title: Dina Merrill

text: Merrill received the Women's International Center (WIC) Living Legacy Award, in 1994, and a lifetime achievement award from the American Academy of Dramatic Arts in April 2005.


title: AstraZeneca

text: AstraZeneca plc () is a British-Swedish multinational pharmaceutical and biotechnology company with its headquarters at the Cambridge Biomedical Campus in Cambridge, England. It has a portfolio of products for major diseases in areas including oncology, cardiovascular, gastrointestinal, infection, neuroscience, respiratory, and inflammation. It has been involved in developing the Oxford–AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine.


title: AstraZeneca

text: The company was founded in 1999 through the merger of the Swedish Astra AB and the British Zeneca Group (itself formed by the demerger of the pharmaceutical operations of Imperial Chemical Industries in 1993). Since the merger it has been among the world's largest pharmaceutical companies and has made numerous corporate acquisitions, including Cambridge Antibody Technology (in 2006), MedImmune (in 2007), Spirogen (in 2013) and Definiens (by MedImmune in 2014). It has its research and development concentrated in three strategic centres: Cambridge, England; Gothenburg, Sweden and Gaithersburg in Maryland, U.S.


title: AstraZeneca

text: AstraZeneca has a primary listing on the London Stock Exchange and is a constituent of the FTSE 100 Index.


title: AstraZeneca

text: Astra AB was founded in 1913 in Södertälje, Sweden, by 400 doctors and apothecaries. In 1993 the British chemicals company ICI (established from four British chemical companies) demerged its pharmaceuticals businesses and its agrochemicals and specialities businesses, to form Zeneca Group PLC. Finally, in 1999 Astra and Zeneca Group merged to form AstraZeneca plc, with its headquarters in London. In 1999, AstraZeneca identified a new location for the company's US base, the "Fairfax-plus" site in North Wilmington, Delaware.


title: AstraZeneca

text: In 2002, its drug Iressa (gefitinib) was approved in Japan as monotherapy for non-small cell lung cancer. On 3 January 2004 Dr Robert Nolan, a former director of AstraZeneca, formed the management team of ZI Medical.


title: AstraZeneca

text: In 2005, the company acquired KuDOS Pharmaceuticals, a UK biotech company, for £120 million. and entered into an anti-cancer collaboration agreement with Astex It also announced that it had become a Diamond Member of the Pennsylvania Bio commerce organisation.


title: AstraZeneca

text: In 2006, following a collaborative relationship begun in 2004, AstraZeneca acquired Cambridge Antibody Technology for £702 million.


title: AstraZeneca

text: In February 2007, AstraZeneca agreed to buy Arrow Therapeutics, a company focused on the discovery and development of anti-viral therapies, for US$150million. AstraZeneca's pipeline, and "patent cliff", was the subject of much speculation in April 2007 leading to pipeline-boosting collaboration and acquisition activities. A few days later AstraZeneca acquired US company MedImmune for about US$15.2 billion to gain flu vaccines and an anti-viral treatment for infants; AstraZeneca subsequently consolidated all of its biologics operations into a dedicated biologics division called MedImmune.


title: AstraZeneca

text: In 2010, AstraZeneca acquired Novexel Corp, an antibiotics discovery company formed in 2004 as a spin-off of the Sanofi-Aventis anti-infectives division. Astra acquired the experimental antibiotic NXL-104 (CEF104) (CAZ-AVI) through this acquisition.


title: AstraZeneca

text: In February 2012, AstraZeneca and Amgen announced a collaboration on treatments for inflammatory diseases. Then in April 2012, AstraZeneca acquired Ardea Biosciences, another biotechnology company, for $1.26 billion. In June 2012, AstraZeneca and Bristol Myers Squibb announced a two-stage deal for the joint acquisition of the biotechnology company Amylin Pharmaceuticals. It was agreed that Bristol Myers Squibb would acquire Amylin for $5.3 billion in cash and the assumption of $1.7 billion in debt, with AstraZeneca then paying $3.4 billion in cash to Bristol Myers Squibb, and Amylin being folded into an existing diabetes joint venture between AstraZeneca and Bristol Myers Squibb.


title: AstraZeneca

text: In March 2013 AstraZeneca announced plans for a major corporate restructuring, including the closure of its research and development activities at Alderley Park in Cheshire and Loughborough in the UK and at Lund in Sweden, investment of $500million in the construction of a new research and development facility in Cambridge and the concentration of R&D in three locations: Cambridge, Gaithersburg, Maryland (location of MedImmune, where it will work on biotech drugs), and Gothenburg in Sweden, for research on traditional chemical drugs. AstraZeneca also announced that it would move its corporate headquarters from London to Cambridge in 2016. That announcement included the announcement that it would cut 1,600 jobs; three days later it announced it would cut an additional 2,300 jobs. It also announced that it would focus on three therapeutic areas: Respiratory Inflammation & Autoimmunity, Cardiovascular & Metabolic Disease, and Oncology. In October 2013, AstraZeneca announced it would acquire biotech oncology company Spirogen for around US$440 million.


title: AstraZeneca

text: On 19 May 2014 AstraZeneca rejected a "final offer" from Pfizer of £55 per share, which valued the company at £69.4billion (US$117billion). The companies had been meeting since January 2014. If the takeover had proceeded, Pfizer would have become the world's biggest drug maker. The transaction would also have been the biggest foreign takeover of a British company. Many in Britain, including politicians and scientists, had opposed the deal. In July 2014 the company entered into a deal with Almirall to acquire its subsidiary Almirall Sofotec and its lung treatments including the COPD drug, Eklira. The US$2.1 billion deal included an allocation of US$1.2 billion for development in the respiratory franchise, one of AstraZeneca's three target therapeutic areas announced the year before. In August 2014 the company announced it had entered into a three-year collaboration with Mitsubishi Tanabe Pharma on diabetic nephropathy. In September 2014 the company would join forces with Eli Lilly in developing and commercialising its candidate BACE inhibitor – AZD3292 – used for the treatment of Alzheimer's disease. The deal could yield up to US$500 million for the company. In November 2014 the company's biologics R&D operation, MedImmune, agreed to acquire Definiens for more than US$150 million. The company also began a Phase I/II trial collaboration with Pharmacyclics and Janssen Biotech investigating combination treatments. Also in November of the same year, the company agreed to sell its lipodystrophy treatment business to Aegerion Pharmaceuticals for more than US$325 million. In December, the company received accelerated FDA approval for Olaparib in the treatment of women with advanced ovarian cancer who have a BRCA genetic mutation. A major criterion governing the drugs approval was, on average, its ability to shrink tumours in patients for 7.9 months.


title: AstraZeneca

text: In February, the company announced it would acquire the US and Canadian rights to Actavis's branded respiratory drug business for an initial sum of US$600 million. Later in the same month the company announced it would partner with Orca Pharmaceuticals to develop retinoic acid-related orphan nuclear receptor gamma inhibitors for use in the treatment of a number of autoimmune diseases, which could generate up to US$122.5 million for Orca. The company also announced its plan to spend US$40 million creating a new subsidiary focused on small molecule anti-infectives – primarily in the research of the gyrase inhibitor, AZD0914, which is currently in Phase II for the treatment of gonorrhea. The company underwrote twenty out of thirty-two seats of a new Cambridge– Gothenburg service by Sun-Air of Scandinavia.


title: AstraZeneca

text: In mid-March the company announced it would co-commercialise naloxegol along with Daiichi Sankyo in a deal worth up to US$825 million. Towards the end of April the company announced a number of collaborations worth an estimated US$1.8 billion; first, to develop and commercialise MEDI4736, with Celgene, for use against non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, myelodysplastic syndromes, and multiple myeloma with AstraZeneca receiving US$450 million. The second of two deals is an agreement to study a combination treatment of MEDI4736 and Innate Pharma's Phase II anti-NKG2A antibody IPH2201 for up to US$1.275 billion. The company's MedImmune arm also launched collaborative clinical trials with Juno Therapeutics, investigating combination treatments for cancer. The trials will assess combinations of MEDI4736 and one of Juno Therapeutics' CD19 directed chimeric antigen receptor T-cell candidates. In late June the company announced it has entered into a partnership agreement with Eolas Therapeutics on the Eolas Orexin-1 Receptor Antagonist (EORA) program for smoking cessation and other treatments. In July the company announced it would sell off its rights to Entocort (budesonide) to Tillotts Pharma for US$215 million. In July 2015, Genzyme announced it would acquire the rare cancer drug Caprelsa (vandetanib) from AstraZeneca for up to US$300 million. In August, the company announced it had acquired the global rights to develop and commercialise Heptares Therapeutics' drug candidate HTL-1071, which focuses on blocking the adenosine A2A receptor, in a deal worth up to US$510 million. In the same month the company's MedImmune subsidiary acquired exclusive rights to Inovio Pharmaceuticals' INO-3112 immunotherapy, currently in Phase I/II, under an agreement which could net more than US$727.5 million for Inovio. INO-3112 targets Human papillomavirus types 16 and 18. In September, Valeant licensed Brodalumab from the company for up to US$445 million. On 6 November it was reported that AstraZeneca had acquired ZS Pharma for US$2.7 billion. In December the company announced its intention to acquire the respiratory portfolio of Takeda Pharmaceutical – namely Alvesco and Omnaris – for US$575 million A day later, the company announced it had taken a 55% majority stake in Acerta for US$4 billion. As part of the transaction the company will gain commercial rights to Acerta's irreversible oral Bruton's tyrosine kinase inhibitor, acalabrutinib (ACP-196), which is currently in Phase III development for B-cell blood cancers and in Phase I or II clinical trials in solid tumours. In 2015, it was the eighth-largest drug company in the world based on sales revenue.


title: AstraZeneca

text: In July 2017, the company's CEO Pascal Soriot said that Brexit would not affect its commitment to its current plans in the United Kingdom. However, it had slowed decision making for new investment projects waiting for a post-Brexit regulatory regime to settle down.


title: AstraZeneca

text: In September 2017, the company's chairman Leif Johansson planned in taking the "first steps" in moving its research and manufacturing operations away from the United Kingdom, if there is a hard Brexit.


title: AstraZeneca

text: In 2017, it was the eleventh largest drug company in the world based on sales and ranked seventh based on R&D investment.


title: AstraZeneca

text: In January EVP Pam Cheng stated that AstraZeneca has ignited startup of duplicate QA testing facility in Sweden and has initiated hiring in Sweden.


title: AstraZeneca

text: In February 2018, AstraZeneca announced it was spinning off six early-stage experimental drugs into a new biotechnology company, known as Viela Bio, valued at US$250 million.


