title: John Bolton

text: On April 20, it emerged that Melody Townsel, a former USAID contractor, had reported to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee that Bolton had used inflammatory language and thrown objects in the course of her work activities in Moscow. Townsel's encounter with Bolton occurred when she served as a whistleblower against a poorly performing minority contractor for USAID, IBTCI. Townsel told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee staff that Bolton had made derogatory remarks about her sexual orientation and weight, among other workplace improprieties. In an official interview with Senate Foreign Relation Committee staff, Townsel detailed her accusations against Bolton, which were confirmed by Canadian designer Uno Ramat, who had served as an IBTCI employee and one of Townsel's AID colleagues. "Time" magazine, among other publications, verified Townsel's accusations and Ramat's supporting testimony, and Townsel's story was transcribed and entered into the official Senate committee record. Townsel, who was an employee of Young & Rubicam at the time of her encounter with Bolton, continued working for the company on a variety of other USAID projects.


title: John Bolton

text: On April 22, "The New York Times" and other media reported that Bolton's former boss, Colin Powell, personally opposed the nomination and had been in personal contact with Chafee and Hagel. The same day, Reuters reported that a spokesman for Senator Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) had said the Senator felt the committee "did the right thing delaying the vote on Bolton in light of the recent information presented to the committee."


title: John Bolton

text: Also on May 11, "Newsweek" reported allegations that the American position at the 7th Review Conference in May 2005 of the Nuclear Proliferation Treaty had been undercut by Bolton's "absence without leave" during the nomination fight, quoting anonymous sources "close to the negotiations".


title: John Bolton

text: On May 26, 2005, Senate Democrats postponed the vote on Bolton's UN nomination. The Republican leadership failed to gain enough support to pass a cloture motion on the floor debate over Bolton, and minority leader Harry Reid conceded the move signaled the "first filibuster of the year." The Democrats claimed that key documents regarding Bolton and his career at the Department of State were being withheld by the Bush administration. Scott McClellan, White House press secretary, responded by saying, "Just 72 hours after all the good will and bipartisanship (over a deal on judicial nominees), it's disappointing to see the Democratic leadership resort back to such a partisan approach."


title: John Bolton

text: The failure of the Senate to end debate on Bolton's nomination provided one surprise for some: Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-TN) voted against cloture for procedural reasons, so he could bring up a cloture vote in the future. (Although Voinovich once spoke against confirming Bolton, he voted for cloture.) Senator John Thune (R-SD) voted to end debate but announced that he would vote against Bolton in the up-or-down vote as a protest against the government's plans to close a military base (Ellsworth) in his home state.


title: John Bolton

text: On June 20, 2005, the Senate voted again on cloture. The vote failed 54–38, six votes short of ending debate. That marked an increase of two "no" votes, including the defection of Voinovich, who switched his previous "yes" vote and urged President Bush to pick another nominee (Democrats Mark Pryor, Mary Landrieu and Ben Nelson voted to end debate both times). On June 21, Frist expressed his view that attempting another vote would be pointless, but later that day, following a lunch at the White House, changed his position, saying he would continue to push for an up-or-down vote. Voinovich later recanted his opposition and stated that if Bolton were renominated he would have supported the nomination.


title: John Bolton

text: On July 28, 2005, it was revealed that a statement made by Bolton on forms submitted to the Senate was false. Bolton indicated that in the prior five years he had not been questioned in any investigation, but in fact he had been interviewed by the State Department's Inspector General as part of an investigation into the sources of pre-war claims of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. After insisting for weeks that Bolton had testified truthfully on the form, the State Department reversed itself, saying Bolton had simply forgotten about the investigation.


title: John Bolton

text: On August 1, 2005, Bush officially made a recess appointment of Bolton, installing him as Permanent U.S. Representative to the UN. A recess appointment lasts until the next session of Congress ends or until the individual is renominated and confirmed by the Senate. During the announcement, Bush said, "This post is too important to leave vacant any longer, especially during a war and a vital debate about U.N. reform." Democrats criticized the appointment, and Senator Christopher Dodd (D-CT) of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee said Bolton would lack credibility in the U.N. because he lacked Senate confirmation. U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan welcomed Mr. Bolton, but told reporters that the new ambassador should consult with others as the administration continued to press for changes at the United Nations.


title: John Bolton

text: "The Economist" called Bolton "the most controversial ambassador ever sent by America to the United Nations." Some colleagues in the UN appreciated the goals Bolton was trying to achieve, but not his abrasive style. "The New York Times", in its editorial "The Shame of the United Nations", praised Bolton's stance on "reforming the disgraceful United Nations Human Rights Commission", saying "John Bolton, is right; Secretary-General Kofi Annan is wrong." The "Times" also said the commission at that time was composed of "some of the world's most abusive regimes" who used their membership as cover to continue their abusiveness.


title: John Bolton

text: Bolton also opposed the proposed replacement for the Human Rights Commission, the UN Human Rights Council, as not going far enough for reform, saying: "We want a butterfly. We don't intend to put lipstick on a caterpillar and call it a success."


title: John Bolton

text: Bush announced his intention to renominate Bolton for confirmation as U.N. ambassador at the beginning of 2006, and a new confirmation hearing was held on July 27, 2006, in the hope of completing the process before the expiration of Bolton's recess appointment at the end of the 109th Congress. Voinovich, who had previously stood in opposition to Bolton, had amended his views and determined that Bolton was doing a "good job" as UN ambassador; in February 2006, he said "I spend a lot of time with John on the phone. I think he is really working very constructively to move forward."


title: John Bolton

text: Over the summer and during the fall election campaign, no action was taken on the nomination because Chafee, who was in a difficult re-election campaign, blocked a Senate Foreign Relations Committee vote. Without his concurrence, the SFRC would have been deadlocked 9–9, and the nomination could not have gone to the Senate floor for a full vote. Bush formally resubmitted the nomination on November 9, 2006, immediately following a midterm election that would give control of the 110th Congress to the Democratic party. Chafee, who had just lost his re-election bid, issued a statement saying he would vote against recommending Bolton for a Senate vote, citing what he considered to be a mandate from the recent election results: "On Tuesday, the American people sent a clear message of dissatisfaction with the foreign policy approach of the Bush administration. To confirm Mr. Bolton to the position of U.N. ambassador would fly in the face of the clear consensus of the country that a new direction is called for."


title: John Bolton

text: On December 4, 2006, Bolton announced that he would terminate his work as U.S. representative to the UN at the end of the recess appointment and would not continue to seek confirmation. His letter of resignation from the Bush administration was accepted on December 4, 2006, effective when his recess appointment ended December 9 at the formal adjournment of the 109th Congress.


title: John Bolton

text: The announcement was characterized as Bolton's "resignation" by the Associated Press, United Press International, ABC News, and other news sources, as well as a White House press release and President Bush himself. The White House, however, later objected to the use of this language. Deputy Press Secretary Dana Perino told CBS News "it is not a resignation." The actual language of the President's written acceptance was: "It is with deep regret that I accept John Bolton's decision to end his service in the administration as permanent representative of the United States to the United Nations when his commission expires." However, at a press conference, the President said, "I received the resignation of Ambassador John Bolton. I accept it. I'm not happy about it. I think he deserved to be confirmed." Some news organizations subsequently altered their language to phrases such as "to step down," "to leave," or "to exit."


title: John Bolton

text: During his confirmation hearings in 2005, letters with signatures of more than 64 co-workers and professional colleagues were sent to Senator Richard Lugar, Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, in praise of Bolton and contradicting other criticisms and allegations concerning his diplomatic style and his treatment of colleagues and staff.


title: John Bolton

text: In late 2006, when his nomination was again before the committee, another letter signed by professional colleagues supporting the renomination was sent to Senator Lugar. A "Wall Street Journal" op ed by Claudia Rosett on December 5, 2006, said in part, "Bolton has been valiant in his efforts to clean up UN corruption and malfeasance, and follow UN procedure in dealing with such threats as a nuclear North Korea, a Hezbollah bid to take over Lebanon, and the nuclearization of Hezbollah's terror-masters in Iran. But it has been like watching one man trying to move a tsunami of mud."


title: John Bolton

text: In an interview with conservative radio host Hugh Hewitt during the 2016 U.S. presidential campaign, Republican nominee Donald Trump named Bolton as a possible choice for Secretary of State. Appearing on Fox News' Fox and Friends on December 1, 2016, Bolton admitted he was being considered as a Secretary of State candidate for the incoming Trump administration. Several Trump associates claim Bolton was not chosen, in part, due to Trump's disdain for Bolton's signature mustache.


title: John Bolton

text: The evening of December 10, the BBC cited NBC reports that "sources close to Mr Trump [were]... saying that Mr Tillerson is likely to be named next week" and that former UN ambassador John Bolton "will serve as his deputy".


title: John Bolton

text: Bolton has supported theories about the health of Hillary Clinton and about her aide Huma Abedin, and in December 2016, Bolton said the conclusion of the United States Intelligence Community that Russian hackers had intervened to help elect Donald Trump in 2016 may have been a "false flag" operation. In a subsequent interview on Fox News, Bolton criticized the Obama administration's retaliatory sanctions as insufficient and suggested that the US response should "make them [the Russians] feel pain".


title: John Bolton

text: In February 2017 President Trump interviewed Bolton and three others to determine who would fill the position of National Security Advisor vacated by Lt. Gen. Michael T. Flynn. The position ultimately went to H. R. McMaster. Trump "made a point on Monday of praising Mr. Bolton and saying that he would find a position for him in his administration eventually." Bolton was seen at the White House on the evening of March 6, 2018, presumably to be interviewed as a candidate for national security adviser.


title: John Bolton

text: "The New York Times" reported on March 22, 2018, that John Bolton would replace National Security Adviser H. R. McMaster, which was confirmed by Trump in a tweet later that day. Bolton began his position as National Security Advisor on April 9, 2018. "The New York Times" wrote that the rise of Bolton and Mike Pompeo, coupled with the departure of Rex Tillerson and General McMaster, meant Trump's foreign policy team was now "the most radically aggressive foreign policy team around the American president in modern memory", and compared it to the foreign policy team surrounding George W. Bush, notably with Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld.


