title: Puget Sound

text: After 1818 Britain and the United States, which both claimed the Oregon Country, agreed to "joint occupancy", deferring resolution of the Oregon boundary dispute until the 1846 Oregon Treaty. Puget Sound was part of the disputed region until 1846, after which it became US territory.


title: Puget Sound

text: The first European settlement in the Puget Sound area was Fort Nisqually, a fur trade post of the Hudson's Bay Company (HBC) built in 1833. Fort Nisqually was part of the HBC's Columbia District, headquartered at Fort Vancouver. In 1838, the HBC's subsidy operation, the Puget Sound Agricultural Company was established in part to procure resources and trade, as well as to further establish British claim to the region. British ships such as the "Beaver", exported foodstuffs and provisions from Fort Nisqually, and would eventually export Puget Sound lumber, an industry that would soon outpace the dominant fur trading market and drive the early Puget Sound economy.


title: Puget Sound

text: The first temporary American settlement was at Fort Nisqually, where missionaries J.P Richmond and W.H Wilson settled for two years in 1840. The first organized American Expedition took place under the helm of Commander Charles Wilkes, whose exploring party sailed up Puget Sound in 1841. However, the first permanent American settlement on Puget Sound was Tumwater, founded in 1845 by Americans who had come via the Oregon Trail. The decision to settle north of the Columbia River was made in part because one of the settlers, George Washington Bush, was considered black and the Provisional Government of Oregon banned the residency of mulattoes but did not actively enforce the restriction north of the river.


title: Puget Sound

text: In 1853 Washington Territory was formed from part of Oregon Territory. In 1888 the Northern Pacific railroad line reached Puget Sound, linking the region to eastern states. Washington State was admitted to the union in 1889 as part of the enabling act, and the regions borders have since remained unchanged.


title: Puget Sound

text: A unique state-run ferry system, the Washington State Ferries, connects the larger islands to the Washington mainland, as well as both sides of the sound, with vessels capable of carrying passengers and automobile traffic. The system carries 24 million passengers annually and is the largest ferry operator in the United States.


title: Puget Sound

text: Over the past 30 years, as the human population of the region has increased, there has been a correlating decrease in various plant and animal species which inhabit Puget Sound. The decline has been seen in numerous populations including forage fish, salmonids, bottom fish, marine birds, harbor porpoise, and orcas. The decline is attributed to a variety of issues, including human population growth, pollution, and climate change. Because of this population decline, there have been changes to the fishery practices, and an increase in petitioning to add species to the Endangered Species Act. There has also been an increase in recovery and management plans for many different area species.


title: Puget Sound

text: The causes of these environmental issues are toxic contamination, eutrophication (low oxygen due to excess nutrients), and near shore habitat changes.


title: Puget Sound

text: On May 22, 1978, a valve was mistakenly opened aboard the submarine USS "Puffer" releasing up to 500 US gallons (1,900 L; 420 imp gal) of radioactive water into Puget Sound, during an overhaul in drydock at Bremerton Naval Shipyard.


title: The Shack (2017 film)

text: The Shack is a 2017 American Christian drama film directed by Stuart Hazeldine and written by John Fusco, Andrew Lanham and Destin Daniel Cretton, based on the 2007 novel of the same name by William P. Young. The film stars Sam Worthington, Octavia Spencer, Graham Greene, Radha Mitchell, Alice Braga, Sumire Matsubara, Aviv Alush, and Tim McGraw.


title: The Shack (2017 film)

text: Filming began on June 8, 2015, in Vancouver, British Columbia. The film was released in the United States on March 3, 2017, and grossed over $96 million worldwide.


title: The Shack (2017 film)

text: Mackenzie "Mack" Phillips suffered physical and emotional abuse as a child at the hands of his drunken father, who abused his mother as well. One day, Mack tells the preacher at his church of his abuse, and as punishment, his father harshly beats him, leading to Mack's mother's decision to leave them. As a 13-year-old boy he chose to poison his father with strychnine in his whiskey.


title: The Shack (2017 film)

text: As an adult he has a fulfilling life with his wife, Nan, and their three children: Kate, Josh and Missy. Mack's life is shattered when their youngest child Missy disappears during a camping trip while he is saving Kate and Josh during a canoeing accident. The police determine Missy is the victim of a serial killer after finding her torn dress and blood in a derelict cabin in the forest (the titular "shack"). Kate blames herself for Missy's death because she caused the canoe accident in the first place.


title: The Shack (2017 film)

text: The tragedy derails Mack's faith and life until the onset of winter when he receives an unstamped, typewritten note inviting him to meet at the shack. The message is signed "Papa" (which was Missy's nickname for God). Thinking this may possibly be an opportunity for meeting and punishing the serial killer, Mack takes his gun, borrows his friend's SUV, and drives there, narrowly avoiding a collision with a truck on the way. Finding the shack empty, an enraged Mack is tempted to shoot himself; before he can, he encounters a mysterious figure, who leads him to the trio of strangers who invite him to stay at their house nearby.


title: The Shack (2017 film)

text: The trio of strangers gradually reveal their identities: the African-American woman is God (Papa), the Middle-Eastern man is Jesus, and the Asian woman is the Holy Spirit. The purpose of their visit is to help Mack better understand his life as seen from a much broader context or higher perspective, the goal being to help free him from an inclination to pass judgment upon himself and others, and to help heal himself and his family after Missy's death.


title: The Shack (2017 film)

text: Mack helps Jesus build a wooden box and helps the Holy Spirit prepare a spot in her garden for a planting. Papa—in the form of an elderly Native American man—leads him to the cave where Missy's body is located. Together they prepare her body for burial, place her in the box, and lay her to rest in the garden. Mack briefly sees Missy in Heaven, but is unable to be with her; Jesus steps through the boundary separating them to visit her. Mack also visits another cave where God's wisdom, in the form of a woman named Sophia, talks to him. Eventually, the trio and Mack encounter the spirit of Mack's father, who apologizes for his mistreatment of Mack and he reluctantly forgives him. Mack also apologizes to his father, whom he killed, and finally understands that Missy's death was not punishment for his murder of his father.


title: The Shack (2017 film)

text: Finally able to move beyond his grief and his faith restored, he leaves the trio and sets out to return home to his family. However, he encounters the truck from before and collides with it, waking up in a hospital. The friend from whom he borrowed the SUV tells him he never reached the shack, having crashed on the way there. Later on, Mack tells Nan about what he saw on his journey and convinces Kate that whatever happened on the canoe wasn't her fault. The film ends with Mack attending church again with his family, as the audience is left to decide whether the events that happened at the shack were real.


title: The Shack (2017 film)

text: The camping scenes were filmed at Sunnyside campground in Cultus Lake, British Columbia, while the waterfall was filmed at Multnomah Falls, the Oregon site referenced in the source novel.


title: The Shack (2017 film)

text: "The Shack" grossed $57.4 million in the United States and Canada and $39.6 million in other territories for a worldwide gross of $96.9 million.


title: The Shack (2017 film)

text: In North America, "The Shack" opened on March 3, 2017, alongside "Before I Fall" and "Logan", and was projected to gross around $10 million from 2,888 theaters in its opening weekend. It made $850,000 from Thursday night previews and $5.5 million on its first day. It went on to open to $16.1 million, finishing above expectations and third at the box office behind "Logan" and "Get Out". It dropped 38% in its second weekend, grossing $10 million and finishing 4th.


title: The Shack (2017 film)

text: On Rotten Tomatoes, the film has an approval rating of 21% based on 72 reviews, with an average rating of 3.9/10. The site's critical consensus reads, ""The Shack" undeniably worthy message is ill-served by a script that confuses spiritual uplift with melodramatic clichés and heavy-handed sermonizing." On Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 32 out of 100, based on 18 critics, indicating "generally unfavorable reviews". Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "A" on an A+ to F scale, while PostTrak reported filmgoers gave an 85% overall positive score and a 70% "definite recommend".


title: The Shack (2017 film)

text: Peter Sobczynski of RogerEbert.com gave the film 1.5 stars out of 4, saying it is "both too innocuous and too off-putting for its own good". Adam Graham of "The Detroit News" said it "feels like an overly long church sermon". "The A.V. Club" said, "Most of its running time is taken with mollifying conversations between Mack and the movie's New Age-meets-Bible Belt oversimplifications of the Holy Trinity. It fits right into a long tradition of quasi-mystical pseudo-parables."


title: The Shack (2017 film)

text: Owen Glieberman from "Variety" said the following about the film: The Shack' has a real chance to connect commercially, because even though its drama is mushy, at heart it's a bit of a theme-park ride: the movie in which you get to know what it's like to hang out with God and make friends with Jesus. In life, religion isn't nearly so reassuring. It's daunting, and our culture is starved for films that portray religious feeling in a way that's both reverent and truthful. 'The Shack' isn't one of them; it reduces faith to a kind of spiritual comfort food. But thanks, in part, to movies like this one, maybe that's what faith is on its way to becoming."


title: The Shack (2017 film)

text: Conservative or religious film critics were more positive towards the film. Kathy Schiffer of the "National Catholic Register" wrote that "I watched "The Shack" not once, but twice. It was inspiring, beautifully portrayed, and thought-provoking. The love and humor and the sheer joy of the Trinity, bantering over the dinner table in the Shack, was heart-warming, and it made fresh my awareness of God's love for me." Beliefnet's Wesley Baines felt the film was successful because it resonated with the desires of its modern audience.


title: The Shack (2017 film)

text: Despite the positive response from conservative critics, the film attracted the same sort of controversy for unorthodox theology that the book did. Theologian Albert Mohler said the film's depiction of God the Father, Jesus Christ, and the Holy Spirit is "profoundly unbiblical". John Mulderig of Catholic News Service said the film was "an intriguing endeavor" but had many problematic elements. Catholic Bishop Robert Barron said about the book "There's a lot of sweet stuff – but you do have to spit out a few seeds." New Testament scholar James B. DeYoung said the film promotes universalism, which he characterized as heresy.


title: The Shack (2017 film)

text: The accompanying soundtrack for the film features contributions from popular artists primarily in the genres of country music and contemporary Christian music. It was released February 24, 2017 through Atlantic Records.


title: The Shack (2017 film)

text: A new duet between Tim McGraw and Faith Hill was written and recorded for the film titled "Keep Your Eyes On Me" which is featured in the trailer. It was released digitally on January 27, 2017 as the soundtrack's first promotional single. This release was followed by Dan + Shay's promotional track, "When I Pray for You", on February 3, 2017. Christian rock band Skillet released an acoustic version of "Stars" from their album, "Unleashed", in a music video for the film.


