1.
Drew Struzan
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Drew Struzan is an American artist known for his more than 150 movie posters, which include all the films in the Indiana Jones, Back to the Future, and Star Wars film series. He has also painted covers, collectibles, and book covers. Drew Struzan was born May 14,1947, in Oregon City, in 1965, at age 18, he enrolled at the Art Center College of Design, then in West Los Angeles, California. A counselor asked Struzan about his interests and told him he had a choice between fine art or illustration, the counselor described the two careers, telling Struzan that as a fine artist he could paint what he wanted, but as an illustrator he could paint for money. Struzan chose to be an illustrator, saying, I need to eat, in his first year, he married and became a father. Struzan worked his way through school by selling his artwork and accepting small commissions and he graduated in five years, earning a Bachelor of Arts degree with honors. He also completed two years of studies, and eventually returned to the school in later years, after the campus relocated to Pasadena. About his career, Struzan has said, I was poor and hungry, I had nothing as a child. I drew on toilet paper with pencils – that was the paper around. Probably why I love drawing so much today is because it was just all I had at the time. After graduating from college, Struzan remained in Los Angeles, and a trip to an employment agency found him a job as a staff artist for Pacific Eye & Ear, a design studio. There he began designing album covers under the direction of Ernie Cefalu, among these, Struzan illustrated the album cover artwork for Alice Coopers Welcome to My Nightmare, which Rolling Stone would go on to vote one of the Top 100 Album Covers Of All Time. Despite the burgeoning demand for his talents, however, Struzan was still only earning $150 to $250 per album cover, along with a friend with a background in the movie industry, Struzan started a small company, Pencil Pushers, in a collaboration that would last eight years. It was during this time that he honed his distinctive style and first became proficient in the use of the airbrush. His first film poster works started appearing in 1975, although in early days Struzan mainly did artwork for B-movies, such as Empire of the Ants, Food of the Gods. While his talent steadily grew in demand, it was his work done for a major science-fiction movie that would establish Struzan, White, uncomfortable with portraiture, asked Struzan for his help on the project. As such, Struzan painted the characters in oil paints and White focused on the ships, Darth Vader, C-3PO. The unique poster design, popularly called the Circus poster, depicts what appears to be a torn posted bill on a construction site wall
2.
Don Bluth
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He is also known for competing with former employer Walt Disney Productions during the years leading up to the films that would make up the Disney Renaissance. He is the brother of illustrator Toby Bluth. Bluth was born in El Paso, Texas, the son of Emaline and his great-grandfather was Helaman Pratt, an early leader in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. He is of Swedish, English, Irish, Scottish, as a child in El Paso, he rode his horse to the town movie theater to watch Disney films, Bluth said later, then Id go home and copy every Disney comic book I could find. At the age of six, his family moved to Payson, Bluth has stated that he and his siblings do not have much communication with each other as adults. In 1954, his family moved to Santa Monica, California, Bluth attended Brigham Young University in Utah for one year and after got a job at The Walt Disney Company. He started in 1955 as an assistant to John Lounsbery for Sleeping Beauty, in 1957 Bluth left Disney only two years after being hired. Afterward, Bluth spent two and a half years in Argentina on a mission for the LDS Church and he returned to the United States where he opened the Bluth Brothers Theater with his younger brother Fred, though he occasionally worked for Disney. Bluth returned to college and got a degree in English Literature from Brigham Young University, Bluth returned to the animation business and joined Filmation in 1967 working on layouts for The Archies and other projects. He returned full-time to Disney in 1971 where he worked on Robin Hood, Winnie the Pooh and Tigger Too, The Rescuers and his last involvement with Disney was the 1978 short The Small One. Then he made and produced his first short film, Banjo the Woodpile Cat, on his 42nd birthday in 1979, Bluth, Gary Goldman, John Pomeroy, and 9 fellow Disney animators, set out to start his own animation studio, Don Bluth Productions. He drew a few scenes for The Fox and the Hound, Bluth was disheartened with the way the Disney company was run. He wanted to revive the classical style of the studios early classics. The studios first feature-length film was The Secret of NIMH, an adaptation of Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH, Bluth employed 160 animators during the production and agreed to the first profit sharing contract in the animation industry. Though a moderate success in the box office, the movie received critical acclaim, later, with the home video release and cable showings, it became a cult classic. Nevertheless, due to its modest box office take, and an industry-wide animation strike and his next film would have been an animated version of the Norwegian folk tale East of the Sun and West of the Moon but was never made when the financial resources were drawn back. In 1983, he, Rick Dyer, Goldman and Pomeroy started the Bluth Group and created the arcade game Dragons Lair. This was followed in 1984 by Space Ace, a game based on the same technology
3.
Dom DeLuise
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Dominick Dom DeLuise was an American actor, voice actor, comedian, film director, television producer, chef, and author. He was the husband of actress Carol Arthur from 1965 until his death and the father of actor, director, pianist, and writer Peter DeLuise, actor David DeLuise, and actor Michael DeLuise. He starred in a number of movies directed by Mel Brooks, in a series of films with career-long best friend Burt Reynolds, DeLuise was born in Brooklyn, New York, to Italian American parents Vincenza Jennie, a homemaker, and John DeLuise, a public employee. He was the youngest of three children, having a brother, Nicholas Nick DeLuise, and an older sister. DeLuise graduated from Manhattans High School of Performing Arts and later attended Tufts University in Medford, DeLuise was Roman Catholic and had a particular devotion to the Virgin Mary. In 1961 DeLuise played in the Off-Broadway musical revue Another Evening with Harry Stoons that lasted nine previews, Another member of the cast was 19-year-old Barbra Streisand. He was also in the Off-Broadway play all in Love which opened on November 10,1961, at the Martinique Theatre and ran for 141 performances. Other New York theater performances include, Half-Past Wednesday, Around the World in 80 Days, The Student Gypsy, Heres Love, DeLuise generally appeared in comedic parts, although an early appearance in the movie Fail-Safe as a nervous USAF technical sergeant showed a broader range. His first acting credit was as a performer in the television show The Entertainers in 1964. He gained early notice for his turn in the Doris Day film The Glass Bottom Boat. In his New York Times review, Vincent Canby panned the film but singled out the actor, stating, he best of the lot, however, is a newcomer, Dom DeLuise, as a portly, in the 1970s and 1980s, he often co-starred with Burt Reynolds. Together they appeared in the films The Cannonball Run and Cannonball Run II, Smokey, DeLuise was the host of the television show Candid Camera from 1991-92. All Dogs Go to Heaven also featured Reynolds voice as Charlie B, barkin, the at-first reluctant hero, and DeLuise voiced Itchy Itchiford, Charlies best friend, sidekick and later partner in business. Unlike DeLuise, however, Reynolds did not voice Charlie in any of the film sequels, TV episodes, TV-episode sequels. DeLuise also voiced the character of Charles Dickens Fagin in the Walt Disney film Oliver & Company. TV producer Greg Garrison hired DeLuise to appear as a specialty act on The Dean Martin Show, DeLuise ran through his Dominick the Great routine, a riotous example of a magic act gone wrong, with host Martin as a bemused volunteer from the audience. Doms catch phrase, with an Italian accent, was No Applause Please, the show went so well that DeLuise was soon a regular on Martins program, participating in both songs and sketches. Garrison also featured DeLuise in his own hour-long comedy specials for ABC, in 1968 he hosted his own hour-long comedy variety series for CBS, The Dom DeLuise Show
4.
Madeline Kahn
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Madeline Gail Kahn was an American actress, comedian, voice actress, and singer, known for comedic roles in films directed by Peter Bogdanovich and Mel Brooks, including Whats Up, Doc. Young Frankenstein, High Anxiety, History of the World, Part I, Kahn made her Broadway debut in Leonard Sillmans New Faces of 1968, and received the first of four Tony Award nominations for the 1973 play In the Boom Boom Room. She had previously won a Daytime Emmy Award in 1987 for ABC Afterschool Special and her other film appearances included The Cheap Detective, City Heat, Clue and Nixon. She had a sitcom to herself entitled Oh Madeline which aired for one season where she played personal trainer Madeline Wayne. Kahn was born on September 29,1942, in Boston, wolfson, a garment manufacturer, and his wife, Freda. She was raised in a non-observant Jewish family and her parents divorced when Kahn was two, and she and her mother moved to New York City. In 1953, Freda married Hiller Kahn, who later adopted Madeline, Kahn had two half-siblings, Jeffrey and Robyn. In 1948, Kahn was sent to the progressive Manumit boarding school in Bristol, Bucks County, during that time, her mother pursued her acting dream. Kahn soon began acting herself and performed in a number of school productions, in 1960, she graduated from Martin Van Buren High School in Queens, and then earned a drama scholarship to Hofstra University on Long Island. At Hofstra, she studied drama, music, and speech therapy, Kahn graduated from Hofstra in 1964 with a degree in speech therapy. She was a member of a sorority on campus, Delta Chi Delta. She later studied singing in New York City with Beverley Peck Johnson, when asked on television by Kitty Carlisle and Charles Nelson Reilly how she began the opera aspect of her career she said, Its so hard to determine exactly when I began or why, singing. The Muse was definitely not in attendance, to earn money while a college student, Kahn was a singing waitress at a Bavarian restaurant called Bavarian Manor, a Hofbräuhaus in New Yorks Hudson Valley. She sang musical numbers during shows. There was an important customer there, a big Italian man, who shouted out to me, Sing Madame Butterfly. He meant that one very popular aria, un Bel Di, so if I was to come back the next summer to earn more money during the next year Id better know that aria. But my first actual thing that I did was Candide for Leonard Bernsteins 50th birthday at Philharmonic Hall - at the time thats what it was called, and I dont know if that was an opera but it was very hard to sing. I actually have done Musetta in La Bohème a long ago in Washington DC
5.