title: John Bolton

text: On April 10, 2018, Homeland Security Advisor Tom Bossert resigned at Bolton's request, and Bolton said he was considering a merger of the NSC with the Homeland Security Council. During his first week in office Bolton requested and obtained the resignations of multiple National Security Council (NSC) employees including NSC spokesman Michael Anton (April 8), deputy national security adviser Nadia Schadlow (April 10), and deputy national security adviser Ricky L. Waddell (April 12). CNN reported in September 2018 that Bolton had significantly shrunk the number of NSC personnel, cutting it to under 300.


title: John Bolton

text: In April 2018, Bolton pressed President Trump to withdraw from the Iran Nuclear Deal, which Trump did a month later.


title: John Bolton

text: The Huffington Post reported that on May 8, 2018, Bolton removed Timothy Ziemer and dissolved his Global Health Security team formerly on the NSC leaving the administration's high level preparation for and ability to respond to pandemics, infectious disease, and other biological threats unclear. The choice to remove and not replace Ziemer in the midst of an emerging Ebola outbreak in The Democratic Republic of Congo was criticized in several news outlets.


title: John Bolton

text: On September 10, 2018, in his first major address as National Security Advisor, Bolton criticized the International Criminal Court, saying it lacks checks and balances, exercises "jurisdiction over crimes that have disputed and ambiguous definitions," and has failed to "deter and punish atrocity crimes." Calling the ICC a threat to "American sovereignty and U.S. national security," Bolton said it is "superfluous," given that "domestic judicial systems already hold American citizens to the highest legal and ethical standards." He added that the U.S. would do everything "to protect our citizens" should the ICC attempt to prosecute U.S. servicemen over alleged detainee abuse in Afghanistan, and it would bar ICC judges and prosecutors from entering the U.S. and sanction their funds. He also criticized Palestinian efforts to bring Israel before the ICC over allegations of human rights abuses in the occupied West Bank and Gaza.


title: John Bolton

text: In 2018, Bolton requested that the Pentagon provide the White House with options for military strikes against Iran. According to the "New York Times", Bolton "intensified the administration's policy of isolating and pressuring Iran—reflecting an animus against Iran's leaders that dates back to his days as an official in the George W. Bush administration. As a private citizen, he later called for military strikes on Iran, as well as regime change."


title: John Bolton

text: As National Security Advisor, Bolton eliminated the kinds of internal policy debates that his predecessor H. R. McMaster had in place. "The New York Times" writes that this change in practices contributed to Trump's sudden decision to withdraw the United States from Syria in January 2019.


title: John Bolton

text: As National Security Advisor, Bolton advanced policies skeptical and hostile toward international organizations. By his first year as National Security Advisor, Bolton had reshaped the National Security Council and become influential within the Trump Administration.


title: John Bolton

text: By May 2019, Trump had undercut some of Bolton's major hard line positions, stating he was not seeking regime change in Iran and contradicting Bolton's correct assertion that North Korea had recently violated United Nations resolutions by testing new short-range missiles. As Trump prepared for his historic meeting with Kim Jong-un in the Korean Demilitarized Zone in June 2019, Bolton flew to Mongolia.


title: John Bolton

text: On September 10, 2019, President Trump claimed on Twitter that he had told Bolton on September 9 his "services are no longer needed" given "many" disagreements with Trump, thus Bolton gave his resignation on September 10. Just minutes later, Bolton contradicted Trump's account, tweeting out this claim: Bolton offered to resign on September 9, with Trump replying: "Let's talk about it tomorrow." Bolton later told the media Trump "never asked" for his resignation "directly or indirectly", and that he had both offered to resign and actually resigned of his own accord. Meanwhile, the White House endorsed Trump's version of the events. Politico reported that Tucker Carlson had urged Trump to fire Bolton.


title: John Bolton

text: After Bolton's departure, Trump claimed that Bolton's views were "not necessarily tougher" than his own: "in some cases, he thought it was too tough what we were doing". On Cuba and Venezuela, Trump claimed that his own views were "far stronger" than Bolton's: "He was holding me back!" Bolton himself was known for his hawkish positions, including on Cuba and Venezuela, while Trump previously in May 2019 offered a different view of Bolton: "I actually temper John, which is pretty amazing."


title: John Bolton

text: Following his departure, Bolton was reappointed as a senior advisor to investment company Rhône Group, a role he had held previously.


title: John Bolton

text: Following Bolton's departure, Fiona Hill, who served as the National Security Council's senior director for Europe and Russia, testified before a Congressional committee that Bolton had disassociated himself from what he viewed as the Trump administration's effort to pressure Ukraine into investigating the President's political rivals.


title: John Bolton

text: Bolton refused to attend his scheduled deposition in the impeachment inquiry against Donald Trump on November 7, 2019, and threatened to take legal action if he was subpoenaed. Bolton said he was willing to testify, but wanted a federal court to first rule on a lawsuit by his former deputy seeking a court ruling on the competing claims of the Trump administration and Congress. However, in a written statement obtained by NBC News on January 6, 2020, Bolton announced that he would testify during the Senate impeachment trial should he be issued a subpoena to do so. A 51-vote majority would be required from the Senate in order to obtain the subpoena. As the second week of opening statements was set to begin, to be followed by a vote on whether to call witnesses, "The New York Times" reported that Bolton wrote in his forthcoming book that the President had told him in August 2019 that he wanted to continue freezing the Ukraine aid until officials there pursued investigations into Democrats, including the Bidens. The "Times" also stated that "Drafts of the book outline the potential testimony of the former national security adviser if he were called as a witness in the president's impeachment trial." On January 23, as Bolton was preparing for possible Senate testimony about the assertions in his manuscript, the National Security Council informed him that it contained classified information and "may not be published or otherwise disclosed without the deletion of this classified information.” Bolton's attorney stated he did not believe the manuscript contained sensitive information. The dispute set the stage for a prolonged review, with Bolton's attorney asking that access to the manuscript be limited to "those career government officials and employees regularly charged with responsibility for such reviews." The leaked contents from the book also resulted in Trump impeachment lawyer Jay Sekulow dismissing Bolton's claims as "inadmissible" when he argued before the Senate in defense of Trump on January 28, 2020. Democratic trial manager Adam Schiff later remarked that Sekulow's assertion validated the argument that Bolton should be called to testify. The Senate rejected (51 to 49) a measure to consider calling new witnesses and evidence.


title: John Bolton

text: Bolton was executive director of the Committee on Resolutions in the Republican National Committee from 1983 to 1984.


title: John Bolton

text: Between 1997 and 2000, Bolton worked as an assistant to James Baker when he was the UN Secretary-General envoy to the Western Sahara. Since 2006, he has been a paid Fox News contributor and a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute. For 2017, he reported an income of $569,000 from Fox News. Bolton was a contributor to "The Weekly Standard", an American conservative opinion magazine, from 1997 to 2000, and again from 2014 to 2016.


title: John Bolton

text: From 2013 until March 2018, Bolton was chairman of the far-right anti-Muslim Gatestone Institute, which is prominent for disseminating false anti-immigrant and anti-Muslim information. In 2018, the White House reported that Bolton's total income for 2017 had been $2.2 million which included $569,000 from Fox News and $747,000 in speaking fees from, among others, the Victor Pinchuk Foundation (a Ukrainian NGO), Deutsche Bank, and HSBC.


title: John Bolton

text: Bolton considered running for president in the 2012 U.S. presidential election. He received attention in conservative circles, including the cover of the December 31, 2010 issue of "National Review" magazine. He told "Politico": "As I survey the situation, I think the Republican field is wide open. I don't think the party's anywhere close to a decision. And stranger things have happened. For example, inexperienced senators from Illinois have gotten presidential nominations." In September 2011, Bolton said he would not run for president in 2012.


title: John Bolton

text: During the Republican primary, Republican presidential-hopeful Newt Gingrich said he would ask Bolton to serve as his Secretary of State. In January 2012, Bolton endorsed Mitt Romney for the 2012 Republican Nomination.


title: John Bolton

text: Bolton was senior vice president of the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative think tank, from 1997 to 2001. At the time, he frequently wrote columns criticizing the Clinton administration's foreign policy. Bolton said Clinton's policy on Iraq was "worse than incompetent", his policy on North Korea was "egregiously wrong", and his Libya policy was a "catastrophic loss of U.S. credibility."


title: John Bolton

text: After leaving the George W. Bush Administration in 2006, Bolton returned to the American Enterprise Institute as a Senior Fellow. From 2010 until 2018, Bolton served as Director, Foreign and Defense Policy Studies for AEI. In Bolton's time at the American Enterprise Institute, he spoke against the policy of rewarding North Korea for ending its nuclear weapons program. He said the policy would encourage others to violate nuclear non-proliferation rules so they could then be rewarded for following the rules they'd already agreed to.


title: John Bolton

text: In July 2013, Bolton was identified as a key member of Groundswell, a secretive coalition of right-wing activists and journalists attempting to advance political change behind the scenes through lobbying of high-level contacts.


title: John Bolton

text: In 2013, Bolton set up the John Bolton Super PAC. It raised $11.3 million for Republican candidates in the 2014 and 2016 elections and spent $5.6 million, paying Cambridge Analytica at least $650,000 for voter data analysis and digital video ad targeting in support of the campaigns of Senators Thom Tillis (R-N.C.), Tom Cotton (R-Ark.), and Richard Burr (R-N.C.), and of former U.S. Senator (R-MA) Scott Brown's unsuccessful 2014 bid for a U.S. Senate seat for New Hampshire. In September 2016, Bolton announced that his Super PAC would spend $1million on (R-N.C.) Senator Richard Burr's reelection effort by targeting ads at "social media users and Dish Network and Direct TV subscribers".


title: John Bolton

text: The Center for Public Integrity analysed the John Bolton Super PAC's campaign finance filings and found that they had paid Cambridge Analytica more than $1.1 million since 2014 for "research" and "survey research". According to Federal Election Commission filings, Cambridge Analytica was paid more than $811,000 by them in the 2016 presidential election; in the same election cycle, the Super PAC spent around $2.5 million in support of Republican U.S. Senate candidates.


title: John Bolton

text: Bolton said he aims to raise and spend $25 million for up to 90 Republican candidates in the 2018 midterm elections. In January 2018, Bolton announced a $1 million advertising campaign in support of Kevin Nicholson's bid for the Republican nomination to run against incumbent Democratic Senator Tammy Baldwin of Wisconsin. The Super PAC ran an ad campaign in the Green Bay area in January 2018; on March 19, 2018, the Super PAC announced a two-week $278,000 television and radio ad campaign in the Milwaukee area.


