1.
Beverly Hills, California
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Beverly Hills is a city in Los Angeles County, California, United States, surrounded by the cities of Los Angeles and West Hollywood. By 2013, its population had grown to 34,658, sometimes referred to as 90210, one of its primary ZIP codes, it was home to many actors and celebrities throughout the 20th century. The city includes the Rodeo Drive shopping district and the Beverly Hills Oil Field, gaspar de Portolá arrived in the area that would later become Beverly Hills on August 3,1769, travelling along native trails which followed the present-day route of Wilshire Boulevard. The area was settled by Maria Rita Quinteros de Valdez and her husband in 1828 and they called their 4,500 acres of property the Rancho Rodeo de las Aguas. in 1854, she sold the ranch to Benjamin Davis Wilson and Henry Hancock. By the 1880s, the ranch had been subdivided into parcels of 75 acres and was being bought up by anglos from Los Angeles. Henry Hammel and Andrew H. Denker acquired most of it, at this point, the area was known as the Hammel and Denker Ranch. By 1888, Denker and Hammel were planning to build a town called Morocco on their holdings and they did not find enough to exploit commercially by the standards of the time, though. In 1906, therefore, they reorganized as the Rodeo Land and Water Company, renamed the property Beverly Hills, subdivided it, the development was named Beverly Hills after Beverly Farms in Beverly, Massachusetts and because of the hills in the area. The first house in the subdivision was built in 1907, although sales remained slow, Beverly Hills was one of many all-white planned communities started in the Los Angeles area around this time. Restrictive covenants prohibited non-whites from owning or renting property unless they were employed as servants by white residents and it was also forbidden to sell or rent property to Jews in Beverly Hills. Burton Green began construction on The Beverly Hills Hotel in 1911, the hotel was finished in 1912. The visitors drawn by the hotel were inclined to purchase land in Beverly Hills and that same year, the Rodeo Land and Water Company decided to separate its water business from its real estate business. The Beverly Hills Utility Commission was split off from the company and incorporated in September 1914, buying all of the utilities-related assets from the Rodeo Land. In 1919, Douglas Fairbanks and Mary Pickford bought land on Summit Drive and built a mansion, finished in 1921, the glamor associated with Fairbanks and Pickford as well as other movie stars who built mansions in the city contributed to its growing appeal. By the early 1920s the population of Beverly Hills had grown enough to make the water supply a political issue, in 1923 the usual solution, annexation to the city of Los Angeles, was proposed. There was considerable opposition to annexation among such famous residents as Pickford, Fairbanks, Will Rogers, the Beverly Hills Utility Commission, opposed to annexation as well, managed to force the city into a special election and the plan was defeated 337 to 507. In 1925, Beverly Hills approved an issue to buy 385 acres for a new campus for UCLA. The cities of Los Angeles, Santa Monica and Venice also issued bonds to pay for the new campus
2.
Jamaica, Queens
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Jamaica is a middle-class neighborhood in the New York City borough of Queens. The neighborhood is part of Queens Community Board 12, which also includes Hollis, St. Albans, Springfield Gardens, Baisley Pond Park, Rochdale Village, Jamaica is patrolled by the NYPDs 103rd, 113th & 105th Precincts. It was settled under Dutch rule in 1656 in New Netherland as Rustdorp, under British rule, Jamaica became the center of the Town of Jamaica. In 1814, Jamaica became the first incorporated village on Long Island, the U. S. Food and Drug Administrations Northeast Regional Laboratory as well as the New York District Office are also located in Jamaica. Jamaica Center, the area around Jamaica Avenue and 165th Street, is a commercial center. The New York Racing Association, based at Aqueduct Racetrack in South Ozone Park, John F. Kennedy International Airport and the hotels nearby also use Jamaica as their address. Although many current residents of the Jamaica neighborhood are immigrants from the country of the same name, the two names have different derivations. The name of the neighborhood derives from Yameco, a corruption of a word for beaver in the Lenape language spoken by the Native Americans who lived in the area at the time of first European contact. The y sound in English is spelled with a j in Dutch and this resulted in the eventual English pronunciation of Jamaica when read and repeated orally. In the Caribbean, the Arawak, people of the nation of Jamaica, named their land Xaymaca, Jamaica Avenue was an ancient trail for tribes from as far away as the Ohio River and the Great Lakes, coming to trade skins and furs for wampum. It was in 1655 that the first settlers paid the Native Americans with two guns, a coat, and some powder and lead, for the land lying between the old trail and Beaver Pond, Dutch Director-General Peter Stuyvesant dubbed the area Rustdorp in granting the 1656 land patent. The English took over in 1664 and made it part of the county of Yorkshire, in 1683, when the British divided the Province of New York into counties, Jamaica became the county seat of Queens County, one of the original counties of New York. In 1790, in William Warners tavern, Rufus King, a signer of the United States Constitution, relocated here in 1805. He added to a modest 18th-century farmhouse, creating the manor stands on the site today. King Manor was restored at the turn of the 21st century to its former glory, by 1776, Jamaica had become a trading post for farmers and their produce. For more than a century, their horse-drawn carts plodded along Jamaica Avenue, the Jamaica Post Office opened September 25,1794, and was the only post office in the present-day Boroughs of Queens or Brooklyn before 1803. Union Hall Academy for boys, and Union Hall Seminary for girls, were chartered in 1787, the Academy eventually attracted students from all over the United States and the West Indies. The public school system was started in 1813 with funds of $125, by 1834, the Brooklyn and Jamaica Railroad company had completed a line to Jamaica
3.
