title: County Mayo

text: Almost all the religious foundations set up by the Anglo-Normans were suppressed in the wake of the Reformation in the 16th century.


title: County Mayo

text: Protestant settlers from Scotland, England, and elsewhere in Ireland, settled in the County in the early 17th century. Many would be killed or forced to flee because of the 1641 Rebellion, during which a number of massacres were committed by the Catholic Gaelic Irish, most notably at Shrule in 1642. A third of the overall population was reported to have perished due to warfare, famine and plague between 1641 and 1653, with several areas remaining disturbed and frequented by Reparees into the 1670s.


title: County Mayo

text: Pirate Queen Grace O'Malley is probably the best-known person from County Mayo between the mid-16th century and the turn of the 17th century. In the 1640s, when Oliver Cromwell overthrew the English monarchy and set up a parliamentarian government, Ireland suffered severely. With a stern regime in absolute control needing to pay its armies and allies, the need to pay them with grants of land in Ireland led to the 'to hell or to Connaught' policies. Displaced native Irish families from other (eastern and southern mostly) parts of the country were either forced to leave the country or were awarded grants of land 'west of the Shannon' and put off their own lands in the east. The land in the west was divided and sub-divided between more and more people as huge estates were granted on the best land in the east to those who best pleased the English. Mayo does not seem to have been affected much during the Williamite War in Ireland, though many natives were outlawed and exiled.


title: County Mayo

text: For the vast majority of people in County Mayo the 18th century was a period of unrelieved misery. Because of the penal laws, Catholics had no hope of social advancement while they remained in their native land. Some, like William Brown (1777–1857), left Foxford with his family at the age of nine and thirty years later was an admiral in the fledgeling Argentine Navy. Today he is a national hero in that country.


title: County Mayo

text: The general unrest in Ireland was felt just as keenly across Mayo, and as the 19th century approached and news reached Ireland about the American War of Independence and the French Revolution, the downtrodden Irish, constantly suppressed by Government policies and decisions from Dublin and London, began to rally themselves for their own stand against British rule in their country. 1798 saw Mayo become a central part of the United Irishmen Rebellion when General Humbert from France landed in Killala with over 1,000 soldiers playing to support the main uprising. They marched across the county towards the administrative centre of Castlebar, leading to the Battle of Castlebar. Taking the garrison by surprise Humbert's army was victorious. He established a ' Republic of Connacht' with John Moore of the Moore family from Moore Hall near Partry as its head. Humbert's army marched on towards Sligo, Leitrim and Longford where they were suddenly faced with a massive British army and were forced to surrender in less than half an hour. The French soldiers were treated honourably, but for the Irish the surrender meant slaughter. Many died on the scaffold in towns like Castlebar and Claremorris, where the high sheriff for County Mayo, the Honourable Denis Browne, M.P., brother of Lord Altamont, wreaked a terrible vengeance – thus earning for himself the nickname which has survived in folk memory to the present day, 'Donnchadh an Rópa' (Denis of the Rope).


title: County Mayo

text: In the 18th century and early 19th century, sectarian tensions arose as evangelical Protestant missionaries sought to 'redeem the Irish poor from the errors of Popery'. One of the best known was the Rev. Edward Nangle's mission at Dugort in Achill. These too were the years of the campaign for Catholic Emancipation and, later, for the abolition of the tithes, which a predominately Catholic population was forced to pay for the upkeep of the clergy of the Established (Protestant) Church.


title: County Mayo

text: During the early years of the 19th century, famine was a common occurrence, particularly where population pressure was a problem. The population of Ireland grew to over eight million people prior to the Irish Famine (or Great Famine) of 1845–47. The Irish people depended on the potato crop for their sustenance. Disaster struck in August 1845, when a killer fungus (later diagnosed as Phytophthora infestans) started to destroy the potato crop. When widespread famine struck, about a million people died and a further million left the country. People died in the fields of starvation and disease. The catastrophe was particularly bad in County Mayo, where nearly ninety per cent of the population depended on the potato as their staple food. By 1848, Mayo was a county of total misery and despair, with any attempts at alleviating measures in complete disarray.


title: County Mayo

text: There are numerous reminders of the Great Famine to be seen on the Mayo landscape: workhouse sites, famine graves, sites of soup kitchens, deserted homes and villages and even traces of undug 'lazy-beds' in fields on the sides of hills. Many roads and lanes were built as famine relief measures. There were nine workhouses in the county: Ballina, Ballinrobe, Belmullet, Castlebar, Claremorris, Killala, Newport, Swinford and Westport.


title: County Mayo

text: A small poverty-stricken place called Knock, County Mayo, made headlines when it was announced that an apparition of the Blessed Virgin Mary, St. Joseph and St. John had taken place there on 21 August 1879, witnessed by fifteen local people.


title: County Mayo

text: A national movement was initiated in County Mayo during 1879 by Michael Davitt, James Daly, and others, which brought about a major social change in Ireland. Michael Davitt, a labourer whose family had moved to England joined forces with Charles Stewart Parnell to win back the land for the people from the landlords and stop evictions for non-payment of rents. The organisation became known as the Irish National Land League, and its struggle to win rights for poor farmers in Ireland was known as the Land War.


title: County Mayo

text: It was in this era of agrarian unrest that a new verb was introduced to the English language by Mayo - "to boycott". Charles Boycott was an English landlord deeply unpopular with his tenants. When Charles Steward Parnell made a speech in Ennis, County Clare, urging nonviolent resistance against landlords, his tactics were enthusiastically taken in Mayo against Boycott. The entire Catholic community around Lough Mask in South Mayo where Boycott had his estate became a campaign of total social ostracisation against Boycott, a tactic that would one day come to bear his name. The campaign against Boycott became a in the British press after he wrote a letter to "The Times". The British elite rallied to his cause and Fifty Orangemen from County Cavan and County Monaghan travelled to his estate to harvest the crops, while a regiment of the 19th Royal Hussars and more than 1,000 men of the Royal Irish Constabulary were deployed to protect the harvesters. However, the cost of doing this was completely uneconomic: It cost the British government somewhere in the region of £10,000 to simply harvest £500 worth of crops. Boycott sold off the estate and the British government's resolve to try to break boycotts in this completely dissolved, resulting in victory for the tenants.


title: County Mayo

text: The "Land Question" was gradually resolved by a scheme of state-aided land purchase schemes. The tenants became the owners of their lands under the newly set-up Land Commission.


title: County Mayo

text: A Mayo nun, Mother Agnes Morrogh-Bernard, set up the Foxford Woollen Mill in 1892. She made Foxford synonymous throughout the world with high-quality tweeds, rugs and blankets.


title: County Mayo

text: Mayo, as all parts of what became the Irish Free State, was affected by the events of the Irish revolutionary period, including the Irish War of Independence and the subsequent Irish Civil War. Major John MacBride of Westport was amongst those who took part in the 1916 Easter Rising and was subsequently executed by the British for his participation. His death served as a rallying call for Republicans in Mayo and led to Mayo men such as P. J. Ruttledge, Ernie O'Malley, Michael Kilroy and Thomas Derrig to rise up during the War of Independence. In the ensuing Civil War, many of these leading figures chose the Anti-treaty side and fought in bitter battles such as those in Ballina, which changed hands between pro and anti-treaty forces a number of times.


title: County Mayo

text: In the aftermath of the Civil War, there was a consolidation of many of those with anti-treaty feelings into the new political party Fianna Fáil. PJ Ruttledge and Thomas Derrig would become founding members of the party and served in Éamon de Valera's first-ever Fianna Fáil government as ministers. Mayo politicians would continue to contribute to the national political scene over the decades. In 1990 Mary Robinson, from County Mayo, became the first-ever female President of Ireland, and is widely credited with revitalising the position with importance and focus it had never possessed before. During her tenure she unveiled Ireland's National Famine Memorial which is situated in the village of Murrisk, County Mayo.


title: County Mayo

text: In 2011 Enda Kenny became the first politician from a Mayo constituency and the second Mayo native to serve as Taoiseach, the head of government of Ireland. Kenny went on to become the longest-serving Fine Gael Taoiseach in Irish history.


title: County Mayo

text: In the early historic period, what is now County Mayo consisted of a number of large kingdoms, minor lordships and tribes of obscure origins. They included:


title: County Mayo

text: Mayo County Council is the authority responsible for local government. As a county council, it is governed by the Local Government Act 2001. The county is divided into four municipal districts of Ballina, Castlebar, Claremorris and Westport–Belmullet, each with a population of roughly 32,000 to 34,000 people. The council is responsible for housing and community, roads and transportation, urban planning and development, amenity and culture, and environment.


title: County Mayo

text: County Mayo is divided into six local electoral areas (LEAs). Councillors are elected for a five-year term.


title: County Mayo

text: The county town is at "Áras an Contae" in Castlebar, the main population centre located in the centre of the county.


title: County Mayo

text: Since 2016, Mayo has been represented on a national political level by four TDs who represent the constituency of Mayo in Dáil Eireann. Previous to 2016 the constituency had five TDs but this was reduced based on the county's current population in line with proportional representation. The electoral divisions of Cong, Dalgan, Houndswood, Kilmaine, Neale, Shrule, in the former Rural District of Ballinrobe, are in Galway West.


title: County Mayo

text: Historically, Mayo has tended to vote Fianna Fáil, as Fianna Fáil managed to position themselves in the 20th century as the party best fit to represent farmers with small holdings, who were plentiful in Mayo. With so many of Mayo's electorate being small farmers, the county became a base for the emergence of Clann na Talmhan, an agrarian party in the 1940s and 1950s. Clann an Talmhan's second leader, Joseph Blowick came from South Mayo and that is where his seat was. The party was not able to last in the long run though as it was unable to hold together its voting bloc of both small farmers in the west of Ireland and large farmers in the east.


title: County Mayo

text: Towards the start of the 21st century, the balance of power in Mayo began to shift towards Fine Gael, thanks in part to the emergence of Enda Kenny and Michael Ring. Kenny, who became Taoiseach in 2011, led Fine Gael to a historic victory in the 2011 Irish general election which included securing four out of five available seats for his party in Mayo.


title: County Mayo

text: In 2020, Rose Conway-Walsh came within 200 votes of topping the poll and became the first Sinn Féin TD for Mayo since 1927, riding a nationwide surge for Sinn Féin that year.


