query: Who developed the first escapement mechanism for watches and clocks?

title: Escapement

text: The lever escapement, invented by Thomas Mudge in 1750, has been used in the vast majority of watches since the 19th century. Its advantages are (1) it is a "detached" escapement; unlike the cylinder or duplex escapements the balance wheel is only in contact with the lever during the short impulse period when it swings through its centre position and swings freely the rest of its cycle, increasing accuracy, and (2) it is a self-starting escapement, so if the watch is shaken so that the balance wheel stops, it will automatically start again. The original form was the rack lever escapement, in which the lever and the balance wheel were always in contact via a gear rack on the lever. Later, it was realized that all the teeth from the gears could be removed except one, and this created the detached lever escapement. British watchmakers used the English detached lever, in which the lever was at right angles to the balance wheel. Later Swiss and American manufacturers used the inline lever, in which the lever is inline between the balance wheel and the escape wheel; this is the form used in modern watches. In 1867 Georges Frederic Roskopf invented an inexpensive, less accurate form called the Roskopf or pin-pallet escapement, which was used in cheap "dollar watches" in the early 20th century and is still used in cheap alarm clocks and kitchen timers.

title: Escapement

text: The verge was the only escapement used in clocks and watches for 350 years. In spring-driven clocks and watches it required a fusee to even out the force of the mainspring. It was used in the first pendulum clocks for about 50 years after the pendulum clock was invented in 1656. In a pendulum clock the crown wheel and staff were oriented so they were horizontal, and the pendulum was hung from the staff. However the verge is the most inaccurate of the common escapements, and after the pendulum was introduced in the 1650s the verge began to be replaced by other escapements, being abandoned only by the late 1800s. By this time, the fashion for thin watches had required that the escape wheel be made very small, amplifying the effects of wear, and when a watch of this period is wound up today, it will often be found to run very fast, gaining many hours per day.

title: Rangaku

text:
Many were developed, mostly for entertainment purposes, ranging from tea-serving to arrow-shooting mechanisms. These ingenious mechanical toys were to become prototypes for the engines of the industrial revolution. They were powered by spring mechanisms similar to those of clocks.
Mechanical clocks were introduced into Japan by Jesuit missionaries or Dutch merchants in the sixteenth century. These clocks were of the lantern clock design, typically made of brass or iron, and used the relatively primitive verge and foliot escapement. These led to the development of an original Japanese clock, called Wadokei.

title: Escapement

text: An escapement is a device in mechanical watches and clocks that transfers energy to the timekeeping element (the "impulse action") and allows the number of its oscillations to be counted (the "locking action"). The impulse action transfers energy to the clock's timekeeping element (usually a pendulum or balance wheel) to replace the energy lost to friction during its cycle and keep the timekeeper oscillating. The escapement is driven by force from a coiled spring or a suspended weight, transmitted through the timepiece's gear train. Each swing of the pendulum or balance wheel releases a tooth of the escapement's escape wheel gear, allowing the clock's gear train to advance or "escape" by a fixed amount. This regular periodic advancement moves the clock's hands forward at a steady rate. At the same time the tooth gives the timekeeping element a push, before another tooth catches on the escapement's pallet, returning the escapement to its "locked" state. The sudden stopping of the escapement's tooth is what generates the characteristic "ticking" sound heard in operating mechanical clocks and watches.

title: Verge escapement

text: It is believed that sometime in the late 13th century the verge escapement mechanism was applied to tower clocks, creating the first mechanical clock. In spite of the fact that these clocks were celebrated objects of civic pride which were written about at the time, it may never be known when the new escapement was first used. This is because it has proven difficult to distinguish from the meager written documentation which of these early tower clocks were mechanical, and which were water clocks; the same Latin word, "horologe", was used for both. None of the original mechanisms have survived unaltered. Sources differ on which was the first clock 'known' to be mechanical, depending on which manuscript evidence they regard as conclusive. One candidate is the Dunstable Priory clock in Bedfordshire, England built in 1283, because accounts say it was installed above the rood screen, where it would be difficult to replenish the water needed for a water clock. Another is the clock built at the Palace of the Visconti, Milan, Italy, in 1335. However, there is agreement that mechanical clocks existed by the late 13th century.

title: Verge escapement

text:
For the first two hundred years or so of the mechanical clock's existence, the verge, with foliot or balance wheel, was the only escapement used in mechanical clocks. In the sixteenth century alternative escapements started to appear, but the verge remained the most used escapement for 350 years until mid-17th century advances in mechanics, resulted in the adoption of the pendulum, and later the anchor escapement.
Since clocks were valuable, after the invention of the pendulum many verge clocks were rebuilt to use this more accurate timekeeping technology, so very few of the early "verge and foliot" clocks have survived unaltered to the present day.

title: Lever escapement

text:
The lever escapement was invented by British clockmaker Thomas Mudge around 1755, and improved by Abraham-Louis Breguet (1787), Peter Litherland (1791), Edward Massey (1800), and its modern ("table roller") form was developed by George Savage in the early 1800s. Since about 1900 virtually every mechanical watch, alarm clock and other portable timepiece has used the lever escapement.
The advantages of the lever are, first, that it is a "detached" escapement, it allows the balance wheel to swing completely free of the escapement during most of its oscillation, except when giving it a short impulse, improving timekeeping accuracy. Second, due to "locking" and "draw" its action is very precise. Third, it is self-starting, so if the watch is jarred in use so the balance wheel stops, it will start again. A cheaper and less accurate version of the lever escapement, called the pin pallet escapement, invented by Georges Frederic Roskopf in 1867, is used in clocks and timers.

title: Escapement

text: Although some sources claim that French architect Villard de Honnecourt invented the first escapement around 1237 due to a drawing in his notebooks of a rope linkage to turn a statue of an angel to follow the sun,[11] the consensus is that this was not an escapement.[12][13][14][15][16][17] The first mechanical escapement, the verge escapement, was used in a bell ringing apparatus called an alarum for several centuries before it was adapted to clocks.[18] In 14th-century Europe it appeared as the timekeeper in the first mechanical clocks, which were large tower clocks.[19] Its origin and first use is unknown because it is difficult to distinguish which of these early tower clocks were mechanical, and which were water clocks.[20] However, indirect evidence, such as a sudden increase in cost and construction of clocks, points to the late 13th century as the most likely date for the development of the modern clock escapement.[19] Astronomer Robertus Anglicus wrote in 1271 that clockmakers were trying to invent an escapement, but hadn't been successful yet.[21] On the other hand, most sources agree that mechanical escapement clocks existed by 1300.[22][23][19]

title: History of watches

text: The timekeeping mechanism in these early pocketwatches was the same one used in clocks, invented in the 13th century; the verge escapement which drove a foliot, a dumbbell shaped bar with weights on the ends, to oscillate back and forth. However, the mainspring introduced a source of error not present in weight-powered clocks. The force provided by a spring is not constant, but decreases as the spring unwinds. The rate of all timekeeping mechanisms is affected by changes in their drive force, but the primitive verge and foliot mechanism was especially sensitive to these changes, so early watches slowed down during their running period as the mainspring ran down. This problem, called lack of isochronism, plagued mechanical watches throughout their history.

title: Watch

text: A mechanical movement uses an escapement mechanism to control and limit the unwinding and winding parts of a spring, converting what would otherwise be a simple unwinding into a controlled and periodic energy release. A mechanical movement also uses a balance wheel together with the balance spring (also known as a hairspring) to control the motion of the gear system of the watch in a manner analogous to the pendulum of a pendulum clock. The tourbillon, an optional part for mechanical movements, is a rotating frame for the escapement, which is used to cancel out or reduce the effects of gravitational bias to the timekeeping. Due to the complexity of designing a tourbillon, they are very expensive, and only found in prestigious watches.

title: Central Children's Store on Lubyanka

text: Reportedly the largest clock in the world, the clock in the new atrium was created by the oldest enterprise in Russia, the Petrodvorets watch factory. Six months were necessary for the development and installation of the clock by a group of engineers from the watch factory "Raketa". The clock's mechanism weighs 4.5 tons and consists of 5000 pieces in steel, aluminum, titanium and gold-plated metal. The mechanism has a height of 13 meters and a width of 7 meters. It consists of 21 large gears and a 13 meters pendulum. The pendulum surface acts as aspheric mirror, creating an optical effect. The main mechanism of the clock is on the fifth floor. It is the largest clock mechanism in the world and it is among the five largest mechanical clocks in the world such as Big Ben, the carillon of the Moscow's Kremlin, the clock on the "Clock Tower" in Prague or of the clock of the city of Ganzhou.

title: Clock

text: In 1675, Huygens and Robert Hooke invented the spiral balance spring, or the hairspring, designed to control the oscillating speed of the balance wheel. This crucial advance finally made accurate pocket watches possible. The great English clockmaker, Thomas Tompion, was one of the first to use this mechanism successfully in his pocket watches, and he adopted the minute hand which, after a variety of designs were trialled, eventually stabilised into the modern-day configuration. The rack and snail striking mechanism for striking clocks, was introduced during the 17th century and had distinct advantages over the 'countwheel' (or 'locking plate') mechanism. During the 20th century there was a common misconception that Edward Barlow invented "rack and snail" striking. In fact, his invention was connected with a repeating mechanism employing the rack and snail. The repeating clock, that chimes the number of hours (or even minutes) was invented by either Quare or Barlow in 1676. George Graham invented the deadbeat escapement for clocks in 1720.

