1.
Mission: Impossible
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Mission, Impossible is an American television series that was created and initially produced by Bruce Geller. It chronicles the missions of a team of government agents known as the Impossible Missions Force. In the first season, the team is led by Dan Briggs, played by Steven Hill, Jim Phelps, a hallmark of the series shows Briggs or Phelps receiving his instructions on a recording that then self-destructs, followed by the theme music composed by Lalo Schifrin. The series was filmed and financed by Desilu Productions, and aired on the CBS network from September 1966 to March 1973, the series was revived in 1988 for two seasons on ABC, retaining only Graves in the cast. It also inspired a series of motion pictures starring Tom Cruise. The series follows the exploits of the Impossible Missions Force, a team of secret agents used for covert missions against dictators, evil organizations. On occasion, the IMF also mounts unsanctioned, private missions on behalf of its members, the identities of the higher echelons of the organization that oversees the IMF are never revealed. In the 1980s revival, it is suggested the IMF is an independent agency of the United States government, the leader of the IMF is initially Dan Briggs, played by Steven Hill. As an Orthodox Jew, Hill had to leave on Fridays at 4 p. m. to be home before sundown and was not available until after dark the next day, Hill had other problems as well. Unable to come to terms with Hill, the producers re-shot the episode without him, as far as Hills religious requirements were concerned, line producer Joseph Gantman simply had not understood what had been agreed to. He told author Patrick J. White, If someone understands your problems and says he understands them, but if he doesnt care about your problems, then you begin to really resent him. Steven Hill may have exactly the same way. In theory, Briggs and Phelps are the only members of the IMF. Still, many also feature guest stars playing one-time additional agents who have special skills. His contract gave producers an option to have him render services for additional episodes, to fill the void left by Hills Sabbath absences, producers wound up using Landau for more episodes, always as a guest star. He eventually struck a deal to appear in all the first seasons remaining episodes, Landau contractually became a series regular in season two. As actors left the series time, others became regulars. Replacements often possessed the skills as their predecessors
2.
Yangon
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Yangon is a former capital of Myanmar and the capital of Yangon Region. Although Yangons infrastructure is undeveloped compared to that of major cities in southeast Asia. Yangon is a combination of the two words yan and koun, which enemies and run out of, respectively. It is also translated as End of Strife, Rangoon most likely comes from the British imitation of the pronunciation of Yangon in the Arakanese language, which is. Yangon was founded as Dagon in the early 11th century by the Mon, Dagon was a small fishing village centred about the Shwedagon Pagoda. In 1755, King Alaungpaya conquered Dagon, renamed it Yangon, the British captured Yangon during the First Anglo-Burmese War, but returned it to Burmese administration after the war. The city was destroyed by a fire in 1841, the British seized Yangon and all of Lower Burma in the Second Anglo-Burmese War of 1852, and subsequently transformed Yangon into the commercial and political hub of British Burma. Yangon is also the place where the British sent Bahadur Shah II, Yangon became the capital of all British Burma after the British had captured Upper Burma in the Third Anglo-Burmese War of 1885. By the 1890s Yangons increasing population and commerce gave birth to prosperous residential suburbs to the north of Royal Lake, the British also established hospitals including Rangoon General Hospital and colleges including Rangoon University. Colonial Yangon, with its spacious parks and lakes and mix of modern buildings, by the early 20th century, Yangon had public services and infrastructure on par with London. Before World War II, about 55% of Yangons population of 500,000 was Indian or South Asian, karens, the Chinese, the Anglo-Burmese and others made up the rest. After World War I, Yangon became the epicentre of Burmese independence movement, three nationwide strikes against the British Empire in 1920,1936 and 1938 all began in Yangon. Yangon was under Japanese occupation, and incurred heavy damage during World War II, the city was retaken by the Allies in May 1945. Yangon became the capital of Union of Burma on 4 January 1948 when the country regained independence from the British Empire, soon after Burmas independence in 1948, many colonial names of streets and parks were changed to more nationalistic Burmese names. In 1989, the current military junta changed the citys English name to Yangon, since independence, Yangon has expanded outwards. Successive governments have built satellite towns such as Thaketa, North Okkalapa and South Okkalapa in the 1950s to Hlaingthaya, Shwepyitha, today, Greater Yangon encompasses an area covering nearly 600 square kilometres. During Ne Wins isolationist rule, Yangons infrastructure deteriorated through poor maintenance, in the 1990s, the current military governments more open market policies attracted domestic and foreign investment, bringing a modicum of modernity to the citys infrastructure. Some inner city residents were relocated to new satellite towns
3.