title: County Mayo

text: Despite being historically the third-largest party in Ireland, Labour has struggled to ever make inroads into Mayo. The party has only ever had one TD for Mayo, former party leader Thomas J. O'Connell, who represented South Mayo between 1927 and 1932. While Labour has not proven itself electorally successful in Mayo, Mayo has provided important members to the Labour Party. Mary Robinson from Ballina became the first-ever female President of Ireland as a Labour candidate while Pat Rabbitte, originally from Claremorris, served as leader of the Labour Party from 2002 to 2007. Serving alongside Rabbitte was Emmet Stagg, one of the longest-standing Labour TDs of the modern era, himself from Hollymount not far from Claremorris.


title: County Mayo

text: The county has experienced perhaps the highest emigration out of Ireland. In the 1840s–1880s, waves of emigrants left the rural townlands of the county. Initially triggered by the Great Famine and then in search of work in the newly industrialising United Kingdom and the United States, the population plummeted from 388,887 in 1841 to 199,166 in 1901. It reached a low of 109,525 in 1971. Emigration slowed dramatically as the Irish economy began to expand in the 1990s and early 2000s, and the population of Mayo increased from 110,713 in 1991 to 130,638 in 2011.


title: County Mayo

text: In the 2006 National Census, the religious demographic breakdown for County Mayo was 114,215 Roman Catholics, 2,476 Church of Ireland, 733 Muslims, 409 other Christians, 280 Presbyterians, 250 Orthodox Christians, 204 Methodists, 853 other stated religions, 3,267 no religion and 1,152 no stated religion.


title: County Mayo

text: 9% of the population of County Mayo live in the Gaeltacht. The Gaeltacht Irish-speaking region in County Mayo is the third-largest in Ireland with 10,886 inhabitants. Tourmakeady is the largest village in this area. All schools in the area use Irish as the language of instruction. Mayo has four gaelscoileanna in its four major towns, providing primary education to students through Irish.


title: County Mayo

text: Westport railway station is the terminus station on the Dublin to Westport Rail service. Railway stations are also located at Ballyhaunis, Claremorris, Castlebar, Manulla, Ballina and Foxford. All railway stations are located on the same railway line, with the exception of Ballina and Foxford which requires passengers to change at Manulla Junction. There are currently four services each way every day on the line.


title: County Mayo

text: There are also proposals to reopen the currently disused Western Railway Corridor connecting Limerick with Sligo.


title: County Mayo

text: There are a number of national primary roads in the county including the N5 road connecting Westport with Dublin, the N17 road connecting the county with Galway and Sligo and the N26 road connecting Ballina with Dublin via the N5. There are a number of national secondary roads in the county also including the N58 road, N59 road, N60 road, N83 road & N84 road. As of 2021, a new road running from northwest of Westport to east of Castlebar is under construction. The road is a dual carriageway with junctions at the N59, N84 and N60 and will open in late 2022.


title: County Mayo

text: Ireland West Airport Knock is an international airport located in the county. The name is derived from the nearby village of Knock. Recent years have seen the airport's passenger numbers grow to over 650,000 yearly with a number of UK and European destinations. August 2014 saw the airport have its busiest month on record with 102,774 passengers using the airport.


title: County Mayo

text: Newspapers in County Mayo include "The Mayo News", the "Connaught Telegraph", the "Connacht Tribune", "Western People", and "Mayo Advertiser", which is Mayo's only free newspaper.


title: County Mayo

text: "Mayo Now" is a monthly entertainment and culture magazine for the towns of Ballina, Foxford, Killala, Crossmolina and surrounding areas – this is out on the first Friday of each month.


title: County Mayo

text: Mayo has its own online TV channel "Mayo TV" which was launched in 2011. It covers news and events from around the county and regularly broadcasts live to a worldwide audience. Local radio stations include Erris FM, Community Radio Castlebar, Westport Community Radio, BCR FM (Ballina Community Radio) and M.W.R. (Mid West Radio).


title: County Mayo

text: The documentary "Pipe Down", which won best feature documentary at the 2009 Waterford Film Festival, was made in Mayo.


title: County Mayo

text: There is local resistance to Shell's decision to process raw gas from the Corrib gas field at an onshore terminal. In 2005, five local men were jailed for contempt of court after refusing to follow an Irish court order. Subsequent protests against the project led to the Shell to Sea and related campaigns.


title: County Mayo

text: The Mayo Energy Audit 2009–2020 is an investigation into the implications of peak oil and subsequent fossil fuel depletion for a rural county in west of Ireland. The study draws together many different strands to examine current energy supply and demand within the area of study, and assesses these demands in


title: County Mayo

text: the face of the challenges posed by the declining production of fossil fuels and expected disruptions to supply chains, and by long-term economic recession.


title: County Mayo

text: The Mayo GAA senior team last won the Sam Maguire Cup in 1951, when the team was captained by Seán Flanagan. The team's third title followed victories in 1936 and the previous year, 1950. Since 1951, the team have made numerous All-Ireland Final appearances (in 1989, twice in 1996, 1997, 2004, 2006, 2012, 2013, twice again in 2016 against Dublin, with their latest appearance coming in 2017 against Dublin, again), though the team have failed on all occasions to achieve victory over their opponents.


title: County Mayo

text: The team's unofficial supporters club are Mayo Club '51, named after the last team who won the Sam Maguire. The county colours of Mayo GAA are traditionally green and red.


title: County Mayo

text: Although Gaelic football and association football are the most popular sport in the county, other sports are popular in the county as well such as rugby, basketball, hurling, swimming, tennis, badminton, athletics, handball and racquetball.


title: Toghon Temür

text: Toghon Temür (; Mongolian script: ; ; 25 May 1320 – 23 May 1370), also known by his temple name as the Emperor Huizong of Yuan () bestowed by the Northern Yuan dynasty and by his posthumous name as the Emperor Shun of Yuan () bestowed by the Ming dynasty, was the last emperor of the Yuan dynasty and later the first emperor of the Northern Yuan dynasty. Apart from Emperor of China, he is also considered the last Khagan of the Mongol Empire. He was a son of Kusala (Emperor Mingzong).


title: Toghon Temür

text: During the last years of his reign, the Yuan dynasty was overthrown by the Red Turban Rebellion, which established the Ming dynasty, although the Yuan court under his rule remained in control of northern China and the Mongolian Plateau. The remnant Yuan regime is known as the Northern Yuan in historiography.


title: Toghon Temür

text: Emperor Huizong was a Buddhist student of the Karmapas (heads of the Karma Kagyu school of Tibetan Buddhism) and is considered a previous incarnation of the Tai Situpas. He also notably invited the Jonang savant Dölpopa Shérab Gyeltsen to teach him, but was rebuffed.


title: Toghon Temür

text: Toghon Temür was born to Kuśala, known as Khutughtu Khan or Emperor Mingzong, when he was in exile in Central Asia. Toghon Temür's mother was Mailaiti, descendant of Arslan Khan, the chief of the Karluks. According to a folk legend, the former Chinese Southern Song Emperor Gong of Song, Zhao Xian, had an affair with Yuan Empress Mailaiti. Zhao Xian allegedly fathered Yuan Toghon Temür with Mailaiti as a bastard child. The Mongols circulated a similar story about the Yongle Emperor.


title: Toghon Temür

text: Following the civil war known as the War of the Two Capitals that broke out after the death of Yesün Temür (Emperor Taiding) in 1328, Toghon Temür attended his father and entered Shangdu from Mongolia. However, after Kuśala died and his younger brother was restored to the throne as Jayaatu Khan Tugh Temür (Emperor Wenzong), he was kept from the court and was banished to Goryeo (modern Korea) and later to Guangxi in South China. While he was in exile, his stepmother Babusha was executed.


title: Toghon Temür

text: When Emperor Wenzong died in 1332, his widow, Empress Dowager Budashiri respected his will to make the son of Kuśala's succeed to the throne instead of Wenzong's own son, El Tegüs. However, it was not Toghon Temür but his younger half-brother Rinchinbal, who was enthroned as Rinchinbal Khan (Emperor Ningzong). However, he died only two months into his reign. The de facto ruler, El Temür, attempted to install El Tegüs as emperor but was stopped by Empress Budashiri. As a result, Toghon Temür was summoned back from Guangxi. El Temür feared that Toghon Temür, who was too mature to be a puppet, would take arms against him since he was suspected of the assassination of Toghon Temür's father, Emperor Mingzong. The enthronement was postponed for six months until El Temür died in 1333.


title: Toghon Temür

text: In 1333, Toghon Temür first met Lady Gi, a Korean concubine, with whom he fell deeply in love. Lady Ki had been sent to China sometime in the late 1320s as "human tribute" as the kings of Goryeo were required to send a certain number of beautiful teenage girls to Yuan to serve as concubines after the Mongol invasions.


title: Toghon Temür

text: The new emperor appointed his cousin El Tegüs crown prince as he was ward of El Tegüs' mother Empress Dowager Budashiri, but he was controlled by warlords even after El Temür's death. Among them, Bayan became as powerful as El Temür had been. He served as minister of the Secretariat and crushed a rebellion by El Temür's son Tang Ki-se. During his despotic rule, he made several purges and also suspended the imperial examination system. When Toghon Temür tried to promote Lady Ki to secondary wife, which was contrary to the standard practice of only taking secondary wives from Mongol clans, it created such opposition at court to this unheard of promotion for a Korean woman that he was forced to back down. In 1339, when Lady Ki gave birth to a son, whom Toghon Temür decided would be his successor, he was finally able to have Lady Ki named his secondary wife in 1340.


title: Toghon Temür

text: As Toghon Temür matured, he came to disfavor Bayan's autocratic rule. In 1340 he allied with Bayan's nephew Toqto'a, who was in discord with Bayan, and banished Bayan in a coup. He also removed El Tegüs and Empress Budashiri from court. With the help of Toqto'a, he also managed to purge officials that had dominated the administration.


title: Toghon Temür

text: With the dismissal of Bayan, Toqto'a seized the power of the court. His first administration clearly exhibited fresh new spirit. The young leader was quick to distinguish his regime as something wholly different from Bayan's. A new Chinese era name, Zhizheng (), was decreed to show this. Bayan's purges were called off. Many of the great Chinese literati came back to the capital from voluntary retirement or from administrative exile and the imperial examination system was restored.


title: Toghon Temür

text: Toqto'a also gave a few early signs of a new and positive direction in central government. One of his successful projects was to finish the long-stalled official histories of the Liao, Jin and Song dynasties, which were eventually completed in 1345.