title: Mechanical watch

text: A mechanical watch is a watch that uses a clockwork mechanism to measure the passage of time, as opposed to quartz watches which function electronically via a small battery. A mechanical watch is driven by a mainspring which must be hand-wound periodically. Its force is transmitted through a series of gears to power the balance wheel, a weighted wheel which oscillates back and forth at a constant rate. A device called an escapement releases the watch's wheels to move forward a small amount with each swing of the balance wheel, moving the watch's hands forward at a constant rate. This makes the 'ticking' sound characteristic of all mechanical watches. Mechanical watches evolved in Europe in the 17th century from spring powered clocks, which appeared in the 15th century.

title: Escapement

text: Although the invention of the crystal oscillator and the quartz clock in the 1920s shifted technological research in timekeeping to electronic methods, major advances in the design of mechanical escapement are still happening. Coaxial escapement, invented by English watchmaker George Daniels around 1974 and patented in 1980 has rather dramatically increased the accuracy and durability of mechanical watches. Yoshikazu Akahane with teams of engineers at Seiko Epson developed the spring drive movement around 1977, and obtained not less than 230 patents between 1982 and the present.

title: Clock

text: In Europe, between 1280 and 1320, there is an increase in the number of references to clocks and horologes in church records, and this probably indicates that a new type of clock mechanism had been devised. Existing clock mechanisms that used water power were being adapted to take their driving power from falling weights. This power was controlled by some form of oscillating mechanism, probably derived from existing bell-ringing or alarm devices. This controlled release of power—the escapement—marks the beginning of the true mechanical clock, which differed from the previously mentioned cogwheel clocks. Verge escapement mechanism derived in the surge of true mechanical clocks, which didn't need any kind of fluid power, like water or mercury, to work.

title: Escapement (disambiguation)

text: An escapement is a mechanism for imparting power to a clock or watch mechanism, with timing controlled by a pendulum or other resonant device.

title: Pin-pallet escapement

text: A Roskopf, pin-lever, or pin-pallet escapement is an inexpensive, less accurate version of the lever escapement, used in mechanical alarm clocks, kitchen timers, mantel clocks and, until the 1970s, cheap watches now known as pin lever watches. It was patented by German watchmaker Georges Frederic Roskopf in 1867, suggested to Roskopf by Jules Grossmann.

title: Charles Oudin

text:
- A travelling clock signed "Oudin à Sedan", made circa 1790, with Arnold's pivoted detent escapement and quarter repeat, whose case is similar to that of the clock Breguet delivered to Napoleon Bonaparte in 1798.
- A "souscription" watch signed "Charles Oudin, Elève de Breguet, Palais Royal No. 65", with special escapement, made circa 1800; Charles Oudin developed a special mechanism for Breguet's souscription watches
- A self-winding watch with "balançoire", whose cuvette is engraved "Inventée et exécutée par Ch. Oudin Elève de Breguet" (Invented and made by Ch. Oudin, student of Breguet), made for the 1806 Exhibition of the Products of French Industry (today in the Patek Philippe Museum in Geneva)
- A self-winding watch, a pendant-wound watch [15], and a watch with moon phases and synodic months, which received medals at the 1806 Exhibition of the Products of French Industry
- A watch with equation of time,which won a medal at the 1819 Exhibition of the Products of French Industry
- A "souscription" watch [16] with equation of time, made circa 1820
- A small marine chronometer with special escapement, made circa 1830
- A watch with quarter repeat, grande and petite sonnerie and thermometer, made circa 1850
- A travelling clock with grande and petite sonnerie, moon phases, alarm, and special escapement, made in 1869
- An eight-day going watch with grande and petite sonnerie in passing and pendant winding, made for the Count de Chambord circa 1870

title: Taqi ad-Din Muhammad ibn Ma'ruf

text: Of the clocks in the Grand Vizier's treasury Taqī al-Dīn examined three different types. Those three were weight driven, spring driven, and clocks with lever escapement. In his writing, he spoke of these three types of watches but he also made comments on pocket watches and astronomical ones. As Chief Astronomer Taqī al-Dīn created a mechanical astronomical clock. This clock was made in order for him to be able to take more precise measurements from his observations done at the Constantinople observatory. As stated above the creation of this clock was thought to be one of the most important astronomical discoveries of the sixteenth century. According to his writing in his book "In the nabk tree of the extremity of thoughts" Taqī al-Dīn constructed a mechanical clock with three dials which show the hours, minutes, and seconds, with each minute consisting of five seconds. After this clock it is not known whether Taqī al-Dīn's work in mechanical clocks was ever continued since much of the clock making after that time in the Ottoman Empire was taken over by Europeans.

title: Water clock

text: The first water clocks to employ complex segmental and epicyclic gearing was invented earlier by the Arab engineer Ibn Khalaf al-Muradi in Islamic Iberia c. 1000. His water clocks were driven by water wheels, as was also the case for several Chinese water clocks in the 11th century. Comparable water clocks were built in Damascus and Fez. The latter (Dar al-Magana) remains until today and its mechanism has been reconstructed. The first European clock to employ these complex gears was the astronomical clock created by Giovanni de Dondi in c. 1365. Like the Chinese, Arab engineers at the time also developed an escapement mechanism which they employed in some of their water clocks. The escapement mechanism was in the form of a constant-head system, while heavy floats were used as weights.

title: National Watch and Clock Museum

text: There is a "Learning Center" introducing some of the basic technologies of the mechanical timekeeper, such as the pendulum, and a large and varied exhibit on many types of clock escapement. There is an excellent sample of American-made tall case clocks (popularly known as "grandfather clocks"), a comprehensive exhibit on American watches, and a small but excellent area dedicated to automatic machinery used in watch manufacturing. Other highlights include an exhibit of the pioneering automated machinery developed by the American Waltham Watch Company, allowing for the first time to mass-produce watches using interchangeable parts, a large selection of American pocket watches (including Railroad watches), and the "Engel Clock", a complicated "monument" clock built by Stephen Decatur Engel of Hazleton, Pennsylvania.

title: Lever escapement

text: The lever escapement, invented by British clockmaker Thomas Mudge in 1755, is a type of escapement that is used in almost all mechanical watches, as well as small mechanical non-pendulum clocks, alarm clocks, and kitchen timers.

title: Verge escapement

text: The verge escapement dates from 13th-century Europe, where its invention led to the development of the first all-mechanical clocks. Starting in the 13th century, large tower clocks were built in European town squares, cathedrals, and monasteries. They kept time by using the verge escapement to drive the foliot, a primitive type of balance wheel, causing it to oscillate back and forth. The foliot was a horizontal bar with weights near the ends, and the rate of the clock could be adjusted by moving the weights in or out on the bar.

title: Escapement

text: The importance of the escapement in the history of technology is that it was the key invention that made the all-mechanical clock possible.[1][2] The invention of the first all-mechanical escapement, the verge escapement, in 13th-century Europe initiated a change in timekeeping methods from continuous processes, such as the flow of water in water clocks, to repetitive oscillatory processes, such as the swing of pendulums, which could yield more accuracy.[2] Oscillating timekeepers are used in every modern clock.

title: Grasshopper escapement

text: The grasshopper escapement is a low-friction escapement for pendulum clocks invented by British clockmaker John Harrison around 1722. An escapement, part of every mechanical clock, is the mechanism that gives the clock's pendulum periodic pushes to keep it swinging, and each swing releases the clock's gears to move forward by a fixed amount, thus moving the hands forward at a steady rate. The grasshopper escapement was used in a few regulator clocks built during Harrison's time, and a few others over the years, but has never seen wide use. The term "grasshopper" in this connection, apparently from the kicking action of the pallets, first appears in the "Horological Journal" in the late 19th century.

title: Escapement

text: However, none of these were true mechanical escapements, since they still depended on the flow of liquid through an orifice to measure time. For example, in Su Song's clock, water flowed into a container on a pivot. The escapement's role was to tip the container over each time it filled up, thus advancing the clock's wheels each time an equal quantity of water was measured out. The time between releases depended on the rate of flow, which decreased with water pressure as the level of water in the source container dropped. The development of mechanical clocks depended on the invention of an escapement which would allow a clock's movement to be controlled by an oscillating weight. Unlike the continuous flow of water in the Chinese device, the medieval escapement was characterized by a regular, repeating sequence of discrete actions and the capability of self-reversing action:

title: History of timekeeping devices

text: The first geared clock was invented in the 11th century by the Arab engineer Ibn Khalaf al-Muradi in Islamic Iberia; it was a water clock that employed a complex gear train mechanism, including both segmental and epicyclic gearing,[4][83] capable of transmitting high torque. The clock was unrivalled in its use of sophisticated complex gearing, until the mechanical clocks of the mid-14th century.[83] Al-Muradi's clock also employed the use of mercury in its hydraulic linkages,[84][85] which could function mechanical automata.[85] Al-Muradi's work was known to scholars working under Alfonso X of Castile,[86] hence the mechanism may have played a role in the development of the European mechanical clocks.[83] Other monumental water clocks constructed by medieval Muslim engineers also employed complex gear trains and arrays of automata.[87] Like the earlier Greeks and Chinese, Arab engineers at the time also developed a liquid-driven escapement mechanism which they employed in some of their water clocks. Heavy floats were used as weights and a constant-head system was used as an escapement mechanism,[4] which was present in the hydraulic controls they used to make heavy floats descend at a slow and steady rate.[87]

title: Lever escapement

text: An escapement is a mechanical linkage that gives pushes to the timepiece's balance wheel, keeping it rotating back and forth, and with each swing of the balance wheel allows the timepiece's gear train to advance a fixed amount, thus moving the hands forward at a steady rate. The escapement is what makes the "ticking" sound in mechanical watches and clocks.

title: Escapement

text: The great leap in accuracy resulting from the invention of the pendulum and balance spring around 1657, which made the timekeeping elements in both watches and clocks harmonic oscillators, focused attention on the errors of the escapement, and more accurate escapements soon superseded the verge. The next two centuries, the "golden age" of mechanical horology, saw the invention of perhaps 300 escapement designs, although only about 10 stood the test of time and were widely used in clocks and watches.[26] These are described individually below.

