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World's Greatest Draft (3 Viewers)

Is is just me or is this thing taking forever?
Nah, we'll get it done by the end of the year.Who is on the clock?
I think this is where we're at:Round Fifteen

1. Mario Kart Henry Durant

2. Larry Boy 44 Cao Cao

3. Arsenal of Doom Phidias

4. FUBAR Soren Kierkegaard

5. Acer FC Led Zeppelin

6. Yankee23 Fan Blaise Pascal

7. Thorn Wayne Gretzky

8. DC Thunder Jules Verne

9. Doug B - auto skip

10. Mad Sweeney - is up

11. Big Rocks - is on deck

12. higgins - is in the hole

13. John Madden's Lunchbox

14. Usual21

15. thatguy

16. Andy Dufresne

17. Herbert The Hippo

18. Bobbylayne

19. Mister CIA

20. Abrantes

 
I'm not sure its as much of a lock that Gretzky was the greatest hockey player ever as tim thinks it is...
If you know anything about hockey, it really is.
Have to disagree here. Gretzky was great but I have to go with Bobby Orr as the greatest hockey player of all time. NO ONE in the history of the sport dominated on BOTH offense and defense like Orr did..........P.S. I am writing this for Herbert The Hippo.......
 
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I'm not sure its as much of a lock that Gretzky was the greatest hockey player ever as tim thinks it is...
If you know anything about hockey, it really is.
Have to disagree here. Gretzky was great but I have to go with Bobby Orr as the greatest hockey player of all time. NO ONE in the history of the sport dominated on BOTH offense and defense like Orr did..........P.S. I am writing this for Herbert The Hippo.......
Did.Herbert.Get.A.Timeout.And.If.So.For.How.Long.
 
I'm not sure its as much of a lock that Gretzky was the greatest hockey player ever as tim thinks it is...
If you know anything about hockey, it really is.
Have to disagree here. Gretzky was great but I have to go with Bobby Orr as the greatest hockey player of all time. NO ONE in the history of the sport dominated on BOTH offense and defense like Orr did..........P.S. I am writing this for Herbert The Hippo.......
Did.Herbert.Get.A.Timeout.And.If.So.For.How.Long.
:D No, just too lazy to delete and write it again.
 
Just for perspective I'd like to point out the scoring leaders as this NHL season draws to a close:

1. Malkin - 108pts (34g/74a)

2. Ovechkin - 101 (54/47)

3. Crosby - 99 (30/69)

 
Round Fifteen

1. Mario Kart Henry Durant

2. Larry Boy 44 Cao Cao

3. Arsenal of Doom Phidias

4. FUBAR Soren Kierkegaard

5. Acer FC Led Zeppelin

6. Yankee23 Fan Blaise Pascal

7. Thorn Wayne Gretzky

8. DC Thunder Jules Verne

9. Doug B - auto skip

10. Mad Sweeney - is up

11. Big Rocks - is on deck

12. higgins - is in the hole

13. John Madden's Lunchbox

14. Usual21

15. thatguy

16. Andy Dufresne

17. Herbert The Hippo

18. Bobbylayne

19. Mister CIA

20. Abrantes
Is anyone going to pick?
If I understand the clock rules, mad sweeney is OTC until 11am ET. Either that or everyone is still reeling from my Gretzky pick.
 
Round Fifteen

1. Mario Kart Henry Durant

2. Larry Boy 44 Cao Cao

3. Arsenal of Doom Phidias

4. FUBAR Soren Kierkegaard

5. Acer FC Led Zeppelin

6. Yankee23 Fan Blaise Pascal

7. Thorn Wayne Gretzky

8. DC Thunder Jules Verne

9. Doug B - auto skip

10. Mad Sweeney - is up

11. Big Rocks - is on deck

12. higgins - is in the hole

13. John Madden's Lunchbox

14. Usual21

15. thatguy

16. Andy Dufresne

17. Herbert The Hippo

18. Bobbylayne

19. Mister CIA

20. Abrantes
Is anyone going to pick?
If I understand the clock rules, mad sweeney is OTC until 11am ET. Either that or everyone is still reeling from my Gretzky pick.
Does the clock not start until 10:00am EST?This is getting easier and easier for Tim to update when he only has to do about 4 picks a day.

