title: Sam Mitchell (EastEnders)

text: Sam, now living in Spain, returns to visit Phil in prison after he summons her back to England on business. When Sam arrives back in the square, Sharon and Kat are unhappy to see her and she reveals that Phil has left her in charge of his assets again, whilst he is currently in prison. Sam is then reunited with her son Ricky (now played by Frankie Day), much to the opposition of Jack and his civil partner Denise Fox (Diane Parish). Phil asks Sam to attend a business meeting with his money laundering associate Jonah Tyler (Mark Mooney). Sam agrees, but fails to negotiate a deal with Jonah due to interference from Sharon, and in retaliation, Jonah threatens to launch a rivalry against Phil's businesses if she cannot fund protection. Feeling defeated, Sam prepares to go back to Spain, but when she sees how close Jack is with Ricky, she lies by threatening to take Ricky with her unless Jack helps her find incriminating information on Jonah. Jack accompanies Sam to meet with Jonah and she uses Jack's position as a Detective Inspector to blackmail Jonah into ending his threats and doing exactly what she wants; by accepting her offer of a higher markup percent on their business deal. Sam later discovers that Jonah is planning on buying Ruby's club from Ruby Allen (Louisa Lytton), and she convinces Phil that they should buy the club and run it together. However, Jonah ends up buying the club after Sam misses a meeting with Ruby’s solicitors. A desperate Sam then proceeds to blackmail Denise - threatening to tell the police that she knew the truth about Vincent Hubbard's (Richard Blackwood) death, if she does not give her back the money that Phil had paid for her to open her salon, "Fox & Hair". After receiving the money, Sam succeeds in outbuying Jonah and decides to turn the club into a wine bar, renaming it "Peggy’s". She sacks staff members Dotty Cotton (Milly Zero) and Vinny Panesar (Shiv Jalota) in the process, leading to Phil replacing Sam with Sharon as bar manager. Sharon then reinstates Dotty and Vinny. Sam is unimpressed by Phil’s decision to demote her, and after a failed attempt to reason with him, she attempts to blackmail Sharon by threatening to tell Kat about her secret prison alliance with Phil, if she does not reinstate her back as bar manager. Sharon reminds her of the consequences of crossing Phil, so Sam begrudgingly backs down. She later sleeps with Sharon’s younger half-brother Zack Hudson (James Farrar), who is cheating on his girlfriend Nancy Carter (Maddy Hill). On the opening of Peggy’s, Sam, Kat, Sharon and Nancy’s grandmother Shirley (Linda Henry) are held hostage by robbers who attempt to rob the bar, under the presumption that they have been hired by Jonah. The incident results in Sam getting shot, as a result of saving Kat, though it is later revealed that Sam had orchestrated the siege as revenge on Sharon and Kat for her downfall in the Mitchell empire. Shirley later discovers what Sam has been up to, and blackmails her for a share of the bar.


title: Sam Mitchell (EastEnders)

text: Sam continues to disturb Sharon and Kat with threats under the disguise of Jonah, and she plans to manipulate Kat into signing control of Peggy's to Jonah, though Kat is unaware that she will be signing it over to Sam instead. It is later revealed that Sam is secretly working with Jonah to fleece her family, but her plans are stalled when Phil is released early from prison. She is forced to repay Jonah by allowing his men to sell drugs in the bar, however, this goes wrong when Zack unknowingly reports one of Jonah's men to the police for dealing drugs in the club. Sam confides in Zack and tells him everything about Jonah blackmailing her and making threats. Sam’s nephew Ben (Max Bowden) purchases drugs from Jonah's dealers and almost dies from an overdose. Phil discovers that Sam had allowed this to happen, and disowns her. Sam tries to make it up to Phil and teams up with Zack to kidnap Ben's rapist Lewis Butler (Aidan O'Callaghan), in order for Phil to get revenge on Lewis for raping Ben. Sam pulls up in a rented car with Lewis tied up in the boot. She picks Phil up and they drive to an abandoned warehouse. Just as they proceed to untie Lewis, an argument between Phil and Sam results in Phil unknowingly leaving the boot open, enabling Lewis to secretly escape. Lewis then lures them into the warehouse and manages to steal Phil's gun and holds both Phil and Sam at gunpoint in the warehouse, until Phil attacks him, grabs the gun and almost shoots him, until he is stopped by Ben.


title: Sam Mitchell (EastEnders)

text: Shirley continues blackmailing Sam for money and demands an increase, which Sam cannot pay, as she is also being blackmailed by Jonah. Shirley threatens to tell Phil everything unless Sam pays her by the end of the day, but Sam later rebuffs Shirley’s threats, reminding her that if Phil knew she had been blackmailing Sam, he will "skin" her. Shirley tells Sam that she is not bluffing. Just as Shirley plans to go to Phil’s house to expose Sam, Jonah shows up and also demands money from Sam. Phil sees Jonah confronting Sam and attacks him. Just before Jonah leaves, Phil is suspicious when he calls Sam a "snake", and Shirley eventually reveals that Sam had been secretly scheming with Jonah against him for months. Phil then throws Sam out of the Mitchell household and she also faces the wrath of both Sharon and Kat when they find out that Sam had been responsible for the threats and the siege. Jack finds out about Sam’s predicament and offers her accommodation in one of his flats, so she does not have to leave Ricky again. Sam continues her fling with Zack in the aftermath of Nancy’s departure, however, her ex-boyfriend Don (Nick Nevern) resurfaces and tries to win her back by proposing. Sam turns him down and lies that she is pregnant with Zack’s child so Don can leave. Sam later realises that she wants a serious relationship with Zack but he rejects her. Whilst trying to spend more time with Ricky, Sam sneaks into Jack’s house to bribe her relative Amy (Ellie Dadd) into inviting her to her birthday party so that she can be with Ricky. She accidentally walks in on Amy self harming and Amy agrees to invite her if she promises not to tell her father, Jack, although she later does, resulting in Amy resenting Sam.


title: Sam Mitchell (EastEnders)

text: During the festive season, Sam is reunited with her ex-husband Ricky Butcher (Sid Owen) who has returned to Walford to visit his sister Janine (Charlie Brooks). Mick Carter (Danny Dyer) persuades Sam to go on a date with Ricky.


title: Sam Mitchell (EastEnders)

text: The character Sam Mitchell was introduced in July 1990 by "EastEnders"' executive producer Michael Ferguson as the young sister of the Mitchell brothers, Phil (Steve McFadden) and Grant (Ross Kemp). Sam was one of several characters introduced by the producer in the summer of 1990. Others included Eddie Royle (Michael Melia), and three generations of the Tavernier family.


title: Sam Mitchell (EastEnders)

text: As the casting team had successfully cast the actors who were playing Sam's brothers, they already knew what facial attributes they needed for Sam to create a similar family resemblance. Producer Corinne Hollingworth has commented, "we'd decided on Steve [McFadden] and Ross [Kemp] and we knew the sort of round, open face we needed. We saw Danniella (Westbrook) first and liked her, then saw some others, but came back to her." The actress, a graduate of the Sylvia Young Theatre School, had already appeared in the soap aged 11, as an extra who rollerskated across the soap's fictional setting of Albert Square in front of the characters Den and Angie Watts. At the time, Westbrook's local paper ran a story on her with the punchline, "who knows, one day she might be the show's star". Eighty girls auditioned for the part of Sam, but these eighty were eventually whittled down to four. On her final casting callback, Westbrook bumped into actors Michelle Gayle and Sid Owen, who were already on the "EastEnders" cast as Hattie Tavernier and Ricky Butcher respectively. Westbrook already knew Gayle, whose character was to be Sam's screen best friend, and she introduced her to Owen, whose character was scripted to be Sam's boyfriend. According to Westbrook, she liked Owen right from the start and was amused by his response of "You're a bit of alright. You can be Sam!". On Westbrook's last audition, she and the other hopefuls were forced to stand for a lengthy period in front of a panel of the show's producers, directors, and writers while they continuously compared images of the auditionees to images of Kemp and McFadden, looking for a resemblance. Westbrook was given the part. She has commented, "they told me they were looking for someone bright and bubbly, who could be the sister of Phil and Grant, and my round face fitted." In the character's first scene, Sam walked past Ricky Butcher and gave him a "flirty backward glance", causing him to walk into a lamp-post. Westbrook was initially given a three-month contract with the soap, but halfway through her contract the producers extended it as they felt "the character of Sam had gelled well with the others and they wanted to include her in more storylines".


title: Sam Mitchell (EastEnders)

text: Westbrook has said that the cast and crew became like a second family to her, with the roles in the soap mirroring their relationships off-screen. In her autobiography she comments, "Sid [Owen] and I became very close [...] we were as thick as thieves. When we weren't shooting together we'd hang out [...] Once Sid and I got so bored hanging around on set that we decided to take the milk float for a spin around Albert Square, but Sid drove it too fast and turned it over [...] we couldn't stop laughing, but the producers didn't seem to share our amusement. We were seriously told off that day." She has described other actors like Michelle Gayle, Letitia Dean, Adam Woodyatt and Nick Berry like brothers and sisters, and has said she was very close to older cast members such as June Brown, Wendy Richard, Mike Reid and Gillian Taylforth. She has also revealed that her off-screen relationship with actors McFadden and Kemp mirrored her character's on-screen one: "In the soap they were my older brothers, always looking out for me, making sure I didn't get into trouble, and off set they were exactly the same."


title: Sam Mitchell (EastEnders)

text: The character has been described by Hilary Kingsley, author the "EastEnders Handbook", as a "tease [...] a pretty girl who thinks she can get anything she wants, thanks to her own brand of sexy wheedling." She adds that Sam is "a lot sharper than her brothers [...] and contrives to do just what she wants in the face of their attempts to stand in for their dead father [...] Sam loves excitement and doesn't frighten easily. She's a user, able to get almost anyone to do what she wants." Kate Lock, author of "EastEnders Who's Who", has described Sam as "Headstrong, streetwise and pretty [...] a chip off the old Mitchell block, though her methods of manipulation are marginally more subtle than [her brothers]. One bat of a sooty eyelash is enough to charm most men into submission and she can wind doting mum Peggy round her little finger [...] [when] she returned to the Square [in 1999], Sam had lost her kittenish cuteness and hardened up, becoming more EastEnd moll than Barbie doll."


title: Sam Mitchell (EastEnders)

text: Describing the character in 2002, actress Kim Medcalf said, "She wears her heart on her sleeve. She so wants to settle down that she doesn't select men well. She goes for people too quickly. She likes the danger aspect – the thrill of the chase. She loves guys with a dangerous edge [...] She's had a tough upbringing. She didn't know her dad and her older brothers bossed her around. She needed to find herself and has done it by being independent and going away. She's headstrong and has a definite independent streak." She has added that Sam has a problem with women, as she "finds it quite hard to relate".


