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Talk:Encephalitis lethargica

Merge from Encephalitis lethargica epidemic of 1918-1930
Section Encephalitis_lethargica describes exactly same event, but as I see there is a confusion as to the name (epidemic/pandemic) and the time range. There are some other lesser discrepancies as well. Loew Galitz (talk) 17:21, 19 July 2022 (UTC)

 * Oppose The main article about the disease can focus on the medical aspects. The article about the outbreak in the early 20th century will provide more space to cover the historical context and consequences.  For example, in Encephalitis Lethargica During and After the Epidemic, we see plausible suggestions that both Woodrow Wilson and Adolf Hitler were affected so that there was a significant effect on the world wars. Andrew🐉(talk) 21:11, 5 August 2022 (UTC)
 * Favor Having separate articles about a disease and the various episodic occurrences of the disease makes sense where the disease is something like influenza, with a number of epidemic episodes spread over many decades, but it makes no sense for a disease like encephalitis lethargica where there was essentially only one sustained outbreak. I'm very much in favor of merging the articles. John (talk) 23:22, 8 Sep 2022 (UTC)
 * Oppose. I think the epidemic, as per Andrew Davidson, is an independently notable event that deserves its own article, as (in my opinion) do most very large epidemics which are usually historically, socially and culturally significant in their own right. I don't think a merge is justified just because of content discrepancies. Tom (LT) (talk) 04:15, 25 September 2022 (UTC)
 * Support. The article on the epidemic is small enough, despite the rather large amount of potential sources, that it could be considered a stub. Merging the articles would solve this problem. Additionally, there's really not much of a reason to keep them apart; the term "encephalitis lethargica" is mostly used to refer to this exact outbreak, and nothing else. If there was another outbreak of encephalitis lethargica, or if it was a disease that appeared with some regularity outside this single outbreak, there'd be a pretty good argument for keeping them seperate. However, this disease has almost never appeared again, and of the few cases that did happen after the 1918 epidemic, it's unclear if they even had the same cause as the epidemic or involve the same condition as the epidemic. Apcynan (talk) 16:16, 27 September 2022 (UTC)
 * Support. Reading this article, almost everything known goes back to that unusual epidemic/pandemic. I agree with Tom (LT) that the epidemic is independently notable but that doesn't mandate a separate article. Curious readers would be better served by a cohesive, comprehensive article than by separate articles (which so easily become inconsistent). Historical impacts of the epidemic (per the source Andrew mentions) can certainly be addressed in this article. I don't think there's any harm in having separate articles, I just think that combining them makes a better experience for readers. Schazjmd   (talk)  20:59, 22 November 2022 (UTC)

 * ✅ Klbrain (talk) 10:45, 5 March 2023 (UTC)

Caused by recreational drugs?
Since this disease no longer happens that means that it was probably caused by a chemeical that was in consumable products like drugs or food. 50.45.60.167 (talk) 16:14, 9 April 2023 (UTC)

title: Talk:Encephalitis lethargica


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Lasers (album)

Lasers is the third studio album by American rapper Lupe Fiasco, released on March 7, 2011 by Atlantic Records. Production for the album took place between 2008 and 2010. Lasers features production by The Audibles, The Neptunes, Needlz, Alex da Kid, Syience, and long-time collaborator Soundtrakk, among others. Trey Songz, John Legend, Skylar Grey, Sway, Matt Mahaffey, MDMA, Eric Turner and Sarah Green contribute vocals to the album.

Lasers was preceded by the lead single "The Show Goes On" and its follow-up "Words I Never Said" featuring Skylar Grey. The former became Fiasco's highest charting song on the Billboard Hot 100 and has been certified double Platinum in the US. The latter, however, only achieved moderate success on the Hot 100.

The album has received mixed reviews from most major music critics, having a score of 57 out of 100 at the review aggregator Metacritic. It fared well commercially however, debuting at number one on the US Billboard 200 with first-week sales of over 200,000 copies sold, making the album Fiasco's second top ten album as well as his highest entry on the chart.

Background
Lupe Fiasco was supposedly going to release a triple album, titled LupE.N.D. as his third and final record, but his contract with Atlantic Records prevented him from doing so. From then he postponed LupE.N.D. indefinitely and intended on releasing an album tentatively titled The Great American Rap Album in June 2009. Instead, the album was also postponed and he announced that a new album was in the works, originally titled We Are Lasers and then changed to Lasers. "Lasers" is a backronym for "Love Always Shines Everytime, Remember 2 Smile". Referring to the title of the album, Fiasco has stated: "I've always had that word in my head, I'm a word guy. And I thought 'lasers' would be a dope name for an album, so when I came up with it I just put it in my 'think-tank' and let it evolve and came up with different meanings for it. That’s why I made it an acronym [sic] to give it a new mould, a new understanding, but still playing off the idea that it's bringing light to different circumstances which is what I try and do – bringing understanding and light and awareness to different projects that are going on in the world, and 'L.A.S.E.R.S' is no different. In 2010, to promote the message of the album, Fiasco released a viral video onto the internet titled "The L.A.S.E.R.S. Manifesto", which can be found on both YouTube and the official website. The manifesto reads: To every man, woman & child... We want an end to the glamorization of negativity in the media. We want an end to status symbols dictating our worth as individuals. We want a meaningful and universal education system. We want substance in the place of popularity. We will not compromise who we are to be accepted by the crowd. We want the invisible walls that separate by wealth, race & class to be torn down. We want to think our own thoughts. We will be responsible for our environment. We want clarity & truth from our elected officials or they should move aside. We want love not lies. We want an end to all wars foreign & domestic violence. We want an end to the processed culture of exploitation, over-consumption & waste. We want knowledge, understanding & peace. We will not lose because we are not losers, we are lasers! Lasers are revolutionary. Lasers are the future.

On January 4, 2011, Billboard revealed two guest appearances on Fiasco's album Lasers. The guests confirmed were Trey Songz and British rapper Sway. In the interview with Billboard, Fiasco expressed his thoughts on music piracy and fighting track leaks on various blogs. Speaking about the problems with his record label, Fiasco has stated: "I think I set the precedent for record labels — showed everyone that you can have rappers that don't fit the format and still have a presence [...] You look at a person like me, or Kanye [West], and it was sort of a shock to the system. I definitely think I was part of changing that, and an influence to a lot dudes that are coming out today."

In a 2011 interview with MTV UK, Fiasco said that the album "doesn't have a storyline, whereas The Cool was a concept album and this is more just a collection of songs that share some of the same tones, which is basically just positivity and consciousness. Some of the records are controversial, but it's less cohesive than The Cool." Talking about the album with Details, Fiasco has stated that he wanted to make "a popular record [...] but by my definition of popular [...] an uprising of the people". He has also stated that the creation of the album was "a very painful, dark, fucked-up process."

In a February 2011 interview with Complex, Fiasco has stated: One thing I try to stress about this project is, I love and hate this album. I listen to it and I’ll like some of the songs. But when I think about what it took to actually get the record together and everything that I went through on this record – which is something I can't separate – I hate this album. A lot of the songs that are on the album, I’m kinda neutral to. Not that I don't like them, or that I hate them, it's just I know the process that went behind it. I know the sneaky business deal that went down behind this song, or the artist or singer or songwriter who wrote this hook and didn't want to give me this song in the first place. So when I have that kind of knowledge behind it, I’m just kind of neutral to it like, ‘Another day, another dollar’. As opposed something like The Cool, which is more of my own blood, sweat, and tears, and my own control. With this record, I’m little bit more neutral as to the love for the record.

I don't like the process behind Lasers. The music is dope but I just don't like the process. We were literally at the point where all this music was done except for a couple songs that we did after the protest. So the bulk of the album was done. And we were talking about shelving the album and going to another label, that's where we were like, ‘If you put the record out, put it out. Either move on to another album or can it and we’ll do other records at another label’. The business of it got solved. I’m happy for the fans, this is their album. This is the album that they fought for and that's what made me do songs like ‘Words I Never Said’ and ‘All Black Everything’.

Speaking about the album with the Chicago Sun-Times, Fiasco has stated: "Lasers is a great album. I'm actually happy with the record. I feel I got to say what I wanted even with – It doesn't make up for what it took to get through it. It's still being argued and debated upon. ... The climate of this record was very weird, in some instances surreal. I became very abstract. I had to create this commercial art that appeases the corporate side. I had to acquiesce to certain forces. Hopefully within that I snuck in some things I actually wanted to say any way I can." In an interview with The Guardian, Fiasco has expressed that during the recording process of the album he has dealt with depression and suicidal thoughts: "It was mentally destructive. I say it with a certain laissez-faire now because I'm past it [...]. I was super-depressed, lightly suicidal, at moments medium suicidal – and if not suicidal, willing to just walk away from it all completely." A remix of the song "All Black Everything" featuring Chamillionaire was released in April 2011 for free download.

Release conflict and petition
Lupe Fiasco had announced on Twitter that the album was complete and was waiting for Atlantic Records to release it. A fan awaiting the release of the album, put together an online petition with the help of Rhymestyle from the "LupEND Blog" fan site, demanding that Atlantic Records release Lasers, due to the fact that the album was announced for a 2010 release and at the time still did not have a release date. The petition garnered considerable attention on hip hop blog sites and attained over 5,000 signatures on its first day. In response to the petition, Lupe Fiasco released a song titled "B.M.F. (Building Minds Faster)" (a remix of "B.M.F. (Blowin' Money Fast)" by Rick Ross) as a gift for his fans. The story was featured on many websites, including CNN and MTV. On October 7, 2010, Lupe Fiasco posted a picture of himself with Atlantic president, Julie Greenwald. On October 8, Atlantic Records revealed that the release date for Lasers would be March 8, 2011. Even though the release date of the album had been confirmed prior, a number of fans protested outside Atlantic Records' offices in New York City on October 15, 2010. Protest co-organizer Matthew La Corte has told The Village Voice that it should be considered as a "celebration of the release and everyone's hard work". Lupe Fiasco also attended, and gave a speech.

Speaking in a March 2011 interview with New York about the support that his fans have given him to release the album, Fiasco has said: "It was amazing, humbling, and inspiring, to the point where I went back in the studio and did more records … it made everything real, that your music is actually something that people want. And it's something that is successful, not in selling records, but the way it moves people and inspires them to do better for themselves."

