title: J Mascis

text: As a side project, he was the drummer in Boston doom metal group Upsidedown Cross, who released a self-titled album on Taang! Records in 1991. He wrote songs for the film "Gas, Food, Lodging," in which he made a cameo appearance. In 1996, he had a small part in the movie "Grace of my Heart" and provided a ballad and a Beach Boys-like song for the soundtrack. In 1998, he retired the Dinosaur Jr. name.


title: J Mascis

text: In April 2005 Mascis, Barlow, and Murph reformed the band for a tour celebrating the re-release of the group's first three albums. The reunited line-up has since released five new albums: "Beyond" in 2007, "Farm" in 2009, "I Bet on Sky" in 2012, "Give a Glimpse of What Yer Not" in 2016, and "Sweep It Into Space" in 2021.


title: J Mascis

text: In 2000 he began producing albums with his new band, J Mascis + The Fog. In 2003, the house and studio he owned burned down.


title: J Mascis

text: In August 2005 Mascis released "J and Friends Sing and Chant For Amma", a solo album under the J Mascis and Friends banner. The album consists of devotional songs dedicated to Hindu religious leader Mata Amritanandamayi, or Ammachi, about whom he had written "Ammaring" on the first J Mascis + The Fog album "More Light". The proceeds from the album are being donated to tsunami relief efforts Ammachi's organization is spearheading. In 2008 the six-track album was made available digitally on his own Baked Goods label.


title: J Mascis

text: In 2006 Mascis returned to drumming with his newly formed heavy metal band Witch for their self-titled debut album.


title: J Mascis

text: Also that year, he collaborated with Evan Dando on a new Lemonheads album. "The Lemonheads" was released that September, featuring Mascis playing lead guitar.


title: J Mascis

text: In 2010 Mascis joined with John Petkovic and Tim Parnin of Cobra Verde and Dave Sweetapple of Witch to form Sweet Apple. The self-titled debut album was released on Tee Pee Records. Mascis plays drums, guitar, and sings on the album.


title: J Mascis

text: Mascis released a mostly acoustic album in March 2011 titled "Several Shades of Why" on Sub Pop Records. He was joined in the studio by several guest musicians, including Kurt Vile, Ben Bridwell and Sophie Trudeau. Mascis toured North America with Vile as support act to promote the album. In 2013 Richard Ayoade cast J Mascis in a small role, a caretaker, in his film "The Double". Mascis's electric guitar work is featured on the 2014 Strand of Oaks album "Heal".


title: J Mascis

text: In April 2014 he played with reunited Nirvana on a secret gig after the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductions. He sang the songs "School," "Pennyroyal Tea" and "Drain You." In August 2014 he released the solo album "Tied to a Star" on Sub Pop and toured in support of it.


title: J Mascis

text: Mascis joined Unknown Instructors on their fourth album, replacing Joe Baiza as guitarist. The album, "Unwilling to Explain", was released in 2019.


title: J Mascis

text: Mascis's wife, Luisa, whom he met in New York in the mid-1990s and married in 2004, is from Berlin, Germany. They reside in Amherst, Massachusetts, in a house formerly owned by Robert Thurman, a professor of religion noted for his work on Buddhism, and father of actress Uma Thurman. In September 2007 they had a baby boy named Rory. His brother-in-law is German filmmaker Philipp Virus, the director of the 2006 Dinosaur Jr. DVD "Live in the Middle East". He is a devotee of Mata Amritanandamayi, a Hindu guru and author. Mascis explained that he discovered her in the mid-1990s when "I was at my lowest, as the band got bigger, I got more depressed. I was looking for anyone to help, to feel better".


title: J Mascis

text: In 1982 Mascis became straight edge, part of a hardcore punk associated subculture whose adherents avoid drug and alcohol consumption. Since then, he has mostly been a teetotaler and never used other recreational drugs.


title: J Mascis

text: July 2007 saw the release of a signature guitar by Fender, the J Mascis Signature Jazzmaster. The instrument comes in a Purple Sparkle finish and, while otherwise visually similar to a standard Jazzmaster, features a few modifications J requested.


title: J Mascis

text: December 2011 saw the release of the Squier by Fender J Mascis Jazzmaster. This features a basswood body, C-shaped maple neck, rosewood fingerboard with 9.5" radius and 21 jumbo frets, two high output single-coil Jazzmaster pickups, three-position switching and dual tone circuits, gold anodized aluminum pickguard, aged white plastic parts (knobs, switch tip, pickup covers), Adjusto-Matic™ bridge with vintage-style floating tremolo tailpiece, vintage-style tuners, chrome hardware, Vintage White finish, and J Mascis signature on the back of the large '60s-style headstock. Mascis replaces the stock pickups with Kinman Guitar Electrix ThickMaster (Jazzmaster) Zero-Hum pickups. These are, however, excluded from the factory guitar.


title: J Mascis

text: In August 2021 Fender released a new signature Telecaster. This features an Alder body painted with a blue sparkle finish with a high-gloss polyester finish. It has custom pickups based on a 1958 Telecaster, a mirrored pickguard and a pre-worn Maple neck with a custom thinner profile, 21 frets and a 9.5" radius Maple fingerboard. The neck has a thin, part-worn Nitrocellulose lacquer satin finish. Unusually, the strings on his signature version load from the top of the instrument, not the rear of the body as usual. This is an uncommon configuration, used briefly in the late fifties and early sixties. This softens the strings tension making bending of the strings easier. It also changes the tone of the instrument somewhat, softening the attack.


title: J Mascis

text: Mascis plays guitar and sings backing vocals on the song "Feed" by the now inactive post grunge band Japanese Voyeurs. "Feed" can be found on the band's only album to date, "yolk", released independently July 2012.


title: Law of total probability

text: In probability theory, the law (or formula) of total probability is a fundamental rule relating marginal probabilities to conditional probabilities. It expresses the total probability of an outcome which can be realized via several distinct events, hence the name.


title: Kogal

text: Aside from the miniskirt or microskirt, and the loose socks, kogals favor platform boots, makeup, and Burberry check scarves; some kogals carry accessories considered kawaii or cute. They may also dye their hair brown and get artificial suntans. They have a distinctive slang peppered with English words. They are often, but not necessarily, enrolled students. Centers of kogal culture include the Harajuku and Shibuya districts of Tokyo, in particular Shibuya's 109 Building. Pop singer Namie Amuro promoted the style. Kogals are avid users of photo booths, with most visiting at least once a week, according to non-scientific polls.


title: Kogal

text: The word "kogal" is a contraction of . It originated as a code used by disco bouncers to distinguish adults from minors. The term is not used by the girls it refers to. They call themselves , a Japanese pronunciation of the English word "gal". The term was first popularized in 1972 by a television ad for a brand of jeans. In the 1980s, a was a fashionably dressed woman. When written , means "young woman," so is sometimes understood in the sense of "young gal".


title: Kogal

text: Kogals have been accused of conspicuous consumption, living off their parents and (amateur prostitution/dating service). Critics decry their materialism as reflecting a larger psychological or spiritual emptiness in modern Japanese life. Some kogals support their lifestyle with allowances from wealthy parents, living a "parasite single" existence that grates against traditional principles of duty and industry. "The modern school girls' uniform, embellished with loose socks and a cellular flip phone, has come to be perceived as the dress code for promiscuity, easiness, greed, and stupidity", according to one commentator.


title: Kogal

text: Others have charged that the kogal phenomenon is less about the girls and their fashions than a media practice to fetishize school uniforms and blame those required to wear them. "I wish that I were in high school at a different time," said one schoolgirl. "Now, with kogal being such an issue in Japan, nobody can see me for me. They only see me as kogal, like the ones they see on TV." Though brand-name accessories are part of the kogal look, many kogal may buy these cheaply as knock-off versions of a high-brand item from stalls in back-alley markets like Harajuku.


title: Kogal

text: The kogal phenomenon has never represented a majority of teenage girls. Rather, it largely symbolizes the evolution of the role of women in capitalist Japan. As such, the kogal style rejects not only traditional gender roles but the spirit of nationalism, seeking to embody stateless consumerism. This consumerism is communicated through knock-off designer goods, trips to photo booths, singing karaoke, partying, the use of love hotels, and incorporating new loanwords into everyday speech. Kogals also take a more liberal approach to sexual activity, employing more risque language or referring openly to sex. Kogal hedonism and impolite language serve to assert self-hood of young Japanese women. Kogals' expertise in criticizing men, particularly older men, demonstrates their revolt against traditional gender norms. Kogal publications like "Egg"'s penis artwork gallery show that kogal culture can also empower young women to express displeasure and value their own pleasure. Overall, kogal language, behavior, and images reflect an urge to rebel from a restrictive parent culture and assert diverse ideas of femininity.


title: Kogal

text: Kogals were far from the first generation of Japanese girls who ("made their parents weep") and inspired salacious media exposés. The ("degenerate schoolgirls") of the early 1900s violated taboos against dating, while the , or modern girl, of the 1920s, adopted Western fashions. The hard-partying "Mambo girl" arose in the late 1950s.


title: Kogal

text: Japanese fashion began to divide by age in the 1970s with the appearance of magazines aimed at teens. "Popteen", the most widely read of these magazines, has been publishing monthly since 1980. While mainstream fashion in the 1980s and early 1990s emphasized girlish and cute (kawaii), publications promoted a sexy aesthetic. Top magazines, including "Popteen", "Street Jam" and "Happie Nuts", were produced by editors previously involved in creating pornography for men.


title: Kogal

text: Also in the 1980s, a male-and-female motorcycle-oriented slacker culture emerged in the form of the "Yankiis" (from the American word "Yankee") and Bosozoku Gals. The original kogals were dropouts from private school who, instead of lengthening their skirts like androgynous Yankii girls, created a new form of teen rebellion by shortening them. These middle school dropouts were thus taking their cues from high school students and attempting to justify their independence by looking and acting older. The gals added their own touches like loose socks and a cellular phone.


title: Kogal

text: The 1993 television special (The Kogal Night) introduced the kogal to a mass audience and provided a model for aspiring kogals to follow. Platform shoes were popularized by singer Namie Amuro in 1994. "Egg", a fashion magazine for kogals, was established in 1995.


title: Kogal

text: In the mid-1990s, the Japanese media gave a great deal of attention to the phenomenon of ("paid dating") supposedly engaged in by bored housewives and high school students, thus linking kogals to prostitutes. The movie ("Bounce Ko Gals") (1997) by Masato Harada depicts kogals prostituting themselves to buy trendy fashion accessories.


