title: Lychee

text: There are numerous lychee cultivars, with considerable confusion regarding their naming and identification. The same cultivar grown in different climates can produce very different fruit. Cultivars can also have different synonyms in various parts of the world. Southeast Asian countries, along with Australia, use the original Chinese names for the main cultivars. India grows more than a dozen different cultivars. South Africa grows mainly the “Mauritius” cultivar. Most cultivars grown in the United States were imported from China, except for the “Groff”, which was developed in the state of Hawaii.


title: Lychee

text: Different cultivars of lychee are popular in the varying growing regions and countries. In China, popular cultivars include: Sanyuehong, Baitangying, Baila, Shuidong, Feizixiao, Dazou, Heiye, Nuomici, Guiwei, Huaizhi, Lanzhu, and Chenzi. In Vietnam, the most popular cultivar is Vai thieu Hai Duong. In the US, production is based on several cultivars, including Mauritius, Brewster, and Hak Ip. India grows more than a dozen named cultivars, including Shahi (Highest Pulp %), Dehradun, Early Large Red, Kalkattia and Rose Scented.


title: Lychee

text: Raw lychee fruit is 82% water, 17% carbohydrates, 1% protein, and contains negligible fat (table). In a 100 gram (3.5 oz) reference amount, raw lychee fruit supplies 66 calories of food energy. The raw pulp is rich in vitamin C, having 72 mg per 100 grams – an amount representing 86% of the Daily Value – but contains no other micronutrients in significant content (table).


title: Lychee

text: Lychees have moderate amounts of polyphenols, including flavan-3-ol monomers and dimers as major compounds representing about 87% of total polyphenols, which declined in content during storage or browning. Lychees naturally produce butylated hydroxytoluene. Cyanidin-3-glucoside represented 92% of total anthocyanins.


title: Lychee

text: In 1962, it was found that lychee seeds contained methylenecyclopropylglycine (MCPG), a homologue of hypoglycin A, which caused hypoglycemia in animal studies.


title: Lychee

text: Since the end of the 1990s, unexplained outbreaks of encephalopathy occurred, appearing to affect only children in India (where it is called "chamki bukhar"), and northern Vietnam (where it was called Ac Mong encephalitis after the Vietnamese word for nightmare) during the lychee harvest season from May to June.


title: Lychee

text: A 2013 investigation by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), in India, showed that cases were linked to the consumption of lychee fruit, causing a noninflammatory encephalopathy that mimicked symptoms of Jamaican vomiting sickness. Because low blood sugar (hypoglycemia) of less than 70 mg/dL in the undernourished children on admission was common, and associated with a poorer outcome (44% of all cases were fatal) the CDC identified the illness as a hypoglycemic encephalopathy.


title: Lychee

text: The investigation linked the illness to hypoglycin A and MCPG toxicity, and to malnourished children eating lychees (particularly unripe ones) on an empty stomach.


title: Lychee

text: The CDC report recommended that parents ensure their children limit lychee consumption and have an evening meal, elevating blood glucose levels that may be sufficient to deter illness.


title: Lychee

text: Earlier studies had incorrectly concluded that transmission may occur from direct contact with lychees contaminated by bat saliva, urine, or guano or with other vectors, such as insects found in lychee trees or sand flies, as in the case of Chandipura virus. A 2017 study found that pesticides used in the plantations could be responsible for the encephalitis and deaths of young children in Bangladesh.


title: Michael Stipe

text: John Michael Stipe (; born January 4, 1960) is an American singer-songwriter and artist, best known as the lead singer and lyricist of alternative rock band R.E.M. He is known for his vocal quality, poetic lyrics and unique stage presence.


title: Michael Stipe

text: Possessing a distinctive voice, Stipe has been noted for the "mumbling" style of his early career. Since the mid-1980s, Stipe has sung in "wailing, keening, arching vocal figures" that R.E.M. biographer David Buckley compared to Celtic folk artists and Muslim muezzin. He was in charge of R.E.M.'s visual aspect, often selecting album artwork and directing many of the band's music videos. Outside the music industry, he owns and runs two film production studios, C-00 and Single Cell Pictures.


title: Michael Stipe

text: As a member of R.E.M., Stipe was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2007. As a singer-songwriter, Stipe influenced a wide range of artists, including Kurt Cobain of Nirvana and Thom Yorke of Radiohead. Bono of U2 has described his voice as "extraordinary", and Yorke told "The Guardian" that Stipe is his favorite lyricist, saying "I loved the way he would take an emotion and then take a step back from it and in doing so make it so much more powerful."


title: Michael Stipe

text: John Michael Stipe was born on January 4, 1960, in Decatur, Georgia, to Marianne and John Stipe. He was a military brat; his father was a serviceman in the United States Army whose career resulted in frequent relocations for his family. His younger sister, Lynda Stipe, was born in 1962 and became the vocalist of her own band, Hetch Hetchy. Stipe and his family moved to various locales during his childhood, including West Germany, Texas, Illinois, and Alabama. In 1978, he graduated from high school in Collinsville, Illinois. His senior photo is pictured in the album art work of "Eponymous". Stipe also worked at the local Waffle House. He was raised in and came from "a place of faith," as previous generations of his family were Methodist ministers.


title: Michael Stipe

text: At age 14, Stipe was turned on to punk rock by an article in Creem magazine by Lisa Robinson on the CBGB scene. The article featured a photo of Patti Smith, who Stipe came to idolize. He remembers buying her debut album, "Horses", the day it came out. “Since then, I never looked back.”


title: Michael Stipe

text: While attending the University of Georgia in Athens, Stipe frequented the Wuxtry record shop, where he met store clerk Peter Buck in 1980. "He was a striking-looking guy and he also bought weird records, which not everyone in the store did," Buck recalled. The two became friends; they eventually decided to form a band and started writing music together, although at the time Stipe was also in a local group named Gangster. Buck and Stipe were soon joined by Bill Berry and Mike Mills, and named themselves R.E.M., a name Stipe selected at random from a dictionary. Stipe was the youngest member of the band.


title: Michael Stipe

text: All four members of R.E.M. dropped out of school in 1980 to focus on the new band. Stipe was the last to do so. The band issued its debut single, "Radio Free Europe," on Hib-Tone; it was a college radio success. The band signed to I.R.S. Records for the release of the "Chronic Town" EP one year later. In 1983, R.E.M. released its debut album, "Murmur," which was acclaimed by critics. Stipe's vocals and lyrics received particular attention from listeners. "Murmur" went on to win the "Rolling Stone" Critics Poll Album of the Year over Michael Jackson's "Thriller". Their second album, "Reckoning", followed in 1984.


title: Michael Stipe

text: In 1985, R.E.M. traveled to England to record their third album, "Fables of the Reconstruction", a difficult process that brought the band to the verge of a break up. After the album was released, relationships in the band remained tense. Gaining weight and acting eccentrically (such as by shaving his hair into a monk's tonsure), Stipe later identified himself as suffering from depression and exhaustion during this period, saying "I was well on my way to losing my mind."


title: Michael Stipe

text: They toured in Canada and throughout Europe that year; Stipe had bleached his hair blond during this time.


title: Michael Stipe

text: Bill Berry left R.E.M. in 1997, and the other members continued as a three-piece. R.E.M. disbanded amicably in 2011. Stipe confirmed in 2021 that they had no plans to reunite.


title: Michael Stipe

text: In September 1983, a few months after the release of R.E.M.'s debut album, Stipe participated in a low-budget, forty-five-minute Super-8 film called "Just Like a Movie", shot in Athens by "New York Rocker" magazine photographer Laura Levine, who was a friend of the band. Those with acting roles in the film included Levine, Stipe, his sister Lynda, Matthew Sweet (who formed a short-lived duo, Community Trolls, with Michael Stipe), and R.E.M.'s Bill Berry. The film remains unreleased.


title: Michael Stipe

text: In the period 1990-1992 Stipe was involved with the band Chickasaw Mudd Puppies. He co-produced and featured on their two albums: "White Dirt" (1990) and "8 Track Stomp" (1991).


title: Michael Stipe

text: Stipe had planned a collaboration with friend Kurt Cobain, lead singer of Nirvana, in 1994, partly in an attempt to lure Cobain away from his home and his drug addiction. However, they did not manage to compose or record anything before Cobain's death. Stipe was chosen as the godfather of Cobain and Courtney Love's daughter, Frances Bean Cobain. R.E.M. recorded the song "Let Me In" from the 1994 album "Monster" in tribute to Cobain.


title: Michael Stipe

text: Stipe was once very close to fellow alternative rock singer Natalie Merchant and has recorded a few songs with her, including one titled "Photograph," which appeared on a pro-choice benefit album titled "Born to Choose", and they appeared live with Peter Gabriel singing Gabriel's single "Red Rain" at the 1996 VH1 Honors and a few other times.


title: Michael Stipe

text: Stipe and Tori Amos became friends in the mid-1990s and recorded a duet in 1994 called "It Might Hurt a Bit" for the "Don Juan DeMarco" motion picture soundtrack. Both Stipe and Amos decided not to release it.


title: Michael Stipe

text: In 1998, Stipe published a collection called "Two Times Intro: On the Road with Patti Smith." In 2006, Stipe released an EP that comprised six different cover versions of Joseph Arthur's "In The Sun" for the Hurricane Katrina disaster relief fund. One version, recorded in a collaboration with Coldplay's Chris Martin, reached number one on the Canadian Singles Chart. Also in 2006, Stipe appeared on the song "Broken Promise" on the Placebo release "Meds". Continuing his non-R.E.M. work in 2006, Stipe sang the song "L'Hôtel" on the tribute album to Serge Gainsbourg titled "Monsieur Gainsbourg Revisited" and appeared on the song "Dancing on the Lip of a Volcano" on the New York Dolls album "One Day It Will Please Us to Remember Even This". He recorded a song with Miguel Bosé on the album "Papito," "Lo que ves es lo que hay."


title: Michael Stipe

text: Stipe collaborated with Lacoste in 2008 to release his own "holiday collector edition" brand of polo shirt. The design depicts a concert audience from the view of the performer on stage. He appeared with Chris Martin of Coldplay live at Madison Square Garden and online to perform "Losing My Religion" in the raising money for relief from Hurricane Sandy. A new recording from Stipe and featuring Courtney Love was revealed in 2013. The song, "Rio Grande," is taken from Johnny Depp's pirate-themed album, "". Stipe also created the soundtrack for "The Cold Lands" (2013), a film by Stipe's friend director Tom Gilroy.


title: Michael Stipe

text: Stipe inducted the American grunge band Nirvana into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame on April 10, 2014. He debuted his first solo composition at Moogfest in 2017. Later that year, he performed with Fischerspooner on the new song "Have Fun Tonight" from their 2018 album, "Sir". Stipe released the solo song "Future, If Future" on March 24, 2018, followed by "Your Capricious Soul" on October 5, 2019. "Drive to the Ocean" was released for his 60th birthday on January 4, 2020.


