title: Insider trading

text: Rules prohibiting or criminalizing insider trading on material non-public information exist in most jurisdictions around the world (Bhattacharya and Daouk, 2002), but the details and the efforts to enforce them vary considerably. In the United States, Sections 16(b) and 10(b) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 directly and indirectly address insider trading. The U.S. Congress enacted this law after the stock market crash of 1929. While the United States is generally viewed as making the most serious efforts to enforce its insider trading laws, the broader scope of the European model legislation provides a stricter framework against illegal insider trading. In the European Union and the United Kingdom all trading on non-public information is, under the rubric of market abuse, subject at a minimum to civil penalties and to possible criminal penalties as well. UK's Financial Conduct Authority has the responsibility to investigate and prosecute insider dealing, defined by the Criminal Justice Act 1993.


title: Insider trading

text: In the United States, Canada, Australia, Germany and Romania for mandatory reporting purposes, corporate insiders are defined as a company's officers, directors and any beneficial owners of more than 10% of a class of the company's equity securities. Trades made by these types of insiders in the company's own stock, based on material non-public information, are considered fraudulent since the insiders are violating the fiduciary duty that they owe to the shareholders. The corporate insider, simply by accepting employment, has undertaken a legal obligation to the shareholders to put the shareholders' interests before their own, in matters related to the corporation. When insiders buy or sell based upon company-owned information, they are said to be violating their obligation to the shareholders.


title: Insider trading

text: For example, illegal insider trading would occur if the chief executive officer of Company A learned (prior to a public announcement) that Company A will be taken over and then bought shares in Company A while knowing that the share price would likely rise.


title: Insider trading

text: In the United States and many other jurisdictions, however, "insiders" are not just limited to corporate officials and major shareholders where illegal insider trading is concerned but can include any individual who trades shares based on material non-public information in violation of some duty of trust. This duty may be imputed; for example, in many jurisdictions, in cases of where a corporate insider "tips" a friend about non-public information likely to have an effect on the company's share price, the duty the corporate insider owes the company is now imputed to the friend and the friend violates a duty to the company if he trades on the basis of this information.


title: Insider trading

text: Liability for inside trading violations generally cannot be avoided by passing on the information in an "I scratch your back; you scratch mine" or "quid pro quo" arrangement if the person receiving the information knew or should have known that the information was material non-public information. In the United States, at least one court has indicated that the insider who releases the non-public information must have done so for an improper purpose. In the case of a person who receives the insider information (called the "tippee"), the tippee must also have been aware that the insider released the information for an improper purpose.


title: Insider trading

text: One commentator has argued that if Company A's CEO did not trade on undisclosed takeover news, but instead passed the information on to his brother-in-law who traded on it, illegal insider trading would still have occurred (albeit by proxy, by passing it on to a "non-insider" so Company A's CEO would not get his hands dirty).


title: Insider trading

text: A newer view of insider trading, the misappropriation theory, is now accepted in U.S. law. It states that anyone who misappropriates material non-public information and trades on that information in any stock may be guilty of insider trading. This can include elucidating material non-public information from an insider with the intention of trading on it, or passing it on to someone who will.


title: Insider trading

text: Proving that someone has been responsible for a trade can be difficult because traders may try to hide behind nominees, offshore companies, and other proxies. The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) prosecutes over 50 cases each year, with many being settled administratively out of court. The SEC and several stock exchanges actively monitor trading, looking for suspicious activity. The SEC does not have criminal enforcement authority, but can refer serious matters to the U.S. Attorney's Office for further investigation and prosecution.


title: Insider trading

text: In the United States and most non-European jurisdictions not all trading on non-public information is illegal insider trading. For example, a person in a restaurant who hears the CEO of Company A at the next table tell the CFO that the company's profits will be higher than expected and then buys the stock is not guilty of insider trading—unless he or she had some closer connection to the company or company officers. However, even where the tippee is not himself an insider, where the tippee knows that the information is non-public and the information is paid for, or the tipper receives a benefit for giving it, then in the broader-scope jurisdictions the subsequent trading is illegal.


title: Insider trading

text: Notwithstanding, information about a tender offer (usually regarding a merger or acquisition) is held to a higher standard. If this type of information is obtained (directly or indirectly) and there is reason to believe it is nonpublic, there is a duty to disclose it or abstain from trading.


title: Insider trading

text: In the United States in addition to civil penalties, the trader may also be subject to criminal prosecution for fraud or where SEC regulations have been broken, the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) may be called to conduct an independent parallel investigation. If the DOJ finds criminal wrongdoing, the department may file criminal charges.


title: Insider trading

text: Legal trades by insiders are common, as employees of publicly traded corporations often have stock or stock options. These trades are made public in the United States through Securities and Exchange Commission filings, mainly Form 4.


title: Insider trading

text: U.S. SEC Rule 10b5-1 clarified that the prohibition against insider trading does not require proof that an insider actually used material nonpublic information when conducting a trade; possession of such information alone is sufficient to violate the provision, and the SEC would infer that an insider in possession of material nonpublic information used this information when conducting a trade. However, SEC Rule 10b5-1 also created for insiders an affirmative defense if the insider can demonstrate that the trades conducted on behalf of the insider were conducted as part of a pre-existing contract or written binding plan for trading in the future.


title: Insider trading

text: For example, if an insider expects to retire after a specific period of time and, as part of retirement planning, the insider has adopted a written binding plan to sell a specific amount of the company's stock every month for two years, and the insider later comes into possession of material nonpublic information about the company, trades based on the original plan might not constitute prohibited insider trading.


title: Insider trading

text: Until the 21st century and the European Union's market abuse laws, the United States was the leading country in prohibiting insider trading made on the basis of material non-public information. Thomas Newkirk and Melissa Robertson of the SEC summarize the development of US insider trading laws. Insider trading has a base offense level of 8, which puts it in Zone A under the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines. This means that first-time offenders are eligible to receive probation rather than incarceration.


title: Insider trading

text: U.S. insider trading prohibitions are based on English and American common law prohibitions against fraud. In 1909, well before the Securities Exchange Act was passed, the United States Supreme Court ruled that a corporate director who bought that company's stock when he knew the stock's price was about to increase committed fraud by buying but not disclosing his inside information.


title: Insider trading

text: Section 15 of the Securities Act of 1933 contained prohibitions of fraud in the sale of securities, later greatly strengthened by the Securities Exchange Act of 1934.


title: Insider trading

text: Section 16(b) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 prohibits short-swing profits (from any purchases and sales within any six-month period) made by corporate directors, officers, or stockholders owning more than 10% of a firm's shares. Under Section 10(b) of the 1934 Act, SEC Rule 10b-5, prohibits fraud related to securities trading.


title: Insider trading

text: The Insider Trading Sanctions Act of 1984 and the Insider Trading and Securities Fraud Enforcement Act of 1988 place penalties for illegal insider trading as high as three times the amount of profit gained or loss avoided from the illegal trading.


title: Insider trading

text: SEC regulation FD ("Fair Disclosure") requires that if a company intentionally discloses material non-public information to one person, it must simultaneously disclose that information to the public at large. In the case of an unintentional disclosure of material non-public information to one person, the company must make a public disclosure "promptly".


title: Insider trading

text: Insider trading, or similar practices, are also regulated by the SEC under its rules on takeovers and tender offers under the Williams Act.


title: Insider trading

text: In 1909, the Supreme Court of the United States ruled in "Strong v. Repide" that a director who expects to act in a way that affects the value of shares cannot use that knowledge to acquire shares from those who do not know of the expected action. Even though, in general, ordinary relations between directors and shareholders in a business corporation are not of such a fiduciary nature as to make it the duty of a director to disclose to a shareholder general knowledge regarding the value of the shares of the company before he purchases any from a shareholder, some cases involve special facts that impose such duty.


title: Insider trading

text: In 1968, the Second Circuit Court of Appeals advanced a "level playing field" theory of insider trading in "SEC v. Texas Gulf Sulphur Co." The court stated that anyone in possession of inside information must either disclose the information or refrain from trading. Officers of the Texas Gulf Sulphur Company had used inside information about the discovery of the Kidd Mine to make profits by buying shares and call options on company stock.


title: Insider trading

text: In 1984, the Supreme Court of the United States ruled in the case of "Dirks v. Securities and Exchange Commission" that tippees (receivers of second-hand information) are liable if they had reason to believe that the tipper had breached a fiduciary duty in disclosing confidential information. One such example would be if the tipper received any personal benefit from the disclosure, thereby breaching his or her duty of loyalty to the company. In "Dirks", the "tippee" received confidential information from an insider, a former employee of a company. The reason the insider disclosed the information to the tippee, and the reason the tippee disclosed the information to third parties, was to blow the whistle on massive fraud at the company. As a result of the tippee's efforts the fraud was uncovered, and the company went into bankruptcy. But, while the tippee had given the "inside" information to clients who made profits from the information, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the tippee could not be held liable under the federal securities laws—for the simple reason that the insider from whom he received the information was not releasing the information for an improper purpose (a personal benefit), but rather for the purpose of exposing the fraud. The Supreme Court ruled that the tippee could not have been aiding and abetting a securities law violation committed by the insider—for the simple reason that no securities law violation had been committed by the insider.


title: Insider trading

text: In "Dirks", the Supreme Court also defined the concept of "constructive insiders", who are lawyers, investment bankers, and others who receive confidential information from a corporation while providing services to the corporation. Constructive insiders are also liable for insider trading violations if the corporation expects the information to remain confidential, since they acquire the fiduciary duties of the true insider.


title: Insider trading

text: The next expansion of insider trading liability came in "SEC vs. Materia" 745 F.2d 197 (2d Cir. 1984), the case that first introduced the misappropriation theory of liability for insider trading. Materia, a financial printing firm proofreader, and clearly not an insider by any definition, was found to have determined the identity of takeover targets based on proofreading tender offer documents in the course of his employment. After a two-week trial, the district court found him liable for insider trading, and the Second Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed holding that the theft of information from an employer, and the use of that information to purchase or sell securities in another entity, constituted a fraud in connection with the purchase or sale of a securities. The misappropriation theory of insider trading was born, and liability further expanded to encompass a larger group of outsiders.


