title: Intellectual giftedness

text: Some believe that the isolation experienced by gifted individuals is not caused by giftedness itself, but by society's response to giftedness and to the rarity of peers. Plucker and Levy have noted that, "in this culture, there appears to be a great pressure for people to be 'normal' with a considerable stigma associated with giftedness or talent." To counteract this problem, gifted education professionals recommend creating a peer group based on common interests and abilities. The earlier this occurs, the more effective it is likely to be in preventing isolation. Since the mid-1940s, several high-IQ societies of varying levels of selectivity have been established to help gifted individuals find intellectual peers, the oldest ones being Mensa and Intertel, established in 1946 and 1966 respectively.


title: Intellectual giftedness

text: Some research suggests that mathematically gifted adolescents might have deficiencies in social valuation & mentalization, while gifted adolescents in general may struggle with social adaptive learning, but these conclusions are not supported by a large literature.


title: Intellectual giftedness

text: Perfectionism, while considered to have many positive aspects, can be another issue for gifted individuals. It is encouraged by the fact that gifted individuals tend to be easily successful in much of what they do.


title: Intellectual giftedness

text: "Healthy perfectionism" refers to having high standards, a desire to achieve, conscientiousness, or high levels of responsibility. It is likely to be a virtue rather than a problem, even if gifted children may have difficulty with healthy perfectionism because they set standards that would be appropriate to their mental age (the level at which they think), but they cannot always meet them because they are bound to a younger body, or the social environment is restrictive. In such cases, outsiders may call some behavior perfectionism, while for the gifted this may be their standard. It has been said that perfectionism "becomes desirable when it stimulates the healthy pursuit of excellence."


title: Intellectual giftedness

text: Some believe that perfectionism can be unhealthy. "Unhealthy perfectionism" stems from equating one's worth as a human being to one's achievements, and the simultaneous belief that any work less than perfect is unacceptable and will lead to criticism. Because perfection in the majority of human activities is neither desirable, nor possible, this cognitive distortion creates self-doubt, performance anxiety, and ultimately procrastination.


title: Intellectual giftedness

text: Unhealthy perfectionism can be triggered or further exacerbated by parents, siblings, or classmates with good or ill intentions. Parents are usually proud and will extensively praise the gifted child. On the other hand, siblings, comrades, and school bullies may generally become jealous or envious of the intellectual ease of the gifted child and tease him or her about any minor imperfection in his or her work, strength, clothes, appearance, or behavior. Either approach—positive reinforcement from parents or negative reactions from siblings and comrades for minor flaws—may push gifted children into equating their worth amongst their peers to their own abilities; thus, any imperfection could be viewed as a serious defect in themselves. This unhealthy perfectionism can be further exaggerated when the child counters bullying with the same tactics (i.e., insulting the less exceptional abilities of others), thus creating further disdain in himself for low or even average performance.


title: Intellectual giftedness

text: There are many theories that try to explain the correlation between perfectionism and giftedness. Perfectionism can become a problem as it frustrates and inhibits achievements.


title: Intellectual giftedness

text: D. E. Hamachek identified six specific, overlapping types of behavior associated with perfectionism. They are:


title: Intellectual giftedness

text: Underachievement is a significant issue for gifted learners. There is often a stark gap between the abilities of the gifted individual and their actual accomplishments. Many gifted students will perform extremely well on standardized or reasoning tests, only to fail a class exam. It is estimated that half of gifted children do not perform in school at a level that is up to their abilities. Studies of high school dropouts in the United States estimate that between 18% and 25% of the students who fail to graduate are gifted. This disparity can result from various factors, such as loss of interest in classes that are too easy or negative social consequences of being perceived as smart. Underachievement can also result from emotional or psychological factors, including depression, anxiety, perfectionism, low self esteem, or self-sabotage.


title: Intellectual giftedness

text: An often-overlooked contributor to underachievement is undiagnosed learning differences. A gifted individual is less likely to be diagnosed with a learning disorder than a non-gifted classmate, as the gifted child can more readily compensate for their paucities. This masking effect is dealt with by understanding that a difference of one standard deviation between scores constitutes a learning disability even if all of the scores are above average. Assessments may also fail to identify some gifted students entirely because their underachieving behaviours keep them from being recognized as exceptional.


title: Intellectual giftedness

text: Some gifted children may not be aware that they are gifted. One apparently effective way to attempt to reverse underachievement in gifted children includes educating teachers to provide enrichment projects based on students' strengths and interests without attracting negative attention from peers. Other methods include matching the underachiever with an achieving role model, correcting skill deficiencies and ensuring that proper assessments are in place to identify all learning issues with underachieving students.


title: Intellectual giftedness

text: It has been thought in the past that there is a correlation between giftedness and depression. This is not an established research finding. As Reis and Renzulli mention,


title: Intellectual giftedness

text: With the exception of creatively gifted adolescents who are talented in writing or the visual arts, studies do not confirm that gifted individuals manifest significantly higher or lower rates or severity of depression than those for the general population. Gifted children's advanced cognitive abilities, social isolation, sensitivity, and uneven development may cause them to face some challenging social and emotional issues, but their problem-solving abilities, advanced social skills, moral reasoning, out-of-school interests, and satisfaction in achievement may help them to be more resilient.


title: Intellectual giftedness

text: There is also no research that points to suicide attempt rates being higher in gifted adolescents than other adolescents.


title: Barbie as the Princess and the Pauper

text: Barbie as the Princess and the Pauper is a 2004 computer-animated musical fantasy film. It was released to video on September 28, 2004, and made its television premiere on Nickelodeon on November 14, 2004.


title: Barbie as the Princess and the Pauper

text: This film is the first musical in the Barbie series. It was directed by William Lau and stars the voice of Kelly Sheridan as the Barbie protagonists, Anneliese and Erika. The plot is loosely inspired by the 1881 Mark Twain novel "The Prince and the Pauper", and it is the first Barbie film that completely excludes fantastic elements (fairies, magic, mermaids), which were a usual part of Barbie franchise. It is generally regarded as the best film in the franchise and has secured a strong cult following.


title: Barbie as the Princess and the Pauper

text: Songs for the film were written by Amy Powers, Megan Cavallari and Rob Hudnut, who also executive produced the film. The film was nominated for six DVD Exclusive Awards.


title: Barbie as the Princess and the Pauper

text: In an unnamed kingdom, a blonde princess and a brunette pauper are born at the same time. Several years later, Princess Anneliese is betrothed by her mother, Queen Genevieve, to the wealthy King Dominick to save the nearly bankrupt royal treasury; however, she is in love with her young tutor Julian. The Pauper, Erika, is an indentured servant, working off her parents' debt at Madame Carp's Dress Emporium, which supplies the palace with clothes; however, she dreams of becoming a singer and seeing the world.


title: Barbie as the Princess and the Pauper

text: Unbeknownst to the Queen, the reason behind the kingdom's bankruptcy is that her adviser Preminger has been stealing gold, emptying the royal mines. Upon learning from his henchmen, Nick and Nack, that the Queen has arranged Anneliese's marriage to King Dominick, he decides to make Anneliese 'mysteriously disappear', which will then cancel the engagement. Preminger plans to pretend that he has found the Princess, earning a betrothal to her, which would eventually allow him to become king himself.


title: Barbie as the Princess and the Pauper

text: Julian takes Anneliese for a day out into the kingdom so that she can be free for once; there, she witnesses the poverty caused by the kingdom's bankruptcy. Anneliese hears Erika, who is performing in the street to earn money for herself, but Madame Carp steals the earnings as part of her debt. Anneliese and Erika meet and learn that they are identical, apart from their hair color and the crown-shaped birthmark on Anneliese's shoulder. The two bond over their shared troubles. That night, Anneliese and her cat Serafina are abducted by Nick and Nack, who leave a forged letter saying she ran away.


title: Barbie as the Princess and the Pauper

text: Julian, doubting the letter, asks Erika to impersonate the Princess, saving the engagement while he investigates Anneliese's disappearance. Preminger is surprised when Erika, disguised as Anneliese, presents herself at the palace. King Dominick introduces himself to the disguised Erika; over time, the two fall in love, but Erika worries about what will happen if she is found out.


title: Barbie as the Princess and the Pauper

text: The real Anneliese escapes from Nick and Nack, but the guards, having seen Erika, mistake Anneliese for an imposter and turn her away. Mistaking Anneliese for Erika, Madame Carp forces Anneliese into her shop and locks her inside. A suspicious Julian follows Preminger to the house where Anneliese was being kept and overhears Preminger's plans, but is discovered and captured.


title: Barbie as the Princess and the Pauper

text: Anneliese has Serafina take her ring and a tag from the dress shop so someone can find her; unfortunately, Preminger and his dog Midas intercept her. Preminger takes Anneliese to the mines, where she is imprisoned with Julian after Nick and Nack cause a cave-in. Preminger returns to the palace, where he exposes Erika as a fake and has her imprisoned. Preminger convinces the Queen that Anneliese has died and that he has supposedly come into great wealth during his travels. With no other options, she reluctantly agrees to marry him to save the Kingdom.


title: Barbie as the Princess and the Pauper

text: Erika escapes the dungeon by singing a lullaby, causing the guard to fall asleep so she can take his keys. She is aided by King Dominick, who suspects Preminger of lying. Meanwhile, Anneliese and Julian find out how to restore the kingdom's resources with some geodes filled with crystals; the two then confess their love for each other. Erika's barking cat, Wolfie, unearths a mine shaft, and the group escapes by flooding the room and floating towards the surface in a barrel.


title: Barbie as the Princess and the Pauper

text: At the Queen and Preminger's wedding, Anneliese arrives, proves her identity with her birthmark, and reveals the truth about Preminger. After a brief chase, Preminger is arrested along with Nick and Nack. Anneliese tells her mother that she wants to marry Julian and that they can help save the kingdom. Soon after, the kingdom's prosperity is restored thanks to the crystals in the mine. Madame Carp is no longer patronized by the palace and goes out of business; with her debt finally paid, Erika leaves to become a renowned singer. After touring the world alone, Erika realizes where her heart truly lies and decides to return home to marry Dominick. Anneliese and Erika have a double wedding, and they and their husbands ride off in a carriage together.


title: Barbie as the Princess and the Pauper

text: "Barbie as the Princess and the Pauper" is the first musical in the series of "Barbie" CGI films. It features seven original songs written by Amy Powers and Megan Cavallari with an original score by Arnie Roth, performed by the Czech Philharmonic Chamber Orchestra. The entire soundtrack (including popular duets and the opening orchestral theme) can be found on the "Barbie Sings! The Princess Movie Song Collection" CD, released by Mattel in 2004.


title: Barbie as the Princess and the Pauper

text: The DVD and VHS was released on September 28, 2004, and distributed by Lionsgate Home Entertainment. The film was re-released on January 5, 2010, by Universal Pictures Home Entertainment. The DVD also included a CD containing seven songs from the film soundtrack.


