title: Raiden (Mortal Kombat)

text: In "", Raiden confronts the Deadly Alliance himself. When Onaga, the Dragon King, enters the fray, Raiden momentarily sets aside his differences with the Deadly Alliance and assist them in their attempts to repel Onaga. Raiden releases his godly essence, resulting in an enormous explosion that kills the alliance, but fails to harm Onaga. Raiden's essence soon gathers again in Earthrealm, albeit corrupted and reformed into a darker variant of himself. Raiden has become furious with the way Earthrealm's inhabitants had treated their realm, which increases once he learns that Shujinko had foolishly unleashed the Dragon King. With his patience exhausted, Raiden chooses to take matters into his own hands. Exhuming Liu Kang's corpse, he takes it to an underground temple that belonged to the Houan, an ancient sect of necromancers whom he had destroyed centuries earlier, and revives his former ally. Liu Kang's reanimated corpse became the enforcer of Raiden's will as he sent it on a mission to wreak havoc on those he believed did harm to Earthrealm.


title: Raiden (Mortal Kombat)

text: This caught the attention of Shinnok, who appears before Raiden and offers him an alliance. Despite being aware of the former's deceptive nature, Raiden accepts in an attempt to secretly uncover Shinnok's plans. Raiden's story is further expanded in the Konquest mode of "", when he encounters Taven and reveals to him that he had struck a deal with Shao Kahn, agreeing to let the Emperor conquer and rule all other realms so long as Earthrealm was left alone. In return, Raiden agreed to hunt and eliminate Taven for the Kahn so that he could claim Blaze's godlike power for himself. Raiden confronts Taven, only to be defeated. Raiden would later fight against Shao Kahn when the two became the last surviving warriors. The latter emerged victorious, but the former was able to send a message to his past self before Shao Kahn could finish him off.


title: Raiden (Mortal Kombat)

text: In the 2011 "Mortal Kombat" reboot, Raiden's past self receives an ominous vision from his future self and works to avert the events of "Armageddon". Although he succeeds and kills Shao Kahn with the assistance of the Elder Gods, his decisions resulted in many of Earthrealm's defenders, including Liu Kang, being killed and turned into Quan Chi's undead revenants.


title: Raiden (Mortal Kombat)

text: In "Mortal Kombat X", Raiden and Fujin join forces to defend the sky temple from Shinnok, Quan Chi, and the revenants. In the process, they manage to defeat the fallen Elder God and trap him in his amulet as well as revive the fallen Jax, Sub-Zero, and Scorpion. Twenty years later, Raiden discovers Shinnok's amulet was stolen and works with Earthrealm's new defenders to retrieve it. However, he fails to stop Quan Chi from releasing Shinnok, who takes Raiden prisoner so he can corrupt Earthrealm's Jinsei. After Cassie Cage defeats the Elder God, she helps Raiden purify the Jinsei by drawing Shinnok's energy into him. Following this, Raiden confronts the Netherrealm's new rulers, Liu Kang and Kitana, and presents them with Shinnok's decapitated head to prove he will show no mercy to those who threaten Earthrealm.


title: Raiden (Mortal Kombat)

text: In "Mortal Kombat 11", having used Shinnok's amulet to become Dark Raiden once more, he leads an assault on the Netherrealm with the Special Forces to destroy their cathedral and succeed. In doing so however, he unknowingly angered the keeper of time and Shinnok's mother, Kronika, who decides to rewrite history to undo his interference. She creates a time storm that erases Dark Raiden from history, but brings a younger version of him from the past due to his being immortal. After learning of his future self's fate, Raiden works with the Special Forces, Kotal Kahn, and past versions of his allies to defeat Kronika, only to learn that the Elder Gods had been killed. As a result, Raiden slowly gives into his dark impulses and uses Shinnok's amulet to empower himself like his future self did. When his version of Liu Kang tries to stop him from attacking Scorpion, Raiden sees visions of other timelines where they fought and realizes Kronika manipulated them all because she fears his and Liu Kang's combined power. Once Kronika learns of this, she kidnaps Liu Kang, forcing Raiden and his allies to mount a rescue mission to save him. Along the way, he confronts Liu Kang's revenant and merges with him and the past Liu Kang to become Fire God Liu Kang, who goes on to defeat Kronika. Once he does so, a mortal version of Raiden joins Liu Kang to advise him on forging a new history since the battle took them to the beginning of time. In the DLC story expansion, "Aftermath", the mortal Raiden attempts to stop Shang Tsung after he approaches them and claims they cannot use Kronika's Hourglass without her Crown of Souls, though Liu Kang allows the sorcerer to go back in time to retrieve a past version of it. While in the past, Shang Tsung works with the past Raiden and his allies to secure the Crown and attempt to save the future, though he betrays everyone during the final battle. When Raiden and Fujin try to stop him, the sorcerer defeats them and drains their souls while keeping their bodies alive for future use. In the expansion's bad ending, Raiden serves Shang Tsung in conquering the realms.


title: Raiden (Mortal Kombat)

text: In the crossover fighting game "Mortal Kombat vs. DC Universe", Raiden fights Shao Kahn until the former sends him into a portal that causes the latter to fuse with Darkseid and turn them into Dark Kahn, which in turn fuses the Mortal Kombat and DC Universes. Despite clashes with members of the Justice League, Raiden works with Superman to defeat Dark Kahn and undo the fusions; later imprisoning Darkseid in the Netherrealm. In his arcade ending, Raiden returns to his realm to find that exposure to his world's sun has weakened him greatly. Quan Chi offers him a jade amulet of unknown origin that can restore his powers. Raiden is given a choice between a life of servitude to the sorcerer or mortality.


title: Raiden (Mortal Kombat)

text: He was also included as a playable DLC guest character alongside Sub-Zero in "Injustice 2". In his arcade ending for the game, after mysteriously being transported to the "Injustice" universe and defeating Brainiac, Raiden is warned by a dying-Doctor Fate that "armageddon is coming". To avert it, he helps found the Justice League Dark and becomes its leader.


title: Raiden (Mortal Kombat)

text: As designer John Tobias sought inspiration for more characters in "Mortal Kombat", he visited the Field Museum of Natural History and in their Japanese artifacts display of the Asian antiquities wing, he found a statue of the Raijin, and decided that the game needed a Japanese thunder god. On his research of the Raijin, Tobias decided to take in the deity's alternate spelling of Raiden, and seeing that the traditional Shinto Raijin was usually portrayed as a small, red-skinned demon-like creature that beats a drum to create thunder, opted to employ a different design. Tobias took inspiration from the character Lightning from the film "Big Trouble in Little China", a lackey with the ability to ride and control lightning and wore a conical hat.


title: Raiden (Mortal Kombat)

text: Raiden's name was spelled this way in all of the original arcade games and in every game since "Mortal Kombat 4". However, the PC and console ports released until "Mortal Kombat Trilogy", along with both movies and the TV series, changed the name to "Rayden", fearing the original spelling would lead to copyright issues from a shoot 'em up game called "Raiden". Ed Boon personally hated that Acclaim spelled it with a Y.


title: Raiden (Mortal Kombat)

text: In an interview featured in "Deception", Ed Boon said that the hat that actor Carlos Pesina wore to portray the character in the earlier "Mortal Kombat" games was ruined as a result of Pesina repeatedly performing falls during production. "Mortal Kombat" and "Deadly Alliance" states that Raiden is seven feet tall, but his sprite was the same height as the other fighters. His coolie hat is his most recognizable feature, and he occasionally wields a quarterstaff that holds the power of thunder and lightning. The Chinese character for "thunder", 雷, is visible on most of his costumes. A saya (katana scabbard) appears on Raiden's secondary costumes in "Deadly Alliance", "Deception", and "Armageddon", but he is never seen actually using the sword. Raiden has electricity pulsating across his body in "Mortal Kombat", "Mortal Kombat 4", and "Deadly Alliance". He has glowing white (occasionally blue) eyes, which glow red in "Deception" and "Armageddon."


title: Raiden (Mortal Kombat)

text: Raiden was voiced by Midway employee Jon Hey in the first two games. He became well known for yelling randomly while performing his "Torpedo" move (aka "the Superman move"). Fans originally believed that he was yelling in Japanese, while others believed it to be mangled English phrases such as "Your momma's from LA", or "Get back in the car". John Tobias revealed that Raiden was merely speaking gibberish and not actual Japanese, as it was originally intended.


title: Raiden (Mortal Kombat)

text: According to the Konquest mode in "Mortal Kombat: Deadly Alliance", Raiden has mastered all of more than 750 documented varieties of jujutsu, which is his secondary fighting style.


title: Raiden (Mortal Kombat)

text: Raiden's Fatality in the original game, in which he obliterated his opponent's head with a lightning strike, was drastically altered in the Super NES version due to Nintendo's strict no-blood policy at the time. The decapitation was changed to the opponent simply turning into a gray pile of dust and a skull. In the same game, by using Raiden's finishing move on the final opponent in the third Endurance match, Goro appeared with a glitchy body that was the same shade of gray as the ashes of Raiden's defeated opponent.


title: Raiden (Mortal Kombat)

text: Raiden was originally going to use his staff as a weapon already in "Mortal Kombat II", but Midway was forced to omit it due to memory constraints. He was unplayable in "Mortal Kombat 3" where he appeared in the attract mode to state that he was forbidden from participating in the game's conflict. He also appeared as part of Nightwolf's Friendship, which saw Nightwolf transform into Raiden alongside a "Mortal Kombat II" arcade cabinet. The Friendship would include one of two quotes, ""I've never seen a Kano transformation"", or ""No, But I Can Do a Raiden Transformation"", both of which were based on false reports that Kano was secretly playable in "Mortal Kombat II" and Raiden likewise in "Mortal Kombat 3". After Raiden became playable in the update "Mortal Kombat Trilogy", the Nintendo 64 version changed the Friendship.


title: Raiden (Mortal Kombat)

text: Raiden appears in the "Mortal Kombat" comic books in his usual role as the guide and mentor of the Earthrealm warriors. He and Shang Tsung were often portrayed as bitter enemies, and he was forbidden from intervening in the mortals' affairs, as shown when Johnny Cage was to answer one of the questions in the Tao Te Zhan. However, in a departure from the storyline of the first game, he was not allowed to participate in the tournament in the miniseries "Blood & Thunder," due to his godly status.