title: AstraZeneca

text: On 6 December 2018, AstraZeneca purchased nearly 8% of the American pharmaceutical business, Moderna.


title: AstraZeneca

text: In March 2019, AstraZeneca announced it will pay up to US$6.9 billion to work with Daiichi Sankyo Co Ltd on an experimental treatment for breast cancer. AstraZeneca plans to use some of the proceeds of a US$3.5 billion share issue to fund the deal. The deal on the drug known as trastuzumab deruxtecan sent shares in Japan's Daiichi soaring 16%.


title: AstraZeneca

text: In September 2019, the company announced that it would cease drug production at its German headquarters in Wedel, leading to the loss of 175 jobs by the end of 2021.


title: AstraZeneca

text: In October 2019, AstraZeneca announced it would sell the global commercial rights for its drug to treat acid reflux to German pharmaceutical company Cheplapharm Arzneimittel GmbH for as much as US$276 million.


title: AstraZeneca

text: In February 2020, AstraZeneca agreed to sublicense its global rights (except Europe, Canada and Israel) to the drug Movantik, to Redhill Biopharma.


title: AstraZeneca

text: In June 2020, AstraZeneca made a preliminary approach to Gilead Sciences about a potential merger, worth almost US$240 billion. However, these plans were subsequently dropped because it would have distracted the company from its own pipeline and ongoing COVID-19 vaccine efforts.


title: AstraZeneca

text: In July 2020, the business entered into its second collaboration with Daiichi Sankyo, centred around the development of DS-1062, an antibody drug conjugate. The deal could potentially be worth up to US$6 billion for Daiichi.


title: AstraZeneca

text: In September 2020, AstraZeneca acquired the preclinical oral PCSK9 inhibitor program from Dogma Therapeutics.


title: AstraZeneca

text: On 27 December 2020, AstraZeneca CEO Pascal Soriot said that they have “figured out the winning formula” with their two-dose system with the Oxford University’s COVID-19 vaccine.


title: AstraZeneca

text: On 30 December 2020, the United Kingdom approved the emergency use of the Oxford–AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine.


title: AstraZeneca

text: In July 2021, AstraZeneca acquired Alexion Pharmaceuticals. In October 2021, the company, through Alexion, acquired Caelum Biosciences and its monoclonal treatment (CAEL-101) for light chain (AL) amyloidosis for up to $500 million.


title: AstraZeneca

text: In July, the company announced it would acquire TeneoTwo for up to $1.3 billion, increasing its blood cancer drug offering. In October 2022 it was announced that the company would acquire LogicBio Therapeutics, which was active in clinical-stage genomic medicine.


title: AstraZeneca

text: In November 2022, it was announced AstraZeneca had acquired the Amsterdam-headquartered clinical-stage biotechnology company, Neogene Therapeutics.


title: AstraZeneca

text: In March 2020, the company announced that it would be donating PPE, including 9 million face masks, to help support various international health organisations mitigating the COVID-19 pandemic.


title: AstraZeneca

text: In April 2020, Chief Executive Pascal Soriot, reported that the company was working with GlaxoSmithKline and the University of Cambridge to develop a new laboratory capable of conducting 30,000 COVID-19 tests per day. The company also announced plans for a clinical trial to assess the potential use of Calquence in the treatment of COVID-19.


title: AstraZeneca

text: In June 2020, the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) confirmed that the third phase of testing for potential vaccines developed by Oxford University and AstraZeneca would begin in July 2020. One of them, AZD1222, reached phase III trials.


title: AstraZeneca

text: On 23 November 2020, Oxford–AstraZeneca announced the vaccine's successful trial, preventing 70% of people developing symptoms. The researchers thought that the figure might be as high as 90% if they tweaked the dose.


title: AstraZeneca

text: In January 2021, India approved the use of the Oxford–AstraZeneca vaccine, paving the way for a mass immunisation campaign in the world's second most populous country. It was announced that the Oxford–AstraZeneca shot would be made locally by the Serum Institute of India (SII) with a brand name COVISHIELD.


title: AstraZeneca

text: On 29 January 2021, the European Medicines Agency (EMA) recommended granting a conditional marketing authorisation for AZD1222 in people from 18 years of age. By mid-March 2021, The Netherlands, Denmark, Norway, Iceland, Bulgaria and Ireland had suspended the use of the AstraZeneca vaccine due to worries over six cases of a "rare combination" of blood clots with lowered blood platelets, see embolic and thrombotic events after COVID-19 vaccination. The temporary halt was against the advice of the European Union's medicines regulator who said the benefits of the vaccine still outweigh any potential risks.


title: AstraZeneca

text: EMA issued a statement on 18 March 2021 stating that no association between vaccination with AstraZeneca vaccines and clot-related cases had been found, but this could not be ruled out and further investigations were being carried out. The EMA also stressed that the benefits of AstraZeneca vaccine outweigh the risks of possible side effects.


title: AstraZeneca

text: On 30 March 2021, the Swedish Medicines Agency, Läkemedelsverket, announced that following the prior approval of the EMA it would change the name of the vaccine to Vaxzevria, stressing that only the name of the vaccine would change, not the composition.


title: AstraZeneca

text: On 6 April 2021, EMA head of vaccines Marco Cavaleri announced that it could be declared that there was a link between the Oxford–AstraZeneca COVID-19 (Vaxzevria) vaccine and rare blood clots associated with low platelet counts. In a statement the following day, the EMA confirmed the link, but continued to recommend the vaccine, saying the benefits of the vaccine far outweigh the risks. Later, a Scottish vaccine efficacy study confirmed the validity of this statement, showing an 88 percent reduction in the risk of hospitalization after the first dose of Vaxzevria from the fourth week onwards. The European Medicines Agency also identified, over time, the development of the rare neurological disease Guillain-Barré syndrome (GBS) as a possible side effect of Vaxzevria. By the time of the EMA's decision in September 2021, Guillain-Barré syndrome was unlikely to have occurred, with only 833 cases of GBS reported in 8 months following the administration of 592 million doses of the vaccine. In December 2021, the scientists from Arizona State University and Cardiff University identified “the trigger” behind blood clots. Professor Alan Parker said: “Our data confirms PF4 can bind to adenoviruses, an important step in unravelling the mechanism underlying VITT. Establishing a mechanism could help to prevent and treat this disorder.”


title: AstraZeneca

text: In April 2021, the European Commission announced that it would sue Astra Zeneca for delaying the timely delivery of Vaxzevria at a time when "every vaccine counts, because every vaccine can save lives". In September 2021, the lawsuit was finally settled with AstraZeneca agreeing to deliver 60 million doses of vaccines to EU member states by October, 75 million by the end of the year, and 65 million more by April 2022.


title: AstraZeneca

text: The following is an illustration of the company's major mergers and acquisitions and historical predecessors:


title: AstraZeneca

text: AstraZeneca develops, manufactures and sells pharmaceutical and biotechnology products to treat disorders in the oncology, cardiovascular, gastrointestinal, infection, neuroscience, respiratory and inflammation areas.


title: AstraZeneca

text: AstraZeneca has its corporate headquarters in Cambridge, United Kingdom, and its main research and development (R&D) centres are in Cambridge (UK), Gaithersburg (Maryland, US), Gothenburg (Sweden) and Warsaw (Poland).


title: AstraZeneca

text: In April 2015, AstraZeneca's drug tremelimumab was approved as an orphan drug for the treatment of mesothelioma in the United States. In February 2016, AstraZeneca announced that a clinical trial of tremelimumab as a treatment for mesothelioma failed to meet its primary endpoint.


title: AstraZeneca

text: On 26 April 2012, it was announced that Brennan was to retire in early June of that year. In August 2012, Pascal Soriot was named CEO of AstraZeneca.


title: AstraZeneca

text: It was also announced that Leif Johansson would succeed Louis Schweitzer as non-executive chairman on 1 June 2012, three months earlier than previously announced, and would become Chairman of the Nomination and Governance Committee after the 2012 Annual General Meeting.


title: AstraZeneca

text: The company's non-executive Board directors are Philip Broadley, Euan Ashley, Michel Demaré, Deborah DiSanzo, Diana Layfield, Sheri McCoy, Tony Mok, Nazneen Rahman, Andreas Rummelt, and Marcus Wallenberg.


title: AstraZeneca

text: AstraZeneca is a member of the Personalized Medicine Coalition, a medical research advocacy group that lobbies on behalf of the pharmaceutical industry.


title: AstraZeneca

text: In April 2010, AstraZeneca settled a "qui tam" lawsuit brought by Stefan P. Kruszewski for US$520 million to settle allegations that the company defrauded Medicare, Medicaid, and other government-funded health care programs in connection with its marketing and promotional practices for the blockbuster atypical antipsychotic, Seroquel. According to the settlement agreement, AstraZeneca targeted its illegal marketing of the anti-psychotic Seroquel towards doctors who do not typically treat schizophrenia or bipolar disorder, such as physicians who treat the elderly, primary care physicians, pediatric and adolescent physicians, and in long-term care facilities and prisons.


title: AstraZeneca

text: In March 2011, AstraZeneca settled a lawsuit in the United States totalling US$68.5 million to be divided up to 38 states.


title: AstraZeneca

text: The company's most commercially successful medication is esomeprazole (Nexium). The primary uses are treatment of gastroesophageal reflux disease, treatment and maintenance of erosive esophagitis, treatment of duodenal ulcers caused by "Helicobacter pylori", prevention of gastric ulcers in those on chronic NSAID therapy, and treatment of gastrointestinal ulcers associated with Crohn's disease. When it is manufactured the result is a mixture of two mirror-imaged molecules, R and S. Two years before the omeprazole patent expired, AstraZeneca patented S-omeprazole in pure form, pointing out that since some people metabolise R-omeprazole slowly, pure S-omeprazole treatment would give higher dose efficiency and less variation between individuals. In March 2001, the company began to market Nexium, as it would a brand new drug.


title: AstraZeneca

text: The (R)-enantiomer of omeprazole is metabolized exclusively by the enzyme CYP2C19, which is expressed in very low amounts by 3% of the population. Treated with a normal dose of the enantiomeric mixture, these persons will experience blood levels five-times higher than those with normal CYP2C19 production. In contrast, esomeprazole is metabolized by both CYP2C19 and CYP3A4, providing less-variable drug exposure. While omeprazole is approved only at doses of up to 20 mg for the treatment of gastroesophageal reflux, esomeprazole is approved for doses up to 40 mg.


