title: The Royal Scam

text: The album was not as highly rated upon its release as its predecessors with most reviewers finding that it did not show any musical progress. In contrast, the original "Rolling Stone" review was more positive, and ultimately the magazine gave it five stars in a later Hall of Fame review.


title: Willa Cather

text: Willa Sibert Cather (; born Wilella Sibert Cather; December 7, 1873 – April 24, 1947) was an American writer known for her novels of life on the Great Plains, including "O Pioneers!", "The Song of the Lark", and "My Ántonia". In 1923, she was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for "One of Ours", a novel set during World War I.


title: Willa Cather

text: Willa Cather and her family moved from Virginia to Webster County, Nebraska, when she was nine years old. The family later settled in the town of Red Cloud. Shortly after graduating from the University of Nebraska–Lincoln, Cather moved to Pittsburgh for ten years, supporting herself as a magazine editor and high school English teacher. At the age of 33, she moved to New York City, her primary home for the rest of her life, though she also traveled widely and spent considerable time at her summer residence on Grand Manan Island, New Brunswick. She spent the last 39 years of her life with her domestic partner, Edith Lewis, before being diagnosed with breast cancer and dying of a cerebral hemorrhage. She is buried beside Lewis in a Jaffrey, New Hampshire plot.


title: Willa Cather

text: Cather achieved recognition as a novelist of the frontier and pioneer experience. She wrote of the spirit of those settlers moving into the western states, many of them European immigrants in the nineteenth century. Common themes in her work include nostalgia and exile. A sense of place is an important element in Cather's fiction: physical landscapes and domestic spaces are for Cather dynamic presences against which her characters struggle and find community.


title: Willa Cather

text: Cather was born in 1873 on her maternal grandmother's farm in the Back Creek Valley near Winchester, Virginia. Her father was Charles Fectigue Cather. The Cather family originated in Wales, the name deriving from Cadair Idris, a Gwynedd mountain. Her mother was Mary Virginia Boak, a former school teacher. By the time Cather turned twelve months old, the family had moved to Willow Shade, a Greek Revival-style home on 130 acres given to them by her paternal grandparents.


title: Willa Cather

text: Mary Cather had six more children after Willa: Roscoe, Douglass, Jessica, James, John, and Elsie. Cather was closer to her brothers than to her sisters whom, according to biographer Hermione Lee, she "seems not to have liked very much."


title: Willa Cather

text: At the urging of Charles Cather's parents, the family moved to Nebraska in 1883 when Willa was nine years old. The farmland appealed to Charles' father, and the family wished to escape the tuberculosis outbreaks that were rampant in Virginia. Willa's father tried his hand at farming for eighteen months, then moved the family into the town of Red Cloud, where he opened a real estate and insurance business, and the children attended school for the first time. Some of Cather's earliest work was first published in the "Red Cloud Chief," the city's local paper, and Cather read widely, having made friends with a Jewish couple, the Wieners, who offered her free access to their extensive library in Red Cloud. At the same time, she made house calls with the local physician and decided to become a surgeon. For a short while, she signed her name as William, but this was quickly abandoned for Willa instead.


title: Willa Cather

text: In 1890, at the age of sixteen, Cather graduated from Red Cloud High School. She moved to Lincoln, Nebraska to enroll at the University of Nebraska–Lincoln. In her first year, her essay on Thomas Carlyle was published in the "Nebraska State Journal" without her knowledge. After this, she published columns for $1 apiece, saying that seeing her words printed on the page had "a kind of hypnotic effect", pushing her to continue writing. After this experience, she became a regular contributor to the "Journal". In addition to her work with the local paper, Cather served as the main editor of "The Hesperian", the university's student newspaper, and became a writer for the "Lincoln Courier". While at the university, she learned mathematics from and was befriended by John J. Pershing, who later became General of the Armies and, like Cather, earned a Pulitzer Prize for his writing. She changed her plans from studying science to become a physician, instead graduating with a Bachelor of Arts in English in 1895.


title: Willa Cather

text: Cather's time in Nebraska, still considered a frontier state, was a formative experience for her: She was moved by the dramatic environment and weather, the vastness of the prairie, and the various cultures of the immigrant and Native American families in the area.


title: Willa Cather

text: In 1896, Cather was hired to write for a women's magazine, "Home Monthly", and moved to Pittsburgh. There, she wrote journalistic pieces, short stories, and poetry. A year later, after the magazine was sold, she became a telegraph editor and critic for the "Pittsburgh Leader" and frequently contributed poetry and short fiction to "The Library", another local publication. In Pittsburgh, she taught Latin, algebra, and English composition at Central High School for one year; she then taught English and Latin at Allegheny High School, where she came to head the English department.


title: Willa Cather

text: Shortly after moving to Pittsburgh, Cather wrote short stories, including publishing "Tommy, the Unsentimental" in the "Home Monthly", about a Nebraskan girl with a masculine name who looks like a boy and saves her father's bank business. Janis P. Stout calls this story one of several Cather works that "demonstrate the speciousness of rigid gender roles and give favorable treatment to characters who undermine conventions." Her first book, a collection of poetry called "April Twilights", was published in 1903. Shortly after this, in 1905, Cather's first collection of short stories, "The Troll Garden", was published. It contained some of her most famous stories, including "A Wagner Matinee", "The Sculptor's Funeral", and "Paul's Case".


title: Willa Cather

text: After Cather was offered an editorial position at "McClure's Magazine" in 1906, she moved to New York City. During her first year at "McClure's", the newspaper published a critical series of articles of the religious leader Mary Baker Eddy, crediting freelance journalist Georgine Milmine as the author. Cather contributed to the series, but there has been some debate as to how much. Milmine had performed copious amounts of research, but she did not have the resources to produce a manuscript independently, and "McClure's" employed Cather and a few other editors including Burton J. Hendrick to assist her. This biography was serialized in "McClure's" over the next eighteen months and then published in book form. "McClure's" also serialized Cather's first novel, "Alexander's Bridge" (1912). While most reviews were favorable, such as "The Atlantic" calling the writing "deft and skillful", Cather herself soon saw the novel as weak and shallow.


title: Willa Cather

text: Cather followed "Alexander's Bridge" with her three novels set in the Great Plains, which eventually became both popular and critical successes: "O Pioneers!" (1913), "The Song of the Lark" (1915), and "My Ántonia" (1918), which are—taken together—sometimes referred to as her "Prairie Trilogy". It is this succession of plains-based novels for which Cather was celebrated for her use of plainspoken language about ordinary people. Sinclair Lewis, for example, praised her work for making Nebraska available to the wider world for the first time. After writing "The Great Gatsby", F. Scott Fitzgerald lamented that it was a failure in comparison to "My Ántonia".


title: Willa Cather

text: As late as 1920, Cather became dissatisfied with the performance of her publisher, Houghton Mifflin, which devoted an advertising budget of only $300 to "My Ántonia", and refused to pay for all the illustrations she commissioned for the book from Władysław T. Benda. What's more, the physical quality of the books was poor. That year, she turned to the young publishing house, Alfred A. Knopf, which had a reputation for supporting its authors through advertising campaigns. She also liked the look of its books and had been impressed with its edition of "Green Mansions" by William Henry Hudson. She so enjoyed their style that all her Knopf books of the 1920s—save for one printing of her short story collection "Youth and the Bright Medusa"—matched in design on their second and subsequent printings.


title: Willa Cather

text: By this time, Cather was firmly established as a major American writer, receiving the Pulitzer Prize in 1923 for her World War I-based novel, "One of Ours". She followed this up with the popular "Death Comes for the Archbishop" in 1927, selling 86,500 copies in just two years, and which has been included on the Modern Library 100 Best Novels of the twentieth century. Two of her three other novels of the decade—"A Lost Lady" and "The Professor's House"—elevated her literary status dramatically. She was invited to give several hundred lectures to the public, earned significant royalties, and sold the movie rights to "A Lost Lady". Her other novel of the decade, the 1926 "My Mortal Enemy", received no widespread acclaim—and in fact, neither she nor her partner, Edith Lewis, made significant mention of it later in their lives.


title: Willa Cather

text: Despite her success, she was the subject of much criticism, particularly surrounding "One of Ours". Her close friend, Elizabeth Shepley Sergeant, saw the novel as a betrayal of the realities of war, not understanding how to "bridge the gap between [Cather's] idealized war vision ... and my own stark impressions of war as "lived"." Similarly, Ernest Hemingway took issue with her portrayal of war, writing in a 1923 letter: "Wasn’t [the novel’s] last scene in the lines wonderful? Do you know where it came from? The battle scene in "Birth of a Nation". I identified episode after episode, Catherized. Poor woman, she had to get her war experience somewhere."


title: Willa Cather

text: By the 1930s, an increasingly large share of critics began to dismiss her as overly romantic and nostalgic, unable to grapple with contemporary issues: Granville Hicks, for instance, charged Cather with escaping into an idealized past to avoid confronting them. And it was particularly in the context of the hardships of the Great Depression in which her work was seen as lacking social relevance. Similarly, critics—and Cather herself—were disappointed when her novel "A Lost Lady" was made into a film; the film had little resemblance to the novel.


title: Willa Cather

text: Cather's lifelong conservative politics, appealing to critics such as Mencken, Randolph Bourne, and Carl Van Doren, soured her reputation with younger, often left-leaning critics like Hicks and Edmund Wilson. Despite this critical opposition to her work, Cather remained a popular writer whose novels and short story collections continued to sell well; in 1931 "Shadows on the Rock" was the most widely read novel in the United States, and "Lucy Gayheart" became a bestseller in 1935.


title: Willa Cather

text: While Cather made her last trip to Red Cloud in 1931 for a family gathering after her mother's death, she stayed in touch with her Red Cloud friends and sent money to Annie Pavelka and other families during the Depression years. In 1932, Cather published "Obscure Destinies", her final collection of short fiction, which contained "Neighbour Rosicky", one of her most highly regarded stories. That same summer, she moved into a new apartment on Park Avenue with Edith Lewis, and during a visit on Grand Manan, she probably began working on her next novel, "Lucy Gayheart".


