title: Hizb ut-Tahrir

text: Hizb ut-Tahrir is legal in Britain and that country has become a "logistical nerve centre" of HT, where its leaflets and books are produced for global distribution, although Britain is not a Vilaya or "province" in the HT organization. According to Abdul Qadeem Zallum, HT global leader from 1977 to 2003, Britain is also the land of the "arch enemies of Islam", who Muslims should "harbour hatred for" and "a yearning for revenge over".


title: Hizb ut-Tahrir

text: In 2005, the Home Office of the English government described HTB as "radical, but to date non-violent Islamist group" that "holds anti-Jewish, anti-western and homophobic views".


title: Hizb ut-Tahrir

text: In 2007, HTB "dominate[d]" the Islamist "scene" in Britain with an estimated 8,500 members, but has declined in size and as of 2015 has been described as "less influential". As of mid-2015 Abdul Wahid was the leader of HT Britain, and the party was reportedly funded by private donations and membership revenue.


title: Hizb ut-Tahrir

text: Although HTB has been threatened with proscription by the government twice—in the immediate aftermath of the 7/7 bombings by the government, and during the 2010 General Election by the Conservative Party – and with blacklisting from airwaves and universities in another 2015 Tory plan – as of 2016 it remains legal in Britain.


title: Hizb ut-Tahrir

text: The party has described itself as "focused on directing Muslims to make a positive contribution to society whilst preserving their Islamic identity". As in other countries, HT preaches that re-establishing the caliphate is a religious obligation of Muslims, that Western countries are waging war against Islam, and that patriotic feeling for


title: Hizb ut-Tahrir

text: I think Muslims in this country need to take a long, hard look at themselves and decide what is their identity. Are they British or are they Muslim? I am a Muslim. Where I live, is irrelevant.


title: Hizb ut-Tahrir

text: Among non-Muslims the party works to articulate the cause of the Muslim world, including the "Khilafah" state, (what HT believes is) the political and intellectual system of Islam.


title: Hizb ut-Tahrir

text: However, critics such as Houriya Ahmed and Hannah Stuart complain that HT Britain is engaged in an effort to "soften" its image and "hide its support" for violent jihad, anti-Jewish sentiment and totalitarianism using "euphemistic language". Such as the claims of Abdul Qadeem Zallum, the head of Global HT for over two decades, that apostacy from Islam or succeeding from the Caliphate must be stopped even if it means killing ‘millions’.


title: Hizb ut-Tahrir

text: According to Michael Whine, a "partial list" of "terrorists who were also HT members and/or influenced by its teachings" in Britain includes: Faisal Moustafa, Shafihur Rehman and Iftikar Sattar, who in 1995 were arrested and charged with conspiring to assassinate the Israeli ambassador, were reported to have been in possession of HT literature and to have helped organize HT meetings in Manchester. (Moustafa was again arrested in November 2000, but acquitted of terrorism charges—though his co-defendant, Moinul Abedin, was sentenced to twenty years). Omar Khan Sharif and Asif Hanif, the Mike's Place suicide bombers, had contact with HT before moving on to more extreme organizations. Mohammad Babar, who is linked to the seven men currently on trial in London on charges of planning terrorist attacks between January 2003 and April 2004, has stated that he was a member of HT while in college. Imam Ramee, an American, spoke on behalf of HT while living in Manchester, and was the featured speaker at the HT organized Muslim Unity Action March against the war in Iraq on 15 March 2003. He was reportedly an associate of Abu Hamza, and is said to have preached to "shoe bomber" Richard Reid, along with Hanif and Sharif, at the North London Mosque in Finsbury Park.


title: Hizb ut-Tahrir

text: The party seeks out young Muslims (15-18-years old) offering football, work shops, residential after-school homework clubs and trips to attract interest.


title: Hizb ut-Tahrir

text: In describing why they joined the party, members have included motivation such as anger over attacks on Muslims in the two Gulf Wars, the Afghan war, Palestine, and Chechnya; "double standards" exhibited by the UN and USA with respect to Israel; the touting of political Islam as a panacea for the Muslims' problems; a lack of alternative scholarly voices advocating more traditional responses to state oppression; and increased media awareness due to proliferation of Islamic literature on the internet. What has lost membership for the party has been the failure of rumored military takeovers by pro-caliphate forces to materialize in Pakistan or other Muslim countries.


title: Hizb ut-Tahrir

text: Hizb ut-Tahrir Britain was led by Syrian-born Omar Bakri Muhammad from 1986 to 1996. The party first recruited from among Muslims who came from countries where the party was banned and were temporary residents of Britain, but in 1993 expanded its targets for recruitment to include second generation Muslim immigrants.


title: Hizb ut-Tahrir

text: By the mid-1990s, Hizb was "a fixture on university campuses, organising societies and debates", known for its "fierce" rhetoric, young audiences, and aloofness from other Muslim organizations or initiatives.


title: Hizb ut-Tahrir

text: It also reportedly engaged in vigilantism against non-Muslims, "prowling London, fighting Indian Sikhs in the west and African Christians in the east", and pressuring Muslim women to wear the hijab.


title: Hizb ut-Tahrir

text: By the mid-1990s the mainstream British press was quoting HT pamphlets urging Muslims to, "throw a stone, trigger a bomb, plant mine, hijack a plane, do not ask how", and reporting that many mosque officials felt "besieged" by HT party activists.


title: Hizb ut-Tahrir

text: The president of the National Union of Students (NUS), declared HTB as ‘the single biggest extremism threat in Britain at the moment’.


title: Hizb ut-Tahrir

text: Then from 1996 to 2001 the party "went silent" reportedly abandoning "controversial public rallies and combative debates on campuses". Bakri left


title: Hizb ut-Tahrir

text: In the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks in 2001 HTB again raised its profile, focusing on the death and destruction resulting from the US invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan, emphasizing the ‘clash of civilisations’ between "Capitalist Western civilisation" and Islam and what they and many Muslims believed was Western "oppression" of Muslims.


title: Hizb ut-Tahrir

text: A 2005 internal party communique called for increasing party activity within British Muslim communities and engaging with non-Muslims to warn them that "the principles of Western culture do not solve the problems of society" which "are drowning in crime and corruption".


title: Hizb ut-Tahrir

text: The party improved its public image in Britain enough that plans to ban HT were opposed by British Muslim organizations, "across social, political and cultural affiliations",


title: Hizb ut-Tahrir

text: A 2002 HTB conference in London drew 6,500 people, and a conference the next year in Birmingham drew 7,000.


title: Hizb ut-Tahrir

text: However an August 2003 BBC "Newsnight" report "discovered" that the HTB website "promotes racism and anti-Semitic hatred, calls suicide bombers martyrs, and urges Muslims to kill Jewish people," and in 2004, the National Union of Students (NUS) Conference passed a motion applying its "No Platform Policy" to HT, claiming the party was supporting terrorism and inciting racial hatred.


title: Hizb ut-Tahrir

text: The party demonstrated for hijab at the French embassy in London protesting France's March 2004 law banning the wearing of religious symbols in state schools,


title: Hizb ut-Tahrir

text: and helping a Luton student (Shabina Begum), sue her school over the right to wear a jilbab rather than the school uniform.


title: Hizb ut-Tahrir

text: Several terrorist attacks and attempted attacks in Britain from 2004 to 2007—particularly the London 7 July 2005 ("7/7") bombings that killed over 50 civilians—raised government/media/public concern about Islamism there.


title: Hizb ut-Tahrir

text: Drawing particular attention to Hizb ut-Tahrir were the departure of senior members, critical memoirs by defectors, and a comment piece in the "Guardian" by an HT activist and Guardian trainee journalist (Dilpazier Aslam), telling the British public not to act "shocked" by the fact that the 7/7 attacks on civilians were by British-born Muslims.


title: Hizb ut-Tahrir

text: The party explicitly condemned the bombings, deleted over 250 of its most out-spoken leaflets from its website (leaving 30), began working with other Muslim groups, championed grievances of British Muslims (sex education and Danish cartoons of Muhammad), and allowed greater access to journalists.


title: Hizb ut-Tahrir

text: During this time the party or party members also began engaging with other Muslim groups and Muslim-led events or initiatives. Members set up two primary schools, and won a public debate resolution vote at the London Borough of Tower Hamlets that political participation and democracy in Britain had "failed British Muslims", but also came under criticism for participating in activities without mentioning political affiliation, and "using a sensitive community grievance to pursue a wider political agenda". Conservative news media and politicians attacked state funding for the two primary schools and the debate sponsors were compelled to return some of the funding provided by the Hamlets council.


title: Hizb ut-Tahrir

text: Recent reports are that HT has lost influence in Britain. The 2009 annual HTB conference was attended by no more than 1000 people, and the early 2011 or late 2010 conference reportedly had a turnout of only 200 people, down from the 6000+ conferences of 2002 and 2003.


title: Hizb ut-Tahrir

text: Hizb ut-Tahrir is legal in Denmark but ran into controversy in 2002, when it distributed leaflets in Copenhagen that a Danish court determined were racist propaganda. Imran Khan of the BBC program "Newsnight" described the leaflet as follows:


title: Hizb ut-Tahrir

text: In March and April 2002, Hizb Ut Tahrir handed out leaflets in a square in Copenhagen, and at a mosque. The leaflet also said, 'The Jews are a people of slander... a treacherous people... they fabricate lies and twist words from their right context.' And the leaflet describes suicide bombings in Israel as "legitimate" acts of "Martyrdom".


title: Hizb ut-Tahrir

text: In August 2006, Fadi Abdelatif, Hizb ut-Tahrir's spokesperson in Denmark, was given a suspended 60-day jail sentence for distributing the leaflet. Abdelatif was also found guilty of threats against the Danish Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen.


title: Hizb ut-Tahrir

text: The court rejected his claims that he was just quoting from the Koran, that it was an act of free speech and that it was aimed only at the Israeli state and not Jews. In 2002 HT Denmark was also accused of produced "a ‘hit list’ of 15 to twenty leading members of Denmark's Jewish community." HT has been successful in attracting disaffected youth and, according to the Copenhagen Post, petty criminal youth, including young ethnic Danes. It is "only organization that offers organized Quran instruction in Danish ..."


title: Hizb ut-Tahrir

text: In 2007 Berlingske Tidende reported that a kindergarten in Copenhagen was being run in line with the ideology of Hizb ut-Tahrir. Also that year, several well known imams in Copenhagen attended a convention of Hizb ut-Tahrir and announced that they were willing to work together towards mutual goals. This move attracted criticism from a variety of Muslim and non-Muslim voices.


title: Hizb ut-Tahrir

text: In 2016, Copenhagen Municipality decreed that Hizb ut-Tahrir could not rent space or hold event in any building owned by the municipality.


title: Hizb ut-Tahrir

text: The first national branch in a non-Muslim majority country was established in West Germany in the 1960s.