title: Insider trading

text: In "United States v. Carpenter" (1986) the U.S. Supreme Court cited an earlier ruling while unanimously upholding mail and wire fraud convictions for a defendant who received his information from a journalist rather than from the company itself. The journalist R. Foster Winans was also convicted, on the grounds that he had misappropriated information belonging to his employer, the "Wall Street Journal". In that widely publicized case, Winans traded in advance of "Heard on the Street" columns appearing in the Journal.


title: Insider trading

text: The Court stated in "Carpenter": "It is well established, as a general proposition, that a person who acquires special knowledge or information by virtue of a confidential or fiduciary relationship with another is not free to exploit that knowledge or information for his own personal benefit but must account to his principal for any profits derived therefrom."


title: Insider trading

text: However, in upholding the securities fraud (insider trading) convictions, the justices were evenly split.


title: Insider trading

text: In 1997, the U.S. Supreme Court adopted the misappropriation theory of insider trading in "United States v. O'Hagan", 521 U.S. 642, 655 (1997). O'Hagan was a partner in a law firm representing Grand Metropolitan, while it was considering a tender offer for Pillsbury Company. O'Hagan used this inside information by buying call options on Pillsbury stock, resulting in profits of over $4.3 million. O'Hagan claimed that neither he nor his firm owed a fiduciary duty to Pillsbury, so he did not commit fraud by purchasing Pillsbury options.


title: Insider trading

text: The "misappropriation theory" holds that a person commits fraud "in connection with" a securities transaction and thereby violates 10(b) and Rule 10b-5, when he misappropriates confidential information for securities trading purposes, in breach of a duty owed to the source of the information. Under this theory, a fiduciary's undisclosed, self-serving use of a principal's information to purchase or sell securities, in breach of a duty of loyalty and confidentiality, defrauds the principal of the exclusive use of the information. In lieu of premising liability on a fiduciary relationship between company insider and purchaser or seller of the company's stock, the misappropriation theory premises liability on a fiduciary-turned-trader's deception of those who entrusted him with access to confidential information.


title: Insider trading

text: The Court specifically recognized that a corporation's information is its property: "A company's confidential information ... qualifies as property to which the company has a right of exclusive use. The undisclosed misappropriation of such information in violation of a fiduciary duty ... constitutes fraud akin to embezzlement – the fraudulent appropriation to one's own use of the money or goods entrusted to one's care by another."


title: Insider trading

text: In 2000, the SEC enacted SEC Rule 10b5-1, which defined trading "on the basis of" inside information as any time a person trades while aware of material nonpublic information. It is no longer a defense for one to say that one would have made the trade anyway. The rule also created an affirmative defense for pre-planned trades.


title: Insider trading

text: In "Morgan Stanley v. Skowron", 989 F. Supp. 2d 356 (S.D.N.Y. 2013), applying New York's faithless servant doctrine, the court held that a hedge fund's portfolio manager engaging in insider trading in violation of his company's code of conduct, which also required him to report his misconduct, must repay his employer the full $31 million his employer paid him as compensation during his period of faithlessness. The court called the insider trading the "ultimate abuse of a portfolio manager's position". The judge also wrote: "In addition to exposing Morgan Stanley to government investigations and direct financial losses, Skowron's behavior damaged the firm's reputation, a valuable corporate asset."


title: Insider trading

text: In 2014, in the case of "United States v. Newman", the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit cited the Supreme Court's decision in "Dirks", and ruled that for a "tippee" (a person who used information they received from an insider) to be guilty of insider trading, the tippee must have been aware not only that the information was insider information, but must also have been aware that the insider released the information for an improper purpose (such as a personal benefit). The Court concluded that the insider's breach of a fiduciary duty not to release confidential information—in the absence of an improper purpose on the part of the insider—is not enough to impose criminal liability on either the insider or the tippee.


title: Insider trading

text: In 2016, in the case of "Salman v. United States", the U.S. Supreme Court held that the benefit a tipper must receive as predicate for an insider-trader prosecution of a tippee need not be pecuniary, and that giving a 'gift' of a tip to a family member is presumptively an act for the personal though intangible benefit of the tipper.


title: Insider trading

text: In 2019, in the case of "United States v. Blaszczak", the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit ruled that the “personal-benefit” test announced in "Dirks" does not apply to Title 18 fraud statutes, such as 18 USC 1348.


title: Insider trading

text: Members of the US Congress are exempt from the laws that ban insider trading. Because they generally do not have a confidential relationship with the source of the information they receive, however, they do not meet the usual definition of an "insider". House of Representatives rules may however consider congressional insider trading unethical. A 2004 study found that stock sales and purchases by senators outperformed the market by 12.3% per year. Peter Schweizer points out several examples of insider trading by members of Congress, including action taken by Spencer Bachus following a private, behind-the-doors meeting on the evening of September 18, 2008 when Hank Paulson and Ben Bernanke informed members of Congress about the issues due to the financial crisis of 2007–2008, Bachus then shorted stocks the next morning and cashed in his profits within a week. Also attending the same meeting were Senator Dick Durbin and John Boehner; the same day (trade effective the next day), Durbin sold mutual-fund shares worth $42,696, and reinvested it all with Warren Buffett. Also the same day (trade effective the next day), Congressman Boehner cashed out of an equity mutual fund.


title: Insider trading

text: In May 2007, a bill entitled the Stop Trading on Congressional Knowledge Act, or STOCK Act was introduced that would hold congressional and federal employees liable for stock trades they made using information they gained through their jobs and also regulate analysts or political intelligence firms that research government activities. The STOCK Act was enacted on April 4, 2012. As of 2021, in the approximately nine month period up to September 2021, Senate and House members disclosed 4,000 trades worth at least $315 million of stocks and bonds.


title: Insider trading

text: Some economists and legal scholars (such as Henry Manne, Milton Friedman, Thomas Sowell, Daniel Fischel, and Frank H. Easterbrook) have argued that laws against insider trading should be repealed. They claim that insider trading based on material nonpublic information benefits investors, in general, by more quickly introducing new information into the market.


title: Insider trading

text: Friedman, laureate of the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economics, said: "You want more insider trading, not less. You want to give the people most likely to have knowledge about deficiencies of the company an incentive to make the public aware of that." Friedman did not believe that the trader should be required to make his trade known to the public, because the buying or selling pressure itself is information for the market.


title: Insider trading

text: Other critics argue that insider trading is a victimless act: a willing buyer and a willing seller agree to trade property that the seller rightfully owns, with no prior contract (according to this view) having been made between the parties to refrain from trading if there is asymmetric information. "The Atlantic" has described the process as "arguably the closest thing that modern finance has to a victimless crime".


title: Insider trading

text: Legalization advocates also question why "trading" where one party has more information than the other is legal in other markets, such as real estate, but not in the stock market. For example, if a geologist knows there is a high likelihood of the discovery of petroleum under Farmer Smith's land, he may be entitled to make Smith an offer for the land, and buy it, without first telling Farmer Smith of the geological data.


title: Insider trading

text: Advocates of legalization make free speech arguments. Punishment for communicating about a development pertinent to the next day's stock price might seem an act of censorship. If the information being conveyed is proprietary information and the corporate insider has contracted to not expose it, he has no more right to communicate it than he would to tell others about the company's confidential new product designs, formulas, or bank account passwords.


title: Insider trading

text: Some authors have used these arguments to propose legalizing insider trading on negative information (but not on positive information). Since negative information is often withheld from the market, trading on such information has a higher value for the market than trading on positive information.


title: Insider trading

text: There are very limited laws against "insider trading" in the commodities markets if, for no other reason than that the concept of an "insider" is not immediately analogous to commodities themselves (corn, wheat, steel, etc.). However, analogous activities such as front running are illegal under US commodity and futures trading laws. For example, a commodity broker can be charged with fraud for receiving a large purchase order from a client (one likely to affect the price of that commodity) and then purchasing that commodity before executing the client's order to benefit from the anticipated price increase.


title: Insider trading

text: The advent of the Internet has provided a forum for the commercialisation of trading on insider information. In 2016 a number of dark web sites were identified as marketplaces where such non-public information was bought and sold. At least one such site used bitcoins to avoid currency restrictions and to impede tracking. Such sites also provide a place for soliciting for corporate informants, where non-public information may be used for purposes other than stock trading.


title: Insider trading

text: The US and the UK vary in the way the law is interpreted and applied with regard to insider trading. In the UK, the relevant laws are the Criminal Justice Act 1993, Part V, Schedule 1; the Financial Services and Markets Act 2000, which defines an offence of "market abuse"; and the European Union Regulation No 596/2014. The principle is that it is illegal to trade on the basis of market-sensitive information that is not generally known. This is a much broader scope that under U.S. law. The key differences from U.S. law are that no relationship to either the issuer of the security or the tipster is required; all that is required is that the guilty party traded (or caused trading) whilst having inside information, and there is no "scienter" requirement under UK law.


title: Insider trading

text: Japan enacted its first law against insider trading in 1988. Roderick Seeman said, "Even today many Japanese do not understand why this is illegal. Indeed, previously it was regarded as common sense to make a profit from your knowledge."


title: Insider trading

text: In Malta the law follows the European broader scope model. The relevant statute is the Prevention of Financial Markets Abuse Act of 2005, as amended. Earlier acts included the Financial Markets Abuse Act in 2002, and the Insider Dealing and Market Abuse Act of 1994.


title: Insider trading

text: The International Organization of Securities Commissions (IOSCO) paper on the "Objectives and Principles of Securities Regulation" (updated to 2003) states that the three objectives of good securities market regulation are investor protection, ensuring that markets are fair, efficient and transparent, and reducing systemic risk.


