title: Monrovia

text: In 2014, the city was affected by the 2014 West Africa Ebola outbreak. The Ebola virus epidemic in Liberia was declared to be over on 3 September 2015.


title: Monrovia

text: Monrovia lies along the Cape Mesurado peninsula, between the Atlantic Ocean and the Mesurado River, whose mouth forms a large natural harbor. The Saint Paul River lies directly north of the city and forms the northern boundary of Bushrod Island, which is reached by crossing the "New Bridge" from downtown Monrovia. Monrovia is located in Montserrado County and is Liberia's largest city and its administrative, commercial and financial center.


title: Monrovia

text: According to the Köppen climate classification, Monrovia has a tropical monsoon climate ("Am"). It is the wettest capital city in the world, with annual rainfall averaging . It has a wet season and a dry season, but gets precipitation even during the dry season. Temperatures are fairly constant throughout the year, averaging around .


title: Monrovia

text: Monrovia comprises several districts spread across the Mesurado peninsula; the greater metropolitan area encircles the mouth of the marshy Mesurado River. The historic downtown area, centered on Broad Street, is at the very end of the peninsula; the major market district, Waterside, immediately to its north, faces the city's large natural harbor.


title: Monrovia

text: Northwest of Waterside is the large, low-income West Point community. To the west and southwest of the downtown area is Mamba Point, traditionally the city's principal diplomatic quarter and home to the embassies of the United States and United Kingdom, as well as the European Union delegation. South of the city center is Capitol Hill, where the major institutions of the national government, including the Temple of Justice and the Executive Mansion, are located.


title: Monrovia

text: Further east along the peninsula is the Sinkor section of Monrovia. Originally a suburban residential district, today Sinkor is the bustling midtown section of the city. It includes many diplomatic missions, major hotels, businesses, and residential neighborhoods, including informal communities such as Plumkor, Jorkpentown, Lakpazee and Fiamah.


title: Monrovia

text: Sinkor is also home to the city's secondary airport, Spriggs Payne, and the area immediately next to the airport, called Airfield, is a major nightlife district for the whole city. East of the Airfield is the Old Road section of Sinkor, which is predominantly residential, and includes informal settlements such as Chugbor and Gaye Town.


title: Monrovia

text: At the southeastern base of the peninsula is the independent township of Congo Town, and to its east is the large suburb of Paynesville. Other suburbs, such as Chocolate City, Gardnersville, Barnesville, Kaba Town, Dandawailo, and New Georgia lie to the north, across the river. On Bushrod Island, north of Monrovia, are the neighborhoods of Clara Town, Logan Town and New Kru Town. To the far east are the suburbs of Stockton Creek Bridge, Caldwell, Louisiana, and Cassava Hill.


title: Monrovia

text: Monrovia's economy is dominated by its harbor - the Freeport of Monrovia - and as the location of Liberia's government offices. Monrovia's harbor was significantly expanded by U.S. forces during the Second World War and the main exports include latex and iron ore.


title: Monrovia

text: Materials are also manufactured on-site, such as cement, refined petroleum, food products, brick and tile, furniture, and chemicals. Located on Bushrod Island between the mouths of the Mesurado and Saint Paul rivers, the harbor also has facilities for storing and repairing vessels.


title: Monrovia

text: Boats link the city's Freeport of Monrovia, the country's busiest port, with Greenville and Harper. The nearest airport is Spriggs Payne Airport, located less than four miles () from the city center. Roberts International Airport, the largest international airport in Liberia, is away in Harbel.


title: Monrovia

text: Monrovia is connected with the rest of the country via a network of roads and railways. Monrovia is listed as the home port by between ten and fifteen percent of the world's merchant shipping, registered in Liberia under Flag of Convenience arrangements. Both private taxis and minibuses run in the city, and are supplemented by larger buses run by the Monrovia Transit Authority.


title: Monrovia

text: In recent years (2005–present) the roads on many streets in Monrovia have been rebuilt by the World Bank and the Liberian Government. Private and public infrastructures are being built or renovated as reconstruction takes place.


title: Monrovia

text: Monrovia is situated in the district of Greater Monrovia in Montserrado County. Instead of being divided into clans like other districts of Liberia, Greater Monrovia is divided into 16 "zones". Like clans, these zones are subdivided into 161 communities. Greater Monrovia does not have an organized district administration like other districts, with all lower-level local authorities being directly supervised by the Montserrado County Superintendent. Municipally, Greater Monrovia District is subdivided into two city corporations and ten other local authorities (nine townships and one borough). Established by law in 1973 and operational since 1976, the Monrovia City Corporation (MCC) is responsible for the city's administration. The MCC also provides services to the townships and borough through a revenue-sharing arrangement, but has no zoning or enforcement jurisdiction in them.


title: Monrovia

text: Cultural attractions in Monrovia include the Liberian National Museum, the Masonic Temple, the Waterside Market, and several beaches. The city also houses Antoinette Tubman Stadium and the Samuel Kanyon Doe Sports Complex, which boasts one of the largest stadiums in Africa, with seats for 40,000.


title: Monrovia

text: The newspaper industry in Monrovia dates back to the 1820s, with the founding of the "Liberia Herald", one of the first newspapers to be published in Africa. Today, numerous tabloid-style newspapers are printed daily or bi-weekly, most are 20 pages or less. The "Daily Talk" is a compilation of news and Bible quotations written daily on a roadside blackboard in the Sinkor section of Monrovia.


title: Monrovia

text: Monrovia also has radio and TV stations. Radio is the dominant source of news, because problems with the electric grid make watching television more difficult. UNMIL Radio has been broadcasting since October 1, 2003, and is the only radio station in Liberia that is on the air 24 hours a day. It reaches an estimated of the population. The state-owned Liberia Broadcasting System broadcasts nationwide from its headquarters in Monrovia. STAR radio broadcasts at 104 FM.


title: Monrovia

text: Monrovia is home to the University of Liberia, along with African Methodist Episcopal University, United Methodist University, Stella Maris Polytechnic, and many other public and private schools. Medical education is offered at the A.M. Dogliotti College of Medicine, and there is a nursing and paramedical school at the Tubman National Institute of Medical Arts.


title: Monrovia

text: Kindergarten through twelfth grade education is provided by the Monrovia Consolidated School System, which serves the greater Monrovia area. Schools include Monrovia Central High School, Bostwain High School, D. Twe High School, G. W. Gibson High School and William V. S. Tubman High School.


title: Monrovia

text: The places of worship in Monrovia are predominantly Christian churches and temples. These include the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Monrovia (Catholic Church), the United Methodist Church in Liberia (World Methodist Council), the Liberia Baptist Missionary and Educational convention (Baptist World Alliance) and the Assemblies of God. In October 2021, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints announced plans to construct a temple in Monrovia. The city also has Muslim mosques.


title: Monrovia

text: Pollution is a significant challenge in Monrovia. Piles of household and industrial rubbish tend to build up. The World Bank pays sanitation companies to collect it, but collections are irregular.


title: Monrovia

text: In 2013, the problem of uncollected rubbish in the Paynesville area of Monrovia became so acute that traders and residents burnt "the huge garbage piles that seemed on the verge of cutting off the main road" out of Monrovia to Kakata.


title: Monrovia

text: Flooding brings additional environmental problems to residents: flood water picks up the waste that has been deposited in swamps at the edge of residential areas, and spreads it around.


title: Monrovia

text: In 2009, only one-third of Monrovia's 1.5 million people had access to clean toilets. Those without their own toilets defecate in the narrow alleyways between their houses, or on the beach, or into plastic bags that they dump onto nearby piles of rubbish or into the sea.


title: Monrovia

text: Congested housing, a lack of any requirement that landlords provide working toilets, and virtually no urban planning "have combined to create lethal sanitation conditions in the capital".


title: Cristero War

text: The Cristero War (), also known as the Cristero Rebellion or , was a widespread struggle in central and western Mexico from 1 August 1926 to 21 June 1929 in response to the implementation of secularist and anticlerical articles of the 1917 Constitution. The rebellion was instigated as a response to an executive decree by Mexican President Plutarco Elías Calles to strictly enforce Article 130 of the Constitution, a decision known as Calles Law. Calles sought to eliminate the power of the Catholic Church in Mexico, its affiliated organizations and to suppress popular religiosity.


title: Cristero War

text: The rural uprising in north-central Mexico was tacitly supported by the Church hierarchy, and was aided by urban Catholic supporters. The Mexican Army received support from the United States. American Ambassador Dwight Morrow brokered negotiations between the Calles government and the Church. The government made some concessions, the Church withdrew its support for the Cristero fighters, and the conflict ended in 1929. The rebellion has been variously interpreted as a major event in the struggle between church and state that dates back to the 19th century with the War of Reform, as the last major peasant uprising in Mexico after the end of the military phase of the Mexican Revolution in 1920, and as a counter-revolutionary uprising by prosperous peasants and urban elites against the revolution's rural and agrarian reforms.


title: Cristero War

text: The Mexican Revolution was the costliest conflict in Mexican history. The overthrow of the dictator Porfirio Díaz caused political instability, with many contending factions and regions. The Catholic Church and the Díaz government had come to an informal "modus vivendi" in which the state formally maintained the anticlerical articles of the liberal Constitution of 1857 but it failed to enforce them. A change of leadership or a wholesale overturning of the previous order were potential sources of danger to the Church's position. In the democratizing wave of political activity, the National Catholic Party ("Partido Católico Nacional") was formed.


title: Cristero War

text: After president Francisco I. Madero was overthrown and assassinated in a February 1913 military coup which was led by General Victoriano Huerta, supporters of the Porfirian regime were returned to their posts. After the ouster of Huerta in 1914, members of the National Catholic Party and high-ranking Church figures were accused of collaborating with the Huerta regime, and the Catholic Church was subjected to revolutionary hostilities and fierce anticlericalism by many northern revolutionaries. The Constitutionalist faction won the revolution and its leader, Venustiano Carranza, had a new constitution drawn up, the Constitution of 1917. It strengthened the anticlerical provisions of the previous document, but President Carranza and his successor, General Alvaro Obregón, were preoccupied by their struggles with their internal enemies and as a result, they were lenient in their enforcement of the Constitution's anticlerical articles, especially in areas where the Church was powerful.


