title: Santa Barbara County, California

text: On November 4, 2008, Santa Barbara County voted 53.5% against Proposition 8 which amended the California Constitution to ban same-sex marriages. It was the only county in Southern California to vote against it.


title: Santa Barbara County, California

text: In 1978, some residents of the northern area initiated an effort to create a "Los Padres County" out of the northern area of the county; in a referendum, this effort was defeated by a 3-1 margin.


title: Santa Barbara County, California

text: In 2006, northern county organizations initiated a similar secession proposal, to create a proposed "Mission County." Then-Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger appointed a formation commission to research the viability of the proposed northern county, which reached the conclusion, stated in its final report released on March 28, 2005, that "the proposed County, upon formation in 2006, would not be economically viable at current levels of service." The proposed new Mission County would have included the cities of Santa Maria, Lompoc, Guadalupe, Buellton, and Solvang, as well as the Cuyama Valley and Santa Ynez Valley, including Lake Cachuma. Most of the south coast of Santa Barbara County, along with the Channel Islands, would have remained with that county, with the exception of the stretch from Hollister Ranch to Point Conception. Most of the Los Padres National Forest also would have remained with Santa Barbara County. But in June 2006, voters rejected the formation of the new county, with more than 80% voting no.


title: Santa Barbara County, California

text: 46.8% of Santa Barbara County voters state their political party preference is Democratic, compared to 24.9% who prefer Republicans, and 21.6% who have No Party Preference. As of 2021, each of the 8 cities have more Democrats than any other political party.


title: Santa Barbara County, California

text: The Santa Barbara County Sheriff's Office provides law enforcement for the unincorporated areas of the county, as well as several cities within the county. The cities that the Sheriff's Office provides police services for include Buellton, Carpinteria, Goleta and Solvang. In total the 640 full-time employees of the Sheriff's Office are responsible for of the county.


title: Santa Barbara County, California

text: Founded in 1850, the Santa Barbara Sheriff's Office is the oldest law enforcement agency in the state. In its early days, the department battled outlaws Salomon Pico and Jack Powers. Initially having a single Sheriff, aided only by a jailer and guard in charge of the chain gang, the department now has over 600 full-time employees.


title: Santa Barbara County, California

text: The following table includes the number of incidents reported and the rate per 1,000 persons for each type of offense.


title: Santa Barbara County, California

text: Oil production began in 1886 with drilling in Summerland. Enormous oil fields such as the Orcutt, Lompoc, Santa Maria Valley, and Cat Canyon fields provided jobs and a steady supply of oil, gas, and asphalt since the first oil discovery in the Solomon Hills in 1901. Protests have marked periodic resistance to the impact of oil drilling over the years. A protest in 1929 in Santa Barbara expressed the frustration of the wealthy who came here to get away from it all. The largest spill in California waters, credited as a spark for the modern environmental movement, coated the beaches and Santa Barbara Harbor with a thick crude in 1969. In recent years, major oil companies have left the area, turning over their oil leases to small independents, and decommissioning some leases areas that were no longer profitable. Concerns about the economy were foremost when, in 2014, Measure P was placed on the county ballot. If approve by the voters the measure would ban "high-intensity petroleum operations" in the county.


title: Santa Barbara County, California

text: The city of Santa Barbara and other coastal communities support a significant tourism economy. White-collar jobs, previously with an emphasis in aerospace but more recently in software and other high-tech pursuits are encouraged by proximity to the University of California, Santa Barbara. Vandenberg Space Force Base has traditionally had a large economic impact in the northern portion of the county and continues to be the site of frequent satellite launches.


title: Santa Barbara County, California

text: Agriculture is the top major producing industry as of 2016. Strawberries are the county's top crop, with $413 million in production making up more than a third of all county agricultural production. Wine grapes are number two.


title: Santa Barbara County, California

text: County farmers began growing hemp after it was removed from a list of controlled substances along with other provisions of the Hemp Farming Act of 2018. These provisions were included in the 2018 Farm Bill which made hemp legal for agricultural uses. Cannabis and hemp plants have a similar look and smell making it hard to tell the difference.


title: Santa Barbara County, California

text: The first wine grapes in Santa Barbara County were planted by the missionaries associated with Mission Santa Barbara late in the 18th century. Since commercial viticulture rebounded in the 1960s, Santa Barbara County has become a prominent viticultural region. The 2004 Alexander Payne film, "Sideways", set in the Santa Ynez Valley, brought additional attention to the county as a wine region, especially for its Pinot noir wines.


title: Santa Barbara County, California

text: The region, also noted for its Chardonnay wines, is gaining a reputation for Rhone varietals including Syrah and Viognier. Santa Barbara wine grapes now command among the highest prices anywhere in the state.


title: Santa Barbara County, California

text: The areas planted with wine grapes are mixed in with the rolling hills, ancient oak trees, oil fields, cattle ranches, and natural areas in the central part of the county. The county now claims more than 115 wineries cultivating with the vast majority of the vineyards in the county's Central Coast American Viticultural Areas: Santa Maria Valley AVA, Santa Ynez Valley AVA, Sta. Rita Hills AVA, Happy Canyon AVA, Los Olivos District AVA and Ballard Canyon AVA each with its own distinct terroir. The county continues to gain AVA recognition with Alisos Canyon AVA being the recent established AVA in 2020.


title: Santa Barbara County, California

text: The Foxen Canyon Wine Trail is situated about an hour north of Santa Barbara, and several miles from Los Olivos. Numerous events are held year-round in this area by the Foxen Canyon Wine Trail Association.


title: Santa Barbara County, California

text: The trail is home to many wineries including Andrew Murray Vineyards, Fess Parker Winery and Firestone Vineyard. One of the wineries along the trail, Cambria Estate Winery, was featured in the 3rd episode of The Bachelor, an American reality television series, Season 15, on January 17, 2011.


title: Santa Barbara County, California

text: Pinot Noir and Chardonnay are common all long the trail while the southern part also has many Rhone style wines due to the warmer climate. In the North, Burgundy styles tend to predominate more due to the cooler maritime weather.


title: Santa Barbara County, California

text: The county limited retail sales to eight establishments that will be distributed so they don't become clustered in any of the unincorporated communities. In the first four months of the legalization of growing cannabis for recreational purposes in California, the county issued almost 800 permits for cultivators, the most of any county in the state. Under the legalization of recreational cannabis in California, companies must be licensed by the local agency and the state to grow, test, or sell cannabis and the county may authorize none or only some of these activities. Local governments may not prohibit adults, who are in compliance with state laws, from growing, using, or transporting marijuana for personal use.


title: Santa Barbara County, California

text: The Carpinteria Valley has become the densest concentration of cannabis farms in the United States. The growing operations are typically small so they only total about of the county's farmland. Farmers will combine small permits for neighboring plots of land though as licenses for over 1 acre of land are not allowed until 2023. The owners of many greenhouses in the Carpinteria Valley, that were built as nurseries for flowers and other plants, have converted them to growing cannabis.<ref name="VCS 2018/05/12"></ref>


title: Santa Barbara County, California

text: While the grow operations are outside the city limits of Carpinteria, city residents have complained about the smell of odor-intense terpenes given off by cannabis plants. The county contracts with a private industrial hygienist to ensure odor pollution is not occurring. The Sheriff's Department has a Cannabis Compliance Team that conducts background checks on cannabis growers and their employees and carries out raids on illegal operations.


title: Santa Barbara County, California

text: There are 20 independent school districts in Santa Barbara County, and the Santa Barbara County Education Office serves as an intermediate agency between those districts and the California Department of Education. During the 2013 school year, 67,701 students were enrolled in Santa Barbara County schools, kindergarten through grade 12.


title: Santa Barbara County, California

text: There are also a number of private schools in the county. The Los Angeles Archdiocese operates two Catholic high schools and several elementary schools.


title: Santa Barbara County, California

text: In addition to 41 listings of National Register of Historic Place and 16 California Historical Landmarks, the county lists 50 County of Santa Barbara Landmarks.


title: Santa Barbara County, California

text: In the North County, the cities of Lompoc, Santa Maria, and Buellton/Solvang have their own bus services.


title: Red flag (politics)

text: In politics, a red flag is predominantly a symbol of socialism, communism, Marxism, trade unions, left-wing politics, and historically of anarchism. It has been associated with left-wing politics since the French Revolution (1789–1799).


title: Red flag (politics)

text: Socialists adopted the symbol during the Revolutions of 1848 and it became a symbol of communism as a result of its use by the Paris Commune of 1871. The flags of several socialist states, including China, Vietnam and former Soviet Union, are explicitly based on the original red flag. The red flag is also used as a symbol by some democratic socialists and social democrats, for example the League of Social Democrats of Hong Kong, the French Socialist Party and the Social Democratic Party of Germany. The Labour Party in Britain used it until the late 1980s. It was the inspiration for the socialist anthem, "The Red Flag".


title: Red flag (politics)

text: Prior to the French Revolution and in some contexts even today, red flags or banners were seen as a symbol of defiance and battle.


title: Red flag (politics)

text: Red color as a combat or revolt symbol in Europe goes back to the turn of the millenia and before. In the Middle Ages, ships in combat flew a long red streamer, called the Baucans, to signify a fight to the death.


title: Red flag (politics)

text: The red cap was a symbol of popular revolt in France going back to the Jacquerie of 1358. The color red became associated with patriotism early in the French Revolution due to the popularity of the Tricolour cockade, introduced in July 1789, and the Phrygian cap, introduced in May 1790. A red flag was raised over the Champ-de-Mars in Paris on July 17, 1791, by Lafayette, commander of the National Guard, as a symbol of martial law, warning rioters to disperse. As many as fifty anti-royalist protesters were killed in the fighting that followed.


title: Red flag (politics)

text: Inverting the original symbolism, the Jacobins protested this action by flying a red flag to honor the "martyrs' blood" of those who had been killed. They created their own red flags to declare "the martial law of the people against the revolt of the court."


title: Red flag (politics)

text: British sailors mutinied near the mouth of the River Thames in 1797 and hoisted a red flag on several ships.


title: Red flag (politics)

text: Two red flags soaked in calf's blood were flown by marchers in South Wales during the Merthyr Rising of 1831. It is claimed to be the first time that the red flag was waved as a banner of workers' power. The red flags of Merthyr became a potent relic following the execution of early trade unionist Dic Penderyn (Richard Lewis) in August 1831, despite a public campaign to pardon him.