title: AstraZeneca

text: In 2007, Marcia Angell, former editor-in-chief of the "New England Journal of Medicine" and a lecturer in social medicine at the Harvard Medical School, said in "Stern", a German-language weekly newsmagazine, that AstraZeneca's scientists had misrepresented their research on the drug's efficiency, saying: "Instead of using presumably comparable doses [of each drug], the company's scientists used Nexium in higher dosages. They compared 20 and 40 mg Nexium with 20 mg Prilosec. With the cards having been marked in that way, Nexium looked like an improvement – which however was only small and shown in only two of the three studies."


title: AstraZeneca

text: On 4 February 1998, Astra USA sued Lars Bildman, its former president and chief executive officer, seeking US$15 million for defrauding the company. The sum included US$2.3 million in company funds he allegedly used to fix up three of his homes, plus money the company paid as the result of the EEOC investigation. Astra's lawsuit alleged Bildman sexually harassed and intimidated employees, used company funds for yachts and prostitutes, destroyed documents and records, and concocted: "tales of conspiracy involving ex-KGB agents and competitors. This was in a last-ditch effort to distract attention from the real wrongdoer, Bildman himself." Bildman had already pleaded guilty in US District Court for failing to report more than US$1 million in income on his tax returns. In addition, several female co-workers filed personal sexual-harassment lawsuits against Bildman. In April 1998, Bildman was sentenced to 21 months in prison three months after he pled guilty to filing false Federal tax returns.


title: AstraZeneca

text: In February 1998, AstraZenaca's U.S. affiliate Astra U.S.A. agreed to a $10 million settlement after an Equal Employment Opportunity Commission investigation which started in May 1996 found that sexual harassment against female employees. 120 former female employees of Astra were interviewed during the inquiry, with about 80 of them being identified as able to file claims. Astra U.S.A. also issued a statement of apology for the hostile work environment.


title: AstraZeneca

text: In "Astra USA v. Bildman", 914 N.E.2d 36 (Mass. 2009), applying New York's faithless servant doctrine, the court held that a company's employee who had engaged in financial misdeeds and sexual harassment must "forfeit all of his salary and bonuses for the period of disloyalty". The court held that this was the case even if the employee "otherwise performed valuable services", and that the employee was not entitled to recover restitution for the value of those other services. The decision attracted a good deal of attention by legal commentators.


title: AstraZeneca

text: In 2004, University of Minnesota research participant Dan Markingson committed suicide while enrolled in an industry-sponsored pharmaceutical trial comparing three FDA-approved atypical antipsychotics: Seroquel (quetiapine), Zyprexa (olanzapine), and Risperdal (risperidone). University of Minnesota Professor of Bioethics Carl Elliott noted that Markingson was enrolled in the study against the wishes of his mother, Mary Weiss, and that he was forced to choose between enrolling in the study or being involuntarily committed to a state mental institution. A 2005 FDA investigation cleared the university. Nonetheless, controversy around the case has continued. A "Mother Jones" article resulted in a group of university faculty members sending a public letter to the university Board of Regents urging an external investigation into Markingson's death.


title: AstraZeneca

text: In 2010, AstraZeneca agreed to pay £505 million to settle a UK tax dispute related to transfer mispricing.


title: AstraZeneca

text: However, the UK Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, Matt Hancock, declared in March 2021 that the United Kingdom had been given "exclusivity" and that the EU's treaty was "inferior". After placing the order for AstraZeneca's vaccine, the European Commission mistakenly assumed that it had enough vaccines and initially ordered only 200 million doses from Pfizer–BioNTech when the manufacturers offered 500 million doses to the EU in November 2020.


title: AstraZeneca

text: However, the contract that AstraZeneca reached with the UK was very similar to that it reached with the EU, and it also contained the phrase "best reasonable efforts"; the UK contract was signed on 28 August 2020, a day after the contract with the EU. The key difference seems to be that AstraZeneca entered into a preliminary agreement with the U.K. back in May 2020 which arranged for "the development of a dedicated supply chain for the U.K." The failure to produce the vaccine in the anticipated quantities contributed to the low vaccination rates of vulnerable populations of the European Union at the beginning of the outbreak of more virulent variants of SARS-CoV-2 in early 2021.


title: Man

text: A man is an adult male human. Prior to adulthood, a male human is referred to as a boy (a male child or adolescent). Like most other male mammals, a man's genome usually inherits an X chromosome from the mother and a Y chromosome from the father. Sex differentiation of the male fetus is governed by the SRY gene on the Y chromosome. During puberty, hormones which stimulate androgen production result in the development of secondary sexual characteristics, thus exhibiting greater differences between the sexes. These include greater muscle mass, the growth of facial hair and a lower body fat composition.


title: Man

text: Male anatomy is distinguished from female anatomy by the male reproductive system, which includes the penis, testicles, sperm duct, prostate gland and the epididymis, and by secondary sex characteristics, including a narrower pelvis, narrower hips, and smaller breasts without mammary glands.


title: Man

text: Throughout human history, traditional gender roles have often defined and limited men's activities and opportunities. Men often face conscription into military service or are directed into professions with high mortality rates, resulting in a shorter life expectancy than women. Many religious doctrines stipulate certain rules for men, such as forced circumcision. Men are over-represented as both perpetrators and victims of violence.


title: Man

text: Trans men have a gender identity that does not align with their female sex assignment at birth, while intersex men may have sex characteristics that do not fit typical notions of male biology.


title: Man

text: The English term "man" is derived from the Proto-Indo-European root "*man-" (see Sanskrit/Avestan "manu-", Slavic "mǫž" "man, male"). More directly, the word derives from Old English "mann". The Old English form primarily meant "person" or "human being" and referred to men, women, and children alike. The Old English word for "man" as distinct from "woman" or "child" was "wer". "Mann" only came to mean "man" in Middle English, replacing "wer", which survives today only in the compounds "werewolf" (from Old English "werwulf", literally "man-wolf"), and "wergild", literally "man-payment".


title: Man

text: In humans, sperm cells carry either an X or a Y sex chromosome. If a sperm cell carrying a Y chromosome fertilizes the female ovum, the offspring will have a male karyotype (XY). The SRY gene is typically found on the Y chromosome and causes the development of the testes, which in turn govern other aspects of male sex differentiation. Sex differentiation in males proceeds in a testes-dependent way while female differentiation is not gonad dependent.


title: Man

text: Primary sex characteristics (or sex organs) are characteristics that are present at birth and are integral to the reproductive process. For men, primary sex characteristics include the penis and testicles.


title: Man

text: Adult humans exhibit sexual dimorphism in many other characteristics, many of which have no direct link to reproductive ability. Humans are sexually dimorphic in body size, body structure, and body composition. Men tend to be taller and heavier than women, and adjusted for height, men tend to have greater lean and bone mass than women, and lower fat mass.


title: Man

text: Secondary sex characteristics are features that appear during puberty in humans. Such features are especially evident in the sexually dimorphic phenotypic traits that distinguish between the sexes, but—unlike the primary sex characteristics—are not directly part of the reproductive system. Secondary sexual characteristics that are specific to men include:


title: Man

text: Men weigh more than women. On average, men are taller than women by about 10%. On average, men have a larger waist in comparison to their hips (see waist–hip ratio) than women. In women, the index and ring fingers tend to be either more similar in size or their index finger is slightly longer than their ring finger, whereas men's ring finger tends to be longer.


title: Man

text: The male reproductive system includes external and internal genitalia. The male external genitalia consist of the penis, the male urethra, and the scrotum, while the male internal genitalia consist of the testes, the prostate, the epididymis, the seminal vesicle, the vas deferens, the ejaculatory duct, and the bulbourethral gland.


title: Man

text: The male reproductive system's function is to produce semen, which carries sperm and thus genetic information that can unite with an egg within a woman. Since sperm that enters a woman's uterus and then fallopian tubes goes on to fertilize an egg which develops into a fetus or child, the male reproductive system plays no necessary role during the gestation. The study of male reproduction and associated organs is called andrology.


title: Man

text: Testosterone stimulates the development of the Wolffian ducts, the penis, and closure of the labioscrotal folds into the scrotum. Another significant hormone in sexual differentiation is the anti-Müllerian hormone, which inhibits the development of the Müllerian ducts. For males during puberty, testosterone, along with gonadotropins released by the pituitary gland, stimulates spermatogenesis.


title: Man

text: While a majority of the global health gender disparities is weighted against women, there are situations in which men tend to fare poorer. One such instance is armed conflicts, where men are often the immediate victims. A study of conflicts in 13 countries from 1955 to 2002 found that 81% of all violent war deaths were male. Apart from armed conflicts, areas with high incidence of violence, such as regions controlled by drug cartels, also see men experiencing higher mortality rates. This stems from social beliefs that associate ideals of masculinity with aggressive, confrontational behavior. Lastly, sudden and drastic changes in economic environments and the loss of social safety nets, in particular social subsidies and food stamps, have also been linked to higher levels of alcohol consumption and psychological stress among men, leading to a spike in male mortality rates. This is because such situations often makes it harder for men to provide for their family, a task that has been long regarded as the "essence of masculinity." A retrospective analyses of people infected with the common cold found that doctors underrate the symptoms of men, and are more willing to attribute symptoms and illness to women than men. Women live longer than men in all countries, and across all age groups, for which reliable records exist. In the United States, men are less healthy than women across all social classes. Non-white men are especially unhealthy. Men are over-represented in dangerous occupations and represent a majority of on the job deaths. Further, medical doctors provide men with less service, less advice, and spend less time with men than they do with women per medical encounter.


title: Man

text: Male sexuality and attraction vary from person to person, and a man's sexual behavior can be affected by many factors, including evolved predispositions, personality, upbringing, and culture. While the majority of men are heterosexual, significant minorities are homosexual or bisexual.


title: Man

text: Trans men have a male gender identity that does not align with their female sex assignment at birth and may undergo masculinizing hormone replacement therapy and/or sex reassignment surgery, while intersex men may have sex characteristics that do not fit typical notions of male biology. A 2016 systemic review estimated that 0.256% of people self-identify as female-to-male transgender. A 2017 survey of 80,929 Minnesota students found that roughly twice as many female-assigned adolescents self-identified as transgender, compared to adolescents with a male sex assignment.


title: Man

text: Masculinity (also sometimes called "manhood" or "manliness") is the set of personality traits and attributes associated with boys and men. Although masculinity is socially constructed, some research indicates that some behaviors considered masculine are biologically influenced. To what extent masculinity is biologically or socially influenced is subject to debate. It is distinct from the definition of the biological male sex, as both males and females can exhibit masculine traits. Men generally face social stigma for embodying feminine traits, more so than women do for embodying masculine traits. This can also manifest as homophobia.


