prophet)

text: Mani was raised in a heterodox environment in Babylon. The Elcesaite community was ostensibly Jewish Christian, though with some Gnostic features due to their Ebionite heritage, such as the belief in recurring incarnations of heavenly apostles, one of whom was a docetic Christ. At ages 12 and 24 Mani had visionary experiences of a "heavenly twin" of his ("syzygos"), calling him to leave his father's sect and preach the true message of Jesus in a new gospel.


title: Mani (prophet)

text: Mani then travelled to India (Sakas in present day Afghanistan), where he studied Hinduism and its various extant philosophies, including Buddhism. Al-Biruni says Mani only traveled to India after being banished from Persia, but this might be an error or a second journey. It is believed that his Christian roots might have been influenced by Marcion and Bardaisan.


title: Mani (prophet)

text: Returning in 242, Mani presented himself to Shapur I, to whom he dedicated his only work written in Persian, known as the "Shabuhragan". Shapur was not converted to Manichaeism and remained Zoroastrian, but he favored Mani's teachings, which mixed Christianity, Buddhism and Zoroastrianism, and took him into his court. Mani is said to have performed miracles, including levitation, teleporting and healing, which helped him to gain converts in the Iranian elite. He was also famed as a painter.


title: Mani (prophet)

text: Shapur's successor Hormizd I, who reigned only for one year, continued to patronize Mani, but his successor Bahram I, a follower of the intolerant Zoroastrian reformer Kartir, began to persecute the Manichaeans. He incarcerated Mani, who died in prison within a month, in 274. According to sources, he passed his last days comforting his visiting disciples, teaching that his death would have no other consequence than the return of his soul to the realm of light.


title: Mani (prophet)

text: Mani's followers depicted Mani's death as a crucifixion in a conscious analogy to the crucifixion of Jesus; al-Biruni says that Bahram ordered the execution of Mani. There is a story which claims that he was flayed, and his corpse suspended over the main gate of the great city of Gundeshapur; however, there is no historical basis for this account. It is more plausible that his body was mutilated via post-mortem decapitation, and his head put on display, which may be the original source of the embellishment.


title: Mani (prophet)

text: The canon of Mani includes six works originally written in Syriac, and one in Persian, the "Shapuragan". While none of his books have survived in complete form, there are numerous fragments and quotations of them, including a long Syriac quotation from one of his works, as well as a large amount of material in Middle Persian, Coptic, and numerous other languages.


title: Mani (prophet)

text: Examples of surviving portions of his works include: the "Shabuhragan" (Middle Persian), the "Book of Giants" (numerous fragments in many languages), the "Fundamental Epistle" (quoted in length by Saint Augustine), a number of fragments of his "Living Gospel" (or" Great Gospel"), a Syriac excerpt quoted by Theodore Bar Konai, and his "Letter to Edessa" contained in the "Cologne Mani-Codex". Mani also wrote the book "Arzhang", a holy book of Manichaeism unique in that it contained many drawings and paintings to express and explain the Manichaeist creation and history of the world.


title: Mani (prophet)

text: Mani's teaching was intended to succeed and surpass the teachings of Christianity, Zoroastrianism and Buddhism. It is based on a rigid dualism of good and evil, locked in eternal struggle.


title: Mani (prophet)

text: In his mid-twenties, Mani decided that salvation was possible through education, self-denial, fasting and chastity. According to Al-Biruni, a 10th-century Iranian scholar, Mani claimed to be the "Paraclete" promised in the New Testament, and the Last Prophet. However according to Lodewijk J. R. Ort, the term last prophet may "in all probability derived from the Quran by Al-Buruni in order to formulate Mani's pretensions and religious claims". Therefore Lodewijk J. R. Ort concludes that a definitive pronouncement about the final character of Mani's appearance is not mentioned in Manichaeistic scriptures."


title: Mani (prophet)

text: While his religion was not strictly a movement of Christian Gnosticism in the earlier mode, Mani did declare himself to be an "apostle of Jesus Christ", and extant Manichaean poetry frequently extols Jesus and his mother, Mary, with the highest reverence. Manichaean tradition also claims that Mani was the reincarnation of different religious figures including Jesus, Zoroaster, and the historical Buddha.


title: Mani (prophet)

text: Mani's followers were organized in a church structure, divided into a class of "elects" ("electi") and "auditors" ("auditores"). Only the "electi" are required to follow the laws strictly, while the "auditores" care for them, hoping to become "electi" in their turn after reincarnation.


title: Mani (prophet)

text: The Western Christian tradition of Mani is based on Socrates of Constantinople, a historian writing in the 5th century. According to this account, one Scythianos, a Saracen, husband of an Egyptian woman, "introduced the doctrine of Empedocles and Pythagoras into Christianity"; that he had a disciple, "Buddas, formerly named Terebinthus," who travelled in Persia, where he alleged that he had been born of a virgin, and afterwards wrote four books, one of Mysteries, a second The Gospel, a third The Treasure, and a fourth Heads. While performing some mystic rites, he was hurled down a precipice by a daimon, and killed.


title: Mani (prophet)

text: A woman at whose house he lodged buried him, took over his property, and bought a boy of seven, named Cubricus. This boy she freed and educated, leaving him the property and books of Buddas-Terebinthus. Cubricus then travelled into Persia, where he took the name of Manes and gave forth the doctrines of Buddas Terebinthus as his own. The king of Persia, hearing that he worked miracles, sent for him to heal his sick son, and on the child's dying put Manes in prison. Thence he escaped, flying into Mesopotamia, but was traced, captured, and flayed alive by the Persian king's orders, the skin being then stuffed with chaff and hung up before the gate of the city.


title: Mani (prophet)

text: According to Jerome, Archelaus wrote his account of his disputation with "Manichæus" in Syriac, whence it was translated into Greek. The Greek is lost, and the work, apart from extracts, subsists only in a Latin translation from the Greek, of doubtful age and fidelity, probably made after the 5th century. By Photius it is stated that Heraclean, bishop of Chalcedon, in his book against the Manichæans, said the "Disputation of Archelaus" was written by one Hegemonius, an author not otherwise traceable, and of unknown date.


title: Mani (prophet)

text: In the Latin narrative, "Manes" is said to have come, after his flight from court, from Arabion, a frontier fortress, to Caschar or Carchar, a town said to be in Roman Mesopotamia, in the hope of converting an eminent Christian there, named Marcellus, to whom he had sent a letter beginning: "Manichæus apostle of Jesus Christ, and all the saints and virgins with me, send peace to Marcellus." In his train he brought twenty-two (or twelve) youths and virgins.


title: Mani (prophet)

text: At the request of Marcellus, he debated on religion with bishop Archelaus, by whom he was vanquished, whereupon he set out to return to Persia. On his way he proposed to debate with a priest at the town of Diodorides. But Archelaus came to take the priest's place, and again defeated him, whereupon, fearing to be given up to the Persians by the Christians, he returned to Arabion.


title: Mani (prophet)

text: At this stage Archelaus introduces in a discourse to the people his history of "this Manes," very much to the effect of the recapitulation in Socrates. Among the further details are these: that Scythianus lived "in the time of the Apostles", that Terebinthus said the name of Buddas had been imposed on him, that in the mountains he had been brought up by an angel, that he had been convicted of imposture by a Persian prophet named Parcus, and by Labdacus, son of Mithra.


title: Mani (prophet)

text: Furthermore, that in the disputation he taught concerning the sphere, the two luminaries, the transmigration of souls, and the war of the "Principia" against God, that "Corbicius" or Corbicus, about the age of sixty, translated the books of Terebinthus. He made three chief disciples, Thomas, Addas, and Hermas, of whom he sent the first to Egypt, and the second to Scythia, keeping the third with him. The two former returned when he was in prison, and that he sent them to procure for him the books of the Christians, which he then studied. According to the Latin narrative, finally, Manes on his return to Arabion was seized and taken to the Persian king, by whose orders he was flayed, his body being left to the birds, and his skin, filled with air, hung at the city gate.


title: Mani (prophet)

text: Mani is described as a painter who set up a sectarian movement in opposition to Zoroastrianism. He was persecuted by Shapur I and fled to Central Asia, where he made disciples and embellished with paintings a "Tchighil" (or "picturarum domus Chinensis") and another temple called "Ghalbita". Provisioning in advance a cave which had a spring, he told his disciples he was going to heaven, and would not return for a year, after which time they were to seek him in the cave in question. They then came back there after a year and found him, whereupon he showed them an illustrated book, called "Ergenk", or "Estenk" Arzhang, which he said he had brought from heaven.


title: Mani (prophet)

text: Whereafter he had many followers, with whom he returned to Persia at the death of Shapur. The new king, Hormisdas, joined and protected the sect, and built Mani a castle. The next king, Bahram or Varanes, at first favoured Mani. After getting him to debate with certain Zoroastrian teachers, caused him to be flayed alive, and his skin to be stuffed and hung up. Thereupon most of his followers fled to India and China.


