Philadelphia
Philadelphia, sometimes known colloquially as Philly, is the largest city in the U. S. state and Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the sixth-most populous U. S. city, with a 2017 census-estimated population of 1,580,863. Since 1854, the city has been coterminous with Philadelphia County, the most populous county in Pennsylvania and the urban core of the eighth-largest U. S. metropolitan statistical area, with over 6 million residents as of 2017. Philadelphia is the economic and cultural anchor of the greater Delaware Valley, located along the lower Delaware and Schuylkill Rivers, within the Northeast megalopolis; the Delaware Valley's population of 7.2 million ranks it as the eighth-largest combined statistical area in the United States. William Penn, an English Quaker, founded the city in 1682 to serve as capital of the Pennsylvania Colony. Philadelphia played an instrumental role in the American Revolution as a meeting place for the Founding Fathers of the United States, who signed the Declaration of Independence in 1776 at the Second Continental Congress, the Constitution at the Philadelphia Convention of 1787.
Several other key events occurred in Philadelphia during the Revolutionary War including the First Continental Congress, the preservation of the Liberty Bell, the Battle of Germantown, the Siege of Fort Mifflin. Philadelphia was one of the nation's capitals during the revolution, served as temporary U. S. capital while Washington, D. C. was under construction. In the 19th century, Philadelphia became a railroad hub; the city grew from an influx of European immigrants, most of whom came from Ireland and Germany—the three largest reported ancestry groups in the city as of 2015. In the early 20th century, Philadelphia became a prime destination for African Americans during the Great Migration after the Civil War, as well as Puerto Ricans; the city's population doubled from one million to two million people between 1890 and 1950. The Philadelphia area's many universities and colleges make it a top study destination, as the city has evolved into an educational and economic hub. According to the Bureau of Economic Analysis, the Philadelphia area had a gross domestic product of US$445 billion in 2017, the eighth-largest metropolitan economy in the United States.
Philadelphia is the center of economic activity in Pennsylvania and is home to five Fortune 1000 companies. The Philadelphia skyline is expanding, with a market of 81,900 commercial properties in 2016, including several nationally prominent skyscrapers. Philadelphia has more outdoor murals than any other American city. Fairmount Park, when combined with the adjacent Wissahickon Valley Park in the same watershed, is one of the largest contiguous urban park areas in the United States; the city is known for its arts, culture and colonial history, attracting 42 million domestic tourists in 2016 who spent US$6.8 billion, generating an estimated $11 billion in total economic impact in the city and surrounding four counties of Pennsylvania. Philadelphia has emerged as a biotechnology hub. Philadelphia is the birthplace of the United States Marine Corps, is the home of many U. S. firsts, including the first library, medical school, national capital, stock exchange and business school. Philadelphia contains 67 National Historic Landmarks and the World Heritage Site of Independence Hall.
The city became a member of the Organization of World Heritage Cities in 2015, as the first World Heritage City in the United States. Although Philadelphia is undergoing gentrification, the city maintains mitigation strategies to minimize displacement of homeowners in gentrifying neighborhoods. Before Europeans arrived, the Philadelphia area was home to the Lenape Indians in the village of Shackamaxon; the Lenape are a Native American tribe and First Nations band government. They are called Delaware Indians, their historical territory was along the Delaware River watershed, western Long Island, the Lower Hudson Valley. Most Lenape were pushed out of their Delaware homeland during the 18th century by expanding European colonies, exacerbated by losses from intertribal conflicts. Lenape communities were weakened by newly introduced diseases smallpox, violent conflict with Europeans. Iroquois people fought the Lenape. Surviving Lenape moved west into the upper Ohio River basin; the American Revolutionary War and United States' independence pushed them further west.