Nehemiah Persoff
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Nehemiah Persoff is an American actor. Born in Jerusalem, Persoff immigrated with his family to the United States in 1929, after serving in the Army during World War II, he worked as a subway electrician doing signal maintenance while he began to pursue his acting career in the New York Theater. In 1947, he was accepted into the Actors Studio and eventually began his career in 1948. One of his first notable roles was as the gangster boss Little Bonaparte and he appeared in supporting roles in films such as The Greatest Story Ever Told and The Comancheros. In the film Yentl, Persoff portrayed Barbra Streisands characters father, also the 1988 film Twins and his last movie was 4 Faces, which was the last film to be directed by Ted Post. In the mid-1980s, when health problems decreased his acting workload and he retired from acting in 1999 and devoted his full time to his painting. He currently lives with his wife, Thia, in Cambria, California, Nehemiah Persoff at the Internet Movie Database Nehemiah Persoff at the Internet Broadway Database Nehemiah Persoff Paintings
6.
Christopher Plummer
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Arthur Christopher Orme Plummer CC is a Canadian theatre, film and television actor. After making his debut in Stage Struck, Plummer went on to a successful film career. Plummer has ventured into television projects, including the miniseries The Thorn Birds. Plummer has won awards and accolades for his work, including an Academy Award. With his win at age 82 in 2012 for Beginners, Plummer is the oldest actor ever to win an Academy Award and his fathers uncle was patent lawyer and agent F. B. Plummers parents were divorced shortly after his birth, and he was brought up at the Abbott family home in Senneville, Quebec and he is bilingual, speaking English and French fluently. Plummer is a cousin of actor Nigel Bruce, the British actor, best known as Doctor Watson to Basil Rathbones Sherlock Holmes. He had studied to be a concert pianist, but developed a love for the theatre at an early age and he began acting while he was living on Pine Avenue in Montreal and attending Montreal High. He attended McGill, at time he also took up acting. Whittaker, who was also stage director of the Montreal Repertory Theatre, cast Plummer, aged 18. Plummer made his Broadway debut in January 1953 in The Starcross Story and his next Broadway appearance, Home is the Hero, lasted 30 performances from September to October 1954. He appeared in support of Broadway legend Katharine Cornell and film legend Tyrone Power in The Dark is Light Enough, the play toured several cities, with Plummer serving as Powers understudy. Later that same year, he appeared in his first Broadway hit, Plummer appeared less frequently on Broadway in the 1960s as he moved from New York to London. From May to June 1973, he appeared on Broadway as the character in Cyrano. For that performance, Plummer won the Tony Award for Best Actor in a Musical, later that year, he played Anton Chekhov in Neil Simons adaptation of several Chekhov short stories, The Good Doctor. In the 1980s, he appeared on Broadway in two Shakespearean tragedies, Othello, playing Iago to James Earl Jones Moor, and the role in Macbeth with Glenda Jackson playing his lady. His Iago brought him another Tony nomination and he appeared with Jason Robards in the 1994 revival of Harold Pinters No Mans Land and had great success in 1997 in Barrymore, which he also toured with after a successful Broadway run. His turn as John Barrymore brought him his second Tony Award and he was nominated for a Tony Award and a Drama Desk Award for his 2004 King Lear and for a Tony playing Henry Drummond in the 2007 revival of Inherit the Wind
7.
Neil Ross
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Neil Ross is an English-born American voice actor and announcer, now resident in the United States, working in Los Angeles. He has provided voices in many American cartoons, most notably Voltron and he has also done voice work in numerous video games, including Mass Effect and Leisure Suit Larry 6 and 7. Ross has also provided voice roles for many movies, including Back to the Future Part II, Babe, Quiz Show, neil Ross was the announcer for the 75th Annual Academy Awards Telecast in 2003, and the Emmy Awards Telecast in 2004. He has also narrated episodes of A&Es Biography, and many editions of NOVA on PBS. Neil Ross was born in London, England, on 31 December 1944 and subsequently raised in Montreal, Quebec and his family moved to Long Beach, California when he was 12 years old. When they moved to San Diego, a young Ross started listening to KFWB and he started working in radio when he finished school. His first station was KMUR in Salt Lake City, Utah, following this, he moved on to KORL, KGMB and KKUA in Honolulu, Hawaii, before moving to KCBQ in San Diego in 1969. He stayed in California, working on KYA San Francisco and KMPC Los Angeles and he made his last broadcast in 1985. He began his work in 1978 when he moved to Los Angeles. His first role was as a salesman in an episode of Richie Rich for Hanna-Barbera, from 1989–1990, he was the announcer for Signal Researchs Game Players Gametape VHS series, which was a home video counterpart of the defunct magazine publication of the same name. Neil Ross lives in Los Angeles with his wife and daughter, – Grandfather Quiz Show – Twenty-One Announcer Scooby-Doo. Bear and Mr. Fox Tom and Jerry, The Fast, Feed Ninja Gaiden – Murai Onimusha 3 – Guildenstern Return to Castle Wolfenstein – Higgs / Nazi Soldier No
8.
James Horner
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James Roy Horner was an American composer, conductor and orchestrator of film scores. He was known for the integration of choral and electronic elements in many of his film scores, and for his frequent use of motifs associated with Celtic music. His first major film score was for the 1979 film The Lady in Red, but did not establish himself as a mainstream composer until he worked on the 1982 film Star Trek II, The Wrath of Khan. Horner composed music for over 100 films, he won two Academy Awards, two Golden Globe Awards, three Satellite Awards, and three Saturn Awards, and was nominated for three British Academy Film Awards. Horner was killed in a single-fatality crash of his Short Tucano turboprop aircraft at the age of 61, Horner was born in 1953 in Los Angeles, California, to Jewish immigrants. His father, Harry Horner, was born in Holíč, then a part of Austria-Hungary and he immigrated to the United States in 1935 and worked as a set designer and art director. His mother, Joan Ruth, was born into a prominent Canadian family, Horners brother Christopher is a writer and documentary filmmaker. James Horner started playing piano at the age of five and his early years were spent in London, where he attended the Royal College of Music. He returned to America, where he attended Verde Valley School in Sedona, Arizona, after he earned a masters degree, he started work on his doctorate at the University of California, Los Angeles, where he studied with Paul Chihara, among others. After several scoring assignments with the American Film Institute in the 1970s, he finished teaching a course in theory at UCLA. Horner was also a pilot, and owned several small airplanes. Horner began his career scoring films by working for B film director, Horners first composer credit was for Cormans Battle Beyond the Stars. From there, his works gained notice in Hollywood, which enabled him to take on larger projects, One of his first major film scores was for the 1979 film The Lady in Red. Horners major breakthrough came in 1982, when he had the chance to score the music to Star Trek II, The Wrath of Khan, Horner continued composing music for high-profile releases during the 1980s, including 48 Hrs. Krull, Star Trek III, The Search for Spock, Commando, Cocoon, Aliens, *batteries not included, Willow, Glory and he frequently collaborated with film director Ron Howard, a partnership that began with Cocoon in 1985. Aliens earned Horner his first Academy Award nomination for Best Original Score in 1987, somewhere Out There, which he co-composed and co-wrote with Barry Mann and Cynthia Weil for An American Tail, was also nominated that year for Best Original Song. A Dinosaurs Story, The Pagemaster, and Casper, Jumanji, and Balto, Mighty Joe Young, Horners biggest financial and critical success would come with the score to the 1997 film Titanic. The album became the best-selling primarily orchestral soundtrack in history, selling over 27 million copies worldwide, at the 70th Academy Awards, Horner won Oscars for Best Original Dramatic Score and Best Original Song for My Heart Will Go On
9.
Amblin Entertainment
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Amblin Entertainment is an American film and television production company founded by director and producer Steven Spielberg and film producers Kathleen Kennedy and Frank Marshall in 1981. The companys headquarters are located on the backlot of Universal Studios in Universal City, Amblin is named after Spielbergs first commercially released film, Amblin, a short independent film about a man and woman hitchhiking through the desert. The film, which cost $15,000 to produce, was shown for Universal Studios, although Amblin is an independent production company, Universal distributes many Amblin productions, and Amblin operates out of a building on the Universal lot. Its logo features the silhouette of E. T. riding in the basket on Elliotts bicycle flying in front of the moon from the 1982 movie, J. Abrams, The Coen Brothers, and Simon Wells. Most of these directors are close friends of Spielberg, who has a producer or producer credit on many. Amblins most critically acclaimed production is Schindlers List, which was nominated for twelve Academy Awards, winning seven, a companion study guide for it, Facing History, was prepared through a grant from Amblin and Universal. Amblins television series credits include Amazing Stories, Tiny Toon Adventures, seaQuest DSV, Animaniacs, Earth 2, Pinky and the Brain, ER, Freakazoid. Back to the Future, Family Dog, The Spooktacular New Adventures of Casper, Fievels American Tails, The Land Before Time and Men in Black, the animated title Fievels American Tails and others were produced by Amblins animation division Amblimation, which was active from 1991 until 1995. Another studio which has distributed many Amblin productions is Warner Bros, dreamWorks has distributed a number of Amblin productions since 1994. Asterisked films indicate that Steven Spielberg is uncredited or uninvolved, back to the Future, The Ride, a simulator ride at Universal Studios Japan. Also existed at Universal Studios Florida and Universal Studios Hollywood, gremlins Invasion, a ride at Warner Bros. Jurassic Park, The Ride, a ride at Universal Studios Hollywood. Men in Black, Alien Attack, a ride at Universal Studios Florida. Roger Rabbits Car Toon Spin, a ride in Mickeys Toontown. Twister. Ride it Out, a ride at Universal Studios Florida. E. T. Adventure, a ride at Universal Studios Florida. Also existed at Universal Studios Hollywood and Universal Studios Japan, Amblin Entertainment at the Internet Movie Database
10.