title: Sharper (film)

text: Sharper is an upcoming American drama/thriller film directed by Benjamin Caron from a screenplay by Brian Gatewood and Alessandro Tanaka.


title: Sharper (film)

text: "Sharper" is scheduled to be released in select theaters on February 10, 2023, and on Apple TV+ on February 17, 2023.


title: Sharper (film)

text: In March 2021 it was announced that A24 will produce the film for Apple TV+, directed Benjamin Caron and starring Julianne Moore, based on a script written by Brian Gatewood and Alessandro Tanaka that was part of the "2020 The Black List" of screenplays that will not be released in theaters during this calendar year. In July 2021, Sebastian Stan was added to the cast, with Justice Smith and Briana Middleton joining in August. In September, John Lithgow was cast, with filming beginning on September 13 in New York City.


title: Sharper (film)

text: "Sharper" is scheduled to be released in select theaters on February 10, 2023, and is scheduled be released on Apple TV+ on February 17, 2023.


title: Atul Gawande

text: Atul Atmaram Gawande (born November 5, 1965) is an American surgeon, writer, and public health researcher. He practices general and endocrine surgery at Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston, Massachusetts. He is a professor in the Department of Health Policy and Management at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health and the Samuel O. Thier Professor of Surgery at Harvard Medical School. In public health, he is executive director of Ariadne Labs, a joint center for health systems innovation, and chairman of Lifebox, a nonprofit that works on reducing deaths in surgery globally. On June 20, 2018, Gawande was named the CEO of healthcare venture Haven, owned by Amazon, Berkshire Hathaway, and JP Morgan Chase and stepped down as CEO in May 2020, remaining as executive chairman while the organization sought a new CEO.


title: Atul Gawande

text: He has written extensively on medicine and public health for "The New Yorker" and "Slate", and is the author of the books ""; "Better: A Surgeon's Notes on Performance"; "The Checklist Manifesto"; and "".


title: Atul Gawande

text: On November 9, 2020, he was named a member of President-elect Joe Biden's COVID-19 Advisory Board. On December 17, 2021, he was confirmed as the Assistant Administrator of the United States Agency for International Development, and he was sworn in on January 4, 2022.


title: Atul Gawande

text: Gawande was born on November 5, 1965, in Brooklyn, New York, to Marathi Indian immigrants to the United States, both doctors. His family soon moved to Athens, Ohio, where he and his sister grew up, and he graduated from Athens High School in 1983.


title: Atul Gawande

text: Gawande earned a bachelor's degree in biology and political science from Stanford University in 1987. As a Rhodes Scholar, he earned an M.A. in Philosophy, Politics and Economics (PPE) from Balliol College, Oxford in 1989. He graduated with a Doctor of Medicine from Harvard Medical School in 1995, and earned a Master of Public Health from the Harvard School of Public Health in 1999. He completed his general surgical residency training, again at Harvard, at the Brigham and Women's Hospital, in 2003.


title: Atul Gawande

text: As an undergraduate, Gawande was a volunteer for Gary Hart's campaign for the presidency of the United States. After graduating, he joined Al Gore's 1988 presidential campaign. He worked as a health-care researcher for Representative Jim Cooper (D-TN), who was author of a "managed competition" health care proposal for the Conservative Democratic Forum. Gawande entered medical school in 1990 – leaving after two years to become Bill Clinton's healthcare lieutenant during the 1992 campaign.


title: Atul Gawande

text: Gawande later became a senior advisor in the Department of Health and Human Services after Clinton's first inauguration. He directed one of the three committees of the Clinton administration's Task Force on National Health Care Reform, supervising 75 people and defined the benefits packages for Americans and subsidies and requirements for employers. But the effort was attacked in the press, and Gawande later described this time in his life as frustrating, saying that "what I'm good at is not the same as what people who are good at leading agencies or running for office are really good at."


title: Atul Gawande

text: Gawande led the "Safe surgery saves lives checklist" initiative of the World Health Organization, which saw around 200 medical societies and health ministries collaborating to produce a checklist, which was published in 2008, to be used in operating theaters. "The Lancet" welcomed the checklist as "a tangible instrument to promote safety", adding "But the checklist is not an end in itself. Its real value lies in encouraging communication among teams and stimulating further reform to bring a culture of safety to the very centre of patients' care."


title: Atul Gawande

text: Soon after he began his residency, his friend Jacob Weisberg, editor of "Slate", asked him to contribute to the online magazine. Several articles by Gawande were published in "The New Yorker", and he was made a staff writer for that publication in 1998.


title: Atul Gawande

text: In January 1998, Gawande published an article in "Slate" "Partial truths in the partial-birth-abortion debate: Every abortion is gross, but the technique is not the issue" discussing how abortion policy should "hinge on the question of when the fetus first becomes a perceiving being" and "not on techniques at all or even on when the fetus can survive outside the womb".


title: Atul Gawande

text: A June 2009 "New Yorker" essay by Gawande compared the health care of two towns in Texas to show why health care was more expensive in one town compared to the other. Using the town of McAllen, Texas, as an example, it argued that a corporate, profit-maximizing culture (which can provide substantial amounts of unnecessary care) was an important factor in driving up costs, unlike a culture of low-cost high-quality care as provided by the Mayo Clinic and other efficient health systems.


title: Atul Gawande

text: The article "made waves" by highlighting the issue, according to Bryant Furlow in "Lancet Oncology". It was cited by President Barack Obama during Obama's attempt to get health care reform legislation passed by the United States Congress. According to Senator Ron Wyden, the article "affected [Obama's] thinking dramatically", and was shown to a group of senators by Obama, who effectively said, "This is what we've got to fix." After reading the "New Yorker" article, Warren Buffett's long-time business partner Charlie Munger mailed a check to Gawande in the amount of $20,000 as a thank-you to Dr. Gawande for providing something so socially useful. Gawande returned the check and was subsequently sent a new check for $40,000. Gawande donated the $40,000 to the Brigham and Women's Hospital Center for Surgery and Public Health, where he had been a resident.


title: Atul Gawande

text: In 2012, he gave the TED talk "How Do We Heal Medicine?" which has been viewed more than two million times.


title: Atul Gawande

text: Gawande published his first book, "", containing revised versions of 14 of his articles for "Slate" and "The New Yorker", in 2002. It was a National Book Award finalist.


title: Atul Gawande

text: His second book, "Better: A Surgeon's Notes on Performance", was released in April 2007. It discusses three virtues that Gawande considers to be most important for success in medicine: diligence, doing right, and ingenuity. Gawande offers examples in the book of people who have embodied these virtues. The book strives to present multiple sides of contentious medical issues, such as malpractice law in the US, physicians' role in capital punishment, and treatment variation between hospitals.


title: Atul Gawande

text: Gawande released his third book, "", in 2009. It discusses the importance of organization and preplanning (such as thorough checklists) in both medicine and the larger world. "The Checklist Manifesto" reached the "New York Times" hardcover nonfiction bestseller list in 2010.


title: Atul Gawande

text: "Being Mortal: Medicine and What Matters in the End" was released in October 2014 and became a #1 New York Times bestseller. It discusses end of life choices about assisted living and the effect of medical procedures on terminally ill people. The book was the basis of a documentary for the PBS television series "Frontline", which was first broadcast on February 10, 2015.


title: Atul Gawande

text: Gawande chairs Lifebox, a non-profit founded in 2011 which provides training and equipment for safer surgery.


title: Atul Gawande

text: In June 2018, he was named the CEO for the new, Boston-based company, Haven Healthcare, formed by billionaire investor Warren Buffett, Amazon's Jeff Bezos, and JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon. He stepped down from the position in May 2020, remaining as executive chairman while the organization sought a new CEO. In January 2021, Haven announced that it was to cease operations. According to CNBC, sources associated with the company claimed that "while the firm came up with ideas, each of the three founding companies executed their own projects separately with their own employees, obviating the need for the joint venture to begin with."


title: Atul Gawande

text: On July 13, 2021, President Biden nominated Gawande for the post of Assistant Administrator of U.S. AID for the Bureau of Global Health. Hearings were held on Gawande's nomination in the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on September 29, 2021. Florida Senator Marco Rubio delayed Gawande's committee vote in October 2021, claiming, "Atul Gawande’s defense of infanticide is disqualifying... President Biden should withdraw Gawande's nomination and replace him with someone who is committed to upholding the agency's mission of saving lives." Senator Rubio's statement stems from a 1998 article Gawande wrote defending particular methods of late-term abortion and post-delivery infanticide. On November 3, 2021, the committee favorably reported Gawande's nomination to the Senate floor. The entire Senate confirmed Gawande on December 17, 2021 by a vote of 48-31.


title: Atul Gawande

text: In 2004, Gawande was selected as one of the "20 Most Influential South Asians" by "Newsweek". In 2006, he was named a MacArthur Fellow for his work investigating and articulating modern surgical practices and medical ethics. In 2007, he became director of the World Health Organization's effort to reduce surgical deaths, and in 2009 he was elected a Hastings Center Fellow.