In the 1860s, the United States government sent most Lenape remaining in the eastern United States to the Indian Territory under the Indian removal policy. In the 21st century, most Lenape reside in Oklahoma, with some communities living in Wisconsin, in their traditional homelands. Europeans came to the Delaware Valley in the early 17th century, with the first settlements founded by the Dutch, who in 1623 built Fort Nassau on the Delaware River opposite the Schuylkill River in what is now Brooklawn, New Jersey; the Dutch considered the entire Delaware River valley to be part of their New Netherland colony. In 1638, Swedish settlers led by renegade Dutch established the colony of New Sweden at Fort Christina and spread out in the valley. In 1644, New Sweden supported the Susquehannocks in their military defeat of the English colony of Maryland. In 1648, the Dutch built Fort Beversreede on the west bank of the Delaware, south of the Schuylkill near the present-day Eastwick neighborhood, to reassert their dominion over the area.
The Swedes responded by building Fort Nya Korsholm, or New Korsholm, named after a town in Finland with a Swedish majority. In 1655, a
National Humanities Medal
The National Humanities Medal is an American award that annually recognizes several individuals, groups, or institutions for work that has "deepened the nation's understanding of the humanities, broadened our citizens' engagement with the humanities, or helped preserve and expand Americans' access to important resources in the humanities."The annual Charles Frankel Prize in the Humanities was established in 1988 and succeeded by the National Humanities Medal in 1997. The initial design for the National Humanities Medal was created by a 1995 Frankel Prize winner, David Macaulay, was used for all recipients through 2012. During 2013, The National Endowment for the Humanities ran a public competition for a new medal design, judged by metalsmith Chunghi Choo, coin engraver Don Everhart of the U. S. sculptor George Anthonisen. In June 2013, the agency announced that a design by Paul C. Balan of Illinois had been selected as the winner; the final medal will be unveiled in Washington D. C. in November 2013.
The new design was used for the first time for the 2013 National Humanities Medals, which were presented in mid-2014. Medals are conferred once annually by the U. S. President, to as many as twelve living candidates and existing organizations nominated early in the calendar year; the President selects the winners in consultation with the National Endowment for the Humanities. NEH asks that nominators consult the list of previous winners and consider the National Medal of Arts to recognize contributions in "the creative or performing arts". Medalists are listed by year alphabetically. 2015 Rudolfo Anaya, Author José Andrés, Chef & Entrepreneur Ron Chernow, Author Louise Glück, Poet Terry Gross, Radio Host & Producer Wynton Marsalis, Composer & Musician James McBride, Author Louis Menand, Author Elaine Pagels, Historian & Author Prison University Project, Higher Education Program Abraham Verghese, Professor, & Author Isabel Wilkerson, Journalist & Author2014 The Clemente Course in the Humanities Annie Dillard, author Everett L. Fly and preservationist Rebecca Goldstein and novelist Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham, historian Jhumpa Lahiri, short story writer and novelist Fedwa Malti-Douglas, scholar Larry McMurtry, novelist Vicki Lynn Ruiz, historian Alice Waters and food activist2013 M. H. Abrams, literary critic American Antiquarian Society, historical organization David Brion Davis, historian William Theodore de Bary, East Asian Studies scholar Darlene Clark Hine, historian Johnpaul Jones, architect Stanley Nelson Jr. producer and director Diane Rehm, radio host Anne Firor Scott, historian Krista Tippett, radio host and author2012 Edward L. Ayers, historian William G. Bowen, academic leader Jill Ker Conway and leader in higher education Natalie Zemon Davis, historian Frank Deford, sports writer Joan Didion and essayist Robert D. Putnam, political scientist Marilynne Robinson, novelist Kay Ryan, poet Robert B.
