title: Kola nut

text: Kola nuts can be harvested mechanically or by hand, by plucking them at the tree branch. Nigeria produces 52.4% of worldwide production followed by the Ivory Coast and Cameroon. When kept in a cool, dry place, kola nuts can be stored for a long time.


title: Kola nut

text: The nuts are subject to attack by the kola weevil "Balanogastris cola". The larvae of the moth "Characoma strictigrapta" that also attacks cacao bore into the nuts. Traders sometimes apply an extract of the bark of "Rauvolfia vomitoria" or the pulverised fruits of "Xylopia" and "Capsicum" to counteract the attack on nursery plants. The cacao pests "Sahlbergella" spp. have been found also on "C. nitida" as an alternative host plant. While seeds are liable to worm attack, the wood is subject to borer attack.


title: Kola nut

text: Used in cultural traditions of the Igbo people, the presentation of kola nuts to guests or in a traditional gathering shows good will.


title: Kola nut

text: A kola nut ceremony is briefly described in Chinua Achebe's 1958 novel "Things Fall Apart". The eating of kola nuts is referred to at least a further ten times in the novel showing the significance of the kola nut in pre-colonial 1890s Igbo culture in Nigeria. One of these sayings on kola nut in Things Fall Apart is: "He who brings kola brings life." It is also featured prominently in Chris Abani's 2004 novel "GraceLand". The kola nut is also mentioned in "The Color Purple" by Alice Walker, although it is spelled "cola".


title: Kola nut

text: The kola nut is mentioned in Bloc Party's song "Where is Home?" on the album "A Weekend in the City". The lyric, setting a post-funeral scene for the murder of a black boy in London, reads, "After the funeral, breaking kola nuts, we sit and reminisce about the past." The kola nut is mentioned in the At the Drive-In song "Enfilade" on the album "Relationship of Command". The kola nut is repeatedly mentioned in Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie's novel "Half of a Yellow Sun", which also features the phrase: "He who brings the Kola nut brings life."


title: Avi Kaplan

text: Avriel Benjamin Kaplan (born April 17, 1989) is an American singer-songwriter. He is known for his basso profondo range and for his tenure as the vocal bass of the a cappella group Pentatonix from 2011 to 2017. As a part of the group, he released five studio albums, won three Grammy Awards, and sold over six million albums.


title: Avi Kaplan

text: In June 2017, Kaplan released his solo debut EP "Sage and Stone" under the name Avriel & the Sequoias. The EP served as his departure from the pop-based sounds of Pentatonix to folk-oriented styles. After retiring the stage name and signing with Fantasy Records, Kaplan released his second EP "I'll Get By" in February 2020. His debut studio album "Floating on a Dream" was released in May 2022.


title: Avi Kaplan

text: Avriel Benjamin Kaplan was born and raised in Visalia, California on April 17, 1989. He has two older siblings; brother Joshua, and sister Esther (now Koop). Koop served as the tour manager for Pentatonix from 2012 to 2019. Kaplan is of Russian and Ukrainian Jewish descent, which was the cause of repeated bullying as a child.


title: Avi Kaplan

text: Kaplan loved folk music, and frequently went to the nearby Sequoia National Park, which became an inspiration for his music. He considers his earliest musical inspirations to be Simon & Garfunkel, John Denver, Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young, and Bill Withers. Later inspirations include Iron & Wine, Bon Iver, Ben Harper, and José González.


title: Avi Kaplan

text: After graduating high school, Kaplan attended Mt. San Antonio College, where he studied opera and choral studies. The college is known for its strong choral and a cappella programs.


title: Avi Kaplan

text: Before joining Pentatonix, Kaplan was already an accomplished a cappella artist, performing in the styles of jazz and opera among others. During his time in college, he joined the all-male a cappella group Fermata Nowhere. In 2009, the group became the first community college act to win the International Championship of Collegiate A Cappella (ICCAs). During the finals, he won the award for "Best Rhythm Section", making him the first vocal bass to receive the award. Before his victory, the award was called "Best Vocal Percussionist". In his junior year of college, he joined the vocal jazz ensemble Singcopation"." In his first year as a member, the ensemble won the Monterrey Jazz Festival Competition.


title: Avi Kaplan

text: Kaplan joined Pentatonix in 2011, when original members Kirstin Maldonado, Mitch Grassi and Scott Hoying were searching for a bass singer and a beatboxer. The group met the day before the auditions for the third season of "The Sing-Off" began. The group successfully auditioned for the show and eventually went on to win the season. Kaplan acted as the group's vocal bass, but frequently sang lead parts as well.


title: Avi Kaplan

text: In 2014, Kaplan co-founded A Cappella Academy, a summer camp for 12–18 year-old kids to learn about a cappella music and performance.


title: Avi Kaplan

text: During the 57th Annual Grammy Awards, Pentatonix won their first Grammy Award for Best Arrangement, Instrumental or A Cappella for their Daft Punk medley. They won the award again at the 58th Annual Grammy Awards for their rendition of “Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy”. The group won their third Grammy Award for Best Country Duo/Group Performance at the 59th Annual Grammy Awards for their cover of "Jolene", which featured Dolly Parton.


title: Avi Kaplan

text: On April 29, 2017, Kaplan released his first solo song, "Fields and Pier", under the name Avriel & the Sequoias. His debut EP "Sage and Stone" was released on June 9.


title: Avi Kaplan

text: On May 12, 2017, Kaplan announced that he would be leaving Pentatonix following their scheduled tour. In a video announcing his departure, he stated that although he loved being in the group, it was difficult for him to keep up with the group's demanding schedule, which required him to spend less time with his family. His final show with Pentatonix was held at the Champlain Valley Fair in Essex Junction, Vermont on September 3.


title: Avi Kaplan

text: Kaplan announced his first solo tour in October 2019. He announced his second EP "I'll Get By" on November 5. The project, originally scheduled to be released on January 24, 2020, alongside an accompanying tour, was postponed and later released on February 28 due to Kaplan signing to Fantasy Records.


title: Avi Kaplan

text: On February 15, 2022, Kaplan formally announced his debut solo studio album "Floating on a Dream", which was released on May 20. The album was produced by country musician Shooter Jennings. Kaplan released the album's lead single "First Place I Go" on November 12, 2021. Its second single, "All Is Well" featuring singer Joy Williams, was released alongside the album's announcement on February 15, 2022.


title: Culture of Japan

text: The culture of Japan has changed greatly over the millennia, from the country's prehistoric Jōmon period, to its contemporary modern culture, which absorbs influences from Asia and other regions of the world.


title: Culture of Japan

text: The ancestry of Japanese people remains mysterious; however, there are two competing hypotheses that try to explain the lineage of the Japanese people.


title: Culture of Japan

text: The first hypothesis proposes a dual-structure model, in which Japanese populations are descendants of the indigenous Jomon people and later arrivals of people from the East Eurasian continent, known as the Yayoi people. Japan's indigenous culture originates primarily from the Yayoi people who settled in Japan between 1000 BCE and 300 CE. Yayoi culture spread to the main island of Honshū, mixing with the native Jōmon culture. Modern Japanese have an estimated 80% Yayoi and 20% Jōmon ancestry.


title: Culture of Japan

text: The second hypothesis posits a tripartite model of genomic origin. This hypothesis proposes that contemporary Japanese people are from three distinct ancestral groups: Jomon, Yayoi and Kofun, with 13%, 16% and 71% of genetic ancestry, respectively. During the Kofun period, it is said that migrant groups from China came to Japan and settled on the island, bringing with them various cultural advances and centralized leadership. The migrants who came to Japan during the Kofun period appear to have had ancestry that mainly resembles the ancestry of the Han Chinese population of China. The Jomon people were hunter-gathers; the Yayoi people introduced rice cultivation; and the Kofun migrants introduced imperial state formation.


title: Culture of Japan

text: Japanese culture was influenced from ancient times to the Middle Ages primarily by multiple Chinese dynasties, with substantial derivation from the Tang Dynasty, and to a lesser extent by other Asian countries. For example, one of the scripts for writing in the Japanese language is Chinese characters (kanji), but Japanese has no genetic relationship with Chinese. Since the Meiji era Japan has been primarily influenced by western countries.


title: Culture of Japan

text: The inhabitants of Japan experienced a long period of relative isolation from the outside world for over 220 years during the Tokugawa shogunate until the arrival of the "Black Ships" and the Meiji era.


title: Culture of Japan

text: Today, the culture of Japan stands as one of the most influential cultures around the world, mainly because of the global reach of its popular culture.


title: Culture of Japan

text: In 2021, U.S. News & World Report ranked Japan's cultural influence as the highest in Asia and 5th worldwide.


title: Culture of Japan

text: Japanese is the national and primary language of Japan. Japanese has a lexically distinct pitch-accent system. Early Japanese is known largely on the basis of its state in the 8th century when the three major works of Old Japanese were compiled. The earliest attestation of the Japanese language is in a Chinese document from 256 AD. The Japanese language has no genetic relationship with Chinese, but neither does it have any clear affiliation with any other language.


title: Culture of Japan

text: There are a number of theories about the origins of Japanese, but the strongest arguments for affiliation are with Korean, on the basis of similar syntax, and with Altaic languages, on the basis of similar number systems and verb forms.


title: Culture of Japan

text: Japanese is written with a combination of three scripts: kanji, hiragana and katakana. Chinese characters, or , are extensively used in Japanese writing as non-phonetic ideograms, imported from China to Japan in 50 AD; before that time, Japan had no system of writing. In the present day, there is a notable number of kanji in modern Japanese with a different meaning from the corresponding character used in modern Chinese. Modern Japanese also features far fewer simplified Chinese characters in comparison to modern Chinese; Japanese people typically use fewer kanji in general and use them mainly for nouns, adjective stems, and verb stems.


title: Culture of Japan

text: Japanese vocabulary consists of 49% words of Chinese origin, 33% words of Japanese origin, and 18% loanwords from other languages, which include European languages, words of mixed origin and the made-in-Japan pseudo-English known as wasei-eigo.


title: Culture of Japan

text: Both hiragana and katakana are phonetic syllabaries derived from the Chinese of the 5th century. Hiragana and katakana were developed from simplified kanji; hiragana emerged somewhere around the 9th century and were mainly used by women for informal language, with katakana mainly used by men for formal language. By the 10th century, both were commonly used by everyone.


