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Noor Inayat Khan

Noor-un-Nisa Inayat Khan, GC (1 January 1914 – 13 September 1944), also known as Nora Inayat-Khan and Nora Baker, was a British resistance agent in France in the Second World War who served in the Special Operations Executive (SOE). The purpose of SOE was to conduct espionage, sabotage, and reconnaissance in countries occupied by the Axis powers, especially those occupied by Nazi Germany.

As an SOE agent under the codename Madeleine she became the first female wireless operator to be sent from the UK into occupied France to aid the French Resistance during the Second World War. Inayat Khan was betrayed and captured, and executed at Dachau concentration camp. She was posthumously awarded the George Cross for her service, the highest civilian decoration for gallantry in the United Kingdom.

Early life
Noor Inayat Khan was born on 1 January 1914, in Moscow. She was the eldest of four children. Her siblings were Vilayat Inayat Khan, an author and Sufi teacher; Hidayat Inayat Khan, a composer and Sufi teacher; and Khair-un-Nisa Inayat Khan.

Her father, Inayat Khan, was born in Baroda, Bombay Presidency, and came from a family of Indian Muslims with hereditary nobles and classical musicians among both sides of his ancestors. Inayat Khan's great-great-grandfather was Tipu Sultan the ruler of Mysore. Inayat Khan lived in Europe as a musician and a teacher of Sufism. Her mother, Pirani Ameena Begum (born Ora Ray Baker), was an American from Albuquerque, New Mexico, who had met Inayat Khan during his travels in the United States. Afterwards, Vilayat became head of the Sufi Order of the West, later the Sufi Order International, and now the Inayati Order.

In 1914, shortly before the outbreak of the First World War, the family left Russia for Britain, and lived in the Bloomsbury neighborhood of London. Noor attended nursery in Notting Hill. In 1920, the family moved to France, settling in Suresnes near Paris, in a house that was a gift from a benefactor of the Sufi movement. As a young girl, Noor was described as quiet, shy, sensitive, and dreamy. After the death of her father in 1927, 13-year-old Noor took on the responsibility for her younger siblings from her grief-stricken mother. She studied child psychology at the Sorbonne, and also music at the Paris Conservatory under Nadia Boulanger, composing for both harp and piano.

As a young woman, Noor began a career as a writer, publishing her poetry and children's stories in English and French and becoming a regular contributor to children's magazines and French radio. In 1939, her book Twenty Jataka Tales, inspired by the Jataka tales of Buddhist tradition, was published in London by George G. Harrap and Co.

During the Second World War, when France was conquered by Nazi Germany, the family fled to Bordeaux and then by sea to Britain, landing at Falmouth, Cornwall, on 22 June 1940. Initially they stayed in Southampton, at the parental home of the philosopher Basil Mitchell.

Women's Auxiliary Air Force
Although Noor was deeply influenced by pacifist ideals, she and her brother Vilayat decided they wanted to help defeat Nazi tyranny: "I wish some Indians would win high military distinction in this war. If one or two could do something in the Allied service which was very brave and which everybody admired it would help to make a bridge between the English people and the Indians."

In November 1940, Noor joined the Women's Auxiliary Air Force (WAAF) and, as an Aircraftwoman 2nd Class, was sent to be trained as a wireless operator. Upon assignment to a bomber training school in June 1941, she applied for a commission in an effort to relieve herself of the boring work there.

Special Operations Executive

Later, Noor Inayat Khan was recruited to join F (France) Section of the Special Operations Executive; and in early February 1943 she was posted to the Air Ministry, Directorate of Air Intelligence, seconded to First Aid Nursing Yeomanry (FANY). She was sent to Wanborough Manor, near Guildford in Surrey, after which she was ordered to Aylesbury, in Buckinghamshire, for special training as a wireless operator in occupied territory.

She was the first woman to be sent over in such a capacity, as all the woman agents before her had been sent as couriers. Having had previous wireless telegraphy (W/T) training, Noor had an edge on those who were just beginning their radio training, and was considered both fast and accurate.

From Aylesbury Noor went on to Beaulieu, where the security training was capped with a practice mission – in the case of wireless operators, to find a place in a strange city from which they could transmit back to their instructors without being detected by an agent unknown to them who would be shadowing them.

The ultimate training exercise was the mock Gestapo interrogation, intended to give agents a taste of what might be in store for them if they were captured, and some practice in maintaining their cover story. Noor's escaping officer found her interrogation "almost unbearable" and reported that "she seemed terrified … so overwhelmed she nearly lost her voice", and that afterwards, "she was trembling and quite blanched."

Her final report read: "Not overburdened with brains but has worked hard and shown keenness, apart from some dislike of the security side of the course. She has an unstable and temperamental personality and it is very doubtful whether she is really suited to work in the field." Next to this comment, Maurice Buckmaster, the head of F Section, had written in the margin "Nonsense" and that "We don't want them overburdened with brains."

Noor's superiors held mixed opinions on her suitability for secret warfare, and her training was incomplete due to the need to get trained W/T operators into the field. Khan's "childlike" qualities, particularly her gentle manner and "lack of ruse", had greatly worried her instructors at SOE's training schools. One instructor wrote that "she confesses that she would not like to have to do anything 'two faced'", while another said she was "very feminine in character, very eager to please, very ready to adapt herself to the mood of the company; the one of the conversation, capable of strong attachments, kind hearted, emotional, imaginative." A further observer said: "Tends to give far too much information. Came here without the foggiest idea what she was being trained for." Others later commented that she was physically unsuited, saying she would not easily disappear into a crowd.

Physically quite small in stature, Noor received poor athletic reports from her instructors: "Can run very well but otherwise clumsy. Unsuitable for jumping" "Pretty scared of weapons but tries hard to get over it." Noor was training as a W/T operator, and in that field she was getting quite adequate reports. Her "fist", or style of tapping the keys, was somewhat heavy, apparently owing to her fingers being swollen by chilblains, but her speed was improving every day. Khan, who played the harp, was a natural signaller like many talented musicians.

Further, Vera Atkins (the intelligence officer for F Section) insisted Noor's commitment was unquestioned, as another training report had readily confirmed: "She felt she had come to a dead end in the WAAF, and was longing to do something more active in the prosecution of the war, something that would demand more sacrifice." So when Suttill's request first came, Vera saw Noor as a natural choice, and although her final training in field security and encoding had to be cut short, she judged her ready to go.

Noor's mission would be an especially dangerous one. So successful had female couriers been that the decision was made to use them as wireless operators as well, which was even more dangerous work, probably the most dangerous work of all. The job of the operator was to maintain a link between the circuit in the field and London, sending and receiving messages about planned sabotage operations or about where arms were needed for resistance fighters. Without such communication it was almost impossible for any resistance strategy to be co-ordinated, but the operators were highly vulnerable to detection which was improving as the war progressed.

Hiding themselves as best they could, with aerials strung up in attics or disguised as washing lines, they tapped out Morse on the key of transmitters, and would often wait alone for hours for a reply saying the messages had been received. If they stayed on the air transmitting for more than 20 minutes, their signals were likely to be picked up by the enemy, and detection vans would trace the source of these suspect signals. When the operator moved location, the bulky transmitter had to be carried, sometimes concealed in a suitcase or in a bundle of firewood. If stopped and searched, the operator would have no cover story to explain the transmitter. In 1943, an operator's life expectancy was six weeks.

Noor had been staying at a country house in Buckinghamshire, a place where agents had a final chance to adjust to their new identities and consider their missions before departure. Noor's conducting officer, a female companion who watched over agents in training, told Atkins that Noor had descended into a gloom and was clearly troubled by the thought of what she was about to undertake. Then two fellow agents staying with Noor at the country house had written directly to Vera to say they felt she should not go. Such an intervention at this stage was most unusual.

Atkins decided to call Noor back to London, to meet and talk. Vilayat remembered trying to stop his sister going on her mission exactly at the time of this meeting. "You see, Nora and I had been brought up with the policy of Gandhi's nonviolence, and at the outbreak of war we discussed what we would do", said Vilayat, who had followed his father and become a Sufi mystic. "She said, 'Well, I must do something, but I don't want to kill anyone.' So I said, 'Well, if we are going to join the war, we have to involve ourselves in the most dangerous positions, which would mean no killing.' Then, when we eventually go to England, I volunteered for minesweeping and she volunteered for SOE, and so I have always had a feeling of guilt because of what I said that day."

Noor and Atkins met at Manetta's, a restaurant in Mayfair. Atkins wanted to confirm that Noor believed in her own ability to succeed. Confidence was the most important thing for any agent. However poor Noor's jumping or even her encoding, Atkins believed those agents who did well were those who knew before they set off that they could do the job. Her intention was to let Noor feel she had an opportunity to back out gracefully should she so wish. Atkins began by asking if she was happy in what she was doing. Noor looked startled and said: "Yes, of course."

Atkins then told her about the letter and its contents. Noor was reportedly upset that anybody would think she was unfit. "You know that if you have any doubts, it is not too late to turn back… If you don't feel you're the type – if for any reason whatever you don't want to go you only have to tell me now. I'll arrange everything so that you have no embarrassment. You will be transferred to another branch of the service with no adverse mark on your file. We have every respect for the man or woman who admits frankly to not feeling up to it", Atkins told her, adding: "For us there is only one crime: to go out there and let your comrades down."

Noor insisted adamantly that she wanted to go and was competent for the work. Her only concern, she said, was her family, and Vera sensed immediately that this was, as she had suspected, where the problem lay. Noor had found saying goodbye to her widowed mother the most painful thing she had ever had to do, she said. As Vera had advised her, she had told her mother only half the truth: she had said she was going abroad, but to Africa, and she had found maintaining the deception cruel.

Atkins asked if there was anything she could do to help with family matters. Noor said that, should she go missing, she would like Atkins to avoid worrying her mother as far as possible. The normal procedure, as Noor knew, was that when an agent went to the field, Vera would send out a periodic "good news" letters to the family, letting them know the person concerned was well. If the agent went missing, the family would be told so. What Noor was suggesting was that bad news should be broken to her mother only if it was beyond any doubt that she was dead. Atkins said she would agree to this arrangement if it was what she wanted. With this assurance Noor seemed content and confident once more. Any doubts in Atkins's mind were also now apparently settled.