title: Raiden (Mortal Kombat)

text: Raiden co-starred in his own three-issue miniseries "Rayden & Kano". In this miniseries, it is stated that, while his fellow gods stay out of mortal affairs, Raiden never remains silent, and always tries to give the good side an advantage in the eternal struggle. Raiden saved Kano's life and attempted to give him a sword called "Ebbonrule", which drew strength from an evil man who turned to the side of good. Raiden hoped Kano would slay Shao Kahn using the sword's power, but Kano gave the sword to Shao Kahn instead in exchange for godlike powers, which left Raiden to realize that his actions would never tip the balance of good and evil. During the last "Tournament Edition" issue, Raiden commandeered the group of heroes in Shao Kahn's tournament. He ultimately sacrificed himself to save the team from an ambush by Kano, Kintaro, Goro and Smoke. Raiden was depicted as having two female servants, named Wynd and Rayne.


title: Raiden (Mortal Kombat)

text: In the first "Mortal Kombat" movie, Raiden, who is played by Christopher Lambert, is disallowed from participating in the tournament, but remains the guiding god of thunder, bent on doing all within his power to help Earth's chosen warriors gain victory. His wardrobe consisted of a robe which hides his attire from the first game (his rain hat was worn only once at the beginning of the film). His eyes occasionally displayed his true nature and he was seen teleporting only once. Raiden also possessed a dry sense of humor that was sometimes lost on the other characters, often prompting him to apologize after making dry remarks. According to the 'Making of Mortal Kombat' published by New Line Cinema, Raiden's role was "to protect the Earth Warriors and make sure Shang Tsung's forces don't cheat to win". On the ship taking all tournament contestants to Tsung's island, Raiden informed the Earth warriors that he had looked into all their souls, and one of three would decide the outcome: Liu Kang, Johnny Cage or Sonya Blade. Raiden also appeared in the animated film "" as the guide of the protagonists voiced by Randy Hamilton.


title: Raiden (Mortal Kombat)

text: Raiden was played by James Remar in the 1997 sequel, "". He is much more involved in the action of the film, besting Shao Kahn and threatening to kill his generals in his first action scene. By consulting the Elder Gods, he sacrifices his immortality to reunite with Queen Sindel, closing Kahn's invasion of Earthrealm and violating the rules of Mortal Kombat. At the end of the film, Raiden is revealed as the brother of Shao Kahn and the son of Shinnok in the film's original storyline, which included both Raiden and Kahn sporting a dragon tattoo that was explained to be a family crest bestowed to his family's bloodline, and allowed its bearers to travel safely between realms. A fight scene he was planned to have with Sheeva was included in the shooting script, but it was eventually cut from the film; Raiden instead fought a pair of Saurians/Reptile clones (known in the promotion as "Raptors") while Sheeva died after being crushed by a falling cage. In the end, he became an Elder God in the place of his father.


title: Raiden (Mortal Kombat)

text: Jeffrey Meek played Raiden in the live-action series "". Unlike his film and game incarnations, this Raiden is far more upbeat, with a sarcastic personality making him less aloof toward humans. He was Kung Lao's mentor since childhood, and constantly reminds the young warrior of his duty to find new fighters to protect Earthrealm and to prepare for the next Mortal Kombat tournament. Meek also played Shao Kahn in the show and the final episode featured a stand off between both characters played by the same actor.


title: Raiden (Mortal Kombat)

text: Raiden was a regular in the 1996 animated series "" and was voiced by Clancy Brown (who had risen to fame portraying Christopher Lambert's nemesis in the 1986 movie "Highlander"). He was depicted in his "Mortal Kombat II" attire and retained the dry wit and sarcasm of his "Conquest" counterpart, clashing with Sonya and Jax in several episodes.


title: Raiden (Mortal Kombat)

text: Raiden is one of the many re-imagined characters in "", featured in the sixth episode and portrayed by Ryan Robbins. He crashed landed to Earth to participate in the Mortal Kombat tournament, but he, unfortunately, landed within the bounds of a mental hospital. He is found by a young female patient named Blue, whom he befriends, and taken in by orderlies. After three months of therapy, his doctor believes that Raiden is still under the delusion that he is the God of Thunder, and constantly vomits a blue substance. He is swiftly lobotomized, but due to his supernatural abilities, recovers from it. He attempts to escape but is lobotomized once again. Blue finds him and locks the door to the room, and Raiden tells her to stab him. After a tearful goodbye, Blue stabs him, causing him to disintegrate into lightning and smoke. Raiden reappears elsewhere and takes his signature hat from an old Chinese man. David Lee McInnis plays Raiden in the 2013 second series of "Mortal Kombat: Legacy" questioning Johnny Cage if he's accepted his invitation as Cage himself got an offer last season via Shang Tsung.


title: Raiden (Mortal Kombat)

text: Raiden appears as an Easter Egg in Shazam! in where during a montage where Billy Batson is testing out his new superpowers as Shazam, there is a scene where and Freddy Freeman play Mortal Kombat X together and ironically, Billy plays as Raiden, which could potentially reference Shazam's power to shoot lightning bolts.


title: Raiden (Mortal Kombat)

text: Raiden is parodied in Broforce as a playable character called Broden. Just like Raiden from Mortal Kombat, Raiden can shoot bolts of lightning from his hands, can shoot tornadoes and perform uppercuts. He is also apparently able of easily knocking out every boss in the game.


title: Raiden (Mortal Kombat)

text: Raiden is often included on the list of the top characters of the "Mortal Kombat" franchise. He was ranked as the 10th best character from the series by UGO.com, who praised him as one of the iconic characters from the franchise. He was sixth in Game Revolution's ranking of top ten "old school" "Mortal Kombat" characters, noting him for his gibberish and the Fergality. In UGO's 2012 list of the top "Mortal Kombat" characters, Raiden placed fourth.


title: Raiden (Mortal Kombat)

text: In 2011, UGO ranked his hat as the 14th coolest headgear in video games and commented "Kung Lao’s got a slick topper that he can also use as a weapon, but Lord Raiden’s conical straw hat is untouchable." It was ranked as having the fourth best headwear in video gaming by GamePro in 2009. In 2011, "Paste" listed Raiden's Fatality in the 2011 "Mortal Kombat" game as the sixth best from that game, and his Fatality from the original "Mortal Kombat" as the second-best from that game. In 2012, "Complex" ranked him as the 32nd "most dominant" fighting game character.


Armour-piercing fin-stabilized discarding sabot (APFSDS), long dart penetrator, or simply dart ammunition, is a type of kinetic energy penetrator ammunition used to attack modern vehicle armour. As an armament for main battle tanks, it succeeds Armour-Piercing Discarding Sabot (APDS) ammunition, which is still used in small or medium caliber weapon systems.


title: Armour-piercing fin-stabilized discarding sabot

text: Improvements in powerful automotive propulsion and suspension systems following World War II allowed modern main battle tanks to incorporate progressively thicker and heavier armour protection systems, while maintaining considerable maneuverability and speed on the battlefield. As a result, achieving deep armour penetration with gun-fired ammunition required even longer anti-armour projectiles fired at even higher muzzle velocity than could be achieved with stubbier APDS projectiles.


text: Armour-piercing discarding sabot (APDS) was initially the main design of the kinetic energy (KE) penetrator. The logical progression was to make the shot longer and thinner to concentrate the kinetic energy in a smaller area. However, a long, thin rod is aerodynamically unstable; it tends to tumble in flight and is less accurate. Traditionally, rounds were given stability in flight from the rifling of the gun barrel, which imparts a spin to the round. Up to a certain limit, this is effective, but once the projectile's length is more than six or seven times its diameter, rifling becomes less effective. Adding fins like the fletching of an arrow to the base gives the round stability.


text: The spin from standard rifling decreases the performance of these rounds (rifling diverts some of the linear kinetic energy to rotational kinetic energy, thus decreasing the round's velocity and impact energy), and very high rotation on a fin-stabilized projectile can dramatically increase aerodynamic drag, further reducing impact velocity. For these reasons APFSDS projectiles are generally fired from smoothbore guns, a practice that has been taken up for tank guns by China, India, Israel, Italy, Japan, France, Germany, Pakistan, Turkey, Russia, and the United States. Nevertheless, in the early development of APFSDS ammunition, existing rifled barrel cannons were used, (and are still in use), such as the 105 mm M68/M68E1 cannon mounted on the M60/A1/A3 main battle tank or the British 120 mm Royal Ordnance L30 of the Challenger 2 tank. To reduce the spin rate when using a rifled barrel, a "slip obturator", (slip obturation ring), is incorporated that allows the high pressure propellant gasses to seal, yet not transfer the total spin rate of the rifling into the projectile. The projectile still exits the barrel with some residual spinning, but at an acceptably low rate. In addition, some spin rate is beneficial to a fin-stabilized projectile, averaging out aerodynamic imbalances and improving accuracy. Even smooth-bore fired APFSDS projectiles incorporate fins that are slightly canted to provide some spin rate during flight; and very low twist rifled barrels have also been developed for the express purpose of firing APFSDS ammunition.


text: KE penetrators for modern tanks are commonly 2–3 cm (0.787–1.18 in) in diameter, and can approach 80 cm (31.5 in) long; as more structurally efficient penetrator-sabot designs are developed, their length tends to increase, in order to defeat even greater line-of-sight armour depth. The concept of armour defeat using a long rod penetrator is a practical application of the phenomenon of hydro-dynamic penetration (see hydrodynamics).


text: Despite practical penetrator and target materials not being fluids before impact, at sufficiently high impact velocity even crystalline materials begin to behave in a highly plastic fluid-like manner, so many aspects of hydro-dynamic penetration do apply.


text: Long rod projectiles penetrate a fluid in the literal sense, based simply on the density of the target armour and the density and length of the penetrator. The penetrator will continue to displace the target to a depth of the penetrator length times the square root of the penetrator to target densities. One observes immediately that longer, denser penetrators will penetrate to deeper depths, and this forms the basis for the development of long-rod anti-armour projectiles.


text: The important parameters for an effective long-rod penetrator, therefore, are very high density with respect to the target, high hardness to penetrate hard target surfaces, very high toughness (ductility) so the rod does not shatter on impact, and very high strength to survive gun launch accelerations, as well as the variabilities of target impact, such as hitting at an oblique angle and surviving counter-measures such as explosive-reactive armor.


text: While penetrator geometry has adapted to reactive armour counter-measures, tungsten heavy alloy (WHA) and depleted uranium (DU) alloy continue to be the materials of choice. Both are dense, hard, tough, ductile, and strong; all exceptional qualities suitable to deep armor penetration. Each material exhibits its own unique penetration qualities that may, or may not, be the best choice for any one anti-armor application.


