Step Up (film)
Step Up is a 2006 American romantic dance film directed by Anne Fletcher starring Channing Tatum and Jenna Dewan. Set in Baltimore, the film follows the tale of the disadvantaged Tyler Gage and the privileged modern dancer Nora Clark, who find themselves paired up in a showcase that determines both of their futures. Realizing that they only have one chance, they work together, it is the first film in the Step Up series, which includes a television series. Brothers Mac and Skinny Carter and their best friend Tyler Gage attend a party where they have a fight with their nemesis, PJ. Following the party, the trio break into the Maryland School of Arts and trash the school's theatre, damaging many of the props; when a security guard appears, Tyler helps the two escape, accepting full blame for the vandalism himself. He is sentenced to 200 hours of community service, to be served at the school. While working, he peers in on a dance class and meets Nora Clark, a student preparing for her "senior showcase", an audition performance which could determine whether or not she is offered a job by any one of the professional dance companies who are attending the performance.
When Mac and Skinny pay Tyler a visit on the school's lot, Nora watches curiously from a window as Tyler dances with his friends, mockingly incorporating a mashup of break-dance and the ballet moves he has observed. When Nora's dance partner, sprains an ankle, Nora finds herself unexpectedly without a partner for her routine. Auditioning some sophomore students to replace him, she decides. Tyler offers to help. However, after Tyler demonstrates that he can handle the routine, Nora reconsiders and convinces Director Gordon to allow Tyler to rehearse with her. During their initial practice session, Tyler is antagonistic towards Nora as well as her boyfriend, both of whom respond with haughty attitudes; as they continue to rehearse and Nora grow closer, each teaching the other about their respective styles of dance. Tyler befriends a musician at the school named Miles Darby, who has a crush on Nora's friend, Lucy Avila. Nora's bond with Tyler grows, one day she takes him to a special spot on the waterfront near a company for which her late father used to work, revealing that this is where she first envisioned her routine.
She confesses to Tyler. Tyler becomes inspired to help her dream come true and begins recruiting younger dancers from the school to perform in her number. Brett signs a recording deal with a company, but in doing so, betrays his friend, Miles, to get the opportunity. Disgusted by his betrayal, Nora breaks up with Brett. Meanwhile, Tyler continues to attempt a balance between his new goals, his new friends, nurturing a troubled relationship with his old ones. Tyler asks Director Gordon if she will let him attend the school, she advises that he must prove to her that he deserves a chance. Upon hearing this from Tyler, Nora suggests that the showcase could be used as his entrance audition. After dancing together at a club where Miles and Lucy perform and Nora move forward with a romantic relationship. Rehearsals continue as normal, until Andrew returns healed from his injury. Tyler feels that he is no longer needed in the routine, angrily accuses Nora of treating him the same way that Brett treated Miles.
He leaves the group and returns to his initial community service at the school. However, in the course of the training Nora has been incorporating many of Tyler's suggestions for the routine, as a result now finds that the new choreography is now much too difficult for the original partner to perform. During one of their practice sessions, Andrew falls over and, realizing he can not cope with the dance, resigns himself from the routine, Nora is, once again, left without a partner. Crushed, she considers abandoning her dance career and going to college after all, but Nora receives an emotional confession and strong encouragement from her mother, who once opposed her future in dance. Nora transforms the choreography into a solo piece. During a party night at Omar's house, Skinny comes by despite being told to stay at home, but ends up getting kicked out by Mac and Tyler because they promised Mac's mother he'd stay home. Frustrated, Skinny sulkily walks back home in a huff, but spots PJ arriving at a store with his friend.
Skinny steals PJ's unattended car and rebelliously drives back to Omar's place wanting to hang out with the girls. Mac and Tyler try to get Skinny to abandon the car when PJ and his friends arrive and fatally shoot Skinny. After the funeral, both Mac and Tyler realize that they need to make better decisions in their lives. Tyler surprises Nora by showing up, last minute, at the evening of the showcase, he tries to persuade Nora to let him perform with her, to forgive him for his behavior. She declines, but changes her mind as Tyler wishes her good luck and walks away; when the curtain opens, Tyler and the ensemble of students perform their original choreography against Miles' latest musical score. After the performance, Director Gordon is beaming and the crowd is blown away. Backstage, a proud Director Gordon introduce Nora to a fellow director from a professional dance company, hoping to sign Nora. Meanwhile, Mac congratulates Tyler for his best performance. Therefore, Director Gordon introduces Tyler as a "transfer".