title: Cristero War

text: The administration of Plutarco Elías Calles believed that the Church was challenging its revolutionary initiatives and legal basis. To confront the Church's influence, anticlerical laws were instituted, which triggered a ten-year-long religious conflict in which thousands of armed civilians were killed by the Mexican Army. Some have characterized Calles as the leader of an atheist state and his program as being one to eradicate religion in Mexico.


title: Cristero War

text: The 1917 Constitution was drafted by the Constituent Congress convoked by Venustiano Carranza in September 1916, and it was approved on February 5, 1917. The new constitution was based in the 1857 Constitution, which had been instituted by Benito Juárez. Articles 3, 27, and 130 of the 1917 Constitution contained secularizing sections that restricted the power and the influence of the Catholic Church.


title: Cristero War

text: The first two sections of Article 3 stated: "I. According to the religious liberties established under article 24, educational services shall be secular and, therefore, free of any religious orientation. II. The educational services shall be based on scientific progress and shall fight against ignorance, ignorance's effects, servitudes, fanaticism and prejudice." The second section of Article 27 stated: "All religious associations organized according to article 130 and its derived legislation, shall be authorized to acquire, possess or manage just the necessary assets to achieve their objectives."


title: Cristero War

text: The first paragraph of Article 130 stated: "The rules established at this article are guided by the historical principle according to which the State and the churches are separated entities from each other. Churches and religious congregations shall be organized under the law."


title: Cristero War

text: The Constitution also provided for obligatory state registration of all churches and religious congregations and placed a series of restrictions on priests and ministers of all religions, who were not allowed to hold public office, canvas on behalf of political parties or candidates, or inherit from persons other than close blood relatives. It also allowed the state to regulate the number of priests in each region and even to reduce the number to zero, it forbade the wearing of religious garb outside of church or religious premises, and excluded offenders from a trial by jury. Carranza declared himself opposed to the final draft of Articles 3, 5, 24, 27, 123 and 130, but the Constitutional Congress contained only 85 conservatives and centrists who were close to Carranza's brand of liberalism. Against them were 132 delegates who were more radical.


title: Cristero War

text: Article 24 stated: "Every man shall be free to choose and profess any religious belief as long as it is lawful and it cannot be punished under criminal law. The Congress shall not be authorized to enact laws either establishing or prohibiting a particular religion. Religious ceremonies of public nature shall be ordinarily performed at the temples. Those performed outdoors shall be regulated under the law."


title: Cristero War

text: After a period of peaceful resistance to the enforcement of the anticlerical provisions of the Constitution by Mexican Catholics, skirmishing broke out in 1926, and violent uprisings began in 1927. The government called the rebels "Cristeros" since they invoked the name of Jesus Christ under the title of "Cristo Rey" or "Christ the King", and the rebels soon used the name themselves. The rebellion is known for the Feminine Brigades of St. Joan of Arc, a brigade of women who assisted the rebels in smuggling guns and ammunition, and for certain priests who were tortured and murdered in public and later canonized by Pope John Paul II. The rebellion eventually ended by diplomatic means brokered by the American Ambassador Dwight W. Morrow, with financial relief and logistical assistance provided by the Knights of Columbus.


title: Cristero War

text: The rebellion attracted the attention of Pope Pius XI, who issued a series of papal encyclicals from 1925 to 1937. On November 18, 1926, he issued "Iniquis afflictisque" ("On the Persecution of the Church in Mexico") to denounce the violent anticlerical persecution in Mexico. Despite the government's promises, the persecution of the Church continued. In response, Pius issued "Acerba animi" on September 29, 1932.


title: Cristero War

text: Violence on a limited scale occurred throughout the early 1920s, but it never rose to the level of widespread conflict. In 1926, the passage of stringent anticlerical criminal laws and their enforcement by the Calles Law, together with peasant revolts in the heavily-Catholic Bajío and the clampdown on popular religious celebrations such as fiestas, caused scattered guerrilla operations to coalesce into a serious armed revolt against the government.


title: Cristero War

text: Both Catholic and anticlerical groups turned to terrorism. Of the several uprisings against the Mexican government in the 1920s, the Cristero War was the most devastating and had the most long-term effects. The diplomatic settlement of 1929 brokered by the American Ambassador Dwight Morrow between the Catholic Church and the Mexican government was supported by the Vatican. Although many Cristeros continued fighting, the Church no longer gave them tacit support. The persecution of Catholics and anti-government terrorist attacks continued into the 1940s, when the remaining organized Cristero groups were incorporated into the Sinarquista Party.


title: Cristero War

text: The Mexican Revolution started in 1910 against the dictatorship of Porfirio Díaz and for the masses' demand of land for the peasantry. Francisco I. Madero was the first revolutionary leader. He was elected president in November 1911 but was overthrown and executed in 1913 by conservative General Victoriano Huerta in a series of events now known as the Ten Tragic Days. After Huerta seized power, Archbishop Leopoldo Ruiz y Flóres from Morelia published a letter condemning the coup and distancing the Church from Huerta. The newspaper of the National Catholic Party, representing the views of the bishops, severely attacked Huerta and so the new regime jailed the party's president and halted the publication of the newspaper. Nevertheless, some members of the party participated in Huerta's regime, such as Eduardo Tamariz. The revolutionary generals Venustiano Carranza, Francisco Villa and Emiliano Zapata, who won against Huerta's federal army under the Plan of Guadalupe, had friends among Catholics and the local parish priests who aided them but also blamed high-ranking Catholic clergy for supporting Huerta.


title: Cristero War

text: Carranza was the first president under the 1917 Constitution but he was overthrown by his former ally Álvaro Obregón in 1919. Obregón took over the presidency in late 1920 and effectively applied the Constitution's anticlerical laws in areas in which the Church was fragile. The uneasy truce with the Church ended with Obregón's 1924 handpicked succession of the atheist Plutarco Elías Calles. Mexican Jacobins, supported by Calles's central government, engaged in secular antireligious campaigns to eradicate what they called "superstition" and "fanaticism," which included the desecration of religious objects as well as the persecution and the murder of members of the clergy.


title: Cristero War

text: Calles applied the anticlerical laws stringently throughout the country and added his own anticlerical legislation. In June 1926, he signed the "Law for Reforming the Penal Code," which was unofficially called Calles Law. It provided specific penalties for priests and individuals who violated the provisions of the 1917 Constitution. For instance, wearing clerical garb in public, outside church buildings, earned a fine of 500 pesos (then the equivalent of US$250), and priests who criticized the government could be imprisoned for five years. Some states enacted oppressive measures. Chihuahua enacted a law permitting only one priest to serve all Catholics in the state. To help enforce the law, Calles seized church property, expelled all foreign priests and closed monasteries, convents and religious schools.


title: Cristero War

text: In response to the measures, Catholic organizations began to intensify their resistance. The most important group was the National League for the Defense of Religious Liberty, founded in 1924, which was joined by the Mexican Association of Catholic Youth, founded in 1913, and the Popular Union, a Catholic political party founded in 1925.


title: Cristero War

text: In 1926, Calles intensified tensions against the clergy by ordering all local churches in and around Jalisco to be bolted shut. The places of worship remained shut for two years. On July 14, Catholic bishops endorsed plans for an economic boycott against the government, which was particularly effective in west-central Mexico (the states of Jalisco, Michoacán, Guanajuato, Aguascalientes, and Zacatecas). Catholics in those areas stopped attending movies and plays and using public transportation, and Catholic teachers stopped teaching in secular schools.


title: Cristero War

text: The bishops worked to have the offending articles of the Constitution amended. Pope Pius XI explicitly approved the plan. The Calles government considered the bishops' activism to be sedition and had many more churches closed. In September 1926, the episcopate submitted a proposal to amend the Constitution, but the Mexican Congress rejected it on September 22.


title: Cristero War

text: On August 3, in Guadalajara, Jalisco, some 400 armed Catholics shut themselves in the Church of Our Lady of Guadalupe ("Santuario de Nuestra Señora de Guadalupe"). They exchanged gunfire with federal troops and surrendered when they ran out of ammunition. According to American consular sources, the battle resulted in 18 dead and 40 wounded. The following day, in Sahuayo, Michoacán, 240 government soldiers stormed the parish church. The priest and his vicar were killed in the ensuing violence.


title: Cristero War

text: On August 14, government agents staged a purge of the Chalchihuites, Zacatecas, chapter of the Association of Catholic Youth and executed its spiritual adviser, Father Luis Bátiz Sainz. The execution caused a band of ranchers, led by Pedro Quintanar, to seize the local treasury and to declare themselves in rebellion. At the height of the rebellion, they held a region including the entire northern part of Jalisco. Luis Navarro Origel, mayor of Pénjamo, Guanajuato, led another uprising on September 28. His men were defeated by federal troops in the open land around the town but retreated into the mountains, where they engaged in guerrilla warfare. In support of the two guerrilla Apache clans, the Chavez and Trujillos helped smuggle arms, munitions and supplies from the U.S. state of New Mexico.


title: Cristero War

text: That was followed by a September 29 uprising in Durango, led by Trinidad Mora, and an October 4 rebellion in southern Guanajuato, led by former General Rodolfo Gallegos. Both rebel leaders adopted guerrilla tactics since their forces were no match for federal troops. Meanwhile, rebels in Jalisco, particularly the region northeast of Guadalajara, quietly began assembling forces. Led by 27-year-old René Capistrán Garza, the leader of the Mexican Association of Catholic Youth, the region would become the main focal point of the rebellion.


title: Cristero War

text: The formal rebellion began on January 1, 1927, with a manifesto sent by Garza, "A la Nación" ("To the Nation"). It declared that "the hour of battle has sounded" and that "the hour of victory belongs to God." With the declaration, the state of Jalisco, which had been seemingly quiet since the Guadalajara church uprising, exploded. Bands of rebels moving in the "Los Altos" region northeast of Guadalajara began seizing villages and were often armed with only ancient muskets and clubs. The rebels had scarce logistical supplies and relied heavily on the Feminine Brigades of St. Joan of Arc and raids on towns, trains, and ranches to supply themselves with money, horses, ammunition, and food. By contrast, the Calles government was supplied with arms and ammunition by the American government later in the war. In at least one battle, American pilots provided air support for the federal army against the Cristero rebels.


