1.
The Championships, Wimbledon
–
The Championships, Wimbledon, commonly known simply as Wimbledon, is the oldest tennis tournament in the world, and is widely considered the most prestigious. It has been held at the All England Club in Wimbledon, London, Wimbledon is one of the four Grand Slam tennis tournaments, the others being the Australian Open, the French Open and the US Open. Since the Australian Open shifted to hardcourt in 1988, Wimbledon is the only major still played on grass. The tournament takes place two weeks in late June and early July, culminating with the Ladies and Gentlemens Singles Final. Five major, junior, and invitational events are each year. Wimbledon traditions include a dress code for competitors and Royal patronage. The tournament is notable for the absence of sponsor advertising around the courts. In 2009, Wimbledons Centre Court was fitted with a roof to lessen the loss of playing time due to rain. The All England Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club is a club founded on 23 July 1868. Its first ground was off Worple Road, Wimbledon, in 1876, lawn tennis, a game devised by Major Walter Clopton Wingfield a year or so earlier and originally given the name Sphairistikè, was added to the activities of the club. In spring 1877, the club was renamed The All England Croquet and Lawn Tennis Club, a new code of laws, replacing the code administered by the Marylebone Cricket Club, was drawn up for the event. Todays rules are similar except for such as the height of the net and posts. The inaugural 1877 Wimbledon Championship started on 9 July 1877 and the Gentlemens Singles was the event held. It was won by Spencer Gore, an old Harrovian rackets player, about 200 spectators paid one shilling each to watch the final. The lawns at the ground were arranged so that the court was in the middle with the others arranged around it. The name was retained when the Club moved in 1922 to the present site in Church Road, however, in 1980 four new courts were brought into commission on the north side of the ground, which meant the Centre Court was once more correctly defined. The opening of the new No.1 Court in 1997 emphasised the description, by 1882, activity at the club was almost exclusively confined to lawn tennis and that year the word croquet was dropped from the title. However, for reasons it was restored in 1899
2.
US Open (tennis)
–
The United States Open Tennis Championships is a hardcourt tennis tournament. The tournament is the version of one of the oldest tennis championships in the world. The US Open is held annually, starting on the last Monday in August, the main tournament consists of five event championships, mens and womens singles, mens and womens doubles, and mixed doubles, with additional tournaments for senior, junior, and wheelchair players. Since 1978, the tournament has played on acrylic hard courts at the USTA Billie Jean King National Tennis Center in Flushing Meadows–Corona Park, Queens. The US Open is owned and organized by the United States Tennis Association, net proceeds from ticket sales, sponsorships, and television deals are used to promote the development of tennis in the United States. The US Open is the only Grand Slam that employs tiebreakers in every set of a match, the first edition was won by Richard Sears, who went on to win seven consecutive singles titles. In the first years of the U. S. National Championship only men competed and this was followed by the introduction of the U. S. Womens National Doubles Championship in 1899 and the U. S. The womens tournament used a system from 1888 through 1918. This view was opposed by another group of players which included eight former national singles champions, the contentious issue was brought to a vote at the annual USNLTA meeting on February 5,1915 and with 128 votes in favor and 119 against it was decided to relocate. From 1921 through 1923, the tournament was played at the Germantown Cricket Club in Philadelphia and it returned to Forest Hills in 1924 following the completion of the newly constructed 14,000 seat concrete Forest Hills Stadium. Though regarded unofficially by many as a major championship beforehand, the tournament was officially designated as one of the tournaments by the ILTF commencing in 1924. At the 1922 U. S. National Championships the draw for the first time included seeded players in order to avoid leading players drawing against each other in the early rounds. Open era The open era began in 1968 when all five events were merged into the US Open, the 1968 combined tournament was open to professionals for the first time. That year,96 men and 63 women entered the event, from 1970 to 1974 the US Open used a best-of-nine point, sudden death tiebreaker before moving to the ITF best-of-twelve point system. In 1973 the US Open became the first Grand Slam tournament to award equal prize money to men and women with that years singles champions John Newcombe, another US Open innovation came in 1975 when floodlights enabled night play for the first time. In 1978 the tournament moved from the West Side Tennis Club, Forest Hills, Queens to the larger USTA National Tennis Center in Flushing Meadows, Queens, three miles to the north. In the process, the tournament switched the court surface from clay, jimmy Connors is the only individual to have won US Open singles titles on all three surfaces, while Chris Evert is the only woman to win on two surfaces. The US Open is the only Grand Slam tournament that has played every year since its inception
3.
