1.
Las Vegas
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The city anchors the Las Vegas Valley metropolitan area and is the largest city within the greater Mojave Desert. Las Vegas is an internationally renowned major resort city known primarily for its gambling, shopping, fine dining, entertainment and it is the leading financial, commercial, and cultural center for Nevada. The city bills itself as The Entertainment Capital of the World and it is a top three destination in the United States for business conventions and a global leader in the hospitality industry, claiming more AAA Five Diamond hotels than any city in the world. Today, Las Vegas annually ranks as one of the worlds most visited tourist destinations. The citys tolerance for numerous forms of adult entertainment earned it the title of Sin City, and has made Las Vegas a popular setting for literature, films, television programs, Las Vegas was settled in 1905 and officially incorporated in 1911. At the close of the 20th century, it was the most populated American city founded within that century, population growth has accelerated since the 1960s, and between 1990 and 2000 the population nearly doubled, increasing by 85. 2%. Rapid growth has continued into the 21st century, and according to a 2013 estimate, perhaps the earliest visitors to the Las Vegas area were nomadic Paleo-Indians, who traveled there 10,000 years ago, leaving behind petroglyphs. Anasazi and Paiute tribes followed at least 2,000 years ago, a young Mexican scout named Rafael Rivera is credited as the first non-Native American to encounter the valley, in 1829. Trader Antonio Armijo led a 60-man party along the Spanish Trail to Los Angeles, the area was named Las Vegas, which is Spanish for the meadows, as it featured abundant wild grasses, as well as desert spring waters for westward travelers. The year 1844 marked the arrival of John C, frémont, whose writings helped lure pioneers to the area. Downtown Las Vegas Fremont Street is named after him, eleven years later members of the LDS Church chose Las Vegas as the site to build a fort halfway between Salt Lake City and Los Angeles, where they would travel to gather supplies. The fort was abandoned several years afterward, the remainder of this Old Mormon Fort can still be seen at the intersection of Las Vegas Boulevard and Washington Avenue. Las Vegas was founded as a city in 1905, when 110 acres of adjacent to the Union Pacific Railroad tracks were auctioned in what would become the downtown area. In 1911, Las Vegas was incorporated as a city,1931 was a pivotal year for Las Vegas. At that time, Nevada legalized casino gambling and reduced residency requirements for divorce to six weeks and this year also witnessed the beginning of construction on nearby Hoover Dam. The influx of workers and their families helped Las Vegas avoid economic calamity during the Great Depression. The construction work was completed in 1935, in 1941, the Las Vegas Army Air Corps Gunnery School was established. Currently known as Nellis Air Force Base, it is home to the team called the Thunderbirds
2.
Nevada
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Nevada is a state in the Western, Mountain West, and Southwestern regions of the United States of America. Nevada is the 7th most extensive, the 34th most populous, nearly three-quarters of Nevadas people live in Clark County, which contains the Las Vegas–Paradise metropolitan area where three of the states four largest incorporated cities are located. Nevada is officially known as the Silver State because of the importance of silver to its history and economy. It is also known as the Battle Born State, because it achieved statehood during the Civil War, as the Sage-brush State, for the plant of the same name. Nevada borders Oregon to the northwest, Idaho to the northeast, California to the west, Arizona to the southeast, Nevada is largely desert and semi-arid, much of it located within the Great Basin. Areas south of the Great Basin are located within the Mojave Desert, while Lake Tahoe, about 86% of the states land is managed by various jurisdictions of the U. S. federal government, both civilian and military. Before European contact, Native Americans of the Paiute, Shoshone, the first Europeans to explore the region were Spanish. They called the region Nevada because of the snow covered the mountains in winter. The area formed part of the Viceroyalty of New Spain, the United States annexed the area in 1848 after its victory in the Mexican–American War, and it was incorporated as part of Utah Territory in 1850. The discovery of silver at the Comstock Lode in 1859 led to a boom that became an impetus to the creation of Nevada Territory out of western Utah Territory in 1861. Nevada became the 36th state on October 31,1864, as the second of two added to the Union during the Civil War. Nevada has a reputation for its libertarian laws, in 1940, with a population of just over 110,000 people, Nevada was by far the least-populated state, with less than half the population of the next least-populated state. However, legalized gambling and lenient marriage and divorce laws transformed Nevada into a major tourist destination in the 20th century, Nevada is the only U. S. state where prostitution is legal, though it is illegal in Clark County, Washoe County and Carson City. The tourism industry remains Nevadas largest employer, with mining continuing as a sector of the economy. The name Nevada comes from the Spanish nevada, meaning snow-covered, most Nevadans pronounce the second syllable of their state name using the vowel of trap. Many from outside the Western United States pronounce it with the vowel of father, although the latter pronunciation is closer to the Spanish pronunciation, it is not the pronunciation preferred by most Nevadans. State Assemblyman Harry Mortenson proposed a bill to recognize the alternate pronunciation of Nevada, though the bill was not supported by most legislators, the Nevadan pronunciation is the de facto official one, since it is the one used by the state legislature. Nevada is almost entirely within the Basin and Range Province, and is broken up by many mountain ranges
3.
