1.
Cemetery
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A cemetery or graveyard is a place where the remains of dead people are buried or otherwise interred. The word cemetery implies that the land is designated as a burial ground. The term graveyard is used interchangeably with cemetery, but primarily referred to a burial ground within a churchyard. The intact or cremated remains of people may be interred in a grave, commonly referred to as burial, or in a tomb, an above-ground grave, in Western cultures, funeral ceremonies are often observed in cemeteries. These ceremonies or rites of passage according to cultural practices. Modern cemeteries often include crematoria, and some previously used for both, continue as crematoria as a principal use long after the interment areas have been filled. The Oxford English Dictionary defines a cemetery as a burial-ground generally, a large public park or ground laid out expressly for the interment of the dead, and not being the ‘yard’ of any church. Prehistoric cemeteries are referred to by the term grave field. From about the 7th century, European burial was under the control of the Church, practices varied, but in continental Europe, bodies were usually buried in a mass grave until they had decomposed. The bones were exhumed and stored in ossuaries, either along the arcaded bounding walls of the cemetery, or within the church under floor slabs. In Europe this was accompanied with a depiction of their coat of arms. Most others were buried in graveyards again divided by social status, mourners who could afford the work of a stonemason had a headstone engraved with a name, dates of birth and death and sometimes other biographical data, and set up over the place of burial. Usually, the writing and symbols carved on the headstone. Some families hired a blacksmith and had large crosses made from various metals put on the place of burial, in many European states, burial in graveyards was eventually outlawed altogether through government legislation. Instead of graveyards, completely new places of burial were established away from populated areas and outside of old towns. Many new cemeteries became municipally owned or were run by their own corporations, in some cases, skeletons were exhumed from graveyards and moved into ossuaries or catacombs. A large action of this occurred in 18th century Paris when human remains were transferred from graveyards all over the city to the Catacombs of Paris. The bones of an estimated 6 million people are to be found there, an early example of a landscape-style cemetery is Père Lachaise in Paris
2.
Crematory
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A crematory is a machine in which peoples bodies or remains are burned down to the bones, eliminating all soft tissue. Crematories are usually found in homes, chapels, cemeteries. A facility which houses the actual crematory units is referred to as a crematorium, prior to the Industrial Revolution, any cremation which took place was on an outdoor, open pyre. The organized movement to reinstate cremation as a method for body disposal began in the 1870s. In 1869 the idea was presented to the Medical International Congress of Florence by Professors Coletti and Castiglioni in the name of public health, in 1873, Professor Paolo Gorini of Lodi and Professor Ludovico Brunetti of Padua published reports or practical work they had conducted. Meanwhile, Sir Charles William Siemens had developed his regenerative furnace in the 1850s and his furnace operated at a high temperature by using regenerative preheating of fuel and air for combustion. In regenerative preheating, the exhaust gases from the furnace are pumped into a chamber containing bricks, the flow of the furnace is then reversed so that fuel and air pass through the chamber and are heated by the bricks. Through this method, a furnace can reach temperatures high enough to melt steel. Charless nephew, Carl Friedrich von Siemens perfected the use of this furnace for the incineration of organic material at his factory in Dresden, the radical politician, Sir Charles Wentworth Dilke, took the corpse of his dead wife there to be cremated in 1874. The first duty of the Cremation Society was to ascertain whether cremation could be performed in the country. In 1878, a piece of land in Woking on which the crematorium was to be established was bought by Sir Henry Thompson, Professor Gorini was invited to visit Woking and supervise the erection of his cremation apparatus there. In 1885, the first official cremation in the UK took place in Woking, the deceased was Mrs Jeannette C. Pickersgill, a figure in literary and scientific circles. By the end of the year, the Cremation Society of Great Britain had overseen two more cremations, a total of 3 out of 597,357 deaths in the UK that year, in 1886 ten bodies were cremated at Woking Crematorium. During 1888, in which 28 cremations took place, the Cremation Society planned to provide a chapel, waiting rooms, in 1892 a crematorium opened in Manchester, followed by one in Glasgow in 1895, Liverpool in 1896 and Birmingham Crematorium in 1903. Crematoria in Europe were built in 1878 in the town of Gotha in Germany, the first modern crematory in the U. S. was built in 1876 by Francis Julius LeMoyne after hearing about its use in Europe. During that time it was thought that people were getting sick by attending funerals of those recently deceased, LeMoyne built the crematory to cremate bodies in a controlled environment primarily for sanitary reasons. Cremation was used to any organic matter that could cause illness
3.