Myanmar
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Myanmar, officially the Republic of the Union of Myanmar and also known as Burma, is a sovereign state in South East Asia bordered by Bangladesh, India, China, Laos and Thailand. About one third of Myanmars total perimeter of 5,876 km, forms an uninterrupted coastline of 1,930 km along the Bay of Bengal, the countrys 2014 census revealed a much lower population than expected, with 51 million people recorded. Myanmar is 676,578 square kilometres in size and its capital city is Naypyidaw and its largest city and former capital city is Yangon. Early civilizations in Myanmar included the Tibeto-Burman-speaking Pyu city-states in Upper Burma, the Pagan Kingdom fell due to the Mongol invasions and several warring states emerged. In the 16th century, reunified by the Taungoo Dynasty, the country was for a period the largest empire in the history of Mainland Southeast Asia. The early 19th century Konbaung Dynasty ruled over an area included modern Myanmar and briefly controlled Manipur. The British invaded Myanmar after three Anglo-Burmese Wars in the 19th century and the became a British colony. Myanmar became an independent nation in 1948, initially as a nation and then, following a coup détat in 1962. For most of its independent years, the country has been engrossed in rampant ethnic strife, during this time, the United Nations and several other organisations have reported consistent and systematic human rights violations in the country. In 2011, the junta was officially dissolved following a 2010 general election. While former military leaders still wield enormous power in the country, there is, however, continuing criticism of the governments treatment of the Muslim Rohingya minority and its poor response to the religious clashes. In the landmark 2015 election, Aung San Suu Kyis party won a majority in both houses, Myanmar is a country rich in jade and gems, oil, natural gas and other mineral resources. In 2013, its GDP stood at US$56.7 billion, the income gap in Myanmar is among the widest in the world, as a large proportion of the economy is controlled by supporters of the former military government. As of 2016, according to the Human Development Index, Myanmar had a level of human development. The renaming remains a contested issue, many political and ethnic opposition groups and countries continue to use Burma because they do not recognise the legitimacy of the ruling military government or its authority to rename the country. The countrys official name is the Republic of the Union of Myanmar. Countries that do not officially recognise that name use the long form Union of Burma instead, in English, the country is popularly known as either Burma or Myanmar /ˈmjɑːnˌmɑːr/. Both these names are derived from the name of the majority Burmese Bamar ethnic group, Myanmar is considered to be the literary form of the name of the group, while Burma is derived from Bamar, the colloquial form of the groups name
4.