title: John Bolton

text: Major donors to the John Bolton Super PAC are Robert Mercer, who gave $4 million from 2012 to 2016; Home Depot co-founder Bernard Marcus, and Los Angeles real estate developer Geoffrey Palmer.


title: John Bolton

text: After Bolton was appointed National Security Advisor in March 2018, the John Bolton Super PAC and the John Bolton PAC announced that their political activities were suspended temporarily, effective March 31, 2018. The Super PAC's FEC filings showed a balance of $2.6 million in unspent donations at the end of March 2018.


title: John Bolton

text: On June 16, 2020, the Trump Justice Department attempted to block publication of Bolton's memoir, "The Room Where It Happened", seeking to confiscate Bolton's $2 million advance for breach of contract, asserting he had not completed the prepublication security review as he had agreed to receive his security clearance. Bolton had submitted the book for security review in December 2019, and after months of discussions, was told on April 27 by Ellen Knight—the National Security Council's senior director for prepublication review—that no other classification issues remained. However, the White House did not provide Bolton written notice that he could proceed with publication, and in May another NSC official was asked to further review the manuscript. On June 17, the Justice Department asked a federal judge to issue an injunction to block publication of the book, which had already been printed, bound and shipped to distribution warehouses for its official release the following week. By that day, media outlets had acquired copies of the book and begun publishing articles about its contents.


title: John Bolton

text: In its brief filed with the court, the Justice Department provided six examples of what it asserted were classified items that remained in the book. Trump had previously asserted that any conversation with him is "highly classified." During a hearing on June 19, federal judge Royce Lamberth castigated Bolton for proceeding to publish his book without formal clearance, but ruled that publication of the book could proceed.


title: John Bolton

text: Bolton's attorney asserted that the White House was slow-walking the review process to prevent the book, which contained extensive harsh criticism of Trump, from being released during the 2020 election campaign. According to reporting, Trump claimed that the book contained "highly classified" information but also characterized the book as "pure fiction."


title: John Bolton

text: On June 21, a pirated copy of the book appeared online. The book was released on June 23. Later that summer, the Justice Department opened a criminal investigation into whether the book revealed classified information, empaneling a grand jury that subpoenaed the publisher's communications records.


title: John Bolton

text: The Justice Department dropped its criminal inquiry of Bolton in June 2021 and moved to end efforts to confiscate proceeds from his book.


title: John Bolton

text: He declared himself in an interview with Edward Luce of the "Financial Times" in 2007 to be a "Goldwater conservative", as opposed to being a neoconservative. He also pointed out that he was a follower of Edmund Burke. He also said "I have always been a conservative. The idea of big-government conservatism has more neocon adherents than from unmodified conservatives."


title: John Bolton

text: Bolton is skeptical of international organizations and international law, believing them to endanger American sovereignty, and does not believe they have legitimate authority under the U.S. Constitution. He criticized the Obama administration's foreign policy for what he perceived as surrendering U.S. sovereignty. He also prefers unilateralism over multilateralism. In a 2000 article in the "Chicago Journal of International Law", Bolton described himself as a "convinced Americanist", favoring it over what he described as "globalism". In his roles in the U.S. government, however, Bolton has been more pragmatic in his actions toward international organizations, though according to "Foreign Policy", he effectively advanced his views on this subject during his tenure in the Trump Administration.


title: John Bolton

text: Bolton has criticized the International Criminal Court, seeing it as a threat to U.S. sovereignty. Bolton said: "If the court comes after us, Israel or other US allies, we will not sit quietly. We will ban its judges and prosecutors from entering the United States. We will sanction their funds in the US financial system, and we will prosecute them in the US criminal system."


title: John Bolton

text: Bolton has been a strong critic of the United Nations for much of his career. Bolton's opposition to the UN was rooted in a disdain for international organizations, which he believed infringed on the sovereignty of the United States. He also opposed the International Criminal Court. In 1994, he stated, "There is no United Nations. There is an international community that occasionally can be led by the only real power left in the world, and that's the United States, when it suits our interests and when we can get others to go along."


title: John Bolton

text: He also stated that "The Secretariat Building in New York has 38 stories. If you lost ten stories today, it wouldn't make a bit of difference." When pressed on the statement during the confirmation process, he responded, "There's not a bureaucracy in the world that couldn't be made leaner." However, in a paper on U.S. participation in the UN, Bolton stated "the United Nations can be a useful instrument in the conduct of American foreign policy."


title: John Bolton

text: Bolton is a critic of the European Union. In his book "Surrender Is Not an Option", he criticized the EU for pursuing "the endless process of diplomatic mastication" rather than satisfactorily solving problems, and he labeled the organization's diplomats as "EUroids". He has also criticized the EU for advancing what he considers liberal policies. Bolton campaigned in Ireland against further EU integration in 2008, and he criticized the Treaty of Lisbon for expanding EU powers. In 2016, Bolton praised the UK's referendum vote to leave the EU, and "Axios" reported in January 2019 that Bolton continued to advocate for a hard Brexit as National Security Advisor. In a March 2019 interview with Sky News, Bolton criticized the UK "political class" for not implementing the Brexit vote.


title: John Bolton

text: In September 2011, when the Obama administration declared the death of Al Qaeda target and American-born radical Anwar al-Awlaki in Yemen, Bolton commented "I think it's important as individual Al Qaeda figures and other terrorists are killed that we not read more into it than there is. Consider this analogy if you were around in the 1920s and somebody said, my God, Vladimir Lenin is dead. The Bolsheviks will never recover from this...So while Al-Awlaki's death is significant, I would not read cosmic consequences into it."


title: John Bolton

text: Bolton opposed the deal that George W. Bush made with then Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi to eliminate the country's weapons of mass destruction program. He was in a key role during initial negotiations but his role became limited over time. According to a 2005 study, Bolton was intentionally kept out of the loop so a final agreement could be reached: "Bolton reportedly was unaware of the December 19 WMD agreement until very shortly before its public announcement. And after initially being given a lead role in implementing it, he pushed so hard to backtrack from the agreement that the British convinced the Bush administration to restrict his involvement in the Libya matter."


title: John Bolton

text: Bolton supported the NATO-led military intervention in Libya that toppled the regime of Muammar Gaddafi.


title: John Bolton

text: Bolton is regarded to be an "architect" of the Iraq War. In 1998, he was a signatory to a letter sent to President Bill Clinton urging him to remove Saddam Hussein from power using U.S. diplomatic, political and military power. He supported the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq that toppled the regime of Saddam Hussein and continued to stand by his support of the invasion by 2018. In 2007, Bolton said the only mistake the United States made with regard to Iraq was to not leave earlier after the overthrow of Saddam Hussein and tell the Iraqis "Here's a copy of the Federalist Papers. Good luck."


title: John Bolton

text: During 2008, Bolton opposed the declaration of independence by Kosovo. In 2018 he said, "US policy is that if the two parties can work it out between themselves and reach agreement, we don't exclude territorial adjustments," and that the US or Europe would not "stand in the way if the two parties to the dispute reached a mutually satisfactory settlement."


title: John Bolton

text: Bolton is known for his strong support for Israel. Bolton opposes the two-state solution of creating an independent Palestinian state alongside the existing state of Israel. Bolton supported moving the U.S. embassy in Israel to Jerusalem in accordance with the Jerusalem Embassy Act, and he testified in front of Congress in 2017 on the matter. In 2010, Bolton co-founded the Friends of Israel Initiative with 12 other international figures.


title: John Bolton

text: Bolton supports what he calls the "Three State Solution" in order to determine the political status of Gaza and the West Bank. Under Bolton's Three State Solution, Israel would annex settlements it has built in the West Bank since the conclusion of the Six-Days War in 1967, Egypt would annex and administer the Gaza Strip, and Jordan would annex and administer the remaining portion of the West Bank not annexed by Israel. Bolton's Three State proposal would not result in the creation of an independent Palestinian state.


title: John Bolton

text: Bolton has advocated for pre-emptive strikes against North Korea and Iran. In March 2018, he suggested that South Korea take North Korea and terminate the North Korean regime as the only "diplomatic option", and said that the war between the two countries is their problem and not the US problem.


title: John Bolton

text: In 2006, Bolton attempted to bring prosecution against Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad for incitement to genocide in the International Court of Justice, along with Alan Dershowitz, Dore Gold, and other experts from the United States, Canada, and Israel, based on Ahmadinejad's comments that "Israel must be wiped off the map".


title: John Bolton

text: In 2008, Bolton said: "The idea here is not to have much larger hostilities, but to stop the Iranians from engaging in the hostilities that they're already doing against us inside Iraq. And they're doing much the same by aiding the Taliban in Afghanistan. So this is not provocative or preemptive, this is entirely responsive on our part." In 2018, Bolton stated: "Russia, China, Syria, Iran, North Korea. These are regimes that make agreements and lie about them. A national security policy that is based on the faith that regimes like that will honor their commitments is doomed to failure." He also said, "Our goal should be regime change in Iran." "The New Yorker", described the people who have worked with Bolton as saying "he is focused less on North Korea than on Iran". H. R. McMaster has reportedly told Dexter Fikins that Bolton has had "[the] anal focus on Iran for twenty years".


title: John Bolton

text: Unlike several of President Trump's early national security officials like National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster and Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, Bolton campaigned to press President Trump for a complete withdrawal from the 2015 nuclear deal with Iran (the JCPOA) and rejected the idea it could be fixed. Unable at the time to directly present his position to President Trump, Bolton published his proposal on how to withdraw from the Iran deal in an August 28, 2017 National Review Online article. After he was named to succeed McMaster as Nation Security Adviser in April 2018, Bolton pressed the President to withdraw from the Iran nuclear deal, a decision President Trump announced a month later. Bolton has been one of the biggest anti-Iran hawks in the Trump administration.


title: John Bolton

text: Speaking to a meeting of Iranian exile group Mujahedin-e-Khalq in March 2018, Bolton said the Trump administration should follow the goal of regime change in Iran and that "before 2019, we here will celebrate in Tehran!"


title: John Bolton

text: In 2019, Bolton, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo successfully sabotaged Trump's attempts to open diplomatic channels with Iran.