Mausoleum
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A mausoleuma is an external free-standing building constructed as a monument enclosing the interment space or burial chamber of a deceased person or people. A monument without the interment is a cenotaph, a mausoleum may be considered a type of tomb, or the tomb may be considered to be within the mausoleum. A Christian mausoleum sometimes includes a chapel, the word derives from the Mausoleum at Halicarnassus, the grave of King Mausolus, the Persian satrap of Caria, whose large tomb was one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. Historically, mausolea were, and still may be, large, however, smaller mausolea soon became popular with the gentry and nobility in many countries. In the Roman Empire, these were often ranged in necropoles or along roadsides, however, when Christianity became dominant, mausoleums were out of use. Later, mausolea became particularly popular in Europe and its colonies during the modern and modern periods. A single mausoleum may be permanently sealed, a mausoleum encloses a burial chamber either wholly above ground or within a burial vault below the superstructure. This contains the body or bodies, probably within sarcophagi or interment niches, modern mausolea may also act as columbaria with additional cinerary urn niches. Mausolea may be located in a cemetery, a churchyard or on private land, in the United States, the term may be used for a burial vault below a larger facility, such as a church. The Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels in Los Angeles, California, for example, has 6,000 sepulchral and it is known as the crypt mausoleum. In Europe, these vaults are sometimes called crypts or catacombs. Mausoleum of Mohammed V Bourguiba mausoleum The Dr. John Garang De Mabior mausoleum in Juba, agostinho Netos Mausoleum in Luanda, Angola. Omar Bongos Mausoleum in Franceville, Gabon, kwame Nkrumah Mausoleum Marien Ngouabis mausoleum and Pierre Savorgnan de Brazzas mausoleum in Brazzaville, The Republic of Congo. Mausoleum of the late president Felix Houphouet-Boigny in Yamoussoukro, Côte dIvoire, laurent Kabilas mausoleum in Kinshasa, The Democratic Republic of Congo. The pyramids of ancient Egypt and Nubian pyramids are also types of mausolea, Abdel Nasser Mosque, is the Mausoleum of Gamal Abdel Nasser, in Cairo, Egypt. Unknown Soldier Memorial Royal Mausoleum of Mauretania Al Hussein Mosque, Cairo – Holy Shrine and mausoleum, Qalawun Mausoleum is the Mausoleum of Qalawun, Located in Cairo, Egypt, it was regarded by scholars as the second most beautiful medieval mausoleum ever to be built. Jedars - thirteen ancient monumental Berber mausoleums located south of Tiaret, Late President Eyademas Family Mausoleum in Kara, Togo. Kamuzu Banda Mausoleum, in Lilongwe, Malawi, Dr. Bingu wa Mutharika, President of Malawi built a mausoleum in which his late first wife and Bingu himself are buried
4.
