title: Ajmal Kasab

text: His conviction was based on CCTV footage showing him striding across the Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus with an AK-47 and a backpack. Towards the end of December 2008, Ujjwal Nikam was appointed as Public Prosecutor for trying Kasab and in January 2009, M. L. Tahaliyani was appointed the judge for the case. Indian investigators filed an 11,000-page Chargesheet against Kasab on 25 February 2009. Due to the fact that the chargesheet was written in Marathi and English, Kasab requested an Urdu translation of the charge sheet. He was charged with murder, conspiracy and waging war against India along with other crimes. His trial was originally scheduled to start on 15 April 2009 but was postponed as his lawyer, Anjali Waghmare was dismissed for a conflict of interest. It resumed on 17 April 2009 after Abbas Kazmi was assigned as his new defence counsel. On 20 April 2009, the prosecution submitted a list of charges against him, including the murder of 166 people. On 6 May 2009, Kasab pleaded not guilty to 86 charges. The same month he was identified by eyewitnesses who testified witnessing his actual arrival and him firing at the victims. Later the doctors who treated him also identified him. On 2 June 2009, Kasab told the judge he also understood the Marathi language.


title: Ajmal Kasab

text: In June 2009, the special court issued non-bailable warrants against 22 absconding accused including Jamaat-ud-Dawa (JuD) chief Hafeez Saeed and chief of operations of Lashkar-e-Taiba, Zaki-ur-Rehman Laqvi. On 20 July 2009, Kasab retracted his non-guilty plea and pleaded guilty to all charges. On 18 December 2009, he retracted his guilty plea and claimed that he was framed and his confession was obtained by torture. Instead he claimed to have come to Mumbai 20 days before the attacks and was simply strolling at Juhu beach when police arrested him. The trial concluded on 31 March 2010 and on 3 May the verdict was pronounced – Kasab was found guilty of murder, conspiracy, and of waging war against India (which also carried the death penalty). On 6 May 2010, he was sentenced to death.


title: Ajmal Kasab

text: A Bombay High Court bench, composed of Justice Ranjanaa Desai and Justice Ranjit More, heard Kasab's appeal against the death penalty and upheld the sentence given by the trial court in their verdict on 21 February 2011. On 30 July 2011, Kasab moved to Supreme Court of India, challenging his conviction and sentence in the case. Thus, a bench composed of Justice Aftab Alam and Justice Chandramouli Kr. Prasad stayed the orders of the Bombay High Court so as to follow the due process of law, and started hearing the case.


title: Ajmal Kasab

text: On 29 August 2012, Kasab was again found guilty of waging war and was sentenced to death by the Supreme Court of India.


title: Ajmal Kasab

text: Kasab's plea for clemency was rejected by President Pranab Mukherjee on 5 November 2012. On 7 November, Minister of Home Affairs Sushilkumar Shinde confirmed the President's rejection of the petition. The following day, the Maharashtra state government was formally notified and requested to take action. The date of 21 November was then fixed for the execution, and the Indian government faxed their decision to the Pakistani Foreign Office.


title: Ajmal Kasab

text: Kasab was formally informed of his execution on 12 November, after which he requested government officials to inform his mother. On the night of 18–19 November, a senior prison official at Arthur Road Jail in Mumbai read Kasab's death warrant to him, informing him at the same time that his petition for clemency had been rejected. Kasab was then asked to sign his death warrant, which he did. He was secretly transferred under heavy guard to Yerwada Jail in Pune, arriving in the early morning of 19 November. The death and funeral of nationalist politician Bal Thackeray also aided in diverting attention from Kasab. An officer at Arthur Road Jail stated anonymously: "Throughout the journey from Mumbai to Pune, he did not cause any trouble. Kasab's attitude was of resignation when he came to know that his mercy petition was rejected by the president. Kasab did not shed a single tear during the last few days."


title: Ajmal Kasab

text: Only the jail superintendent at Yerwada was made aware of Kasab's identity. Kasab was placed in a special cell when he was at Yerwada and no other inmates were informed of his presence. It was only a few minutes before Kasab's execution that the executioner was informed whom he would be hanging.


title: Ajmal Kasab

text: Though reportedly nervous in the final minutes before his execution, Kasab remained quiet and offered prayers. He was hanged on 21 November 2012 at 7:30 a.m. (local time), according to an announcement by Home Minister Shinde. Kasab's execution by the Maharashtra government happened barely two weeks after President Pranab Mukherjee rejected his mercy petition on 5 November.


title: Ajmal Kasab

text: After the government contemplated burial at sea, the decision was finally made to bury Kasab at Yerwada Jail. Following his execution, Kasab's body was given to a maulvi for burial in accordance with Islamic rites. Ansar Burney, a human rights activist in Pakistan, later offered to help repatriate Kasab's body to Pakistan citing humanitarian reasons. The Indian government stated it would consider a formal application if offered. Shinde later stated that Kasab's body was buried in India because Pakistan had refused to claim it.


title: Ajmal Kasab

text: Authorities in Uttar Pradesh banned all celebrations and public gatherings and placed the state on high alert in response. Similarly, the Coimbatore City Police took a group of people in Coimbatore into preventive custody for celebrating Kasab's execution. K. Unnikrishnan, father of Major Sandeep Unnikrishnan, said though the execution was necessary, it was not something to "rejoice over" and that the ensuing celebrations were "foolishness."


title: Ajmal Kasab

text: In Pakistan, the general and official government response was muted, with the media treating the execution as another news item, according to "The Hindu". Though some journalists attempted to elicit statements from villagers in Kasab's village of Faridkot, they met with a hostile response. A senior LeT commander issued an anonymous statement, saying Kasab was a hero who would "inspire more fighters to follow his path." The Pakistani Taliban's spokesman Ehsanullah Ehsan issued a statement threatening Indians with retaliation and declaring Kasab would be avenged. Ehsan also made demands for Kasab's body to be returned to his family. "If they don't return his body to us or his family we will capture Indians and will not return their bodies."


title: Ajmal Kasab

text: While commending on the well appreciated role of two women officers in the smooth handling of the execution, Patil later responded to threats to avenge Kasab's death by stating that anybody daring to attack the soil of Maharashtra would meet the same fate.


title: Ajmal Kasab

text: Hafiz Saeed and thousands of others offered "ghayabana namaz-e-janaza" (funeral prayers in absentia) for Kasab at a Jamaat-ud-Dawah session in Muridke. Hundreds of others in Srinagar also offered similar prayers at the appeal of Syed Ali Geelani.


title: Ajmal Kasab

text: Mudassir Lakhvi, headmaster of the Government Elementary School in Faridkot village, Okara, appeared before the Anti-Terrorism Court (ATC) on 9 May 2014, during the trial of seven suspects, (Zakiur Rehman Lakhvi, Abdul Wajid, Mazhar Iqbal, Hammad Amin Sadiq, Shahid Jameel Riaz, Jamil Ahmed and Younus Anjum), accused of involvement in the attacks on 26 November 2008. He claimed that he knew that Ajmal Kasab was alive, and he had met Ajmal only a few days ago. He repeated the claim in 2015.


title: LaFerrari

text: LaFerrari, project name F150 is a limited production mid-engine mild hybrid sports car built by Italian automotive manufacturer Ferrari. LaFerrari means "The Ferrari" in Italian and some other Romance languages, in the sense that it is the "definitive" Ferrari.


title: LaFerrari

text: Nine conceptual design studies were considered for the V12 hybrid flagship in 2011, reduced to five in April 2011 (three by Ferrari Centro Stile and two by Pininfarina). Of these, two full-size concepts were built: LaFerrari Concept Manta (internal designation: 2011 Model 2) and LaFerrari Concept Tensostruttura (internal designation 2011 Model 3). These were unveiled at the Ferrari Museum in Maranello, Italy and Ferrari World in Abu Dhabi. The final design of LaFerrari is similar to the Manta concept (Model 2).


title: LaFerrari

text: The Ferrari Centro Stile cars designed after LaFerrari have design elements reminiscent of the Tensostruttura concept (Model 3) e.g. the SF90 Stradale.


title: LaFerrari

text: LaFerrari is based on findings from testing of the FXX development prototype and on research being conducted by the Millechili Project at the University of Modena. Association with the Millechili Project led to speculation during development that the car would weigh under , but a dry weight of around was claimed. Only 499 units were produced, and each cost more than 1 million Euros.


title: LaFerrari

text: The car was unveiled at the 2013 Geneva Auto Show, followed by Auto Shanghai 2013, 2013 Tour Auto Optic 2000, 2013 Supercar Chronicle, Italian Chamber of Commerce in Japan.


title: LaFerrari

text: LaFerrari Aperta is the open-top version of LaFerrari. Initially, 200 cars were sold with an additional nine reserved for use during the Ferrari 70th Anniversary celebrations. One more unit was later sold by auction. The Aperta comes with a removable carbon-fiber hardtop and a removable canvas soft top. Other changes include more efficient powertrain's control electronics, re-angled radiators to direct airflow out along the underbody rather than over the bonnet, a longer front air dam to help increase downforce, an L-shaped flap on the upper corner of each windscreen pillar to reduce compression on the rear of the cabin in the absence of a roof, different door opening angles with different wheel arches and a new carbon-fiber insert allowing the doors to rotate.


title: LaFerrari

text: The car was unveiled at the 2016 Paris Motor Show. Like past open-top Ferrari models, it uses the Aperta label to denote its removable roof. According to Ferrari, all 200 units were already pre-sold to customers via invitation.


title: LaFerrari

text: LaFerrari is the first full hybrid produced by the Italian automotive marque, providing the highest power output of any Ferrari road car whilst decreasing fuel consumption by 40 percent. LaFerrari's internal combustion petrol engine is a longitudinally rear mid-mounted Ferrari F140 direct fuel injected 65° V12 engine with a displacement of generating a maximum power output of at 9,000 rpm and of torque at 6,750 rpm, supplemented by a KERS unit (called HY-KERS), which provides short bursts of extra power. The KERS system adds extra power to the combustion engine's power output level for a total of and a combined torque of . Ferrari claims CO emissions of 330 g/km. The engine's bore X stroke is with a compression ratio of 13.5:1 and a specific power output of per liter. It is mated to a 7-speed dual-clutch transmission.


title: LaFerrari

text: The car is equipped with carbon-ceramic Brembo brake discs at the front (398 mm) and rear (380 mm), The car is equipped with Pirelli P Zero Corsa tires measuring 265/30 R 19 (front) and 345/30 R 20 (rear) respectively.


title: LaFerrari

text: The car uses a carbon fiber monocoque structure designed by Ferrari's F1 technical director Rory Byrne, with a claimed 27 percent more torsional rigidity and 22 percent more beam stiffness than its predecessor. It has a double wishbone suspension in the front and a multi-link suspension in the rear.