title: Cristero War

text: The Calles government failed at first to take the threat seriously. The rebels did well against the "agraristas", a rural militia recruited throughout Mexico, and the Social Defense forces, the local militia, but were at first always defeated by regular federal troops, who guarded the main cities. The federal army then had 79,759 men. When the Jalisco federal commander, General Jesús Ferreira, moved in on the rebels, he matter-of-factly wired to army headquarters that "it will be less a campaign than a hunt." That sentiment was held also by Calles.


title: Cristero War

text: However, the rebels planned their battles fairly well considering that most of them had little to no previous military experience. The most successful rebel leaders were Jesús Degollado, a pharmacist; Victoriano Ramírez, a ranch hand; and two priests, Aristeo Pedroza and José Reyes Vega. Reyes Vega was renowned, and Cardinal Davila deemed him a "black-hearted assassin." At least five priests took up arms, and many others supported them in various ways.


title: Cristero War

text: Many of the rebel peasants who took up arms in the fight had different motivations from the Catholic Church. Many were still fighting for agrarian land reform, which had been years earlier the focal point of the Mexican Revolution. The peasantry was still upset of the usurpation of its rightful title to the land.


title: Cristero War

text: The Mexican episcopate never officially supported the rebellion, but the rebels had some indications that their cause was legitimate. Bishop José Francisco Orozco of Guadalajara remained with the rebels. Although he formally rejected armed rebellion, he was unwilling to leave his flock.


title: Cristero War

text: On February 23, 1927, the Cristeros defeated federal troops for the first time at San Francisco del Rincón, Guanajuato, followed by another victory at San Julián, Jalisco. However, they quickly began to lose in the face of superior federal forces, retreated into remote areas, and constantly fled federal soldiers. Most of the leadership of the revolt in the state of Jalisco was forced to flee to the U.S. although Ramírez and Vega remained.


title: Cristero War

text: In April 1927, the leader of the civilian wing of the Cristiada, Anacleto González Flores, was captured, tortured, and killed. The media and the government declared victory, and plans were made for a re-education campaign in the areas that had rebelled. As if to prove that the rebellion was not extinguished and to avenge his death, Vega led a raid against a train carrying a shipment of money for the Bank of Mexico on April 19, 1927. The raid was a success, but Vega's brother was killed in the fighting.


title: Cristero War

text: The "concentration" policy, rather than suppressing the revolt, gave it new life, as thousands of men began to aid and join the rebels in resentment for their treatment by the government. When rains came, the peasants were allowed to return to the harvest, and there was now more support than ever for the Cristeros. By August 1927, they had consolidated their movement and had begun constant attacks on federal troops garrisoned in their towns. They would soon be joined by Enrique Gorostieta, a retired general hired by the National League for the Defense of Religious Liberty. Although Gorostieta was originally a liberal and a skeptic, he eventually wore a cross around his neck and speak openly of his reliance on God.


title: Cristero War

text: On June 21, 1927, the first Women's Brigade was formed in Zapopan. It began with 16 women and one man, but after a few days, it grew to 135 members and soon came to number 17,000. Its mission was to obtain money, weapons, provisions, and information for the combatant men and to care for the wounded. By March 1928, some 10,000 women were involved in the struggle, with many smuggling weapons into combat zones by carrying them in carts filled with grain or cement. By the end of the war, it numbered some 25,000.


title: Cristero War

text: With close ties to the Church and the clergy, the De La Torre family was instrumental in bringing the Cristero Movement to northern Mexico. The family, originally from Zacatecas and Guanajuato, moved to Aguascalientes and then, in 1922, to San Luis Potosí. It moved again to Tampico for economic reasons and finally to Nogales (both the Mexican city and its similarly named sister city across the border in Arizona) to escape persecution from authorities because of its involvement in the Church and the rebels.


title: Cristero War

text: The Cristeros maintained the upper hand throughout 1928, and in 1929, the government faced a new crisis: a revolt within army ranks that was led by Arnulfo R. Gómez in Veracruz. The Cristeros tried to take advantage by a failed attack on Guadalajara in late March 1929. The rebels managed to take Tepatitlán on April 19, but Vega was killed. The rebellion was met with equal force, and the Cristeros were soon facing divisions within their own ranks.


title: Cristero War

text: Another difficulty facing the Cristeros and especially the Catholic Church was the extended period without a place of worship. The clergy faced the fear of driving away the faithful masses by engaging in war for so long. They also lacked the overwhelming sympathy or support from many aspects of Mexican society, even among many Catholics.


title: Cristero War

text: In October 1927, the American ambassador, Dwight Morrow, initiated a series of breakfast meetings with Calles at which they would discuss a range of issues from the religious uprising to oil and irrigation. That earned him the nickname "the ham and eggs diplomat" in U.S. papers. Morrow wanted the conflict to end for regional security and to help find a solution to the oil problem in the U.S. He was aided in his efforts by Father John J. Burke of the National Catholic Welfare Conference. Calles's term as president was coming to an end, and ex-President Álvaro Obregón had been elected president and was scheduled to take office on December 1, 1928. Obregón had been more lenient to Catholics during his time in office than Calles, but it was also generally accepted among Mexicans, including the Cristeros, that Calles was his puppet leader. Two weeks after his election, Obregón was assassinated by a Catholic radical, José de León Toral, which gravely damaged the peace process.


title: Cristero War

text: In September 1928, Congress named Emilio Portes Gil as interim president with a special election to be held in November 1929. Portes was more open to the Church than Calles had been and allowed Morrow and Burke to restart the peace initiative. Portes told a foreign correspondent on May 1, 1929, that "the Catholic clergy, when they wish, may renew the exercise of their rites with only one obligation, that they respect the laws of the land." The next day, the exiled Archbishop Leopoldo Ruíz y Flores issued a statement that the bishops would not demand the repeal of the laws but only their more lenient enforcement.


title: Cristero War

text: Morrow managed to bring the parties to agreement on June 21, 1929. His office drafted a pact called the "arreglos" ("agreement"), which allowed worship to resume in Mexico and granted three concessions to the Catholics. Only priests who were named by hierarchical superiors would be required to register; religious instruction in churches but not in schools would be permitted; and all citizens, including the clergy, would be allowed to make petitions to reform the laws. However, the most important parts of the agreement were that the Church would recover the right to use its properties, and priests would recover their rights to live on the properties. Legally speaking, the Church was not allowed to own real estate, and its former facilities remained federal property. However, the Church effectively took control over the properties. In the convenient arrangement for both parties, the Church ostensibly ended its support for the rebels.


title: Cristero War

text: Over the previous two years, anticlerical officers, who were hostile to the federal government for reasons other than its position on religion, had joined the rebels. When the agreement between the government and the Church was made known, only a minority of the rebels went home, mainly those who felt their battle had been won. On the other hand, since the rebels themselves had not been consulted in the talks, many felt betrayed, and some continued to fight. The Church threatened those rebels with excommunication and the rebellion gradually died out. The officers, fearing that they would be tried as traitors, tried to keep the rebellion alive. Their attempt failed, and many were captured and shot, and others escaped to San Luis Potosí, where General Saturnino Cedillo gave them refuge.


title: Cristero War

text: The war had claimed the lives of some 90,000 people: 56,882 federals, 30,000 Cristeros, and numerous civilians and Cristeros who were killed in anticlerical raids after the war had ended. As promised by Portes Gil, the Calles Law remained on the books, but there were no organized federal attempts to enforce it. Nonetheless, in several localities, officials continued persecution of Catholic priests, based on their interpretation of the law.


title: Cristero War

text: In 1992, the Mexican government amended the constitution by granting all religious groups legal status, conceding them property rights, and lifting restrictions on the number of priests in the country.


title: Cristero War

text: American councils and Mexican councils, mostly newly formed, of the Knights of Columbus, both opposed the persecution by the Mexican government. So far, nine of those who were beatified or canonized were Knights. The American Knights collected more than $1 million in order to assist exiles from Mexico, fund the continuation of the education of expelled seminarians, and inform U.S. citizens about the oppression. They circulated five million leaflets about the war in the United States, held hundreds of lectures, spread the news via radio, and paid to "smuggle" a friendly journalist into Mexico so he could cover the war for an American audience.


title: Cristero War

text: In addition to lobbying the American public, the Knights met United States President Calvin Coolidge and pressed him for US intervention on behalf of the rebels.


title: Cristero War

text: According to former Supreme Knight of the Knights of Columbus, Carl A. Anderson, two thirds of Mexican Catholic councils were shut down by the Mexican government. In response, the Knights of Columbus published posters and magazines which presented Cristero soldiers in a positive light.


title: Cristero War

text: In the mid-1920s, high-ranking members of the anti-Catholic Ku Klux Klan offered Calles $10,000,000 in order to aid him in his war against the Catholic insurgents, but there is no evidence that the Klan's offer was accepted.


title: Cristero War

text: The government often did not abide by the terms of the truce. For example, it executed some 500 Cristero leaders and 5,000 other Cristeros. Catholics continued to oppose Calles's insistence on a state monopoly on education, which suppressed Catholic education and introduced secular education in its place: "We must enter and take possession of the mind of childhood, the mind of youth." Calles's military persecution of Cristeros after the truce would be officially condemned by Mexican President Lázaro Cárdenas and the Mexican Congress in 1935. Between 1935 and 1936, Cárdenas had Calles and many of his close associates arrested and forced them into exile soon afterwards. Freedom of worship was no longer suppressed, but some states refused to repeal Calles's policy. Relations with the Church improved under President Cárdenas.


title: Cristero War

text: The government's disregard for the Church, however, did not relent until 1940, when President Manuel Ávila Camacho, a practicing Catholic, took office. During Cárdenas presidency, Church buildings in the country continued in the hands of the Mexican government, and the nation's policies regarding the Church still fell into federal jurisdiction. Under Camacho, bans against Church anticlerical laws were no longer enforced anywhere in Mexico.


title: Cristero War

text: The effects of the war on the Church were profound. Between 1926 and 1934, at least 40 priests were killed. There were 4,500 priests serving the people before the rebellion, but by 1934, there were only 334 licensed by the government to serve 15 million Catholics. The rest had been eliminated by emigration, expulsion, assassination, or not obtaining licenses. In 1935, 17 states had no registered priests.


