title: Ink Master

text: On August 5, 2022, new judges were announced for the revival series, including season 8 winner, Ryan Ashley Malarkey, tattoo artists Nikko Hurtado and Ami James. Joel Madden was announced as the new host for the upcoming season, with Navarro returning as "Master Of Chaos", adding twists and game-changing bombs to each episode.


title: Ink Master

text: Various standalone holiday and special event-themed episodes have been made that do not follow the series seasons. They have typically followed an upcoming or recently passed holiday. These episodes feature previous "Ink Master" contestants competing for smaller cash prizes.


title: Ink Master

text: "Ink Master" licensed a Dutch/Belgian edition called "Ink Master: Meesters van de Lage Landen" (Masters of the Low Countries) to Spike NL in 2017. The format remains largely intact; filming occurs mainly around Amsterdam. The winner of the first season of this edition was the Belgian contestant "Djoels". The second season takes place in IJmuiden and was won by Belgian contestant Joyce.


title: Ink Master

text: The spin-off series "Ink Master: Redemption" premiered in September 2015. The spin-off features canvases who are unhappy with the tattoo they received during the competition. After discussing their tattoo with Navarro, the canvases are given a chance to confront the artist who did the original piece. The artist is offered the chance for redemption by being able to consult with the canvas on a new tattoo (or modification to improve their existing "Ink Master" piece). After reviewing the artist's new drawing, the canvas is given a no-strings-attached choice to proceed with the new tattoo or leave the shop. Episodes sometimes feature a twist, such as rival artists returning to draw a design for the same unhappy canvas, potentially stealing the original artist's chance at redemption. "Ink Master: Redemption" was renewed for a second season to coincide with the premiere of season 7 of "Ink Master".


title: Ink Master

text: In June 2017, Spike announced a new spin-off series titled "Ink Master: Angels". The premise follows four female contestants from the eighth season of "Ink Master" – season winner Ryan Ashley Malarkey, Kelly Doty, Nikki Simpson, and Gia Rose – as they travel around the United States to face other artists in tattoo challenges with a spot on season ten of "Ink Master" on the line. The show premiered on October 3, 2017.


title: Ink Master

text: On August 21, 2019, it was announced that a spin-off titled "Ink Master: Grudge Match" would premiere on October 1, 2019. Judges for the series include former "Ink Master" contestants Cleen Rock One, DJ Tambe, and Ryan Ashley Malarkey.


title: Master P

text: Percy Robert Miller Sr. (born April 29, 1967), known by his stage name Master P, is an American rapper, record executive, record producer, actor, and entrepreneur. He is the founder of the record label No Limit Records, which was relaunched as New No Limit Records through Universal Records and Koch Records, and again as Guttar Music Entertainment, and currently, No Limit Forever Records. He is also the founder and CEO of P. Miller Enterprises and Better Black Television, which was a short-lived online television network. Miller gained fame in the mid-1990s with the success of his hip hop group TRU as well as his fifth solo rap album "Ice Cream Man", which contained his first single "Mr. Ice Cream Man". Miller's popularity grew in 1997 after the success of his Platinum single "Make 'Em Say Uhh!". In total, Miller has released 15 studio albums.


title: Master P

text: Percy Robert Miller was born and raised in Central City in the Third Ward of Uptown New Orleans, Louisiana in the Calliope Projects. He is the oldest of five children. He has one sister, Germaine, and three brothers: Kevin, and platinum-selling rap artists Corey "C-Murder" and Vyshonne "Silkk the Shocker" Miller. He attended Booker T. Washington High School and Warren Easton High School. Having played on the basketball team, Miller attended the University of Houston on an athletic scholarship, but dropped out months into his freshman year and transferred to Merritt College in Oakland, California to major in business administration. After the death of his grandfather, Miller inherited $10,000 as part of a malpractice settlement. Miller opened a record store in Richmond, California called No Limit Records And Tapes, which later became the foundation for No Limit Records. On February 15, 1990, Master P released the cassette tape "Mind Of A Psychopath". His brother Kevin Miller was killed that same year in New Orleans. This increased his motivation to become a successful entrepreneur to change his life and save his family.


title: Master P

text: Master P released his debut studio album "Get Away Clean" on February 12, 1991. This was followed by his second album "Mama's Bad Boy", which was released in April 1992. Both albums were released through In-A-Minute Records. In 1993, Master P released his first collaboration album with his group TRU titled "Who's da Killer?" Master P released his third studio album "The Ghettos Tryin to Kill Me!" on March 18, 1994; it was later re-released in 1997 as a limited edition under Priority. That same year Master P collaborated on the No Limit compilation albums "" and "". On June 6, 1995, Master P released his fourth studio album "99 Ways to Die". Master P and TRU released their third album "True" in 1995, which was the group's first major release after two independent albums. The album reached number 25 on the Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums and number 14 on the Top Heatseekers. The album was known for its first single and one of Master P's best known songs "I'm Bout' It, Bout It". He also worked on the compilation album, "", during that year.


title: Master P

text: Master P said that when he used to open for Tupac Shakur in the early 1990s, the people responsible for introducing him would frequently call him "Mr. P the country singer".


title: Master P

text: In 1995, Master P moved from California back to New Orleans to relocate No Limit Records with a set of new artists and in-house producers Beats By the Pound. On April 16, 1996, Master P released his fifth album "Ice Cream Man". It contained the hit single "Mr. Ice Cream Man". Later in 1996, Master P returned with TRU to work on "Tru 2 da Game", which would not be released until February 18, 1997. At that time, TRU was reduced to a trio with just Master P alongside his brothers C-Murder and Silkk the Shocker. On September 2, 1997, Master P released his breakthrough album "Ghetto D". The first week sales of the album were the highest of any of Master P's albums, selling over 760,000 copies, and it went on to go certified triple platinum. It contained the hit single "Make 'Em Say Uhh!", Master P's highest-charting single to date. The song earned him an MTV Video Music Award nomination the following year for "Best Rap Video", but lost to Will Smith's "Gettin' Jiggy Wit It". On June 2, 1998, Master P released his seventh and best-selling album to date "MP Da Last Don". Master P released a film of the same name earlier that year. The album debuted at number 1 on the Billboard Top 200 charts selling over 400,000 copies in its first week, and went on to sell over four million copies. On October 26, 1999, Master P released his eighth studio album "Only God Can Judge Me", which contained his single "Step To Dis". The album went certified gold, selling over 500,000 copies. In 1999, Master P and TRU released their fifth studio album "Da Crime Family". On November 28, 2000, he released his ninth studio album "Ghetto Postage" which contained his hit singles "Bout Dat" and "Souljas". Also in 2000, Master P and his new group 504 Boyz released their debut album "Goodfellas", which peaked at number 1 on the Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums and contained their hit single "Wobble Wobble".


title: Master P

text: On December 18, 2001, Master P released his tenth studio album "Game Face", the first Master P album released on The New No Limit, which had a partnership with Universal Records. In 2002, The 504 Boyz released their second album Ballers. Both albums charted high on the Hip-Hop charts, but shortly after, No Limit began to decline in popularity. Record sales as well as roster changes and lawsuits caused No Limit Records to file for bankruptcy on December 17, 2003.


title: Master P

text: Master P's eleventh album, titled "Good Side, Bad Side", was released on March 23, 2004, through Koch Records, debuting at number 1 on the "Billboard" Independent Albums chart. Master P and TRU released their last album "The Truth" in 2005 followed by Master P's twelfth studio album "Ghetto Bill" Vol. 1.


title: Master P

text: In 2005, Master P and his son Romeo Miller formed the independent label Guttar Music. On November 29, 2005, Master P released his first independent album and thirteenth overall, "", on Guttar Music. Master P and 504 Boyz released their last album titled "" that year, and it was dedicated to the victims of Hurricane Katrina.


title: Master P

text: In April 2006, Master P released a compilation album "America's Most Luved Bad Guy". In 2007, Master P released a collaboration album with Romeo titled "Hip Hop History" that sold 32,000 copies worldwide.


title: Master P

text: On December 6, 2010, it was announced that Master P was going on a new tour with his brother Silkk The Shocker and his son Romeo titled No Limit Forever International. On February 8, 2011, Master P was featured on rapper Gucci Mane's track titled "Brinks". It was his first recorded song in over four years. In early 2012, Master P started to re brand his label. On August 10, 2012, he performed at Insane Clown Posse's 12th Annual "Gathering of the Juggalos" concert. On November 16, 2011, Master P released his first mixtape and first solo project in over 6 years, titled "TMZ (Too Many Zeros)". On August 2, 2012, it was announced that Master P was working on his thirteenth studio album "Boss of All Bosses". On September 17, 2012, Master P released snippet of an upcoming single titled "Friends With Benefits" featuring rapper/singer Kirko Bangz.


title: Master P

text: On January 16, 2013, Master P released his second official mixtape titled "Al Capone" as a promotion for his "Boss of All Bosses" album. On February 12, 2013, Master P released his first collaboration mixtape titled "New World Order" with his new group, Louie V. Mob, which includes himself and rappers Alley Boy and Fat Trel. On August 6, 2013, Master P released his third official mixtape titled "Famous Again" as a promotion for his "Boss of All Bosses" album; it featured appearances from Rome, Silkk The Shocker, Dee-1, Young Louie, Play Beezy, Gangsta, Howie T, Clyde Carson, Game, Chief Keef, Fat Trel, Alley Boy, Problem, Wiz Khalifa, Tyga, and Chris Brown, as well as production from 1500 & Nothin, Young Bugatti, Stiv Schneider, The Composer, and JB. On December 6, 2013, Master P released his fifth album titled "The Gift".


title: Master P

text: On January 23, 2014, it was announced that "The Gift" would be re-released on February 21, 2014, as a video album with a music video for every song, and that it would be titled "The Platinum Gift". On February 6, 2014, it was announced that Master P was working on two new albums, "Ice Cream Man 2", which is a sequel to "Ice Cream Man", and "Boss of All Bosses". On February 28, 2014, Miller released his fourth mixtape "The Gift Vol. 1: Return of The Ice Cream Man".


