the-french-artist/wikipedia_20220301.simple_sentence_split huggingface dataset:
It is the opposite of theism, which is the belief that at least one god exists.
A person who rejects belief in gods is called an atheist.
Adding an a, meaning "without", before the word theism results in atheism, or literally, "without theism".
Atheism is not the same as agnosticism: agnostics say that there is no way to know whether gods exist or not.
Being an agnostic does not have to mean a person rejects or believes in god.
Some agnostics are theists, believing in god.
The theologian Kierkegaard is an example.
Other agnostics are atheists.
Gnosticism refers to a claim of knowledge.
A gnostic has sufficient knowledge to make a claim.
Adding an a, meaning "without", before the word gnostic results in agnostic, or literally, "without knowledge".
While theism refers to belief in one or more gods, gnosticism refers to knowledge.
In practice, most people simply identify as a theist, atheist, or agnostic.
History of atheism
Anaxagoras was the first known atheist.
He was an Ionian Greek, born in Clazomenae in what is now Asia Minor.
He travelled to other Greek cities, and his ideas were well known in Athens.
Socrates mentioned that his works could be bought in Athens for a drachma.
Eventually he was prosecuted and condemned for impiety, and banished from Athens.
Anaxagoras' beliefs were interesting.
He thought the Sun was not a god, and was not animated (alive).
The Sun was "a red-hot mass many times larger than the Peloponnese".
The Moon was a solid body with geographical features, and made of the same substance as the Earth.
The world was a globe (spherical).
Reasons for atheism
Atheists often give reasons why they do not believe in a god or gods.
Three of the reasons that they often give are the problem of evil, the argument from inconsistent revelations, and the argument from nonbelief.
Not all atheists think these reasons provide complete proof that gods cannot exist, but these are the reasons given to support rejecting belief that gods exist.
Some atheists do not believe in any god because they feel that there is no evidence for any god nor gods and goddesses, so believing any type of theism means believing unproved assumptions.
These atheists think a simpler explanation for everything is methodological naturalism which means that only natural things exist.
Occam's razor shows simple explanations without many unproved guesses are more likely to be true.
The word "atheism" comes from the Greek language.
It can be divided into a- (ἄ), a Greek prefix meaning "without", and theos (θεός), meaning "god", and recombined to form "without gods" or "godless".
In Ancient Greece it also meant "impious".
Starting in about the 5th century BC, the word came to describe people who were "severing relations with the gods" or "denying the gods".
Before then, the meaning had been closer to "impious".
There is also the abstract noun,  (), "atheism".
Cicero transliterated the Greek word into the Latin atheos.
This word was often used in the debate between early Christians and Hellenists.
Each side used it to label the other, in a bad way.
Karen Armstrong writes that "During the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, the word 'atheist' was still reserved exclusively for polemic ... The term 'atheist' was an insult.
Nobody would have dreamed of calling himself an atheist."
Atheism was first used to describe an openly positive belief in late 18th-century Europe, meaning disbelief in the monotheistic Abrahamic god.
The 20th century saw the term expand to refer to disbelief in all deities.
However, it is still common in Western society to describe atheism as simply "disbelief in God".
Atheism in society
In many places, it is (or was) a crime to make public the idea of atheism.
Examples would be to claim the Bible or Qur'an could not be true, or to speak or write that there is no god.
Muslim apostasy, that is becoming an atheist or believing in a god other than Allah, may be a dangerous act in places with many conservative Muslim people.
Many religious courts have punished and some still punish this act with the death penalty.
Many countries still have laws against atheism.
Although it is considered by most Muslim scholars to be a sin, not all agree, that is should be punishable.
For example, "Surat Al Kafirun" in Qur'an is clearly stating everyone's freedom to choose his religion and beliefs.
The laws against Athiesm in the Muslim World is not universal, and is based on each society's interpretation of the Holy Book.
In many countries, mainly in the Western world, there are laws that protect atheists' right to express their atheistic belief (freedom of speech).
This means that atheists have the same rights under the law as everyone else.
Freedom of religion in international law and treaties includes the freedom to not have a religion.
Today, about 2.3% of the world's population describes itself as atheist.
About 11.9% is described as nontheist.
and up to 48% in Russia.
The percentage of such people in European Union member states ranges between 6% (Italy) and 85% (Sweden).
In the United States, according to Pew and Gallup—two of the most reputable polling firms in America—both conclude that about 10% of Americans say they do not believe in God, and this figure has been slowly creeping up over the decades.
The real number is likely higher than this, due to the stigma around atheism.
Defining atheism
People disagree about what atheism means.
They disagree on when to call certain people atheists or not.
Implicit and explicit atheism
George H. Smith created the expressions "implicit atheism" and "explicit atheism" to describe the difference between different types of Atheism.
Implicit atheism is when you do not believe in God because you do not know about the concept of God.
Explicit atheism is when you do not believe in God after learning about the idea.
In 1979 George H. Smith said that: "The man who is unacquainted with theism is an atheist because he does not believe in a god.
This category would also include the child [who is able to] grasp the issues involved, but who is still unaware of those issues.
The fact that this child does not believe in god qualifies him as an atheist".
Ernest Nagel disagrees with Smith's definition of atheism as an "absence of theism", saying only explicit atheism is true atheism.