title: Dexys Midnight Runners

text: Dexys Midnight Runners (currently officially Dexys, their former nickname, styled without an apostrophe) are an English pop rock band from Birmingham, with soul influences, who achieved major commercial success in the early to mid-1980s. They are best known in the UK for their songs "Come On Eileen" and "Geno", both of which peaked at No. 1 on the UK Singles Chart, as well as six other top-20 singles. "Come On Eileen" also topped the US "Billboard" Hot 100, and with extensive airplay on MTV they are associated with the Second British Invasion.


title: Dexys Midnight Runners

text: During the late 1970s and early 1980s, Dexys went through numerous personnel changes over the course of three albums and 13 singles, with only singer/songwriter/co-founder Kevin Rowland remaining in the band through all of the transitions and only Rowland and "Big" Jim Paterson (trombone) appearing on all of the albums. By 1985, the band consisted only of Rowland and long-standing members Helen O'Hara (violin) and Billy Adams (guitar). The band broke up in 1987, with Rowland becoming a solo artist. After two failed restart attempts, Dexys was reformed by Rowland in 2003 with new members, as well as a few returning members from the band's original lineup (known as Dexys Mark I). Dexys released their fourth album in 2012 and a fifth followed in 2016.


title: Dexys Midnight Runners

text: Dexys Midnight Runners were founded in 1978 in Birmingham, England, by Kevin Rowland (vocals, guitar, at the time using the pseudonym Carlo Rolan) and Kevin "Al" Archer (vocals, guitar). Both had been in the short-lived punk band the Killjoys. Rowland had previously written a Northern soul-style song that the two of them sang, "Tell Me When My Light Turns Green", which became the first Dexys "song". The band's name was derived from Dexedrine, a brand of dextroamphetamine used as a recreational drug among Northern soul fans to give them energy to dance all night. While recruiting members for the new band, Rowland noted that "Anyone joining Dexys had to give up their job and rehearse all day long ... We had nothing to lose and felt that what we were doing was everything." "Big" Jim Paterson (trombone), Geoff "JB" Blythe (saxophone, previously of Geno Washington's Ram Jam Band), Steve "Babyface" Spooner (alto saxophone), Pete Saunders (keyboard), Pete Williams (bass) and John Jay (drums) formed the first lineup of the band, which began playing live at the end of 1978.


title: Dexys Midnight Runners

text: By the middle of 1979, Bobby "Jnr" Ward had replaced Jay on drums. Clash manager Bernard Rhodes then signed them and sent them into the studio to record a Rowland-penned single, "Burn It Down", which Rhodes renamed "Dance Stance". In response to Rhodes' criticism of Rowland's singing style, Rowland developed a "more emotional" sound influenced by General Norman Johnson of the Holland–Dozier–Holland band Chairmen of the Board and the theatricality of Bryan Ferry.


title: Dexys Midnight Runners

text: After a series of dates opening for the Specials, who wore suits on stage, Rowland decided that his band needed its own distinct look. Borrowing from an outfit that Paterson had worn to rehearsals, Dexys subsequently dressed in donkey jackets or leather coats and woolly hats, a look described as "straight out of De Niro's "Mean Streets"". In January 1980, Rowland said of the band's sound and look, "we didn't want to become part of anyone else's movement. We'd rather be our own movement". Image became very important to the group: Rowland said, "We wanted to be a group that looked like something ... a formed group, a project, not just random."


title: Dexys Midnight Runners

text: "Dance Stance", which Rhodes produced, was released on Oddball Records, which Rhodes owned, and which was distributed by EMI. Although it was named "single of the week" by "Sounds", it stalled at number 40 in the British charts, which EMI and Rowland believed was due to Rhodes' poor production. Rowland said, "We learned that early on, that the wrong producer can totally screw your record up." As a result, Dexys fired Rhodes and signed with EMI, and EMI immediately put Pete Wingfield in charge of their production. Saunders and Ward left the band, replaced by Andy Leek (keyboards) and Andy "Stoker" Growcott (drums).


title: Dexys Midnight Runners

text: Building on the unexpected success of "Dance Stance" (aka "Burn It Down"), Dexys' next single, "Geno" – about Geno Washington – became a British Number One in 1980. It featured the band's "Late Night Feelings" imprint on the single, which became a trademark of the band's records on EMI. Rowland wrote about Washington as he had seen one of his performances aged 11 with his brother. The success of the song prompted Washington to make a return to live performance, but it also prompted the departure of Leek, who said he didn't want to be famous. Pete Saunders returned to the band temporarily, replacing Leek, to record their debut album.


title: Dexys Midnight Runners

text: Dexys' debut LP, "Searching for the Young Soul Rebels", which featured "Geno", was released in July 1980. The label of the album also included the band's "Late Night Feelings" imprint, and the album's sleeve featured a photograph of a Belfast Catholic boy carrying his belongings after moving from his home during the Troubles; the Irish-descended Rowland explained that "I wanted a picture of unrest. It could have been from anywhere but I was secretly glad that it was from Ireland." Of the album's title, Rowland said "I don't know ... I just liked the sound of it, really." Of the songs on the album, only two ("Geno" and "There, There, My Dear") were written by Rowland (lyrics) and Archer (music) together; producer Pete Wingfield hadn't liked Rowland's lyrics on their third co-composition ("Keep It") and had instead turned those lyrics into a separate song ("Love Part One"); Blythe wrote new lyrics for the version of "Keep It" on the album. The same month, Rowland imposed a press embargo on the band; instead, Dexys would take out ads in the music papers explaining the band's position on various issues. This was a response to some less than complimentary opinions from some music press writers; for example, the "NME's" Mark Cordery accused the band of "emotional fascism" and described their music as a perversion of soul music with "no tenderness, no sex, no wit, no laughter".


title: Dexys Midnight Runners

text: After the album, Saunders was replaced by Mick Talbot (ex-The Merton Parkas) on keyboards. "There, There, My Dear" became the band's second top-10 single. However, after a couple of months of touring, Rowland insisted on writing new lyrics to Archer's music for "Keep It" for release as the band's next single, despite EMI's objections. The single, called "Keep It Part Two (Inferiority Part One)", was a failure, and five of the band members then quit, angered over continual personality problems with Rowland, as well as Rowland's policy of not speaking to the music press. Archer and Paterson both remained with Rowland at first, but then Archer also decided to leave, which reduced Dexys to just Rowland and Paterson, whom Rowland referred to as "the Celtic soul brothers" (in reference to Paterson's Scottish background and Rowland's Irish background).


title: Dexys Midnight Runners

text: Archer (and Leek) eventually formed The Blue Ox Babes, while the other departing members—Blythe, Spooner, Williams, "Stoker", and Talbot—formed The Bureau, which Wingfield continued to produce.


title: Dexys Midnight Runners

text: Rowland and Paterson first chose to write several new songs, so that Dexys could move forward from the split. They then brought in an old friend of theirs, Kevin "Billy" Adams (guitar/banjo), along with Seb Shelton (drums, formerly of Secret Affair), Mickey Billingham (keyboard), Brian Maurice Brummitt (who dropped his last name for his stage name "Brian Maurice", alto saxophone), Paul Speare (tenor saxophone) and Steve Wynne (bass). This new lineup also adopted a new look that included hooded tops, boxing boots, and pony tails. Along with the new image, Rowland brought in a fitness regime, which included working out together and running as a group, Rowland commenting "The togetherness of running along together just gets ... that fighting spirit going". The group would also take part in group exercise sessions before performances, and drinking before shows was strictly forbidden.


title: Dexys Midnight Runners

text: By the time the new band's first single "Plan B", produced by Alan Shacklock instead of Wingfield, was released in March 1981, the band's management had discovered that EMI had failed to pick up a mandatory contract option, so Dexys were technically no longer under contract. They asked, without success, that EMI not release the single; without promotion, the single flopped. Later in March 1981, an ad appeared in which Rowland stated that the previous members of the band had "hatched a plot to throw Kevin out and still carry on under the same name". It also cited Rowland's suggestion that "they might learn new instruments" as a reason for their displeasure. The ad announced that Dexys had been working on a new live venture, "The Midnight Runners Projected Passion Revue".


title: Dexys Midnight Runners

text: In April, Dexys prevailed to win their release from EMI, although without the financial support of a label, they were unable to mount the spring tour that had planned and had to settle for playing only five dates, including one recorded by BBC Radio 1. In June they signed to Mercury Records, where Dexys remained until their 1987 breakup. Dexys' first single for Mercury, "Show Me", produced by Tony Visconti, was released in July 1981 and reached No. 16 in the UK. The label switch was followed by a session for Richard Skinner's BBC Radio 1 show in which the band previewed tracks that would be reworked later on "Too-Rye-Ay". Wynne was sacked by the group at this point, to be replaced by Mick Gallick (whom Rowland gave the stage name "Giorgio Kilkenny") on bass. Music journalist Paolo Hewitt commented about this version of Dexys: "Dexys wouldn't make a record unless they thought it was great. And they wouldn't play a gig unless they thought they were gonna be great."


title: Dexys Midnight Runners

text: Around this time, Archer played Rowland demos of Archer's new group, The Blue Ox Babes, which featured, in Rowland's words, "a Tamla-style beat with violins". The violins had been played by a Birmingham School of Music classical violin student named Helen Bevington. Rowland's first idea was to get the horn players to also play strings, as he had discussed in the March interview (with Speare on viola, which he already played, and string novices Paterson and Maurice on cello), and the horn players (with session musician support) contributed strings to the third single with the new lineup, "Liars A to E", produced by Neil Kernon, which was released in October 1981. In November, the group played a three-night stand at The Old Vic in London, with the horn section again doubling on strings. The Old Vic shows attracted unexpectedly rave reviews in the press, although these concerts were not recorded. Rowland said of these shows, "Those three nights at the Old Vic were all I wanted to say in '81."


title: Dexys Midnight Runners

text: Dexys' 1981 recordings, including all three singles (both A-sides and B-sides) as well as the tracks from the two BBC Radio 1 appearances, were released by Dexys on CD in 2007 as "The Projected Passion Revue".


title: Dexys Midnight Runners

text: As Dexys prepared to record their first album for Mercury, Rowland decided that he needed more proficient string players to achieve the sound he envisioned. He sent Speare to invite Bevington to join Dexys, which she agreed to do, and Rowland gave her the Irish-sounding stage name of Helen O'Hara. Rowland also asked her to recruit two other violinists; she brought fellow students Steve Shaw and Roger Huckle, whom Rowland renamed as Steve Brennan and Roger MacDuff, and Rowland named the violin section "The Emerald Express". However, the need to rearrange all the songs for both strings and horns left the brass section of Paterson and Maurice (and to a lesser extent Speare) feeling that their role in the band had diminished. Thus, just prior to the recording sessions, Paterson and Maurice quit. Rowland was able to persuade them to remain in Dexys long enough to record the next album . Shortly thereafter, Speare also joined their planned departure.