title: Man

text: Standards of manliness or masculinity vary across different cultures and historical periods. While the outward signs of masculinity look different in different cultures, there are some common aspects to its definition across cultures. In all cultures in the past, and still among traditional and non-Western cultures, getting married is the most common and definitive distinction between boyhood and manhood. In the late 20th century, some qualities traditionally associated with marriage (such as the "triple Ps" of "protecting, providing, and procreating") were still considered signs of having achieved manhood.


title: Man

text: Platonic relationships are not significantly different between men and women, though some differences do exist. Friendships involving men tend to be based more on shared activities than self-disclosure and personal connection. Perceptions of friendship involving men varies among cultures and time periods. In heterosexual romantic relationships, men are typically expected to take a proactive role, initiate the relationship, plan dates, and propose marriage.


title: Man

text: Anthropology has shown that masculinity itself has social status, just like wealth, race and social class. In Western culture, for example, greater masculinity usually brings greater social status. Many English words such as "virtue" and "virile" (from the Indo-European root "vir" meaning "man") reflect this. In most cultures, male privilege allows men more rights and privileges than women. In societies where men are not given special legal privileges, they typically hold more positions of power, and men are seen as being taken more seriously in society. This is associated with a "gender-role strain" in which men face increased societal pressure to conform to gender roles.


title: Man

text: Media portrayals of men often replicate traditional understanding of masculinity. Men are portrayed more frequently in television than women and most commonly appear as leads in action and drama programming. Men are typically more active in television programming than women and typically hold more power and status. Due to their prominence, men are more likely to be both the objects and instigators of humorous or disparaging content. Fathers are often portrayed in television as either idealized and caring or clumsy and inept. In advertising, men are disproportionately featured in advertisements for alcohol, vehicles, and business products.


title: Man

text: In most societies, men have more legal and cultural rights than women, and misogyny is far more prevalent than misandry in society. Men typically receive less support after being victims of sexual assault, and rape of males is stigmatized. Domestic violence against men is similarly stigmatized. Opponents of circumcision describe it as a human rights violation. The fathers' rights movement seeks to support separated fathers that do not receive equal rights to care for their children. The men's movement is the response to issues faced by men in Western countries. It includes pro-feminist groups such as the men's liberation movement and anti-feminist groups such as the manosphere and the men's rights movement.


title: Man

text: The Mars symbol (♂) is a common symbol that represents the male sex. The symbol is identical to the planetary symbol of Mars. It was first used to denote sex by Carl Linnaeus in 1751. The symbol is sometimes seen as a stylized representation of the shield and spear of the Roman god Mars. According to Stearn, however, this derivation is "fanciful" and all the historical evidence favours "the conclusion of the French classical scholar Claude de Saumaise" that it is derived from "θρ", the contraction of a Greek name for the planet Mars, which is "Thouros".


title: Henry A. Wallace

text: Henry Agard Wallace (October 7, 1888 – November 18, 1965) was an American politician, journalist, farmer, and businessman who served as the 33rd vice president of the United States, the 11th U.S. Secretary of Agriculture, and the 10th U.S. Secretary of Commerce. He was the nominee of the new Progressive Party in the 1948 presidential election.


title: Henry A. Wallace

text: The oldest son of Henry C. Wallace, who served as U.S. Secretary of Agriculture from 1921 to 1924, Henry A. Wallace was born in rural Iowa in 1888. After graduating from Iowa State University in 1910, he worked as a writer and editor for his family's farm journal, "Wallaces' Farmer". He also founded the Hi-Bred Corn Company, a hybrid corn company that became extremely successful. Wallace displayed intellectual curiosity about a wide array of subjects, including statistics and economics, and explored various religious and spiritual movements, including Theosophy. After his father's death in 1924, Wallace drifted away from the Republican Party; he supported Democratic nominee Franklin D. Roosevelt in the 1932 presidential election.


title: Henry A. Wallace

text: Wallace served as Secretary of Agriculture under Roosevelt from 1933 to 1940. He strongly supported the New Deal and presided over a major shift in federal agricultural policy, implementing measures designed to curtail agricultural surpluses and to ameliorate rural poverty. Roosevelt overcame strong opposition from conservative leaders in the Democratic Party and had Wallace nominated for vice president at the 1940 Democratic National Convention. The Roosevelt-Wallace ticket won the 1940 presidential election. At the 1944 Democratic National Convention, conservative party leaders defeated Wallace's bid for renomination, placing Missouri Senator Harry S. Truman on the Democratic ticket instead. In early 1945, Roosevelt appointed Wallace as Secretary of Commerce.


title: Henry A. Wallace

text: Roosevelt died in April 1945 and Truman succeeded him as president. Wallace continued to serve as Secretary of Commerce until September 1946, when he was fired by Truman for delivering a speech urging conciliatory policies toward the Soviet Union. Wallace and his supporters then established the nationwide Progressive Party and launched a third-party campaign for president. The Progressive platform called for conciliatory policies toward the USSR, desegregation of public schools, racial and gender equality, a national health-insurance program, and other left-wing policies. Accusations of Communist influence followed, and Wallace's association with controversial Theosophist figure Nicholas Roerich undermined his campaign; he received just 2.4% of the popular vote. Wallace broke with the Progressive Party in 1950 over the Korean War, and in a 1952 article he called the Soviet Union "utterly evil". Turning his attention back to agricultural innovation, he became a highly successful businessman. He specialized in developing and marketing hybrid seed corn and improved chickens before his death in 1965 of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS).


title: Henry A. Wallace

text: Henry Agard Wallace was born on October 7, 1888, on a farm near Orient, Iowa, to Henry Cantwell Wallace and his wife, May. Wallace had two younger brothers and three younger sisters. His paternal grandfather, "Uncle Henry" Wallace, was a prominent landowner, newspaper editor, Republican activist, and Social Gospel advocate in Adair County, Iowa. Uncle Henry's father, John Wallace, was an Ulster-Scots immigrant from the village Kilrea in County Londonderry, Ireland, who arrived in Philadelphia in 1823. May (née Broadhead) was born in New York City but was raised by an aunt in Muscatine, Iowa, after her parents' death.


title: Henry A. Wallace

text: Wallace's family moved to Ames, Iowa, in 1892 and to Des Moines, Iowa, in 1896. In 1894, the Wallaces established an agricultural newspaper, "Wallace's Farmer". It became extremely successful and made the family wealthy and politically influential. Wallace took a strong interest in agriculture and plants from a young age and befriended African-American botanist George Washington Carver, with whom he frequently discussed plants and other subjects. Wallace was particularly interested in corn, Iowa's key crop. In 1904, he devised an experiment that disproved agronomist Perry Greeley Holden's assertion that the most aesthetically pleasing corn would produce the greatest yield. Wallace graduated from West High School in 1906 and enrolled in Iowa State College later that year, majoring in animal husbandry. He joined the Hawkeye Club, a fraternal organization, and spent much of his free time continuing to study corn. He also organized a political club to support Gifford Pinchot, a Progressive Republican who was head of the United States Forest Service.


title: Henry A. Wallace

text: Wallace became a full-time writer and editor for "Wallace's Farmer" after graduating from college in 1910. He was deeply interested in using mathematics and economics in agriculture and learned calculus as part of an effort to understand hog prices. He also wrote an influential article with pioneering statistician George W. Snedecor on computational methods for correlations and regressions. After his grandfather died in 1916, Wallace and his father became the coeditors of "Wallace's Farmer". In 1921, Wallace assumed leadership of the paper after his father accepted an appointment as Secretary of Agriculture under President Warren G. Harding. His uncle lost ownership of the paper in 1932 during the Great Depression, and Wallace stopped serving as editor in 1933.


title: Henry A. Wallace

text: In 1914, Wallace and his wife purchased a farm near Johnston, Iowa; they initially attempted to combine corn production with dairy farming, but later turned their full attention to corn. Influenced by Edward Murray East, Wallace focused on producing hybrid corn, developing a variety called Copper Cross. In 1923, he reached the first-ever contract for hybrid seed production, agreeing to grant the Iowa Seed Company the sole right to grow and sell Copper Cross corn. In 1926, he co-founded the Hi-Bred Corn Company to develop and produce hybrid corn. It initially turned only a small profit, but eventually became a massive financial success.


title: Henry A. Wallace

text: During World War I, Wallace and his father helped the United States Food Administration (USFA) develop policies to increase hog production. After USFA director Herbert Hoover abandoned the hog production policies the Wallaces favored, the elder Wallace joined an effort to deny Hoover the presidential nomination at the 1920 Republican National Convention. Partly in response to Hoover, Wallace published "Agricultural Prices", in which he advocated government policies to control agricultural prices. He also warned farmers of an imminent price collapse after the war. Wallace's prediction proved accurate: a farm crisis extended into the 1920s. Reflecting a broader decrease in agricultural prices, the corn prices fell from $1.68 per bushel in 1918 to $0.42 per bushel in 1921. Wallace proposed various remedies to combat the farm crisis, which he believed stemmed primarily from overproduction. Among his proposed policies was the "ever-normal granary": the government buys and stores agricultural surpluses when agricultural prices are low and sells them when they are high.


title: Henry A. Wallace

text: Both Wallaces backed the McNary–Haugen Farm Relief Bill, which would have required the federal government to market and export agricultural surpluses in foreign markets. The bill was defeated in large part because of the opposition of President Calvin Coolidge, who became president after Harding's death in 1923. Wallace's father died in October 1924, and in the November 1924 presidential election, Henry Wallace voted for the Progressive nominee, Robert La Follette. Due, in part, to Wallace's continued lobbying, Congress passed the McNary–Haugen bill in 1927 and 1928, but Coolidge vetoed the bill both times. Dissatisfied with both major party candidates in the 1928 presidential election, Wallace tried to get Illinois Governor Frank Lowden to run for president. He ultimately supported Democratic nominee Al Smith, but Hoover won a landslide victory. The onset of the Great Depression during Hoover's administration devastated Iowa farmers as farm income fell by two-thirds from 1929 to 1932. In the 1932 presidential election, Wallace campaigned for Democrat Franklin D. Roosevelt, who favored the agricultural policies of Wallace and economist M. L. Wilson. He did not formally register as a Democrat until 1936.