title: Culture of Japan

text: The Latin alphabet is often used in modern Japanese, especially for company names and logos, advertising, and when inputting Japanese into a computer. The Hindu–Arabic numerals are generally used for numbers, but traditional Sino–Japanese numerals are common.


title: Culture of Japan

text: The influence of Japanese culture on the Western world over the past few centuries has led to many of its terms, such as origami, tsunami, karaoke and pop cultural terms like shonen and shojo, being incorporated into the English language, as well as being added to the Oxford English Dictionary.


title: Culture of Japan

text: Shinto and Buddhism are the primary religions of Japan. According to the annual statistical research on religion in 2018 by the Government of Japan's Agency for Culture Affairs, 66.7 percent of the population practices Buddhism, 69.0 percent practices Shintoism, 7.7 percent other religions. Minority Christian and Islamic communities exist. According to the annual statistical research on religion in 2018 by the Agency for Culture Affairs, Government of Japan, about two million or slightly 1.5% of Japan's population are Christians. Muslims (70,000) are made up of largely immigrant communities, as well as, though much smaller, the ethnic Japanese community.


title: Culture of Japan

text: Shinto is an ethnic religion focusing on ceremonies and rituals. In Shinto, followers believe that – Shinto deities or spirits – are present throughout nature, including rocks, trees, and mountains. Humans can also be considered to possess a . One of the goals of Shinto is to maintain or strengthen the connection between humans, nature, and . The religion developed in Japan prior to the 6th century CE, after which point followers built shrines to worship .


title: Culture of Japan

text: Buddhism developed in India around the 6th and 4th centuries BCE and eventually spread through China and Korea. It arrived in Japan during the 6th century CE, where it was initially unpopular. Most Japanese people were unable to understand the difficult philosophical messages present in Buddhism; however, an appreciation for the religion's art is believed to have led to Buddhism later growing in popularity.


title: Culture of Japan

text: Buddhism is concerned with the cycle of rebirth and karma. In Buddhism, a person's status in society is considered unimportant, instead his good or bad deeds are valued, as every person eventually becomes ill, ages, dies, and is eventually reincarnated into a new life, a cycle known as ; the suffering people experience during life is considered to be one way for people to ensure a better future, with the ultimate goal of Buddhism being to escape the cycle of death and rebirth by attaining true insight.


title: Culture of Japan

text: The Japanese "national character" has been written about under the term , literally meaning "theories/discussions about the Japanese people" and referring to texts on matters that are normally the concerns of sociology, psychology, history, linguistics, and philosophy, but emphasizing the authors' assumptions or perceptions of Japanese exceptionalism; these are predominantly written in Japan by Japanese people, though noted examples have also been written by foreign residents, journalists and even scholars.


title: Culture of Japan

text: Early works of Japanese literature were heavily influenced by cultural contact with China and Chinese literature, often written in Classical Chinese. Eventually, Japanese literature developed into a separate style in its own right as Japanese writers began writing their own works about Japan. The Tale of Genji, written by Murasaki Shikibu during the Heian period, is known worldwide as a unique Japanese literature. Since Japan reopened its ports to Western trading and diplomacy in the 19th century, Western and Eastern literature have strongly affected each other and continue to do so.


title: Culture of Japan

text: Japanese calligraphy, rendered using flowing, brush-drawn strokes, is considered to be a traditional art form, as well as a means of conveying written information. Typical calligraphic works can consist of phrases, poems, stories, or even characters represented by themselves; the style and format of the calligraphy can mimic the subject matter through aspects such as the texture of the writing and the speed of the brush strokes. Several different styles of Japanese calligraphy exist, with considerable effort put into the outcome; in some cases, it can take over one hundred attempts to produce the desired result of a single character. This form of calligraphy is known as , literally meaning 'the way of writing or calligraphy', or more commonly, , 'learning how to write characters'. Commonly confused with calligraphy is the art form of , literally meaning 'ink painting', which is the art of painting a scene or object using diluted black ink.


title: Culture of Japan

text: Painting has been an art in Japan for a very long time: the brush is a traditional writing and painting tool, and the extension of that to its use as an artist's tool was probably natural. Japanese painters are often categorized by what they painted, as most of them constrained themselves solely to subjects such as animals, landscapes, or figures. Chinese papermaking was introduced to Japan around the 7th century. Later, was developed from it. Native Japanese painting techniques are still in use today, as well as techniques adopted from continental Asia and from the West. Schools of painting such as the Kano school of the 16th century became known for their bold brush strokes and contrast between light and dark, especially after Oda Nobunaga and Tokugawa Ieyasu began to use this style. Famous Japanese painters include Kanō Sanraku, Maruyama Ōkyo, and Tani Bunchō.


title: Culture of Japan

text: , literally "pictures of the floating world", is a genre of woodblock prints that exemplifies the characteristics of pre-Meiji Japanese art. Because these prints could be mass-produced, they were available to a wide cross-section of the Japanese populace — those not wealthy enough to afford original paintings — during their heyday, from the 17th to 20th century.


title: Culture of Japan

text: Japanese lacquerware and ceramics have historically gained international fame, and lacquerware has been actively exported since the Muromachi period and ceramics since the Edo period. Japanese crafts became known in Europe after Nanban trade.


title: Culture of Japan

text: The kimono is the national garment of Japan, having developed from Chinese court clothing in the Nara period (Tang dynasty China) following the exchange of diplomatic envoys between the two countries at that time. The word "kimono" translates literally as "thing to wear on the shoulders"; however, this term developed some time around the Edo period, before which most kimono-like garments were referred to as the ("short sleeve"), with longer-sleeved garments being known as ("swinging sleeve").


title: Culture of Japan

text: The earliest versions of the kimono were heavily influenced by traditional Chinese clothing, known today as ( in Japanese). This influence was spread through Japanese envoy missions to China, resulting in extensive Chinese cultural adoption by Japan as early as the 5th century AD. It was during the 8th century, however, that Chinese fashions came fully into style, and following the cancellation of the 20th mission to Tang dynasty China, these fashions developed independently, with the overlapping, V-shaped collar becoming women's fashion and the precursor to the modern kimono.


title: Culture of Japan

text: Kimono, alongside all other items of traditional Japanese clothing, are known collectively as , meaning "Japanese clothing", as opposed to , Western-style clothing. Kimono come in a variety of colors, styles, and sizes. Men mainly wear darker or more muted colors, while women tend to wear brighter colors and pastels, and, especially for younger women, often with complicated abstract or floral patterns.


title: Culture of Japan

text: In previous decades, married women wore short sleeved kimono, whereas unmarried women wore long sleeved kimono to both formal and informal occasions; however, the rise in both the average age of marriage and the numbers of women never marrying in Japan has led to the divide between sleeve length becoming one more of age, with most women in their early twenties wearing long sleeved kimono only to formal occasions, and most women past their early twenties wearing short sleeved kimono to formal events. Other developments include the abandoning of layered kimono and the standardisation of the length of short sleeved women's kimono to a range of roughly to in length, both developments driven by fabric shortages in WWII.


title: Culture of Japan

text: The coat is another form of traditional clothing. A (commonly Westernised as "happy") coat is a straight sleeved coat typically decorated with a family crest and/or kanji along the collar. In previous centuries, -style coats known as or simply were commonly worn by firefighters; the coats would be constructed from several layers of heavy cotton stitched together, and would be soaked in water to provide protection from fire.


title: Culture of Japan

text: Alongside traditional clothing, Japan also has distinct footwear; , ankle-length split-toed socks, are commonly worn with the kimono, and are designed to be worn with traditional shoes such as geta and zōri. Geta are thonged sandals mounted on wooden blocks extending from the base of the shoe to the floor, and are worn by men and women with kimono or ; zōri are flat-based or sloping sandals made of a number of different materials, and are considered to be more formal than geta.


title: Culture of Japan

text: Japanese architecture was originally heavily influenced by Chinese architecture and later developed many unique aspects indigenous to Japan. Examples of traditional architecture are seen at temples, Shinto shrines, and castles in Kyoto and Nara. Some of these buildings are constructed with traditional gardens, which are influenced by Zen ideas. Some modern architects, such as Yoshio Taniguchi and Tadao Ando are known for their amalgamation of Japanese traditional and Western architectural influences.


title: Culture of Japan

text: Traditional Japanese garden architecture is considered to hold the same importance as traditional building architecture, and both are influenced by similar historical and religious backgrounds. A primary design principle of a traditional garden is the creation of the landscape based on, or at least greatly influenced by, the style of three-dimensional monochrome ink () landscape painting known as or ; as such, garden landscaping is elevated to the status of an artform in Japan.


title: Culture of Japan

text: Traditional Japanese sculptures mainly focused on Buddhist images, such as Tathagata, Bodhisattva, and Myō-ō. The oldest sculpture in Japan is a wooden statue of Amitābha at the Zenkō-ji temple. In the Nara period, Buddhist statues were made by the national government to boost its prestige. These examples are seen in present-day Nara and Kyoto, most notably a colossal bronze statue of the Buddha Vairocana in the Tōdai-ji temple.


title: Culture of Japan

text: Wood has traditionally been used as the chief material in Japan, along with traditional Japanese architecture. Statues are often lacquered, gilded, or brightly painted, although there are commonly few traces of this on the surface. Bronze and other metals are generally not used. Other materials, such as stone and pottery, have had extremely important roles in traditional sculpture.


title: Culture of Japan

text: The music of Japan includes a wide array of performers in distinct styles both traditional and modern. The word for music in Japanese is , combining the kanji with the kanji . Japan is the second largest music market in the world behind the United States, and is the largest in Asia, with most of the market dominated by Japanese artists.


title: Culture of Japan

text: Local music often appears at karaoke venues on lease from record labels. Traditional Japanese music is quite different from Western Music and is based on the intervals of human breathing rather than mathematical timing; traditional music also typically slides between notes, a feature also not commonly found in Western music.


title: Culture of Japan

text: The four traditional theatres from Japan are noh (or ), , kabuki, and . Noh had its origins in the union of the , with music and dance made by Kan'ami and Zeami Motokiyo. Among the characteristic aspects of it are the masks, costumes, and the stylized gestures, sometimes accompanied by a fan that can represent other objects. The Noh programs are presented in alternation with the ones of , traditionally in numbers of five, but currently in groups of three.


