prompt_front: Answer the question based on the given passages. Only give me the answer and do not output any other words.

Question: What actor was also a president that Richard Darman worked with when they were in office?

The following are given passages.
Context 1: Passage 1:
Bobbie Kilberg
Bobbie Kilberg (born Barbara Greene; October 25, 1944) is an American political advisor who has worked for Presidents Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford, George H  W  Bush, and George W  Bush  Kilberg has served as the president and CEO of the Northern Virginia Technology Council since 1998  She was briefly an attorney with the Washington law firm of Arnold & Porter from 1971 to 1973  She served on the staff of President Richard Nixon's United States Domestic Policy Council, under President Gerald Ford as Associate Counsel, and for President George H W  Bush as Deputy Assistant to the President for Public Liaison and director of the White House Office of Intergovernmental Affairs 

Career
Bobbie Kilberg is president and CEO of the Northern Virginia Technology Council, a position she has held since September 1998 As a White House Fellow, she served on the staff of President Nixon's Domestic Policy Council  From 1971 to 1973, she was an attorney with the Washington law firm of Arnold & Porter then vice president for academic affairs at Mount Vernon College  In 1971, Kilberg was elected to the Common Cause National Governing Board  In 1975 she return to the White House as associate counsel to the president under Gerald Ford Kilberg directed a project on the future of private philanthropy at the Aspen Institute beginning in 1978 then she moved to the Roosevelt Center for American Policy Studies in 1982 as vice president and general counsel She held two consecutive positions for President George H W  Bush, as Deputy Assistant to the President for Public Liaison and as director of the White House Office of Intergovernmental Affairs In December 2001, she was appointed by President George W  Bush to serve as a member of the President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology during his term in office In Virginia, Bobbie Kilberg has served on the Speaker's Citizens Advisory Committee on Legislative Compensation, on the Joint Judicial Advisory Committee for the merit selection of judges, on the Attorney General's Task Forces on Identity Theft, Regulatory Reform and Economic Development, and Youth Internet Safety, and on the Governor's Northern Virginia BRAC Working Group  In November 2009, Governor Bob McDonnell named her as one of the five Co-Chairs of his Transition Team  In May 2010, she was named to the Governor's Commission on Government Reform and Restructuring and, in August 2010, she was named to the Governor's Commission on Military and National Security Facilities Kilberg has sought elected political office twice in Virginia, in 1987 as the Republican candidate for the State Senate and in 1993 as a candidate for the Republican nomination for Lieutenant Governor 

Personal life
Kilberg resides in McLean, Virginia with her husband, Bill, a senior partner and member of the executive committee of the law firm of Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher LLP  They have five children and sixteen grandchildren 
Passage 2:
List of domestic buildings by G  E  Street
G  E  Street (1824–81) was an English architect and architectural writer, whose designs were mainly in High Victorian Gothic style   Born the son of a solicitor, he first worked in a law office, but was then articled to the architect Owen Browne Carter in Winchester   Two years later, in 1844, he moved to London and worked in the office of George Gilbert Scott   Here he also worked with George Frederick Bodley and William White   Street established his own architectural practice in 1849, initially in London, and later in Wantage (then in Berkshire)   He was appointed as architect to the diocese of Oxford in 1850, and retained this position until his death  He married in 1852 and in that year moved to Oxford   He returned to London in 1856 and maintained an office there for the remainder of his career   He travelled extensively, visiting the Continent of Europe frequently   Street was also a prolific writer on architectural subjects   He was a member of the Royal Academy, and in 1874 was awarded the Royal Gold Medal of the Royal Institute of British Architects, being its president in 1881 Most of Street's works were in relation to churches; designing new churches, restoring and making additions and alterations to existing churches, and designing fittings and furnishings for them   He also designed domestic buildings, especially vicarages, and schools with houses for the schoolmaster   He designed little in the way of public buildings, although towards the end of his life he designed what has been described as his "greatest commission", the Royal Courts of Justice in London   Most of his works were in England, especially within and close to the diocese of Oxford, but examples of his work can be found throughout England, Wales and Ireland   He also designed some buildings abroad, including a church in Constantinople   Almost all his designs are in Gothic Revival style, in particular, in what is known as the High Victorian style   This style came chronologically after the use of "pure" and "correct" use of features of English Gothic architecture, which had been championed by A  W  N  Pugin and the Ecclesiological Society   High Victorian incorporated the use of polychromy, and elements of Continental forms of Gothic architecture   Street died in 1881, and was buried in Westminster Abbey This list contains details of Street's work on domestic buildings in England and Scotland 

Key
Works
See also
List of new churches by G  E  Street
List of church restorations and alterations by G  E  Street
List of miscellaneous works by G  E  Street
Passage 3:
Ronald Reagan
Ronald Wilson Reagan ( RAY-gən; February 6, 1911 – June 5, 2004) was an American politician and actor who served as the 40th president of the United States from 1981 to 1989  A member of the Republican Party, his presidency constituted the Reagan era, and he is considered one of the most prominent conservative figures in the United States 
Reagan graduated from Eureka College in 1932 and began to work as a sports broadcaster in Iowa  In 1937, Reagan moved to California, where he became a film actor  From 1947 to 1952, Reagan served as the president of the Screen Actors Guild  In the 1950s, he worked in television and spoke for General Electric  From 1959 to 1960, he again served as the Screen Actors Guild's president  In 1964, "A Time for Choosing" gave Reagan attention as a new conservative figure  He was elected governor of California in 1966  During his governorship, he raised taxes, turned the state budget deficit into a surplus, and cracked down harshly on university protests  After challenging and nearly defeating incumbent president Gerald Ford in the 1976 Republican presidential primaries, Reagan won the Republican nomination and then a landslide victory over incumbent Democratic president Jimmy Carter in the 1980 United States presidential election 
In his first term, Reagan implemented "Reaganomics", which involved economic deregulation and cuts in both taxes and government spending during a period of stagflation  He escalated an arms race and transitioned Cold War policy away from détente with the Soviet Union; he also ordered the invasion of Grenada in 1983  Additionally, he survived an assassination attempt, fought public sector labor unions, expanded the war on drugs, and was slow to respond to the AIDS epidemic in the United States, which began early in his presidency  In the 1984 presidential election, Reagan defeated former vice president Walter Mondale in another landslide victory  Foreign affairs dominated Reagan's second term, including the 1986 bombing of Libya, the Iran–Iraq War, the secret and illegal sale of arms to Iran to fund the Contras, and a more conciliatory approach in talks with Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev that culminated in the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty 
Reagan left the presidency in 1989 with the American economy having seen a significant reduction of inflation, the unemployment rate having fallen, and the United States having entered its then-longest peacetime expansion  At the same time, the federal debt had nearly tripled since 1981 as a result of his cuts in taxes and increased military spending, despite cuts to domestic discretionary spending  Reagan's policies also helped contribute to the end of the Cold War and the end of Soviet communism  Alzheimer's disease hindered Reagan post-presidency, and his physical and mental capacities rapidly deteriorated, ultimately leading to his death in 2004  Historians and scholars have ranked Reagan among the middle to upper tier of American presidents, and he is often viewed favorably among the general public 

Early life
Ronald Wilson Reagan was born on February 6, 1911, in a commercial building in Tampico, Illinois, as the younger son of Nelle Clyde Wilson and Jack Reagan  Nelle was committed to the Disciples of Christ, which believed in the Social Gospel  She led prayer meetings and ran mid-week prayers at her church when the pastor was out of town  Reagan credited her spiritual influence and he became a Christian  According to Stephen Vaughn, Reagan's values came from his pastor, and the First Christian Church's religious, economic and social positions "coincided with the words, if not the beliefs of the latter-day Reagan"  Jack focused on making money to take care of the family, but this was complicated by his alcoholism  Neil Reagan was Reagan's older brother  Together, they lived in Chicago, Galesburg, and Monmouth before returning to Tampico  In 1920, they settled in Dixon, Illinois, living in a house near the H  C  Pitney Variety Store Building Reagan attended Dixon High School, where he developed interests in drama and football  His first job involved working as a lifeguard at the Rock River in Lowell Park  In 1928, Reagan began attending Eureka College at Nelle's approval on religious grounds  He was a mediocre student that participated in sports, drama, and campus politics  He became student body president and joined a student strike that resulted in the college president's resignation  Reagan recalled a time when two black football teammates were refused service at a segregated hotel; he invited them to his parents' home nearby in Dixon and his parents welcomed them  At the time, his parents' stance on racial questions were unusually progressive in Dixon  Reagan himself had grown up with very few black Americans there and was unaware of a race problem 

Entertainment career
Radio and film
After obtaining a Bachelor of Arts degree in economics and sociology from Eureka College in 1932, Reagan took a job in Davenport, Iowa, as a sports broadcaster for four football games in the Big Ten Conference  He then worked for WHO radio in Des Moines as a broadcaster for the Chicago Cubs  His specialty was creating play-by-play accounts of games using only basic descriptions that the station received by wire as the games were in progress  Simultaneously, he often expressed his opposition to racism  In 1936, while traveling with the Cubs to their spring training in California, Reagan took a screen test that led to a seven-year contract with Warner Bros Reagan arrived at Hollywood in 1937, debuting in Love Is on the Air (1937)  Using a simple and direct approach to acting and following his directors' instructions, Reagan made thirty films, mostly B films, before beginning military service in April 1942  He broke out of these types of films by portraying George Gipp in Knute Rockne, All American (1940), which would be rejuvenated when reporters called Reagan "the Gipper" while he campaigned for president of the United States  Afterward, Reagan starred in Kings Row (1942) as a leg amputee, asking, "Where's the rest of me?" His performance was considered his best by many critics  Reagan became a star, with Gallup polls placing him "in the top 100 stars" from 1941 to 1942 World War II interrupted the movie stardom that Reagan would never be able to achieve again as Warner Bros  became uncertain about his ability to generate ticket sales  Reagan, who had a limited acting range, was dissatisfied with the roles he received  As a result, Lew Wasserman renegotiated his contract with his studio, allowing him to also make films with Universal Pictures, Paramount Pictures, and RKO Pictures as a freelancer  With this, Reagan appeared in multiple western films, something that had been denied him working at Warner Bros  In 1952, he ended his relationship with Warner Bros , but went on to appear in a total of 53 films, his last being The Killers (1964) 

Military service
In April 1937, Reagan enlisted in the United States Army Reserve  He was assigned as a private in Des Moines' 322nd Cavalry Regiment and reassigned to second lieutenant in the Officers Reserve Corps  He later became a part of the 323rd Cavalry Regiment in California  As relations between the United States and Japan worsened, Reagan was ordered for active duty while he was filming Kings Row  Wasserman and Warner Bros  lawyers successfully sent draft deferments to complete the film in October 1941  However, to avoid accusations of Reagan being a draft dodger, the studio let him go in April 1942 Reagan reported for duty with severe near-sightedness  His first assignment was at Fort Mason as a liaison officer, a role that allowed him to transfer to the United States Army Air Forces (AAF)  Reagan became an AAF public relations officer and was subsequently assigned to the 18th AAF Base Unit in Culver City where he felt that it was "impossible to remove an incompetent or lazy worker" due to what he felt was "the incompetence, the delays, and inefficiencies" of the federal bureaucracy  Despite this, Reagan participated in the Provisional Task Force Show Unit in Burbank and continued to make theatrical films  He was also ordered to temporary duty in New York City to participate in the sixth War Loan Drive before being reassigned to Fort MacArthur until his discharge on December 9, 1945, as a captain  Throughout his military service, Reagan produced over 400 training films 

Screen Actors Guild presidency
When Robert Montgomery resigned as president of the Screen Actors Guild (SAG) on March 10, 1947, Reagan was elected to that position, in a special election  Reagan's first tenure saw various labor-management disputes, the Hollywood blacklist, and the Taft–Hartley Act's implementation  On April 10, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) interviewed Reagan and he provided them with the names of actors whom he believed to be communist sympathizers  During a House Un-American Activities Committee hearing, Reagan testified that some guild members were associated with the Communist Party and that he was well-informed on a "jurisdictional strike"  When asked if he was aware of communist efforts within the Screen Writers Guild, he called the efforts "hearsay"  Reagan would remain SAG president until he resigned on November 10, 1952; Walter Pidgeon succeeded him, but Reagan stayed on the board The SAG fought with film producers over residual payments and on November 16, 1959, the board installed Reagan as SAG president, replacing the resigned Howard Keel  In his second stint, Reagan managed to secure the payments for actors whose theatrical films were released from 1948 to 1959 were televised  The producers were initially required to pay the actors fees, but they ultimately settled for pensions instead  However, they were still required to pay residuals for films after 1959  Reagan resigned from the SAG presidency on June 7, 1960, and also left the board; George Chandler succeeded him as SAG president 

Marriages and children
Reagan married Brother Rat (1938) co-star Jane Wyman in January 1940  Together, they had two biological daughters: Maureen in 1941, and Christine, born prematurely and dead the next day in 1947  They adopted one son, Michael, in 1945  Wyman filed to divorce Reagan in June 1948  She was uninterested in politics, and occasionally recriminated, reconciled and separated with him  Although Reagan was unprepared, the divorce was finalized in July 1949  Reagan would also remain close to his children  Later that year, Reagan met Nancy Davis after she contacted him in his capacity as the SAG president about her name appearing on a communist blacklist in Hollywood; she had been mistaken for another Nancy Davis  They married in March 1952 and had two children, Patti in 1952, and Ron in 1958 

Television
Reagan became the host of MCA Inc  television production General Electric Theater at Wasserman's recommendation  It featured multiple guest stars, and Ronald and Nancy Reagan, continuing to use her stage name Nancy Davis, acted together in three episodes  When asked how Reagan was able to recruit such stars to appear on the show during television's infancy, he replied, "Good stories, top direction, production quality " However, the viewership declined in the 1960s and the show was canceled in 1962  In 1965, Reagan became the host of another MCA production, Death Valley Days 

Early political activities
Reagan began as a Democrat, viewing Franklin D  Roosevelt as "a true hero"  He joined the American Veterans Committee and Hollywood Independent Citizens Committee of the Arts, Sciences and Professions (HICCASP), worked with the AFL–CIO to fight right-to-work laws, and continued to speak out against racism when he was in Hollywood  In 1945, Reagan planned to lead an HICCASP anti-nuclear rally, but Warner Bros  prevented him from going  In 1946, he appeared in a radio program called Operation Terror to speak out against rising Ku Klux Klan activity in the country, citing the attacks as a "capably organized systematic campaign of fascist violence and intimidation and horror"  Reagan also supported Harry S  Truman in the 1948 presidential election and Helen Gahagan Douglas for the United States Senate in 1950  It was Reagan's belief that communism was a powerful backstage influence in Hollywood that led him to rally his friends against them Reagan began shifting to the right when he supported the presidential campaigns of Dwight D  Eisenhower in 1952 and Richard Nixon in 1960  When Reagan was contracted by General Electric (GE), he gave speeches to their employees  His speeches had a positive take on free markets  Under GE vice president Lemuel Boulware, a staunch anti-communist, employees were encouraged to vote for business-friendly politicians In 1961, Reagan adapted his speeches into another speech to criticize Medicare  In his view, its legislation would have meant "the end of individual freedom in the United States"  In 1962, Reagan was dropped by GE, and he formally registered as a Republican In 1964, Reagan gave a speech for presidential contender Barry Goldwater that was eventually referred to as "A Time for Choosing"   Reagan argued that the Founding Fathers "knew that governments don't control things  And they knew when a government sets out to do that, it must use force and coercion to achieve its purpose" and that "We've been told increasingly that we must choose between left or right " Even though the speech was not enough to turn around the faltering Goldwater campaign, it increased Reagan's profile among conservatives  David S  Broder and Stephen H  Hess called it "the most successful national political debut since William Jennings Bryan electrified the 1896 Democratic convention with his famous 'Cross of Gold' address" 

1966 California gubernatorial election
In January 1966, Reagan announced his candidacy for the California governorship, repeating his stances on individual freedom and big government  When he met with black Republicans in March, he was criticized for opposing the Civil Rights Act of 1964  Certain in his own lack of prejudice, Reagan responded resentfully that bigotry was not in his nature and later argued that certain provisions of the act infringed upon the rights of property owners  After the Supreme Court of California ruled that the initiative that repealed the Rumford Act was unconstitutional in May, he voiced his support for the act's repeal, but later preferred amending it  In the Republican primary, Reagan defeated George Christopher, a moderate who William F  Buckley Jr  thought had painted Reagan as extreme Reagan's general election opponent, incumbent governor Pat Brown, attempted to label Reagan as an extremist and tout his own accomplishments  Reagan portrayed himself as a political outsider, and charged Brown as responsible for the Watts riots and lenient on crime  In numerous speeches, Reagan "hit the Brown administration about high taxes, uncontrolled spending, the radicals at the University of California, Berkeley, and the need for accountability in government"  Meanwhile, many in the press perceived Reagan as "monumentally ignorant of state issues", though Lou Cannon said that Reagan benefited from an appearance he and Brown made on Meet the Press in September  Ultimately, Reagan won the governorship with 57 percent of the vote compared to Brown's 42 percent 

1967–1975: California governorship
Brown had spent much of California's funds on new programs, prompting them to use accrual accounting to avoid raising taxes  Consequently, it generated a larger deficit, and Reagan would call for reduced government spending and tax hikes to balance the budget  He worked with Jesse M  Unruh on securing tax increases and promising future property tax cuts  This caused some conservatives to accuse Reagan of betraying his principles  As a result, taxes on sales, banks, corporate profits, inheritances, liquor, and cigarettes jumped  Kevin Starr states, Reagan "gave Californians the biggest tax hike in their history—and got away with it " In the 1970 gubernatorial election, Unruh used Reagan's tax policy against him, saying it disproportionally favored the wealthy  Reagan countered that he was still committed to reducing property taxes  By 1973, the budget had a surplus, which Reagan preferred "to give back to the people" In 1967, Reagan reacted to the Black Panther Party's strategy of copwatching by signing the Mulford Act to prohibit the public carrying of firearms  The act was California's most restrictive piece of gun control legislation, with critics saying that it was "overreacting to the political activism of organizations such as the Black Panthers"  The act marked the beginning of both modern legislation and public attitude studies on gun control  Reagan also signed the 1967 Therapeutic Abortion Act that allowed abortions in the cases of rape and incest when a doctor determined the birth would impair the physical or mental health of the mother  He later expressed regret over signing it, saying that he was unaware of the mental health provision  He believed that doctors were interpreting the provision loosely and more abortions were resulting After Reagan won the 1966 election, he and his advisors planned a run in the 1968 Republican presidential primaries  He ran as an unofficial candidate to cut into Nixon's southern support and be a compromise candidate if there were to be a brokered convention  He won California's delegates, but Nixon secured enough delegates for the nomination Reagan had previously been critical of former governor Brown and university administrators for tolerating student demonstrations in the city of Berkeley, making it a major theme in his campaigning  
On February 5, 1969, Reagan declared a state of emergency in response to ongoing protests and acts of violence at the University of California, Berkeley, and sent in the California Highway Patrol  In May 1969, these officers, along with local officers from Berkeley and Alameda county, clashed with protestors over a site known as the People's Park  One student was shot and killed while many police officers and two reporters were injured  Reagan then commanded the state National Guard troops to occupy Berkeley for seventeen days to subdue the protesters, allowing other students to attend class safely  In February 1970, violent protests broke out near the University of California, Santa Barbara, where he once again deployed the National Guard  On April 7, Reagan defended his policies regarding campus protests, saying, "If it takes a bloodbath, let's get it over with  No more appeasement "During his victorious reelection campaign in 1970, Reagan, remaining critical of government, promised to prioritize welfare reform  He was concerned that the programs were disincentivizing work and that the growing welfare rolls would lead to both an unbalanced budget and another big tax hike in 1972  At the same time, the Federal Reserve increased interest rates to combat inflation, putting the American economy in a mild recession  Reagan worked with Bob Moretti to tighten up the eligibility requirements so that the financially needy could continue receiving payments  This was only accomplished after Reagan softened his criticism of Nixon's Family Assistance Plan  Nixon then lifted regulations to shepherd California's experiment  In 1976, the Employment Development Department published a report suggesting that the experiment that ran from 1971 to 1974 was unsuccessful Reagan did not run for the governorship in 1974 and it was won by Pat Brown's son, Jerry  Reagan's governorship, as professor Gary K  Clabaugh writes, saw public schools deteriorate due to his opposition to additional basic education funding  As for higher education, journalist William Trombley believed that the budget cuts Reagan enacted damaged Berkeley's student-faculty ratio and research  Additionally, the homicide rate doubled and armed robbery rates rose as well during Reagan's eight years, even with the many laws Reagan signed to try toughening criminal sentencing and reforming the criminal justice system  Reagan strongly supported capital punishment, but his efforts to enforce it were thwarted by People v  Anderson in 1972  According to his son, Michael, Reagan said that he regretted signing the Family Law Act that granted no-fault divorces 

1975–1981: Seeking the presidency
1976 Republican primaries
Insufficiently conservative to Reagan and many other Republicans, president Gerald Ford suffered from multiple political and economic woes  Ford, running for president, was disappointed to hear him also run  Reagan was strongly critical of détente and Ford's policy of détente with the Soviet Union  He repeated "A Time for Choosing" around the country before announcing his campaign on November 20, 1975, when he discussed economic and social problems, and to a lesser extent, foreign affairs  Both candidates were determined to knock each other out early in the primaries, but Reagan would devastatingly lose the first five primaries beginning with New Hampshire, where he popularized the welfare queen narrative about Linda Taylor, exaggerating her misuse of welfare benefits and igniting voter resentment for welfare reform, but never overtly mentioning her name or race In Florida, Reagan referred to a "strapping young buck", which became an example of dog whistle politics, and accused Ford for handing the Panama Canal to Panama's government while Ford implied that he would end Social Security  Then, in Illinois, he again criticized Ford's policy and his secretary of state, Henry Kissinger  Losing the first five primaries prompted Reagan to desperately win North Carolina's by running a grassroots campaign and uniting with the Jesse Helms political machine that viciously attacked Ford  Reagan won an upset victory, convincing party delegates that Ford's nomination was no longer guaranteed  Reagan won subsequent victories in Texas, Alabama, Georgia, and Indiana with his attacks on social programs, opposition to forced busing, increased support from inclined voters of a declining George Wallace presidential campaign, and repeated criticisms of Ford and Kissinger's policies, including détente The result was a seesaw battle for the 1,130 delegates required for their party's nomination that neither would reach before the Kansas City convention in August and Ford replacing mentions of détente with Reagan's preferred phrase, "peace through strength"  Reagan took John Sears' advice of choosing liberal Richard Schweiker as his running mate, hoping to pry loose of delegates from Pennsylvania and other states, and distract Ford  Instead, conservatives were left alienated, and Ford picked up the remaining uncommitted delegates and prevailed, earning 1,187 to Reagan's 1,070  Before giving his acceptance speech, Ford invited Reagan to address the convention; Reagan emphasized individual freedom and the dangers of nuclear weapons  In 1977, Ford told Cannon that Reagan's primary challenge contributed to his own narrow loss to Democrat Jimmy Carter in the 1976 United States presidential election 