title: Willa Cather

text: Cather suffered two devastating losses in 1938. In June, her favorite brother, Douglass, died of a heart attack. Cather was too grief-stricken to attend the funeral. Four months later, Isabelle McClung died. Cather and McClung had lived together when Cather first arrived in Pittsburgh, and while McClung eventually married and moved with her husband to Toronto, the two women remained devoted friends. Cather wrote that Isabelle was the person for whom she wrote all her books.


title: Willa Cather

text: During the summer of 1940, Cather and Lewis went to Grand Manan for the last time, and Cather finished her final novel, "Sapphira and the Slave Girl", a book much darker in tone and subject matter than her previous works. While Sapphira is understood by readers as lacking a moral sense and failing to evoke empathy, the novel was a great critical and commercial success, with an advance printing of 25,000 copies. It was then adopted by the Book of the Month Club, which bought more than 200,000 copies. Her final story, "The Best Years", intended as a gift for her brother, was retrospective. It contained images or "keepsakes" from each of her twelve published novels and the short stories in "Obscure Destinies".


title: Willa Cather

text: Although an inflamed tendon in her hand hampered her writing, Cather managed to finish a substantial part of a novel set in Avignon, France. She had titled it "Hard Punishments" and placed it in the 14th century during the reign of Antipope Benedict XIV. She was elected a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1943. The same year, she executed a will that prohibited the publication of her letters and dramatization of her works. In 1944, she received the gold medal for fiction from the National Institute of Arts and Letters, a prestigious award given for an author's total accomplishments.


title: Willa Cather

text: Cather was diagnosed with breast cancer in December 1945 and underwent a mastectomy on January 14, 1946. Probably by early 1947, her cancer metastasized to her liver, becoming stage IV cancer. About a year later, on April 24, 1947, Cather died of a cerebral hemorrhage, at the age of 73, in her home at 570 Park Avenue in Manhattan. After Cather's death, Edith Lewis destroyed the manuscript of "Hard Punishments", according to Cather's instructions. She is buried at the southwest corner of the Old Burying Ground in Jaffrey, New Hampshire, alongside Edith Lewis—a place she first visited when joining Isabelle McClung and her husband, violinist Jan Hambourg, at the Shattuck Inn, where she routinely visited later in life owing to its seclusion.


title: Willa Cather

text: Scholars disagree about Cather's sexual identity. Some believe it impossible or anachronistic to determine whether she had same-sex attraction, while others disagree. Researcher Deborah Carlin suggests that denial of Cather being a lesbian is rooted in treating same-sex desire "as an insult to Cather and her reputation", rather than a neutral historical perspective. Melissa Homestead has argued that Cather was attracted to Edith Lewis, and in so doing, asked: "What kind of evidence is needed to establish this as a lesbian relationship? Photographs of the two of them in bed together? She was an integral part of Cather’s life, creatively and personally." Beyond her own relationships with women, Cather's reliance on male characters has been used to support the idea of her same-sex attraction. Harold Bloom calls her "erotically evasive in her art" due to prevailing "societal taboos."


title: Willa Cather

text: In any event, throughout Cather's adult life, her closest relationships were with women. These included her college friend Louise Pound; the Pittsburgh socialite Isabelle McClung, with whom Cather traveled to Europe and at whose Toronto home she stayed for prolonged visits; the opera singer Olive Fremstad; and most notably, the editor Edith Lewis, with whom Cather lived the last 39 years of her life.


title: Willa Cather

text: Cather's relationship with Lewis began in the early 1900s. They lived together in a series of apartments in New York City from 1908 until Cather's death in 1947. From 1913 to 1927, Cather and Lewis lived at No. 5 Bank Street in Greenwich Village. They moved when the apartment was scheduled for demolition during the construction of the Broadway–Seventh Avenue New York City Subway line (now the ). While Lewis was selected as the literary trustee for Cather's estate, she was not merely a secretary for Cather's documents but an integral part of Cather's creative process.


title: Willa Cather

text: Beginning in 1922, Cather spent summers on the island of Grand Manan in New Brunswick, where she bought a cottage in Whale Cove on the Bay of Fundy. This is where her short story, "Before Breakfast", is set. She valued the seclusion of the island and did not mind that her cottage had neither indoor plumbing nor electricity. Anyone wishing to reach her could do so by telegraph or mail. In 1940, she stopped visiting Grand Manan after Canada's entrance to World War II, as travel was considerably more difficult; she also began a long recuperation from gallbladder surgery in 1942 that restricted travel.


title: Willa Cather

text: A resolutely private person, Cather destroyed many drafts, personal papers, and letters, asking others to do the same. While many complied, some did not. Her will restricted the ability of scholars to quote from the personal papers that remain. But in April 2013, "The Selected Letters of Willa Cather"—a collection of 566 letters Cather wrote to friends, family, and literary acquaintances such as Thornton Wilder and F. Scott Fitzgerald—was published, two years after the death of Cather's nephew and second literary executor, Charles Cather. Willa Cather's correspondence revealed the complexity of her character and inner world. The letters do not disclose any intimate details about Cather's personal life, but they do "make clear that [her] primary emotional attachments were to women." The Willa Cather Archive at the University of Nebraska–Lincoln works to digitize her complete body of writing, including private correspondence and published work. As of 2021, about 2,100 letters have been made freely available to the public, in addition to transcription of her own published writing.


title: Willa Cather

text: Cather admired Henry James's use of language and characterization. While Cather enjoyed the novels of several women—including George Eliot, the Brontës, and Jane Austen—she regarded most women writers with disdain, judging them overly sentimental. One contemporary exception was Sarah Orne Jewett, who became Cather's friend and mentor. Jewett advised Cather of several things: to use female narrators in her fiction (even though Cather preferred using male perspectives), to write about her "own country" ("O Pioneers!" was dedicated in large part to Jewett), and to write fiction that explicitly represented romantic attraction between women. Cather was also influenced by the work of Katherine Mansfield, praising in an essay Mansfield's ability "to throw a luminous streak out onto the shadowy realm of personal relationships."


title: Willa Cather

text: Cather's high regard for the immigrant families forging lives and enduring hardships on the Nebraska plains shaped much of her fiction. The Burlington Depot in Red Cloud brought in many strange and wonderful people to her small town. As a child, she visited immigrant families in her area and returned home in "the most unreasonable state of excitement," feeling that she "had got inside another person's skin." After a trip to Red Cloud in 1916, Cather decided to write a novel based on the events in the life of her childhood friend Annie Sadilek Pavelka, a Bohemian girl who became the model for the title character in "My Ántonia". Cather was likewise fascinated by the French-Canadian pioneers from Quebec who had settled in the Red Cloud area while she was a girl.


title: Willa Cather

text: During a brief stopover in Quebec with Edith Lewis in 1927, Cather was inspired to write a novel set in that French-Canadian city. Lewis recalled: "From the first moment that she looked down from the windows of the [Chateau] Frontenac [Hotel] on the pointed roofs and Norman outlines of the town of Quebec, Willa Cather was not merely stirred and charmed—she was overwhelmed by the flood of memories, recognition, surmise it called up; by the sense of its extraordinary French character, isolated and kept intact through hundreds of years, as if by a miracle, on this great un-French continent." Cather finished her novel "Shadows on the Rock", a historical novel set in 17th-century Quebec, in 1931; it was later included in "Life" magazine's list of the 100 outstanding books of 1924–1944. The French influence is found in many other Cather works, including "Death Comes for the Archbishop" (1927) and her final, unfinished novel set in Avignon, "Hard Punishments".


title: Willa Cather

text: Although Cather began her writing career as a journalist, she made a distinction between journalism, which she saw as being primarily informative, and literature, which she saw as an art form. Cather's work is often marked by—and criticized for—its nostalgic tone and themes drawn from memories of her early years on the American plains. Consequently, a sense of place is integral to her work: notions of land, the frontier, pioneering and relationships with western landscapes are recurrent. Even when her heroines were placed in an urban environment, the influence of place was critical, and the way that power was displayed through room layout and furniture is evident in her novels like "My Mortal Enemy". Though she hardly confined herself to writing exclusively about the Midwest, Cather is virtually inseparable from the Midwestern identity that she actively cultivated (even though she was not a “native” Midwesterner). While Cather is said to have significantly altered her literary approach in each of her novels, this stance is not universal; some critics have charged Cather with being out of touch with her times and failing to use more experimental techniques in her writing, such as stream of consciousness, as well as defining her literary genre as nothing but romantic. At the same time, others have pointed out that Cather could follow no other literary path but her own:


title: Willa Cather

text: She had formed and matured her ideas on art before she wrote a novel. She had no more reason to follow Gertrude Stein and James Joyce, whose work she respected, than they did to follow her. Her style solves the problems in which she was interested. She wanted to stand midway between the journalists whose omniscient objectivity accumulate more fact than any character could notice and the psychological novelist whose use of subjective point of view stories distorts objective reality. She developed her theory on a middle ground, selecting facts from experience on the basis of feeling and then presenting the experience in a lucid, objective style.


title: Willa Cather

text: The English novelist A. S. Byatt has written that with each work Cather reinvented the novel form to investigate the changes in the human condition over time. Particularly in her frontier novels, Cather wrote of both the beauty and terror of life. Like the exiled characters of Henry James, an author who had a significant influence on the author, most of Cather's major characters live as exiled immigrants, identifying with the immigrants' "sense of homelessness and exile" following her own feelings of exile living on the frontier. It is through their engagement with their environment that they gain their community. Susan J. Rosowski wrote that Cather was perhaps the first to grant immigrants a respectable position in American literature.


title: State of Katanga

text: The State of Katanga also sometimes denoted as the Republic of Katanga, was a breakaway state that proclaimed its independence from Congo-Léopoldville on 11 July 1960 under Moise Tshombe, leader of the local "Confédération des associations tribales du Katanga" (CONAKAT) political party. The new Katangese state did not enjoy full support throughout the province and was constantly plagued by ethnic strife in its northernmost region. It was dissolved in 1963 following an invasion by United Nations Operation in the Congo (ONUC) forces, and reintegrated with the rest of the country as Katanga Province.


