title: Penguin (character)

text: During the "Crisis on Infinite Earths" storyline, Penguin is among the superheroes and supervillains that were gathered by Lex Luthor of Earth-Three and Harbinger to deal with the destruction of the Multiverse at the hands of the Anti-Monitor. After the Anti-Monitor was seemingly destroyed, Penguin was among the villains recruited by Lex Luthor to join a coalition of supervillains that plan to take control of the remaining universes. He was dispatched to Earth-S and fought with the superheroes sent to liberate Earth-S.


title: Penguin (character)

text: The Penguin made his last Silver Age appearance during the last appearance of the Earth-One Batman. After he and a multitude of Batman's enemies are broken out of Arkham Asylum and Gotham State Penitentiary by Ra's al Ghul, the Penguin carries out Ra's' plans to kidnap Batman's friends and allies. Penguin, Joker, Mad Hatter, Cavalier, Deadshot, and Killer Moth lay siege to Gotham City Police Headquarters, but are infuriated when Joker sabotages their attempt at holding Commissioner James Gordon for ransom. A standoff ensues, with Joker on one side and Penguin and Mad Hatter on the other. The Joker quickly subdues both with a burst of laughing gas from one of his many gadgets.


title: Penguin (character)

text: Following the rebooting the history of the DC Universe, the Penguin was relegated to sporadic appearances, until writer Alan Grant (who had earlier penned the Penguin origin story "The Killing Peck" in "Secret Origins Special" #1) and artist Norm Breyfogle brought him back, deadlier than ever.


title: Penguin (character)

text: In this continuity, Oswald Cobblepot is an outcast in his high-society family and their rejection drives him to become a criminal. In keeping with his aristocratic origins, the Penguin pursues his criminal career while wearing formal attire such as a top hat, monocle, and tuxedo, especially of the "white-tie-and-tails" design. He is one of the relatively few villains in Batman's rogues gallery who is sane and in full control of his actions, although still ruthless and capable of extreme violence. He is also highly intelligent and can even match wits with Batman, in some cases using his access to information and business connections to assist the vigilante. Batman once admitted the Penguin is smarter than he is.


title: Penguin (character)

text: During their run, the Penguin forms a brief partnership with hypnotist Mortimer Kadaver, who helps him fake his own death as a ploy to strike an unsuspecting Gotham. The Penguin later kills Kadaver, after plugging his own ears with toilet paper so that the hypnotist no longer has power over him. After Batman foils this particular endeavor, the Penguin embarks on one of his grandest schemes ever in the three-part story "The Penguin Affair". Finding Harold Allnut being tormented by two gang members, the Penguin takes in the technologically gifted hunchback, showing him kindness in exchange for services. Harold builds a gadget that allows the Penguin to control flocks of birds from miles away, which the Penguin utilizes to destroy radio communications in Gotham and crash a passenger plane. This endeavor, too, is foiled by Batman, who hires Harold as his mechanic.


title: Penguin (character)

text: The Penguin resurfaces during Jean Paul Valley's tenure as Batman and is one of the few people to deduce that Valley is not the original Caped Crusader. To confirm his theory, he kidnaps Sarah Essen Gordon, places her in a death trap set to go off at midnight, and turns himself in, utilizing the opportunity to mock her husband Commissioner Gordon as midnight approaches. An increasingly infuriated Gordon is nearly driven to throw him off the police headquarters roof before Valley rescues Sarah moments before midnight. As Valley leaves, he says, "There's nothing the Penguin can throw at me that I haven't encountered before." The Penguin reluctantly agrees with this sentiment, accepting that he has become passé. Subsequently, the Penguin turns his attentions to a new "modus operandi", operating behind the front of a legitimate restaurant and casino he calls "The Iceberg Lounge", which Batman sometimes uses as a source of criminal underworld information. Though he is arrested for criminal activities several times during the course of his "reform", he always manages to secure a release from prison thanks to his high-priced lawyers.


title: Penguin (character)

text: In the storyline "No Man's Land", Gotham City is nearly leveled by an earthquake. The Penguin stays behind when the U.S. government blockades the city. He becomes one of the major players in the lawless city, using his connections to profit by trading the money that nobody else in Gotham could use for goods through his contacts outside the city. One of these connections is discovered to be Lex Luthor and his company LexCorp. The Penguin's information helps Luthor to gain control of Gotham's property records, but Luthor dismisses him when the Penguin attempts to blackmail Luthor.


title: Penguin (character)

text: The Penguin has swept up in the events of "Infinite Crisis". In the seventh issue, he is briefly seen as part of the Battle of Metropolis, a multi-character brawl started by Alexander Luthor Jr.'s Secret Society of Super Villains which he is a member of. The Penguin, along with several other villains, is bowled over at the surprise appearance of Bart Allen.


title: Penguin (character)

text: One Year Later while the Penguin is away from Gotham City, the Great White Shark and the Tally Man kill many of the villains who had worked for him, and frame the reformed Harvey Dent. The Great White Shark had planned to take over Gotham's criminal syndicate and eliminate the competition, the Penguin included. Upon his return to Gotham, the Penguin continues to claim that he has gone straight, and reopens the Iceberg, selling overpriced Penguin merchandise. He urges the Riddler to avoid crime, as their new shady but legal lifestyle is more lucrative.


title: Penguin (character)

text: The Penguin was featured as a prominent figure in the "Gotham Underground" tie-in to the series "Countdown". He fights a gang war against Tobias Whale, Intergang and the New Rogues, while supposedly running an "underground railroad" for criminals. In the end, Batman convinces the Penguin to become his informant.


title: Penguin (character)

text: The Penguin later loses Batman's support after the latter's mysterious disappearance and Intergang's exploitation of the return of the Apokoliptan Gods. He appears in "Battle for the Cowl: The Underground", which depicts the effects of Batman's disappearance on his enemies. The Penguin's mob is absorbed by Black Mask II, who controls his criminal activities. The Penguin, with the aid of the Mad Hatter, abducts Batman and brainwashes him to assassinate Black Mask.


title: Penguin (character)

text: During the events of "Brightest Day", the Birds of Prey discover the Penguin beaten and stabbed at the feet of the White Canary. The Birds rescue him and flee to the Iceberg. While recovering, the Penguin expresses his attraction to the Dove. Eventually, the Penguin reveals that his injury had been a ruse and that he is working with the White Canary in exchange for valuable computer files on the superhero community. He betrays the Birds and seriously injures both Lady Blackhawk and the Hawk before the Huntress defeats him. The Huntress tapes him up with the intention of taking him with her, only to be informed by Oracle that she has to let him go due to a police manhunt for the Birds. The Huntress considers killing him with her crossbow, but ultimately leaves him bound and gagged in an alley with the promise that she would exact her vengeance on him later.


title: Penguin (character)

text: The Penguin is eventually attacked by the Secret Six, who kill many of his guards in an ambush at his mansion. Bane informs him that he needs information on Batman's partners, as he plans on killing Red Robin, Batgirl, Catwoman, and Azrael. The Penguin soon betrays the team's location, which results in the Justice League, the Teen Titans, the Birds of Prey, the Justice Society, and various other heroes hunting down and capturing the criminals. Around this time, a new supervillain, who calls himself the Architect, plants a bomb in the Iceberg Lounge as revenge for crimes committed by the Penguin's ancestor. Though Blackbat and Robin are able to evacuate the building, the Lounge is destroyed in the ensuing explosion.


title: Penguin (character)

text: In 2011, The New 52 rebooted the DC universe. The Penguin is a client of a criminal named Raju who was sent to offer gold to the Dollmaker for Batman's release. While in his Iceberg Casino, the Penguin views a disguised Charlotte Rivers on his surveillance cameras and tells his henchwoman Lark to make sure Rivers gets "a story to die for". During the "Death of the Family" crossover, the Penguin puts his right-hand man Ignatius Ogilvy in charge of his operations in his temporary absence. Ogilvy, however, uses the Penguin's absence to declare him dead, taking over his gang and killing those loyal to him. Under the alias "Emperor Penguin", Ogilvy takes over the Penguin's operations. Upon the Joker's defeat, Batman unsuccessfully attempts to imprison the Penguin in Blackgate Penitentiary, only to be forced to release him later. Upon learning of Ogilvy's betrayal, the Penguin attacks his former henchman's new empire, but Batman intervenes and arrests him. The Penguin is found not guilty, however, thanks to the machinations of his ally Mr. Combustible threatening the judge's family. Meanwhile, Ogilvy releases Kirk Langstrom's Man-Bat serum on Gotham City, turning many of the citizens into Man-Bats. Langstrom discovers a cure, returning the citizens to normal. Ogilvy then takes the serum himself which was spiced with the Venom drug and one of Poison Ivy's plant concoctions. Emperor Penguin then challenges Batman openly to a fight, defeating the masked vigilante with his newfound prowess and leaving him to be rescued by the Penguin. The pair forge a temporary alliance and defeat Ogilvy.


title: Penguin (character)

text: The Penguin also played a role in the Black Canary's rebooted origin. In "Birds of Prey" (vol. 4) #0, Dinah sought to land a job at the Iceberg Lounge, knowing that a lead on the Basilisk organization which she was pursuing would soon spring up there. Unfortunately, the Penguin was not in the habit of taking job applications, so she decided to prove her worth by infiltrating the outfit by herself. When she arrived in the Penguin's bathroom, he was unimpressed. To prove her worth, she demonstrated her special ability: a sonic scream that could shake down the roof, if it were intense enough. Naturally, the scream alerted the Penguin's henchmen, and she made short work of them with her martial arts skills. Finally impressed, the Penguin hired her, and dubbed her the Black Canary in keeping with the ornithological theme.


title: Penguin (character)

text: During the "Forever Evil" storyline, the Penguin is among the villains recruited by the Crime Syndicate of America to join the Secret Society of Super Villains. With the heroes gone, the Penguin becomes the Mayor of Gotham City and divides the different territories among the inmates of Arkham Asylum. Bane retrieves Ignatius Ogilvy (now calling himself "Emperor Blackgate") for the Penguin as part of their agreement. When Bane brings him to the Penguin, he tells Emperor Blackgate that the Arkham fighters are not scared of Bane as he does not instill fear as Batman did.


title: Penguin (character)

text: In the "Watchmen" sequel "Doomsday Clock", the Penguin is among the villains that attend the underground meeting held by the Riddler that talks about the Superman Theory. When the Penguin suggests that they hand Moonbow and Typhoon over to the government that supposedly created them, Typhoon attacks Penguin until the Comedian crashes the meeting.