title: Dexys Midnight Runners

text: This fractured line-up recorded "Too-Rye-Ay" in early 1982 with producers Rowland, Clive Langer and Alan Winstanley. The album featured a hybrid of soul and Celtic folk, similar to Archer's new direction. All of the post-breakup singles and the "Projected Passion Revue" material were re-arranged and re-recorded with the new lineup. The new sound was accompanied by the band's third new look, with the band attired in dungarees, scarves, leather waistcoats, and what was described as "a generally scruffy right-off-the-farm look", or "a raggle-taggle mixture of gypsy, rural Irish and Steinbeck Okie". Rowland jokingly said of the new image: "These are my best clothes. Again it just feels right for the music. Everybody else is dressing up sort of straight-laced and pretty down-to-earth and we come in wearing these and it's like, y'know here we are, a bit of hoedowning is even possible".


title: Dexys Midnight Runners

text: The first single, "The Celtic Soul Brothers" (cowritten by Rowland and Paterson with Mickey Billingham), which was released before the album, only reached number 45 on the UK charts. After the failure of this single, O'Hara said that the band believed that they immediately needed a hit single to survive. To help create momentum, the band performed a live BBC Radio 1 concert in Newcastle on 6 June 1982, which was the last appearance of the horn section of Paterson, Maurice, and Speare with Dexys.


title: Dexys Midnight Runners

text: Released right after the live appearance, Dexys' follow-up single, "Come On Eileen" (cowritten by Rowland and Paterson with Billy Adams), became that much-needed hit – a Number One hit in the UK, which also became Dexys' first single released in the United States (and second in North America, after "Seven Days Too Long", which was only released in Canada) – where it peaked at #1 in April 1983 on the "Billboard" Hot 100 chart. The third UK single from the album, Van Morrison's "Jackie Wilson Said (I'm in Heaven When You Smile)", also reached the top 5 in the UK singles chart. The band sang this song on the UK comedy "The Young Ones". When the band performed this single on the BBC TV music show "Top of the Pops," instead of a picture of Jackie Wilson, the American soul singer, the band performed in front of a photo of Jocky Wilson, the Scottish darts player.


title: Dexys Midnight Runners

text: The horn section became known as the TKO Horns and continued working with "Too-Rye-Ay" producers Langer and Winstanley, just as The Bureau and The Blue Ox Babes had continued working with Pete Wingfield. To replace them, Dexys added saxophonist Nick Gatfield and used various session musicians, including Kevin Gilson (saxophone) and Mark Walters and Spike Edney (trombone). Soon thereafter, Billingham also left the band but continued to appear with Dexys on a session basis until the end of the year, when he joined General Public.


title: Dexys Midnight Runners

text: With Paterson and Billingham's departures, the core of Dexys became Rowland, Adams, and O'Hara. In September, touring behind the hit album, Dexys embarked on "The Bridge" tour. On 10 October 1982, the Dexys performance at the Shaftesbury Theatre in London was recorded by Steve Barron and then released on videodisk and videocassette (and later DVD) as an edited 9-song set also entitled "The Bridge".


title: Dexys Midnight Runners

text: Rowland, Adams and O'Hara jointly wrote the band's next single, "Let's Get This Straight (From the Start)" (with O'Hara also contributing piano on the recording along with Billingham). At the start of 1983, Robert "Bob" Noble replaced Billingham on keyboards and Kilkenny was replaced by John "Rhino" Edwards on bass. Dexys finally toured the U.S. in 1983, and continued to tour through that summer. However, the major success of "Too-Rye-Ay" became a problem for Rowland, who said in 1999 that "I was fairly comfortable being the outsider knocking on the door [but] once the door opened and I stepped inside, I was completely lost" and that he went into "complete self-destruct mode". Rowland and O'Hara also began a personal relationship during the U.S. tour; in Rowland's words, he was "obsessed with her but not enjoying the band".


title: Dexys Midnight Runners

text: Although Dexys began preparing material for a new album in late 1983, once the touring stopped, the band was reduced to a nucleus of Rowland, Adams, O'Hara and Gatfield. Rowland wanted to explore different songwriting, and Dexys Midnight Runners began recording more "introspective, mournful" music. Recording and mixing the new album took almost two years and spread across Switzerland, the U.K., and the U.S; at various times, Tom Dowd, Jimmy Miller, and John Porter were attached as producers. Some seasoned performers, ex-Dexys members, and session musicians made up the rest of the band, including Vincent Crane (ex-Atomic Rooster) on piano, Julian Littman on mandolin, Tim Dancy (who had been Al Green's drummer) on drums, Tommy Evans on steel guitar, and former Dexys members "Big" Jim Paterson on trombone, Robert Noble on organ and synthesizer, and John "Rhino" Edwards on bass. Near the end of these sessions, Rowland and O'Hara's personal relationship broke up, although they continued to work together.


title: Dexys Midnight Runners

text: In September 1985, Dexys released their first new album in three years, "Don't Stand Me Down". Production was originally credited to Alan Winstanley and Rowland, although reissues also credit Adams and O'Hara. The four remaining members were pictured on the album cover in the band's fourth look, an Ivy League, Brooks Brothers look, wearing ties and pin-striped suits (except for O'Hara, who wore a grey women's business suit), and with neatly combed hair. Rowland described Dexys' new look as "so clean and simple; it's a much more adult approach now".


title: Dexys Midnight Runners

text: In an interview with HitQuarters Gatfield later described the recording process as "very long and painful", and he left the group after a short tour of France and the UK. The album's most controversial feature was its use of conversational dialogue in the songs; Rowland said, "The idea of a conversation in a song is interesting to me." Commenting on this, O'Hara said that "we had to keep going ahead with what we believed" despite the length of time that the production took. Most contemporaneous reviewers strongly disliked this latest incarnation of Dexys, comparing the new look to "double glazing salesmen" and condemning the album as "a mess" and "truly awful". Only a few reviewers were supportive; for example, writing in the "Melody Maker", Colin Irwin described it as "quite the most challenging, absorbing, moving, uplifting and ultimately triumphant album of the year".


title: Dexys Midnight Runners

text: Rowland at first refused to issue any singles from the album, comparing Dexys to bands like Led Zeppelin that never released singles. By the time a 3-minute edit of the 12-minute "This Is What She's Like" was released, it was too late to save the album from commercial failure, and the "Coming to Town" tour that followed the album was played before "half-empty theaters". Rowland said, "I felt that we couldn't do anything better than ["Don't Stand Me Down"]. It took so much out of me, but the record company threw the towel in. I think they wanted to teach me a lesson." In the aftermath, Rowland started to have issues with drug abuse. However, Dexys returned to the U.K. charts in late 1986 with the single "Because Of You", again written by and featuring the nucleus of Rowland, O'Hara and Adams (and which was used as the theme tune to a British sitcom, "Brush Strokes"). Dexys disbanded in early 1987.


title: Dexys Midnight Runners

text: Rowland became a solo singer with the release of 1988's poorly received album, "The Wanderer". Rowland suffered from financial problems, drug addiction and depression. Rowland said: "I'd been too confident, too arrogant. I thought everyone would hear our new music and go: 'Wow.'" When he went to sign on for a jobseeker's allowance, another unemployed person recognised him and sang "Come On Eileen".


title: Dexys Midnight Runners

text: Dexys returned to the charts that year with the greatest-hits TV compilation "The Very Best of Dexys Midnight Runners", which featured a number of songs that had never been released on CD, reached #12 on the charts, and was certified "Gold". Consequently, Rowland "spent most of my time in rehab" in 1993 and 1994. As part of that, Rowland made plans to reform Dexys together with Big Jim Paterson and Billy Adams, although these plans resulted in little more than a solitary TV performance in 1993. Rowland then went on the dole; as he put it in 1999, "Insanity is no fun, mate. People try to romanticize the idea of the suffering artist. At my lowest ebbs there was no romance to it at all."


title: Dexys Midnight Runners

text: After more treatment, Rowland returned once more as a solo performer and signed to Creation Records, although, in his words, "every other record label advised [Creation] against it because I was trouble." In 1997, he released his first project on Creation: a remastered and reprocessed version of "Don't Stand Me Down" with extensive liner notes, revised credits and titles, and two extra songs, which helped contribute to a significant reversal of opinion with regard to the album, which was now increasingly being re-evaluated and recognized as an unfairly overlooked masterwork. Following this, in 1999 Rowland released a new solo album of interpretations of "classic" songs called "My Beauty", which received virtually no publicity or radio airplay and sold poorly but attracted attention for Rowland's cross-dressing cover attire. Rowland limited his pre-release publicity for the album to one interview, and he "auditioned" potential interviewers before selecting Jon Wilde. However, the negative reaction to "My Beauty" and the demise of Creation Records shortly after its release meant that Rowland's planned follow-up album, which would have featured Dexys performing new material, was never made. The failure caused Rowland more problems; in his own words from 2003, "Four years ago, I was nuts." Later, in March 2010, Rowland said that signing to Creation was "definitely a mistake".


title: Dexys Midnight Runners

text: While recording two new songs, "Manhood" and "My Life in England" (both credited to Rowland, Paterson, and David Ditchfield) for a forthcoming Dexys greatest hits album, Rowland recruited Welsh classical violist (and studio musician) Lucy J. Morgan to play on the sessions along with original Dexys members Pete Williams as co-vocalist and "MD" Mick Talbot on keyboards, plus Paul Taylor on trombone and Neil Hubbard on guitar. Following the sessions, Rowland offered Morgan a permanent place in the group, and she accepted. With her addition, Rowland announced the reformation of Dexys in April 2003; he told Williams that his goal for the reformed band was to be true to the memory of Dexys but to "take it somewhere else". The Dexys greatest hits album containing the new songs, "", was released on EMI in September 2003, followed by a successful tour 'to stop the burning' in October and November. The new songs on the album were touted as new singles, with Dexys even performing "Manhood" on "Top of the Pops". However, despite promotional single releases for each by EMI and airplay on national radio, neither was officially released as a commercial single. Instead, a live performance by this 2003 version of Dexys was released on DVD, entitled "It Was Like This – Live" (although some versions were packaged with a misleading picture of Rowland from the 1980s on the cover). "It Was Like This – Live" was reissued in 2012 on CD and DVD as "At the Royal Court, Liverpool".