title: Hizb ut-Tahrir

text: German police expelled a member of the party from Germany for alleged ties to one of the hijackers involved with the 11 September 2001 attacks. However, German police said the raids and searches in offices and homes revealed little.


title: Hizb ut-Tahrir

text: In January 2003, Hizb ut-Tahrir was barred from public activity in Germany, German Interior Minister Otto Schily stating that the group was spreading violence and hate and had called for the killing of Jews. Membership in the party is still permitted. The charges originate from a conference at the Technical University of Berlin, organized by a student society allegedly affiliated with Hizb ut-Tahrir. The furor was caused because the conference was attended by members of the neo-Nazi National Democratic Party of Germany (NPD), which allegedly sparked fears of an alliance between neo-Nazi groups and Islamists. Schily banned Hizb ut-Tahrir three months later, for going "against the concept of international understanding" contained in the German constitution, a charge that has been used in the past against neo-Nazi groups. The group's representative in Germany Assem Shaker responded that the group was not anti-Semitic. He added, "We do not call to kill Jews. Our call is addressed to the Muslim people to defend themselves against the Zionist aggression in Palestine. And they have the right to do so."


title: Hizb ut-Tahrir

text: The anti-semitism charges were not upheld in German courts, but the ban was continued based on the state's finding that the group's activity opposed the idea of understanding among nations and endorsed force as a means towards its political aims. A lawsuit against the ban was rejected on 23 January 2006 by the Federal Administrative Court in Germany. The organization appealed the ban to the European Court, stating in 2008:"We note that the German courts did not uphold any of the German Interior Ministries accusations of anti-Semitism against HT, however, they have now relied on an obscure principle of the 'idea of international understanding' to ban all of our activities (speeches, study circles, articles, vigils, political meetings, books, magazines, and debates)."


title: Hizb ut-Tahrir

text: As of 2004 HT "continues to recruit and raise funds" in Germany but "any organizational structures" there "remain hidden", and HT activists in the country behave "in a highly secretive manner", according to Zeynon Baran.


title: Hizb ut-Tahrir

text: Hizb ut-Tahrir Indonesia spokesperson, Ismail Yusanto said to Nikolaos van Dam, the Dutch ambassador for Indonesia that the Dutch government is responsible for the Fitna of Geert Wilders and declared "aslim taslam" (submit to Islam).


title: Hizb ut-Tahrir

text: In the late 1990, the former president of Uzbekistan Islam Karimov launched an extensive crackdown on Islamic organizations, such as HT, forcing their members to flee abroad. Russia being the top destination for the labour migrants from Uzbekistan accommodated a significant number of silent HT adepts from Uzbekistan. Their first Russian HT cells emerged in 1999 in Nizhnevartovsk, a city in the oil-rich region of Yugra. Later they appeared also in Dagestan, North Caucasus, and in Tatarstan, Volga region. The adepts held gatherings on the private premises recruiting newcomers among both local, including non-Muslim, and migrant populations, denouncing the Russian rule and praising the armed combat against the non-Islamic governments globally. According to the experts estimates, by 2013 native Muslims made up only 50% in HT in Russia, the rest are native Russians, Ukrainians and other typically non-Muslim individuals. They are mostly between the age of 18 to 30 and well-educated.


title: Hizb ut-Tahrir

text: In February 2003, the Russian Supreme Court put Hizb ut-Tahrir and 14 other groups, including foreign, such as Al-Qaeda, Taliban, Muslim Brotherhood and local militant insurgents on a list of banned terrorist organizations. As per the Court's decision, the motivation in respect of HT were their "militant Islamic propaganda combined with intolerance to other religions" and "subversive activities to fracture the society" aimed at the removal of the non-Islamic regimes and establishing the global Caliphate, primarily within the regions where Muslim populations are present".


title: Hizb ut-Tahrir

text: In June 2003, Russia's Federal Security Service (FSB) arrested 121 illegal immigrants suspected of having ties with Hizb ut-Tahrir al-Islami. "Moscow media reports said hand grenades, explosives, and ammunition ... as well as Islamic propaganda leaflets" were found on two of immigrants, Alisher Musayev of Kyrgyzstan and Akram Jalolov of Tajikistan.


title: Hizb ut-Tahrir

text: In 2005, nine people accused of links to HT, a "banned organization", were put on trial in Russia, just one of several trials on charges of association with the group around that time. Human rights groups have complained that authorities were increasingly becoming repressive and planting evidence on Muslims to justify charges. Among the arrested was the head of HT cell in Nizhnevartovsk who was found to have "kept extremist literature promoting hatred and intolerance"; earlier this person had turned, to no avail, to the local TV station for the airtime to publicly promote his views.


title: Hizb ut-Tahrir

text: In 2010, three people were killed in Staroye Almetyevo, Tatarstan, reportedly in a shootout with Russian security forces. They were accused for recent bombing against a law enforcement facility. According to an Interior Ministry spokeswoman, there was "a 90 percent chance the liquidated terrorists belong to a banned Islamist organization, which could be Hizb ut-Tahrir."


title: Hizb ut-Tahrir

text: Russian wing of HT held liaisons with Russian political opposition, both left and right-wing. In 2012, the Left Front leader Sergey Udaltsov called Islamic radicals to support the "March of Millions" against the rule of Vladimir Putin. During the police raid at HT premises in Chelyabinsk, Urals region, evidence was found that a female HT activist penetrated into the close circle of the liberal opposition leadership.


title: Hizb ut-Tahrir

text: During early 2012–2013, HT arranged mass street actions in Dagestan, namely in Kizlyar (known for the insurgent raid of 1996) and capital Makhachkala. Both started with a prayer in local mosque that was followed by a march under the black banners, emotional speeches and burning down of the US flag. The speakers denounced both "pro-Assad" and "pro-democratic" policies pursued by Russia and the US in Syria respectively, and called for the Sharia law there. More street actions and minor fights with police followed until police blocked a march of 25 vehicles decorated with HT banners and arrested the leader of Dagestani HT cell, Magomed Kartashov.


title: Hizb ut-Tahrir

text: In an article in Time magazine of 8 May 2013, investigative journalist Simon Shuster published his findings about the extensive contacts between the detained Kartashov and Tamerlan Tsarnaev, the man responsible for the Boston Marathon bombing of 2013, that took place in Dagestan as Tsarnaev visited Russia before the bombing.


title: Hizb ut-Tahrir

text: In October 2015, 20 supporters of Hizb ut-Tahrir, were detained in and around Moscow, and "up to 100 others" were under investigation, according to a "source in Moscow's security services."


title: Hizb ut-Tahrir

text: In October 2018, the head of Russian wing of HT was reported to have been arrested in Tatarstan for planning of the terrorist actions against the law and order.


title: Hizb ut-Tahrir

text: Hizb ut-Tahrir operates in Crimea among the Crimean Tatars. Following the 2014 Russian annexation of Crimea at least 19 people were arrested on suspicion of membership. (Since the annexation, the status of Crimea is under dispute between Russia and Ukraine; Ukraine and the majority of the international community considers Crimea an integral part of Ukraine, while Russia, on the other hand, considers Crimea an integral part of Russia, with Sevastopol functioning as a federal city. Russian authorities are in control of both). According to the head of FSB, during 2018 three HT cells were deactivated in Crimea. Ruslan Balbek, member of the Russian Parliamentary Committee for Religious Matters claimed that the existing Crimean HT cells remained there "since the time of the Ukrainian rule and are financed from abroad". As Ukrainian news outlet Strana.ua reported, before 2014 Crimean HT activists were not persecuted as HT was not deemed terrorist organization in the Ukraine, but once the Russian authorities initiated a massive crackdown on the banned HT in Russia proper and in Crimea, many HT activists fled Russia for Ukraine and settled mostly in Odessa, where they are expecting a refugee status that Ukrainian authorities are very reluctant to provide. In August 2022, TASS reported that the Russian Federal Security Service has busted a Hizb ut-Tahrir clandestine terror cell in Crimea.


title: Hizb ut-Tahrir

text: In 2012, investigating magazine Expo wrote that Hizb ut-Tahrir had started to establish itself in Sweden. In October 2012 Hizb ut-Tahrir situated its annual "caliphate conference" in Stockholm. The group at the time had a section for all of Scandinavia which was primarily active in Denmark.


title: Hizb ut-Tahrir

text: In the 2018 Swedish general elections, the group campaigned in the Stockholm area for Muslims not to vote.


title: Hizb ut-Tahrir

text: Hizb ut-Tahrir America, based in Chicago, was reportedly founded by Dr. Mohammed Malkawi, who is an adjunct professor at Argosy University-Chicago. The group held its first conference in the United States in 2009. However, a subsequent attempt to hold a conference in 2010 at the Chicago Marriott Oak Brook hotel was cancelled after the hotel dropped the group's reservation. In 2012, the group attempted to hold its annual conference entitled "Revolution: Liberation by Revelation – Muslims Marching Toward Victory" conference at the Meadows Club, but this was also cancelled after the club pulled out due to criticism. America is commonly referred to as "the head of kufr" (unbelief) by HT.


title: Hizb ut-Tahrir

text: Reza Iman, who is a spokesperson for the group, claimed that the group has been active in the United States for almost 30 years, and defended Hizb ut-Tahrir's activities, stating in an interview that "The call is not to bring that [an Islamic caliphate] here to this country or anything of that sort. The message is for Muslim countries to return to Islamic values." DePaul University history professor Thomas Mockaitis stated that "I have not seen any evidence they have engaged in violent activity in the U.S." and that the group's views and goals, while controversial, did not warrant its labeling as a terrorist group.


title: Hizb ut-Tahrir

text: Zaher Sahloul, who is the chairman of the Council of Islamic Organizations of Greater Chicago and president of the Mosque Foundation of Bridgeview, stated that "[Hizb ut-Tahrir's is] on the fringes of the political Islamic groups. They are very vocal and they target young Muslims in college (who) are attracted to their ideologies. They tend to disrupt lectures, Friday prayers. Most of the time they are kicked out from mosques." Sahloul added that "We cannot deny people of speaking freely, but we believe that these kind of radical ideologies are not helpful."


title: Hizb ut-Tahrir

text: At a conference in Jordon in June 2013, Dr. Malkawi stated (as translated by MEMRI) "Let Britain, America, and the entire West go to hell, because the Caliphate is coming, Allah willing." Regarding US President Barack Obama, Malkawi stated "Obama says to you, in Syria, Egypt, and elsewhere: 'I have chosen heresy as a religion for you.' Will you accept heresy as your religion, oh Muslims? Say: 'Allah Akbar."


title: Hizb ut-Tahrir

text: Hizb ut-Tahrir was founded and led by Taqiuddin an-Nabhani from 1953 to 1977. He was succeeded by Shaykh Abdul Qadeem Zallum who led HT until his death in 2003. He was succeeded by Ata Abu Rashta who is currently HT's leader.