title: Culture of Japan

text: The , of a humorous character, had an older origin, in 8th century entertainment brought from China, developing itself in . In , masks are rarely used and even if the plays can be associated with the ones of noh, currently many are not.


title: Culture of Japan

text: Kabuki appears in the beginning of the Edo period from the representations and dances of Izumo no Okuni in Kyoto. Due to concerns over the number of actresses engaged in selling sex, the participation of women in the plays was forbidden by the government in 1629, and the feminine characters had passed to be represented only by men (). Recent attempts to reintroduce actresses in kabuki had not been well accepted. Another characteristic of kabuki is the use of makeup for the actors in historical plays () and the performance of ballads.


title: Culture of Japan

text: Japanese puppet theater () developed in the same period as kabuki, in both competition with and collaboration with its actors and authors. The origin of , however, is older, beginning in the Heian period. In 1914, the Takarazuka Revue was founded, a company solely composed by women who introduced the revue to Japan.


title: Culture of Japan

text: In the long feudal period governed by the samurai class, some methods that were used to train warriors were developed into well-ordered martial arts, in modern times referred to collectively as . Examples include , and sumo, all of which were established in the Edo period. After the rapid social change in the Meiji Restoration, some martial arts changed into modern sports, called . Judo was developed by Kanō Jigorō, who studied some sects of jujutsu. These sports are still widely practiced in present-day Japan and other countries.


title: Culture of Japan

text: Baseball, Association football, and other popular western sports were imported to Japan in the Meiji period. These sports are commonly practiced in schools, along with traditional martial arts. Baseball, soccer, football, and ping pong are the most popular sports in Japan. Association football gained prominence in Japan after the J League (Japan Professional Football League) was established in 1991. Japan also co-hosted the 2002 FIFA World Cup. In addition, there are many semi-professional organizations, which are sponsored by private companies: for example, volleyball, basketball, rugby union, table tennis, and so on.


title: Culture of Japan

text: Through a long culinary past, the Japanese have developed sophisticated and refined cuisine. In more recent years, Japanese food has become fashionable and popular in the United States, Europe, and many other areas. Dishes such as sushi, tempura, noodles, and teriyaki are some of the foods that are commonly known. The Japanese diet consists principally of rice; fresh, lean seafood; and pickled or boiled vegetables. The Japanese diet is often believed to be related to the longevity of Japanese people.


title: Culture of Japan

text: Japanese popular culture not only reflects the attitudes and concerns of the present day but also provides a link to the past. Popular films, television programs, manga, music, anime and video games all developed from older artistic and literary traditions, and many of their themes and styles of presentation can be traced to traditional art forms. Contemporary forms of popular culture, much like the traditional forms, provide not only entertainment but also an escape for the contemporary Japanese from the problems of an industrial world. Many anime and manga are very popular around the world and continue to become popular, as well as Japanese video games, fashion, and game shows.


title: Culture of Japan

text: In the late 1980s, the family was the focus of leisure activities, such as excursions to parks or shopping districts. Although Japan is often thought of as a hard-working society with little time for leisure, the Japanese seek entertainment wherever they can. It is common to see Japanese commuters riding the train to work, enjoying their favorite manga, or listening through earphones to the latest in popular music. A wide variety of types of popular entertainment are available. There is a large selection of music, films, and the products of a huge manga and anime industry, among other forms of entertainment, from which to choose. Game centers, bowling alleys, and karaoke are popular hangout places for teens while older people may play or in specialized parlors. Together, the publishing, film/video, music/audio, and game industries in Japan make up the growing Japanese content industry.


title: Culture of Japan

text: There are 51 official in Japan. These landscapes evolved with the way of life and geocultural features of a region, and which are indispensable for understanding the lifestyle of the Japanese people.


title: Culture of Japan

text: The is the canonical list of Japan's three most celebrated scenic sights, attributed to 1643 scholar Hayashi Gahō. These are the pine-clad islands of Matsushima in Miyagi Prefecture, the pine-clad sandbar of Amanohashidate in Kyoto Prefecture, and Itsukushima Shrine in Hiroshima Prefecture. In 1915, the New Three Views of Japan were selected with a national election by the . In 2003, the Three Major Night Views of Japan were selected by the .


title: Culture of Japan

text: The Japanese archipelago is located to the east of the Asian continent. Japan is regarded as the most eastern Asian country, because east of Japan is the vast Pacific Ocean. Minamitorishima is Japan's easternmost island. Thus Japan is the land where the sun rises before the Asian continent. The kanji that make up the name of Japan literally mean . It is pronounced as or in Japanese, and is often referred to by the epithet "Land of the Rising Sun". The is the national flag of Japan. It symbolizes the rising sun and corresponds with the name of Japan. The earliest accounts of the rising sun flag is in the 7th century CE. In 607, an official correspondence that began with "from the Emperor of the rising sun" was sent to Chinese Emperor Yang of Sui. Thus the central importance of the sun in Japanese culture is represented in the national flag and other cultural goods. Similarly, the Japan Self-Defense Forces have flags that symbolize the sun.


title: Culture of Japan

text: The Sun also plays an important role in Japanese mythology and religion as the emperor is said to be the direct descendant of the Sun goddess Amaterasu, the personification of Japan. She is seen as the goddess of the Sun and the universe in Shinto religion. The emperor is "the symbol of the State and of the unity of the people." is the national founder of Japan.


title: Culture of Japan

text: The national animals are the green pheasant, koi fish and the great purple emperor butterfly. The Imperial Seal of Japan is one of the national seals and a crest () used by the Emperor of Japan and members of the Imperial Family. The cherry blossom (Prunus serrulata) & chrysanthemum morifolium are de facto national flowers of Japan. Japan's de facto national dish is sushi, Japanese curry and ramen. The de facto national liquor is .


title: Gram stain

text: In microbiology and bacteriology, Gram stain (Gram staining or Gram's method), is a method of staining used to classify bacterial species into two large groups: gram-positive bacteria and gram-negative bacteria. The name comes from the Danish bacteriologist Hans Christian Gram, who developed the technique in 1884.


title: Gram stain

text: Gram staining differentiates bacteria by the chemical and physical properties of their cell walls. Gram-positive cells have a thick layer of peptidoglycan in the cell wall that retains the primary stain, crystal violet. Gram-negative cells have a thinner peptidoglycan layer that allows the crystal violet to wash out on addition of ethanol. They are stained pink or red by the counterstain, commonly safranin or fuchsine. Lugol's iodine solution is always added after addition of crystal violet to strengthen the bonds of the stain with the cell membrane.


title: Gram stain

text: Gram staining is almost always the first step in the preliminary identification of a bacterial organism. While Gram staining is a valuable diagnostic tool in both clinical and research settings, not all bacteria can be definitively classified by this technique. This gives rise to Gram-variable and Gram-indeterminate groups.


title: Gram stain

text: The method is named after its inventor, the Danish scientist Hans Christian Gram (1853–1938), who developed the technique while working with Carl Friedländer in the morgue of the city hospital in Berlin in 1884. Gram devised his technique not for the purpose of distinguishing one type of bacterium from another but to make bacteria more visible in stained sections of lung tissue. He published his method in 1884, and included in his short report the observation that the typhus bacillus did not retain the stain.


title: Gram stain

text: Gram staining is a bacteriological laboratory technique used to differentiate bacterial species into two large groups (gram-positive and gram-negative) based on the physical properties of their cell walls. Gram staining is not used to classify archaea, formerly archaeabacteria, since these microorganisms yield widely varying responses that do not follow their phylogenetic groups.


title: Gram stain

text: Some organisms are gram-variable (meaning they may stain either negative or positive); some are not stained with either dye used in the Gram technique and are not seen. In a modern environmental or molecular microbiology lab, most identification is done using genetic sequences and other molecular techniques, which are far more specific and informative than differential staining.


title: Gram stain

text: Gram stains are performed on body fluid or biopsy when infection is suspected. Gram stains yield results much more quickly than culturing, and are especially important when infection would make an important difference in the patient's treatment and prognosis; examples are cerebrospinal fluid for meningitis and synovial fluid for septic arthritis.


title: Gram stain

text: Gram-positive bacteria have a thick mesh-like cell wall made of peptidoglycan (50–90% of cell envelope), and as a result are stained purple by crystal violet, whereas gram-negative bacteria have a thinner layer (10% of cell envelope), so do not retain the purple stain and are counter-stained pink by safranin. There are four basic steps of the Gram stain:


title: Gram stain

text: Crystal violet (CV) dissociates in aqueous solutions into and chloride () ions. These ions penetrate the cell wall of both gram-positive and gram-negative cells. The ion interacts with negatively charged components of bacterial cells and stains the cells purple.


title: Gram stain

text: Iodide ( or ) interacts with and forms large complexes of crystal violet and iodine (CV–I) within the inner and outer layers of the cell. Iodine is often referred to as a mordant, but is a trapping agent that prevents the removal of the CV–I complex and, therefore, colors the cell.


title: Gram stain

text: When a decolorizer such as alcohol or acetone is added, it interacts with the lipids of the cell membrane. A gram-negative cell loses its outer lipopolysaccharide membrane, and the inner peptidoglycan layer is left exposed. The CV–I complexes are washed from the gram-negative cell along with the outer membrane. In contrast, a gram-positive cell becomes dehydrated from an ethanol treatment. The large CV–I complexes become trapped within the gram-positive cell due to the multilayered nature of its peptidoglycan. The decolorization step is critical and must be timed correctly; the crystal violet stain is removed from both gram-positive and negative cells if the decolorizing agent is left on too long (a matter of seconds).


title: Gram stain

text: After decolorization, the gram-positive cell remains purple and the gram-negative cell loses its purple color. Counterstain, which is usually positively charged safranin or basic fuchsine, is applied last to give decolorized gram-negative bacteria a pink or red color. Both gram-positive bacteria and gram-negative bacteria pick up the counterstain. The counterstain, however, is unseen on gram-positive bacteria because of the darker crystal violet stain.


title: Gram stain

text: Gram-positive bacteria generally have a single membrane ("monoderm") surrounded by a thick peptidoglycan.