title: LaFerrari

text: LaFerrari has several electronic controls including an electronic stability control, high-performance ABS/EBD (anti-lock braking system/electronic brake distribution), EF1-Trac F1 electronic traction control integrated with the hybrid system, E-Diff 3 third-generation electronic differential, SCM-E Frs magnetorheological damping with twin solenoids (Al-Ni tube), and active aerodynamics, which are controlled by 21 of LaFerrari's onboard computers, to enable maximum performance. The body computer system is developed by Magneti Marelli Automotive Lighting.


title: LaFerrari

text: Ferrari states that the car has a top speed of 352 km/h (218 mph). In terms of acceleration, it can go in 2.6 seconds, in under 6.9 seconds, and in 15 seconds were announced by Ferrari. However, the 0-300 figure was later debunked by multiple sources. Its verified 0-300 time is 21.99 seconds. Ferrari also claims that the car has lapped its Fiorano Test Circuit in 1:19.70.


title: LaFerrari

text: The design of the V12 flagship received no input from Pininfarina, making it the first Ferrari since the Bertone-styled 1973 Dino 308 GT4 not to have Pininfarina bodywork or another styling. This decision is a rare exception to the collaboration between Ferrari and Pininfarina that began in 1951. However, Ferrari has stated that there are no plans to end business relations with Pininfarina.


title: LaFerrari

text: The steering wheel has integrated controls and paddle-shifters directly fixed to the steering column, a solution that allows better use in all conditions. The "bridge" which exists between the two seats, designed like a suspended wing, is home to other instruments linked to the dual-clutch gearbox. The instrumentation consists of a TFT display with the option to choose between two layouts and can host data from the telemetry system.


title: LaFerrari

text: LaFerrari coupés were offered a replacement fuel tank due to the possible incorrect adhesion of a layer of paint on the fuel tank leading to a possible fire.


title: LaFerrari

text: Eighty-five LaFerrari coupés between 2014 and 2015 model years were recalled due to headrests from Lear's L32 seat failing to absorb the required amount of energy, and the tyre-pressure monitoring system displaying the wrong message when a tire suffered a puncture.


title: LaFerrari

text: The production of the 500th LaFerrari coupé was announced on 31 August 2016. The vehicle was to be sold at auction to benefit the people of central Italy affected by the August 2016 Central Italy earthquake on 24 August 2016. Ultimately, it was put up for auction on 3 December 2016, by RM Sotheby's at the Ferrari Finali Mondiali weekend at Daytona International Speedway. All proceeds went to the National Italian American Foundation’s Earthquake Relief Fund. Sales proceeds amounted to US$7.5 million.


title: LaFerrari

text: On 3 December 2016, a LaFerrari was auctioned off for US$7 million (GB£5,743,500.00) making this car "the most valuable 21st century automobile ever sold at auction" according to the automotive press. In 2017, the last unit of LaFerrari Aperta was auctioned for charity for US$10 million. Given the charitable nature of both of these auctions, car valuation experts do not consider the US$7 million Coupe sale price nor the US$10 million Aperta sale price as an accurate reflection of the value of the cars, which are closer to US$4 million (coupe) and US$7 million (Aperta).


title: LaFerrari

text: Hublot Manufacture produced 60 MP-05 "LaFerrari" hand-wound tourbillon wristwatches inspired by LaFerrari coupé. The watch has 50 days of power reserve due to the usage of 11 barrels. The more barrels it has, the more it can lengthen the power reserve, but the barrels are usually used to increase precision.


title: Eknath Shinde

text: Eknath Sambhaji Shinde (pronunciation: ]; born 9 February 1964) is an Indian politician and president of Shivsena serving as the 20th and Current Chief Minister of Maharashtra. He was earlier the Cabinet Minister of Urban Development and Public Works (Public Undertakings) in the Government Of Maharashtra. He is a Member of Legislative Assembly from Kopri-Pachpakhadi constituency of Thane, Maharashtra. He has been elected consecutively for 4 terms in the Maharashtra Legislative Assembly in 2004, 2009, 2014 and 2019.


title: Eknath Shinde

text: Eknath Shinde hails from the Jawali taluka in Satara, Maharashtra, and belongs to the Maratha community. His family moved to Thane, in the outskirts of Mumbai, in order to earn a living. Eknath studied till 11th standard at Mangala High School & Junior College, Thane. Shinde left education in early years to support his family however he resumed his studies in 2014 after joining the government ministry. He graduated with Bachelor of Arts degree from Yashwantrao Chavan Maharashtra Open University in 2020 with 77.25% score.


title: Eknath Shinde

text: Shinde was introduced to politics by then Thane Shivsena President Anand Dighe in early 1980. Shinde became successor to Dighe's legacy after his death in 2001. He is elected as Member of Legislative Assembly since 2004 for four consecutive terms.


title: Eknath Shinde

text: Shinde was in favor of breaking the Maha Vikas Aghadi and reestablishing alliance with the Bharatiya Janata Party. He requested Uddhav Thackeray to break the Maha Vikas Aghadi alliance due to ideological differences and unfair treatment by Congress Party and NCP. His fellow Shiv Sena members said that their complaints were ignored by Uddhav Thackeray and Uddhav favored Congress Party and NCP over his own Shiv Sena members. Shinde gathered 2/3rd members from his party to support his request. The crisis began on 21 June 2022 when Shinde and several other MLAs of the Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) coalition moved to Surat in BJP-governed Gujarat, throwing the coalition into a chaos.


title: Eknath Shinde

text: As a result of Shinde's revolt, Uddhav Thackeray resigned from the post of Chief Minister of Maharashtra and said that he will also resign from the Maharashtra Legislative Council.


title: Eknath Shinde

text: Shinde successfully reestablished alliance with BJP and was sworn in as the 20th Chief Minister, with Bharatiya Janata Party's Devendra Fadnavis as the Deputy Chief Minister.


title: Eknath Shinde

text: On 2 June 2000, their son Dipesh (aged 11) and daughter Shubhada (aged 7) went boating in a lake near their native village in Maharashtra. The boat overturned and both the children died by drowning. Shinde went into depression for several months. Anand Dighe provided emotional support to Shinde and entrusted him with greater responsibility in order to keep his mind occupied and away from depression.


title: Eknath Shinde

text: Their surviving child, Shrikant Shinde, is an orthopaedic surgeon who has also been the elected Member of Parliament to the Lok Sabha from the Kalyan constituency since 2014 (re-elected in 2019).


title: Eknath Shinde

text: "Dharmaveer," a 2022 Indian Marathi-language biographical drama film by Pravin Tarde, covered Anand Dighe and Eknath Shinde's life. Kshitij Date played the role of Eknath Shinde. Eknath Shinde has a starring role in Dharmaveer as one of Dighe’s most loyal foot soldiers.


title: ECHL

text: The ECHL (formerly the East Coast Hockey League) is a mid-level professional ice hockey league based in Shrewsbury, New Jersey, with teams scattered across the United States and Canada. It is a tier below the American Hockey League (AHL).


title: ECHL

text: The ECHL and the AHL are the only minor leagues recognized by the collective bargaining agreement between the National Hockey League (NHL) and the National Hockey League Players' Association, meaning any player signed to an entry-level NHL contract and designated for assignment must report to a club in either the ECHL or the AHL. Additionally, the league's players are represented by the Professional Hockey Players' Association in negotiations with the ECHL itself. Some 662 players have played at least one game in the NHL after appearing in the ECHL.


title: ECHL

text: For the 2022–23 season, 28 of the 32 NHL teams have affiliations with an ECHL team with only the Nashville Predators, St. Louis Blues, Vancouver Canucks, and Winnipeg Jets having no official ECHL affiliations. The offseason typically has many affiliation changes between NHL and ECHL teams. NHL teams do sometimes lend contracted players to ECHL teams with whom they have no affiliation agreements for development and increased playing time.


title: ECHL

text: The league's regular season typically begins in October and ends in April, followed by the Kelly Cup playoffs. The most recent playoff champions are the Florida Everblades in 2022.


title: ECHL

text: The league, which combined teams from the defunct Atlantic Coast Hockey League and All-American Hockey League, began to play as the East Coast Hockey League in 1988 with five teams— the (Winston-Salem, North) Carolina Thunderbirds (now the Wheeling Nailers); the Erie Panthers (folded in 2011 as the Victoria Salmon Kings); the Johnstown Chiefs (now the Greenville Swamp Rabbits); the Knoxville Cherokees (ceased operations as the Pee Dee Pride in 2005; folded in 2009 following failed relocation efforts); and the Virginia Lancers (now the Utah Grizzlies).


title: ECHL

text: In 2003, the West Coast Hockey League ceased operations, and the ECHL board of governors approved membership applications from the Anchorage/Alaska Aces, the Bakersfield Condors, the Fresno Falcons, the Idaho Steelheads, the Las Vegas Wranglers, the Long Beach Ice Dogs and the San Diego Gulls as well as from potential teams in Ontario, California, and Reno, Nevada. Alaska, Bakersfield, Fresno, Idaho, Las Vegas, Long Beach and San Diego began play in the 2003–04 season as expansion teams. In a change reflective of the league's now-nationwide presence, the East Coast Hockey League shortened its name to the orphan initialism ECHL on May 19, 2003. The ECHL reached its largest size to date (31 teams) that season before being reduced to 28 teams for the 2004–05 season.


title: ECHL

text: The ECHL has attempted to be more tech-friendly to its fans. Some improvements on the league's website have included a new schedule and statistics engine powered by League Stat, Inc. (introduced in 2006), internet radio coverage for most teams, and pay-per view broadcasting of ECHL games through B2 Networks (a subsidiary of America One Broadcasting). In 2008, the league introduced the ECHL toolbar for internet browsers which gave users short cut access to statistics, scores, transactions, and news updates.


title: ECHL

text: At the annual ECHL Board of Governors meeting on June 15, 2010, in Henderson, Nevada, the Board of Governors approved changes to the names of the conferences and divisions. The former American Conference (comprising eleven East Coast and Midwest teams) was renamed the Eastern Conference, while the National Conference (consisting of 8 West Coast teams, including the league's only Canadian team at the time) was re-designated the Western Conference. Within the Eastern Conference, the East Division was renamed the Atlantic Division, and the Western Conference's former West Division was dubbed the Mountain Division.


title: ECHL

text: The league lost its only Canadian team with the folding of the Victoria Salmon Kings subsequent to the 2010–11 season, but increased to 20 teams for the 2011–12 season with the addition of the expansion franchise Chicago Express and the Colorado Eagles who previously played in the Central Hockey League.