title: Kogal

text: Kogal culture peaked in 1998. Kogals were then displaced by another style that gained popularity through "Egg": , a gal culture that first appeared in the mid-1990s and used dark makeup combined with heavy amounts of tanning. evolved into another extreme look (though less extreme than ) called ("mountain hag"). As looks grew more extreme, fewer girls were attracted to gal culture. Although there are still female students who sexualize their uniforms, the kogal is no longer a focus of fashion or media attention.


title: Kogal

text: Gal fashion later reemerged in the form of the skin-whitening , associated with "Popteen". One such example of this is the Gal, who take their fashion cues from Hollywood. Clad in stilettos and jewels, these gals parade the streets of Shibuya. The women opting for this style are often gals of previous generations that are returning for this style, which is sexy yet more adult. Unlike their younger counterparts, there is less clubbing and more projecting an image of sky-high social status. Despite this, the Gals are more serious about their lives than other gal groups, with their age placing them in college or the workforce. One of the driving forces behind this is Sifow, a singer and idol that subscribes to the Gal style.


title: Kogal

text: The "Hime gyaru" (literally "lady gal," also translated as "princess gal"), also part of the style, first appeared in 2007. The girls in this subculture seem to want to live as princesses like out of fairy tales, complete with over-glamorous lifestyles and items. They wear princess-like dresses (usually in pink or other pastels), and sport large, curly brown hair, usually in bouffants. Popular brands for this subsection of Gal include Liz Lisa and Jesus Diamante.


title: Kogal

text: The waves of changing female Japanese beauty culture such as the kogal represent a growing diversity in female beauty which contrasts with the focus on docility and cuteness perpetuated previously. Kogal and its predecessors visually chronicle the evolution of Japan into a consumer culture, visibly displaying the changing values and norms within Japanese culture as consumerism necessitates the displacement of the identity to surface features.


title: Kogal

text: Kogals are identified primarily by looks, but their speech, called , is also distinctive, including, but not restricted to the following: , , , , , , . As a way to celebrate their individuality, gals might say .


title: Kogal

text: Gals' words are often created by contracting Japanese phrases or by literal translation of an English phrase, i.e. without reordering to follow Japanese syntax. Gal words may also be created by adding the suffix (from English "-ing") to verbs, for example . Roman script abbreviations are popular, for example "MM" stands for ("really frustrating"). "MK5" stands for . Another feature of gal speech is the suffix , meaning "like" or "learned from," as in .


title: Kogal

text: The English used in kogal speech is often a combination of two or more English words which have taken on new meaning in Japan.


title: Electorate of Saxony

text: The Electorate of Saxony, also known as Electoral Saxony (German: or ), was a territory of the Holy Roman Empire from 1356–1806. It was centered around the cities of Dresden, Leipzig and Chemnitz.


title: Electorate of Saxony

text: In the Golden Bull of 1356, Emperor Charles IV designated the Duchy of Saxe-Wittenberg an electorate, a territory whose ruler was one of the prince-electors who chose the Holy Roman emperor. After the extinction of the male Saxe-Wittenberg line of the House of Ascania in 1422, the duchy and the electorate passed to the House of Wettin. The electoral privilege was tied only to the Electoral Circle, specifically the territory of the former Duchy of Saxe-Wittenberg.


title: Electorate of Saxony

text: In the 1485 Treaty of Leipzig, the Wettin noble house was divided between the sons of Elector Frederick II into the Ernestine and Albertine lines, with the electoral district going to the Ernestines. In 1547, when the Ernestine elector John Frederick I was defeated in the Schmalkaldic War, the electoral district and electorship passed to the Albertine line. They remained electors until the dissolution of the Holy Roman Empire in 1806, after which they gained the Saxon kingship through an alliance with Napoleon. The Electorate of Saxony then became the Kingdom of Saxony.


title: Electorate of Saxony

text: The Electorate of Saxony had a diversified economy and a high level of prosperity, although it suffered major setbacks during and following both the Thirty Years' War of 1618–1648 and the Seven Years' War of 1756–1763. Its middle-class structures were restricted in their development by the nobility and the administration and tended to lag behind contemporary western nations such as the Dutch Republic. Important humanistic and educational impulses came from Saxony through the Reformation that started in the Electorate in the early 1500s. Especially in the 18th century, Saxon culture and arts flourished.


title: Electorate of Saxony

text: For about 200 years until the end of the 17th century, the Electorate was the second most important territory in the Holy Roman Empire and a key protector of its Protestant principalities. At the time of its greatest extent in 1807 (one year after it was elevated to the status of a kingdom), Saxony had reached a size of 34,994 square kilometers (about 13,500 square miles) and had a population of 2,010,000.


title: Electorate of Saxony

text: From the end of the 12th to the middle of the 13th century, a narrow circle of imperial electors emerged that succeeded in excluding others from their number. The electoral college consisted initially of two ecclesiastical and two secular princes, one of whom was the duke of Saxony. The circle was extended in the 13th century to seven: the archbishops of Mainz, Trier and Cologne plus the count palatine of the Rhine, the margrave of Brandenburg, the king of Bohemia and the duke of Saxony. Tying electoral rights to individual territories took place in the early 13th century and solidified from then on. In the case of the Electorate of Saxony, the specific territory tied to was the Duchy of Saxe-Wittenberg.


title: Electorate of Saxony

text: The Old Saxony of the early Middle Ages corresponded roughly to the present German state of Lower Saxony. In 1180 Emperor Frederick Barbarossa of the rival Hohenstaufen dynasty deprived the Saxon duke Henry the Lion of his power, and his duchy was divided, with the western part placed under the Archbishop of Cologne as the Duchy of Westphalia, while the eastern part, which continued to bear the name Saxony, was enfeoffed to the House of Ascania. Bernhard III became the first Saxon duke. He did not succeed in establishing territorial rule over the full area of the old Duchy of Saxony that had been awarded to him, with the result that the new Ascanian Duchy of Saxony was formed only by his title and the imperial fiefs of Lauenburg and Wittenberg.


title: Electorate of Saxony

text: Bernhard was succeeded by Albert I (r. 1212–1260). After his death in 1260, his sons John I and Albert II (r. 1260–1298) divided his land into the Duchies of Saxe-Wittenberg and Saxe-Lauenburg. Initially the brothers ruled together, but after Albert became burgrave of Magdeburg in 1269, a final division of the duchies under the two rulers became final and was formalized in 1296. Saxe-Wittenberg succeeded in claiming the electoral dignity permanently and for itself alone.


title: Electorate of Saxony

text: The Wittenberg Ascanians Albert I, Albert II and Rudolf I (r. 1298–1356) ruled as dukes of Saxony for almost 150 years. They secured the continuity of the dynasty with their sons and asserted themselves as heirs to the Saxon electoral privilege. The electors were mainly concerned with external conflicts with other territorial rulers and pushed forward the territorial development of the still sparsely populated area. In 1290 the duchy was extended to include the Burgraviate of Magdeburg and the Countship of Brehna.


title: Electorate of Saxony

text: The electoral privilege was not institutionally regulated until 1356 and the Golden Bull, the fundamental law of the Empire settling the method of electing the German king by seven prince-electors. Through it Emperor Charles IV permanently granted the electoral privilege to Rudolf I as Duke of Saxe-Wittenberg and decreed the indivisibility of the territory. The dukes of Saxe-Wittenberg rose to a place among the highest-ranking princes of the Empire. In addition to being one of the seven German electorates, Saxe-Wittenberg had possession of the office of arch-marshal of the Holy Roman Empire.


title: Electorate of Saxony

text: In terms of size, Saxe-Wittenberg remained a rather insignificant territory in the Empire with an area of only about 4,500 to 5,000 square kilometers. There were no large urban centers, but the duchy's strategic location along the middle of the Elbe River gave the area promise.


title: Electorate of Saxony

text: In November 1422 Albert III (r. 1419–1422), Elector and Duke of Saxe-Wittenberg, died without descendants who were entitled to inherit. The German king, on the basis of the provisions of the Golden Bull, confiscated the duchy as a vacant imperial fiefdom. Both the Lauenburg Ascanians under Duke Erich V and the Meissen Wettins in the person of Frederick I (r. 1423–1428) laid claim to Saxe-Wittenberg and the associated electoral privilege.


title: Electorate of Saxony

text: Frederick I's claim was based on his support of the Catholic forces in the religious Hussite Wars of 1419–1434. In 1423 Sigismund, King of Germany and Bohemia, awarded the political inheritance of Albert III as an imperial fiefdom to the Wettin margraves of Meissen and granted them the Electorate of Saxony along with its electoral privilege. The Margravate of Meissen was absorbed into the Electorate of Saxony, and Saxe-Wittenberg was incorporated into the Wettin dominion as an electoral district. It was able to maintain a quasi-dominant position in the Wettin state until 1548.


title: Electorate of Saxony

text: The Wettins, who had been margraves of the March of Lusatia since 1089 and of Meissen since 1125, gained a strategically important area to the north of their territories with Saxe-Wittenberg. It gave them a transportation connection to important northern German cities such as Magdeburg and a stronger integration into the middle Elbe country which was densely populated and important economically. Access to the Elbe made it possible for them to participate in trade with the Hanseatic League, which included several cities along the river. The former colonized land between the Saale and Elbe was connected to the long-settled land in the west through its political upgrade, which occurred at almost the same time that the Hohenzollerns were granted the Electorate of Brandenburg. The Wettins rose to become the leading power in central Germany. Politically, they proved to be committed administrators of the Empire and built up a compact territory, especially through purchases in the 15th century. From the area around Wittenberg the name "Saxony" gradually spread to encompass all the Wettin territories on the upper Elbe.


title: Electorate of Saxony

text: Since the ruler's place of residence and his visibility to the people gained in importance in the early phase of the Renaissance, the Wettins created a new seat in the Dresden valley of the Elbe towards the end of the 15th century. Dresden became the permanent residence of the elector, his councilors and administrative officials.


title: Electorate of Saxony

text: The elector's increased expenses for equipping and maintaining an army and for his own court could no longer be met as before. The solution was to levy new types of taxes, which required the consent of the estates of the realm. The meeting of the estates that Elector Frederick II (r. 1428–1464) organized in 1438 is considered to be the first state parliament () in Saxony. The estates were given the right to meet without being summoned by the ruler when there were reforms in taxation. As a result, state parliaments were held more and more frequently, and the Wettin "state of the estates" () that lasted until the 19th century was formed.