Sullivan Bluth Studios
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Sullivan Bluth Studios was an American and Irish animated film production company established in 1979 by animator Don Bluth. Bluth and several colleagues, all of whom were former Disney animators, left Disney in 1979 to form Don Bluth Productions, later known as the Bluth Group. This studio produced the short film Banjo the Woodpile Cat, the feature film The Secret of NIMH, an animation sequence in the musical Xanadu. The Bluth Group went bankrupt in 1984, and Bluth co-founded Sullivan Bluth Studios with American businessman Morris Sullivan in 1985. The studio initially operated from a facility in Van Nuys, California. During its production, Sullivan began to move the studio to Dublin, Ireland, to advantage of government investment. Most of the staff from the US studio moved to the new Dublin facility during production on the second feature film. The studio also recruited heavily from Ireland, and helped set up a course at Ballyfermot Senior College to train new artists. In 1989, during the production of All Dogs Go to Heaven founding member John Pomeroy and many of the remaining US staff members returned to America to form a US wing in Burbank, California. Another British film company, Merlin Films, and Hong Kong media company Media Assets invested in the studio to fund the completion, Bluth and Gary Goldman were drawn away from the studio when they were approached in 1994 to set up a new animation studio for 20th Century Fox. Sullivan Bluth Studios films continued to suffer losses at the box office, and the studio was closed down in 1995 after the release of their final feature, The Pebble and the Penguin. Bluth, Pomeroy and Goldman had been working for four years prior to leaving Disney on a project of their own, after four years of production, much of it part-time, Banjo the Woodpile Cat was completed and given theatrical screenings in two theatres in December 1979. The short was then offered to television stations, airing on HBO in February 1980. After the completion of Banjo, the studio moved out of Bluths house, the studios first commission was to produce a two-minute animated sequence for the song “Dont Walk Away” in the live-action musical Xanadu. The brief sequence might ordinarily have taken four or five months to produce, the studio then started work on its first feature film, an adaptation of the Newbery Medal-winning childrens book Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH. Backed by Aurora Productions, The Secret of NIMH started production in 1980 and was completed in 1982, though generally well received by critics, who praised the richness and fluidity of the animation, some found the narrative unsatisfying. Between this and an industry-wide animators strike in 1982, the studio found itself in financial trouble, reforming under the name Bluth Group, the studios next project was to produce the animation for Cinematronics arcade video games Dragons Lair and Space Ace, which were released in 1983. The collapse of the game industry in late 1983 and early 1984 halted production on the sequel Dragons Lair II
11.
Universal Pictures
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Universal Pictures is an American film studio owned by Comcast through the Universal Filmed Entertainment Group division of its wholly owned subsidiary NBCUniversal. The company was founded in 1912 by Carl Laemmle, Mark Dintenfass, Charles O. Baumann, Adam Kessel, Pat Powers, William Swanson, David Horsley and its studios are located in Universal City, California, and its corporate offices are located in New York City. Universal Pictures is a member of the Motion Picture Association of America and is one of Hollywoods Big Six studios. Universal Studios was founded by Carl Laemmle, Mark Dintenfass, Charles O. Baumann, Adam Kessel, Pat Powers, William Swanson, David Horsley, Robert H. Cochrane, one story has Laemmle watching a box office for hours, counting patrons and calculating the days takings. Within weeks of his Chicago trip, Laemmle gave up dry goods to buy the first several nickelodeons, for Laemmle and other such entrepreneurs, the creation in 1908 of the Edison-backed Motion Picture Trust meant that exhibitors were expected to pay fees for Trust-produced films they showed. Soon, Laemmle and other disgruntled nickelodeon owners decided to avoid paying Edison by producing their own pictures, in June 1909, Laemmle started the Yankee Film Company with partners Abe Stern and Julius Stern. Laemmle broke with Edisons custom of refusing to give billing and screen credits to performers, by naming the movie stars, he attracted many of the leading players of the time, contributing to the creation of the star system. In 1910, he promoted Florence Lawrence, formerly known as The Biograph Girl, the Universal Film Manufacturing Company was incorporated in New York on April 30,1912. Laemmle, who emerged as president in July 1912, was the figure in the partnership with Dintenfass, Baumann, Kessel, Powers, Swanson, Horsley. Eventually all would be out by Laemmle. Following the westward trend of the industry, by the end of 1912 the company was focusing its efforts in the Hollywood area. On March 15,1915, Laemmle opened the worlds largest motion picture production facility, Universal City Studios, studio management became the third facet of Universals operations, with the studio incorporated as a distinct subsidiary organization. Unlike other movie moguls, Laemmle opened his studio to tourists, Universal became the largest studio in Hollywood, and remained so for a decade. However, it sought an audience mostly in towns, producing mostly inexpensive melodramas, westerns. In its early years Universal released three brands of feature films — Red Feather, low-budget programmers, Bluebird, more ambitious productions, and Jewel, their prestige motion pictures. Directors included Jack Conway, John Ford, Rex Ingram, Robert Z. Leonard, George Marshall and Lois Weber, despite Laemmles role as an innovator, he was an extremely cautious studio chief. Unlike rivals Adolph Zukor, William Fox, and Marcus Loew and he also financed all of his own films, refusing to take on debt. Character actor Lon Chaney became a card for Universal in the 1920s
12.
Russian Empire
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The Russian Empire was a state that existed from 1721 until it was overthrown by the short-lived February Revolution in 1917. One of the largest empires in history, stretching over three continents, the Russian Empire was surpassed in landmass only by the British and Mongol empires. The rise of the Russian Empire happened in association with the decline of neighboring powers, the Swedish Empire, the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, Persia. It played a role in 1812–14 in defeating Napoleons ambitions to control Europe. The House of Romanov ruled the Russian Empire from 1721 until 1762, and its German-descended cadet branch, with 125.6 million subjects registered by the 1897 census, it had the third-largest population in the world at the time, after Qing China and India. Like all empires, it included a large disparity in terms of economics, ethnicity, there were numerous dissident elements, who launched numerous rebellions and assassination attempts, they were closely watched by the secret police, with thousands exiled to Siberia. Economically, the empire had an agricultural base, with low productivity on large estates worked by serfs. The economy slowly industrialized with the help of foreign investments in railways, the land was ruled by a nobility from the 10th through the 17th centuries, and subsequently by an emperor. Tsar Ivan III laid the groundwork for the empire that later emerged and he tripled the territory of his state, ended the dominance of the Golden Horde, renovated the Moscow Kremlin, and laid the foundations of the Russian state. Tsar Peter the Great fought numerous wars and expanded an already huge empire into a major European power, Catherine the Great presided over a golden age. She expanded the state by conquest, colonization and diplomacy, continuing Peter the Greats policy of modernisation along West European lines, Tsar Alexander II promoted numerous reforms, most dramatically the emancipation of all 23 million serfs in 1861. His policy in Eastern Europe involved protecting the Orthodox Christians under the rule of the Ottoman Empire and that connection by 1914 led to Russias entry into the First World War on the side of France, Britain, and Serbia, against the German, Austrian and Ottoman empires. The Russian Empire functioned as a monarchy until the Revolution of 1905. The empire collapsed during the February Revolution of 1917, largely as a result of failures in its participation in the First World War. Perhaps the latter was done to make Europe recognize Russia as more of a European country, Poland was divided in the 1790-1815 era, with much of the land and population going to Russia. Most of the 19th century growth came from adding territory in Asia, Peter I the Great introduced autocracy in Russia and played a major role in introducing his country to the European state system. However, this vast land had a population of 14 million, grain yields trailed behind those of agriculture in the West, compelling nearly the entire population to farm. Only a small percentage lived in towns, the class of kholops, close to the one of slavery, remained a major institution in Russia until 1723, when Peter I converted household kholops into house serfs, thus including them in poll taxation
13.
Ukraine
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Ukraine is currently in territorial dispute with Russia over the Crimean Peninsula which Russia annexed in 2014 but which Ukraine and most of the international community recognise as Ukrainian. Including Crimea, Ukraine has an area of 603,628 km2, making it the largest country entirely within Europe and it has a population of about 42.5 million, making it the 32nd most populous country in the world. The territory of modern Ukraine has been inhabited since 32,000 BC, during the Middle Ages, the area was a key centre of East Slavic culture, with the powerful state of Kievan Rus forming the basis of Ukrainian identity. Following its fragmentation in the 13th century, the territory was contested, ruled and divided by a variety of powers, including Lithuania, Poland, the Ottoman Empire, Austria-Hungary, and Russia. A Cossack republic emerged and prospered during the 17th and 18th centuries, two brief periods of independence occurred during the 20th century, once near the end of World War I and another during World War II. Before its independence, Ukraine was typically referred to in English as The Ukraine, following independence, Ukraine declared itself a neutral state. Nonetheless it formed a limited partnership with the Russian Federation and other CIS countries. In the 2000s, the government began leaning towards NATO, and it was later agreed that the question of joining NATO should be answered by a national referendum at some point in the future. Former President Viktor Yanukovych considered the current level of co-operation between Ukraine and NATO sufficient, and was against Ukraine joining NATO and these events formed the background for the annexation of Crimea by Russia in March 2014, and the War in Donbass in April 2014. On 1 January 2016, Ukraine applied the economic part of the Deep, Ukraine has long been a global breadbasket because of its extensive, fertile farmlands and is one of the worlds largest grain exporters. The diversified economy of Ukraine includes a heavy industry sector, particularly in aerospace. Ukraine is a republic under a semi-presidential system with separate powers, legislative, executive. Its capital and largest city is Kiev, taking into account reserves and paramilitary personnel, Ukraine maintains the second-largest military in Europe after that of Russia. Ukrainian is the language and its alphabet is Cyrillic. The dominant religion in the country is Eastern Orthodoxy, which has strongly influenced Ukrainian architecture, literature, there are different hypotheses as to the etymology of the name Ukraine. According to the older and most widespread hypothesis, it means borderland, while more recently some studies claim a different meaning, homeland or region. The Ukraine now implies disregard for the sovereignty, according to U. S. ambassador William Taylor. Neanderthal settlement in Ukraine is seen in the Molodova archaeological sites include a mammoth bone dwelling
14.
