Passage 1:Jack GoohsenJack Goohsen (born November 7, 1942) is a farmer and former political figure in Saskatchewan, Canada.Goohsen was born in Gull Lake, Saskatchewan and studied agricultural management atthe University of Saskatchewan. He established a farm in the Gull Lake area. He served on the council for the rural municipality of Carmichael, serving as reeve from 1981 to 1992, and was elected to represent MapleCreek in the 1991 Saskatchewan general election and again in the new Cypress Hills district in the 1995 Saskatchewan general election to the Legislative Assembly of Saskatchewan as a Progressive Conservative.In thespring of 1997, Goohsen was criminally charged after he was accused of trying to buy sex from a 14-year-old girl. As a result of this scandal, he was not invited to join the caucus of the newly founded SaskatchewanParty when it was formed by the remaining Progressive Conservative members along with some Saskatchewan Liberal Party MLA's that summer. Goohsen remained in the legislature as an independent member while hiscase made its way through the courts.Gooshen resigned as an MLA after being convicted in 1999 on the child prostitution charge. He lost his appeal to the SK Court of Appeal.Passage 2:Ray DanylukRaymond Bruce"Ray" Danyluk  (born 1952 or 1953) is a farmer and former provincial politician from Alberta, Canada. He served as a Member of the  Legislative Assembly of Alberta from 2001 to 2012 with the ProgressiveConservative caucus before being defeated by Wildrose Party candidate Shayne Saskiw in the 2012 election. During his time in office Danyluk served as a cabinet minister in the government of Premier Ed Stelmach,serving in various portfolios since 2006.Early lifeDanyluk was born in Calgary, Alberta, Canada. He attended post secondary education at the University of Alberta. He farms near the community of Elk Point,Alberta.Political careerDanyluk ran for a seat to the Alberta Legislature as a Progressive Conservative candidate in the 2001 Alberta general election. He ran in the electoral district of Lac La Biche-St. Paul in a hotlycontested three candidate race. The seat was open due to the departure of incumbent Paul Langevin. Danyluk held the seat for the Progressive Conservatives to win his first term in office. He faced a strong challengefrom Liberal candidate Vital Ouellette but still finished first by a couple thousand votes.Danyluk ran for a second term in office in the 2004 Alberta general election. He faced three opposition candidates including theformer Sergent at Arms of the Legislature Oscar Lacombe who ran under the Alberta Alliance banner. Danyluk held his seat winning just over half the popular vote, despite seeing a decline in his support. The Liberalcandidate saw his party's popular vote almost cut in half but still managed to finish a distant second, while Lacombe finished a close third out of fourth place.Premier Ed Stelmach appointed Danyluk to his first cabinetportfolio in the Executive Council of Alberta as Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing on December 15, 2006.Danyluk ran for a third term in office in the 2008 Alberta general election with ministerial advantage. Hefaced two other candidates significantly increasing his popular vote returning to office with a landslide majority.Premier Stelmach slightly changed Danyluk's cabinet portfolio after the 2008 election. On March 12, 2008he became Minister of Municipal Affairs. He held that portfolio until Stelmach appointed him as Minister of Infrastructure on January 15, 2010.Passage 3:Adam ZolotinAdam Zolotin (born November 29, 1983, in NewYork City, New York) is an American actor, best known for appearing in Leave It to Beaver and Jack.FilmographyFilmJack (1996) as Louis DuranteLeave It to Beaver (1997) as Eddie HaskellDog's Best Friend (1997) asWylie ThompsonZerophilia (2005) as ChadWhat News? (2007) as TommyLonely Boy (2013) as MikeTelevisionLaw & Order (1996) as Lonnie Rickman (1 episode)Love and Marriage (1996) as Christopher NardiniStorm ofthe Century (1996) as Davey HopewellLaw & Order: SVU (2000) as Justin McKenna (1 episode)What I Like About You (2005) as Chris's Friend (1 episode)The New Adventures of Old Christine (2006) as Mark (1episode)Scrubs (2004) as Reuben (1 episode)Mr. Robot (2016) as David (1 episode)TheaterSirensRecognitionAwards and nominations1996, YoungStar Awards nomination for 'Best Young Actor in a Comedy Film' forJack1996, Young Artist Awards nomination for 'Best Performance in a Feature Film - Supporting Young Actor' for Jack1998, Young Artist Awards nomination for 'Best Performance in a Feature Film - Supporting YoungActor' for Leave It to BeaverPassage 4:Alexander McKenzie (footballer)Alexander McKenzie was an Australian rules footballer for Port Adelaide. He was noted to be able to kick a football 75 yards without the assistanceof wind.Port Adelaide (1889)In the lead up to the 1889 SAFA season a football reporter writing under the pseudonym 'Centre' for the Port Adelaide News forecasted that "A. McKenzie (as I have mentioned before) and P.Begg have indications of making really first class players. When the Association matches start I think the Port club will have a team that will stand a lot of knocking about, and also take a lot to beat". McKenzie made hisdebut in the first game of the 1889 SAFA season in a win against Medindie (North Adelaide) on Alberton Oval with 'Goalpost' writing for the Evening Journal commenting on Alexander's likeness to his brother Johnstating that "McKenzie has his brothers style, both marking and kicking well".During 1889 the North Melbourne Football Club visited South Australia and played a game on the Adelaide Oval against Port Adelaide. Starforward Charlie Fry was a late withdrawal for the game allowing then rookie Alex McKenzie to be named as a late inclusion for the match. McKenzie kicked a goal in Port Adelaide's six goal defeat of NorthMelbourne.Adelaide (1890)During the 1890 season McKenzie's older brother John, who also played as a key position forward, was keeping Alexander out of the Port Adelaide side. As a result, Alexander McKenzie movedto the Adelaide Football Club halfway though the 1890 SAFA season seeking greater opportunities to play as a key forward. Alexander's best game for Adelaide was in a game against Medindie (North Adelaide) where hekicked three goals in a two-goal win on Adelaide Oval. At the time Adelaide were struggling and at the beginning of the 1891 season John prematurely flagged his retirement thus enticing his brother Alex back to PortAdelaide.Port Adelaide (1891–1895)McKenzie's move back to his original club proved a good decision as he would go on to lead that clubs goal-kicking four times in 1892, 1893, 1894 and 1895.In 1892 McKenzie wasselected in the South Australian state side for the first time. During the match against Victoria on the Melbourne Cricket Ground Alexander kicked two goals.In a game against Old Adelaide on Alberton Oval during the1893 SAFA season Alexander McKenzie kicked 13 goals.Western Australia (1896–1900)In 1896 McKenzie moved to the Western Australian Goldfields likely drawn by that states gold rush. During June and July 1896McKenzie appeared for the Imperials Football Club (a club which later disbanded with the majority of players forming the East Fremantle Football Club) in the Western Australian Football Association, kicking four goals inhis first game against the Rovers on the WACA.By August 1896 Alexander McKenzie had moved to the goldfields and began playing football and cricket for Coolgardie. In 1897 McKenzie won a premiership withKalgoorlie City. That year he led the Goldfields Football League goal kicking with 27 majors. In 1898 McKenzie had retired as a player and helped umpire the Goldfields Football League.In 1900 McKenzie won first prizein the W.A. Tattersalls Ballarat Charles Sweep netting £1,098. McKenzie used this windfall to relocate to South Africa.Move to South AfricaIn 1902 Alexander McKenzie had made it to South Africa and was inJohannesburg. By 1913 Alexander McKenzie was running a hotel in Johannesburg.Personal lifeMcKenzie had four brothers – Rod, Duncan, Ken and Jack; the latter two played for Port Adelaide with Alexander. Alexandermarried Edith Jane Lloyd and fathered two girls, Maisie Jessie McKenzie and Lorna Jean McKenzie. McKenzie died on 25 September 1914 in South Africa.Passage 5:David JiDavid Longfen Ji is an American businessmanwho co-founded Apex Digital, an electronics manufacturer.In 2004, he was arrested in China following a dispute with Sichuan Changhong Electric, a supplier owned by the city of Mianyang and the province of Sichuan.Changhong accused him of defrauding them through bad checks. Ji was taken, according to an account by his lawyer, to the senior management and told, "I decide whether you live or die." He has been held in Chinawithout charges.Ji's case highlighted an "implicit racism" in dealings with American businessmen. As a U.S. citizen he was not granted the same treatment by authorities as non-ethnically Chinese businessmen sharingthe same nationality.Passage 6:Ed StelmachEdward Michael Stelmach  (; born May 11, 1951) is a Canadian politician who served as the 13th premier of Alberta, from 2006 to 2011. The grandson of Ukrainianimmigrants, Stelmach was born and raised on a farm near Lamont and fluently speaks the distinctive Canadian dialect of Ukrainian. He spent his entire pre-political adult life as a farmer, except for some time spentstudying at the University of Alberta. His first foray into politics was a 1986 municipal election, when he was elected to Lamont County council. A year into his term, he was appointed reeve.  