Woodland Hills, Los Angeles
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Woodland Hills is a neighborhood bordering the Santa Monica Mountains in the San Fernando Valley region of the city of Los Angeles, California. Woodland Hills is an affluent neighborhood in the region of the San Fernando Valley which is located east of Calabasas. On the north it is bordered by West Hills, Canoga Park, and Winnetka, some neighborhoods are in the foothills of the Santa Monica Mountains. Running east–west through the community are U. S. Route 101 and Ventura Boulevard, the first Europeans to enter the San Fernando Valley were the Portola Expedition in 1769, exploring Alta California for Spanish missions and settlements locations. Seeing it from present-day Sepulveda Pass, the oak savanna inspired them to call the area El Valle de Santa Catalina de Bononia de Los Encinos, the Mission San Fernando Rey de España was established in 1797 and controlled the Valleys land, including future Woodland Hills. Ownership of the half of the valley, south of present-day Roscoe Boulevard from Toluca Lake to Woodland Hills. Moses Sherman and others in 1910, victor Girard Kleinberger bought 2,886 acres in the area from Chandlers group and founded the town of Girard in 1922. He sought to attract residents and businesses by developing an infrastructure, advertising in newspapers and his 300 pepper trees formed a canopy over Canoga Ave. between Ventura Boulevard and Saltillo St. became Los Angeles Historic-Cultural Monument #93 in 1972. The community of Girard was eventually incorporated into Los Angeles, Woodland Hills has a firmly subtropical mediterranean climate. Within the San Fernando Valley, Woodland Hills generally experiences some of the extreme temperature changes season to season than other regions. During the summer, temperatures are very hot, while during the winter. On July 22,2006, Woodland Hills recorded the highest temperature ever in Los Angeles County, the climate is classified as a Csa in the Köppen climate classification, which is characterized by mild, rainy winters and hot, dry summers. This climate is referred to as mediterranean. Precipitation in Woodland Hills averages much the same as most other regions of the west San Fernando Valley, in 2008 the population of Woodland Hills was approximately 63,000. The median age in 2000 was 40, considered old when compared to city and county jurisdictions. As of the 2000 census, and according to the Los Angeles Almanac, there were 67,006 people and 29,119 households residing in Woodland Hills. The racial makeup of the neighborhood was 79. 90% White,6. 97% Asian,0. 13% Pacific Islander,3. 34% African American,0. 33% Native American,4. 80% from other races, and 4. 52% from two or more races. 11. 94% of the population were Hispanic of any race, in population, it is one of the least dense neighborhoods in Los Angeles, and the percentage of white people is high for the county
5.
Broadway theatre
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Along with Londons West End theatres, Broadway theatres are widely considered to represent the highest level of commercial theatre in the English-speaking world. The Theater District is a popular tourist attraction in New York City, the great majority of Broadway shows are musicals. They presented Shakespeare plays and ballad operas such as The Beggars Opera, in 1752, William Hallam sent a company of twelve actors from Britain to the colonies with his brother Lewis as their manager. They established a theatre in Williamsburg, Virginia and opened with The Merchant of Venice, the company moved to New York in the summer of 1753, performing ballad operas and ballad-farces like Damon and Phillida. The Revolutionary War suspended theatre in New York, but thereafter theatre resumed in 1798, the Bowery Theatre opened in 1826, followed by others. Blackface minstrel shows, a distinctly American form of entertainment, became popular in the 1830s, by the 1840s, P. T. Barnum was operating an entertainment complex in lower Manhattan. In 1829, at Broadway and Prince Street, Niblos Garden opened, the 3, 000-seat theatre presented all sorts of musical and non-musical entertainments. In 1844, Palmos Opera House opened and presented opera for four seasons before bankruptcy led to its rebranding as a venue for plays under the name Burtons Theatre. The Astor Opera House opened in 1847, booth played the role for a famous 100 consecutive performances at the Winter Garden Theatre in 1865, and would later revive the role at his own Booths Theatre. Other renowned Shakespeareans who appeared in New York in this era were Henry Irving, Tommaso Salvini, Fanny Davenport, lydia Thompson came to America in 1868 heading a small theatrical troupe, adapting popular English burlesques for middle-class New York audiences. Thompsons troupe called the British Blondes, was the most popular entertainment in New York during the 1868–1869 theatrical season, the six-month tour ran for almost six extremely profitable years. Theatre in New York moved from downtown gradually to midtown beginning around 1850, in 1870, the heart of Broadway was in Union Square, and by the end of the century, many theatres were near Madison Square. Broadways first long-run musical was a 50-performance hit called The Elves in 1857, New York runs continued to lag far behind those in London, but Laura Keenes musical burletta The Seven Sisters shattered previous New York records with a run of 253 performances. It was at a performance by Keenes troupe of Our American Cousin in Washington, the production was a staggering five-and-a-half hours long, but despite its length, it ran for a record-breaking 474 performances. The same year, The Black Domino/Between You, Me and the Post was the first show to call itself a musical comedy, Tony Pastor opened the first vaudeville theatre one block east of Union Square in 1881, where Lillian Russell performed. Comedians Edward Harrigan and Tony Hart produced and starred in musicals on Broadway between 1878 and 1890, with book and lyrics by Harrigan and music by his father-in-law David Braham. They starred high quality singers, instead of the women of repute who had starred in earlier musical forms. Plays could run longer and still draw in the audiences, leading to better profits, as in England, during the latter half of the century, the theatre began to be cleaned up, with less prostitution hindering the attendance of the theatre by women
6.