title: Cristero War

text: The end of the Cristero War affected emigration to the United States. "In the aftermath of their defeat, many of the Cristeros – by some estimates as much as 5 percent of Mexico's population – fled to the United States. Many of them made their way to Los Angeles, where they were received by John Joseph Cantwell, bishop of what was then the Los Angeles-San Diego diocese." Under Archbishop Cantwell's sponsorship, the Cristero refugees became a substantial community in Los Angeles, California, in 1934 staging a parade some 40,000-strong throughout the city. Additionally, several other cites such as Chicago, Illinois and San Antonio, Texas and other cities saw in an increase in Mexican Catholics fleeing because of the war.


title: Cristero War

text: The Calles Law was repealed after Cárdenas became president in 1934. Cárdenas earned respect from Pope Pius XI and befriended Mexican Archbishop Luis María Martínez, a major figure in Mexico's Catholic Church who successfully persuaded Mexicans to obey the government's laws peacefully. The Church refused to back Mexican insurgent Saturnino Cedillo's failed revolt against Cárdenas although Cedillo endorsed more power for the Church.


title: Cristero War

text: Cárdenas's government continued to suppress religion in the field of education during his administration. The Mexican Congress amended Article 3 of the Constitution in October 1934 to include the following introductory text: "The education imparted by the State shall be a socialist one and, in addition to excluding all religious doctrine, shall combat fanaticism and prejudices by organizing its instruction and activities in a way that shall permit the creation in youth of an exact and rational concept of the Universe and of social life."


title: Cristero War

text: The implementation of socialist education met with strong opposition in some parts of academia and in areas that had been controlled by the Cristeros. Pope Pius XI also published the encyclical "Firmissimam constantiam" on March 28, 1937, expressing his opposition to the "impious and corruptive school" (paragraph 22) and his support for Catholic Action in Mexico. That was the third and last encyclical published by Pius XI that referred to the religious situation in Mexico. The amendment was ignored by President Manuel Ávila Camacho and was officially repealed from the Constitution in 1946. Constitutional bans against the Church would not be enforced anywhere in Mexico during Camacho's presidency.


title: Cristero War

text: Many former Cristeros took up arms again and fought as independent rebels and some Catholics joined them. They targeted unarmed public school teachers who implemented secular education and committed atrocities against them. Government supporters blamed the atrocities on the Cristeros in general.


title: Cristero War

text: Some of the teachers who were paid by the government refused to leave their schools and communities, and as a result, they sustained mutilations when Cristeros cut their ears off. Thus, the teachers who were murdered during the conflict are frequently referred to as "maestros desorejados" ("teachers without ears").


title: Cristero War

text: In some cases, teachers were tortured and killed by former Cristero rebels. It is calculated that approximately 300 rural teachers were killed between 1935 and 1939, and other authors calculate that at least 223 teachers were victims of the violence which occurred between 1931 and 1940, the acts of violence which occurred during this period included the assassinations of Carlos Sayago, Carlos Pastraña, and Librado Labastida in Teziutlán, Puebla, the hometown of President Manuel Ávila Camacho; the execution of a teacher, Carlos Toledano, who was burned alive in Tlapacoyan, Veracruz; and the lynching of at least 42 teachers in the state of Michoacán.


title: Cristero War

text: The Mexican bishops fearing that they could be blamed for the attacks and punished, formed a lay group called Las Legiones, which would infiltrate these independent rebel groups and remove people responsible for the violence against civilians from their ranks. This style of infiltration is rumored to have influenced the tactics of the Legion of Christ.


title: Cristero War

text: The Catholic Church has recognized several of those who were killed in the Cristero War as martyrs, including Miguel Pro, a Jesuit who was shot dead without trial by a firing squad on November 23, 1927, for his alleged involvement in an assassination attempt against former President Álvaro Obregón, though his supporters maintained that he was executed for carrying out his priestly duties in defiance of the government. His beatification occurred in 1988.


title: Cristero War

text: On May 21, 2000, Pope John Paul II canonized a group of 25 martyrs who were killed during the Cristero War. They had been beatified on November 22, 1992. Of this group, 22 were secular clergy, and three were laymen. They did not take up arms but refused to leave their flocks and ministries and were shot or hanged by government forces for offering the sacraments. Most were executed by federal forces. Although Pedro de Jesús Maldonado was killed in 1937, after the war ended, he is considered a member of the Cristeros.


title: Cristero War

text: The Catholic Church recognized 13 additional victims of the War as martyrs on November 20, 2005, thus paving the way for their beatifications. This group was mostly lay people, including Luis Magaña Servín and 14-year-old José Sánchez del Río. On November 20, 2005, at Jalisco Stadium in Guadalajara, José Saraiva Cardinal Martins celebrated the beatifications. Furthermore some religious relics have been brought to the United States from Jalisco and are currently located at Our Lady of the Mount Church in Cicero, Illinois.


title: Cristero War

text: The Mexican historian and researcher Jean Meyer argues that the Cristero soldiers were peasants who tried to resist the heavy pressures of the modern bourgeois state, the Mexican Revolution, the city elites, and the rich, all of whom wanted to suppress the Catholic faith.


title: Cristero War

text: Many films, shorts, and documentaries about the war have been produced since 1929 such as the following:


title: Teddy bear

text: A teddy bear is a stuffed toy in the form of a bear. Developed apparently simultaneously by toymakers Morris Michtom in the U.S. and Richard Steiff under his aunt Margarete Steiff's company in Germany in the early 20th century, the teddy bear, named after President Theodore Roosevelt, became a popular children's toy and has been celebrated in story, song, and film.


title: Teddy bear

text: Since the creation of the first teddy bears which sought to imitate the form of real bear cubs, "teddies" have greatly varied in form, style, color, and material. They have become collector's items, with older and rarer teddies appearing at public auctions. Teddy bears are among the most popular gifts for children and are often given to adults to signify affection, congratulations, or sympathy.


title: Teddy bear

text: The name "teddy" "bear" comes from former United States President Theodore Roosevelt, who was often referred to as "Teddy" (though he loathed being referred to as such). The name originated from an incident on a bear hunting trip in Mississippi in November 1902, to which Roosevelt was invited by Mississippi Governor Andrew H. Longino. There were several other hunters competing, and most of them had already killed an animal. A suite of Roosevelt's attendants, led by Holt Collier, cornered, clubbed, and tied an American black bear to a willow tree after a long exhausting chase with hounds. They called Roosevelt to the site and suggested that he shoot it. He refused to shoot the bear himself, deeming this unsportsmanlike, but instructed that the bear be killed to put it out of its misery, and it became the topic of a political cartoon by Clifford Berryman in "The Washington Post" on November 16, 1902. While the initial cartoon of an adult black bear lassoed by a handler and a disgusted Roosevelt had symbolic overtones, later issues of that and other Berryman cartoons made the bear smaller and cuter.


title: Teddy bear

text: Morris Michtom saw the Berryman drawing of Roosevelt and was inspired to create a teddy bear. He created a tiny soft bear cub and put it in his candy shop window at 404 Tompkins Avenue in Brooklyn with a sign "Teddy's bear." The toys were an immediate success and Michtom founded the Ideal Novelty and Toy Co.


title: Teddy bear

text: A little earlier in 1902 in Germany, the Steiff firm produced a stuffed bear from Richard Steiff's designs. Steiff exhibited the toy at the Leipzig Toy Fair in March 1903, where it was seen by Hermann Berg, a buyer for George Borgfeldt & Company in New York (and the brother of composer Alban Berg). He ordered 3,000 to be sent to the United States. Although Steiff's records show that the bears were produced, they are not recorded as arriving in the U.S., and no example of the type, "55 PB", has ever been seen, leading to the story that the bears were shipwrecked. However, the shipwreck story is disputed – author Günther Pfeiffer notes that it was only recorded in 1953 and says it is more likely that the 55 PB was not sufficiently durable to survive until the present day. Although Steiff and Michtom were both making teddy bears at around the same time, neither would have known of the other's creation due to poor transatlantic communication.


title: Teddy bear

text: North American educator Seymour Eaton wrote the children's book series "The Roosevelt Bears", while composer John Walter Bratton wrote an instrumental "The Teddy Bears' Picnic", a "characteristic two-step", in 1907, which later had words written to it by lyricist Jimmy Kennedy in 1932.


title: Teddy bear

text: Early teddy bears were made to look like real bears, with extended snouts and beady eyes. Modern teddy bears tend to have larger eyes and foreheads and smaller noses, babylike features intended to enhance the toy's "cuteness". Some teddy bears are also designed to represent different species, such as polar bears and brown bears, as well as pandas and koalas.


title: Teddy bear

text: While early teddy bears were covered in tawny mohair fur, modern teddy bears are manufactured in a wide variety of commercially available fabrics, most commonly synthetic fur, but also velour, denim, cotton, satin, and canvas.


title: Teddy bear

text: Commercially made, mass-produced teddy bears are predominantly made as toys for children. These bears either have safety joints for attaching arms, legs, and heads, or else the joints are sewn and not articulated. They must have securely fastened eyes that do not pose a choking hazard for small children. These "plush" bears must meet a rigid standard of construction in order to be marketed to children in the United States and in the European Union.


title: Teddy bear

text: There are also companies, like Steiff, that sell handmade collectible bears that can be purchased in stores or over the Internet.


title: Teddy bear

text: The majority of teddy bears are manufactured in countries with low production costs, such as China and Indonesia. A few small, single-person producers in the United States make unique, non-mass-produced teddy bears. In the United Kingdom one small, traditional teddy bear company remains, Merrythought, which was established in 1930. Mohair, the fur shorn or combed from a breed of long haired goats, is woven into cloth, dyed and trimmed.


title: Teddy bear

text: Teddy bears are a favourite form of soft toy for amateur toy makers, with many patterns commercially produced or available online. Many "teddies" are home-made as gifts or for charity, while "teddy bear artists" often create "teddies" for retail, decorating them individually with commercial and recycled ornaments such as sequins, beads and ribbons. Sewn teddy bears are made from a wide range of materials including felt, cotton and velour. While many are stitched, others are made from yarn, either knitted or crocheted.


title: Teddy bear

text: Retail sales of stuffed plush animals including teddy bears totaled $1.3 billion in 2006, with manufacturers including Gund and Ty Inc.


title: Teddy bear

text: Teddy bear plush toys have enjoyed ongoing popularity, complete with specialty retailers such as Teddy Atelier Stursberg and Vermont Teddy Bear Company, as well as do-it-yourself chains including Build-A-Bear Workshop.