Atkins always accompanied the woman agents to the departure airfields, if she possibly could. Those who were not dropped into France by parachute (as were agents like Andrée Borrel and Lise de Baissac) were flown in on Lysanders, a light monowing transport aircraft designed to land on short and rough fields. These planes were met by a "reception committee" consisting of SOE agents and local French helpers. The reception committees were alerted to imminent arrival of a plane by a BBC action message inserted as a message personnel; these were broadcast across France every evening, mostly for ordinary listeners wishing to contact friends or family separated by war. The messages broadcast for SOE, agreed in advance between HQ and the circuit organizer, usually by wireless signal, sounded like odd greetings or aphorisms – "Le hibou n'est pas un éléphant" (The owl is not an elephant) – but the reception committee on the ground would know that the message meant a particular (pre-planned) operation would take place.

Promoted to Assistant Section Officer (the WAAF equivalent of RAF pilot officer), Noor was to fly by Lysander with the June moon to a field near Angers, from where she would make her way to Paris to link up with the leader of a Prosper sub-circuit named Emile Garry, or Cinema, an alias chosen because of his uncanny resemblance to the film star Gary Cooper. Once on the ground Noor would make contact with the Prosper circuit organizer, Francis Suttill, and take on her new persona as a children's nurse, "Jeanne-Marie Renier", using fake papers in that name. To her SOE colleagues, however, she would be known simply as "Madeleine".

Regardless of her perceived shortcomings, Noor's fluent French and her competency in wireless operation – coupled with a shortage of experienced agents – made her a desirable candidate for service in Nazi-occupied France. On 16/17 June 1943, cryptonymed 'Madeleine'/W/T operator 'Nurse' and under the cover identity of Jeanne-Marie Regnier, Assistant Section Officer Noor was flown to landing ground B/20A 'Indigestion' in Northern France on a night landing double Lysander operation, code named Teacher/Nurse/Chaplain/Monk, along with agents Diana Rowden (code named Paulette/Chaplain), and Cecily Lefort (code named Alice/Teacher). They were met by Henri Déricourt.

Capture and imprisonment
From 24 June 1943 the 'Prosper' network that Noor had been sent to be a radio operator for began to be rounded up by the Germans. Noor remained in radio contact with London. When Buckmaster told her she would be flown home, she told him she would prefer to remain, as she believed she was the only radio operator remaining in Paris. Buckmaster agreed to this, though she was told only to receive signals, not to transmit.

Noor Inayat Khan was betrayed to the Germans, possibly by Renée Garry. Garry was the sister of Émile Henri Garry, the head agent of the 'Cinema' and 'Phono' circuits, and Inayat Khan's organiser in the Cinema network (later renamed Phono). Émile Henri Garry was later arrested and executed at Buchenwald in September 1944.

Renée Garry was allegedly paid 100,000 francs (some sources state 500 pounds). Her actions have been attributed at least partially to Garry's suspicion that she had lost the affections of SOE agent France Antelme to Noor. After the war, she was tried but escaped conviction by one vote.

On or around 13 October 1943, Noor was arrested and interrogated at the SD Headquarters at 84 Avenue Foch in Paris. During that time, she attempted escape twice. Hans Kieffer, the former head of the SD in Paris, testified after the war that she did not give the Gestapo a single piece of information, but lied consistently.

However, other sources indicate that Noor chatted amiably with an out-of-uniform Alsatian interrogator, and provided personal details which enabled the SD to answer random checks in the form of questions about her childhood and family. Noor did not talk about her activities under interrogation but the SD found her notebooks. Contrary to security regulations, Noor had copied out all the messages she had sent as an SOE operative (this may have been due to her misunderstanding what a reference to filing meant in her orders, and also the truncated nature of her security course due to the need to insert her into France as soon as possible). Although Noor refused to reveal any secret codes, the Germans gained enough information from them to continue sending false messages imitating her.

Some claim London failed to properly investigate anomalies which would have indicated the transmissions were sent under enemy control, in particular the change in the 'fist' (the style of the operator's Morse transmission). As a WAAF signaller, Noor had been nicknamed "Bang Away Lulu" because of her distinctively heavy-handed style, which was said to be a result of chilblains. However, according to M.R.D. Foot, the Sicherheitsdienst (SD) were quite adept at faking operators' fists. The well-organised and skillful counter-espionage work of the SD under Hans Josef Kieffer is, in fact, the true reason for the intelligence failures.

Additionally, Déricourt, F Section's air-landing officer in France, literally gave SOE's secrets to the SD in Paris. He would later claim to have been working for the Secret Intelligence Service (SIS, commonly known as MI6), without the knowledge of SOE, as part of a complex deception plan in the run-up to D-Day.

As a result, however, three more agents sent to France were captured by the Germans at their parachute landing, including Madeleine Damerment, who was later executed. Sonya Olschanezky ('Tania'), a locally recruited SOE agent, had learnt of Noor's arrest and sent a message to London through her fiancé, Jacques Weil, telling Baker Street of her capture and warning HQ to suspect any transmissions from "Madeleine".

Colonel Maurice Buckmaster ignored the message as unreliable because he did not know who Olschanezky was. As a result, German transmissions from Noor's radio continued to be treated as genuine, leading to the unnecessary deaths of SOE agents, including Olschanezky herself, who was executed at Natzweiler-Struthof concentration camp on 6 July 1944. When Vera Atkins investigated the deaths of missing SOE agents, she initially confused Noor with Olschanezky (they were similar in appearance), who was unknown to her, believing Noor had been killed at Natzweiler, correcting the record only when she learned of Noor's fate at Dachau.

On 25 November 1943, Noor escaped from the SD Headquarters, along with fellow SOE agent John Renshaw Starr and resistance leader Léon Faye, but was recaptured in the vicinity. There was an air raid alert as they escaped across the roof. Regulations required a count of prisoners at such times and their escape was discovered before they could get away. After refusing to sign a declaration renouncing future escape attempts, Noor was taken to Germany on 27 November 1943 "for safe custody" and imprisoned at Pforzheim in solitary confinement as a "Nacht und Nebel" ("Night and Fog": condemned to "Disappearance without Trace") prisoner, in complete secrecy. For ten months, she was kept there, shackled at her hands and feet.

Noor was classified as "highly dangerous" and shackled in chains most of the time. As the prison director testified after the war, Noor remained uncooperative and continued to refuse to give any information on her work or her fellow operatives, although in her despair at the appalling nature of her confinement, other prisoners could hear her crying at night. However, by scratching messages on the base of her mess cup, Noor was able to inform another inmate of her identity, giving the name of Nora Baker and the London address of her mother's house.

Execution
On 12 September 1944, Noor Inayat Khan was abruptly transferred to the Dachau concentration camp along with her fellow agents Yolande Beekman, Madeleine Damerment and Eliane Plewman. At dawn on the following morning the four women were executed.

A Gestapo man named Max Wassmer was in charge of prisoner transports at Karlsruhe and accompanied the women to Dachau. Another Gestapo man named Christian Ott gave a statement to US investigators after the war as to the fate of Noor and her three companions. Ott was stationed at Karlsruhe and volunteered to accompany the four women to Dachau because he wanted to visit his family in Stuttgart on the return journey. Although he was not present at the execution, Ott told investigators what Wassmer had told him.

"The four prisoners had come from the barrack in the camp, where they had spent the night, into the yard where the shooting was to take place. Here he [Wassmer] announced the death sentence to them. Only the Lagerkommandant and the two SS men were present. The German-speaking Englishwoman (the major) notified her companion about the death sentence. All four of the prisoners had grown very pale and wept; the major asked if they could protest against the sentence. The Kommandant declared that nobody could protest against the sentence. The major then requested to see a priest. The camp Kommandant denied the major's request on the ground that there was no priest in the camp. Now the four prisoners were ordered to kneel with their heads facing a small mound of earth before they were killed by the two SS men, one after another by a shot through the back of the neck. During the shooting, the two Englishwomen held hands and the two Frenchwomen did the same. For three of the prisoners, the first shot caused their deaths, but for the German-speaking Englishwoman, a second shot needed to be fired because she still showed signs of life after the first shot was fired. After the shooting of these prisoners the Lagerkommandant said to the two SS men that he took a personal interest in the jewellery of the women and that this should be taken into his office."

This is an unreliable account because Ott told the investigator that he had asked Wassmer the following question after he was told what had happened to the women: "But tell me, what really happened", to which Wassmer replied: "So you want to know how it really happened?"

In 1958, an anonymous Dutch prisoner asserted that Noor was cruelly beaten by an SS officer named Wilhelm Ruppert before she was shot from behind. Her last word was reported as "Liberté". Noor was survived by her mother and three siblings.

Honours and awards

Noor Inayat Khan was posthumously awarded the George Cross in 1949. She was also awarded the French Croix de Guerre avec étoile de vermeil ("with a silver-gilt star"). Because she was still considered "missing" in 1946, she could not be awarded a Member of the Order of the British Empire, but her commission as Assistant Section Officer was gazetted in June (with effect from 5 July 1944), and she was Mentioned in Despatches in October 1946. Noor was the third of three Second World War FANY members to be awarded the George Cross, Britain's highest award for gallantry in the face of the enemy.

At the beginning of 2011, a campaign to raise £100,000 in order to pay for the construction of a bronze bust of her in central London close to her former home was launched. The unveiling of the bronze bust by the Princess Royal took place on 8 November 2012 in Gordon Square Gardens, Bloomsbury, London.

Noor was commemorated on a stamp which was issued by the Royal Mail on 25 March 2014 in a set of stamps about "Remarkable Lives". In 2018, a campaign was launched to have Noor represented on the next version of the £50 note.