He continued in this positionuntil his entry into provincial politics.In the 1993 provincial election, Stelmach was elected as the Member of the Legislative Assembly (MLA) for Vegreville-Viking (later Fort Saskatchewan-Vegreville). A ProgressiveConservative, he served in the cabinets of Ralph Klein—at various times holding the portfolios of Intergovernmental Relations, Transportation, Infrastructure, and Agriculture, Food, and Rural Development—where hedeveloped a reputation as a low-key politician who avoided the limelight. When Klein resigned the party's leadership in 2006, Stelmach was among the first to present his candidature to replace him. After a third-placefinish on the first ballot of the leadership race, he won an upset second ballot victory over former provincial treasurer Jim Dinning.Stelmach's premiership was heavily focused on management of the province's oilreserves, especially those of the Athabasca Oil Sands. He rejected calls from environmentalists to slow the pace of development in the Fort McMurray area, and similarly opposed calls for carbon taxes. Other policyinitiatives included commencing an overhaul of the province's health governance system, amendments to the Alberta human rights code, a re-introduction of all-party committees to the Legislature, and the conclusionof a major labour agreement with Alberta's teachers. His government also attracted controversy for awarding itself a 30% pay increase shortly after its re-election, and featured strained relations with Calgary, one ofKlein's former strongholds. Despite this, Stelmach increased the Progressive Conservatives' already substantial majority in the 2008 election. With the advent of the late-2000s recession, Stelmach had to cope with adeteriorating economic situation and the Alberta government's first budget deficit in 16 years.Stelmach was succeeded as Premier by Alison Redford on October 7, 2011. He joined the board of Covenant Health a yearlater, and has been its chair since January 2016.BackgroundEdward Michael Stelmach was born on a farm near Lamont, Alberta, the grandson of immigrants from Zavyche, Ukraine. His grandparents settled nearAndrew, Alberta in 1898, after bypassing Saskatchewan because they did not care for the terrain. His parents, Nancy (née Koroluk) and Michael N. Stelmach, had five children, of whom Edward was the youngest, tenyears younger than his closest sibling. Stelmach was raised speaking Ukrainian, and did not learn English until he started attending school. He was raised a Ukrainian Catholic, and continues to attend church regularly,sing in the church choir, and act as a volunteer caretaker for the cemetery. Through high school, he worked as a well-digger and a Fuller Brush salesman, where he said his grasp of Ukrainian helped him make sales.After graduating high school—his grade 12 yearbook called him a future Prime Minister of Canada—he attended the University of Alberta, intending to become a lawyer. He continued there, working as an assistantmanager at Woodward's, until 1973, when his oldest brother, Victor, died.  While his family had intended for Victor to take over the farm that his grandparents had settled 75 years before, Stelmach dropped out ofuniversity, returned home, and bought the land from his parents. He continues to farm the land today.As a teenager, he met Marie Warshawski at the wedding of a mutual friend. They married in 1973, and have threesons and a daughter.Stelmach entered politics in 1986 with his election to the council of Lamont County; one year later, he was appointed county reeve, a position he held until his entry into provincial politics in1993.MLA and ministerStelmach ran for the Legislative Assembly of Alberta as a Progressive Conservative in the 1993 provincial election, defeating incumbent New Democrat Derek Fox in the riding of Vegreville-Viking.Stelmach became a member of the Deep Six, a group of enthusiastically fiscally conservative rookie MLAs; in addition to supporting Premier Ralph Klein's aggressive deficit-cutting, Stelmach practiced fiscal restrainthimself, incurring low office expenses and declining a government vehicle.  During his first term, Stelmach served as Deputy Whip and, later, Chief Government Whip for the P.C. caucus.  As a backbencher, hesponsored the Lloydminster Hospital Act Repeal Act. This was a government bill that dissolved the then-existing Lloydminster hospital board in preparation for an arrangement compliant with both the Albertagovernment's new system of regional health authorities and the Saskatchewan government's system. Lloydminster sits on the border of Alberta and Saskatchewan, and the hospital, although built and operated by theAlberta government, sits on the Saskatchewan side. It passed the legislature with little debate. In 1996, shortly before an April by-election in Redwater, Stelmach was accused of "pork barrel politics" for presenting,along with colleague Peter Trynchy and P.C. candidate Ross Quinn, a large cheque to a local seniors centre. Stelmach said that he had only stepped in to help the riding after its MLA, Nicholas Taylor, had been appointedto the Senate.After the 1997 provincial election, Klein appointed Stelmach Minister of Agriculture, Food, and Rural development. While he held this office, his department encouraged the establishment of feedlots. Theopposition parties charged that the government was not regulating these sufficiently, but Stelmach responded that municipalities had the authority necessary to effectively regulate them. On the Canadian Wheat Boardcontroversy, Stelmach sided with farmers who wanted an end to the federal body's monopoly on grain sales in the western provinces. Legislatively, Stelmach sponsored five bills while in the Agriculture, Food, and RuralDevelopment portfolio, all of which passed through the legislature.  1997's Meat Inspection Amendment Act required meat inspectors to acquire a search warrant before entering a private dwelling, but also allowed forfines to be voluntarily paid without requiring a court case. It was called by Liberal agriculture critic Ken Nicol "a really good bill". The Livestock and Livestock Products Amendment Act of the same year eliminatedgovernment guarantee of the Livestock Patrons' Assurance Fund, designed to protect cattle producers from payment defaults by livestock dealers, in favour of leaving the Fund entirely in the hands of the industry. It toowas supported by the Liberals, with Nicol calling it "very easy for us to accept".  In 1998, Stelmach sponsored the Agriculture Statutes (Penalties) Amendment Act, which overhauled the penalty system for violation ofvarious agricultural statutes, setting maximum fines and leaving the precise amount up to judges on a case-by-case basis. It also passed with Liberal support, as MLA Ed Gibbons said that it "really makes a lot ofsense". Another 1998 bill was the Marketing of Agricultural Products Amendment Act, which allowed provincial agricultural marketing boards to revise their marketing plans, and was supported by theopposition.  Finally, Stelmach initiated the Agriculture Statutes (Livestock Identification) Amendment Act, which allowed the government to delegate the inspection of branding to the cattle industry. The bill was thesubject of considerable debate on second reading, but was ultimately supported by the Liberals on the third and final reading.In 1999, Klein shifted Stelmach to the new Infrastructure portfolio, where he made trafficsafety a priority, increasing fines for traffic offenses, sometimes by as much as 700%. He also briefly aroused controversy by proposing reversing the slow and fast lanes on provincial highways, on the grounds that thiswould equalize the rate at which the lanes broke down and therefore save on maintenance costs; nothing came of the proposal.  He established a fund for capital projects, but was criticized for not doing enough toaddress the deterioration of the province's infrastructure. In 2001, Klein separated Transportation out of the Infrastructure portfolio and appointed Stelmach to it, where the new minister advocated the use ofpublic-private partnerships to build ring roads around Edmonton and Calgary. He also introduced a program of graduated driver licensing and initiated a review of traffic safety programs.  Stelmach was re-elected by hislargest majority yet during the 2001 election, and retained the Transportation portfolio until 2004, when he was reassigned to the position of Minister of Intergovernmental Relations. He resigned this position in 2006 inorder to contest the P.C. leadership election (Klein had required that ministers intending to campaign to succeed him resign from cabinet).As minister, Stelmach kept a low profile. Mark Lisac, who was the EdmontonJournal's provincial affairs columnist during much of Stelmach's time in cabinet, later recalled that Stelmach "never did anything that was flashy or controversial in any way" and that "not a thing" stood out aboutStelmach's ministerial service. This low-key style earned Stelmach the moniker "Steady Eddie", which would follow him to the Premier's office.2006 leadership electionStelmach was the first candidate to declare hisintention to run for the P.C. leadership, and picked up endorsements from nineteen members of his caucus (including cabinet ministers Pearl Calahasen and Iris Evans).  However, former provincial Treasurer JimDinning had twice as many caucus endorsements (despite not having held elected office since 1997) and was generally considered the race's front-runner. Stelmach ran a low-profile campaign, touring the province in acustom-painted campaign bus, while most media attention was focussed on the rivalry between Dinning and the socially conservative Ted Morton.According to the race's rules, the three candidates receiving the mostvotes on the first ballot would move on to a second ballot, which would use a preferential voting system to select a winner. Stelmach finished third on the first ballot with 15.3% of the vote, 3,329 votes ahead of fourthplace Lyle Oberg and 10,647 votes behind second place Morton.  However, the fourth, fifth, and sixth place candidates (Oberg, Dave Hancock, and Mark Norris) all endorsed Stelmach for the second ballot. On thisballot, he finished in first place on the first count, fewer than five hundred votes ahead of Dinning. A majority of Morton's votes went to Stelmach on the second count, and he was elected leader.FinancingStelmachraised more than $1.1 million for his leadership campaign. After his victory, he revealed the names of the donors of 85% of this money, but declined to release the names of eighty supporters, citing their requests forprivacy.  These supporters had donated a total of more than $160,000. Party rules did not require any disclosure, and the disclosures by candidates varied—Norris named all of his donors, while Morton did not revealany.  Stelmach's partial disclosure was deemed insufficient by opposition leaders and Democracy Watch, whose head suggested that Albertans should assume that Stelmach's anonymous donors placed him in a conflictof interest until he proved otherwise. Stelmach also acknowledged receiving a $10,000 donation from the Beaver Regional Waste Management Service's Commission, a landfill operator owned by five municipalities in


