title: Chvrches

text: When Chvrches plays live, Mayberry performs lead vocals and occasionally plays synthesisers and samplers. She also played drums as a part of their second album tour as seen in "Playing Dead", "Empty Threat", and "Under the Tide"; Cook plays synthesisers, guitar, bass, and also performs backing vocals; Doherty plays synthesisers and samplers, and also performs backing vocals and sometimes lead vocals. In 2018, the band's live line-up expanded to a four-piece by adding Jonny Scott on drums.


title: Chvrches

text: Chvrches tour globally and are active in the festival circuit, including Austin City Limits Music Festival, Bonnaroo, Canadian Music Fest, Coachella, Dia de los Deftones, Electric Castle, Electric Picnic, Field Day, Firefly Music Festival, Glastonbury, The Great Escape, Lollapalooza, Longitude, Lowlands, Melt! Festival, Music Midtown, Osheaga, Pitch Festival, Pukkelpop, Reading and Leeds Festival, Sasquatch! Music Festival, Summer Sonic, SXSW, Sziget Festival, T in the Park, Thrival Festival, TRNSMT, and the V Festival.


title: Chvrches

text: Chvrches was the opening act for Discopolis, Chew Lips, School of Seven Bells, Passion Pit, Two Door Cinema Club. They also supported Depeche Mode during their "The Delta Machine Tour" 2013 at Nîmes (16 July), Milan (18 July), Prague (23 July), and Warsaw (25 July).


title: Chvrches

text: Some of the artists that opened for Chvrches were Dan Croll, MØ, Isaac Delusion, Mansionair, Young Fathers, Arthur Beatrice, Conquering Animal Sound, Still Corners, City Calm Down, XXYYXX, Basecamp, Thumpers, Donna Missal, and The Range.


title: Chvrches

text: On 3 December 2015, Chvrches performed Leave a Trace at The Game Awards 2015 in Los Angeles, California, where they also announced the nominees for and winner of best indie game.


title: Chvrches

text: The band played the Bonnaroo Music Festival in June 2016, in Manchester, Tennessee, and Flow Festival, mid-August 2016, in Helsinki, Finland.


title: Chvrches

text: In October 2018, the band played Austin City Limits Music Festival. In December 2018 and January 2019, the band played KROQ Almost Acoustic Christmas annual concert at The Forum (Inglewood, California) and Falls Festival in Australia. In August 2019, the band played Summer Sonic Festival in Japan. On 12 December 2019, Chvrches performed Death Stranding at The Game Awards 2019 in Los Angeles, California.


title: Chvrches

text: On 11 November 2021, Chvrches began their "Screen Violence" album tour in North America and finished their first leg on 17 December. Chvrches second leg started with dates across the United Kingdom in March 2022.


title: Sack of Rome (410)

text: The Sack of Rome on 24 August 410 AD was undertaken by the Visigoths led by their king, Alaric. At that time, Rome was no longer the capital of the Western Roman Empire, having been replaced in that position first by Mediolanum (now Milan) in 286 and then by Ravenna in 402. Nevertheless, the city of Rome retained a paramount position as "the eternal city" and a spiritual center of the Empire. This was the first time in almost 800 years that Rome had fallen to a foreign enemy, and the sack was a major shock to contemporaries, friends and foes of the Empire alike.


title: Sack of Rome (410)

text: The sacking of 410 is seen as a major landmark in the fall of the Western Roman Empire. St. Jerome, living in Bethlehem, wrote: "the city which had taken the whole world was itself taken".


title: Sack of Rome (410)

text: The Germanic tribes had undergone massive technological, social, and economic changes after four centuries of contact with the Roman Empire. From the first to fourth centuries, their populations, economic production, and tribal confederations grew, and their ability to conduct warfare increased to the point of challenging Rome.


title: Sack of Rome (410)

text: The Goths, one of the Germanic tribes, had invaded the Roman Empire on and off since 238. But in the late 4th century, the Huns began to invade the lands of the Germanic tribes, and pushed many of them into the Roman Empire with greater fervor. In 376, the Huns forced many Therving Goths led by Fritigern and Alavivus to seek refuge in the Eastern Roman Empire. Soon after, starvation, high taxes, hatred from the Roman population, and governmental corruption turned the Goths against the empire.


title: Sack of Rome (410)

text: The Goths rebelled and began looting and pillaging throughout the eastern Balkans. A Roman army, led by the Eastern Roman emperor Valens, marched to put them down. At the Battle of Adrianople in 378, Fritigern decisively defeated emperor Valens, who was killed in battle.


title: Sack of Rome (410)

text: Peace was eventually established in 382 when the new Eastern emperor, Theodosius I, signed a treaty with the Thervings, who would become known as the Visigoths. The treaty made the Visigoths subjects of the empire as foederati. They were allotted the northern part of the dioceses of Dacia and Thrace, and while the land remained under Roman sovereignty and the Visigoths were expected to provide military service, they were considered autonomous.


title: Sack of Rome (410)

text: Fritigern died around 382. Possibly in 391, a Gothic chieftain named Alaric was declared king by a group of Visigoths, though the exact time this happened (Jordanes says Alaric was made king in 400 and Peter Heather says 395) and nature of this position are debated. He then led an invasion into Eastern Roman territory outside of the Goths' designated lands. Alaric was defeated by Theodosius and his general Flavius Stilicho in 392, who forced Alaric back into Roman vassalage.


title: Sack of Rome (410)

text: In 394, Alaric led a force of Visigoths as part of Theodosius' army to invade the Western Roman Empire. At the Battle of the Frigidus, around half the Visigoths present died fighting the Western Roman army led by the usurper Eugenius and his general Arbogast. Theodosius won the battle, and although Alaric was given the title "comes" for his bravery, tensions between the Goths and Romans grew as it seemed the Roman generals had sought to weaken the Goths by making them bear the brunt of the fighting. Alaric was also enraged he had not been granted a higher office in the imperial administration.


title: Sack of Rome (410)

text: When Theodosius died on January 10, 395, the Visigoths considered their 382 treaty with Rome to have ended. Alaric quickly led his warriors back to their lands in Moesia, gathered most of the federated Goths in the Danubian provinces under his leadership, and instantly rebelled, invading Thrace and approaching the Eastern Roman capital of Constantinople. The Huns, at the same moment, invaded Asia Minor.


title: Sack of Rome (410)

text: The death of Theodosius had also wracked the political structure of the empire: Theodosius' sons, Honorius and Arcadius, were given the Western and Eastern empires, respectively, but they were young and needed guidance. A power struggle emerged between Stilicho, who claimed guardianship over both emperors but was still in the West with the army that had defeated Eugenius, and Rufinus, the praetorian prefect of the East, who took the guardianship of Arcadius in the Eastern capital of Constantinople. Stilicho claimed that Theodosius had awarded him with sole guardianship on the emperor's deathbed and claimed authority over the Eastern Empire as well as the West.


title: Sack of Rome (410)

text: Rufinus negotiated with Alaric to get him to withdraw from Constantinople (perhaps by promising him lands in Thessaly). Whatever the case, Alaric marched away from Constantinople to Greece, looting the diocese of Macedonia.


title: Sack of Rome (410)

text: "Magister utriusque militiae" Stilicho marched east at the head of a combined Western and Eastern Roman army out of Italy. Alaric fortified himself behind a circle of wagons on the plain of Larissa, in Thessaly, where Stilicho besieged him for several months, unwilling to seek battle. Eventually, Arcadius, under the apparent influence of those hostile to Stilicho, commanded him to leave Thessaly.


title: Sack of Rome (410)

text: Stilicho obeyed the orders of his emperor by sending his Eastern troops to Constantinople and leading his Western ones back to Italy. The Eastern troops Stilicho had sent to Constantinople were led by a Goth named Gainas. When Rufinus met the soldiers, he was hacked to death in November 395. Whether that was done on the orders of Stilicho, or perhaps on those of Rufinus' replacement Eutropius, is unknown.


title: Sack of Rome (410)

text: The withdrawal of Stilicho freed Alaric to pillage much of Greece, including Piraeus, Corinth, Argos, and Sparta. Athens was able to pay a ransom to avoid being sacked. It was only in 397 that Stilicho returned to Greece, having rebuilt his army with mainly barbarian allies and believing the eastern Roman government would now welcome his arrival. After some fighting, Stilicho trapped and besieged Alaric at Pholoe. Then, once again, Stilicho retreated to Italy, and Alaric marched into Epirus.


title: Sack of Rome (410)

text: Why Stilicho once again failed to dispatch Alaric is a matter of contention. It has been suggested that Stilicho's mostly-barbarian army had been unreliable or that another order from Arcadius and the Eastern government forced his withdrawal. Others suggest that Stilicho made an agreement with Alaric and betrayed the East. Whatever the case, Stilicho was declared a public enemy in the Eastern Empire the same year.


title: Sack of Rome (410)

text: Alaric's rampage in Epirus was enough to make the eastern Roman government offer him terms in 398. They made Alaric "magister militum per Illyricum", giving him the Roman command he wanted and giving him free rein to take what resources he needed, including armaments, in his assigned province. Stilicho, in the meantime, put down a rebellion in Africa in 399, which had been instigated by the eastern Roman empire, and married his daughter Maria to the 11-year-old Western emperor, Honorius, strengthening his grip on power in the West.


title: Sack of Rome (410)

text: Aurelianus, the new praetorian prefect of the east after Eutropius' execution, stripped Alaric of his title to Illyricum in 400. Between 700 and 7,000 Gothic soldiers and their families were slaughtered in a riot at Constantinople on July 12, 400. Gainas, who at one point had been made "magister militum", rebelled, but he was killed by the Huns under Uldin, who sent his head back to Constantinople as a gift.


title: Sack of Rome (410)

text: With these events, particularly Rome's use of the feared Huns, and cut off from Roman officialdom, Alaric felt his position in the East was precarious. So, while Stilicho was busy fighting an invasion of Vandals and Alans in Rhaetia and Noricum, Alaric led his people into an invasion of Italy in 401, reaching it in November without encountering much resistance. The Goths captured a few unnamed cities and besieged the Western Roman capital Mediolanum.


title: Sack of Rome (410)

text: Stilicho, now with Alan and Vandal federates in his army, relieved the siege, forcing a crossing at the Adda river. Alaric retreated to Pollentia. On Easter Sunday, April 6, 402, Stilicho launched a surprise attack which became the Battle of Pollentia. The battle ended in a draw, and Alaric fell back. After brief negotiations and maneuvers, the two forces clashed again at the Battle of Verona, where Alaric was defeated and besieged in a mountain fortress, taking heavy casualties.


