A polemic ( /pəˈlɛmɪk/) is a contentious argument that is intended to establish the truth of a specific belief and the falsity of the contrary belief. Polemics are mostly seen in arguments about very controversial topics.

The art or practice of such argmentation is called polemics.

A person who often writes polemics, or who speaks polemically, is a polemicist or a polemic. The word is derived from the Greek πολεμικός (polemikos), meaning "warlike, hostile", which comes from πόλεμος (polemos), "war".

Along with debate, polemics are one of the most common forms of arguing. Similar to debate, a polemic is confined to a definite controversial thesis. But unlike debate, which may seek a common ground between the two disputants, a polemic is intended only to establish the truth of a point of view while refuting the opposing point of view.

Polemics are usually addressed to important issues in religion, philosophy, politics, or science. Polemic journalism was common in continental Europe at a time when libel laws were not so stringent as they are now.

A Spanish American is a citizen or resident of the United States whose ancestors originate from the southwestern European nation of Spain. Spanish Americans are the earliest European American group, with a continuous presence since 1565.

In colonial times there were a number of Spanish populations in the present–day U.S. with governments answerable to Madrid. The first settlement was in St. Augustine, Florida, followed by others in New Mexico, California, Arizona, Texas, and Louisiana. In 1598, San Juan de los Caballeros was established, near present day Santa Fe, New Mexico, by Juan de Oñate and about 1,000 other Spaniards. After the establishment of the American colonies, an additional 250,000 immigrants arrived either directly from Spain, the Canary Islands or, after a relatively short sojourn, from present-day central Mexico. The Canary Islanders settled San Antonio de Bejar, San Antonio, Texas, in 1731.^{[citation needed]} Most of the Spanish settlers in present-day Texas, California, New Mexico, Colorado, and Arizona were of ethnically-mixed ancestry, or mestizo. Most self-identified Spanish-Americans in the Southwest differentiate themselves nominally from the population of Mexican-Americans who came after the Mexican Revolution.

Richard Todd OBE (11 June 1919 – 3 December 2009) was an Irish-born British stage and film actor and soldier.

Richard Todd was born as Richard Andrew Palethorpe-Todd in Dublin, Ireland. His father, Andrew William Palethorpe Todd, was an Irish physician and an international Irish rugby player who gained three caps for his country. Richard spent a few of his childhood years in India, where his father, a British officer, served as an army physician.

Later his family moved to West Devon and Todd attended Shrewsbury School. Upon leaving school, Todd trained for a potential military career at Sandhurst before inaugurating his acting training at the Italia Conti Academy.

This change in career led to estrangement from his mother. When he learned, aged 19, she had committed suicide, he admitted in later life that he had not grieved long for her.

He first appeared professionally as an actor at the Open Air Theatre, Regent's Park in 1936 in a production of Twelfth Night. He played in regional theatres and then co-founded the Dundee Repertory Theatre in 1939.

Alfred Willi Rudi Dutschke (March 7, 1940 – December 24, 1979) was the most prominent spokesperson of the German student movement of the 1960s. He advocated 'a long march through the institutions' of power to create radical change from within government and society by becoming an integral part of the machinery. This was an idea he took up from his interpretation of Antonio Gramsci and the Frankfurt school of cultural Marxism. In the 1970s he followed through on this idea by joining the nascent Green movement.

In 1968, he survived an assassination attempt committed by Josef Bachmann, living for another 12 years until related health problems caused his death. Radical students blamed an anti-student campaign in the papers of the Axel Springer publishing empire for the assassination attempt. This led to attempts to blockade the distribution of Springer newspapers all over Germany, which in turn led to major street battles in many German cities.

Dutschke was born in Schönefeld, (Dahme-Spreewald, Brandenburg), in the German Reich. He attended school in and graduated from the Gymnasium there, but because he refused to join the army of the German Democratic Republic (East Germany) and convinced many of his fellow students to refuse as well, he was prevented from attending university in the GDR. He fled to West Berlin in August 1961, just one day before the Berlin Wall was built. He studied sociology at the Free University of Berlin under Richard Löwenthal and Klaus Meschkat where he became acquainted with alternative views of Marxism.

Barbara Kruger (born January 26, 1945) is an American conceptual artist. Much of her work consists of black-and-white photographs overlaid with declarative captions—in white-on-red Futura Bold Oblique or Helvetica Ultra Condensed. The phrases in her works often include use of pronouns such as "you", "your", "I", "we", and "they". Kruger lives and works in New York and Los Angeles.

Kruger was born to a lower-middle-class family in Newark, New Jersey. Her father worked as a chemical technician, her mother as a legal secretary. She graduated from Weequahic High School. After attending Syracuse University and studying art and design with Diane Arbus and Marvin Israel at Parsons School of Design in New York, Kruger obtained a design job at Condé Nast Publications. She initially worked as a designer at Mademoiselle Magazine and later moved on to work part time as a picture editor at House and Garden, Aperture, and other publications. In her early years as a visual artist, Kruger crocheted, sewed and painted bright-hued and erotically suggestive objects, some of which were included by curator Marcia Tucker in the 1973 Whitney Biennial.