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
4.
Actor
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An actor is a person who portrays a character in a performance. Simplistically speaking, the person denominated actor or actress is someone beautiful who plays important characters, the actor performs in the flesh in the traditional medium of the theatre, or in modern mediums such as film, radio, and television. The analogous Greek term is ὑποκριτής, literally one who answers, the actors interpretation of their role pertains to the role played, whether based on a real person or fictional character. Interpretation occurs even when the actor is playing themselves, as in forms of experimental performance art, or, more commonly, to act, is to create. Formerly, in societies, only men could become actors. When used for the stage, women played the roles of prepubescent boys. The etymology is a derivation from actor with ess added. However, when referring to more than one performer, of both sexes, actor is preferred as a term for male performers. Actor is also used before the name of a performer as a gender-specific term. Within the profession, the re-adoption of the term dates to the 1950–1960s. As Whoopi Goldberg put it in an interview with the paper, Im an actor – I can play anything. The U. K. performers union Equity has no policy on the use of actor or actress, an Equity spokesperson said that the union does not believe that there is a consensus on the matter and stated that the. subject divides the profession. In 2009, the Los Angeles Times stated that Actress remains the term used in major acting awards given to female recipients. However, player remains in use in the theatre, often incorporated into the name of a group or company, such as the American Players. Also, actors in improvisational theatre may be referred to as players, prior to Thespis act, Grecian stories were only expressed in song, dance, and in third person narrative. In honor of Thespis, actors are commonly called Thespians, the exclusively male actors in the theatre of ancient Greece performed in three types of drama, tragedy, comedy, and the satyr play. Western theatre developed and expanded considerably under the Romans, as the Western Roman Empire fell into decay through the 4th and 5th centuries, the seat of Roman power shifted to Constantinople and the Byzantine Empire. Records show that mime, pantomime, scenes or recitations from tragedies and comedies, dances, from the 5th century, Western Europe was plunged into a period of general disorder
5.