title: Toghon Temür

text: Toqto'a resigned his office with the approval of Toghon Temür in June 1344, which marked the end of his first administration. The several short-lived administrations that followed from 1344 and 1349 would develop an agenda very different from Toqto'a's. In 1347, the emperor forced Toqto'a into Gansu with assistance from former officers of Kuśala and Yesün Temür.


title: Toghon Temür

text: In 1349, Toghon Temür recalled Toqto'a, which began Toqto'a's second and very different administration.


title: Toghon Temür

text: Since the late 1340s, people in the countryside suffered from frequent natural disasters, droughts, floods, and ensuing famines. The lack of effective government policy led to a loss of support from the people. Illicit salt dealers who were disaffected by the government's salt monopoly raised a rebellion in 1348, triggering many revolts around the empire. Among them was the Red Turban Rebellion, which started in 1351 and grew into a nationwide turmoil.


title: Toghon Temür

text: In 1354, when Toqto'a led a large army to crush the Red Turban rebels, Toghon Temür suddenly dismissed him for fear of betrayal. This resulted in the restoration of Toghon Temür's power but also a rapid weakening of the central government. Thus he had no choice but to rely on the forces of local warlords.


title: Toghon Temür

text: Toghon Temür gradually lost interest in politics and ceased to intervene in political struggles. His son Biligtü Khan, who became Crown Prince in 1353, attempted to seize power and came into conflict with Toghon Temür's aides, who dominated politics instead of the khan. During this time power was increasingly exercised by Lady Ki. Chief Empress Lady Ki and his minister persuaded Biligtü Khan to overthrow the latter. Toghon Temür was unable to conciliate the dispute but executed the minister. In 1364 the Shanxi-based warlord Bolad Temür occupied Khanbaliq and expelled the Crown Prince from the winter base. In alliance with the Henan-based warlord Köke Temür, Biligtü Khan defeated Bolad Temür in the next year. This internal struggle resulted in further weakening of the political and military power of the central government. In 1365, Toghon Temür finally promoted his much beloved Lady Ki to First Empress and announced that his son by her would be the first in the line of succession.


title: Toghon Temür

text: During the Yuan dynasty, one of Confucius' descendants, who was one of the Duke Yansheng Kong Huan's 孔浣 sons, named Kong Shao 孔紹, moved from China to Goryeo era Korea and established a branch of the family there called the Gong clan of Qufu after marrying a Korean woman (Jo Jin-gyeong's 曹晉慶 daughter) during Toghon Temür's rule. (Also see 曲阜孔氏 (朝鲜半岛) and 곡부 공씨)


title: Toghon Temür

text: Pope John XXII and Pope Benedict XII successfully extended a network of Catholic churches throughout the Mongol Empire from Crimea to China between 1317 and 1343. The archbishop of Khanbaliq, John of Montecorvino, died in 1328. With the backing of the Toghon Temür, the Alans wrote to Pope Benedict XII in 1336 asking for a new metropolitan. In 1338, the pope sent back the embassy headed by Giovanni de' Marignolli, who stayed at Beijing three or four years. They brought gifts for Toghon Temür that included fine European horses.


title: Toghon Temür

text: When the Koreans captured a Japanese fishing ship they thought was spying, the Goryeo court sent it to their overlord, the Yuan emperor Toghon Temür, who then sent the fishermen back to Japan. In reply, the Ashikaga shogunate sent an embassy led by a monk to express its gratitude.


title: Toghon Temür

text: After absorbing the Chen Han dynasty, conquering Southern China, and establishing the Ming dynasty, Zhu Yuanzhang – crowned as the Hongwu Emperor – conducted military expeditions to North China and defeated the Yuan army in 1368. When Köke Temür lost battles against the Ming general Xu Da and Ming troops approached Hebei, Toghon Temür gave up Khanbaliq and fled to his summer base, Shangdu.


title: Toghon Temür

text: In 1369 when Shangdu also fell under the Ming's occupation, Toghon Temür fled northward to Yingchang, which was located in present-day Inner Mongolia. He died there in 1370; his son succeeded him as Biligtü Khan Ayushiridara and retreated to Karakorum in the same year. The Yuan remnants ruled northern China and the Mongolian Plateau while they continued to claim the title of Emperor of China, from which point they are referred to as the Northern Yuan dynasty. He was the longest-lived emperor of Yuan China after Kublai Khan.


title: Toghon Temür

text: At the time of his death, the Northern Yuan maintained its influence, stretching the domination from the Sea of Japan to the Altai Mountains. There were also pro-Yuan, anti-Ming forces in Yunnan and Guizhou. Even though its control over China proper had not been stable yet, the Ming considered that the Yuan lost the Mandate of Heaven when it abandoned Khanbaliq, and that the Yuan was overthrown in 1368. The Ming did not treat Toghon Temür after 1368 and his successor Ayushiridara as legitimate emperors.


title: Toghon Temür

text: The Ming gave Toghon Temür the posthumous name "Emperor Shun" (順皇帝), which implied that he followed the Mandate of Heaven ceding his empire to the Ming. But the Northern Yuan dynasty gave him their own posthumous name "Emperor Xuanren Puxiao" (宣仁普孝皇帝) and temple name "Huizong" (惠宗).


title: Toghon Temür

text: Even after Toghon Temür, there was still Yuan resistance to the Ming in the south. In southwestern China, Basalawarmi, the self-styled "Prince of Liang", established a Yuan resistance movement in Yunnan and Guizhou that was not put down until 1381.


title: Toghon Temür

text: Mongolian chronicles such as the "Erdeniin Tobchi" include a poem known as the "Lament of Toghon Temür". It deals with his grieving after the loss of Khanbaliq (Beijing).


title: Hormone replacement therapy

text: Hormone replacement therapy (HRT), also known as menopausal hormone therapy or postmenopausal hormone therapy, is a form of hormone therapy used to treat symptoms associated with female menopause. These symptoms can include hot flashes, vaginal atrophy, accelerated skin aging, vaginal dryness, decreased muscle mass, sexual dysfunction, and bone loss. They are in large part related to the diminished levels of sex hormones that occur during menopause.


title: Hormone replacement therapy

text: Estrogens and progestogens are the main hormone drugs used in HRT. Progesterone is the main female sex hormone that occurs naturally and is also manufactured into a drug that is used in menopausal hormone therapy. Although both classes of hormones can have symptomatic benefit, progestogen is specifically added to estrogen regimens when the uterus is present to avoid the increased risk of endometrial cancer. Unopposed estrogen therapy promotes endometrial hyperplasia and increases the risk of cancer, while progestogen reduces this risk. Androgens like testosterone are sometimes used as well. HRT is available through a variety of different routes.


title: Hormone replacement therapy

text: The long-term effects of HRT on most organ systems vary by age and time since the last physiological exposure to hormones, and there can be large differences in individual regimens, factors which have made analyzing effects difficult. The Women's Health Initiative (WHI) is an ongoing study of over 27,000 women that began in 1991, with the most recent analyses suggesting that, when initiated within 10 years of menopause, HRT reduces all-cause mortality and risks of coronary disease, osteoporosis, and dementia; after 10 years the beneficial effects on mortality and coronary heart disease are no longer apparent, though there are decreased risks of hip and vertebral fractures and an increased risk of venous thromboembolism when taken orally.


title: Hormone replacement therapy

text: "Bioidentical" hormone replacement is a development in the 21st century and uses manufactured compounds with "exactly the same chemical and molecular structure as hormones that are produced in the human body." These are mainly steroids derived from plants and can be a component of either registered "pharmaceutical" or custom-made "compounded" preparations, with the latter generally not recommended by regulatory bodies due to their lack of standardization and formal oversight. Bioidentical hormone replacement has inadequate clinical research to determine its safety and efficacy as of 2017.


title: Hormone replacement therapy

text: The current indications for use from the United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA) include short-term treatment of menopausal symptoms, such as vasomotor hot flashes or vaginal atrophy, and prevention of osteoporosis.


title: Hormone replacement therapy

text: Approved uses of HRT in the United States include short-term treatment of menopausal symptoms such as hot flashes and vaginal atrophy, and prevention of osteoporosis. The American College of Obstetrics and Gynecology (ACOG) approves of HRT for symptomatic relief of menopausal symptoms, and advocates its use beyond the age of 65 in appropriate scenarios. The North American Menopause Society (NAMS) 2016 annual meeting mentioned that HRT may have more benefits than risks in women before the age of 60.


title: Hormone replacement therapy

text: A consensus expert opinion published by The Endocrine Society stated that when taken during perimenopause or the initial years of menopause, HRT carries fewer risks than previously published, and reduces all cause mortality in most scenarios. The American Association of Clinical Endocrinologists (AACE) has also released position statements approving of HRT when appropriate.


title: Hormone replacement therapy

text: Women receiving this treatment are usually post-, peri-, or surgically menopausal. Menopause is the permanent cessation of menstruation resulting from loss of ovarian follicular activity, defined as beginning twelve months after the final natural menstrual cycle. This twelve month time point divides menopause into early and late transition periods known as 'perimenopause' and 'postmenopause'. Premature menopause can occur if the ovaries are surgically removed, as can be done to treat ovarian or uterine cancer.


title: Hormone replacement therapy

text: Demographically, the vast majority of data available is in postmenopausal American women with concurrent pre-existing conditions and an average age of over 60 years.


title: Hormone replacement therapy

text: HRT is often given as a short-term relief from menopausal symptoms during perimenopause. Potential menopausal symptoms include:


title: Hormone replacement therapy

text: The effect of HRT in menopause appears to be divergent, with lower risk of heart disease when started within five years, but no impact after ten. There may be an increase in heart disease if HRT is given twenty years post-menopause. This variability has led some reviews to suggest an absence of significant effect on morbidity. Importantly, there is no difference in long-term mortality from HRT, regardless of age.


title: Hormone replacement therapy

text: A Cochrane review suggested that women starting HRT less than 10 years after menopause had lower mortality and coronary heart disease, without any strong effect on the risk of stroke and pulmonary embolism. Those starting therapy more than 10 years after menopause showed little effect on mortality and coronary heart disease, but an increased risk of stroke. Both therapies had an association with venous clots and pulmonary embolism.