title: ECHL

text: With the folding of the Chicago Express at the conclusion of the 2011–12 season and the announcement of expansion franchises in Orlando, San Francisco, Evansville, and Fort Wayne (both in Indiana and both from the Central Hockey League) the league played the 2012–13 season with 23 teams. That number dropped to 22 for the 2013–14 season with the folding of the Trenton Titans and subsequently fell to 21 with the mid-season folding of the San Francisco Bulls on January 27, 2014.


title: ECHL

text: On October 7, 2014, the ECHL announced that the seven remaining active members of the Central Hockey League (the Allen Americans, Brampton Beast, Quad City Mallards, Missouri Mavericks, Rapid City Rush, Tulsa Oilers and Wichita Thunder) would be admitted as new members for the 2014–15 season. The addition of the former CHL teams plus the expansion Indy Fuel raised the number of teams to 28 and placed a team in Canada for the first time since 2011.


title: ECHL

text: Before the 2015–16 season, the AHL's creation of a Pacific Division led the three California ECHL teams to relocate to former AHL cities with the Bakersfield Condors, Ontario Reign, and Stockton Thunder relocating to become the Norfolk Admirals, Manchester Monarchs, and Adirondack Thunder, respectively. By the 2018–19 season, the ECHL had also expanded into other markets recently vacated by the AHL in the Maine Mariners, Newfoundland Growlers, and Worcester Railers.


title: ECHL

text: Representatives from all potential expansion franchises, markets that have been granted expansion franchises and franchises that have suspended operations must attend the league's annual Board of Governors Meeting between seasons and provide progress reports on their situations in order to keep their ECHL franchise rights. For dormant and existing franchises, the Board of Governors votes whether or not to extend a franchise's league license until the next Board of Governors Meeting.


title: ECHL

text: At the 2012 Board of Governors Meeting, the Board elected to limit the league to 26 teams, with an emphasis on adding teams to the Western Conference. However, it was decided at the 2015 Board of Governors meeting that the cap should be expanded to 30 teams, hoping to eventually match the NHL and AHL's (then) 30-team totals.


title: ECHL

text: Since starting with five franchises in its inaugural season, the ECHL has had dozens of franchises join and leave the league. Typically, these teams fold or relocate due to operation issues or financial losses. The Johnstown Chiefs became the last remaining founding franchise of the East Coast Hockey League to remain in its original city until it relocated to Greenville, South Carolina, following the completion of the 2009–10 season.


title: ECHL

text: While the ECHL has stated in recent years they would not grant voluntary suspensions of franchises for more than one year, both the Toledo Storm (now the Toledo Walleye) and Mississippi Sea Wolves (now defunct) were granted two-year suspensions—the Sea Wolves because of Hurricane Katrina and the Storm in order to demolish their present arena and construct a new one in downtown Toledo. The Mississippi Sea Wolves resumed play for the 2007–08 season, while the Toledo Walleye resumed play in their new arena for the 2009–10 season.


title: ECHL

text: Seven former ECHL franchises have been directly replaced in their respective markets by American Hockey League franchises. The Greensboro Monarchs were the first, being replaced by the Carolina Monarchs in 1995. The Hampton Roads Admirals were the second, giving way to the Norfolk Admirals in 2000. The Peoria Rivermen were the third. In their case, the replacement franchise retained the Worcester IceCats history but assumed the Rivermen identity for their first AHL season of 2005–06. The Charlotte Checkers were the fourth, yielding to a franchise that retained the Albany River Rats history following the club's move to Charlotte following the 2009–10 season and assumed the Checkers identity. In each of these cases, the ECHL franchise was relinquished to the league by its respective ownership group. In 2015, the three California franchises (Bakersfield Condors, Ontario Reign, and Stockton Thunder) were displaced by the formation of an AHL Pacific Division. Each ECHL franchise involved in the territorial shift was either owned or purchased by their NHL affiliate prior to being relocated.


title: ECHL

text: For the 2012–13 season, eight teams still qualify in the Eastern Conference: the three division winners plus the next five teams in the conference. With the addition of the expansion franchise in San Francisco, the Board of Governors changed the Western Conference seeding such that eight teams qualify: two division winners and the next six teams in the conference. This eliminated the Western Conference first-round bye.


title: ECHL

text: Similar to the NHL at the time, the division winners were seeded as the top three seeds in the Eastern Conference and the top two seeds in the Western Conference; the conference winner faced the eighth seed, second faces seventh, third faces sixth and fourth faces fifth in the conference quarterfinal round. The winner of the 1st/8th series played the winner of the 4th/5th series while the 2nd/7th winner played against the 3rd/6th winner in the conference semifinal series. The Board of Governors also elected to change the playoff format such that all rounds of the playoffs are now best of seven series. For 2012–13, the Conference Finals and Kelly Cup Finals will use a two-referee system.


title: ECHL

text: Because of the late addition of the CHL teams for the 2014–15 season and its subsequent conference alignment, the top four teams in each division qualified for the playoffs and the first two playoff rounds were played within the divisions.


title: ECHL

text: For the realignment prior to the 2015–16 season, the playoffs changed once again to a six-division format. At the end of the regular season, the top team in each division qualified for the playoffs and be seeded either 1, 2, or 3 based on the highest point total earned in the season. Then the five non-division winning teams with the highest point totals in each conference qualified for the playoffs and be seeded 4 through 8. All four rounds will be a best-of-seven format.


title: ECHL

text: The alignment changed back to four divisions for the 2016–17 season, but the playoffs kept the divisional format. The top four teams in each division qualify for the playoffs and play in the division for the first two rounds. After the division finals, the winners then play the conference finals and followed by the Kelly Cup finals.


title: ECHL

text: In celebration of the league's 20th year of play, the ECHL Board of Governors created the ECHL Hall of Fame in 2008, to recognize the achievements of players, coaches, and personnel who dedicated their careers to the league.


title: Frederick II, Holy Roman Emperor

text: Frederick II (German: "Friedrich"; Italian: "Federico"; Latin: "Federicus"; 26 December 1194 – 13 December 1250) was King of Sicily from 1198, King of Germany from 1212, King of Italy and Holy Roman Emperor from 1220 and King of Jerusalem from 1225. He was the son of emperor Henry VI of the Hohenstaufen dynasty and Queen Constance of Sicily of the Hauteville dynasty.


title: Frederick II, Holy Roman Emperor

text: His political and cultural ambitions were enormous as he ruled a vast area, beginning with Sicily and stretching through Italy all the way north to Germany. As the Crusades progressed, he acquired control of Jerusalem and styled himself its king. However, the Papacy became his enemy, and it eventually prevailed. Viewing himself as a direct successor to the Roman emperors of antiquity, he was Emperor of the Romans from his papal coronation in 1220 until his death; he was also a claimant to the title of King of the Romans from 1212 and unopposed holder of that monarchy from 1215. As such, he was King of Germany, of Italy, and of Burgundy. At the age of three, he was crowned King of Sicily as a co-ruler with his mother, Constance of Hauteville, the daughter of Roger II of Sicily. His other royal title was King of Jerusalem by virtue of marriage and his connection with the Sixth Crusade. Frequently at war with the papacy, which was hemmed in between Frederick's lands in northern Italy and his Kingdom of Sicily (the "Regno") to the south, he was excommunicated three times and often vilified in pro-papal chronicles of the time and after. Pope Gregory IX went so far as to call him an Antichrist.


title: Frederick II, Holy Roman Emperor

text: Speaking six languages (Latin, Sicilian, Middle High German, French, Greek and Arabic), Frederick has a reputation as a Renaissance man "avant la lettre", as scientist, scholar, architect, poet and composer. As an avid patron of science and the arts, he played a major role in promoting literature through the Sicilian School of poetry. His Sicilian royal court in Palermo, beginning around 1220, saw the first use of a literary form of an Italo-Romance language, Sicilian. The poetry that emanated from the school had a significant influence on literature and on what was to become the modern Italian language. He was also the first king to formally outlaw trial by ordeal, which had come to be viewed as superstitious.


title: Frederick II, Holy Roman Emperor

text: After his death his line did not survive, and the House of Hohenstaufen came to an end. Furthermore, the Holy Roman Empire entered a long period of decline during the Great Interregnum.


title: Frederick II, Holy Roman Emperor

text: Historian Donald Detwiler wrote: His complex political and cultural legacy has attracted fierce debates until this day.


title: Frederick II, Holy Roman Emperor

text: Born in Jesi, near Ancona, Italy, on 26 December 1194, Frederick was the son of the emperor Henry VI. He was known as the "puer Apuliae" (son of Apulia). His mother Constance gave birth to him at the age of 40, and Boccaccio related in his "De mulieribus claris" about the empress: as a Sicilian princess and paternal aunt of William II of Sicily, a prediction that "her marriage would destroy Sicily" led to her confinement in a convent as a nun from childhood to remain celibate and her late engagement to Henry at the age of 30. Some chronicles say that Constance gave birth to him in a public square in order to forestall any doubt about his origin such as son of a butcher. Frederick was baptised in Assisi.


title: Frederick II, Holy Roman Emperor

text: At birth Frederick was named Constantine by his mother. This name, a masculine form of his mother's name, served to identify him closely with both his Norman heritage and his imperial heritage (through Constantine the Great, the first Christian emperor). It was still his name at the time of his election as King of the Romans. He was only given his grandfathers' names, becoming Frederick Roger (or Roger Frederick), at his baptism when he was two years old. This dual name served the same purpose as Constantine: emphasising his dual heritage.


title: Frederick II, Holy Roman Emperor

text: Frederick's birth was accompanied by gossip and rumour on account of his mother's advanced age. According to Albert of Stade and Salimbene, he was not the son of Henry and Constance but was presented to Henry as his own after a faked pregnancy. His real father was variously described as a butcher of Jesi, a physician, a miller or a falconer. Frederick's birth was also associated with a prophecy of Merlin. According to Andrea Dandolo, writing at some distance but probably recording contemporary gossip, Henry doubted reports of his wife's pregnancy and was only convinced by consulting Joachim of Fiore, who confirmed that Frederick was his son by interpretation of Merlin's prophecy and the Erythraean Sibyl. A later legend claims that Constance gave birth in the public square of Jesi to silence doubters. None of these stories have any validity, although it is clear that Constance took unusual measures to prove her pregnancy and its legitimacy. Roger of Howden reports that she swore on the gospels before a papal legate that Frederick was her son and Henry's. It is probable that these public acts of affirmation on account of her age gave rise to some false rumours.


title: Frederick II, Holy Roman Emperor

text: In 1196 at Frankfurt am Main the infant Frederick was elected King of the Romans and thus heir to his father's imperial crown. His rights in Germany were to end up disputed by Henry's brother Philip of Swabia and Otto of Brunswick. At the death of his father in 1197, Frederick was in Italy, traveling towards Germany, when the bad news reached his guardian, Conrad of Spoleto. Frederick was hastily brought back to his mother Constance in Palermo, Sicily, where he was crowned king on 17 May 1198, at just three years of age.