title: Master P

text: On January 5, 2015, Master P released his second collaboration mixtape titled "We All We Got" with his new group Money Mafia, which includes himself, his son Maserati Rome, Ace B, Young Junne, Eastwood, Gangsta, Play Beezy, Calliope Popeye, Flight Boy, and No Limit Forever in-house producer Blaq N Mild. The mixtape would also include a surprise feature from rapper Lil Wayne on the track "Power". On February 9, 2015, Master P released his third collaboration mixtape titled "#CP3" with his No Limit Forever artist and rapper Ace B. On April 20, 2015, Master P released his fourth collaboration mixtape titled "Hustlin" with his group Money Mafia. On June 4, 2015, it was announced that Master P's newest group Money Mafia would be releasing their debut album in 2015 titled "Rarri Boys". On June 8, 2015, Master P along with Money Mafia would release their first single from "Rarri Boys" titled "Bonita". On July 16, 2015, Master P released his fifth collaboration mixtape titled "The Luciano Family" with his group Money Mafia. On October 7, 2015, Master P would reveal the cover art's and announced that there would be three sequel album installments to his critically acclaimed debut major label album "Ice Cream Man" titled "Ice Cream Man 2: The Streets", "Ice Cream Man 3: The Hustle", "Ice Cream Man 4: The Lifestyle" that will be released all on the same day. On October 13, 2015, Master P would reveal and announced the cover art, release date and track list to his upcoming new album titled "Empire" that will be released on November 28, 2015. On November 27, 2015, Master P would release his fourteenth album titled "Empire, from the Hood to Hollywood"; it would feature guest appearances from Krazy, Lil Wayne, Maserati Rome, Money Mafia, Ace B, BlaqNmilD, Fame-O and Luccianos, and would be released via his label No Limit Forever Records and Globy House Records.


title: Master P

text: On February 23, 2016, Master P would release a new single titled "Funeral"; it would feature his new group No Limit Boys members Ace B and Angelo Nano. On March 2, 2016, Master P would release a new single titled "Middle Finga". On March 18, 2016, during an interview Master P would announce he was working on a new album titled "The Grind Don't Stop" with his new group No Limit Boys & he would also announce his new tour titled the Pop-Up Tour. On March 28, 2016, it was announced that Master P's newest group No Limit Boys formerly Money Mafia would be releasing their debut album in 2016 titled "No Limit Boys". On August 21, 2016, Master P released his sixth official mixtape titled "The G Mixtape"; it featured appearances from 2 Chainz, A$AP Ferg, E-40, The Game, Gucci Mane, Jeremih, Lil Wayne, Nipsey Hussle, No Limit Boys, Rick Ross, Usher, Travis Scott and Yo Gotti. On October 27, 2016, Master P released his seventh official mixtape titled "Louisiana Hot Sauce"; it featured appearances from fellow No Limit Forever artist Ace B, Angelo Nano, Cymphonique, Gangsta, J Slugg, Lambo, Moe Roy, Play Beezy, Romeo and Young Vee.


title: Master P

text: On January 6, 2017, Master P released his sixth collaboration mixtape titled "We All We Got" with his group No Limit Boys.


title: Master P

text: On July 29, 2020, Master P released "No Limit Chronicles", a five-part BET docuseries on his New Orleans-based hip-hop label. The series shares stories of Master P's career as a record executive and businessman, underscoring the unprecedented distribution deal with Priority Records that made No Limit Records a powerhouse record label in the 1990s. Awareness of the circumstances of Master P's incarcerated brother, C-Murder, resurged after the series aired, prompting Percy to rally for his brother's release. On August 17, 2020, Master P posted a video to his Instagram account of him and C-Murder's lawyer speaking to a group of protesters, inciting momentum to work in favor of his brother's liberation.


title: Master P

text: Aside from being a rapper, Master P has enjoyed a successful career as an entrepreneur and investor. Miller opened a record store in Richmond, California called No Limit Records, which later became the foundation for his own record label of the same name.


title: Master P

text: Miller was one of the first rappers to notice and take advantage of the retail potential of the music industry. As an investor, Master P was one of the first rappers to build a business and financial empire by investing in a wide range of business and investment ventures from a variety of industries. He has since invested the millions of dollars he made from his No Limit record company into a travel agency, a Foot Locker retail outlet, real estate, stocks, film, music, and television production, toy making, clothing, telecommunications, a jewellery line, auto accessories, book and magazine publishing, car rims, fast food franchises, and gas stations. His sports management agency No Limit Communications, a joint venture with marketing guru Djuan Edgerton, was a success. His conglomerate company, No Limit Enterprises became a financial powerhouse. His real estate investment and property management company, the New Orleans-based PM Properties controls over 100 properties across the United States. According to Black Enterprise magazine, No Limit Enterprises grossed $110 million in revenue in 1998 alone. This level of success inspired other rappers to branch out into other business ventures and investments. Miller also has his own line of beverages called "Make 'Em Say Ughh!" energy drinks. Miller has also made a foray into mass media, where he founded Better Black Television, a cable television network in November 2010 based in New Orleans, making him the first rapper to establish a cable television network.


title: Master P

text: Rappers had historically focused more on the artistic and glamorous side of hip hop music while paying very little attention to the business, investment, and financial aspects. All that changed in 1996 when Master P signed a music distribution deal with Priority Records, one where No Limit Records would retain 100% ownership of their master recordings and keep 85% of their record's sales while giving Priority 15% in return for pressing and distribution which allows No Limit to profit from future sales such as catalogs and reissues. Master P went on to make hundreds of millions of dollars from this deal. Additionally, Master P invented many innovative marketing techniques. According to Wendy Day, CEO of the Rap Coalition, "Master P had a whole marketing movement. He was the first person to market the way a corporate entity like IBM would market to their clientele." Whereas the traditional model for marketing records was to spend millions of dollars on expensive videos and air play, Miller did not have such a luxury. As an independent artist, Miller had to find a way to sell, market and build platinum record selling demand on a limited recording budget. He was known for keeping upfront business expenses down and profit margins high. He began selling tapes out the trunk of his car in every city and town in America where there was potential demand for his music. He gave out free samples to people with expensive cars and had them playing his music throughout their neighborhoods. This street level guerrilla marketing technique set the foundation to build a larger fanbase for the future. After signing his deal with Priority, Miller began a high volume business model of cranking out as many records as possible, as frequently as possible. He branded all his albums, so that the No Limit brand became more important than the actual artist's name. Miller cross-promoted all his artists and albums inside the album covers. He also used pen and pixel graphics and Mafia-inspired themes to make his albums stand out using Photoshop. He offered 20 songs per album, whereas most albums offered 15 or less, as Miller learned that customers wanted more for their money. He turned his artists into Marvel comic book-like characters rather than just rappers. He made sure his artists were number one on SoundScan every time they released an album, to build the perception of popularity. He used inexpensive videos to promote his artists and he cross-promoted albums using films and vice versa and tied them altogether as a package. Brand image and identity became more important than just music quality. Miller's record labels have sold 75 million records as a result of his innovative marketing and branding strategies.


title: Master P

text: As founder and CEO of No Limit Entertainment, Miller at one time presided over a business empire that included his conglomerate No Limit Enterprises, No Limit Records, Bout It Inc., No Limit Clothing, No Limit Communications, No Limit Films, No Limit Sports Management, P. M. Properties, and Advantage Travel. Miller represented former NFL running back Ricky Williams when he was drafted by the New Orleans Saints; however, the deal was rated the worst contract for a player in NFL History by ESPN. Miller manages the music, film, and television career of his son, Romeo Miller, as well as pop star Forrest Lipton and Atlanta rapper Gucci Mane. Miller was the executive television producer for his teenage daughter Cymphonique's Nickelodeon Show, How To Rock, and the co-creator of Romeo!, the hit Nickelodeon television show that stars his son.


title: Master P

text: In 1998, Miller ranked 10th on Forbes magazine's list of America's 40 highest paid entertainers, with an estimated income of $56.5 million. In 2013, Miller's wealth is estimated to be $200 million, making him one of the wealthiest figures in the American hip hop scene.


title: Master P

text: In 1998, Miller joined the Fort Wayne Fury of the CBA as a backup guard after a No Limit employee asked the Fury head coach to give his boss a tryout. According to the coach Miller was "coachable [and] an eager learner", but not NBA material.


title: Master P

text: Miller was on the Charlotte Hornets training camp roster for 10 days in January 1999. He was invited to participate at the request of Hornet Ricky Davis's father. He scored 7 points in intrasquad play and played eight minutes in two exhibition games before being released on February 1. Miller claimed he played well but was cut because his rap lyrics were too offensive.


title: Master P

text: That fall he was on the Toronto Raptors training camp roster. He scored eight points in one preseason game, but was dropped before the season began. He complained that the Raptors hadn't given him a fair chance.


title: Master P

text: In November, he signed with the San Diego Stingrays of the short-lived IBL, a "home for players without NBA skills and those who are developing them." His performance was disappointing and he played for less than a season.


title: Master P

text: In 2004, Miller played for the ABA's Las Vegas Rattlers and Long Beach Jam. He took part in the 2008 McDonald's NBA All-Star Celebrity Game and scored 17 points.


title: Master P

text: Since 1997, Master P has been in numerous feature and straight-to-DVD films, as well as television shows. His filmography includes "Uncle P", "Uncle Willy's Family", "Soccer Mom", "Gone in 60 Seconds", "Hollywood Homicide", "Toxic", "Foolish", and '. In 1999, he had a small run in World Championship Wrestling (WCW), where he led a professional wrestling stable called The No Limit Soldiers in a feud with Curt Hennig's The West Texas Rednecks. Master P also starred in "Romeo!" alongside his son Romeo Miller on the children's network Nickelodeon from 2003 to 2006. He was also a contestant on "Dancing with the Stars", replacing Romeo who dropped out due to an injury. He partnered with Ashly DelGrosso and received a total score of 8 out of 30 for his pasodoble, the lowest score in the show's history. He was eliminated in Week 4.


title: Master P

text: As reported in March 2011, Miller planned to star in a new film with his protégé Gucci Mane, titled "Get Money". The film, set for release through No Limit, would be based on Miller's book of the same name.


title: Master P

text: On June 10, 2015, it was announced that Master P and his family would be starring in their own reality show titled "Master P's Family Empire". It is scheduled to be aired on Reelz sometime in November.


title: Master P

text: In 1999, The No Limit Soldiers appeared on "WCW Monday Nitro" feuding with The Filthy Animals and The West Texas Rednecks.


title: Master P

text: On October 8, 2019, it was reported and confirmed that Master P purchased ownership in Brooklyn, New York-based independent wrestling promotion House of Glory.


title: Master P

text: The lyrics of Miller's "Brick to a Million" have been interpreted as intentionally disrespectful to rappers Kanye West and Lil Wayne. Miller denied that it was a diss track directed at them, and claimed it was in response to a radio station employee's remark that his career was over, and that it "ain't a diss. I never made a diss record."