title: Sack of Rome (410)

text: At this point, a number of Goths in Alaric's army started deserting him, including Sarus, who went over to the Romans. Alaric and his army then withdrew to the borderlands next to Dalmatia and Pannonia. Honorius, fearful after the near capture of Mediolanum, moved the Western Roman capital to Ravenna, which was more defensible with its natural swamps and more escapable with its access to the sea. Moving the capital to Ravenna may have disconnected the Western court from events beyond the Alps towards a preoccupation with the defense of Italy, weakening the Western Empire as a whole.


title: Sack of Rome (410)

text: In time, Alaric became an ally of Stilicho, agreeing to help claim the praetorian prefecture of Illyricum for the Western Empire. To that end, Stilicho named Alaric "magister militum" of Illyricum in 405. However, the Goth Radagaisus invaded Italy that same year, putting any such plans on hold. Stilicho and the Romans, reinforced by Alans, Goths under Sarus, and Huns under Uldin, managed to defeat Radagaisus in August 406, but only after the devastation of northern Italy. 12,000 of Radagaisus' Goths were pressed into Roman military service, and others were enslaved. So many were sold into slavery by the victorious Roman forces that slave prices temporarily collapsed.


title: Sack of Rome (410)

text: Only in 407 did Stilicho turn his attention back to Illyricum, gathering a fleet to support Alaric's proposed invasion. But then the Rhine "limes" collapsed under the weight of hordes of Vandals, Suebi, and Alans who flooded into Gaul. The Roman population attacked there thus rose in rebellion under the usurper Constantine III. Stilicho reconciled with the Eastern Roman Empire in 408, and the Visigoths under Alaric had lost their value to Stilicho.


title: Sack of Rome (410)

text: Alaric then invaded and took control of parts of Noricum and upper Pannonia in the spring of 408. He demanded 288,000 solidi (four thousand pounds of gold), and threatened to invade Italy if he did not get it. This was equivalent to the amount of money earned in property revenue by a single senatorial family in one year. Only with the greatest difficulty was Stilicho able to get the Roman Senate to agree to pay the ransom, which was to buy the Romans a new alliance with Alaric who was to go to Gaul and fight the usurper Constantine III. The debate on whether to pay Alaric weakened Stilicho's relationship with Honorius.


title: Sack of Rome (410)

text: Before payment could be received, however, the Eastern Roman Emperor Arcadius died on May 1, 408, of illness. He was succeeded by his young son, Theodosius II. Honorius wanted to go East to secure his nephew's succession, but Stilicho convinced him to stay and allow Stilicho himself to go instead.


title: Sack of Rome (410)

text: Olympius, a palatine official and an enemy of Stilicho's, spread false rumors that Stilicho planned to place his own son Eucherius on the throne of the East, and many came to believe them. Roman soldiers mutinied and began killing officials who were known supporters of Stilicho. Stilicho's barbarian troops offered to attack the mutineers, but Stilicho forbade it. Stilicho instead went to Ravenna to meet with the Emperor to resolve the crisis.


title: Sack of Rome (410)

text: Honorius, now believing the rumors of Stilicho's treason, ordered his arrest. Stilicho sought sanctuary in a church in Ravenna, but he was lured out with promises of safety. Stepping outside, he was arrested and told he was to be immediately executed on Honorius’ orders. Stilicho refused to allow his followers to resist, and he was executed on August 22, 408. Stilicho's execution stopped the payment to Alaric and his Visigoths, who had received none of it.


title: Sack of Rome (410)

text: The half-Vandal, half-Roman general is credited with keeping the Western Roman Empire from crumbling during his 13 years of rule, and his death would have profound repercussions for the West. His son Eucherius was executed shortly after in Rome.


title: Sack of Rome (410)

text: Olympius was appointed "magister officiorum" and replaced Stilicho as the power behind the throne. His new government was strongly anti-Germanic and obsessed with purging any and all of Stilicho's former supporters. Roman soldiers began to indiscriminately slaughter allied barbarian foederati soldiers and their families in Roman cities. Thousands of them fled Italy and sought refuge with Alaric in Noricum. Zosimus reports the number of refugees as 30,000, but Peter Heather and Thomas Burns believe that number is impossibly high. Heather argues that Zosimus had misread his source and that 30,000 is the total number of fighting-men under Alaric's command after the refugees joined Alaric.


title: Sack of Rome (410)

text: Attempting to come to an agreement with Honorius, Alaric asked for hostages, gold, and permission to move to Pannonia, but Honorius refused. Alaric, aware of the weakened state of defenses in Italy, invaded in early October, six weeks after Stilicho's death. He also sent word of this news to his brother-in-law Ataulf asking him to join the invasion as soon as he was able with reinforcements.


title: Sack of Rome (410)

text: Alaric and his Visigoths sacked Ariminum and other cities as they moved south. Alaric's march was unopposed and leisurely, as if they were going to a festival, according to Zosimus. Sarus and his band of Goths, still in Italy, remained neutral and aloof.


title: Sack of Rome (410)

text: The city of Rome may have held as many as 800,000 people, making it the largest in the world at the time. The Goths under Alaric laid siege to the city in late 408. Panic swept through its streets, and there was an attempt to reinstate pagan rituals in the still religiously mixed city to ward off the Visigoths. Pope Innocent I even agreed to it, provided it be done in private. The pagan priests, however, said the sacrifices could only be done publicly in the Roman Forum, and the idea was abandoned.


title: Sack of Rome (410)

text: Serena, the wife of the proscribed Stilicho and a cousin of emperor Honorius, was in the city and believed by the Roman populace, with little evidence, to be encouraging Alaric's invasion. Galla Placidia, the sister of the emperor Honorius, was also trapped in the city and gave her consent to the Roman Senate to execute Serena. Serena was then strangled to death.


title: Sack of Rome (410)

text: Hopes of help from the Imperial government faded as the siege continued and Alaric took control of the Tiber River, which cut the supplies going into Rome. Grain was rationed to one-half and then one-third of its previous amount. Starvation and disease rapidly spread throughout the city, and rotting bodies were left unburied in the streets.


title: Sack of Rome (410)

text: The Roman Senate then decided to send two envoys to Alaric. When the envoys boasted to him that the Roman people were trained to fight and ready for war, Alaric laughed at them and said, "The thickest grass is easier to cut than the thinnest." The envoys asked under what terms the siege could be lifted, and Alaric demanded all the gold and silver, household goods, and barbarian slaves in the city. One envoy asked what would be left to the citizens of Rome. Alaric replied, "Their lives."


title: Sack of Rome (410)

text: Ultimately, the city was forced to give the Goths 5,000 pounds of gold, 30,000 pounds of silver, 4,000 silken tunics, 3,000 hides dyed scarlet, and 3,000 pounds of pepper in exchange for lifting the siege. The barbarian slaves fled to Alaric as well, swelling his ranks to about 40,000. Many of the barbarian slaves were probably Radagaisus' former followers.


title: Sack of Rome (410)

text: To raise the needed money, Roman senators were to contribute according to their means. This led to corruption and abuse, and the sum came up short. The Romans then stripped down and melted pagan statues and shrines to make up the difference. Zosimus reports one such statue was of Virtus, and that when it was melted down to pay off barbarians it seemed "all that remained of the Roman valor and intrepidity was totally extinguished".


title: Sack of Rome (410)

text: Honorius consented to the payment of the ransom, and with it the Visigoths lifted the siege and withdrew to Etruria in December 408.


title: Sack of Rome (410)

text: In January 409, the Senate sent an embassy to the imperial court at Ravenna to encourage the Emperor to come to terms with the Goths, and to give Roman aristocratic children as hostages to the Goths as insurance. Alaric would then resume his alliance with the Roman Empire. Honorius, under the influence of Olympius, refused and called in five legions from Dalmatia, totaling six thousand men. They were to go to Rome and garrison the city, but their commander, a man named Valens, marched his men into Etruria, believing it cowardly to go around the Goths. He and his men were intercepted and attacked by Alaric's full force, and almost all were killed or captured. Only 100 managed to escape and reach Rome.


title: Sack of Rome (410)

text: A second Senatorial embassy, this time including Pope Innocent I, was sent with Gothic guards to Honorius to plead with him to accept the Visigoths' demands. The imperial government also received word that Ataulf, Alaric's brother-in-law, had crossed the Julian Alps with his Goths into Italy with the intent of joining Alaric.


title: Sack of Rome (410)

text: Honorius summoned together all available Roman forces in northern Italy. He placed 300 Huns of the imperial guard under the command of Olympius, and possibly the other forces as well, and ordered him to intercept Ataulf. They clashed near Pisa, and despite his force supposedly killing 1,100 Goths and losing only 17 of his own men, Olympius was forced to retreat back to Ravenna. Zosimus seems to imply that only the Huns under Olympius took part in this fight. Ataulf then joined Alaric.


title: Sack of Rome (410)

text: This failure caused Olympius to fall from power and to flee for his life to Dalmatia. Jovius, the praetorian prefect of Italy, replaced Olympius as the power behind the throne and received the title of "patrician". Jovius engineered a mutiny of soldiers in Ravenna who demanded the killing of "magister utriusque militiae" Turpilio and "magister equitum" Vigilantius; he had both men killed.


title: Sack of Rome (410)

text: Jovius was a friend of Alaric's and had been a supporter of Stilicho, and thus the new government was open to negotiations. Alaric went to Ariminum to meet Jovius and present his demands. Alaric wanted yearly tribute in gold and grain, and lands in the provinces of Dalmatia, Noricum, and Venetia for his people. Jovius also wrote privately to Honorius, suggesting that if Alaric was offered the position of "magister utriusque militiae", they could lessen Alaric's other demands. Honorius rejected the demand for a Roman office, and he sent an insulting letter to Alaric, which was read out in the negotiations.


title: Sack of Rome (410)

text: Infuriated, Alaric broke off negotiations, and Jovius returned to Ravenna to strengthen his relationship with the Emperor. Honorius was now firmly committed to war, and Jovius swore on the Emperor's head never to make peace with Alaric.


title: Sack of Rome (410)

text: Alaric himself soon changed his mind when he heard Honorius was attempting to recruit 10,000 Huns to fight the Goths. He gathered a group of Roman bishops and sent them to Honorius with his new terms. He no longer sought Roman office or tribute in gold. He now only requested lands in Noricum and as much grain as the Emperor found necessary. Historian Olympiodorus the Younger, writing many years later, considered these terms extremely moderate and reasonable. But it was too late: Honorius' government, bound by oath and intent on war, rejected the offer. Alaric then marched on Rome. The 10,000 Huns never materialized.