title: Dexys Midnight Runners

text: In 2004, another Rowland-supervised reissue of the now-out-of-print "Don't Stand Me Down", subtitled "The Director's Cut", was issued on EMI with different remixing and remastering, an additional track ("Kevin Rowland's 13th Time"), and a different cover photograph showing the core trio (Rowland, Adams and O'Hara) walking in a park wearing "preppy" attire (instead of the previous business attire). In the liner notes, Rowland said that, after the remastering and track changes, the album "now sounds to me as it was intended to sound."


title: Dexys Midnight Runners

text: During a June 2005 interview on BBC Radio 2, Kevin Rowland announced that Dexys were "back in the studio" and seeking a record deal for a new album. A new track, "It's OK Johanna", appeared on the band's MySpace site in 2007, and in January 2008, Rowland told "Uncut" magazine further details about the album, saying in part: "I'm in the process of demo-ing the songs ... I don't know when it will be ready or who will play on the record. I want to get everything 100 percent right, and know that it's the best I can do and every note is there for a reason ... The only way I can be satisfied is to make the record I'm hearing in my head on my own terms." As Rowland repeatedly stated, "Dexys are not a revival band. They are going forward, not backward."


title: Dexys Midnight Runners

text: In 2011, with the band's name officially shortened to "Dexys", work on new material started again with Rowland, Pete Williams, Mick Talbot, Neil Hubbard, and Lucy Morgan, who had all been in Dexys since the 2003 reformation, plus Big Jim Paterson and new female vocalist Madeleine Hyland. Hyland was discovered at the last minute prior to recording, after what Rowland described as "about four years" of searching. Rowland stated that some of the songs Dexys were recording dated back "15 or 20 years." Dexys then announced that they would be embarking on another tour.


title: Dexys Midnight Runners

text: In February 2012, Rowland officially announced the imminent release of a fourth studio album for Dexys. The band also released a preview of "Now", the album's first track. The album, entitled "One Day I'm Going to Soar", was released by BMG on 4 June 2012. All but one song were co-written by Rowland and Talbot, usually with other co-writers such as Paterson or Glen Matlock; the album continued in the same style as "Don't Stand Me Down" (featuring spoken sections in the songs), which led the album to be described as "a concept album with an unreliable narrator".


title: Dexys Midnight Runners

text: The first single from the album was "She Got a Wiggle", released 28 May 2012. They performed the song on "Later... with Jools Holland" in May 2012. The group toured in September 2012 in the UK, performing their new album. Talbot left the group following this tour.


title: Dexys Midnight Runners

text: In 2013 the band announced that they would play nine shows in London's West End at the Duke of York's Theatre, St Martins Lane between 15 and 27 April. These shows would become the basis for a documentary on the group entitled "Nowhere Is Home", directed by Kieran Evans and Paul Kelly. "Nowhere Is Home" was issued in both triple-CD and double-DVD formats in October 2014 on Dexys' own label, Absolute Dexys. Dexys played more live dates in 2014; however, as Hyland was not available for several shows during the summer, Siobhan Fahey replaced her in the Dexys lineup. (Fahey's sister, actress Máire Fahey, had portrayed "Eileen" in the music video and picture sleeve for "Come On Eileen" in 1982.)


title: Dexys Midnight Runners

text: On St. Patrick's Day (Thursday, 17 March) 2016, Dexys announced the release of their fifth studio album, "", which was subsequently released on 100%/Warner Music on 3 June 2016. The album features interpretations of Irish folk standards plus songs written by contemporary musicians. The pre-release videos included on Dexys' Facebook page featured three band members: Rowland, Lucy Morgan, and Sean Read, whom Rowland described as the "nucleus" of the current version of Dexys. The album also includes guest violinist Helen O'Hara, recording with the band for the first time in 30 years. Rowland said that the idea for the album dated back to 1984–85, at which time the album would have been called "Irish" and featured only traditional Irish songs as interpreted by Dexys. O'Hara, in fact, had released such an album in 1998, entitled "A Night in Ireland", which includes three of the same songs. According to Rowland, "the brief [has] expanded from solely consisting of Irish songs, to songs I've always loved and wanted to record", such as "You Wear It Well", "To Love Somebody", and "Both Sides, Now".


title: Dexys Midnight Runners

text: Dexys made its only two live appearances of 2016 to support this release: one at a private reception at the Embassy of Ireland in London on 6 June and one at Rough Trade East in London on 3 June. They also performed two songs on the ITV program "Weekend" on 11 June. For these three performances, O'Hara temporarily rejoined Dexys in place of Morgan, who was unavailable.


title: Dexys Midnight Runners

text: In September 2021, Dexys announced both an upcoming 40th-anniversary remix of "Too-Rye-Ay", to be done by Rowland, O'Hara, and longtime Dexys engineer Pete Schwier and tentatively entitled "Too-Rye-Ay As It Could Have Sounded", and a September/October 2022 tour to support the reissue. The publicity photo for the tour, which would have played the album in its entirety along with other Dexys material, shows, from left to right, Read, Rowland, O'Hara, and Paterson. Rowland stated, "There is no way on earth I would be doing this tour or even promoting a normal 40th anniversary re-issue, if it wasn't for the opportunity to remix it and present it how it could have sounded. This is like a new album for me." The "Too-Rye-Ay" 40th anniversary tour was cancelled in March 2022 after Rowland was injured in a motorcycle accident and needed time to recover from this and other health issues. Although the tour would not move forward, the band promised material from the "Too-Rye-Ay As It Could Have Sounded" project would be performed the next time they tour.


title: Dexys Midnight Runners

text: In December 2022, 100% Records announced via Twitter that they had signed Dexys and that the band's sixth studio album, "The Feminine Divine", was scheduled for release in 2023.


title: Thong

text: The thong is a garment generally used as either underwear or in some countries, as a swimsuit. It may also be worn for traditional ceremonies or competitions.


title: Thong

text: Viewed from the front, the thong typically resembles a bikini bottom, but at the back the material is reduced to a minimum. Thongs are almost always designed to cover the genitals, anus and perineum and leave part or most of the buttocks uncovered. The back of the garment typically consists of a thin waistband and a thin strip of material, designed to be worn between the buttocks, that connects the middle of the waistband with the bottom front of the garment. It is also used as a descriptive term in other types of garment, such as a bodysuit, bodystocking, leotard or one-piece swimsuit, with the meaning "thong-backed".


title: Thong

text: One type of thong is the G-string, the back of which consists only of a (typically elasticized) string. The two terms "G-string" and "thong" are often used interchangeably; however, they can refer to distinct pieces of clothing. Thongs come in a variety of styles depending on the thickness, material or type of the rear portion of fabric and are used by both men and women throughout most of the world.


title: Thong

text: A tanga is a pair of briefs consisting of small panels connected by strings at the sides. There are tanga briefs both for men and for women. The style and the word come from Brazil.


title: Thong

text: The origin of the word "thong" in the English language is from Old English "þwong", a flexible leather cord.


title: Thong

text: Many languages borrow the English word "string" to refer to this type of underwear, usually without the "G". Another common name is "tanga" (or sometimes "string tanga"), especially in the German "Tanga". A frequent metaphor, especially in Brazil, is dental floss; in Brazil a thong is called "fio dental" (Portuguese for dental floss); in English, the term "Butt floss" is sometimes used. In Lithuanian it is "siaurikės" ("narrows"), in Italian "perizoma" or "tanga", in Turkish "ipli külot" ("stringed underpants"), and in Bulgarian as "prashka" (), which means a slingshot. In Israel the thong, mostly the G-string, is called "Khutini" (), from the word Khut, which means String. Similarly, in Iran, it is called "Shortbandi" () in which "short" (from English: shorts) means "briefs" and "bandi" means "with a string". A Puerto Rican Spanish slang term, used by Reggaeton artists, is "gistro".


title: Thong

text: Some names for the thong make reference to the bareness of the buttocks, such as the Spanish word "colaless". (The word's origin is probably connected to the English term "topless" but in reference to "cola", a colloquial word meaning "butt" in South American Spanish.) In some other languages the "T"-like shape of the back is emphasised. In Chinese, the thong is commonly called "dingziku" (丁字褲/丁字裤) which literally means "丁 character pants" (or roughly, "T-letter pants"). In Korean, it is called 티팬티 ("T panty"). The term "T-back" is sometimes used in English, as in the novel "T-Backs, T-Shirts, COAT, and Suit" by E. L. Konigsburg.


title: Thong

text: Colloquially, thongs and G-strings are often used interchangeably to describe skimpy underwear with minimal back coverage, although the main difference is usually attributed to the width of the strap in the rear. This is a definition reflected in the "Encyclopedia of Clothing and Fashion", which considers the G-string or thong to be a panty with half- to one-inch strip of fabric at the back that goes between the buttocks", using the terms interchangeably. Conversely, "Knickers: a Brief History" says: "Minor tweaks to the cut earned these skimpy panties different titles—from the thong, which has a one-inch strip of fabric down the back, to a G-string, which, as the name equivalent of Spanish suggests (hilo dental), is more like a string of fabric akin between the teeth."


title: Thong

text: Alternatively, some sources have attributed thongs to be a derivation of the G-string, as claimed by "Striptease: the Untold History of the Girlie Show". Similarly, the "Heinemann English Dictionary" describes "thong" as a very skimpy style of undergarment or swimsuit, similar to a G-string. A reverse description is used in "Americanisms: the Illustrated Book of Words Made in the USA", which calls the G-string as a type of thong invented in 1936 and attributed to strippers, that consists of a small triangular piece of fabric connected by two elastic straps.


title: Thong

text: The thong, like its probable predecessor the loincloth, is believed to be one of the earliest forms of human clothing and is also thought to have been worn mostly or exclusively by men. It is thought the thong was probably originally developed to protect, support, or hide the male genitals. The loincloth is probably the earliest form of clothing used by mankind, having originated in the warmer climates of sub-Saharan Africa where clothing was first worn nearly 75,000 years ago. Many tribal peoples, such as some of the Khoisan people of southern Africa, wore thongs for many centuries. Much like the Japanese fundoshi, these early garments were made with the male genitalia in mind.


title: Thong

text: According to some fashion historians, the first public appearance of the thong in the United States was at the 1939 New York World's Fair. This resulted from Fiorello LaGuardia, the Mayor of New York City, ordering the city's nude dancers to cover themselves. Jacques Heim's and Louis Réard's original bikini from 1946 (that introduced the term "bikini") had a culotte with a thong back. Fashion designer Rudi Gernreich, who in the mid-1960s created the first topless swimsuit, which he called the monokini, is credited with introducing the modern thong in 1974 when he designed a thong bikini in response to a ban on nude sunbathing by the Los Angeles City Council.