Who Framed Roger Rabbit
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Who Framed Roger Rabbit is a 1988 American fantasy neo-noir film directed by Robert Zemeckis, produced by Frank Marshall and Robert Watts, and written by Jeffrey Price and Peter S. Seaman. The film is based on Gary K. Wolfs 1981 novel Who Censored Roger Rabbit, the film stars Bob Hoskins, Christopher Lloyd, Charles Fleischer, Stubby Kaye, and Joanna Cassidy. Combining live-action and animation, the film is set in Hollywood during the late 1940s in a timeline where animated characters really exist. The story follows Eddie Valiant, a detective who must exonerate Toon Roger Rabbit. Walt Disney Pictures purchased the rights for Who Framed Roger Rabbits story in 1981. Jeffrey Price and Peter S. Seaman wrote two drafts of the script before Disney brought in executive producer Steven Spielberg, and his production company, Zemeckis was brought on to direct the film, and Canadian animator Richard Williams was hired to supervise the animation sequences. Production was moved from Los Angeles to Elstree Studios in England to accommodate Williams, while filming, the production budget began to rapidly expand and the shooting schedule ran longer than expected. Disney released the film through its Touchstone Pictures division on June 22,1988, to critical and commercial success, the film brought a renewed interest in the Golden Age of American animation, spearheading modern American animation and the Disney Renaissance. In 2016, the film was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant. In 1947, toons act out theatrical cartoon shorts as with films, they regularly interact with real people and animals and reside in Toontown. Maroon, head of Maroon Cartoon Studios, is concerned about the recent poor acting performances of one of his biggest stars, Roger Rabbit. After watching Jessica perform at the underground Ink & Paint Club, Valiant secretly takes photographs of her and Acme playing patty-cake in her dressing room, Maroon suggests to Roger that he should leave Jessica, but a drunken Roger refuses and flees. The next morning, Acme is discovered dead at his factory by the Los Angeles Police Department with a safe dropped on his head, and evidence points to Roger being responsible. While investigating, Valiant meets Judge Doom, Toontowns Superior Court judge, who has created a substance capable of killing a toon, a toxic Dip made of turpentine, acetone, and benzene. Valiant runs into Rogers toon co-star, Baby Herman, who believes Roger is innocent and that Acmes missing will and he then finds Roger hiding in his office, who begs him to help exonerate him. Valiant reluctantly hides Roger in a bar where his ex-girlfriend, Dolores. Later, Jessica approaches Valiant and says that Maroon had forced her to pose for the photographs so that he could blackmail Acme, Doom and his toon-weasel henchmen discover Roger, but he and Valiant escape with Benny, an anthropomorphic taxicab. They flee to a theater, where Valiant explains to Roger that a toon killed Teddy before he fled to Toontown
15.
Steven Spielberg
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Steven Allan Spielberg, KBE, OMRI is an American director, producer, and screenwriter. He is considered one of the pioneers of the New Hollywood era. He is also one of the co-founders of DreamWorks Studios, in a career spanning more than four decades, Spielbergs films have spanned many themes and genres. His other films include Jurassic Park, A. I, artificial Intelligence, and War of the Worlds. Spielberg won the Academy Award for Best Director for Schindlers List and Saving Private Ryan, three of Spielbergs films—Jaws, E. T. the Extra-Terrestrial, and Jurassic Park—achieved box office records, originated and came to epitomize the blockbuster film. The unadjusted gross of all Spielberg-directed films exceeds $9 billion worldwide and his personal net worth is estimated to be more than $3 billion. Spielberg was born in Cincinnati, Ohio, to an Orthodox Jewish family and his mother, Leah Posner, was a restaurateur and concert pianist, and his father, Arnold Spielberg, was an electrical engineer involved in the development of computers. His paternal grandparents were immigrants from Ukraine who settled in Cincinnati in the first decade of the 1900s, in 1950, his family moved to Haddon Township, New Jersey when his father took a job with RCA. Three years later, the moved to Phoenix, Arizona. Spielberg attended Hebrew school from 1953 to 1957, in classes taught by Rabbi Albert L. Lewis, as a child, Spielberg faced difficulty reconciling being an Orthodox Jew with the perception of him by other children he played with. It isnt something I enjoy admitting, he said, but when I was seven, eight, nine years old, God forgive me. I was embarrassed by the perception of my parents Jewish practices. I was never really ashamed to be Jewish, but I was uneasy at times, Spielberg also said he suffered from acts of anti-Semitic prejudice and bullying, In high school, I got smacked and kicked around. His first home movie was of a wreck involving his toy Lionel trains. Throughout his early teens, and after entering school, Spielberg continued to make amateur 8 mm adventure films. In 1958, he became a Boy Scout and fulfilled a requirement for the merit badge by making a nine-minute 8 mm film entitled The Last Gunfight. Years later, Spielberg recalled to an interviewer, My dads still-camera was broken. He said yes, and I got an idea to do a Western, I made it and got my merit badge
16.
Amblimation
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Amblimation was the animation production arm of Steven Spielbergs Amblin Entertainment. The studio was shut down in 1997 and some of the Amblimation staff went on to join DreamWorks Animation, the companys mascot, Fievel Mousekewitz, appears in its production logo. A project to adapt the 1981 Andrew Lloyd Webber musical Cats was in the making, back to the Future, The Animated Series Fievels American Tails Note, All series were co-produced with Universal Animation Studios. Illumination Entertainment Amblin Entertainment DreamWorks Animation Universal Interactive Universal Animation Studios Sullivan Bluth Studios Amblimation at the Internet Movie Database
17.
Shostka
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Shostka is a city in the Sumy Oblast in the north-east of Ukraine. The town lies on the Shostka River, a tributary of Desna, Shostka is an important centre of industry, in chemicals and in dairy, the Shostka City Milk Plant was recently acquired by the Bel Group. Shostka started out as a village at the beginning of the 17th century for Ukrainian Cossacks which were based there, in 1739, a gunpowder factory was built there. Since that time Shostka was one of the most important gunpowder suppliers in the Russian Empire, in 1893, a branch of a nearby railroad line was built. Shostka was granted rights in 1920. In 1931, a factory was built in Shostka which was one of the main suppliers of cinema. The city is the birthplace of Lightweight Boxer Ivan Redkach, Shostka is the hometown of the fictional Mousekewitz family in the 1986 animated film An American Tail. A website about Shostka Portal of Shostka
18.
Russia
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Russia, also officially the Russian Federation, is a country in Eurasia. The European western part of the country is more populated and urbanised than the eastern. Russias capital Moscow is one of the largest cities in the world, other urban centers include Saint Petersburg, Novosibirsk, Yekaterinburg, Nizhny Novgorod. Extending across the entirety of Northern Asia and much of Eastern Europe, Russia spans eleven time zones and incorporates a range of environments. It shares maritime borders with Japan by the Sea of Okhotsk, the East Slavs emerged as a recognizable group in Europe between the 3rd and 8th centuries AD. Founded and ruled by a Varangian warrior elite and their descendants, in 988 it adopted Orthodox Christianity from the Byzantine Empire, beginning the synthesis of Byzantine and Slavic cultures that defined Russian culture for the next millennium. Rus ultimately disintegrated into a number of states, most of the Rus lands were overrun by the Mongol invasion. The Soviet Union played a role in the Allied victory in World War II. The Soviet era saw some of the most significant technological achievements of the 20th century, including the worlds first human-made satellite and the launching of the first humans in space. By the end of 1990, the Soviet Union had the second largest economy, largest standing military in the world. It is governed as a federal semi-presidential republic, the Russian economy ranks as the twelfth largest by nominal GDP and sixth largest by purchasing power parity in 2015. Russias extensive mineral and energy resources are the largest such reserves in the world, making it one of the producers of oil. The country is one of the five recognized nuclear weapons states and possesses the largest stockpile of weapons of mass destruction, Russia is a great power as well as a regional power and has been characterised as a potential superpower. The name Russia is derived from Rus, a state populated mostly by the East Slavs. However, this name became more prominent in the later history, and the country typically was called by its inhabitants Русская Земля. In order to distinguish this state from other states derived from it, it is denoted as Kievan Rus by modern historiography, an old Latin version of the name Rus was Ruthenia, mostly applied to the western and southern regions of Rus that were adjacent to Catholic Europe. The current name of the country, Россия, comes from the Byzantine Greek designation of the Kievan Rus, the standard way to refer to citizens of Russia is Russians in English and rossiyane in Russian. There are two Russian words which are translated into English as Russians
19.
History of the Jews in Russia
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Jews in the Russian Empire have historically constituted a large religious diaspora, the vast territories of the Russian Empire at one time hosted the largest population of Jews in the world. The presence of Jewish people in the European part of Russia can be traced to the 7th–14th centuries CE, in the 11th and 12th centuries, the Jewish population in Kiev, in present-day Ukraine, was restricted to a separate quarter. Evidence of the presence of Jewish people in Muscovite Russia is first documented in the chronicles of 1471, during the reign of Catherine II in the 18th century, Jewish people were restricted to the Pale of Settlement within Russia, the territory where they could live or immigrate to. Beginning in the 1880s, waves of pogroms swept across different regions of the empire for several decades. More than two million Jews fled Russia between 1880 and 1920, mostly to the United States, before 1917 there were 300,000 Zionists in Russia, while the main Jewish socialist organization, the Bund, had 33,000 members. Only 958 Jews had joined the Bolshevik Party before 1917, thousands joined after the Revolution, the chaotic years of World War I, the February and October Revolutions, and the Russian Civil War had created social disruption that led to anti-Semitism. Some 150,000 Jews were killed in the pogroms of 1918–1922,125,000 of them in Ukraine,25,000 in Belarus and these were probably the largest-scale European massacres of Jews to date. The pogroms were perpetrated by anti-communist forces, sometimes, Red Army units engaged in pogroms as well. After a short period of confusion, the Soviets started executing guilty individuals, the Russian Civil War pogroms shocked world Jewry and rallied many Jews to the Red Army and the Soviet regime, and also strengthened the desire for the creation of a homeland for the Jewish people. In August 1919 the Soviet government arrested many rabbis, seized Jewish properties, including synagogues, the Jewish section of the Communist Party labeled the use of the Hebrew language reactionary and elitist and the teaching of Hebrew was banned. Zionists were persecuted harshly, with Jewish communists leading the attacks, following the civil war, however, the new Bolshevik governments policies produced a flourishing of secular Jewish culture in Belarus and western Ukraine in the 1920s. At the beginning of the 1930s, the Jews were 1.8 percent of the Soviet population, in 1934 the Soviet state established the Jewish Autonomous Oblast in the Russian Far East, but the region never came to have a majority Jewish population. Today, the JAO is Russias only autonomous oblast and, aside of Israel, the observance of the Sabbath was banned in 1929, foreshadowing the dissolution of the Communist Partys Yiddish-language Yevsektsia in 1930 and worse repression to come. Numerous Jews were victimized in Stalins purges as counterrevolutionaries and reactionary nationalists, the share of Jews in the Soviet ruling elite declined during the 1930s, but was still more than double their proportion in the general Soviet population. According to Israeli historian Benjamin Pinkus, We can say that the Jews in the Soviet Union took over the privileged position, in the 1930s, many Jews held high rank in the Red Army High Command, Generals Iona Yakir, Yan Gamarnik, Yakov Smushkevich and Grigori Shtern. During World War Two, an estimated 500,000 soldiers in the Red Army were Jewish, about 160,000 were decorated, and more than a hundred achieved the rank of Red Army general. Over 150 were designated Heroes of the Soviet Union, the highest award in the country, more than two million Soviet Jews are believed to have died during the Holocaust in warfare and in Nazi-occupied territories. For many years during this period, Russia had a rate of immigration to Israel than any other country
20.