title: Hormone replacement therapy

text: HRT with estrogen and progesterone also improves cholesterol levels. With menopause, HDL decreases, while LDL, triglycerides and lipoprotein a increase, patterns that reverse with estrogen. Beyond this, HRT improves heart contraction, coronary blood flow, sugar metabolism, and decreases platelet aggregation and plaque formation. HRT may promote reverse cholesterol transport through induction of cholesterol ABC transporters. HRT also results in a large reduction in the pro-thrombotic lipoprotein a. Studies on cardiovascular disease with testosterone therapy have been mixed, with some suggesting no effect or a mild negative effect, though others have shown an improvement in surrogate markers such as cholesterol, triglycerides and weight. Testosterone has a positive effect on vascular endothelial function and tone with observational studies suggesting that women with lower testosterone may be at greater risk for heart disease. Available studies are limited by small sample size and study design. Low sex hormone binding globulin, which occurs with menopause, is associate with increased body mass index and risk for type 2 diabetes.


title: Hormone replacement therapy

text: Effects of hormone replacement therapy on venous blood clot formation and potential for pulmonary embolism may vary with different estrogen and progestogen therapies, and with different doses or method of use. Comparisons between routes of administration suggest that when estrogens are applied to the skin or vagina, there is a lower risk of blood clots, whereas when used orally, the risk of blood clots and pulmonary embolism is increased. Skin and vaginal routes of hormone therapy are not subject to first pass metabolism, and so lack the anabolic effects that oral therapy has on liver synthesis of vitamin K-dependent clotting factors, possibly explaining why oral therapy may increase blood clot formation.


title: Hormone replacement therapy

text: While a 2018 review found that taking progesterone and estrogen together can decrease this risk, other reviews reported an increased risk of blood clots and pulmonary embolism when estrogen and progestogen were combined, particularly when treatment was started 10 years or more after menopause and when the women were older than 60 years.


title: Hormone replacement therapy

text: The risk of venous thromboembolism may be reduced with bioidentical preparations, though research on this is only preliminary.


title: Hormone replacement therapy

text: Multiple studies suggest that the possibility of HRT related stroke is absent if therapy is started within five years of menopause, and that the association is absent or even preventive when given by non-oral routes. Ischemic stroke risk was increased during the time of intervention in the WHI, with no significant effect after the cessation of therapy and no difference in mortality at long term follow up. When oral synthetic estrogen or combined estrogen-progestogen treatment is delayed until five years from menopause, cohort studies in Swedish women have suggested an association with hemorrhagic and ischemic stroke. Another large cohort of Danish women suggested that the specific route of administration was important, finding that although oral estrogen increased risk of stroke, absorption through the skin had no impact, and vaginal estrogen actually had a decreased risk.


title: Hormone replacement therapy

text: In postmenopausal women, continuous combined estrogen plus progestin decreases endometrial cancer incidence. The duration of progestogen therapy should be at least 14 days per cycle to prevent endometrial disease.


title: Hormone replacement therapy

text: Endometrial cancer has been grouped into two forms in the context of hormone replacement. Type 1 is the most common, can be associated with estrogen therapy, and is usually low grade. Type 2 is not related to estrogen stimulation and usually higher grade and poorer in prognosis. The endometrial hyperplasia that leads to endometrial cancer with estrogen therapy can be prevented by concomitant administration of progestogen. The extensive use of high-dose estrogens for birth control in the 1970s is thought to have resulted in a significant increase in the incidence of type 1 endometrial cancer.


title: Hormone replacement therapy

text: Paradoxically, progestogens do promote the growth of uterine fibroids, and a pelvic ultrasound can be performed before beginning HRT to make sure there are no underlying uterine or endometrial lesions.


title: Hormone replacement therapy

text: Androgens do not stimulate endometrial proliferation in post menopausal women, and appear to inhibit the proliferation induced by estrogen to a certain extent.


title: Hormone replacement therapy

text: There is insufficient high‐quality evidence to inform women considering hormone replacement therapy after treatment for endometrial cancer.


title: Hormone replacement therapy

text: Studies regarding the association of breast cancer with hormone replacement are inconsistent and vary with type of replacement and time since menopause. While some evaluations suggest an increased risk, in others it is decreased. This inconsistency of effect has been suggested to imply a lack of meaningful impact of HRT on breast cancer risk.


title: Hormone replacement therapy

text: There is a non-statistically significant increased rate of breast cancer for hormone replacement therapy with synthetic progesterone. The risk may be reduced with bioidentical progesterone, though the only prospective study that suggested this was underpowered due to the rarity of breast cancer in the control population. There have been no randomized controlled trials as of 2018. The relative risk of breast cancer also varies depending on the interval between menopause and HRT and route of synthetic progestin administration.


title: Hormone replacement therapy

text: The most recent follow up of the Women's Health Initiative participants demonstrated a lower incidence of breast cancer in post-hysterectomy participants taking equine estrogen alone, though the relative risk was increased if estrogen was taken with medroxy-progesterone. Estrogen is usually only given alone in the setting of a hysterectomy due to the increased risk of vaginal bleeding and uterine cancer with unopposed estrogen.


title: Hormone replacement therapy

text: HRT has been more strongly associated with risk of breast cancer in women with lower body mass indices (BMIs). No breast cancer association has been found with BMIs of over 25. It has been suggested by some that the absence of significant effect in some of these studies could be due to selective prescription to overweight women who have higher baseline estrone, or to the very low progesterone serum levels after oral administration leading to a high tumor inactivation rate.


title: Hormone replacement therapy

text: Evaluating the response of breast tissue density to HRT using mammography appears to help assessing the degree of breast cancer risk associated with therapy; women with dense or mixed-dense breast tissue have a higher risk of developing breast cancer than those with low density tissue.


title: Hormone replacement therapy

text: Micronized progesterone does not appear to be associated with breast cancer risk when used for less than five years with limited data suggesting an increased risk when used for longer duration.


title: Hormone replacement therapy

text: A retrospective Cox proportional hazards analysis from Richard Neapolitan endorsed the reduced risk breast cancer with conjugated equine estrogen usage alone, but also suggested that conjugated equine estrogen with medroxyprogesterone acetate was associated with a risk reduction in breast cancer and that bioidentical hormone therapy was not associated with a statistically significant effect. There have been no prospective randomized clinical trials comparing the two routes of administration with regards to breast cancer.


title: Hormone replacement therapy

text: For women who previously have had breast cancer, it is recommended to first consider other options for menopausal effects, such as bisphosphonates or selective estrogen receptor modulators (SERMs) for osteoporosis, cholesterol-lowering agents and aspirin for cardiovascular disease, and vaginal estrogen for local symptoms. Observational studies of systemic HRT after breast cancer are generally reassuring. If HRT is necessary after breast cancer, estrogen-only therapy or estrogen therapy with a progestogen may be safer options than combined systemic therapy. In women who are BRCA1 or BRCA2 mutation carriers, HRT does not appear to impact breast cancer risk. The relative number of women using HRT who also obtain regular screening mammograms is higher than that in women who do not use HRT, a factor which has been suggested as contributing to different breast cancer detection rates in the two groups.


title: Hormone replacement therapy

text: With androgen therapy, pre-clinical studies have suggested an inhibitory effect on breast tissue though the majority of epidemiological studies suggest a positive association.


title: Hormone replacement therapy

text: HRT is associated with an increased risk of ovarian cancer, with women using HRT having about one additional case of ovarian cancer per 1,000 users. This risk is decreased when progestogen therapy is given concomitantly, as opposed to estrogen alone, and also decreases with increasing time since stopping HRT. Regarding the specific subtype, there may be a higher risk of serous cancer, but no association with clear cell, endometrioid, or mucinous ovarian cancer. Hormonal therapy in ovarian cancer survivors after surgical removal of the ovaries is generally thought to improval survival rates.


title: Hormone replacement therapy

text: In the WHI, women who took combined estrogen-progesterone therapy had a lower risk of getting colorectal cancer. However, the cancers they did have were more likely to have spread to lymph nodes or distant sites than colorectal cancer in women not taking hormones. In colorectal cancer survivors, usage of HRT is thought to lead to lower recurrence risk and overall mortality.


title: Hormone replacement therapy

text: There appears to be a significantly decreased risk of cervical squamous cell cancer in post menopausal women treated with HRT and a weak increase in adenocarcinoma. No studies have reported an increased risk of recurrence when HRT is used with cervical cancer survivors.


title: Hormone replacement therapy

text: HRT can help with the lack of sexual desire and sexual dysfunction that can occur with menopause. Epidemiological surveys of women between 40 and 69 years suggest that 75% of women remain sexually active after menopause. With increasing life spans, women today are living one third or more of their lives in a postmenopausal state, a period during which healthy sexuality can be integral to their quality of life.


title: Hormone replacement therapy

text: Decreased libido and sexual dysfunction are common issues in postmenopausal women, an entity referred to hypoactive sexual desire disorder (HSDD); its signs and symptoms can both be improved by HRT. Several hormonal changes take place during this period, including a decrease in estrogen and an increase in follicle-stimulating hormone. For most women, the majority of change occurs during the late perimenopausal and postmenopausal stages. Decreases in sex hormone-binding globulin (SHBG) and inhibin (A and B) also occur. Testosterone is present in women at a lower level than men, peaking at age 30 and declining gradually with age; there is less variation during the menopausal transition relative to estrogen and progesterone.


title: Hormone replacement therapy

text: A global consensus position statement has advised that postmenopausal testosterone replacement to premenopausal levels can be effective for HSDD. Safety information for testosterone treatment is not available beyond two years of continuous therapy however and dosing above physiologic levels is not advised. Testosterone patches have been found to restore sexual desire in post menopausal women. There is insufficient data to evaluate the impact of testosterone replacement on heart disease, breast cancer, with most trials having included women taking concomitant estrogen and progesterone and with testosterone therapy itself being relatively short in duration. In the setting of this limited data, testosterone therapy has not been associated with adverse events.


title: Hormone replacement therapy

text: Not all women are responsive, especially those with preexisting sexual difficulties. Estrogen replacement can restore vaginal cells, pH levels, and blood flow to the vagina, all of which tend to deteriorate at the onset of menopause. Pain or discomfort with sex appears to be the most responsive component to estrogen. It also has been shown to have positive effects on the urinary tract. Estrogen can also reduce vaginal atrophy and increase sexual arousal, frequency and orgasm.


