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Francisco I. Madero

Francisco Ignacio Madero González (30 October 1873 – 22 February 1913) was a Mexican businessman, revolutionary, writer and statesman, who served as the 37th president of Mexico from 1911 until he was deposed in a coup d'état in February 1913 and assassinated. He came to prominence as an advocate for democracy and as an opponent of President and de facto dictator Porfirio Díaz. After Díaz claimed to have won the fraudulent election of 1910 despite promising a return to democracy, Madero started the Mexican Revolution to oust Díaz. The Mexican revolution would continue until 1920, well after Madero and Díaz's deaths, with hundreds of thousands dead.

A member of one of Mexico's wealthiest families, Madero studied business at the École des Hautes Études Commerciales de Paris. An advocate for social justice and democracy, his 1908 book The Presidential Succession in 1910 called Mexican voters to prevent the reelection of Porfirio Díaz, whose regime had become increasingly authoritarian. Bankrolling the opposition Anti-Reelectionist Party, Madero's candidacy garnered widespread support in the country. He challenged Díaz in the 1910 election, which resulted in his arrest. After Díaz declared himself winner for an eighth term in a rigged election, Madero escaped from jail, fled to the United States, and called for the overthrow of his regime in the Plan of San Luis Potosí, sparking the Mexican Revolution.

Madero's armed support was concentrated in northern Mexico and was aided by access to arms and finances in the United States. In Chihuahua, Madero recruited wealthy landowner Abraham González to his movement, appointing him provisional governor of the state. González then enlisted Pancho Villa and Pascual Orozco as revolutionary leaders. Madero crossed from Texas into Mexico and took command of a band of revolutionaries, but was defeated in the Battle of Casas Grandes by the Federal Army, which led him to abandon military command roles. Concerned the Battle of Ciudad Juárez would cause casualties in the American city of El Paso and prompt foreign intervention, Madero ordered Villa and Orozco to retreat, but they disobeyed and captured Juárez. Díaz resigned on 25 May 1911 after the signing of the Treaty of Ciudad Juárez and went into exile. Madero retained the Federal Army and dismissed the revolutionary fighters who had forced Díaz's resignation.

Madero was enormously popular among many sectors but did not immediately assume the presidency. An interim president was installed, and elections were scheduled. Madero was elected in a landslide and sworn into office on 6 November 1911. The Madero administration soon encountered opposition from conservatives and more radical revolutionaries. Hesitation to implement large-scale land reform efforts upset many of his followers, who viewed it as a promised demand from conflict participation. Workers also became disillusioned by his moderate policies. Former supporter Emiliano Zapata declared himself in rebellion against Madero in the Plan of Ayala, and in the north, Pascual Orozco led an insurrection against him. Foreign investors became concerned that Madero could not maintain political stability, while foreign governments were concerned that a destabilized Mexico would threaten international order.

In February 1913, a coup d'état backed by the United States and led by conservative Generals Félix Díaz (a nephew of Porfirio Díaz), Bernardo Reyes, and general Victoriano Huerta was staged in Mexico City, with the latter taking the presidency. Madero was captured and assassinated along with vice-president José María Pino Suárez in a series of events now called the Ten Tragic Days, where his brother Gustavo was tortured and killed. After his assassination, Madero became a unifying force among revolutionary factions against the Huerta regime. In the north, Venustiano Carranza, then Governor of Coahuila, led the nascent Constitutionalist Army; meanwhile, Zapata continued his rebellion against the Federal Government under the Plan of Ayala. Once Huerta was ousted in July 1914, the revolutionary coalitions met in the Convention of Aguascalientes, where disagreements persisted, and Mexico entered a new stage of civil war.

Family background
Francisco Ignacio Madero González was born in 1873 into a large and extremely wealthy family in northeastern Mexico at the hacienda of El Rosario, in Parras de la Fuente, Coahuila. His grandfather Evaristo Madero Elizondo had built an enormous and diversified fortune as a young man and briefly served as Governor of Coahuila, from 1880 to 1884, during the four-year interregnum of Porfirio Díaz's rule (1880–1884), when Díaz's right-hand man General Manuel González served as president, doing a poor job in Díaz's opinion. Díaz returned to the presidency in 1884 and did not relinquish the office until 1911, when Francisco Madero's revolutionary movement forced him to resign. Díaz had permanently sidelined Evaristo Madero from further political office. He was of Portuguese-Jewish descent

Evaristo was the founder of a commercial transport business. Taking advantage of economic opportunity, he transported cotton from the Confederate states to Mexican ports during the U.S. Civil War (1861–65).

Evaristo married twice, with the first marriage before he made his fortune to sixteen-year-old María Rafaela Hernádez Lombaraña (1847–1870), the daughter of an influential landowner, together producing seven children. She was the half-sister of the powerful miner and banker Antonio V. Hernández Benavides, a close friend of José Yves Limantour, Secretary of Finance. Alongside his brother-in-law and others of his new political family's relations, Evaristo founded the Compañía Industrial de Parras, initially involved in commercial vineyards, cotton, and textiles, and later also in mining, cotton mills, ranching, banking, coal, guayule rubber, and foundries in the later part of the nineteenth century. After Rafaela Hernández's death at age 38, Evaristo married Manuela Farías y Benavides (1870–1893), producing eleven children. She was a member of one of northern Mexico's most influential families, daughter of Juan Francisco Farías, founder of the Rio Grande Republic. The surviving children of Evaristo's marriages also married into prominent families and expanded the Madero family's power and wealth.

For many years despite their exclusion from political office, the family prospered during Porfirio Díaz's regime, and by 1910 the family was one of the richest in Mexico, worth 30 million pesos ($15 million U.S. dollars of the day, and almost $500 million U.S. dollars in today's money). Much of this wealth arose from the diversification of Madero lands during the 1890s into the production of guayule rubber plants.

Unusually for a Mexican landowner, many of whom stayed close to home, the patriarch Evaristo traveled to Europe, as did Francisco's father. Francisco's father was interested in the increasingly popular philosophical movement of spiritism, founded by Allan Kardec, and subscribed to the La Revue Spirite and the Société Parisienne d'Études Spirites, whilst completing his studies at the École Commercial in Antwerp (Belgium). Back in Mexico, he hired Thomas Edison to electrify his hacienda and neighboring town of Parras. Young Francisco was sent to Paris to study business alongside his brother Gustavo and became a devotee of spiritism himself. He wrote extensively about spiritism in his diaries. "He was searching for ethical connections between Spiritualism and the Christian Gospels. 'I have no doubts that the moral transformation I have experienced is due to my becoming a medium.'"

Francisco I. Madero was the first-born son of Evaristo's first-born son of his first marriage, Francisco Ignacio Madero Hernández and Mercedes González Treviño, and was Evaristo's first-born grandson. Young Francisco was the first of his father's eleven children. This wealthy and prolific extended family could provide vast resources to young Francisco when he challenged Porfirio Díaz for the presidency in 1910. He was a sickly child and was small in stature as an adult. It is widely believed that Madero's middle initial, I, stood for Indalecio, but according to his birth certificate it stood for Ignacio. On the birth certificate, Ignacio was written with the archaic spelling of Ygnacio.

After winning election to the presidency in 1911, Francisco confirmed his uncle Ernesto Madero Farías, from his grandfather's second marriage, as his Minister of Finance (a post which he had since the previous presidency), which was used to accuse him of nepotism. Francisco was close to his brother Gustavo A. Madero as a trusted advisor when president. His brother Gustavo was murdered during the coup that overthrew Francisco from the presidency. His brothers Emilio, Julio, and Raúl fought in the Mexican Revolution.

Although Francisco I. Madero's marriage to Sara Pérez was childless and there are no direct descendants of his line of the Maderos, the descendants of Evaristo Madero make up some of Mexico's most influential families today. Thus, young Francisco was a member of an extended and powerful northern Mexican clan with a focus on commercial rather than political interests.

Education
Francisco and his younger brother Gustavo A. Madero attended the Jesuit college of San Juan in Saltillo and wanted to then become a Jesuit. He and his brother Gustavo briefly attended another religious school in the U.S. His English was poor, so he learned little in his short time there, and he abandoned any notion of a religious vocation. Between 1886 and 1892, Madero was educated in France and then the United States, attending the Lycée Hoche de Versailles, HEC Paris and UC Berkeley. At the Lycée Hoche in Versailles, France, he completed the classe préparatoire aux grandes écoles program. Soon after, he was admitted to study business at the prestigious École des Hautes Études Commerciales de Paris (HEC). His father's subscription to the magazine Revue Spirite awakened in the young Madero an interest in Spiritism, an offshoot of Spiritualism. During his time in Paris, Madero made a pilgrimage to the tomb of Allan Kardec, the founder of Spiritism, and became a passionate advocate of the belief, soon coming to believe he was a medium. Following business school, Madero studied at the University of California, Berkeley, to pursue courses in agricultural techniques and to improve his English. During his time there, he was influenced by the theosophist ideas of Annie Besant, which were prominent at nearby Stanford University.

Return to Mexico
In 1893, the 20-year-old Madero returned to Mexico and assumed management of one of the Madero family's hacienda at San Pedro, Coahuila. Well-traveled and well-educated, he was now in robust health. Proving an enlightened and progressive member of the Madero commercial complex, Francisco installed new irrigation, introduced American-made cotton and cotton machinery, and built a soap factory and also an ice factory. He embarked on a lifelong commitment to philanthropy. His employees were well paid and received regular medical exams; he built schools, hospitals, and community kitchens; and he paid to support orphans and award scholarships. He also taught himself homeopathy and offered medical treatments to his employees. Francisco became increasingly engaged with Spiritism and in 1901 was convinced that the spirit of his brother Raúl, who had died at age 4, was communicating with him, urging him to do charity work and practice self-discipline and self-abnegation. Madero became a vegetarian and stopped drinking alcohol and smoking.

Already well-connected to a wealthy family and now well-educated in business, he had built a personal fortune of over 500,000 pesos by 1899. He invested in mines with other members of his family, which came to compete with interests of the Guggenheim family in Mexico. The family was organized on patriarchal principles, so that even though young Francisco was wealthy in his own right, his father and especially his grandfather Evaristo viewed him as someone who should be under the authority of his elders. As the eldest sibling, Francisco exercised authority over his younger brothers and sisters. In January 1903, he married Sara Pérez Romero, first in a civil ceremony, and then a Catholic nuptial mass celebrated by the archbishop.