Passage 1:Peter LevinPeter Levin is an American director of film, television and theatre.CareerSince 1967, Levin has amassed a large number of credits directing episodic television and television films. Some of histelevision series credits include Love Is a Many Splendored Thing, James at 15, The Paper Chase, Family, Starsky & Hutch, Lou Grant, Fame, Cagney & Lacey, Law & Order and Judging Amy.Some of his television filmcredits include Rape and Marriage: The Rideout Case (1980), A Reason to Live (1985), Popeye Doyle (1986), A Killer Among Us (1990), Queen Sized (2008) and among other films. He directed "Heart in Hiding", writtenby his wife Audrey Davis Levin, for which she received an Emmy for Best Day Time Special in the 1970s.Prior to becoming a director, Levin worked as an actor in several Broadway productions. He costarred with SusanStrasberg in "[The Diary of Ann Frank]" but had to leave the production when he was drafted into the Army. He trained at the Carnegie Mellon University. Eventually becoming a theatre director, he directed productionsat the Long Wharf Theatre and the Pacific Resident Theatre Company. He also co-founded the off-off-Broadway Theatre [the Hardware Poets Playhouse] with his wife Audrey Davis Levin and was also an associate artistof The Interact Theatre Company.Passage 2:Benjamin StoloffBenjamin Stoloff (October 6, 1895 – September 8, 1960) was an American film director and producer. He began his career as a short film comedy directorand gradually moved into feature film directing and production later in his career.Director filmography1940s–1950sHome Run Derby (1959) – TV SeriesFootlight Varieties (1951)It's a Joke, Son! (1947)Johnny ComesFlying Home (1946)Take It or Leave It (1944)Bermuda Mystery (1944)The Mysterious Doctor (1943)The Hidden Hand (1942)Secret Enemies (1942)Three Sons o' Guns (1941)The Great Mr. Nobody (1941)The MarinesFly High (1940)1930sThe Lady and the Mob (1939)The Affairs of Annabel (1938)Radio City Revels (1938)Fight for Your Lady (1937)Super-Sleuth (1937)Sea Devils (1937)Don't Turn 'Em Loose (1936)Two in the Dark(1936)To Beat the Band (1935)Swellhead (1935)Transatlantic Merry-Go-Round (1934)Palooka (1934)Night of Terror (1933)Obey the Law (1933)The Devil Is Driving (1932)The Night Mayor (1932)By Whose Hand?(1932)Destry Rides Again (1932)Perfect Control (1932)Slide, Babe, Slide (1932)Goldie (1931)Three Rogues (1931)Not Exactly Gentlemen (1931)Soup to Nuts (1930)New Movietone Follies of 1930 (1930)1920sThe Girlfrom Havana (1929)Happy Days (1929/I)Protection (1929)Speakeasy (1929)The Bath Between (1928)Plastered in Paris (1928)A Horseman of the Plains (1928)Mind Your Business (1928)Silver Valley (1927)The GayRetreat (1927)The Circus Ace (1927)The Canyon of Light (1926)It's a Pipe (1926)Matrimony Blues (1926)The Mad Racer (1926)The Fighting Tailor (1926)East Side, West Side (1925/II)The Heart Breaker (1925)SweetMarie (1925)Roaring Lions at Home (1924)Stolen Sweeties (1924)In-Bad the Sailor (1924)Stretching the Truth (1924)When Wise Ducks Meet (1924)On the Job (1924)ScreenwriterGas House Kids Go West(1947)ProducerLaw of the Tropics (1941)The Spiritualist (1948) also known as The Amazing Mr. XThe Cobra Strikes (1948)External linksBenjamin Stoloff at IMDbPassage 3:Howard W. KochHoward Winchel Koch (April11, 1916 – February 16, 2001) was an American producer and director of film and television.Life and careerKoch was born in New York City, the son of Beatrice (Winchel) and William Jacob Koch. His family was Jewish.He attended DeWitt Clinton High School and the Peddie School in Hightstown, New Jersey. He began his film career as an employee at Universal Studios office in New York then made his Hollywood filmmaking debut in1947 as an assistant director. He worked as a producer for the first time in 1953 and a year later made his directing debut. In 1964, Paramount Pictures appointed him head of film production, a position he held until1966 when he left to set up his own production company. He had a production pact with Paramount for over 15 years.Among his numerous television productions, Howard W. Koch produced the Academy Awards showon eight occasions. Dedicated to the industry, he served as President of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences from 1977 to 1979. In 1990 the Academy honored him with The Jean Hersholt HumanitarianAward and in 1991 he received the Frank Capra Achievement Award from the Directors Guild of America.Together with actor Telly Savalas, Howard Koch owned the thoroughbred racehorse Telly's Pop, winner of severalimportant California races for juveniles including the Norfolk Stakes and Del Mar Futurity.Howard W. Koch suffered from Alzheimer's disease and died in at his home in Beverly Hills, California on February 16, 2001. Hehad two children from a marriage of 64 years to Ruth Pincus, who died in March 2009. In 2004, his son Hawk Koch was elected to the Board of Governors of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts andSciences.FilmographyDirectorFilm (director)Shield for Murder (1954)Big House, U.S.A. (1955)Untamed Youth (1957)Bop Girl Goes Calypso (1957)Jungle Heat (1957)The Girl in Black Stockings (1957)Fort Bowie(1957)Violent Road (1958)Frankenstein 1970 (1958)Born Reckless (1958)Andy Hardy Comes Home (1958)The Last Mile (1959)Badge 373 (1973)Television (director)Maverick (1957) (1 episode)Hawaiian Eye (1959) (2episodes)Cheyenne (1958) (1 episode)The Untouchables (1959) (4 episodes)The Gun of Zangara (1960) (TV movie taken from The Untouchables (1959 TV series))Miami Undercover (1961) (38 episodes)TexacoPresents Bob Hope in a Very Special Special: On the Road with Bing (1977)ProducerFilm (producer):War Paint (1953)Beachhead (1954)Shield for Murder (1954)Big House, U.S.A. (1955)Rebel in Town(1956)Frankenstein 1970 (1958)Sergeants 3 (1962)The Manchurian Candidate (1962)Come Blow Your Horn (1963)Robin and the 7 Hoods (1964)The Odd Couple (1968)On a Clear Day You Can See Forever (1970)ANew Leaf (1971)Plaza Suite (1971)Last of the Red Hot Lovers (1972)Jacqueline Susann's Once Is Not Enough (1975)The Other Side of Midnight (1977)Airplane! (1980)Some Kind of Hero (1982)Airplane II: The Sequel(1982)Ghost (1990)Television (producer)Magnavox Presents Frank Sinatra (1973)Passage 4:Barney Platts-MillsBarney Platts-Mills (15 October 1944 – 5 October 2021) was a British film director, best known for hisaward-winning films, Bronco Bullfrog and Private Road.BiographyPlatts-Mills was born in 1944 in Colchester, England, a son of barrister John Platts-Mills (who was briefly a Labour MP), and was educated at UniversityCollege School, London, and at Bryanston School, Blandford, Dorset.He entered the film industry in 1960, as 3rd assistant editor at Shepperton Studios and worked on Stanley Kubrick's Spartacus, Lewis Gilbert's TheGreengage Summer and John Schlesinger's A Kind of Loving among other films, for editors including Peter R. Hunt and Reggie Beck. Platts-Mills worked as editor for Anglia TV's Survival and Granada TV's World inAction.In 1966, he established Maya Films with James Scott, Adam Barker-Mill and Andrew St. John. Platts-Mills produced and edited Love's Presentation, a 30-minute documentary on the work of David Hockney,directed by James Scott, and also produced and directed St Christopher, a 45-minute documentary on children in the care of St Christopher's School, Bristol, and the Camphill Village Trust, Botton, Yorkshire. He wrote,produced and directed The War, a cinema short, starring Colin Welland and Eric Burdon (15 minutes, B&W 35 mm Panavision). He wrote and directed Everybody's an Actor, Shakespeare Said, a documentary on thework of Joan Littlewood, with young people in the East End of London (35 minutes, 16 mm Eastmancolor).In 1969, he wrote and directed Bronco Bullfrog with young people from the East End (83 minutes, 35 mm B&W)Selectione a l'Unanimite pour Semain de la Critique, Festival de Cannes. The film won a Screenwriters' Guild award for Best Original Screenplay.In 1971, he wrote and directed Private Road (86 minutes, 35 mmEastmancolor), starring Bruce Robinson, Susan Penhaligon and Michael Feast. It was awarded the Golden Leopard at the Locarno Festival for Best Film.In 1972, Platts-Mills was made a Governor and Honorary LifeMember of the British Film Institute and Director of the Prodigal Trust, Inner London School's video project. He took piano lessons with Trevor Fisher.Platts-Mills' screenplay Double Trouble was published as a novel byDuckworth in 1976. The following year, he wrote screenplays for The Scotsman and Hero. After two years' preparation he directed Hero (82 minutes, 16 mm Eastmancolor) for Film Four in ancient Gaelic with actorsdrawn from a Glasgow youth gang. Hero was an official entry at the Venice Film Festival.In 1983, Platts-Mills wrote the screenplay for Ebb Tide by Robert Louis Stevenson, to be filmed for Film Four in Sri Lanka starringHarry Dean Stanton and Christopher Lee. The project abandoned when war broke out in that country. Between 1984 and 1988, he was resident in Sussex with his two young children, Roland and Ruby.In 1989,Platts-Mills wrote and directed Blasphemy for Channel Four's Dispatches.In 1990, he worked in The Special Unit at HMP Barlinnie, Glasgow, on various projects, including a musical to be staged by prisoners in the jailand the first-ever performance by a circus (Archaos) in a British jail. He edited John Steele's The Bird That Never Flew, an autobiography of a prison trouble-maker published by Sinclair-Stevenson in 1992.Platts-Millswas advisor to the development of Wornington Green Residents' Association Video Project for disadvantaged youth in 1993, and in 1994 he set up and supervised the first year of the North Kensington Video DramaProject (NKVDP), including work for the Metropolitan Police Scam scheme and the Youth Enterprise Scheme.In 1995, together with students from the NKVDP he established Massive Videos at North KensingtonCommunity Centre and worked on the development of Courttia Newland's The Scholar. Between 1996 and 1999, Massive Videos made many short films by and about disadvantaged young people and founded the Filmand Video Festival. In Liverpool they established the Workhaus project in a five-storey building in the city centre and the North X Northwest Film Festival.In 1999, Platts-Mills met Tunde