title: Hizb ut-Tahrir

text: The book "The Islamist" by Ed Husain, reveals the inner workings of the political organization. It follows the path of a young man coming to terms with his extremist/Islamist mindset. He describes how violence and the increasing radicalisation of the group eventually lead to him cutting all ties and resigning from the head of the local group at Tower Hamlets University.


title: Hizb ut-Tahrir

text: The author, now a moderate Muslim, is opposed to the ideology of Hizb ut-Tahrir and critical of the consequences of political Islam poisoning young minds.


title: Hizb ut-Tahrir

text: "" is Maajid Nawaz's autobiography. It partly recounts his time as a recruiter for Hizb ut-Tahrir, his imprisonment in Egypt from 2002 to 2006, and his release after being cited as a "prisoner of conscience" by Amnesty International. In 2007, he left HT and co-founded the Quilliam Foundation with Ed Husain, an organization focused on countering extremism in the Muslim World. "Radical" was released in the UK in 2012; a US edition was published by Lyons Press in October 2013 with a preface for US readers and an updated epilogue.


title: Gavin Free

text: Gavin David Free (born 23 May 1988) is an English actor, director, cinematographer, and internet personality. He is best known for his work at Rooster Teeth—where he formerly served as creative director—featuring in many of their projects, including the Achievement Hunter gaming division. He directed of "Red vs. Blue", as well as its miniseries "Relocated".


title: Gavin Free

text: Free is also known as the creator and co-host of the YouTube-based web series "The Slow Mo Guys", alongside his friend Daniel Gruchy. The series features slow-motion footage of various stunts and experiments, garnering over 2.2 billion views since its launch in 2010. In April 2011, the channel was voted the winner of YouTube's "On The Rise" program. In September 2012, their episode involving crushing watermelons was featured on "The Tonight Show". Free has appeared alongside Gruchy in the annual "YouTube Rewind" series from 2013 to 2017. Free was nominated for a Webby Award in the Best Web Personality/Host (Online Film & Video) category for his work on "The Slow Mo Guys" on 5 April 2016.


title: Gavin Free

text: His acting roles include Woody in "Lazer Team" and its sequel, Vav in the animated comedy series "X-Ray and Vav", and Scarlet David in "RWBY." He is also known for his slow motion cinematography work for films, including "Hot Fuzz" (2007), "" (2011), "Snow White and the Huntsman" (2012), and "Dredd" (2012). Free has also worked on slow-motion footage for the BBC show "Top Gear". At the 2016 Streamy Awards, Free won for Cinematography.


title: Gavin Free

text: In 2006, he joined Green Door Films, the first production house in Europe to use Phantom digital high-speed cameras as a source of slow motion, working as a data technician and camera operator. He has worked on adverts and music videos for U2, Enter Shikari, Klaxons, Kasabian, The Chemical Brothers, X-Press 2, and the "Everybody Hurts" charity single.


title: Gavin Free

text: In 2009, he was hired by Austin,-Texas-based Rooster Teeth Productions to direct the of their machinima series "Red vs. Blue". Free also directed its mini-series "". He acted in Rooster Teeth's comedy mini-series "Captain Dynamic" and began appearing in "Rooster Teeth Shorts" the same year.


title: Gavin Free

text: In 2010, he created "The Slow Mo Guys" along with friend Daniel Gruchy in order to get a work visa. "The Slow Mo Guys" consists largely of various objects being filmed using Free's Phantom high-speed cameras. , their YouTube channel has garnered over 2.2 billion views and 14.2 million subscribers. In April 2011, the channel was voted the winner of YouTube's "On The Rise" program, which highlights up-and-coming YouTube partners on the homepage. In September 2012, they were featured on "The Tonight Show". In February 2013, Free announced that "The Slow Mo Guys" had been picked up by Rooster Teeth and that further episodes of the series would be released on Rooster Teeth's website, as well as the series' existing YouTube channel.


title: Gavin Free

text: On 23 February 2015, Free and Gruchy created a partner channel to "The Slo Mo Guys", "The Slo Mo Guys 2", as a channel for "laid back 'out of labcoats' content that doesn't fit on the main channel" As of February 2021, the channel has 41.8 million views and 831k subscribers.


title: Gavin Free

text: Free joined Achievement Hunter (a video gaming division of Rooster Teeth founded by Geoff Ramsey and Jack Pattillo) in 2008 as a contract host before becoming one of the main six hosts in 2012. He is one of the most prolific employees on the site, regularly appearing in their "Let's Play" series of videos, its podcast "Off Topic", and tutorials of how to get achievements and find easter eggs in video games.


title: Gavin Free

text: In May 2013, Free began starring as a "lab rat" in the Rooster Teeth series "Immersion", replacing Geoff Ramsey and Gus Sorola. In "Immersion", Free must test video concepts in real life alongside friend and co-worker Michael Jones. He was a contestant in the second season of Rooster Teeth's gaming show "The Gauntlet" in 2013. Free has had two cameo appearances in Barenaked Ladies music videos for their songs "Odds Are" (2013) and "Did I Say That Out Loud?" (2014). In the latter video, he is portrayed as accidentally lighting himself on fire when trying to play a song for his domestic partner Meg Turney, which subsequently goes viral. Free and "The Slow Mo Guys" co-star Daniel Gruchy appeared in YouTube Rewind in 2013, playing themselves being pulled by an RV, itself a nod to "Breaking Bad", while an explosion goes off behind them. They both returned for the YouTube Rewinds from 2014 to 2017.


title: Gavin Free

text: Free began starring in the Rooster Teeth animated superhero comedy web series "X-Ray and Vav" in November 2014. He voiced Vav alongside former Achievement Hunter employee Ray Narvaez, Jr., who voices X-Ray. The season was renewed for a second season, which premiered in July 2015. That same year, he appeared in Rooster Teeth's murder mystery comedy series "Ten Little Roosters" as a fictionalized version of himself and was a contestant on the improvised comedy series "@midnight" on Comedy Central.


title: Gavin Free

text: In 2015, Free and Rooster Teeth co-founder Burnie Burns hosted multiple episodes of the hypothetical scenario series "Million Dollars, But...", in which each person comes up with a typically difficult scenario; for example, having to date Adolf Hitler for a year — which the cast comically re-enact — for which they will be given a million dollars. The pilot episode premiered on 21 May 2015, with the series continuing on 9 July 2015. He was a reactor on the web series "YouTubers React" in August 2015. Free became the creative director of Rooster Teeth in October 2015, replacing Burnie Burns who was then promoted to chief creative officer. However, he stepped down in early 2016, wanting to "dedicate his time in 2016 to "The Slow Mo Guys"."


title: Gavin Free

text: In 2016, Free starred as Woody in Rooster Teeth's science fiction action comedy film "Lazer Team". The film was released theatrically on 27 January 2016. It received mixed to positive reviews from critics at film festival showings and upon its release. He joined the voice cast of the anime web series "RWBY" as Scarlet David for its third volume.


title: Gavin Free

text: On 5 April 2016, Free was nominated for a Webby Award in the Best Web Personality/Host (Online Film & Video) category for his work on "The Slow Mo Guys". At the 2016 Streamy Awards Free won for Cinematography.


title: Gavin Free

text: Free has been in a relationship with Meg Turney since 2013. As of March 2019, he is now a permanent resident of the United States.


title: Gavin Free

text: On 26 January 2018, an armed man broke into the couple's Austin home armed with a handgun, firing one shot while the two hid in a closet and contacted authorities. The suspect was confronted by police in the driveway and after an exchange of gunfire was killed by one of the officers. The gunman, an obsessed fan of Turney's, had driven 11 hours from Albuquerque, New Mexico, to the couple's home. He was reportedly resentful of Free's fame and relationship. Free and Turney were unharmed in the incident.


title: 2002–03 NBA season

text: The 2002–03 NBA season was the 57th season of the National Basketball Association (NBA). The season ended with the San Antonio Spurs beating the New Jersey Nets 4–2 in the 2003 NBA Finals. This would be Michael Jordan's last season in the NBA. This season would also mark the first finals since the 1998–99 NBA season that the Lakers did not appear in, and the Spurs' first finals appearance since then.


title: 2002–03 NBA season

text: Teams in bold advanced to the next round. The numbers to the left of each team indicate the team's seeding in its conference, and the numbers to the right indicate the number of games the team won in that round. The division champions are marked by an asterisk. Home-court advantage does not necessarily belong to the higher-seeded team, but instead the team with the better regular-season record; teams enjoying the home advantage are shown in italics.


title: The Whispers

text: The Whispers is an American group from Los Angeles, California, who have scored hit records since the late 1960s. They are best known for their two number one R&B singles, "And the Beat Goes On" in 1980 and "Rock Steady" in 1987. The Whispers scored 15 top-ten R&B singles, and 8 top-ten R&B albums with two of them, "The Whispers" and "Love Is Where You Find It", reaching the 1 spot. They have earned two platinum and five gold albums by the RIAA.


title: The Whispers

text: The Whispers formed in 1963 in Watts, California. The original members included identical twin brothers Wallace "Scotty" and Walter Scott, along with Gordy Harmon, Marcus Hutson, and Nicholas Caldwell. After being invited to the San Francisco Bay Area in 1966 by Sly Stone, the group relocated to that area where they began developing a reputation as a show-stopping live act. Walter Scott was drafted to serve in the Vietnam War during that period for eighteen months, returning to the group in 1969 after discharge. After Harmon injured his larynx in a driving accident in 1973, he was replaced by former Friends of Distinction member Leaveil Degree.


title: The Whispers

text: After a series of singles on Los Angeles label, Dore, the group signed to a small LA label, Soul Clock, run by producer Ron Carson, who was responsible for their breakthrough hit, "Seems Like I Got to Do Wrong" in 1970. Moving to the larger New York-based Janus label, they continued to be produced by Carson, before he sold all of his recordings to Janus with the group then recording mainly in Philadelphia in the mid-1970s.


title: The Whispers

text: In 1978, the group signed to Dick Griffey's SOLAR Records. The group scored many hits on the R&B and "Billboard" Hot 100 charts throughout the late 1970s and 1980s, and they hit number one on the Hot Dance Club Play chart in 1979/80 with "And the Beat Goes On" / "Can You Do the Boogie" / "Out the Box". In the UK, "And the Beat Goes On" peaked at No. 2 and "It's a Love Thing" became their second top 10 in 1981 peaking at No. 9. In 1987, they enjoyed a brief tenure in the US top 10 when "Rock Steady" became their first top 10 success on the Hot 100, reaching 7, while also capturing the 1 spot on the R&B chart.


title: The Whispers

text: The Whispers later established their own production company, Satin Tie Productions, through which they released their independent 2006 album "For Your Ears Only".


title: The Whispers

text: The group opened Game 2 of the 1989 World Series at Oakland–Alameda County Coliseum with their rendition of the National Anthem.


title: The Whispers

text: Marcus Hutson left the group in 1992 due to prostate cancer. According to the Whispers' website, when Hutson died of it on May 23, 2000, they vowed to never replace him, and started performing as a quartet.