By the way didn’t he used to post in this thread?

If I have this straight

Mad Sweeney will time out at 11:00 EST

Big Rocks will time out at 12:00 EST

Higgins will time out at 1:00pm EST

I get to pick at 1:00pm then?

Cool. I’ll be back then.

 
I have Sweeney's pick, but I'm waiting out the clock because he wasn't 100% positive. If he doesn't show, I'll make his pick for him.

 
Sorry to take my whole hour with a proxy guys. I should've PMed it to more than just Flysack. Thanks for getting my pick in in the nick FS!! It was a rush jon last night and I had to sleep in today to offset my sleep schedule in order to work until 3ish tonight. Network TV is really fun...

I don't have much to say about Rousseau because I have little depth in philosophy. I was hoping for one of those "better than mine" writeups from Flysack as part of my PMing strategy. He's liked a lot of my picks so far so maybe he can help me out here even more than he already has.

I know that Rousseau has a lot of crossover into the literary world especially with the use of first person (which I dislike greatly so a book has to be extra good), was Freudian before Freud, and was very influential to the French Revolution. I believe he's a great value pick here.

15.10 Jean-Jacques Rousseau Philosopher

 
Hey guys, I know I haven't been around much in the last couple days, but what's with the sudden slowdown in picks? We were moving at a pretty good pace here before.

Rosseau is a great pick, although I would have thought he would be taken as an intellectual. He is the exact type of guy I established the intellectual category for, because his concern was less with the larger matter of human existence, and more specifically with how we govern. Rosseau is easily as influential to human society as Locke and Adam Smith, both of whom were taken much earlier in this draft.

 
15.11 Simon Wiesenthal, humanitarian

Full bio here

Simon Wiesenthal (December 31, 1908 - September 20, 2005) KBE was an Austrian-Jewish architectural engineer and Holocaust survivor who became famous after World War II for his work as a Nazi hunter who pursued Nazi war criminals in an effort to bring them to justice.

Following four and a half years in the German concentration camps of Janowska, Plaszow, and Mauthausen during World War II, Wiesenthal dedicated most of his life to tracking down and gathering information on fugitive Nazis so that they could be brought to justice for war crimes and crimes against humanity. As soon as his health improved, Wiesenthal began working for the U.S. Army gathering documentation for the Nazi war crimes trials. In 1947, he and 30 other volunteers founded the Jewish Historical Documentation Center in Linz, Austria, in order to gather information for future trials. Later he opened Jewish Documentation Center in Vienna. Wiesenthal wrote The Sunflower, which describes a life-changing event he experienced when he was in the camp.

Wiesenthal died in his sleep at age 96 in Vienna on September 20, 2005, and was buried in the city of Herzliya in Israel on 23 September. He is survived by his daughter, Paulinka Kriesberg, and three grandchildren. The Simon Wiesenthal Center, located in Los Angeles in the United States, is named in his honor.
 
Hey guys, I know I haven't been around much in the last couple days, but what's with the sudden slowdown in picks? We were moving at a pretty good pace here before.

Rosseau is a great pick, although I would have thought he would be taken as an intellectual. He is the exact type of guy I established the intellectual category for, because his concern was less with the larger matter of human existence, and more specifically with how we govern. Rosseau is easily as influential to human society as Locke and Adam Smith, both of whom were taken much earlier in this draft.
I think if people can get (back in) the habit of sending a PM to the next drafter, that would help a lot.
 