title: Gram stain

text: This rule is followed by two phyla: Bacillota (except for the classes Mollicutes and Negativicutes) and the Actinomycetota. In contrast, members of the Chloroflexota (green non-sulfur bacteria) are monoderms but possess a thin or absent (class Dehalococcoidetes) peptidoglycan and can stain negative, positive or indeterminate; members of the Deinococcota stain positive but are diderms with a thick peptidoglycan.


title: Gram stain

text: Historically, the gram-positive forms made up the phylum Firmicutes, a name now used for the largest group. It includes many well-known genera such as "Lactobacillus, Bacillus", "Listeria", "Staphylococcus", "Streptococcus", "Enterococcus", and "Clostridium". It has also been expanded to include the Mollicutes, bacteria such as "Mycoplasma and Thermoplasma" that lack cell walls and so cannot be Gram-stained, but are derived from such forms.


title: Gram stain

text: Some bacteria have cell walls which are particularly adept at retaining stains. These will appear positive by Gram stain even though they are not closely related to other gram-positive bacteria. These are called acid-fast bacteria, and can only be differentiated from other gram-positive bacteria by special staining procedures.


title: Gram stain

text: Gram-negative bacteria generally possess a thin layer of peptidoglycan between two membranes ("diderm"). Lipopolysaccharide (LPS) is the most abundant antigen on the cell surface of most Gram-negative bacteria, contributing up to 80% of the outer membrane of "E. coli" and "Salmonella". Most bacterial phyla are gram-negative, including the cyanobacteria, green sulfur bacteria, and most Pseudomonadota (exceptions being some members of the Rickettsiales and the insect-endosymbionts of the Enterobacteriales).


title: Gram stain

text: Some bacteria, after staining with the Gram stain, yield a gram-variable pattern: a mix of pink and purple cells are seen. In cultures of "Bacillus, Butyrivibrio", and "Clostridium", a decrease in peptidoglycan thickness during growth coincides with an increase in the number of cells that stain gram-negative. In addition, in all bacteria stained using the Gram stain, the age of the culture may influence the results of the stain.


title: Gram stain

text: Gram-indeterminate bacteria do not respond predictably to Gram staining and, therefore, cannot be determined as either gram-positive or gram-negative. Examples include many species of "Mycobacterium", including "Mycobacterium bovis", "Mycobacterium leprae" and "Mycobacterium tuberculosis", the latter two of which are the causative agents of leprosy and tuberculosis, respectively. Bacteria of the genus "Mycoplasma" lack a cell wall around their cell membranes, which means they do not stain by Gram's method and are resistant to the antibiotics that target cell wall synthesis.


title: Gram stain

text: The term "Gram staining" is derived from the surname of Hans Christian Gram; the eponym (Gram) is therefore capitalized but not the common noun (stain) as is usual for scientific terms. The initial letters of "gram-positive" and "gram-negative", which are eponymous adjectives, can be either capital "G" or lowercase "g", depending on what style guide (if any) governs the document being written. Lowercase style is used by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and other style regimens such as the AMA style. Dictionaries may use lowercase, uppercase, or both. Uppercase "Gram-positive" or "Gram-negative" usage is also common in many scientific journal articles and publications. When articles are submitted to journals, each journal may or may not apply house style to the postprint version. Preprint versions contain whichever style the author happened to use. Even style regimens that use lowercase for the adjectives "gram-positive" and "gram-negative" still typically use capital for "Gram stain".


title: National Diet

text: The is the national legislature of Japan. It is composed of a lower house, called the House of Representatives (, "Shūgiin"), and an upper house, the House of Councillors (, " Sangiin"). Both houses are directly elected under a parallel voting system. In addition to passing laws, the Diet is formally responsible for nominating the Prime Minister. The Diet was first established as the Imperial Diet in 1890 under the Meiji Constitution, and took its current form in 1947 upon the adoption of the post-war constitution. Both houses meet in the in Nagatachō, Chiyoda, Tokyo.


title: National Diet

text: The houses of the National Diet are both elected under parallel voting systems. This means that the seats to be filled in any given election are divided into two groups, each elected by a different method; the main difference between the houses is in the sizes of the two groups and how they are elected. Voters are also asked to cast two votes: one for an individual candidate in a constituency, and one for a party list. Any national of Japan at least 18 years of age may vote in these elections, reduced from age 20 in 2016. Japan's parallel voting system is not to be confused with the Additional Member System used in many other nations. The Constitution of Japan does not specify the number of members of each house of the Diet, the voting system, or the necessary qualifications of those who may vote or be returned in parliamentary elections, thus allowing all of these things to be determined by law. However it does guarantee universal adult suffrage and a secret ballot. It also insists that the electoral law must not discriminate in terms of "race, creed, sex, social status, family origin, education, property or income".


title: National Diet

text: Generally, the election of Diet members is controlled by statutes passed by the Diet. This is a source of contention concerning re-apportionment of prefectures' seats in response to changes of population distribution. For example, the Liberal Democratic Party had controlled Japan for most of its post-war history, and it gained much of its support from rural areas. During the post-war era, large numbers of people were relocating to the urban centers in the seeking of wealth; though some re-apportionments have been made to the number of each prefecture's assigned seats in the Diet, rural areas generally have more representation than do urban areas.


title: National Diet

text: The Supreme Court of Japan began exercising judicial review of apportionment laws following the "Kurokawa" decision of 1976, invalidating an election in which one district in Hyōgo Prefecture received five times the representation of another district in Osaka Prefecture. In recent elections the malapportionment ratio amounted to 4.8 in the House of Councillors (census 2005: Ōsaka/Tottori;


title: National Diet

text: Candidates for the lower house must be 25 years old or older and 30 years or older for the upper house. All candidates must be Japanese nationals. Under Article 49 of Japan's Constitution, Diet members are paid about ¥1.3 million a month in salary. Each lawmaker is entitled to employ three secretaries with taxpayer funds, free Shinkansen tickets, and four round-trip airplane tickets a month to enable them to travel back and forth to their home districts.


title: National Diet

text: Article 41 of the Constitution describes the National Diet as "the highest organ of State power" and "the sole law-making organ of the State". This statement is in forceful contrast to the Meiji Constitution, which described the Emperor as the one who exercised legislative power with the consent of the Diet. The Diet's responsibilities include not only the making of laws but also the approval of the annual national budget that the government submits and the ratification of treaties. It can also initiate draft constitutional amendments, which, if approved, must be presented to the people in a referendum. The Diet may conduct "investigations in relation to government" (Article 62).


title: National Diet

text: The Prime Minister must be designated by Diet resolution, establishing the principle of legislative supremacy over executive government agencies (Article 67). The government can also be dissolved by the Diet if it passes a motion of no confidence introduced by fifty members of the House of Representatives. Government officials, including the Prime Minister and Cabinet members, are required to appear before Diet investigative committees and answer inquiries. The Diet also has the power to impeach judges convicted of criminal or irregular conduct.


title: National Diet

text: In most circumstances, in order to become law a bill must be first passed by both houses of the Diet and then promulgated by the Emperor. This role of the Emperor is similar to the Royal Assent in some other nations; however, the Emperor cannot refuse to promulgate a law and therefore his legislative role is merely a formality.


title: National Diet

text: The House of Representatives is the more powerful chamber of the Diet. While the House of Representatives cannot usually overrule the House of Councillors on a bill, the House of Councillors can only delay the adoption of a budget or a treaty that has been approved by the House of Representatives, and the House of Councillors has almost no power at all to prevent the lower house from selecting any Prime Minister it wishes. Furthermore, once appointed it is the confidence of the House of Representatives alone that the Prime Minister must enjoy in order to continue in office. The House of Representatives can overrule the upper house in the following circumstances:


title: National Diet

text: Under the Constitution, at least one session of the Diet must be convened each year. Technically, only the House of Representatives is "dissolved" before an election. But, while the lower house is in dissolution, the House of Councillors is usually "closed". The Emperor both convokes the Diet and dissolves the House of Representatives but in doing so must act on the "advice" of the Cabinet. In an emergency the Cabinet can convoke the Diet for an extraordinary session, and an extraordinary session may be requested by one-quarter of the members of either house. At the beginning of each parliamentary session, the Emperor reads a special speech from his throne in the chamber of the House of Councillors.


title: National Diet

text: The presence of one-third of the membership of either house constitutes a quorum and deliberations are in public unless at least two-thirds of those present agree otherwise. Each house elects its own presiding officer who casts the deciding vote in the event of a tie. The Diet has parliamentary immunity. Members of each house have certain protections against arrest while the Diet is in session and arrested members must be released during the term of the session if the House demands. They are immune outside the house for words spoken and votes cast in the House.


title: National Diet

text: The vast majority of bills are submitted to the Diet by the Cabinet. Bills are usually drafted by the relevant ministry, sometimes with the advice of an external committee if the issue is sufficiently important or neutrality is necessary. Such advisory committees may include university professors, trade union representatives, industry representatives, and local governors and mayors, and invariably include retired officials. Such draft bills would be sent to the Cabinet Legislation Bureau of the government, as well as to the ruling party.


title: National Diet

text: The National Diet Library contains four buildings in one. These buildings include: the main building, the annex, the Kansai-kan of the National Diet Library and the International Library of Children's Literature.


title: National Diet

text: Has a centralized stack system and "For rapid movement of materials, the stack space is equipped with pneumatic carrier pipe and vertical/horizontal conveyor systems". Surrounding the stack space unit, the administrative space contains a catalog hall, reading rooms and research rooms for both general visitors and diet members.


title: National Diet

text: Located North of the Main Building, "special design emphasis on natural and harmonious linkage with the Main Building". The annex also houses the exhibition room and an auditorium.


title: National Diet

text: It is a facility in Keihanna Science City that acts as a storage space and the center for library services; for the advanced information communications society for library materials, information supply service, electronic library functions and enhanced documents.


title: National Diet

text: Japan's first modern legislature was the established by the Meiji Constitution in force from 1889 to 1947. The Meiji Constitution was adopted on February 11, 1889, and the Imperial Diet first met on November 29, 1890, when the document entered into force. The first Imperial Diet of 1890 was plagued by controversy and political tensions. The Prime Minister of Japan at that time was General Count Yamagata Aritomo, who entered into a confrontation with the legislative body over military funding. During this time, there were many critics of the army who derided the Meiji slogan of "rich country, strong military" as in effect producing a poor country (albeit with a strong military). They advocated for infrastructure projects and lower taxes instead and felt their interests were not being served by high levels of military spending. As a result of these early conflicts, public opinion of politicians was not favorable.