title: Sam Mitchell (EastEnders)

text: When Westbrook regained the role in 2009, she compared the differences between how she plays the character and how Medcalf played the character: "When Kim was playing Sam she was quite hard, but [the Sam who returns in 2009] is more the Sam I've always played. She's bright, colourful, flirtatious – and trouble. The only difference is she's more tanned, more blonde and more wrinkled!".


title: Sam Mitchell (EastEnders)

text: When Medcalf regained the role in 2022, she was asked if Sam had changed since she last played her: She is a little bit harder, she has had to really toughen up and grow up. She's lost her mum which has devastated her and I think she's really feeling that she has to up her game."


title: Sam Mitchell (EastEnders)

text: During her first stint in the soap, the character was involved in various high-profile storylines surrounding her teen elopement to Ricky Butcher (Sid Owen). Westbrook has said that within days of her first appearance, the interest in the character was "phenomenal": "The public couldn't get enough of the simmering relationship between Ricky and Sam and the show was inundated with calls from the press [...] [Sam and Ricky] were involved in a plotline about under-age sex, so the press swooped in on that."


title: Sam Mitchell (EastEnders)

text: To the anger of her family, Sam persuaded Ricky to elope to Gretna Green in July 1991. The week's worth of episodes focusing on their marriage were filmed on-location and have been described by former "EastEnders" scriptwriter, Colin Brake, as a "farce-like chase round the country". Written by Debbie Cook, the storyline saw Ricky and Sam's families, including Sam's mother Peggy (Jo Warne; introduced specifically for this plotline) attempting to stop the couple getting married. The storyline climaxed in a registry office wedding, but despite the Scottish setting, the recording of the episodes took place in Hertfordshire. Later in the month, Sam and Ricky had a more official "grand church blessing" with their families in attendance. The Butchers' blessing was screened in the same episode as the funeral of another character, Charlie Cotton.


title: Sam Mitchell (EastEnders)

text: The marriage was portrayed as problematic, fraught with interference from their families, lack of money, and Ricky's jealousy of Sam's partying and modelling career, including a topless photo shoot. The serial made use of Sam's appearance in various storylines, including a "Miss Queen Vic" public house competition in an episode that aired in April 1992 – despite the Mitchell brothers attempts' to fix the competition, the honest winner was Sam. Written by Tony Jordan, Colin Brake describes it as one of 1992's most memorable episodes. However, off-screen Westbrook was battling with various problems in her personal life (including a highly publicised drug addiction), and in 1993 she left the soap, although she maintains that her addiction did not affect her work at this time.


title: Sam Mitchell (EastEnders)

text: On-screen, Sam's marriage to Ricky ended following an affair with a yuppie named Clive (Sean Gallagher), and she took a job on a cruise ship. Commenting on her initial departure, Westbrook has said, "My contract was up for renewal and I thought it was time for me to move on [...] As much as I enjoyed being in "EastEnders" [...] I was also well aware of the fact that I was in danger of being type-cast forever if I carried on playing Sam. The producers didn't have a problem with me leaving. It was felt that my character had done as much as she could in the space of three years, anyway. During that time Sam had, after all, been involved in a story about under-age sex, run off to Gretna Green to marry Ricky, been evicted from her home, become a squatter, tried her luck as a topless model, fought on a regular basis with Grant and Phil, and gone through a marriage break-up. I think we all agreed that the poor girl was in need of a break [...] In January 1993 I filmed my final scenes and Sam Mitchell, in true "EastEnders" style, waved goodbye to Albert Square from the back of a London taxi cab [...] Although the producers agreed that it was the right time for my character to move on, they wanted to keep the door open for her to return at a later date, as they knew how popular the Mitchell family were with viewers. I was really pleased that they decided not to kill the character off". Her departure scenes aired on 4 February 1993.


title: Sam Mitchell (EastEnders)

text: In 1995, following a spell in a drug rehab clinic, which first alerted the public to her drug problem, Westbrook was reintroduced into "EastEnders" by executive producer Corinne Hollingworth. She has commented, "the call from the producers couldn't have come at a more opportune moment for me. The soap was suffering from poor ratings and so they decided, as they normally do, to bring some familiar faces back onto the Square. The producers were aware of my addiction by now [...] but they had also read that I was now clean [...] once I assured them that I was well [...] they invited me back for another year." The character's "dramatic" return to "EastEnders" aired on 25 July 1995 and began when her screen brothers traced Sam to Spain and she ended up in bed with "bad boy" David Wicks (Michael French). Several cast changes had occurred since Westbrook had last been in the soap, including a recast of her screen mother Peggy, who was now played by Barbara Windsor. As well as her former friends, Westbrook has revealed that she became particularly close to Windsor, who she says "instantly took me under her wing", and Martine McCutcheon, who played Tiffany Raymond.


title: Sam Mitchell (EastEnders)

text: Though Westbrook initially enjoyed her time back at the soap, she was unable to keep her working life and private life separate. Off-screen, her partying and drug-use (both in and out of work) began to affect her performance. Her cast mates attempted to curtail the problem. Actors such as Wendy Richard and Mike Reid requested that Westbrook's dressing room be situated near theirs and away from the younger cast, because they could see she was "vulnerable". They attempted to talk to her about her drug problem, but Westbrook ignored their concerns and continued using. She has revealed that she became so affected by cocaine that she would continuously mess up her lines, had to do take after take, was constantly late and needed prompts, and spontaneously fell asleep, once even passing out while she stood at the top of the Queen Vic stairs during filming, and was only saved from harming herself by Ross Kemp who caught her in his arms. She has commented, "When I watch re-runs of those scenes now I can't believe how out of it I look." Many of the newer, younger cast members began to shun her, laughing at her and throwing peanuts at her during filming every time she attempted to deliver her lines. Eventually, the producers tired of Westbrook. She has revealed: "the producers now had serious doubts about my future on the soap. I was proving to be a liability. My behaviour was interfering with the schedule. It was interfering with other cast members' work. There were days when I just didn't bother showing up for work at all. The dilemma they faced was what to do with me. They had only just written [Sam] back into the soap; now, within months, they were having to write her out of it all over again. They felt bad about getting rid of me, too. I could tell they felt responsible for me but of course ultimately there wasn't much they could do to help [...] Within a couple of weeks I was called into a meeting and told very politely that they were going to let me go early and terminate my contract. They would, they explained, gradually write my character out of the scripts again, which would take a couple of months to do."


title: Sam Mitchell (EastEnders)

text: In February 1996, Westbrook's axing was reported in the press. According to press reports, producers had tired of her off-screen antics and were angered that she had appeared on the Channel 4 chat show, "The Girlie Show", and had given away the outcome of a storyline she was involved with, a love-triangle between Sam, Ricky and his new girlfriend Bianca Jackson (Patsy Palmer). The character departed for Spain on 26 March 1996 after falling for a Spanish tourist. Westbrook has since commented, "The producers were very nice about it all. Rather than killing [Sam] off they sent her to Spain, once again leaving the door open for her to return [...] There was no official line as to why I was leaving, and when the announcement was made [...] they were kind enough to let me say in interviews that I was going because I wanted 'a change of direction'. 'Hopefully, one day I'll return to the show', I told journalists".


title: Sam Mitchell (EastEnders)

text: In November 1998, Westbrook revealed to "Hello!" magazine that she was "desperate" to return to "EastEnders", because she was in need of the money. According to Westbrook, actors Mike Reid and Barbara Windsor who both appeared as Frank and Peggy Butcher were keen to have her back on the cast too. Her plea came at a time when executive producer Matthew Robinson had already considered bringing Sam back, but because of Westbrook's past problems, he wanted to recast the role to another actress. However, the BBC's Controller of Continuing Drama Series, Mal Young, thought they were judging Westbrook unfairly, believing a lot of the stories printed about her in the tabloid press. On his say so, Westbrook was offered another contract to reprise the role of Sam. In May 1999, Westbrook said, "It's my dream come true. Sam is a great character and I'm thrilled to be given another chance to play her. The storyline is excellent and I think it's safe to say there'll be a few family fireworks once I'm back in town." Executive producer Matthew Robinson said, "We are delighted to be welcoming back the popular character of Sam Butcher to the Square for storylines that are certain to intrigue our viewers."


title: Sam Mitchell (EastEnders)

text: The character made her return on-screen on 22 July 1999 and was involved in the storyline relating to actor Ross Kemp's departure, and romances with her brothers' enemies Beppe di Marco (Michael Greco) and Steve Owen (Martin Kemp). Despite Westbrook's claims that her close friend Mike Reid had backed her decision to return, he and other "EastEnders" actors later publicly denounced the BBC's decision in a documentary about Westbrook, as they had first hand experience of Westbrook's addiction on set and were concerned for her welfare. It was reported that Westbrook underwent constant drug tests to keep her job, but at this time, her excessive use of cocaine had completely eroded away her nasal septum. In order to hide this from the audience, she was only filmed in ways that would keep her septum hidden from view. However, Westbrook's drug-use continued, and following more press speculation about her private life, the BBC announced in January 2000 that she was being axed from the soap once again. A BBC spokesman said: "Danniella Westbrook's contract has not been renewed. Her character Sam Mitchell will move to north London, leaving the door open for her to return in the future." Westbrook added: "I will always love working on "EastEnders", especially with the cast. Sam's departure to north London gives me the chance to explore more opportunities." Speaking to London's radio station Capital 95.8, Westbrook denied she had been sacked, saying she decided to leave because she was getting married and she wanted to spend time with her husband. She added, "I'll maybe go back to "EastEnders" in six months, so it's an amicable split."


title: Sam Mitchell (EastEnders)

text: Westbrook did not return and made her final appearance as Sam on 24 January 2000. She has since confessed that her drug taking was the reason why she was written out. In her autobiography she comments, "I wasn't fired this time, but let's just say when they gave me the opportunity to walk I took it. I was no longer interested in acting and that had become blatantly obvious to everyone on set. The soap was now being shown four times a week and it was impossible to balance the workload with my addiction [...] Not only had [cocaine] destroyed my nose, but it was about to destroy my career again as well [...] The producers were tiring of my behaviour [...] When I did leave the production at the end of 1999 it was in fact a fairly mutual decision. I admit that had I begged the producers to let me stay this time I doubt if they would have allowed me to. But I was happy to go [...] Looking back to that point now it fills me with shame that I could have behaved in that way and let down so many people". Following her axing, Westbrook's eroded nasal septum was revealed to the public by the press, after she was photographed at the 2000 British Soap Awards.