Oakland, California
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Oakland /ˈoʊklənd/ is the largest city and the county seat of Alameda County, California, United States. The city was incorporated in 1852, Oaklands territory covers what was once a mosaic of California coastal terrace prairie, oak woodland, and north coastal scrub. Its land served as a resource when its hillside oak and redwood timber were logged to build San Francisco. In the late 1860s, Oakland was selected as the terminal of the Transcontinental Railroad. Following the 1906 San Francisco earthquake, many San Francisco citizens moved to Oakland, enlarging the citys population, increasing its housing stock and it continued to grow in the 20th century with its busy port, shipyards, and a thriving automobile manufacturing industry. Oakland is known for its sustainability practices, including a top-ranking for usage of electricity from renewable resources, in addition, due to a steady influx of immigrants during the 20th century, along with thousands of African-American war-industry workers who relocated from the Deep South during the 1940s. Oakland is the most ethnically diverse city in the country. The earliest known inhabitants were the Huchiun Indians, who lived there for thousands of years, the Huchiun belonged to a linguistic grouping later called the Ohlone. In Oakland, they were concentrated around Lake Merritt and Temescal Creek, in 1772, the area that later became Oakland was claimed, with the rest of California, by Spanish settlers for the King of Spain. In the early 19th century, the Spanish crown granted the East Bay area to Luis María Peralta for his Rancho San Antonio, the grant was confirmed by the successor Mexican republic upon its independence from Spain. Upon his death in 1842, Peralta divided his land among his four sons, Most of Oakland fell within the shares given to Antonio Maria and Vicente. The portion of the parcel that is now Oakland was called encinal—Spanish for oak grove—due to the oak forest that covered the area. In 1851, three men—Horace Carpentier, Edson Adams, and Andrew Moon—began developing what is now downtown Oakland, on May 4,1852, the Town of Oakland incorporated. Two years later, on March 25,1854, Oakland re-incorporated as the City of Oakland, with Horace Carpentier elected the first mayor, the city and its environs quickly grew with the railroads, becoming a major rail terminal in the late 1860s and 1870s. In 1868, the Central Pacific constructed the Oakland Long Wharf at Oakland Point, a number of horsecar and cable car lines were constructed in Oakland during the latter half of the 19th century. The first electric streetcar set out from Oakland to Berkeley in 1891, at the time of incorporation, Oakland consisted of the territory that lay south of todays major intersection of San Pablo Avenue, Broadway, and Fourteenth Street. The city gradually annexed farmlands and settlements to the east and the north, Oaklands rise to industrial prominence, and its subsequent need for a seaport, led to the digging of a shipping and tidal channel in 1902. This resulted in the town of Alameda being made an island
5.
Alameda County, California
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Alameda County is a county in the state of California in the United States. As of the 2010 census, the population was 1,510,271, Alameda County is included in the San Francisco Bay Area, occupying much of the East Bay region. The county was formed on March 25,1853, from a portion of Contra Costa County. The Spanish word alameda means a place where trees grow. The willow and sycamore trees along the banks of the river reminded the early explorers of a road lined with trees, the county seat at the time it was formed was located at Alvarado, now part of Union City. In 1856 it was moved to San Leandro, where the county courthouse was destroyed by the devastating 1868 quake on the Hayward Fault, the county seat was then re-established in the town of Brooklyn from 1872-1875. Brooklyn is now part of Oakland, which has been the county seat since 1873, much of what is now considered an intensively urban region, with major cities, was developed as a trolley car suburb of San Francisco in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The annual county fair is held at the Alameda County Fairgrounds in Pleasanton, the fair runs for three weekends from June to July. Attractions include horse racing, carnival rides, 4-H exhibits, according to the U. S. Census Bureau, the county has a total area of 821 square miles, of which 739 square miles is land and 82 square miles is water. The San Francisco Bay borders the county on the west, the crest of the Berkeley Hills form part of the northeastern boundary, and reach into the center of the county. A coastal plain several miles wide lines the bay, and is Oaklands most populous region, Livermore Valley lies in the eastern part of the county. Don Edwards San Francisco Bay National Wildlife Refuge A2014 analysis found Alameda County to be the 4th most racially diverse county in the United States, the 2010 United States Census reported that Alameda County had a population of 1,510,271. The population density was 2,047.6 people per square mile, Hispanic or Latino of any race were 339,889 persons,16. 4% Mexican,0. 8% Puerto Rican,0. 2% Cuban,5. 1% Other Hispanic. 26. 0% of all households were made up of individuals and 7. 3% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older, the average household size was 2.71 and the average family size was 3.31. In the county, the population was out with 24. 6% under the age of 18,9. 6% from 18 to 24,33. 9% from 25 to 44,21. 7% from 45 to 64. The median age was 34 years, for every 100 females there were 96.60 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there were 94.00 males, the median income for a household in the county was $55,946, and the median income for a family was $65,857. Males had an income of $47,425 versus $36,921 for females
6.