Singles and leaked material
During a concert at Boston College, Fiasco played the chorus of a song called "Shining Down", which eventually led to a snippet being leaked onto the internet. On May 17, 2009, a low quality version of the single leaked onto the internet, possibly stemming from a rip from the "FNF TV Stream". "Shining Down" was intended to be the first single from Everywhere, the first of the three CDs that LupE.N.D. would have been composed of. But because its release was withheld, there was speculation circulating that it may be the first single from Lasers. Fiasco later confirmed that it is in fact the first single from the album. The song was produced by Soundtrakk and featured Matthew Santos, in the same collaborative manner that Fiasco featured Santos on his hit lead single, "Superstar" from his second album, Lupe Fiasco's The Cool. It was released on July 7, 2009. The song had received mixed reviews, with Pitchfork Media giving it a 5/10 rating, calling it a "bland refix of The Cool's first single". "Shining Down" did not do as well as Fiasco had hoped for, charting only at number 93 on the Billboard Hot 100 during its initial run.

In a February 2010 interview with Australian radio station Triple J, Fiasco revealed that although the album had been submitted to his label, they still had no solid release date for it. He stated: "It's one of the sadder parts of being on a major record label. At a certain point it's out of your hands. About a date for Lasers, it's truly on them. I have no idea what they're going to do." It has also been reported that Fiasco had initially recorded B.o.B's "Nothin' on You" as well as "Airplanes" featuring Hayley Williams, but both songs had been rejected by Fiasco's label. Another unreleased song from Lasers was "Who Are You Now" featuring B.o.B, which has leaked onto the internet in March 2011.

Singles
On October 26, 2010, the official lead single from Lasers, "The Show Goes On", premiered on Fiasco's official website after the initial debut single "I'm Beaming" was removed from the iTunes store and demoted to a deluxe edition bonus track. It was produced by Kane Beatz and interpolates Modest Mouse's "Float On" as part of the chorus. The music video for the single was directed by Hiro Murai and premiered on Fiasco's official website on Christmas day, December 25, 2010. As of June 2011, the song has been certified double Platinum in the United States by the RIAA for selling over two million copies, thus making it his second single to go Platinum and first to go double Platinum. "The Show Goes On" has peaked at number nine on the Billboard Hot 100, becoming his highest-charting song on the Hot 100. On other Billboard charts, "The Show Goes On" has peaked at number 45 on the Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs chart, 14 on the Pop Songs chart and five on the Hot Rap Songs chart. In Australia, it peaked at number five on the Australian Singles Chart and has since been certified Gold for selling over 35,000 units. In Europe, the single has charted on the Irish Singles Chart where it peaked at number 19, as well as on the UK Singles Chart peaking at number 49.

On January 11, 2011, Fiasco revealed during an interview with Providence's Hot 106 that the follow-up single to "The Show Goes On" is titled "Words I Never Said", he said about the song that "It's gonna be really big. It's a big, controversial record". The song was produced by Alex da Kid and features American singer-songwriter Skylar Grey. "Words I Never Said" was released as a digital download on February 8, 2011. It has since peaked at number 89 on the US Billboard Hot 100. A teaser trailer for the Sanaa Hamri-directed music video was released in January 2011, while the full clip premiered on April 28, 2011.

"Out of My Head" featuring American R&B singer Trey Songz was confirmed as the album's third single. The song was released on May 10, 2011 and has since peaked at number 40 on the US Billboard Hot 100, 11 on the Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs chart and four on the Hot Rap Songs chart. The official single cover was revealed on May 23, 2011. Fiasco and Songz performed "Out of My Head" live for the first time at the 2011 MTV Movie Awards on June 5, 2011. The music video for the single, directed by Gil Green, was released on June 29, 2011.

"I Don't Wanna Care Right Now", featuring MDMA, was confirmed to be the album's fourth single. The single's official music video was released on December 2, 2011 on YouTube. The video was filmed during a concert at Iowa State University.

Critical reception
Lasers received mixed reviews from most music critics. At Metacritic, which assigns a normalized rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream critics, the album received an average score of 57, based on 27 reviews, which indicates "mixed or average reviews". AllMusic editor Andy Kellman gave it three out of five stars and criticized its "lumbering, overwrought choruses", writing that "If there is one MC whose rhymes should not be dulled for the sake of chasing pop trends, it's Lupe Fiasco". Jeff Leven of Paste gave Lasers a six out of 10 rating and found its musical arrangements polished and "radio-friendly". The Guardian's Alex Macpherson viewed its content as a concession to pop music trends, panning its "synthy choruses" and "trite empowerment anthems". Andy Gill of The Independent gave the album two out of five stars and criticized Fiasco's lyrics, stating "while his flow has a nice bounce and monotonal glide, too many tracks end with one wondering what exactly he's said, if anything at all". David Amidon of PopMatters panned the album as "a disgustingly awkward effort from everyone involved [...] Listenability? Credibility? These, Lasers is lacking in seismic qualities". Brandon Soderberg of Spin found it to be affected by crossover tendencies and wrote that "Lasers works best, however, when the grabby hooks, electro beats, and conscious rap rants are all turned down a notch". Los Angeles Times writer Todd Martens shared a similar sentiment and commented that the album "feels more like a compromise than a cohesive album". Pitchfork's Ian Cohen criticized the album for "surveying the current pop-rap landscape and retaining nothing worthwhile", commenting that "Lasers simply sounds bad, playing against every single one of Lupe Fiasco's strengths and creating new weaknesses".

However, Entertainment Weekly's Brad Wete complimented its themes and stated "Simply put, Lasers beams". Rolling Stone writer Jon Dolan noted Fiasco's "athletic, whiplash flow and rich imagination" and found the album "shorter, brighter and – most admirably – more optimistic" than his previous album The Cool. Despite writing that "RnB syrup starts to swamp the lyrical invention", BBC Music's Johnny Sharp noted "several inspired moments" and commented that "Lupe remains a singular hip hop voice, and Lasers is still worth a listen". Carrie Battan of The Boston Globe viewed that "the album's real sweet spots lie somewhere in the brief, breezy middle ground" between "angsty rap-metal crossover tracks" and "clubby, bass-thumping radio-rap jams". The A.V. Club's Kyle Ryan gave the album a B− and commented that its synthesizers "[give] it an au courant hip-hop sound", but criticized its lyrics and called it "schizophrenic". Steve Jones of USA Today gave the album three out of four stars and wrote that it "has several shining moments but falls short of the overall excellence" of his previous albums. Chicago Tribune writer Greg Kot gave the album two-and-half out of four stars and stated "Its best music shows what it might have been. The rest feels more like an obligation reluctantly met, a difficult bridge to the next phase of Lupe Fiasco's career". Jon Caramanica of The New York Times expressed a mixed response towards its music and called Lasers "a chaotic album full of gummy rhymes that look better on the page than they sound to the ear, delivered with a tone of tragic bombast". Slant Magazine's Matthew Cole perceived "no bridging the gap between Lasers's radical message and its utterly conventional sound", commenting that "In moments of dazzling clarity, Lupe spits hip-hop prophecy, but too much of Lasers is given over to self-serious jeremiads on race, rap, and politics, or pop-rap pandering".

Commercial performance
The album debuted at number one on the US Billboard 200 chart, with first-week sales of 204,000 copies. Lasers marks Fiasco's first number one album on the chart as well as his best selling first-week sales. The album is Fiasco's second top ten album on the chart with his first album, Food & Liquor, debuting at number eight in 2006, and The Cool debuting at number 15 in 2007. In its second week on the chart, it fell to number three selling 47,000 units, while in its third week, it fell to number ten selling an additional 29,000 copies. As of August 10, 2011, Lasers has sold approximately 452,000 copies in the United States. Internationally, Lasers has debuted within the top ten on the Australian and Canadian album charts, while also peaking at number 11 in New Zealand and number 25 in the United Kingdom. On March 23, 2014, the album was certified Gold by the Recording Industry Association of America for shipments of 500,000 copies.

Personnel
Credits for Lasers adapted from Tidal, AllMusic, and Genius.com.

 * Musicians

 * Wasalu "Lupe Fiasco" Jaco – vocals (all tracks)
 * Sarah Green – featured artist (track 1)
 * Holly "Skylar Grey" Hafermann – featured artist (track 2)
 * Bradley Bowden – drum programmer (track 3)
 * Ricky Rutland – keyboards (track 3)
 * Jason "MDMA" Boyd – featured artist (tracks 4, 7-8)
 * Jerry "Wonda" Duplessis – bass guitar (track 5)
 * Tremaine "Trey Songz" Neverson – featured artist (track 5)
 * Daniel "Kane Beatz" Johnson – additional vocals (track 6)
 * JR Get Money – additional vocals (track 6)
 * Dan Manzoor – bass (tracks 7-8); guitar (track 7)
 * David "King David" Manzoor – drums & keyboards (tracks 7-9)
 * Trevor Astey – guitar (track 8)
 * Matt "sELF" Mahaffey – featured artist (track 9)
 * Michael Herring – bass & guitar (track 9)
 * Prescott Ellison – drums (track 9)
 * Eric Turner – featured artist (track 10)
 * Derek "Sway" Safo – featured artist (track 10)
 * John "John Legend" Stephens – featured artist (track 12)
 * Matthew Santos – featured artist (track 14)