title: Sack of Rome (410)

text: Alaric took Portus and renewed the siege of Rome in late 409. Faced with the return of starvation and disease, the Senate met with Alaric. He demanded that they appoint one of their own as Emperor to rival Honorius, and he instigated the election of the elderly Priscus Attalus to that end, a pagan who permitted himself to be baptized. Alaric was then made "magister utriusque militiae" and his brother-in-law Ataulf was given the position "comes domesticorum equitum" in the new, rival government, and the siege was lifted.


title: Sack of Rome (410)

text: Heraclian, governor of the food-rich province of Africa, remained loyal to Honorius. Attalus sent a Roman force to subdue him, refusing to send Gothic soldiers there as he was distrustful of their intentions. Attalus and Alaric then marched to Ravenna, forcing some cities in northern Italy to submit to Attalus.


title: Sack of Rome (410)

text: Honorius, extremely fearful at this turn of events, sent Jovius and others to Attalus, pleading that they share the Western Empire. Attalus said he would only negotiate on Honorius' place of exile. Jovius, for his part, switched sides to Attalus and was named patrician by his new master. Jovius wanted to have Honorius mutilated as well (something that was to become common in the Eastern Empire), but Attalus rejected it.


title: Sack of Rome (410)

text: Increasingly isolated and now in pure panic, Honorius was preparing to flee to Constantinople when 4,000 Eastern Roman soldiers appeared at Ravenna's docks to defend the city. Their arrival strengthened Honorius' resolve to await news of what had happened in Africa.


title: Sack of Rome (410)

text: Heraclian had defeated Attalus' force and cut supplies to Rome, threatening another famine in the city. Alaric wanted to send Gothic soldiers to invade Africa and secure the province, but Attalus again refused, distrustful of the Visigoths' intentions for the province. Counseled by Jovius to do away with his puppet emperor, Alaric summoned Attalus to Ariminum and ceremonially stripped him of his imperial regalia and title in the summer of 410. Alaric then reopened negotiations with Honorius.


title: Sack of Rome (410)

text: Honorius arranged for a meeting with Alaric about 12 kilometres outside of Ravenna. As Alaric waited at the meeting place, Sarus, who was a sworn enemy of Ataulf and now allied to Honorius, attacked Alaric and his men with a small Roman force. Peter Heather speculates Sarus had also lost the election for the kingship of the Goths to Alaric in the 390s.


title: Sack of Rome (410)

text: Alaric survived the attack and, outraged at this treachery and frustrated by all the past failures at accommodation, gave up on negotiating with Honorius and headed back to Rome, which he besieged for the third and final time. On August 24, 410, the Visigoths entered Rome through its Salarian Gate, according to some opened by treachery, according to others by want of food, and pillaged the city for three days.


title: Sack of Rome (410)

text: Many of the city's great buildings were ransacked, including the mausoleums of Augustus and Hadrian, in which many emperors of the past were buried; the ashes of the urns in both tombs were scattered. Any and all moveable goods were stolen all over the city. Some of the few places the Goths spared were the two major basilicas connected to Peter and Paul, though from the Lateran Palace they stole a massive, 2,025-pound silver ciborium that had been a gift from Constantine. Structural damage to buildings was largely limited to the areas near the old Senate house and the Salarian Gate, where the Gardens of Sallust were burned and never rebuilt. The Basilica Aemilia and the Basilica Julia were also burned.


title: Sack of Rome (410)

text: The people of Rome were devastated. Many Romans were taken captive, including the Emperor's sister, Galla Placidia. Some citizens would be ransomed, others would be sold into slavery, and still others would be raped and killed. Pelagius, a Roman monk from Britain, survived the siege and wrote an account of the experience in a letter to a young woman named Demetrias.


title: Sack of Rome (410)

text: Many Romans were tortured into revealing the locations of their valuables. One was the 85-year-old Saint Marcella, who had no hidden gold as she lived in pious poverty. She was a close friend of St. Jerome, and he detailed the incident in a letter to a woman named Principia who had been with Marcella during the sack.


title: Sack of Rome (410)

text: The sack was nonetheless restrained, by the standards of the age. There was no general slaughter or wholesale enslavement of the city's inhabitants and the two main basilicas of Peter and Paul were nominated places of sanctuary. Most of the buildings and monuments in the city survived intact, though stripped of their valuables.


title: Sack of Rome (410)

text: Refugees from Rome flooded the province of Africa, as well as Egypt and the East. Some refugees were robbed as they sought asylum, and St. Jerome wrote that Heraclian, the Count of Africa, sold some of the young refugees into Eastern brothels.


title: Sack of Rome (410)

text: The historian Procopius records a story where, on hearing the news that Rome had "perished", Honorius was initially shocked, thinking the news was in reference to a favorite chicken he had named "Rome" (Latin, "Roma"):


title: Sack of Rome (410)

text: After three days of looting and pillage, Alaric quickly left Rome and headed for southern Italy. He took with him the wealth of the city and a valuable hostage, Galla Placidia, the sister of emperor Honorius. The Visigoths ravaged Campania, Lucania, and Calabria. Nola and perhaps Capua were sacked, and the Visigoths threatened to invade Sicily and Africa. However, they were unable to cross the Strait of Messina as the ships they had gathered were wrecked by a storm. Alaric died of illness at Consentia in late 410, mere months after the sack. According to legend, he was buried with his treasure by slaves in the bed of the Busento river. The slaves were then killed to hide its location. The Visigoths elected Ataulf, Alaric's brother-in-law, as their new king. The Visigoths then moved north, heading for Gaul. Ataulf married Galla Placidia in 414, but he died one year later. The Visigoths established the Visigothic Kingdom in southwestern Gaul in 418, and they would go on to help the Western Roman Empire fight Attila the Hun at the Battle of the Catalaunian Fields in 451.


title: Sack of Rome (410)

text: The Visigothic invasion of Italy caused land taxes to drop anywhere from one-fifth to one-ninth of their pre-invasion value in the affected provinces. Aristocratic munificence, the local support of public buildings and monuments by the upper classes, ended in south-central Italy after the sack and pillaging of those regions. Using the number of people on the food dole as a guide, Bertrand Lançon estimates the city of Rome's total population fell from 800,000 in 408 to 500,000 by 419.


title: Sack of Rome (410)

text: This was the first time the city of Rome had been sacked in almost 800 years, and it had revealed the Western Roman Empire's increasing vulnerability and military weakness. It was shocking to people across both halves of the Empire who viewed Rome as the eternal city and the symbolic heart of their empire. The Eastern Roman Emperor Theodosius II declared three days of mourning in Constantinople. St. Jerome wrote in grief, "If Rome can perish, what can be safe?" In Bethlehem, he detailed his shock in the preface to his commentary on Ezekiel.


title: Sack of Rome (410)

text: The Roman Empire at this time was still in the midst of religious conflict between pagans and Christians. The sack was used by both sides to bolster their competing claims of divine legitimacy. Paulus Orosius, a Christian priest and theologian, believed the sack was God's wrath against a proud and blasphemous city, and that it was only through God's benevolence that the sack had not been too severe. Rome had lost its wealth, but Roman sovereignty endured, and that to talk to the survivors in Rome one would think "nothing had happened." Other Romans felt the sack was divine punishment for turning away from the traditional pagan gods to Christ. Zosimus, a Roman pagan historian, believed that Christianity, through its abandonment of the ancient traditional rites, had weakened the Empire's political virtues, and that the poor decisions of the Imperial government that led to the sack were due to the lack of the gods' care.


title: Sack of Rome (410)

text: The religious and political attacks on Christianity spurred Saint Augustine to write a defense, "The City of God", which went on to become foundational to Christian thought.


title: Sack of Rome (410)

text: The sack was a culmination of many terminal problems facing the Western Roman Empire. Domestic rebellions and usurpations weakened the Empire in the face of external invasions. These factors would permanently harm the stability of the Roman Empire in the west. The Roman army meanwhile became increasingly barbarian and disloyal to the Empire. A more severe sack of Rome by the Vandals followed in 455, and the Western Roman Empire finally collapsed in 476 when the Germanic Odovacer removed the last Western Roman Emperor, Romulus Augustulus, and declared himself King of Italy.


title: Japanese Communist Party

text: The is a left-wing to far-left political party in Japan. With approximately 270,000 members belonging to 18,000 branches, it is one of the largest non-governing communist parties in the world.


title: Japanese Communist Party

text: The party advocates the establishment of a democratic society based on scientific socialism and pacificism. It believes this objective can be achieved by working within an electoral framework while carrying out an extra-parliamentary struggle against "imperialism and its subordinate ally, monopoly capital". As such, the JCP does not advocate violent revolution and instead proposes a "democratic revolution" to achieve "democratic change in politics and the economy". A staunchly antimilitarist party, the JCP firmly supports Article 9 of the Japanese Constitution and aims to dissolve the Japan Self-Defense Forces. The party also opposes Japan's security alliance with the United States, viewing it as an unequal partnership and an infringement on Japanese national sovereignty.


title: Japanese Communist Party

text: In the wake of the Sino-Soviet split, the JCP began to distance itself from the Eastern Bloc, especially the Soviet Union. The party consequently did not suffer an internal crisis as a result of the Soviet Union's collapse in 1991; instead, it welcomed the dissolution of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, which it described as the "embodi[ment] of the historical evil of great power chauvinism and hegemonism".


title: Japanese Communist Party

text: The Japanese Communist Party was founded in Tokyo on 15 July 1922. Its early leadership was drawn from the anarcho-syndicalist and Christian socialist movements that developed around the turn of the century. From the former came Yamakawa Hitoshi, Sakai Toshihiko, and Arahata Kanson, who had all been supporters of Kōtoku Shūsui, an anarchist executed in 1911. Katayama Sen, another early leader, had been a Christian socialist for much of his political life. The three former anarchists were reluctant to found the JCP, with Yamakawa shortly after arguing that Japan was not ready for a communist party and calling for work to be done solely within labor unions. Katayama's theoretical understanding of Marxism also remained low.