I'm not sure its as much of a lock that Gretzky was the greatest hockey player ever as tim thinks it is...
If you know anything about hockey, it really is.
Have to disagree here. Gretzky was great but I have to go with Bobby Orr as the greatest hockey player of all time. NO ONE in the history of the sport dominated on BOTH offense and defense like Orr did..........P.S. I am writing this for Herbert The Hippo.......
Gretzky is one of the greatest PKers of all time. And the difference between Gretzky's and Orr's defense is no where near as large as the difference between Gretzky's and Orr's offense. 50 goals, 39 games.
 
I edited in my pick (William Wallace) -- I'll try to make it back, but in the meantime I'm on autoskip.

bonus

 
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15.11 Simon Wiesenthal, humanitarian

Full bio here

Simon Wiesenthal (December 31, 1908 - September 20, 2005) KBE was an Austrian-Jewish architectural engineer and Holocaust survivor who became famous after World War II for his work as a Nazi hunter who pursued Nazi war criminals in an effort to bring them to justice.

Following four and a half years in the German concentration camps of Janowska, Plaszow, and Mauthausen during World War II, Wiesenthal dedicated most of his life to tracking down and gathering information on fugitive Nazis so that they could be brought to justice for war crimes and crimes against humanity. As soon as his health improved, Wiesenthal began working for the U.S. Army gathering documentation for the Nazi war crimes trials. In 1947, he and 30 other volunteers founded the Jewish Historical Documentation Center in Linz, Austria, in order to gather information for future trials. Later he opened Jewish Documentation Center in Vienna. Wiesenthal wrote The Sunflower, which describes a life-changing event he experienced when he was in the camp.

Wiesenthal died in his sleep at age 96 in Vienna on September 20, 2005, and was buried in the city of Herzliya in Israel on 23 September. He is survived by his daughter, Paulinka Kriesberg, and three grandchildren. The Simon Wiesenthal Center, located in Los Angeles in the United States, is named in his honor.
Simon Weisentahl made a huge contribution to humanity. As did many other people in medicine, law, science, etc. But whether this makes him a great humanitarian, is debatable, because he is so only indirectly. He brought the sword of justice to many of the murderers of the Holocaust. And in the sense, that those who were surviving victims were given some solace that their oppressors did not escape unscathed, he brought them justice. But it still leaves a question in my mind if he qualifies as a humanitarian.
 
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Picks like William Wallace and Oliver Cromwell are fine for us with our British heritage. But is anyone from Thailland or Guatamala really affected by these guys? I think that, unfortunately, these sorts of picks have to be downgraded below those who clearly had more global influence.

 
Some will laugh, some may sneer, but this guy is one of the greatest sportsman of all time.

To dominate a sport such as Gretzky is one thing, to absolutely annihilate your nearest competitor stats wise is another.

He was dominant than Pele was at Soccer

He was more dominant than Gretzky at Hockey

He was more dominant than XXXX at Basketball

And more dominant than any Baseballer, Footballer or almost any other sportsman you care to name.

Think the Olympics 100m and the margin of victory between 1st and 2nd is 40 yards

Think of a Baseballer with a career batting average of 0.400

Think of a Basketballer averaging 45 points a game for his career.

This man is not only Australia’s greatest ever sportsman, he Australia’s greatest ever person

After the Second World War he came back at the age of 38 to play for his country and although he had clearly lost some ability he was still dominant over all others who faced him.

If he hadn't lost 7 years of the prime of his career to the Second World War his final figures could have been even more frightening.

Sir Donald Bradman - Athlete

The Don was not only the greatest Australian cricketer of all time - he was seen as the greatest Australian who ever lived full stop.

He was a god-like figure and his death will elevate him to saintly proportions in Australia.

Bradman emerged during the Great Depression of the 1930s when Australia was suffering mentally, as well as financially.

He represented the future - the great hope that would guide the country to unprecedented success in Test cricket.

All Australians have grown up with his aura.