 * Production

 * Lupe Fiasco – songwriting (all tracks)
 * Brian "Big Bass" Gardner – mastering (all tracks)
 * Joe Peluso – additional engineering (tracks 1-4, 10, 12); recording (tracks 1, 3, 9); mixing (tracks 1, 3-4, 7-8)
 * King David – songwriting, production (tracks 1, 7-9)
 * Josh Berg – mixing assistance (tracks 1, 7)
 * Tucker Robinson – (tracks 1, 3)
 * Skylar Grey – songwriting, vocal engineering, vocal production (track 2)
 * Alexander "Alex da Kid" Grant – songwriting, production (track 2)
 * Manny Marroquinn – mixing (track 2)
 * Erik Madrid – mixing assistance (track 2)
 * Blast Off Productions – recording (track 2)
 * Khari "Needlz" Cain – songwriting, production (track 3)
 * Ricky Rutland – songwriting (track 3)
 * Khalil "Saint Cassius" Walton – songwriting (track 3)
 * MDMA – songwriting (tracks 4, 7-8); production (track 7)
 * Jimmy "Jimmy G" Giannos – songwriting (track 4)
 * Dominic "DJ Mecca" Jordan – songwriting (track 4)
 * The Audibles – production (track 4)
 * Greg "G-Ball" Magers – recording (tracks 4, 10-11)
 * Angelo Caputo – additional recording (track 4)
 * Jerry "Wonda" Duplessis – songwriting (track 5); production (tracks 4, 12)
 * Arden "Keyz" Altino – songwriting (tracks 5, 12); co-production (track 5); production (track 12)
 * Ronnie Jackson – songwriting (track 5)
 * Jesse Wilson – songwriting (track 5)
 * Michael "Miykal" Snoddy – songwriting, production (track 5)
 * Serge Tsai – recording (tracks 5, 12); mixing (track 12)
 * Koby Hass – recording (track 5)
 * Nathaniel "You Can Ask Giz" Robinson – mixing (track 5)
 * Kane Beatz – songwriting, production (track 6)
 * Isaac Brock – songwriting (track 6)
 * Dustin Brower – songwriting (track 6)
 * Jonathon Brown – songwriting (track 6)
 * Dann Gallucci – songwriting (track 6)
 * Eric Judy – songwriting (track 6)
 * Dave Pensado – mixing (track 6)
 * Jaycen-Joshua Fowler – mixing (track 6)
 * Trevor Astey – additional engineering (track 7); recording (track 9)
 * Claudio Cuenti – recording (track 7)
 * Ghazi Hourani – engineering assistance (track 9)
 * Matt Mahaffey – vocal engineering, vocal production (track 9)
 * Eshraque "iSHi" Mughal – songwriting, production (track 10)
 * Eric Turner – songwriting (track 10)
 * Sway – songwriting (track 10)
 * The Buchanans – production (track 11)
 * Wizzo Buchanan – songwriting, production (track 11)
 * Cory Buchanan – co-production (track 11)
 * Sammy Fain – songwriting (track 11)
 * Irving Kahal – songwriting (track 11)
 * John Legend – songwriting (track 12)
 * Reginald "Syience" Perry – production (track 12)
 * Gabe Robles – mixing assistance (track 12)
 * Warren Babson – mixing assistance (track 12); recording (track 12)
 * Pharrell Williams – songwriting (track 13)
 * Chad Hugo – songwriting (track 13)
 * The Neptunes – production (track 13)
 * Ramon Rivas – engineering assistance (track 13)
 * Andrew Coleman – digital editing, recording (track 13)
 * Fabian Marasciullo – mixing (track 13)
 * Rudolph "Soundtrakk" Lopez – songwriting, production (track 14)

 * Visuals and design
 * Rob Gold – art manager
 * OAK – art direction, design
 * Janice Kinjo – grooming
 * Andrew Zaeh – photography
 * Brian Ranney – package production

 * Managerial
 * Lupe Fiasco – executive production
 * Charles "Chilly" Patton – executive production, management
 * Darrale Jones – co-executive production
 * Deborah Mannis-Gardner – sample clearance
 * Marsha St. Hubert – marketer
 * Cara Donatto – publicity

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

title: Lasers (album)


text: User:Pizzadeliverator

title: User:Pizzadeliverator


text:
Matthew Ridgway

General Matthew Bunker Ridgway (March 3, 1895 – July 26, 1993) was a senior officer in the United States Army, who served as Supreme Allied Commander Europe (1952–1953) and the 19th Chief of Staff of the United States Army (1953–1955). Although he saw no combat service in World War I, he was intensively involved in World War II, where he was the first Commanding General (CG) of the 82nd "All American" Airborne Division, leading it in action in Sicily, Italy and Normandy, before taking command of the newly formed XVIII Airborne Corps in August 1944. He held the latter post until the end of the war in mid-1945, commanding the corps in the Battle of the Bulge, Operation Varsity and the Western Allied invasion of Germany.

Ridgway held several major commands after World War II and was most famous for resurrecting the United Nations (UN) war effort during the Korean War. Several historians have credited Ridgway for turning the war around in favor of the UN side. He also persuaded President Dwight D. Eisenhower to refrain from direct military intervention in the First Indochina War to support French colonial forces, thereby essentially delaying the United States' Vietnam War by over a decade. He received the Presidential Medal of Freedom on May 12, 1986. Ridgway died in 1993 at the age of 98.

Early life and education
Ridgway was born March 3, 1895, in Fort Monroe, Virginia, to Colonel Thomas Ridgway, an artillery officer, and Ruth Starbuck (Bunker) Ridgway. He lived in various military bases all throughout his childhood. He later remarked that his "earliest memories are of guns and marching men, of rising to the sound of the reveille gun and lying down to sleep at night while the sweet, sad notes of 'Taps' brought the day officially to an end." He graduated in 1912 from English High School in Boston and applied to United States Military Academy at West Point because he thought that would please his father (who was a West Point graduate).

Ridgway failed the entrance exam the first time due to his inexperience with mathematics, but after intensive self-study he succeeded the second time. At West Point he served as a manager of the football team. He graduated from there on April 20, 1917, two weeks after the American entry into World War I, and received his commission as a second lieutenant in the Infantry Branch of the United States Army. Among his fellow graduates were many other men who, like Ridgway himself, would eventually become generals, such as J. Lawton Collins, Aaron Bradshaw Jr., Daniel Noce, Charles S. Kilburn, Mark W. Clark, Ernest N. Harmon, Norman Cota, Charles H. Gerhardt, George H. Weems, William Kelly Harrison Jr., John T. Cole, William W. Eagles, Albert C. Smith, Bryant Moore, Elbert L. Ford, Robert W. Hasbrouck, John M. Devine, Raymond E. S. Williamson, Norman Schwarzkopf Sr., Theodore Leslie Futch and Laurence B. Keiser.

Early military career
Beginning his career during World War I, Ridgway was assigned to duty on the border with Mexico as a member of the 3rd Infantry Regiment, and then to the West Point faculty as an instructor in Spanish. He was disappointed that he was not assigned to combat duty during the war, feeling that "the soldier who had had no share in this last great victory of good over evil would be ruined."

During 1924 and 1925 Ridgway attended the company officers' course at the United States Army Infantry School in Fort Benning, Georgia, after which he was a company commander in the 15th Infantry Regiment in Tientsin, China. This was followed by a posting to Nicaragua, where he helped supervise free elections in 1927.

In 1930, Ridgway became an advisor to the Governor-General of the Philippines. He graduated from the Army Command and General Staff School at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, in 1935 and from the Army War College at Carlisle Barracks, Pennsylvania, in 1937. During the 1930s he served as Assistant Chief of Staff of VI Corps, Deputy Chief of Staff of the Second Army, and Assistant Chief of Staff of the Fourth Army. General George C. Marshall, the Chief of Staff of the United States Army, assigned Ridgway to the War Plans Division shortly after the outbreak of World War II in Europe in September 1939.

World War II
After being promoted to lieutenant colonel on July 1, 1940, he served in the War Plans Division until January 1942, and was promoted to the one-star general officer rank of brigadier general that month, after being promoted to temporary colonel on December 11 the month before. Following the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in December 1941 and the American entry into World War II, Ridgway was promoted rapidly from lieutenant colonel to major general in the space of only four months. In February 1942 he was assigned as Assistant Division Commander of the 82nd Infantry Division, which was then in the process of formation. The division was under the command of Major General Omar Bradley, a fellow infantryman whom Ridgway highly respected. The two men trained the thousands of men joining the division over the next few months. In August, two months after Bradley's reassignment to command of the 28th Infantry Division, Ridgway was promoted to the two-star rank of major general and was given command of the 82nd Division. The 82nd, having finished all of its basic training and already established an excellent combat record in World War I, had earlier been chosen to become one of the army's five new airborne divisions. The conversion of an entire infantry division to airborne status was an unprecedented step for the United States Army, and required much training, testing, and experimentation. Thus the division was, on August 15, 1942, redesignated as the 82nd Airborne Division.

Initially composed of the 325th, 326th and 327th Infantry Regiments, all of which were due to be converted into glider infantry, the 327th was soon transferred out of the 82nd to help form the 101st Airborne Division, commanded by Major General William C. Lee. Unlike his men, Ridgway did not first go through airborne jump school before joining the division. He successfully converted the 82nd into a combat-ready airborne division and remained in command and eventually earned his paratrooper wings. To replace the 327th, Ridgway received the 504th Parachute Infantry Regiment, commanded by Colonel Theodore Dunn, later replaced by Lieutenant Colonel Reuben Tucker. In February 1943 the 326th was also transferred out and replaced by the 505th Parachute Infantry Regiment, under Colonel James M. Gavin. In April the 82nd, which in Ridgway's mind had received only a third the training time given to most divisions, was sent to North Africa to prepare for the invasion of Sicily.

Italian campaign
Ridgway helped plan the airborne element of the invasion of Sicily. The invasion, which took place in July 1943, was spearheaded by Colonel Gavin's 505th Parachute Infantry Regiment (reinforced into the 505th Parachute Regimental Combat Team by the 3rd Battalion of Tucker's 504th). Despite some successes, Sicily nearly saw an end to the airborne division. Due mainly to circumstances beyond Ridgway's control the 82nd suffered heavy casualties in Sicily, including the division's Assistant Division Commander, Brigadier General Charles L. Keerans. During the 504th's drop on the morning of July 9, which was widely scattered due to friendly fire, Ridgway had to report to Lieutenant General George S. Patton, commander of the Seventh United States Army (under whose command the 82nd fell), that, out of the more than 5,300 paratroopers of the 82nd Airborne Division who had jumped into Sicily, he had fewer than 400 under his control.

During the planning for the invasion of the Italian mainland, the 82nd was tasked with taking Rome by coup de main in Operation Giant II. Ridgway strongly objected to this unrealistic plan, which would have dropped the 82nd on the outskirts of the Italian capital of Rome in the midst of two German heavy divisions. The operation was canceled only hours before launch. The 82nd did, however, play a significant role in the Allied invasion of Italy at Salerno in September which, but for a drop by Ridgway's two parachute regiments, may well have seen the Allies pushed back into the sea. The 82nd Airborne Division subsequently saw brief service in the early stages of the Italian Campaign, helping the Allies to break through the Volturno Line in October. The division then returned to occupation duties in the recently liberated Italian city of Naples and saw little further action thereafter and in November departed Italy for Northern Ireland. Lieutenant General Mark W. Clark, commander of the Fifth United States Army, a fellow graduate of the West Point class of 1917, referring to Ridgway as an "outstanding battle soldier, brilliant, fearless and loyal", who had "trained and produced one of the finest Fifth Army outfits", was unwilling to give up either Ridgway or the 82nd. As a compromise, Colonel Tucker's 504th Parachute Infantry Regiment, along with supporting units, was retained in Italy, to be sent to rejoin the rest of the 82nd Airborne Division as soon as possible.