title: Sam Mitchell (EastEnders)

text: In 2001, executive producer John Yorke decided to reintroduce the character once again. The decision was made to recast the role to another actress, Kim Medcalf, as Danniella Westbrook was still overcoming her drug problems at this time. During the audition process, "EastEnders" have said that they had to keep the part they were casting for "top secret", meaning auditionees were not told about the part they were auditioning for until their actual interview. In the documentary, "EastEnders Revealed – A Year in the Life of Sam Mitchell", Medcalf has explained the audition process: "They kind of sat me down and said 'actually we haven't been 100% truthful here, this [audition] is not for...a new character at all, it's for the part of Sam Mitchell. Do you know who she is?' and I said, 'yes of course I do!' [...] Because my attitude was so laid back, it helped me a lot." Producer Paul Annett has revealed: "I saw Kim Medcalf along with two other actresses that had been short-listed, and I think almost immediately I knew that she was the right one." Medcalf was an inexperienced actress, and her casting has been described as a "big risk" because of this. Annett has commented, "she'd done...no television, secondly, she was coming into an immensely popular and beloved show, and the third thing was that she was taking over a role played by Danniella Westbrook...for [a decade]." Medcalf revealed that she had reservations about taking on a role that was associated with another actress: "I said 'that's going to be hard' [...] but they said 'we think we can do it, we're going to write it in quite cleverly, and part of it will be that we meet Sam away from Walford'." She added, "It was scary finding out I'd be taking over someone else's character because you wonder whether the public will accept it. I loved the show so I just decided to go for it". Commenting on Medcalf's casting, Sam's original actress Danniella Westbrook said, "I wish her all the luck in the world. It's a great part and I'm sure she'll be great." In an interview in 2021, Westbrook revealed that she met Medcalf at an award ceremony in 2009 and thanked her for "keeping Sam alive".


title: Sam Mitchell (EastEnders)

text: Medcalf has revealed to the "Walford Gazette" how she prepared for the role: "I actually watched the show a bit when Danniella had been on so I had a distinct memory of her to work with. What I basically did was to read a prepared, detailed biography of the character which was provided by the production office. I did sit down to watch a five-minute clip of Danniella but I quickly realised I didn't want to carry on watching because I was afraid of falling into doing an imitation of her, d'ye know what I mean? I'll tell you something weird-when I first started getting the scripts I used to hear the lines first in my head with HER voice saying them! But that changed over time, thank God, as I hopefully made the character my own and I gave her my voice." Medcalf added that contrastingly to Westbrook, who played Sam as a young girl who was overprotected by her brothers and sheltered, she played Sam as a young woman "trying to find her place both in a career and in relationships with the opposite sex."


title: Sam Mitchell (EastEnders)

text: The character was reintroduced in January 2002 in a set of episodes filmed on-location in Spain. In the storyline, Sam's mother Peggy (Barbara Windsor) had flown to Spain for the supposed funeral of her former husband and Sam's former father-in-law, Frank Butcher. Here she found Sam, who was working as a table dancer in a nightclub; Peggy brought Sam back to Walford. Annett has praised Medcalf's introduction, saying she was confident and that Barbara Windsor found her impressive.


title: Sam Mitchell (EastEnders)

text: Sam's return to Walford saw her reignite an affair with her former, now married lover Steve Owen (Martin Kemp), who was embroiled in a feud with her brother Phil. Medcalf has revealed that she was extremely nervous when she was informed that she would have to enact love scenes with Kemp, who aside from his part in "EastEnders", was renowned to viewers as a member of the 1980s pop band Spandau Ballet. Speaking about the characters' affair, Medcalf has said, "Steve Owen basically made a play for her because he was using her to get back at Phil. He knew that Phil would hate it [as] they were rivals. But then, in her defence, he was a charmer, and he managed to keep it all from his wife. He just played the game very well." The relationship ended in "tragedy" when Steve, in an attempt to kidnap Phil's daughter Louise, was killed in a road accident. Medcalf has suggested that Sam was "devastated" by Steve's death: "She fell for [his game] hook, line and sinker. She really believed that he was going to be the man." She subsequently moved on to her former lover Beppe di Marco, but according to Medcalf, that relationship finished because Beppe "thought [Sam] was a bit full on [...] she was so desperate for a relationship that I think it just scared [Beppe]." Another fling followed with abusive Trevor Morgan, played by Alex Ferns. According to Ferns, the relationship started because Trevor wanted to make his wife, Little Mo (Kacey Ainsworth) jealous. In the storyline, the romance ended when Trevor's true aggressive self emerged.


title: Sam Mitchell (EastEnders)

text: In 2004, the character was romantically paired with gangster Andy Hunter, played by Michael Higgs. In the storyline, Sam had been left in charge of the various Mitchell business and properties, and Andy, sensing an opportunity to gain control of these assets, proposed to Sam. According to Medcalf, Sam needed the marriage because she was "vulnerable". She added, "Andy is tough and she craves someone to look after her. I can see why she'd go for him; he's a good-looking guy, he's got money, he wears good clothes – he ticks every box." 11 million viewers watched Sam marry Andy in September 2004. According to Medcalf, "She knows that he's not desperately in love with her, but she thinks that it's enough. She's desperately in love with him. She's entering it very positively [...] Sam's not the brightest person, so she falls for his manipulations [...] I think she just wants to get the ring on her finger and then they can try to iron out any problems. She's a little naive." The marriage lasted mere months on-screen; when Sam was conned into giving away all her family's properties, including her mother's public house (pub), The Queen Vic, Andy threw her out of their house.


title: Sam Mitchell (EastEnders)

text: Sam's reaction to the loss of her mother's pub was part of a high-profile storyline marking the 20th anniversary of "EastEnders", the murder of Den Watts. In the storyline, Den Watts had been responsible for Sam losing the pub, and so Sam teamed up with Den's scorned wife, Chrissie Watts, and Zoe Slater, who had also been scorned by Den. The trio, who were dubbed the three witches of Walford – a comparison to the Three Witches from the Shakespeare play "Macbeth" – plotted Den's downfall, resulting in a deadly confrontation in the Vic, and Den being bludgeoned to death by Chrissie. The three women buried Den's body in the Vic cellar and Sam proceeded to blackmail Chrissie and was then framed for Den's murder by Chrissie. The culmination of the plot – which saw Ross Kemp and Steve McFadden return to "EastEnders" as Phil and Grant to exonerate Sam – signified the departure of Kim Medcalf, who opted to leave the serial in 2005. Medcalf's final scenes aired on 17 November 2005.


title: Sam Mitchell (EastEnders)

text: Westbrook returned to the show in 2009 in part of a shock storyline. Speaking of her comeback, she said, "I'm really happy to be coming back, it feels just like coming home. I'm really looking forward to working with Barbara [Windsor], Steve [McFadden], Sid [Owen] and Patsy [Palmer] and I'm over the moon to be working with the new boss Diederick Santer. I can't wait to get the scripts to see what Sam Mitchell has been up to since she was last in the Square."


title: Sam Mitchell (EastEnders)

text: Executive Producer Santer said, "With all the turmoil facing the Mitchells this year, it feels like a great time to bring back Sam, the original Mitchell sister. I'd like to take this opportunity to thank Kim Medcalf for her great work playing Sam Mitchell for three years and welcome Danniella back to pick up the baton once again." In an interview with media website Digital Spy, Santer discussed the reasoning behind his decision to reintroduce Sam: "What makes Sam interesting for me is that she's Ricky's first love and first wife. As Bianca and Ricky spend more time together [...] the inevitability of them at some point coming together increases. What's stopping them? Well, it's Sam. Sam and Ricky had a good thing going all those years ago. All Ricky ever gets off Bianca is indifference, whereas Sam – and who knows quite why – is less than indifferent towards him and it makes a nice change".


title: Sam Mitchell (EastEnders)

text: Santer acknowledged that Sam's return posed a problem for the show, because when the character was last seen, she was "on the run" in Brazil. However, he indicated that the storyliners had found a way to get around this. Westbrook later admitted she was not nervous about her return. She filmed her first scenes in the first week of June, for episodes that were broadcast in September. On 26 August a trailer was released to promote the character's return, noted for its similarity to the opening credits of "Secret Diary of a Call Girl". 7.6 million viewers watched her return episode.


title: Sam Mitchell (EastEnders)

text: Westbrook was contracted for three months, and although it was extended slightly, she departed from the show at the end of her storyline in the episode broadcast on 11 January 2010. In an interview given with Digital Spy, Diederick Santer said: "When Danniella and I first sat down to talk about her return, we discussed a particular storyline with a specific length of contract. These plans haven't changed. Danniella has done brilliantly and I hope that she will be back with us at some point in the future." Westbrook filmed her final scenes at the end of October 2009.


title: Sam Mitchell (EastEnders)

text: In June 2010, it was confirmed that Westbrook would return to film scenes for broadcast later in the year. Santer's successor, Bryan Kirkwood told Digital Spy, "When Sam Mitchell is in Albert Square, trouble is never far behind. We last saw her heading for a stretch in prison and ostracised by her family. When she returns on her release, it's with a lot of grudges and a big secret. Danniella brings a lot of fun and mischief to the role of Sam and I'm looking forward to having her back where she belongs". Her return was broadcast on 20 August 2010 and centred around a "Who's the daddy?" storyline, when Sam revealed she was pregnant and unsure who was her baby's father, Ricky or Jack Branning (with whom she had been cheating on Ricky). After the completion of this storyline in which Jack was confirmed as her baby's father, Sam departed once again. Her final episode aired on 21 September 2010.


title: Sam Mitchell (EastEnders)

text: On 27 February 2016, it was confirmed that Westbrook would reprise the role for a few episodes. Her return would coincide with that of Ross Kemp as her brother Grant and the final appearance from Barbara Windsor as their mother Peggy. Of her return, Westbrook said, 'I'm really excited to be going back to "EastEnders".' Executive producer Dominic Treadwell-Collins said: 'It is only right that all of Peggy Mitchell's children would be at her funeral. Danniella is the final piece of the Mitchell jigsaw puzzle, so it will be great for viewers to see Phil, Grant and Sam all back on screen. Sam will only be back for a few episodes, but these scenes are bound to go down in the soap's history.' Westbrook returned to filming on 3 May 2016. Her return scenes aired on 30 June, with her final scenes on 8 July.


title: Sam Mitchell (EastEnders)

text: In September 2020, Westbrook claimed to be "in talks" to reprise the role, however a spokesperson denied this, saying: "There are no current plans for Danniella to return to EastEnders."