title: Michael Stipe

text: Photography has long been a passion for Stipe and he has been carrying a camera with him since his teenage years when he photographed shows featuring Ramones, The Runaways and Queen. In 2018, Stipe released a book of his photography entitled "Volume 1," which featured 35 photographs of such celebrities as River Phoenix and Kurt Cobain. A second volume with Douglas Coupland, "Our Interference Times: A Visual Record", was released in 2019.


title: Michael Stipe

text: In 2019, Stipe collaborated with Aaron Dessner and Justin Vernon's band Big Red Machine on the single "No Time For Love Like Now." The song was finished and released in 2020 during the COVID-19 pandemic.


title: Michael Stipe

text: In early 1987, Stipe and Jim McKay co-founded C-00 Films, a mixed-media company that was "designed to channel its founder's creative talents towards the creation and promotion of alternative film works." Stipe and his producing partner, Sandy Stern, have served as executive producers on films including "Being John Malkovich", "Velvet Goldmine" and "Man on the Moon". He was also credited as a producer of the 2004 film "Saved!"


title: Michael Stipe

text: In 1998, he worked on Single Cell Pictures, a film production company that released several arthouse / indie movies.


title: Michael Stipe

text: Stipe has made a number of acting appearances on film and on television. Stipe appeared in an episode of "The Adventures of Pete & Pete" as an ice cream man named Captain Scrummy.


title: Michael Stipe

text: Stipe has appeared as himself with R.E.M. on "Sesame Street", playing a reworked version of "Shiny Happy People" called "Furry Happy Monsters," and appeared in an episode of "The Simpsons" titled "Homer the Moe," in which R.E.M. was tricked into playing a show in Homer Simpson's garage. He also appeared as a guest on the Cartoon Network talk show spoof "Space Ghost Coast to Coast" in the episode "Hungry." Stipe made several short appearances on "The Colbert Report".


title: Michael Stipe

text: Stipe voiced Schnitzel the Reindeer in the 1999 movie "Olive, the Other Reindeer" and appeared in the 1996 film "Color of a Brisk and Leaping Day".


title: Michael Stipe

text: In March 2018, Stipe joined the "March for Our Lives" rallies to advocate gun control after the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School shooting. He also released a teaser of his new song in the rally.


title: Michael Stipe

text: In a 2021 interview for "Jacobin", Stipe described himself as a democratic socialist, and said that he was a member of the Democratic Party so he could vote in Democratic primaries. He endorsed Bernie Sanders' 2016 and 2020 presidential campaigns.


title: Michael Stipe

text: In 1983, Stipe met fellow musician Natalie Merchant of the band 10,000 Maniacs; the two started a friendship, and eventually had a romantic relationship for a period of time.


title: Michael Stipe

text: With the success of the albums "Out of Time" (1991) and "Automatic for the People" (1992), R.E.M. became mainstream music stars. Around 1992, rumors that Stipe had contracted HIV began to circulate. He responded with the following:


title: Michael Stipe

text: In 1994, with questions remaining, Stipe described himself as "an equal opportunity lech," and said he did not define himself as gay, straight or bisexual, but that he was attracted to, and had relationships with, both men and women. In 1995, he appeared on the cover of "Out" magazine. Stipe described himself as a "queer artist" in "Time" in 2001 and revealed that he had been in a relationship with "an amazing man" for three years at that point. Stipe reiterated this in a 2004 interview with "Butt" magazine. When asked if he ever declares himself as gay, Stipe stated, "I don't. I think there's a line drawn between gay and queer, and for me, queer describes something that's more inclusive of the grey areas."


title: Michael Stipe

text: In 1999, author Douglas A. Martin published a novel, "Outline of My Lover", in which the narrator has a six-year romantic relationship with the unnamed lead singer of a successful Athens, Georgia-based, rock band; the book was widely speculated, and later confirmed by its author, to have been a roman à clef based on a real relationship between Martin and Stipe. The two had previously collaborated on two books, both in 1998: "The Haiku Year" (for which the two had both contributed haikus) and Martin's book of poetry "Servicing the Salamander" (for which Stipe took the cover photograph).


title: Michael Stipe

text: Stipe possesses a baritone vocal range. His role in the songwriting process for R.E.M. was to write lyrics and devise melodies. While each member was given an equal vote in the songwriting process, Peter Buck has conceded that Stipe, as the band's lyricist, could rarely be persuaded to follow an idea he did not favor. Stipe sings in "wailing, keening, arching vocal figures" that R.E.M. biographer David Buckley compared to Celtic folk artists and Muslim muezzin. Stipe often harmonizes with Mills in songs; in the chorus for "Stand", Mills and Stipe alternate singing lyrics, creating a dialogue. Early articles about the band focused on Stipe's singing style (described as "mumbling" by "The Washington Post"), which often rendered his lyrics indecipherable. Stipe commented in 1984, "It's just the way I sing. If I tried to control it, it would be pretty false."


title: Michael Stipe

text: "That voice. It's an extraordinary voice," said U2's lead singer, Bono, in 2003. "I often tell him I think he's a crooner, and he doesn't like that very much. But it is sort of one part some sort of Bing Crosby '50s laid-back crooner, and one part Dolly Parton", he added, laughing.


title: Michael Stipe

text: Stipe insisted that many of his early lyrics were "nonsense," saying in a 1994 online chat, "You all know there aren't words, "per se", to a lot of the early stuff. I can't even remember them." In truth, many early R.E.M. songs had definite lyrics that Stipe wrote with care. Stipe explained in 1984 that when he started writing lyrics they were like "simple pictures," but after a year he grew tired of the approach and "started experimenting with lyrics that didn't make exact linear sense, and it's just gone from there." In the mid-1980s, as Stipe's pronunciation while singing became clearer, the band decided that its lyrics should convey ideas on a more literal level. Mills explained, "After you've made three records and you've written several songs and they've gotten better and better lyrically the next step would be to have somebody question you and say, are you saying anything? And Michael had the confidence at that point to say yes..." After what Stipe has referred to as "The Dark Ages of American Politics" [The Reagan/Bush Years], R.E.M. incorporated more politically oriented concerns into his lyrics on "Document" and "Green". "Our political activism and the content of the songs was just a reaction to where we were, and what we were surrounded by, which was just abject horror," Stipe said later. "In 1987 and '88 there was nothing to do but be active." While Stipe continued to write songs with political subject matter like "Ignoreland" and "Final Straw," later albums have focused on other topics. "Automatic for the People" dealt with "mortality and dying. Pretty turgid stuff," according to Stipe; "Monster," meanwhile, critiqued love and mass culture, and "Reveal" dipped into mysticism.


title: Francia Raisa

text: Francia Raisa Almendarez (born July 26, 1988) is an American actress. Raisa is known for her roles in "", "The Secret Life of the American Teenager", and "Grown-ish".


title: Francia Raisa

text: Raisa was born and raised in Los Angeles, California, to a Mexican mother, Virginia Almendárez (née Pelayo) and Renán Almendárez Coello, a Honduran-born radio personality. A few years after Raisa was born, her father started using his new Latin radio personality, "El Cucuy".


title: Francia Raisa

text: Raisa began to take acting jobs in her junior year of high school, modeling for print ads and appearing in commercials. She guest-starred in the sitcoms "American Family: Journey of Dreams" and "Over There". Raisa appeared in Lil' Romeo's music video "My Girlfriend" as Tamy in 2004 and in Iyaz's music video "So Big". A month into her senior year, she booked one of her first lead roles, starring opposite Hayden Panettiere in "". She co-starred in the Nickelodeon movie "Shredderman Rules", where she portrayed Isabel, and in "" and "" as Alexandra Delgado. She played the role of Adrian Lee in the hit ABC Family drama, "The Secret Life of the American Teenager", from its beginning in July 2008, until the series finale in early June 2013.


title: Francia Raisa

text: In 2009, Raisa guest-starred on the USA Network's TV series "In Plain Sight" and co-starred in a short film directed by David Henrie called "Boo", which aired on YouTube. In 2013, Raisa starred in the Christmas-themed movie "Christmas Bounty" alongside Mike "The Miz" Mizanin.


title: Francia Raisa

text: From 2018 to 2022, Raisa starred in the Freeform show, "Grown-ish," executive produced by "Black-ish" creator Kenya Barris. She starred in the show's first four seasons, exiting upon the character's graduation at the end of the fourth season. She also starred in Freeform's 2018 television film, "Life-Size 2", opposite Tyra Banks.


title: Francia Raisa

text: In May 2021, Raisa was cast in "How I Met Your Mother" spinoff series "How I Met Your Father", which premiered on Hulu on January 18, 2022. In February 2022, the series was renewed for a 20-episode second season.


title: Francia Raisa

text: Raisa was born in Los Angeles. In the summer of 2017, Raisa donated one of her kidneys to her friend, singer and actress Selena Gomez, who has lupus.


title: Quinine

text: Quinine is a medication used to treat malaria and babesiosis. This includes the treatment of malaria due to "Plasmodium falciparum" that is resistant to chloroquine when artesunate is not available. While sometimes used for nocturnal leg cramps, quinine is not recommended for this purpose due to the risk of serious side effects. It can be taken by mouth or intravenously. Malaria resistance to quinine occurs in certain areas of the world. Quinine is also used as an ingredient in tonic water to impart a bitter taste.


title: Quinine

text: Common side effects include headache, ringing in the ears, vision issues, and sweating. More severe side effects include deafness, low blood platelets, and an irregular heartbeat. Use can make one more prone to sunburn. While it is unclear if use during pregnancy causes harm to the baby, treating malaria during pregnancy with quinine when appropriate is still recommended. Quinine is an alkaloid, a naturally occurring chemical compound. How it works as a medicine is not entirely clear.


title: Quinine

text: Quinine was first isolated in 1820 from the bark of a cinchona tree, which is native to Peru, and its molecular formula was determined by Strecker in 1854. The class of chemical compounds to which it belongs is thus called the cinchona alkaloids. Bark extracts had been used to treat malaria since at least 1632 and it was introduced to Spain as early as 1636 by Jesuit missionaries returning from the New World. It is on the World Health Organization's List of Essential Medicines. Treatment of malaria with quinine marks the first known use of a chemical compound to treat an infectious disease.


title: Quinine

text: As of 2006, quinine is no longer recommended by the World Health Organization (WHO) as a first-line treatment for malaria, because there are other substances that are equally effective with fewer side effects. They recommend that it be used only when artemisinins are not available. Quinine is also used to treat lupus and arthritis.


title: Quinine

text: Quinine was frequently prescribed as an off-label treatment for leg cramps at night, but this has become less common due to a warning from the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) that such practice is associated with life-threatening side effects. Quinine can also act as a competitive inhibitor of monoamine oxidase (MAO), an enzyme that removes neurotransmitters from the brain. As an MAO inhibitor, it has potential to serve as a treatment for individuals with psychological disorders similar to antidepressants that inhibit MAO.