title: Hormone replacement therapy

text: The effectiveness of hormone replacement can decline in some women after long-term use. A number of studies have also found that the combined effects of estrogen/androgen replacement therapy can increase libido and arousal over estrogen alone. Tibolone, a synthetic steroid with estrogenic, androgenic, and progestogenic properties that is available in Europe, has the ability to improve mood, libido, and physical symptomatology. In various placebo-controlled studies, improvements in vasomotor symptoms, emotional response, sleep disturbances, physical symptoms, and sexual desire have been seen, though it also carries a similar risk profile to conventional HRT.


title: Hormone replacement therapy

text: For prevention, the WHI suggested that HRT may increase risk of dementia if initiated after 65 years of age, but have a neutral outcome or be neuroprotective for those between 50 and 55 years. Other studies in perimenopause have shown HRT to be consistently associated with a lower risk of Alzheimer's. With Parkinson's the majority of clinical and epidemiological studies show have demonstrated either no association or inconclusive results. A Danish study suggested an increased risk of Parkinson's with HRT in cyclical dosing schedules.


title: Hormone replacement therapy

text: With regards to treatment, randomized trials have shown that HRT improves executive and attention processes outside of the context of dementia in postmenopausal women, both in those that are asymptomatic and those with mild cognitive impairment. Estrogen replacement appears to improve motor symptoms and activities of daily living in post menopausal women with Parkinson's, with significant improvement of UPDRS scores. Clinical trials have also shown testosterone replacement to be associated with small statistically significant improvements in verbal learning and memory in postmenopausal women. DHEA has not been found to improve cognitive performance after menopause. Pre-clinical studies indicate that endogenous estrogen and testosterone are neuroprotective and can prevent brain amyloid deposition.


title: Hormone replacement therapy

text: There is a significant decrease in hip fracture risk during treatment that to a lesser degree persists after HRT is stopped. It also helps collagen formation, which in turn improves intervertebral disc and bone strength.


title: Hormone replacement therapy

text: Hormone replacement therapy in the form of estrogen and androgen can be effective at reversing the effects of aging on muscle. Lower testosterone is associated with lower bone density and higher free testosterone is associated with lower hip fracture rates in older women. Testosterone therapy, which can be used for decreased sexual function, can also increase bone mineral density and muscle mass.


title: Hormone replacement therapy

text: The extraction of CEEs from the urine of pregnant mares led to the marketing in 1942 of Premarin, one of the earlier forms of estrogen to be introduced. From that time until the mid-1970s, estrogen was administered without a supplemental progestogen. Beginning in 1975, studies began to show that without a progestogen, unopposed estrogen therapy with Premarin resulted in an eight-fold increased risk of endometrial cancer, eventually causing sales of Premarin to plummet. It was recognized in the early 1980s that the addition of a progestogen to estrogen reduced this risk to the endometrium. This led to the development of combined estrogen–progestogen therapy, most commonly with a combination of conjugated equine estrogen (Premarin) and medroxyprogesterone (Provera).


title: Hormone replacement therapy

text: The Women's Health Initiative trials were conducted between 1991 and 2006 and were the first large, double-blind, placebo-controlled clinical trials of HRT in healthy women. Their results were both positive and negative, suggesting that during the time of hormone therapy itself, there are increases in invasive breast cancer, stroke and lung clots. Other risks include increased endometrial cancer, gallbladder disease, and urinary incontinence, while benefits include decreased hip fractures, decreased incidence of diabetes, and improvement of vasomotor symptoms. There is also an increased risk of dementia with HRT in women over 65, though at younger ages it appears to be neuroprotective. After the cessation of HRT, the WHI continued to observe its participants, and found that most of these risks and benefits dissipated, though some elevation in breast cancer risk did persist. Other studies have also suggested an increased risk of ovarian cancer.


title: Hormone replacement therapy

text: The arm of the WHI receiving combined estrogen and progestin therapy was closed prematurely in 2002 by its Data Monitoring Committee (DMC) due to perceived health risks, though this occurred a full year after the data suggesting increased risk became manifest. In 2004, the arm of the WHI in which post-hysterectomy patients were being treated with estrogen alone was also closed by the DMC. Clinical medical practice changed based upon two parallel Women's Health Initiative (WHI) studies of HRT. Prior studies were smaller, and many were of women who electively took hormonal therapy. One portion of the parallel studies followed over 16,000 women for an average of 5.2 years, half of whom took placebo, while the other half took a combination of CEEs and MPA (Prempro). This WHI estrogen-plus-progestin trial was stopped prematurely in 2002 because preliminary results suggested risks of combined CEEs and progestins exceeded their benefits. The first report on the halted WHI estrogen-plus-progestin study came out in July 2002.


title: Hormone replacement therapy

text: Initial data from the WHI in 2002 suggested mortality to be lower when HRT was begun earlier, between age 50 to 59, but higher when begun after age 60. In older patients, there was an apparent increased incidence of breast cancer, heart attacks, venous thrombosis, and stroke, although a reduced incidence of colorectal cancer and bone fracture. At the time, The WHI recommended that women with non-surgical menopause take the lowest feasible dose of HRT for the shortest possible time to minimize associated risks. Some of the WHI findings were again found in a larger national study done in the United Kingdom, known as the Million Women Study (MWS). As a result of these findings, the number of women taking HRT dropped precipitously. In 2012, the United States Preventive Task Force (USPSTF) concluded that the harmful effects of combined estrogen and progestin therapy likely exceeded their chronic disease prevention benefits.


title: Hormone replacement therapy

text: In 2002 when the first WHI follow up study was published, with HRT in post menopausal women, both older and younger age groups had a slightly higher incidence of breast cancer, and both heart attack and stroke were increased in older patients, although not in younger participants. Breast cancer was increased in women treated with estrogen and a progestin, but not with estrogen and progesterone or estrogen alone. Treatment with unopposed estrogen (i.e., an estrogen alone without a progestogen) is contraindicated if the uterus is still present, due to its proliferative effect on the endometrium. The WHI also found a reduced incidence of colorectal cancer when estrogen and a progestogen were used together, and most importantly, a reduced incidence of bone fractures. Ultimately, the study found disparate results for all cause mortality with HRT, finding it to be lower when HRT was begun during ages 50–59, but higher when begun after age 60. The authors of the study recommended that women with non-surgical menopause take the lowest feasible dose of hormones for the shortest time to minimize risk.


title: Hormone replacement therapy

text: The data published by the WHI suggested supplemental estrogen increased risk of venous thromboembolism and breast cancer but was protective against osteoporosis and colorectal cancer, while the impact on cardiovascular disease was mixed. These results were later supported in trials from the United Kingdom, but not in more recent studies from France and China. Genetic polymorphism appears to be associated with inter-individual variability in metabolic response to HRT in postmenopausal women.


title: Hormone replacement therapy

text: The WHI reported statistically significant increases in rates of breast cancer, coronary heart disease, strokes and pulmonary emboli. The study also found statistically significant decreases in rates of hip fracture and colorectal cancer. "A year after the study was stopped in 2002, an article was published indicating that estrogen plus progestin also increases the risks of dementia." The conclusion of the study was that the HRT combination presented risks that outweighed its measured benefits. The results were almost universally reported as risks and problems associated with HRT in general, rather than with Prempro, the specific proprietary combination of CEEs and MPA studied.


title: Hormone replacement therapy

text: After the increased clotting found in the first WHI results was reported in 2002, the number of Prempro prescriptions filled reduced by almost half. Following the WHI results, a large percentage of HRT users opted out of them, which was quickly followed by a sharp drop in breast cancer rates. The decrease in breast cancer rates has continued in subsequent years. An unknown number of women started taking alternatives to Prempro, such as compounded bioidentical hormones, though researchers have asserted that compounded hormones are not significantly different from conventional hormone therapy.


title: Hormone replacement therapy

text: The other portion of the parallel studies featured women who were post hysterectomy and so received either placebo progestogen or CEEs alone. This group did not show the risks demonstrated in the combination hormone study, and the estrogen-only study was not halted in 2002. However, in February 2004 it, too, was halted. While there was a 23% decreased incidence of breast cancer in the estrogen-only study participants, risks of stroke and pulmonary embolism were increased slightly, predominantly in patients who began HRT over the age of 60.


title: Hormone replacement therapy

text: Several other large studies and meta-analyses have reported reduced mortality for HRT in women younger than age 60 or within 10 years of menopause, and a debatable or absent effect on mortality in women over 60.


title: Hormone replacement therapy

text: Though research thus far has been substantial, further investigation is needed to fully understand differences in effect for different types of HRT and lengths of time since menopause.


title: Hormone replacement therapy

text: There are five major human steroid hormones: estrogens, progestogens, androgens, mineralocorticoids, and glucocorticoids. Estrogens and progestogens are the two most often used in menopause. They are available in a wide variety of FDA approved and non–FDA-approved formulations.


title: Hormone replacement therapy

text: In women with intact uteruses, estrogens are almost always given in combination with progestogens, as long-term unopposed estrogen therapy is associated with a markedly increased risk of endometrial hyperplasia and endometrial cancer. Conversely, in women who have undergone a hysterectomy or do not have a uterus, a progestogen is not required, and estrogen can be used alone. There are many combined formulations which include both estrogen and progestogen.


title: Hormone replacement therapy

text: Tibolone – a synthetic medication available in Europe but not the United States– is more effective than placebo but less effective than combination hormone therapy in postmenopausal women. It may have a decreased risk of breast and colorectal cancer, though conversely it can be associated with vaginal bleeding, endometrial cancer, and increase the risk of stroke in women over age 60 years.


title: Hormone replacement therapy

text: Vaginal estrogen can improve local atrophy and dryness, with fewer systemic effects than estrogens delivered by other routes. Sometimes an androgen, generally testosterone, can be added to treat diminished libido.


title: Hormone replacement therapy

text: Dosage is often varied cyclically to more closely mimic the ovarian hormone cycle, with estrogens taken daily and progestogens taken for about two weeks every month or every other month, a schedule referred to as 'cyclic' or 'sequentially combined'. Alternatively, 'continuous combined' HRT can be given with a constant daily hormonal dosage. Continuous combined HRT is associated with less complex endometrial hyerplasia than cyclic. Impact on breast density appears to be similar in both regimen timings.