title: Thong

text: Attitudes toward the wearing of g-strings vary geographically and across societies, as is usual with highly revealing clothing. Prior to its entrance into mainstream fashion, g-strings were primarily worn by exotic dancers. In the modern Western world, g-strings are more commonly marketed towards females but are worn by both sexes. During the 1980s, thongs were worn on stage by pop stars such as Cher and Madonna. By the 1980s, the style (for females) had made its way into most of the Western world; thong swimwear became even more popular through the 1980s due to TV shows such as "Baywatch", in which numerous women were recorded wearing thong swimsuits.


title: Thong

text: In the 1990s, the thong gained wider popularity in the United States as underwear and as swimwear, especially with women, but also men. In the US and Europe, the wearing of thongs by men was once mainly limited to the dance belt, the posing pouch for bodybuilders and the realm of male strippers. Men's thongs are now more widely available and commonly worn as day-to-day underwear or swimwear, with major retailers such as Kmart and popular fashion brands such as Calvin Klein selling men's thongs. Thongs are not marketed as strongly to men as they are to women; however, in Europe, thongs have been commonplace for many more years both as underwear and swimwear.


title: Thong

text: In the 2000s, some people wore thongs with low-cut hipsters and deliberately exposed them over the top of their trousers, producing an effect popularly known as a whale tail. This led to many thong designs intended to be worn in this manner, which were adorned with jewels and motifs on the back. In the early-2000s, thongs made up 31% of the women's underwear market. However, in the late-2000s, the exposure of a thong above one's trousers became less popular and the trend turned to the wearing of lower-riding thongs that hardly show above trousers, except when bending or twisting.


title: Thong

text: Market research in 2011 placed the number of French women who wear thongs as their preferred underwear style at 25%, down by 5% from 2008. By 2016, sales of thongs in the UK were on the decline with Marks & Spencer, a major UK lingerie retailer, reporting that they made up fewer than 10% of knickers sold. In 2022, women's thong sales saw a surge compared to previous years, in part due to a revival of the 2000s trend of the exposed thong popular between Gen Z wearers. The men's thongs also saw renewed interest in part also due to the rising popularity of lingerie for men, with major producers and traditional lingerie makers introducing new products catered to men. Many reasons exist as to why people may choose to wear thong underwear or swimwear, such as prevention of visible panty lines, prevention of underwear "riding up" so one need not pull at one's underwear in public, comfort, fashion consciousness including the feeling of being more adult, and minimization of tan lines.


title: Thong

text: Types of thongs include the traditional thong, the G-string, and the C-string. There are a number of intermediate kinds of thongs between full rear coverage and a string rear. As designs become more risqué, there are also types intended to expose genitals as much as they conceal them. Other styles include the Cheeky, V-string, T-front and T-back. The naming of the intermediate styles of thong is debatable, different vendors use the words somewhat interchangeably. Thongs are available in a wide variety of materials, including silk, latex, cotton, microfiber, satin, nylon, lycra/spandex, and lace. There are also novelty designs for both sexes, featuring shapes to conform to the genitals or provide humorous visual effects.


title: Thong

text: The most significant difference between thongs designed for men and women is the shape of the front part of the garment. Often, but not always, thongs for men will feature a vertical seam to create shape and space for the male genitalia, and the pouch may be made of stretchy material (usually cotton-Lycra or microfiber) for an ergonomic fit. The equivalent section in women's thongs is normally flat and seamless. However, the fabric is usually thicker in the area where it covers the vulva (by incorporating a cotton gusset).


title: Thong

text: The V or G-string style consists of an elastic string (also a narrow piece of cloth, leather, or plastic) that connects the front/pouch and the waistband at back, worn as swimwear or underwear by women and men. Since the mid-1920s, strippers and exotic dancers in the West have been referring to the style of thongs they wore for their performances as G-strings. A g-string may be worn in preference to briefs for avoiding a visible panty line, or to enhance sex-appeal.


title: Thong

text: The origin of the term "G-string" is obscure. It may simply stand for 'Gusset' as the G-String is in effect just a gusset on a string. Since the 19th century, the term "geestring" referred to the string which held the loincloth of American Indians and later referred to the narrow loincloth itself. William Safire in his "Ode on a G-String" quoted the usage of the word "G-string" for loincloth by "Harper's Magazine" 15 years after Beadle's and suggested that the magazine confused the word with the musical term "G string" (i.e., the string for the G note). Safire also mentions the opinion of linguist Robert Hendrickson that "G" (or "gee") stands for groin, which was a taboo word at the time.


title: Thong

text: The G-string first appeared in costumes worn by showgirls in Earl Carroll's productions during the Jazz Age. Linguist Robert Hendrickson believes that the "g" stands for "groin". The "Oxford English Dictionary" reports that the G-string was originally a narrow strip of fabric worn by Indian women. During the Depression, a "G-string" was known as "the gadget". During the 1930s, the "Chicago G-string" gained prominence when worn by performers like Margie Hart. The Chicago area was the home of some of the largest manufacturers of G-strings and it also became the center of the burlesque shows in the United States. In the Tarzan novels of Edgar Rice Burroughs, Tarzan is described as wearing a G-string made of doe or leopard skin.


title: Thong

text: As thongs pass between the buttocks and, in women, may be in close contact with the anus and labia, concerns have been raised that they may become damp and act as a conduit for germ transfer, increasing the probability that the wearer may develop urinary tract infections, such as cystitis. However, research suggests that wearing thong underwear does not have a statistically significant effect on the occurrence of bacterial vaginosis or yeast infection.


title: Thong

text: In 2002, a female high school vice principal in San Diego, California, physically checked up to 100 female students' underwear as they entered the school for a dance, with or without student permission, causing an uproar among students and some parents and eliciting an investigation by the school into the vice principal's conduct. In her defense, the vice principal said the checks were for student safety and not specifically because of the wearing of thongs.


title: Thong

text: The sale of thongs for girls aged 10–16 by US retailer Abercrombie & Fitch led to an email and telephone campaign against the company. British retailer Argos was criticized for selling G-strings for girls aged nine, and a primary school head teacher in Britain voiced concerns that pupils aged 10–11 were wearing thong underwear to school.


title: Thong

text: Thong swimsuits are banned or strongly discouraged in some places, including some Muslim countries. Areas in the United States include such locations as Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, and Kure Beach, North Carolina.


title: Martha Washington

text: Martha Dandridge Custis Washington (June 21, 1731 — May 22, 1802) was the wife of George Washington, the first president of the United States. Although the title was not coined until after her death, Martha Washington served as the inaugural first lady of the United States. During her lifetime, she was often referred to as "Lady Washington".


title: Martha Washington

text: Martha Dandridge first married Daniel Parke Custis. They had four children, two of whom survived to young adulthood. Daniel's death made Martha a widow at age 26. She brought her vast wealth to her marriage to Washington, which enabled him to buy land to add to his personal estate. She also brought with her 84 dower slaves from Daniel Custis' estate for use during her lifetime. They and their descendants reverted to Custis' estate at her death and were inherited by his heirs. The Washingtons did not have children together, but they did rear her two surviving children, John and Martha. They also helped both of their extended families.


title: Martha Washington

text: Martha Dandridge was born on June 21, 1731, on her parents' plantation Chestnut Grove in the Colony of Virginia. She was the oldest daughter of John Dandridge (1700–1756), a Virginia planter and immigrant from England, by his wife Frances Jones (1710–1785), who was of American birth and English, Welsh, and French descent. Martha had three brothers and four sisters: John (1733–1749), William (1734–1776), Bartholomew (1737–1785), Anna Maria "Fanny" Bassett (1739–1777), Frances Dandridge (1744–1757), Elizabeth Aylett Henley (1749–1800), and Mary Dandridge (1756–1763).


title: Martha Washington

text: Dandridge may have had an illegitimate half-sister, Ann Dandridge Costin (years of birth and death unknown), who was born into slavery. Costin's enslaved mother was of African and Cherokee descent, and her father was believed to be John Dandridge. She may have also had an illegitimate half-brother named Ralph Dandridge (years of birth and death unknown), who was most likely white.


title: Martha Washington

text: On May 15, 1750, at age 18, Dandridge married Daniel Parke Custis, a rich planter two decades her senior, and moved to his residence, White House Plantation, located on the south shore of the Pamunkey River, a few miles upriver from Chestnut Grove. They had four children together: Daniel, Frances, John, and Martha. Daniel (November 19, 1751 – February 19, 1754) and Frances (April 12, 1753 – April 1, 1757) died in childhood. The other two children, John (Jacky) Parke Custis (November 27, 1754 – November 5, 1781) and Martha (Patsy) Parke Custis (1756 – June 19, 1773), survived to young adulthood.


title: Martha Washington

text: Daniel Parke Custis's death in 1757 left Martha a rich young widow at age 26, with independent control over a dower inheritance for her lifetime, and trustee control over the inheritance of her minor children. In all, she was left in custody of some 17,500 acres of land and 300 slaves, apart from other investments and cash.


title: Martha Washington

text: According to her biographer, "she capably ran the five plantations left to her when her first husband died, bargaining with London merchants for the best tobacco prices".


title: Martha Washington

text: Martha Custis, age 27, and George Washington, age 26, married on January 6, 1759, at the White House plantation. As a man who lived and owned property in the area, Washington likely knew both Martha and Daniel Parke Custis for some time before Daniel's death. During March 1758, he visited Martha Custis twice at the White House plantation; the second time, he came away with either an engagement of marriage or at least her promise to think about his proposal. At the time, she was also being courted by planter Charles Carter, who was even wealthier than Washington.


title: Martha Washington

text: The wedding was grand. George's suit was of blue and silver cloth with red trimming and gold knee buckles. The bride wore purple silk shoes with spangled buckles, which are displayed at Mount Vernon. The couple honeymooned at the Custis family's White House plantation for several weeks before setting up house at George's Mount Vernon estate. They appeared to have had a solid marriage. The Washingtons had no children together, but they raised Martha's two surviving children. In 1773, her daughter Patsy died when she was 17 during an epileptic seizure. John Parke "Jacky" Custis left King's College that fall and married Eleanor Calvert in February 1774.