text: For example, depleted uranium alloy is pyrophoric; the heated fragments of the penetrator ignite after impact in contact with air, setting fire to fuel and / or ammunition in the target vehicle, contributing significantly to behind-armour lethality. Additionally, DU penetrators exhibit significant adiabatic shear band formation. A common misconception is that, during impact, fractures along these bands cause the tip of the penetrator to continuously shed material, maintaining the tip's conical shape, whereas other materials such as unjacketed tungsten tend to deform into a less effective rounded profile, an effect called "mushrooming". Actually, the formation of adiabatic shear bands means that the sides of the "mushroom" tend to break away earlier, leading to a smaller head on impact, though it will still be significantly "mushroomed".


text: Tests have shown that the hole bored by a DU projectile is of a narrower diameter than for a similar tungsten projectile; and although both materials have nearly the same density, hardness, toughness and strength, due to these differences in their deformation process, depleted uranium tends to out-penetrate an equivalent length of tungsten alloy against steel targets. Nevertheless, the use of depleted uranium, in spite of some superior performance characteristics, is not without political and humanitarian controversy, but remains the material of choice for some countries due to cost considerations and availability compared to tungsten.


text: Typical velocities of APFSDS rounds vary between manufacturers and muzzle length/types. As a typical example, the American General Dynamics KEW-A1 has a muzzle velocity of 1,740 m/s (5,700 ft/s). This compares to 914 m/s (3,000 ft/s) for a typical rifle (small arms) round. APFSDS rounds generally operate in the range of 1,400 to 1,800 m/s (4,593 to 5,906 ft/s). Above a certain minimum impact velocity necessary to overcome target material strength parameters significantly, penetrator length is more important than impact velocity; as exemplified by the fact that the base model M829 flies nearly 200 m/s (656 ft/s) faster than the newer model M829A3, but is only about one half the length, wholly inadequate for defeating state-of-the-art armor arrays.


text: Complicating matters, when foreign deployment of military forces or export sales markets are considered, a sabot designed specifically to launch a DU penetrator cannot simply be used to launch a substitute WHA penetrator, even of exactly the same manufactured geometry. The two materials behave differently under high pressure, high launch acceleration forces, such that entirely different sabot material geometries, (thicker or thinner in some places, if even possible), are required to maintain in-bore structural integrity.


text: Often the greater engineering challenge is designing an efficient sabot to successfully launch extremely long penetrators, now approaching in length. The sabot, necessary to fill the bore of the cannon when firing a long, slender flight projectile, is parasitic weight that subtracts from the potential muzzle velocity of the entire projectile. Maintaining the in-bore structural integrity of such a long flight projectile under accelerations of tens of thousands of g's is not a trivial undertaking, and has brought the design of sabots from employing in the early 1980s readily available low cost, high strength aerospace-grade aluminums, such as 6061 and 6066-T6, to high strength and more expensive 7075-T6 aluminum, maraging steel, and experimental ultra-high strength 7090-T6 aluminum, to the current state-of-the-art and incredibly expensive graphite fiber reinforced plastics, in order to further reduce the parasitic sabot mass, that could be nearly half the launch mass of the entire projectile.


text: The discarding sabot petals travel at such a high muzzle velocity that, on separation, they may continue for many hundreds of feet at speeds that can be lethal to troops and damaging to light vehicles. For this reason, tank gunners have to be aware of danger to nearby troops.


text: The saboted flechette was the counterpart of APFSDS in rifle ammunition. A rifle for firing flechettes, the Special Purpose Individual Weapon, was under development for the US Army, but the project was abandoned.


title: Sylvester the Cat

text: Sylvester Pussycat, Sr. is a fictional character, an anthropomorphic tuxedo cat in the "Looney Tunes" and "Merrie Melodies" series of cartoons. Most of his appearances have him often chasing Tweety, Speedy Gonzales, or Hippety Hopper. He appeared in 103 cartoons in the golden age of American animation, lagging only behind superstars Bugs Bunny, Porky Pig, and Daffy Duck. Three of his cartoons won Academy Awards, the most for any starring a Looney Tunes character: they are "Tweetie Pie", "Speedy Gonzales", and "Birds Anonymous".


title: Sylvester the Cat

text: Sylvester predecessors appeared from 1939 to 1945. "Naughty but Mice" was the first, with the prototype appearing as a normal black cat. "Notes to You" was remade in color in one of Sylvester's cartoons, "Back Alley Oproar". "The Hep Cat" features another version, as well as "Birdy and the Beast", which features Tweety. Before Sylvester's appearance in the cartoons, Blanc voiced a character named Sylvester on "The Judy Canova Show" using the voice that would eventually become associated with the cat.


title: Sylvester the Cat

text: Sylvester's height is 60 or 72 inches (152.4 or 182.8 cm) or 5 or 6 feet (1.52 or 1.83 m) tall and his weight is 60 or 72 pounds (27.2 or 32.7 kg).


title: Sylvester the Cat

text: In many cartoons, Sylvester is shown intentionally sticking out his tongue while speaking, putting on emphasis that the lisp is intentional. He is also known for spraying people he is talking to with the saliva from his lisping, which is a trait rarely shared by Daffy. A common gag used for both Sylvester and Daffy is a tendency to go on a long rant, complaining about a subject and then ending it by saying "Sakes".


title: Sylvester the Cat

text: Sylvester's trademark exclamation is ""Sufferin' succotash!"", which is said to be a minced oath of ""Suffering Savior"".


title: Sylvester the Cat

text: He shows a different personality when paired with Porky Pig in explorations of spooky places, in which he does not speak, behaves as a scaredy-cat, and always seems to see the scary things Porky does not see and gets scolded by him for it every time.


title: Sylvester the Cat

text: For the most part, Sylvester has always played the antagonist role, but he's sometimes featured playing the protagonist in a couple of cartoons while having to deal with the canine duo of Spike and Chester after being chased around. In 1952's "Tree for Two" (directed by Friz Freleng), Sylvester is cornered in the back alley and this would result in Spike getting mauled by a black panther that had earlier escaped from a zoo without Spike and Chester knowing about it. In the 1954 film "Dr. Jerkyl's Hide", Sylvester pummels Spike (here called "Alfie") thanks to a potion that transforms him into a feline monster. Both times after Spike's ordeal, Sylvester would have the courage and confidence to confront Chester, only to be beaten up and tossed away by the little dog.


title: Sylvester the Cat

text: Perhaps Sylvester's most developed role is in a series of Robert McKimson-directed shorts, in which the character is a hapless mouse-catching instructor to his dubious son, Sylvester Junior, with the "mouse" being a powerful baby kangaroo named Hippety Hopper which he constantly mistakes for a "giant mouse". His alternately confident and bewildered episodes bring his son to shame, while Sylvester himself is reduced to nervous breakdowns.


title: Sylvester the Cat

text: In the television series "Tiny Toon Adventures", Sylvester appeared as the mentor of Furrball. He also starred in "The Sylvester & Tweety Mysteries". In the series, he plays the narrator at the beginning of episodes.


title: Sylvester the Cat

text: The character debuted in Friz Freleng's "Life With Feathers" (1945). Freleng's 1947 cartoon "Tweetie Pie" was the first pairing of Tweety with Sylvester, and the Bob Clampett-directed "Kitty Kornered" (1946) was Sylvester's first pairing with Porky Pig.


title: Sylvester the Cat

text: He also appears in a handful of cartoons with Elmer Fudd, such as a series of three cartoons underwritten by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation extolling the American economic system.


title: Sylvester the Cat

text: In the 1970s and 1980s, Sylvester appeared in various Warner Bros. television specials, and in the 1980s, he appeared in the feature-film compilations.


title: Sylvester the Cat

text: He has died more times than any other Looney Tunes character, having died in "Peck Up Your Troubles", "I Taw a Putty Tat", "Back Alley Oproar", "Mouse Mazurka", "Bad Ol' Putty Tat", "Ain't She Tweet", "Satan's Waitin'", "Muzzle Tough", "Sandy Claws", "Tweety's Circus", "Too Hop To Handle", "Tree Cornered Tweety", "Tweet and Lovely", "Trick or Tweet" (along with Sam Cat), "The Wild Chase" (along with Wile E. Coyote), and "Museum Scream". He was even cast in the role of the Jacob Marley-like ghost called Sylvester the Investor in "Bah, Humduck! A Looney Tunes Christmas."


title: Sylvester the Cat

text: A baby version of Sylvester is part of the title cast of characters in "Baby Looney Tunes", voiced by Terry Klassen.


title: Sylvester the Cat

text: Sylvester is featured in "The Looney Tunes Show" (2011–14), voiced by Jeff Bergman. He is shown living with Granny alongside Tweety. In "Point, Laser Point", it is revealed that Sylvester was attracted by a glowing red dot that was on his mother's necklace when he was young as experienced through hypnotic therapy done by Witch Lezah. It was also revealed that his mother (voiced by Estelle Harris) has retired to Florida. When Sylvester visits her, she reveals she's disappointed that Sylvester isn't married, doesn't have kids, never kept wearing his retainer, never remembered where she lives in Florida, and has not caught Tweety yet. This episode also introduced Sylvester's brother Alan (voiced by Jeff Bennett) who became more successful than Sylvester.


title: Sylvester the Cat

text: Sylvester also makes recurring appearances in both "New Looney Tunes" and "Looney Tunes Cartoons". Jeff Bergman reprises his role for both.


title: Sylvester the Cat

text: Sylvester appeared in "King Tweety". He was voiced by Eric Bauza, who also voiced him in "Looney Tunes: World of Mayhem".


title: Sylvester the Cat

text: In an episode of "Press Your Luck", Sylvester (voiced by Mel Blanc) calls Peter Tomarken after Tomarken incorrectly said that Daffy Duck coined the catchphrase, “Suffering Succotash” during the question round.


title: Sylvester the Cat

text: Sylvester makes a cameo appearance in "Who Framed Roger Rabbit", where he provides the punchline for a double-entendre joke regarding Judge Doom's (Christopher Lloyd) identity. This was Mel Blanc's final time voicing him.


title: Sylvester the Cat

text: Sylvester appears as part of the Tune Squad team in "Space Jam" voiced by Bill Farmer. He bears the number 9 on his jersey where the Tune Squad and Michael Jordan competed against the Monstars.


title: Sylvester the Cat

text: He also has two cameo appearances in "", but the second time, "Sylvester" is really Mr. Smith in disguise.


title: Sylvester the Cat

text: A cat appears in "Color Rhapsody" shorts "Up and Atom" and "Boston Beanie" that bares a strong resemblance to Sylvester.


title: Sylvester the Cat

text: Sylvester appears in the "Robot Chicken" episode "Werewolf vs. Unicorn", voiced by Patrick Pinney. During Arnold Schwarzenegger’s announcement of illegal aliens from Mexico, Sylvester demonstrates a wired fence that will keep the aliens out, only for it to be penetrated by Speedy Gonzales.