title: John Bolton

text: On January 3, 2020, the high-level Iranian General, Qasem Soleimani, was killed in a U.S. drone strike, which considerably heightened the existing tensions between the two countries. In a tweet, Bolton called the airstrike a "long in the making, this was a decisive blow against Iran's malign Quds Force activities worldwide. Hope this is the first step to regime change in Tehran."


title: John Bolton

text: Prior to it being de-listed by the U.S. as a Foreign Terrorist Organization in 2012, Bolton spoke in favor of the People's Mujahedin of Iran (also known as the Mujahedin-e Khalq, or MEK), in at least one case being paid to do so. MEK has opposed the Iranian theocratic state since shortly after the 1979 Iranian Revolution. They also have a long history of criticism of and opposition to U.S. policy in the region. According to the State Department, the MEK "[f]ollow[s] a philosophy that mixes Marxism and Islam."


title: John Bolton

text: According to his financial disclosure, he was given $40,000 for his 2016 speech to MEK. According to the 5 U.S.C. app. § 101-required 'US Public Financial Disclosure Report' (2018) for Bolton, released by Al-Monitor, he has received $40,000 of speaking fee for "Global Events–European Iranian Events" on June 1, 2017, the same day he made a speech for the MEK in a gathering in Paris, France. In May 2018, Joanne Stocker, a journalist and researcher studying the MEK, told Richard Engel of MSNBC that she estimates Bolton was paid "on the low-end, $180,000". Bolton's office has refused to comment on the matter.


title: John Bolton

text: In 2013, after NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden had been granted asylum in Russia, Bolton said: "I think in order to focus Putin's thinking, we need to do things that cause him pain as well. And while I know that not having a chance to have a bilateral meeting with his buddy Barack Obama will cause Putin to lose sleep, it's not damaging Russian interests."


title: John Bolton

text: Russian Senator Aleksey Pushkov, former chairman of the State Duma Committee on International Affairs, said after Bolton's appointment: "Bolton, along with Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld, was an ardent supporter of the war in Iraq. A supporter of jihadists for the sake of overthrowing [Syrian President Bashar al-Assad]. A great specialist in interventions and aggression, and adept at the use of force. McMaster is a general. Bolton is the ideologue of a new cold war, a convinced opponent of Russia."


title: John Bolton

text: In a June 2017 article entitled "Vladimir Putin looked Trump in the eye and lied to him. We negotiate with Russia at our peril," Bolton called Russian interference in the 2016 United States elections "a true act of war." As Trump's national security advisor in July 2018, Bolton referred to the investigation into the Russian interference as "the Russia witch hunt".


title: John Bolton

text: In a December 2021 article entitled "Now Is the Time for NATO to Stand Up to Russia," Bolton called for an aggressive response to Moscow's increase in troops along the Ukraine border.


title: John Bolton

text: In 2018, Bolton criticized Washington's One-China policy, under which Taiwan, officially known as the Republic of China, is not recognized as an independent nation, with recognition being given only to the People's Republic of China.


title: John Bolton

text: On China's notoriety in intellectual property matters, he remarked in 2018 that "There's simply no excuse for the stealing of intellectual property, forced technology transfers it's sometimes called."


title: John Bolton

text: Bolton said in October 2018 that the United States' need to counter a Chinese arms buildup in the Pacific, including within South China Sea, was one of the reasons for their move to withdraw from the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty with Russia, because China is not a signatory to the treaty.


title: John Bolton

text: In a speech as National Security Advisor on November 1, 2018, Bolton praised Brazil's president-elect Jair Bolsonaro and Colombia's president Iván Duque Márquez, both right-wing conservatives, calling them "like-minded" partners. In the speech, he also framed Bolsonaro's election victory as a "positive sign" for Latin America, and he criticized Cuba, Venezuela, and Nicaragua as a "troika of tyranny."


title: John Bolton

text: In December 2012, Bolton suggested that Secretary of State Hillary Clinton had faked a concussion to avoid testifying before Congress regarding the attack on the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi, Libya. Bolton stated "When you don't want to go to a meeting or conference or an event you have a 'diplomatic illness'. And this is a diplomatic illness to beat the band."


title: John Bolton

text: In 2010, he wrote a foreword for the book "The Post-American Presidency: The Obama Administration's War on America", authored by far-right anti-Muslim commentators Pamela Geller and Robert Spencer. Bolton endorsed their book, writing: "This book carries forward the ongoing and increasingly widespread critique of Barack Obama as our first post-American president. What it recounts is disturbing, and its broader implications are more disturbing still."


title: John Bolton

text: On August 10, 2022, an Iranian national and member of Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, Shahram Poursafi, was charged by the United States Department of Justice in an October 2021 plot to murder Bolton, likely in retaliation for the January 2020 death of Qasem Soleimani.


title: John Bolton

text: Bolton married Christina Bolton in 1972; they divorced in 1983. He has been married to Gretchen Smith Bolton, a financial planner with AXA Advisors, since January 1986. She was born in Kansas City in 1945 and had been married once before, divorcing in 1973. Together they have a daughter, Jennifer, and reside in Bethesda, Maryland. Bolton identifies as a Lutheran.


title: Public school (United Kingdom)

text: In England and Wales (but not Scotland), a public school is a fee-charging endowed school originally for older boys. They are "public" in the sense of being open to pupils irrespective of locality, denomination or paternal trade or profession. In Scotland, a public school is synonymous with a state school in England and Wales, and fee-charging schools are referred to as private schools.


title: Public school (United Kingdom)

text: Although the term "public school" has been in use since at least the 18th century, its usage was formalised by the Public Schools Act 1868, which put into law most recommendations of the 1864 Clarendon Report. Nine prestigious schools were investigated by Clarendon (including Merchant Taylors' School and St Paul's School, London) and seven subsequently reformed by the Act: Eton, Shrewsbury, Harrow, Winchester, Rugby, Westminster, and Charterhouse.


title: Public school (United Kingdom)

text: Public schools are associated with the ruling class. Historically, public schools provided many of the military officers and administrators of the British Empire.In 2019, two-thirds of cabinet ministers of the United Kingdom had been educated at such fee-charging schools.


title: Public school (United Kingdom)

text: There is no single or absolute definition of a public school, and the use of the term has varied over time and according to context. The starting point was the contrast between a "public school" and "private teaching".


title: Public school (United Kingdom)

text: The independent schools' representative body, the Independent Schools Information Service (ISIS), defined public schools as long-established, student-selective, fee-charging independent secondary schools that cater primarily for children aged between 11 or 13 and 18, and whose head teacher is a member of the Headmasters' and Headmistresses' Conference (HMC).


title: Public school (United Kingdom)

text: The above definition of 1981 has resonance with that of Sydney Smith written in 1810 in "The Edinburgh Review". "By a public school, we mean an endowed place of education of old standing, to which the sons of gentlemen resort in considerable numbers, and where they continue to reside, from eight or nine, to eighteen years of age. We do not give this as a definition which would have satisfied Porphyry or Duns-Scotus, but as one sufficiently accurate for our purpose. The characteristic features of these schools are, their antiquity, the numbers, and the ages of the young people who are educated at them ...".


title: Public school (United Kingdom)

text: A public school has been very simply defined as "a non-local endowed boarding school for the upper classes".


title: Public school (United Kingdom)

text: Arthur Leach, in his "History of Winchester College" (1899), states: "The only working definition of a Public School...is that it is an aristocratic or plutocratic school which is wholly or almost wholly a Boarding School, is under some form of more or less public control, and is ... non-local".


title: Public school (United Kingdom)

text: Vivian Ogilvie in "The English Public School" (1957) suggests five "characteristics commonly associated with a public school" (while allowing that these are not absolute or definitive): "it is a class school, catering for a well-to-do clientèle; it is expensive; it is non-local; it is a predominantly boarding school; it is independent of the State and of local government, yet it is not privately owned or run for profit."


title: Public school (United Kingdom)

text: In November 1965, the UK Cabinet considered the definition of a public school for the purpose of the Public Schools Commission set up that year. It started with the 1944 Fleming Committee definition of Public Schools, which consisted of schools which were members of the then Headmasters' Conference or the Girls' Schools Association. At that time, there were 276 such independent schools (134 boys and 142 girls), which the 1965 Public Schools Commission took in scope of its work and also considered 22 maintained and 152 direct grant grammar schools.


title: Public school (United Kingdom)

text: In 2022, using the 1981 ISIS definition or the 1944 Fleming Committee definition, there are 298 independent secondary schools belonging to the Headmasters' and Headmistresses' Conference (78% of HMC schools are co-educational, 9% are boys only and 13% are girls only), and 230 independent girls' secondary schools belonging to the Girls' Schools Association.


title: Public school (United Kingdom)

text: The majority of public schools are affiliated with, or were established by, a Christian denomination, principally the Church of England, but in some cases the Roman Catholic and Methodist churches. A small number are non-denominational or inherently secular, including Oswestry School, Bedales and University College School.


title: Public school (United Kingdom)

text: A minor public school is defined in "Brewer's Dictionary of Modern Phrase and Fable" as "a somewhat demeaning term dating from the 1930s for an English public school that is not one of the ancient foundations, such as Eton, Harrow, Rugby or Winchester". Public school rivalry is a factor in the perception of a "great" (or "major") versus "minor" distinction.


title: Public school (United Kingdom)

text: Public schools emerged from grammar schools established to educate pupils, usually destined for clerical orders, in Latin grammar. The term "public" came into use because over time access to such schools was not restricted on the basis of home location, paternal occupation or status, and that they were subject to an element of public management or control, in contrast to private schools which were run for the personal profit of the owner(s). The origins of schools in the UK were primarily religious, although in 1640 the House of Commons did invite the reformer and promoter of universal education, Comenius to England to establish and participate in an agency for the promotion of learning. It was intended that by-products of this would be the publication of "universal" books and the setting up of schools for boys and girls. The English Civil War prevented any such reform.


title: Public school (United Kingdom)

text: Some schools are particularly old, such as The King's School, Canterbury c.597, The King's School, Rochester c.604, St Peter's School, York c. 627, Sherborne School c.710, (refounded 1550 by Edward VI), Warwick School c.914, King's Ely c.970 (originally the Ely Cathedral Grammar School, then the King's School Ely when refounded in 1541 by Henry VIII, subsequently adopting the current name in 2012) and St Albans School c.948. Until the late medieval period most schools were controlled by the Church; and had specific entrance criteria; others were restricted to the sons of members of guilds, trades or livery companies.