Silvers, editor Anna Deavere Smith and playwright Camilo José Vergara and documentarian2011 Kwame Anthony Appiah, philosopher John Ashbery, poet Robert Darnton and librarian National History Day, program Andrew Delbanco, literary scholar Charles Rosen and scholar Teofilo Ruiz, medieval historian Ramón Saldívar, literary scholar Amartya Sen and Nobel laureate2010 Daniel Aaron, literature professor and publisher Bernard Bailyn, historian Jacques Barzun, historian Wendell Berry and environmentalist Roberto González Echevarría, literature critic Stanley Nider Katz, historian Joyce Carol Oates, novelist Arnold Rampersad and biographer Philip Roth, novelist Gordon S. Wood, historian2009 Robert Caro Annette Gordon-Reed David Levering Lewis William H. McNeill Philippe de Montebello Albert H. Small Ted Sorensen Elie Wiesel2008 Gabor Boritt Richard Brookhiser Harold Holzer Myron Magnet Albert Marrin Milton J. Rosenberg Thomas A. Saunders III and Jordan Horner Saunders Robert H. Smith John Templeton Foundation Norman Rockwell Museum2007 Stephen Balch Russell Freedman Victor Davis Hanson Roger Hertog Cynthia Ozick Richard Pipes Pauline Schultz Henry Snyder Ruth Wisse Monuments Men Foundation for the Preservation of Art2006Fouad Ajami James M. Buchanan Nickolas Davatzes Robert Fagles Mary Lefkowitz Bernard Lewis Mark Noll Meryle Secrest Kevin Starr Hoover Institution on War and Peace, Stanford University2005Walter Berns Matthew Bogdanos Eva Brann John Lewis Gaddis Richard Gilder Mary Ann Glendon Leigh Keno Leslie Keno Alan Charles Kors Lewis Lehrman Judith Martin The Washington Papers, University of Virginia2004Marva Collins Gertrude Himmelfarb Hilton Kramer Madeleine L'Engle Harvey Mansfield John Searle Shelby Steele United States Capitol Historical Society2003Robert Ballard Joan Ganz Cooney Midge Decter Joseph Epstein Elizabeth Fox-Genovese Jean Fritz Hal Holbrook Edith Kurzweil Frank M. Snowden, Jr. John Updike2002Frankie Hewitt Iowa Writers' Workshop Donald Kagan Brian Lamb Art Linkletter Patricia MacLachlan Mount Vernon Ladies' Association Thomas Sowell2001José Cisneros Robert Coles Sharon Darling William Manchester Richard Peck Eileen Jackson Southern Tom Wolfe National Trust for Historic Preservation2000Robert N. Bellah Will D. Campbell Judy Crichton David C.
Driskell Ernest Gaines Herman T. Guerrero Quincy Jones Barbara Kingsolver Edmund S. Morgan Toni Morrison Earl Shorris Virginia Driving Hawk Sneve1999Patricia Battin Taylor Branch Jacquelyn Dowd Hall Garrison Keillor Jim Lehrer John Rawls Steven Spielberg August Wilson1998Stephen E. Ambrose E. L. Doctorow Diana L. Eck Nancye Brown Gaj Henry Louis
WHYY-FM
WHYY-FM is a public FM radio station licensed to serve Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Its broadcast tower is located in the city's Roxborough neighborhood at, while its studios and offices are located on Independence Mall in Center City, Philadelphia; the station, owned by WHYY, Inc. is a charter member of National Public Radio and contributes several programs to the national network. WHYY broadcasts an HD signal. WHYY signed on the air on December 14, 1954, owned by the Metropolitan Philadelphia Educational Radio and Television Corporation, it was the first educational station in Philadelphia. Their FM broadcast station, located at 17th Street and Samson in Philadelphia, was donated by Westinghouse Broadcasting. In 1957, it added a sister television station, WHYY-TV on channel 35. In 1963, when WHYY-TV moved from channel 35 in Philadelphia to the stronger channel 12 in Wilmington, Federal Communications Commission regulations in effect at the time forced the radio station to change its call sign to WUHY.
As now and Wilmington are separate radio markets, though they are a single television markets. At the time, the FCC did not allow sister radio and television stations to share the same base call sign if they were located in different cities. 90.9 FM regained its original call sign in 1983. When NPR was formed in 1970, the station became a charter member and was one of the 90 stations that carried the initial broadcast of All Things Considered. NPR: Fresh Air with Terry Gross, a Peabody Award-winning weekday magazine of contemporary arts and issues, is one of public radio's most popular programs. Nearly 4.5 million people listen to the broadcast on more than 450 National Public Radio stations across the country, as well as in Europe on the World Radio Network. The program originated in 1975 as a local show before going national in 1987. NewsWorks Tonight, a weekday daily program highlighting important news and stories from WHYY's coverage area of Southeastern PA, Southern NJ. Radio Times With Marty Moss-Coane, a daily two-hour program that tackles wide range of issues.