title: Penguin (character)

text: The Penguin is a master criminal who aspires to be wealthy, powerful and respected (or at least feared) by Gotham's high society. The Penguin's wealth gives him access to better resources than most other Batman villains, and he is able to mix with Gotham's elite, especially those he plans to target in his future crimes. He is also capable of returning to his luxurious lifestyle very easily despite his violent criminal history and prison record. He has even attempted multiple times to enter the political world, even launching expensive election campaigns. The Penguin also has strong connections with other criminal kingpins across Gotham, allowing him to hire their assassins and workers to spy on them easily. The Penguin relies on cunning, wit, and intimidation to exploit his surroundings for profit, and despite his short temper, he is normally depicted as being more rational and sane than other Batman villains, or at least relatively so.


title: Penguin (character)

text: Although he often delegates the dirty work to his henchmen, he is not above taking aggressive and lethal actions on his own, especially when provoked or insulted. In spite of his appearance and stature, he is a dangerous hand-to-hand combatant with enough developed skills in judo, fencing, ninjutsu and bare-knuckle boxing to overwhelm attackers many times his size and physical bearing. The Penguin is usually portrayed as a capable physical combatant when he feels the situation calls for it, but his level of skill varies widely depending on the author; the character has been written both as a physical match for Batman and as someone the masked vigilante is capable of defeating with a solid punch. His crimes often revolve around stealing valuable bird-related items and his car and other vehicles often have an avian theme.


title: Penguin (character)

text: The Penguin utilizes an assortment of umbrellas, particularly the Bulgarian umbrella. These usually contain weapons such as machine guns, sword blades, knife blades, rocket launchers, laser blasters, flamethrowers, and acid or poison gas spraying devices fired from the ferrule (however, the Penguin is able to weaponize his umbrellas in an almost unlimited variety of ways). Depending on the writer, some of his umbrellas can carry multiple weapons at once. He often carries an umbrella that can transform its canopy into a series of spinning blades: this can be used as a miniature helicopter or as an offensive weapon; he often uses this to escape a threatening situation. The canopy of the umbrella is sometimes depicted as being a bullet resistant shield, and some are patterned in different ways from a spiral capable of hypnotizing opponents to flashy signs. He can also call upon his flying birds to attack and confuse his enemies in battle.


title: Penguin (character)

text: The Penguin's usual appearance as that of a short, obese human in formal wear has alternatively changed with the debut of Tim Burton's version of the character featured in the 1992 film "Batman Returns". In the film, the Penguin's hands are flippers (a physical deformity caused by syndactyly), which, combined with a beak-like nose and other characteristics, made the Penguin look like a cross between an actual penguin and a man. This somewhat bizarre aspect inspired comic book artists and has influenced numerous Penguin designs in cartoons since the film's release, such as "", for example. Currently, both the old and the new appearances of the character alternate in the comics, although there is no clear explanation or basis in reality for this to happen.


title: Penguin (character)

text: The idea of the Penguin and the Joker as a team is one that is decades old, as the two villains, pop-culture wise, are arguably Batman's two most famous enemies. Their first team-up took place fairly early in Batman's career, in "Knights of Knavery". Since then, the two have teamed up countless times throughout the Golden and Silver Ages. This carried over into the 1960s television series as well; both appeared together as a team numerous times. They have even shown affection towards each other on more than one occasion; in one story, "Only Devils Have Wings", the Joker actually cries when it appears that the Penguin has been murdered, and vows to avenge the Penguin's death.


title: Penguin (character)

text: The character of the Penguin, particularly as portrayed by Burgess Meredith, has often been used as a theme to mock public figures that supposedly resemble him. Jon Stewart, host of "The Daily Show", has made numerous references comparing former Vice President Dick Cheney with the Penguin, including a laugh similar to the one heard in the 1960s "Batman" series. In May 2006, a Republican-led PR firm, DCI Group, created an astroturfing YouTube video satirizing Al Gore's film "An Inconvenient Truth". The video portrayed Gore as the Penguin using one of his trick umbrellas to hypnotize a flock of penguins into believing in the existence of global warming and climate change. Roger Stone has also been likened to Penguin due to his manner of dress.


title: Penguin (character)

text: The Penguin (mockingly referred to as "Abner" by the Joker) appeared in "Joker", a graphic novel by Brian Azzarello and Lee Bermejo. This incarnation operates the Iceberg Lounge, handles most of Joker's personal investments and deals with revenues from boxing matches.


title: Penguin (character)

text: In the "Elseworlds" story "", the third part in a trilogy that turned Batman into a vampire, the Penguin is the first of many criminals to be killed by the vampiric Batman after he surrenders to his darker instincts. As the book begins, the Penguin has just escaped from Arkham again, and has apparently developed a reputation as a cop-killer. As the Penguin lures a group of cops into a trap, he impales one in the head with his umbrella, but Batman arrives in the form of a monstrous bat before the Penguin's men can claim more victims. Batman brutally tears the Penguin's throat out as he drinks his blood and subsequently kills his enemy, proceeding to kill the rest of the Penguin's gang and tear off their heads to stop them from returning as vampires.


title: Penguin (character)

text: In "Batman: The Doom That Came to Gotham", an "Elseworlds" setting based on the works of H. P. Lovecraft, Bruce Wayne is the leader of an expedition to Antarctica of which there is only one survivor. The rescue team finds no trace of him, but it is revealed to the reader that the now half-insane Cobblepot has abandoned his humanity, and joined the albino penguins of the Elder Things' city.


title: Penguin (character)

text: In "Superman/Batman", an amalgamation of the Penguin and Metallo, called Penguello, appears among the mercenaries recruited into Lex Joker's Brotherhood of Injustice. Thanks to Terranado, who had gone undercover within the Justice Titans, they were able to attack the Justice Tower.


title: Penguin (character)

text: In the alternative timeline of "Flashpoint", Oswald Cobblepot works as the security chief of Wayne Casinos, providing information about his clients and the criminal underworld to that universe's Batman, Thomas Wayne.


title: Penguin (character)

text: In the graphic novel series "", Oswald Cobblepot is the corrupt mayor of Gotham City. Although he doesn't call himself the Penguin like his mainstream counterpart, he is occasionally referred to by the nickname. In the past, he was the mayoral competition for Dr. Thomas Wayne. Cobblepot holds a grudge against the Wayne family, believing the Waynes have disgraced the Cobblepot legacy, so he planned for the Waynes to be murdered, but was not ultimately responsible for their death; they are instead killed in a random mugging on election night. It is also implied that Cobblepot had James Gordon's wife murdered when the detective got too close to finding out Cobblepot's involvement with the Waynes' murder. In the present, Cobblepot runs Gotham with an iron fist, controlling all the power centers of the city and using a hired killer named Ray Salinger, also known as "The Birthday Boy". When Batman confronts Cobblepot, he sticks Batman with a trick stiletto from his umbrella then he removes Batman's cowl, finding out that Batman is Bruce Wayne. Fortunately, Alfred Pennyworth arrives on the scene and empties two barrels into Cobblepot's chest. The blast sent Cobblepot's body out of the window where he landed into the street below. After his death, his crimes were finally outed to the public.


title: Penguin (character)

text: In the short story "Vulture: A Tale of the Penguin", by Steve Rasnic, the Penguin loses weight to the point of emaciation and becomes a vigilante, calling himself the Vulture.


title: Penguin (character)

text: In the "Batman/Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles" crossover, the Penguin is first seen at the docks with the Shredder, selling him a WayneTech Resonance Engine, but the Shredder betrays him and reveals he has already taken care of most of his men and plans on taking the engine himself. The Shredder is then about to kill the Penguin, but the Penguin offers to provide him weapons and money for his plan in order to save himself. The Shredder decides to spare the Penguin, calling him "Bird Man." The Shredder then uses the Iceberg Lounge as his base, where the Penguin has engineers working on the resonance engine to power his machine. The Shredder then reveals that he plans on bringing an army through the dimensional portal and take over Gotham City. The Penguin objects, but the Shredder threatens to kill him and tells him that he belongs to the Foot Clan. As the Shredder gets ready to open the portal, Batman and the Ninja Turtles arrive to stop them, but the Shredder destroys the portal and escapes with Ra's al Ghul. During the battle, the Penguin escapes as well. The Penguin then visits Batman, the Ninja Turtles, and Commissioner Gordon and tells them about the Shredder's plans, betraying him. The Penguin, though, does not agree with the Shredder's plans and reveals that the Shredder and the Foot Clan are now working with Ra's al Ghul and the League of Assassins. Later, Robin and Casey Jones reveal that the League and the Foot are using Arkham Asylum as their base. When Batman and Robin arrive, they are greeted by the Penguin, who has been mutated into a mutant rockhopper penguin as punishment for betraying the Shredder, along with the Joker, Two-Face, Riddler, Harley Quinn, Mr. Freeze, Mad Hatter, Bane, Scarecrow, Poison Ivy, and the Ventriloquist, who have all been mutated into animals and attack Batman and Robin. Batman is captured, but Robin manages to escape. The Ninja Turtles and Splinter then arrive, where Splinter defeats the mutated villains, while Batman uses his new Intimidator Armor to defeat the Shredder and the Turtles defeat Ra's. Later, Gordon tells Batman that the police scientists have managed to turn all of the inmates at Arkham back to normal and are currently in A.R.G.U.S. custody.


title: Penguin (character)

text: The Penguin has a minor appearance in the 2017 series "". The Penguin, along with several other Batman villains, is tricked by Jack Napier (who in this reality was a Joker who had been force-fed an overdose of pills by Batman which temporarily cured him of his insanity) into drinking drinks that had been laced with particles from Clayface's body. This was done so that Napier, who was using Mad Hatter's technology to control Clayface, could also control the villains by way of Clayface's ability to control parts of his body that had been separated from him. The Penguin and the other villains are then used to attack a library which Napier himself was instrumental in building in one of Gotham City's poorer districts. Later on in the story, the control hat is stolen by the Neo-Joker (the second Harley Quinn, who felt that Jack Napier was a pathetic abnormality while the Joker was the true, beautiful personality), in an effort to get Napier into releasing the Joker persona. Penguin also appears in the sequel storyline "Batman: Curse of the White Knight", being among the villains murdered by Azrael.