title: Japanese Communist Party

text: The JCP was founded as an underground political association. Outlawed in 1925 with the passage of the Peace Preservation Law, the JCP was subjected to repression and persecution by the Special Higher Police ("Tokkō"), nicknamed the "Thought Police". JCP members and sympathizers were imprisoned and pressured to "convert" ("tenkō suru") to anti-communist nationalism. Many of those who refused to convert remained imprisoned for the duration of the Pacific War. The Japanese Communist Party member Hotsumi Ozaki, who was part of the Richard Sorge spy ring for the Kremlin, was the only Japanese person hanged for treason under the Peace Preservation Law.


title: Japanese Communist Party

text: The Japan Communist Party was legalized in 1945 by the Allied military occupation of Japan and since then has been a legal political party able to contest elections. In the aftermath of the war, under the guidance of charismatic party chairman Sanzō Nosaka, the party pursued a policy of portraying itself as "lovable". Nosaka's strategy involved avoiding open calls for violent revolution and taking advantage of the seemingly pro-labor stance of the Occupation to organize the urban working classes and win power at the ballot box and through propaganda. In particular, the party was successful in winning acceptance of the notion that communists had been the only ones to resist Japanese wartime militarism. This propaganda effort won the party thousands of new members and an even larger number of sympathizers, especially among artists and intellectuals. The party rapidly built up its strength and in 1949, made unprecedented gains by winning 10 percent of the vote and sending 35 representatives to the Diet.


title: Japanese Communist Party

text: Beginning in the fall of 1949, in reaction to the JCP's electoral success and as part of the "Reverse Course" in Occupation policy amid rising Cold War tensions, the U.S.-led occupation authorities and the Japanese government carried out a sweeping Red Purge, firing tens of thousands of communists and suspected communists from government posts, teaching positions at universities, high schools, and primary schools, as well as from private corporations. The purge was further intensified in response to the outbreak of the Korean War.


title: Japanese Communist Party

text: Against this backdrop in January 1950, the Soviet-led Cominform, at the behest of Soviet premier Joseph Stalin, issued a blistering criticism of the JCP's peaceful line as "opportunism" and "glorifying American imperialism". It also demanded that the JCP carry out an immediate violent revolution along Maoist lines. This devastating "Cominform Criticism" led rival JCP factions to compete for the Cominform's approval, and ultimately led to the militant which declared that "it would be a serious mistake to think that Japan's liberation can be achieved through peaceful, democratic means" and called for an immediate violent revolution. The result was a campaign of violence in which JCP activists threw Molotov cocktails at police boxes and cadres were sent up into the mountains with instructions to organize oppressed farmers into "mountain guerrilla squads".


title: Japanese Communist Party

text: The backlash to the JCP's new militant line was swift and severe. Militants were rounded up, tried, and sentenced to lengthy prison terms, and in the 1952 general election, Japanese voters vented their ire at the JCP by stripping the party of every single one of its 35 Diet seats, a blow from which it would take two decades to recover. Stunned, the JCP gradually began to pull back from its militant line, a process facilitated by the death of Stalin in 1953. At the 6th Party Congress in 1955, the JCP renounced the militant line completely, returning to its old "peaceful line" of gradually pursuing socialist revolution through peaceful, democratic means.


title: Japanese Communist Party

text: In 1960, the JCP played a central role in organizing the massive Anpo protests against the U.S.–Japan Security Treaty, which were the largest protests in Japan's history. The JCP took a different line than the Japan Socialist Party, Sohyo labor federation, and other groups who argued that the main target of the protest movement was Japanese monopoly capitalism. Instead, the JCP argued that the main enemy was American imperialism, and along with affiliated groups, focused its protests around the U.S. Embassy in Tokyo. Accordingly, JCP-linked groups were the driving force behind the "Hagerty Incident" in which the car carrying U.S. President Eisenhower's press secretary James Hagerty was mobbed outside of Tokyo's Haneda Airport on 10 June 1960, provoking a major international incident and helping to precipitate the downfall of the Nobusuke Kishi cabinet.


title: Japanese Communist Party

text: The Anpo protests were a turning point in the JCP's ongoing attempts to revive its political fortunes after the disastrous turn toward violent revolution in the early 1950s. Although the Maoists had been purged from the party following the earlier disaster, the JCP was still riven by the age-old rivalry between the Rōnō Ha (Worker-Farmer Faction) and the Kōza Ha (Lecture Faction), which dated back to the prewar era. Among other disagreements, the two factions disagreed over which stage of Marxist development Japan was currently in; the Rōnō Ha believed that Japan had already achieved full capitalism, which meant that an immediate socialist revolution was possible, whereas the Kōza Ha argued that Japan's transition to capitalism was not yet complete and that therefore what was needed was a "two-stage" revolutionfirst a "democratic revolution" that would overthrow American imperialism and establish true democracy, and then a "socialist revolution" that would establish communism. Although the "mainstream" of the JCP, led by Kenji Miyamoto, favored the Kōza Ha interpretation, as late as the 7th Party Congress in 1958 the "anti-mainstream" Rōnō Ha faction, led by Shōjirō Kasuga, still controlled around 40 percent of the delegates.


title: Japanese Communist Party

text: The Anpo protests greatly strengthened the hand of the Kōza Ha faction. During the protest, the JCP, still scarred by the backlash to its violent line in the 1950s, consistently advocated peaceful, orderly, and restrained protests. This stance was highly unpopular with the radical student activists of the Zengakuren student federation, who broke decisively with the JCP as a result and began to build a New Left student movement. However, the movement proved unpopular with the broader public, and the JCP was able to use its image as a "peaceful" and "positive" force during the protests as a recruitment tool. Membership in the party soared during the course of the protests, doubling from 40,000 to 80,000, and most of the new recruits wound up supporting the Kōza Ha line.


title: Japanese Communist Party

text: Over the remainder of the 1960s, the Kōza Ha was able to purge many members from the Rōnō Ha faction, and others, dissatisfied with JCP policies, quit the party of their own accord. Miyamoto was able to cement his control over the party and reigned as party chairman all the way until 1982. Meanwhile, the party's membership continued to grow rapidly, and the party began to make steady gains at the ballot box, winning more and more seats in the National Diet. By the mid-1960s, the United States Department of State estimated party membership to be approximately 120,000 (0.2% of the working-age population), and the party had acquired around 300,000 members by 1970.


title: Japanese Communist Party

text: The party did not take sides during the Sino-Soviet split of the 1960s. Its politics were independent of the Soviet Union. Reflecting this, the party chairman Miyamoto announced the JCP's opposition to the 1968 Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia. At the same time, the party had distanced itself from Mao and Maoism, which allowed it to avoid being associated with China's Great Leap Forward and Cultural Revolution once they started coming more fully to light in the 1970s. In July 1969, the JCP declared that if it ever came to power, it would permit the free functioning of opposition parties, in an effort to distinguish itself from the one-party states in the Soviet Union and China.


title: Japanese Communist Party

text: These efforts proved popular, and in the 1972 general election, the JCP won an astonishing 38 seats in the Diet, surpassing its 1949 high of 35 and signalling the party's full recovery from the disastrous militant line of the early 1950s. Party membership continued to grow in the 1970s, albeit at a slower rate than in the 1960s, reaching approximately 500,000 members by 1980.


title: Japanese Communist Party

text: After the dissolution of the Soviet Union, the JCP released a press statement titled "We welcome the end of a party which embodied the historical evil of great power chauvinism and hegemonism". The party also criticized the Eastern Bloc countries which abandoned socialism, describing their decisions as a "reversal of history". Consequently, the party did not suffer an internal crisis as a result of the Soviet Union's collapse in 1991, nor did it consider disbanding or changing its name. Owing to a significant loss in electoral support, however, the party revised its policies in the 1990s and became a more traditional democratic socialist party.


title: Japanese Communist Party

text: Lam Peng Er argued in the "Pacific Affairs" in 1996 that "the JCP's viability is crucial to the health of Japanese democracy" because "[i]t is the only established party in parliament that has not been coopted by the conservative parties. It performs the watchdog role against the ruling parties without fear or favor. More importantly, the JCP often offers the only opposition candidate in prefectural governorship, city mayoral and other local elections. Despite the ostensible differences between the non-Communist parties at the national level, they often support a joint candidate for governor or mayor so that all parties are assured of being part of the ruling coalition. If the JCP did not offer a candidate, there would be a walkover and Japanese voters would be offered a fait accompli without an electoral avenue of protest. Promoting women candidates in elections to win women's votes is another characteristic of the party. More women are elected under the Communist label than other political parties in Japan."


title: Japanese Communist Party

text: In 2008, foreign media recorded an increase in support for the party due to the effect of the global financial crisis on Japanese workers. However, the party failed to increase its number of seats in the 2009 general election. Subsequently, the projected decline of the party was halted, with the JCP becoming the third-largest party in the Tokyo Metropolitan Assembly and making gains in the House of Councillors, going from six to 11 seats. The party surged in the 2014 elections, receiving 7,040,130 votes (13.3%) in the constituency section and 6,062,962 (11.37%) in the party lists.


title: Japanese Communist Party

text: During the nomination period of the July 2016 House of Councillors election, the party signed an agreement with the Democratic, Social Democratic and People's Life parties to field a jointly endorsed candidate in each of the 32 districts in which only one seat was contested, uniting in an attempt to take control of the House from the LDP/Komeito coalition. JCP leaders expressed willingness to enter into a coalition with the Democratic Party, a notion which was rejected by then-Democratic Party President Katsuya Okada as being "impossible" in the near future due to what he viewed as some of the "extreme leftist policies" promoted by the JCP. The party had three Councillors up for re-election and fielded a total of 56 candidates in the election, down from 63 candidates in the 2013 election, but still the second-highest number after the LDP. However, only 14 of those candidates contested single- and multi-member districts, while 42 contested the 48-seat national proportional representation block.


title: Japanese Communist Party

text: One of the JCP's main objectives is terminating the Japan–United States military alliance and the dismantling of all American military bases in Japan. It wants to make Japan a non-aligned and neutral country, in accordance with its principles of self-determination and national sovereignty. There are about 130 American military bases and other related facilities in Japan, with Okinawa Prefecture having the largest American military base in Asia. The JCP has also traditionally championed pacifism.


title: Japanese Communist Party

text: With regards to the Japan Self-Defence Forces (Japan's armed forces), the JCP's current policy is that it is not principally opposed to its existence (in 2000 the party stated that it would agree to its use should Japan ever be attacked), but that it will seek to abolish it in the long term, international situation permitting.


title: Japanese Communist Party

text: The JCP also opposes possession of nuclear weapons by any country or the concept of military blocs and opposes any attempt to revise Article 9 of the Japanese Constitution, which says that "never again... [will Japan] be visited with the horrors of war through the action of government". Regarding the resolution of disputes, it argues that priority must be given to peaceful means through negotiations, not to military solutions. The JCP says that Japan must adhere to the United Nations Charter.