Mills College
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Mills College is a liberal arts and sciences college located in the San Francisco Bay Area. Mills was founded as the Young Ladies Seminary in 1852 in Benicia, California, the school was relocated to Oakland, California, in 1871, and became the first womens college west of the Rockies. Currently, Mills is a womens college with graduate programs for women and men. The college offers more than 60 undergraduate majors and minors and over 25 graduate degrees, certificates, the college is also home to the Mills College School of Education and the Lorry I. Lokey Graduate School of Business & Public Policy, in 1865, Susan Tolman Mills, a graduate of Mount Holyoke College, and her husband, Cyrus Mills, bought the Young Ladies Seminary renaming it Mills Seminary. In 1871, the school was moved to Oakland, California, the school became Mills College in 1885. In 1890, after serving for decades as principal, Susan Mills became the president of the college, beginning in 1906 the seminary classes were progressively eliminated. In 1921, Mills granted its first masters degrees, on May 3,1990, the Trustees announced that they had voted to admit male undergraduate students to Mills. This decision led to a student and staff strike, accompanied by numerous displays of non-violent protests by the students. At one point, nearly 300 students blockaded the administrative offices, on May 18, the Trustees met again to reconsider the decision, leading finally to a reversal of the vote. In 2014, Mills became the first single-sex college in the U. S. to adopt a policy explicitly welcoming transgender students, Mills offers more than 60 undergraduate majors and minors across the arts and sciences, as well as the option to design your own college major. The school runs on a system, with optional winter and summer sessions. As of the 2014-2015 academic years, Mills’ top 5 most popular majors are, English, Nursing, Psychology, Biology, and Political, Legal, the engineering program in conjunction with University of Southern California is a five-year program, with the first three years completed at Mills. After completing the program, students will have received a BA from Mills, available tracks include biomedical, chemical, computer, electrical, environmental, and industrial systems engineering. Undergraduate students can participate in one of eight bachelors-to-masters accelerated degree programs, which students to earn an undergraduate. Mills is accredited by the Western Association of Schools and Colleges, rated by Washington Monthly in their 2014 Top Master’s Universities study, Mills ranked 8th out of 100 institutions when considering Social Mobility, Research, and Service. The school’s graduate program offers over 25 degrees, credentials, and these include unique programs in Bio-chemistry, Book Art, Interdisciplinary Computer Science, Infant Mental Health, and Pre-Medical studies, as well as groundbreaking joint-degree programs. Currently the school’s top 5 most popular programs are, Education, Business Administration, Pre-Med, English
7.
Mountain View Cemetery (Oakland, California)
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The Mountain View Cemetery is a large 226-acre cemetery in Oakland, Alameda County, California. It was established in 1863 by a group of East Bay pioneers under the California Rural Cemetery Act of 1859, the association they formed still operates the cemetery today. Mountain View was designed by Frederick Law Olmsted, the architect who also designed New York Citys Central Park and much of UC Berkeley. Because of this, and its setting, the cemetery is a tourist draw. Olmsteds intent was to create a space that would express a harmony between humankind and the natural setting, in the view of 19th century English and American romantics, park-like cemeteries, such as Mountain View, represented the peace of nature, to which humanitys soul returns. Olmsted, drawing upon the concepts of American Transcendentalism, integrated Parisian grand monuments, adjoining Mountain View Cemetery is Saint Mary Cemetery and the Chapel of the Chimes mausoleum and columbarium. There are many notable people interred in Mountain View, many are local figures in California history, English, US Representative California John B. Perkins, Governor of California 1880–1883, U. S. Senator, John Swett, Founder of the California Public School System. Geological Survey Geographic Names Information System, Mountain View Cemetery
8.
