title: Northwest Territories

text: The gross domestic product of the Northwest Territories was C$4.856 billion in 2017. It has the highest per capita GDP of all provinces and territories in Canada, totalling C$76,000 in 2009.


title: Northwest Territories

text: The Territories' geological resources include gold, diamonds, natural gas and petroleum. BP is the only oil company currently producing oil there. Its diamonds are promoted as an alternative to purchasing blood diamonds. Two of the biggest mineral resource companies in the world, BHP and Rio Tinto mine many of their diamonds there. In 2010, Territories' accounted for 28.5% of Rio Tinto's total diamond production (3.9 million carats, 17% more than in 2009, from the Diavik Diamond Mine) and 100% of BHP's (3.05 million carats from the EKATI mine).


title: Northwest Territories

text: The Eldorado Mine produced uranium for the Manhattan Project, as well as radium, silver, and copper (for other uses).


title: Northwest Territories

text: During the winter, many international visitors go to Yellowknife to watch the auroras. Five areas managed by Parks Canada are situated within the territory: Aulavik and Tuktut Nogait National Parks are in the northern part. Portions of Wood Buffalo National Park are located within it, although most of it is located in neighbouring Alberta. Parks Canada also manages two park reserves, Nááts'ihch'oh, and Nahanni National Park Reserves.


title: Northwest Territories

text: As a territory, the NWT has fewer rights than the provinces. During his term, Premier Kakfwi pushed to have the federal government accord more rights to the territory, including having a greater share of the returns from the territory's natural resources go to the territory. Devolution of powers to the territory was an issue in the 20th general election in 2003, and has been ever since the territory began electing members in 1881.


title: Northwest Territories

text: The Commissioner of the NWT is the chief executive and is appointed by the Governor-in-Council of Canada on the recommendation of the federal Minister of Aboriginal Affairs and Northern Development. The position used to be more administrative and governmental, but with the devolution of more powers to the elected assembly since 1967, the position has become symbolic. The commissioner had full governmental powers until 1980 when the territories were given greater self-government. The legislative assembly then began electing a cabinet and "government leader", later known as the premier. Since 1985 the commissioner no longer chairs meetings of the executive council (or cabinet), and the federal government has instructed commissioners to behave like a provincial lieutenant governor. Unlike lieutenant governors, the Commissioner of the Northwest Territories is not a formal representative of the King of Canada.


title: Northwest Territories

text: Unlike provincial governments and the government of Yukon, the government of the Northwest Territories does not have political parties. It never has had political parties except for the period between 1898 and 1905. Its legislative assembly operates through the consensus government model.


title: Northwest Territories

text: "The Northwest Territories is one of only two jurisdictions in Canada with a consensus system of government instead of one based on party politics. In our system, all Members of the Legislative Assembly (MLAs) are elected as independents. Shortly after the election, all Members meet as a Caucus to set priorities for that Assembly. The Caucus remains active throughout their term as the forum where all Members meet as equals.[...]


title: Northwest Territories

text: Compared to the party system, there is much more communication between Regular Members and Cabinet. All legislation, major policies, and proposed budgets pass through the Regular Members’ standing committees before coming to the House."


title: Northwest Territories

text: The NWT Legislative Assembly is composed of one member elected from each of the nineteen constituencies. After each general election, the new assembly elects the premier and the speaker by secret ballot. Seven MLAs are also chosen as cabinet ministers, with the remainder forming the opposition.


title: Northwest Territories

text: The membership of the current legislative assembly was set by the 2019 Northwest Territories general election on October 1, 2019. Caroline Cochrane was selected as the new premier on October 24, 2019.


title: Northwest Territories

text: The member of Parliament for the Northwest Territories is Michael McLeod (Liberal Party). The Commissioner of the Northwest Territories is Margaret Thom.


title: Northwest Territories

text: In the Parliament of Canada, the NWT comprises a single Senate division and a single House of Commons electoral district, titled Northwest Territories ("Western Arctic" until 2014). Thus a single MP represents an area that is almost 14 percent of the land area of all of Canada.


title: Northwest Territories

text: The Northwest Territories is divided into five administrative regions (regional offices in parenthesis):


title: Northwest Territories

text: Aboriginal issues in the Northwest Territories include the fate of the Dene who, in the 1940s, were employed to carry radioactive uranium ore from the mines on Great Bear Lake. Of the thirty plus miners who worked at the Port Radium site, at least fourteen have died due to various forms of cancer. A study was done in the community of Deline, called "A Village of Widows" by Cindy Kenny-Gilday, which indicated that the number of people involved were too small to be able to confirm or deny a link.


title: Northwest Territories

text: There has been racial tension based on a history of violent conflict between the Dene and the Inuit, who have now taken recent steps towards reconciliation.


title: Northwest Territories

text: Land claims in the NWT began with the Inuvialuit Final Agreement, signed on June 5, 1984. It was the first Land Claim signed in the Territory, and the second in Canada. It culminated with the creation of the Inuit homeland of Nunavut, the result of the Nunavut Land Claims Agreement, the largest land claim in Canadian history.


title: Northwest Territories

text: Another land claims agreement with the Tłı̨chǫ people created a region within the NWT called Tli Cho, between Great Bear and Great Slave Lakes, which gives the Tłı̨chǫ their own legislative bodies, taxes, resource royalties, and other affairs, though the NWT still maintains control over such areas as health and education. This area includes two of Canada's three diamond mines, at Ekati and Diavik.


title: Northwest Territories

text: Among the festivals in the region are the Great Northern Arts Festival, the Snowking Winter Festival, Folk on the Rocks music festival in Yellowknife, and Rockin the Rocks.


title: Northwest Territories

text: Northwest Territories has nine numbered highways. The longest is the Mackenzie Highway, which stretches from the Alberta Highway 35's northern terminus in the south at the Alberta – Northwest Territories border at the 60th parallel to Wrigley, Northwest Territories in the north. Ice roads and winter roads are also prominent and provide road access in winter to towns and mines which would otherwise be fly-in locations. Yellowknife Highway branches out from Mackenzie Highway and connects it to Yellowknife. Dempster Highway is the continuation of Klondike Highway. It starts just west of Dawson City, Yukon, and continues east for over to Inuvik. As of 2017, the all-season Inuvik-Tuktoyaktuk Highway connects Inuvik to communities along the Arctic Ocean as an extension of the Dempster Highway.


title: Northwest Territories

text: Yellowknife did not have an all-season road access to the rest of Canada's highway network until the completion of Deh Cho Bridge in 2012. Prior to that, traffic relied on ferry service in summer and ice road in winter to cross the Mackenzie River. This became a problem during spring and fall time when the ice was not thick enough to handle vehicle load but the ferry could not pass through the ice, which would require all goods from fuel to groceries to be airlifted during the transition period.


title: Northwest Territories

text: The Northwest Territories is the only jurisdiction in North America to issue a non rectangular standard license plate. Instead, the territory issues a polar bear shaped license plate.


title: Northwest Territories

text: Yellowknife Transit is the public transportation agency in the city, and is the only transit system within the Northwest Territories.


title: Northwest Territories

text: Yellowknife Airport is the largest airport in the territory in terms of aircraft movements and passengers. It is the gateway airport to other destinations within the Northwest Territories. As the airport of the territory capital, it is part of the National Airports System. It is the hub of multiple regional airlines. Major airlines serving destinations within Northwest Territories include Buffalo Airways, Canadian North, First Air, North-Wright Airways.


title: Adolf Hitler's rise to power

text: Adolf Hitler's rise to power began in the newly established Weimar Republic in September 1919 when Hitler joined the "Deutsche Arbeiterpartei" (DAP; German Workers' Party). He rose to a place of prominence in the early years of the party. Being one of its best speakers, he was made the party leader after he threatened to otherwise leave.


title: Adolf Hitler's rise to power

text: In 1920, the DAP renamed itself to the "Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei" – NSDAP (National Socialist German Workers' Party, commonly known as the Nazi Party). Hitler chose this name to win over German workers. Despite the NSDAP being a right-wing party, it had many anti-capitalist and anti-bourgeois elements. Hitler later initiated a purge of these elements and reaffirmed the Nazi Party's pro-business stance. By 1922 Hitler's control over the party was unchallenged. In 1923, Hitler and his supporters attempted a coup to remove the government via force. This seminal event was later called the Beer Hall Putsch. Upon its failure, Hitler escaped, only to be subsequently arrested and put on trial. The trial proved to be a blessing in disguise for Hitler, as it garnered him national fame. Hitler was sentenced to five years, but he only served eight months. During this time, Hitler wrote "Mein Kampf", which became the "vade mecum" of National Socialism. Once released, Hitler switched tactics; he was going to seize power through legal and democratic means.


title: Adolf Hitler's rise to power

text: Hitler, armed with his newfound celebrity, began furiously campaigning. During the 1920s, Hitler and the Nazis ran on a platform consisting of anti-communism, antisemitism, and extreme nationalism. Nazi party leaders vociferously criticized the ruling democratic government and the Treaty of Versailles, while proselytizing their desire to turn Germany into a world power. At this time, most Germans were indifferent to Hitler's rhetoric as the German economy was beginning to recover in large part due to loans from the United States under the Dawes Plan. The German political landscape was dramatically affected by the 1929 Wall Street Crash, which hampered economic aid to Germany. The Great Depression brought the German economy to a halt and further polarized German politics. Hitler and the Nazis began to exploit the crisis and loudly criticized the ruling government. During this tumultuous time, the German Communist Party also began campaigning and called for a revolution. Business leaders, fearful of a communist takeover, began supporting the Nazi party. In 1932 the Nazis held the largest number of seats in the Reichstag, albeit short of an absolute majority. Seeking to capture the rising Nazi electoral success, Hitler ran for the presidency in 1932 but was defeated by the incumbent Paul von Hindenburg.


title: Adolf Hitler's rise to power

text: In terms of Nazi political success, the year 1933 was pivotal. Traditionally, the leader of the party who held the most seats in the Reichstag was appointed Chancellor. However, President Paul von Hindenburg was hesitant to appoint Hitler as chancellor. Following several backroom negotiationswhich included industrialists, Hindenburg's son, the former chancellor Franz von Papen, and HitlerHindenburg acquiesced and on 30 January 1933, he formally appointed Adolf Hitler as Germany's new chancellor. Although he was chancellor, Hitler was not yet an absolute dictator.