Most people thought or think they knew him - even the younger generation who grew up 30 or 40 years after he last picked up a bat in 1949.

But you only need to look at his record to realise why he was held in such high regard by the entire cricketing world.

No modern cricketer can hold a light to his 99.94 Test average.

But even after he retired from the game, he still held enormous influence as an administrator.

One person who will be deeply affected by his death is Steve Waugh.

The current Australian captain is a cricketer who holds enormous reverence for the history of the game.

He owns memorabilia belonging to great Aussie cricketers like Sir Don and Victor Trumper.

Despite the fact that the entire nation will be in mourning, he will turn that sorrow into a positive thing to inspire his side to victory in India.
How the Don compares staistically with other cricketers
Completed Test career batting averages

Donald Bradman (AUS) 99.94

Graeme Pollock (SAF) 60.97

George Headley (WI) 60.83

Herbert Sutcliffe (ENG) 60.73

Eddie Paynter (ENG) 59.23

Ken Barrington (ENG) 58.67

Everton Weekes (WI) 58.61

Wally Hammond (ENG) 58.45

Garfield Sobers (WI) 57.78

Jack Hobbs (ENG) 56.94

Clyde Walcott (WI) 56.68

Len Hutton (ENG) 56.67

Ernest Tyldesley (ENG) 55.00

Charlie Davis (WI) 54.20

Vinod Kambli (IND) 54.20
How Bradmans dominance reflects against other sportsmen
World sport context

Wisden hailed Bradman as, "the greatest phenomenon in the history of cricket, indeed in the history of all ball games".[1] Statistician Charles Davis analysed the statistics for several prominent sportsmen by comparing the number of standard deviations that they stand above the mean for their sport.[224] The top performers in his selected sports are:[225]

Athlete Sport Statistic Standard

deviations

Bradman Cricket Batting average 4.4

Pelé Association football Goals per game 3.7

XXX Baseball Batting average 3.6

XXX Golf Major titles 3.5

XXX Basketball Points per game 3.4

The statistics show that "no other athlete dominates an international sport to the extent that Bradman does cricket".[2] In order to post a similarly dominant career statistic as Bradman, a baseball batter would need a career batting average of .392, while a basketball player would need to score an average of 43.0 points per game.[225] The respective records are .366 and 30.1.[225]

... Australian icon considered by many to be the pre-eminent sportsman of all time ... One of Australia's most beloved heroes, he was revered abroad as well. When Nelson Mandela was released after 27 years in prison, his first question to an Australian visitor was, "Is Sir Donald Bradman still alive?"
Flame away
 
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Some will laugh, some may sneer, but this guy is one of the greatest sportsman of all time.

To dominate a sport such as Gretzky is one thing, to absolutely annihilate your nearest competitor stats wise is another.

He was dominant than Pele was at Soccer

He was more dominant than Gretzky at Hockey

He was more dominant than XXXX at Basketball

And more dominant than any Baseballer, Footballer or almost any other sportsman you care to name.

Think the Olympics 100m and the margin of victory between 1st and 2nd is 40 yards

Think of a Baseballer with a career batting average of 0.400

Think of a Basketballer averaging 45 points a game for his career.

This man is not only Australia’s greatest ever sportsman, he Australia’s greatest ever person

After the Second World War he came back at the age of 38 to play for his country and although he had clearly lost some ability he was still dominant over all others who faced him.

If he hadn't lost 7 years of the prime of his career to the Second World War his final figures could have been even more frightening.

Sir Donald Bradman - Athlete

The Don was not only the greatest Australian cricketer of all time - he was seen as the greatest Australian who ever lived full stop.

He was a god-like figure and his death will elevate him to saintly proportions in Australia.

Bradman emerged during the Great Depression of the 1930s when Australia was suffering mentally, as well as financially.

He represented the future - the great hope that would guide the country to unprecedented success in Test cricket.

All Australians have grown up with his aura.

