1.
Common ostrich
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The ostrich or common ostrich is either one or two species of large flightless birds native to Africa, the only living member of the genus Struthio, which is in the ratite family. In 2014, the Somali ostrich was recognized as a distinct species, the common ostrich shares the order Struthioniformes with the kiwis, emus, rheas, and cassowaries. However, phylogenetic studies have shown that it is the group to all other members of Palaeognathae. It is distinctive in its appearance, with a neck and legs, and can run at up to about 70 km/h. The common ostrich is the largest living species of bird and lays the largest eggs of any living bird, the common ostrichs diet consists mainly of plant matter, though it also eats invertebrates. It lives in groups of 5 to 50 birds. When threatened, the ostrich will either hide itself by lying flat against the ground, if cornered, it can attack with a kick of its powerful legs. Mating patterns differ by region, but territorial males fight for a harem of two to seven females. The common ostrich is farmed around the world, particularly for its feathers and its skin is used for leather products and its meat is marketed commercially, with its leanness a common marketing point. Common ostriches usually weigh from 63 to 145 kilograms, or as much as two adult humans, ostriches of the East African race averaged 115 kg in males and 100 kg in females, while the nominate subspecies was found to average 111 kg in unsexed adults. Exceptional male ostriches can weigh up to 156.8 kg, at sexual maturity, male common ostriches can be from 2.1 to 2.8 m in height, while female common ostriches range from 1.7 to 2.0 m tall. New chicks are fawn in colour, with brown spots. During the first year of life, chicks grow at about 25 cm per month, at one year of age, common ostriches weigh approximately 45 kilograms. Their lifespan is up to 40–45 years, the feathers of adult males are mostly black, with white primaries and a white tail. However, the tail of one subspecies is buff, females and young males are greyish-brown and white. The head and neck of both male and female ostriches is nearly bare, with a layer of down. The skin of the neck and thighs is pinkish gray. The eyes are shaded from sunlight from above, However, the head and bill are relatively small for the birds huge size, with the bill measuring 12 to 14.3 cm
2.
Watergate scandal
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When the conspiracy was discovered and investigated by the U. S. Congress, the Nixon administrations resistance to its probes led to a constitutional crisis. The term Watergate, by metonymy, has come to encompass an array of clandestine and those activities included such dirty tricks as bugging the offices of political opponents and people of whom Nixon or his officials were suspicious. The scandal also resulted in the indictment of 69 people, with trials or pleas resulting in 48 being found guilty, the affair began with the arrest of five men for breaking and entering into the DNC headquarters at the Watergate complex on Saturday, June 17,1972. In July 1973, evidence mounted against the Presidents staff, including testimony provided by staff members in an investigation conducted by the Senate Watergate Committee. The investigation revealed that President Nixon had a system in his offices. After a protracted series of court battles, the U. S. Supreme Court unanimously ruled that the president was obliged to release the tapes to government investigators. The tapes revealed that Nixon had attempted to cover up activities that took place after the break-in, facing virtually certain impeachment in the House of Representatives and equally certain conviction by the Senate, Nixon resigned the presidency on August 9,1974. On September 8,1974, his successor, Gerald Ford, the name Watergate and the suffix -gate have since become synonymous with political and non-political scandals in the United States. According to Dean, this marked the scene of the worst political scandal of the twentieth century. Mitchell viewed the plan as unrealistic, Liddy was nominally in charge of the operation, but has since insisted that he was duped by Dean and at least two of his subordinates. These included former CIA officers E. Howard Hunt and James McCord, in May, McCord assigned former FBI agent Alfred C. Baldwin III to carry out the wiretapping and monitor the telephone conversations afterward. McCord testified that he selected Baldwins name from a registry published by the Society of Former Special Agents of the FBI to work for the Committee to Re-elect the President, Baldwin first served as bodyguard to Martha Mitchell, the wife of John Mitchell, who was living in Washington. Baldwin accompanied Martha Mitchell to Chicago, Martha did not like Baldwin and described him as the gauchest character Ive ever met. The Committee replaced Baldwin with another security man, the room 419 was booked in the name of McCord’s company. At behest of G. Gordon Liddy and E. Howard Hunt, McCord and his team of burglars prepared for their first Watergate break-in, two phones inside the offices of the DNC headquarters were said to have been wiretapped. The FBI found no evidence that OBriens phone was bugged, however, it was determined that an effective listening device had been installed in Olivers phone. Despite the success in installing the devices, the Committee agents soon determined that they needed to be repaired. They planned a burglary in order to take care of this
3.