title: Hormone replacement therapy

text: The medications used in menopausal HRT are available in numerous different formulations for use by a variety of different routes of administration:


title: Hormone replacement therapy

text: More recently developed forms of drug delivery are alleged to have increased local effect lower dosing, fewer side effects, and constant rather than cyclical serum hormone levels. Transdermal and vaginal estrogen, in particular, avoid first pass metabolism through the liver. This in turn prevents an increase in clotting factors and accumulation of anti-estrogenic metabolites, resulting in fewer adverse side effects, particularly with regard to cardiovascular disease and stroke.


title: Hormone replacement therapy

text: Injectable forms of estradiol exist and have been used occasionally in the past. However, they are rarely used in menopausal hormone therapy in modern times and are no longer recommended. Instead, other non-oral forms of estradiol such as transdermal estradiol are recommended and may be used. Estradiol injectables are generally well-tolerated and convenient, requiring infrequent administration. However, this form of estradiol does not release estradiol at a constant rate and there are very high circulating estradiol levels soon after injection followed by a rapid decline in levels. Injections may also be painful. Examples of estradiol injectables that may be used in menopausal hormone therapy include estradiol valerate and estradiol cypionate. In terms of injectable progestogens, injectable progesterone is associated with pain and injection site reactions as well as a short duration of action requiring very frequent injections, and is similarly not recommended in menopausal hormone therapy.


title: Hormone replacement therapy

text: Bioidentical hormone therapy (BHT) is the usage of hormones that are chemically identical to those produced in the body. Although proponents of BHT claim advantages over non-bioidentical or conventional hormone therapy, the FDA does not recognize the term 'bioidentical hormone', stating there is no scientific evidence that these hormones are identical to their naturally occurring counterparts. There are, however, FDA approved products containing hormones classified as 'bioidentical'.


title: Hormone replacement therapy

text: Bioidentical hormones can be used in either "pharmaceutical" or "compounded" preparations, with the latter generally not recommended by regulatory bodies due to their lack of standardization and regulatory oversight. Most classifications of bioidentical hormones do not take into account manufacturing, source, or delivery method of the products, and so describe both non-FDA approved compounded products and FDA approved pharmaceuticals as 'bioidentical'. The British Menopause Society has issued a consensus statement endorsing the distinction between "compounded" forms (cBHRT), described as unregulated, custom made by specialty pharmacies and subject to heavy marketing and "regulated" pharmaceutical grade forms (rBHRT), which undergo formal oversight by entities such as the FDA and form the basis of most clinical trials. Some practitioners recommending compounded bioidentical HRT also use salivary or serum hormonal testing to monitor response to therapy, a practice not endorsed by current clinical guidelines in the United States and Europe.


title: Hormone replacement therapy

text: Bioidentical hormones in pharmaceuticals may have very limited clinical data, with no randomized controlled prospective trials to date comparing them to their animal derived counterparts. Some pre-clinical data has suggested a decreased risk of venous thromboembolism, cardiovascular disease, and breast cancer. As of 2012, guidelines from the North American Menopause Society, the Endocrine Society, the International Menopause Society, and the European Menopause and Andropause Society endorsed the reduced risk of bioidentical pharmaceuticals for those with increased clotting risk.


title: Hormone replacement therapy

text: Compounding for HRT is generally discouraged by the FDA and medical industry in the United States due to a lack of regulation and standardized dosing. The U.S. Congress did grant the FDA explicit but limited oversight of compounded drugs in a 1997 amendment to the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act (FDCA), but they have encountered obstacles in this role since that time. After 64 patient deaths and 750 harmed patients from a 2012 meningitis outbreak due to contaminated steroid injections, Congress passed the 2013 Drug Quality and Security Act, authorizing creation by the FDA of a voluntary registration for facilities that manufactured compounded drugs, and reinforcing FDCA regulations for traditional compounding. The DQSA and its reinforcement of provision §503A of the FDCA solidifies FDA authority to enforce FDCA regulation of against compounders of bioidentical hormone therapy.


title: Hormone replacement therapy

text: In the United Kingdom, on the other hand, compounding is a regulated activity. The Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency regulates compounding performed under a Manufacturing Specials license and the General Pharmaceutical Council regulates compounding performed within a pharmacy. All testosterone prescribed in the United Kingdom is bioidentical, with its use supported by the National Health Service. There is also marketing authorisation for male testosterone products. National Institute for Health and Care Excellence guideline 1.4.8 states: "consider testosterone supplementation for menopausal women with low sexual desire if HRT alone is not effective". The footnote adds: "at the time of publication (November 2015), testosterone did not have a United Kingdom marketing authorisation for this indication in women. Bioidentical progesterone is used in IVF treatment and for pregnant women who are at risk of premature labour."


title: Hormone replacement therapy

text: Wyeth, now a subsidiary of Pfizer, was a pharmaceutical company that marketed the HRT products Premarin (CEEs) and Prempro (CEEs + MPA). In 2009, litigation involving Wyeth resulted in the release of 1,500 documents that revealed practices concerning its promotion of these medications. The documents showed that Wyeth commissioned dozens of ghostwritten reviews and commentaries that were published in medical journals to promote unproven benefits of its HRT products, downplay their harms and risks, and cast competing therapies in a negative light. Starting in the mid-1990s and continuing for over a decade, Wyeth pursued an aggressive "publication plan" strategy to promote its HRT products through the use of ghostwritten publications. It worked mainly with DesignWrite, a medical writing firm. Between 1998 and 2005, Wyeth had 26 papers promoting its HRT products published in scientific journals.


title: Hormone replacement therapy

text: These favorable publications emphasized the benefits and downplayed the risks of its HRT products, especially the "misconception" of the association of its products with breast cancer. The publications defended unsupported cardiovascular "benefits" of its products, downplayed risks such as breast cancer, and promoted off-label and unproven uses like prevention of dementia, Parkinson's disease, vision problems, and wrinkles. In addition, Wyeth emphasized negative messages against the SERM raloxifene for osteoporosis, instructed writers to stress the fact that "alternative therapies have increased in usage since the WHI even though there is little evidence that they are effective or safe...", called into question the quality and therapeutic equivalence of approved generic CEE products, and made efforts to spread the notion that the unique risks of CEEs and MPA were a class effect of all forms of menopausal HRT: "Overall, these data indicate that the benefit/risk analysis that was reported in the Women's Health Initiative can be generalized to all postmenopausal hormone replacement therapy products."


title: Hormone replacement therapy

text: Following the publication of the WHI data in 2002, the stock prices for the pharmaceutical industry plummeted, and huge numbers of women stopped using HRT. The stocks of Wyeth, which supplied the Premarin and Prempro that were used in the WHI trials, decreased by more than 50%, and never fully recovered. Some of their articles in response promoted themes such as the following: "the WHI was flawed; the WHI was a controversial trial; the population studied in the WHI was inappropriate or was not representative of the general population of menopausal women; results of clinical trials should not guide treatment for individuals; observational studies are as good as or better than randomized clinical trials; animal studies can guide clinical decision-making; the risks associated with hormone therapy have been exaggerated; the benefits of hormone therapy have been or will be proven, and the recent studies are an aberration." Similar findings were observed in a 2010 analysis of 114 editorials, reviews, guidelines, and letters by five industry-paid authors. These publications promoted positive themes and challenged and criticized unfavorable trials such as the WHI and MWS. In 2009, Wyeth was acquired by Pfizer in a deal valued at US$68 billion. Pfizer, a company that produces Provera and Depo-Provera (MPA) and has also engaged in medical ghostwriting, continues to market Premarin and Prempro, which remain best-selling medications.


title: Hormone replacement therapy

text: According to Fugh-Berman (2010), "Today, despite definitive scientific data to the contrary, many gynecologists still believe that the benefits of [HRT] outweigh the risks in asymptomatic women. This non-evidence–based perception may be the result of decades of carefully orchestrated corporate influence on medical literature." As many as 50% of physicians have expressed skepticism about large trials like the WHI and HERS. The positive perceptions of many physicians of HRT in spite of large trials showing risks that potentially outweigh any benefits may be due to the efforts of pharmaceutical companies like Wyeth.


title: Hormone replacement therapy

text: The 1990s showed a dramatic decline in prescription rates, though more recently they have begun to rise again. Transdermal therapy, in part due to its lack of increase in venous thromboembolism, is now often the first choice for HRT in the United Kingdom. Conjugate equine estrogen, in distinction, has a potentially higher thrombosis risk and is now not commonly used in the UK, replaced by estradiol based compounds with lower thrombosis risk. Oral progestogen combinations such as medroxyprogesterone acetate have changed to dyhydrogesterone, due to a lack of association of the latter with venous clot.


title: Gulf Oil

text: Gulf Oil was a major global oil company in operation from 1901 to 1985. The eighth-largest American manufacturing company in 1941 and the ninth-largest in 1979, Gulf Oil was one of the so-called Seven Sisters oil companies. Prior to its merger with Standard Oil of California, Gulf was one of the chief instruments of the Mellon family fortune; both Gulf and Mellon Financial had their headquarters in Pittsburgh, with Gulf's headquarters, the Gulf Tower, being Pittsburgh's tallest building until the completion of the U.S. Steel Tower.


title: Gulf Oil

text: Gulf Oil Corporation (GOC) ceased to exist as an independent company in 1985, when it merged with Standard Oil of California (SOCAL), with both re-branding as Chevron in the United States. Gulf Canada, Gulf's main Canadian subsidiary, was sold the same year with retail outlets to Ultramar and Petro-Canada and what became Gulf Canada Resources to Olympia & York. However, the Gulf brand name and a number of the constituent business divisions of GOC survived. Gulf has experienced a significant revival since 1990, emerging as a flexible network of allied business interests based on partnerships, franchises and agencies.


title: Gulf Oil

text: Gulf, in its present incarnation, is a "new economy" business. It employs very few people directly and its assets are mainly in the form of intellectual property: brands, product specifications and scientific expertise. The rights to the brand in the United States are owned by Gulf Oil Limited Partnership (GOLC), which operates over 2,100 service stations and several petroleum terminals; it is headquartered in Wellesley, Massachusetts. The corporate vehicle at the center of the Gulf network outside the United States, Spain and Portugal is Gulf Oil International, a company owned by the Hinduja Group. The company's focus is primarily in the provision of downstream products and services to a mass market through joint ventures, strategic alliances, licensing agreements, and distribution arrangement. In Spain and Portugal, the Gulf brand is now owned by TotalEnergies.