George Cross citation
The announcement of the award of the George Cross was made in the London Gazette of 5 April 1949. The full citation reads: The KING has been graciously pleased to approve the posthumous award of the GEORGE CROSS to:— Assistant Section Officer Nora INAYAT-KHAN (9901), Women's Auxiliary Air Force. Assistant Section Officer Nora INAYAT-KHAN was the first woman operator to be infiltrated into enemy occupied France, and she was landed by Lysander aircraft on 16th June, 1943. During the weeks immediately following her arrival, the Gestapo made mass arrests in the Paris Resistance groups to which she had been detailed. However, she refused to abandon what had become the principal and most dangerous post in France, even though she had been given the opportunity to return to England, because she did not want to leave her French comrades without communications and she also hoped to rebuild her group. Therefore, she remained at her post and did the excellent work which earned her a posthumous Mention in Despatches. The Gestapo had a full description of her, but it only knew her code name "Madeleine". It deployed considerable forces in its effort to catch her and break the last remaining link with London. After 3 months, she was betrayed to the Gestapo and taken to its H.Q. in the Avenue Foch. The Gestapo had found her codes and messages and as a result, it was now in a position to work back to London. It asked her to co-operate, but she refused and gave it no information of any kind. She was imprisoned in one of the cells on the 5th floor of the Gestapo H.Q. and she remained there for several weeks during which time she made two unsuccessful attempts to escape. She was asked to sign a declaration which stated that she would make no further escape attempts, but she refused to sign it and the Chief of the Gestapo obtained permission to send her to Germany for "safe custody" from Berlin. She was the first enemy agent to be sent to Germany. Assistant Section Officer INAYAT-KHAN was sent to Karlsruhe in November 1943, and then she was sent to Pforzheim where her cell was apart from the main prison. She was considered a particularly dangerous and uncooperative prisoner. The Director of the prison was also interrogated and confirmed that Assistant Section Officer INAYAT-KHAN refused to give any information whatsoever, either about her work or her colleagues when she was interrogated by the Karlsruhe Gestapo. She was taken to the Dachau Concentration Camp with three other female prisoners on 12 September 1944. On her arrival, she was taken to the crematorium and shot. Assistant Section Officer INAYAT-KHAN displayed the most conspicuous courage, both moral and physical over a period of more than 12 months.

Blue plaque
On 25 February 2019, it was announced that Noor Inayat Khan would be honoured with a blue plaque at her wartime London home at 4 Taviton Street in Bloomsbury – the house that she left on her final and fatal mission and the address that she etched onto her bowl while in prison so she could be identified. Noor is the first woman of South Asian descent to have a blue plaque honouring her in London. The plaque was unveiled at a virtual ceremony broadcast on English Heritage's Facebook page at 7 pm on Friday 28 August 2020.

Theatre
In 2022, Almanya Narula, a distinguished actor, writer, and fight choreographer, captivated audiences with her original one-woman solo show, Noor Inayat Khan: The Forgotten Spy, at the Hollywood Fringe Festival in Los Angeles, California. The performance depicted a poignant chapter in the life of Noor Inayat Khan, set against the backdrop of her imprisonment at 84 Avenue Foch. The show garnered widespread acclaim, with sold-out performances and accolades from both audiences and critics alike. It took home several awards including the 'Soaring Solo Show Impact Award' and was nominated for 'Best Solo Show' among others.

After its successful debut, Noor Inayat Khan: The Forgotten Spy embarked on a national tour in 2023, to full houses at the Whitefire Theatre in Sherman Oaks, CA, the historic Theatre Row Off-Broadway in New York City where it earned another 'Best Actress' award for Almanya Narula, and in Chicago, hosted by the Sarah Siddons Society. The production's acclaim was further amplified by coverage in major news outlets such as ABC7, NBC5, and the Chicago Reader.

In 2018 a play about the life and death of Noor, entitled Agent Madeleine, premiered at the Ottawa Fringe Festival. The role of Noor was played by Puja Uppal. The following deviations from facts have been noted:
 * Noor is in a relationship with Leo Marks, instead of an unknown SOE officer.
 * John Starr, Leon Faye, and a variety of prisoners of 84 Avenue Foch were represented by a single character, "Marcel de Faye".
 * Noor is imprisoned at 84 Avenue Foch until she is moved to Dachau, where she is executed alone.
 * Noor's escape attempts are altered – her escape out of the bathroom window is foiled by an air raid siren, and her escape attempt with the screwdriver is foiled when a guard discovers her with it.

Khan is the basis for Anna Sidiqui in Catalyst Theatre's all-female musical ''The Invisible: Agents of Ungentlemanly Warfare. Book, music and lyrics'' by Jonathan Christenson.

Vera Atkins' search for the truth about Khan's death is the subject of the 2022 play S.O.E. by Deborah Clair.

Film
In September 2012, producers Zafar Hai and Tabrez Noorani obtained the film rights to the biography Spy Princess: The Life of Noor Inayat Khan by Shrabani Basu.

Noor's story is featured in the 2019 film A Call to Spy, written by Sarah Megan Thomas and directed by Lydia Dean Pilcher. Noor is played by Indian actress Radhika Apte.

Noor is the central character in the 2021 live action short film Liberté, written, produced and starring Sam Naz. The film was shot on location at Beaulieu Palace House where Noor had trained for SOE and features music from the track La Monotonia which was composed in Noor's memory by her brother Hidayat Inayat Khan.

Literature

 * On 6 September 2010, American poet Stacy Ericson posted a poem on the Internet entitled "Resistance", dedicated to Noor Inayat Khan and providing a link back to Inayat Khan's biography. This may have been the first poem dedicated to Noor Inayat Khan and refers to the isolation and fear shared by those in resistance to oppressive regimes.
 * On 3 March 2013, Irfanulla Shariff, an American poet, posted a poem on the Internet, "A Tribute To The Illuminated Woman of World War II", dedicated to Khan, which illustrates her life story.

Television

 * The second episode of the Indian anthology series Adrishya, which aired on Epic TV in 2014, was based on Noor Inayat Khan's wartime career, up to her death in Nazi Germany.
 * A Man Called Intrepid (first airdate February 1979), a six-hour, fact-based TV miniseries broadcast in Canada on CTV and in the US on NBC, starred David Niven as its protagonist Sir William Stephenson, and Barbara Hershey as Noor. It contains a number of deviations from the facts.
 * In 2014, PBS aired a 60-minute biographical docudrama entitled Enemy of the Reich: The Noor Inayat Khan Story, executive produced by Alex Kronemer and Michael Wolfe of Unity Productions Foundation and directed by Robert H. Gardner. Grace Srinivasan played the title role.
 * In 2018, Netflix released an original series entitled Churchill's Secret Agents: the new recruits Season Season 1, episode 4 featured a summary of Noor's final mission with the SOE.
 * On 5 January 2020, Aurora Marion played Noor in "Spyfall, Part 2", the second episode of Doctor Who, series 12

Radio
In November 1980, as an afternoon theatre production, BBC Radio 4 broadcast a play about Noor written by Patrice Chaplin.

In November 1980, The Knightsbridge Memorial a play about Noor was broadcast on BBC Radio 4 as a Saturday-Night Theatre production.

title: Noor Inayat Khan


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National Council of Churches

The National Council of the Churches of Christ in the USA, usually identified as the National Council of Churches (NCC), is the largest ecumenical body in the United States. NCC is an ecumenical partnership of 38 Christian faith groups in the United States. Its member communions include mainline Protestant, Eastern Orthodox, Oriental Orthodox, African-American, evangelical, and historic peace churches. Together, it encompasses more than 100,000 local congregations and 40 million adherents. It began as the Federal Council of Churches in 1908, and expanded through merger with several other ecumenical organizations to become the National Council of Churches in 1950. Its Interim President and General Secretary is Bishop Vashti Murphy McKenzie.

History
The first efforts at ecumenical organization emerged in May 1908 with the creation of the Federal Council of Churches (FCC). The FCC was created as a response to "industrial problems" that arose during the rapid industrialization of the United States. The primary concern was the protection of workers in a host of areas including wages, working conditions, child labor, and a six-day work week (reduced from seven).

During the next 40 plus years, FCC remained engaged in the domestic social problems of the day as well as international problems that threatened to draw the US into war. Its progressive social program along with support of conscientious objectors to World War II garnered stiff criticism from Christian fundamentalist circles. By 1950, numerous programs and efforts of social uplift had formed in addition to the FCC. Seeking greater unity, a dozen ecumenical bodies (including the FCC) gathered in Cleveland, Ohio, in 1950 to discuss how to more effectively organize their common work. Out of this meeting, via the merger of the Federal Council of Churches with several other ecumenical bodies, emerged the NCC.

During the late 1950s and early 1960s (it is unclear from the reference how long this continued), the National Council of Churches received some funding from the "Foundation for Youth and Student Affairs", a front funded by the CIA to oppose communism.

Membership
The council's 38 member communions include mainline Protestant, Eastern Orthodox, African-American, evangelical, and historic peace churches. Individual adherents of more than 50 Christian faith groups actively participate in NCC study groups, commissions, and ministries. Some of these participants belong to Christian faith groups such as the Catholic Church, fundamentalist groups, Southern Baptists, and Missouri Synod Lutherans, which are not officially a part of the council's membership.

All NCC member organizations subscribe to the NCC's statement of faith, which forms the preamble to the NCC's charter: "The National Council of Churches is a community of Christian communions, which, in response to the gospel as revealed in the Scriptures, confess Jesus Christ, the incarnate Word of God, as Savior and Lord. These communions covenant with one another to manifest ever more fully the unity of the Church. Relying upon the transforming power of the Holy Spirit, the communions come together as the Council in common mission, serving in all creation to the glory of God."

The Social Creeds
Since its founding in 1950, one of the primary activities of NCC has been to effect positive change for the betterment of society. Adopted in December 1908, "The Social Creed of the Churches" was a statement by members of the Federal Council of Churches against what it described as "industrial problems". The document spelled out a list of principles, including:

 * Equal rights and complete justice for all men in all stations of life
 * Protection of the worker from dangerous machinery, occupational disease, injuries, and mortality
 * Abolition of child labor
 * Regulation of the conditions of toil for women as shall safeguard the physical and moral health of the community
 * A living wage as a minimum in every industry
 * Provision for the old age of the workers and for those incapacitated by injury
 * Abatement of poverty

In 2007, the NCC updated its social creed to reflect a new era of globalization. The goal was to "offer a vision of a society that shares more and consumes less, seeks compassion over suspicion and equality over domination, and finds security in joined hands rather than massed arms." In addition to those areas mentioned in the 1908 creed, the "Social Creed for the 21st Century" included additional principles, including:

 * System of criminal rehabilitation based on restorative justice and end to the death penalty
 * Limits on the power of private interests in politics
 * Just immigration policies
 * Sustainable use of earth's resources
 * Nuclear disarmament and redirection of military spending
 * Religious dialogue
 * Strengthening multilateral diplomacy, United Nations, and the rule of international law

These creeds have formed the basis, growing out of a common Christian faith, of the work of the NCC in public policy matters.