Celebrity
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Celebrity status is often associated with wealth, while fame often provides opportunities to make money. Successful careers in sports and entertainment are commonly associated with celebrity status, People may also become celebrities due to media attention on their lifestyle, wealth, or controversial actions, or for their connection to a famous person. Throughout recorded history there are accounts of people who attracted the trappings of celebrity which would be recognized today, athletes in Ancient Greece were welcomed home as heroes, had songs and poems written in their honor, and received free food and gifts from those seeking celebrity endorsement. Ancient Rome similarly lauded actors and notorious gladiators, and Julius Caesar appeared on a coin in his own lifetime, in the 12th century, Thomas Becket became famous following his murder. He was promoted by the Christian Church as a martyr and images of him, the cult of personality can be traced back to the Romantics in the 18th Century, whose livelihood as artists and poets depended on the currency of their reputation. The establishment of cultural hot-spots became an important factor in the process of generating fame, for example, London, newspapers started including gossip columns and certain clubs and events became places to be seen in order to receive publicity. The movie industry spread around the globe in the first half of the 20th Century, yet, celebrity wasnt always tied to actors in films, especially when cinema was starting out as a medium. The second half of the century saw television and popular music bring new forms of celebrity, such as the rock star, unlike movies, television created celebrities who were not primarily actors, for example, presenters, talk show hosts and news readers. In the sixties and early seventies the book publishing industry began to persuade major celebrities to put their names on autobiographies and other titles in a genre called celebrity publishing. In most cases the book was not written by the celebrity but by a ghost-writer, cultures and regions with a significant population may have their own independent celebrity systems, with distinct hierarchies. For example, the Canadian province of Quebec, which is French-speaking, has its own system of French-speaking television, movie, a person who garners a degree of fame in one culture may be considered less famous or obscure in another. S. Whereas the francophone Canadian singer Celine Dion is well known in both the French-speaking world and in the United States, regions within a country, or cultural communities can also have their own celebrity systems, especially in linguistically or culturally distinct regions such as Quebec or Wales. Regional radio personalities, newscasters, politicians or community leaders may be local or regional celebrities and these informal rankings indicate a placing within a hierarchy. However, due to differing levels of celebrity in different regions, a Brazilian actor might be a B-list action film actor in the U. S. but an A-list star in Portugal. Some elements are associated with fame, such as appearing on the cover of Time, being spoofed in Mad, having a wax statue in Madame Tussauds, certain people are known even to people unfamiliar with the area in which they excelled. If one has to name a famous boxer, they are likely to name Muhammad Ali or Mike Tyson. The same phenomenon is true for fictional characters, superman, Spider-Man, The Hulk, Wonder Woman and Batman represent super heroes to a far wider audience than that of the comics and graphic novels in which they appear. Disney have themeparks around the world rely on the fame of its creations headed by Mickey Mouse
6.
Paul Reubens
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Paul Reubens is an American actor, writer, film producer, game show host, and comedian, best known for his character Pee-wee Herman. Reubens joined the Los Angeles troupe The Groundlings in the 1970s and started his career as an improvisational comedian, in 1982, Reubens put up a show about a character he had been developing for years. The show was called The Pee-wee Herman Show and it ran for five months with HBO producing a successful special about it. Pee-wee became an instant cult figure and for the decade, Reubens would be completely committed to his character, doing all of his public appearances. In 1985 Pee-wees Big Adventure, directed by the then-unknown Tim Burton, was a financial and critical success, Big Top Pee-wee, 1988s sequel, was less successful than its predecessor. Between 1986 and 1990, Reubens starred as Pee-wee in the CBS Saturday-morning childrens program Pee-wees Playhouse, thereafter, Reubens decided to take a sabbatical from Pee-wee. In July 1991, Reubens was arrested for indecent exposure in a theater in Sarasota. The arrest set off a reaction of national media attention that changed the general publics view of Reubens. Since 2006, Reubens has been making cameos and guest appearances in numerous projects,30 Rock, Dirt, Pushing Daisies, and The Blacklist. Since the 1990s, he has worked on two possible Pee-wee films, one dark and adult, dubbed The Pee-wee Herman Story, and one a family-friendly epic adventure called Pee-wees Playhouse, in 2010, he starred on Broadway in The Pee-wee Herman Show. In 2016, Reubens helped write and star in the Netflix original movie, Reubens was born Paul Rubenfeld in Peekskill, New York, and grew up in Sarasota, Florida, where his parents, Judy and Milton Rubenfeld, owned a lamp store. Paul has two siblings, Luke, who is a dog trainer, and Abby, who is an attorney. Reubens spent a significant amount of his childhood in Oneonta, New York, as a child, Reubens frequented the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus, whose winter headquarters was in Sarasota. The circuss atmosphere sparked Reubens interest in entertainment and influenced his later work, Reubens also loved to watch reruns of I Love Lucy, which made him want to make people laugh. At age five, Reubens asked his father to him a stage. Reubens attended Sarasota High School, where he was named president of the National Thespian Society and he was accepted into Northwestern Universitys summer program for gifted high-school students and also joined the local Asolo Theater and Players of Sarasota Theater, appearing in several plays. After graduation, he attended Boston University and began auditioning for acting schools and he soon joined the Los Angeles–based improvisational comedy team The Groundlings and remained a member for six years, working with Bob McClurg, John Paragon, Susan Barnes, and Phil Hartman. Hartman and Reubens became friends, often writing and working on material together, in 1980, he had a small part as a waiter in The Blues Brothers
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.