title: Quinine

text: Quinine is a basic amine and is usually provided as a salt. Various existing preparations include the hydrochloride, dihydrochloride, sulfate, bisulfate and gluconate. In the United States, quinine sulfate is commercially available in 324-mg tablets under the brand name Qualaquin.


title: Quinine

text: All quinine salts may be given orally or intravenously (IV); quinine gluconate may also be given intramuscularly (IM) or rectally (PR). The main problem with the rectal route is that the dose can be expelled before it is completely absorbed; in practice, this is corrected by giving a further half dose. No injectable preparation of quinine is licensed in the US; quinidine is used instead.


title: Quinine

text: Quinine is a flavor component of tonic water and bitter lemon drink mixers. On the soda gun behind many bars, tonic water is designated by the letter "Q" representing quinine.


title: Quinine

text: Tonic water was initially marketed as a means of delivering quinine to consumers in order to offer anti-malarial protection. According to tradition, because of the bitter taste of anti-malarial quinine tonic, British colonials in India mixed it with gin to make it more palatable, thus creating the gin and tonic cocktail, which is still popular today. While it is possible to drink enough tonic water to temporarily achieve quinine levels that offer anti-malarial protection, it is not a sustainable long-term means of protection.


title: Quinine

text: In France, quinine is an ingredient of an known as , or ""Cap Corse,"" and the wine-based Dubonnet. In Spain, quinine (also known as "Peruvian bark" for its origin from the native cinchona tree) is sometimes blended into sweet Malaga wine, which is then called ""Malaga Quina"". In Italy, the traditional flavoured wine Barolo Chinato is infused with quinine and local herbs, and is served as a . In Scotland, the company A.G. Barr uses quinine as an ingredient in the carbonated and caffeinated beverage Irn-Bru. In Uruguay and Argentina, quinine is an ingredient of a PepsiCo tonic water named Paso de los Toros. In Denmark, it is used as an ingredient in the carbonated sports drink Faxe Kondi made by Royal Unibrew.


title: Quinine

text: As a flavouring agent in drinks, quinine is limited to less than 83 parts per million in the United States, and in the European Union.


title: Quinine

text: Quinine (and quinidine) are used as the chiral moiety for the ligands used in Sharpless asymmetric dihydroxylation as well as for numerous other chiral catalyst backbones. Because of its relatively constant and well-known fluorescence quantum yield, quinine is used in photochemistry as a common fluorescence standard.


title: Quinine

text: Because of the narrow difference between its therapeutic and toxic effects, quinine is a common cause of drug-induced disorders, including thrombocytopenia and thrombotic microangiopathy. Even from minor levels occurring in common beverages, quinine can have severe adverse effects involving multiple organ systems, among which are immune system effects and fever, hypotension, hemolytic anemia, acute kidney injury, liver toxicity, and blindness. In people with atrial fibrillation, conduction defects, or heart block, quinine can cause heart arrhythmias, and should be avoided.


title: Quinine

text: Quinine can cause hemolysis in G6PD deficiency (an inherited deficiency), but this risk is small and the physician should not hesitate to use quinine in people with G6PD deficiency when there is no alternative.


title: Quinine

text: Quinine can cause unpredictable serious and life-threatening blood and cardiovascular reactions including low platelet count and hemolytic-uremic syndrome/thrombotic thrombocytopenic purpura (HUS/TTP), long QT syndrome and other serious cardiac arrhythmias including torsades de pointes, blackwater fever, disseminated intravascular coagulation, leukopenia, and neutropenia. Some people who have developed TTP due to quinine have gone on to develop kidney failure. It can also cause serious hypersensitivity reactions including anaphylactic shock, urticaria, serious skin rashes, including Stevens–Johnson syndrome and toxic epidermal necrolysis, angioedema, facial edema, bronchospasm, granulomatous hepatitis, and itchiness.


title: Quinine

text: The most common adverse effects involve a group of symptoms called cinchonism, which can include headache, vasodilation and sweating, nausea, tinnitus, hearing impairment, vertigo or dizziness, blurred vision, and disturbance in color perception. More severe cinchonism includes vomiting, diarrhea, abdominal pain, deafness, blindness, and disturbances in heart rhythms. Cinchonism is much less common when quinine is given by mouth, but oral quinine is not well tolerated (quinine is exceedingly bitter and many people will vomit after ingesting quinine tablets). Other drugs, such as Fansidar (sulfadoxine with pyrimethamine) or Malarone (proguanil with atovaquone), are often used when oral therapy is required. Quinine ethyl carbonate is tasteless and odourless, but is available commercially only in Japan. Blood glucose, electrolyte and cardiac monitoring are not necessary when quinine is given by mouth.


title: Quinine

text: Quinine has diverse unwanted interactions with numerous prescription drugs, such as potentiating the anticoagulant effects of warfarin.


title: Quinine

text: Quinine is used for its toxicity to the malarial pathogen, "Plasmodium falciparum", by interfering with its ability to dissolve and metabolize hemoglobin. As with other quinoline antimalarial drugs, the precise mechanism of action of quinine has not been fully resolved, although in vitro studies indicate it inhibits nucleic acid and protein synthesis, and inhibits glycolysis in "P. falciparum". The most widely accepted hypothesis of its action is based on the well-studied and closely related quinoline drug, chloroquine. This model involves the inhibition of hemozoin biocrystallization in the heme detoxification pathway, which facilitates the aggregation of cytotoxic heme. Free cytotoxic heme accumulates in the parasites, causing their deaths. Quinine may target the malaria purine nucleoside phosphorylase enzyme.


title: Quinine

text: The UV absorption of quinine peaks around 350 nm (in UVA). Fluorescent emission peaks at around 460 nm (bright blue/cyan hue). Quinine is highly fluorescent (quantum yield ~0.58) in 0.1 M sulfuric acid solution.


title: Quinine

text: Cinchona trees remain the only economically practical source of quinine. However, under wartime pressure during World War II, research towards its synthetic production was undertaken. A formal chemical synthesis was accomplished in 1944 by American chemists R.B. Woodward and W.E. Doering. Since then, several more efficient quinine total syntheses have been achieved, but none of them can compete in economic terms with isolation of the alkaloid from natural sources. The first synthetic organic dye, mauveine, was discovered by William Henry Perkin in 1856 while he was attempting to synthesize quinine.


title: Quinine

text: In the first step of quinine biosynthesis, the enzyme strictosidine synthase catalyzes a stereoselective Pictet–Spengler reaction between tryptamine and secologanin to yield strictosidine. Suitable modification of strictosidine leads to an aldehyde. Hydrolysis and decarboxylation would initially remove one carbon from the iridoid portion and produce corynantheal. Then the tryptamine side-chain were cleaved adjacent to the nitrogen, and this nitrogen was then bonded to the acetaldehyde function to yield cinchonaminal. Ring opening in the indole heterocyclic ring could generate new amine and keto functions. The new quinoline heterocycle would then be formed by combining this amine with the aldehyde produced in the tryptamine side-chain cleavage, giving cinchonidinone. For the last step, hydroxylation and methylation gives quinine.


title: Quinine

text: Quinine and other "Cinchona" alkaloids can be used as catalysts for stereoselective reactions in organic synthesis. For example, the quinine-catalyzed Michael addition of a malononitrile to α,β-enones gives a high degree of sterechemical control.


title: Quinine

text: Quinine was used as a muscle relaxant by the Quechua people, who are indigenous to Peru, Bolivia and Ecuador, to halt shivering. The Quechua would mix the ground bark of cinchona trees with sweetened water to offset the bark's bitter taste, thus producing something similar to tonic water.


title: Quinine

text: Spanish Jesuit missionaries were the first to bring cinchona to Europe. The Spanish had observed the Quechua's use of cinchona and were aware of the medicinal properties of cinchona bark by the 1570s or earlier: Nicolás Monardes (1571) and Juan Fragoso (1572) both described a tree, which was subsequently identified as the cinchona tree, whose bark was used to produce a drink to treat diarrhea. Quinine has been used in unextracted form by Europeans since at least the early 17th century.


title: Quinine

text: A popular story of how it was brought to Europe by the Countess of Chinchon was debunked by medical historian Alec Haggis around 1941. During the 17th century, malaria was endemic to the swamps and marshes surrounding the city of Rome. It had caused the deaths of several popes, many cardinals and countless common Roman citizens. Most of the Catholic priests trained in Rome had seen malaria patients and were familiar with the shivering brought on by the febrile phase of the disease.


title: Quinine

text: The Jesuit Agostino Salumbrino (1564–1642), an apothecary by training who lived in Lima (now in present-day Peru), observed the Quechua using the bark of the cinchona tree to treat such shivering. While its effect in treating malaria (and malaria-induced shivering) was unrelated to its effect in controlling shivering from rigors, it was a successful medicine against malaria. At the first opportunity, Salumbrino sent a small quantity to Rome for testing as a malaria treatment. In the years that followed, cinchona bark, known as Jesuit's bark or Peruvian bark, became one of the most valuable commodities shipped from Peru to Europe. When King Charles II was cured of malaria at the end of the 17th Century with quinine, it became popular in London. It remained the antimalarial drug of choice until the 1940s, when other drugs took over.


title: Quinine

text: The form of quinine most effective in treating malaria was found by Charles Marie de La Condamine in 1737. In 1820, French researchers Pierre Joseph Pelletier and Joseph Bienaimé Caventou first isolated quinine from the bark of a tree in the genus "Cinchona" – probably "Cinchona pubescens" – and subsequently named the substance. The name was derived from the original Quechua (Inca) word for the cinchona tree bark, "quina" or "quina-quina", which means "bark of bark" or "holy bark". Prior to 1820, the bark was dried, ground to a fine powder, and mixed into a liquid (commonly wine) in order to be drunk. Large-scale use of quinine as a malaria prophylaxis started around 1850. In 1853 Paul Briquet published a brief history and discussion of the literature on "quinquina".


title: Quinine

text: Quinine played a significant role in the colonization of Africa by Europeans. The availability of quinine for treatment had been said to be the prime reason Africa ceased to be known as the "white man's grave". A historian said, "it was quinine's efficacy that gave colonists fresh opportunities to swarm into the Gold Coast, Nigeria and other parts of west Africa".


title: Quinine

text: To maintain their monopoly on cinchona bark, Peru and surrounding countries began outlawing the export of cinchona seeds and saplings in the early 19th century. In 1865, Manuel Incra Mamani collected seeds from a plant particularly high in quinine and provided them to Charles Ledger. Ledger sent them to his brother, who sold them to the Dutch government. Mamani was arrested on a seed collecting trip in 1871, and beaten so severely, likely because of providing the seeds to foreigners, that he died soon afterwards.