The NCC in Washington
For a number of years, the NCC maintained a separate policy advocacy office in Washington, D.C. Located in the United Methodist Building on Capitol Hill, the NCC Washington Office served as an ecumenical hub through which it could interact with the numerous denominational policy offices also located in the Methodist Building. Its work centered on areas mentioned in the creeds but also primarily focused around two programs, Eco-Justice and the Ecumenical Poverty Initiative. Both of these programs have been spun off into separate independent organizations since NCC restructuring in 2013.

NCC partners with dozens of other faith-based groups in DC and elsewhere, such as Bread for the World, Habitat for Humanity, and Children's Defense Fund, to press for broad policy initiatives that address poverty issues. The council helped launch the Let Justice Roll grassroots anti-poverty campaign that has been successful in raising the minimum wage in more than 20 states since 2005.

In 2018, the council issued a statement opposing the nomination of Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court.

Civil rights movement
NCC was closely aligned with leaders in the civil rights movement, including Martin Luther King Jr. and Andrew Young. The NCC was an important link to mainline churches for the civil rights movement and it consistently condemned segregation during the Montgomery bus boycott and other actions. In a speech to NCC in 1957, King thanked the NCC for its support: "This great body—the National Council of Churches—has condemned segregation over and over again, and has requested its constituent denominations to do likewise."

The NCC continued to be closely intertwined with the civil rights movement throughout the 1950s and 1960s. NCC created a Race Relations Sunday to educate and call to action mainline Christians nationwide. In 1961, Andrew Young left his position with the National Council of Churches to join the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, eventually becoming that organization's executive director. When the Civil Rights Act was introduced in 1964, NCC lobbied heavily for its swift adoption. In January 1963, the NCC together with the Synagogue Council of America and the National Catholic Welfare Conference, convened the National Conference on Religion and Race, which issued An Appeal to the Conscience of the American People for a moral end to racism. From 1966 until 1973 Olivia P. Stokes was associate director of urban education in the NCC's Department of Educational Development, developing the Black Curriculum Resource Center. W. Sterling Cary, the first Black president of the NCC who was elected in 1972, was a vocal advocate for racial justice and the Black Power movement.

Vietnam War
Since its inception, the NCC had been skeptical of the usefulness of war. During World War II, the Federal Council of Churches formed a Committee on Conscientious Objectors to advocate for the right of people of faith to refuse military service. During the Vietnam War, the NCC found itself in opposition to growing US military action. In 1965, the General Board stated that "unilateral action by the United States in Southeast Asia will not lead to peace." The NCC's position against the Vietnam War became increasingly strident in the 1960s and 1970s, and in some cases, alienated the laity of some member communions.

Middle East peace
NCC has been a consistent supporter of a negotiated solution to the Israeli–Palestinian conflict. In partnership with the World Council of Churches, it has traditionally sought to balance its approach, seeking safety and protection for both the Jewish and Palestinian communities. It has focused on meeting needs of the victims of this conflict in all communities and supporting continued negotiations. Since the late 1960s the NCC has taken positions sympathetic towards Palestinian land rights and supportive of a secure Israel.

More recently, NCC has been particularly concerned with the plight of Christian communities in the region. Some of NCC's member communions have congregations or partners in the region that are being directly affected. However, the NCC's "witness to the need for vigilance in brokering peace extends to our concern for all people in the region, whether they be Christians, Jews, Muslims, Baháʼís or others, and whether they be Israelis, Palestinians, Syrians, Egyptians, or others."

Poverty
The council has supported many poverty alleviation efforts, including increases to the minimum wage and ecumenical efforts such as the Circle of Protection and the Faithful Budget Campaign. In 2013, during restructuring, NCC spun off its department dealing with poverty issues into a new organization, the Ecumenical Poverty Initiative. NCC continues its work on poverty through its support of EPI as well as partnerships with other likeminded organizations.

Environment
During the oil crisis of the 1970s, NCC issued a statement in which it called for "Ecological Justice". The statement called for more work on renewable energy, reductions in energy sources that pollute, and support for energy sources that did not have adverse effects on communities (health, economic, etc.). This statement helped form the basis for the creation of the NCC's Eco-Justice program. Housed in the NCC Washington Office, the program focused on federal environmental policy. In 2013, the Eco-Justice program was spun off into its own organization, Creation Justice Ministries. CJM continues to work with NCC and its 38 member communions to coordinate efforts to protect the environment.

Mass incarceration
Over the past three years, NCC has taken a more active role in the struggle against mass incarceration. As early as 1979, NCC recognized the problem of a justice system based on retribution and the over-representation of communities of color in the prison population. More recently, NCC has worked for sentencing reform to reduce mandatory minimum sentences, advocated for clemency for individuals who were over sentenced, and prison conditions. In addition, NCC has also broadened this work to include police reform, especially in the wake of much publicized shootings in places such as Baton Rouge, Minneapolis, and Dallas.

Publishing and research
The NCC fostered the multi-denominational research effort that produced the Revised Standard Version and the New Revised Standard Version of the Bible, and holds the copyrights to both translations.

The NCC sponsors the research program on which the Uniform Sunday School Lesson Series is based. The series began in 1872 under the auspices of the National Sunday School Convention.

The NCC also published until 2012 the annual Yearbook of American and Canadian Churches, since 1916 a widely used reference work on trends, statistics and programmatic information on religious organizations in North America. Future editions of the yearbook will be published by the Association of Statisticians of American Religious Bodies (ASARB).

Theological and ecumenical dialogue
The NCC Faith and Order Commission is an ongoing, scholarly, ecumenical dialogue among North American Christian theologians and ecclesiastical historians, including evangelical, Pentecostal, Roman Catholic, Orthodox, mainline Protestant, and African-American scholars. In 2007, the commission celebrated its fiftieth anniversary.

Facilities
The council was the original anchor tenant in the 19-story Interchurch Center built in 1952 adjacent to Columbia University, Union Theological Seminary, and the Riverside Church in New York City. It vacated these premises in 2013 when it consolidated its offices in the building long used by its public-policy staff at 110 Maryland Avenue, NE, on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C.

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

title: National Council of Churches


text:
William Lisle Bowles

William Lisle Bowles (24 September 1762 – 7 April 1850) was an English priest, poet and critic.

Life and career
Bowles was born at King's Sutton, Northamptonshire, where his father was vicar. At the age of 14 he entered Winchester College, where the headmaster at the time was Dr Joseph Warton. In 1781 Bowles left as captain of the school, and went on to Trinity College, Oxford, where he had won a scholarship. Two years later he won the Chancellor's prize for Latin verse.

Bowles came from a line of Church of England clergymen. His great-grandfather Matthew Bowles (1652–1742), grandfather Dr Thomas Bowles (1696–1773) and father William Thomas Bowles (1728–1786) had all been parish priests. After taking his degree at Oxford, Bowles followed his forebears into the Church of England, and in 1792, after serving as curate in Donhead St Andrew, was appointed vicar of Chicklade in Wiltshire. In 1797 he received the vicarage of Dumbleton in Gloucestershire, and in 1804 became vicar of Bremhill in Wiltshire, where he wrote the poem seen on Maud Heath's statue. In the same year his bishop, John Douglas, collated him to a prebendal stall in Salisbury Cathedral. In 1818 he was made chaplain to the Prince Regent, and in 1828 he was elected residentiary canon of Salisbury.

Works
In 1789 he published, in a very small quarto volume, Fourteen Sonnets, which were received with extraordinary favour, not only by the general public, but by such men as Samuel Taylor Coleridge and William Wordsworth. Coleridge credited him, alongside Charlotte Smith, with bringing about a general revival of the sonnet form in their generation.

The Sonnets even in form were a revival, a return to an older and purer poetic style, and by their grace of expression, melodious versification, tender tone of feeling and vivid appreciation of the life and beauty of nature, stood out in strong contrast to the elaborated commonplaces which at that time formed the bulk of English poetry. Bowles said thereof "Poetic trifles from solitary rambles whilst chewing the cud of sweet and bitter fancy, written from memory, confined to fourteen lines, this seemed best adapted to the unity of sentiment, the verse flowed in unpremeditated harmony as my ear directed but are far from being mere elegiac couplets".

The longer poems published by Bowles are not of a very high standard, though all are distinguished by purity of imagination, cultured and graceful diction, and great tenderness of feeling. The most extensive were The Spirit of Discovery (1804), which was mercilessly ridiculed by Lord Byron; The Missionary (1813); The Grave of the Last Saxon (1822); and St John in Patmos (1833). Bowles is perhaps more celebrated as a critic than as a poet. In 1806 he published an edition of Alexander Pope's works with notes and an essay, in which he laid down certain canons as to poetic imagery which, subject to some modification, were later accepted, but which were received at the time with strong opposition by admirers of Pope and his style. He restated his views in 1819, in The Invariable Principles of Poetry. The controversy brought into sharp contrast the opposing views of poetry, which may be roughly described as the natural and the artificial.

Bowles was an amiable, absent-minded, and rather eccentric man. His poems are characterised by refinement of feeling, tenderness, and pensive thought, but are deficient in power and passion. Bowles maintained that images drawn from nature are poetically finer than those drawn from art; and that in the highest kinds of poetry the themes or passions handled should be of the general or elemental kind, and not the transient manners of any society. These positions were attacked by Byron, Thomas Campbell, William Roscoe and others, while for a time Bowles was almost solitary. William Hazlitt and the Blackwood critics came to his assistance, and on the whole Bowles had reason to congratulate himself on having established certain principles which might serve as the basis of a true method of poetical criticism, and of having inaugurated, both by precept and by example, a new era in English poetry. Among other prose works from his prolific pen was a Life of Bishop Ken (two volumes, 1830–1831). Other works include Coombe Ellen and St. Michael's Mount (1798), The Battle of the Nile (1799), and The Sorrows of Switzerland (1801).

Bowles also enjoyed considerable reputation as an antiquary, his principal work in that department being Hermes Britannicus (1828). His Poetical Works were collected in 1855 as part of the Library Edition of the British Poets, with a memoir by George Gilfillan.

Reception
Bowles' work was important to the young Samuel Taylor Coleridge: My obligations to Mr. Bowles were indeed important, and for radical good. At a very premature age, ... I had bewildered myself in metaphysicks, and in theological controversy. Nothing else pleased me. Poetry ... became insipid to me.... This preposterous pursuit was, beyond doubt, injurious both to my natural powers, and to the progress of my education.... But from this I was auspiciously withdrawn, ... chiefly ... by the genial influence of a style of poetry, so tender and yet so manly, so natural and real, and yet so dignified and harmonious, as the sonnets &c. of Mr. Bowles!