title: Penguin (character)

text: In "The Batman Who Laughs", the Penguin of Earth -22 is depicted as having been killed by the Joker during his penultimate act of terror against the Batman.


title: Penguin (character)

text: In "Harley Quinn Rebirth", the Penguin had been running a superhero sex club in New York City for over a year. He has been engaged in serious plans to take over Coney Island to turn it into a private resort (based on himself, of course). Unfortunately for him, Harley Quinn had been beating him up and otherwise threatening his plans in that direction. So to get her out of the way, he made an agreement with Gotham's underworld. After the death of her friend Mason at the hands of New York's corrupt mayor, Professor Hugo Strange and dosed her with truth serum to increase her depression and separate her from her friends. Then when she left, Penguin kept her and all of her friends busy with various Batman villains while he threatened the land owners to give over their property and used two kaiju penguins to kill off 90% of the crime lords in New York.


title: Penguin (character)

text: When Harley finally figured it out, she came back and gathered all of her friends, including Poison Ivy (who used a giant daffodil to fight the giant penguins in what was described at 'The worst kaiju battle ever!"), her Gang of Harleys, Power Girl, Killer Croc, and Scarface (who switched sides), Captain Strong, her Roller Derby team, her stalkers/friends Harley Sinn and Red Tool, and various other characters for a huge showdown with pretty much every Batman villain ranging from Batzarro to the Zebra-Man. Harley eventually made her way up to the Penguin while her friends eventually beat up his collected allies and, while beating him up, revealed she suspected it was all really about her turning down his perverted advances. In the end after the bad guys on Penguin's side were all rounded up, he was revealed to have extorted the land from everyone and the owners all got their places back so they could rebuild.


title: GOL TV

text: GOL TV is an American TV sports channel dedicated to soccer owned by GOLTV Inc., based in North Bay Village, Florida. The network broadcasts Portugal Primeira Liga, Paraguayan Primera División, Uruguayan Primera División, and Ecuadorian Serie A matches.


title: GOL TV

text: The network was among the first which started a trend of bilingual broadcasting among networks which serve both English language and Spanish language customers, a strategy since emulated by competitor beIN Sports with their English and Spanish networks and BabyFirst TV. GOL TV maintains one main feed with both English and Spanish language audio and bilingual promotional advertising (though paid programming can vary between English and Spanish and is not cross-translated). Some providers offer the two feeds as separate channels, while others present it as one channel with language selection handled by the viewer at the set-top box through the provider's secondary audio program (SAP) feature.


title: GOL TV

text: As of 2017, GOL TV is available on Spectrum, and is available on Spanish language packages on DirecTV and AT&T U-verse. As of October 1, 2018, GOL TV is no longer included in Verizon Fios' channel line-up. Cox removed it from the lineup on April 1, 2019.


title: GOL TV

text: GOL TV HD is a 1080i high definition simulcast of GOL TV that launched on August 1, 2010. Time Warner Cable in New York City added it on August 27, 2010.


title: June 1962 Alcatraz escape attempt

text: In June 1962, inmates Clarence Anglin, John Anglin, and Frank Morris escaped from Alcatraz Federal Penitentiary, a maximum-security prison located on Alcatraz Island in San Francisco Bay. Late on the night of June 11 or early morning of June 12, the three men tucked papier-mâché heads resembling their own likenesses into their beds, broke out of the main prison building via ventilation ducts and an unused utility corridor, and departed the island aboard an improvised inflatable raft to an uncertain fate. A fourth conspirator, Allen West, failed in his escape attempt and remained on the island.


title: June 1962 Alcatraz escape attempt

text: Hundreds of leads were pursued by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and local law enforcement officials in the ensuing years, but no conclusive evidence has ever surfaced favoring the success or failure of the attempt. Numerous theories of widely varying plausibility have been proposed by authorities, reporters, family members, and amateur enthusiasts. In 1979 the FBI officially concluded, on the basis of circumstantial evidence and a preponderance of expert opinion, that the men drowned in the frigid waters of San Francisco Bay before reaching the mainland. The U.S. Marshals Service case file remains open and active, however, and Morris and the Anglin brothers remain on its wanted list.


title: June 1962 Alcatraz escape attempt

text: New circumstantial and material evidence has continued to surface, stoking new debates on whether the inmates managed to survive.


title: June 1962 Alcatraz escape attempt

text: Frank Lee Morris (born September 1, 1926) was born in Washington, D.C. His parents abandoned him when he was 11, so he spent the rest of his childhood in foster homes, an orphan. He was convicted of his first criminal offense at 13, and by his late teens had been arrested for crimes ranging from narcotics possession to armed robbery. He spent most of his early years in jail serving lunch to prisoners. Later, he was arrested for grand larceny in Miami Beach, car theft, and armed robbery. Morris reportedly ranked in the top 2% of the general population in intelligence, as measured by IQ testing (133). He served time in Florida and Georgia, then escaped from the Louisiana State Penitentiary while serving 10 years for bank robbery. He was recaptured a year later while committing a burglary and sent to Alcatraz on January 20, 1960, as inmate number AZ1441.


title: June 1962 Alcatraz escape attempt

text: John William (born May 2, 1930) and Clarence (born May 11, 1931) were born into a family of 13 children in Donalsonville, Georgia. Their parents, George Robert Anglin and Rachael Van Miller Anglin, were seasonal farmworkers; in the early 1940s, they moved the family to Ruskin, Florida, south of Tampa, where the truck farms and tomato fields provided a more reliable source of income. Each June they migrated north as far as Michigan to pick cherries. Clarence and John were reportedly inseparable as youngsters; they became skilled swimmers, and amazed their siblings by swimming in the frigid waters of Lake Michigan as ice still floated on its surface.


title: June 1962 Alcatraz escape attempt

text: Clarence was first caught breaking into a service station when he was 14 years old. The brothers began robbing banks and other establishments as a team in the early 1950s, usually targeting businesses that were closed, to ensure that no one got injured. They claimed that they used a weapon only once, during a bank heist – a toy gun. In 1958, John, Clarence, and Alfred Anglin robbed the Columbia Savings Bank Building in Columbia, Alabama. All received 35-year sentences, which they served at Florida State Prison, Leavenworth Federal Penitentiary, and then Atlanta Penitentiary. After repeated attempts to escape from the Atlanta facility, John and Clarence were transferred to Alcatraz. John arrived on October 24, 1960, as inmate AZ1476, and Clarence on January 10, 1961, as inmate AZ1485.


title: June 1962 Alcatraz escape attempt

text: Allen West (March 25, 1929 – December 21, 1978) was born in New York City. West was arrested over 20 times throughout his lifetime. He was imprisoned for car theft in 1955, first at Atlanta Penitentiary, then at Florida State Prison. After an escape attempt from the Florida facility, he was transferred to Alcatraz in 1957 at the age of 28 and became inmate AZ1335.


title: June 1962 Alcatraz escape attempt

text: The four inmates all knew each other from previous incarcerations in Florida and Georgia. When they were assigned adjacent cells in December 1961, they began formulating an escape plan under the leadership of Morris. Over the subsequent six months, they widened the ventilation ducts beneath their sinks using discarded saw blades found on the prison grounds, metal spoons from the mess hall, and an electric drill improvised from the motor of a vacuum cleaner. The men concealed their work with painted cardboard, and masked the noise with Morris’s accordion on top of the ambient din of music hour.


title: June 1962 Alcatraz escape attempt

text: Once the holes were wide enough to pass through, the men accessed the unguarded utility corridor directly behind their cells' tier and climbed to the vacant top level of the cellblock, where they set up a clandestine workshop. Here, using over fifty raincoats among other stolen and donated materials, they constructed life preservers, based on a design Morris found in the March 1962 issue of "Popular Mechanics", with the article, "Your Life Preserver — How will it behave if you need it?". Morris found other ideas in magazines; resin to make a lamp shade in the November 1960 issue of "Popular Mechanics", and "Signposts of Water Safety" about channel buoys indicating course and navigation hazards, in the May 21, 1962 issue of "Sports Illustrated". They also assembled a six-by-fourteen-foot rubber raft, the seams carefully stitched by hand and sealed with liquid plastic


title: June 1962 Alcatraz escape attempt

text: available in the shops, and heat from nearby steam pipes. Paddles were improvised from plywood and screws. Finally, they climbed a ventilation shaft to the roof and removed the rivets holding a large fan in place.


title: June 1962 Alcatraz escape attempt

text: The men concealed their absence while working outside their cells, and after the escape itself, by sculpting dummy heads from a hand-made papier-mâché-like mixture of soap, toothpaste, concrete dust, and toilet paper, and giving them a realistic appearance with paint from the maintenance shop and hair from the barbershop floor. With towels and clothing piled under the blankets in their bunks and the dummy heads positioned on the pillows, they appeared to be sleeping.


title: June 1962 Alcatraz escape attempt

text: On the night of June 11, 1962, with all preparations in place, the men initiated their plan. West discovered that the cement he had used to reinforce crumbling concrete around his vent had hardened, narrowing the opening and fixing the grill in place. By the time he managed to remove the grill and re-widen the hole, the others had left without him. He returned to his cell and went to sleep.


title: June 1962 Alcatraz escape attempt

text: From the service corridor, Morris and the Anglins climbed the ventilation shaft to the roof. Guards heard a loud crash as they broke out of the shaft, but nothing further was heard, and the source of the noise was not investigated. Hauling their gear with them, they descended to the ground by sliding down a kitchen vent pipe, then climbed two barbed-wire perimeter fences. At the northeast shoreline, near the power plant—a blind spot in the prison's network of searchlights and gun towers—they inflated their raft with a concertina stolen from another inmate and modified to serve as a bellows. At some time after 10 p.m., investigators estimated, they boarded the raft, launched it and departed toward their objective, Angel Island, two miles to the north.


title: June 1962 Alcatraz escape attempt

text: The escape was not discovered until the morning of June 12 due to the successful dummy head ruse. Multiple military and law-enforcement agencies conducted an extensive air, sea, and land search over the next 10 days. On June 14, a Coast Guard cutter picked up a paddle floating about off the southern shore of Angel Island. On the same day and in the same general location, workers on another boat found a wallet wrapped in plastic complete with names, addresses, and photos of the Anglins' friends and relatives. On June 21, shreds of raincoat material, believed to be remnants of the raft, were found on a beach not far from the Golden Gate Bridge. The following day, a prison boat picked up a deflated life jacket made from the same material off Alcatraz Island. According to the final FBI report, no other physical evidence was found.


