1.
Philadelphia
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In 1682, William Penn, an English Quaker, founded the city to serve as capital of the Pennsylvania Colony. Philadelphia was one of the capitals in the Revolutionary War. In the 19th century, Philadelphia became an industrial center. It became a destination for African-Americans in the Great Migration. The areas many universities and colleges make Philadelphia a top international study destination, as the city has evolved into an educational, with a gross domestic product of $388 billion, Philadelphia ranks ninth among world cities and fourth in the nation. Philadelphia is the center of activity in Pennsylvania and is home to seven Fortune 1000 companies. The Philadelphia skyline is growing, with a market of almost 81,900 commercial properties in 2016 including several prominent skyscrapers. The city is known for its arts, culture, and rich history, Philadelphia has more outdoor sculptures and murals than any other American city. Fairmount Park, when combined with the adjacent Wissahickon Valley Park in the watershed, is one of the largest contiguous urban park areas in the United States. The 67 National Historic Landmarks in the city helped account for the $10 billion generated by tourism, Philadelphia is the only World Heritage City in the United States. Before Europeans arrived, the Philadelphia area was home to the Lenape Indians in the village of Shackamaxon, the Lenape are a Native American tribe and First Nations band government. They are also called Delaware Indians and their territory was along the Delaware River watershed, western Long Island. Most Lenape were pushed out of their Delaware homeland during the 18th century by expanding European colonies, Lenape communities were weakened by newly introduced diseases, mainly smallpox, and violent conflict with Europeans. Iroquois people occasionally fought the Lenape, surviving Lenape moved west into the upper Ohio River basin. The American Revolutionary War and United States independence pushed them further west, in the 1860s, the United States government sent most Lenape remaining in the eastern United States to the Indian Territory under the Indian removal policy. In the 21st century, most Lenape now reside in the US state of Oklahoma, with communities living also in Wisconsin, Ontario. The Dutch considered the entire Delaware River valley to be part of their New Netherland colony, in 1638, Swedish settlers led by renegade Dutch established the colony of New Sweden at Fort Christina and quickly spread out in the valley. In 1644, New Sweden supported the Susquehannocks in their defeat of the English colony of Maryland
2.
Los Angeles
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Los Angeles, officially the City of Los Angeles and often known by its initials L. A. is the cultural, financial, and commercial center of Southern California. With a census-estimated 2015 population of 3,971,883, it is the second-most populous city in the United States, Los Angeles is also the seat of Los Angeles County, the most populated county in the United States. The citys inhabitants are referred to as Angelenos, historically home to the Chumash and Tongva, Los Angeles was claimed by Juan Rodríguez Cabrillo for Spain in 1542 along with the rest of what would become Alta California. The city was founded on September 4,1781, by Spanish governor Felipe de Neve. It became a part of Mexico in 1821 following the Mexican War of Independence, in 1848, at the end of the Mexican–American War, Los Angeles and the rest of California were purchased as part of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, thereby becoming part of the United States. Los Angeles was incorporated as a municipality on April 4,1850, the discovery of oil in the 1890s brought rapid growth to the city. The completion of the Los Angeles Aqueduct in 1913, delivering water from Eastern California, nicknamed the City of Angels, Los Angeles is known for its Mediterranean climate, ethnic diversity, and sprawling metropolis. Los Angeles also has an economy in culture, media, fashion, science, sports, technology, education, medicine. A global city, it has been ranked 6th in the Global Cities Index, the city is home to renowned institutions covering a broad range of professional and cultural fields, and is one of the most substantial economic engines within the United States. The Los Angeles combined statistical area has a gross metropolitan product of $831 billion, making it the third-largest in the world, after the Greater Tokyo and New York metropolitan areas. The city has hosted the Summer Olympic Games in 1932 and 1984 and is bidding to host the 2024 Summer Olympics and thus become the second city after London to have hosted the Games three times. The Los Angeles area also hosted the 1994 FIFA mens World Cup final match as well as the 1999 FIFA womens World Cup final match, the mens event was watched on television by over 700 million people worldwide. The Los Angeles coastal area was first settled by the Tongva, a Gabrielino settlement in the area was called iyáangẚ, meaning poison oak place. Gaspar de Portolà and Franciscan missionary Juan Crespí, reached the present site of Los Angeles on August 2,1769, in 1771, Franciscan friar Junípero Serra directed the building of the Mission San Gabriel Arcángel, the first mission in the area. The Queen of the Angels is an honorific of the Virgin Mary, two-thirds of the settlers were mestizo or mulatto with a mixture of African, indigenous and European ancestry. The settlement remained a small town for decades, but by 1820. Today, the pueblo is commemorated in the district of Los Angeles Pueblo Plaza and Olvera Street. New Spain achieved its independence from the Spanish Empire in 1821, during Mexican rule, Governor Pío Pico made Los Angeles Alta Californias regional capital
3.