title: Sylvester the Cat

text: Sylvester makes a vocal cameo appearance in the 2020 "Animaniacs" revival segment "Suffragette City", with Jeff Bergman reprising his role.


title: Sylvester the Cat

text: Sylvester appears in "" voiced again by Jeff Bergman. He plays for the Tune Squad in their match against the Goon Squad. At one point before the second half, Sylvester thought he found Michael Jordan in the audience which he revealed to the Tune Squad only for LeBron James to find that he actually ran into Michael B. Jordan. This caused Daffy Duck and Elmer Fudd to reprimand him for not noticing the difference as Sylvester thought he aged good.


title: Sylvester the Cat

text: From 1979 to 1983, Sylvester was the "spokescat" for 9 Lives' line of dry cat food. His face appeared on the product's boxes and Sylvester was also featured in a series of television commercials. These ads usually consisted of Sylvester trying to get to his box of 9 Lives dry cat food while avoiding Hector the Bulldog. Sylvester would always succeed in luring the dog away so he could get to his food, but would always find himself a target again by the end of the commercial, which generally ended with Sylvester calling 9 Lives dry cat food "worth riskin' your life for."


title: Sylvester the Cat

text: Western Publications produced a comic book about Tweety and Sylvester entitled "Tweety and Sylvester", first in Dell Comics "Four Color" series #406, 489, and 524, then in their own title from Dell Comics (#4–37, 1954–62), and later from Gold Key Comics (#1–102, 1963–72). In most of the earlier comic books, Sylvester has white fur surrounding his eyes (similar to Pepé Le Pew) and green eyes. They both disappeared in the later comic books. The green eyes could be seen in some merchandise as well.


title: Sylvester the Cat

text: Sylvester and Tweety appeared in a DC Comics and Looney Tunes crossover comic called "Catwoman/Tweety and Sylvester" #1. In the issue, witches from the DC and Looney Tunes universes placed a wager where the existence of all birds and cats (as well as all bird- and cat-themed heroes and villains) depended on if Sylvester could eat Tweety. Sylvester (designed more realistically for the DC Universe) teamed up with Catwoman, while Tweety teamed up with the Black Canary.


title: Sylvester the Cat

text: Sylvester has appeared in the video games "Sylvester and Tweety in Cagey Capers", "The Bugs Bunny Crazy Castle", "The Bugs Bunny Birthday Blowout", "Bugs Bunny Rabbit Rampage", "", "The Bugs Bunny Crazy Castle 2", "", "", "", and "".


title: Sylvester the Cat

text: The name "Sylvester" is a play on "Felis silvestris", the scientific name for the European wildcat (domestic cats like Sylvester are in the species "Felis catus"). Sylvester was not named until Chuck Jones gave him the name Sylvester, which was first used in "Scaredy Cat". Although the character was named Sylvester in later cartoon shorts (beginning with 1948's "Scaredy Cat"), he was called "Thomas" in his first appearance with Tweety in "Tweetie Pie", most likely as a reference to a male cat being called a tom. However, this name would never be used again because MGM already had a cat named Thomas from Tom and Jerry. Mel Blanc had also voiced a human character named Sylvester on Judy Canova's radio show earlier in the 1940s.


title: Sylvester the Cat

text: Sylvester's trademark is his sloppy and yet stridulating lisp. In Mel Blanc's autobiography, "That's Not All Folks!", it is worth noting that Sylvester's voice is similar to Daffy Duck's, only not sped up in post-production, plus the even more exaggerated slobbery lisp. Conventional wisdom is that Daffy's lisp, and hence also Sylvester's, were based on the lisp of producer Leon Schlesinger. However, Blanc made no such claim. He said that Daffy's lisp was based on him having a long beak and that he borrowed the voice for Sylvester. He also said that Sylvester's voice was very much like his own, excluding the lisp (his son Noel Blanc has also confirmed this). In addition, director Bob Clampett, in a 1970 "Funnyworld" interview, agreed with Blanc's account concerning Schlesinger. Greg Ford once asked Blanc what was the difference between Daffy and Sylvester's voices. Blanc said to him that Daffy is a Jew and Sylvester is a Gentile.


title: American Football (band)

text: American Football (sometimes stylised in all lowercase as american football or americ anfootball) is an American rock band from Urbana, Illinois, originally active from 1997 until 2000, and again beginning with 2014 and onwards. The band was formed by guitarist/bassist and singer Mike Kinsella (formerly of Cap'n Jazz and Joan of Arc and currently of Owen), guitarist Steve Holmes (also a member of the Geese) and drummer and trumpet player Steve Lamos (formerly of the One Up Downstairs, one-time member of the Firebird Band and Edward Burch & the Staunch Characters, and currently of the Geese and DMS), who has since left the band.


title: American Football (band)

text: Despite the group's short initial lifespan, their self-titled debut album became one of the most acclaimed emo and math rock records of its era. American Football reunited in 2014, with Kinsella's cousin Nate Kinsella joining the band, and has since released two more albums, both bearing the same name as their debut: "American Football" (2016) and "American Football" (2019).


title: American Football (band)

text: Mike Kinsella and Steve Holmes knew one another at an early age, as both were students at Wheeling High School in Wheeling, Illinois, where Kinsella played drums for Cap'n Jazz; Holmes played guitar in a variety of bands. Kinsella and Lamos began playing together with David Johnson and Allen Johnson in 1997 under the name the One Up Downstairs, in which Kinsella was exclusively a vocalist. Three songs were recorded under this name, with the intention of releasing them as a 7" record on Polyvinyl Records. However, the band splintered before the record could be pressed, and the songs were shelved. The three tracks recorded by the One Up Downstairs would finally be released in 2006 as a digital download EP and in 2009 as a 7" record through Polyvinyl.


title: American Football (band)

text: David Johnson and Allen Johnson went on to form the band Very Secretary (and later Favorite Saints), while Kinsella and Lamos began working with Steve Holmes. American Football completed a total of two releases—a titular EP in 1998 and its debut album in 1999, both through Polyvinyl Records. Though the band did not record bass on the EP, Kinsella played bass guitar on some songs for the LP.


title: American Football (band)

text: Within a year of the release of its full-length, American Football became a studio project. Shortly thereafter, the band mutually decided to stop recording together. Still, American Football gained critical acclaim for that album, which merged the plain-spoken, confessional lyrics and the varying time signatures of math rock with a softer musical sensibility. These characteristics carried on in Mike Kinsella's solo project Owen, and Kinsella would later re-record "Never Meant" as Owen in 2004.


title: American Football (band)

text: In March 2014, Polyvinyl Records announced a deluxe re-issue of the band's eponymous debut album, including 10 additional unheard demos and live recordings. Live dates, in Champaign and New York, were announced the following month, all of which sold out. For these dates, Mike's cousin Nate Kinsella joined the band on bass. further tour dates followed in the US, Canada, Spain, UK, Japan, and Australia.


title: American Football (band)

text: Two years after reforming the band released their second album. Again eponymous, and again on Polyvinyl, the album was released in October 2016, preceded by single "I've Been So Lost For So Long", which was made available for streaming through SoundCloud. The album's cover featured the same house photographed on the band's first full-length. The "American Football House" became a landmark for emo music fans around the world, who would travel to Urbana, Illinois, to take photos outside of the home.


title: American Football (band)

text: American Football's third album, once again eponymous, was released in March 2019, with the single "Silhouettes" made available upon announcement the preceding December.


title: American Football (band)

text: Steve Lamos left the band in July 2021, citing a change of situation in his life. A single with the tracks "Rare Symmetry" and "Fade Into You" (a Mazzy Star cover), was released in December the same year.


title: American Football (band)

text: Although they are usually described as an emo band, as one of the most important bands of the late 1990s Midwestern emo scene and subgenre, American Football's musical style has been also described as math rock, and post-rock due to them having uncommon time signatures in their songs, which is a staple in both the math rock and post-rock's sounds. While their various works have been punctually described as indie rock, dream pop, and slowcore.


title: American Football (band)

text: Talking about the group's sound, Tim Sendra of AllMusic stated, "The trio spent almost a year coming up with a clean, melodic approach that blended the intimacy of emo with the empty space of jazz, while adding pop hooks and jangling guitar interplay to the mix."


title: American Football (band)

text: In their article about the math rock's history, specialized online magazine Fecking Bahamas described American Football as "a second-wave emo band rooted in unconventional melodic song structures as well as containing elements of math rock and slowcore."


title: Ronald Lacey

text: Ronald William Lacey (28 September 1935 – 15 May 1991) was an English actor. He made numerous television and film appearances over a 30-year period. His roles included Harris in "Porridge" (1977), Frankie in the Bud Spencer comedy "Charleston" (1978), SD agent Sturmbannführer Arnold Ernst Toht in "Raiders of the Lost Ark" (1981) and the Bishop of Bath and Wells in "Blackadder II" (1986).


title: Ronald Lacey

text: Lacey was born and grew up in Harrow, Middlesex. He received his formal education at Harrow Weald Grammar School. After a brief period of national service in the British Armed Forces, he enrolled at the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art to train as an actor.


title: Ronald Lacey

text: Lacey began his acting career in 1959 in a television play, "The Secret Agent". His first significant performance was at the Royal Court Theatre in 1962's "Chips with Everything". Lacey had an unusual 'pug' look, with beady eyes, an upturned nose, liver lips, an overbite, receding chin and no brows. He could scream at a very high pitch. This unique combination of features landed him repeatedly in bizarre roles on both stage and screen, often as seedy, creepy villains. Together with his Welsh background, it helped qualify him for the role of Dylan Thomas, which he played on BBC2 in what critic Clive James described as a "bravura performance".


title: Ronald Lacey

text: Lacey performed on British television throughout the 1960s and 1970s, with roles spanning from a part in Kenneth Clark's "Civilisation" television series, as the gravedigger, in a re-enactment of the gravedigger scene from "Hamlet", with Ian Richardson as Hamlet and Patrick Stewart as Horatio, to a guest shot as the "Strange Young Man" in "The Avengers" episode "The Joker", and as Harris in the sitcom "Porridge", with the latter finally landing him in the role for which his unusual physical characteristics could be repeatedly used to full advantage. Disappointed with his acting career by the late 1970s, he began to consider starting a talent agency. Spielberg then cast him as the Nazi agent Arnold Toht in "Raiders of the Lost Ark". He followed this with a series of various villain roles for the next five to six years: "Sahara" with Brooke Shields, and 1985's "Red Sonja" with Arnold Schwarzenegger, in addition to 1982's "Firefox" with Clint Eastwood, in which he played a Russian scientist helping the West behind the Iron Curtain. He then made two movies for Ice International Films: "Assassinator" starring alongside John Ryan and George Murcell, and "Into the Darkness", starring with Donald Pleasence, John Ryan, and Brett Paul. He performed comic monologues on "The Green Tie on the Little Yellow Dog", which was recorded 1982, and broadcast by Channel 4 in 1983.