title: Red flag (politics)

text: During the Mexican siege of the Alamo in March 1836, General Antonio Lopez de Santa Ana displayed a plain red flag (approx. 10 feet square) from the highest church tower in Bejar. The meaning of this display – directed to the Alamo defenders – meant "no surrender; no clemency."


title: Red flag (politics)

text: At much the same time, the Liberal "Colorados" in the Uruguayan Civil War used red flags. This prolonged struggle at the time got considerable attention and sympathy from liberals and revolutionaries in Europe, and it was in this war that Garibaldi first made a name for himself and that he was inspired to have his troops wear the famous Red Shirts.


title: Red flag (politics)

text: The Ottoman Empire used a variety of flags, especially as naval ensigns, during its history. The star and crescent came into use in the second half of the 18th century. A "" (decree) from 1793 required that the ships of the Ottoman Navy were to use a red flag with the star and crescent in white. In 1844, a version of this flag, with a five-pointed star, was officially adopted as the Ottoman national flag.


title: Red flag (politics)

text: In 1870, following the stunning defeat of the French Army by the Germans in the Franco-Prussian War, French workers and socialist revolutionaries seized Paris and created the Paris Commune. The Commune lasted for two months before it was crushed by the French Army, with much bloodshed. The original red banners of the Commune became icons of the socialist revolution; in 1921 members of the French Communist Party came to Moscow and presented the new Soviet government with one of the original Commune banners; it was placed (and is still in place) in the tomb of Vladimir Lenin, next to his open coffin.


title: Red flag (politics)

text: With the victory of the Bolsheviks in the Russian Revolution of 1917, the red flag, with a hammer to symbolize the workers and sickle to symbolize peasants, became the official flag of Russia, and, in 1923, of the Soviet Union. It remained so until the breakup of the Soviet Union in 1991.


title: Red flag (politics)

text: After the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) came to power in 1949, the flag of China became a red flag with a large star symbolizing the CCP, and smaller stars symbolizing workers, peasants, the urban middle class and rural middle class. The flag of the CCP became a red banner with a hammer and sickle, similar to that on the Soviet flag. In the 1950s and 1960s, other Communist governments such as Vietnam and Laos also adopted red flags. Some Communist countries, such as Cuba, chose to keep their old flags; and other countries used red flags which had nothing to do with Communism or socialism; the red flag of Nepal, for instance, represents the national flower.


title: Red flag (politics)

text: Eastern Arabia tribal federations used a Red standard as their flag. These federations later developed into sheikhdoms and emirates. The red standard is adopted as one of the early Islamic flags which included a red standard such as the prominent Arab military commander 'Amr ibn al-'As who used a red banner. Examples of Arabian red standards include the flag of the Sultanate of Muscat and Oman, the individual flags of the emirates of the United Arab Emirates, the original flag of Kuwait, Bahrain, and Qatar.


title: Red flag (politics)

text: During the 1848 Revolution in France, Socialists and radical republicans demanded that the red flag be adopted as France's national flag. Led by poet-politician Alphonse de Lamartine, the government rejected the demand: "[T]he red flag that you have brought back here has done nothing but being trailed around the Champ-de-Mars in the people's blood in [17]91 and [17]93, whereas the Tricolore flag went round the world along with the name, the glory and the liberty of the homeland!"


title: Red flag (politics)

text: The banner of the Paris Commune of 1871 was red and it was at this time that the red flag became a symbol of socialism and communism. The flag was flown by anarchists at a May Day rally for an eight-hour workday in Chicago in 1886. A bomb blast killed a policeman and the Haymarket Eight were arrested and five were executed. This event, considered the beginning of the revival of the international labor movement, is still commemorated annually in many countries (although not in the U.S.A.). The red flag gained great popularity during the Russian Revolution of 1917. The Soviet flag, with a hammer, a sickle and a star on a red background, was adopted in 1923. Various communist and socialist newspapers have used the name "The Red Flag." In China, both the Nationalist Party-led Republic of China and the Communist Party-led People's Republic of China use a red field for their flags, a reference to their revolutionary origins.


title: Red flag (politics)

text: The building to have had a red flag flying for the longest period of time and to still have one is the Victorian Trades Hall in Melbourne, Australia. It is the world's oldest trade union building. The flag has been flying for over a century.


title: Red flag (politics)

text: Anarchists, as part of the socialist movement, also used red flag. The banner was one of the first anarchist symbols.


title: Red flag (politics)

text: The red flag was the emblem of the British Labour Party from its inception until the Labour Party Conference of 1986 when it was replaced by a red rose, itself a variant of the "Fist and Rose" then in wide use by left of center parties in Europe. The more floral red rose design has subsequently been adopted by a number of other socialist and social-democratic parties throughout Europe. Members of the party also sing the traditional anthem "The Red Flag" at the conclusion of the annual party conference. In February 2006 the "Red Flag" was sung in Parliament to mark the centenary of the Labour Party's founding. The flag was regularly flown above Sheffield Town Hall on May Day under David Blunkett's Labour administration of Sheffield during the 1980s.


title: Red flag (politics)

text: It has been common to find streets, buildings, businesses and product brands named after the Red Flag in nominally socialist countries as a result of recuperation. For example, a famous line of limousine cars manufactured by China FAW Group Corporation has the brand name of Red Flag. In 1967 during the Cultural Revolution, Pilal in Akto County, Kizilsu, Xinjiang, China was renamed Hongqi Commune (), meaning 'red flag commune'. In 1968, Baykurut Commune in Ulugqat County, Kizilsu, Xinjiang, China was also renamed Hongqi Commune.


title: Red flag (politics)

text: After the suppression of the 1848 revolution, the red flag and other insignia dominated by the colour red were banned in Prussia, as was the case in France after the demise of the Paris Commune. During the persecution of socialists during the Red Scare of 1919–1920 in the United States, many states passed laws forbidding the display of red flags, including Minnesota, South Dakota, Oklahoma, and California. In "Stromberg v. California", the United States Supreme Court held that such laws are unconstitutional.


title: Red flag (politics)

text: In Australia the red flag was similarly banned in September 1918 under the "War Precautions Act 1914". This ban would be an arguable cause of the Red Flag riots. The ban ended in Australia with the repeal of the War Precautions Act in 1920.


title: Trial in absentia

text: Trial in absentia is a criminal proceeding in a court of law in which the person who is subject to it is not physically present at those proceedings. is Latin for "in (the) absence". Its meaning varies by jurisdiction and legal system.


title: Trial in absentia

text: In common law legal systems, the phrase is more than a spatial description. In these systems, it suggests a recognition of a violation to a defendant's right to be present in court proceedings in a criminal trial. Conviction in a trial in which a defendant is not present to answer the charges is held to be a violation of natural justice. Specifically, it violates the second principle of natural justice, (hear the other party).


title: Trial in absentia

text: In some civil law legal systems, such as that of Italy, is a recognized and accepted defensive strategy. Such trials may require the presence of the defendant's lawyer, depending on the country.


title: Trial in absentia

text: Member states of the Council of Europe that are party to the European Convention on Human Rights are bound to adhere to Article 6 of the convention, which protects the right to a fair trial.


title: Trial in absentia

text: Trials in absentia are banned in some member states of the EU and permitted in others, posing significant problems for the fluidity of mutual recognition of these judicial judgments. The executing member state possesses some degree of discretion and is not obliged to execute a European Arrest Warrant if the country that is making the request has already tried that person in absentia.


title: Trial in absentia

text: Conditions under which trials in absentia must be recognised include: if the person can be said to have been aware of the trial; if a counsellor took their place at the trial; if they do not request an appeal in due time; and if they are to be offered an appeal.


title: Trial in absentia

text: The framework decision on the European Arrest Warrant provides for the legal guarantees relevant to trials in absentia. While the framework decision explicitly refers to Article 6 of the European Convention on Human Rights, its purpose is not to harmonise national laws on trials in absentia but to provide terms for the non-recognition of a European Arrest Warrant and other cooperative tools. The framework decision provides detailed conditions and requirements on which a trial in absentia can be considered compatible with Article 6, the right to a fair trial.


title: Trial in absentia

text: According to Pieter Cleppe of the think-tank Open Europe, in parts of Europe, in absentia trials essentially give defendants the ability to appeal twice—asking for a retrial at which they would be present and then potentially appealing the second verdict.


title: Trial in absentia

text: The Council of Europe has made commentary on judgments that are made in absentia. The Committee of Ministers, in Resolution (75) 11, of 21 May 1975, stated that an individual must first be effectively served with a summons prior to being tried. In this sense, the ministers are emphasizing that it is not the presence of the accused at the hearing that is of importance, rather the focus should be on whether or not the individual was informed of the trial in time.


title: Trial in absentia

text: In a 1985 judgement in the case "Colozza v Italy", the European Court of Human Rights stressed that a person charged with a criminal offence is entitled to take part in the hearings. This entitlement is based on the right to a fair trial and the right to a defence, both of which are required by the convention (articles 6(1) and 6(3)). Furthermore, the court stressed that a person convicted in absentia shall be entitled to a fresh trial once he becomes aware of the proceedings:


title: Trial in absentia

text: The Human Rights Committee (HRC) examined "Monguya Mbenge v. Zaire" (1990) in which the applicant was sentenced to death while exiled in Belgium and was only able to learn of the case against him through the media. Due to these circumstances, the committee found that a number of the applicant's procedural rights had been violated, especially in consideration of the fact that the Zairean authorities had hardly attempted to contact the applicant despite possible knowledge of the applicant's address. This highly impeded the applicant's capacity to prepare any form of defense. Failed evidence to support the case that a court had tried to inform the accused of proceedings against him/her provides the committee with the opinion that the right to be tried in one's presence was violated.


title: Trial in absentia

text: Under Article 8(2) of the Charter of Fundamental Rights and Basic Freedoms of the Czech Republic, which has the same legal standing as the Czech Constitution, no one may be prosecuted or deprived of their liberty except on grounds and in a manner specified by law.


title: Trial in absentia

text: In general, the Czech Criminal Procedural Code requires the presence of the defendant in any criminal proceedings. The code recognizes the following exemptions from this rule, when criminal proceedings may be conducted without the presence of the person charged:


title: Trial in absentia

text: Apart from the aforementioned cases of in absentia proceedings in the narrow sense, the defendant may also be absent during the trial under following circumstances:


title: Trial in absentia

text: Italy is one of several countries in Europe that allow trials in absentia, and they are a regular occurrence.