title: Quinine

text: By the late 19th century the Dutch grew the plants in Indonesian plantations. Soon they became the main suppliers of the tree. In 1913 they set up the Kina Bureau, a cartel of cinchona producers charged with controlling price and production. By the 1930s Dutch plantations in Java were producing 22 million pounds of cinchona bark, or 97% of the world's quinine production. U.S. attempts to prosecute the Kina Bureau proved unsuccessful.


title: Quinine

text: During World War II, Allied powers were cut off from their supply of quinine when Germany conquered the Netherlands, and Japan controlled the Philippines and Indonesia. The US had obtained four million cinchona seeds from the Philippines and began operating cinchona plantations in Costa Rica. Additionally, they began harvesting wild cinchona bark during the Cinchona Missions. Such supplies came too late. Tens of thousands of US troops in Africa and the South Pacific died of malaria due to the lack of quinine. Despite controlling the supply, the Japanese did not make effective use of quinine, and thousands of Japanese troops in the southwest Pacific died as a result.


title: Quinine

text: Quinine remained the antimalarial drug of choice until after World War II. Since then, other drugs that have fewer side effects, such as chloroquine, have largely replaced it.


title: Quinine

text: "Bromo Quinine" were brand name cold tablets containing quinine, manufactured by Grove Laboratories. They were first marketed in 1889 and available until at least the 1960s.


title: Quinine

text: Conducting research in central Missouri, John S. Sappington independently developed an anti-malaria pill from quinine. Sappington began importing cinchona bark from Peru in 1820. In 1832, using quinine derived from the cinchona bark, Sappington developed a pill to treat a variety of fevers, such as scarlet fever, yellow fever, and influenza in addition to malaria. These illnesses were widespread in the Missouri and Mississippi valleys. He manufactured and sold "Dr. Sappington's Anti-Fever Pills" across Missouri. Demand became so great that within three years, Sappington founded a company known as Sappington and Sons to sell his pills nationwide.


title: Quinine

text: The bark of "Remijia" contains 0.5–2% of quinine. The bark is cheaper than bark of "Cinchona". As it has an intense taste, it is used for making tonic water.


title: Quinine

text: From 1969, to 1992, the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) received 157 reports of health problems related to quinine use, including 23 which had resulted in death. In 1994, the FDA banned the marketing of over-the-counter quinine as a treatment for nocturnal leg cramps. Pfizer Pharmaceuticals had been selling the brand name Legatrin for this purpose. Also sold as a Softgel (by SmithKlineBeecham) as Q-vel. Doctors may still prescribe quinine, but the FDA has ordered firms to stop marketing unapproved drug products containing quinine. The FDA is also cautioning consumers about off-label use of quinine to treat leg cramps. Quinine is approved for treatment of malaria, but was also commonly prescribed to treat leg cramps and similar conditions. Because malaria is life-threatening, the risks associated with quinine use are considered acceptable when used to treat that condition.


title: Quinine

text: Though Legatrin was banned by the FDA for the treatment of leg cramps, the drug manufacturer URL Mutual has branded a quinine-containing drug named Qualaquin. It is marketed as a treatment for malaria and is sold in the United States only by prescription. In 2004, the CDC reported only 1,347 confirmed cases of malaria in the United States.


title: Quinine

text: Quinine is used as a treatment for "Cryptocaryon irritans" (commonly referred to as white spot, crypto or marine ich) infection of marine aquarium fish.


title: Richard Marx

text: Richard Noel Marx (born September 16, 1963) is an American adult contemporary and pop rock singer-songwriter. He has sold over 30 million albums worldwide.


title: Richard Marx

text: Marx's self-titled debut album went triple-platinum in 1987, and his first single, "Don't Mean Nothing", reached number three on the "Billboard" Hot 100 chart. Between 1987 and 1994, he had 14 top 20 hits, including three number one singles.


title: Richard Marx

text: Marx is the only male artist in history to have his first seven singles reach the top 5 of the "Billboard" charts. He has scored a total of 14 number one singles, both as a performer and as a songwriter/producer. As a singer, his No. 1 hits include "Right Here Waiting", "Hold On to the Nights", "Endless Summer Nights", and "Satisfied". According to "Billboard", Marx "holds the distinction of having written songs that have hit No. 1 on various "Billboard" charts in each of the last four decades."


title: Richard Marx

text: Marx has written or collaborated on songs with other artists, including "This I Promise You" by NSYNC and "Dance with My Father" by Luther Vandross. Marx has been nominated for five Grammy Awards. In 2003, he won the Grammy for Song of the Year for "Dance with My Father".


title: Richard Marx

text: Marx's first number one success came in 1984 with "What About Me?" which was recorded by Kenny Rogers, Kim Carnes, and James Ingram. His second chart-topper was 1985's "Crazy", a song he co-wrote with country music superstar Kenny Rogers.


title: Richard Marx

text: Marx was born in Chicago, Illinois, the only child of Ruth ("née" Guildoo), a former singer, and Dick Marx, a jazz musician and founder of a jingle company in the early 1960s. His father was of German-Jewish descent. Marx attended North Shore Country Day School. He has three half-siblings from his father's previous marriage.


title: Richard Marx

text: Marx began his career in music at age five, singing commercial jingles written by his father's company; his list of advertising hits includes Arm & Hammer, Ken-L Ration and Nestlé Crunch. Marx was 17 and living in Highland Park, Illinois when a tape of his songs ended up in the hands of Lionel Richie. Richie thought Marx had talent and told the teen, "I can't promise you anything, but you should come to L.A."


title: Richard Marx

text: Marx said one of the first musicians he met in Los Angeles was Fee Waybill of The Tubes with whom he has collaborated at least 30 times. They met in a recording studio. In that same 2014 video segment for Ameoba Records. Marx called Waybill "my life-long best friend" and said Waybill is also godfather to his children. Waybill went into great detail about their working relationship in a 2020 interview with American Songwriter.


title: Richard Marx

text: Marx's self-titled debut album, released in June 1987, yielded four hit singles and went triple platinum. The debut single, "Don't Mean Nothing", is a song about the potential pitfalls of the music business. "Don't Mean Nothing" reached No. 3 on the U.S. "Billboard" Hot 100 and No. 1 on "Billboard"s Album Rock chart. Marx became the first new artist played on 117 radio stations nationwide during his initial week on the charts. The next two singles, "Should've Known Better" and "Endless Summer Nights", reached No. 3 and No. 2, respectively. The fourth single released from the album, "Hold On to the Nights", earned Marx his first No. 1 hit. The latter three of the album's singles were also hits on "Billboard"s Adult Contemporary chart, beginning a long string of hits on that chart.


title: Richard Marx

text: With the success of his self-titled album, Marx embarked on his first world tour, initially opening for REO Speedwagon, but quickly began headlining his own shows. His first tour kept him on the road for 14 months.


title: Richard Marx

text: In 1988, Marx was nominated for a Grammy Award for Best Rock Vocal Performance – Solo for "Don't Mean Nothing". The same year, the song "Surrender to Me", which he co-wrote with Ross Vanelli, appeared in the film "Tequila Sunrise".


title: Richard Marx

text: "Repeat Offender", Marx's second album, was released in May 1989. It rose to No. 1 on "Billboard"s album chart. It went triple platinum within a few months and eventually sold over 5 million copies in the United States alone. The first two singles, "Satisfied" and the platinum-selling "Right Here Waiting", both reached No. 1.


title: Richard Marx

text: "Right Here Waiting" was Marx's first No. 1 hit on the U.S. Adult Contemporary chart as well as his first big hit outside of North America, reaching No. 1 in several European countries and giving Marx his first top ten hit in the UK. It has been covered numerous times, most notably by Monica and 112 in a 1998 duet. Another single from the album, "Children of the Night", was written and composed in support of a Van Nuys-based organization for runaways. It became the sixth single from "Repeat Offender".


title: Richard Marx

text: Marx performed the Beatles' "Help" at the Berlin Wall in late 1989. Marx also received his second Grammy nomination in 1990 for Best Pop Vocal Performance – Male for "Right Here Waiting".


title: Richard Marx

text: In 1991, Marx released his third consecutive platinum album "Rush Street." The album saw artists such as Luther Vandross and Billy Joel appear as backing vocalists and guest pianists. The disc's first single, "Keep Coming Back", went to No. 12 on the Hot 100 and its second single, "Hazard", made it to No. 9. Both songs hit No. 1 on "Billboard"s Adult Contemporary chart for four weeks and one week respectively. "Hazard" became Marx's second UK top ten, reaching No. 3.


title: Richard Marx

text: In early 1994, as he and his family permanently left Los Angeles behind and returned to Chicago, Marx released "Paid Vacation," and scored his fourth consecutive platinum album. The acoustic ballad "Now and Forever" peaked at No. 7 on the Hot 100, his top ten hit on that chart.


title: Richard Marx

text: The year 1997 saw the release of "Flesh and Bone," Marx's final studio album on the Capitol imprint. The disc's first single, "Until I Find You Again", hit No. 3 on the U.S. Adult Contemporary chart and No. 42 on the "Billboard" Hot 100.


title: Richard Marx

text: Marx's "Greatest Hits" compilation was released in November 1997. The 16-track album includes a variety of hit singles from his first five albums plus "Angel's Lullaby", a song written about his children originally appearing on "For Our Children, Too", a compilation CD released in 1996 to benefit the Pediatric AIDS Foundation. "Greatest Hits" was released in Asia in November 1998 and included two new songs, "Slipping Away" and "Thanks to You", a tribute to his mother. The album was certified Gold in the U.S.


title: Richard Marx

text: In 2000, Marx debuted his sixth studio album, titled "Days in Avalon." This disc was released on the Signal 21 Records label founded by Marx and former Blood, Sweat & Tears drummer and record producer Bobby Colomby.


title: Richard Marx

text: After signing a new deal with his former label, Manhattan Records, Marx released the 2004 album "My Own Best Enemy."


title: Richard Marx

text: In 2008, Marx released "Duo," on which he collaborated with Vertical Horizon's lead singer Matt Scannell.


title: Richard Marx

text: On June 12, 2008, Marx was part of a PBS television series called "Songwriters in the Round Presents: Legends & Lyrics". In Episode 102 of the first season, Marx appeared along with Kenny Loggins, Nathan Lee, and rock band Three Doors Down. This episode also featured an interview with singer-songwriter Diane Warren.


title: Richard Marx

text: On October 31, 2008, "Emotional Remains" and "Sundown" were released, as digital downloads, on Marx's official site.


title: Richard Marx

text: On December 6, 2008, Marx headlined a fundraiser for cystic fibrosis research, "Newsapalooza", sponsored by WLS-AM's Roe Conn program, in which Marx both performed several of his hits with his band and accompanied Chicago broadcast news reporters and anchors covering rock hits.


title: Richard Marx

text: In an interview published in "Rolling Stone" on June 26, 2009, Marx said he was "ashamed" of having been linked to a $1.92 million fine against single mother Jammie Thomas-Rasset by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA). Rasset had shared 24 songs on the file-sharing website Kazaa in 2005, and Marx's "Now and Forever" was one of them.