title: Barbie as the Princess and the Pauper

text: "Barbie as the Princess and the Pauper" received generally positive reviews from entertainment critics. Steve Evans of "DVD Verdict" called it "wholesome entertainment" with "sweet songs tunefully sung" though lacking in grown-up humor. D. Liebenson of "The Video Librarian" praised Barbie's "virtuoso performance", and wrote, "If not altogether faithful to the source material, this impressive production is still a class act, and another jewel in Barbie's crown." Reviewing the film for the "South China Morning Post", Karmel Schreyer noted a "a girl-power twist" on the original Mark Twain tale, and wrote that "the story includes all the elements that make it a worthwhile watch: duty, responsibility, compassion, free will – and, of course, a love interest." Describing the story as "a fascinatingly nuanced line between following one's heart [...] and doing one's duty", Brendan Howard of "Video Store" praised the film's animation, music and voice talent as "top-notch", but was disappointed with the DVD extras, which he called "essentially a serving of karaoke and commercials".


title: Barbie as the Princess and the Pauper

text: James Lileks of the "Star Tribune" wrote favourably of the film's "hummable tunes with clever lyrics, fine characters and a scathing indictment of the inequities of the feudal system" and jokingly dubbed it "the ""Citizen Kane"" of the [children's film] genre" due to its unusually high quality. Mandi Bierly of "Entertainment Weekly" scored it a B+, noting a generally "feminist" story. "TV Guide"'s Robert Pardi scored it 2.5/4, praising the "peppy score" and classic story as distinguishing an otherwise "ordinary Mattel-icized version of the classic tale".


title: Barbie as the Princess and the Pauper

text: Reviewing the film for Common Sense Media, Tracy Moore found the animation quality was improved from previous CGI Barbie films, and advised that parents "may appreciate attention drawn to class inequality, and the precious few scenes focusing on girls liking science, books, and less passive pursuits." Moore wrote that the film "almost succeed[s]" in updating traditional models for girls' entertainment, as Princess Anneliese and Erika are shown "putting [their interests] first over romance [...] But the big finish still centers around them pairing off, fairy-tale style." In "The Dallas Morning News", Nancy Churnin praised the lead characters as "bold and brainy" and found, "one of the sweetest aspects of this film is the utter absence of jealousy between Anneliese and Erika. Good things happen, ultimately, because of their mutual friendship and support."


title: Barbie as the Princess and the Pauper

text: A video game for Game Boy Advance, PC, and Macintosh was released in 2004 by Vivendi Universal Games. In the Game Boy Advance title, the plot follows that of the movie: players must thwart Preminger's attempt to take over the kingdom by marrying Anneliese. Players control four characters: Anneliese, Erika, Serafina, and Wolfie.


title: JSW Group

text: JSW Group is an Indian multinational conglomerate, based in Mumbai. It is led by Sajjan Jindal and part of the O.P. Jindal Group. The Group's diverse businesses include steel, energy, infrastructure, cement and paints, across India, the United States, South America, and Africa.


title: Robbie Rotten

text: Robbie Rotten () is a fictional character and the main antagonist of the Icelandic children's program "LazyTown". He is also the series' primary comic relief character. He is a ruthless, selfish and lazy, yet goofy, eccentric and silly supervillain, and the arch-nemesis of the series' main protagonists, Sportacus and Stephanie, who promote exercise, healthy eating and an active and healthy lifestyle. As for Robbie, his favorite pastimes include eating junk food and watching TV. Robbie has fair skin, green-grey eyes, and black hair. He usually wears a two-piece suit of maroon and purple with gold pinstripes, formal shoes, a navy blue shirt with cuffs and cuff links. He is the tallest character.


title: Robbie Rotten

text: Being extremely lazy, Robbie naturally opposes their attempts to spread a healthy influence to the people of LazyTown and employs various schemes, often involving the use of disguises, to discredit healthy living and run Sportacus (whom he refers to as "Sportaflop") out of LazyTown in every episode, although his plans are always foiled in the end. Ironically, Robbie becomes very active when he executes his plans. He was based on his incarnation from the original musical and played by Stefán Karl Stefánsson on the Nickelodeon/Cartoonito/HBO TV show.


title: Robbie Rotten

text: In the second Icelandic stage play, the character was called Glanni Glæpur and, when he arrived at the town, he wore a completely black outfit; but, when he was disguised as Rikki Riki (a very wealthy man), he wore a purple coat, purple pants and shoes that are similar to those that Robbie wears in the television series—although at that point he did not yet have his hair covered in gel. In the television series, Robbie Rotten usually wears a two-piece suit of red and purple with gold pinstripes, formal shoes, a navy blue shirt with cuffs and cuff links, blue and red striped socks and black shoes with black soles.


title: Robbie Rotten

text: Robbie Rotten's song "You Are a Pirate" was Stefán Karl's favorite song on the show to perform. Since 2007, the lyric "Do what you want 'cause a pirate is free, you are a pirate" became an oft-quoted meme in YouTube Poop and hacker culture, most often in reference to online piracy via LimeWire.


title: Robbie Rotten

text: Around 2016, Robbie Rotten rose to internet fame through the song "We Are Number One". The Reddit forum r/dankmemes voted Robbie Rotten "Meme of the Year" in 2016.


title: Open front unrounded vowel

text: The open front unrounded vowel, or low front unrounded vowel, is a type of vowel sound used in some spoken languages. It is one of the eight primary cardinal vowels, not directly intended to correspond to a vowel sound of a specific language but rather to serve as a fundamental reference point in a phonetic measuring system.


title: Open front unrounded vowel

text: The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) that represents this sound is , and in the IPA vowel chart it is positioned at the lower-left corner. However, the accuracy of the quadrilateral vowel chart is disputed, and the sound has been analyzed acoustically as extra-open at a position where the front/back distinction has lost its significance. There are also differing interpretations of the exact quality of the vowel: the classic sound recording of by Daniel Jones is slightly more front but not quite as open as that by John Wells.


title: Open front unrounded vowel

text: In practice, the symbol is often used to represent an open "central" unrounded vowel. This is the usual practice, for example, in the historical study of the English language. The loss of separate symbols for open and near-open front vowels is usually considered unproblematic, because the perceptual difference between the two is quite small, and very few languages contrast the two. If there is a need to specify the backness of the vowel as fully front one can use the symbol , which denotes a lowered near-open front unrounded vowel, or with the IPA "advanced" diacritic.


title: Open front unrounded vowel

text: The Hamont-Achel dialect of Limburgish has been reported to contrast long open front, central and back unrounded vowels. This is extremely unusual.


title: Open front unrounded vowel

text: This subsumes central open (central low) vowels because the tongue does not have as much flexibility in positioning as it does in the mid and close (high) vowels; the difference between an open front vowel and an open back vowel is similar to the difference between a close front and a close central vowel, or a close central and a close back vowel.


title: Open front unrounded vowel

text: Many languages have some form of an unrounded open vowel. For languages that have only a single open vowel, the symbol for this vowel may be used because it is the only open vowel whose symbol is part of the basic Latin alphabet. Whenever marked as such, the vowel is closer to a central than to a front . However, there may not actually be much of a difference. (See Vowel#Acoustics.)


title: Lecrae

text: Lecrae Devaughn Moore (born October 9, 1979), mononymously known as Lecrae, is an American rapper, singer, songwriter, record and film producer, record executive, actor, and entrepreneur.


title: Lecrae

text: He is the president, co-owner and co-founder of the independent record label Reach Records, was the co-founder and president of the now-defunct non-profit organization ReachLife Ministries, is an investor and co-owner of the audio production software MXD, and is a co-founder of the film production studio 3 Strand Films. To date, he has released ten studio albums and three mixtapes as a solo artist, and has released three studio albums, a remix album, one EP, and numerous singles as the leader of the hip hop group 116 Clique. He produced much of his earlier material along with other early Reach Records releases. Lecrae, in reference to him being labelled as a Christian rapper, has stated that his music is just hip hop, though it reflects his Christian faith. In May 2016, Lecrae signed to Columbia Records in a joint deal between his label and Columbia. He left Columbia in May 2020.


title: Lecrae

text: Lecrae's debut recording, "Real Talk", was released in 2004 through Reach Records. His third solo album, "Rebel", released in 2008, became the first Christian hip hop album to reach No. 1 on the "Billboard" Gospel chart. "Rehab" followed in 2010, and Lecrae began attracting mainstream attention when he performed at the 2011 BET Hip Hop Awards Cypher and appeared on the Statik Selektah song "Live & Let Live" from "Population Control". On May 10, 2012, Lecrae released his first mixtape, "Church Clothes", which was hosted by Don Cannon. Considered his breakthrough into mainstream hip hop, the mixtape was downloaded over 100,000 times in less than 48 hours. His sixth studio album, "Gravity", came out on September 4, 2012, and has been called the most important album in Christian hip hop history by Rapzilla and "Atlanta Daily World". The album debuted as the best-selling album overall in the iTunes Store, No. 3 on the "Billboard" 200 and won the Grammy Award for Best Gospel Album at the 2013 Grammy Awards, marking the first time that a hip hop artist received this award. Lecrae released his seventh album, "Anomaly", on September 9, 2014. It debuted at No. 1 on the "Billboard" 200 with 88,587 copies sold through the first week, the first album to top both the "Billboard" 200 and the Gospel chart simultaneously. He released a third mixtape, "Church Clothes 3", on January 15, 2016, an eighth studio album, "All Things Work Together", on September 22, 2017, and a ninth studio album, "Let the Trap Say Amen", a collaborative project with Zaytoven, on June 22, 2018. His tenth studio album, "Restoration", was released on August 21, 2020.


title: Lecrae

text: Lecrae received nominations for Artist of the Year at the 43rd, 44th, 45th, and 46th GMA Dove Awards, the last of which he won, and for Best Gospel Artist at the 2013 and 2015 BET Awards, the latter of which he won, a first for a rap artist. Lecrae's filmography includes a role in the television film "A Cross to Bear" (2012) and brief roles in the comedy film "Believe Me" (2014), crime film "Superfly" (2018), and Christian drama film "Breakthrough" (2019). In the social sphere, Lecrae has presented on and written about racial tension and injustice in the United States as well as advocated for the preservation of responsibility and fatherhood as a value among men in the United States. In 2013 he partnered with Dwyane Wade and Joshua DuBois in the multimedia initiative "This Is Fatherhood" as part of the Obama administration's Fatherhood and Mentoring Initiative, and in 2020 during the COVID-19 pandemic worked with Love Beyond Walls to distribute hand-washing stations and food to homeless people in Atlanta.