Bribery
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Bribery is the act of giving money, goods or other forms of recompense to a recipient in exchange for an alteration of their behavior that the recipient would otherwise not alter. Gifts of money or other items of value which are available to everyone on an equivalent basis. Offering a discount or a refund to all purchasers is a rebate and is not bribery. Giving the rebate to influence them to look favorably on the utilitys rate increase applications, however. The bribe is the gift bestowed to influence the recipients conduct, in economics, the bribe has been described as rent. Bribery in bureaucracy has been viewed as a reason for the higher cost of production of goods, one must be careful of differing social and cultural norms when examining bribery. Expectations of when a transaction is appropriate can differ from place to place. Tipping, for example, is considered bribery in some societies, in some Spanish-speaking countries, bribes are referred to as mordida. In Arab countries, bribes may be called baksheesh or shay, french-speaking countries often use the expressions dessous-de-table, pot-de-vin, or commission occulte. While the last two expressions contain inherently a negative connotation, the expression dessous-de-table can be understood as a commonly accepted business practice. In German, the term is Schmiergeld. The forms that bribery take are numerous, for example, a motorist might bribe a police officer not to issue a ticket for speeding, a citizen seeking paperwork or utility line connections might bribe a functionary for faster service. Bribery may also take the form of a commission, a profit made by an agent, in the course of his employment. Euphemisms abound for this Bribers and recipients of bribery are likewise numerous although bribers have one common denominator, Bribery around the world is estimated at about $1 trillion. The reason for this dissociation is to make the steps of a corrupt deal already an offence and, thus. Besides, such a dissociation makes the prosecution of bribery offences easier since it can be difficult to prove that two parties have formally agreed upon a corrupt deal. A grey area may exist when payments to smooth transactions are made, in some countries, this practice is the norm, often resulting from a developing nation not having the tax structure to pay civil servants an adequate salary. Nevertheless, most economists regard bribery as a bad thing because it encourages rent seeking behaviour, a state where bribery has become a way of life is a kleptocracy
4.
Helen Gahagan Douglas
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Helen Gahagan Douglas was an American actress and politician. Gahagan was born in Boonton, New Jersey, of Scotch-Irish descent and she was the eldest daughter of Lillian Rose and Walter H. Gahagan, an engineer who owned a construction business in Brooklyn and a shipyard in Arverne, Queens, her mother had been a schoolteacher. Gahagan was raised at 231 Lincoln Place in the Park Slope area of Brooklyn, an upper-middle class neighborhood and she gained admittance to Barnard College, though to the dismay of her father, Gahagan left after two years without finishing her degree to pursue a career as an actress. Gahagan found great success and became a star on Broadway in the 1920s. In 1930, Gahagan returned to Broadway to star in a production of Tonight or Never, the two married in 1931, Gahagan keeping her maiden name. Gahagan Douglas went to Los Angeles in 1935, starring in the Hollywood movie, She, playing Hash-a-Motep, queen of a lost city. The movie, based on H. Rider Haggards novel of the name, is perhaps best known for popularizing a phrase from the novel. The character and costuming in She served as the inspiration for the appearance of the Evil Queen in Walt Disneys 1937 animated film, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. While in Vienna in 1938, performing Tosca at the Vienna State Opera, the experience sickened her to such a degree that she immediately flew back to Los Angeles, determined to strike out naziism. Gahagan Douglas entered politics in the late 1930s but would remain a touchstone for decades after, the song begins, Hollywoods often tried to mix / show business with politics / from Helen Gahagan / to Ronald Reagan. She soon became the head of the John Steinbeck Committee, named for the author of the Grapes of Wrath, first introduced to politics through her husband, the Douglases then joined the Hollywood Anti-Nazi League, and called for a United States boycott against goods produced in Nazi Germany. Gahagan Douglas