Jonestown
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Jonestown was the informal name for the Peoples Temple Agricultural Project formed by the Peoples Temple, an American religious organization under the leadership of Jim Jones, in northwestern Guyana. It became internationally notorious when on November 18,1978, a total of 918 people died in the commune, at the nearby airstrip in Port Kaituma. The name of the settlement became synonymous with the incidents at those locations, the poisonings in Jonestown followed the murder of five others by Temple members at Port Kaituma, including United States Congressman Leo Ryan, an act that Jones ordered. Four other Temple members committed murder-suicide in Georgetown at Jones command, while some refer to the events in Jonestown as mass suicide, many others, including Jonestown survivors, regard them as mass murder. All who drank poison did so under duress, and more than a third of victims were minors and it was the largest such event in modern history and resulted in the largest single loss of American civilian life in a deliberate act until September 11,2001. In recent years, the Jonestown massacre has been the subject of conspiracy theories. The Peoples Temple was formed in Indianapolis, Indiana, during the mid-1950s, though its roots and teachings shared more with biblical church and Christian revival movements than with Marxism, it purported to practice what it called apostolic socialism. In doing so, the Temple preached that those who remained drugged with the opiate of religion had to be brought to enlightenment — socialism. In the early 1960s, Jones visited Guyana – then still a British colony – while on his way to establishing a short-lived Temple mission in Brazil, after Jones received considerable criticism in Indiana for his integrationist views, the Temple moved to Redwood Valley, California in 1965. In the early 1970s, the Peoples Temple opened other branches in California, including Los Angeles, in the mid-1970s, the Temple moved its headquarters to San Francisco. With the move to San Francisco came increasing political involvement by the Peoples Temple, unlike many other figures who are considered cult leaders, Jones enjoyed public support and contact with some of the highest level politicians in the United States. Governor Jerry Brown, Lieutenant Governor Mervyn Dymally, and Assemblyman Willie Brown, among others, the plan listed various options, including fleeing to Canada or to a Caribbean missionary post, such as Barbados or Trinidad. For its Caribbean missionary post, the Temple quickly chose Guyana, conducting research on its economy, in October 1973, the directors of the Peoples Temple passed a resolution to establish an agricultural mission there. The Temple chose Guyana, in part, because of its own socialist politics, former Temple member Tim Carter stated that the reasons for choosing Guyana were the Temples view of a perceived dominance of racism and multinational corporations in the U. S. government. Jones also thought that Guyana was small, poor, and independent enough for him to obtain influence. The site was isolated and had soil of low fertility, even by Guyanese standards, the nearest body of water was seven miles away by muddy roads. As 500 members began the construction of Jonestown, the Temple encouraged more to relocate to the settlement, Jones saw Jonestown as both a socialist paradise and a sanctuary from media scrutiny. In 1976, Guyana finally approved the lease it had negotiated with the Temple for the over 3,000 acres of land in Northwest Guyana on which Jonestown was located, in 1974, Guyanese government officials granted the Temple permission to import certain items duty-free
9.
Jim Jones
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James Warren Jim Jones was an American cult leader. Ordained as a Disciples of Christ pastor, Jones founded and led the Peoples Temple, nearly three hundred children were murdered at Jonestown, almost all of them by poisoning. Jones died from a wound to the head - it is suspected his death was a suicide. Jones was born in Indiana and started the Temple there in the 1950s and he later moved the Temple to California in the mid-1960s, and gained notoriety with the move of the Temples headquarters to San Francisco in the early 1970s. Jones was born in a area of Crete, Indiana, to James Thurman Jones, a World War I veteran. Lynetta reportedly believed she had given birth to a messiah and he was of Irish and Welsh descent. Jones later claimed partial Cherokee ancestry through his mother, though according to his second cousin Barbara Shaffer. Economic difficulties during the Great Depression necessitated that Jones family move to Lynn, Indiana, in 1934, where he grew up in a shack without plumbing. Jones was a reader as a child and studied Joseph Stalin, Karl Marx, Mao Zedong, Mahatma Gandhi and Adolf Hitler carefully, noting the strengths. Jones also developed an intense interest in religion, primarily because he found making friends difficult, childhood acquaintances later recalled Jones as being a really weird kid who was obsessed with religion. They alleged that he frequently held funerals for small animals on his parents property and had stabbed a cat to death, Jones and a childhood friend both claimed that his father, who was an alcoholic, was associated with the Ku Klux Klan. Jones himself, however, came to sympathize with the countrys repressed African-American community due to his own experiences as a social outcast, after Jones parents separated, Jones moved with his mother to Richmond, Indiana. He graduated from Richmond High School early and with honors in December 1948, Jones married nurse Marceline Baldwin in 1949, and moved to Bloomington, Indiana. He attended Indiana University Bloomington, where a speech by Eleanor Roosevelt about the plight of African-Americans impressed him, in 1951, Jones moved to Indianapolis, where he attended night school at Butler University, earning a degree in secondary education in 1961. In 1951, Jones began attending meetings and rallies of the Communist Party USA in Indianapolis and he also became frustrated with ostracism of open communists in the United States, especially during the trial of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg. This frustration, among other things, provoked a seminal moment for Jones in which he asked himself, the thought was, infiltrate the church. Jones was surprised when a Methodist superintendent helped him get a start in the even though he knew Jones to be a communist. In 1952, Jones became a student pastor in Sommerset Southside Methodist Church, around this time, Jones witnessed a faith-healing service at a Seventh Day Baptist Church
10.