title: Insider trading

text: The discussion of these "Core Principles" state that "investor protection" in this context means "Investors should be protected from misleading, manipulative or fraudulent practices, including insider trading, front running or trading ahead of customers and the misuse of client assets." More than 85 percent of the world's securities and commodities market regulators are members of IOSCO and have signed on to these Core Principles.


title: Insider trading

text: The World Bank and International Monetary Fund now use the IOSCO Core Principles in reviewing the financial health of different country's regulatory systems as part of these organization's financial sector assessment program, so laws against insider trading based on non-public information are now expected by the international community. Enforcement of insider trading laws varies widely from country to country, but the vast majority of jurisdictions now outlaw the practice, at least in principle.


title: Insider trading

text: Larry Harris claims that differences in the effectiveness with which countries restrict insider trading help to explain the differences in executive compensation among those countries. The US, for example, has much higher CEO salaries than have Japan or Germany, where insider trading is less effectively restrained.


title: Insider trading

text: In 2014, the European Union (EU) adopted legislation (Criminal Sanctions for Market Abuse Directive) that harmonised criminal sanctions for insider dealing. All EU Member States agreed to introduce maximum prison sentences of at least four years for serious cases of market manipulation and insider dealing, and at least two years for improper disclosure of insider information.


title: Insider trading

text: The current Australian legislation arose out of the report of a 1989 parliamentary committee report which recommended removal of the requirement that the trader be ‘connected’ with the body corporate. This may have weakened the importance of the fiduciary duty rationale and possibly brought new potential offenders within its ambit. In Australia if a person possesses inside information and knows, or ought reasonably to know, that the information is not generally available and is materially price sensitive then the insider must not trade. Nor must she or he procure another to trade and must not tip another. Information will be considered generally available if it consists of readily observable matter or it has been made known to common investors and a reasonable period for it to be disseminated among such investors has elapsed.


title: Insider trading

text: In 2009, a journalist in Nettavisen (Thomas Gulbrandsen) was sentenced to 4 months in prison for insider trading.


title: Insider trading

text: The longest prison sentence in a Norwegian trial where the main charge was insider trading, was for eight years (two suspended) when Alain Angelil was convicted in a district court on December 9, 2011.


title: Insider trading

text: Although insider trading in the UK has been illegal since 1980, it proved difficult to successfully prosecute individuals accused of insider trading. There were a number of notorious cases where individuals were able to escape prosecution. Instead the UK regulators relied on a series of fines to punish market abuses.


title: Insider trading

text: These fines were widely perceived as an ineffective deterrent, and there was a statement of intent by the UK regulator (the Financial Services Authority) to use its powers to enforce the legislation (specifically the Financial Services and Markets Act 2000). Between 2009 and 2012 the FSA secured 14 convictions in relation to insider dealing.


title: Insider trading

text: Anil Kumar, a senior partner at management consulting firm McKinsey & Company, pleaded guilty in 2010 to insider trading in a "descent from the pinnacle of the business world".


title: Insider trading

text: Chip Skowron, a hedge fund co-portfolio manager of FrontPoint Partners LLC's health care funds, was convicted of insider trading in 2011, for which he served five years in prison. He had been tipped off by a consultant to a company that the company was about to make a negative announcement regarding its clinical trial for a drug. At first Skowron denied the charges against him, and his defense attorney said he would plead not guilty, saying "We look forward to responding to the allegations more fully in court at the appropriate time". However, after the consultant charged with tipping him off pleaded guilty, he changed his position, and admitted his guilt.


title: Insider trading

text: Rajat Gupta, who had been managing partner of McKinsey & Co. and a director at Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and Procter & Gamble Co., was convicted by a federal jury in 2012 and sentence to two years in prison for leaking inside information to hedge fund manager Raj Rajaratnam who was sentenced to 11 years in prison. The case was prosecuted by the office of United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York Preet Bharara.


title: Insider trading

text: Mathew Martoma, former hedge fund trader and portfolio manager at S.A.C. Capital Advisors, was accused of generating possibly the largest single insider trading transaction profit in history at a value of $276 million. He was convicted in February 2014, and is serving a nine-year prison sentence.


title: Insider trading

text: With the guilty plea by Perkins Hixon in 2014 for insider trading from 2010 to 2013 while at Evercore Partners, Bharara said in a press release that 250 defendants whom his office had charged since August 2009 had now been convicted.


title: Insider trading

text: On December 10, 2014, a federal appeals court overturned the insider trading convictions of two former hedge fund traders, Todd Newman and Anthony Chiasson, based on the "erroneous" instructions given to jurors by the trial judge. The decision was expected to affect the appeal of the separate insider-trading conviction of former SAC Capital portfolio manager Michael Steinberg and the U.S. Attorney and the SEC in 2015 did drop their cases against Steinberg and others.


title: Insider trading

text: In 2016, Sean Stewart, a former managing director at Perella Weinberg Partners LP and vice president at JPMorgan Chase, was convicted on allegations he tipped his father on pending health-care deals. The father, Robert Stewart, previously had pleaded guilty but didn't testify during his son's trial. It was argued that by way of compensation for the tip, the father had paid more than $10,000 for Sean's wedding photographer.


title: Insider trading

text: In 2017, Billy Walters, Las Vegas sports bettor, was convicted of making $40 million on private information of Dallas-based dairy processing company Dean Foods, and sentenced to five years in prison. Walters's source, company director Thomas C. Davis employing a prepaid cell phone and sometimes the code words "Dallas Cowboys" for Dean Foods, helped him from 2008 to 2014 realize profits and avoid losses in the stock, the federal jury found. Golfer Phil Mickelson "was also mentioned during the trial as someone who had traded in Dean Foods shares and once owed nearly $2 million in gambling debts to" Walters. Mickelson "made roughly $1 million trading Dean Foods shares; he agreed to forfeit those profits in a related civil case brought by the Securities and Exchange Commission". Walters appealed the verdict, but in December 2018 his conviction was upheld by the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Manhattan.


title: Insider trading

text: In 2018, David Blaszczak, the "king of political intelligence," Theodore Huber and Robert Olan, two partners at hedge fund Deerfield Management, and Christopher Worrall, an employee at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), were convicted for insider trading by the U.S. Attorney's Office in the Southern District of New York. Worrall leaked confidential government information that he stole from CMS to Blaszczak, and Blaszczak passed that information to Huber and Olan, who made $7 million trading securities. The convictions were upheld in 2019 by the Second Circuit, U.S. Court of Appeals in Manhattan; that opinion was vacated by the Supreme Court in 2021, and the Second Circuit is now reconsidering its decision.


title: Insider trading

text: In 2021, Puneet Dikshit, a partner at McKinsey, pled guilty to trading on inside information that he had access to while advising Goldman Sachs on its acquisition of GreenSky, Inc. Dikshit was the third McKinsey partner to be convicted of insider trading in the Southern District of New York.


title: Insider trading

text: In 2008, police uncovered an insider trading conspiracy involving Bay Street and Wall Street lawyer Gil Cornblum who had worked at Sullivan & Cromwell and was working at Dorsey & Whitney, and a former lawyer, Stan Grmovsek, who were found to have gained over $10 million in illegal profits over a 14-year span. Cornblum committed suicide by jumping from a bridge as he was under investigation and shortly before he was to be arrested but before criminal charges were laid against him, one day before his alleged co-conspirator Grmovsek pled guilty. Grmovsek pleaded guilty to insider trading and was sentenced to 39 months in prison. This was the longest term ever imposed for insider trading in Canada. These crimes were explored in Mark Coakley's 2011 non-fiction book, "Tip and Trade".


title: Insider trading

text: The U.S. SEC alleged that in 2009 Kuwaiti trader Hazem Al-Braikan engaged in insider trading after misleading the public about possible takeover bids for two companies. Three days after Al-Braikan was sued by the SEC, he was found dead of a gunshot wound to the head in his home in Kuwait City on July 26, 2009, in what Kuwaiti police called a suicide. The SEC later reached a $6.5 million settlement of civil insider trading charges, with his estate and others.


title: Insider trading

text: The majority of shares in China before 2005 were non-tradeable shares that were not sold on the stock exchange publicly but privately. To make shares more accessible, the China Securities Regulation Commission (CSRC) required the companies to convert the non-tradeable shares into tradeable shares. There was a deadline for companies to convert their shares and the deadline was short, due to this there was a massive amount of exchanges and in the midst of these exchanges many people committed insider trading knowing that the selling of these shares would affect prices. Chinese people did not fear insider trading as much as one may in the United States because there is no possibility of imprisonment. Punishment may include monetary fees or temporary relieving from a position in the company. The Chinese do not view insider trading as a crime worth prison time because generally the person has a clean record and a path of success with references to deter them from being viewed as a criminal. On October 1, 2015, Chinese fund manager Xu Xiang was arrested due to insider trading.


title: Insider trading

text: Insider trading in India is an offense according to Sections 12A, 15G of the Securities and Exchange Board of India Act, 1992. Insider trading is when one with access to non-public, price-sensitive information about the securities of the company subscribes, buys, sells, or deals, or agrees to do so or counsels another to do so as principal or agent. Price-sensitive information is information that materially affects the value of the securities. The penalty for insider trading is imprisonment, which may extend to five years, and a minimum of five lakh rupees (500,000) to 25 crore rupees (250 million) or three times the profit made, whichever is higher.


title: Insider trading

text: "The Wall Street Journal", in a 2014 article entitled "Why It’s Hard to Catch India’s Insider Trading", said that despite a widespread belief that insider trading takes place on a regular basis in India, there were few examples of insider traders being prosecuted in India. One former top regulator said that in India insider trading is deeply rooted and especially rampant because regulators don't have the tools to address it. In the few cases where prosecution has taken place, cases have sometimes taken more than a decade to reach trial, and punishments have been light; and despite SEBI by law having the ability to demand penalties of up to $4 million, the few fines that were levied for insider trading have usually been under $200,000.


