1.
Manhattan
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Manhattan is the most densely populated borough of New York City, its economic and administrative center, and the citys historical birthplace. The borough is coextensive with New York County, founded on November 1,1683, Manhattan is often described as the cultural and financial capital of the world and hosts the United Nations Headquarters. Many multinational media conglomerates are based in the borough and it is historically documented to have been purchased by Dutch colonists from Native Americans in 1626 for 60 guilders which equals US$1062 today. New York County is the United States second-smallest county by land area, on business days, the influx of commuters increases that number to over 3.9 million, or more than 170,000 people per square mile. Manhattan has the third-largest population of New York Citys five boroughs, after Brooklyn and Queens, the City of New York was founded at the southern tip of Manhattan, and the borough houses New York City Hall, the seat of the citys government. The name Manhattan derives from the word Manna-hata, as written in the 1609 logbook of Robert Juet, a 1610 map depicts the name as Manna-hata, twice, on both the west and east sides of the Mauritius River. The word Manhattan has been translated as island of hills from the Lenape language. The United States Postal Service prefers that mail addressed to Manhattan use New York, NY rather than Manhattan, the area that is now Manhattan was long inhabited by the Lenape Native Americans. In 1524, Florentine explorer Giovanni da Verrazzano – sailing in service of King Francis I of France – was the first European to visit the area that would become New York City. It was not until the voyage of Henry Hudson, an Englishman who worked for the Dutch East India Company, a permanent European presence in New Netherland began in 1624 with the founding of a Dutch fur trading settlement on Governors Island. In 1625, construction was started on the citadel of Fort Amsterdam on Manhattan Island, later called New Amsterdam, the 1625 establishment of Fort Amsterdam at the southern tip of Manhattan Island is recognized as the birth of New York City. In 1846, New York historian John Romeyn Brodhead converted the figure of Fl 60 to US$23, variable-rate myth being a contradiction in terms, the purchase price remains forever frozen at twenty-four dollars, as Edwin G. Burrows and Mike Wallace remarked in their history of New York. Sixty guilders in 1626 was valued at approximately $1,000 in 2006, based on the price of silver, Straight Dope author Cecil Adams calculated an equivalent of $72 in 1992. In 1647, Peter Stuyvesant was appointed as the last Dutch Director General of the colony, New Amsterdam was formally incorporated as a city on February 2,1653. In 1664, the English conquered New Netherland and renamed it New York after the English Duke of York and Albany, the Dutch Republic regained it in August 1673 with a fleet of 21 ships, renaming the city New Orange. Manhattan was at the heart of the New York Campaign, a series of battles in the early American Revolutionary War. The Continental Army was forced to abandon Manhattan after the Battle of Fort Washington on November 16,1776. The city, greatly damaged by the Great Fire of New York during the campaign, became the British political, British occupation lasted until November 25,1783, when George Washington returned to Manhattan, as the last British forces left the city
2.
Indianapolis
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Indianapolis, is the capital and largest city of the U. S. state of Indiana and the seat of Marion County. It is in the East North Central region of the Midwestern United States, with an estimated population of 853,173 in 2015, Indianapolis is the second most populous city in the Midwest, after Chicago, and 14th largest in the U. S. The city is the economic and cultural center of the Indianapolis metropolitan area, home to 2 million people and its combined statistical area ranks 26th, with 2.4 million inhabitants. Indianapolis covers 372 square miles, making it the 16th largest city by area in the U. S. The city grew beyond the Mile Square, as completion of the National Road and advent of the railroad solidified the position as a manufacturing. Indianapolis is within a single-day drive of 70 percent of the nations population, Indianapolis has developed niche markets in amateur sports and auto racing. The city is perhaps best known for hosting the worlds largest single-day sporting event. The city is notable as headquarters for the American Legion and home to a significant collection of monuments dedicated to veterans and war dead, the most in the U. S. outside of Washington, D. C. Since the 1970 city-county consolidation, known as Unigov, local government administration has operated under the direction of an elected 25-member city-county council, Indianapolis is considered a high sufficiency global city. In 1816, the year Indiana gained statehood, the U. S. Congress donated four sections of land to establish a permanent seat of state government. Two years later, under the Treaty of St. Marys and this tract of land, which was called the New Purchase, included the site selected for the new state capital in 1820. The availability of new lands for purchase in central Indiana attracted settlers. Although many of these first European and American setters were Protestants, few African Americans lived in central Indiana before 1840. The first European Americans to permanently settle in the area that became Indianapolis were either the McCormick or Pogue families, on January 11,1820, the Indiana General Assembly authorized a committee to select a site in central Indiana for the new state capital. The state legislature approved the site, adopting the name Indianapolis on January 6,1821, in April, Alexander Ralston and Elias Pym Fordham were appointed to survey and design a town plan for the new settlement. Indianapolis became a seat of county government on December 31,1821, a combined county and town government continued until 1832, when Indianapolis incorporated as a town. Indianapolis became an incorporated city effective March 30,1847, Samuel Henderson, the citys first mayor, led the new city government, which included a seven-member city council. In 1853, voters approved a new city charter provided for an elected mayor
3.