title: Teddy bear

text: The world's first teddy bear museum was set up in Petersfield, Hampshire, England, in 1984. In 1990, a similar foundation was set up in Naples, Florida, United States. These were closed in 2006 and 2005 respectively, and the bears were sold in auctions, but there are many teddy bear museums around the world today.


title: Teddy bear

text: Because police, fire and medical officials found that giving a teddy bear to a child during a crisis stabilized and calmed them, NAPLC created the Teddy Bear Cops program to distribute teddy bears to police, fire, and medical responders throughout the United States.


title: Teddy bear

text: On April Fools' Day 1972, issue 90 of "The Veterinary Record" published a paper on the diseases of "Brunus edwardii" detailing common afflictions of teddy bears.


title: Anti-materiel rifle

text: An anti-materiel rifle (AMR) is a rifle designed for use against military equipment, structures, and other hardware (materiel). Anti-materiel rifles are chambered in significantly larger calibers than conventional rifles and are employed to eliminate equipment such as engines and unarmored or lightly armored targets. While modern armored vehicles are resistant to anti-materiel rifles, the extended range and penetration still has many modern applications. While not intended for use against human targets, the bullet weight and velocity of anti-materiel rifles gives them exceptional long-range capability even when compared with designated sniper rifles. Anti-materiel rifles are made in both bolt-action as well as semi-automatic designs.


title: Anti-materiel rifle

text: The origins of the anti-materiel rifle go back to the First World War, during which the first anti-tank rifles appeared. While modern tanks and most other armored vehicles are too well protected to be affected by anti-materiel rifles, the guns are still effective for attacking unarmored or lightly armored vehicles. They can also be used against stationary enemy aircraft, missile launchers, radar equipment, small watercraft, communications equipment, crew served weapons and similar targets. Their value lies in their ability to precisely target and disable enemy assets from long range at relatively low cost.


title: Anti-materiel rifle

text: Despite having been designed to be used against equipment, anti-materiel rifles have also been used for killing soldiers from distances that are beyond the effective range of rifle-caliber cartridges. Anti-materiel rifles can also penetrate most obstacles and building materials, making them viable for engaging targets behind cover that is usually hard enough to stop rifle-caliber cartridges.


title: Anti-materiel rifle

text: The offensive use of anti-materiel rifles or "special application scoped rifles" (SASR) is termed "hard target interdiction" (HTI) by the United States military.


title: Anti-materiel rifle

text: Anti-materiel rifles can also be used in non-offensive rolesfor example, for safely destroying unexploded ordnance.


title: Anti-materiel rifle

text: The history of anti-materiel rifles dates back to use during the First World War. The need for anti-tank rifles was first encountered by the Germans when faced with the British Mark 1 tank. The Mark I could cross ditches up to wide, which made it a major threat to infantry in trench defenses. As a counter, the Germans first used "direct fire mortars", which were mortars aimed at low angles pointing towards enemy tanks. Later, the Germans developed the T-Gewehr anti-tank rifle, which can be credited with being the first anti-materiel rifle. The rifle was designed to penetrate the thick armor of the British tanks. The rifle weighed when loaded, fired a 13.2 mm round weighing , and had an effective range of about . This weapon had a two-man crew: one to load and the other to fire the weapon, although they often switched roles. The recoil of this weapon was so high that it was known to break collar bones and dislocate shoulders. The rifle fired a steel core armor-piercing round specifically designed to be used with this rifle.


title: Anti-materiel rifle

text: During World War II, anti-materiel guns were widely used. The British Boys .55 calibre anti-tank rifle was a significant advance on the usual .303 calibre ammunition used by its infantry. Another weapon used was the Lahti L-39 rifle, an anti-materiel rifle designed by the Finns. One version was designed to fire a 13.2 mm cartridge and another a 20 mm cartridge. There was debate over which was more effective at piercing armor. Some argued that the smaller cartridge travelled faster and could penetrate deeper into the armor, while some believed that the higher caliber rounds would cause greater damage. The weapon was quite heavy at and had an barrel, and it carried the nickname "the elephant gun".


title: Anti-materiel rifle

text: During the Cold War the Barrett M82 rifle was produced by the United States, and was chambered to fire a .50 Browning 12.7x99 mm round. This weapon was sold by the United States to Swedish forces during the Cold War.


title: Anti-materiel rifle

text: The M82 rifle first saw action in the early 1990s, during the Gulf War. The US Marine Corps initially purchased around 125 M82 rifles; orders from the Army and Air Force followed. These weapons were used with rounds such as armor piercing incendiary rounds (API) which were effective against such targets as buildings, trucks, and parked aircraft. The purpose of this round was to penetrate non-armored vehicles and burst into flames on impact.


title: Anti-materiel rifle

text: Anti-materiel guns were used during World War I and World War II to penetrate the armor of tanks. In the modern era, the armor of tanks and other vehicles increased, making it difficult for .50 BMG bullets to penetrate. Modern day anti-materiel rifles are used to penetrate light armor vehicles or targets such as concrete barricades and buildings as well as being used to destroy unexploded ordnance. One of the most popular anti-materiel rifles today is the Barrett M107, not only for its military use but also as one of the most popular weapons available to civilians. This is due to the design of the weapon, being built with a suppressor-ready muzzle brake, a thermal cheek pad, and a hand grip mounted on the inside of the rail. This rifle fires a .50 BMG caliber bullet and weighs , with a barrel length of . Other popular anti-materiel rifles include the Zastava M93 Black arrow, McMillan Tac-50, Gepard GM6 Lynx, AMSD OM 50 Nemesis, Accuracy International AS50, Mechem NTW-20, Istiglal IST-14.5, WKW Wilk and the CheyTac Intervention M-200.


title: Anti-materiel rifle

text: Anti-materiel rifles are primarily for use against military equipment rather than personnel. The type and size of ammunition defines a rifle as anti-materiel. When used with conventional ball or target ammunition the rifle does not have any anti-materiel capability above and beyond that of any other high velocity, large calibre rifle. The Saint Petersburg Declaration of 1868 deemed explosive rounds to be inhumane in use against personnel, but they can be employed against materiel. The size of the bullet also plays a factor in the definition. Most modern militaries use rifles that fire in 5.56mm or 7.62mm round, while anti-materiel rifles tend to fire a 12.7-mm round with the capacity for greater destruction and penetration.


title: Anti-materiel rifle

text: In general, anti-materiel rifles are chambered for 12.7×99 mm NATO (.50 BMG), 12.7×108 mm Russian, 14.5×114 mm Russian, and 20 mm cartridges. The large cartridges are required to be able to fire projectiles containing usable payloads, such as explosives, armor-piercing cores, incendiaries, or combinations of these, as found in the Raufoss Mk 211 projectile.


title: Anti-materiel rifle

text: The recoil produced by the cartridges employed dictates that these rifles are designed to be fired from the prone position. Bipods and monopods and muzzle brakes are used as accessories to employ these rifles as comfortably and accurately as possible. Firing several 12.7×99 mm NATO, 12.7×108 mm Russian, or larger caliber shots from the (unsupported) standing position or in a kneeling position would be very uncomfortable for the operator and can result in them being knocked over or sustaining a shoulder injury.


title: Anti-materiel rifle

text: Two- to three-man sniper teams are required when using an anti-materiel rifle, due to its size and weight, as well as its possible range. According to the US Army, the range of a standard sniper rifle firing a 7.62x51 mm NATO round is a distance of about while the Barrett's effective range is against personnel targets, and against materiel targets. The longest confirmed kill shot was made with a .50 BMG by a Canadian sniper in Iraq at .


title: Interstate 95

text: Interstate 95 (I-95) is the main north–south Interstate Highway on the East Coast of the United States, running from U.S. Route 1 (US 1) in Miami, Florida, to the Houlton–Woodstock Border Crossing between Maine and the Canadian province of New Brunswick. The highway largely parallels the Atlantic coast and US 1, except for the portion between Savannah, Georgia, and Washington, D.C., and the portion between Portland and Houlton in Maine, both of which follow a more direct inland route.


title: Interstate 95

text: I-95 serves as the principal road link between the major cities of the Eastern Seaboard. Major metropolitan areas along its route include Miami, Jacksonville, Savannah, Florence, Fayetteville, and Richmond in the Southeast; Washington, Baltimore, Wilmington, Philadelphia, Newark, and New York City in the Mid-Atlantic States; and New Haven, Providence, Boston, Portsmouth, and Portland in New England. Charleston, South Carolina, Wilmington, North Carolina, and Norfolk-Virginia Beach, Virginia, the three major coastal metros bypassed by the highway's inland portion, are connected to I-95 by I-26, I-40, and I-64, respectively.


title: Interstate 95

text: I-95 is one of the oldest routes of the Interstate Highway System. Many sections of I-95 incorporated pre-existing sections of toll roads where they served the same right of way. Until 2018, there was a gap in I-95's original routing in Central New Jersey caused by the cancellation of the Somerset Freeway. An interchange between the Pennsylvania Turnpike and I-95 was completed in September 2018; this allowed I-95 to be re-routed along New Jersey's Pearl Harbor Memorial Turnpike Extension into Pennsylvania, creating a continuous Interstate route from Maine to Florida for the first time.


title: Interstate 95

text: With a length of , I-95 is the longest north–south Interstate and the sixth-longest Interstate Highway overall. I-95 passes through 15 states (as well as a brief stretch in the District of Columbia while crossing the Potomac River), more than any other Interstate. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, only five of the 96 counties or county equivalents along its route are completely rural, while statistics provided by the I-95 Corridor Coalition suggest that the region served is "over three times more densely populated than the U.S. average and as densely settled as much of Western Europe". According to the Corridor Coalition, I-95 serves 110 million people and facilitates 40 percent of the country’s gross domestic product.


title: Interstate 95

text: I-95 begins at U.S. Route 1 just south of downtown Miami and travels along the state's east coast, passing through Ft. Lauderdale, West Palm Beach, the Gold Coast, Treasure Coast, Space Coast, Daytona Beach, Port Orange, Saint Augustine, and Jacksonville before entering the U.S. state of Georgia near the city of Brunswick. This portion of the highway was notably featured in the film "Flight of the Navigator" when the spaceship flew along the highway towards Miami. In Miami and Ft. Lauderdale, SunPass Express lanes pass over the highway.


title: Interstate 95

text: Prior to 1987, a notable gap in the highway existed between West Palm Beach and Fort Pierce; I-95 traffic between those cities was diverted to Florida's Turnpike. Today, I-95 runs along a routing parallel to the turnpike.