Caterpillar Inc.
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Caterpillar is a leading manufacturer of construction and mining equipment, diesel and natural gas engines, industrial gas turbines and diesel-electric locomotives. With more than US$89 billion in assets, Caterpillar was ranked one in its industry. In 2016 Caterpillar was ranked #59 on the Fortune 500 list, Caterpillar stock is a component of the Dow Jones Industrial Average. Caterpillar Inc. traces its origins to the 1925 merger of the Holt Manufacturing Company, Best Tractor Company, creating a new entity, the California-based Caterpillar Tractor Company. In 1986, the company re-organized itself as a Delaware corporation under the current name, Caterpillars headquarters are located in Peoria, Illinois, it announced in January 2017 that over the course of that year it would relocate its headquarters to Chicago. The company also licenses and markets a line of clothing and workwear boots under its Cat / Caterpillar name, Caterpillar machinery is recognizable by its trademark Caterpillar Yellow livery and the CAT logo. Benjamin Holt attempted to fix the problem by increasing the size and width of the wheels up to 7.5 feet tall and 6 feet wide, but this also made the tractors increasingly complex, expensive and difficult to maintain. Another solution considered was to lay a temporary plank road ahead of the tractor, but this was time-consuming, expensive. Holt thought of wrapping the planks around the wheels and he replaced the wheels on a 40 horsepower Holt steamer, No. 77, with a set of wooden tracks bolted to chains, on Thanksgiving Day, November 24,1904, he successfully tested the updated machine plowing the soggy delta land of Roberts Island. Company photographer Charles Clements was reported to have observed that the tractor crawled like a caterpillar, some sources, though, attribute this name to British soldiers in July 1907. Two years later Holt sold his first steam-powered tractor crawlers for US$5,500, each side featured a track frame measured 30 inches high by 42 inches wide and were 9 feet long. The tracks were 3 inches by 4 inches redwood slats, Holt received the first patent for a practical continuous track for use with a tractor on December 7,1907 for his improved Traction Engine. On February 2,1910, Holt opened up a plant in East Peoria, Illinois, there Pliny met farm implement dealer Murray Baker who knew of an empty factory that had been recently built to manufacture farm implements and steam traction engines. On October 25,1909, Pliny Holt purchased the factory, Holt incorporated it as the Holt Caterpillar Company, although he did not trademark the name Caterpillar until August 2,1910. Tractors were built in both Stockton and East Peoria, on January 31,2017, after more than 90 years of being headquartered in Peoria, Illinois, the company announced plans to move their headquarters from Peoria to Chicago, Illinois by the end of 2017. The upper echelon of executives, including newly installed CEO Jim Umpleby, will begin relocating later this year, about 300 employees will work in the new office at an as-yet undecided location once the transition is complete. The changes contributed to $2.3 billion in savings in 2016, Umpleby said that decline is a fundamental reason the companys Board of Directors opted to move global headquarters to an area where the global marketplace is in easier reach
11.