title: Trial in absentia

text: In "Maleki v Italy" (1997), the United Nations Human Rights Committee held that the Italian policy on trials in absentia was a breach of the right to fair trial under Article 14 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. Italy argued that where a defendant in absentia is represented by court-appointed counsel and where he or she has an opportunity to be re-tried, the right to a fair trial will not be violated. The committee disagreed, describing Italy's position as:


title: Trial in absentia

text: In 2009, a former CIA station chief and two other Americans were tried and convicted in absentia by a Milan appeals court for the abduction of Egyptian terror suspect Osama Hassan Mustafa Nasr. The decision meant that 26 Americans tried in absentia for the abduction were found guilty.


title: Trial in absentia

text: The trial of American Amanda Knox for the 2007 murder of British student Meredith Kercher highlighted the issue of Italy's willingness to try defendants in absentia. In 2013 Italy's highest court, the Court of Cassation, decided to annul Knox's appeal (alongside the co-accused, Italian Raffaele Sollecito), thus overturning their previous acquittals, declaring the acquittal as "full of deficiencies, contradictions and illogical conclusions".


title: Trial in absentia

text: As Amanda Knox remained at her home in the United States, her appeal was heard in absentia, in Florence, Italy. On 30 January 2014 her guilty verdict was re-instated for the murder of Kercher and her sentence set at 28 years and six months imprisonment.


title: Trial in absentia

text: In the case of "Goddi v. Italy", the European Court of Human Rights held that the failure of Italy's judiciary to inform the officially appointed lawyer of the applicant in regards to the correct date of the trial hearing deprived the applicant of an effective defence, and therefore Article 6 (3) (c) had been violated.


title: Trial in absentia

text: Certain case law supports the notion that in some circumstances representation by counsel at the trial will not be enough to make an in absentia conviction conclusive enough for the establishment of probable cause. In "Gallina v Fraser", the appellant Vincenzo Gallina was convicted in absentia according to established Italian procedure for two robberies. The verdict in Gallina has been since interpreted to suggest that the presence of legal counsel alone is, in certain cases, insufficient to give an in absentia conviction that establishes probable cause.


title: Trial in absentia

text: For more than 100 years, courts in the United States have held that the United States Constitution protects a criminal defendant's right to appear in person at their trial, as a matter of due process, under the Fifth, Sixth, and Fourteenth Amendments.


title: Trial in absentia

text: A similar holding was announced by the Arizona Court of Appeals in 2004 (based on Arizona Rules of Criminal Procedure):


title: Trial in absentia

text: Although United States Congress codified this right by approving Rule 43 of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure in 1946 and amended the Rule in 1973, the right is not absolute.


title: Trial in absentia

text: Indeed, several U.S. Supreme Court decisions have recognized that a defendant may forfeit the right to be present at trial through disruptive behavior, or through his or her voluntary absence after trial has begun.


title: Trial in absentia

text: In 1993, the Supreme Court revisited Rule 43 in the case of "Crosby v. United States". The Court unanimously held, in an opinion written by Justice Harry Blackmun, that Rule 43 does not permit the trial in absentia of a defendant who is absent at the beginning of trial.


title: Fairchild C-26 Metroliner

text: The Fairchild C-26 "Metroliner" is the designation for the Fairchild Swearingen Metroliner series twin turboprop aircraft in the service of the United States military. It was not officially named by the US Armed Forces, but is unofficially known by the same name as its civilian counterpart. The C-26A is the military version of the Model SA227-AC Metro III; the C-26B is the military version of the Model SA227-BC Metro III and Model SA227-DC Metro 23; and UC-26C is the military designation for the Model SA227-AT Merlin IVC.


title: Fairchild C-26 Metroliner

text: The United States Air Force bought eleven C-26A aircraft based on the SA227-AC, two of these being supplied to the Venezuelan Air Force. The first three C-26Bs were procured later in the 1980s, two for the US Army and one for the USAF. These three had been built as SA227-BC models. Later C-26Bs were the military equivalent of the Metro 23 and the USAF took delivery of 37 examples. Some of these were transferred to the Peruvian Air Force and the US Army, while six were transferred to the US Navy as C-26Ds. The US Army also took a second-hand Merlin IVC and operated it as the solitary UC-26C.


title: Fairchild C-26 Metroliner

text: A Metro III, c/n AC-614, was modified as the Fairchild Aircraft/Lockheed Multi Mission Surveillance Aircraft, featuring a Lockheed phased array radar in a long pod under the fuselage. Several aspects of the MMSA aircraft were incorporated on some USAF C-26s redesignated as the RC-26B, operated by the Air National Guard (ANG) in various states. These aircraft have been primarily used for Department of Defense reconnaissance mission support to various agencies of the Department of Homeland Security such as the United States Coast Guard (USCG) and Customs and Border Protection (CBP) in the War on Drugs, and to USCG and/or the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) in the wake of natural disasters. The RC-26B aircraft were originally configured with a belly pod containing a sensor turret and a data recorder. Recently, this pod has been removed and a sensor turret has been added to the belly of the aircraft. Some of the RC-26Bs were operated for a time with civil registrations. On 4 February 2019, a contract for Elbit Systems of America to provide an avionics upgrade to the Air National Guard's RC-26Bs was announced.


title: Fairchild C-26 Metroliner

text: The US Navy operates several C-26D aircraft, modified for range support, at the Pacific Missile Range Facility at Barking Sands in Hawaii.


title: Fairchild C-26 Metroliner

text: In early June 2020, the US National Guard deployed an RC-26B to El Dorado Hills near Sacramento, California, apparently in response to a walking tour by young black entrepreneurs. The deployment occurred without the knowledge or approval of Gavin Newsom, the Governor of California.


title: Emily Thornberry

text: Emily Anne Thornberry (born 27 July 1960) is a British politician who has been Member of Parliament (MP) for Islington South and Finsbury since 2005. A member of the Labour Party, she has served as Shadow Attorney General for England and Wales since 2021, and previously from 2011 to 2014. She has also served as Shadow Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs from 2016 to 2020, Shadow First Secretary of State from 2017 to 2020 and Shadow Secretary of State for International Trade from 2020 to 2021.


title: Emily Thornberry

text: The daughter of a teacher and a diplomat, Thornberry was born in Guildford, Surrey, and attended a local secondary modern school. After graduating from the University of Kent in Canterbury, she worked as a human rights lawyer from 1985 to 2005 and joined the Transport and General Workers' Union.


title: Emily Thornberry

text: Thornberry was first elected to Parliament in 2005 and served as Shadow Attorney General for England and Wales in Ed Miliband's shadow cabinet from 2011 until she resigned in 2014 after sending a tweet mocking a house with England flags. After Jeremy Corbyn won the 2015 Labour Party leadership election, Thornberry was appointed Shadow Minister of State for Employment in September 2015, Shadow Secretary of State for Defence in January 2016 and Shadow Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs in June 2016. She was a candidate to succeed Corbyn as Leader of the Labour Party in the 2020 leadership election but was eliminated from the race after failing to obtain the number of nominations needed.


title: Emily Thornberry

text: Thornberry was appointed to Keir Starmer's shadow cabinet as Shadow Secretary of State for International Trade and Shadow President of the Board of Trade in April 2020. She was appointed Shadow Attorney General for England and Wales in November 2021.


title: Emily Thornberry

text: Thornberry was born in Guildford, Surrey on 27 July 1960. Her parents were Sallie Thornberry (née Bone), a teacher, and Cedric Thornberry, at the time teaching international law at the London School of Economics, and later a United Nations Assistant Secretary-General. Due to her father's birth in Belfast she is an Irish citizen and Irish passport holder. When Thornberry was seven, her parents divorced and she had to leave their home with her mother and two brothers. After this, she relied on free school meals and food parcels, and their cats were euthanised to save money. Her mother later became a Labour councillor and mayor (representing Stoke in Guildford from 1983 to 2003), and her father stood as the Labour candidate for Guildford in the 1966 general election.


title: Emily Thornberry

text: She failed the eleven-plus exam, so attended a secondary modern school. She left to live with her father when she was fifteen until he left without warning to work for the United Nations when she was seventeen. She worked as a cleaner and a barmaid in London alongside resitting her O-Levels and taking her A-Levels. She went on to study law at the University of Kent in Canterbury, graduating in 1982, and afterwards led the students’ union as an elected full-time officer. She was called to the Bar at Gray's Inn and practised as a barrister specialising in human rights law from 1985 to 2005 under Michael Mansfield at Tooks Chambers.


title: Emily Thornberry

text: At the 2001 general election, Thornberry stood as the Labour candidate in Canterbury, but was defeated by the Conservative incumbent, Julian Brazier.


title: Emily Thornberry

text: Following the decision of Chris Smith not to stand again, Thornberry was selected as the Labour candidate for Islington South and Finsbury for the 2005 general election through an all-women shortlist of prospective candidates. She was elected to Parliament with a majority of 484, narrowly beating the Liberal Democrats. Nick Smith (who was subsequently elected to Parliament representing Blaenau Gwent) served as her election agent.


title: Emily Thornberry

text: Thornberry made her maiden speech in the House of Commons on 24 May 2005. In Parliament, she has been a member of the Environmental Audit Committee and was on the Communities and Local Government Select Committee during the 2005–10 Parliament. She has served as vice-chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Cycling Group and the All-Party Parliamentary Pro-Choice and Sexual Health Group.


title: Emily Thornberry

text: In 2006, Thornberry was criticised by the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards Philip Mawer for adding a quote from herself into a news release by the Electoral Commission. She was found not to have broken the Parliamentary code of conduct.


title: Emily Thornberry

text: Thornberry's main interests since becoming an MP have been in health, housing, the environment and equality. She has also spoken on the need for more affordable housing, particularly in Islington. In 2006, Thornberry introduced the Housing Association Bill, a Private Member's Bill which sought to improve the control of housing association tenants over their landlords. Many of the ideas from this bill were taken up by the Cave Review. On environmental matters, Thornberry worked with Friends of the Earth and World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) to campaign for a Climate Change Bill and a Marine Bill. In 2006, Thornberry won the ePolitix Award for Environment Champion of the Year after being nominated by WWF.


title: Emily Thornberry

text: In 2008, Thornberry supported a change in the law to allow single women and lesbian couples to seek in vitro fertilisation treatment.


title: Emily Thornberry

text: In 2009, she was appointed as a ministerial aide in the Department of Energy and Climate Change and attended the Copenhagen Summit in December that year with Joan Ruddock and Ed Miliband.