Down Argentine Way
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Down Argentine Way is a 1940 Technicolor musical film made by Twentieth Century Fox. It made a star of Betty Grable in her first leading role for the studio, the film also starred Don Ameche, The Nicholas Brothers, Charlotte Greenwood, and J. Carrol Naish. The film was directed by Irving Cummings and produced by Darryl F. Zanuck from a screenplay by Karl Tunberg and Darrell Ware, based on a story by Rian James, the cinematography was by Leon Shamroy and Ray Rennahan and the costume design by Travis Banton. The American-composed music was by Harry Warren and Jimmy McHugh, lyrics by Mack Gordon, in a shooting period which lasted for 10 months, members of the films crew traveled about 35,000 miles. A second unit was sent to Buenos Aires for location establishing shots, returning with about 20,000 feet of film, while another group flew to New York City filming Carmen Miranda for over a month. Miranda was performing South American songs in the Broadway production of The Streets of Paris, in 2014, Down Argentine Way was deemed culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant by the Library of Congress and selected for preservation in the National Film Registry. Young Ricardo Quintano voyages from Argentina to New York to sell some of his fathers prize horses, before leaving, Don Diego instructs his son that no steeds are to be sold to Binnie Crawford or any member of her family because her brother Willis cheated him years earlier. Upon arriving in New York, Ricardo falls in love with Glenda Crawford, perturbed, Glenda follows him, accompanied by Binnie. The couple meet again in Argentina, where they confess their love for each other, Ricardo introduces Glenda to his father as Miss Cunningham. Glenda encourages Ricardo to enter his fathers jumper, Furioso, in a race. Soon after, while attending a show, Don Diego discovers Glendas true identity. His bad mood is compounded when Furioso refuses to jump and runs off the field. To make up for the defeat of his fathers jumper, Ricardo enters Furioso in the big race. Down Argentine Way is considered the first of many Fox films made to implement industry-wide approach to President Franklin D. Roosevelts Good Neighbor Policy toward Latin America. During World War II, the U. S. government developed an administrative agency to encourage good relations with Latin America, the Office of Inter-American Affairs was established to promote this. It specifically encouraged the production of Good Neighbor films, production of Down Argentine Way preceded the establishment of the Office of Inter-American Affairs, but was likely influenced by Roosevelt administration policy. The film was a success, earning $2 million in domestic rentals in 1940. Fox continued to support government policy and its own self-interest by making such as That Night in Rio
4.
United States
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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
5.
Vaudeville
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Vaudeville is a theatrical genre of variety entertainment. It was especially popular in the United States and Canada from the early 1880s until the early 1930s, a typical vaudeville performance is made up of a series of separate, unrelated acts grouped together on a common bill. A vaudeville performer is often referred to as a vaudevillian, Vaudeville developed from many sources, including the concert saloon, minstrelsy, freak shows, dime museums, and literary American burlesque. Called the heart of American show business, vaudeville was one of the most popular types of entertainment in North America for several decades, the origin of this term is obscure, but is often explained as being derived from the French expression voix de ville. A second speculation is that it comes from the songs on satire by poet Olivier Basselin. Some, however, preferred the term variety to what manager Tony Pastor called its sissy. Thus, vaudeville was marketed as variety well into the 20th century, with its first subtle appearances within the early 1860s, vaudeville was not initially a common form of entertainment. The form gradually evolved from the saloon and variety hall into its mature form throughout the 1870s and 1880s. This more gentle form was known as Polite Vaudeville, in the years before the American Civil War, entertainment existed on a different scale. Certainly, variety theatre existed before 1860 in Europe and elsewhere, in the US, as early as the first decades of the 19th century, theatregoers could enjoy a performance consisting of Shakespeare plays, acrobatics, singing, dancing, and comedy. As the years progressed, people seeking diversified amusement found a number of ways to be entertained. Vaudeville was characterized by traveling companies touring through cities and towns, a significant influence also came from Dutch minstrels and comedians. Vaudeville incorporated these various itinerant amusements into a stable, institutionalized form centered in Americas growing urban hubs, pastors experiment proved successful, and other managers soon followed suit. B. F. Keith took the step, starting in Boston. Later, E. F. Albee, adoptive grandfather of the Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Edward Albee, circuits such as those managed by Keith-Albee provided vaudevilles greatest economic innovation and the principal source of its industrial strength. They enabled a chain of allied vaudeville houses that remedied the chaos of the booking system by contracting acts for regional and national tours. These could easily be lengthened from a few weeks to two years, Albee also gave national prominence to vaudevilles trumpeting polite entertainment, a commitment to entertainment equally inoffensive to men, women and children. Acts that violated this ethos were admonished and threatened with expulsion from the remaining performances or were canceled altogether
6.