This means that Nagel believes that to be an atheist, a person needs to know about God and then reject the idea of God.
"Weak" and "strong" atheism
have looked at strong (sometimes called positive) atheism against weak (sometimes called negative) atheism.
According to this idea, anyone who does not believe in a god or gods is either a weak or a strong atheist.
Strong atheism is the certain belief that no god exists.
An older way of saying strong atheism is to say "positive atheism".
Weak atheism is all other forms of not believing in a god or gods.
An older way of saying weak atheism is to say "negative atheism" These terms have been used more in philosophical writing and in Catholic beliefs.
Michael Martin says that agnosticism includes weak atheism.
Some agnostics, including Anthony Kenny, disagree.
They think being an agnostic is different from being an atheist.
They think atheism is no different from believing in a god, because both require belief.
This overlooks the reality that agnostics also have their own belief or "claim to knowledge"
Agnostics say that it cannot be known if a god or gods exist.
In their view, strong atheism requires a leap of faith.
Atheism in daily life
In everyday life, many people define natural phenomena without the need of a god or gods.
They do not deny the existence of one or more gods, they simply say that this existence is not necessary.
Gods do not provide a purpose to life, nor influence it, according to this view.
Many scientists practice what they call methodological naturalism.
They silently adopt philosophical naturalism and use the scientific method.
Their belief in a god does not affect their results.
Absence of religious motivation—belief in gods does not motivate moral action, religious action, or any other form of action;
Active exclusion of the problem of gods and religion from intellectual pursuit and practical action;
Indifference—the absence of any interest in the problems of gods and religion; or
Unawareness of the concept of a deity.
Theoretical atheism
Theoretic atheism tries to find arguments against the existence of god, and to disprove the arguments of theism, such as the argument from design or Pascal's Wager.
These theoretical reasons have many forms, most of them are ontological or epistemological.
Some rely on psychology or sociology.
Positions of well-known philosophers
According to Immanuel Kant, there can be no proof of a supreme being that is made using reason.
In his work, "Critique of Pure Reason", he tries to show that all attempts of either proving the existence of God, or disproving it, end in logical contradictions.
Kant says that it is impossible to know whether there are any higher beings.
This makes him an agnostic.
Ludwig Feuerbach
Ludwig Feuerbach published The Essence of Christianity in 1841.
In his work he postulates the following:
Religion is not only a historical or transcendental fact, but most of all an achievement of human consciousness, its mind or its imagination.
All religions are only different in their form, but they have one thing in common: They are projections of unmet needs of human nature.
God, and all religious content is nothing more than psychological projections.
The material causes of these projections are rooted in the nature of human beings.
Man created God in his image
Homo homini Deus est ('Man is a god to Man')
Law of three stages
Martin, Michael, ed. (
The Cambridge Companion to Atheism.
Smith, George, Atheism: The Case Against God, (1974).
Hippocrates (c. 460 – c. 370 BC) was a Greek doctor who is called the "father of medicine".
He was the first person to teach that people got sick for scientific reasons.
Previously, people believed that disease was caused by angry gods.
Many of Hippocrates' writings are still important to doctors.
For example, patient confidentiality, meaning that doctors can only discuss a patient with the patient themselves.
Another of his ideas is to never knowingly lead a patient to suffering or death.
These kinds of ideas are part of medical ethics.
The Hippocratic Oath is named after him.
This is a set of rules which doctors promise to obey.
This is an example of a modern Hippocratic Oath used at the University of North Carolina School of Medicine.
I do solemnly swear by all I hold most sacred:
that I will be loyal to the profession of medicine and just to its members
that I will lead my life and practice my art with virtue and honor
that into whatsoever home I shall enter it shall be for the good of the sick and the well by the utmost of my power and that I will hold myself aloof from wrong and from corruption and from the tempting of others to vice
that I will exercise my art solely for the benefit of my patients, the relief of suffering, the prevention of disease and promotion of health, and I will give no drug and perform no act for an immoral purpose
that in the treatment of the sick, I will consider their well-being to be of a greater importance than their ability to compensate my services
that what I may see or hear in the course of treatment or even outside the treatment in regard to the lives of persons which is not fitting to be spoken, I will keep inviolably secret
that I will commit myself to a lifetime of continued learning of the art and science of medicine
these things I do promise and in proportion as I am faithful to this oath, may happiness and good repute be ever mine, but should I trespass and violate this oath, may the reverse be my lot.
4th-century BC deaths
Greek physicians
History of medicine
Commensurability is a concept in the philosophy of science.
Scientific theories are described as commensurable if one can compare them to find out which is more accurate.
If there is  no way  one can compare them to determine which is more accurate, they are incommensurable.
Behind this is the idea that it is possible to see the world in multiple ways, and that there is not one fair method to see which way is right.
Some think that scientific traditions (or paradigms) can be incommensurable: it is not really possible to say which one is right.
This idea has been defended by Thomas Kuhn.
He wrote: when paradigms change, the world changes with them.
Paul Feyerabend was another philosopher who said that incommensurability was possible in scientific topics.
He wrote that it is important to remember this, because it means that it is possible to say things that are not scientific, but also not wrong.
These ideas were mainly aimed at Karl Popper and his ideas on falsification.