title: Japanese Communist Party

text: The JCP strives to change the nation's economic policy of what it sees as serving the interests of large corporations and banks to one of "defending the interests of the people", and to establish "democratic rules" that will check the activities of large corporations and "protect the lives and basic rights of the people".


title: Japanese Communist Party

text: Regarding the issue of the international economy, the JCP has advocated establishing a new international democratic economic order on the basis of respect for the economic sovereignty of each country and strongly opposes the participation to the TPP. The JCP sees the United States, transnational corporations and international financial capital as pushing globalization, which it says is seriously affecting the global economy, including the monetary and financial problems as well as North–South and environmental problems. The JCP advocates "democratic regulation of activities by transnational corporations and international financial capital on an international scale".


title: Japanese Communist Party

text: In September 2015, after the passage of the 2015 Japanese military legislation, the JCP called for cooperation from other opposition parties to form an interim government to abolish the bills. It was the first time the party had called for such cooperation with other parties.


title: Japanese Communist Party

text: The Japanese Communist Party is generally regarded as the most progressive party in Japanese politics. The JCP has traditionally been opposed to the existence of the Imperial House since the pre-war days. From 2004, it has acknowledged the Emperor as Japan's head of state as long as he remains a figurehead. The JCP has stated that it supports the establishment of a democratic republic, but that "its [the monarchy] continuation or discontinuation should be decided by the will of the majority of the people in future, when the time is ripe to do so". It is also against Japan's use of its national flag and national anthem which it sees as a relic of Japan's militarist past.


title: Japanese Communist Party

text: The JCP jointly supports 'LGBT equality Law' with Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan, Social Democratic Party and Reiwa Shinsengumi. The JCP supports the legalization of same-sex marriage.


title: Japanese Communist Party

text: The JCP has maintained a friendly relationship with the Japanese feminist camp since its inception, and is still the most active in women's rights issues among major Japanese political parties. The JCP supports eliminating the wage gap between men and women. It also advocates for more women in politics and political life.


title: Japanese Communist Party

text: The JCP adheres to the idea that Japan as an Asian country must stop putting emphasis on diplomacy centering on relations with the United States and the G8 Summit and put Asian diplomacy at the center of its foreign relations. It supports establishing an "independent foreign policy in the interests of the Japanese people" and rejects "uncritically following any foreign power".


title: Japanese Communist Party

text: The JCP advocates that Japan issue further apologies for its actions during World War II and has condemned prime ministerial visits to Yasukuni Shrine. In the 1930s, while the JCP was still illegal, it was the only political party to vocally oppose Japan's war with China. The JCP supports Japanese territorial claims over the Kuril and Senkaku Islands and Liancourt Rocks. Furthermore, the JCP has condemned North Korea's nuclear-weapons testing, calling for effective sanctions, but opposing the prospect of a military response.


title: Japanese Communist Party

text: In 2020, the JCP revised its platform for the first time since 2004. The new platform criticized the Communist Party of China, denouncing China's "great-power chauvinism and hegemonism" as "an adverse current to world peace and progress". The JCP also removed a line from its platform which described China as a country "that is beginning a new quest for socialism". JCP members have stated that this was due to human rights conditions in China. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of China denounced the accusations of the JCP as "groundless and biased".


title: Japanese Communist Party

text: According to the party constitution, the highest body of the JCP is the Party Congress, organized by the Central Committee every 2–3 years, though it may be postponed in special circumstances. Between the congresses, the highest body is the Central Committee, elected by the Party Congress. The Central Committee meets two times every year and can also hold a plenum at the request of one-third of its membership. The Central Committee is made out of regular and alternate members; the latter can precipitate in Central Committee meetings but cannot vote. The Central Committee also elects the Executive Committee of the Central Committee, and its chairpersons and vice-chairpersons, the head of the Secretariat and may also elect the chairperson of the Central Committee. The current chairman of the Executive Committee of the Central Committee of the JCP is Kazuo Shii. The Central Committee also appoints the Disciplinary Commission and the Audit Commission.


title: Japanese Communist Party

text: The Executive Committee manages party affairs between Central Committee meetings. It appoints the members of the Secretariat, which manages the day-to-day affairs of the party center, and the Central Organ Paper Editors Commission. It also elects the Standing Committee of the Executive Committee.


title: Japanese Communist Party

text: "Shimbun Akahata" (Japanese: "Red Flag Newspaper") is the daily organ of the JCP in the form of a national newspaper. "Musansha Shinbun" (Japanese: "Proletarian News") was another publication of the party which was circulated between 1925 and 1929. Several other newspapers preceded and merged into "Red Flag", including "Daini Musansha Shinbun" (Japanese: "The Second Proletarian News"), which was merged into "Red Flag" in 1932. "Daini Musansha Shinbun" was itself the immediate successor to the original "The Proletarian News", which was banned by the government in September 1929. "Daini Musansha Shinbun" began publication immediately after the ban.


title: Japanese Communist Party

text: In the past, the party published numerous other newspapers as well, including another national paper called "Nihon Seiji Shinbun" (Japanese: "Japan Political News") and a theoretical journal called "Zenshin" (Japanese: "Forward"). The party also published several regional newspapers such as "Class War" in and around Kyoto, Osaka and Kobe, "Shinetsu Red Flag" in Nagano and "Hokkaido News" in Hokkaido. They also published numerous (the exact number is unknown) factory newspapers.


title: Japanese Communist Party

text: Some regional newspapers, such as "Shin Kanagawa" (Japanese: "New Kanagawa") in Kanagawa, are still published.


title: Japanese Communist Party

text: The youth wing of JCP is the Democratic Youth League of Japan. In the 1920s and 1930s, the organization published several newspapers of its own, including "Rēnin Seinen" (English: "Lenin Youth") and "Proletarian Youth".


title: Japanese Communist Party

text: The party also has affiliate medical and consumer co-ops. The Japanese Consumers' Co-Operative Union (JCCU), the umbrella body of the co-operative movement in Japan, has a sizable number of communists in its ranks, although the exact numbers are difficult to verify. Another example of the JCP's prevalence in the co-operative movement is the Co-op Kanagawa in the Kanagawa Prefecture, which has 800,000 members and has historical ties to the JCP. It still advertises and occasionally is published in JCP newspapers such as "Red Flag" and "New Kanagawa". The prevalence of house unions in Japan as opposed to enterprise unions has prompted much of the exceptional development of other organizations by the JCP, as well as causing the JCP to seek other external organizational support, including from kōenkai.


title: Japanese Communist Party

text: The is a musical group which supports the JCP. Its repertory and artistic activity are strongly linked to / ), a musical movement of Japanese working class that dates back to 1948, when the was established. The group was founded in Kyoto in 2011 and is directed by Tadao Yamamoto, a composer, accordionist, choir director and ordinary member of the National Council of The Singing Voice of Japan. In various cultural events organized by the party, the Choir of JCP-fans appears as an element among the joined choirs of the volunteer singers of The Singing Voice of Japan. As of 2016, the choir is the only organization of Japanese musicians specializing in political support and in the cultural activity of the party.


title: Japanese Communist Party

text: In January 2014, the JCP had approximately 320,000 members. Following the party's advancement in the 2013 Tokyo prefectural election, there had been an increase in membership growth, with over 1,000 people joining in each of the final three months of 2013. Approximately 20% of new members during this period were aged 20–40, showing a higher ratio of young people joining the party than in the past. More recently, membership numbers have declined, with membership at around 300,000 in 2017 and 270,000 in 2020.


title: Japanese Communist Party

text: Prior to 1996, the entire House of Representatives was elected by majoritarian / "semi-proportional" voting systems with votes cast for individuals (1946: limited voting in multi-member districts, 1947 to 1993 SNTV in multi-member districts). Since 1996, the House of Representatives is elected in a parallel election system—essentially two separate elections only in the lower house complicated by the fact that a candidate may stand in both segments and the sekihairitsu system which ties proportional list ranking to FPTP results: only the majority of members the House of Representatives, 295 (initially 300) seats, are elected in a majoritarian system with voting for candidates (first-past-the-post in single-member districts), while the remaining 180 (initially 200) seats are elected by a proportional representation system (votes are cast for party lists in regional multi-member districts, called "blocks" in the House of Representatives). The votes and vote percentages in the table below are the JCP candidates' vote totals for the whole election from before 1993 and just the votes for the party in the election to the 180 proportional seats after 1996.


title: Japanese Communist Party

text: The JCP polled 11.3 percent of the vote in 2000, 8.2 percent in 2003, 7.3 percent in 2005, 7.0 percent in 2009, and 6.2 percent in 2012. These results seemed to indicate a trend of declining support, but the party won 21 seats in 2014, up from eight in the previous general election, as the JCP received 7,040,130 votes (13.3 percent) in the constituency section and 6,062,962 (11.37 percent) in the party lists. This continued a new wave of support that was also evident in the 2013 Tokyo prefectural election in which the party doubled its representation. Fighting on a platform directly opposed to neoliberalism, the Trans-Pacific Partnership, attempts to rewrite the constitution, United States Forces Japan, and nuclear power, the JCP tapped into a minority current that seeks an alternative to Japan's rightward direction. Following the 2016 Japanese House of Councillors election, the party held 13 seats in the House of Councillors. After the 2017 Japanese general election, the party held 12 seats in the House of Representatives, and since the 2021 Japanese general election, it holds 10 seats.


title: Japanese Communist Party

text: Elections to the House of Councillors are staggered. Every three years, half of the House is up for election to six-year terms. In addition, a parallel election system is used: the majority of members of the House of Councillors (currently 146 of 242, or 73 in one regular election to one half of the House) are elected in 45 (formerly 46→47) prefectural districts, votes are cast for individual candidates by SNTV, but with both multi- and single-member districts used and in the latter SNTV becomes identical to FPTP (winner-takes-all). The remaining, currently 96 members (48 per regular election) are elected in one nationwide district. Until 1980, votes there were cast for individuals too by SNTV. Since 1983, votes are cast for party lists and the seats are allocated proportionally (d'Hondt) in the nationwide district. Unlike in general elections to the lower house, a candidate may not be nominated in both segments of one regular election to the upper house. The seats totals show below are the JCP's overall post-election seat totals, not just their seats elected in that particular year. The votes shown are the votes in the election for the 48 (formerly 50) seats in the nationwide SNTV/PR segment.