title: Emily Thornberry

text: In May 2010, Thornberry was returned as MP for Islington South and Finsbury with an increased majority, in a seat identified as the Liberal Democrats' top target in England for the 2010 general election.


title: Emily Thornberry

text: Thornberry was promoted to Shadow Minister for the Department of Energy and Climate Change in May 2010. In the role she shadowed Charles Hendry. Thornberry missed out on a place in Labour's shadow cabinet, then elected by Labour MPs, by one vote. She was instead promoted to the role of shadow care minister under the shadow health secretary John Healey.


title: Emily Thornberry

text: As shadow care minister, Thornberry criticised the coalition government's lack of action over failing care home operator Southern Cross, calling for action and that the government put in place a plan B should the operator fail. She criticised the government over the Winterbourne View care home abuse scandal, calling for an investigation into the affair. In April 2011, Thornberry surveyed all the local government directors of adult social care and highlighted the pressures on care for the elderly by the coalition government's cuts to local authority funds.


title: Emily Thornberry

text: Thornberry was appointed shadow attorney general in October 2011, in which capacity she attended shadow cabinet meetings. Thornberry called for action by Dominic Grieve over Applied Language Solutions' failure to provide interpreters for court proceedings, and called on the attorney general to ensure that allegations of bribery involving Bernie Ecclestone were properly investigated.


title: Emily Thornberry

text: In 2011, Thornberry challenged David Cameron over his false claims about wages at Islington Council, campaigning against government measures which Thornberry claimed to have exacerbated child poverty in Islington, and answering over 1,000 enquiries a month from constituents.


title: Emily Thornberry

text: Thornberry resigned her shadow cabinet position on 20 November 2014, shortly after polls closed in the Rochester and Strood by-election. Earlier in the day, she had received criticism after tweeting a photograph of a house in the constituency adorned with three flags of St. George and the owner's white van parked outside on the driveway, under the caption "Image from #Rochester", provoking accusations of snobbery. She was criticised by fellow Labour Party MPs, including leader Ed Miliband who said her tweet conveyed a "sense of disrespect", Chris Bryant who said that it broke the "first rule of politics" and Simon Danczuk who said that the party had been "hijacked by the north London liberal elite".


title: Emily Thornberry

text: Thornberry was one of 36 Labour MPs to nominate Jeremy Corbyn as a candidate in the Labour leadership election of 2015, though she later stated that she would be supporting Yvette Cooper.


title: Emily Thornberry

text: In September 2015, she was appointed as the shadow minister for employment by the new Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn. She was promoted to shadow defence secretary in January 2016, replacing Maria Eagle. Thornberry advocated spending money on the army rather than on the UK's Trident nuclear programme. On being appointed, Thornberry was interviewed by the British Forces Broadcasting Service, where she defended her appointment, saying she had "quite a lot more experience than people might think I do. I was made an honorary lieutenant colonel when I was doing court-martials [sic] when I was a barrister so I have a certain amount of experience of the military there."


title: Emily Thornberry

text: Thornberry was promoted to Shadow Foreign Secretary in June 2016 after Corbyn fired Hilary Benn. She held the role of Shadow Brexit Secretary concurrently until Keir Starmer took on the role later that year. She accused Sky News presenter Dermot Murnaghan of sexism after he asked her to name French minister of foreign affairs and international development, Jean-Marc Ayrault and the president of South Korea, which she was unable to do. Following the 2017 general election, she was given the additional role of Shadow First Secretary of State, effectively acting as Corbyn's number 2.


title: Emily Thornberry

text: Thornberry opposed Britain's involvement in the Saudi Arabian-led intervention in Yemen against the Shia Houthis. She said that "while Saudi Arabia will remain a valued strategic, security and economic ally in the years to come, our support for their forces in Yemen must be suspended until the alleged violations of international humanitarian law in that conflict have been fully and independently investigated." In May 2018 Thornberry said support in Syria for the country's president, Bashar al-Assad, had been "underestimated" in the West. In October 2018 Thornberry criticised Theresa May's government's response to Jamal Khashoggi's disappearance as "too little, too late". She said: "Imagine how this government would have reacted if either Russia or Iran had abducted–and in all likelihood murdered–one of their dissident journalists within the sovereign territory of another country."


title: Emily Thornberry

text: After Corbyn announced he was stepping down as leader, Thornberry was the first to officially announce that she would be running for leader of the Labour Party.


title: Emily Thornberry

text: Defeated Labour MP Caroline Flint appeared on "Sophy Ridge on Sunday" and accused Thornberry of saying that Brexit voters in Northern England were 'stupid'. Thornberry appeared on "ITV News" and accused Flint of 'making up shit about her' and threatened to take legal action. She was eventually eliminated from the leadership election after failing to achieve enough nominations from constituency parties or affiliated groups.


title: Emily Thornberry

text: After the killing of Qasem Soleimani in the 2020 Baghdad International Airport airstrike, Thornberry condemned the actions of the United States government. She said that she shed no tears over the death, but was fearful of escalating tensions in the region.


title: Emily Thornberry

text: Thornberry was replaced as Shadow Foreign Secretary by Lisa Nandy upon the election of Keir Starmer as Leader of the Labour Party. Thornberry herself was not sacked from the Official Opposition frontbench, but instead moved to a different frontbench role, becoming the new Shadow Secretary of State for International Trade. She replaced Barry Gardiner, and said on Twitter that, "It's been a pleasure to work with Barry Gardiner these past four years... I hope I can take the fight to the government on International Trade as effectively as he did, and I'll be very lucky to have his advice".


title: Emily Thornberry

text: In late December 2020, Thornberry voted for the European Union (Future Relationship) Act 2020, in line with the Labour Chief Whip.


title: Emily Thornberry

text: In the November 2021 shadow cabinet reshuffle, Thornberry was appointed Shadow Attorney General for England and Wales.


title: Emily Thornberry

text: Thornberry's constituency falls within the London Borough of Islington, one of the most deprived areas of the country with disproportionately high house prices and private sector rents. She has supported measures by Islington Council to free up under-occupied homes by supporting tenants to downsize and to stop foreign investors from buying new homes and leaving them empty. She has also called for a greater degree of control over private sector rents and more support for social house-building. Thornberry has frequently campaigned for a greater commitment to affordable and social housing. She was criticised when the local "Islington Tribune" newspaper discovered that her husband had bought a former social house which was being rented out to her aides. Thornberry said the purchase was "not about property speculation".


title: Emily Thornberry

text: In 2015 Thornberry clashed with Boris Johnson, the mayor of London, over the proposed redevelopments of the Mount Pleasant Mail Centre, the sorting office run by the Royal Mail, and the Clerkenwell Fire Station, both in her constituency. Camden and Islington councils sought to require a high proportion of the resulting new homes to be made available for social rent, but Johnson overturned this and allowed homes designated as "affordable" to charge rents of up to 80 percent of market rates. Thornberry criticised Johnson, describing his definition of affordability as "nonsense", and called for at least 50% of homes in the new developments to be made available for social rent.


title: Emily Thornberry

text: In 2013, the 100th anniversary of the death of the suffragette Emily Davison, Thornberry called for a statue commemorating Davison in Parliament. She arranged a public meeting to discuss options for a memorial, attended by around 800 people, and settled on the idea of a statue as an appropriate memorial, pointing out that there were very few statues of female politicians and activists in Parliament.


title: Emily Thornberry

text: In March 2015, Thornberry launched a campaign for a new Equal Pay Act. She said that, 45 years after the original Equal Pay Act was passed in 1970, women still earned 19% less than men on average.


title: Emily Thornberry

text: Thornberry has lived in Islington since the early 1990s. In July 1991 she married Christopher Nugee, of Wilberforce Chambers, in Tower Hamlets, and they have two sons and a daughter. Nugee later became Queen's Counsel, then a High Court Judge, when he was knighted, at which point Thornberry became entitled to be styled Lady Nugee, but does not use the title. Nugee later became a Lord Justice of Appeal. Since 1993 they have lived on Richmond Crescent, Barnsbury, where Tony Blair also lived until the 1997 general election, moving in on the same day as the Blairs. Thornberry also part-owns properties in Guildford and South London; her property portfolio "is believed to be worth £4.6 million."


title: Emily Thornberry

text: In April 2005, it was reported that Thornberry and Nugee had sent their son to the partially selective Dame Alice Owen's state school from their home and outside her constituency. The school was formerly based in Islington and reserved a quota of 10% of its places for Islington pupils. The Labour Party opposes selection and Thornberry was criticised over the matter as a result. Chris Woodhead, the former chief inspector of schools, said: "I celebrate her good sense as a parent and deplore her hypocrisy as a politician. When will those who espouse the virtues of comprehensive education apply the logic of their political message to their children?" Later, Thornberry's daughter attended the same school.


title: Álvaro Obregón

text: Álvaro Obregón Salido (; 17 February 1880 – 17 July 1928) better known as Álvaro Obregón was a Sonoran-born general in the Mexican Revolution. A pragmatic centrist, natural soldier, and able politician, he became the 46th President of Mexico from 1920 to 1924 and was assassinated in 1928 as President-elect. In the popular image of the Revolution, "Alvaro Obregón stood out as the organizer, the peacemaker, the unifier."


title: Álvaro Obregón

text: A widower with small children and successful farmer, he did not join the Revolution until after the February 1913 coup d'état against Francisco I. Madero that brought General Victoriano Huerta to the presidency. Obregón supported Sonora's decision to follow Governor of Coahuila Venustiano Carranza as leader of the northern revolutionary coalition, the Constitutionalist Army, against the Huerta regime. An untrained soldier but natural leader, Obregón rose quickly in the ranks and became the Constitutionalist Army's best general, along with Pancho Villa. Carranza appointed Obregón commander of the revolutionary forces in northwestern Mexico. When the Constitutionalists defeated Huerta in July 1914, and the Federal Army dissolved in August, Villa broke with Carranza, with Obregón remaining loyal to him despite Carranza's conservatism. In the civil war of the winners (1914–15), between Carranza and Obregón on one side and Villa and peasant leader Emiliano Zapata on the other, Obregón decisively defeated Villa's army in 1915. Carranza became the undisputed leader of Mexico. In 1915 Carranza appointed him as his minister of war. Obregón became increasingly disillusioned with the conservative Carranza, whom Obregón believed should have become interim president of Mexico and thus been excluded from election as the constitutional president. Carranza was elected president in 1917, after the promulgation of the new revolutionary Constitution of Mexico. Obregón returned to his ranch in Sonora, planning on running for the presidency in the 1920 elections. Since Carranza could not be re-elected and he wished to remain a political force, he designated Ignacio Bonillas, a civilian, to succeed him. In response, in 1920, Obregón and fellow Sonoran revolutionary generals Plutarco Elías Calles and Adolfo de la Huerta launched a revolt against Carranza under the Plan of Agua Prieta. De la Huerta became interim president until elections were held. Obregón won the presidency with overwhelming popular support.