1980 election
Reagan emerged as a vocal critic of President Carter in 1977  The Panama Canal Treaty's signing, the 1979 oil crisis, and rise in the inflation, interest and unemployment rates helped set up his 1980 presidential campaign, which he announced on November 13, 1979 with an indictment of the federal government  His announcement stressed his fundamental principles of tax cuts to stimulate the economy and having both a small government and a strong national defense, since he believed the United States was behind the Soviet Union militarily  Heading into 1980, his age became an issue among the press, and the United States was in a severe recession  In the primaries, Reagan lost Iowa to George H  W  Bush, but rebounded in New Hampshire  Soon thereafter, Reagan's opponents began dropping out of the primaries, including John B  Anderson, who left the party to become an independent candidate  Reagan easily captured the presidential nomination and chose Bush as his running mate at the Detroit convention in July The general election pitted Reagan against Carter amid the multitude of domestic concerns and ongoing Iran hostage crisis that began on November 4, 1979  Reagan's campaign worried that Carter would be able to secure the release of the American hostages in Iran as part of the October surprise, Carter "suggested that Reagan would wreck Social Security" and portrayed him as a warmonger, and Anderson carried support from liberal Republicans dissatisfied with Reagan's conservatism  One of Reagan's key strengths was his appeal to the rising conservative movement  Though most conservative leaders espoused cutting taxes and budget deficits, many conservatives focused more closely on social issues like abortion and homosexuality  Evangelical Protestants became an increasingly important voting bloc, and they generally supported Reagan  Reagan also won the backing of Reagan Democrats  Though he advocated socially conservative view points, Reagan focused much of his campaign on attacks against Carter's foreign policy In August, Reagan gave a speech at the Neshoba County Fair, stating his belief in states' rights  Joseph Crespino argues that the visit was designed to reach out to Wallace-inclined voters, and some also saw these actions as an extension of the Southern strategy to garner white support for Republican candidates  Reagan's supporters have said that this was his typical anti-big government rhetoric, without racial context or intent  In the October 28 debate, Carter correctly chided Reagan for being against national health insurance  Reagan replied, "There you go again", though the audience laughed and viewers found him more appealing  Reagan later asked the audience if they were better off than they were four years ago, slightly paraphrasing Roosevelt's words in 1934  In 1983, Reagan's campaign managers were revealed to having obtained Carter's debate briefing book before the debates  On November 4, 1980, Reagan won in a decisive victory in the Electoral College over Carter, carrying 44 states and receiving 489 electoral votes to Carter's 49 in six states and the District of Columbia  He won the popular vote by a narrower margin, receiving nearly 51 percent to Carter's 41 percent and Anderson's 7 percent  In the United States Congress, Republicans won a majority of seats in the Senate for the first time since 1952 while Democrats retained the House of Representatives 

1981–1989: Presidency
First inauguration
The 40th president of the United States, Reagan was sworn into office for his first term on January 20, 1981  In his inaugural address, he addressed the country's economic malaise, arguing, "In this present crisis, government is not the solution to our problem, government is the problem " In a final insult to President Carter, Iran had waited until Reagan had been sworn in before sending the hostages home 

"Reaganomics" and the economy
Reagan advocated a laissez-faire philosophy, and promoted a set of neoliberal reforms dubbed "Reaganomics", which included monetarism and supply-side economics 

Taxation
Reagan worked with the boll weevil Democrats to pass tax and budget legislation in a Congress led by Tip O'Neill, a liberal who strongly criticized Reaganomics  He lifted federal oil and gasoline price controls on January 28, 1981, and in August, he signed the Economic Recovery Tax Act of 1981 to dramatically lower federal income tax rates and require exemptions and brackets to be indexed for inflation starting in 1985  Amid growing concerns about the mounting federal debt, Reagan signed the Tax Equity and Fiscal Responsibility Act of 1982, one of the eleven times Reagan raised taxes  The bill doubled the federal cigarette tax, rescinded a portion of the corporate tax cuts from the 1981 tax bill, and according to Paul Krugman, "a third of the 1981 cut" overall  Many of his supporters condemned the bill, but Reagan defended his preservation of cuts on individual income tax rates  By 1983, the amount of federal tax had fallen for all or most taxpayers, but most strongly affected the wealthy The Tax Reform Act of 1986 reduced the number of tax brackets and top tax rate, and almost doubled personal exemptions To Reagan, the tax cuts would not have increased the deficit as long as there was enough economic growth and spending cuts  His policies proposed that economic growth would occur when the tax cuts spur investments, which would result in more spending, consumption, and ergo tax revenue  This theoretical relationship has been illustrated by some with the controversial Laffer curve  Critics labeled this "trickle-down economics", the belief that tax policies that benefit the wealthy will spread to the poor  Milton Friedman and Robert Mundell argued that these policies invigorated America's economy and contributed to the economic boom of the 1990s 

Inflation and unemployment
Reagan took office in the midst of stagflation  The economy briefly experienced growth before plunging into a recession in July 1981  As Federal Reserve chairman, Paul Volcker fought inflation by pursuing a tight money policy of high interest rates, which restricted lending and investment, raised unemployment, and temporarily reduced economic growth  In December 1982, the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) measured the unemployment rate at 10 8 percent  Around the same time, economic activity began to rise until its end in 1990, setting the record for the longest peacetime expansion  In 1983, the recession ended and Reagan nominated Volcker to a second term in fear of damaging confidence in the economic recovery Reagan appointed Alan Greenspan to succeed Volcker in 1987  Greenspan raised interest rates in another attempt to curb inflation, setting off the Black Monday although the markets eventually recovered  By 1989, the BLS measured the unemployment rate at 5 3 percent  The inflation rate dropped from 12 percent during the 1980 election to under 5 percent in 1989  Likewise, the interest rate dropped from 15 percent to under 10 percent  Yet, not all shared equally in the economic recovery, and both economic inequality and the number of homeless individuals increased during the 1980s  Critics have contended that a majority of the jobs created during this decade paid the minimum wage 

Government spending
In 1981, in an effort to keep it solvent, Reagan approved a plan for cuts to Social Security  He later backed off of these plans due to public backlash  He then created the Greenspan Commission to keep Social Security financially secure and in 1983, he signed amendments to raise both the program's payroll taxes and retirement age for benefits  He had signed the Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 1981 to cut funding for federal assistance such as food stamps, unemployment benefits, subsidized housing and the Aid to Families with Dependent Children, and would discontinue the Comprehensive Employment and Training Act  On the other side, defense spending doubled between 1981 and 1985  During Reagan's presidency, Project Socrates operated within the Defense Intelligence Agency in order to discover why the United States was unable to maintain its economic competitiveness  According to program director Michael Sekora, their findings helped the country exceed Soviet missile defense technology 

Deregulation
Reagan sought to loosen federal regulation of economic activities, and he appointed key officials who shared this agenda  William Leuchtenburg writes that by 1986, the Reagan administration eliminated almost half of the federal regulations that had existed in 1981  The 1982 Garn–St  Germain Depository Institutions Act deregulated savings and loan associations by letting them make a variety of loans and investments outside of real estate  After the bill's passage, savings and loans associations engaged in riskier activities, and the leaders of some institutions embezzled funds  The administration's inattentiveness toward the industry contributed to the savings and loan crisis and costly bailouts 

Deficits
The deficits were exacerbated by the early 1980s recession, which cut into federal revenue  The national debt tripled between the fiscal years of 1980 and 1989, and the national debt as a percentage of the gross domestic product rose from 33 percent in 1981 to 53 percent by 1989  During his time in office, Reagan never fulfilled his 1980 campaign promise of submitting a balanced budget  The United States borrowed heavily in order to cover newly spawned federal budget deficits  Reagan described the tripled debt the "greatest disappointment of his presidency"  Jeffrey Frankel opined that the deficits were a major reason why Reagan's successor, Bush, reneged on his campaign promise by raising taxes through the Budget Enforcement Act of 1990 

Assassination attempt
On March 30, 1981, Reagan was shot by John Hinckley Jr  outside the Washington Hilton  Also struck were: James Brady, Thomas Delahanty, and Tim McCarthy  Although "right on the margin of death" upon arrival at George Washington University Hospital, Reagan underwent surgery and recovered quickly from a broken rib, a punctured lung, and internal bleeding  Professor J  David Woodard says that the assassination attempt "created a bond between him and the American people that was never really broken"  Later, Reagan came to believe that God had spared his life "for a chosen mission" 

Supreme Court appointments
Reagan appointed three associate justices to the Supreme Court of the United States: Sandra Day O'Connor in July 1981, Antonin Scalia in 1986, and Anthony Kennedy in 1988  He also appointed William Rehnquist as the chief justice in 1986  The direction of the Supreme Court's reshaping has been described as conservative 

Public sector labor union fights
Early in August 1981, the Professional Air Traffic Controllers Organization (PATCO) went on strike, violating a federal law prohibiting government unions from striking  On August 3, Reagan said that he would fire air traffic controllers if they did not return to work within 48 hours; according to him, 38 percent did not return  On August 13, Reagan fired roughly 12,000 striking air traffic controllers who ignored his order  He used military controllers and supervisors to handle the nation's commercial air traffic until new controllers could be hired and trained  The breaking of the PATCO strike demoralized organized labor, and the number of strikes fell greatly in the 1980s  With the assent of Reagan's sympathetic National Labor Relations Board appointees, many companies also won wage and benefit cutbacks from unions, especially in the manufacturing sector  During Reagan's presidency, the share of employees who were part of a labor union dropped from approximately one-fourth of the total workforce to approximately one-sixth of the total workforce 

Civil rights
Despite Reagan having opposed the Voting Rights Act of 1965, the bill was extended for 25 years in 1982  He initially opposed the establishment of Martin Luther King Jr  Day, but signed a veto-proof bill to create the holiday in 1983, and also alluded to claims that King was associated with communists during his career  In 1984, he signed legislation intended to impose fines for fair housing discrimination offenses  In March 1988, Reagan vetoed the Civil Rights Restoration Act of 1987, but Congress overrode his veto  He had argued that the bill unreasonably increased the federal government's power and undermined the rights of churches and business owners  Later in September, legislation was passed to correct loopholes in the Fair Housing Act of 1968 Early in his presidency, Reagan appointed Clarence M  Pendleton Jr  as chair of the United States Commission on Civil Rights to criticism for politicizing the agency  Pendleton and Reagan's subsequent appointees steered the commission in line with Reagan's views on civil rights, arousing the ire of civil rights advocates  In 1987, Reagan unsuccessfully nominated Robert Bork to the Supreme Court as a way to achieve his civil rights policy that could not be fulfilled during his presidency; his administration had opposed affirmative action, particularly in education, federal assistance programs, housing and employment, but Reagan reluctantly continued these policies  In housing, Reagan's administration saw considerably fewer fair housing cases filed than the three previous administrations  Reagan's recasting of civil rights through reduced enforcement of civil rights laws has been regarded by some as the largest since Lyndon B  Johnson's presidency 

War on drugs
In response to concerns about the increasing crack epidemic, Reagan intensified the war on drugs in 1982  While the American public did not see drugs as an important issue then, the FBI, Drug Enforcement Administration and the United States Department of Defense all increased their anti-drug funding immensely  Reagan's administration publicized the campaign to gain support after crack became widespread in 1985  Reagan signed the Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1986 and 1988 to specify penalties for drug offenses  Both bills have been criticized in the years since for promoting racial disparities  Additionally, Nancy Reagan founded the "Just Say No" campaign to discourage others from engaging in recreational drug use and raise awareness about the dangers of drugs  A 1988 study showed 39 percent of high school seniors using illegal drugs compared to 53 percent in 1980, but Scott Lilienfeld and Hal Arkowitz say that the success of these types of campaigns have not been found to be affirmatively proven 

Escalation of the Cold War
Reagan ordered a massive defense buildup; he revived the B-1 Lancer program that had been rejected by the Carter administration, and deployed the MX missile  In response to Soviet deployment of the SS-20, he oversaw NATO's deployment of the Pershing missile in Western Europe  In 1982, Reagan tried to cut off the Soviet Union's access to hard currency by impeding its proposed gas line to Western Europe  It hurt the Soviet economy, but it also caused much ill will among American allies in Europe who counted on that revenue; he later retreated on this issue  In March 1983, Reagan introduced the Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI) to protect the United States from space intercontinental ballistic missiles  He believed that this defense shield could protect the country from nuclear destruction in a hypothetical nuclear war with the Soviet Union  There was much disbelief among the scientific community surrounding the program's scientific feasibility, leading opponents to dub the SDI "Star Wars", though Soviet leader Yuri Andropov said it would lead to "an extremely dangerous path" 
In a 1982 address to the British Parliament, Reagan said, "the march of freedom and democracy     will leave Marxism–Leninism on the ash heap of history " Dismissed by the American press as "wishful thinking", Margaret Thatcher called the address a "triumph"  David Cannadine says of Thatcher that "Reagan had been grateful for her interest in him at a time when the British establishment refused to take him seriously" with the two agreeing on "building up stronger defenses against Soviet Russia" and both believing in outfacing "what Reagan would later call 'the evil empire'" in reference to the Soviet Union during a speech to the National Association of Evangelicals in March 1983  After Soviet fighters downed Korean Air Lines Flight 007 in September, which included Larry McDonald and 61 other Americans, Reagan expressed outrage towards the Soviet Union  The next day, reports suggested that the Soviets had fired on the plane by mistake  In spite of the harsh, discordant rhetoric, Reagan's administration continued discussions with the Soviet Union on START I Although the Reagan administration agreed with the communist government in China to reduce the sale of arms to Taiwan in 1982, Reagan himself was the first president to reject containment and détente, and to put into practice the concept that the Soviet Union could be defeated rather than simply negotiated with  His covert aid to Afghan mujahideen forces through Pakistan against the Soviets has been given credit for assisting in ending the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan  However, the United States was subjected to blowback in the form of the Taliban that opposed them in the war in Afghanistan  In his 1985 State of the Union Address, Reagan proclaimed, "Support for freedom fighters is self-defense " Through the Reagan Doctrine, his administration supported anti-communist movements that fought against groups backed by the Soviet Union in an effort to rollback Soviet-backed communist governments and reduce Soviet influence across the world  Critics have felt that the administration ignored the human rights violations in the countries they backed, including genocide in Guatemala and mass killings in Chad 

Invasion of Grenada
On October 19, 1983, Maurice Bishop was overthrown and murdered by one of his colleagues  Several days later, Reagan ordered American forces to invade Grenada  Reagan cited a regional threat posed by a Soviet-Cuban military build-up in the Caribbean nation and concern for the safety of hundreds of American medical students at St  George's University as adequate reasons to invade  Two days of fighting commenced, resulting in an American victory  While the invasion enjoyed public support in the United States, it was criticized internationally, with the United Nations General Assembly voting to censure the American government  Cannon later noted that throughout Reagan's 1984 presidential campaign, the invasion overshadowed the 1983 Beirut barracks bombings, which killed 241 Americans taking part in an international peacekeeping operation during the Lebanese Civil War 

1984 election
Reagan announced his reelection campaign on January 29, 1984, declaring, "America is back and standing tall " In February, his administration reversed the unpopular decision to send the United States Marine Corps to Lebanon, thus eliminating a political liability for him  Reagan faced minimal opposition in the Republican primaries, and he and Bush accepted the nomination at the Dallas convention in August  In the general election, his campaign ran the commercial, "Morning in America"  At a time when the American economy was already recovering, former vice president Walter Mondale was attacked by Reagan's campaign as a "tax-and-spend Democrat", while Mondale criticized the deficit, the SDI, and Reagan's civil rights policy  However, Reagan's age induced his campaign managers to minimize his public appearances  Mondale's campaign believed that Reagan's age and mental health were issues before the October presidential debates Following Reagan's performance in the first debate where he struggled to recall statistics, his age was brought up by the media in negative fashion  Reagan's campaign changed his tactics for the second debate where he quipped, "I will not make age an issue of this campaign  I am not going to exploit, for political purposes, my opponent's youth and inexperience " This remark generated applause and laughter, even from Mondale  At that point, Broder suggested that age was no longer a liability for Reagan, and Mondale's campaign felt that "the election was over"  In November, Reagan won a landslide reelection victory with 59 percent of the popular vote and 525 electoral votes from 49 states  Mondale won 41 percent of the popular vote and 13 electoral votes from the District of Columbia and his home state of Minnesota 

Response to the AIDS epidemic
The AIDS epidemic began to unfold in 1981, and AIDS was initially difficult to understand for physicians and the public  As the epidemic advanced, according to White House physician and later physician to the president, brigadier general John Hutton, Reagan thought of AIDS as though "it was the measles and would go away"  The October 1985 death of the President's friend Rock Hudson affected Reagan's view; Reagan approached Hutton for more information on the disease  Still, between September 18, 1985 and February 4, 1986, Reagan did not mention AIDS in public In 1986, Reagan asked C  Everett Koop to draw up a report on the AIDS issue  Koop angered many evangelical conservatives, both in and out of the Reagan administration, by stressing the importance of sex education including condom usage in schools  A year later, Reagan, who reportedly had not read the report, gave his first speech on the epidemic when 36,058 Americans had been diagnosed with AIDS, and 20,849 had died of it  Reagan called for increased testing (including routine testing for marriage applicants) and mandatory testing of select groups (including federal prisoners)  Even after this speech, however, Reagan remained reluctant to publicly address AIDS Scholars and AIDS activists have argued that the Reagan administration largely ignored the AIDS crisis  Randy Shilts and Michael Bronski said that AIDS research was chronically underfunded during Reagan's administration, and Bronski added that requests for more funding by doctors at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention were routinely denied  In a September 1985 press conference, after Hudson announced his AIDS diagnosis, Reagan called a government AIDS research program a "top priority", but also cited budgetary constraints  Between the fiscal years of 1984 and 1989, federal spending on AIDS totaled $5 6 billion  The Reagan administration proposed $2 8 billion during this time period, but pressure from congressional Democrats resulted in the larger amount 

Addressing apartheid
Opposition to apartheid strengthened during Reagan's first term in office as its component disinvestment from South Africa movement, which had been in existence for quite some years  The opposition also gained critical mass following in the United States, particularly on college campuses and among mainline Protestant denominations  President Reagan was opposed to divestiture because, as he wrote in a letter to Sammy Davis Jr , it "would hurt the very people we are trying to help and would leave us no contact within South Africa to try and bring influence to bear on the government"  He also noted the fact that the "American-owned industries there employ more than 80,000 blacks" and that their employment practices were "very different from the normal South African customs"  The anti-communist focus of Reagan's administration lent itself to closer ties with the apartheid regime of South Africa, particularly with regards to matters pertaining to nuclear weapons The Reagan administration developed constructive engagement with the South African government as a means of encouraging it to move away from apartheid gradually  It was part of a larger initiative designed to foster peaceful economic development and political change throughout southern Africa  This policy, however, engendered much public criticism, and renewed calls for the imposition of stringent sanctions  In response, Reagan announced the imposition of new sanctions on the South African government, including an arms embargo in late 1985  These sanctions were seen as weak by anti-apartheid activists and as insufficient by the president's opponents in Congress  In 1986, Congress approved the Comprehensive Anti-Apartheid Act, which included tougher sanctions; Reagan's veto was overridden by Congress  Afterward, he remained opposed to apartheid and unsure of "how best to oppose it"  Several European countries, as well as Japan, also imposed their sanctions on South Africa soon after 

Libya bombing
Contentious relations between Libya and the United States under President Reagan were revived in the West Berlin discotheque bombing that killed an American soldier and injured dozens of others on April 5, 1986  Stating that there was irrefutable evidence that Libya had a direct role in the bombing, Reagan authorized the use of force against the country  On April 14, the United States launched a series of airstrikes on ground targets in Libya  Thatcher allowed the United States Air Force to use Britain's air bases to launch the attack, on the justification that the United Kingdom was supporting America's right to self-defense under Article 51 of the Charter of the United Nations  The attack was, according to Reagan, designed to halt Muammar Gaddafi's "ability to export terrorism", offering him "incentives and reasons to alter his criminal behavior"  The attack was condemned by many countries; by an overwhelming vote, the United Nations General Assembly adopted a resolution to condemn the attack and deem it a violation of the Charter and international law 