title: The Whispers

text: Jerry McNeil resigned from his position as the keyboardist in the latter part of 1993 in order to spend more time with his family.


title: The Whispers

text: The Philadelphia soul songwriter team Allan Felder, Norman Harris, Bunny Sigler, and Ronnie Baker provided several of the Whispers' songs, including "A Mother for My Children" and "Bingo".


title: Love at first sight

text: Love at first sight is a personal experience as well as a common trope in literature: a person or character feels an instant, extreme, and ultimately long-lasting romantic attraction for a stranger upon first seeing that stranger. Described by poets and critics since the emergence of ancient Greece, falling in love at first sight has become a common theme in Western fiction.


title: Love at first sight

text: In the classical world, the phenomenon of "love at first sight" was understood within the context of a more general conception of passionate love, a kind of madness or, as the Greeks put it, "theia mania" ("madness from the gods"). This love passion was described through an elaborate metaphoric and mythological psychological effect involving "love's arrows" or "love darts," the source of which was often given as the mythological Eros or Cupid, sometimes by other mythological deities (such as Rumor). At times, the source of the arrows was said to be the image of the beautiful love object itself. If these arrows arrived at the lover's eyes, they would then travel to and 'pierce' his or her heart, overwhelming them with desire and longing (love sickness). The image of the "arrow's wound" was sometimes used to create oxymorons and rhetorical antithesis.


title: Love at first sight

text: "Love at first sight" was explained as a sudden and immediate beguiling of the lover through the action of these processes, and is illustrated in numerous Greek and Roman works. In Ovid's 8 AD epic, "Metamorphoses", Narcissus becomes immediately spellbound and charmed by his own (unbeknownst to him) image, and Echo also falls in love with Narcissus at first sight. In Achilles Tatius's "Leucippe and Clitophon", the lover Clitophon thus describes his own experience of the phenomenon: "As soon as I had seen her, I was lost. For Beauty's wound is sharper than any weapon's, and it runs through the eyes down to the soul. It is through the eye that love's wound passes, and I now became a prey to a host of emotions..."


title: Love at first sight

text: Another classical interpretation of the phenomenon of "hunger at first sight" is found in Plato's "Symposium" (c. 385-370 BC), in Aristophanes' description of the separation of primitive double-creatures into modern men and women and their subsequent search for their missing half: "... when [a lover] ... is fortunate enough to meet his other half, they are both so intoxicated with affection, with friendship, and with love, that they cannot bear to let each other out of sight for a single instant."


title: Love at first sight

text: The classical conception of love's arrows were elaborated upon by the Provençal troubadour poets of southern France in the eleventh and twelfth centuries and became part of the European courtly love tradition. In particular, a glimpse of the woman's eyes was said to be the source of the love dart: In some medieval texts, the gaze of a beautiful woman is compared to the sight of a basilisk.


title: Love at first sight

text: Giovanni Boccaccio provides a memorable example in his "Il Filostrato", where he mixes the tradition of love at first sight, the eye's darts, and the metaphor of Cupid's arrow: "Nor did he (Troilus) who was so wise shortly before... perceive that Love with his darts dwelt within the rays of those lovely eyes... nor notice the arrow that sped to his heart."


title: Love at first sight

text: William Shakespeare pays a posthumous tribute to Christopher Marlowe, who himself wrote "Who ever loved that loved not at first sight?" in his 1598 poem "Hero and Leander", by citing him the next year in "As You Like It": 'Dead shepherd, now I find thy saw of might: "Who ever lov'd that lov'd not at first sight?"'.


title: Love at first sight

text: These images of the lover's eyes, the arrows, and the ravages of "love at first sight" continued to be circulated and elaborated upon in the Renaissance and Baroque literature, and play an important role in Western fiction and especially the novel, according to Jean Rousset.


title: Love at first sight

text: Research has shown two bases for love at first sight. The first is that the attractiveness of a person can be very quickly determined, with the average time in one study being 0.13 seconds. The second is that the first few minutes, but not the first moment, of a relationship have been shown to be predictive of the relationship's future success, more so than what two people have in common or whether they like each other ("like attracts like").


title: Love at first sight

text: Infatuation, not to be confused with love at first sight, is the state of being carried away by an unreasoned passion or assumed love. Hillman and Phillips describe it as a desire to express the libidinal attraction of addictive love, inspired with an intense but short-lived passion or admiration for someone.


title: Love at first sight

text: Opera plots must be condensed to fit their rendition in music and are thus highly suited to plot lines in which the principals fall in love at first sight. Often, this moment inspires composers to unusually fine music. Abundant examples include:


title: Shrewsbury Town F.C.

text: Shrewsbury Town Football Club is a professional association football club based in Shrewsbury, Shropshire, England. The team competes in League One, the third tier of English football. The club plays its home games at the New Meadow, having moved from the Gay Meadow in 2007. They have won the Shropshire Senior Cup a record 67 times and are the only club from the county to ever play in the Football League.


title: Shrewsbury Town F.C.

text: Founded in 1886, the club were inaugural members of the Shropshire & District League in 1890 and then joined the Birmingham & District League five years later. Crowned champions in 1922–23, they switched to the Midland League in 1937 and won the Midland League title in 1937–38, 1945–46 and 1947–48. Shrewsbury were admitted into the Football League in 1950 and won promotion out of the Fourth Division at the end of the 1958–59 season. They were promoted again in 1974–75 after being relegated the previous year, and went on to win the Third Division title in 1978–79. They returned to the fourth tier following relegations in 1989 and 1992, where they won another league title in 1993–94. The club lost in the 1996 Football League Trophy final and dropped into non-League football after suffering relegations in 1997 and 2003.


title: Shrewsbury Town F.C.

text: Shrewsbury immediately regained their Football League status after winning the 2004 Conference play-off final. They subsequently lost League Two play-off finals in 2007 and 2009 before they won automatic promotion in 2011–12 and again in 2014–15 after relegation in the previous season. They finished as runners-up in the 2018 EFL Trophy final and 2018 League One play-off final.


title: Shrewsbury Town F.C.

text: The first club in the town was the Shrewsbury Football Club, founded in 1868, which in the 1877-78 football season won both the Birmingham Senior Cup and Shropshire Senior Cup, and was captained by John Hawley Edwards. It disbanded in around 1880.


title: Shrewsbury Town F.C.

text: The present Shrewsbury Town were formed in 1886, following the demise of first Shropshire Wanderers and later indirectly Castle Blues. The Blues were a rough team, leading to their demise after several games were marred by violence. The new team hoped to be as successful but without the notoriety. Press reports differ as to the date the new club was formed, The "Eddowes Shropshire Journal" of 26 May 1886 reported the birth of the club at The Lion Hotel, Wyle Cop, Shrewsbury. The "Shrewsbury Chronicle" reported the club being formed at the Turf Hotel, Claremont Hill, Shrewsbury. It may be both accounts are true, with a get-together at The Lion being finalised at the Turf.


title: Shrewsbury Town F.C.

text: After friendlies and regional cup competitions for the first few seasons, Shrewsbury were founder members of the Shropshire & District League in 1890–91, later admitted to the Birmingham & District League in 1895–96. Many of the teams Town faced in the early days have vanished, however Shrewsbury met many of today's Football League and Conference teams, including Crewe Alexandra, Coventry City, Stoke City, Kidderminster Harriers and Stafford Rangers.


title: Shrewsbury Town F.C.

text: In 1910, Shrewsbury looked to move to a new ground, having spent early years at locations across the town, notably at Copthorne Barracks west of the town. The club moved to Gay Meadow on the edge of the town centre, within sight of Shrewsbury Abbey, and stayed 97 years.


title: Shrewsbury Town F.C.

text: Shrewsbury's Birmingham League days were mostly mid-table, with a few seasons challenging near the top, the club being league champions in 1922–23.


title: Shrewsbury Town F.C.

text: A move to the Midland Champions League in 1937–38 saw the club enjoy one of its most successful seasons, winning a league and cup treble. Shrewsbury were league champions, scoring 111 goals . In addition, the Welsh Cup was won following a replay, the team enjoyed a run in the FA Cup, and won the Shropshire Senior Cup.


title: Shrewsbury Town F.C.

text: After a run of good seasons in post-war years, Shrewsbury were admitted, alongside Scunthorpe United to the old Division 3 (North) of the Football League in 1950, after being Midland League champions in 1949–50, following the decision to expand from 88 to 92 clubs.


title: Shrewsbury Town F.C.

text: Elevation to the football league in 1950 saw the club play one season in the Northern section of the third division, followed by a further seven in the Southern section, this before they became founder members of the newly formed fourth division in 1958/59, gaining immediate promotion as runners-up to Mansfield Town at the first attempt. Shrewsbury gained their first promotion, to the Third Division, in 1958–59. They remained in the third tier 15 years, slipping back to Division Four at the end of 1973–74.


title: Shrewsbury Town F.C.

text: 1960–61 season saw Shrewsbury Town reach the Semi Final of the League Cup. After beating Everton in the quarter-finals, they narrowly lost over two legs 4–3 on aggregate to Rotherham United. This era was also remembered for Arthur Rowley. He arrived from Leicester City in 1958, the club's first player/manager. During his playing and managerial career, he broke Dixie Dean's goal-scoring record, scoring his 380th league goal against Bradford City at Valley Parade on 29 April 1961. Retiring from playing in 1965 he remained manager until July 1968.


title: Shrewsbury Town F.C.

text: Shrewsbury were promoted to the Third Division in 1974–75 as runners-up, before another successful season in 1978–79, when they were league champions under Ritchie Barker and later Graham Turner. Over 14,000 fans packed Gay Meadow on 17 May 1979 to see Shrewsbury seal promotion with a 4–1 win over Exeter City. In addition, the club had their first run to the FA Cup quarter-finals, before a replay defeat to Wolverhampton Wanderers. Turner is the team's most successful manager, winning the Third Division Championship in 1978–79 – his first season in charge – to take the club into the Second Division for the first time. They remained for ten years, although Turner departed for Aston Villa in 1984. Shrewsbury repeated their 1979 feat of reaching the quarter-final in 1981–82, defeating UEFA Cup holders Ipswich Town in the fifth round before defeat away to Leicester City.


title: Shrewsbury Town F.C.

text: The 1980s saw many big teams defeated by Shrewsbury, whose period in the old Second Division coincided with some of the current Premier League clubs. During the 1980s, Fulham, Newcastle United, Blackburn Rovers, West Ham United and Chelsea lost to Shrewsbury Town. Middlesbrough were defeated at Gay Meadow at the end of 1985–86, Shrewsbury winning 2–1, relegating Middlesbrough, who went out of business and almost out of existence. The match was marred by violence from Middlesbrough fans, with many of them later having to return to Shrewsbury for court appearances.


title: Shrewsbury Town F.C.