Broadway theatre
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Along with Londons West End theatres, Broadway theatres are widely considered to represent the highest level of commercial theatre in the English-speaking world. The Theater District is a popular tourist attraction in New York City, the great majority of Broadway shows are musicals. They presented Shakespeare plays and ballad operas such as The Beggars Opera, in 1752, William Hallam sent a company of twelve actors from Britain to the colonies with his brother Lewis as their manager. They established a theatre in Williamsburg, Virginia and opened with The Merchant of Venice, the company moved to New York in the summer of 1753, performing ballad operas and ballad-farces like Damon and Phillida. The Revolutionary War suspended theatre in New York, but thereafter theatre resumed in 1798, the Bowery Theatre opened in 1826, followed by others. Blackface minstrel shows, a distinctly American form of entertainment, became popular in the 1830s, by the 1840s, P. T. Barnum was operating an entertainment complex in lower Manhattan. In 1829, at Broadway and Prince Street, Niblos Garden opened, the 3, 000-seat theatre presented all sorts of musical and non-musical entertainments. In 1844, Palmos Opera House opened and presented opera for four seasons before bankruptcy led to its rebranding as a venue for plays under the name Burtons Theatre. The Astor Opera House opened in 1847, booth played the role for a famous 100 consecutive performances at the Winter Garden Theatre in 1865, and would later revive the role at his own Booths Theatre. Other renowned Shakespeareans who appeared in New York in this era were Henry Irving, Tommaso Salvini, Fanny Davenport, lydia Thompson came to America in 1868 heading a small theatrical troupe, adapting popular English burlesques for middle-class New York audiences. Thompsons troupe called the British Blondes, was the most popular entertainment in New York during the 1868–1869 theatrical season, the six-month tour ran for almost six extremely profitable years. Theatre in New York moved from downtown gradually to midtown beginning around 1850, in 1870, the heart of Broadway was in Union Square, and by the end of the century, many theatres were near Madison Square. Broadways first long-run musical was a 50-performance hit called The Elves in 1857, New York runs continued to lag far behind those in London, but Laura Keenes musical burletta The Seven Sisters shattered previous New York records with a run of 253 performances. It was at a performance by Keenes troupe of Our American Cousin in Washington, the production was a staggering five-and-a-half hours long, but despite its length, it ran for a record-breaking 474 performances. The same year, The Black Domino/Between You, Me and the Post was the first show to call itself a musical comedy, Tony Pastor opened the first vaudeville theatre one block east of Union Square in 1881, where Lillian Russell performed. Comedians Edward Harrigan and Tony Hart produced and starred in musicals on Broadway between 1878 and 1890, with book and lyrics by Harrigan and music by his father-in-law David Braham. They starred high quality singers, instead of the women of repute who had starred in earlier musical forms. Plays could run longer and still draw in the audiences, leading to better profits, as in England, during the latter half of the century, the theatre began to be cleaned up, with less prostitution hindering the attendance of the theatre by women
7.