title: Anchor escapement

text: In horology, the anchor escapement is a type of escapement used in pendulum clocks. The escapement is a mechanism in a mechanical clock that maintains the swing of the pendulum by giving it a small push each swing, and allows the clock's wheels to advance a fixed amount with each swing, moving the clock's hands forward. The anchor escapement was so named because one of its principal parts is shaped vaguely like a ship's anchor.

title: Pocket watch

text: Up to the 1720s, almost all watch movements were based on the verge escapement, which had been developed for large public clocks in the 14th century. This type of escapement involved a high degree of friction and did not include any kind of jewelling to protect the contacting surfaces from wear. As a result, a verge watch could rarely achieve any high standard of accuracy. (Surviving examples mostly run very fast, often gaining an hour a day or more.) The first widely used improvement was the cylinder escapement, developed by the Abbé de Hautefeuille early in the 18th century and applied by the English maker George Graham. Then, towards the end of the 18th century, the lever escapement (invented by Thomas Mudge in 1755) was put into limited production by a handful of makers including Josiah Emery (a Swiss based in London) and Abraham-Louis Breguet. With this, a domestic watch could keep time to within a minute a day. Lever watches became common after about 1820, and this type is still used in most mechanical watches today.


query: Were the people from Enron prosecuted?

title: Enron scandal

text: Fastow and his wife, Lea, both pleaded guilty to charges against them. Fastow was initially charged with 98 counts of fraud, money laundering, insider trading, and conspiracy, among other crimes.[137] Fastow pleaded guilty to two charges of conspiracy and was sentenced to ten years with no parole in a plea bargain to testify against Lay, Skilling, and Causey.[138] Lea was indicted on six felony counts, but prosecutors later dismissed them in favor of a single misdemeanor tax charge. Lea was sentenced to one year for helping her husband hide income from the government.[139]

title: Richard Causey

text: Closely working alongside employees from Enron, he got to know the staff as well as the accounting procedures. He left Arthur Andersen and joined the Enron Capital and Trade Division. He eventually was promoted to Chief Accounting Officer, where he signed off on the Special Purpose Entities that were Enron's downfall. He was fired from Enron on February 14, 2002, as part of an investigation by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.

title: Enron International

text: During the summer of 2001, Enron was making an attempt to sell a lot of Enron International's assets, many of which were not sold. It is still unclear why Enron wanted to sell all of these assets. Most suspect it was because Enron was in need of cash.

title: Donkey punch

text: "Donkey punch" was one of several slang terms used by Enron traders to refer to their price gouging methods. During investigations into the 2004 Enron scandal over manipulation of the electricity market in California, recordings of Enron traders were uncovered dating from 2000 and 2001. In the recordings, fraudulent accounting schemes were referred to using slang terms, including "Donkey Punch." The 2007 report by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission was unable to identify the meaning that Enron had attached to the term "Donkey Punch." U.S. Senator Maria Cantwell, in a 2004 press release about the Enron hearings, identified the Donkey Punch as "a crude pornographic term," one of many "lewd acts" that Enron employees used to describe their schemes. Cantwell asked the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission to take down the emails that were on its website due to the content.

title: Enron scandal

text: In February 2001, Chief Accounting Officer Rick Causey told budget managers: "From an accounting standpoint, this will be our easiest year ever. We've got 2001 in the bag."[77] On March 5, Bethany McLean's Fortune article Is Enron Overpriced? questioned how Enron could maintain its high stock value, which was trading at 55 times its earnings.[78] She argued that analysts and investors did not know exactly how Enron was earning its income. McLean was first drawn to the company's situation after Chanos suggested she view the company's 10-K for herself.[79] In a post-mortem interview with The Washington Post, McLean recalled finding "strange transactions", "erratic cash flow", and "huge debt." The debt was the biggest red flag to McLean; she wondered how a supposedly profitable company could be "adding debt at such a rapid rate."[80] Later, in her book, The Smartest Guys in the Room, she recalled that many people in the investment community were cooling about Enron, but few were willing to go on the record about their suspicions.

title: Rebecca Mark-Jusbasche

text: By 2000, the Dabhol plant was nearly complete and Phase 1 had begun producing power. Enron as a whole, however, was heavily overextended, and in the summer of that year Mark and all the key executives at Enron International were asked to resign from Enron in an effort to reshape the company and get rid of asset businesses. Shortly thereafter a payment dispute with MSEB ensued, and Enron issued a stop-work order on the plant in June 2001. Enron executives were unable to resolve the payment conflict with Indian government officials, and by December 2001 the Enron scandal and bankruptcy cut short any opportunity to revive the construction and complete the plant. Enron had invested $900 million in Dabhol and lost most of it; GE and Bechtel purchased Enron's equity position in the project in bankruptcy court. In 2005, an Indian government-run company, Ratnagiri Gas and Power, was set up to finish construction on the Dabhol facility and operate the plant.

title: Troy Eid

text: Eid was appointed as the United States Attorney for the District of Colorado on June 9, 2006. Among the cases Eid inherited from his predecessor, acting U.S. Attorney Bill Leone, was the ongoing prosecution of Joseph Nacchio, the former chairman of the board and chief executive officer of Qwest Communications International indicted on 42 counts of insider trading. Nacchio was accused of selling $101 million of Qwest stock in the first five months of 2001 despite knowledge from company insider's that Qwest's financial condition was deteriorating. Leone had been lead prosecutor on the Nacchio case since 2002, but several members of the prosecution team had left throughout the years due to infighting that threatened to derail the case. Due to the problems with the Nacchio team and prior failures to achieve convictions against other Qwest employees, U.S. Department of Justice officials became concerned about the Denver office's ability to get a conviction and considered taking over the prosecution. Eid persuaded them otherwise in part by hiring Cliff Stricklin, who prosecuted the case against former Enron officials Jeffrey Skilling and Kenneth Lay in response to the Enron scandal. Although Stricklin was difficult to woo following his Enron success, Eid successfully hired Stricklin in August 2006 as First Assistant U.S. Attorney of Colorado and the head prosecutor for the Nacchio case

title: Enron

text: Soon after emerging from bankruptcy during November 2004, Enron's new board of directors sued 11 financial institutions for helping Lay, Fastow, Skilling and others hide Enron's true financial condition. The proceedings were dubbed the "megaclaims litigation". Among the defendants were Royal Bank of Scotland, Deutsche Bank and Citigroup. , Enron has settled with all of the institutions, ending with Citigroup. Enron was able to obtain nearly $7.2 billion to distribute to its creditors as a result of the megaclaims litigation. As of December 2009, some claim and process payments were still being distributed.

title: Leslie R. Caldwell

text: In 2002, Caldwell was selected to lead a team of investigators and prosecutors in the Department of Justice’s Enron Task Force. In that role, she recruited a team of federal prosecutors and agents from around the country to investigate the collapse of the former Fortune No. 7 company. Under Caldwell's leadership, more than 30 individuals were successfully prosecuted for their roles in fraud at Enron.

title: Enron scandal

text: The SEC announced it had filed civil fraud complaints against Andersen.[125] A few days later, sources claimed Enron and Dynegy were renegotiating the terms of their arrangement.[126] Dynegy now demanded Enron agree to be bought for $4 billion rather than the previous $8 billion. Observers were reporting difficulties in ascertaining which of Enron's operations, if any, were profitable. Reports described an en masse shift of business to Enron's competitors for the sake of risk exposure reduction.[126]

title: Enron scandal

text: Another major correction of Enron's earnings was announced on November 9, with a reduction of $591 million of the stated revenue of years 1997–2000. The charges were said to come largely from two special purpose partnerships (JEDI and Chewco). The corrections resulted in the virtual elimination of profit for fiscal year 1997, with significant reductions for the other years. Despite this disclosure, Dynegy declared it still intended to purchase Enron.[114] Both companies were said to be anxious to receive an official assessment of the proposed sale from Moody's and S&P presumably to understand the effect the completion of any buyout transaction would have on Dynegy and Enron's credit rating. In addition, concerns were raised regarding antitrust regulatory restrictions resulting in possible divestiture, along with what to some observers were the radically different corporate cultures of Enron and Dynegy.[112]

title: Enron

text: Enron used a variety of deceptive, bewildering, and fraudulent accounting practices and tactics to cover its fraud in reporting Enron's financial information. Special Purpose Entities were created to mask significant liabilities from Enron's financial statements. These entities made Enron seem more profitable than it actually was, and created a dangerous spiral in which, each quarter, corporate officers would have to perform more and more financial deception to create the illusion of billions of dollars in profit while the company was actually losing money. This practice increased their stock price to new levels, at which point the executives began to work on insider information and trade millions of dollars' worth of Enron stock. The executives and insiders at Enron knew about the offshore accounts that were hiding losses for the company; the investors, however, did not. Chief Financial Officer Andrew Fastow directed the team which created the off-books companies, and manipulated the deals to provide himself, his family, and his friends with hundreds of millions of dollars in guaranteed revenue, at the expense of the corporation for which he worked and its stockholders.

title: LJM (Lea Jeffrey Matthew)

text: In April 2000, owing to the decreasing value of Rhythms stock and a calculated 68% chance that the hedge would default, Enron unwound the transaction. As per agreement, Swap-Sub took from Enron its $207 million-valued Rhythms stock, but instead returned unrestricted Enron stock supposedly valued $234 million. The Enron shares were, however, still under contractual restrictions and should have been devalued to around $161 million. Thus, Enron posted a slight profit instead of a true $70 million loss.