Albany, Oregon
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Albany is the county seat of Linn County, and the 11th largest city in the State of Oregon. Albany is located in the Willamette Valley at the confluence of the Calapooia River and it is predominantly a farming and manufacturing city that settlers founded around 1848. As of the 2010 United States Census, the population of Albany was 50,158 and its population was estimated by the Portland Research Center to be 51,583 in 2013. Albany has a home rule charter, a government. The city provides the population access to over 30 parks and trails, a senior center. In addition to farming and manufacturing, the economy depends on retail trade, health care. In recent years the city has worked to revive the downtown shopping area, in the historic era, the area of the Willamette Valley that makes up modern-day Albany was inhabited by one of the tribes of the Kalapuya a Penutian-speaking, Native American people. The Kalapuya had named the area Takenah, a Kalapuyan word used to describe the deep pool at the confluence of the Calapooia, a variation of the place name can also be written as Tekenah. The Kalapuya population in the valley was between 4,000 and 20,000 before contact with Europeans, but they suffered high mortality from new diseases introduced shortly afterward. The tribes were decimated by an epidemic that raged through the Pacific Northwest in 1782–83. A malaria outbreak swept through the region between 1830 and 1833 and it is estimated that as many as 90 percent of the Kalapuya population died during this period. That, coupled with the treaties signed during the 1850s by the Kalapuya to cede land to the United States, the first European American settler arrived in 1845, Abner Hackleman was a farmer from Iowa. Taking up a claim for himself, Hackleman asked Hiram N. Smead to hold another for him until his son arrived from Iowa. In 1846, a year after arriving in Oregon, Hackleman died while returning to Iowa to fetch his family. In 1847 a pair of brothers, Walter and Thomas Monteith, settled in the area, after traveling by ox team along the Oregon Trail from their native state of New York. They were a family of prominence in the area, in 1848, they bought a claim of 320 acres from Hiram Smead for $400. They named the city Albany after their hometown of Albany in New York, during the same period, Hacklemans son Abram reached his fathers original land claim and built a log house in an oak grove still known as Hacklemans Grove. He later built a house, which stands at the corner of Fifth
4.
Oregon
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Oregon is a state in the Pacific Northwest region of the United States. Oregon is bordered on the west by the Pacific Ocean, on the north by Washington, on the south by California, on the east by Idaho, the Columbia River delineates much of Oregons northern boundary, and the Snake River delineates much of the eastern boundary. The parallel 42° north delineates the boundary with California and Nevada. Oregon was inhabited by indigenous tribes before Western traders, explorers. An autonomous government was formed in the Oregon Country in 1843 before the Oregon Territory was created in 1848, Oregon became the 33rd state on February 14,1859. Today, at 98,000 square miles, Oregon is the ninth largest and, with a population of 4 million, the capital of Oregon is Salem, the second most populous of its cities, with 164,549 residents. Portland is Oregons most populous city, with 632,309 residents, Portlands metro population of 2,389,228 ranks the 23rd largest metro in the nation. The Willamette Valley in western Oregon is the states most densely populated area, the tall conifers, mainly Douglas fir, along Oregons rainy west coast contrast with the lighter-timbered and fire-prone pine and juniper forests covering portions to the east. Abundant alders in the west fix nitrogen for the conifers, stretching east from central Oregon are semi-arid shrublands, prairies, deserts, steppes, and meadows. At 11,249 feet, Mount Hood is the states highest point, Oregons only national park, Crater Lake National Park, comprises the caldera surrounding Crater Lake, the deepest lake in the United States. The state is home to the single largest organism in the world, Armillaria ostoyae. Because of its landscapes and waterways, Oregons economy is largely powered by various forms of agriculture, fishing. It is also the top timber-producer of the lower 48 states, Technology is another one of the states major economic forces, which began in the 1970s with the establishment of the Silicon Forest and the expansion of Tektronix and Intel. Sportswear company Nike, Inc. headquartered in Beaverton, is the states largest public corporation with a revenue of $30.6 billion. The earliest evidence of the name Oregon has Spanish origins and this chronicle is the first topographical and linguistic source with respect to the place name Oregon. There are also two other sources with Spanish origins such as the name Oregano which grows in the part of the region. Another early use of the name, spelled Ouragon, was in a 1765 petition by Major Robert Rogers to the Kingdom of Great Britain, the term referred to the then-mythical River of the West. By 1778 the spelling had shifted to Oregon, in his 1765 petition, Rogers wrote, The rout. is from the Great Lakes towards the Head of the Mississippi, and from thence to the River called by the Indians Ouragon
5.