You Bet Your Garden, an organic gardening call-in talk show hosted by Mike McGrath. Moved to WLVT. Voices in the Family Dr. Dan Gottlieb and family therapist, along with guest experts, opens the line to callers to discuss issues that affect individuals and society, with special focus on family issues; the show airs weekly on Monday mornings. Its executive producer is WHYY's Behavioral Health Reporter; the Pulse a show that focuses on stories at the heart of health and innovation in the Philadelphia region. The show is hosted by WHYY's Behavioral Health Reporter Maiken Scott and distributed on the Public Radio Exchange; until 1990, WHYY served the region as a non-commercial station with a format that featured classical music with some jazz and folk music. The management decision to establish a news/talk radio format was a departure from the classical music that most public radio stations were programming; the format switch resulted in protests from many of the station's listening audience who were among WHYY's major contributors.
Temple University's WRTI began programming classical music during the day to serve the displaced listeners. Controversy erupted in the summer of 2007 when station Chief Executive Officer Bill Marrazzo was cited by the watchdog group Charity Navigator as the highest paid CEO in all of public broadcasting. In an August 2007 article, popular Philadelphia Inquirer columnist Karen Heller called for a boycott of WHYY, and in September 2007 an anonymous group of WHYY employees sent an open letter to Marrazzo, the Inquirer, the Philadelphia Daily News and Philadelphia magazine, accusing him of "a serious lack of understanding when it comes to creating... a healthy workplace" and assailing his salary as "excessive and inappropriate." The five-page letter concluded with a call for Marrazzo to resign. On June 6, 2011, the New Jersey Public Broadcasting Authority agreed to sell five FM stations in Southern New Jersey to WHYY; the purchase was made through an anonymous one-million dollar grant and a non-cash agreement that included scholarships for students and teachers.
The five stations were the southern portion of the New Jersey Network's statewide radio service. The transaction was announced by Governor Chris Christie, as part of his long-term goal to end state-subsidized public broadcasting; the governor's critics maintained that scrapping New Jersey Network ended all non-commercial statewide news coverage. It was noted that the sale eliminated a source of legislative oversight critical of the Christie administration. WHYY assumed control of the stations through a management agreement on July 1, 2011, pending FCC approval for the acquisition. At that point, the stations began to simulcast WHYY-FM programming; the five stations are: The stations all operate at low power due to the crowded state of the noncommercial end of the FM dial in the northeastern United States. They served areas of southern New Jersey not covered by the main WHYY-FM signal, which itself operates at a modest 13,500 watts. However, their combined footprint extends WHYY-FM's coverage from Berks County to the Jersey Shore.
WHYY-TV Official website Query the FCC's FM station database for WHYY Radio-Locator information on WHYY Query Nielsen Audio's FM station database for WHYY Query the FCC's FM station database for WNJB-FM Radio-Locator information on WNJB-FM Query Nielsen Audio's FM station database for WNJB-FM Query the FCC's FM station database for WNJM Radio-Locator information on WNJM Query Nielsen Audio's FM station database for WNJM Query the FCC's FM s
Kiss (band)
Kiss is an American rock band formed in New York City in January 1973 by Paul Stanley, Gene Simmons, Peter Criss, Ace Frehley. Well known for its members' face paint and stage outfits, the group rose to prominence in the mid-to-late 1970s with their elaborate live performances, which featured fire breathing, blood-spitting, smoking guitars, shooting rockets, levitating drum kits, pyrotechnics; the band has gone through several lineup changes, with Stanley and Simmons the only remaining original members. The original and best-known lineup consisted of Stanley, Simmons and Criss. With their make-up and costumes, they took on the personae of comic book-style characters: The Starchild, The Demon, The Spaceman or Space Ace, The Catman. Due to creative differences, both Criss and Frehley had departed the group by 1982. In 1983, Kiss began performing without makeup and costumes, thinking that it was time to leave the makeup behind; the band accordingly experienced a minor commercial resurgence, their music videos received regular airplay on MTV.