title: Lecrae

text: Born and raised by his single mother in south Houston, Texas, Lecrae moved often early in life, living in San Diego, Denver, and Dallas. He has stated that he would go to church with his Christian grandmother, but considered it for "older people" and said it "wasn't for me." Lecrae never met his father, who ended up becoming a drug addict. In the song "Good, Bad, Ugly", Lecrae reveals that when he was "almost eight" years old, a female baby sitter sexually molested him, an incident which Lecrae believes distorted his view of sexuality, influencing his later promiscuous lifestyle. Experiencing abuse and neglect during his childhood, Lecrae used his ability to rap as a source of significance. According to Lecrae, his grandmother would not allow him to watch rap music videos on television, but he would sneak in late at night. It was in these videos that Lecrae found individuals to look up to. Lecrae states that "there were no Martin Luther Kings or Malcolm Xs, they had all passed away so I had Tupac." After being shown a gun by his uncle, Lecrae began looking up to gangsters and turned to a life of crime. Lecrae remembers taking a BB gun and standing in the street pointing it to a car, frightening the female driver, simply for fun. At 11 years old, he started writing music for a R&B (Rhythm and Blues) group formed by some of his neighbors. His first track, written for a neighborhood crush, emulated the style of Tupac, Outkast, and A Tribe Called Quest. At the age of 16, he started taking drugs, fighting, was arrested in high school for stealing, and eventually ended up on a gang list. Lecrae tried "pretty much every drug there was to try" except for heroin and crack cocaine.


title: Lecrae

text: According to CNN, he became a drug dealer and used the Bible that his grandmother gave him as a good luck charm. After being arrested for drug possession, the officer saw the Bible and let Lecrae go on a promise that he would agree to live by it. He eventually turned from drugs to alcohol consumption and a party lifestyle and became a "misfit of a person." He has described himself during this period as a thrill-seeker, he would pull stunts such as jumping from a third-story building, and gained the nickname "Crazy 'Crae". Encouraged by his concerned mother to read his Bible, Lecrae said that "I remember ripping the pages out of the Bible and throwing it on the floor. I don't want this Bible. I couldn't wrap my hands around this being true or real." He began to drink and smoke more and look for more women "as the emptiness became more profound." At age 17, his personal, financial, and relationship troubles convinced him that he was at a "dead end." Wanting to do what he considered the mature thing, through the influence of his grandmother, he desired to start attending church. A girl Lecrae attended high school with was there, and she invited him to a Bible study, where he met Darragh, his future wife. Lecrae was surprised to find that the members of the Bible study "were just people like me. They read the same books and listened to the same music. Their character was just different. They were loving and that's really what drew me in." Lecrae says that it was at age 19 that he finally decided to live for God, though "it wasn't overnight" and he "spent a lot of time making bad decisions."


title: Lecrae

text: Lecrae attended a conference after being invited by a friend, though Lecrae admits that his interest was to meet girls and experience the big city. When he arrived at the conference, Lecrae was awed by the performance of the Christian hip-hop group The Cross Movement. Lecrae says that he saw "guys who had been shot from being in gangs, girls who were extremely promiscuous in the past, I see rappers, dancers and singers; I see people who came from the same background I came from, and they still embodied who they were culturally, but they were all in love with Jesus and I had never seen that before." After hearing Pastor James White of Christ Our King Community Church speak on how Christians are bought with a price and the suffering that Jesus underwent in the Crucifixion, Lecrae says that he remembers articulating "God get me out of this, don't kill me; do whatever you have to do to get me out of this, just don't kill me." Later, Lecrae was driving on a highway when he turned too quickly and his car went into a roll. He had no seatbelt and the roof and windshield of the car caved in, his glasses were molded into the frame of the car, but he survived completely uninjured. Lecrae cites this incident as the one which convinced him to commit his life to Christ. Lecrae went back to school at the University of North Texas. He started volunteering and performing at a juvenile detention center, and the reception he received convinced him that offering "hope and encouragement" through music was what he wanted to do. However, Lecrae still struggled in his faith − as revealed in "Good, Bad, Ugly", in 2002 he impregnated a then-girlfriend. Rather than risk scandal, he and his girlfriend had the baby aborted, a decision he says he now deeply regrets.


title: Lecrae

text: In 2004, five years after his conversion, Lecrae teamed up with Ben Washer to found Reach Records, and at the age of 25 he released his first album, "Real Talk". The following year it was re-released by Cross Movement Records and reached No. 29 on the "Billboard" Gospel Albums chart, staying on the chart for 12 weeks. The album later received a nomination at the 2007 Stellar Awards. In 2005, Lecrae co-founded the non-profit organization ReachLife Ministries (no longer operational since April 2015), which equipped local Christian leaders with tools, media, curriculum, and conferences that were based on the teachings of the Bible and relevant to hip-hop culture. Also in 2005, the debut album of 116 Clique, "The Compilation Album", was released.


title: Lecrae

text: After the success of "Real Talk", Lecrae then released his second studio album on August 15, 2006. "After the Music Stops" charted at No. 5 on the "Billboard" Gospel Albums chart, No. 7 on the "Billboard" Christian Albums chart and No. 16 on the "Billboard" Heatseeker Album charts, and received a nomination for a Dove Award, as was the single "Jesus Muzik", featuring Trip Lee. In 2007, 116 Clique released its second album, "13 Letters", reaching No. 10 on the Gospel Albums chart and No. 29 on the Christian Albums chart. 116 Clique also released the remix EP "Amped", which peaked at No. 24 on the Gospel Albums chart.


title: Lecrae

text: On October 8, 2008, Lecrae's third album, "Rebel", entered the "Billboard" charts at No. 60 with 9,800 units sold and topped the "Billboard" Gospel Album charts for two weeks, the first hip-hop album to do so. It also charted at No. 2 on the Christian Albums chart and No. 15 on the Top Independent charts. In 2009, the album received a nomination at the 40th Dove Awards, as did the Flame song "Joyful Noise", which featured Lecrae and John Reilly. 2009 also saw Lecrae's first film role, when he appeared in the documentary "Uprise Presents: Word from the Street" by the UK-based TV channel OHTV.


title: Lecrae

text: On February 5, 2010, Lecrae released a charity single entitled "Far Away", a tribute to the victims of the 2010 Haiti earthquake. Lecrae promised that all proceeds from the single's sales would go directly to the Haiti relief effort. On July 7, Lecrae announced on the Reach Records website that the title of his new album would be "Rehab". On August 5, 2010, Rapzilla shared a new song from Lecrae called "Amp It Up". Lecrae subsequently clarified on his Twitter account that the song was not a single from "Rehab", but rather a theme song for Kanakuk Kamps, a chain of Christian camps for which he writes songs annually. On August 31, 2010, Reach Records revealed the track list for "Rehab", released it for pre-order, and premiered a promotional video "Idols". A second promotional video, entitled "I Am Dust", debuted on September 9, 2010. Upon its release, "Rehab" hit No. 16 on the "Billboard" 200 chart, making it one of the highest selling Christian hip hop albums at that time.


title: Lecrae

text: On September 22, 2010, Rapzilla reported that the "Rehab" packaging came with an advertisement encouraging buyers to purchase another upcoming album, "", which saw release on January 11, 2011. It included 11 new songs and featured several other Christian artists such as Thi'sl and Swoope. "Rehab: The Overdose" debuted at No. 15 on the "Billboard" 200. On August 29, 2011, Lecrae announced through Twitter that on September 27, 2011, he would release a special edition of "Rehab", entitled "Rehab: Deluxe Edition". On the same day, 116 Clique released their fourth album, entitled "Man Up". On September 7, 2011, Rapzilla announced that Lecrae would be featured on the BET Hip Hop Awards Cypher on October 11, 2011. Lecrae gained popularity after his verse on the cypher trended nationwide on Twitter and was featured on AllHipHop. Lecrae then appeared as a feature on Statik Selektah's song "Live and Let Live" from his "Population Control" album.


title: Lecrae

text: On February 16, 2012, Rapzilla announced that Lecrae was preparing to release his first mixtape, "Church Clothes". On May 3, 2012, Lecrae premiered his music video for the title track of his "Church Clothes" mixtape online on "XXL". The video was noted for including cameos by Kendrick Lamar and DJ Premier, and attracted almost 20,000 views in less than a day. Hosted by Don Cannon, the mixtape featured the song "Darkest Hour", in which Lecrae collaborated with No Malice of Clipse. "Church Clothes" was downloaded more than 100,000 times in less than 48 hours on DatPiff.com, and in less than a month reached 250,000 downloads, a platinum rating on the website. On June 25, 2012, a remastered version of the mixtape, without DJ Don Cannon, was released as an EP for sale on iTunes. Due to issues with sampling, this version was much shorter with only seven songs. Upon its release, the EP debuted on the "Billboard" charts at No. 10 on both the Christian Albums and Gospel Albums charts for the week of July 14, 2012.


title: Lecrae

text: On April 27, Lecrae announced that his next album, "Gravity", was to be released in late 2012, and recording sessions began in May. On June 21, 2012, Lecrae appeared live at the Apple Store in Chicago for Black Music Month. The release date for "Gravity", September 4, 2012, as well as the album artwork was announced on July 19, 2012, via Rapzilla.


title: Lecrae

text: On August 30, 2012, the rapper Saigon announced that Lecrae would be one of the featured artists on his upcoming album "", due November 6, 2012.


title: Lecrae

text: "Gravity" was released on September 4, 2012, to critical acclaim. Upon its release, "Gravity" debuted at No. 3 on the "Billboard" 200, with 72,000 units sold. The album also debuted at No. 1 on the Christian, Gospel, Independent, and Rap Album charts, No. 3 on the Digital Albums chart, and 24 on the Canadian Albums Chart. After the iTunes deluxe version of the album hit No. 1 on that vendors charts, and the regular version at number No. 2, "Time" wrote an article about Lecrae and his success with the album.


title: Lecrae

text: On November 7, 2013, Lecrae released his second mixtape, entitled "Church Clothes Vol. 2", hosted once again by Don Cannon. The mixtape debuted at No. 21 on the "Billboard" 200, No. 1 on the "Billboard" Christian Albums and Gospel Albums charts, and No. 3 on the Rap Albums chart. On Datpiff.com, the album was download over 146,000 times by November 26, 2013.


title: Lecrae

text: On June 3, 2014, Lecrae announced through social media that his seventh studio album would be titled "Anomaly". The album released on September 9, 2014. It is supported by the single "Nuthin". It debuted at No. 1 on the "Billboard 200" with over 88,000 copies sold through the first week. It is the first time an album tops both the "Billboard" 200 and the Gospel Albums chart. Lecrae also became the fifth artist following Chris Tomlin (2013), TobyMac (2012), LeAnn Rimes (1997) and Bob Carlisle (1997) to score a number one album on both Christian Albums and the "Billboard" 200. "Anomaly" also marks the sixth time that Lecrae topped the Gospel Albums chart and the fifth time he topped the Christian Albums chart. In its second week of sales, the album sold 31,000 copies, bringing the total to 120,000 copies sold. In its third week of sales, the album sold another 17,000 copies, bringing the total to 137,000 copies. "Anomaly" went on to sell over 500,000 copies, and was certified Gold by the RIAA on August 26, 2016. As a reward to fans for their support in helping his album go No. 1 on "Billboard", Lecrae released a new song, "Non-Fiction", as a free download on September 17. The song was subsequently released on October 21, 2014, in the iTunes store. The single "All I Need Is You" from the album was nominated for Best Rap Performance at the 57th Annual Grammy Awards, and on June 12, 2019, the song was certified Gold by the RIAA.