joined the Democratic Party shortly after the election of Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1933, the Roosevelts and Douglases would develop a close friendship, with Eleanor Roosevelt serving as a political mentor to Gahagan Douglas. Gahagan Douglas was member of the advisory committee of the Works Progress Administration. She then served as Democratic National committeewoman for California and vice chairwoman of the Democratic State central committee and she would be appointed by President Harry S. Truman as an alternate United States Delegate to the United Nations Assembly. During this time, her affair with then Congressman and then Senator Lyndon B. Johnson was an open secret on Capitol Hill. In 1950, Gahagan Douglas ran for the United States Senate, California Democratic state chairman William M. Malone had advised Douglas to wait until 1952 to run for the Senate, rather than split the party in a fight with Downey. Gahagan Douglas, however, told Malone that Downey had neglected veterans and small growers, Downey withdrew from the race in the primary campaign and supported a third candidate, Manchester Boddy, the owner and publisher of the Los Angeles Daily News. When Gahagan Douglas defeated Boddy for the nomination, Downey endorsed the Republican U. S, fellow Representative John F. Kennedy quietly donated money to Nixons campaign against Gahagan Douglas, the two sharing similar views on the threat of communism
5.
Presidency of Richard Nixon
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He was succeeded by Vice President Gerald Ford, who had become vice president nine months earlier, following Spiro Agnews resignation from office. A Republican, Nixon took office after the 1968 presidential election, in which he defeated Hubert Humphrey, four years later, in 1972, Nixon won reelection in a landslide victory over George McGovern. Overall, he won 60. 7% of the popular vote, Nixon, the 37th United States president, succeeded Lyndon B. Johnson, who had launched the Great Society, a set of domestic programs financed, in contrast, Nixon advocated a New Federalism domestic program model, one in which certain powers would devolve back to the states. Nixons primary focus while in office was on foreign affairs, Nixon pursued a detente with the Peoples Republic of China, taking advantage of the Sino-Soviet split and significantly altering the nature of the Cold War. Nixons many accomplishments as president were however, largely overshadowed by the scandals that enveloped his administration, regarding his lasting legacy, historian Stephen Ambrose wrote, Nixon wanted to be judged by what he accomplished. What he will be remembered for is the nightmare he put the country through in his second term, Nixon was inaugurated as president on January 20,1969, sworn in by his onetime political rival, Chief Justice Earl Warren. Pat Nixon held the family Bibles open at Isaiah 2,4, which reads, They shall beat their swords into plowshares, in his inaugural address, which received almost uniformly positive reviews, Nixon remarked that the greatest honor history can bestow is the title of peacemaker. Nixon made fifteen international trips during his presidency and his first was an eight-day European visit starting in Brussels on February 23,1969. He met with Britain’s Prime Minister Harold Wilson in London and Frances President Charles de Gaulle in Paris and he also stopped in Bonn, Berlin and Rome and met with Pope Paul VI in Vatican City. He also made groundbreaking trips to several Eastern European Communist nations, including, Romania, Yugoslavia, even those who hated Nixons presidency occasionally praise his work in China. The extent to which his visit had any consequences of note, however. Assisting him in this venture was his National Security Advisor and future Secretary of State, Henry Kissinger, with whom the President worked closely, bypassing Cabinet officials. A breakthrough came in early 1971, when Chairman Mao invited a team of American table tennis players to visit China, Nixon followed up by sending Kissinger to China for clandestine meetings with Chinese officials. On July 15,1971, it was announced by Beijing. The secrecy allowed both sets of time to prepare the political climate in their countries for the contact. In February 1972, Nixon and his wife traveled to China, Kissinger briefed Nixon for over 40 hours in preparation. Upon touching down, the President and First Lady emerged from Air Force One, Nixon made a point of shaking Zhous hand, something which then-Secretary of State John Foster Dulles had refused to do in 1954 when the two met in Geneva
6.