The concept of incommensurability is dramatized in the 2006 movie Idiocracy, when U.S. Army scientist Joe Bauers attempts to explain before a full Cabinet meeting his theory that the nation's crops would be better irrigated with water rather than with a sports drink.
Harvest means to collect what has been planted and grown in the ground.
It is usually done by farmers, and in the fall season.
This is also called picking crops.
Crop failure (also known as harvest failure) is a loss or reduced crop yield due to plants being damaged, killed, or destroyed.
Sometimes it brings famine.
ELISPOT stands for "Enzyme-Linked Immunosorbent Spot Assay".
It is a laboratory technique for detecting cells that make (or "secrete") various substances.
These substances include specific types of cytokines or antibodies.
The ELISPOT method is typically used with blood cells, and is a helpful tool in studying the human immune system and various treatments for disease (e.g. vaccines).
In the ELISPOT technique, tiny wells are used to contain the cells, with a variety of other substances.
The substances cause colored spots to form near the cells that secrete the substances in question.
These spots can then be counted manually (using a microscope, for example) or automatically using specialized equipment with computer vision capabilities.
The ELISPOT technique is very sensitive, and can detect even a single substance-producing cell.
It is also very versatile, since it can be tailored to detect a wide variety of very specific secretions.
A flash animation of the ELISpot procedure
An animated illustration of the ELISPOT process
Examples of spot patterns formed by the ELISPOT technique
gel electrophoresis - glycolysis - glycoprotein -  granzyme - guanine -
peptide - pesticide - pH - photosynthesis -  physiology - polymer - polysaccharide - potential energy - prion - protein - protein biosynthesis -
saturated fat - scientific notation - sequence analysis - signal transduction -  solvation - starch - substrate (biochemistry) - sugar - synapse
The Aztecs were Native American people who lived in Mesoamerica.
They ruled the Aztec Empire from the 14th century to the 16th century.
The name "Aztec" comes from the phrase "people from Aztlan".
Legends say that Aztlan was the first place the Aztecs ever lived.
"Aztlan" means "place of the herons" in the Nahuatl language.p.
Often the term "Aztec" refers just to the people of Tenochtitlan.
This was a city on an island in Lake Texcoco.
These people called themselves the Mexica which is why the country is called Mexico, or the Nahua which is why their language is called Nahuatl.
Before the Aztec Empire conquered them, the indigenous (native) people  lived in many separate city-states.
These were small cities with farmland around them.
Each state had its own ruler.
Around 1100 AD, these city-states started to fight each other for power and control of the area's resources.
Historians think the Aztecs came to central Mesoamerica around 1200.
They came from what is now northwest Mexico.
According to historian Lisa Marty:
By 1325, the Aztecs had built Tenochtitlan on an island in Lake Texcoco.
Tenochtitlan became a city-state that gradually became more and more powerful.
By about 1400, three city-states had grown into small empires.
In 1428, these two empires fought the Tepanec War for control of the area.
The Texcoco empire made an alliance with some other powerful city-states, including Tenochtitlan, and won the war.
These allies were supposed to share power equally as they started to gain control of more land.
However, by 1430, Tenochtitlan became the most powerful member of the alliance.
It became the capital city of the Aztec Empire, and its ruler became the 'high king' of the Empire.
The Aztec Empire
The Aztec Empire existed between about 1438 AD and 1521 AD.
When the Empire was largest, it spread across most of Mesoamerica and controlled about 11,000,000 people.
Tenochtitlan was the capital city of the Aztec Empire.
Tenochtitlan was one of the greatest cities of the world in that time.
By the early 1500s, at least 200,000 people lived in the city.
This made Tenochtitlan the largest city in the Americas before Christopher Columbus arrived.
The Aztecs believed in many gods.
Two of the most important gods they worshipped were Huitzilopochtli, the god of war and the sun, and Tlaloc, the rain god.
Another important god was Quetzalcoatl (feathered snake), the god of learning and civilization.
The Aztecs did many things to keep the gods happy.
These things included human sacrifices.
They believed this helped keep the world from ending.
The Aztecs believed that the gods had created them, and that human sacrifice was the most powerful way of giving back the gift of life.
The Aztecs also believed that the gods were in an almost never-ending struggle.
The hearts and blood from the sacrifice fed the good gods to give them strength to fight the evil gods.
The human sacrifices often took place on the Templo Mayor, the Aztecs' great pyramid temple.
The Aztecs ate plants and vegetables that could grow easily in Mesoamerica.
The main foods in the Aztec diet were maize, beans, and squash.
They often used tomatoes and chili as spices.
Aztec markets sold fruit, vegetables, spices, flowers, dogs, birds, and cocoa beans.
They also created chocolate.
However, they did not have sugar, so their chocolate was a strong liquid with chili in it.
They also made an alcoholic drink called chocolatl.
These foods later spread around the world.
In Aztec society, there were different social classes with different social statuses.
The most important people were the rulers.
The Aztecs' first king was Acamapichtli.
Their last king was Cuauhtemoc.
He surrendered control of the Aztec Empire to Hernan Cortes during the Spanish conquest of the Aztec Empire.
Next were nobles.
These were the Empire's powerful members of the government; great warriors; judges; and priests.
