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World Boxing Association

World Boxing Association

:WBA is also an abbreviation for West Bromwich Albion F.C., an English football team. World Boxing Association (WBA) is a boxing organization that sanctions official matches, and awards the WBA world championship title, at the professional level.

Origins

The original sanctioning body of professional boxing, the World Boxing Association (WBA) can be traced back to the original National Boxing Association (of the United States), organized in 1921; the first bout recognized by the organization being the Jack Dempsey-Georges Carpentier Heavyweight Championship bout in New Jersey. The world at the time was recovering from a war, and many athletes had joined the military to defend their colors, so boxing became a way for many to entertain themselves. Promoter Tex Rickard, an NBA benefactor and the Don King of his day, helped put on some of its title fights, many of which made history. But Rickard died unexpectedly in 1931 of appendicitis, and the NBA had to rely more on their champions' ability to make themselves household names. By then, the great and legendary Joe Louis was approaching his championship years, and he won the World Heavyweight title in 1937, holding it until 1949, and taking the NBA and boxing through another war. The fact Louis and many other champions joined the war and often came back to the United States to defend their titles made National Boxing Association champions look even more heroic and patriotic. Boxing became more and more popular with the advent of television during the 1950s, the homecomings of many fighters, and the appearance of many new, young talented fighters. In 1962 the NBA, faced with world changes after World War II and the Korean War, and with the growth of boxing's popularity world-wide, changed its name officially to WBA, or World Boxing Association.

Competition & Controversies

Through the years, many competitors who also recognized world championship bouts sprung up, and in that line, the WBC started out in 1963, the IBF in 1983, the WBO in 1988, and nearly a dozen others. In 1982, many WBA world title fights ended in controversy or tragedy. On November 12 of that year, when Aaron Pryor defeated Alexis Arguello for the WBA's world Jr. Welterweight title, a controversial bottle was introduced into Pryor's corner after he had been shaken in round twelve, and the contents of the bottle were never known, but a rematch was ordered by the WBA. The following day, November 13, Ray Mancini defended his WBA world Lightweight title against Duk Koo Kim, who died five days later as a consequence of the blows received during the tragic fight. And on December 10, referee Joey Curtis, affected by Kim's death, abruptly stopped the WBA World Heavyweight championship fight between challenger Michael Dokes and champion Mike Weaver, sixty three seconds into the bout. He said that he had been affected by Kim's death, and an immediate rematch was ordered. Gilberto Mendoza has been the President of the WBA since 1982. The WBA in the 1990s moved its central offices from Panama City, Panama, to Caracas, Venezuela.

Super Champion

Nowadays the WBA has created a new concept called Super-Champion, something many boxing fans consider to be ridiculous and harmful to the sport's credibility. A WBA Super-Champion is recognized when a boxer holds a WBA title simultaneously with at least one other title (sanctioned by rivals the WBC, IBF, and sometimes the WBO) in the same weight class. Such multiple titleholders are typically called unified champions. When a boxer becomes WBA Super-Champion of his division, he is stripped of its "regular" championship. Next, two contenders are chosen to fight for the vacated (non-Super) WBA belt. While most boxing media continue to recognize the Super-Champion as the division's only "WBA Champion", this new doctrine has proven confusing to many; nonetheless, it has been tolerated by the other leading boxing groups. The WBA's explanation is that the Super designation allows unified champions to have double the time to prepare for title defenses (18 months, instead of the usual 9). The true motive may be greed: By having potentially 2 versions of each weight class' championship, the WBA can double their income (from sanctioning fees : the premium that sanctioning bodies charge promoters for lending their bouts the extra prestige -- and drawing power -- of a "championship" designation)[http://sports.espn.go.com/sports/boxing/news/story?id=2135889].

See also

Other world organizations


- World Boxing Council
- International Boxing Federation
- World Boxing Organization

Affiliated organizations


- FEDELATIN
- Pan Asian Boxing Association (PABA)
- European Boxing Association (EBA)
- North American Boxing Association (NABA)

Transition of WBA titles


- Transition of WBA world title
- Transition of WBA international title
- Transition of WBA Fedecentro title
- Transition of WBA Fedelatin title
- Transition of WBA Pan African title

External links


- [http://www.wbaonline.com/ WBA official homepage] Category:Professional boxing organisations ja:世界ボクシング協会

West Bromwich Albion F.C.

West Bromwich Albion Football Club is an English football club formed by workers from Salter's Spring Works in West Bromwich, West Midlands in 1878. It currently plays in the FA Premier League. This famous football club was one of the original founder members of the Football League. Although not as fashionable as some other English football teams, over the years 'The Albion' has made a great contribution to football. It was the first English team to play in Russia and then a couple of decades later the first English team to play in China. During the Chinese tour, midfielder John Trewick was asked what he thought of the Great Wall, his famous reply was "Once you've seen one wall, you've seen them all". Their original nickname,'The Throstles' originated because they had a thrush on their shirt badges. The more colloquial nickname and the more popular one is 'The Baggies'. There are several theories for how this name may have originated, a popular one being that the team wore unfashionably long shorts at one stage.

History

Fin de siecle (1878 - 1914)

Inter-war and the championship (1919 - 1939)

The war-time diaspora of a promising young team did not stop individuals from remaining active footballers in charity matches, amateur teams and regional leagues. When normal competition resumed in 1919, the team was prepared and ready for the new start and achieved the club's only league title in 1920. However, subsequent seasons were a disappointment as Pennington retired and the side started to break up. The mediocity was only alleviated by a second place in the league in the season 1924/1925 when they were narrowly beaten to the title by Herbert Chapman's phenomenal Huddersfield Town A.F.C. The year 1926 saw relegation to the second division. Ironically, relegation enabled an achievement which is, as of 2005, unique in English football. In 1931 the club won both the FA Cup and promotion back to the top flight. The club were only deprived of the second division championship by the goal-scoring exploits of Dixie Dean of Everton F.C. Though the same players who had won promotion performed creditably in the first division during the 1930s, (in 1936 William Richardson scored 39 league goals, still a club record), the death of Billy Bassett in 1937 marked the end of a footballing era. As the team again entered a period of reconstruction, Albion were relegated in 1938. With the 1939/1940 season only a few games old, World War II broke out and football was suspended.

Post-war renaissance (1945 - 1963)

Once normal league competition was resumed in 1946 (the 1945/46 season had been organised on a regional basis) Albion remained stuck in the Second Division. The turning point arrived with the retirement of Everiss in 1948. Unlike most other contemporary clubs, Albion had yet to implement the modern role of a coach or manager. Everiss was the club's principle commercial administrator and delivered the pre-match talk. The board selected the team. Kicking a football played no part in training which was for fitness alone. Albion's first modern manager was Jack Smith who took the team back to the First Division in 1949. As England emerged into an era of post-war prosperity, a talented new squad started to develop, marked by the arrival of Ronnie Allen in 1950, scoring against Wolverhampton Wanderers F.C. on his home debut in front of a crowd of 60,000. However, the board were frustrated by the lack of trophies and Smith was dismissed in 1952. Radically, Smith was replaced by Juventus coach Jesse Carver who introduced football into training. Though Carver was soon to be seduced back to Italy by S.S. Lazio, his eight months in charge were a defining moment for the club. His replacement, Vic Buckingham, recruited from the amateur leagues, inherited an intelligent well-co-ordinated team, playing a flowing syle of attacking football that he was to build upon. The season 1953/1954 saw Albion win the FA Cup and finish second in the league, behind Wolverhampton Wanderers, narrowly missing out on the first English double of the 20th century. The next couple of seasons were, in football terms, an anticlimax for the club. However, they also saw the arrival of players Don Howe, Derek Kevan and Bobby Robson. From 1957 to 1961, the team played an attractive, imaginative and stylish brand of attacking football that never quite materialised into a trophy. In the season 1957/1958, Allen, Kevan and Robson scored 78 goals between them. With Buckingham's departure to Ajax in 1959, the club saw another decline, Jimmy Hagan being recruited to arrest the slide in 1963.