Most people thought or think they knew him - even the younger generation who grew up 30 or 40 years after he last picked up a bat in 1949.

But you only need to look at his record to realise why he was held in such high regard by the entire cricketing world.

No modern cricketer can hold a light to his 99.94 Test average.

But even after he retired from the game, he still held enormous influence as an administrator.

One person who will be deeply affected by his death is Steve Waugh.

The current Australian captain is a cricketer who holds enormous reverence for the history of the game.

He owns memorabilia belonging to great Aussie cricketers like Sir Don and Victor Trumper.

Despite the fact that the entire nation will be in mourning, he will turn that sorrow into a positive thing to inspire his side to victory in India.
How the Don compares staistically with other cricketers
Completed Test career batting averages

Donald Bradman (AUS) 99.94

Graeme Pollock (SAF) 60.97

George Headley (WI) 60.83

Herbert Sutcliffe (ENG) 60.73

Eddie Paynter (ENG) 59.23

Ken Barrington (ENG) 58.67

Everton Weekes (WI) 58.61

Wally Hammond (ENG) 58.45

Garfield Sobers (WI) 57.78

Jack Hobbs (ENG) 56.94

Clyde Walcott (WI) 56.68

Len Hutton (ENG) 56.67

Ernest Tyldesley (ENG) 55.00

Charlie Davis (WI) 54.20

Vinod Kambli (IND) 54.20
How Bradmans dominance reflects against other sportsmen
World sport context

Wisden hailed Bradman as, "the greatest phenomenon in the history of cricket, indeed in the history of all ball games".[1] Statistician Charles Davis analysed the statistics for several prominent sportsmen by comparing the number of standard deviations that they stand above the mean for their sport.[224] The top performers in his selected sports are:[225]

Athlete Sport Statistic Standard

deviations

Bradman Cricket Batting average 4.4

Pelé Association football Goals per game 3.7

XXX Baseball Batting average 3.6

XXX Golf Major titles 3.5

XXX Basketball Points per game 3.4

The statistics show that "no other athlete dominates an international sport to the extent that Bradman does cricket".[2] In order to post a similarly dominant career statistic as Bradman, a baseball batter would need a career batting average of .392, while a basketball player would need to score an average of 43.0 points per game.[225] The respective records are .366 and 30.1.[225]

... Australian icon considered by many to be the pre-eminent sportsman of all time ... One of Australia's most beloved heroes, he was revered abroad as well. When Nelson Mandela was released after 27 years in prison, his first question to an Australian visitor was, "Is Sir Donald Bradman still alive?"
Flame away
Great pick. I dropped that name to someone a while back as a guy who deserved to be picked. Cricket is very popular worldwide and his dominance in it makes him a fine choice.
 
I think Don Bradman is a great pick. He is probably the only man who made cricket faster than growing grass, or watching paint dry. And the way he would drive a googly to silly mid-off was masterful. No one ever did it better.

 
Make-up pick:

15.9 - Lech Wałęsa, Rebel

Lech Wałęsa (born September 29, 1943) is a Polish politician and a former trade union and human rights activist. He co-founded Solidarity (Solidarność), the Soviet bloc's first independent trade union, won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1983, and served as President of Poland from 1990 to 1995.

Solidarność

He was a member of the illegal strike committee in Gdańsk Shipyard in 1970. In 1976, Wałęsa lost his job in Gdańsk Shipyard.

In June 1978 he joined the illegal underground Free Trade Unions of the Coast (Wolne Związki Zawodowe Wybrzeża), organized by Bogdan Borusewicz, Andrzej Gwiazda, Krzysztof Wyszkowski, Lech Kaczyński, Anna Walentynowicz, Antoni Sokołowski, and others.

On August 14, 1980, after the beginning of an occupational strike in the Lenin Shipyard of Gdańsk, Wałęsa became the leader of this strike. The strike was spontaneously followed by similar strikes, first in Gdańsk, and then across Poland.