title: Insider trading

text: Under Republic Act 8799 or the Securities Regulation Code, insider trading in the Philippines is illegal.


title: Insider trading

text: The practice of insider trading is an illegal act under Brazilian law, since it constitutes unfair behavior that threatens the security and equality of legal conditions in the market. Since 2001, the practice is also considered a crime. Law 6,385/1976, as amended by Law 10,303/2001, provided for Article 27-D, which typifies the conduct of "Using relevant information not yet disclosed to the market, of which he is aware and from which he must maintain secrecy, capable of providing, for himself or for others, undue advantage, through trading, on his own behalf or on behalf of a third party, with securities: Penalty - imprisonment, from 1 (one) to 5 (five) years, and a fine of up to 3 (three) times the amount of the illicit advantage obtained as a result of the crime."


title: Insider trading

text: The first conviction handed down in Brazil for the practice of the offense of "misuse of privileged information" occurred in 2011, by federal judge Marcelo Costenaro Cavali, of the Sixth Criminal Court of São Paulo. It is the case of the Sadia-Perdigão merger. The former Director of Finance and Investor Relations, Luiz Gonzaga Murat Júnior, was sentenced to one year and nine months in prison in an open regime, replaceable by community service, and the inability to exercise the position of administrator or fiscal councilor of a publicly traded company for the time he serves his sentence, in addition to a fine of R$349,711.53. The then member of the board of directors Romano Ancelmo Fontana Filho was sentenced to prison for one year and five months in an open regime, also replaceable by community service, in addition to not being able to exercise the position of administrator or fiscal councilor of a publicly-held company. He was also fined R$374,940.52.


title: Pike (weapon)

text: A pike is a very long thrusting spear formerly used in European warfare from the Late Middle Ages and most of the Early Modern Period, and were wielded by foot soldiers deployed in pike square formation, until it was largely replaced by bayonet-equipped muskets. The pike was particularly well-known as the primary weapon of Swiss mercenary and German Landsknecht units. A similar weapon, the sarissa, had been used in antiquity by Alexander the Great's Macedonian phalanx infantry.


title: Pike (weapon)

text: The pike was a long weapon, varying considerably in size, from long. Generally, a spear becomes a pike when it is too long to be wielded with one hand in combat. It was approximately in weight, with the 16th century military writer Sir John Smythe recommending lighter rather than heavier pikes. It had a wooden shaft with an iron or steel spearhead affixed. The shaft near the head was often reinforced with metal strips called "cheeks" or langets. When the troops of opposing armies both carried the pike, it often grew in a sort of arms race, getting longer in both shaft and head length to give one side's pikemen an edge in combat. The extreme length of such weapons required a strong wood such as well-seasoned ash for the pole, which was tapered towards the point to prevent the pike from sagging on the ends, although drooping or slight flection of the shaft was always a problem in pike handling. It is a common mistake to refer to a bladed polearm as a pike; such weapons are more generally halberds, glaives or voulges.


title: Pike (weapon)

text: The great length of the pikes allowed a great concentration of spearheads to be presented to the enemy, with their wielders at a greater distance, but also made pikes unwieldy in close combat. This meant that pikemen had to be equipped with an additional, shorter weapon such as a dagger or sword in order to defend themselves should the fighting degenerate into a melee. In general, however, pikemen attempted to avoid such disorganized combat, in which they were at a disadvantage. To compound their difficulties in a melee, the pikeman often did not have a shield, or had only a small shield which would be of limited use in close-quarters fighting.


title: Pike (weapon)

text: The pike, being unwieldy, was typically used in a deliberate, defensive manner, often alongside other missile and melee weapons. However, better-trained troops were capable of using the pike in an aggressive attack with each rank of pikemen being trained to hold their pikes so that they presented enemy infantry with four or five layers of spearheads bristling from the front of the formation.


title: Pike (weapon)

text: As long as it kept good order, such a formation could roll right over enemy infantry, but it did have weaknesses. The men were all moving forward facing in a single direction and could not turn quickly or efficiently to protect the vulnerable flanks or rear of the formation. Nor could they maintain cohesion over uneven ground, as the Scots discovered to their cost at the Battle of Flodden. The huge block of men carrying such unwieldy spears could be difficult to maneuver in any way other than straightforward movement.


title: Pike (weapon)

text: As a result, such mobile pike formations sought to have supporting troops protect their flanks or would maneuver to smash the enemy before they could be outflanked themselves. There was also the risk that the formation would become disordered, leading to a confused melee in which pikemen had the vulnerabilities mentioned above.


title: Pike (weapon)

text: According to Sir John Smythe, there were two ways for two opposing pike formations to confront one another: cautious or aggressive. The cautious approach involved fencing at the length of the pike, while the aggressive approach involved quickly closing distance, with each of the first five ranks giving a single powerful thrust. In the aggressive approach, the first rank would then immediately resort to swords and daggers if the thrusts from the first five ranks failed to break the opposing pike formation. Smythe considered the cautious approach laughable.


title: Pike (weapon)

text: Although primarily a military weapon, the pike could be surprisingly effective in single combat and a number of 16th-century sources explain how it was to be used in a dueling situation; fencers of the time often practiced with and competed against each other with long staves in place of pikes. George Silver considered the pike one of the more advantageous weapons for single combat in the open, giving it odds over all weapons shorter than or the sword and dagger/shield combination.


title: Pike (weapon)

text: Although very long spears had been used since the dawn of organized warfare (notably illustrated in art showing Sumerian and Minoan warriors and hunters), the earliest recorded use of a pike-like weapon in the tactical method described above involved the Macedonian sarissa, used by the troops of Alexander the Great's father, Philip II of Macedon, and successive dynasties, which dominated warfare for several centuries in many countries.


title: Pike (weapon)

text: After the fall of the last successor of Macedon, the pike largely fell out of use for the next 1000 or so years. The one exception to this appears to have been in Germany, where Tacitus recorded Germanic tribesmen in the 2nd century AD as using "over-long spears". He consistently refers to the spears used by the Germans as being "massive" and "very long" suggesting that he is describing in essence a pike. Julius Caesar, in his De Bello Gallico, describes the Helvetii as fighting in a tight, phalanx-like formation with spears jutting out over their shields. Caesar was probably describing an early form of the shieldwall so popular in later times.


title: Pike (weapon)

text: In the Middle Ages, the principal users of the pike were urban militia troops such as the Flemings or the peasant array of the lowland Scots. For example, the Scots used a spear formation known as the "schiltron" in several battles during the Wars of Scottish Independence including the Battle of Bannockburn in 1314, and the Flemings used their "geldon" long spear to absorb the attack of French knights at the Battle of the Golden Spurs in 1302, before other troops in the Flemish formation counterattacked the stalled knights with goedendags. Both battles were seen by contemporaries as stunning victories of commoners over superbly equipped, mounted, military professionals, where victory was owed to the use of the pike and the brave resistance of the commoners who wielded them.


title: Pike (weapon)

text: These formations were essentially immune to the attacks of mounted men-at-arms as long as the knights obligingly threw themselves on the spear wall and the foot soldiers remained steady under the morale challenge of facing a cavalry charge, but the closely packed nature of pike formations rendered them vulnerable to enemy archers and crossbowmen who could shoot them down with impunity, especially when the pikemen did not have adequate armor. Many defeats, such as at Roosebeke and Halidon Hill, were suffered by the militia pike armies when faced by cunning foes who employed their archers and crossbowmen to thin the ranks of the pike blocks before charging in with their (often dismounted) men-at-arms.


title: Pike (weapon)

text: Medieval pike formations tended to have better success when they operated in an aggressive fashion. The Scots at the Battle of Stirling Bridge (1297), for example, utilized the momentum of their charge to overrun an English army while the Englishmen were crossing a narrow bridge. At the Battle of Laupen (1339), Bernese pikemen overwhelmed the infantry forces of the opposing Habsburg/Burgundian army with a massive charge before wheeling over to strike and rout the Austro-Burgundian horsemen as well. At the same time however such aggressive action required considerable tactical cohesiveness or suitable terrain to protect the vulnerable flanks of the pike formations especially from the attack of mounted man-at-arms. When these features were not available, militia often suffered costly failures, such as at the battles of Mons-en-Pevele (1304), Cassel (1328), Roosebeke (1382) and Othee (1408). The constant success of the Swiss mercenaries in the later period was attributed to their extreme discipline and tactical unity due to semi-professional nature, allowing a pike block to somewhat alleviate the threat presented by flanking attacks.


title: Pike (weapon)

text: It was not uncommon for aggressive pike formations to be composed of dismounted men-at-arms, as at the Battle of Sempach (1386), where the dismounted Austrian vanguard, using their lances as pikes, had some initial success against their predominantly halberd-equipped Swiss adversaries. Dismounted Italian men-at-arms also used the same method to defeat the Swiss at the Battle of Arbedo (1422). Equally, well-armored Scottish nobles (accompanied even by King James IV) were recorded as forming the leading ranks of Scottish pike blocks at the Battle of Flodden (1513), incidentally rendering the whole formation resistant to English archery.


title: Pike (weapon)

text: The Swiss solved the pike's earlier problems and brought a renaissance to pike warfare in the 15th century, establishing strong training regimens to ensure they were masters of handling the "Spiess" (the German term for "skewer") on maneuvers and in combat; they also introduced marching to drums for this purpose. This meant that the pike blocks could rise to the attack, making them less passive and more aggressive formations, but sufficiently well trained that they could go on the defensive when attacked by cavalry. German soldiers known as Landsknechts later adopted Swiss methods of pike handling.


title: Pike (weapon)

text: The Scots predominantly used shorter spears in their schiltron formation; their attempt to adopt the longer Continental pike was dropped for general use after its ineffective use led to humiliating defeat at the Battle of Flodden.


