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 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 Sunshine Policy and efforts at reconciliation, the progress was complicated by North Korean missile tests in 1993, 1998, 2006 and 2009., relationships between North and South Korea were very tense ; North Korea had been reported to have deployed missiles, ended its former agreements with South Korea, and threatened South Korea and the United States not to interfere with a satellite launch it had planned.

Despite a highly promoted launch ( including being named Time magazine's " 1994 Product of the Year ") and a host of cutting-edge technologies, the 3DO's high price ( US $ 599 at launch ), limited third-party developer support, and an over-saturated console market prevented the system from achieving success comparable to competitors Sega and Nintendo.

Despite the launch of the IFC in 1956, developing countries persisted in demanding the creation of a new concessional financing mechanism and the idea gained traction within the IBRD.

Despite being told that it was against the rules, Ender sacrifices most of his fighters fleet to launch a Molecular Disruption Device at the planet, destroying the planet and the entire Formic fleet.

Despite the popularity of some of his work, Little failed to launch Indigenous music in the country — from the 1970s onwards, groups such as Coloured Stone, Warumpi Band, and No Fixed Address would help improve the image of the genre.

Despite an aggressive marketing campaign directed at U. S. airlines and the USAF, the sales prospects of the Jetliner floundered after the launch customer, Trans-Canada Airlines, reneged on a letter of intent in 1948.

Despite calls to pull out, Lhadatt, already in the space capsule and determined to finish what he started, convinces the frightened and vulnerable ground crew to complete the launch.

Despite being present in large numbers, the Austrian cavalry failed to launch a massed charge and instead launched several small-scale charges, which produced little effect.

Despite its problems, however, Habitat's fame and success " made reputation " and helped launch his career ; Safdie has now designed over 75 buildings and master plans around the world.

Despite the delayed launch, BSB continued to invest heavily in marketing in 1989 to minimize the effects of Sky ’ s timing advantage.

Despite the success of Nova, and the launch of Hellas SAT, cable TV has been slow to follow, only existing on a local level in some communities around Greece until recently, when companies such as OnTelecoms have launched cable ( IPTV ) platforms.

Despite lingering effects from previous injuries, Sammartino agreed to come out of retirement to help his son launch his career.

Despite the issues encountered during flight preparation, none required the target launch date of April 25 to be pushed back.

Despite being able to launch his missile, the Legion are soundly defeated by the League, with Wonder Woman, Flash, Batman, and Green Lantern defeating Cheetah, Mirror Master, Bane, and Star Sapphire in that order, respectively.

Despite attempts to keep the deal secret, the Wall Street Journal leaked news of the leasing, and the Senate decided to launch an inquiry into the matter.

Despite the tight schedule, Cock and his team were able to prepare several sample programmes, and the Radiolympia event was a great success in advertising the potential of the new medium and encouraging the audience to purchase sets in the run-up to the launch proper.

Despite the number in its name and the hype it received at its launch, the MC-303 has more in common with other MC prefixed synthesizers ( such as the Roland MC-202 ), which contain built-in sequencers, than it does with the famous Roland TB-303.

Despite the modest showing in Brighton at the Contest itself, the song achieved considerable fame as one of the two signals to launch the Carnation Revolution in Portugal against the Estado Novo regime of Marcelo Caetano-the other being the folk song " Grândola Vila Morena " by Zeca Afonso, which was the signal for the coup leaders to announce that they had taken control of strategic parts of the country.

Despite the reduced presence of the heavy metal genre in the Japanese media at the time and the lack of a single to launch the album, The Birthday Eve and the concerts to support it were quite successful.

Despite a strong launch that found the series debut selling 37, 100 issues, sales quickly plummeted.

Despite this, the TurboGrafx suffered from poor sales, and the Bonk mascot was eventually retired in 1992 ( with the launch of TTi's new TurboDuo console ), replaced by Air Zonk ( the official mascot of the Duo ).

Despite MyNetworkTV's announced launch date of September 5, 2006, UPN continued to broadcast its programming on stations across the United States until September 15, 2006.

Despite the earlier push for PlayStation Network releases around the PSP Go's launch, over half of the PSP's library is still only available in UMD format including Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII and Kingdom Hearts Birth by Sleep, though there have been a few PlayStation Network-only releases since the PSP Go's launch, such as LocoRoco Midnight Carnival.