title: Ronald Lacey

text: Lacey played a number of villainous roles and was known for his trademark smile, which would turn into a gleaming malicious leer. He also had a rather large mole on his left cheek, which he chose not to have removed, as well as a highly distinctive voice. In 1983's "Trenchcoat", he used the mole as a beauty mark in his role as Princess Aida, a mysterious and sleazy drag queen on the island of Malta. His other drag role was in "Invitation to the Wedding" from 1985, in which he played a husband/wife couple.


title: Ronald Lacey

text: Lacey married twice, first to the actress Mela White in 1962 (she married him under the name Brompton as this was her second marriage). They had two children, actors Rebecca Lacey and Jonathan Lacey. Following their divorce, he married Joanna Baker in 1972, with whom he had a son.


title: Ronald Lacey

text: Lacey was diagnosed with terminal liver cancer on 25 April 1991. He died less than one month later, on 15 May 1991, at the age of 55.


title: History of the Indian National Congress

text: The Indian National Congress was established when 72 delegates from all over the country met at Bombay in 1885. Prominent delegates included Dadabhai Naoroji, Surendranath Banerjee, Badruddin Tyabji, Pherozeshah Mehta W. C. Bonnerjee, S. Ramaswami Mudaliar, S. Subramania Iyer, and Romesh Chunder Dutt. The Englishman Allan Octavian Hume, a former British civil servant, was one of the founding members of the Indian National Congress.


title: History of the Indian National Congress

text: Retired British Indian Civil Service (ICS) officer Allan Octavian Hume founded the Indian National Congress in order to form a platform for civil and political dialogue among educated Indians. After the Indian Rebellion of 1857, control of India was transferred from the East India Company to the British Empire. British-controlled India, known as the British Raj, or just the Raj, worked to try to support and justify its governance of India with the aid of English-educated Indians, who tended to be more familiar with and friendly to British culture and political thinking. Ironically, a few of the reasons that the Congress grew and survived, particularly in the 19th century era of undisputed British dominance or hegemony, was through the patronage of British authorities and the rising class of Indians and Anglo-Indians educated in the English language-based British tradition.


title: History of the Indian National Congress

text: Hume embarked on an endeavor to get an organization started by reaching-out to selected alumni of the University of Calcutta. In an 1883 letter, he wrote that, ""Every nation secures precisely as good a Government as it merits. If you, the picked men, the most highly educated of the nation, cannot, scorning personal ease and selfish objects, make a resolute struggle to secure greater freedom for yourselves and your country, a more impartial administration, a larger share in the management of your own affairs, then we, your friends, are wrong and our adversaries right, then are Lord Ripon's noble aspirations for your good fruitless and visionary, then, at present at any rate all hopes of progress are at an end[,] and India truly neither desires nor deserves any better Government than she enjoys"."


title: History of the Indian National Congress

text: In May 1885, Hume secured the viceroy's approval to create an "Indian National Union", which would be affiliated with the government and act as a platform to voice Indian public opinion. Hume and a group of educated Indians came together on 12 October and published "An Appeal from the People of India to the Electors of Great Britain and Ireland" which asked British voters in the 1885 British general election to support candidates sympathetic to the positions of Indians. These included opposition to taxation of India to finance British campaigns in Afghanistan, and support for legislative reform in India. The appeal however, was a failure, and was interpreted by many Indians as "a rude shock, but a true realization that they had to fight their battles alone."


title: History of the Indian National Congress

text: On 28 December 1885, the Indian National Congress was founded at Gokuldas Tejpal Sanskrit College in Bombay, with 72 delegates in attendance. Hume assumed office as the General Secretary, and Womesh Chunder Bonnerjee of Calcutta was elected president. Besides Hume, two additional British members (both Scottish civil servants) were members of the founding group, William Wedderburn and Justice (later, Sir) John Jardine. The other members were mostly Hindus from the Bombay and Madras Presidencies.


title: History of the Indian National Congress

text: Between 1885 and 1905, the Indian National Congress passed several resolutions in its annual sessions. Through the resolutions, the humble demands made by Congress included civil rights, administrative, constitutional and economic policies. A look at the resolution passed on these methods would be given an idea the directions of Congress programs were taking.


title: History of the Indian National Congress

text: a) Civil Rights: The Congress leaders realized the value of freedom of speech and press, the right to organize processions, meetings and similar other rights.


title: History of the Indian National Congress

text: b) Administrative: The Congress leaders urged the government to remove certain administrative abuses and run public welfare measures. They put emphasis on the appointment of Indians in the government services. Specific proposals are made to open agricultural banks for the relief of peasantry. The Congress leaders also raised the voice of protest against the discriminatory laws enacted by the government.


title: History of the Indian National Congress

text: c) Constitutional: The humble demand made by the early Congress leaders in respect to constitutional matters were: to increase the power of legislative councils; to include elected Indian representatives. It must be mentioned here that the British government of India paid scant regard to the above demands made by Congress.


title: History of the Indian National Congress

text: d) Economic: In the economic sphere, Congress blamed the economic policies of the British government that resulted in rising property prices and other economic issues which affected the Indian people. The Congress also put forward certain specific suggestions for the economic improvement of the country and her people. These included the introduction of modern industry, Indianization of public services, etc. The Congress also demanded the abolition of salt tax for the benefit particularly of the poor section of the people


title: History of the Indian National Congress

text: Even before independence of India, the Indian National Congress had well articulated foreign policy positions. In the words of Rejaul Karim Laskar, a scholar of Indian foreign policy and an ideologue of Indian National Congress, "Right after the establishment of the Indian National Congress, it started articulating its views on foreign affairs. In its first session in 1885, the Indian National Congress deplored the annexation of upper Burma by British Indian Government."


title: History of the Indian National Congress

text: Many Muslim community leaders, like the prominent educationalist Syed Ahmed Khan, viewed the Congress negatively, owing to its membership being dominated by Hindus. Hindu community and religious leaders were also averse, seeing the Congress as supportive of Western cultural invasion.


title: History of the Indian National Congress

text: The ordinary people of India were not informed of or concerned about its existence on the whole, for Congress never attempted to address the issues of poverty, lack of health care, social oppression, and the prejudiced negligence of the people's concerns by the British government. The perception of bodies like the Congress was that of an elitist, then educated and wealthy people's institution.


title: History of the Indian National Congress

text: The first spurts of nationalistic sentiment that rose amongst Congress members were when the desire to be represented in the bodies of government, to have a say, a vote in the lawmaking and issues of administration of India. Congressmen saw themselves as loyalists, but wanted an active role in governing their own country, albeit as part of the Empire.


title: History of the Indian National Congress

text: This was personified by Dadabhai Naoroji, considered by many as the eldest Indian statesman. Naoroji went as far as contesting, successfully, an election to the British House of Commons, becoming its first Indian member. That he was aided in his campaign by young, aspiring Indian student activists like Muhammad Ali Jinnah, describes where the imagination of the new Indian generation lay.


title: History of the Indian National Congress

text: Bal Gangadhar Tilak was among the first Indian nationalists to embrace "swaraj" as the destiny of the nation. Tilak deeply opposed the British colonial education system in India which he thought ignored and defamed India's culture, history, and values, defying and disgracing the Indian culture. He resented the denial of freedom of expression for nationalists and the lack of any voice or role for ordinary Indians in the affairs of their nation. For these reasons, he considered "swaraj" as the natural and only solution: the abandonment of all things British, which would protect the Indian economy from economic exploitation and gradually lead to eventual Indian independence. He was backed by rising public leaders like Bipin Chandra Pal and Lala Lajpat Rai, Aurobindo Ghose, V. O. Chidambaram Pillai who held the same point of view. Under them, India's four great states – Madras, Bombay, Bengal, and Punjab region shaped the demand of the people and India's nationalism.


title: History of the Indian National Congress

text: The moderates, led by Gopal Krishna Gokhale, Pherozeshah Mehta, and Dadabhai Naoroji, held firm to calls for negotiations and political dialogue. Gokhale criticized Tilak for encouraging acts of violence and disorder. The Congress of 1906 did not have public membership, and thus Tilak and his supporters were forced to leave the party.


title: History of the Indian National Congress

text: With Tilak's arrest, all hopes for an Indian offensive were stalled. The Congress lost credit with the people. Muslims formed the All India Muslim League in 1906, considering the Congress as completely unsuitable for Indian Muslims.


title: History of the Indian National Congress

text: When the British entered the British Indian Army into World War I, it provoked the first definitive, nationwide political debate of its kind in India. Voices calling for political independence grew in number.


title: History of the Indian National Congress

text: The divided Congress re-united in the pivotal Lucknow session in 1916, with the efforts of Bal Gangadhar Tilak and Muhammad Ali Jinnah. Tilak had considerably moderated his views and now favoured political dialogue with the British. He, along with the young Muhammad Ali Jinnah and Mrs. Annie Besant launched the Home Rule Movement to put forth Indian demands for "Home Rule" – Indian participation in the affairs of their own country – a precursor to "Swaraj". The All India Home Rule League was formed to demand dominion status within the Empire.


title: History of the Indian National Congress

text: But another Indian man with another way was destined to lead the Congress and the Indian struggle. Mohandas Gandhi was a lawyer who had successfully led the struggle of Indians in South Africa against South African discriminatory laws. Returning to India in 1915, Gandhi looked to Indian culture and history, the values and lifestyle of its people to empower a new revolution, with the concept of non-violence, civil disobedience, he coined a term, "Satyagraha".


title: History of the Indian National Congress

text: Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, who later on became more popular as Mahatma Gandhi, had success in defeating the British in Champaran and Kheda, giving India its first victory in the struggle for freedom. Then Indian National Congress had supported that movement; Indians gained confidence in the working of that organization that the British could be thwarted through that organization, and millions of young people from across the country flooded into Congress membership.


title: History of the Indian National Congress

text: A whole class of political leaders disagreed with Gandhi. Bipin Chandra Pal, Muhammad Ali Jinnah, Annie Besant, Bal Gangadhar Tilak all criticized the idea of civil disobedience. But Gandhi had the backing of the people and a whole new generation of Indian nationalists.