Olayinka and acted as adviser toThe Alpha Male, Olayinka's first film.Platts-Mills went to Morocco in 2000 and lived for a year on a farm near Larache, writing the screenplay for Lovesways.He built a house in Mejlaou near Assilah in 2004 and wrote thescreenplay for Zohra: A Moroccan Fairytale.Bronco Bullfrog and Private Road were re-released in 2010 by the BFI and the National Film Theater. Platts-Mills' films were screened in retrospectives at the Edinburgh FilmFestival, Gijion Film Festival, BAFICI, Copenhagen Film Festival and the opening night Premiere at the East End Film Festival.Platts-Mills joined the film production company Miraj Films in 2010 as a producer andcompleted the production of Zohra: A Moroccan Fairytale, his love poem to Morocco and his comeback after 30 years, which had its world premiere at the 40th International Rotterdam Film Festival.Platts-Mills iscredited with founding the independent production company, Peabody Productions.He died on 5 October 2021, at the age of 76.Passage 5:Hanro SmitsmanHanro Smitsman, born in 1967 in Breda (Netherlands), is awriter and director of film and television.Film and Television CreditsFilmsBrothers (2017)Schemer (2010)Skin (2008)Raak (aka Contact) (2006)Allerzielen (aka All Souls) (2005) (segment "Groeten uit Holland")Engel enBroer (2004)2000 Terrorists (2004)Dajo (2003)Gloria (2000)Depoep (2001)Television20 leugens, 4 ouders en een scharrelei (2013)De ontmaskering van de vastgoedfraude (TV mini-series, 2013)Moordvrouw(2012-)Eileen (2 episodes, 2011)Getuige (2011)Vakantie in eigen land (2011)De Reis van meneer van Leeuwen(2010)De Punt (2009)Roes (2 episodes, 2008)Fok jou! (2006)Van Speijk (2006)AwardsIn 2005, Engel enBroer won Cinema Prize for Short Film at the Avanca Film Festival.In 2007, Raak (aka Contact) won the Golden Berlin Bear Award at the Berlin International Film Festival, the Spirit Award at the Brooklyn Film Festival,the first place jury prize for "Best Live Action under 15 minutes" at the Palm Springs International Short Film Festival, and the Prix UIP Ghent Award for European Short Films at the Flanders International Film Festival.In2008, Skin won the Movie Squad Award at the Nederlands Film Festival, an actor in the film also won the Best Actor Award.  It also won the Reflet d’Or for Best Film at the Cinema tous ecrans Festival in Geneva in thesame year.Passage 6:Brian Johnson (special effects artist)Brian Johnson (born 29 June 1939 or 29 June 1940) is a British designer and director of film and television special effects.Life and careerBorn Brian Johncock,he changed his surname to Johnson during the 1960s. Joining the team of special effects artist Les Bowie, Johnson started his career behind the scenes for Bowie Films on productions such as On The Buses, and forHammer Films.  He is known for his special effects work on TV series including Thunderbirds (1965–66) and films including Alien (1979), for which he received the 1980 Academy Award for Best Visual Effects (sharedwith H. R. Giger, Carlo Rambaldi, Dennis Ayling and Nick Allder). Previously, he had built miniature spacecraft models for Stanley Kubrick's 1968 film 2001: A Space Odyssey.Johnson's work on Space: 1999 influencedthe effects of the Star Wars films of the 1970s and 1980s. Impressed by his work, George Lucas visited Johnson during the production of the TV series to offer him the role of effects supervisor for the 1977 film. Havingalready been commissioned for the second series of Space: 1999, Johnson was unable to accept at the time. He worked on the sequel, The Empire Strikes Back (1980), whose special effects were recognised in the formof a 1981 Special Achievement Academy Award (which Johnson shared with Richard Edlund, Dennis Muren and Bruce Nicholson).AwardsJohnson has won Academy Awards for both Alien (1979) and The Empire StrikesBack (1980). He was further nominated for an Academy Award for his work on Dragonslayer (1981). In addition, Johnson is the recipient of a Saturn Award for The Empire Strikes Back and a BAFTA Award for JamesCameron's  Aliens.FilmographySpecial effectsDirectorScragg 'n' Bones (2006)Passage 7:Rachel FeldmanRachel Feldman is an American director of film and television and screenwriter of television films.Life andcareerBorn in New York City, New York, Feldman began her career as a child actor performing extensively in commercials and television series.Her credits as a television director include: ((The Rookie)), ((CriminalMinds)), ((Blue Bloods)), and some beloved shows like Doogie Howser, M.D., The Commish, Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman, Picket Fences, Sisters,Lizzie McGuire, at the start of her career. She has written and directedseveral features including: Witchcraft III: The Kiss of Death (1991), Post Modern Romance (1993), She's No Angel (2001) starring Tracey Gold, Recipe for a Perfect Christmas (2005) starring Christine Baranski, LoveNotes (2007) starring Laura Leighton, Lilly (2023) starring Patricia Clarkson.FilmsFeature FilmsLilly (2023) - Director/WriterLove Notes (2007) - WriterRecipe for a Perfect Christmas ((2005) - WriterShe's No Angel(2001) - Writer/DirectorWitchcraft III: The Kiss of Death (1991)  - DirectorShortsHere Now (2017) - Writer/DirectorHappy Sad Happy (2014) - Writer/DirectorPost Modern Romance (1993) - Writer/DirectorWunderkind(1984) - Writer/DirectorGuistina (1981) - Writer/DirectorActivismFeldman is active in the fight for gender equality in the film and television industry. Her activism takes form in speaking out about issues such as equalpay, job stability for women, sexual harassment, sexual discrimination and female representation within the industry. Feldman is also an activist for women behind the camera, who can be seen in the Geena Davisproduced documentary This Changes Everything.Feldman was the former chair of the DGA Women's Steering Committee (WSC). The focus of the WSC is to support and uplift women in the film and televisionindustry.Personal life and educationFeldman grew up in the Bronx and now lives in Los Angeles. She attended New York University where she received a Master of Fine Arts Degree and has taught classes in directingand screenwriting at the USC School of Cinematic Arts.Feldman is married to artisan contractor and colorist Carl Tillmanns; together they have two children, Nora and Leon. They are both alumni of Sarah LawrenceCollege, where they first met.Passage 8:Ian Barry (director)Ian Barry is an Australian director of film and TV.Select creditsWaiting for Lucas (1973) (short)Stone (1974) (editor only)The Chain Reaction (1980)WhoseBaby? (1986) (mini-series)Minnamurra (1989)Bodysurfer (1989) (mini-series)Ring of Scorpio (1990) (mini-series)Crimebroker (1993)Inferno (1998) (TV movie)Miss Lettie and Me (2002) (TV movie)Not QuiteHollywood: The Wild, Untold Story of Ozploitation! (2008) (documentary)The Doctor Blake Mysteries (2013)Passage 9:Hero (1982 film)Hero is a 1982 British  independent adventure-fantasy film written and directed byBarney Platts-Mills. Set in the medieval age, it is spoken entirely in Scottish Gaelic.The film was entered into the main competition at the 39th edition of the Venice Film Festival.PlotCastDerek McGuire as DermidO'DuinneCaroline Kenneil as Princess GranniaAlastair Kenneil as Finn MacCumhaillStewart Grant as OsinHarpo Hamilton as OscarPassage 10:Happy Days (1929 film)Happy Days  is a 1929 American pre-Code musicalfilm directed by Benjamin Stoloff, which was the first feature film shown entirely in widescreen anywhere in the world, filmed using the Fox Grandeur 70 mm process. French director Abel Gance's Napoléon (1927) had afinal widescreen segment in what Gance called Polyvision. Paramount released Old Ironsides (1927), with two sequences in a widescreen process called "Magnascope", while MGM released Trail of '98 (1928) in awidescreen process called "Fanthom Screen".The film features an array of stars who were contracted to William Fox's  Fox Film Corporation at that time, including Marjorie White, Will Rogers, Charles Farrell, JanetGaynor, George Jessel, El Brendel, Ann Pennington, Victor McLaglen, Dixie Lee, Edmund Lowe, and Frank Richardson. It also featured the first appearance of Betty Grable on film, aged 12, as a chorus girl, and Sir HarryLauder's nephew, Harry Lauder II, a conductor for Fox, who was drafted into the chorus.PlotOriginally titled New Orleans Frolic, the story centers around Margie (played by Marjorie White), a singer on a showboat who,when she hears that the showboat is in financial trouble, travels to New York City in an effort to persuade all the boat's former stars to perform in a show to rescue it. She is successful and the stars all fly to New Orleansto surprise the showboat's owner, Colonel Billy Blacher, with a grand show, the proceeds of which will go to rescue the showboat.CastCharles E. Evans as Colonel Billy BatcherMarjorie White as MargieRichard Keene asDickStuart Erwin as JigMartha Lee Sparks as Nancy LeeClifford Dempsey as Sheriff BentonJames J. Corbett as Interlocutor - Minstrel ShowGeorge MacFarlane as Interlocutor - Minstrel ShowJanet Gaynor as JanetGaynorCharles Farrell as Charles FarrellVictor McLaglen as Minstrel Show PerformerEdmund Lowe as Minstrel Show PerformerEl Brendel as Minstrel Show PerformerWilliam Collier Sr. as End Man - Minstrel ShowWalterCatlett as End Man - Minstrel ShowTom Patricola as Minstrel Show PerformerGeorge Jessel as Minstrel Show PerformerWill Rogers as Minstrel Show PerformerWarner Baxter as Minstrel Show PerformerAnn Penningtonas "Snake Hips" Speciality DancerReleaseAfter a preview on September 17, 1929, Happy Days premiered at the Roxy Theater in New York City on February 13, 1930 with a Niagara Falls widescreen short on a Grandeurscreen of 42x20 ft, compared to the standard 24x18 ft screen. It was also shown in Grandeur at the Carthay Circle Theatre in Los Angeles, from February 28, 1930.At a screening at the Roxy Theater, film criticMordaunt Hall praised the cinematography, which was noted to be enhanced by the wider format. However, he regarded the film itself as "not one that gives as full a conception of the possibilities as future films of thistype will probably do."Owing to the Great Depression, few movie theaters invested in equipment for this format and it was soon abandoned. Fox Film Corporation's heavy investment in Grandeur technology led to