Pope
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The pope is the Bishop of Rome and, therefore, the leader of the worldwide Catholic Church. The current pope is Francis, who was elected on 13 March 2013, the office of the pope is the papacy. The pope is considered one of the worlds most powerful people because of his diplomatic and he is also head of state of Vatican City, a sovereign city-state entirely enclaved within the Italian capital city of Rome. The papacy is one of the most enduring institutions in the world and has had a prominent part in world history, the popes in ancient times helped in the spread of Christianity and the resolution of various doctrinal disputes. In the Middle Ages, they played a role of importance in Western Europe. Currently, in addition to the expansion of the Christian faith and doctrine, the popes are involved in ecumenism and interfaith dialogue, charitable work, Popes, who originally had no temporal powers, in some periods of history accrued wide powers similar to those of temporal rulers. In recent centuries, popes were gradually forced to give up temporal power, the word pope derives from Greek πάππας meaning father. The earliest record of the use of title was in regard to the by then deceased Patriarch of Alexandria. Some historians have argued that the notion that Peter was the first bishop of Rome, the writings of the Church Father Irenaeus who wrote around AD180 reflect a belief that Peter founded and organised the Church at Rome. Moreover, Irenaeus was not the first to write of Peters presence in the early Roman Church, Clement of Rome wrote in a letter to the Corinthians, c. 96, about the persecution of Christians in Rome as the struggles in our time and presented to the Corinthians its heroes, first, the greatest and most just columns, the good apostles Peter and Paul. St. Ignatius of Antioch wrote shortly after Clement and in his letter from the city of Smyrna to the Romans he said he would not command them as Peter and Paul did. Given this and other evidence, many agree that Peter was martyred in Rome under Nero. Protestants contend that the New Testament offers no proof that Jesus established the papacy nor even that he established Peter as the first bishop of Rome, others, using Peters own words, argue that Christ intended himself as the foundation of the church and not Peter. First-century Christian communities would have had a group of presbyter-bishops functioning as leaders of their local churches, gradually, episcopacies were established in metropolitan areas. Antioch may have developed such a structure before Rome, some writers claim that the emergence of a single bishop in Rome probably did not occur until the middle of the 2nd century. In their view, Linus, Cletus and Clement were possibly prominent presbyter-bishops, documents of the 1st century and early 2nd century indicate that the Holy See had some kind of pre-eminence and prominence in the Church as a whole, though the detail of what this meant is unclear. It seems that at first the terms episcopos and presbyter were used interchangeably, the consensus among scholars has been that, at the turn of the 1st and 2nd centuries, local congregations were led by bishops and presbyters whose offices were overlapping or indistinguishable
7.
George Cruikshank
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George Cruikshank was a British caricaturist and book illustrator, praised as the modern Hogarth during his life. His book illustrations for his friend Charles Dickens, and many other authors and his father, Isaac Cruikshank, was one of the leading caricaturists of the late 1790s and Cruikshank started his career as his fathers apprentice and assistant. His older brother, Isaac Robert, also followed in the business as a caricaturist. Cruikshanks early work was caricature, but in 1823, at the age of 31 and he illustrated the first,1823 English translation of Grimms Fairy Tales, published in two volumes as German Popular Stories. On 16 October 1827, he married Mary Ann Walker, two years after her death, on 7 March 1851, he married Eliza Widdison. The two lived at 263 Hampstead Road, North London, upon his death, it was discovered that Cruikshank had fathered 11 illegitimate children with a mistress named Adelaide Attree, his former servant, who lived close to where he lived with his wife. Adelaide was ostensibly married and had taken the married surname Archibold, Cruikshanks early career was renowned for his social caricatures of English life for popular publications. He achieved early success collaborating with William Hone in his political satire The Political House That Jack Built, in the same year he produced the remarkable anti-abolitionist New Union Club. It satirised a dinner party organised by abolitionists with black guests and his first major work was Pierce Egans Life in London. This was followed by The Comic Almanack and Omnibus and he gained notoriety with his political prints that attacked the royal family and leading politicians. In 1820 he received a bribe of £100 for a pledge not to caricature His Majesty in any