Nora embraces Tyler. She repeats her advice to him from their first rehearsal together that he'll need to get some tights, the two share a kiss, hoping to dance together again more. Actors Channing Tatum and Jenna Dewan met while filming Step Up
Eminem
Marshall Bruce Mathers III, known professionally as Eminem, is an American rapper, record producer, record executive, film producer, actor. He is cited as one of the greatest and most influential artists of all time in hip hop, with Rolling Stone placing him in its list of the 100 Greatest Artists of All Time and labeling him the "King of Hip Hop". After his debut album Infinite and the extended play Slim Shady EP, Eminem signed with Dr. Dre's Aftermath Entertainment and subsequently achieved mainstream popularity in 1999 with The Slim Shady LP, which earned him his first Grammy Award for Best Rap Album, his next two releases, 2000's The Marshall Mathers LP and 2002's The Eminem Show, were worldwide successes, with each being certified diamond in U. S. sales and both winning Best Rap Album Grammy Awards—making Eminem the first artist to win the award for three consecutive LPs. They were followed by Encore in another critical and commercial success. Eminem went on hiatus after touring in 2005 due to a prescription drug addiction.
He released Relapse in 2009 and Recovery in 2010. Both won Grammy Awards and Recovery was the best-selling album of 2010 worldwide, the second time he had the international best-selling album of the year. Eminem's eighth album, 2013's The Marshall Mathers LP 2, won two Grammy Awards, including Best Rap Album; these were followed by 2017's Revival and 2018's Kamikaze, the latter being the best-selling hip hop album of 2018. In addition to his solo career, Eminem is an original member of the Midwest hip hop groups Soul Intent and D12, he is known for his collaborations with fellow Detroit-based rapper Royce da 5'9". Eminem has developed other ventures, including Shady Records, with manager Paul Rosenberg, which helped launch the careers of artists such as 50 Cent. Eminem has established his own channel, Shade 45, on Sirius XM Radio. In November 2002, he starred in the hip hop film 8 Mile playing himself, which won the Academy Award for Best Original Song for "Lose Yourself", becoming the first rap artist to win the award.
Eminem has made cameo appearances in the films The Wash, Funny People, The Interview, the television series Entourage. Eminem is the best-selling artist of the 2000s in the United States. Throughout his career, he has had 9 number-one albums on the Billboard 200 and five number-one singles on the Billboard Hot 100, he is the only artist to have nine albums consecutively debut at number one on the Billboard 200. With over 220 million records sold globally, Eminem is among the world's best-selling artists of all time. Marshall Bruce Mathers III was born on October 17, 1972, in St. Joseph, the only child of Marshall Bruce Mathers Jr. and Deborah Rae "Debbie". He is of English, German, Swiss and Luxembourgian ancestry, his mother nearly died during her 73-hour labor with him. Eminem's parents were in a band called Daddy Warbucks, playing in Ramada Inns along the Dakotas–Montana border before their separation. Eminem's father, referred to by his middle name Bruce, left the family, moving to California and having two other children: Michael and Sarah.
Debbie had son Nathan "Nate" Kane Samara. During his childhood and Debbie shuttled between Michigan and Missouri staying in one house for more than a year or two and living with family members. In Missouri, they lived in several places, including St. Joseph and Kansas City; as a teenager, Eminem wrote letters to his father, which Debbie stated all came back marked "return to sender". Friends and family remember Eminem as a happy child, but "a bit of a loner", bullied. One bully, D'Angelo Bailey injured Eminem's head in an assault. Eminem spent much of his youth in a working-class black, Detroit neighborhood, he and Debbie were one of three white households on their block, Eminem was beaten by black youths several times. As a child he was interested in storytelling, aspiring to be a comic-book artist before discovering hip hop. Eminem heard his first rap song on the Breakin' soundtrack, a gift from Debbie's half-brother Ronnie Polkinghorn, close to him and became a musical mentor to him; when Polkinghorn committed suicide in 1991, Eminem stopped speaking for days and did not attend his funeral.