Hanukkah
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Hanukkah is a Jewish holiday commemorating the rededication of the Holy Temple in Jerusalem at the time of the Maccabean Revolt against the Seleucid Empire. It is also known as the Festival of Lights and the Feast of Dedication, the festival is observed by the kindling of the lights of a unique candelabrum, the nine-branched menorah, one additional light on each night of the holiday, progressing to eight on the final night. The typical menorah consists of eight branches with a visually distinct branch. The extra light, with which the others are lit, is called a shamash and is given a distinct location, other Hanukkah festivities include playing dreidel and eating oil-based foods such as doughnuts and latkes. Since the 1970s, the worldwide Chabad Hasidic movement has initiated public menorah lightings in open places in many countries. The name Hanukkah derives from the Hebrew verb חנך, meaning to dedicate, on Hanukkah, the Maccabean Jews regained control of Jerusalem and rededicated the Temple. חנוכה is also the Hebrew acronym for ח נרות והלכה כבית הלל — Eight candles, and the halakha is like the House of Hillel. This is a reference to the disagreement between two schools of thought — the House of Hillel and the House of Shammai — on the proper order in which to light the Hanukkah flames. Shammai opined that eight candles should be lit on the first night, seven on the second night, Hillel argued in favor of starting with one candle and lighting an additional one every night, up to eight on the eighth night. Jewish law adopted the position of Hillel, in Hebrew, the word Hanukkah is written חֲנֻכָּה or חנוכה. It is most commonly transliterated to English as Chanukah or Hanukkah, moreover, the kaf consonant is geminate in classical Hebrew. It has also been spelled as Hannukah, the story of Hanukkah is preserved in the books of the First and Second Maccabees, which describe in detail the re-dedication of the Temple in Jerusalem and the lighting of the menorah. These books are not part of the Tanakh which came from the Palestinian canon, however, both books are included in the Old Testament used by the Catholic and Orthodox Churches, since those churches consider the books deuterocanonical. They are not included in the Old Testament books in most Protestant Bibles since most Protestants consider the books apocryphal, multiple references to Hanukkah are also made in the Mishna, though specific laws are not described. The miracle of the supply of oil miraculously lasting eight days is first described in the Talmud. Rav Nissim Gaon postulates in his Hakdamah Lemafteach Hatalmud that information on the holiday was so commonplace that the Mishna felt no need to explain it. They found only a container that was still sealed by the High Priest. They used this, yet it burned for eight days, except in times of danger, the lights were to be placed outside ones door, on the opposite side of the mezuza, or in the window closest to the street
21.
Cossacks
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Cossacks are a group of predominantly East Slavic-speaking people who became known as members of democratic, self-governing, semi-military communities, predominantly located in Ukraine and in Russia. The origins of the first Cossacks are disputed, though the 1710 Constitution of Pylyp Orlyk claimed Khazar origin, the Zaporizhian Sich were a vassal people of Poland–Lithuania during feudal times. Under increasing pressure from the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, in the century the Sich declared an independent Cossack Hetmanate. Afterwards, the Treaty of Pereyaslav brought most of the Ukrainian Cossack state under Russian rule, the Sich with its lands became an autonomous region under the Russian-Polish protectorate. The Don Cossack Host, which had established by the 16th century. Together they began a systematic conquest and colonisation of lands in order to secure the borders on the Volga, the whole of Siberia, and the Yaik, Cossack communities had developed along the latter two rivers well before the arrival of the Don Cossacks. By the 18th century, Cossack hosts in the Russian Empire occupied effective buffer zones on its borders, the expansionist ambitions of the Empire relied on ensuring the loyalty of Cossacks, which caused tension given their traditional exercise of freedom, democratic self-rule, and independence. By the end of the 18th century, Cossack nations had transformed into a special military estate. The government provided only firearms and supplies for them, Cossack service was considered the most rigorous one. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the Tsarist regime used Cossacks extensively to perform police service and they also served as border guards on national and internal ethnic borders. During the Russian Civil War, Don and Kuban Cossacks were the first nations to open war against the Bolsheviks. By 1918, Cossacks declared the independence of their nations and formed the independent states, the Ukrainian State, the Don Republic. The Cossack troops formed the core of the anti-Bolshevik White Army. With the victory of the Red Army, the Cossack lands were subjected to Decossackization, after the dissolution of the Soviet Union, the Cossacks made a systematic return to Russia. Many took a part in Post-Soviet conflicts and Yugoslav Wars. In Russias 2010 Population Census, Cossacks have been recognized as an ethnicity, there are Cossack organizations in Russia, Kazakhstan, Ukraine, Poland, and the United States. Max Vasmers etymological dictionary traces the name to the Old East Slavic word козакъ, kozak, the ethnonym Kazakh is from the same Turkic root. In written sources the name is first attested in Codex Cumanicus from the 13th century, in English, Cossack is first attested in 1590
22.
Anti-Jewish pogroms in the Russian Empire
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The term pogrom in the meaning of large-scale, targeted, and repeated anti-Jewish rioting, saw its first use in the 19th century, in reference to the anti-Jewish pogroms in the Russian Empire. Pogroms began occurring after the Russian Empire, which previously had very few Jews and these territories were designated the Pale of Settlement by the Russian government, within which Jews were reluctantly permitted to live, and it was within them that the pogroms largely took place. Most Jews were forbidden from moving to other parts of the Empire, the first pogrom is sometimes considered to be the 1821 Odessa pogroms after the execution of the Greek Orthodox patriarch Gregory V in Constantinople, in which 14 Jews were killed. The initiators of the 1821 pogroms were the local Greeks, who used to have a substantial diaspora in the cities of what was known as Novorossiya. Some sources consider the first pogrom to be the 1859 riots in Odessa, the term pogrom became commonly used in English after a large-scale wave of anti-Jewish riots swept through south-western Imperial Russia from 1881 to 1884. The trigger for these pogroms was the assassination of Tsar Alexander II, the extent to which the Russian press was responsible for encouraging perceptions of the assassination as a Jewish act has been disputed. It has been argued that this was more important than rumours of Jewish responsibility for the death of the Tsar. The fact that the assassins were all atheists and that the wider Jewish community had nothing to do with the assassination had little impact on the spread of such antisemitic rumours. Nonetheless, the assassination inspired retaliatory attacks on Jewish communities, there also was a large pogrom on the night of 15–16 April 1881 in the city of Yelizavetgrad. On April 17 the Army units were dispatched and were forced to use firearms to extinguish the riot, however, that only incited the whole situation in the region and a week later series of pogroms rolled through parts of the Kherson Governorate. On April 26,1881 even bigger disorder engulfed the city of Kiev, the Kiev pogrom of 1881 is considered the worst one that took place in 1881. The pogroms of 1881 did not stop then and they continued on through the summer, spreading across a big territory of modern-day Ukraine. During these pogroms the first local Jewish self-defense organizations started to form and it was organized by the Jewish students of the Novorossiysk University. The new Tsar Alexander III initially blamed revolutionaries and the Jews themselves for the riots and in May 1882 issued the May Laws and these pogroms were referred to among Jews as the storms in the negev, negev being a Biblical word for the south. Changed perceptions among Russian Jews also indirectly gave a significant boost to the early Zionist movement, at least 40 Jews were killed during pogroms during April to December 1881. Of these,17 were reportedly killed while being raped, an additional 225 incidents of Jewish women being raped were reported. The leaders of the Jewish community in London were slow to speak out and it was only after Louisa Goldsmids support following leadership from an anonymous writer named Juriscontalus and the editor of the Jewish Chronicle that action was taken in 1881. Public meetings were held across the country and Jewish and Christian leaders in Britain spoke out against the atrocities, the 1905 pogrom against Jews in Odessa was the most serious pogrom of the period, with reports of up to 2,500 Jews killed
23.