Spirited Away
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Spirited Away is a 2001 anime fantasy film written and directed by Hayao Miyazaki and produced by Studio Ghibli. After her parents are transformed into pigs by the witch Yubaba, Chihiro takes a job working in Yubabas bathhouse to find a way to free herself and her parents and return to the human world. Miyazaki wrote the script after he decided the film would be based on the 10-year-old daughter of his friend, associate producer Seiji Okuda, at the time, Miyazaki was developing two personal projects, but they were rejected. With a budget of US$19 million, production of Spirited Away began in 2000, during production, Miyazaki realized the film would be over three hours long and decided to cut out several parts of the story. Pixar director John Lasseter, a fan of Miyazaki, was approached by Walt Disney Pictures to supervise an English-language translation for the films North American release, Lasseter hired Kirk Wise as director and Donald W. Ernst as producer of the adaptation. Screenwriters Cindy Davis Hewitt and Donald H. Hewitt wrote the English-language dialogue, the film was released on 20 July 2001, and became the most successful film in Japanese history, grossing over $289 million worldwide and receiving widespread critical acclaim. The film overtook Titanic in the Japanese box office to become the film in Japanese history with a ¥30.4 billion total. Spirited Away is frequently ranked among the greatest animated films, in 2016, it was voted the fourth best film of the 21st century as picked by 177 film critics from around the world. Ten-year-old Chihiro Ogino and her parents are traveling to their new home when her father takes a wrong turn and they unknowingly enter a magical world that Chihiros father insists on exploring. While Chihiros parents eat like pigs at an empty restaurant stall, Chihiro finds an exquisite bathhouse, however, Chihiro discovers too late that her parents have turned into pigs and she is unable to cross the flooded river, becoming trapped in the spirit world. After finding Chihiro, Haku has her ask for a job from the bathhouses boiler-man, Kamaji, while visiting her parents pigpen, Sen finds a goodbye card addressed to Chihiro and realizes that she has already forgotten her name. Haku warns her that Yubaba controls people by taking their names, while working, Sen invites a silent masked creature named No-Face inside, believing him to be a customer. A stink spirit arrives as Sens first customer and she discovers he is the spirit of a polluted river. In gratitude for cleaning him, he gives Sen a magic emetic dumpling, meanwhile, No-Face tempts a worker with gold, then swallows him. He demands food and begins tipping extensively, as the workers swarm him hoping to be tipped, he swallows yet another two greedy workers. Sen discovers paper shikigami attacking a dragon and recognizes the dragon as Haku transformed, when a grievously-injured Haku crashes into Yubabas penthouse, Sen follows him upstairs. When she reaches Haku, a shikigami that stowed away on her back transforms into Zeniba and she transforms Yubabas baby son Boh into a mouse, creates a decoy baby and turns Yubabas bird creature into a tiny bird. Zeniba tells Sen that Haku has stolen a golden seal from her
6.