Eric Carr, who had replaced Criss in 1980, died in 1991 of heart cancer and was replaced by Eric Singer. In response to a wave of Kiss nostalgia in the mid-1990s, the original lineup re-united in 1996, which saw the return of their makeup and stage costumes; the resulting Alive/Worldwide Tour was commercially successful. Criss and Frehley have both since left the band again and have been replaced by Singer and Tommy Thayer, respectively; the band has continued with their original stage makeup, with Singer and Thayer using the original Catman and Space Ace makeup, respectively. In September 2018, Kiss announced that, after 45 years of recording and performing, they will embark on their final tour, The End of the Road World Tour, in 2019. Kiss is one of the best-selling bands of all time, having sold more than 100 million records worldwide, including 25 million RIAA-certified albums. On April 10, 2014, the four original members of Kiss were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Kiss traces their roots to Wicked Lester, a New York City-based rock band led by Gene Simmons and Paul Stanley.
They recorded one album, shelved by Epic Records, played a handful of live shows. Simmons and Stanley, feeling a new musical direction was needed, abandoned Wicked Lester in 1972 and began forming a new group. After abandoning the name Wicked Lester late in 1972, Simmons and Stanley came across an ad in the East Coast version of Rolling Stone placed by Peter Criss, a veteran drummer from the New York City scene who had played in the bands Lips and Chelsea. Simmons and Stanley met him in a nightclub. After hearing Criss sing, they thought of him being in the new band. Criss auditioned for and joined their new band; the trio focused on a much harder style of rock than. They began experimenting with their image by wearing makeup and various outfits. In November 1972, the trio played a showcase for Epic Records A&R director Don Ellis, in an effort to secure a record deal. Although the performance went well, Ellis disliked the group's music. In early January 1973, the group added lead guitarist Ace Frehley.
Frehley impressed the group with his first audition, although he showed up wearing two different colored sneakers, one red and one orange. A few weeks after Frehley joined, the classic lineup was solidified as the band to be named Kiss. Stanley came up with the name while Simmons and Criss were driving around New York City. Criss mentioned that he had been in a band called Lips, so Stanley said something to the effect of "What about Kiss?" Frehley created the now-iconic logo, making the "SS" look like lightning bolts, when he went to write the new band name over "Wicked Lester" on a poster outside the club where they were going to play. Stanley designed the logo with a Sharpie and a ruler and accidentally drew the two S's nonparallel because he did it "by eye." The art department asked him if he wanted it to be redrafted to be perfect and he said, "It got us this far, let's leave well enough alone. Our number one rule has always been no rules." The letters happened to look similar to the insignia of the Nazi SS, a symbol, outlawed in Germany by Section 86a of the German criminal code.
Since 1979, most of the band's album covers and merchandise in Germany have used an alternate logo, in which the letters "SS" look like the letters "ZZ" backwards. This logo is used in Austria, Poland, Lithuania and Israel to avoid controversy; the band's name has been the subject of rumors pertaining to alleged hidden meanings. Among these rumors are claims that the name is an acronym for "Knights in Satan's Service", "Kinder SS", or "Kids in Satan's Service". Simmons has denied all of these claims; the first Kiss performance was on January 30, 1973, for an audience of three at the Popcorn Club in Queens. For the first three gigs, January 30 to February 1, they wore little to no makeup. On March 13 of that year, the band recorded a five-song demo tape with producer Eddie Kramer. Former TV director Bill Aucoin, who had seen the group at a handful of showcase concerts in the summer of 1973, offered to become the band's manager in mid-October. Kiss agreed, with the condition. On November 1, 1973, Kiss became the first act signed to
Louis C.K.