title: Master P

text: Miller is known for his music and his business acumen, due to creating and branding his highly successful independent record label No Limit Records, as well as his other business ventures.


title: Master P

text: Miller is held in high esteem by other rappers as well. During an interview after meeting Miller, Atlanta rapper 2 Chainz stated, "This is my first time meeting [him]. I just want to let him know how he influenced the whole South in Hip-Hop." 2 Chainz went on, "We used to argue people like they ain't understand why we appreciated Master P and his music. It was more than that. I felt like it was his grind, his hustle. He actually put music out like every week. I even heard stories about some of the songs never even being mixed before. It was just about giving the fans what they needed. And he the reason why a lot of us are here, including myself."


title: Master P

text: In 2005, Miller was ranked at number 36 by VH1 in their list of "50 Greatest Hip Hop Artists". On September 29, 2008, Miller's single "Make 'Em Say Uhh!" would be ranked at number 94 by VH1 in their list of "100 Greatest Hip-Hop Songs".


title: Master P

text: BET named Miller number 28 in 'The Most Influential Rappers of All Time'. BET also listed Miller as one of 'The 25 Influential Black Music Execs'.


title: Master P

text: In November 2011, Miller's son Romeo Miller performed at the 2010 Hip Hop Honors, along with his brother Valentino Miller, his cousins Lil' D and Black Don, and his uncle Silkk The Shocker, as well as Trina, Gucci Mane, and Mystikal to honor Master P and No Limit Records.


title: Master P

text: On December 11, 2012, DJ 5150 and DJ Hektik released a tribute mixtape to Master P titled "Uptown Veteran".


title: Master P

text: On July 10, 2013, Miller was inducted into the Louisiana Music Hall of Fame, making him the first hip hop artist to be inducted.


title: Master P

text: On January 20, 2015, Montreal R&B/Hip Hop artist Xav released a song with Master P called "Bout It Bout It", from his upcoming "Zeeky EP", paying homage to Master P's 1995 international hit. The music video, which also features Master P, premiered on Vibe.com the same day.


title: Master P

text: Miller has dedicated his time to communities through P. Miller Youth Centers and his P. Miller Food Foundation for the Homeless. On July 12, 2005, Willie W. Herenton Jr, the mayor of Memphis, Tennessee, presented Miller with the key to the city. On April 27, 2010, Miller and his son Romeo were awarded the Certificate of Special Recognition from Congress member Maxine Waters.


title: Master P

text: Miller is Catholic. In 1999, he donated $500,000 to the Catholic elementary school he attended and to two nearby churches. In 2014, after 24 years of marriage, Miller's wife sued for divorce, asking for almost 40% of their assets.


title: Master P

text: In 2007, he swore off of profanity and endorsed Barack Obama for President of the United States of America, contributing frequently to his campaign.


title: E Company, 506th Infantry Regiment (United States)

text: E Company, 2nd Battalion of the 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment of the 101st Airborne Division, the "Screaming Eagles", is a company in the United States Army. The company was referred to as "Easy" based on the WWII phonetic alphabet because it was the fifth lettered company in the 506th. The experiences of its members during World War II are the subject of the HBO miniseries "Band of Brothers" based on the book of the same name by historian Stephen Ambrose.


text: The 506th PIR was an experimental airborne regiment created in 1942 to jump from C-47 transport airplanes into hostile territory.


text: E Company was established at Camp Toccoa, Georgia. Before attending paratrooper training, the unit's troops performed the standard battle drills and physical training that comes with being in the parachute infantry. One of the exercises was running Currahee, a large, steep hill whose trail ran "three miles up, three miles down". E Company, while training at Toccoa, was under the command of Herbert Sobel, who was known for his extreme strictness.


text: Also as part of their physical training, the members of E Company performed formation runs in three-four column running groups. This innovative type of training was adopted by the Army in the 1960s.


text: As a result of the harsh physical training Easy Company underwent while at Camp Toccoa, Georgia, the unit was in such impeccable physical condition that they were able to skip the physical training portion of Jump School.


text: One of its commanders, Major Richard Winters, said E Company originally "included three rifle platoons and a headquarters section. Each platoon contained three twelve-man rifle squads and a six-man mortar team squad. Easy also had one machine gun attached to each of its rifle squads, and a 60mm mortar in each mortar team."


text: While waiting for the invasion of Normandy, Easy Company was located at Aldbourne, Wiltshire, England.


text: The tension that had been brewing between Winters and Sobel came to a head. For some time, Winters had privately held concerns over Sobel's ability to lead the company in combat. Many of the enlisted men in the company had come to respect Winters for his competence and had also developed their own concerns about Sobel's leadership. Winters later said that he never wanted to compete with Sobel for command of Easy Company; still, Sobel attempted to bring Winters up on trumped-up charges for "failure to carry out a lawful order". Feeling that his punishment was unjust, Winters requested that the charge be reviewed by court-martial. After Winters' punishment was set aside by the battalion commander, Major Robert L. Strayer, Sobel brought Winters up on another charge the following day. During the investigation, Winters was transferred to the Headquarters Company and appointed as the battalion mess officer.


text: Following this, though Winters tried to talk them out of it, a number of the company's non-commissioned officers (NCOs) gave the regimental commander, Colonel Sink, an ultimatum: either Sobel be replaced, or they would surrender their stripes. Sink was not impressed and the two Platoon Sergeants that were considered to be the ringleaders of the NCOs, Terrence 'Salty' Harris and Myron Ranney were subsequently demoted to Private and transferred out of the company, to A Company and I Company respectively. Shortly after being transferred, both men joined the Pathfinders, which consisted of around 80 volunteers from every unit, who would land first and guide the way for the main waves of the invasion. Being a Pathfinder was a very difficult job, and it meant being out in front and facing the German Army alone. However, shortly before the invasion, Ranney wrote to Winters, pleading his case, and five days before the invasion, orders came in transferring Ranney back to Easy Company.


text: Sink realized that something had to be done and decided to transfer Sobel out of Easy Company, giving him command of a new parachute training school at Chilton Foliat. Winters' court-martial was set aside and he returned to Easy Company as a Lieutenant of 1st Platoon. Winters later said he felt that despite his differences with Sobel, at least part of Easy Company's success had been due to Sobel's strenuous training and high expectations.


text: For Operation Overlord, E Company's mission was to capture the entrances to and clear any obstacles around "Causeway 2", a pre-selected route off Utah Beach for the Allied forces landing from the sea a few hours later.


text: The company departed from Upottery airbase in Devon, England, and dropped over the Cotentin Peninsula of Normandy, France, in the early hours of the morning of 6 June 1944. Easy Company flew in eight aircraft in Sticks #66-73, with about 17 paratroopers per stick.


text: Most of Easy Company's headquarters section was assigned to Stick #66, with Robert Burr Smith and Joseph "Red" Hogan assigned to other planes to save weight. The 17 members of Stick #66 included company commander Meehan and three of its most senior non-commissioned officers: First Sergeant Bill Evans, Staff Sergeant Murray Roberts (the Supply Sergeant) and Sergeant Elmer Murray (the Operations Sergeant). Sergeant Carwood Lipton recalled later that he had strategized various combat situations with Sergeant Murray while the rest of Easy Company went to the movies the day before the jump.


text: Plane #66 led a diamond formation that also included #67 to the left, #68 to the right, and #69 in trailing position. Over France, the plane carrying Stick #66 was hit by anti-aircraft fire. The pilot did a 180-degree turn and turned the landing lights on as the plane lost altitude, but it hit a hedgerow and exploded, killing all aboard. The crash was witnessed by Ed Mauser of E Company's 2nd Platoon, who had leapt from plane #69 after it was hit by flak and the pilot turned on the green jump light. Mauser's neck was snapped back by his plane's prop blast and he faced backwards as he floated downwards, giving him a view of plane #66.


text: With Meehan missing (it was only discovered later that he had been killed), Richard Winters was the most senior officer in Easy Company and took command. After assembling on the ground, the men of E Company disabled a battery of four German heavy guns on D-Day that threatened forces coming along Causeway 2.


text: The loss of so many officers and NCOs on D-Day brought a few changes to Easy Company. Technically, Lieutenant Raymond Schmitz, 2nd Platoon Leader, was still with Easy Company, but got injured the day before D-Day after demanding Richard Winters wrestle him, and was replaced by Buck Compton.


text: The capture of Carentan would allow the Americans to link Omaha and Utah beaches, providing access for armor and equipment. The Germans were aware of its strategic importance and had established defenses. Donald Malarkey wrote later that Lieutenant Winters made him mortar sergeant of second platoon. E Company, along with Dog and Fox companies, were walking down the road to Carentan when they came to an intersection and one or two German machine gun teams began firing on them. Mortars and tanks soon joined the fight. The American soldiers all jumped into ditches for cover. Winters saw this and as Malarkey wrote, Winters "got hotter than I've ever seen him." It was a fast attack, at the end of which Malarkey said that he could hear moans and groans of wounded soldiers and occasional gun shots. Also at the end of the battle Winters was slightly wounded in his lower right leg by a ricocheting bullet fragment. The Germans mounted a counterattack, but 2nd Battalion held onto Carentan.


text: By the time the company was pulled off the line, 22 of its men had been killed in action, mostly in Stick 66, and another 43 had been wounded, for a 47% casualty rate. Winters' roster records that of the 139 men of Easy Company who left England on the night of 5 June, just 69 enlisted men and five officers were left: Winters; his three platoon leaders Buck Compton, Harry Welsh, and Warren Rousch; and Rousch's assistant Francis L.O’Brien.


text: As part of the ultimately unsuccessful Operation Market Garden, E Company was assigned to support the British forces around Eindhoven by defending the roads and bridges that would allow British armored divisions to advance into Arnhem and force a crossing over the major bridge across the Rhine in September 1944.


text: E Company landed on its designated drop zone in the Sonsche Forest, northwest of Son, and marched down the road into Son behind the 2nd Battalion's other two companies. On reaching the Son Bridge they were met by enemy harassing fire while the bridge was destroyed by the Germans. After the Regiment's engineers constructed a makeshift crossing, E and the rest of the 506th moved out for Eindhoven. These events were omitted from the "Band of Brothers" series, with E having been portrayed as landing in the Netherlands and then marching into Eindhoven to join up with the British Army advancing from the south.