title: Álvaro Obregón

text: Obregón's presidency was the first stable presidency since the Revolution began in 1910. He oversaw massive educational reform, the flourishing of Mexican muralism, moderate land reform, and labor laws sponsored by the increasingly powerful Regional Confederation of Mexican Workers. In August 1923, he signed the Bucareli Treaty that clarified the rights of the Mexican government and U.S. oil interests and brought U.S. diplomatic recognition to his government. In 1923–24, Obregón's finance minister, Adolfo de la Huerta, launched a rebellion when Obregón designated Plutarco Elías Calles as his successor. De la Huerta garnered support by many revolutionaries who were opposed to Obregón's apparent emulation of Porfirio Díaz's example. Obregón returned to the battlefield and defeated the rebellion. In his victory, he was aided by the United States with arms and 17 U.S. planes that bombed de la Huerta's supporters.


title: Álvaro Obregón

text: In 1924, Obregón's fellow Northern revolutionary general and hand-picked successor, Plutarco Elías Calles, was elected president. Although Obregón ostensibly retired to Sonora, he remained influential under Calles. Calles pushed through constitutional reform to again make re-election possible, but not continuously. Obregón won the 1928 election. Before beginning his second term however, he was assassinated by José de León Toral during the Cristero War. His assassination precipitated a political crisis in the country, ultimately leading to Calles founding the National Revolutionary Party, later renamed the Institutional Revolutionary Party, that would hold the presidency of Mexico continuously until 2000.


title: Álvaro Obregón

text: Obregón was born in Siquisiva, Sonora, Municipality of Navojoa, the eighteenth offspring of Francisco Obregón. and Cenobia Salido. Francisco Obregón had once owned a substantial estate, but his business partner supported Emperor Maximilian during the French intervention in Mexico (1862–1867), and the family's estate was confiscated by the Liberal government in 1867. Francisco Obregón died in 1880, the year of Álvaro Obregón's birth. The boy was raised in very straitened circumstances by his mother and his older sisters Cenobia, María, and Rosa. His mother's family was locally prominent, owning haciendas and some held government positions during the Porfirio Díaz regime. Obregón benefited from his relationship with his more distinguished kin, though as an orphan, he was very much the poor relation. He had ambition to make his way in the world. One of his cousin's on his mother's side, Benjamin G. Hill became an important ally in the Mexican Revolution.


title: Álvaro Obregón

text: Obregón's home state of Sonora was an isolated area with a border with the U.S. and there was frequent interchange with the U.S. and U.S. investment in Sonora. Sonora's distance from the capital and lack of a direct railway line to the capital affected its late nineteenth-century development and its role in the Mexican Revolution. Sonora had direct railway connections to the U.S. and its economy was more closely tied to the U.S. than central Mexico, exporting cattle hides and most especially garbanzos to the U.S. Obregón's family circumstances and the economic situation of the state made his entry into garbanzo farming a way to make a good living as a young man.


title: Álvaro Obregón

text: During his childhood, Obregón worked on the family farm and became acquainted with the indigenous Mayo people who also worked there and learned the language. His bilingualism served him well in his later military and political career, drawing both Mayos and Yaqui into his orbit. He attended a school run by his brother José in Huatabampo and received an elementary level formal education. However, his mind was "active, inventive, and above all, practical." He spent his adolescence working a variety of jobs, before finding permanent employment in 1898 as a lathe operator at the sugar mill owned by his maternal uncles in Navolato, Sinaloa. Obregón's experience as a skilled worker shaped his attitude toward the rights of labor, and "gave him the sense of what a powerful political tool the workers' sense of rage could be."


title: Álvaro Obregón

text: In 1903, he married Refugio Urrea and in 1904, he left the sugar mill to sell shoes door-to-door, and then to become a tenant farmer. By 1906, he was in a position to buy his own small farm with a loan from his mother's family, where he grew chickpeas. The next year was tragic for Obregón as his wife and two of his children died, leaving him a widower with two small children, who were henceforth raised by his three older sisters. In 1909, Obregón invented a chickpea harvester and soon founded a company to manufacture these harvesters, complete with a modern assembly line. He successfully marketed these harvesters to chickpea farmers throughout the Mayo Valley. Since garbanzos were an export crop, he lobbied for the extension of the railway line, to get his crop to market more efficiently. He also lobbied for irrigation works, to increase his farm's output. Obregón entered politics in 1911 with his election as municipal president of the town of Huatabampo.


title: Álvaro Obregón

text: Obregón expressed little interest in the Anti-Reelectionist movement launched by Francisco I. Madero in 1908–1909 in opposition to President Porfirio Díaz. When Madero called for an uprising against Díaz following the fraudulent 1910 elections, in November 1910 by issuing his Plan of San Luis Potosí, Obregón did not join the struggle against the Díaz regime. As a widowed parent of two small children and running a prosperous farm, Madero's call to arms was not urgent for him. In his memoir, he regretted the delay.


title: Álvaro Obregón

text: Obregón became a supporter of Madero shortly after he won the presidential election of 1911. In March 1912, Pascual Orozco, a general who had fought for Madero's cause to oust Díaz, but Orozco and others who had helped bring him to power were dismayed that Madero ordered the fighters that toppled Díaz to disband, retaining the Federal Army that they had defeated. Orozco launched a revolt against Madero's regime in Chihuahua with the financial backing of Luis Terrazas, a former Governor of Chihuahua and the largest landowner in Mexico. In April 1912, Obregón volunteered to join the local Maderista forces, the Fourth Irregular Battalion of Sonora, organized under the command of General Sanginés to oppose Orozco's revolt. Obregón's unit was the largest in the state, and volunteered to go wherever needed. This Battalion supported federal troops under the command of Victoriano Huerta sent by Madero to crush Orozco's rebellion. Within weeks of joining the Battalion, Obregón displayed signs of military genius. Obregón disobeyed his superior's orders but won several battles by luring his enemy into traps, surprise assaults, and encircling maneuvers.


title: Álvaro Obregón

text: Obregón was quickly promoted through the ranks and attained the rank of Colonel before resigning in December 1912, following the victory over Orozco (with Orozco fleeing to the United States).


title: Álvaro Obregón

text: Obregón had intended to return to civilian life in December 1912, but then in February 1913, the Madero regime was overthrown in a "coup d'état" (known to Mexican history as "La decena trágica") orchestrated by Victoriano Huerta, Félix Díaz, Bernardo Reyes, and Henry Lane Wilson, the United States Ambassador to Mexico. Madero and his vice president were forced to resign, and were then assassinated. Huerta assumed the presidency.


title: Álvaro Obregón

text: Obregón immediately traveled to Hermosillo to offer his services to the government of Sonora in opposition to the Huerta regime. The Sonoran government refused to recognize the Huerta regime. In early March 1913, Obregón was appointed chief of Sonora's War Department. In this capacity, he set out on a campaign, and in a matter of days had managed to drive federal troops out of Nogales, Cananea, and Naco. He soon followed up by capturing the port city of Guaymas. He squared off against federal troops in May 1913 at the battle of Santa Rosa through an encirclement of enemy forces. As commander of Sonora's forces, Obregón won the respect of many revolutionaries who had fought under Madero in 1910–11, most notably Benjamín G. Hill.


title: Álvaro Obregón

text: The Sonoran government was in contact with the government of Coahuila, which had also refused to recognize the Huerta regime and entered a state of rebellion. A Sonoran delegation headed by Adolfo de la Huerta traveled to Monclova to meet with the Governor of Coahuila, Venustiano Carranza. The Sonoran government signed on to Carranza's Plan of Guadalupe, by which Carranza became ""primer jefe"" of the newly proclaimed Constitutional Army. On 30 September 1913, Carranza appointed Obregón commander-in-chief of the Constitutional Army in the Northwest, with jurisdiction over Sonora, Sinaloa, Durango, Chihuahua, and Baja California.


title: Álvaro Obregón

text: In November 1913, Obregón's forces captured Culiacán, thus securing the supremacy of the Constitutional Army in the entire area of Northwestern Mexico under Obregón's command.


title: Álvaro Obregón

text: Obregón and other Sonorans were deeply suspicious of Carranza's Secretary of War, Felipe Ángeles, because they considered Ángeles to be a holdover of the old Díaz regime. At the urging of the Sonorans (the most powerful group in Carranza's coalition following Obregón's victories in the Northwest), Carranza downgraded Ángeles to the position of Sub-Secretary of War.


title: Álvaro Obregón

text: In spite of his demotion, Ángeles formulated the rebel grand strategy of a three-prong attack south to Mexico City: (1) Obregón would advance south along the western railroad, (2) Pancho Villa would advance south along the central railroad, and (3) Pablo González Garza would advance south along the eastern railroad.


title: Álvaro Obregón

text: Obregón began his march south in April 1914. Whereas Pancho Villa preferred wild cavalry charges, Obregón was again more cautious. Villa was soon at odds with Carranza, and in May 1914, Carranza instructed Obregón to increase the pace of his southern campaign to ensure that he beat Villa's troops to Mexico City. Obregón moved his troops from Topolobampo, Sinaloa, to blockade Mazatlán, and then to Tepic, where Obregón cut off the railroad from Guadalajara, Jalisco, to Colima, thus leaving both of these ports isolated.


title: Álvaro Obregón

text: In early July, Obregón moved south to Orendaín, Jalisco, where his troops defeated federal troops, leaving 8000 dead, and making it clear that the Huerta regime was defeated. Obregón was promoted to major general. He continued his march south. Upon Obregón's arrival in Teoloyucan, Mexico State, it was clear that Huerta was defeated, and, on 11 August, on the mudguard of a car, Obregón signed the treaties that ended the Huerta regime. On 16 August 1914, Obregón and 18,000 of his troops marched triumphantly into Mexico City. He was joined shortly by Carranza, who marched triumphantly into Mexico City on 20 August.


