Despite the harshness of winter in most parts, the fertility of the plateau's volcanic soil made Armenia one of the world's earliest sites of agricultural activity.

Despite the major changes made to the team in the offseason, the team wound up with its first winning season since 1997.

Despite the increasing evidence of a military build-up on Cuba, no U-2 flights were made over Cuba from September 5 until October 14.

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 the ban on factionalism, the Workers ' Opposition continued its open agitation against the policies of the Central Committee, and before the 11th Party Congress ( March 1922 ) the Workers ' Opposition made an ill-conceived bid to win support for their position in the Comintern.

Despite this particular mission, in winning the Albigensians over by persuasion Dominic met limited success, " for though in his ten years of preaching a large number of converts were made, it has to be said that the results were not such as had been hoped for.

Despite considerable research efforts by seismologists, scientifically reproducible predictions cannot yet be made to a specific day or month.

Despite the severe damage the economy of Georgia suffered due to civil strife in the 1990s, Georgia, with the help of the IMF and World Bank, has made substantial economic gains since 2000, achieving robust GDP growth and curtailing inflation.

Despite these problems, the growing inflow of American silver from mid-16th century, the justified military reputation of the Spanish infantry and even the navy quickly recovering from its Armada disaster, made Spain the leading European power, a novel situation of which its citizens were only just becoming aware.

Despite this, the strong claims made by the doctrine of human rights continue to provoke considerable skepticism and debates about the content, nature and justifications of human rights to this day.

Despite some stubborn resistance by some patriots, especially at Durrës, the Italians made short work of the Albanians.

Despite having just turned 21, Cronje was made captain of Orange Free State for the 1990-91 season.

Despite some errors in field observations, he made a significant contribution to the understanding of bird anatomy and behavior through his field notes.

Despite the coin's legal tender status, economic sanctions against South Africa for its policy of apartheid made the Krugerrand an illegal import in many Western countries during the 1970s and 1980s.

Despite vowing not to make any more films about the Nazi Party, in 1935, Riefenstahl made the 18-minute Day of Freedom: Armed Forces about the German army.

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 this, the painting has remained one of the most reproduced works of art, countless copies being made in every medium from carpets to cameos.

Despite Superman destroying his base, Luthor apparently escapes, with Superman destroying the machine and the scientist who made it committing suicide to prevent its reinvention.

Despite yet another losing season, the Mets made history in 2011 when Jason Isringhausen converted his 300th save with the team, the third player in franchise history to reach the milestone while with the organization behind John Franco and Billy Wagner.

Despite some continued systematic problems, Poland has made a large economic progress over the last decade, and now is ranked 20-th worldwide in terms of the GDP.

Despite his short time as Pope he made a significant contribution to the organization of the Catholic Church.

Despite its male domination, women's rowing can be traced back to the early 19th century, and an image of a women's double scull race made the cover of Harper's Weekly in 1870.

Despite initial media reports, the affidavit made no mention of Clemens or Pettitte.

Despite many successes, RISC has made few inroads into the desktop PC and commodity server markets, where Intel's x86 platform remains the dominant processor architecture.

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 rejection of the traditional accounts on many points of detail, as late as 1948 it was still possible to postulate a massive and comparatively sudden ( beginning in ca. 450 ) influx of Germans as the type of invasions.

Despite the many avenues for the exchange of ideas between faculty and administration, complaints of a lack of communication persist.

Despite the opposition of the city newspapers, the Pratt Hall meeting `` brought together a very respectable audience, composed in part of those who had been distinguished for years for their radical views upon the subject of slavery, of many of our colored citizens, and of those who were attracted to the place by the novelty of such a gathering ''.

Despite his inelegant appearance — many in the audience thought him awkward and even ugly — Lincoln demonstrated an intellectual leadership that brought him into the front ranks of the party and into contention for the Republican presidential nomination.

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

Despite this controversy, many properties of diatomic astatine have been predicted.

Despite this, Babbage's work fell into historical obscurity and the Analytical Engine was unknown to builders of electro-mechanical and electronic computing machines in the 1930s and 1940s when they began their work, resulting in the need to re-invent many of the architectural innovations Babbage had proposed.

Despite the many Hollywood elements, Aeneas has received little interest from the film industry.

Despite his tough talk concerning traitors, Johnson in many cases authorized early release of prisoners and commutation of sentences to facilitate Reconstruction.

Despite his love and efforts towards international peace, Carnegie faced many dilemmas on his quest for world peace.

Despite complaining of his lack of a formal classical education, Dürer was greatly interested in intellectual matters and learned much from his boyhood friend Willibald Pirckheimer, whom he no doubt consulted on the content of many of his images.

Despite decisively defeating the Marathas, what might have been Ahmad Shah's peaceful control of his domains was disrupted by many challenges.

Despite the up-or-out system, under President José Sarney the army became top-heavy as generals began to occupy many positions that previously had been reserved for colonels.

Despite reforms, weak control over privatization led many successful state enterprises to bankruptcy.

Despite this, many knockoffs have been found, including college T-shirts which show Calvin and Hobbes binge drinking or Calvin urinating on a logo.

Despite this, aircraft today are much more extensively used as the primary tools for both army and navy, as evidenced by the prominent use of helicopters to transport and support troops, the use of aerial bombardment as the " first strike " in many engagements, and the replacement of the battleship with the aircraft carrier as the center of most modern navies.

Despite having a simple architecture, Berkeley DB supports many advanced database features such as ACID transactions, fine-grained locking, hot backups and replication.

Despite the fact that many of Bacardi's offerings are aimed at the lower and middle-part of the price spectrum, Bacardí rums have been entered in a number of international spirit ratings competitions.

Despite many decades as a leading producer, there is little risk of depletion.

Despite the difficulty in definition, many philosophers believe that there is a broadly shared underlying intuition about what consciousness is.

Despite these achievements, Attlee's government failed to introduce the comprehensive education for which many socialists had hoped ( as a means of making the educational system less meritoric ).

Despite the progress in certain sectors, many social and political injustices continued.

Despite a cast led by Charlton Heston and Yul Brynner and some impressive battle scenes, the film was considered a disappointment by many.

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 many ( serious ) limitations, including extremely low volume, it has considerable expressive power, the player being able to control attack, duration, volume, and even provide certain subtle effects of swelling of tone and a type of vibrato unique to the clavichord.