title: Lecrae

text: To promote "Anomaly", on September 18, 2014, Lecrae appeared on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon, performing alongside The Roots, the program's house band. He made a subsequent appearance the following year, on January 9, 2015, this time as a featured performer. On January 15, 2016, Lecrae released his third mixtape "Church Clothes 3". The mixtape debuted at No. 12 on the "Billboard" 200 and No. 1 on the Christian, Rap, and Independent charts, selling some 29,207 units.


title: Lecrae

text: In August 2015, Lecrae announced an upcoming memoir titled "Unashamed", which on May 3, 2016, was published through B&H Publishing Group, a subsidiary of LifeWay Christian Resources. It opened at No. 19 on The New York Times Best Seller list. In May 2016, Lecrae signed to Columbia Records, which will release future recordings in conjunction with Reach. Lecrae explained that he signed this deal in order to increase the international audience for Reach, since his label peaked nationally with the release of "Anomaly". In September 2016, Reach Records announced Lecrae's upcoming tour schedule, The Destination Tour (You're Accepted), which ran through October and November. On October 21, 2016, Lecrae released the single "Can't Stop Me Now (Destination)", the lead single from his upcoming studio album. On January 27, 2017, he released the second single "Blessings", featuring Ty Dolla Sign. Lecrae followed this up with the third single "I'll Find You", featuring Tori Kelly, on June 8, 2017. Then, on June 23, 2017, he released a promotional single "Hammer Time", featuring 1K Phew. On August 7, 2017, Lecrae announced his eighth studio album, "All Things Work Together", his major label debut. The album was released on September 22, 2017. "Blessings" went on to be certified Gold on April 30, 2019, and "I'll Find You" was certified Platinum on February 26, 2020.


title: Lecrae

text: On May 24, 2018, he announced in a DJ Booth editorial that he and producer Zaytoven would release a collaborative album called "Let the Trap Say Amen". The album was released on June 22, 2018. In December 2019, the Atlanta Hawks accidentally leaked information about a new Lecrae album coming March 2020 when they posted about a Lecrae performance—also in March—that included information about the album: "Restoration". In an interview with Black Enterprise, Lecrae said that he is excited to put out some healing music, that there is always "hope, healing, and restoration available if you seek it". In the same interview, Lecrae discussed his forthcoming second book, "I Am Restored: How I Lost My Religion but Found My Faith", which will be a follow up to his first book "Unashamed". "I Am Restored" will release October 13, 2020. The first single to "Restoration", "Set Me Free", featuring YK Osiris, and the accompanying music video, was released on March 20, 2020. In May 2020, Lecrae left Columbia, and stated that this would give him more artistic freedom and control. "Restoration" was released on August 21, 2020. On December 3, 2021, Lecrae released "No Church In a While", a ten-track collaboration album with 1K Phew.


title: Lecrae

text: Lecrae's musical genre is predominantly Southern hip hop and has been described as falling under the styles of crunk, gangsta rap, and hardcore hip hop. On his third release, "Rebel", Lecrae slowed down his style on many songs. "Rehab" was noted for its stylistic diversity, particularly on the song "Children of the Light", which featured Dillavou and Sonny Sandoval and incorporated rock, and reggae influences. With the release "Gravity", "Billboard" described Lecrae as incorporating reggae and soul influences into his "signature brash sound." "Let the Trap Say Amen" blended Lecrae's spiritual lyrics with Zaytoven's trap-style production.


title: Lecrae

text: Regarding which musical artists have influenced him, Lecrae, in an interview with "Essence", cited Tupac, Nas, DJ Quik, Scarface, and The Cross Movement. In an interview with "The Christian Post", Lecrae listed his top favorite five hip hop artists as Tupac, Nas, The Ambassador, Snoop Dogg, and Jay Z, though he admires Jay-Z for his business approach rather than his music. Lecrae also names Outkast and Lauryn Hill as major influences, particularly their albums "Aquemini" and "The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill", respectively. He considers Hill's song "Adam Lives in Theory" the top song that nourishes him spiritually. In the song "Non-Fiction", he lists the Tunnel Rats alongside The Cross Movement as an influence when he was newly converted to Christianity. Theologically, Lecrae follows the Reformed tradition and is considered an influential figure in the New Calvinist movement. He cites Tommy Nelson, John MacArthur, and John Piper, among others, as early influences on his Christian faith, and Lecrae even titled one of his songs, "Don't Waste Your Life", after the book of the same name by Piper. Lecrae explains that through Nelson, MacArthur, and Piper, he subsequently discovered Charles Spurgeon, John Calvin, and Francis Schaeffer, the last of whom Lecrae calls his "personal hero". Other theologians cited by Lecrae include Tim Keller, Andy Crouch, Randy Alcorn, and Abraham Kuyper. He also looks to Martin Luther King Jr. for inspiration on working out faith in application to social issues.


title: Lecrae

text: According to "Miami New Times", he frequently tells the press: "My music is not Christian, Lecrae is." He continues: "I think Christian is a wonderful noun, but a terrible adjective. Are there Christian shoes, Christian clothes, Christian plumbers, Christian pipes? I think if you're going to, you should label it hip-hop... hip-hop is a particular poetic style. Labeling it with the faith assumes that the song is going to be some kind of sermon, but there's a lot of social and political things that I don't think make it gospel or Christian music." He also stated, "I like to wrap my mind around a total situation. I'm a social anthropologist. If I never been homeless, let me try to be homeless for a week and soak up that information. More like a method actor. So for me it's spending time with people and talking about things from their perspective."


title: Lecrae

text: Brooklyn Nets guard Jeremy Lin recommended Lecrae and Hillsong in an interview when asked about his pre-game music. Former NFL quarterback Tim Tebow and professional wrestler Ezekiel Jackson have also endorsed Lecrae. During March 2014, Lecrae signed a ten-day contract with the Atlanta Hawks, and on April 4, 2014, he performed live at Philips Arena after the Hawks game. "Dum Dum", a song by Tedashii featuring Lecrae, was used on an episode of "So You Think You Can Dance". Lecrae also created the theme song for a new ESPN "SportsCenter" block called "Coast to Coast".


title: Lecrae

text: In 2011, 116 Clique and ReachLife Ministries, both headed by Lecrae, launched a media campaign entitled "Man Up", intended to mentor male urban youths on fatherhood and biblical manhood. It features concert tours and a curriculum centered on a short film and a studio album, both titled "Man Up", and since 2012 has also featured a string of conference events.


title: Lecrae

text: In May 2013, Lecrae partnered with NBA player Dwyane Wade, filmmaker Art Hooker, and Joshua DuBois, the former head of the Office of Faith Based and Neighborhood Partnerships under the Obama administration, to create the national media campaign "This Is Fatherhood", an initiative "devoted to restoring America's commitment to healthy fatherhood." The campaign began on May 1 with a "This is Fatherhood Challenge", in which contestants could submit videos, songs, and essays about fatherhood through June 10. The winners received cash prizes and a trip to Washington, D.C., for a ceremony on Father's Day. In addition, Lecrae offered studio time and mentoring to the grand prize winner. Lecrae, Wade, DuBois, Jay Z, and U.S. President Barack Obama all made appearances in the campaign's promotional public service announcements.


title: Lecrae

text: Lecrae has also contributed op-ed articles to "Billboard" dealing with race relations in the United States, including the 2014 Ferguson unrest, 2015 Charleston church shooting, and 2016 shootings of Alton Stirling, Philando Castile, and five Dallas police officers. In these articles, Lecrae has called for understanding and empathy across racial divides and willingness to listen to the oppressed, and also pointed out the need for spiritual healing through Jesus Christ. In mid 2016, Lecrae did a talk about racial reconciliation at Yale University, titled "Knowledge through Narrative: Bridging the Racial Divide in America". He also spoke on hip hop culture at a Nashville TEDx conference, decrying the misogyny and violence rampant in much of hip hop's lyrics but advocating for hip hop to be used as an agent for social change. At the 2016 BET Hip Hop Awards, Lecrae performed an original composition addressing racial injustice in the United States, referencing the shooting of Philando Castile.


title: Lecrae

text: In March 2020, during the COVID-19 pandemic, Lecrae worked with a local non-profit, Love Beyond Walls, to distribute hand-washing stations and food to homeless people in Atlanta. He also wrote an essay for "Billboard" in which he discussed the need for humane behavior in the midst of widespread social panic due to the outbreak. After the murder of George Floyd, Lecrae was inspired to write "Deep End", which was a late addition to "Restoration".


title: Lecrae

text: Lecrae has partnered with Oust Labs to be an investor and co-owner of the audio production software MXD, which was founded by Jacob "Biz" Morris. In 2020, Lecrae teamed up with Adam Thomason to found the film production studio 3 Strand Films. He is a venture partner in Collab Capital, and has participated in several real estate ventures, including Invest Atlanta and Peace Preparatory Academy, intended to revitalize English Avenue.


title: Lecrae

text: Lecrae currently resides in Atlanta since relocating there from Memphis in 2009, and is married to Darragh Moore. The couple have three children together. Lecrae is a graduate of the University of North Texas. In an interview with HipHopDX, Lecrae stated that Clipse member No Malice sought him out as a spiritual advisor. Canada Christian College bestowed an honorary Doctorate of Music to Lecrae on March 14, 2016, while visiting Toronto, making him the youngest recipient of such a degree from the college. On October 20, 2016, Lecrae wrote in "The Huffington Post" that he has been struggling with depression and doubt, which was partly caused by the backlash he received from many American evangelicals who are critical of his public stance on race-related issues. On August 14, 2020, Lecrae posted a video on his YouTube channel that includes footage of him re-connecting with his long-absent father who now resides in San Diego.


title: Lecrae

text: Lecrae has won many music awards over the space of his career, including two Grammy Awards and eight Dove Awards. In 2013, he became the first hip hop artist to win the Grammy Award for Best Gospel Album, which was awarded to his sixth album, "Gravity", and in 2015 became the first rapper to win the BET Award for Best Gospel Artist.


title: Pigpen cipher

text: The pigpen cipher (alternatively referred to as the masonic cipher, Freemason's cipher, Napoleon cipher, and tic-tac-toe cipher) is a geometric simple substitution cipher, which exchanges letters for symbols which are fragments of a grid. The example key shows one way the letters can be assigned to the grid.