Introduction to politics (1903–1908)
On 2 April 1903, Bernardo Reyes, governor of Nuevo León, violently crushed a political demonstration, an example of the increasingly authoritarian policies of president Porfirio Díaz. Madero was deeply moved and, believing himself to be receiving advice from the spirit of his late brother Raúl, he decided to act. The spirit of Raúl told him, "Aspire to do good for your fellow citizens...working for a lofty ideal that will raise the moral level of society, that will succeed in liberating it from oppression, slavery, and fanaticism." Madero founded the Benito Juárez Democratic Club and ran for municipal office in 1904, though he lost the election narrowly. In addition to his political activities, Madero continued his interest in Spiritualism, publishing a number of articles under the pseudonym of Arjuna (a prince from the Mahabharata).

In 1905, Madero became increasingly involved in opposition to the Díaz government, which had excluded his family from political power. He organized political clubs and founded a political newspaper (El Demócrata) and a satirical periodical (El Mosco, "The Fly"). Madero's preferred candidate, Frumencio Fuentes, was defeated by that of Porfirio Díaz in Coahuila's 1905 gubernatorial elections. Díaz considered jailing Madero, but Bernardo Reyes suggested that Francisco's father be asked to control his increasingly political son.

Leader of the Anti-Re-election Movement (1908–1909)
In an interview with journalist James Creelman published on 17 February 1908 issue of Pearson's Magazine, President Díaz said that Mexico was ready for a democracy and that the 1910 presidential election would be a free election.

Madero spent the bulk of 1908 writing a book, which he believed was at the direction of spirits, now including that of Benito Juárez himself. This book, published in January 1909, was titled La sucesión presidencial en 1910 (The Presidential Succession of 1910). The book quickly became a bestseller in Mexico. The book proclaimed that the concentration of absolute power in the hands of one man – Porfirio Díaz – for so long had made Mexico sick. Madero pointed out the irony that in 1871, Porfirio Díaz's political slogan had been "No Re-election". Madero acknowledged that Porfirio Díaz had brought peace and a measure of economic growth to Mexico. However, Madero argued that this was counterbalanced by the dramatic loss of freedom, including the brutal treatment of the Yaqui people, the repression of workers in Cananea, excessive concessions to the United States, and an unhealthy centralization of politics around the person of the president. Madero called for a return of the Liberal 1857 Constitution. To achieve this, Madero proposed organizing a Democratic Party under the slogan Sufragio efectivo, no reelección ("Effective Suffrage. No Re-election"). Porfirio Díaz could either run in a free election or retire.

Madero's book was well received, and widely read. Many people began to call Madero the Apostle of Democracy. Madero sold off much of his property – often at a considerable loss – to finance anti-re-election activities throughout Mexico. He founded the Anti-Re-election Center in Mexico City in May 1909, and soon thereafter lent his backing to the periodical El Antirreeleccionista, which was run by the young lawyer/philosopher José Vasconcelos and another intellectual, Luis Cabrera Lobato. In Puebla, Aquiles Serdán, from a politically engaged family, contacted Madero and as a result, formed an Anti-Re-electionist Club to organize for the 1910 elections, particularly among the working classes. Madero traveled throughout Mexico giving anti-reelectionist speeches, and everywhere he went he was greeted by crowds of thousands. His candidacy cost him financially, since he sold much of his property at a loss to back his campaign. In spite of the attacks by Madero and his earlier statements to the contrary, Díaz ran for re-election. In a show of U.S. support, Díaz and William Howard Taft planned a summit in El Paso, Texas, and Ciudad Juárez, Chihuahua, for 16 October 1909, a historic first meeting between a Mexican and a U.S. president and also the first time a U.S. president would cross the border into Mexico. At the meeting, Diaz told John Hays Hammond, "Since I am responsible for bringing several billion dollars in foreign investments into my country, I think I should continue in my position until a competent successor is found." The summit was a great success for Díaz, but it could have been a major tragedy. On the day of the summit, Frederick Russell Burnham, the celebrated scout, and Private C.R. Moore, a Texas Ranger, discovered a man holding a concealed palm pistol along the procession route and they disarmed the assassin within only a few feet of Díaz and Taft.

The Porfirian regime reacted to Madero by placing pressure on the Madero family's banking interests, and at one point even issued a warrant for Madero's arrest on the grounds of "unlawful transaction in rubber". Madero was not arrested, though, apparently due in part to the intervention of Díaz's finance minister, José Yves Limantour, a friend of the Madero family. In April 1910, the Anti-Re-electionist Party met and selected Madero as their nominee for President of Mexico.

During the convention, the governor of Veracruz arranged a meeting between Madero and Díaz, Teodoro Dehesa, and took place in Díaz's residence on 16 April 1910. Only the candidate and the president were present for the meeting, so the only account of it is Madero's correspondence. A political solution and compromise might have been possible, with Madero withdrawing his candidacy. It became clear to Madero that Díaz was a decrepit old man, out of touch politically, and unaware of the extent of formal political opposition. The meeting was important for strengthening Madero's resolve that political compromise was not possible and he is quoted as saying "Porfirio is not an imposing chief. Nevertheless, it will be necessary to start a revolution to overthrow him. But who will crush it afterwards?" Madero was worried that Porfirio Díaz would not willingly relinquish office, warned his supporters of the possibility of electoral fraud and proclaimed that "Force shall be met by force!"

Campaign, arrest, escape 1910
Madero campaigned across the country on a message of reform and met with numerous supporters. Resentful of the "peaceful invasion" from the United States "which came to control 90 percent of Mexico's mineral resources, its national railroad, its oil industry and, increasingly, its land," Mexico's poor and middle-class overwhelmingly showed their support for Madero. Fearful of a dramatic change in direction, on 6 June 1910, the Porfirian regime arrested Madero in Monterrey and sent him to a prison in San Luis Potosí. Approximately 5,000 other members of the Anti-Re-electionist movement were also jailed. Francisco Vázquez Gómez took over the nomination, but during Madero's time in jail, a fraudulent election was held on 21 June 1910 that gave Díaz an unbelievably large margin of victory.

Madero's father used his influence with the state governor and posted bond to give Madero the right to move about the city on horseback during the day. On 4 October 1910, Madero galloped away from his guards and took refuge with sympathizers in a nearby village. Three days later he was smuggled across the U.S. border, hidden in a baggage car by sympathetic railway workers. He took up residence in San Antonio, Texas, where he plotted his next moves. He wrote the Plan of San Luis Potosí in San Antonio, but back dated and situated in to last place he had been in Mexico.

Plan of San Luis Potosí and rebellion
Madero set up shop in San Antonio, Texas, and quickly issued his Plan of San Luis Potosí, which had been written during his time in prison, partly with the help of Ramón López Velarde. The plan proclaimed the elections of 1910 null and void, and called for an armed revolution to begin at 6 pm on 20 November 1910, against the "illegitimate presidency/dictatorship of Díaz". At that point, Madero declared himself provisional President of Mexico, and called for a general refusal to acknowledge the central government, restitution of land to villages and Indian communities, and freedom for political prisoners. Madero's policies painted him as a leader of each of the different sectors of Mexican society at the time. He was a member of the upper class; the middle class saw that he sought to gain entry into political processes; the lower class saw that he promised fairer politics and a much more substantial, equitable economic system. The family drew on its financial resources to make regime change possible, with Madero's brother Gustavo A. Madero hiring the law firm of Washington lawyer Sherburne Hopkins, the "world's best rigger of Latin American revolutions" to foment support in the U.S. A strategy to discredit Díaz with U.S. business and the U.S. government did meet some success, with Standard Oil engaging in talks with Gustavo Madero, but more importantly, the U.S. government "bent neutrality laws for the revolutionaries." The U.S. Senate held hearings in 1913 as to whether the U.S. had any role in fomenting revolution in Mexico, Hopkins gave testimony that "he did not believe that it cost the Maderos themselves more than $400,000 gold", with the aggregate cost being $1,500,000US.

Madero supposedly initiated the Mexican Revolution with guidance from spirits (Madero identified as a medium who communicated with ghosts, including historical figures like Benito Juarez and even his deceased younger brother.)

El Paso, Texas, became a major staging point for Madero's insurrection against Díaz. It is directly across the Rio Grande from Ciudad Juárez, where two railway Mexican lines, the Mexican National Railroad and the Mexican Northwest Railroad, are connected with the U.S. Southern Pacific Railroad. El Paso was the site of a historic meeting between Mexican President Porfirio Díaz and U.S. President William Howard Taft in 1909. The population of the twin border cities increased dramatically in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries with legal commerce and considerable smuggling, "a time-honored occupation along the border." As the political tensions in Mexico increased, the smuggling of guns and ammunition to insurrectionists was big business. Madero remained in San Antonio, Texas, but his main man in Chihuahua, Abraham González had recruited gifted, natural military leaders, Pancho Villa and Pascual Orozco, to Madero's cause. Chihuahua became the hub of insurrectionist activity. Villa and Orozco had increasing success against the Federal Army, which drew more recruits to Madero's cause since it seemed to have a real chance at success. Antonio I. Villareal, a follower of Ricardo Flores Magón, who forbade members of the Magonista movement to have anything to do with the Madero movement, but the pragmatist Villareal joined Madero.

On 20 November 1910, Madero arrived at the border and planned to meet up with 400 men raised by his uncle Catarino Benavides Hernández to launch an attack on Ciudad Porfirio Díaz (modern-day Piedras Negras, Coahuila). However, his uncle arrived late and brought only ten men. Madero decided to postpone the revolution. Instead, he and his brother Raúl (who had been given the same name as his late brother) traveled incognito to New Orleans, Louisiana.