Iran–Contra affair
Reagan authorized William J  Casey to arm the Contras, fearing that Communists would take over Nicaragua if it remained under the leadership of the Sandinistas  Congress passed the 1982 Boland Amendment, prohibiting the CIA and United States Department of Defense from using their budgets to provide aid to the Contras  Still, the Reagan administration raised funds for the Contras from private donors and foreign governments  When Congress learned that the CIA had secretly placed naval mines in Nicaraguan harbors, Congress passed a second Boland Amendment that barred granting any assistance to the Contras  By mid-1985, Hezbollah began to take American hostages in Lebanon, holding seven of them in reaction to the United States' support of Israel Reagan procured the release of seven American hostages held by Hezbollah by selling American arms to Iran, then engaged in the Iran–Iraq War, in hopes that Iran would pressure Hezbollah to release the hostages  The Reagan administration sold over 2,000 missiles to Iran without informing Congress; Hezbollah released four hostages but captured an additional six Americans  On Oliver North's initiative, the administration redirected the proceeds from the missile sales to the Contras  The transactions were exposed by Ash-Shiraa in early November 1986  Reagan initially denied any wrongdoing, but on November 25, he announced that John Poindexter and North had left the administration and that he would form the Tower Commission to investigate the transactions  A few weeks later, Reagan asked a panel of federal judges to appoint a special prosecutor who would conduct a separate investigation The Tower Commission released a report in February 1987 confirming that the administration had traded arms for hostages and sent the proceeds of the weapons sales to the Contras  The report laid most of the blame on North, Poindexter, and Robert McFarlane, but it was also critical of Donald Regan and other White House staffers  Investigators did not find conclusive proof that Reagan had known about the aid provided to the Contras, but the report noted that Reagan had "created the conditions which made possible the crimes committed by others" and had "knowingly participated or acquiesced in covering up the scandal"  The affair damaged the administration and raised questions about Reagan's competency and the wisdom of conservative policies  The administration's credibility was also badly damaged on the international stage as it had violated its own arms embargo on Iran 

Soviet decline and thaw in relations
Although the Soviets did not accelerate military spending in response to Reagan's military buildup, their enormous military expenses, in combination with collectivized agriculture and inefficient planned manufacturing, were a heavy burden for the Soviet economy  At the same time, the prices of oil, the primary source of Soviet export revenues, fell to one third of the previous level in 1985  These factors contributed to a stagnant economy during Mikhail Gorbachev's tenure as the Soviet Union's leader Reagan's foreign policy towards the Soviets wavered between brinkmanship and cooperation  Reagan appreciated Gorbachev's revolutionary change in the direction of the Soviet policy and shifted to diplomacy, intending to encourage him to pursue substantial arms agreements  They held four summit conferences between 1985 and 1988  Reagan believed that if he could persuade the Soviets to allow for more democracy and free speech, this would lead to reform and the end of communism  The critical summit was in Reykjavík in 1986, where they agreed to abolish all nuclear weapons  However, Gorbachev added the condition that SDI research must be confined to laboratories during the ten-year period when disarmament would take place  Reagan refused, stating that it was defensive only and that he would share the secrets with the Soviets, thus failing to reach a deal In June 1987, Reagan addressed Gorbachev during a speech at the Berlin Wall, demanding that he "tear down this wall"  The remark was ignored at the time, but after the wall fell in November 1989, it was retroactively recast as a soaring achievement  In December, Reagan and Gorbachev met again at the Washington Summit to sign the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty, committing to the total abolition of their respective short-range and medium-range missile stockpiles  The treaty established an inspections regime designed to ensure that both parties honored the agreement  In May 1988, the U S  Senate overwhelmingly voted in favor of ratifying the treaty, providing a major boost to Reagan's popularity in the aftermath of the Iran–Contra affair  A new era of trade and openness between the two powers commenced, and the United States and Soviet Union cooperated on international issues such as the Iran–Iraq War 

1989–2004: Post-presidency
After leaving the presidency on January 20, 1989, Ronald and Nancy Reagan settled in a home in Bel Air, in addition to Rancho del Cielo in Santa Barbara  He received multiple awards and honors, and received generous payments for speaking engagements  In 1991, the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library opened  Reagan also addressed the 1992 Republican National Convention "to inspire allegiance to the party regulars"; publicly favored the Brady Bill, drawing criticism from gun control opponents; a constitutional amendment requiring a balanced budget; and the repeal of the 22nd Amendment  His final public speech occurred on February 3, 1994, during a tribute to him in Washington, D C ; his last major public appearance was at the funeral of Richard Nixon on April 27, 1994 In August 1994, Reagan was diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease, which he announced through a handwritten letter in November  There was speculation over how long he had demonstrated symptoms of mental degeneration, but lay observations that he suffered from Alzheimer's while still in office have been widely refuted by medical experts; his doctors said that he first began exhibiting overt symptoms of the illness in late 1992 or 1993  Over time, the disease destroyed Reagan's mental capacity  By 1997, he was reported to recognize few people other than his wife, though he continued to walk through parks and on beaches, play golf, and visit his office in nearby Century City  Eventually, his family decided that he would live in quiet semi-isolation with his wife  By the end of 2003, Reagan had lost his ability to speak and was mostly confined to his bed, no longer able to recognize any family members Reagan died of pneumonia, complicated by Alzheimer's, at his home in Los Angeles, on June 5, 2004  President George W  Bush called Reagan's death "a sad hour in the life of America"  His public funeral was held in the Washington National Cathedral, where eulogies were given by Margaret Thatcher, Brian Mulroney, George H  W  Bush, and George W  Bush  Other world leaders attended including Mikhail Gorbachev and Lech Wałęsa  Reagan was interred at his presidential library 

Legacy
Historical reputation
In 2008, British historian M  J  Heale summarized that scholars had reached a broad consensus in which "Reagan rehabilitated conservatism, turned the country to the right, practiced a 'pragmatic conservatism' that balanced ideology with the constraints of government, revived faith in the presidency and American self-respect, and contributed to critically ending the Cold War", which ended with the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991  Many conservative and liberal scholars have agreed that Reagan has been the most influential president since Roosevelt, leaving his imprint on American politics, diplomacy, culture, and economics through his effective communication of his conservative agenda and pragmatic compromising  During the initial years of Reagan's post-presidency, historical rankings placed his presidency in the twenties  Throughout the 2000s and 2010s, his presidency was often placed in the top ten Many proponents, including his Cold War contemporaries, believe that his defense policies, economic policies, military policies, and hard-line rhetoric against the Soviet Union and communism, together with his summits with Gorbachev, played a significant part in ending the Cold War  Professor Jeffrey Knopf argues that while Reagan's practice of referring to the Soviet Union as "evil" probably made no difference to the Soviet leaders, it possibly gave encouragement to Eastern European citizens who opposed their communist regimes  President Truman's policy of containment is also regarded as a force behind the fall of the Soviet Union, and the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan undermined the Soviet system itself  Nevertheless, Melvyn P  Leffler called Reagan "Gorbachev's minor, yet indispensable partner, setting the framework for the dramatic changes that neither anticipated happening anytime soon" Critics, for example Paul Krugman, note Reagan's tenure as having begun a period of increased income inequality, sometimes called the "Great Divergence"  Krugman also views Reagan as having initiated the ideology of the current-day Republican Party, which he feels is led by "radicals" who seek to "undo the twentieth century" gains in income equality and unionization  Others, such as Nixon's Secretary of Commerce Peter G  Peterson, also criticize what they feel was not just Reagan's fiscal irresponsibility, but also ushering in an era where tax cutting "became the GOP's core platform"  With resulting deficits and GOP leaders (speciously in Peterson's opinion) arguing supply-side gains would enable the country to "grow" its way out of deficits Reagan was known for storytelling and humor, which involved puns and self-deprecation  Reagan also often emphasized family values, despite being the first president to have been divorced  He showed the ability comfort to Americans during the aftermath of the Space Shuttle Challenger disaster  Reagan's ability to talk about substantive issues with understandable terms and to focus on mainstream American concerns earned him the laudatory moniker the "Great Communicator"  He also earned the nickname "Teflon President" in that public perceptions of him were not substantially tarnished by the multitude of controversies that arose during his administration 

Political influence
Reagan led a new conservative movement, altering the political dynamic of the United States  Conservatism became the dominant ideology for Republicans, displacing the party's faction of liberals and moderates  In his time, men began voting more Republican, and women began voting more Democrat – a gender distinction that has persisted   He was supported by young voters, an allegiance that shifted many of them to the party  He attempted to appeal to black voters in 1980, but would receive the lowest black vote for a Republican presidential candidate at the time  Throughout Reagan's presidency, Republicans were unable to gain complete control of Congress The period of American history most dominated by Reagan and his policies (particularly on taxes, welfare, defense, the federal judiciary, and the Cold War) is known as the Reagan era, which suggests that the "Reagan Revolution" had a lasting impact on the United States in domestic and foreign policy  The Bill Clinton administration is often treated as an extension of the era, as is the George W  Bush administration  Since 1988, Republican presidential candidates have invoked Reagan's policies and beliefs  Carlos Lozada noted Trump's praising of Reagan in a book he published during his 2016 campaign 
Passage 4:
Timeline of the presidency of Gerald Ford
Gerald Ford, a Republican from Michigan, was inaugurated as the nation's 38th president on August 9, 1974, upon the resignation of Richard Nixon,  and ended on January 20, 1977  The following articles cover the timeline of Ford's presidency:

Timeline of the Gerald Ford presidency (1974)
Timeline of the Gerald Ford presidency (1975)
Timeline of the Gerald Ford presidency (1976–January 1977)

See also
Timeline of the Richard Nixon presidency, for his predecessor
Timeline of the Jimmy Carter presidency, for his successor
Passage 5:
Richard Darman
Richard Gordon Darman (May 10, 1943 – January 25, 2008) was an American businessman and government official who served in senior positions during the presidencies of Ronald Reagan and George H  W  Bush 

Early life
Darman was born in Charlotte, North Carolina, the son of Eleanor F  and Morton H  Darman  His father was a textile mill owner 
Darman graduated with honors from Harvard College in 1964 and from the Harvard Graduate School of Business Administration in 1967 

Career
Darman held several governmental positions under James Baker, including as Assistant Secretary of Commerce (1976–1977)  After the defeat of Gerald Ford, Darman became a member of the faculty of Harvard Kennedy School, to which he would return on two occasions between 1977 and 2002 
When Baker became White House Chief of Staff under President Reagan, Darman returned to serve as Assistant to the President of the United States and White House Staff Secretary (1981–1985), before following Baker to the Treasury Department as Deputy Secretary of the Treasury (1985–1987) 
Darman served as Director of the Office of Management and Budget for the entire presidency of the first President Bush  Darman was regarded as provocative and intelligent by Washington insiders but was criticized by some economists for being too focused on the budget deficit and was sometimes blamed for convincing Bush to renege on his promise of "Read my lips: No new taxes," which is widely believed to have contributed to Bush's defeat in the election of 1992  Darman had previously tried to stop Bush from making the promise during the 1988 campaign From 1993 until his death in 2008, Darman was a partner and managing director of The Carlyle Group  During that period, Carlyle went from being a small firm with 26 employees to one of the world's largest and most successful private equity firms  Darman was a trustee of the Loomis Sayles Funds, the IXIS Funds, and the Howard Hughes Medical Institute  He served as Chairman of the Board of the Smithsonian National Museum of American History and, in May 2003, became Chairman of the Board of AES Corporation, an electric utility company 

Personal life
He married Kathleen Emmet on September 1, 1967; they had three sons, William T  E , Jonathan W  E  and C  T  Emmet Darman 
Darman died on January 25, 2008, at the age of 64, following a battle with acute myelogenous leukemia 
Passage 6:
President of Vietnam
The president of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam (Vietnamese: Chủ tịch nước Cộng hòa xã hội chủ nghĩa Việt Nam, lit  'Chairman of the state of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam') is the head of state of Vietnam, elected by the Vietnam National Assembly from delegates of the National Assembly  Since Vietnam is a single-party state, the president is generally considered to hold the second highest position in the political system, formally after the General Secretary of the Communist Party of Vietnam  In addition, the president appoints the head of government, the Prime Minister  As head of state, the President represents Vietnam both domestically and internationally, and maintains the regular and coordinated operation and stability of the national government and safeguards the independence and territorial integrity of the country  
The president must be a delegate of the National Assembly and is traditionally a member of the Central Committee of the Communist Party  The Central Committee of the Communist Party nominates candidates to the Standing Committee of the National Assembly, the Standing Committee of the National Assembly then confirms and nominates those candidates for official election by all delegates of the National Assembly  
The president appoints the vice president, prime minister, ministers, and other officials with the consent of the National Assembly  The president is furthermore the supreme commander-in-chief of the Vietnam People's Armed Forces, chairman of the Council for Defense and Security  Moreover, member of Political Bureau, standing member of the Central Military Commission and the Central Police Party Committee  Since September 2011, the president is also the head of the Central Steering Committee for Judicial Reform  The tenure of the president is five years, and a president can only serve three terms  If the president becomes unable to discharge duties of office, the vice president assumes the office of acting president until the president resumes duty, or until the election of a new president 
The powers and prestige of the office of president have varied over the years  For instance, while the inaugural president, Hồ Chí Minh, was also the chairman of the Communist Party, making him (in that capacity) the first ranking member of the Politburo, the highest decision-making body in Vietnam, his successor, Tôn Đức Thắng, served as a symbolic figure along with General Secretary Lê Duẩn  Since Trường Chinh's ascension to the presidency, the president has been ranked 1st (he was sometimes also chairman of the party) or 2nd in the order of precedence of the Communist Party's Politburo except President Nguyễn Minh Triết ranked fourth and President Võ Chí Công ranked third  Three persons served concurrently as head of both the party and state: Hồ Chí Minh (1951–1969), Trường Chinh (1986) and Nguyễn Phú Trọng (2018–2021) 
Võ Văn Thưởng is the current President of Vietnam after being appointed by the National Assembly on 2 March 2023  He is the youngest person to hold this position since the republic's founding in 1945 

History
Hồ Chí Minh was appointed Vietnam's first president in 1946 by the National Assembly  The 1959 Constitutions stated that the National Assembly had the power to appoint and dismiss the president  The president represented Vietnam both internally and externally  The power and responsibilities of the president in 1946 constitution is very similar to the power and responsibilities of the president of the United States with elements from the president of France being both the head of state and the head of government  The 1959 constitution significantly reduced the power of the president, making the president the de jure leader of Vietnam while handling most of the de facto power to the post of General Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Vietnam  The 1980 constitution transformed the office of head of state dramatically  The office of president was abolished and replaced with the office of Chairman of the Council of State (CC)  The CC chairmanship was modelled after the Soviet office of Chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet  The Council of State, as with the Council of Ministers, was a collective decision-making body  Both the Council of State and the Council of Ministers were part of the executive branch; the strengthening of these institutions weakened the role of the legislative branch  The duties, powers and responsibilities of the Council of State were taken from the Standing Committee of the National Assembly, which lost most of its powers and prestige in the 1980 Constitution 
The members of the Council of State were elected by the National Assembly and consisted of a chairman, deputy chairmen, a general secretary and other members  Council of State members could not concurrently be members of the Council of Ministers  The chairman of the Council of State was concurrently chairman of the National Defense Council (later the National Defense and Security Council) and commander-in-chief of the Vietnam People's Armed Forces  The Council of State supervised the works of other institutions, most notably the Council of Ministers, the Supreme People's Organ for Control and the People's Councils at all levels  It also presided over the elections of the National Assembly  The office of Chairman of the Council of State, the head of state, was abolished in the 1992 Constitution and replaced by the office of President 
The importance of the president has not remained constant throughout Vietnamese history  For instance, while Hồ Chí Minh was ranked as first member of the Politburo, the highest decision-making body in Vietnam, his successor, Tôn Đức Thắng, was a symbolic figure with little power  The post of head of state was strengthened in the 1980 Constitution by the appointment of Trường Chinh who was, by order of precedence, the second-highest-ranking member in the Politburo, behind Lê Duẩn  The office of president retained the second highest rank in the Politburo order of precedence until Nguyễn Minh Triết was appointed in 2006; he ranked fourth in the Politburo hierarchy  The Politburo elected in the aftermath of the 11th National Party Congress (held in January 2011) by the Central Committee elected Trương Tấn Sang as the first-ranking member of the Politburo  This was the first time in Vietnamese history where the highest-ranking member of the Politburo does not hold post of either general secretary or chairman (was in existence from 1951 to 1969) of the party  Since Trương Tấn Sang is first-ranked member of the Politburo, he is the body's unofficial head  Politburo meetings are held regularly; decisions within the Politburo are made through collective decision-making, and policies are only enacted if a majority of Politburo members supports them 

Term of office
The president is selected for a term of office of five years  The term of office of the incumbent president continues until the president-elect takes office
On assuming office, the president takes the following oath before the parliament:

In my capacity as President of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam, I swear complete allegiance to the country, people, and constitution; to fulfill the tasks assigned by the State, and people

Duties, powers and responsibilities
The president is the head of state of Vietnam, and his main priority is to represent Vietnam internally and externally  The officeholder is elected by the National Assembly of Vietnam, is responsible to it and reports to it  The tenure of the president is five years, the same as that of the National Assembly  The president continues to serve in his functions until the National Assembly elects a successor  The president has the following executive and legislative powers:

To promulgate laws, decree-laws and the Constitution,
To suspend the implementation or abrogation of the documents of the prime minister or the deputy prime minister which contravene the Constitution and the Laws
To act as the country's commander-in-chief and holds the office of Chairman of the National Defense and Security Council of Vietnam,
To convene meetings of the National Defense and Security Council of Vietnam,
The president shall take measures to protect the sovereignty of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam its independence and state integrity, and ensure concerted functioning and interaction of all bodies of state power,
To propose to the National Assembly the election or dismissal from office of the vice president, the prime minister, the Chief justice of the Supreme People's Court and the head of the Supreme People's Office of Supervision and Control,
The president has the right to preside over meetings of the Government of Vietnam,
To appoint or dismiss officials, staff and employees of the Office of the President,
To appoint or dismiss deputy prime ministers, ministers and other members of the government,
To proclaim a state of war or amnesty,
On the basis of a Standing Committee resolution, the president can order a general or partial mobilisation, or can proclaim a state of emergency nationwide or in a particular region,
To propose that the Standing Committee review its decree-laws and resolutions on matters stipulated in Points 8 and 9, Article 91, within the space of ten days following their adoption; if those decree-laws and resolutions are again passed by the Standing Committee of the National Assembly with the country's president dissenting, the latter shall report the matter to the National Assembly for it to decide the issue at its nearest session,
To appoint or dismiss the deputy Chief justice and judges of the Supreme People's Court and the Deputy Director of the Supreme People's Office of Supervision and Control,
To appoint or dismiss the chief of general staff, vice chief of general staff, chief of the General Department of Politics and the vice chief of the General Political Department
To confer titles and ranks on senior officers of the Vietnam People's Armed Forces and bestows "diplomatic titles and ranks, and other State titles and ranks; to confer medals, badges and State honours and distinctions",
To appoint and recall ambassadors extraordinary and plenipotentiary, and receive foreign ambassadors extraordinary and plenipotentiary, to negotiate and sign international agreements on behalf of the Socialist Republic with the heads of other states; he can approve or join international agreements, except in cases where a decision by the National Assembly is necessary,
To grant Vietnamese nationality, release from Vietnamese nationality, or deprive of Vietnamese nationality,
To hold Head of Steering Committee of the Central Judicial Reform,
To supervise the detection and handles all corrupt behaviors,
To hold Director of the Economic Council The National Defense and Security Council (NDSC) is composed of the president, the prime minister and other members  The members of the NDSC are proposed by the president and approved by the National Assembly  NDSC members do not need to be members of the National Assembly  The decision-making process of the NDSC is that of a collective leadership  Among its powers is the right to mobilise all forces in the name of national defense, and in case of war the National Assembly can entrust the NDSC with special duties and powers 

Succession
According to Article 93 of the Constitution of Vietnam (2013):
"When the President is incapacitated from work over a long period of time, the Vice President shall succeed as acting President  In case of vacancy of the Presidency, the Vice President shall serve as acting President until a new President is elected by the National Assembly "

See also
List of presidents of Vietnam
List of spouses of Vietnamese presidents
Vice President of Vietnam
Prime Minister of Vietnam
Deputy Prime Minister of Vietnam
Council for National Defense and Security (Vietnam)
General Secretary of the Communist Party of Vietnam
List of central officeholders in the Communist Party of Vietnam
Air transports of heads of state and government
Context 2: Passage 1:
Louisville Thunder
Louisville Thunder was an indoor soccer club based in Louisville, Kentucky that was one of the founding clubs competing in the American Indoor Soccer Association  Peter Mahlock served as President and General Manager and Keith Tozer was the head coach   During the first season Tozer moved from just coaching to logging shifts as a player/coach   In their debut season of 1984–1985, goalkeeper Rick Schweizer won the 'Goalkeeper of the Year' award, and made it on to the All-Star team   The Louisville Thunder played its home games at the Broadbent Arena 
However, in 1987 after winning the AISA league championship over the Canton Invaders, the team disbanded due to ownership problems 
The team did produce several league all-stars during its existence including Rick Schweizer, Zoran Savic, Art Hughes and Chris Hellenkamp 

Coaches
Keith Tozer (1984–87)

Individual player honors
1984–1985 Rick Schweizer – Goalkeeper of the Year
1984–1985 All-Star TEAM Rick Schweizer & Art Hughes
1985–1986 Zoran Savic – Top Points Scorer (81)
1985–1986 All-Star TEAM Zoran Savic & Art Hughes
1986–1987 All-Star TEAM Zoran Savic, Art Hughes &  Chris Hellenkamp

Year-by-year
See also
Sports in Louisville, Kentucky
Passage 2:
Louisville Icehawks
The Louisville Icehawks were a professional ice hockey team competing in the East Coast Hockey League  The team, based in Louisville, Kentucky, played from 1990 to 1994  Their home venue was Broadbent Arena at the Kentucky Exposition Center  The mascot was called Tommy Hawk, a play on tomahawk, and resembled The San Diego Chicken, but with coloration and costume matching the team's  Tommy Hawk was "banned" from the inside portion of the arena for a period of time, due to an altercation with a visiting player who was in the penalty box  In the 1995–96 season, the team was renamed and moved to Florida to become the Jacksonville Lizard Kings 
For a period of time the Louisville Icehawk's parent team/NHL Affiliate were the Pittsburgh Penguins 
Trevor Buchanan was a player for the Icehawks that spent a great deal of time in the penalty box, thus spawning his own fan club 

Playoffs
1990–91: Defeated Knoxville 3–0 in quarterfinals; lost to Greensboro 4–0 in semifinals 
1991–92: Defeated Toledo 4–1 in first round; received quarterfinals bye; defeated Cincinnati 3–1 in semifinals; lost to Hampton Roads 4–0 in finals 
1992–93: Did not qualify 
1993–94: Defeated Knoxville 2–1 in first round; lost to Birmingham 3–0 in quarterfinals 