Walt Disney Animation Studios
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Founded on October 16,1923, it is a division of The Walt Disney Studios. The studio has produced 56 feature films, from Snow White and it was founded as the Disney Brothers Cartoon Studio in 1923 and incorporated as Walt Disney Productions in 1929. The studio was dedicated to producing short films until it expanded into feature production in 1934. In 1983, Walt Disney Productions named its film studio Walt Disney Pictures. In 2006, Walt Disney Feature Animation took on its current name, the studio also pioneered the art of storyboarding, which is now a standard technique used in both animated and live-action filmmaking. Walt Disney Animation Studios continues to produce films using both traditional animation and computer-generated imagery, at the present, Andrew Millstein is the general manager of the studio for day-to-day business affairs, under the direction of Edwin Catmull and John Lasseter who also oversee Pixar. Kansas City, Missouri, natives Walt Disney and Roy O, in February 1924, the studio moved next door to office space of its own at 4649 Kingswell Avenue. Disney refused, and as Universal owned the rights to Oswald rather than Disney, most of Disneys staff was hired away by Mintz to move over, once Disneys Oswald contract was done in mid-1928. The first two Mickey Mouse cartoons, Plane Crazy and The Galloping Gaucho, were previewed in limited engagements during the summer of 1928, the Mickey Mouse series of sound cartoons, distributed by Powers through Celebrity Productions, quickly became the most popular cartoon series in the United States. A second Disney series of cartoons, the Silly Symphonies. Powers in return signed away Ub Iwerks, who began producing cartoons at his own studio, columbia distributed Disneys shorts for two years before the Disney studio entered a new distribution deal with United Artists in 1932. The result was the Silly Symphony Flowers and Trees, the first film released in full Technicolor. Flowers and Trees was a success, and all Silly Symphonies were subsequently produced in Technicolor. In 1934, Walt Disney gathered several key members and announced his plans to make his first feature animated film. In the course of teaching the classes, Graham and the created or formalized many of the techniques and processes that became the key tenets. During the production of Snow White, work had continued on the Mickey Mouse, Mickey Mouse switched to Technicolor in 1935, by which time the series had added several major supporting characters, among them Mickeys dog Pluto and their friends Donald Duck and Goofy. Donald, Goofy, and Pluto would all be appearing in series of their own by 1940, the Silly Symphonies, which garnered seven Academy Awards, ended in 1939. The success of Snow White allowed Disney to build a new, larger studio on Buena Vista Street in Burbank, Walt Disney Productions had its initial public offering on April 2,1940, with Walt Disney as president and chairman and Roy Disney as CEO
7.
HBO
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Home Box Office is an American premium cable and satellite television network that is owned by Time Warner through its respective flagship company Home Box Office, Inc. HBO is the oldest and longest continuously operating pay television service in the United States, in 2014, HBO had an adjusted operating income of US$1.79 billion, compared to the US$1.68 billion it accrued in 2013. HBO has 49 million subscribers in the United States and 130 million worldwide as of 2016, the network provides seven 24-hour multiplex channels, including HBO Comedy, HBO Latino, HBO Signature and HBO Family. It launched the streaming service HBO Now in April 2015, and has over 2 million subscribers in the United States as of February 2017. In addition to its U. S. subscriber base, HBO distributes content in at least 151 countries, HBO subscribers generally pay for an extra tier of service that includes other cable- and satellite-exclusive channels even before paying for the channel itself. Cable providers can require the use of a converter box – usually digital – in order to receive HBO, many HBO programs have been syndicated to other networks and broadcast television stations, and a number of HBO-produced series and films have been released on DVD. The new system, which Dolan named Sterling Information Services, became the first urban underground cable system in the United States. In that same year, Time-Life, Inc. purchased a 20% stake in Dolans company, in the summer of 1971, while on a family vacation in France, Charles Dolan began to think of ideas to make Sterling Manhattan profitable. He came up with the concept for a television service. Dolan later presented his idea to Time-Life management, though satellite distribution seemed only a distant possibility at the time, he persuaded Time-Life to back him on the project. To gauge whether consumers would be interested in subscribing to a pay television service, in a meeting of Dolan and some Time-Life executives who were working on the project, various other names were discussed for the new service. Home Box Office launched on November 8,1972, however, HBOs launch came without fanfare in the press, as it was not covered by any local or national media outlets. Home Box Office distributed its first sports event immediately after the film, Four months later in February 1973, Home Box Office aired its first television special, the Pennsylvania Polka Festival. Home Box Office would use a network of relay towers to distribute its programming to cable systems throughout its service area. Sterling Manhattan Cable continued to lose money because the company had only a small base of 20,000 customers in Manhattan. Time-Life dropped the Sterling name and the company was renamed Manhattan Cable Television under Time-Lifes control in March 1973, Gerald Levin, who had been with Home Box Office since it began operations as its vice president of programming, replaced Dolan as the companys president and chief executive officer. In September 1973, Time-Life, Inc. completed its acquisition of the pay service. HBO would eventually increase its fortunes within two years, by April 1975, the service had around 100,000 subscribers in Pennsylvania and New York state, in 1974, they settled on using a geostationary communications satellite to transmit HBO to cable providers throughout the United States
8.