title: State of Katanga

text: The Katangese secession was carried out with the support of Union Minière du Haut Katanga, a mining company with concession rights in the region, and a large contingent of Belgian military advisers. An army the government called the Katanga Gendarmerie, raised by the Tshombe government, was initially organised and trained by Belgium's military and consisted of Belgian soldiers as well as mercenaries from Northern Rhodesia and elsewhere. There was a similarly organized Katangese Air Force.


title: State of Katanga

text: Although the rebellion was conceived as an opposition to Patrice Lumumba's central government, it continued even after the democratically elected prime minister was violently overthrown, leading to Lumumba's own kidnap and murder inside the breakaway state. After Operation Grandslam, the rebels either scattered or surrendered to United Nations forces in 1963.


title: State of Katanga

text: In 1906, the "Union Minière du Haut-Katanga" (UMHK) company was founded and was granted the exclusive rights to mine copper in Katanga. The principal shareholders in the "Union Minière du Haut-Katanga" were "Comité Spécial du Katanga", the "Société Générale de Belgique" and the British Tanganyika Concessions. In turn, the largest shareholder in the "Comité Spécial de Katanga" was the Belgian state. As 33.7% of the revenue of the Congo came from the sale of the copper mined in Katanga, ownership of the company was an important consideration for the leaders of the Congolese Independence movement while the Belgian government was most reluctant to give up its share in the UMHK, and did not finally do so until 1967. In January 1959, it was announced that Belgium would grant independence to the Congo in June 1960. Starting in March 1960, the UMHK began to financially support CONAKAT and bribed the party leader, Moïse Tshombe, into advocating policies that were favorable to the company.


title: State of Katanga

text: When the Belgian Congo received independence from Belgium on 30 June 1960, it was already wracked by ethnic factionalism and political tension. A coalition of CONAKAT politicians and Belgian settlers had made an attempt shortly before that date to issue their own declaration of independence in Katanga, but the Belgian government opposed their plans. CONAKAT was especially concerned that the emerging Congolese government under prime minister Patrice Lumumba would dismiss its members from their positions in the Katangese provincial government and replace them with his supporters.


title: State of Katanga

text: On the evening of 11 July, CONAKAT leader Moïse Tshombe, accusing the central government of communist leanings and dictatorial rule, announced that Katanga was seceding from the Congo. To assist him, the UMHK gave Tshombe an advance of 1,250 million Belgian francs (approximately 25 million US dollars in 1960 – $ today). Tshombe's first act was to ask the Belgian Prime Minister, Gaston Eyskens, for help. When the newly appointed commander of the Élisabethville military garrison arrived in the city, Katangese authorities immediately detained and expelled him. He flew to Luluabourg and informed Lumumba and President Joseph Kasa-Vubu of the secession. The two decided to fly to Katanga to examine the situation themselves. Katangese Minister of Interior Godefroid Munongo denied them permission to land at the airport and radioed that while Kasa-Vubu could visit Katanga if he wished, Lumumba was not allowed to enter the territory. Infuriated, the President and Prime Minister returned to Luluabourg. Tshombe immediately appointed his own commander, a Colonel Norbert Muke of the Force Publique, to form a new military force, the Katanga Gendarmerie. The gendarmerie was staffed with Belgian officers who were, in effect, seconded to Tshombe as military advisers. On 16 July 1960, Eyskens extended "de facto" recognition to Katanga and on 22 July created the "Mission Technique Belge" (Mistebel) to assist Katanga with arms and advisers.


title: State of Katanga

text: Tshombe and CONAKAT argued that the secession was the result of indigenous nationalist sentiment. However, the Baluba population of the northern districts of the province were actively opposed to independence, and even the population in the south, while generally more sympathetic to Tshombe, was never directly consulted on the matter. Katanga was also home to a disproportionately large white community of Belgian descent, as well as many Belgian expatriates who had invested heavily in the province. For the most part, Katanga's white residents openly backed the secession. Unlike Lumumba, Tshombe had openly courted them, likely because he believed they possessed much needed technical skills, and their exodus would prove catastrophic to the Katangese economy.


title: State of Katanga

text: Within the Belgian government, King Baudouin was very supportive of Katanga and used all the power of the court to pressure the government into extending diplomatic recognition to Katanga. The Foreign Minister, Pierre Wigny, knowing that the United States was opposed to breaking up the Congo, was against recognizing Katanga. Wigny feared a repeat of the Suez crisis of 1956 when Britain, France and Israel were all humiliated when the United States opposed their attack on Egypt with the Congo playing the role of Egypt and Belgium the role of the nations that attacked Egypt. For the same reasons, the Belgian representative at NATO, André de Staercke, was opposed to a venture that was likely to anger the United States. Henri Crener, the Belgian consul in Élisabethville, was a fierce supporter of Katanga. Harold Charles d'Aspremont Lynden, the right-hand man to Eyskens and his most influential adviser, was likewise an adamant supporter of Katanga, seeing a chance for Belgium to hold onto the most valuable part of the Congo. Between the pressure from his Foreign Minister to not recognize Katanga vs. the pressure from the King to recognize Katanga, Eyskens was left torn and confused. Through unwilling to recognize Katanga out of the fear of the American reaction, the prime minister did accede to pressure from Baudouin and d'Aspremont Lynden to support Katanga.


title: State of Katanga

text: Within a week of Katanga's unilateral declaration of independence, Lumumba sent a telegram to the Secretary-General of the UN, insisting that something be done about "Belgium's military aggression" in his country and its overt backing of Katangese secession. Lumumba requested "urgent military assistance" due to his government's inability to maintain order in the massive country. Among UN member states, sentiments towards Katanga were generally mixed. Britain and France remained neutral, the latter quietly hostile towards the very idea of peacekeeping in Congo. The British initially provided general assistance to the UN troops who were eventually dispatched, but refused to cooperate with subsequent efforts to deal with Tshombe's rebellious regime. Portugal and the Union of South Africa were openly hostile towards the operation from its conception, and maintained consistent opposition against any interference with the Katanga state.


title: State of Katanga

text: Gérard-Libois writes: '..during the entire month of August, a ..race against the clock took place with the objective of building a more or less efficient Katangese gendarmery before the eventual withdrawal of the Belgian troops. The commander of the new gendarmery, Major Crèvecoeur, called for former officers of the "Force Publique" who had left the Congo after the July troubles or were in Katanga.' The numbers of the new force were originally fixed at 1,500 volunteers from 16 to 21 years of age recruited from 'safe' ethnic groups. Almost all the aircraft of the Force Publique had been transferred to Kamina, then requisitioned by Katanga.


title: State of Katanga

text: On 14 July 1960, in response to requests by Prime Minister Lumumba, the UN Security Council adopted Resolution 143. This called upon Belgium to remove its military personnel from the Congo and for the UN to provide 'military assistance' to the Congolese forces to allow them 'to meet fully their tasks'. Lumumba demanded that Belgium remove its troops immediately, threatening to seek help from the Soviet Union if they did not leave within two days. The UN reacted quickly and established United Nations Operation in the Congo (ONUC). The first UN troops arrived the next day, but there was instant disagreement between Lumumba and the UN over the new force's mandate. Because the Congolese army had been in disarray, Lumumba wanted to use the UN peacekeepers to subdue Katanga by force. Referring to the resolution, Lumumba wrote to UN Secretary-General Dag Hammarskjöld, ‘From these texts it is clear that, contrary to your personal interpretation, the UN force may be used to subdue the rebel government of Katanga.’ ONUC refused. To Hammarskjöld, the secession of Katanga was an internal Congolese matter and the UN was forbidden to intervene by Article 2 of the United Nations Charter.


title: State of Katanga

text: Disagreements over what the UN force could and could not do continued throughout its deployment despite the passage of two further Security Council resolutions. Passed on 22 July, Security Council Resolution 145 affirmed that Congo should be a unitary state and strengthened the call for Belgium to withdraw its forces. On 9 August, Security Council Resolution 146 mentioned Katanga for the first time and explicitly allowed UN forces to enter Katanga whilst forbidding their use to 'intervene in or influence the outcome of any internal conflict.' Unhappy with Eyskens's ambivalent policy, King Baudouin tried to replace him at the beginning of August with Paul Van Zeeland with a mandate to recognize Katanga. The King's maneuver failed when the man he designated to serve as Foreign Minister in the new government, Paul-Henri Spaak, declined to take part.


title: State of Katanga

text: A subject of much controversy was Belgium's involvement with Katanga. Brussels had neither inspired nor engineered Moise Tshombe's scheme of Katangese secession, but provided technical, financial, and military aid in order to keep Katanga stable in terms of public order and domestic security. The Belgians went on to advise the ONUC force against unnecessary interventions against the state, as it would only "risk increasing the confusion." At the same time, Pierre Wigny, the Foreign Minister, informed the United States, France, and Britain that his government was opposed to Tshombe's intrigues and was concerned that long-term separation would compromise Congo's economic vitality. The government of Katanga had attached to it 1,133 Belgian technicians in charge of the civil service, 114 Belgian Army officers and 117 Belgian Army NCOs commanding the "Force Publique" and 58 Belgian civil servants in charge of the ministries. Between 4–8 August 1960, Pierre Kauch of the National Bank of Belgium visited Katanga on behalf of the Belgian government with the aim of establishing a central bank for Katanga. Upon his return to Brussels, Kauch reported that Katanga was close to chaos and everything would depend upon the "watchfulness" of d'Aspremont Lynden, who had taken charge of relations with Katanga. Although most of Belgium's military personnel were withdrawn from Katanga in September 1960, over two hundred stayed on, making horizontal career shifts into roles as paid mercenaries serving with the nation's Gendarmes. As late as 1963, several of these soldiers of fortune were still at large, having shed their military uniforms for civilian dress. Other notable Belgian nationals who stayed on included political advisers and some diplomatic ministers. Upon the arrival of United Nations forces in the Congo, they were opposed to allowing ONUC freedom of movement in Katanga and insisted upon obstructing the peacekeeping effort. This view was generally strengthened with President Tshombe himself as time advanced, especially with increasingly vocal demands from Léopoldville that the UN use their military advantage to forcibly remove his regime from power. The Security Council, however, only reaffirmed that the ONUC would not be party to any internal disputes but would enter Katanga to assist with keeping the peace. The first such personnel, largely Swedish forces, entered Élisabethville, the Katangese capital city, on 12 August 1960.