See also
Sports in Louisville, Kentucky
Passage 3:
Kentucky Athletic Hall of Fame
The Kentucky Athletic Hall of Fame is a sports hall of fame for the U S  state of Kentucky established in 1963  Individuals are inducted annually at a banquet in Louisville and receive a bronze plaque inside Louisville's Freedom Hall  The Kentucky Athletic Hall of Fame other wise known as the Kentucky Sports Hall of fame, is a non-profit organization funded by the Kentucky Lottery and owned and operated by the Louisville Sports Commission 

Notable Inductees
Honorees have included Louisville native Muhammad Ali  A three-time world champion and six-time Golden Glove recipient, he won a gold medal in the light heavyweight division at the 1960 Summer Olympics (at age eighteen) and turned professional later that year  Also included is American football player and coach Bo McMillin (who played for Centre College in Danville, Kentucky); and basketball player and coach Pat Riley, who played in college for the Kentucky Wildcats men's basketball team  While at the University of Kentucky, Riley managed to average a double double during his entire career there  He is also a ten-time NBA champion, winning one ring as a player with the Los Angeles Lakers and the rest as a coach and an owner in the NBA  Coach Riley was inducted into the Hall of Fame in 2005  Bob Baffert an American racehorse trainer who trained the 2015 Triple Crown winner American Pharoah and 2018 Triple Crown winner Justify  Baffert's horses have won a record seven Kentucky Derbies, seven Preakness Stakes, three Belmont Stakes, and three Kentucky Oaks  Most recently inducted  A more recent inductee Dwane Casey inducted in the 2021 class who is the head coach for the Detroit Pistons of the National Basketball Association  He is a former NCAA basketball player and coach, having played and coached there for over a decade before moving on to the NBA The 2013 class included people such as Jerry Carroll who was a golf professional, Donna Bender a student-athlete/athletic director at Sacred Heart Academy, University of Louisville basketball player Pervis Ellison, Calvin Borel who was a Kentucky horse racer, Pro football player for the Pittsburgh Steelers Dwayne D  Woodruff, and Tennis player Julie Ditty Inducted in the 2015 class were tennis player Mel Purcell,( he captured the 1980 NCAA doubles title with Rodney harmon and was named an all-American ) women's basketball coach Paul Sanderford, basketball player Sharon Garland, college basketball manager and King of the Bluegrass Men's Basketball Tournament founder and director Lloyd Gardner, Major League Baseball umpire Randy Marsh, track and field athlete Boyd Smith, and Lexington's Keeneland Race Course  Scott Davenport, the current men's basketball coach at Bellarmine University was also inducted 
The 2016 class included American football player Shaun Alexander, basketball player Darel Carrier, college basketball coach Scott Davenport, basketball player Kyra Elzy, high school basketball coach Philip Haywood, Kentucky Wesleyan basketball play-by-play announcer Joel Utley, and the Lakeside Swim Club  Kyra Elzy is a Kentucky native and currently holds the position as the University of Kentucky's Women's Basketball Head Coach  She also played basketball for the University of Tennessee and assisted for their team after her career 

Selection committee
The 2021 Selection Committee has the following members:
Jeff Bidwell, WPSD-TV
Drew Deener, ESPN Radio
Jody Demling, iHeart Media
Mike Fields, retired Lexington Herald Leader staff writer
Jason Frakes, Courier Journal
Kendrick Haskins, WAVE 3
Reina Kempt, Courier Journal
Zack Klemme, The Daily Independent
Mark Mathis, Owensboro Messenger-Inquirer
Marques Maybin, ESPN Radio
Brian Milam, WKYT-TV
Steve Moss, WKYT-TV
Kevin Patton, The Gleaner
Kent Spencer, WHAS-TV
Mark Story, Lexington Herald-Leader

Inductees
The Hall of fame has been honoring athletes for the past 58 years  These are some of the athletes inducted in the past 6 years  Here is the link to the full list of inductees 

2021
John Asher - Kentucky Derby ambassador  He is known as the voice and face of horseracing in Kentucky 
Dwane Casey - American Professional basketball coach who attended Union County High School in Morganfield, Kentucky and played four years at the University of Kentucky winning a National Championship in 1977-78  He began His coaching career at the Western Kentucky University before becoming the first African American assistant coach at The University of Kentucky, before moving to the NBA 
Romeo Crennel - American football coach  Before becoming a defensive coordinator, he was a star at Western Kentucky, where he was a four-year starter and a team captain as a senior in 1969  He then embarked on his coaching career that spanned six decades and included five Super Bowl rings as an assistant 
Rachel Komisarz Baugh - American swimmer, Olympic gold medalist, and former world record-holder  She swam at the University of Kentucky and became a seven-time All American swimmer and three-time SEC Champion by the end of her four years at the University 
Keith Madison - Head coach of the Kentucky Wildcats baseball team from 1979 to 2003  He remains the most winningest baseball coach in program history with 735 wins 
Elmore Smith - Former American professional basketball player  Played at Kentucky State University and went on to play in the NBA for the Buffalo Braves 

2020
Pete Browning - American professional baseball player that was a pioneer for the major league games, which included several seasons with the Louisville Colonels 
Anna May Hutchison- Louisville native, she played in the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League 
Clarence "Cave" Wilson- Basketball player  Wilson led the Horse Cave, KY, Colored School to 65 consecutive basketball victories in the 1940s  He was a forward and a point guard for the Harlem Globetrotters (1949-1964)

2019
Derek Anderson- American former professional basketball player  In 1996, Anderson helped the University of Kentucky win the NCAA Men's Basketball      Championship as part of a team that featured nine future NBA players under their coach Rick Pitino, known as the “untouchables”
Deion Branch- is a former American football player for the NFL  He played college football as a wide receiver at Louisville under coach John L  Smith  Branch was named the Most Valuable Player of Super Bowl XXXIX 
William Exum was the head of the Kentucky State University Physical Education Department and later head of the Athletics Department  He coached the KSU men's cross country team to an NCAA Division II championship in 1964  He was also the manager of the United States Track and Field teams at the 1972 and 1976 Olympics 
Ralph Hacker spent 34 years on the UK Radio Network  He served as the men's basketball analyst for many years with broadcaster Cawood Ledford
Willis Augustus Lee was a Kentucky native and a skilled sport shooter that won seven medals in the 1920 Olympics shooting events, including five gold medals  He was tied with teammate Lloyd Spooner for the most anyone had ever received in a single Olympics  Their record stood for 60 years 
Nate Northington- He was the first African-American to play in a college football SEC game with the Kentucky Wildcats 

2018
Bob Baffert
Sam Ball
Bob Beatty
Bernie Bickerstaff
Ken Ramsey
Nicky Hayden

2017
Mike Battaglia
Howard Beth
Rodger Bird
Rob Bromley
Swag Hartel
Kenny Klein
Dennis Lampley
Marion Miley

2016
Shaun Alexander
Darel Carrier
Scott Davenport
Kyra Elzy
Philip Haywood
Joel Utley
Lakeside Swim Club*Selection on hiatus 1965
**Selection on hiatus 1967-1974
**Selection on hiatus 1976-1984
Passage 4:
Freedom Hall
Freedom Hall is a multi-purpose arena in Louisville, Kentucky, on the grounds of the Kentucky Exposition Center, which is owned by the Commonwealth of Kentucky  It is best known for its use as a basketball arena, previously serving as the home of the University of Louisville Cardinals and, since November 2020, as the home of the Bellarmine University Knights  It has hosted Kiss, Chicago, AC/DC, WWE events, Mötley Crüe, Elvis Presley, The Doors, Janis Joplin, Creed, Led Zeppelin, Van Halen and many more  As well as the Louisville Cardinals men's basketball team from 1956 to 2010, the arena’s tenants included the Kentucky Colonels of the American Basketball Association from 1970 until the ABA-NBA merger in June 1976, and the Louisville Cardinals women's team from its inception in 1975 to 2010  The Kentucky Stickhorses of the North American Lacrosse League used Freedom Hall from 2011 until the team folded in 2013  From 2015 to 2019 it has hosted the VEX Robotics Competition World Championship Finals yearly in mid-April 
The arena lost its status as Kentuckiana's main indoor sporting and concert venue when the downtown KFC Yum! Center opened in 2010   It is still used regularly, however, hosting concerts, horse shows, conventions, and basketball games 

History
Freedom Hall was completed in 1956 in the newly opened Kentucky Fair and Exposition Center located 5 miles (8 0 km) south of Downtown Louisville  It received its name as the result of a statewide essay contest sponsored by the State Fair Board and the American Legion  Charlotte Owens, a senior at DuPont Manual High School, submitted the winning entry over 6,500 others  Designed for the nation's premier equestrian competition, the Kentucky State Fair World's Championship Horse Show, the floor length and permanent seating were designed specifically for the almost 300-foot (91 m)-long show ring (in comparison, a regulation hockey rink is 200 feet (61 m) long, and a basketball court is only 94 feet)  The North American International Livestock Exposition also is held there each November  Muhammad Ali fought his first professional fight at Freedom Hall when he won a six-round decision over Tunney Hunsaker  Freedom Hall was also one of the major stops on the Motortown (later MOTOWN) traveling music revue during the early and mid-1960s 
Grateful Dead played Freedom Hall 4 times including 6/18/74, 4/9/89, 6/15/93, and 6/16/93  6/18/74 was officially released as Road Trips Volume 2 Number 3 
Judgment Day (2000) was also held at the Freedom Hall  A collegiate wrestling tournament was held at the arena in 2019
Context 3: Passage 1:
James Hill (British Army officer)
Brigadier Stanley James Ledger Hill,  (14 March 1911 – 16 March 2006) was a British Army officer, who served as commander of the 3rd Parachute Brigade, part of the 6th Airborne Division, during the Second World War 
Born in Bath, Somerset, in 1911, Hill was educated at Marlborough College and the Royal Military College, Sandhurst before joining the British Army in 1931 and being commissioned into the Royal Fusiliers  He commanded a platoon for a short period, and was then attached to the command post of Field Marshal Lord Gort during the Battle of France in May 1940, where he oversaw the evacuation of Brussels as well as the beach at De Panne during the evacuation of Dunkirk  After a brief period of time in the Irish Free State, he volunteered for parachute training and joined the 1st Parachute Battalion, and was its commanding officer when its parent formation, the 1st Parachute Brigade, was deployed to North Africa 
Hill commanded the battalion during its first airborne operation in North Africa, dropping near the towns of Souk el-Arba and Béja, in Tunisia  It secured Beja and then sent out patrols to harass German troops, ambushing a convoy and inflicting numerous German casualties, and defended a bridge at Medjez el Bab, although it was eventually forced to retreat  Hill was wounded during an attack by the battalion on Gue Hill, in which he attempted to capture three Italian tanks using his revolver; the crews of two were successfully subdued without incident, but the third opened fire and hit Hill in the chest several times  He was awarded the Distinguished Service Order (DSO) and the French Legion of Honour for his service in North Africa and then evacuated back to England  There he took command of the 3rd Parachute Brigade in the newly formed 6th Airborne Division, and jumped with the brigade during Operation Tonga, the British airborne landings in Normandy on the night of 5/6 June 1944  After nearly being killed on D-Day, by an aircraft strafing his position, Hill commanded the brigade throughout the rest of the time it was in Normandy, once leading a counter-attack during a German assault, later being awarded the first Bar to his DSO 
After advancing to the Seine, the 6th Airborne Division was withdrawn to England in September 1944, but briefly served in the Ardennes in December during the Battle of the Bulge  Hill then commanded 3rd Parachute Brigade during Operation Varsity, the Allied airborne assault over the River Rhine, where he was nearly killed by a glider containing his own personal Jeep  He then commandeered a motorcycle and rode alongside the brigade as the 6th Airborne Division advanced from the Rhine to the River Elbe, at the end of which he was awarded a second Bar to his DSO as well as the American Silver Star  After the war, he was briefly military governor of Copenhagen, for which he was awarded the King Haakon VII Liberty Cross, and also raised and commanded the 4th Parachute Brigade (Territorial Army)  Retiring from the British Army in 1949, he became involved in a number of charities and businesses  James Hill died on 16 March 2006, aged 95 

Early life
Hill was born on 14 March 1911, in Bath, Somerset, the son of Major General Walter Hill  He was educated at Marlborough College, where he was the head of the college's Officer Training Corps, and then attended the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst; there he won the Sword of Honour and became captain of athletics  He joined the British Army in 1931, being commissioned as a 2nd lieutenant into the Royal Fusiliers (City of London regiment), the regiment which his father commanded  He ran the regimental athletic and boxing associations during his service with the regiment, and in 1936 transferred to the Supplementary Reserve in order to marry his first wife, Denys Gunter-Jones  For the next three years he worked as part of his family's ferry company 

Second World War
When the Second World War began in September 1939, Hill was recalled to his regiment and given command of the 2nd Battalion, Royal Fusiliers' advance party when the battalion left for France during the same month  The battalion was assigned to the 12th Infantry Brigade, part of the 4th Infantry Division  He then commanded a platoon for several months, when the battalion was stationed along the Maginot Line, before being promoted to the rank of Captain in January 1940 and joining the staff at Allied Headquarters  The Battle of France began in May 1940, by which time Hill was attached to the command post of Field Marshal Lord Gort; during this period he was involved in planning the evacuation of the civilian population of Brussels, and also carried Gort's dispatches to Calais ordering the withdrawal of the British Expeditionary Force (BEF)  At the end of the campaign, he took command of the evacuation of the beach at La Panne, and was on the last destroyer to leave Dunkirk  For these actions, he was awarded the Military Cross  On his return to Britain, he was promoted to Major and travelled to Dublin in the Irish Free State, where he planned for the evacuation of British citizens from the city should German forces land there  When this task was completed, he volunteered for the fledgling Parachute Regiment, part of the British Army's growing airborne forces, and undertook parachute training; when the 1st Parachute Battalion was formed on 15 August 1941, he was appointed as its second-in-command The battalion was part of 1st Parachute Brigade, which by mid-1942 had been expanded into 1st Airborne Division under the command of Major-General F A M  Browning  In July 1942 the 1st Parachute Battalion was selected to participate in the Dieppe Raid, and got as far as being loaded onto transport aircraft before poor weather cancelled the operation; when the raid was planned for a second time the parachute battalion was removed because their deployment was too dependent on there being good weather on the day of the raid  In mid September, as 1st Airborne Division was coming close to reaching full strength, Browning was informed that Operation Torch, the Allied invasion of North Africa, would take place in November  After being informed that an American airborne unit, the 509th Parachute Infantry Battalion, was to be used during the invasion, Browning successfully advocated for the 1st Parachute Brigade to also be included  He argued that a larger airborne force should be utilised during the invasion, as the large distances and comparatively light opposition would provide a number of opportunities for airborne operations  The War Office and Commander in Chief, Home Forces were won over by the argument, and agreed to detach the brigade from 1st Airborne Division and place it under the command of General Dwight D  Eisenhower, who would command all Allied troops participating in the invasion  After it had been brought to full operational strength, partly by cross posting personnel from the newly formed 2nd Parachute Brigade, and had been provided with sufficient equipment and resources, the brigade departed for North Africa at the beginning of November 1942 

North Africa
As an insufficient number of transport aircraft were allocated to the brigade, it was only possible to transport the 3rd Parachute Battalion by air  The rest of the brigade arrived at Algiers on 12 November, with some of its stores arriving slightly later  By the evening, reconnaissance parties had travelled to the airfield at Maison Blanche, with the remainder of the brigade following on the morning of 13 November; it was quartered in Maison Blanche, Maison Carree and Rouiba  After several ambitious airborne operations were planned but then cancelled by British First Army, on 14 November it directed that a single parachute battalion would be dropped the next day near Souk el-Arba and Béja; the battalion was to contact French forces at Beja to ascertain whether they would remain neutral, or support the Allies; secure and guard the cross roads and airfield at Soul el Arba; and patrol eastwards to harass German forces  1st Parachute Battalion was selected for the task, to which Hill objected  The battalion had been forced to unload the vessel carrying its supplies and equipment itself, and had also to arrange its own transportation to Maison Blanche as no drivers were provided at Algiers; when it had arrived at Maison Blanche, it had been subjected to several Luftwaffe air raids that targeted the airfield  Hill argued that as a result his men were exhausted, and he did not believe all of the battalion's equipment could be sorted out within twenty four hours; as such he asked for the operation to be postponed for a short period, but this was denied 
Hill faced further problems as he planned for the operation  The American pilots of the Dakota transport aircraft that would transport the battalion were inexperienced and had never conducted a parachute drop before, and there was no time for any training or exercises  There were also no photos of the airfield or the surrounding areas, and only a single, small scale map available for navigation  To ensure that the aircraft found the drop zone and delivered the battalion accurately, Hill sat in the cockpit of the leading Dakota and assisted the pilot  The Dakotas were escorted by four American P-38 Lightning fighters, which engaged and drove off two roving German fighters, but as the Dakotas approached the Tunisian border they encountered thick clouds and were forced to turn back, landing at Maison Blanche at 11:00  It was decided that the battalion would conduct the operation the next day, which allowed the paratroopers to rest for a night  1st Parachute Battalion took off on the morning of 16 November, and enjoyed excellent weather that allowed the transport aircraft to drop the battalion accurately around the airfield at Souk el Arba  Most of the paratroopers landed successfully, but one man was killed when his rigging line twisted around his neck mid drop, throttling him; one officer broke his leg on landing, and four men were wounded when a Sten gun was accidentally fired  The battalion's second in command, Major Alastair Pearson, remained at the airfield with a small detachment that collected the airborne equipment and supervised the burial of the casualty Meanwhile, Hill led the rest of the battalion, approximately 525 strong, in some commandeered trucks towards the town of Béja, an important road and railway centre approximately forty miles from the airfield  The battalion arrived at approximately 18:00 and was welcomed by the local French garrison, 3,000 strong, which Hill persuaded to cooperate with the paratroopers; in order to give the garrison and any German observers the impression that he possessed a larger force than he actually did, Hill arranged for the battalion to march through the town several times, wearing different headgear and holding different equipment each time  A short time after the battalion entered Béja, German aircraft arrived and bombed the town, although they caused little damage and no casualties  The next day, 'S' Company was sent with a detachment of engineers to the village of Sidi N'Sir, about twenty miles away; they were to contact the local French forces, believed to be pro British, and harass German forces  The detachment found the village and made contact with the French, who allowed them to pass through towards the town of Mateur; by nightfall the force had not reached the town, and decided to encamp for the night  At dawn a German convoy of armoured cars passed the detachment, and it was decided to set an ambush for the convoy if it returned, with anti-tank mines being laid on the road and a mortar and Bren guns being set up in concealed positions  When the convoy returned at approximately 10:00 the leading vehicle struck a mine and exploded, blocking the road, and the other vehicles were disabled with mortar fire, Gammon bombs and the remaining anti tank mines  A number of Germans were killed and the rest taken prisoner, with two paratroopers being slightly wounded  The detachment returned to Béja with prisoners and several slightly damaged armoured cars  After the success of the ambush, Hill sent a second patrol to harass local German forces, but it was withdrawn after it encountered a larger German force that inflicted several British casualties; Béja was also bombed by Stuka divebombers, inflicting civilian casualties and destroying a number of houses 
On 19 November, Hill visited the commanding officer of the French forces guarding a vital bridge at Medjez el Bab, and warned him that any attempt by German forces to cross the bridge would be opposed by the battalion  Hill attached 'R' Company to the French forces to ensure the bridge was not captured  German forces soon arrived at the bridge, and their commanding officer demanded that they be allowed to take control of the bridge and cross it to attack the British positions  The French rejected the German demands, and in conjunction with 'R' Company repelled subsequent German attacks that lasted several hours  The battalion was reinforced by the U S  175th Field Artillery Battalion and elements of the Derbyshire Yeomanry, but, despite fierce resistance, the German forces proved to be too strong, and by 04:30 on 20 November the Allied forces had yielded the bridge and the surrounding area to the Germans  Two days later, Hill received information that a strong Italian force, which included a number of tanks, was stationed at Gue Hill  Hill decided to attack the force and attempt to disable the tanks, and the following night moved the battalion, less a small guard detachment that remained at Béja, to Sidi N'Sir where it linked up with a force of French Senegalese infantry  Hill decided that the battalion's section of 3 inch mortars would cover 'R' and 'S' Companies as they advanced up Gue Hill and attacked the Italian force, while a small force of sappers would mine the road at the rear of the hill to ensure the Italian tanks could not retreat The battalion arrived at the hill without incident and began to prepare for the attack; however, just prior to the beginning of the attack there were several loud explosions from the rear of the hill  The anti tank grenades carried by the sappers had accidentally detonated, killing all but two of them  The battalion lost the element of surprise, and Hill immediately ordered the two companies to advance up the hill  The force reached the top and engaged a mixed force of German and Italian soldiers, who were assisted by three light tanks  Hill drew his revolver, and with his adjutant and a small group of paratroopers advanced on the tanks, firing shots through their observation ports in an attempt to persuade the crews to surrender  This tactic worked on two tanks, but upon reaching the third tank Hill and his men were fired upon by the tank's crew; Hill was shot three times in the chest and his adjutant wounded, although the tank crew were swiftly dispatched with small arms fire  Hill survived because of prompt medical treatment, and was replaced as commander of the battalion by Major Pearson, who supervised the routing of the rest of the German and Italian soldiers 