title: Rebecca Mark-Jusbasche

text: Mark's exit from Enron in August 2000 was at a fortunate time, when Enron's stock was at its peak; she sold her stock for $82.5 million long before the company collapsed in 2001. She was never accused of wrongdoing in the ensuing series of scandals and prosecutions.

title: Enron

text: As was later discovered, many of Enron's recorded assets and profits were inflated or even wholly fraudulent and nonexistent. One example of fraudulent records was during 1999 when Enron promised to repay Merrill Lynch & Co.'s investment with interest in order to show a profit on its books. Debts and losses were put into entities formed "offshore" that were not included in the company's financial statements, and other sophisticated and arcane financial transactions between Enron and related companies were used to eliminate unprofitable entities from the company's books.

title: Enron scandal

text: Enron was estimated to have about $23 billion in liabilities from both debt outstanding and guaranteed loans. Citigroup and JP Morgan Chase in particular appeared to have significant amounts to lose with Enron's bankruptcy. Additionally, many of Enron's major assets were pledged to lenders in order to secure loans, causing doubt about what, if anything, unsecured creditors and eventually stockholders might receive in bankruptcy proceedings.[131]

title: Enron

text: Following the bankruptcy of Enron, telecommunications holdings were sold for "pennies on the dollar". In 2002, Rob Roy of Switch Communications purchased Enron's Nevada facility in an auction attended only by Roy. Enron's "fiber plans were so secretive that few people even knew about the auction." The facility was sold for only $930,000. Following the sale, Switch expanded to control "the biggest data center in the world".

title: Sean M. Berkowitz

text: Sean M. Berkowitz (born 1967) is a former director of the Department of Justice's Enron Task Force. He prosecuted former employees of Enron who were accused of white collar crimes, principally accounting fraud. Most significantly, he was the lead prosecutor in the joint trial of Kenneth Lay and Jeffrey Skilling. In 2006, shortly after securing guilty verdicts against both, Berkowitz left the Department of Justice to become a partner at Latham & Watkins LLP in Chicago.

title: Andrew Weissmann

text: From 2002 to 2005, Weissmann was deputy director and then director of the task force investigating the Enron scandal. His work resulted in the prosecution of more than 30 people for crimes including perjury, fraud, and obstruction including three of Enron's top executives, Andrew Fastow, Kenneth Lay. and Jeffrey Skilling. In a follow-up case in U.S. District Court, Weissmann also was successful at arguing that auditing firm Arthur Andersen LLP had covered up for Enron. In that case, which resulted in the destruction of Andersen, he convinced the district judge to instruct the jury that they could convict the firm regardless of whether its employees knew they were violating the law. That ruling was later unanimously overturned by the Supreme Court in "Arthur Andersen LLP v. United States", in which the court held that "the jury instructions failed to convey the requisite consciousness of wrongdoing."

title: Enron scandal

text: Andersen's auditors were pressured by Enron's management to defer recognizing the charges from the special purpose entities as its credit risks became known. Since the entities would never return a profit, accounting guidelines required that Enron should take a write-off, where the value of the entity was removed from the balance sheet at a loss. To pressure Andersen into meeting Enron's earnings expectations, Enron would occasionally allow accounting companies Ernst & Young or PricewaterhouseCoopers to complete accounting tasks to create the illusion of hiring a new company to replace Andersen.[58] Although Andersen was equipped with internal controls to protect against conflicted incentives of local partners, it failed to prevent conflict of interest. In one case, Andersen's Houston office, which performed the Enron audit, was able to overrule any critical reviews of Enron's accounting decisions by Andersen's Chicago partner. In addition, after news of U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) investigations of Enron were made public, Andersen would later shred several tons of relevant documents and delete nearly 30,000 e-mails and computer files, causing accusations of a cover-up.[56][59][60]

title: Enron scandal

text: The special purpose entities were used for more than just circumventing accounting conventions. As a result of one violation, Enron's balance sheet understated its liabilities and overstated its equity, and its earnings were overstated.[27] Enron disclosed to its shareholders that it had hedged downside risk in its own illiquid investments using special purpose entities. However, investors were oblivious to the fact that the special purpose entities were actually using the company's own stock and financial guarantees to finance these hedges. This prevented Enron from being protected from the downside risk.[27] Notable examples of special purpose entities that Enron employed were JEDI, Chewco, Whitewing, and LJM.

title: Mark to model

text:
The collapse of Enron is a well-known example of
the risks and abuses of Mark-to-Model pricing of Futures contracts. Many of Enron's contracts were difficult
to value since these products were not publicly traded, thus computer models were used to generate prices. When Enron's profits began to fall with increased competition, accounts manipulated the mark-to-market models to put a positive spin on Enron's earnings.

title: Enron

text: In January 2000, Kenneth Lay and Jeffrey Skilling announced to analysts that they were going to open trading for their own "high-speed fiber-optic networks that form the backbone for Internet traffic". Investors quickly bought Enron stock following the announcement "as they did with most things Internet-related at the time", with stock prices rising from $40 per share in January 2000 to $70 per share in March, peaking at $90 in the summer of 2000. Enron executives obtained windfall gains from the rising stock prices, with a total of $924 million of stocks sold by high-level Enron employees between 2000 and 2001. Head of Enron Broadband Services, Kenneth Rice, sold 1 million shares himself, earning about $70 million in returns. As prices of existing fiber optic cables plummeted due to the vast oversupply of the system, with only 5% of the 40 million miles being active wires, Enron purchased the inactive "dark fibers", expecting to buy them at low cost and then make a profit as the need for more usage by internet providers increased, with Enron expecting to lease its acquired dark fibers in 20 year contracts to providers. However, Enron's accounting would use estimates to determine how much their dark fiber would be worth when "lit" and apply those estimates to their current income, adding exaggerated revenue to their accounts since transactions were not yet made and it was not known if the cables would ever be active. Enron's trading with other energy companies within the broadband market was its attempt to lure large telecommunications companies, such as Verizon Communications, into its broadband scheme to create its own new market.

title: Enron

text: As the scandal progressed, Enron share prices decreased from US $90.56 during the summer of 2000, to just pennies. Enron had been considered a blue chip stock investment, so this was an unprecedented event in the financial world. Enron's demise occurred after the revelation that much of its profits and revenue were the result of deals with special purpose entities (limited partnerships which it controlled). This meant that many of Enron's debts and the losses that it suffered were not reported in its financial statements.

title: Enron scandal

text: Enron's aggressive accounting practices were not hidden from the board of directors, as later learned by a Senate subcommittee. The board was informed of the rationale for using the Whitewing, LJM, and Raptor transactions, and after approving them, received status updates on the entities' operations. Although not all of Enron's widespread improper accounting practices were revealed to the board, the practices were dependent on board decisions.[54] Even though Enron extensively relied on derivatives for its business, the company's Finance Committee and board did not have enough experience with derivatives to understand what they were being told. The Senate subcommittee argued that had there been a detailed understanding of how the derivatives were organized, the board would have prevented their use.[55]

title: Enron

text: Enron grew wealthy due largely to marketing, promoting power, and its high stock price. Enron was named "America's Most Innovative Company" by the magazine "Fortune" for six consecutive years, from 1996 to 2001. It was on the "Fortune"s "100 Best Companies to Work for in America" list during 2000, and had offices that were stunning in their opulence. Enron was hailed by many, including labor and the workforce, as an overall great company, praised for its large long-term pensions, benefits for its workers and extremely effective management until the exposure of its corporate fraud. The first analyst to question the company's success story was Daniel Scotto, an energy market expert at BNP Paribas, who issued a note in August 2001 entitled "Enron: All stressed up and no place to go", which encouraged investors to sell Enron stocks, although he only changed his recommendation on the stock from "buy" to "neutral".

title: Enron

text: During 1999, Enron initiated EnronOnline, an Internet-based trading operation, which was used by virtually every energy company in the United States. Enron president and chief operating officer Jeffrey Skilling began advocating a novel idea: the company didn't really need any "assets". By promoting the company's aggressive investment strategy, he helped make Enron the biggest wholesaler of gas and electricity, trading over $27 billion per quarter. The corporation's financial claims, however, had to be accepted at face value. Under Skilling, Enron adopted mark to market accounting, in which anticipated future profits from any deal were tabulated as if currently real. Thus, Enron could record gains from what over time might turn out to be losses, as the company's fiscal health became secondary to manipulating its stock price on Wall Street during the so-called Tech boom. But when a company's success is measured by undocumented financial statements, actual balance sheets are inconvenient. Indeed, Enron's unscrupulous actions were often gambles to keep the deception going and so increase the stock price. An advancing price meant a continued infusion of investor capital on which debt-ridden Enron in large part subsisted (much like a financial "pyramid" or "Ponzi scheme"). Attempting to maintain the illusion, Skilling verbally attacked Wall Street Analyst Richard Grubman, who questioned Enron's unusual accounting practice during a recorded conference telephone call. When Grubman complained that Enron was the only company that could not release a balance sheet along with its earnings statements, Skilling replied, "Well, thank you very much, we appreciate that ... asshole." Though the comment was met with dismay and astonishment by press and public, it became an inside joke among many Enron employees, mocking Grubman for his perceived meddling rather than Skilling's offensiveness. When asked during his trial, Skilling declared that industrial dominance and abuse was a global problem: "Oh yes, yes sure, it is."

title: Enron

text: During the summer of 2001, Enron made an attempt to sell a number of Enron International's assets, many of which were not sold. The public and media believed it was unknown why Enron wanted to sell these assets, suspecting it was because Enron was in need of cash. Employees who worked with company assets were told in 2000 that Jeff Skilling believed that business assets were an outdated means of company worth, and instead he wanted to build a company based on "intellectual assets".