title: June 1962 Alcatraz escape attempt

text: FBI agents surmised early on that the men had drowned. They cited the fact that "the individuals' personal effects were the only belongings they had, and the men would have drowned before leaving them behind." However, no human remains were found at the time.


title: June 1962 Alcatraz escape attempt

text: On July 17, a month after the escape, a Norwegian ship, SS "Norefjell", spotted a body floating in the ocean from the Golden Gate Bridge. The ship did not retrieve the body and did not report the sighting until October. San Francisco County Coroner Henry Turkel cast doubt on speculation that it could have been one of the escapees, emphasizing the improbability that a body would still be floating on the surface of the ocean after more than a month; instead, Turkel proposed that the corpse may have been that of Cecil Phillip Herrman, a 34-year-old unemployed baker who had jumped from the Golden Gate Bridge five days earlier. Several coroners from neighboring counties challenged Turkel's opinion, stating that it was possible the remains belonged to one of the escapees.


title: June 1962 Alcatraz escape attempt

text: FBI investigators announced their official position that, while it was theoretically possible for the men to have reached Angel Island, the odds of them having survived the turbulent currents and frigid waters of the bay were negligible. According to the final FBI report, West said that they had planned to steal clothes and a car upon reaching land, but no such thefts were reported in the immediate area.


title: June 1962 Alcatraz escape attempt

text: West was the only conspirator not to participate in the actual escape. He fully cooperated with the investigation and was therefore not charged for his role.


title: June 1962 Alcatraz escape attempt

text: West was transferred to McNeil Island, Washington after Alcatraz was deactivated in 1963, and later, back to Atlanta Penitentiary. After serving his sentence, followed by two additional sentences in Georgia and Florida, he was released in 1967, only to be arrested again in Florida the following year on charges of grand larceny. At Florida State Prison, he fatally stabbed another inmate in October 1972, in what may have been a racist hate crime. He was serving multiple sentences, including life imprisonment on the murder conviction, when he died of acute peritonitis in 1978.


title: June 1962 Alcatraz escape attempt

text: On December 16, 1962, Alcatraz inmate John Paul Scott made water wings from inflated rubber gloves and swam a distance of from Alcatraz to Fort Point, at the southern end of the Golden Gate Bridge. He was found there by teenagers, suffering from hypothermia and exhaustion. After recovering in Letterman Army Hospital, he was immediately returned to Alcatraz. Scott is the only documented case of an Alcatraz inmate reaching the shore by swimming.


title: June 1962 Alcatraz escape attempt

text: Today, a multitude of athletes swim the same Alcatraz-to-Fort Point route as part of two annual triathlon events.


title: June 1962 Alcatraz escape attempt

text: Because Alcatraz cost more to operate than other prisons (nearly $10 per prisoner per day, as opposed to $3 per prisoner per day at Atlanta), and because 50 years of salt water saturation had severely eroded the buildings, Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy ordered the facility to be closed on March 21, 1963.


title: June 1962 Alcatraz escape attempt

text: The FBI closed its file on December 31, 1979, after a 17-year investigation. Their official finding was that the prisoners most likely drowned in the cold waters of the bay while attempting to reach Angel Island. They cited the remnants found of the raft, as well as the personal effects of the men, as evidence that the raft broke up and sank at some point and the three convicts succumbed to hypothermia, with their bodies swept out to sea by the rapid currents of the San Francisco Bay.


title: June 1962 Alcatraz escape attempt

text: The FBI did hand their evidence over to the U.S. Marshals Service, whose investigation remains open. As Deputy U.S. Marshal Michael Dyke told NPR, "There's an active warrant, and the Marshals Service doesn't give up looking for people." In 2009, Dyke said that he was still receiving leads on a regular basis. The warrant will expire in 2030, when all of the missing men would be at least 100 years old.


title: June 1962 Alcatraz escape attempt

text: In January 1965, the FBI investigated a rumor that Clarence Anglin was living in Brazil. Agents were dispatched to South America but found no direct evidence that he was there.


title: June 1962 Alcatraz escape attempt

text: A man called the Bureau in 1967 claiming to have been Morris's classmate and to have known him for 30 years. He said he had bumped into him in Maryland and described him as having "a small beard and moustache", but refused to give further details.


title: June 1962 Alcatraz escape attempt

text: Family members of the Anglin brothers occasionally received postcards and messages over the years. Most were unsigned; one was signed "Jerry", and another "Jerry and Joe". The family also produced a Christmas card, purportedly received in the family mailbox in 1962, saying, "To Mother, from John. Merry Christmas." Another of the Anglins' 11 siblings, Robert, also said that sometimes the phone would ring and all that could be heard was breathing on the other end; Robert said, "I suppose all that could have been pranks, but maybe it was my brothers." The mother of the Anglin brothers received flowers anonymously every Mother's Day until her death in 1973, and two very tall, unusual women in heavy makeup were reported to have attended her funeral. Federal officials say that in the mid-to-late 1960s and into the 1970s there were "six or seven" sightings reported of the Anglin brothers, all in north Florida or Georgia. Robert said that in 1989, when the father of the Anglin brothers died, two strangers in beards showed up at the funeral home. According to Robert, "They stood in front of the casket looking at the body a few minutes — they ... wept — then, they walked out."


title: June 1962 Alcatraz escape attempt

text: In 1989, a woman who identified herself only as "Cathy" called "Unsolved Mysteries" tip line to report that a photo of Clarence Anglin matched the description of a man who lived on a farm near Marianna, Florida. Another woman also recognized a photo of Clarence Anglin, and said he lived near Marianna. She correctly identified his eye color, height, and other physical features. Another witness claimed that a sketch of Frank Morris bore a striking resemblance to a man she had seen in the same area.


title: June 1962 Alcatraz escape attempt

text: A day after the escape, a man claiming to be John Anglin called a lawyer, Eugenia MacGowan, in San Francisco to arrange a meeting with the U.S. Marshals office. When MacGowan refused, the caller terminated the phone call.


title: June 1962 Alcatraz escape attempt

text: Robert Checchi, a San Francisco police officer, said that at 1:00 a.m. on the morning of June 12, he saw an "illegal" boat in the bay near Alcatraz. A few minutes later, the boat left, heading under the Golden Gate Bridge. This led to speculation that the prisoners might have enlisted outside confederates to pick them up. The FBI dismissed Checchi's account out of hand.


title: June 1962 Alcatraz escape attempt

text: In 1993, a former Alcatraz inmate named Thomas Kent told the television program "America's Most Wanted" that he had helped plan the escape, and claimed to have provided "significant new leads" to investigators. He said that Clarence Anglin's girlfriend had agreed to meet the men on shore and drive them to Mexico. He declined to participate in the actual escape, he said, because he could not swim. Officials were skeptical of Kent's account, because he had been paid $2,000 for the interview.


title: June 1962 Alcatraz escape attempt

text: A man named John Leroy Kelly dictated an extended deathbed confession to his nurse in 1993. Kelly claimed that he and a partner picked up Morris and the Anglins in a boat and transported them to the Seattle, Washington area. Later, under the guise of transporting them to Canada, Kelly and his partner murdered the escapees to get the $40,000 their families had collected for them. At a location in Seattle where Kelly claimed the three escapees were buried, no human remains were found.


title: June 1962 Alcatraz escape attempt

text: A 2003 "MythBusters" episode on the Discovery Channel tested the feasibility of an escape from the island aboard a raft constructed with the same materials and tools available to the inmates, and concluded that it was "possible".


title: June 1962 Alcatraz escape attempt

text: A 2011 documentary on the National Geographic Channel entitled "Vanished from Alcatraz" reported that contrary to the official FBI report, a raft was discovered on Angel Island on June 12, 1962, the day after the escape, with footprints leading away from it. Furthermore, a 1955 blue Chevrolet (California license plate KPB076) was reported stolen in Marin County the same day—a claim corroborated by contemporaneous stories in the Humboldt Times and the San Francisco Examiner. The following day, a motorist in Stockton, California, east of San Francisco, reported to the California Highway Patrol that he had been forced off the road by three men in a blue Chevrolet.


title: June 1962 Alcatraz escape attempt

text: The same year, an 89-year-old man named Bud Morris, who claimed he was a cousin of Frank Morris, said that on "eight or nine" occasions prior to the escape he delivered envelopes of money to Alcatraz guards, presumably as bribes. He further claimed to have met his cousin face to face in a San Diego park shortly after the escape. His daughter, who was "eight or nine" years old at the time, said she was present at the meeting with "Dad's friend, Frank", but "had no idea [about the escape]".


title: June 1962 Alcatraz escape attempt

text: A 2014 study of the ocean currents by scientists at Delft University concluded that if the prisoners left Alcatraz at 11:30 pm on June 11, they could have made it to Horseshoe Bay, just north of the Golden Gate Bridge, and that any debris would have floated in the direction of Angel Island, consistent with where the paddle and belongings were actually found. If they left before or after that time, they said, tides and currents were such that their chances of survival were slim.


title: June 1962 Alcatraz escape attempt

text: A 2015 History Channel documentary entitled "Alcatraz: Search for the Truth" presented further circumstantial evidence gathered over the years by the Anglin family. Kenneth and David Widner displayed Christmas cards containing the Anglins' handwriting, and allegedly received by family members for three years after the escape. While the handwriting was verified as the Anglins', none of the envelopes contained a postmarked stamp, so experts could not determine when they had been delivered. The family cited a story from family friend Fred Brizzi, who grew up with the brothers and claimed to have recognized them in Rio de Janeiro in 1975. They produced photographs purportedly taken by Brizzi, including one of two men, who according to Brizzi were John and Clarence Anglin, standing next to a large termite mound. Other photos showed a Brazilian farm that Brizzi claimed was owned by the men. Forensic experts working for the family confirmed that the photos were taken in 1975, and asserted that the two men were "more than likely" the Anglins, although the age and condition of the photo, and the fact that both men were wearing sunglasses, hindered efforts to make a definitive determination. Brizzi also presented an alternative escape theory: Rather than use the raft to cross the bay, he said, they paddled around the island to the boat dock, where they attached an electrical cord—which was reported missing from the dock on the night of the escape—to the rudder of a prison ferry that departed the island shortly after midnight, and were towed behind it to the mainland.