Eminem's home life was stable. When her son became famous, Debbie was unimpressed by suggestions that she was a less-than-ideal mother, contending that she sheltered him and was responsible for his success. In 1987, Debbie allowed runaway Kimberly Ann "Kim" Scott to stay at their home. After spending three years in ninth grade due to truancy and poor grades, he dropped out of Lincoln High School at age 17. Although he was interested in English, he never explored literature and disliked math and social studies. Eminem worked at several jobs to help his mother pay the bills maintaining that she threw him out of the house anyway; when she left to play bingo, he would write songs. At age 14, Eminem began rapping with high-school friend Mike Ruby.
Album
An album is a collection of audio recordings issued as a collection on compact disc, audio tape, or another medium. Albums of recorded music were developed in the early 20th century as individual 78-rpm records collected in a bound book resembling a photograph album. Vinyl LPs are still issued, though album sales in the 21st-century have focused on CD and MP3 formats; the audio cassette was a format used alongside vinyl from the 1970s into the first decade of the 2000s. An album may be recorded in a recording studio, in a concert venue, at home, in the field, or a mix of places; the time frame for recording an album varies between a few hours to several years. This process requires several takes with different parts recorded separately, brought or "mixed" together. Recordings that are done in one take without overdubbing are termed "live" when done in a studio. Studios are built to absorb sound, eliminating reverberation, so as to assist in mixing different takes. Recordings, including live, may contain sound effects, voice adjustments, etc..
With modern recording technology, musicians can be recorded in separate rooms or at separate times while listening to the other parts using headphones. Album covers and liner notes are used, sometimes additional information is provided, such as analysis of the recording, lyrics or librettos; the term "album" was applied to a collection of various items housed in a book format. In musical usage the word was used for collections of short pieces of printed music from the early nineteenth century. Collections of related 78rpm records were bundled in book-like albums; when long-playing records were introduced, a collection of pieces on a single record was called an album. An album, in ancient Rome, was a board chalked or painted white, on which decrees and other public notices were inscribed in black, it was from this that in medieval and modern times album came to denote a book of blank pages in which verses, sketches and the like are collected. Which in turn led to the modern meaning of an album as a collection of audio recordings issued as a single item.
In the early nineteenth century "album" was used in the titles of some classical music sets, such as Schumann's Album for the Young Opus 68, a set of 43 short pieces. When 78rpm records came out, the popular 10-inch disc could only hold about three minutes of sound per side, so all popular recordings were limited to around three minutes in length. Classical-music and spoken-word items were released on the longer 12-inch 78s, about 4–5 minutes per side. For example, in 1924, George Gershwin recorded a drastically shortened version of the seventeen-minute Rhapsody in Blue with Paul Whiteman and His Orchestra, it ran for 8m 59s. Deutsche Grammophon had produced an album for its complete recording of the opera Carmen in 1908. German record company Odeon released the Nutcracker Suite by Tchaikovsky in 1909 on 4 double-sided discs in a specially designed package; this practice of issuing albums does not seem to have been taken up by other record companies for many years. By about 1910, bound collections of empty sleeves with a paperboard or leather cover, similar to a photograph album, were sold as record albums that customers could use to store their records.
These albums came in both 12-inch sizes. The covers of these bound books were wider and taller than the records inside, allowing the record album to be placed on a shelf upright, like a book, suspending the fragile records above the shelf and protecting them. In the 1930s, record companies began issuing collections of 78 rpm records by one performer or of one type of music in specially assembled albums with artwork on the front cover and liner notes on the back or inside cover. Most albums included three or four records, with two sides each, making six or eight compositions per album; the 12-inch LP record, or 33 1⁄3 rpm microgroove vinyl record, is a gramophone record format introduced by Columbia Records in 1948. A single LP record had the same or similar number of tunes as a typical album of 78s, it was adopted by the record industry as a standard format for the "album". Apart from minor refinements and the important addition of stereophonic sound capability, it has remained the standard format for vinyl albums.