title: Sam Mitchell (EastEnders)

text: On 29 January 2022, it was announced that Kim Medcalf would reprise the role once again, taking over from Westbrook for the second time. Upon her return, Medcalf said "When the BBC approached me last year to reprise the role of Sam I was thrilled," said Medcalf. "She's a brilliant character and I can't wait to get back in the Square and work with the amazing cast of both familiar and new faces." Producer Kate Oates said: "The Mitchells are one of the most iconic families in soap, and I have long wanted to bring Sam back into the family fold." Danniella Westbrook reacted to Medcalf reprising the role by threatening to sue the BBC. Medcalf returned to filming on 8 February 2022. Her return scenes aired on 18 April 2022.


title: Sam Mitchell (EastEnders)

text: In August 2022, executive producer Chris Clenshaw revealed that a "face from Sam past would crop up down the line". It was later announced that Nick Nevern had been cast as Sam's ex boyfriend Don, whom Sam had been in a relationship with while living in Spain.


title: Sam Mitchell (EastEnders)

text: Westbrook has said that within days of her first appearance as Sam in 1990, the public and media interest in her character was 'phenomenal'. The character has been reintroduced multiple times, with producer Matthew Robinson referring to her as 'popular'. Kim Medcalf as Sam Mitchell won a National TV Award in 2002 for most popular newcomer.


title: Sam Mitchell (EastEnders)

text: The direction taken with the character was viewed critically in 2004, with Paul Clark of "The Stage" using Sam as an example of how "EastEnders" had become unbelievable. He commented, 'The rot set in around the time when one of the show's female leads, Sam, metamorphosed from introspective beauty into oestrogen-fuelled Al Caponette, making Billy burn down Den's club.' "The Guardian" claimed in 2004 that the soap opera had come under 'heavy fire' for 'poor storylines', among them Sam's wedding to gangster Andy Hunter.


title: Sam Mitchell (EastEnders)

text: Stuart Heritage, of "The Guardian", commented on the recasting of Sam in June 2010, saying 'Medcalf lacked Westbrook's obvious aura of constant threat, but still managed to help bludgeon Dirty Den's head in with a metal dog before leaving so that – in a bonkers soap twist – Westbrook could return again.' Kevin O'Sullivan, writing for the "Sunday Mirror", was critical of Danniella Westbrook's return in 2009, highlighting an 'inexplicable personality transplant' in Sam and decrying the 'homecoming' storyline as 'an insult to long-suffering viewers' intelligence'. Comparatively, Virgin Media have rated Sam/Westbrook's return in 2009 as the tenth greatest soap comeback of all time, saying 'She was only on screen for five seconds before the famous 'Enders drums signalled the return of Walford's much-missed Mitchell sister. It may not have been a big surprise to see Sam back, but those scriptwriters sure know how to leave us gasping for more.'


title: Sam Mitchell (EastEnders)

text: Ruth Deller, of entertainment website "lowculture.co.uk", criticised Sam's return in 2009, branding it as unsuccessful and also stating: 'Danniella Westbrook is doing her best, but the scriptwriters don't seem to know who Sam is any more. Sam mark 1 and Sam mark 2 were very different, and Sam mark 1 rebooted seems to be a third person altogether. Is she a canny businesswoman or completely thick? Is she ugly or attractive? Are we supposed to be rooting for her or rallying against her?' She further faulted her story-'lining adding: 'Her storylines don't seem to be going anywhere and the whole return seems like it was concocted purely for headlines and not at all for story development.'


title: Hamidian massacres

text: The Hamidian massacres also called the Armenian massacres, were massacres of Armenians in the Ottoman Empire in the mid-1890s. Estimated casualties ranged from 100,000 to 300,000, resulting in 50,000 orphaned children. The massacres are named after Sultan Abdul Hamid II, who, in his efforts to maintain the imperial domain of the declining Ottoman Empire, reasserted pan-Islamism as a state ideology. Although the massacres were aimed mainly at the Armenians, in some cases they turned into indiscriminate anti-Christian pogroms, including the Diyarbekir massacres, where, at least according to one contemporary source, up to 25,000 Assyrians were also killed.


title: Hamidian massacres

text: The massacres began in the Ottoman interior in 1894, before they became more widespread in the following years. The majority of the murders took place between 1894 and 1896. The massacres began to taper off in 1897, following international condemnation of Abdul Hamid. The harshest measures were directed against the long persecuted Armenian community as its calls for civil reform and better treatment were ignored by the government. The Ottomans made no allowances for the victims on account of their age or gender, and as a result, they massacred all of the victims with brutal force.


title: Hamidian massacres

text: The telegraph spread news of the massacres around the world, leading to a significant amount of coverage of them in the media of Western Europe and North America.


title: Hamidian massacres

text: The origins of the hostility towards the Armenians lay in the increasingly precarious position in which the Ottoman Empire found itself in the last quarter of the 19th century. The end of Ottoman domination of the Balkans was ushered in by an era of European nationalism and an insistence on self-determination by the inhabitants of many territories which had been ruled by the Ottomans for an extremely long period of time. The Armenians of the empire, who were always considered had begun to ask for civil reforms and better treatment by the government in the mid-1860s and early 1870s. They pressed for an end to the usurpation of their land, "the looting and murder in Armenian towns by Kurds and Circassians, improprieties during tax collection, criminal behavior by government officials and the refusal to accept Christians as witnesses in trial." These requests went unheeded by the central government. When a nascent form of nationalism spread among the Armenians of Anatolia, including demands for equal rights and a push for autonomy, the Ottoman leadership believed that the empire's Islamic character and even its very existence were threatened.


title: Hamidian massacres

text: The chief dragoman (Turkish interpreter) of the British Embassy wrote that the reason the Ottomans committed these atrocities was because they were “guided in their general action by the prescriptions of Sheri [Sharia] Law. That law prescribes that if the ‘rayah’ [subject] Christian attempts, by having recourse to foreign powers, to overstep the limits of privileges allowed to them by their Mussulman masters, and free themselves from their bondage, their lives and property are to be forfeited, and are at the mercy of the Mussulmans. To the Turkish mind, the Armenians had tried to overstep these limits by appealing to foreign powers, especially England. They, therefore, considered it their religious duty and a righteous thing to destroy and seize the lives and property of the Armenians.”


title: Hamidian massacres

text: The combination of Russian military success in the recent Russo-Turkish War, the clear weakening of the Ottoman Empire in various spheres including financial spheres (from 1873, the Ottoman Empire suffered greatly from the Panic of 1873), territorial (mentioned above), and the hope among some Armenians that one day all of the Armenian territory might be ruled by Russia, led to a new restiveness among Armenians who were living inside the Ottoman Empire. The Armenians sent a delegation which was led by Mkrtich Khrimian to the 1878 Congress of Berlin to lobby the European powers to include proper safeguards for their kinsmen in the eventual peace agreement.


title: Hamidian massacres

text: The sultan, however, was not prepared to relinquish any of his power. Abdul Hamid believed that the woes of the Ottoman Empire stemmed from "the endless persecutions and hostilities of the Christian world."


title: Hamidian massacres

text: He perceived that the Ottoman Armenians were an extension of foreign hostility, a means by which Europe could "get at our most vital places and tear out our very guts." Turkish historian and Abdul Hamid biographer Osman Nuri observed, "The mere mention of the word 'reform' irritated him [Abdul Hamid], inciting his criminal instincts." Upon hearing of the Armenian delegation's visit to Berlin in 1878, he bitterly remarked, "Such great impudence ... Such great treachery toward religion and state ... May they be cursed upon by God."


title: Hamidian massacres

text: While he admitted that some of their complaints were well-founded, he likened the Armenians to "hired female mourners ["pleureuses"] who simulate a pain which they do not feel; they are an effeminate and cowardly people who hide behind the clothes of the great powers and raise an outcry for the smallest of causes."


title: Hamidian massacres

text: The provisions for reform in the Armenian provinces embodied in Article 61 of the Treaty of Berlin (1878) were ultimately not enforced and were followed instead by further repression. On January 2, 1881, collective notes sent by the European powers reminding the sultan of the promises of reform failed to prod him into action. The eastern provinces of the Ottoman Empire were historically insecure; the Kurdish rebels attacked the inhabitants of towns and villages with impunity.


title: Hamidian massacres

text: In 1890–91, at a time when the empire was either too weak and disorganized or reluctant to halt them, Sultan Abdul Hamid gave semi-official status to the Kurdish bandits. Made up mainly of Kurdish tribes, but also of Turks, Yöruk, Arabs, Turkmens and Circassians, and armed by the state, they came to be called the "Hamidiye Alaylari" ("Hamidian Regiments"). The Hamidiye and Kurdish brigands were given free rein to attack Armenians, confiscating stores of grain, foodstuffs, and driving off livestock, confident of escaping punishment as they were subjects of military courts only.


title: Hamidian massacres

text: Armenians established revolutionary organizations, namely the Social Democrat Hunchakian Party (Hunchak; founded in Switzerland in 1887) and the Armenian Revolutionary Federation (the ARF or Dashnaktsutiun, founded in 1890 in Tiflis). Clashes ensued and unrest occurred in 1892 at Merzifon and in 1893 at Tokat.


title: Hamidian massacres

text: In 1894, the sultan began to target the Armenian people in a precursor to the Hamidian massacres. This persecution strengthened nationalistic sentiment among Armenians. The first notable battle in the Armenian resistance took place in Sasun. Hunchak activists, such as Mihran Damadian, Hampartsoum Boyadjian, and Hrayr Dzhoghk, encouraged resistance against double taxation and Ottoman persecution. The ARF armed the people of the region. The Armenians confronted the Ottoman army and Kurdish irregulars at Sasun, finally succumbing to superior numbers and to Turkish assurances of amnesty, which never materialized.


title: Hamidian massacres

text: In response to the resistance at Sasun, the governor of Mush responded by inciting the local Muslims against the Armenians. Historian Lord Kinross wrote that massacres of this kind were often achieved by gathering Muslims in a local mosque and claiming the Armenians had the aim of "striking at Islam".


title: Hamidian massacres

text: Sultan Abdul Hamid sent the Ottoman army into the area and also armed groups of Kurdish irregulars. The violence spread and affected most of the Armenian towns in the Ottoman Empire.


title: Hamidian massacres

text: The Great Powers (Britain, France, Russia) forced Hamid to sign a new reform package designed to curtail the powers of the "Hamidiye" in October 1895 which, like the Berlin treaty, was never implemented. On October 1, 1895, two thousand Armenians assembled in Istanbul to petition for the implementation of the reforms, but Ottoman police units converged on the rally and violently broke it up. Upon receiving the reform package, the sultan is said to have remarked, "This business will end in blood."