Louis Székely, better known by his stage name Louis C. K. is an American-Mexican stand-up comedian, writer and filmmaker. In 2012, C. K. won a Peabody Award and has received six Primetime Emmy Awards, as well as numerous awards for The Chris Rock Show and his stand-up specials Live at the Beacon Theater and Oh My God. He has won the Grammy Award for Best Comedy Album twice. Rolling Stone ranked C. K.'s stand-up special Shameless number three on their "Divine Comedy: 25 Best Stand-Up Specials and Movies of All Time" list and ranked him fourth on its 2017 list of the 50 best stand-up comics of all time. C. K. Began his career in the 1990s writing for comedians including David Letterman, Conan O'Brien, Dana Carvey, Chris Rock, for other comedy shows, he was directing surreal short films and went on to direct two features—Tomorrow Night and Pootie Tang. In 2001, C. K. released his debut comedy album, Live in Houston, directly through his website and became among the first performers to offer direct-to-fan sales of tickets to his stand-up shows, as well as DRM-free video concert downloads, via his website.
He has released nine comedy albums directing and editing his specials as well. He had supporting acting roles in the films American Hustle, Blue Jasmine, Trumbo. C. K. created, executive produced, starred in, was the primary editor of Louie, an acclaimed semi-autobiographical comedy-drama series aired from 2010 to 2015 on FX. In 2016, C. K. starred in his self-funded web series Horace and Pete. He co-created the shows Baskets and Better Things for FX and voiced the protagonist Max in the animated film The Secret Life of Pets in the same year, his 2017 film, I Love You, was pulled from distribution prior to its scheduled release date after he was accused of past sexual misconduct, to which he admitted. C. K. was born Louis Székely in Washington, D. C. on September 12, 1967, the son of software engineer Mary Louise and economist Luis Székely. His parents met at Harvard University, where his mother was completing her degree in a summer school program, they were married at St. Francis Church in Michigan.
C. K. has three sisters. His paternal grandfather, Dr. Géza Székely Schweiger, was a Hungarian Jewish surgeon whose family moved to Mexico, where he met C. K.'s Mexican paternal grandmother, Rosario Sánchez Morales. C. K.'s mother, an American with Irish ancestry, grew up on a farm in Michigan. She graduated from Owosso High School in Michigan, she graduated from Ohio State University Phi Beta Kappa. C. K.'s maternal grandparents were M. Louise Davis and Alfred C. Davis; when C. K. was a year old, his family moved to his father's home country of Mexico, where his father had earned a degree from the National Autonomous University of Mexico prior to graduating from Harvard. C. K.'s first language was Spanish. S. when he was seven. He has said; when C. K. left Mexico with his family, they settled in Boston. Upon moving from Mexico to suburban Boston, C. K. wanted to become a writer and comedian, citing Richard Pryor, Steve Martin, George Carlin as some of his influences. When he was 10, his parents divorced. C.
K. said that his father was around but he did not see him much and when he remarried, C. K.'s father converted to the faith of his new wife. C. K. and his three sisters were raised by their single mother in Massachusetts. The fact that his mother had only "bad" TV shows to view upon returning home from work inspired him to work on television. C. K.'s mother raised her children as Catholic and they attended after-school Catholic class until they completed communion. C. K. has said. C. K.'s paternal uncle Dr. Francisco Székely is an academic and an international consultant on environmental affairs who served as Mexico's Deputy Minister of Environment. C. K. Attended Newton North High School, graduated in 1985, he graduated with future Friends star Matt LeBlanc. After graduation, C. K. worked at a public access TV cable station in Boston. According to C. K. working in public access TV gave him the tools and technical knowledge to make his short films and his television shows. "Learning is my favorite thing", he said.