These people enjoyed a high social status.
The next social class was the commoners (common people).
These were the Empire's everyday workers.
Most of them farmed, ran stores, or traded.
Other workers included artisans, regular soldiers, and fishers.
Commoners were allowed to own land as a group or a family.
However, a single person was not allowed to own land.
The lowest social classes in Aztec society were serfs and then slaves.
Slaves had no rights at all.
They were bought and sold at Aztec markets.
The Aztecs also sacrificed some prisoners of war to their gods.
However, if they had the money, they could buy their own freedom and become commoners.
For most of the Aztec Empire's existence, it was very difficult to move between social classes.
Usually, if a person was born in a social class, they would stay in that class for the rest of their life.
Aztecs had harsh punishments for crimes that seem simple to us now.
For example, a person could get the death penalty for adultery; cutting down a living tree; moving the boundary of a field to make their land bigger and someone else's smaller; major theft; treason; disorderly conduct (causing trouble in public), drunkenness; and promiscuity.
Under Aztec sumptuary law, a commoner could also get the death penalty for wearing cotton.p.
The Aztecs studied astrology and used the movements of the planets and the stars to create different calendars.
They had an accurate calendar which consisted of 365 days, based on the movements of the sun.
They also had a religious calendar which was made up of 260 days.
The most popular Aztec sport was Tlachtili.
They played this game using rubber balls and vertical hoops on opposite walls in the middle of the court.
The game's goal was to shoot the ball into the hoop using their knees.
The first team to score won the game.
End of the Aztec Empire
Between 1519 and 1521, the Spanish conquistador, Hernán Cortés, allied with Tlaxcala and other enemies of the Aztecs.
The conquistadors defeated the Aztecs, took their empire, and made it into a Spanish colony.
Some Aztecs did not want to fight against the soldiers of Cortés, because they thought they were gods.
Aztecs today
Today many Mexicans have Aztec and other Native American forefathers.
People still use Aztec symbols in Mexico.
On the Mexican flag, there is a picture of an eagle on a cactus with a snake in its mouth.
This was an Aztec symbol.
Even the name Mexico is an Aztec word.
Billion is a name for a large number.
It may refer specifically to:
1,000,000,000 (, one thousand million), the short scale definition now normal in both British and American English
1,000,000,000,000 (, one million million), the long scale definition used formerly in Britain and currently in certain other languages
Billions (TV series), a Showtime series
Billions (movie), a 1920 silent comedy
Billion (company), a Taiwanese modem manufacturer
Jack Billion (born 1939), 2006 Democratic Party candidate for governor of South Dakota
Mr. Billion, a 1977 movie by Jonathan Kaplan
"Billions" (song), a song on Russell Dickerson's album Yours
Richard Milhous Nixon (January 9, 1913 – April 22, 1994) was an American politician.
He was the 37th president of the United States, serving from 1969 to 1974, when he became the only president to resign.
Before that, Nixon was the 36th vice president (from 1953 to 1961 under President Dwight D. Eisenhower), and a U.S. Representative and Senator from California.
Nixon was born in Yorba Linda, California.
He attended Duke University and graduated from its law school in 1937.
After graduating, he returned to California to practice law.
In 1942, he and his wife Pat moved to Washington to work for the federal government.
During World War II, he served on active duty in the Naval Reserve.
Nixon began his career in politics after he was elected to the House of Representatives in 1946.
During this time, he became well known as an anti-Communist.
In 1950, he was elected to the Senate.
In 1953, he became the vice president of the United States, under President Dwight D. Eisenhower.
He served in this position for eight years.
In 1960, Nixon ran for president.
He was defeated by John F. Kennedy.
Two years later, in 1962, Nixon ran for governor of California.
He also lost this election to Pat Brown.
In 1968, he ran for president for a second time.
He won the election, defeating Hubert Humphrey and George Wallace in a close election.
As president, Nixon got the United States to stop being involved in the Vietnam War.
He ended the military draft in 1973.
In 1972, Nixon visited China.
This visit would eventually create diplomatic relations between the two nations.
The same year, he signed the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty with the Soviet Union.
Domestically, Nixon imposed wage and price controls for 90 days.
He had Southern schools desegregated (ending the separation of people by their race).
He established the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) as well as the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA).
He also began the War on Cancer.
He presided over the Apollo 11 Moon landing in 1969.
In 1972, Nixon was re-elected in a landslide, defeating George McGovern.
In his second term, Nixon ordered an airlift to resupply Israeli losses in the Yom Kippur War, a war which led to the oil crisis at home.
In 1973, he had lost a lot of political support because of the Watergate scandal.
On August 9, 1974, Nixon resigned, becoming the first American president to do so.
His successor, Gerald Ford, pardoned him.
After resigning, Nixon wrote many books and visited many other countries.
He died on April 22, 1994, after suffering a stroke.
He is not ranked high in presidential opinion polls.
Evaluations of Nixon have been difficult, as he was able to accomplish good things as president, even though he resigned due to a scandal.
Early life, belief & Californian heritage
Nixon was born on January 9, 1913 in his family's home in Yorba Linda, California, to Hannah and Francis Nixon.
He is the only president born in California.
He was named for King Richard the Lionhearted, and was raised as a Quaker.