title: Richard Marx

text: Marx played piano on the song "Here" and produced Matt Scannell's vocals on two tracks for Vertical Horizon's 2009 album, entitled "Burning the Days."


title: Richard Marx

text: On May 3, 2011, Marx was invited onto the stage at the Curran Theater in San Francisco by Hugh Jackman. It was opening night of "Hugh Jackman in Performance." Jackman and Marx sang "Right Here Waiting" together, with Marx changing the lyrics of the last chorus to "right here waiting for Hugh".


title: Richard Marx

text: Also on May 3, 2011, the reissue of "Stories to Tell" was released in the United States as a three-disc set exclusively through Walmart. The set included a "best of" disc, an acoustic disc of tracks, and a DVD of a live concert performance at the Shepherd's Bush venue in England. The album was also made available for purchase on iTunes and Amazon, but without the bonus DVD and album booklet. "Everybody" was released as a single in Europe and "When You Loved Me" was released in the U.S., peaking in the Top 20 on the Adult Contemporary chart.


title: Richard Marx

text: In the summer of 2011, Marx collaborated with the internet comedy duo Rhett and Link, producing a celebrity endorsement for a colon-cleansing spa in Sacramento, California. The ad spot and its "making of" was featured on an episode of Rhett and Link's "Commercial Kings" television series on IFC.


title: Richard Marx

text: On November 1, 2011, Marx released "The Christmas EP," a five-song collection of Christmas songs. In October 2012, Marx followed up "The Christmas EP" with a full album of holiday tracks that he called "Christmas Spirit."


title: Richard Marx

text: Marx's next album, "Limitless", was released on February 7, 2020. Its lead-off single, "Another One Down", hit No. 14 on "Billboard"'s Adult Contemporary chart, giving Marx a span of 32 years at the format.


title: Richard Marx

text: He appears as himself in the 200th episode of "The Goldbergs", "The Wedding" which aired in March 2022.


title: Richard Marx

text: Marx announced his new album "Songwriter" will be released on September 30, 2022 and released the first single Same Heartbreak, Different Day on July 15, 2022. It was revealed that a previous non-album single "Just Go" that was subsequently released as a bonus track to the "Beautiful Goodbye" will also be on this album, along with the studio version of Moscow Calling that had also been a bonus track to "Beautiful Goodbye" as a remix.


title: Richard Marx

text: On January 8, 1989, Marx married singer, dancer, and actress Cynthia Rhodes, who appeared in "Staying Alive", "Flashdance", and "Dirty Dancing". Rhodes appeared as the female lead in Marx's first video, "Don't Mean Nothing". The couple have three sons – Brandon (born 1990), Lucas (born 1992), and Jesse (born 1994) — and previously resided in Lake Bluff, Illinois. He currently resides in Malibu, California. In April 2014, the couple announced they were divorcing after 25 years of marriage.


title: Richard Marx

text: On December 23, 2015, Marx married entrepreneur and former MTV VJ Daisy Fuentes in Aspen, Colorado, as confirmed on his official Facebook page.


title: Richard Marx

text: On December 21, 2016, it was reported that Marx helped Korean Air flight attendants pacify an unruly, possibly intoxicated passenger while he and his wife were aboard a flight bound from Hanoi to Seoul, even providing photographic evidence of the incident. He also criticized the airline's handling of the situation. In response, Korean Air stated that they would respond more assertively to similar situations in the future.


title: Queen discography

text: Queen are a British rock band, whose classic line-up consisted of vocalist and pianist Freddie Mercury, guitarist Brian May, drummer Roger Taylor and bassist John Deacon. Since the 1970s, Queen has sold 300 million records worldwide, making them one of the best-selling artists in history. Billboard ranked them as the 87th Greatest Artist of all time. According to RIAA, Queen has sold 86.5 million certified records in the US.


title: Queen discography

text: Founded in 1970, Queen released their self-titled debut album in 1973. Despite not being an immediate success, they quickly gained popularity in Britain with their second album "Queen II" in 1974. Their 1975 single, "Bohemian Rhapsody", was No. 1 in the UK charts for nine weeks (and a further five weeks in 1991 after Mercury's death) and is the third-biggest-selling single of all time in the UK. In the US, "Bohemian Rhapsody" hit the "Billboard" Top 40 charts in three different decades, reaching No. 9 on its original release in 1975, No. 2 in 1992 after being featured in the film "Wayne's World", and hitting the Top 40 once more in 2018 upon the release of the Queen biopic "Bohemian Rhapsody". The 1981 compilation "Greatest Hits" is the biggest-selling album in UK history, with 6 million copies sold by 2014. The 1991 compilation "Greatest Hits II" is also one of the UK's top ten biggest-sellers of all time, with 3.8 million copies sold by 2012.


title: Queen discography

text: In 1972, Queen signed a production deal with Trident Studios. Later in their career, Queen signed a record contract with EMI, and Elektra in the United States. The band would remain with EMI for the rest of their career, although in 1983 they terminated their American contract with Elektra and signed with Capitol Records. However, in 1990, they terminated their US contract with Capitol and signed with Disney's Hollywood Records, which has remained the current owner and distributor of Queen's entire music catalogue in North America.


title: Queen discography

text: In 1991, Queen's entire catalog was remastered and released by Hollywood on CD in the United States, and 13 albums (all studio albums up to "The Works", as well as "Live Killers" and "Greatest Hits") were remastered at Abbey Road Studios and released on CD and cassette in the United Kingdom between July 1993 and March 1994. Queen's entire album back catalog was remastered and re-released in the UK and the rest of the world (excluding the US) through 2011 to commemorate their 40th anniversary (as well as being the 20th anniversary of Mercury's death). The 2011 remasters were released by Universal's Island Records label, as the band's contract with EMI ended in 2010, and then on SACD by Universal Music Japan, between November 2011 and April 2012. In an interview with BBC Wales, Brian May announced a new compilation album titled "Queen Forever", which was later released by Hollywood Records in November 2014.


title: Queen discography

text: In 2012, Queen were ranked as being the seventh-biggest-selling singles artist in United Kingdom, with 12.6 million singles sold. In a time period stretching from 1991 up to October 1995, Queen sold five million copies in Italy alone.


title: Queen discography

text: Before 2011 compilation albums were not listed on the Top 200 Albums Chart in France, but instead on a separate chart for compilation albums only. The French chart positions here for the compilation albums are their peak positions on the French Compilation Albums Chart.


title: Motown

text: Motown Records is an American record label owned by the Universal Music Group. It was founded by Berry Gordy Jr. as Tamla Records on June 7, 1958, and incorporated as Motown Record Corporation on April 14, 1960. Its name, a portmanteau of "motor" and "town", has become a nickname for Detroit, where the label was originally headquartered.


title: Motown

text: Motown played an important role in the racial integration of popular music as an African American-owned label that achieved crossover success. In the 1960s, Motown and its subsidiary labels (including Tamla Motown, the brand used outside the US) were the most of the Motown sound, a style of soul music with a mainstream pop appeal. Motown was the most successful soul music label, with a net worth of $61 million. During the 1960s, Motown achieved 79 records in the top-ten of the "Billboard" Hot 100 between 1960 and 1969.


title: Motown

text: Following the events of the Detroit Riots of 1967, and the loss of key songwriting/production team Holland–Dozier–Holland that year over pay disputes, Gordy moved Motown to Los Angeles, California. Motown expanded into film and television production.


title: Motown

text: It was an independent company until MCA Records bought it in 1988. PolyGram purchased the label from MCA in 1993, followed by MCA successor Universal Music Group, which acquired PolyGram in 1999.


title: Motown

text: Motown spent much of the 2000s headquartered in New York City as a part of the UMG subsidiaries Universal Motown and Universal Motown Republic Group. From 2011 to 2014, it was a part of The Island Def Jam Music Group division of Universal Music. In 2014, however, UMG announced the dissolution of Island Def Jam, and Motown relocated back to Los Angeles to operate under the Capitol Music Group, now operating out of the Capitol Tower. In 2018, Motown was inducted into Rhythm and Blues Music Hall of Fame in a ceremony held at the Charles H. Wright Museum.


title: Motown

text: On November 29, 2022, Ethiopia Habtemariam announced that she would be stepping down as Chairwoman/CEO of Motown.


title: Motown

text: Berry Gordy's interest in the record business began when he opened a record store called the 3D Record Mart, a shop where he hoped to "educate customers about the beauty of jazz", in Detroit, Michigan. (The Gordys were an entrepreneurial family.) Although the shop did not last very long, Gordy's interest in the music business did not fade. He frequented Detroit's downtown nightclubs, and in the Flame Show Bar he met bar manager Al Green (not the famed singer), who owned a music publishing company called Pearl Music and represented Detroit-based musician Jackie Wilson. Gordy soon became part of a group of songwriters—with his sister Gwen Gordy and Billy Davis—who wrote songs for Wilson. "Reet Petite" was their first major hit which appeared in November 1957. During the next eighteen months, Gordy helped to write six more Wilson A-sides, including "Lonely Teardrops", a peak-popular hit of 1958. Between 1957 and 1958, Gordy wrote or produced over a hundred sides for various artists, with his siblings Anna, Gwen and Robert, and other collaborators in varying combinations.


title: Motown

text: In 1957, Gordy met Smokey Robinson, who at the time was a local seventeen-year-old singer fronting a vocal harmony group called the Matadors. Gordy was interested in the doo-wop style that Robinson sang. In 1958, Gordy recorded the group's song "Got a Job" (an answer song to "Get a Job" by the Silhouettes), and released it as a single by leasing the record to a larger company outside Detroit called End Records, based in New York. The practice was common at the time for a small-time producer. "Got a Job" was the first single by Robinson's group, now called the Miracles. Gordy recorded a number of other records by forging a similar arrangement, most significantly with United Artists.


title: Motown

text: In 1958, Gordy wrote and produced "Come to Me" for Marv Johnson. Seeing that the song had great crossover potential, Gordy leased it to United Artists for national distribution but also released it locally on his own startup imprint. Needing $800 to cover his end of the deal, Gordy asked his family to borrow money from a cooperative family savings account. After some debate, his family agreed, and in January 1959 “Come to Me” was released regionally on Gordy's new Tamla label. Gordy originally wanted to name the label Tammy Records, after the hit song popularized by Debbie Reynolds from the 1957 film "Tammy and the Bachelor", in which Reynolds also starred. When he found the name was already in use, Berry decided on Tamla instead. In April 1959, Gordy and his sister Gwen founded Anna Records which released about two dozen singles between 1959 and 1960. The most popular was Barrett Strong's "Money (That's What I Want)", written by Gordy and a secretary named Janie Bradford, and produced by Gordy. Many of the songs distributed locally by Anna and Tamla Records were nationally distributed by Chess Records (sometimes with Anna and Tamla imprints). Gordy's relationship with Chess fostered closer dealings with Harvey Fuqua, nephew of Charlie Fuqua of the Ink Spots. Harvey Fuqua later married Gwen Gordy in 1961.


