Despite the fact that he was regarded as an outstanding engineer, he seemed to be a very poor administrator, although no one quite knew what was wrong with him.

Despite extensive oil and gas resources, diamonds, hydroelectric potential, and rich agricultural land, Angola remains poor, and a third of the population relies on subsistence agriculture.

Despite a strong lineup anchored by the potent Lajoie and Shoeless Joe Jackson, poor pitching kept the team below third place for most of the next decade.

Despite the club's poor record, several Rockies hitters gained notoriety for their exploits at the plate, assisted by the thin and dry air of Denver, which purportedly allows balls to carry farther than they would at sea-level ballparks.

Despite the movie's poor box office and critical reception at the time of its original release, it is gradually becoming a favorite among fans due to its dark nature, brief but entertaining kaiju battles, and the return of series veterans Ishiro Honda and Akira Ifukube.

Despite these changes the highlands remained very poor and traditional, with few connections to the uplift of the Scottish Enlightenment and little role in the Industrial Revolution.

Despite poor performances from the usually steady Chris Capuano and more nagging injuries to Ben Sheets, the Brewers found themselves in a heated pennant race with Chicago's North Siders.

Despite the poor launch publicity, Spore was still a commercial success.

Despite his family's poor background, he performed well after entering the Church and rose quickly through the ranks.

Despite many development plans and efforts, the state of telecommunication sector in the country remained extremely poor up to 1994.

Despite poor writing and plotting, spy fiction endured.

Despite the large number of mainlanders who consume Spam, and the various recipes that have been made from it, Spam, along with most canned food, is often stigmatized on the mainland as " poor people food ".

Despite an initially poor reception, it became a great success, playing 400 times in the next two years.

Despite poor record sales ( due to the elongated period of inactivity by the band ) the album is favored by critics and fans alike.

Despite his poor health, he still welcomed a steady stream of visitors from family members, business partners, political associates and his constituents.

Despite the excommunication, John will continue to make amends to the Church, including giving alms to the poor whenever he defiles a holy day by hunting during it.

Despite praise from critics and fans for her vocals on the three-month Street Angel tour, Nicks was crushed by the focus on her weight and the poor reception of the album itself.

Despite the arrival of additional settlers, including whites, slaves and free blacks, from Bermuda and the receipt of relief supplies from Virginia and New England, the Eleuthera colony struggled for many years because of poor soil, fighting between settlers, and conflict with the Spanish.

Despite the poor quality of Albania's roads, most of the country's freight was conveyed over them in a fleet of about 15, 000 trucks.

Despite the army's access to the armaments factories of Lille, the Army of the North suffered from severe supply difficulties which kept the soldiers ' already poor morale at a permanently low level.

Despite his bloodline in that age when people died young and younger, the orphaned Conrad grew up poor by the standards of the nobility and was raised by Burchard, Bishop of Worms.

Despite the destruction wrought on the countryside, the city castle held out in spite of repeated attempts over twelve days to take it, and the Turks left the island unsuccessfully because of poor logistics and an epidemic that decimated their ranks.

Despite his importance for the period, Dexippus has been declared a " poor " source by the modern historian David S. Potter.

Despite the therapeutic effectiveness and proven success of CBT, treatment availability is significantly limited by a lack of trained clinicians, poor geographical distribution of knowledgeable professionals, and expense.

Despite all these notable successes in diagnostics and detection techniques ectopic pregnancy remains a source of serious maternal morbidity and mortality worldwide, especially in countries with poor prenatal care.

Despite the bitterness of the defeat for Lincoln, his articulation of the issues gave him a national political reputation.

Despite his ferocious reputation though, there are no verified accounts of his ever having murdered or harmed those he held captive.

Despite David's reputation, he was more fiercely criticized right after his death than at any point during his life.

Despite this reputation, during his career, he oversaw more performances honored with the Academy Award for Best Actor than any other director: James Stewart in The Philadelphia Story ( 1940 ), Ronald Colman in A Double Life ( 1947 ), and Rex Harrison in My Fair Lady ( 1964 ).

Despite these problems, the growing inflow of American silver from mid-16th century, the justified military reputation of the Spanish infantry and even the navy quickly recovering from its Armada disaster, made Spain the leading European power, a novel situation of which its citizens were only just becoming aware.

Despite his own great reputation as a military administrator, Hadrian's reign was marked by a general lack of major military conflicts, apart from the Second Roman-Jewish War.

Despite mixed reviews of the paintings he exhibited at the Salon, Millet's reputation and success grew through the 1860s.

Despite his reputation as a serious composer of large, complex musical structures, some of Brahms's most widely known and most commercially successful compositions during his life were small-scale works of popular intent aimed at the thriving contemporary market for domestic music-making ; indeed, during the 20th century, the influential American critic B. H. Haggin, rejecting more mainstream views, argued in his various guides to recorded music that Brahms was at his best in such works and much less successful in larger forms.

Despite not being on par with Uppsala University, it had still built a solid reputation and managed to attract prominent professors.

Despite Euripides ' reputation, Antipater is not the only writer to see appreciation of women in his writing.

Despite some rough times, Evans held the job for eight years, restoring Paramount's reputation for commercial success with The Odd Couple, Love Story, The Godfather, Chinatown, and Rosemary's Baby.

Despite his reputation as a democrat, Chaves imposed a state of siege three weeks after he took office, using his emergency powers to attack the supporters of González and ex-President Felipe Molas López.

Despite his growing alcoholism and controversial reputation, Peckinpah was extremely prolific during this period of his life.

" Despite Szechuan cuisine's reputation as being spicy, only a small portion of the food is spicy.

Despite the slingshot's reputation as a tool of juvenile delinquents, the NSA reported that 80 % of slingshot sales were to men over 30 years old, many of them professionals.

Despite over 70 rehearsals between 1862 and 1864, Tristan und Isolde was unable to be staged in Vienna, winning the opera a reputation as unperformable.

" Despite this excellent reputation, D. W. T. C. Vessey has shown that William was certainly not an impartial observer, especially when dealing with the events of the 1170s and 1180s.

Despite his reputation for thrift, he gave her a splendid funeral: she lay in state in the Tower and was buried in Westminster Abbey, in the Lady Chapel Henry had built.

Despite his agency's later reputation for anti-labor activities, Pinkerton himself was heavily involved in pro-labor politics as a young man.

Despite the film's later reputation, some contemporary critics panned it.

Despite these improvements, however, the NHS retained a reputation of being a low-wage employer by the end of the First Wilson Government ’ s time in office.

Despite his successes and one-time popularity, Harold Wilson's reputation took a long time to recover from the low ebb reached immediately following his second premiership.

Despite the frequency of these military conflicts, the region developed a reputation for quality wine production in the early Middle Ages and was able to continue that reputation as the region's producers began making sparkling wine with the advent of the great Champagne houses in the 17th & 18th centuries.

Despite his reputation for corruption, he helped popularize a number of famous weapons and vehicles, such as the Maxim gun ( one of the first fully automatic machine guns ) and the first true submarine.