title: Álvaro Obregón

text: In Mexico City, Obregón moved to exact revenge on his perceived enemies. He believed that the Mexican Catholic Church had supported the Huerta regime, and he therefore imposed a fine of 500,000 pesos on the church, to be paid to the Revolutionary Council for Aid to the People.


title: Álvaro Obregón

text: He also believed that the rich had been pro-Huerta, and he therefore imposed special taxes on capital, real estate, mortgages, water, pavement, sewers, carriages, automobiles, bicycles, etc. Special measures were also taken against foreigners. Some of these were deliberately humiliating: for example, he forced foreign businessmen to sweep the streets of Mexico City.


title: Álvaro Obregón

text: Although tensions between the conservative Carranza and more radical Pancho Villa grew throughout 1914, Obregón attempted to mediate between the two to keep the revolutionary coalition intact. Villa had created a number of diplomatic incidents and Carranza was worried that would invite further U.S. intervention, whose forces already occupied Veracruz. On 8 July 1914, Villistas and Carrancistas signed the Pact of Torreón, in which they agreed that after Huerta's forces were defeated, 150 generals of the Revolution would meet to determine the future shape of the country. Carranza was angered by Villa's insubordination, particularly ignoring the order not the take Zacatecas, that he refused to let Villa march into Mexico City in August. Villa had contacted Obregón following Villa's capture of Zacatecas in June 1914, suggesting the two successful revolutionary generals could cooperate against the civilian Carranza. Obregón was not willing to do that at this point, preferring to try to keep the revolutionary coalition intact as long as possible. Obregón understood the danger that Villa presented to the Constitutionalists if the coalition was to fracture; he made two trips to Chihuahua in August and September 1914 to see Villa in person to try to mediate the situation between Villa and Carranza. During this period, Obregón got to know both Carranza and Villa well, which informed his later relations with them. Both trips to Villa were extremely risky for Obregón, placing himself in danger of being assassinated by Villa. In September, Villa and Carranza formally split, but Obregón positioned himself for the longer term.


title: Álvaro Obregón

text: During Obregón's first meeting with Villa in late August, the two agreed that Carranza should declare himself interim president of Mexico, as mandated in Carranza's Plan of Guadalupe when Huerta was defeated. Carranza refused to do so, since it would mean that he could not run for election as president. As the situation stood, Carranza was the head of an extra-legal government. Since the Constitutionalists supposedly fought for the restoration of constitutional government, Carranza was violating that in order to hold onto political power. Villa and Obregón further called on Carranza to appoint judges to the supreme court and establish a civilian judiciary. They also petitioned Carranza to establish councils at the federal and local levels that would then call elections. Obregón and Villa agreed that new federal congress should make laws benefiting the poor. Since the revolutionary forces had destroyed the old Federal Army, a new military force came into being, the National Army. They agreed that the military should be barred from holding high political office. Villa and Obregón's agreement also stipulated that any revolutionaries current under arms must resign from the military and be ineligible for civilian office for six months. Unlike Carranza, who was positioning himself to be elected president and not violate the no re-election principle for which the Constitutionalists fought, Villa and Obregón were not angling for the presidency, but rather seeking to restore constitutional order. A further agreement between Villa and Obregón was that land reform should be dealt with immediately, since it was the reason that many joined the revolution. Both generals saw immediate action on land for revolutionary soldiers as a priority. Obregón returned to Mexico City and presented the petition to Carranza. Carranza rejected it, even though Obregón told him it would lead to an immediate break with Villa.


title: Álvaro Obregón

text: Despite the break that came between Villa and Carranza, revolutionary leaders still attempted to resolve their differences and meet to chart the way forward. The Convention that the Carrancistas and Villistas had agreed to in the Treaty of Torreón went ahead at Aguascalientes on 5 October 1914. Carranza did not participate in the Convention of Aguascalientes because he was not a general, but, as a general, Obregón participated. The Convention soon split into two major factions: (1) the Carrancistas, who insisted that the convention should follow the promise of the Plan of Guadalupe and restore the 1857 Constitution of Mexico; and (2) the Villistas, who sought more wide-ranging social reforms than set out in the Plan of Guadalupe. The Villistas were supported by Emiliano Zapata, leader of the Liberation Army of the South, who had issued his own Plan of Ayala, which called for wide-ranging social reforms. For a month and a half, Obregón maintained neutrality between the two sides and tried to reach a middle ground that would avoid a civil war.


title: Álvaro Obregón

text: Eventually, it became clear that the Villistas/Zapatistas had prevailed at the convention; Carranza, however, refused to accept the convention's preparations for a "pre-constitutional" regime, which Carranza believed was totally inadequate, and in late November, Carranza rejected the authority of the regime imposed by the convention. Forced to choose sides, Obregón naturally sided with Carranza and left the convention to fight for the "Primer Jefe". He had made many friends amongst the Villistas and Zapatistas at the convention and was able to convince some of them to depart with him. On 12 December 1914, Carranza issued his Additions to the Plan of Guadalupe, which laid out an ambitious reform program, including Laws of Reform, in conscious imitation of Benito Juárez's Laws of Reform.


title: Álvaro Obregón

text: Once again, Obregón was able to recruit loyal troops by promising them land in return for military service. In this case, in February 1915, the Constitutionalist Army signed an agreement with the "" ("House of the World Worker"), the labor union with anarcho-syndicalist connections which had been established during Francisco I. Madero's presidency. As a result of this agreement, six "Red Battalions" of workers were formed to fight alongside the Constitutionalists against the Conventionists Villa and Zapata. This agreement had the side effect of lending the Carrancistas legitimacy with the urban proletariat.


title: Álvaro Obregón

text: Obregón's forces easily defeated Zapatista forces at Puebla in early 1915, but the Villistas remained in control of large portions of the country. Forces under Pancho Villa were moving towards the Bajío; General Felipe Ángeles's forces occupied Saltillo and thus dominated the northeast; the forces of Calixto Contreras and Rodolfo Fierro controlled western Mexico; and forces under Tomás Urbina were active in Tamaulipas and San Luis Potosí.


title: Álvaro Obregón

text: The armies of Obregón and Villa clashed in four battles, collectively known as the Battle of Celaya, the largest military confrontation in Latin American history before the Falklands War of 1982. The first battle took place on 6 April and 7 April 1915 and ended with the withdrawal of the Villistas. The second, in Celaya, Guanajuato, took place between 13 April and 15 April, when Villa attacked the city of Celaya but was repulsed. The third was the prolonged position battle of Trinidad and Santa Ana del Conde between 29 April and 5 June, which was the definitive battle. Villa was again defeated by Obregón, who lost his right arm in the fight.


title: Álvaro Obregón

text: Villa made a last attempt to stop Obregón's army in Aguascalientes on 10 July but without success. Obregón distinguished himself during the Battle of Celaya by being one of the first Mexicans to comprehend that the introduction of modern field artillery, and especially machine guns, had shifted the battlefield in favor of a defending force. In fact, while Obregón studied this shift and used it in his defense of Celaya, generals in the World War I trenches of Europe were still advocating bloody and mostly failing mass charges.


title: Álvaro Obregón

text: During the battles with Villa, Obregón had his right arm blown off. The blast nearly killed him, and he attempted to put himself out of his misery and fired his pistol to accomplish that. The aide de camp who had cleaned his gun had neglected to put bullets in the weapon. In a wry story he told about himself, he joined in the search for his missing arm. "I was helping them myself, because it's not so easy to abandon such a necessary thing as an arm." The searchers had no luck. A comrade reached into his pocket and raised a gold coin. Obregón concluded the story, saying "And then everyone saw a miracle: the arm came forth from who knows where, and come skipping up to where the gold "azteca" [coin] was elevated; it reached up and grasped it in its fingerslovinglyThat was the only way to get my lost arm to appear." The arm was subsequently embalmed and then displayed in the monument to Obregón at the Parque de la Bombilla, on the site of where he was assassinated in 1928. Obregón always wore clothing tailored to show that he had lost his arm in battle, a visible sign of his sacrifice to Mexico.


title: Álvaro Obregón

text: In May 1915, Carranza had proclaimed himself the head of what he termed a "Preconstitutional Regime" that would govern Mexico until a constitutional convention could be held. Obregón had petitioned Carranza as early as 1914 to assume the title of interim president, which he refused to do since it would have precluded his running for the presidency. Obregón had chosen loyalty to Carranza rather than throwing his lot in with Villa and Zapata, and Carranza appointed Obregón as Minister of War in his new cabinet. Although they were ostensibly allies, Carranza and Obregón's relationship was tense, but neither wished an open break at this point. Obregón took the opportunity to build his own power base with laborers and the agrarian movement, as well as with politicians in high places. As Minister of War, Obregón determined to modernize and professionalize the Mexican military thoroughly. In the process, he founded a staff college and a school of military medicine. He also founded the Department of Aviation and a school to train pilots. Munitions factories were placed under the direct control of the military.


title: Álvaro Obregón

text: In September 1916, Carranza convoked a Constitutional Convention, to be held in Querétaro, Querétaro. He declared that the liberal 1857 Constitution of Mexico would be respected, though purged of some of its shortcomings. When the Constitutional Convention met in December 1916, it had only 85 conservatives and centrists close to Carranza's brand of liberalism, a mainly civilian group known as the "bloque renovador" ("renewal faction"). There were 132 progressive delegates, who insisted that land reform and labor rights be embodied in the new constitution. Obregón was not himself a delegate, but the progressives sought out his backing for the inclusion in the constitution of guarantees for the goals for which the peasantry and organized labor had fought.Obregón now broke with Carranza and threw his considerable weight behind the radicals. He met with radical legislators, as well as the intellectual leader of the radicals, Andrés Molina Enríquez, and came out in favor of all their key issues. In particular, unlike Carranza, Obregón supported the land reform mandated by Article 27 of the constitution. He also supported the heavily anticlerical Articles 3 and 130 that Carranza opposed.


title: Álvaro Obregón

text: The revolutionary Constitution of 1917 was drafted and ratified quickly. Villistas and Zapatistas were excluded from its drafting, but both factions remained militarily a threat to the Constitutionalist regime and its new constitution. Shortly after swearing his allegiance to the new Constitution, Obregón resigned as Minister of War and retired to Huatabampo to resume his life as a chickpea farmer. He organized the region's chickpea farmers in a producer's league and briefly entertained the idea of going to France to fight on the side of the Allies in World War I. He made a considerable amount of money in these years, and also entertained many visitors. As the victorious general of the Mexican Revolution, Obregón remained enormously popular throughout the country.