title: June 1962 Alcatraz escape attempt

text: Art Roderick, a retired Deputy U.S. Marshal who had once headed the investigation and later worked with the Anglin family, called Brizzi's photograph of the two men "absolutely the best actionable lead we've had," but added, "it could still all be a nice story which isn't true"; or the photograph could be a misdirection, aimed at steering the investigation away from the Anglins' actual whereabouts. Michael Dyke, the last Deputy Marshal assigned to the case, said Brizzi was "a drug smuggler and a con man," and was suspicious of his account. Brizzi's widow said that she never heard him mention seeing the Anglin brothers in Rio, and that he was “a con man” who was prone to making up stories. An expert working for the U.S. Marshal's Service did not believe the photograph was legitimate. Dyke said measurements of the physical characteristics of the Anglin brothers indicate that they are not the men in the Brazil photo, but he acknowledged the difficulty in making a definitive determination and ruling it out as a valid lead. In January 2020, an Irish creative agency and AI specialists at Identv used facial recognition techniques to conclude that the men in the photo were John and Clarence Anglin.


title: June 1962 Alcatraz escape attempt

text: Robert Anglin reportedly told family members before his death in 2010 that he had been in contact with John and Clarence from 1963 until approximately 1987. Surviving family members, who said they have heard nothing since Robert lost contact with the brothers in 1987, announced plans to travel to Brazil to conduct a personal search; but Roderick cautioned that they could be arrested by Brazilian authorities because the Alcatraz escape remains an open Interpol case.


title: June 1962 Alcatraz escape attempt

text: In 2018, the FBI confirmed the existence of a letter, allegedly written by John Anglin and received by the San Francisco Police Department in 2013. The writer asserted that Frank Morris died in 2008 and was buried in Alexandria under a different name, and Clarence Anglin died in 2011. His purpose in writing the letter, he said, was to negotiate his surrender in exchange for medical treatment of his cancer. The letter's authenticity was deemed inconclusive.


title: June 1962 Alcatraz escape attempt

text: In a 2019 episode of the series "Mission Declassified", investigative journalist Christof Putzel corroborated much of the information released by the FBI and other sources, including the raft found on Angel Island. He quoted various reports mentioning a blue Chevrolet, of the same description as the one stolen after the escape, spotted in Oklahoma, Indiana, Ohio, and South Carolina, where, three months after the escape, three men matching the escapees' description attempted to acquire a residence in the woods.


title: June 1962 Alcatraz escape attempt

text: J. Campbell Bruce's 1963 book "Escape from Alcatraz" documents the 1962 escape, along with other escape attempts over the 29 years that Alcatraz Island served as a prison.


title: June 1962 Alcatraz escape attempt

text: The film "Escape from Alcatraz" (1979) stars Clint Eastwood, Fred Ward, and Jack Thibeau as Frank Morris, John Anglin, and Clarence Anglin, respectively. West (fictionalized as a character named Charley Butts) was played by Larry Hankin.


title: June 1962 Alcatraz escape attempt

text: The escape was shown in a two-part 1980 TV movie "", which starred Ed Lauter as Morris, and Louis Giambalvo and Antony Ponzini as the Anglins.


title: June 1962 Alcatraz escape attempt

text: "Terror on Alcatraz" (1987) stars Aldo Ray as Morris, returning decades later to the scene of his escape from Alcatraz and scouring his old prison cell for a map to a safe deposit box key.


title: June 1962 Alcatraz escape attempt

text: Of the 36 inmates who staged 14 escape attempts over the 29 years that Alcatraz served as a federal penitentiary, 23 were recaptured, six were shot and killed, two drowned, and five (Morris, the Anglins, and Theodore Cole and Ralph Roe) are listed as "missing and presumed drowned."


title: Spike (missile)

text: Spike (Hebrew: ספייק) is an Israeli fire-and-forget anti-tank guided missile and anti-personnel missile with a tandem-charge high-explosive anti-tank (HEAT) warhead. , it is in its fourth generation. It was developed and designed by the Israeli company Rafael Advanced Defense Systems. It is available in man-portable, vehicle-launched, and helicopter-launched variants.


title: Spike (missile)

text: The missile can engage and destroy targets within the line-of-sight of the launcher ("fire-and-forget"), and some variants can make a top attack through a "fire, observe and update" method (essentially lock-on after launch); the operator tracking the target, or switching to another target, optically through the trailing fiber-optic wire (or RF link in the case of the vehicle-mounted, long-range NLOS variant) while the missile is climbing to altitude after launch. This is similar to the lofted trajectory flight profile of the US FGM-148 Javelin.


title: Spike (missile)

text: Spike is a fire-and-forget missile with lock-on before launch and automatic self-guidance. The missile is equipped with an imaging infrared seeker.


title: Spike (missile)

text: The long and extended range versions of the Spike also have the capability of "Fire, Observe and Update" operating mode (also known as Lock-on after launch (LOAL)). The missile is connected by a fiber-optical wire that is spooled out between the launch position and the missile. With this, the operator can obtain a target if it is not in the line of sight of the operator at launch, switch targets in flight, or compensate for the movement of the target if the missile is not tracking the target for some reason. Hence, the missile can be fired speculatively for a target of opportunity, or to provide observation on the other side of an obstacle. The missile has a soft launch capability – the motor firing after the missile has left the launcher – that allows the missile to be fired from confined spaces, which is a necessity in urban warfare.


title: Spike (missile)

text: The missile uses a tandem warhead consisting of two shaped charges: a precursor warhead to detonate any explosive reactive armor, and a primary warhead to penetrate the underlying armor. Currently, it is replacing aging semi-automatic command to line of sight second generation anti-tank missiles like the MILAN and M47 Dragon in the armies of the user nations. Spike missile is also equipped with heat chasing technology.


title: Spike (missile)

text: The Spike system is made up of the launching tripod with its fire control unit and the missile. There is no dedicated thermal sight on the launcher: the missile's imaging seeker is used. Altogether, the long range variant of the system weighs around .


title: Spike (missile)

text: Spike can be operated from the launcher by infantry, or from mounts that can be fitted to vehicles such as fast attack vehicles, armoured personnel carriers or utility vehicles. Vehicles that are not normally fitted with anti-tank weapons can therefore be given anti-tank capability.


title: Spike (missile)

text: Spike has been tested as a weapon system for the SAGEM Sperwer unmanned aerial vehicle. The Spanish Army has fitted the Spike-ER to its Eurocopter Tiger attack helicopters. Both Israel and the United States have experimented with arming Sikorsky UH-60 Black Hawk helicopters with the Spike missile; the US variant is used in UH-60M Battlehawk helicopters.


title: Spike (missile)

text: In order to facilitate the selling of the weapon system in Europe, the company EuroSpike GmbH was formed in Germany. Its shareholders Diehl Defence (40%), Rheinmetall Defence Electronics (40%) and Rafael via ERCAS B.V (20%). ERCAS B.V. is a Dutch holding company owned 100% by Rafael.


title: Spike (missile)

text: EuroSpike GmbH is located in Röthenbach, Germany. The European variant of the Spike weapon system differs a little from the Israeli version and is marketed under the name EuroSpike.


title: Spike (missile)

text: The reusable Command & launch unit (CLU), battery, tripod and the thermal sight are common for both MR and LR versions of the Spike missile family, each weighing , , , and respectively.


title: Spike (missile)

text: The short range version of the weapon was unveiled in 2012 to give infantrymen a guided missile between the larger Spike-MR and unguided rockets. The missile is for a disposable munition for use at platoon-level whose minimum range is and whose maximum range is . It is equipped with a stiff-necked uncooled electro-optical infrared seeker and advanced tracker, as opposed to the gimballed seeker in the Spike MR/LR/ER versions. The Spike-SR does not require a separate sight, instead utilizing the low-cost thermal camera and guidance electronics strapped to the missile's nose to provide this function through a display integrated into the launcher, showing the target until launch. The warhead can either be a multi-purpose tandem shaped-charge warhead with blast-fragmentation effect or a new Penetration-Blast-Fragmentation (PBF) variant leveraged from the MATADOR's anti-structure warhead to equip maneuvering forces in urban environments to breach enemy cover and structures with a lethal blast effect. In May 2016 Rafael concluded deliveries of Spike-SR to its first export customer, later revealed to be the Singapore Armed Forces to replace the Carl Gustaf M2.


title: Spike (missile)

text: The medium range version (Israeli designation: NT-Gil). The weight of the missile is , its minimum range is 200 m, while its maximum range is . It is used by infantry and special forces.


title: Spike (missile)

text: Long range version (Israeli designation: "NT-Spike"). The weight of the missile is , and the weight of the complete system is less than . Maximum range is and it is used by infantry and light combat vehicles. It adds fiber-optic communication to and from the operator during flight. Reported armour penetration capability is more than of Rolled homogeneous armour (RHA). It is also deployed in Sentry Tech remotely controlled weapons stations along the Gaza border. In early 2014, Rafael revealed they had increased the range of the Spike-LR to , enhancing versatility on existing firing platforms and allowing it to be utilized on new ones like light helicopters.


title: Spike (missile)

text: A new generation of the original Spike-LR is in full-scale development and scheduled to be operational by the end of 2018. Spike-LR II (Israeli designation: Gil-2, גיל 2) has reduced weight to , increased range of at ground level and from helicopters using an RF data-link, warhead options of tandem HEAT with 30% increased armor penetration or a multipurpose blast warhead with selectable impact or penetration detonation fusing, a new seeker that includes an uncooled IR sensor with a smart target tracker with artificial intelligence features, the ability to fire on grid target coordinates using an inertial measurement unit for third party-target allocation, and is compatible with legacy launchers. The missile is designed with a counter-active protection system (CAPS) capability, being able to hit targets at higher impact angles of up to 70 degrees. First ordered by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) in October 2017.


title: Spike (missile)

text: Extended range or extra-long range version of the weapon (Israeli designation: NT-Dandy or NT-D). It has a minimum range of 400 m and a maximum range of . It has a larger diameter and is heavier than the other systems, and is usually vehicle mounted. It is used by infantry, Light Combat Vehicle (LCVs), and helicopters. The Finnish Navy's Coastal Jaegers and Philippine Navy's Multi-purpose Attack Craft Mk.III also operate this version in the anti-ship role. The weight of the missile is , the launchers are and respectively for the vehicle and air-launched versions. Penetration is around of RHA.