Point guard
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The point guard, also called the one or point, is one of the five positions in a regulation basketball game. A point guard has perhaps the most specialized role of any position, point guards are expected to run the teams offense by controlling the ball and making sure that it gets to the right players at the right time. A point guard, like other player positions in basketball, specializes in certain skills, a point guards primary job is to facilitate scoring opportunities for his/her team, or sometimes for themselves. Lee Rose has described a point guard as a coach on the floor and this involves setting up plays on the court, getting the ball to the teammate in the best position to score, and controlling the tempo of the game. A point guard should know when and how to instigate a fast break, point guards are expected to be vocal floor leaders. A point guard needs always to have in mind the times on the clock and the game clock, the score. Among the taller players who have enjoyed success at the position is Magic Johnson, other point guards who have been named NBA MVP include Bob Cousy, Oscar Robertson, Derrick Rose and two-time winners Stephen Curry and Steve Nash. In the NBA, point guards are usually about 65 or shorter, having above-average size is considered advantageous, although size is secondary to situational awareness, speed, quickness, and ball handling skills. Shorter players tend to be better dribblers since they are closer to the floor, after an opponent scores, it is typically the point guard who brings the ball down court to begin an offensive play. Passing skills, ball handling, and court vision are crucial, speed is important, a speedy point guard is better able to create separation and space off the dribble, giving him/herself room to work. Point guards are often valued more for their assist totals than for their scoring, another major evaluation factor is Assist-to-Turnover ratio, which reflects the decision-making skills of the player. Still, a point guard should also have a reasonably effective jump shot. The point guard is positioned on the perimeter of the play and this is a necessity because of the point guards many leadership obligations. Many times, the point guard is referred to by announcers as a coach on the floor or a floor general, in the past, this was particularly true, as several point guards such as Lenny Wilkens served their teams as player-coaches. This is not so common anymore, as most coaches are now solely specialized in coaching and are non-players, former Suns head coach Mike DAntoni had often allowed Steve Nash to freelance when leading the Suns offense, even letting him call his own plays at times. Even point guards who are not given this much freedom, however, are extensions of their coach on the floor. John Stockton is widely considered to be the point guard. He also used the pick and roll maneuvre with Karl Malone, along with leadership and a general basketball acumen, ball-handling is a skill of great importance to a point guard
4.
Baloncesto Superior Nacional
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The Baloncesto Superior Nacional is the first tier level professional mens basketball league in Puerto Rico. It was founded in 1929 and is organized by the Puerto Rican Basketball Federation, the league has produced players that have distinguished themselves in the NBA, ACB, EuroLeague, and other tournaments throughout the world. Among them, NBA players Butch Lee, José Ortiz, Ramón Rivas, Daniel Santiago, Carlos Arroyo, the league began in 1930, and is noted for having had several head coaches who went on to achieve international recognition later in their careers. Others notable coaches who have worked for BSN teams include Gene Bartow, Lou Rossini, Del Harris, P. J. Carlesimo, Bernie Bickerstaff and Herb Brown. During the 1980s, notable players followed in the footsteps of such as Juan Pachin Vicens and Butch Lee. On October 8,2015, the BSN team owners selected Fernando Quiñones Bodea to succeed Carlos J. Beltrán as president of the league, the BSN tournament is played under the regular FIBA basketball rules. The teams regularly play a total of four games amongs them, for the 2017, the regular season will extend to 36 games. Of the 10 participating teams, the top 8 move on to the postseason and he broke both the single-season points record with 810 in 1978 and the most career points record with 11,549. Rodríguez also holds the mark for most rebounds in a career with 6,178 and he also held the single-season rebound record with 380 in 1978, which stood until Lee Benson broke it in 2008. Rodríguez also established an early single-game points record in 1973 with 52, currently, Neftalí Rivera holds the record for most points in a game in the Baloncesto Superior Nacional when he scored 79 points on May 22nd,1974. In that game he achieve the record by making 34 field goals and 11 free throws, in 1989, Pablo Alicea of the Gigantes de Carolina established a record for most assists in one game with 25. The record stood for two decades until May 1,2012, when Jonathan García of the Caciques de Humacao broke it recording 33 assists against the Brujos de Guayama. During this game, the Caciques also established the team record for a single game with 130. The Vaqueros de Bayamón hosted the game with most assistance in the league and this bested the previous top of 16,564 in a game between Ponce and Santurce. The Vaqueros also hold the record for most consecutive championships, winning five from 1971-75. com
5.