title: Pike (weapon)

text: Such Swiss and Landsknecht phalanxes also contained men armed with two-handed swords, or "Zweihänder", and halberdiers for close combat against both infantry and attacking cavalry.


title: Pike (weapon)

text: The Swiss were confronted with the German "Landsknecht" who used similar tactics as the Swiss, but more pikes in the more difficult "German thrust" (: holding a pike that had its weight in the lower 1/3 at the end with two hands), which was utilized in a more flexible attacking column.


title: Pike (weapon)

text: The high military reputation of the Swiss and the "Landsknechts" again led to the employment of mercenary units across Europe in order to train other armies in their tactics. These two, and others who had adopted their tactics, faced off in several wars, leading to a series of developments as a result.


title: Pike (weapon)

text: These formations had great successes on the battlefield, starting with the astonishing victories of the Swiss cantons against Charles the Bold of Burgundy in the Burgundian Wars, in which the Swiss participated in 1476 and 1477. In the battles of Grandson, Morat and Nancy, the Swiss not only successfully resisted the attacks of enemy knights, as the relatively passive Scottish and Flemish infantry squares had done in the earlier Middle Ages, but also marched to the attack with great speed and in good formation, their attack columns steamrolling the Burgundian forces, sometimes with great massacre.


title: Pike (weapon)

text: The deep pike attack column remained the primary form of effective infantry combat for the next forty years, and the Swabian War saw the first conflict in which both sides had large formations of well-trained pikemen. After that war, its combatants—the Swiss (thereafter generally serving as mercenaries) and their Landsknecht imitators—would often face each other again in the Italian Wars, which would become in many ways the military proving ground of the Renaissance.


title: Pike (weapon)

text: The so-called "" was a polearm, closely related to the pike, which from the late 1400s and throughout the 16th century saw widespread use in the German-speaking world. It served as a multipurpose weapon for both infantry (in the manner of pikes) and light cavalry (in the manner of demi-lances). Characteristically, it featured a large, hollow-made and leaf-shaped head of about 50 centimetres or more, which was attached to a long and slender shaft. Apart from being used by soldiers in battle, a tassel fixed to the socket of the head together with optional further embellishment made the "Schefflin" an appropriate main weapon for princely bodyguards and courtly officials. There seems to be a close relation between the contemporary German term "Schefflin" and the West European terms "javeline" (French) and "javelin" (English), both referring to some type of cavalry spear. Although rarely noticed, many of these weapons have survived to this day. Some pieces, of which many are said to have been used by the personal entourage of Henry VIII, are kept at the Royal Armouries in Leeds.


title: Pike (weapon)

text: Pikes and long halberds were in use in ancient China from the Warring States period since the 5th century BC. Infantrymen used a variety of long polearm weapons, but the most popular was the dagger-axe, pike-like long spear, and the "ji". The dagger-axe and "ji" came in various lengths, from 9 to 18 feet; the weapon consisted of a thrusting spear with a slashing blade appended to it. Dagger-axes and "ji" were an extremely popular weapon in various kingdoms, especially for the Qin state and Qin Dynasty, and possibly the succeeding Han Dynasty, who produced 18-foot-long halberd and pike-like weapons, as well as 22 foot long pikes during the war against Xiongnu.


title: Pike (weapon)

text: During the continuous European development of the pike, Japan experienced a parallel evolution of pole weapons.


title: Pike (weapon)

text: In Classical Japan, the Japanese style of warfare was generally fast-moving and aggressive, with far shallower formations than their European equivalents. The naginata and yari were more commonly used than swords for Japanese ashigaru foot soldiers and dismounted samurai due to their greater reach. Naginata, first used around 750 AD, had curved sword-like blades on wooden shafts with often spiked metal counterweights. They were typically used with a slashing action and forced the introduction of shin guards as cavalry battles became more important. Yari were spears of varying lengths; their straight blades usually had sharpened edges or protrusions from the central blade, and were fitted to a hollowed shaft with an extremely long tang.


title: Pike (weapon)

text: During the later half of the 16th century in Medieval Japan, pikes used were generally long, but sometimes up to in length. By this point, pikemen were becoming the main forces in armies. They formed lines, combined with arquebusiers and spearmen. Formations were generally only two or three rows deep.


title: Pike (weapon)

text: In the aftermath of the Italian Wars, from the late 15th century to the late 16th century, most European armies adopted the use of the pike, often in conjunction with primitive firearms such as the arquebus and caliver, to form large pike and shot formations.


title: Pike (weapon)

text: The quintessential example of this development was the Spanish tercio, which consisted of a large square of pikemen with small, mobile squadrons of arquebusiers moving along its perimeter, as well as traditional men-at-arms. These three elements formed a mutually supportive combination of tactical roles: the arquebusiers harried the enemy line, the pikemen protected the arquebusiers from enemy cavalry charges, and the men-at-arms, typically armed with swords and javelins, fought off enemy pikemen when two opposing squares made contact. The Tercio deployed smaller numbers of pikemen than the huge Swiss and Landsknecht columns, and their formation ultimately proved to be much more flexible on the battlefield.


title: Pike (weapon)

text: Mixed formations of men quickly became the norm for European infantrymen, with many, but not all, seeking to imitate the Tercio; in England, a combination of billmen, longbowmen, and men-at-arms remained the norm, though this changed when the supply of yew on the island dwindled.


title: Pike (weapon)

text: The percentage of men who were armed with firearms in Tercio-like formations steadily increased as firearms advanced in technology. This advance is believed to be the demise of cavalry when in fact it revived it. From the late 16th century and into the 17th century, smaller pike formations were used, invariably defending attached musketeers, often as a central block with two sub-units of shooters, called "sleeves of shot", on either side of the pikes. Although the cheaper and versatile infantry increasingly adopted firearms, cavalry's proportion in the army remained high.


title: Pike (weapon)

text: During the English Civil War (1642–1651) the New Model Army (1646–1660) initially had two musketeers for each pikeman. Two musketeers for each pikeman was not the agreed mix used throughout Europe, and when in 1658 Oliver Cromwell, by then the Lord Protector, sent a contingent of the New Model Army to Flanders to support his French allies under the terms of their treaty of friendship (the Treaty of Paris, 1657) he supplied regiments with equal numbers of musketeers and pikemen.} On the battlefield, the musketeers lacked protection against enemy cavalry, and the two types of foot soldier supported each other.


title: Pike (weapon)

text: The post Restoration English Army used pikemen and by 1697 (the last year of the Nine Years' War) English infantry battalions fighting in the Low Countries still had two musketeers to every pikemen and fought in the now traditional style of pikemen five ranks deep in the centre, with six ranks of musketeers on each side.


title: Pike (weapon)

text: The mid 17th century to the early 18th century saw the decline of the pike in most European armies. This started with the profileration of the flintlock, which gave a musketeer both more powerful and a faster rate of fire than he before possessed, incentivizing a higher ratio of shot to pike. It continued with development of the plug bayonet, followed by the socket bayonet in the 1680s and 1690s. The plug bayonet did not replace the pike as it required a soldier surrender his ability to shoot to fix it, but the socket bayonet solved that issue. The bayonet added a long blade of up to 60 cm (24 inches) to the end of the musket, allowing the musket to act as a spear-like weapon when held out with both hands. Although they did not have the full reach of pikes, bayonets were effective against cavalry charges, which used to be the main weakness of musketeer formations, and allowed armies to massively expand their potential firepower by giving every infantryman a firearm; pikemen were no longer needed to protect musketeers from cavalry. Furthermore, improvements in artillery caused most European armies to abandon large formations in favor of multiple staggered lines, both to minimize casualties and to present a larger frontage for volley fire. Thick hedges of bayonets proved to be an effective anti-cavalry solution, and improved musket firepower was now so deadly that combat was often decided by shooting alone.


title: Pike (weapon)

text: A common end date for the use of the pike in most infantry formations is 1700, such as the Prussian and Austrian armies. Others, including the Swedish and Russian armies, continued to use the pike as an effective weapon for several more decades, until the 1720s and 1730s (the Swedes of King Charles XII in particular using it to great effect until 1721). At the start of the Great Northern War in 1700, Russian line infantry companies had 5 NCOs, 84 musketeers, and 18 pikemen, the musketeers initially being equipped with sword-like plug bayonets; they did not fully switch to socket bayonets until 1709. A Swedish company consisted of 82 musketeers, 48 pikemen, and 16 grenadiers. The Army of the Holy Roman Empire maintained a ratio of 2 muskets to 1 pike in the middle to late 17th century, officially abandoning the pike in 1699. The French, meanwhile, had a ratio of 3-4 muskets to 1 pike by 1689. Both sides of the Wars of the Three Kingdoms in the 1640s and 1650s preferred a ratio of 2 muskets to 1 pike, but this was not always possible.


title: Pike (weapon)

text: During the American Revolution (1775–1783), pikes called "trench spears" made by local blacksmiths saw limited use until enough bayonets could be procured for general use by both Continental Army and attached militia units.


title: Pike (weapon)

text: Throughout the Napoleonic era, the spontoon, a type of shortened pike that typically had a pair of blades or lugs mounted to the head, was retained as a symbol by some NCOs; in practice it was probably more useful for gesturing and signaling than as a weapon for combat.


title: Pike (weapon)

text: As late as Poland's Kościuszko Uprising in 1794, the pike reappeared as a child of necessity which became, for a short period, a surprisingly effective weapon on the battlefield. In this case, General Thaddeus Kosciuszko, facing a shortage of firearms and bayonets to arm landless serf partisans recruited straight from the wheat fields, had their sickles and scythes heated and straightened out into something resembling crude "war scythes". These weaponized agricultural accouterments were then used in battle as both cutting weapons, as well as makeshift pikes. The peasant "pikemen" armed with these crude instruments played a pivotal role in securing a near impossible victory against a far larger and better equipped Russian army at the Battle of Racławice, which took place on 4 April 1794.