His brother Edward, was a businessman.
Herbert Hoover was the only other United States President to belong to the Quaker faith (as a coincidence, Hoover was also one of just three presidents, one of whom was Nixon, to hail from California).
Nixon was raised in Whittier, California.
His father was of Scotch-Irish ancestry and his mother was of German, English, and Irish ancestry.
He attended Whittier High School, Whittier College, and Duke University.
He served in the Navy during World War II.
Later, he married Thelma Nixon (later Patricia Nixon) and had two daughters, Tricia and Julie.
Harvard Scholarship & More
Nixon received a scholarship to Harvard, but declined to help his family on the farm.
Nixon was also tapped to join the FBI.
He was very pleased, but at the last minute was rejected due to budget cuts.
Congressional career
California congressman (1947–1950)
Nixon was elected to the House of Representatives in 1946.
When in the House, he was a member of House Un-American Activities Commission, a group of Congressmen that tried to expose people in the United States who might have been Communists.
U.S. Senate (1950–1953)
Vice president (1953–1961)
In the 1952 presidential election, Dwight D. Eisenhower selected Nixon to be vice-president.
People accused him of receiving illegal money contributions to his campaign and some people wanted Eisenhower to pick a different vice president, but Eisenhower still kept Nixon.
Nixon after the accusations made a speech saying that no matter what people accuse him of illegally receiving during the campaign, he is still going to keep one campaign gift: his dog named Checkers.
The Republican Party decided to keep Nixon as their vice-presidential candidate and when Eisenhower won the election, Nixon became vice-president of the United States from 1953 to 1961.
During his vice-presidency, he was very busy and traveled across the world to places like South America.
While he was vice president, he went to the Soviet Union and had a debate with the Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev.
They were both arguing that their country was better.
1960 presidential election
In the presidential election of 1960, he ran against Democrat John F. Kennedy.
Kennedy was expected to win at first (because he won the first television debate against Nixon), but as Election Day came closer and closer, Nixon was catching up.
In the end, Kennedy won, but it was a very close election.
1962 California gubernatorial election
In 1962, Nixon lost the election for governor of California to Pat Brown.
After losing, Nixon said "you don't have Nixon to kick around any more, because, gentlemen, this is my last press conference.",
leading many experts to say that Nixon's political career was over.
1968 presidential election
In 1968, Richard Nixon defeated Hubert Humphrey in the presidential election and became president of the United States in 1969.
Although Humphrey lost the popular vote narrowly, he lost the electoral college in a landslide, carrying just fifteen states.
Presidency, 1969–74
Nixon took over the Vietnam War from Lyndon Johnson and continued it with the strategy of slowly withdrawing U.S. troops, so that the South Vietnamese troops could take over the fighting by themselves.
Nixon secretly bombed many enemy targets in Cambodia and North Vietnam while bringing home the American troops, to make it easier for South Vietnam to win.
When his spreading the bombing to Cambodia and Laos became known in 1970, it caused larger protests than ever in America, including at Kent State and even in Washington, DC, where more than 12,000 were arrested in May 1971 at the peak of the protests.
Partly because of the amount of opposition, Nixon sped up troop withdrawal and ended the draft.
Nixon was very successful in diplomacy (relations negotiations with foreign countries).
He began a policy called "détente" which reduced tensions between the United States and the Soviet Union.
The two countries would get along and sign treaties that would limit the production of nuclear weapons between both sides.
Nixon traveled to communist China and established a very good relationship with them.
Before that, there was almost no relationship between the United States and China.
It opened up the door for decades of trade in the future, which is why many items in the United States were made in China.
His diplomacy with China is seen as one of his greatest accomplishments.
Later, under President Carter, the U.S. broke relations with the Republic of China and recognized communist China, not Taiwan, as the legal government of China.
At home, Nixon put many reforms into law.
He created the Environmental Protection Agency, supported anti-drug laws, supported anti-crime laws, and supported anti-discrimination laws.
When inflation (meaning the value of money goes down and prices go up) was high, he ordered that prices should be frozen for 90 days.
Although, he was known as a conservative Republican before he became president, while he was President, he supported some of the liberal ideas that Democrats supported.
In 1974, Nixon made a speech that outlined a plan for universal health care.
Nixon was re-elected by a landslide in 1972 with most Americans approving of him, but soon after, Nixon's reputation would be destroyed and most Americans would disapprove of him.
Due to a scandal called "Watergate" during which Nixon attempted to protect (or possibly ordered) men to burglarize the Democratic National Headquarters, Congress was going to put him on trial in a process called impeachment (to remove him from power).
Nixon tried to cover up the scandal, but eventually, the Supreme Court ordered him to send his taped conversations (which included him talking about covering up Watergate) to them.
Alexander Haig thought Nixon would be convicted and kicked out of office.
To prevent this, Nixon resigned (quit) the presidency in 1974.
Nixon's second vice president, Gerald Ford, gave Nixon a pardon of any crimes Nixon committed during Watergate.
Ford wanted to end the crisis as quickly as possible, because the nation faced more important problems.
Many people blamed Ford for letting Nixon go free, and voted against him when he ran in the 1976 election.
Nixon's public image never fully recovered, but he still got some approval back from Republicans as he frequently defended his legacy.