title: Motown

text: Gordy looked toward creative self-sufficiency and established the publishing firm Jobete in June 1959 (incorporated in Michigan). He applied for copyrights on more than seventy songs before the end of 1959, including material used for the Miracles and Frances Burnett records, which were leased to Chess and Coral Records. The "Michigan Chronicle" of Detroit called Gordy an "independent producer of records", as his contributions to the city were beginning to attract notice. By that time, he was the president of Jobete, Tamla, and the music writing company Rayber.


title: Motown

text: Gordy worked in various Detroit-based studios during this period to produce recordings and demos, but most prominently with United Sound Systems which was considered the best studio in town. However, producing at United Sound Systems was financially taxing and not appropriate for every job, so Gordy decided it would be more cost effective to maintain his own facility. In mid-1959, he purchased a photography studio at 2648 West Grand Boulevard and converted the main floor into a recording studio and office space. Now, rather than shopping his songs to other artists or leasing his recordings to outside companies, Gordy began using the Tamla and Motown imprints to release songs that he wrote and produced. He incorporated Motown Records in April 1960.


title: Motown

text: Smokey Robinson became the vice president of the company (and later named his daughter "Tamla" and his son "Berry"). Several of Gordy's family members, including his father Berry Sr., brothers Robert and George, and sister Esther, were given key roles in the company. By the middle of the decade, Gwen and Anna Gordy had joined the label in administrative positions as well. Gordy's partner at the time (and wife from 1960 to 1964), Raynoma Liles, also played a key role in the early days of Motown, leading the company's first session group, The Rayber Voices, and overseeing Jobete.


title: Motown

text: As mentioned above, in 1959, Gordy purchased the property that would become Motown's Hitsville U.S.A. studio. The photography studio located in the back of the property was modified into a small recording studio, and the Gordys moved into the second-floor living quarters. Within seven years, Motown would occupy seven additional neighboring houses:


title: Motown

text: Early Tamla/Motown artists included Mable John, Eddie Holland and Mary Wells. "Shop Around", the Miracles' first number 1 R&B hit, peaked at number two on the "Billboard" Hot 100 in 1960. It was Tamla's first million-selling record. On April 14, 1960, Motown and Tamla Records merged into a new company called Motown Record Corporation. A year later, the Marvelettes scored Tamla's first US number-one pop hit, "Please Mr. Postman". By the mid-1960s, the company, with the help of songwriters and producers such as Robinson, A&R chief William "Mickey" Stevenson, Brian Holland, Lamont Dozier, and Norman Whitfield, had become a major force in the music industry.


title: Motown

text: From 1961 to 1971, Motown had 110 top 10 hits. Top artists on the Motown label during that period included the Supremes (initially including Diana Ross), the Four Tops, and the Jackson 5, while Stevie Wonder, Marvin Gaye, the Marvelettes, and the Miracles had hits on the Tamla label. The company operated several labels in addition to the Tamla and Motown imprints. A third label, which Gordy named after himself (though it was originally called "Miracle") featured the Temptations, the Contours, Edwin Starr, and Martha and the Vandellas. A fourth, V.I.P., released recordings by the Velvelettes, the Spinners, the Monitors, and Chris Clark.


title: Motown

text: A fifth label, Soul, featured Jr. Walker & the All Stars, Jimmy Ruffin, Shorty Long, the Originals, and Gladys Knight & the Pips (who had found success before joining Motown, as "The Pips" on Vee-Jay). Many more Motown-owned labels released recordings in other genres, including Workshop Jazz (jazz) Earl Washington Reflections and Earl Washington's All Stars, Mel-o-dy (country, although it was originally an R&B label), and Rare Earth, which featured the band Rare Earth themselves. Under the slogan "The Sound of Young America", Motown's acts were enjoying widespread popularity among black and white audiences alike.


title: Motown

text: Into the 1960s, I was still not of a frame of mind that we were not only making music, we were making history. But I did recognize the impact because acts were going all over the world at that time. I recognized the bridges that we crossed, the racial problems and the barriers that we broke down with music. I recognized that because I lived it. I would come to the South in the early days of Motown and the audiences would be segregated. Then they started to get the Motown music and we would go back and the audiences were integrated and the kids were dancing together and holding hands.


title: Motown

text: In 1967, Berry Gordy purchased what is now known as "Motown Mansion" in Detroit's Boston-Edison Historic District as his home, leaving his previous home to his sister Anna and then-husband Marvin Gaye (where photos for the cover of his album "What's Going On" were taken). In 1968, Gordy purchased the Donovan building on the corner of Woodward Avenue and Interstate 75, and moved Motown's Detroit offices there (the Donovan building was demolished in January 2006 to provide parking spaces for Super Bowl XL). In the same year, Gordy purchased Golden World Records, and its recording studio became "Studio B" to Hitsville's "Studio A".


title: Motown

text: In the United Kingdom, Motown's records were released on various labels: at first London (only the Miracles' "Shop Around"/"Who's Lovin' You" and "Ain't It Baby"), then Fontana ("Please Mr. Postman" by the Marvelettes was one of four) and then Oriole American ("Fingertips" by Little Stevie Wonder was one of many). In 1963, Motown signed with EMI's Stateside label ("Where Did Our Love Go" by the Supremes and "My Guy" by Mary Wells were Motown's first British top-20 hits). Eventually, EMI created the Tamla Motown label ("Stop! In the Name of Love" by the Supremes was the first Tamla Motown release in March 1965).


title: Motown

text: After the songwriting trio Holland–Dozier–Holland left the label in 1967 over royalty-payment disputes, Norman Whitfield became the company's top producer, turning out hits for The Temptations, Marvin Gaye, Gladys Knight & the Pips and Rare Earth. In the meantime Berry Gordy established Motown Productions, a television subsidiary which produced TV specials for the Motown artists, including "TCB", with Diana Ross & the Supremes and the Temptations, "Diana!" with Diana Ross, and "Goin' Back to Indiana" with the Jackson 5. The company loosened its production rules, allowing some of its longtime artists the opportunity to write and produce more of their own material. This resulted in the recordings of successful and critically acclaimed albums such as Marvin Gaye's "What's Going On" (1971) and "Let's Get it On" (1973), and Stevie Wonder's "Music of My Mind" (1972), "Talking Book" (1972), and "Innervisions" (1973).


title: Motown

text: Motown had established branch offices in both New York City and Los Angeles during the mid-1960s, and by 1969 had begun gradually moving more of its operations to Los Angeles. The company moved all of its operations to Los Angeles in June 1972, with a number of artists, among them Martha Reeves, the Four Tops, Gladys Knight & the Pips, and many of the Funk Brothers studio band, either staying behind in Detroit or leaving the company for other reasons. By re-locating, Motown aimed chiefly to branch out into the motion-picture industry, and Motown Productions got its start in film by turning out two hit-vehicles for Diana Ross: the Billie Holiday biographical film "Lady Sings the Blues" (1972), and "Mahogany" (1975). Other Motown films would include "Scott Joplin" (1977), "Thank God It's Friday" (1978), "The Wiz" (1978) and "The Last Dragon" (1985). Ewart Abner, who had been associated with Motown since the 1960s, became its president in 1973.


title: Motown

text: By the 1970s, the Motown "hit factory" had become a target of a backlash from some fans of rock music. Record producer Pete Waterman recalls of this period: "I was a DJ for years and I worked for Motown – the press at the time, papers like "NME", used to call it Toytown. When I DJ'd on the Poly circuit, the students wanted me to play Spooky Tooth and Velvet Underground. Things don't change. Nowadays, of course, Motown is hip."


title: Motown

text: Despite losing Holland–Dozier–Holland, Norman Whitfield, and some of its other hitmakers by 1975, Motown still had a number of successful artists during the 1970s and 1980s, including Lionel Richie and the Commodores, Rick James, Teena Marie, the Dazz Band, Jose Feliciano and DeBarge. By the mid-1980s, Motown had started losing money, and Berry Gordy sold his ownership in Motown to MCA Records (which began a North American distribution deal with the label in 1983) and Boston Ventures in June 1988 for $61 million. In 1989, Gordy sold the Motown Productions TV/film operations to Motown executive Suzanne de Passe, who renamed the company de Passe Entertainment and continues to run it . Gordy continued to retain the Jobete music publishing catalog, selling it separately to EMI Music Publishing in parts between 1997 and 2004. It is currently owned by Sony Music Publishing (Sony/ATV until 2021) through the acquisition of EMI Music Publishing in 2012 (as a leader of the consortium and eventually assigned full ownership in 2018).


title: Motown

text: During the 1990s, Motown was home to successful recording artists such as Boyz II Men and Johnny Gill, although the company itself remained in a state of turmoil. MCA appointed a series of executives to run the company, beginning with Berry Gordy's immediate successor, Jheryl Busby. Busby quarreled with MCA, alleging that the company did not give Motown's product adequate attention or promotion. In 1991, Motown sued MCA to have its distribution deal with the company terminated, and began releasing its product through PolyGram. PolyGram purchased Motown from Boston Ventures three years later.


title: Motown

text: In 1994, Busby was replaced by Andre Harrell, the entrepreneur behind Uptown Records. Harrell served as Motown's CEO for just under two years, leaving the company after receiving bad publicity for being inefficient. Danny Goldberg, who ran PolyGram's Mercury Records group, assumed control of Motown, and George Jackson served as president.


title: Motown

text: By 1998, Motown had added stars such as 702, Brian McKnight, and Erykah Badu to its roster. In December 1998, PolyGram was acquired by Seagram, and Motown was absorbed into the Universal Music Group. Seagram had purchased Motown's former parent MCA in 1995, and Motown was in effect reunited with many of its MCA corporate siblings (Seagram had hoped to build a media empire around Universal, and started by purchasing PolyGram). Universal briefly considered shuttering the label, but instead decided to restructure it. Kedar Massenburg, a producer for Erykah Badu, became the head of the label, and oversaw successful recordings from Badu, McKnight, Michael McDonald, and new Motown artist India.Arie.


title: Motown

text: Diana Ross, Smokey Robinson, Stevie Wonder, and the Temptations had remained with the label since its early days, although all except Wonder recorded for other labels for several years. Ross left Motown for RCA Records from 1981 to 1988, but returned in 1989 and stayed until 2002, while Robinson left Motown in 1991 (although he did return to release one more album for the label in 1999). The Temptations left for Atlantic Records in 1977, but returned in 1980 and eventually left again in 2004. Wonder finally left the label in 2020.