Giraffe
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The giraffe is a genus of African even-toed ungulate mammals, the tallest living terrestrial animals and the largest ruminants. The genus consists of eleven or more species including Giraffa camelopardalis, seven of these species are extinct, prehistoric species known from fossils, though numerous subspecies have been described and its taxonomy is not definitively set. Indeed, research into the mitochondrial and nuclear DNA of Giraffa has suggested to recognize four to six extant species. The giraffes chief distinguishing characteristics are its long neck and legs, its horn-like ossicones. It is classified under the family Giraffidae, along with its closest extant relative, each of the four species is distinguished by its coat patterns and genetics. Its scattered range extends from Chad in the north to South Africa in the south, Giraffes usually inhabit savannahs and woodlands. Their food source is leaves, fruits and flowers of plants, primarily acacia species. Giraffes may be preyed on by lions, leopards, spotted hyenas, Giraffes live in herds of related females and their offspring, or bachelor herds of unrelated adult males, but are gregarious and may gather in large aggregations. Males establish social hierarchies through necking, which are combat bouts where the neck is used as a weapon, dominant males gain mating access to females, which bear the sole responsibility for raising the young. The giraffe has intrigued various cultures, both ancient and modern, for its appearance, and has often been featured in paintings, books. It is classified by the International Union for Conservation of Nature as Vulnerable to extinction, the name giraffe has its earliest known origins in the Arabic word zarāfah, perhaps borrowed from the animals Somali name geri. The Arab name is translated as fast-walker, there were several Middle English spellings, such as jarraf, ziraph, and gerfauntz. The Italian form giraffa arose in the 1590s, the modern English form developed around 1600 from the French girafe. Camelopard is an archaic English name for the giraffe deriving from the Ancient Greek for camel and leopard, referring to its camel-like shape, living giraffes were originally classified as one species by Carl Linnaeus in 1758. He gave it the binomial name Cervus camelopardalis, morten Thrane Brünnich classified the genus Giraffa in 1772. The species name camelopardalis is from Latin, the giraffe belongs to the suborder Ruminantia. Many ruminants have been described from the mid-Eocene in Central Asia, Southeast Asia, the earliest ruminants date back to about 50 million years ago. The Rumanantia arose from early artiodactyls, which experienced adaptive radiation in the middle Eocene period that led to related to herbivory
8.
L. Frank Baum
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Lyman Frank Baum, better known by his pen name L. Frank Baum, was an American author chiefly known for his childrens books, particularly The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. He wrote thirteen novel sequels, nine other novels, and a host of other works. Baum was born in Chittenango, New York in 1856 into a devout Methodist family and he had German, Scots-Irish, and English ancestry, and was the seventh of nine children of Cynthia Ann and Benjamin Ward Baum, only five of whom survived into adulthood. Lyman was the name of his fathers brother, but he disliked it. Benjamin Baum succeeded in many businesses, including barrel-making, oil drilling in Pennsylvania, L. Frank Baum grew up on his parents expansive estate called Rose Lawn, which he fondly recalled as a sort of paradise. Rose Lawn was located in Mattydale, New York, Frank was a sickly, dreamy child, tutored at home with his siblings. Baum started writing early in life, possibly prompted by his father buying him a printing press. He had always close to his younger brother Henry Clay Baum. The brothers published several issues of the journal, which included advertisements, at 20, Baum took on the national craze of breeding fancy poultry. He specialized in raising the Hamburg, Baum had a flair for being the spotlight of fun in the household, including during times of financial difficulties. His selling of fireworks made the Fourth of July memorable and his skyrockets, Roman candles, and fireworks filled the sky, while many people around the neighborhood would gather in front of the house to watch the displays. Baum dressed as Santa Claus for the family and his father would place the Christmas tree behind a curtain in the front parlor so that Baum could talk to everyone while he decorated the tree without people managing to see him. He maintained this tradition all his life, Baum embarked on his lifetime infatuation—and wavering financial success—with the theater. A local theatrical company duped him into replenishing their stock of costumes on the promise of leading roles coming his way, disillusioned, Baum left the theater — temporarily — and went to work as a clerk in his brother-in-laws dry goods company in Syracuse. This experience may have influenced his story The Suicide of Kiaros, a fellow clerk one day was found locked in a store room dead, probably from suicide. Baum could never stay away long from the stage and he performed in plays under the stage names of Louis F. Baum and George Brooks. In 1880, his father built him a theater in Richburg, New York, the Maid of Arran proved a modest success, a melodrama with songs based on William Blacks novel A Princess of Thule. Baum wrote the play and composed songs for it, and acted in the leading role and his aunt Katharine Gray played his characters aunt
9.