He remained as a consultant to later Presidents, and to other people in government and the media especially to British journalist David Frost.
His memoirs are considered important readings.
His work in negotiating with China in the early 1970s was praised for improving relations between his country and theirs.
Nixon died of a stroke in 1994, ten months after his wife Pat died.
Not being able to defend his legacy any longer, his overall approval rating fell, and most everyone today acknowledges his wrongdoings related to Watergate.
The house where he was born is now part of the Richard M. Nixon Presidential Library and Museum.
He was buried at the library.
Nixon's White House Biography
Text, audio, and video of Nixon's famous "Checkers" speech
1913 births
1994 deaths
Lawyers from California
People from Whittier, California
People of the Vietnam War
1960 United States presidential candidates
1964 United States presidential candidates
1972 United States presidential candidates
United States representatives from California
United States senators from California
Gerald Rudolph Ford, Jr. (born Leslie Lynch King, Jr.; July 14, 1913 — December 26, 2006) was an American politician who had served as the 38th president of the United States from 1974 to 1977.
Before becoming president, he was the 40th vice president from 1973 to 1974.
As a member of the Republican Party, he was also a member of the House of Representatives from 1949 to 1973, becoming its minority leader in 1965.
He is the only president who has not been elected to the office of either President or Vice President.
Ford was born in Omaha, Nebraska.
He attended the University of Michigan and Yale Law School.
After Pearl Harbor was attacked in 1941, he joined the U.S. Naval Reserve and served from 1942 to 1946.
Ford began his career in politics in 1949 as the U.S. representative from Michigan's 5th congressional district.
In 1965, he became the House Minority Leader.
In December 1973, he became the vice president of the United States, replacing Spiro Agnew, who had resigned two months before.
This made Ford the first person to become vice president due to the 25th Amendment.
In August 1974, Ford became president after Richard Nixon resigned.
As president, Ford signed the Helsinki Accords.
It was created to ease tensions between the Western world and the Soviet Union during the Cold War.
In 1975, South Vietnam collapsed.
This event ended US participation in the Vietnam War.
Domestically, Ford had to work with the worst economy since the Great Depression.
There was growing inflation and a recession during his presidency.
Ford also gave a presidential pardon to his predecessor, Richard Nixon, for his role in the Watergate scandal.
The pardon was one of the most controversial things he did as president.
Foreign policy was characterized in procedural terms by the bigger role Congress began to play, and by the restraining of the powers of the president.
In 1976, Ford ran for reelection.
He defeated former California Governor Ronald Reagan for the Republican nomination.
He narrowly lost the presidential election to the Democratic candidate, former Georgia Governor Jimmy Carter.
After his presidency ended in 1977, Ford remained active in the Republican Party.
However, his views on some social issues caused disagreement with  conservative members of the party in the 1990s and early 2000s.
Ford died at home on December 26, 2006 after facing a series of health problems.
He was born on July 14, 1913, at 3202 Woolworth Avenue in Omaha, Nebraska, where his parents lived with his paternal grandparents. (
the parents of his father) His birth name was Leslie Lynch King, Jr. His mother was Dorothy Ayer Gardner, and his father was Leslie Lynch King, Sr.,
a wool trader and son of prominent banker Charles Henry King and Martha Alicia King (née Porter).
Dorothy separated from King just sixteen days after her son's birth.
She took her son with her to the Oak Park, Illinois.
This was where her sister, Tannisse, and brother-in-law, Clarence Haskins James, lived.
After that, she moved to the home of her parents, Levi Addison Gardner and Adele Augusta Ayer in Grand Rapids, Michigan.
Dorothy and King divorced in December 1913; she got full custody of her son.
Ford's paternal grandfather Charles Henry King paid child support until shortly before his death in 1930.
Ford later said his biological father had a history of hitting his mother.
James M. Cannon, a member of the Ford administration, wrote in a Ford biography that the Kings' separation and divorce were sparked when, a few days after Ford's birth, Leslie King threatened Dorothy with a butcher knife and threatened to kill her, Ford, and Ford's nursemaid.
Ford later told confidantes that his father had first hit his mother on their honeymoon for smiling at another man.
After two and a half years with her parents, on February 1, 1916, Dorothy married Gerald Rudolff Ford, a salesman in a family-owned paint and varnish company.
They then called her son Gerald Rudolff Ford, Jr. The future president was never formally adopted, however, and he did not legally change his name until December 3, 1935; he also used a more conventional spelling of his middle name.
He was raised in Grand Rapids with his three half brothers from his mother's second marriage: Thomas Gardner Ford (1918–1995), Richard Addison Ford (born 1924), and James Francis Ford (1927–2001).
Ford also had three half-siblings from his father's second marriage: Marjorie King (1921–1993), Leslie Henry King (1923–1976), and Patricia Jane King (born 1925).
They never saw one another as children and he did not know them at all.
Ford was not aware of his biological father until he was 17, when his parents told him about the circumstances of his birth.
That year his father Leslie King, whom Ford described as a "carefree, well-to-do man who didn't really give a damn about the hopes and dreams of his firstborn son", approached Ford while he was waiting tables in a Grand Rapids restaurant.
Ford said, "My stepfather was a magnificent person and my mother equally wonderful.