In September of that year, the Communist government signed an agreement with the Strike Coordination Committee to allow legal organization, but not actual free trade unions. The Strike Coordination Committee legalized itself into National Coordination Committee of Solidarność Free Trade Union, and Wałęsa was chosen as a chairman of this Committee. Solidarność is also known as Solidarity.

The survival of Solidarity was an unprecedented event not only in Poland, a satellite state of the USSR ruled (in practice) by a one-party Communist regime, but the whole of the Eastern bloc. It meant a break in the hard-line stance of the communist Polish United Workers' Party, which had bloodily ended a 1970 protest with machine gun fire (killing dozens and injuring over 1,000), and the broader Soviet communist regime in the Eastern Bloc, which had quelled both the 1956 Hungarian Uprising and the 1968 Prague Spring with Soviet-led invasions.

Solidarity's influence led to the intensification and spread of anti-communist ideals and movements throughout the countries of the Eastern Bloc, weakening their communist governments. The 1989 elections in Poland where anti-communist candidates won a striking victory sparked off a succession of peaceful anti-communist revolutions in Central and Eastern Europe known as the Revolutions of 1989 (Jesień Ludów). Solidarity's example was repeated in various ways by opposition groups throughout the Eastern Bloc, eventually leading to the Eastern Bloc's effective dismantling, and contributing to the collapse of the Soviet Union, in the early 1990s.

Wałęsa kept [his position in Solidarity] until December 13, 1981, when he was arrested. General Wojciech Jaruzelski declared a state of martial law on December 13. Wałęsa was incarcerated for 11 months in south-eastern Poland near the Soviet border until November 14, 1982.

In 1983, he applied to come back to Gdańsk Shipyard as a simple electrician. The year 1983 also saw Wałęsa being awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. He was unable to receive the prize himself, fearing that the government would not let him back in. His wife, Danuta Wałęsa, received the prize in his place.

From 1987 to 1990 Wałęsa organized and led, the "half-illegal" Temporary Executive Committee of Solidarity Trade Union. In 1988 Wałęsa organized an occupational strike in Gdańsk Shipyard, demanding only the re-legalisation of the Solidarity Trade Union. After eighty days the government agreed to enter into talks in September. Wałęsa was an informal leader of the "non-governmental" side during the talks. During the talks the government signed an agreement to re-establish the Solidarity Trade Union and to organize "half-free" elections to the Polish parliament.

In 1989, Wałęsa organized and led the Citizenship Committee of the Chairman of Solidarity Trade Union. Formally, it was just an advisory body, but, practically, it was a kind of a political party, which won parliament elections in 1989 (the Opposition took all seats in the Sejm that were subject of free elections and all but one seats in the newly re-established senate; according to the Round Table agreements only members of the Communist Party and its allies could stand for the remaining 64% of seats in the Sejm).

While technically just a Chairman of Solidarity Trade Union at the time, Wałęsa played a key role in Polish politics. At the end of 1989, he persuaded leaders from formerly communist ally parties to form a non-communist coalition government, which was the first non-communist government in the Soviet Bloc's sphere of influence. After that agreement the parliament chose Tadeusz Mazowiecki for prime minister of Poland. Poland, while still a communist country in theory, started to change its economy to a market-based system.

He was the first non-head of state to address a joint meeting of the US Congress on November 15, 1989. He was also the first recipient of the Liberty Medal on July 4, 1989 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. In his acceptance speech, he said, "Liberty is not only a right, but also our common responsibility and duty."
 
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Sir Donald Bradman - Athlete
I think it's an excellent pick. Then again, I like cricket. :eek:
Just curious, how does an American get into cricket really? It gets no publicity here, is not televised, etc. I am guessing you saw it played while out of the country somewhere and liked it?
Oh, it's much worse than all that. I got into it by watching this movie. Have followed it since then.
 