title: Electorate of Saxony

text: As was common in other German houses, the Wettins regularly divided their possessions among sons and brothers, which often led to intra-family tensions. After the death in 1440 of Frederick IV, Landgrave of Thuringia, the Landgraviate of Thuringia reverted to the Electorate. Disagreements between the landgrave's nephews Elector Frederick II and William III led to the Division of Altenburg of 1445, in which William III received the Thuringian and Franconian parts and Frederick the eastern part of the Electorate.


title: Electorate of Saxony

text: Disputes over the division led to the Saxon Fratricidal War. After five years of fighting, the situation remained unchanged, although large areas of the country had been devastated. The war was ended with the Peace of Pforta on 27 January 1451. The treaty confirmed the Altenburg partition, temporarily dividing the Wettin domain into an eastern and a western part. The western part of Saxony, which had been ruled by a collateral line of the Wettins since 1382, reverted to the main Wettin line after the death in 1482 of its last representative, Duke William III of Saxony. The unity of the country was then restored.


title: Electorate of Saxony

text: Of great importance for the development of the country was the agreement reached in 1459 between Elector Frederick II and George of Poděbrady, King of Bohemia, in the Treaty of Eger. It brought about a hereditary settlement and a clear demarcation of the borders between the Kingdom of Bohemia and Saxony.


title: Electorate of Saxony

text: When Elector Frederick II died in Leipzig on 7 September 1464, his eldest son Ernest (r. 1464–1486) succeeded him at the age of 23. It marked the beginning of an almost twenty-year period of joint rule with his brother Duke Albert. Initially the two ruled in harmony, favored by the onset of a long economic upswing and increasing urban development. Agreement on political actions and decisions was ensured by a joint court in Dresden Castle. Together the brothers had the Albrechtsburg Castle built in Meissen on the French model. In their policy, they pursued additional accommodation with Bohemia and provided active military assistance to the Empire against the Ottoman Empire and in the War of the Burgundian Succession.


title: Electorate of Saxony

text: The period of the joint reign of Ernest and Albert saw extensive silver discoveries in the Ore Mountains that stimulated a sustained economic boom. The mining dividends enabled the Saxon princes to pursue a broad domestic and foreign policy agenda. They purchased lands within the Wettin dominion and expanded their territory to the north and east.


title: Electorate of Saxony

text: Leipzig became an important economic center of the Holy Roman Empire after the emperor granted it the right to hold fairs three times a year. At the imperial fairs the electors were able to convert their silver into cash, and with their filled coffers they started an active building program. Due to Leipzig's newly granted market and staple rights, traffic increased on the major trade routes that met in the city, and Leipzig became an important trading center for the whole of Europe. The customs revenues along the route in turn benefited the electoral treasury. In 1480 the printer Konrad Kachelofen from Nuremberg settled in Leipzig and with his letterpress began the Leipzig tradition of book printing.


title: Electorate of Saxony

text: In 1483 Elector Ernest and Duke Albert established the Leipzig High Court. It was staffed by nobles and burghers and was the first independent public authority in Electoral Saxony that was detached from the prince and court. An effective local and central administration secured the rule of the electors. Internal order was restored after the unrest and insecurity that robber barons had caused in Germany. Blood feuds were eliminated, the roads were secured from robbery, and an efficient legal system was established. Saxony became culturally, economically, and governmentally advanced compared to the other German states of the time.


title: Electorate of Saxony

text: After the western part of Saxony reverted to the main Wettin line following the death Duke William III in 1482, Saxony became the second power in the Holy Roman Empire next to the Habsburg domains. The family network of the Wettins expanded to include members who were ecclesiastical dignitaries in Magdeburg, Halberstadt and Mainz, with additional claims to duchies on the lower Rhine.


title: Electorate of Saxony

text: Tensions that had their origins in family relations increased between the two brothers Ernest and Albert and culminated in the Partition of Leipzig of 11 November 1485. It was not originally intended to be permanent, but in the end it significantly weakened the powerful position of the Electorate of Saxony in the Holy Roman Empire and led to open confrontation.


title: Electorate of Saxony

text: Ernest had his main focus in the north with his residence at Torgau and held the prestigious electoral district in the north. His territory consisted of 14 exclaves in addition to the main complex. The Ernestines retained the title of elector, which could be transferred to all male members of the family. Albert resided in Dresden as Duke of Saxony and was dominant in the east. He had the strategically better territory because it consisted of only two main areas and four exclaves. The two largest Saxon cities, Leipzig and Dresden, were located in his dominions.


title: Electorate of Saxony

text: When Martin Luther posted his 95 theses in Wittenberg in 1517, the electoral district and Ernestine possessions of Saxony became the focus of European attention since it was there that the first phase of the Protestant Reformation was anchored. Elector Frederick the Wise (r. 1486–1525) protected Luther, most notably when he sheltered him at the Wartburg Castle for ten months in 1521/22 after Luther had refused to recant at the Diet of Worms, but the Albertine duke George the Bearded fought against his ideas and rejected open action against the emperor. It was only after George's death that the Reformation was introduced in the Albertine part of the country. For their part, the Ernestines became involved in the Reformation throughout the Empire, forming with the Schmalkaldic League of Lutheran princes a counterweight to the imperial Catholic side and openly calling for it to be challenged. The religious differences led to the Schmalkaldic War of 1546/47, which was won by the Catholics.


title: Electorate of Saxony

text: The events of the Peasants' War of 1525 touched Saxon territories only marginally in the Vogtland and the Ore Mountains. The pressure on the peasantry was less in Saxony than in the southwestern areas of the Empire because of Saxony's strong sovereign position and administration which imposed barriers to arbitrary actions by the estate-owning nobility.


title: Electorate of Saxony

text: In the Battle of Mühlberg in the Schmalkaldic War, the Albertine duke Maurice of Saxony, an ally of Emperor Charles V, defeated the Ernestine elector John Frederick I (r. 1532–1547). In the Capitulation of Wittenberg, Maurice (r. 1547–1543) was enfeoffed with the electoral privilege in 1547 and with the Duchy of Saxe-Wittenberg in 1548, but contrary to the emperor's promises, he did not receive all of the Ernestine territories.


title: Electorate of Saxony

text: The Ernestine line lost half of its possessions and retained only Weimar, Jena, Saalfeld, Weida, Gotha, Eisenach and Coburg. The fragmentation of the Ernestine possessions into numerous small states began in 1572. Two main Ernestine lines emerged in 1640, the House of Saxe-Weimar and the House of Saxe-Gotha. While the former had only a few collateral lines which were eventually united to form Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach, the House of Saxe-Gotha counted a great many collateral lines, most of which ruled over their own lands.


title: Electorate of Saxony

text: It was the Albertine territories that for the most part made up what is now Saxony. Once again it became the second most important German state in the Holy Roman Empire after the Habsburg states, with the ability to play a decisive role in imperial politics. The state along the middle course of the Elbe that Electoral Saxony formed was not, however, fully connected geographically. Elector Maurice and his successor, his brother Augustus (r. 1553–1586), worked to fill in the gaps. On 13 July 1547 the estates of the realm from the old and new territories were convened in Leipzig for two weeks as state parliament.


title: Electorate of Saxony

text: Elector Maurice succeeded in clearing the way for the recognition of the new faith in the Empire. Under his rule, the Electorate of Saxony more than any other power in the Empire protected the Protestant faith. After the conclusion of the 1555 Peace of Augsburg that allowed rulers within the Empire to choose either Lutheranism or Catholicism, Saxony was firmly on the Habsburg side. Augustus, who had replaced Maurice as elector after he was killed in battle in 1553, saw himself as the leader of the Lutheran imperial states in whose interest the status quo achieved between Protestants and Catholics was to be preserved.


title: Electorate of Saxony

text: The Ernestine duke John Frederick II continued to claim the electoral privilege that had been revoked from his father. When his ally Wilhelm von Grumbach was placed under an imperial ban, John Frederick refused to act against him, and he too was put under ban a year later. Emperor Ferdinand I entrusted Augustus with the execution of the imperial sentences, and his successful military actions against both Grumbach and John Frederick in 1567 consolidated Electoral Saxony's position in the Empire. The Albertine electoral privilege was never again challenged by the Ernestines.


title: Electorate of Saxony

text: The introduction of Calvinism into Electoral Saxony began under Elector Christian I (r. 1586–1591). In time it prevailed over the orthodox Lutheran party, and the new church order was enforced nationwide. With Christian's death in 1591, the situation changed abruptly. Under a guardianship government established for the underaged Christian II (r. 1591–1611), Calvinist movements in Saxony were opposed with violence. Calvinist supporters were removed from all offices, and the houses of wealthy Calvinists were stormed and set on fire.


title: Electorate of Saxony

text: The growing differences between reformed and orthodox Lutheranism strengthened the influence of the Catholic Counter-Reformation, which was supported by the emperor. Electoral Saxony tried to mediate between the parties in the Empire. In 1608 the Protestant Union was founded as an alliance of the Protestant imperial estates, followed in 1609 by the union of the Catholic imperial estates into the Catholic League.


title: Electorate of Saxony

text: The 1618 Defenestration of Prague, in which angry Protestants threw Catholic officials out of a window of Prague Castle, marked the end of a long period of religious peace. Elector John George I (r. 1611–1656) joined the emperor's side with the goal of preserving the status quo of the 1555 Peace of Augsburg. Initially he and the elector of Mainz tried to mediate between Emperor Matthias and the Bohemian estates that were behind the defenestration. After the death of the emperor in March 1619, the Bohemian estates deposed the newly crowned Ferdinand II and elected Frederick V of the Palatinate as their king. John George then agreed with Ferdinand II that Saxony should reconquer the two Bohemian tributary lands of Upper and Lower Lusatia for the emperor. In September 1620 Saxon troops marched into the two Lusatian territories and occupied them without major resistance. Because the emperor could not as agreed reimburse John George for the war costs, he had to give him the two Lusatias as a pledge in 1623.


title: Electorate of Saxony

text: Saxony's relations with the emperor then began to deteriorate, in part because Saxony's neutrality was only minimally respected by the imperial troops led by Albrecht von Wallenstein, who on several occasions led marauding troops into Lusatia. John George also disliked the ruthlessly pursued recatholicization in Silesia and Bohemia, although he was unable to do anything about it. In 1631 he finally felt compelled to enter the war against the emperor on the side of Protestant Sweden. The decisive factor for the radical change in policy was the military situation – Swedish troops were already on Saxon soil at the time.