title: Motown

text: In 2005, Massenburg was replaced by Sylvia Rhone, former CEO of Elektra Records. Motown was merged with Universal Records to create the Universal Motown Records and placed under the newly created umbrella division of Universal Motown Republic Group. Notable artists on Universal Motown included Drake Bell, Ryan Leslie, Melanie Fiona, Kelly Rowland, Forever the Sickest Kids, The Veer Union and Four Year Strong. Motown celebrated its 50th anniversary on January 12, 2009, and celebrated it in Detroit on November 20, 2009, in a black-tie Gala titled "Live It Again!" The event was hosted by Sinbad and included Stevie Wonder, Smokey Robinson, the Temptations, Aretha Franklin and Kid Rock.


title: Motown

text: In the mid-2011, Universal Motown reverted to the Motown brand after having been separated from Universal Motown Republic Group, hired Ethiopia Habtemariam as its Senior Vice President, and operated under The Island Def Jam Music Group. Artists from Universal Motown were transferred to the newly revitalized Motown label. On January 25, 2012, it was announced that Ne-Yo would join the Motown label both as an artist as well as the new Senior Vice President of A&R. On April 1, 2014, it was announced that Island Def Jam will no longer be running following the resignation of CEO Barry Weiss. In a press release sent out by Universal Music Group, the label will now be reorganizing Def Jam Recordings, Island Records and Motown Records all as separate entities. Motown would then begin serving as a subsidiary of Capitol Records. In late 2018, Motown began celebrating its 60th anniversary by reissuing numerous albums from their catalog.


title: Motown

text: Motown UK launched in September 2020 under Universal UK's EMI Records (formerly Virgin EMI Records) division.


title: Motown

text: Motown specialized in a type of soul music it referred to with the trademark "The Motown Sound". Crafted with an ear towards pop appeal, the Motown Sound typically used tambourines to accent the back beat, prominent and often melodic electric bass-guitar lines, distinctive melodic and chord structures, and a call-and-response singing style that originated in gospel music. In 1971, Jon Landau wrote in "Rolling Stone" that the sound consisted of songs with simple structures but sophisticated melodies, along with a four-beat drum pattern, regular use of horns and strings, and "a trebly style of mixing that relied heavily on electronic limiting and equalizing (boosting the high range frequencies) to give the overall product a distinctive sound, particularly effective for broadcast over AM radio". Pop production techniques such as the use of orchestral string sections, charted horn sections, and carefully arranged background vocals were also used. Complex arrangements and elaborate, melismatic vocal riffs were avoided. Motown producers believed steadfastly in the "KISS principle" (keep it simple, stupid).


title: Motown

text: The Motown production process has been described as factory-like. The Hitsville studios remained open and active 22 hours a day, and artists would often go on tour for weeks, come back to Detroit to record as many songs as possible, and then promptly go on tour again. Berry Gordy held quality control meetings every Friday morning, and used veto power to ensure that only the very best material and performances would be released. The test was that every new release needed to fit into a sequence of the top five selling pop singles of the week. Several tracks that later became critical and commercial favorites were initially rejected by Gordy, the two most notable being the Marvin Gaye songs "I Heard It Through the Grapevine" and "What's Going On". In several cases, producers would rework tracks in hopes of eventually getting them approved at a later Friday morning meeting, as producer Norman Whitfield did with "I Heard It Through the Grapevine" and The Temptations' "Ain't Too Proud to Beg".


title: Motown

text: Many of Motown's best-known songs, including all the early hits for the Supremes, were written by the songwriting trio of Holland–Dozier–Holland (Lamont Dozier and brothers Brian and Eddie Holland). Other important Motown producers and songwriters included Norman Whitfield, William "Mickey" Stevenson, Smokey Robinson, Barrett Strong, Nickolas Ashford & Valerie Simpson, Frank Wilson, Pamela Sawyer & Gloria Jones, James Dean & William Weatherspoon, Johnny Bristol, Harvey Fuqua, Gil Askey, Stevie Wonder, and Gordy himself.


title: Motown

text: The style created by the Motown musicians was a major influence on several non-Motown artists of the mid-1960s, such as Dusty Springfield and the Foundations. In the United Kingdom, the Motown Sound became the basis of the northern soul movement. Smokey Robinson said the Motown Sound had little to do with Detroit:


title: Motown

text: In addition to the songwriting process of the writers and producers, one of the major factors in the widespread appeal of Motown's music was Gordy's practice of using a highly-select and tight-knit group of studio musicians, collectively known as the Funk Brothers, to record the instrumental or "band" tracks of a majority of Motown recordings. Among the studio musicians responsible for the "Motown Sound" were keyboardists Earl Van Dyke, Johnny Griffith, and Joe Hunter; guitarists Ray Monette, Joe Messina, Robert White, and Eddie Willis; percussionists Eddie "Bongo" Brown and Jack Ashford; drummers Benny Benjamin, Uriel Jones, and Richard "Pistol" Allen; and bassists James Jamerson and Bob Babbitt. The band's career and work is chronicled in the 2002 documentary film "Standing in the Shadows of Motown", which publicised the fact that these musicians "played on more number-one records than The Beatles, Elvis, The Rolling Stones, and The Beach Boys combined". Ashford later played on Raphael Saadiq's 2008 album "The Way I See It", whose recording and production were modelled after the Motown Sound.


title: Motown

text: Much of the Motown Sound came from the use of overdubbed and duplicated instrumentation. Motown songs regularly featured two drummers instead of one (either overdubbed or in unison), as well as three or four guitar lines.


title: Motown

text: Bassist James Jamerson often played his instrument with only the index finger of his right hand, and created many of the basslines apparent on Motown songs such as "Up the Ladder to the Roof" by The Supremes.


title: Motown

text: Artist development was a major part of Motown's operations instituted by Berry Gordy. The acts on the Motown label were fastidiously groomed, dressed and choreographed for live performances. Motown artists were advised that their breakthrough into the white popular music market made them ambassadors for other African-American artists seeking broad market acceptance, and that they should think, act, walk and talk like royalty, so as to alter the less-than-dignified image commonly held of black musicians by white Americans in that era. Given that many of the talented young artists had been raised in housing projects and lacked the necessary social and dress experience, this Motown department was not only necessary, it created an elegant style of presentation long associated with the label. The artist development department specialized primarily in working with younger, less-experienced acts; experienced performers such as Jr. Walker and Marvin Gaye were exempt from artist-development classes.


title: Motown

text: Many of the young artists participated in an annual package tour called the "Motortown Revue", which was popular, first, on the "Chitlin' Circuit", and, later, around the world. The tours gave the younger artists a chance to hone their performance and social skills and learn from the more experienced artists.


title: Motown

text: In order to avoid accusations of payola should DJs play too many records from the original Tamla label, Gordy formed Motown Records as a second label in 1960. The two labels featured the same writers, producers and artists.


title: Motown

text: Many more subsidiary labels were established later under the umbrella of the Motown parent company, including Gordy Records, Soul Records and VIP Records; in reality the Motown Record Corporation controlled all of these labels. Most of the distinctions between Motown labels were largely arbitrary, with the same writers, producers and musicians working on all the major subsidiaries, and artists were often shuffled between labels for internal marketing reasons. All of these records are usually considered to be "Motown" records, regardless of whether they actually appeared on the Motown Records label itself.


title: Mobutu Sese Seko

text: Mobutu Sese Seko Kuku Ngbendu Wa Za Banga (; born Joseph-Désiré Mobutu; 14 October 1930 – 7 September 1997) was a Congolese politician and military officer who was the president of Zaire from 1965 to 1997 (known as the Democratic Republic of the Congo from 1965 to 1971). He also served as Chairman of the Organisation of African Unity from 1967 to 1968. During the Congo Crisis, Mobutu, serving as Chief of Staff of the Army and supported by Belgium and the United States, deposed the democratically elected government of left-wing nationalist Patrice Lumumba in 1960. Mobutu installed a government that arranged for Lumumba's execution in 1961, and continued to lead the country's armed forces until he took power directly in a second coup in 1965.


title: Mobutu Sese Seko

text: To consolidate his power, he established the Popular Movement of the Revolution as the sole legal political party in 1967, changed the Congo's name to "Zaire" in 1971, and his own name to Mobutu Sese Seko in 1972. Mobutu claimed that his political ideology was "neither left nor right, nor even centre", though nevertheless he developed a regime that was intensely autocratic even by African standards of his time. He attempted to purge the country of all colonial cultural influence through his program of "national authenticity". Mobutu was the object of a pervasive cult of personality. During his rule, he amassed a large personal fortune through economic exploitation and corruption, leading some to call his rule a "kleptocracy". He presided over a period of widespread human rights violations. Under his rule, the nation also suffered from uncontrolled inflation, a large debt, and massive currency devaluations.


title: Mobutu Sese Seko

text: Mobutu received strong support (military, diplomatic and economic) from the United States, France, and Belgium, who believed he was a strong opponent of communism in Francophone Africa. He also built close ties with the governments of apartheid South Africa, Israel and the Greek military junta. From 1972 onward, he was also supported by Mao Zedong of China, mainly due to his anti-Soviet stance but also as part of Mao's attempts to create a bloc of Afro-Asian nations led by him. The massive Chinese economic aid that flowed into Zaire gave Mobutu more flexibility in his dealings with Western governments, allowed him to identify as an "anti-capitalist revolutionary", and enabled him to avoid going to the International Monetary Fund for assistance.


title: Mobutu Sese Seko

text: By 1990, economic deterioration and unrest forced Mobutu Sese Seko into coalition with his power opponents. Although he used his troops to thwart change, his antics did not last long. In May 1997, rebel forces led by Laurent-Désiré Kabila overran the country and forced him into exile. Already suffering from advanced prostate cancer, he died three months later in Morocco. Mobutu was notorious for corruption, nepotism, and the embezzlement of between US$4 billion and $15 billion during his rule. He was known for extravagances such as shopping trips to Paris via the supersonic Concorde aircraft.


title: Mobutu Sese Seko

text: Mobutu, a member of the Ngbandi ethnic group, was born in 1930 in Lisala, Belgian Congo. Mobutu's mother, Marie Madeleine Yemo, was a hotel maid who fled to Lisala to escape the harem of a local village chief. There she met and married Albéric Gbemani, a cook for a Belgian judge. Shortly afterward she gave birth to Mobutu. The name "Mobutu" was selected by an uncle.


title: Mobutu Sese Seko

text: The Belgian judge's wife took a liking to Mobutu and taught him to speak, read, and write fluently in the French language, the official language of the country in the colonial period. His widowed mother Yemo relied on the help of relatives to support her four children, and the family moved often. Mobutu's earliest education took place in the capital Léopoldville (now Kinshasa). His mother eventually sent him to an uncle in Coquilhatville (present-day Mbandaka), where he attended the Christian Brothers School, a Catholic-mission boarding school. A physically imposing figure (he eventually stood over six feet [1.8 metres] tall) Mobutu dominated school sports. He also excelled in academic subjects and ran the class newspaper. He was known for his pranks and impish sense of humor.