Benjamin Disraeli
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Benjamin Disraeli, 1st Earl of Beaconsfield, KG, PC, FRS was a British politician and writer who twice served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom. He played a role in the creation of the modern Conservative Party, defining its policies. Disraeli is remembered for his voice in world affairs, his political battles with the Liberal Party leader William Ewart Gladstone. He made the Conservatives the party most identified with the glory and he is the only British Prime Minister of Jewish birth. Disraeli was born in Bloomsbury, then part of Middlesex and his father left Judaism after a dispute at his synagogue, young Benjamin became an Anglican at the age of 12. After several unsuccessful attempts, Disraeli entered the House of Commons in 1837, in 1846 the Prime Minister, Sir Robert Peel split the party over his proposal to repeal the Corn Laws, which involved ending the tariff on imported grain. Disraeli clashed with Peel in the Commons, Disraeli became a major figure in the party. When Lord Derby, the party leader, thrice formed governments in the 1850s and 1860s and he also forged a bitter rivalry with Gladstone of the Liberal Party. Upon Derbys retirement in 1868, Disraeli became Prime Minister briefly before losing that years election and he returned to opposition, before leading the party to a majority in the 1874 election. He maintained a friendship with Queen Victoria, who in 1876 created him Earl of Beaconsfield. Disraelis second term was dominated by the Eastern Question—the slow decay of the Ottoman Empire, Disraeli arranged for the British to purchase a major interest in the Suez Canal Company. This diplomatic victory over Russia established Disraeli as one of Europes leading statesmen, World events thereafter moved against the Conservatives. Controversial wars in Afghanistan and South Africa undermined his public support and he angered British farmers by refusing to reinstitute the Corn Laws in response to poor harvests and cheap imported grain. With Gladstone conducting a speaking campaign, his Liberals bested Disraelis Conservatives in the 1880 election. In his final months, Disraeli led the Conservatives in opposition and he had throughout his career written novels, beginning in 1826, and he published his last completed novel, Endymion, shortly before he died at the age of 76. Disraeli was born on 21 December 1804 at 6 Kings Road, Bedford Row, Bloomsbury, London, the child and eldest son of Isaac DIsraeli, a literary critic and historian. The family was of Sephardic Jewish Italian mercantile background, All Disraelis grandparents and great grandparents were born in Italy, Isaacs father, Benjamin, moved to England from Venice in 1748. Disraelis siblings were Sarah, Naphtali, Ralph, and James and he was close to his sister, and on affectionate but more distant terms with his surviving brothers
7.