Passage 1:Heather D. GibsonHeather Denise Gibson (Greek: Χέδερ Ντενίζ Γκίμπσον) is a Scottish economist currently serving as Director-Advisor to the Bank of Greece (since 2011). She was the spouse of EuclidTsakalotos, former Greek Minister of Finance.Academic careerBefore assuming her duties at the Bank of Greece and alternating child-rearing duties with her husband, Gibson worked at the University of Kent, where shepublished two volumes on international exchange rate mechanisms and wrote numerous articles on this and other topics, sometimes in cooperation with her husband, who was teaching at Kent at the time.PersonallifeGibson first came to Greece in 1993, with her husband, with whom she took turns away from their respective economic studies to raise their three children while the other worked.The couple maintain two homes inKifisia, along with an office in Athens and a vacation home in Preveza. In 2013, this proved detrimental to Tsakalotos and his party when his critics began calling him «αριστερός αριστοκράτης» (aristeros aristokratis,"aristocrat of the left"), while newspapers opposed to the Syriza party seized on his property holdings as a chance to accuse the couple of hypocrisy for enjoying a generous lifestyle in private while criticizing the "ethicof austerity" in public. One opposition newspaper published on the front page criticism reasoning that Tsakalotos own family wealth came from the same sort of investments in companies as made by financialinstitutions JP Morgan and BlackRock.WorksEditorEconomic Bulletin, Bank of GreeceBooksThe Eurocurrency Markets, Domestic Financial Policy and International Instability (London, etc., Longman: 1989) ISBN0312028261International Finance: Exchange Rates and Financial Flows in the International Financial System (London, etc., Longman: 1996) ISBN 0582218136Economic Transformation, Democratization and Integrationinto the European Union (London: Palgrave Macmillan: 2001) ISBN 9780333801222Articles and papers"Fundamentally Wrong: Market Pricing of Sovereigns and the Greek Financial Crisis," Journal of Macroeconomics,Elsevier, vol. 39(PB), pp. 405–419 (with Stephen G. & Tavlas, George S., 2014)"Capital flows and speculative attacks in prospective EU member states" (with Euclid Tsakalotos, Economics of Transition Volume 12, Issue3, pages 559–586, September 2004)"A Unifying Framework for Analysing Offsetting Capital Flows and Sterilisation: Germany and the ERM" (with Sophocles Brissimis & Euclid Tsakalotos, International Journal of Finance& Economics, 2002, vol. 7, issue 1, pp. 63–78)"Internal vs External Financing of Acquisitions: Do Managers Squander Retained Profits" (with Andrew Dickerson and Euclid Tsakalotos, Studies in Economics, 1996; OxfordBulletin of Economics and Statistics, 2000)"Are Aggregate Consumption Relationships Similar Across the European Union" (with Alan Carruth & Euclid Tsakalotos, Regional Studies, Volume 33, Issue 1, 1999)TakeoverRisk and the Market for Corporate Control: The Experience of British Firms in the 1970s and 1980 (with Andrew Dickerson and Euclid Tsakalotos, 1998) PDF"The Impact of Acquisitions on Company Performance:Evidence from a Large Panel of UK Firms" (with Andrew Dickerson and Euclid Tsakalotos, Oxford Economic Papers New Series, Vol. 49, No. 3 (Jul., 1997), pp. 344–361)"Short-Termism and Underinvestment: TheInfluence of Financial Systems" (with Andrew Dickerson and Euclid Tsakalotos, The Manchester School of Economic & Social Studies, 1995, vol. 63, issue 4, pp. 351–67)"Testing a Flow Model of Capital Flight in FiveEuropean Countries" (with Euclid Tsakalotos, The Manchester School of Economic and Social Studies, Volume 61, Issue 2, pp. 144–166, June 1993)Full list of articles by Heather D Gibson. researchgate.net. Recovered 7July 2015Passage 2:Adib KheirAdib Kheir (Arabic:  ) was a leading Syrian nationalist of the 1920s. He was the owner of the Librairie Universelle in Damascus. His granddaughter is the spouse of ManafTlass.Passage 3:Sophia Magdalena of DenmarkSophia Magdalena of Denmark (Danish: Sophie Magdalene; Swedish: Sofia Magdalena; 3 July 1746 – 21 August 1813) was Queen of Sweden from 1771 to 1792 as thewife of King Gustav III. Born into the House of Oldenburg, the royal family of Denmark-Norway, Sophia Magdalena was the first daughter of King Frederick V of Denmark and Norway and his first consort, Princess Louiseof Great Britain. Already at the age of five, she was betrothed to Gustav, the heir apparent to the throne of Sweden, as part of an attempt to improve the traditionally tense relationship between the two Scandinavianrealms. She was subsequently brought up to be the Queen of Sweden, and they married in 1766. In 1771, Sophia's husband ascended to the throne and became King of Sweden, making Sophia Queen of Sweden. Theircoronation was on 29 May 1772.The politically arranged marriage was unsuccessful. The desired political consequences for the mutual relations between the two countries did not materialize, and on a personal level theunion also proved to be unhappy. Sophia Magdalena was of a quiet and serious nature, and found it difficult to adjust to her husband's pleasure seeking court. She dutifully performed her ceremonial duties but did notcare for social life and was most comfortable in quiet surroundings with a few friends. However, she was liked by many in the Caps party, believing she was a symbol of virtue and religion. The relationship between thespouses improved somewhat in the years from 1775 to 1783, but subsequently deteriorated again.After her husband was assassinated in 1792, Sophia Magdalena withdrew from public life, and led a quiet life asdowager queen until her death in 1813.Early lifePrincess Sophie Magdalene was born on 3 July 1746 at her parents' residence Charlottenborg Palace, located at the large square, Kongens Nytorv, in central Copenhagen.She was the second child and first daughter of Crown Prince Frederick of Denmark and his first consort, the former Princess Louise of Great Britain, and was named for her grandmother, Queen Sophie Magdalene. Shereceived her own royal household at birth.Just one month after her birth, her grandfather King Christian VI died, and Princess Sophie Magdalene's father ascended the throne as King Frederick V. She was the heirpresumptive to the throne of Denmark from the death of her elder brother in 1747 until the birth of her second brother in 1749, and retained her status as next in line to the Danish throne after her brother until hermarriage. She was therefore often referred to as Crown Princess of Denmark.In the spring of 1751, at the age of five, she was betrothed to Gustav, the heir apparent to the throne of Sweden, and she was brought up tobe the Queen of Sweden. The marriage was arranged by the Riksdag of the Estates, not by the Swedish royal family. The marriage was arranged as a way of creating peace between Sweden and Denmark, which had along history of war and which had strained relations following the election of an heir to the Swedish throne in 1743, where the Danish candidate had lost. The engagement was met with some worry from Queen Louise,who feared that her daughter would be mistreated by the Queen of Sweden, Louisa Ulrika of Prussia. The match was known to be disliked by the Queen of Sweden, who was in constant conflict with the Parliament; andwho was known in Denmark for her pride, dominant personality and hatred of anything Danish, which she demonstrated in her treatment of the Danish ambassadors in Stockholm.After the death of her mother early inher life, Sophia Magdalena was given a very strict and religious upbringing by her grandmother and her stepmother, who considered her father and brother to be morally degenerate. She is noted to have had goodrelationships with her siblings, her grandmother and her stepmother; her father, however, often frightened her when he came before her drunk, and was reportedly known to set his dogs upon her, causing in her alifelong phobia.In 1760, the betrothal was again brought up by Denmark, which regarded it as a matter of prestige. The negotiations were made between Denmark and the Swedish Queen, as King Adolf Frederick ofSweden was never considered to be of any more than purely formal importance. Louisa Ulrika favored a match between Gustav and her niece Philippine of Brandenburg-Schwedt instead, and claimed that she regardedthe engagement to be void and forced upon her by Carl Gustaf Tessin. She negotiated with Catherine the Great and her brother Frederick the Great to create some political benefit for Denmark in exchange for a brokenengagement. However, the Swedish public was very favorable to the match due to expectations Sophia Magdalena would be like the last Danish-born Queen of Sweden, Ulrika Eleonora of Denmark, who was very lovedfor her kindness and charity. This view was supported by the Caps political party, which expected Sophia Magdalena to be an example of a virtuous and religious representative of the monarchy in contrast to thehaughty Louisa Ulrika. Fredrick V of Denmark was also eager to complete the match: "His Danish Majesty could not have the interests of his daughter sacrificed because of the prejudices and whims of the SwedishQueen". In 1764 Crown Prince Gustav, who was at this point eager to free himself from his mother and form his own household, used the public opinion to state to his mother that he wished to honor the engagement,and on 3 April 1766, the engagement was officially celebrated.When a portrait of Sophia Magdalena was displayed in Stockholm, Louisa Ulrika commented: "why Gustav, you seem to be already in love with her! Shelooks stupid", after which she turned to Prince Charles and added: "She would suit you better!"Crown PrincessOn 1 October 1766, Sophia Magdalena was married to Gustav by proxy at Christiansborg Palace inCopenhagen with her brother Frederick, Hereditary Prince of Denmark, as representative of her groom. She traveled in the royal golden sloop from Kronborg in Denmark over Öresund to Hälsingborg in Sweden; whenshe was halfway, the Danish cannon salute ended, and the Swedish started to fire. In Helsingborg, she was welcomed by her brother-in-law Prince Charles of Hesse, who had crossed the sea shortly before her, theDanish envoy in Stockholm, Baron Schack, as well as Crown Prince Gustav himself. As she was about to set foot on ground, Gustav was afraid that she would fall, and he therefore reached her his hand with the words:"Watch out, Madame!", a reply which