title: Atul Gawande

text: In the 2010 Time 100, he was included, in fifth place in the "Thinkers" category. The same year, he was he was included by "Foreign Policy" magazine on its list of top global thinkers. He was elected to the American Philosophical Society in 2012. In 2014, he presented the BBC's annual radio Reith Lectures, delivering a series of four talks titled "The Future of Medicine". These were delivered in Boston, London, Edinburgh and Delhi. Also that year, he won the Lewis Thomas Prize for Writing about Science. In November 2016, he was one of three recipients of the Massachusetts Governor's Award in the Humanities for his contributions to improving civic life in Massachusetts. In May 2022 he was awarded an Honorary Doctor of Sciences by the University of Pennsylvania at their annual commencement ceremony.


title: William J. Donovan

text: William Joseph "Wild Bill" Donovan (January 1, 1883 – February 8, 1959) was an American soldier, lawyer, intelligence officer and diplomat, best known for serving as the head of the Office of Strategic Services (OSS), the precursor to the Bureau of Intelligence and Research and the Central Intelligence Agency, during World War II. He is regarded as the founding father of the CIA, and a statue of him stands in the lobby of the CIA headquarters building in Langley, Virginia.


title: William J. Donovan

text: A decorated veteran of World War I, Donovan is the only person to have received all four of the United States' highest awards: the Medal of Honor, the Distinguished Service Cross, the Distinguished Service Medal, and the National Security Medal. He is also a recipient of the Silver Star and Purple Heart, as well as decorations from a number of other nations for his service during both World Wars.


title: William J. Donovan

text: Of Irish descent, Donovan was born in Buffalo, New York, to Anna Letitia "Tish" Donovan (née Lennon) and Timothy P. Donovan, both American-born children of Irish immigrants. The Lennons were from Ulster, the Donovans from County Cork. Donovan's grandfather Timothy O'Donovan (Sr.) was from the town of Skibbereen; raised by an uncle who was a parish priest, he married Donovan's grandmother Mary Mahoney, who belonged to a propertied family of substantial means that disapproved of him. They first moved to Canada and then to Buffalo, New York, where they dropped the "O" from their name. Donovan's father, born in 1858, worked as the superintendent of a Buffalo railroad yard, then as secretary for Holy Cross Cemetery, and also would attempt to engage in a political career, but with little success.


title: William J. Donovan

text: Donovan was born on New Year's Day in 1883. (Named William, he chose his middle name, Joseph, at the time of his confirmation.) He had two younger brothers and two younger sisters who survived into adulthood and several additional younger siblings who died in infancy or childhood. "From Anna's side of the family came style and etiquette and the dreams of poets," Donovan's biographer, Douglas Waller, has written. "From Tim came toughness and duty and honor to country and clan." Donovan attended St. Joseph's Collegiate Institute, a Catholic institution at which he played football, acted in plays, and won an award for oratory. He went on to Niagara University, a Catholic university and seminary where he undertook a pre-law major. Considering the priesthood, he ultimately decided "he wasn't good enough to be a priest," although he did win another oratorical contest, this time with a speech warning of corrupt, anti-Christian forces that threatened the United States.


title: William J. Donovan

text: With the expectation of studying law, Donovan eventually transferred to Columbia University, where he looked beyond "Catholic dogma" and attended Protestant and Jewish worship services to decide whether he wanted to change religions. He joined the Phi Kappa Psi fraternity, rowed on varsity crew, again won a prize for oratory, was a campus football hero, and was voted the "most modest" and one of the "handsomest" members of the graduating class of 1905.


title: William J. Donovan

text: After earning his bachelor of arts, Donovan spent two years at Columbia Law School, where he was a classmate of Franklin D. Roosevelt, and studied under Harlan Fiske Stone. Returning to Buffalo, he joined the respected law firm of Love & Keating in 1909 and, two years later, opened his own Buffalo firm in partnership with a Columbia classmate, Bradley Goodyear. In 1914, their firm merged with another, becoming Goodyear & O'Brien. In 1912, Donovan helped form, and became the leader of, a troop of cavalry of the New York National Guard. This unit was mobilized in 1916 and served on the U.S.–Mexico border during the American government's campaign against Pancho Villa. He studied military strategy and combat tactics. He also took acting courses in New York City from a stage star of the day, Eleanor Robson. In 1914, he married Ruth Rumsey, a Buffalo heiress who had attended Rosemary Hall.


title: William J. Donovan

text: In 1916, Donovan spent several months in Berlin on behalf of the Rockefeller Foundation, seeking to persuade the governments of Britain and Germany to allow the shipment of food and clothing into Belgium, Serbia, and Poland. In July of that year, at the behest of the State Department, he returned to the U.S. and took his cavalry troop to the Texas border to join Brigadier General John J. Pershing's army in the hunt for Pancho Villa. Promoted to major in the field, he returned to Buffalo, then joined the 69th Regiment, also known as the "Fighting Irish Regiment". This was the same 69th of Civil War fame, later called the 165th, which was training for America's expected entry into World War I, and which became part of the 42d Division, also known as the "Rainbow Division". Douglas MacArthur was the 42d Division's chief of staff. Donovan's son David was born in 1915, and a daughter, Patricia, was born in 1917. (Patricia died in an accident in 1940.)


title: William J. Donovan

text: During World War I, Major Donovan led the 1st battalion, 165th Infantry of the 42d Division. Serving in France, he suffered a shrapnel wound in one leg and was almost blinded by gas. After performing a rescue under fire, he was offered the Croix de Guerre, but turned it down because a Jewish soldier who had taken part in the rescue had not also been awarded the honor. When this insult was corrected, Donovan accepted the distinction. He also was awarded the Distinguished Service Cross for leading an assault during the Aisne-Marne campaign, in which hundreds of members of his regiment died, including his acting adjutant, the poet Joyce Kilmer. The 1940 James Cagney movie, "The Fighting 69th", dramatised the events of this battle and the 69th Infantry Regiment's role in it.


title: William J. Donovan

text: Donovan's remarkable level of endurance, which far exceeded that of the much younger soldiers under his command, led those men to give him the nickname "Wild Bill", which stuck with him for the rest of his life. Although he "professed annoyance with the nickname", his wife "knew that deep down he loved it".


title: William J. Donovan

text: Assigned commanding officer of the 165th Regiment, Donovan fought in another battle that took place near Landres-et-Saint-Georges on October 14–15, 1918. Going into battle, Donovan "ignored the officers' custom of covering or stripping off insignia of rank (targets for snipers) and instead sallied forth wearing his medals", according to Evan Thomas. "They can't hit me and they won't hit you!" he told his men. Struck in the knee by a bullet, he "refused to be evacuated and continued to direct his men until even American tanks were turning back under withering German fire". After lobbying by his friend Father Francis Duffy, a famous and widely revered Army chaplain, Donovan was awarded an Oak Leaf Cluster of the Distinguished Service Cross (i.e., a second DSC) for his service in that battle. After the Armistice of 11 November 1918 Donovan remained in Europe as part of the occupation. On returning to New York in April 1919, Donovan, now a colonel, was widely discussed as a possible candidate for governor, but he rejected the idea, proclaiming his intention to return to Buffalo and resume the practice of law.


title: William J. Donovan

text: Following his return to the U.S., Donovan took his wife on a combined vacation, business trip, and intelligence mission to Japan, China, and Korea, then went on alone to Siberia during the Russian Civil War. He went back to work at his law firm, but also took an extensive journey to Europe, where he did business on behalf of J. P. Morgan and gathered intelligence about international Communism.


title: William J. Donovan

text: From 1922 to 1924, while maintaining his private law practice, he also served as U.S. Attorney for the Western District of New York. A high point came in 1923, when, as a result of continued pressure from Father Duffy, Donovan was finally awarded the Medal of Honor for his heroic acts in the battle at Landres-et-Saint-Georges. Presented with the medal at a New York City ceremony that was attended by about four thousand veterans, Donovan refused to keep it, saying that it belonged not to him but "to the boys who are not here, the boys who are resting under the white crosses in France or in the cemeteries of New York, also to the boys who were lucky enough to come through."


title: William J. Donovan

text: As US Attorney, he was becoming well known as a vigorous crime-fighter. He was especially famous (and, in some circles, notorious) for his energetic enforcement of Prohibition. There were a number of threats to assassinate him and to dynamite his home, but he was not deterred. The climax of his war on alcohol came in August 1923, when his agents raided Buffalo's upmarket Saturn Club (of which Donovan himself was a member) and confiscated large amounts of illegal liquor. The club's members, who formed much of the city's upper crust, were outraged, having assumed that Prohibition did not apply to people such as themselves. Some regarded Donovan as a traitor to their class, and recalled that Donovan had not, after all, been born to high station but was, in fact, an Irish Catholic who had married into the world of privileged, professional Protestants. Donovan's law partner, Bradley Goodyear, quit their firm in anger over the raid, and Donovan's own wife never forgave him for it. Many working class residents of Buffalo cheered the raid as an example of equal justice before the law, however.


