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 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 family's ancestry being mostly white and himself being blond-haired, blue-eyed, and very fair, White and his family identified as black and lived among the Atlanta black community.

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 the retreat of US and UN forces after several deaths due to local hostilities mainly led by Aidid, the introduction of a powerful military force opened the transportation routes, enabling the provision of supplies and ended the famine quickly.

Despite the political upheaval, the Egyptian population remained mainly Christian.

Despite the participation of these aircraft ( mainly from 1938 onward ), it was the venerable Junkers Ju 52 ( which soon became the backbone of the Transportgruppen ) that made the main contribution.

Despite its northern location, the climate is relatively mild compared to other locations in similar latitudes, or even somewhat farther south, mainly because of the Gulf Stream.

Despite this, Falk participated in team sports, mainly baseball and basketball, as a boy.

Despite these promises, Askin and the new Country Party Leader, Charles Cutler, lost the election to Heffron, mainly due to the adverse reactions of voters towards the November 1960 " horror budget " and credit squeeze made by the federal Liberal government of Robert Menzies.

Despite the political campaigns launched in order to put Sardinian on an equal footing with Italian, and any emotive value linked to Sardinian identity, the sociolinguistic situation in Sardinia due to several reasons, mainly political and socioeconomic ( the gradual depopulation of the island's interior and rural exodus towards more urbanized and industrialized areas, the forced use of Italian presented as a prerequisite to get jobs and as one of the keys to social advancement, the barriers to communication between the dialectal varieties etc.

Despite the waves of pestilence that hit Europe in the 14th century, the city continued to grow mainly due to immigration from the surrounding countryside.

Despite its image of an industrialised city whose activity depends mainly on military order, the service sector represents 75 % of the economic activity.

Despite much counsel from his advisors, Yongle chose his older son, Gaochi ( the future Hongxi Emperor ), as his heir apparent mainly due to advice from Xie Jin.

Despite signing up some promising talent ( notably Arthur Hodgson and the Kneecaps and the ' French Beach Boys ,' Les Garçons de la Plage ), poor financial management ( mainly on the part of Stig O ' Hara's financial planner, Ron Decline ) finally led to the label's ultimate failure.

Despite several attempts to start businesses, Metolius serves mainly as a bedroom community to Madras and other larger towns up to 40 miles away.

Despite having a relatively small player base, mainly in NSW and Queensland, the national side has twice won the Rugby World Cup – in 1991 and 1999.

Despite its relatively high station clearances for its timeslot and low production costs, Dark Shadows fell victim to the purge mainly because of its young audience, who usually did not make decisions about the purchasing of household goods and food products for the family, which were the two chief industries that bought airtime on daytime television in that era.

Despite this the car has become an iconic sports car, including in countries from the Western World ( mainly the United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand, Ireland and Canada ).

Despite touring constantly and recording albums with efficiency, the duo could not find any pop success for a number of reasons, mainly because of the popularity of the disco genre.

Despite contemporary slanders, the assembly's members were mainly drawn from the richest five per cent of the population, and few tradesmen were represented.

Despite its name, its main action is mainly rotation and opposition.

Despite the fact that the Athenian songs were not autonomous artistic creations ( in contrast with the serenades ) and despite their original connection with mainly dramatic forms of Art, they eventually became hits as independent songs.

Despite his taking between 20 and 40 pupils from Harrow with him, the school failed after five years, mainly because it could not compete with the extensive interests of Harrow.

Despite this talent raid, the AWA went on to have another successful year in 1984, mainly because of the arrival of the Road Warriors and an angle uniting longtime heel Jerry Blackwell with Greg Gagne and feuding with former manager Sheik Adnan El-Kaissey.

Despite this the economic ratings of the country has come in for high praises mainly from the Standards and Poor report on August 15, 2008 which raised Trinidad and Tobago from an " A -" to an " A ".

Despite all this little was known about them ; they had never played outside of South America and their international experience had mainly been spent travelling across the harbour from Buenos Aires to Montevideo.

Despite his brief pursuit of an official career, he mainly lived in and wrote about the area in which he was born and raised, in what is now the province of Hubei, China.