title: National Diet

text: The Imperial Diet consisted of a House of Representatives and a . The House of Representatives was directly elected, if on a limited franchise; universal adult male suffrage was introduced in 1925. The House of Peers, much like the British House of Lords, consisted of high-ranking nobles chosen by the Emperor.


title: National Diet

text: The word "diet" derives from Latin and was a common name for an assembly in medieval European polities like the Holy Roman Empire. The Meiji Constitution was largely based on the form of constitutional monarchy found in nineteenth century Prussia and the new Diet was modeled partly on the German Reichstag and partly on the British Westminster system. Unlike the post-war constitution, the Meiji constitution granted a real political role to the Emperor, although in practice the Emperor's powers were largely directed by a group of oligarchs called the "genrō" or elder statesmen.


title: National Diet

text: To become law or bill, a constitutional amendment had to have the assent of both the Diet and the Emperor. This meant that while the Emperor could no longer legislate by decree he still had a veto over the Diet. The Emperor also had complete freedom in choosing the Prime Minister and the Cabinet, and so, under the Meiji Constitution, Prime Ministers often were not chosen from and did not enjoy the confidence of the Diet. The Imperial Diet was also limited in its control over the budget. However, the Diet could veto the annual budget, if no budget was approved the budget of the previous year continued in force. This changed with the new constitution after World War II.


title: National Diet

text: The proportional representation system for the House of Councillors, introduced in 1982, was the first major electoral reform under the post-war constitution. Instead of choosing national constituency candidates as individuals, as had previously been the case, voters cast ballots for parties. Individual councillors, listed officially by the parties before the election, are selected on the basis of the parties' proportions of the total national constituency vote. The system was introduced to reduce the excessive money spent by candidates for the national constituencies. Critics charged, however, that this new system benefited the two largest parties, the LDP and the Japan Socialist Party (now Social Democratic Party), which in fact had sponsored the reform.


title: National Diet

text: Any session of the National Diet may be cut short by a dissolution of the House of Representatives (衆議院解散, "shūgiin kaisan"). In the table, this is listed simply as "(dissolution)"; the House of Councillors or the National Diet as such cannot be dissolved.


The 1904 United States presidential election was the 30th quadrennial presidential election, held on Tuesday, November 8, 1904. Incumbent Republican President Theodore Roosevelt defeated the Democratic nominee, Alton B. Parker. Roosevelt's victory made him the first president who ascended to the presidency upon the death of his predecessor to win a full term in his own right.


title: 1904 United States presidential election

text: Roosevelt took office in September 1901 following the assassination of his predecessor, William McKinley. After the February 1904 death of McKinley's ally, Senator Mark Hanna, Roosevelt faced little opposition at the 1904 Republican National Convention. The conservative Bourbon Democrat allies of former President Grover Cleveland temporarily regained control of the Democratic Party from the followers of William Jennings Bryan, and the 1904 Democratic National Convention nominated Alton B. Parker, Chief Judge of the New York Court of Appeals. Parker triumphed on the first ballot of the convention, defeating newspaper magnate William Randolph Hearst.


text: As there was little difference between the candidates' positions, the race was largely based on their personalities; the Democrats argued the Roosevelt presidency was "arbitrary" and "erratic." Republicans emphasized Roosevelt's success in foreign affairs and his record of firmness against monopolies. Roosevelt easily defeated Parker, sweeping every US region except the South, while Parker lost multiple states won by Bryan in 1900, as well as his home state of New York. Roosevelt's popular vote margin of 18.8% was the largest since James Monroe's victory in the 1820 presidential election, and would be the biggest popular vote victory in the century between 1820 and Warren Harding's 1920 landslide. He became the first presidential candidate to receive over 300 electoral votes.


text: As Republicans convened in Chicago on June 21–23, 1904, President Theodore Roosevelt's nomination was assured. He had effectively maneuvered throughout 1902 and 1903 to gain control of the party to ensure it. A dump-Roosevelt movement had centered on the candidacy of conservative Senator Mark Hanna from Ohio, but Hanna's death in February 1904 had removed this obstacle. Roosevelt's nomination speech was delivered by former governor Frank S. Black of New York and seconded by Senator Albert J. Beveridge from Indiana. Roosevelt was nominated unanimously on the first ballot with 994 votes.


text: Since conservatives in the Republican Party denounced Theodore Roosevelt as a radical, they were allowed to choose the vice-presidential candidate. Senator Charles W. Fairbanks from Indiana was the obvious choice, since conservatives thought highly of him, yet he managed not to offend the party's more progressive elements. Roosevelt was far from pleased with the idea of Fairbanks for vice-president. He would have preferred Representative Robert R. Hitt from Illinois, but he did not consider the vice-presidential nomination worth a fight. With solid support from New York, Pennsylvania, and Indiana, Fairbanks was easily placed on the 1904 Republican ticket in order to appease the Old Guard.


text: The Republican platform insisted on maintenance of the protective tariff, called for increased foreign trade, pledged to uphold the gold standard, favored expansion of the merchant marine, promoted a strong navy, and praised in detail Roosevelt's foreign and domestic policy.


text: In 1904, both William Jennings Bryan and former President Grover Cleveland declined to run for president. Since the two Democratic nominees of the past 20 years did not seek the presidential nomination, Alton B. Parker, a Bourbon Democrat from New York, emerged as the frontrunner.


text: Parker was the Chief Judge of the New York Court of Appeals and was respected by both Democrats and Republicans in his state. On several occasions, the Republicans paid Parker the honor of running no one against him when he ran for various political positions. Parker refused to work actively for the nomination, but did nothing to restrain his conservative supporters, among them the sachems of Tammany Hall. Former President Grover Cleveland endorsed Parker.


text: The delegates from Florida were selected through a primary which was the first time a primary was utilized to select the delegates for a presidential convention.


text: The Democratic Convention that met in St. Louis, Missouri, on July 6–9, 1904, has been called "one of the most exciting and sensational in the history of the Democratic Party." The struggle inside the Democratic Party over the nomination was to prove as contentious as the election itself. Though Parker, out of active politics for twenty years, had neither enemies nor errors to make him unavailable, a bitter battle was waged against Parker by the more liberal wing of the party in the months before the convention.


text: Despite the fact that Parker had supported Bryan in 1896 and 1900, Bryan hated him for being a Gold Democrat. Bryan wanted the weakest man nominated, one who could not take the control of the party away from him. He denounced Judge Parker as a tool of Wall Street before he was nominated and declared that no self-respecting Democrat could vote for him.


text: Inheriting Bryan's support was publisher, now congressman, William Randolph Hearst of New York. Hearst owned eight newspapers, all of them friendly to labor, vigorous in their trust-busting activities, fighting the cause of "the people who worked for a living." Because of this liberalism, Hearst had the Illinois delegation pledged to him and the promise of several other states. Although Hearst's newspaper was the only major publication in the East to support William Jennings Bryan and Bimetallism in 1896, he found that his support for Bryan was not reciprocated. Instead, Bryan seconded the nomination of Francis Cockrell.


text: The prospect of having Hearst for a candidate frightened conservative Democrats so much that they renewed their efforts to get Parker nominated on the first ballot. Parker received 658 votes on the first roll call, 9 short of the necessary two-thirds. Before the result could be announced, 21 more votes were transferred to Parker. As a result, Parker handily won the nomination on the first ballot with 679 votes to 181 for Hearst and the rest scattered.


text: After Parker's nomination, Bryan charged that it had been dictated by the trusts and secured by "crooked and indefensible methods." Bryan also said that labor had been betrayed in the convention and could look for nothing from the Democratic Party. Indeed, Parker was one of the judges on the New York Court of Appeals who declared the eight-hour law unconstitutional.


text: Before a vice-presidential candidate could be nominated, Parker sprang into action when he learned that the Democratic platform pointedly omitted reference to the monetary issue. To make his position clear, Parker, after his nomination, informed the convention by letter that he supported the gold standard. The letter read, "I regard the gold standard as firmly and irrevocably established and shall act accordingly if the action of the convention today shall be ratified by the people. As the platform is silent on the subject, my view should be made known to the convention, and if it is proved to be unsatisfactory to the majority, I request you to decline the nomination for me at once, so that another may be nominated before adjournment."


text: It was the first time a candidate had made such a move. It was an act of daring that might have lost him the nomination and made him an outcast from the party he had served and believed in all his life.


text: Former Senator Henry G. Davis from West Virginia was nominated for vice president; at 80, he was the oldest major party candidate ever nominated for national office. Davis received the nomination because party leaders believed that as a millionaire mine owner, railroad magnate, and banker, he could be counted on to help finance the campaign. Their hopes were unrealized, as Davis did not substantially contribute to the party coffers.


text: Parker protested against "the rule of individual caprice," the presidential "usurpation of authority," and the "aggrandizement of personal power." But his more positive proposals were so backward-looking, such as his proposal to let state legislatures and the common law develop a remedy for the trust problem, that the "New York World" characterized the campaign as a struggle of "conservative and constitutional Democracy against radical and arbitrary Republicanism."


text: The Democratic platform called for reduction in government expenditures and a congressional investigation of the executive departments "already known to teem with corruption"; condemned monopolies; pledged an end to government contracts with companies violating antitrust laws; opposed imperialism; insisted upon independence for the Philippines; and opposed the protective tariff. It favored strict enforcement of the eight-hour work day; construction of a Panama Canal; the direct election of senators; statehood for the Western territories; the extermination of polygamy; reciprocal trade agreements; cuts in the army; and enforcement of the civil service laws. It condemned the Roosevelt administration in general as "spasmodic, erratic, sensational, spectacular, and arbitrary."


text: The Socialist Party of America was formed from the Social Democratic Party of America and Kangaroo faction of the Socialist Labor Party of America at a 1901 convention in Indianapolis. The Socialists received over 227,000 votes in the 1902 United States House of Representatives elections which was twice the amount of votes that Eugene V. Debs had received in 1900. Nine Socialists were elected to the city council in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, in the 1904 election.