He worked for a time as a cook and in a video store. In 1984, C. K. at 17 directed the comedic short film Trash Day. The New York University Tisch School of the Arts showed an interest in him as a filmmaker, but he instead decided to pursue a career in stand-up comedy. C. K.'s first attempt at stand-up was in 1985 at an open mic night at a comedy club in Boston, during the apex of the comedy boom. He had only two minutes of material, he was so discouraged by the experience. As Boston's comedy scene grew, C. K. achieved success, performing alongside acts such as Denis Leary and Lenny Clarke, he moved up to paid gigs, opening for Jerry Seinfeld and hosting comedy clubs until he moved to Manhattan in 1989. He performed his act including Evening at the Improv and Star Search. C. K.'s short film Ice Cream, was submitted to the Aspen Shortsfest in 1994. In 1993, he unsuccessfully auditioned for Saturday Night Live, although he did work with Robert Smigel on the TV Funhouse shorts for the program. C. K.'s earliest writing job was for Conan O'Brien on the late-night talk show Late Night with Conan O'Brien from 1993 to 1994, before w
Maureen Corrigan
'Maureen Corrigan is an American author and literary critic. She is the book critic on the NPR radio program Fresh Air and writes for the "Book World" section of The Washington Post. In 2014, she wrote "So We Read On," a book on the origins and power of "The Great Gatsby." In 2005, she published a literary memoir, Leave Me Alone, I'm Reading: Finding and Losing Myself in Books. Corrigan was awarded the 2018 Nona Balakian Award for Excellence in Reviewing by the National Book Critics Circle and the 1999 Edgar Award for Criticism by The Mystery Writers of America. Corrigan holds a B. A. from Fordham University as well as an M. A. and Ph. D from the University of Pennsylvania and is The Nicky and Jamie Grant Distinguished Professor of the Practice in Literary Criticism, her specialist subjects include the work of F. Scott Fitzgerald, the literature of New York City, Public Intellectuals in America, American Detective Fiction and Contemporary Literature. Corrigan serves on the Advisory Council of The American Writers Museum.
She served as a juror for the 2012 Pulitzer Prize in Fiction and as a member of the Advisory Panel of The American Heritage Dictionary and an Advisor to the National Endowment of the Arts "Big Read" project. Corrigan has been a book critic for NPR on the Peabody Award-winning Fresh Air radio program for three decades, she is a reviewer and columnist for the "Book World" section of The Washington Post, essays and reviews written by her have appeared in publications such as ""The Village Voice, The New York Times, The Nation, The New York Observer and The Philadelphia Inquirer. Along with Robin Winks, she was an associate editor of and contributor to Mystery & Suspense Fiction, a work which won the Edgar Award for Criticism from Mystery Writers of America in 1999. Corrigan investigates what makes F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby so captivating and influential, through archives, high school classrooms, out onto the Long Island Sound, to explore the novel's hidden depths, a journey whose revelations include Gatsby's surprising debt to hard-boiled crime fiction, its rocky path to recognition as a "classic," and its profound commentaries on the national themes of race and gender.
With rigor and infectious enthusiasm, Corrigan inspires us to re-experience the greatness of Gatsby. Corrigan pinpoints restlessness as a quintessential American quality, one she perceives in Fitzgerald’s knowing depiction of New York City, the great mecca for dreamers with its promise of freedom, new identities, "unsentimental sex." She explains why she considers The Great Gatsby to be "America’s greatest novel about class" as well as the vanquishing of God and the worship of idols in the aftermath of World War I, the fantasy that one can reinvent one’s self, the grandeur of longing, the spell of illusion. Corrigan has written a literary memoir, Leave Me Alone, I'm Reading: Finding and Losing Myself in Books, first published in 2005, which reviews the books that most influenced her belonging in the main to three non-canonical genres – female extreme-adventure tales, hard-boiled detective novels, Catholic-martyr narratives; the main focus of the book however is on the first, extreme adventure tales, Corrigan makes the observation that narratives themed around female suffering are today breaking with a millennia-old tradition.