The term "album" was extended to other recording media such as Compact audio cassette, compact disc, MiniDisc, digital albums, as they were introduced. As part of a trend of shifting sales in the music industry, some observers feel that the early 21st century experienced the death of the album. While an album may contain as many or as few tracks as required, in the United States, The Recording Academy's rules for Grammy Awards state that an album must comprise a minimum total playing time of 15 minutes with at least five distinct tracks or a minimum total playing time of 30 minutes with no minimum track requirement. In the United Kingdom, the criteria for the UK Albums Chart is that a recording counts as an "album" i
Kingdom Hearts (video game)
Kingdom Hearts is a 2002 action role-playing video game developed and published by Square for the PlayStation 2 video game console. It is the first game in the Kingdom Hearts series, is the result of a collaboration between Square and The Walt Disney Company; the game combines characters and settings from Disney animated features with those from Square's Final Fantasy series. It follows the adventures of Sora, a cheerful teenager who fights against the forces of darkness alongside Donald Duck and other Disney characters; the game was a departure from Square's standard role-playing games, introducing a substantial action and hack and slash element to the gameplay. Kingdom Hearts has an all-star voice cast and includes many of the Disney characters' official voice actors, it was longtime Square character designer Tetsuya Nomura's first time in a directorial position. Kingdom Hearts was praised for its unusual combination of action and role-playing, as well as its unexpectedly harmonious mix of Square and Disney elements.
It was a large presence in the 2002 holiday season, receiving numerous year-end game awards, went on to achieve Sony "Greatest Hits" status. The game prompted numerous sequels, the Kingdom Hearts series has gone on to ship over 30 million copies worldwide. Kingdom Hearts is the tenth best-selling PlayStation 2 game of all time, is considered by some gaming publications to be one of the greatest video games of all time; the game's success resulted in a Japan-exclusive re-release of the game featuring extra content, Kingdom Hearts Final Mix, released in December 2002. The Final Mix version of the game was re-mastered in high definition and released globally in 2013 as a part of the Kingdom Hearts HD 1.5 Remix collection for the PlayStation 3 and PlayStation 4. Kingdom Hearts is influenced by its parent franchise, Final Fantasy, carries gameplay elements over into its own action-based and slash system; the main battle party consists of three characters: Sora, Donald Duck, Goofy. Sora is directly controlled by the player from a third person camera angle.
All other party members are computer-controlled, though the player can customize their behavior to an extent through the pause menu. Donald and Goofy comprise the party in most areas, but nearly every level features a character who may replace them. For instance, Jack Skellington can join Sora's party in Halloween Town, but cannot accompany the player elsewhere. In some worlds, the party has abilities unique to that world or both. Like traditional role-playing games, Kingdom Hearts features an experience point system that determines character development; as enemies are defeated, the player characters gain experience and grow stronger, gaining access to new abilities. Unlike other games of its type, Kingdom Hearts allows a degree of character development customization through a short tutorial found at the beginning of the game; the tutorial allows the player to select from one of three main attributes―strength, defense, or magic―for Sora to excel in and one to lack in. By choosing certain options, the player may manipulate how Sora learns abilities, grows statistically, gains levels.
Donald and any other additional party members are assigned specific areas of strength from the outset. Donald excels in magic; the game progresses linearly from one story event to the next presented as a cutscene, though there are numerous side quests available that provide benefits to the characters. Players may choose the order in which they tackle some areas. Most of the gameplay occurs on interconnected field maps. Combat in Kingdom Hearts occurs in real time and involves pressing buttons to initiate attacks by the on-screen character. An action menu, similar to those found in Final Fantasy games, found at the bottom left of the screen provides other combat options such as using magic and items, although players can assign selected magic spells that can be used whilst holding the shoulder button; as players progress through the game, they can receive certain Disney characters as summons, such as Dumbo and Tinker Bell, each with their own unique abilities. There is a context-sensitive option at the bottom of the menu used for interacting with the environment or performing special attacks.
This menu is manipulated by using the right analog stick or digital pad, while movement is controlled by the left analog stick, allowing the player to navigate the menu while avoiding or approaching enemies. Sora, along with his allies, both possess a Hit Point meter and a Magic Point meter, which increase as they gain experience and level up; the MP meter is divided into various sections that are used up whenever that character performs magic, with more powerful magic using more MP. MP can be replenished by using items; the HP meter determines the character's health, reducing whenever a character takes damage, although it can be replenished by using healing items or spells. If one of Sora's allies runs out of health, they will be knocked out temporarily until someone heals them. However, if Sora loses all of his health, the game ends and the player must resume play from the beginning of an area or boss. Defeating enemies causes various orbs to fall; the Gummi Ship is the mode of travel between the various worlds in the game.