title: Interstate 95

text: In the year 2010, more fatalities occurred along the Florida section of I-95 than on any other Interstate Highway in the country.


title: Interstate 95

text: In Georgia, I-95 closely parallels the coastline, travelling primarily through marshlands a few miles from the shore. The route bypasses the cores of major coastal cities Brunswick and Savannah, routing traffic through the western sides of both cities' metro areas; it connects to the latter city by an intersection with I-16 before crossing into South Carolina. The exit numbers were converted from a sequential system to a mileage based system around the year 2000. I-95 in Georgia has the unsigned designation of State Route 405 (SR 405).


title: Interstate 95

text: Entering South Carolina, I-95 diverts from its coastal route to a more inland route to the west. I-95 does not go near any major cities in South Carolina, with the largest city along its route being Florence, the tenth largest in the state. The rest of South Carolina can be accessed via other interstates that intersect I-95. It intersects I-26 near Harleyville, which provides access to Charleston, Columbia, and Upstate South Carolina. It also intersects I-20 at Florence, which also connects to Columbia and then on to Atlanta, Georgia. At the North Carolina border, I-95 passes the South of the Border roadside attraction.


title: Interstate 95

text: In North Carolina, I-95 informally serves as the separation between the state's western piedmont and eastern coastal plain regions, avoiding major cities like Raleigh and Durham. The route intersects I-74 near Lumberton, I-40 near Benson, and Future I-87/US 64 near Rocky Mount. Several medium sized cities lie along I-95 in North Carolina, including (from south to north) Fayetteville, Wilson, and Rocky Mount. At Gaston, I-95 crosses into Virginia.


title: Interstate 95

text: Much of I-95 in the Mid-Atlantic region is tolled, following the course of several turnpikes that pre-date the interstate highway system, as well as several other toll roads and toll bridges.


title: Interstate 95

text: I-95 enters the Mid-Atlantic region in Virginia and travels through the center of the densest and most populous urban region in the US. I-95 travels north-south through Virginia, passing through Petersburg, and follows the Richmond–Petersburg Turnpike into downtown Richmond (where it is concurrent briefly with I-64) and from there it turns northeast as it enters Northern Virginia. In the Washington Metropolitan Area, it is concurrent with the Capital Beltway from the Springfield Interchange along with Interstate 495, before passing through the southernmost corner of the District of Columbia for about along the Woodrow Wilson Bridge before entering Maryland near National Harbor.


title: Interstate 95

text: In Maryland, I-95 goes northeast toward Baltimore, paralleling the older Baltimore-Washington Parkway. I-95 uses the Fort McHenry Tunnel to travel under Baltimore's Inner Harbor, and travels through Northeast Maryland along the John F. Kennedy Memorial Highway, crossing into Delaware at Elkton.


title: Interstate 95

text: Entering Delaware at Newark, I-95 follows the Delaware Turnpike east across Delaware until the large and complex I-495/I-295/US 202/DE 141 interchange in Newport and turns northeast through Wilmington skirting the west side of the downtown area before leaving Delaware in Claymont at the state's extreme northeastern corner.


title: Interstate 95

text: Entering southeastern Pennsylvania near Marcus Hook, I-95 crosses Delaware County and the city of Chester, closely following the Delaware River. Entering Philadelphia near the Philadelphia International Airport, the freeway has an interchange with I-76 before it follows a large viaduct along the extreme eastern edge of Philadelphia's Center City. Northeast of Philadelphia, I-95 joins the Pennsylvania Turnpike near Bristol before entering New Jersey on the Delaware River–Turnpike Toll Bridge.


title: Interstate 95

text: In New Jersey, I-95 follows the Pearl Harbor Memorial Turnpike Extension of the New Jersey Turnpike, crossing the Delaware River on the Delaware River–Turnpike Toll Bridge, joining the mainline Turnpike at exit 6. I-95 has interchanges with I-78 in Newark and I-80 in southern Teaneck. At the end of the Turnpike in Fort Lee, I-95 turns east along its own freeway alignment and connects to New York City (and crosses into New York State) over the Hudson River via the George Washington Bridge.


title: Interstate 95

text: I-95 in New York City comprises all or part several named expressways, including the Trans-Manhattan Expressway, the Cross Bronx Expressway, and the Bruckner Expressway, as it crosses east-northeast across the boroughs of Manhattan and The Bronx. Within this stretch, I-95 intersects I-87 in the South Bronx, which connects to Albany and Upstate New York, as well as several auxiliary interstates that provide access to other New York City boroughs and to Long Island. Entering Westchester County in Pelham, I-95 then follows the New England Thruway northeast to the Connecticut border at Port Chester, where it continues as the Connecticut Turnpike.


title: Interstate 95

text: I-95 enters New England in the state of Connecticut, where it closely follows state's southern coast. The highway's direction through Connecticut is primarily east-west, and it passes through the most densely populated part of the state, including the cities of Stamford, Bridgeport (the state's most populous city), and New Haven. In New Haven, it intersects with I-91 as it passes into the more rural areas of the Lower Connecticut River Valley. I-95 leaves the Connecticut Turnpike at I-395 at the East Lyme/Waterford town line. I-95 next passes New London and Groton, before the route curves northeast and leaving its close connection to the coast. It leaves Connecticut in the town of North Stonington.


title: Interstate 95

text: I-95 enters Rhode Island in the town of Hopkinton, and connecting the rural areas of the southwestern corner of the state with the more metropolitan region around the state capital, Providence, in the state's northeastern corner. It leaves Rhode Island in the city of Pawtucket.


title: Interstate 95

text: Entering Massachusetts in Attleboro, I-95 heads northeast towards Boston. In Canton, roughly a mile south of Boston’s city limits, it turns to the west and begins a 37-mile long concurrency with Route 128, a beltway that traverses Boston's inner suburbs. At this point, I-93 has its southern terminus, and provides access to the city of Boston itself. I-95 intersects the Massachusetts Turnpike/I-90 at the Weston/Newton line and I-93 a second time at the tripoint of Woburn, Reading, and Stoneham. North of Boston, I-95 leaves the beltway and heads northward in Peabody, while Route 128 continues east to Cape Ann. I-95 leaves Massachusetts in Salisbury.


title: Interstate 95

text: I-95 enters New Hampshire in the town of Seabrook, following the pre-Interstate New Hampshire Turnpike and traversing the -long Seacoast Region and the historic city of Portsmouth where it leaves the state.


title: Interstate 95

text: In Maine, it follows the Maine Turnpike, closely following the coast in a northeasterly direction until reaching Portland, the state's largest city. From there it turns northward to Augusta, where the Maine Turnpike ends while I-95 continues north to Palmyra, where it turns east to Bangor. From Bangor it turns north again to Smyrna and makes a final turn to the east, reaching the Houlton–Woodstock Border Crossing in Houlton. The road continues into the Canadian province of New Brunswick as Route 95.


title: Interstate 95

text: Many parts of I-95 were made up of toll roads that had already been constructed or planned, particularly in the northeast. Many of these routes still exist today, but some have removed their tolls. Outside of Florida, all current I-95 toll facilities are compatible with the E-ZPass electronic payment system; in Florida, while I-95 can be driven toll-free, use of the '95 Express Managed Toll Lanes' requires a SunPass transponder (E-ZPass is compatible with SunPass).


title: Interstate 95

text: The toll roads utilized as part of I-95 formerly included Florida's Turnpike, the Richmond–Petersburg Turnpike (tolled until 1992), and the Connecticut Turnpike (tolled until 1985). Additionally, the Fuller Warren Bridge, spanning the St. Johns River in Jacksonville, Florida, was tolled until the 1980s. Today, tolls remain on Maryland's Fort McHenry Tunnel and John F. Kennedy Memorial Highway, the Delaware Turnpike, the Pennsylvania Turnpike, the New Jersey Turnpike, New York's George Washington Bridge and New England Thruway, the New Hampshire Turnpike, and the Maine Turnpike. Tolls are also collected at several points along I-95 in Rhode Island, but only from trucks.


title: Interstate 95

text: By 1968, three states had completed their sections of I-95: Connecticut, using its existing turnpikes; New York; and Delaware.


title: Interstate 95

text: Until 2018, a gap existed on I-95 within New Jersey. From Pennsylvania, I-95 entered the state on the Scudder Falls Bridge, and continued east to US 1 in Lawrence Township. Here, I-95 abruptly ended and transitioned into I-295. From New York, I-95 entered the state on the George Washington Bridge and followed the New Jersey Turnpike south to exit 6, ran along an extension of the turnpike, and ended on the Delaware River–Turnpike Toll Bridge at the Pennsylvania state line, where the route transitioned into I-276. This discontinuity was caused by the 1983 cancellation of the Somerset Freeway, a planned alignment of I-95 further inland from the turnpike. In order to close the gap, an interchange was constructed where I-95 crosses the Pennsylvania Turnpike in Bristol Township, Pennsylvania. After the first components of the interchange opened on September 22, 2018, I-95 was rerouted onto the Pennsylvania Turnpike, meeting up with where I-95 previously ended at the state line. This project closed the last remaining gap in the route. The former section of I-95 between the Pennsylvania Turnpike and US 1 in Lawrence became an extension of I-295. The interchange with the Pennsylvania Turnpike will be expanded in the future, connecting northbound I-95 with the westbound turnpike, and the eastbound turnpike with southbound I-95.


title: Interstate 95

text: In the 21st century, several large projects between Richmond, Virginia, and New Jersey have aimed to decrease congestion along the corridor. The reconstruction of the Springfield Interchange in Northern Virginia, just outside Washington, D.C., helped to ease traffic at the intersection of I-95, I-495, and I-395, and surrounding interchanges. The Springfield Interchange is one of the busiest highway junctions on the East Coast, serving between 400,000 and 500,000 vehicles per day. With the exception of HOT lanes on the Capital Beltway (I-495/I-95), this project was completed in July 2007.


title: Interstate 95

text: A few miles to the east was another major project: the Woodrow Wilson Bridge replacement. The bridge carries I-95/I-495 over the Potomac River. The former Woodrow Wilson Bridge, which has since been demolished, was a six-lane bridge that was severely over-capacity. The new bridge is actually two bridges with a total of 12 lanes; five in each direction, with an additional lane in each direction for future use (rapid-bus or train). This project was completed with the 10 lanes opened on December 13, 2008, greatly reducing the traffic delays on the beltway. The lanes are divided into two thru-lanes and three local lanes in each direction. About north of the Wilson Bridge, and about south of Baltimore near Laurel, Maryland, construction on a large new interchange began in 2008, was scheduled for completion in late 2011, and opened to traffic on November 9, 2014, which connects I-95 to Maryland Route 200.


