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 his apprehensions about his personal safety, Palfrey's reception in New Orleans was more than cordial.

Despite its modest critical and commercial success in Italy, and its warm reception by French critics, it failed to interest North American distributors.

Despite its mixed critical reception, Kid Icarus is a cult classic, and had shipped 1. 76 million copies by late 2003.

Despite Edward Heath claiming it was a ' hard, cold budget, without any glimmer of warmth ' Jenkins ' first budget broadly received a warm reception, with Harold Wilson remarking that ' it was widely acclaimed as a speech of surpassing quality and elegance ' and Barbara Castle that it ' took everyone's breath away '.

Despite the overwhelmingly positive critical reception for their first 4 albums, the band was frustrated by its lack of wider mainstream success.

Despite a weak critical reception the film was a popular success, outgrossing its predecessor and confirming the strength of the partnership.

Despite its odd plot and mixed critical reception, the film was a major box-office success, grossing nearly $ 100, 000, 000 in the U. S. alone, almost becoming the first non-Disney animated film to achieve that feat.

Despite production problems and mostly negative critical reception, The Fog was another commercial success for Carpenter.

Despite its overwhelmingly negative reception and short run, the series still has been rebroadcast in later years, with VH1 and A & E Network airing it on separate occasions later in the 1990s, and Trio airing it in the 2000s.

Despite good reviews for Burr, the critical reception was poor and NBC decided against developing it into a series.

" Despite initial mixed critical reception, the film currently holds a 71 % " fresh " rating on the film aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, with an average score of 6 out of 10.

Despite a cold reception from her new partner Jeff Smax, Robyn quickly helps with investigating the scene of a homicide in the robot ghetto, Tin Town.

Despite a cold reception from the Spanish royal family, especially by Elisabeth of Parma, the stepmother of her husband, she married Louis of Spain on 20 January 1722 at Lerma.

Despite the critical reception that followed each of these projects, Webb has never been as successful as a performer as he has been a songwriter and arranger.

Despite whatever controversy the work may have generated, and its critical reception amongst other scholars, The Golden Bough had a tremendous effect on the literature of the period.

Despite the negative reception for Waluigi, he has also received some positive reception.

Despite the lackluster reception, it won an Academy Award for Best Visual Effects and Meryl Streep was nominated for a Golden Globe for her performance.

Despite the symphony's rejection by the Court and the lukewarm reception on its premiere, Smetana did not abandon the work.

Despite the relatively poor reception of Mardi Gras and deteriorated relationships among the remaining band members, Creedence immediately embarked upon a two-month, 20-date U. S. tour.

Despite Eliade's ultimate reception in Communist Romania, this writing could not be published during the period, after censors singled out fragments which they saw as especially problematic.