title: Hamidian massacres

text: Soon, massacres of Armenians broke out in Istanbul and then engulfed the rest of the Armenian-populated vilayets of Bitlis, Diyarbekir, Erzurum, Mamuret-ul-Aziz, Sivas, Trebizond and Van. Thousands were killed at the hands of their Muslim neighbours and government soldiers, and many more died during the cold winter of 1895–96. William Sachtleben, an American journalist who happened to be in Erzurum after the massacre there in 1895, recounted the grisly scene he came across in a lengthy letter to "The Times":


title: Hamidian massacres

text: The French vice consul of Diyarbakır, Gustave Meyrier, recounted to Ambassador Paul Cambon stories of Armenian women and children being assaulted and killed and described the attackers "as cowardly as they were cruel. They refused to attack where people defended themselves and instead concentrated on defenseless districts." The worst atrocity took place in Urfa, where Ottoman troops burned the Armenian cathedral, in which 3,000 Armenians had taken refuge, and shot at anyone who tried to escape.


title: Hamidian massacres

text: Abdul Hamid's private first secretary wrote in his memoirs about Abdul Hamid that he "decided to pursue a policy of severity and terror against the Armenians, and in order to succeed in this respect he elected the method of dealing them an economic blow... he ordered that they absolutely avoid negotiating or discussing anything with the Armenians and that they inflict upon them a decisive strike to settle scores."


title: Hamidian massacres

text: The killings continued until 1897. In that last year, Sultan Hamid declared the Armenian Question closed. Many Armenian revolutionaries had either been killed or escaped to Russia. The Ottoman government closed Armenian societies and restricted Armenian political movements.


title: Hamidian massacres

text: Some non-Armenian groups were also attacked during the massacres. The French diplomatic correspondence shows that the "Hamidiye" carried out massacres not only of Armenians but also of Assyrians living in Diyarbakir, Hasankeyf, Sivas and other parts of Anatolia.


title: Hamidian massacres

text: It is impossible to ascertain how many Armenians were killed, although the figures cited by historians have ranged from 80,000 to 300,000.


title: Hamidian massacres

text: The German pastor Johannes Lepsius meticulously collected data on the destruction and in his calculations, counted the deaths of 88,243 Armenians, the destitution of 546,000, the destruction of 2,493 villages, the residents of 646 of which were forcibly converted to Islam, and the desecration of 645 churches and monasteries, of which 328 were converted into mosques. He also estimated the additional deaths of 100,000 Armenians due to famine and disease totalling a number of approximately 200,000.


title: Hamidian massacres

text: In contrast, the ambassador of Britain estimated 100,000 were killed up until early December 1895. However, the period of massacres spread well into 1896. German foreign ministry operative and Turkologist Ernst Jäckh claimed that 200,000 Armenians were killed and 50,000 were expelled and a million pillaged and plundered. A similar figure is cited by the French diplomatic historian Pierre Renouvin who claimed that 250,000 Armenians died based on authenticated documents while serving his duty.


title: Hamidian massacres

text: In addition to the death toll, many Armenians converted to Islam in an attempt to escape the violence. While Ottoman officials claimed that these conversions were voluntary, modern scholars, including Selim Deringil, have argued that the conversions were either directly forced or acts of desperation. Deringil notes that many Armenian men shifted swiftly from Christianity to Islam, seeking out circumcision and becoming prominent attendees of their local mosques, attending prayer multiple times each day. Women converted as well, and many chose to remain within Islam even after the violence ended - some formerly Armenian women who were tracked down following the violence indicated that they preferred to remain with their Muslim husbands, many of whom had captured them during the raids and violence, rather than return and face shame within their communities.


title: Hamidian massacres

text: News of the Armenian massacres in the empire were widely reported in Europe and the United States and drew strong responses from foreign governments, humanitarian organizations, and the press alike. British print and illustrated newspapers regularly covered the massacres, with the popular weekly "Punch" publishing dozens of cartoons depicting the carnage. Further, historian Leslie Rogne Schumacher notes that the massacres "reflected and impacted the changing world of European international relations" in the years before the First World War, weakening Britain's relationship with the Ottoman Empire and bolstering British ties to Russia.


title: Hamidian massacres

text: The French ambassador described Turkey as "literally in flames," with "massacres everywhere" and all Christians being murdered "without distinction." A French vice consul declared that the Ottoman Empire was "gradually annihilating the Christian element" by "giving the Kurdish chieftains "carte blanche" to do whatever they please, to enrich themselves at the Christians' expense and to satisfy their men's whims."


title: Hamidian massacres

text: One headline in a September 1895 article by "The New York Times" ran "Armenian Holocaust," while the "Catholic World" declared, "Not all the perfume of Arabia can wash the hand of Turkey clean enough to be suffered any longer to hold the reins of power over one inch of Christian territory." The rest of the American press called for action to help the Armenians and to remove, "if not by political action then by resort to the knife... the fever spot of the Turkish Empire." King Leopold II of Belgium told British Prime Minister Salisbury that he was prepared to send his Congolese Force Publique to "invade and occupy" Armenia. The massacres were an important item on the agenda of the United States President Grover Cleveland, and in his presidential platform for 1896, Republican candidate William McKinley listed the saving of the Armenians as one of his top priorities in foreign policy. Americans in the Ottoman Empire, such as George Washburn, then-president of the Constantinople-based Robert College, pressured their government to take concrete action. In December 1900, the battleship USS "Kentucky" called at the port of Smyrna, where its captain, "Red Bill" Kirkland, delivered the following warning, somewhat softened by his translator, to its governor: "If these massacres continue I'll be swuzzled if I won't someday forget my order… and find some pretext to hammer a few Turkish towns… I'd keel-haul every blithering mother's son of a Turk that wears hair." Americans on the mainland, such as Julia Ward Howe, David Josiah Brewer, and John D. Rockefeller, donated and raised large amounts of money and organized relief aid that was channeled to the Armenians via the newly established American Red Cross. Other humanitarian groups and the Red Cross helped by sending aid to the remaining survivors who were dying of disease and hunger.


title: Hamidian massacres

text: At the height of the massacres, in 1896, Abdul Hamid tried to limit the flow of information coming out of Turkey ("Harper's Weekly" was banned by Ottoman censors for its extensive coverage of the massacres) and counteract the negative press by enlisting the help of sympathetic Western activists and journalists.


title: Hamidian massacres

text: Theodor Herzl responded enthusiastically to Abdul Hamid's personal request to harness "Jewish power" in order to undermine the widespread sympathy felt for Armenians in Europe. Herzl viewed the arrangement with the Abdul Hamid as temporary, and his services were in exchange for bringing about a more favorable Ottoman attitude toward Zionism. Through his contacts, he supported the publication of favorable impressions of the Ottoman Empire in European newspapers and magazines, while himself attempting (unsuccessfully) to mediate between the Sultan and Armenian party activists in France, Britain, Austria and elsewhere. "Under no circumstances," he wrote to Max Nordau, "are the Armenians to learn that we want to use them in order to erect a Jewish state." Herzl's courting the Sultan's favor did not go without protest. Bernard Lazare published an open letter critical of Herzl and resigned from the Zionist Action Committee in 1899. The one fellow leader Herzl sought to enlist, Max Nordau, replied with a one-word telegram: 'No'.


title: Hamidian massacres

text: Despite the great public sympathy that was felt for the Armenians in Europe, none of the European powers took concrete action to alleviate their plight. Frustrated with their indifference and failure to take action, Armenians from the ARF seized the European-managed Ottoman Bank on August 26, 1896 in order to bring the massacres to their full attention. The action resulted in the deaths of ten of the Armenian militants, Ottoman soldiers and the massacre of 6,000 Armenian civilians living in Istanbul by Ottomans. According to the foreign diplomats in Istanbul, Ottoman central authorities instructed the mob "to start killing Armenians, irrespective of age and gender, for the duration of 48 hours." The killings stopped only when the mob was ordered to desist from such activity by Sultan Hamid. Though their demands were rejected and new massacres broke out in Istanbul, the act was lauded by the European and American press, which vilified Hamid and painted him as the "great assassin" and "bloody Sultan." The Great Powers vowed to take action and enforce new reforms, although these never came to fruition due to conflicting political and economic interests.


title: Hamidian massacres

text: After George Hepworth, a preeminent journalist of the late 19th century, traveled through Ottoman Armenia in 1897, he wrote "Through Armenia on Horseback", which discusses the causes and effects of the recent massacres. In one chapter Hepworth describes the disparity between the reality of the Massacre in Bitlis and the official reports that were sent to the Porte. After retelling the Ottoman version of events, which places the blame solely on the Armenians of Bitlis, Hepworth writes:


title: Hamidian massacres

text: Official Ottoman sources downplayed or misrepresented the death toll numbers. The attempt of deliberately misrepresenting the numbers were noted by British Ambassador Phillip Currie in a letter to Prime Minister Lord Salisbury:


title: Hamidian massacres

text: Some scholars, such as the Soviet historians Mkrtich G. Nersisyan, Ruben Sahakyan, John Kirakosyan, and Yehuda Bauer, and most recently Benny Morris and Dror Ze'evi in their book "The Thirty-Year Genocide", subscribe to the view that the mass killings of 1894–1896 marked the first phase of the Armenian genocide. Most scholars, however, limit this definition strictly to the years 1915–1923.


title: Slavica Ecclestone

text: Slavica Ecclestone (; born 2 June 1958) is a Croatian former model and the ex-wife of former Formula 1 CEO Bernie Ecclestone.


title: Slavica Ecclestone

text: Ecclestone was born in Rijeka, where her Serb parents—Jovan "Jovo" Radić and Ljubica Malić from Maglajani and Riječani, respectively, both villages within the Laktaši municipality, PR Bosnia and Herzegovina—had settled shortly before her birth in search of expanded job opportunities. The family soon moved back to northern Bosnia to her father's village, meaning Slavica would spend the majority of her childhood in Maglajani. After her parents divorced when she was seven years old, being raised by her mother Ljubica, Slavica was taught to "not do to someone else what you wouldn't want to be done to yourself."


title: Slavica Ecclestone

text: In her early career, Slavica worked as a fashion model, modelling for a number of clients, including the designer Armani. While working on a Formula One promotional event for Armani at the 1982 Italian Grand Prix in Monza, the twenty-four-year-old model met fifty-two-year-old Formula One chief Bernie Ecclestone.