title: Frederick II, Holy Roman Emperor

text: Constance of Sicily was in her own right queen of Sicily, and she established herself as regent. Upon Constance's death in 1198, Pope Innocent III succeeded as Frederick's guardian. Frederick's tutor during this period was Cencio, who would become Pope Honorius III. Markward of Annweiler, with the support of Henry's brother, Philip of Swabia, reclaimed the regency for himself and soon after invaded the Kingdom of Sicily. In 1200, with the help of Genoese ships, he landed in Sicily and one year later seized the young Frederick. He thus ruled Sicily until 1202, when he was succeeded by another German captain, William of Capparone, who kept Frederick under his control in the royal palace of Palermo until 1206. Frederick was subsequently under tutor Walter of Palearia, until, in 1208, he was declared of age. His first task was to reassert his power over Sicily and southern Italy, where local barons and adventurers had usurped most of the authority.


title: Frederick II, Holy Roman Emperor

text: Otto of Brunswick had been crowned Holy Roman Emperor by Pope Innocent III in 1209. In southern Italy, Otto became the champion of those noblemen and barons who feared Frederick's increasingly strong measures to check their power, such as the dismissal of the pro-noble Walter of Palearia. The new emperor invaded Italy, where he reached Calabria without meeting much resistance.


title: Frederick II, Holy Roman Emperor

text: In response, Innocent sided against Otto, and in September 1211 at the Diet of Nuremberg Frederick was elected "in absentia" as German King by a rebellious faction backed by the pope. Innocent also excommunicated Otto, who was forced to return to Germany. Frederick sailed to Gaeta with a small following. He agreed with the pope on a future separation between the Sicilian and Imperial titles, and named his wife Constance as regent. Passing through Lombardy and Engadin, he reached Konstanz in September 1212, preceding Otto by a few hours.


title: Frederick II, Holy Roman Emperor

text: Frederick was crowned as king on 9 December 1212 in Mainz. Frederick's authority in Germany remained tenuous, and he was recognized only in southern Germany. In the region of northern Germany, the center of Guelph power, Otto continued to hold the reins of royal and imperial power despite his excommunication. Otto's decisive military defeat at the Bouvines forced him to withdraw to the Guelph hereditary lands where, virtually without supporters, he died in 1218.


title: Frederick II, Holy Roman Emperor

text: The German princes, supported by Innocent III, again elected Frederick king of Germany in 1215, and he was crowned king in Aachen on 23 July 1215 by one of the three German archbishops. It was not until another five years had passed, and only after further negotiations between Frederick, Innocent III, and Honorius III – who succeeded to the papacy after Innocent's death in 1216 – that Frederick was crowned Holy Roman Emperor in Rome by Honorius III, on 22 November 1220. At the same time, Frederick's oldest son Henry took the title of King of the Romans.


title: Frederick II, Holy Roman Emperor

text: Unlike most Holy Roman emperors, Frederick spent few years in Germany. In 1218, he helped King Philip II of France and Odo III, Duke of Burgundy, to bring an end to the War of Succession in Champagne (France) by invading Lorraine, capturing and burning Nancy, capturing Theobald I, Duke of Lorraine and forcing him to withdraw his support from Erard of Brienne-Ramerupt. After his coronation in 1220, Frederick remained either in the Kingdom of Sicily or on Crusade until 1236, when he made his last journey to Germany. He returned to Italy in 1237 and stayed there for the remaining thirteen years of his life, represented in Germany by his son Conrad.


title: Frederick II, Holy Roman Emperor

text: In the Kingdom of Sicily, he built on the reform of the laws begun at the Assizes of Ariano in 1140 by his grandfather Roger II. His initiative in this direction was visible as early as the Assizes of Capua (1220, issued soon after his coronation in Rome) but came to fruition in his promulgation of the Constitutions of Melfi (1231, also known as "Liber Augustalis"), a collection of laws for his realm that was remarkable for its time and was a source of inspiration for a long time after. It made the Kingdom of Sicily an absolutist monarchy; it also set a precedent for the primacy of written law. With relatively small modifications, the "Liber Augustalis" remained the basis of Sicilian law until 1819.


title: Frederick II, Holy Roman Emperor

text: In 1223–1224, Frederick tried Bishop Aldoin of Cefalù for maladministration. The trial was nullified by the pope on procedural grounds.


title: Frederick II, Holy Roman Emperor

text: At the time he was elected King of the Romans, Frederick promised to go on crusade. He continually delayed, however, and, in spite of his renewal of this vow at his coronation as the King of Germany, he did not travel to Egypt with the armies of the Fifth Crusade in 1217. He sent forces to Egypt under the command of Louis I, Duke of Bavaria, but constant expectation of his arrival caused papal legate Pelagius to reject Ayyubid sultan Al-Kamil's offer to restore the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem to the crusaders in exchange for their withdrawal from Egypt and caused the Crusade to continually stall in anticipation of his ever-delayed arrival. The crusade ended in failure with the loss of Damietta in 1221. Frederick was blamed by both Pope Honorius III and the general Christian populace for this calamitous defeat.


title: Frederick II, Holy Roman Emperor

text: In 1225, after agreeing with Pope Honorius to launch a Crusade before 1228, Frederick summoned an imperial Diet at Cremona, the main pro-imperial city in Lombardy: the main arguments for holding the Diet would be to continue the struggle against heresy, to organize the crusade and, above all, to restore the imperial power in northern Italy, which had long been usurped by the numerous communes located there. Those assembled responded with the reformation of the Lombard League, which had already defeated his grandfather Frederick Barbarossa in the 12th century, and again Milan was chosen as the league's leader. The Diet was cancelled, however, and the situation was stabilized only through a compromise reached by Honorius between Frederick and the league. During his sojourn in northern Italy, Frederick also invested the Teutonic Order with the territories in what would become East Prussia, starting what was later called the Northern Crusade.


title: Frederick II, Holy Roman Emperor

text: Frederick was distracted with the League when in June 1226 Louis VIII of France laid siege to Avignon, an imperial city. The barons of the French army sent a letter to Frederick defending their action as a military necessity, and a few days after the start of the siege Henry (VII) ratified an alliance with France that had been signed in 1223.


title: Frederick II, Holy Roman Emperor

text: Problems of stability within the empire delayed Frederick's departure on crusade. It was not until 1225, when, by proxy, Frederick had married Isabella II of Jerusalem, heiress to the Kingdom of Jerusalem, that his departure seemed assured. Frederick immediately saw to it that his new father-in-law John of Brienne, the current king of Jerusalem, was dispossessed and his rights transferred to the emperor. In August 1227, Frederick set out for the Holy Land from Brindisi but was forced to return when he was struck down by an epidemic that had broken out. Even the master of the Teutonic Knights, Hermann of Salza, recommended that he return to the mainland to recuperate. On 29 September 1227, Frederick was excommunicated by Pope Gregory IX for failing to honor his crusading pledge.


title: Frederick II, Holy Roman Emperor

text: Many contemporary chroniclers doubted the sincerity of Frederick's illness, and their attitude may be explained by their pro-papal leanings. Roger of Wendover, a chronicler of the time, wrote:


title: Frederick II, Holy Roman Emperor

text: Frederick eventually sailed again from Brindisi in June 1228. The pope, still Gregory IX, regarded that action as a provocation, since, as an excommunicate, Frederick was technically not capable of conducting a crusade, and he excommunicated the emperor a second time. Frederick reached Acre in September. Many of the local nobility, the Templars, and Hospitallers were therefore reluctant to offer overt support. Since the crusading army was already a small force, Frederick negotiated along the lines of a previous agreement he had intended to broker with the Ayyubid sultan, Al-Kamil. The treaty, signed in February 1229, resulted in the restitution of Jerusalem, Nazareth, Bethlehem, and a small coastal strip to the Kingdom of Jerusalem, though there are disagreements as to the extent of the territory returned.


title: Frederick II, Holy Roman Emperor

text: The treaty also stipulated that the Dome of the Rock and al-Aqsa Mosque were to remain under Muslim control and that the city of Jerusalem would remain without fortifications. Virtually all other crusaders, including the Templars and Hospitallers, condemned this deal as a political ploy on the part of Frederick to regain his kingdom while betraying the cause of the Crusaders. Al-Kamil, who was nervous about possible war with his relatives who ruled Syria and Mesopotamia, wished to avoid further trouble from the Christians, at least until his domestic rivals were subdued.


title: Frederick II, Holy Roman Emperor

text: The crusade ended in a truce and in Frederick's coronation as King of Jerusalem on 18 March 1229, although this was technically improper. Frederick's wife Isabella, the heiress, had died, leaving their infant son Conrad as rightful king. There is also disagreement as to whether the "coronation" was a coronation at all, as a letter written by Frederick to Henry III of England suggests that the crown he placed on his own head was in fact the imperial crown of the Romans.


title: Frederick II, Holy Roman Emperor

text: At his coronation, he may have worn the red silk mantle that had been crafted during the reign of Roger II. It bore an Arabic inscription indicating that the robe dated from the year 528 in the Muslim calendar, and incorporated a generic benediction, wishing its wearer "vast prosperity, great generosity and high splendor, fame and magnificent endowments, and the fulfillment of his wishes and hopes. May his days and nights go in pleasure without end or change." This coronation robe can be found today in the "Schatzkammer" of the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna.


title: Frederick II, Holy Roman Emperor

text: In any case, Gerald of Lausanne, the Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem, did not attend the ceremony; indeed, the next day the Bishop of Caesarea arrived to place the city under interdict on the patriarch's orders. Frederick's further attempts to rule over the Kingdom of Jerusalem were met by resistance on the part of the barons, led by John of Ibelin, Lord of Beirut. In the mid-1230s, Frederick's viceroy was forced to leave Acre, and in 1244, following a siege, Jerusalem itself was lost again to a new Muslim offensive.


title: Frederick II, Holy Roman Emperor

text: Whilst Frederick's seeming bloodless recovery of Jerusalem for the cross brought him great prestige in some European circles, his decision to complete the crusade while excommunicated provoked Church hostility. Although in 1230 the Pope lifted Frederick's excommunication, this decision was taken for a variety of reasons related to the political situation in Europe. Of Frederick's crusade, Philip of Novara, a chronicler of the period, said, "The emperor left Acre [after the conclusion of the truce]; hated, cursed, and vilified." Overall this crusade, arguably the first successful one since the First Crusade, was adversely affected by the manner in which Frederick carried out negotiations without the support of the church. He left behind a kingdom in the Levant torn between his agents and the local nobility, a civil war known as the War of the Lombards.