Hamburg
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Hamburg, officially Freie und Hansestadt Hamburg, is the second largest city in Germany and the eighth largest city in the European Union. It is the second smallest German state by area and its population is over 1.7 million people, and the wider Hamburg Metropolitan Region covers more than 5.1 million inhabitants. The city is situated on the river Elbe, the official long name reflects Hamburgs history as a member of the medieval Hanseatic League, a free imperial city of the Holy Roman Empire, a city-state, and one of the 16 states of Germany. Before the 1871 Unification of Germany, it was a sovereign state. Prior to the changes in 1919, the civic republic was ruled by a class of hereditary grand burghers or Hanseaten. Though repeatedly destroyed by the Great Fire of Hamburg, the floods and military conflicts including WW2 bombing raids, the city managed to recover and emerge wealthier after each catastrophe. On the river Elbe, Hamburg is a port and a global service, media, logistics and industrial hub, with headquarters and facilities of Airbus, Blohm + Voss, Aurubis, Beiersdorf. The radio and television broadcaster NDR, Europes largest printing and publishing firm Gruner + Jahr, Hamburg has been an important financial centre for centuries, and is the seat of Germanys oldest stock exchange and the worlds second oldest bank, Berenberg Bank. The city is a fast expanding tourist destination for domestic and international visitors. It ranked 16th in the world for livability in 2015, the ensemble Speicherstadt and Kontorhausviertel was declared a World Heritage Site by the UNESCO in 2015. Hamburg is a major European science, research and education hub with several universities and institutes and its creative industries and major cultural venues include the renowned Elbphilharmonie and Laeisz concert halls, various art venues, music producers and artists. It is regarded as a haven for artists, gave birth to movements like Hamburger Schule. Hamburg is also known for theatres and a variety of musical shows. St. Paulis Reeperbahn is among the best known European entertainment districts, Hamburg is on the southern point of the Jutland Peninsula, between Continental Europe to the south and Scandinavia to the north, with the North Sea to the west and the Baltic Sea to the north-east. It is on the River Elbe at its confluence with the Alster, the city centre is around the Binnenalster and Außenalster, both formed by damming the River Alster to create lakes. The island of Neuwerk and two neighbouring islands Scharhörn and Nigehörn, in the Hamburg Wadden Sea National Park, are also part of Hamburg. The neighbourhoods of Neuenfelde, Cranz, Francop and Finkenwerder are part of the Altes Land region, neugraben-Fischbek has Hamburgs highest elevation, the Hasselbrack at 116.2 metres AMSL. Hamburg has a climate, influenced by its proximity to the coast
24.
New York City
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The City of New York, often called New York City or simply New York, is the most populous city in the United States. With an estimated 2015 population of 8,550,405 distributed over an area of about 302.6 square miles. Located at the tip of the state of New York. Home to the headquarters of the United Nations, New York is an important center for international diplomacy and has described as the cultural and financial capital of the world. Situated on one of the worlds largest natural harbors, New York City consists of five boroughs, the five boroughs – Brooklyn, Queens, Manhattan, The Bronx, and Staten Island – were consolidated into a single city in 1898. In 2013, the MSA produced a gross metropolitan product of nearly US$1.39 trillion, in 2012, the CSA generated a GMP of over US$1.55 trillion. NYCs MSA and CSA GDP are higher than all but 11 and 12 countries, New York City traces its origin to its 1624 founding in Lower Manhattan as a trading post by colonists of the Dutch Republic and was named New Amsterdam in 1626. The city and its surroundings came under English control in 1664 and were renamed New York after King Charles II of England granted the lands to his brother, New York served as the capital of the United States from 1785 until 1790. It has been the countrys largest city since 1790, the Statue of Liberty greeted millions of immigrants as they came to the Americas by ship in the late 19th and early 20th centuries and is a symbol of the United States and its democracy. In the 21st century, New York has emerged as a node of creativity and entrepreneurship, social tolerance. Several sources have ranked New York the most photographed city in the world, the names of many of the citys bridges, tapered skyscrapers, and parks are known around the world. Manhattans real estate market is among the most expensive in the world, Manhattans Chinatown incorporates the highest concentration of Chinese people in the Western Hemisphere, with multiple signature Chinatowns developing across the city. Providing continuous 24/7 service, the New York City Subway is one of the most extensive metro systems worldwide, with 472 stations in operation. Over 120 colleges and universities are located in New York City, including Columbia University, New York University, and Rockefeller University, during the Wisconsinan glaciation, the New York City region was situated at the edge of a large ice sheet over 1,000 feet in depth. The ice sheet scraped away large amounts of soil, leaving the bedrock that serves as the foundation for much of New York City today. Later on, movement of the ice sheet would contribute to the separation of what are now Long Island and Staten Island. The first documented visit by a European was in 1524 by Giovanni da Verrazzano, a Florentine explorer in the service of the French crown and he claimed the area for France and named it Nouvelle Angoulême. Heavy ice kept him from further exploration, and he returned to Spain in August and he proceeded to sail up what the Dutch would name the North River, named first by Hudson as the Mauritius after Maurice, Prince of Orange
25.
Confidence trick
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A confidence trick is an attempt to defraud a person or group after first gaining their confidence, used in the classical sense of trust. Confidence tricks exploit characteristics of the human psyche such as dishonesty, vanity, compassion, credulity, irresponsibility, naïveté, the perpetrator of a confidence trick is often referred to as a confidence man, con-artist, or a grifter. Samuel Thompson was the confidence man. Thompson was a swindler who asked his victims to express confidence in him by giving him money or their watch rather than gaining their confidence in a more nuanced way. A few people trusted Thompson with their money and watches, Thompson was arrested in July 1849. Reporting about this arrest, Dr. James Houston, a reporter of the New York Herald, although Thompson was an unsuccessful scammer, he gained reputation as a genius operator mostly because Houstons satirical writing wasnt understood. The National Police Gazette coined the term confidence game a few weeks after Houston first used the name, the confidence man. A confidence trick is known as a con game, a con, a scam, a grift, a hustle, a bunko, a swindle, a flimflam. The intended victims are known as marks, suckers, or gulls, when accomplices are employed, they are known as shills. A short con or small con is a fast swindle which takes just minutes and it typically aims to rob the victim of everything in his or her wallet. A long con or big con is a scam that unfolds over several days or weeks and involves a team of swindlers, as well as props, sets, extras, costumes, and scripted lines. It aims to rob the victim of huge sums of money or valuable things, often by getting him or her to empty out banking accounts, in Confessions of a Confidence Man, Edward H. Smith lists the six definite steps or stages of growth of a confidence game. He notes that some steps may be omitted, foundation Work Preparations are made in advance of the game, including the hiring of any assistants required. Build-up The victim is given an opportunity to profit from a scheme, the victims greed is encouraged, such that their rational judgment of the situation might be impaired. Pay-off or Convincer The victim receives a small payout as a demonstration of the schemes effectiveness and this may be a real amount of money, or faked in some way. In a gambling con, the victim is allowed to win small bets. In a stock market con, the victim is given fake dividends, the Hurrah A sudden crisis or change of events forces the victim to act immediately. This is the point at which the con succeeds or fails, the In-and-In A conspirator puts an amount of money into the same scheme as the victim, to add an appearance of legitimacy to the scheme
26.
Sweatshop
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Sweatshop is a pejorative term for a workplace that has poor, socially unacceptable working conditions. The work may be difficult, dangerous, or underpaid, Workers in sweatshops may work long hours with low pay, regardless of laws mandating overtime pay or a minimum wage, child labor laws may also be violated. A sweatshop is a factory or workshop, especially in the clothing industry, the workplaces created for the sweating system, a system of subcontracting in the tailoring trade were called sweatshops and might contain only a few workers or as many as 100 and more. In the 1890s, a group calling itself the National Anti-Sweating League was formed in Melbourne, a group with the same name campaigned from 1906 in the UK, resulting in the Trade Boards Act 1909. In 1910, the International Ladies Garment Workers Union was founded to try to improve the condition of these workers, criticism of garment sweatshops became a major force behind workplace safety regulation and labor laws. As some journalists strove to change working conditions, the term came to refer to a broader set of workplaces whose conditions were considered inferior. In the United States, investigative journalists, known as muckrakers, wrote exposés of business practices, notable exposés of sweatshop conditions include Jacob Riis photo documentary How the Other Half Lives and Upton Sinclairs book, The Jungle, about the meat packing industry. In 1911, negative perceptions of sweatshops were galvanized by the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire in New York City. The pivotal role of time and place is chronicled at the Lower East Side Tenement Museum. This recent definition eliminates any historical distinction about the role of a middleman or the items produced, sometimes penal labor facilities are grouped under the sweatshop label. Sweatshops conditions resemble prison labor in many cases, especially from a commonly found Western perspective, in 2014 Apple was caught failing to protect its workers in one of its Pegatron factories. Overwhelmed workers were caught falling asleep during their 12-hour shifts and a reporter had to work 18 days in a row. Sweatshops in question carry characteristics such as pregnancy tests for female laborers. Workers then go into a state of forced labor, if one day of work is not accounted for. These working conditions have been the source of suicidal unrest within factories in the past, chinese sweatshops known to have increased numbers of suicidal employees have suicide nets covering the whole site, in place to stop over-worked and stressed employees leaping to their deaths. Sweatshops have proved an issue to resolve because their roots lie in the conceptual foundations of the world economy. Developing countries like India, China, Vietnam, Bangladesh, and Honduras encourage the outsourcing of work from the world to provide work for their people. Outsourced work can, at times, bring some form of wealth to impoverished countries, regardless of Western labor concerns, people living in poor conditions prefer low wages to none at all
27.
Chelsea Piers
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Chelsea Piers is a series of piers in Chelsea, on the West Side of Manhattan in New York City. The piers replaced a hodgepodge of run-down waterfront structures with a row of grand buildings embellished with pink granite facades, the piers are currently used by the Chelsea Piers Sports & Entertainment Complex. In addition there is a center, a golf club with multi-story driving range. Sky Rink has the only ice skating rinks in Manhattan. Historically, the term Chelsea Piers referred to the luxury liner berths on Manhattans west side from 1910 to the 1930s, with ocean liners such as the Titanic becoming bigger and bigger, New York City was looking for a new passenger ship dock in the early 1900s. The Army, which controls the location and size of piers, ship lines were reluctant to build north of 23rd Street because infrastructure was already in place, including the High Line railway line and a train station near the river at 23rd Street. New York City solved the problem in a way by actually taking away a block of land that was the 1837 landfill that extended Manhattan to 13th Avenue. The controversial decision included condemning many businesses, the city was unable to condemn the West Washington Street Market and was left to remain landfill. The market ultimately closed and the dock was converted to a facility that was used to load garbage barges headed for the Fresh Kills Landfill. The only section of 13th Avenue that remains is behind the sanitation facility, the landfill is now called the Gansevoort Peninsula. The new piers were designed by the firm of Warren and Wetmore. Most of the major trans-Atlantic liners of the day docked at the piers and they played pivotal roles in the RMS Titanic, the two most memorable moments for the pier were with the Lusitania and Titanic. The RMS Lusitania left her Cunard Pier 54 in 1915 before being torpedoed by German submarine U-20, the RMS Titanic was destined for the White Star pier 59 when she sank. Survivors were rescued on Cunards RMS Carpathia, the Carpathia dropped off the Titanics lifeboats at Pier 59 before going back south to Pier 54 where she unloaded the passengers and survivors. Thousands of people assembled at the dock to greet the ship, during the summer of 1920, a dramatic rally was organized on July 31 at the White Star Line docks. A reported 15,000 New Yorkers turned up at Pier 60 at the foot of West 20th street to make sure Lloyd George would allow Mannix passage to Ireland, a luxury liner row was built between West 44th and West 52nd Street to handle larger liners in the 1930s. During World War II the piers were used to deploy troops, the piers had catastrophic fires in 1932 and 1947 that destroyed some of the south piers. New construction resulted in new cargo piers used by the United States Lines, in July 1936, the Chelsea Piers were the point of departure for Jesse Owens and the United States Olympic team as they left for the Summer Games in Berlin, Germany
28.