Mormon fundamentalism
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Mormon fundamentalists seek to uphold tenets and practices no longer held by mainstream Mormons. The principle most often associated with Mormon fundamentalism is plural marriage, a form of polygyny first taught in the Latter Day Saint movement by Joseph Smith, a second and closely associated principle is that of the United Order, a form of egalitarian communalism. Mormon fundamentalists believe that these and other principles were abandoned or changed by the LDS Church in its efforts to become reconciled with mainstream American society. Today, the LDS Church excommunicates any of its members who practice plural marriage or who otherwise closely associate themselves with Mormon fundamentalist practices, There is no single authority accepted by all Mormon fundamentalists, viewpoints and practices of individual groups vary. Fundamentalists have formed numerous small sects, often within cohesive and isolated communities in the Western United States, Western Canada, and northern Mexico. At times, sources have claimed there are as many as 60,000 Mormon fundamentalists in the United States, however, others have suggested that there may be as few as 20,000 Mormon fundamentalists with only 8,000 to 15,000 practicing polygamy. The largest Mormon fundamentalist groups are the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, the LDS Church began prohibiting the contracting of plural marriages within the United States in 1890 after a decree by the president of the church, Wilford Woodruff. However, the practice continued underground in the U. S. and openly in Mormon colonies in northern Mexico and southern Alberta. According to some sources, many men in the United States continued to live with their plural wives with the approval of church presidents Woodruff, Lorenzo Snow. They make their argument based upon evidence and the fact that the Manifesto is not worded in accordance with similar revelations in the LDS scriptures. The LDS Church prevents any of its members who sympathize with Mormon fundamentalist teachings from entering its temples, during the 1920s, a church dissenter named Lorin C. Woolley claimed a line of priesthood authority from the LDS Churchs hierarchy. Most of the Mormon polygamous groups can trace their roots to Woolleys legacy, for the most part, the Utah state government has left the Mormon fundamentalists to themselves unless their practices violate laws other than those prohibiting bigamy. For example, there have been recent prosecutions of men who belong to fundamentalist groups for marrying underage girls, in one highly publicized case, a man and one of his polygamist wives lost custody of all but one of their children until the wife separated herself from her husband. The largest government effort to crack down on the practices of fundamentalist Mormons was carried out in 1953 in what is today Colorado City, Arizona, most Mormon fundamentalists embrace the term Fundamentalist. Mormon fundamentalists share certain commonalities with other fundamentalist movements, but also possess some clear distinctions of their own, in this view, ordination lineage becomes all-important and an external organization such as a church may lose its theological authority while the priesthood may continue via an alternative lineage. Mormon fundamentalists frequently assert that priesthood is prior to the Church, Mormon fundamentalists dislike the term polygamy and view polygyny as a term used only by outsiders. They also refer to plural marriage generically as the Principle, celestial marriage, the practice of plural marriage usually differs little from the manner in which it was practiced in the nineteenth century
9.
Elvis Presley
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Elvis Aaron Presley was an American singer and actor. Regarded as one of the most significant cultural icons of the 20th century, he is referred to as the King of Rock and Roll. Presley was born in Tupelo, Mississippi, and relocated to Memphis and his music career began there in 1954, when he recorded a song with producer Sam Phillips at Sun Records. Accompanied by guitarist Scotty Moore and bassist Bill Black, Presley was a popularizer of rockabilly. RCA Victor acquired his contract in a deal arranged by Colonel Tom Parker, Presleys first RCA single, Heartbreak Hotel, was released in January 1956 and became a number-one hit in the United States. He was regarded as the figure of rock and roll after a series of successful network television appearances. In November 1956, Presley made his debut in Love Me Tender. In 1958, he was drafted into military service, in 1973, Presley featured in the first globally broadcast concert via satellite, Aloha from Hawaii. Several years of drug abuse severely damaged his health. Presley is one of the most celebrated and influential musicians of the 20th century and he won three Grammys, also receiving the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award at age 36, and has been inducted into multiple music halls of fame. Presley was born on January 8,1935, in Tupelo, Mississippi, to Gladys Love and Vernon Elvis Presley, Jesse Garon Presley, his identical twin brother, was delivered stillborn 35 minutes before his own birth. Thus, as a child, Presley became close to both parents and formed an especially close bond with his mother. The family attended an Assembly of God, where he found his musical inspiration. Although he was in conflict with the Pentecostal church in his later years, rev. Rex Humbard officiated at his funeral, as Presley had been an admirer of Humbards ministry. Presleys ancestry was primarily a Western European mix, including Scots-Irish, Scottish, German, gladyss great-great-grandmother, Morning Dove White, was possibly a Cherokee Native American. Gladys was regarded by relatives and friends as the dominant member of the small family, Vernon moved from one odd job to the next, evincing little ambition. The family often relied on help from neighbors and government food assistance, the Presleys survived the F5 tornado in the 1936 Tupelo–Gainesville tornado outbreak. In 1938, they lost their home after Vernon was found guilty of kiting a check written by the landowner, Orville S. Bean and he was jailed for eight months, and Gladys and Elvis moved in with relatives