title: William J. Donovan

text: In 1924, when President Calvin Coolidge cleaned house at the Department of Justice in the wake of the late President Warren G. Harding's Teapot Dome scandal, he appointed Donovan's former professor Harlan Stone as Attorney General and named Donovan as Stone's assistant, in charge of the criminal division. Donovan and his wife split their time between Washington and Buffalo, where he continued to run his law firm. At the Justice Department, Donovan hired women and eschewed yes-men. He and his wife became a popular Washington couple, although Donovan's relationship with the acting Director of the Bureau of Investigation, J. Edgar Hoover, briefly one of his underlings, was fraught with friction.


title: William J. Donovan

text: When Stone was appointed to the Supreme Court in 1925, Donovan was put in charge of the Department of Justice's antitrust division, often serving as "de facto" Attorney General during the frequent absences of Stone's successor, John Garibaldi Sargent. Donovan was admired for his energetic and effective arguments before the Supreme Court, and was a favorite off-the-record source for the Washington press corps. He was talked up as a possible candidate for Governor of New York in 1926 and for the Vice Presidency in 1928; Herbert Hoover promised to make him Attorney General if Hoover won the Presidency in 1928, but instead, under the influence of anti-Catholic Southerners, among others, Hoover ended up offering him the governorship of the Philippines, a post Donovan turned down.


title: William J. Donovan

text: Resigning from the Department of Justice in 1929, Donovan moved to New York City and formed a new law firm, Donovan, Leisure, Newton & Irvine, in partnership with Frank Raichle. Despite the stock market crash, he made a success of handling many of the mergers and acquisitions and bankruptcies that then resulted; he also acquired celebrity clients, such as Mae West and Jane Wyman.


title: William J. Donovan

text: Donovan ran on the Republican line in 1932 to succeed Franklin D. Roosevelt as Governor of New York. Assisting Donovan in his 1932 campaign was journalist James J. Montague, who served as "personal adviser and campaign critic". But despite Donovan's offstage charm and force, he proved to be an uninspiring campaigner on the stump. He ran a disorganized, strategy-free campaign, and in the end lost to the Democratic nominee, Herbert Lehman.


title: William J. Donovan

text: During the interwar years, as "part of an informal network of American businessmen and lawyers who closely tracked and collected intelligence on foreign affairs," Donovan traveled extensively in Europe and Asia, "establishing himself as a player in international affairs – and honing his skills as an intelligence gatherer overseas." He met with such foreign leaders as Benito Mussolini, with whom he discussed World War I, the expansionist ideology of Italian Fascism, and Roosevelt's prospects for re-election in 1936. Mussolini granted Donovan permission to visit the Italian front in Ethiopia, where he found Italy's military much improved since the war and predicted an Italian victory. Donovan also made connections with leading figures in Nazi Germany. But he was no friend of the dictators, publicly assailing Hitler, Mussolini, and Stalin as totalitarians and taking steps to protect his Jewish clients in Europe from the Nazis.


title: William J. Donovan

text: Donovan openly believed during this time that a second major European war was inevitable. His foreign experience and realism earned him the friendship of President Franklin D. Roosevelt, notwithstanding their extreme differences in domestic policy and despite the fact that Donovan, during the 1932 election campaign, had harshly criticized Roosevelt's record as Governor of New York. The two men were from opposing political parties, but were similar in personality. Roosevelt respected Donovan's experience, felt that Hoover had done Donovan wrong on the Attorney General appointment, and believed that if Donovan had been a Democrat he could have been elected president. Also, Donovan's national profile had risen considerably thanks to the 1940 Warner Brothers film "The Fighting 69th", in which Pat O'Brien played Father Duffy and George Brent played Donovan, and Roosevelt recognized a useful opportunity to exploit Donovan's newfound popularity. As the two men began exchanging notes about developments abroad, Roosevelt recognized that Donovan could be an important ally and adviser.


title: William J. Donovan

text: Roosevelt came to place great value on Donovan's insight. Following Germany's and the USSR's invasions of Poland in September 1939 and the start of World War II in Europe, President Roosevelt began to put the United States on a war footing. This was a crisis of the sort that Donovan had predicted, and he sought out a responsible place in the wartime infrastructure. On the recommendation of Donovan's friend, Secretary of the Navy Frank Knox, Roosevelt gave him a number of increasingly important assignments. In 1940 and 1941, Donovan traveled as an informal emissary to Britain, where he was urged by Knox and Roosevelt to gauge Britain's ability to withstand Germany's aggression.


title: William J. Donovan

text: During these trips, Donovan met with key officials in the British war effort, including Winston Churchill and the directors of Britain's intelligence services. He also had lunch with King George VI. Donovan and Churchill got along famously, sharing war stories and reciting in unison the nineteenth-century poem "The Cavalier's Song" by William Motherwell. Impressed by Donovan and cheered by his eagerness to help Britain, Churchill ordered that he be given unlimited access to classified information. Donovan returned to the U.S. confident of Britain's chances and enamored of the possibility of founding an American intelligence service modeled on that of the British. He strongly urged Roosevelt to give Churchill the aid he requested. Roosevelt wanted to provide such aid, and asked Donovan to use his knowledge of the law to figure out how to skirt the congressional ban on selling armaments to the United Kingdom.


title: William J. Donovan

text: British diplomats, who shared Churchill's admiration for Donovan, expressed the wish to State Department officials that Donovan replace U.S. Ambassador to Britain Joseph P. Kennedy, who favored the appeasers and was defeatist regarding British prospects. In the view of Walter Lippmann, a political columnist, Donovan's findings about Britain's fighting capability "almost singlehandedly overcame the unmitigated defeatism which was paralyzing Washington." Donovan also examined U.S. naval defenses in the Pacific (which he found wanting) and visited several countries along the Mediterranean and in the Middle East, serving as an unofficial envoy for both the U.S. and Britain and urging leaders there to stand up to the Nazis. He also met frequently in New York with William Stephenson, a spy for MI6 who was known as "Intrepid". Donovan and Stephenson, according to Evan Thomas, "eventually became so close that they were known as 'Big Bill' and 'Little Bill'." Donovan, Douglas Waller has said, "could not have formed the OSS without the British, who provided intelligence, trainers, organizational charts and advice – all with the idea of making OSS an adjunct to British intelligence. But Donovan wanted to mount his own operations."


title: William J. Donovan

text: On July 11, 1941, Roosevelt signed an order naming Donovan Coordinator of Information (COI). "At the time," Evan Thomas has written, "the U.S. government had no formal spy agency. In 1929, the Secretary of State, Henry L. Stimson, had abolished the highly effective Black Chamber, a code-breaking organization left over from World War I." In Stimson's view, "Gentlemen do not read each other's mail." To be sure, the Army, Navy, FBI, State Department, and other entities all ran their own intelligence units, but they were feeble and isolated from one another. They also saw Donovan's new operation as a threat to their turfs.


title: William J. Donovan

text: Nevertheless, Donovan began to lay the groundwork for a centralized intelligence program. It was he who organized the COI's New York headquarters in Room 3603 of Rockefeller Center in October 1941 and asked Allen Dulles to head it; the offices Dulles took were on the floor immediately above the location of the operations of Britain's MI6. Evan Thomas has described the OSS as an "informal" and "freewheeling" place where "[r]ank meant little." David Bruce later recalled: "Woe to the officer who turned down a project because, on its face, it seemed ridiculous or at least unusual  ... His [referring to the ideal officers in the OSS, contrasting with the aforementioned officers, who turned down such projects] imagination was unlimited. Ideas were his plaything. Excitement made him snort like a race horse." Throughout the war, the OSS would endure criticism by segments of the U.S. media and by many highly placed figures in the U.S. government and military. General George Marshall was an early critic but later changed his mind. Eisenhower was always supportive, as was General George Patton.


title: William J. Donovan

text: On December 7, after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Donovan met privately with Roosevelt and Edward R. Murrow, and FDR told Donovan, apropos of the COI, "It's a good thing you got me started on this." When Hitler gave a speech declaring war on the United States, he mentioned Donovan, whom he called "utterly unworthy". Donovan urged Roosevelt not to intern Japanese-Americans, warning that such an action would address a problem that did not exist, do harm to loyal Americans, and provide the Japanese with ammunition for their propaganda.


title: William J. Donovan

text: Donovan set up espionage and sabotage schools, established front companies, arranged clandestine collaborations with international corporations and the Vatican, and oversaw the invention of new, espionage-friendly guns, cameras, and bombs. Donovan also recruited agents, selecting individuals with a wide range of backgrounds – ranging from intellectuals and artists to people with criminal backgrounds. He hired a great many female spies, dismissing criticism by those who felt women were unsuited to such work. Among his prominent recruits were film director John Ford, actor Sterling Hayden, author Stephen Vincent Benét, and Eve Curie, daughter of the scientists Marie and Pierre Curie. Other OSS recruits included poet Archibald MacLeish, banker Paul Mellon, businessman Alfred V. du Pont (son of industrialist Alfred I. du Pont), chef Julia Child, psychologist Carl Jung (who helped with the effort to analyze the psyches of Hitler and other Nazi leaders), author Walter Lord, and members of the Auchincloss and Vanderbilt families. There were so many aristocrats in the agency that the joke went around that OSS stood for "Oh So Social".