title: Adolf Hitler's rise to power

text: The groundwork for the Nazi dictatorship was laid when the Reichstag was set on fire in February. Believing the communists were behind the arson, Paul von Hindenburg passed the Reichstag Fire Decree, which severely curtailed the liberties and rights of German citizens. Using the decree, Hitler began eliminating his political opponents. In Hitler's eyes the decree was insufficient and he proposed the Enabling Act of 1933. This law gave the German government the power to override individual rights prescribed by the constitution. The law also gave the Chancellor (Hitler) emergency powers to pass and enforce laws without parliamentary oversight. By April, Hitler now held de facto dictatorial powers and ordered the construction of the first Nazi concentration camp at Dachau for communists and other political opponents. Hitler's rise to power was completed in August 1934 when President Paul von Hindenburg died. Hitler merged the Chancellorship with the Presidency and became the Führer of Germany.


title: Adolf Hitler's rise to power

text: In retrospect, Hitler's rise to power was aided in part by his willingness to use violence in advancing his political objectives and to recruit party members willing to do the same. Furthermore, Hitler went out of his way to seek financial support from wealthy businessmen, without whose support his assumption of power would have been impossible. Hitler framed their partnership as an essential factor in defeating the rising threat of communism. The party engaged in electoral battles in which Hitler participated as a speaker and organizer. Street battles and violence also erupted between the Communist's "Rotfrontkämpferbund" and the Nazis' "Sturmabteilung" (SA).


title: Adolf Hitler's rise to power

text: Once the Nazi dictatorship was firmly established, the Nazis themselves created a mythology surrounding their rise to power. German propaganda described this time period as either the "Kampfzeit" (the time of struggle) or the "Kampfjahre" (years of struggle).


title: Adolf Hitler's rise to power

text: Adolf Hitler became involved with the fledgling German Workers Party – which he would later transform into the Nazi Party – after the First World War, and set the violent tone of the movement early, by forming the "Sturmabteilung" (SA) paramilitary. Catholic Bavaria resented rule from Protestant Berlin, and Hitler at first saw revolution in Bavaria as a means to power. An early attempt at a coup d'état, the 1923 Beer Hall Putsch in Munich, proved fruitless, however, and Hitler was imprisoned for leading the putsch. He used this time to write "Mein Kampf", in which he argued that effeminate Jewish–Christian ethics were enfeebling Europe, and that Germany was in need of an uncompromising strongman to restore itself and build an empire. Learning from the failed coup, he decided on the tactic of pursuing power through legal means rather than seizing control of the government by force against the state and instead proclaimed a strictly legal course.


title: Adolf Hitler's rise to power

text: In 1914, after being granted permission from King Ludwig III of Bavaria, the 25-year-old Austrian-born Hitler enlisted in a Bavarian regiment of the German Army, although he was not yet a German citizen. For over four years (August 1914 – November 1918), Germany was a major participant in World War I. After fighting on the Western Front ended in November 1918, Hitler was discharged on 19 November from the Pasewalk hospital and returned to Munich, which at the time was in a state of socialist upheaval. Arriving on 21 November, he was assigned to 7th Company of the 1st Replacement Battalion of the 2nd Infantry Regiment. In December he was reassigned to a prisoner-of-war camp in Traunstein as a guard. He remained there until the camp dissolved in January 1919, after which he returned to Munich and spent a couple weeks on guard duty at the city's main train station (Hauptbahnhof) through which soldiers had been traveling.


title: Adolf Hitler's rise to power

text: During this time a number of notable Germans were assassinated, including socialist Kurt Eisner, who was shot dead by a German nationalist on 21 February 1919. His rival Erhard Auer was also wounded in an attack. Other acts of violence were the killings of both Major Paul Ritter von Jahreiß and the conservative MP . In this political chaos Berlin sent in the military – called the "White Guards of Capitalism" by the communists. On 3 April 1919, Hitler was elected as the liaison of his military battalion and again on 15 April. During this time he urged his unit to stay out of the fighting and not to join either side.


title: Adolf Hitler's rise to power

text: The Bavarian Soviet Republic was officially crushed on 6 May, when Lieutenant General Burghard von Oven and his forces declared the city secure. In the aftermath of arrests and executions, Hitler denounced a fellow liaison, Georg Dufter, as a Soviet "radical rabble-rouser." Other testimony he gave to the military board of inquiry allowed them to root out other members of the military that "had been infected with revolutionary fervor." For his anti-communist views he was allowed to avoid discharge when his unit was disbanded in May 1919.


title: Adolf Hitler's rise to power

text: In June 1919, Hitler was moved to the demobilization office of the 2nd Infantry Regiment. Around this time the German military command released an edict that the army's main priority was to "carry out, in conjunction with the police, stricter surveillance of the population ... so that the ignition of any new unrest can be discovered and extinguished." In May 1919, Karl Mayr became commander of the 6th Battalion of the guards regiment in Munich and from 30 May the head of the "Education and Propaganda Department" of the General Command von Oven and the Group Command No. 4 (Department Ib). In this capacity as head of the intelligence department, Mayr recruited Hitler as an undercover agent in early June 1919. Under Captain Mayr, "national thinking" courses were arranged at the Reichswehrlager Lechfeld near Augsburg, with Hitler attending from 10 to 19 July. During this time Hitler so impressed Mayr that he assigned him to an anti-Bolshevik "educational commando" as 1 of 26 instructors in the summer of 1919.


title: Adolf Hitler's rise to power

text: In July 1919, Hitler was appointed "Verbindungsmann" (intelligence agent) of an "Aufklärungskommando" (reconnaissance commando) of the "Reichswehr", both to influence other soldiers and to infiltrate the German Workers' Party (DAP). The DAP had been formed by Anton Drexler, Karl Harrer and others, through amalgamation of other groups, on 5 January 1919 at a small gathering at the restaurant Fuerstenfelder Hof in Munich. While he studied the activities of the DAP, Hitler became impressed with Drexler's antisemitic, nationalist, anti-capitalist and anti-Marxist ideas.


title: Adolf Hitler's rise to power

text: During the 12 September 1919 meeting, Hitler took umbrage with comments made by an audience member that were directed against Gottfried Feder, the speaker, a crank economist with whom Hitler was acquainted due to a lecture Feder delivered in an army "education" course. The audience member (in "Mein Kampf", Hitler disparagingly referred to him as the "professor") asserted that Bavaria should be wholly independent from Germany and should secede from Germany and unite with Austria to form a new South German nation. The volatile Hitler arose and scolded the man, eventually causing him to leave the meeting before its adjournment.


title: Adolf Hitler's rise to power

text: Impressed with Hitler's oratory skills, Drexler encouraged him to join the DAP. On the orders of his army superiors, Hitler applied to join the party. Within a week, Hitler received a postcard stating he had officially been accepted as a member and he should come to a "committee" meeting to discuss it. Hitler attended the "committee" meeting held at the run-down Alte Rosenbad beer-house. Later Hitler wrote that joining the fledgling party "...was the most decisive resolve of my life. From here there was and could be no turning back. ... I registered as a member of the German Workers' Party and received a provisional membership card with the number 7". Normally, enlisted army personnel were not allowed to join political parties. However, in this case, Hitler had Captain Mayr's permission to join the DAP. Further, Hitler was allowed to stay in the army and receive his weekly pay of 20 gold marks.


title: Adolf Hitler's rise to power

text: By early 1920, the DAP had grown to over 101 members, and Hitler received his membership card as member number 555 (the numbers started from 501). Hitler's considerable oratory and propaganda skills were appreciated by the party leadership. With the support of Anton Drexler, Hitler became chief of propaganda for the party in early 1920 and his actions began to transform the party. He organised their biggest meeting yet, of 2,000 people, on 24 February 1920 in the "Staatliches Hofbräuhaus in München". There Hitler announced the party's 25-point program ("see" National Socialist Program). He also engineered the name change of the DAP to the "Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei" – NSDAP (National Socialist German Workers' Party), later known to the rest of the world as the Nazi Party. Hitler designed the party's banner of a swastika in a white circle on a red background. He was discharged from the army in March 1920 and began working full-time for the Nazi Party.


title: Adolf Hitler's rise to power

text: In 1920, a small "hall protection" squad was organised around Emil Maurice. The group was first named the "Order troops" ("Ordnertruppen"). Later in August 1921, Hitler redefined the group, which became known as the "Gymnastic and Sports Division" of the party ("Turn- und Sportabteilung"). By the autumn of 1921 the group was being called the "Sturmabteilung" ("Storm Detachment") or SA, and by November 1921 the group was officially known by that name. Also in 1920, Hitler began to lecture in Munich beer halls, particularly the "Hofbräuhaus", "Sterneckerbräu" and "Bürgerbräukeller". Only Hitler was able to bring in the crowds for the party speeches and meetings. By this time, the police were already monitoring the speeches, and their own surviving records reveal that Hitler delivered lectures with titles such as "Political Phenomenon, Jews and the Treaty of Versailles". At the end of the year, party membership was recorded at 2,000.


title: Adolf Hitler's rise to power

text: In June 1921, while Hitler and Dietrich Eckart were on a fundraising trip to Berlin, a mutiny broke out within the Nazi Party in Munich, its organizational home. Members of its executive committee wanted to merge with the rival German Socialist Party (DSP). Hitler returned to Munich on 11 July and angrily tendered his resignation. The committee members realised that the resignation of their leading public figure and speaker would mean the end of the party. Hitler announced he would rejoin on the condition that he would replace Drexler as party chairman and that the party headquarters would remain in Munich. The committee agreed, and he rejoined the party on 26 July as member 3,680. In the following days, Hitler spoke to several packed houses and defended himself, to thunderous applause. His strategy proved successful: at a general membership meeting, he was granted absolute powers as party chairman, with only one nay vote cast.


title: Adolf Hitler's rise to power

text: On 14 September 1921, Hitler and a substantial number of SA members and other Nazi Party adherents disrupted a meeting of the Bavarian League at the "Löwenbräukeller". This federalist organization objected to the centralism of the Weimar Constitution but accepted its social program. The League was led by Otto Ballerstedt, an engineer whom Hitler regarded as "my most dangerous opponent". One Nazi, Hermann Esser, climbed upon a chair and shouted that the Jews were to blame for the misfortunes of Bavaria and the Nazis shouted demands that Ballerstedt yield the floor to Hitler. The Nazis beat up Ballerstedt and shoved him off the stage into the audience. Hitler and Esser were arrested and Hitler commented notoriously to the police commissioner, "It's all right. We got what we wanted. Ballerstedt did not speak".


title: Adolf Hitler's rise to power

text: Less than two months later, 4 November 1921, the Nazi Party held a large public meeting in the Munich "Hofbräuhaus". After Hitler had spoken for some time, the meeting erupted into a melée in which a small company of SA defeated the opposition. For his part in these events, Hitler was eventually sentenced in January 1922 to three months' imprisonment for "breach of the peace", but only spent a little over one month at Stadelheim Prison in Munich.