So I couldn't have written a better prescription for a superb family upbringing."
Scouting and athletics
Ford was involved in The Boy Scouts of America, and earned that program's highest rank, Eagle Scout.
In his later years, Ford received the Distinguished Eagle Scout Award in May 1970 and Silver Buffalo Award from the Boy Scouts of America.
He is the only U.S. president who is an Eagle Scout.
He played football when he was in high school and college.
Ford served 25 years in the United States House of Representatives and was Minority Leader for many years.
When Richard Nixon was President, his first Vice President was Spiro Agnew, but Agnew resigned in 1973 because he took bribes while he was Governor of Maryland in the late 1960s.
Nixon then chose Ford to be his next Vice President.
Ford had to be approved by Congress since there was no Presidential election that year.
Because he had been in Congress for a long time, other Congressmen knew him well and were happy to approve him as Vice President because they thought he was honest.
However, Ford was not Nixon's first choice.
Some of his first choices were John Connally (the former Governor of Texas), Nelson Rockefeller (the Governor of New York), and Ronald Reagan (the former Governor of California).
But, Nixon was worried that these other men might have trouble getting approved by Congress.
All of them had also run for President already or were planning to run soon.
Nixon did not want to help pick who would be the top Republican candidate in 1976 and Ford promised him that he was not interested in being President.
Ford always told reporters that he always dreamed of being Speaker of the House instead.
Presidency, 1974–77
Because of the Watergate scandal, Nixon resigned on August 9, 1974.
Ford became the President.
He was inaugurated at the White House by Chief Justice Warren E. Burger.
He is the only President of the United States not to be elected to either the office of President or Vice President.
Once he became President, he realized he could do a good job and decided to run for a full term in 1976.
He ran against the popular conservative Ronald Reagan for the Republican nomination in 1976.
Ford won by a small number of votes against Reagan.
Ford had pardoned Nixon for his crimes in 1974.
Many experts say that is one of the reasons why Ford lost to Jimmy Carter in the 1976 election, which was very close.
Other reasons for the loss were a bad economy with a lot of inflation, the Mayagüez incident, and the last U.S. soldiers leaving Vietnam followed by Saigon and the rest of South Vietnam being taken over by the North Vietnamese, both in 1975.
With his somewhat short 895-day presidency (less than one term), he was often seen as a place holder in between Richard Nixon and Jimmy Carter.
The way he handled the Watergate scandal has changed people's view of him.
While critics felt that pardoning Nixon was not fair, his supporters felt like his term provided a sense of healing and comfort to a country that was morally divided.
He was also a more liberal Republican than the more conservative Ronald Reagan.
Ford was adopted at a young age.
His birth name was Leslie King, Jr. He married Betty Ford in 1948.
Ford died in his home in California on December 26, 2006 from cardiac arrest caused by cerebrovascular disease and coronary artery disease at the age of 93 years and 165 days.
Until then, no other president had lived to be that old since Ronald Reagan in 2004.
George H. W. Bush became the oldest living former president in November 2017.
On March 22, 2019, Jimmy Carter gained the distinction of being the nation's longest-lived president.
White House biography about Ford.
Lawyers from Omaha, Nebraska
Deaths from cardiac arrest
Deaths from cerebrovascular disease
Deaths from coronary artery disease
Politicians from Omaha, Nebraska
United States representatives from Michigan
Minority leaders of the United States House of Representatives
John Forbes Kerry (born December 11, 1943) is an American politician.
He is a former United States Secretary of State and former Senator from Massachusetts and the Democratic nominee for President in 2004.
He lost to George W. Bush.
He has served in the Senate for 23 years and has also served as the lieutenant governor of Massachusetts under Michael Dukakis.
Kerry was born on December 11, 1943 at Fitzsimons Army Medical Center in Aurora, Colorado.
His father was an officer in the United States Army Air Force.
He studied at Yale University and at Boston College Law school.
Kerry was raised as a Roman Catholic by his Catholic father and Episcopalian mother.
It was discovered in 2003 by Felix Gundacker, a genealogist working with The Boston Globe, that Kerry's paternal grandparents, who had been born Jewish, as "Fritz Kohn" and "Ida Löwe", in the Austro-Hungarian Empire, changed their names to "Frederick and Ida Kerry" in 1900 and converted from Judaism to Roman Catholicism in 1901
In 1968 and 1969, Kerry was a United States Navy officer in Vietnam.
During the 2012 Obama reelection campaign, Kerry participated in one on one debate prep with the president, impersonating the Republican candidate Mitt Romney.
Kerry's vice presidential candidate was John Edwards.
The ticket lost the election to George W. Bush and Dick Cheney.
One of the reasons Kerry lost is because people said he was an elitist (he did not understand most Americans) and also because a group called "Swift Boat Veterans for Truth" attacked his service in Vietnam.
On December 21, 2012, President Barack Obama nominated Kerry to succeed Hillary Clinton as Secretary of State.
The committee said yes on making Kerry the new Secretary of State.
Kerry won confirmation by the Senate on January 29, 2012 by a 94-3 vote.
He assumed the office of Secretary of State on February 1, 2013.
In a letter to Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick, Kerry announced his resignation from the Senate effective February 1.