Kerosene
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Kerosene, also known as paraffin, lamp oil and coal oil, is a combustible hydrocarbon liquid which is derived from petroleum, widely used as a fuel in industry as well as households. Its name derives from Greek, κηρός meaning wax, and was registered as a trademark by Abraham Gesner in 1854 before evolving into a genericized trademark and it is sometimes spelled kerosine in scientific and industrial usage. Liquid paraffin is a more viscous and highly refined product which is used as a laxative, paraffin wax is a waxy solid extracted from petroleum. Kerosene is widely used to power jet engines of aircraft and some rocket engines, in parts of Asia, where the price of kerosene is subsidized, it fuels outboard motors on small fishing boats. World total kerosene consumption for all purposes is equivalent to about 1.2 million barrels per day, to prevent confusion between kerosene and the much more flammable and volatile gasoline, some jurisdictions regulate markings or colorings for containers used to store or dispense kerosene. For example, in the United States, the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania requires that portable containers used at retail service stations be colored blue and it is miscible in petroleum solvents but immiscible in water. The American Society for Testing and Materials standard specification D-3699-78 recognizes two grades of kerosene, grades 1-K and 2-K, regardless of crude oil source or processing history, kerosenes major components are branched and straight chain alkanes and naphthenes, which normally account for at least 70% by volume. Aromatic hydrocarbons in this range, such as alkylbenzenes and alkylnaphthalenes. Olefins are usually not present at more than 5% by volume, the flash point of kerosene is between 37 and 65 °C, and its autoignition temperature is 220 °C. The pour point of kerosene depends on grade, with aviation fuel standardized at −47 °C. 1-K grade kerosene freezes around -40 °C, heat of combustion of kerosene is similar to that of diesel fuel, its lower heating value is 43.1 MJ/kg, and its higher heating value is 46.2 MJ/kg. In the United Kingdom, two grades of heating oil are defined, BS2869 Class C1 is the lightest grade used for lanterns, camping stoves, wick heaters, and mixed with gasoline in some vintage combustion engines as a substitute for tractor vaporising oil. BS2869 Class C2 is a heavier distillate, which is used as heating oil. Premium kerosene is sold in 5 or 20 liter containers from hardware, camping. Standard kerosene is usually dispensed in bulk by a tanker and is undyed, National and international standards define the properties of several grades of kerosene used for jet fuel. Flash point and freezing point properties are of particular interest for operation and safety, the process of distilling crude oil/petroleum into kerosene, as well as other hydrocarbon compounds, was first written about in the 9th century by the Persian scholar Rāzi. In his Kitab al-Asrar, the physician and chemist Razi described two methods for the production of kerosene, termed naft abyad, using an apparatus called an alembic, one method used clay as an absorbent, whereas the other method used ammonium chloride. The distillation process was repeated until all most of the volatile hydrocarbon fractions had been removed, Kerosene was also produced during the same period from oil shale and bitumen by heating the rock to extract the oil, which was then distilled
29.
Statue of Liberty
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The Statue of Liberty is a colossal neoclassical sculpture on Liberty Island in New York Harbor in New York City, in the United States. The copper statue, a gift from the people of France to the people of the United States, was designed by French sculptor Frédéric Auguste Bartholdi, the statue was dedicated on October 28,1886. The Statue of Liberty is a female figure representing Libertas. She holds a torch above her head, and in her left arm carries a tabula ansata inscribed July 4,1776, a broken chain lies at her feet. The statue became an icon of freedom and of the United States, due to the post-war instability in France, work on the statue did not commence until the early 1870s. In 1875, Laboulaye proposed that the French finance the statue, Bartholdi completed the head and the torch-bearing arm before the statue was fully designed, and these pieces were exhibited for publicity at international expositions. The torch-bearing arm was displayed at the Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia in 1876, fundraising proved difficult, especially for the Americans, and by 1885 work on the pedestal was threatened due to lack of funds. Publisher Joseph Pulitzer of the New York World started a drive for donations to complete the project attracted more than 120,000 contributors. The statue was constructed in France, shipped overseas in crates, the statues completion was marked by New Yorks first ticker-tape parade and a dedication ceremony presided over by President Grover Cleveland. The statue was administered by the United States Lighthouse Board until 1901 and then by the Department of War, public access to the balcony surrounding the torch has been barred for safety reasons since 1916. The project is traced to a conversation between Édouard René de Laboulaye, a staunch abolitionist and Frédéric Bartholdi, a sculptor. The National Park Service, in a 2000 report, however, deemed this a legend traced to an 1885 fundraising pamphlet, in order to honor these achievements, Laboulaye proposed that a gift be built for the United States on behalf of France. Laboulaye hoped that by calling attention to the recent achievements of the United States, according to sculptor Frédéric Auguste Bartholdi, who later recounted the story, Laboulayes comment was not intended as a proposal, but it inspired Bartholdi. Given the repressive nature of the regime of Napoleon III, Bartholdi took no action on the idea except to discuss it with Laboulaye. Sketches and models were made of the work, though it was never erected. There was a precedent for the Suez proposal, the Colossus of Rhodes. This statue is believed to have been over 100 feet high, any large project was further delayed by the Franco-Prussian War, in which Bartholdi served as a major of militia. In the war, Napoleon III was captured and deposed, Bartholdis home province of Alsace was lost to the Prussians, and a more liberal republic was installed in France
30.
Yiddish
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Yiddish is the historical language of the Ashkenazi Jews. Yiddish is written with a fully vocalized alphabet based on the Hebrew script, the earliest surviving references date from the 12th century and call the language לשון־אַשכּנז or טײַטש, a variant of tiutsch, the contemporary name for Middle High German. Colloquially, the language is sometimes called מאַמע־לשון, distinguishing it from לשון־קדש, the term Yiddish, short for Yiddish-Teitsch, did not become the most frequently used designation in the literature until the 18th century. In the late 19th and into the 20th century the language was commonly called Jewish, especially in non-Jewish contexts. Modern Yiddish has two major forms, Eastern Yiddish is far more common today. It includes Southeastern, Mideastern, and Northeastern dialects, Eastern Yiddish differs from Western both by its far greater size and by the extensive inclusion of words of Slavic origin. Western Yiddish is divided into Southwestern, Midwestern, and Northwestern dialects, the term Yiddish is also used in the adjectival sense, synonymously with Jewish, to designate attributes of Ashkenazi culture. Prior to the Holocaust, there were over 10 million speakers of Yiddish, 85% of the Jews who died in the Holocaust were Yiddish speakers, assimilation following World War II further decreased the use of Yiddish both among survivors and Yiddish-speakers from other countries. However, the number of speakers is increasing in global Hasidic communities, the established view is that, as with other Jewish languages, Jews speaking distinct languages learned new co-territorial vernaculars, which they then Judaized. Exactly what German base lies behind the earliest form of Yiddish is disputed, both Weinreich and Solomon Birnbaum developed this model further in the mid-1950s. In Weinreichs view, this Old Yiddish substrate later bifurcated into two versions of the language, Western and Eastern Yiddish. They retained the Semitic vocabulary needed for religious purposes and created a Judeo-German form of speech, recent linguistic research has finessed, contested, or challenged the Weinreich model, providing alternative approaches to the origins of Yiddish. Some theorists argue that the fusion occurred with a Bavarian dialect base, the two main candidates for the germinal matrix of Yiddish, the Rhineland and Bavaria, are not necessarily incompatible. There may have been developments in the two regions, seeding the Western and Eastern dialects of Modern Yiddish. Dovid Katz proposes that Yiddish emerged from contact between speakers of High German and Aramaic-speaking Jews from the Middle East, wexlers model has met with little academic support, and strong critical challenges, especially among historical linguists. Alternative theories recognize the extent of Yiddishs Germanic vocabulary. Ashkenaz was centered on the Rhineland and the Palatinate, in what is now the westernmost part of Germany and its geographic extent did not coincide with the German principalities of the time, and it included northern France. Ashkenaz bordered on the inhabited by another distinctive Jewish cultural group, the Sephardim or Spanish Jews
31.