Astle and after (1964 - 1977)

September 1964 saw the arrival of striker Jeff Astle from Notts County F.C. Over the next decade, Astle was to become the club's most iconic player ever. The club was already feeling the dramatic social changes of the 1960s, tangibly through falling attendances and the end of the players' maximum wage. Hagan was, despite the spirit of the times, a martinet on the training ground and frequently bred conflict with a playing squad beginning to enjoy the decade's economic and social freedoms. However, he shrewdly built the team in personnel and skill, leading them to a League Cup triumph in 1966. The following season was a hollow disappointment with Albion losing in the final of the League Cup to Third Division Queens Park Rangers F.C., making an early exit from their first European campaign and struggling to maintain their place in the First Division. Had Hagan had more friends at the Hawthorns, he might have been given time to fix the problems but, in 1967, he was replaced by Alan Ashman. Ashman led Albion to FA Cup victory in 1968, Astle becoming the first player to score in every round, but subsequently, despite some exciting cup runs, the manager could not deliver the trophies the club craved. Don Howe seemed the perfect replacement for Ashman when he arrived as manager in 1971. A former Albion player, he had just coached Arsenal F.C. to their league and cup double and was regarded as one of the games foremost theoreticians. However, theory proved no match for practice, the club being relegated to the Second Division in 1973. Failure to achieve promotion back the following season and the departure of Astle in 1974 seemed to presage a gloomy future. Fortuitiously, Albion was gifted by the short leaderships of Johnny Giles and Ronnie Allen who began the work of rebuilding the team. Sadly, the club was insuffucently ambitious and prescient to work hard at securing either's long term-services.

The Atkinson era (1978 - 1981)

When unknown young manager Ron Atkinson arrived at the club in 1978, he inherited a team that already included youth-team graduate Bryan Robson and the young, gifted and black pair of Laurie Cunningham and Cyrille Regis, both acquired inexpensively from lower divisions. Aware that he had the makings of a great team, he augmented it by bringing Brendan Batson from his former club Cambridge United F.C. Never before had an English team simultaneously fielded three black players and the Three Degrees, as they became known in reference to the contemporary vocal trio of the same name, challenged the established racism of English football and marked a watershed that allowed a generation of footballers to enter the game who would previously have been excluded by their ethnic background. Atkinson's team played some of the most exciting football in England during his term at the club but, as early as 1978, the board allowed the playing talent to start slipping away, Cunningham's move to Real Madrid marking the start of the trend. The club managed 3rd and 4th places in the First Division and, more than once, reached the semi-finals of the FA Cup but trophies narrowly eluded them. Following the tragic death of director Tom Silk in a plane crash, the club fell again under the conservative leadership of Bert Millichip and Atkinson, despairing of the support he needed to build and maintain a winning team, took the vacant manager's post at Manchester United F.C. in the summer of 1981.

Decline and fall (1982 - 1999)

Ronnie Allen returned to The Hawthorns in the summer of 1981, a surprise choice to replace Atkinson. Immediately he was encouraged by the board to sell two of his prize assets, Bryan Robson and Remi Moses, who departed for Manchester United in a new British transfer record deal of £2.5m. Their replacements were Martin Jol and Andy King, and for a while, things looked rosy, as Albion reached the semi-finals of both domestic cups. However, the usual post-Christmas slump saw the side needing to win its final home game, against Leeds United, to stay up. The game was won 2-0, and Leeds were relegated instead. At the end of the season, Allen was 'kicked upstairs' and Coventry City coach Ron Wylie took over. He stopped the slide, for a while, but a falling out between his head coach, Mick Kelly, and his players, led to his resignation in 1985. In came the 'A Team' - Johnny Giles, Norman Hunter and Nobby Stiles. They reversed the sinking trend in the 1983-84 season - although, disastrously, they lost their first game, at home to Third Division Plymouth Argyle, who went on to reach the semi-finals, in the FA Cup - and things improved the following year. The seeds of collapse were being sown however. Financial difficulties at the club forced Giles to sell Cyrille Regis to lighten the wage bill. Other players followed for the same reason and were generally inadequately replaced. By October 1985, it was looking grim for the club and Giles was replaced by his assistant Nobby Stiles. Stiles lasted only a few months before being replaced by Ron Saunders. By this time, Albion were finished, bottom of the table and certain to be relegated. Saunders was instructed to cut costs so the club could survive in Division 2. As a result, he sold off all of the experienced Division 1 players and replaced them with players from Divisions 2 and 3. This was a disastrous policy, and Albion soon found themselves struggling to avoid relegation from Division 2. These poor results, combined with the unattractive style of football that Saunders favoured, meant that another managerial change was not far away. Atkinson returned to Albion in the summer of 1987 and halfway through his second season at the club they led the Second Division table, looking all set from promotion. But Atkinson was lured away to Athletico Madrid and his successor Brian Talbot was unable to secure even a playoff place in the final table. And from then on things went from bad to worse, and Talbot was dismissed in January 1991 after Albion lost 4-2 at home to non league Woking in the FA Cup Third Round. He was replaced by Bobby Gould, who three seasons earlier had won the FA Cup with Wimbledon, but the managerial change was not enough to prevent Albion from being relegated to the Third Division for the first time in their history. After Albion failed to qualify for the Third Division playoffs in 1991-92, Gould moved to Coventry City and was replaced by the former Swindon Town and Newcastle United manager Osvaldo Ardiles. Ardiles was in charge at Albion for one season before becoming manager of Tottenham, but he guided them to victory over Port Vale in the 1992-93 playoff final of the new Division Two. Albion turned to the former Tottenham manager Keith Burkenshaw as replacement for Ardiles. He had won the FA Cup two years in a row with Tottenham in the early 1980's but his spell at The Hawthorns was a huge disappointment. Albion only survived relegation back to Division Two at the end of 1993-94 because they had scored more goals than their nearest rivals, Birmingham City. Burkenshaw was sacked soon after that, and replaced by the Grimsby manager Alan Buckley. Under Alan Buckley, Albion's league form was consistently well below average - but just enough to keep them safe from relegation. In October 1995 they were second in Division One and hopeful of automatic promotion. But then came a drastic loss of form over the next 14 games which saw them lose 13 games, draw one and win none. One point out of a possible 42. They looked set to be relegated to Division Two, but a big improvement in form during the final four months of the 1995-96 season saw them climb to mid table. It was also the first time in seven years that they had finished lower than their deadly rivals Wolverhampton Wanderers (who finished 20th). Buckley was sacked in January 1997 and replaced by Ray Harford. Harford had previously been manager or assistant manager of Fulham, Luton Town, Wimbledon and Blackburn Rovers. He had won the League Cup while manager of Luton Town, and was assistant manager of the Blackburn side which won the 1995 Premiership title. But he failed to mount a promotion challenge at the Hawthorns and after less than a year in charge moved to QPR, making way for Dennis Smith. Smith, a former manager of York City, Sunderland and Oxford United, helped Albion avoid the drop two seasons in a row but it was not enough for the Albion board and he was sacked in the summer of 1999. They appointed Brian Little as manager. Little had achieved promotion success with Darlington (twice) and Leicester City (once) as well as winning the League Cup with Aston Villa. But he was sacked the following March with Albion in real danger of relegation.

