But the mining communities they managed to devastate between them all remain devastated.
It was a bitter dispute that would last for a year, devastate dozens of communities, create civil war in Britain and throw thousands of destinies off course.
Will the university continue to invest in fossil fuel companies whose ongoing activities devastate communities such as those in the Niger delta and Alberta, Canada?
Mr Hagel's predecessor, Leon Panetta, said the sequester would "virtually devastate" national security.
At the time Fermi demonstrated the first controlled chain reaction, the uncontrolled ones that would devastate Hiroshima and Nagasaki were already being planned.
A reluctant American consumer would devastate the ad industry.
All a blogger really needs to devastate a company is a bit of information and plausibility, a complaint that catches the imagination and a knack for making others care about his gripe.Mike Kaltschnee's site, HackingNetflix.com, became a force to be reckoned with for Netflix, a video-rental outfit that delivers to people's homes.
Doctors and medical providers had resisted as well, saying government-run care forced them to work at uneconomic rates and would devastate the quality of care at top-end institutions for those who could afford it.
Salvoes of them might devastate Taiwan's military infrastructure so quickly that any war would be over before America could respond.Much has changed since 1995 and 1996, when China's weakness in the face of American power was put on stunning display.
Indiana is one of the worst offenders, spewing out 4% of America's carbon emissions in 2007 though it is home to only 2% of its population.The fear is that a cap-and-trade bill may expand a promising new sector but devastate a struggling, larger one.
Even for companies that are never charged, mere investigations or allegations can devastate sales.According to Gregory Gilligan, the American Chamber's chairman, "companies should not approach these things as a commercial issue".