text: On 19 September, the company departed for Helmond accompanied by six Cromwell tanks of the British 11th Armoured Division. Their advance was halted by the German 107th Panzer Brigade outside Nuenen and they were forced to retreat to Tongelre. During the days following the link up, E Company successfully defended the towns of Veghel and Uden until XXX Corps infantry took up the task of defending the area. As Market Garden progressed, the company and the rest of the 101st joined the 82nd Airborne on "the island" north of Nijmegen.


text: At the conclusion of Market Garden, the company relieved the British 43rd (Wessex) Infantry Division in Zetten. On 5 October 1944, 1st platoon fought in the battle of "the island" that lay between the Lower Rhine and the Waal river. Along with a platoon from Fox Company and support from the Royal Artillery, they routed two Waffen-SS companies on 5 October 1944. Colonel Sink issued a general order citing the company's 1st platoon for gallantry in action, describing their attack a "daring act and skillful maneuver against a numerically superior force".


text: E Company was involved in the rescue of over 100 British troops trapped outside Arnhem. Operation Pegasus was a military operation carried out on the Lower Rhine near the village of Renkum, close to Arnhem in the Netherlands. Overnight on 22–23 October 1944, the Allies evacuated a large group of men trapped in German-occupied territory who had been in hiding since the Battle of Arnhem. On the south bank of a Dutch river, Canadian engineers and a patrol of E Company observed the signal and immediately launched their boats, but the British were some 500-800m upriver of the crossing point.


text: Upon reaching the north bank E Company established a small perimeter while men headed east to locate the evaders. The men quickly moved downstream and in the next 90 minutes all of them were evacuated, with the exception of a Russian who was captured by the Germans. The Germans opened fire sporadically and some mortar rounds fell near the crossing, but the fire was inaccurate. The men were later flown back to the UK, rejoining the men who had escaped in Operation Berlin. Nine members of E company were killed in action in Holland with at least 40 wounded.


text: During December 1944 and January 1945, E Company and the rest of the 101st Airborne Division fought in Belgium in the Battle of the Bulge. The 101st was in France in December when the Germans launched their offensive in the Ardennes. They were told to hold the vital cross-roads at Bastogne and were soon encircled by the Germans. E Company fought in frigid weather under German artillery fire without winter clothing and with limited rations and ammunition.


text: Between the days of 1 to 13 January, the company took control of the Bois Jacques woods in Belgium, between the town of Foy and Bizory. E Company was assigned to capture the town of Foy.


text: Division Headquarters ordered the attack to begin at 0900 hours. During the assault, newly appointed company commander Lieutenant Norman Dike led E Company forward, then ordered 1st platoon (led by Lieutenant Jack Foley) to the left and lost contact with them. Dike ordered the remainder of the company to take cover after coming under fire. With the unit unable to proceed, he was informed by his subordinates that they would get killed if they didn't advance into the town, as they were now unprotected from enemy fire. At the same time, Captain Richard Winters, former company commander and now acting battalion commanding officer, radioed to Dike, telling him the same thing. Dike ordered 1st platoon on a flanking mission around the town, and then found cover and froze, ignoring Winters' orders. As Carwood Lipton, the first sergeant at the time, later put it: "He fell apart."


text: According to Clancy Lyall, Dike stopped because he had been wounded in the right shoulder (which Lyall saw), not because he had panicked.


text: In either case, Dike was immediately relieved by First Lieutenant Ronald Speirs under orders from Captain Winters. To countermand Dike's previous orders, Speirs himself ran through the town and German lines (as 1st platoon had no radio), linked up with the Item Company soldiers and relayed the order. Having completed this, he then ran back through the German-occupied town. Carwood Lipton later stated that "the Germans were so shocked at seeing an American soldier running through their lines - they forgot to shoot!" Speirs was reassigned as commanding officer of E Company and remained in that position for the rest of the war.


text: With the capture of Foy, the Allies defeated the German line in Bastogne. Afterward, E Company and the rest of the 506th PIR moved into Germany. The 101st Airborne Division was awarded a unit citation for holding the line at Bastogne. E Company suffered 82 casualties including 15 killed in action.


text: Toward the end of the war, E Company was assigned to occupation duty in Germany, specifically to Berchtesgaden, which was home to Adolf Hitler's famous Eagle's Nest. Following Berchtesgaden, the company moved into Austria for further occupation duty. The company mostly attended to various patrols, awaiting the end of the war.


text: E Company and the rest of the 506th PIR was disbanded in November 1945, and reactivated in 1954 as a training unit. Under the Combat Arms Regimental System and U.S. Army Regimental System. Currently Easy Company's lineage and history is carried on as Alpha "Easy" Company, 2-506 Infantry, in Third Brigade Combat Team, "Rakkasan" in the 101st Airborne Division.


text: 140 men formed the original E Company in Camp Toccoa, Georgia. 366 men are listed as having belonged to the company by the war's end, due to transfers and replacements. 49 men of E Company were killed in action.


title: Walnut

text: A walnut is the edible seed of a drupe of any tree of the genus "Juglans" (family Juglandaceae), particularly the Persian or English walnut, "Juglans regia".


title: Walnut

text: Although culinarily considered a "nut" and used as such, it is not a true botanical nut. After full ripening, the shell is discarded and the kernel is eaten. Nuts of the eastern black walnut ("Juglans nigra") and butternuts ("Juglans cinerea") are less commonly consumed.


title: Walnut

text: Walnuts are rounded, single-seeded stone fruits of the walnut tree commonly used for food after fully ripening between September and November, in which the removal of the husk at this stage reveals a browning wrinkly walnut shell, which is usually commercially found in two segments (three or four-segment shells can also form). During the ripening process, the husk will become brittle and the shell hard. The shell encloses the kernel or meat, which is usually made up of two halves separated by a membranous partition. The seed kernels – commonly available as shelled walnuts – are enclosed in a brown seed coat which contains antioxidants. The antioxidants protect the oil-rich seed from atmospheric oxygen, thereby preventing rancidity.


title: Walnut

text: Walnut trees are late to grow leaves, typically not leafing out until more than halfway through the spring. They emit chemicals into the soil to prevent competing vegetation from growing. Because of this, susceptible plants should not be planted close to them.


title: Walnut

text: During the Byzantine era, the walnut was also known by the name "royal nut". An article on walnut tree cultivation in Spain is included in Ibn al-'Awwam's 12th-century "Book on Agriculture". The walnut was originally known as the "Welsh nut", i.e. it came through France and/or Italy to Germanic speakers (German , Dutch or , Danish , Swedish ). In Polish translates to "Italian nuts" ( being the adjectival form of ("Italy")).


title: Walnut

text: The two most common major species of walnuts are grown for their seeds – the Persian or English walnut and the black walnut. The English walnut ("J. regia") originated in Iran (Persia), and the black walnut ("J. nigra") is native to eastern North America. The black walnut is of high flavor, but due to its hard shell and poor hulling characteristics it is not commercially cultivated in orchards.


title: Walnut

text: Numerous walnut cultivars have been developed commercially, which are nearly all hybrids of the English walnut.


title: Walnut

text: Other species include "J. californica", the California black walnut (often used as a rootstock for commercial propagation of "J. regia"), "J. cinerea" (butternuts), and "J. major", the Arizona walnut. Other sources list "J. californica californica" as native to southern California, and "Juglans californica hindsii", or just "J. hindsii", as native to northern California; in at least one case, these are given as "geographic variants" instead of subspecies (Botanica).


title: Walnut

text: In 2020, world production of walnuts (in shell) was 3.3 million tonnes, with China contributing 33% of the total (table). Other major producers (in the order of decreasing harvest) were the United States, Iran, and Turkey.


title: Walnut

text: Walnuts, like other tree nuts, must be processed and stored properly. Poor storage makes walnuts susceptible to insect and fungal mold infestations; the latter produces aflatoxin – a potent carcinogen. A batch which contains mold-infested walnuts should be entirely discarded.


title: Walnut

text: The ideal temperature for the extended storage of walnuts is with low humidity for industrial and home storage. However, such refrigeration technologies are unavailable in developing countries where walnuts are produced in large quantities; there, walnuts are best stored below with low humidity. Temperatures above , and humidities above 70 percent can lead to rapid and high spoilage losses. Above 75 percent humidity threshold, fungal molds that release dangerous aflatoxin can form.


title: Walnut

text: Walnut meats are available in two forms: in their shells or de-shelled. The meats may be whole, halved, or in smaller portions due to processing. All walnuts can be eaten on their own (raw, toasted or pickled), or as part of a mix such as muesli, or as an ingredient of a dish: e.g. walnut soup, walnut pie, walnut coffee cake, banana cake, brownie, fudge. Walnuts are often candied or pickled. Pickled walnuts that are the whole fruit can be savory or sweet depending on the preserving solution.


title: Walnut

text: Walnuts may be used as an ingredient in other foodstuffs. Walnut is an important ingredient in baklava, Circassian chicken, chicken in walnut sauce, and poultry or meat ball stew from Iranian cuisine.


title: Walnut

text: Walnuts are also popular as an ice cream topping, and walnut pieces are used as a garnish on some foods.


title: Walnut

text: Walnut oil is available commercially and is chiefly used as a food ingredient particularly in salad dressings. It has a low smoke point, which limits its use for frying.


title: Walnut

text: Walnuts without shells are 4% water, 15% protein, 65% fat, and 14% carbohydrates, including 7% dietary fiber (table). In a 100-gram reference serving, walnuts provide and rich content (20% or more of the Daily Value or DV) of several dietary minerals, particularly manganese at 163% DV, and B vitamins (table).


title: Walnut

text: While English walnuts are the most commonly consumed, their nutrient density and profile are generally similar to those of black walnuts.


title: Walnut

text: Unlike most nuts, which are high in monounsaturated fatty acids, walnut oil is composed largely of polyunsaturated fatty acids (72% of total fats), particularly alpha-linolenic acid (14%) and linoleic acid (58%), although it does contain oleic acid as 13% of total fats.


title: Walnut

text: In 2016, the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) provided a "Qualified Health Claim" allowing products containing walnuts to state: "Supportive but not conclusive research shows that eating per day of walnuts, as part of a low saturated fat and low cholesterol diet and not resulting in increased caloric intake, may reduce the risk of coronary heart disease." The FDA had, in 2004, refused to authorize the claim that "Diets including walnuts can reduce the risk of heart disease" and had sent an FDA Warning Letter to Diamond Foods in 2010 stating there is "not sufficient evidence to identify a biologically active substance in walnuts that reduces the risk of coronary heart disease." A recent systematic review assessing the effect of walnut supplementation on blood pressure (BP) found insufficient evidence to support walnut consumption as a BP-lowering strategy.