title: Martha Washington

text: John was serving as a civilian aide to George Washington during the siege of Yorktown in 1781 during the American Revolutionary War when he died of "camp fever" (probably epidemic typhus). After John Parke Custis' death, the Washingtons raised the youngest two of his four children, Eleanor (Nelly) Parke Custis (March 31, 1779 – July 15, 1852) and George Washington Parke (Washy) Custis (April 30, 1781 – October 10, 1857). The two older girls remained with their mother. The Washingtons also provided personal and financial support to nieces, nephews, and other family members in both the Dandridge and Washington families.


title: Martha Washington

text: Mostly content to live a private life at Mount Vernon and her homes from the Custis estate, Martha Washington did follow Washington to his winter encampments for each of eight years. She helped keep up morale among the officers.


title: Martha Washington

text: According to tradition, Martha Washington was described as having spent her days at the Revolutionary War winter encampments visiting the common soldiers in their huts. However, Nancy Loane, author of "Following the Drum: Women at the Valley Forge Encampment", says there is no evidence that Washington visited the common soldiers. Loane also notes that Martha Washington was fashionably dressed, assertive, and a woman of great wealth and independent means. She joined her husband during the Revolution for all the Continental Army's winter encampments. Before the revolution began, she had kept close to home; during it, she traveled thousands of miles to be with her husband. General Lafayette observed that she loved "her husband madly".


title: Martha Washington

text: The Continental Army settled in Valley Forge, the third of the eight winter encampments of the Revolution, on December 19, Washington traveled 10 days and hundreds of miles to join her husband in Pennsylvania. Primary documents of the Revolutionary period refer to Lady Washington's activities at the site.


title: Martha Washington

text: Martha Washington took her familiar role as her husband's hostess at camp. On April 6, Elizabeth Drinker and three friends arrived at Valley Forge to plead with the General to release their husbands from jail; the men, all Quakers, had refused to swear a loyalty oath to the American revolutionaries. Because the commander was not available at first, the women visited with Martha. She was regarded as a matriarch in the camps she visited. Drinker described her later in her diary as "a sociable pretty kind of Woman." Although unable to satisfy the women's demands, General Washington invited them to dine at headquarters that day. Drinker said the dinner with General and Mrs. Washington and 15 officers was "elegant" but "soon over".


title: Martha Washington

text: Martha Washington also socialized with the wives of the senior officers at Valley Forge. Years later, Pierre DuPonceau, an aide to Baron von Steuben, recalled that in the evenings the ladies and officers at camp would meet at each other's quarters for conversation. During these social evenings, each lady and gentleman present was "called upon in turn for a song" as they sipped tea or coffee. No card-playing occurred during these Valley Forge social gatherings, games of chance having been forbidden by General Washington.


title: Martha Washington

text: Charles Willson Peale painted a miniature of George Washington—for which he charged his usual "56 Dollars"—and presented it to Martha, along with painting other miniatures of Washington. He also painted 50 other officers and their wives that winter.


title: Martha Washington

text: Martha Washington took part in the camp's May 6 celebration of the formal announcement of the Franco-American alliance. Soon after the thunderous "feu de joie," when thousands of soldiers fired off their muskets, General Washington and his wife received other officers under a large marquee fashioned from dozens of officers' tents. General Washington was said to have worn "a countenance of uncommon delight and complacence."


title: Martha Washington

text: Five days later, on May 11, 1778, the Washingtons attended the camp production of Joseph Addison's play "Cato", a favorite of the General's. The play was performed by the staff officers for a "very numerous and splendid audience," including many officers and several of their wives. One officer wrote that he found the performance "admirable" and the scenery "in Taste."


title: Martha Washington

text: After the war, Washington was not fully supportive of her husband's agreeing to be President of the newly formed United States. Once he assumed office, as the First Lady (a term that was only used later) she hosted many affairs of state at New York City and Philadelphia during their years as temporary capitals. The socializing became known as the Republican Court. Martha Washington presented an image of herself as an amiable wife, but privately complained about the restrictions placed on her life.


title: Martha Washington

text: In July 1790, artist John Trumbull gave Martha Washington a full-length portrait painting of General George Washington as a gift. It was displayed in their home at Mount Vernon in the New Room.


title: Martha Washington

text: While Martha Washington's father had owned 15 to 20 slaves, her first husband, Daniel Parke Custis, owned nearly 300, making him one of the largest slaveowners and wealthiest men in the Virginia colony. The full Custis estate contained plantations and farms totaling about , and 285 enslaved men, women, and children attached to those holdings.


title: Martha Washington

text: Daniel Parke Custis' death in 1757 without a will meant that, according to law, his eldest son John would inherit two-thirds of the Custis estate when he reached adulthood, together with the estate's slaves and the children of those slaves. As Daniel's widow, Martha received a "dower share", the lifetime use of (and income from) the remaining one-third of the estate and its slaves. After her death, the dower slaves and their progeny were to be distributed among the surviving Custis heirs.


title: Martha Washington

text: Upon his 1759 marriage to Martha, George Washington became the legal manager of the Custis estate, under court oversight. At the time of her marriage, Martha's dower share included more than 80 slaves. She also would control any children they had, as they would become part of the dower. Estate records indicate that Martha Washington continued to purchase supplies, manage paid staff, and make many other decisions. Although the Washingtons wielded managerial control over the whole estate, they received income only from Martha's "dower" third. The remainder of the income went to a trust held for John Parke Custis until he reached maturity at age 21.


title: Martha Washington

text: George Washington used his wife's great wealth to buy land and slaves; he more than tripled the size of Mount Vernon ( in 1757; in 1787). For more than 40 years, her "dower" slaves farmed the plantation alongside her husband's. By law, neither of the Washingtons could sell Custis lands or slaves, which Martha's dower and the trust owned. After John died during the Revolutionary War, his slaves passed to his son, George Washington Parke Custis, who at the time was a minor. If John's trust or Martha's dower owned a slave's mother, her children were included in that holding. Some slaves owned by the Washingtons and the trust married each other, forming linked families. This created complex inheritance issues.


title: Martha Washington

text: Seven of the nine slaves whom President Washington brought to Philadelphia (the national capital, 1790–1800) to work in the President's House were "dowers". Pennsylvania passed a gradual abolition law in 1780, under which nonresidents were allowed to hold slaves in the state for up to six months; after that date, they could claim freedom. Because the president would have been liable for compensating the Custis estate for any dower slaves freed under this law, he surreptitiously rotated his President's House slaves in and out of the state before the six-month deadline to prevent their establishing residency (and legally qualifying for manumission).


title: Martha Washington

text: Martha Washington promised her lady's maid Oney Judge, a "dower" slave, to her granddaughter Elizabeth Parke Custis as a wedding gift. To prevent being sent back to Virginia, Judge escaped in 1796 from the Philadelphia household during President Washington's second term. According to interviews with Judge in the 1840s, the young woman had enjoyed being in Philadelphia and feared she would never gain freedom if taken to Virginia. She hid with free black friends in the city, who helped arrange her travel by ship to Portsmouth, New Hampshire. There, she married and had three children.


title: Martha Washington

text: Martha felt a responsibility for the unsophisticated girl under her care, especially since her mother and sister were expecting to see her back at Mount Vernon. What she could never understand was that [Oney had ...] a simple desire to be free. Ona, as she preferred to call herself, wanted to live where she pleased, do what work she pleased, and learn to read and write ... Ona Judge professed a great regard for Martha and the way she had been treated, but she couldn't face a future as a slave for herself and her children.


title: Martha Washington

text: After Oney Judge's escape, Martha Washington gave Oney's younger enslaved sister Delphy (also known as Philadelphia) to Elizabeth and her husband Thomas Law as a wedding gift.


title: Martha Washington

text: George Washington's slave Hercules, who had worked as his chief cook at the President's House before being returned to Mount Vernon in 1796, escaped from there on February 22, 1797. He was known to have traveled to Philadelphia, and by December 1801, was living in New York City. His six-year-old daughter, still enslaved at Mount Vernon, told a visitor that she was glad her father was free.


title: Martha Washington

text: In his July 1790 will, written a year after he became President of the United States in April 1789 and nine years before his death in December 1799, George Washington left directions for the emancipation, after Martha Washington's death, of all the slaves that he owned. Of the 318 slaves at Mount Vernon in 1799, fewer than half, 123 individuals, belonged to George. His will stipulated that his slaves were not to be freed until Martha's death because of his desire to preserve the families of those who had intermarried with Martha's dower slaves.


title: Martha Washington

text: In accordance with state law, George Washington stipulated in his will that elderly slaves or those who were too sick to work were to be supported throughout their lives by his estate. Children without parents, or those whose families were too poor or indifferent to see to their education, were to be bound out to masters and mistresses who would teach them reading, writing, and a useful trade, until they were ultimately freed at the age of 25.


title: Martha Washington

text: In December 1800, Martha Washington signed a deed of manumission for her deceased husband's slaves, a transaction that was entered into the records of Fairfax County, Virginia. The document was lost during the American Civil War. The slaves received their freedom on January 1, 1801, a little over a year after George's death.


title: Martha Washington

text: Just a few weeks earlier in December, Abigail Adams, wife of the second president John Adams, had visited Mount Vernon and wrote: "Many of those who are liberated have married with what are called the dower Negroes, so that they all quit their [family] connections, yet what could she do?" Mrs. Adams suggested a motive for Martha Washington to have freed her husband's slaves early:


title: Martha Washington

text: Washington's health, always somewhat precarious, declined after her husband's death. Two and a half years after the death of her husband, Washington died on May 22, 1802, at the age of 70.


title: Martha Washington

text: Following her death, Martha Washington's body was interred in the original Washington family tomb vault at Mount Vernon. In 1831, the surviving executors of George's estate removed the bodies of George and Martha Washington and those of other members of the family from the old vault to a similar structure within the present enclosure at Mount Vernon.


title: Martha Washington

text: Washington did not emancipate any of her own slaves during her lifetime. Her will bequeathed Elisha, a slave whom she owned outright at the time of her death, to her grandson, George Washington Parke Custis. Upon her death, her dower slaves reverted to the Custis estate and were divided among her four grandchildren. The division split up families, divided husbands from wives, and sent children away from their parents.


title: Martha Washington

text: Washington is one of a handful of women who oversaw significant business operations that relied on slave labor in the late 18th century and early 19th century. Others included Catharine Flood McCall and Annie Henry Christian.


title: Martha Washington

text: Washington had a row galley named in her honor, in 1776. It holds the distinction of being the first U.S. military ship to be named in honor of a woman and the first named for a person who was still alive (see also List of U.S. military vessels named after living Americans). It has a number of other distinctions, as well, such as the first ship named after a (future) First Lady and one of the few active vessels in the U.S. Navy named in honor of a woman (see also ).