On 14 February 1911, Madero crossed the border into Chihuahua state from Texas, and on 6 March 1911 led 130 men in an attack on Casas Grandes, Chihuahua. Although holding democratic ideals that attracted many to his movement, Madero learned he was not a military leader. "Madero didn't know the first thing about warfare," initially capturing the town from the Federal Army, but he did not realize he needed to scout whether Federal reinforcements were on the way. There were heavy casualties among the insurrectionists, a number of whom were foreigners, including many from the U.S. and some from Germany. Two survivors of the Casas Grandes debacle were Giuseppe Garibaldi II, grandson of the famous Italian revolutionary, and General Benjamin Johannis Voljoen, an Afrikaner veteran of the Boer War. Madero was slightly wounded in his right arm in the fighting, shown bandaged in a photograph. Madero was saved by his personal bodyguard and Revolutionary general Máximo Castillo. He remained head of the movement in the north to oust Díaz. Madero movement successfully imported arms from the United States, procured by agents in the United States. Some were shipped directly from New York, disguised so that they would not be intercepted by the U.S. government. There were two businesses in El Paso that sold arms and ammunition to the rebels. The U.S. government of President William Howard Taft hired agents to surveil insurrectionists, fairly openly operated in El Paso. But the U.S. government efforts to halt the flow of arms to the Mexican revolutionaries failed.

By April the Revolution had spread to eighteen states, including Morelos where the leader was Emiliano Zapata. On 1 April 1911, Porfirio Díaz claimed that he had heard the voice of the people of Mexico, replaced his cabinet, and agreed to restitution of the lands of the dispossessed. Madero did not believe this statement and instead demanded the resignation of President Díaz and Vice-president Ramón Corral. Madero then attended a meeting with the other revolutionary leaders – they agreed to a fourteen-point plan which called for pay for revolutionary soldiers; the release of political prisoners; and the right of the revolutionaries to name several members of cabinet. Madero was moderate, however. He believed that the revolutionaries should proceed cautiously so as to minimize bloodshed and should strike a deal with Díaz if possible.

In early May, Madero wanted to extend a ceasefire, but his fellow revolutionaries Pascual Orozco and Pancho Villa disagreed and went ahead without orders on 8 May to attack Ciudad Juárez. It surrendered after two days of bloody fighting. The revolutionaries won this battle decisively, making it clear that Díaz could no longer retain power.

On 21 May 1911, the Treaty of Ciudad Juárez was signed. Under the terms of the Treaty of Ciudad Juárez, Díaz and Corral agreed to resign by the end of May 1911, with Díaz's Minister of Foreign Affairs, Francisco León de la Barra, becoming interim president solely for the purpose of calling general elections. Madero did not want to come to power by force of arms, but by a democratic election.

This first phase of the Mexican Revolution thus ended with Díaz leaving for exile in Europe at the end of May 1911. He was escorted to the port of Veracruz by General Victoriano Huerta. On 7 June 1911, Madero entered Mexico City in triumph where he was greeted with huge crowds shouting "¡Viva Madero!"

Madero was arriving not as the conquering hero, but as a presidential candidate who now embarked on campaigning for the fall presidential election. He left in place all but the top political figures of the Díaz regime as well as the Federal Army, which had just been defeated by revolutionary forces. The Governor of Coahuila, Venustiano Carranza, and Luis Cabrera had strongly advised Madero not to sign the treaty, since it gave away the power the revolutionary forces had won. For Madero, that was not the only consideration. Madero saw that revolutionaries like Orozco were not going to docilely obey his orders not to attack and the situation could get even more out of hand when Díaz resigned. Madero recognized the legitimacy of the Federal Army and called on revolutionary forces to disband. "Having removed Díaz, it appeared that Madero was trying to contain the Revolutionary tiger before it had time to enjoy its liberty."

Interim presidency of De la Barra (May–November 1911)
Although Madero and his supporters had forced Porfirio Díaz from power, he did not assume the presidency in June 1911. Instead, following the terms of the Treaty of Ciudad Juárez, he was a candidate for president and had no formal role in the interim presidency of Francisco León de la Barra, a diplomat and lawyer. Left in place was the Congress of Mexico, which was full of candidates whom Díaz had handpicked for the 1910 election. By doing this, Madero was true to his ideological commitment to constitutional democracy, but with members of the Díaz regime still in power, he was caused difficulties in the short and long term. The German ambassador to Mexico, Paul von Hintze, who associated with the Interim President, said of him that "De la Barra wants to accommodate himself with dignity to the inevitable advance of the ex-revolutionary influence, while accelerating the widespread collapse of the Madero party...." Madero sought to be a moderate democrat and follow the course outlined in treaty bringing about exile of Díaz, but by calling for the disarming and demobilization of his revolutionary base, he undermined his support. The Mexican Federal Army, just defeated by the revolutionaries, was to continue as the armed force of the Mexican state. Madero argued that the revolutionaries should henceforth proceed solely by peaceful means. In the south, revolutionary leader Emiliano Zapata was skeptical about disbanding his troops, especially since the Federal Army from the Díaz era remained essentially intact. However, Madero traveled south to meet with Zapata at Cuernavaca and Cuautla, Morelos. Madero assured Zapata that the land redistribution promised in the Plan of San Luis Potosí would be carried out when Madero became president.

With Madero now campaigning for the presidency, which he was expected to win, several landowners from Zapata's state of Morelos took advantage of his not being head of state and appealed to President De la Barra and the Congress to restore their lands which had been seized by Zapatista revolutionaries. They spread exaggerated stories of atrocities committed by Zapata's irregulars, calling Zapata the "Attila of the South". De la Barra and the Congress, therefore, decided to send regular troops under Victoriano Huerta to suppress Zapata's revolutionaries. Madero once again traveled south to urge Zapata to disband his supporters peacefully, but Zapata refused on the grounds that Huerta's troops were advancing on Yautepec. Zapata's suspicions proved accurate as Huerta's Federal soldiers moved violently into Yautepec. Madero wrote to De la Barra, saying that Huerta's actions were unjustified and recommending that Zapata's demands be met. However, when he left the south, he had achieved nothing. Nevertheless, he promised the Zapatistas that once he became president, things would change. Most Zapatistas had grown suspicious of Madero, however.

Presidency and death (November 1911 – February 1913)

Madero became president in November 1911, and, intending to reconcile the nation, appointed a cabinet that included many of Porfirio Díaz's supporters, as well as Madero's uncle Ernesto Madero, as Minister of Finance. A curious fact is that almost immediately after taking office in November, Madero became the first head of state in the world to fly in an airplane, which the Mexican press was later to mock. Madero was unable to achieve the reconciliation he desired since conservative Porfirians had organized themselves during the interim presidency and now mounted a sustained and effective opposition to Madero's reform program. Conservatives in the Senate refused to pass the reforms he advocated. At the same time, several of Madero's allies denounced him for being overly conciliatory with the Porfirians and with not moving aggressively forward with reforms.

After years of censorship, Mexican newspapers took advantage of their newly found freedom of the press to harshly criticize Madero's performance as president. Gustavo A. Madero, the president's brother, remarked that "the newspapers bite the hand that took off their muzzle." President Madero refused the recommendation of some of his advisors that he bring back censorship. The press was particularly critical of Madero's handling of rebellions that broke out against his rule shortly after he became president. Despite internal and external opposition, the Madero administration had a number of important accomplishments, including freedom of the press. He freed political prisoners and abolished the death penalty. He did away with the practice of the Díaz government, which appointed local political bosses (jefes políticos), and instead set up a system of independent municipal authorities. State elections were free and fair. He was concerned about the improvement of education, establishing new schools and workshops. An important step was the creation of a federal department of labor, limited the workday to 10 hours, and set in place regulations on women's and children's labor. Unions were granted the right to freely organize. The Casa del Obrero Mundial ("House of the World Worker"), an organization with anarcho-syndicalist was founded during his presidency.

Madero alienated a number of his political supporters when he created a new political party, the Constitutionalist Progressive party, which replaced the Anti-Reelectionist Party. He ousted leftist Emilio Vázquez Gómez from his cabinet, brother of Francisco Vázquez Gómez, whom Madero had replaced as his vice presidential candidate with Pino Suárez.

Madero made gestures of reform to those who had helped bring him to power, but his aim was a democratic transition to power, fulfilled by his election. His supporters were offered mild gestures of reform, creating a Department of Labor and a National Agrarian Commission, but organized labor and peasants seeking land did not have their fundamental situations changed.

Rebellions
Madero retained the Mexican Federal Army and ordered the demobilization of revolutionary forces. For revolutionaries who considered themselves the reason that Díaz resigned, this was a hard course to follow. Since Madero did not implement immediate, radical reforms that many of those had supported him had expected, he lost control of those areas in Morelos and Chihuahua. A series of internal rebellions challenged Madero's presidency before the February 1913 coup that deposed him.

Zapatista rebellion
In Morelos, Emiliano Zapata proclaimed the Plan of Ayala on 25 November 1911, which excoriated Madero's slowness on land reform and declared the signatories in rebellion. Zapata's plan recognized Pascual Orozco as fellow revolutionary, although Orozco was for the moment loyal to Madero, until 1912. Madero sent the Federal Army to suppress the rebellion, but failed to do so. For Madero's opponents this was evidence of his ineffectiveness as a leader.

Reyes rebellion
In December 1911, General Bernardo Reyes, whom Porfirio Díaz had sent to Europe on a diplomatic mission because Díaz worried that Reyes was going to challenge him for the presidency, launched a rebellion in Nuevo León, where he had previously served as governor. He called for "the people" to rise against Madero. "His rebellion was a total failure", lasting only eleven days before Reyes surrendered to the Federal Army at Linares, Nuevo León. When the rebellion broke out, Madero made a calculated decision to entrust Pascual Orozco to put it down. In the fight against Dįaz, Orozco had led revolutionary forces in the north capturing Ciudad Juárez, against Madero's orders. Madero had not treated him well after he was elected, but entrusted him over General Victoriano Huerta. Huerta had previously been a supporter of Reyes, and Madero was concerned that Huerta would join with Reyes rather than suppress the rebellion. In one historian's assessment, "would have ensued and seriously threatedPresident Madero played his political cards perfectly this occasion. Had he dispatched a large force to the north under the command of either Huerta of [General] Blanquet, it is quite possible that a major military defection, seriously threatening the government." Reyes was sent to the Santiago Tlatelolco military prison in Mexico City. Madero allowed Reyes privileges while in prison, which allowed him to organize subsequent conspiracies from jail.