Subsequently however, in an important letter of 1802, Coleridge took exception to Bowles's persistent drawing of parallels between a natural scene and human life "in the shape of formal similes", arguing instead for a merger of the poet's mind with "the great appearances of nature". Bowles was the cause in the 1820s of the Alexander Pope controversy into which Lord Byron was drawn.

title: William Lisle Bowles


text:
Westminster Millennium Pier

Westminster Pier is a pier on the River Thames, in the City of Westminster in London, England. It is operated by Uber Boat by Thames Clippers and served by various river transport and cruise operators. It is located next to Westminster Bridge on the north bank of the Thames, and is close to one of London's most prominent landmarks, Big Ben.

Former Westminster Floating Pier
The former Westminster Floating Pier existed on the site through the 1950's, running along the Thames between Kew and the London docks. The floating pier acted as a landing point for many Royal water journeys, including the conclusion of Queen Elizabeth II's Commonwealth tour in May 1954.

On the 7th February 1955, night watchmen reported a leak had been found in the pier, causing the middle sections to sink. Workman from the Port Of London Authority spent three hours trying to drain the central pontoon of water, with the pier being half submerged by 10am before fully sinking "as Big Ben stuck twelve". No one was hurt during the sinking, with the staff having time to evacuate and retrieve important documents. The sinking of the pier was widely reported on by newspapers and media of the time, with it being parodied in an episode of The Goon Show a week after the incident.

Construction
The development of Westminster Millennium Pier was funded by the Millennium Commission as part of the Thames project, and it was one of five new piers opened in 2000 by the Commission on the Thames (the others being Blackfriars Millennium Pier, London Eye Pier, Tower Millennium Pier and Millbank Millennium Pier). Its creation was funded by the project as part of an integrated transport and regeneration strategy for the Thames led by London's Cross River Partnership.

Services
The pier is served by various services including:
 * Thames River Services between Westminster, Tower Bridge Quay, Greenwich Pier and the Thames Flood Barrier (Pre-booked groups can disembark at Barrier Gardens Pier).
 * City Cruises leisure cruises between Westminster and Greenwich Pier
 * Circular Cruise Westminster to St Katharine's Circular
 * Thames River Boats cruises to Hampton Court Palace

Connections

 * Westminster tube station

Local attractions
North bank South Bank
 * Big Ben and the Palace of Westminster
 * Westminster Abbey and St. Margaret's, Westminster
 * Churchill Museum and Cabinet War Rooms
 * The Boudica statue
 * London Eye
 * London Aquarium
 * Dali Universe
 * Florence Nightingale Museum

title: Westminster Millennium Pier


text:
Tadalafil

Tadalafil, sold under the brand name Cialis among others, is a medication used to treat erectile dysfunction, benign prostatic hyperplasia, and pulmonary arterial hypertension. It is taken by mouth. Onset is typically within half an hour and the duration is up to 36 hours.

Common side effects include headache, muscle pain, flushed skin, and nausea. Caution is advised in those with cardiovascular disease. Rare but serious side effects include a prolonged erection that can lead to damage to the penis, vision problems, and hearing loss. Tadalafil is not recommended in people taking nitrovasodilators such as nitroglycerin, as this may result in a serious drop in blood pressure. Tadalafil is a PDE5 inhibitor which increases blood flow to the penis. It also dilates blood vessels in the lungs, which lowers the pulmonary artery pressure.

Tadalafil was approved for medical use in the United States in 2003. It is available as a generic medication. In 2021, it was the 171st most commonly prescribed medication in the United States, with more than 3million prescriptions.

Medical uses
Tadalafil is used to treat erectile dysfunction, benign prostatic hyperplasia, and pulmonary arterial hypertension. In the US, tadalafil (as Cialis) is indicated for the treatment of erectile dysfunction and the signs and symptoms of benign prostatic hyperplasia; and (as Adcirca) for the treatment of pulmonary arterial hypertension to improve exercise ability.

Benign prostatic hyperplasia
A meta‐analysis found that tadalafil is an effective treatment for lower urinary tract symptoms due to benign prostatic hyperplasia and that such treatment had a low rate of adverse effects. Tadalafil is FDA-approved for males as a therapy to treat and prevent symptoms of benign prostatic hyperplasia, such as urinary urgency, hesitancy, weak stream, dribbling, and incontinence. Tadalafil was found to have similar benefits for lower urinary tract symptoms as the usually prescribed tamsulosin.

Pulmonary arterial hypertension
Tadalafil is approved in the United States, Canada, and Japan to improve exercise ability in people with pulmonary arterial hypertension.

Adverse effects
The most common potential side effects when using tadalafil are headache, stomach discomfort or pain, indigestion, burping, acid reflux, back pain, myalgia (pain in limbs and extremities), flushing, hypertension (or uncommonly hypotension), and stuffy/runny nose. Also common are dizziness, peripheral edema, fatigue, and urinary or respiratory tract infection; both diarrhea and constipation have been reported. Diarrhea was reported more frequently in patients 65 or older than in younger subjects. These side effects reflect the ability of PDE5 inhibition to cause vasodilation (cause blood vessels to widen), and usually resolve after a few hours.

Vision
In May 2005, the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) found that tadalafil (along with other PDE5 inhibitors) was associated with vision impairment related to NAION (non-arteritic anterior ischemic optic neuropathy). Most, but not all, of these patients had underlying anatomic or vascular risk factors for development of NAION, unrelated to PDE5 inhibitor use. The FDA concluded that they were not able to draw a cause and effect relationship, only an association; the label of all three PDE5 inhibitors was changed to alert clinicians to that fact. A 2019 meta-analysis found that tadalafil exposure was not associated with NAION.

Hearing
In October 2007, the FDA announced that the labeling for all PDE5 inhibitors, including tadalafil, requires a more prominent warning of the potential risk of sudden hearing loss as the result of post-marketing reports of temporary deafness associated with use of PDE5 inhibitors.

Metabolism
Tadalafil is metabolized predominantly by the liver CYP3A4 enzyme system.

Mechanism of action
Penile erection during sexual stimulation is caused by increased penile blood flow resulting from the relaxation of penile arteries and the smooth muscle of the corpus cavernosum. This response is mediated by the release of nitric oxide (NO) from nerve terminals and endothelial cells, which stimulates the synthesis of cyclic guanosine monophosphate (more commonly known as cyclic GMP or cGMP) in smooth muscle cells. cGMP relaxes smooth muscle and increases blood flow to the corpus cavernosum.

The inhibition of phosphodiesterase type 5 (PDE5) enhances erectile function by increasing the amount of cGMP. Tadalafil (and sildenafil and vardenafil) inhibits PDE5. However, because sexual stimulation is required to initiate the local penile release of nitric oxide, tadalafil's inhibition of PDE5 will have no effect without sexual stimulation.

Duration of action
Although sildenafil, vardenafil, and tadalafil all work by inhibiting PDE5, tadalafil's pharmacologic distinction is its longer half-life (17.5 hours), compared to sildenafil and vardenafil, which are both 4–5 hours. This translates to a longer duration of action, which is partly responsible for "The Weekend Pill" nickname. Furthermore, the longer half-life is the basis for tadalafil's daily therapeutic use in treating pulmonary arterial hypertension.

Comparison with actions of other PDE5 inhibitors
Sildenafil and vardenafil inhibit PDE6, an enzyme found in the eye, more than tadalafil. Some sildenafil users see a bluish tinge and have a heightened sensitivity to light because of PDE6 inhibition.

Sildenafil and vardenafil also inhibit PDE1 more than tadalafil. PDE1 is found in the brain, heart, and vascular smooth muscle. It is thought that the inhibition of PDE1 by sildenafil and vardenafil leads to vasodilation, flushing, and tachycardia.

Tadalafil inhibits PDE11 more than sildenafil or vardenafil. PDE11 is expressed in skeletal muscle, the prostate, the liver, the kidney, the pituitary gland, and the testes. The effects on the body of inhibiting PDE11 are not known.

Chemistry
Tadalafil is an annulated 2,5-diketopiperazine. It is also a 1,2,3,4-tetrahydro-β-carboline.

Tadalafil can be synthesized starting from (D)-tryptophan methyl ester and piperonal via a Pictet–Spengler reaction. This is followed by condensations with chloroacetyl chloride and methylamine to complete the diketopiperazine ring:

History
The FDA's approval of sildenafil in 1998 was a ground-breaking commercial event for the treatment of ED, with sales exceeding US$1 billion. Subsequently, the FDA approved both vardenafil and tadalafil in 2003.

It initially was developed by the biotechnology company ICOS, and then again developed and marketed worldwide by Lilly ICOS, LLC, the joint venture of ICOS Corporation and Eli Lilly and Company. Tadalafil was approved in 2009 in the United States for the treatment of pulmonary arterial hypertension and is under regulatory review in other regions for this condition. In late November 2008, Eli Lilly sold the exclusive rights to commercialize tadalafil for pulmonary arterial hypertension in the United States to United Therapeutics for an upfront payment of $150 million.

Tadalafil was discovered by Glaxo Wellcome (now GlaxoSmithKline) under a partnership between Glaxo and ICOS to develop new drugs that began in August 1991. In 1993, the Bothell, Washington, biotechnology company ICOS Corporation began studying compound IC351, a phosphodiesterase type 5 (PDE5) enzyme inhibitor. In 1994, Pfizer scientists discovered that sildenafil, which also inhibits the PDE5 enzyme, caused penile erection in males participating in a clinical study of a heart medicine. Although ICOS scientists were not testing compound IC351 for treating ED, they recognized its potential usefulness for treating that disorder. Soon, in 1994, ICOS received a patent for compound IC351 (structurally unlike sildenafil and vardenafil), and Phase 1 clinical trials began in 1995. In 1997, the Phase 2 clinical studies were initiated for males experiencing ED, then progressed to the Phase 3 trials that supported the drug's FDA approval. Although Glaxo had an agreement with ICOS to share profits 50/50 for drugs resulting from the partnership, Glaxo let the agreement lapse in 1996 as the drugs developed were not in the company's core markets. In 1998, ICOS Corporation and Eli Lilly and Company formed the Lilly ICOS, LLC, joint venture company to further develop and commercialize tadalafil as a treatment for ED. Two years later, Lilly ICOS, LLC, filed a new drug application with the FDA for compound IC351 (under the tadalafil generic name, and the Cialis brand name). In May 2002, Lilly ICOS reported to the American Urological Association that clinical trial testing demonstrated that tadalafil was effective for up to 36 hours, and one year later, the FDA approved tadalafil. One advantage Cialis has over Viagra and Levitra is its 17.5-hour half-life (thus Cialis is advertised to work for up to 36 hours, after which time there remains approximately 25% of the absorbed dose in the body) when compared to the four-hour half–life of sildenafil (Viagra).