France and Germany

In late 1943, after the 82nd Airborne Division was sent to Northern Ireland, and in the early months of 1944, Ridgway helped plan the airborne operations of Operation Overlord, codename for the Allied invasion of Normandy, where he argued, successfully, for the two American airborne divisions taking part in the invasion, the 82nd and the inexperienced 101st, still commanded by Major General Lee (later replaced by Brigadier General Maxwell D. Taylor, formerly commander of the 82nd Airborne Division Artillery), to be increased in strength from two parachute regiments and a single glider regiment (although with only two battalions) to three parachute regiments, and for the glider regiment to have a strength of three battalions. In the Battle of Normandy, he jumped with his troops, who fought for 33 days in advancing to Saint-Sauveur-le-Vicomte near Cherbourg (St Sauveur was liberated on June 14, 1944). Relieved from front-line duty in early July, the 82nd Airborne Division had, during the severe fighting in the Normandy bocage, suffered 46 percent casualties.

In August 1944, Ridgway was given the command of XVIII Airborne Corps. Command of the 82nd Airborne Division passed to Brigadier General James M. Gavin, who had served as Ridgway's Assistant Division Commander. The first operation involving Ridgway was Operation Market Garden where his 101st Airborne Division dropped near Eindhoven to secure the Bridges between Eindhoven and Veghel on the road to Arnhem. Ridgway dropped with his troops and was in the forefront of the Divisions part of the fighting. The XVIII Airborne Corps helped stop and push back German troops during the Battle of the Bulge in December. In March 1945, with the British 6th Airborne Division and United States 17th Airborne Division under command, he led the corps into Germany during Operation Varsity, the airborne component of Operation Plunder, and was wounded in the shoulder by German grenade fragments on March 24, 1945. He led the corps in the Western Allied invasion of Germany. On June 4, 1945, he was promoted to the temporary rank of lieutenant general.

At war's end, Ridgway was on a plane headed for a new assignment in the Pacific theater of war, under General of the Army Douglas MacArthur, with whom he had served while a captain at the United States Military Academy at West Point.

Ridgway spoke highly of British Field Marshal Sir Bernard Montgomery, stating that his time serving under Montgomery was "most satisfying" and that "He gave me the general outline of what he wanted and let me completely free." Ridgway noted that while Montgomery was a "free spirit who was sometimes a bit hard to restrain," he also referred to Montgomery as "a first-class professional officer of great ability ... and Monty could produce ... I don't know anybody who could give me more complete support than Monty did when I was under British command twice ... I had no trouble with Monty at all."

Interbellum
Ridgway was a commander at Luzon until October 1945 when the XVIII Airborne Corps was disbanded. He was then given command of the United States forces in the Mediterranean Theater, with the title Deputy Supreme Allied Commander, Mediterranean. From 1946 to 1948, he served as the United States Army representative on the military staff committee of the United Nations. He was placed in charge of the Caribbean Command in 1948, controlling United States forces in the Caribbean, and in 1949 was assigned to the position of Deputy Chief of Staff for Administration under then Chief of Staff of the United States Army, General J. Lawton Collins.

In December 1947, Ridgway married Mary Princess "Penny" Anthony Long, his third wife. They remained married until his death 46 years later. In April 1949, their only child, Matthew Bunker Ridgway, Jr., was born. Ridgway's son was killed in an accident in 1971. His wife died in 1997.

Eighth Army Command
Ridgway's most important command assignment occurred in 1950 after the death of Lieutenant General Walton Walker on December 23. Ridgway was assigned as Walker's replacement in command of the Eighth United States Army, which had been deployed in South Korea in response to the invasion by North Korea in June of that year.

When Ridgway took command of Eighth Army, the Army was still in a tactical retreat, after its strong foray into North Korea had been met with an unexpected and overwhelming Communist Chinese advance in the Battle of the Ch'ongch'on River. Ridgway was successful in turning around the morale of Eighth Army.

Ridgway was unfazed by the Olympian demeanor of General of the Army Douglas MacArthur, then overall commander of UN forces in Korea. MacArthur gave Ridgway a latitude in operations he had not given his predecessor. After Ridgway landed in Tokyo on Christmas Day 1950 to discuss the operational situation with MacArthur, the latter assured his new commander that the actions of Eighth Army were his to conduct as he saw fit. Ridgway was encouraged to retire to successive defensive positions, as was currently under way, and hold Seoul as long as he could, but not if doing so meant that Eighth Army would be isolated in an enclave around the capital city. Ridgway asked specifically that if he found the combat situation "to my liking" whether MacArthur would have any objection to "my attacking". MacArthur answered, "Eighth Army is yours, Matt. Do what you think best."

Upon taking control of the battered Eighth Army, one of Ridgway's first acts was to restore soldiers' confidence in themselves. To accomplish this, he reorganized the command structure. During one of his first briefings in Korea at I Corps, Ridgway sat through an extensive discussion of various defensive plans and contingencies. At the end, he asked the staff about the status of their attack plans; the corps G-3 (operations officer) responded that he had no such plans. Within days, I Corps had a new G-3. He also replaced officers who did not send out patrols to fix enemy locations, and removed "enemy positions" from commanders' planning maps if local units had not been in recent contact to verify that the enemy was still there. Ridgway established a plan to rotate out those division commanders who had been in action for six months and replace them with fresh leaders. He sent out guidance to commanders at all levels that they were to spend more time at the front lines and less in their command posts in the rear. These steps had an immediate effect on morale.

With the entry of China, the complexion of the Korean War had changed. Political leaders, in an attempt to prevent expansion of the war, did not allow UN forces to bomb the supply bases in China, nor the bridges across the Yalu River on the border between China and North Korea. The American army moved from an aggressive stance to fighting protective, delaying actions. Ridgway's second big tactical change was to make copious use of artillery.

China's casualties began to rise, and became very high as they pressed waves of attacks into the coordinated artillery fire. Under Ridgway's leadership, the Chinese offensive was slowed and finally brought to a halt at the battles of Chipyong-ni and Wonju. He then led his troops in Operation Thunderbolt, a counter-offensive in early 1951.

Supreme UN Commander
When General MacArthur was relieved of command by President Harry S. Truman in April, Ridgway was promoted to full general, assuming command of all United Nations forces in Korea. As commanding general in Korea, Ridgway gained the nickname "Tin Tits" for his habit of wearing hand grenades attached to his load-bearing equipment at chest level. He oversaw the desegregation and integration of United States Army units in the Far East Command, which significantly influenced the wider army's subsequent desegregation.

In 1951 Ridgway was elected an honorary member of the Virginia Society of the Cincinnati.

Ridgway also assumed from MacArthur the role of military governor of Japan, the Supreme Commander for the Allied Powers. During his tenure, Ridgway oversaw the restoration of Japan's independence and sovereignty on April 28, 1952.

Supreme Allied Commander, Europe
In May 1952, Ridgway succeeded General Dwight D. Eisenhower as the Supreme Allied Commander Europe (SACEUR) for the fledgling North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). While in that position Ridgway made progress in developing a coordinated command structure, oversaw an expansion of forces and facilities, and improved training and standardization. He upset other European military leaders by surrounding himself with American staff. His tendency to tell the truth was not always politically wise. In a 1952 review, General Omar Bradley, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, reported to President Harry S. Truman that "Ridgway had brought NATO to 'its realistic phase' and a 'generally encouraging picture of how the heterogeneous defense force is being gradually shaped.'"

Ridgway urged the Anglo-French-American high commissioners for Germany to pardon all German officers convicted of war crimes on the Eastern Front of World War II. He himself, he noted, had recently given orders in Korea "of the kind for which the German generals are sitting in prison." His "honor as a soldier" forced him to insist upon the release of these officers before he could "issue a single command to a German soldier of the European army."

Chief of Staff of the United States Army
On August 17, 1953, Ridgway succeeded General J. Lawton Collins as the Chief of Staff of the United States Army. After Eisenhower was elected president, he asked Ridgway for his assessment of United States military involvement in Vietnam in conjunction with the French. Ridgway prepared a comprehensive outline of the massive commitment that would be necessary for success, which dissuaded the President from intervening. A source of tension was Ridgway's belief that air power and nuclear bombs did not reduce the need for powerful, mobile ground forces to seize land and control populations. Ridgway was concerned that Eisenhower's proposal to significantly reduce the size of the army would leave it unable to counter the growing Soviet military threat, as noted by the 1954 Alfhem affair in Guatemala. These concerns would lead to recurring disagreements during his term as chief of staff. Ridgway was the leader of the "Never Again Club" within the U.S. Army that regarded the Korean War which ended in a draw as something of a debacle and were strongly opposed to fighting another land war in Asia, especially against China.

In the spring of 1954, Ridgway was very much opposed to Operation Vulture, the proposed American intervention in Vietnam with tactical nuclear weapons to rescue the French from certain defeat at the Battle of Dien Bien Phu. The chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Admiral Arthur W. Radford, supported Operation Vulture and recommended it to Eisenhower, arguing that the United States could not permit the victory of the Communist Viet Minh over the French. Making matters more complicated on 20 March 1954, the chief of the French general staff, General Paul Ély, visited Washington and Radford had shown him the plans for Vulture and gave him the impression that the United States was committed to carrying it out. In a dissenting opinion, Ridgway argued that the plan would not work as he maintained that airpower alone, even with the use of tactical nuclear weapons, would not be enough to save the French. Ridgway argued that only the commitment of 7 American infantry divisions could save the French at Dien Bien Phu, and predicated that if the United States intervened in Vietnam, then so too would China. Ridgway wrote that if China entered the Indochina War, then the United States would have to commit 12 divisions to Vietnam. Against Radford, Ridgway argued having the United States bogged down in a land war in Asia once again fighting the Chinese would be a costly distraction from Europe, a place that he maintained was far more important than Vietnam. In a dissenting report to Eisenhower against Radford's recommendations, Ridgway stated "Indochina is devoid of decisive military objectives" and to fight a war there "would be a serious diversion of limited U.S. capabilities". Ridgway felt that Radford as an admiral who had never fought against the Chinese was too dismissive of Chinese power, and he did not see the dangers of the United States fighting yet another trying struggle against the Chinese, in less than a year after the end of the Korean war.