Vázquez Gómez rebellion
Nearly simultaneous with Reyes's rebellion, Emilio Vázquez Gómez, rose in rebellion. Emilio was the brother of Francisco Vázquez Gómez whom Madero replaced as the vice presidential candidate Pino Suárez when he successfully ran for president. Emilio gathered supporters in Chihuahua, with a number of small rebellions against the Madero's regime breaking out in December 1911. Although Madero sent the Federal Army, he then sent Orozco to put down the rebellion. Rebels had captured and looted Ciudad Juáréz. Orozco arrived with a contingent of troops. Still popular in Chihuahua, Orozco persuaded rebels to lay down their arms against Madero. Madero was delighted that Orozco had been so successful in dealing with two rebellions.

Orozco rebellion
The two small, northern rebellions that Orozco suppressed showed his again his military skills, but with the Vázquez Gómez rebellion, he realized his continued popularity. In his recent dealings with Madero, the president had shown him respect, which was much lacking after Orozco disobeyed Madero's orders not to take Ciudad Juárez in May 1911 when Madero was attempting non-military means to persuade Dįaz to resign. Orozco was personally resentful of how President Madero had treated him once he was in office. He launched a rebellion in Chihuahua in March 1912 with the financial backing of Luis Terrazas, a former Governor of Chihuahua who was the largest landowner in Mexico. Northern oligarchs had opposed ousting of Díaz and Madero's presidency and saw in Orozco a potential ally, a rival to oust Madero. They began flattering him that he was the man to bring order to Mexico. Madero's advisors had repeatedly warned Madero that Orozco was untrustworthy, but Madero had just seen the demonstration of Orozco's loyalty in preserving his presidency. Orozco's "revolution came as a complete shock to Madero."

At his request, Madero dispatched troops under General José González Salas, the Secretary of War, to put down the rebellion. González Salas was not a seasoned campaign general, but he did not want Huerta to be dispatched. Unlike the two small, unsuccessful rebellions that attracted few followers, Orozco not only had an army to 8,000 men, he had backing from landowning interests, and a detailed battle plan to sweep through Chihuahua and capture Mexico City. Although González Salas commanded forces of 2,000 troops, he was an ineffective leader. In the first major encounter, Orozco triumphed, crushing the Federal Army. González Salas committed suicide after the military humiliation. General Victoriano Huerta assumed control of the federalist forces. Huerta was more successful, defeating Orozco's troops in three major battles and forcing Orozco to flee to the United States in September 1912.

Relations between Huerta and Madero grew strained during the course of this campaign when Pancho Villa, the commander of the División del Norte, refused orders from General Huerta. Huerta ordered Villa's execution, but Madero commuted the sentence and Villa was sent to the same Santiago Tlatelolco prison as Reyes from which he escaped on Christmas Day 1912. Angry at Madero's commutation of Villa's sentence, Huerta, after a long night of drinking, mused about reaching an agreement with Orozco and together deposing Madero as president. When Mexico's Minister of War learned of General Huerta's comments, he stripped Huerta of his command, but Madero intervened and restored Huerta to command.

Félix Díaz rebellion
October 1912, Félix Díaz (nephew of Porfirio Díaz) launched a rebellion in Veracruz, hoping to capitalize on his famous name and with support from the U.S. But even with U.S. support, Díaz's rebellion collapsed after no Mexican generals or the general populace supported it. Díaz was arrested and imprisoned. Although Díaz was sentenced to death for his rebellion, the Supreme Court of Mexico, whose judges were appointed by former President Díaz, declared that Félix Díaz would be imprisoned, but not executed. Madero did not interfere with the decision; Díaz was transferred to the same prison where Reyes was incarcerated, where the two plotted further conspiracies. "Madero displayed a fatal softness toward the leaders of these coup attempts.

U.S. and the Madero government
Initially, the U.S. was cautiously optimistic about Madero leading the new government. He had kept the Federal Army and the federal bureaucracy, and dismissed the revolutionary forces that brought him to power. Although his Plan of San Luis Potosí signaled his openness to land reform, he failed to move on it, which did not have an impact on the U.S. or its business interests. Madero displayed no overt anti-Americanism, but his resistance to U.S. pressure on a variety of issues were taken as that by the U.S. government and business interests. He did not follow through on promises made in his name, perhaps by his brother Gustavo A. Madero, to turn Mexico's oil industry over to the Standard Oil Company. He refused to satisfy U.S. demands for compensation for life and property outside of a bilateral commission. He planned to institute universal male military service, which would have strengthened Mexico's position against foreign powers. Furthermore, Madero's lifting of restrictions on labor organizing had resulted in strikes, which had an impact on U.S. companies in Mexico. Likewise, Madero was not deviating from President Díaz's firmness against demands that infringed on Mexican sovereignty and domestic policy, but the U.S. pressed the issues. The United States' position towards the Madero regime grew increasingly hostile. The U.S. Ambassador, Henry Lane Wilson conducted a campaign of anti-Madero propaganda and disinformation, aimed at alarming the American residents, a campaign against Madero in U.S. newspapers. The U.S. government and business interests, too, increasingly backed rebellions against Madero.

Germany and the Madero government
Germany had business interests in Mexico, in banking and in exports from Germany, but it was reluctant to challenge the U.S. as the premier foreign arbiter in Mexico. In the period before the outbreak of World War I in August 1914, it followed the lead of the U.S. of initially being optimistic about Madero's moderation against revolutionary tendencies. But when U.S. turned against Madero, the U.S. ambassador and the German ambassador Paul von Hintze were in close contact. Hintze's reports on the situation in Mexico during the Madero presidency were a rich source of information about the regime. Although the U.S. attempted to draw Germany as well as Great Britain into intervention in Mexico, both held back. They also sought to prevent the U.S. from intervening itself. Hintze had a low opinion of Félix Díaz, and saw the head of the Mexican Federal Army, Victoriano Huerta, as an appropriate candidate as a military dictator. That view dictated his actions as a plan for a coup was hatched in early 1913.

Successful coup against Madero and assassination
In early 1913, General Félix Díaz (Porfirio Díaz's nephew) and General Bernardo Reyes plotted the overthrow of Madero. Now known in Mexican history as the Ten Tragic Days, from 9 to 19 February events in the capital led to the overthrow and murder of Madero and his vice president. Rebel forces bombarded the National Palace and downtown Mexico City from the military arsenal (ciudadela). Madero's loyalists initially held their ground, but Madero's commander, General Victoriano Huerta secretly switched sides to support the rebels. Madero's decision to appoint Huerta as commander of forces in Mexico City was one "for which he would pay for with his life." Madero and his vice president were arrested. Under pressure Madero resigned the presidency, with the expectation that he would go into exile, as had President Díaz in May 1911. Madero's brother and advisor Gustavo A. Madero was kidnapped off the street, tortured, and killed. Following Huerta's coup d'état on 18 February 1913, Madero was forced to resign. After a 45-minute term of office, Pedro Lascuráin was replaced by Huerta, who took over the presidency later that day. Following his forced resignation, Madero and his Vice-president José María Pino Suárez were kept under guard in the National Palace. On the evening of 22 February, they were told that they were to be transferred to the main city penitentiary, where they would be safer. At 11:15 pm, reporters waiting outside the National Palace saw two cars containing Madero and Suárez emerge from the main gate under a heavy escort commanded by Major Francisco Cárdenas, an officer of the rurales. The journalists on foot were outdistanced by the motor vehicles, which were driven towards the penitentiary. The correspondent for the New York World was approaching the prison when he heard a volley of shots. Behind the building, he found the two cars with the bodies of Madero and Suárez nearby, surrounded by soldiers and gendarmes. Major Cárdenas subsequently told reporters that the cars and their escort had been fired on by a group, as they neared the penitentiary. The two prisoners had leapt from the vehicles and ran towards their presumed rescuers. They had however been killed in the cross-fire. This account was treated with general disbelief, although the American ambassador Henry Lane Wilson, a strong supporter of Huerta, reported to Washington that, "I am disposed to accept the (Huerta) government's version of the affair and consider it a closed incident". President Madero, dead at 39, was buried quietly in the French cemetery of Mexico City. A series of contemporary photographs taken by Manuel Ramos show Maderos's coffin being carried from the penitentiary and placed on a special funeral tram car for transportation to the cemetery. Only his close family were permitted to attend, leaving for Cuba immediately after. Following Huerta's overthrow, Francisco Cárdenas fled to Guatemala where he committed suicide in 1920 after the new Mexican government had requested his extradition to stand trial for the murder of Madero.

Aftermath of coup
There was shock at Madero's murder, but there were many, including Mexican elites and foreign entrepreneurs and governments, who saw the coup and the emergence of General Huerta as the desired strongman to return order to Mexico. Among elites in Mexico, Madero's death was a cause of rejoicing, seeing the time since Díaz's resignation as one of political instability and economic uncertainty. Ordinary Mexicans in the capital, however, were dismayed by the coup, since many considered Madero a friend, but their feelings did not translate into concrete action against the Huerta regime. In northern Mexico, Madero's overthrow and martyrdom united forces against Huerta's usurpation of power. Governor of Coahuila, Venustiano Carranza refused to support the new regime although most state governors had. He brought together a coalition of revolutionaries under the banner of the Mexican Constitution, so that the Constitutionalist Army fought for the principles of constitutional democracy that Madero embraced. In southern Mexico, Zapata had been in rebellion against the Madero government for its slow action on land reform and continued in rebellion against the Huerta regime. However, Zapata repudiated his former high opinion of fellow revolutionary Pascual Orozco, who had also rebelled against Madero, when Orozco allied with Huerta. Madero's anti-reelectionist movement had mobilized revolutionary action that led to the resignation of Díaz. Madero's overthrow and murder during the Ten Tragic Days was a prelude to further years of civil war.