The gameplay for pi
Pop music
Pop music is a genre of popular music that originated in its modern form in the United States and United Kingdom during the mid-1950s. The terms "popular music" and "pop music" are used interchangeably, although the former describes all music, popular and includes many diverse styles. "Pop" and "rock" were synonymous terms until the late 1960s, when they became differentiated from each other. Although much of the music that appears on record charts is seen as pop music, the genre is distinguished from chart music. Pop music is eclectic, borrows elements from other styles such as urban, rock and country. Identifying factors include short to medium-length songs written in a basic format, as well as common use of repeated choruses, melodic tunes, hooks. David Hatch and Stephen Millward define pop music as "a body of music, distinguishable from popular and folk musics". According to Pete Seeger, pop music is "professional music which draws upon both folk music and fine arts music". Although pop music is seen as just the singles charts, it is not the sum of all chart music.
The music charts contain songs from a variety of sources, including classical, jazz and novelty songs. As a genre, pop music is seen to develop separately. Therefore, the term "pop music" may be used to describe a distinct genre, designed to appeal to all characterized as "instant singles-based music aimed at teenagers" in contrast to rock music as "album-based music for adults". Pop music continuously evolves along with the term's definition. According to music writer Bill Lamb, popular music is defined as "the music since industrialization in the 1800s, most in line with the tastes and interests of the urban middle class." The term "pop song" was first used in 1926, in the sense of a piece of music "having popular appeal". Hatch and Millward indicate that many events in the history of recording in the 1920s can be seen as the birth of the modern pop music industry, including in country and hillbilly music. According to the website of The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, the term "pop music" "originated in Britain in the mid-1950s as a description for rock and roll and the new youth music styles that it influenced".
The Oxford Dictionary of Music states that while pop's "earlier meaning meant concerts appealing to a wide audience since the late 1950s, pop has had the special meaning of non-classical mus in the form of songs, performed by such artists as the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, ABBA, etc." Grove Music Online states that " in the early 1960s,'pop music' competed terminologically with beat music, while in the US its coverage overlapped with that of'rock and roll'". From about 1967, the term “pop music” was used in opposition to the term rock music, a division that gave generic significance to both terms. While rock aspired to authenticity and an expansion of the possibilities of popular music, pop was more commercial and accessible. According to British musicologist Simon Frith, pop music is produced "as a matter of enterprise not art", is "designed to appeal to everyone" but "doesn't come from any particular place or mark off any particular taste". Frith adds that it is "not driven by any significant ambition except profit and commercial reward and, in musical terms, it is conservative".
It is, "provided from on high rather than being made from below... Pop is not a do-it-yourself music but is professionally produced and packaged". According to Frith, characteristics of pop music include an aim of appealing to a general audience, rather than to a particular sub-culture or ideology, an emphasis on craftsmanship rather than formal "artistic" qualities. Music scholar Timothy Warner said it has an emphasis on recording and technology, rather than live performance; the main medium of pop music is the song between two and a half and three and a half minutes in length marked by a consistent and noticeable rhythmic element, a mainstream style and a simple traditional structure. Common variants include the verse-chorus form and the thirty-two-bar form, with a focus on melodies and catchy hooks, a chorus that contrasts melodically and harmonically with the verse; the beat and the melodies tend to be simple, with limited harmonic accompaniment. The lyrics of modern pop songs focus on simple themes – love and romantic relationships – although there are notable exceptions.
Harmony and chord progressions in pop music are "that of classical European tonality, only more simple-minded." Clichés include the barbershop quartet-style blues scale-influenced harmony. There was a lessening of the influence of traditional views of the circle of fifths between the mid-1950s and the late 1970s, including less predominance for the dominant function. Throughout its development, pop music has absorbed influences from other genres of popular music. Early pop music drew on the sentimental ballad for its form, gained its use of vocal harmonies from gospel and soul music, instrumentation from jazz and rock music, orchestration from classical music, tempo from dance music, backing from electronic music, rhythmic elements from hip-hop music, spoken passages from rap. In the 1960s, the majority of mainstream pop music fell in two categories: guitar and bass groups or singers
Wii
The Wii is a home video game console released by Nintendo on November 19, 2006. As a seventh-generation console, the Wii competed with Microsoft's Xbox 360 and Sony's PlayStation 3. Nintendo states; as of the first quarter of 2016, the Wii led its generation over the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 in worldwide sales, with more than 101 million units sold. The Wii introduced the Wii Remote controller, which can be used as a handheld pointing device and which detects movement in three dimensions; the console runs games supplied on Wii optical discs. It supported the now discontinued WiiConnect24 service, which enabled Wii to receive messages and updates over the Internet while in standby mode. Like other seventh-generation consoles it supported a service, called "Virtual Console", that downloaded emulated games from past Nintendo consoles, support for online video streaming such as BBC iPlayer, other services provided by Nintendo over the Internet. Internet services were withdrawn. Wii Points could no longer be purchased after March 2018, could not be used and were permanently lost from 31 January 2019.