title: Pigpen cipher

text: Although Pigpen might be regarded as a fun cipher to use, it offers almost no cryptographic security at all. Its use of symbols instead of letters in no way impedes cryptanalysis, and this cipher is not otherwise different from any other simple monoalphabetic substitution cipher. Worse, because it is both very well-known and instantly recognizable, it is arguably among the worst ciphers one can possibly choose from a security standpoint. Indeed, knowledge of Pigpen is so ubiquitous that an interceptor might not need to actually "break" this cipher at all, but merely "decipher" it, in the same way that the intended recipient would.


title: Pigpen cipher

text: Due to Pigpen's simplicity, it is very often included in children's books on ciphers and secret writing.


title: Pigpen cipher

text: The cipher is believed to be an ancient cipher and is said to have originated with the Hebrew rabbis. Thompson writes that, “there is evidence that suggests that the Knights Templar utilized a pig-pen cipher” during the Christian Crusades.


title: Pigpen cipher

text: Parrangan & Parrangan write that it was used by an individual, who may have been a Mason, “in the 16th century to save his personal notes.”


title: Pigpen cipher

text: In 1531 Cornelius Agrippa described an early form of the Rosicrucian cipher, which he attributes to an existing Jewish Kabbalistic tradition. This system, called "The Kabbalah of the Nine Chambers" by later authors, used the Hebrew alphabet rather than the Latin alphabet, and was used for religious symbolism rather than for any apparent cryptological purpose.


title: Pigpen cipher

text: Variations of this cipher were used by both the Rosicrucian brotherhood and the Freemasons, though the latter used the pigpen cipher so often that the system is frequently called the Freemason's cipher. Hysin claims it was invented by Freemasons. They began using it in the early 18th century to keep their records of history and rites private, and for correspondence between lodge leaders. Tombstones of Freemasons can also be found which use the system as part of the engravings. One of the earliest stones in Trinity Church Cemetery in New York City, which opened in 1697, contains a cipher of this type which deciphers to "Remember death" (cf. "memento mori").


title: Pigpen cipher

text: George Washington's army had documentation about the system, with a much more randomized form of the alphabet. During the American Civil War, the system was used by Union prisoners in Confederate prisons.


title: Pigpen cipher

text: Using the Pigpen cipher key shown in the example above, the message "codice_1" is rendered in ciphertext as


title: Pigpen cipher

text: The core elements of this system are the grid and dots. Some systems use the X's, but even these can be rearranged. One commonly used method orders the symbols as shown in the above image: grid, grid, X, X. Another commonly used system orders the symbols as grid, X, grid, X. Another is grid, grid, grid, with each cell having a letter of the alphabet, and the last one having an "&" character. Letters from the first grid have no dot, letters from the second each have one dot, and letters from the third each have two dots. Another variation of this last one is called the Newark Cipher, which instead of dots uses one to three short lines which may be projecting in any length or orientation. This gives the illusion of a larger number of different characters than actually exist.


title: Pigpen cipher

text: Another system, used by the Rosicrucians in the 17th century, used a single grid of nine cells, and 1 to 3 dots in each cell or "pen". So ABC would be in the top left pen, followed by DEF and GHI on the first line, then groups of JKL MNO PQR on the second, and STU VWX YZ on the third. When enciphered, the location of the dot in each symbol (left, center, or right), would indicate which letter in that pen was represented. More difficult systems use a non-standard form of the alphabet, such as writing it backwards in the grid, up and down in the columns, or a completely randomized set of letters.


title: Pigpen cipher

text: The Templar cipher is a method claimed to have been used by the Knights Templar and uses a variant of a Maltese Cross. This is likely a cipher used by the Neo-Templars (Freemasons) of the 18th century, and not that of the religious order of the Knights Templar from the 12th-14th centuries during the Crusades.


title: All Japan Pro Wrestling

text: In 1999, Giant Baba died and the promotion was run by Motoko Baba. Misawa was named President but left in 2000 after disagreements with Motoko. Misawa created Pro Wrestling NOAH and every single native wrestler besides Masanobu Fuchi and Toshiaki Kawada left All Japan. This led to a loss of All Japan's TV deal and a period of hardship for the company. In 2001, they entered a cross-promotion agreement with New Japan Pro-Wrestling which proved very successful, allowing All Japan to remain one of the larger promotions in the country, although now firmly behind NJPW.


title: All Japan Pro Wrestling

text: In January 2002, Keiji Mutoh defected to All Japan, and was officially appointed as its new president that September. He would then acquire the rights to the company and Baba family stock by early 2003, when another exodus of gaijin wrestlers began, most notably Steve Williams, KroniK, Bill Goldberg and Mike Rotunda.


title: All Japan Pro Wrestling

text: By mid-2005, All Japan's attendance had dropped and the promotion seemed to be in trouble again but by 2007 had new sponsors and seemed to have recovered. After Misawa and most of the other wrestlers left the promotion, there was a lull in developing new stars until the likes of KAI, Suwama, Hama and T28 debuted from the mid-2000s onward and helped restrengthen the company.


title: All Japan Pro Wrestling

text: With established stars such as Keiji Mutoh, Satoshi Kojima, John "Earthquake" Tenta, Masakatsu Funaki, D'Lo Brown and Minoru Suzuki anchoring the promotion, the younger wrestlers were given time to grow and by 2010 were set to help lead All Japan. While still without a great TV deal, All Japan has operated consistently since 1972, making it the second-longest running promotion in Japan.


title: All Japan Pro Wrestling

text: The promotion was founded by Shohei "Giant" Baba and the Momota brothers, Mitsuo and Yoshihiro, sons of Rikidōzan. Baba, a former professional baseball pitcher, joined the Japan Pro Wrestling Alliance (JWA) in 1960. In October 1972, he left the JWA and formed his own group, All Japan. Their first card was on October 21, 1972, at Machida City Gym in Tokyo, Japan. The inaugural roster included Baba, Mitsuo Momota, Akio Sato, Samson Kutsuwada, Motoshi Okuma and Mashio Koma. Thunder Sugiyama, who had recently left International Wrestling Enterprise, also came along to help and brought some lower-level IWE wrestlers with him on a freelance basis. Some personalities from North America also helped with the few cards, including Dory Funk Sr., Terry Funk, Bruno Sammartino, Dominic DeNucci, Freddie Blassie and The Destroyer.


title: All Japan Pro Wrestling

text: Baba established the Pacific Wrestling Federation (PWF) as the governing body for all future titles in All Japan. In the beginning the PWF recognized a world heavyweight championship and several "regional championships" given as billing to foreign stars depending from which region they came from, but after All Japan joined the National Wrestling Alliance (NWA), the PWF world title was downgraded to a regional championship. The first PWF Chairman, who presented the belts to the winners in title bouts, was Lord James Blears. As a loyal member of the NWA, All Japan enjoyed the ability to bring in foreigners, and the NWA World Heavyweight Championship was frequently defended. In the beginning Baba continued the Japanese vs. foreigner formula for the championships, but gradually Dory Funk Jr. and his brother Terry Funk, as well as Mil Máscaras from Mexico became fan favorites when wrestling other foreigners and subsequently one of the few foreign wrestlers to become icons in Japan.


title: All Japan Pro Wrestling

text: When the NWA territorial system collapsed in the late 1980s and early 1990s, Baba distanced himself from other promoters at home and abroad, and began a system of promoting talent (both Japanese and foreign) who competed exclusively for his promotion. With the unification of the titles in All Japan into the Triple Crown Heavyweight and the World Tag Team Championship, as well as the promotion of talent including Jumbo Tsuruta, Genichiro Tenryu, Akira Taue, Mitsuharu Misawa, Toshiaki Kawada and Kenta Kobashi, the promotion was able to carve a loyal fanbase that lasted during the 1990s. Interpromotional matches were rare, and wrestlers who arrived from other Japanese promotions (such as Hiroshi Hase, Shigeo Okumura and Yoshihiro Takayama) were not given pushes, but in Hase's case, it was voluntarily, due to his primary involvement with the House of Councillors.


title: All Japan Pro Wrestling

text: Gaijins who signed with AJPW full-time were given pushes regardless of which promotion they arrived, most notably Stan Hansen, "Dr. Death" Steve Williams, Gary Albright, Vader and Mike Barton.


title: All Japan Pro Wrestling

text: All Japan would achieve its third best-selling attendance with an attendance of 58,300 in the Tokyo Dome on the May 1, 1998 pay-per-view, having seen consistent growth since 1992. On the March 4, 1992 pay-per-view All Japan sold out the Nippon Budokan for the first time, with an attendance of 16,300.


title: All Japan Pro Wrestling

text: All Japan's highest-selling show was the Giant Baba Memorial pay-per-view on May 2, 1999, which sold out the Tokyo Dome with an attendance of 65,000. The January 28, 2001 pay-per-view was All Japan's second highest attendance of all time at 58,700, which was notable for Stan Hansen's retirement and the Steve Williams vs. Mike Barton Brawl For All revenge angle. The last two matches of the card featuring Keiji Muto vs. Taiyō Kea, as well as the main event tag-team match, did not appear on the initial television broadcast in 2001, the original broadcast instead ending with Williams finally getting his redemption and defeating Barton in the main event.


title: All Japan Pro Wrestling

text: In April 1990, Genichiro Tenryu led the first exodus of wrestlers (The Great Kabuki, Samson Fuyuki, Tatsumi Kitahara, Masao Orihara, Yoshiaki Yatsu, Goro Tsurumi, and Shinichi Nakano) lured as they were to form Super World of Sports, which enabled Baba to push Misawa, Kawada, Taue and Kobashi to be his new stars.


title: All Japan Pro Wrestling

text: With the death of Shohei "Giant" Baba on January 31, 1999, top star Mitsuharu Misawa immediately inherited the position of company president. On May 28, 2000, Misawa was removed from his position by a majority vote of the executive board. At a regular All Japan board meeting on June 13, 2000, Misawa, Mitsuo Momota (co-vice president, member of directory), Kenta Kobashi (member of directory), Akira Taue (member of directory, chairman), Kenichi Oyagi (member of directory) and Yoshihiro Momota (member of directory) resigned from their board positions. A day later, Motoko Baba ("Mrs. Baba") released a two-page written statement, which claimed that Misawa "took no responsibility and abandoned his duty." In addition, she hinted that Toshiaki Kawada and Masanobu Fuchi would be the only two native wrestlers to stay with All Japan, as "Kawada and Fuchi have sworn to carry out Baba-san's last wish: to keep All Japan Pro Wrestling alive"; this was confirmed a day later when Kawada and Fuchi both renewed their contracts with All Japan, along with referee Kyohei Wada. The gaijin wrestlers that chose to stay with AJPW were Maunakea Mossman, Johnny Smith, George Hines, Mike Barton, Jim Steele, Mike Rotunda, Stan Hansen and "Dr. Death" Steve Williams, while Scorpio, Vader and Richard Slinger joined Misawa's crew. Not wanting to choose sides, Johnny Ace would retire from active competition and return to World Championship Wrestling in the United States as a road agent.