title: Interstate 95

text: In 2006, the Virginia General Assembly passed SJ184, a resolution calling for an interstate compact to build a toll highway between Dover, Delaware, and Charleston, South Carolina, as an alternative to I-95 that would allow long-distance traffic to avoid the D.C. Metropolitan area.


title: Interstate 95

text: Federal legislation has identified I-95 through Connecticut as High Priority Corridor 65. A long-term multibillion-dollar program to upgrade the entire length of I-95 through Connecticut has been underway since the mid-1990s and is expected to continue through at least 2020. Several miles of the Connecticut Turnpike through Bridgeport were widened and brought up to Interstate standards. Work has shifted to reconstructing and widening of I-95 through New Haven, which includes replacing the Pearl Harbor Memorial Bridge. Environmental studies for reconstructing and widening of I-95 from New Haven to the Rhode Island state line are also progressing.


title: Interstate 95

text: There are plans to expand the I-95 corridor from Petersburg, Virginia, to Florida through a U.S. multi-state agreement to study how to improve the corridor through widening and reconstruction, with the goal of reducing congestion and improving overall safety for years to come.


title: Interstate 95

text: I-95 from the South Carolina–Georgia line to the freeway's southern terminus in South Florida has been widened to a minimum of six lanes. The section from Jacksonville to the I-4 junction in Daytona Beach was expanded to six lanes in 2005. Projects begun in 2009, widening the roadbed in Brevard County from the SR 528 junction in Cocoa to Palm Bay, as well as in northern Palm Beach County. The last segments of I-95 in Florida to remain at only four lanes have now been upgraded, providing motorists with about five-hundred miles of continuous six-lane roadbed.


title: Interstate 95

text: In 2009, state legislators representing Maine's Aroostook County proposed using federal economic stimulus funds to extend I-95 north to Maine's northernmost border community of Fort Kent via Caribou and Presque Isle. The proposed route would parallel New Brunswick's four-lane, limited access Trans-Canada Highway on the U.S. side of the Canada–United States border. Legislators argued that extension of the Interstate would promote economic growth in the region.


title: Interstate 95

text: Interstate 95 has many auxiliary routes. They can be found in most states the route runs through; with exceptions being Georgia, South Carolina, and New Hampshire. Business routes also exist in both Georgia and North Carolina.


title: Potsdam Conference

text: The Potsdam Conference () was held at Potsdam in the Soviet occupation zone from July 17 to August 2, 1945, to allow the three leading Allies to plan the postwar peace, while avoiding the mistakes of the Paris Peace Conference of 1919. The participants were the Soviet Union, the United Kingdom, and the United States. They were represented respectively by General Secretary Joseph Stalin, Prime Ministers Winston Churchill and Clement Attlee, and President Harry S. Truman. They gathered to decide how to administer Germany, which had agreed to an unconditional surrender nine weeks earlier. The goals of the conference also included establishing the postwar order, solving issues on the peace treaty, and countering the effects of the war.


title: Potsdam Conference

text: The foreign ministers and aides played key roles: Vyacheslav Molotov, Anthony Eden and Ernest Bevin, and James F. Byrnes. From July 17 to July 25, nine meetings were held, when the Conference was interrupted for two days, as the results of the British general election were announced. By July 28, Attlee had defeated Churchill and replaced him as Britain’s representative, with Britain's new Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, Ernest Bevin, replacing Anthony Eden. Four days of further discussion followed. During the conference, there were meetings of the three heads of government with their foreign secretaries, as well as meetings of only the foreign secretaries. Committees that were appointed by the latter for precursory consideration of questions before the conference also met daily. During the Conference, Truman was secretly informed that the Trinity test of the first atomic bomb on July 16 had been successful. He hinted to Stalin that the U.S. was about to use a new kind of weapon against the Japanese. Though this was the first time the Soviets had been officially given information about the atomic bomb, Stalin was already aware of the bomb project, having learned about it through espionage long before Truman did.


title: Potsdam Conference

text: Key final decisions included: Germany would be divided into the four occupation zones (among the three powers and France) that had been agreed to earlier; Germany's eastern border was to be shifted west to the Oder–Neisse line; a Soviet-backed group was recognized as the legitimate government of Poland; and Vietnam was to be partitioned at the 16th parallel. The Soviets also reaffirmed their Yalta promise to promptly launch an invasion of Japanese-held areas.


title: Potsdam Conference

text: Views were also exchanged on a plethora of other questions. However, consideration of those matters was postponed into the Council of Foreign Ministers, which the conference established. The conference ended with a stronger relationship between the three governments as a consequence of their collaboration, which renewed confidence that together with the other United Nations, they would ensure the creation of a just and enduring peace. Nevertheless, within 18 months relations had deteriorated and the Cold War had emerged.


title: Potsdam Conference

text: A number of changes had taken place in the five months since the Yalta Conference and greatly affected the relationships among the leaders. The Soviets occupied Central and Eastern Europe. The Baltic states were forcibly re-incorporated into the USSR, while the Red Army also occupied Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Bulgaria, and Romania. Refugees fled from those countries. Stalin had set up a puppet communist government in Poland, insisted that his control of Eastern Europe was a defensive measure against possible future attacks, and claimed that it was a legitimate sphere of Soviet influence.


title: Potsdam Conference

text: Winston Churchill, who had served for most of the war as British prime minister in a coalition government, was replaced during the conference by Clement Attlee. Churchill's administration had a Soviet policy since the early 1940s that differed considerably from Roosevelt's and believed Stalin to be a "devil"-like tyrant, who led a vile system. A general election was held in the United Kingdom on 5 July 1945, but its results were delayed to allow the votes of armed forces personnel to be counted in their home constituencies. The outcome became known during the conference, when Attlee became the new prime minister.


title: Potsdam Conference

text: Roosevelt had died on 12 April 1945, and US Vice-President Harry Truman assumed the presidency, which saw VE Day (Victory in Europe) within a month and VJ Day (Victory in Japan) on the horizon. During the war, in the name of Allied unity, Roosevelt had brushed off warnings of potential domination by Stalin over parts of Europe by explaining, "I just have a hunch that Stalin is not that kind of a man... I think that if I give him everything I possibly can and ask for nothing from him in return, 'noblesse oblige,' he won't try to annex anything and will work with me for a world of democracy and peace."


title: Potsdam Conference

text: While a United States Senator and later as Vice President, Truman had closely followed the Allied progress of the war. George Lenczowski noted that "despite the contrast between his relatively modest background and the international glamour of his aristocratic predecessor, [Truman] had the courage and resolution to reverse the policy that appeared to him naive and dangerous," which was "in contrast to the immediate, often "ad hoc" moves and solutions dictated by the demands of the war." With the end of the war, the priority of Allied unity was replaced by the challenge of the relationship between the two emerging superpowers. Both leading powers continued to portray a cordial relationship to the public, but suspicion and distrust lingered between them. Despite this, on 17 July, the first day of the conference, Truman noted "I can deal with Stalin. He is honest — but smart as hell."


title: Potsdam Conference

text: Truman was much more suspicious of the Soviets than Roosevelt had been and became increasingly suspicious of Stalin's intentions. Truman and his advisers saw Soviet actions in Eastern Europe as aggressive expansionism, which was incompatible with the agreements committed to by Stalin at Yalta in February. In addition, Truman became aware of possible complications elsewhere after Stalin had objected to Churchill's proposal for an Allied withdrawal from Iran ahead of the schedule that had been agreed at the Tehran Conference. The Potsdam Conference was the only time that Truman met Stalin in person.


title: Potsdam Conference

text: At the Yalta Conference, France was granted an occupation zone within Germany. France was a participant in the Berlin Declaration and was to be an equal member of the Allied Control Council. Nevertheless, at the insistence of the Americans, Charles de Gaulle was not invited to Potsdam, just as he had been denied representation at Yalta for fear that he would reopen the Yalta decisions. De Gaulle thus felt a diplomatic slight, which became a cause of deep and lasting resentment for him. Other reasons for the omission included the longstanding personal mutual antagonism between Roosevelt and de Gaulle, ongoing disputes over the French and American occupation zones, and the anticipated conflicts of interest over French Indochina. It also reflected the judgement of the British and the Americans that French aims, with respect to many items on the conference's agenda, were likely to contradict agreed-upon Anglo-American objectives.


title: Potsdam Conference

text: At the end of the conference, the three heads of government agreed on the following actions. All other issues were to be resolved by the final peace conference, which was to be called as soon as possible.


title: Potsdam Conference

text: France, having been excluded from the conference, resisted implementing the Potsdam agreements within its occupation zone. In particular, the French refused to resettle any Germans expelled from the east. Moreover, the French did not accept any obligation to abide by the Potsdam agreements in the proceedings of the Allied Control Council. In particular, it reserved the right to block any proposals to establish common policies and institutions across Germany as a whole and anything that could lead to the eventual emergence of a unified German government.


title: Potsdam Conference

text: The Soviet Union proposed for the authority of Karl Renner's provisional government to be extended to all of Austria. The Allies agreed to examine the proposal after British and American forces entered Vienna.


title: Potsdam Conference

text: The Soviet Union proposed to the Conference for the territorial questions to be resolved permanently after peace was established in those regions. More specifically, the proposal referred to the section of the western Soviet border near the Baltic Sea. The area would pass from the eastern shore of the Bay of Danzig to the east, north of Braunsberg and Goldap, to the meeting point of the frontiers of Lithuania, the Polish Republic, and East Prussia.


title: Potsdam Conference

text: After the conference considered the Soviet recommendation, it agreed for the city of Königsberg and the area next to it to be transferred to the Soviet Union.


title: Potsdam Conference

text: Truman and Winston Churchill guaranteed that they would support the proposals of the conference when peace was eventually ensured.


title: Potsdam Conference

text: The Soviet Union made a proposal to the conference concerning the mandated territories and conformed with what had been decided at the Yalta Conference and the Charter of the United Nations.