immoral situation. His work included a personification of England named John Bull who was developed from about 1790 in conjunction with other British satirical artists such as James Gillray, Cruikshank replaced one of his major influences, James Gillray, as Englands most popular satirist. For a generation he delineated Tories, Whigs and Radicals impartially, satirical material came to him from every public event – wars abroad, the enemies of Britain, the frolic, among other qualities, such as the weird and terrible, in which he excelled. For Charles Dickens, Cruikshank illustrated Sketches by Boz, The Mudfog Papers, Cruikshank even acted in Dickenss amateur theatrical company. On 30 December 1871 Cruikshank published a letter in The Times which claimed credit for much of the plot of Oliver Twist, the letter launched a fierce controversy around who created the work. Cruikshank was not the first Dickens illustrator to make such a claim, the friendship between Cruikshank and Dickens soured further when Cruikshank became a fanatical teetotaler in opposition to Dickenss views of moderation. Nightcap and nightdress belonged to a past age and reminded you of Cruickshanks illustrations to the novels of Charles Dickens, in the late 1840s, Cruikshanks focus shifted from book illustration to an obsession with temperance and anti-smoking. Formerly a heavy drinker, he now supported, lectured to, and supplied illustrations for the National Temperance Society, for his efforts he was made vice president of the National Temperance League in 1856
8.
Church of England
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The Church of England is the state church of England. The Archbishop of Canterbury is the most senior cleric, although the monarch is the supreme governor, the Church of England is also the mother church of the international Anglican Communion. It dates its establishment as a church to the 6th-century Gregorian mission to Kent led by Augustine of Canterbury. The English church renounced papal authority when Henry VIII sought to secure an annulment from Catherine of Aragon in the 1530s, the English Reformation accelerated under Edward VIs regents before a brief restoration of papal authority under Queen Mary I and King Philip. This is expressed in its emphasis on the teachings of the early Church Fathers, as formalised in the Apostles, Nicene, in the earlier phase of the English Reformation there were both Catholic martyrs and radical Protestant martyrs. The later phases saw the Penal Laws punish Roman Catholic and nonconforming Protestants, in the 17th century, political and religious disputes raised the Puritan and Presbyterian faction to control of the church, but this ended with the Restoration. Papal recognition of George III in 1766 led to religious tolerance. Since the English Reformation, the Church of England has used a liturgy in English, the church contains several doctrinal strands, the main three known as Anglo-Catholic, Evangelical and Broad Church. Tensions between theological conservatives and progressives find expression in debates over the ordination of women and homosexuality, the church includes both liberal and conservative clergy and members. The governing structure of the church is based on dioceses, each presided over by a bishop, within each diocese are local parishes. The General Synod of the Church of England is the body for the church and comprises bishops, other clergy. Its measures must be approved by both Houses of Parliament, according to tradition, Christianity arrived in Britain in the 1st or 2nd century, during which time southern Britain became part of the Roman Empire. The earliest historical evidence of Christianity among the native Britons is found in the writings of such early Christian Fathers as Tertullian, three Romano-British bishops, including Restitutus, are known to have been present at the Council of Arles in 314. Others attended the Council of Sardica in 347 and that of Ariminum in 360, Britain was the home of Pelagius, who opposed Augustine of Hippos doctrine of original sin. Consequently, in 597, Pope Gregory I sent the prior of the Abbey of St Andrews from Rome to evangelise the Angles and this event is known as the Gregorian mission and is the date the Church of England generally marks as the beginning of its formal history. A later archbishop, the Greek Theodore of Tarsus, also contributed to the organisation of Christianity in England, the Church of England has been in continuous existence since the days of St Augustine, with the Archbishop of Canterbury as its episcopal head. Despite the various disruptions of the Reformation and the English Civil War, while some Celtic Christian practices were changed at the Synod of Whitby, the Christian Church in the British Isles was under papal authority from earliest times. The Synod of Whitby established the Roman date for Easter and the Roman style of monastic tonsure in Britain and this meeting of the ecclesiastics with Roman customs with local bishops was summoned in 664 at Saint Hildas double monastery of Streonshalh, later called Whitby Abbey
9.