For Mexicans hopeful of positive change with the Madero presidency, his performance in office was not inspiring, but as a martyr to the revolution ousted and murdered by reactionary forces with the aid of the United States ambassador, he became a powerful unifying force. The Governor of Coahuila, Madero's home state, became the leader of the northern revolutionaries opposing the Huerta. Venustiano Carranza had been put in office by Madero. Carranza named the broad-based, anti-Huerta northern coalition the Constitutionalist Army, invoking the Mexican Constitution of 1857 and rule of law that they hoped to restore. In 1915, a Constitutionalist supporter created a chart outlining the political leaders of the time, calling Madero "The Great Democrat, elected president by the unanimous will of the people." But by 1917, when the Constitutionalists had emerged as the winning faction of the revolution, Carranza began reshaping the historical narrative of the revolution that excluded Madero entirely. For Carranza, the revolution had three periods, with the start date being the armed struggle against Huerta, led by himself. After three years as constitutional president, Carranza himself was ousted and killed in a 1920 coup by Sonoran revolutionary generals, Álvaro Obregón, Plutarco Elías Calles, and Adolfo de la Huerta. Madero's status as a hero of the revolution was restored by the Sonoran dynasty, which deliberately constructed a narrative of historical memory that endures. 20 November, the day that Madero set in the Plan of San Luis Potosí for the rebellion against Porfirio Díaz, became a national day of celebration.

Historical memory and popular culture
Madero was known as "The Apostle of Democracy," but "Madero the martyr meant more to the soul of Mexico."

Despite Madero's importance as a historical figure, there are relatively few memorials or monuments to him. It was not until the Monument to the Revolution was completed in 1938 that Madero had a public resting place. He had been interred in the French cemetery in Mexico City after his death. His tomb had been an informal pilgrimage site on the anniversary of his murder (22 February) and the proclamation of his Plan of San Luis Potosí (20 November), which launched the Mexican Revolution. Initially, the monument to the Revolution held the remains of Madero, Carranza, and Villa and was planned as a collective commemoration of the Revolution, not individual revolutionaries. Although it was completed on 20 November 1938, there was no inaugural ceremony.

The date of Madero's Plan of San Luis Potosí, 20 November, was a fixed official holiday in Mexico, Revolution Day, but a 2005 change in the law makes the third Monday in November the day of commemoration. During the presidency of Venustiano Carranza, he ignored 20 November and commemorated 26 March, the anniversary of his Plan de Guadalupe.

The Mexico City Metro has a stop named for Madero's vice president, Metro Pino Suárez, but not one to Madero. General Alvaro Obregón laid a foundation stone on the 10th anniversary of Madero's death of a planned Madero statue in the zócalo, but the statue was never built. A statue was erected in 1956 at a downtown intersection in Mexico City and has been moved to the presidential residence, Los Pinos, not easily viewable by the public. An exception is Avenida Madero in Mexico City. One contemporaneous honor by General Pancho Villa remains in Mexico City. On the morning of 8 December 1914, he declared that the street leading from the Zócalo in Mexico City towards the Paseo de la Reforma would be named for Madero. Still officially called Francisco I. Madero Avenue, but commonly known simply as Madero street, it is one of the most popular and historically significant streets in the city. It was pedestrianised in 2009.

Mexican artist José Guadalupe Posada created an etching for a broadside, produced on the occasion of Madero's election in 1910, titled "Calavera de Madero" portraying Madero as a calavera.

Madero appears in the films Viva Villa! (1934), Villa Rides (1968) and Viva Zapata! (1952).

In the novel The Friends of Pancho Villa (1996) by James Carlos Blake, Madero is a major character.

Along with Hermila Galindo and Carmen Serdán, Madero appears on the obverse of the 1000 Mexican peso banknote issued from 2020.

title: Francisco I. Madero


text:
Fruitarianism

Fruitarianism is a diet that consists primarily of consuming fruits and possibly nuts and seeds, but without any animal products. Fruitarian diets are subject to criticism and health concerns.

Fruitarianism may be adopted for different reasons, including ethical, religious, environmental, cultural, economic, and presumed health benefits. A fruitarian diet may increase the risk of nutritional deficiencies, such as reduced intake of vitamin B12, calcium, iron, zinc, omega-3 or protein.

Varieties
Some fruitarians will eat only what falls (or would fall) naturally from a plant; that is, plant foods that can be harvested without killing or harming the plant. These foods consist primarily of culinary fruits, nuts, and seeds. Some do not eat grains, believing it is unnatural to do so, and some fruitarians feel that it is improper for humans to eat seeds as they contain future plants, or nuts and seeds, or any food besides juicy fruit. Others believe they should eat only plants that spread seeds when the plant is eaten. Others eat seeds and some cooked foods. Some fruitarians use the botanical definitions of fruits and consume pulses, such as beans, peas, or other legumes. Other fruitarians' diets include raw fruits, dried fruits, nuts, honey and olive oil, nuts, beans or chocolate.

A related diet is nutarianism, for individuals who only eat nuts.

Ideology and diet
Some fruitarians, like Jains, wish to avoid killing anything, including plants, and refer to ahimsa fruitarianism. For some fruitarians, the motivation comes from a fixation on a utopian past, their hope being to return to a past that pre-dates an agrarian society to when humans were simply gatherers. Another common motivation is the desire to eliminate perceived toxicity from within the body. For others, the appeal of a fruitarian diet comes from the challenge that the restrictive nature of this diet provides.

Nutrition

According to nutritionists, adults must be careful not to follow a fruit-only diet for too long. A fruitarian diet is wholly unsuitable for children (including teens), nursing mothers and their babies. Death can result from malnutrition.

Nutritional effects
Fruitarianism is more restrictive than veganism or raw veganism, as a subset of both. Maintaining this diet over a long period can result in dangerous deficiencies, a risk that many fruitarians try to ward off through nutritional testing and vitamin injections. The Health Promotion Program at Columbia University reports that a fruitarian diet can cause deficiencies in calcium, protein, iron, zinc, vitamin D, most B vitamins (especially B12), and essential fatty acids.

Although fruit provides a source of carbohydrates, they have very little protein, and because protein cannot be stored in the body as fat and carbohydrates can, fruitarians need to be careful that they consume enough protein each day. When the body does not take in enough protein, it misses out on amino acids, which are essential to making body proteins which support the growth and maintenance of body tissues. Consuming high amounts of fruit also poses a risk to those who are diabetic or pre-diabetic, due to the negative effect that the large amounts of sugar in fruits has on blood sugar levels. These high levels of sugar mean that fruitarians are at a higher risk for tooth decay. Another concern that fruitarianism presents is that because fruit is easily digested, the body burns through meals quickly, and is hungry again soon after eating. A side effect of the digestibility is that the body will defecate more frequently. Additionally, the Health Promotion Program at Columbia reports that food restrictions in general may lead to hunger, cravings, food obsessions, social disruptions, and social isolation. The severe dietary restrictions inherent in a fruitarian regime also carries the serious risk of triggering orthorexia nervosa.

Harriet Hall has written that a fruitarian diet "leads to nutritional deficiencies, especially in children. Fruitarians can develop protein energy malnutrition, anemia, and low levels of iron, calcium, essential fatty acids, vitamins, and minerals."

Vitamin B12
Vitamin B12, a bacterial product, cannot be obtained from fruits. According to the U.S. National Institutes of Health, "natural food sources of vitamin B12 are limited to foods that come from animals." Like raw vegans who do not consume B12-fortified foods (for example, certain plant milks and some breakfast cereals), fruitarians may need to include a B12 supplement in their diet or risk vitamin B12 deficiency.

Growth and development concerns
In children, growth and development may be at risk. Some nutritionists state that children should not follow a fruitarian diet. Nutritional problems include severe protein–energy malnutrition, anemia and deficiencies including protein, iron, calcium, essential fatty acids, raw fibre and a wide range of vitamins and minerals.

Notable adherents
Some notable advocates of fruitarianism, or of diets which may be considered fruitarian, or of lifestyles including such a diet, are:

 * Otto Abramowski, Australian naturopath who lectured on the fruitarian diet.
 * Idi Amin, the Ugandan military dictator who became a fruitarian while exiled in Saudi Arabia.
 * Sidney H. Beard
 * Arnold Ehret
 * August Engelhardt
 * Raymond W. Bernard
 * Hereward Carrington
 * Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, better known as Indian political and spiritual leader Mahatma Gandhi, sustained a fruitarian diet for five years. He apparently discontinued the diet and went back to vegetarianism due to pleurisy, a pre-existing condition, after pressure from Dr. Jivraj Mehta.
 * Ben Klassen
 * Author Morris Krok, who earlier in his life lived "only on fruits", allegedly advised against a diet of "only fruit", although it was subsequently reported that Krok's diet consisted of "just fruit", with dietary practices of fruitarians as varied as definitions of the term "fruitarianism".
 * Actor Ashton Kutcher was hospitalized and said that his "pancreas levels were completely out of whack" after following a fruitarian diet in preparation for his role playing Apple Inc. CEO and onetime fruitarian Steve Jobs, in the film Jobs.
 * Apple cofounder Steve Jobs began fruitarianism as a college freshman, and practiced it later in life.
 * The Order of the Golden Age published the journal Herald of the Golden Age (1896–1918), which promoted a "fruitarian system of living".
 * Gustav Schlickeysen
 * Timothy Redmond, drummer of the band Snapcase.

In popular culture
The minor character Keziah in the 1999 film Notting Hill (played by Emma Bernard) tells William "Will" Thacker (Hugh Grant) that she is a fruitarian. She says she believes that "fruits and vegetables have feeling," meaning she opposes cooking them, only eating things that have "actually fallen off a tree or bush" and that are dead already, leading to what some describe as a negative depiction.

Both fruitarians and nutarians are mentioned in Ulysses by James Joyce. Dick Gregory also promoted the former in his book, Cooking with Mother Nature.

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

title: Fruitarianism


text:
Foreign relations of Afghanistan

The foreign relations of Afghanistan are in a transitional phase since the 2021 fall of Kabul to the Taliban and the collapse of the internationally-recognized Islamic Republic of Afghanistan. No country has recognised the new regime, the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan. Although some countries have engaged in informal diplomatic contact with the Islamic Emirate, formal relations remain limited to representatives of the Islamic Republic.