title: Walnut

text: Juice from boiled walnuts can be used as an antifungal agent. Green husks can be crushed and sprinkled into water to poison fish.


title: Walnut

text: Walnuts have been listed as one of the 38 substances used to prepare Bach flower remedies, a herbal remedy promoted in folk medicine practices for its supposed effect on health. According to Cancer Research UK, "there is no scientific evidence to prove that flower remedies can control, cure or prevent any type of disease, including cancer".


title: Walnut

text: Walnut husks can be used to make a durable ink for writing and drawing. It is thought to have been used by artists including Leonardo da Vinci and Rembrandt.


title: Walnut

text: Walnut husk pigments are used as a brown dye for fabric and were used in classical Rome and medieval Europe for dyeing hair.


title: Walnut

text: The fine, straight-grained wood of the black walnut is highly valued as furniture wood, wall paneling, automobile interiors, and for gunstocks.


title: Walnut

text: The United States Army once used ground walnut shells for abrasive blasting to clean aviation parts because of low cost and low abrasive qualities. However, an investigation of a fatal Boeing CH-47 Chinook helicopter crash (September 11, 1982, in Mannheim, Germany) revealed that walnut shell grit had clogged an oil port, leading to the accident and the discontinuation of walnut shells as a cleaning agent. Commercially, crushed walnut shells are still used outside of aviation for low-abrasive, less-toxic cleaning and blasting applications.


title: Walnut

text: Walnut hulls contain diverse phytochemicals, such as polyphenols that stain hands and can cause skin irritation. Seven phenolic compounds, including ferulic acid, vanillic acid, coumaric acid, syringic acid, myricetin, and juglone were identified in walnut husks. Juglone, the predominant phenolic, was found in concentrations of 2-4% fresh weight.


title: Walnut

text: Walnuts also contain the ellagitannin pedunculagin. Regiolone has been isolated with juglone, betulinic acid and sitosterol from the stem bark of "J. regia".


title: Walnut

text: Large, symmetrically shaped, and sometimes intricately carved walnut shells (mainly from "J. hopeiensis" ) are valued collectibles in China where they are rotated in the hand as a plaything or as decoration. They are also an investment and status symbol, with some carvings having high monetary value if unique. Pairs of walnuts are sometimes sold in their green husks for a form of gambling known as "du qing pi".


title: Ptolemaic dynasty

text: The Ptolemaic dynasty (; , "Ptolemaioi"), sometimes referred to as the Lagid dynasty (Λαγίδαι, "Lagidae;" after Ptolemy I's father, Lagus), was a Macedonian Greek royal dynasty which ruled the Ptolemaic Kingdom in Ancient Egypt during the Hellenistic period. Their rule lasted for 275 years, from 305 to 30 BC. The Ptolemaic was the last dynasty of ancient Egypt.


title: Ptolemaic dynasty

text: Ptolemy, one of the seven somatophylakes (bodyguard companions), a general and possible half-brother of Alexander the Great, was appointed satrap of Egypt after Alexander's death in 323 BC. In 305 BC, he declared himself Pharaoh Ptolemy I, later known as "Sōter" "Saviour". The Egyptians soon accepted the Ptolemies as the successors to the pharaohs of independent Egypt. Ptolemy's family ruled Egypt until the Roman conquest of 30 BC.


title: Ptolemaic dynasty

text: Like the earlier dynasties of ancient Egypt, the Ptolemaic dynasty practiced inbreeding including sibling marriage, but this did not start in earnest until nearly a century into the dynasty's history. All the male rulers of the dynasty took the name Ptolemy, while queens regnant were all called Cleopatra, Arsinoe or Berenice. The most famous member of the line was the last queen, Cleopatra VII, known for her role in the Roman political battles between Julius Caesar and Pompey, and later between Octavian and Mark Antony. Her apparent suicide at the conquest by Rome marked the end of Ptolemaic rule in Egypt.


title: Ptolemaic dynasty

text: Dates in brackets represent the regnal dates of the Ptolemaic pharaohs. They frequently ruled jointly with their wives, who were often also their sisters, aunts or cousins. Several queens exercised regal authority. Of these, one of the last and most famous was Cleopatra ("Cleopatra VII Philopator", 51–30 BC), with her two brothers and her son serving as successive nominal co-rulers. Several systems exist for numbering the later rulers; the one used here is the one most widely employed by modern scholars.


title: Ptolemaic dynasty

text: Continuing the tradition established by previous Egyptian dynasties, the Ptolemies engaged in inbreeding including sibling marriage, with many of the pharaohs being married to their siblings and often co-ruling with them. Ptolemy I and other early rulers of the dynasty were not married to their relatives, the childless marriage of siblings Ptolemy II and Arsinoe II being an exception. The first child-producing incestuous marriage in the Ptolemaic dynasty was that of Ptolemy IV and Arsinoe III, who were succeeded as co-pharaohs by their son Ptolemy V, born 210 BC. The most well-known Ptolemaic pharaoh, Cleopatra VII, was at different times married to and ruled with two of her brothers (Ptolemy XIII until 47 BC and then Ptolemy XIV until 44 BC), and their parents were likely siblings or possibly cousins as well.


title: Ptolemaic dynasty

text: Contemporaries describe a number of the Ptolemaic dynasty members as extremely obese, whilst sculptures and coins reveal prominent eyes and swollen necks. Familial Graves' disease could explain the swollen necks and eye prominence (exophthalmos), although this is unlikely to occur in the presence of morbid obesity. This is all likely due to inbreeding depression. In view of the familial nature of these findings, members of the Ptolemaic dynasty likely suffered from a multi-organ fibrotic condition such as Erdheim–Chester disease or a familial multifocal fibrosclerosis where thyroiditis, obesity and ocular proptosis may have all occurred concurrently.


title: Ricin

text: Ricin ( ) is a lectin (a carbohydrate-binding protein) and a highly potent toxin produced in the seeds of the castor oil plant, "Ricinus communis". The median lethal dose (LD) of ricin for mice is around 22 micrograms per kilogram of body weight via intraperitoneal injection. Oral exposure to ricin is far less toxic. An estimated lethal oral dose in humans is approximately 1 milligram per kilogram of body weight.


title: Ricin

text: Ricin is classified as a type 2 ribosome-inactivating protein (RIP). Whereas type 1 RIPs are composed of a single protein chain that possesses catalytic activity, type 2 RIPs, also known as holotoxins, are composed of two different protein chains that form a heterodimeric complex. Type 2 RIPs consist of an A chain that is functionally equivalent to a type 1 RIP, covalently connected by a single disulfide bond to a B chain that is catalytically inactive, but serves to mediate transport of the A-B protein complex from the cell surface, via vesicle carriers, to the lumen of the endoplasmic reticulum (ER). Both type 1 and type 2 RIPs are functionally active against ribosomes "in vitro"; however, only type 2 RIPs display cytotoxicity due to the lectin-like properties of the B chain. To display its ribosome-inactivating function, the ricin disulfide bond must be reductively cleaved.


title: Ricin

text: Ricin is synthesized in the endosperm of castor oil plant seeds. The ricin precursor protein is 576 amino acid residues in length and contains a signal peptide (residues 1–35), the ricin A chain (36–302), a linker peptide (303–314), and the ricin B chain (315–576). The N-terminal signal sequence delivers the prepropolypeptide to the endoplasmic reticulum (ER) and then the signal peptide is cleaved off. Within the lumen of the ER the propolypeptide is glycosylated and a protein disulfide isomerase catalyzes disulfide bond formation between cysteines 294 and 318. The propolypeptide is further glycosylated within the Golgi apparatus and transported to protein storage bodies. The propolypeptide is cleaved within protein bodies by an endopeptidase to produce the mature ricin protein that is composed of a 267 residue A chain and a 262 residue B chain that are covalently linked by a single disulfide bond.


title: Ricin

text: In terms of structure, ricin closely resembles abrin-a, an isotoxin of abrin. The quaternary structure of ricin is a globular, glycosylated heterodimer of approximately 60–65 kDa. Ricin toxin A chain and ricin toxin B chain are of similar molecular weights, approximately 32 kDa and 34 kDa, respectively.


title: Ricin

text: While other plants contain the protein chains found in ricin, both protein chains must be present to produce toxic effects. For example, plants that contain only protein chain A, such as barley, are not toxic because without the link to protein chain B, protein chain A cannot enter the cell and do damage to ribosomes.


title: Ricin

text: Ricin B chain binds complex carbohydrates on the surface of eukaryotic cells containing either terminal N-acetylgalactosamine or beta-1,4-linked galactose residues. In addition, the mannose-type glycans of ricin are able to bind to cells that express mannose receptors. RTB has been shown to bind to the cell surface on the order of 10–10 ricin molecules per cell surface.


title: Ricin

text: The profuse binding of ricin to surface membranes allows internalization with all types of membrane invaginations. The holotoxin can be taken up by clathrin-coated pits, as well as by clathrin-independent pathways including caveolae and macropinocytosis. Intracellular vesicles shuttle ricin to endosomes that are delivered to the Golgi apparatus. The active acidification of endosomes is thought to have little effect on the functional properties of ricin. Because ricin is stable over a wide pH range, degradation in endosomes or lysosomes offers little or no protection against ricin. Ricin molecules are thought to follow retrograde transport via early endosomes, the trans-Golgi network, and the Golgi to enter the lumen of the endoplasmic reticulum (ER).


title: Ricin

text: For ricin to function cytotoxically, RTA must be reductively cleaved from RTB to release a steric block of the RTA active site. This process is catalysed by the protein PDI (protein disulphide isomerase) that resides in the lumen of the ER. Free RTA in the ER lumen then partially unfolds and partially buries into the ER membrane, where it is thought to mimic a misfolded membrane-associated protein. Roles for the ER chaperones GRP94, EDEM and BiP have been proposed prior to the 'dislocation' of RTA from the ER lumen to the cytosol in a manner that uses components of the endoplasmic reticulum-associated protein degradation (ERAD) pathway. ERAD normally removes misfolded ER proteins to the cytosol for their destruction by cytosolic proteasomes. Dislocation of RTA requires ER membrane-integral E3 ubiquitin ligase complexes, but RTA avoids the ubiquitination that usually occurs with ERAD substrates because of its low content of lysine residues, which are the usual attachment sites for ubiquitin. Thus, RTA avoids the usual fate of dislocated proteins (destruction that is mediated by targeting ubiquitinylated proteins to the cytosolic proteasomes). In the mammalian cell cytosol, RTA then undergoes triage by the cytosolic molecular chaperones Hsc70 and Hsp90 and their co-chaperones, as well as by one subunit (RPT5) of the proteasome itself, that results in its folding to a catalytic conformation, which de-purinates ribosomes, thus halting protein synthesis.