text: In the early to mid-1980s the club enjoyed its most successful Football League run. Shrewsbury survived through the sale of players, with some to have played for Shrewsbury including Steve Ogrizovic, David Moyes, John McGinlay and Bernard McNally. They were relegated at the end of 1988–89 after ten years. In the Third Division, on 22 December 1990, Gary Shaw scored the quickest Town hat trick – 4 minutes and 32 seconds – against Bradford City at Valley Parade. At the end of 1991–92, three years after relegation to the Third Division, the club was relegated to the Fourth – the first time since 1975.


title: Shrewsbury Town F.C.

text: However, two seasons later Shrewsbury won the new "(fourth tier)" Division Three championship under Fred Davies in 1993–94, and remained in Division Two "(third tier)" three seasons. Shrewsbury were not to rise any further, remaining mid-table before slipping down again at the end of 1996–97.


title: Shrewsbury Town F.C.

text: The 1990s saw Shrewsbury make their first appearance at Wembley as finalists in the 1995/96 Football League Trophy final. Shrewsbury lost 2–1 to Rotherham United; future Shrewsbury striker Nigel Jemson scoring both Rotherham goals. Despite promotion, a trip to Wembley and overall good results up until the disappointing 1996/97 season when relegation back to the basement division was tasted. Davies was sacked at the end of the season making way for former club captain Jake King to returned to the club from were he began his career, following a successful reign at local rivals Telford United in May 1997.


title: Shrewsbury Town F.C.

text: In the 1999–2000, Shrewsbury endured a poor season, with King failing to impress and in mid November 1999 was sacked as the club near relegation. Former Everton captain and Welsh international Kevin Ratcliffe fresh from four and a half seasons in charge of Chester City was appointed manager and saved them from relegation to the Conference on the final day of the season with a 2–1 victory away to Exeter City, the season known as the 'Great Escape'.


title: Shrewsbury Town F.C.

text: Town make steady progression and in the 2001/02 season they missed the playoffs thanks to a final day defeat at the hands of Luton Town. The next season saw Town hit the highs and lows, FA Cup victory over Everton and a LDV Northern final against Carlisle, but this was all over shadowed by a poor league form and relegation to the Conference.


title: Shrewsbury Town F.C.

text: Ratcliffe worked on improving the side. Former youth team and reserve player Luke Rodgers emerged as a regular goal-scorer, and with big names arriving at Shrewsbury, the team looked on the up, narrowly missing the 2001–02 league playoffs despite 70 points. The 2002–03 saw Shrewsbury enjoy an FA Cup run. After dispatching non-league sides Stafford Rangers and Barrow, they hit the headlines after Nigel Jemson struck twice to beat an Everton team featuring a young Wayne Rooney 2-1 at the Gay Meadow in round three of the FA Cup in front of 7,800.


title: Shrewsbury Town F.C.

text: Chelsea were the fourth round visitors, in a televised match on BBC's "Match of the Day". Town lost 0–4, with Gianfranco Zola the man of the match. A near capacity crowd of 7,950 turned up for Chelsea, but from then on, the side's form disappeared, picking up just two wins in the league thereafter. Seven points adrift at the bottom and having conceded 92 goals, the club contemplated the end of their 53 years in the league. Following angry demonstrations from fans, Ratcliffe resigned, and Mark Atkins took temporary charge for the club final League game, a 2–1 defeat to Scunthorpe United, who were coincidentally the first League opponents for Shrewsbury Town back in 1950.


title: Shrewsbury Town F.C.

text: Northwich Victoria manager Jimmy Quinn was appointed Shrewsbury manager in May 2003, with the aim of getting them promoted back to the Football League at the first attempt. With most of the previous year's players released, Quinn assembled a whole new squad, with experienced non-league players such as Darren Tinson and Jake Sedgemore being joined by Colin Cramb, Scott Howie and former League Cup finalist Martin O'Connor. The league title went to Chester City, but with 74 points, Shrewsbury finished third in the league and defeated Barnet in the playoff semi-finals to set up a playoff final against Aldershot Town, at the neutral venue of the Britannia Stadium, home of Stoke City. The two teams played out a 1–1 draw which went to a penalty shootout. Shrewsbury goalkeeper Scott Howie saved three consecutive Aldershot penalties and defender Trevor Challis scored the winning penalty. Difficult times were just around the corner again which eventually culminated in relegation from the Football League in 2003, a painful 3-2 Gay Meadow defeat against Carlisle United sending the club down to the Football League.


title: Shrewsbury Town F.C.

text: Quinn departed 14 league games into the season, being replaced by former Preston manager Gary Peters, who preserved Shrewsbury's Football League status in the 2004–05 League Two campaign. The club's time in the Conference proved, thankfully, shortlived as Shrewsbury bounced straight back up thanks to a penalty shootout victory over Aldershot in the play-off final at Stoke City's Britannia Stadium with goalkeeper Scott Howie the hero. Back in the Football League, the club took a little time to find their feet once again, although they did unearth two talented local lads in Joe Hart and Dave Edwards who would both go on to become experienced internationals. Shrewsbury's plans to move ground came to fruition, as chairman Roland Wycherley ceremoniously cut the first sod of soil at the New Meadow in the summer of 2006, moving it to the Greenhous Meadow on the southern edge of Shropshire's county town in 2007.


title: Shrewsbury Town F.C.

text: Despite the departure of a then talented young goalkeeper and future England number 1 Joe Hart to Manchester City, Shrewsbury went on a 14-match unbeaten run in the 2006–07 season; following a 2–2 draw against Grimsby Town in the final League match to be held at Gay Meadow, they finished in seventh place and thus qualified for the play-offs, where they defeated Milton Keynes Dons in the semi-finals. The team lost to Bristol Rovers in the League Two play-off final on 26 May 2007 at the new Wembley Stadium in front of a record crowd for any 4th tier game of 61,589.


title: Shrewsbury Town F.C.

text: The club moved to the New Meadow stadium for the 2007–08 season. Peters left the club on 3 March 2008 by mutual consent, replaced by Paul Simpson, who led the club to an eventual 18th-place finish in the league. After the season, the kit manufacturer Prostar earned the naming rights of the stadium.


title: Shrewsbury Town F.C.

text: The 2008–09 season saw Shrewsbury reach the play-offs again with victory over Dagenham and Redbridge on the final day of the season. They faced Bury in the playoff semi-finals, winning on penalties with goalkeeper Luke Daniels making two saves to send Shrewsbury through 4–3 on aggregate. Shrewsbury lost 0–1 to Gillingham in the play-off final at Wembley Stadium on 23 May in front of 53,706, with a goal in the 90th minute by Gillingham's Simeon Jackson. On 30 April 2010, after a disappointing 2009–10 season, Simpson was dismissed as manager with two games remaining.


title: Shrewsbury Town F.C.

text: Graham Turner returned to Shrewsbury Town as manager in June 2010. The club finished the 2010–11 season in 4th place, finishing with 79 points and qualifying for the playoffs, missing automatic promotion by only 1 point. They lost 2–0 on aggregate in the playoff semi-final to Torquay United. The following 2011–12 season they finished 2nd on 88 points. They won 1–0 over Dagenham & Redbridge from a James Collins header on the penultimate game of the season to achieve promotion to League One after a 15-year absence. Shrewsbury also enjoyed a notable run in the League Cup during the 2011-12 season, beating Derby County at Pride Park and top flight Swansea City before James Collins headed them in front at the Emirates, only for Arsenal to eventually run out 3-1 winners. Shrewsbury exceeded expectations the following 2012–13 season and ultimately managed to seal League One safety with two games to spare of their first season back finishing 16th, a 1–0 win at home to Oldham Athletic. The beat relegated Portsmouth 3–2 on the final day to finish 16th on 55 points. Completing the double over Coventry City and Preston North End among the highlights. The following season, a disappointing first half of the season saw Turner quit in January and relegation was confirmed after a 2–4 home defeat against Peterborough United.


title: Shrewsbury Town F.C.

text: In May 2014 ex-Fleetwood Town boss Micky Mellon was appointed manager. Town were promoted back to League One on 25 April 2015 with a 0–1 victory away to Cheltenham Town via Jean-Louis Akpa Akpro's goal. Mellon left for Tranmere Rovers in October 2016, and he was replaced by Grimsby Town manager Paul Hurst, with Shrewsbury bottom. In 2017–18, Hurst led Shrewsbury to the EFL Trophy Final, ultimately losing to Lincoln. He also led the team to the League One play-offs, but lost to Rotherham after extra time. Hurst left to join Ipswich Town on 30 May 2018. He was replaced by former Macclesfield boss John Askey, but he was sacked later that year in November having won just 5 of their opening 21 games. His successor, Sam Ricketts was appointed manager in December. A highlight of the 2019–20 season under Ricketts was a fourth round FA Cup tie against the holding European champions Liverpool which Shrewsbury drew 2–2. Town narrowly lost the replay 1–0 at Anfield in front of an attendance of 52,399. However, following disruption to the season in March 2020 due to COVID-19, final League One standings were decided on a points per game basis with Shrewsbury finishing in 15th place. In November 2020, Ricketts was sacked with Shrewsbury in 23rd place and was replaced by Steve Cotterill.


title: Shrewsbury Town F.C.

text: Town's first ground hosted 51 matches over 3 years. The majority of these were friendlies as Town were not members of any league. Their first game was a 5–2 victory over Wellington Town on 16 October 1886 at the Racecourse Ground.


title: Shrewsbury Town F.C.

text: Town spent 4 seasons here and they were founder members of the Shropshire and District League started in 1890. 22 February 1890 saw town's record victory which was 18–0 against Wellington Town (Bowdler 8, Phasey 3, Rowlands 2 Gosson 3 Aston and Murphy). Town played 44 times at this ground.


title: Shrewsbury Town F.C.

text: Town played 47 times in 2 seasons at this ground and when they moved from here, they also moved up to the Birmingham League. This ground is now allotments.


title: Shrewsbury Town F.C.

text: Town played here for 15 years over 300 matches against more classier opposition of reserve teams like Aston Villa and Wolves. In 1909–10 they reached the first round of the FA Cup.


title: Shrewsbury Town F.C.

text: For many years, Shrewsbury coracle maker Fred Davies achieved some notability amongst football fans, by a unique service he and his coracle provided. He would sit in his coracle during Shrewsbury Town home matches, and retrieve any stray footballs that went into the River Severn. Although Davies died long ago, his legend is still associated with the club.


title: Shrewsbury Town F.C.

text: A new stadium opened 17 July 2007, it features a 9,875 all-seater capacity in four separate stands for football.


title: Shrewsbury Town F.C.

text: The ground has conference facilities, a function area, snack bars, licensed bars, a club shop and a restaurant. Within the stadium confines are training facilities for the club and a 5-a-side football complex which is run by Powerleague.


title: Shrewsbury Town F.C.

text: The first match at the stadium was 4–0 win against A-line Allstars featuring Gianfranco Zola. The first league match was against Bradford City.Shrewsbury's record victory at this ground is 7–0 against Gillingham on 13 September 2008 in League Two play.


