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 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 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 the promising off-season moves, the team suffered critical bullpen injuries while the newly signed Davis hurlers both experienced lackluster performances throughout the 1990 campaign.

Despite announcing his retirement from acting in 1980, Brando subsequently gave supporting performances in movies such as A Dry White Season ( for which he was again nominated for an Oscar in 1989 ), The Freshman in 1990 and Don Juan DeMarco in 1995.

Despite Punch ’ s unapologetic murder throughout the performances, it is still a comedy.

Despite these obstacles, the film's war footage was stunning and James Coburn, in the lead role of Rolf Steiner, gave one of the finest performances of his career.

Despite this criticism, the following day, August 30, was one of Longstreet's finest performances of the war.

Despite the opera's success, Carvalho's financial difficulties meant a run of only 18 performances.

Despite strong performances from Mogilny and team-leading point-scorer Martin Gelinas in Bure and Linden's absence ( both of whom were injured for long periods of time during the season ), the Canucks missed the playoffs for the first of four consecutive seasons that year.

Despite her notable Hollywood success in the early 1950s, Jurado continued with some performances in Mexico.

Despite many notable film performances, she chose to remain primarily a stage actress.

Despite its stellar performances, as a collection of original instrumentals, the album was largely overlooked.

The site's consensus is " Despite good performances by Cage and especially by Leoni, The Family Man is too predictable and derivative to add anything new to the Christmas genre.

Despite the fact that many performances are held within the circle of a small art-world group, RoseLee Goldberg notes, in Performance Art: From Futurism to the Present that " performance has been a way of appealing directly to a large public, as well as shocking audiences into reassessing their own notions of art and its relation to culture.

" Despite this, sung Passion performances were common in Lutheran churches right from the start, in both Latin and German, beginning as early as Laetare Sunday ( three weeks before Easter ) and continuing through Holy Week.

'" Despite this, " leaving gospel for secular music, as well as integrating secular music into gospel performances, was controversial.

Despite inability to attract a major label after Atlantic, there was still demand for public performances, especially in Europe.

Despite their success, the group was regularly dismissed by critics for their attempts to promote themselves as an urban act and their practice of using backing vocals for live performances.

" Despite the tour's personal downsides, footage from live performances was compiled and released on the long-form video Reeling with PJ Harvey ( 1993 ).

Despite the initial reviews, The Man Who Haunted Himself is now considered a very underrated film, and the role is considered one of Moore's finest performances among his fans.

Despite its daring innovations ( and some scathing attacks by critics ), it quickly became an international success, with some 50 performances in the first 18 months after the premiere.

Despite the poor box-office showing of these films, Wright was usually praised for her performances.

Despite a number of TV performances, the single failed to reach the top 100 and as a result, Polydor withdrew the idea for a new album.

Despite performances of his oratorio Gott und die Natur ( God and Nature ) ( Berlin, 1811 ) and his early operas Jephtas Gelübde ( Jephtha's Vow ) ( Munich, 1812 ) and Wirth und Gast ( Landlord and Guest ) ( Stuttgart, 1813 ) in Germany, Meyerbeer had set his sights by 1814 on basing an operatic career in Paris.

Despite his performances dipping as the result of a persistent groin injury and a reported training ground bust-up with teammate Zlatan Ibrahimović, Vieira helped Juventus retain the Scudetto, which was later stripped.