History
Before the Soviet invasion, Afghanistan pursued a policy of neutrality and non-alignment in its foreign relations, being one of the few independent nations to stay neutral in both World War I and World War II. In international forums, Afghanistan generally followed the voting patterns of Asian and African non-aligned countries. During the 1950s and 1960s, Afghanistan was able to use the Soviet and American need for allies during the Cold War as a way to receive economic assistance from both countries. However, given that unlike the Soviet Union, the United States refused to give extensive military aid to the country, the government of Daoud Khan developed warmer ties with the USSR while officially remaining non-aligned. Following the coup of April 1978, the government under Nur Muhammad Taraki developed significantly closer ties with the Soviet Union and its communist satellites.

After the December 1979 Soviet invasion, Afghanistan's foreign policy mirrored that of the Soviet Union. Afghan foreign policymakers attempted, with little success, to increase their regime's low standing in the non-communist world. With the signing of the Geneva Accords, President Najibullah unsuccessfully sought to end the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan's isolation within the Islamic world and in the Non-Aligned Movement.

Most Western countries, including the United States, maintained small diplomatic missions in the capital city of Kabul during the Soviet occupation. Many countries subsequently closed their missions due to instability and heavy fighting in Kabul after the Soviet withdrawal in 1989.

Many countries initially welcomed the introduction of the Taliban regime, who they saw as a stabilising, law-enforcing alternative to the warlords who had ruled the country since the fall of Najibullah's government in 1992. The Taliban soon alienated itself as knowledge of the harsh Sharia law being enforced in Taliban-controlled territories spread around the world. The brutality towards women who attempted to work, learn, or leave the house without a male escort caused outside aid to the war-torn country to be limited.

Islamic Republic of Afghanistan
Following the October 2001 American invasion and the Bonn Agreement the new government under the leadership of Hamid Karzai started to re-establish diplomatic relationships with many countries who had held close diplomatic relations before the communist coup d'état and the subsequent civil war.

The Afghan government was focused on securing continued assistance for rebuilding the economy, infrastructure, and military of the country. It has continued to maintain close ties with North America, the European Union, South Korea, Japan, Australia, India, Pakistan, China, Russia and the Greater Middle East (most specifically Turkey), as well as African nations. It also sought to establish relations with more South American or Latin American nations.

Before the fall of Kabul in 2021, the foreign relations of Afghanistan were handled by the nation's Ministry of Foreign Affairs, which was headed by Mohammad Hanif Atmar. He answered to, and received guidance from, the President of Afghanistan.

Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan
The Taliban gradually gained control of the country in the summer of 2021 and proclaimed the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan on August 15, 2021. The takeover culminated with the fall of Kabul. The Taliban has had some limited contact with foreign governments and will need to develop further relations with the international community as its new de facto government goes forward.

On 20 September 2021, the new government designated Mohammad Suhail Shaheen as a replacement for Ghulam M Isaczai, Permanent Representative of Afghanistan to the United Nations who continues to represent the country at the UN. The UNGA's nine-member credentials committee will decide on this but no date has been set.

Since the Taliban took over the Afghan government, countries including China, Russia, and the United States have contacted Taliban representatives, but have expressed doubts about its commitment to counterterrorism. Border clashes between the Taliban forces with Pakistan, Iran and Turkmenistan have also caused friction with Afghanistan's neighbours.

In September 2023, China became the first country to formally name a new ambassador to the country since the takeover, even though China still doesn't formally recognize the Taliban.

Diplomatic relations prior to 2021
List of countries which the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan maintains diplomatic relations with:

United Nations
During the Soviet occupation in the 1980s, the United Nations was highly critical of the Soviet Union's interference in the internal affairs of Afghanistan and was instrumental in obtaining a negotiated Soviet withdrawal under the terms of the Geneva Accords.

In the aftermath of the Accords and subsequent Soviet withdrawal, the United Nations has assisted in the repatriation of refugees and has provided humanitarian aid such as health care, educational programs, and food and has supported mine-clearing operations. The UNDP and associated agencies have undertaken a limited number of development projects. However, the UN reduced its role in Afghanistan in 1992 in the wake of fierce factional strife in and around Kabul. The UN Secretary General has designated a personal representative to head the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Assistance to Afghanistan (UNOCHA) and the Special Mission to Afghanistan (UNSMA), both based in Islamabad, Pakistan. Throughout the late 1990s, 2000, and 2001, the UN unsuccessfully strived to promote a peaceful settlement among the Afghan factions as well as provide humanitarian aid, this despite increasing Taliban restrictions upon UN personnel and agencies.

title: Foreign relations of Afghanistan


text:
Talk:Flatulence

Semi-protected edit request on 21 February 2018
Either remove “trumping” from or add a source. I have never heard of this usage, it’s not in my OAD (closest is “a trumpet or trumpet blast”), Trumping redirects to a page about playing cards, and there’s an unsanswered post on here that challenged it last year. 67.14.236.50 (talk) 04:04, 21 February 2018 (UTC)
 * Yes check.svg Done  Anon 126   (notify me of responses! / talk / contribs) 05:01, 21 February 2018 (UTC)
 * Thanks. Related request at Talk:Trump. —67.14.236.50 (talk) 00:02, 23 February 2018 (UTC)
 * It's me again. :) I can see why you'd think this might be a joke. Whilst the slang term isn't used in the US, in the British Isles, it is actually the most common (non-vulgar) way to refer to flatulence and therefore most common among children and the middle classes. Every dictionary I own includes extensive entry on this usage over centuries (Collins, Oxford, Chambers, COBUILD). Would you conisder a reference to one of those adequate to demonstrate common usage?
 * Llew Mawr (talk) 14:04, 24 February 2018 (UTC)
 * I have already done this. It is now cited to the OED entry. Thanks — Amakuru (talk) 14:37, 24 February 2018 (UTC)

Yes
I like this article thank you for writing EyePurgeMyDinner99 (talk) 17:59, 24 October 2018 (UTC)

Yes Jeremythehannabarberafan (talk) 20:47, 27 April 2021 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 15 August 2019
Religion:

The Pythagoreans didn't eat faba beans due to the flatulence they cause according to Cicero:

"Plato therefore encourages people to go to sleep with their bodies thus disposed that there be nothing which could introduce any wandering from or disturbance of sleep. From which it is thought that the Pythagoreans prohibited the consumption of beans, because that food causes a great flatulence which is contrary to the tranquility of a mind seeking the truth." Phishstixxx (talk) 15:06, 15 August 2019 (UTC)

 * ❌. It's not clear what change(s) you want to make; please make a precise request.  Moreover, the source you're citing is highly non-reliable, being dedicated to numerology.  –Deacon Vorbis (carbon • videos) 01:44, 16 August 2019 (UTC)

"Frequency Actuated Rectal Tremor" listed at Redirects for discussion
An editor has asked for a discussion to address the redirect Frequency Actuated Rectal Tremor. Please participate in the redirect discussion if you wish to do so. signed,Rosguill talk 23:13, 23 September 2019 (UTC)

Bean odor due to undigested animoglucosides
Bean odor purported to be due to presence of aminoglucosides which apparently bacteria not humans digest. Shjacks45 (talk) 05:16, 5 February 2020 (UTC)

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"Chicken fart" listed at Redirects for discussion
The redirect [//en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Chicken_fart&redirect=no Chicken fart] has been listed at redirects for discussion to determine whether its use and function meets the redirect guidelines. Readers of this page are welcome to comment on this redirect at until a consensus is reached. An anonymous username, not my real name 02:05, 17 March 2023 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 12 May 2023
also known as stinky man, originates from Europe from the 1700s. 192.214.101.250 (talk) 23:26, 12 May 2023 (UTC)

- user did not indicate what text should be removed and did not provide a verbatim copy of the text that should replace it, supported by WP:RS. Zefr (talk) 23:30, 12 May 2023 (UTC)

New
You don't normally call artcles after verbs so this page should be called farting, not fart. But if I change the title to farting is goes nowhere, even. I remember, that the page fart used to be about 'the word fart' so somebody moved this? wrong! SO I want to make an edit reusest for a move resuest, from fart to farting,OK? 73.5.152.17 (talk) 08:16, 26 October 2023 (UTC)

 * Flatulence is the official name of a body function. Cwater1 (talk) 17:11, 31 October 2023 (UTC)
 * Wikipedia uses common names though, there's a reason the bird page isnt called aves Formerlychucks (talk) 10:54, 1 April 2024 (UTC)

So

ICEF / flatology.com ?
This looks like a joke website, or maybe original research. The only sentence where this article cites this source doesn’t add much and sounds really dubious: “Recent informal research found a correlation between flatus odor and both loudness and humidity content”. I think the sentence and source should be removed. 2001:5A8:464C:C600:E07A:AC76:9313:BAB6 (talk) 07:23, 14 April 2024 (UTC)

"I just farted" listed at Redirects for discussion
The redirect [//en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=I_just_farted&redirect=no I just farted] has been listed at redirects for discussion to determine whether its use and function meets the redirect guidelines. Readers of this page are welcome to comment on this redirect at  until a consensus is reached. Utopes (talk / cont) 03:57, 19 April 2024 (UTC)

Religion Subsection At Bottom
The Religion subsection at bottom reads:

"In Islam, flatulence, if audible or odorous, invalidates wudu (ablution or ritual purity), if the person who passed gas suffers from OCD about passing wind."

I don't believe Islam's holy texts mention OCD or that mentioning OCD in this context is supportive of those who truly have OCD. Rewording needed. I would have done it, but page is semi-protected. 66.85.17.230 (talk) 03:12, 19 July 2024 (UTC)

title: Talk:Flatulence


text: Floccinaucinihilipilification

title: Floccinaucinihilipilification


text:
Talk:Floccinaucinihilipilification

Early contributions
I've added my own pronounciation. Hope it's okay with you, if not just say why and you can take it down. Fin01 18:16, 6 October 2006 (UTC)

I've 'harvested' all these quotes from various sources on the web. Not sure where to draw the copywrite line with quotes from public figures. --justfred

You're fine - you've identified your sources, and press statements have been quoted well within the "fair-usage" and "proper-attribution" guidelines. - Manning Bartlett

... as well as Cliff Claven of Cheers: (found reference but can't find actual quote!) Does anyone know where to source this from?