title: Gulf Oil

text: The business that became Gulf Oil started in 1901 with the discovery of oil at Spindletop near Beaumont, Texas. A group of investors came together to promote the development of a modern refinery at nearby Port Arthur to process the oil. The largest investors were Andrew Mellon and William Larimer Mellon Sr., of the Pittsburgh Mellon family. Other investors included many of Mellon's Pennsylvania clients as well as some Texas wildcatters. Mellon Bank and Gulf Oil remained closely associated thereafter. The Gulf Oil Corporation itself was formed in 1907 through the amalgamation of a number of oil businesses, principally the J.M. Guffey Petroleum Company, Gulf Pipeline Company, and Gulf Refining companies of Texas. The name of the company refers to the Gulf of Mexico where Beaumont lies.


title: Gulf Oil

text: Output from Spindletop peaked at around just after it was discovered and then started to decline. Later discoveries made 1927 the peak year of Spindletop production, but Spindletop's early decline forced Gulf to seek alternative sources of supply to sustain its substantial investment in refining capacity. This was achieved by constructing the 400-mile (640 km) Glenn Pool pipeline connecting oilfields in Oklahoma with Gulf's refinery at Port Arthur. The pipeline opened in September 1907. Gulf later built a network of pipelines and refineries in the eastern and southern United States, requiring heavy capital investment. Thus, Gulf Oil provided Mellon Bank with a secure vehicle for investing in the oil sector.


title: Gulf Oil

text: Gulf promoted the concept of branded product sales by selling gasoline in containers and from pumps marked with a distinctive orange disc logo. A customer buying Gulf-branded gasoline could be assured of its quality and consistent standard. (In the early 20th century, non-branded gasoline in the United States was often contaminated or of unreliable quality).


title: Gulf Oil

text: Gulf Oil grew steadily in the inter-war years, with its activities mainly confined to the United States. The company was characterized by its vertically integrated business activities, and was active across the whole spectrum of the oil industry: exploration, production, transport, refining and marketing. It also involved itself in associated industries such as petrochemicals and automobile component manufacturing. It introduced significant commercial and technical innovations, including the first drive-in service station (1913), complimentary road maps, drilling over water at Ferry Lake, and the catalytic cracking refining process (Gulf installed the world's first commercial catalytic cracking unit at its Port Arthur, Texas, refinery complex in 1951). Gulf also established the model for the integrated, international "oil major", which refers to one of a group of very large companies that assumed influential and sensitive positions in the countries in which they operated. In 1924 had acquired the Venezuelan-American Creole Syndicate's leases in the strip of shallow water 1.5 kilometres (0.93 mi) wide along the Lake Maracaibo east shore.


title: Gulf Oil

text: In Colombia, Gulf purchased the Barco oil concession in 1926. The government of Colombia revoked the concession the same year, but after much negotiation Gulf won it back in 1931. However, during a period of over-capacity, Gulf was more interested in holding the reserve than developing it. In 1936 Gulf sold Barco to the Texas Corporation, now Texaco, and they would eventually all merge as Chevron.


title: Gulf Oil

text: Gulf had extensive exploration and production operations in the Gulf of Mexico, Canada, and Kuwait. The company played a major role in the early development of oil production in Kuwait, and through the 1950s and '60s apparently enjoyed a "special relationship" with the Kuwaiti government. This special relationship attracted unfavorable attention since it was associated with "political contributions" (see below) and support for anti-democratic politics, as evidenced by papers taken from the body of a Gulf executive killed in the crash of a TWA aircraft at Cairo in 1950.


title: Gulf Oil

text: In 1934, the Kuwait Oil Company (KOC) was formed as a joint venture by British Petroleum, then called the Anglo-Persian Oil Company (APOC), and Gulf. Both APOC and Gulf held equal shares in the venture. KOC pioneered the exploration for oil in Kuwait during the late 1930s. Oil was discovered at Burgan in 1938 but it was not until 1946 that the first crude oil was shipped. Oil production started from Rawdhatain in 1955 and Minagish in 1959. KOC started gas production in 1964. It was the cheap oil and gas being shipped from Kuwait that formed the economic basis for Gulf's diverse petroleum sector operations in Europe, the Mediterranean, Africa, and the Indian subcontinent. These last operations were coordinated by Gulf Oil Company, Eastern Hemisphere Ltd (GOCEH) from their offices at 2 Portman Street in London W1. While serving as General Manager and Vice President of Gulf Oil, Willard F. Jones facilitated the expansion of crude oil import from Kuwait, a nation that was - at the time - a yet incipient supply region to the United States. This expansion program implemented by Robert E. Garret and Jones consisted of construction of a fleet of supertankers and was meant to "result in a sharp increase in the processing of crude oil and various petroleum products at a time when the domestic demand for (such) products (was) at an unprecedented peak."


title: Gulf Oil

text: Gulf expanded on a worldwide basis from the end of the Second World War. The company leveraged its international drilling experience to other areas of the world, and by mid-1943 had established a presence in the eastern oil fields of Venezuela as Mene Grande Oil Company. Much of the company's retail sales expansion was through the acquisition of privately owned chains of filling stations in various countries, allowing Gulf outlets to sell product (sometimes through "matching" arrangements) from the oil that it was "lifting" in Canada, the Gulf of Mexico, Kuwait, and Venezuela. Some of these acquisitions were to prove less than resilient in the face of economic and political developments from the 1970s on. Gulf invested heavily in product technology and developed many specialty products, particularly for application in the maritime and aviation engineering sectors. It was particularly noted for its range of lubricants and greases.


title: Gulf Oil

text: Gulf Oil reached the peak of its development around 1970. In that year, the company processed of crude daily, held assets worth $6.5 billion ($ billion today), employed 58,000 employees worldwide, and was owned by 163,000 shareholders. In addition to its petroleum marketing interests, Gulf was a major producer of petrochemicals, plastics, and agricultural chemicals. Through its subsidiary, Gulf General Atomic Inc., it was also active in the nuclear energy sector. Gulf abandoned its involvement in the nuclear sector after a failed deal to build atomic power plants in Romania in the mid-1970s.


title: Gulf Oil

text: In 1974, the Kuwait National Assembly took a 60 percent stake in the equity of KOC with the remaining 40 percent divided equally between BP and Gulf. The Kuwaitis took over the rest of the equity in 1975, giving them full ownership of KOC. This meant that Gulf (EH) had to start supplying its downstream operations in Europe with crude bought on the world market at commercial prices. The whole GOC(EH) edifice now became highly marginal in an economic sense. Many of the marketing companies that Gulf had established in Europe were never truly viable on a stand-alone basis. In 1976 during the nationalization of Venezuelan oil, the transfer of properties, benefits, equipment of Gulf Oil to PDVSA was carried out without any setback and with full satisfaction on both parts.


title: Gulf Oil

text: Gulf was at the forefront of various projects in the late 1960s intended to adjust the world oil industry to developments of the time including closure of the Suez Canal after the 1967 war. In particular, Gulf undertook the construction of deep water terminals at Bantry Bay in Ireland and Okinawa in Japan capable of handling Ultra Large Crude Carrier (ULCC) vessels serving the European and Asian markets respectively. In 1968, the "Universe Ireland" was added to Gulf's tanker fleet. At , this was the largest vessel in the world and incapable of berthing at most normal ports.


title: Gulf Oil

text: Gulf also participated in a partnership with other majors, including Texaco, to build the Pembroke Catalytic Cracker refinery at Milford Haven and the associated Mainline Pipelines fuel distribution network. The eventual reopening of the Suez canal and upgrading of the older European oil terminals (Europoort and Marchwood) meant that the financial return from these projects was not all that had been hoped for. The Bantry terminal was devastated by the explosion of a Total tanker, the "Betelgeuse", in January 1979 (Whiddy Island disaster) and it was never fully reopened. The Irish government took over ownership of the terminal in 1986 and held its strategic oil reserve there.


title: Gulf Oil

text: In the 1970s, Gulf participated in the development of new oilfields in the UK North Sea and in Cabinda, although these were high-cost operations that never compensated for the loss of Gulf's interest in Kuwait. A mercenary army had to be raised to protect the oil installations in Cabinda during the Angolan civil war. The Angolan connection was another "special relationship" that attracted comment. In the late 1970s, Gulf was effectively funding a Soviet bloc regime in Africa while the US government was attempting to overthrow that regime by supporting the UNITA rebels led by Jonas Savimbi.


title: Gulf Oil

text: In 1975, several senior Gulf executives, including chairman Bob Dorsey, were implicated in the making of illegal "political contributions" and were forced to step down from their positions. This loss of senior personnel at a critical time in Gulf's fortunes may have had a bearing on the events that followed.


title: Gulf Oil

text: Gulf's operations worldwide were struggling financially in the recession of the early 1980s, so Gulf's management devised the "Big Jobber" strategic realignment in 1981 (along with a program of selective divestments) to maintain viability. The Big Jobber strategy recognized that the day of the integrated, multi-national oil major might be over, since it involved concentrating on those parts of the supply chain where Gulf had a competitive advantage.


title: Gulf Oil

text: In the late 1930s, Gulf's aviation manager, Maj. Alford J. Williams, had the Grumman Aircraft Engineering Corporation construct two modified biplanes, cleaned-up versions of the Grumman F3F Navy fighter, for promotional use by the company. Wearing Gulf Oil company colors and logos, the Grumman G-22 "Gulfhawk II", registered "NR1050", was delivered in December 1936, and in 1938 Maj. Williams flew it on a tour of Europe. A second scavenger pump and five drain lines were added to the engine installation that allowed the aircraft to be flown inverted for up to thirty minutes. This aircraft is now preserved in the National Air and Space Museum in Washington, D.C. A second airplane, the Grumman G-32 "Gulfhawk III", registered "NC1051", was delivered on May 6, 1938. Impressed by the Army Air Force in November 1942 for use as a VIP transport and designated a UC-103, it crashed in the southern Florida Everglades in early 1943.


title: Gulf Oil

text: Gulf Oil was the primary sponsor for NBC News special events coverage in the 1960s, notably for coverage of the U.S. space program. It also became a sponsor for a program called NBC News Special Report. The logo even appeared on the front cross-shaped desk of every special events and coverage broadcast by the network and it was notably used by Chet Huntley and David Brinkley or the other correspondents since the 1964 Republican National Convention. The company used the connection to its advantage by offering giveaway or promotional items at its stations, including sticker sheets of space mission logos, a paper punch-out lunar module model kit, and a book titled "We Came in Peace," containing pictures of the Apollo 11 moon landing. Gulf was also a major sponsor of "Walt Disney's Wonderful World of Color", which also aired on NBC. Disney magazines and activity books were often given away with a gas fill-up. Gulf was also noted for its "Tourgide" road maps.