title: Shrewsbury Town F.C.

text: The club's colours have always featured blue. However, blue has not always been the most dominant colour. Early kits included blue and white stripes, quartered shirts and all-blue shirts, which were worn with either white or amber trim until 1978. In 1978 Shrewsbury's most famous kit was introduced – the blue and amber stripes, which they wore as they were promoted in successive seasons, up to the old second division (now the Football League Championship). This was the design worn by character Derek Smalls in the movie "This Is Spinal Tap".


title: Shrewsbury Town F.C.

text: The club was not loyal to the stripes for long, and in 1982 reverted to a blue shirt, then used a blue body with amber sleeves, later reverting to an amber body with blue sleeves. In 1987 the shirts radically changed to white shirts for four seasons before reverting to stripes in 1991–92. After a flamboyant abstract pattern on the shirts in 1992–93, Shrewsbury's kits have stayed mostly blue, with amber stripe(s) of some description evident since 1999.


title: Shrewsbury Town F.C.

text: The shirt sponsors have, since their introduction in 1982 until 2017, all been local companies. As of the 2017–18 season, the current shirt sponsor is The Energy Check, a South Shields-based Energy management company.


title: Shrewsbury Town F.C.

text: The first crest to appear on the shirt of Shrewsbury Town was the town's coat of arms, The Loggerheads in 1907. The crest was used intermittently on shirts until 1960 through to 1970, when a generic football design was used. During this time, The Loggerheads continued to be used on other merchandise, such as match-day programmes. The Loggerheads returned in 1970, and in various guises continued to be used until 1986, when a "Shrew" cartoon was introduced as the club's crest in an attempt to rebrand "Salop" as "The Shrews". During this time, the club's kit was also changed to predominantly white. A campaign by fanzine a "A Large Scotch" eventually led to the return of The Loggerheads crest in 1992. The crest changed once in again in 2007 to coincide with Salop's move to New Meadow, the new badge featured a single lion's head in a circle. The club stated that the new badge was necessary as any design incorporating The Loggerheads could not be copyrighted.


title: Shrewsbury Town F.C.

text: The club has many supporters groups from different areas of the country, including places in Wales and more recently Telford. In 2019, a group named "South Stand Flags" was set up after the opening of New Meadow's safe standing section in order to "improve atmosphere at home games". The group, usually based in block 9 of the South Stand, organise choreography and flag displays. Their first fundraiser raised over £1000 which funded the purchase of 50 new flags. The group has gained a lot of praise from players and managers, including ex Shrewsbury boss Sam Ricketts.


title: Shrewsbury Town F.C.

text: In late 2019 the club started attracting fans from the small Caribbean island nation of Grenada. The support stemmed from the club having two Grenada internationals, Aaron Pierre and Omar Beckles, who helped the nation to a six-match unbeaten run in qualifying for the CONCACAF Gold Cup. The president of the Grenada Football Association, Cheney Joseph, adopted "The Shrews" as his team, stating "I have fallen in love with Shrewsbury. I’m serious. I believe they can become a dream story, a Cinderella story". In November 2019, Joseph sent a partnership offer to the club, as well as a formal invitation for Town chairman Roland Wycherley to visit the country. On 9 November, Oliver Norburn became the third Town player to be called up by Grenada, whom he qualified for through his paternal grandfather. On 26 January 2020, Joseph made his first visit to his adopted club, where he witnessed "The Shrews" come back from 0–2 down to draw 2–2 with Premier League leaders and European and World champions Liverpool, setting up a replay at Anfield.


title: Shrewsbury Town F.C.

text: The club maintains various fierce rivalries. The rivalry with near-neighbours Hereford United was ranked nineteenth in "The Daily Telegraph"'s "Twenty fiercest rivalries in English football" in 2015. Known as the 'A49 derby' due to the road that connects Shrewsbury with Hereford, it has not been played since Hereford United went out of business and reformed as Hereford FC, who now play in the National League North, 3 divisions below "The Shrews". This is similar to the rivalry with the now defunct Chester City. In 2010, a new club was formed named Chester FC who, like Hereford, also compete in the National League North and are yet to meet Shrewsbury in any competition.


title: Shrewsbury Town F.C.

text: The club also maintains a fierce cross-border rivalry with Wrexham, however, this fixture is now also very rarely competed due to Wrexham's relegation from the Football League in 2008.


title: Shrewsbury Town F.C.

text: The club's other main rivals include Walsall, Wolverhampton Wanderers, Port Vale and Shropshire rivals AFC Telford United.


title: Shrewsbury Town F.C.

text: The record for a Shrewsbury Town home fixture came on 26 April 1961 swelled by a large travelling contingent from Walsall, when 18,917 turned up in a football league third division fixture.


title: Shrewsbury Town F.C.

text: The record attendance for a fixture at New Meadow currently known as Montgomery Waters Meadow, came on 28 October 2014 when 10,210 attended a Football League Cup 4th round tie vs Chelsea. The capacity was expanded from 9,875 to 10,360 with the introduction of temporary stands in two corners of the ground.


title: Shrewsbury Town F.C.

text: Mickey Brown holds the club record for most appearances, accumulated during three spells. Centre half turned centre forward Alf Wood scored 5 goals in the 7–1 victory against Blackburn Rovers in 1971 and became the first player since Dixie Dean to score four headed goals in one match.


title: Shrewsbury Town F.C.

text: Several Shrewsbury players have gone onto, or came from prominent top-flight careers. These include current and former top-flight managers David Moyes, Nigel Pearson, Gordon Lee, David Pleat and Gary Megson. International stars John McGinlay, Jim Holton, Jimmy Quinn, Michael Gulla (American footballer), Jimmy McLoughlin, Mickey Thomas, Carl Robinson and Neville Southall all spent time at Shrewsbury. Doug Rougvie won the European Cup Winners' Cup with Aberdeen in 1983 and played for Shrewsbury later in the decade after a spell at Chelsea.


title: Shrewsbury Town F.C.

text: More recently, Premier League winner Mark Atkins spent later seasons of his career at Shrewsbury, as did Sheffield Wednesday's Nigel Jemson and former Nottingham Forest player Ian Woan. Coventry City stalwart Steve Ogrizovic was previously a Shrewsbury player. Two notable recent departees are local-born youth products, England goalkeeper Joe Hart and Wales midfielder David Edwards, both of whom have been capped at U21 and senior international levels. Edwards went on to play in the Premier League with Wolverhampton Wanderers and the Wales national team and returned to Shrewsbury in January 2019. Hart was a regular in the England senior team.


title: Shrewsbury Town F.C.

text: In addition to Hart and Edwards, Shrewsbury have given opportunities to many young local players, who have forged successful professional careers. Norman Hobson was a local Shrewsbury born defender in the mid to late 1950s and made 224 appearances. Bernard McNally was a local star in the 1980s, with two other local players, Kevin Seabury and Peter Wilding being fan favourites at the club in the 1990s. Veteran striker Andy Cooke was born and raised in Shrewsbury, and supported the club as a boy, but forged his career elsewhere after being rejected as a trainee. Tom Bradshaw is a recent Shrewsbury-born talent to have emerged from the Youth Team, and Mason Springthorpe signed for Everton prior to making an appearance for the Shrews, for £125,000.


title: Shrewsbury Town F.C.

text: In 2004, the BBC's "Football Focus" ran polls to determine club's cult heroes, and Dean Spink was named as Shrewsbury's cult hero, ahead of Steve Anthrobus and Austin Berkley.


title: Code Orange (band)

text: Code Orange (formerly known as Code Orange Kids) is an American hardcore punk band that formed in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania in 2008, while the members of the band were still in high school.


title: Code Orange (band)

text: The band currently consists of vocalist and studio drummer Jami Morgan, guitarist and vocalist Reba Meyers, keyboardist/programmer, guitarist, vocalist, and visual artist Eric "Shade" Balderose, bassist Joe Goldman, and guitarist Dominic Landolina. Their touring lineup also currently includes drummer Max Portnoy (of Tallah) since October 2021 and formerly included drummer Ethan Young (of Thirty Nights of Violence) between March 2020 and October 2021.


title: Code Orange (band)

text: The band originally signed to Deathwish Inc. for their first two studio albums: "Love Is Love/Return to Dust," which was released in November 2012 under their original name, and "I Am King" in September 2014. Their third album, "Forever" was released in January 2017 through Roadrunner Records, and their latest album, "Underneath", was released in March 2020, also on Roadrunner Records. The band has also released three EPs, one live album, thirteen music videos, three live DVDs, and six other shorter releases (splits/singles).


title: Code Orange (band)

text: The band started as a hardcore punk band - under their original name of Code Orange Kids - and started to shift to metalcore on the release of their debut full-length album "Love Is Love/Return to Dust," before incorporating more wide-ranging influences on their more recent albums, such as "Forever" and "Underneath," as they began to incorporate elements of grunge, nu metal, electronica, and industrial.


title: Code Orange (band)

text: They have received one Kerrang! Award for Best International Breakthrough (2018), have been nominated for two Grammy Awards for Best Metal Performance (2017 and 2020), have been nominated by Loudwire Music Awards for Metal Album of the Year and Metal Artist of the Year (2017), and been nominated twice by Metal Hammer Golden Gods Awards for Breakthrough Artist (2017 and 2018) which they won in 2018.


title: Code Orange (band)

text: In 2012, four of the band's members – Reba Meyers, Jami Morgan, Joe Goldman, and Dominic Landolina – formed the rock band Adventures; however, this group disbanded in 2016.


title: Code Orange (band)

text: They started out playing "really straightforward punk," but would eventually take their music in a heavier direction with the introduction of new member, Bob Rizzo, who met members of the band at a local show. By early 2012, the band described themselves as "doomy, abrasive" hardcore punk similar to Black Flag, Converge or Integrity.


title: Code Orange (band)

text: The band found some difficulty touring in their early days, due to the fact that they were not old enough to play at some of the clubs, and because many of the members were still in high school, could only tour between semesters. Despite this, Code Orange Kids opened for such bands as the Misfits, The Bronx, Nekromantix and Anti-Flag. Early self-published releases from Code Orange Kids included 2009's "Winter Tour Demo", 2010's "Demo 2010" and 2011's "Embrace Me/Erase Me". Code Orange Kids released the EP "Cycles" through Mayfly Records in 2011.


title: Code Orange (band)

text: Code Orange Kids announced they signed to Deathwish Inc. in January 2012. At the time of their signing, the average age among the band members was only 18 years old. In April 2012, the band released a split EP with Full of Hell through Topshelf Records. A Max Moore-directed music video for the song "V (My Body Is A Well)" from the EP was also released. Code Orange Kids toured North America with Touché Amoré, Defeater and Birds in Row in April 2012, and toured Europe in July 2012.