Basketball
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Basketball is a non-contact team sport played on a rectangular court by two teams of five players each. The objective is to shoot a ball through a hoop 18 inches in diameter and 10 feet high that is mounted to a backboard at each end of the court. The game was invented in 1891 by Dr. James Naismith, a team can score a field goal by shooting the ball through the basket being defended by the opposition team during regular play. A field goal scores three points for the team if the player shoots from behind the three-point line. A team can also score via free throws, which are worth one point, the team with the most points at the end of the game wins, but additional time is mandated when the score is tied at the end of regulation. The ball can be advanced on the court by passing it to a teammate and it is a violation to lift, or drag, ones pivot foot without dribbling the ball, to carry it, or to hold the ball with both hands then resume dribbling. The game has many techniques for displaying skill—ball-handling, shooting, passing, dribbling, dunking, shot-blocking. The point guard directs the on court action of the team, implementing the coachs game plan, Basketball is one of the worlds most popular and widely viewed sports. Outside North America, the top clubs from national leagues qualify to continental championships such as the Euroleague, the FIBA Basketball World Cup attracts the top national teams from around the world. Each continent hosts regional competitions for teams, like EuroBasket. The FIBA Womens Basketball World Cup features the top womens basketball teams from continental championships. The main North American league is the WNBA, whereas the EuroLeague Women has been dominated by teams from the Russian Womens Basketball Premier League, in early December 1891, Canadian Dr. He sought a vigorous indoor game to keep his students occupied, after rejecting other ideas as either too rough or poorly suited to walled-in gymnasiums, he wrote the basic rules and nailed a peach basket onto a 10-foot elevated track. Basketball was originally played with a soccer ball and these laces could cause bounce passes and dribbling to be unpredictable. Eventually a lace-free ball construction method was invented, and this change to the game was endorsed by Naismith, dribbling was not part of the original game except for the bounce pass to teammates. Passing the ball was the means of ball movement. Dribbling was eventually introduced but limited by the shape of early balls. Dribbling only became a part of the game around the 1950s
6.