Entourage (U.S. TV series)
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Entourage is an American comedy-drama television series that premiered on HBO on July 18,2004 and concluded on September 11,2011, after eight seasons. Mark Wahlberg and Stephen Levinson served as the executive producers. The series deals with themes of friendship and real-life situations in modern-day Hollywood. The show is known for its array of guests, having featured several actors, athletes. According to Mark Wahlberg, Entourage was initially conceived when his assistant asked if he could film Wahlberg and his friends, other reports credit Eric Weinstein, a long-time friend of Wahlberg, with the idea of filming the actors group of friends. However, according to Donnie Carroll, who was the inspiration for the Turtle character and it had originated as a book idea, centered on Carrolls own life and his experiences with Wahlberg, titled From the Hood to Hollywood, A Soldiers Story. Vincent Chase was envisioned to be similar to Wahlberg. A lighter approach was subsequently decided upon and his best friend and manager is Eric Murphy. E, as his friends call him, is based on Mark Wahlbergs friend, hes also been reported to be inspired by Stephen Levinson, Mark Wahlbergs manager. Vincents older half-brother, Johnny Drama Chase, is Vinces personal chef, trainer, Johnny is a C-list actor who was in the fictional show Viking Quest during his younger days. His role in the new hit show Five Towns had begun to resurrect his fame and career. As the show went on, Drama got offers for more and more roles, the show ended with Drama having his own animated TV show called Johnnys Bananas and him landing a new TV movie with the help of Vince. Dramas character is based on Johnny Drama Alves, whom Donnie Wahlberg had hired to keep his brother out of trouble. Rounding out the entourage of friends is Salvatore Turtle Assante, who is another of Vinces old friends from childhood, Turtles official role is as Vinces driver and assistant, though his value as such is often brought into question. This character is based on Wahlbergs former gofer Donnie Carroll aka Donkey, Carroll auditioned for the role, but the Boston native was turned down when it was decided the actors would have to be New Yorkers. Carroll died on December 18,2005, after an asthma attack, Ari Gold is Vinces abrasive but lovable agent. The role has led to several nominations and Emmy Awards for Piven, Ari is based on Wahlbergs real-life agent Ari Emanuel. Connolly, Grenier, Dillon, Ferrara, and Piven are credited in episode in the opening credits of the entire series
9.
Latvian Soviet Socialist Republic
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The Latvian Soviet Socialist Republic, also known as Soviet Latvia or Latvia, was a republic of the Soviet Union. Its territory was conquered by Nazi Germany in June–July 1941. Soviet rule came to the end during the dissolution of the Soviet Union, and restoring its former state symbols - flag and anthem. The full independence of the Republic of Latvia was restored on 21 August 1991, during the 1991 Soviet coup détat attempt, on September 24,1939, the USSR entered the airspace of Estonia, flying numerous intelligence gathering operations. On September 25, Moscow demanded that Estonia sign a Soviet–Estonian Mutual Assistance Treaty that would allow the USSR to establish military bases, Latvia was next in line, as the USSR demanded the signing of a similar treaty. The authoritarian government of Kārlis Ulmanis accepted the ultimatum, signing the Soviet–Latvian Mutual Assistance Treaty on October 5,1939. On June 16,1940, after the USSR had already invaded Lithuania, hundreds of thousands Soviet troops entered Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania. These additional Soviet military forces far outnumbered the armies of each country, the Latvian army did not fire a shot and was quickly decimated by purges and included in the Red Army. Ulmanis government resigned and was replaced by a government created under instructions from the USSR embassy. Up until the elections of the Peoples Parliament on July 14–15,1940 there were no public statements about governmental plans to introduce a Soviet political order or to join the Soviet Union. Soon after the occupation, the Communist Party of Latvia was legalized as the legal party. It was the only permitted participant in the election, after an attempt by other politicians to include the Democratic Bloc on the ballot was prevented by the government and its office was closed, election leaflets confiscated and its leaders arrested. The election results themselves were fabricated, the Soviet press service released them so early that they appeared in a London newspaper a full 24 hours before the polls had closed, all Soviet army personnel present in the country were allowed to vote. The newly elected Peoples Parliament convened on 21 July to declare the creation of the Latvian SSR, on August 5, the Supreme Soviet of the Soviet Union completed the process of annexation by accepting the Latvian petition, and formally incorporated Latvia into the Soviet Union. Some of the Latvian diplomats stayed in the West and the Latvian Diplomatic Service continued to advocate the cause of Latvias freedom for the next 50 years. Therefore, the history of Soviet Latvia can broadly be divided in the periods of rule by the First Secretaries, Jānis Kalnbērziņš, Arvīds Pelše, Augusts Voss, in the following months of 1940 the Soviet Constitution and criminal code were introduced. The sham elections of July 1940 were followed by elections to the Supreme Soviet of the Soviet Union in January 1941, the remaining Baltic Germans and anyone who could claim to be one emigrated to the German Reich. On August 7,1940 all print media and printing houses were nationalized, most of the existing magazines and newspapers were discontinued or appeared under new, Soviet names
10.