title: History of the Indian National Congress

text: In a series of sessions in 1918, 1919 and 1920, where the old and the new generations clashed in famous and important debates, Gandhi and his young supporters imbued the Congress rank-and-file with passion and energy to combat British rule directly. With the tragedy of the 1919 Amritsar Massacre and the riots in Punjab, Indian anger and passions were palpable and radical. With the election of Mohandas K. Gandhi to the presidency of the Indian National Congress, the battle of the party's soul was won, and a new path to India's destiny was forged.


title: History of the Indian National Congress

text: Lokmanya Tilak, whom Gandhi had called "The Father of Modern India" died in 1920, and Gopal Krishna Gokhale had died four years earlier. Motilal Nehru, Lala Lajpat Rai and some other stalwarts backed Gandhi as they were not sure that they can lead the people like Tilak and Gokhale. Thus it was now entirely up to Gandhi's Congress to show the way for the nation.


title: History of the Indian National Congress

text: Few years after the World War, the Congress expanded considerably, owing to public excitement after Gandhi's success in Champaran and Kheda. A whole new generation of leaders arose from different parts of India, who were committed Gandhians Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel, Rajendra Prasad, Chakravarti Rajagopalachari, Narhari Parikh, Mahadev Desai – as well as hot-blooded nationalists aroused by Gandhi's active leadership – Chittaranjan Das, Subhas Chandra Bose, Srinivasa Iyengar.


title: History of the Indian National Congress

text: Gandhi transformed the Congress from an elitist party based in the cities, to an organization of the people:


title: History of the Indian National Congress

text: During the 1920s, M.K. Gandhi encouraged tens of thousands of Congress volunteers to embrace a wide variety of organized tasks to address major social problems across India. Under the guidance of Congress committees and Gandhi's network of ashrams in Gujarat, Maharashtra, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar and Tamil Nadu, the Congress attacked:


title: History of the Indian National Congress

text: This profound work by M. K. Gandhi impressed the people of India particularly, formations of ashrams, that in later period he was mentioned as Mahatma, Great soul, by way of honor, by people of India.


title: History of the Indian National Congress

text: Under the Government of India Act 1935, the Congress first tasted political power in the provincial elections of 1937. It performed extraordinarily well, coming to power in eight of the eleven provinces where elections were held. Its internal organization bloomed in the diversity of political attitudes and ideologies. The focus would change slightly from the single-minded devotion to complete independence, to also entertaining excitement and theorizing about the future governance of the nation. However, when the Viceroy Lord Linlithgow declared India a belligerent in World War II without any consultation with the elected representatives of the people, the Congress ministries resigned.


title: History of the Indian National Congress

text: The radical followers of Subhas Chandra Bose, believers in socialism and active revolution would ascend in the hierarchy with Bose's 1938 election to the Congress presidency.


title: History of the Indian National Congress

text: According to one approach, the traditionalist point of view, though not in a political sense, was represented in Congressmen like Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel, Rajendra Prasad, C. Rajagopalachari, Purushottam Das Tandon, Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan and Maulana Azad, who were also associates and followers of Gandhi. Their organizational strength, achieved through leading the clashes with the government, was undisputed and proven when despite winning the 1939 election, Bose resigned from the Congress presidency because of the lack of confidence he enjoyed amongst national leaders. A year earlier, in the 1938 election, however, Bose had been elected with the support of Gandhi. Differences arose in 1939 on whether Bose should have a second term. Jawaharlal Nehru, who Gandhi had always preferred to Bose, had had a second term earlier. Bose's own differences centred on the place to be accorded to non-violent as against revolutionary methods. When he set up his Indian National Army in South-east Asia during the Second World War, he invoked Gandhi's name and hailed him as the Father of The Nation.


title: History of the Indian National Congress

text: It would be wrong to suggest that the so-called traditionalist leaders looked merely to the ancient heritage of Indian, Asian or, in the case of Maulana Azad and Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan, Islamic civilization for inspiration. They believed, along with educationists like Zakir Husain and E W Aryanayakam, that education should be imparted in a manner that enables the learners also to be able to make things with their own hands and learn skills that would make them self-supporting. This method of education was also adopted in some areas in Egypt. (See Reginald Reynolds, Beware of Africans). Zakir Husain was inspired by some European educationists and was able, with Gandhi's support, to dovetail this approach to the one favoured by the Basic Education method introduced by the Indian freedom movement. They believed that the education system, economy and social justice model for a future nation should be designed to suit the specific local requirements. While most were open to the benefits of Western influences and the socio-economic egalitarianism of socialism, they were opposed to being defined by either model.


title: History of the Indian National Congress

text: The last important episodes in the Congress involved the final step to independence, and the division of the country on the basis of religions.


title: History of the Indian National Congress

text: Chakravarthi Rajagopalachari, the prominent leader from Tamil Nadu resigned from the Congress to actively advocate supporting the British war effort. It was started in 1942.


title: History of the Indian National Congress

text: During the INA trials of 1946, the Congress helped to form the INA Defence Committee, which forcefully defended the case of the soldiers of the Azad Hind government. The committee declared the formation of the Congress' defence team for the INA and included famous lawyers of the time, including Bhulabhai Desai, Asaf Ali, and Jawaharlal Nehru. QUIT INDIA BILL passed on 8 Aug 1942.


title: History of the Indian National Congress

text: Some members of the Congress initially supported the sailors who led the Royal Indian Navy Mutiny. However, they withdrew support at the critical juncture, as the mutiny failed.


title: History of the Indian National Congress

text: Within the Congress, the Partition was opposed by Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan, Saifuddin Kitchlew, Dr. Khan Sahib and Congressmen from the provinces that would inevitably become parts of Pakistan. Maulana Azad, an Indian Islamic scholar, opposed partition in principle, but did not wish to impede the national leadership; preferred to stay with Indian side.


title: History of the Indian National Congress

text: In the Assembly and Constitution debates, the Congress attitude was marked by inclusiveness and liberalism. The Government appointed some prominent Indians who were Raj loyalists and liberals to important offices, and did not adopt any punitive control over the Indian civil servants who had aided the Raj in its governance of India and suppression of nationalist activities.


title: History of the Indian National Congress

text: A Congress-dominated Assembly adopted B.R. Ambedkar, a fierce Congress critic as the chairman of the Constitution draft committee. Syama Prasad Mookerjee, a Hindu Mahasabha leader became the Minister for Industry.


title: History of the Indian National Congress

text: The Congress stood firm on its fundamental promises and delivered a Constitution that abolished untouchability and discrimination based on caste, religion or gender. Primary education was made a right, and Congress governments made the zamindar system illegal, created minimum wages and authorized the right to strike and form labor unions.


title: History of the Indian National Congress

text: In 1947, the Congress presidency passed upon Jivatram Kripalani, a veteran Gandhian and ally of both Nehru and Patel. India's duumvirate expressed neutrality and full support to the elected winner of the 1947, 1948 and 1949 presidential races.


title: History of the Indian National Congress

text: However, a tug of war began between Nehru and his socialist wing, and Patel and Congress traditionalists broke out in 1950's race. Nehru lobbied intensely to oppose the candidacy of Purushottam Das Tandon, whom he perceived as a Hindu revivalist with "problematic" views on Hindu-Muslim relations. Nehru openly backed Kripalani to oppose Tandon, but neglected courtesy to Patel upon the question.


title: History of the Indian National Congress

text: With Patel's tacit support (especially in Patel's home state of Gujarat, where due to Patel's work, Kripalani received not one vote) Tandon won a tight contest, and Nehru threatened to resign. With Patel's convincing, Nehru did not quit.


title: History of the Indian National Congress

text: However, with Patel's death in 1950, the balance shifted permanently in Nehru's favor. Kripalani, C. Rajagopalachari and Tandon were marginalized, and the Congress Party's election fortunes began depending solely on Nehru's leadership and popularity. With the 1952 election sweep, the Congress became India's main political party.


title: History of the Indian National Congress

text: From 1951 until his death in 1964, Jawaharlal Nehru was the paramount leader of the party. Congress gained power in landslide victories in the general elections of 1951–52, 1957, and 1962. During his tenure, Nehru implemented policies based on import substitution industrialisation, and advocated a mixed economy where the government-controlled public sector co-existed with the private sector. He believed the establishment of basic and heavy industries was fundamental to the development and modernisation of the Indian economy. The Nehru government directed investment primarily into key public sector industries—steel, iron, coal, and power—promoting their development with subsidies and protectionist policies. Nehru embraced secularism, socialistic economic practices based on state-driven industrialisation, and a non-aligned and non-confrontational foreign policy that became typical of the modern Congress Party. The policy of non-alignment during the Cold War meant Nehru received financial and technical support from both the Eastern and Western Blocs to build India's industrial base from nothing.


title: History of the Indian National Congress

text: During his period in office, there were four known assassination attempts on Nehru. The first attempt on his life was during partition in 1947 while he was visiting the North-West Frontier Province in a car. The second was by a knife-wielding rickshaw-puller in Maharashtra in 1955. A third attempt happened in Bombay in 1956. The fourth was a failed bombing attempt on railway tracks in Maharashtra in 1961. Despite threats to his life, Nehru despised having excess security personnel around him and did not like his movements to disrupt traffic. K. Kamaraj became the president of the All India Congress Committee in 1963 during the last year of Nehru's life. Prior to that, he had been the chief minister of Madras state for nine years. Kamaraj had also been a member of "the syndicate", a group of right wing leaders within Congress. In 1963 the Congress lost popularity following the defeat in the Indo-Chinese war of 1962. To revitalise the party, Kamaraj proposed the Kamaraj Plan to Nehru that encouraged six Congress chief ministers (including himself) and six senior cabinet ministers to resign to take up party work.


title: History of the Indian National Congress

text: In 1964, Nehru died because of an aortic dissection, raising questions about the party's future. Following the death of Nehru, Gulzarilal Nanda was appointed as the interim Prime Minister on 27 May 1964, pending the election of a new parliamentary leader of the Congress party who would then become Prime Minister. During the leadership contest to succeed Nehru, the preference was between Morarji Desai and Lal Bahadur Shashtri. Eventually, Shashtri was selected as the next parliamentary leader thus the Prime Minister. Kamaraj was widely credited as the "kingmaker" in for ensuring the victory of Lal Bahadur Shastri over Morarji Desai.