title: Gulf Oil

text: One particularly memorable Gulf advertisement carried by NBC during their coverage of the Apollo missions showed aerial and onboard views of the "Universe Ireland" with Tommy Makem and the Clancy Brothers singing "Bringin' Home the Oil" – a tribute to the opening of Gulf's operations in Bantry Bay.


title: Gulf Oil

text: Gulf Oil was most synonymous for its association with auto racing, as it famously sponsored the John Wyer Automotive team in the 1960s and early '70s. The signature light blue and orange color scheme associated with its Ford GT40 and Porsche 917 is one of the most famous corporate racing colors and has been replicated by other racing teams sponsored by Gulf. Much of its popularity is attributed to the fact that in the 1971 film "Le Mans", Steve McQueen's character, "Michael Delaney", drives for the Gulf team. As a result of McQueen's increasing popularity following his death and the increasing popularity of the Heuer Monaco which he wore in the film, TAG Heuer released a limited edition of the watch with the Gulf logo and trademark color scheme. In the same era, Gulf Oil also sponsored Team McLaren during the Bruce McLaren days, which used a papaya orange color scheme with Gulf blue for lettering. In July 2020, Gulf Oil Limited announced a multi-year strategic partnership with McLaren.


title: Gulf Oil

text: From 1963 to 1980, Gulf Oil had a formal agreement with Holiday Inn, the world's largest lodging chain, for which Holiday Inns in the U.S. and Canada would accept Gulf credit cards for food and lodging. In return, Gulf placed service stations on the premises of many Holiday Inn properties along major U.S. highways to provide one-stop availability for gasoline, auto service, food and lodging. Many older Holiday Inns still have those original Gulf stations on their properties, some in operation and some closed, but few operate today as Gulf stations.


title: Gulf Oil

text: Gulf No-Nox gasoline was promoted with a bucking horse leaving an imprint of two horseshoes. Several promotions centered on the two horseshoes. In 1966 bright orange 3-D plastic self-adhesive horseshoes for car bumpers were given away. Another popular giveaway was during the 1968 election season, gold horseshoe lapel pins featuring either a Democratic donkey or a Republican elephant.


title: Gulf Oil

text: By 1980, Gulf exhibited many of the characteristics of a giant corporation that had lost its way. It had a huge but poorly performing asset portfolio, associated with a depressed share price. The stock market value of Gulf started to drop below the break-up value of its assets. Such a situation was bound to attract the interest of corporate raiders, although a corporation in the top 100 of the Fortune 500 was in the early 1980s thought immune to takeover risk.


title: Gulf Oil

text: Its undoing as an independent company began in 1982 when T. Boone Pickens, an Amarillo, Texas, oilman and corporate raider (or greenmailer), and owner of Mesa Petroleum, made an offer for the comparatively larger (but still considered "non-major" oil company) Cities Service Company (more generally known by the name Citgo) from Tulsa, Oklahoma, which was then trading in the low 20s. Pickens first privately offered $45 a share for a friendly takeover and then later made a $50 a share public offer when Cities' CEO rejected the friendly offer. Gulf forestalled Mesa's takeover attempt by offering $63 a share in a friendly offer which Cities (by then trading at $37) accepted. Cities then bought out Pickens for $55 a share. Once Pickens was gone, Gulf reneged on its buyout offer, supposedly over a dispute regarding accuracy of Cities Service's reserves, and the stock price of Cities plunged, triggering stockholder lawsuits as well as distrust for Gulf's management on Wall Street and among financing investment banks who bet big in assisting Gulf to defeat Mesa only to be left broke when Gulf backed out. Cities Service was ultimately sold to Occidental Petroleum, and the retail operations were resold to Southland Corporation, the operators of 7-Eleven stores. Gulf's termination of the Cities Service acquisition resulted in more than 15 years of shareholder litigation against Gulf (and later Chevron).


title: Gulf Oil

text: With declining margins in the industry and left without Citgo's reserves, Mesa and its investor partners kept hunting for a takeover target, only to discover while fighting Gulf for Citgo how increasingly top-heavy its portfolio and declining reserves were undervaluing its overall assets. They subtly but quickly acquired 4.9 percent of Gulf Oil's stock by early fall 1983, just shy of having to declare themselves and their intent at 5 percent to the SEC. In the ten days allowed to prepare the SEC filing, Mesa and its investor partners accelerated buying to 11 percent of the company's stock, larger than the founding Mellon family's share, by October 1983. Gulf responded to Mesa's interest by calling a shareholders' meeting for late November 1983 and subsequently engaged in a proxy war on changing the corporation's by-laws to minimize arbitrage. Pickens made loud criticisms of the existing Gulf management and offered an alternative business plan intended to release shareholder value through a royalty trust that management argued would "slim down" Gulf's market share. Pickens had acquired the reputation of being a corporate raider whose skill lay in making profits out of bidding for companies but without actually acquiring them. During the early 1980s alone, he made failed bids for Cities Service, General American Oil, Gulf, Phillips Petroleum and Unocal. The process of making such bids would promote a frenzy of asset divestiture and debt reduction in the target companies. This is a standard defensive tactic calculated to boost the current share price, although possibly at the expense of long-term strategic advantage. The target shares would rise sharply in price, at which point Pickens would dispose of his interest at a substantial profit.


title: Gulf Oil

text: Gulf management and directors took the view that the Mesa bid represented an undervaluation of the Gulf business as a long-term going concern and that it was not in the interest of Gulf shareholders. James Lee, Gulf's CEO and chairman, even claimed during the November 1983 shareholders meeting to address the Mesa ownership that Pickens' royalty trust idea was nothing more than a "get-rich-quick scheme" that would undermine the corporation's profit potential in the coming decades. Gulf, therefore, sought to resist Pickens by various means, including refiling as a Delaware corporation, voiding the ability of shareholders to cumulatively vote (fearing that Pickens would use his shares to gain control of the board) and listening to offers from Ashland Oil (which would double Gulf's price from its pre-Mesa level), General Electric (two years before it took over the media company NBC/RKO) and finally Chevron to act as its white knight in 1984. Gulf divested many of its worldwide operating subsidiaries and then merged with Chevron by the spring of 1985. The Mesa group of investors was reported to have made a profit of $760 million ($ million today) when it assigned its Gulf shares to Chevron. Pickens has claimed that after realizing a more than doubling of stock appreciation for Gulf shareholders (as well as its management that fought him at every turn), Mesa's shares were the last to be paid out by Chevron.


title: Gulf Oil

text: The forced merger of Gulf and Chevron was controversial, with the U.S. Senate considering legislation to freeze oil industry mergers for a year—before the Reagan administration made it known it opposed government intervention in the matter and would veto any bill. However, Pickens and Lee (Gulf's CEO) were summoned to testify before the Senate months before the merger was hammered out and the matter was referred to the Federal Trade Commission (FTC). The FTC only approved the deal subject to strict conditions. Never before had a "small operator" successfully taken apart a Fortune 500 corporation, or in Gulf's case a "Fortune 10" corporation. The merger sent even deeper shock waves through the long-time exclusive "Seven Sisters" club of major integrated oil companies that defined themselves as elevated from the "non-major independents". A board member of Exxon even admitted in the mid-1980s that "mostly all we talk about in board meetings anymore is T. Boone Pickens". Chevron, to settle with the government antitrust requirements, sold some Gulf stations and a refinery in the eastern United States to British Petroleum (BP) and Cumberland Farms in 1985 as well as some of the international operations.


title: Gulf Oil

text: The effect on the Pittsburgh area was severe as close to 900 PhD and research jobs and 600 headquarters (accounting, law, clerical) jobs were transferred to California or cut, a payroll of $54 million ($ million today) and corporate charity to 50 Western Pennsylvania organizations worth $2 million/year ($ million/year today). These losses were mitigated some with the donation of Gulf Labs in suburban north Pittsburgh to the University of Pittsburgh to be used as a research business incubator along with $5 million ($ million today) in maintenance and seed money. The "Gulf Labs" research complex consisted of 55 multi-story buildings with on and including several chemical labs, petroleum production and refining areas and even a nuclear laboratory complete with reactor in 1985 and employed close to 2,000 engineers and scientists operating with a $100 million budget ($ million today) from Gulf/Chevron. After its donation, it was renamed the University of Pittsburgh Applied Research Center or U-PARC and opened to small technology, computer and engineering firms as well as graduate level research.


title: Gulf Oil

text: BP, Chevron, Cumberland Farms and other companies that acquired former Gulf operations continued to use the Gulf name through the early 1990s. This caused consumer confusion in the US retail market as the parent companies would not accept each other's credit cards. All former Gulf stations franchised by BP and Chevron in the United States have since been converted to those names. Gulf Oil Limited Partnership (GOLP), based in Framingham, Massachusetts, has bought a license for North American rights to the Gulf brand from Chevron. Chevron still owned the Gulf brand, but was making almost no direct use of it. In January 2010, GOLP bought the entire brand from Chevron and began a nationwide expansion campaign. GOLP operates a distribution network reaching from Maine to Ohio. Most Gulf-branded filling stations in North America are owned by Cumberland Farms of Framingham, which owns a two-thirds interest in GOLP. In addition there are some independently owned franchises still operating under the Gulf brand within North America, such as Nu-Tier Brands, Inc., which is licensed by GOLP to blend and distribute Gulf-branded lubricants. lubes website</ref>


title: Gulf Oil

text: Gulf Oil International (GOI) owns the rights to the Gulf brand outside the United States, Spain & Portugal. It is now owned by the Hinduja Group. After they acquired a large share from the Taher family, a major Saudi Arabian family led by Dr. Abdulhadi H. Taher (former governor of the Saudi Petroleum and Mineral organization and board member of Aramco). GOI trades mainly in lubricants, oils, and greases. GOI is also involved in franchising the Gulf brand to operators in the petroleum and automotive sectors; Gulf-branded filling stations can be found in several countries including the UK, Belgium, Germany, Ireland, Slovakia, Czechia, the Netherlands, Jordan, Finland and Turkey. GOI has direct and indirect interests in a number of businesses that use the Gulf brand under license.