title: Ricin

text: RTA has rRNA N-glycosylase activity that is responsible for the cleavage of a glycosidic bond within the large rRNA of the 60S subunit of eukaryotic ribosomes. RTA specifically and irreversibly hydrolyses the N-glycosidic bond of the adenine residue at position 4324 (A4324) within the 28S rRNA, but leaves the phosphodiester backbone of the RNA intact. The ricin targets A4324 that is contained in a highly conserved sequence of 12 nucleotides universally found in eukaryotic ribosomes. The sequence, 5'-AGUACGAGAGGA-3', termed the sarcin-ricin loop, is important in binding elongation factors during protein synthesis. The depurination event rapidly and completely inactivates the ribosome, resulting in toxicity from inhibited protein synthesis. A single RTA molecule in the cytosol is capable of depurinating approximately 1500 ribosomes per minute.


title: Ricin

text: Within the active site of RTA, there exist several invariant amino acid residues involved in the depurination of ribosomal RNA. Although the exact mechanism of the event is unknown, key amino acid residues identified include tyrosine at positions 80 and 123, glutamic acid at position 177, and arginine at position 180. In particular, Arg180 and Glu177 have been shown to be involved in the catalytic mechanism, and not substrate binding, with enzyme kinetic studies involving RTA mutants. The model proposed by Mozingo and Robertus, based on X-ray structures, is as follows:


title: Ricin

text: Ricin is very toxic if inhaled, injected, or ingested. It can also be toxic if dust contacts the eyes or if it is absorbed through damaged skin. It acts as a toxin by inhibiting protein synthesis. It prevents cells from assembling various amino acids into proteins according to the messages it receives from messenger RNA in a process conducted by the cell's ribosome (the protein-making machinery) – that is, the most basic level of cell metabolism, essential to all living cells and thus to life itself. Ricin is resistant, but not impervious, to digestion by peptidases. By ingestion, the pathology of ricin is largely restricted to the gastrointestinal tract, where it may cause mucosal injuries. With appropriate treatment, most patients will make a good recovery.


title: Ricin

text: Because the symptoms are caused by failure to make protein, they may take anywhere from hours to days to appear, depending on the route of exposure and the dose. When ingested, gastrointestinal symptoms can manifest within six hours; these symptoms do not always become apparent. Within two to five days of exposure to ricin, its effects on the central nervous system, adrenal glands, kidneys, and liver appear.


title: Ricin

text: Ingestion of ricin causes pain, inflammation, and hemorrhage in the mucosal membranes of the gastrointestinal system. Gastrointestinal symptoms quickly progress to severe nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, and difficulty swallowing (dysphagia). Haemorrhage causes bloody feces (melena) and vomiting blood (hematemesis). The low blood volume (hypovolemia) caused by gastrointestinal fluid loss can lead to organ failure in the pancreas, kidney, liver, and GI tract and progress to shock. Shock and organ failure are indicated by disorientation, stupor, weakness, drowsiness, excessive thirst (polydipsia), low urine production (oliguria), and bloody urine (hematuria).


title: Ricin

text: Symptoms of ricin inhalation are different from those caused by ingestion. Early symptoms include a cough and fever.


title: Ricin

text: When skin or inhalation exposure occur, ricin can cause an allergy to develop. This is indicated by swelling (edema) of the eyes and lips; asthma; bronchial irritation; dry, sore throat; congestion; skin redness (erythema); skin blisters (vesication); wheezing; itchy, watery eyes; chest tightness; and skin irritation.


title: Ricin

text: An antidote has been developed by the UK military, although as of 2006 it has not yet been tested on humans. As of 2005 another antidote developed by the US military has been shown to be safe and effective in lab mice injected with antibody-rich blood mixed with ricin, and has had some human testing.


title: Ricin

text: Symptomatic and supportive treatments are available for ricin poisoning. Existing treatments emphasize minimizing the effects of the poison. Possible treatments include intravenous fluids or electrolytes, airway management, assisted ventilation, or giving medications to remedy seizures and low blood pressure. If the ricin has been ingested recently, the stomach can be flushed by ingesting activated charcoal or by performing gastric lavage. Survivors often develop long-term organ damage. Ricin causes severe diarrhea and vomiting, and victims can die of circulatory shock or organ failure; inhaled ricin can cause fatal pulmonary edema or respiratory failure. Death typically occurs within 3–5 days of exposure.


title: Ricin

text: Vaccination is possible by injecting an inactive form of protein chain A. This vaccination is effective for several months due to the body's production of antibodies to the foreign protein. In 1978 Bulgarian defector Vladimir Kostov survived a ricin attack similar to the one on Georgi Markov, probably due to his body's production of antibodies. When a ricin-laced pellet was removed from the small of his back it was found that some of the original wax coating was still attached. For this reason only small amounts of ricin had leaked out of the pellet, producing some symptoms but allowing his body to develop immunity to further poisoning.


title: Ricin

text: The seeds of "Ricinus communis" are commonly crushed to extract castor oil. As ricin is not oil-soluble, little is found in the extracted castor oil. The extracted oil is also heated to more than to denature any ricin that may be present. The remaining spent crushed seeds, called variously the "cake", "oil cake", and "press cake", can contain up to 5% ricin. While the oil cake from coconut, peanuts, and sometimes cotton seeds can be used as cattle feed or fertilizer, the toxic nature of castor beans precludes their oil cake from being used as feed unless the ricin is first deactivated by autoclaving. Accidental ingestion of "Ricinus communis" cake intended for fertilizer has been reported to be responsible for fatal ricin poisoning in animals.


title: Ricin

text: Deaths from ingesting castor plant seeds are rare, partly because of their indigestible seed coat, and because some of the ricin is deactivated in the stomach. The pulp from eight beans is considered dangerous to an adult. Rauber and Heard have written that close examination of early 20th century case reports indicates that public and professional perceptions of ricin toxicity "do not accurately reflect the capabilities of modern medical management".


title: Ricin

text: Most acute poisoning episodes in humans are the result of oral ingestion of castor beans, 5–20 of which could prove fatal to an adult. Swallowing castor beans rarely proves to be fatal unless the bean is thoroughly chewed. The survival rate of castor bean ingestion is 98%. In 2013 a 37-year-old woman in the United States survived after ingesting 30 beans. Victims often manifest nausea, diarrhea, fast heart rate, low blood pressure, and seizures persisting for up to a week. Blood, plasma, or urine ricin or ricinine concentrations may be measured to confirm diagnosis. The laboratory testing usually involves immunoassay or liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry.


title: Ricin

text: Although no approved therapeutics are currently based on ricin, it does have the potential to be used in the treatment of tumors, as a "magic bullet" to destroy targeted cells. Because ricin is a protein, it can be linked to a monoclonal antibody to target cancerous cells recognized by the antibody. The major problem with ricin is that its native internalization sequences are distributed throughout the protein. If any of these native internalization sequences are present in a therapeutic agent, the drug will be internalized by, and kill, untargeted non-tumorous cells as well as targeted cancerous cells.


title: Ricin

text: Modifying ricin may sufficiently lessen the likelihood that the ricin component of these immunotoxins will cause the wrong cells to internalize it, while still retaining its cell-killing activity when it is internalized by the targeted cells. However, bacterial toxins, such as diphtheria toxin, which is used in denileukin diftitox, an FDA-approved treatment for leukemia and lymphoma, have proven to be more practical. A promising approach for ricin is to use the non-toxic B subunit (a lectin) as a vehicle for delivering antigens into cells, thus greatly increasing their immunogenicity. Use of ricin as an adjuvant has potential implications for developing mucosal vaccines.


title: Ricin

text: In the US, ricin appears on the select agents list of the Department of Health and Human Services, and scientists must register with HHS to use ricin in their research. However, investigators possessing less than 1000 mg (1 g) are exempt from regulation.


title: Ricin

text: Ricin is classified as an extremely hazardous substance in the United States as defined in Section 302 of the US Emergency Planning and Community Right-to-Know Act (42 U.S.C. 11002), and is subject to strict reporting requirements by facilities that produce, store, or use it in significant quantities.


title: Ricin

text: The United States investigated ricin for its military potential during World War I. At that time it was being considered for use either as a toxic dust or as a coating for bullets and shrapnel. The dust cloud concept could not be adequately developed, and the coated bullet/shrapnel concept would violate the Hague Convention of 1899 (adopted in U.S. law at 32 Stat. 1903), specifically Annex §2, Ch.1, Article 23, stating "... it is especially prohibited ... [t]o employ poison or poisoned arms". World War I ended before the United States weaponized ricin.


title: Ricin

text: During World War II the United States and Canada undertook studying ricin in cluster bombs. Though there were plans for mass production and several field trials with different bomblet concepts, the end conclusion was that it was no more economical than using phosgene. This conclusion was based on comparison of the final weapons, rather than ricin's toxicity (LCt ~10 mg/min·m). Ricin was given the military symbol W or later WA. Interest in it continued for a short period after World War II, but soon subsided when the US Army Chemical Corps began a program to weaponize sarin.


title: Ricin

text: The Soviet Union also possessed weaponized ricin. The KGB developed weapons using ricin which were used outside the Soviet bloc, most famously in the Markov assassination.


title: Ricin

text: In spite of ricin's extreme toxicity and utility as an agent of chemical/biological warfare, production of the toxin is difficult to limit. The castor bean plant from which ricin is derived is a common ornamental and can be grown at home without any special care.


title: Ricin

text: Under both the 1972 Biological Weapons Convention and the 1997 Chemical Weapons Convention, ricin is listed as a schedule 1 controlled substance. Despite this, more than of castor beans are processed each year, and approximately 5% of the total is rendered into a waste containing negligible concentrations of undenatured ricin toxin.<ref name="http://www.ansci.cornell.edu/plants/toxicagents/ricin.html"></ref>


title: Ricin

text: Ricin is several orders of magnitude less toxic than botulinum or tetanus toxin, but the latter are harder to come by. Compared to botulinum or anthrax as biological weapons or chemical weapons, the quantity of ricin required to achieve LD over a large geographic area is significantly more than an agent such as anthrax (tons of ricin vs. only kilogram quantities of anthrax). Ricin is easy to produce, but is not as practical or likely to cause as many casualties as other agents. Ricin is easily denatured by temperatures over meaning many methods of deploying ricin would generate enough heat to denature it. Once deployed, an area contaminated with ricin remains dangerous until the bonds between chain A or B have been broken, a process that takes two or three days. In contrast, anthrax spores may remain lethal for decades. Jan van Aken, a German expert on biological weapons, explained in a report for The Sunshine Project that Al Qaeda's experiments with ricin suggest their inability to produce botulinum or anthrax.