title: History of the Indian National Congress

text: As prime minister, Shastri retained most of members of Nehru's Council of Ministers; T. T. Krishnamachari was retained as Finance Minister of India, as was Defence Minister Yashwantrao Chavan. Shastri appointed Swaran Singh to succeed him as External Affairs Minister. Shastri appointed Indira Gandhi, Jawaharlal Nehru's daughter and former party president, Minister of Information and Broadcasting. Gulzarilal Nanda continued as the Minister of Home Affairs. As Prime Minister, Shastri continued Nehru's policy of non-alignment, but built closer relations with the Soviet Union. In the aftermath of the Sino-Indian War of 1962, and the formation of military ties between China and Pakistan, Shastri's government expanded the defence budget of India's armed forces. He also promoted the White Revolution—a national campaign to increase the production and supply of milk by creating the National Dairy Development Board. The Madras anti-Hindi agitation of 1965 occurred during Shastri's tenure.


title: History of the Indian National Congress

text: Shastri became a national hero following victory in the Indo-Pakistani War of 1965. His slogan, "Jai Jawan Jai Kisan" ("Hail the soldier, Hail the farmer"), became very popular during the war. On 11 January 1966, a day after signing the Tashkent Declaration, Shastri died in Tashkent, reportedly of a heart attack; but the circumstances of his death remain mysterious. After Shastri's death, Congress elected Indira Gandhi as leader over Morarji Desai. Once again, K. Kamaraj was instrumental in achieving this result. The differences among the top leadership of the Congress regarding the future of the party during resulted in the formation of several breakaway parties such as Orissa Jana Congress, Bangla Congress, Utkal Congress, and, Bharatiya Kranti Dal.


title: History of the Indian National Congress

text: In 1967, following a poor performance in the 1967 Indian general election, Indira Gandhi started moving toward the political left. In mid-1969, she was involved in a dispute with senior party leaders on several issues. Notably — Her support for the independent candidate, V. V. Giri, rather than the official Congress party candidate, Neelam Sanjiva Reddy, for the vacant post of the president of India and Gandhi's abrupt nationalisation of the 14 biggest banks in India. Later in the year, the Congress party president, S. Nijalingappa, expelled her from the party for indiscipline. Mrs. Gandhi as a counter-move launched her own faction of the INC. It was also known as Congress (R). The original party then came to be known as Indian National Congress (O). Its principal leaders were Kamraj, Morarji Desai, Nijalingappa and S. K. Patil who stood for a more right-wing agenda. The split occurred when a united opposition under the banner of Samyukt Vidhayak Dal, won control over several states in the Hindi Belt. Indira Gandhi, on the other side, wanted to use a populist agenda in order to mobilise popular support for the party. Her faction, called Congress (R), was supported by most of the Congress MPs while the original party had the support of only 65 MPs. In the All India Congress Committee, 446 of its 705 members walked over to Indira's side. This created a belief among Indians that Indira's Congress was the Real Congress (INC-R). The "Old Congress" retained the party symbol of a pair of bullocks carrying a yoke while Indira's breakaway faction was given a new symbol of a cow with a suckling calf by the Election Commission as the party election symbol.


title: History of the Indian National Congress

text: In the mid-term parliamentary elections held in 1971, the Gandhi-led Congress (R) won a landslide victory on a platform of progressive policies such as the elimination of poverty (). The policies of the Congress (R) under Gandhi before the 1971 elections included proposals to abolish the Privy Purse to former rulers of the Princely states, and the 1969 nationalisation of India's 14 largest banks. The 1969 attempt by Indira Gandhi government to abolish privy purse and the official recognition of the titles did not meet with success. The constitutional Amendment bill to this effect was passed in Lok Sabha, but it failed to get the required two-thirds majority in the Rajya Sabha. However, in 1971, with the passage of the Twenty-sixth Amendment to the Constitution of India, the privy purses were abolished.


title: History of the Indian National Congress

text: Due to Sino-Indian War 1962, India faced a huge budgetary deficit resulting in its treasury being almost empty, high inflation, and dwindling forex reserves. The brief War of 1962 exposed weaknesses in the economy and shifted the focus towards the defence industry and the Indian Army. The government found itself short of resources to fund the Third Plan (1961–1966). Subhadra Joshi a senior party member, proposed a non-official resolution asking for the nationalisation of private banks stating that nationalisation would help in mobilising resources for development. In July 1969, Indira Gandhi through the ordinance nationalised fourteen major private banks. After being re-elected in 1971 on a campaign that endorsed nationalisation, Indira Gandhi went on to nationalise the coal, steel, copper, refining, cotton textiles and insurance industries. The main reason was to protect employment and the interest of the organised labour.


title: History of the Indian National Congress

text: On 12 June 1975, the High Court of Allahabad declared Indira Gandhi's election to the Lok Sabha, the lower house of India's parliament, void on the grounds of electoral malpractice. However, Gandhi rejected calls to resign and announced plans to appeal to the Supreme Court. In response to increasing disorder and lawlessness, Gandhi's ministry recommended that President Fakhruddin Ali Ahmed declare a State of Emergency, based on the provisions of Article 352 of the Constitution. During the nineteen-month emergency, widespread oppression and abuse of power by Gandhi's unelected younger son and political heir Sanjay Gandhi and his close associates occurred. Implemented on 25 June 1975, the Emergency officially ended on 23 March 1977. All political prisoners were released and fresh elections for the Lok Sabha were called. In parliamentary elections held in March, the Janata alliance of anti-Indira opposition parties won a landslide victory over Congress, winning 295 seats in the Lok Sabha against Congress' 153. Gandhi lost her seat to her Janata opponent Raj Narain. On 2 January 1978, she and her followers seceded and formed a new opposition party, popularly called Congress (I)—the "I" signifying Indira. During the next year, her new party attracted enough members of the legislature to become the official opposition. In November 1978, Gandhi regained a parliamentary seat. In January 1980, following a landslide victory for Congress (I), she was again elected prime minister. The national election commission declared Congress (I) to be the real Indian National Congress for the 1984 general election. However, the designation I was dropped only in 1996.


title: History of the Indian National Congress

text: Gandhi's premiership witnessed increasing turmoil in Punjab, with demands for Sikh autonomy by Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale and his militant followers. In 1983, Bhindranwale with his armed followers headquartered themselves in the Golden Temple in Amritsar and started accumulating weapons. In June 1984, after several futile negotiations, Gandhi ordered the Indian Army to enter the Golden Temple to establish control over the complex and remove Bhindranwale and his armed followers. This event is known as Operation Blue Star. On 31 October 1984, two of Gandhi's bodyguards, Satwant Singh and Beant Singh, shot her with their service weapons in the garden of the prime minister's residence in response to her authorisation of Operation Blue Star. Gandhi was due to be interviewed by British actor Peter Ustinov, who was filming a documentary for Irish television. Her assassination prompted the 1984 anti-Sikh riots, during which 3,000–17,000 people were killed.


title: History of the Indian National Congress

text: In 1984, Indira Gandhi's son Rajiv Gandhi became nominal head of Congress, and went on to become prime minister upon her assassination. In December, he led Congress to a landslide victory, where it secured 401 seats in the legislature. His administration took measures to reform the government bureaucracy and liberalise the country's economy. Rajiv Gandhi's attempts to discourage separatist movements in Punjab and Kashmir backfired. After his government became embroiled in several financial scandals, his leadership became increasingly ineffectual. Gandhi was regarded as a non-abrasive person who consulted other party members and refrained from hasty decisions. The Bofors scandal damaged his reputation as an honest politician, but he was posthumously cleared of bribery allegations in 2004. On 21 May 1991, Gandhi was killed by a bomb concealed in a basket of flowers carried by a woman associated with the Tamil Tigers. He was campaigning in Tamil Nadu for upcoming parliamentary elections. In 1998, an Indian court convicted 26 people in the conspiracy to assassinate Gandhi. The conspirators, who consisted of Tamil militants from Sri Lanka and their Indian allies, had sought revenge against Gandhi because the Indian troops he sent to Sri Lanka in 1987 to help enforce a peace accord there had fought with Tamil Militant guerrillas.


title: History of the Indian National Congress

text: Rajiv Gandhi was succeeded as party leader by P. V. Narasimha Rao, who was elected prime minister in June 1991. His rise to the prime ministership was politically significant because he was the first holder of the office from South India. After the election, he formed minority government. Rao himself not contested elections in 1991, but after he was sworn in a prime minister, he won in a by-election from Nandyal in Andhra Pradesh. His administration oversaw major economic change and experienced several home incidents that affected India's national security. Rao, who held the Industries portfolio, was personally responsible for the dismantling of the Licence Raj, which came under the purview of the Ministry of Commerce and Industry. He is often called the "father of Indian economic reforms".


title: History of the Indian National Congress

text: Future prime ministers Atal Bihari Vajpayee and Manmohan Singh continued the economic reform policies begun by Rao's government. Rao accelerated the dismantling of the Licence Raj, reversing the socialist policies of previous governments. He employed Manmohan Singh as his finance minister to begin a historic economic change. With Rao's mandate, Singh launched India's globalisation reforms that involved implementing International Monetary Fund (IMF) policies to prevent India's impending economic collapse. Rao was also referred to as "Chanakya" for his ability to push tough economic and political legislation through the parliament while he headed a minority government.


title: History of the Indian National Congress

text: By 1996, the party's image was suffering from allegations of corruption, and in elections that year, Congress was reduced to 140 seats, its lowest number in the Lok Sabha to that point. Rao later resigned as prime minister and, in September, as party president. He was succeeded as president by Sitaram Kesri, the party's first non-Brahmin leader. During the tenure of both Rao and Kesri, the two leaders conducted internal elections to the Congress working committees and their own posts as party presidents.


title: History of the Indian National Congress

text: The 1998 general elections saw Congress win 141 seats in the Lok Sabha, its lowest tally until then. To boost its popularity and improve its performance in the forthcoming election, Congress leaders urged Sonia Gandhi, Rajiv Gandhi's widow, to assume leadership of the party. She had previously declined offers to become actively involved in party affairs and had stayed away from politics. After her election as party leader, a section of the party that objected to the choice because of her Italian ethnicity broke away and formed the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP), led by Sharad Pawar.


title: History of the Indian National Congress

text: Sonia Gandhi struggled to revive the party in her early years as its president; she was under continuous scrutiny for her foreign birth and lack of political acumen. In the snap elections called by the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government in 1999, Congress' tally further plummeted to just 114 seats. Although the leadership structure was unaltered as the party campaigned strongly in the assembly elections that followed, Gandhi began to make such strategic changes as abandoning the party's 1998 Pachmarhi resolution of "ekla chalo" (go it alone) policy, and formed alliances with other like-minded parties. In the intervening years, the party was successful at various legislative assembly elections; at one point, Congress ruled 15 states. For the 2004 general election, Congress forged alliances with regional parties including the NCP and the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam. The party's campaign emphasised social inclusion and the welfare of the common massesan ideology that Gandhi herself endorsed for Congress during her presidencywith slogans such as ("Congress hand in hand with the common man"), contrasting with the NDA's "India Shining" campaign. The Congress-led United Progressive Alliance (UPA) won 222 seats in the new parliament, defeating the NDA by a substantial margin. With the subsequent support of the communist front, Congress won a majority and formed a new government. Despite massive support from within the party, Gandhi declined the post of prime minister, choosing to appoint Manmohan Singh instead. She remained as party president and headed the National Advisory Council (NAC).