quickly became a topic of gossip at the Swedish court.The couple then traveled by land toward Stockholm, being celebrated on the way. She met her father-in-law the King and herbrothers-in-law at Stäket Manor on 27 October, and she continued to be well-treated and liked by them all during her life in Sweden. Thereafter, she met her mother-in-law the Queen and her sister-in-law at SäbyManor, and on the 28th, she was formally presented for the Swedish royal court at Drottningholm Palace. At this occasion, Countess Ebba Bonde noted that the impression about her was: "By God, how beautiful sheis!", but that her appearance was affected by the fact that she had a: "terrible fear of the Queen". On 4 November 1766, she was officially welcomed to the capital of Stockholm, where she was married to Gustav inperson in the Royal Chapel at Stockholm Royal Palace.Sophia Magdalena initially made a good impression upon the Swedish nobility with her beauty, elegance and skillful dance; but her shy, silent, and reserved naturesoon made her a disappointment in the society life. Being of a reserved nature, she was considered cold and arrogant. Her mother-in-law Queen Louisa Ulrika, who once stated that she could comprehend nothing morehumiliating than the position of a Queen Dowager, harassed her in many ways: a typical example was when she invited Gustav to her birthday celebrations, but asked him to make Sophia Magdalena excuse herself bypretending to be too ill to attend. Louisa Ulrika encouraged a distance between the couple in various ways, and Gustav largely ignored her so as not to make his mother jealous.Sophia Magdalena was known to bepopular with the Caps, who were supported by Denmark, while Louisa Ulrika and Gustav sided with the Hats. The Caps regarded Sophia Magdalena to be a symbol of virtue and religion in a degenerated royal court, andofficially demonstrated their support. Sophia Magdalena was advised by the Danish ambassador not to involve herself in politics, and when the spies of Louisa Ulrika reported that Sophia Magdalena received letters fromthe Danish ambassador through her Danish entourage, the Queen regarded her to be a sympathizer of the Danish-supported Caps: she was isolated from any contact with the Danish embassy, and the Queenencouraged Gustav to force her to send her Danish servants home. This she did not do until 1770, and his demand contributed to their tense and distant relationship. In 1768, Charlotta Sparre tried to reconcile thecouple at their summer residence Ekolsund Castle, but the marriage remained unconsummated.After King Adolf Frederick of Sweden died in 1771, Gustav III became King of Sweden. The following year, on 29 May,Sophia Magdalena was crowned Queen.Early reign as QueenThe coronation of Gustav III and Sophia Magdalena took place on 29 May 1772. She was not informed about the coup of Gustav III, which reinstated absolutemonarchy and ended the parliamentary rule of the Estates in the revolution of 1772. At the time she was deemed as suspicious and politically untrustworthy in the eyes of the King, primarily by her mother-in-law, whopainted her as pro-Danish. Denmark was presumed to oppose the coup; there were also plans to conquer Norway from Denmark.Sophia Magdalena was informed about politics nonetheless: she expressed herselfpleased with the 1772 parliament because Count Fredrik Ribbing, for whom she had taken an interest, had regained his seat. The conflict between her and her mother-in-law was publicly known and disliked, and thesympathies were on her side. In the contemporary paper Dagligt Allehanda, a fable was presented about Rävinnan och Turturduvan ("The She Fox and the Turtle Dove"). The fable was about the innocent turtle dove(Sophia Magdalena) who was slandered by the wicked she fox (Louisa Ulrika), who was supported by the second she fox (Anna Maria Hjärne) and the other foxes (the nobility). The fable was believed to have been sentfrom the Caps party.Queen Sophia Magdalena was of a shy and reserved character, and was never a member of the King's inner circle. At the famous amateur court theater of Gustav III, Sophia Magdalena isoccasionally named as participator in the documents. In 1777, for example, she dressed as an Italian sailor and participated in a battle between Italian and Spanish sailors. Usually it was rather her role to act as thepassive lady of games and tournaments, and to decorate the winner with the award. She did her ceremonial duties, but disliked the vivid lifestyle of the court around her outgoing spouse.As queen, she was expected todo a great deal of representation – more than what had been expected from previous queens due to her husband's adoration of representation. On formal occasions, she was at her best: she performed beautifullyaccording to royal court etiquette, and was seen as dignified and impressive. For instance, on 17 September 1784, she cut the cord to let off the first air balloons from the Stockholm observatory. During the King'sItalian journey in 1783–84, she hosted a grand formal public dinner every two weeks. During that time, she appeared at the Royal Swedish Opera and at the French Theater, but otherwise preferred her solitude. Thisattracted attention as during the absence of the King she had been expected to represent the royal couple all the more.Sophia appeared to have enjoyed nature trips in the country side with only one lady-in-waiting andtwo footmen, however, her country side visitations were stopped because it was deemed 'unsuitable'. Several of her ladies-in-waiting were well known Swedish women of the era, among them The Three Graces:Augusta von Fersen, Ulla von Höpken and Lovisa Meijerfelt, as well as Marianne Ehrenström and Charlotta Cedercreutz, who were known artists.Sophia Magdalena was a popular Queen: on 22 July 1788, for example,during the absence of her spouse in Finland, several members of the Royal Dramatic Theater and the musical society Augustibröder, among them Bellman, took a spontaneous trip by boat from the capital to UlriksdalPalace, where she was, and performed a poem by Bellman to her honor at the occasion of her name day.In the famous diary of her sister-in-law, Princess Hedwig Elizabeth Charlotte, Sophia Magdalena is described asbeautiful, cold, silent and haughty, very polite and formal, reserved and unsociable. When she performed her duties as Queen, her sister-in-law, Hedwig Elizabeth Charlotte of Holstein-Gottorp, described her as "Forcedto meet people".Sophia Magdalena preferred to spend her days in solitude whenever she could. She had two very intimate friends, Maria Aurora Uggla and Baroness Virginia Charlotta Manderström, but otherwise rarelyparticipated in any social life outside of what was absolutely necessary to perform her representational  duties. She frequently visited the theater, and she also had a great interest for fashion. As a result of this, she wassomewhat criticized for being too vain: even when she had no representational duties to dress up for and spend her days alone in her rooms, she is said to have changed costumes several times daily, and according herchamberlain Adolf Ludvig Hamilton, she never passed a mirror without studying herself in it. She was also interested in literature, and educated herself in various subjects: her library contained works about geography,genealogy and history. She educated herself in Swedish, English, German and Italian, and regularly read French magazines. According to Augusta von Fersen, Sophia Magdalena was quite educated, but she was notperceived as such because she rarely engaged in conversation.In 1784, after the King had returned from his trip to Italy and France, the relationship between the King and Queen soured. At this time, Gustav III spentmore and more time with male favorites. In 1786, this came to an open conflict. The King had taken to spend more time at intimate evenings with his favorite Gustaf Mauritz Armfelt, from which he excluded hercompany. When he gave some of her rooms at the Royal Palace to Armfelt, Sophia Magdalena refused to participate in any representation until the rooms were given back to her, and she also banned herladies-in-waiting from accepting his invitations without her permission.In 1787, she threatened him with asking for the support of the parliament against him if he took their son with him to Finland, which she opposed,and the year after, she successfully prevented him from doing so. She also reprimanded him from allowing his male favorites to slander her before him.Queen Sophia Magdalena was never involved in politics, except forone on one occasion. In August 1788, during the Russo-Swedish War (1788–1790), the King gave her the task to enter in negotiations with Denmark to prevent a declaration of war from Denmark during the ongoingwar against Russia. He asked her to call upon the Danish ambassador Reventlow and give him a letter to be read in the Danish royal council before her brother, the Danish King. He gave her the freedom to write as shewished, but to use the argument that she spoke as a sister and mother to a son with the right to the Danish throne and upon her own initiative.Sophia Magdalena called upon the Danish ambassador, held a speech tohim followed by a long conversation and then handed him a letter written as a "warm appeal" to her brother. A copy was sent to Gustav III, and her letter was read in the royal Danish council, where it reportedly madea good impression. However, her mission was still unsuccessful, as the Russo-Danish alliance made it unavoidable for Denmark to declare war shortly afterward. At the time, there was a note that she met two Russianprisoners of war in the park of the Haga Palace, and gave them 100 kronor each.At the parliament of 1789 Gustav III united the other estates against the nobility and to gain support for the war and for his constitutionalreform. Coming into conflict with the nobility, he had many of its representatives imprisoned. This act led to a social boycott of the monarch by the female members of the aristocracy, who followed the example ofJeanna von Lantingshausen as well as the King's sister and sister-in-law, Sophie Albertine of Sweden and Hedvig Elisabeth Charlotte. The Queen did not participate in this political demonstration and refused to allow any