In 2007, Eli Lilly and Company bought the ICOS Corporation for $2.3 billion. As a result, Eli Lilly owned Cialis and then closed the ICOS operations, ending the joint venture and firing most of ICOS's approximately 500 employees, except for 127 employees of the ICOS biologics facility, which subsequently was bought by CMC Biopharmaceuticals A/S (CMC).

Persons surnamed "Cialis" objected to Eli Lilly and Company's so naming the drug, but the company has maintained that the drug's trade name is unrelated to the surname.

In October 2011, the US FDA approved tadalafil to treat the signs and symptoms of benign prostatic hyperplasia. Benign prostatic hyperplasia is a condition in which the prostate gland becomes enlarged, obstructing the free flow of urine. Symptoms may include sudden urges to urinate (urgency), difficulty in starting urination (hesitancy), a weak urine stream, and more frequent urination — especially at night. The FDA has also approved tadalafil for treatment of both benign prostatic hyperplasia and erectile dysfunction where the two conditions co-exist.

Marketing

In the United States, the FDA relaxed rules on prescription drug marketing in 1997, allowing advertisements targeted directly to consumers. Lilly-ICOS hired the Grey Worldwide Agency in New York, part of the Grey Global Group, to run the Cialis advertising campaign. Marketing for Cialis has taken advantage of its greater duration compared to its competitors in advertisements for the drug; Stuart Elliot of The New York Times opined: "The continuous presence of females in Cialis ads is a subtle signal that the drug makes it easier for them to set the pace with males, in contrast to the primarily male-driven imagery for Levitra and Viagra." Iconic themes in Cialis ads include couples side by side in matching bathtubs and the slogan "When the moment is right, will you be ready?" Cialis ads were unique among the ED drugs in mentioning specifics of the drug. As a result, Cialis ads were also the first to describe the side effects in an advertisement, as the FDA requires advertisements with specifics to mention side effects. One of the first Cialis ads aired at the 2004 Super Bowl. Just weeks before the Super Bowl, the FDA required more possible side effects to be listed in the advertisement, including priapism. Although many parents objected to the Cialis ad being aired during the Super Bowl, Janet Jackson's halftime "wardrobe malfunction" overshadowed Cialis. In January 2006, the Cialis ads were tweaked, adding a doctor on screen to describe side effects and only running ads where more than 90 percent of the audience are adults, effectively ending Super Bowl ads. In 2004, Lilly-ICOS, Pfizer, and GlaxoSmithKline spent a combined $373.1 million to advertise Cialis, Viagra, and Levitra respectively. Cialis has sponsored many sporting events, including the America's Cup and the PGA Tour, once being title sponsor of the PGA Tour Western Open tournament.

Economics
In Australia, tadalafil is subsidized through the Repatriation Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme (RPBS) for patients with a specific accepted war- or service-related disability.

In the US, a generic version of tadalafil is available. While some health insurance providers cover at least part of the cost (typically limiting the number of doses covered per month), many providers, including those operating under Medicare Part D, do not cover the cost of medications prescribed for erectile dysfunction.

In the UK, a generic version of tadalafil became available in November 2017, reducing its price per pill, and is available through the NHS. In China, CMOAPI is the largest manufacturer of Tadalafil powder.

Research
Tadalafil is being studied for treating Peyronie's disease.

title: Tadalafil


text:
Thomas Aird

Thomas Aird (28 August 1802 – 25 April 1876) was a Scottish poet, best known for his 1830 narrative poem The Captive of Fez.

Early life and education
Aird was born in 1802 at Bowden, Roxburghshire. His parents were James Aird, a builder, and Isabella née Paisley. After completing his education at the local parish school, Aird studied for an undergraduate degree at the University of Edinburgh. While at University, Aird met many writers, including John Wilson and James Hogg.

Writing career
After graduation, Aird resisted encouragements to become a Church of Scotland minister, instead remaining in Edinburgh to devote himself to writing. His publication debut came in 1826, with Martzoufle: a Tragedy in Three Acts, with other Poems, although this collection was largely overlooked by critics. In the early years of his career, he also contributed articles to Blackwood's Magazine, wrote a series of essays entitled Religious Characteristics, and published The Captive of Fez, a narrative poem, in 1830.

Between 1832 and 1833, Aird acted as the editor of the Edinburgh Weekly Journal, succeeding James Ballantyne. From 1835, he was the editor of the Dumfriesshire and Galloway Herald, a post he continued to hold for 28 years. While editor, several of his poems were published in the Herald.

In 1848, he published a collection of his poetry, which was very well received. His last main literary work was editing an edition of the works of David Macbeth Moir in 1852. In 1863, he retired from editorship of the Herald.

Personal life and death
Aird's friends included De Quincey, Lockhart, Stanley (afterwards dean of Westminster) and Motherwell.

Aird died in 1876 in Castlebank, Dumfries, and was buried at St Michael's Church.

title: Thomas Aird


text:
British Togoland

British Togoland, officially the Mandate Territory of Togoland and later officially the Trust Territory of Togoland, was a territory in West Africa under the administration of the United Kingdom, which subsequently entered a union with Ghana, part of which became its Volta Region. The territory was effectively formed in 1916 by the splitting of the German protectorate of Togoland into two territories, French Togoland and British Togoland, during the First World War. Initially, it was a League of Nations Class B mandate. In 1922, British Togoland was formally placed under British rule, and French Togoland, now Togo, was placed under French rule.

After the Second World War, the political status of British Togoland changed. It became a United Nations Trust Territory but was still administered by the United Kingdom. During the decolonization of Africa, a status plebiscite was organised in British Togoland in May 1956 to decide the future of the territory; 58% of the voters taking part voted to merge the territory with the neighbouring British Crown colony of the Gold Coast, which was heading towards independence, rather than remain a trusteeship and await developments in French Togoland. On 13 December 1956, the United Nations General Assembly passed General Assembly resolution 1044 on "The future of Togoland under British administration". By that resolution, the UN acknowledged the outcome of the plebiscite held in the territory with a majority in favour of union with the Gold Coast. The resolution recommended that the United Kingdom effect the union of British Togoland with Gold Coast upon the independence of Gold Coast. To achieve that, the Ghana Independence Act 1957 had the United Kingdom annex British Togoland to form part of Her Majesty's dominions comprising the Dominion of Ghana.

In a letter dated 6 March 1957, the British government informed the Secretary-General of the United Nations that with effect from midnight 6 March 1957, under the terms of the Ghana Independence Act 1957, the territories that had comprised in the Gold Coast became the independent State of Ghana and that under the same Act, the union of the former Trust Territory of Togoland under British administration with the independent State of Ghana took place from the same time and date.

British Togoland's capital was Ho, which now serves as the capital of Volta Region. The region includes much of the former mandate's territory.

United Nations trust territory
After World War II, the mandate became a United Nations trust territory administered by the United Kingdom. Prior to the mandate and trusteeship periods, British Togoland was administered as part of the adjoining territory of the Gold Coast, under the name of Trans-Volta Togo (TVT).

Togoland Congress
In 1954, the British government informed the UN that it would be unable to administer the Trust Territory after 1957. In response, in December 1955, the UN General Assembly passed a resolution advising the British government to hold a plebiscite on the future of British Togoland.

On 9 May 1956, this plebiscite was held under UN supervision with the choice between formal integration with the future independent Gold Coast or continuation as a Trust Territory.

The Togoland Congress campaigned against integration. There was vocal opposition to the incorporation of Togoland from the Ewe people who voted against in British Togoland, as the Ewe wanted the unification of the Ewe people in British Togoland and French Togoland as a separate Ewe state (modern Togo).

It was reported that the vote results was 42% against from the Ewe people (Togoland Congress), and 58% for integration.

title: British Togoland


text:
William Motherwell

William Motherwell (13 October 1797, Glasgow – 1 November 1835, Glasgow) was a Scottish poet, antiquary and journalist.

Life
Motherwell was born in Glasgow, the son of Willan and Jane Motherwell. His father was an ironmonger. He was sent to school and at the age of fifteen he was apprenticed in the office of the sheriff-clerk at Paisley. He studied classics for a winter term at Glasgow University between 1818 and 1819. He and appointed sheriff-clerk depute there in 1819. He spent his leisure in collecting materials for a volume of local ballads which he published in 1819 under the title of The Harp of Renfrewshire. In 1827 he published a further instalment in Minstrelsy Ancient and Modern, prefaced by an excellent historical introduction. This work was to provide evidence of the work of notable women like Agnes Lyle. He contributed verses to newspapers and magazines, "Jeanie Morrison", "My Heid is like to rend, Willie", and "Wearies Cauld Well" being his best-known poems. He became editor of the Paisley Advertiser in 1828, and of the Glasgow Courier in 1830. He was the publisher of the short-lived daily literary paper The Day from January to June 1832.

A small volume of his poems was published in 1832, and a larger volume with a memoir in 1846, reissued, with additions, in 1848.

William Motherwell did not know Robert Tannahill, but became very well acquainted with Tannahill's friend and musical collaborator Robert Archibald Smith. It has been suggested that Smith may have encouraged Tannahill's shift from weaving to music, but this has no basis in fact as no such shift ever took place. Tannahill was a weaver from the time he was apprenticed to his father on 7 December 1786 until his death in 1810. It was Smith who sought out the company of Tannahill after hearing one of latter's songs performed at a musical evening in Paisley.

In his role as Sheriff-Clerk Depute, William Motherwell was not averse to "handling a truncheon in defence of the public peace on the streets of Paisley". Motherwell has been described in classic twentieth century parlance as the "working class Tory made good". He managed through his own efforts to establish himself in moderately powerful circles and become something of an arbiter of both literary and political opinion during the 1820s. In politics he was an Orangeman as well as a Tory. Orangeism espousing the view that hereditary rank is sacred while Roman Catholicism and revolutionary innovations which threaten the constitution (unwritten) of Britain are an abhorrence.