Normandy
After his injuries were treated, Hill was evacuated to a hospital in North Africa to recover; although forbidden to do so, he often exercised by climbing out of the window of his hospital ward at night  For his actions in North Africa, he was awarded the Distinguished Service Order (DSO), which "paid tribute to the brilliant handling of his force and his complete disregard of personal danger," as well as the French Légion d'honneur  By February 1943 he had recovered from his injuries, and was flown back to England where he met up with Brigadier Gerald W  Lathbury, commander of the newly raised 3rd Parachute Brigade  The War Office had authorised the raising of the brigade on 5 November 1942, comprising the 7th, 8th and 9th Parachute Battalions, all converted infantry battalions  The 9th Parachute Battalion was in need of a commanding officer and Lathbury offered the job to Hill, who accepted  His first action was to send the entire unit on a forced march, at the end of which he announced that the battalion would "work a six and a half day week" with Sunday afternoons off, until it was well-trained and fit  The 3rd Parachute Brigade was initially attached to the 1st Airborne Division, but in April 1943 Lathbury was given command of 1st Parachute Brigade, which departed with 1st Airborne Division at the end of April for the Mediterranean theatre and Operation Husky, the invasion of Sicily  The 3rd Parachute Brigade was detached from the division in March and remained in England, and on 23 April it was transferred into the newly formed 6th Airborne Division with Hill as the brigade's new commander  On 11 August, 1st Canadian Parachute Battalion was attached to the 3rd Parachute Brigade; although meant to be assigned to the newly formed 5th Parachute Brigade, also attached to the 6th Airborne Division, it instead replaced the 7th Parachute Battalion, which was transferred to the new parachute brigade 
The 6th Airborne Division, under the command of Major-General Richard Nelson Gale, was fully mobilised by late December 1943, with orders to prepare for airborne operations to be conducted during mid-1944  The division's first airborne operation would also be the first time it saw combat, conducting Operation Tonga, the British airborne landings in Normandy on the night of 5/6 June, D-Day  It was tasked with guarding the left flank of the British amphibious landings by securing the area east of the city of Caen, capturing a number of bridges that spanned several rivers and canals, and then preventing any Axis forces from advancing on the British beaches  The 3rd Parachute Brigade was given several tasks to accomplish  The 9th Parachute Battalion, commanded by Lieutenant Colonel Terence Otway, was to assault and destroy the Merville Gun Battery, as well as capturing high ground and setting up roadblocks  The 1st Canadian Parachute Battalion was to destroy two bridges, and the 8th Parachute Battalion had the task of destroying three bridges  When the operation began, the brigade suffered from a combination of poor navigation by the pilots of their C-47 Dakota transport aircraft, heavy cloud cover and incorrectly marked drop zones, which led to all of its units being scattered over a wide area; Hill himself was dropped with several sticks from the 1st Canadian and 9th Parachute Battalions near the River Dives  He landed in a submerged river rank approximately half a mile from Cabourg, and was forced to wade through four feet of water and a number of flooded irrigation ditches before reaching dry land; the same flooded areas claimed the lives of a number of paratroopers from his brigade 
Collecting up a number of his men, he headed for the town of Sallenelles, where he hoped to find out how the 9th Parachute Battalion had fared assaulting the Merville Battery  En route, however, he and his party were strafed by low-flying German aircraft, forcing the paratroopers to dive for cover; when the aircraft had departed Hill stood up again, finding that he had been wounded in the buttocks and the officer next to him had been killed  Most of the other men had either been killed or wounded during the attack, leaving only himself and the commander of his headquarters defence platoon; once first aid had been administered to the wounded, Hill continued on and finally managed reach Ranville, where the headquarters of the General Officer Commanding (GOC), Major-General Gale, had been set up  After being informed by Gale that his brigade had successfully completed its objectives, Hill had his wound tended to, and then travelled to his own headquarters; there he found Lieutenant Colonel Pearson in temporary command, who informed him that many the brigade's staff had been killed during the drop  By 00:00 on the night of 6/7 June, the entire division was fully deployed on the eastern flank of the invasion beaches  The 3rd Parachute Brigade was holding a 4-mile (6 4 km) front, with the 9th Parachute Battalion at Le Plein, 1st Canadian Parachute Battalion at Les Mesneil and the 8th Parachute Battalion in the southern part of the Bois de Bavent For the rest of its time in Normandy the division acted in an infantry role  From 7 June until 16 August, it first consolidated and then expanded its bridgehead  The 3rd Parachute Brigade was responsible for a section of front around the Chateau Saint Come and a nearby manor, with the latter being used as the brigade's primary defensive position  The brigade was positioned next to the 1st Special Service Brigade, and from 7 June onwards German pressure rapidly increased against both brigade's positions, with a number of attacks being repelled between then and 10 June  On 10 June the decision was taken to expand the bridgehead to the east of the River Orne, with the 6th Airborne Division tasked with achieving this; however, it was deemed not to be strong enough, and the 5th Battalion, Black Watch was placed under the 3rd Parachute Brigade's command; the battalion launched an attack on the town of Breville on 11 June, but was met with extremely heavy resistance and was repulsed after suffering a number of casualties  The next day 3rd Parachute Brigade's entire front was subjected to fierce artillery bombardment and assaults by German tanks and infantry, with the Germans particularly focusing on the positions held by 9th Parachute Battalion  Both the 9th Parachute Battalion and the remnants of the 5th Black Watch defended the Chateau Saint Come but were gradually forced to retreat  Lieutenant Colonel Otway informed brigade headquarters, some 400 metres (1,300 ft) away, that his battalion would be unable to hold its ground for much longer; upon hearing this message, Brigadier Hill gathered together forty paratroopers from the 1st Canadian Parachute Battalion and led a counter-attack that forced the German troops to withdraw German attempts to breach the 9th Parachute Battalion's positions did not end until 12 June, and Hill stated that the period 7–12 June were "five of the toughest days fighting I saw in five years of war " It was during this period that Hill was awarded the first Bar to his Distinguished Service Order, after supervising an assault by 12th Parachute Battalion on the town of Breville; the town dominated a long ridge near the Allied bridgehead, from which the German 346th Infantry Division launched repeated attacks  From then on until mid-August the division remained in static positions, holding the left flank of the Allied bridgehead and conducting vigorous patrolling  Finally, on 7 August the division was ordered to prepare to move over to the offensive, and on the night of 16/17 August it began to advance against stiff German opposition, its ultimate objective being the mouth of the River Seine (see 6th Airborne Division advance to the River Seine)  Hill's 3rd Parachute Brigade led the division's advance, being held up until nightfall at the village of Goustranville, but then securing several bridges and allowing the 5th Parachute Brigade to pass through its positions and continue the division's advance  The brigade remained around the Dives canal for several days, and then on 21 August it advanced towards Pont L'Eveque, but was stalled by German infantry and armour near Annebault until 8th Parachute Battalion secured the village  Fighting continued to be fierce, but by 24 August the entire division had advanced across the River Touques  After another three days of reorganising and patrolling, the division's time in Normandy came to an end; in nine days it had advanced 45 miles, captured 400 square miles (1,000 km2) of occupied territory and taken prisoner over 1,000 German soldiers  Its casualties for the period were 4,457, of which 821 would be killed, 2,709 wounded and 927 missing  It was finally withdrawn from the frontline in the last days of August, and embarked for England at the beginning of September 

Ardennes
On 16 December 1944, the Germans launched a huge offensive in the Ardennes forest, with the German objective to split British and American forces apart and capture the port of Antwerp, an important logistical base for the Allies  The initial assaults were extremely successful, creating a salient some fifty miles wide and forty-five miles deep, and by 23 December German units were advancing towards Dinant  American resistance was fierce, however, and blunted German advances in several areas, particularly the U S  101st Airborne Division around the town of Bastogne  By Christmas Day the offensive had been halted and contained, and an Allied counter-offensive began  Although the majority of the troops committed belonged to the American First and Third Armies, British XXX Corps also participated, with the British 6th Airborne Division as one of its leading divisions  The division had been in England since the beginning of September, and had been due to go on Christmas leave only days before the counter-offensive began; however, it was quickly transported to the Ardennes, arriving on the night of 24 December  By 26 December the 6th Airborne Division, now commanded by Major-General Eric Bols, had positioned itself between the towns of Dinant and Namur, and on 29 December it advanced against the German salient, with the 3rd Parachute Brigade, under James Hill, occupying an area around Rochefort When the German offensive had begun, Hill had been in hospital, undergoing reconstructive plastic surgery; this meant that he was unable to join the 3rd Parachute Brigade for two days  When he had recovered, however, he and his batman were flown to the Ardennes and he was able to rejoin the brigade  The 5th Parachute Brigade launched several attacks against German positions in the village of Bure, which resulted in heavy British casualties, and both brigades conducted a large number of offensive patrols  The 3rd Parachute Brigade did not see any action, as those German units occupying positions opposite to it withdrew without fighting  By the end of January, however, the division was transferred back to the Netherlands and set up new positions along the Maas river, where it conducted more patrolling against elements of the German 7th Parachute Division, which held positions on the other side of the Maas  These operations came to an end in late February, when the 6th Airborne Division was withdrawn back to England to prepare for a major airborne operation in March 

Rhine
On 24 March 1945 Operation Varsity began, an airborne operation to aid in the establishment of a bridgehead on the east bank of the River Rhine which involved the British 6th Airborne Division and the U S  17th Airborne Division, under Major General William Miley  Varsity was the airborne component of Operation Plunder, in which the British Second Army, under Lieutenant-General Miles C  Dempsey, and the U S  Ninth Army, under Lieutenant General William Simpson, crossed the Rhine at Rees, Wesel, and an area south of the Lippe Canal  Both divisions would be dropped near the town of Hamminkeln, and were tasked with a number of objectives: they were to seize the Diersfordter Wald, a forest that overlooked the Rhine, including a road linking several towns together; several bridges over a smaller waterway, the River Issel, were to be seized to facilitate the advance; and the town of Hamminkeln was to be captured  The 6th Airborne Division was specifically tasked with securing the northern portion of the airborne bridgehead, including Hamminkeln, a section of high ground to the east of Bergen, and several bridges over the River Issel  Hill's 3rd Parachute Brigade was to drop at the north-eastern corner of the Diersfordterwald forest and clear the western portion of the forest  It would then seize a hill known as the Schneppenberg, secure a road junction near Bergen and eventually link up with the 5th Parachute Brigade 
The 3rd Parachute Brigade dropped nine minutes later than planned, but otherwise landed accurately on drop zone 'A'  Hill landed near to the Diersfordterwald forest, which was occupied by German soldiers "who are switched-on people," killing a number of paratroopers whose parachutes became tangled up in the trees  His brigade headquarters was positioned by a copse which was supposed to have been immediately cleared, but when he arrived it was still occupied by German troops; Hill immediately ordered a company commander of the 8th Parachute Battalion to clear the copse  The officer did so, but was killed in the process  Hill then moved his headquarters to the copse, but was then nearly killed by an approaching glider which barely managed to pull up in time, landing in the trees above him; upon investigation, Hill discovered that it contained his batman and personal Jeep, which took some time to lower down safely  The brigade suffered a number of casualties as it engaged the German forces in the Diersfordter Wald, but by 11:00 hours the drop zone was all but completely clear of enemy forces and all battalions of the brigade had formed up  The key town of Schnappenberg was captured by the 9th Parachute Battalion in conjunction with the 1st Canadian Parachute Battalion, the latter unit having lost its commanding officer to German small-arms fire only moments after he had landed  Despite taking casualties the brigade cleared the area of German forces, and by 13:45 Hill could report that the brigade had secured all of its objectives 
With Varsity a success, the 6th Airborne Division was ordered by Major General Matthew Ridgway, commander of U S  XVIII Airborne Corps, to advance eastwards  It was supported by the 6th Guards Tank Brigade, and many of the airborne troops used unconventional transport during the advance, including captured German staff cars, prams and even horses  Hill requisitioned a motorcycle for his batman and travelled alongside the 3rd Parachute Brigade as it advanced; at one point his batman stopped the motorcycle and relieved a captured German colonel of his binoculars before driving off again  Hill disapproved of battlefield looting and admonished his batman, although eventually relented by stating "If you can get me a pair [as well], you can keep them!" At midnight, 27/28 March the division came under the control of British VIII Corps, commanded by Lieutenant-General Evelyn Barker, and became part of the general Allied advance through Germany towards the Baltic Sea, with the 3rd Parachute Brigade as the division's leading unit  German resistance continued to be heavy, but the division managed to advance at a rapid pace despite this, with the brigade at one point advancing fifteen miles in twenty-four hours, with eighteen of those being spent in combat  By early April the 6th Airborne reached the River Weser, with the brigade approaching it near the town of Minden, accompanied by armoured support; as it did so, the brigade found itself moving parallel to several German tanks, with Hill sitting on the rear of one of the British tanks  Both sides opened fire, but did little damage, the two German tanks managing to outpace the brigade The brigade continued its fast pace of advance, with Hill continuing to ride pillion on his motorcycle, and by 23 April it had reached the River Elbe, having advanced 103 miles in fourteen days; the division had captured more than 19,000 prisoners during this period  After crossing the Elbe, the division once again came under the command of U S  XVIII Airborne Corps, with General Ridgway informing Major General Bols that it was vital the division reach the port of Wismar before the approaching Russian Army did, to ensure that Denmark was not occupied by the Soviet Union  Although the 5th Parachute Brigade was ordered to lead the division's advance, Hill was determined to reach Wismar first; after an extremely rapid advance he succeeded, with troops from the 1st Canadian Parachute Battalion being the first to enter Wismar, beating an advancing Russian tank column by only a few miles  A few days later, on 7 May 1945, Germany surrendered and the war in Europe came to an end  Hill was awarded a second Bar to his DSO for his command of the 3rd Parachute Brigade during its advance from the Rhine to the Elbe, as well as the American Silver Star 

Post-war career
In May 1945 Hill served as military governor of Copenhagen, for which he was awarded the King Haakon VII Liberty Cross, and then assumed command of the 1st Parachute Brigade and oversaw its demobilisation  He retired from the British Army in July 1945, although he continued to serve as an officer in the Territorial Army, raising the 4th Parachute Brigade (Territorial Army) in 1947 and serving as its commanding officer until 1949  After standing down as commander of the brigade, Hill served on the board of a number of companies, including Lloyds Bank, the Associated Coal and Wharf Companies, and Powell Duffryn of Canada  Hill was an avid birdwatcher, with a particular claim to fame for being only the second person to discover a cuckoo's egg in the nest of a whinchat  He also helped to set up the Parachute Regiment Association and the Airborne Forces Security fund, acting as a trustee of the latter organisation for thirty years and chairman for five years  Hill married for a second time, wedding Joan Patricia Haywood in 1986  On 6 June 2004 he attended the 60th Anniversary of the Normandy landings, and a bronze statue of him was unveiled at Le Mesnil crossroads by Charles, Prince of Wales, Colonel-in-Chief of The Parachute Regiment  He died on 16 March 2006, two days after his 95th birthday  He is survived by his second wife and a daughter from the first marriage, Gillian Bridget Sanda 
Passage 2:
John Vereker, 6th Viscount Gort
Field Marshal John Standish Surtees Prendergast Vereker, 6th Viscount Gort,  (10 July 1886 – 31 March 1946) was a senior British Army officer  As a young officer during the First World War, he was decorated with the Victoria Cross for his actions during the Battle of the Canal du Nord  During the 1930s he served as Chief of the Imperial General Staff (the professional head of the British Army)  He is best known for commanding the British Expeditionary Force that was sent to France in the first year of the Second World War, only to be evacuated from Dunkirk the following year  Gort later served as Governor of Gibraltar and Malta, and High Commissioner for Palestine and Transjordan 

Early life and family
Vereker was born in London  His mother was Eleanor, Viscountess Gort née Surtees (1857–1933; later Eleanor Benson), who was a daughter of the writer Robert Smith Surtees  Vereker's father was John Gage Prendergast Vereker, 5th Viscount Gort (1849–1902) J  S  S  P  Vereker grew up in County Durham and the Isle of Wight  He was educated at Malvern Link Preparatory School, Harrow School, 
and entered the Royal Military College, Sandhurst in January 1904  As Viscount Gort, he was commissioned as a second lieutenant in the Grenadier Guards on 16 August 1905, and promoted to lieutenant on 1 April 1907 In November 1908, Gort visited his uncle, Jeffrey Edward Prendergast Vereker, a retired British army major, who was living in Canada, at Kenora, Ontario  During a moose hunting trip, Gort slipped off a large boulder, causing his rifle to discharge; the bullet injured a local guide, William Prettie, who later died of his wound in Winnipeg  Gort returned immediately to England  While studying at Trinity College, Cambridge he was initiated into Isaac Newton University Lodge Gort commanded the detachment of Grenadier Guards that bore the coffin at the funeral of King Edward VII in May 1910  He was made a Member of the Royal Victorian Order for his services in that role On 22 February 1911, Gort married Corinna Katherine Vereker, his second cousin; the couple had two sons and a daughter, before divorcing (1925)  Their elder son, Charles Standish Vereker, was born on 23 February 1912, and served as a lieutenant with the Grenadier Guards, before committing suicide (26 February 1941)  A second son, Jocelyn Cecil Vereker, was born on 27 July 1913, but died before his second birthday  Gort's daughter, Jacqueline Corinne Yvonne Vereker, who was born on 20 October 1914, married (June 1940) The Honourable William Sidney, later the 1st Viscount De L'Isle 

First World War
On 5 August 1914, Gort was promoted to captain  He went to France with the British Expeditionary Force and fought on the Western Front, taking part in the retreat from Mons in August 1914  He became a staff officer with the First Army in December 1914 and then became Brigade Major of the 4th (Guards) Brigade in April 1915  He was awarded the Military Cross in June 1915  Promoted to the brevet rank of major in June 1916, he became a staff officer at the Headquarters of the British Expeditionary Force and fought at the Battle of the Somme throughout the autumn of 1916  He was given the acting rank of lieutenant-colonel in April 1917 on appointment as Commanding Officer of 4th Battalion Grenadier Guards and, having been awarded the Distinguished Service Order (DSO) in June 1917, he led his battalion at the Battle of Passchendaele, earning a Bar to his DSO in September 1917  The bar's citation reads:
For conspicuous gallantry and devotion to duty  Although hit in two places in the shoulder by the bursting of a shell early in the day and in great pain, he refused to leave his battalion, and personally superintended the consolidation subsequent to a successful attack  He remained with them until 5 p m  on the following day, when he was ordered to come out and have his wounds dressed  His conduct set a very fine example of self-sacrifice, and was of great value in maintaining the high morale and offensive spirit of his battalion 
On 27 November 1918, sixteen days after the war came to an end, Gort was awarded the Victoria Cross, the highest award for gallantry in the face of the enemy that can be awarded to British and Commonwealth forces, for his actions on 27 September 1918 at the Battle of the Canal du Nord, near Flesquieres, France Victoria Cross citation

Captain (Brevet Major, Acting Lieutenant-Colonel), 1st Battalion The Grenadier Guards
Citation: For most conspicuous bravery, skilful leading and devotion to duty during the attack of the Guards Division on 27th September 1918, across the Canal du Nord, near Flesquieres, when in command of the 1st Battalion, Grenadier Guards, the leading battalion of the 3rd Guards Brigade 
Under heavy artillery and machine-gun fire he led his battalion with great skill and determination to the "forming-up" ground, where very severe fire from artillery and machine guns was again encountered 
Although wounded, he quickly grasped the situation, directed a platoon to proceed down a sunken road to make a flanking attack, and, under terrific fire, went across open ground to obtain the assistance of a Tank, which he personally led and directed to the best possible advantage  While thus fearlessly exposing himself, he was again severely wounded by a shell  Notwithstanding considerable loss of blood, after lying on a stretcher for a while, he insisted on getting up and personally directing the further attack  By his magnificent example of devotion to duty and utter disregard of personal safety all ranks were inspired to exert themselves to the utmost, and the attack resulted in the capture of over 200 prisoners, two batteries of field guns and numerous machine guns  Lt -Col  Viscount Gort then proceeded to organise the defence of the captured position until he collapsed; even then he refused to leave the field until he had seen the "success signal" go up on the final objective 

The successful advance of the battalion was mainly due to the valour, devotion and leadership of this very gallant officer 
Subsequent to this he became known as "Tiger" Gort  He won a second Bar to his DSO in January 1919, with the citation reading:

For conspicuous gallantry and devotion to duty in command of his battalion  He led his men up by night to relieve a battalion which had attacked and failed to reach its objective  Regardless of danger he personally reconnoitred the line ahead of his troops, and got them on to the objective before dawn  During the three following days he again made forward reconnaissances, and leading his battalion gradually on, advanced the line 800 yards and gained a canal bank  It is impossible to speak too highly of this officer's initiative 
He was also mentioned in despatches eight times during the war 

Inter-war years
Gort was promoted to the substantive rank of major on 21 October 1919  After attending a short course at the Staff College, Camberley, in 1919 he joined Headquarters London District and, having been promoted to brevet lieutenant-colonel on 1 January 1921, he returned to the College as an instructor  He left the Staff College in May 1923 Gort was promoted to colonel in April 1926 (with seniority backdated to 1 January 1925)  In 1926 he became a staff officer at London District before becoming a chief instructor at the Senior Officers' School at Sheerness  In January 1927, he went to Shanghai, returning in August to give a first-hand account of the Chinese situation to the King and the Prince of Wales  He returned home to be a staff officer at Headquarters 4th Infantry Division at Colchester in July 1927 In June 1928, Gort was appointed a Commander of the Order of the British Empire  He went on to command the Guards Brigade for two years from 1930 before overseeing training in India with the temporary rank of brigadier  In 1932, he took up flying, buying the de Havilland Moth aircraft Henrietta and being elected chairman of the Household Brigade Flying Club  On 25 November 1935, he was promoted, at the relatively young age (in peacetime, where promotion was painfully slow) of 49, to major-general  He returned to the Staff College in 1936 as its Commandant In May 1937, Gort was appointed a Companion of the Order of the Bath  In September 1937, he became Military Secretary to the War Minister, Leslie Hore-Belisha, with the temporary rank of lieutenant-general  On 6 December 1937, as part of a purge by Hore-Belisha of senior officers, Gort was appointed to the Army Council, made a general and replaced Field Marshal Sir Cyril Deverell as Chief of the Imperial General Staff (CIGS)  On 1 January 1938, he was made a Knight Commander of the Order of the Bath  His appointment was generally well received in the army, although there was some resentment in his having passed over a number of much older and more senior officers, among them John Dill, Archibald Wavell and Alan Brooke, who would later become an outspoken critic of Gort  He was not especially highly regarded for his intelligence and so Major General Ronald Adam was appointed to be Gort's Deputy Chief of the Imperial General Staff As CIGS, Gort advocated the primacy of building a land army and defending France and the Low Countries over Imperial defence after France had said she would not be able on her own to defend herself against a German attack On 2 December 1938 Gort submitted a report on the readiness of the British Army  He observed that Nazi Germany, as a result of the acquisition of Czechoslovakia, was in a stronger position than the previous year and that as a result of the government's decision in 1937 to create a "general purpose" army, Britain lacked the necessary forces for the defence of France On 21 December Gort recommended to the Chiefs of Staff that Britain would need to help France defend the Netherlands and Belgium and that for that purpose the British Army needed complete equipment for four Regular army infantry divisions and two mobile armoured divisions, with the Territorial army armed with training equipment and then war equipment for four divisions  The First Sea Lord, Admiral Sir Roger Backhouse, replied that Britain's continental commitment might not be a limited liability  Gort replied: "Lord Kitchener had clearly pointed out that no great country can wage a 'little' war"  He also attacked as a fallacy the theory of strategic mobility by the use of seapower because in modern war land transport was faster and cheaper than transport by sea  The experience of David Lloyd George's 1917 Alexandretta project "proved that [maritime side-shows] invariably led to vast commitments out of all proportion to the value of the object attained"  If a purely defensive position was taken the Maginot Line would be broken, and the British Army (with anti-aircraft defence) was only getting £277 million out of a total £2,000 million spent on defence 