The Wii succeeded the GameCube. Nintendo first spoke of the console at the E3 2004 press conference and unveiled it at E3 2005. Nintendo CEO Satoru Iwata revealed a prototype of the controller at the September 2005 Tokyo Game Show. At E3 2006, the console won the first of several awards. By December 8, 2006, it had completed its launch in the four key markets. Models are no longer compatible with Nintendo GameCube. In late 2011, Nintendo released a reconfigured model, the "Wii Family Edition", not released in Japan; the Wii Mini, Nintendo's first major console redesign since the compact SNES, succeeded the standard Wii model and was released first in Canada on December 7, 2012. The Wii Mini can only play Wii optical discs, as it has neither GameCube compatibility nor any networking capabilities; the Wii's successor, the Wii U, was released on November 18, 2012. On October 20, 2013, Nintendo confirmed it had discontinued production of the Wii in Japan and Europe; the console was conceived in 2001.
According to an interview with Nintendo game designer Shigeru Miyamoto, the concept involved focusing on a new form of player interaction. "The consensus was. Too many powerful consoles can't coexist. It's like having only ferocious dinosaurs, they might fight and hasten their own extinction."In 2003, game engineers and designers were brought together to develop the concept further. By 2005 the controller interface had taken form, but a public showing at that year's Electronic Entertainment Expo was canceled. Miyamoto stated. So we decided not to reveal the controller and instead we displayed just the console." Nintendo president Satoru Iwata unveiled and demonstrated the Wii Remote at the September Tokyo Game Show. The Nintendo DS is said to have influenced the Wii's design. Designer Ken'ichiro Ashida noted, "We had the DS on our minds as we worked on the Wii. We thought about copying the DS's touch-panel interface and came up with a prototype." The idea was rejected because of the notion that the two gaming systems would be identical.
Miyamoto stated, " if the DS had flopped, we might have taken the Wii back to the drawing board." In June 2011 Nintendo unveiled the prototype of its successor to the Wii, to be known as the Wii U. The console was known by the code name "Revolution" from May 11, 2004 when its codename was announced at Nintendo's 2004 pre-Electronics Entertainment Expo press conference in Los Angeles, California until April 27, 2006 before E3. Before the Wii's codename was announced, the media referred to the console as "GCNext" or Gamecube Next and "N5" or Nintendo's fifth major home console. Nintendo's spelling of "Wii" is intended to resemble two people standing side-by-side and to represent the Wii Remote and Nunchuk. One reason the company has given for this name choice since the announcement is: Some video game developers and members of the press stated that they preferred "Revolution" over "Wii". Forbes expressed a fear "that the name would convey a continued sense of'kidiness' to the console." The BBC reported the day after the name was announced that "a long list of puerile jokes, based on the name," had appeared on the Internet.
Nintendo of America's Vice President of Corporate Affairs Perrin Kaplan defended the choice of "Wii" over "Revolution" and responded to critics of the name, stating "Live with it, sleep with it, eat with it, move along with it and they'll arrive at the same place." Nintendo of America's president Reggie Fils-Aime acknowledged the initial reaction and further explained the change: The Nintendo Style Guide refers to the console as "simply Wii, not Nintendo Wii", making it the first home console Nintendo has marketed outside Japan without the company name in its trademark. The Wii's successor, the Wii U, was marketed without Nintendo in its name, although its successor, the Nintendo Switch, brought back the Nintendo name in marketing. On September 14, 2006 Nintendo announced release information for J
Los Angeles
Los Angeles the City of Los Angeles and known by its initials L. A. is the most populous city in California, the second most populous city in the United States, after New York City, the third most populous city in North America. With an estimated population of four million, Los Angeles is the cultural and commercial center of Southern California; the city is known for its Mediterranean climate, ethnic diversity and the entertainment industry, its sprawling metropolis. Los Angeles is the largest city on the West Coast of North America. Los Angeles is in a large basin bounded by the Pacific Ocean on one side and by mountains as high as 10,000 feet on the other; the city proper, which covers about 469 square miles, is the seat of Los Angeles County, the most populated county in the country. Los Angeles is the principal city of the Los Angeles metropolitan area, the second largest in the United States after that of New York City, with a population of 13.1 million. It is part of the Los Angeles-Long Beach combined statistical area the nation's second most populous area with a 2015 estimated population of 18.7 million.