Sir Donald Bradman - Athlete
I think it's an excellent pick. Then again, I like cricket. :eek:
Just curious, how does an American get into cricket really? It gets no publicity here, is not televised, etc. I am guessing you saw it played while out of the country somewhere and liked it?
It is always on the television at a local Indian restaurant I go to. I find it fascinating to watch.
 
15.14 - Jeremy Bentham - Philosopher

Jeremy Bentham (15 February 1748–6 June 1832) was an English jurist, philosopher, and legal and social reformer. He was the brother of ******. He was a political radical, and a leading theorist in Anglo-American philosophy of law. He is best known for his advocacy of utilitarianism, for the concept of animal rights, and his opposition to the idea of natural rights, with his oft-quoted statement that the idea of such rights is "nonsense upon stilts." He also influenced the development of welfarism. He is probably best known in popular society as the originator of the concept of the panopticon.

He became known as one of the most influential of the utilitarians, through his own work and that of his students. These included his secretary and collaborator on the utilitarian school of philosophy, ******; ****'s son *******; and several political leaders including ******, who later became a founder of socialism. He is also considered the godfather of University College London.

Bentham's position included arguments in favour of individual and economic freedom, the separation of church and state, freedom of expression, equal rights for women, the end of slavery, the abolition of physical punishment (including that of children), the right to divorce, free trade, usury and the decriminalization of homosexual acts. He also made two distinct attempts during his life to critique the death penalty.

 
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Walesa and Wallace get crossed off my ever-shrinking list.

This knighted fella? Not so much.

Though I do wonder, how is it even possible to bat 300 percentage points better than the #2 guy?

 
With all this controversy over celebrity, it it with great hesitation that I finally select mine. However, I think this woman fits whatever criteria our judges our liable to set forth when judging the category, whether it be fame during one's lifetime, or fame achieved posthumously. One thing is for certain, this woman's legacy is still remembered and celebrated to this day, and will likely continue to be celebrated far into the future.

Eva Perón (Evita) - Celebrity

María Eva Duarte de Perón (7 May 1919 – 26 July 1952) was the second wife of President #### (1895–1974) and served as the First Lady of Argentina from 1946 until her death in 1952. She is often referred to as simply Eva Perón, or by the affectionate Spanish language diminutive Evita, which literally translates into English as "Little Eva".

She was born out of wedlock in rural Argentina in 1919. In 1934, at the age of 15, she made her way to the nation's capital of Buenos Aires, where she pursued a career as a stage, radio, and film actress. Eva met #### in 1944 at a charity event in San Juan, and the two were married the following year. In 1946, Juan Perón was elected President of Argentina. Over the course of the next six years, Eva Perón became powerful within the Pro-Peronist trade unions, essentially for speaking on behalf of labor rights. She also ran the Ministries of Labor and Health, founded and ran the charitable Eva Perón Foundation, championed women's suffrage in Argentina, and founded and ran the nation's first large-scale female political party, the Female Peronist Party.

In 1951, Eva Perón accepted the Peronist nomination for the office of Vice President of Argentina. In this bid, she received great support from the Peronist political base, low-income and working class Argentines who were referred to as descamisados or "shirtless ones". However, opposition from the nation's military and elite, coupled with her declining health, ultimately forced her to withdraw her candidacy. In 1952 shortly before her death from cancer at the age of 33, Eva Perón was given the official title of "Spiritual Leader of the Nation" by the Argentine Congress.

Eva Perón has become a part of international popular culture , most famously as the subject of the musical Evita. Christina Alvarez Rodriguez claims that Eva has never left the collective conscience of Argentines. Cristina Fernandez, the first female elected President of Argentina, claims that women of her generation owe a debt to Eva for "her example of passion and combativeness".