title: State of Katanga

text: All of this only frustrated the Congolese government, which, on 27 August, launched a poorly organized, ill-fated, incursion into Katanga with Armée Nationale Congolaise soldiers trucked into the province on a motley assortment of Soviet military vehicles. This incident would only lead to the further deterioration of relations between the two governments; sporadic clashes would continue for the next two years. On 8 November, an Irish Army platoon, sent to repair a bridge in Niemba, was ambushed and nine of its men killed by Baluba tribesmen.


title: State of Katanga

text: On 3 October 1960, Katanga opened up an unrecognized diplomatic mission in New York with the aim of lobbying both for the recognition by the United States and to gain admission to the United Nations. The head of the mission was Michel Struelens, an "urbane and soft-spoken" Belgian who had previously been in charge of promoting tourism to Belgian Congo. As the United States did not have diplomatic relations with Katanga, Struelens traveled to New York from Brussels on a Belgian passport. The fact that Katanga was represented by a white man from Belgium was often used to attack Katanga as a sham. Struelens told a journalist that his mission was "to tell the Katanga story in the Western Hemisphere, based on the belief that Katanga is the only barrier against communist influence in the Congo".


title: State of Katanga

text: Though the United States refused to recognize Katanga, Struelens was able to persuade much of the American right to support Katanga. One of Struelens's allies were the ultra-right-wing Liberty Lobby, which in a pamphlet declared: "Each new demand, no matter how extreme, has been fulfilled by the groggy demoralized Western nations. From 'infant independence' to gold-plated Cadillacs, every squeak of the Negro wheel has brought forth a new application of golden 'grease' in the effort to appease the unappeasable black revolution". Like other nationalists in the Third World who had experienced European imperialism and racism, African nationalists tended to be somewhat anti-Western in the 1950s–1960s, making the cause of African nationalism very suspect to rightists in the West, and as such Katanga which was dominated by the Belgians was seen as an example of the right sort of an African state. The conservative American intellectual James Burnham wrote in a column praising Katanga that what African nationalists want was "to destroy the power and privileges of the white men; to take over their property, or most of it; and to permit white men to remain only as servants and handmaids".  Within liberal circles, Katanga was widely compared to Manchukuo, an ostensibly independent nation established in 1931 and ruled by the Emperor Puyi that was in fact a sham, a Japanese colony that masqueraded as a real country. Just as Puyi was the supposed ruler of Manchukuo with real power exercised by Japanese officials, it was noted that in case of Katanga the leader was Tshombe, but the real power was exercised by Belgian officials.


title: State of Katanga

text: Another mission was opened in December 1960 in Paris by Dominique Diur. It mostly functioned as a recruitment office for foreign mercenaries, although such activities were illegal in France. A considerable amount of French mercenaries were recruited to fight in Katanga, including Roger Faulques, Roger Trinquier, and Edgard Tupët-Thomé.


title: State of Katanga

text: In Brussels, a mission was headed by Jacques Masangu. Just like the Paris mission, it recruited mercenaries to go fight for the Katangese cause.


title: State of Katanga

text: Only shortly afterwards, Patrice Lumumba was replaced in a coup d'état by Joseph Mobutu. On 17 January 1961 Mobutu sent Lumumba to Élisabethville where he was tortured and executed shortly after arrival. Already on 18 January, Katangese Secretary of State of Information Lucas Samalenge went to several bars in Élisabethville, telling everyone that Lumumba was murdered, until the police took him away.


title: State of Katanga

text: The United Nations Security Council met in the wake of Lumumba's death in a highly emotional atmosphere charged with anti-colonial feeling and rhetoric. On 21 February 1961, the Council adopted resolution 161, which authorised 'all appropriate measures' to 'prevent the occurrence of civil war in the Congo, including '... the use of force, if necessary, in the last resort'. This resolution demanded the expulsion from the Congo of all Belgian troops and foreign mercenaries but did not explicitly mandate the UN to conduct offensive operations. However, it was ultimately interpreted by the local UN forces to justify military operations in ending the secession of Katanga. Despite the resolution, during the next six months, the UN undertook no major military operations, concentrating instead on facilitating several rounds of political negotiations. However, many sources on location claimed that UN personnel initiated and maintained a high degree of violence and were both overtly and indirectly responsible for hundreds if not even thousands of civilian deaths.


title: State of Katanga

text: From late 1960 onwards, Katanga was characterised by a series of clashes between pro-Tshombe loyalists and Baluba tribesmen, whose political leaders were nominally allied to Leopoldville and opposed Katangese secession. Smaller battles were fought against ANC units attacking from other provinces, as well. Sparsely deployed and on many occasions even outgunned by both sides, UN forces had an almost hopeless task of attempting to prevent outright civil war. Anticipating the need for continued ONUC presence in the state, the Security Council authorized an increased presence in Élisabethville. By mid-1961, however, presidential security forces had killed almost 7,000 Balubas. Factional strife also began to engulf the struggling regime. Increased numbers of peacekeepers only enraged the Baluba people, who viewed the United Nations as an unwanted intruder and began attacking both Katangese and UN soldiers with little discrimination.


title: State of Katanga

text: In February 1961, attempting to bolster his position in Katanga, Moise Tshombe began importing more foreign mercenaries from neighboring states to assist his Gendarmes. The "Mercenary Problem", as the international community termed it, was a major concern of the ONUC. The Katangese Army was already staffed by Belgian officers, and white volunteers of Belgian extraction constituted about 117 men under Tshombe's direction. Although from January to February 1961, gestures were made to remove these 'illegal combatants' from the Congo, their places were quickly taken by a sizable force of nearly 500 British, Rhodesian, French, and South African irregulars. Many of them were given command assignments in the Gendarmes, while others formed a pro-Tshombe unit known as the "International Company", composed chiefly of white South African fighters.


title: State of Katanga

text: Especially notable among the French mercenaries were professional career soldiers who had fought in the Algerian War. Several were the heads of a para commando training program in Katanga. On March 30, one of the first public reports mentioning large contingents of foreign soldiers claimed that the mercenaries in Katanga included "Belgians, Italians, and 100 South Africans". Serious fighting soon broke out as President Tshombe began to incite both Katangese civilians and white mercenaries to attack UN forces after the ONUC dispatched elements of the nearly 5,000 man-strong 99th Indian Infantry Brigade into the capital. On 5 April 1961, the Secretary-General criticised Belgian mercenaries for their service in Katanga and condemned Tshombe for turning the Katangese public against the United Nations Force. Hostilities broke out again three days later, when Belgian and South African Gendarmes assaulted Kabalo, a Baluba town in northern Katanga, and engaged the Ethiopian peacekeepers stationed there. In the battle that followed, at least 30 mercenaries were disarmed and captured. It was not until 30 April that the State of Katanga agreed to cease hostilities against the ONUC.


title: State of Katanga

text: In June, President Tshombe and Foreign Affairs Minister Évariste Kimba were arrested after attending the Coquilhatville Conference of Congo Leaders, the day they were about to board a plane back to their country. Tshombe was held under house arrest and charged with inciting revolt against the Congolese government, the illegal seizure of arms and aircraft, and printing counterfeit money by issuing Katangese currency. Tshombe subsequently signed a pledge to reunite Katanga with the rest of the nation, and was released accordingly. However, by August it was clear he had no intention of implementing this agreement. Tshombe openly declared in a speech that month that he would defend Katanga's rights as a sovereign state and would do everything to maintain this status quo even in the face of all opposition. During Tshombe's absence, posters with his image were put up on the streets of Élisabethville, and a college of three ministers was created to temporarily take over Tshombe's presidency. The triumvirate consisted of two of Katanga's strongmen, Munongo and Minister of Finance Jean-Baptiste Kibwe, and Minister of National Education Joseph Kiwele to ensure the balance between the two leaders.


title: State of Katanga

text: In August and September, the UN conducted two operations to arrest and repatriate mercenary soldiers and the Belgian political advisers from Katanga by military force, deeming that such foreigners were the backbone behind the regime. The first operation was carried out by Indian UNF troops, who began rounding up mercenaries at 5 am, culminating in the bloodless capture of nearly 400 men. Not a single shot had been fired. Although Belgium's consul in Katanga was ordered to deport the remaining Belgian nationals, including political advisers, he countered that he could only exercise legal authority over those who were official staff affiliated with his nation's government or military.


title: State of Katanga

text: Altogether, about 300 of those captured were expelled from Congo, although several of the mercenaries later returned. White Katangese especially resented this action by the UN. Tshombe was taken by surprise, and tensions escalated rapidly. On 11 September, the UNF further demanded that all foreigners serving as police officers in Katanga be expelled, but the president did not comply. Any chances of negotiation for the peaceful removal of remaining foreign players was quickly crushed by the revelation that some UN personnel had been planning to aid in a conspiracy to remove Tshombe from power, seize the radio station in Élisabethville, and apprehend his Gendarmes. The Katangese quickly unearthed the plot, and when Tshombe confronted the UN with his charges it was revealed, much to the latter's embarrassment, that these allegations were based on fairly solid evidence. If such an incident had been allowed to take place, it would clearly have been considered a violation of the ONUC's vows to remain neutral in internal issues besides taking proper action to prevent a major conflict. The following day, hostilities reopened after 155 Irish soldiers protecting civilians in Jadotville were surrounded by a superior force of Gendarmes, including many Europeans. Despite suffering several attacks launched by Katanga's mercenary-piloted Air Force in support of the Gendarme unit, the troopers refused to surrender and during the ensuing fighting inflicted heavy casualties on the attacking forces. The outnumbered Irish company was eventually forced to surrender. They were held as prisoners of war for approximately one month.