Second World War
On the outbreak of the Second World War, Gort was appointed by Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain as the Commander-in-Chief of the British Expeditionary Force (BEF) in France, arriving there on 19 September 1939 During this time Gort played a part in a political manoeuvre, the Pillbox affair, that led to the dismissal of War Minister Leslie Hore-Belisha  Unimpressed by his qualities for command, Hore-Belisha described Gort as: "utterly brainless and unable to grasp the simplest problem"  Gort dismissed his subordinates' critiques of the Allies' Plan D, including his former friend Alan Brooke's correct prediction that it would allow the Wehrmacht to outflank the Allied forces, as defeatist Following the period of the "Phoney War", the Wehrmacht's attack and breakthrough in the Ardennes in May 1940 succeeded in splitting the Allied Armies, and surrounding the French First Army and BEF, Gort took the unilateral decision to abandon his orders received from the British Government for a southward attack to be made to support the French Army, instead on 25 May 1940 ordering a retreat by the BEF northwards to the French coast  On reaching the coast Gort oversaw the en masse retirement of the BEF back to the British Isles, involving the Battle of Dunkirk and the Dunkirk evacuation, while France was defeated and surrendered to Nazi Germany four weeks later With regard to his conduct as C -in-C  in France in 1940, Gort is credited by some historians as reacting efficiently to the crisis and saving the BEF, while others hold a more critical view of his leadership, seeing his decision to abandon France during Germany's attack into the west as defeatist Gort went on to serve in various positions for the remainder of the war, but the chaotic rout of the BEF under his command from France had convinced Winston Churchill, the newly installed British Prime Minister, that he was undesirable as a field commander, and he was side-lined to non-combatant posts  On the day of his return to England from France on 1 June 1940 he was appointed an ADC General to George VI  On 25 June he went by flying boat, with Duff Cooper, to Rabat, Morocco, to rally anti-Nazi French cabinet ministers, but was instead held on his flying boat  He quickly returned to Britain 
Gort was given the post of Inspector of Training and the Home Guard, and with nothing constructive to do visited Iceland, Orkney and Shetland   He went on to serve as Governor of Gibraltar (1941–42)  In 1943 he succeeded Lord Galway as Colonel Commandant of the Honourable Artillery Company, a position he held until his death 
As Governor of Malta (1942–44), Gort's courage and leadership during the siege was recognised by the Maltese giving him the Sword of Honour  He pushed ahead with extending the airfield into land reclaimed from the sea, against the advice of the British government, but was later thanked by the War Cabinet for his foresight when the airfield proved vital to the British Mediterranean campaign  The King gave Gort his field marshal's baton on 20 June 1943 at Malta   On 29 September, Gort, together with Generals Dwight D  Eisenhower and Harold Alexander, witnessed Marshal Pietro Badoglio signing the Italian surrender in Valletta harbour Gort was present when his son-in-law, Major William Sidney, received the Victoria Cross from General Sir Harold Alexander, Commander-in-Chief (C-in-C) of the Allied Armies in Italy, on 3 March 1944 in Italy 
Gort ended the war as High Commissioner for Palestine and Transjordan  He served in this office for only one year  In 1945 he nominated William James Fitzgerald, Chief Justice of Palestine, to enquire into the Jewish-Arab conflict in Jerusalem  Chief Justice Fitzgerald issued his report in which he proposed to divide the city into separate Jewish and Arab Quarters  Despite growing tensions in Palestine, Gort strove to cultivate good personal relations with both Jews and Arabs, and was greatly admired and respected by the Jewish and Arab communities 
During his time in Palestine, Gort's health deteriorated, and he was suffering from great pain and discomfort in his abdomen  He was in fact suffering from liver cancer, but the doctors he consulted in London were unable to properly diagnose his condition  Gort ruled Palestine at the time that the Jewish insurgency was beginning  Despite his efforts, he was unable to stem the growing confrontation between the Yishuv (Jewish community) and British authorities  On 5 November 1945, he stepped down as High Commissioner and returned to Britain  Commenting on his departure, The Palestine Post wrote that "No High Commissioner in the twenty-five years of British rule in Palestine enjoyed greater popular trust and none repaid it with greater personal kindness "

Death
After leaving Palestine and returning to England, Gort was admitted to Guy's Hospital in London, where exploratory surgery revealed that he was dying from inoperable liver cancer  In February 1946 he was created a Viscount in the Peerage of the United Kingdom under the same title as his existing Viscountcy in the Peerage of Ireland  On 31 March 1946, he died in Guy's Hospital at the age of 59 years  As he did not have a surviving son, the Irish Viscountcy of Gort passed to his brother, Standish Vereker, and the British creation became extinct  His body was entombed in the Sidney family vault at St  John the Baptist Church, Penshurst, in the county of Kent 

Film portrayal
Gort was portrayed by Cyril Raymond in the film Dunkirk (1958) 
Passage 3:
Richard O'Connor
General Sir Richard Nugent O'Connor,  (21 August 1889 – 17 June 1981) was a senior British Army officer who fought in both the First and Second World Wars, and commanded the Western Desert Force in the early years of the Second World War  He was the field commander for Operation Compass, in which his forces destroyed a much larger Italian army – a victory which nearly drove the Axis from Africa, and in turn, led Adolf Hitler to send the Afrika Korps under Erwin Rommel to try to reverse the situation  O'Connor was captured by a German reconnaissance patrol during the night of 7 April 1941 and spent over two years in an Italian prisoner of war camp  He eventually escaped after the fall of Mussolini in the autumn of 1943  In 1944 he commanded VIII Corps in the Battle of Normandy and later during Operation Market Garden  In 1945 he was General Officer in Command of the Eastern Command in India and then, in the closing days of British rule in the subcontinent, he headed Northern Command  His final job in the army was Adjutant-General to the Forces in London, in charge of the British Army's administration, personnel and organisation 
In honour of his war service, O'Connor was recognised with the highest level of knighthood in two different orders of chivalry  He was also awarded the Distinguished Service Order (twice), the Military Cross, the French Croix de Guerre and the Legion of Honour, and served as aide-de-camp to King George VI  He was also mentioned in despatches nine times for actions in the First World War, once in Palestine in 1939 and three times in the Second World War 

Early life
Richard Nugent O'Connor was born in Srinagar, Kashmir, India, on 21 August 1889  His father, Maurice O'Connor, was a major in the Royal Irish Fusiliers, and his mother, Lilian Morris, was the daughter of a former governor of India's central provinces  He attended Tonbridge Castle School in 1899 and The Towers School in Crowthorne in 1902  In 1903, aged 13, and after his father's death in an accident, he moved to Wellington College  "His career there was not distinguished in any way", however, although he enjoyed his time there Following this, he went to the Royal Military College at Sandhurst in January 1908  Despite his success in later life, his time there, as at Wellington (only a few miles away from Sandhurst), was not remarkable, and he did not mention his time there even in his later life   A year ahead of him at the college was a man who would play a significant role in O'Connor's future military career and life  This was Bernard Montgomery, about two years older than O'Connor, although it is unknown if the two men knew of each other at this very early stage of their military careers Passing out 38th in the order of merit, in September of the following year O'Connor, anxious to join a Scottish regiment, was commissioned, as a second lieutenant and posted to the 2nd Battalion of his new regiment, Cameronians (Scottish Rifles), the regiment of his choice, recruiting from Glasgow and Lanarkshire, and with which he was to maintain close ties with for the rest of his life  The battalion was initially stationed in Aldershot when O'Connor joined them in October 1909 before being rotated, in January 1910, to Colchester  It was here where he received signals and rifle training, after attending courses for both, resulting in his being appointed a regimental signals officer for the former, and becoming a distinguished marksman after attending the Small Arms School at Hythe, Kent  In September 1911 the battalion sailed for Malta where it was to remain for the next three years as part of a Malta brigade, with O'Connor, now a lieutenant (having been promoted to that rank in May), continuing in his role as regimental signals officer   By now it was becoming obvious that a war in Europe was on the horizon  As a result, for O'Connor, who at some point was appointed the Malta brigade's signal officer, the years of 1913 and 1914 were spent in training the men under his command for the duties that they would one day have to perform in battle 

First World War
During the First World War, O'Connor initially served as signals officer of the 22nd Brigade in the 7th Division and captain in command of the 7th Division's Signals Company  From October 1916, as a captain and later as a brevet major, he served as brigade major of 91st Brigade, 7th Division  He was awarded the Military Cross (MC) in February 1915  In March of that year he saw action at Arras and Bullecourt  O'Connor was awarded the Distinguished Service Order (DSO) and appointed brevet lieutenant-colonel while he was in command of the 2nd Infantry Battalion of the Honourable Artillery Company, part of the 7th Division, in June 1917  The citation for his DSO reads:

For conspicuous gallantry and resource  In consequence of a change in the situation a revision of plans became necessary, but, owing to darkness and heavy shelling, confusion arose  By his courage and promptness he quickly restored order, and organised a successful attack 
In November of that year, the division was ordered to support the Italians against the Austro-Hungarian forces at the River Piave which then formed part of the Italian Front  In late October 1918 the 2nd Battalion captured the island of Grave di Papadopoli on the Piave River for which O'Connor received the Italian Silver Medal of Military Valor and a Bar to his DSO At the end of the war, O'Connor reverted to his rank of captain and served as regimental adjutant from April to December 1919 

Between the wars
O'Connor attended the Staff College, Camberley in 1920  O'Connor's other service in the years between the world wars included an appointment from 1921 to 1924 as brigade major of the Experimental Brigade (or 5 Brigade) under the command of J  F  C  Fuller, which was formed to test methods and procedures for using tanks and aircraft in co-ordination with infantry and artillery 
He returned to his old unit, the Cameronians (Scottish Rifles), as adjutant from February 1924 to 1925  From 1925 to 1927 he served as a company commander at Sandhurst  He returned to the Staff College, Camberley as an instructor from October 1927 to January 1930  In 1930 O'Connor again served with the 1st Battalion, Cameronians (Scottish Rifles) in Egypt and from 1931 to 1932 in Lucknow, India  From April 1932 to January 1935 he was a general staff officer, grade 2 at the War Office  He attended the Imperial Defence College in London in 1935  In April 1936 O'Connor was promoted to full colonel and appointed temporary brigadier to assume command of the Peshawar Brigade in north west India  In September 1938 O'Connor was promoted to major-general and appointed General Officer Commanding 7th Infantry Division in Palestine, along with the additional responsibility as Military Governor of Jerusalem  For his services in Palestine O'Connor was mentioned in despatches In August 1939, shortly before the outbreak of the Second World War, the 7th Division was transferred to the fortress at Mersa Matruh, Egypt, where O'Connor was concerned with defending the area against a potential attack from the massed forces of the Italian Tenth Army over the border in Libya  The 7th Division later converted to become the 6th Division in November 1939  He was appointed a Companion of the Order of the Bath in July 1940 

Second World War
Italian Offensive and Operation Compass
Italy declared war on Britain and France on 10 June 1940 and, soon after, O'Connor was appointed commander of the Western Desert Force  He was tasked by Lieutenant-General Henry Maitland Wilson, commander of the British troops in Egypt, to push the Italian force out of Egypt, to protect the Suez Canal and British interests from attack On 13 September, Graziani struck: his leading divisions advanced sixty miles into Egypt where they reached the town of Sidi Barrani and, short of supplies, began to dig in  O'Connor then began to prepare for a counterattack  He had the 7th Armoured Division and the Indian 4th Infantry Division along with two brigades  British and Commonwealth troops in Egypt totalled around 36,000 men  The Italians had nearly five times as many troops along with hundreds more tanks and artillery pieces and the support of a much larger air force  Meanwhile, small raiding columns were sent out from the 7th Armoured and newly formed Long Range Desert Group to probe, harass, and disrupt the Italians (this marked the start of what became the Special Air Service)  The Royal Navy and Royal Air Force supported by bombarding enemy strongpoints, airfields and rear areas 
 During November, O'Connor was appointed an acting lieutenant-general in recognition of the increased size of his command The counteroffensive, Operation Compass, began on 8 December 1940  O'Connor's relatively small force of 31,000 men, 275 tanks and 120 artillery pieces, ably supported by an RAF wing and the Royal Navy, broke through a gap in the Italian defences at Sidi Barrani near the coast  The Desert Force cut a swath through the Italian rear areas, stitching its way between the desert and the coast, capturing strongpoint after strongpoint by cutting off and isolating them  The Italian guns proved to be no match for the heavy British Matilda tanks and their shells bounced off the armour  By mid-December the Italians had been pushed completely out of Egypt, leaving behind 38,000 prisoners and large stores of equipment The Desert Force paused to rest briefly before continuing the assault into Italian Libya against the remainder of Graziani's disorganised army  At that point, the Commander-in-Chief Middle East General Sir Archibald Wavell ordered the 4th Indian Division withdrawn to spearhead the invasion of Italian East Africa  This veteran division was to be replaced by the inexperienced 6th Australian Division, which, although tough, was untrained for desert warfare  Despite this setback, the offensive continued with minimal delay  By the end of 6 December the Australians besieged and took Bardia along with 40,000 more prisoners and 400 guns 
In early January 1941, the Western Desert Force was redesignated XIII Corps  On 9 January, the offensive resumed  By 12 January the strategic fortress port of Tobruk was surrounded  On 22 January it fell and another 27,000 Italian POWs were taken along with valuable supplies, food, and weapons  As Tobruk fell it was decided to have XIII Corps answerable directly to Wavell at HQ Middle East Command, removing HQ British troops Egypt from the chain of command  On 26 January the remaining Italian divisions in eastern Libya began to retreat to the northwest along the coast  O'Connor promptly moved to pursue and cut them off, sending his armour southwest through the desert in a wide flanking movement, while the infantry gave chase along the coast to the north  The lightly armoured advance units of 4th Armoured Brigade arrived at Beda Fomm before the fleeing Italians on 5 February, blocking the main coast road and their route of escape  Two days later, after a costly and failed attempt to break through the blockade, and with the main British infantry force fast bearing down on them from Benghazi to the north, the demoralised, exhausted Italians unconditionally capitulated  O'Connor and Eric Dorman-Smith cabled back to Wavell, "Fox killed in the open   "In two months, the XIII Corps/Western Desert Force had advanced over 800 miles (1,300 km), destroyed an entire Italian army of ten divisions, taken over 130,000 prisoners, 400 tanks and 1,292 guns at the cost of 500 killed and 1,373 wounded  In recognition of this, O'Connor was made a Knight Commander of the Order of the Bath 

Reversal and capture
In a strategic sense, however, the victory of Operation Compass was not yet complete; the Italians still controlled most of Libya and possessed forces which would have to be dealt with  The Axis foothold in North Africa would remain a potential threat to Egypt and the Suez Canal so long as this situation continued  O'Connor was aware of this and urged Wavell to allow him to push on to Tripoli with all due haste to finish off the Italians  Wavell concurred as did Lieutenant-General Sir Henry Maitland Wilson, now the military governor of Cyrenaica, and XIII Corps resumed its advance  However, O'Connor's new offensive would prove short-lived: when the corps reached El Agheila, just to the southwest of Beda Fomm, Churchill ordered the advance to halt there  The Axis had invaded Greece and Wavell was ordered to send all available forces there as soon as possible to oppose this  Wavell took the 6th Australian Division, along with part of 7th Armoured Division and most of the supplies and air support for this ultimately doomed operation  XIII Corps HQ was wound down and in February 1941 O'Connor was appointed General Officer Commanding-in-Chief the British Troops in Egypt Matters were soon to become much worse for the British  By March 1941, Hitler had dispatched General Erwin Rommel along with the Afrika Korps to bolster the Italians in Libya  Wavell and O'Connor now faced a formidable foe under a commander whose cunning, resourcefulness, and daring would earn him the nickname "the Desert Fox"  Rommel wasted little time in launching his own offensive on 31 March  The inexperienced 2nd Armoured Division was soundly defeated and on 2 April Wavell came forward to review matters with Lieutenant-General Sir Philip Neame, by now the commander of British and Commonwealth troops in Cyrenaica (Wilson having left to command the Allied expeditionary force in Greece)  O'Connor was called forward and arrived from Cairo the next day, but declined to assume Neame's command because of his lack of familiarity with the prevailing conditions  However, he agreed to stay to advise On 6 April O'Connor and Neame, while travelling to their headquarters which had been withdrawn from Maraua to Timimi, were captured by a German patrol near Martuba 

Captivity and escape
O'Connor spent the next two and a half years as a prisoner of war, mainly at the Castello di Vincigliata near Florence, Italy  Here he and Neame were in the company of such figures as Major-General Sir Adrian Carton de Wiart and Air Vice Marshal Owen Tudor Boyd  Although the conditions of their imprisonment were not unpleasant, the officers soon formed an escape club and began planning a break-out  Their first attempt, a simple attempt to climb over the castle walls, resulted in a month's solitary confinement  The second attempt, by an escape tunnel built between October 1942 and March 1943, had some success, with two New Zealander brigadiers, James Hargest and Reginald Miles, reaching Switzerland  O'Connor and Carton de Wiart, travelling on foot, were at large for a week but were captured near Bologna in the Po Valley  Once again, a month's solitary confinement was the result It was only after the Italian surrender in September 1943 that the final, successful, attempt was made  With help from the Italian resistance movement, Boyd, O'Connor and Neame escaped while being transferred from Vincigliati  After a failed rendezvous with a submarine, they arrived by boat at Termoli, then went on to Bari where they were welcomed as guests by General Sir Harold Alexander, commanding the Allied Armies in Italy (AAI), then fighting on the Italian Front, along with the American General Dwight D  Eisenhower, on 21 December 1943  Upon his return to Britain, O'Connor was presented with the knighthood he had been awarded in 1941 and promoted to lieutenant-general  Montgomery suggested that O'Connor be his successor as British Eighth Army commander, but that post was instead given to Oliver Leese and O'Connor was given a corps to command 

VIII Corps and Normandy
On 21 January 1944 O'Connor became commander of VIII Corps, which consisted of the Guards Armoured Division, 11th Armoured Division, 15th (Scottish) Infantry Division, along with 6th Guards Tank Brigade, 8th Army Group Royal Artillery and 2nd Household Cavalry Regiment  The corps formed part of the British Second Army, commanded by Lieutenant-General Miles Dempsey, which itself was part of the Anglo-Canadian 21st Army Group, commanded by General Sir Bernard Montgomery, a friend who had also been a fellow instructor at the Staff College, Camberley in the 1920s, in addition to having served together in Palestine some years before  O'Connor's new command was to take part in Operation Overlord, the Allied invasion of German-occupied France, although it was not scheduled for the initial landings as it was to form part of the second wave to go ashore On 11 June 1944, five days after the initial landings in Normandy, O'Connor and the leading elements of VIII Corps arrived in Normandy in the sector around Caen, which would be the scene of much hard fighting during the next few weeks  O'Connor's first mission (with the 43rd (Wessex) Infantry Division under command, replacing the Guards Armoured Division) was to mount Operation Epsom, a break out from the bridgehead established by the 3rd Canadian Infantry Division, cross the Odon and Orne rivers, then secure the high-ground positions northeast of Bretteville-sur-Laize and cut Caen off from the south  The break-out and river crossings were accomplished promptly  The army group commander, Montgomery, congratulated O'Connor and his VIII Corps on their success  But cutting off Caen would prove much harder  VIII Corps was pushed back over the Orne  O'Connor tried to re-establish a bridgehead during Operation Jupiter with the 43rd (Wessex) Division, but met with little success  Although the operation had failed to achieve its tactical objectives, Montgomery was pleased with the strategic benefits in the commitment and fixing of the German armoured reserves to the Caen sector After being withdrawn into reserve on 12 July, the next major action for VIII Corps would be Operation Goodwood, for which the corps was stripped of its infantry divisions but had a third armoured division (7th Armoured Division) attached  The attack began on 18 July with a massive aerial bombardment by the 9th USAAF, and ended on 20 July with a three-pronged drive to capture Bras and Hubert-Folie on the right, Fontenay on the left, and Bourguébus Ridge in the centre  However, the attack ground to a halt in pouring rain, turning the battlefield into a quagmire, with the major objectives still not taken, notably the Bourguebus Ridge which was the key to any break-out 
Restored to its pre-invasion formation but with British 3rd Infantry Division attached, the corps was switched to the southwest of Caen to take part in Operation Bluecoat  15th (Scottish) Division attacked towards Vire to the east and west of Bois du Homme in order to facilitate the American advance in Operation Cobra (O'Connor, 5/3/25 July 29 1944)  A swift drive was followed by fierce fighting to the south during the first two days of the advance, with both sides taking heavy losses As the allies prepared to pursue the Germans from France, O'Connor learned that VIII Corps would not take part in this phase of the campaign  VIII Corps was placed in reserve, and its transport used to supply XXX Corps and XII Corps  His command was reduced in mid-August, with the transfer of the Guards Armoured Divisions and 11th Armoured Division to XXX Corps and 15th (Scottish) Division to XII Corps  While in reserve, O'Connor maintained an active correspondence with Montgomery, Hobart and others, making suggestions for improvements of armoured vehicles and addressing various other problems such as combat fatigue  Some of his recommendations were followed up; such as for mounting "rams" on armoured vehicles in order to cope with the difficult hedgerow country (O'Connor, 5/3/41- 5/3/44 Aug 24, 26 1944) 