title: Martha Washington

text: was a transport for the United States Navy during World War I. She was originally the ocean liner SS "Martha Washington" for the Austro-American Line before the war. Before and after her Navy service she was the United States Army transport USAT "Martha Washington". The liner was sold to the Italian Cosulich Line in 1922. In 1932, when Cosulich was absorbed into Italia Flotte Riunite (), the ship was renamed SS "Tel Aviv". The ship was scrapped in 1934.


title: Martha Washington

text: The first U.S. postage stamp honoring an American woman honored Martha Washington, and was issued as part of the 1902 stamp series. An stamp, it was printed in violet-black ink. The second stamp issued in her honor, a definitive stamp printed in orange-brown ink, was released in 1923. The third stamp to honor Washington was issued in 1938, as part of the Presidential Issue series. A stamp, it was printed in yellow-brown ink.


title: Martha Washington

text: Washington is the only woman (other than allegories of Justice, Liberty, etc.) depicted on the face of a United States Banknote. Her engraved portrait bust was used on the face of the $1 Silver Certificate of 1886 and 1891. She and her husband George are depicted together on the reverse of the $1 silver certificate of 1896.


title: Martha Washington

text: The First Spouse Program under the Presidential $1 Coin Act authorizes the United States Mint to issue 1/2 ounce $10 gold coins and bronze medal duplicates to honor the first spouses of the United States. The Martha Washington coin was released on June 19, 2007, and was sold out in hours.


title: Martha Washington

text: To prevent confusion with existing coinage, pattern coins testing new metals have been produced by the U.S. mint, or a company contracted to it, with Martha Washington on the obverse. Not intended for public release, they are quite rare.


title: Martha Washington

text: The Martha Washington College for Women was founded in Abingdon, Virginia in 1860. In 1918, its administration was merged with Emory & Henry College and in 1931, Martha Washington ceased to function as a separate entity, merging completely with Emory & Henry. The main original building of Martha Washington College is now known and operated as the Martha Washington Inn. There was also Martha Washington Seminary, a finishing school for young women in Washington, DC, that was founded in 1905 and ceased operations in 1949.


title: Martha Washington

text: Since 1982 Siena College Research Institute has periodically conducted surveys asking historians to assess American first ladies according to a cumulative score on the independent criteria of their background, value to the country, intelligence, courage, accomplishments, integrity, leadership, being their own women, public image, and value to the president. Consistently, Washington has been ranked in the upper-half of first ladies by historians in these surveys. In terms of cumulative assessment, Washington has been ranked:


title: Martha Washington

text: In the 2008 Siena Research Institute survey, Washington was ranked 3rd-highest in the criteria of public image. In the 2014 survey, Washington and her husband were ranked the 2nd-highest out of 39 first couples in terms of being a "power couple".


title: Yi Sun-sin

text: Admiral Yi Sun-sin (April 28, 1545 – December 16, 1598) was a Korean admiral and military general famed for his victories against the Japanese navy during the Imjin war in the Joseon Dynasty. Over the course of his career, Admiral Yi fought in at least 23 recorded naval engagements, all against the Japanese. In most of these battles, he was outnumbered and lacked necessary supplies. He nonetheless won battle after battle. His most famous victory occurred at the Battle of Myeongnyang, where despite being outnumbered 333 (133 warships, at least 200 logistical support ships) to 13, he managed to disable or destroy 31 Japanese warships without losing a single ship of his own. Yi died from a gunshot wound at the Battle of Noryang on 16 December 1598, the closing battle of the Imjin War.


title: Yi Sun-sin

text: Yi is regarded as one of the greatest naval commanders in history, with commentators praising his strategic vision, intelligence, innovations, and personality. Yi is celebrated as a national hero in Korea, with multiple landmarks, awards and towns named after him, as well as numerous films and documentaries centered on his exploits.


title: Yi Sun-sin

text: Yi was born in Geoncheon-dong Street (건천동; 乾川洞), Hanseong (then capital, present-day Inhyeon-dong, Jung-gu District, Seoul) but spent his adolescence and early adulthood period before passing the military examination in Asan where his mother's relatives lived and where now a shrine to him stands.


title: Yi Sun-sin

text: His family was part of the Korean Deoksu Yi clan. His grandfather Yi Baek-rok (이백록; 李百祿) retired from politics when neo-Confucian reformer Jo Gwang-jo was executed in the Third Literati Purge of 1519 and moved to a village near where Jo was buried. Yi Sun-sin's father Yi Jeong (이정, 李貞) was likewise disillusioned with politics and did not enter government service as expected of a yangban (noble) family. However, popular belief that Yi Sun-sin had difficult childhood because of his family's connection with Jo (as depicted in KBS TV series "Immortal Admiral Yi Sun-sin") is not true.


title: Yi Sun-sin

text: One of the most important events of his early life was when Yi met and became friends with Ryu Seong-ryong (류성룡; 柳成龍; 1542–1607), a prominent scholar who held the key official position of "Dochaechalsa" (도체찰사; 都體察使), and was in command of the military during the Japanese invasions of Korea (1592–1598).


title: Yi Sun-sin

text: As a young boy, Yi played war games with other local boys, showing excellent leadership talent at an early age and constructed his own bow and fletched his own arrows as a teenager.


title: Yi Sun-sin

text: In 1576, Yi passed the military examination (무과; 武科). Yi is said to have impressed the judges with his archery, but failed to pass the test when he broke a leg during the cavalry examination. After he re-entered and passed the examination, Yi was posted to the "Bukbyeong" (Northern Frontier Army) military district in Hamgyeong province. However, he was the oldest junior officer at the age of thirty-two. There, Yi experienced battles defending the border settlements against the Jurchen marauders and quickly became known for his strategic skills and leadership.


title: Yi Sun-sin

text: In 1583, he lured the Jurchen into battle, defeated the marauders, and captured their chief, Mu Pai Nai. According to a contemporary tradition, Yi then spent three years out of the army upon hearing of his father's death. After his return to the front line, Yi led a string of successful campaigns against the Jurchen.


title: Yi Sun-sin

text: However, his brilliance and accomplishments so soon in his career made his superiors jealous, and they falsely accused him of desertion during battle. The conspiracy was led by General Yi Il (이일; 李鎰; 1538–1601), who would later fail to repel the Japanese invasion at the Battle of Sangju. This tendency to sabotage and frame professional adversaries was very common in the later years of the Joseon military and government. Yi was stripped of his rank, imprisoned, and tortured. After his release, Yi was allowed to fight as an enlisted soldier. After a short period of time, however, he was appointed as the commander of the Seoul "Hunryeonwon" (a military training center) and was later transferred to a small county, to be its military magistrate.


title: Yi Sun-sin

text: Yi's efforts in northern Korea were rewarded when Yi was assigned as Commander of the Jeolla Province (전라 좌도; 全羅左道) Left Naval District. Within the span of a few months in late 1590, he received four military appointments, in rapid succession, with each subsequent post carrying greater responsibility than the last: Commander of the Kosarijin Garrison in Pyeongan province, Commander of the Manpo Garrison, also in Pyeongan province, and the Commander of the Wando Garrison, in Jeolla province, before finally receiving the appointment as Commander of the Left Jeolla Naval District.


title: Yi Sun-sin

text: The royal court was in a state of confusion over the possibility of a war with Japan, now unified under the rule of Toyotomi Hideyoshi, and the unstable situation in Manchuria where a young Jurchen chieftain named Nurhaci was gathering strength. Nurhaci's descendants would become masters of China as founders of the Qing Dynasty in a few decades' time, after invading Korea in 1627 and 1637.


title: Yi Sun-sin

text: Yi assumed his new post at Yeosu on the 13th day of the 2nd lunar month of 1591 (March 13, 1591). From there, he was able to undertake a buildup of the regional navy, which was later used to confront the Japanese invasion force. He subsequently began to strengthen the province's navy with a series of reforms, including the construction of the turtle ship.


title: Yi Sun-sin

text: Yi is remembered for his numerous victories fighting the Japanese during the Japanese invasions of Korea (1592–1598). Among his twenty-three victories, the Battle of Myeongnyang and the Battle of Hansan Island are the most famous battles.


title: Yi Sun-sin

text: In 1592, Toyotomi Hideyoshi gave the order to invade Korea and use it as a forward base to conquer Ming China. After the Japanese attacked Busan, Yi began his naval operations from his headquarters at Yeosu. Despite never having commanded a naval battle in his life, he won the Battle of Okpo, Battle of Sacheon, and several others in quick succession. His string of victories made the Japanese generals suddenly wary of the threat at sea.


title: Yi Sun-sin

text: Hideyoshi was fully aware of the need to control the seas during the invasion. Having failed to hire two Portuguese galleons to help him, he increased the size of his own fleet to 1700 vessels, assuming that he could overwhelm the Joseon navy with numerical superiority.


title: Yi Sun-sin

text: There were numerous reasons why Yi was so successful against the Japanese fleets. Yi had prepared for the war by checking the status of his soldiers, granaries, and supplies, replacing them when it was necessary. As part of this preparation, Yi resurrected and built the turtle ship, which was a considerable factor in his victories. Yi also had a great deal of information about the southern Korean coast and he planned his battles using the sea tides and narrow straits to his advantage.


title: Yi Sun-sin

text: Yi was a charismatic leader, and was able to maintain his soldiers' morale despite constantly being low on supplies and food, and continuous news of countless Korean losses in ground battles. In some records, it is stated that he went as far as to personally fulfill some of his soldiers' dying wishes. He demonstrated his loyalty to the people by treating them with respect and fighting amongst them even when endangered.


title: Yi Sun-sin

text: The Joseon panokseon were structurally stronger than Japanese ships at the time. Panokseon had stronger hulls and could carry at least 20 cannons, compared to the Japanese 4. Japanese ship-mounted cannons were inferior to the Koreans' in both range and power. Admiral Yi was an excellent naval strategist. The Japanese navy's strongest tactic was to board enemy ships and engage in hand-to-hand combat.


title: Yi Sun-sin

text: A Japanese invasion force landed at Busan and Dadaejin, port cities on the southern tip of Joseon. The Japanese, without meeting any naval resistance, quickly captured these ports and began a lightning march north. They reached Seoul in just nineteen days, on May 2, 1592, due to the military inefficiency of the Joseon army, especially at the Battle of Sangju and the failure to defend Joryeong Pass.