Where does Sen. Moynahan fit in? Verloren

Should be noted, but he apparently uses it regularly, supposedly Helms learned it from him.--justfred

I removed this section from the article:

Fun

 * What would happen if one were to convert the classic "wood chuck" toungue twister by appropriately changing the words to the correct forms of floccinaucinihilipilification? It might go like this:

 * How many floccinaucinihilipilifications would a floccinaucinihilipilificating floccinaucinihilipilificator floccinaucinihilipilificate if a floccinaucinihilipilificating floccinaucinihilipilificator could floccinaucinihilipilificate floccinaucinihilipilifications?

 * Why, a floccinaucinihilipilificating floccinaucinihilipilificator would floccinaucinihilipilificate as many floccinaucinihilipilifications as a floccinaucinihilipilificating floccinaucinihilipilificator could floccinaucinihilipilificate if a floccinaucinihilipilificating floccinaucinihilipilificator could floccinaucinihilipilificate floccinaucinihilipilifications.

I want to hit you right now, my tongue is twisted so bad. :p -Alex. 12.220.157.93 12:27, 24 December 2005 (UTC)

Oh god... I think the alphabet just vomited... 98.232.17.133 (talk) 23:41, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

Possible Consequences of Floccinaucinihilipilification

 * For want of a nail, the shoe was lost,
 * For want of the shoe, the horse was lost,
 * For want of the horse, the rider was lost,
 * For want of the rider, the battle was lost,
 * For want of the battle, the kingdom was lost,
 * And all for the want of a horseshoe nail!

For want of a rivet, ... the airplane was lost.

For want of a tile (or tiles), ... the space shuttle was lost.

For want of a species, ... the ecosystem was lost. (See biodiversity.)

For want of a comma, ... the text was misunderstood.

For want of a character, ... the computer program malfunctioned.

For want of a job qualification, ... the job prospect was lost (from the candidate's standpoint) and the job candidate was lost (from the employer's standpoint).

- Thanks to the likes of Geiko their advertising forced me to seek out the meaning and correct spelling of this very ironic term. Never has a spelling bee's use of a term shut me down and have me cracking up at the very idea of a word having so many damn "I's". LMAO But I must admit it was fun to Google!

64.107.1.74 16:50, 29 September 2005 (UTC) Poetess X, Chicago,IL

Quotation marks
The bit about quotation marks in the OED entry is just plain wrong. They are there to mark stress (' for primary, " for secondary). In fact the entry looks like this: "flocci"nauci"nihili"pilifi'cation.

Latin phrase
"I don't make wool" is hyper-literal to the point of being nonsense. I have changed the translation to reflect the fact that facio is so general it really doesn't mean anything on its own, and therfore the idiom really holds little besides its idiomatic meaning. --24.17.30.163 07:17, 19 January 2006 (UTC)#

From looking at the lating words used to make up this word its seems that they are all used to basically describe the same thing. Worthlessness. Therefore it seems to me that this is a manafactured word simply to become the longest word in the dictionary.

Audio pronunciation requested
Please.

 * Done. SergeantBolt 16:54, 9 June 2006 (UTC)

Lotsofissues 01:53, 19 February 2006 (UTC)

Genitive form?

 * Used in feminine genitive form of floccinaucinihilipilificatrix

Wouldn't the genitive form be floccinaucinihilipilificatrix's?

 * Not in Latin. The "'s" added in English is also a clitic, and not really a true genetive form anymore.  See Genetive --Puellanivis 00:01, 16 January 2007 (UTC)

German entry
At the moment, there is a German entry, but, as the German Wiks often like to cut any article that isn't "ellenlang," it is up for deletion. Therefore, I haven't linked to it - but if it is still around in a week, the link should be added. Kdammers 23:39, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

what about Floccinaucinihilipilificatiously? that's 3 letter's longer than the original.

Category:Words (do not create a cat. for long words)
This article has been categorised under Category:Words. There is no category for long words. Do not create one; this has already been discussed at WP:CFD log. Fayenatic london 13:53, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

Alternate spelling
I just added the occurrence from The Way They Learn by Cynthia Tobias. In the book she spells the word as floccipaucinilihilipilification. Should I add "(sic)" after the word?

Also, should there be a place in the article where it lists alternate spellings? 216.197.255.243 22:33, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

I think you mean alternative spellings, which is something quite different. Please see http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/alternate#Adjective and http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?search=alternate for clarification.203.202.95.141 (talk) 04:17, 17 August 2009 (UTC)

Wow, how's that for a completely useless reply. Alternate and alternative are interchangeable in modern English. If you refute this, go outside for once. 124.176.0.120 (talk) 21:58, 4 June 2015 (UTC)

Are you kidding?
I thought wikipedia had *SOME* standards for article inclusion. This needs to be deleted. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.1.66.114 (talk) 01:45, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

 * Why? It's a real word included in Oxford Dictionary, and has been used, as a previous poster has pointed out, in literary novels, and quite a lot of other forms of popular media, if you'll just read the article.  Besides that, I'm sure there are quite a few people who've actually used this word more than once or twice, including myself.  -Dominique (90.202.67.70) (talk) 18:38, 17 January 2008 (UTC))

 * Having said that, WP:WINAD is policy, and this is currently unreferenced.--h i s  s p a c e   r e s e a r c h 14:15, 24 January 2008 (UTC)

Pronounciation
The word's pronounciation has been totally misrepresented. I've changed it to more accurately respresent the true pronounciation. The original source (dictionary.com) seems to have got it completely wrong, and this is easily infered from a basic understand of its etymology. There's no point adding a source for its pronounciation, however, as no two dictionaries will phoneticize it the same; the only definitive source is perhaps the Oxford dictionary, and that cannot be accessed without membership. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 138.253.244.103 (talk) 17:38, 17 January 2008 (UTC)
 * The reason one adds a source is so that someone reading the article knows where to look for verification. It isn't just for convenience, so an OED ref is fine.  --Starwed (talk) 07:33, 18 January 2008 (UTC)

"Pronunciation", not pronounciation.

"Fact"
Is it really necessary to say that it is the longest word without an "e"? after all, it is THE longest word. Why shouldn't we just say that its the longest word to contain an "f"? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.69.21.178 (talk) 03:06, 17 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Isn't it? The letter 'e' is the most common letter in the English language. For the longest word in the English language to not have the most common letter is pretty amazing. I'm also sure there are other interesting tidbits about the word not discussed elsewhere in the article. Alex (talk) 21:35, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

Bellamy trivia
The fact that a band's lead singer "said this word in an interview" doesn't appear to be of encyclopaedic interest, unless there's some important context for it. Is there? Lots of people say lots of words in interviews, it's not worth documenting all of them. --McGeddon (talk) 21:47, 6 August 2009 (UTC)

soft redirect to wiktionary entry
Per the {dicdef} tag on this page, I have moved forward with redirect to Wiktionary entry for "floccinaucinihilipilification." No additions were made to expand this into a notable Wikipedia entry, nor do I think that would even be a possibility at this point. The Wiktionary entry contains the definition, etymology, usage, and pronunciation for this word, so no primary information has been lost. If you were an editor to this article in the past and feel your contributions were of relevant importance to the definition of "floccinaucinihilipilification," please visit its page here! ocrasaroon (talk) 03:01, 29 October 2009 (UTC)

longcomment
Can an admin add, per Template:Wi, so to remove this page from Special:ShortPages? 152.3.249.33 (talk) 18:42, 26 November 2009 (UTC)
 * ✅ Thanks! Skier Dude  ( talk ) 19:06, 26 November 2009 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 19 January 2019
75.170.5.193 (talk) 23:53, 19 January 2019 (UTC)

Can someone add Category:Long words in this article please? 75.170.5.193 (talk) 23:53, 19 January 2019 (UTC)
 * Red question icon with gradient background.svg Not done: it's not clear what changes you want to be made. Please mention the specific changes in a "change X to Y" format and provide a reliable source if appropriate. - FlightTime  ( open channel ) 23:59, 19 January 2019 (UTC)

title: Talk:Floccinaucinihilipilification


text:
Felony

A felony is traditionally considered a crime of high seriousness, whereas a misdemeanor is regarded as less serious. The term "felony" originated from English common law (from the French medieval word "félonie") to describe an offense that resulted in the confiscation of a convicted person's land and goods, to which additional punishments, including capital punishment, could be added; other crimes were called misdemeanors. Following conviction of a felony in a court of law, a person may be described as a felon or a convicted felon.

In many common law jurisdictions, such as the United Kingdom, Ireland, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand, crimes are no longer classified as felonies or misdemeanors. Instead, serious crimes are classified as indictable offences, and less serious crimes as summary offences.

In some civil law jurisdictions, such as Italy and Spain, the term delict is used to describe serious offenses, a category similar to common law felony. In other nations, such as Germany, France, Belgium, and Switzerland, more serious offenses are described as 'crimes', while 'misdemeanors' or 'delicts' (or délits) are less serious. In still others, such as Brazil and Portugal, 'crimes' and 'delicts' are synonymous (more serious) and are opposed to contraventions (less serious).

In the United States, where the felony–misdemeanor distinction is still widely applied, the federal government defines a felony as a crime punishable by death or imprisonment in excess of one year. If punishable by exactly one year or less, it is classified as a misdemeanor. The classification is based upon a crime's potential sentence, so a crime remains classified as a felony even if a defendant convicted of a felony receives a sentence of one year or less. Some individual states classify crimes by other factors, such as seriousness or context.

United States
In the United States, a felony is a crime that is punishable by death or more than one year in prison.

History
Under common law, felonies were crimes punishable by either death, forfeiture of property, or both. While felony charges remain serious, concerns of proportionality (i.e., that the punishment fits the crime) have since prompted legislatures to require or permit the imposition of less serious punishments, ranging from lesser terms of imprisonment to the substitution of a jail sentence or even the suspension of all incarceration contingent upon a defendant's successful completion of probation. Standards for measurement of an offense's seriousness include attempts to quantitatively estimate and compare the effects of a crime upon its specific victims or society generally.

The reform of harsh felony laws that had originated in Great Britain was deemed "one of the first fruits of liberty" after the United States became independent.