My Lai Massacre
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The Mỹ Lai Massacre was the Vietnam War mass killing of between 347 and 504 unarmed civilians in South Vietnam on March 16,1968. It was committed by U. S. Army soldiers from Company C, 1st Battalion, 20th Infantry Regiment, 11th Brigade, victims included men, women, children, and infants. Some of the women were gang-raped and their bodies mutilated, twenty-six soldiers were charged with criminal offenses, but only Lieutenant William Calley Jr. a platoon leader in C Company, was convicted. Found guilty of killing 22 villagers, he was given a life sentence. The massacre, which was called the most shocking episode of the Vietnam War. These hamlets were marked on the U. S. Army topographic maps as My Lai, the U. S. Army slang name for the hamlets and sub-hamlets in that area was Pinkville, and the carnage was initially referred to as the Pinkville Massacre. Later, when the U. S. Army started its investigation, currently, the event is referred to as the My Lai Massacre in the United States and called the Sơn Mỹ Massacre in Vietnam. The incident prompted global outrage when it became public knowledge in November 1969, the My Lai massacre increased to some extent domestic opposition to the U. S. involvement in the Vietnam War when the scope of killing and cover-up attempts were exposed. Only after thirty years were recognized and decorated, one posthumously. Along with the No Gun Ri massacre in Korea eighteen years earlier, Charlie Company, 1st Battalion, 20th Infantry Regiment, 11th Brigade, 23rd Infantry Division, arrived in South Vietnam in December 1967. Though their first three months in Vietnam passed without any enemy contact, by mid-March the company had suffered 28 casualties involving mines or booby-traps. U. S. military intelligence assumed that the 48th NLF Battalion, having retreated and dispersed, was taking refuge in the village of Sơn Mỹ, a number of specific hamlets within that village—designated My Lai through My Lai — were suspected of harboring the 48th. In February and March 1968, the U. S, Task Force Barker, a battalion-sized ad hoc unit of 11th Brigade, was to be employed for the job. It was formed in January 1968, composed of three companies of the 11th Brigade, including Company C from the 20th Infantry, led by Lieutenant Colonel Frank A. Barker. Sơn Mỹ village was included in the area of operations of TF Barker codenamed Muscatine AO, in February 1968, TF Barker had already tried to secure Sơn Mỹ, with limited success. After that, the area began to be called Pinkville by TF Barker troops. The men of Charlie Company were angry, frightened and struggling for survival in March 1968, since their arrival 3 months prior, they had suffered over 40 casualties. Just two days before the massacre the company had lost a sergeant to a land mine
10.