Kerry was sworn in as Secretary of State on February 1, 2013.
Special Envoy for Climate Change
On November 23, 2020, President-elect Joe Biden announced that Kerry will serve as the U.S. Special Presidential Envoy for Climate in the Biden administration.
He was sworn in on January 20, 2021, the same day Biden was inaugurated as president.
He was married to Julia from 1970 until they divorced in 1988.
Then he was married to Teresa Heinz since 1995.
He has two children and three step-children.
He now lives in Boston, Massachusetts.
Kerry and his former competitor George W. Bush share an ancestor on Kerry's mother's side and Bush's father's side from the 1600s.
Kerry is 6 ft 4 in (1.93 m) tall, enjoys surfing and windsurfing, as well as ice hockey, hunting and playing bass guitar.
According to an interview he gave to Rolling Stone magazine in 2004, Kerry's favorite album is Abbey Road and he is a fan of The Beatles and The Rolling Stones, as well as of Jimi Hendrix and Jimmy Buffett.
He never liked heavy metal.
During his 2004 presidential campaign, Kerry used Bruce Springsteen's "No Surrender" as one of his campaign songs.
Later he would adopt U2's "Beautiful Day" as his official campaign song.
JohnKerry.com —John Kerry's political web site
johnkerry.
com/about/john_kerry/military_records.html Kerry's military records—from JohnKerry.com via the Internet Archive
John Kerry for Senate -Official 2008 senatorial re-election campaign website
John Kerry's Online Office —Official senatorial site
Campaign for Our Country —PAC led by Kerry
John Kerry's letter to his parents about Richard Pershing's death—1968.
Statement on behalf of Vietnam Veterans Against the War—April 1971.
John Kerry's Senate hearing testimony  to the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations in 1971 (PDF file)
John Kerry's complete 1971 statement before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee from National Review
Selections from John Kerry's 1971 statement before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee
The BCCI Affair, A Report to the Committee on Foreign Relations, United States Senate, by Senator John Kerry and Senator Hank Brown, December 1992
Obama rally with John Kerry and Others MP3 on February 2, 2008 in Sacramento, CA
Irish Catholic or Czech Jew?—Kerry's long lost Jewish ethnic ancestry
Schanberg, Sydney H., When John Kerry's Courage Went M.I.A., The Village Voice,  February 17, 2004
Kranish, Michael, John Kerry: Candidate in the making, The Boston Globe, June 15, 2003
Profile: John Kerry, Paul Reynolds, BBC News, November 5, 2004
Frontline: the choice 2004—Thorough two-hour special comparing Kerry and Bush
Researcher Alleges Potential Plagiarism in 11 Passages of Kerry's Writings
American military personnel of the Vietnam War
American Roman Catholics
People from Aurora, Colorado
Politicians from Boston, Massachusetts
Politicians from Colorado
Purple Heart recipients
United States Secretaries of State
United States senators from Massachusetts
Lawyers from Boston
Lawyers from Colorado
The job of white blood cells (also called leukocytes) is to fight infections and cancer.
They also remove poison, waste and damaged cells from the body.
Types of white blood cells
Lymphocytes are round white blood cells a bit bigger than a red blood cell.
Their center is round and they have little cytoplasm.
Part of the lymphatic system, these target specific germs or poisons using their antibodies.
There are three known types of lymphocytes, called T-cells, B-cells, and natural killer cells (NK cells).
B-cells make antibodies, which are little molecules that attach to viruses or bad cells.
These tell other cells to destroy the viruses or bad cells, like a flag.
Natural killer cells kill cells in the body that have been infected by a virus or that are part of a tumor.
They are part of the innate immune system.
Monocytes are reserve cells which turn into macrophages and dendritic cells, which work together in tissues to fight disease.
Monocytes have a kidney bean shaped center and lots of cytoplasm.
They may appear as macrophages in a non-round shape when they pass through tissue to eat germs, "junk" cells, and dead cells.
Granulocytes
The next three types of white blood cells are referred to as granulocytes since they all contain rough, grain-like particles that assist in attacking viruses and bacteria.
Granulocytes are also called polymorphonuclear leukocytes because of the shape of the nucleus, which has three segments.
Neutrophils
Neutrophils are the most abundant type of white blood cells in mammals, 70% of leukocytes.
They are an essential part of the immune system.
They get to the site of an injury within minutes, and make up much of the content of pus.
They have a short life-span of a couple of days.
The nucleus, which looks like a string of beads, does not take up stain strongly.
Like phagocytes, they actually eat the bacteria and dead cells.
They also release a bunch of proteins which work to damage the bacteria.
Basophils, or basophil granulocytes, are rare granulocytes.
If you collected 1000 white blood cells, only 13 of them would be basophils.
Their nucleus is hidden by granules which turn dark blue in color when stained.
Basophils carry histamine and heparin.
They appear at the sites of ectoparasite infection, or allergies.
We don't know exactly how they work.
Eosinophils, or acidophils, are leukocytes.
They are one of the immune system components which combat parasites and certain infections.
As with mast cells and basophils, they part causes of allergy and asthma.
Eosinophils are round cells with a lobed nucleus and granules which turn red when stained.
These granules are packed with proteins that can be poured out to help destroy invaders.