New York (state)
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New York is a state in the northeastern United States, and is the 27th-most extensive, fourth-most populous, and seventh-most densely populated U. S. state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south and Connecticut, Massachusetts, and Vermont to the east. With an estimated population of 8.55 million in 2015, New York City is the most populous city in the United States, the New York Metropolitan Area is one of the most populous urban agglomerations in the world. New York City makes up over 40% of the population of New York State, two-thirds of the states population lives in the New York City Metropolitan Area, and nearly 40% lives on Long Island. Both the state and New York City were named for the 17th-century Duke of York, the next four most populous cities in the state are Buffalo, Rochester, Yonkers, and Syracuse, while the state capital is Albany. New York has a diverse geography and these more mountainous regions are bisected by two major river valleys—the north-south Hudson River Valley and the east-west Mohawk River Valley, which forms the core of the Erie Canal. Western New York is considered part of the Great Lakes Region and straddles Lake Ontario, between the two lakes lies Niagara Falls. The central part of the state is dominated by the Finger Lakes, New York had been inhabited by tribes of Algonquian and Iroquoian-speaking Native Americans for several hundred years by the time the earliest Europeans came to New York. The first Europeans to arrive were French colonists and Jesuit missionaries who arrived southward from settlements at Montreal for trade, the British annexed the colony from the Dutch in 1664. The borders of the British colony, the Province of New York, were similar to those of the present-day state, New York is home to the Statue of Liberty, a symbol of the United States and its ideals of freedom, democracy, and opportunity. In the 21st century, New York has emerged as a node of creativity and entrepreneurship, social tolerance. On April 17,1524 Verrazanno entered New York Bay, by way of the now called the Narrows into the northern bay which he named Santa Margherita. Verrazzano described it as a vast coastline with a delta in which every kind of ship could pass and he adds. This vast sheet of water swarmed with native boats and he landed on the tip of Manhattan and possibly on the furthest point of Long Island. Verrazannos stay was interrupted by a storm which pushed him north towards Marthas Vineyard, in 1540 French traders from New France built a chateau on Castle Island, within present-day Albany, due to flooding, it was abandoned the next year. In 1614, the Dutch under the command of Hendrick Corstiaensen, rebuilt the French chateau, Fort Nassau was the first Dutch settlement in North America, and was located along the Hudson River, also within present-day Albany. The small fort served as a trading post and warehouse, located on the Hudson River flood plain, the rudimentary fort was washed away by flooding in 1617, and abandoned for good after Fort Orange was built nearby in 1623. Henry Hudsons 1609 voyage marked the beginning of European involvement with the area, sailing for the Dutch East India Company and looking for a passage to Asia, he entered the Upper New York Bay on September 11 of that year
12.
Our Gang
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Our Gang is a series of American comedy short films about a group of poor neighborhood children and their adventures. The series broke new ground by portraying white and black boys, the franchise began in 1922 as a series of silent short subjects produced by the Roach studio and released by Pathé Exchange. Roach changed distributors from Pathé to Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer in 1927, and the series entered its most popular period after converting to sound in 1929, production continued at the Roach studio until 1938, when the series was sold to MGM, which produced the comedies until 1944. In total, the Our Gang series includes 220 shorts and one film, General Spanky. Roachs The Little Rascals package and MGMs Our Gang package have since remained in syndication, new productions based on the shorts have been made over the years, including a 1994 feature film, Little Rascals, released by Universal Pictures. Senior director Robert F. McGowan helmed most of the Our Gang shorts until 1933, McGowan worked to develop a style that allowed the children to be as natural as possible, downplaying the importance of the filmmaking equipment. Scripts were written for the shorts by the Hal Roach comedy writing staff, when sound came in at the end of the 1920s, McGowan modified his approach slightly, but scripts were not adhered to until McGowan left the series. Douglas in particular had to streamline his films, as he directed Our Gang after Roach halved the running times of the shorts from two reels to one reel. As children became too old for the series, they were replaced by new children, eventually Our Gang talent scouting employed large-scale national contests in which thousands of children tried out for an open role. Norman Chubby Chaney, Matthew Stymie Beard and Billie Buckwheat Thomas all won contests to become members of the gang, even when there was no talent search, the studio was bombarded by requests from parents who were sure their children were perfect for the series. Among them were the child stars Mickey Rooney and Shirley Temple. The Our Gang series is notable for being one of the first in history in which blacks. The four African-American child actors who held main roles in the series were Ernie Sunshine Sammy Morrison, Allen Farina Hoskins, Matthew Stymie Beard and Billie Buckwheat Thomas. Ernie Morrison was, in fact, the first African-American actor signed to a contract in Hollywood history. In their adult years, Morrison, Beard and Thomas became some of Our Gangs staunchest defenders, maintaining that its integrated cast and we were just a group of kids who were having fun, Stymie Beard recalled. Ernie Morrison stated, When it came to race, Hal Roach was color-blind, other minorities, including the Asian Americans (Sing Joy, Allen Tong, and Edward Soo Hoo and the Italian American actor, were depicted in the series with varying levels of stereotyping. According to Roach, the idea for Our Gang came to him in 1921, the girl was, in his opinion, overly made up and overly rehearsed, and Roach waited for the audition to be over. After the girl and her left the office, Roach looked out of his window to a lumberyard across the street