Operation Market Garden and India
O'Connor remained in command of VIII Corps, for the time being, and was given the task of supporting Lieutenant-General Brian Horrocks' XXX Corps in Operation Market Garden, the plan by Montgomery to establish a bridgehead across the Rhine in the Netherlands  Following their entry into Weert at the end of September, VIII Corps prepared for and took part in Operation Aintree, the advance towards Venray and Venlo beginning on 12 October However, on 27 November O'Connor was removed from his post and was ordered to take over from Lieutenant-General Sir Mosley Mayne as GOC-in-C, Eastern Command, India  Smart's account says that Montgomery prompted the move for, "not being ruthless enough with his American subordinates", although Mead states that the initiative was taken by Field Marshal Sir Alan Brooke, the Chief of the Imperial General Staff (CIGS), but Montgomery made no attempt to retain O'Connor  He was succeeded as GOC VIII Corps by Major-General Evelyn Barker, a much younger man and formerly the GOC of the 49th (West Riding) Infantry Division who had been one of O'Connor's students at the Staff College at Camberley in the late 1920s  This marked the end of a long and distinguished combat career, although the new job was an important one, controlling the lines of communication of the Fourteenth Army  O'Connor was mentioned in despatches for the thirteenth and final time of his career on 22 March 1945 Having been promoted to full general in April 1945, O'Connor was appointed GOC-in-C North Western Army in India in October that year (the formation was renamed Northern Command in November of that year)  By now the war was over 

Post-war
From 1946 to 1947 he was Adjutant-General to the Forces and aide-de-camp general to the King  His career as adjutant general was to be short-lived, however  After a disagreement over a cancelled demobilisation for troops stationed in the Far East, O'Connor offered his resignation in September 1947, which was accepted  Montgomery, by then the CIGS in succession to Brooke, maintained that he had been sacked, rather than resigned, for being, "not up to the job " Not long after this he was installed as a Knight Grand Cross of the Order of the Bath 

Retirement and final years
O'Connor retired in 1948 at the age of fifty-eight  However, he maintained his links with the army and took on other responsibilities  He was Commandant of the Army Cadet Force in Scotland from 1948 to 1959; Colonel of the Cameronians, 1951 to 1954; Lord lieutenant of Ross and Cromarty from 1955 to 1964 and served as Lord High Commissioner to the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland in 1964  His first wife, Jean, died in 1959, and in 1963 he married Dorothy Russell In July 1971, he was created Knight of the Order of the Thistle  O’Connor was interviewed concerning North African operations in episode 8, "The Desert: North Africa (1940–1943)”, of the acclaimed British documentary television series, The World at War  O'Connor died in London on 17 June 1981, just two months shy of his 92nd birthday  There was a small funeral, attended only by his family  There were also two memorial services, one held in London on 15 July, with O'Connor's great friend and admirer, Field Marshal Lord Harding, as he was now known, giving the address, where he stated the following:

Dick O'Connor was my ideal of a commander in battle; always approachable and ready to listen, yet firm and decisive and always fair in his judgement of people and events; modest to a degree, shunning the limelight and embarassed by praise; calmly resolute and courageously determined 
The second memorial service was held in Edinburgh on 11 August, where Lieutenant General Sir George Collingwood, who had been O'Connor's aide-de-camp in the late 1930s, made the address  Making references to O'Connor's campaign in the desert some forty years earlier, he then mentioned his numerous attempts to escape from captivity, along with his happy private life and his two "wonderful partners in the home", before ending his address with:

So there is in a sense a picture of three different people  The dedicated soldier and brilliant fighting Commander, a prisoner of war exerting all his energies and taking great risks to escape and return to serve his Country, and the quiet, unassuming little country gentleman with the kindly smile and charming manners, who was a wonderful host and a wonderful guest, but of course it was one and the same person and the chief facets of his character were, I think, great courage and determination, an impelling sense of duty, loyalty, extreme personal modesty, kindness and generosity and a delightful sense of humour  I think the jokes he liked best were those against himself 

Notes



ground_truth: George H. W. Bush

prompt_front: Answer the question based on the given passages. Only give me the answer and do not output any other words.

Question: Broadbent Arena and Freedom Hall are landmarks of which U.S. city?

The following are given passages.
Context 2: 
Freedom Hall has hosted campaign rallies for two U S  presidents: John F  Kennedy and Donald Trump 

Tenant history
The Kentucky Colonels fielded successful teams during their tenure at Freedom Hall, winning the American Basketball Association (ABA) Championship in the 1974–75 season and reaching the ABA Finals two other times  The 1970-71 team played in the ABA Championship Finals, losing to the Utah Stars in 7 games  The 1972-73 team advanced to the Finals again, losing to the Indiana Pacers in 7 games  The Colonels were disbanded when the ABA merged with the National Basketball Association in 1976  Hall of Fame players Dan Issel and Artis Gilmore played for the Colonels during their successful run  Hall of Fame Coach Hubie Brown coached the Colonels Championship team In 1984 the facility was refurbished, including lowering the floor to allow maximum capacity to increase from 16,664 to 18,865 for basketball  It was the full-time home of Cardinal men's basketball from the 1957–58 season to 2010, with the team winning 82% of home games in 50+ seasons  The University of Louisville was ranked in the Top 5 in attendance for the past 25 years, with 16 of the last 19 years averaging more than 100% of capacity 
In addition to being the home of the Cardinals, Freedom Hall has hosted NCAA tournament games ten times, including six Final Fours between 1958 and 1969  The arena has also hosted 11 conference tournaments, nine Metro Conference Tournaments and two Conference USA tournaments—2001 and 2003  It has also hosted the Kentucky Boys' High School State Basketball Tournament (also known as the Sweet 16) 23 times, including every year from 1965 to 1978  In 1984, the floor of the arena was lowered about 10 feet (3 0 m) to increase the capacity of the arena from 16,613 to its current figure  In the 1996–97 season Freedom Hall averaged an attendance of 19,590 surpassing arena capacity  Freedom Hall hosts the Championship tractor pull every February during the National Farm Machinery Show 
From 2001 to 2008, the arena football team Louisville Fire of the af2 played in Freedom Hall before ceasing operations 
On the lower level is the Kentucky Athletic Hall of Fame where an engraved bronze plaque honors each inductee The University of Louisville men's basketball team played their final game at Freedom Hall in front of a record crowd of 20,138 on March 6, 2010, against Syracuse University, the #1 ranked team in the nation  Louisville won in an upset 78–68 
The arena began to gain new tenants in 2012 with the addition of the Kentucky Stickhorses, and in 2013, with the addition of the Kentucky Xtreme  However, the Kentucky Stickhorses folded in 2014 after the lack of wins and the lack of attendance  The Kentucky Xtreme were suspended mid-season with other teams playing the remainder of their season  In 2020, the Bellarmine University Knights selected Freedom Hall as their home for men's and women's basketball 

Gallery
See also
List of events at Freedom Hall
KFC Yum! Center
Sports in Louisville, Kentucky
List of attractions and events in the Louisville metropolitan area
Passage 5:
Cleveland City Hall
Cleveland City Hall is the seat of government for the City of Cleveland, Ohio, and the home of Cleveland City Council and the office of the Mayor of Cleveland  It opened in 1916 and is located at 601 Lakeside Avenue in the Civic Center area of Downtown Cleveland  The building was the first of its kind designed by Cleveland architect J  Milton Dyer for governmental purposes for a major U S  city  At the time of its construction, City Hall was to continue the city planning of Daniel Burnham's 1903 Group Plan  City Hall stands as a historic landmark that was added to the Cleveland Landmarks Commission The rotunda in the building has been the site of numerous weddings, rallies, protests, and galas  The body of U S  Representative Louis Stokes lay in state in the rotunda for the public to pay their respects after his death in 2015 

Construction
The original design had been finalized by 1907 and features Neoclassical elements, but it would take nearly 10 more years before that design would be realized  By the time of its construction, Dyer had undertaken several important building commissions in the Cleveland area and was known for his ornate but refined style of architecture  The building cost $3 million in 1916 (equivalent to $81 million in 2022) and took nearly five years to complete with construction commencing in 1912  The building is located on the bluff that overlooks the North Coast Harbor district that abuts Lake Erie and the Port of Cleveland  
The Cleveland City Council Chambers underwent major renovations in 1951 and 1977  However, the outside of the building has remained largely unchanged since 1916, save for normal repairs, refittings and the usual upkeep of the superstructure  City Hall stands next to Willard Park and The Mall and is across the street from Public Hall 

Occupants
The following city agencies are in building:
Mayor's Office Subdivisions
Building and Housing
Civil Service Commission
Community Development
Community Relations
Finance
Law
Personnel and Human Resources
Public SafetyThe city of Cleveland has numerous other agencies and departments spread throughout downtown buildings, these include, Carl B  Stokes Public Works Building which is headquarters to Cleveland Division of Water, the Tower at Erieview, Cleveland Public Powerhouse and Public Hall, among others  As with other major U S  cities as the city expanded and diversified, the City Hall building could no longer house all of the needed departments 

See also
Downtown Cleveland
Civic Center (Cleveland)
Passage 6:
Louisville RiverFrogs
The Louisville RiverFrogs were a professional ice hockey team competing in the East Coast Hockey League (ECHL), which was a mid-level professional American hockey league with teams from all over the United States as well as one franchise from Canada  The team was based in Louisville, Kentucky and played from 1995 to 1998  Their home venue was Broadbent Arena (nicknamed "The Swamp" for their duration; capacity 6,600) at the Kentucky Exposition Center 
At the conclusion of the 1997–1998 season, the franchise was sold and moved to Florida to become the Miami Matadors for a year before moving to Ohio as the Cincinnati Cyclones in 2001  The Cyclones are still currently playing in the ECHL  They started out playing their games in Cincinnati Gardens, but they now play at the Heritage Bank Center  The Cyclones are also the minor league affiliate to the Rochester Americans of the American Hockey League (AHL), as well as the Buffalo Sabres of the National Hockey League (NHL) 
The team's mascot was Rowdy River Frog  The RiverFrogs games were locally known for the amount of non-hockey-related entertainment at shows, including a giant frog blimp, hot tubs, and concession booths 

See also
Sports in Louisville, Kentucky
Passage 7:
Louisville Fire
The Louisville Fire was an arena football team that played its home games at the Brown-Forman Field in Freedom Hall in Louisville, Kentucky  They were a 2001 expansion team of the af2   Their owner/operator was former Pro Bowl lineman and Louisville native Will Wolford  The team was somewhat successful  After a rocky first few seasons they finally found success in 2004 and then made it all the way to the Arena Cup in the 2005 season 
On December 19, 2001, Jeff Brohm was named the head coach of the Louisville Fire arena football team  The Fire started the 0–7 before they defeated the Carolina Rhinos 31–28 to improve to 1–7  The Fire would finish the season 2–14 In 2003, English was hired to replace Brohm as the head coach of the Louisville Fire af2 team  He was fired after just two games with a record of 2–2 In July 2007, it was announced that the team planned on selling portions of the team to local ownership (aka the NFL's Green Bay Packers) in an attempt to boost season ticket sales and then buy the shares back in time before the team joined the AFL In November 2008, the Louisville Fire ceased operations 

Award winners
2004 – Takua Furutani – International Player of the Year
2005 – Matthew Sauk – Offensive Player of the Year
2005 – Danny Kight – Kicker of the Year
2006 – Brett Dietz – Rookie of the Year
2006 – Rob Mager – Offensive Player of the Year
2008 – Elizabeth "Liz" Horrall – Miss Louisville Fire Football

Season-by-season
Coaching staff
See also
Sports in Louisville, Kentucky
Louisville Cardinals
Passage 8:
Broadbent Arena
Broadbent Arena is a 6,600 seat multi-purpose arena in Louisville, Kentucky  It was home to the Louisville Icehawks and Louisville RiverFrogs ECHL teams   The arena, along with Cardinal Stadium and Freedom Hall, is located on the grounds of the Kentucky Exposition Center in Louisville   The arena is used for equestrian events, and other fairground type activities  As of January 2021, the arena is being used as a major distribution site for COVID-19 vaccines 

See also
Sports in Louisville, Kentucky
Passage 9:
Freedom Hall Civic Center
Freedom Hall Civic Center is a multi-purpose arena in Johnson City, Tennessee Starting in 2014, it became the basketball venue for East Tennessee State University 

History
Freedom Hall Civic Center opened in 1974 on the Liberty Bell Complex next to Science Hill High School  The arena was built by the city of Johnson City to be used as an entertainment venue and additional space for the middle and high schools located on the property  Over the years the venue has been used for sporting events, theatrical productions, concerts, ice shows, and a rodeo venue 
Former and current entertainment include concerts from Van Halen, Bon Jovi, Eric Clapton, Def Leppard, Poison (band), Ozzy Osbourne, Mötley Crüe,  KISS, Bruce Springsteen, Third Day, For King & Country, Chicago, AC/DC, Lynyrd Skynyrd (original band), Metallica, Elvis Presley, Elton John, and Aerosmith  Entertainment from professional wrestling organizations Jim Crockett Promotions, WWE, Smoky Mountain Wrestling, and from the Ringling Bros  and Barnum & Bailey Circus 

See also
List of NCAA Division I basketball arenas
Passage 10:
Johnson City 2001
Johnson City 2001 is a complete concert album by Widespread Panic   The three disc set is the fifth release from the Widespread Panic archives   The performance was recorded live at Freedom Hall Civic Center in Johnson City, Tennessee on November 20, 2001  The multi-track recording featured all original band members including the late guitarist, Michael Houser 

Track listing
Disc 1
"L A " (Widespread Panic) - 4:45
"Wondering" (Widespread Panic) - 7:41
"It Ain't No Use" (Joseph "Zigaboo" Modeliste / Art Neville / Leo Nocentelli / George Porter Jr ) - 10:27
"Impossible" (Widespread Panic) - 5:04
"Worry" (Widespread Panic) - 7:16
"New Blue" (Widespread Panic) - 4:41
"Holden Oversoul" (Widespread Panic) - 8:03
"Stop-Go" (Widespread Panic) - 10:20
"Makes Sense To Me" (Daniel Hutchens) - 4:27

Disc 2
"Weak Brain, Narrow Mind" (Willie Dixon) - 9:13
"One Arm Steve" (Widespread Panic) - 4:04
"Old Neighborhood" (Widespread Panic) - 6:22
"Trouble" (Cat Stevens) - 2:57
"Love Tractor" (Widespread Panic) - 7:18
"Pigeons" (Widespread Panic) - 11:37
"Airplane" (Widespread Panic) - 14:06
"Drums" (Widespread Panic) - 16:27

Disc 3
"Drums and Bass" (Widespread Panic) - 7:41
"Astronomy Domine" (Syd Barrett) - 2:45
"Good Morning Little School Girl (Sonny Boy Williamson I)"- 8:16
"The Waker" (Widespread Panic) - 4:50
"She Caught the Katy (Taj Mahal / James Rachell)" - 4:21
"Gimme" (Widespread Panic) - 5:24
"Chunk of Coal" (Billy Joe Shaver) - 4:23

Personnel
Widespread Panic
John Bell - Vocals, Guitar
Michael Houser - Guitar, Vocals
Dave Schools - Bass, Vocals
Todd Nance - Drums
John "Jojo" Hermann - Keyboards, Vocals
Domingo "Sunny" Ortiz - Percussion

Production
Mixed by Chris Rabold and Drew Vandenberg at Chase Park Transduction in Athens, GA 
Recorded by Brad Blettenberg
Mastered by Drew Vandenberg at Chase Park Transduction Studios in Athens, GA 
Setlist by Garrie Vereen
Additional audience recordings provided by Charles Fox



ground_truth: Louisville

prompt_front: Answer the question based on the given passages. Only give me the answer and do not output any other words.

Question: Brigadier Stanley James Ledger Hill was attached to the command post of which senior British Army officer born on July 10, 1886?

The following are given passages.
Context 4: 

Formal presentation
A record 199 nations entered the stadium, with a record 80 of them winning at least one medal  The only missing IOC member was Afghanistan, who was banned due to the extremist rule of the Taliban's oppression of women and its prohibition of sports  The ceremony featured a unified entrance by the athletes of North and South Korea, using a specially designed unification flag: a white background flag with a blue map of the Korean Peninsula  Four athletes from East Timor also marched in the parade of nations as individual Olympic athletes and marched directly before the host country  Although the country-to-be had no National Olympic Committee then, they were allowed to compete under the Olympic Flag with country code IOA  The Governor-General, Sir William Deane, opened the games 
The Olympic Flag was carried around the arena by eight former Australian Olympic champions: Bill Roycroft, Murray Rose, Liane Tooth, Gillian Rolton, Marjorie Jackson, Lorraine Crapp, Michael Wenden and Nick Green  During the raising of the Olympics Flag, the Olympic Hymn was sung by the Millennium Choir of the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of Australia in Greek  Following this, Tina Arena sang a purpose-written pop song, The Flame The opening ceremony concluded with the lighting of the Olympic Flame, which was brought into the stadium by former Australian Olympic champion Herb Elliott  Then, celebrating 100 years of women's participation in the Olympic Games, former Australian women Olympic medalists Betty Cuthbert and Raelene Boyle, Dawn Fraser, Shirley Strickland (later Shirley Strickland de la Hunty), Shane Gould and Debbie Flintoff-King brought the torch through the stadium, handing it over to Cathy Freeman, who lit the flame in the cauldron within a circle of fire  The  choice of Freeman, an Aboriginal woman, to light the flame was notable given the history of human rights abuses against Aboriginal people in Australia  Following her lighting, Freeman was the subject of racial abuse from some Australians  The planned spectacular climax to the ceremony was delayed by the technical glitch of a computer switch which malfunctioned, causing the sequence to shut down by giving a false reading  This meant that the Olympic flame was suspended in mid-air for about four minutes rather than immediately rising up a water-covered ramp to the top of the stadium  When the cause of the problem was discovered, the program was overridden and the cauldron continued its course, and the ceremony concluded with a fireworks display 

Day 2: 16 September
The first medals of the Games were awarded in the women's 10 metre air rifle competition, which was won by Nancy Johnson of the United States 
The Triathlon made its Olympic debut with the women's race  Set in the surroundings of the Sydney Opera House, Brigitte McMahon representing Switzerland swam, cycled and ran to the first gold medal in the sport, beating the favoured home athletes such as Michelie Jones who won silver  McMahon only passed Jones in sight of the finish line 
The first star of the Games was 17-year-old Australian Ian Thorpe, who first set a new world record in the 400-metre freestyle final before competing in an exciting 4 × 100 m freestyle final  Swimming the last leg, Thorpe passed the leading American team and arrived in a new world record time, two-tenths of a second ahead of the Americans  In the same event for women, the Americans also broke the world record, finishing ahead of the Netherlands and Sweden 
Samaranch had to leave for home, as his wife was severely ill  Upon arrival, his wife had already died  Samaranch returned to Sydney four days later  The Olympic flag was flown at half-staff during the period as a sign of respect to Samaranch's wife 

Day 3: 17 September
Canadian Simon Whitfield sprinted away in the last 100 metres of the men's triathlon, becoming the inaugural winner in the event 
On the cycling track, Robert Bartko beat fellow German Jens Lehmann in the individual pursuit, setting a new Olympic Record  Leontien Zijlaard-van Moorsel set a world record in the semi-finals the same event for women 
In the swimming pool, American Tom Dolan beat the world record in the 400-metre medley, successfully defending the title he won in Atlanta four years prior  Dutchwoman Inge de Bruijn also clocked a new world record, beating her own time in the 100 m butterfly final to win by more than a second 

Day 4: 18 September
The main event for the Australians on the fourth day of the Games was the 200 m freestyle  Dutchman Pieter van den Hoogenband had broken the world record in the semi-finals, taking it from the new Australian hero Ian Thorpe, who came close to the world record in his semi-final heat  As the final race finished, Van den Hoogenband's time was exactly the same as in the semi-finals, finishing ahead of Thorpe by half a second 
China won the gold medal in the men's team all-around gymnastics competition after being the runner-up in the previous two Olympics  The other medals were taken by Ukraine and Russia, respectively 
Zijlaard-van Moorsel lived up to the expectations set by her world record in cycling in the semis by winning the gold medal 

Day 7: 21 September
During the Women's Gymnastics All-Around, female athletes suffered damning scores and injuries due to improperly installed gymnastics equipment  Gymnasts performing on the vault gave uncharacteristically poor performances and fell  Officials blamed the series of falls and low scores on performance anxiety  It wasn't until Australian gymnast Allana Slater and her coach, Peggy Liddick, voiced concerns about the equipment that officials discovered the apparatus was five centimetres, or almost two inches, lower than it should've been  While athletes were given the opportunity to perform again, for some of them, the damage to their mental or physical health caused by the vault was irreparable  Chinese gymnast Kui Yuanyuan and American gymnast Kristen Maloney both injured their legs while attempting to stick their landings, with Kui needing to be carried to an examination area and Maloney damaging a titanium rod that had recently been implanted in her shin  Romanian gymnast Andreea Răducan ultimately took gold while her teammates, Simona Amânar and Maria Olaru took silver and bronze, respectively 

Day 9: 23 September
By rowing in the winning coxless four, Steve Redgrave of Great Britain became a member of a select group who had won gold medals at five consecutive Olympics 
The swimming 4 x 100-metre medley relay of B J  Bedford, Megan Quann (Jendrick), Jenny Thompson and Dara Torres became the first women's relay under 4-minutes, swimming 3:58 and setting a world record, claiming the gold medal for the United States 