title: Adolf Hitler's rise to power

text: In 1922 and early 1923, Hitler and the Nazi Party formed two organizations that would grow to have huge significance. The first began as the "Jungsturm Adolf Hitler" and the "Jugendbund der NSDAP"; they would later become the Hitler Youth. The other was the "Stabswache" (Staff Guard), which in May 1923 was renamed the "Stoßtrupp-Hitler" (Shock Troop-Hitler). This early incarnation of a bodyguard unit for Hitler would later become the "Schutzstaffel" (SS). Inspired by Benito Mussolini's March on Rome in 1922, Hitler decided that a "coup d'état" was the proper strategy to seize control of the German government. In May 1923, small elements loyal to Hitler within the "Reichswehr" helped the SA to illegally procure a barracks and its weaponry, but the order to march never came, possibly because Hitler had been warned by Army General Otto von Lossow that "he would be fired upon" by "Reichswehr" troops if they attempted a putsch.


title: Adolf Hitler's rise to power

text: A pivotal moment came when Hitler led the Beer Hall Putsch, an attempted "coup d'état" on 8–9 November 1923. At the "Bürgerbräukeller" in Munich, Hitler and his deputies announced their plan: Bavarian government officials would be deposed and Hitler installed at the head of government, with Munich then used as a base camp from which to march on Berlin. Nearly 2,000 Nazi Party members proceeded to the Marienplatz in Munich's city center, where they were met by a police cordon summoned to obstruct them. Sixteen Nazi Party members and four police officers were killed in the ensuing violence. Hitler briefly escaped the city but was arrested on 11 November 1923, and put on trial for high treason, which gained him widespread public attention.


title: Adolf Hitler's rise to power

text: The trial began in February 1924. Hitler endeavored to turn the tables and put democracy and the Weimar Republic on trial as traitors to the German people. Hitler was convicted and on 1 April sentenced to five years' imprisonment at Landsberg Prison. He received friendly treatment from the guards; he had a room with a view of the river, wore a tie, had regular visitors to his chambers, was allowed mail from supporters and was permitted the use of a private secretary. Pardoned by the Bavarian Supreme Court, he was released from jail on 20 December 1924, after serving just nine months, against the state prosecutor's objections.


title: Adolf Hitler's rise to power

text: Hitler used the time in Landsberg Prison to reconsider his political strategy and dictate the first volume of "Mein Kampf" ("My Struggle"; originally entitled "Four and a Half Years of Struggle against Lies, Stupidity, and Cowardice"), principally to his deputy Rudolf Hess. After the Beer Hall Putsch, the Nazi Party was banned in Bavaria, but it participated in 1924's two elections by proxy as the National Socialist Freedom Movement. In the May 1924 German federal election the party gained seats in the Reichstag, with 6.6% (1,918,329) voting for the Movement. In the December 1924 federal election, the National Socialist Freedom Movement (NSFB) (combination of the "Deutschvölkische Freiheitspartei" (DVFP) and the Nazi Party (NSDAP)) lost 18 seats, only holding on to 14 seats, with 3% (907,242) of the electorate voting for Hitler's party. The Barmat Scandal was often used later in Nazi propaganda, both as an electoral strategy and as an appeal to anti-Semitism.


title: Adolf Hitler's rise to power

text: After some reflection, Hitler had determined that power was to be achieved not through revolution outside of the government, but rather through legal means, within the confines of the democratic system established by Weimar. For five to six years, there would be no further prohibitions of the party.


title: Adolf Hitler's rise to power

text: In the May 1928 federal election, the Nazi Party achieved just 12 seats in the Reichstag. The highest provincial gain was again in Bavaria (5.1%), though in three areas the Nazis failed to gain even 1% of the vote. Overall, the party gained 2.6% of the vote (810,100 votes). Partially due to the poor results, Hitler decided that Germans needed to know more about his goals. Despite being discouraged by his publisher, he wrote a second book that was discovered and released posthumously as the "Zweites Buch". At this time the SA began a period of deliberate antagonism to the Rotfront by marching into Communist strongholds and starting violent altercations.


title: Adolf Hitler's rise to power

text: At the end of 1928, party membership was recorded at 130,000. In March 1929, Erich Ludendorff represented the Nazi Party in the Presidential elections. He earned 280,000 votes (1.1%), and was the only candidate to poll fewer than a million votes. The battles on the streets grew increasingly violent. After the Rotfront interrupted a speech by Hitler, the SA marched into the streets of Nuremberg and killed two bystanders. In a tit-for-tat action, the SA stormed a Rotfront meeting on 25 August and days later the Berlin headquarters of the Communist Party of Germany (KPD) itself. In September, Goebbels led his men into Neukölln, a KPD stronghold, and the two warring parties exchanged pistol and revolver fire. The German referendum of 1929 was important as it gained the Nazi Party recognition and credibility it had never had before.


title: Adolf Hitler's rise to power

text: On the evening of 14 January 1930, at around ten o'clock, Horst Wessel was fatally shot in the face at point-blank range by two members of the KPD in Friedrichshain. The attack occurred after an argument with his landlady, who was a member of the KPD and contacted one of her Rotfront friends, Albert Hochter, who shot Wessel. Wessel had penned a song months before which would become a Nazi anthem as the "Horst-Wessel-Lied". Goebbels seized upon the attack (and the weeks Wessel spent on his deathbed) to publicize the song, and the funeral was used as an anti-Communist propaganda opportunity for the Nazis. In May, Goebbels was convicted of "libeling" President Hindenburg and fined 800 marks. The conviction stemmed from a 1929 article by Goebbels in his newspaper "Der Angriff". In June, Goebbels was charged with high treason by the prosecutor in Leipzig based on statements Goebbels had made in 1927, but after a four-month investigation it came to naught.


title: Adolf Hitler's rise to power

text: Against this backdrop, Hitler's party gained a significant victory in the Reichstag, obtaining 107 seats (18.3%, 6,409,600 votes) in the September 1930 federal election. The Nazis thereby became the second-largest party in Germany, and as historian Joseph Bendersky notes, they essentially became the "dominant political force on the right".


title: Adolf Hitler's rise to power

text: An unprecedented amount of money was thrown behind the campaign and political success increased the party's momentum as it recorded over 100,000 new members in the next few months following the election. Well over one million pamphlets were produced and distributed; sixty trucks were commandeered for use in Berlin alone. In areas where Nazi campaigning was less rigorous, the total share of the vote was as low as 9%. The Great Depression was also a factor in Hitler's electoral success. Against this legal backdrop, the SA began its first major anti-Jewish action on 13 October 1930, when groups of Nazi brownshirts smashed the windows of Jewish-owned stores at Potsdamer Platz.


title: Adolf Hitler's rise to power

text: The Wall Street Crash of 1929 heralded worldwide economic disaster. The Nazis and the Communists made great gains at the 1930 federal election. The Nazis and Communists between them secured almost 40% of Reichstag seats, which required the moderate parties to consider negotiations with anti-democrats. "The Communists", wrote historian Alan Bullock, "openly announced that they would prefer to see the Nazis in power rather than lift a finger to save the republic".


title: Adolf Hitler's rise to power

text: The Weimar political parties failed to stop the Nazi rise. Germany's Weimar political system made it difficult for chancellors to govern with a stable parliamentary majority, and successive chancellors instead relied on the president's emergency powers to govern. From 1931 to 1933, the Nazis combined terror tactics with conventional campaigning – Hitler criss-crossed the nation by air, while SA troops paraded in the streets, beat up opponents, and broke up their meetings.


title: Adolf Hitler's rise to power

text: A middle-class liberal party strong enough to block the Nazis did not exist – the People's Party and the Democrats suffered severe losses to the Nazis at the polls. The Social Democrats were essentially a conservative trade union party, with ineffectual leadership. The Catholic Centre Party maintained its voting block, but was preoccupied with defending its own particular interests and, wrote Bullock: "through 1932–3 ... was so far from recognizing the danger of a Nazi dictatorship that it continued to negotiate with the Nazis". The Communists meanwhile were engaging in violent clashes with Nazis on the streets, but Moscow had directed the Communist Party to prioritise destruction of the Social Democrats, seeing more danger in them as a rival for the loyalty of the working class. Nevertheless, wrote Bullock, the heaviest responsibility lay with the German right wing, who "forsook a true conservatism" and made Hitler their partner in a coalition government.


title: Adolf Hitler's rise to power

text: The Centre Party's Heinrich Brüning was Chancellor from 1930 to 1932. Brüning and Hitler were unable to reach terms of co-operation, but Brüning himself increasingly governed with the support of the President and Army over that of the parliament. The 84-year-old President von Hindenburg, a conservative monarchist, was reluctant to take action to suppress the Nazis, while the ambitious Major-General Kurt von Schleicher, as Minister handling army and navy matters hoped to harness their support. With Schleicher's backing, and Hitler's stated approval, Hindenburg appointed the Catholic monarchist Franz von Papen to replace Brüning as Chancellor in June 1932. Papen had been active in the resurgence of the Harzburg Front. He had fallen out with the Centre Party. He hoped ultimately to outmaneuver Hitler.


title: Adolf Hitler's rise to power

text: At the July 1932 federal election, the Nazis became the largest party in the Reichstag, yet without a majority. Hitler withdrew support for Papen and demanded the Chancellorship. He was refused by Hindenburg. Papen dissolved Parliament, and the Nazi vote declined at the November election. In the aftermath of the election, Papen proposed ruling by decree while drafting a new electoral system, with an upper house. Schleicher convinced Hindenburg to sack Papen, and Schleicher himself became Chancellor, promising to form a workable coalition.


title: Adolf Hitler's rise to power

text: The aggrieved Papen opened negotiations with Hitler, proposing a Nazi-Nationalist Coalition. Having nearly outmaneuvered Hitler, only to be trounced by Schleicher, Papen turned his attentions on defeating Schleicher, and concluded an agreement with Hitler.


title: Adolf Hitler's rise to power

text: On 10 March 1931, with street violence between the Rotfront and SA increasing, breaking all previous barriers and expectations, Prussia re-enacted its ban on Brownshirts. Days after the ban, SA-men shot dead two communists in a street fight, which led to a ban being placed on the public speaking of Goebbels, who sidestepped the prohibition by recording speeches and playing them to an audience in his absence.


title: Adolf Hitler's rise to power

text: When Hitler's citizenship became a matter of public discussion in 1924 he had a public declaration printed on 16 October 1924,


title: Adolf Hitler's rise to power

text: Under the threat of criminal deportation home to Austria, Hitler formally renounced his Austrian citizenship on 7 April 1925, and did not acquire German citizenship until almost seven years later; therefore, he was unable to run for public office. Hitler gained German citizenship after being appointed a Free State of Brunswick government official by Dietrich Klagges, after an earlier attempt by Wilhelm Frick to convey citizenship as a Thuringian police official failed.