title: Mobutu Sese Seko

text: A classmate recalled that when the Belgian priests, whose first language was Dutch, made an error in French, Mobutu would leap to his feet in class and point out the mistake. In 1949 Mobutu stowed away aboard a boat, traveling downriver to Léopoldville, where he met a girl. The priests found him several weeks later. At the end of the school year, in lieu of being sent to prison, he was ordered to serve seven years in the colonial army, the Force Publique (FP). This was a usual punishment for rebellious students.


title: Mobutu Sese Seko

text: Mobutu found discipline in army life, as well as a father figure in Sergeant Louis Bobozo. Mobutu kept up his studies by borrowing European newspapers from the Belgian officers and books from wherever he could find them, reading them on sentry duty and whenever he had a spare moment. His favourites were the writings of French president Charles de Gaulle, British prime minister Winston Churchill, and Italian Renaissance philosopher Niccolò Machiavelli. After passing a course in accounting, Mobutu began to dabble professionally in journalism. Still angry after his clashes with the school priests, he did not marry in a church. His contribution to the wedding festivities was a crate of beer, all his army salary could afford.


title: Mobutu Sese Seko

text: As a soldier, Mobutu wrote in pseudonym on contemporary politics for "Actualités Africaines" (African News), a magazine set up by a Belgian colonial. In 1956, he quit the army and became a full-time journalist, writing for the Léopoldville daily "L'Avenir".


title: Mobutu Sese Seko

text: Two years later, he went to Belgium to cover the 1958 World Exposition and stayed to receive training in journalism. By this time, Mobutu had met many of the young Congolese intellectuals who were challenging colonial rule. He became friendly with Patrice Lumumba and joined Lumumba's Congolese National Movement (MNC). Mobutu eventually became Lumumba's personal aide. Several contemporaries indicate that Belgian intelligence had recruited Mobutu to be an informer to the government.


title: Mobutu Sese Seko

text: During the 1960 talks in Brussels on Congolese independence, the US embassy held a reception for the Congolese delegation. Embassy staff were each assigned a list of delegation members to meet, and discussed their impressions afterward. The ambassador noted, "One name kept coming up. But it wasn't on anyone's list because he wasn't an official delegation member, he was Lumumba's secretary. But everyone agreed that this was an extremely intelligent man, very young, perhaps immature, but a man with great potential."


title: Mobutu Sese Seko

text: Following the general election, Lumumba was tasked with creating a government. He gave Mobutu the office of Secretary of State to the Presidency. Mobutu held much influence in the final determination of the rest of the government.


title: Mobutu Sese Seko

text: On 5 July 1960, soldiers of the Force Publique stationed at Camp Léopold II in Léopoldville, dissatisfied with their all-white leadership and working conditions, mutinied. The revolt spread across the region in the following days. Mobutu assisted other officials in negotiating with the mutineers to secure the release of the officers and their families. On 8 July the full Council of Ministers convened in an extraordinary session under the chairmanship of President Joseph Kasa-Vubu at Camp Léopold II to address the task of Africanising the garrison.


title: Mobutu Sese Seko

text: The former had shown some influence over the mutinying troops, but Kasa-Vubu and the Bakongo ministers feared that he would enact a "coup d'état" if he were given power. The latter was perceived as calmer and more thoughtful. Lumumba saw Mpolo as courageous, but favored Mobutu's prudence. As the discussions continued, the cabinet began to divide according to who they preferred to serve as chief of staff. Lumumba wanted to keep both men in his government and wished to avoid upsetting one of their camps of supporters. In the end Mobutu was given the role and awarded the rank of colonel. The following day government delegations left the capital to oversee the Africanisation of the army; Mobutu was sent to Équateur.


title: Mobutu Sese Seko

text: The British diplomat Brian Urquhart serving with the United Nations wrote: "When I first met Mobutu in July 1960, he was Prime Minister Patrice Lumumba’s chief military assistant and had just promoted himself from sergeant to lieutenant-colonel. By comparison with his boss, Mobutu was a pillar of pragmatism and common sense. It was to him that we appealed when our people were arrested by Lumumba’s hashish-stimulated guards. It was he who would bring up, in a disarmingly casual way, Lumumba’s most outrageous requests – that the UN should, for example, meet the pay roll of the potentially mutinous Congolese army. In those early days, Mobutu seemed a comparatively sensible young man, one who might even, at least now and then, have the best interests of his newly independent country at heart."


title: Mobutu Sese Seko

text: Encouraged by a Belgian government intent on maintaining its access to rich Congolese mines, secessionist violence erupted in the south. Concerned that the United Nations force sent to help restore order was not helping to crush the secessionists, Lumumba turned to the Soviet Union for assistance. He received massive military aid and about a thousand Soviet technical advisers within six weeks. As this was during the Cold War, the US government feared that the Soviet activity was a maneuver to spread communist influence in Central Africa. Kasa-Vubu was encouraged by the US and Belgium to dismiss Lumumba, which he did on 5 September. An outraged Lumumba declared Kasa-Vubu deposed. Parliament refused to recognise the dismissals and urged reconciliation, but no agreement was reached.


title: Mobutu Sese Seko

text: Lumumba and Kasa-Vubu each ordered Mobutu to arrest the other. As Army Chief of Staff, Mobutu came under great pressure from multiple sources. The embassies of Western nations, which helped pay the soldiers' salaries, as well as Kasa-Vubu and Mobutu's subordinates, all favored getting rid of the Soviet presence. On 14 September Mobutu launched a bloodless coup, declaring both Kasa-Vubu and Lumumba to be "neutralised" and establishing a new government of university graduates, the College of Commissioners-General. Lumumba rejected this action but was forced to retire to his residence, where UN peacekeepers prevented Mobutu's soldiers from arresting him. Urquhart recalled that on the day of the coup, Mobutu showed up unannounced at the UN headquarters in Leopoldville and refused to leave, until the radio announced the coup, leading Mobutu to say over and over again ""C’est moi!"" ("This is me!"). Recognizing that Mobutu had only gone to the UN headquarters in case the coup should fail, Urquhart ordered him out.


title: Mobutu Sese Seko

text: Losing confidence that the international community would support his reinstatement, Lumumba fled in late November to join his supporters in Stanleyville to establish a new government. He was captured by Mobutu's troops in early December, and incarcerated at his headquarters in Thysville. However, Mobutu still considered him a threat, and transferred him to the rebelling State of Katanga on 17 January 1961. Lumumba disappeared from public view. It was later discovered that he was executed the same day by the secessionist forces of Moise Tshombe, after Mobutu's government turned him over.


title: Mobutu Sese Seko

text: On 23 January 1961, Kasa-Vubu promoted Mobutu to major-general. Historian De Witte argues that this was a political action, "aimed to strengthen the army, the president's sole support, and Mobutu's position within the army".


title: Mobutu Sese Seko

text: In 1964, Pierre Mulele led partisans in another rebellion. They quickly occupied two-thirds of the Congo. In response, the Congolese army, led by Mobutu, reconquered the entire territory through 1965.


title: Mobutu Sese Seko

text: Prime Minister Moise Tshombe's Congolese National Convention had won a large majority in the March 1965 elections, but Kasa-Vubu appointed an anti-Tshombe leader, Évariste Kimba, as prime minister-designate. However, Parliament twice refused to confirm him. With the government in near-paralysis, Mobutu seized power in a bloodless coup on 24 November. He had turned 35 a month earlier.


title: Mobutu Sese Seko

text: Under the auspices of a state of exception ("regime d'exception"), Mobutu assumed sweeping—almost absolute—powers for five years. In his first speech upon taking power, Mobutu told a large crowd at Léopoldville's main stadium that, since politicians had brought the Congo to ruin in five years, it would take him at least that long to set things right again, and therefore there would be no more political party activity for five years. On 30 November 1965 Parliament approved a measure which turned over most legislative powers to Mobutu and his cabinet, though it retained the right to review his decrees. In early March 1966 he opened a new session of Parliament by declaring that he was revoking their right of review, and two weeks later his government permanently suspended the body and assumed all of its remaining functions.


title: Mobutu Sese Seko

text: Initially, Mobutu's government presented itself as apolitical or even anti-political. The word "politician" carried negative connotations, and became almost synonymous with someone who was wicked or corrupt. In 1966 the Corps of Volunteers of the Republic was established, a vanguard movement designed to mobilize popular support behind Mobutu, who was proclaimed the nation's "Second National Hero" after Lumumba. Despite the role he played in Lumumba's ousting, Mobutu worked to present himself as a successor to Lumumba's legacy. One of his key tenets early in his rule was "authentic Congolese nationalism". In 1966, Mobutu started renaming cities that had European names with more "authentic" African names, and in this way Leopoldville became Kinshasa, Stanleyville became Kisangani and Élisabethville became Lubumbashi.


title: Mobutu Sese Seko

text: 1967 marked the debut of the Popular Movement of the Revolution (MPR), which until 1990 was the nation's only legal political party. Among the themes advanced by the MPR in its doctrine, the Manifesto of N'Sele, were nationalism, revolution, and "authenticity". Revolution was described as a "truly national revolution, essentially pragmatic", which called for "the repudiation of both capitalism and communism". One of the MPR's slogans was "Neither left nor right", to which would be added "nor even center" in later years.


title: Mobutu Sese Seko

text: That same year, all trade unions were consolidated into a single union, the National Union of Zairian Workers, and brought under government control. Mobutu intended for the union to serve as an instrument of support for government policy, rather than as an independent group. Independent trade unions were illegal until 1991.


title: Mobutu Sese Seko

text: Facing many challenges early in his rule, Mobutu converted much opposition into submission through patronage; those he could not co-opt, he dealt with forcefully. In 1966, four cabinet members were arrested on charges of complicity in an attempted coup, tried by a military tribunal, and publicly executed in an open-air spectacle witnessed by over 50,000 people. Uprisings by former Katangan gendarmeries were crushed, as were the Stanleyville mutinies of 1967 led by white mercenaries. By 1970, nearly all potential threats to his authority had been smashed, and for the most part, law and order was brought to nearly all parts of the country. That year marked the pinnacle of Mobutu's legitimacy and power.


title: Mobutu Sese Seko

text: In 1970 King Baudouin of Belgium made a highly successful state visit to Kinshasa. That same year presidential and legislative elections were held. Although the constitution allowed for the existence of two parties, the MPR was the only party allowed to nominate candidates. For the presidential election, Mobutu was the only candidate. Voting was not secret; voters chose a green paper if they supported Mobutu's candidacy, and a red paper if they opposed his candidacy. Casting a green ballot was deemed a vote for hope, while a red ballot was deemed a vote for chaos. Under the circumstances, the result was inevitable–according to official figures, Mobutu was confirmed in office with near-unanimous support, garnering 10,131,669 votes to only 157 "no" votes. It later emerged that almost 30,500 more votes were cast than the actual number of registered voters. The legislative elections were held in a similar fashion. Voters were presented with a single list from the MPR; according to official figures, an implausible 98.33% of voters voted in favor of the MPR list.