title: Conspiracy of Fools

text: "Conspiracy of Fools" tells the story of the 2001 collapse of Enron. Enron's Chief Financial Officer (CFO) Andrew Fastow is depicted as voraciously greedy, using front corporations and partnerships, paying himself "management" and "consultant" fees as if he were an outsider, all while cooking Enron's books to show fictitious profits. In the 1980s there were questionable activities at the company, but the bulk of the events depicted in the book occur from 1997 onward and led to Enron's collapse.

title: Enron scandal

text: Whitewing was the name of a special purpose entity used as a financing method by Enron.[32] In December 1997, with funding of $579 million provided by Enron and $500 million by an outside investor, Whitewing Associates L.P. was formed. Two years later, the entity's arrangement was changed so that it would no longer be consolidated with Enron and be counted on the company's balance sheet. Whitewing was used to purchase Enron assets, including stakes in power plants, pipelines, stocks, and other investments.[33] Between 1999 and 2001, Whitewing bought assets from Enron worth $2 billion, using Enron stock as collateral. Although the transactions were approved by the Enron board, the asset transfers were not true sales and should have been treated instead as loans.[34]

title: Enron

text:
Enron Global Exploration & Production Inc. (EGEP) was an Enron subsidiary that was born from the split of domestic assets via EOG Resources (formerly Enron Oil and Gas EOG) and international assets via EGEP (formerly Enron Oil and Gas Int'l, Ltd EOGIL).
Among the EGEP assets were the Panna-Mukta and the South Tapti fields, discovered by the Indian state-owned Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC), which operated the fields initially.
December 1994, a joint venture began between ONGC (40%), Enron (30%) and Reliance (30%).
Mid year of 2002, British Gas (BG) completed the acquisition of EGEP's 30% share of the Panna-Mukta and Tapti fields for $350 million, a few months before Enron filed bankruptcy.


query: Which amendment controls presidency terms?

title: Twenty-second Amendment to the United States Constitution

text: The Twenty-second Amendment (Amendment XXII) to the United States Constitution sets a limit on the number of times an individual is eligible for election to the office of President of the United States, and also sets additional eligibility conditions for presidents who succeed to the unexpired terms of their predecessors.[1]

title: Nineteenth Amendment to the Constitution of Sri Lanka

text:
The amendment was a result of promise made by President Maithripala Sirisena leading up to the 2015 Presidential Election. The main prospect of the amendment was to repealing the "18th Amendment" which gave the President extreme powers and to reinforce democracy in the country. It establishes a Constitutional Council (Sri Lanka) which will exercise some executive powers previously held by the President. The "19th amendment" restores many components of the "17th amendment" letting the Constitutional Council to set up the proposed Independent Commissions;
In early May 2013 the Mahinda Rajapaksa Government had started drafting a constitutional amendment to reduce the terms of office of the President and the Chief Justice to five years each, instead of Six years for the President and unlimited term, to age 65, for the Chief Justice. According to the proposed amendment, there would be no limit, however, on how often a President could be re-elected. That drafted amendment had addressed National issues of power devolution and proposed to repeal land and Police powers vested with the Provincial Councils.And by May 2013 then opposition political groups, diplomats and civil organizations like the People's Liberation Front or JVP, Jathika Hela Urumaya, Athuraliye Rathana Thero of "Pivithuru Hetak National Movement", and Maduluwawe Sobitha Thero had proposed to change the Constitution back to a Westminster style Parliamentary system for the country to address various issues, especially the issues arisen by the 18th Amendment. The UNP had appointed a committee chaired by the Member of Parliament and former Bar Association President Wijeyadasa Rajapakshe to draft the constitution. The party also proposed as a novel system the Executive powers of the President to be exercised on political basis and to be subject to checks and balances. The proposals guaranteed the freedom of expression and the right to information. The UNP also proposed that the system of preference votes be abolished and the tenure of the Parliament and the Provincial Council fixed at five years. The Key-elements of the proposed Constitution were;

text: As worded, the primary focus of the 22nd Amendment is on limiting individuals twice elected to the presidency from being elected again. Due to this, several issues could be raised regarding the amendment's meaning and application, especially in relation to the 12th Amendment, ratified in 1804, which states, "But no person constitutionally ineligible to the office of President shall be eligible to that of Vice-President of the United States".[22] While it is clear that under the 12th Amendment the original constitutional qualifications of age, citizenship, and residency apply to both the president and vice president, it is unclear whether someone who is ineligible to be elected president could be elected vice president. Because of this apparent ambiguity, there may be a loophole in the 22nd Amendment whereby a two-term former-president could be elected vice president and then succeed to the presidency as a result of the incumbent's death, resignation, or removal from office (or even succeed to the presidency from some other stated office in the presidential line of succession).[7][23]

title: Republic Protests

text: On 10 May further amendments to the Turkish constitution were officially passed by parliament, 376 to 1. According to the amendments, general elections will be carried out every four years rather than five. The president will now serve a maximum of two five-year terms instead of an unrestricted number of seven-year terms. The president will now be elected by the people rather than the parliament. President Sezer has 15 days to review the amendments and decide whether or not to veto and return the amendments to the parliament.

title: President of Liberia

text: Under the original 1847 Constitution, the president was elected to a two-year term, which was increased to four years on May 7, 1907. Under this amendment, a new president would serve for eight years and could be re-elected to unlimited four-year terms. During the presidency of William Tolbert, the Constitution was amended to restrict the president to a single eight-year term; by 1976, voices in the Legislature were being raised in favor of returning to the previous system, but Tolbert proclaimed his support for the existing system and vowed to veto any constitutional amendments to remove term limits.

text: Some argue that the 22nd Amendment and 12th Amendment bar any two-term president from later serving as vice president as well as from succeeding to the presidency from any point in the presidential line of succession.[24] Others contend that the original intent of the 12th Amendment concerns qualification for service (age, residence, and citizenship), while the 22nd Amendment, concerns qualifications for election, and thus (strictly applying the text) a former two-term president is still eligible to serve as vice president (neither amendment restricts the number of times an individual can be elected to the vice presidency), and then succeed to the presidency to serve out the balance of the term (though prohibited from running for election to an additional term).[25][26]

title: Twelfth Amendment to the United States Constitution

text: The Twelfth Amendment explicitly states the also apply to being Vice President. It is unclear whether a two-term president could later serve as Vice President. Some argue that the Twenty-second Amendment and Twelfth Amendment both bar any two-term president from later serving as Vice President as well as from succeeding to the presidency from any point in the United States presidential line of succession. Others contend that the Twelfth Amendment concerns qualification for "service", while the Twenty-second Amendment concerns qualifications for "election", and thus a former two-term president is still eligible to "serve" as Vice President. The applicability of this distinction has not been tested, as no former president has ever sought the vice presidency, and thus the courts have never been required to make a judgment regarding the matter. Hillary Clinton said during her 2016 candidacy that she considered naming Bill Clinton as her Vice President, but was advised it would be unconstitutional.

title: 2015 Sri Lankan presidential election

text: In September 2010 Parliament, which was controlled by Rajapaksa's UPFA, passed the eighteenth amendment to the constitution, removing the two term limit on presidents, allowing Rajapaksa to run for a third term.

title: Colombian Constitution of 1991

text: The President is directly elected to a four-year term in a two-round election. The 1991 Constitution originally limited the President to a single, non-renewable lifetime term, but a controversial 2004 constitutional amendment supported by then-President Álvaro Uribe permitted a President to serve two terms. This provision allowed President Uribe and his successor, Juan Manuel Santos, to successfully seek second terms in 2006 and 2014 respectively. In 2015, a constitutional amendment repealed the 2004 changes and reverted to the original one-term limit.

text: Prior to the ratification of the amendment, the president had not been subject to term limits, but George Washington had established a two-term tradition that many other presidents had followed. In the 1940 presidential election, Franklin D. Roosevelt became the first president to win a third term, giving rise to concerns about the potential issues involved with a president serving an unlimited number of terms. Congress approved the Twenty-second Amendment on March 24, 1947, and submitted it to the state legislatures for ratification. That process was completed on February 27, 1951, after the amendment had been ratified by the requisite 36 of the then-48 states (as neither Alaska nor Hawaii had yet been admitted as states), and its provisions came into force on that date.

title: First 100 days of Barack Obama's presidency

text: According to the Twentieth Amendment to the United States Constitution, Section 1: "The terms of the President and Vice President shall end at noon on the 20th day of January". Thus, Bush had relinquished the Presidency at 12:00. According to the Twentieth Amendment to the United States Constitution, Section 3: If, at the time fixed for the beginning of the term of the President... if the President elect shall have failed to qualify, then the Vice President elect shall act as President until a President shall have qualified." By Article Two, Section 1, Clause 8 of the Constitution and Amendment 20, Some feel that Obama was not able to assume the Presidency until 12:05. In fact, since Obama did not complete his oath until 12:01, there was further speculation as to who was President for the first minute after Bush relinquished control.

title: Politics of Burkina Faso

text: The president is elected by popular vote for a five-year term and may serve up to two terms. The prime minister is appointed by the president with the consent of the legislature. The constitution of June 2, 1991, established a semi-presidential government with a parliament () which can be dissolved by the President of the Republic, who is elected for a term of 5 years. The year 2000 saw a constitutional amendment reducing the presidential term from 7 to 5 years, which was enforced during the 2005 elections. Another change according to the amendment would have prevented sitting president Blaise Compaoré from being re-elected. However, notwithstanding a challenge by other presidential candidates, in October 2005, the constitutional council ruled that because Compaoré was already a sitting president in 2000, the amendment would not apply to him until the end of his second term in office, thereby clearing the way for his candidacy in the 2005 election. On November 13 Compaoré was reelected in a landslide due to a divided political opposition. In 2010, Compaoré was once again re-elected, and the term limit requirement was held to not apply to him. A proposed constitutional amendment in 2014 would have permitted him to run again, but public resistance led to the 2014 Burkinabé uprising, and Compaoré resigned on 31 October 2014. A transitional government headed by President Michel Kafondo and Prime Minister Isaac Zida took power for a one-year mandate. Elections were to have been held in October 2015, but members of the Regiment of Presidential Security launched a coup on 16 September 2015, detaining President Kafando and Prime Minister Zida. RSP commander Gilbert Diendéré named himself the head of the new military junta, but popular resistance, backed by army and gendarmerie forces not aligned with the RSP, forced his resignation and the restoration of the transitional government a week later.