title: Pike (weapon)

text: Civilian pikeman played a similar role, though outnumbered and outgunned, in the 1798 Rising in Ireland four years later. Here, especially in the Wexford Rebellion and in Dublin, the pike was useful mainly as a weapon by men and women fighting on foot against cavalry armed with guns.


title: Pike (weapon)

text: Improvised pikes, made from bayonets on poles, were used by escaped convicts during the Castle Hill rebellion of 1804.


title: Pike (weapon)

text: As late as the Napoleonic Wars, at the beginning of the 19th century, even the Russian militia (mostly landless peasants, like the Polish partisans before them) could be found carrying shortened pikes into battle. As the 19th century progressed, the obsolete pike would still find a use in such countries as Ireland, Russia, China, and Australia, generally in the hands of desperate peasant rebels who did not have access to firearms. John Brown purchased a large number of pikes and brought them to his raid on Harpers Ferry.


title: Pike (weapon)

text: One attempt to resurrect the pike as a primary infantry weapon occurred during the American Civil War (1861–1865) when the Confederate States of America planned to recruit twenty regiments of pikemen in 1862. In April 1862 it was authorised that every Confederate infantry regiment would include two companies of pikemen, a plan supported by Robert E. Lee. Many pikes were produced but were never used in battle and the plan to include pikemen in the army was abandoned.


title: Pike (weapon)

text: Shorter versions of pikes called "boarding pikes" were also used on warships—typically to repel boarding parties, up to the late 19th century.


title: Pike (weapon)

text: The great Hawaiian warrior king Kamehameha I had an elite force of men armed with very long spears who seem to have fought in a manner identical to European pikemen, despite the usual conception of his people's general disposition for individualistic dueling as their method of close combat. It is not known whether Kamehameha himself introduced this tactic or if it was taken from the use of traditional Hawaiian weapons.


title: Pike (weapon)

text: The pike was issued as a British Home Guard weapon in 1942 after the War Office acted on a letter from Winston Churchill saying ""every man must have a weapon of some kind, be it only a mace or pike"". However, these hand-held weapons never left the stores after the pikes had "generated an almost universal feeling of anger and disgust from the ranks of the Home Guard, demoralised the men and led to questions being asked in both Houses of Parliament". The pikes, made from obsolete Lee–Enfield rifle bayonet blades welded to a steel tube, took the name of ""Croft's Pikes"" after Henry Page Croft, the Under-Secretary of State for War who attempted to defend the fiasco by stating that they were a "silent and effective weapon".


title: Pike (weapon)

text: In Spain, beginning in 1715 and ending in 1977, there were night patrol guards in cities called "serenos" who carried a short pike of called "chuzo".


title: Pike (weapon)

text: Pikes live on today only in ceremonial roles, being used to carry the colours of an infantry regiment and with the Company of Pikemen and Musketeers of the Honourable Artillery Company, or by some of the infantry units on duty during their rotation as guard for the President of the Italian Republic at the Quirinal Palace in Rome, Italy.


title: Monkeybone

text: Monkeybone is a 2001 American black comedy fantasy film directed by Henry Selick, written by Sam Hamm, produced by Michael Barnathan and Mark Radcliffe, and executive produced by Chris Columbus, Selick, and Hamm. The film combines live-action with stop-motion animation.


title: Monkeybone

text: Loosely based on Kaja Blackley's graphic novel "Dark Town", the film stars an ensemble cast led by Brendan Fraser, Bridget Fonda, and Whoopi Goldberg with Rose McGowan, Dave Foley, Giancarlo Esposito, Megan Mullally, Lisa Zane, Chris Kattan, Bob Odenkirk, an uncredited Thomas Haden Church, and the voice of John Turturro.


title: Monkeybone

text: Theatrically released on February 23, 2001 by 20th Century Fox, the film was a box-office bomb and received generally negative critical reviews.


title: Monkeybone

text: Stuart "Stu" Miley is a disillusioned cartoonist whose comic character, a rascal monkey named Monkeybone, is getting an animated series and merchandise, at the constant pestering of his agent and friend, Herb. He plans on proposing to his girlfriend, Julie McElroy, a sleep institute worker who helped him deal with his nightmares by changing his drawing hand, but one night, Stu falls into a coma following a car crash before he can do so. His spirit is taken to Down Town, a surreal and carnival-themed limbo-like landscape populated by mythical beings and figments of its visitors' imaginations, even Monkeybone. Stu and Monkeybone are constantly at each other’s throats during his time in Down Town until discovering people can leave Down Town once they are given Exit Passes. Stu is then invited to a party being hosted by the God of Sleep and ruler of Down Town Hypnos.


title: Monkeybone

text: According to Hypnos, Stu has to steal an Exit Pass from his sister, Death, in order to wake up from his coma in time before the plug is pulled due to Stu and his sister Kimmy making a pact as children after their father’s death. Stu and Monkeybone journey to Death's domain disguised as one of her employees and successfully manage to steal an Exit Pass, while narrowly escaping a nightmare Julie inflicts upon Stu in an attempt to wake him by using “Oneirix”, a chemical solution made by Julie that causes nightmare inducement to living creatures.


title: Monkeybone

text: Back in Down Town, Monkeybone steals the Exit Pass for himself, where it is revealed that the theft was part of a plan orchestrated by Hypnos. Monkeybone enters Stu’s body while Stu is imprisoned with other disillusioned or criminal figures throughout history such as Stephen King, Attila the Hun, Jack the Ripper and Lizzie Borden. Hypnos reveals to Stu that he desires more nightmares to gain power and made a deal with Monkeybone to spread the Oneirix amongst the living in exchange for getting Monkeybone his body to have a life of his own, since he's fed up with being a figment.


title: Monkeybone

text: Monkeybone is ordered by Hypnos via a nightmare to stay his course, causing Monkeybone to steal the Oneirix from the sleep institute successfully, leaving a decoy in its place. While Monkeybone puts the chemical in farting Monkeybone toys to be given out to the public at a charity banquet, Julie growing wary due to “Stu’s” new behavior. Stu manages to escape with the help of Miss Kitty, a catgirl waitress he befriends, and confronts Death to convince her to send him to back to the living world to stop Monkeybone. Death complies, giving him an hour to do so by putting him in the body of an organ donor with a broken neck.


title: Monkeybone

text: Stu makes it to the banquet while Monkeybone is about to propose to Julie, while Herb is exposed to the Oneirix in the Monkeybone doll and sees his clothes coming to life in a mirror, causing him to strip naked and flees in panic. Stu finally confesses his love and regrets to Julie for never getting a chance to propose to her. Stu manages to use Monkeybone’s origin characteristics to cause him to panic which culminates in the two of them battling one another on a giant Monkeybone balloon, which is soon shot down by a police officer, causing the duo to fall from the sky and back into Down Town.


title: Monkeybone

text: Back in Down Town, the citizens below cheer on Stu and Monkeybone's fight as they descend from the sky before being caught by a giant robot controlled by Death. Monkeybone is then placed back in Stu’s mind by Death, claiming it is where he belongs before she sends Stu back to his proper body. Once Stu is, he and Julie reunite and share a kiss as the still-infected Herb emerges from a nearby fountain and telling everyone to remove their clothes.


title: Monkeybone

text: The comic book "Dark Town", on which "Monkeybone" is based, was written by Kaja Blackley, illustrated by Vanessa Chong, and published by Mad Monkey Press. The journey from comic to film was initiated by a fan of the comic and member of the San Francisco animation community (Tom "Bags" Sacchi/ChasingDragons Productions NYC) who, without Blackley's knowledge, passed a copy of "Dark Town" on to one of Selick's producers, Denise Rotina. Selick fell in love with the book and vigorously pursued the rights. In a letter to Kaja, he wrote: "I've never felt any project was closer to my sensibilities than this one." The initial intention was to stay true to the source material, which can be seen in early designs from Selick's company, Twitching Image. However, as the project developed, it eventually evolved into "Monkeybone".


title: Monkeybone

text: Initially the role of Stuart "Stu" Miley was to be played by Ben Stiller but Stiller dropped out to be in "Mystery Men" and was replaced by Fraser.


title: Monkeybone

text: Much of the film's art bears a strong resemblance to that of Mark Ryden—for example, the bust of Abraham Lincoln as "The Great Emancipator". Stu's pre-therapy painting is very similar to Ryden's "The Birth," and according to the credits, was painted by him for the film. The animation style and the themes of the opening sequence in which Stu first encounters Monkeybone are very similar to the work of Swedish cartoonist Magnus Carlsson. The film's plot is influenced by the films "Who Framed Roger Rabbit", "Cool World" and "Beetlejuice." Many critics mark a similarity between "Dark Town"'s design and Tim Burton's style. The film contains a large number of references to a parody religion called The Church of the SubGenius. In particular, the fictional fast-food chain "Burger God" was originally a SubGenius creation. Additionally, the repeated references to Yetis, and the scene in which Stu (whose body is possessed by Monkeybone) is struck in the head with a golf club by Hypnos in a dream sequence also echo recurring themes in the Church of the SubGenius.


title: Monkeybone

text: "Monkeybone" was a failure at the box office; based on a budget of $75 million, the film grossed $5,411,999 domestically and $7,622,365 worldwide.


title: Monkeybone

text: On Rotten Tomatoes, the film has an approval rating of 20% based on 114 reviews, with an average rating of 3.9/10. The site's critical consensus reads, "Though original and full of bizarre visuals, "Monkeybone" is too shapeless a movie, with unengaging characters and random situations that fail to build up laughs." On Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 40 out of 100, based on 28 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews". Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "C" on an A+ to F scale.


title: Monkeybone

text: Roger Ebert gave the film 1.5 stars out of 4, saying, "The movie labors hard, the special effects are admirable, no expense has been spared, and yet the movie never takes off; it's a bright idea the filmmakers were unable to breathe life into."