title: State of Katanga

text: No longer able to take the increasing violence in Katanga, the ONUC commanders finally agreed to a new plan which would remove the Katangese government from power. It called for UNF troops to apprehend mercenaries, seize post offices and radio stations in Élisabethville, and send a representative from the central Congolese government to take command. This attempt was not at all bloodless and was resisted by the Gendarmes and their mercenary allies. The initial UN initiative to take over the post offices was efficiently repulsed. Later that day, Katangese soldiers launched a coordinated attack on ONUC forces. An eight-day battle was waged in the city, resulting in the deaths of 11 UN personnel. One company of Irish troops, at Jadotville, were captured. Tshombe's army enjoyed unchallenged air power, and the tiny Katangese Air Force carried out successful strafing and bombing runs on UN positions entrenched in Jadotville, Élisabethville, and Kamina.


title: State of Katanga

text: The dismal failure of the UNF could also be attributed to inferior equipment. While the Gendarmes were armed with automatic rifles, heavy machine guns, mortars, and Greyhound armored cars, the vast majority of UN troopers used antiquated rifles and civilian vehicles plated with only makeshift protection. During the fighting, the Katangese authorities offered a conditional ceasefire, which was immediately rejected by the ONUC. Eventually, it became clear that any objective to depose Moise Tshombe had failed. The British, Belgian, and French governments became especially critical of 'peacekeeping operations' in Congo which would involve such interference in domestic affairs. They called for an immediate ceasefire. The Soviet Union, on the other hand, protested that more force should have been used to subdue Katanga and initiate an immediate reunification with the Mobutu government.


title: State of Katanga

text: In the course of the limited peace negotiations which ensued, UN Secretary-General Dag Hammarskjöld and 15 others were killed in a plane crash near Ndola, Northern Rhodesia (now Zambia), under questionable circumstances. There is some evidence that suggests the plane was shot down. Hammarskjöld's death set off a succession crisis at the United Nations, as there was no line of succession and the Security Council had to vote on a successor.


title: State of Katanga

text: Under UN pressure (military attacks), Tshombe later agreed to a three-stage plan from the new acting Secretary General, U Thant, which would have reunited Katanga with Congo. However, this remained an agreement on paper only. The Katangese government insisted that should the plan in full be honored by Leopoldville, Tshombe be entitled to aid in drafting a new Congolese constitution and elect his own representatives to Parliament. However, both sides began to express reservations about the terms less than a week later. The president wished that his agreement should be ratified by his national assembly before it could be considered binding; this misunderstanding quickly led to a collapse in relations with Congolese government of Prime Minister Cyrille Adoula. The frustrated United Nations went on to adopt a new plan, one that called for the adoption of a federal constitution in Congo within thirty days, an end to the illegal Katangese rebellion, the unification of currency, and the sharing of mining revenues on a fifty–fifty split between Katanga and the central government. U Thant, who was the chief architect of this proposal, also demanded that Tshombe unconditionally release all of his political prisoners. Belgium and the United States, hoping that the latter would have a positive role in reforming a unified Congo, endorsed the plan. While Cyrille Adoula immediately accepted this compromise, Moise Tshombe stipulated conditions. A series of discussions hosted by the UN followed although it failed to yield tangible results. Thant, who had become increasingly incensed by what he regarded as the Katangese state stalling for time, imposed economic sanctions. This, however, only succeeded in destroying the last hopes the Secretary-General had for a peaceful integration. On December 19, an exasperated Tshombe withdrew from ongoing negotiations in protest.


title: State of Katanga

text: The new administration of John F. Kennedy had decided that the Adoula government represented the best hope of stability in the Congo, all more so as Adoula professed to be a firm anti-Communist. As Katanga happened to possess most of the Congo's mineral wealth, it was realized that Adoula government could not economically function if Katanga were allowed to secede, causing Kennedy to come down on the side of Congolese unity. In New York Struelens called a press conference to say: "When the UN says it has committed no atrocities in Katanga, I distribute pictures of atrocities and so give proof of the bloody mess of the UN in Katanga". In response, the Kennedy administration cancelled Struelens's visa with the intention of expelling him, but backed down after Katanga's friends in Congress raised a media uproar. To win the propaganda war, Kennedy commissioned the Undersecretary of State George Ball to make a case to the media that Katanga was unworthy of American support. In a speech that was later published as a pamphlet published by the State Department, Ball argued that the majority of the people in Katanga did not support the Tshombe regime and noting the way that Belgian officials had all the real power in Katanga argued that Katanga like Manchukuo was an artificial state created as a cloak for imperialism of others.


title: State of Katanga

text: As 1962 drew to a close, the United Nations gradually increased its operational strength in Katanga, with Thant considering ever more seriously the option of forcibly ending Tshombe's secession. As UNF forces continued to be harassed by Gendarmerie, the political stalemate rapidly escalated into outright military tension. When the Katangese populace celebrated the anniversary of their independence, for example, UN officials blocked the roads into Élisabethville, fearful of the 2,000-strong "honour guard" that was scheduled to march in upcoming parades. Several thousand civilian residents promptly demonstrated against this unilateral action. Two months later, the local authorities impounded several railroad cars bearing equipment and supplies for use in ONUC operations and a number of Gurkha peacekeepers were wounded by unmarked land mines on the Katangese border.


title: State of Katanga

text: A subsequent report compiled by the Brookings Institution indicated that the Katangese regime was purchasing new military aircraft and increasing the size of its army, reporting that they now had at their disposal "40,000 troops and Gendarmerie, at least 400 mercenaries and at least 20 planes." These figures were exaggerated. The Secretary-General's office responded by increasing trade sanctions, but several member states, the United Kingdom in particular, continued to oppose the use of embargoes to force a political solution.


title: State of Katanga

text: On 20 December, the American State Department announced it would be sending a US military mission to Katanga, a move that was severely criticised by white and black Katangese alike. At least a hundred local students, many of them European, subsequently protested at the United States consulate. The Congolese government and the Eastern Bloc also voiced their dissent. But it soon became apparent that Katanga's bid for international recognition was doomed; skyrocketing pressure for direct action, growing American interests, the militant mood of the UNF commanders, and Belgium's pledge to cease supporting a rebel government all suggested that soon the United Nations would take more forceful measures against Moise Tshombe in the near future.


title: State of Katanga

text: On 24 December 1962, United Nations forces and Katangese Gendarmes clashed near a UNF observation post near Élisabethville. A helicopter was subsequently shot down, and President Tshombe expressed regrets over what initially appeared to be a misunderstanding, promising to call off his forces. But by 27 December, the firing on both sides had not ceased; UN officers notified the National Assembly that they would take all necessary action in self-defense unless a ceasefire was observed immediately. Operation Grandslam was launched the following day and peacekeepers marched on Élisabethville to neutralize the Gendarmes.


title: State of Katanga

text: Within three days, Élisabethville was under UN control. A number of Gendarmes were either captured or forced to withdraw further west. The foreign mercenaries scattered. Fighter aircraft conducted over seventy sorties against the Katangese Air Force; all but two jets were destroyed on the ground. Tshombe escaped his capital but threatened to launch a counteroffensive unless the UNF restrained itself and called off its attack. A truce was observed until January 1, but, in a controversial act of defiance, UN personnel explicitly ignored their orders from New York and assaulted Jadotville. Katangese forces demolished the bridges over the Lufira River to prevent them from proceeding, but the latter was able to cross using debris, despite light resistance and sporadic sniper fire. It was later suggested that this was due to the slow state of communications then plaguing ONUC in Katanga and the Congo at large. The subsequent capture of Jadotville prevented Tshombe's loyalists from making a stand there, as had been feared.


title: State of Katanga

text: After the fall of Jadotville, several controversial incidents occurred involving UN forces and foreign civilians in Katanga. Two Belgian women in a car were killed at a road checkpoint after being fired upon by its Indian UNF guards. There were other civilian casualties, including two more unidentified Europeans, who died as a result of actions taken by the UNF. Following these incidents, U Thant suspended further military operations while Belgian and British officials opened up discussions with Tshombe and attempted to talk him into capitulating. It became clear that he was running desperately short of time. On 11 January, peacekeepers entered Sakania, near the Rhodesian border. The Katangese Gendarmes had already been routed and failed to pose a serious threat. Remaining mercenaries, mostly Frenchmen and South Africans, were unable to provide any effective leadership. They ignored instructions to follow a "scorched earth" policy and fled the country by way of Angola.


title: State of Katanga

text: On 15 January, Moise Tshombe conceded defeat and allowed UN officials into Kolwezi on 21 January, his last stronghold. Land mines and demolitions were to be removed, and all armed loyalists directed to surrender their weapons. Tshombe reportedly claimed in a final address to his supporters: "For the last two and a half years you have twice fought heroically against the enemy. Now their superiority has become overwhelming."


title: State of Katanga

text: The Congolese government took immediate steps to reintegrate Katanga with the rest of the country. Gendarmes were absorbed into the national military, and Joseph Ileo, former Prime Minister, was appointed Resident Minister of the new province. The United Nations provided assistance in reuniting divided economic and administrative divisions. On 29 January, the Secretary-General's office stated that most UN action in the former state would be limited to economics and that a substantially reduced force would be maintained to keep order. Denmark, Ghana, and the Philippines each pledged to dispatch more personnel. U Thant also called for a slow reduction of military presence, in case a second secession was attempted by fanatics or diehards. Although he defended the use of force taken by ONUC in ousting Tshombe, he also commented regarding the final campaign, "For a peace force, even a little fighting is too much, and only a few casualties are too many."


title: State of Katanga

text: In July 1964, Moise Tshombe returned from exile to become Prime Minister of Congo at the head of a coalition government, succeeding Cyrille Adoula. He was dismissed from his position in October 1965.


title: State of Katanga

text: The Constitution of Katanga was promulgated August 5, 1960. It consisted of 66 articles and set out the political structure of Katanga and the rights of its citizens.


