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

Despite this advantage of his family's status, the Hong Kong neighborhood Lee grew up in became over-crowded, dangerous, and full of gang rivalries because of the mass number of people fleeing communist China to Hong Kong,:

Despite submitting to Otto III, Crescentius shut himself in his family's stronghold, the Tomb of Hadrian, out of fear of retribution.

Despite her family's objections, soon they were living together, and although Hébuterne was the current love of his life, their public scenes became more renowned than Modigliani's individual drunken exhibitions.

Despite the rumors, the imperial family's association with Rasputin continued until Rasputin was murdered in 1916.

Despite his family's disbelief, Elliott lures the alien from the forest to his bedroom using a trail of Reese's Pieces candy.

Despite the rumors, the imperial family's association with Rasputin continued until his murder on December 17, 1916.

Despite later reverses in the family's fortunes, on 13 August 1504 their only child, Jeanne de Commines ( d. 1513 ), made a splendid marriage to the heir of Brittany's most powerful family, René de Brosse comte de Penthièvre ( d. 1524 ).

Despite his family's objections and the added pressure of raising a second daughter, France, born on 12 July, Brel left Brussels for Paris in the fall of 1953.

Despite his advocacy for modern methods of organization, including crews of soldiers doing the bulk of a family's illegal work under the supervision of a capo, at bottom Maranzano was a " Mustache Pete " — an old-school mafioso too steeped in Old World ways.

Despite his family's precarious financial situation, his grandfather and uncles made sure the young Giuseppe received a solid education: he was taught by a tutor and later became a novice in the Catholic Order of St. John of God, from which he was eventually expelled.

Despite the family's mainly Jerusalem ancestry, some members of the family were from Beirut, in what is today Lebanon.

Despite the family's long history of Catholicism, Viscount Gage had adopted the Anglican Church in 1715.

Despite the taint of treason and the family's impoverishment, his niece Louise of Lorraine-Mercouer, was chosen to became the Queen consort of Henry III of France in 1575.

Despite being involved in several tragedies in his family's acts, Wallenda continued with his stunts.

Despite his youth, he had demonstrated his strength in several general elections when he had been able to get as many as twenty MPs elected to seats he controlled through his family's wealth and political patronage.

Despite her family's lack of money, Belle received a good education.

Despite being slashed several times with a straight razor, Stretch grabs a chainsaw held by the mummified remains of the family's grandmother in a ritual shrine in the rock tower.

Despite his inexperience, Bronfman's involvement was accepted because of his connections and access to financing through his family's wealth.

Despite their vast differences, she recognizes Dharma's place in their family's life, once famously telling her " We both know you're not the girl I would have picked for Greg.

Despite her family's wealth and high social status, Edie's early life was troubled.

Despite the press campaign against Germans, Germanophobic feelings did not develop in Russia to any widespread extent, and died out, due to the Imperial family's German roots and the presence of many German names in the Russian political elite.

Despite his family's straitened circumstances following the death of his father, Richard Jr. attended a private boarding school and the University of Kentucky.

Despite the Tresham family's close links with the royal court they were also on good terms with Richard Plantagenet, 3rd Duke of York, and when he returned from Ireland in 1450 Tresham and his father went to greet him.

Despite these concerns, small numbers of Black Bermudians have chosen to describe themselves on census returns as mixed-racial, and the Native American demographic, which had disappeared for centuries, is slowly re-emerging, as more Bermudians-especially on St. David's Island-choose to identify to some degree, if not exclusively, with their Native American ancestry ( although many may feel that, in an increasingly polarised climate, this is a safer option than identifying themselves as in any way White, or European ).

Despite the Irish ancestry of Dublin's first non-indigenous settlers, the town, like most of Middle Georgia, by the late 19th century had evolved from mixture of ethnicities.

Despite Acamapichtli's Culhua ancestry, his city rapidly fell into the Tepanec orbit and became a tributary of Azcapotzalco.

Despite this, the dividing line between dwarfs and humans seems somewhat blurred, and Pratchett has hinted that humans and dwarfs can interbreed ; for example, Nanny Ogg's thick skull is put down to dwarfish ancestry.

Despite the strictures of slavery, in the antebellum years, free people of mixed race could have up to one-eighth or one-quarter African ancestry ( depending on the state ) and be considered legally white.

Despite this, the US government interned as dangerous nearly 11, 000 persons of German ancestry.