title: Public school (United Kingdom)

text: In 1382 William of Wykeham, Bishop of Winchester and Chancellor of England, founded Winchester College. In 1440 Henry VI founded Eton College. These schools had significantly larger foundations than the existing local grammar schools, had high level political patronage and also accepted "non-local" pupils. This was "the start of a new kind of school". Elizabeth I refounded Westminster School in 1560, with new statutes to select 40 King's Scholars.This created a "triad" of privileged schools—Winchester, Eton and Westminster. From the 16th century onward, boys' boarding schools continued to be founded or endowed for public use.


title: Public school (United Kingdom)

text: Daniel Defoe in "The Compleat English Gentleman" of 1728, writes of "the great schools of Eton, Winchester, Westminster, Felsted, Bishop Stortford (sic), Canterbury and others, where the children—nay, the eldest sons—of some of the best families in England have been educated."


title: Public school (United Kingdom)

text: By the end of the 17th century the London day schools St Paul's and Merchant Taylors', together with the charitable foundations Christ's Hospital and Charterhouse had developed an elevated "standing in popular regard".


title: Public school (United Kingdom)

text: By the end of the 18th century two local grammar schools, Harrow and Rugby, had achieved national fame. In the case of Harrow, political sponsorship by aristocratic Whig politician James Brydges (later Duke of Chandos) played a significant role but also, as was the case too with Rugby, an exemplary headmaster was a key factor in raising the status of the school. This phenomenon was also seen at Shrewsbury where Samuel Butler was headmaster between 1798 and 1836.


title: Public school (United Kingdom)

text: In 1801 William Vincent, headmaster of Westminster published "A Defence of Public Education". It contains the text "...comprize under the expression of Public Schools? Are we to understand only Winchester, Eton and Westminster? or are we to extend our notion, as we ought to do, to the other three great schools in the Metropolis; to Harrow, Rugby, Manchester, Wakefield and many more of equal magnitude in the North?"


title: Public school (United Kingdom)

text: In 1816 Rudolph Ackermann published a book which used the term "History of the Public Schools" of what he described as the "principal schools of England", entitled "The History of the Colleges of Winchester, Eton, and Westminster; with the Charter-House, the Schools of St. Paul's, Merchant Taylors, Harrow, and Rugby, and the Free-School of Christ's Hospital".


title: Public school (United Kingdom)

text: In 1818 Nicholas Carlisle published a two-volume survey entitled "A Concise Description of the Endowed Grammar Schools in England and Wales". The survey was conducted by means of a questionnaire sent to the schools. The description of 475 schools range from one or two paragraphs to many pages of detail. Included in the survey are the renowned nine schools which forty three years later became the subject of the 1861 Clarendon Commission.


title: Public school (United Kingdom)

text: In 1828 Thomas Arnold became headmaster of Rugby School. The reforming actions he took during his fourteen years (1828–1842) of tenure established a new model for the nineteenth and early twentieth century public school. Arnold developed the "praepostor" (or prefect) system, in which a group of senior boys were given disciplinary powers of other pupils. This became a standard method to establish good order in the public schools, which had developed a reputation for rowdiness and on occasion, serious disorder.


title: Public school (United Kingdom)

text: Separate preparatory schools (or "prep schools") for younger boys developed from the 1830s, with entry to the senior schools becoming limited to boys of at least 12 or 13 years old. The first of these was Windlesham House School, established with support from Thomas Arnold, the headmaster of Rugby School between 1828 and 1841.


title: Public school (United Kingdom)

text: A Royal Commission, the Clarendon Commission (1861–1864), investigated nine of the more established schools, including seven boarding schools (Charterhouse, Eton, Harrow, Rugby, Shrewsbury, Westminster and Winchester) and two day schools (St Paul's and Merchant Taylors').


title: Public school (United Kingdom)

text: Howard Staunton's book of 1865 entitled "The Great Schools of England" considered those nine schools plus Cheltenham College, Christ's Hospital, and Dulwich College.


title: Public school (United Kingdom)

text: The Public Schools Act 1868 subsequently regulated and reformed the seven boarding schools investigated by Clarendon, and in summary established and granted autonomy to new governing bodies for the seven schools and as part of that, released them from previous obligations under their founding charters to educate "boys on the Foundation" ie scholarship boys who paid nominal or no fees. The Act gave the seven schools independence from direct jurisdiction or responsibility of the Crown, the established church, or the government. Henceforth each of these schools was to be managed by a board of governors. St Paul's School and the Merchant Taylors' School claimed successfully that their constitutions made them "private" schools, and were excluded from the requirements of this legislation.


title: Public school (United Kingdom)

text: The Taunton Commission was appointed in 1864 to examine the remaining 782 endowed grammar schools, and in 1868 produced recommendations to restructure their endowments; these recommendations were included, in modified form, in the Endowed Schools Act 1869. In that year Edward Thring, headmaster of Uppingham School, wrote to 37 of his fellow headmasters of what he considered the leading boys' schools, not covered by the Public Schools Act of 1868, inviting them to meet annually to address the threat posed by the Endowed Schools Act of 1869. In the first year 12 headmasters attended; the following year 34 attended, including heads from the Clarendon schools. The Headmasters' Conference (HMC), now the Headmasters' and Headmistresses' Conference, has grown steadily and by 2021 had 298 British and Irish schools as members.


title: Public school (United Kingdom)

text: Many new schools were established in the mid-part of the nineteenth century including the day schools City of London School (1837) and Liverpool College (1840). New boarding schools included Cheltenham (1841), Marlborough (1843), Rossall (1844), Radley (1847), Taunton (1847), Lancing (1848), Hurstpierpoint (1849), Bradfield (1850), Wellington (1852), Epsom (1855), Ardingly (1858), Clifton (1862), Malvern (1862), Haileybury (1862), Cranleigh (1863) and Framlingham (1864).


title: Public school (United Kingdom)

text: In 1881 C.Kegal Paul & Co published "Our Public Schools" with chapters on seven schools i.e. Eton, Harrow, Winchester, Rugby, Westminster, Marlborough and Charterhouse.


title: Public school (United Kingdom)

text: In 1887 the Divisional Court and the Court of Appeal determined that the City of London School was a public school.


title: Public school (United Kingdom)

text: The "Public Schools Yearbook" was published for the first time in 1889, listing 30 schools, mostly boarding schools. The day school exceptions were St Paul's School and Merchant Taylors' School. By 1895 there were entries for 64 schools. The 1902 edition included all schools whose principals qualified for membership of the Headmasters' Conference.


title: Public school (United Kingdom)

text: In 1893 Edward Arnold published a book entitled "Great Public Schools" with a chapter on each of Eton, Harrow, Charterhouse, Cheltenham, Rugby, Clifton, Westminster, Marlborough, Haileybury, and Winchester.


title: Public school (United Kingdom)

text: The Bryce Report of 1895 (i.e. "Report of the Royal Commission on Secondary Education") described the schools reformed by the 1868 Act as the "seven 'great public schools'".


title: Public school (United Kingdom)

text: There was a further expansion in public school education in the interwar years. New schools such as Rendcomb (1920), Stowe (1923), Canford (1923), Bryanston (1928) and Millfield (1935) were established.


title: Public school (United Kingdom)

text: In 1942 the then President of the Board of Education Rab Butler appointed a "Committee on Public Schools" under the leadership of David Fleming. The committee was tasked to "consider means whereby the association between the Public Schools and the general educational system of the country could be developed and extended". The Fleming Report (1944) entitled "The Public Schools and the General Education System" defined a public school as a member of the Governing Bodies Association or the Headmasters' Conference. The Fleming Committee recommended that one-quarter of the places at the public schools should be assigned to a national bursary scheme for children who would benefit from boarding. A key advocate was the post-war Minister of Education Ellen Wilkinson, but the proposed national bursary scheme never got into legislation in that post-war age of severe budget constraints. The Conservative government elected in 1951 did not adopt the proposal. It failed because it was not a high priority for either party, money was tight, there was wavering support from both public schools and local education authorities, and no consensus was reached on how to select the pupils to participate.


title: Public school (United Kingdom)

text: Based on the recommendations of the Fleming Report, the Education Act 1944, also known as "the Butler Act", did, however, establish an enhanced status for endowed grammar schools receiving a grant from central government. The direct grant grammar schools would henceforth receive partial state funding (a "direct grant") in return for taking between 25 and 50 percent of its pupils from state primary schools. Other grammar schools were funded by Local Education Authorities.


title: Public school (United Kingdom)

text: The Labour government in 1965 made major changes to the organisation of state maintained schools issuing Circular 10/65 which directed local authorities to phase out selection at eleven years of age. It also fulfilled its pledge to examine the role of public schools, setting up a Royal commission "to advise on the best way of integrating the public schools with the State system". The commission used a wider definition than that of the Fleming Committee. The Public Schools Commission produced two reports: the Newsom Report of 1968 entitled "The Public Schools Commission: First Report" covering boarding schools and the Donnison Report of 1970 entitled "The Public Schools Commission: Second Report" covering day schools, including also direct grant and maintained grammar schools. The report presented by John Newsom in 1968 was supportive of boarding school education and made 52 recommendations, including state funding of up to 45,000 places. No action was taken by the then Labour government (or successive administrations). The report presented by David Donnison in 1970 made 25 recommendations for England and Wales and 22 for Scotland. The commission was divided on many issues so several of the recommendations were not made with full consensus. No action was taken by the incoming (1970) Conservative government but five years later the direct grant scheme was terminated by Labour.


title: Public school (United Kingdom)

text: The social changes of the 1960s were felt in the public schools; the new headmaster at Oundle School noted that "student protests and intellectual ferment were challenging the status quo". These challenges later coincided with the mid-1970s recession and moves by the Labour government to separate the independent and state sectors.


title: Public school (United Kingdom)

text: The direct grant scheme was abolished in 1975 and the HMC schools within the scheme became fully independent. Local authorities were ordered to cease funding places at independent schools. This accounted for over quarter of places at 56 schools, and over half the places at 22 schools. Between 1975 and 1983 funding was also withdrawn from 11 voluntary-aided grammar schools, which became independent schools and full members of the HMC. State funding was however revived between 1981 and 1997 with the introduction of the Assisted Places Scheme, which provided support for 80,000 pupils attending schools not part of the state maintained sector.