Soviet Union
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The Soviet Union, officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics was a socialist state in Eurasia that existed from 1922 to 1991. It was nominally a union of national republics, but its government. The Soviet Union had its roots in the October Revolution of 1917 and this established the Russian Socialist Federative Soviet Republic and started the Russian Civil War between the revolutionary Reds and the counter-revolutionary Whites. In 1922, the communists were victorious, forming the Soviet Union with the unification of the Russian, Transcaucasian, Ukrainian, following Lenins death in 1924, a collective leadership and a brief power struggle, Joseph Stalin came to power in the mid-1920s. Stalin suppressed all opposition to his rule, committed the state ideology to Marxism–Leninism. As a result, the country underwent a period of rapid industrialization and collectivization which laid the foundation for its victory in World War II and postwar dominance of Eastern Europe. Shortly before World War II, Stalin signed the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact agreeing to non-aggression with Nazi Germany, in June 1941, the Germans invaded the Soviet Union, opening the largest and bloodiest theater of war in history. Soviet war casualties accounted for the highest proportion of the conflict in the effort of acquiring the upper hand over Axis forces at battles such as Stalingrad. Soviet forces eventually captured Berlin in 1945, the territory overtaken by the Red Army became satellite states of the Eastern Bloc. The Cold War emerged by 1947 as the Soviet bloc confronted the Western states that united in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization in 1949. Following Stalins death in 1953, a period of political and economic liberalization, known as de-Stalinization and Khrushchevs Thaw, the country developed rapidly, as millions of peasants were moved into industrialized cities. The USSR took a lead in the Space Race with Sputnik 1, the first ever satellite, and Vostok 1. In the 1970s, there was a brief détente of relations with the United States, the war drained economic resources and was matched by an escalation of American military aid to Mujahideen fighters. In the mid-1980s, the last Soviet leader, Mikhail Gorbachev, sought to reform and liberalize the economy through his policies of glasnost. The goal was to preserve the Communist Party while reversing the economic stagnation, the Cold War ended during his tenure, and in 1989 Soviet satellite countries in Eastern Europe overthrew their respective communist regimes. This led to the rise of strong nationalist and separatist movements inside the USSR as well, in August 1991, a coup détat was attempted by Communist Party hardliners. It failed, with Russian President Boris Yeltsin playing a role in facing down the coup. On 25 December 1991, Gorbachev resigned and the twelve constituent republics emerged from the dissolution of the Soviet Union as independent post-Soviet states
11.