An American Tail: Fievel Goes West
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An American Tail, Fievel Goes West is a 1991 American animated western film produced by Steven Spielbergs Amblimation animation studio and released by Universal Pictures. It is the sequel to An American Tail, and the last installment in the series to be released theatrically, two direct-to-video sequels were released in the late 1990s. A continuation, Fievels American Tails, aired on CBS in 1992, don Bluth, the original films director, had no involvement with this one. Instead, it was directed by Phil Nibbelink and Simon Wells, Wells went on to do Were Back. A Dinosaurs Story, Balto, and The Time Machine, while Nibbelink went on to codirect Were Back, a Dinosaurs Story and direct his own independent features. The film follows the story of the Mousekewitzes, a family of Jewish-Russian mice who emigrate to the Wild West. In it, Fievel is separated from his family as the approaches the American Old West. It performed modestly at the box office grossing $40 million and received mixed reviews from critics, Fievel spends his days thinking about the Wild West dog-sheriff Wylie Burp, while his older sister, Tanya, dreams of becoming a singer. Meanwhile, Tigers girlfriend, Miss Kitty, leaves him to find a new life out west, soon after, Cat R. Waul forces the mice into the sewers, including the Mousekewitzes, and entices them into moving yet again to a better life out west. Tiger chases the train, trying to catch up with his friends, while on the train, Fievel wanders into the livestock car, where he overhears the cats revealing their plot to turn them into mouse burgers. After being discovered, he is thrown from the train by Cat R. s hench-spider, T. R. Chula and his family is devastated once again over his loss and arrive in Green River, Utah with heavy hearts. Upon arrival at Green River, Chula blocks up the water tower, Cat R. approaches the mice and proposes to build a new saloon together, although intending to trick the mice into doing the bulk of the work and then eat them afterwards. Meanwhile, Fievel is wandering aimlessly through the desert, as is Tiger, who has found his way out west as well, however, they each figure that the other is a mirage and continue on their separate ways. Tiger is captured by mouse Indians and hailed as a god, Fievel is picked up by a hawk, dropped over the mouse Indian village and reunites with Tiger. Tiger chooses to stay in while Fievel catches a passing tumbleweed, as soon as he makes his arrival, he quickly reunites with his family but is unable to convince them of Cat R. s plans to kill them. However, Cat R. hears Tanya singing and is enchanted by her voice and he sends Tanya to Miss Kitty, who is now a saloon-girl cat, and she reveals that she came at Cat R. s request. He tells Miss Kitty to put her on stage, with a little encouragement from Miss Kitty, she pulls off a performance for the cats. Meanwhile, Fievel is chased by Chula and briefly taken prisoner, while walking out of town, Fievel stops to talk with an elderly bloodhound sleeping outside the jail, discovering that he is actually Wylie Burp
32.
Castle Clinton
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Castle Clinton or Fort Clinton, once known as Castle Garden, is a circular sandstone fort now located in Battery Park, in Manhattan, New York City. It is perhaps best remembered as Americas first immigration station, where more than 8 million people arrived in the U. S. from 1855 to 1890. Over its active life, it has functioned as a beer garden, exhibition hall, theater, public aquarium. Castle Clinton stands approximately two blocks west of where Fort Amsterdam was built in 1626, when New York City was known by the Dutch name New Amsterdam, construction began in 1808 and was completed in 1811. The fort, known as West Battery, was designed by architects John McComb, Jr. and it was built on a small artificial island just off shore. Subsequent landfill expanded Battery Park, and the fort was incorporated into the mainland of Manhattan Island, as with all historic areas administered by the National Park Service, Castle Clinton National Monument was listed on the National Register of Historic Places. West Battery was renamed Castle Clinton in 1815, its current official name, the United States Army stopped using the fort in 1821, and it was leased to New York City as a place of public entertainment. It opened as Castle Garden on July 3,1824, a name by which it was known for most of its existence. It served in turn as a promenade, beer garden/restaurant, exhibition hall, opera house, designed as an open-air structure, it was eventually roofed over to accommodate these uses. In 1850, the castle was the site of two concerts given for charity by the Swedish soprano Jenny Lind to initiate her American tour, a year later, European dancing star Lola Montez performed her notorious tarantula dance in Castle Garden. In 1853–54, Louis-Antoine Jullien, the eccentric French conductor and composer of music, gave dozens of very successful concerts mixing classical. The Max Maretzek Italian Opera Company notably staged the New York premieres of Gaetano Donizettis Marino Faliero on June 17,1851, and Giuseppe Verdis Luisa Miller on July 20,1854 at Castle Garden. In the first half of the 19th century, most immigrants arriving in New York City landed at docks on the east side of the tip of Manhattan, around South Street. On August 1,1855, Castle Clinton became the Emigrant Landing Depot, the new facility was needed because immigrants were known to carry diseases, which led to epidemics of cholera and smallpox. After many unnecessary deaths, and scandals over immigration workers cheating and stealing from immigrants, called Kesselgarten by Yiddish-speaking Eastern European Jews, a Kesselgarten became a generic term for any situation that was noisy, confusing or chaotic, or where a babel of languages was spoken. Prominent persons associated with the administration of the immigrant station included Gulian Crommelin Verplanck, Friedrich Kapp, from 1896 to 1941, Castle Garden was the site of the New York City Aquarium. For many years, it was the citys most popular attraction, the structure was extensively altered, and roofed over to a height of several stories, though the original masonry fort remained. In 1941, the politically powerful Park Commissioner Robert Moses wanted to tear the structure down completely, due to the efforts of Albert S. Bard and other civic reformers, the Castle was saved, and finally became a national monument
33.
Cockroach
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Cockroaches are insects of the order Blattodea, which also includes termites. About 30 cockroach species out of 4,600 are associated with human habitats, about four species are well known as pests. The cockroaches are an ancient group, dating back at least as far as the Carboniferous period and those early ancestors however lacked the internal ovipositors of modern roaches. They are common and hardy insects, and can tolerate a range of environments from Arctic cold to tropical heat. Some species, such as the gregarious German cockroach, have a social structure involving common shelter, social dependence, information transfer. Cockroaches have appeared in human culture since classical antiquity and they are popularly depicted as dirty pests, though the great majority of species are inoffensive and live in a wide range of habitats around the world. Cockroaches are members of the order Blattodea, which includes the termites, currently,4,600 species and over 460 genera are described worldwide. The name cockroach comes from the Spanish word for cockroach, cucaracha, transformed by 1620s English folk etymology into cock and roach. The scientific name derives from the Latin blatta, an insect that shuns the light, which in classical Latin was applied not only to cockroaches, the current catalogue of world cockroach species uses the name Blattodea for the group. Another name, Blattoptera, is sometimes used. The earliest cockroach-like fossils are from the Carboniferous period 320 million years ago, since the 19th century, scientists believed that cockroaches were an ancient group of insects that had a Devonian origin, according to one hypothesis. Fossil roachoids that lived during that time differ from modern cockroaches in having long external ovipositors and are the ancestors of mantises, as the body, hind wings and mouthparts are not preserved in fossils frequently, the relationship of these roachoids and modern cockroaches remains disputed. The first fossils of modern cockroaches with internal ovipositors appeared in the early Cretaceous, a recent phylogenetic analysis suggests that cockroaches originated at least in the Jurassic. The evolutionary relationships of the Blattodea shown in the cladogram are based on Eggleton, the cockroach families Lamproblattidae and Tryonicidae are not shown but are placed within the superfamily Blattoidea. The cockroach families Corydiidae and Ectobiidae were previously known as the Polyphagidae and Blattellidae, termites were previously regarded as a separate order Isoptera to cockroaches. However, recent genetic evidence suggests that they evolved directly from true cockroaches. This evidence supported a hypothesis suggested in 1934 that termites are closely related to the wood-eating cockroaches and this hypothesis was originally based on similarity of the symbiotic gut flagellates in termites regarded as living fossils and wood-eating cockroaches. Additional evidence emerged when F. A. McKittrick noted similar morphological characteristics between some termites and cockroach nymphs, the similarities among these cockroaches and termites have led some scientists to reclassify termites as a single family, the Termitidae, within the order Blattodea
34.
Tony Toponi
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An American Tail is a 1986 American animated musical adventure family drama film directed by Don Bluth and produced by Sullivan Bluth Studios and Amblin Entertainment. It tells the story of Fievel Mousekewitz and his family as they emigrate from Russia to the United States for freedom, however, he gets lost and must find a way to reunite with them. It was released on November 21,1986, to reviews that ranged from positive to mixed and was a box office hit, the celebration is interrupted when a battery of Cossacks ride through the village square in an arson attack and their cats likewise attack the village mice. Because of this, the Moskowitz home, along with that of the Mousekewitzes, is destroyed, in Hamburg, Germany, the Mousekewitzes board a tramp steamer headed for America. The crossing proves itself long and onerous, as well as the tramp steamer being buffeted by an angry sea, during a thunderstorm, Fievel suddenly finds himself separated from his family and washed overboard. Thinking that he has died, they proceed to New York City as planned, however, Fievel floats to America in a bottle and, after a pep talk from a French pigeon named Henri, embarks on a quest to find his family. He is waylaid by conman Warren T. Rat, who gains his trust and he escapes with Tony Toponi, a street-smart Italian mouse, and they join up with Bridget, an Irish mouse trying to rouse her fellow mice to stand up to the cats. When a gang of them called the Mott Street Maulers attacks a mouse marketplace, Bridget takes Fievel and Tony to see Honest John, a drunk but reliable politician who knows all the voting mice in New York City. But, as the Mousekewitzes have not yet registered to vote, meanwhile, his older sister, Tanya, tells her gloomy parents she has a feeling that he is still alive, but they insist that it will eventually go away. Led by the rich and powerful Gussie Mausheimer, the mice hold a rally to decide what to do about the cats, Warren is extorting them all for protection that he never provides. No one knows what to do about it, until Fievel whispers a plan to Gussie, although his family also attends, they stand well in the back of the audience and cannot quite see that it is Fievel onstage with her. The mice take over an abandoned museum on Chelsea Pier and begin constructing their plan, on the day of launch, Fievel gets lost and stumbles upon Warrens lair. He discovers that he is actually a cat in disguise, and they capture and imprison him, but his guard is a reluctant member of the gang, a goofy, soft-hearted cat named Tiger, who befriends and frees him. Fievel races back to the pier with the cats chasing after him when Gussie orders the mice to release the secret weapon. A huge mechanical mouse, inspired by the bedtime tales Papa told to Fievel of the Giant Mouse of Minsk, chases the cats down the pier, a tramp steamer bound for Hong Kong picks them up on its anchor and carries them away. During the fire, Fievel is once again separated from his family, Papa overhears Bridget and Tony calling out to Fievel, but is sure that there may be another Fievel somewhere, until Mama finds his hat. Joined by Gussie, Tiger allows them to him in a final effort to find Fievel, in the end. While Fievel is the accepted spelling of his name, the opening credits spell it as Feivel