The Megson era (2000 - 2004)

Gary Megson was named as the new West Bromwich Albion manager in March 2000. He had previously been in charge at Norwich City, Blackpool, Stockport County and Stoke City, but had never achieved any real success. Many Albion fans were disappointed with the new chairman Paul Thompson because they wanted a more proven manager. Megson's first objective was to keep Albion in Division One. A last-day win over champions Charlton Athletic meant that Albion were safe and their neighbours Walsall would be going down to Division Two. Megson then rejuvenated the side by discarding several players and bringing in a host of new signings. The transition paid off in 2000-01, when Albion qualified for the Division One promotion playoffs - their highest league finish since relegation in 1986. They lost to eventual winners Bolton Wanderers in the playoff semi finals but the fans had plenty of hope for the 2001-02 season. With 10 games to go before the end of the 2001-02 season, Albion were 10 points behind neighbours Wolves in the Division One table. But while Wolves lost five vital games during the run-in, Albion won seven out of 10 fixtures (including the notorious Battle of Bramall Lane) and secured automatic promotion on the final day of the season by beating Crystal Palace at home, while Wolves could only manage a draw away to Sheffield Wednesday. But the promotion dream which came true quickly turned into a nightmare. Chairman Paul Thompson quit the club after falling out with manager Gary Megson and new owner Jeremy Peace was unable to provide adequate transfer funds. So Albion began the 2002-03 season without any significant new squad members. They lost their first three games of the Premiership campaign and then won three in a row to occupy eighth place in the table by mid September. This gave Albion fans hope of Premiership survival. But they only won three of their next 32 Premiership fixtures and were relegated in 19th place with just 26 points, which left them 18 points adrift of safety. 2003-04 saw Albion return to the Premiership as runners-up to Norwich City, and this time everyone involved with the club was hopeful of staying up this time round. But Albion won just one of their first 11 games of the 2004-05 Premiership campaign, and Gary Megson announced he would not be renewing his contract when it expired at the end of the season. The club's board reacted by immediately terminating the remainder of his contract, and they hired former player Bryan Robson as his replacement. Before the 2004-05 season began, West Bromwich Albion striker Lee Hughes - the club's top scorer in the promotion campaign - was jailed for six years after being convicted of causing death by dangerous driving. Nine months earlier, he had been speeding along a road near Coventry when his Mercedes was involved in a head-on collision with a Renault. Hughes and his passenger suffered minor injuries but one of the people travelled in the Renault was killed and three others were injured. Hughes fled the scene before turning himself in the next day. As well as being sentenced to six years in prison, Lee Hughes was also sacked by West Bromwich Albion. When he comes out of prison on licence in August 2007 (or earlier if his sentence is reduced on appeal), his chances of returning to Premiership football are very slim.

Bryan Robson: Battling For Survival (2004 - present)

On November 9, 2004, the appointment of Bryan Robson as manager was announced. His immediate task was to maintain their Premiership position; at his appointment, Albion stood 17th in the table, the final safe spot. However, by Christmas, Albion were bottom of the Premiership. Every previous club in the history of the Premiership to have found itself in this situation had been relegated at season's end. Albion did not get their first win under Robson until defeating Man City 2-0 on 22 January 2005. They finally moved off the bottom of the table in early March, and went on a four-match unbeaten streak, but remained in the drop zone throughout. On the next-to-last week of the season, a 1-1 draw with Man United combined with other results to leave Albion bottom of the Premiership. However, they still had a chance of survival, as only two points separated them from Norwich City, which occupied the final safe spot. On a dramatic last day of the season, having beaten Portsmouth 2-0, Albion stayed up thanks to Crystal Palace, Norwich City and Southampton all failing to get the results needed, becoming the first team in the history of the Premiership to be bottom at Christmas and still escape relegation. Prior to the 2005/2006 season, Robson brought in young Liverpool goalkeeper Chris Kirkland on loan and bought strikers Diomansy Kamara from Portsmouth and Nathan Ellington from Wigan Athletic. West Brom started the 2005/2006 campaign with reasonably poor results. After drawing their opening fixture away to Manchester City and then beating Portsmouth, West Brom went on a run of six games without a win. They surprisingly broke this streak in a shock 2-1 win over Arsenal. On November 19th, the team recorded a 4-0 win over Everton to take them out of the relegation zone. Summer signing Nathan Ellington scored his first and second Premiership goals in this match. As of 20/11/05, West Brom sit 16th in the table.

Honours


- FA Cup Winners: 1888, 1892, 1931, 1954, 1968
- Football League Cup Winners: 1966
- Football League First Division Champions: 1920.
- Football League Second Division Champions: 1902, 1911

Current first team squad

Out on loan

List of managers


- ...
- Jack Smith, (1948 - 1952)
- Jesse Carver, (1952)
- Vic Buckingham, (1952 - 1959)
- Gordon Clark, (1959 - 1961)
- Archie Macaulay, (1961 - 1963)
- Jimmy Hagan, (1963 - 1967)
- Alan Ashman, (1967 - 1971)
- Don Howe, (1971 - 1975)
- Johnny Giles, (1975 - 1977)
- Ronnie Allen, (1977)
- Ron Atkinson, (1978 - 1981)
- Ronnie Allen, (1981 - 1982)
- Ron Wylie, (1982 - 1984)
- Johnny Giles, (1984 - 1985)
- Nobby Stiles, (1985 - 1986)
- Ron Saunders, (1986 - 1987)
- Ron Atkinson, (1987 - 1988)
- Brian Talbot, (1988 - 1991)
- Bobby Gould, (1991 - 1992)
- Osvaldo Ardiles, (1992 - 1993)
- Keith Burkinshaw, (1993 - 1994)
- Alan Buckley, (1994 - 1997)
- Ray Harford, (1997)
- Dennis Smith, (1997 - 1999)
- Brian Little, (1999 - (2000)
- Gary Megson, (2000 - 2004)
- Bryan Robson, (2004 - )

List of chairmen


- ...
- Sir Bert Millichip, (1974 - 1983)
- Sid Lucas, (1983 - 1988)
- John Silk, (1988 - 1992)
- Trevor Summers, (1992 - 1994)
- Tony Hale, (1994 - 2000)
- Paul Thompson, (2000 - 2002)
- Jeremy Peace, (2002 - )

Famous supporters

Frank Skinner Adrian Chiles Leslie Crowther (deceased) Richie Woodall Julie Walters

External links


- [http://www.wba.co.uk Official site]
- [http://www.baggies.com www.baggies.com Unofficial fan-run site]
- Category:English football clubs Category:Sport in the West Midlands Category:FA Premier League ja:ウェスト・ブロムウィッチ・アルビオン simple:West Bromwich Albion F.C.

United States

:For alternative meanings, see the disambiguation page for US, USA, United States, or American. The United States of America is a federal democratic republic situated primarily in central North America. It comprises 50 states and one federal district, and has several territories. It is also referred to, with varying formality, as the United States, the U.S., the U.S.A., the States, or simply and most commonly, America. The official founding date of the United States is July 4, 1776, when the Second Continental Congress—representing thirteen British colonies—adopted the Declaration of Independence. However, the structure of the government was profoundly changed in 1788, when the states replaced the Articles of Confederation with the United States Constitution. The date on which each of the fifty states adopted the Constitution is typically regarded as the date that state "entered the Union" (became part of the United States). Since the mid-20th century, following World War II, the United States has emerged as a dominant global influence in economic, political, military, scientific, technological, and cultural affairs.