title: State of Katanga

text: The political system of Katanga was significantly different from that established in the Republic of the Congo where executive power was divided between the president as head of state and the prime minister as head of government. Instead Katanga had a purely presidential republic with the President of Katanga being both head of state and head of government. The president headed the Cabinet of Ministers and was also the Commander in Chief of the Katangese military. The president had a four-year renewable term but was not elected by popular vote, but by a two-thirds majority of the deputies of the Katanga parliament – the National Assembly.


title: State of Katanga

text: Legislative power was divided between the president and parliament who both had legislative powers. The National Assembly consisted of 64 deputies (58 of them belonged to CONAKAT). 85% of the seats were directly elected while the other 15% were for representatives of traditional tribal authorities.


title: State of Katanga

text: The Grand Council acted occasionally as an upper house but did not hold legislative power. It consisted of 20 leading tribal chiefs. The Grand Council had veto powers on key issues including constitutional matters, legal practice, taxation and the functioning and running of the vital mining industry. The veto could be overridden by a two-thirds vote in the National Assembly.


title: State of Katanga

text: While being nominally a multi-party democracy in reality the state was dominated by the CONAKAT party.


title: State of Katanga

text: Through the application of the Constitution of Katanga on 4 August 1960, eleven ministers were appointed. Names and positions are taken from the report of the Belgian parliamentary inquiry into the assassination of Lumumba, names of cabinet members are taken from Guy Weber, "Le Katanga de Moïse Tshombe", unless otherwise noted. Salomon Tshizand died on 23 May 1961, Joseph Kiwele died on 14 November 1961, and Lucas Samalenge died on 19 November 1961. They were not replaced. Cléophas Mukeba resigned on 22 April 1961, and was replaced by Chrysostome Mwewa, who became Secretary of State of Public Health.


title: State of Katanga

text: Furthermore, the Belgian Michel Struelens opened the "Katanga Information Services" office in New York on 1 October 1960.


title: State of Katanga

text: The Katangese National Police () was the law enforcement and state security of Katanga. The General Commissioner of Police was Pius Sapve and the force was governed by the Ministry of Internal Affairs, headed by Godefroid Munongo.


title: Schwarzschild radius

text: The Schwarzschild radius or the gravitational radius is a physical parameter in the Schwarzschild solution to Einstein's field equations that corresponds to the radius defining the event horizon of a Schwarzschild black hole. It is a characteristic radius associated with any quantity of mass. The Schwarzschild radius was named after the German astronomer Karl Schwarzschild, who calculated this exact solution for the theory of general relativity in 1916.


title: Schwarzschild radius

text: In 1916, Karl Schwarzschild obtained the exact solution to Einstein's field equations for the gravitational field outside a non-rotating, spherically symmetric body with mass formula_2 (see Schwarzschild metric). The solution contained terms of the form formula_3 and formula_4, which become singular at formula_5 and formula_6 respectively. The formula_7 has come to be known as the "Schwarzschild radius". The physical significance of these singularities was debated for decades. It was found that the one at formula_8 is a coordinate singularity, meaning that it is an artifact of the particular system of coordinates that was used; while the one at formula_9 is a spacetime singularity and cannot be removed. The Schwarzschild radius is nonetheless a physically relevant quantity, as noted above and below.


title: Schwarzschild radius

text: This expression had previously been calculated, using Newtonian mechanics, as the radius of a spherically symmetric body at which the escape velocity was equal to the speed of light. It had been identified in the 18th century by John Michell and Pierre-Simon Laplace.


title: Schwarzschild radius

text: The Schwarzschild radius of an object is proportional to its mass. Accordingly, the Sun has a Schwarzschild radius of approximately , whereas Earth's is only about and the Moon's is about . The observable universe's mass has a Schwarzschild radius of approximately 13.7 billion light-years.


title: Schwarzschild radius

text: Any object whose radius is smaller than its Schwarzschild radius is called a black hole. The surface at the Schwarzschild radius acts as an event horizon in a non-rotating body (a rotating black hole operates slightly differently). Neither light nor particles can escape through this surface from the region inside, hence the name "black hole".


title: Schwarzschild radius

text: Black holes can be classified based on their Schwarzschild radius, or equivalently, by their density, where density is defined as mass of a black hole divided by the volume of its Schwarzschild sphere. As the Schwarzschild radius is linearly related to mass, while the enclosed volume corresponds to the third power of the radius, small black holes are therefore much more dense than large ones. The volume enclosed in the event horizon of the most massive black holes has an average density lower than main sequence stars.


title: Schwarzschild radius

text: A supermassive black hole (SMBH) is the largest type of black hole, though there are few official criteria on how such an object is considered so, on the order of hundreds of thousands to billions of solar masses. (Supermassive black holes up to 21 billion have been detected, such as NGC 4889.) Unlike stellar mass black holes, supermassive black holes have comparatively low average densities. (Note that a (non-rotating) black hole is a spherical region in space that surrounds the singularity at its center; it is not the singularity itself.) With that in mind, the average density of a supermassive black hole can be less than the density of water.


title: Schwarzschild radius

text: The Schwarzschild radius of a body is proportional to its mass and therefore to its volume, assuming that the body has a constant mass-density. In contrast, the physical radius of the body is proportional to the cube root of its volume. Therefore, as the body accumulates matter at a given fixed density (in this example, 997 kg/m, the density of water), its Schwarzschild radius will increase more quickly than its physical radius. When a body of this density has grown to around 136 million solar masses (_, its physical radius would be overtaken by its Schwarzschild radius, and thus it would form a supermassive black hole.


title: Schwarzschild radius

text: It is thought that supermassive black holes like these do not form immediately from the singular collapse of a cluster of stars. Instead they may begin life as smaller, stellar-sized black holes and grow larger by the accretion of matter, or even of other black holes.


title: Schwarzschild radius

text: The Schwarzschild radius of the supermassive black hole at the Galactic Center of the Milky Way is approximately 12 million kilometres. Its mass is about .


title: Schwarzschild radius

text: Stellar black holes have much greater average densities than supermassive black holes. If one accumulates matter at nuclear density (the density of the nucleus of an atom, about 10 kg/m; neutron stars also reach this density), such an accumulation would fall within its own Schwarzschild radius at about and thus would be a stellar black hole.


title: Schwarzschild radius

text: A small mass has an extremely small Schwarzschild radius. A mass similar to Mount Everest has a Schwarzschild radius much smaller than a nanometre. Its average density at that size would be so high that no known mechanism could form such extremely compact objects. Such black holes might possibly be formed in an early stage of the evolution of the universe, just after the Big Bang, when densities were extremely high. Therefore, these hypothetical miniature black holes are called primordial black holes.


title: Schwarzschild radius

text: Gravitational time dilation near a large, slowly rotating, nearly spherical body, such as the Earth or Sun can be reasonably approximated as follows:


title: Schwarzschild radius

text: The Schwarzschild radius (formula_11) and the Compton wavelength (formula_12) corresponding to a given mass are similar when the mass is around one Planck mass (formula_13), when both are of the same order as the Planck length (formula_14).


title: Michelangelo (Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles)

text: Michelangelo, nicknamed Mike or Mikey, is a superhero and one of the four main characters of the "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles" comics and all related media. Michelangelo is the most naturally skilled of the four brothers but prefers to have a good time rather than train. The youngest of the group, he is shown to be rather immature; he is known for his wisecracks, love of skateboarding, witty optimism, and, like his brothers, love of pizza. He is usually depicted wearing an orange eye mask. His signature weapons are dual nunchaku, though he has also been portrayed using other weapons, such as a grappling hook, manriki-gusari, kusarigama, tonfa, and a three-section staff (in some action figures).


text: Michelangelo was given a much bigger role in the 1987 cartoon series and subsequent series and films, directed at a younger audience, than in the more serious Mirage comic books, which were aimed at an older audience, expressing interest in poetry and romancing Horridus. He often coins most of their catchphrases, such as "Cowabunga!" and "Booyakasha!" in the 2012 series. Like all of the brothers, he is named after an Italian Renaissance artist; in this case, he is named after Michelangelo Buonarroti. His name was originally spelled "Michaelangelo" by the original creators, possibly misspelling his namesake's name wrong by confusion with "Michael". In the Mirage comics, all four of the Turtles wear red masks, but to tell them apart, he was given an orange mask instead.


text: In the Mirage comic books, Michelangelo was initially depicted as fun-loving, carefree, and, while not as aggressive as Raphael, always ready to fight. He is much more serious-natured in the comic book than in the film incarnations, which have labeled his character a permanent "dude" talking teenager. It was Michelangelo's one-shot in this series that fleshed out most of the traits that have become synonymous with the character, such as his playfulness, empathy, and easygoing nature. In the one-shot story, Michelangelo adopts a stray cat (which he names Klunk) and also stops thieves from stealing toys meant for orphaned children.


text: After their defeat at the hands of the Foot Clan, the Turtles, Splinter, April O'Neil, and Casey Jones retreat to a farmhouse in Northampton, Massachusetts which used to belong to Casey's grandmother. While there, April is worried to note that Michelangelo is not himself. He spends his days in the barn taking out his aggression on a punching bag. A scene shows him lashing out at his surroundings and repeatedly punching the wall of the barn until it breaks, then collapsing on it despondently, anger spent. The end of the story implies that Michelangelo's sorrow and frustration have been resolved, as subsequent issues restore Michelangelo's more relaxed, optimistic personality.


text: It is during the group's time at the farm we learn that Michelangelo also has an interest in comic books, specifically ones involving superheroes such as "The Justice Force" (comic book heroes based on The Justice League and The Fantastic Four). He also finds solace in writing fiction and has produced a story depicting himself as a rōnin in Feudal Japan.


text: In the story arc "City at War", Michelangelo instantly bonds with Casey Jones' adopted daughter Shadow, who nicknames him "Rooish". In the second volume, the Turtles decide to try to live apart from one another. Michelangelo, the social creature that he is, moves in with April and Casey so that he can be close to Shadow. Throughout the first two volumes, Michelangelo seemed to act as the peacemaker of the team. These stories also laid the foundations which demonstrated his closeness with his brother Donatello, their laid-back natures separating them from the more contentious Leonardo and Raphael.