Classification by subject matter
Felonies may include but are not limited to the following:
 * Aggravated assault or battery
 * Animal cruelty
 * Arson
 * Blackmail
 * Burglary
 * Child pornography
 * Copyright infringement
 * Cybercrime
 * Driving under the influence (certain DUI cases involving bodily injury and/or death. In some jurisdictions property damage over a certain amount elevates a DUI charge to a felony as well)
 * Forgery
 * Fraud
 * Grand larceny or grand theft, i.e., larceny or theft above a certain statutorily established value or quantity of goods
 * Identity theft
 * Illegal drug trade, manufacture, sale, distribution, or possession with intent to distribute] certain types or quantities of illegal drugs. In some jurisdictions, the possession of certain types of illegal drugs for personal use.
 * Kidnapping
 * Manslaughter (unintentional killing of another)
 * Murder
 * Obstruction of justice
 * Perjury
 * Police impersonation, with the intention of deception
 * Rape/sexual assault
 * Resisting arrest, e.g., high-speed chase
 * Robbery/Extortion
 * Tax evasion
 * Threatening an official (police officer, judge)
 * Treason
 * Vandalism on federal property.

Some offenses, though similar in nature, may be felonies or misdemeanors depending on the circumstances. For example, the illegal manufacture, distribution or possession of controlled substances may be a felony, although possession of small amounts may be only a misdemeanor. Possession of a deadly weapon may be generally legal, but carrying the same weapon into a restricted area such as a school may be viewed as a serious offense, regardless of whether there is intent to use the weapon. Additionally, driving under the influence in some US states may be a misdemeanor if a first offense, but a felony on subsequent offenses.

Classification by seriousness
In much of the United States, all or most felonies are placed into one of various classes according to their seriousness and their potential punishment upon conviction. The number of classifications and the corresponding crimes vary by state and are determined by the legislature. Usually, the legislature also determines the maximum punishment allowable for each felony class; doing so avoids the necessity of defining specific sentences for every possible crime. For example:
 * Virginia classifies most felonies by number, ranging from Class 6 (least severe: 1 to 5 years in prison or up to 12 months in jail) through Class 2 (20 years to life, e.g., first-degree murder and aggravated malicious wounding) up to Class 1 (life imprisonment). Some felonies remain outside the classification system.
 * New York State classifies felonies by letter, with some classes divided into sub-classes by a Roman numeral; classes range from Class E (encompassing the least severe felonies) through Classes D, C, B, and A–II up to Class A–I (encompassing the most severe).
 * Massachusetts classifies a felony as an offense that carries any prison time.
 * Ohio classifies felonies by degree ranging from first, second, third, fourth, to fifth degree. First-degree felonies are the most serious category, while fifth-degree felonies are the least serious. This is broadly the approach taken by the Model Penal Code, although the Code identifies only three degrees of felony.

Some felonies are classified as forcible or violent, typically because they contain some element of force or a threat of force against a person and are subject to additional penalties. Burglary is also classified as a forcible felony in some jurisdictions including Illinois and Florida.
 * "The common law divided participants in a felony into four basic categories: (1) first-degree principals, those who committed the crime in question; (2) second-degree principals, aiders and abettors present at the scene of the crime; (3) accessories before the fact, aiders and abettors who helped the principal before the basic criminal event took place; and (4) accessories after the fact, persons who helped the principal after the basic criminal event took place. In the course of the 20th century, however, American jurisdictions eliminated the distinction among the first three categories." Gonzales v. Duenas-Alvarez, (citations omitted).

Consequences
In many parts of the United States, a felon can experience long-term legal consequences persisting after the end of their imprisonment. The status and designation as a "felon" is considered permanent and is not extinguished upon sentence completion even if parole, probation or early release was given. The status can be cleared only by a successful appeal or executive clemency. However, felons may qualify for restoration of some rights after a certain period of time has passed.

The consequences felons experience in most states include:
 * Disenfranchisement (expressly permitted by the Fourteenth Amendment, as noted by the Supreme Court in Richardson v. Ramirez)
 * Exclusion from obtaining visas or professional licenses required to legally operate, making some vocations off limits to felons
 * Ineligibility to hold office in a labor union (a provision of the Landrum–Griffin Act of 1959)
 * Exclusion from purchase and possession of firearms, ammunition, and body armor
 * Ineligibility to serve on a jury
 * Ineligibility for government assistance or welfare
 * Removal (deportation) (if not a citizen)

Additionally, many job applications and rental applications ask about felony history (a practice forbidden in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts), and answering dishonestly can be grounds for rejection of the application or termination of employment if the lie is discovered after hire. Convicted felons may not be eligible for certain professional licenses or bonds, while hiring them may raise the cost of an employer's insurance.

It is broadly legal to discriminate against felons in hiring and leasing decisions (although a blanket ban on renting to felons may violate federal housing law), so felons can face barriers to finding both jobs and housing. Moreover, a common term of parole agreements is to avoid association with other felons. In some neighborhoods with high rates of felony conviction, this creates a situation in which many felons live under a constant threat of being arrested for violating parole. Banks may refuse to issue loans to felons, and a felony conviction may prevent employment in banking or finance.

In some states, restoration of those rights depends on repayment of various fees associated with the felon's arrest, processing, and prison stay, such as restitution to victims, or outstanding fines.

Restoration of rights
The primary means of restoring civil rights that are lost as a result of a felony conviction are executive clemency and expungement.

For state law convictions, expungement is determined by the law of the state. Many states do not allow expungement, regardless of the offense, though felons can seek pardons and clemency, potentially including restoration of rights.

Federal law does not have any provision for persons convicted of federal felonies in a federal United States district court to apply to have their record expunged. At present the only relief that an individual convicted of a felony in federal court may receive is a presidential pardon, which does not expunge the conviction, but rather grants relief from the civil disabilities that stem from it.

Cameroon
In the law of Cameroon, a felony is a crime for which the maximum sentence is more than 10 years, or death. Felonies are distinguished from misdemeanors (maximum sentence from 10 days to 10 years) and offenses (not exceeding 10 days). While lesser crimes are tried before a magistrate's court, felonies must be tried before a high court (tribunal de grande instance).

The drafters of the bilingual Cameroonian penal code of 1967 based their work on French law and Nigerian law. In the case of felonies, they chose to set the threshold for felonies much higher than under either French law (five years) or Nigerian law (three years). This had the effect of greatly reducing the number of felonies under Cameroonian law. It also reduced the number of crimes that were subject to trial by jury in the courts of East Cameroon at that time.

History
Sir William Blackstone wrote in the 18th century that felony "comprises every species of crime, which occasioned at common law the forfeiture of lands or goods". The word felony was feudal in origin, denoting the value of a man's entire property: "the consideration for which a man gives up his fief". Blackstone refutes the misconception that felony simply means an offense punishable by death, by demonstrating that not every felony is capital, and not every capital offense is a felony. However he concedes that "the idea of felony is indeed so generally connected with that of capital punishment, that we find it hard to separate them; and to this usage the interpretations of the law do now conform."

The death penalty for felony could be avoided by pleading benefit of clergy, which gradually evolved to exempt everybody (whether clergy or not) from that punishment for a first offense, except for high treason and offenses expressly excluded by statute. During the 19th century criminal law reform incrementally reduced the number of capital offenses to five (see Capital punishment in the United Kingdom), and forfeiture for felony was abolished by the Forfeiture Act 1870. Consequently, the distinction between felony and misdemeanor became increasingly arbitrary. The surviving differences consisted of different rules of evidence and procedure, and the Law Commission recommended that felonies be abolished altogether. This was done by the Criminal Law Act 1967, which set the criminal practice for all crimes as that of misdemeanor and introduced a new system of classifying crimes as either "arrestable" and "non-arrestable" offenses (according to which a general power of arrest was available for crimes punishable by five years' imprisonment or more).

Arrestable offenses were abolished in 2006, and today crimes are classified as indictable or summary offenses, the only distinction being the mode of trial (by jury in the Crown Court or summarily in a magistrates' court, respectively).

Procedure
The Trials for Felony Act 1836 (6 & 7 Will. 4 c. 114) allowed persons indicted for felonies to be represented by counsel or attorney.

Terminology
A person being prosecuted for this was called a prisoner, though increasingly "accused" or "defendant" was preferred.

Germany
A felony (Verbrechen, a word also translated in less technical contexts as simply "crime") is defined in the Strafgesetzbuch (Criminal Code, StGB) as an unlawful act (rechtswidrige Tat) that is punishable with a minimum of one year's imprisonment. A misdemeanor (Vergehen) is any other crime punishable by imprisonment with a minimum of less than one year or by fine.

However, in some cases a severe version of a misdemeanor may be punished with imprisonment of more than one year, yet the crime itself remains considered a misdemeanor. The same applies for a milder version of a felony that is punished with imprisonment less than a year.

An attempt to commit a felony is itself a crime, whereas an attempt to commit a misdemeanor is a crime only if specifically prescribed as such by law.

Ireland
In Irish law the distinction between felony and misdemeanor was abolished by section 3 of the Criminal Law Act, 1997, such that the law previously applied to misdemeanors was extended to all offenses. Minister Joan Burton, introducing the bill in the Seanad, said "The distinction has been eroded over many years and in today's conditions has no real relevance. Today, for example, serious offenses such as fraudulent conversion and obtaining property by false pretenses are classified as misdemeanors whereas a relatively trivial offense such as stealing a bar of chocolate is a felony." The 1997 Act, modeled on the English Criminal Law Act 1967, introduced the category of "arrestable offense" for those with penalties of five years' imprisonment or greater.

The 1937 Constitution declares that the parliamentary privilege, which protects Oireachtas members from arrest traveling to or from the legislature, does not apply to "treason, felony, and breach of the peace". The 1996 Constitutional Review Group recommended replacing "felony" with "serious criminal offence".

title: Felony


text:
Ferdinand of Habsburg

Ferdinand of Habsburg or Ferdinand Habsburg may refer to:

 * Ferdinand I, Holy Roman Emperor (1503–1564)
 * Ferdinand II, Holy Roman Emperor (1578–1637)
 * Ferdinand III, Holy Roman Emperor (1608–1657)
 * Ferdinand I of Austria (1793–1875)
 * Ferdinand Habsburg (racing driver) (born 1997)

title: Ferdinand of Habsburg