Geography and climate

The United States shares land borders with Canada (to the north) and Mexico (to the south), and territorial water boundaries with Canada, Russia, the Bahamas, and numerous smaller nations. It is otherwise bounded by the Pacific Ocean and the Bering Sea, in the west; the Arctic Ocean, in the northernmost areas; and the Atlantic Ocean, the Gulf of Mexico, and the Caribbean Sea, in the eastern and southeastern areas. Forty-eight of the states are in the single region between Canada and Mexico; this group is referred to, with varying precision and formality, as the continental or contiguous United States, sometimes abbreviated CONUS, and as the Lower 48. Alaska, which is not included in the term contiguous United States, is at the northwestern end of North America, separated from the Lower 48 by Canada. The archipelago of Hawaii is in the Pacific Ocean. The capital city, Washington, District of Columbia is a federal district located on land donated by the state of Maryland. (Virginia also donated land, but it was returned in 1847.) The United States also has overseas territories with varying levels of independence and organization. When inland water is included in the total area, only Russia and Canada are larger than the United States; if inland water is excluded, China ranks third and the U.S. ranks fourth. The United States' total area is 3,718,711 square miles (9,631,418 km²), of which land makes up 3,537,438 square miles (9,161,923 km²) and water makes up 181,273 square miles (469,495 km²). The United States' landscape is one of the most varied among those of the world's nations: among its many features are temperate forestland and rolling hills, on the east coast; mangrove, in Florida; the Great Plains, in the center of the country; the Mississippi–Missouri river system; the Great Lakes, four of the five of which are shared with Canada; the Rocky Mountains, west of the Great Plains; deserts and temperate coastal zones, west of the Rocky Mountains; and temperate rain forests, in the Pacific northwest. Alaska's tundra, and the volcanic, tropical islands of Hawaii add to the geographic diversity. Hawaii The climate varies along with the landscape, from tropical in Hawaii and southern Florida to tundra in Alaska and atop some of the highest mountains. Most of the North and East experience a temperate continental climate, with warm summers and cold winters. Most of the South experiences a subtropical humid climate with mild winters and long, hot, humid summers. Rainfall decreases markedly from the humid forests of the Eastern Great Plains to the semi-arid shortgrass prairies on the high plains abutting the Rocky Mountains. Arid deserts, including the Mojave, extend through the lowlands and valleys of the southwest, from westernmost Texas to California and northward throughout much of Nevada. Some parts of California have a Mediterranean climate. Rainforests line the windward mountains of the Pacific Northwest from Oregon to Alaska.

History

American history started with the migration of people from Asia across the Bering land bridge approximately 12,000 years ago following large animals that they hunted into the Americas. These Native Americans left evidence of their presence in petroglyphs, burial mounds, and other artifacts. It is estimated that 2-9 million people lived in the territory now occupied by the U.S. before European contact, and the subsequent introduction of foreign diseases such as small pox that greatly diminished the native populations. Some advanced societies were the Anasazi of the southwest, who inhabited Chaco Canyon, and the Woodland Indians, who built Cahokia, located near present-day St Louis, a city with a population of 40,000 at its peak in AD 1200. Vikings first visited North America around 1000, but did not settle permanently. Following the discovery voyages of Christopher Columbus around 1492, other Europeans began to explore and settle there. During the 1500s and 1600s, the Spanish settled parts of the present-day Southwest and Florida, founding St. Augustine, Florida in 1565 and Santa Fe (in what is now New Mexico) in 1607. The first successful English settlement was at Jamestown, Virginia, also in 1607. Within the next two decades, several Dutch settlements, including New Amsterdam (the predecessor to New York City), were established in what are now the states of New York and New Jersey. In 1637, Sweden established a colony at Fort Christina (in what is now Delaware), but lost the settlement to the Dutch in 1655. This was followed by extensive British settlement of the east coast. The British colonists remained relatively undisturbed by their home country until after the French and Indian War, when France ceded Canada and the Great Lakes region to Britain. Britain then imposed taxes on the 13 colonies, widely regarded by the colonists as unfair because they were denied representation in the British Parliament. Tensions between Britain and the colonists increased, and the thirteen colonies eventually rebelled against British rule. British Parliament, George Washington (1789-1797).]] In 1776, the 13 colonies split from Great Britain and formed the United States, the world's first constitutional and democratic federal republic, after their Declaration of Independence of that year, and the Revolutionary War (1775 to 1783). The original political structure was a confederation in 1777, ratified in 1781 as the Articles of Confederation. After long debate, this was supplanted by the Constitution in 1789, forming a more centralized federal government. Prior to all these was the Albany Congress in 1754, in which a union was first seriously proposed. From early colonial times, there was a shortage of labor, which encouraged unfree labor, particularly indentured servitude and slavery. In the mid-19th century, a major division occurred in the United States over the issue of states' rights and the expansion of slavery. The northern states had become opposed to slavery, while the southern states saw it as necessary for the continued success of southern agriculture and wanted it expanded to the territories. Several federal laws were passed in an attempt to settle the dispute, including the Missouri Compromise and the Compromise of 1850. The dispute reached a crisis in 1861, when seven southern states seceded1 from the Union and formed the Confederate States of America, leading to the Civil War. Soon after the war began, four more southern states seceded. During the war, Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation, mandating the freedom of all slaves in states in rebellion, though full emancipation did not take place until after the end of the war in 1865, the dissolution of the Confederacy, and the Thirteenth Amendment took effect. The Civil War effectively ended the question of a state's right to secede, and is widely accepted as a major turning point after which the federal government became more powerful than state governments. Thirteenth Amendment). The title of the painting, from a 1726 poem by Bishop Berkeley, was a phrase often quoted in the era of Manifest Destiny, expressing a widely held belief that civilization had steadily moved westward throughout history. [http://americanart.si.edu/t2go/1lw/1931.6.1.html (more)] ]] During the 19th century, many new states were added to the original 13 as the nation expanded across the continent. Manifest Destiny was a philosophy that encouraged westward expansion in the United States. As the population of the Eastern states grew and as a steady increase of immigrants entered the country, settlers moved steadily westward across North America. In the process, the U.S. displaced most American Indian nations. This displacement of American Indians continues to be a matter of contention in the U.S. with many tribes attempting to assert their original claims to various lands. In some areas American Indian populations were reduced by foreign diseases contracted through contact with European settlers, and US settlers acquired those emptied lands. In other instances American Indians were removed from their traditional lands by force. Though some would say the U.S. was not a colonial power until the Spanish-American War when it acquired Puerto Rico, Guam and the Philippines, the dominion exercised over land in North America the United States claimed is essentially colonial. The Philippines became independent in 1946. During this period, the nation also became an industrial power. This continued into the 20th century, which has been termed "the American Century" because of the nation's overriding influence on the world. The US became a center for innovation and technological development; major technologies that America either developed or was greatly involved in improving include the telephone, television, computer, the Internet, nuclear weapons, nuclear power, aviation, and aeronautics. In addition to the Civil War, another major traumatic experience for the nation was the Great Depression (1929 to 1939). The nation has also taken part in several major foreign wars, including World War I and World War II (in both of which the US later joined the Allies). During the Cold War, the US was a major player in the Korean War and Vietnam War, and, along with the Soviet Union, was considered one of the world's two "superpowers". With the collapse of the Soviet Union, the US emerged as the world's leading economic and military power. Beginning in the 1990s, the United States became very involved in police actions and peacekeeping, including actions in Kosovo, Haiti, Somalia and Liberia, and the first Persian Gulf War driving Iraq out of Kuwait. After attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon on September 11, 2001, the United States and other allied nations found themselves involved in what has come to be called the "War on Terrorism," which has primarily encompassed military actions in both Afghanistan and Iraq.

Government

Iraq of the United States.]]