text: On May 5, 1904, George D. Herron nominated Debs for the presidential nomination while Hermon F. Titus nominated Ben Hanford for the vice-presidential nomination. The 183 delegates who attended the convention voted unanimously to give the presidential and vice-presidential nominations to Debs and Hanford. Debs accepted the nomination on May 6, and chair Seymour Stedman referred to Debs as the "Ferdinand Lassalle of the twentieth century".


text: The Socialists raised $32,700 during the campaign. Debs received 402,810 votes, which was over four times the amount that he had received in 1900, and he received his largest amount of support from Illinois. Debs received more votes than Parker in Milwaukee.


text: The Continental Party met in Chicago on August 31, 1904. They nominated Austin Holcomb as their presidential candidate. Initially, George H. Shibley was nominated for vice-president. He turned down the nomination, however, and A. King was nominated in his stead.


text: The Populist Party held their national convention in Springfield, Illinois from July 4 to 6, 1904. Unsatisfied with the Democratic Party's nomination of Alton Parker for president, they chose to nominate their own candidates to contest the office. After two ballots, Thomas Watson was selected as the party's presidential candidate and Thomas Tibbles was selected as his running mate.


text: The Prohibition Party met in Indianapolis from June 29 to July 1. The convention was attended by 758 delegates representing 39 states. Silas C. Swallow was selected as the party's presidential candidate and George W. Carrol was selected as the vice-presidential candidate.


text: The Socialist Labor Party met at the Grand Central Palace in New York City from July 2 to July 8. Their convention was attended by 38 delegates representing 18 states. Those delegates nominated Charles H. Corregan and William W. Cox for president and vice-president respectively.


text: The National Liberty Party met in St. Louis, Missouri from July 5 to 6 to nominate a presidential slate. While 28 delegates attended the convention and elected to nominate Stanley P. Mitchell and William C. Payne as their candidates, the party ultimately did not contest the election after Mitchell declined the nomination.


text: The campaigning done by both parties was much less vigorous than it had been in 1896 and 1900. The campaign season was pervaded by goodwill, and it went a long way toward mending the damage done by the previous class-war elections. This was due to the fact that Parker and Roosevelt, with the exception of charisma, were so similar in political outlook.


text: So close were the two candidates that few differences could be detected. Both men were for the gold standard; though the Democrats were more outspokenly against imperialism, both believed in fair treatment for the Filipinos and eventual liberation; and both believed that labor unions had the same rights as individuals before the courts. The radicals in the Democratic Party denounced Parker as a conservative; the conservatives in the Republican Party denounced Theodore Roosevelt as a radical.


text: During the campaign, there were a couple of instances in which Roosevelt was seen as vulnerable. In the first place, Joseph Pulitzer's "New York World" carried a full page story about alleged corruption in the Bureau of Corporations. President Roosevelt admitted certain payments had been made, but denied any "blackmail." Secondly, in appointing George B. Cortelyou as his campaign manager, Roosevelt had purposely used his former Secretary of Commerce and Labor. This was of importance because Cortelyou, knowing the secrets of the corporations, could extract large contributions from them. The charge created quite a stir and in later years was proven to be sound. In 1907, it was disclosed that the insurance companies had contributed rather too heavily to the Roosevelt campaign. Only a week before the election, Roosevelt himself called E. H. Harriman, the railroad king, to Washington, D.C., for the purpose of raising funds to carry New York.


text: Insider money, however, was spent on both candidates. Parker received financial support from the Morgan banking interests, just as Bourbon Democrat Cleveland had before him. Thomas W. Lawson, the Boston millionaire, charged that New York state Senator Patrick Henry McCarren, a prominent Parker backer, was on the payroll of Standard Oil at the rate of twenty thousand dollars a year. Lawson offered Senator McCarren $100,000 (equivalent to $ million today) if he would disprove the charge. According to one account, "No denial of the charge was ever made by the Senator." One paper even referred to McCarren as "the Standard Oil serpent of Brooklyn politics."


text: Theodore Roosevelt won a landslide victory, taking every Northern and Western state. He was the first Republican to carry the state of Missouri since Ulysses S. Grant in 1868. In voting Republican, Missouri repositioned itself from being associated with the Solid South to being seen as a bellwether "swing state" throughout the 20th century. The vote in Maryland was extremely close. For the first time in that state's history, secret paper ballots, supplied at public expense, and without political symbols of any kind, were issued to each voter. Candidates for Electors were listed under the presidential and vice presidential candidates for each party; there were four parties recognized in the election: Democratic, Republican, Prohibition, and Socialist. Voters were free to mark their ballots for up to eight candidates of any party. While Roosevelt's victory nationally was quickly determined, the election in Maryland remained in doubt for several weeks. On November 30, Roosevelt was declared the statewide victor by just 51 votes. However, as voters had voted for individual presidential electors, only one Republican elector, Charles Bonaparte, survived the tally. The other seven top vote recipients were Democrats.


text: Roosevelt won the election by more than 2.5 million popular votes, making him the first president to win a primarily two-man race by more than a million votes. Roosevelt won 56.4% of the popular vote; that, along with his popular vote margin of 18.8%, was the largest recorded between James Monroe's uncontested re-election in 1820 and the election of Warren G. Harding in 1920. Of the 2,754 counties making returns, Roosevelt carried 1,611 (58.50%) and won a majority of votes in 1,538; he and Parker were tied in one county (0.04%).


text: Thomas Watson, the Populist candidate, received 117,183 votes and won nine counties (0.33%) in his home state of Georgia. He had a majority in five of the counties, and his vote total was double the Populist's showing in 1900 but less than one eighth of the party's total in 1892.


text: Parker carried 1,133 counties (41.14%) and won a majority in 1,057. The distribution of the vote by counties reveals him to have been a weaker candidate than William Jennings Bryan, the party's nominee four years earlier, in every section of the nation, except for the deep South, where Democratic dominance remained strong, due in large part to pervasive disfranchisement of blacks. In 17 states, the Parker–Davis ticket failed to carry a single county, and outside the South carried only 84.


title: Andre Ward

text: Andre Michael Ward (born February 23, 1984) is an American former professional boxer who competed from 2004 to 2017. He retired with an undefeated record and held multiple world titles in two weight classes, including the unified WBA (Super), WBC, "Ring" magazine, and lineal super middleweight titles between 2009 and 2015; and the unified WBA (Undisputed), IBF, WBO, and "Ring" light heavyweight titles between 2016 and 2017. During his reign as light heavyweight champion, Ward was ranked as the world's best active boxer, pound for pound, by "The Ring" magazine and the Transnational Boxing Rankings Board (TBRB), as well as the world's best active boxer in the division by "The Ring", the TBRB, and BoxRec. As of January 2022, BoxRec ranks Ward as the twelfth greatest fighter of all time, pound for pound.


title: Andre Ward

text: As an amateur, Ward won a gold medal in the light heavyweight division at the 2004 Olympics and turned professional later that year. He rose to worldwide prominence upon entering the Super Six World Boxing Classic tournament in 2009, where he won the WBA (Super) super middleweight title from Mikkel Kessler in the opening group stage. In 2011, Ward defeated WBC champion Carl Froch in the tournament final to unify the titles, as well as winning the vacant "Ring" and lineal titles. That same year, Ward was named Fighter of the Year by "The Ring" and the Boxing Writers' Association of America. He later won "The Ring"'s Comeback of the Year award in 2016 following a long period of sporadic in-ring activity between 2012 and 2015. Ward was inducted into the International Boxing Hall of Fame as part of the Class of 2021, his first year of eligibility.


title: Andre Ward

text: Andre was born in San Francisco, California, the son of Frank Ward, an Irish American and Madeline Arvie Taylor an African American. Andre's career started when his father took him to U.S. Karate School of the Arts, a boxing gym in Hayward, California, when he was nine years old. After his parents fell to drug abuse, Ward was looked after by his godfather, Virgil Hunter, who became his trainer and remained his trainer for the length of his career.


title: Andre Ward

text: Ward started boxing in 1994. In 2002, he won the Under 19 National Championship and was also a two time U.S. National Champion in 2001 and 2003 at middleweight. Ward finished his amateur career with a record of 115 wins and 5 losses.


title: Andre Ward

text: Ward made his pro debut on December 18, 2004 by scoring a second round TKO over Chris Molina. On February 5, 2005 Ward fought in his second pro fight against Kenny Kost. Ward overcame a rocky second round, in which he was hurt by a left hook, to win by unanimous decision. Ward defeated Roy Ashworth on April 7, 2005 by disqualification.


title: Andre Ward

text: Ward won his next three fights, all by knockout, before going up against Darnell Boone on November 19, 2005. Ward was knocked down for the first time in his career in round four. Despite the knockdown, Ward went on to win by unanimous decision.


title: Andre Ward

text: After the fight with Boone, Ward went on to win his next six fights, including TKO victories over undefeated Andy Kolle (this fight was the last of five that Ward fought within the middleweight limit of 160 lbs) and Francisco Diaz. On November 16, 2007 Ward beat undefeated Roger Cantrell by fifth-round TKO in Saint Lucia.


title: Andre Ward

text: At this point, Ward's record was 14 wins, no losses. He was ready to step up to his biggest challenge against big American puncher Allan Green (25-1, 18 KOs), with the fight scheduled to take place on February 2, 2008 on HBO. The fight was called off because Green had an obligation with ESPN to fight Rubin Williams on January 4. Green won the bout, and had hoped to fight Ward later in the year. He eventually got his chance two years later, losing a unanimous decision.


title: Andre Ward

text: On March 20, 2008, at the HP Pavilion in San Jose, California, Ward defeated Rubin Williams by seventh-round TKO. Ward hit Williams with jabs and straight left hands almost at will, opening a bad cut over Williams' left eye in the process. The cut would force the referee to stop the fight.


title: Andre Ward

text: Ward faced Jerson Ravelo on June 20, 2008, in Georgetown, Cayman Islands, for the vacant regional NABO super-middleweight title. Ward dominated Ravelo for most of the fight en route to a TKO victory in the eighth round.


title: Andre Ward

text: On May 16, 2009, at the Oracle Arena in Oakland, California, Ward defeated former prospect Edison Miranda by unanimous decision. The scores were 116–112, 119–109, and 119–109 for Ward. Ward showed he had an inside game as well as an outside game. Miranda couldn't stay up with Ward's versatility around the ring. Miranda said of Ward in the post fight, "I thought it was going to be easier, but it was tougher than I was expected. I don't feel cheated. Andre is the champion. I have respect for him." Ward, who fought his biggest name to date said, "This is kind of a bittersweet victory. I'm happy and excited because the fans had a good time, and there were a lot of people here, but I'm not 100 percent happy with my performance. I've got to go look at the tape. I did some things well, but I felt I could have improved in other areas."