title: Adolf Hitler's rise to power

text: Ernst Röhm, in charge of the SA, put Wolf-Heinrich von Helldorff, a vehement anti-Semite, in charge of the Berlin SA. The deaths mounted, with many more on the Rotfront side, and by the end of 1931 the SA had suffered 47 deaths and the Rotfront recorded losses of approximately 80 killed. Street fights and beer hall battles resulting in deaths occurred throughout February and April 1932, all against the backdrop of Adolf Hitler's competition in the presidential election which pitted him against the monumentally popular Hindenburg. In the first round on 13 March, Hitler had polled over 11 million votes but was still behind Hindenburg. The second and final round took place on 10 April: Hitler (36.8% 13,418,547) lost to Paul von Hindenburg (53.0% 19,359,983) while the KPD candidate Thälmann gained a meagre percentage of the vote (10.2% 3,706,759). At this time, the Nazi Party had just over 800,000 members.


title: Adolf Hitler's rise to power

text: On 13 April 1932, following the presidential elections, the German government banned the Nazi Party paramilitaries, the SA and the SS, on the basis of the Emergency Decree for the Preservation of State Authority. This action was prompted by details uncovered by the Prussian police that indicated the SA was ready for a takeover of power by force after an election of Hitler. The lifting of the ban and staging of new elections were the price Hitler demanded in exchange for his support of a new cabinet. The law was repealed on 16 June by Franz von Papen, Chancellor of Germany as part of his agreement with Hitler. In the federal election of July 1932, the Nazis won 37.3% of the popular vote (13,745,000 votes), an upswing by 19 percent, becoming the largest party in the Reichstag, with 230 out of 608 seats. Dwarfed by Hitler's electoral gains, the KPD turned away from legal means and increasingly towards violence. One resulting battle in Silesia resulted in the army being dispatched, each shot sending Germany further into a potential civil war. By this time both sides marched into each other's strongholds hoping to spark a rivalry. The attacks continued and reached fever pitch when SA leader Axel Schaffeld was assassinated on 1 August.


title: Adolf Hitler's rise to power

text: As the Nazi Party was now the largest party in the Reichstag, it was entitled to select the President of the Reichstag and were able to elect Göring for the post. Energised by the success, Hitler asked to be made chancellor. Hitler was offered the job of vice-chancellor by Chancellor Papen at the behest of President Hindenburg but he refused. Hitler saw this offer as placing him in a position of "playing second fiddle" in the government.


title: Adolf Hitler's rise to power

text: In his position of Reichstag president, Göring asked that decisive measures be taken by the government over the spate of murders of Nazi Party members. On 9 August, amendments were made to the "Reichstrafgesetzbuch" statute on "acts of political violence", increasing the penalty to "lifetime imprisonment, 20 years hard labour[,] or death". Special courts were announced to try such offences. When in power less than half a year later, Hitler would use this legislation against his opponents with devastating effect.


title: Adolf Hitler's rise to power

text: The law was applied almost immediately but did not bring the perpetrators behind the recent massacres to trial as expected. Instead, five SA men who were alleged to have murdered a KPD member in Potempa (Upper Silesia) were tried. Hitler appeared at the trial as a defence witness, but on 22 August the five were convicted and sentenced to death. On appeal, this sentence was commuted to life imprisonment in early September. They served just over four months before Hitler freed all imprisoned Nazis in a 1933 amnesty.


title: Adolf Hitler's rise to power

text: The Nazi Party lost 35 seats in the November 1932 election, but remained the Reichstag's largest party, with 196 seats (33.1%). The Social Democrats (SPD) won 121 seats (20.4%) and the Communists (KPD) won 100 (16.9%).


title: Adolf Hitler's rise to power

text: The Communist International described all moderate left-wing parties as "social fascists" and urged the Communists to devote their energies to the destruction of the moderate left. As a result, the KPD, following orders from Moscow, rejected overtures from the Social Democrats to form a political alliance against the NSDAP.


title: Adolf Hitler's rise to power

text: After Chancellor Papen left office, he secretly told Hitler that he still held considerable sway with President Hindenburg and that he would make Hitler chancellor as long as he, Papen, could be the vice chancellor. Another notable event was the publication of the "Industrielleneingabe", a letter signed by 22 important representatives of industry, finance and agriculture, asking Hindenburg to appoint Hitler as chancellor. Hindenburg reluctantly agreed to appoint Hitler as chancellor after the parliamentary elections of July and November 1932 had not resulted in the formation of a majority governmentdespite the fact that Hitler had been Hindenburg's opponent in the presidential election only 9 months earlier. Hitler headed a short-lived coalition government formed by the NSDAP and the German National People's Party (DNVP).


title: Adolf Hitler's rise to power

text: On 30 January 1933, the new cabinet was sworn in during a brief ceremony in Hindenburg's office. The NSDAP gained three posts: Hitler was named chancellor, Wilhelm Frick Minister of the Interior, and Hermann Göring, Minister Without Portfolio (and Minister of the Interior for Prussia). The SA and SS led torchlit parades throughout Berlin. It is this event that would become termed Hitler's "Machtergreifung" ("seizure of power"). The term was originally used by some Nazis to suggest a revolutionary process, though Hitler, and others, used the word "" ("take-over of power"), reflecting that the transfer of power took place within the existing constitutional framework and suggesting that the process was legal.


title: Adolf Hitler's rise to power

text: Papen was to serve as Vice-Chancellor in a majority conservative Cabinet – still falsely believing that he could "tame" Hitler. Initially, Papen did speak out against some Nazi excesses. However, after narrowly escaping death in the Night of the Long Knives in 1934, he no longer dared criticise the regime and was sent off to Vienna as German ambassador.


title: Adolf Hitler's rise to power

text: Both within Germany and abroad, there were initially few fears that Hitler could use his position to establish his later dictatorial single-party regime. Rather, the conservatives that helped to make him chancellor were convinced that they could control Hitler and "tame" the Nazi Party while setting the relevant impulses in the government themselves; foreign ambassadors played down worries by emphasizing that Hitler was "mediocre" if not a bad copy of Mussolini; even SPD politician Kurt Schumacher trivialized Hitler as a "Dekorationsstück" ("piece of scenery/decoration") of the new government. German newspapers wrote that, without doubt, the Hitler-led government would try to fight its political enemies (the left-wing parties), but that it would be impossible to establish a dictatorship in Germany because there was "a barrier, over which violence cannot proceed" and because of the German nation being proud of "the freedom of speech and thought". Benno Reifenberg of the "Frankfurter Zeitung" wrote:


title: Adolf Hitler's rise to power

text: Even within the Jewish German community, in spite of Hitler not hiding his ardent antisemitism, the worries appear to have been limited. In a declaration of 30 January, the steering committee of the central Jewish German organization ("Centralverein deutscher Staatsbürger jüdischen Glaubens") wrote that "as a matter of course" the Jewish community faces the new government "with the largest mistrust", but at the same they were convinced that "nobody would dare to touch [their] constitutional rights". The Jewish German newspaper "Jüdische Rundschau" wrote on 31 Jan:


title: Adolf Hitler's rise to power

text: However, a growing number of keen observers, like Sir Horace Rumbold, British Ambassador in Berlin, began to revise their opinions. On 22 February 1933, he wrote, "Hitler may be no statesman but he is an uncommonly clever and audacious demagogue and fully alive to every popular instinct", and he informed the Foreign Office that he had no doubt that the Nazis had "come to stay". On receiving the dispatch Robert Vansittart, Permanent Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, concluded that if Hitler eventually gained the upper hand, "then another European war [was] within measurable distance".


title: Adolf Hitler's rise to power

text: With Germans who opposed Nazism failing to unite against it, Hitler soon moved to consolidate absolute power.


title: Adolf Hitler's rise to power

text: Following the Reichstag fire, the Nazis began to suspend civil liberties and eliminate political opposition. The Communists were excluded from the Reichstag. At the March 1933 elections, again no single party secured a majority. Hitler required the vote of the Centre Party and Conservatives in the Reichstag to obtain the powers he desired. He called on Reichstag members to vote for the Enabling Act on 23 March 1933. Hitler was granted plenary powers "temporarily" by the passage of the Act. The law gave him the freedom to act without parliamentary consent and even without constitutional limitations.


title: Adolf Hitler's rise to power

text: Employing his characteristic mix of negotiation and intimidation, Hitler offered the possibility of friendly co-operation, promising not to threaten the Reichstag, the President, the States or the Churches if granted the emergency powers. With Nazi paramilitary encircling the building, he said: "It is for you, gentlemen of the Reichstag to decide between war and peace". The Centre Party, having obtained promises of non-interference in religion, joined with conservatives in voting for the Act (only the Social Democrats voted against).


title: Adolf Hitler's rise to power

text: The Act allowed Hitler and his Cabinet to rule by emergency decree for four years, though Hindenburg remained President. Hitler immediately set about abolishing the powers of the states and the existence of non-Nazi political parties and organisations. Non-Nazi parties were formally outlawed on 14 July 1933, and the Reichstag abdicated its democratic responsibilities. Hindenburg remained commander-in-chief of the military and retained the power to negotiate foreign treaties.


title: Adolf Hitler's rise to power

text: The Act did not infringe upon the powers of the President, and Hitler would not fully achieve full dictatorial power until after the death of Hindenburg in August 1934. Journalists and diplomats wondered whether Hitler could appoint himself President, who might succeed him as Chancellor, and what the army would do. They did not know that the army supported Hitler after the Night of the Long Knives, or expect that he would combine the two positions of President and Chancellor into one office. Only Hitler, as head of state, could dismiss Hitler as head of the government. All soldiers took the Hitler Oath on the day of Hindenburg's death, swearing unconditional obedience to Hitler personally, not to the office or nation. A large majority approved of combining the two roles in the person of Hitler through the 1934 German referendum.


title: Our Lady of Fátima

text: Our Lady of Fátima (, ); formally known as Our Lady of the Holy Rosary of Fátima) is a Catholic title of Mary, mother of Jesus, based on the Marian apparitions reported in 1917 by three shepherd children at the Cova da Iria in Fátima, Portugal. The three children were Lúcia dos Santos and her cousins Francisco and Jacinta Marto. José Alves Correia da Silva, Bishop of Leiria, declared the events worthy of belief on 13 October 1930.