Republic and suffrage

The United States is an example of a constitutional republic, with a government composed of and operating through a set of limited powers imposed by its design and enumerated in the United States Constitution. Specifically, the nation operates as a presidential democracy. There are three levels of government: federal, state, and local. Officials of each of these levels are either elected by eligible voters via secret ballot or appointed by other elected officials. Americans enjoy almost universal suffrage from the age of 18 regardless of race, sex, or wealth. There are some limits, however: felons are disenfranchised and in some states former felons are likewise. Furthermore, the national representation of territories and the federal district of Washington, DC in Congress is limited: residents of the District of Columbia are subject to federal laws and federal taxes but their only Congressional representative is a non-voting delegate.

Federal government

The federal government is the national government, comprising the Legislative Branch (led by Congress), the Executive Branch (led by the President), and the Judicial Branch (led by the Supreme Court). These three branches were designed to apply checks and balances on each other. The Constitution limits the powers of the federal government to defense, foreign affairs, the issuing and management of currency, the management of trade and relations between the states, and the protection of human rights. In addition to these explicitly stated powers, the federal government—with the assistance of the Supreme Court—has gradually extended these powers into such areas as welfare and education, on the basis of the "necessary and proper" clause of the Constitution.

The Congress

necessary and proper The Congress of the United States is the legislative branch of the federal government of the United States. It is bicameral, comprising the House of Representatives and the Senate. The House of Representatives consists of 435 members, each of whom represents a congressional district and serves for a two-year term. House seats are apportioned among the states by population; in contrast, each state has two Senators, regardless of population. There are a total of 100 senators, who serve six-year terms. The powers of Congress are limited to those enumerated in the Constitution; all other powers are reserved to the states and the people. The Constitution also includes the necessary-and-proper clause, which grants Congress the power to "make all laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into execution the foregoing powers."

The President

necessary-and-proper clause At the top level of the executive branch is the President of the United States. The President and Vice-President are elected as 'running mates' for four-year terms by the Electoral College, for which each state, as well as the District of Columbia, is allocated a number of seats based on its representation (or ostensible representation, in the case of D. C.) in both houses of Congress (see U.S. Electoral College). The relationship between the President and the Congress reflects that between the English monarchy and parliament at the time of the framing of the United States Constitution. Congress can legislate to constrain the President's executive power, even with respect to his or her command of the armed forces; however, this power is used only very rarely—a notable example was the constraint placed on President Richard Nixon's strategy of bombing Cambodia during the Vietnam War. The President cannot directly propose legislation, and must rely on supporters in Congress to promote his or her legislative agenda. The President's signature is required to turn congressional bills into law; in this respect, the President has the power—only occasionally used—to veto congressional legislation. Congress can override a presidential veto with a two-thirds majority vote in both houses. The ultimate power of Congress over the President is that of impeachment or removal of the elected President through a House vote, a Senate trial, and a Senate vote. The threat of using this power has had major political ramifications in the cases of Presidents Andrew Johnson, Richard Nixon, and Bill Clinton. The President makes around 2,000 executive appointments, including members of the Cabinet and ambassadors, which must be approved by the Senate; the President can also issue executive orders and pardons, and has other Constitutional duties, among them the requirement to give a State of the Union address to Congress once a year. Although the President's constitutional role may appear to be constrained, in practice, the office carries enormous prestige that typically eclipses the power of Congress: the Presidency has justifiably been referred to as 'the most powerful office in the world'. The Vice President is first in the line of succession, and is the President of the Senate ex officio, with the ability to cast a tie-breaking vote. The members of the President's Cabinet are responsible for administering the various departments of state, including the Department of Defense, the Justice Department, and the State Department. These departments and department heads have considerable regulatory and political power, and it is they who are responsible for executing federal laws and regulations. George W. Bush is the 43rd President, currently serving his second term.

The Courts

George W. Bush The highest court is the Supreme Court, which consists of nine justices. The court deals with federal and constitutional matters, and can declare legislation made at any level of the government as unconstitutional, nullifying the law and creating precedent for future law and decisions. Below the Supreme Court are the courts of appeals, and below them in turn are the district courts, which are the general trial courts for federal law. Separate from, but not entirely independent of, this federal court system are the individual court systems of each state, each dealing with its own laws and having its own judicial rules and procedures. A case may be appealed from a state court to a federal court only if there is a federal question; the supreme court of each state is the final authority on the interpretation of that state's laws and constitution.

State and local governments

supreme court of each state. Note that Alaska and Hawaii are shown at different scales, and that the Aleutian Islands and the uninhabited Northwestern Hawaiian Islands are omitted from this map.]] The state governments have the greatest influence over people's daily lives. Each state has its own written constitution and has different laws. There are sometimes great differences in law and procedure between the different states, concerning issues such as property, crime, health, and education. The highest elected official of each state is the Governor. Each state also has an elected legislature (bicameral in every state except Nebraska), whose members represent the different parts of the state. Of note is the New Hampshire legislature, which is the third-largest legislative body in the English-speaking world, and has one representative for every 3,000 people. Each state maintains its own judiciary, with the lowest level typically being county courts, and culminating in each state supreme court, though sometimes named differently. In some states, supreme and lower court justices are elected by the people; in others, they are appointed, as they are in the federal system. The institutions that are responsible for local government are typically town, city, or county boards, making laws that affect their particular area. These laws concern issues such as traffic, the sale of alcohol, and keeping animals. The highest elected official of a town or city is usually the mayor. In New England, towns operate directly democratically, and in some states, such as Rhode Island and Connecticut, counties have little or no power, existing only as geographic distinctions. In other areas, county governments have more power, such as to collect taxes and maintain law enforcement agencies.

Political divisions

With the Declaration of Independence, the thirteen colonies proclaimed themselves to be nation states modeled after the European states of the time. Although considered as sovereigns initially, under the Articles of Confederation of 1781 they entered into a "Perpetual Union" and created a fully sovereign federal state, delegating certain powers to the national Congress, including the right to engage in diplomatic relations and to levy war, while each retaining their individual sovereignty, freedom and independence. But the national government proved too ineffective, so the administrative structure of the government was vastly reorganized with the United States Constitution of 1789. Under this new union, the continued status of the individual states as sovereign nation states fell into dispute in 1861, as several states attempted to secede from the union; in response, then-President Abraham Lincoln claimed that such secession was illegal, and the result was the American Civil War. Since the Union victory in 1865, the independent status of the individual states has not been broached again by any state, and the status of each state within the union has been deemed by mainstream officials and academics to be settled as being subordinate to the union as a whole. In subsequent years, the number of states grew steadily due to western expansion, the purchase of lands by the national government from other nation states, and the subdivision of existing states, resulting in the current total of 50. The states are generally divided into smaller administrative regions, including counties, cities and townships. The United States–Canadian border is the longest undefended political boundary in the world. The U.S. is divided into three distinct sections:
- the "continental United States," also known as "the Lower 48" and more accurately termed the conterminous, coterminous or contiguous United States
- Alaska, which is physically connected only to Canada
- the archipelago of Hawaii, in the central Pacific Ocean. The United States also holds several other territories, districts, and possessions, notably the federal district of the District of Columbia, which is the nation's capital, and several overseas insular areas, the most significant of which are American Samoa, Guam, the Northern Mariana Islands, Puerto Rico, and the United States Virgin Islands. The Palmyra Atoll is the United States' only incorporated territory; it is unorganized and uninhabited. The United States Navy has held a base at a portion of Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, since 1898. The United States government possesses a lease to this land, which only mutual agreement or United States abandonment of the area can terminate. The present Cuban government of Fidel Castro disputes this arrangement, claiming Cuba was not truly sovereign at the time of the signing. The United States argues this point moot because Cuba apparently ratified the lease post-revolution, and with full sovereignty, when it cashed one rent check in accordance with the disputed treaty.