Ridgway's objections to Vulture gave Eisenhower pause, but Radford's vehement insistence on nuclear weapon deployment - that three tactical atomic bombs dropped on the Viet Minh forces besieging the French at Dien Bien Phu would be enough to save Indochina for France - made the president indecisive. Both the Vice President, Richard Nixon, and the Secretary of State, John Foster Dulles, were all for Vulture and lobbied Eisenhower hard to accept it. Eisenhower himself felt guilty over the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945, and during one meeting told Admiral Radford and Air Force General Nathan F. Twining: "You boys must be crazy. We can't use those awful things against Asians for a second time in less than ten years. My God!" Eisenhower finally agreed to carry out Vulture, but only if Congress gave its approval first and if Great Britain agreed to join in. The leaders of Congress gave an equivocal answer, rejecting the idea of Vulture as an American operation, but willing to support it if it was an Anglo-American operation. Finally, the British Prime Minister Winston Churchill rejected the idea of British intervention in Vietnam, which killed Vulture. On 7 May 1954, what was left of the French forces at Dien Bien Phu surrendered, which brought down the government of Premier Joseph Laniel in Paris, and led to a new government being formed by Pierre Mendès France whose sole mandate was to pull all French forces out of Indochina.

President Eisenhower approved a waiver to the military's policy of mandatory retirement at age 60 so Ridgway could complete his two-year term as Chief of Staff. Disagreements with the administration over its downgrading of the army in favor of the United States Navy and the United States Air Force, prevented Ridgway from being appointed to a second term. Ridgway retired from the army on June 30, 1955, and was succeeded by his one-time 82nd Airborne Division chief of staff, General Maxwell D. Taylor. Even after he retired, Ridgway was a constant critic of President Eisenhower. In the October 7, 1960, presidential debate, John F. Kennedy mentioned General Ridgway as among supporters of the position that the United States should not attempt to defend Quemoy (Kinmen) and Matsu from an attack by China (PRC).

The "Wise Men"
In November 1967, Ridgway was recruited to join the "Wise Men", a group of retired diplomats, politicians and generals who assembled from time to time to give their advice on the Vietnam War to President Lyndon B. Johnson. Though the "Wise Men" group whose informal leader was the former Secretary of State Dean Acheson were widely dismissed as a gimmick to allow Johnson photo-opps, the president did have much respect for the "Wise Men" and took their counsel seriously. In early 1968, Ridgway together with General James M. Gavin and General David M. Shoup expressed their opposition to the strategic bombing offensive against North Vietnam and declared that South Vietnam was not worth the trouble it was taking to defend it. The criticism sufficiently rattled Johnson's powerful National Security Adviser W.W. Rostow that he wrote a 5-page memorandum for the president arguing that Ridgway, Gavin and Shoup did not know what they were talking about and expressed supreme confidence that the bombing offensive would soon force North Vietnam to its knees.

In the aftermath of the Tet Offensive together with Johnson's near-defeat in the New Hampshire Democratic primary, where Johnson defeated the anti-war Senator Eugene McCarthy by only 300 votes, the White House was gripped by crisis with Johnson torn between continuing to seek a military solution to the Vietnam war or turning towards a diplomatic solution. Adding to the sense of crisis was a maneuver by the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Earle Wheeler, to force Johnson to rule out the diplomatic solution and to continue with the military solution. On 23 February 1968 Wheeler told General William Westmoreland to advise Johnson to send another 206,000 troops to Vietnam, even through Westmoreland insisted that he did not need the extra troops. Under Wheeler's prodding, Westmoreland did make the request for another 206,000 soldiers, insisting in his report to Johnson that he could not win the war without them. Wheeler's real purpose in having Westmoreland make the troop request was to force Johnson to call out the reserves and the state National Guard. By 1968, there was no way to send another 206,000 men to join the half-million G.I.s already in Vietnam without abandoning the American commitments in Europe, South Korea and elsewhere except by mobilizing the reserves and the National Guard. Calling out the reserves and National Guard would disrupt the economy, which in turn would force Johnson to end the peacetime economy, and taking such a step would make it politically impossible to turn towards a diplomatic solution. The economic sacrifices that a wartime economy would entail could only be justified to the American people by saying the goal was to fight on until victory.

At the same time as the debate swirled over Westmoreland's troop request, Clark Clifford, a longstanding friend of Johnson's and a known hawk arrived at the Pentagon on 1 March as the newly appointed Defense Secretary. Clifford's friend, Senator J. William Fulbright arranged for him to meet privately with Ridgway together with General Gavin. Both Ridgway and Gavin advised Clifford that victory in Vietnam was unobtainable and he should use his influence with Johnson to persuade him to seek a diplomatic solution. The advice from Ridgway and Gavin helped to convert Clifford from being a hawk to a dove.

The Defense Secretary Clifford realized the political implications of the request for 206,000 more troops and lobbied Johnson hard to reject it, urging him to seek a diplomatic solution instead while Rostow advised him to accept it. Since Westmoreland had maintained in his report that victory in Vietnam was impossible without the additional 206,000 troops, to reject the troop request would mean abandoning seeking a military solution. To resolve the debate, Johnson called a meeting of the "Wise Men on 25 March 1968 to advise him what to do. The next day, the majority of the "Wise Men" advised Johnson that victory in Vietnam was impossible and that he should seek a diplomatic solution, counsel that was decisive in persuading him to open peace talks. Of the 14 "Wise Men", only General Maxwell Taylor, Robert Murphy, Abe Fortas and General Omar Bradley advised Johnson to continue seeking a military solution with the rest all speaking for a diplomatic solution. Ridgway's status as a war hero whom no-one could accuse of being "soft on Communism" added to the prestige of the "Wise Men" and made Johnson more likely to accept their advice. On 31 March 1968, Johnson went on national television to announce his willingness to open peace talks with North Vietnam, that he was unconditionally stopping bombing most of North Vietnam and finally declaring that he was withdrawing from the 1968 election.

Personal life
In 1917 he married Julia Caroline Blount (1895–1986). They had two daughters, Constance and Shirley, before divorcing in 1930. Shortly after his divorce, Ridgway married Margaret ("Peggy") Wilson Dabney (1891–1968), the widow of a West Point graduate (Henry Harold Dabney, class of 1915), and in 1936 he adopted Peggy's daughter Virginia Ann Dabney (1919–2004). Ridgway and Peggy divorced in June 1947. Later that year he married Mary Princess Anthony Long (1918–1997), who was nicknamed "Penny". They remained married until his death. They were the parents of a son, Matthew, Jr., who died in a 1971 accident shortly after graduating from Bucknell University and receiving his commission as a second lieutenant through the Reserve Officers' Training Corps.

Ridgway remained active in retirement, both in leadership capacities and as a speaker and author. He relocated to the Pittsburgh suburb of Fox Chapel, Pennsylvania, in 1955 after accepting the chairmanship of the board of trustees of the Mellon Institute as well as a position on the board of directors of Gulf Oil Corporation, among others. The year after his retirement, he published his autobiography, Soldier: The Memoirs of Matthew B. Ridgway. In 1967, he wrote The Korean War.

In 1960, Ridgway retired from his position at the Mellon Institute but continued to serve on multiple corporate boards of directors, Pittsburgh civic groups and Pentagon strategic study committees.

Ridgway continued to advocate for a strong military to be used judiciously. He gave many speeches, wrote, and participated in various panels, discussions, and groups. In early 1968, he was invited to a White House luncheon to discuss Indochina. After the luncheon, Ridgway met privately for two hours with President Johnson and Vice President Hubert Humphrey. When asked his opinion, Ridgway advised against deeper involvement in Vietnam and against using force to resolve the Pueblo Incident. In an article in Foreign Affairs, Ridgway stated that political goals should be based on vital national interests and that military goals should be consistent with and support the political goals, but that neither situation was true in the Vietnam War.

Ridgway advocated maintaining a chemical, biological, and radiological weapons capability, arguing that they could accomplish national goals better than the weapons currently in use. In 1976, Ridgway was a founding board member of the Committee on the Present Danger, which urged greater military preparedness to counter a perceived increasing Soviet threat.

On May 5, 1985, Ridgway was a participant in US President Ronald Reagan's visit to Kolmeshöhe Cemetery near Bitburg, when former Luftwaffe ace fighter pilot Johannes Steinhoff (1913–1994) in an unscheduled act firmly shook his hand in an act of reconciliation between the former foes.

Death
Ridgway died at his suburban Pittsburgh home on July 26, 1993, of cardiac arrest, at the age of 98. He was buried at Arlington National Cemetery, in Arlington, Virginia. In a graveside eulogy, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Colin Powell, said: "No soldier ever performed his duty better than this man. No soldier ever upheld his honor better than this man. No soldier ever loved his country more than this man did. Every American soldier owes a debt to this great man."

Legacy
During his career, Ridgway was recognized as an outstanding leader, earning the respect of subordinates, peers, and superiors. General Omar Bradley described Ridgway's work turning the tide of the Korean War as "the greatest feat of personal leadership in the history of the Army." A soldier in Normandy remarked about an intense battle while trying to cross a key bridge, "The most memorable sight that day was Ridgway, Gavin, and Maloney standing right there where it was the hottest [heaviest incoming fire]. The point is that every soldier who hit that causeway saw every general officer and the regimental and battalion commanders right there. It was a truly inspirational effort."

On the day of the Germans' furthest advance in the Battle of the Bulge, Ridgway commented to his subordinate officers in the XVIII Airborne Corps: "The situation is normal and completely satisfactory. The enemy has thrown in all his mobile reserves, and this is his last major offensive effort in this war. This Corps will halt that effort; then attack and smash him."

Ridgway considered leadership to have three primary ingredients: character, courage, and competence. He described character—including self-discipline, loyalty, selflessness, modesty, and willingness to accept responsibility and admit mistakes—as the "bedrock on which the whole edifice of leadership rests." His concept of courage included both physical and moral courage. Competence included physical fitness, anticipating when crises will occur and being present to resolve them, and being close to subordinates—communicating clearly and ensuring that they are treated and led well and fairly.