title: Henry A. Wallace

text: After Roosevelt won the 1932 presidential election, he appointed Wallace as secretary of agriculture. Despite his past affiliation with the Republican Party, Wallace strongly supported Roosevelt and his New Deal domestic program, and became a registered member of the Democratic Party in 1936. Upon taking office, Wallace appointed Rexford Tugwell, a member of Roosevelt's "Brain Trust" of important advisers, as his deputy secretary. Though Roosevelt was initially focused primarily on addressing the banking crisis, Wallace and Tugwell convinced him of the necessity of quickly passing major agricultural reforms. Roosevelt, Wallace, and House Agriculture Committee Chairman John Marvin Jones rallied congressional support around the Agricultural Adjustment Act, which established the Agricultural Adjustment Administration (AAA). The AAA's aim was to raise prices for commodities through artificial scarcity by using a system of "domestic allotments" that set the total output of agricultural products. It paid land owners subsidies to leave some of their land idle. Farm income increased significantly in the first three years of the New Deal, as prices for commodities rose. After the Agricultural Adjustment Act passed, Agriculture became the federal government's largest department.


title: Henry A. Wallace

text: The Supreme Court struck down the Agricultural Adjustment Act in the 1936 case "United States v. Butler". Wallace strongly disagreed with the Court's holding that agriculture was a "purely local activity" and thus could not be regulated by the federal government, saying, "were agriculture truly a local matter in 1936, as the Supreme Court says it is, half of the people of the United States would quickly starve." He quickly proposed a new agriculture program designed to satisfy the Supreme Court's objections; under the new program, the federal government would reach rental agreements with farmers to plant green manure rather than crops like corn and wheat. Less than two months after the Supreme Court decided "United States v. Butler", Roosevelt signed the Soil Conservation and Domestic Allotment Act of 1936 into law. In the 1936 presidential election, Wallace was an important surrogate in Roosevelt's campaign.


title: Henry A. Wallace

text: In 1935, Wallace fired general counsel Jerome Frank and some other Agriculture Department officials who sought to help Southern sharecroppers by issuing a reinterpretation of the Agricultural Adjustment Act. He became more committed to aiding sharecroppers and other groups of impoverished farmers during a trip to the South in late 1936, after which he wrote, "I have never seen among the peasantry of Europe poverty so abject as that which exists in this favorable cotton year in the great cotton states." He helped lead passage of the Bankhead–Jones Farm Tenant Act of 1937, which authorized the federal government to issue loans to tenant farmers so that they could purchase land and equipment. The law also established the Farm Security Administration, which was charged with ameliorating rural poverty, within the Agriculture Department. The failure of Roosevelt's Judicial Procedures Reform Bill of 1937 (the "court-packing plan"), the onset of the Recession of 1937–38, and a wave of strikes led by John L. Lewis badly damaged the Roosevelt administration's ability to pass major legislation after 1936. Nonetheless, Wallace helped lead passage of the Agricultural Adjustment Act of 1938, which implemented Wallace's ever-normal granary plan. Between 1932 and 1940, the Agriculture Department grew from 40,000 employees and an annual budget of $280 million to 146,000 employees and an annual budget of $1.5 billion.


title: Henry A. Wallace

text: A Republican wave in the 1938 elections effectively brought an end to the New Deal legislative program, and the Roosevelt administration increasingly focused on foreign policy. Unlike many Midwestern progressives, Wallace supported internationalist policies, such as Secretary of State Cordell Hull's efforts to lower tariffs. He joined Roosevelt in attacking the aggressive actions of Nazi Germany and the Empire of Japan, and in one speech derided Nazi eugenics as a "mumbo-jumbo of dangerous nonsense." After World War II broke out in September 1939, Wallace supported Roosevelt's program of military buildup and, anticipating hostilities with Germany, pushed for initiatives like a synthetic rubber program and closer trade relations with Latin American countries.


title: Henry A. Wallace

text: As Roosevelt refused to commit to either retiring or seeking reelection during his second term, supporters of Wallace and other leading Democrats such as Vice President John Nance Garner and Postmaster General James Farley laid the groundwork for a presidential campaign in the 1940 election. After the outbreak of World War II in Europe in September 1939, Wallace publicly endorsed a third term for Roosevelt. Though Roosevelt never declared his candidacy, the 1940 Democratic National Convention nominated him for president. Shortly after being nominated, Roosevelt told party leaders that he insisted on Wallace for vice president. A recent convert to the Democratic Party, Wallace was not popular among its leaders and had never been tested in an election. But he had a strong base of support among farmers, had been a loyal lieutenant to Roosevelt in domestic and foreign policy, and was in good health. Roosevelt convinced James F. Byrnes, Paul V. McNutt, and other contenders for the vice-presidential nomination to support Wallace, but conservative Democrats rallied around the candidacy of Speaker of the House William B. Bankhead. Eventually, Wallace won the nomination by a wide margin.


title: Henry A. Wallace

text: Though many Democrats were disappointed by Wallace's nomination, it was generally well received by newspapers. Arthur Krock of "The New York Times" wrote that Wallace was "able, thoughtful, honorable–the best of the New Deal type." Wallace left office as Secretary of Agriculture in September 1940, and was succeeded by Undersecretary of Agriculture Claude R. Wickard. The Roosevelt campaign settled on a strategy of keeping Roosevelt largely out of the fray of the election, leaving most of the campaigning to Wallace and other surrogates. Wallace was dispatched to the Midwest, giving speeches in states like Iowa, Illinois, and Missouri. He made foreign affairs the main focus of his campaigning, telling one audience that "the replacement of Roosevelt ... would cause [Adolf] Hitler to rejoice." Both campaigns predicted a close election, but Roosevelt won 449 of the 531 electoral votes and the popular vote by nearly ten points. After the election, Wallace toured Mexico as a goodwill ambassador, delivering a well-received speech regarding Pan-Americanism and Roosevelt's Good Neighbor policy. Upon his return, Wallace convinced the Rockefeller Foundation to establish an agricultural experiment center in Mexico, the first of many such centers the Rockefeller Foundation and the Ford Foundation established.


title: Henry A. Wallace

text: Wallace was sworn in as vice president on January 20, 1941. He quickly grew frustrated with his ceremonial role as the presiding officer of the United States Senate, the one duty the Constitution assigns the vice president. In July 1941, Roosevelt named Wallace chairman of the Board of Economic Warfare (BEW) and of the Supply Priorities and Allocations Board (SPAB). These appointments gave him a voice in organizing national mobilization for war. One journalist noted that Roosevelt made Wallace the first "Vice President to work really as the number two man in government–a conception of the vice presidency popularly held but never realized." Reflecting Wallace's role in organizing mobilization efforts, many journalists began calling him the "Assistant President." Wallace was also named to the Top Policy Group, which advised Roosevelt on the development of nuclear weapons, an initiative Wallace supported. He did not hold any official role in the subsequent Manhattan Project, which developed the first nuclear weapons, but he was informed of its progress.


title: Henry A. Wallace

text: Economic conditions became chaotic, and Roosevelt decided new leadership was needed. In early 1942 he established the War Production Board with businessman Donald Nelson in charge as Wallace became a minor member of the War Production Board. He continued to serve as head of the BEW, which was now far less important: it was now charged with importing the raw materials such as rubber necessary for war production. Wallace struggled to carve out authority for the BEW, demanding that American purchases in Latin America raise the standard of living of the workers. In the process he clashed privately with Secretary of State Cordell Hull, who opposed American interference in another state's internal affairs. The national media dramatically covered Wallace's public battle with Jesse H. Jones, the Secretary of Commerce who was also in charge of the Reconstruction Finance Corporation (RFC), which paid the purchases bills BEW made. Roosevelt's standard strategy for executive management was to give two different people the same role, expecting controversy would result. He wanted the agencies' heads to bring the controversy to him so he could make the decision. On August 21, 1942, Roosevelt explicitly wrote to all his department heads that disagreements "should not be publicly aired, but are to be submitted to me by the appropriate heads of the conflicting agencies." Anyone going public had to resign. Wallace denounced Jones for blocking funding for purchases of raw materials in Latin America needed for the war effort. Jones called on Congress and the public for help, calling Wallace a liar. According to James MacGregor Burns, Jones, a leader of Southern conservative Democrats, was "taciturn, shrewd, practical, cautious". Wallace, deeply distrusted by Democratic party leaders, was the "hero of the Lib Labs, dreamy, utopian, even mystical, yet with his own bent for management and power." On July 15, 1943, Roosevelt stripped both men of their roles in the matter. BEW was reorganized as the Office of Economic Warfare, and put under Leo Crowley. The loss of the BEW was a major blow to Wallace's prestige. He now had no agency and a weak political base on the left wing of the Democratic Party. But he still had visibility, ambition and an articulate voice, and remained a loyal Roosevelt supporter. He was not renominated for vice president but in 1945 Roosevelt fired Jones and made Wallace Secretary of Commerce.


title: Henry A. Wallace

text: On May 8, 1942, Wallace delivered what became his best-remembered speech, known for containing the phrase "the Century of the Common Man". He cast World War II as a war between a "free world" and a "slave world," and held that "peace must mean a better standard of living for the common man, not merely in the United States and England, but also in India, Russia, China, and Latin America–not merely in the United Nations, but also in Germany and Italy and Japan". Some conservatives disliked the speech, but it was translated into 20 languages and millions of copies were distributed around the world.


title: Henry A. Wallace

text: In early 1943, Wallace was dispatched on a goodwill tour of Latin America; he made 24 stops across Central America and South America. Partly due to his ability to deliver speeches in Spanish, Wallace received a warm reception; one State Department official said, "never in Chilean history has any foreigner ever been received with such extravagance and evidently sincere enthusiasm". During his trip, several Latin American countries declared war against Germany. Back home, Wallace continued to deliver speeches, saying after the Detroit race riot of 1943, "we cannot fight to crush Nazi brutality abroad and condone race riots at home". Though Congress largely blocked Roosevelt's domestic agenda, Wallace continued to call for progressive programs; one newspaper wrote that "the New Deal today is Henry Wallace ... the New Deal banner in his hands is not yet furled".


title: Henry A. Wallace

text: In mid-1944, Wallace toured the Soviet Union and China. The USSR presented its American guests with a fully sanitized version of labor camps in Magadan and Kolyma, claiming that all the workers were volunteers. Wallace was impressed by the camp at Magadan, describing it as a "combination Tennessee Valley Authority and Hudson's Bay Company". He received a warm reception in the Soviet Union, but was largely unsuccessful in his efforts to negotiate with Chinese leader Chiang Kai-shek.