title: Electorate of Saxony

text: The war affected Electoral Saxony especially badly in the west. The Battle of Breitenfeld took place near Leipzig in 1631, as did the Battle of Lützen the following year; both were won by the Protestant side. Leipzig was besieged several times, and its population declined from 17,000 to 14,000. Chemnitz was severely damaged and Freiberg lost its earlier importance. Other urban centers, notably Dresden/Meissen, were spared. Many smaller towns and villages fell victim to massive looting, especially after General Wallenstein gave free hand to his field marshal Heinrich Holk. From August to December 1632 the Croatian light cavalry raided numerous villages, plundering them, maltreating and killing the inhabitants and leaving a swath of destruction in its wake.


title: Electorate of Saxony

text: In 1635 Saxony concluded the Peace of Prague with the emperor and in an appendix to the treaty the next year gained possession of Lusatia. Saxony's territory increased by about 13,000 square kilometers and almost reached its final borders. The devastation caused by the Thirty Years' War nevertheless continued, as battles against the Swedes went on for more than ten years. Electoral Saxony left the direct fighting provisionally with the armistice of 1645 and permanently through a 1646 treaty with Sweden.


title: Electorate of Saxony

text: After the conclusion on 23 October 1648 of the Peace of Westphalia that ended the Thirty Years' War, Swedish troops were slow in leaving Electoral Saxony. Only after payment of a stipulated tribute of 276,600 imperial thalers on 30 June 1650 did the last of the Swedes leave Leipzig. Life increasingly returned to normal after the hired mercenaries were also released.


title: Electorate of Saxony

text: Most of the decrease in Saxony's population due to the war came about indirectly through epidemics and economic factors related to the stagnation of trade, but troop movements and wartime occupations also caused considerable loss in both urban and village populations. According to the historian Karlheinz Blaschke, Saxony's population was reduced by about half as a result of the war. Other authors point out that such a large decrease may have been true in individual regions, but that it cannot be applied to the entire population. The losses were mitigated to a large extent by religious refugees, about 150,000 of whom came to Saxony from Bohemia and Silesia. After the complete devastation of Magdeburg, its importance as a metropolis in the east of the Holy Roman Empire passed to Leipzig and Dresden, as well as to the rising Brandenburg city of Berlin.


title: Electorate of Saxony

text: When John George II (r. 1656–1680) succeeded his father, Electoral Saxony was still suffering from the economic consequences of the war. It was not until the reign of John George III (r. 1680–1691) that the war damage and dire social welfare situation were overcome. Resettlement of village farms and urban households proved to be the most difficult problem. The first sign of recovery was an increase in tax revenues. Mining, metallurgy, crafts, trade and transportation recovered slowly but steadily. The Saxon estates of the realm had regained influence during the war due to the territorial princes' great need for money. In the second half of the 17th century the electors had to convene the state parliament far more frequently than before, and in 1661 the estates were able to assert their right to self-assembly.


title: Electorate of Saxony

text: John George I took advantage of the peace to put his territories in order. A clause in his will overrode the decree issued by Albert in 1499 which was intended to prevent a division in the inheritance. Small parts of Electoral Saxony were bequeathed to his three sons Augustus, Christian and Maurice. The bequests established independent duchies that created a collateral line of the family. The duchies of Saxe-Zeitz, Saxe-Merseburg and Saxe-Weissenfels that were created reverted to Electoral Saxony in 1718, 1738 and 1746 respectively. In John George's time, the partitions weakened the electoral state economically, financially and politically, even though from a cultural point of view, new centers with palace buildings, cultural institutions and scientific facilities were established outside Dresden and Leipzig. The collateral lines striving for independence also limited the trend towards absolutist government that was growing in Electoral Saxony.


title: Electorate of Saxony

text: Like other similarly-sized states of the time, Electoral Saxony pursued a foreign policy goal of advancing its own rise in a system of states dominated by rivalries. It remained at the side of the Austrian imperial house until the end of the 17th century. After the death of Emperor Ferdinand III in 1657, John George II was imperial vicar (regent) for more than a year until the election of the Habsburg Leopold I. Saxony took part in the Second Northern War against Sweden (1655–1660) and then the Austro-Turkish War (1663–1664). In the same year it became a member of the League of the Rhine and allowed the French to recruit on Saxon territory and to have its troops pass through it. In 1683 Elector John George III participated in the Battle of Vienna that ended the second Turkish siege of the city and ensured its independence.


title: Electorate of Saxony

text: On 27 April 1694 the prince who until then had scarcely made an appearance took over the affairs of state of Saxony as Elector Frederick Augustus I (r. 1694–1733), better known as Augustus II the Strong. Festivities, baroque splendor, art and patronage, as well as lavish grandeur and ostentation characterized both his reign and the period. Augustan Dresden continued to develop into the "Florence on the Elbe". The period saw the building of the Zwinger Palace, the Taschenbergpalais, the Pillnitz Palace, the Moritzburg Castle and the Augustus Bridge. New church buildings included the Protestant Frauenkirche by George Bähr and the Catholic Dresden Cathedral of Gaetano Chiaveri.


title: Electorate of Saxony

text: The luxurious life at court eventually exceeded the economic capacity of the state and was ultimately financed at the expense of military strength. The financial problems led to the abandonment of important positions in central Germany. Electoral Saxony's overextension favored the rise of Brandenburg-Prussia to become the second major German and Protestant power in the Empire.


title: Electorate of Saxony

text: Augustus reduced the influence of the nobility by establishing a centralized body for executive powers with the help of a privy cabinet created in 1706. It had specialized departments and gradually became the supreme central authority over the competing privy council of the territorial princes. Augustus also introduced a transparent accounting system to verify expenditures and a chamber of accounts that effectively organized the tax system. As a result of it and of the military retrenchment, the national debt was limited and manageable in spite of the high expenditures. A true absolutism did not develop in the Electorate. The inherent contradictions between the elector's claim to absolute power, the nobility's will to assert itself, and the aspirations of the burghers proved to be insurmountable.


title: Electorate of Saxony

text: Because Augustus' son Frederick Augustus II (r. 1733–1763) had no political ambitions, he left the day-to-day political business to his prime minister Heinrich von Brühl. Under Brühl the mismanagement of Saxony's finances increased and budgets became unorganized, resulting in payment defaults and the danger of insolvency.


title: Electorate of Saxony

text: After the death of the Polish king John III Sobieski in 1696, Augustus II the Strong converted to Catholicism and with Habsburg support, military pressure and bribes, won the free election for the kingship in 1697, becoming King Augustus II of Poland and Grand Duke of Lithuania. The political calculation behind a dynastically based personal union with the elective kingdom of Poland-Lithuania was rooted in the aspirations for independence among German territorial princes. Saxony's rulers, like the other powerful imperial princes of the time, wanted to escape the central grip of the Holy Roman emperor and enhance their own dynastic rank in the European state system.


title: Electorate of Saxony

text: King Augustus' increased importance in foreign affairs led to secret negotiations with Denmark and Russia that were directed against Sweden and that ultimately resulted in the Great Northern War of 1700–1721. Augustus' power politics failed due to early defeats; the Saxon invasion of Swedish Livonia in 1700 turned into a military fiasco. The Swedes occupied Electoral Saxony in 1706/07 and forced Augustus to temporarily renounce the Polish crown in the Treaty of Altranstädt. The occupation cost Saxony 35 million Reichsthaler. Augustus regained possession of the Polish crown after the Swedes withdrew from Poland in 1709, but he was unable to assert his claim to Swedish Livonia and fell to the rank of a junior partner of Russia.


title: Electorate of Saxony

text: After Augustus' death in 1733, disputes over his successor resulted in the War of the Polish Succession, which was won by Saxony. The legitimately elected Stanisław Leszczyński was forced to flee, and Elector Frederick Augustus II was elected as Polish King Augustus III.


title: Electorate of Saxony

text: In 1756, at the beginning of the Seven Years' War, Saxony was invaded by Prussia and remained under occupation and a part of the theater of war until 1763. Augustus III was briefly taken prisoner before being allowed to leave for Poland. He ruled exclusively from Warsaw throughout the war.


title: Electorate of Saxony

text: After the Treaty of Hubertusburg of 1763 that ended the Third Silesian War (a part of the Seven Years' War), Saxony's position as a European power came to an end. Augustus III and Heinrich von Brühl both died in 1763, and the Saxon-Polish dynastic alliance effectively ended with the Russian-Prussian alliance of 1764. The House of Wettin's official renunciation of the Polish kingship followed in 1765. Elector Frederick Augustus III (r. 1763–1806) rejected a new offer of the royal crown in 1791. Saxony was no longer in a position to play a role among the great powers.


title: Electorate of Saxony

text: The impact of the Seven Years' War on Saxony was devastating. As a central theater of battles and troop movements, it suffered significant destruction and many civilian casualties. An estimated 90,000 Saxons died as a result of the fighting. To avoid forced recruitment, many Saxons left the country. Counterfeiting led to economic losses under which the Leipzig Fair and Saxon's credit suffered.


title: Electorate of Saxony

text: The Electorate stood on the verge of national bankruptcy after the Hubertusburg Peace. The national debt had reached 49 million thalers, about ten times the year's state revenue. Thomas von Fritsch and the restoration commission of which he was president placed the systematic reduction of the national debt at the center of a Saxon reconstruction program that was called the . Through comprehensive reforms, Saxony not only returned to a budget surplus in 1774 but also achieved at least twenty years of unprecedented economic growth. The went far beyond repairing war damage and became one of the most significant and successful reconstruction efforts in German history.


title: Electorate of Saxony

text: After taking part in the War of the Bavarian Succession (1778/79), Saxony no longer participated in "haggling over land" () and merely ended a permanent dispute over the area around Glaucha, which brought the state treasury seven million guilders for further state investment. From 1791 on, Elector Frederick Augustus III entered into shifting coalitions which continued beyond Saxony's elevation to a kingdom in 1806. In 1805 the Electorate of Saxony covered 39,425 square kilometers.


title: Electorate of Saxony

text: At the outbreak of the War of the Fourth Coalition against Napoleon in 1806, the Electorate of Saxony was allied with Prussia. Saxon soldiers fought against the Napoleonic armies in the Battle of Jena. After their defeat, the Electorate was occupied and 10,000 Bavarian soldiers and a French city commander moved into Dresden. On 11 December 1806 Saxony concluded the Treaty of Poznań with France, which brought it into French dependence. Electoral Saxony was granted some Prussian territories, joined the Confederation of the Rhine, and was obliged to provide troop contingents for the French wars. Elector Frederick Augustus III of Saxony received the title of king, was from that point allowed to call himself King Frederick Augustus I of Saxony, and ruled the Kingdom of Saxony until 1827, after the Holy Roman Empire was dissolved in 1806.