title: Our Lady of Fátima

text: Pope Pius XII granted a pontifical decree of canonical coronation via the papal bull towards the venerated image on 25 April 1946. The designated papal legate, Cardinal Benedetto Aloisi Masella, carried out the coronation on 13 May 1946, now permanently enshrined at the Chapel of the Apparitions of Fátima. The same Roman Pontiff also raised the Sanctuary of Fátima to the status of a minor basilica by the apostolic letter on 11 November 1954.


title: Our Lady of Fátima

text: The published memoirs of Sister Lúcia in the 1930s revealed two secrets that she claimed came from the Virgin Mary, while the third secret was to be revealed by the Catholic Church in 1960. The controversial events at Fátima gained fame due partly to elements of the secrets, prophecy and eschatological revelations allegedly related to the Second World War and possibly more global wars in the future, particularly the Virgin's request for the Consecration of Russia to the Immaculate Heart of Mary.


title: Our Lady of Fátima

text: Beginning in the spring of 1916, three shepherd children – Lúcia dos Santos, Francisco and Jacinta Marto – reported three apparitions of an Angel in Valinhos. Then on 13 May 1917, in Cova da Iria, six apparitions of the Blessed Virgin Mary were reported. The children described her as "a Lady more brilliant than the Sun". The children reported a prophecy that prayer would lead to an end to the Great War, and that on 13 October that year the Lady would reveal her identity and perform a miracle "so that all may believe." Newspapers reported the prophecies, and many pilgrims began visiting the area. The children's accounts were deeply controversial, drawing intense criticism from both local secular and religious authorities. A provincial administrator briefly took the children into custody, believing the prophecies were politically motivated in opposition to the officially secular First Portuguese Republic established in 1910. The events of 13 October became known as the Miracle of the Sun.


title: Our Lady of Fátima

text: On 13 May 1917, the shepherd children reported seeing a woman "brighter than the sun, shedding rays of light clearer and stronger than a crystal goblet filled with the most sparkling water and pierced by the burning rays of the sun." The woman wore a white mantle edged with gold and held a rosary in her hand. She asked them to devote themselves to the Holy Trinity and to pray "the Rosary every day, to bring peace to the world and an end to the war". While the children had never told anyone about seeing the angel, Jacinta told her family about seeing the brightly lit woman. Lúcia had earlier said that the three should keep this experience private. Jacinta's disbelieving mother told neighbors about it as a joke, and within a day the whole village knew of the children's vision.


title: Our Lady of Fátima

text: The children said the woman told them to return to the Cova da Iria on 13 June 1917. Lúcia's mother sought counsel from the parish priest, Father Ferreira, who suggested she allow them to go. He asked to have Lúcia brought to him afterward so that he could question her. The second appearance occurred on 13 June, the feast of Saint Anthony, patron of the local parish church. Lúcia would later report that on this occasion, the lady revealed that Francisco and Jacinta would be taken to Heaven soon, but Lúcia would live longer in order to spread her message and devotion to the Immaculate Heart of Mary.


title: Our Lady of Fátima

text: During the June visit, the children said the lady told them to say the Holy Rosary daily in honor of Our Lady of the Rosary to obtain peace and the end of the Great War. (Three weeks earlier, on 21 April, the first contingent of Portuguese soldiers had embarked for the front lines of the war.) The lady also purportedly revealed to the children a vision of hell, and entrusted a secret to them, described as "good for some and bad for others". Fr. Ferreira later stated that Lúcia recounted that the lady told her, "I want you to come back on the thirteenth and to learn to read in order to understand what I want of you. ...I don't want more."


title: Our Lady of Fátima

text: In the following months, thousands of people flocked to Fátima and nearby Aljustrel, drawn by reports of visions and miracles. On 13 August 1917, the provincial administrator Artur Santos (no relation to Lúcia dos Santos) intervened, as he believed that these events were politically disruptive in the conservative country. He took the children into custody, jailing them before they could reach the Cova da Iria. Santos interrogated and threatened the children to get them to divulge the contents of the secrets. Lúcia's mother hoped the officials could persuade the children to end the affair and admit that they had lied. Lúcia told Santos everything short of the secrets, and offered to ask the woman for permission to tell the official the secrets.


title: Our Lady of Fátima

text: That month, instead of the usual apparition in the Cova da Iria on 13 August, the children reported that they saw the Virgin Mary on 19 August, a Sunday, at nearby Valinhos. She asked them again to pray the rosary daily, spoke about the miracle coming in October, and asked them "to pray a lot, a lot for the sinners and sacrifice a lot, as many souls perish in hell because nobody is praying or making sacrifices for them."


title: Our Lady of Fátima

text: The three children claimed to have seen the Blessed Virgin Mary in a total of six apparitions between 13 May and 13 October 1917. Lúcia also reported a seventh Marian apparition at Cova da Iria. The year 2017 marked the 100th anniversary of the apparitions and it was celebrated with the visit of Pope Francis to the Sanctuary of Fátima.


title: Our Lady of Fátima

text: After some newspapers reported that the Virgin Mary had promised a miracle for the last of her apparitions on 13 October, a huge crowd, possibly between 30,000 and 100,000, including reporters and photographers, gathered at Cova da Iria. What happened then became known as the "Miracle of the Sun".


title: Our Lady of Fátima

text: Various claims have been made as to what actually happened during the event. The three children who originally claimed to have seen Our Lady of Fátima reported seeing a panorama of visions during the event, including those of Jesus, Our Lady of Sorrows, Our Lady of Mount Carmel, and of Saint Joseph blessing the people. Father John De Marchi, an Italian Catholic priest and researcher wrote several books on the subject, which included descriptions by witnesses who believed they had seen a miracle created by Mary, Mother of God. According to accounts, after a period of rain, the dark clouds broke and the Sun appeared as an opaque, spinning disc in the sky. It was said to be significantly duller than normal, and to cast multicolored lights across the landscape, the people, and the surrounding clouds. The Sun was then reported to have careered towards the Earth before zig-zagging back to its normal position. Witnesses reported that their previously wet clothes became "suddenly and completely dry, as well as the wet and muddy ground that had been previously soaked because of the rain that had been falling".


title: Our Lady of Fátima

text: Not all witnesses reported seeing the Sun "dance". Some people only saw the radiant colors, and others, including some believers, saw nothing at all. The only known picture of the Sun taken during the event does not show anything unusual. No unusual phenomenon of the Sun was observed by scientists at the time. Skeptics have offered alternative explanations that include psychological suggestibility of the witnesses, temporary retinal distortion caused by staring at the intense light of the Sun, and optical effects caused by natural meteorological phenomena.


title: Our Lady of Fátima

text: In De Marchi's account, he describes Manuel Formigao, the priest who interviewed the children during the apparitions, as alarmed by a discrepancy between a prophecy the children reported, and the current circumstances. According to the children, their apparition predicted that the First World War would end on 13 October 1917. "But listen Lúcia," De Marchi reports Formigao saying, "The war is still going on. The papers give news of battles after the 13th. How can you explain that if our Lady said the war would end that day?" Lúcia replied, "I don't know; I only know that I heard her say that the war would end on that day [...] I said exactly what our Lady had said." Jacinta, the youngest child, was interrogated separately and said the same: "She [Mary] said that we were to say the Rosary every day and that the war would end today." World War I ended a year later on Armistice Day, 11 November 1918.


title: Our Lady of Fátima

text: De Marchi documented that in the two years prior to the deaths of Francisco and Jacinta Marto in the 1918 Spanish flu pandemic, the three children periodically refused food and water, or else drank dirty water such as from a laundry pond, as a penance; De Marchi noted that Jacinta's mother had forbidden drinking from the pond due to the risk of illness. De Marchi wrote, "In the scorching sun of the serra, when through the bright hours of the day the heat hangs like a hot stove everywhere, they abstained from taking any water through one spell of thirty days, and at another time for nine." and described Jacinta as being hospitalized for severe bronchial illness, after which she confided to her older cousin that she was still abstaining: "I was thirsty, Lúcia, and I didn't drink, and so I offered it to Jesus for sinners." Lucia wrote in her 1936 and 1941 memoirs that the Virgin Mary predicted the deaths of Franiscco and Jacinta during the second apparition on 13 June 1917.


title: Our Lady of Fátima

text: In one of several memoirs, Lucia wrote that the children tied "penitence cords" so tightly around their waists that the ropes became blood-stained, and that the apparition of 13 September 1917, told her, "God is pleased with your sacrifices, but He does not want you to sleep with the rope on; only wear it during the day." Late in life, Lucia also wrote about doubts she expressed as a child regarding the authenticity of the apparition. She wrote, "I began then to have doubts as to whether these manifestations might be from the devil [...] truly, ever since I had started seeing these things, our home was no longer the same, for joy and peace had fled. What anguish I felt!" She also describes a vivid nightmare she experienced during this time period wherein "the devil was laughing at having deceived me." De Marchi states that Lúcia told her cousin prior to traveling to Cova da Iria in anticipation of the 13 July 1917 apparition, "If she [the Lady] asks for me, Jacinta, you tell her why I'm not there. Because I am afraid it is the Devil who sends her to us!" Lucia wrote in her memoir that on the following day, she was overtaken by a certainty that she should go, despite her earlier dread: "...when it was nearly time to leave, I suddenly felt I had to go, impelled by a strange force that I could hardly resist." According to De Marchi, "Lucia's doubts were mercifully dissolved".


title: Our Lady of Fátima

text: Francisco and Jacinta Marto died in the global flu pandemic that began in 1918 and swept the world for two years. Francisco Marto died at home on 4 April 1919, at the age of ten. Jacinta died at the age of nine in Queen Stephanie's Children's Hospital in Lisbon on 20 February 1920. Their mother Olímpia Marto said that her children predicted their deaths many times to her and to curious pilgrims in the brief period after the Marian apparitions. They are now buried at the Sanctuary of Fátima. They were beatified by Pope John Paul II on 13 May 2000 and canonized by Pope Francis on 13 May 2017.


title: Our Lady of Fátima

text: At the age of fourteen, in 1922 Lúcia was sent to the school of the Sisters of Saint Dorothy (Dorothean) in Vilar, a suburb of Porto, Portugal. In 1928 she became a postulant at the convent of the Sisters of Saint Dorothy in Tui, Spain, near the border with Portugal. Lúcia continued to report private visions periodically throughout her life. She reported seeing the Virgin Mary again in 1925 in the convent. This time, she said she was asked to convey the message of the First Saturdays Devotion. She said she had a subsequent vision of the Christ Child reiterating this request. In 1929, Lúcia reported that Mary returned and repeated her request for the Consecration of Russia to her Immaculate Heart. She also reported a 1931 apparition in Rianxo, Galicia, in which she said Jesus visited her, taught her two prayers, and gave a message addressed to the Catholic Church's hierarchy.