title: Yi Sun-sin

text: After capturing Hanseong and Pyongyang, the Japanese planned to cross the Yalu River into Chinese territory, and use the waters west of the Korean peninsula to supply the invasion. However, Yi Sun-sin was able to stay informed on all his enemy's activities.


title: Yi Sun-sin

text: Yi had never officially studied naval warfare in his limited time in the military academy, and neither he, nor his subordinates had experienced naval combat before the Japanese invasion.


title: Yi Sun-sin

text: On the June 13, 1592, Admiral Yi and Admiral Yi Eok-gi (이억기; 李億祺; 1561–1597), the commander of the Right Jeolla navy, set sail with 24 Panokseons, 15 small warships, and 46 boats (i.e. fishing boats), and arrived at the waters of the Gyeongsang Province by sunset. Next day, the Jeolla fleet sailed to the arranged location where Admiral Won Gyun (원균; 元均; 1540–1597) was supposed to meet them, and met the admiral on June 15. The augmented flotilla of 91 ships then began circumnavigating the Geoje Island, bound for the Gadeok Island, but scouting vessels detected 50 Japanese vessels at the Okpo harbor. Upon sighting the approaching Korean fleet, some of the Japanese who had been busying themselves with plundering got back to their ships, and began to flee. At this, the Korean fleet encircled the Japanese ships and finished them with artillery bombardments. The Koreans spotted five more Japanese vessels that night, and managed to destroy four. The next day, the Koreans approached 13 Japanese ships at Jeokjinpo as reported by the intelligence. In the same manner as the previous success at Okpo, the Korean fleet destroyed 11 Japanese ships – completing the Battle of Okpo without a loss of a single ship.


title: Yi Sun-sin

text: About three weeks after the Battle of Okpo, Admirals Yi and Won sailed with a total of 26 ships (23 under Admiral Yi) toward the Bay of Sacheon upon receiving an intelligence report of a Japanese presence. Admiral Yi had left behind his fishing vessels that used to make up most of his fleet in favor of his newly completed turtle ship. Admiral Yi ordered the fleet to feign withdrawal, which caused the Japanese to eagerly pursue the Korean fleet with their 12 vessels. With the Japanese ships drawn out of the safety of the harbor, the Korean navy countered, and with the turtle ship leading the charge, they successfully destroyed all 12 ships. Admiral Yi was shot by a bullet in his left shoulder, but survived.


title: Yi Sun-sin

text: On July 10, 1592, the Korean fleet destroyed 21 Japanese ships at the Battle of Dangpo. On July 13, they destroyed 26 Japanese warship at the Battle of Danghangpo.


title: Yi Sun-sin

text: In response to the Korean navy's success, Toyotomi Hideyoshi recalled three admirals from land-based activities: Wakizaka Yasuharu, Kato Yoshiaki, and Kuki Yoshitaka. They were the only ones with naval responsibilities in the entirety of the Japanese invasion forces. However, the admirals arrived in Busan nine days before Hideyoshi's order was actually issued, and assembled a squadron to counter the Korean navy. Eventually Admiral Wakizaka completed his preparations, and his eagerness to win military honor pushed him to launch an attack against the Koreans without waiting for the other admirals to finish.


title: Yi Sun-sin

text: The combined Korean navy of 70 ships under the commands of Admirals Yi Sun-sin and Yi Eok-gi was carrying out a search-and-destroy operation because the Japanese troops on land were advancing into the Jeolla Province. The Jeolla Province was the only Korean territory to be untouched by a major military action, and served as home for the three admirals and the only active Korean naval force. The admirals considered it best to destroy naval support for the Japanese to reduce the effectiveness of the enemy ground troops.


title: Yi Sun-sin

text: On August 13, 1592, the Korean fleet sailing from the Miruk Island at Dangpo received local intelligence that a large Japanese fleet was nearby. The following morning, the Korean fleet spotted the Japanese fleet of 82 vessels anchored in the straits of Gyeonnaeryang. Because of the narrowness of the strait and the hazard posed by the underwater rocks, Admiral Yi sent six ships to lure out 63 Japanese vessels into the wider sea, and the Japanese fleet followed. There the Japanese fleet was surrounded by the Korean fleet in a semicircular formation called "crane wing" (학익진) by Admiral Yi. With at least three turtle ships (two of which were newly completed) spearheading the clash against the Japanese fleet, the Korean vessels fired volleys of cannonballs into the Japanese formation. Then the Korean ships engaged in a free-for-all battle with the Japanese ships, maintaining enough distance to prevent the Japanese from boarding; Admiral Yi permitted melee combats only against severely damaged Japanese ships.


title: Yi Sun-sin

text: The battle ended in a Korean victory, with Japanese losses of 59 ships – 47 destroyed and 12 captured in the Battle of Hansan Island. Several Korean prisoners of war were rescued by the Korean soldiers throughout the fight. Admiral Wakisaka escaped due to the speed of his flagship. When the news of the defeat at the Battle of Hansando reached Toyotomi Hideyoshi, he ordered that the Japanese invasion forces cease all naval operations.


title: Yi Sun-sin

text: On August 16, 1592, Yi Sun-sin led their fleet to the harbor of Angolpo where 42 Japanese vessels were docked.


title: Yi Sun-sin

text: In September 1592, Yi left his base at Hansan Island and attacked the Japanese in Busan harbor. Yi withdrew his forces from Busan harbor after the battle due to the absence of a landing force.


title: Yi Sun-sin

text: Yi was victorious in every single operation (at least 15 battles) of the four campaigns of 1592. His campaigns resulted in hundreds of sunken Japanese warships, transports, supply ships and thousands of Japanese naval casualties.


title: Yi Sun-sin

text: In 1593, Admiral Yi was appointed to command the combined navies of the three southern provinces with the title "Naval Commander of the Three Provinces" (삼도수군통제사; 三道水軍統制使) which gave him command over the Right and Left Navies of Jeolla province, the Right and Left Navies of Gyeongsang province, and the Navy of Chungcheong province.


title: Yi Sun-sin

text: One of Yi's greatest accomplishments was resurrecting and improving the turtle ship (; ). With his creative mind and the support of his subordinates, Yi was able to devise the "geobukseon", or Turtle Ship. Contrary to popular belief, the turtle ship was not actually invented by Admiral Yi; rather, he improved upon an older design that had been suggested during the reign of King Taejong.


title: Yi Sun-sin

text: The turtle ships designed by Yi held eleven cannons on each side of the ship, with two each at the stern and the bow. The ship's figurehead was in the shape of a dragon. The figurehead itself held up to four cannons, and emitted a smokescreen that, in combination with its fierce appearance, was meant to be used as psychological warfare. The sides of the turtle ship were dotted with smaller holes from which arrows, guns, and mortars could be fired. The roof was covered with planks and spikes. The purpose of the spikes was to prevent the ship from being boarded by the enemy. The larger Japanese ships' sides were higher than the turtle ships' and thus, the spikes prevented boarders from jumping down onto the roof without risking impalement. There were two masts that held two large sails. The turtle ship was also steered and powered by twenty oars, each of which were pulled by two men during fair conditions and five in foul seas or combat.


title: Yi Sun-sin

text: There is a continuing debate as to whether the turtle ship had two decks or three; historians still have no definitive answer. Whichever is the case, it is clear that the turtle ship employed multiple decks to separate the rowers from the combat compartment. This enabled the turtle ship to be very mobile since wind and manpower could be used simultaneously. Most support the argument of two decks since that was what was drawn out in the first and second designs of the turtle ships. Some historians maintain that, since Yi was a unique individual and often pursued innovative ideas (contrary to the established wisdom of his peers), it is possible that he had the turtle ship built with three decks. It is known that his flagship, a panokseon, had three decks during his campaigns, so there is support for the belief that the turtle ship had three decks.


title: Yi Sun-sin

text: Turtle ships were the most famous part of Admiral Yi's fleet; however, he never deployed more than five in any one battle. The Joseon Dynasty used cannons as its primary offensive naval weapon. Historically, they had often used guns and cannons against Japanese pirates as early as the 1390s. The Joseon navy did not implement the ship-boarding strategy that the Japanese navy did, so it was imperative that their warships "stand off" from Japanese vessels. Admiral Yi made it a strategic priority to avoid hand-to-hand combat, in which the Japanese navy specialized. The turtle ship was developed to support his tactic against Japanese fleets.


title: Yi Sun-sin

text: Turtle ships were first used in the Battle of Sacheon (1592) and were used in nearly every battle until the devastating Battle of Chilchonryang, when a Japanese double-agent plot nearly succeeded, resulting in every turtle ship and all but 13 panokseon being sunk. The turtle ships did not re-appear in battle until the Battle of Noryang.


title: Yi Sun-sin

text: Turtle ships were mostly used to spearhead attacks. They were best used in tight areas and around islands rather than the open sea.


title: Yi Sun-sin

text: As Yi won battle after battle, Hideyoshi and his commanders became anxious as they neared Busan. Yi constantly attacked and delayed supply ships bringing food, weapons, and reinforcements to the Japanese. At one point, the entire invasion was halted just before attacking Pyongyang when supplies and troops failed to reach the First and Second Divisions.


title: Yi Sun-sin

text: Hideyoshi soon adjusted. At Busan, the Japanese warships were reinforced and some cannons added to larger ships. The fleet clustered beneath the harbor's defenses of heavy shore-mounted cannons that were acquired from the armory. But, above all, the Japanese knew that, for a successful invasion of Joseon, Yi had to be eliminated. Not a single Japanese ship would be safe for as long as he was commanding the sea.


title: Yi Sun-sin

text: Taking advantage of the many internal court rivalries of the Joseon Dynasty, the Japanese devised a plan. A Japanese double agent named Yoshira (要時羅) was sent to the Joseon general Kim Gyeong-seo (김경서; 金景瑞; 1564–1624), and convinced the general that he would spy on the Japanese. Yoshira played this role until Kim began believing anything he would say.


title: Yi Sun-sin

text: One day, he told General Kim Gyeong-seo that the Japanese general Katō Kiyomasa would be coming on a certain date with a great fleet for another attack on the south shores and insisted that Admiral Yi be sent to lay an ambush. General Kim agreed and sent the message to Field Marshal Gwon Yul (권율; 權慄; 1537–1599), Commander-in-Chief (도원수; 導元帥) of the Joseon military, who, in turn, sent the message to King Seonjo. King Seonjo, who was desperate for victories to loosen the Japanese grip on his kingdom, gave permission for the attack. When General Kim gave Admiral Yi his orders, the admiral refused to carry them out, for he knew that the location given by the spy was studded with sunken rocks and was thus extremely dangerous. Admiral Yi also refused because he did not trust the words of spies.