title: Henry A. Wallace

text: After the abolition of the BEW, speculation began as to whether Roosevelt would drop Wallace from the ticket in the 1944 election. Gallup polling published in March 1944 showed that Wallace was clearly the most popular choice for vice president among Democrats, and many journalists predicted that he would win renomination. As Roosevelt was in declining health, party leaders expected that the party's vice-presidential nominee would eventually succeed Roosevelt, and Wallace's many enemies within the Democratic Party organized to ensure his removal. Much of the opposition to Wallace stemmed from his open denunciation of racial segregation in the South, but others were concerned by Wallace's unorthodox religious views and pro-Soviet statements. Shortly before the 1944 Democratic National Convention, party leaders such as Robert E. Hannegan and Edwin W. Pauley convinced Roosevelt to sign a document expressing support for either Associate Justice William O. Douglas or Senator Harry S. Truman for the vice-presidential nomination. Nonetheless, Wallace got Roosevelt to send a public letter to the convention chairman in which he wrote, "I personally would vote for [Wallace's] renomination if I were a delegate to the convention".


title: Henry A. Wallace

text: With Roosevelt not committed to keeping or dropping Wallace, the vice-presidential balloting turned into a battle between those who favored Wallace and those who favored Truman. Wallace did not have an effective organization to support his candidacy, though allies like Calvin Benham Baldwin, Claude Pepper, and Joseph F. Guffey pressed for him. Truman, meanwhile, was reluctant to put forward his own candidacy, but Hannegan and Roosevelt convinced him to run. At the convention, Wallace galvanized supporters with a well-received speech in which he lauded Roosevelt and argued that "the future belongs to those who go down the line unswervingly for the liberal principles of both political democracy and economic democracy regardless of race, color, or religion". After Roosevelt delivered his acceptance speech, the crowd began chanting for the nomination of Wallace, but Samuel D. Jackson adjourned the convention for the day before Wallace supporters could call for the beginning of vice presidential balloting. Party leaders worked furiously to line up support for Truman overnight, but Wallace received 429 1/2 votes (589 were needed for nomination) on the first ballot for vice president and Truman 319 1/2, with the rest going to various favorite son candidates. On the second ballot, many delegates who had voted for favorite sons shifted into Truman's camp, giving him the nomination.


title: Henry A. Wallace

text: Wallace believed that Democratic party leaders had unfairly stolen the vice-presidential nomination from him, but he supported Roosevelt in the 1944 presidential election. Hoping to mend ties with Wallace, Roosevelt offered him any position in the Cabinet other than secretary of state, and Wallace asked to replace Jones as secretary of commerce. In that position, Wallace expected to play a key role in the economy's postwar transition. In January 1945, with the end of Wallace's vice presidency, Roosevelt nominated Wallace for secretary of commerce. The nomination prompted an intense debate, as many senators objected to his support for liberal policies designed to boost wages and employment. Conservatives failed to block the nomination, but Senator Walter F. George led passage of a measure removing the Reconstruction Finance Corporation from the Commerce Department. After Roosevelt signed George's bill, Wallace was confirmed by a vote of 56 to 32 on March 1, 1945.


title: Henry A. Wallace

text: Roosevelt died on April 12, 1945, and was succeeded by Truman. Truman quickly replaced most other senior Roosevelt appointees, but retained Wallace, who remained very popular with liberal Democrats. The discontent of liberal leaders strengthened Wallace's position in the Cabinet; Truman privately stated that the two most important members of his "political team" were Wallace and Eleanor Roosevelt. As secretary of commerce, Wallace advocated a "middle course" between the planned economy of the Soviet Union and the laissez-faire economics that had dominated the United States before the Great Depression. With his congressional allies, he led passage of the Employment Act of 1946. Conservatives blocked the inclusion of a measure providing for full employment, but the act established the Council of Economic Advisers and the Joint Economic Committee to study economic matters. Wallace's proposal to establish international control over nuclear weapons was not adopted, but he did help pass the Atomic Energy Act of 1946, which established the United States Atomic Energy Commission to oversee domestic development of nuclear power.


title: Henry A. Wallace

text: World War II ended in September 1945 with the Surrender of Japan, and relations with the USSR became a central matter of foreign policy. Various issues, including the fate of European and Asian postwar governments and the administration of the United Nations, had already begun to strain the wartime alliance between the Soviet Union and the United States. Critics of the USSR objected to the oppressive satellite states it had established in Eastern Europe and Soviet involvement in the Greek Civil War and the Chinese Civil War. In February 1946, George F. Kennan laid out the doctrine of containment, which called for the United States to resist the spread of Communism. Wallace feared that confrontational policies toward the Soviet Union would eventually lead to war, and urged Truman to "allay any reasonable Russian grounds for fear, suspicion, and distrust". Historian Tony Judt wrote in "" that Wallace's "distaste for American involvement with Britain and Europe was widely shared across the political spectrum".


title: Henry A. Wallace

text: Though Wallace was dissatisfied with Truman's increasingly confrontational policies toward the Soviet Union, he remained an integral part of Truman's Cabinet during the first half of 1946. He broke with administration policies in September 1946 when he delivered a speech in which he stated that "we should recognize that we have no more business in the political affairs of Eastern Europe than Russia has in the political affairs of Latin America, Western Europe and the United States". Wallace's speech was booed by the pro-Soviet crowd he delivered it to and even more strongly criticized by Truman administration officials and leading Republicans like Robert A. Taft and Arthur Vandenberg. Truman stated that Wallace's speech did not represent administration policy but merely Wallace's personal views, and on September 20 he demanded and received Wallace's resignation.


title: Henry A. Wallace

text: Shortly after leaving office, Wallace became the editor of "The New Republic", a progressive magazine. He also helped establish the Progressive Citizens of America (PCA), a progressive political organization that called for good relations with the Soviet Union and more liberal programs at home. Though not a member of the PCA, Wallace was widely regarded as the organization's leader and was criticized for the PCA's acceptance of Communist members. In response to the creation of the PCA, anti-Communist liberals established a rival group, Americans for Democratic Action (ADA), which explicitly rejected any association with Communism. Wallace strongly criticized the president in early 1947 after Truman promulgated the Truman Doctrine to oppose Communist threats to Greece and Turkey. Wallace also opposed Truman's Executive Order 9835, which began a purge of government workers affiliated Communist groups deemed to be subversive. He initially favored the Marshall Plan, but later opposed it because he believed the program should have been administered through the United Nations. Wallace and the PCA were scrutinized by the FBI and the House Un-American Activities Committee, both of which sought to uncover evidence of Communist influence.


title: Henry A. Wallace

text: Many in the PCA favored the establishment of a third party, but other longtime Wallace allies warned him against leaving the Democratic Party. On December 29, 1947, Wallace launched a third party campaign, declaring, "we have assembled a Gideon's Army, small in number, powerful in conviction ... We face the future unfettered, unfettered by any principal but the general welfare". He was backed by many Hollywood and Broadway celebrities, and intellectuals. Among his prominent supporters were Rexford Tugwell, Congressmen Vito Marcantonio and Leo Isacson, musicians Paul Robeson and Pete Seeger, and future presidential nominee George McGovern. Calvin Baldwin became Wallace's campaign manager and took charge of fundraising and ensuring that Wallace appeared on as many state ballots as possible. Wallace's first choice for running mate, Claude Pepper, refused to leave the Democratic Party, but Democratic Senator Glen H. Taylor of Idaho agreed to serve as Wallace's running mate. Wallace accepted the endorsement of the American Communist Party, stating, "I'm not following their line. If they want to follow my line, I say God bless 'em". Truman responded to Wallace's left-wing challenge by pressing for liberal domestic policies, while pro-ADA liberals like Hubert Humphrey, Robert F. Wagner, and James Roosevelt linked Wallace to the Soviet Union and the Communist Party. Many Americans came to see Wallace as a fellow traveler to Communists, a view that was reinforced by Wallace's refusal to condemn the 1948 Czechoslovak coup d'état. In early 1948, the CIO and the AFL both rejected Wallace, with the AFL denouncing him as a "front, spokesman, and apologist for the Communist Party". With Wallace's foreign policy views overshadowing his domestic policy views, many liberals who had previously favored his candidacy returned to the Democratic fold.


title: Henry A. Wallace

text: Wallace embarked on a nationwide speaking tour to support his candidacy, encountering resistance in both the North and South. He openly defied the Jim Crow regime in the South, refusing to speak before segregated audiences. "Time" magazine, which opposed Wallace's candidacy, described him as "ostentatiously" riding through the towns and cities of the segregated South "with his Negro secretary beside him". A barrage of eggs and tomatoes were hurled at Wallace and struck him and his campaign members during the tour. State authorities in Virginia sidestepped enforcing their own segregation laws by declaring Wallace's campaign gatherings private parties. "The Pittsburgh Press" began publishing the names of known Wallace supporters. Scores of Wallace supporters in colleges and high schools lost their positions.


title: Henry A. Wallace

text: With strong financial support from Anita McCormick Blaine, Wallace exceeded fundraising goals, and appeared on the ballot of every state except for Oklahoma, Nebraska, and Illinois. The campaign distributed 25 million copies of 140 fliers and pamphlets. Nevertheless, Gallup polls showed support for Wallace falling from 7% in December 1947 to 5% in June 1948. He was endorsed by only two newspapers: the Communist "Daily Worker" in New York and "The Gazette and Daily" in York, Pennsylvania. Some in the press began to speculate that Wallace would drop out of the race.


title: Henry A. Wallace

text: Wallace's supporters held a national convention in Philadelphia in July, formally establishing a new Progressive Party. The party platform addressed a wide array of issues, and included support for the desegregation of public schools, gender equality, a national health insurance program, free trade, and public ownership of large banks, railroads, and power utilities. Another part of the platform stated, "responsibility for ending the tragic prospect of war is a joint responsibility of the Soviet Union and the United States". During the convention, Wallace faced questioning regarding letters he had written to guru Nicholas Roerich; his refusal to comment on the letters was widely criticized. Wallace was further damaged days after the convention when Whittaker Chambers and Elizabeth Bentley testified before the House Un-American Activities Committee that several government officials associated with Wallace (including Alger Hiss and John Abt) were Communist infiltrators. Meanwhile, many Southern Democrats, outraged by the Democratic Party's pro-civil rights plank, bolted the party and nominated Strom Thurmond for president. With the Democrats badly divided, Republicans were confident that Republican nominee Thomas Dewey would win the election. Wallace himself predicted that Truman would be "the worst defeated candidate in history".