Day 10: 24 September
Rulon Gardner, never an NCAA champion or a world medalist, beat Alexander Karelin of Russia to win gold in the super heavyweight class, Greco-Roman wrestling  Karelin had won gold in Seoul, Barcelona and Atlanta  Before this fight, he had never lost in international competition, had been unbeaten in all competitions in 13 years, and had not surrendered a point in a decade 

Day 11: 25 September
Australian Cathy Freeman won the 400-metre final in front of a jubilant Sydney crowd at the Olympic Stadium, ahead of Lorraine Graham of Jamaica and Katharine Merry of Great Britain  Freeman's win made her the first competitor in Olympic Games history to light the Olympic Flame and then go on to win a Gold Medal  The attendance at the stadium was 112,524 – the largest attendance for any sport in Olympic Games history 
In a men's basketball pool match between the United States and France, the USA's Vince Carter made one of the most famous dunks in basketball history  After getting the ball off a steal, the 6'6"/1 98 m Carter drove to the basket, with 7'2"/2 18 m centre Frédéric Weis in his way  Carter jumped, spread his legs in midair, scraped Weis' head on the way up, and dunked  The French media dubbed the feat le dunk de la mort ("the dunk of death") 

Day 14: 28 September
The Canadian flag at the athletes' village was lowered to half-mast as Canadian athletes paid tribute to the former prime minister Pierre Trudeau after hearing of his death in Montreal (because of the time zone difference, it was 29 September in Sydney when Trudeau died)  The Canadian flag was flown at half-mast for the remainder of the Olympics, on orders from both IOC President Juan Antonio Samaranch and Canadian Foreign Affairs Minister Lloyd Axworthy, as the state funeral did not take place until 3 October, two days after the closing ceremony, and the Canadian athletes subsequently rushed back to attend his funeral after 1 October 

Day 16: 30 September
Cameroon won a historic gold medal over Spain in the Men's Olympic Football Final at the Olympic Stadium  The game went to a penalty shootout, which was won by Cameroon 5–3 

Day 17: 1 October
The last event of the games was the Men's Marathon, contested on a course that started in North Sydney  The event was won by Ethiopian Gezahegne Abera, with Kenyan Erick Wainaina second, and Tesfaye Tola, also of Ethiopia, third  It was the first time since the 1968 Olympics that an Ethiopian won the gold medal in this event 
The closing ceremony commenced with Christine Anu performing her version of the Warumpi Band's song "My Island Home", with several Aboriginal dancers atop the Geodome Stage in the middle of the stadium, around which several hundred umbrella and lamp box kids created an image of Aboriginal Dreamtime  The Geodome Stage was used throughout the ceremony, which was a flat stage mechanically raised into the shape of a Geode 
IOC President Juan Antonio Samaranch declared at the Closing Ceremony,
"I am proud and happy to proclaim that you have presented to the world the best Olympic Games ever "
Subsequent Summer Olympics held in Athens, Beijing and London have been described by Samaranch's successor Jacques Rogge as "unforgettable, dream Games", "truly exceptional" and "happy and glorious games" respectively – the practice of declaring games the "best ever" having been retired after the 2000 Games 

Sports
The 2000 Summer Olympic programme featured 300 events in the following 28 sports:

Although demonstration sports were abolished following the 1992 Summer Olympics, the Sydney Olympics featured wheelchair racing as exhibition events on the athletics schedule Special quarantine conditions were introduced to allow entry of horses into Australia to participate in equestrian events, avoiding the need for such events to take place elsewhere as had happened at the 1956 Summer Olympics in Melbourne 

Calendar
All dates are in AEDST (UTC+11); the other two cities, Adelaide uses ACST (UTC+9:30) and Brisbane uses AEST (UTC+10)

Medal count
These are the top ten nations that won medals in the 2000 Games 
The ranking in this table is based on information provided by the International Olympic Committee  Some other sources may be inconsistent due to not taking into account all later doping cases 

  *   Host nation (Australia)

Participating National Olympic Committees
199 National Olympic Committees (NOCs) participated in the Sydney Games, two more than in the 1996 Summer Olympics; in addition, there were four Timorese Individual Olympic Athletes at the 2000 Summer Olympics  Eritrea, the Federated States of Micronesia and Palau made their Olympic debut this year 
Democratic Republic of the Congo was once again designated under that name, after it participated as Zaire from 1984 to 1996 
Afghanistan was the only 1996 participant (and the only existing NOC) that did not participate in the 2000 Olympics, having been banned due to the Taliban's totalitarian rule in Afghanistan, their oppression of women, and its prohibition of sports 

Venues
Sydney Olympic Park
Stadium Australia: Ceremonies (opening/closing), Athletics, Football (final)
Sydney International Aquatic Centre: Diving, Modern Pentathlon (swimming) Swimming, Synchronised Swimming, Water Polo (medal events)
State Sports Centre: Table Tennis, Taekwondo
NSW Tennis Centre: Tennis
State Hockey Centre: Field Hockey
The Dome and Exhibition Complex: Badminton, Basketball, Gymnastics (rhythmic), Handball (final), Modern Pentathlon (fencing, shooting), Volleyball (indoor)
Sydney SuperDome: Gymnastics (artistic, trampoline), Basketball (final)
Sydney Baseball Stadium: Baseball, Modern Pentathlon (riding, running)
Sydney International Archery Park: Archery

Sydney
Sydney Convention & Exhibition Centre: Boxing, Fencing, Judo, Weightlifting, Wrestling
Sydney Entertainment Centre: Volleyball (indoor final)
Dunc Gray Velodrome: Cycling (track)
Sydney International Shooting Centre: Shooting
Sydney International Equestrian Centre: Equestrian
Sydney International Regatta Centre: Rowing, Canoeing (sprint)
Blacktown Olympic Centre: Baseball, Softball
Western Sydney Parklands: Cycling (mountain biking)
Ryde Aquatic Leisure Centre: Water Polo
Penrith Whitewater Stadium: Canoeing (slalom)
Bondi Beach: Volleyball (beach)
Sydney Football Stadium: Football
Olympic Sailing Shore Base: Sailing
Centennial Parklands: Cycling (road)
Marathon course: Athletics (marathon)
North Sydney: Athletics (marathon start)
Sydney Opera House: Triathlon 

Outside Sydney
Canberra Stadium, Canberra: Football
Hindmarsh Stadium, Adelaide: Football
Melbourne Cricket Ground: Football
The Gabba (Brisbane Cricket Ground), Brisbane: Football

Organization
Organisations responsible for the Olympics
A number of quasi-government bodies were responsible for the construction, organisation and execution of the Sydney Games  These included:

the Sydney Organising Committee for the Olympic Games (SOCOG) and the Sydney Paralympic Organizing Committee (SPOC), primarily responsibles for the staging of the Games
Olympic Coordination Authority (OCA), primarily responsible for construction and oversight
Olympic Roads & Transport Authority (ORTA)
Olympic Security Command Centre (OSCC)
Olympic Intelligence Centre (OIC)
JTF Gold the Australian Defence Force Joint Taskforce Gold
Sydney Olympic Broadcasting Organisation (nominally part of SOCOG)
IBM, provider of technology and the Technical Command Centre
Telstra, provider of telecommunications
Great Big Events, event management and marketingThese organisations worked closely together and with other bodies such as:

the International Olympic Committee (IOC)
the International Paralympic Committee (IPC)
the Australian Olympic Committee (AOC)
the Australian Paralympic Committee (APC)
the other 197 National Olympic Committees (NOCs)
the other 125 National Paralympic Committees (NPCs)
the 33 International Sports Federations (IFs)
all three levels of Australian government (federal, state and local)
dozens of official sponsor and hundreds of official supplier companiesThese bodies are often collectively referred to as the "Olympic Family" 

Organisation of the Paralympics
The organisation of the 2000 Summer Paralympics was the responsibility of the Sydney Paralympic Organising Committee (SPOC)  However, much of the planning and operation of the Paralympic Games was outsourced to SOCOG such that most operational programmes planned both the Olympic and Paralympic Games 

Other Olympic events
The organisation of the Games included not only the actual sporting events, but also the management (and sometimes construction) of the sporting venues and surrounding precincts, the organisation of the Sydney Olympic Arts Festival, and the Olympic torch relay, which began in Greece and travelled to Australia via numerous Oceania island nations 

Phases of the Olympic project
The staging of the Olympics were treated as a project on a vast scale, broken into several broad phases:

1993 to 1996 – positioning
1997 – going operational
1998 – procurement/venuisation
1999 – testing/refinement
2000 – implementation
2001 – post-implementation and wind-down

SOCOG organisational design
The internal organisation of SOCOG evolved over the phases of the project and changed, sometimes radically, several times 
In late 1998, the design was principally functional  The top two tiers below the CEO Sandy Hollway consisted of five groups (managed by Group General Managers and the Deputy CEO) and twenty divisions (managed by divisional General Managers), which in turn were further broken up into programmes and sub-programmes or projects 
In 1999, functional areas (FAs) broke up into geographic precinct and venue teams (managed by Precinct Managers and Venue Managers) with functional area staff reporting to both the FA manager and the venue manager  SOCOG moved to a matrix structure  The Interstate Football division extant in 1998 was the first of these geographically based venue teams 

Volunteer program
The origins of the volunteer program for Sydney 2000 dates back to the bid, as early as 1992 
On 17 December 1992, a group of Sydney citizens interested in the prospect of hosting the 2000 Olympic and Paralympic Games gathered for a meeting at Sports House at Wentworth Park in Sydney 
In the period leading up to 1999, after Sydney had won the bid, the small group of volunteers grew from approximately 42 to around 500  These volunteers became known as Pioneer Volunteers  The Pioneer Volunteer program was managed internally by SOCOG's Volunteer Services Department in consultation with prominent peak groups like The Centre for Volunteering (Volunteering and TAFE  Some of the Pioneer Volunteers still meet every four months, an unseen legacy of the games which brought together a community spirit not seen before 
During the Olympic games, tens of thousands of volunteers (the official figure placed at 46,967) helped everywhere at the Olympic venues and elsewhere in the city  They were honoured with a parade like the athletes had a few days before 

Marketing
Official logo
The bid logo was introduced in 1992 and created by architect and designer Michael Bryce  It featured a colourful, stylised image of the Sydney Opera House which is a possible reference to the motif of the rainbow serpent  
The official logo was revealed in 1996, and is also referred to as the "Millennium Man"   It incorporated similar curves to the bid logo and combined them with a stylised image of a runner to form a torchbearer in motion  The image of the runner s composed of  two small yellow boomerangs for arms and a larger red boomerang for legs  Over the runner's head is a trail of smoke that represents the arches of the Sydney Opera House The design process of the official logo, as well as all other aspects of the Olympic Games' visual design identity, was awarded to Melbourne design studio FHA Image Design  The Sydney Olympics brand identity project officially started in 1993, and lasted 7 years  It was also up to FHA Design to prepare the visual identity of the Paralympic Games and this also absorbed some elements as the identification signals and the pictograms 

Mascots
The official mascots chosen for the 2000 Summer Olympics were Syd the platypus, Millie the echidna, and Olly the kookaburra, designed by Matthew Hattan and Jozef Szekeres and named by Philip Sheldon of agency Weekes Morris Osborn in response to the original SOCOG recommendation of Murray, Margery, and Dawn after famous Australian athletes 
There was also Fatso the Fat-Arsed Wombat, an unofficial mascot popularised by comedy team Roy Slaven and HG Nelson on the TV series The Dream with Roy and HG  Roy and HG also frequently disparaged the official mascots on their television program 

Sponsors
Medals and bouquets
A total of 750 gold, 750 silver and 780 bronze medals were minted for the Games  The gold and silver medals contained 99 99 percent of pure silver  The bronze medals were 99 percent bronze with one percent silver, they were made by melting down Australian one-cent and two-cent coins, which had been removed from circulation from 1992 onward 
The bouquets handed to medal recipients incorporated foliage from the Grevillea baileyana, also known as the white oak 

Awards and commendations
The International Olympic Committee awarded Sydney and its inhabitants with the "Pierre de Coubertin Trophy" in recognition of the collaboration and happiness shown by the people of Sydney during the event to all the athletes and visitors around the world After the games' end, the New South Wales Police Force was granted use of the Olympic Rings in a new commendation and citation as the IOC consideration after having staged the "safest" games ever 

Mo Awards
The Australian Entertainment Mo Awards (commonly known informally as the Mo Awards), were annual Australian entertainment industry awards  They recognise achievements in live entertainment in Australia from 1975 to 2016 

In popular culture
In F J  Campbell's 2018 novel No Number Nine, the last part of the book is set at the Sydney 2000 Olympics In Tom Clancy's thriller Rainbow Six and its video game adaptation, the 2000 Olympic Games are the setting of a plot by eco-terrorists, who plan to use the games in order to spread a terrible new plague throughout the world In Morris Gleitzman's children's book Toad Rage, a cane toad travels to Sydney in a bid to become the Olympic mascot The Games was a mockumentary television series run on the ABC network, with two seasons that ran in 1998 and 2000  The series satirized corruption and cronyism in the Olympic movement, bureaucratic ineptness in the New South Wales public service, and unethical behaviour within politics and the media  An unusual feature of the show was that the characters shared the same name as the actors who played them 

See also
2000 Summer Paralympics
Olympic Games celebrated in Australia
1956 Summer Olympics – Melbourne
2000 Summer Olympics – Sydney
2032 Summer Olympics – BrisbaneList of IOC country codes
The Games of the XXVII Olympiad 2000: Music from the Opening Ceremony
Aussie Aussie Aussie, Oi Oi Oi
John Coates
Use of performance-enhancing drugs in the Olympic Games – Sydney 2000

Notes
Passage 7:
List of Olympic Games host cities
This is a list of host cities of the Olympic Games, both summer and winter, since the modern Olympics began in 1896  Since then, summer and winter games have usually celebrated a four-year period known as an Olympiad; summer and winter games normally held in staggered even years  There have been 29  Summer Olympic Games held in 21 cities, and 24 Winter Olympic Games held in 21 cities  In addition, three summer and two winter editions of the games were scheduled to take place but later cancelled due to war: Berlin (summer) in 1916; Sapporo–Garmisch-Partenkirchen (winter) and Tokyo–Helsinki (summer) in 1940; and Cortina d'Ampezzo (winter) and London (summer) in 1944  The 1906 Intercalated Olympics were officially sanctioned and held in Athens  However, in 1949, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) decided to unrecognize the 1906 Games  The 2020 Summer Olympics in Tokyo were postponed for the first time in the Olympics history to summer 2021 due to the COVID-19 pandemic with the 2022 Winter Olympics being held roughly six months later in Beijing Four cities have been chosen by the IOC to host upcoming Olympic Games: Paris for the 2024 Summer Olympics, Milan–Cortina d'Ampezzo for the 2026 Winter Olympics, Los Angeles for the 2028 Summer Olympics, and Brisbane for the 2032 Summer Olympics 
In 2022, Beijing became the first city that has held both the summer and the winter Olympic Games  Ten cities will have hosted the Olympic Games more than once: Athens (1896 and 2004 Summer Olympics), Paris (1900, 1924 and 2024 Summer Olympics), London (1908, 1948 and 2012 Summer Olympics), St  Moritz (1928 and 1948 Winter Olympics), Lake Placid (1932 and 1980 Winter Olympics), Los Angeles (1932, 1984 and 2028 Summer Olympics), Cortina d'Ampezzo (1956 and 2026 Winter Olympics), Innsbruck (1964 and 1976 Winter Olympics), Tokyo (1964 and 2020 Summer Olympics) and Beijing (2008 Summer Olympics and 2022 Winter Olympics)  Stockholm hosted the 1912 Summer Olympics and the equestrian portion of the 1956 Summer Olympics  London became the first city to have hosted three Games with the 2012 Summer Olympics  Paris will become the second city to do this with the 2024 Summer Olympics, followed by Los Angeles as the third in 2028 
The Games have primarily been hosted in the regions of Europe (30 editions) and the Americas (13 editions); eight Games have been hosted in Asia and two have been hosted in Oceania  Rio de Janeiro became South America's first Olympic host city with the 2016 Summer Olympics  Africa has yet to host an Olympic Games  Other major geographic regions which have never hosted the Olympics include the Middle East, Central Asia, the Indian subcontinent, Southeast Asia, the South Pacific, Central America and the Caribbean  Between the first Winter Olympics in 1924 and the last ones to be held in the same year as the Summer Olympics in 1992, the Summer and Winter games took place in the same country three times 
Host cities are selected by the IOC membership, usually seven years in advance  The selection process lasts approximately two years  In the first stage, any city in the world may submit an application to become a host city  After 10 months, the Executive Board of the IOC decides which applicant cities will become official candidates as based on the recommendation of a working group that reviews the applications  In a second stage, the candidate cities are investigated thoroughly by an Evaluation Commission, which then submits a final short list of cities to be considered for selection  The host city is then chosen by vote of the IOC session, a general meeting of IOC members 

Olympic Games host cities
Host cities for Summer and Winter Olympic Games
Key  †   Cancelled
  §   Postponed

The 1906 Intercalated Games are no longer officially recognized by the IOC as an official Olympic Games 

Host cities for multiple Summer and Winter Olympic Games
Number of Olympic Games by country
Number of Olympic Games by region
See also
List of bids for the Summer Olympics
List of bids for the Winter Olympics

Notes
Passage 8:
Jelle Nijdam
Jelle Nijdam (born 16 August 1963) is a Dutch former professional road cyclist  Nijdam turned professional after the 1984 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles  He participated in the Tour de France 10 times, winning six stages and wearing the yellow jersey for three days  Nijdam's father, Henk Nijdam, was a professional cyclist from 1962 to 1969, who won the 1962 world amateur track pursuit championship  He also competed in the individual pursuit and team pursuit events at the 1984 Summer Olympics 

Career achievements
Major results
Grand Tour general classification results timeline
See also
List of Dutch Olympic cyclists
List of Dutch cyclists who have led the Tour de France general classification
Passage 9:
Kuwait national under-23 football team
The Kuwait national under-23 football team is the youth association football team representing Kuwait in youth competitions and it is controlled by Kuwait Football Association  Kuwait under 23 Could also be called as Kuwait Olympic Team  Kuwait under 23 also represents its country in the Olympic Games  From 1900 to 1976 Kuwait did not qualify for the Olympic Games but in 1980 Kuwait qualified for the Olympic Games in China and had the best record of their country finishing in the quarter-finals of that Olympic games  Kuwait missed the 1984 and 1988 Olympic games  But in 1992 Kuwait finally qualified for the 1992 Olympic Games in Spain, however with their poor performance, Kuwait was eliminated in the first round of that tournament  After that Kuwait had missed the 1996 Olympic Games that was hosted by the United States, Kuwait then qualified for the 2000 Olympic Games in Australia and that was the last time Kuwait qualified for the Olympic Games  Kuwait has never won the GCC U-23 Championship but their best finish at that Competition was as a runner up in 2010  In the 2022 Asian U-23 qualification Cup Group D, Kuwait managed to defeat Bangladesh by 1-0 and Saudi Arabia by 2-1, this resulted in Kuwait to qualify for the 2022 Asian U-23 Cup 

Honours
Regional honours
GCC U-23 ChampionshipRunners-up (2): 2010, 2015

Minor
2018 Olympic Return Cup

History
Kuwait’s first-ever qualification to the Olympic games was in the 1980 Olympic Games which Kuwait were eliminated in the quarter-finals of that Olympic games  Kuwait missed the 1984 Olympic Games and the 1988 Olympic Games  Kuwait came back to the Olympic Games in 1992 after missing two events being eliminated in the quarter-final of that event  Kuwait did not qualify until the 2000 Olympic Games and that was the last time Kuwait qualified for the Olympic games  Kuwait did not qualify to the Olympic Games in 2004 after being eliminated in the qualifying Preliminary round 3 of the Football at the 2004 Summer Olympics – Qualifiers at the third position of the 3rd group  Kuwait was unqualified from Football at the 2008 Summer Olympics – Qualifier, with 2 being 4 goals less than Qatar due to that, Kuwait missed the 2008 Olympic Games  Kuwait also failed to participate in the 2012 Olympic Games after losing Football at the 2012 Summer Olympics – Qualifiers, within losing the first leg to Japan 3-1 but then Kuwait defeated Japan 2-1, Japan won on the aggregate 
Kuwait does not have a good record at GCC U-23 Championship after finishing 5th in the final group of the 2008 GCC U-23 Championship 
Kuwait was at the bottom of the table at that time  In 2010 Kuwait was the runner-up of their group  Kuwait was qualified for the semi-finals, Kuwait defeated Oman 5-4 on penalties  But lost to UAE  In the 2011 and 2012 GCC U-23 Championship, Kuwait was unfortunately eliminated in the first round with 0 points losing all three games 

Participation in Tournaments


=== Summer Olympics ===
Passage 10:
Sara Symington
Sara Symington (born 25 September 1969) is a female English former professional cyclist 

Cycling career
She was the first British female rider to take a medal in a World Cup race, which she achieved in Australia in 1999  She represented Great Britain at the 2000 and 2004 Summer Olympics and England at the 1998 Commonwealth Games and 2002 Commonwealth Games  She also rode at the 1998, 1999, and 2000 UCI Road World Championships and on the track at the 2001 and 2002 UCI Track Cycling World Championships 

Personal life
Symington was born in Maracaibo, Venezuela, lived in Aylestone and she now lives in Nottingham  She had competed as a javelin thrower as a junior, and she was a member of the national triathlon team prior to becoming a full-time cyclist  Symington started her elite triathlon career whilst combining studying for a master's degree with a spell serving in the police, having previously graduated from Loughborough University with a degree in sports science 

Post cycling
Symington retired from competition after the 2004 Olympics: following this she worked in business for two years, before returning to the sports world through working as a performance advisor for UK Sport  She was subsequently appointed performance director of Archery GB in February 2009  In February 2015 England Netball announced that she would join them as their performance director the following month  In that role she helped the England national netball team to its first Commonwealth gold medal at the 2018 Commonwealth Games  In August 2020 Symington was appointed by UK Athletics as their performance director  She left this role in October 2021 in order to take up an appointment as head of British Cycling's Olympic and Paralympic programmes 

Palmarès



ground_truth: Lord Gort