title: William J. Donovan

text: In 1942, the COI ceased being a White House operation and was placed under the aegis of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Roosevelt also changed its name to the Office of Strategic Services (OSS). Donovan was returned to active duty in the U.S. Army in his World War I rank of colonel. He was promoted to brigadier general in March 1943 and to major general in November 1944. Under his leadership the OSS would eventually conduct successful espionage and sabotage operations in Europe and parts of Asia, but continued to be kept out of South America owing to J. Edgar Hoover's hostility to Donovan, which also had a deleterious impact on efforts to share information between the two agencies. In addition, the OSS was blocked from the Philippines by the antipathy of General Douglas MacArthur, the commander of the Southwest Pacific Theater. OSS espionage and other on-site activities helped prepare the ground for the 1942 Allied invasion of North Africa, however, and Donovan himself took part in the Allied landing at Salerno, Italy, on September 3, 1943, and at the Anzio landing on January 22, 1944.


title: William J. Donovan

text: Donovan was in fact very active in virtually every theater of World War II. He spent a good deal of time in the Balkans, to which he had urged both Roosevelt and Churchill to pay more attention. He met in Europe with highly placed anti-Nazi Germans to broker an early peace that would allow for occupation by the Western Allies, establish a democratic Germany, and leave the Soviets out in the cold. In China, he struggled with Chiang Kai-shek and his underlings for permission to carry out espionage activities in their territory. He inspected OSS operations in Burma, met with Vyacheslav Molotov in Moscow to arrange for cooperation between the OSS and NKVD, and was present for MacArthur's successful April 1944 invasion of Hollandia on the northern coast of New Guinea. Overall, the OSS was most effective in the Balkans, China, Burma, and France.


title: William J. Donovan

text: By 1943, Donovan's relations with British officials were becoming increasingly strained as a result of turf wars, strategic and tactical disagreements, radical differences in style and temperament (the British accused the OSS of playing "cowboys and red Indians"), and contrasting visions of the postwar world. (The British wanted to retain their empire; Donovan saw the empire, at least in some instances, as an impediment to democracy and economic development.) MI6 chief Stewart Menzies was extremely hostile towards the idea of OSS operations anywhere in the British Empire, and categorically forbade the OSS to operate within the UK, or to deal with allied governments in exile which were based in London. Nonetheless, as of May 1944, Donovan had "some eleven thousand American officers and foreign agents scattered in every important capital." During the war he also received intelligence from a network of Catholic priests across Europe who engaged in espionage without the Pope's knowledge.


title: William J. Donovan

text: On D-Day, Donovan was on one of the ships that took part in the Normandy landing. Going ashore, he and his commander of covert operations in Europe, Colonel David Bruce, were shot at by a German plane, then moved on toward the American front lines and encountered German machine-gun fire. As they lay on the ground, Bruce later recalled, Donovan said, "David, we mustn't be captured. We know too much." Donovan said that he had two suicide pills, but then discovered he didn't. "I must shoot first," Donovan said. Bruce replied, "Yes, sir, but can we do much against machine guns with our pistols?" Donovan explained: "Oh, you don't understand. I mean, if we are about to be captured, I'll shoot you first. After all, I am your commanding officer."


title: William J. Donovan

text: Eventually, they found their way to General Omar Bradley's newly set-up tent headquarters on the beach. Upon returning to Washington, Donovan reported directly to Roosevelt on what he had observed. The success of the invasion, he said, showed that German naval and air forces were definitely no longer "Big League" and that "something has died in the German machine." Before the month was over, he was in Italy, implementing reforms in the OSS operation in that theater. He also met with Pope Pius XII, telling him about the activities of intelligence agents working out of the Japanese embassy at the Vatican. During the weeks leading up to the Valkyrie plot to kill Hitler, Allen Dulles, Donovan's man in Switzerland, who was in contact with the plotters, kept him abreast of developments.


title: William J. Donovan

text: A particular triumph for the OSS was the role it played in conveying intelligence from southern France in the run-up to the Allied landing on the French Riviera on August 15, 1944. Thanks to Donovan's spies, said Colonel William Quinn, the invading army "knew everything about that beach and where every German was." Donovan was present for that invasion, too, after which he returned to Rome for a secret meeting with Hitler's envoy to the Vatican, Ernst von Weizsäcker. Shortly afterwards, he met with Marshal Tito to discuss OSS operations in Yugoslavia. Also in August 1944, Donovan came into conflict with Churchill over the OSS's support for Greek anti-royalists.


title: William J. Donovan

text: In the closing days of the war in Europe, Donovan spent much of his time in London, where he worked out of a command center that took up an entire floor of Claridge's Hotel. He fielded reports from across the continent, where the Wehrmacht was in such chaos that he "knew their positions on the battlefield better than German generals did." In one of many initiatives, he sent out "teams of French, Danish, Norwegian, and Polish nationals" to identify Gestapo officers who had tortured them and who now were trying to blend in with civilians in Allied-controlled areas of Germany. Acting on Donovan's orders, Dulles oversaw the surrender of the remaining Nazi forces in Italy several days in advance of the final German capitulation.


title: William J. Donovan

text: As World War II began to wind to a close in early 1945, Donovan began to focus on preserving the OSS beyond the end of the war. A February 19 article in the "Washington Times-Herald" revealed his plans for a postwar intelligence agency and published a secret memo he had sent to Roosevelt proposing its creation. The article compared the proposed agency to the Gestapo. Knowing that Americans wanted a smaller federal government after the war, Roosevelt was not entirely sold on Donovan's proposal, although Donovan felt reasonably confident he could talk the president into the idea. J. Edgar Hoover disapproved of Donovan's plan, which he saw as a direct threat to FBI authority, even though Donovan had stressed that his agency would operate only abroad, not domestically. After Roosevelt's death in April, however, Donovan's political position was substantially weakened. Although he argued forcefully for the OSS's retention, he found himself opposed by the new president, Harry S. Truman. While the OSS got "glowing reviews" from many wartime commanders, notably Eisenhower, who described its contributions as "vital", critics dismissed it as "an arm of British intelligence" and, like the Times-Herald reporter, painted dark pictures of it as an American Gestapo in the making.


title: William J. Donovan

text: While British authorities and the US military and State Department were relatively indifferent to the question of trying war criminals after the war, Donovan was lobbying Roosevelt as early as October 1943 to arrange for such prosecutions. Roosevelt tasked Donovan with looking into the legalities and technicalities, and in the months that followed Donovan collected testimonies about war criminals and related information from a wide range of sources. In addition to seeking justice, Donovan wanted to exact retribution for the torture and killing of OSS agents. When Truman named Supreme Court Justice Robert Jackson to serve as chief U.S. counsel in the prosecution of Nazi war criminals, Jackson, discovering that the OSS was the only agency that had seriously explored the issue, invited Donovan to join his trial staff.


title: William J. Donovan

text: On May 17, 1945, Donovan flew to Europe to prepare for the prosecutions, and eventually brought 172 OSS officers onto Jackson's team, interviewing Auschwitz survivors, tracking down SS and Gestapo documents, and uncovering other evidence. Donovan, whose idea it was to hold the trials in Nuremberg, also introduced Jackson to useful foreign officials and even released OSS funds to bankroll the prosecution effort. Eventually, Jackson, who had been a political rival of Donovan's in New York State, considered him a "godsend"; in return for Donovan's help, but also because the OSS had proven "vital for the prosecution team," Jackson lobbied Truman in person to approve of Donovan's plans for a permanent postwar intelligence agency. The effort was unsuccessful, however. On September 20, 1945, Truman signed an executive order abolishing the OSS.


title: William J. Donovan

text: As was only revealed 60 years later, Donovan succeeded in getting the Americans to block the Soviet attempt to add the Katyn massacre to the list of German war crimes. He had been convinced by the German opponent of Hitler, Fabian von Schlabrendorff, unofficially included on his staff, that it was not the Germans but the Soviet secret service NKVD that had murdered some 4,000 Polish officers in the Katyn forest. But shortly afterwards Donovan came into conflict with Jackson.


title: William J. Donovan

text: In Nuremberg, Donovan interrogated many prisoners, including Hermann Göring, whom he spoke with ten times. But eventually Donovan fell out with Jackson. The latter wanted to indict the entire German High Command, not just men who had personally ordered or committed war crimes; Donovan considered this a violation of American principles of fairness. Donovan, a former prosecutor, also criticized Jackson's lack of skill and experience at putting together a strong case and at courtroom examination and cross-examination. Jackson removed him from the team, and Donovan returned to the U.S., where in January 1946 Truman presented him with the Distinguished Service Medal.