Passage 1:Demos ChiangDemos Yu-bou Chiang (Chinese: ), born on 10 September 1976 in Taipei, Taiwan, is a Taiwanese and Canadian businessman. He founded DEM Inc. (), a popular design studio in Taiwan in July 2003 and has served as its chairman since then. He is also known for being the great-grandson of the late Republic of China (ROC) President Chiang Kai-shek and the grandson of late President Chiang Ching-kuo. His grandmother was Faina Ipatyevna Vakhreva, also known as Chiang Fang-liang.BiographyBorn to Chiang Ching-kuo's third son Chiang Hsiao-yung and his wife Chiang Fang Chi-yi, he is the eldest of three sons. Demos Chiang was raised in Taipei until his grandfather's death in 1988. After his grandfather's death, Chiang's parents sent him to live in Canada and later the United States, though he still retained his ROC nationality, it also started the departure from politics for Demo's parents. Chiang received a bachelor's degree in Information Management from New York University in late 1990s. After graduating, Chiang worked in the entertainment and fashion industries in Taiwan, Hong Kong and Singapore, until founding DEM Inc. in 2003.In Spring 2001, Chiang began a relationship with local starlet Lin Heng-yi (), the daughter of Buddhist Tzu Chi General Hospital's then president Lin Hsin-jung (). The couple married in February 2003 and now have a daughter born in 2003 and a son born in 2005.Despite his pedigree and celebrity identity, Demos Chiang has repeatedly announced in recent years that he is not interested in political affairs. He has also accused both the Kuomintang and the Democratic Progressive Party for "poor political tactics", especially for utilizing Chiang Kai-shek and Chiang Ching-kuo as figures of worship or denigration. In contrast to other prominent members of the Chiang family, such as John Chiang and his mother Chiang Fang Chi-yi, Demos Chiang has expressed his belief that the controversies of his ancestors should be faced fairly and left to history. He started a personal blog in January 2008 to further explain his beliefs.Passage 2:Chiang Hsiao-wenChiang Hsiao-wen (Chinese: ; also known as Alan Chiang; 14 December 1935 – 14 April 1989) was the eldest son of Chiang Ching-kuo, the President of the Republic of China in Taiwan from 1978 to 1988. His mother is Faina Ipatyevna Vakhreva, also known as Chiang Fang-liang. He had one younger sister,  Hsiao-chang, and two younger brothers, Hsiao-wu and Hsiao-yung.  He had two half-brothers, Winston Chang and John Chiang, with whom he shared the same father.He married Xu Nai Jin (Nancy) (Chinese: ) in 1960 and had a daughter, Yomei, in 1961. He suffered brain damage in 1970 while being treated for diabetes. He died of throat cancer on April 14, 1989.Passage 3:John Adams (merchant)John Adams (1672 or 1673 – c. 1745) was an American-born Canadian merchant and member of the Nova Scotia Council. He was the father-in-law of Henry Newton.BiographyAdams was born in Boston in either 1672 or 1673 to John and Avis Adams. Growing up as a petty merchant, Adams joined Sir Charles Hobby's New England regiment, participating in the capture of Port-Royal in 1710. Shortly thereafter, Adams settled in Annapolis Royal, Nova Scotia, returning to civilian life. There, he traded manufactured goods with the province's Acadian and Native Americans, and took up the role of a real estate agent and contractor. Adams joined the Executive Council of Nova Scotia on 28 April 1720, holding his position there for 20 years; the records show that few served as long as he did. He also held several other public positions in the province. Adams was appointed a notary public and deputy collector of customs for Annapolis Royal in 1725, and he was commissioned a justice of the peace in March 1727.Around the mid-1720s, Adams' poor eyesight began to fail, leading to his near-blindness in 1730. After this, he was less active in community activities and trade. Adams petitioned to the king for a pension several times, but failed. He blamed his disability on over-exposure to the sun during an Indian attack on Annapolis Royal in 1724. In December 1739, Lieutenant Governor Lawrence Armstrong died. With the absence of Major Mascarene to take Armstrong's place, Adams became the new president of the council and head of the civil government. (Alexander Cosby was also vying for the position.) In a meeting on 22 March 1740, with the return of Mascarene, the councilors declared that he was the council's rightful president. This turn of events led Adams to retire to Boston in late August or early September 1740, where he stayed for the rest of his life. He died some time after 1745.NotesPassage 4:Barthold A. Butenschøn Sr.Hans Barthold Andresen Butenschøn (27 December 1877 – 28 November 1971) was a Norwegian businessperson.He was born in Kristiania as a son of Nils August Andresen Butenschøn and Hanna Butenschøn, and grandson of Nicolay Andresen. Together with Mabel Anette Plahte (1877–1973, a daughter of Frithjof M. Plahte) he had the son Hans Barthold Andresen Butenschøn Jr. and was through him the father-in-law of Ragnhild Butenschøn and grandfather of Peter Butenschøn. Through his daughter Marie Claudine he was the father-in-law of Joakim Lehmkuhl, through his daughter Mabel Anette he was the father-in-law of Harald Astrup (a son of Sigurd Astrup) and through his daughter Nini Augusta he was the father-in-law of Ernst Torp.He took commerce school and agricultural school. He was hired in the family company N. A. Andresen & Co, and became a co-owner in 1910. He eventually became chief executive officer. The bank changed its name to Andresens Bank in 1913 and merged with Bergens Kreditbank in 1920. The merger was dissolved later in the 1920s. He was also a landowner, owning Nedre Skøyen farm and a lot of land in Enebakk. He chaired the board of Nydalens Compagnie from 1926, having not been a board member before that.He also chaired the supervisory council of Forsikringsselskapet Viking and Nedre Glommen salgsforening, and was a supervisory council member of Filharmonisk Selskap. He was a member of the gentlemen's club SK Fram since 1890, and was proclaimed a lifetime member in 1964.He was buried in Enebakk.Passage 5:Chiang Ching-kuoChiang Ching-kuo (27 April 1910 – 13 January 1988) was a politician of the Republic of China. The eldest and only biological son of Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek, he held numerous posts in the government of the Republic of China and ended martial law in 1987. He served as premier of the Republic of China between 1972 and 1978, and was president of the Republic of China from 1978 until his death in 1988.Born in Zhejiang, Ching-kuo was sent as a teenager to study in the Soviet Union during the First United Front in 1925, when his father's Nationalist Party and the Chinese Communist Party were in alliance. He attended university there and spoke Russian fluently, but when the Chinese Nationalists violently broke with the Communists, Stalin sent him to work in a steel factory in the Ural Mountains. There, Chiang met and married Faina Vakhreva. With war between China and Japan imminent in 1937, Stalin sent the couple to China. During the war, Ching-kuo's father gradually came to trust him, and gave him more and more responsibilities, including administration.After the Japanese surrender, Ching-kuo was given the job of ridding Shanghai of corruption, which he attacked with ruthless efficiency. The victory of the Communists in 1949 drove the Chiang family and their ROC government to retreat to Taiwan. Ching-kuo was first given control of the secret police, a position he retained until 1965 and in which he used arbitrary arrests and torture to ensure tight control as part of the White Terror. He then became Minister of Defense (1965–1969), Vice-Premier (1969–1972) and Premier (1972–1978). After his father's death in 1975, he took leadership of the Kuomintang (KMT) as chairman, and was elected president in 1978 and again in 1984.Under his tenure as president, the government of the Republic of China in Taiwan, while remaining authoritarian, became more open and tolerant of political dissent. Chiang courted Taiwanese voters, and reduced the preference for those who had come from the mainland after the war. Toward the end of his life, Chiang decided to relax government controls on the media and speech, and allowed Han born in Taiwan into positions of power, including his eventual successor Lee Teng-hui. He is the last president of the Republic of China to be born during the rule of the Qing dynasty. Ching-kuo was credited for his Soviet-inspired city planning policies, economic development with Ten Major Construction Projects in Taiwan, efforts to clamp down on corruption, as well as the democratic transition of Taiwan and gradually shifting away from the authoritarian dictatorial rule of his own father Chiang Kai-shek.BiographyEarly lifeThe son of Chiang Kai-shek and his first wife, Mao Fumei, Chiang Ching-kuo was born in Fenghua, Zhejiang, with the courtesy name of Jiànfēng (). He had an adopted brother, Chiang Wei-kuo. "Ching" literally means "longitude", while "kuo" means "nation"; in his brother's name, "wei" literally means "parallel (of latitude)". The names are inspired by the references in Chinese classics such as the Guoyu, in which "to draw the longitudes and latitudes of the world" is used as a metaphor for a person with great abilities, especially in managing a country.While the young Chiang Ching-kuo had a good relationship with his mother and grandmother (who were deeply rooted to their Buddhist faith), his relationship with his father was strict, utilitarian and often rocky. Chiang Kai-shek appeared to his son as an authoritarian figure, sometimes indifferent to his problems. Even in personal letters between the two, Chiang Kai-shek would sternly order his son to improve his Chinese calligraphy. From 1916 until 1919 Chiang Ching-kuo attended the "Grammar School" in Wushan in Hsikou. Then, in 1920, his father hired tutors to teach him the Four Books, the central texts of Confucianism. On 4 June 1921, Ching-kuo's grandmother died. What might have been an immense emotional loss was compensated for when Chiang Kai-shek moved the family to Shanghai. Chiang Ching-kuo's stepmother, historically known as the Chiang family's "Shanghai Mother", went with them. During this period Chiang Kai-shek concluded that Chiang Ching-kuo was a son to be taught, while Chiang Wei-kuo was a son to be loved.During his time in Shanghai, Chiang Ching-kuo was supervised by his