title: Slavica Ecclestone

text: Bernie pursued Slavica despite the 28-year age difference, the language barrier (she spoke Serbo-Croatian and Italian, he spoke only English), and their difference in height. At , Slavica was nearly a foot taller than her suitor, Ecclestone being tall.


title: Slavica Ecclestone

text: In November 2008, Slavica filed for divorce after 23 years of marriage. The divorce was granted on 11 March 2009. She ranked 194 in "The Sunday Times"' Rich List after she was awarded an estimated £740 million from her divorce.


title: Slavica Ecclestone

text: In December 2019, she put her Chelsea mansion up for sale for more than £100m after daughter Tamara's home in Kensington Palace Gardens was raided and jewels worth £50m were stolen.


title: Sahelanthropus

text: Sahelanthropus tchadensis is an extinct species of the Homininae (African apes) dated to about , during the Miocene epoch. The species, and its genus "Sahelanthropus", was announced in 2002, based mainly on a partial cranium, nicknamed "Toumaï", discovered in northern Chad.


title: Sahelanthropus

text: "Sahelanthropus tchadensis" lived close to the time of the chimpanzee–human divergence, possibly related to "Orrorin", a species of Homininae that lived about one million years later. It may have been ancestral to both humans and chimpanzees (which would place it in the tribe Hominini), or alternatively an early member of the tribe Gorillini. In 2020, the femur was analyzed, and it was found that "Sahelanthropus" was not bipedal, casting some doubt on its position as a human ancestor, but this was refuted in 2022.


title: Sahelanthropus

text: Funded by the Mission Paléoanthropologique Franco–Tchadienne, Ahounta Djimdoumalbaye, Fanoné Gongdibé, Mahamat Adoum, and Alain Beauvilain identified the first remains in the Toros-Menalla area (TM 266 locality) in the Djurab Desert of northern Chad. By the time Michel Brunet and colleagues formally described the remains in 2002, a total of six specimens had been recovered: a nearly complete but heavily deformed skull, a fragment of the midline of the jaw with the tooth sockets for an incisor and canine, a right third molar, a right first incisor, a right jawbone with the last premolar to last molar, and a right canine. With the skull as the holotype specimen, they were grouped into a new genus and species as "Sahelanthropus tchadensis", the genus name referring to the Sahel, and the species name to Chad. These, along with "Australopithecus bahrelghazali", were the first discoveries of any fossil African great ape (outside the genus "Homo") made beyond eastern and southern Africa. By 2005, a third premolar was recovered from the TM 266 locality, a lower jaw missing the region behind the second molar from the TM 292 locality, and a lower left jaw preserving the sockets for premolars and molars from the TM 247 locality.


title: Sahelanthropus

text: The skull was nicknamed "Toumaï", a name from the local Daza language meaning "hope of life", given to infants born just before the dry season. The nickname was suggested by the then-president of Chad, Idriss Déby, in honour of one of his comrades-in-arms who had been killed in the coup d'état against his predecessor, Hissène Habré. Toumaï also became a source of national pride, and Brunet announced the discovery before the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and a television audience in the capital of N'Djamena, ""l'ancêtre de l'humanité est Tchadien...Le berceau de l'humanité se trouve au Tchad. Toumaï est votre ancêtre"" ("The ancestor of humanity is Chadian...The cradle of humanity is in Chad. Toumaï is your ancestor.")


title: Sahelanthropus

text: Toumaï had been found with a femur, but this was stored with animal bones and shipped to the University of Poitiers in 2003, where it was stumbled upon by graduate student Aude Bergeret the next year. She took the bone to the head of the Department of Geosciences, Roberto Macchiarelli, who considered it to be inconsistent with bipedalism contra what Brunet "et al." had earlier stated in their description analysing only the distorted skull. This was conspicuous because Brunet and his team had already explicitly stated Toumaï was associated with no limb bones, which could have proven or disproven their conclusions of locomotion. Because Brunet had declined to comment on the subject, Macchiarelli and Bergeret petitioned to present their preliminary findings during an annual conference organised by the Anthropological Society of Paris, which would be held at Poitiers that year. This was rejected as they had not formally published their findings yet. They were able to publish a full description in 2020, and concluded "Sahelanthropus" was not bipedal.


title: Sahelanthropus

text: In 2022, French primatologist Franck Guy and colleagues reported that a hominin left femur (TM 266-01-063), and a right (TM 266-01-358) and a left (TM 266-01-050) ulna (forearm bone) were also discovered at the site in 2001, but were excluded originally from "Sahelanthropus" because they could not be reliably associated with the skull. They decided to include it because "Sahelanthropus" is the only hominin known from the site, and they concluded that the material is consistent with obligate bipedalism, the earliest evidence of such.


title: Sahelanthropus

text: All "Sahelanthropus" specimens, representing six to nine different adults, have been recovered within the area.


title: Sahelanthropus

text: Upon description, Brunet and colleagues were able to constrain the TM 266 locality to 7 or 6 million years ago (near the end of the Late Miocene) based on the animal assemblage, which made "Sahelanthropus" the earliest African ape at the time. In 2008, Anne-Elisabeth Lebatard and colleagues (which includes Brunet) attempted to radiometrically date using the Be/Be ratio the sediments Toumaï was found near (dubbed the "anthracotheriid unit" after the commonplace "Libycosaurus petrochii"). Averaging the ages of 28 samples, they reported an approximate date of 7.2–6.8 million years ago.


title: Sahelanthropus

text: Their methods were soon challenged by Beauvilain, who clarified that Toumaï was found on loose sediments at the surface rather than being "unearthed", and had probably been exposed to the harsh sun and wind for some time considering it was encrusted in an iron shell and desert varnish. This would mean it is unsafe to assume that the skull and nearby sediments were deposited at the same time, making such radiometric dating impossible. Further, the "Sahelanthropus" fossils lack white silaceous cement which is present on every other fossil in the site, which would mean they date to different time periods. Because the large mammal fossils were scattered across the area instead of concentrated like the "Sahelanthropus" fossils, the discoverers originally believed the "Sahelanthropus" fossils were dumped there by a palaeontologist or geologist, but later dismissed this because the skull was too complete to have been thrown away like that. In 2009, Beauvilain and argued that Toumaï was purposefully buried in a "grave", because the skull was also found with two parallel rows of large mammal fossils, seemingly forming a box. Because the "grave" is orientated in a northeast–southwest direction towards Mecca, and all sides of the skull were exposed to the wind and were eroded (meaning the skull had somehow turned), they argued that Toumaï was first buried by nomads who identified the skull as human and collected nearby limb fossils (believing them to belong with the skull) and buried them, and was reburied again sometime after the 11th century by Muslims who reorientated the grave towards Mecca when the fossils were re-exposed.


title: Sahelanthropus

text: When describing the species in 2002, Brunet "et al." noted the combination of features which would be considered archaic or derived for a species on the human line (the subtribe Hominina), the latter namely bipedal locomotion and reduced canine teeth, which they interpreted as evidence of its position near the chimpanzee–human last common ancestor (CHLCA). This classification made "Sahelanthropus" the oldest Hominina, shifting the centre of origin for the clade away from East Africa. They also suggested that "Sahelanthropus" could be a sister group to the 5.5 to 4.5 million year old "Ardipithecus" and later Hominina. The classification of "Sahelanthropus" in Hominina, as well as "Ardipithecus" and the 6 million year old "Orrorin", was at odds with molecular analyses of the time which had placed the CHLCA between 6 and 4 million years ago based on a high mutation rate of about 70 mutations per generation. All these genera were anatomically too derived to represent a basal hominin (the group containing chimps and humans), so molecular data would only permit their classification into more ancient and now-extinct lineages. This was overturned in 2012 by geneticists Aylwyn Scally and Richard Durbin who studied the genomes of children and their parents and found the mutation was actually half that, placing the CHLCA anywhere from 14 to 7 million years ago, though most geneticists and palaeoanthropologists use 8 to 7 million years ago.


title: Sahelanthropus

text: A further possibility is that Toumaï is not ancestral to either humans or chimpanzees at all, but rather an early representative of the Gorillini lineage. Brigitte Senut and Martin Pickford, the discoverers of "Orrorin tugenensis", suggested that the features of "S. tchadensis" are consistent with a female proto-gorilla. Even if this claim is upheld the find would lose none of its significance, because at present, very few chimpanzee or gorilla ancestors have been found anywhere in Africa. Thus if "S. tchadensis" is an ancestral relative of the chimpanzees or gorillas, then it represents the earliest known member of "their" lineage. And "S. tchadensis" does indicate that the last common ancestor of humans and chimpanzees is unlikely to closely resemble extant chimpanzees, as had been previously supposed by some paleontologists.


title: Sahelanthropus

text: With the sexual dimorphism known to have existed in early hominins, the difference between "Ardipithecus" and "Sahelanthropus" may not be large enough to warrant a separate species for the latter.


title: Sahelanthropus

text: Existing fossils include a relatively small cranium, five pieces of jaw, and some teeth, making up a head that has a mixture of derived and primitive features. A virtual reconstruction of the interior of the braincase indicated a cranial capacity of 378 cm, similar to that of extant chimpanzees and approximately a third the size of modern human brains.


title: Sahelanthropus

text: The teeth, brow ridges, and facial structure differ markedly from those found in modern humans. Cranial features show a flatter face, U-shaped tooth rows, small canines, an anterior foramen magnum, and heavy brow ridges. The only known skull suffered a large amount of distortion during the time of fossilisation and discovery, as the cranium is dorsoventrally flattened, and the right side is depressed.


title: Sahelanthropus

text: In the original description in 2002, Brunet "et al." said it "would not be unreasonable" to speculate that "Sahelanthropus" was capable of maintaining an upright posture while walking bipedally. Because they had not reported any limb bones or other post-cranial material (anything other than the skull), this was based on the reconstructed original orientation of the foramen magnum (where the skull connects the spine), and their classification of "Sahelanthropus" into Hominina based on facial comparisons (one of the diagnostic characteristics of Hominina is bipedalism). This was soon disputed because the orientation of the foramen magnum is not an entirely conclusive piece of evidence in regard to the question of habitual posture, and the features used to classify "Sahelanthropus" into Hominina are not entirely unique to Hominina. In 2020, the femur had been formally described, and the study concluded it was not consistent with habitual bipedalism. However, recent postcranial evidence suggests characteristics consistent with habitual bipedalism and arboreal clambering. Ulnar morphologies including bone curvature, cross-section, and orientation combine to rule out quadrupedalism, and femoral morphologies allowing for higher compressive loads of bipedalism strongly suggest hominin characteristics in "Sahelanthropus tchadensis".