title: Jabal al-Nour

text: Jabal an-Nour ( or 'Hill of the Illumination') is a mountain near Mecca in the Hejaz region of Saudi Arabia. The mountain houses the grotto or cave of Hira' (), which holds tremendous significance for Muslims throughout the world, as the Islamic prophet Muhammad is said to have spent time in this cave meditating, and it was here that he received his first revelation, which consisted of the first five ayats of Surah Al-Alaq from the angel Jibra'il (as is pronounced in certain Quran recitation schools and some Arab tribes; also known as Gabriel). It is one of the most popular tourist attractions in Makkah. The mountain itself is barely tall; nonetheless one to two hours are needed to make the strenuous hike to the cave. There are 1750 steps to the top which, even for a fit individual, can take anywhere between half an hour and one-and-a-half hours.


title: Jabal al-Nour

text: This is where Muhammad is said to have had his first revelation and received the fifth verses of the Quran, the mountain was given the title "Jabal an-Nūr" ("Mountain of the Light" or "Mountain of the Enlightenment"). This experience is sometimes identified with the beginning of revelation; hence the present name. The date of the first revelation is said to be during the night on August 10, 610 A.D. Or, Monday the 21st of Ramadan, making Muhammad 40 lunar years, 6 months and 12 days of age, i.e. 39 solar years, 3 months and 22 days.


title: Jabal al-Nour

text: One physical feature that differentiates Jabal al-Nour from other mountains and hills is its unusual summit, which makes it look as if two mountains are on top of each other. The top of this mountain in the mountainous desert is one of the loneliest of places. However, the cave within, which faces the direction of the Kaaba, is even more isolated. While standing in the courtyard back then, people could only look over the surrounding rocks. Nowadays, people can see the surrounding rocks as well as buildings that are hundreds of meters below and hundreds of meters to many kilometers away. Hira is both without water or vegetation other than a few thorns. Hira is higher than Thabīr (), and is crowned by a steep and slippery peak, which Muhammad with some companions once climbed.


title: Jabal al-Nour

text: The mountain is composed of intrusive igneous rocks, predominantly Precambrian aged coarse grained hornblende tonalite, with subordinate granodiorite.


title: Jabal al-Nour

text: The Cave of Hira was of minor significance before Islam, its name comes from "hira" (jewels). Taking 1750 walking steps to reach, it is about in length and in width. It is at a height of . During the "Hajj" (pilgrimage), an estimated five thousand visitors climb to it daily to see the place where Muhammad is believed to have received the first revelation of the Quran on the "Laylat al-Qadr" (night of power) by the angel Jibreel (Gabriel). Most Muslims do not consider visiting the cave an integral part of the Hajj. Nonetheless many visit it for reasons of personal pleasure and spirituality, and though some consider it a place of worship, this view conflicts with Salafist interpretations of Islamic ritual. While the cave plays an important role in "As-Sīrah an-Nabawiyyah" (prophetic biography), it is not considered as holy as other sites in Mecca, such as the Al-Haram Mosque, and so under most interpretations of Islam, the same reward is received for praying here as any other place in Mecca.


title: Jabal al-Nour

text: Before Muhammad's first revelation, he had transcendental dreams, in which were signs that his prophethood had begun and that the stones in Mecca would greet him with the "salaam". These dreams lasted for six months.


title: Jabal al-Nour

text: An increasing need for solitude led Muhammad to seek seclusion and meditation (Muraqabah) in the rocky hills which surrounded Mecca. He retreated to the cave for one month each year, engaging in seclusion (Tahannuth). He took provisions and fed the poor who came to him. Before returning home to his family for more provisions, he would circumambulate the Kaaba seven times.


title: Westley Allan Dodd

text: Westley Allan Dodd (July 3, 1961 – January 5, 1993) was an American convicted serial killer and sex offender. In 1989, he sexually assaulted and murdered three young boys in Vancouver, Washington. He was arrested later that year after a failed attempt to abduct a six-year-old boy at a movie theatre.


title: Westley Allan Dodd

text: Dodd wrote detailed accounts of his murders in a diary that was found by police. After pleading guilty to the charges of murder, he received the death penalty. After refusing an automatic appeal, he was executed by hanging on January 5, 1993, the first legal hanging in the United States since 1965.


title: Westley Allan Dodd

text: Westley Allan Dodd was born in Toppenish, Washington, on July 3, 1961, the oldest of Jim and Carol Dodd's three children. Dodd claimed he was never abused or neglected as a child. He claimed, however, that the words "I love you" were never said to him as he grew up, nor could he ever remember saying them. His younger brother Gregory was arrested in 2016 for the attempted sexual abuse of a 13-year-old girl.


title: Westley Allan Dodd

text: "The Seattle Times" reported that Dodd described in a diary written during his imprisonment that his father was emotionally and physically abusive, that he was often neglected in favor of his younger siblings, and that he witnessed violent fights between his parents. At school, Dodd was not welcomed into any social groups, leaving him with no friends. By the age of 9, Dodd had discovered that he was sexually attracted to other boys. On July 3, 1976—Dodd's 15th birthday—his father attempted suicide following an argument with his wife. He graduated from Richland High School in 1979.


title: Westley Allan Dodd

text: At the age of 13, Dodd began exposing himself to children in his neighbourhood. His father eventually told an Oregon newspaper that he was aware of the behavior but largely ignored it, since he felt his son was otherwise a "well-behaved child who never had problems with drugs, drinking, or smoking." By the time he entered high school, Dodd had progressed to child molestation, beginning with his younger cousins, and then neighborhood children he offered to babysit, as well as the children of a woman his father was dating. At the age of 15, Dodd was arrested for indecent exposure, but police released him with a recommendation of juvenile counseling.


title: Westley Allan Dodd

text: In August 1981, at the age of 20, Dodd tried to abduct two girls, who reported him to the police. No action was taken. The following month, he enlisted in the US Navy, and was assigned to the submarine base in Bangor, Washington, where he began abusing children who lived on the base.


title: Westley Allan Dodd

text: Once, Dodd offered a group of boys $50 to accompany him to a motel room for a game of strip poker. This time, he was arrested. Despite confessing to police that he planned to molest the boys, he was released, with no charges filed. Shortly afterwards, he was arrested again for exposing himself to a boy and was dishonorably discharged from the Navy. Dodd spent 19 days in jail and underwent court-ordered counselling. In May 1984, he was arrested for molesting a 10-year-old boy but received only a suspended sentence.


title: Westley Allan Dodd

text: Dodd planned his entire life around easy access to "targets", as he referred to children. He moved into an apartment block that housed families with children, and worked at fast food restaurants, as a charity truck driver, and other such jobs. He repeatedly molested the pre-school-aged children of a neighbor, but the woman declined to press charges, fearing the experience would be too traumatic for her children.


title: Westley Allan Dodd

text: In 1987, Dodd tried to lure a young boy into a vacant building, but the boy refused to go with him and instead told the police. Prosecutors were aware of Dodd's history of sexual offences and recommended five years in prison. However, once again, Dodd received minimal punishment because he had not actually touched the boy or exposed himself. He was placed on probation and ordered to seek psychiatric treatment. After finishing probation, he stopped going to treatment and moved to Vancouver, Washington, where he was hired as a shipping clerk.


title: Westley Allan Dodd

text: In the early autumn of 1989, Dodd decided that David Douglas Park in Vancouver, a large, heavily wooded park with several secluded trails, would be a good place to find potential victims. He was arrested several times over the next few years for child molestation, each time serving short jail sentences and being given court-mandated therapy. All his victims (around 50 in all) were below the age of 12, some of them as young as 2, and most of them were boys.


title: Westley Allan Dodd

text: Dodd's sexual fantasies became increasingly violent over the years; he would later say, "The more I thought about it, the more exciting the idea of murder sounded. I planned many ways to kill a boy." A psychiatrist who evaluated Dodd following one of his convictions said that he fit the legal criteria for a "sexual psychopath".


title: Westley Allan Dodd

text: On September 4, 1989, Dodd went to Vancouver's David Douglas Park, with a fish fillet knife and shoelaces, and sought out young boys to kill. He lured two brothers, 11- and 10-year-old Cole and William Neer, to a secluded area, where he forced them to undress, tied them to a tree and performed sex acts on them both. When he was done, he stabbed them repeatedly with a knife and fled the scene. The boys were soon discovered in the park. Cole was dead at the scene, while William died en route to a nearby hospital.


title: Westley Allan Dodd

text: After the murders of the two brothers, Dodd started a scrapbook with newspaper clippings and other facts about the murders. On October 29, Dodd drove to Portland, Oregon, where he encountered four-year-old Lee Iseli and his nine-year-old brother Justin at a local park. The younger boy was playing alone on a slide, and Dodd succeeded in convincing the boy to come with him. Justin had gone home, so Dodd told Lee that he would drive him back to his house. He managed to take Lee to his apartment in Vancouver apparently unnoticed, and he ordered the boy to undress. Dodd then tied Lee to his bed and molested him, taking photographs of the abuse. Dodd kept Lee overnight while he continued to sexually abuse him, all the while jotting down every detail in his diary. The next morning, he strangled Lee to death with a rope and hung his body in the closet, photographing it as a macabre "trophy".


title: Westley Allan Dodd

text: He would later confess to police that he had originally planned not to kill the boy, but eventually decided that it was necessary to keep him from telling anyone. Dodd stuffed Lee's nude body in trash bags and threw it in some bushes near Vancouver Lake. He burned Lee's clothing in a trash barrel except for the boy's underwear, which he kept as a souvenir of the crime. One day later, Lee's body was discovered, which sparked a manhunt for the killer. Dodd kept a low profile and mostly stayed in his apartment, writing down future plans for child abduction and also constructing a homemade torture rack for the next victim.


title: Westley Allan Dodd

text: On November 13, 1989, Dodd drove to Camas, Washington, around 12 miles east of Vancouver, where he attempted to abduct 6-year-old James Kirk II from the restroom of the New Liberty Theatre. The child began fighting and crying as Dodd was leaving the theatre through the lobby, carrying the boy in his arms. Despite Dodd's attempts to calm the boy, theatre employees became suspicious and followed Dodd out to the street. Due to their pursuit, Dodd released his victim, got into his car, and drove away.


title: Westley Allan Dodd

text: The boyfriend of the boy's mother, William "Ray" Graves, came to the theatre lobby and was told that the boy had nearly been abducted. Graves went outside the theatre in the direction where Dodd was last seen. Dodd's car had broken down a short distance away from the theatre and he was attempting to start the motor. In order not to raise Dodd's suspicion and to stall for time, Graves pretended to be a passerby and offered to help him. He then put Dodd into a headlock and returned him to the theatre, where employees called the police.