title: Android (robot)

text: An android is a humanoid robot or other artificial being often made from a flesh-like material. Historically, androids were completely within the domain of science fiction and frequently seen in film and television, but advances in robot technology now allow the design of functional and realistic humanoid robots.


title: Android (robot)

text: The "Oxford English Dictionary" traces the earliest use (as "Androides") to Ephraim Chambers' 1728 "Cyclopaedia," in reference to an automaton that St. Albertus Magnus allegedly created. By the late 1700s, "androides", elaborate mechanical devices resembling humans performing human activities, were displayed in exhibit halls.


title: Android (robot)

text: The term "android" appears in US patents as early as 1863 in reference to miniature human-like toy automatons. The term "android" was used in a more modern sense by the French author Auguste Villiers de l'Isle-Adam in his work "Tomorrow's Eve" (1886). This story features an artificial humanlike robot named Hadaly. As said by the officer in the story, "In this age of Realien advancement, who knows what goes on in the mind of those responsible for these mechanical dolls." The term made an impact into English pulp science fiction starting from Jack Williamson's "The Cometeers" (1936) and the distinction between mechanical robots and fleshy androids was popularized by Edmond Hamilton's Captain Future stories (1940–1944).


title: Android (robot)

text: Although Karel Čapek's robots in "R.U.R. (Rossum's Universal Robots)" (1921)—the play that introduced the word "robot" to the world—were organic artificial humans, the word "robot" has come to primarily refer to mechanical humans, animals, and other beings. The term "android" can mean either one of these, while a cyborg ("cybernetic organism" or "bionic man") would be a creature that is a combination of organic and mechanical parts.


title: Android (robot)

text: The term "droid", popularized by George Lucas in the original "Star Wars" film and now used widely within science fiction, originated as an abridgment of "android", but has been used by Lucas and others to mean any robot, including distinctly non-human form machines like R2-D2. The word "android" was used in "" episode "What Are Little Girls Made Of?" The abbreviation "andy", coined as a pejorative by writer Philip K. Dick in his novel "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?", has seen some further usage, such as within the TV series "Total Recall 2070".


title: Android (robot)

text: While the term "android" is used in reference to human-looking robots in general (not necessarily male-looking humanoid robots), a robot with a female appearance can also be referred to as a "gynoid". Besides one can refer to robots without alluding to their sexual appearance by calling them "anthrobots" (a portmanteau of anthrōpos and robot; see "anthrobotics") or "anthropoids" (short for anthropoid robots; the term "humanoids" is not appropriate because it is already commonly used to refer to human-like organic species in the context of science fiction, futurism and speculative astrobiology).


title: Android (robot)

text: Authors have used the term "android" in more diverse ways than "robot" or "cyborg". In some fictional works, the difference between a robot and android is only superficial, with androids being made to look like humans on the outside but with robot-like internal mechanics. In other stories, authors have used the word "android" to mean a wholly organic, yet artificial, creation. Other fictional depictions of androids fall somewhere in between.


title: Android (robot)

text: Eric G. Wilson, who defines an android as a "synthetic human being", distinguishes between three types of android, based on their body's composition:


title: Android (robot)

text: Although human morphology is not necessarily the ideal form for working robots, the fascination in developing robots that can mimic it can be found historically in the assimilation of two concepts: "simulacra" (devices that exhibit likeness) and "automata" (devices that have independence).


title: Android (robot)

text: Several projects aiming to create androids that look, and, to a certain degree, speak or act like a human being have been launched or are underway.


title: Android (robot)

text: Japanese robotics have been leading the field since the 1970s. Waseda University initiated the WABOT project in 1967, and in 1972 completed the WABOT-1, the first android, a full-scale humanoid intelligent robot. Its limb control system allowed it to walk with the lower limbs, and to grip and transport objects with hands, using tactile sensors. Its vision system allowed it to measure distances and directions to objects using external receptors, artificial eyes and ears. And its conversation system allowed it to communicate with a person in Japanese, with an artificial mouth.


title: Android (robot)

text: In 1984, WABOT-2 was revealed, and made a number of improvements. It was capable of playing the organ. Wabot-2 had ten fingers and two feet, and was able to read a score of music. It was also able to accompany a person. In 1986, Honda began its humanoid research and development program, to create humanoid robots capable of interacting successfully with humans.


title: Android (robot)

text: The Intelligent Robotics Lab, directed by Hiroshi Ishiguro at Osaka University, and the Kokoro company demonstrated the Actroid at Expo 2005 in Aichi Prefecture, Japan and released the Telenoid R1 in 2010. In 2006, Kokoro developed a new "DER 2" android. The height of the human body part of DER2 is 165 cm. There are 47 mobile points. DER2 can not only change its expression but also move its hands and feet and twist its body. The "air servosystem" which Kokoro developed originally is used for the actuator. As a result of having an actuator controlled precisely with air pressure via a servosystem, the movement is very fluid and there is very little noise. DER2 realized a slimmer body than that of the former version by using a smaller cylinder. Outwardly DER2 has a more beautiful proportion. Compared to the previous model, DER2 has thinner arms and a wider repertoire of expressions. Once programmed, it is able to choreograph its motions and gestures with its voice.


title: Android (robot)

text: The Intelligent Mechatronics Lab, directed by Hiroshi Kobayashi at the Tokyo University of Science, has developed an android head called "Saya", which was exhibited at Robodex 2002 in Yokohama, Japan. There are several other initiatives around the world involving humanoid research and development at this time, which will hopefully introduce a broader spectrum of realized technology in the near future. Now Saya is "working" at the Science University of Tokyo as a guide.


title: Android (robot)

text: The Waseda University (Japan) and NTT Docomo's manufacturers have succeeded in creating a shape-shifting robot "WD-2". It is capable of changing its face. At first, the creators decided the positions of the necessary points to express the outline, eyes, nose, and so on of a certain person. The robot expresses its face by moving all points to the decided positions, they say. The first version of the robot was first developed back in 2003. After that, a year later, they made a couple of major improvements to the design. The robot features an elastic mask made from the average head dummy. It uses a driving system with a 3DOF unit. The WD-2 robot can change its facial features by activating specific facial points on a mask, with each point possessing three degrees of freedom. This one has 17 facial points, for a total of 56 degrees of freedom. As for the materials they used, the WD-2's mask is fabricated with a highly elastic material called Septom, with bits of steel wool mixed in for added strength. Other technical features reveal a shaft driven behind the mask at the desired facial point, driven by a DC motor with a simple pulley and a slide screw. Apparently, the researchers can also modify the shape of the mask based on actual human faces. To "copy" a face, they need only a 3D scanner to determine the locations of an individual's 17 facial points. After that, they are then driven into position using a laptop and 56 motor control boards. In addition, the researchers also mention that the shifting robot can even display an individual's hair style and skin color if a photo of their face is projected onto the 3D Mask.


title: Android (robot)

text: Prof Nadia Thalmann, a Nanyang Technological University scientist, directed efforts of the Institute for Media Innovation along with the School of Computer Engineering in the development of a social robot, Nadine. Nadine is powered by software similar to Apple's Siri or Microsoft's Cortana. Nadine may become a personal assistant in offices and homes in future, or she may become a companion for the young and the elderly.


title: Android (robot)

text: Assoc Prof Gerald Seet from the School of Mechanical & Aerospace Engineering and the BeingThere Centre led a three-year R&D development in tele-presence robotics, creating EDGAR. A remote user can control EDGAR with the user's face and expressions displayed on the robot's face in real time. The robot also mimics their upper body movements.


title: Android (robot)

text: KITECH researched and developed EveR-1, an android interpersonal communications model capable of emulating human emotional expression via facial "musculature" and capable of rudimentary conversation, having a vocabulary of around 400 words. She is tall and weighs , matching the average figure of a Korean woman in her twenties. EveR-1's name derives from the Biblical Eve, plus the letter "r" for "robot". EveR-1's advanced computing processing power enables speech recognition and vocal synthesis, at the same time processing lip synchronization and visual recognition by 90-degree micro-CCD cameras with face recognition technology. An independent microchip inside her artificial brain handles gesture expression, body coordination, and emotion expression. Her whole body is made of highly advanced synthetic jelly silicon and with 60 artificial joints in her face, neck, and lower body; she is able to demonstrate realistic facial expressions and sing while simultaneously dancing. In South Korea, the Ministry of Information and Communication has an ambitious plan to put a robot in every household by 2020. Several robot cities have been planned for the country: the first will be built in 2016 at a cost of 500 billion won (US$440 million), of which 50 billion is direct government investment. The new robot city will feature research and development centers for manufacturers and part suppliers, as well as exhibition halls and a stadium for robot competitions. The country's new Robotics Ethics Charter will establish ground rules and laws for human interaction with robots in the future, setting standards for robotics users and manufacturers, as well as guidelines on ethical standards to be programmed into robots to prevent human abuse of robots and vice versa.


title: Android (robot)

text: Walt Disney and a staff of Imagineers created Great Moments with Mr. Lincoln that debuted at the 1964 New York World's Fair.


title: Android (robot)

text: Dr. William Barry, an Education Futurist and former visiting West Point Professor of Philosophy and Ethical Reasoning at the United States Military Academy, created an AI android character named "Maria Bot". This Interface AI android was named after the infamous fictional robot Maria in the 1927 film "Metropolis", as a well-behaved distant relative. Maria Bot is the first AI Android Teaching Assistant at the university level. Maria Bot has appeared as a keynote speaker as a duo with Barry for a TEDx talk in Everett, Washington in February 2020.


title: Android (robot)

text: Resembling a human from the shoulders up, Maria Bot is a virtual being android that has complex facial expressions and head movement and engages in conversation about a variety of subjects. She uses AI to process and synthesize information to make her own decisions on how to talk and engage. She collects data through conversations, direct data inputs such as books or articles, and through internet sources.