title: Frederick II, Holy Roman Emperor

text: The itinerant Joachimite preachers and many radical Franciscans, the Spirituals, supported Frederick. Against the interdict pronounced on his lands, the preachers condemned the Pope and continued to minister the sacraments and grant absolutions. Brother Arnold in Swabia proclaimed the Second Coming for 1260, at which time Frederick would then confiscate the riches of Rome and distribute them among the poor, the "only true Christians".


title: Frederick II, Holy Roman Emperor

text: During Frederick's stay in the Holy Land, his regent, Rainald of Spoleto, had attacked the March of Ancona and the Duchy of Spoleto. Gregory IX recruited an army under John of Brienne and, in 1229, invaded southern Italy. His troops overcame an initial resistance at Montecassino and reached Apulia. Frederick arrived at Brindisi in June 1229. He quickly recovered the lost territories, and tried and condemned the rebel barons, but avoided crossing the borders of the Papal States.


title: Frederick II, Holy Roman Emperor

text: The war came to an end with the Treaty of San Germano in July 1230. On 28 August, in a public ceremony in Ceprano, the papal legates Thomas of Capua and Giovanni Colonna absolved Frederick and lifted his excommunication. The emperor personally met Gregory IX at Anagni, making some concessions to the church in Sicily. He also issued the Constitutions of Melfi (August 1231), as an attempt to solve the political and administrative problems of the country, which had dramatically been shown by the recent war.


title: Frederick II, Holy Roman Emperor

text: While he may have temporarily made his peace with the pope, Frederick found the German princes another matter. Frederick's son Henry VII (who was born 1211 in Sicily, son of Frederick's first wife Constance of Aragon) had caused their discontent with an aggressive policy against their privileges. This forced Henry to a complete capitulation, and the "Statutum in favorem principum" ("Statutes in favor of the princes"), issued at Worms, deprived the emperor of much of his sovereignty in Germany. Frederick summoned Henry to a meeting, which was held at Aquileia in 1232. Henry confirmed his submission, but Frederick was nevertheless compelled to confirm the "Statutum" at Cividale soon afterwards.


title: Frederick II, Holy Roman Emperor

text: The situation for Frederick was also problematic in Lombardy, after all the emperor's attempts to restore the imperial authority in Lombardy with the help of Gregory IX (at the time, ousted from Rome by a revolt) turned to nothing in 1233. In the meantime Henry in Germany had returned to an anti-princes policy, against his father's will: Frederick thus obtained his excommunication from Gregory IX (July 1234). Henry tried to muster an opposition in Germany and asked the Lombard cities to block the Alpine passes. In May 1235, Frederick went to Germany, taking no army with him: as soon as July, however, he was able to force his son to renounce to the crown all his lands, at Worms, and then imprisoned him.


title: Frederick II, Holy Roman Emperor

text: In Germany the Hohenstaufen and the Guelphs reconciled in 1235. Otto the Child, the grandson of Henry the Lion, had been deposed as Duke of Bavaria and Saxony in 1180, conveying the allodial Guelphic possessions to Frederick, who in return enfeoffed Otto with the same lands and additional former imperial possessions as the newly established Duke of Brunswick-Lüneburg, ending the unclear status of the German Guelphs, who had been left without title and rank after 1180.


title: Frederick II, Holy Roman Emperor

text: With peace north of the Alps, Frederick raised an army from the German princes to suppress the rebel cities in Lombardy. Gregory tried to stop the invasion with diplomatic moves, but in vain. During his descent to Italy, Frederick had to divert his troops to quell a rebellion of Frederick II, Duke of Austria. At Vienna, in February 1237, he obtained the title of King of the Romans for his 9-year-old son Conrad.


title: Frederick II, Holy Roman Emperor

text: After the failure of the negotiations between the Lombard cities, the pope and the imperial diplomats, Frederick invaded Lombardy from Verona. In November 1237 he won the decisive battle in Cortenuova over the Lombard League. Frederick celebrated it with a triumph in Cremona in the manner of an ancient Roman emperor, with the captured "carroccio" (later sent to the commune of Rome) and an elephant. He rejected any suit for peace, even from Milan, which had sent a great sum of money. This demand of total surrender spurred further resistance from Milan, Brescia, Bologna, and Piacenza, and in October 1238 he was forced to raise the siege of Brescia, in the course of which his enemies had tried unsuccessfully to capture him.


title: Frederick II, Holy Roman Emperor

text: Frederick received the news of his excommunication by Gregory IX in the first months of 1239 while his court was in Padua The emperor responded by expelling the Franciscans and the Dominicans from Lombardy and electing his son Enzo as Imperial vicar for Northern Italy. Enzo soon annexed the Romagna, Marche, and the Duchy of Spoleto, nominally part of the Papal States. The father announced he was to destroy the Republic of Venice, which had sent some ships against Sicily. In December of that year Frederick entered Tuscany and spent Christmas in Pisa. In January 1240, Frederick triumphantly entered Foligno followed by Viterbo, whence he aimed to finally conquer Rome to restore the ancient splendours of the Empire. Frederick's plan to attack Rome at that time, however, did not come to fruition as he chose to leave for southern Italy where a papal incited rebellion flared in Apulia. In southern Italy, Frederick attacked and razed St Angelo and Benevento.


title: Frederick II, Holy Roman Emperor

text: In the meantime the Ghibelline city of Ferrara had fallen, and Frederick swept his way northwards capturing Ravenna and, after another long siege, Faenza. The people of Forlì, which had kept its Ghibelline stance even after the collapse of Hohenstaufen power, offered their loyal support during the capture of the rival city: as a sign of gratitude, they were granted an augmentation of the communal coat-of-arms with the Hohenstaufen eagle, together with other privileges. This episode shows how the independent cities used the rivalry between Empire and Pope as a means to obtain maximum advantage for themselves.


title: Frederick II, Holy Roman Emperor

text: At this time, Gregory considered yielding. A truce occurred and peace negotiations began. Direct peace negotiations ultimately failed and Gregory called for a General Council. Frederick and his allies, however, dashed Gregory's plan for a General Council when they intercepted a delegation of prelates traveling to Rome in a Genoese fleet at the Battle of Giglio (1241).


title: Frederick II, Holy Roman Emperor

text: Frederick then directed his army toward Rome and the Pope, burning and destroying Umbria as he advanced. Then just as the Emperor's forces were ready to attack Rome, Gregory died on 22 August 1241. Frederick then attempted to show that the war was not directed against the Church of Rome but against the Pope by withdrawing his troops and freeing from prison in Capua two cardinals he had captured at Giglio, Otto of Tonengo and James of Pecorara. Frederick then traveled to Sicily to wait for the election of a new pope.


title: Frederick II, Holy Roman Emperor

text: In 1241–1242, the forces of the Mongol Empire decisively defeated the armies of Hungary and Poland and devastated their countryside and all their unfortified settlements. King Béla IV of Hungary appealed to Frederick for aid, but Frederick, being in dispute with the Hungarian king for some time (as Bela had sided with the Papacy against him) and not wanting to commit to a major military expedition so readily, refused. He was unwilling to cross into Hungary, and although he went about unifying his magnates and other monarchs to potentially face a Mongol invasion, he specifically took his vow for the defense of the empire on "this side of the Alps".


title: Frederick II, Holy Roman Emperor

text: Frederick was aware of the danger the Mongols posed, and grimly assessed the situation, but also tried to use it as leverage over the Papacy to frame himself as the protector of Christendom. While he called them traitorous pagans, Frederick expressed an admiration for Mongol military prowess after hearing of their deeds, in particular their able commanders and fierce discipline and obedience, judging the latter to be the greatest source of their success. He called a levy throughout Germany while the Mongols were busy raiding Hungary. In mid-1241, Federick dispersed his army back to their holdfasts as the Mongols preoccupied themselves with the lands east of the Danube, attempting to smash all Hungarian resistance. He subsequently ordered his vassals to strengthen their defenses, adopt a defensive posture, and gather large numbers of crossbowmen.


title: Frederick II, Holy Roman Emperor

text: A chronicler reports that Frederick received a demand of submission from Batu Khan at some time, which he ignored. He apparently kept up to date on the Mongols' activities, as a letter from Frederick II dated June 1241 comments that the Mongols were now using looted Hungarian armor. A letter written by Emperor Frederick II, found in the Regesta Imperii, dated to 20 June 1241, and intended for all his vassals in Swabia, Austria, and Bohemia, included a number of specific military instructions. His forces were to avoid engaging the Mongols in field battles, hoard all food stocks in every fortress and stronghold, and arm all possible levies as well as the general populace.


title: Frederick II, Holy Roman Emperor

text: Thomas of Split comments that there was a frenzy of fortifying castles and cities throughout the Holy Roman Empire, including Italy. Either following the Emperor's instructions or on their own initiative, Frederick II, Duke of Austria paid to have his border castles strengthened at his own expense. King Wenceslaus I of Bohemia had every castle strengthened and provisioned, as well as providing soldiers and armaments to monasteries in order to turn them into refuges for the civilian population.


title: Frederick II, Holy Roman Emperor

text: Mongol probing attacks materialised on the Holy Roman Empire's border states: a force was repulsed in a skirmish near Kłodzko, 300–700 Mongol troops were killed in a battle near Vienna to 100 Austrian losses (according to the Duke of Austria), and a Mongol raiding party was destroyed by Austrian knights in the district of Theben after being backed to the border of the River March. As the Holy Roman Empire seemed now the target of the Mongols, Frederick II sent letters to Henry III of England and Louis IX of France in order to organise a crusade against the Mongol Empire.


title: Frederick II, Holy Roman Emperor

text: A full-scale invasion never occurred, as the Mongols spent the next year pillaging Hungary before withdrawing. After the Mongols withdrew from Hungary back to Russia, Frederick turned his attention back towards Italian matters. The danger represented by the presence of the Mongols in Europe was debated again at the First Council of Lyon in 1245, but Frederick II was excommunicated by that very diet in the context of his struggle with the Papacy and ultimately abandoned the possibility of a crusade against the Mongol Empire.


title: Frederick II, Holy Roman Emperor

text: A new pope, Innocent IV, was elected on 25 June 1243. He was a member of a noble Imperial family and had some relatives in Frederick's camp, so the Emperor was initially happy with his election. Innocent, however, was to become his fiercest enemy. Negotiations began in the summer of 1243, but the situation changed as Viterbo rebelled, instigated by the intriguing local cardinal Ranieri Capocci. Frederick could not afford to lose his main stronghold near Rome, so he besieged Viterbo.