text: In Volume 4, Michelangelo gets a job as a tour guide showing alien visitors around Earth. His first (and only) tourist is the "Regenta" (or "princess") Seri of the Styracodon race. Michelangelo convinces Seri to sneak away from her bodyguards so that he can take her on a tour of the northwest coast of the US. Their relationship becomes more intimate apparently when Seri delivers eggs that she claims are "their" children. Unfortunately, before much time is given for him to settle with this news Seri's bodyguards become aware of his machinations. They attack Michelangelo and transport him back to their homeworld, where he is placed in prison. With the help of a Triceraton prisoner named Azokk, he manages to escape and is rescued by a group of Triceratons who came to rescue Azokk. The ordeal results in Mikey's personality taking a very dark turn, having been hardened by the cruelty of the extrajudicial prison and Azokk's death. Upon the Triceratons learning of Azokk's death, they declare war on the Styracodons and carry out a genocidal assault against them. Michelangelo, embittered by Seri's apparent betrayal, joins forces with the Triceratons and gladly aids them in acts of genocide against the Styracodons.


text: Michelangelo was not given an especially large role in Volumes 1 and 2, did little to advance the plot and was often not portrayed as an especially skilled fighter. His relatively small role was probably due to the need to establish Leonardo's role as "leader" along with the fact that Donatello was Peter Laird's favorite Turtle, and Raphael was Kevin Eastman's favorite.


text: This incarnation of Michelangelo appeared in the "Turtles Forever" crossover special voiced by Bradford Cameron.


text: In the comics published by Image Comics, retroactively setting the Mirage Comics series in the Image Universe, Michelangelo's interest in writing is expanded upon and he is established as a writer of fiction and poetry. During this series, Michelangelo develops a romantic relationship with Horridus, whom he credits as his muse in writing. But the relationship would not last, (as the story may have begun after Rapture's death), she started staying with Officer Dragon and had developed an attraction to him; though Dragon did not know it himself. Michelangelo would be heartbroken when Sara dumps him. An early issue has him selling his first poem to a poetry digest. As the comic continued, Michelangelo's career as a writer gradually expanded. In the final issue, he has published his first novel, a romance called "A Rose Among the Thorns". April mentions that the book was already going back for a second printing and that she had heard that Oprah Winfrey loved it, which "practically guarantees that it will be a best-seller." Michelangelo is the only Turtle who did not end up disfigured in some way in this series; Leonardo lost his left hand and had it replaced by a steel cap with a retractable blade, Raphael was facially disfigured after being shot in the face, and Donatello was transformed into a cyborg after being shot and thrown out of a helicopter. Mikey asked Sara for her hand in marriage but was denied.


text: In the Archie Comics series, Michelangelo was initially presented very similarly to his 1987 cartoon portrayal — understandably, considering that the comic started as an adaption of the popular animated series. As the series progressed, "Archie"'s Michelangelo was presented as more mature than the cartoon version. This version developed also an interest in poetry. During a battle, he was temporarily blinded and later captured by the US military, whereupon he was interrogated and tortured. He was eventually rescued by his family and saved the life of the man who tortured him.


text: One of his many skills in the Archie comics was the ability to communicate with animals. In a storyline set in the future, Michelangelo is shown to have become an artist whose main job is running an orphanage.


text: Michelangelo like his brothers was reincarnated into a turtle after he was slain by Oroku Saki. He is also the youngest turtle as shown in his human form when he was the only baby among his brothers. He is more mature in this incarnation than others, but is still sociable, for example, bonding with the Mighty Mutanimals and with pizza boy Woody Dirkins. Unfortunately, Michelangelo's friendship with Woody waned, as shown in "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles" Issue 15, when Slash frightened Woody and he left a note for Michelangelo stating that he could not handle the troubles that followed them. Michelangelo is good friends with all Mutanimals but can be unsure about Old Hob, remembering how Hob had been their enemy. Further, Michelangelo was occasionally anxious about them, showing some concern in Issue 68, in which Hob told the Turtles that Slash had been mind-controlled, taken out all the Mutanimals, and helped capture them for the Earth Protection Force, as well as in Issue 70, in which Michelangelo wondered whether Slash would be okay. Michelangelo is also the most sensitive turtle: "e.g.", in Issue 50 he couldn't handle Splinter accepting the leadership of the Foot Clan. In this incarnation, Michelangelo is not romantically interested in anyone except Neutrino: Princess Trib instead of Kala as in the 1987 TV series. When General Kraang was at war with the foot clan, Michelangelo supported Donatello's ideas for just about everything, as when Raphael introduced Donatello's tracking device (embedded in a shuriken) in the "Secret History of the Foot Clan". The after-effects of the war left Michelangelo in a vulnerable position seeing as he was strict with Raphael when they were mourning Donnie's injuries. He also shows signs of intelligence when he decodes ancient Japanese text in the ""Ashi no Himitsu"" book that tells the secrets of the Foot Clan. Furthermore, he was not afraid to confront Splinter when their sensei had taken the orphans with him to prevent them from training as Foot Ninja. Eventually, he convinced Splinter to listen to him and won their debate. Nonetheless, Michelangelo is still as fun-loving a turtle as in other bodacious versions of himself.


text: Michelangelo's persona became strongly established in the 1987 animated series. He was often seen as a "Party Dude", which, though accurate in the 1987 series (which gave him this title in the theme song), accounts for only part of his personality otherwise. As the "party dude", he usually did not have much input in the team's plans, although he was still just as active as his brothers. He typically spent much of his time joking and socializing with other characters. He is most associated with the "Cowabunga" expression that became a pop culture phenomenon.


text: Michelangelo had a fondness for pizza, even beyond that of the other Turtles; in the Season 3 episode "Cowabunga, Shredhead", his pizza cravings annoyed the others so much that Splinter hypnotized him into refusing and denouncing pizza whenever the very word was mentioned, although the hypnosis was lifted at the end of the episode. He was essentially a provider of comic relief, alongside Raphael.


text: Michelangelo began the series with his trademark nunchaku as his weapons, but the controversy surrounding the weapons in the United Kingdom led to scenes of their use being edited out of the local broadcast of the series. To compensate for this, the American showrunners dropped the nunchaku from the series entirely in the fourth season, replacing them with a grappling hook called the "Turtle Line" that served as Mikey's signature weapon for the rest of the show's run.


text: Michelangelo also received his distinctive voice, which has been imitated in other portrayals of him, in the 1990 series. Employing a "surfer slang" vocabulary, he customarily spoke with a unique hybrid of a Californian surfer accent (not unlike the speech of the Spicoli character from "Fast Times at Ridgemont High") and what may have been a stereotypical "stoner" accent, though no reference is ever made to drugs in the series and it is likely that the voicing simply emphasized his laid-back and somewhat innocent attitude. In fact, Michelangelo appeared in a 1990 animated special, "Cartoon All-Stars to the Rescue", alongside other famous cartoon characters, intended to inform children about the dangers of substance abuse. Additionally, all four of the Turtles were official "spokes-turtles" of the "Just Say No" anti-drug campaign, despite accusations that at least one of them exhibited characteristics of a stoner. During one of these anti-drug PSAs, Michelangelo suggests to a kid being tempted with marijuana that he should "get a pizza" to go with it before the idea is shot down by Donatello. Michelangelo's trademark phrase in this series is the famous "Cowabunga".


text: Michelangelo's voice actor was Townsend Coleman in the 1987 series' and Johnny Castro in the 25th-anniversary movie "Turtles Forever". Michelangelo also made a couple of appearances in the 2012 series in the episode, The Manhattan Project. He and the other turtles along with Casey and April are seen through a portal by their 2012 counterparts walking on a road and he made a speaking cameo along with the other turtles at the end of the episode when a space worm from the 2012 dimension started terrorizing the street. All four turtles see the worm and spring into action while shouting their famous catchphrase, 'Cowabunga'. Townsend Coleman reprised his role as Michelangelo for the cameo. This would mark the first time in over 28 years the 1987 TMNT cast would return to their roles, with the sole exception of Rob Paulsen who returned to the TMNT franchise as Donatello in the 2012 series. The 1987 turtles also had a crossover with the 2012 turtles in the season 4 episode, "Trans-Dimensional Turtles" then in the three-part series final "Wanted: Bebop & Rocksteady".


text: The live-action "Coming Out of Their Shells" concert tour, whose initial show at Radio City Music Hall would be released on Pay per view and later VHS, would see Michelangelo take the role of the band's lead singer and guitarist. The character retained his fun-loving attitude and was the most vocal member of the band in the non-musical spoken segments. During the "Cowabunga" song portion of the show, Michelangelo claims that he sees Raphael as his very best friend and that Raphael wrote the music for all the Turtles' songs, while Michelangelo wrote the lyrics. This is somewhat in keeping with the Mirage and Image comics' depictions of Michelangelo as a writer and poet. During the event, Michelangelo sings an exclusive ballad not included in the cassette or CD releases for the show called "Follow Your Heart" near the show's climax when the Turtles begin to feel as though their efforts to defeat Shredder's plans to steal all the music in the world are doomed to failure. The song manages to bring the Turtles around, and the team immediately begins making plans to defeat Shredder's machine and army, which ultimately succeeds. The "Making of" VHS tape, which acts as an 'in-universe' supplement to the Radio City Music Hall show and treats the Turtles as real people rather than fictional characters, follows up on the idea that Michelangelo and Raphael had been the driving force behind the band and also indicated that they had stumbled onto the idea by pure accident. The two turtles in question state in the video that they had simply been playing around with some sewer pipes and singing while waiting for a pizza to be delivered. Realizing they had been creating music and finding they enjoyed the experience, they continued to pursue music as a hobby and eventually brought Leonardo and Donatello in on it, leading to them becoming the band depicted in the concerts.


text: In the live-action series, "", as well as the crossover episode of "Power Rangers in Space", Michelangelo was played by Jarred Blancard, and voiced by Kirby Morrow.