title: William J. Donovan

text: In 1946, Donovan resumed the practice of law and began writing a history of American intelligence since the Revolution – a book he never completed. He traveled extensively in Europe and Asia and ran unsuccessfully for the Republican nomination for U.S. Senate.


title: William J. Donovan

text: He also became chairman of the newly founded American Committee on United Europe (ACUE), which worked to counter the new Communist threat to Europe by promoting European political unity. The vice-chairman was Allen Dulles, and Walter Bedell Smith sat on the board as well. The ACUE financed the European Movement, the most important federalist organization in the immediate postwar years. (In 1958, the ACUE provided 53.5% of the movement's funds.) In addition, the ACUE provided all of the funding for the European Youth Campaign, in which Joseph Retinger, Robert Schuman, and Paul-Henri Spaak were involved.


title: William J. Donovan

text: Meanwhile, Truman moved forward with plans for a new intelligence agency, finally giving approval in 1946 for a watered-down interdepartmental "Central Intelligence Group." Donovan warned that it would be ineffectual – he compared it to a "debating society" – and he soon proved to be right. As the Cold War quickly intensified, Truman recognized the need for a far stronger intelligence service, and in February 1947 asked Congress to approve plans for a Central Intelligence Agency along the lines Donovan had proposed. Donovan himself lobbied Congress privately to pass the enabling legislation, the National Security Act of 1947. It was, in Waller's words, "a vindication of Donovan's vision". Among the OSS members who went on to become major CIA figures were Allen Dulles, William Casey, William Colby, and James Jesus Angleton.


title: William J. Donovan

text: Donovan wanted to lead the CIA, and had many supporters who urged Truman to put him in charge. Instead, the president gave the job to Admiral Roscoe Hillenkoetter, whom Waller described as "lackluster". Meanwhile, Donovan accepted a Truman appointment to head a committee studying the country's fire departments. But he worked behind the scenes to aid in the formation of the CIA, recommending that Hillenkoetter hire Dulles and other OSS veterans, suggesting various covert operations, and sharing contacts and information from behind the Iron Curtain. After returning from abroad, U.S. businessmen and ambassadors passed information to Donovan that he shared with the CIA. Instead of being grateful for Donovan's help, Truman was furious, considering him an intrusive meddler. In the 1952 presidential election, Donovan campaigned for Eisenhower, who had become a good friend since the war. After his victory, Donovan hoped to be named CIA head, but instead Eisenhower appointed Allen Dulles, whose brother, John Foster Dulles, was the new Secretary of State. Eisenhower offered to make Donovan the Ambassador to France, but Donovan turned down the offer, not wanting to work closely with John Foster Dulles, for whom he had little respect. In August 1953, however, he did accept the post of Ambassador to Thailand, because the country was an important Cold War front and the position was one in which he felt he could operate with relative independence from Secretary Dulles.


title: William J. Donovan

text: Donovan took up that post on September 4. While in Thailand, he frequently traveled to Vietnam, which was vulnerable to Communist takeover, a fate he felt the U.S. ambassador to that country, Donald Heath, lacked the energy and vision to prevent. One source says that he "was deeply involved in setting up C.I.A. operations in Vietnam and throughout Southeast Asia." Although his performance as ambassador received glowing reviews from the Thai government, he resigned from his position effective August 21, 1954.


title: William J. Donovan

text: After returning to the U.S., he resumed his law practice and registered as a lobbyist for the Thai government. Eisenhower made him chairman of the People to People Foundation, a group that arranged international citizen exchanges; Donovan also worked with the International Rescue Committee, co-founded American Friends of Vietnam, and in 1956 raised a large sum of money for Hungarian refugees.


title: William J. Donovan

text: Donovan had begun experiencing symptoms of dementia while in Thailand, and he was hospitalized in 1957. While in the hospital, he "imagined he saw the Red Army coming over the 59th Street bridge, into Manhattan, and in one memorable last mission, fled the hospital, wandering down the street in his pajamas." Shortly before his death, he was visited by Eisenhower, who later told a friend that Donovan was "the last hero".


title: William J. Donovan

text: Donovan died at the age of 76 from complications of vascular dementia on February 8, 1959, at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, D.C. Upon learning of his death, the CIA sent a cable to its station chiefs: "The man more responsible than any other for the existence of the Central Intelligence Agency has passed away." He is buried in Section 2 of Arlington National Cemetery. After his death, Donovan was awarded the Freedom Award of the International Rescue Committee. The law firm he founded, Donovan, Leisure, Newton & Irvine, was dissolved in 1998. His home in Chapel Hill near Berryville, Virginia, was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2004.


title: William J. Donovan

text: In 2011, it was suggested that a new federal courthouse in Buffalo be named after Donovan, but instead, it was named after Robert H. Jackson, his rival prosecutor at Nuremberg. In 2014, U.S. Senator Charles Schumer asked the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs to name an upstate New York cemetery after Donovan. In 2016, however, the VA decided against using Donovan's name. "It is outrageous that nothing has been done to honor Gen. Donovan, one of America's greatest patriots, in Buffalo or western New York," declared Charles Pinck, president of the OSS Society, who had thought the naming of the cemetery after Donovan was "a done deal".


title: William J. Donovan

text: Donovan is a member of the Military Intelligence Hall of Fame. He is also known as the "Father of American Intelligence" and the "Father of Central Intelligence". "The Central Intelligence Agency regards Donovan as its founding father," according to journalist Evan Thomas in a 2011 "Vanity Fair" profile. The George Bush Center for Intelligence, the CIA headquarters building in Langley, Virginia, has a statue of Donovan in the lobby. Thomas observed that Donovan's "exploits are utterly improbable but by now well documented in declassified wartime records that portray a brave, noble, headlong, gleeful, sometimes outrageous pursuit of action and skulduggery."


title: William J. Donovan

text: The William J. Donovan Award was created by the OSS Society, which was founded by Donovan in 1947. The award is presented by the OSS Society to "someone who has exemplified the distinguishing features that characterized General Donovan's lifetime of public service to the United of States of America as a citizen and a soldier". Notable recipients include Allen W. Dulles, President Dwight D. Eisenhower, Margaret Thatcher, President George H. W. Bush, and former Director of the Central Intelligence Agency Gina Haspel.


title: William J. Donovan

text: Donovan's son, David Rumsey Donovan, was a naval officer who served with distinction in World War II. His grandson, William James Donovan, served as an enlisted soldier in Vietnam and is also buried at Arlington National Cemetery.


title: William J. Donovan

text: Rank and organization: Lieutenant Colonel, U.S. Army, 165th Infantry, 42d Division. Place and date: Near Landres-et-St. Georges, France, 14–15 October 1918. Entered service at: Buffalo, N.Y. Born: 1 January 1883, Buffalo, N.Y. G.O., No.: 56, W.D., 1922.


title: William J. Donovan

text: Lt. Col. Donovan personally led the assaulting wave in an attack upon a very strongly organized position, and when our troops were suffering heavy casualties he encouraged all near him by his example, moving among his men in exposed positions, reorganizing decimated platoons, and accompanying them forward in attacks. When he was wounded in the leg by machine-gun bullets, he refused to be evacuated and continued with his unit until it withdrew to a less exposed position.


title: Serge Monast

text: Serge Monast (1945 – December 5, 1996) was a Canadian investigative journalist, poet, essayist and conspiracy theorist. He is known to English-speaking readers mainly for "Project Blue Beam (NASA)" and associated conspiracy theories.


title: Serge Monast

text: In the 1970s and 1980s, Monast was a journalist, poet and essayist. He was an active member of the Social Credit Party of Canada.


title: Serge Monast

text: In the early 1990s, he started writing on the theme of the New World Order and conspiracies hatched by secret societies, being particularly inspired by the works of William Guy Carr.


title: Serge Monast

text: He founded the International Free Press Agency (AIPL, "l' Agence Internationale de Presse libre"), where he published most of his work on these themes, achieving some prominence with an interview on esotericist and ufologist Richard Glenn's TV show "Ésotérisme Expérimental", in which he repeatedly warned his audience about the dangers of a World Government. He was interviewed by Glenn a number of times up to 1996.


title: Serge Monast

text: In 1994, he published "Project Blue Beam (NASA)", in which he detailed his claim that NASA, with the help of the United Nations, was attempting to implement a New Age religion with the Antichrist at its head and start a New World Order, via a technologically simulated Second Coming of Christ. He also gave talks on this topic. Other conspiracy theorists have noted the similarity of Project Blue Beam to the plots of Gene Roddenberry's unreleased 1975 "Star Trek" movie treatment "" and the 1991 "" episode "".


title: Serge Monast

text: In 1995, he published his most detailed work, "Les Protocoles de Toronto (6.6.6)", modelled upon "The Protocols of the Elders of Zion", wherein he said a Masonic group called "6.6.6" had, for twenty years, been gathering the world's powerful to establish the New World Order and control the minds of individuals.