title: Lodging

text: Lodging refers to the use of a short-term dwelling, usually by renting the living space or sometimes through some other arrangement. People who travel and stay away from home for more than a day need lodging for sleep, rest, food, safety, shelter from cold temperatures or rain, storage of luggage and access to common household functions. Lodging is a form of the sharing economy.


title: Lodging

text: Lodging is done in a hotel, motel, hostel, inn or hostal, a private home (commercial, i.e. a bed and breakfast, a guest house, a vacation rental, or non-commercially, as in certain homestays or in the home of friends), in a tent, caravan/campervan (often on a campsite). Lodgings may be self-catering, whereby no food is provided, but cooking facilities are available.


title: Lodging

text: Lodging is offered by an owner of real property or a leasehold estate, including the hotel industry, hospitality industry, real estate investment trusts, and owner-occupancy houses.


title: Lodging

text: Regulation of short-term rentals can include requirements for hosts to have business licenses, payment of hotel taxes and compliance with building, city and zoning standards. The hotel industry has lobbied for stricter regulations on short-term home rental. In addition to government-imposed restrictions, many homeowner associations also limit short term rentals.


title: The Book of Five Rings

text: Musashi establishes a "no-nonsense" theme throughout the text. For instance, he repeatedly remarks that technical flourishes are excessive, and contrasts worrying about such things with the principle that all technique is simply a method of cutting down one's opponent. He also continually makes the point that the understandings expressed in the book are important for combat on any scale, whether a one-on-one duel or a massive battle. Descriptions of principles are often followed by admonitions to "investigate this thoroughly" through practice rather than trying to learn them by merely reading.


title: The Book of Five Rings

text: Musashi describes and advocates a two-sword fencing style ("nitōjutsu"): that is, wielding both "katana" and "wakizashi", contrary to the more traditional method of wielding the katana two-handed. However, he only explicitly describes wielding two swords in a section on fighting against many adversaries. The stories of his many duels rarely refer to Musashi himself wielding two swords, although, since they are mostly oral traditions, their details may be inaccurate. Musashi states within the volume that one should train with a long sword in each hand, thereby training the body and improving one's ability to use two blades simultaneously.


title: The Book of Five Rings

text: "Go Rin No Sho" are the teachings which Musashi preached to his students in his own dōjō. Though ideas are taken from other sources, the text is predominantly seminal. The five "books" refer to the idea that there are different elements of battle, just as there are different physical elements in life, as described by Buddhism, Shinto, and other Eastern religions. The five books below are Musashi's descriptions of the exact methods or techniques which are described by such elements.


title: The Book of Five Rings

text: The term "Ichi School" refers to "Niten No Ichi Ryu" or "Ni-Ten Ichi Ryu", which literally translates to "Two Heavens, One School". Alternative translations include: "Two Swords, One Spirit", and "Two Swords, One Entity". The translation, "Two Swords, One Dragon" was thought to be a misinterpretation of the Kanji word "Ryu".


title: The Book of Five Rings

text: The Earth book, according to "Go Rin No Sho", refers expressly to the strategy taught by Musashi at the Ichi School. It is said to be how to distinguish the Way through "Sword-Fencing", or "Swordsmanship". The idea of strategy would be encouraged to be very astute in their study and strategy:


title: The Book of Five Rings

text: Know the smallest things and the biggest things, the shallowest things and the deepest things. As if it were a straight road mapped out on the ground... These things cannot be explained in detail. From one thing, know ten thousand things. When you attain the Way of Strategy there will not be one thing you cannot see. You must study hard.


title: The Book of Five Rings

text: Upon their mastery of the strategy and timing listed in the five books, Musashi states that people will be able to defeat ten men as easily as they could defeat one, and asks: "When you have reached this point, will it not mean that you are invincible?"


title: The Book of Five Rings

text: The strategies listed in this discipline or book relate to situations requiring different weapons and tactics, such as indoor weapons. Musashi states that the use of glaive-like naginata and spears are purely for the field, whereas the longsword and accompanying short-sword can be used in most environments, such as on horseback or in fierce battle.


title: The Book of Five Rings

text: Musashi also remarks on the gun as having no equal on the battlefield, until swords clash, when it becomes useless. He does note that the gun had the disadvantage of being unable to see a bullet and adjust aim as one would with a bow. He writes: "The bow is tactically strong at the commencement of battle, especially battles on a moor, as it is possible to shoot quickly from among the spearmen. However, it is unsatisfactory in sieges, or when the enemy is more than forty yards away. For this reason there are nowadays few traditional schools of archery. There is little use for this kind of skill."


title: The Book of Five Rings

text: One of the principles of the Niten Ichi-ryū is that one should be versed in many weaponry skills. Musashi indicates that during battle one should not overuse one weapon—this is as bad as using the weapon poorly, since it becomes easy for an enemy to find a weakness in one's style after countless uses of the same weapon.


title: The Book of Five Rings

text: Timing, as explained by Musashi, is the core principle in strategy which is listed in "Earth". The idea of timing as explained within the book is that one must be able to adapt one's strategy to timing with your skill, in that one must know when to attack and when not to attack.


title: The Book of Five Rings

text: Timing is important in dancing and pipe or string music, for they are in rhythm only if timing is good. Timing and rhythm are also involved in the military arts, shooting bows and guns, and riding horses. In all skills and abilities there is timing... There is timing in the whole life of the warrior, in his thriving and declining, in his harmony and discord. Similarly, there is timing in the Way of the merchant, in the rise and fall of capital. All things entail rising and falling timing. You must be able to discern this. In strategy there are various timing considerations. From the outset you must know the applicable timing and the inapplicable timing, and from among the large and small things and the fast and slow timings find the relevant timing, first seeing the distance timing and the background timing. This is the main thing in strategy. It is especially important to know the background timing, otherwise your strategy will become uncertain.


title: The Book of Five Rings

text: The Book of Earth ends with nine basic principles – the "ground" upon which the samurai must rely. These are "practical" or "worldly," each intended to help develop an understanding of strategy (while the other books focus on tactics and movement). These rules are for his students, and are complemented by the 21 "spiritual principles" for all to follow, which are found in the "Dokkōdō" (Musashi's final work). The principles are:


title: The Book of Five Rings

text: The spiritual bearing in strategy, which Musashi writes about concerns your temperament and spirituality whilst in the midst of, or in formulation of a battle. Being a buddhist, most of what is written in the section concerning spirituality refers to principles of calmness, tranquility and spiritual balance:


title: The Book of Five Rings

text: In strategy your spiritual bearing must not be any different from normal. Both in fighting and in everyday life you should be determined though calm.


title: The Book of Five Rings

text: This balance refers to what could be thought of as yin and yang within one person. The over-familiarity or over-use of one weapon is discouraged by Musashi, as it would be seen to reveal one's spirituality to one's enemy. The idea is that a perfectly balanced spirit is also a perfectly balanced physical presence, and neither creates weakness nor reveals it to an enemy.


title: The Book of Five Rings

text: During battle, the spirituality and balance is something of which Musashi notes that one should take advantage. Since small people know the spirituality of big people, they can thus note differences and weaknesses between each other. This is something which seems easy, but it is said to change when one is on the battlefield, as then one must know to both adjust one's spiritual balance according to the surrounding environment, and to perceive the balance of others to take advantage accordingly.


title: The Book of Five Rings

text: Just as one's spirit should be balanced, one's various techniques be honed to a perfectly balanced demeanor. In terms of stance, much like balance within the trooper, Musashi notes that stance is an important part of strategy, or battle: "Adopt a stance with the head erect, neither hanging down, nor looking up, nor twisted." This is part of what Musashi notes as "wedging in".


title: The Book of Five Rings

text: In regards to the gaze of someone, he notes that a person must be able to perceive that which is all around him without moving their eyeballs noticeably, which is said to be a skill which takes an enormous amount of practice to perfect. He notes that this is again one of the most important parts of strategy, as well as being able to see things which are close, such as the technique of an enemy. It is also used to perceive things far away, such as arriving troops or enemies, as that is the precursor to battle. One can then change one's actions according to what one sees.


title: The Book of Five Rings

text: The five attitudes of swordsmanship are referred to as the five classifications of areas for attack on the human body. These are areas which are noted for their advantages when striking at an enemy, and the strategist is said to think of them when in situations where, for any reason, they should not be able to strike them, and adjust accordingly.


title: The Book of Five Rings

text: Your attitude should be large or small according to the situation. Upper, Lower and Middle attitudes are decisive. Left Side and Right Side attitudes are fluid. Left and Right attitudes should be used if there is an obstruction overhead or to one side. The decision to use Left or Right depends on the place.


title: The Book of Five Rings

text: As each is thought of as an attitude, it could be thought of that Musashi means to practice with each "attitude" so that you do not become over-reliant upon one, something which Musashi repeatedly notes as being worse than bad technique.


title: The Book of Five Rings

text: "No Attitude" refers to those strategists who do not go with the use of the "Five Attitudes" and prefer to simply go without the attitudes of the long sword to focus entirely on technique, as opposed to focusing on both technique and the five attitudes. This is similar to taking chances as opposed to making chances.


title: The Book of Five Rings

text: The attitude of "Existing – Non Existing", mixes the Five Attitudes with the Attitude of "No Attitude", meaning that the user of the longsword uses the techniques and principles of both at whichever moment is most opportune.


title: The Book of Five Rings

text: "In-One Timing" refers to the technique of biding one's time until a suitable gap can be found in the enemies' defense, to which one will deliver one fatal blow to the enemy. Although this is said to be difficult, Musashi notes that masters of this technique are usually masters of the five attitudes because they must be perceptive of weaknesses. It is rumored that Musashi disgraced a former sword master by using such a technique with a "bokken", but there are no descriptions mentioning "In one" timing.


title: The Book of Five Rings

text: "Abdomen Timing of Two" refers to feinting an attack, then striking an enemy as they are retreating from the attack, hitting them in the abdomen with the correct timing of either two moves or two seconds. Although the technique seems relatively simple, Musashi lists this as one of the hardest techniques to time correctly.


title: The Book of Five Rings

text: "No Design, No Conception" refers to "When word and actions are spontaneously the same". Aside from this philosophical approach to the meaning, the technique is relatively simple to explain: if you are in a deadlock with the enemy, using the force from the cut, you push with your body and use the disciplines outlined in the "Void Book" to knock the enemy over.


title: The Book of Five Rings

text: This is the most important method of hitting. It is often used. You must train hard to understand it.