Jews
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The Jews, also known as the Jewish people, are an ethnoreligious group originating from the Israelites, or Hebrews, of the Ancient Near East. Jews originated as a national and religious group in the Middle East during the second millennium BCE, the Merneptah Stele appears to confirm the existence of a people of Israel, associated with the god El, somewhere in Canaan as far back as the 13th century BCE. The Israelites, as an outgrowth of the Canaanite population, consolidated their hold with the emergence of the Kingdom of Israel, some consider that these Canaanite sedentary Israelites melded with incoming nomadic groups known as Hebrews. The worldwide Jewish population reached a peak of 16.7 million prior to World War II, but approximately 6 million Jews were systematically murdered during the Holocaust. Since then the population has risen again, and as of 2015 was estimated at 14.3 million by the Berman Jewish DataBank. According to the report, about 43% of all Jews reside in Israel and these numbers include all those who self-identified as Jews in a socio-demographic study or were identified as such by a respondent in the same household. The exact world Jewish population, however, is difficult to measure, Israel is the only country where Jews form a majority of the population. The modern State of Israel was established as a Jewish state and defines itself as such in its Declaration of Independence and its Law of Return grants the right of citizenship to any Jew who requests it. The English word Jew continues Middle English Gyw, Iewe, according to the Hebrew Bible, the name of both the tribe and kingdom derive from Judah, the fourth son of Jacob. The Hebrew word for Jew, יְהוּדִי ISO 259-3 Yhudi, is pronounced, with the stress on the syllable, in Israeli Hebrew. The Ladino name is ג׳ודיו, Djudio, ג׳ודיוס, Djudios, Yiddish, ייִד Yid, ייִדן, Yidn. The etymological equivalent is in use in languages, e. g. but derivations of the word Hebrew are also in use to describe a Jew, e. g. in Italian. The German word Jude is pronounced, the corresponding adjective jüdisch is the origin of the word Yiddish, in such contexts Jewish is the only acceptable possibility. Some people, however, have become so wary of this construction that they have extended the stigma to any use of Jew as a noun, a factual reconstruction for the origin of the Jews is a difficult and complex endeavor. It requires examining at least 3,000 years of ancient human history using documents in vast quantities, as archaeological discovery relies upon researchers and scholars from diverse disciplines, the goal is to interpret all of the factual data, focusing on the most consistent theory. In this case, it is complicated by long standing politics and religious, Jacob and his family migrated to Ancient Egypt after being invited to live with Jacobs son Joseph by the Pharaoh himself. The patriarchs descendants were later enslaved until the Exodus led by Moses, traditionally dated to the 13th century BCE, Modern archaeology has largely discarded the historicity of the Patriarchs and of the Exodus story, with it being reframed as constituting the Israelites inspiring national myth narrative. The growth of Yahweh-centric belief, along with a number of practices, gradually gave rise to a distinct Israelite ethnic group
12.
Upstate New York
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Upstate New York is the portion of the American state of New York lying north of New York City. The region includes most of the state of New York, excluding New York City and its environs, as well as Long Island, Upstate New York includes the major cities of Buffalo, Rochester, Albany, and Syracuse. Before the American Revolutionary War, Upstate was populated by Native Americans, the region saw many battles between the Continental Army and the Iroquois, and several treaties drawn up after the war ceded much of the land to settlers of European descent. As a result, Upstate became a hotbed for manufacturing, giving birth to such firms as General Electric, IBM, Kodak, and Xerox, and it welcomed a large influx of immigrants. Since the mid 20th century, American de-industrialization has contributed to economic and population decline Upstate, unlike the New York metropolitan area, Upstate New York contains vast areas of rural land. As a result, Upstate also supports a strong industry, and is notable for its milk and dairy products, its fruit production. New York City is dependent on the resources of Upstate for a variety of services, including the citys water supply. The region is home to popular tourist and recreational destinations, including Niagara Falls, the Adirondack and Catskill Mountains. There is no official boundary between Upstate New York and Downstate New York. The broadest usage of the term Upstate New York excludes only New York City and Long Island, which are always considered to be part of Downstate New York. Another usage locates the Upstate/Downstate boundary further north, at the point where New York Citys suburbs segue into its exurbs, yet another definition uses the prior Census definition of the New York metropolitan area, which until 2010 included Westchester, Rockland, and Putnam Counties. This was the used by the plaintiffs in the federal redistricting case of Rodriguez v. Pataki. Residents of Upstate New York sometimes prefer to identify with a more specific subregion, a number of businesses and institutions in the area have Upstate as part of their name. The other regions of New York State are culturally and economically distinct from the New York City area, the states major metropolitan areas outside of New York City are Buffalo, Rochester, Albany-Schenectady-Troy, and Syracuse, each of whose population exceeds 500,000. The different regions of New York State are influenced by and have affinities with other adjacent regions, Western New York has cultural and economic ties to the other Great Lakes states as well as Southern Ontario. The Capital District, the Hudson Valley, the Mohawk Valley, the North Country, the extreme northern portion of the state, also has strong cultural, economic, linguistic and familial ties to Quebec and Eastern Ontario. Thus, Plattsburgh has close ties to its neighbors in the Montreal area as well as Vermont, much of New York State receives television and radio broadcasts from Canada and there are often other cross-border ties, both historical and familial. A similar relationship can be seen in Northern New England, the Hudson and lower Mohawk Valley has more in common dialectologically with western New England and New York City