Betty Grable
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Elizabeth Ruth Betty Grable was an American actress, pin-up girl, dancer, and singer. Her 42 movies during the 1930s and 1940s grossed more than $100 million, the U. S. Treasury Department in 1946 and 1947 listed her as the highest-salaried American woman, she earned more than $3 million during her career. Grable began her career in 1929 at age 12, after which she was fired from a contract when it was learned she signed up under false identification. She had contracts with RKO and Paramount Pictures during the 1930s, Grable came to prominence in the Broadway musical DuBarry Was a Lady, which brought her to the attention of 20th Century-Fox. She replaced Alice Faye in Down Argentine Way, her first major Hollywood film, Fox cast Grable in a succession of Technicolor musicals during the decade that were immensely popular, co-starring with such leading men as Victor Mature, Don Ameche, John Payne, and Tyrone Power. In 1943, she was the number-one box-office draw in the world and, in 1947, two of her biggest film successes were the musical Mother Wore Tights and the comedy How to Marry a Millionaire, one of her last films. Grable retired from acting in 1955 after she withdrew from her Fox contract, although she continued to perform on the stage. Throughout her career, Grable was a sex symbol. Her bathing suit poster made her the number-one pin-up girl of World War II and it was later included in the Life magazine project 100 Photographs that Changed the World. Hosiery specialists of the era often noted the ideal proportions of her legs as thigh, calf, Grables legs were famously insured by her studio for $1 million as a publicity stunt. Elizabeth Ruth Grable was born on December 18,1916 in St. Louis and she was the youngest of three children born to Lillian Rose and John Charles Grable, a stockbroker. She had Dutch, English, German, and Irish and ancestry, nicknamed Betty as a child, she was pressured by her mother—a stubborn and materialistic woman—to become a performer. She was entered in multiple beauty contests, many of which she won or for which she achieved considerable attention, despite her success, she suffered from a fear of crowds and sleepwalking. A 12-year-old Grable and her mother traveled to Hollywood in 1929, shortly after the stock market crash. To get her daughter jobs, Lillian Grable lied about her daughters age, claiming she was 15 to movie producers, the same year, after assuming the stage name Betty Grable, she made her film debut in Happy Days. This eventually led to her having small roles in Lets Go Places, in 1930, at age 13, Grable began a partnership with producer Samuel Goldwyn, she thereby became one of the original Goldwyn Girls, along with Lucille Ball, Virginia Bruce, and Paulette Goddard. As a member of the group of attractive young starlets, Grable appeared in a series of small parts in movies. Although she received no credit for her performance, she led the films opening musical number
10.
Jimmy Durante
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James Francis Jimmy Durante was an American singer, pianist, comedian, and actor. He often referred to his nose as the Schnozzola, and the word became his nickname, Durante was born on the Lower East Side of New York City. He was the youngest of four born to Rosa and Bartolomeo Durante. Bartolomeo was a barber, and his wife Rosa was the sister of a woman who lived in the boarding house. Young Jimmy served as a boy at Saint Malachys Roman Catholic Church. Durante dropped out of school in grade to become a full-time ragtime pianist. He first played with his cousin, whose name was also Jimmy Durante and it was a family act, but he was too professional for his cousin. He continued working the citys piano bar circuit and earned the nickname Ragtime Jimmy, before he joined one of the first recognizable jazz bands in New York, Durante was the only member not from New Orleans. His routine of breaking into a song to deliver a joke, with band or orchestra chord punctuation after each line, in 1920 the group was renamed Jimmy Durantes Jazz Band. By the mid-1920s, Durante had become a star and radio personality in a trio called Clayton, Jackson. Lou Clayton and Eddie Jackson, Durantes closest friends, often reunited with Durante in subsequent years, Jackson and Durante appeared in the Cole Porter musical The New Yorkers, which opened on Broadway on December 8,1930. Earlier that same year, the team appeared in the movie Roadhouse Nights, by 1934, Durante had a major record hit with his own novelty composition, Inka Dinka Doo, with lyrics by Ben Ryan. It became his theme song for the rest of his life, a year later, Durante starred on Broadway in the Billy Rose stage musical Jumbo. A scene in which an officer stopped Durantes character—who was leading a live elephant across the stage—to ask. Followed by Durantes reply, What elephant and this comedy bit, also reprised in his role in Billy Roses Jumbo, likely contributed to the popularity of the idiom the elephant in the room. Durante also appeared on Broadway in Show Girl, Strike Me Pink and Red, Hot, during the early 1930s, Durante alternated between Hollywood and Broadway. His early motion pictures included an original Rodgers & Hart musical The Phantom President and he was initially paired with silent film legend Buster Keaton in a series of three popular comedies for Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer -- Speak Easily, The Passionate Plumber, and What. No Beer. -- which were hits and a career springboard for the distinctive newcomer