title: Public school (United Kingdom)

text: Many boarding schools started to admit day pupils for the first time, and others abolished boarding completely. Some started accepting girls in the sixth form, while others became fully co-educational.


title: Public school (United Kingdom)

text: Corporal punishment, was abolished in state schools in 1986, and had been abandoned in most public schools by the time it was formally banned in independent schools in 1999 in England and Wales, (2000 in Scotland and 2003 in Northern Ireland). The system of fagging, whereby younger pupils were required to act to some extent as personal servants to the most senior boys, was phased out during the 1970s and 1980s.


title: Public school (United Kingdom)

text: In September 2005 the UK Office of Fair Trading (OFT) found that 50 prominent public schools were in breach of the Competition Act 1998 through their exchange of details of planned fee increases over three academic years 2001–02, 2002–03 and 2003–04. The Independent Schools Council claimed that the investigation had been "a scandalous waste of public money".


title: Public school (United Kingdom)

text: Three-quarters of HMC schools are now either partially or fully co-educational. Of the Clarendon nine, two are fully co-educational (Rugby and Shrewsbury), two admit girls to the sixth form only (Charterhouse and Westminster), two remain as boys-only day schools (St Paul's and Merchant Taylors') and two retain the full-boarding, boys-only tradition (Eton and Harrow). Winchester was formerly part of the last group. However, it is currently undergoing the transition to co-ed status.


title: Public school (United Kingdom)

text: By the end of the 19th century the "public school movement" had extended to all parts of the (then) United Kingdom. Schools established in Scotland include


title: Public school (United Kingdom)

text: In Ireland some ancient grammar schools followed the pattern of gaining elevated status and other prestigious boys' boarding schools (both Catholic and Protestant) were founded in the 19th century. Examples include


title: Public school (United Kingdom)

text: In 1892 Haileybury alumnus Charles Rendall, founded Haileybury "altera terra" in Melbourne, Australia.


title: Public school (United Kingdom)

text: In the 20th and 21st centuries, several public schools opened affiliates in other countries, especially the Middle and Far East. The schools are typically founded in partnership with a local business person or organisation with the "home" school maintaining control of curriculum and staffing.


title: Public school (United Kingdom)

text: The almost exclusive teaching of grammar (Latin and to a lesser extent ancient Greek) prevailed until well into the 19th century. Most schools were legally obliged to do so by the terms of their original endowment. As a response to the perceived need to modernise such a curriculum in line with commercial needs, the Grammar School Act 1840 was passed. This allowed schools to make an application to a court of law (rather than Parliament) to deviate from the wishes of the original founder and teach "other branches of literature and science". The new public schools established in the early and mid-19th century were not constrained by early endowments and therefore were able from foundation to offer a wider range of taught subjects.


title: Public school (United Kingdom)

text: From the 1850s organised games became prominent in the curriculum, based on the precedent set at Rugby by Thomas Arnold, forming a keystone of character development through teamwork, sportsmanship and self-sacrifice. Hely Almond headmaster at Loretto 1862–1903, in stating 'Games in which success depends on the united efforts of many, and which also foster courage and endurance are the very lifeblood of the public school system', encapsulated the thinking of the era. The prominence of team sports prevails to the current day and is a feature by which public schools still distinguish themselves from state maintained schools. By the latter part of the 19th century 'modern' subjects such as mathematics and science feature in many schools listings in "The Public Schools Yearbook".


title: Public school (United Kingdom)

text: Within English law a charity is defined as an institution established for a charitable purpose and providing a public benefit. The "advancement of education" is a long-standing charitable purpose. The UK's oldest charity is the King's School Canterbury. Charitable status for schools outside of the state maintained sector confers various tax benefits. This means schools are not liable for corporation tax or capital gains tax and receive an 80% reduction in business rates (a local property tax). Donations by individuals to such schools are considered "tax free". Fee-charging schools having the status of charities are not totally tax exempt as they pay some business rates, VAT on procured goods and services and staff pay income tax on earnings. The public benefit that a charity is obliged to provide is not defined in law. Typically schools provide this public benefit by offering bursaries to pupils of families with limited financial means and supporting local state maintained school(s) and institutions, including allowing public access to school facilities.


title: Public school (United Kingdom)

text: Charitable status is politically controversial. The UK Labour Party leader Keir Starmer in 2021 pledged to remove charitable status for fee-charging schools. Removal of charitable status would enable the UK government to levy VAT on school fees, a policy introduced in 2017 by the previous leader Jeremy Corbyn. In support of the case for maintaing the status quo, in 2018 the Independent Schools Council published a report which stated that the independent education sector contributed in 2017 £11.7 billion to the UK economy and generated £3.5 billion of tax revenue.


title: Public school (United Kingdom)

text: The 19th-century public school ethos promoted ideas of service to Crown and Empire, exemplified in tropes such as "Play up! Play up! And play the game!" from Henry Newbolt's 1892 poem "Vitaï Lampada" and "the Battle of Waterloo was won on the playing fields of Eton", the latter popularly attributed to the Duke of Wellington. Many ex-pupils, like those from other schools, had, and still have, a nostalgic affection for their old schools (George Orwell remembered being "interested and happy" at Eton,) and a public school tie and an "old boy network" of former pupils were useful in advancing a career. The English public school model influenced the 19th-century development of Scottish elite schools, but a tradition of the gentry sharing their primary education with their tenants kept Scotland more egalitarian.


title: Public school (United Kingdom)

text: Former Harrow pupil Stanley Baldwin wrote that when he first became Prime Minister in 1923, he wanted to have six Harrovians in his government. "To make a cabinet is like making a jig-saw puzzle fit, and I managed to make my six fit by keeping the post of Chancellor of the Exchequer for myself". Until the war, the role of public schools in preparing pupils for the gentlemanly elite meant that such education, particularly in its classical focus and social mannerisms, became a mark of the ruling class. Acceptance of social elitism was reduced by the two world wars, but despite portrayals of the products of public schools as "silly asses" and "toffs", the old system continued well into the 1960s.


title: Public school (United Kingdom)

text: Postwar social change has, however, gradually been reflected across Britain's educational system, while at the same time fears of problems with state education have pushed some parents, who can afford the fees or whose pupils qualify for bursaries or scholarships, towards public schools and other schools in the independent sector. By 2009 typical fees were up to £30,000 per annum for boarders. As of 2019, 20 Prime Ministers attended Eton, seven Harrow, and six Westminster. From 2019 to 2022, two Prime Ministers Boris Johnson (Eton) and Rishi Sunak (Winchester) were educated at Clarendon public schools.


title: Public school (United Kingdom)

text: Conservative former cabinet minister Iain Macleod wrote in 1964 in "The Tory Leadership" that a conspiracy by an Etonian "magic circle" had made Alec Douglas-Home prime minister. The assertion was so powerful that until Cameron, being an Etonian was a disadvantage to becoming a party leader, as Douglas Hurd learned in the 1990 Conservative Party leadership election. While Home had been educated at Eton and the incoming Labour Prime Minister in 1997 (Tony Blair) at Fettes College, all six British Prime Ministers in office between 1964 and 1997 and from 2007 to 2010 were educated at state schools (Harold Wilson, Edward Heath, Margaret Thatcher, and John Major at grammar schools, and James Callaghan and Gordon Brown at other state secondary schools). Theresa May's secondary school education also was primarily in the state sector. Liz Truss was educated at a state comprehensive school.


title: Public school (United Kingdom)

text: While members of the aristocracy and landed gentry no longer dominate independent schools, studies have shown that such schools still retain a degree of influence over the country's professional and social elite despite educating less than 10% of the population. A 2012 study published by the Sutton Trust noted that 44% of the 7,637 individuals examined whose names appeared in the birthday lists of "The Times", "The Sunday Times", "The Independent" or "The Independent on Sunday" during 2011 – across all sectors, including politics, business, the arts and the armed forces – were educated at independent schools. It also found that 10 elite fee-charging schools (specifically Eton, Winchester, Charterhouse, Rugby, Westminster, Marlborough, Dulwich, Harrow, St Paul's, and Wellington) produced 12% of the leading high-flyers examined in the study. The Social Mobility and Child Poverty Commission came to a similar conclusion in a 2014 study of the professions: 71% of senior judges, 62% of senior armed forces officers, 55% of Whitehall permanent secretaries and 50% of members of the House of Lords had been educated at fee-charging schools.


title: Public school (United Kingdom)

text: Rugby School inspired a whole new genre of literature, i.e. the school story. Thomas Hughes's "Tom Brown's School Days", published in 1857 was set there. There were however as many as 90 earlier novels set in British boarding schools, taking as an example just girls' school stories, published between Sarah Fielding's 1749 "The Governess, or The Little Female Academy" and the seminal 1857 "Tom Brown's School Days". Such stories were set in a variety of institutions including private boarding and prep schools as well as public schools. "Tom Brown's School Days" influence on the genre of British school novels includes the fictional boarding schools of Talbot Baines Reed's St Dominic's, Rudyard Kipling's "Stalky & Co." at "the College", Frank Richards' Billy Bunter at Greyfriars School, James Hilton's Mr Chips at Brookfield, Anthony Buckeridge's Jennings at Linbury Court, P. G. Wodehouse's St. Austin's and girls' schools Malory Towers and St. Trinian's. It also influenced J. K. Rowling's "Harry Potter" series, set at the fictional boarding school Hogwarts. The series' first novel "Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone" has many direct parallels in structure and theme to "Tom Brown's School Days".


title: Public school (United Kingdom)

text: Len Deighton said of his 1962 novel, "The IPCRESS File", that it is "about spies on the surface, but it's also really about a grammar school boy among public school boys and the difficulties he faces."


title: Public school (United Kingdom)

text: In his 1968 play "Forty Years On", Alan Bennett used the metaphor of an end-of-term revue at a minor public school to contrast the events of the twentieth century with the routines of public school life. The title alludes to the Harrow school song, "Forty Years On".


title: Public school (United Kingdom)

text: The 1968 film "if...", which satirised the worst elements of English public school life, culminating in scenes of armed insurrection, won the Palme d'Or at the 1969 Cannes Film Festival.