title: Andre Ward

text: On September 12, 2009, at the Pechanga Resort and Casino in Temecula, California, Ward defeated Shelby Pudwill by TKO in the 3rd round.


title: Andre Ward

text: Ward's first fight in the tournament took place in his hometown of Oakland, California against Ring Magazine #1 ranked and joint tournament favorite Mikkel Kessler (42-1, 32 KO) on November 21, 2009. Kessler's WBA super-middleweight championship was also at stake. Ward defeated Kessler to via technical decision in round 11 to win his first world title. Kessler was the strong favorite going into Showtime's Super Six tournament. In a career-defining performance, undefeated hometown favorite Ward put the U.S. on the board in the Super Six and captured the WBA super middleweight title with a dominant 11 round technical decision over Denmark's Kessler in their Group Stage 1 bout. The fight was stopped in round 11 due to cuts on Kessler's face caused by what was deemed unintentional headbutts by Ward. The fight went to the scorecards and Ward was far ahead by scores of 98–92, 98–92, and 97–93 at the time of the stoppage.


title: Andre Ward

text: In January 2010 Jermain Taylor announced his exit from Showtime's Super Six World Boxing Classic tournament. "The Ring" Top 10 ranked super-middleweight Allan Green (25-1, 18 KOs) was selected as his replacement and challenged Andre Ward on June 19. Ward, defending the WBA super middleweight title, outclassed an opponent who spent most of the fight with his back against the ropes. Ward defeated Green by unanimous decision on June 19, 2010. Though the 30-year-old gamely fought on, the knockout he needed to win never appeared remotely likely and he looked a spent man by the end as he picked up the second loss of his 31-fight pro career. Throughout the fight, Ward out landed Green by nearly 200 punches. All three judges scored the fight lop-sided 120–108 for Ward, who said post-fight of his win, "This means a lot to me. Couldn't get caught up in the first defense too much mentally. Now that it's over with, I'm ecstatic I was able to defend this belt one time. I feel like a real champion now." Ward stated his only regret was that he wasn't able to stop Green, who turned up to survive. Ward advanced to the semi-finals.


title: Andre Ward

text: Ward was exempt from the final preliminary fight in the Super Six because he had already secured a number one position in the elimination rounds and his designated opponent (Andre Dirrell) had dropped out of the tournament. Dirrell's trainer and uncle Leon Lawson Jr., told ESPN that Dirrell had neurological problems. Instead, Ward successfully defended his WBA super middleweight title, unanimously outpointing another top 10 ranked super middleweight, Sakio Bika (28-4-2), in front of a sparse crowd at Oracle Arena on Saturday night. Fighting in front of his hometown crowd as part of a dual-site co-main event, Ward didn't land many big shots but repeatedly hit Bika with a stinging left jab that the challenger was unable to counter. Ward won all 12 rounds on one judges scorecard and was ahead 118–110 on the other two. Bika landed 201 of his 612 punches (33%), but Ward was more precise with his shots, landing 235 of 398 (59%). Ward later admitted it was his toughest fight to date, since he became professional.


title: Andre Ward

text: Ward's opponent at the semi final stage was top 10 ranked super middleweight Arthur Abraham (32-2, 26 KOs). The fight took place on May 14, 2011 at the Home Depot Center in Carson, California. Abraham entered having lost two of his previous three bouts. Ward started out slow with Abraham, trying to find a way to penetrate his tight defense. After a competitive first few rounds, Ward seized control of the fight, using his ring savvy and instincts to control Abraham. Although Abraham was somewhat passive at times, he gave an earnest effort and frequently threw combinations that were mostly blocked by Ward. Abraham hurt Ward a couple of times in the final round, but it wasn't enough to finish Ward, who had dominated the fight and won a lopsided unanimous decision. The three judges scored the bout 120–108, 118–110, and 118–111. ESPN had it 118–110 in favor of Ward. Abraham didn't believe he had lost the fight with such wide scores. Over 12 rounds, Ward threw 289 jabs. In total he landed 178 of 444 total punches thrown (40%).


title: Andre Ward

text: In the post fight interviews, Abraham said through a translator, "I started well, and I thought I did good the first three rounds He didn't hit me, and I was blocking a lot of his shots. But then I tried for the knockout, and I couldn't do it. I cramped up, and I got too tense." Ward had to adjust his game plan as he was unable to fight on the inside. He said, "We're going to the final, baby. Arthur is strong, and he's a hard hitter, [but] we showed that we can win in a way other than our original game plan [...] "I wish the ref had let me fight on the inside, because that's what I had planned for. But we made adjustments and got the win."


title: Andre Ward

text: Advancing to the final of the Super Six, Ward fought WBC super middleweight champion Carl Froch (28-1, 20 KOs) in front of 5,626 at Boardwalk Hall on December 17, 2011. Ward and Froch were rated #1 and #2 respectively by Ring magazine, and the vacant "Ring" magazine super middleweight title was on the line, as well as Froch and Ward's super middleweight titles.


title: Andre Ward

text: Ward won the Super Six World Boxing Classic tournament via unanimous decision . Over the first seven rounds, Ward outboxed Froch, successfully using his jab to neutralize Froch and beating Froch to the punch from a distance and at close range. In the later rounds, Ward seemed to take his foot off the gas, leaving Froch to win a couple rounds near the end of the fight, though they were close and fairly competitive rounds. An MRI later revealed that Ward injured his lead left hand on which he relied for landing hooks to Froch's head. The hand was broken in two places. Ward noted extreme pain in the sixth round of the fight as well as one week prior, though the initial X-ray came back clear. The judges scorecards were 115–113, 115–113, and 118–110 all in favor of Ward. CompuBox statistics showed that Ward landed 243 of 573 punches thrown (42%), whilst Froch landed 156 of 683 punches (23%). After the bout, Ward gave a victory speech, "I can't believe it, I can't believe it -- it's not so unbelievable that we never thought we were going to win, but now that it's happened, it is unbelievable. We told you this is what we wanted to do. We wanted to fight on the inside and on the outside, and we pulled it off tonight. We were able to beat him to the punch, and that's what won us the fight." Froch also praised Ward in winning the tournament, "Fair credit to Andre Ward. He's very good defensively. I lost the fight, fair and square. It was quite hard to hit him. The name of the game is to not get hit, and he did that well."


title: Andre Ward

text: Ward won the vacant "Ring" and lineal super middleweight titles with his Super Six World Boxing Classic win against Froch, despite some independent sources rating then-undefeated IBF champion Lucian Bute at number one or two at the time. The fight peaked at 580,000 viewers on Showtime.


title: Andre Ward

text: The World Boxing Council Board of Governors voted to make Ward "Champion in Recess" due to a broken hand Ward had sustained during the Super Six tournament.


title: Andre Ward

text: Ward's next fight was announced on June 22, 2012 to take place at the Oracle Arena in Oakland, California on September 8, 2012 against "The Ring" and lineal light heavyweight champion Chad Dawson. The fight, billed as "Ward vs. Dawson – World Champions – Made In America<nowiki>"</nowiki> took place at 168 lbs for Ward's super middleweight titles. Dawson was coming off a big win against future Hall of Famer Bernard Hopkins in April. At the press conference, he said that it was his desire to drop down in weight and challenge Ward rather than fight lesser-known opponents at light heavyweight. Dawson started his career at super middleweight, but hadn't fought at the weight since February 2006.


title: Andre Ward

text: The fight ended in round ten with a technical knockout victory for Ward when Dawson asked the referee for the fight to be ended with the words: "It's over. I'm finished. I'm done." In the first two rounds, Ward and Dawson felt each other out, with neither fighter having much success, though Dawson was able to land a few counter right hooks as Ward lunged inside. In the third round, Ward dropped Dawson with a left hook and dominated the round. Again in the fourth round, Ward was able to drop Dawson, in another dominating round. From fifth round until the end of the fight, Ward was able to neutralize Dawson's jab and work rate, seemingly out boxing and frustrating Dawson throughout. Then, in the tenth round, Ward dropped Dawson to a knee after a solid combination, which prompted referee Steve Smoger to stop the fight after Dawson could not continue. At the time of stoppage, Ward was ahead 90–79, 89–80, and 89–80 on all three judges' scorecards. For the loss, Dawson earned $600,000, whilst Ward had a total $1,367,500 purse.


title: Andre Ward

text: The fight was watched by an average 1.3 million viewers on HBO. In 2013, Dawson spoke out about the fight and said it was a "set-up by HBO and other people." He claimed that it was done to make him look "vulnerable and expose him with weight loss."


title: Andre Ward

text: Ward was scheduled to defend his super middleweight titles against former unified middleweight champion Kelly Pavlik on January 26, 2013 at the Galen Center in Los Angeles. However, an injury sustained by Ward originally postponed the bout for 4 more weeks and the fight was expected to take place on February 23, 2013. The injury was more severe than originally thought and led to the cancellation of the fight as well as the subsequent retirement of Pavlik.


title: Andre Ward

text: On March 23, 2013 the WBC stripped Ward of the WBC super-middleweight title belt for being inactive for a long period of time, and for failing to face a mandatory challenger. They granted him champion emeritus status. Ward claimed a shoulder injury that required surgery was the reason for his inactivity, but the WBC claimed that Ward had not provided any medical evidence or even given them a rough availability date.


title: Andre Ward

text: On May 20, Ward relinquished the champion emeritus title, stating that he did not believe the WBC had the right to strip him of the world title because he was willing and able to defend it within the period specified by the WBC's rules. Ward was praised for standing up to the WBC.


title: Andre Ward

text: Ward spent most of 2013 recovering from injuries, and feuding with promoter Dan Goossen, over the inclusion of a co-manager in Ward's promotional contract. The case has been to court or arbitration on 3 separate occasions. Each time, Goossen was deemed in the right. Ward defended his WBA and Ring titles against unbeaten Edwin Rodríguez in Ontario, California in November 2013 with a wide unanimous decision. The fight started with rough tactics until Jack Reiss made an unprecedented move, penalizing both fighters two points each and warning them that he would end the fight if it did not clean up. Ward went on to dominate the rest of the fight. The three judges scored the fight 118–106, 117–107, and 116–108 all in favor of Ward.