title: Spike (missile)

text: In August 2018, Rafael disclosed the development of an enhancement of the missile called the Spike-ER II. It retains the same weight, airframe, surface geometries, and propulsion unit but introduces a two-way RF data-link to increase real-time control to an extended range of from helicopters; it also has an extended fiber optic link to increase range to from land and naval platforms.


title: Spike (missile)

text: "Non Line Of Sight" is an ultra long-range version of the weapon (Israeli designation: Tamuz, תמוז), with a claimed maximum range of . It is a significantly larger missile than other Spike variants, with an overall weight of around . It can be launched from the ground or from helicopters. It was developed following lessons learned in the Yom Kippur War, which showed a need for a high-precision guided tactical ground-to-ground battlefield missile. The first variants entered service with the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) in tandem with the Pereh missile carrier in 1981, though the existence of both was not revealed to the public until 2011. The Spike NLOS uses a fiber optic link similar to other Spike versions, but only out to 8 km, after which it employs a radio data link for command guidance.


title: Spike (missile)

text: In 2011 it also became known that in a highly unusual move, the British Army was hastily equipped with the missile for counter-mortar fire, drawn directly from IDF inventory after being exposed to increasing insurgent attacks in Iraq, beginning in 2007 three variants of the NLOS were procured. A total of 600 missiles were acquired, the breakdown being 200 optical camera equipped NLOS MK.2 in 2007, 200 thermal imaging equipped NLOS MK.4 in 2008 for night operations (together with the MK.2 these were known as EXACTOR-1), 200 dual camera equipped NLOS MK.5 (EXACTOR-2) followed in 2009 which featured wings for slower but better maneuvering flight and a multi-purpose warhead replacing the anti-armor warhead of previous versions. For operational security, the codename of 'EXACTOR missile' was assigned in British service and it was initially mounted on launchers atop leased M113 APCs. The MK.2 performed badly being too fast and difficult to control, the M113 overheated in the desert and had a poor resolution camera display that compared unfavorably with its contemporaries. So Britain financed the development of the Mk. 5 known in British service as the EXACTOR 2 which replaced the M113 APC with a towed trailer known as SPARC holding four missiles in a 360-degree rotating turret that could be remotely controlled up to 500m away ditching the non-standard M113 APCs altogether when in 2010 the batteries were transferred from Iraq to Afghanistan.


title: Spike (missile)

text: In a deal concluded on 6 September 2011, the South Korean government had agreed to purchase an unknown number of Mk. 5 Spike NLOS missiles.


title: Spike (missile)

text: Rafael is working on expanding the missile's versatility by enhancing the existing EO-IR/CCD seeker with semi-active laser (SAL) capability and different anti-armor, blast-penetration, and high-explosive fragmentation warheads to meet specific applications.


title: Spike (missile)

text: In 2020 the US Army announced its intention to procure Spike NLOS missiles to be mounted on Apache helicopters. A test was conducted in March 2021 where an AH-64E fired a Spike NLOS at a target away and scored a direct hit.


title: Spike (missile)

text: In June 2022, Rafael unveiled the Spike NLOS 6th generation with range increased to , a salvo feature which can launch up to four missiles at a time, and the ability to hand over control after firing to another platform. It also has a Target Image Acquisition capability that can prioritize important targets for strike, and can be carried by strategic UAVs in the Heron-TP-class.


title: Spike (missile)

text: On 2 September 2009, at an IDF exhibition held at the third Latrun annual land warfare conference, the Israeli Defense Force unveiled a new member of the Spike family of missiles – the Mini Spike Anti-personnel guided weapon (APGW). Rafael claimed that this latest member of the Spike family of missile costs and weighed only a third of the Spike-LR at , while offering a longer engagement range of when compared to the Spike-SR. It was to introduce new flight modes to enable precision strikes in urban areas, such as flying through windows or attacking an enemy hidden behind defilade or obstacles using non-line-of-sight engagement. Mini Spike would use the same launcher and sight system of the Spike-LR, loading the missile on a special adaptor. By 2016, Mini-Spike development had been discontinued.


title: Spike (missile)

text: Iran received Israeli Spike-MRs captured during the 2006 Lebanon War by Hezbollah fighters. An unlicensed variant that goes by the name of Almas ().


title: Spike (missile)

text: In May 2022, Rafael unveiled the Aerospike, a version of the Spike-LR II designed to be launched from fixed-wing aircraft. Weighing 14 kg and utilizing the same airframe, EO/IR seekers and warheads as the Spike-LR II, it features longer wings to give it an improved glide ratio for a range of when launched from . The munition does not require GPS to navigate, incorporating scene-matching technology and detection and tracking capabilities. A real-time RF data-link allows for man-in-the-loop operation enabling mid-flight target handover, re-targeting and abort options while also controlling approach angle, azimuth and flight trajectory, achieving accuracy within 3 meters of the target with a HEAT or blast fragmentation warhead. By the time of public announcement, the Aerospike was already in service with unnamed users.


title: Archie Manning

text: Elisha Archibald Manning III (born May 19, 1949) is a former American football quarterback who played in the National Football League (NFL) for 13 seasons, primarily with the New Orleans Saints. He played for the Saints from 1971 to 1982 and also had brief stints with the Houston Oilers and Minnesota Vikings. In college, he played for the Ole Miss Rebels football team at the University of Mississippi and was inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame in 1989. Manning is the patriarch of the Manning football dynasty, having preceded sons Peyton and Eli as a successful college and NFL quarterback.


title: Archie Manning

text: Born in Drew, Mississippi, Manning was the son of Jane Elizabeth (née Nelson) and Elisha Archibald Manning Jr. He grew up heavily involved in football, basketball, baseball, and track. His father, known as "Buddy", was interested in Archie's sports activities, but the nature of his job left him little if any time for attending games. Instead, Archie III drew his inspiration from a local high school sports star, James Hobson. His mother was "a ubiquitous presence at all of his games, no matter what the sport or level." Manning attended Drew High School. Manning was selected in the Major League Baseball draft four times, first in 1967 by the Braves, twice by the White Sox, and finally by the Royals in 1971. In the summer of 1969, his father, Buddy Manning, died by suicide. Archie, who was home from college for summer vacation, was the first to discover Buddy's body. In the biopic-documentary "Book of Manning", Manning said that he considered dropping out and getting a job to support his mother and sister, but his mother persuaded him to return to college and not put his rising football career to waste.


title: Archie Manning

text: Manning attended the University of Mississippi in Oxford and was the starting quarterback at Ole Miss for three years. In the first national prime time broadcast of a college football game (on ABC, October 4, 1969), Manning threw 436 yards and three touchdowns, also rushing for 104 yards, in a 33–32 loss to Alabama.


title: Archie Manning

text: However, the rest of the team was not at his level and despite Manning's considerable talent the Rebels had a record of only 15–7 in his last two years. In his college career, he threw 4,753 yards and 31 touchdowns (despite 40 interceptions) and ran for 823 yards. He scored 14 touchdowns in 1969. In both 1969 and 1970, he was named to the All-SEC team and his No. 18 jersey was retired by Ole Miss. In 1969, Manning was Mississippi Sportsman of the Year and recipient of the "Nashville Banner" Trophy as Most Valuable Player in the Southeastern Conference in addition to winning the Walter Camp Memorial Trophy. He was fourth in the Heisman Trophy voting in 1969 and third in 1970. He was also inducted into Omicron Delta Kappa in 1970 at Mississippi. Manning was inducted to the College Football Hall of Fame in 1989. Manning's legacy is honored to this day on the campus of Ole Miss where the speed limit is 18 miles per hour in honor of Manning's jersey number. During his time at Ole Miss, Manning was a member of Sigma Nu fraternity. He was named Southeastern Conference Quarterback of the Quarter Century (1950–75) by several publications.


title: Archie Manning

text: Manning was the second overall pick in the 1971 NFL Draft and played for the New Orleans Saints for ten full seasons. During his tenure in New Orleans, the Saints had nine losing seasons. They only managed to get to .500 once in 1979, which was also the only season they finished higher than third in their division. Nevertheless, he was well respected by NFL peers. For example, while he was sacked 337 times during his Saints career, "Sports Illustrated" senior writer Paul Zimmerman wrote in 2007 that the number should have been even higher than that. Zimmerman wrote that opposing defensive linemen, "Jack Youngblood in particular", were known to take it easy on the poorly protected Manning and not hit him as hard as they could. For his part, Manning seemed to appreciate Youngblood's kindness, telling the "Los Angeles Times" on September 23, 1974, "The Rams front four is the best I ever faced ... I've got to say that Youngblood was nice enough to pick me up every time he knocked my ass off." Today, Manning jokes that Youngblood's career would not have been as successful without him. He even stated that Youngblood should have let him be his presenter when he was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 2001, saying, "He wouldn’t have gotten in without having me to sack."


title: Archie Manning

text: In 1972, he led the league in pass attempts and completions and led the National Football Conference in passing yards, though the team's record was only 2–11–1. Archie sat out the entire 1976 season after corrective surgery on his right shoulder, spending the second half of that season in the team's radio booth after Dick Butkus abruptly quit his position as color commentator. In 1978, he was named the NFC Player of the Year by UPI after leading the Saints to a 7–9 record. That same year, Archie was also named All-NFC by both the UPI and "The Sporting News".


title: Archie Manning

text: Manning was selected to the Pro Bowl in 1978 and 1979. He finished his career with the Houston Oilers (1982–1983) and the Minnesota Vikings (1983–1984). He ended his 13-year career having completed 2,011 of 3,642 passes for 23,911 yards, 125 touchdowns, and 173 interceptions. He also rushed for 2,197 yards and 18 touchdowns. His 2,011 completions ranked 17th in NFL history upon his retirement. His record as a starter was 35–101–3 (26.3%), the worst in NFL history among QBs with at least 100 starts. He retired having never played on a team that notched a winning record or made the playoffs. Indeed, he is one of the few players to have played 10 or more years in the NFL without taking part in an official playoff game.


title: Archie Manning

text: Manning continues to make his home in New Orleans, though he also owns a condo in Oxford, Mississippi, to which he relocated following Hurricane Katrina. He has served as an analyst with the Saints' radio and television broadcasts, and has worked as a commentator for CBS Sports' college football broadcasts. Archie has also appeared as a commercial spokesman for products in Southeast Louisiana, where he remains popular with many fans. Working with his three sons, Cooper, Peyton, and Eli, Archie hosts the Manning Passing Academy each summer. This camp brings together young players from grades 8–12 who work with high school coaches and college players. In 2007, Manning was awarded the Silver Buffalo Award by the Boy Scouts of America. The Silver Buffalo is the highest award given for service to Youth on a national basis.