title: Term limits in the United States

text: In 1940, Franklin D. Roosevelt (president, 1933–1945) became the only president to break the tradition, winning a third term in 1940 and a fourth term in 1944. This gave rise to a successful move to formalize the traditional two-term limit by amending the U.S. Constitution. As ratified in 1951, the Twenty-Second Amendment provides that "no person shall be elected to the office of President more than twice". The new Amendment explicitly did not apply to the incumbent, President Harry S. Truman. However, Truman's close advisors convinced him not to seek a third term regardless, pointing to his age, his failing abilities, and his poor showing in the polls.

title: 2007 amendment to the Constitution of Kazakhstan

text: In addition to these proposals the Kazakh parliament passed an additional amendment two days later, lifting the term-limit clause on the first President of Kazakhstan, Nursultan Nazarbayev. The constitution limits a president to two five-year terms, but this amendment allows the incumbent president--Nazarbayev--to run for an unlimited number of five year terms. Some critics argued this move paved the way for him to become "de facto" President for life.

title: 2013 Azerbaijani presidential election

text: In 2009 an amendment was made to the Constitution of Azerbaijan, which abolished the limit of two consecutive presidential terms and allowed incumbent Aliyev, who had already served for two terms, to run for president for unlimited number of times. The constitutional amendment was condemned by the Venice Commission of the Council of Europe, which stated that "the abolition of existing limits preventing the unlimited re-election of a President is a step back, in terms of democratic achievements". The amendment was also criticized by the Azerbaijani opposition. On the basis of the amendment in 2013 Ilham Aliyev ran for president for the third time.

text: Section 1 of the Twentieth Amendment prescribes January 20, at noon, as the start-finish date for the four-year term of both the President and Vice President. Previously, March 4, the new date shortened the period between election day in November and Inauguration Day by about six weeks, accelerating the pace of the transfer of presidential power from the out-going president to his successor. By changing the date on which presidential terms end and begin, Section 1 has superseded the Twelfth Amendment's reference to March 4 as the date by which the House of Representatives must—under circumstances where no candidate won an absolute majority of votes for president in the Electoral College—conduct a contingent presidential election. Section 1 also specifies January 3, at noon, as the start-finish date for the terms of members of the Senate and the House of Representatives; the previous date had also been March 4.

title: Wade–Davis Bill

text: Lincoln survived their attacks and greatly strengthened his position with a landslide victory in the 1864 election, and national passage of the 13th Amendment in February, 1865. He momentarily marginalized the Radicals in terms of shaping Reconstruction policy. After Lincoln's death, Radical Republicans battled President Andrew Johnson, who tried to implement a version of Lincoln's plan. The midterm elections of 1866 turned into a referendum on the 14th amendment and the trajectory of Reconstruction policy. With the Republicans' victory, Congress took control of Reconstruction. The radicals wanted a much harsher plan, but they did not try to reimpose the terms of Wade-Davis. Instead they implemented the Reconstruction Acts and took control of the former rebel states with the United States Army, which registered black men as voters and barred some former Confederate leaders from running for office.

text: To prevent deadlocks from keeping the nation leaderless, the Twelfth Amendment provided that if the House did not choose a President before March 4 (then the first day of a Presidential term), the individual elected Vice President would "act as President, as in the case of the death or other constitutional disability of the President." The Twelfth Amendment did not state for how long the Vice President would act as President or if the House could still choose a President after March 4. Section 3 of the Twentieth Amendment, adopted in 1933, supersedes that provision of the Twelfth Amendment by changing the date upon which a new presidential term commences to January 20, clarifying that the Vice President-elect would only "act as President" if the House has not chosen a President by January 20, and permitting Congress to statutorily provide "who shall then act as President, or the manner in which one who is to act shall be selected" if there is no President-elect or Vice President-elect by January 20. It also clarifies that if there is no President-elect on January 20, whoever acts as President does so until a person "qualified" to occupy the Presidency is elected to be President.

title: Asif Ali Zardari

text: In April 2010, after months of political pressure, the government passed the 18th Amendment, which reduced the President to a ceremonial figurehead by stripping the office of the power to dissolve Parliament, to dismiss the Prime Minister, and to appoint military chiefs. The amendment also lifted the restriction of two terms as Prime Minister, which enabled Zardari's foremost political rival, Nawaz Sharif, to seek a third term. The amendment was passed with virtually unanimous support in Parliament and Zardari himself espoused the legislation because of political pressure. After the 18th Amendment, Zardari's main power derived from his position as leader of the PPP, which controls the largest bloc in Parliament.

title: President of the Philippines

text: The 1935 Constitution originally set the president's term at six years, without re-election. In 1940, however, the 1935 Constitution was amended and the term of the President (and Vice President) was shortened to four years, with a two-term limit. Under the provisions of the amended 1935 document, only Presidents Manuel L. Quezon (1941) and Ferdinand E. Marcos (1969) were re-elected. Presidents Sergio Osmeña (1946), Elpidio Quirino (1953), Carlos P. Garcia (1961) and Diosdado Macapagal (1965) all failed in seeking a new term.

title: Manuel L. Quezon

text: Coincident with the local elections for the 1940, another plebiscite was held this time to ratify the proposed amendments to the Constitution regarding the restoration of the bicameral legislature, the presidential term, which was to be fixed at four years with one re-election; and the establishment of an independent Commission on Elections. With the Nacionalista Party, which had proposed said amendment in their convention, working hard under the leadership of its party president, Speaker Jose Yulo, the amendments were overwhelmingly ratified by the electorate. Speaker Yulo and Assemblyman Dominador Tan traveled to the United States to obtain President Franklin D. Roosevelt's approval, which was given on December 2, 1940. Two days later President Quezon proclaimed the amendments.

title: Law of Taiwan

text: Articles 90–106* of the Constitution of the Republic of China and Article 7 of the Additional Articles of the Constitution of the Republic of China state that the Control Yuan shall exercise the powers of impeachment, censure, and audit (Additional Article 7). It has 29 members, including a president and a vice president, all of whom shall serve a term of six years and are nominated and appointed by the President of the ROC with the consent of the Legislative Yuan (Additional Article 7). The Control Yuan has a Ministry of Audit, headed by an auditor-general who is nominated and appointed, with the consent of the Legislative Yuan, by the President of the Republic for a six-year term (Article 104). *some articles were amended or cease to apply

text: Article II, Section 1, Clause 6 makes the vice president first in the line of succession and allows the Congress to provide by law for cases in which neither the president nor vice president can serve.[13] The 12th Amendment includes a statement clarifying that, just as they would due to the president's death or disability, the powers and duties of the presidency devolve to the vice president if—following a presidential election where no candidate won an absolute majority of votes in the Electoral College—the House of Representatives has been unable to elect a president by the scheduled beginning of the president's term.[14] The 20th Amendment, Section 3, supersedes the above 12th Amendment provision, by declaring that if the president-elect dies before his term begins, the vice president-elect becomes president on Inauguration Day and serves for the full term to which the president-elect was elected, and also that, if on Inauguration Day, a president has not been chosen or the president-elect does not qualify for the presidency, the vice president-elect acts as president until a president is chosen or the president-elect qualifies. It also authorizes Congress to provide for instances in which neither a president-elect nor a vice president-elect have qualified.[15] The 25th Amendment, Section 1, clarifies Article II, Section 1, Clause 6, by stating unequivocally that the vice president is the direct successor of the president, and becomes president if the incumbent dies, resigns or is removed from office. It also, in sections 3 and 4, provides for situations where the president is temporarily disabled, such as if the president has a surgical procedure or becomes mentally unfit, establishing procedures whereby the Vice President can become acting president. Additionally, in Section 2, the amendment provides a mechanism for intra-term vice presidential succession, establishing that vice presidential vacancies will be filled by the president and confirmed by both houses of Congress.[upper-alpha 7] Previously, whenever a vice president had succeeded to the presidency or had died or resigned from office, the vice presidency remained vacant until the next presidential and vice presidential terms began; there were 16 such vacancies prior to 1967.[17]

title: Vice President of the United States

text: The term of office for both the vice president and the president is four years. While the Twenty-Second Amendment generally restricts the president to two terms, there is no such limitation on the office of vice president, meaning an eligible person could hold the office as long as voters continued to vote for electors who in turn would reelect the person to the office; one could even serve under different presidents. This has happened twice: George Clinton (1805–1812) served under both Thomas Jefferson and James Madison; and John C. Calhoun (1825–1832) served under John Quincy Adams and Andrew Jackson. Additionally, neither the Constitution's eligibility provisions nor the Twenty-second Amendment's presidential term limit explicitly disqualify a twice-elected president from serving as vice president. As of the 2016 election cycle however, no former president has tested the amendment's legal restrictions or meaning by running for the vice presidency.