title: Ricin

text: A biopharmaceutical company called Soligenix, Inc. licensed an anti-ricin vaccine called RiVax from Vitetta et al. at UT Southwestern. The vaccine was found safe and immunogenic in mice, rabbits, and humans. Two successful clinical trials were completed. Soligenix was issued a US patent for Rivax. The ricin vaccine candidate was granted orphan drug status in the US and the EEC and, as of 2019, was in clinical trials in the US. Grants from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and the US Food and Drug Administration supported development of the vaccine candidate.


title: Ricin

text: The first isolation of ricin is attributed to the Baltic-German microbiologist Peter Hermann Stillmark (1860–1923) in 1888.


title: Ricin

text: Ricin has been involved in a number of incidents. In 1978, the Bulgarian dissident Georgi Markov was assassinated by Bulgarian secret police who surreptitiously shot him on a London street with a modified umbrella using compressed gas to fire a tiny pellet contaminated with ricin into his leg. He died in a hospital a few days later and his body was passed to a special poison branch of the British Ministry of Defence that discovered the pellet during an autopsy. The prime suspects were the Bulgarian secret police: Georgi Markov had defected from Bulgaria some years previously and had subsequently written books and made radio broadcasts that were highly critical of the Bulgarian communist regime. However, it was believed at the time that Bulgaria would not have been able to produce the pellet, and it was also believed that the KGB had supplied it. The KGB denied any involvement, although high-profile KGB defectors Oleg Kalugin and Oleg Gordievsky have since confirmed the KGB's involvement. Earlier, Soviet dissident Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn also had (but survived) ricin-like symptoms after an encounter in 1971 with KGB agents.


title: Ricin

text: Ten days before the attack on Georgi Markov another Bulgarian defector, Vladimir Kostov, survived a similar attack. Kostov was standing on an escalator of the Paris metro when he felt a sting in his lower back above the belt of his trousers. He developed a fever, but recovered. After Markov's death the wound on Kostov's back was examined and a ricin-laced pellet identical to the one used against Markov was removed.


title: Ricin

text: Several terrorists and terrorist groups have experimented with ricin and caused several incidents of the poisons being mailed to US politicians. For example, on 29 May 2013 two anonymous letters sent to New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg contained traces of it. Another was sent to the offices of Mayors Against Illegal Guns in Washington, D.C. A letter containing ricin was also alleged to have been sent to American President Barack Obama at the same time. An actress, Shannon Richardson, was later charged with the crime, to which she pleaded guilty that December. On 16 July 2014, Richardson was sentenced to 18 years in prison plus a restitution fine of $367,000. On 2 October 2018, two letters suspected of containing ricin were sent to The Pentagon; one addressed to Secretary of Defense James Mattis, and the other to Chief of Naval Operations, Admiral John Richardson. A letter was received on 23 July 2019 at Pelican Bay State Prison in California which claimed to contain a suspicious substance. Authorities later confirmed it contained ricin; no detrimental exposures were identified.


title: Ricin

text: In 2020, some media in the Czech Republic reported (based on intelligence information) that a person carrying a Russian diplomatic passport and ricin had arrived in Prague with an intention to assassinate three politicians, however Vladimir Putin, the president of Russia, called it fake. The targets would have been: first, Zdeněk Hřib, the mayor of Prague (capital of the Czech Republic), who was involved in renaming a square in Prague, "Pod Kaštany", where the Russian embassy is situated, to the Square of Boris Nemtsov, an opposition politician assassinated in the Kremlin in 2015. Second, Ondřej Kolář, the mayor of Prague 6 municipal district, who was involved in removing the controversial statue to the Soviet-era Marshal Konev. Third, Pavel Novotný, the mayor of Prague's southwestern Řeporyje district. All of these three politicians had received police protection. Later, the Czech president Miloš Zeman claimed that the police protection of Zdeněk Hřib is a publicity stunt. Zeman also confused ricin with castor oil and claimed that ricin is a non-poisonous laxative.


title: Ricin

text: The popularity of "Breaking Bad" inspired several real-life criminal cases involving ricin or similar substances. Kuntal Patel from London attempted to poison her mother with abrin after the latter interfered with her marriage plans. Daniel Milzman, a 19-year-old former Georgetown University student, was charged with manufacturing ricin in his dorm room, as well as the intent of "[using] the ricin on another undergraduate student with whom he had a relationship". Mohammed Ali from Liverpool, England, was convicted after attempting to purchase 500 mg of ricin over the dark web from an undercover FBI agent. He was sentenced, on 18 September 2015, to eight years imprisonment.


title: Ricin

text: In the 2013 movie "The Good Mother", antagonist Cheryl Jordan injects her daughters with ricin and puts ricin in their food in order to poison them in a case of Munchausen by proxy. She is eventually caught after one daughter dies.


title: Concubinage

text: Concubinage is an interpersonal and sexual relationship between a man and a woman in which the couple does not want, or cannot enter into a full marriage. Concubinage and marriage are often regarded as similar but mutually exclusive.


title: Concubinage

text: Concubinage was a formal and institutionalized practice in China until the 20th century that upheld concubines' rights and obligations. A concubine could be freeborn or of slave origin, and their experience could vary tremendously according to their masters' whim. During the Mongol conquests, both foreign royals and captured women were taken as concubines. Concubinage was also common in Meiji Japan as a status symbol, and in Indian society, where the intermingling of castes and religions was frowned upon and a taboo, and concubinage could be practiced with women with whom marriage was considered undesirable, such as those from a lower caste and Muslim women who wouldn't be accepted in a Hindu household and Hindu women who wouldn't be accepted in a Muslim household.


title: Concubinage

text: Many Middle Eastern societies utilized concubinage for reproduction. The practice of a barren wife giving her husband a slave as a concubine is recorded in the Code of Hammurabi and the Bible, where Abraham takes Hagar as "pilegesh". The children of such relationships would be regarded as legitimate. Such concubinage was also widely practiced in the pre-modern Muslim world, and many of the rulers of the Abbasid caliphate and the Ottoman Empire were born out of such relationships. Throughout Africa, from Egypt to South Africa, slave concubinage resulted in racially-mixed populations. The practice declined as a result of the abolition of slavery.


title: Concubinage

text: In ancient Rome, the practice was formalized as "concubinatus", the Latin term from which the English "concubine" is derived. Romans practiced it monogamously and the concubine's children did not receive inheritance. The Christian Church tried to stamp out concubinage, but it remained widespread in Christian societies until the early modern period. In European colonies and American slave plantations, single and married men entered into long-term sexual relationships with local women. In the Dutch East Indies, concubinage created mixed-race Indo-European communities.


title: Concubinage

text: In the Judeo-Christian world, the term concubine has almost exclusively been applied to women, although a cohabiting male may also be called a concubine. In the 21st century, concubinage is used in some Western countries as a gender neutral legal term to refer to cohabitation (including cohabitation between same-sex partners).


title: Concubinage

text: The English terms "concubine" and "concubinage" appeared in the 14th century, deriving from Latin terms in Roman society and law. The term concubine (c. 1300), meaning "a paramour, a woman who cohabits with a man without being married to him", comes from the Latin (f.) and (m.), terms that in Roman law meant "one who lives unmarried with a married man or woman". The Latin terms are derived from the verb from "to lie with, to lie together, to cohabit," an assimilation of ""com"", a prefix meaning "with, together" and "", meaning "to lie down". Concubine is a term used widely in historical and academic literature, and which varies considerably depending on the context. In the twenty-first century, it typically refers explicitly to extramarital affection, "either to a mistress or to a sex slave", without the same emphasis on the cohabiting aspect of the original meaning.


title: Concubinage

text: Concubinage emerged as an English term in the late 14th century to mean the "state of being a concubine; act or practice of cohabiting in intimacy without legal marriage", and was derived from Latin by means of Old French, where the term may in turn have been derived from the Latin , an institution in ancient Rome that meant "a permanent cohabitation between persons to whose marriage there were no legal obstacles". It has also been described more plainly as a long-term sexual relationship between a man and a woman who are not legally married. In pre-modern to modern law, concubinage has been used in certain jurisdictions to describe cohabitation, and in France, was formalized in 1999 as the French equivalent of a civil union. The US legal system also used to use the term in reference to cohabitation, but the term never evolved further and is now considered outdated.


title: Concubinage

text: Forms of concubinage have existed in all cultures, though the prevalence of the practice and the rights and expectations of the persons involved have varied considerably, as have the rights of the offspring born from such relationships, a concubine's legal and social status, their role within a household and society's perceptions of the institution. A relationship of concubinage could take place voluntarily, with the parties involved agreeing not to enter into marriage, or involuntarily (i.e. through slavery). In slave-owning societies, most concubines were slaves, also called "slave-concubines". This institutionalization of concubinage with female slaves dates back to Babylonian times, and has been practiced in patriarchal cultures throughout history. Whatever the status and rights of the persons involved, they were typically inferior to those of a legitimate spouse, often with the rights of inheritance being limited or excluded.


title: Concubinage

text: Concubinage and marriage are often regarded as similar but mutually exclusive. In the past, a couple may not have been able to marry because of differences in social class, ethnicity or religion, or a man might want to avoid the legal and financial complications of marriage. Practical impediments or social disincentives for a couple to marry could include differences in social rank status, an existing marriage and laws against bigamy, religious or professional prohibitions, or a lack of recognition by the appropriate authorities.


title: Concubinage

text: The concubine in a concubinage tended to have a lower social status than the married party or home owner, and this was often the reason why concubinage was preferred to marriage. A concubine could be an "alien" in a society that did not recognize marriages between foreigners and citizens. Alternatively, they might be a slave, or person from a poor family interested in a union with a man from the nobility.


title: Concubinage

text: In other cases, some social groups were forbidden to marry, such as Roman soldiers, and concubinage served as a viable alternative to marriage.


title: Concubinage

text: In polygynous situations, the number of concubines there were permitted within an individual concubinage arrangement has varied greatly. In Roman Law, where monogamy was expected, the relationship was identical (and alternative) to marriage except for the lack of "marital affection" from both or one of the parties, which conferred rights related to property, inheritance and social rank. By contrast, in parts of Asia and the Middle East, powerful men kept as many concubines as they could financially support. Some royal households had thousands of concubines. In such cases concubinage served as a status symbol and for the production of sons. In societies that accepted polygyny, there were advantages to having a concubine over a mistress, as children from a concubine were legitimate, while children from a mistress would be considered "bastards".