William M. Tweed
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Tweed was elected to the United States House of Representatives in 1852 and the New York County board of supervisors in 1858, the year he became the head of the Tammany Hall political machine. According to Tweed biographer Kenneth D. Ackerman, Its hard not to admire the skill behind Tweeds system. The Tweed ring at its height was a marvel, strong and solid, strategically deployed to control key power points, the courts, the legislature, the treasury. Its frauds had a grandeur of scale and an elegance of structure, money-laundering, profit sharing, unable to make bail, he escaped from jail once, but was returned to custody. He died in the Ludlow Street Jail, Tweed was born April 3,1823, at 1 Cherry Street, on the Lower East Side of Manhattan. Son of a third-generation Scottish-Irish chair-maker, Tweed grew up on Cherry Street, at the age of 11, he left school to learn his fathers trade, and then became an apprentice to a saddler. He also studied to be a bookkeeper and worked as a brushmaker for a company he had invested in, on September 29,1844, he married Mary Jane C. Skaden and lived with her family on Madison Street for two years, Tweed became a member of the Odd Fellows and the Masons, and joined a volunteer fire company, Engine No.12. In 1848, at the invitation of state assemblyman John J. Reilly, he and some friends organized the Americus Fire Company No. 6, also known as the Big Six, as a fire company, which took as its symbol a snarling red Bengal tiger. At the time, volunteer fire companies competed vigorously with each other, the competition could be so fierce that buildings would sometimes burn down while the fire companies fought each other. Tweed became known for his violence, and was soon elected the Big Six foreman. He lost that election to the Whig candidate Morgan Morgans, but ran again the year and won. Tweed was elected to the United States House of Representatives in 1852, in an attempt by Republican reformers in Albany, the state capital, to control the Democratic-dominated New York City government, the power of the New York County Board of Supervisors was beefed up. By 1853, Tweed was running the ward for Tammany. Although he was not trained as a lawyer, Tweeds friend, Judge George G. Barnard, certified him as an attorney, and Tweed opened a law office on Duane Street. Several months later, in April, he became Grand Sachem and he also started to form what became known as the Tweed Ring, by having his friends elected to office, George G. Barnard was elected Recorder of New York City, Peter B. Sweeny was elected New York County District Attorney, and Richard B. Connolly was elected City Comptroller and he invested his now considerable illegal income in real estate, so that by the late 1860s he ranked among the biggest landowners in New York City
11.
Murder
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A murder is the unlawful killing of another human without justification or valid excuse, especially the unlawful killing of another human being with malice aforethought. This state of mind may, depending upon the jurisdiction, distinguish murder from other forms of unlawful homicide, manslaughter is a killing committed in the absence of malice, brought about by reasonable provocation, or diminished capacity. Involuntary manslaughter, where it is recognized, is a killing that lacks all but the most attenuated guilty intent, in most countries, a person convicted of murder generally faces a long-term prison sentence, possibly a life sentence where permitted. In many common law jurisdictions, a convicted of murder will receive a mandatory life sentence. In jurisdictions where capital punishment exists, the penalty may be imposed for such an act, however. The modern English word murder descends from the Proto-Indo-European mrtró which meant to die, the Middle English mordre is a noun from Anglo-Saxon morðor and Old French murdre. Middle English mordre is a verb from Anglo-Saxon myrdrian and the Middle English noun, the elements of common law murder are, Unlawful killing through criminal act or omission of a human by another human with malice aforethought. Killing – At common law life ended with cardiopulmonary arrest – the total, with advances in medical technology courts have adopted irreversible cessation of all brain function as marking the end of life. Сriminal act or omission – Killing can be committed by an act or an omission. of a human – This element presents the issue of life begins. At common law, a fetus was not a human being, life began when the fetus passed through the vagina and took its first breath. By another human – In early common law, suicide was considered murder, the requirement that the person killed be someone other than the perpetrator excluded suicide from the definition of murder. With malice aforethought – Originally malice aforethought carried its everyday meaning – a deliberate, Murder necessarily required that an appreciable time pass between the formation and execution of the intent to kill. The courts broadened the scope of murder by eliminating the requirement of actual premeditation and deliberation as well as true malice, all that was required for malice aforethought to exist is that the perpetrator act with one of the four states of mind that constitutes malice. The four states of mind recognized as constituting malice are, Under state of mind, intent to kill, thus, if the defendant intentionally uses a deadly weapon or instrument against the victim, such use authorizes a permissive inference of intent to kill. In other words, intent follows the bullet, examples of deadly weapons and instruments include but are not limited to guns, knives, deadly toxins or chemicals or gases and even vehicles when intentionally used to harm one or more victims. In Australian jurisdictions, the risk must amount to a foreseen probability of death. Under state of mind, the doctrine, the felony committed must be an inherently dangerous felony, such as burglary, arson, rape. Importantly, the underlying felony cannot be a lesser included offense such as assault, as with most legal terms, the precise definition of murder varies between jurisdictions and is usually codified in some form of legislation
The dictionary definition of cover-up at Wiktionary
Media related to Concealment at Wikimedia Commons