Powell and Pressburger
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Their collaborations—24 films between 1939 and 1972—were mainly derived from original stories by Pressburger with the script written by both Pressburger & Powell. Powell did most of the directing while Pressburger did most of the work of the producer and also assisted with the editing, unusually, the pair shared a writer-director-producer credit for most of their films. The best known of these are The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp, A Canterbury Tale, A Matter of Life and Death, Black Narcissus and The Red Shoes. Emeric Pressburger, who had come from Hungary in 1935, already worked for Korda and this collaboration would be the first of nineteen, most over the next 18 years. After Powell had made two films for Korda, he was reunited with Pressburger in 1940 for Contraband, the first in a run of Powell. The second was 49th Parallel, which won Pressburger an Academy Award for Best Story, both are Hitchcock-like thrillers made as anti-Nazi propaganda. The pair adopted a joint writer-producer-director credit for their film, One of Our Aircraft Is Missing. In 1943 they incorporated their own company, Archers Film Productions. In a letter to Wendy Hiller in 1942, asking her to appear in Colonel Blimp, every single foot in our films is our own responsibility and nobody elses. We refuse to be guided or coerced by any influence but our own judgement, when we start work on a new idea we must be a year ahead, not only of our competitors, but also of the times. A real film, from idea to release, takes a year. And we secretly believe that no audience does and we have proved, at any rate, that they will pay to see the truth, for other reasons than her nakedness. At any time, and particularly at the present, the self-respect of all collaborators, from star to prop-man, is sustained, or diminished, by the theme and purpose of the film they are working on. They began to form a group of regular cast and crew members who were to work with them on many films over the twelve years. Hardly any of these people were ever under contract to The Archers and they were hired film by film. But Powell and Pressburger soon learnt who they could work well with, when Raymond Massey was offered the part of the Prosecuting Attorney in A Matter of Life and Death his cabled reply was For The Archers anytime, this world or the next. Twist to which both Powell and Pressburger contributed un-credited writing, both Sewell and Twist had worked with Powell & Pressburger previously on other films and were being given their first chance as directors. The remainder of the war saw them release a series of acclaimed films, The Life, a Matter of Life and Death Generally, Pressburger would create the original story and write the first draft of the script
8.
A Matter of Life and Death (film)
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A Matter of Life and Death is a 1946 British fantasy-romance film written, produced and directed by Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger, and set in England during the Second World War. The film stars David Niven, Roger Livesey, Raymond Massey, Kim Hunter, the film was originally released in the United States under the title Stairway to Heaven, which derived from the films most prominent special effect, a broad escalator linking Earth to the afterlife. The decision to film the scenes of the Other World in black and this reversed the effect in The Wizard of Oz. Photographic dissolves between Technicolor Dye-Monochrome and Three-Strip Technicolor are used several times during the film, in 1999, A Matter of Life and Death placed 20th on the British Film Institutes list of Best 100 British films. In 2004, a poll by the magazine Total Film of 25 film critics named A Matter of Life and Death the second greatest British film ever made, behind Get Carter. On 2 May 1945, Squadron leader Peter Carter is a Royal Air Force pilot trying to fly a badly damaged and he has ordered his crew to bail out, without revealing that his own parachute has been shot up. He manages to contact June, an American radio operator based in England, Peter should have died at that point, but Conductor 71, the guide sent to escort him to the Other World, misses him in the thick fog over the English Channel. The airman wakes up on a beach near Junes base, at first, he assumes he is in the afterlife but, when a de Havilland Mosquito flies low overhead, discovers, to his bewilderment, that he is still alive. Peter meets June cycling back to her quarters after her night shift, Conductor 71 stops time to explain the situation, urging Peter to accept his death and accompany him to the Other World, but Peter demands an appeal. While Conductor 71 consults his superiors, Peter continues to live his life, Conductor 71 returns and informs him that he has been granted his appeal and has three days to prepare his case. He can choose a defence counsel from among all the people who have ever died, Reeves is killed in a motorcycle accident while trying to find the ambulance that is to take Peter to the hospital, which allows him to act as Peters counsel. The matter comes to a parallel with Peters brain surgery—before a celestial court. The prosecutor is American Abraham Farlan, who hates the British for making him the first casualty of the American Revolutionary War, Reeves challenges the composition of the jury, which is made up of representatives who are prejudiced against the British. In fairness, the jury is replaced by a mixture of modern Americans whose origins are as varied as those they replace. Reeves and Farlan both cite examples from British and world history to support their positions, in the end, Reeves has June take the stand and proves that she genuinely loves Peter by telling her that the only way to save his life is to take his place. She steps onto the stairway to the Other World without hesitation and is carried away, then the stairway comes to an abrupt halt and June rushes back to Peters open arms. Nothing is stronger than the law in the universe, but on Earth, the jury rules in Peters favour. The Judge shows Reeves and Farlan the new lifespan granted to the defendant, Reeves calls it very generous, the two then engage in supportive banter with one another, and against the stern Chief Recorder, who protests against the breach of law