title: President of the United States

text: In response to the unprecedented length of Roosevelt's presidency, the Twenty-second Amendment was adopted in 1951. The amendment bars anyone from being elected president more than twice, or once if that person served more than two years (24 months) of another president's four-year term. Harry S. Truman, president when this term limit came into force, was exempted from its limitations, and briefly sought a second full term—to which he would have otherwise been ineligible for election, as he had been president for more than two years of Roosevelt's fourth term—before he withdrew from the 1952 election.[105]

title: Article Two of the United States Constitution

text: The 25th Amendment explicitly states that if the President dies, resigns or is removed from office, the Vice President becomes President, and also establishes a procedure for filling a vacancy in the office of the Vice President. The Amendment further provides that the President, or the Vice President and Cabinet, can declare the President unable to discharge his duties, in which case the Vice President becomes Acting President. If the declaration is done by the Vice President and Cabinet, the Amendment permits the President to take control back, unless the Vice President and Cabinet challenge the President and two-thirds of both Houses vote to sustain the findings of the Vice President and Cabinet. If the declaration is done by the President, he may take control back without risk of being overridden by the Congress.

title: List of Presidents of the United States by time in office

text: William Henry Harrison spent the shortest time in office, and Franklin D. Roosevelt spent the longest. Roosevelt is the only president to have served more than two terms. Following ratification of the Twenty-second Amendment in 1951, presidents—beginning with Dwight D. Eisenhower—have been ineligible for election to a third term or for election to a second full term after serving more than two years of a term to which some other person was elected president. The amendment contained a grandfather clause that explicitly exempted the incumbent president, then Harry S. Truman, from the new term limitations, which first applied to Dwight D. Eisenhower.

title: Presidency of Herbert Hoover

text: Efforts to change these dates through a constitutional amendment began in the late 1920s. In March 1932, Congress approved a constitutional amendment moving the beginning and ending of the terms of the president and vice president from March 4 to January 20, and of members of Congress from March 4 to January 3. The amendment also specified procedures for cases in which the president-elect dies or otherwise fails to qualify. By January 23, 1933, the amendment had been ratified by the requisite number of states to become the Twentieth Amendment. Roosevelt's second inauguration in 1937 was the first presidential inauguration to take place on the new date.

title: Presidency of Harry S. Truman

text: The 1946 mid-term election left Republicans in control of Congress for the first time since the early 1930s. Truman initially hoped to work Republican leaders in Congress, focusing on the passage of housing programs and other potential areas of common ground. Truman and the 80th Congress were able to agree on a balanced budget, albeit one that spent less on defense and some other programs that Truman favored. Congress also assented to the creation of the Hoover Commission, which proposed a series of reorganizations to the executive branch. However, the 80th Congress proved strongly resistant to Truman's policies. One of its first major acts was to approve what would become the Twenty-second Amendment, which created presidential term limits. The amendment was designed by Republican leaders as an implicit rebuke to Franklin Roosevelt, the only president who had ever served more than two terms. The Twenty-second Amendment was ratified by the requisite 36 states on February 27, 1951. A major area of contention was Truman's attempts to use price and wage controls to restrain inflation. Congress also passed bills designed to cut taxes, weaken the Interstate Commerce Commission, reduce the number of employees covered by Social Security, and amend the National Labor Relations Act of 1935 (also known as the Wagner Act); all of these bills, except for the revisions to the Wagner Act, were vetoed by Truman in 1947. Upon returning to session in 1948, Congress passed the Revenue Act of 1948, another major tax cut; Truman again vetoed the bill, but this time his veto was overridden by Congress.

title: First Republic of Korea

text: After the armistice, South Korea experienced political turmoil under years of autocratic leadership of Syngman Rhee, which was ended by student revolt in 1960. Throughout his rule, Rhee sought to take additional steps to cement his control of government. These began in 1952 (shortly after being elected to a second term), when the government was still based in Busan due to the ongoing war. In May of that year, Rhee pushed through constitutional amendments which made the presidency a directly-elected position. In order to do this, he declared martial law and jailed the members of parliament whom he expected to vote against it. Rhee was subsequently elected by a wide margin. He regained control of parliament in the 1954 elections, and thereupon pushed through an amendment to exempt himself from the eight-year term limit.

title: Presidency of SR Croatia

text: The concept of a collective presidency was introduced nationally to the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia in 1971 with amendments to the constitution. The new constitution of 1974 formalized the presidency with a member from each of the eight constituent republics. SR Croatia adopted a nearly identical system in its own new 1974 constitution, also including the President of the League of Communists of Croatia as an ex oficio member. The constitution originally allowed for the president of the presidium to serve a maximum of two terms of four years. Jakov Blažević served as president of the presidium for the maximum two terms before constitutional reforms in 1981 changed how the presidium functioned. The death of federal president-for-life Josip Broz Tito in 1980 brought into force constitutional articles which made the federal presidium have a rotating president, which was followed with constitutional amendments in 1981 which introduced the rotating practice into other offices. SR Croatia introduced similar amendments into its own constitution which made the president of the presidium a rotating function on a one-year basis.


query: When was the Chesapeake and Ohio Railway formed?

title: Chesapeake and Ohio Railway

text: The Chesapeake and Ohio Railway (reporting marks C&O, CO) was a Class I railroad formed in 1869 in Virginia from several smaller Virginia railroads begun in the 19th century. Led by industrialist Collis P. Huntington, it reached from Virginia's capital city of Richmond to the Ohio River by 1873, where the railroad town (and later city) of Huntington, West Virginia was named for him.

title: Chesapeake and Ohio 1309

text: Chesapeake & Ohio Railway 1309 was built by Baldwin Locomotive Works in 1949. It was the last Class 1 mainline locomotive built by Baldwin, closing out more than 100 years of production, a total of more than 70,000 locomotives. It was ordered by the Chesapeake and Ohio Railway to pull heavy coal trains in the mountainous terrain of West Virginia and Kentucky which it did from 1949 until 1956, after which it was stored for twenty years at their roundhouse at Peach Creek, West Virginia. The engine, along with several others, all considered impractical to restore to working condition, were moved to the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad Museum in Baltimore, Maryland in 1976 for cosmetic restoration and static display. It remained there until 2014 when it was purchased by the Western Maryland Scenic Railroad for restoration. When returned to service, it will be the largest steam engine in regular scheduled service in the United States. The Western Maryland intends to use the locomotive on excursion trains between Cumberland and Frostburg in Maryland.

text: The Chesapeake, Ohio and Southwestern Railroad was a 19th-century railway company in Kentucky in the United States. It operated from 1882, when it purchased the Paducah and Elizabethtown Railroad and the Memphis, Paducah and Northern Railroad, until 1896, when it was purchased by the Chicago, St. Louis and New Orleans Railroad. It later made up part of the Illinois Central network and its former rights-of-way currently form parts of the class-II Paducah and Louisville Railway.

title: Virginia Central Railroad

text: After the war, both longtime president Edmund Fontaine and former Confederate General Williams Carter Wickham served as president of the Virginia Central and oversaw its expansion towards Covington. The Chesapeake and Ohio Railroad was formed in 1868 from the merger of the Virginia Central Railroad and the Covington and Ohio Railroad, and had expanded westward to the Ohio River by 1873 after new financing from Collis P. Huntington was recruited. The new railroad (reorganized as the Chesapeake and Ohio Railway in 1878) expanded eastward in the 1880s via the Peninsula Subdivision to Newport News. The Chesapeake and Ohio operated for over one hundred years until it was reorganized through merger as CSX Transportation in the 1980s. Today, CSX, Amtrak, and the Buckingham Branch Railroad still use portions of the old Virginia Central line for freight and passenger rail service.

title: Charlottesville and Albemarle Railway

text: Charlottesville gained its first railroad in 1850, when the Virginia Central Railroadformerly the Louisa Railroadarrived as it progressed westward towards the Blue Ridge Mountains. The Orange and Alexandria Railroad, chartered in 1848, entered into a contract in the early 1850s with the Virginia Central to use the Virginia Central's track from Gordonsville to Charlottesville for its extension southward towards Lynchburg. This line began operations to Charlottesville in April 1854. Thus, two major railroadsthe Virginia Central in an east-west direction and the Orange and Alexandria in a north-south directionconverged at Charlottesville, ensuring the town's prosperity. In 1868, the Virginia Central was reorganized with the Covington and Ohio Railroad to form the Chesapeake and Ohio Railroad, which was renamed as the Chesapeake and Ohio Railway (C&O) in 1878. After a series of mergers, the Orange and Alexandria Railroad was incorporated into the newly formed Southern Railway in 1894. Charlottesville became a significant junction of the two railroads, with two railroad stations in operation. One was on the C&O line and the second, the Union Station, was just west of the C&O station at the junction between the C&O and Southern railroads.

text: In 1896, it purchased the Chesapeake, Ohio and Southwestern Railroad and those former rights-of-way currently form parts of the class-II Paducah and Louisville. In 1897, it purchased the Short Route Railway Transfer Company; the Ohio Valley Railway; and the Owensboro, Falls of Rough and Green River Railroad. In 1902, it purchased the Kentucky Western and the Hodgenville and Elizabethtown Railways. In 1913, it purchased the Paducah Union Depot Company and the Kentucky Valley Railroad. In 1922, it purchased the Kentucky Midland.

title: Chesapeake and Ohio class K-4

text: The Chesapeake and Ohio Railway's K-4 class were a group of ninety 2-8-4 steam locomotives purchased during and shortly after World War II. Unlike many other railroads in the United States, the Chesapeake and Ohio chose to nickname this class "Kanawha," after the river in West Virginia, rather than "Berkshire," after the region in New England.

title: Chesapeake and Ohio Railway

text: Collis Huntington intended to connect the C&O with his western and mid-western holdings, but had much other railroad construction to finance and he stopped the line at the Ohio and over the next few years did little to improve its rough construction or develop traffic. The only connection to the West was by packet boats operating on the Ohio River. Because the great mineral resources of the region hadn't been fully realized yet, the C&O suffered through the bad times brought on by the Financial Panic of 1873, and went into receivership in 1878. Williams C. Wickham was named as its Receiver. When reorganized, it was renamed The Chesapeake & Ohio Railway Company.