Tennis
–
Tennis is a racket sport that can be played individually against a single opponent or between two teams of two players each. Each player uses a racket that is strung with cord to strike a hollow rubber ball covered with felt over or around a net. The object of the game is to play the ball in such a way that the opponent is not able to play a valid return, the player who is unable to return the ball will not gain a point, while the opposite player will. Tennis is an Olympic sport and is played at all levels of society, the sport can be played by anyone who can hold a racket, including wheelchair users. The modern game of tennis originated in Birmingham, England, in the late 19th century as lawn tennis and it had close connections both to various field games such as croquet and bowls as well as to the older racket sport of real tennis. The rules of tennis have changed little since the 1890s, two exceptions are that from 1908 to 1961 the server had to keep one foot on the ground at all times, and the adoption of the tiebreak in the 1970s. Tennis is played by millions of players and is also a popular worldwide spectator sport. Historians believe that the ancient origin lay in 12th century northern France. Louis X of France was a player of jeu de paume, which evolved into real tennis. Louis was unhappy with playing tennis outdoors and accordingly had indoor, in due course this design spread across royal palaces all over Europe. Because of the accounts of his death, Louis X is historys first tennis player known by name. Another of the enthusiasts of the game was King Charles V of France. It wasnt until the 16th century that rackets came into use, and the game began to be called tennis, from the French term tenez, an interjection used as a call from the server to his opponent. It was popular in England and France, although the game was played indoors where the ball could be hit off the wall. Henry VIII of England was a big fan of this game, during the 18th century and early 19th century, as real tennis declined, new racket sports emerged in England. This in turn led to the codification of rules for many sports, including lawn tennis, most football codes, lawn bowls. In 1872, along with two doctors, they founded the worlds first tennis club in Leamington Spa. Evans, turfgrass agronomist, Sports historians all agree that deserves much of the credit for the development of modern tennis, according to Honor Godfrey, museum curator at Wimbledon, Wingfield popularized this game enormously
4.
1906 San Francisco earthquake
–
The 1906 San Francisco earthquake struck the coast of Northern California at 5,12 a. m. on April 18 with an estimated moment magnitude of 7.8 and a maximum Mercalli intensity of XI. Severe shaking was felt from Eureka on the North Coast to the Salinas Valley, devastating fires soon broke out in the city and lasted for several days. As a result, about 3,000 people died and over 80% of the city of San Francisco was destroyed, the events are remembered as one of the worst and deadliest natural disasters in the history of the United States. The death toll remains the greatest loss of life from a disaster in Californias history. The San Andreas Fault is a transform fault that forms part of the tectonic boundary between the Pacific Plate and the North American Plate. The strike-slip fault is characterized by mainly lateral motion in a dextral sense, the 1906 rupture propagated both northward and southward for a total of 296 miles. This fault runs the length of California from the Salton Sea in the south to Cape Mendocino in the north, the maximum observed surface displacement was about 20 feet, geodetic measurements show displacements of up to 28 feet. The 1906 earthquake preceded the development of the Richter magnitude scale by three decades. The most widely accepted estimate for the magnitude of the quake on the moment magnitude scale is 7.8. According to findings published in the Journal of Geophysical Research, severe deformations in the earths crust took place both before and after the earthquakes impact. Accumulated strain on the faults in the system was relieved during the earthquake, the main shock epicenter occurred offshore about 2 miles from the city, near Mussel Rock. Shaking was felt from Oregon to Los Angeles, and inland as far as central Nevada, a strong foreshock preceded the main shock by about 20 to 25 seconds. The strong shaking of the main shock lasted about 42 seconds, there were decades of minor earthquakes – more than at any other time in the historical record for northern California – before the 1906 quake. For years, the epicenter of the quake was assumed to be near the town of Olema, in the Point Reyes area of Marin County, because of evidence of the degree of local earth displacement. In the 1960s, a seismologist at UC Berkeley proposed that the epicenter was more likely offshore of San Francisco, at the time,375 deaths were reported, partly because hundreds of fatalities in Chinatown went ignored and unrecorded. The total number of deaths is uncertain today, and is estimated to be roughly 3,000 at minimum. Most of the deaths occurred in San Francisco itself, but 189 were reported elsewhere in the Bay Area, nearby cities, such as Santa Rosa and San Jose, in Monterey County, the earthquake permanently shifted the course of the Salinas River near its mouth. Where previously the river emptied into Monterey Bay between Moss Landing and Watsonville, it was diverted 6 miles south to a new channel just north of Marina
5.