title: History of the Indian National Congress

text: During its first term in office, the UPA government passed several social reform bills. These included an employment guarantee bill, the Right to Information Act, and a right to education act. The NAC, as well as the Left Front that supported the government from the outside, were widely seen as being the driving force behind such legislation. The Left Front withdrew its support of the government over disagreements about the U.S.–India Civil Nuclear Agreement. Despite the effective loss of 62 seats in parliament, the government survived the trust vote that followed. In the Lok Sabha elections held soon after, Congress won 207 seats, the highest tally of any party since 1991. The UPA as a whole won 262, enabling it to form a government for the second time. The social welfare policies of the first UPA government, and the perceived divisiveness of the BJP, are broadly credited with the victory.


title: History of the Indian National Congress

text: By the 2014 Lok Sabha elections, the party had lost much of its popular support, mainly because of several years of poor economic conditions in the country, and growing discontent over a series of corruption allegations involving government officials, including the 2G spectrum case and the Indian coal allocation scam. Congress won only 44 seats in the Lok Sabha, compared to the 336 of the BJP and its allies The UPA suffered heavy defeat, which was its worst-ever performance in a national election with its vote share dipping below 20 per cent for the first time. Narendra Modi succeeded Singh as Prime Minister as the head of the National Democratic Alliance. Sonia Gandhi retired as party president in December 2017, having served for a record nineteen years. She was succeeded by her son Rahul Gandhi, who was elected unopposed in the 2017 INC presidential election.


title: History of the Indian National Congress

text: Rahul Gandhi resigned from his post after the 2019 Indian general election, due to the party's dismal performance. Following Gandhi's resignation, party leaders began deliberations for a suitable candidate to replace him. The Congress Working Committee met on 10 August to make a final decision on the matter and passed a resolution asking Sonia Gandhi to take over as interim president until a consensus candidate could be picked. Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury is the Leader of the Opposition in Lok Sabha. Gaurav Gogoi is deputy leader in Lok Sabha, Ravneet Singh Bittu is whip. Based on an analysis of the candidates' poll affidavits, a report by the National Election Watch (NEW) and the Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR) says that, the Congress has highest political defection since 2014. According to the report, a total of 222 electoral candidates have left the Congress to join other parties during polls held between 2014 and 2021, whereas 177 MPs and MLAs quit the party. Defection resulted loss of its established governments in Arunachal Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Goa, Karnataka, Puducherry (UT), and Manipur.


title: Lockheed MC-130

text: The Lockheed MC-130 is the basic designation for a family of special mission aircraft operated by the United States Air Force Special Operations Command (AFSOC), a wing of the Air Education and Training Command, and an AFSOC-gained wing of the Air Force Reserve Command. Based on the Lockheed C-130 Hercules transport, the MC-130s' missions are the infiltration, exfiltration, and resupply of special operations forces, and the air refueling of (primarily) special operations helicopter and tilt-rotor aircraft.


title: Lockheed MC-130

text: The first of the variants, the MC-130E, was developed to support clandestine special operations missions during the Vietnam War. Eighteen were created by modifying C-130E transports, and four lost through attrition, but the remainder served more than four decades after their initial modification. An update, the MC-130H Combat Talon II, was developed in the 1980s from the C-130H and went into service in the 1990s. Four of the original 24 H-series aircraft have been lost in operations.


title: Lockheed MC-130

text: The Combat Shadows were built during the Vietnam War for search and rescue operations and repurposed in the 1980s as AFSOC air-refueling tankers; the last of the 24 retired in 2015.


title: Lockheed MC-130

text: The Combat Spear was developed in 2006 as an inexpensive version of the Combat Talon II but was reconfigured and designated the AC-130W Stinger II in 2012.


title: Lockheed MC-130

text: The MC-130J, which became operational in 2011, is the new-production variant that is replacing the other special operations MC-130s. As of May 2016, the Air Force has taken delivery of 33 of the planned 37 -J models.


title: Lockheed MC-130

text: The Combat Talon was developed between December 1964 and January 1967 by Lockheed Air Services (LAS) at Ontario, California, as the result of a study by "Big Safari", the USAF's program office that modifies and sustains special mission aircraft. Two highly classified testbed aircraft (originally serial no. "64-0506" and "-0507", but with all numbers "sanitized" from the aircraft), were assigned to Project "Thin Slice" to develop a low-level clandestine penetration aircraft for Special Forces operations in Southeast Asia. In 1964, Lockheed was ordered to adapt the C-130Es after six C-123B Providers modified for "unconventional warfare" under Project "Duck Hook" proved inadequate for the new MACV-SOG. The modifications under "Thin Slice" and its August 1966 successor "Heavy Chain" were code-named "Rivet Yard", and the four C-130Es came to be known as "Yards". Discrete modification tests were conducted by the 1198th Operational Evaluation and Training Squadron, out of Area II of Norton AFB at San Bernardino, California, 30 miles east of Ontario.


title: Lockheed MC-130

text: As the "Thin Slice" aircraft were being developed, 14 C-130Es were purchased for SOG in 1965 for similar modification. The first aircraft were production C-130Es without specialized equipment that were produced at Lockheed's facility in Marietta, Georgia. Three production airplanes per month were given the Fulton STARS (then ARS) system. While awaiting the ARS equipment, the C-130s were ferried to Greenville, Texas, for painting by Ling-Temco-Vought Electrosystems with a low-radar reflective paint that added 168 kg (370 lbs) to their weight. The velvet black-and-green scheme drew the nickname "Blackbirds". As installation was completed, the Blackbirds were returned to Ontario for installation of the electronics package, code-named "Rivet Clamp". The modified aircraft became known as "Clamps" (two of the original 14, "64–0564" and "-0565", were diverted to "Heavy Chain" in August 1966). The aircraft collectively were assigned the designation "Combat Talon" in 1967.


title: Lockheed MC-130

text: The Fulton surface-to-air recovery system was used to extract personnel and materials via air. A large helium balloon raised a nylon lift line into the air, which was snagged by a large scissors-shaped yoke attached to the nose of the plane. The yoke snagged the line and released the balloon, yanking the attached cargo off the ground with a shock less than that of an opening parachute. A sky anchor secured the line and wires stretched from the nose to both leading wing tip edges protected the propellers from the line on missed snag attempts. Crew members hooked the snagged line as it trailed behind and attached it to the hydraulic winch, pulling the attached person or cargo into the plane through the rear cargo door.


title: Lockheed MC-130

text: Following a death on 26 April 1982, at CFB Lahr, Germany, the Fulton STARS system on the Clamp aircraft underwent intense maintenance scrutiny and employment of the system for live pickups was suspended. A major effort at upgrading the system, "Project 46", was pursued from 1986 to 1989, but at its conclusion, use of the STARS system for live extractions remained suspended. The Fulton STARS equipment of all Combat Talons was removed during 1998.


title: Lockheed MC-130

text: "Rivet Clamp" installation began with four STARS-equipped C-130s completed by March 1966, followed by installations in eight further aircraft in July 1966 and January 1967. The "Rivet Clamp"s, originally designated C-130E(I)sp, were equipped with an electronic and infrared (IR) countermeasures suite; and the SPR2 later the AN/APQ-115 TF/TA multimode radar. This radar, adapted from the Texas Instruments AN/APQ-99 radar used in the RF-4C Phantom photo reconnaissance aircraft, featured terrain following/terrain-avoidance (TF/TA) and mapping radar modes, to enable it to operate at low altitudes at night and in all weather conditions and avoid known enemy radar and anti-aircraft weapons concentrations.


title: Lockheed MC-130

text: Beginning in 1970, Texas Instruments and Lockheed Air Service worked to adapt the existing AN/APQ-122 Adverse Weather Aerial Delivery System (AWADS) with terrain following/terrain avoidance modes to replace the original APQ-115, which suffered throughout its life with an unacceptably adverse mean-time-between-failure (MTBF) rate. In 1970 they succeeded, and coupled the APQ-122 with the Litton LN-15J Inertial Navigation System (INS). Known as MOD-70, the modified radar was installed in all 12 operational Combat Talons and the four "Heavy Chain" test beds between 1971 and 1973. The system proved so successful that it continued in service until the late 1980s. Following the completion of MOD-70, the Combat Talons were divided into three designations: C-130E(CT) for the "Clamp" aircraft, C-130E(Y) for the "Yank" (formerly "Yard") Talons, and C-130E(S) for the "Swap". The Combat Talon I designations were consolidated in 1977 as the MC-130 and have remained under that designation since. The Combat Talon became the "Combat Talon I" in 1984 with the authorization for the modification of 24 C-130Hs to Combat Talon II specifications.


title: Lockheed MC-130

text: The "Yank" Talons conducted top secret operations worldwide, under the project name "Combat Sam", until late 1972. Two of the original "Clamps" were lost in combat in Southeast Asia and were replaced by two C-130Es (64-0571 and −0572). These remained as Combat Talons until 1972, when "Heavy Chain" was gradually discontinued and its four "Yank" aircraft were integrated into the Combat Talon force. The two original "Thin Slice" aircraft were given the serials of two destroyed C-130s, "62-1843" and "63-7785" respectively, to disguise their classified origins. The replacements had their modifications removed and returned to airlift duties, although known as "Swaps", they remained available for future Combat Talon use. Both eventually became Combat Talons again after further losses in the Combat Talon inventory.


title: Lockheed MC-130

text: Capability to act as a Forward Area Refueling Point (FARP) for helicopters on the ground was begun in 1980 in preparation for "Operation Eagle Claw" (see below), although only one system could be installed before the mission was executed. The refueling system consists of two palletized 6,800 L (1,800 gal) tanks (known as Benson tanks) mounted on rails within the Talon that tie into the C-130's own pressurized fuel dumping pumps and require no further equipment.


title: Lockheed MC-130

text: A major modification between 1986 and 1994, MOD-90, modernized the capability and serviceability of the Talon I to extend its service life. All 14 Combat Talon Is were equipped with upgraded navigational radars, an enhanced electronic warfare suite and provided new outer wings. By 1995 all Combat Talon Is were equipped with helicopter-air refueling pods.