title: Chesapeake and Ohio Depot (Pikeville, Kentucky)

text: The Chesapeake and Ohio Passenger Depot in Pikeville, Kentucky was built by the Chesapeake and Ohio Railway in 1923. The station along with a small baggage depot nearby were listed on the National Register of Historic Places on April 23, 1987.

title: Baltimore and Ohio Railroad

text: The Chesapeake and Ohio Railway took financial control of the B&O in 1963. The B&O already had a controlling interest in the Western Maryland Railway. In 1973 the three railroads were brought together under one corporate identity, the Chessie System, although they continued to operate as separate railroads. The Western Maryland was merged into the B&O in 1976. In 1980 the Chessie System and Seaboard Coast Line Industries, a holding company that owned the Seaboard Coast Line, the Louisville & Nashville, the Clinchfield, and the Georgia Railroad, agreed to form CSX Corporation. SCL Industries was renamed the Seaboard System Railroad (SBD) in 1983, the same year that the Western Maryland Railway was completely absorbed into the B&O. SBD was renamed CSX Transportation (CSX) in 1986. On April 30, 1987, the B&O's corporate existence ended when it was absorbed into the Chesapeake & Ohio Railway, which merged into CSX Transportation on August 31 of that year.

title: Chesapeake and Ohio 1309

text: Chesapeake & Ohio Railway 1309 is a steam locomotive built in 1949 for the Chesapeake and Ohio Railway (C&O) where it pulled coal trains until retirement in 1956. It was the last steam engine built by Baldwin Locomotive Works for the North American market. In 1976, it was moved to the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad Museum for static display. The engine was purchased in 2014 by the Western Maryland Scenic Railroad which began restoration with the intention of returning it to service as the Western Maryland Scenic Railroad 1309.

title: Blue Ridge Tunnel

text: The Blue Ridge Railroad ceased to exist once the route across the mountains was completed, becoming a part of the Virginia Central Railroad. In 1868 the Virginia Central was merged with another state-chartered railroad, the Covington and Ohio Railroad, to create the Chesapeake and Ohio Railroad (renamed Chesapeake and Ohio Railway in 1878). This helped achieve Virginia's long-term goal of linking its navigable rivers of the Chesapeake Bay watershed with the Ohio River. The C&O Railroad was subsequently sold to Collis Potter Huntington.

title: Chesapeake and Ohio Railway

text: Tex Beneke and his Orchestra performed a big band number 'Chesapeake And Ohio', written by Sigman & Magidson, in which Tex sang of his regret about not requesting the address of a lady he met on the Chesapeake and Ohio Railway.

title: Norge Train Depot

text: Norge Train Depot is a historic home located at Norge, near Williamsburg, James City County, Virginia. It was built about 1907 by the Chesapeake and Ohio Railway from standardized plans. The train station is the last surviving example of a wood frame "informal standard" depot in the six states that were served by Chesapeake and Ohio Railway. Originals were built according to an informal plan and no standard drawings were prepared or entered in the railway's set of design standards.

title: Chesapeake and Ohio class M-1

text: The Chesapeake and Ohio class M-1 was a fleet of three steam turbine locomotives built by the Baldwin Locomotive Works for the Chesapeake and Ohio Railway in 1947–1948 for service on the "Chessie" streamliner. As diesel locomotives became more prevalent following World War II, the C&O was one of several railroads loath to abandon coal as a fuel source, and saw steam turbine technology as a possible alternative to diesel. At the time of its construction it was the longest single-unit locomotive in the world.

title: Chesapeake and Ohio Depot (Petoskey, Michigan)

text: In 1899, the Chicago and West Michigan Railway and this station was absorbed into the Pere Marquette Railway. The Pere Marquette, in turn, was merged into the Chesapeake and Ohio Railway in 1947. The Petoskey station continued to serve passengers until the 1950s, when it was abandoned. IN 1970, the Little Traverse Regional Historical Society obtained a lease on the depot and some of the surrounding land. The building was converted into a museum in 1971, and as of 2017 is used as the Little Traverse Historical Museum

title: Chesapeake and Ohio 614

text: Chesapeake & Ohio 614 is a 4-8-4 steam locomotive built by the Lima Locomotive Works in Lima, Ohio, in June 1948 for the Chesapeake and Ohio Railway (C&O) as a member of the J3a class. As one of the last commercially built steam locomotives in the United States, the locomotive was built with the primary purpose of hauling long, heavy, high speed express passenger trains for the Chesapeake & Ohio Railway such as the "George Washington" and the "Fast Flying Virginian". Retired from active service in the late 1950s, the 614 was preserved and placed on display at the B&O Railroad Museum in Baltimore, Maryland. In 1979, the locomotive was restored to operating condition and was used for extensive mainline excursion service from the 1970s until the late 1990s. Today the locomotive is on temporary display at the C&O Railway Heritage Center in Clifton Forge, Virginia awaiting a potential return to steam.

title: Sciotoville Bridge

text: The Sciotoville Bridge is a steel continuous truss bridge carrying tracks of CSX Transportation across the Ohio River between Siloam - a junction located north of Limeville, Kentucky and east of South Shore, Kentucky - and Sciotoville, Ohio in the United States. Designed by Gustav Lindenthal, the bridge was constructed in 1916 by Chesapeake and Ohio Railway subsidiary Chesapeake and Ohio Northern Railway as part of a new route between Ashland, Kentucky and Columbus, Ohio.

title: Clinchfield Railroad

text: The Clinchfield Railroad was an operating and holding company for the Carolina, Clinchfield and Ohio Railway . The line ran from the coalfields of Virginia and Elkhorn City, Kentucky, to the textile mills of South Carolina. The 35-mile segment from Dante, Virginia, to Elkhorn City, opening up the coal lands north of Sandy Ridge Mountains and forming a connection with the Chesapeake and Ohio Railway at Elkhorn City, was completed in 1915.

title: List of Chesapeake and Ohio locomotives

text: Locomotives operated by the Chesapeake and Ohio Railway.

title: Chesapeake and Ohio Railway

text: A Chesapeake and Ohio passenger train was featured in the opening sequence of George Stevens' Giant (1956 film). Filmed in 1955, it was the final film of James Dean.

title: Potomac Yard

text: In accordance with the plan, the Pennsylvania Railroad (PRR), Baltimore and Ohio Railroad, Southern Railway, Chesapeake and Ohio Railway, Atlantic Coast Line Railroad, and Seaboard Air Line Railway formed the Richmond-Washington Company to manage traffic. This holding company controlled the Richmond, Fredericksburg and Potomac Railroad (RF&P), the new Alexandria Union Station, which opened in 1905, and the new switching yard—Potomac Yard—which opened on October 15, 1906.

title: Moonville, Ohio

text: With the town long gone, the train traffic continued to increase on the single track line. In 1973 the B&O merged with the Chesapeake and Ohio Railway (C&O) and the Western Maryland Railway (WM) to form the Chessie System. Train traffic doubled, with as many as 14 trains per day.

text: The Chesapeake & Ohio Railway Station is a railway depot located in Pioneer Park on West Lake Street in Petoskey, Michigan. It was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1970. The building now houses the Little Traverse Historical Museum.

title: Seaboard System Railroad

text: The process began its culmination when Seaboard renamed itself CSX Transportation on July 1, 1986. On April 30, 1987, the Baltimore & Ohio railroad was merged away into the Chesapeake & Ohio. Finally, on August 31, 1987, the Chesapeake & Ohio (still under the Chessie System entity for corporate reasons) was merged into CSX Transportation. All the major railroads under CSX Corporation were now one company. (The Western Railway of Alabama would remain an operating subsidiary until December 2002, when it was finally merged into CSX.)

title: Erie Lackawanna Railway

text: The Erie Lackawanna Railway was formed March 1, 1968, as a subsidiary of Dereco, the holding company of the Norfolk and Western Railway, which had bought the railroad. On April 1, the assets were transferred as a condition of the proposed but never consummated merger between the N&W and Chesapeake and Ohio Railway. Dereco also owned the Delaware & Hudson Railway at the time.

title: Roanoke Region

text: In Alleghany County, the Virginia Central Railroad had extended its track from Staunton to the Jackson River in 1857. After the Civil War, the railroad expanded west to connect with the Covington and Ohio Railroad and in 1868 the two lines merged to form the Chesapeake and Ohio Railway (C&O). The railroad established a depot and named it Clifton Forge, the only town in the United States to bear its name. When the track to Richmond was completed in 1881, the town boomed as a railway hub and remains as the region's only stop on the Amtrak line.

title: Chesapeake and Ohio 2755

text:
Chesapeake & Ohio Railway 2755 is a standard gauge steam railway locomotive of the 2-8-4 type, called "Berkshire" by most US railroads, but "Kanawha" by the Chesapeake & Ohio (C&O). It is one of a total of ninety built by
Alco (which built seventy) and Lima (which built the remaining twenty, including 2755) between 1943 and 1947.

title: Paducah and Elizabethtown Railroad

text: The Paducah and Elizabethtown Railroad was a 19th-century railway company in western Kentucky in the United States. It operated from 1877, when it purchased the Louisville, Paducah and Southwestern Railroad, until 1882, when it was purchased by the Chesapeake, Ohio and Southwestern Railroad. It later made up part of the Illinois Central network and its former rights-of-way currently form parts of the class-II Paducah and Louisville Railway.

title: Chesapeake and Ohio Railway

text: The Chesapeake & Ohio Railway traced its origin to the Louisa Railroad of Louisa County, Virginia, begun in 1836, and the James River & Kanawha Canal Company, also in Virginia, begun in 1785. The first train ran on December 20, 1837.[2]