title: Robert Peary

text: Robert Edwin Peary Sr. (; May 6, 1856 – February 20, 1920) was an American explorer and officer in the United States Navy who made several expeditions to the Arctic in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. He is best known for, in April 1909, leading an expedition that claimed to be the first to have reached the geographic North Pole. Explorer Matthew Henson, part of the expedition, is thought to have reached what they believed to be the North Pole narrowly before Peary.


title: Robert Peary

text: Peary was born in Cresson, Pennsylvania, but, following his father's death at a young age, was raised in Portland, Maine. He attended Bowdoin College, then joined the United States Coast and Geodetic Survey as a draftsman. He enlisted in the navy in 1881 as a civil engineer. In 1885, he was made chief of surveying for the Nicaragua Canal, which was never built. He visited the Arctic for the first time in 1886, making an unsuccessful attempt to cross Greenland by dogsled. In the Peary expedition to Greenland of 1891–1892, he was much better prepared, and by reaching Independence Fjord in what is now known as Peary Land, he proved conclusively that Greenland was an island. He was one of the first Arctic explorers to study Inuit survival techniques. During an expedition in 1894, he was the first Western explorer to reach the Cape York meteorite and its fragments, which were then taken from the native Inuit population who had relied on it for creating tools. During that expedition, Peary deceived six indigenous individuals, including Minik Wallace, to travel to America with him by promising they would be able to return with tools, weapons and gifts within the year. This promise was unfulfilled and four of the six Inuit died of illnesses within a few months.


title: Robert Peary

text: On his 1898–1902 expedition, Peary set a new "Farthest North" record by reaching Greenland's northernmost point, Cape Morris Jesup. Peary made two more expeditions to the Arctic, in 1905–1906 and in 1908–1909. During the latter, he claimed to have reached the North Pole. Peary received several learned society awards during his lifetime, and, in 1911, received the Thanks of Congress and was promoted to rear admiral. He served two terms as president of The Explorers Club before retiring in 1911.


title: Robert Peary

text: Peary's claim to have reached the North Pole was widely debated along with a competing claim made by Frederick Cook, but eventually won widespread acceptance. In 1989, British explorer Wally Herbert concluded Peary did not reach the pole, although he may have come within .


title: Robert Peary

text: Robert Edwin Peary was born on May 6, 1856, in Cresson, Pennsylvania to Charles N. and Mary P. Peary. After his father died in 1859, Peary and his mother moved to Portland, Maine. After growing up there, Peary attended Portland High School (Maine) where he graduated in 1873. Peary made his way to Bowdoin College, some to the north, where he was a member of the Delta Kappa Epsilon fraternity and the Phi Beta Kappa honor society. He was also part of the rowing team. He graduated in 1877 with a civil engineering degree.


title: Robert Peary

text: From 1878 to 1879, Peary lived in Fryeburg, Maine. During that time, he made a profile survey from the top of Fryeburg's Jockey Cap Rock. The 360-degree survey names the larger hills and mountains visible from the summit. After Peary's death, his boyhood friend, Alfred E. Burton, suggested that the profile survey be made into a monument. It was cast in bronze and set atop a granite cylinder and erected to his memory by the Peary family in 1938.


title: Robert Peary

text: After college, Peary worked as a draftsman making technical drawings at the U.S. National Geodetic Survey office in Washington, D.C. He joined the United States Navy and on October 26, 1881, was commissioned in the Civil Engineer Corps, with the relative rank of lieutenant. From 1884 to 1885, he was an assistant engineer on the surveys for the Nicaragua Canal and later became the engineer in charge. As reflected in a diary entry he made in 1885, during his time in the Navy, he resolved to be the first man to reach the North Pole.


title: Robert Peary

text: In April 1886, he wrote a paper for the National Academy of Sciences proposing two methods for crossing Greenland's ice cap. One was to start from the west coast and trek about to the east coast. The second, more difficult path, was to start from Whale Sound at the top of the known portion of Baffin Bay and travel north to determine whether Greenland was an island or if it extended all the way across the Arctic. Peary was promoted to the rank of lieutenant commander on January 5, 1901, and to commander on April 6, 1902.


title: Robert Peary

text: Peary made his first expedition to the Arctic in 1886, intending to cross Greenland by dog sled, taking the first of his own suggested paths. He was given six months' leave from the Navy, and he received $500 from his mother to book passage north and buy supplies. He sailed on a whaler to Greenland, arriving in Godhavn on June 6, 1886. Peary wanted to make a solo trek, but Christian Maigaard, a young Danish official, convinced him he would die if he went out alone. Maigaard and Peary set off together and traveled nearly due east before turning back because they were short on food. This was the second-farthest penetration of Greenland's ice sheet at the time. Peary returned home knowing more of what was required for long-distance ice trekking.


title: Robert Peary

text: Back in Washington attending with the US Navy, in November 1887 Peary was ordered to survey likely routes for a proposed Nicaragua Canal. To complete his tropical outfit he needed a sun hat. He went to a men's clothing store where he met 21-year-old Matthew Henson, a black man working as a sales clerk. Learning that Henson had six years of seagoing experience as a cabin boy, Peary immediately hired him as a personal valet.


title: Robert Peary

text: On assignment in the jungles of Nicaragua, Peary told Henson of his dream of Arctic exploration. Henson accompanied Peary on every one of his subsequent Arctic expeditions, becoming his field assistant and "first man", a critical member of his team.


title: Robert Peary

text: In the Peary expedition to Greenland of 1891–1892, Peary took the second, more difficult route that he laid out in 1886: traveling farther north to find out whether Greenland was a larger landmass extending to the North Pole. He was financed by several groups, including the American Geographic Society, the Philadelphia Academy of Natural Sciences (now the Academy of Natural Sciences of Drexel University), and the Brooklyn Institute of Arts and Sciences. Members of this expedition included Peary's aide Henson, Frederick A. Cook, who served as the group's surgeon; the expedition's ethnologist, Norwegian skier Eivind Astrup; bird expert and marksman Langdon Gibson, and John M. Verhoeff, who was a weatherman and mineralogist. Peary also took his wife along as dietitian, though she had no formal training. Newspaper reports criticized Peary for bringing his wife.


title: Robert Peary

text: On June 6, 1891, the party left Brooklyn, New York, in the seal hunting ship SS "Kite". In July, as "Kite" was ramming through sheets of surface ice, the ship's iron tiller suddenly spun around and broke Peary's lower leg; both bones snapped between the knee and ankle. Peary was unloaded with the rest of the supplies at a camp they called Red Cliff, at the mouth of MacCormick Fjord at the north west end of Inglefield Gulf. A dwelling was built for his recuperation during the next six months. Josephine stayed with Peary. Gibson, Cook, Verhoeff, and Astrup hunted game by boat and became familiar with the area and the Inuit.


title: Robert Peary

text: Unlike most previous explorers, Peary had studied Inuit survival techniques; he built igloos during the expedition and dressed in practical furs in the native fashion. By wearing furs to preserve body heat and building igloos, he was able to dispense with the extra weight of tents and sleeping bags when on the march. Peary also relied on the Inuit as hunters and dog-drivers on his expeditions. He pioneered the system of using support teams and establishing supply caches for Arctic travel, which he called the "Peary system". The Inuit were curious about the Americans and came to visit Red Cliff. Josephine was bothered by the Inuit body odor from not bathing, their flea infestations, and their food. She studied the people and kept a journal of her experiences. In September 1891, Peary's men and dog sled teams pushed inland onto the ice sheet to lay caches of supplies. They did not go farther than from Red Cliff.


title: Robert Peary

text: In 1891, Peary shattered his leg in a shipyard accident but it healed by February 1892. By April 1892, he made some short trips with Josephine and an Inuit dog sled driver to native villages to purchase supplies. On May 3, 1892, Peary finally set out on the intended trek with Henson, Gibson, Cook, and Astrup. After , Peary continued on with Astrup. They found the high view from Navy Cliff, saw Independence Fjord, and concluded that Greenland was an island. They trekked back to Red Cliff and arrived on August 6, having traveled a total of .


title: Robert Peary

text: As a result of Peary's 1898–1902 expedition, he claimed an 1899 visual discovery of "Jesup Land" west of Ellesmere Island. He claimed that this sighting of Axel Heiberg Island was prior to its discovery by Norwegian explorer Otto Sverdrup's expedition around the same time. This contention has been universally rejected by exploration societies and historians. However, the American Geographical Society and the Royal Geographical Society of London honored Peary for tenacity, mapping of previously uncharted areas, and his discovery in 1900 of Cape Morris Jesup at the north tip of Greenland. Peary also achieved a "farthest north" for the western hemisphere in 1902 north of Canada's Ellesmere Island. Peary was promoted to lieutenant commander in the Navy in 1901 and to commander in 1902.


title: Robert Peary

text: Peary's next expedition was supported by fundraising through the Peary Arctic Club, with gifts of $50,000 from George Crocker, the youngest son of banker Charles Crocker, and $25,000 from Morris K. Jesup, to buy Peary a new ship. The navigated through the ice between Greenland and Ellesmere Island, establishing an American hemisphere "farthest north by ship". The 1906 "Peary System" dogsled drive for the pole across the rough sea ice of the Arctic Ocean started from the north tip of Ellesmere at 83° north latitude. The parties made well under a day until they became separated by a storm.


title: Robert Peary

text: As a result, Peary was without a companion sufficiently trained in navigation to verify his account from that point northward. With insufficient food, and uncertainty whether he could negotiate the ice between himself and land, he made the best possible dash and barely escaped with his life from the melting ice. On April 20, he was no farther north than 86°30' latitude. This latitude was never published by Peary. It is in a typescript of his April 1906 diary, discovered by Wally Herbert in his assessment commissioned by the National Geographic Society. The typescript suddenly stopped there, one day before Peary's April 21 purported "farthest". The original of the April 1906 record is the only missing diary of Peary's exploration career. He claimed the next day to have achieved a Farthest North world record at 87°06' and returned to 86°30' without camping. This implied a trip of at least between sleeping, even assuming direct travel with no detours.


title: Robert Peary

text: After returning to "Roosevelt" in May, Peary began weeks of difficult travel in June heading west along the shore of Ellesmere. He discovered Cape Colgate, from whose summit he claimed in his 1907 book that he had seen a previously undiscovered far-north "Crocker Land" to the northwest on June 24, 1906. A later review of his diary for this time and place found that he had written, "No land visible." On December 15, 1906, the National Geographic Society of the United States, certified Peary's 1905–1906 expedition and "Farthest" with its highest honor, the Hubbard Medal. No major professional geographical society followed suit. In 1914, Donald Baxter MacMillan and Fitzhugh Green's expedition found that Crocker Land did not exist.