title: Frederick II, Holy Roman Emperor

text: Innocent convinced the rebels to sign a peace but, after Frederick withdrew his garrison, Ranieri had them slaughtered on 13 November. Frederick was enraged. The new Pope was a master diplomat, and Frederick signed a peace treaty, which was soon broken. Innocent, together with most of the Cardinals, fled via Genoese galleys to Liguria, arriving on 7 July. His aim was to reach Lyon, where a new council was being held since 24 June 1245.


title: Frederick II, Holy Roman Emperor

text: Despite initially appearing that the council could end with a compromise, the intervention of Ranieri, who had a series of insulting pamphlets published against Frederick (in which, among other things, he defined the emperor as a heretic and an Antichrist), led the prelates towards a less accommodating solution. One month later, Innocent IV declared Frederick to be deposed as emperor, characterising him as a "friend of Babylon's sultan", "of Saracen customs", "provided with a harem guarded by eunuchs", like the schismatic emperor of Byzantium, and in sum a "heretic".


title: Frederick II, Holy Roman Emperor

text: The Pope backed Heinrich Raspe, landgrave of Thuringia, as rival for the imperial crown and set in motion a plot to kill Frederick and Enzo, with the support of the pope's brother-in-law Orlando de Rossi, another friend of Frederick. The plotters were unmasked by the count of Caserta, however, and the city of Altavilla, where they had found shelter, was razed. The guilty were blinded, mutilated, and burnt alive or hanged. An attempt to invade the Kingdom of Sicily, under the command of Ranieri, was halted at Spello by Marino of Eboli, Imperial vicar of Spoleto.


title: Frederick II, Holy Roman Emperor

text: Innocent also sent a flow of money to Germany to cut off Frederick's power at its source. The archbishops of Cologne and Mainz also declared Frederick deposed, and in May 1246 Heinrich Raspe was chosen as the new king. On 5 August 1246 Heinrich, thanks to the Pope's money, managed to defeat an army of Conrad, son of Frederick, near Frankfurt. Frederick strengthened his position in Southern Germany, however, acquiring the Duchy of Austria, whose duke had died without heirs. A year later Heinrich died, and the new anti-king was William II of Holland.


title: Frederick II, Holy Roman Emperor

text: Between February and March 1247 Frederick settled the situation in Italy by means of the diet of Terni, naming his relatives or friends as vicars of the various lands. He married his son Manfred to the daughter of Amedeo di Savoia and secured the submission of the marquis of Monferrato. On his part, Innocent asked protection from the King of France, Louis IX, but the king was a friend of the Emperor and believed in his desire for peace. A papal army under the command of Ottaviano degli Ubaldini never reached Lombardy, and the Emperor, accompanied by a massive army, held the next diet in Turin.


title: Frederick II, Holy Roman Emperor

text: An unexpected event was to change the situation dramatically. In June 1247 the important Lombard city of Parma expelled the Imperial functionaries and sided with the Guelphs. Enzo was not in the city and could do nothing more than ask for help from his father, who came back to lay siege to the rebels, together with his friend Ezzelino III da Romano, tyrant of Verona. The besieged languished as the Emperor waited for them to surrender from starvation. He had a wooden city, which he called "Vittoria", built around the walls.


title: Frederick II, Holy Roman Emperor

text: On 18 February 1248, during one of these absences, the camp was suddenly assaulted and taken, and in the ensuing Battle of Parma the Imperial side was routed. Frederick lost the Imperial treasure and with it any hope of maintaining the impetus of his struggle against the rebellious communes and against the pope, who began plans for a crusade against Sicily. Frederick soon recovered and rebuilt an army, but this defeat encouraged resistance in many cities that could no longer bear the fiscal burden of his regime: Romagna, Marche and Spoleto were lost.


title: Frederick II, Holy Roman Emperor

text: In February 1249 Frederick fired his advisor and prime minister, the famous jurist and poet Pier delle Vigne, on charges of peculation and embezzlement. Some historians suggest that Pier was planning to betray the Emperor, who, according to Matthew of Paris, cried when he discovered the plot. Pier, blinded and in chains, died in Pisa, possibly by his own hand. Even more shocking for Frederick was the capture of his natural son Enzo of Sardinia by the Bolognese at the Battle of Fossalta, in May 1249. Enzo was held in a palace in Bologna, where he remained captive until his death in 1272.


title: Frederick II, Holy Roman Emperor

text: Frederick lost another son, Richard of Chieti. The struggle continued: the Empire lost Como and Modena, but regained Ravenna. An army sent to invade the Kingdom of Sicily under the command of Cardinal Pietro Capocci was crushed in the Marche at the Battle of Cingoli in 1250. In the first month of that year the indomitable Ranieri of Viterbo died and the Imperial "condottieri" again reconquered Romagna, the Marche and Spoleto; and Conrad, King of the Romans, scored several victories in Germany against William of Holland.


title: Frederick II, Holy Roman Emperor

text: Frederick did not take part in of any of these campaigns. He had been ill and likely felt tired. Despite the betrayals and the setbacks he had faced in his last years, Frederick died peacefully, wearing the habit of a Cistercian monk, on 13 December 1250 in Castel Fiorentino (territory of Torremaggiore), in Apulia, after an attack of dysentery.


title: Frederick II, Holy Roman Emperor

text: At the time of his death, his preeminent position in Europe was challenged but not lost: his testament left his legitimate son Conrad the Imperial and Sicilian crowns. Manfred received the principality of Taranto and the government of the Kingdom, Henry the Kingdom of Arles or that of Jerusalem, while the son of Henry VII was entrusted with the Duchy of Austria and the March of Styria. Frederick's will stipulated that all the lands he had taken from the Church were to be returned to it, all the prisoners freed, and the taxes reduced, provided this did not damage the Empire's prestige.


title: Frederick II, Holy Roman Emperor

text: However, upon Conrad's death a mere four years later, the Hohenstaufen dynasty fell from power and the Great Interregnum began, lasting until 1273, one year after the last Hohenstaufen, Enzo, had died in his prison. During this time, a legend developed that Frederick was not truly dead but merely sleeping in the Kyffhäuser Mountains and would one day awaken to reestablish his empire. Over time, this legend largely transferred itself to his grandfather, Frederick I, also known as "Barbarossa" ("Redbeard").


title: Frederick II, Holy Roman Emperor

text: His sarcophagus (made of red porphyry) lies in the cathedral of Palermo beside those of his parents (Henry VI and Constance) as well as his grandfather, the Norman king Roger II of Sicily. He is wearing a funerary alb with a Thuluth-style inscribed cuff. A bust of Frederick sits in the Walhalla temple built by Ludwig I of Bavaria. His sarcophagus was opened in the nineteenth century and various items can be found in the British Museum's collection, including a small piece of funerary crown.


title: Frederick II, Holy Roman Emperor

text: Frederick's contemporaries called him "stupor mundi", the "astonishment of the world"; the majority of his contemporaries were indeed astonishedand sometimes repelledby the pronounced unorthodoxy of the Hohenstaufen emperor and his temperamental stubbornness.


title: Frederick II, Holy Roman Emperor

text: Frederick inherited German, Norman, and Sicilian blood, but by training, lifestyle, and temperament he was "most of all Sicilian." Maehl concludes that "To the end of his life he remained above all a Sicilian "grand signore", and his whole imperial policy aimed at expanding the Sicilian kingdom into Italy rather than the German kingdom southward." Cantor concludes that "Frederick had no intention of giving up Naples and Sicily, which were the real strongholds of its power. He was, in fact, uninterested in Germany."


title: Frederick II, Holy Roman Emperor

text: Frederick was a religious sceptic to an extent unusual for his era. His papal enemies used it against him at every turn. Pope Innocent IV declared him "preambulus Antichristi" (predecessor of the Antichrist) on July 17, 1245. As Frederick allegedly did not respect the "privilegium potestatis" of the Church, he was excommunicated. Frederick's religious unorthodoxy led to speculation that he was an atheist, though this is unlikely. His rationalistic mind took pleasure in the strictly logical character of Catholic dogma. He was not, however, a champion of rationalism, nor had he any sympathy with the mystico-heretical movements of the time; in fact he joined in suppressing them. It was not the Church of the Middle Ages that he antagonized, but its representatives.


title: Frederick II, Holy Roman Emperor

text: For his supposed "Epicureanism" (paganism), Frederick II is listed as a representative member of the sixth region of Dante's "Inferno", that of the heretics, who are burned in tombs.


title: Frederick II, Holy Roman Emperor

text: He deported the Muslim population of Western Sicily to Lucera, and enlisted them in his Christian army and even into his personal bodyguards because, as Muslim soldiers, they had the advantage of immunity from papal excommunication.


title: Frederick II, Holy Roman Emperor

text: Frederick had a great thirst for knowledge and learning. Frederick employed Jews from Sicily, who had migrated there from the holy land, at his court to translate Greek and Arabic works.


title: Frederick II, Holy Roman Emperor

text: He played a major role in promoting literature through the Sicilian School of poetry. His Sicilian royal court in Palermo, saw the first use of a literary form of an Italo-Romance language, Sicilian. Through the mix of Arabic, Hebrew, Latin, Greek, and Sicilian language poems and art at the court, Arabic "muwashshahat" or "girdle poems" influenced the birth of the sonnet. The language developed by Giacomo da Lentini and Pier delle Vigne in the Sicilian School of Poetry gathering around Frederick II of Swabia in the first half of the thirteenth century had a decisive influence on Dante Alighieri and then on the development of Italian language itself. The school and its poetry were saluted by Dante and his peers and predate by at least a century the use of the Tuscan idiom as the elite literary language of Italy.


title: Frederick II, Holy Roman Emperor

text: Frederick II is the author of the first treatise on the subject of falconry, "De Arte Venandi cum Avibus" ("The Art of Hunting with Birds"). In the words of the historian Charles Homer Haskins:


title: Frederick II, Holy Roman Emperor

text: Frederick's pride in his mastery of the art is illustrated by the story that, when he was ordered to become a subject of the Great Khan (Batu) and receive an office at the Khan's court, he remarked that he would make a good falconer, for he understood birds very well. He maintained up to fifty falconers at a time in his court, and in his letters he requested Arctic gyrfalcons from Lübeck and even from Greenland. One of the two existing versions was modified by his son Manfred, also a keen falconer.


title: Frederick II, Holy Roman Emperor

text: David Attenborough in "Natural Curiosities" notes that Frederick fully understood the migration of some birds at a time when all sorts of now improbable theories were common.


title: Frederick II, Holy Roman Emperor

text: Frederick loved exotic animals in general: his menagerie, with which he impressed the cold cities of Northern Italy and Europe, included hounds, giraffes, cheetahs, lynxes, leopards, exotic birds and an elephant.