Bill Tilden
–
William Tatem Tilden II, nicknamed Big Bill, was an American male tennis player. He is often considered one of the greatest tennis players of all time, Tilden was the World No.1 player for six years from 1920 through 1925. He won 15 Major singles titles including ten Grand Slam events, one World Hard Court Championships and he was the first American to win Wimbledon in 1920. He also won a record seven US Championships titles, Tilden dominated the world of international tennis in the first half of the 1920s, and during his 18-year amateur period of 1912–30, won 138 of 192 tournaments. He owns a number of all-time tennis achievements including a match winning record. At the 1929 US National Championships Tilden became the first player to reach 10 finals at a single Grand Slam event and this mark stood until 2015, when Roger Federer reached his tenth Wimbledon final. He turned professional on the last day of year and toured with a handful of other professionals for the next 15 years. Bill Tilden was born on February 10,1893 in Germantown and his father was William Tatem Tilden, a wool merchant and local politician, and his mother, Selina Hey, was a pianist. The loss at 22 of his father and older brother Herbert marked him deeply, after several months of deep depression, and with encouragement from his aunt, tennis, which he had taken up at age five, became his primary means of recovery. In spite of his travels, Tilden lived at his aunts house until 1941 when he was 48 years old. Tilden was initially home-schooled but in 1908 went to Germantown Academy and he later attended the University of Pennsylvania, where he was a reluctant student, and graduated from Peirce College. Tilden went to the prep school Germantown Academy where he wasnt known for his tennis nor was he eventually good enough to play on his college team, the following year he won his first tournaments, the junior singles and doubles title of Germantown. He later enrolled at the Peirce School of Business, in just three years, he worked his way up the ranks. His first national title was winning the doubles championships with Mary Browne in 1913. From 1914 to 1917, Tilden won the Philadelphia championship and he won six consecutive U. S. singles championships from 1920–1925 and seven in total, making him the co-record holder with Richard Sears and Bill Larned. In the winter of 1919–20, he moved to Rhode Island where, on an indoor court, with this change, he became the world no.1 tennis player and the first male American to win the Wimbledon singles championship. In the mid 1920s Tilden came into conflict with the USLTA regarding alleged violations of the amateur rule, Tilden had long been at odds with the rigid amateur directors of the United States Lawn Tennis Association about his income derived from newspaper articles about tennis. He won his last major championship at Wimbledon in 1930 at the age of 37, on 31 December 1930, in need of money, he turned professional and joined the fledgling pro tour, which had begun only in 1927
6.
United States
–
Forty-eight of the fifty states and the federal district are contiguous and located in North America between Canada and Mexico. The state of Alaska is in the northwest corner of North America, bordered by Canada to the east, the state of Hawaii is an archipelago in the mid-Pacific Ocean. The U. S. territories are scattered about the Pacific Ocean, the geography, climate and wildlife of the country are extremely diverse. At 3.8 million square miles and with over 324 million people, the United States is the worlds third- or fourth-largest country by area, third-largest by land area. It is one of the worlds most ethnically diverse and multicultural nations, paleo-Indians migrated from Asia to the North American mainland at least 15,000 years ago. European colonization began in the 16th century, the United States emerged from 13 British colonies along the East Coast. Numerous disputes between Great Britain and the following the Seven Years War led to the American Revolution. On July 4,1776, during the course of the American Revolutionary War, the war ended in 1783 with recognition of the independence of the United States by Great Britain, representing the first successful war of independence against a European power. The current constitution was adopted in 1788, after the Articles of Confederation, the first ten amendments, collectively named the Bill of Rights, were ratified in 1791 and designed to guarantee many fundamental civil liberties. During the second half of the 19th century, the American Civil War led to the end of slavery in the country. By the end of century, the United States extended into the Pacific Ocean. The Spanish–American War and World War I confirmed the status as a global military power. The end of the Cold War and the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991 left the United States as the sole superpower. The U. S. is a member of the United Nations, World Bank, International Monetary Fund, Organization of American States. The United States is a developed country, with the worlds largest economy by nominal GDP. It ranks highly in several measures of performance, including average wage, human development, per capita GDP. While the U. S. economy is considered post-industrial, characterized by the dominance of services and knowledge economy, the United States is a prominent political and cultural force internationally, and a leader in scientific research and technological innovations. In 1507, the German cartographer Martin Waldseemüller produced a map on which he named the lands of the Western Hemisphere America after the Italian explorer and cartographer Amerigo Vespucci
Maurice McLoughlin
R. Norris Williams