Foreign relations and military

sovereign] The immense military and economic dominance of the United States has made foreign relations an especially important topic in its politics, with considerable concern about the image of the United States throughout the world. Reactions towards the United States by other nationalities are often strong, ranging from uninhibited admiration and mimicking of all things American to anti-Americanism. US foreign policy has swung about several times over the course of its history between the poles of strict isolationism and imperialism and everywhere in between. Three of the nation's four military branches are administered by the Department of Defense: the Army, the Navy (including the Marine Corps), and the Air Force. The Coast Guard falls under the jurisdiction of the Department of Homeland Security in peacetime, but is placed under the Department of the Navy in time of war. The combined United States armed forces consist of 1.4 million active duty personnel, along with several hundred thousand each in the Reserves and the National Guard. Military conscription ended in 1973. The United States Armed forces are considered to be the most powerful military (of any sort) on Earth and their force projection capabilities are unrivaled by any other nation. The 2005 defense budget amounted to $401.7 billion, which is an increase of 4% over 2004 and of 35% since 2001. Over 50% of that number is spent in research & development. (For comparison, in 2004 the European Union (considered as the second-largest military force) had a combined total of 1.6 million troops, and a defense budget of €160 billion, with less than 10% of that being spent on R&D.)

Largest cities

The United States has dozens of major cities, including 11 of the 55 global cities of all types — with three "alpha" global cities: New York City, Los Angeles, and Chicago. The figures expressed below are for populations within city limits. A different ranking is evident when considering U.S. metro area populations, although the top three would be unchanged. Note that some cities not listed (such as Atlanta, Boston, Las Vegas, Miami, Nashville, New Orleans, Seattle, and Washington, D.C.) are still considered important on the basis of other factors and issues, including culture, economics, heritage, and politics. The twenty largest cities, based on the United States Census Bureau's 2004 estimates, are as follows:

Economy

The United States has the largest single-country economy in the world, with a per-capita gross domestic product of $40,100. In this market-oriented economy, private individuals and business firms make most of the decisions, and the federal and state governments buy needed goods and services predominantly in the private marketplace. gross domestic product The largest industry of the U.S. is now service, which employs roughly three quarters of the U.S. work force. The United States has many natural resources, including oil and gas, metals, and such minerals as gold, soda ash, and zinc. In agriculture, the U.S. is a top producer of, among other crops, corn, soy beans, and wheat; the United States is a net exporter of food. The U.S. manufacturing sector produces goods such as, cars, airplanes, steel, and electronics, among many others. Economic activity varies greatly from one part of the country to another, with many industries being largely dependent on a certain city or region; New York City is the center of the American financial, publishing, broadcasting, and advertising industries; Silicon Valley is the country’s primary location for high-technology companies, while Los Angeles is the most important center for film production. The Midwest is known for its reliance on manufacturing and heavy industry, with Detroit, Michigan, serving as the center of the American automotive industry; the Great Plains are known as the "breadbasket" of America for their tremendous agricultural output; the intermountain region serves as a mining hub and natural gas resource; the Pacific Northwest for fish and timber, while Texas is largely associated with the oil industry; the Southeast is a major hub for both medical research and the textiles industry. Several countries continue to link their currency to the dollar or even use it as a currency (such as Ecuador), although this practice has subsided since the collapse of the Bretton Woods system. Many markets are also quoted in dollars, such as those of oil and gold. The dollar is also the predominant reserve currency in the world, and more than half of global reserves are in dollars. The largest trading partner of the United States is Canada (19%), followed by China (12%), Mexico (11%), and Japan (8%). More than 50% of total trade is with these four countries. In 2003, the United States was ranked as the third most visited tourist destination in the world; its 40,400,000 visitors ranked behind France's 75,000,000 and Spain's 52,500,000. Labor unions have existed since the 19th century, and grew large and powerful from the 1930s to the 1950s. See Labor history of the United States. Since 1970 they have shrunk in the private sector and now cover fewer than 8% of the workers. However union membership has grown rapidly in the public sector, especially among teachers, nurses, police, postal workers, and municipal clerks. There have been few strikes in recent years. The United States' imports exceed exports by 80%, leading to an annual trade deficit of $700,000,000,000, or 6% of gross domestic product. It is the largest debtor nation in the world, with total gross foreign debt of over $13,000,000,000,000 (2005 estimate); and it absorbs more than 50% of global savings annually. Since the 1980s, the U.S. has increased the use of neoliberal economic policies that reduce government intervention and reduce the size of the welfare state, backing away from the more interventionist Keynsian economic policies that had been in favor since the Great Depression. As a result, the United States provides fewer government-delivered social welfare services than most industrialized nations, choosing instead to keep its tax burden lower and relying more heavily on the free market and private charities. Sixteen states and the District of Columbia have minimum wages higher than the national level ($5.15 per-hour), including the highest, Washington State at $7.35. Twenty-six states are the same as the federal level; two--Ohio and Kansas--are below; and six do not have state laws. America's wealth is relatively highly concentrated. The average C.E.O. earns 500 times the typical amount a worker grosses, this is up from 25 times in the late 1970s. In terms of wealth the top 1% of Americans own 40% of all assets and 50.1% of the country's income goes to the top twenty percent of households. Average wages for the majority of employees have been largely stagnating since the 1970s. America's poverty line defined as a family of four earning less than $19,157 is at 12.7% of the general population. Approximately one out of every five children in the United States grows up below the official poverty line. Among racial groups; African Americans have the lowest median income while Asians had the highest. Regionally, the southern states had the lowest median incomes while the West Coast and New England had the highest. The current Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan remarked that the U.S.’s growing income inequality since the 1970s is, "not the type of thing which a democratic society - a capitalist democratic society - can really accept without addressing."[http://www.csmonitor.com/2005/0614/p01s03-usec.html?s=itm] However, Greenspan also noted, "...you can look at the system and say it's got a lot of problems to it, and sure it does. It always has. But you can't get around the fact that this is the most extraordinarily successful economy in history."

Transportation

Alan Greenspan ]] Because the United States is a relatively young nation, most of the development of U.S. cities has taken place since the invention of the automobile. To link its vast territory, the United States built a network of high-capacity, high-speed highways, of which the most important element is the Interstate Highway system, commissioned in the 1950s by President Dwight D. Eisenhower and modeled after the German Autobahn. The United States also has a transcontinental rail system, which is used for moving freight across the lower forty-eight states. Passenger rail service is provided by Amtrak, which serves forty-six of the lower forty-eight states. Many cities in the United States have extensive mass-transit systems. New York City operates one of the world's largest and most heavily used subway systems. The regional rail and bus networks that extend into Long Island, New Jersey, Upstate New York, and Connecticut are among the most heavily used in the world. Air travel is often preferred for destinations over 300 miles (500 kilometers) away. In terms of passengers, seventeen of the world's thirty busiest airports in 2004 were in the U.S., including the world's busiest, Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport; in terms of cargo, in the same year, twelve of the world's thirty busiest airports were in the U.S., including the world's busiest, Memphis International Airport. There are several major seaports in the United States; the three busiest are the Port of Los Angeles, California; the Port of Long Beach, California; and the Port of New York and New Jersey. Others include Houston, Texas; Charleston, South Carolina; Savannah, Georgia; Miami, Florida; Portland, Oregon; San Francisco, California; Boston, Massachusetts; Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; and Seattle, Washington; plus, outside the contiguous forty-eight states, Anchorage, Alaska, and Honolulu, Hawaii.