title: Henry A. Wallace

text: Though polls consistently showed him losing the race, Truman ran an effective campaign against Dewey and the conservative 80th United States Congress. He ultimately defeated Dewey in both the popular and electoral vote. Wallace won just 2.38 percent of the nationwide popular vote, and failed to carry any state. His best performance was in New York, where he won eight percent of the vote. Just one of the party's congressional candidates, incumbent Congressman Vito Marcantonio, won election. Though Wallace and Thurmond probably took many voters from Truman, their presence in the race may have boosted the president's overall appeal by casting him as the candidate of the center-left. In response to the election results, Wallace stated, "Unless this bi-partisan foreign policy of high prices and war is promptly reversed, I predict that the Progressive Party will rapidly grow into the dominant party. ... To save the peace of the world the Progressive Party is more needed than ever before".


title: Henry A. Wallace

text: Historians Edward Schapsmeier and Frederick Schapsmeier argue:The Progressive party stood for one thing and Wallace another. Actually the party organization was controlled from the outset by those representing the radical left and not liberalism per se. This made it extremely easy for Communists and fellow travelers to infiltrate into important positions within the party machinery. Once this happened, party stands began to resemble a party line. Campaign literature, speech materials, and campaign slogans sounded strangely like echoes of what Moscow wanted to hear. As if wearing moral blinkers, Wallace increasingly became an imperceptive ideologue. Words were uttered by Wallace that did not sound like him, and his performance took on a strange Jekyll and Hyde quality—one moment he was a peace protagonist and the next a propaganda parrot for the Kremlin.


title: Henry A. Wallace

text: Wallace initially remained active in politics following the 1948 campaign, and he delivered the keynote address at the 1950 Progressive National Convention. In early 1949, Wallace testified before Congress in the hope of preventing the ratification of the North Atlantic Treaty, which established the NATO alliance between the United States, Canada, and several European countries. He became increasingly critical of the Soviet Union after 1948, and he resigned from the Progressive Party in August 1950 due to his support for the UN intervention in the Korean War. After leaving the Progressive Party, Wallace endured what biographers John Culver and John Hyde describe as a "long, slow decline into obscurity marked by a certain acceptance of his outcast status".


title: Henry A. Wallace

text: In the early 1950s, he spent much of his time rebutting attacks by prominent public figures like General Leslie Groves, who claimed to have stopped providing Wallace with information regarding the Manhattan Project because he considered Wallace to be a security risk. In 1951, Wallace appeared before Congress to deny accusations that in 1944 he had encouraged a coalition between Chiang Kai-shek and the Chinese Communists. In 1952, he published an article, "Where I Was Wrong," in which he repudiated his earlier foreign policy positions and declared the Soviet Union to be "utterly evil".


title: Henry A. Wallace

text: Wallace did not endorse a candidate in the 1952 presidential election, but in the 1956 presidential election he endorsed incumbent Republican President Dwight D. Eisenhower over Democratic nominee Adlai Stevenson. Wallace, who maintained a correspondence with Eisenhower, described Eisenhower as "utterly sincere" in his efforts for peace. Wallace also began a correspondence with Vice President Richard Nixon, but he declined to endorse either Nixon or Democratic nominee John F. Kennedy in the 1960 presidential election. Though Wallace criticized Kennedy's farm policy during the 1960 campaign, Kennedy invited Wallace to his 1961 inauguration, the first presidential inauguration Wallace had attended since 1945. Wallace later wrote Kennedy, "at no time in our history have so many tens of millions of people been so completely enthusiastic about an inaugural address as about yours". In 1962, he delivered a speech commemorating the centennial anniversary of the establishment of the Department of Agriculture. He also began a correspondence with President Lyndon B. Johnson regarding methods to alleviate rural poverty, though privately he criticized Johnson's escalation of American involvement in the Vietnam War. In the 1964 election, Wallace returned to the Democratic fold, supporting Johnson over Republican nominee Barry Goldwater. Due to declining health, he made his last public appearance that year; in one of his last speeches, he stated, "We lost Cuba in 1959 not only because of Castro but also because we failed to understand the needs of the farmer in the back country of Cuba from 1920 onward. ... The common man is on the march, but it is up to the uncommon men of education and insight to lead that march constructively".


title: Henry A. Wallace

text: Wallace continued to co-own and take an interest in the company he had established, Pioneer Hi-Bred (formerly the Hi-Bred Corn Company), and he established an experimental farm at his New York estate. He focused much of his efforts on the study of chickens, and Pioneer Hi-Bred's chickens at one point produced three-quarters of all commercially sold eggs worldwide. He also wrote or co-wrote several works on agriculture, including a book on the history of corn.


title: Henry A. Wallace

text: Wallace was diagnosed with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) in 1964. He consulted numerous specialists and tried various methods of treating the disease, stating, "I look on myself as an ALS guinea-pig, willing to try almost anything". He died in Danbury, Connecticut, on November 18, 1965, at the age of 77. His remains were cremated and the ashes interred in Glendale Cemetery in Des Moines, Iowa. Due to his successful business career and investments, he left an estate valued at tens of millions of dollars.


title: Henry A. Wallace

text: In 1913, Wallace met Ilo Browne, the daughter of a successful businessman from Indianola, Iowa. Wallace and Browne married on May 20, 1914, and had three children. Henry Browne was born in 1915, Robert Browne was born in 1918, and Jean Browne was born in 1920. Wallace and his family lived in Des Moines until Wallace accepted appointment as secretary of agriculture, at which point they began living in an apartment at Wardman Park in Washington, D.C. In 1945, Wallace and his wife purchased a 115-acre farm near South Salem, New York known as Farvue. Ilo was supportive of her husband's career and enjoyed serving as Second Lady of the United States from 1941 to 1945, though she was uncomfortable with many of Wallace's Progressive supporters during his 1948 presidential campaign. Wallace and Ilo remained married until his death in 1965; she lived until 1981. In 1999, Wallace's three children sold their shares in Pioneer Hi-Bred to DuPont for well over $1 billion. Wallace's grandson, Scott Wallace, won the Democratic nomination for Pennsylvania's 1st congressional district in the 2018 elections. He was defeated by Republican incumbent, Brian Fitzpatrick, in the general election.


title: Henry A. Wallace

text: Wallace was raised a Calvinist but showed an interest in other religious teachings during his life. He was deeply interested in religion from a young age, reading works by authors like Ralph Waldo Emerson, Ralph Waldo Trine, and William James, whose "The Varieties of Religious Experience" had a particularly strong impact on Wallace. After his grandfather's death in 1916, he left the Presbyterian Church and became increasingly interested in mysticism. He later said, "I know I am often called a mystic, and in the years following my leaving the United Presbyterian Church I was probably a practical mystic… I'd say I was a mystic in the sense that George Washington Carver was – who believed God was in everything and therefore, if you went to God, you could find the answers". Wallace began regularly attending meetings of the pantheistic Theosophical Society, and, in 1925, he helped organize the Des Moines parish of the Liberal Catholic Church. Wallace left the Liberal Catholic Church in 1930 and joined the Episcopal Church, but he continued to be interested in various mystic groups and individuals.


title: Henry A. Wallace

text: Among those who Wallace corresponded with were author George William Russell, astrologer L. Edward Johndro, and Edward Roos, who took on the persona of a Native American medicine man. In the early 1930s, Wallace began corresponding with Nicholas Roerich, a prominent Russian émigré, artist, peace activist, and Theosophist. With Wallace's support, Roerich was appointed to lead a federal expedition to the Gobi Desert to collect drought-resistant grasses. Roerich's expedition ended in a public fiasco, and Roerich fled to India after the Internal Revenue Service launched a tax investigation.


title: Henry A. Wallace

text: The letters that Wallace wrote to Roerich from 1933 to 1934 were eventually acquired by Republican newspaper publisher Paul Block. The Republicans threatened to reveal to the public what they characterized as Wallace's bizarre religious beliefs before the November 1940 elections but were deterred when the Democrats countered by threatening to release information about Republican candidate Wendell Willkie's rumored extramarital affair with the writer Irita Van Doren. The contents of the letters did become public seven years later, in the winter of 1947, when right-wing columnist Westbrook Pegler published what were purported to be extracts from them as evidence that Wallace was a "messianic fumbler", and "off-center mentally". During the 1948 campaign Pegler and other hostile reporters, including H. L. Mencken, aggressively confronted Wallace on the subject at a public meeting in Philadelphia in July. Wallace declined to comment, accusing the reporters of being Pegler's stooges. Many press outlets were critical of Wallace's association with Roerich; one newspaper mockingly wrote that if Wallace became president "we shall get in tune with the Infinite, vibrate in the correct plane, outstare the Evil Eye, reform the witches, overcome all malicious spells and ascend the high road to health and happiness".


title: Henry A. Wallace

text: During his time in the Roosevelt administration, Wallace became a controversial figure, attracting a mix of praise and criticism for various actions. He remains a controversial figure today. Historian Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr. pronounced Wallace to be both "an incorrigibly naive politician" and "the best secretary of agriculture the country has ever had". Journalist Peter Beinart writes that Wallace's "naive faith in U.S.-Soviet cooperation" damaged his legacy. Historian Andrew Seal lauds Wallace for his focus on combating both economic and racial inequality. Wallace's vision of the "Century of the Common Man," which denied American exceptionalism in foreign policy, continues to influence the foreign policy of individuals like Bernie Sanders. In 2013, historian Thomas W. Devine wrote that "newly available Soviet sources do confirm Wallace's position that Moscow's behavior was not as relentlessly aggressive as many believed at the time". Yet Devine also writes that "enough new information has come to light to cast serious doubt both on Wallace's benign attitude toward Stalin's intentions and on his dark, conspiratorial view of the Truman administration".


title: Henry A. Wallace

text: Alex Ross of "The New Yorker" writes, "with the exception of Al Gore, Wallace remains the most famous almost-president in American history". Journalist Jeff Greenfield writes that the 1944 Democratic National Convention was one of the most important political events of the twentieth century, since the leading contenders for the nomination might have governed in vastly different ways. In "The Untold History of the United States", Oliver Stone argues that, had Wallace become president in 1945, "there might have been no atomic bombings, no nuclear arms race, and no Cold War". By contrast, Ron Capshaw of the conservative "National Review" argues that a President Wallace would have practiced a policy of appeasement that would have allowed the spread of Communism into countries like Iran, Greece, and Italy.


title: Henry A. Wallace

text: The Henry A. Wallace Beltsville Agricultural Research Center in Beltsville, Maryland, the largest agricultural research complex in the world, is named for him. Wallace founded the Wallace Genetic Foundation to support agricultural research. His son, Robert, founded the Wallace Global Fund to support sustainable development. A speech Wallace delivered in 1942 inspired Aaron Copland to compose "Fanfare for the Common Man". The Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library and Museum's grounds in Hyde Park, New York, include the Henry A. Wallace Visitor and Education Center at its north end.