Motherwell left Paisley for Glasgow in 1830 to become the Tory editor of the Orange-Tory paper the Glasgow Courier. While Motherwell expressed a kind of cultural nationalism in his literary work, his politics were well to right, nowhere near the liberation theology of George Buchanan with his abstract democratic principles but violently opposed to anything Roman Catholic. Motherwell is not atypical of the Glasgow middle classes of his time. By reason of common sense he could not deny that he lived in Scotland and if one was honest about history that history was for the most part Scottish. Complex as that history might be there was a need to come up with a coherent story. A need for propaganda and opinion forming. The modern state had well and truly arrived. And if the social conflict and deprivation in Glasgow were anything to go by it was a state closer to hell than to heaven.

What Motherwell had was a romantic hankering for the chivalrous which took form in his participation in the rituals and ideology of Orangeism; in the activities of collecting antique songs and poems as well as more conventional antique objects. Motherwell understood the need, all too human, to make a coherent story in the history of literature or of politics that answered peoples' personal and psychological yearnings. The natural inclination to make the world make sense and give life meaning; and that he understood this is perhaps to his credit.

Orangeism was a new Irish variant of the Presbyterianism which had existed in Scotland since the Reformation of 1560. The mythologising of 1690 and William III in Scotland had everything to do with the Tory politics of the early 19th Century and their (the Tories) determination to win the class war. To oppose calls for universal suffrage. To deny the injustice done to Thomas Muir and the Friends of the People, to discredit the writings of Thomas Paine. (In Motherwell's time and from his viewpoint this version of the story, of history, made perfect sense). The Orange Lodge in Scotland were a form of Protestant ideological storm-troopers. The hard-line. The fiery preachers who made Tories of working women and men.

The values of Orangeism are on the face of it quite deeply at odds with Motherwell's cultural activities. He was for the preservation and use of the Scots language in literature something that militates against the inherent Britishness of Orange ideology. M'Conechy in his memoir of Motherwell states that the introduction of Orangeism in Scotland "could be attended with no benefits whatsoever… As an antagonist to Popery and Jacobitism it was certainly not wanted in Presbyterian Scotland". That the Orange Lodge still thrives throughout much of Lanarkshire, Renfrewshire, Ayrshire and elsewhere today implies that M'Conechy is being somewhat disingenuous in his assessment of the real role of Orangeism. While M'Conechy may have come from a part of the Tory party which did not approve of the Orangemen there were plenty of other Tories who did. Motherwell's dalliance with Orangeism (and M'Conechy's denial), in apparent contradiction to his cultural politics, can be seen as an example of the kind of personal identity crisis that arose frequently in Scots men and woman following the Act of Union. Yet through this William Motherwell carried out useful literary and cultural work, simply by the act of writing down and recording. The Harp of Renfrewshire is an important book. Although it was already in progress when it landed with Motherwell his introductory essay is not without merit. It seeks to understand a locale and its history through the study of the poetry and song of the place itself. It includes folk pretty much on the basis of literary merit and not along sectarian or class divides. He shows an understanding of literature as both historical process and individual creative process; demonstrates that language is not static but evolves and that political forces have influence on such evolution. So there is a fairly sophisticated level of literary/cultural politics and argument going on there.

In spite of his Paisley Sheriff's Depute job bringing him "into the thick of military suppression of the Radical risings and civil disturbances around 1820; in 1818 he was knocked unconscious by an angry crowd and narrowly escaped being thrown in the River Cart." he was extremely sympathetic towards both Tannahill and the radical poet Alexander Wilson in his introduction to The Harp of Renfrewshire. As a result, he further enhanced the reputations of both Tannahill and Alexander Wilson.

Grave
Motherwell is buried in the Glasgow Necropolis. The grave was originally unmarked but in 1851 a monument carved by the celebrated Scots sculptor James Fillans was erected by admirers.

Artistic recognition
He was sculpted by James Fillans.

title: William Motherwell


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Talk:Diary of an Ordinary Woman

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''This article was previously listed of Votes for deletion. Page article kept, 2 votes to keep, 1 vote to delete.'' -- Popsracer 22:02, 28 Nov 2003 (UTC)

 * Diary of an Ordinary Woman - was on Cleanup for 6 weeks. little to no progress has been made. it should be deleted. Kingturtle 10:44, 23 Nov 2003 (UTC)
 * Keep. I've copyedited a little and this is currently about as large an article as is merited. Jamesday 01:33, 25 Nov 2003 (UTC)
 * Keep. It is no longer hashed-up Nipponglish. Wiwaxia 03:26, 25 Nov 2003 (UTC)
 * Who wrote it? When was it published? Kingturtle 20:56, 26 Nov 2003 (UTC)

The British edition may first have been published on 1 March 2003. No idea whether that was the first publication and where that first publication happened. Jamesday 10:08, 2 Dec 2003 (UTC)

title: Talk:Diary of an Ordinary Woman


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Michael DeBakey

Michael Ellis DeBakey (September 7, 1908 – July 11, 2008) was an American general and cardiovascular surgeon, scientist and medical educator who became Chairman of the Department of Surgery, President, and Chancellor of Baylor College of Medicine at the Texas Medical Center in Houston, Texas. His career spanned nearly eight decades.

Born to Lebanese immigrants, DeBakey was inspired to pursue a career in medicine by the physicians that he had met at his father's drug store, and he simultaneously learned sewing skills from his mother. He subsequently attended Tulane University for his premedical course and Tulane University School of Medicine to study medicine. At Tulane, he developed a version of the roller pump, which he initially used to transfuse blood directly from person to person and which later became a component of the heart–lung machine. Following early surgical training at Charity Hospital, DeBakey was encouraged to complete his surgical fellowships in Europe, before returning to Tulane University in 1937. During World War II, he worked in the Surgical Consultants Division of the Office of the Army Surgeon General, and later was involved in the establishment of the Veterans Administration.

DeBakey's surgical innovations included novel procedures to repair aortic aneurysms and dissections, the development of ventricular assist devices, and the introduction of prosthetic vascular substitutes. DeBakey received a number of awards, including the Albert Lasker Award, the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the National Medal of Science, and the Congressional Gold Medal. In addition, a number of institutions bear his name.

Early life and education
Michael DeBakey was born Michel Dabaghi (ميشيل دبغي) on September 7, 1908 in Lake Charles, Louisiana. His parents, Shiker and Raheeja Dabaghi (which was anglicized to DeBakey) were immigrants from Marjeyoun, Lebanon (then Ottoman Syria) although they did not meet until both were living in the United States. Shiker, who had been a traveling salesman, settled in Lake Charles in the early 1900s and began to establish retail businesses, particularly general and drug stores. Both of them spoke French. Young Michael helped out with manual chores and keeping the books. DeBakey was the eldest of five children. His brother Ernest also became a physician, specializing in general and thoracic surgery. His sisters Lois and Selma were also scholarly, and eventually joined their eldest brother at Baylor College of Medicine as faculty members in medical communications. Another sister, Selena, died in 1952.

As a child, DeBakey learned to play the saxophone and was taught by his mother to sew, crochet, knit and tat. He could sew his own shirt by the age of 10. He also became intrigued with the Encyclopædia Britannica and is said by colleagues to have read it from beginning to end. He learned French and German and participated in a Boy Scout troop. He won awards for vegetables he had grown in his garden.

Medical school
DeBakey attended Tulane University, where he enrolled in a six-year program that combined undergraduate and medical school. He was awarded a Bachelor of Science degree in 1930 and a M.D. in 1932.

During his final year in medical school at Tulane University, and prior to the establishment of blood banks, DeBakey adapted old pumps and rubber tubing and developed a version of the roller pump. He used the pump to transfuse blood directly and continuously from person to person, and this later became a component of the heart–lung machine.

Postgraduate surgical training
Between 1933 and 1935, DeBakey remained in New Orleans to complete his internship and residency in surgery at Charity Hospital, and in 1935, he received a MS for his research on stomach ulcers. As was the trend for ambitious training surgeons at the time, and as his mentors Rudolph Matas and Alton Ochsner had done before him, DeBakey was encouraged to complete his surgical fellowships at the University of Strasbourg, France, under Professor René Leriche, and at the University of Heidelberg, Germany, under Professor Martin Kirschner.

Returning to Tulane Medical School, DeBakey served on the surgical faculty from 1937 to 1948.

With his mentor, Alton Ochsner, in 1939 DeBakey postulated a strong link between smoking and carcinoma of the lung, a hypothesis that other researchers supported as well.

Second World War
During the Second World War, DeBakey served in the US Army in the Surgical Consultants' Division in the Office of the Surgeon General of the Army. In 1945, he was given the Legion of Merit award. Although sometimes credited in recent years for establishing the system of Mobile Army Surgical Hospitals, research has shown that DeBakey actually led the effort to prevent the establishment of these units.

Remaining in the U.S. Army for a year after the end of the war, he was instrumental in the ongoing care of wounded servicemen and helped establish the Veterans Administration and the Medical Follow-Up Agency. After the war, he returned to Tulane.

Postwar surgical career
DeBakey joined the faculty of Baylor University College of Medicine (now known as the Baylor College of Medicine) in 1948, serving as chairman of the surgical department until 1993. DeBakey was president of the college from 1969 to 1979, and served as its chancellor from 1979 to January 1996, when he was named chancellor emeritus. He was Olga Keith Wiess and Distinguished Service Professor in the Michael E. DeBakey Department of Surgery at Baylor College of Medicine and director of the DeBakey Heart Center for research and public education at Baylor College of Medicine and Houston Methodist Hospital.

DeBakey was a member of the medical advisory committee of the Hoover Commission and was chairman of the President's Commission on Heart Disease, Cancer and Stroke during the Johnson Administration. He worked in numerous capacities to improve national and international standards of health care. Among his numerous consultative appointments, he served 3 terms on the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Advisory Council of the National Institutes of Health.

DeBakey hired surgeon Denton Cooley at Baylor College of Medicine in 1951. They collaborated until Cooley's resignation from his faculty position at the college in 1969.

Death of the Shah of Iran
In 1980 DeBakey was a consultant in the care of Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, the exiled Shah of Iran, who was in the terminal stages of lymphoma. Due to hypersplenism, the Shah underwent splenectomy in Cairo on March 28, 1980, with DeBakey supervising a team of surgeons. At operation, the Shah was found to be harboring widely metastatic disease. Several complications developed in the postoperative period, including a subphrenic abscess and pneumonia. Although these were successfully treated, the Shah succumbed to his malignancy on July 27.