title: Public school (United Kingdom)

text: "Tom Brown's School Days" has been the subject of five cinematic and television productions. "Goodbye Mr. Chips " has been the subject of three cinematic productions. Ronald Searle's girls' school St Trinian's has featured in seven cinematic productions. The 1942 film "A Yank at Eton" is a comedy-drama where the protagonist eventually overcomes outdated manners and attitudes. The 1947 stage play and 1950 comedy film "The Happiest Days of Your Life", based at fictional minor public school Nutbourne College, were commercial and critical successes. "The Guinea Pig", a 1946 stage play and 1948 film, dealt with the experiences of a boy from a modest background being sent to public school. "The Browning Version" was a 1948 stage play, 1951 film, 1994 film and subject to several television and radio adaptations. A BBC TV series "Billy Bunter of Greyfriars School" ran from 1952 to 1961. "Another Country" was a 1981 stage play and 1984 film loosely interpreting the schooldays of Eton-educated spy Guy Burgess.


title: Darby Allin

text: Samuel Ratsch (born January 7, 1993), better known by the ring name Darby Allin, is an American professional wrestler signed to All Elite Wrestling (AEW), where he is a former and longest-reigning AEW TNT Champion. He is also known for his appearances in World Wrestling Network promotions, wrestling for Evolve.


title: Darby Allin

text: Growing up, Ratsch took part in track and field and played football as one of his grandfathers played in the NFL. He also took part in amateur wrestling, but only because he assumed it was professional wrestling. He later attended a film school in Arizona, dropping out to pursue a career in skateboarding. Through his connections with Matt Schlager, Ratsch regularly appeared in video clips with his friends on "Ridiculousness", until one video was too extreme for the program to air. He also appeared on an episode of "Sex Sent Me to the ER", later admitting in an interview with Chris Van Vliet that the story was fabricated, as he needed the money. For about three years, Ratsch was intentionally homeless.


title: Darby Allin

text: Ratsch made his professional wrestling debut in late 2014 for Blue Collar Wrestling in Portland, Oregon under the ring name Darby Graves, before changing it to Darby Allin. In late 2017, he wrestled for the Game Changer Wrestling (GCW) promotion.


title: Darby Allin

text: Allin debuted for World Wrestling Network at Evolve 59 in April 2016, losing to Ethan Page. At Evolve 74, Allin was defeated via countout by Brian Cage after Cage had powerslammed Allin over a barricade. Allin made his Style Battle debut in January 2017, losing to Dave Crist. Allin made his Full Impact Pro debut in early 2017 at FIP Everything Burns, losing a "Fight For All" match. On the same show, Allin, along with A. R. Fox, Dave Crist and Sami Callihan defeated Sammy Guevara, Dezmond Xavier, Jason Kincaid and Jason Cade. At Evolve 93, he was defeated by DJZ. in January 2018, Allin faced Zack Sabre Jr. for the Evolve Championship at EVOLVE 98, in a losing effort.


title: Darby Allin

text: On August 30, 2018, it was announced that at Evolve 113, Allin would be facing NXT wrestler, the Velveteen Dream. At Evolve 113, Allin was defeated by Dream. At Evolve 116, Allin was defeated by Mustafa Ali. At Evolve 117, Allin was defeated by Kassius Ohno. The next night at Evolve 118, Allin was defeated by Roderick Strong.


title: Darby Allin

text: During WrestleMania weekend, he wrestled his last match for Evolve at Evolve 125, in a defeat to Anthony Henry. He also wrestled at Amerika Ist Wunderbar, promoted by Westside Xtreme Wrestling (wXw), and in conjunction with WWN, where he was defeated by Avalanche. The following day at WWN Supershow Mercury Rising, he teamed with his wife Priscilla Kelly, where they were defeated by Austin Theory and Brandi Lauren. That same weekend, it was revealed he was going to be ending his three-year relationship with Evolve and WWN.


title: Darby Allin

text: On June 3, 2018, Allin made his Lucha Libre AAA Worldwide debut at Verano de Escándalo in a six-way match which was won by Aero Star. Other competitors in the match included Drago, Sammy Guevara, Australian Suicide and Golden Magic.


title: Darby Allin

text: In 2018, Allin wrestled for Progress Wrestling during their American tours. He made his debut for the promotion at Chapter 66: Mardi Graps, held in Louisiana, in a Thuderbastard match which was won by Jeff Cobb. He later appeared on day five of the Coast to Coast Tour, teaming with Jack Sexsmith and Toni Storm in a six-person tag team match.


title: Darby Allin

text: On March 14, 2019, Allin was announced as a participant in the Super Strong Style 16. At the event, he was defeated by Paul Robinson. On day two, he teamed with Chris Ridgeway and Lucky Kid in a six-man lucha rules tag team match, defeating Artemis Spencer, Chris Brookes and DJZ. On day three, Allin took part in a scramble match, which was won by Brookes.


title: Darby Allin

text: On April 12, 2019, Allin signed with the newly launched All Elite Wrestling (AEW). He made his AEW debut at the Fyter Fest event on June 29, where he wrestled Cody to a time-limit draw. The following month at Fight for the Fallen, Allin teamed with Joey Janela and Jimmy Havoc in a losing effort to Shawn Spears, MJF and Sammy Guevara. After the match, the three men would blame each other for the loss and brawl backstage. Subsequently, a three-way match was arranged for the All Out pay-per-view on August 31, which Havoc won.


title: Darby Allin

text: In October, Allin entered contention for the AEW World Championship, and would challenge Chris Jericho for the championship on the October 16 episode of "Dynamite", but lost. At Bash at the Beach on January 15, 2020, Allin competed in a four-man tournament for number one contendership to the AEW World Championship, but lost in the first round to Pac. Following this, Allin began a feud with Sammy Guevara, an ally of Jericho's. The two faced at Revolution on February 29, where Allin emerged victorious. In April, Allin competed in a tournament to crown to the inaugural holder of the AEW TNT Championship. After defeating Guevara in the first round, he was eliminated after losing to Cody in the semi-finals.


title: Darby Allin

text: On May 23, Allin participated in the first-ever Casino Ladder Match at Double or Nothing in a losing effort as the match was won by the debuting Brian Cage. After an absence, Allin returned at Fight for the Fallen on July 15, attacking Cage with a skateboard. On the July 29 episode of "Dynamite", Allin teamed with AEW World Champion Jon Moxley to defeat Cage and Ricky Starks in a tornado tag team match, with Allin subsequently being granted a match against Moxley for the championship. The match took place on the following week's episode of "Dynamite", where Allin was defeated. On August 29, a 30-second black-and-white segment of Allin doing a promo walking down a forest road with thumbtacks in his back, and then proceeding to climb up to the top of a bridge and jump off it into a river. On September 5, Allin competed in the 21-man Casino Battle Royale at All Out, but was eliminated by Cage. On the September 30 episode of "Dynamite", Allin faced off against nemesis Ricky Starks in a winning effort.


title: Darby Allin

text: On November 7, 2020, Allin won the AEW TNT Championship at Full Gear by defeating Cody Rhodes. Rhodes and Allin would afterwards unite in a feud with Team Taz. On the November 18, 2020 episode of "Dynamite", Will Hobbs turned heel after assisting Taz, Brian Cage and Ricky Starks in attacking both Allin and Rhodes. On the December 2, 2020 special Winter Is Coming, Allin and Rhodes teamed up to defeat Hobbs and Starks, and after the match, Sting made his AEW debut and ran off Team Taz when they jumped Allin and Rhodes, after which Allin and Sting stared each other down. On the January 13, 2021 special New Year's Smash Night 2, Allin made his first successful title defense against Brian Cage. On January 21, it was announced that Allin and Sting would be taking on Team Taz's Ricky Starks and Brian Cage in a street fight at Revolution. At Revolution, Allin and Sting were victorious over Team Taz in a cinematic pre-taped match. On March 10, 2021 episode of "Dynamite", Allin successfully defended the AEW TNT Championship against Scorpio Sky.


title: Darby Allin

text: On March 17, Allin issued an open challenge to the Dark Order as a tribute to the late "greatest TNT Champion of all time" Brodie Lee, which was responded by John Silver. The next week, Allin defeated Silver to retain the title. He made further successful defenses of the TNT Championship against JD Drake on the April 7 episode of "Dynamite" and against The Butcher at AEW's first non-televised event two days later, while also starting a feud with Matt Hardy. On April 21, Allin successfully defended the AEW TNT Championship against Jungle Boy. On April 28, Allin successfully defended the title against Dark Order’s 10, before being attacked by Scorpio Sky and Ethan Page. Sky and Page would then themselves be attacked by Lance Archer and Dark Order’s 10, saving Sting and Allin in the process.


title: Darby Allin

text: On the May 12 episode of "Dynamite", Allin lost the TNT Championship to Miro, ending his record-setting reign at 186 days. At Double or Nothing Allin teamed up with Sting to defeat the team of Scorpio Sky and Ethan Page. He defeated Page in AEW's first ever Coffin Match at Night 1 of Fyter Fest on July 14, putting an end to their feud.


title: Darby Allin

text: On the August 20 episode of "AEW Rampage" titled The First Dance, Allin was challenged to a pay-per-view match at All Out by CM Punk, who had made his AEW debut after an absence of seven years from professional wrestling. Allin lost the match to Punk.


title: Darby Allin

text: At Revolution 2022, Allin would win a Tornado tag team match with Sammy Guevara and Sting over Andrade El Idolo, Matt Hardy, and Isiah Kassidy.


title: Darby Allin

text: On the May 11, 2022 episode of "Dynamite", Allin wrestled Jeff Hardy. Despite losing, Allin performed a jump off a tall ladder which got media attention.


title: Darby Allin

text: Ratsch incorporates many elements of his personal life into his wrestling persona; a longtime fan of punk rock, Ratsch's current ring name Darby Allin is derived from the frontman of the Germs, Darby Crash, and the transgressive musician GG Allin, while his signature face paint, in which he paints half his face in a skull design, is born out of Ratsch's sentiment that he has been "half dead" since surviving the car accident in which his uncle died. Another aspect of Ratsch's background he incorporates into his wrestling is skateboarding, as he rides a skateboard to the ring during his entrance, and occasionally uses it as a weapon. Previous to his career taking off in professional wrestling, Ratsch also sought to be a professional skateboarder. Ratsch was initially hesitant to integrate his skateboarding into his pro wrestling work, fearing that both the wrestling and skateboarding fandoms would perceive it as inauthentic; however, he overcame his doubts following encouragement and advice from Chris Jericho.