Society

Demographics

Hawaii The mean center of the U.S. population continues to drift farther west and south. The fastest growing region is the western United States followed by the southern portion. According to Census 2000, the states that saw the greatest increases from 1990 were: Nevada (66.3%), Arizona (40%), Colorado (30.6%), Utah (29.6%), Idaho (28.5%), Georgia (26.4%), Florida (23.5%), Texas (22.8%), North Carolina (21.4%), and Washington (21.1%). [http://www.census.gov/population/cen2000/phc-t2/tab03.pdf]

Ethnicity and race

:Main article: Racial demographics of the United States The United States is a very racially diverse country. According to the 2000 census, it has 31 ethnic groups with at least one million members each, and numerous others represented in smaller amounts. The majority of Americans descend from white European immigrants who arrived at the establishment of the first colonies (most after Reconstruction). This majority--69.1% in 2000--decreases each year, and is expected to become a plurality within a few decades. The most frequently stated European ancestries are German (15.2%), Irish (10.8%), English (8.7%), Italian (5.6%) and Scandinavian (3.7%). Many immigrants also hail from Slavic countries such as Poland and Russia. Other significant immigrant populations came from eastern and southern Europe and French Canada. Russia Hispanics from Mexico and South and Central America are the largest minority group in the country, comprising 12.5% of the population (2000 census). People of Mexican descent made up 7.3% of the population in the 2000 census, and this proportion is expected to increase significantly in the coming decades. About 12.3% (2000 census) of the American people are African Americans (Blacks). African Americans are spread throughout the country, but their presence is largest in the South. Asian Americans--including Native Hawaiians and Pacific Islanders--are a third significant minority (3.7% of the population in 2000). Most Asian Americans are concentrated on the West Coast and Hawaii. The largest groups are immigrants or descendants of emigrants from the Philippines, China, India, Vietnam, South Korea, and Japan. Indigenous peoples in the United States, such as American Indians and Inuit, make up 0.9% of the population (2000 census). About 35% live on Indian reservations.

Religion

Polls estimate that just under 80 percent of Americans are Christians of various denominations. The other 20 percent comprises other religions such as Hinduism, Judaism, Islam, and Buddhism, other various faiths, and those without a specific religion. The United States is noteworthy among developed nations for its relatively high level of religiosity. According to a 2004 Gallup poll, about 44% of Americans attend a religious service at least once a week. However, this rate is not uniform across the country; attendance is more common in the Bible Belt—composed largely of Southern and Midwestern states—than in the Northeast and West Coast. In the Southern states, Baptists are the largest group, followed by Methodists; Roman Catholics are dominant in the Northeast and in large parts of the Midwest due to their being settled by descendants of Catholic immigrants from Europe (such as Germany, Ireland, Italy, and Poland) or other parts of North America (mainly Quebec and Puerto Rico). The rest of the country for the most part has a complex mixture of various Christian groups.

Education

West Coast's home at Monticello and the University of Virginia (library building shown above, and designed by Jefferson), the only collegiate campus on the list. Both sites are located in Charlottesville, Virginia.]] In the United States, education is a state, not federal, responsibility, and the laws and standards vary considerably. However, the federal government, through the Department of Education, is involved with funding of some programs and exerts some influence through its ability to control funding. In most states, all students must attend mandatory schooling starting with kindergarten, which children normally enter at age 5, and following through 12th grade, which is normally completed at age 18

Jack Dempsey

This article is about the boxer named Jack Dempsey. There is another article on the fish commonly called Jack Dempsey. ----- William Harrison "Jack" Dempsey (June 24, 1895 - May 31, 1983), was an Irish-American boxer who won the world heavyweight title. During the 1920s he was involved in many famous fights.

Biography

Born in Manassa, Colorado, by age 16 Dempsey had begun hopping on trains and travelling west to fight as a professional. He would go into saloons and challenge for fights saying "I can't sing and I can't dance, but I can lick any man in the house". His exact fight record is not known because sometimes he boxed under the pseudonym, Kid Blackie. This practice continued until 1916. In between, he first appeared as Jack Dempsey in 1914, drawing with Young Herman in six rounds. After that fight, he won six bouts in a row by knockout (as Jack Dempsey), before losing for the first time, on a disqualification in four to Jack Downes. During this early part of his career, Dempsey campaigned in Utah frequently. He followed his loss against Downey with a knockout win and two draws versus Johnny Summerland in Nevada. Three more wins and a draw followed and then he met Downes again, this time resulting in a four round draw . Ten wins in a row followed, a streak during which he beat Summerland and was finally able to avenge his defeat at the hands of Downes, knocking him out in two. Then, three more non-decisions came (early in boxing, there were no judges to score a fight, so if a fight lasted the full distance, it was called a draw or non-decision, depending on the state or country the fight was being held in). In between the non-decisions, Dempsey refused to box with Sam Langford, a Black fighter who is now in the International Boxing Hall Of Fame alongside Jack. Dempsey was always aware that fights with Black opponents could bring negative society reactions. When the United States entered World War I in 1917, Dempsey worked in a shipyard while continuing to box. After the war, he was accused by some boxing fans of being a draft dodger. It wasn't until 1920 that he was able to clear his name on that account, when evidence was produced showing he had attempted to enlist in the U.S. Army, but was turned down. Meanwhile, Dempsey went 9-1-4 in 14 bouts in 1917. Among his opponents were Fireman Jim Flynn, the only boxer ever to beat Dempsey by a knockout when Dempsey lost to him in the first round, and Gunboat Smith, a fringe contender stopped by Dempsey. In 1918, Dempsey boxed 17 times, going 15-1 with one no decision. He avenged his defeat against Flynn by returning the favor, knocking him out in the first round. Among others he beat were Kid Levingsky, a top rated contender of the times. He began 1919 winning five bouts in a row by knockout in the first round. Then on July 4, he and world Heavyweight champion Jess Willard met at Toledo, Ohio, for the world title. Few gave Dempsey a chance against the larger champion and many called this fight a modern David and Goliath. However, Dempsey was fearless and vowed victory. The first round of the fight was one of the most brutal in boxing history. Dempsey dealt Willard a terrible beating and knocked him down seven times in that round alone. Both of Willard's eyes were swollen shut, his nose was broken, six of his teeth were on the canvas and his ribs were crushed. At the end of the third round the champion was forced to give up. Today, an offical overseeing such an event would be barred from refereeing further matches for failure to stop such a massacre. In his first defense, he faced friend Billy Miske, knocking him out in three rounds. Years after the fight, it was learned Miske accepted the fight while suffering a terminal disease and needed the money to secure his family after death, which occurred to him two years after challenging Dempsey. Dempsey always expressed regret about that fight and declared he would have given Miske the money he needed if he'd only known of Miske's situation. Billy Miske One more defense followed, versus Bill Brennan, before he had to face world Light Heavyweight champion Georges Carpentier in what became boxing's first million dollar gate ever. Carpentier, a decorated veteran of the French Army had served in World War I. Ironically, Dempsey's promoter used this angle to promote the fight, since many Americans still regarded Dempsey as a slacker during the war. In a farm that had to be rented to accommodate all the public in New Jersey, Dempsey beat Carpentier by a knockout in four rounds in front of 80,183 fans. After this fight, Dempsey's fame reached unexpected heights, becoming one of the top five sports stars in the United States in 1920s, along with baseball's Babe Ruth, tennis' Bill Tilden, American football's Red Grange and golf's Bobby Jones. They were known in America as the big 5 of sports. In 1922, he fought just one official fight, a four-round bout against journeyman Jimmy Darcy in Buffalo, New York that was originally scheduled as an exhibition, but was required to be an official fight under New York law. Dempsey also fought several exhibition bouts across the country that year. In 1923, he had two fights: one against Tommy Gibbons in the small town of Shelby, Montana, a fight which was a financial disaster. Dempsey retained the title by a decision (decisions had already been incorporated by 1923 in boxing), but the town went bankrupt after the fight. In his second match that year, he met Argentina's Luis Firpo in a historic fight at the Polo Grounds in New York City. Firpo became the first hispanic to challenge for the world Heavyweight title, and in the combat Dempsey had him down seven times in round one, but Firpo found a combination to the head that dropped Dempsey outside the ring and on all fours before the end of the round. Dempsey hit his head against a writer's typewriting machine, but he recovered, got up at the count of nine and technically knocked Firpo out in the second round to retain the title. Dempsey signed a contract to fight Black contender Harry Wills in 1924, but it never occurred. Promoter Tex Rickard was against the match, remembering the riots that occurred after Rickard promoted the James J. Jeffries versus Jack Johnson bout and fearing a racial repercussion after a bout between Dempsey and a Black opponent. Jack Johnson, on his right shoulder]] In 1925, he married Hollywood actress Estelle Taylor and started appearing in films and doing more exhibition bouts. He did not defend his title again until 1926. Among those exhibitions, there was a trip to Germany where he and future world champion Max Schmeling boxed a two-round exhibition. In '26, Dempsey fought former US Marine Gene Tunney in Philadelphia, losing his title on points in ten rounds in front of a record crowd announced at 120,557. Dempsey wasn't quite ready to retire from the ring, and in 1927, he knocked out future heavyweight champion Jack Sharkey in the eighth round of an elimination bout for a title shot against Tunney. The rematch took place in Chicago, Illinois on September 22, 364 days after losing his title to Tunney in their first bout. Dempsey was losing the fight on points by a wide margin when he knocked Tunney to the canvas with a left and right combination to the chin in the seventh round. By rule, when a fighter knocks down an opponent, he must immediately go to a neutral corner, but Dempsey seemed to have forgotten that rule and refused to immediately move to the neutral corner when instructed by the referee. The referee had to escort Dempsey to the neutral corner, which bought Tunney at least an extra five seconds to recover. Boxing historians and filmmakers have counted the time Tunney stayed down between 13 and 16 seconds. But, after Dempsey finally went to a neutral corner, the referee started his count, and Tunney got up at the count of nine. Dempsey tried to finish Tunney off before the round ended, but failed to do so. A fully recovered Tunney dropped Dempsey in round eight, easily won the final two rounds of the fight, and retained the title on a unanimous decision. Because of the controversial nature of the fight, it remains known in history as the fight of The Long Count. He retired after this bout and made countless exhibition bouts. He opened a restaurant in New York City, which he kept open well into the 1960s, and he divorced Taylor and in July of 1933 married Broadway singer Hannah Williams (who herself had just divorced Roger Wolfe Kahn) and had two children by her. When the United States entered World War II, Dempsey had an opportunity to refute any remaining criticism of his war record of two decades earlier. He volunteered for national service and was commissioned a commander in the U.S. Coast Guard, charged with developing a physical fitness program for U.S. soldiers. Later, he served a morale officer in the Pacific, and in 1945, he became a hero to many when, at age 49, he insisted on going into battle on Okinawa with a group of men he had trained. Legend says that one time, an elder Dempsey was mugged by a couple of teen thieves, whom he knocked out and held until the police arrived. He made friends with Wills and Tunney after retirement, and had many books written about his life. Dempsey even campaigned for Tunney's son John when he ran for the US Senate. One of Dempsey's best friends was Judge John Sirica who presided over the Watergate trials. He had a record of 62 wins, 6 losses, 8 draws, 5 no decisions and 1 no contest, with 50 knockouts. He is a member of the International Boxing Hall Of Fame. In 2003, Dempsey was named the seventh best puncher of all time in boxing history by Ring Magazine. Jack Dempsey is buried in the Southampton Cemetery, Southampton, New York.