Puerto Rico
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Puerto Rico, officially the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico and briefly called Porto Rico, is an unincorporated territory of the United States located in the northeast Caribbean Sea. It is an archipelago that includes the island of Puerto Rico and a number of smaller ones such as Mona, Culebra. The capital and most populous city is San Juan and its official languages are Spanish and English, though Spanish predominates. The islands population is approximately 3.4 million, Puerto Ricos rich history, tropical climate, diverse natural scenery, renowned traditional cuisine, and attractive tax incentives make it a popular destination for travelers from around the world. Four centuries of Spanish colonial government transformed the ethnic, cultural and physical landscapes primarily with waves of African captives, and Canarian. In the Spanish imperial imagination, Puerto Rico played a secondary, in 1898, following the Spanish–American War, the United States appropriated Puerto Rico together with most former Spanish colonies under the terms of the Treaty of Paris. Puerto Ricans are natural-born citizens of the United States, however, Puerto Rico does not have a vote in the United States Congress, which governs the territory with full jurisdiction under the Puerto Rico Federal Relations Act of 1950. As a U. S. territory, American citizens residing on the island are disenfranchised at the level and may not vote for president. However, Congress approved a constitution, allowing U. S. citizens on the territory to elect a governor. A fifth referendum will be held in June 2017, with only Statehood, in early 2017, the Puerto Rican government-debt crisis posed serious problems for the government. The outstanding bond debt that had climbed to $70 billion or $12,000 per capita at a time with 12. 4% unemployment, the debt had been increasing during a decade long recession. Puerto Ricans often call the island Borinquen – a derivation of Borikén, its indigenous Taíno name, the terms boricua and borincano derive from Borikén and Borinquen respectively, and are commonly used to identify someone of Puerto Rican heritage. The island is also known in Spanish as la isla del encanto. Columbus named the island San Juan Bautista, in honor of Saint John the Baptist, eventually traders and other maritime visitors came to refer to the entire island as Puerto Rico, while San Juan became the name used for the main trading/shipping port and the capital city. The islands name was changed to Porto Rico by the United States after the Treaty of Paris of 1898, the anglicized name was used by the US government and private enterprises. The name was changed back to Puerto Rico by a joint resolution in Congress introduced by Félix Córdova Dávila in 1931, the ancient history of the archipelago known today as Puerto Rico is not well known. The scarce archaeological findings and early Spanish scholarly accounts from the colonial era constitute the basis of knowledge about them. The first comprehensive book on the history of Puerto Rico was written by Fray Íñigo Abbad y Lasierra in 1786, the first settlers were the Ortoiroid people, an Archaic Period culture of Amerindian hunters and fishermen who migrated from the South American mainland
7.
Greece
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Greece, officially the Hellenic Republic, historically also known as Hellas, is a country in southeastern Europe, with a population of approximately 11 million as of 2015. Athens is the capital and largest city, followed by Thessaloniki. Greece is strategically located at the crossroads of Europe, Asia, situated on the southern tip of the Balkan peninsula, it shares land borders with Albania to the northwest, the Republic of Macedonia and Bulgaria to the north, and Turkey to the northeast. Greece consists of nine regions, Macedonia, Central Greece, the Peloponnese, Thessaly, Epirus, the Aegean Islands, Thrace, Crete. The Aegean Sea lies to the east of the mainland, the Ionian Sea to the west, the Cretan Sea and the Mediterranean Sea to the south. Greece has the longest coastline on the Mediterranean Basin and the 11th longest coastline in the world at 13,676 km in length, featuring a vast number of islands, eighty percent of Greece is mountainous, with Mount Olympus being the highest peak at 2,918 metres. From the eighth century BC, the Greeks were organised into various independent city-states, known as polis, which spanned the entire Mediterranean region and the Black Sea. Greece was annexed by Rome in the second century BC, becoming a part of the Roman Empire and its successor. The Greek Orthodox Church also shaped modern Greek identity and transmitted Greek traditions to the wider Orthodox World, falling under Ottoman dominion in the mid-15th century, the modern nation state of Greece emerged in 1830 following a war of independence. Greeces rich historical legacy is reflected by its 18 UNESCO World Heritage Sites, among the most in Europe, Greece is a democratic and developed country with an advanced high-income economy, a high quality of life, and a very high standard of living. A founding member of the United Nations, Greece was the member to join the European Communities and has been part of the Eurozone since 2001. Greeces unique cultural heritage, large industry, prominent shipping sector. It is the largest economy in the Balkans, where it is an important regional investor, the names for the nation of Greece and the Greek people differ from the names used in other languages, locations and cultures. The earliest evidence of the presence of human ancestors in the southern Balkans, dated to 270,000 BC, is to be found in the Petralona cave, all three stages of the stone age are represented in Greece, for example in the Franchthi Cave. Neolithic settlements in Greece, dating from the 7th millennium BC, are the oldest in Europe by several centuries and these civilizations possessed writing, the Minoans writing in an undeciphered script known as Linear A, and the Mycenaeans in Linear B, an early form of Greek. The Mycenaeans gradually absorbed the Minoans, but collapsed violently around 1200 BC and this ushered in a period known as the Greek Dark Ages, from which written records are absent. The end of the Dark Ages is traditionally dated to 776 BC, the Iliad and the Odyssey, the foundational texts of Western literature, are believed to have been composed by Homer in the 7th or 8th centuries BC. With the end of the Dark Ages, there emerged various kingdoms and city-states across the Greek peninsula, in 508 BC, Cleisthenes instituted the worlds first democratic system of government in Athens
8.
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