title: Andre Ward

text: Ward spent all of 2014 inactive, still feuding with Goossen. Dan Goossen died of complications from liver cancer in September 2014, leaving the future of Andre Ward's boxing career even further in doubt.


title: Andre Ward

text: On February 19, 2015 "The Ring" stripped Ward of the Ring champion belt due to him not having defended his title against a top #5 contender in the last two years.


title: Andre Ward

text: In April 2015 Ward announced that he would make a ring return after a 19 month long lay off. Ward signed with Jay Z's Roc Nation Sports in January 2015 and this was announced to be the first event under the Roc Nation banner. It was later confirmed that he would fight on June 20, against British Paul Smith (35-5, 20 KOs) at the Oracle Arena in California at a 172 lbs catchweight fight. The fight was to take place on BET. Roc Nation did reach out to HBO, where Ward had worked as an analyst previously, but upon hearing his opponent, they passed on the opportunity to showcase Ward's long-awaited return. Ward won via TKO in the 9th round. Ward was winning every round at the time of stoppage 80–72 on all three judges' scorecards. Smith missed weight, coming in at 176.4 lbs and was fined 20% ($45,000) of his $225,000 purse by the California State Athletic Commission, half of which went to Ward and half to the commission. Despite being available in over 90 million homes, the fight averaged 323,000 viewers on BET.


title: Andre Ward

text: On November 12, 2015 in advance of his upcoming move up to the light heavyweight division, Ward vacated his WBA super middleweight title. Ward originally claimed the belt in November 2009 with a victory over long-time champion Mikkel Kessler in his opening fight of the Super Six tournament.


title: Andre Ward

text: Boxing Scene reported In January 2016, Ward's light heavyweight debut was set against Cuban boxer Sullivan Barrera (17-0, 12 KOs) at the Oracle Arena. on March 26, 2016 on HBO. Barrera was risking his IBF mandatory position in this fight. Barrera became the mandatory to Kovalev's IBF title when he stopped German Karo Murat in December 2015. According to Ward, he wasn't moving up in weight for the money, but rather daring to be great. 8,532 fans packed the arena on fight night. En route to a wide unanimous decision victory, Ward dropped Barrera to the canvas in the third round as he turned a left hook while on the ropes. Barrera was also dropped in the eighth round from a body shot, but referee Raul Caiz Sr. saw it as a low blow and as a result deducted a point from Ward. Ward dictated the pace for the vast majority of the bout, showcasing good strength and ring generalship against Barrera. The three judges scored the fight 117–109, 119–109, and 117–108. Ward landed 166 from 463 thrown (36%) whilst Barrera landed 111 of 722 punches thrown (15%). When asked about the potential mega fight against Kovalev, Ward said, "It's never a problem. You look at my track record. I want to fight the best. I've always fought the best. Sergey Kovalev, he's a great champion." For the fight, Ward earned $1.85 million and Barrera earned a $450,000 purse. The fight averaged 1.064 million viewers and peaked at 1.152 million viewers.


title: Andre Ward

text: On June 28, 2016, Roc Nation Sport confirmed that Ward would fight once more before his mega fight with Kovalev on July 30 against 39 year old Colombian boxer Alexander Brand (25-1, 19 KOs). The fight was to take place in Oakland, California at the Oracle Center. This was the eighth and final time Ward fought in his hometown. Brand entered the fight as a 100-1 underdog. In front of 8,653 hometown fans, Ward unanimously outpointed Brand to claim the vacant WBO International light heavyweight title. All three judges had the fight 120–108 for Ward. Brand, who looked as though he came to survive 12 rounds, didn't initiate any action, which ultimately led him to lose all the rounds on the three scorecards. Ward looked slow in the victory, not looking like the same fighter he was in 2011. Ward dictated the fight however with a strong jab. This showed in round 7 when Brand's right eye suddenly started to swollen up. Ward spoke to HBO in the post fight interview about fighting Kovalev next saying: "I'm excited, I'm looking forward to it. I'll see you in November." This was Ward's third fight in eight months, after only fighting three times from 2012 to 2015. Ward landed 190 of 490 punches thrown (39%), and Brand landed 45 of 285 (16%). Ward earned a purse of $850,000 compared to the small amount of $30,000 earned by Brand. The fight averaged on 742,000 viewers on HBO. The dip could have been due to 21 million tuning in to the Olympics on NBC.


title: Andre Ward

text: Ward fought the unified IBF, WBA (Super) and WBO light heavyweight champion Sergey Kovalev at the T-Mobile Arena on November 19, 2016. The fight was announced in June, with a rematch clause, and both fighters retained their undefeated records through interim bouts. This event marked Ward's first time fighting in Las Vegas, Nevada.


title: Andre Ward

text: After being knocked down in the second round, he won a controversial decision with all three judges scoring the fight 114–113 in favor of Ward. Ward reiterated how the events of the evening unfolded, "I got off the canvas against the hardest puncher in the division and smiled. I took the fight to him and closed the show." Ward received Kovalev's WBA (Super), IBF, and WBO light heavyweight titles and became a two-division world champion.


title: Andre Ward

text: Boxing experts have claimed that the judging was unfair. "It was a classic hometown decision. Kovalev won the fight", Larry Merchant stated after the fight. Kovalev's promoter, Kathy Duva, said, "We got a great fight, which is what boxing needed. But we also got a bad decision, which is not what boxing needed." On the same token, many boxing fans have applauded the decision. Paulie Malignaggi noted the high degree of difficulty both fighters faced that night and doubted the prospect of a one-sided affair in the case of a rematch. Still, he concluded that Kovalev faded late in the fight. Promoter Eddie Hearn added that Kovalev lacked a sense of urgency after the halfway point. Gennady Golovkin's trainer, Abel Sanchez, scored the fight 114–112 for Kovalev. For the fight, Kovalev received a minimum purse of $2 million and Ward's purse was a career-high $5 million. CompuBox stats showed that Kovalev landed more punches, 126 of 474 punches; Ward landed 116 out of 337 thrown


title: Andre Ward

text: The fight reported to have done 160,000 buys on HBO PPV. A replay was shown on HBO prior to the Lomachenko–Walters title fight, which averaged 834,000 viewers. The event produced a live gate of $3.3 million from 10,066 tickets sold, including complimentary tickets, the full attendance was announced as 13,310. The venue was set up to hold 14,227.


title: Andre Ward

text: Kovalev's manager Egis Klimas announced that negotiations had begun for the rematch between Ward and Kovalev. Ward threatened to retire if he didn't get things "his way" for the rematch. According to the NSAC, The T-Mobile Arena was put on hold for June 17, 2017 on HBO PPV. On March 24, 2017 Kovalev revealed via Social Media that he had signed his end of the deal. It was also noted that the rematch would take place at the Mandalay Bay in Paradise, Nevada on HBO PPV. On April 4, Roc Nation Sports and Main Events confirmed that terms were agreed for the rematch to take place on HBO PPV. The fight was billed as "No Excuses". Ward addressed the public by stating, "I'm going to keep it short and sweet. You got what you asked for -- now you have to see me on June 17. This time leave the excuses at home." The Las Vegas Sun confirmed the bout will take place at the Mandalay Bay Events Center. On April 10, Kathy Duva said that there would be no rematch clause in place for a third fight, meaning whoever would win, would not be obliged to fight another rematch. The fight purses were revealed before the fight with Ward taking a guaranteed $6.5 million and Kovalev, not having a base purse, would receive a percentage of PPV and gate revenue.


title: Andre Ward

text: In front of 10,592, the fight ended with controversy in the 8th round with a victory for Ward. A right hand from Ward had Kovalev in trouble, which was followed by several body shots, including a low blow. Tony Weeks stopped the fight, with Kovalev sitting on the middle rope, visibly hurt from the strikes he was subjected to. At the time of stoppage, two judges had Ward ahead 67–66, whilst the third judge had it 68–65 in favor of Kovalev. CompuBox stats showed that Ward landed 80 of 238 punches (34%) whilst Kovalev landed more punches with 95 of his 407 thrown (23%).


title: Andre Ward

text: Ward praised Kovalev in the post-fight interview, "He's a good fighter, and I have nothing but respect for him. First time around, the man is world champion, and he's been on top a long time. I give him credit. He is a great fighter, and when you fight great fighters, you have to raise your game." Kovalev said the fight could have continued, "I don't know. I can't explain it. Not every round, but I thought I was doing very good. I was better, and he was better this fight. I didn't feel like I was getting knocked down with his punches --- I could have continued", Kovalev said. "I didn't feel the punch. This is fighting. We are boxers. Yes, he did punch me, but he didn't hurt me. The fight should have continued."


title: Andre Ward

text: According to Yahoo! Sports, the fight only generated around 130,000 buys on HBO PPV. The replay was shown on regular HBO averaging 752,000 viewers and peaked at 947,000, which was during the final round. The event produced a live gate of $2,187,340 from 6,366 tickets sold, including complimentary tickets, the full attendance was announced as 10,592. The venue was set up to hold 10,748.


title: Andre Ward

text: On August 23, 2017 Ward announced that his contract with HBO had expired, making him a free agent. He confirmed that he was still under contract with Roc Nation Sports, but rumours indicated that he could sign with Top Rank. His appearance as an analyst for the Crawford vs. Indongo fight sparked further rumours.


title: Andre Ward

text: On September 21, 2017 via his website, Ward announced his retirement from boxing at the age of 33. In a statement, he said, "I want to be clear – I am leaving because my body can no longer put up with the rigors of the sport and therefore my desire to fight is no longer there. If I cannot give my family, my team, and the fans everything that I have, then I should no longer be fighting." Also in the statement read, "As I walk away from the sport of boxing today, I leave at the top of your glorious mountain, which was always my vision and my dream. I did it. We did it. From the bottom of my heart, thank you to everyone who has played a part in my journey. You know who you are. I could not have done this without you." Ward ended his career undefeated with 32 wins, 16 of which came inside the distance.


title: Andre Ward

text: On December 15, 2020, Ward was announced as being inducted into the International Boxing Hall of Fame as part of the Class of 2021, his first year of eligibility.