Record


- Amateur boxing: Fights Wins KOs RSC Loses Draw
- Professional boxing: 80 Fights 62 Wins 50 KOs 6 Loses 8 Draws 6 no contests

Career


- Boxing World heavyweight champion

See also


- List of male boxers
- Jack Dempsey versus Luis Firpo

External links


- [http://www.boxrec.com/boxer_display.php?boxer_id=009009 Career Record]
- [http://www.genetunney.org/dempsey.html Jack Dempsey Pictures]
- [http://www.genetunney.org/dempseyfights.html Jack Dempsey Boxing Pictures]
- [http://www.tipsontables.com/jackdempseys.html Jack Dempsey's New York Restaurant] Dempsey, Jack Dempsey, Jack Dempsey, Jack Dempsey, Jack Dempsey Category:Jack Dempsey Dempsey, Jack Dempsey, Jack Dempsey, Jack Dempsey, Jack Dempsey, Jack ja:ジャック・デンプシー nb:Jack Dempsey

Georges Carpentier

Georges Carpentier (January 12, 1894 - October 28, 1975) was a French boxer. Fighting mainly at light heavyweight and heavyweight in a career lasting from 1908-26. He was nicknamed the "Orchid Man", he stood 5 ft 11½ in (1.82 m) but his fighting weight ranged from 125 to 175 lb (57 to 79 kg), he was considered to have an extremely hard punch for someone of his stature. Born in Liévin near Lens, Pas-de-Calais. He began by progressing up through the weight divisions, fighting in every division from welterweight upwards with his first professional bout at age 14, he was Welterweight Championship of France and of Europe in 1911, Middleweight Championship of Europe in 1912, and Light Heavyweight Championship of Europe 1913. On June 1, 1913 he beat "Bombardier" Billy Wells in Ghent, Belgium to become Heavyweight Championship of Europe. He defended his title in December against Wells, in January 1914 against Pat O'Keefe and in London on July 16 he contentiously beat Ed "Gunboat" Smith to add the White Heavyweight Championship of the World to his European title. Curiously Carpentier was also a referee during the early stages of his career, he took charge of a number of fights including the world title bout between Jack Johnstone and Frank Moran in June 1914. With the outbreak of war Carpentier joined the airforce and had a relatively successful career. Frank Moran Carpentier defended his title twice again in 1919 before dropping down a weight to challenge Battling Levinsky for the Light Heavyweight Championship of the World, they fought on October 12, 1920 in Jersey City and Levinsky was KO'd in the fourth. Carpentiers attempt at the Heavyweight Championship of the World came on July 2, 1921, again in Jersey City, when he faced Jack Dempsey in front of boxing's first million dollar gate, Carpentier was badly beaten around before being knock-out in the second minute of the fourth round. Carpentier never fought again for that belt, he regained his Light Heavyweight and European titles the following year but lost his world titles in 1924 to Gene Tunney at the Polo Grounds in New York over fifteen rounds, losing to a TKO. Carpentier never managed to regain a belt and after battering a few more Englishmen he retired after a final exhibiton bout in 1927. Carpentier appeared in half a dozen motion pictures, starring in both silent films and talkies. He made three films in Hollywood, one for director J. Stuart Blackton in the England and two in his native France. Professional wrestler Edouard Carpentier (born Edouard Wieczorkwicz), despite claims, was not related to Georges. Carpentier was elected to the International Boxing Hall of Fame in 1991. Edwin Hubble fought a exhibition match with Carpentier while at Oxford University. Carpentier died in 1975 and was buried in the Cimetiere de Vaires-sur Marne, Seine-et-Marne, France.

External links


- [http://www.genetunney.com/newspaper54.html Carpentier vs Gene Tunney - Fight by Rounds - July 25, 1924]
- [http://www.genetunney.com/newspaper55.html Carpentier vs Gene Tunney - July 25, 1924]
- Carpentier, Georges