title: Our Lady of Fátima

text: In 1936 and again in 1941, Sister Lúcia said that the Virgin Mary had predicted the deaths of her two cousins during the second apparition on 13 June 1917. According to Lúcia's 1941 account, on 13 June, Lúcia asked the Virgin if the three children would go to heaven when they died. She said that she heard Mary reply, "Yes, I shall take Francisco and Jacinta soon, but you will remain a little longer, since Jesus wishes you to make me known and loved on Earth. He wishes also for you to establish devotion in the world to my Immaculate Heart."


title: Our Lady of Fátima

text: In 1947, Sister Lúcia left the Dorothean Order and joined the Discalced Carmelite Order in a monastery in Coimbra, Portugal. Lúcia died on 13 February 2005, at the age of 97. Her cell was sealed off by the order of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith as part of examination for her canonization, due to the revelations that Sister Lúcia still had after the events at Fátima.


title: Our Lady of Fátima

text: The widely reported Miracle of the Sun quickly made Fátima a major pilgrimage centre. Two million pilgrims visited the site in the decade following the events of 1917. A small chapel – the "Capelinha" – was built by locals on the exact site of the Marian apparitions, where the holm oak stood. The construction was neither encouraged nor hindered by church authorities.


title: Our Lady of Fátima

text: On 13 May 1920, pilgrims defied government troops and enshrined a statue of the Virgin Mary in the chapel. Mass was first officially celebrated there in January 1924. A hostel for the sick was begun in that year. In 1927, the first rector of the sanctuary was appointed, and a set of Stations of the Cross were erected on the mountain road. The foundation stone for the Basilica of Our Lady of the Rosary was laid nearby the next year.


title: Our Lady of Fátima

text: In 1930, the Catholic Church officially recognised the apparition events as "worthy of belief" and granted a papal indulgence to pilgrims visiting Fátima. In 1935, the bodies of the child visionaries, Francisco and Jacinta, were reinterred in the new basilica. Pope Pius XII granted a Canonical Coronation of the statue of Our Lady of Fátima on 13 May 1946. This event drew such large crowds that the entrance to the site had to be barred.


title: Our Lady of Fátima

text: In the 21st century, pilgrimages to the site occur year-round. Additional chapels, hospitals and other facilities have been constructed at the site. The principal pilgrimages take place on the thirteenth day of each month from May to October, on the anniversaries of the original apparitions. The largest crowds gather on 13 May and 13 October, when up to a million pilgrims pray and witness processions of the statue of Our Lady of Fátima, both in the day and by the light of tens of thousands of candles at night.


title: Our Lady of Fátima

text: The reported visions at Fátima gathered widespread attention, as numerous pilgrims began to visit the site. After a canonical inquiry, the Bishop of Leiria-Fátima officially declared the visions of Fátima as "worthy of belief" in October 1930, officially permitting the belief of Our Lady of Fátima.


title: Our Lady of Fátima

text: At the time of the apparitions, Portugal was undergoing tensions between the secularizing Republican government and more conservative elements in society. The First Republic had begun with the revolution of 1910 overthrowing the constitutional monarch. It was intensely anticlerical and provoked a strong conservative reaction, ultimately leading to the military coup of 1926. Later in Spain during the 1920s and 1930s, as the forces of the Republic gathered strength, armies of faithful Roman Catholics carried images of the Virgin Mary, as protest and protection against groups they called godless.


title: Our Lady of Fátima

text: During the Spanish Second Republic, apparitions of the Virgin Mary were seen on Spanish soil at Ezquioga. Ramona Olazabal said that Mary had marked the palms of her hands with a sword. The visions at Ezquioga were widely covered in the press, as were sixteen other visitations of the Virgin reported in 1931 in Spain. These visions gained much credence in Integrist and Carlist circles and conservative elements in the Spanish Catholic Church actively encouraged the Fátima devotion as a way of countering the threat of atheistic Communism. In Portugal and its former colony of Brazil, conservative groups were sometimes associated with the veneration of Fátima. When Germany invaded Russia in 1941, some Catholics interpreted this in terms of the Fátima apparitions, and believed that the Virgin's prophecy was about to be fulfilled.


title: Our Lady of Fátima

text: The original apparitions took place during the six months immediately preceding the Bolshevik Revolution in Russia, and the children related that the Lady talked to them about the need to pray for Russia. Lúcia admitted later that the children initially thought she meant prayers for a girl named "Russia". In the first edition of Sister Lúcia's memoirs, published after the outbreak of World War II, she focused on the issue of Russia. The warning by the Lady that "if Russia was not consecrated to God, it would spread errors throughout the world" was often seized upon as an anti-Communist rallying cry.


title: Our Lady of Fátima

text: The Blue Army of Our Lady of Fátima, for instance, has always been strongly anti-Communist and its members often associated the Fátima story in the context of the Cold War. The Blue Army is made up of Catholics and non-Catholics who believe that by dedicating themselves to daily prayer (specifically recitation of the Rosary), they can help to achieve world peace and end to the error of Communism. Organizations such as the Blue Army (now called the World Apostolate of Fátima) have gained the approval of the Catholic Church.


title: Our Lady of Fátima

text: The Fátima story developed in two parts: that which was reported in 1917, and information later mentioned in Sister Lúcia's memoirs which she wrote years later, after the church ruled that the events in Fátima were "worthy of belief." Some scholars argue that her memoir was not subject to the same scrutiny. The early messages focused on the need to pray the rosary for peace and an end to World War I.


title: Our Lady of Fátima

text: The supernatural events in Fátima were not widely known outside Portugal and Spain until Lúcia published her memoirs, starting in the late 1930s. Between 1935 and 1993, she wrote six memoirs. The first four, written between 1935 and 1941 during World War II, were published under the title "Fatima in Lucia's Own Words" (1976). The fifth and sixth memoirs, written in 1989 and 1993, are published as "Fatima in Lucia's Own Words II".


title: Our Lady of Fátima

text: In the mid-1930s the Bishop of Leiria encouraged Lúcia (at that time named Sister Maria Lúcia das Dores) to write her memoirs, so that she might reveal further details of the 1917 apparitions. In her first memoir, published in 1935, Sister Lúcia focused on the holiness of her cousin, Jacinta Marto. The deceased girl was by then popularly considered a saint. In her second memoir, published in 1937, Lúcia wrote more about her own life, the apparition of 13 June 1917, and first reveals the earlier apparitions of the Angel of Peace.


title: Our Lady of Fátima

text: Finding herself inundated with constantly repeated questions concerning the Marian apparitions that occurred in Fátima, Portugal, and the visionaries, the message they received and the reason for some of the requests contained in that message, and feeling that it was beyond her to reply individually to each questioner, Sister Lúcia asked the Holy See for permission to write a text in which she could reply in general to the many questions that had been put to her. This permission was granted and in December 2000, a new book was published entitled "Calls from the Message of Fatima".


title: Our Lady of Fátima

text: In her third memoir of 1941, Sister Lúcia described three secrets. She said these had been entrusted to the children during the apparitions of 1917.


title: Our Lady of Fátima

text: [Mary] opened Her hands once more, as She had done the two previous months. The rays [of light] appeared to penetrate the earth, and we saw, as it were, a vast sea of fire. Plunged in this fire, we saw the demons and the souls [of the damned].


title: Our Lady of Fátima

text: The latter were like transparent burning embers, all blackened or burnished bronze, having human forms. They were floating about in that conflagration, now raised into the air by the flames which issued from within themselves, together with great clouds of smoke. Now they fell back on every side like sparks in huge fires, without weight or equilibrium, amid shrieks and groans of pain and despair, which horrified us and made us tremble with fright (it must have been this sight which caused me to cry out, as people say they heard me).


title: Our Lady of Fátima

text: This was a recommendation for devotion to the Immaculate Heart of Mary as a way to save souls and bring peace to the world. It predicted an end to the Great War, but predicted a worse one if people did not cease offending God. This second war would be presaged by a night illuminated by an unknown light, as a "great sign" that the time of chastisement was near. To avert this, Mary would return to ask for the consecration of Russia to the Immaculate Heart, and the establishment of the First Saturdays Devotion. If her requests were heeded, Russia would be converted, and there would be peace; if not, Russia would spread her errors throughout the world, causing wars and persecutions of the Catholic Church. The vision culminated with a promise that in the end, "the Immaculate Heart would triumph. The Holy Father would consecrate Russia to Mary, and a period of peace would be granted to the world."


title: Our Lady of Fátima

text: On 25 January 1938 (during solar cycle 17), bright lights, an aurora borealis appeared over the northern hemisphere, including in places as far south as North Africa, Bermuda and California. It was the widest occurrence of the aurora since 1709 and people in Paris and elsewhere thought it was a great fire and notified fire departments. Sister Lúcia indicated that it was the sign foretold and so apprised her superior and the bishop in letters the following day. Just over a month later, Hitler seized Austria and eight months later invaded Czechoslovakia.


title: Our Lady of Fátima

text: According to Sister Lúcia, the Virgin Mary promised that the Consecration of Russia would lead to Russia's conversion and an era of peace. At the time the supposed request for the consecration of Russia was made, however, the Bolsheviks had not yet taken control of Russia.


title: Our Lady of Fátima

text: Pope Pius XII, in his Apostolic Letter "Sacro Vergente" of 7 July 1952, consecrated Russia to the Blessed Virgin Mary. Pius XII wrote,


title: Our Lady of Fátima

text: In 1952 the Pope said to the Russian people and the Stalinist regime that the Virgin Mary was always victorious. "The gates of hell will never prevail, where she offers her protection. She is the good mother, the mother of all, and it has never been heard, that those who seek her protection, will not receive it. With this certainty, the Pope dedicates all people of Russia to the immaculate heart of the Virgin. She will help! Error and atheism will be overcome with her assistance and divine grace."


title: Our Lady of Fátima

text: Popes Pius XII and John Paul II both had a special relationship with Our Lady of Fátima. Pope Benedict XV began Pacelli's church career, elevating him to archbishop in the Sistine Chapel on 13 May 1917, the date of the first apparition. Pius XII was laid to rest in the crypt of Saint Peter's Basilica on 13 October 1958, the anniversary of the final apparition and the Miracle of the Sun.


title: Our Lady of Fátima

text: Pope John Paul II again consecrated the entire world to the Virgin Mary in 1984, without explicitly mentioning Russia. Some believe that Sister Lúcia verified that this ceremony fulfilled the requests of the Virgin Mary. However, in the Blue Army's Spanish magazine, "Sol de Fátima", in the September 1985 issue, Sister Lúcia said that the ceremony did not fulfil the Virgin Mary's request, as there was no specific mention of Russia and "many bishops attached no importance to it." In 2001, Archbishop Tarcisio Bertone met with Sister Lúcia, who reportedly told him, "I have already said that the consecration desired by Our Lady was made in 1984, and has been accepted in Heaven." Sister Lúcia died on 13 February 2005, without making any further public statement of her own to settle the issue.