text: In the 2003 TV series, Michelangelo is voiced by Wayne Grayson. Known as 'Mikey' to his brothers, his personality is more akin to the Mirage comics than the 1987 show. Still the comic relief, he often makes statements that spoof pop culture, although he uses less surfer slang than in the 1987 cartoon. His trademark nunchaku is once again his primary weapon, but he has used other weapons such as grappling hooks and those of his brothers. He is slightly more immature than in the Mirage comics-particularly apparent by a high-pitched scream, however, he undergoes character development and becomes more mature as the series progresses. Unlike other incarnations, he was often more reluctant to fight and he often likes to tease and annoy his older brothers, especially Raphael, for whom Michelangelo is the foil. In fact, a running gag is that whenever Michelangelo says or does something excessively outrageous and stupid, usually involving a catch-phrase from the 1987 show, one of his brothers (usually Raphael) will slap him on the head. Other characters such as Master Splinter and the Ancient One have picked up on this habit but usually whenever he disobeys. In the Fast Forward episode "Timing is Everything" when Michelangelo was talking too much, Splinter flipped over the seat he was sitting on causing him to fall on the ground, replying afterwards that "Somebody had to do it. It was… "time"."


text: Raphael and Michelangelo mostly have a love-hate relationship in which Michelangelo frequently antagonizes Raphael (it especially hurts Raphael's pride that Michelangelo has bested him more than once, both times because Raphael's anger got in the way), but Raphael shows that he cares about him whenever he is in danger. He also seems to be very close with Donatello, where the two are often paired together when Leonardo and Raphael are either arguing or training. Also, Mikey is often the one most enthusiastic about Donatello's newest finished invention and would jump straight into "helping" Don with his first test run on it, though his "help" is not greatly appreciated by the latter and often generates more trouble. Donatello has also invented a hovercraft- a flying skateboard, at one point of time in Season 2 as means of keeping him quiet while Donatello himself worked. Even though his older brothers are irritated with him, he is still a lovable brother and like a baby brother to them. When Mikey was a kid, he and his brothers went with Master Splinter to Japan to bury Master Yoshi's ashes next to his beloved. While there they helped Master Splinter and the Ancient One win a fight against a ghost that was sent by the Foot Mystics to revive the Demon Shredder and that is when they gain their ninja masks. This happens in the episode (Fathers and Sons).


text: Michelangelo is the youngest brother, also appointed to be "the one with the brightest fire" or with the most potential by The Ancient One. Master Splinter also claims a few times that Michelangelo obtains the most "raw talent" of all the brothers. Although, both Master Splinter and The Ancient One, say because of Michelangelo's lack of focus and interest in training, he will probably never meet his full potential. Michelangelo also claims many times in this series that he wishes not to be so serious and focused as his eldest brother, Leonardo. He also tells his other brothers to "chillax" and not be so serious all the time.


text: His agility and speed also play a bigger role than in the comics or other TV series and movies. It is shown in activities such as training runs, fights, and training that Michelangelo clearly is the fastest of the four, in which his brothers are constantly having to catch up with him. It also plays a role in the 1st season when Michelangelo and Raphael are fighting, that Michelangelo keeps taunting Raphael, but because of his speed, Raphael cannot tackle him. This is shown more than once. His speed was the main reason he won The Battle Nexus, along with his ability to "get under people's skin" and taunt them. He is also portrayed as the best gymnast of the four. This is true partly because Master Splinter always sends him off to do backflips or extra training as punishment for goofing off or losing focus. Both of these abilities allow Michelangelo to taunt his opponents and beat them quickly without getting hurt by his opponent in the process.


text: He has shown innocent empathy for others as shown in particular by his adoption of Klunk the stray kitten, to whom he is very close and also by his relationship with Leatherhead. It is his initial awareness of Leatherhead's humanity which ends up forging the bond between the crocodile and the other Turtles. He enjoys Leatherhead's company, although he can tease him on occasion against his better judgment. However, he cares greatly for the crocodile and is quick and willing to forgive and reassure him when a rampaging Leatherhead injures him in a blind, nightmarish rage in the episode 'Hunted.' Leatherhead also appears to care greatly for Michelangelo and is distraught when he believes he has fatally injured him, but delighted to discover that his fears are unfounded when he finds out that the turtle is alive and well.


text: As in the Mirage comics, Michelangelo is an avid fan of comic book superheroes. In some episodes, he takes on the role of a costumed superhero called "Turtle Titan" and befriends other superheroes such as the "Silver Sentry" and the "Justice Force". As Turtle Titan, Michelangelo uses grappling hooks as both a weapon and a mode of transportation.


text: Although not shown as particularly focused on ninjutsu, preferring to spend his time reading comics or watching movies, he is quite an effective fighter and in the Season 2 finale, he became the Battle Nexus Champion, considered the best fighter in the multiverse. Although his victory was due in part to several very lucky breaks (with Raphael even referring to it as "sheer dumb luck, emphasis on the 'dumb' part), Michelangelo later won a rematch against the last finalist and earned a medal of honor for his behavior during the battle, with his ninjutsu prowess being spurred when the opponent revealed that he intended to kill Raphael, Leonardo and Donatello as well after killing Michelangelo in battle, prompting the latter to recall Leonardo's words on how if one of them went down, then all of them would go down as well.


text: In the crossover movie "Turtles Forever", Mikey is the only Turtle who initially likes their comedic 1987 counterparts (he is especially fascinated by the initials on their belt buckles). However, he eventually gets tired of their laid-back attitudes and yells at them when they don't take the 2003 incarnation of Shredder seriously, proving even this version of Mikey has his limits to fooling around.


text: In early profiles of the 2003 animated series, Michelangelo is regarded as being both the most athletic of the four, and as possessing the single greatest potential in the martial arts out of the quartet, although unfocused on training mentally (though those are admittedly old profiles and may have been early plans for the character, he has certainly proven he is an effective fighter when need be) which prevents him from reaching his fullest potential. This profile statement has since been repeated in the profile of Michelangelo in the lead-up to the debut of the "Fast Forward" season which began airing on July 29, 2006.


text: In the new 2012 series, Michelangelo uses both a kusarigama and nunchaku. His character design was updated as well, making him slightly shorter than his brothers and giving him dark freckles as well as shorter tails on his mask. Mikey is voiced by Greg Cipes.


text: Mikey is the youngest brother and is prone to goofing off rather than focusing on his training. However, he is still an impressive fighter. His natural affinity for the martial arts is present in his ability to learn moves after seeing them only a few times. He also has the ability to fight without "thinking", once deflecting Splinter's blows while listening to music with his eyes closed, which was something that Donatello had to learn (Although he was unable to do this when directly asked to fight without thinking in their first fight with the telepathic Victor Falco). Also, Mikey has a rare ability to see something off in people and mutants, shown when a Kraang robot of April’s mother, dub Mom thing, and with two of the Might Mutant Animals, Slash and Dr Rockwell, after they escape capture from the Shredder.


text: Mikey seems to respect Leonardo and although there are few scenes with them interacting together in the first two seasons, it's clear that Leonardo cares about his youngest brother. In season three, however, the two of them go on missions together. While looking for Karai one evening, they worked together to rescue their brothers, April, and Casey from Bebop and Rocksteady. After Karai is captured by Shredder, Leo volunteers to go solo to find a way to help her, Mikey tags alongside him and assures him he is there for him. When Mikey gets eaten by the MegaShredder, Leo fights with all of his might to save him. After Mikey escapes from inside the monster, Leo is overjoyed to see him alive and is proud of the work they have done. Raphael is normally seen as the one Mikey loves to hang out with, usually to Raph's ire. Although Raph repeatedly gives Mikey a beat down for his antics (usually in the form of slapping him to make him shut up) he occasionally shows a more sensitive side when Mikey is feeling down. Particularly at the end of season 2 and the first half of season 3, Raphael is much kinder to Michelangelo and often refers to him affectionately as "little brother". He is also less inclined to slap Mikey, instead flicking him with a finger as a sort of "warning". Of all his brothers, Mikey seems to be the closest to Donatello. This probably stems from the fact that although they are very different they both share a curiosity about things outside ninjutsu. Mikey greatly admires Donnie's new gadgets and is normally the first to test them out. Mikey additionally enjoys creating names for all the mutated forms of villains in the series, naming ones like "Dogpound" and "Fishface". He even is upset with Donnie when he decides on a name (Newtralizer) before Mikey gets the chance, and Donatello yells at Mikey when he attempts to name the mutated Kirby O'Neil "Wingnut" - "You are NOT giving Mr O'Neil a monster name!"


text: Although Mikey is not the fastest of mind and has a tendency to make mistakes, it is very clear that all of his brothers care very deeply for him. They all show great distress when he gets hurt or is in trouble, and anger at the one who threatens him, i.e. when Baxter Stockman is throwing Mikey around he is in his more advanced armor. More often than not, Raphael is the one to shout Mikey's name first and attack whoever has harmed his little brother, and was distraught when Mikey was injured during his (Raphael's) brief period as leader of the team.


text: Master Splinter has yet to reveal what it is Michelangelo must improve on, other than a need to focus. In the First Nickelodeon TMNT Comic Master Splinter states that Mikey has more raw talent than his three brothers combined. Later in an episode, he says that Mikey has his "challenges" too. And even if Mikey can give his brothers grief, they will always care and love him and have his back. It is heavily implied that this version of Mikey has some form of ADHD. And, it was even stated in his original bio, confirming it.


text: Unlike past incarnations, Mikey does not say his famous "Cowabunga" catchphrase, but instead says "BOOYAKASHA!" He usually does this when accomplishing something or attacking an enemy. In the episode "Meet Mondo Gecko" the character Jason (AKA Mondo Gecko) uses 'cowabunga' as his own catchphrase, and Michelangelo says it is "too old school" but later asks if he can use it from time to time. In the episode "Journey to the Center of Mikey's Mind", he says "Booyakabunga" (a mixture of both Booyakasha and Cowabunga).