title: Serge Monast

text: By 1995 and 1996, Monast said he was being hunted by the police and authorities for involvement in "networks of prohibited information." He had homeschooled his two children, who were then taken away and made wards of the state in September 1996 so that they would receive a public education. He died of a heart attack in his home in December 1996, at age 51, the day after being arrested and spending a night in jail. His followers claim his death was suspicious, suggesting he was assassinated by "psychotronic weapons" to keep from continuing his investigations, and that Jerry Fletcher, the Mel Gibson character in the 1997 film "Conspiracy Theory", was modelled on him.


title: Serge Monast

text: Copies of his works still circulate on the Internet, and have influenced such later conspiracy theorists as American evangelical preacher Texe Marrs. Some of his later works have been reissued by French publisher and conspiracy theorist Jacques Delacroix, along with others writing on the themes of Monast's conspiracy related work.


title: Inanna Sarkis

text: Sarkis was born in Hamilton, Ontario, the daughter of a Syrian father who was a dentist and a Bulgarian mother who used to be a surgeon in Bulgaria. Both immigrated to Canada to start a new life for their children and worked cleaning dishes in banquet halls until they started their own family company.


title: Inanna Sarkis

text: Sarkis struck a deal with Sprint to participate in a campaign. Sarkis teamed up with the WWE to create a character named "Miss North" and visited the WWE Performance Center for where she filmed. She also starred in a digital campaign to promote 20th Century Fox’s action spy comedy "" in November.


title: Inanna Sarkis

text: In May 2020, Sarkis announced through social media that she was expecting her first child, a girl, with her boyfriend of three years Matthew Noszka. In September 2020, Sarkis gave birth to a daughter.


title: Scott Adsit

text: Robert Scott Adsit (born November 26, 1965) is an American actor, comedian, and writer. Born and raised in the Chicago suburbs, Adsit joined the mainstage cast of Chicago's The Second City in 1994 after attending Columbia College Chicago. He appeared in several revues, including "Paradigm Lost" for which he won The Joseph Jefferson Award for Best Actor in a Comedy.


title: Scott Adsit

text: From 2005–2008, he co-directed, co-wrote and co-produced the Adult Swim stop-motion animation program "Moral Orel" with Dino Stamatopoulos and Jay Johnston. He also voiced several characters and was nominated for an Annie Award for his work as Clay Puppington, Orel's father. After the success of "Moral Orel", Adsit and Stamatopoulos worked together again on their stop-motion animation series "Mary Shelley's Frankenhole". Adult Swim ordered ten episodes for its first season, which began airing June 27, 2010, and was canceled in 2012.


title: Scott Adsit

text: Adsit is known for his role as Pete Hornberger, the well-meaning but jaded producer, on the NBC sitcom "30 Rock", which won a Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by an Ensemble in a Comedy Series in 2008. In 2014, Adsit voiced the robot Baymax in the Disney animated film "Big Hero 6", which he reprised in both "" (2017–2021) and the Disney+ series "Baymax!".


title: Scott Adsit

text: Adsit was born in Northbrook, Illinois on November 26, 1965, the son of Genevieve "Genny" ("née" Butz) and Andrew Scott Adsit, a real estate attorney. He attended Glenbrook North High School, where he recalled being "a bit of a class clown," and attended Indiana's DePauw University for one semester. He then attended Columbia College Chicago, where acting teacher Sheldon Patinkin encouraged him to join the city's famed improv troupe, The Second City.


title: Scott Adsit

text: Adsit joined Second City in 1987, and became part of its mainstage cast in 1994. He appeared in several Joseph Jefferson Award-winning revues, including "Piñata Full of Bees" and "Paradigm Lost" for which he won The Jeff Award for Best Actor in a Comedy. A sketch he performed with future "Saturday Night Live" head writer Adam McKay, "Gump," was included as one of Second City's all-time best in the theater's 25th anniversary compilation. He appeared in the 1997 PBS documentary about the process of creating the Second City review, Paradigm Lost, "Second to None" along with castmates Tina Fey, Kevin Dorff, Rachel Dratch, Jenna Jolovitz and Jim Zulevic.


title: Scott Adsit

text: In 1996, he portrayed an alcoholic and drug-addicted father in Minnesota's Hazelden Substance Abuse Clinic short-subject production, "Reflections From The Heart Of A Child". This 26-minute video/DVD feature has become required curriculum in most DWI Repeat Offender classes and substance abuse rehabilitation clinics across the U.S.


title: Scott Adsit

text: In 1997, Adsit recorded the voices for the King of Payne, Sir Psycho, The Duke of Bourbon, and Merlin for Williams' "Medieval Madness" pinball machine. Adsit co-wrote the game's recorded dialog with fellow Second City cast member, Kevin Dorff. Dorff and Tina Fey also played the character voices in the game.


title: Scott Adsit

text: In 1998, Adsit moved to Los Angeles after an invitation from his college friend Dino Stamatopoulos to work on a pilot about the backstage antics of a television sketch-comedy variety show. The pilot did not materialize as a show, but Adsit stayed in California and began working in bit parts and commercials. That same year, he appeared as a cast member in the renowned sketch comedy program, "Mr. Show". He also plagued the band Tenacious D as a neighbor and a demon in their HBO show.


title: Scott Adsit

text: From 2005–2008, he co-directed, co-wrote and co-produced the Adult Swim show "Moral Orel" with Stamatopoulos and Jay Johnston. He also provided the voice of Orel's father, Clay Puppington, as well as his best friend, Doughy, Link McMissins, Art Posabule, Mr. Christein, Junior Christein, Doctor Potterswheel, Billy Figurelli, Mrs. Figurelli and Tiny Tina, among others. He was nominated for an Annie Award for his work as Clay. Adsit also had a minor role in "The Office" episode "Conflict Resolution" as a photographer. Adsit also had a small role in the movie "Kicking & Screaming", starring Will Ferrell, where he played the coach of a rival team.


title: Scott Adsit

text: In 2005, he received a call from former Second City castmate Tina Fey. "Tina called and said, 'I'm working on a show, and there's a part I'm writing with you in mind, so keep your schedule open next year.' So I did," Adsit recalled in 2009. In a twist of fate, he also auditioned for Aaron Sorkin's "Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip", another series about the behind-the-scenes drama of a variety show. "My manager said, 'There's a good possibility you're going to be offered both of these, so which are you going to go with? You have to tell me now,'" Adsit said. "I said, 'Tina is the lady from "Weekend Update" that riles a lot of people, and Aaron Sorkin just finished "The West Wing"; he's the golden boy.'" Ultimately, Adsit picked his friend: "I had to go with somebody I know and respect. I went with Tina."


title: Scott Adsit

text: In 2006, he joined the cast of "30 Rock", Fey's show, as Pete Hornberger, a longtime friend of Fey's character, Liz Lemon, and well-meaning but frequently terrified producer of "TGS with Tracy Jordan", a fictitious sketch comedy series. The show ran for seven seasons and was a critical smash, earning 103 Emmy nominations.


title: Scott Adsit

text: In 2007, Adsit starred together with Brendon Small in "Let's Fish", a pilot for Adult Swim, but the pilot did not become an official series.


title: Scott Adsit

text: After the success of "Moral Orel", Adsit and Dino Stamatopoulos started working together again on their newest stop-motion animation series "Mary Shelley's Frankenhole", which Adult Swim has ordered ten episodes for its first season, which began airing on June 27, 2010. Adsit directed, wrote, produced and provided many of the lead voices. In June 2010, Adsit hosted a panel featuring comic book writers Dan Slott, Frank Tieri, and Chris Claremont at HeroCon in Charlotte, North Carolina. In 2012 a character named Agent Scott Adsit appeared as an agent of S.H.I.E.L.D. in Marvel's "Deadpool", and has since become a recurring character in the title.


title: Scott Adsit

text: Adsit also guest starred as the "Guest Bailiff" in three episodes of John Hodgman's podcast "Judge John Hodgman". Adsit starred as himself in John Hodgman's Netflix comedy special "".


title: Scott Adsit

text: Adsit voiced the huggable robot Baymax in the 2014 Disney animated film "Big Hero 6". Producer Roy Conli said "The fact that his character is a robot limits how you can emote, but Scott was hilarious. He took those boundaries and was able to shape the language in a way that makes you feel Baymax's emotion and sense of humor. Scott was able to relay just how much Baymax cares."


title: Scott Adsit

text: Adsit joined the Season 3 cast of the Adult Swim live-action TV series "The Heart, She Holler" as the corrupt Sheriff, starring alongside Amy Sedaris. "Paste Magazine" stated that "Sedaris and Adsit, two relatively new co-stars, have great chemistry".


title: Scott Adsit

text: Adsit performs live in the show "John and Scott" with John Lutz and in "Adsit and Eveleth" with Jet Eveleth.