Major assignments

 * Staff Officer, War Plans Division – 24 December 1941 to 19 February 1942
 * Assistant Division Commander, 82nd Infantry Division – 19 February 1942 to 26 June 1942
 * Commander, 82nd Airborne Division – 26 June 1942 to 27 August 1944
 * Commander, XVIII Airborne Corps – 27 August 1944 to October 1945
 * Deputy Supreme Allied Commander, Mediterranean – October 1945 to 1946
 * US Army Representative to the Military Staff Committee of the United Nations – 1946 to June 1948
 * Commander, United States Caribbean Command – June 1948 to October 1949
 * Deputy Chief of Staff for Administration – November 1949 to 24 December 1950
 * Commander, Eighth United States Army – 26 December 1950 to 11 April 1951
 * Commander, United Nations Command Korea – 11 April 1951 to 12 May 1952
 * Supreme Commander for the Allied Powers (SCAP) – 11 April 1951 to 28 April 1952
 * Commander in Chief, United States Far East Command – 11 April 1951 to 12 May 1952
 * Supreme Allied Commander Europe for NATO – 30 May 1952 to 11 July 1953
 * Commander, United States Army European Command (EUCOM) – 30 May 1952 to 1 August 1952
 * Commander in Chief, United States European Command (USEUCOM) – 1 August 1952 to 11 July 1953
 * Chief of Staff of the United States Army – 17 August 1953 to 30 June 1955

Other honors

 * Congressional Gold Medal
 * The National Infantry Association has awarded him their annual Doughboy Award.
 * Ridgway appeared on the April 30, 1951, and May 12, 1952, covers of Life magazine.
 * Ridgway appeared on the March 5, 1951, and July 16, 1951, covers of Time magazine.

Namesakes

 * Ridgway was honored by his adopted hometown of Pittsburgh with the entrance to the Soldiers and Sailors National Military Museum and Memorial, located in the city's education and cultural district, being renamed "Ridgway Court".
 * Bearing his name is the Matthew B. Ridgway Center for International Security Studies at the University of Pittsburgh.

title: Matthew Ridgway


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Silent Movie

Silent Movie is a 1976 American satirical silent comedy film co-written, directed by and starring Mel Brooks, released by 20th Century Fox in summer 1976. The ensemble cast includes Dom DeLuise, Marty Feldman, Bernadette Peters. and Sid Caesar, with cameos by Anne Bancroft, Liza Minnelli, Burt Reynolds, James Caan, Marcel Marceau, and Paul Newman as themselves, and character cameos by Harry Ritz of the Ritz Brothers, Charlie Callas, and Henny Youngman. The film was produced in the manner of an early-20th-century silent film, with intertitles instead of spoken dialogue; the soundtrack consists almost entirely of orchestral accompaniment and sound effects. It is an affectionate parody of slapstick comedies, including those of Charlie Chaplin, Mack Sennett, and Buster Keaton. The film satirizes the film industry, presenting the story of a film producer trying to obtain studio support to make a silent film in the 1970s.

Plot
Mel Funn, a once-great Hollywood film director, is now recovering from a drinking problem and down on his luck. He and his sidekicks, Dom Bell and Marty Eggs, want to make the first silent movie in 40 years, and Funn pitches the idea to the chief of Big Picture Studios. The chief rejects the idea at first, but Funn convinces him that if he can get Hollywood's biggest stars to be in the film, it could save the studio from a takeover by New York conglomerate Engulf & Devour.

Funn, Bell, and Eggs proceed to recruit various stars for the film. They surprise Burt Reynolds in his shower, and revisit his mansion in disguise. They recruit James Caan filming on location, following slapstick fumbling in an unstable dressing room trailer. They find Liza Minnelli at the studio commissary, where she eagerly agrees to be in the film. They recruit Anne Bancroft by disguising themselves as nightclub Flamenco dancers. While visiting the ailing studio chief in the hospital, Funn phones mime artist Marcel Marceau, who responds in French with the only spoken word in the film: a resounding Non! Dom Bell asks, "What did he say?" Funn responds, "I don't know. I don't speak French!"

They see Paul Newman on the hospital grounds, and sign him to the film after a wild electric-wheelchair chase.

In the course of their search for stars, the trio have a number of brief misadventures, including a mix-up between a seeing-eye dog and an untrained look-alike, several (mostly unsuccessful) efforts by Eggs to approach various women, and a Coca-Cola vending machine that launches cans like grenades.

Engulf & Devour learn of the project, and try to sabotage it by sending voluptuous nightclub sensation Vilma Kaplan to seduce Funn. He falls for her, but returns to drinking when he learns that she was part of a scheme. He buys a huge bottle of liquor and drinks himself into a stupor, surrounded by fellow "winos". But Kaplan has genuinely fallen for Funn, and refused Engulf & Devour's money; she helps Bell and Eggs find him and restore him to sobriety.

The film is completed, but the only copy is stolen by Engulf & Devour just before its theatrical premiere. Kaplan stalls the audience with her nightclub act, while Funn, Eggs, and Bell successfully steal the film back. They are cornered by Engulf & Devour's thuggish executives, but use the Coke machine they encountered earlier to attack and subdue them with exploding cans. Lacking a separate spool to rewind the film, Eggs winds the film around his own body and upon returning to the theater he has to be rushed to the projection booth to show it.

The film is a huge success with the audience, which erupts with over-the-top applause. The studio is saved, and Funn, Bell, Eggs, Kaplan, and Chief celebrate, as an onscreen caption identifies the film as a "true story".

Analysis
Mel Brooks enjoyed success with the release of Blazing Saddles and Young Frankenstein in 1974, both being parodies of entire genres. He followed this success with Silent Movie, an affectionate parody of the slapstick films of the silent film era. Prior to the release of Silent Movie, That's Entertainment!, a documentary about the golden age of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer musicals, had been the most successful film for MGM in 1974. The success of the documentary on the topic of the golden era of cinema may have been an inspiration for a parody.

Mel Brooks was planning the movie eight months before it began filming in January 1976. "It will be the noisiest silent movie ever made," said Brooks. "I'm going to have a lot of superstars. They don't leave me alone. Jimmy Caan called and said he'd be very mad if he's not in it. Why a silent movie in 1975, you are about to ask me? Because we can take advantage of all the technology and inventions, and the ways of life since 1925. A lot has happened. We have Coke machines now!" True to his word, he worked a Coke machine into the script. The working titles were Silent Movies Madness, Mel Brooks's Silent Movies, and The Silent Movies of Mel Brooks.

Silent Movie feels like a throwback to this earlier era, despite using color and other up-to-date techniques. As a film about filmmaking, Silent Movie also parodies "Hollywood deal-making". Cowriter Ron Clark was previously the producer of The Tim Conway Comedy Hour, while Rudy De Luca and Barry Levinson were writers for The Carol Burnett Show. Unsurprisingly, the humor of Silent Movie would not be out of place in a sketch comedy. Henry Jenkins points out that for Brooks, the decision to make a silent comedy represents an allusion to an earlier era of his career. He used to be a writer for Your Show of Shows, a show that included pantomime segments and parodies of silent films. Television audiences of the 1950s were familiar with the silents through their broadcast on late night television.

The film features an unflattering portrayal of the film industry. Big Picture Studios' front gate sign boasts of the multimillion-dollar scope of their films, never mentioning their quality. The film project is greenlit not on the merits of its script, but solely on the drawing power of the movie stars attached. Executives cannot tell good film footage apart from bad, while the "Current Studio Chief" is one box-office bomb away from losing his position. The studio is under threat of a takeover by a "soulless" conglomerate. The movie stars are portrayed as vain figures who flaunt their wealth. The moviegoing audience is portrayed as fickle and unpredictable. Villainous "Engulf & Devour" is a parody of real-life conglomerate Gulf and Western Industries, which had acquired Paramount Pictures. The film also parodies corporate executives as essentially interchangeable yes-men, following the whims of their boss.

The logo of Big Picture Studios is a parody of the MGM logo. Instead of the majestic, roaring lion, it shows the studio chief (Sid Caesar) as a braying donkey, and MGM's "Ars Gratia Artis" slogan ("art for art's sake") is parodied with "Ars Est Pecunia" ("art is money").

The film is literally silent for the first couple of minutes, as the shots establishing the main characters have no sound at all. Fortunately for the audience, the entire movie is not an exercise in silence, as the orchestra strikes up when the 20th Century-Fox logo appears on a billboard, just before the main title. Some of the gags do rely on the music and sound effects. For instance, a scene showing the New York City skyline begins with the song, "San Francisco", only to have it come to a sudden stop, as the musicians realize they're playing the wrong music. They then go into "I'll Take Manhattan" instead. One joke makes use of the difference between the expressive gestures of silent cinema and those used in guessing games, such as charades. A secretary attempts to explain to the studio chief that Funn has a drinking problem, by pantomiming an uplifted bottle. Her boss misunderstands, figuring that Funn sucks his thumb. Another scene with the studio chief pays homage to slapstick; the chief proclaims slapstick to be dead, then his chair flips backwards, and sends him sliding across the room in it. He slams his head, with the sound of a bell ringing. The humor of the scene derives from the combination of the image and the unlikely sound. Many of the gags of the film actually depend on careful synchronizations of sound and image. For example, one sequence has Feldman tossed about between elevator doors. It is set to the sounds of a pinball machine.

Other gags are delivered through intertitles. For example, in a meeting of Engulf & Devour, an underling whispers something in the ears of his boss. The intertitles report: "whisper...whisper...whisper". The boss fails to understand, forcing the man to shout. In response the intertitle is written in capital letters: "YOUR FLY IS OPEN!"

Marcel Marceau reprises his "walking into the wind" routine. Part of the mime satire is that the mime's props are actual instead of imaginary: a door that he strains to open; a strong wind he is struggling against, and a telephone that he picks up.

Liza Minnelli appears in a scene that makes no use of her dancing talents. Writer Robert Alan Crick, author of The Big Screen Comedies of Mel Brooks (2002), points out that the part could have easily been played by any well-known actress of the 1970s, with no apparent difference. The film was the first notable acting role for Brooks, who was previously limited to offscreen voiceovers and short cameos.

Reception
Reviews were largely very good, with the more critical ones commenting on the hit-and-miss assortment of jokes, but all of them agreed that the film offered some good gags and an evening's entertainment. Ron Pennington of The Hollywood Reporter raved, "Mel Brooks has reached a new peak in his career with Silent Movie, which must be ranked as one of the funniest film comedies since the advent of sound [and] easily Brooks's best effort to date (no mean achievement). Brooks, Feldman, and DeLuise are simply brilliant together, performing in the best slapstick tradition of classic comedy teams." Variety wrote, "An almost nonstop parade of sight gags... the brisk 86-minute pic works surprisingly well. Several chase scenes are sure laugh-getters, and Harry Ritz, Charlie Callas, Henry Youngman, and the late Liam Dunn are standouts in a long array of amusing bit players."

Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times gave the film four stars out of four, and called it "not only funny, but fun". He cited as positive elements the ability of Brooks to do anything for a laugh, and the world of his films, in which everything is possible. He stated that Brooks took "a considerable stylistic risk" that he managed to pull off "triumphantly". He considered the film equal in comedic ability to Blazing Saddles, superior to Young Frankenstein but inferior to The Producers. He also praised the film for offering an encyclopedia worth of visual gags, both old and new.