title: Archie Manning

text: In 2007, Manning was hired as a spokesman for a United Parcel Service contest to promote its "Delivery Intercept" service. He appeared in an advertising campaign for the UPS Delivery Intercept Challenge Video Contest, which saw amateur videos of football interceptions from high school and youth games. Among the prizes were a tailgate party with Manning as well as Manning-autographed footballs.


title: Archie Manning

text: In October 2013, Manning was selected to be one of the 13 inaugural members of The College Football Playoff Selection Committee. He is one of three appointees who are members of the College Football Hall of Fame.


title: Archie Manning

text: Manning owns a football-themed restaurant called Manning's Sports Bar and Grill, located in Harrah's New Orleans.


title: Archie Manning

text: Manning is married to Olivia Manning. They met while at Ole Miss. The couple has three sons: Cooper, who was diagnosed with spinal stenosis prior to his senior year of high school, which ended his football career; Peyton, who played 18 years in the NFL, winning two Super Bowls and was inducted in the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 2021; and Eli, who played 16 years in the NFL, also winning two Super Bowls. Cooper's son, Arch, is the top-rated high school quarterback in the class of 2023.


title: William Pitt the Younger

text: William Pitt the Younger (28 May 175923 January 1806) was a British statesman, the youngest and last prime minister of Great Britain (before the Acts of Union 1800) and then first prime minister of the United Kingdom (of Great Britain and Ireland) as of January 1801. He left office in March 1801, but served as prime minister again from 1804 until his death in 1806. He was also Chancellor of the Exchequer for all of his time as prime minister. He is known as "Pitt the Younger" to distinguish him from his father, William Pitt, 1st Earl of Chatham, who had previously served as prime minister and is referred to as "William Pitt the Elder" (or "Chatham" by historians).


title: William Pitt the Younger

text: Pitt's prime ministerial tenure, which came during the reign of King George III, was dominated by major political events in Europe, including the French Revolution and the Napoleonic Wars. Pitt, although often referred to as a Tory, or "new Tory", called himself an "independent Whig" and was generally opposed to the development of a strict partisan political system.


title: William Pitt the Younger

text: Pitt was regarded as an outstanding administrator who worked for efficiency and reform, bringing in a new generation of competent administrators. He increased taxes to pay for the great war against France and cracked down on radicalism. To engage the threat of Irish support for France, he engineered the Acts of Union 1800 and tried (but failed) to secure Catholic emancipation as part of the Union. He created the "new Toryism", which revived the Tory Party and enabled it to stay in power for the next quarter-century.


title: William Pitt the Younger

text: The historian Asa Briggs argues that his personality did not endear itself to the British mind, for Pitt was too solitary and too colourless, and too often exuded an attitude of superiority. His greatness came in the war with France. Pitt reacted to become what Lord Minto called "the Atlas of our reeling globe". William Wilberforce said, "For personal purity, disinterestedness and love of this country, I have never known his equal." Historian Charles Petrie concludes that he was one of the greatest Prime Ministers "if on no other ground than that he enabled the country to pass from the old order to the new without any violent upheaval ... He understood the new Britain." For this he is ranked highly amongst all British Prime Ministers in multiple surveys.


title: William Pitt the Younger

text: Pitt served as prime minister for a total of eighteen years, 343 days, making him the second-longest serving British prime minister of all time, after Robert Walpole.


title: William Pitt the Younger

text: William Pitt, the second son of William Pitt, 1st Earl of Chatham, was born on 28 May 1759 at Hayes Place in the village of Hayes, Kent. He was from a political family on both sides, as his mother, Hester Grenville, was sister of former prime minister George Grenville. According to biographer John Ehrman, Pitt exhibited the brilliance and dynamism of his father's line, and the determined, methodical nature of the Grenvilles.


title: William Pitt the Younger

text: Suffering from occasional poor health as a boy, he was educated at home by the Reverend Edward Wilson. An intelligent child, Pitt quickly became proficient in Latin and Greek. He was admitted to Pembroke College, Cambridge, on 26 April 1773, a month before turning fourteen. He studied political philosophy, classics, mathematics, trigonometry, chemistry and history. At Cambridge, Pitt was tutored by George Pretyman, who became a close personal friend. Pitt later appointed Pretyman Bishop of Lincoln, then Winchester, and drew upon his advice throughout his political career. While at Cambridge, he befriended the young William Wilberforce, who became a lifelong friend and political ally in Parliament. Pitt tended to socialise only with fellow students and others already known to him, rarely venturing outside the university grounds. Yet he was described as charming and friendly. According to Wilberforce, Pitt had an exceptional wit along with an endearingly gentle sense of humour: "no man ... ever indulged more freely or happily in that playful facetiousness which gratifies all without wounding any."


title: William Pitt the Younger

text: In 1776, Pitt, plagued by poor health, took advantage of a little-used privilege available only to the sons of noblemen, and chose to graduate without having to pass examinations.


title: William Pitt the Younger

text: Pitt's father was said to have demanded him to continually translate aloud classical literature into English and declaim upon previously unknown topics in effort to develop his oratory skills. Pitt's father, who had by then been raised to the peerage as Earl of Chatham, died in 1778. As a younger son, Pitt the Younger received only a small inheritance. He acquired his legal education at Lincoln's Inn and was called to the bar in the summer of 1780.


title: William Pitt the Younger

text: During the general elections of September 1780, at the age of 21, Pitt contested the University of Cambridge seat, but lost. Still intent on entering Parliament, Pitt secured the patronage of James Lowther, later 1st Earl Lowther, with the help of his university friend, Charles Manners, 4th Duke of Rutland. Lowther effectively controlled the pocket borough of Appleby; a by-election in that constituency sent Pitt to the House of Commons in January 1781. Pitt's entry into parliament is somewhat ironic as he later railed against the very same pocket and rotten boroughs that had given him his seat.


title: William Pitt the Younger

text: In Parliament, the youthful Pitt cast aside his tendency to be withdrawn in public, emerging as a noted debater right from his maiden speech. Pitt originally aligned himself with prominent Whigs such as Charles James Fox. With the Whigs, Pitt denounced the continuation of the American War of Independence, as his father strongly had. Instead he proposed that the prime minister, Lord North, make peace with the rebellious American colonies. Pitt also supported parliamentary reform measures, including a proposal that would have checked electoral corruption. He renewed his friendship with William Wilberforce, now MP for Hull, with whom he frequently met in the gallery of the House of Commons.


title: William Pitt the Younger

text: After Lord North's ministry collapsed in 1782, the Whig Charles Watson-Wentworth, 2nd Marquess of Rockingham, was appointed prime minister. Pitt was offered the minor post of Vice-Treasurer of Ireland, but he refused, considering the post overly subordinate. Lord Rockingham died only three months after coming to power; he was succeeded by another Whig, William Petty, 2nd Earl of Shelburne. Many Whigs who had formed a part of the Rockingham ministry, including Fox, now refused to serve under Lord Shelburne, the new prime minister. Pitt, however, was comfortable with Shelburne, and thus joined his government; he was appointed Chancellor of the Exchequer.


title: William Pitt the Younger

text: Fox, who became Pitt's lifelong political rival, then joined a coalition with Lord North, with whom he collaborated to bring about the defeat of the Shelburne administration. When Lord Shelburne resigned in 1783, King George III, who despised Fox, offered to appoint Pitt to the office of Prime Minister. But Pitt wisely declined, for he knew he would be incapable of securing the support of the House of Commons. The Fox–North coalition rose to power in a government nominally headed by William Cavendish-Bentinck, 3rd Duke of Portland.


title: William Pitt the Younger

text: Pitt, who had been stripped of his post as Chancellor of the Exchequer, joined the Opposition. He raised the issue of parliamentary reform in order to strain the uneasy Fox-North coalition, which included both supporters and detractors of reform. He did not advocate an expansion of the electoral franchise, but he did seek to address bribery and rotten boroughs. Though his proposal failed, many reformers in Parliament came to regard him as their leader, instead of Charles James Fox.


title: William Pitt the Younger

text: Losing the war and the Thirteen Colonies was a shock to the British system. The war revealed the limitations of Britain's fiscal-military state when it had powerful enemies and no allies, depended on extended and vulnerable transatlantic lines of communication, and was faced for the first time since the 17th century by both Protestant and Catholic foes. The defeat heightened dissension and escalated political antagonism to the King's ministers. Inside parliament, the primary concern changed from fears of an over-mighty monarch to the issues of representation, parliamentary reform, and government retrenchment. Reformers sought to destroy what they saw as widespread institutional corruption. The result was a crisis from 1776 to 1783. The peace in 1783 left France financially prostrate, while the British economy boomed due to the return of American business. That crisis ended in 1784 as a result of the King's shrewdness in outwitting Fox and renewed confidence in the system engendered by the leadership of Pitt. Historians conclude that the loss of the American colonies enabled Britain to deal with the French Revolution with more unity and organisation than would otherwise have been the case. Britain turned towards Asia, the Pacific, and later Africa with subsequent exploration leading to the rise of the Second British Empire.


title: William Pitt the Younger

text: The Fox-North Coalition fell in December 1783, after Fox had introduced Edmund Burke's bill to reform the East India Company to gain the patronage he so greatly lacked while the King refused to support him. Fox stated the bill was necessary to save the company from bankruptcy. Pitt responded that: "Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom. It is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves." The King was opposed to the bill; when it passed in the House of Commons, he secured its defeat in the House of Lords by threatening to regard anyone who voted for it as his enemy. Following the bill's failure in the Upper House, George III dismissed the coalition government and finally entrusted the premiership to William Pitt, after having offered the position to him three times previously.


title: William Pitt the Younger

text: A constitutional crisis arose when the King dismissed the Fox-North coalition government and named Pitt to replace it. Though faced with a hostile majority in Parliament, Pitt was able to solidify his position within a few months. Some historians argue that his success was inevitable given the decisive importance of monarchical power; others argue that the King gambled on Pitt and that both would have failed but for a run of good fortune.


title: William Pitt the Younger

text: Pitt, at the age of 24, became Great Britain's youngest Prime Minister ever. The contemporary satire "The Rolliad" ridiculed him for his youth:


title: William Pitt the Younger

text: Many saw Pitt as a stop-gap appointment until some more senior statesman took on the role. However, although it was widely predicted that the new "mince-pie administration" would not outlast the Christmas season, it survived for seventeen years.