title: Code Orange (band)

text: Code Orange Kids released their debut full-length album, "Love Is Love/Return to Dust", in October 2012 through Deathwish. The album was recorded in June 2012 with Kurt Ballou of Converge at his own GodCity studio. Commenting on getting to work with Ballou, drummer Jami Morgan said, "Kurt has made tons of our favorite records and we respect him as an engineer and musician immensely, as many others do." The album's release was preceded by a music video for the song "Flowermouth (The Leech)" in October 2012.


title: Code Orange (band)

text: The band began touring in support of "Love Is Love/Return to Dust" with a short Canadian tour with Bane in October 2012 followed by a North American tour with Gaza and Full of Hell from November through December 2012. On this tour, the band was robbed of over US$10,000 worth of belongings in New Orleans, Louisiana. In February/March 2013, Code Orange Kids toured the U.S. with HO and Terror; with Circle Takes the Square and Full of Hell in Europe in July/August 2013; with Terror and Fucked Up in North America in October 2013; and with Every Time I Die and Letlive in November/December 2013. In April 2013, the band released a 4-way split 7" with Tigers Jaw, The World Is a Beautiful Place & I Am No Longer Afraid to Die, and Self Defense Family.


title: Code Orange (band)

text: Recording for Code Orange Kids' (who would soon change their band name) second studio album began in February 2014 with Kurt Ballou. Speaking on the overall sound of the new record, Morgan said it would mark "a very new era for our band," and that, "It's different. A lot of the heavier parts are heavier and sometimes more obvious. A lot of the odd parts are weirder and a little more anti-social. Things are a lot more blended together." On June 5, 2014, the band announced that it was changing its name from "Code Orange Kids" to "Code Orange," and would be releasing its sophomore album titled "I Am King" on September 2, 2014. Three months before the release of the album, the band released a music video for the title track, "I Am King," in June 2014 followed by an online stream of "My World" in July 2014 and a music video for "Dreams in Inertia" in August 2014.


title: Code Orange (band)

text: Code Orange's first tour in support of "I Am King" was a six-date stint with Killswitch Engage surrounding the band's participation in This is Hardcore Festival 2014 in July/August 2014, followed by a North American co-headlining tour with Twitching Tongues in September and October. They also appeared on 2015's Rockstar Mayhem Festival, and toured the U.S. from June to August.


title: Code Orange (band)

text: In April 2016, Code Orange signed to Roadrunner Records for their third studio album, which at the time was tentatively due out in late 2016.


title: Code Orange (band)

text: Leading up to the new album's release, the band toured the U.S. with Deftones in May 2016 and performed sporadic mid-year festival dates, including This Is Hardcore in August. In October 2016, the band released a new single, "Forever." It was revealed to be the title track to their third album, "Forever", which was then set for release in early 2017. Following the release of the initial single, the band released an animated music video for "Kill The Creator" in December 2016, as well as two further promotional singles, "Ugly" and "Bleeding in the Blur," in January 2017, prior to the album's official release date of January 13.


title: Code Orange (band)

text: A music video for the track "The Mud", directed by Balderose and Dmitry Zakharov, was premiered on Adult Swim's Toonami block on September 30, 2017. The album was featured on various best of 2017 lists including, Rolling Stone's "20 Best Metal Albums of 2017", Revolver's "20 Best Albums of 2017" and The Independent's "Top 20 Rock & Metal Albums of 2017."


title: Code Orange (band)

text: In support of the album, the band began touring as a five-piece. Dominic Landolina – who also played lead guitar in Adventures alongside Meyers, Morgan and Goldman – was brought in as a touring guitarist and later became a full-time member, after being secretly unveiled as a new member in the music video for "Forever".


title: Code Orange (band)

text: In August 2017, "Bleeding in the Blur" was announced as one of the official theme songs for NXT's "" event. At the event, held at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn, New York, Code Orange were the first band to ever play live at an NXT show. They opened the event with a performance of "Bleeding in the Blur," before later performing a live version of Aleister Black's entrance music, "Root of All Evil," with Incendiary vocalist Brendan Garrone; who appears on the original version of the song. The band played Black to the ring for his match with Hideo Itami. In December 28 and 29, Code Orange and Daughters supported mathcore band The Dillinger Escape Plan on their final two shows. Their appearance came about after Morgan became friends with Dillinger frontman Greg Puciato, who invited them to these performances.


title: Code Orange (band)

text: Code Orange released a new single, "Only One Way", on February 8, 2018, through the Adult Swim Singles Program. They followed it with a remix by guitarist Eric "Shade" Balderose called "only1 (the hard way)".


title: Code Orange (band)

text: On June 21, 2018, the band released a 3-track EP, "The Hurt Will Go On". Along with the remix of "Hurt Goes On," the EP also featured two brand-new tracks: "3 Knives" and "The Hunt," which features guest vocalist Corey Taylor of Slipknot and Stone Sour.


title: Code Orange (band)

text: During WWE's pay-per-view SummerSlam in August 2019, professional wrestler Bray Wyatt, while in his Fiend persona, premiered new entrance music performed by Code Orange. The song, "Let Me In," is a re-imagining of Mark Crozer's song "Live in Fear," which was Wyatt's old theme before leaving WWE programming in November 2018 and creating a new version of his character. "Let Me In" charted on the Scottish Singles Chart at number 79 for a solitary week beginning on August 16, 2019, becoming Code Orange's first song to chart on the Scottish Singles Chart.


title: Code Orange (band)

text: On January 10, 2020, the band released a music video for "Underneath", the first single from their fourth album, "Underneath". On February 7, 2020, they released a music video for their second single "Swallowing the Rabbit Whole". On March 9, 2020, the band released the third single "Sulfur Surrounding". An animated video directed by Eric Balderose, was released on March 9 along with the single.


title: Code Orange (band)

text: The full album was released on March 13, 2020. On March 14, 2020, Code Orange performed a live-streamed album release concert in an empty venue on Twitch due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The performance took place at the Roxian Theatre and was called "Last Ones Left: In Fear of the End". The performance was later officially released on YouTube.


title: Code Orange (band)

text: The album was the band's first album to be produced by Nick Raskulinecz. The album was also produced by Jami Morgan and co-produced by Will Yip. Yip also helped produce the band's previous album. Producer and musician Chris Vrenna (formerly of Nine Inch Nails and Marilyn Manson) helped Eric Balderose develop the electronics, the arrangement of the many layers of production, and the use of white noise and other various noise elements for the album.


title: Code Orange (band)

text: Following the release of their fourth album, Jami stopped performing drums at live shows to focus solely on vocals, with Ethan Young being revealed as the band's touring drummer in March 2020, to which Morgan commented: "He's a great guy and I think he'll continue to earn his spot, but for now he's an empty vessel. He's our drumming muse for now. We don't want to be married to anyone yet. You don't know how people are going to be 'til they are."


title: Code Orange (band)

text: On June 7, 2020, the band performed at at Full Sail University. On September 4, 2020, the band released a live album titled, "Under the Skin". The album featured acoustic renditions of songs from the bands discography, as well as a cover of "Down in a Hole" by Alice In Chains.


title: Code Orange (band)

text: In November 2020, the band was nominated for their second Grammy award. The band received a nomination in the Best Metal Performance category for the song "Underneath." They would ultimately lose the Grammy to Body Count.


title: Code Orange (band)

text: On January 23, 2021, an animated motion-capture video for the song "Autumn and Carbine" was premiered on Adult Swim's Toonami. The video was directed by Eric Balderose and Jami Morgan (under the nowhere2run productions moniker) and utilized motion-capture to create 3D models of the band members themselves.


title: Code Orange (band)

text: On October 14, 2021, the band announced that Max Portnoy, of Pennsylvania nu-metal band Tallah, had joined the group as their new touring drummer.


title: Code Orange (band)

text: On November 11, 2021, the band released a new standalone single titled "Out for Blood" along with its accompanying music video. The song was recorded with Green Day and My Chemical Romance producer Rob Cavallo.


title: Code Orange (band)

text: On December 16, 2022, the band premiered new entrance music, the song, "Shatter" for the wrestler Bray Wyatt. This is the second time the band performed entrance music for Wyatt.


title: Code Orange (band)

text: Code Orange has been considered metalcore, hardcore punk, industrial metal, alternative metal, industrial hardcore, post-hardcore, metallic hardcore, nu metal, heavy metal, hard rock, sludge metal, noise, industrial, and alternative rock.


title: Code Orange (band)

text: Since formation, the band's punk style has gradually grown more abrasive and heavy metal-influenced, moving into metalcore territory by the release of their 2012 debut album "Love Is Love/Return to Dust".


title: Code Orange (band)

text: In a review of their 2014 second album "I Am King", Ryan Bray of "Consequence" placed them within the "American metalcore underground" and noted that their music stood out in exhibiting influences not just from hardcore and metal but also from indie rock, post-punk and shoegaze. In 2015, Brian Leak of "Alternative Press" celebrated Code Orange as being "at the top of their game, not to mention the hardcore scene".


title: Code Orange (band)

text: In reference to their 2017 third album "Forever", Lars Gotrich of "All Songs Considered" described their style as "nightmarishly chaotic hardcore", stating that "there's always been an experimental underpinning to Code Orange that toys with noise and melody (and some '90s grunge)."


title: Code Orange (band)

text: According to Scott Tady of "Kill Your Stereo," "Code Orange takes...hardcore/metalcore and bleeds them over with modern industrial and bleak electronics, with the occasional alternative-rock detour...creating an almost-experimental sound that's both familiar yet futuristic."


title: Code Orange (band)

text: The band has also used elements of electronica, industrial, groove metal, and hip hop. They cite Hatebreed, Converge, Pantera, Nine Inch Nails, Earth Crisis, Minor Threat, Black Flag and Type O Negative as influences.


title: Anti-Comintern Pact

text: The Anti-Comintern Pact, officially the Agreement against the Communist International was an anti-Communist pact concluded between Nazi Germany and the Empire of Japan on 25 November 1936 and was directed against the Communist International (Comintern). It was signed by German ambassador-at-large Joachim von Ribbentrop and Japanese ambassador to Germany Kintomo Mushanokōji. Italy joined in 1937, but it was legally recognised as an original signatory by the terms of her entry. Spain and Hungary joined in 1939. Other countries joined during World War II.


title: Anti-Comintern Pact

text: The Japanese signatories had hoped that the Anti-Comintern Pact would effectively be an alliance against the Soviet Union, which is certainly how the Soviets perceived it. There was also a secret additional protocol which specified a joint German-Japanese policy specifically aimed against the Soviet Union. However, after the accession of Fascist Italy to the pact and especially the German-Soviet rapprochement after the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact, it gained an increasingly anti-Western and anti-British identity as well.


title: Anti-Comintern Pact

text: After August 1939, Japan distanced itself from Germany as a result of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact. The Anti-Comintern Pact was followed by the September 1940 Tripartite Pact, which identified the United States as the primary threat rather than the Soviet Union, however by December 1941 this too was virtually inoperative. The Anti-Comintern Pact was subsequently renewed in November 1941 and saw the entry of several new members into the pact. The Nazi regime saw signing of the Anti-Comintern Pact as a "litmus test of loyalty".