title: Westley Allan Dodd

text: The local police contacted the Portland Police task force investigating the kidnapping and murder of Lee Iseli. Dodd was taken to the Camas Police station, where Portland task force lead detectives C.W. Jensen and Dave Trimble interviewed him. He was then taken to the Clark County jail in Vancouver, where Jensen and Trimble continued their interrogation over the course of three days. Eventually, Dodd confessed to all three murders. Jensen and Trimble then served a search warrant at Dodd's home in Vancouver.


title: Westley Allan Dodd

text: During the search of Dodd's home, police discovered a homemade torture rack, along with newspaper clippings about his crimes, a briefcase containing Lee Iseli's underwear, a photo album containing pictures of Lee Iseli, and assorted photographs of children in newspaper and store catalogue underwear advertisements. They also discovered Dodd's diary, in which he wrote in detail about the murders.


title: Westley Allan Dodd

text: Dodd was charged with aggravated first-degree murder in the deaths of the Neer brothers and Lee Iseli, plus attempted kidnapping of another child. He initially pleaded not guilty to all charges, but later changed his plea to guilty.


title: Westley Allan Dodd

text: During his trial in Clark County Superior Court, the prosecution read aloud excerpts of Dodd's diary and displayed photographs of Lee Iseli. The defense did not call any witnesses or present any evidence, suggesting only that Dodd must be legally insane. The jury found Dodd guilty; prosecutors requested the death penalty and the jury agreed. Dodd would claim that speaking in his own defense was pointless, and ultimately, "the system had failed repeatedly". Washington State law gave Dodd the choice of execution by lethal injection or by hanging; Dodd stated that he wished to die by hanging because that was how he had killed Lee Iseli, his last victim.


title: Westley Allan Dodd

text: In 1990, Dodd was sentenced to death for the murder of the Neer brothers, as well as for the separate rape and murder of Lee Iseli.


title: Westley Allan Dodd

text: Less than four years elapsed between the murders and Dodd's execution. He refused to appeal his case or the capital sentence. He insisted that he could not control his urges and would kill again, stating in one court brief: "I must be executed before I have an opportunity to escape or kill someone else. If I do escape, I promise you I will kill and rape again, and I will enjoy every minute of it." He also said in some interviews that death would give him relief from guilt over the murders. During his trial, he wrote a pamphlet on how parents could protect children from child molesters such as himself.


title: Westley Allan Dodd

text: Dodd's execution by hanging was the first in the United States since George York and James Latham were hanged by Kansas in 1965. The execution was witnessed by 12 members of local and regional media, prison officials, and family members of the three victims. Dodd ordered broiled salmon and fried potatoes for his last meal. His last words, spoken from the second floor of the indoor gallows, were recorded by the media witnesses as:


title: Westley Allan Dodd

text: Dodd was executed at 12:05 a.m. on January 5, 1993, at Washington State Penitentiary in Walla Walla. He was pronounced dead by the prison doctor and his body was transported to Seattle for autopsy. King County Medical Examiner Donald Reay found that Dodd had died quickly, within two to three minutes, though not from a broken neck, which is the usual cause of death from hanging. Reay stated that Dodd's death had likely not been very painful. Dodd was cremated following the autopsy, and his ashes turned over to his family.


title: Westley Allan Dodd

text: Dodd's execution came with some controversy over his choice of execution by hanging. The American Civil Liberties Union filed a lawsuit saying that this method of execution was a violation of the 8th Amendment of the United States Constitution. The lawsuit made it all the way to the Washington Supreme Court, but was unsuccessful in blocking Dodd's execution, largely because Dodd himself chose hanging.


title: Westley Allan Dodd

text: On the day of the execution, many people gathered outside the prison, either supporting or protesting the execution. There was much media attention; some TV news reports featured stories on the history of hanging, showing such things as the loud sound that the trap door can make, along with the silence that follows it, and the type of rope that was going to be used, and how to properly prepare it for optimum effect.


title: Westley Allan Dodd

text: Dodd's profile was featured along with another convicted sexual predator imprisoned in Washington in the 1992 "Frontline" episode "Monsters Among Us".


title: Westley Allan Dodd

text: Dodd's crimes are included in the Investigation Discovery series "Real Detective". In the episode titled "Malice", detective C. W. Jensen describes his involvement in bringing Dodd to justice and the effect it had on him personally.


title: Westley Allan Dodd

text: In 2006 Discovery Channel tv show Most Evil analyzed his life and crimes. He was ranked at level 22, the highest point of the scale.


title: Westley Allan Dodd

text: Dodd was the basis for an unseen character, a child killer named "Wayne Dobbs", in the 2002 film "Insomnia", starring Al Pacino. He was fictionalized as a man who murdered a young boy in a way similar to Dodd's murder of Lee Iseli.


title: Westley Allan Dodd

text: Several books have been written about the case, including: "When the Monster Comes Out of the Closet" by Lori Steinhorst, who communicated with Dodd in writing and by phone almost daily for 18 months prior to his execution; "Driven to Kill" by true crime author Gary C. King; and Dr. Ron Turco's book about his experience during the initial investigation to assist in developing a profile of the killer.


title: Brabham

text: Brabham () is the common name for Motor Racing Developments Ltd., a British racing car manufacturer and Formula One racing team. Founded in 1960 by Australian driver Jack Brabham and British-Australian designer Ron Tauranac, the team won four Drivers' and two Constructors' World Championships in its 30-year Formula One history. Jack Brabham's 1966 FIA Drivers' Championship remains the only such achievement using a car bearing the driver's own name.


title: Brabham

text: In the 1960s, Brabham was the world's largest manufacturer of open-wheel racing cars for sale to customer teams; by 1970 it had built more than 500 cars. During this period, teams using Brabham cars won championships in Formula Two and Formula Three. Brabham cars also competed in the Indianapolis 500 and in Formula 5000 racing. In the 1970s and 1980s, Brabham introduced such innovations as in-race refuelling, carbon brakes, and hydropneumatic suspension. Its unique Gordon Murray-designed "fan car" won its only race before being withdrawn.


title: Brabham

text: The team won two more Formula One Drivers' Championships in the 1980s with Brazilian Nelson Piquet. He won his first championship in in the ground effect BT49-Ford, and became the first to win a Drivers' Championship with a turbocharged car, in . In 1983 the Brabham BT52, driven by Piquet and Italian Riccardo Patrese, was powered by the BMW M12 straight-4 engine, and powered Brabham to four of the team's thiry-five Grand Prix victories.


title: Brabham

text: British businessman Bernie Ecclestone owned Brabham during most of the 1970s and 1980s, and later became responsible for administering the commercial aspects of Formula One. Ecclestone sold the team in 1988. Its last owner was the Middlebridge Group, a Japanese engineering firm. Midway through the 1992 season, the team collapsed financially as Middlebridge was unable to make repayments against loans provided by Landhurst Leasing. The case was investigated by the United Kingdom Serious Fraud Office. In 2009, an unsuccessful attempt was made by a German organisation to enter the 2010 Formula One season using the Brabham name.


title: Brabham

text: The Brabham team was founded by Jack Brabham and Ron Tauranac, who met in 1951 while both were successfully building and racing cars in their native Australia. Brabham was the more successful driver and went to the United Kingdom in 1955 to further his racing career. There he started driving for the Cooper Car Company works team and by 1958 had progressed with them to Formula One, the highest category of open-wheel racing defined by the Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile (FIA), motor sport's world governing body. In 1959 and 1960, Brabham won the Formula One World Drivers' Championship in Cooper's revolutionary mid-engined cars.


title: Brabham

text: Despite their innovation of putting the engine behind the driver, the Coopers and their chief designer, Owen Maddock, were generally resistant to developing their cars. Brabham pushed for further advances, and played a significant role in developing Cooper's highly successful 1960 T53 "lowline" car, with input from his friend Tauranac. Brabham was confident he could do better than Cooper, and in late 1959 he asked Tauranac to come to the UK and work with him, initially producing upgrade kits for Sunbeam Rapier and Triumph Herald road cars at his car dealership, Jack Brabham Motors, but with the long-term aim of designing racing cars. Brabham describes Tauranac as "absolutely the only bloke I'd have gone into partnership with". Later, Brabham offered a Coventry-Climax FWE-engined version of the Herald, with and uprated suspension to match the extra power.


title: Brabham

text: To meet that aim, Brabham and Tauranac set up Motor Racing Developments Ltd. (MRD), deliberately avoiding the use of either man's name. The new company would compete with Cooper in the market for customer racing cars. As Brabham was still employed by Cooper, Tauranac produced the first MRD car, for the entry level Formula Junior class, in secrecy. Unveiled in the summer of 1961, the "MRD" was soon renamed. Motoring journalist Jabby Crombac pointed out that "[the] way a Frenchman pronounces those initials—written phonetically, 'em air day'—sounded perilously like the French word... "."" Gavin Youl achieved a second-place finish at Goodwood and another at Mallory Park in the MRD-Ford. The cars were subsequently known as Brabhams, with type numbers starting with BT for "Brabham Tauranac".


title: Brabham

text: By the 1961 Formula One season, the Lotus and Ferrari teams had developed the mid-engined approach further than Cooper. Brabham had a poor season, scoring only four points, and—having run his own private Coopers in non-championship events during 1961—left the company in 1962 to drive for his own team: the Brabham Racing Organisation, using cars built by Motor Racing Developments. The team was based at Chessington, England and held the British licence.


title: Brabham

text: Motor Racing Developments initially concentrated on making money by building cars for sale to customers in lower formulae, so the new car for the Formula One team was not ready until partway through the 1962 Formula One season. The Brabham Racing Organisation (BRO) started the year fielding a customer Lotus chassis, which was delivered at 3am to keep it a secret. Brabham took two points finishes in Lotuses, before the turquoise-liveried Brabham BT3 car made its debut at the 1962 German Grand Prix. It retired with a throttle problem after 9 of the 15 laps, but went on to take a pair of fourth places at the end of the season.


title: Brabham

text: From the 1963 season, Brabham was partnered by American driver Dan Gurney, the pair now running in Australia's racing colours of green and gold. Brabham took the team's first win at the non-championship Solitude Grand Prix in 1963. Gurney took the marque's first two wins in the world championship, at the 1964 French and Mexican Grands Prix. Brabham works and customer cars took another three non-championship wins during the 1964 season. The 1965 season was less successful, with no championship wins. Brabham finished third or fourth in the Constructors' Championship for three years running, but poor reliability marred promising performances on several occasions. Motor sport authors Mike Lawrence and David Hodges have said that a lack of resources may have cost the team results, a view echoed by Tauranac.


