When the family business failed, Mercer left school and on his mother's urging -- for she hoped that he would become an actor -- he joined a local little theater group.

When that failed, he enlisted Branch Rickey's aid in the formation of a third major league, the Continental, with New York as the key franchise.

When the Confederate attempt to defend Petersburg failed, the Confederate army retreated but was pursued and defeated, which resulted in Lee's surrender to Grant at Appomattox Court House on April 9, 1865.

When his quest to keep the team in Milwaukee finally failed after the 1965 season, he changed the group's name to Milwaukee Brewers Baseball Club, Inc., after the minor league baseball team he grew up watching, and devoted himself to returning Major League Baseball to Milwaukee.

When the coach failed and injured Winterbottom, he sued Wright.

When machine translation ( also known as mechanical translation ) failed to yield accurate translations right away, automated processing of human languages was recognized as far more complex than had originally been assumed.

When the business failed, his father would quietly turn the huge stacks of useless stationery and pencils over to his children, requiring them to use up all the material as fast as possible.

When Domitian found out, he allegedly murdered Paris in the street and promptly divorced his wife, with Suetonius further adding that once Domitia was exiled, Domitian took Julia as his mistress, who later died during a failed abortion.

When this plan failed, privateering became one of the major goals within the WIC.

When he failed in his attempts to meet General Yahya Khan, Masud too resigned from his position as Commander of Eastern Air Command, and took retirement from Air Force.

When Nature failed to do this spontaneously, contact with a conductor of animal magnetism was a necessary and sufficient remedy.

When Godzilla 1985 failed at the box office, it was the last Godzilla film produced by Toho to receive any major release in North American theaters until Godzilla 2000 fifteen years later.

When they failed, several went into hiding and established close ties with Cuba.

When the prophetic powers of the last of the Pythias failed her, Rassilion, Omega and a shadowy figure known as The Other seized power in the name of science and rationality.

When Edgar failed, they suggested to Ricordi that he should drop Puccini, but Ricordi said that he would stay with him and made him an allowance from his own pocket until his next opera.

When this failed and Barcelona fell to the Nationalists in early 1939, it was clear the war was over.

When the counter-attack failed to stop the Soviet advance, Hitler held Himmler personally liable and accused him of not following orders.

When Saddam Hussein failed to comply with this demand, the Gulf War ( Operation " Desert Storm ") ensued on January 17, 1991.

When it failed to become the hit that was expected, Frankenheimer admitted he developed a serious problem with alcohol.

When this threat failed, Innocent excommunicated the king in November 1209.

When the VNQDD fled to China after the failed uprising against the French, they settled in Yunnan and Canton, in two different branches.

" When Britain declared war on Germany in September 1939, contact with his Soviet controllers was lost and Philby failed to attend meetings.

When the storms failed to return in 1899, it was generally thought that the dust had moved on and storms were a thing of the past.

When a young mechanic failed to repair the car in a way satisfactory to Stein, the garage owner shouted at the boy, " You are all a " génération perdue.

When PenPoint failed in the marketplace, SmartSketch was ported to Microsoft Windows and Mac OS.

When Mankind was given the prize of Eden, Absalom led his armies against Heaven and Hell in an attempt to steal it back.

When he was staying in Nicaea, his cousins, who had been living there, made an unsuccessful attempt to take his life.

When Kerbogha was defeated, Adhemar organized a council in an attempt to settle the leadership disputes, but he died on 1 August 1098, probably of typhus.

When AI researchers attempt to " scale up " their systems to handle more complicated, real world situations, the programs tend to become excessively brittle without commonsense knowledge or a rudimentary understanding of the situation: they fail as unexpected circumstances outside of its original problem context begin to appear.

When this was rebuffed he made an attempt to cross back to Italy to collect his missing troops but was turned back by a storm.

When an English soldier tries to rape Murron, Wallace fights off several soldiers and the two attempt to flee.

When Heracles had pulled Theseus first from his chair, some of his thigh stuck to it ( this explains the supposedly lean thighs of Athenians ), but the earth shook at the attempt to liberate Pirithous, whose desire to have the wife of a god for himself was so insulting he was doomed to stay behind.

When Gail refused to go along with the plan, Joe sailed away and in the attempt, drowned for real, leaving Gail to be charged with his murder.

" She summed up her driving work ethic, " I can say this: When I attempt anything, I have a passionate determination to overcome every obstacle … And I do my own work with a refusal to accept defeat that might almost be called painful.

When in an aggressive mode, a chimp will swagger bipedally, hunched over and arms waving, in an attempt to exaggerate its size.

* The preface of Concrete Mathematics includes the following anecdote: " When Knuth taught Concrete Mathematics at Stanford for the first time, he explained the somewhat strange title by saying that it was his attempt to teach a math course that was hard instead of soft.

When an attempt is made to modify ( update, insert into, or delete from ) a table, undesired side-effects may follow.

When elections are called, politicians and their supporters attempt to influence policy by competing directly for the votes of constituents in what are called campaigns.

When Plissken reluctantly agrees to attempt the rescue, Hauk has him injected with microscopic explosives that will rupture his carotid arteries in 24 hours.

When used in an attempt to be offensive, the word is still considered vulgar, but it remains a mild example of such an insult.

When unskilled fighters get embroiled in combat, a common reaction is to grab the opponent in an attempt to slow the situation down by holding them still, resulting in an unsystematic struggle that relies on brute force.

When Constantine converted to Christianity the majority of his subjects were still pagans and the Roman Imperial cult of the divinity of the emperor, expressed through the traditional burning of candles and the offering of incense to the emperor ’ s image, was tolerated for a period because it would have been politically dangerous to attempt to suppress it.

When Madison decided to run for election to the house instead, Henry gerrymandered Madison ’ s home district, filling it with anti-federalists in an attempt to prevent Madison's election.

When God has drawn a line of distinction, we should not attempt to cross that line.

" When the flags over the many peat-constructed towers were raised, farmers would go to others ' towers and attempt to " level them to the ground.

When the Justice Society's forced attempt to stop them by sending Hawkman and Captain Marvel against them met with failure and resulted in Superman and Batman briefly infiltrating the White House, Luthor, in an enraged and desperate gambit after Superman's rapid defeats of his plans, used a variant combination of the " super-steroid " Venom ( a chemical associated with the Batman villain Bane ), liquid synthetic Kryptonite, and an Apokoliptian battlesuit to fight Superman directly.

When slavery was abolished on 1 February 1835, an attempt was made to secure a cheap source of adaptable labour for intensive sugar plantations in Mauritius.

When he remarries, the young Culhwch rejects his stepmother's attempt to pair him with his new stepsister.

When he hastily returned home, the brief attempt at political liberalization in North Korea was ended.