father and made to write a weekly letter of 200–300 Chinese characters. Chiang Kai-shek also underlined the importance of classical books and of learning English, two areas he was hardly proficient in himself. On 20 March 1924, Chiang Ching-kuo was able to present to his now-nationally famous father a proposal concerning the grass-roots organization of the rural population in Hsikou. Chiang Ching-kuo planned to provide free education to allow people to read and to write at least 1000 characters. In his own words:I have a suggestion to make about the Wushan School, although I do not know if you can agree to it. My suggestion is that the school establish a night school for common people who cannot afford to go to the regular school. My school established a night school with great success. I can tell you something about the night school:Name: Wuschua School for the Common PeopleTuition fee: Free of charge with stationery suppliedClass hours: 7 pm to 9 pmAge limit: 14 or olderSchooling protocol: 16 or 20 weeks.At the time of the graduation, the trainees will be able to write simple letters and keep simple accounts. They will be issued a diploma if they pass the examinations. The textbooks they used were published by the Commercial Press and were entitled "One thousand characters for the common people." I do not know whether you will accept my suggestion. If a night school is established at Wushan, it will greatly benefit the local people.In early 1925, Chiang entered Shanghai's Pudong College, but Chiang Kai-shek decided to send him on to Beijing because of warlord action and spontaneous student protests in Shanghai. In Beijing, he attended the school organized by a friend of his father, Wu Zhihui, a renowned scholar and linguist. The school combined classical and modern approaches to education. While there, Ching-kuo started to identify himself as a progressive revolutionary and participated in the flourishing social scene inside the young Communist community. The idea of studying in Moscow now seized his imagination. Within the help program provided by the Soviet Union to the countries of East Asia there was a training school that later became the Moscow Sun Yat-sen University. The participants to the university were selected by the CPSU and KMT members, with a participation of CPC Central Committee.Chiang Ching-kuo asked Wu Zhihui to name him as a KMT candidate. Wu did not try to dissuade him, even though Wu was a key figure of the right-leaning and anti-Communist "Western Hills Group" of the KMT. In the summer of 1925, Chiang Ching-kuo traveled south to Whampoa Military Academy to discuss his plans for study in Moscow with his father. Chiang Kai-shek was not keen, but after a discussion with Chen Guofu he finally agreed. In a 1996 interview, Ch'en's brother, Chen Li-fu, recalled that Chiang Kai-shek accepted the plan because of the need to have Soviet support at a time when his hold over the KMT was tenuous.MoscowWith or without his father's enthusiastic approval, Chiang Ching-kuo went on to Moscow in late 1925. He stayed in the Soviet Union for nearly twelve years. While there, Chiang was given the Russian name Nikolai Vladimirovich Elizarov (Николай Владимирович Елизаров) and put under the tutelage of Karl Radek at the Communist University of the Toilers of the East. Noted for having an exceptional grasp of international politics, his classmates included other children of influential Chinese families, most notably the future Chinese Communist party leader, Deng Xiaoping. Chiang Ching-kuo joined the Communist Youth League under Deng. Soon Ching-kuo was an enthusiastic student of Communist ideology, particularly Trotskyism; though following the Great Purge, Joseph Stalin privately met with him and ordered him to publicly denounce Trotskyism. Chiang even applied to be a member of the All-Union Communist Party, although his request was denied.In April 1927, however, Chiang Kai-shek purged KMT leftists, had Communists arrested or killed, and expelled his Soviet advisers. Chiang Ching-kuo responded from Moscow with an editorial that harshly criticized his father's actions but was nonetheless detained as a "guest" of the Soviet Union, a practical hostage. Debate still continues as to whether he was forced to write the editorial, but he had seen Trotskyist friends arrested and killed by the Soviet secret police. The Soviet government sent him to work in the Ural Heavy Machinery Plant, a steel factory in the Urals, Yekaterinburg (then Sverdlovsk), where he met Faina Ipat'evna Vakhreva, a native Belarusian. They married on 15 March 1935, and she would later take the Chinese name, Chiang Fang-liang. In December of that year, their son, Hsiao-wen was born.Chiang Kai-shek refused to negotiate a prisoner swap for his son in exchange for a Chinese Communist Party leader. He wrote in his diary, "It is not worth it to sacrifice the interest of the country for the sake of my son." In 1937, he maintained that "I would rather have no offspring than sacrifice our nation's interests", since he had no intention of stopping the war against the Communists.Return to China and WWIIStalin allowed Chiang Ching-kuo to return to China with his Belarusian wife and son in April 1937 after living in the USSR for 12 years.By then, the NRA under Chiang Kai-shek and the Communists under Mao Zedong had signed a ceasefire to create the Second United Front and fight the Japanese invasion of China, which began in July 1937. Stalin hoped the Chinese would keep Japan from invading the Soviet Pacific coast, and he hoped to form an anti-Japanese alliance with the senior Chiang.On Ching-kuo's return, his father assigned a tutor, Hsu Dau-lin, to assist with his readjustment to China. Chiang Ching-Kuo was appointed as a specialist in remote districts of Jiangxi where he was credited with training of cadres and fighting corruption, opium consumption, and illiteracy. Chiang Ching-kuo was appointed as commissioner of Gannan Prefecture ( ) between 1939 and 1945; there he banned smoking, gambling and prostitution, studied governmental management, allowed for economic expansion and a change in social outlook. His efforts were hailed as a miracle in the political war in China, then coined as the "Gannan New Deal" (). During his time in Gannan, from 1940 he implemented a "public information desk" where ordinary people could visit him if they had problems, and according to records, Chiang Ching-kuo received a total of 1,023 people during such sessions in 1942.In regard to the ban on prostitution and closing of brothels, Chiang implemented a policy where former prostitutes became employed in factories. Due to the large number of refugees in Ganzhou as a result from the ongoing war, thousands of orphans lived on the street; in June 1942, Chiang Ching-kuo formally established the Chinese Children's Village () in the outskirts of Ganzhou, with facilities such as a nursery, kindergarten, primary school, hospital and gymnasium. During the last years of the 1930s, he met Wang Sheng, with whom he would remain close for the next 50 years.The paramilitary "Sanmin Zhuyi Youth Corps" was under Chiang's control. Chiang used the term "big bourgeoisie", in a disparaging manner to call H.H. Kung and T. V. Soong.While in mainland China, Chiang and his wife had a daughter, Hsiao-chang, born in Nanchang (1938), and two more sons, Hsiao-wu, born in Chungking (1945), and Hsiao-yung, born in Shanghai (1948).Relationship with Chang Ya-juo and her deathChiang met Chang Ya-juo when she was working at a training camp for enlistees and he was serving as the head of Gannan Prefecture during the war. The two had a relationship that brought twin sons: Chang Hsiao-tz'u and Chang Hsiao-yen, born in 1942. In August 1942, Chang felt sick at a dinner party, and died the next day in a Guilin hospital. The circumstances of her death raised speculation that it was murder. Over the years, many of her relatives, including her sons and highly ranked ex-security personnel, insisted that KMT's security apparatus orchestrated her murder to keep a lid on CCK's marital affair, and to protect CCK's political career.Hostage claimJung Chang and Jon Halliday claim Chiang Kai-shek allowed the Communists to escape on the 1934–1935 Long March because he wanted Stalin to return Chiang Ching-kuo. This is contradicted by Chiang Kai-shek's diary, "It is not worth it to sacrifice the interest of the country for the sake of my son." He refused to negotiate for a prisoner swap of his son in exchange for the Chinese Communist Party leader. Again in 1937 he stated about his son: "I would rather have no offspring than sacrifice our nation's interests." Chiang had absolutely no intention of stopping the war against the Communists. Chang and Halliday likewise claim that Chiang Ching-kuo was "kidnapped" in spite of the evidence that he went to study in the Soviet Union with his father's own approval.Economic policies in ShanghaiAfter the Second Sino-Japanese War and during the Chinese Civil War, Chiang Ching-kuo briefly served as a liaison administrator in Shanghai, trying to eradicate the corruption and hyperinflation that plagued the city. He was determined to do this because of the fears arising from the Nationalists' increasing lack of popularity during the Civil War. Given the task of arresting dishonest businessmen who hoarded supplies for profit during the inflationary spiral, he attempted to assuage the business community by explaining that his team would only go after big war profiteers.Chiang Ching-kuo copied Soviet methods, which he learned during his stay in the Soviet Union, to start a social revolution by attacking middle class merchants. He also enforced low prices on all goods to raise support from the Proletariat.As riots broke out and savings were ruined, bankrupting shopowners, Chiang Ching-kuo began to attack the wealthy, seizing assets and placing them under arrest. The son of the gangster Du Yuesheng was arrested by him. Ching-kuo ordered KMT agents to raid the Yangtze Development Corporation's warehouses, which was privately owned by H.H. Kung and his family, as the company was accused of hoarding supplies. H.H. Kung's wife was Soong Ai-ling, the sister of Soong Mei-ling who was Chiang Ching-kuo's stepmother. H.H. Kung's son David was arrested, and the Kungs responded by blackmailing the Chiangs, threatening to release information about them. He was eventually freed