Gene Siskel of the Chicago Tribune gave the film three stars out of four, and wrote that it offered "a number of laughs", and felt that the unbilled cameos were as "refreshing as they are brief".

Charles Champlin of the Los Angeles Times wrote, "Some of the bits and pieces work better than others, but so many work so clownishly, zanily, idiotically well that 'Silent Movie' is certain to have the year's noisiest audiences."

A few reviews were milder. Vincent Canby of The New York Times wrote that the film can be enjoyed as "a virtually uninterrupted series of smiles", but "doesn't contain a single moment that ever seriously threatens to split the sides". Gary Arnold of The Washington Post called the film "a misbegotten but tolerably amusing novelty item".

On Rotten Tomatoes, the film has an approval rating of 82%, based on 28 reviews, with an average rating of 7/10. The critical consensus reads: "Stylistically audacious and infectiously nostalgic for the dawn of cinema, Silent Movie is another comedic triumph for Mel Brooks... now shush." On Metacritic, the film has a score of 75 out of 100, based on reviews from 7 critics.

It earned North American rentals of $21,240,000.

Home media
The DVD contains audio tracks in English, Spanish, and French, even though the film's only spoken line, "Non" (French for "No"), sounds almost identical in all three languages. The DVD also includes English subtitles.

title: Silent Movie


text:
Finite intersection property

In general topology, a branch of mathematics, a non-empty family A of subsets of a set $$X$$ is said to have the finite intersection property (FIP) if the intersection over any finite subcollection of $$A$$ is non-empty. It has the strong finite intersection property (SFIP) if the intersection over any finite subcollection of $$A$$ is infinite. Sets with the finite intersection property are also called centered systems and filter subbases.

The finite intersection property can be used to reformulate topological compactness in terms of closed sets; this is its most prominent application. Other applications include proving that certain perfect sets are uncountable, and the construction of ultrafilters.

Definition
Let $X$ be a set and $\mathcal{A}$  a nonempty family of subsets of $X$ ; that is, $\mathcal{A}$  is a subset of the power set of $X$. Then $\mathcal{A}$ is said to have the finite intersection property if every nonempty finite subfamily has nonempty intersection; it is said to have the strong finite intersection property if that intersection is always infinite.

In symbols, $\mathcal{A}$ has the FIP if, for any choice of a finite nonempty subset $\mathcal{B}$  of $\mathcal{A}$, there must exist a point $$x\in\bigcap_{B\in \mathcal{B}}{B}\text{.}$$  Likewise, $\mathcal{A}$  has the SFIP if, for every choice of such $\mathcal{B}$ , there are infinitely many such $x$.

In the study of filters, the common intersection of a family of sets is called a kernel, from much the same etymology as the sunflower. Families with empty kernel are called free; those with nonempty kernel, fixed.

Families of examples and non-examples
The empty set cannot belong to any collection with the finite intersection property.

A sufficient condition for the FIP intersection property is a nonempty kernel. The converse is generally false, but holds for finite families; that is, if $$\mathcal{A}$$ is finite, then $$\mathcal{A}$$ has the finite intersection property if and only if it is fixed.

Pairwise intersection
The finite intersection property is strictly stronger than pairwise intersection; the family $$\{\{1,2\}, \{2,3\}, \{1,3\}\}$$ has pairwise intersections, but not the FIP.

More generally, let $n \in \N\setminus\{1\}$ be a positive integer greater than unity, $[n]=\{1,\dots,n\}$, and $\mathcal{A}=\{[n]\setminus\{j\}:j\in[n]\}$. Then any subset of $$\mathcal{A}$$ with fewer than $n$ elements has nonempty intersection, but $\mathcal{A}$  lacks the FIP.

End-type constructions
If $$A_1 \supseteq A_2 \supseteq A_3 \cdots$$ is a decreasing sequence of non-empty sets, then the family $\mathcal{A} = \left\{A_1, A_2, A_3, \ldots\right\}$ has the finite intersection property (and is even a $\pi$–system). If the inclusions $$A_1 \supseteq A_2 \supseteq A_3 \cdots$$ are strict, then $\mathcal{A}$ admits the strong finite intersection property as well.

More generally, any $\mathcal{A}$ that is totally ordered by inclusion has the FIP.

At the same time, the kernel of $\mathcal{A}$ may be empty: if $A_j=\{j,j+1,j+2,\dots\}$, then the kernel of $$\mathcal{A}$$ is the empty set. Similarly, the family of intervals $$\left\{[r, \infty) : r \in \R\right\}$$ also has the (S)FIP, but empty kernel.

"Generic" sets and properties
The family of all Borel subsets of $$[0, 1]$$ with Lebesgue measure $1$ has the FIP, as does the family of comeagre sets. If $X$ is an infinite set, then the Fréchet filter (the family $\{X\setminus C:C\text{ finite}\}$ ) has the FIP. All of these are free filters; they are upwards-closed and have empty infinitary intersection.

If $$X = (0, 1)$$ and, for each positive integer $$i,$$ the subset $$X_i$$ is precisely all elements of $$X$$ having digit $$0$$ in the $$i$$th decimal place, then any finite intersection of $$X_i$$ is non-empty — just take $$0$$ in those finitely many places and $$1$$ in the rest. But the intersection of $$X_i$$ for all $$i \geq 1$$ is empty, since no element of $$(0, 1)$$ has all zero digits.

Extension of the ground set
The (strong) finite intersection property is a characteristic of the family $\mathcal{A}$, not the ground set $X$. If a family $\mathcal{A}$ on the set $X$  admits the (S)FIP and $X\subseteq Y$, then $\mathcal{A}$  is also a family on the set $Y$  with the FIP (resp. SFIP).

Generated filters and topologies
If $$K \subseteq X$$ are sets with $$K \neq \varnothing$$ then the family $$\mathcal{A}=\{S \subseteq X : K \subseteq S\}$$ has the FIP; this family is called the principal filter on $X$ generated by $K$. The subset $$\mathcal{B} = \{I \subseteq \R : K \subseteq I \text{ and } I \text{ an open interval}\}$$ has the FIP for much the same reason: the kernels contain the non-empty set $K$. If $K$ is an open interval, then the set $K$  is in fact equal to the kernels of $\mathcal{A}$  or $\mathcal{B}$, and so is an element of each filter. But in general a filter's kernel need not be an element of the filter.

A proper filter on a set has the finite intersection property. Every neighbourhood subbasis at a point in a topological space has the FIP, and the same is true of every neighbourhood basis and every neighbourhood filter at a point (because each is, in particular, also a neighbourhood subbasis).

Relationship to π-systems and filters
A π–system is a non-empty family of sets that is closed under finite intersections. The set $$\pi(\mathcal{A}) = \left\{A_1 \cap \cdots \cap A_n : 1 \leq n < \infty \text{ and } A_1, \ldots, A_n \in \mathcal{A}\right\}$$of all finite intersections of one or more sets from $$\mathcal{A}$$ is called the π–system generated by $\mathcal{A}$, because it is the smallest π–system having $\mathcal{A}$ as a subset.

The upward closure of $$\pi(\mathcal{A})$$ in $X$ is the set $$\pi(\mathcal{A})^{\uparrow X} = \left\{S \subseteq X : P \subseteq S \text{ for some } P \in \pi(\mathcal{A})\right\}\text{.}$$

For any family $\mathcal{A}$, the finite intersection property is equivalent to any of the following:

The π–system generated by $$\mathcal{A}$$ does not have the empty set as an element; that is, $$\varnothing \notin \pi(\mathcal{A}).$$  The set $$\pi(\mathcal{A})$$ has the finite intersection property. The set $$\pi(\mathcal{A})$$ is a (proper) prefilter. The family $$\mathcal{A}$$ is a subset of some (proper) prefilter. The upward closure $\pi(\mathcal{A})^{\uparrow X}$ is a (proper) filter on $X$. In this case, $$\pi(\mathcal{A})^{\uparrow X}$$ is called the filter on $X$ generated by $\mathcal{A}$, because it is the minimal (with respect to $$\,\subseteq\,$$) filter on $$X$$ that contains $$\mathcal{A}$$ as a subset. $$\mathcal{A}$$ is a subset of some (proper) filter.

Compactness
The finite intersection property is useful in formulating an alternative definition of compactness:

$$

This formulation of compactness is used in some proofs of Tychonoff's theorem.

Uncountability of perfect spaces
Another common application is to prove that the real numbers are uncountable. $$All the conditions in the statement of the theorem are necessary:
 * 1) We cannot eliminate the Hausdorff condition; a countable set (with at least two points) with the indiscrete topology is compact, has more than one point, and satisfies the property that no one point sets are open, but is not uncountable.
 * 2) We cannot eliminate the compactness condition, as the set of rational numbers shows.
 * 3) We cannot eliminate the condition that one point sets cannot be open, as any finite space with the discrete topology shows.

$$$$

$$

$$

Ultrafilters
Let $$X$$ be non-empty, $$F \subseteq 2^X.$$ $$F$$ having the finite intersection property. Then there exists an $$U$$ ultrafilter (in $$2^X$$) such that $$F \subseteq U.$$ This result is known as the ultrafilter lemma.

General sources

 * (Provides an introductory review of filters in topology and in metric spaces.)
 * (Provides an introductory review of filters in topology and in metric spaces.)
 * (Provides an introductory review of filters in topology and in metric spaces.)
 * (Provides an introductory review of filters in topology and in metric spaces.)
 * (Provides an introductory review of filters in topology and in metric spaces.)
 * (Provides an introductory review of filters in topology and in metric spaces.)
 * (Provides an introductory review of filters in topology and in metric spaces.)
 * (Provides an introductory review of filters in topology and in metric spaces.)
 * (Provides an introductory review of filters in topology and in metric spaces.)
 * (Provides an introductory review of filters in topology and in metric spaces.)

title: Finite intersection property


text:
Sketches by Boz

Sketches by "Boz," Illustrative of Every-day Life and Every-day People (commonly known as Sketches by Boz) is a collection of short pieces Charles Dickens originally published in various newspapers and other periodicals between 1833 and 1836. They were re-issued in book form, under their current title, in February and August 1836, with illustrations by George Cruikshank.

The first complete one volume edition appeared in 1839. The 56 sketches concern London scenes and people, and the whole work is divided into four sections: "Our Parish", "Scenes", "Characters" and "Tales". The material in the first three sections consists of non-narrative pen-portraits, but the last section comprises fictional stories.