title: All Japan Pro Wrestling

text: On June 16, 2000, 24 out of the 26 contracted native wrestlers for All Japan were led by Misawa for a press conference, where it was announced that they would be leaving the promotion; more than 100 reporters and photographers attended, and Misawa expressed his wish for the promotion to debut in August, with the Differ Ariake being the site of the unnamed promotion's debut. When asked what his reason for leaving All Japan is, Misawa claimed that it was so he could do things in a "modern style." A day later, Misawa announced the promotion's name: Pro Wrestling Noah, which was inspired by the Biblical story where Noah built an ark and put two of every kind of animal in the world in the ark before God destroyed the world.


title: All Japan Pro Wrestling

text: On June 19, 2000, it was confirmed (at a press conference at All-Japan's dojo held by Toshiaki Kawada and Masanobu Fuchi) that NTV decided to discontinue broadcasting All Japan after 27 years; however, NTV maintained their 15% stock in All Japan (as Motoko Baba held the remaining 85%), and would prevent All Japan from being put on another network. On June 20, twelve All Japan office employees resigned from their positions with the promotion, with intentions to follow Misawa to Noah. NTV also announced that they will carry weekly tapings of Misawa's Noah promotion, with the title of the program being called "Colosseo." Noah took All Japan's 30-minute timeslot on Sundays at midnight. Misawa was interviewed in Tokyo on June 21, where he announced that he and the other wrestlers leaving to form Noah would compete on four of the sixteen shows in All Japan's Summer Action Series 2000 tour, which began on July 1. NTV also aired the final All Japan TV show on the network, which aired for 45 minutes and featured footage from Jumbo Tsuruta's funeral, the Noah wrestlers' press conference from June 16, Kawada's press conference from June 19, highlights of the first ever Kawada vs. Misawa Triple Crown Heavyweight Championship match from October 21, 1992, and Toshiaki Kawada and Akira Taue vs. Yoshihiro Takayama and Takao Omori for the World Tag Team Championship from All Japan's Nippon Budokan show from June 9.


title: All Japan Pro Wrestling

text: On June 28, 2000, Misawa formally announced at a press conference that Pro Wrestling Noah would debut with two consecutive shows (titled "Departure") in Differ Ariake on August 5 and 6 in Tokyo.


title: All Japan Pro Wrestling

text: On July 2 in the Korakuen Hall, Motoko Baba announced the unfathomable return of Genichiro Tenryu (as Giant Baba publicly swore that he would never be allowed back in All Japan, following a departure in 1990 to form the Super World of Sports), as he would team with Kawada to face Maunnakea Mossman and Stan Hansen on July 23 (at the final tour show). On July 20, 2000, Yoshinobu Kanemaru, Takeshi Morishima, Naomichi Marufuji, Kentaro Shiga, Takeshi Rikio, Mitsuo Momota, Rusher Kimura, Haruka Eigen, Tsuyoshi Kikuchi, Kenta Kobayashi, Takao Omori, Yoshihiro Takayama, Jun Izumida, Masao Inoue, Yoshinari Ogawa, Akira Taue, Jun Akiyama and Mitsuharu Misawa competed in their last matches for All Japan Pro Wrestling at the sold out Hakata Star Lane in Fukuoka. After the show, "Dr. Death" Steve Williams came out and shook Misawa's hand, and requested one last singles match between the two. However, Misawa returned to the bus immediately after his match, not staying for the last two matches of the show. Every one of All Japan's titles were vacated due to the departure of the aforementioned wrestlers and title holders. Mrs. Baba appointed Stan Hansen as the new Chairman of All Japan's Pacific Wrestling Federation title governing body, replacing Lord James Blears.


title: All Japan Pro Wrestling

text: On August 10, 2000, All Japan mainstay Masanobu Fuchi walked into the New Japan Pro-Wrestling ring and declared that his intention was to "break down the walls" between All Japan and New Japan. In response, New Japan foreman Riki Choshu rushed into the ring and exchanged a firm handshake with Fuchi, signaling the beginning of the cross-promotional alliance. On September 16, 2000, Toshiaki Kawada followed Fuchi's path and vowed to crush New Japan ace Kensuke Sasaki, as he defeated Sasaki in the Tokyo Dome on October 9, 2000; the event sold out the building. In 2001, Keiji Mutoh and Shinjiro Otani created the interpromotional stable BATT (Bad Ass Translate Trading), which included All Japan's Taiyō Kea, Michinoku Pro's Jinsei Shinzaki and Hiroshi Hase. During this time, Mutoh challenged and defeated Tenryu for the Triple Crown Heavyweight Championship, as well as capturing the World Tag Team Championship with Taiyō Kea. The alliance between the promotions lasted until January 11, 2002.


title: All Japan Pro Wrestling

text: Signs of what would become the Pro Wrestling Love era would be seen in the spring and summer of 2001, when Keiji Mutoh, as a member of New Japan Pro-Wrestling, made part-time appearances to All Japan, fighting Toshiaki Kawada and "Dr. Death" Steve Williams in major singles matches on pay-per-view. A notable shift in the product was seen in July 2001, when in a pay-per-view main event, Steve Williams lost to Keiji Mutoh for the Triple Crown Heavyweight Championship, where it ended in an altercation. After leaving the backstage area Williams would then going on a huge swearing tirade, where he kicked a trash can, was about to cry in tears, and then throwing his armpads to the ground while swearing again. Such scenes never happened in the traditional All Japan and was characteristic to the "crash TV" style of Vince Russo's writing.


title: All Japan Pro Wrestling

text: On January 11, 2002, following the end of a year-long cross-promotional angle with New Japan Pro-Wrestling, Keiji Mutoh shocked the Japanese wrestling world by defecting to All-Japan as a full-time competitor, taking Satoshi Kojima and Kendo Kashin with him. This is considered the official start of the era. Keiji Mutoh would lose to Steve Williams in a grudge feud in March 2002, but a month later Mutoh defeated Mike Barton in the 2002 Championship Carnival tournament main-event. Despite Barton's loss, he and Jim Steele would find success in winning the Stan Hansen cup in July 2002, Barton also being able to prevent Williams from winning.


title: All Japan Pro Wrestling

text: On September 30, 2002, during an All Japan 30th Anniversary party at the famed Tokyo City Hotel, Mrs. Baba officially announced Mutoh's appointment as the new president of All Japan, transferring all of the Baba family stock to him. Mrs. Baba's last on-screen appearance was on the October 27, 2002 pay-per-view, before leaving All Japan altogether by January 2003. Mutoh upheld some traditional aspects of the Baba-run All Japan, as the Champion Carnival and World's Strongest Tag Determination League remained annual events.


title: All Japan Pro Wrestling

text: In January 2003, a third exodus began, primarily of gaijin wrestlers. The most notable included "Dr. Death" Steve Williams, KroniK, Bill Goldberg and Mike Rotunda. They had wrestled their last matches on pay-per-views that month, not renewing their contracts after the new ownership fully realized. Williams would only make one more appearance in the Pro Wrestling Love era on a July 22, 2004 pay-per-view, who at the time was going through throat cancer recovery and made a surprise appearance. Throughout 2003 and 2004, recent debuts like John "Earthquake" Tenta, Bull Buchanan, Jamal (Umaga), D'Lo Brown and Gigantes (Jerry Tuite) would become the main gaijins.


title: All Japan Pro Wrestling

text: Some interpromotional activities that would not have happened under Shohei Baba's watch have taken place, including the previously unfathomable IWGP Heavyweight Champion vs. Triple Crown Heavyweight Champion bout on a New Japan Pro-Wrestling event on February 20, 2005; Satoshi Kojima (who was the Triple Crown Heavyweight Champion) defeated Hiroyoshi Tenzan for the IWGP Heavyweight Championship, which made Kojima the only wrestler to ever hold both titles simultaneously to that point (Keiji Mutoh would later accomplish the feat in 2008. However, he would hold the IWGP Championship as Keiji Mutoh, and the Triple Crown Championship as his alter-ego The Great Muta) In addition, Keiji Mutoh and Satoshi Kojima are both New Japan Pro-Wrestling alumni but played a consistent role in the main event picture of All Japan Pro Wrestling from the time of their arrival to the promotion. Furthermore, Keiji Mutoh competed at a Pro Wrestling Noah event on July 10, 2004, teaming with fellow AJPW wrestler Taiyō Kea to face Mitsuharu Misawa and Yoshinari Ogawa. On July 18, 2004, Mitsuharu Misawa returned to All Japan and defeated Satoshi Kojima at "Battle Banquet". Misawa returned to All Japan again on October 31, 2004, for the "Keiji Mutoh: Love and Bump" pay-per-view event, where he (along with Keiji Mutoh) defeated Hiroshi Hase and Kensuke Sasaki in what was billed as a "Special Dream Tag Match".


title: All Japan Pro Wrestling

text: On July 10, 2007, Hiroshi Hase was appointed as the new Chairman of the Pacific Wrestling Federation, following Stan Hansen's voluntary resignation. Hase is the third chairman in PWF's history. Joe Doering would become the main gaijin around this time.


title: All Japan Pro Wrestling

text: October 12, 2007 Baseball Magazine Sha, the publisher of Puroresu Shukan released AJPW trading cards.


title: All Japan Pro Wrestling

text: On June 7, 2011, Keiji Mutoh announced his resignation as the President of All Japan Pro Wrestling and named Masayuki Uchida as his successor.


title: All Japan Pro Wrestling

text: On August 28, 2012, AJPW and Gaora TV announced that AJPW would introduce a new championship called the Gaora TV Championship. The tournament for the title began on September 8, and ended on October 7 with Seiya Sanada defeating Yasufumi Nakanoue in the final to become the inaugural champion.


title: All Japan Pro Wrestling

text: On November 1, 2012, IT company Speed Partners purchased all shares of All Japan from Keiji Mutoh and his business partners for ¥200 million, however, the purchase was not made public until February 2013. In January 2013, AJPW signed Atsushi Aoki, Go Shiozaki, Jun Akiyama, Kotaro Suzuki and Yoshinobu Kanemaru, all of whom had quit Pro Wrestling Noah the previous month, to return to AJPW, initially as freelancers. On March 17, 2013, it was announced that Hiroshi Hase was stepping down as Pacific Wrestling Federation Chairman, and that he would be succeeded by Kenta Kobashi, following Kobashi's retirement as a professional wrestler on May 11, 2013.


title: All Japan Pro Wrestling

text: On May 1, 2013, it was reported that negotiations had started between Speed Partners president Nobuo Shiraishi and All Japan president Masayuki Uchida, which would see Keiji Mutoh regain the promotion's presidency before the end of the month. However, on May 27, it was reported that Shiraishi himself would take over the presidency of All Japan effective June 1. This was later confirmed by All Japan, and led to Keiji Mutoh's resignation from the promotion. In the weeks that followed, Masakatsu Funaki, Kaz Hayashi, Shuji Kondo, Ryota Hama, Masayuki Kono, Hiroshi Yamato, Koji Kanemoto, Minoru Tanaka, Yasufumi Nakanoue, Kai, Seiya Sanada and Andy Wu announced their resignation from the promotion out of loyalty to Mutoh.