title: Christine and Léa Papin

text: Christine Papin (8 March 1905 – 18 May 1937) and Léa Papin (15 September 1911 – ?) were two French sisters who, as live-in maids, were convicted of murdering their employer's wife and daughter in Le Mans, France on February 2, 1933.


title: Christine and Léa Papin

text: The murder had a significant influence on French intellectuals Jean Genet, Jean-Paul Sartre, Simone de Beauvoir, and Jacques Lacan, who sought to analyze it, and some considered it symbolic of class struggle. The case formed the basis of a number of publications, plays, and films, as well as essays, spoken word, songs, and artwork.


title: Christine and Léa Papin

text: Born in Le Mans, France to Clémence Derré and Gustave Papin, the Papin sisters came from a troubled family. While Clémence was dating Gustave, it was rumored that she was having an affair with her employer. However, after she became pregnant, Gustave married her in October 1901. Five months later, her first daughter, Émilia, was born.


title: Christine and Léa Papin

text: Suspecting that Clémence was still having an affair with her employer, Gustave found a new job in another city and announced the family would move. Clémence declared she would rather take her own life than leave Le Mans. The marriage deteriorated. Gustave began to drink heavily.


title: Christine and Léa Papin

text: Christine was born on March 8, 1905. However, her mother was considered not to be nurturing and deemed unsuitable for motherhood. Christine was given to her paternal aunt and uncle soon after birth. She lived happily with them for seven years.


title: Christine and Léa Papin

text: Léa was born on September 15, 1911, and given to her maternal uncle, with whom she remained until he died. In 1912, when Émilia was 9 or 10 years old, it was alleged that Gustave had raped her. Clémence believed that Émilia had seduced her father and sent her to the Bon Pasteur Catholic Orphanage, which was known for its brutality and discipline. Soon afterward, Émilia was joined by Christine and Léa, who Clémence intended would remain at the orphanage until age 15, when they could be employed. Clémence and Gustave divorced in 1903 or 1913.


title: Christine and Léa Papin

text: In 1918, Émilia decided to enter a convent, effectively ending her relations with her family. As far as can be ascertained, she lived out the remainder of her life there.


title: Christine and Léa Papin

text: During Christine's time at the orphanage, she also received the calling to become a nun. Clémence forbade this, instead placing her in employment. Christine had been trained in various household duties in the convent, easing her into becoming a live-in maid. Christine was described as a hard worker and a good cook who could be insubordinate at times.


title: Christine and Léa Papin

text: Léa was described as quiet, introverted, and obedient but was considered less intelligent than Christine. Employers were content with their work; however, Clémence was not satisfied with their pay and forced them to seek better-paid opportunities.


title: Christine and Léa Papin

text: The sisters worked as maids in various Le Mans homes. They preferred to work together whenever possible.


title: Christine and Léa Papin

text: In 1926, Christine and Léa found live-in positions as maids at 6 rue Bruyère for the Lancelin family; Monsieur René Lancelin, a retired solicitor, his wife Madame Léonie Lancelin, and their younger daughter Genevieve lived in the house (the elder daughter was married). After a few months of excellent service, Christine convinced Madame Lancelin to hire Léa as a chambermaid. The two girls dedicated their lives to working long days doing their job. However, some years after Christine and Léa started working for the family, Madame Léonie developed depression and the girls became the target of her mental illness. She began to scrutinize the cleaning and had become critical of the job done. There were various occasions of Madame Lancelin reportedly physically assaulting the girls. The abuse worsened: at its peak she would slam the girls' heads against the wall.


title: Christine and Léa Papin

text: On the evening of Thursday, February 2, 1933, Monsieur Lancelin was supposed to meet Madame Léonie and Genevieve for dinner at the home of a family friend. Madame Léonie and Genevieve had been out shopping that day. When they returned home that afternoon, no lights were on in the house. The Papin sisters explained to Madame Lancelin that the power outage had been caused by Christine plugging in a faulty iron. Madame Lancelin became irritated and attacked the sisters on the first-floor landing. Christine lunged at Genevieve and gouged her eyes out. Léa joined in the struggle and attacked Madame Lancelin, gouging her eyes out as ordered by Christine. Christine ran downstairs to the kitchen where she retrieved a knife and a hammer. She brought both weapons upstairs, where the sisters continued their attack. At some point, one of the sisters grabbed a heavy pewter pitcher and used it to strike the heads of both Lancelin women. In the midst of the rage, they mutilated the buttocks and thighs of the victims.


title: Christine and Léa Papin

text: Some time later, Monsieur Lancelin returned home to find the house dark. He assumed that his wife and daughter had left for the dinner party and proceeded to the party himself. When he arrived at his friend's home, he found that his family was not there either. He returned to his residence with his son-in-law at approximately 18:30 or 19:00, where they discovered the entire house still dark except for a light in the Papin sisters' room. The front door was bolted shut from the inside, so they were unable to enter the house. The two men found this suspicious and went to a local police station to summon help from an officer. Together with the policeman, they returned to the Lancelin home where the policeman made entry into the home by climbing over the garden wall.


title: Christine and Léa Papin

text: Once inside, he found the bodies of Madame Lancelin and her daughter Genevieve. They had both been bludgeoned and stabbed to the point of being unrecognizable. Madame Lancelin's eyes had been gouged out and were found in the folds of the scarf around her neck, and one of Genevieve's eyes was found under her body and another on the stairs at the other end of the hallway. Thinking that the Papin sisters had met the same fate, the policeman continued upstairs only to find the door to the Papin sisters' room locked.


title: Christine and Léa Papin

text: After the officer knocked but received no response, he summoned a locksmith to open the door. Inside the room, he found the Papin sisters naked in bed together, and a bloody hammer, with hair still clinging to it, on a chair nearby.


title: Christine and Léa Papin

text: The sisters confessed to the murder immediately; however, they claimed that it had been committed in self-defense. During the trial, the sisters protected each other and each confessed sole responsibility for the crimes committed. The sisters were placed in prison and separated from each other.


title: Christine and Léa Papin

text: Christine became extremely distressed because she could not see Léa. At one point, prison officials relented and allowed the two sisters to meet. Christine reportedly threw herself at Léa, unbuttoning her blouse, begging her "Please, say yes!" suggesting an incestuous sexual relationship.


title: Christine and Léa Papin

text: In July 1933, Christine experienced a "fit", or episode, in which she tried to gouge her own eyes out and had to be put in a straitjacket. She then made a statement to the investigating magistrate, in which she said that on the day of the murders she had experienced an episode like the one she just had in prison and that this was what precipitated the murders.


title: Christine and Léa Papin

text: The sisters' chosen lawyer pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity on behalf of them. Christine and Léa demonstrated signs of mental illness such as limiting eye contact and staring straight ahead appearing to be in a daze. The court appointed three doctors to administer psychological evaluations of the sisters to determine their mental state. They concluded that the two had no mental disorders and deemed them sane and fit to stand trial. They also believed that Christine's affection for her sister was based on family ties, not an incestuous relationship as others had suggested.


title: Christine and Léa Papin

text: However, during the September 1933 trial, medical testimony noted a history of mental illness in the family. Their uncle had died by suicide, while their cousin was living in an asylum. The psychological community struggled and debated over a diagnosis for the sisters.


title: Christine and Léa Papin

text: After much consideration, it was concluded that Christine and Léa suffered from "Shared Paranoid Disorder", which is believed to occur when groups or pairs of people are isolated from the world, developing paranoia, and in which one partner dominates the other. This was especially true of Léa, whose meek personality was overshadowed by the obstinate and dominant Christine.


title: Christine and Léa Papin

text: After the trial, jurors took 40 minutes to determine that the Papin sisters were indeed guilty of the crime of which they had been accused. Léa, thought to be under the influence of her older sister, was given a 10-year sentence. Christine was initially sentenced to death at the guillotine, although that sentence was later commuted to life imprisonment.


title: Christine and Léa Papin

text: The separation from Léa proved to be too much for Christine. Her condition deteriorated rapidly once they were apart. She had written various letters pleading to be with Léa; however, her wish was not to be granted. She experienced bouts of depression and "madness", eventually refusing to eat. Prison officials transferred her to a mental institution in Rennes, hoping that she would benefit from professional help. Still separated from Léa, she continued to starve herself until she died of cachexia ("wasting away") on May 18, 1937.


title: Christine and Léa Papin

text: Léa fared better than Christine, serving only eight years of her 10-year sentence due to good behavior in prison. After her release in 1941, she lived in the town of Nantes, where she was joined by her mother. She assumed a false identity and earned a living as a hotel maid.


title: Christine and Léa Papin

text: Some accounts state that Léa died in 1982, but French film producer Claude Ventura claims to have discovered Léa living in a hospice center in France in 2000 while creating the film "En Quête des Soeurs Papin" (in English "In Search of the Papin Sisters"). The woman he claimed to be Léa had suffered a stroke which had rendered her partially paralyzed and unable to speak. This woman died in 2001.