title: Concubinage

text: In Mesopotamia, it was customary for a sterile wife to give her husband a slave as a concubine to bear children. The status of such concubines was ambiguous; they normally could not be sold but they remained the slave of the wife. However, in the late Babylonian period, there are reports that concubines could be sold.


title: Concubinage

text: In general, marriage was monogamous. "If after two or three years of marriage the wife had not given birth to any children, the husband was allowed to buy a slave (who could also be chosen by the wife) in order to produce heirs. This woman, however, remained a slave and never gained the status of a second wife."


title: Concubinage

text: In the Middle Assyrian Period, the main wife ("assatu") wore a veil in the street, as could a concubine ("esirtu") if she were accompanying the main wife, or if she were married. "If a man veils his concubine in public, by declaring 'she is my wife,' this woman shall be his wife." It was illegal for unmarried women, prostitutes and slave women to wear a veil in the street. "The children of a concubine were lower in rank than the descendants of a wife, but they could inherit if the marriage of the latter remained childless."


title: Concubinage

text: While most Ancient Egyptians were monogamous, a male pharaoh would have had other, lesser wives and concubines in addition to the Great Royal Wife. This arrangement would allow the pharaoh to enter into diplomatic marriages with the daughters of allies, as was the custom of ancient kings. Concubinage was a common occupation for women in ancient Egypt, especially for talented women. A request for forty concubines by Amenhotep III (c. 1386–1353 BC) to a man named Milkilu, Prince of Gezer states:"Behold, I have sent you Hanya, the commissioner of the archers, with merchandise in order to have beautiful concubines, i.e. weavers. Silver, gold, garments, all sort of precious stones, chairs of ebony, as well as all good things, worth 160 deben. In total: forty concubines—the price of every concubine is forty of silver. Therefore, send very beautiful concubines without blemish." — "(Lewis, 146)"Concubines would be kept in the pharaoh's harem. Amenhotep III kept his concubines in his palace at Malkata, which was one of the most opulent in the history of Egypt. The king was considered to be deserving of many women as long as he cared for his Great Royal Wife as well.


title: Concubinage

text: In Ancient Greece the practice of keeping a concubine ( "pallakís") was common among the upper classes, and they were for the most part women who were slaves or foreigners, but occasional free born based on family arrangements (typically from poor families). Children produced by slaves remained slaves and those by non-slave concubines varied over time; sometimes they had the possibility of citizenship. The law prescribed that a man could kill another man caught attempting a relationship with his concubine. By the mid fourth century concubines could inherit property, but, like wives, they were treated as sexual property. While references to the sexual exploitation of maidservants appear in literature, it was considered disgraceful for a man to keep such women under the same roof as his wife. Apollodorus of Acharnae said that "hetaera" were concubines when they had a permanent relationship with a single man, but nonetheless used the two terms interchangeably.


title: Concubinage

text: A "concubinatus" (Latin for "concubinage" – see also "concubina", "concubine", considered milder than "paelex", and "concubinus", "bridegroom") was an institution of quasi-marriage between Roman citizens who for various reasons did not want to enter into a full marriage. The institution was often found in unbalanced couples, where one of the members belonged to a higher social class or where one of the two was freed and the other one was freeborn. However it differed from a "contubernium", where at least one of the partners was a slave.


title: Concubinage

text: The relationship between a free citizen and a slave or between slaves was known as "contubernium". The term describes a wide range of situations, from simple sexual slavery to quasi-marriage. For instance, according to Suetonius, Caenis, a slave and secretary of Antonia Minor, was Vespasian's wife "in all but name", until her death in AD 74. It was also not uncommon for slaves to create family-like unions, allowed but not protected by the law. The law allowed a slave-owner to free the slave and enter into a "concubinatus" or a regular marriage.


title: Concubinage

text: Concubinage was highly popular before the early 20th century all over East Asia. The main functions of concubinage for men was for pleasure and producing additional heirs, whereas for women the relationship could provide financial security. Children of concubines had lower rights in account to inheritance, which was regulated by the Dishu system.


title: Concubinage

text: In places like China and the Muslim world, the concubine of a king could achieve power, especially if her son also became a monarch.


title: Concubinage

text: In China, successful men often had concubines until the practice was outlawed when the Chinese Communist Party came to power in 1949. The standard Chinese term translated as "concubine" was "qiè" , a term that has been used since ancient times. Concubinage resembled marriage in that concubines were recognized sexual partners of a man and were expected to bear children for him. Unofficial concubines () were of lower status, and their children were considered illegitimate. The English term concubine is also used for what the Chinese refer to as "pínfēi" (), or "consorts of emperors", an official position often carrying a very high rank.


title: Concubinage

text: In premodern China it was illegal and socially disreputable for a man to have more than one wife at a time, but it was acceptable to have concubines. From the earliest times wealthy men purchased concubines and added them to their household in addition to their wife. The purchase of concubine was similar to the purchase of a slave, yet concubines had a higher social status.


title: Concubinage

text: In the earliest records a man could have as many concubines as he could afford to purchase. From the Eastern Han period (AD 25–220) onward, the number of concubines a man could have was limited by law. The higher rank and the more noble identity a man possessed, the more concubines he was permitted to have. A concubine's treatment and situation was variable and was influenced by the social status of the male to whom she was attached, as well as the attitude of his wife. In the "Book of Rites" chapter on "The Pattern of the Family" () it says, "If there were betrothal rites, she became a wife; and if she went without these, a concubine." Wives brought a dowry to a relationship, but concubines did not. A concubinage relationship could be entered into without the ceremonies used in marriages, and neither remarriage nor a return to her natal home in widowhood were allowed to a concubine. There are early records of concubines allegedly being buried alive with their masters to "keep them company in the afterlife".


title: Concubinage

text: The position of the concubine was generally inferior to that of the wife. Although a concubine could produce heirs, her children would be inferior in social status to a wife's children, although they were of higher status than illegitimate children. The child of a concubine had to show filial duty to two women, their biological mother and their legal mother—the wife of their father. After the death of a concubine, her sons would make an offering to her, but these offerings were not continued by the concubine's grandsons, who only made offerings to their grandfather's wife.


title: Concubinage

text: Until the Song dynasty (960–1276), it was considered a serious breach of social ethics to promote a concubine to a wife. During the Qing dynasty (1644–1911), the status of concubines improved. It became permissible to promote a concubine to wife, if the original wife had died and the concubine was the mother of the only surviving sons. Moreover, the prohibition against forcing a widow to remarry was extended to widowed concubines. During this period tablets for concubine-mothers seem to have been more commonly placed in family ancestral altars, and genealogies of some lineages listed concubine-mothers. Many of the concubines of the emperor of the Qing dynasty were freeborn women from prominent families. Concubines of men of lower social status could be either freeborn or slave.


title: Concubinage

text: Imperial concubines, kept by emperors in the Forbidden City, had different ranks and were traditionally guarded by eunuchs to ensure that they could not be impregnated by anyone but the emperor. In Ming China (1368–1644) there was an official system to select concubines for the emperor. The age of the candidates ranged mainly from 14 to 16. Virtues, behavior, character, appearance and body condition were the selection criteria.


title: Concubinage

text: Despite the limitations imposed on Chinese concubines, there are several examples in history and literature of concubines who achieved great power and influence. Lady Yehenara, otherwise known as Empress Dowager Cixi, was one of the most successful concubines in Chinese history. Cixi first entered the court as a concubine to Xianfeng Emperor and gave birth to his only surviving son, who later became Tongzhi Emperor. She eventually became the "de facto" ruler of Qing China for 47 years after her husband's death.


title: Concubinage

text: An examination of concubinage features in one of the Four Great Classical Novels, "Dream of the Red Chamber" (believed to be a semi-autobiographical account of author Cao Xueqin's family life). Three generations of the Jia family are supported by one notable concubine of the emperor, Jia Yuanchun, the full elder sister of the male protagonist Jia Baoyu. In contrast, their younger half-siblings by concubine Zhao, Jia Tanchun and Jia Huan, develop distorted personalities because they are the children of a concubine.


title: Concubinage

text: Emperors' concubines and harems are emphasized in 21st-century romantic novels written for female readers and set in ancient times. As a plot element, the children of concubines are depicted with a status much inferior to that in actual history. The zhai dou (，residential intrigue) and gong dou (，harem intrigue) genres show concubines and wives, as well as their children, scheming secretly to gain power. Empresses in the Palace, a "gong dou" type novel and TV drama, has had great success in 21st-century China.


title: Concubinage

text: Hong Kong officially abolished the Great Qing Legal Code in 1971, thereby making concubinage illegal. Casino magnate Stanley Ho of Macau took his "second wife" as his official concubine in 1957, while his "third and fourth wives" retain no official status.


title: Concubinage

text: Polygyny and concubinage were very common in Mongol society, especially for powerful Mongol men. Genghis Khan, Ögedei Khan, Jochi, Tolui, and Kublai Khan (among others) all had many wives and concubines.


title: Concubinage

text: Genghis Khan frequently acquired wives and concubines from empires and societies that he had conquered, these women were often princesses or queens that were taken captive or gifted to him. Genghis Khan's most famous concubine was Möge Khatun, who, according to the Persian historian Ata-Malik Juvayni, was "given to Chinggis Khan by a chief of the Bakrin tribe, and he loved her very much." After Genghis Khan died, Möge Khatun became a wife of Ögedei Khan. Ögedei also favored her as a wife, and she frequently accompanied him on his hunting expeditions.


title: Concubinage

text: Before monogamy was legally imposed in the Meiji period, concubinage was common among the nobility. Its purpose was to ensure male heirs. For example, the son of an Imperial concubine often had a chance of becoming emperor. Yanagihara Naruko, a high-ranking concubine of Emperor Meiji, gave birth to Emperor Taishō, who was later legally adopted by Empress Haruko, Emperor Meiji's formal wife. Even among merchant families, concubinage was occasionally used to ensure heirs. Asako Hirooka, an entrepreneur who was the daughter of a concubine, worked hard to help her husband's family survive after the Meiji Restoration. She lost her fertility giving birth to her only daughter, Kameko; so her husband—with whom she got along well—took Asako's maid-servant as a concubine and fathered three daughters and a son with her. Kameko, as the child of the formal wife, married a noble man and matrilineally carried on the family name.