title: William Pitt the Younger

text: So as to reduce the power of the Opposition, Pitt offered Charles James Fox and his allies posts in the Cabinet; Pitt's refusal to include Lord North, however, thwarted his efforts. The new government was immediately on the defensive and in January 1784 was defeated on a motion of no confidence. Pitt, however, took the unprecedented step of refusing to resign, despite this defeat. He retained the support of the King, who would not entrust the reins of power to the Fox–North Coalition. He also received the support of the House of Lords, which passed supportive motions, and many messages of support from the country at large, in the form of petitions approving of his appointment which influenced some Members to switch their support to Pitt. At the same time, he was granted the Freedom of the City of London. When he returned from the ceremony to mark this, men of the City pulled Pitt's coach home themselves, as a sign of respect. When passing a Whig club, the coach came under attack from a group of men who tried to assault Pitt. When news of this spread, it was assumed Fox and his associates had tried to bring down Pitt by any means.


title: William Pitt the Younger

text: Pitt gained great popularity with the public at large as "Honest Billy" who was seen as a refreshing change from the dishonesty, corruption and lack of principles widely associated with both Fox and North. Despite a series of defeats in the House of Commons, Pitt defiantly remained in office, watching the Coalition's majority shrink as some Members of Parliament left the Opposition to abstain.


title: William Pitt the Younger

text: In March 1784, Parliament was dissolved, and a general election ensued. An electoral defeat for the government was out of the question because Pitt enjoyed the support of King George III. Patronage and bribes paid by the Treasury were normally expected to be enough to secure the government a comfortable majority in the House of Commons, but on this occasion, the government reaped much popular support as well. In most popular constituencies, the election was fought between candidates clearly representing either Pitt or Fox and North. Early returns showed a massive swing to Pitt with the result that many Opposition Members who still had not faced election either defected, stood down, or made deals with their opponents to avoid expensive defeats.


title: William Pitt the Younger

text: A notable exception came in Fox's own constituency of Westminster, which contained one of the largest electorates in the country. In a contest estimated to have cost a quarter of the total spending in the entire country, Fox bitterly fought against two Pittite candidates to secure one of the two seats for the constituency. Great legal wranglings ensued, including the examination of every single vote cast, which dragged on for more than a year. Meanwhile, Fox sat for the pocket borough of Tain Burghs. Many saw the dragging out of the result as being unduly vindictive on the part of Pitt and eventually the examinations were abandoned with Fox declared elected. Elsewhere, Pitt won a personal triumph when he was elected a Member for the University of Cambridge, a constituency he had long coveted and which he would continue to represent for the remainder of his life.


title: William Pitt the Younger

text: In domestic politics, Pitt concerned himself with the cause of parliamentary reform. In 1785, he introduced a bill to remove the representation of thirty-six rotten boroughs, and to extend, in a small way, the electoral franchise to more individuals. Pitt's support for the bill, however, was not strong enough to prevent its defeat in the House of Commons. The bill of 1785 was the last parliamentary reform proposal introduced by Pitt to British legislators.


title: William Pitt the Younger

text: His administration secure, Pitt could begin to enact his agenda. His first major piece of legislation as prime minister was the India Act 1784, which re-organised the British East India Company and kept a watch over corruption. The India Act created a new Board of Control to oversee the affairs of the East India Company. It differed from Fox's failed India Bill 1783 and specified that the board would be appointed by the king. Pitt was appointed, along with Lord Sydney, who was appointed President. The act centralised British rule in India by reducing the power of the governors of Bombay and Madras and by increasing that of Governor-General Charles Cornwallis. Further augmentations and clarifications of the governor-general's authority were made in 1786, presumably by Lord Sydney, and presumably as a result of the company's setting up of Penang with their own superintendent (governor), Captain Francis Light, in 1786.


title: William Pitt the Younger

text: Convicts were originally transported to the Thirteen Colonies in North America, but after the American War of Independence ended in 1783, the newly formed United States refused to accept further convicts. Pitt's government took the decision to settle what is now Australia and found the penal colony in August 1786. The First Fleet of 11 vessels carried over a thousand settlers, including 778 convicts. The Colony of New South Wales was formally proclaimed by Governor Arthur Phillip on 7 February 1788 at Sydney.


title: William Pitt the Younger

text: Another important domestic issue with which Pitt had to concern himself was the national debt, which had doubled to £243 million during the American war. Every year, a third of the budget of £24 million went to pay interest. Pitt sought to reduce the national debt by imposing new taxes. In 1786, he instituted a sinking fund so that £1 million a year was added to a fund so that it could accumulate interest; eventually, the money in the fund was to be used to pay off the national debt. By 1792, the debt had fallen to £170 million.


title: William Pitt the Younger

text: Pitt always paid careful attention to financial issues. A fifth of Britain's imports were smuggled in without paying taxes. He made it easier for honest merchants to import goods by lowering tariffs on easily smuggled items such as tea, wine, spirits, and tobacco. This policy raised customs revenues by nearly £2 million a year.


title: William Pitt the Younger

text: In 1797, Pitt was forced to protect the kingdom's gold reserves by preventing individuals from exchanging banknotes for gold. Great Britain would continue to use paper money for over two decades. Pitt was also forced to introduce Great Britain's first-ever income tax. The new tax helped offset losses in indirect tax revenue, which had been caused by a decline in trade.


title: William Pitt the Younger

text: Pitt sought European alliances to restrict French influence, forming the Triple Alliance with Prussia and Holland in 1788. During the Nootka Sound Controversy in 1790, Pitt took advantage of the alliance to force Spain to give up its claim to exclusive control over the western coast of North and South America. The Alliance, however, failed to produce any other important benefits for Great Britain.


title: William Pitt the Younger

text: Pitt was alarmed at Russian expansion in the 1780s at the expense of the Ottoman Empire. The relations between Russia and Britain were disturbed during the Russo-Turkish War of 1787–92 by Pitt's subscription to the view of the Prussian government that the Triple Alliance could not with impunity allow the balance of power in Eastern Europe to be disturbed. In peace talks with the Ottomans, Russia refused to return the key Ochakov fortress. Pitt wanted to threaten military retaliation. However Russia's ambassador Semyon Vorontsov organised Pitt's enemies and launched a public opinion campaign. Pitt had become alarmed at the opposition to his Russian policy in parliament, Burke and Fox both uttering powerful speeches against the restoration of Ochakov to the Turks. Pitt won the vote so narrowly that he gave up. The outbreak of the French Revolution and its attendant wars temporarily united Britain and Russia in an ideological alliance against French republicanism.


title: William Pitt the Younger

text: In 1788, Pitt faced a major crisis when the King fell victim to a mysterious illness, a form of mental disorder that incapacitated him. If the sovereign was incapable of fulfilling his constitutional duties, Parliament would need to appoint a regent to rule in his place. All factions agreed that the only viable candidate was the King's eldest son, George, Prince of Wales. The Prince, however, was a supporter of Charles James Fox. Had the Prince come to power, he would almost surely have dismissed Pitt. He did not have such an opportunity, however, as Parliament spent months debating legal technicalities relating to the regency. Fortunately for Pitt, the King recovered in February 1789, just after a Regency Bill had been introduced and passed in the House of Commons.


title: William Pitt the Younger

text: The general elections of 1790 resulted in a majority for the government, and Pitt continued as prime minister. In 1791, he proceeded to address one of the problems facing the growing British Empire: the future of British Canada. By the Constitutional Act of 1791, the province of Quebec was divided into two separate provinces: the predominantly French Lower Canada and the predominantly English Upper Canada. In August 1792, coincident with the capture of Louis XVI by the French revolutionaries, George III appointed Pitt as Lord Warden of the Cinque Ports, a position whose incumbent was responsible for the coastal defences of the realm. The King had in 1791 offered him a Knighthood of the Garter, but he suggested the honour go to his elder brother, the second Earl of Chatham.


title: William Pitt the Younger

text: An early favourable response to the French Revolution encouraged many in Great Britain to reopen the issue of parliamentary reform, which had been dormant since Pitt's reform bill was defeated in 1785. The reformers, however, were quickly labelled as radicals and associates of the French revolutionaries. Subsequently, in 1794, Pitt's administration tried three of them for treason but lost. Parliament began to enact repressive legislation in order to silence the reformers. Individuals who published seditious material were punished, and, in 1794, the writ of habeas corpus was suspended. Other repressive measures included the Seditious Meetings Act, which restricted the right of individuals to assemble publicly, and the Combination Acts, which restricted the formation of societies or organisations that favoured political reforms. Problems manning the Royal Navy also led to Pitt to introduce the Quota System in 1795 in addition to the existing system of impressment.


title: William Pitt the Younger

text: The war with France was extremely expensive, straining Great Britain's finances. Unlike in the latter stages of the Napoleonic Wars, at this point Britain had only a very small standing army, and thus contributed to the war effort mainly through sea power and by supplying funds to other coalition members facing France.


title: William Pitt the Younger

text: Throughout the 1790s, the war against France was presented as an ideological struggle between French republicanism vs. British monarchism with the British government seeking to mobilise public opinion in support of the war. The Pitt government waged a vigorous propaganda campaign contrasting the ordered society of Britain dominated by the aristocracy and the gentry vs. the "anarchy" of the French revolution and always sought to associate British "radicals" with the revolution in France. Though the Pitt government did drastically reduce civil liberties and created a nationwide spy network with ordinary people being encouraged to denounce any "radicals" that might be in their midst, the historian Eric J. Evans argued the picture of Pitt's "reign of terror" as portrayed by the Marxist historian E.P. Thompson is incorrect, stating there is much evidence of a "popular conservative movement" that rallied in defence of King and Country. Evans wrote that there were about 200 prosecutions of "radicals" suspected of sympathy with the French revolution in British courts in the 1790s, which was much less than the prosecutions of suspected Jacobites after the rebellions of 1715 and 1745. However, the spy network maintained by the government was efficient. In Jane Austen's novel "Northanger Abbey", which was written in the 1790s, but not published until 1817, one of the characters remarks that it is not possible for a family to keep secrets in these modern times when spies for the government were lurking everywhere. This comment captures well the tense, paranoid atmosphere of the 1790s, when people were being encouraged to report "radicals" to the authorities.