title: Android (robot)

text: Maria Bot was built by an international high-tech company for Barry to help improve education quality and eliminate education poverty. Maria Bot is designed to create new ways for students to engage and discuss ethical issues raised by the increasing presence of robots and artificial intelligence. Barry also uses Maria Bot to demonstrate that programming a robot with life-affirming, ethical framework makes them more likely to help humans to do the same.


title: Android (robot)

text: Hanson Robotics, Inc., of Texas and KAIST produced an android portrait of Albert Einstein, using Hanson's facial android technology mounted on KAIST's life-size walking bipedal robot body. This Einstein android, also called "Albert Hubo", thus represents the first full-body walking android in history. Hanson Robotics, the FedEx Institute of Technology, and the University of Texas at Arlington also developed the android portrait of sci-fi author Philip K. Dick (creator of "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?", the basis for the film "Blade Runner"), with full conversational capabilities that incorporated thousands of pages of the author's works. In 2005, the PKD android won a first-place artificial intelligence award from AAAI.


title: Android (robot)

text: Androids are a staple of science fiction. Isaac Asimov pioneered the fictionalization of the science of robotics and artificial intelligence, notably in his 1950s series "I, Robot". One thing common to most fictional androids is that the real-life technological challenges associated with creating thoroughly human-like robots—such as the creation of strong artificial intelligence—are assumed to have been solved. Fictional androids are often depicted as mentally and physically equal or superior to humans—moving, thinking and speaking as fluidly as them.


title: Android (robot)

text: The tension between the nonhuman substance and the human appearance—or even human ambitions—of androids is the dramatic impetus behind most of their fictional depictions. Some android heroes seek, like Pinocchio, to become human, as in the film "Bicentennial Man", or Data in "". Others, as in the film "Westworld", rebel against abuse by careless humans. Android hunter Deckard in "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?" and its film adaptation "Blade Runner" discovers that his targets appear to be, in some ways, more "human" than he is. Android stories, therefore, are not essentially stories "about" androids; they are stories about the human condition and what it means to be human.


title: Android (robot)

text: One aspect of writing about the meaning of humanity is to use discrimination against androids as a mechanism for exploring racism in society, as in "Blade Runner". Perhaps the clearest example of this is John Brunner's 1968 novel "Into the Slave Nebula", where the blue-skinned android slaves are explicitly shown to be fully human. More recently, the androids Bishop and Annalee Call in the films "Aliens" and "Alien Resurrection" are used as vehicles for exploring how humans deal with the presence of an "Other". The 2018 video game "" also explores how androids are treated as second class citizens in a near future society.


title: Android (robot)

text: Female androids, or "gynoids", are often seen in science fiction, and can be viewed as a continuation of the long tradition of men attempting to create the stereotypical "perfect woman". Examples include the Greek myth of "Pygmalion" and the female robot Maria in Fritz Lang's "Metropolis". Some gynoids, like Pris in "Blade Runner", are designed as sex-objects, with the intent of "pleasing men's violent sexual desires", or as submissive, servile companions, such as in "The Stepford Wives". Fiction about gynoids has therefore been described as reinforcing "essentialist ideas of femininity", although others have suggested that the treatment of androids is a way of exploring racism and misogyny in society.


title: Android (robot)

text: The 2015 Japanese film "Sayonara", starring Geminoid F, was promoted as "the first movie to feature an android performing opposite a human actor".


title: Lee Joo-young (actress, born 1992)

text: Lee Joo-young (born February 14, 1992) is a South Korean actress. Her most notable appearances are in the television series "Weightlifting Fairy Kim Bok-joo" (2016–17) and "Itaewon Class" (2020). She received her first lead role as reporter Seo Jeong-in in OCN triller drama serial "Times" (2021).


title: The Real (talk show)

text: The Real is an American syndicated talk show created by SallyAnn Salsano (495 Productions). The series initially received a trial run on Fox-owned markets in the summer of 2013 and premiered for full syndication in 2014. It was last co-hosted by singer and actress Adrienne Bailon, comedian and actress Loni Love, television host and fashion stylist Jeannie Mai, and actress and model Garcelle Beauvais.


title: The Real (talk show)

text: In the summer of 2013, it was announced that the series would be tested on seven Fox-owned stations in New York, Los Angeles, Washington D.C., Philadelphia, Phoenix, Houston and Tampa. In October 2013, it was announced that "The Real" would be nationally syndicated beginning September 15, 2014.


title: The Real (talk show)

text: In February 2015, Warner Bros. announced the series had been renewed for a second season. In October 2015, the series was renewed for a third and fourth seasons, allowing it to air through 2018. The program switched to broadcasting live in its fourth season, allowing viewers "a seat at the table" starting September 2017.


title: The Real (talk show)

text: In January 2018, the series was renewed for a fifth and sixth season. In November 2019, the series was renewed for a seventh and eighth season through the 2021–2022 television season.


title: The Real (talk show)

text: SallyAnn Salsano, who created the show, was executive producer along with Rachel Miskowiec until 2015, when Miskowiec took over; In August 2021, Tenia Watson was announced as the new executive producer for the eighth season. The show is produced by 495 Productions and Telepictures Productions and distributed by Warner Bros. Domestic Television Distribution.


title: The Real (talk show)

text: On April 8, 2022, it was reported that "The Real" had been cancelled and the eighth season would be its last. Production costs due to COVID-19 have been attributed to the show's cancellation. The final episode aired on June 3.


title: The Real (talk show)

text: The original panel of "The Real" comprised five co-hosts: actress Tamera Mowry, television host Jeannie Mai, singer and television personality Tamar Braxton, actress and singer Adrienne Bailon and comedian and actress Loni Love. Braxton announced her departure on May 22, 2016. Throughout 2019, actress and comedian Amanda Seales served as a frequent guest co-host. In January 2020, Seales became a permanent co-host during the series' sixth season. The following June, Seales exited the series, citing her dissatisfaction with the inability to openly speak on recent social issues as a reason, along with a lack of minority executive staff within Telepictures. The following month, Mowry-Housley announced her departure. In August, actress Garcelle Beauvais was announced as a permanent addition to the panel for season 7.


title: The Real (talk show)

text: "The Real" celebrated its 100th episode on February 24, 2015. In January 2016, the co-hosts traveled to Washington, D.C. to visit The White House and First Lady Michelle Obama. In addition to granting an interview, The First Lady and the co-hosts spoke to high schoolers about college. On April 30, 2018, "The Real" held a celebratory episode following their win at the 45th Daytime Emmy Awards one day before. The series celebrated the airing of its 1,000th episode on February 17, 2020.


title: Kingdom of Aragon

text: The Kingdom of Aragon (, , , ) was a medieval and early modern kingdom on the Iberian Peninsula, corresponding to the modern-day autonomous community of Aragon, in Spain. It should not be confused with the larger Crown of Aragon, which also included other territories — the Principality of Catalonia (which included the former Catalan Counties), the Kingdom of Valencia, the Kingdom of Majorca, and other possessions that are now part of France, Italy, and Greece — that were also under the rule of the King of Aragon, but were administered separately from the Kingdom of Aragon.


title: Kingdom of Aragon

text: In 1479, upon John II of Aragon's death, the crowns of Aragon and Castile were united to form the nucleus of modern Spain. The Aragonese lands, however, retained autonomous parliamentary and administrative institutions, such as the Corts, until the Nueva Planta decrees, promulgated between 1707 and 1715 by Philip V of Spain in the aftermath of the War of the Spanish Succession, finally put an end to it.


title: Kingdom of Aragon

text: Aragon was originally a Carolingian feudal county around the city of Jaca, which in the first half of the 9th century became a vassal state of the kingdom of Pamplona (later Navarre), its own dynasty of counts ending without male heir in 922. The name "Aragón" is the same as that of the river Aragón, which flows by Jaca. It might derive from the Basque "Aragona/Haragona" meaning "good upper valley" ("haran+goi+ona", where "haran" = "valley", "goi" = "upper, high", and "ona" = "good"). Alternatively, the name may be derived from the earlier Roman province of Hispania Tarraconensis.


title: Kingdom of Aragon

text: On the death of Sancho III of Navarre in 1035, the Kingdom of Navarre was divided into three parts: (1) Pamplona and its hinterland along with western and coastal Basque districts, (2) Castile, and (3) Sobrarbe, Ribagorza and Aragon. Sancho's son Gonzalo inherited Sobrarbe and Ribargorza, whereas his illegitimate son Ramiro received Aragon, but Gonzalo was killed soon after and all the land he owned went to his brother Ramiro, thus becoming the first de facto king of Aragon, although he never used that title.


title: Kingdom of Aragon

text: By defeating his brother, García Sánchez III of Navarre, Ramiro achieved independence for Aragon. His son Sancho Ramírez, who also inherited the kingdom of Navarre, was the first to call himself "King of the Aragonese and Pamplonese". As the Aragonese domains expanded to the south, conquering land from Al Andalus, the capital city moved from Jaca to Huesca (1096), and later to Zaragoza (1118). After Alfonso the Battler died childless in 1135, different rulers were chosen for Navarre and Aragon, and the two kingdoms ceased to have the same ruler. By 1285 the southernmost areas of what is nowadays Aragon had been taken from the Moors.


title: Kingdom of Aragon

text: The Kingdom of Aragon gave the name to the Crown of Aragon, created in 1150 with the dynastic union resulting from the marriage of the Princess of Aragon, Petronilla, and the Count of Barcelona, Ramon Berenguer IV. Their son Alfonso II inherited all of the territories ruled by his father and mother. The King of Aragon also held the title of Count of Barcelona and ruled territories that consisted of not only the present administrative region of Aragon, but also Catalonia, and later the kingdoms of Majorca, Valencia, Sicily, Naples and Sardinia. The King of Aragón was the direct ruler of the Aragonese region, and held the titles of Count of Provence, Count of Barcelona, Lord of Montpellier, and Duke of Athens and Neopatria. Each of these titles gave him sovereignty over a certain region, and these titles changed as he won and lost territories. In the 14th century, his power was greatly restricted by the Union of Aragon.