title: Brabham

text: The FIA doubled the Formula One engine capacity limit to 3 litres for the 1966 season and suitable engines were scarce. Brabham used engines from Australian engineering firm Repco, which had never produced a Formula One engine before, based on aluminium V8 engine blocks from the defunct American Oldsmobile F85 road car project, and other off-the-shelf parts. Consulting and design engineer Phil Irving (of Vincent Motorcycle fame) was the project engineer responsible for producing the initial version of the engine. Few expected the Brabham-Repcos to be competitive, but the light and reliable cars ran at the front from the start of the season. At the French Grand Prix at Reims-Gueux, Brabham became the first man to win a Formula One world championship race in a car bearing his own name. Only his former teammate, Bruce McLaren, has since matched the achievement. It was the first in a run of four straight wins for the Australian veteran. Brabham won his third title in 1966, becoming the only driver to win the Formula One World Championship in a car carrying his own name ("cf" Surtees, Hill and Fittipaldi Automotive). In 1967, the title went to Brabham's teammate, New Zealander Denny Hulme. Hulme had better reliability through the year, possibly due to Brabham's desire to try new parts first. The Brabham team took the Constructors' World Championship in both years.


title: Brabham

text: For 1968, Austrian Jochen Rindt replaced Hulme, who had left to join McLaren. Repco produced a more powerful version of their V8 to maintain competitiveness against Ford's new Cosworth DFV, but it proved very unreliable. Slow communications between the UK and Australia had always made identifying and correcting problems very difficult. The car was fast—Rindt set pole position twice during the season—but Brabham and Rindt finished only three races between them, and ended the year with only ten points.


title: Brabham

text: Although Brabham bought Cosworth DFV engines for the 1969 season, Rindt left to join Lotus. His replacement, Jacky Ickx, had a strong second half to the season, winning in Germany and Canada, after Brabham was sidelined by a testing accident. Ickx finished second in the Drivers' Championship, with 37 points to Jackie Stewart's 63. Brabham himself took a couple of pole positions and two top-3 finishes, but did not finish half the races. The team were second in the Constructors' Championship, aided by second places at Monaco and Watkins Glen scored by Piers Courage, driving a Brabham for the Frank Williams Racing Cars privateer squad.


title: Brabham

text: Brabham intended to retire at the end of the 1969 season and sold his share in the team to Tauranac. However, Rindt's late decision to remain with Lotus meant that Brabham drove for another year. He took his last win in the opening race of the 1970 season and was competitive throughout the year, although mechanical failures blunted his challenge. Aided by number-two driver Rolf Stommelen, the team came fourth in the Constructors' Championship.


title: Brabham

text: Tauranac signed double world champion Graham Hill and young Australian Tim Schenken to drive for the 1971 season. Tauranac designed the unusual 'lobster claw' BT34, featuring twin radiators mounted ahead of the front wheels, a single example of which was built for Hill. Although Hill, no longer a front-runner since his 1969 accident, took his final Formula One win in the non-championship BRDC International Trophy at Silverstone, the team scored only seven championship points.


title: Brabham

text: Tauranac, an engineer at heart, started to feel his Formula One budget of around £100,000 was a gamble he could not afford to take on his own and began to look around for an experienced business partner. He sold the company for £100,000 at the end of 1971 to British businessman Bernie Ecclestone, Rindt's former manager and erstwhile owner of the Connaught team. Tauranac stayed on to design the cars and run the factory.


title: Brabham

text: Tauranac left Brabham early in the 1972 season after Ecclestone changed the way the company was organised without consulting him. Ecclestone has since said "In retrospect, the relationship was never going to work", noting that "[Tauranac and I] both take the view: 'Please be reasonable, do it my way'". The highlights of an aimless year, during which the team ran three different models, were pole position for Argentinian driver Carlos Reutemann at his home race at Buenos Aires and a victory in the non-championship Interlagos Grand Prix. For the 1973 season, Ecclestone promoted the young South African engineer Gordon Murray to chief designer and moved Herbie Blash from the Formula Two programme to become the Formula One team manager. Both would remain with the team for the next 15 years. For 1973, Murray produced the triangular cross-section BT42, with which Reutemann scored two podium finishes and finished seventh in the Drivers' Championship.


title: Brabham

text: In the 1974 season, Reutemann took the first three victories of his Formula One career, and Brabham's first since 1970. The team finished a close fifth in the Constructors' Championship, fielding the much more competitive BT44s. After a strong finish to the 1974 season, many observers felt the team were favourites to win the 1975 title. The year started well, with a first win for Brazilian driver Carlos Pace at the Interlagos circuit in his native São Paulo. However, as the season progressed, tyre wear frequently slowed the cars in races. Pace took another two podiums and finished sixth in the championship; while Reutemann had five podium finishes, including a dominant win in the 1975 German Grand Prix, and finished third in the Drivers' Championship. The team likewise ranked second in the Constructors' Championship at the end of the year.


title: Brabham

text: While rival teams Lotus and McLaren relied on the Cosworth DFV engine from the late 1960s to the early 1980s, Ecclestone sought a competitive advantage by investigating other options. Despite the success of Murray's Cosworth-powered cars, Ecclestone signed a deal with Italian motor manufacturer Alfa Romeo to use their large and powerful flat-12 engine from the 1976 season. The engines were free, but they rendered the new BT45s, now in red Martini Racing livery, unreliable and overweight. At that time, designer David North was hired to work alongside Murray. The 1976 and 1977 seasons saw Brabham fall toward the back of the field again. Reutemann negotiated a release from his contract before the end of the 1976 season and signed with Ferrari. Ulsterman John Watson replaced him at Brabham for 1977. Watson lost near certain victory in the French Grand Prix (Dijon) of that year when his car ran low on fuel on the last lap and was passed by Mario Andretti's Lotus, with Watson's second place being the team's best result of the season. The car often showed at the head of races, but the unreliability of the Alfa Romeo engine was a major problem. The team lost Pace early in the 1977 season when he died in a light aircraft accident.


title: Brabham

text: For the 1978 season, Murray's BT46 featured several new technologies to overcome the weight and packaging difficulties caused by the Alfa Romeo engines. Ecclestone signed then two-time Formula One world champion Niki Lauda from Ferrari through a deal with Italian dairy products company Parmalat which met the cost of Lauda ending his Ferrari contract and made up his salary to the £200,000 Ferrari was offering. 1978 was the year of the dominant Lotus 79 "wing car", which used aerodynamic ground effect to stick to the track when cornering, but Lauda won two races in the BT46, one with the controversial "B" or "fan car" version.


title: Brabham

text: The partnership with Alfa Romeo ended during the 1979 season, the team's first with young Brazilian driver Nelson Piquet. Murray designed the full-ground effect BT48 around a rapidly developed new Alfa Romeo V12 engine and incorporated an effective "carbon-carbon braking" system—a technology Brabham pioneered in 1976. However, unexpected movement of the car's aerodynamic centre of pressure made its handling unpredictable and the new engine was unreliable. The team dropped to eighth in the Constructors' Championship by the end of the season. Alfa Romeo started testing their own Formula One car during the season, prompting Ecclestone to revert to Cosworth DFV engines, a move Murray described as being "like having a holiday". The new, lighter, Cosworth-powered BT49 was introduced before the end of the year at the Canadian Grand Prix; where after practice Lauda announced his immediate retirement from driving, later saying that he "was no longer getting any pleasure from driving round and round in circles".


title: Brabham

text: The team used the BT49 over four seasons. In the 1980 season Piquet scored three wins and the team took third in the Constructors' Championship with Piquet second in the Drivers' Championship. This season saw the introduction of the blue and white livery that the cars would wear through several changes of sponsor, until the team's demise in 1992. With a better understanding of ground effect, the team further developed the BT49C for the 1981 season, incorporating a hydropneumatic suspension system to avoid ride height limitations intended to reduce downforce. Piquet, who had developed a close working relationship with Murray, took the drivers' title with three wins, albeit amid accusations of cheating. The team finished second in the Constructors' Championship, behind the Williams team.


title: Brabham

text: Renault had introduced turbocharged engines to Formula One in 1977. Brabham had tested a BMW four-cylinder M12 turbocharged engine in the summer of 1981. For the 1982 season the team designed a new car, the BT50, around the BMW engine which, like the Repco engine 16 years before, was based on a road car engine block, the BMW M10. Brabham continued to run the Cosworth-powered BT49D in the early part of the season while reliability and driveability issues with the BMW units were resolved. The relationship came close to ending, with the German manufacturer insisting that Brabham use their engine. The turbo car took its first win at the Canadian Grand Prix. In the Constructors' Championship, the team finished fifth, the drivers Riccardo Patrese, who scored the last win of the Brabham-Ford combination in the Monaco Grand Prix, 10th and World Champion Piquet a mere 11th in the Drivers' Championship. In the 1983 season, Piquet took the championship lead from Renault's Alain Prost at the last race of the year, the South African Grand Prix to become the first driver to win the Formula One Drivers' World Championship with a turbo-powered car. The team did not win the Constructors' Championship in either 1981 or 1983, despite Piquet's success. Patrese was the only driver other than Piquet to win a race for Brabham in this period—the drivers in the second car contributed only a fraction of the team's points in each of these championship seasons. Patrese finished ninth in the Drivers' Championship with 13 points, dropping the team behind Ferrari and Renault to third in the Constructors' Championship.


title: Brabham

text: Piquet took the team's last wins: two in 1984 by winning the seventh and eighth races of that season, the Canadian Grand Prix and the Detroit Grand Prix, and one in 1985 by winning the French Grand Prix. He finished fifth in 1984 and a mere eighth in 1985 in the respective Drivers' Championships. After seven years and two world championships, Piquet felt he was worth more than Ecclestone's salary offer for 1986, and reluctantly left for the Williams team at the end of the season.


title: Brabham

text: For the 1986 season, Patrese returned to Brabham, and was joined by Elio de Angelis. The season was a disaster for Brabham, scoring only two points. Murray's radical long and low BT55, with its BMW M12 engine tilted over to improve its aerodynamics and lower its centre of gravity, had severe reliability issues, and the Pirelli tyres performed poorly. De Angelis became the Formula One team's only fatality when he died in a testing accident at the Paul Ricard circuit. Derek Warwick, who replaced de Angelis, was close to scoring two points for fifth in the British Grand Prix, but a problem on the last lap dropped him out of the points.