Vascular surgery
In the 1950s, DeBakey's observations and classification of atherosclerotic blood vessels permitted innovations in the treatments of vascular disease. His pursuit of the ideal material to make grafts led him to a department store that had run out of nylon, so he settled on polyethylene terephthalate (Dacron) and bought a yard of the material. Using his wife's sewing machine, DeBakey produced the first arterial Dacron grafts to replace or repair blood vessels. He subsequently collaborated with a research associate from the Philadelphia College of Textiles and Science to create a knitting machine for making grafts.

DeBakey performed the first successful carotid endarterectomy in 1953. A year later, he pioneered techniques in grafts for the various parts of the aorta.

DeBakey was among the earliest surgeons to perform coronary artery bypass surgery. A pioneer in the development of an artificial heart, he was among the first to use an external heart pump successfully in a patient – a left ventricular bypass pump.

In 1958, to counteract narrowing of an artery caused by an endarterectomy, DeBakey performed the first successful patch-graft angioplasty. This procedure involved patching the slit in the artery from an endarterectomy with a Dacron or vein graft. The patch widened the artery so that when it closed, the channel of the artery returned to normal size.

Film
In the 1960s, DeBakey and his team of surgeons performed some of the early instances of surgeries on film.

Views on animal research
DeBakey founded and chaired the Foundation for Biomedical Research (FBR), whose goal is to promote public understanding and support for animal research. DeBakey made wide use of animals in his research. He antagonized animal rights and animal welfare advocates who oppose the use of animals in the development of medical treatment for humans when he claimed that the "future of biomedical research; and ultimately human health" would be compromised if shelters stopped turning over surplus animals for medical research. Responding to the need for animal research, DeBakey stated that "These scientists, veterinarians, physicians, surgeons and others who do research in animal labs are as much concerned about the care of the animals as anyone can be. Their respect for the dignity of life and compassion for the sick and disabled, in fact, is what motivated them to search for ways of relieving the pain and suffering caused by diseases."

Later surgical career
DeBakey continued to practice medicine until his death in 2008 at the age of 99. His contributions to the field of medicine spanned the better part of 75 years. DeBakey operated on more than 60,000 patients, including several heads of state. DeBakey and a team of American cardiothoracic surgeons, including George Noon, supervised quintuple-bypass surgery performed by Russian surgeons on Russian president Boris Yeltsin in 1996. On 29 April 1999, DeBakey oversaw an aorta-coronary bypass surgery of Azerbaijani president Heydar Aliyev in Cleveland, Ohio during Aliyev's visit to the United States.

Health issues
In late 2005, DeBakey suffered an aortic dissection. Years prior, DeBakey had pioneered the surgical treatment that now bears his name to treat this condition. A sharp chest pain sent him to Houston Methodist Hospital, where the diagnosis was confirmed by a CT scan. DeBakey initially resisted the surgical option, but as his health deteriorated and DeBakey became unresponsive, the surgical team opted to proceed with surgical intervention. In a controversial decision, Houston Methodist's ethics committee approved the operation; on February 9–10, DeBakey at age 98 became the oldest patient ever to undergo the surgery for which he was responsible. The operation by George Noon to repair his aorta with a Dacron graft, similar to one he had pioneered decades earlier, lasted seven hours. After a complicated post-operative course that required eight months in the hospital at a cost of over one million dollars, DeBakey was released in September 2006 and returned to good health.

Selected honors and awards
DeBakey became a member of numerous learned societies, gained 36 honorary degrees and was the recipient of hundreds of awards.

He received the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1969. In 1987, President Ronald Reagan awarded him the National Medal of Science. He was a Health Care Hall of Famer, a Lasker Luminary and a recipient of the United Nations Lifetime Achievement Award and the Presidential Medal of Freedom with Distinction. He was given the Lifetime Achievement Award of the Foundation for Biomedical Research and in 2000 was cited as a "Living Legend" by the Library of Congress. On April 23, 2008, he received the Congressional Gold Medal from President George W. Bush, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid. DeBakey's major awards include:
 * US Army Legion of Merit (1945)
 * American Medical Association Hektoen Gold Medal (1954 and 1970)
 * Rudolph Matas Award in Vascular Surgery (1954)
 * International Society of Surgery Distinguished Service Award (1958)
 * René Leriche Prize from the International Surgical Society (1959)
 * American Medical Association Distinguished Service Award (1959)
 * Albert Lasker Award for Clinical Medical Research (1963)
 * American Academy of Achievement's Golden Plate Award (1967)
 * Prix International Dag Hammarskjold Great Collar with Golden Medal (1967)
 * American Heart Association Gold Heart Award (1968)
 * Medal of Freedom with Distinction (1969)
 * Eleanor Roosevelt Humanitarian Award (1969)
 * Yugoslavian Presidential Banner and Sash (1971)
 * Union of Soviet Socialist Republics Academy of Sciences 50th Anniversary Jubilee Medal (1973)
 * Independence of Jordan Medal (1980)
 * American Surgical Association Distinguished Service Award (1981)
 * National Medal of Science (1987)
 * Merit Order of the Republic of Egypt (1980)
 * International Society of Surgery Distinguished Service Award (1981)
 * National Medal of Science (1987)
 * Theodore E. Cummings Memorial Prize for Outstanding Contributions in Cardiovascular Disease (1987)
 * International Platform Association George Crile Award as the Trailblazer in Open Heart Surgery (1988)
 * Thomas Alva Edison Foundation Award (1988)

Others awards include:
 * Honorary Doctorate of Science from Universidad Francisco Marroquín (1989)
 * Special Award for Space Technology Utilization (1997)
 * MUSC Lindbergh-Carrel Prize (2002)
 * Lomonosov Large Gold Medal, Russian Academy of Sciences (2003)
 * The Denton A. Cooley Leadership Award (January 21, 2009)

Personal and family
DeBakey married Diana Cooper after returning from Europe in 1937, and they had four sons: Michael, Denis, Ernest and Barry. After Diana died in 1972, he married German actress Katrin Fehlhaber, with whom he had a daughter, Olga-Katarina.

DeBakey has been described as a "tough taskmaster" by colleagues and trainees. Former trainee Jeremy R. Morton described how “he could be sweet as dripping honey when it came to patients and medical students, but could be brutal with surgical residents."

Death and legacy
DeBakey died from natural causes at Houston Methodist Hospital on July 11, 2008, at the age of 99. After lying in repose in Houston's City Hall, the first ever to do so, DeBakey received a memorial service at the Co-Cathedral of the Sacred Heart on July 16, 2008. He was granted ground burial at Arlington National Cemetery by the Secretary of the Army. On January 21, 2009, DeBakey became the first posthumous recipient of the Denton A. Cooley Leadership Award.

Michael E. DeBakey International Surgical Society
In 1976, DeBakey's trainees students founded the Michael E. DeBakey International Cardiovascular Surgical Society, which later changed its name to the Michael E. DeBakey International Surgical Society. Every two years, the Michael E. DeBakey Surgical Award is given.

Lasker-DeBakey Clinical Medical Research Award
The Albert Lasker Award for Clinical Medical Research, given by the Lasker Foundation since 1946, was renamed the Lasker-DeBakey Clinical Medical Research Award in DeBakey's honor in 2008.

Michael E. DeBakey Library and Museum
In early 2008, DeBakey attended the groundbreaking for the new Michael E. DeBakey Library and Museum at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, which honors his life, work and dedication to care and teaching. The museum officially opened on Friday, May 14, 2010.

DeBakey Medical Foundation
In honor of DeBakey, the DeBakey Medical Foundation, in conjunction with Baylor College of Medicine, annually selects recipients of the Michael E. DeBakey, M.D., Excellence in Research Awards. The awards recognize faculty who have published outstanding scientific research contributions to clinical or basic biomedical research. The awards are funded by the DeBakey Medical Foundation and have funded researchers from the Center for Cell and Gene Therapy at Texas Children's Cancer Center.

The foundation helped to establish the Michael E. DeBakey, Selma DeBakey and Lois DeBakey Endowed Scholarship Fund in Medical Humanities at Baylor University. The scholarship designates award recipients as "DeBakey Scholars" in recognition of the legacy of the DeBakey family.

Other DeBakey institutes
The DeBakey High School for Health Professions, Houston Methodist DeBakey Heart & Vascular Center, and the Michael E. DeBakey Veterans Affairs Medical Center in Houston at the Texas Medical Center in Houston are named after DeBakey. He had a role in establishing the Michael E. DeBakey Heart Institute at the Hays Medical Center in Kansas. Several atraumatic vascular surgical clamps and forceps that DeBakey introduced also bear his name. The Michael E. DeBakey Institute at Texas A&M College of Veterinary Medicine & Biomedical Sciences, founded as a collaboration between Texas A&M, the Baylor College of Medicine and the UT Health Science Center at Houston for cardiovascular research, was named after DeBakey.

Selected publications
DeBakey's writings are reflected in his authorship or co-authorship in more than 1,300 published medical articles, chapters, and books on various aspects of surgery, medicine, health, medical research, and medical education, as well as ethical, socio-economic and philosophic discussion in those fields. In addition to his scholarly writings, DeBakey co-authored popular works including The Living Heart, The Living Heart Shopper's Guide and The Living Heart Guide to Eating Out. His publications include:

 * " A Simple Continuous Flow Blood Transfusion Instrument", New Orleans Medical and Surgical Journal (1934)
 * The living heart. Co-authored with Antonio M Gotto and Mediziner Italien, Charter Books (1977), ISBN 9780441485505
 * The Living heart diet, New York: Raven Press (1984), ISBN 9780890046722
 * New living heart. Co-authored with Antonio M Gotto, Holbrook (1997), ISBN 9781558507227
 * The Living Heart in the 21st Century. Co-authored with Antonio Gotto and George P. Noon, Prometheus (2012), ISBN 9781616145644

DeBakey worked on his first book with Gilbert Wheeler Beebe after World War II:.

 * Battle Casualties Incidence, Mortality, and Logistic Considerations, co-authored with G. W. Beebe, Springfield, Ill. : Charles C. Thomas (1952)

title: Michael DeBakey


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User:Argonaut

I enjoy the Wikipedia.

title: User:Argonaut