Re-election and Spiritual Leader of the Nation

On 4 June 1952, Evita rode with #### in parade through Buenos Aires in celebration of his re-election as President of Argentina. (This was the first election in which Argentine women had been allowed to vote. Evita had organized women voters into the first truly powerful female political party in the country's history.) Evita was by this point so ill that she was unable to stand without support. Underneath her oversized fur coat was a frame made of plaster and wire that allowed her to stand. She took a triple dose of pain medication before the parade, and took another two doses when she returned home.

In an official ceremony a few days after Juan Perón's second inauguration, Evita was given the official title of "Spiritual Leader of the Nation".



Death

Despite having undergone a hysterectomy by the American surgeon ####, Evita's cancer returned rapidly. She developed lung metastasis and was the first Argentine to undergo chemotherapy (a novel treatment at that time). Despite all available treatment, she became emaciated, weighing only 36 kg (about 79 lb.) by June 1952. Evita died at the age of 33, at 8:25 p.m. on 26 July 1952. The news was immediately broadcast throughout the country, and Argentina went into mourning: all activity in Argentina stopped: movies stopped playing, restaurants were closed and patrons were shown to the door. A radio broadcast interrupted the broadcasting schedule, with the announcer reading, "It is my sad duty to inform you that today at 8:25 p.m. Eva Perón, Spiritual Leader of the Nation, entered immortality". Eva Perón was granted an official state funeral.

Mourning

Upon Eva Perón's death, the government suspended all official activities for two days, with all flags being flown at half-mast for ten days. It soon became apparent, however, that these measures fell short of reflecting popular grief. The crowd outside of the official presidential residence had grown dense, congesting the streets for ten blocks in each direction. Later, while Evita's body was being moved, eight people were crushed to death in the throngs. In the following 24 hours, over 2000 people would be treated in city hospitals for injuries sustained in the rush to be near Evita as her body was being transported from the presidential residence to the Ministry of Labour building. The streets of Buenos Aires overflowed with flowers that were stacked in huge piles, and within one day of Evita's death, all flower shops in Buenos Aires had run out of flowers. Despite the fact that Eva Perón never held an official political office, she was eventually given an official funeral usually reserved for a head of state.

International popular culture

By the late 20th century, Eva Perón had become the subject of numerous articles, books, stage plays, and musicals, ranging from the biography The Woman with the Whip to a 1981 TV movie called "Evita Peron" with Faye Dunaway in the title role. The most successful rendering of Eva Perón's life has been the musical production Evita. The musical began as a concept album co-produced by #### and Andrew ####, with #### in the title role. ####would later be cast in the title role when the concept album was adapted into a musical stage production in London's West End. In 1980, #### won the Tony Award for Best Leading Actress in a Musical for her performance as the title character. #### claims that to date "the musical stage production has been performed on every continent except Antarctica and has generated over $2 billion in revenue".

As early as 1978, the musical was considered as the basis for a movie. After a nearly 20-year production delay, Madonna was cast in the title role for the film version and won the Golden Globe Award for "Best Actress in a Musical or Comedy". In response to the American film, and in an alleged attempt to offer a more politically accurate depiction of Evita's life, an Argentine film company released Eva Perón: The True Story. The Argentine production starred actress Esther Goris in the title role. This movie was the 1996 Argentine submission for the Oscar in the category of "Best Foreign Film".

#### writes that Evita is the perfect popular culture icon for our times because her career foreshadowed what, by the late 20th century, had become common. During Evita's time it was considered scandalous for a former entertainer to take part in public political life. Her detractors in Argentina had often accused Evita of turning public political life into show business. But by the late 20th century, #### claims, the public had become engrossed in the cult of celebrity and public political life had become insignificant. In this regard, Evita was perhaps ahead of her time. #### also writes that Evita's story is appealing to our celebrity-obsessed age because her story confirms one of Hollywood's oldest clichés, the rags to riches story. Reflecting on Eva Perón's popularity more than half a century after her death, ####writes that, "Evita's life has evidently just begun."

 

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