title: Frederick II, Holy Roman Emperor

text: He was also alleged to have carried out a number of experiments on people. These experiments were recorded by the monk Salimbene di Adam in his "Chronicles". Among the experiments were shutting a prisoner up in a cask to see if the soul could be observed escaping through a hole in the cask when the prisoner died; feeding two prisoners, having sent one out to hunt and the other to bed and then having them disemboweled to see which had digested his meal better; imprisoning children and then denying them any human contact to see if they would develop a natural language.


title: Frederick II, Holy Roman Emperor

text: In the language deprivation experiment young infants were raised without human interaction in an attempt to determine if there was a natural language that they might demonstrate once their voices matured. It is claimed he was seeking to discover what language would have been imparted unto Adam and Eve by God. In his "Chronicles" Salimbene wrote that Frederick bade "foster-mothers and nurses to suckle and bathe and wash the children, but in no ways to prattle or speak with them; for he would have learnt whether they would speak the Hebrew language (which had been the first), or Greek, or Latin, or Arabic, or perchance the tongue of their parents of whom they had been born. But he laboured in vain, for the children could not live without clappings of the hands, and gestures, and gladness of countenance, and blandishments".


title: Frederick II, Holy Roman Emperor

text: Frederick was also interested in the stars, and his court was host to many astrologers and astronomers, including Michael Scot and Guido Bonatti. He often sent letters to the leading scholars of the time (not only in Europe) asking for solutions to questions of science, mathematics and physics.


title: Frederick II, Holy Roman Emperor

text: In 1224 he founded the University of Naples, the world's oldest state university: now called Università Federico II.


title: Frederick II, Holy Roman Emperor

text: A Damascene chronicler, Sibt ibn al-Jawzi, left a physical description of Frederick based on the testimony of those who had seen the emperor in person in Jerusalem: "The Emperor was covered with red hair, was bald and myopic. Had he been a slave, he would not have fetched 200 dirhams at market." Frederick's eyes were described variously as blue, or "green like those of a serpent".


title: Frederick II, Holy Roman Emperor

text: His 1241 Edict of Salerno (sometimes called "Constitution of Salerno") made the first legally fixed separation of the occupations of physician and apothecary. Physicians were forbidden to double as pharmacists and the prices of various medicinal remedies were fixed. This became a model for regulation of the practice of pharmacy throughout Europe.


title: Frederick II, Holy Roman Emperor

text: He was not able to extend his legal reforms beyond Sicily to the Empire. In 1232, he was forced by the German princes to promulgate the "Statutum in favorem principum" ("statute in favor of princes"). It was a charter of liberties for the leading German princes at the expense of the lesser nobility and the entirety of the commoners. The princes gained whole power of jurisdiction, and the power to strike their own coins. The emperor lost his right to establish new cities, castles and mints over their territories. The "Statutum" severely weakened central authority in Germany. From 1232 the vassals of the emperor had a veto over imperial legislative decisions. Every new law established by the emperor had to be approved by the princes.


title: Frederick II, Holy Roman Emperor

text: Historians rate Frederick II as a highly significant European monarch of the Middle Ages. This reputation was present even in Frederick's era. Lansing and English, two British historians, argue that medieval Palermo has been overlooked in favor of Paris and London:


title: Frederick II, Holy Roman Emperor

text: Modern medievalists no longer accept the notion, sponsored by the popes, of Frederick as an anti-Christian. They argue that Frederick understood himself as a Christian monarch in the sense of a Byzantine emperor, thus as God's "viceroy" on earth. Whatever his personal feelings toward religion, certainly submission to the pope did not enter into the matter in the slightest. This was in line with the Hohenstaufen "Kaiser-Idee", the ideology claiming the Holy Roman Emperor to be the legitimate successor to the Roman Emperors.


title: Frederick II, Holy Roman Emperor

text: As his father Henry VI, Frederick established a cosmopolitan court, such as with the black treasury custodian Johannes Morus, and depiction of the different peoples under their rule, which persisted throughout the starting Late Middle Ages.


title: Frederick II, Holy Roman Emperor

text: Twentieth-century treatments of Frederick vary from the sober (Wolfgang Stürner) to the dramatic (Ernst Kantorowicz). However, all agree on Frederick II's significance as Holy Roman Emperor. In the judgment of British historian Geoffrey Barraclough, Frederick's extensive concessions to German princeswhich he made in the hopes of securing his base for his Italian projectsundid the political power of his predecessors and postponed German unity for centuries.


title: Frederick II, Holy Roman Emperor

text: However, the modern approach to Frederick II tends to be focused on the continuity between Frederick and his predecessors as Kings of Sicily and Holy Roman Emperors, and the similarities between him and other thirteenth-century monarchs. David Abulafia, in a biography subtitled "A Medieval Emperor," argues that Frederick's reputation as an enlightened figure ahead of his time is undeserved, and that Frederick was mostly a conventionally Christian monarch who sought to rule in a conventional medieval manner.


title: Frederick II, Holy Roman Emperor

text: Second wife: Yolande of Jerusalem (1212 – 25 April 1228). Marriage: 9 November 1225, at Brindisi, Apulia.


title: Frederick II, Holy Roman Emperor

text: Frederick had a relationship with Bianca Lancia (c. 1200/10 – 1230/46), possibly starting around 1225. One source states that it lasted 20 years. She bore him three children:


title: Frederick II, Holy Roman Emperor

text: Matthew of Paris relates the story of a marriage "in articulo mortis" (on her deathbed) between them when Bianca was dying, but this marriage was never recognized by the Church. Nevertheless, Bianca's children were apparently regarded by Frederick as legitimate, evidenced by his daughter Constance's marriage to the Nicaean Emperor, and his own will, in which he appointed Manfred as Prince of Taranto and Regent of Sicily.


title: Luna Blaise

text: Luna Blaise Boyd (born October 1, 2001) is an American actress and singer. She is best known for her role as Olive Stone in the NBC/Netflix sci fi drama series "Manifest" and Nicole Ellis in ABCs "Fresh Off The Boat".


title: Luna Blaise

text: Blaise was born in Los Angeles, California. Her father is director Paul Boyd, from Glasgow, Scotland; and her mother, Angelyna Martinez-Boyd, is a second-generation Mexican-American actress from San Antonio, Texas.


title: Luna Blaise

text: Blaise began acting at the age of six with a cameo appearance in the 2008 film "Vicious Circle". In 2013, she was cast as Young Nina in the indie art film, "Memoria", executive produced by James Franco, who also starred in the film.


title: Luna Blaise

text: In 2014, Blaise was cast in the recurring role of Nicole on the ABC television series "Fresh Off the Boat" starring Randall Park and Constance Wu as Louis and Jessica Huang. She was 13 when the series started filming, and it was her first major role. The role earned her an award for Best Recurring Young Actress at the 2016 Young Artist Awards. In June 2016, Blaise starred in the music video of Jacob Sartorius' debut single "Sweatshirt".


title: Luna Blaise

text: In early 2017, Blaise released her first single, "Over You", and announced in December 2017 she would be releasing new music in the new year. In late 2018, Blaise released her second single, "Secrets."


title: Luna Blaise

text: In 2018, Blaise was cast as Olive Stone in the NBC drama/mystery series "Manifest". Blaise publicly announced in 2022 that she wouldn't be releasing any more music.


title: Yes Minister

text: Yes Minister is a British political satire sitcom written by Antony Jay and Jonathan Lynn. Comprising three seven-episode series, it was first transmitted on BBC2 from 1980 to 1984. A sequel, Yes, Prime Minister, ran for 16 episodes from 1986 to 1988. All but one of the episodes lasted half an hour, and almost all ended with a variation of the title of the series spoken as the answer to a question posed by Minister (later, Prime Minister) Jim Hacker. Several episodes were adapted for BBC Radio; the series also spawned a 2010 stage play that led to a new television series on Gold in 2013.


title: Yes Minister

text: Set principally in the private office of a British cabinet minister in the fictional Department of Administrative Affairs in Whitehall, "Yes Minister" follows the ministerial career of Jim Hacker, played by Paul Eddington. His various struggles to formulate and enact policy or effect departmental changes are opposed by the British Civil Service, in particular his Permanent Secretary, Sir Humphrey Appleby, played by Nigel Hawthorne. His Principal Private Secretary Bernard Woolley, played by Derek Fowlds, is usually caught between the two. The sequel, "Yes, Prime Minister", continued with the same cast and followed Hacker after his unexpected elevation to prime ministerial office upon the retirement of the previous officeholder.


title: Yes Minister

text: The series received several BAFTAs and in 2004 was voted sixth in the "Britain's Best Sitcom" poll. It was the favourite television programme of the then Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, Margaret Thatcher.


title: Yes Minister

text: The series opens in the wake of a general election in which the incumbent government has been defeated by the opposition party, to which Jim Hacker MP belongs. His party affiliation is never stated, his party emblem is clearly neither Conservative nor Labour, and his party's political colour is white. The Prime Minister offers Hacker the position of Minister of Administrative Affairs, which he accepts. Hacker goes to his department and meets his Permanent Secretary, Sir Humphrey Appleby, and Principal Private Secretary, Bernard Woolley.


title: Yes Minister

text: While Appleby is outwardly deferential towards the new minister, he is prepared to defend the open government at all costs. Hacker and his party's policies of reducing bureaucracy are diametrically opposed to the Civil Service's interests, in which staff numbers and budgets are viewed as merits of success (as opposed to sizes of profits or losses in private industry). Woolley is sympathetic towards Hacker but as Appleby reminds him, Woolley's civil service superiors, including Appleby, will have much to say about the course of his future career (i.e., assessments, promotions, pay increases), while ministers do not usually stay long in one department and have no say in civil service staffing recommendations.


title: Yes Minister

text: Many of the episodes revolve around proposals backed by Hacker but frustrated by Appleby, who uses a range of clever stratagems to defeat ministerial proposals while seeming to support them. Other episodes revolve around proposals promoted by Appleby but rejected by Hacker, which Appleby attempts by all means necessary to persuade Hacker to accept. They do occasionally join forces in order to achieve a common goal, such as preventing the closure of their department or dealing with a diplomatic incident.


title: Yes Minister

text: As the series revolves around the inner workings of central government, most of the scenes take place in private locations, such as offices and exclusive members' clubs. Lynn said that "there was not a single scene set in the House of Commons because government does not take place in the House of Commons. Some politics and much theatre takes place there. Government happens in private. As in all public performances, the real work is done in rehearsal, behind closed doors. Then the public and the House are shown what the government wishes them to see." However, the episode "The Compassionate Society" does feature an audio recording of "Yesterday in Parliament" in which Hacker speaks in the House of Commons, and other episodes include scenes in the Foreign Secretary's House of Commons office ("The Writing on the Wall") and a Committee room ("A Question of Loyalty").