title: Álvaro Obregón

text: By early 1919, Obregón had determined to use his immense popularity to run in the presidential election that would be held in 1920. Carranza announced that he would not run for president in 1920, but refused to endorse Obregón, instead endorsing an obscure diplomat, Ignacio Bonillas, a civilian nobody that Carranza could likely control. Obregón announced his candidacy in June 1919. He ran as the candidate for the "Partido Liberal Constitutionalista" (PLC), a party uniting most of the revolutionary generals. Obregón's cousin and comrade in arms, General Benjamin Hill, was a founding member of the party. He coordinated Obregón's support in Mexico City and reached out to the Zapatista general Genovo de la O. Carranza had Emiliano Zapata assassinated in 1919, weakening but not eliminating the Zapatista threat to the capital. In August, he concluded an agreement with Luis Napoleón Morones and the Regional Confederation of Mexican Workers, promising that if elected, he would create a Department of Labor, install a labor-friendly Minister of Industry and Commerce, and issue a new labor law. Obregón began to campaign in earnest in November 1919.


title: Álvaro Obregón

text: Carranza was far more conservative than Obregón and once duly elected as president, he did not implement the revolutionary elements of the 1917 constitution. Carranza attempted to concentrate power in his own hands. Obregón had anticipated that Carranza would encourage him to run for the presidency in 1920, but no word came from him. Obregón informed Carranza by telegram that he would be running for the presidency. Obregón's formal announcement was distributed widely, and Carranza saw Obregón's condemnation of "evils of the Carranza regime." Stung by Obregón's repudiation, Carranza sought a presidential candidate from the state of Sonora, choosing the obscure civilian, the Mexican Ambassador to the U.S. Ignacio Bonillas. When Obregón heard that his fellow Sonorense was Carranza's chosen candidate, he said "An excellent person, my "paisano" Bonillas. A man who is serious, honest, and hardworking. The world has lost a magnificent bookkeeper."


title: Álvaro Obregón

text: At Carranza's behest, the Senate stripped Obregón of his military rank, a move which only increased Obregón's popularity. Then, Carranza orchestrated a plot in which a minor officer claimed that Obregón was planning an armed uprising against the Carranza regime. Obregón was forced to disguise himself as a railwayman and flee to Guerrero, where one of his former subordinates, , was governor.


title: Álvaro Obregón

text: On 20 April 1920, Obregón issued a declaration in the town of Chilpancingo accusing Carranza of having used public money in support of Bonillas's presidential candidacy. He declared his allegiance to the Governor of Sonora, Adolfo de la Huerta, in revolution against the Carranza regime.


title: Álvaro Obregón

text: On 23 April, the Sonorans issued the Plan of Agua Prieta, which triggered a military revolt against the president. Obregón's Sonoran forces were augmented by troops under General Benjamín G. Hill and the Zapatistas led by Gildardo Magaña and Genovevo de la O.


title: Álvaro Obregón

text: The revolt was successful and Carranza was deposed, after Obregon's forces captured Mexico City on 10 May 1920 On 20 May 1920, Carranza was killed in the state of Puebla in an ambush led by General Rodolfo Herrero as he fled from Mexico City to Veracruz on horseback.


title: Álvaro Obregón

text: For six months, from 1 June 1920 to 1 December 1920, Adolfo de la Huerta served as provisional president of Mexico until elections could be held. When Obregón was declared the victor, de la Huerta stepped down and assumed the position of Secretary of the Treasury in the new government.


title: Álvaro Obregón

text: Obregón's election as president essentially signaled the end of the violence of the Mexican Revolution. The death of Lucio Blanco in 1922 and the assassination of Pancho Villa in 1923 would eliminate the last remaining obvious challenges to Obregón's regime. He pursued what seemed to be contradictory policies during his administration.


title: Álvaro Obregón

text: Obregón appointed José Vasconcelos (Rector of the National Autonomous University of Mexico who had been in exile 1915–1920 because of his opposition to Carranza) as his Secretary of Public Education. Vasconcelos undertook a major effort to construct new schools across the country. Around 1,000 rural schools and 2,000 public libraries were built.


title: Álvaro Obregón

text: Vasconcelos was also interested in promoting artistic developments that created a narrative of Mexico's history and the Mexican Revolution. Obregón's time as president saw the beginning of the art movement of Mexican muralism, with artists such as Diego Rivera, David Alfaro Siqueiros, José Clemente Orozco, and Roberto Montenegro invited to create murals expressive of the spirit of the Mexican Revolution on the walls of public buildings throughout Mexico.


title: Álvaro Obregón

text: Obregón also sought to shape public perceptions of the Revolution and its place in history by staging elaborate celebrations in 1921 on the centenary of Mexico's independence from Spain. There had been such celebrations in 1910 by the Díaz regime, commemorating the start of the insurgency by Miguel Hidalgo. The political fact of independence was achieved by former royalist officer Agustín de Iturbide, who was more celebrated by conservatives in post-independence Mexico than liberals. However, 1921 provided a date for Obregon's government to shape historical memory of independence and the Revolution. After a decade of violence during the Revolution, the centennial celebrations provided an opportunity for Mexicans to reflect on their history and identity, as well as to enjoy diversions in peacetime. For Obregón, the centennial was a way to emphasize that revolutionary initiatives had historical roots and that like independence, the Revolution presented new opportunities for Mexicans. Obregón "intended to use the occasion to shore-up popular support for the government, and, by extension, the revolution itself." Unlike the centennial celebrations in 1910, the one of 1921 had no monumental architecture to inaugurate.


title: Álvaro Obregón

text: Obregón kept his August 1919 agreement with Luis Napoleón Morones and the Regional Confederation of Mexican Workers (CROM) and created a Department of Labor, installed a labor-friendly Minister of Industry and Commerce, and issued a new labor law.


title: Álvaro Obregón

text: Morones and CROM became increasingly powerful in the early 1920s and it would have been very difficult for Obregón to oppose their increased power. Morones was not afraid to use violence against his competitors, nearly eliminating the General Confederation of Workers in 1923.


title: Álvaro Obregón

text: CROM's success did not necessarily translate to success for all of Mexico's workers, and Article 123 of the Constitution of Mexico was enforced only sporadically. Thus, while CROM's right to strike was recognized, non-CROM strikes were broken up by the police or the army. Also, few Mexican workers got Sundays off with pay, or were able to limit their workday to eight hours.


title: Álvaro Obregón

text: Land reform was far more extensive under Obregón than it had been under Carranza. Obregón enforced the constitutional land redistribution provisions, and in total, 921,627 hectares of land were distributed during his presidency. However, Obregón was a successful commercial chickpea farmer in Sonora, and "did not believe in socialism or in land reform" and was in agreement with Madero and Carranza that "radical land reform might very well destroy the Mexican economy and lead to a return to subsistence agriculture."


title: Álvaro Obregón

text: Many leaders and members of the Roman Catholic Church in Mexico were highly critical of the 1917 constitution. They especially criticized Article 3, which forbade religious instruction in schools, and Article 130, which adopted an extreme form of separation of church and state by including a series of restrictions on priests and ministers of all religions to hold public office, canvass on behalf of political parties or candidates, or to inherit from persons other than close blood relatives.


title: Álvaro Obregón

text: Although Obregón was suspicious of the Catholic Church, he was less anticlerical than his successor, Plutarco Elías Calles, would be. Calles's policies would lead to the Cristero War (1926–29). For example, Obregón sent Pope Pius XI congratulations upon his election in 1922 and, in a private message to the pope, emphasized the "complementarity" of the aims of the Catholic Church and the Mexican Revolution.


title: Álvaro Obregón

text: In spite of Obregón's moderate approach, his presidency saw the beginnings of clashes between Catholics and supporters of the Mexican Revolution. Some bishops campaigned actively against land reform and the organization of workers into secular unions. Catholic Action movements were founded in Mexico in the wake of Pius XI's 1922 encyclical "Ubi arcano Dei consilio", and supporters of the Young Mexican Catholic Action soon found themselves in violent conflict with CROM members.


title: Álvaro Obregón

text: The most serious diplomatic incident occurred in 1923, when Ernesto Filippi, the Apostolic Nuncio to Mexico, conducted an open air religious service although it was illegal to hold a religious service outside a church. The government invoked Article 33 of the constitution and expelled Filippi from Mexico.


title: Álvaro Obregón

text: As president, one of Obregón's top priorities was securing US diplomatic recognition of his regime, to resume normal Mexico–United States relations. Although he rejected the U.S. demand that Mexico rescind Article 27 of the constitution, Obregón negotiated a major agreement with the United States, the Bucareli Treaty of August 1923 that made some concessions to the US in order to gain diplomatic recognition. It was particularly helpful when the Mexican Supreme Court, in a case brought by Texas Oil, declared that Article 27 did not apply retroactively. Another important arena in which Obregón resolved issues with the U.S. and other foreign governments was the Mexican-United States General Claims Commission. Finance Minister Adolfo de la Huerta signed a deal in which Mexico recognized a debt of $1.451  million to international bankers. Finally, at the Bucareli Conference, Obregón agreed to an American demand that Mexico would not expropriate any foreign oil companies, and in exchange, the U.S. recognized his government. Many Mexicans criticized Obregón as a sellout ("entreguista"), including Adolfo de la Huerta for his actions at the Bucareli Conference.


title: Álvaro Obregón

text: In 1923, Obregón endorsed Plutarco Elías Calles for president in the 1924 election in which Obregón was not eligible to run. Finance Minister Adolfo de la Huerta, who had served as interim president in 1920 before he stepped after the election of Obregón, joined a rebellion against Obregón and his chosen successor, Plutarco Elías Calles. De la Huerta believed Obregón was repeating Carranza's mistake of imposing his own candidate on the country. De la Huerta accepted the nomination of the Cooperativist Party to be its candidate in the presidential elections. De la Huerta then joined and gave his name to a major military uprising against Obregón. Over half of the army joined De la Huerta's rebellion, with many of Obregón's former comrades in arms now turning on him. Rebel forces massed in Veracruz and Jalisco. In a decisive battle at Ocotlán, Jalisco, Obregón's forces crushed the rebel forces. Diplomatic recognition by the United States following the signing of the 1923 Bucareli Treaty was significant in Obregón's victory over rebels. The U.S. supplied Obregón arms but also sent 17 U.S. planes, which bombed rebels in Jalisco. Obregón hunted down many of his former comrades in arms, including Gen. Salvador Alvarado and Fortunato Maycotte and had them executed. De la Huerta was among those who went into exile. Following the crushing of the rebellion, Calles was elected president, and Obregón stepped down from office.