Los Angeles is one of the most substantial economic engines within the United States, with a diverse economy in a broad range of professional and cultural fields. Los Angeles is famous as the home of Hollywood, a major center of the world entertainment industry. A global city, it has been ranked 6th in the Global Cities Index and 9th in the Global Economic Power Index; the Los Angeles metropolitan area has a gross metropolitan product of $1.044 trillion, making it the third-largest in the world, after the Tokyo and New York metropolitan areas. Los Angeles hosted the 1932 and 1984 Summer Olympics and will host the event for a third time in 2028; the city hosted the Miss Universe pageant twice, in 1990 and 2006, was one of 9 American cities to host the 1994 FIFA men's soccer World Cup and one of 8 to host the 1999 FIFA women's soccer World Cup, hosting the final match for both tournaments. Home to the Chumash and Tongva, Los Angeles was claimed by Juan Rodríguez Cabrillo for Spain in 1542 along with the rest of what would become Alta California.
The city was founded on September 4, 1781, by Spanish governor Felipe de Neve. It became a part of Mexico in 1821 following the Mexican War of Independence. In 1848, at the end of the Mexican–American War, Los Angeles and the rest of California were purchased as part of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, becoming part of the United States. Los Angeles was incorporated as a municipality on April 4, 1850, five months before California achieved statehood; the discovery of oil in the 1890s brought rapid growth to the city. The completion of the Los Angeles Aqueduct in 1913, delivering water from Eastern California assured the city's continued rapid growth; the Los Angeles coastal area was settled by the Chumash tribes. A Gabrieleño settlement in the area was called iyáangẚ, meaning "poison oak place". Maritime explorer Juan Rodríguez Cabrillo claimed the area of southern California for the Spanish Empire in 1542 while on an official military exploring expedition moving north along the Pacific coast from earlier colonizing bases of New Spain in Central and South America.
Gaspar de Portolà and Franciscan missionary Juan Crespí, reached the present site of Los Angeles on August 2, 1769. In 1771, Franciscan friar Junípero Serra directed the building of the Mission San Gabriel Arcángel, the first mission in the area. On September 4, 1781, a group of forty-four settlers known as "Los Pobladores" founded the pueblo they called El Pueblo de Nuestra Señora la Reina de los Ángeles,'The Town of Our Lady the Queen of the Angels'; the present-day city has the largest Roman Catholic Archdiocese in the United States. Two-thirds of the Mexican or settlers were mestizo or mulatto, a mixture of African and European ancestry; the settlement remained a small ranch town for decades, but by 1820, the population had increased to about 650 residents. Today, the pueblo is commemorated in the historic district of Los Angeles Pueblo Plaza and Olvera Street, the oldest part of Los Angeles. New Spain achieved its independence from the Spanish Empire in 1821, the pueblo continued as a part of Mexico.
During Mexican rule, Governor Pío Pico made Los Angeles Alta California's regional capital. Mexican rule ended during the Mexican–American War: Americans took control from the Californios after a series of battles, culminating with the signing of the Treaty of Cahuenga on January 13, 1847. Railroads arrived with the completion of the transcontinental Southern Pacific line to Los Angeles in 1876 and the Santa Fe Railroad in 1885. Petroleum was discovered in the city and surrounding area in 1892, by 1923, the discoveries had helped California become the country's largest oil producer, accounting for about one-quarter of the world's petroleum output. By 1900, the population had grown to more than 102,000; the completion of the Los Angeles Aqueduct in 1913, under the supervision of William Mulholland, assured the continued growth of the city. Due to clauses in the city's charter that prevented the City of Los Angeles from selling or providing water from the aqueduct to any area outside its borders, many adjacent city and communities became compelled to annex themselves into Los Angeles.
Los Angeles created the first municipal zoning ordinance in the United States. On September 14, 1908, the Los Angeles City Council promulgated residential and industrial land use zones; the new ordinance established three residential zones of a single type, where industrial uses were