Despite certain myths regarding his background, Ryan was neither orphaned nor penniless as a youth and he traced his ancestry to Protestant Anglo-Irish settlers who came to North America in the seventeenth century, not during the Potato Famine emigration.

Despite their models being small and often quite underpowered ( especially with regard to American and other German opponents ) Porsche enjoyed some success in the race, mainly class wins, which was a testament to the reliability engendered by the Volkswagen Beetle ancestry of their cars.

Despite some early doubts about the common ancestry of GSI in these distantly related families, phylogenetic studies and the finding of shared male determinants ( F-box proteins ) clearly established homology.

Despite the depictions of the popular shows like Zorro, very few Californios were of " pure " Spanish ( Peninsular or Criollo ) ancestry.

Despite his Jewish ancestry, and his relationship with Hitler's niece, Geli Raubal, Maurice was first and foremost a loyal companion to Hitler.

Despite being born in England, Daish played internationally for the Republic of Ireland due to his Irish ancestry.

Despite his distant royal ancestry, Li died a petty and poor official at the age of 27.

Despite his support for German nationalism and Catholic faith, he was forced out of his position by the Nazis on account of his Jewish ancestry.

Despite the excitement being caused by the trial and sentence of John Brown, Rhode Islanders turned their attention to the state elections.

Despite being able to crawl on land, many of these prehistoric tetrapodomorph fish still spent most of their time in the water.

Despite being quite religious, he was also interested in mathematics and science, and sometimes is claimed to have contradicted the teachings of the Church in favour of scientific theories.

* 1388 – Despite being outnumbered 16 to 1, forces of the Old Swiss Confederacy are victorious over the Archduchy of Austria in the Battle of Näfels.

Despite being outscored over the season, the Diamondbacks posted the best record in the NL with 90 wins and 72 losses.

Despite being at one time a defender of metaphysical realism, Hilary Putnam later abandoned this view in favor of a position he termed " internal realism ".

Despite being epileptic, Charles achieved respect both as a commander and as a reformer of the Austrian army.

Despite being younger than the other contenders, Ahmad Shah had several overriding factors in his favor.

Despite this, there were also several superstar hitters, the most famous being Honus Wagner, held to be one of the greatest shortstops to ever play the game, and Detroit's Ty Cobb, the " Georgia Peach.

Despite being offered the chance to remain as ruler of Bavaria ( under strict terms of an alliance with Austria ), the Elector left his country and family in order to continue the war against the Allies from the Spanish Netherlands where he still held the post of governor-general.

Despite being short on cash at times, he often refused money that his friends offered him out of their own pockets.

Despite strenuous efforts, Captain Hood's isolated ship came under heavy fire and was unable to cut off the trailing Justice as the French survivors escaped seawards, Zealous being struck by a number of French shot and losing one man killed.

Despite the term blitzkrieg being coined by journalists during the Invasion of Poland of 1939, historians Mathew Cooper and J. P Harris generally hold that German operations during it were more consistent with more traditional methods.

Despite fox hunting being banned by the Hunting Act in 2004, Boxing Day remains the biggest hunt of the year for most hunts in the UK by use of scent drag trails instead of live quarry.

Despite being predominantly peaceful in nature, the revolution was not without violent clashes between security forces and protesters, with at least 846 people killed and 6, 000 injured.

Despite being attached to the curse, Colavito said that he never placed a curse on the Indians but that the trade was prompted by a salary dispute with Lane.

Despite being well out of playoff contention the Cubs went 24 – 13 under Quade, the best record in baseball during that 37 game stretch and was hired as manager on October 19.

Despite being extensively hunted, the coyote is one of the few medium-to large-sized animals that has enlarged its range since human encroachment began.

Despite swimming being a part of imperial education, Caligula could not swim.

Despite being a Methodist, he made reference to the Buddha in his diary, and encouraged the establishment of a Buddhist political party under Master Taixu.

" Despite being significantly more advanced than its predecessors, the Armstrong gun was rejected soon after its integration, in favor of the muzzle-loading pieces that had been in use before.

Despite being one of Mather's most well-known works, many have openly criticized it, labeling it as hard to follow and understand, and poorly paced and organized.

Despite its being a non-metric unit, a number of metric countries have used this unit for its limited range of application.

Despite these complaints, Clement is generally not considered a heretic in the Catholic Church, but such concerns about his orthodoxy led to him being removed from the Roman martyrology in 1586, and he is not revered as a saint in contemporary Roman Catholicism.

Despite not being natural persons, corporations are recognized by the law to have rights and responsibilities like natural persons (" people ").