title: Brabham

text: In August, BMW after considering running their own in-house team, announced their departure from Formula One at the end of the season. Murray, who had largely taken over the running of the team as Ecclestone became more involved with his role at the Formula One Constructors Association, felt that "the way the team had operated for 15 years broke down". He left Brabham in November to join McLaren.


title: Brabham

text: Ecclestone held BMW to their contract for the 1987 season, but the German company would only supply the laydown engine. The upright units, around which Brabham had designed their new car, were sold for use by the Arrows team. Senior figures at Brabham, including Murray, have admitted that by this stage Ecclestone had lost interest in running the team. The 1987 season was only slightly more successful than the previous year—Patrese and de Cesaris scoring 10 points between them, including two third places at the Belgian Grand Prix and the Mexican Grand Prix. Unable to locate a suitable engine supplier, the team missed the FIA deadline for entry into the 1988 world championship and Ecclestone finally announced the team's withdrawal from Formula One at the Brazilian Grand Prix in April 1988. During the season-ending Australian Grand Prix, Ecclestone announced he had sold MRD to EuroBrun team owner Walter Brun for an unknown price.


title: Brabham

text: Brun soon sold the team on, this time to Swiss financier Joachim Lüthi, who brought it back into Formula One for the 1989 season. The new Brabham BT58, powered by a Judd V8 engine (originally another of Jack Brabham's companies), was produced for the 1989 season. Italian driver Stefano Modena, who had driven for the team in the 1987 Australian Grand Prix in a one off drive for the team, drove alongside the more experienced Martin Brundle who was returning to Formula One after spending 1988 winning the World Sportscar Championship for Jaguar. Modena took the team's last podium: a third place at the Monaco Grand Prix (Brundle, who had only just scraped through pre-qualifying by 0.021 seconds before qualifying a brilliant 4th, had been running third but was forced to stop to replace a flat battery, finally finishing sixth). The team also failed to make the grid sometimes: Brundle failed to prequalify at the Canadian Grand Prix and the French Grand Prix. The team finished 9th in the Constructors' Championship at the end of the season.


title: Brabham

text: After Lüthi's arrest on tax fraud charges in mid-1989, several parties disputed the ownership of the team. Middlebridge Group Limited, a Japanese engineering firm owned by billionaire Koji Nakauchi, was already involved with established Formula 3000 team Middlebridge Racing and gained control of Brabham for the 1990 season. Herbie Blash had returned to run the team in 1989 and continued to do so in 1990. Middlebridge paid for its purchase using £1 million loaned to them by finance company Landhurst Leasing, but the team remained underfunded and would only score a few more points finishes in its last three seasons.


title: Brabham

text: Jack Brabham's youngest son, David, raced for the Formula One team for a short time in 1990 including the season-ending Australian Grand Prix (the first time a Brabham had driven a Brabham car in an Australian Grand Prix since 1968). 1990 was a disastrous year, with Modena's fifth place in the season-opening United States Grand Prix being the only top six finish. The team finished ninth in the Constructors' Championship. Brundle and fellow Briton Mark Blundell, scored only three points during the 1991 season. Due to poor results in the first half of 1991, they had to prequalify in the second half of the season; Blundell failed to do so in Japan, as did Brundle in Australia. The team finished 10th in the Constructors' Championship, behind another struggling British team, Lotus. The 1992 season started with Eric van de Poele and Giovanna Amati after Akihiko Nakaya was denied a superlicense. Damon Hill, the son of another former Brabham driver and World Champion, debuted in the team after Amati was dropped when her sponsorship failed to materialise. Amati, the fifth woman to race in Formula One, ended her career with three DNQs.


title: Brabham

text: Argentine Sergio Rinland designed the team's final cars around Judd engines, except for 1991 when Yamaha powered the cars. In the 1992 season the cars (which were updated versions of the 1991 car) rarely qualified for races. Hill gave the team its final finish, at the Hungarian Grand Prix, where he crossed the finish line 11th and last, four laps behind the winner, Ayrton Senna. After the end of that race the team ran out of funds and collapsed.


title: Brabham

text: Middlebridge Group Limited had been unable to continue making repayments against the £6 million ultimately provided by Landhurst Leasing, which went into administration. The Serious Fraud Office investigated the case. Landhurst's managing directors were found guilty of corruption and imprisoned, having accepted bribes for further loans to Middlebridge. It was one of four teams to leave Formula One that year. ("cf" March Engineering, Fondmetal and Andrea Moda Formula). Although there was talk of reviving the team for the following year, its assets passed to Landhurst Leasing and were auctioned by the company's receivers in 1993. Among these was the team's old factory in Chessington, which was acquired by Yamaha Motor Sports and used to house Activa Technology Limited, a company manufacturing composite components for race and road cars run by Herbie Blash. The factory was bought by the Carlin DPR GP2 motor racing team in 2006.


title: Brabham

text: Brabham cars were also widely used by other teams, and not just in Formula One. Jack Brabham and Ron Tauranac called the company they set up in 1961 to design and build formula racing cars to customer teams Motor Racing Developments (MRD), and this company had a large portfolio of other activities. Initially, Brabham and Tauranac each held 50 percent of the shares. Tauranac was responsible for design and running the business, while Brabham was the test driver and arranged corporate deals like the Repco engine supply and the use of the MIRA wind tunnel. He also contributed ideas to the design process and often machined parts and helped build the cars.


title: Brabham

text: From 1963 to 1965, MRD was not directly involved in Formula One, and often ran works cars in other formulae. A separate company, Jack Brabham's Brabham Racing Organisation, ran the Formula One works entry. Like other customers, BRO bought its cars from MRD, initially at £3,000 per car, although it did not pay for development parts. Tauranac was unhappy with his distance from the Formula One operation and before the 1966 season suggested that he was no longer interested in producing cars for Formula One under this arrangement. Brabham investigated other chassis suppliers for BRO, however the two reached an agreement and from 1966 MRD was much more closely involved in this category. After Jack Brabham sold his shares in MRD to Ron Tauranac at the end of 1969, the works Formula One team was MRD.


title: Brabham

text: Despite only building its first car in 1961, by the mid-1960s MRD had overtaken established constructors like Cooper to become the largest manufacturer of single-seat racing cars in the world, and by 1970 had built over 500 cars. Of the other Formula One teams which used Brabhams, Frank Williams Racing Cars and the Rob Walker Racing Team were the most successful. The 1965 British Grand Prix saw seven Brabhams compete, only two of them from the works team, and there were usually four or five at championship Grands Prix throughout that season. The firm built scores of cars for the lower formulae each year, peaking with 89 cars in 1966. Brabham had the reputation of providing customers with cars of a standard equal to those used by the works team, which worked "out of the box". The company provided a high degree of support to its customers—including Jack Brabham helping customers set up their cars. During this period the cars were usually known as "Repco Brabhams", not because of the Repco engines used in Formula One between 1966 and 1968, but because of a smaller-scale sponsorship deal through which the Australian company had been providing parts to Jack Brabham since his Cooper days.


title: Brabham

text: At the end of 1971 Bernie Ecclestone bought MRD. He retained the Brabham brand, as did subsequent owners. Although the production of customer cars continued briefly under Ecclestone's ownership, he believed the company needed to focus on Formula One to succeed. The last production customer Brabhams were the Formula Two BT40 and the Formula Three BT41 of 1973, although Ecclestone sold ex-works Formula One BT44Bs to RAM Racing as late as 1976.


title: Brabham

text: In 1988 Ecclestone sold Motor Racing Developments to Alfa Romeo. The Formula One team did not compete that year, but Alfa Romeo put the company to use designing and building a prototype "Procar"—a racing car with the silhouette of a large saloon (the Alfa Romeo 164) covering a composite racing car chassis and mid-mounted race engine. This was intended for a racing series for major manufacturers to support Formula One Grands Prix, and was designated the Brabham BT57.


title: Brabham

text: Brabham cars competed at the Indianapolis 500 from the mid-1960s to the early 1970s. After an abortive project in 1962, MRD was commissioned in 1964 to build an IndyCar chassis powered by an American Offenhauser engine. The resultant BT12 chassis was raced by Jack Brabham as the "Zink-Urschel Trackburner" at the 1964 event and retired with a fuel tank problem. The car was entered again in 1966, taking a third place for Jim McElreath. From 1968 to 1970, Brabham returned to Indianapolis, at first with a 4.2-litre version of the Repco V8 the team used in Formula One—with which Peter Revson finished fifth in 1969—before reverting to the Offenhauser engine for 1970. The Brabham-Offenhauser combination was entered again in 1971 by J.C. Agajanian, finishing fifth in the hands of Bill Vukovich II. Although no Brabham car ever won at Indianapolis, McElreath won four United States Automobile Club (USAC) races over 1965 and 1966 in the BT12. The "Dean Van Lines Special" in which Mario Andretti won the 1965 USAC national championship was a direct copy of this car, made with permission from Brabham by Andretti's crew chief Clint Brawner. Revson took Brabham's final USAC race win in a BT25 in 1969, using the Repco engine.


title: Brabham

text: In the 1960s and early 1970s, drivers who had reached Formula One often continued to compete in Formula Two. In 1966 MRD produced the BT18 for the lower category, with a Honda engine acting as a stressed component. The car was extremely successful, winning 11 consecutive Formula Two races in the hands of the Formula One pairing of Brabham and Hulme. Cars were entered by MRD and not by the Brabham Racing Organisation, avoiding a direct conflict with Repco, their Formula One engine supplier.


title: Brabham

text: The first Formula Three Brabham, the BT9, won only four major races in 1964. The BT15 which followed in 1965 was a highly successful design. 58 cars were sold, which won 42 major races. Further developments of the same concept, including wings by the end of the decade, were highly competitive up until 1971. The BT38C of 1972 was Brabham's first production monocoque and the first not designed by Tauranac. Although 40 were ordered, it was less successful than its predecessors. The angular BT41 was the final Formula Three Brabham.


title: Brabham

text: Brabham made one car for Formula 5000 racing, the Brabham BT43. Rolled out in late 1973 it was tested in early 1974 by John Watson at Silverstone before making its debut at the Rothmans F5000 Championship Round at Monza on 30 June 1974, driven by Martin Birrane. Former Australian Drivers' Champion Kevin Bartlett used the Chevrolet powered Brabham BT43 to finish 3rd in the 1978 Australian Drivers' Championship including finishing 5th in the 1978 Australian Grand Prix.