title: The Book of Five Rings

text: "Flowing Water Cut" technique is relevant to a fight with an enemy of a similar level in swordsmanship. When attacking fast, Musashi notes that one will always be at stalemate, so like stagnant water, one must cut as slowly as possible with the long sword. At the beginning of this technique, both combatants will be searching for an opening within each other's defense. When the opponent either tries to push off the sword, or to hasten back as to disengage it, you must first expand your whole body and your mind. By moving your body first and then that of your sword, you will be able to strike powerfully and broadly with a movement that seems to reflect the natural flow of water. Ease and confidence will be attained when this technique is continuously practiced upon.


title: The Book of Five Rings

text: "Continuous Cut" refers to when you are again faced with stalemate within a duel, where your swords are clasped together. In one motion, when your sword springs away from theirs, Musashi says to use a continuous motion to slash their head, body, and legs.


title: The Book of Five Rings

text: "Fire and Stone's Cut" refers to when swords clash together. Without raising the sword, cut as strongly as possible. This means cutting quickly with hands, body, and legs.


title: The Book of Five Rings

text: "Red Leaves Cut" refers to knocking down the enemy's long sword in the spirit of the "No Design, No Conception" cut.


title: The Book of Five Rings

text: The "Fire Book" refers to fighting methods unlike the specific fighting techniques listed in the "Water Book". It goes into a broader scope in terms of hints as to assess a situation, as well as specific situational instructions.


title: The Book of Five Rings

text: He notes obvious advantages of armor and preparedness before a duel or battle as it applies to one man or a whole group of men:


title: The Book of Five Rings

text: As one man can defeat ten men, so can one thousand men defeat ten thousand. However, you can become a master of strategy by training alone with a sword, so that you can understand the enemy's stratagems, his strength and resources, and come to appreciate how to apply strategy to beat ten thousand enemies.


title: The Book of Five Rings

text: The dependence of location according to the "Go Rin No Sho" is crucial. You must be in a place where man-made objects such as buildings, towers, castles, and such do not obstruct your view, as well as facing or standing in a position where the sun or moon does not affect your vision. This is purely so that your vision is focused on nothing but the enemy, and thus there is more concentration upon the enemy's stratagems. Musashi also seems to note the age old strategy of the High Ground:


title: The Book of Five Rings

text: Other kinds of tactics which of Musashi tells are way of ensuring that the enemy is at a disadvantage. Forcing yourself on the non-dominant side of a trooper is one way because the left side is difficult for a right-handed soldier. Other disadvantages, such as forcing enemies into footholds, swamps, ditches, and other difficult terrain, force the enemy to be uncertain of his situation.


title: The Book of Five Rings

text: These things cannot be clearly explained in words. You must research what is written here. In these three ways of forestalling, you must judge the situation. This does not mean that you always attack first; but if the enemy attacks first you can lead him around. In strategy, you have effectively won when you forestall the enemy, so you must train well to attain this.


title: The Book of Five Rings

text: "Ken No Sen" (Attacking) is the most obvious method of forestalling an enemy because a head-on collision forces both parties to a standstill. Although it is not mentioned, Musashi must have been well aware that this method would also be the most likely to have a higher death count than the others due to the sheer mass of enemies because more than one enemy could then attack a single soldier or trooper.


title: The Book of Five Rings

text: As the name suggests, "Tai No Sen" (Waiting for the Initiative) is invented for very opportunistic and decided battles between parties. The main idea being to feign weakness as to open a weak spot, or Achilles' heel, in the opposing force, and then regrouping to exploit such a hole by attacking deep within the enemy's party. Although it is not mentioned, this would most likely be to kill the officer of the highest rank as an attempt to remove the tactical centre of a group of soldiers. A method particularly useful for Musashi or others, if attacking a general directly would signal the end of the battle upon his defeat.


title: The Book of Five Rings

text: Only a small amount of text is written about "Tai Tai No Sen" (Accompanying and Forestalling). Albeit very confusing, the idea of Tai Tai No Sen is circumventing an ambush or quick attack from the enemy by taking the initiative and attacking in full force. Musashi admits himself that this is a difficult thing to explain.


title: The Book of Five Rings

text: Although there are other methods, they are mostly situational methods relating to the crossing of rough terrain, and battling within such rough terrain. Although it spreads over two or more paragraphs, most information is common sense, relating to caution and avoidance of such situations.


title: The Book of Five Rings

text: The idea of timing, as with singular battles, is known as the most important part of attacking next to the skill of participants. However, the type of timing in this instance is somewhat different from the timing noted in "The Ground Book" since this variety of timing requires looking at the various physical factors which affect an enemy during battle, such as determining if strength is waning or rising within a group of troopers.


title: The Book of Five Rings

text: The idea of treading down the sword is a very simple technique. Squashing an enemy's attack before it starts by using a form of charging and then attacking under the veil of gunpowder smoke, and arrow fire, the initial attacks used when starting battles can be highly effective. Individually, it refers to attacking the enemy's sword, breaking it, removing it from play, and a technique of controlling it through direct blade on blade contact.


title: The Book of Five Rings

text: Just as Musashi mentions in his philosophical style, there is a cause for a collapse. As there is collapse within an enemy, such as waning in his numbers, Musashi notes that one must observe such events and use them to advantage.


title: The Book of Five Rings

text: He notes that an enemy's formation can fall if they lose rhythm. It was known that in such battles, drummers drummed a tune for their other fellow soldiers to march to; and, if the rhythm was lost, it led to a "collapse when their rhythm becomes deranged".


title: The Book of Five Rings

text: Whereas most of the information given in the previous books is useful in such a way that it could still be applicable today, this book is primarily concerned with the specific details about other strategies that existed at the time. The broader lesson from this book is that an important part of understanding one's own way is to understand the way of one's opponent as precisely as possible.


title: The Book of Five Rings

text: Musashi notes that although most schools have secret and ancient strategies, most forms are derivative of other martial arts. Their similarities and differences evolved through situational factors, such as indoor or outdoor dueling, and the style adapted to the school. He indicates that his appraisal may be one sided because the only school he had interest for was his own, and, in a way, he does not see parallels to his own creation and work. However, he still admits that without basic understanding of these alternate techniques, one will not be able to learn "Ni Ten Ichi Ryu", probably for reasons of finding the wrongs in other techniques, and righting them within yourself in "Ni Ten Ichi Ryu".


title: The Book of Five Rings

text: The main difference that Musashi notes between the Ichi School and other strategists and schools is that other schools do not teach the "broader" meaning of strategy. There is a strategy above sword-fencing: "Some of the world's strategists are concerned only with sword-fencing, and limit their training to flourishing the long sword and carriage of the body." The book has many paragraphs on the subject of other schools' techniques, and much of the text lists the ways that other schools do not conform to the ideals which he himself writes about in the "Book of Five Rings", such as footwork, sight, and over-reliance or over-familiarity with a weapon.


title: The Book of Five Rings

text: Although short, the void book lists, philosophically, the nature of both human knowledge and other things. The void book expressly deals with "That which cannot be seen".


title: The Book of Five Rings

text: The "Book of Nothing", according to Musashi, is the true meaning of the strategy of "Ni Ten Ichi Ryu". It seems very esoteric in nature because he emphasizes that people must learn to perceive that which they cannot understand or comprehend. He notes that in this Void, what can be comprehended are things which we do and see, such as the way of the warrior, martial arts, and "Ni Ten Ichi Ryu". At the same time, in the Void, things we do not do or see (which he calls "Spirit") are part of the information which we perceive on a conscious level, but with which we have no physical relationship. It is arguable whether Musashi is referring to religious spirituality or if he is actually explaining a way to live a life and to process thoughts.


title: The Book of Five Rings

text: In the void is virtue, and no evil. Wisdom has existence, principle has existence, the Way has existence, spirit is nothingness.


title: The Book of Five Rings

text: In the above quote, Musashi speaks of "virtue and no evil". This may mean "goodness and banishment of evil" or "purpose and non-existence of good and evil", and the exact meaning is open to debate.


title: The Book of Five Rings

text: Since Musashi is drawing upon classical Buddhist Five Element theory, Void in this case refers to Sunyata (in Pali), sometimes translated as "Emptiness", or "ether". Void, as such, is also empty of the sense of self (anatta), good and evil, wanting and non-wanting, and is the spiritual dynamic that forms the jumping off point to satori, enlightenment. Emptiness, and the establishing of the conditions that allow it to arise, is a common theme in Zen Buddhist meditation practice, which informed the perspective of the author.


title: The Book of Five Rings

text: "The Book of Five Rings" has been published in English multiple times. The Thomas Cleary translation is the most widely available and has been reprinted multiple times. A translation by William Scott Wilson is aimed towards practitioners of Japanese classical swordsmanship. A translation by D. E. Tarver is marketed as a motivational book with a commercial bias. Additional published translators include Stephen F. Kaufman and Kenji Tokistu (2010).


title: Susan Lucci

text: Susan Victoria Lucci (born December 23, 1946) is an American actress, television host, author and entrepreneur, best known for portraying Erica Kane on the ABC daytime drama "All My Children" during that show's entire network run from 1970 to 2011. The character is considered an icon, and Lucci was called "Daytime's Leading Lady" by "TV Guide", with "The New York Times" and the "Los Angeles Times" citing her as the highest-paid actor in daytime television. As early as 1991, her salary had been reported as over $1 million a year. During her run on "All My Children", she was nominated 21 times for the Daytime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama Series. She won only once, in 1999, after the 19th nomination; beginning in the late 1980s her status as a perpetual nominee for the award attracted significant media attention.


title: Susan Lucci

text: Lucci has also acted in other TV series, as well as occasionally in film and on stage. She had multi-episode guest appearances on the series "Dallas", "Hot in Cleveland" and "Army Wives". She hosted "Saturday Night Live" in 1990. After the cancellation of "All My Children", she hosted the 2012-2014 true crime series "Deadly Affairs" and starred (as Genevieve Delatour) in the 2013-2016 Lifetime series "Devious Maids".


title: Susan Lucci

text: In 1996, "TV Guide" ranked Lucci number 37 on its 50 Greatest TV Stars of All Time list. She was named one of VH1's 200 Top Icons of All Time and one of Barbara Walters's Ten Most Fascinating People.


title: Susan Lucci

text: Susan Lucci was born in Scarsdale, New York, to parents Jeanette and Victor Lucci. Her father is of Italian ancestry, and her mother is of Swedish descent. She lived in Yonkers, New York, before moving with her family at age 2 to Elmont, New York, and then at age 5 to another Long Island town, Garden City, New York. Lucci graduated from Garden City High School in 1964 and from Marymount College, Tarrytown in 1968, with a BA degree in drama.