title: Darby Allin

text: Ratsch lives a straight edge lifestyle, which he adopted in part due to a traumatic incident during his childhood: as a five-year-old, Ratsch was a passenger in a car when his uncle was driving while intoxicated; his uncle lost control of the vehicle and was killed in the resulting crash.


title: Darby Allin

text: On November 21, 2018, Ratsch married fellow wrestler Priscilla Kelly, who currently wrestles for WWE as part of the NXT roster under the name Gigi Dolin. On August 10, 2020, the couple announced they were divorcing. In December 2020, Kelly confirmed during an appearance on Vickie Guerrero's "Excuse Me" podcast that they were no longer married, but remain friends.


title: History of Spain

text: The history of Spain dates to contact the pre-Roman peoples of the Mediterranean coast of the Iberian Peninsula made with the Greeks and Phoenicians and the first writing systems known as Paleohispanic scripts were developed. During Classical Antiquity, the peninsula was the site of multiple successive colonizations of Greeks, Carthaginians, and Romans. Native peoples of the peninsula, such as the Tartessos people, intermingled with the colonizers to create a uniquely Iberian culture. The Romans referred to the entire Peninsula as Hispania, from where the modern name of Spain originates. The region was divided up, at various times, into different Roman provinces. As was the rest of the Western Roman Empire, Spain was subject to the numerous invasions of Germanic tribes during the 4th and 5th centuries CE, resulting in the loss of Roman rule and the establishment of Germanic kingdoms, most notably the Visigoths and the Suebi, marking the beginning of the Middle Ages in Spain.


title: History of Spain

text: Various Germanic kingdoms were established on the Iberian peninsula in the early 5th century CE in the wake of the fall of Roman control; germanic control lasted about 200 years until the Umayyad conquest of Hispania began in 711 and marked the introduction of Islam to the Iberian Peninsula. The region became known as Al-Andalus, and excepting for the small Kingdom of Asturias, a Christian rump state in the north of Iberia, the region remained under the control of Muslim-lead states for much of the Early Middle Ages, a period known as the Islamic Golden Age. By the time of the High Middle Ages, Christians from the north gradually expanded their control over Iberia, a period known as the Reconquista. As they expanded southward, a number of Christian kingdoms were formed, including the Kingdom of Navarre (a Basque kingdom centered on the city of Pamplona), the Kingdom of León (in the northwest, originally an offshoot of, and later supplanting, the Kingdom of Asturias), the Kingdom of Castile (in central Iberia), and the Kingdom of Aragon (in Catalonia and surrounding areas of Eastern Iberia). The history of these kingdoms and other are intertwined and they eventually consolidated into two roughly equivalent polities, the Crown of Castile and the Crown of Aragon, roughly occupying the central and eastern thirds of the Iberian Peninsula respectively. During this period, the southwestern portion of the Peninsula developed into the Kingdom of Portugal, and developed its own distinct national identity separate from that of Spain.


title: History of Spain

text: The early modern period is generally dated from the union of the Crowns of Castile and Aragon under the Catholic Monarchs, Isabella I of Castile and Ferdinand II of Aragon in 1469. This marked what is historiographically considered the foundation of unified Spain, although technically Castile and Aragon continued to maintain independent institutions for several centuries. The conquest of Granada, and the first voyage of Columbus, both in 1492, made that year a critical inflection point in Spanish history. The victory over Granada marked the official end of the Reconquista, as it was the last Muslim-ruled kingdom in Iberia, and the voyages of the various explorers and Conquistadors of Spain during the subsequent decades helped establish a Spanish colonial empire which was among the largest the world had ever seen. King Carlos I, grandson of Ferdinand and Isabella through their daughter Joanna, established the Spanish Habsburg dynasty. It was under the rule of his son Philip II of Spain that the Spanish Golden Age flourished, the Spanish Empire reached its territorial and economic peak, and his palace at El Escorial became the center of artistic flourishing. However, Philip's rule also saw the calamitous destruction of the Spanish Armada, coupled with financial mismanagement that led to numerous state bankruptcies and independence of the Northern Netherlands, which marked the beginning of the slow decline of Spanish influence in Europe.


title: History of Spain

text: Spain's power was further tested by their participation in the Eighty Years' War, whereby they tried and failed to recapture the newly independent Dutch Republic, and the Thirty Years' War, which resulted in continued decline of Habsburg power in favor of French Bourbon dynasty. Matters came to a head during the reign of Charles II of Spain, whose mental incapacity and inability to father children left the future of Spain in doubt. Upon his death, the War of the Spanish Succession broke out between the French Bourbons and the Austrian Habsburgs over the right to succeed Charles II. The Bourbons prevailed, resulting in the ascension of Philip V of Spain. Though himself a French prince, Philip quickly established himself as his own person, taking Spain into the various wars to recapture the Spanish-controlled lands in Southern Italy recently lost. Spain's apparent resurgence was cut short by losses during the Napoleonic era, when Napoleon placed his own brother, Joseph Bonaparte, as King of Spain, turning it into a French puppet state. Concurrent with, and following, the Napoleonic period the Spanish American wars of independence resulted in the loss of most of Spain's territory in the Americas. During the re-establishment of the Bourbon rule in Spain, constitutional monarchy was introduced in 1813. As with much of Europe, Spain's history during the nineteenth century was tumultuous, and featured alternating periods of republican-liberal and monarchical rule.


title: History of Spain

text: The twentieth century began for Spain in foreign and domestic turmoil; the Spanish-American War led to losses of Spanish colonial possessions and a series of military dictatorships, first under Miguel Primo de Rivera and secondly under Dámaso Berenguer. During Berenguer's dictatorship, the king, Alfonso XIII was deposed and a new Republican government was formed. Ultimately, the political disorder within Spain led to a coup by the military which led to the Spanish Civil War, in which the Republican forces squared off against the Nationalists. After much foreign intervention on both sides, the Nationalists emerged victorious thanks to the help provided by Nazi Germany and Italy, their leader Francisco Franco, who led a fascist dictatorship for almost four decades. Francisco's death ushered in a return of the monarchy King Juan Carlos I, which saw a liberalization of Spanish society and a re-engagement with the international community after the oppressive and isolated years under Franco. A new liberal Constitution was established in 1978. Spain entered the European Economic Community in 1986 (transformed into the European Union with the Maastricht Treaty of 1992), and the Eurozone in 1998. Juan Carlos abdicated in 2014, and was succeeded by his son Felipe VI, the current king.


title: History of Spain

text: The earliest record of hominids living in Western Europe has been found in the Spanish cave of Atapuerca; a flint tool found there dates from 1.4 million years ago, and early human fossils date to roughly 1.2 million years ago. Modern humans in the form of Cro-Magnons began arriving in the Iberian Peninsula from north of the Pyrenees some 35,000 years ago. The most conspicuous sign of prehistoric human settlements are the famous paintings in the northern Spanish cave of Altamira, which were done c. 15,000 BC and are regarded as paramount instances of cave art.


title: History of Spain

text: Archeological evidence in places like Los Millares and El Argar, both in the province of Almería, and La Almoloya near Murcia suggests developed cultures existed in the eastern part of the Iberian Peninsula during the late Neolithic and the Bronze Age.


title: History of Spain

text: Around 2500 BC, the nomadic shepherds known as the Yamna or Pit Grave culture conquered the peninsula using new technologies and horses while killing all local males according to DNA studies. Spanish prehistory extends to the pre-Roman Iron Age cultures that controlled most of Iberia: those of the Iberians, Celtiberians, Tartessians, Lusitanians, and Vascones and trading settlements of Phoenicians, Carthaginians, and Greeks on the Mediterranean coast.


title: History of Spain

text: Before the Roman conquest the major cultures along the Mediterranean coast were the Iberians, the Celts in the interior and north-west, the Lusitanians in the west, and the Tartessians in the southwest. The seafaring Phoenicians, Carthaginians, and Greeks successively established trading settlements along the eastern and southern coast. The development of writing in the peninsula (the so-called paleohispanic scripts) should have taken place after the arrival of early Phoenician settlers and traders (tentatively dated 9th century BC or sometime later).


title: History of Spain

text: The south of the peninsula was rich in archaic Phoenician colonies, unmatched by any other region in the central-western Mediterranean. They were small and densely packed settlements. The colony of Gadir—which sustained strong links with its metropolis of Tyre—stood out from the rest of the network of colonies, also featuring a more complex sociopolitical organization. Archaic Greeks arrived to the Peninsula by the late 7th century BC. They founded Greek colonies such as Emporion (570 BC).


title: History of Spain

text: The Greeks are responsible for the name "Iberia", apparently after the river Iber (Ebro). By the 6th century BC, much of the territory of southern Iberia passed to Carthage's overarching influence (featuring two centres of Punic influence in "Gadir" and "Mastia"); the latter grip strengthened from the 4th century BC on. The Barcids, following their landing in Gadir in 237 BC, militarily conquered the territories that had already belonged to the sphere of influence of Carthage. Up until 219 BC, their presence in the peninsula was underpinned by their control of places such as Carthago Nova and Akra Leuké (both founded by Punics), as well as the network of old Phoenician settlements.


title: History of Spain

text: The peninsula was one of the military theatres of the Second Punic War (218–201 BC) waged between Carthage and the Roman Republic, the two powers vying for supremacy in the western mediterranean. Romans expelled Carthaginians from the peninsula in 206 BC.


title: History of Spain

text: The peoples whom the Romans met at the time of their invasion in what is now known as Spain were the Iberians, inhabiting an area stretching from the northeast part of the Iberian Peninsula through the southeast. The Celts mostly inhabited the inner and north-west part of the peninsula. To the east of the Meseta Central, the Sistema Ibérico area was inhabited by the Celtiberians, reportedly rich in precious metals (which were obtained by Romans in the form of tributes). Celtiberians developed a refined technique of iron-forging, displayed, for example, in their quality weapons.


title: History of Spain

text: The Celtiberian Wars were fought between the advancing legions of the Roman Republic and the Celtiberian tribes of Hispania Citerior from 181 to 133 BC. The Roman conquest of the peninsula was completed in 19 BC.