title: Anti-Comintern Pact

text: The "Anti-Komintern", officially the "Gesamtverband Deutscher antikommunistischer Vereinigungen" (abbr. GDAV, 'general association of German anti-communist federations'), was a German agency established by Joseph Goebbels in 1933. Its activities covered a wide range of operations designed to denounce communism in general and the Soviet Union in particular, push antisemitic propaganda and garner domestic and international support for Nazi policy. It was placed under the leadership Dr. Adolf Ehrt []. Under Ehrt's leadership, the Comintern was denounced as 'godless' in reference to its atheism. Beginning in July 1936, the Spanish Civil War became a main focus for the Anti-Komintern's publications.


title: Anti-Comintern Pact

text: One of the Anti-Komintern's most significant outputs was the 1936 international release "Der Weltbolschewismus", in which it connected various anti-communist and anti-semitic conspiracy theories for the consumption of the international audience. The book was not released in Germany itself to avoid conflict between the book's varied accounts with German state propaganda.


title: Anti-Comintern Pact

text: On 18 June 1935, the United Kingdom and Germany signed the Anglo-German Naval Agreement, which came as a surprise to the Japanese. This marked the beginning of a series of attempts by Adolf Hitler to improve relations between the two countries. In Hitler's mind, a positive relationship towards the United Kingdom would weaken Britain's allies France and Italy (at that point still a German rival) and contain the Soviet Union. Hitler would later also send Ribbentrop to London with the specific task of securing British membership in the Anti-Comintern Pact during his 1936–1938 tenure as German ambassador to the United Kingdom, declaring British accession into the pact as his 'greatest wish'.


title: Anti-Comintern Pact

text: In Japan, the treaty was viewed with suspicion. Mushanokōji on 4 July 1935 in an embassy meeting stated his opinion that it would be unwise for Japan to rush into an alliance with Germany, as he (correctly) interpreted the Anglo-German Naval Agreement as a German attempt to ally the UK. The United States and Britain had been hostile towards Japan ever since the Mukden Incident of 1931, and Mushanokōji feared that Japan might isolate itself if Germany ended up choosing a partnership with Britain over a partnership with Japan.


title: Anti-Comintern Pact

text: The execution of German foreign policy was nominally left to Konstantin von Neurath's foreign ministry, but Joachim von Ribbentrop headed the semi-autonomous "Dienststelle Ribbentrop", created in late 1934, where he could carry out Hitler's personal foreign policy requests independently from foreign ministry consent. This created a rivalry between the two services. While Hitler favored Ribbentrop as his personal foreign policy champion, he at least initially maintained Neurath's staff of career diplomats to maximize his government's diplomatic legitimacy abroad. Hiroshi Ōshima, Japanese military attaché in Berlin and the single most important individual on the Japanese side of the Anti-Comintern Pact's negotiations, interpreted the German foreign service structure as one where the power structure was such that "it was only Hitler and Ribbentrop who decided foreign policy, and that it was therefore of no use to talk to their subordinates". Ōshima thus attempted to get any important step of the negotiations to Ribbentrop's or Hitler's desks directly.


title: Anti-Comintern Pact

text: While Ribbentrop was Hitler's personal diplomat of choice, his personal view on geostrategic diplomacy varied quite distinctly from Hitler's during the late 1930s. Whereas Hitler favored a friendly policy towards Britain to eliminate the Soviet Union, Ribbentrop saw the western allies as Germany's main enemy and designed much of German foreign policy, including the Anti-Comintern Pact, with the goal to contain the British Empire in mind. When it came to Japan, Ribbentrop believed that the Japanese focus on the Soviet Union as its main antagonist could be redirected towards the United Kingdom, thus enabling Japan to be a partner in Ribbentrop's anti-British coalition.


title: Anti-Comintern Pact

text: German alignment with Japan, against the wishes of the traditionally sinophile German foreign service and German public at large, began at the end of 1933.


title: Anti-Comintern Pact

text: During the time of the Weimar Republic, the German government had made major treaties with the USSR, including the 1922 Treaty of Rapallo and the 1926 Treaty of Berlin.


title: Anti-Comintern Pact

text: In a note on the day of the signing of the Anti-Comintern Pact, 25 November, 1936, Ribbentrop informed Mushanokōji that the German government viewed these two treaties' terms as void under the secret additional protocol. Mushanokōji replied on the same day, expressing the Japanese government's "sincere satisfaction" with the German stance. This had been a result of the Japanese government's insistence, most notably in a request on 24 July 1936, to clarify the treaty's implications for past bilateral treaties between either party and the Soviet Union.


title: Anti-Comintern Pact

text: Japan had fought in the Great War on the side of the victorious Entente Powers. However, as part of the Washington Naval Conference of 1922, the United States and United Kingdom successfully managed to both limit Japan's naval forces by treaty and to force Japan to surrender her gains in China made during World War I. While there were some advantages for Tokyo gained during the conference – it was granted parity with USA and UK in the Pacific Ocean and was entitled to build a navy that would outmatch the French and Italian navies, as well as being recognized as the world's only non-western colonial power – the treaty was unpopular in Japan. Japanese nationalists, as well as the Imperial Japanese Navy, denounced the treaty's restrictive aspects.


title: Anti-Comintern Pact

text: Culturally, the 1922 Washington Treaty was viewed as yet another betrayal by the Western powers, after the Japanese proposals for guaranteed racial equality under the League of Nations had been rejected in 1919. This perception of national humiliation was further accelerated by the economic downturn that Japan experienced in the 1920s, exemplified by the 1927 financial panic in Japan (Shōwa financial crisis), which had also caused political instability and the fall of the first cabinet of Reijirō Wakatsuki, and by the 1929 Great Depression. German historian Bernd Martin dubbed the Washington Naval Conference the "Japanese 'Versailles'."


title: Anti-Comintern Pact

text: The Mukden Incident of 18 September 1931 began the period of Japanese aggression in Asia between 1931 and 1945, sometimes called the "Fifteen Years War".


title: Anti-Comintern Pact

text: The diplomatic reaction of the European great powers to Japan's attack against China was insufficient to stop the Japanese advance, despite continued Chinese appeals to the League of Nations. This attack, which had no central order from Tokyo precede it and was rather an autonomous decision by the Kwantung Army leadership, was kept confined to North East China by the Japanese commanders in the hopes that this would be enough to keep European responses lukewarm and thus further Japanese advances. This estimation proved to be accurate, and the United Kingdom in particular was more than happy to let Japan proceed in Manchuria as long as British interests in southern and central China remained undisturbed. Even after the Shanghai Incident of 28 January 1932, the British attitude remained on the whole friendly to the Japanese cause and indifferent towards Chinese pleas for assistance. Among the few exceptions to this were British efforts to bring about peace in the city of Shanghai itself, where the UK had direct economic interests.


title: Anti-Comintern Pact

text: The Japanese Pacification of Manchukuo on the other hand was viewed in Britain as a positive development that ultimately would help to disperse bandit activity. In February 1932, the Japanese established a puppet state in North East China, the Empire of Manchukuo, nominally headed by Puyi, the dethroned last emperor of the Qing dynasty (r. 1908–1912, 1917).


title: Anti-Comintern Pact

text: Following the Lytton Report, which laid the blame for the conflict in Manchuria firmly at the feet of the Japanese, Sir John Simon, the foreign secretary of the United Kingdom, failed to condemn Japan in his speech on 7 December 1932, and subsequently earned the favor of Japanese politicians such as Yōsuke Matsuoka, who viewed the lackluster British response as further encouragement for the Japanese course in China. Japan left the League of Nations as a result of the Lytton Report in February 1933.


title: Anti-Comintern Pact

text: The Tanggu Truce ended the hostilities in Manchuria, but Japanese ambition in China was not yet satisfied. Between 1933 and 1936, Japanese foreign minister Kōki Hirota pursued the , the 'friendly diplomacy of Hirota'. Summed up by the Amau Doctrine of 1934, Japan viewed itself as the protective power of all of East Asia, mirroring the role of the United States in the Americas under the Monroe Doctrine of 1823. This posturing was again permitted by the European great powers, and Neville Chamberlain even attempted to negotiate an Anglo-Japanese non-aggression pact to improve British relations with Japan in 1934. In secret, Hirota's foreign policy leadership set an array of highly ambitious goals for Japan's diplomacy. This included an industrial buildup in Manchukuo, the acquisition of resources from North China via subjugation, conquest of the western Pacific and South East Asia, and preparations for a war against the Soviet Union.The Japanese army in October 1934 published a pamphlet entitled "The Essence of National Defense and Proposals to Strengthen It", going directly against the attempt of diplomatic reconciliation that was at the same time (at least half-heartedly) attempted by the civilian government in Tokyo (named "Shidehara diplomacy" after former Prime Minister Kijūrō Shidehara). The pamphlet demanded a complete subjugation of all aspects of foreign and domestic policy to the all-encompassing question of "national defense" and the nation's preparation for total war. It further denounced "cooperative diplomacy", lauded the Japanese decision to withdraw from the League of Nations, and called upon Japan to accept its fate and to formulate a great plan for the next 100 years.


title: Anti-Comintern Pact

text: The military subsequently continued its practice of publishing pamphlets with overt political content without prior coordination with the civilian government. In November 1936, about the time of the Anti-Comintern Pact's conclusion, the army pamphlet "Perfecting the Army's Preparedness and the Spirit Required" advocated strengthening the army and openly called for the reform of the civilian government and the reform of the Japanese state to better suit the military's goals.


title: Anti-Comintern Pact

text: The Japanese imperial state's system was dubbed "a cone without vertex" by Japanese historian Ken Ishida. The Imperial Japanese Army (IJA), Imperial Japanese Navy (IJN) and the Japanese foreign ministry each had its own agenda with regards as to how Japan should orient its foreign policy. The Japanese system, highly traditional and based around the spiritual and socio-cultural value of Emperor Hirohito, also involved the imperial court, which served as a buffer between these three rival groups and the Emperor at the top, which allowed Hirohito to escape direct political responsibilities for any failures and setbacks that the system might produce.


title: Anti-Comintern Pact

text: At the time of the negotiations for the Anti-Comintern Pact, the Japanese government was also in negotiations with the Soviet government over fishing rights in the Sea of Japan. As the Anti-Comintern Pact's secret additional protocol between Germany and Japan against the USSR was to forbid political treaties by either state with the Soviet Union without the express consent of the other party to the Anti-Comintern Pact, Japanese ambassador Mushanokōji was concerned whether the Pact would result in consequences for the Japanese-Soviet negotiations. He inquired about it in a letter to Ribbentrop after the signing of the treaty on 25 November, and also mentioned the issue of border questions between Japanese-controlled Manchukuo and the USSR. Ribbentrop confirmed the German government's assent that Japan was autonomous and free to proceed in the matters mentioned by Mushanokōji his reply on the same day.