title: Our Lady of Fátima

text: Some maintain that, according to Lúcia and Fátima advocates such as Abbé Georges de Nantes, Fr. Paul Kramer and Nicholas Gruner, Russia has never been specifically consecrated to the Immaculate Heart of Mary by any Pope simultaneously with all the world's bishops, which is what Lúcia in the 1985 interview had said Mary had asked for. Two interviews with Sister Lúcia, in 1992 and 1993, tape recorded and televised with her permission on Portuguese State Television RTP1 and on SIC, TVI and RAI 2, in March 1998, finally clarified the Seer's personal opinion regarding the Secret, Consecration and Conversion of Russia.


title: Our Lady of Fátima

text: However, by letters of 29 August 1989 and 3 July 1990, she stated that the consecration had been completed; indeed in the 1990 letter in response to a question by the Rev. Father Robert J. Fox, she confirmed:


title: Our Lady of Fátima

text: I come to answer your question, "If the consecration made by Pope John Paul II on 25 March 1984 in union with all the bishops of the world, accomplished the conditions for the consecration of Russia according to the request of Our Lady in Tui, Spain on 13 June 1929?" Yes, it was accomplished, and since then I have said that it was made.


title: Our Lady of Fátima

text: And I say that no other person responds for me, it is I who receive and open all letters and respond to them.


title: Our Lady of Fátima

text: In the meantime, the conception of Theotokos Derzhavnaya, Orthodox Christian venerated icon, points out that Virgin Mary is considered actual Tsarina of Russia by the religious appeal of Nicholas II; thus "Consecration of Russia" may refer to return of Russian monarchy. The icon was brought to Fátima in 2003 and 2014, together with another significant icon, the Theotokos of Port Arthur.


title: Our Lady of Fátima

text: The third secret, a vision of the death of the Pope and other religious figures, was transcribed by the Bishop of Leiria and reads:


title: Our Lady of Fátima

text: Lúcia declared that the Third Secret could be released to the public after 1960. Some sources, including Canon Barthas and Cardinal Ottaviani, said that Lúcia insisted to them it must be released by 1960, saying that, "by that time, it will be more clearly understood", and, "because the Blessed Virgin wishes it so." Instead, in 1960 the Vatican published an official press release stating that it was "most probable the Secret would remain, forever, under absolute seal." This announcement triggered widespread speculation. "The New York Times" wrote that speculation over the content of the secret ranged from "worldwide nuclear annihilation" to "deep rifts in the Roman Catholic Church that lead to rival papacies."


title: Our Lady of Fátima

text: Such writers as Father Paul Kramer, Christopher Ferrara, Antonio Socci, and Marco Tosatti have suggested that this was not the full text of the secret and stating the Third Secret is not the full text. They alleged that Cardinals Bertone, Ratzinger and Sodano concealed the existence of another one-page document, containing information about the Apocalypse and a great apostasy.


title: Our Lady of Fátima

text: The Vatican has maintained its position that the full text of the Third Secret was published. According to a December 2001 Vatican press release (published in "L'Osservatore Romano"), Lúcia told then-Archbishop Bertone in an interview that the secret had been completely revealed when published.


title: Our Lady of Fátima

text: During his apostolic visit to Portugal during 11–14 May 2010 on the 10th anniversary of the beatification of Jacinta and Francisco Marto, Pope Benedict XVI explained to reporters that the interpretation of the third secret did not only refer to the attempted assassination of Pope John Paul II in Saint Peter's Square in 1981. He said that the third secret, "has a permanent and ongoing significance," and that, "its significance could even be extended to include the suffering the Church is going through today as a result of the recent reports of sexual abuse involving the clergy."


title: Our Lady of Fátima

text: Many Roman Catholics recite prayers based on the apparitions of Our Lady of Fátima. Lúcia later said that, in 1916, she and her cousins had several visions of an angel calling himself the "Angel of Portugal" and the "Angel of Peace," who taught them to bow with their heads to the ground and to say "My God, I believe, I adore, I hope, and I love you. I ask pardon for those who do not believe, do not adore, do not hope and do not love you." Lúcia later set this prayer to music and a recording exists of her singing it. It was also said that sometime later, the angel returned and taught them a eucharistic devotion now known as the Angel Prayer.


title: Our Lady of Fátima

text: Lúcia said that the Lady emphasized Acts of Reparation and prayers to console Jesus for the sins of the world. Lúcia said that Mary's words were, "When you make some sacrifice, say 'O Jesus, it is for your love, for the conversion of sinners, and in reparation for sins committed against the Immaculate Heart of Mary.'" At the apparition of 13 July 1917, Lúcia said Mary told the children that sinners could be saved from damnation by devotion to the Immaculate Heart, but also by making "sacrifices". They heard her repeat the idea of sacrifices several times. Her vision of hell prompted them to ever more stringent self-mortifications to save souls. Among many other practices, Lúcia wrote that she and her cousins wore tight cords around their waists, flogged themselves with stinging nettles, gave their lunches to beggars, and abstained from drinking water on hot days. Francisco and Jacinta became extremely devoted to this practice. Lúcia wrote that Mary said God was pleased with their sacrifices and bodily penances.


title: Our Lady of Fátima

text: At the first apparition, Lúcia wrote, the children were so moved by the radiance that they involuntarily said "Most Holy Trinity, I adore you! My God, my God, I love you in the Most Blessed Sacrament." Lúcia also said that she heard Mary ask for the following words to be added to the Rosary after the Gloria Patri prayer: "O my Jesus, pardon us, save us from the fires of hell. Lead all souls to heaven, especially those in most need."


title: Our Lady of Fátima

text: According to Vatican teaching on the tradition of Marian visitations, references to the "conversion of sinners" do not necessarily mean religious conversion to the Roman Catholic Church. Pope Leo XIII, in his encyclical on the "Unity of the Church, Satis Cognitum", said that would mean the "conversion of heretics or apostates who are 'outside the church and alien to the Christian Faith.' Rather, "conversion of sinners" refers to general repentance and an attempt to amend one's life according to the teachings of Jesus for those true Catholics who are fallen into sins. Lúcia wrote that she and her cousins defined "sinners" not as non-Catholics but as those who had fallen away from the church or, more specifically, willfully indulged in sinful activity, particularly "sins of the flesh" and "acts of injustice and a lack of charity towards the poor, widows and orphans, the ignorant and the helpless," which she said were even worse than sins of impurity.


title: Our Lady of Fátima

text: The Marian cult dedicated to the veneration of the "Immaculate Heart" of the Blessed Virgin Mary is the central message of Fátima, though any ecclesiastical approbation nor imprimatur does not imply that the church provides an infallible guarantee on the supernatural nature of the event.


title: Our Lady of Fátima

text: Karl Rahner and other theologians opines that the Pontiff, by authoritatively fostering the Marian veneration in places such as Fátima and Lourdes, motivate the faithful into an acceptance of divine faith. In October 1930, Bishop da Silva declared that the apparitions at Fátima were "worthy of belief," and approved public devotion to the Blessed Virgin under the title Our Lady of Fátima. Since then, the Vatican granted indulgences and permitted special Liturgies of the Mass to be celebrated in Fátima.


title: Our Lady of Fátima

text: At the end of the Second Vatican Council, Pope Paul VI renewed the consecration of Pius XII to the Immaculate Heart of Mary. In an unusual gesture, he announced his own pilgrimage to the sanctuary on the fiftieth anniversary of the first apparition. On 13 May 1967, he prayed at the shrine together with Sister Lúcia.


title: Our Lady of Fátima

text: Pope John Paul II on 25 March 1984 consecrated "the world" in a public ceremony at St. Peter's in Rome; the consecration was in the form of a 'whole-world consecration' carried out in union with the Catholic bishops throughout the world. Cardinal Bertone said to the press many times that the message of Fátima was finished.


title: Our Lady of Fátima

text: He further credited Our Lady of Fátima with saving his life following an assassination attempt on 13 May 1981, the Feast of Our Lady of Fátima. Then on 12 May 1987, he expressed his gratitude to the Virgin Mary for saving his life. The following day, he renewed the consecration of Pius XII to the Immaculate Heart of the Virgin.


title: Our Lady of Fátima

text: Two articles are presently attached to the statue of Fatima: The bullet of assassination now encased into the canonical crown, and a rosary once belonging to Pope John Paul II.


title: Our Lady of Fátima

text: On 12–13 May 2010, Pope Benedict XVI visited the Sanctuary of Our Lady of Fátima and strongly stated his acceptance of the supernatural origin of the Fátima apparitions. On the first day, the Pope arrived at the Chapel of Apparitions to pray; he gave a Golden Rose to Our Lady of Fátima "as a homage of gratitude from the Pope for the marvels that the Almighty has worked through you in the hearts of so many who come as pilgrims to this your maternal home". The Pope also recalled the "invisible hand" that saved John Paul II. He said in a prayer to the Blessed Virgin Mary that "it is a profound consolation to know that you are crowned not only with the silver and gold of our joys and hopes, but also with the 'bullet' of our anxieties and sufferings."


title: Our Lady of Fátima

text: On the second day, Pope Benedict spoke to more than 500,000 pilgrims; he referred to the Fátima prophecy about the triumph of the Immaculate Heart of Mary and related it to the final "glory of the Most Holy Trinity."


title: Our Lady of Fátima

text: Amid the turmoil of Russia's 2022 "special military operation" in Ukraine, sanctions against Russia, and fears of nuclear war, the Latin Rite Catholic bishops of the Episcopate of Ukraine requested Pope Francis to "... publicly perform the act of consecration to the Sacred Immaculate Heart of Mary of Ukraine and Russia, as requested by the Blessed Virgin in Fatima. May the Mother of God, Queen of Peace, accept our prayer: Regina pacis, ora pro nobis!"


title: Our Lady of Fátima

text: Pope Francis consecrated Russia and Ukraine to the Immaculate Heart of Mary on 25 March 2022 at Saint Peter’s Basilica in Rome, stating: "Mother of God and our mother, to your Immaculate Heart we solemnly entrust and consecrate ourselves, the church and all humanity, especially Russia and Ukraine". A consecration ceremony also occurred in Fatima, Portugal, by the Papal almoner, Cardinal Konrad Krajewski. The Pope had announced the event via Twitter on 15 March 2022. It is unknown whether the consecration involved all the world's bishops on the same day or how it fulfilled the specific conditions of the Virgin's requests.