title: Susan Lucci

text: Lucci is best known for appearing as Erica Kane on the ABC soap opera "All My Children", from January 16, 1970, to September 23, 2011.


title: Susan Lucci

text: Lucci was nominated for the Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama Series Emmy for her work on "All My Children" almost every year beginning in 1978. When Lucci did not win the award after several consecutive nominations, her image in the media began to be lampooned, as she became notoriously synonymous with never winning an Emmy. NBC's "Saturday Night Live" exploited this by asking her to host an episode; during her monologue, the show's cast, crew, and even stagehands nonchalantly carried (and utilized; for example, as hammers and doorjambs) Emmys of their own in her presence. In addition, she appeared in a 1989 television commercial for the sugar substitute Sweet One, intended to portray her as the opposite of her villainess character, yet throwing one of Erica Kane's characteristic tantrums, shouting, "Eleven years without an Emmy! What does a person have to do around here to get an Emmy?" Her name eventually became part of the language, used as an avatar for artists who receive numerous award nominations without a win (e.g., "Peter O'Toole was the Susan Lucci of the Oscars.").


title: Susan Lucci

text: When ABC cancelled "All My Children" on April 14, 2011, after 41 years on the air, Lucci said in an interview: "It's been a fantastic journey. I've loved playing Erica Kane and working with Agnes Nixon and all the incredible people involved with "All My Children". I'm looking forward to all kinds of new and exciting opportunities." Lucci publicly criticized ABC Daytime president Brian Frons over the cancellation of "All My Children" in the epilogue of her autobiography "All My Life".


title: Susan Lucci

text: Lucci has appeared in a number of television series and television movies. In 1982, she appeared in a cameo appearance in the comedy film "Young Doctors in Love". In 1986, she played the role of Darya Romanoff in the Golden Globe– and Emmy Award–winning TV movie "". In 1990–1991, she began a series of guest spots on the nighttime soap opera "Dallas". She hosted NBC's "Saturday Night Live" in October of that year; in one skit, she appeared as Erica Kane competing on a game show.


title: Susan Lucci

text: In 1995, Lucci appeared in the Lifetime television film "Ebbie". This film was an updated version of "A Christmas Carol". Lucci played a Scrooge-like department store owner visited by Marley and the three ghosts on Christmas. In 2004, she appeared as a guest star in two episodes of the ABC comedy series "Hope & Faith".


title: Susan Lucci

text: In 1999, she played the title role of Annie Oakley in the revival of Irving Berlin's musical "Annie Get Your Gun". Michael Logan of TV Guide said, ""Susan Lucci didn't just take Great White Way by storm: she took it by tornado, hurricane and tsunami, too.""


title: Susan Lucci

text: Lucci made several appearances as herself, the arch rival of Wendie Malick's character, Victoria Chase, on the TV Land sitcom "Hot in Cleveland" , including the February 1, 2012 episode entitled "Life with Lucci".


title: Susan Lucci

text: She appeared in Gloria Estefan's music video "Hotel Nacional" in February 2012. She guest starred in multi-episodes of the sixth season of Lifetime drama series "Army Wives".


title: Susan Lucci

text: Lucci hosted and narrated "Deadly Affairs", a prime-time series airing on "Investigation Discovery" as of 2012. On November 15, 2012 Lucci appeared on "The Colbert Report" in a segment reflecting the soap-opera-like nature of the Petraeus scandal.


title: Susan Lucci

text: Lucci had a starring role as Geneviève Delatour in the Lifetime comedy-drama series "Devious Maids" created by Marc Cherry.


title: Susan Lucci

text: In 2017, Lucci played one of Kristen Bell and Dax Shepard's grandparents (with Henry Winkler) in Sia's music video, "Santa's Coming for Us". She also appeared in television ads for Progressive Insurance that were styled as a soap opera.


title: Susan Lucci

text: Lucci competed in Season 7 of "Dancing with the Stars" with dance partner Tony Dovolani. Lucci said that "Dancing" had asked her to appear before, but she had turned it down, in part, because of the travel it would have required of her (at the time "Dancing" taped in Los Angeles while "All My Children" taped in New York). Lucci later changed her mind, in part, because of the experience of fellow "All My Children" star Cameron Mathison, who finished fifth in season 5. She was voted off the show on November 5, 2008 rather than November 4 due to election night, finishing sixth in the competition.


title: Susan Lucci

text: Lucci also has her own line of hair care products, perfumes, lingerie and skin care, called The Susan Lucci Collection.


title: Susan Lucci

text: Lucci married Austrian-born chef and food-service manager Helmut Huber on September 13, 1969. They are the parents of two children: actress Liza Huber and a son, Andreas Huber. The couple remained married for 52 years until Helmut's death on March 28, 2022; he was 84 years old.


title: Susan Lucci

text: Lucci's autobiography, "All My Life: A Memoir", was published in 2011. She is a registered Republican and has hosted fundraising events for Rudy Giuliani. She is a supporter of LGBT rights and equality, her support spurred by an "All My Children" storyline in 2000 in which her character Erica's daughter, Bianca Montgomery, came out as a lesbian.


title: Susan Lucci

text: In fall 2018, Lucci suddenly experienced chest discomfort. Seeking medical help, she learned that she had two blocked cardiac arteries. That night, she had an emergency procedure to place two arterial stents in her heart. Lucci postponed making her experience public until shortly before the American Heart Association's annual fashion event in February 2019.


title: Takeru Satoh

text: Satoh was born on 21 March 1989 in Iwatsuki-ku, Saitama. Satoh briefly worked as a child actor for three or four years, appearing in commercials and magazine photo shoots. After he entered higher grades in elementary school, he decided not to continue as a child actor due to a "shy personality". He graduated from Koshigaya Kita High School, Saitama in 2007. In the same year, while shooting Kamen Rider Den-O, he was diagnosed with primary pneumothorax after complaining about pain in the left chest, and has since recovered.


title: Takeru Satoh

text: Satoh was scouted by an agent from Amuse, Inc. in Harajuku in Tokyo when he was in senior high school, and made his debut in 2006. His first drama was "Princess Princess D" (TV Asahi) where he played the role of Toru Kouno. In 2007, he guest-starred in "Shinigami no Ballad" (Kentaroh Ishihara) and gained popularity in the seventeenth installment of the "Kamen Rider series" as Ryotaro Nogami. Satoh attributes the popularity of "Den-O" to its comedic timing.


title: Takeru Satoh

text: Following the success and popularity of "Kamen Rider Den-O" and its two further cinematic releases, in the spring of 2008, Satoh starred in the award-winning TBS drama "Rookies" as Yuya Okada, one member of a high school baseball club consisting of a group of delinquents. Satoh considers his role in "Rookies" to be his breakout role even though he only played a minor supporting role, as "Rookies" was shown on prime time television and able to reach a much larger audience than any of his previous works. Satoh also starred in the live-action in the summer of 2009.


title: Takeru Satoh

text: Satoh reprised his role as Ryotaro (Den-O) in the of "Kamen Rider Den-O" in October 2008. He also starred in the drama "Bloody Monday", based on the manga with the same name.


title: Takeru Satoh

text: In the following two years, Satoh starred or guest-starred in TV shows such as "Mei's Butler", "Mr. Brain", "True Horror Stories" and "MW Dai-0-sho", and in films such as "Goemon" and "Beck". In 2010, he played Okada Izō in his first Taiga drama "Ryōmaden", and landed his first leading role on prime time television with teen drama "Q10".


title: Takeru Satoh

text: On 28 June 2011, he was confirmed to star as Himura Kenshin in a live action film adaptation of the manga series "Rurouni Kenshin".


title: Takeru Satoh

text: Released in August 2012, the film grossed a total of 3.01 billion yen at the domestic box office. Satoh made his stage debut as Romeo in the Japanese adaptation of Shakespearean classic "Romeo and Juliet" in May 2012.


title: Takeru Satoh

text: His subsequent project "Tonbi" was a drama series based on a novel by Shigematsu Kiyoshi. He then starred in "Real", a science fiction mystery movie directed by Kiyoshi Kurosawa, as well as "The Liar and His Lover"(she fell in love with my lie/she likes lies too much), a live-adaptation film based on the manga "Kanojo wa Uso o Aishisugiteru".


title: Takeru Satoh

text: In 2014, Satoh played the role of a rookie detective in Fuji TV's "Bitter Blood". He reprised the role of Himura Kenshin in two sequel films of "Rurouni Kenshin" live action franchise, "" and "", both of which were released in 2014. "Rurouni Kenshin" manga author Nobuhiro Watsuki praised Satoh's performance and called him the ideal actor to portray Kenshin. He, alongside "Rurouni Kenshin" co-stars Emi Takei, Munetaka Aoki, and director Keishi Ōtomo, was appointed as "Cultural Friendship Ambassador" to the Philippines by the Makati City council on 7 August 2014.


title: Takeru Satoh

text: Riding upon his movie success, he made his TV return with the acclaimed TBS series "The Emperor's Cook" in early 2015. He followed up with 3 Toho Corporation films in 2015 and 2016 including the manga live adaptation "Bakuman" and light novel adaptation "If Cats Disappeared from the World," as well as "Someone". His role in the 2017 film "The 8-Year Engagement "(The true story of the bride's miracle over 8 years) earned him a nomination for best actor at the 41st Japan Academy Prize. In 2018, he starred in two award-winning television series: NHK Asadora "Hanbun, Aoi" and TBS series "Blues of Stepmother and Daughter". In the same year he reprised the role of Ryotaro Nogami in the last Kamen Rider movie of the Heisei period.


title: Takeru Satoh

text: In 2018 it was announced that the "Rurouni Kenshin" series will get two further installments, a prequel and a sequel to the original trilogy with Satoh reprising his lead role. Principal filming wrapped in June 2019 and the movies will be screened in 2020.


title: Takeru Satoh

text: In 2021, Satoh, along with One OK Rock and Ryūnosuke Kamiki left Amuse, Inc. and established new agency with co-actor, Ryunosuke Kamiki, called “Co-LaVo”. Also, he is an unofficial member of the Elite Four in the Pokémon Trading Card Game since 14 December 2021.


title: Takeru Satoh

text: He has a younger sister; his parents divorced when he was in middle school. He played baseball during primary and middle school years, and has a black belt in Shorinji Kempo.