The History of "Boz"
The sketch "Mr Minns and his Cousin" (originally titled "A Dinner at Poplar Walk"), was the first work of fiction Dickens ever published. It appeared in The Monthly Magazine in December 1833. Although Dickens continued to place pieces in that magazine, none of them bore a signature until August 1834, when "The Boarding House" appeared under the strange pen-name "Boz". A verse in Bentley's Miscellany for March 1837 recalled the public's perplexity about this pseudonym:

 * "Who the dickens 'Boz' could be
 * Puzzled many a learned elf,
 * Till time unveiled the mystery,
 * And 'Boz' appeared as Dickens's self."

Dickens took the pseudonym from a nickname he had given his younger brother Augustus, whom he called "Moses" after a character in Oliver Goldsmith's The Vicar of Wakefield. This, "being facetiously pronounced through the nose," became "Boses", which in turn was shortened to "Boz". The name remained coupled with "inimitable" until "Boz" eventually disappeared and Dickens became known as, simply, "The Inimitable". The name was originally pronounced but is now usually.

Illustrations
The popularity of Dickens's writings was enhanced by the regular inclusion of detailed illustrations to highlight key scenes and characters. Each sketch typically featured two black-and-white illustrations, as well as an illustration for the wrapper. The images were created with wood engravings or metal etchings. Dickens worked closely with several illustrators during his career, including George Cruikshank, Hablot Knight Browne (aka "Phiz"), and John Leech. The accuracy of the illustrations was of the utmost importance to Dickens, as the drawings portrayed the characters just as he envisioned them and gave readers valuable insights about the characters' personalities and motives, as well as the plot.

Publication
The earliest version of Sketches by Boz was published by John Macrone in two series: the first as a two-volume set in February 1836, just a month before the publication of the first number of The Pickwick Papers (1836–37), and then a "Second Series" in August 1836. After Dickens's fame skyrocketed, he purchased the rights to the material from Macrone.

Instalment contents
The majority of the 56 sketches that appeared together in 1839 were originally published individually in popular newspapers and periodicals, including The Morning Chronicle, The Evening Chronicle, The Monthly Magazine, The Carlton Chronicle and Bell's Life in London, between 1833 and 1836:

 * "Mr. Minns and his Cousin" (SB 46), originally, "A Dinner at Poplar Walk" in The Monthly Magazine, 1 December 1833.
 * "Mrs. Joseph Porter, Over the Way" (SB 53), originally in The Monthly Magazine, January 1834.
 * "Horatio Sparkins" (SB 49), originally in The Monthly Magazine, February 1834.
 * "The Bloomsbury Christening" (SB 55), originally in The Monthly Magazine, April 1834.
 * "The Boarding-House" (SB 45), originally in The Monthly Magazine, May & August 1834.
 * "Sentiment" (SB 47), originally in Bell's Weekly Magazine, 7 June 1834.
 * "The Steam Excursion" (SB 51), originally in The Monthly Magazine, October 1834.
 * "A Passage in the Life of Mr. Watkins Tottle" (SB 54), originally "Chapter the First" and "Chapter the Second" in two numbers of The Monthly Magazine, January and February 1835.
 * "The Four Sisters" (SB 3), Our Parish 3, originally, "Sketches of London No. 14" in The Evening Chronicle, 18 June 1835.
 * "The Election for Beadle" (SB 4), Our Parish 4, originally, "Sketches of London No. 16" in The Evening Chronicle, 14 July 1835.
 * "The Broker's Man" (SB 5), Our Parish 5, originally, "Sketches of London No. 18" in The Evening Chronicle, 28 July 1835.
 * "The Ladies' Societies" (SB 6), Our Parish 6, originally, "Sketches of London No. 20" in The Evening Chronicle, 28 July 1835.
 * "Miss Evans and the Eagle" (SB 36), (Scenes and Characters No. 2) originally in Bell's Life in London, 4 October 1835.
 * "The Dancing Academy" (SB 41), originally, "Scenes and Characters, No. 3" in Bell's Life in London, 11 October 1835.
 * "Making a Night of It" (SB 43), originally, "Scenes and Characters No. 4" in Bell's Life in London, 18 October 1835.
 * "The Misplaced Attachment of Mr. John Dounce" (SB 39), originally, "Scenes and Characters No. 5. Love and Oysters," in Bell's Life in London, 25 October 1835.
 * "Some Account of an Omnibus Cad" originally, "Scenes and Characters No. 6," later retitled and expanded into "The Last Cab-driver and the First Omnibus Cab"; in Bell's Life in London, 1 November 1835.
 * "The Mistaken Milliner. A Tale of Ambition" (SB 40) originally "Scenes and Characters No. 7. The Vocal Dressmaker," in Bell's Life in London, 22 November 1835.
 * "The New Year" (SB 35), originally in Bell's Life in London, 3 January 1836.
 * "The Great Winglebury Duel" (SB 52), originally in the First Series of Sketches by Boz, 8 February 1836.
 * "The Black Veil" (SB 50) originally in the First Series of Sketches by Boz, 8 February 1836.
 * "Our Next-Door Neighbour" (Our Parish 7), originally, "Our Next-Door Neighbours" in The Morning Chronicle, 18 March 1836.
 * "The Tuggses at Ramsgate" (Tales 4), originally in The Library of Fiction No. 1, 31 March 1836 (accompanied by two Robert Seymour woodcuts).
 * "The Hospital Patient" (SB 38), Characters 6, originally in The Carlton Chronicle, 6 August 1836.
 * "The Drunkard's Death" (SB 56), originally in the Second Series of Sketches by Boz, 17 December 1836.

Book Contents
The contents of Sketches by Boz are:
 * Our Parish
 * The Beadle. The Parish Engine. The Schoolmaster.
 * The Curate. The Old Lady. The Half-pay Captain
 * The Four Sisters
 * The Election for Beadle
 * The Broker's Man
 * The Ladies' Societies
 * Our Next-Door Neighbour
 * Scenes
 * The Streets – Morning
 * The Streets – Night
 * Shops and Their Tenants
 * Scotland Yard
 * Seven Dials
 * Meditations in Monmouth-Street
 * Hackney-Coach Stands
 * Doctors' Commons
 * London Recreations
 * The River
 * Astley's
 * Greenwich Fair
 * Private Theatres
 * Vauxhall Gardens by Day
 * Early Coaches
 * Omnibuses
 * The Last Cab-Driver, and the First Omnibus Cad
 * A Parliamentary Sketch
 * Public Dinners
 * The First of May
 * Brokers' and Marine-Store Shops
 * Gin-Shops
 * The Pawnbroker's Shop
 * Criminal Courts
 * A Visit to Newgate
 * Characters
 * Thoughts about People
 * A Christmas Dinner
 * The New Year
 * Miss Evans and the Eagle
 * The Parlour Orator
 * The Hospital Patient
 * The Misplaced Attachment of Mr John Dounce
 * The Mistaken Milliner. A Tale of Ambition
 * The Dancing Academy
 * Shabby-Genteel People
 * Making a Night of It
 * The Prisoners' Van
 * Tales
 * The Boarding-House
 * Chapter the first
 * Chapter the second
 * Mr Minns and his Cousin
 * Sentiment
 * The Tuggses at Ramsgate
 * Horatio Sparkins
 * The Black Veil
 * The Steam Excursion
 * The Great Winglebury Duel
 * Mrs Joseph Porter
 * A Passage in the Life of Mr Watkins Tottle
 * Chapter the first
 * Chapter the second
 * The Bloomsbury Christening
 * The Drunkard's Death

title: Sketches by Boz


text:
Emily Howland

Emily Howland (November 20, 1827 – June 29, 1929) was a philanthropist and educator. She supported the education of African-Americans. She was also a strong supporter of women's rights and the temperance movement. Howland personally financed the education of many black students and contributed to institutions such as the Tuskegee Institute, Henry Damon Davidson's Centerville Industrial Institute, and Kowaliga Institute in Kowaliga, Alabama where Howland Hall was named for her.

Early life and education
Emily Howland was born at Sherwood in Cayuga County, New York, on November 20, 1827. She was the daughter of Slocum and Hannah Tallcot Howland, who were prominent in the Society of Friends. Her brother, William Howland, served in the 106th New York State Legislature. She was educated in small private schools in the community, and the Margaret Robinson School, a Friends school in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

Career
An active abolitionist, Howland taught at Normal School for Colored Girls (now University of the District of Columbia) in Washington, D.C., from 1857 to 1859. During the Civil War she worked at the contraband refugee settlement of Camp Todd in Arlington, Virginia, teaching freed slaves to read and write as well as administering to the sick during a smallpox outbreak and ultimately serving as director of the camp during 1864-1866.

Beginning in 1867, she started a community for freed people in Heathsville, Northumberland County, Virginia, called Arcadia, on 400 acres purchased by her father, including a school for the education of children of freed slaves, the Howland Chapel School. She continued to maintain an active interest in African-American education, donating money and materials as well as visiting and corresponding with administrators at many schools. Returning to Sherwood NY after her father's death in 1881, she inherited $50,000 ($ in dollars) and ran the Sherwood Select School until 1926 when it became a public school and was renamed the Emily Howland Elementary School by the state of New York.

Howland was also active in women's suffrage, peace, and temperance movements and was a member of the Woman's Christian Temperance Union. In 1858, she began organizing women's rights lectures and meetings with Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton. In 1878, she spoke at the 30th anniversary of the Seneca Falls woman's rights convention and in 1894 the New York State legislature. When the suffrage movement split into two groups, the National Woman Suffrage Association and the American Woman Suffrage Association, Howland did not take sides, but attended meetings of both groups. In 1904, she spoke in front of Congress and attended the 1912 and 1913 suffrage parades in New York. She has been credited with persuading Ezra Cornell that, as a Quaker, he should make Cornell University a coeducational institution.

In 1926 she received an honorary Litt.D. degree from the University of the State of NY, in Albany, the first woman to have this honor conferred upon her from this institution. She was also the author of an historical sketch of early Quaker history in Cayuga County, NY: Historical Sketch of Friends in Cayuga County.

Howland became one of the first female directors of a national bank in the United States, at the First National Bank of Aurora in Aurora, New York, in 1890, serving until her death, at age 101.

Legacy
Her papers are held by several universities, including Cornell University, Haverford College, and Swarthmore College. A photo album containing family, friends, and colleagues, as well as souvenir images of notable abolitionists and famous figures during the 1860s and 1870s is jointly owned by the National Museum of African American History and Culture and the Library of Congress. In 2021, she was inducted into the National Women's Hall of Fame.

title: Emily Howland