title: Our Lady of Fátima

text: In March 2017 the Holy See announced that Pope Francis would canonize two of the visionaries, Francisco and Jacinta Marto, on 13 May at a Mass in Fátima during a two-day visit. The decision followed papal confirmation of a miracle attributed to the intercession of the two visionaries.


title: Our Lady of Fátima

text: Our Lady of Fátima was played by Virginia Gibson in an uncredited role in the 1952 film "The Miracle of Our Lady of Fatima". She was played by Joana Ribeiro in the 2020 film, "Fatima".


title: GMC (automobile)

text: GMC (formerly the General Motors Truck Company (1911–1943), or the GMC Truck & Coach Division (1943–1998)) is a division of the American automobile manufacturer General Motors (GM) that primarily focuses on trucks and utility vehicles. GMC currently makes SUVs, pickup trucks, vans, and light-duty trucks. In the past, GMC also produced fire trucks, ambulances, heavy-duty trucks, military vehicles, motorhomes, transit buses, and medium duty trucks.


title: GMC (automobile)

text: While many of their vehicles are mechanically similar, GMC is positioned as a premium offering to the mainstream Chevrolet brand, and includes luxury trims Denali and Hummer EV. In North America, GMC vehicles are almost always sold alongside Buick (another premium brand) vehicles at multi-brand dealerships.


title: GMC (automobile)

text: Roots to the GMC brand can be traced to 1900, when the "Grabowsky Motor Company" was established by brothers Max (1874-1946) and Morris Grabowsky, in Detroit, and renamed Rapid Motor Vehicle Company in 1902 when the brothers moved operations to Pontiac, Michigan. In 1909 William C. Durant gained control of Rapid Motor Vehicle Company and made it a subsidiary of his General Motors Company.


title: GMC (automobile)

text: In 1911 General Motors formed the "General Motors Truck Company" and folded Rapid and Reliance Motor Car Company (another early commercial vehicle manufacturer that Durant had acquired in 1908) into it. In 1912 the Rapid and Reliance names were dropped in favor of "GMC". All General Motors truck production was consolidated at the former Rapid Motor Plant 1 in Pontiac, Michigan.


title: GMC (automobile)

text: GMC maintained three manufacturing locations in Pontiac, Michigan, Oakland, California, and St. Louis, Missouri.


title: GMC (automobile)

text: In 1916, a GMC truck crossed the country from Seattle to New York City in thirty days, and in 1926, a 2-ton GMC truck was driven from New York to San Francisco in five days and 30 minutes. During the First World War, the company provided the Model 16 3/4-ton truck, and modified its production to provide 1-ton troop carriers and aviation support vehicles, and by 1918, more than 90 percent of GMC truck production was for military use. GMTC provided a total of 8512 trucks to the U.S. government during the war years and earned a Distinguished Service Award. During the Second World War, GMC Truck produced 600,000 trucks for use by the United States Armed Forces.


title: GMC (automobile)

text: In 1923, GMC trucks were exported to Japan to help recovery and reconstruction as a result of the Great Kantō earthquake, and the company continued to provide vehicles as the transportation infrastructure was rebuilt. Before the earthquake struck, most of Japan's transportation of commerce and people was by wooden carts and government owned railroads, which were severely damaged when the train tracks were twisted beyond use. Autonomous trucks were much more effective at traveling to heavily damaged areas.


title: GMC (automobile)

text: In 1925, GM purchased a controlling interest in Yellow Coach, a bus and taxicab manufacturer based in Chicago, Illinois which was founded by John D. Hertz. The company was renamed Yellow Truck & Coach Manufacturing Company (YT&CMC), an affiliated subsidiary of General Motors. All manufacturing operations of General Motors Truck Company were placed under YT&CMC. In 1928 Plant 2 opened and all headquarters staff moved to the administration building at 660 South Boulevard E in Pontiac, MI. In 1943, GM purchased the remaining interest in YT&CMC and renamed it GMC Truck and Coach Division.


title: GMC (automobile)

text: Bus production ended in May 1987 and the division name was changed from GMC Truck & Coach to GMC Truck Division. The Canadian plant (in London, Ontario) produced buses from 1962 until July 1987. GM withdrew from the bus and coach market because of increased competition in the late 1970s and 1980s. Rights to the RTS model were sold to Transportation Manufacturing Corporation, while Motor Coach Industries of Canada purchased the Classic design. In 1998, GMC's official branding on vehicles was shortened from "GMC Truck" to simply "GMC".


title: GMC (automobile)

text: In 1996, GM merged GMC Truck Division with the Pontiac Motor Division in order to "give the combined division a brand image projecting physical power and outdoor activity". This coincided with many GMC dealerships merging with Pontiac dealerships, allowing a single dealer to offer both trucks and entry-to-mid-level cars, using a similar approach already in use by Chevrolet.


title: GMC (automobile)

text: In 2002, GMC celebrated its 100th anniversary and released a book entitled "GMC: The First 100 Years", a complete history of the company.


title: GMC (automobile)

text: In 2007, GMC introduced the Acadia, a crossover SUV, which was the division's second unibody vehicle (after the Vandura) whose predecessor, the GMT-360 based Envoy, was discontinued with the closure of GM's Moraine, Ohio plant on December 23, 2008.


title: GMC (automobile)

text: In 2009, GMC ended production of medium-duty commercial trucks after over 100 years. They became exclusive to Chevrolet with the launch of the 4500HD/5500HD Silverado in 2018. Also in 2009, GMC introduced the Terrain, a mid-size crossover SUV based on the GM Theta platform shared with the Chevrolet Equinox. It replaced the Pontiac Torrent after the brand's demise.


title: GMC (automobile)

text: In 2020, General Motors announced the return of the Hummer nameplate, this time as a sub-brand of GMC instead of a stand-alone division. The Hummer lineup includes two models, an electric pickup truck and SUV, to be sold as the "GMC Hummer EV". According to GM, the Edition 1 production electric pickup truck will feature 1,000 horsepower, hit 60 mph in 3 seconds and is scheduled to launch in late 2021. The new Hummer EV was revealed on October 20, 2020.


title: GMC (automobile)

text: Beginning in 1920, GMC and Chevrolet trucks became largely similar, built as variants of the same platform, sharing much the same body sheetwork, except for nameplates and grilles – though their differences, especially engines, have varied over the years. GMC advertising marketed its trucks to commercial buyers and businesses, whereas Chevrolet's advertising was directed towards private owners. Beginning in 1928, GMCs used Pontiac's 186 cu in six-cylinder engines in their lighter trucks. Medium-duty trucks relied on Oldsmobile straight-6 engines, while the heaviest trucks used GMC's own "Standard Big Brute" engine. From 1939 to 1974 GMC had its own line of six-cylinder engines, first the inline sixes known as "Jimmy's" from 1939 to 1959, and then their own V6 from 1960 until 1974, of which a V8 and a V12 version also existed. Additionally, from 1955 through 1959, the less than 2-ton, domestic GMC gasoline trucks were equipped with Pontiac V8s, and Oldsmobile V8s—whereas the Canadian models used Chevrolet engines. GMC dealerships were partnered with Pontiac, Oldsmobile and Buick dealerships.


title: GMC (automobile)

text: Between 1962 and 1972, most GMC vehicles were equipped with quad-headlights, while their Chevrolet clones were equipped with dual-headlights. The platform has been the most profitable for General Motors, as it was shared with the Chevrolet Blazer/GMC Jimmy, the Chevrolet Suburban and the Chevrolet Tahoe/GMC Denali. In 1998 the platform was introduced as the Cadillac Escalade.


title: GMC (automobile)

text: In 1971, GMC marketed their version of the Chevrolet El Camino, which was based on the Chevrolet Chevelle. Called Sprint, it was virtually identical to the El Camino, and a sport version, the SP, was equivalent to the El Camino SS. It was renamed Caballero in 1978, and remained produced alongside the El Camino until its demise in 1987.


title: GMC (automobile)

text: In 1973, with GM's introduction of the new "rounded line" series trucks, GMC and Chevrolet trucks became even more similar, ending production of GMC's quad-headlight models, and setting the standard for the Chevrolet/GMC line of trucks for over thirty years.


title: GMC (automobile)

text: , GMC's vehicles are marketed as more premium, luxury vehicles positioned above similar vehicles from the more mainstream Chevrolet division. Chevrolet vehicles are priced lower than a comparable GMC, but GMC vehicles have features not found in a comparable Chevrolet.


title: GMC (automobile)

text: In North America, Chevrolet offers a full lineup of cars, crossover vehicles, sport utility vehicles, and pickup trucks. GMC, however, does not offer any car models, so typically they are sold along Buick (or sometimes Cadillac) vehicles at multi-brand dealerships, allowing the same dealer to sell a full lineup of upscale vehicles, including both cars and trucks. However, standalone GMC dealerships do exist, primarily for dealers who have a focus on selling to the commercial and fleet vehicle markets.


title: Opinion polling for the 45th Canadian federal election

text: This table provides a list of scientific, nationwide public opinion polls conducted from the 2021 Canadian federal election leading up to the 45th Canadian federal election.


text: Aside from conducting the usual opinion surveys on general party preferences, polling firms also survey public opinion on which political party leader would make the best Prime Minister:


title: Greeks

text: The Greeks or Hellenes (; , "Éllines" ) are an ethnic group and nation indigenous to the Eastern Mediterranean and the Black Sea regions, namely Greece, Cyprus, Albania, Italy, Turkey, Egypt, and, to a lesser extent, other countries surrounding the Mediterranean Sea. They also form a significant diaspora (), with Greek communities established around the world.


title: Greeks

text: Greek colonies and communities have been historically established on the shores of the Mediterranean Sea and Black Sea, but the Greek people themselves have always been centered on the Aegean and Ionian seas, where the Greek language has been spoken since the Bronze Age. Until the early 20th century, Greeks were distributed between the Greek peninsula, the western coast of Asia Minor, the Black Sea coast, Cappadocia in central Anatolia, Egypt, the Balkans, Cyprus, and Constantinople. Many of these regions coincided to a large extent with the borders of the Byzantine Empire of the late 11th century and the Eastern Mediterranean areas of ancient Greek colonization. The cultural centers of the Greeks have included Athens, Thessalonica, Alexandria, Smyrna, and Constantinople at various periods.


title: Greeks

text: In recent times, most ethnic Greeks live within the borders of the modern Greek state or in Cyprus. The Greek genocide and population exchange between Greece and Turkey nearly ended the three millennia-old Greek presence in Asia Minor. Other longstanding Greek populations can be found from southern Italy to the Caucasus and southern Russia and Ukraine and in the Greek diaspora communities in a number of other countries. Today, most Greeks are officially registered as members of the Greek Orthodox Church.