title: Álvaro Obregón

text: Following the election of Calles as president, Obregón returned to Sonora to farm. He led an "agricultural revolution" in the Yaqui Valley, where he introduced modern irrigation. Obregón expanded his business interests to include a rice mill in Cajeme, a seafood packing plant, a soap factory, tomato fields, a car rental business, and a jute bag factory.


title: Álvaro Obregón

text: Obregón remained in close contact with President Calles, whom he had installed as his successor, and was a frequent guest of Calles at Chapultepec Castle. This prompted fears that Obregón was intending to follow in the footsteps of Porfirio Díaz and that Calles was merely a puppet figure, the equivalent of Manuel González. These fears became acute in October 1926, when the Mexican Congress repealed term limits, thus clearing the way for Obregón to run for president in 1928.


title: Álvaro Obregón

text: Obregón returned to the battlefield for the period October 1926 to April 1927 to put down a rebellion led by the Yaqui people. This was somewhat ironic because Obregón had first risen to military prominence commanding Yaqui troops, to whom he promised land, and the 1926–27 Yaqui rebellion was a demand for land reform. In all likelihood, Obregón participated in this campaign in order to prove his loyalty to the Calles government, to show his continued influence over the military, and also to protect his commercial interests in the Yaqui Valley, which had begun to suffer as a result of the increasing violence in the region.


title: Álvaro Obregón

text: Obregón formally began his presidential campaign in May 1927. CROM and a large part of public opinion were against his re-election, but he still counted on the support of most of the army and of the National Agrarian Party.


title: Álvaro Obregón

text: Two of Obregón's oldest allies, General Arnulfo R. Gómez and General Francisco "Pancho" Serrano, opposed his re-election. Serrano launched an anti-Obregón rebellion and was ultimately assassinated. Gómez later called for an insurrection against Obregón, but was soon killed as well.


title: Álvaro Obregón

text: Obregón won the 1928 Mexican presidential election, but months before assuming the presidency he was assassinated. Calles' harsh treatment of Roman Catholics had led to a rebellion known as the Cristero War, which broke out in 1926. As an ally of Calles, Obregón was hated by Catholics and was assassinated in La Bombilla Café on July 17, 1928, shortly after his return to Mexico City, by José de León Toral, a Roman Catholic opposed to the government's anti-Catholic policies. Toral was offended by the Calles government's anti-religious laws, which led to the Cristero War by Catholics against the regime. Obregón was not as fiercely anticlerical as Calles and had not imposed the anticlerical provisions of the 1917 constitution when he was president. Toral's subsequent trial resulted in his conviction and execution by firing squad. A Capuchin nun named María Concepción Acevedo de la Llata, ""Madre Conchita"", was implicated in the case and was thought to be the mastermind behind Obregón's murder. León Toral sought retribution for the execution of Miguel Pro, who was falsely convicted of attempting to assassinate Obregón a year prior.


title: Álvaro Obregón

text: Álvaro Obregón was awarded Japan's Order of the Chrysanthemum at a special ceremony in Mexico City. On November 26, 1924, Baron Shigetsuma Furuya, Special Ambassador from Japan to Mexico, conferred the honor on the President.


title: Álvaro Obregón

text: Although Obregón was a gifted military strategist during the Revolution and decisively defeated Pancho Villa's División del Norte at the Battle of Celaya and went on to become President of Mexico, his posthumous name recognition and standing as a hero of the Revolution is nowhere near that of Villa's or Emiliano Zapata's. There is no posthumous cult of Obregón as there is to those two losing revolutionary leaders. On the 1945 anniversary of Obregón's assassination, the official ceremony attracted few attendees.


title: Álvaro Obregón

text: As president, he successfully gained recognition from the United States in 1923, settled for a period the dispute with the U.S. over oil via the Bucareli Treaty, gain full rein to his Secretary of Public Education, José Vasconcelos, who expanded access to learning for Mexicans by building schools, but also via public art of the Mexican muralists. Perhaps as with Porfirio Díaz, Obregón saw himself as indispensable to the nation and had the Constitution of 1917 amended so that he could run again for the presidency in Mexico. This bent and, in many people's minds, violated the revolutionary rule "no re-election" that had been enshrined in the constitution.


title: Álvaro Obregón

text: His assassination in 1928 before he could take the presidential office created a major political crisis in Mexico, which was solved by the creation of the National Revolutionary Party by his fellow Sonoran, General and former President Plutarco Elías Calles.


title: Álvaro Obregón

text: An imposing monument to Álvaro Obregón is located in the Parque de la Bombilla in the San Ángel neighborhood of southern Mexico City. It is Mexico's largest monument to a single revolutionary and stands on the site where Obregón was assassinated. The monument held Obregón's severed, and over the years, increasingly deteriorating right arm that he lost in 1915. The monument now has a marble sculpture of the severed arm, after the arm itself was incinerated in 1989. Obregón's body is buried in Huatabampo, Sonora, rather than the Monument to the Revolution in downtown Mexico City where other revolutionaries are now entombed. In Sonora, Obregón is honored with an equestrian statue, where he is shown as a vigorous soldier with two arms.


title: Álvaro Obregón

text: In Sonora, the second largest city, Ciudad Obregón is named for the revolutionary leader. Obregón's son Álvaro Obregón Tapia served one term as the governor of Sonora as a candidate for the Institutional Revolutionary Party, founded following Obregón's assassination. The Álvaro Obregón Dam, built near Ciudad Obregón, became operational during the gubernatorial term of Obregón's son.


title: Álvaro Obregón

text: Obregón is honored in the name of a genus of small cactus indigenous to Mexico – "Obregonia denegrii".


title: Álvaro Obregón

text: In the novel "The Friends of Pancho Villa" (1996) by James Carlos Blake, Obregón is a major character.


title: Álvaro Obregón

text: Obregón is also featured in the novel "Il collare spezzato" by Italian writer Valerio Evangelisti (2006).


title: Álvaro Obregón

text: Obregón's legacy and lost limb are the subjects of Mexican-American singer-songwriter El Vez's "The Arm of Obregón", from his 1996 album "G.I. Ay! Ay! Blues".


title: Smenkhkare

text: Smenkhkare (alternatively romanized "Smenkhare", "Smenkare," or "Smenkhkara"; meaning "'Vigorous is the Soul of Re") was an ancient Egyptian pharaoh of unknown background who lived and ruled during the Amarna Period of the 18th Dynasty. Smenkhkare was husband to Meritaten, the daughter of his likely co-regent, Akhenaten. Very little is known of Smenkhkare for certain because later kings sought to erase the Amarna Period from history. Because of this, perhaps no one from the Amarna Interlude has been the subject of so much speculation as Smenkhkare.


title: Smenkhkare

text: Smenkhkare's origins are unknown. It is assumed he was a member of the royal family, likely either a brother or son of the pharaoh Akhenaten. If he is Akhenaten's brother, his mother was likely either Tiye or Sitamun. If a son of Akhenaten, he was presumably an older brother of Tutankhamun, as he succeeded the throne ahead of him; his mother was likely an unknown, lesser wife. An alternative suggestion, based on objects from the tomb of Tutankhamun, is that Smenkhkare was the son of Akhenaten's older brother, Thutmose and an unknown woman, possibly one of his sisters.


title: Smenkhkare

text: Smenkhkare is known to have married Akhenaten's eldest daughter, Meritaten, who was his Great Royal Wife. Inscriptions mention a King's Daughter named Meritaten Tasherit, who may be the daughter of Meritaten and Smenkhkare. Furthermore, Smenkhkare has been put forth as a candidate for the mummy in KV55. If so, he would be the father of Tutankhamun.


title: Smenkhkare

text: Clear evidence for a sole reign for Smenkhkare has not yet been found. There are few artifacts that attest to his existence at all, and so it is assumed his reign was short. A wine docket from "the house of Smenkhkare" attests to Regnal Year 1. A second wine docket dated to Year 1 refers to him as "Smenkhkare, (deceased)" and may indicate that he died during his first regnal year.


title: Smenkhkare

text: Some Egyptologists have speculated about the possibility of a two- or three-year reign for Smenkhkare based on a number of wine dockets from Amarna that lack a king's name but bear dates for regnal years 2 and 3. However, they could belong to any of the Amarna kings and are not definitive proof either way.


title: Smenkhkare

text: While there are few monuments or artifacts that attest to Smenkhkare's existence, there is a major addition to the Amarna palace complex that bears his name. It was built in approximately Year 15 and was likely built for a significant event related to him.


title: Smenkhkare

text: Academic consensus has yet to be reached about when exactly Smenkhkare ruled as pharaoh and where he falls in the timeline of Amarna. In particular, the confusion of his identity compared to that of Pharaoh Neferneferuaten has led to considerable academic debate about the order of kings in the late Amarna Period. Aidan Dodson suggests that Smenkhkare did not have a sole reign and only served as Akhenaten's co-regent for about a year around Regnal Year 13. However, James Peter Allen depicts Smenkhkare as successor to Neferneferuaten and Marc Gabolde has suggested that after Smenkhkare's reign, Meritaten succeeded him as Neferneferuaten.


title: Smenkhkare

text: Per Dodson's theory, Smenkhkare served only as co-regent with Akhenaten and never had an individual rule and Nefertiti became co-regent and eventual successor to Akhenaten. Smenkhkare and Meritaten appear together in the tomb of Meryre II at Amarna, rewarding Meryre. There, Smenkhkare wears the khepresh crown, however he is called the son-in-law of Akhenaten. Further, his name appears only during Akhenaten's reign without certain evidence to attest to a sole reign. The names of the king have since been cut out but were recorded around 1850 by Karl Lepsius. Additionally, a calcite "globular vase" from Tutankhamun's tomb displays the full double cartouches of both pharaohs. However, this is the only object known to carry both names side-by-side. This evidence has been taken by some Egyptologists to indicate that Akhenaten and Smenkhkare were co-regents. However, the scene in Meryre's tomb is undated and Akhenaten is neither depicted nor mentioned in the tomb. The jar may simply be a case of one king associating himself with a predecessor. The simple association of names, particularly on everyday objects, is not conclusive of a co-regency.