title: Superhero film

text: A superhero film (or superhero movie) is a film that focuses on the actions of superheroes. Superheroes are individuals who possess superhuman abilities and are dedicated to protecting the public. These films typically feature action, adventure, fantasy, or science fiction elements. The first film of a particular character often focuses on the hero's origin story or the story of how they got their special powers. The first film frequently introduces the hero's nemesis. (See also: supervillain or archnemesis.)


title: Superhero film

text: Many superhero films are based on superhero comics. By contrast, films such as the "Ultraman", "Kamen Rider" and "Super Sentai" franchises, the "RoboCop" series, "The Meteor Man", the "Unbreakable" film series, "Hancock" and "They Call Me Jeeg," are original for the screen. While "The Green Hornet" is based primarily on the original radio series and its 1960s television adaptation, both "Underdog" and "The Powerpuff Girls" are based on animated television series. Anime superhero films are based on manga and television shows.


title: Superhero film

text: The highest grossing superhero film franchises (according to the box office income) since 1967 are Tsuburaya Productions' "Ultra Series", Toei Company's "Kamen Rider" and "Super Sentai", New Line Cinema's "Blade", 20th Century Fox's "X-Men", Sony Pictures' "Spider-Man" trilogy directed by Sam Raimi and the Amazing Spider-Man duology directed by Marc Webb, Pixar's "The Incredibles", Christopher Nolan's "The Dark Knight Trilogy", the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU), and the DC Extended Universe (DCEU). On its own, the superhero film has become a popular genre of film, earning over $25 billion dollars for Marvel alone.


title: Superhero film

text: Almost immediately after superheroes rose in popularity because of comic books (see List of DC Comics Characters and List of Marvel Comics characters), they were adapted into Saturday film serials, starting with "Mandrake the Magician" (1939). Serials such as "The Shadow" (1940), "Adventures of Captain Marvel" (1941), "Batman" (1943), "The Phantom" (1943), "Captain America" (1944), "Superman" (1948) followed.


title: Superhero film

text: In the following decades, the decline of Saturday serials and turmoil in the comic book industry put an end to superhero motion pictures, with the exception of "Superman and the Mole Men" (1951), starring George Reeves, which was a trial balloon for the television series "Adventures of Superman", compilations of episodes of that same series released theatrically, and "Batman" (1966) a big-screen extension of the "Batman" television series starring Adam West.


title: Superhero film

text: In 1957 Japan, Shintoho produced the first film serial featuring the "tokusatsu" superhero character Super Giant, signaling a shift in Japanese popular culture towards masked superheroes in tokusatsu. Along with "Astro Boy", the "Super Giant" film series greatly influenced later Japanese "tokusatsu" superhero films. Moonlight Mask also became popular around that time, with six films retelling the story of the TV series being made. Another early superhero film was "Ōgon Bat" (1966), a Japanese film starring Sonny Chiba based on the 1931 Kamishibai superhero Ōgon Bat.


title: Superhero film

text: The "kaiju" monster Godzilla, originally a villain, began being portrayed as a superhero in the "Godzilla" films. He has been described as "the original radioactive superhero" due to his nuclear origin story predating Spider-Man (1962 debut), although Godzilla did not become a hero until "Ghidorah, the Three-Headed Monster" (1964). By the 1970s, Godzilla came to be viewed as a superhero, with the magazine "King of the Monsters" in 1977 describing Godzilla as "Superhero of the '70s." Godzilla was "the most universally popular superhero of 1977" according to Donald F. Glut.


title: Superhero film

text: The year 1966 saw the debut of the "Ultra Series" with kaiju TV show "Ultra Q". However, with the release of the original "Ultraman", the franchise started focusing on superheroes. In 1967, "Ultraman" started expanding to films. Early films, such as "" were compilations or theatrical releases of TV shows' episodes. The first original "Ultraman" film was a co-production with Thailand, "The 6 Ultra Brothers vs. the Monster Army".


title: Superhero film

text: The popularity of television superheroes in Japan led to the start of the "Kamen Rider" and "Super Sentai" franchises by famous manga artist Shotaro Ishinomori in 1971 and 1975, respectively. Just like with "Ultraman", many early "Kamen Rider" and "Super Sentai" episodes were released as films. Original "Kamen Rider" films released before 1978 include "Kamen Rider vs. Shocker", "Kamen Rider vs. Ambassador Hell", "Kamen Rider V3 vs. Destron Mutants" and "Five Riders vs. King Dark".


title: Superhero film

text: Original superhero characters emerged in other, more comedy oriented films such as the French political satire film "Mr. Freedom" (1969), the Polish parody "Hydrozagadka" (1970) and the American B movies, "Rat Pfink a Boo Boo" (1966), and "The Wild World of Batwoman" (1966).


title: Superhero film

text: Riding a wave of a new interest in fantasy and science fiction films with the success of "Star Wars", Richard Donner's "Superman" (1978), the first major big-budget DC feature film, proved a critical and commercial success. The same year, Toei Company's "Spider-Man" reimagining and the first "Super Sentai" crossover film, "JAKQ Dengekitai vs. Gorenger", were released. Other successful entries emerged throughout the 1980s, including "Eight Riders vs. Galaxy King" (1980), "" (1981), Richard Lester's "Superman II" (1981), "" (1981) and Paul Verhoeven's "RoboCop" (1987). Then there was "Kamen Rider Black: Hurry to Onigashima" and "", both released in 1988.


title: Superhero film

text: Other superhero films released during the 1980s include "Denshi Sentai Denziman: The Movie" (1980), "Flash Gordon" (1980), "Taiyo Sentai Sun Vulcan: The Movie" (1981), "Dai Sentai Goggle V: The Movie" (1982), "Swamp Thing" (1982) and, "Kagaku Sentai Dynaman: The Movie" (1983), sequel, "Superman III" (1983), "Choudenshi Bioman: The Movie" (1984), "Supergirl" (1984), "" (1984), "Ultraman Story" (1984), "Dengeki Sentai Changeman: The Movie" and "Dengeki Sentai Changeman: Shuttle Base! The Critical Moment!" (1985), "The Toxic Avenger" (1985), "Choushinsei Flashman: The Movie" (1986), "Choushinsei Flashman: Big Rally! Titan Boy!" (1987), "Hikari Sentai Maskman: The Movie" (1987), "" (1987), "Masters of the Universe" (1987), Bollywood's "Mr. India" (1987), "" (1987), "RoboCop" (1987), "Kousoku Sentai Turboranger: The Movie" (1989), and "The Punisher" (1989).


title: Superhero film

text: A landmark superhero film was Tim Burton's "Batman" (1989) and its direct follow-up, "Batman Returns" (1992), the success of these spawned the DC Animated Universe.


title: Superhero film

text: Superhero movies from the 1990s include "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles" (1990) and its two sequels, "RoboCop 2" (1990), "Darkman" (1990), "Sgt. Kabukiman N.Y.P.D." (1990), "The Rocketeer" (1991), "" (1992), "RoboCop 3" (1993), the animated "" (1993), "Kamen Rider ZO" (1993), "Kamen Rider J" (1994), "Gosei Sentai Dairanger: The Movie", "The Shadow" (1994), "The Mask" (1994), "Ninja Sentai Kakuranger: The Movie" (1994), "Blankman" (1994), "Chouriki Sentai Ohranger: The Movie" (1995), "Batman Forever" (1995), "Judge Dredd" (1995), "Tank Girl" (1995), "" (1995) and a , "Barb Wire" (1996), "The Phantom" (1996), "Black Mask" (1996), "Chouriki Sentai Ohranger: Ole vs. Kakuranger" (1996), "Revive! Ultraman" (1996), "Gekisou Sentai Carranger vs. Ohranger" (1997) and "Steel" (1997). Marvel Comics' "Captain America" (1991) did not have a theatrical release and Roger Corman's "The Fantastic Four" (1994), produced solely for the legal maintenance of the film rights to the property was released neither theatrically nor on home video.


title: Superhero film

text: Alex Proyas' "The Crow" (1994) became the first independent comic superhero film that established a franchise. It brought in a new realm of violence absent in previous popular superhero films targeted at younger audiences and bridged a gap to the more modern action film. The success of "The Crow" catalyzed the release of a film version of "Spawn" (1997), Image Comics' leading character. After Marvel bought Malibu Comics (the company that owned "The Men in Black" comic series), Marvel and Columbia Pictures released the "Men in Black" film in 1997. The film became the first Marvel property to win an Oscar and the then-highest-grossing comic book adaptation. While a box office success, Joel Schumacher's "Batman & Robin" (1997) was critically panned for its campiness and it has strayed too far from the darker style of the series' first two Tim Burton films. As a result, it has sometimes been credited with nearly killing the superhero movie subgenre.


title: Superhero film

text: Starting with the 1990s, original "Ultraman" films started being a regular thing. In 1996 Tsuburaya released "Ultraman Zearth", which parodied the original TV series and later installments. The following year, the sequel titled "" premiered.


title: Superhero film

text: In 1998, Marvel released "Blade", a mix of a traditional action film as well a darker superhero film, with the title character having vampiric powers as well as carrying an arsenal of weaponry. The success of "Blade" began Marvel's film success and set the stage for further comic book film adaptations. Meanwhile, thanks to the popularity of "Ultraman Tiga" TV series, several films based on it and later installments were produced. These include "" (1998), "" (1999) and "" (2000). "The Matrix" (1999) also had an impact on superhero films. Influenced by comic books, cyberpunk fiction, Japanese anime, and Hong Kong action films, "The Matrix" effectively "reinvented" the superhero film, according to Adam Sternbergh of "Vulture.com", crediting "The Matrix" with setting the template for modern superhero blockbusters and inspiring the superhero renaissance in the early 21st century. John Kenneth Muir in "The Encyclopedia of Superheroes on Film and Television" called the film a "revolutionary" reimagination of movie visuals, paving the way for the visuals of later superhero films, and credits it with helping to "make comic-book superheroes hip" and its bullet time effect effectively demonstrating the concept of "faster than a speeding bullet" on-screen. "Inspector Gadget" and "Mystery Men" would then follow to close out the decade for the subgenre.


title: Superhero film

text: After the success of "Kamen Rider Kuuga" television series, a new era of the "Kamen Rider" franchise began. It led to the production of "Kamen Rider" movies every year, starting with "".