title: All Japan Pro Wrestling

text: They all left the promotion following a June 30 event in Ryōgoku Kokugikan (the TV taping for the July 5 episode where the Pro Wrestling Love era ended) and went on to form the Wrestle-1 promotion the following month and announced their first show was held September 8 at Tokyo Dome City Hall. At the event, the Gaora TV Champion René Dupree made his debut in Wrestle-1, leaving AJPW. Before the end of the year, Manabu Soya also quit All Japan to jump to Wrestle-1.


title: All Japan Pro Wrestling

text: After the exodus (along with the departures of ring announcer Makoto Abe and referees Daichi Murayama and Daisuke Kanbayashi), the promotion has now been reduced to less than half the active roster. On June 21, 2013, it was revealed that since 2009, AJPW mainstay Masanobu Fuchi, who has been with the promotion since debuting in 1974, had long since resigned from the AJPW Board of Directors and has not been on an exclusive contract due to his age, thus becoming a freelancer, but chose to stay with AJPW on a pay per performance basis. On July 5, 2013, all five members of Burning (Akiyama, Shiozaki, Aoki, Suzuki, and Kanemaru) officially signed exclusive contracts with AJPW, ending their tenure as freelancers, along with the returns of Taiyo Kea and referee Kyohei Wada. On July 14, during the launching event of the post-Mutoh All Japan, Masanobu Fuchi announced that he had officially re-signed with the promotion not only as a wrestler, but also as a member of the Board of Directors, ending his tenure as a freelancer. On August 1, all of the All Japan shares were moved from Speed Partners to Shiraishi's Red Wall Japan corporation, which effectively became the new parent company of the promotion. Meanwhile, the promotion's corporate name was changed to "Zen Nihon Puroresu Systems". On August 7, it was reported that All Japan had agreed to return the NWA International Heavyweight, NWA United National and PWF World Heavyweight Championship belts, which make up the Triple Crown Heavyweight Championship, to Motoko Baba, the widow of the promotion's founder Giant Baba, bringing an end to the final remnant of the Giant Baba All Japan. The Triple Crown Heavyweight Championship retained its old name, but All Japan introduced a new title belt to represent it. The three original belts were defended for the last time on August 25, when Suwama successfully defended them against Go Shiozaki. The new title belt was revealed on October 27. On August 27, Shiraishi announced that he would be stepping down as the All Japan president by the end of the month. He would, however, remain the owner of the promotion. On September 1, longtime freelancer Akebono signed a contract to officially join All Japan full-time. On September 11, Hirota Inoue, one of the executive directors originally brought to the promotion by Shiraishi, was announced as the new president of All Japan. On October 27, Dory Funk, Jr. was announced as the new Pacific Wrestling Federation chairman.


title: All Japan Pro Wrestling

text: On June 5, 2014, All Japan announced a corporate restructuring taking place on July 1, which would see Jun Akiyama take over as the promotion's new president. On July 1, the promotion announced another corporate name change to "All Japan Pro Wrestling kabushiki gaisha" (dropping the Japanese "Zen Nihon Puroresu" name), while also relocating its headquarters from Tokyo to Yokohama. Akiyama established a new company named Zen Nihon Puroresu Innovation, through which he will run the new All Japan Pro Wrestling. Akiyama also serves as the representative director of the promotion and reports to a board of directors, which most notably includes Suwama and Akebono. Motoko Baba also joined the promotion as a consultant. On September 28, 2015, Go Shiozaki announced his resignation from All Japan. On November 2, it was announced that Akebono was also leaving All Japan with the goal of returning to mixed martial arts. On November 16, yet another wrestler, the reigning World Junior Heavyweight Champion Kotaro Suzuki, announced his departure from All Japan at the end of the month. Four days later, Yoshinobu Kanemaru also announced he would be leaving All Japan following December 15. Akiyama revealed that the departures were all for the same reason: All Japan had recently decided to change all of its wrestler contracts to pay-per-appearance contracts. In October 2016, the promotion announced it had reached a deal with satellite television provider Nippon BS Broadcasting for a monthly highlights show, "Eleven", to be broadcast on the third Monday of each month. On November 27, 2016, the promotion returned to Ryōgoku Kokugikan for its first event at the venue in three years, headlined by Kento Miyahara defending the Triple Crown Heavyweight Championship against Suwama. In August 2017 Toryumon Mexico started working with All Japan Pro Wrestling in with a collaborated event tour called Lucha Fiesta. On February 4, 2018, AJPW announced "All Japan Pro Wrestling TV", a new worldwide streaming site for the promotion's events. On October 10, 2019, Akiyama left his position as President to become General Manager.


title: MediaFire

text: MediaFire is a file hosting, file synchronization, and cloud storage service based in Shenandoah, Texas, United States. Founded in June 2006 by Derek Labian and Tom Langridge, the company provides client software for Microsoft Windows, macOS, Linux, Android, iOS, BlackBerry 10, and web browsers. MediaFire has 43 million registered users and attracted 1.3 billion unique visitors to its domains in 2012.


title: MediaFire

text: , features of MediaFire include up to 50 GB of storage (starting at 10 GB then increased by as much as 40 GB when various activities like installing mobile or desktop clients, or when sharing on Facebook and Twitter are done).


title: MediaFire

text: In April 2014, MediaFire responded to reduced pricing from Google Drive by increasing its professional storage plan from 100GB to 1TB and reducing its monthly price to US$2.50 per month.


title: MediaFire

text: Business account storage is shared across all sub accounts allowing for single billing and management of multiple users at a single company. MediaFire's free account service does not require download activity in order to preserve files, and is thus often suitable as a backup only solution. MediaFire does not officially support free data warehousing (long-term storage for free and inactive accounts).


title: MediaFire

text: MediaFire originally released Android (January 2013) and iOS (July 2012) clients based on the Appcelerator framework and updated them with native versions in 2014. The mobile apps provide importing of photos and video taken on the device, and remote access to the contents of your MediaFire account.


title: MediaFire

text: The MediaFire desktop clients, originally launched in November 2013, are available for macOS and Microsoft Windows providing file and folder synchronization with any MediaFire account. Additional features include file and folder sharing, notifications, screen capture, and selective syncing. MediaFire's desktop client software is available for the following devices: PCs running Windows XP, Windows Vista, Windows 7, and Windows 8, or Mac OS X 10.7 or higher and require at least 1 GB of RAM and 600 MB of disk space.


title: MediaFire

text: As MediaFire announced at 19 May MediaFire Desktop Sync will stop working at 30 July 2016. After this date only the web version can be used on desktop computers.


title: MediaFire

text: Both public and private file sharing are supported through MediaFire. Private file sharing consists of a user sharing directly to another user or a group of users and is done through importing contacts or email. The account holder is able to control read or write permissions on a per user basis. Public sharing consists of a user getting a public link, which allows anyone with the link to download the file. Public links are always read only. MediaFire also supports sharing with one-time links, which are only valid for a single use.


title: MediaFire

text: MediaFire announced public access to its platform, API, and Developer Center, in July 2014. Along with documentation on the API, they also opened a public forum and released SDKs for Java, JavaScript, and Objective-C. A C++ SDK has been announced but has not yet been released.


title: MediaFire

text: "PC Magazine" named MediaFire both one of the "Top 100 Undiscovered websites" in 2007 and a "Top Website of 2008". It has also been reviewed favorably by CNET and Lifehacker. Lifehacker praised the site not only for the usefulness of the service but also for its use of an unlimited upload size for users in 2006.


title: Harry Gordon Selfridge

text: Harry Gordon Selfridge, Sr. (11 January 1858 – 8 May 1947) was an American retail magnate who founded the London-based department store Selfridges. His 20-year leadership of Selfridges led to his becoming one of the most respected and wealthy retail magnates in the United Kingdom. He was known as the 'Earl of Oxford Street'.


title: Harry Gordon Selfridge

text: Born in Ripon, Wisconsin, and raised in Jackson, Michigan, Selfridge delivered newspapers and left school at 14 when he found work at a bank in Jackson. Selfridge eventually obtained a stock boy position at Marshall Field's department store in Chicago, where over the next 25 years, he rose to become a partner. In 1890, he married the wealthy Rose Buckingham who was from a prominent Chicago family.


title: Harry Gordon Selfridge

text: In 1906, following a trip to London, Selfridge invested £400,000 to build a new department store in what was then the unfashionable western end of Oxford Street. Selfridges, Oxford Street, opened to the public on 15 March 1909, and Selfridge remained chairman until 1941. In 1947, he died in London at age 89.


title: Harry Gordon Selfridge

text: Selfridge was born to Robert Oliver Selfridge and Lois Frances Selfridge (née Baxter) in Ripon, Wisconsin, on 11 January 1858, one of three boys. Within months of his birth, the family moved to Jackson, Michigan, as his father had acquired the town's general store. At the outbreak of the American Civil War, his father joined the Union Army. He rose to the rank of major, before being honorably discharged. However, he abandoned his family, not returning home after the war ended.


title: Harry Gordon Selfridge

text: This left his wife Lois to bring up three young boys. Selfridge's two brothers died at a very young age shortly after the war ended, so Harry became his mother's only child. She found work as a schoolteacher and struggled financially to support both of them. She supplemented her low income by painting greeting cards, and eventually became headmistress of Jackson High School. Selfridge and his mother enjoyed each other's company and were good friends; she lived with him until her death in 1924.


title: Harry Gordon Selfridge

text: At the age of 10, Selfridge began to contribute to the family income by delivering newspapers. Aged 12, he started working at the Leonard Field's dry-goods store. This allowed him to fund the creation of a boys' monthly magazine with schoolfriend Peter Loomis, making money from the advertising carried within.


title: Harry Gordon Selfridge

text: Selfridge left school at 14 and found work at a bank in Jackson. After failing his entrance examinations to the United States Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland, Selfridge became a bookkeeper at the local furniture factory of Gilbert, Ransom & Knapp. However, the company closed four months later, and Selfridge moved to Grand Rapids to work in the insurance industry.


title: Harry Gordon Selfridge

text: In 1876, his ex-employer, Leonard Field, agreed to write Selfridge a letter of introduction to Marshall Field in Chicago, who was a senior partner in Field, Leiter & Company, one of the most successful stores in the city (which soon became Marshall Field and Company). Initially employed as a stock boy in the wholesale department, over the following 25 years, Selfridge worked his way up. He was eventually appointed a junior partner, married Rosalie Buckingham (of the prominent Chicago Buckinghams) and amassed a considerable personal fortune.