title: Potsdam Conference

text: After various opinions on the question had been discussed, the foreign prime ministers agreed that it was essential to decide at once the preparation of a peace treaty for Italy, combined with the disposition of any former Italian territories. In September, the Council of Ministers of Foreign Affairs would examine the question of the Italian territory.


title: Potsdam Conference

text: At the conference, the Allied leaders confirmed their previous commitment to the removal of German populations from Poland, Czechoslovakia, and Hungary, which the provisional governments of those countries had already begun to put into effect. The three allied leaders agreed that transfers of German civilians should proceed in an orderly and humane manner, but according to modern estimates, between 600,000 and 2.2 million Germans died during the flight and expulsions.


title: Potsdam Conference

text: The leaders decided that the Allied Control Council in Germany would deal with the matter, giving priority to the equal distribution of Germans among the various zones of occupation. Representatives on the Control Council were to report to their governments and to each zonal administration the number of people who had already entered Germany from the eastern countries. The representatives would also form an estimate of the future pace of transfers and focus on the German occupied government's capacity to process new arrivals. The provisional governments of Poland, Hungary, and Czechoslovakia were instructed to temporarily suspend expulsions of German civilians until their respective Control Council representatives had reported these results and estimates.


title: Potsdam Conference

text: The Big Three took notice that the Soviet representatives on the Allied Control Commissions in Romania, Bulgaria, and Hungary had communicated to their British and Americans colleagues proposals for refining the work of the Control Commission since the war in Europe had ended. The three leaders agreed on the revision of the procedures of the commissions in these countries and took into consideration the interests and responsibilities of their own governments, which together presented the terms of the armistice to the occupied countries.


title: Potsdam Conference

text: The Conference agreed on the establishment of a Council of Foreign Ministers to represent the five principal powers, continue the essential preliminary work for the peace settlements, and assume other matters that could occasionally be committed to the Council by agreement of the governments participating it. The establishment of the Council in question did not contradict the agreement of the Yalta Conference that there should be periodic meetings among the foreign secretaries of the three governments. According to the text of the agreement for the establishment of the Council, this was decided:


title: Potsdam Conference

text: The Conference agreed to apply common policies for determining, at the earliest opportunity, the terms of the peace.


title: Potsdam Conference

text: In general, the Big Three desired that dispositions of Italy, Bulgaria, Finland, Hungary, and Romania should be resolved by the end of the negotiations. They believed that the other Allies would share their point of view.


title: Potsdam Conference

text: As the disposition of Italy was one of the most important issues that required the attention of the new Council of Foreign Ministers, the three governments were especially concerned with concluding a peace treaty with Italy, especially as it had been the first of the Axis powers to break with Germany and to participate in Allied operations against Japan.


title: Potsdam Conference

text: Italy was making significant progress in gaining its freedom and rejecting the previous fascist regime, and it had paved the way for the re-establishment of democratic governments. If Italy had a recognized and democratic government, it would be easier for the Americans, the British, and the Soviets to support the membership of Italy in the United Nations.


title: Potsdam Conference

text: The Council of Foreign Ministers also had to examine and prepare the peace treaties for Bulgaria, Finland, Hungary, and Romania. The termination of peace treaties with recognized and democratic governments in those four would allow the Big Three to accept their requests to be members of the United Nations. Moreover, after the termination of peace negotiations, the Big Three agreed to examine in the near future the restoration of the diplomatic relations with Finland, Romania, Bulgaria, and Hungary. The Big Three were sure that the situation in Europe after the end of World War II would allow representatives of the Allied press to enjoy freedom of expression in the four countries.


title: Potsdam Conference

text: 1. Membership in the United Nations is open to all other peace-loving States who accept the obligations contained in the present Charter and, in the judgment of the organization, are able and willing to carry out these obligations;


title: Potsdam Conference

text: 2. The admission of any such state to membership in the United Nations will be effected by a decision of the General Assembly upon the recommendation of the Security Council.


title: Potsdam Conference

text: The leaders declared that they were willing to support any request for membership from states that had remained neutral during the war and fulfilled the other requirements. The Big Three felt the need to clarify that they were reluctant to support application for such membership from the Spanish government, which had been established with the support of the Axis powers.


title: Potsdam Conference

text: In addition to the Potsdam Agreement, on 26 July, Churchill; Truman; and Chiang Kai-shek, Chairman of the Nationalist Government of China (the Soviet Union was not yet at war against Japan), issued the Potsdam Declaration, which outlined the terms of surrender for Japan during World War II in Asia.


title: Potsdam Conference

text: Truman had mentioned an unspecified "powerful new weapon" to Stalin during the conference. Towards the end of the conference, on July 26, the Potsdam Declaration gave Japan an ultimatum to surrender unconditionally or meet "prompt and utter destruction", which did not mention the new bomb but promised that "it was not intended to enslave Japan". The Soviet Union was not involved in that declaration since it was still neutral in the war against Japan. Japanese Prime Minister Kantarō Suzuki did not respond, which was interpreted as a sign that the Japanese had ignored the ultimatum. As a result, the United States dropped atomic bombs on Hiroshima on 6 August and on Nagasaki on 9 August 1945. The justifications used were that both cities were legitimate military targets and that it was necessary to end the war swiftly and preserve American lives.


title: Potsdam Conference

text: When Truman informed Stalin of the atomic bomb, he said that the United States "had a new weapon of unusual destructive force," but Stalin had full knowledge of the atomic bomb's development from Soviet spy networks inside the Manhattan Project and told Truman at the conference that he hoped Truman "would make good use of it against the Japanese."


title: Potsdam Conference

text: The Soviet Union converted several countries of Eastern Europe into satellite states within the Eastern Bloc, such as the People's Republic of Poland, the People's Republic of Bulgaria, the People's Republic of Hungary, the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic, the People's Republic of Romania, and the People's Republic of Albania. Many of those countries had seen failed Socialist revolutions prior to World War II.


title: Potsdam Conference

text: Regarding the establishment of the Oder-Neisse Line, President Truman reported that Stalin had presented the occupation of Eastern Poland by the Soviet Union and Polish annexation of Silesia and eastern Pomerania as a fait accompli. Taken by surprise, the Western Allies had been forced to abandon the principles of the Atlantic Charter.


title: BMW M57

text: The BMW M57 is a straight-6 diesel engine produced from 1998 up to 2013 in BMW's upper Austrian engine plant in Steyr.


title: BMW M57

text: The M57 is a water-cooled and turbocharged inline six cylinder diesel engine with common-rail-injection. It was revised twice during its production time. It is based on its predecessor M51. The block and the crankcase of the first M57 engines and the TÜ ("Technische Überarbeitung" = revision) engines are made of cast iron, whilst the TÜ2 engines are made of aluminium instead. The combustion chamber was also changed in the TÜ2. The injection pressure is in the non TÜ engine, whilst all other engines use a pressure of . For fuel injection, magnetic injectors are used, except from the TÜ2 OL and TOP engines, which make use of piezo injectors. The common-rail-system is made by Bosch and also controlled by a Bosch DDE 4 ECU for non TÜ and DDE 5 ECU for TÜ. All models are equipped with turbocharger and an intercooler. The 2.9L M57, which is found in E39 530d and E38 730d, as well as early models of E46 330d and E53 X5, is equipped with one Garrett GT2556V turbocharger. The 2.5L M57TÜ uses a Garrett GT2056V turbocharger, the 3.0L M57TÜ a Garrett GT2260V turbocharger, the M57TÜ2 a Garrett GT2260VK turbocharger, whilst the M57D30TÜTOP sports a BorgWarner KP39 high-pressure and a K26 low-pressure turbocharger. The compression ratio reaches from 16.5:1 to 18.0:1, M57 engines with higher power output and more than one turbocharger have a lower compression ratio. Every cylinder has two inlet and two exhaust valves as well as two chain-driven overhead camshafts. The redline is 4750 rpm.


title: USS Callister

text: "USS Callister" is the first episode of the fourth series of the dystopian anthology series "Black Mirror". Written by series creator Charlie Brooker and William Bridges and directed by Toby Haynes, it first aired on Netflix, along with the rest of series four, on 29 December 2017.


title: USS Callister

text: The episode follows Robert Daly (Jesse Plemons), a reclusive but gifted programmer and co-founder of a popular massively multiplayer online game who is bitter over the lack of recognition of his position from his coworkers. He takes out his frustrations by simulating a "Star Trek"–like space adventure within the game, using his co-workers' DNA to create sentient digital clones of them. Acting as the captain of the USS "Callister" starship, Daly is able to order his co-workers around, bend them to his will, and mistreat them if they get out of line. When Daly brings newly hired Nanette Cole (Cristin Milioti) into his game, she encourages the other clones to revolt against Daly.


title: USS Callister

text: In contrast to most "Black Mirror" episodes, "USS Callister" contains overt comedy, and it has many special effects. As a fan of "Star Trek", Bridges was keen to introduce many details from the show into "USS Callister", though the episode was conceived mostly with "The Twilight Zone" episode "It's a Good Life" and "Viz" character Playtime Fontayne in mind. The episode's reception was overwhelmingly positive, with reviewers praising the allusions to "Star Trek", the acting, and the cinematography. Critics saw the episode as being about male abuse of authority, and compared Daly to contemporary events surrounding internet bullies and sexual abuse committed by Harvey Weinstein. In 2018, the episode won four Primetime Emmy Awards, including Outstanding Television Movie and Outstanding Writing for a Limited Series, Movie, or Dramatic Special, and was nominated for three other Emmy Awards.


title: USS Callister

text: Captain Robert Daly (Jesse Plemons) and his crew are aboard a spaceship, the USS "Callister", trying to defeat their arch enemy Valdack (Billy Magnussen). They destroy Valdack's ship, but he escapes. The crew celebrates, Daly kissing both female crewmates.


title: USS Callister

text: The real-life version of Daly is CTO at Callister Inc. The company was co-founded by Daly and James Walton (Jimmi Simpson), the company's chief executive officer, which produces the multiplayer game "Infinity", in which users control a starship in a simulated reality. Daly is treated poorly by his fellow employees, who appear identical to Captain Daly's crewmates. New programmer Nanette Cole (Cristin Milioti) praises Daly's work on "Infinity", but the more assertive Walton interrupts to take her on a tour. When Daly returns home, he opens a development build of "Infinity" which is modded to resemble his favourite television show "Space Fleet". As Captain Daly, he berates the crewmates, strangling a subservient Walton.