title: Robert Peary

text: On July 6, 1908, the "Roosevelt" departed New York City with Peary's eighth Arctic expedition of 22 men. Besides Peary as expedition commander, it included master of the "Roosevelt" Robert Bartlett, surgeon Dr. J.W. Goodsell, and assistants Ross Gilmore Marvin, Donald Baxter MacMillan, George Borup, and Matthew Henson. After recruiting several Inuit and their families at Cape York (Greenland), the expedition wintered near Cape Sheridan on Ellesmere Island. The expedition used the "Peary system" for the sledge journey, with Bartlett and the Inuit, Poodloonah, "Harrigan," and Ooqueah, composing the pioneer division. Borup, with three Inuit, Keshunghaw, Seegloo, and Karko, composed the advance supporting party. On February 15, Bartlett's pioneer division departed the "Roosevelt" for Cape Columbia, followed by 5 advance divisions. Peary, with the two Inuit, Arco and Kudlooktoo, departed on February 22, bringing to the total effort 7 expedition members, 19 Inuit, 140 dogs, and 28 sledges. On February 28, Bartlett, with three Inuit, Ooqueah, Pooadloonah, and Harrigan, accompanied by Borup, with three Inuit, Karko, Seegloo, and Keshungwah, headed North.


title: Robert Peary

text: On March 14, the first supporting, composed of Dr. Goodsell and the two Inuit, Arco and Wesharkoupsi, party turned back towards the ship. Peary states this was at a latitude of 84°29'. On March 20, Borup's third supporting party, with three Inuit, started back to the ship. Peary states this was at a latitude of 85°23'. On March 26, Marvin, with Kudlooktoo and Harrigan, headed back to the ship, from a latitude estimated by Marvin as 86°38'. Marvin died on this return trip South. On 1 April, Bartlett's party started their return to the ship, after Barlett estimated a latitude of 87°46'49". Peary, with two Inuit, Egingwah and Seeglo, and Henson, with two Inuit, Ootah and Ooqueah, using 5 sledges and 40 dogs, planned 5 marches over the estimated 130 nautical miles to the pole. On 2 April, Peary led the way north.


title: Robert Peary

text: On the final stage of the journey toward the North Pole, Peary told Bartlett to stay behind. He continued with five assistants: Henson, Ootah, Egigingwah, Seegloo, and Ooqueah. No one except Henson, who had served as navigator and craftsman on the Peary expedition to Greenland of 1891–1892, was capable of making navigation observations. On April 6, 1909, Peary established Camp Jesup within of the pole, according to his own readings. Peary estimated the latitude as 89°57', after making an observation at approximate local noon using the Columbia meridian. Peary used a sextant, with a mercury trough and glass roof for an artificial horizon, to make measurements of the Sun. Peary claims, "I had now taken in all thirteen single, or six and one-half double, altitudes of the sun, at two different stations, in three different directions, at four different times." Peary states some of these observations were "beyond the Pole," and "...at some moment during these marches and counter-marches, I had passed over or very near the point where north and south and east and west blend into one." Henson scouted ahead to what was thought to be the North Pole site; he returned with the greeting, "I think I'm the first man to sit on top of the world," much to Peary's chagrin.


title: Robert Peary

text: On April 7, 1909, Peary's group started their return journey, reaching Cape Columbia on April 23, and the "Roosevelt" on April 26. MacMillan and the doctor's party had reached the ship earlier, on March 21, Borup's party on April 11, Marvin's Inuit on April 17, and Bartlett's party on April 24. On July 18, the "Roosevelt" departed for home.


title: Robert Peary

text: Upon returning to civilization, Peary learned that Dr. Frederick A. Cook, a surgeon on the Peary expedition to Greenland of 1891–1892, claimed to have reached the North pole in 1908. Despite remaining doubts, a committee of the National Geographic Society, as well as the Naval Affairs Subcommittee of the U.S. House of Representatives, credited Peary with reaching the North Pole.


title: Robert Peary

text: A reassessment of Peary's notebook in 1988 by polar explorer Wally Herbert found it "lacking in essential data", thus renewing doubts about Peary's discovery.


title: Robert Peary

text: Peary was promoted to the rank of captain in the Navy in October 1910. By his lobbying, Peary headed off a move among some U.S. Congressmen to have his claim to the pole evaluated by other explorers. Eventually recognized by Congress for "reaching" the pole, Peary was given the Thanks of Congress by a special act in March 1911. By the same Act of Congress, Peary was promoted to the rank of rear admiral in the Navy Civil Engineer Corps, retroactive to April 6, 1909. He retired from the Navy the same day, to Eagle Island on the coast of Maine, in the town of Harpswell. His home there has been designated a Maine State Historic Site.


title: Robert Peary

text: After retiring, Peary received many honors from scientific societies for his Arctic explorations and discoveries. He served twice as president of The Explorers Club, from 1909 to 1911, and from 1913 to 1916.


title: Robert Peary

text: In early 1916, Peary became chairman of the National Aerial Coast Patrol Commission, a private organization created by the Aero Club of America. It advocated the use of aircraft to detect warships and submarines off the U.S. coast. Peary used his celebrity to promote the use of military and naval aviation, which led directly to the formation of United States Navy Reserve aerial coastal patrol units during World War I. After the war, Peary proposed a system of eight airmail routes, which became the genesis of the U.S. Postal Service's airmail system.


title: Robert Peary

text: In 1914, Peary bought the house at 1831 Wyoming Avenue NW in the Adams Morgan neighborhood of Washington, D.C., where he lived until his death on February 20, 1920. He began renovating the house in 1920, shortly before his death, after which the renovation was taken over by Josephine. Josephine sold the house in 1927, receiving a $12,000 promissory note.


title: Robert Peary

text: He was buried in Arlington National Cemetery. Matthew Henson was honored by being re-interred nearby on April 6, 1988.


title: Robert Peary

text: On August 11, 1888, Peary married Josephine Diebitsch, a business school valedictorian who thought that women should be more than just mothers. Diebitsch had started working at the Smithsonian Institution when she was 19 or 20 years old, replacing her father after he became ill and filling his position as a linguist. In 1886, she resigned from the Smithsonian upon becoming engaged to Peary.


title: Robert Peary

text: The newlyweds honeymooned in Atlantic City, New Jersey, then moved to Philadelphia, where Peary was assigned. Peary's mother accompanied them on their honeymoon, and she moved into their Philadelphia apartment, which caused friction between the two women. Josephine told Peary that his mother should return to live in Maine.


title: Robert Peary

text: They had two children together, Marie Ahnighito (born 1893) and Robert Peary, Jr. His daughter wrote several books, including "The Red Caboose" (1932) a children's book about the Arctic adventures published by William Morrow and Company. As an explorer, Peary was frequently gone for years at a time. In their first 23 years of marriage, he spent only three with his wife and family.


title: Robert Peary

text: Peary and his aide, Henson, both had relationships with Inuit women outside of marriage and fathered children with them. Peary appears to have started a relationship with Aleqasina ("Alakahsingwah") when she was about 14 years old. She bore him at least two children, including a son called Kaala, Karree, or Kali. French explorer and ethnologist Jean Malaurie was the first to report on Peary's descendants after spending a year in Greenland in 1951–52.


title: Robert Peary

text: S. Allen Counter, a Harvard neuroscience professor interested in Henson's role in the Arctic expeditions, went to Greenland in 1986. He found Peary's son Kali and Henson's son Anaukaq, then octogenarians, and some of their descendants. Counter arranged to bring the men and their families to the United States to meet their American relatives and see their fathers' gravesites. In 1991, Counter wrote about the episode in his book, "North Pole Legacy: Black, White, and Eskimo" (1991). He also gained national recognition of Henson's role in the expeditions. A documentary by the same name was also released. Wally Herbert also noted the relationship and children in his book "The Noose of Laurels", published in 1989.


title: Robert Peary

text: Peary has received criticism for his treatment of the Inuit, for fathering children with Aleqasina and for bringing back a small group of Inughuit Greenlandic Inuit to the United States along with the Cape York meteorite, which was of significant local importance as the only source of iron for tools and Peary sold for $40,000 in 1897.


title: Robert Peary

text: Working at the American Museum of Natural History, anthropologist Franz Boas had requested that Peary bring back an Inuit for study. During his expedition to retrieve the Cape York meteorite, Peary convinced six individuals, including a man named Qisuk and his child Minik, to travel to America with him by promising they would be able to return with tools, weapons and gifts within the year. Peary left the people at the museum when he returned with the Cape York meteorite in 1897, where they were kept in damp, humid conditions unlike their homeland. Within a few months, four died of tuberculosis; their remains were dissected and the bones of Qisuk were put on display after Minik was shown a fake burial.


title: Robert Peary

text: Peary eventually helped Minik travel home in 1909, though it is speculated that this was to avoid any bad press surrounding his anticipated celebratory return after reaching the North Pole.


title: Robert Peary

text: Peary's claim to have reached the North Pole has long been subject to doubt. Some polar historians believe that Peary honestly thought he had reached the pole. Others have suggested that he was guilty of deliberately exaggerating his accomplishments. Peary's account has been newly criticized by Pierre Berton (2001) and Bruce Henderson (2005).


title: Robert Peary

text: Peary did not submit his evidence for review to neutral national or international parties or to other explorers. Peary's claim was certified by the National Geographic Society (NGS) in 1909 after a cursory examination of Peary's records, as NGS was a major sponsor of his expedition. This was a few weeks before Cook's Pole claim was rejected by a Danish panel of explorers and navigational experts.


title: Robert Peary

text: The National Geographic Society limited access to Peary's records. At the time, his proofs were not made available for scrutiny by other professionals, as had been done by the Danish panel. Gilbert Hovey Grosvenor persuaded the United States National Academy of Sciences not to get involved. The Royal Geographical Society (RGS) of London gave Peary a one-off medal (created by sculptor Kathleen Scott, later widow of Robert Falcon Scott), in 1910, despite internal council splits which only became known in the 1970s. The RGS based their decision on the belief that the NGS had performed a serious scrutiny of the "proofs", which was not the case. Neither the American Geographical Society nor any of the geographical societies of semi-Arctic Scandinavia has recognized Peary's North Pole claim.


title: Robert Peary

text: The party that accompanied Peary on the final stage of the journey did not include anyone trained in navigation who could either confirm or contradict Peary's own navigational work. This was further exacerbated by Peary's failure to produce records of observed data for steering, for the direction ("variation") of the compass, for his longitudinal position at any time, or for zeroing-in on the pole either latitudinally or transversely beyond Bartlett Camp.