title: Yes Minister

text: The Right Honourable Jim Hacker MP (Paul Eddington), eventually elevated to the House of Lords as Lord Hacker of Islington, was the editor of a newspaper called "Reform" before going into politics. He spent a good deal of time in Parliament on the Opposition benches before his party won a general election, including serving as the Shadow Secretary for Agriculture. In "Yes Minister", he is the Minister for Administrative Affairs (a fictitious ministry of the British government) and a cabinet minister, and in "Yes, Prime Minister" he becomes the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom. Hacker received his degree from the London School of Economics (graduating with a Third), for which he is often derided by the Oxford-educated Sir Humphrey (who attended "Baillie College", a thinly-veiled reference to the real Balliol College, graduating with a First in Classics). His early character is that of a gung-ho, but naïve, politician, bringing sweeping changes to his department. Before long, Hacker begins to notice that Civil Service tactics are preventing his planned changes being put into practice. As he learns, he becomes more sly and cynical, using some of the Civil Service ruses himself. While Sir Humphrey initially held all the aces, Hacker now and again plays a trump card of his own.


title: Yes Minister

text: Throughout "Yes Minister," Hacker, at his worst, is portrayed as a publicity-seeking bungler who is incapable of making a firm decision. He is prone to potentially embarrassing blunders, and is a frequent target of criticism from the press and stern lectures from the Chief Whip. However, he is also shown to be relatively politically savvy, and he slowly becomes more aware of Sir Humphrey's real agenda. In "Yes, Prime Minister," Hacker becomes more statesmanlike. He practises more grandiose speeches, dreams up his "Grand Design" and hones his diplomatic skills. Nearly all of these efforts land him in trouble. In a "Radio Times" interview to promote "Yes, Prime Minister", Paul Eddington stated, "He's beginning to find his feet as a man of power, and he's begun to confound those who thought they'd be able to manipulate him out of hand."


title: Yes Minister

text: Sir Humphrey Appleby (Nigel Hawthorne) serves throughout the series as permanent secretary under his minister, Jim Hacker at the Department of Administrative Affairs. He is appointed Cabinet Secretary just as Hacker's party enters a leadership crisis, and is instrumental in Hacker's elevation to Prime Minister. He is committed to maintaining the "status quo" for the country in general and for the Civil Service in particular. Sir Humphrey is a master of obfuscation and manipulation, baffling his opponents with long-winded technical jargon and circumlocutions, strategically appointing allies to supposedly impartial boards, and setting up interdepartmental committees to smother his minister's proposals in red tape. However, although presenting an outward appearance of supreme confidence and competence, Sir Humphrey is not immune to making miscalculations or outright blunders. When such blunders occur, he relies on the Civil Service bureaucracy to save him.


title: Yes Minister

text: In "Britain's Best Sitcom", Stephen Fry comments that "we love the idea of the coherence and articulacy of Sir Humphrey ... it's one of the things you look forward to in an episode of "Yes Minister" ... when's the big speech going to happen? And can I see if he's reading it from an idiot board ... he's really learned it, and it's superb." Derek Fowlds posited to a concerned Eddington that these speeches were the reason why Hawthorne won a BAFTA for Best Comedy Performance four times in a row, while Eddington, though nominated, did not win at all.


title: Yes Minister

text: Loquacious and verbose, he frequently uses both his mastery of the English language and his grasp of Latin and Greek grammar both to perplex his political master and to obscure the relevant issues. In a "Radio Times" interview to promote the second series of "Yes, Prime Minister", producer Sydney Lotterby stated that he always tried to give Eddington and Hawthorne extra time to rehearse as their scenes invariably featured lengthy dialogue exchanges.


title: Yes Minister

text: Bernard Woolley, MA (Oxon) (Derek Fowlds) is Jim Hacker's Principal Private Secretary. His loyalties are often split between his Minister and his Civil Service boss, Sir Humphrey. Whilst in theory he is personally responsible to Hacker, in practice it is Sir Humphrey who writes his performance reviews and influences his Civil Service career. He usually handles these situations well, and maintains his reputation in the Civil Service as a "high flier" as opposed to a "low flier supported by occasional gusts of wind."


title: Yes Minister

text: Woolley is always quick to point out the physical impossibilities of Sir Humphrey's or Hacker's mixed metaphors, with almost obsessive pedantry. He can occasionally appear rather childlike, by making animal noises and gestures or by acting out how such an analogy cannot work, which sometimes annoys his Minister. Woolley tends to side with Hacker when new policies are announced, because they seem radical or democratic, only for Sir Humphrey to point out the disadvantages to the status quo and the civil service in particular. To sway Bernard, Sir Humphrey uses phrases such as "barbarism" and "the beginning of the end". At times when Sir Humphrey fails to get his way, Woolley can be seen smiling smugly at him over his defeat.


title: Yes Minister

text: In a 2004 retrospective, Armando Iannucci commented that Fowlds had a difficult task because he had to "spend most of his time saying nothing but looking interested in everyone else's total and utter guff" but "his one line frequently had to be the funniest of the lot." Iannucci suggests that Woolley is essential to the structure of the show because both Hacker and Appleby confide in him, "which means we get to find out what they're plotting next."


title: Yes Minister

text: The editor's note to "The Complete Yes Prime Minister" (supposedly published in 2024 after Hacker's death but actually published by the BBC in 1989), thanks "Sir Bernard Woolley, GCB" for his help and confirms that he did indeed make it to the position of Head of the Civil Service.


title: Yes Minister

text: Lynn joined the Cambridge Union in his first year at the University of Cambridge because he thought that he might like to enter politics. "All of the main debaters there, aged twenty, were the most pompous, self-satisfied, self-important bunch of clowns that I've ever clapped eyes on. They were all behaving as if they were on the government front bench, and twenty years later they all were: Michael Howard; John Selwyn Gummer; Kenneth Clarke. I thought at that point that the only way that I could ever contribute to politics is making fun of the politicians."


title: Yes Minister

text: The series, then, intended to satirise politics and government in general, rather than any specific party. The writers placed Hacker at the centre of the political spectrum, and were careful to identify his party headquarters as "Central House" (a combination of Conservative Central Office and Labour's Transport House). The terms "Labour" and "Conservative" are scrupulously avoided throughout the series, favouring terms such as "the party" or "the Government" and "the opposition". In the first scene of the first episode, "Open Government", Hacker is shown at the declaration of his constituency result wearing a white rosette, with other candidates sporting the red and blue rosettes associated with the two leading British parties. The one exception to this neutrality occurs very briefly in "The National Education Service", when Sir Humphrey explains to Bernard how the policy of comprehensive education is retained through successive governments, using different arguments according to which party is in power. Even there, Humphrey does not reveal which party Jim Hacker represents. Despite this, the overall thrust was towards government reduction rather than expansion. The episode "Jobs for the Boys", for example, rejected corporatism. Throughout the period of "Yes Minister" and "Yes Prime Minister" the incumbent government of the United Kingdom was Conservative with the government led by Margaret Thatcher (although the pilot was produced before she came to power). Hacker's predecessor as Prime Minister was unseen and unnamed, but established as male.


title: Yes Minister

text: In a 2004 documentary, Armando Iannucci compared "Yes Minister" to George Orwell's "Nineteen Eighty-Four" in how it has influenced the public's view of the state. Although Lynn comments that the word "spin" has "probably entered the political vocabulary since the series," Iannucci suggests that the show "taught us how to unpick the verbal tricks that politicians think they can get away with in front of the cameras." The series depicted the media-consciousness of politicians, reflecting the public relations training they undergo to help them deal with interviews and reading from autocue effectively. This is particularly evident in the episode "The Ministerial Broadcast", in which Hacker is advised on the effects of his clothes and surroundings. The episode "A Conflict of Interest" humorously lampoons the various political stances of Britain's newspapers through their readers (although this material was not original):


title: Yes Minister

text: Adam Curtis, in his three-part TV documentary "The Trap", criticised the series as "ideological propaganda for a political movement", and claimed that "Yes Minister" is indicative of a larger movement of criticism of government and bureaucracy, centred upon public choice economics. Jay himself supported this:


title: Yes Minister

text: Jay, however, has elsewhere emphasized that he and Lynn were interested first and foremost in the comical possibilities present in government and bureaucracy and that they were not seeking to promote any agenda: "Our only firm belief on the subject was that the underlying conflicts between ministers and ministries were better brought out into the open than kept secret".


title: Yes Minister

text: The writers were inspired by a variety of sources, including sources inside government, published material and contemporary news stories. Jay has written that as early as 1965, he had been induced by developments in the Timothy Evans case to wonder about an "inverted alchemy" operating in Whitehall, capable of frustrating the most impassioned campaigner. The writers also met several leading senior civil servants under the auspices of the Royal Institute of Public Administration, a think-tank for the public service sector, which led to the development of some plot lines. Some situations were conceived as fiction, but were later revealed to have real-life counterparts. The episode "The Compassionate Society" depicts a hospital with five hundred administrative staff but no doctors, nurses or patients. Lynn recalls that "after inventing this absurdity, we discovered there were six such hospitals (or very large empty wings of hospitals) exactly as we had described them in our episode."


title: Yes Minister

text: In a programme screened by the BBC in early 2004, paying tribute to the series, it was revealed that Jay and Lynn had drawn on information provided by two insiders from the governments of Harold Wilson and James Callaghan, namely Marcia Falkender and Bernard Donoughue. The published diaries of Richard Crossman also provided inspiration. In particular the first of these describe his battles with "the Dame", his Permanent Secretary, the formidable Baroness Sharp, the first woman in Britain to hold the position.


title: Yes Minister

text: The episode entitled "The Moral Dimension", in which Hacker and his staff engage in the scheme of secretly consuming alcohol on a trade mission to the fictional Islamic state of Qumran, was based on a real incident that took place in Pakistan, involving Callaghan and Donoughue, the latter of whom informed Jay and Lynn about the incident. Jay says that "I can't tell you where, I can't tell you when and I can't tell you who was involved; all I can tell you is that we knew that it had actually happened. That's why it was so funny. We couldn't think up things as funny as the real things that had happened." Media historian Andrew Crisell suggests that the show was "enriched by the viewers' suspicion that what they were watching was unhealthily close to real life."


title: Yes Minister

text: Fusing inspiration and invention, Lynn and Jay worked on the story "for anything from three days to two weeks," and only took "four mornings to write all the dialogue. After we wrote the episode, we would show it to some secret sources, always including somebody who was an expert on the subject in question. They would usually give us extra information which, because it was true, was usually funnier than anything we might have thought up." Designers Valerie Warrender and Gloria Clayton were given access to the Cabinet Rooms and the State Drawing Rooms. For security purposes, the arrangements of the rooms were altered, and the views from the windows were never shown, to conceal the layout of the buildings.