title: Harry Gordon Selfridge

text: After their marriage, the couple lived for some time with Rose's mother on Rush Street in Chicago. They later moved to their own home on Lake Shore Drive. The Selfridges also built an imposing mansion called Harrose Hall in mock Tudor style on Geneva Lake in Wisconsin, complete with large greenhouses and extensive rose gardens. Over the next decade, the couple had five children:


title: Harry Gordon Selfridge

text: Throughout their married life, Harry's mother, Lois, lived with the family. While at Marshall Field, Selfridge was the first to promote Christmas sales with the phrase "Only _____ Shopping Days Until Christmas", a catchphrase that was quickly picked up by retailers in other markets. Selfridge or Marshall Field are usually cited as the originators of the phrase "The customer is always right."


title: Harry Gordon Selfridge

text: In 1904, Harry opened his own department store called Harry G. Selfridge and Co. in Chicago. However, after only two months he sold the store at a profit to Carson, Pirie and Co. He then decided to retire, and for the next two years puttered around his properties, mainly Harrose Hall. He also bought a steam yacht, which he rarely used, and played golf.


title: Harry Gordon Selfridge

text: In 1906, when Selfridge travelled to London on holiday with his wife, he noticed that although the city was a cultural and commercial leader, its stores could not rival Field's in Chicago or the great galleries of Parisian department stores.


title: Harry Gordon Selfridge

text: Recognizing a gap in the market, Selfridge, who had become bored with retirement, decided to invest £400,000 in a new department store of his own, locating it in what was then the unfashionable western end of London's Oxford Street but which was opposite an entrance to the Bond Street tube station. The new store opened to the public on 15 March 1909, setting new standards for the retailing business.


title: Harry Gordon Selfridge

text: Selfridge promoted the radical notion of shopping for pleasure rather than necessity. The store was extensively promoted through advertising. The shop floors were structured so that goods could be made more accessible to customers. There were elegant restaurants with modest prices, a library, reading and writing rooms, special reception rooms for French, German, American and "Colonial" customers, a First Aid Room, and a Silence Room, with soft lights, deep chairs, and double-glazing, all intended to keep customers in the store as long as possible. Staff members were taught to be on hand to "assist" customers, but not too aggressively, and to "sell" the merchandise. Oliver Lyttelton observed that, when one called on Selfridge, he would have nothing on his desk except one's letter, smoothed and ironed.


title: Harry Gordon Selfridge

text: Selfridge also managed to obtain from the GPO the privilege of having the number "1" as its own phone number, so anybody had to just ask the operator for Gerrard 1 to be connected to Selfridge's operators. In 1909, Selfridge proposed a subway link to Bond Street station; however, contemporaneous opposition quashed the idea.


title: Harry Gordon Selfridge

text: Selfridge's prospered during World War I and up to the mid-1930s. The Great Depression was already taking its toll on Selfridge's retail business and his lavish spending had run up a £150,000 debt to his store. He became a British subject in 1937. By 1940, he owed £250,000 in taxes and was in debt to the bank. The Selfridges board forced him out in 1941. In 1951, the original Oxford Street Selfridges was acquired by the Liverpool-based Lewis's chain of department stores, which was in turn taken over in 1965 by the Sears Group owned by Charles Clore. Expanded under the Sears group to include branches in Manchester and Birmingham, in 2003 the chain was acquired by Canada's Galen Weston for £598 million.


title: Harry Gordon Selfridge

text: In 1890, Selfridge married Rosalie "Rose" Buckingham of the prominent Buckingham family of Chicago. Her father was Benjamin Hale Buckingham, who was a member of a very successful family real estate business established by her grandfather, Alvah Buckingham. At 30 years old, Rose was a successful property developer, having inherited money and expertise from her family. Rose had purchased land in Harper Ave, Hyde Park, Chicago and built 42 villas and artists cottages within a landscaped environment. The couple had five children: three girls and two boys (though their first son died soon after birth).


title: Harry Gordon Selfridge

text: At the height of his success, Selfridge leased Highcliffe Castle in Hampshire, from Major General Edward James Montagu-Stuart-Wortley. In addition, he purchased Hengistbury Head, a mile-long promontory on England's southern coast, where he planned to build a magnificent castle; these plans never got off the drawing board, however, and in 1930 the Head was put up for sale. Although only a tenant at Highcliffe, he set about fitting modern bathrooms, installing steam central heating and building and equipping a modern kitchen. During World War I, Rose opened a tented retreat called the "Mrs Gordon Selfridge Convalescent Camp for American Soldiers" on the castle grounds. Selfridge gave up the lease in 1922.


title: Harry Gordon Selfridge

text: Selfridge's wife Rose died during the influenza pandemic of 1918; his mother died in 1924. As a widower, Selfridge had numerous liaisons, including those with the celebrated Dolly Sisters and the divorcée Syrie Barnardo Wellcome, who would later become better known as the decorator Syrie Maugham. He also began and maintained a busy social life and entertained lavishly both at his home in Lansdowne House, located at 9 Fitzmaurice Place, Mayfair, just off Berkeley Square, and on his private yacht, the SY "Conqueror", with VIP guests such as Rudyard Kipling cruising the Mediterranean. Lansdowne House displays a blue plaque noting that Gordon Selfridge lived there from 1921 to 1929.


title: Harry Gordon Selfridge

text: During the years of the Great Depression, Selfridge's fortune rapidly declined and then disappeared—a situation not helped by his free-spending ways. He gambled frequently and often lost. He also spent money on various showgirls.


title: Harry Gordon Selfridge

text: On 8 May 1947, Selfridge died of bronchial pneumonia at his home in Putney, south-west London, aged 89. His funeral was held on 12 May at St. Mark's Church in Highcliffe, after which he was buried in St Mark's Churchyard next to his wife and his mother.


title: Harry Gordon Selfridge

text: Selfridge's children were Chandler, who died shortly after birth; Rosalie, who married Serge de Bolotoff, later Wiasemsky; Violette (who wrote the book "Flying gypsies: the chronicle of a 10,000-mile air vagabondage" and married first Vicomte Jacques Jean de Sibour and second Frederick T. Bedford); Harry Jr. "Gordon"; and Beatrice.


title: Harry Gordon Selfridge

text: Selfridge's grandson, Oliver, who died in 2008, became a pioneer in artificial intelligence. His grandson Ralph, who also died in 2008, was a professor of mathematics and computer science at the University of Florida from 1961 to 2002 and was called by many "the grandfather of digital simulation."


title: Harry Gordon Selfridge

text: Selfridge wrote a book, "The Romance of Commerce", published by John Lane—The Bodley Head, in 1918, but actually written several years prior. In it are chapters on ancient commerce, China, Greece, Venice, Lorenzo de' Medici, the Fugger family, the Hanseatic League, fairs, guilds, early British commerce, trade and the Tudors, the East India Company, north England's merchants, the growth of trade, trade and the aristocracy, Hudson's Bay Company, Japan, and representative businesses of the 20th century.


title: Harry Gordon Selfridge

text: The British period television drama series "Mr Selfridge" began its first season in 2013, starring Jeremy Piven as Harry Gordon Selfridge.


title: Harry Gordon Selfridge

text: "Secrets of Selfridges", produced by the independent UK company Pioneer Productions in its "Secrets of Britain" series, was an hour-long documentary about the London store and Harry Selfridge.


title: Vexillology

text: Vexillology ( ) is the study of the history, symbolism and usage of flags or, by extension, any interest in flags in general. The word is a synthesis of the Latin word (which refers to a kind of square flag which was carried by Roman cavalry) and the Greek suffix ("study"). The first known usage of the word "vexillology" was in 1959.


title: Vexillology

text: A person who studies flags is a vexillologist, one who designs flags is a vexillographer, and the art of designing flags is called vexillography. One who is a hobbyist or general admirer of flags is a vexillophile.


title: Vexillology

text: The study of flags, or vexillology, was formalized by the U.S. scholar and student of flags Whitney Smith in 1961 with the publication of "The Flag Bulletin". During his lifetime, Smith organized various flag organizations and meetings including the first International Congress of Vexillology (ICV), the North American Vexillological Association, and the International Federation of Vexillological Associations (FIAV). Smith, who is acknowledged as conceiving the term "vexillology" in 1957, wrote "[w]hile the use of flags goes back to the earliest days of human civilization, the study of that usage in a serious fashion is so recent that the term for it did not appear in print until 1959." Before this time, study of flags was generally considered a part of heraldry, the study of armorial bearings.


title: Vexillology

text: Involvement in vexillology includes academic work in fields such as sociology, history or design, professional or otherwise, contributions from the flag industry, and interest from those simply passionate about flags. ICV and local vexillological meetings often cover a wide range of interest in flags. Since 1969, an International Congress of Vexillology meeting has been organized every two years under the auspices of FIAV; papers presented at an ICV are published afterwards as the Congress's "Proceedings".


title: Vexillology

text: In more modern times, involvement in vexillology has become less popular but is more accessible due to many internet forums and communities, one of the most notable examples being r/vexillology, a community on Reddit dedicated to the subject, which has popularised vexillology to younger generations. The constant reiteration of the flag as a symbol of a something that exists by the entity that it symbolises confirms the validity of the flag as an officially sanctioned and/or definitive symbol of an entity; therefore, there has been a close association between vexillology/vexillogic imagination in creating visual symbols that appear to legitimise micronational claims.


title: Vexillology

text: Vexillological organizations consist of the International Federation of Vexillological Associations (FIAV) which is considered an International Body of Vexilology. FIAV has more regional Associates and other Centers of Flags, such as North American Vexillological Association (NAVA), (translated to English as 'German Society for Flag Studies'), Flag Heritage Foundation (FHF), The Flag Research Center (FRC), Flags of the World (FOTW), and 46 other affiliated associations and institutes with the International Federation of Vexillological Associations.


title: Robert Cummings

text: Charles Clarence Robert Orville Cummings (June 9, 1910 – December 2, 1990) was an American film and television actor who appeared in roles in comedy films such as "The Devil and Miss Jones" (1941) and "Princess O'Rourke" (1943), and in dramatic films, especially two of Alfred Hitchcock's thrillers, "Saboteur" (1942) and "Dial M for Murder" (1954). He received five Primetime Emmy Award nominations, and won the Primetime Emmy Award for Best Actor in a Single Performance in 1955. On February 8, 1960, he received two stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame for his contributions to the motion picture and television industries, at 6816 Hollywood Boulevard and 1718 Vine Street. He used the stage name Robert Cummings from mid-1935 until the end of 1954 and was credited as Bob Cummings from 1955 until his death.


title: Robert Cummings

text: Cummings was born in Joplin, Missouri, a son of Dr. Charles Clarence Cummings and the former Ruth Annabelle Kraft. His father was a surgeon, part of the original medical staff of St. John's Hospital in Joplin, and the founder of the Jasper County Tuberculosis Hospital in Webb City, Missouri. Cummings's mother was an ordained minister of the Science of Mind.


title: Robert Cummings

text: While attending Joplin High School, Cummings was taught to fly by his godfather, aviation pioneer Orville Wright. His first solo was on March 3, 1927. During high school, Cummings gave Joplin residents rides in his aircraft for $5 per person.