Where women used to suffer in silence, all the while plotting under a surface of stillness – like Penelope in Homer's Odyssey, who has to put up for years with unwanted suitors – in more recent narratives women begin to act: they talk back, fight. Corrigan lives in Washington, D. C. with her husband and daughter. Maureen Corrigan. So We Read On: Why It Endures. Little and Company Publishing Group. ISBN 978-0-316-23007-0. Maureen Corrigan. Leave Me Alone, I'm Reading: Losing Myself in Books. Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group. ISBN 978-0-375-70903-6. Robin W. Winks. Mystery & Suspense Writers. Gale Virtual Reference Library. ISBN 978-0-684-31661-1
1991 Soviet coup d'état attempt
The 1991 Soviet coup d'état attempt known as the August Coup, was an attempt made by members of the government of the USSR to take control of the country from Soviet President and General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev. The coup leaders were hard-line members of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union who were opposed to Gorbachev's reform program and the new union treaty that he had negotiated which decentralized much of the central government's power to the republics, they were opposed in Moscow, by a short but effective campaign of civil resistance led by Russian president Boris Yeltsin, both an ally and critic of Gorbachev. Although the coup collapsed in only two days and Gorbachev returned to power, the event destabilized the USSR and is considered to have contributed to both the demise of the CPSU and the dissolution of the USSR. After the capitulation of the State Committee on the State of Emergency, popularly referred to as the "Gang of Eight", both the Supreme Court of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic and Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev described their actions as a coup attempt.
Since assuming power as General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union in 1985, Gorbachev had embarked on an ambitious program of reform, embodied in the twin concepts of perestroika and glasnost, meaning economic/political restructuring and openness, respectively. These moves prompted suspicion on the part of hardline members of the nomenklatura; the reforms unleashed some forces and movements that Gorbachev did not expect. Nationalist agitation on the part of the Soviet Union's non-Russian minorities grew, there were fears that some or all of the union republics might secede. In 1991, the Soviet Union was in a severe political crisis. Scarcity of food and other consumables was widespread, people had to stand in long lines to buy essential goods, fuel stocks were up to 50% less than the estimated need for the approaching winter, inflation was over 300% on an annual basis, with factories lacking in cash needed to pay salaries. In 1990, Latvia, Lithuania and Georgia had declared the restoration of their independence from the Soviet Union.
In January 1991, there was an attempt to return Lithuania to the Soviet Union by force. About a week there was a similar attempt by local pro-Soviet forces to overthrow the Latvian authorities. There were continuing armed ethnic conflicts in South Ossetia. Russia declared its sovereignty on 12 June 1990 and thereafter limited the application of Soviet laws, in particular the laws concerning finance and the economy, on Russian territory; the Supreme Soviet of the Russian SFSR adopted laws. In the unionwide referendum on 17 March 1991, boycotted by the Baltic states, Armenia and Moldova, the majority of the residents of the rest of the republics expressed the desire to retain the renewed Soviet Union. Following negotiations, eight of the nine republics approved the New Union Treaty with some conditions; the treaty would make the Soviet Union a federation of independent republics with a common president, foreign policy, military. Russia and Uzbekistan were to sign the Treaty in Moscow on 20 August 1991.
On 11 December 1990, KGB Chairman Vladimir Kryuchkov, made a "call for order" over Central television in Moscow. That day, he asked two KGB officers to prepare a plan of measures that could be taken in case a state of emergency was declared in the USSR. Kryuchkov brought Soviet Defense Minister Dmitry Yazov, Internal Affairs Minister Boris Pugo, Premier Valentin Pavlov, Vice-President Gennady Yanayev, Soviet Defense Council deputy chief Oleg Baklanov, Gorbachev secretariat head Valery Boldin, CPSU Central Committee Secretary Oleg Shenin into the conspiracy; the members of the GKChP hoped that Gorbachev could be persuaded to declare the state of emergency and to "restore order". On 23 July 1991, a number of party functionaries and literati published in the hardline newspaper Sovetskaya Rossiya a piece entitled A Word to the People which called for decisive action to prevent disastrous calamity. Six days Gorbachev, Russian President Boris Yeltsin and Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev discussed the possibility of replacing such hardliners as Pavlov, Yazov and Pugo with more liberal figures.
Kryuchkov, who had placed Gorbachev under close surveillance as Subject 110 several months earlier got wind of the conversation. On 4 August, Gorbachev went on holiday to his dacha in Crimea, he planned to return to Moscow in time for the New Union Treaty signing on 20 August. On 17 August, the members of the GKChP met at a KGB guesthouse in Moscow and studied the treaty document, they believed the pact would pave the way to the Soviet Union's breakup, decided that it was time to act. The next day, Boldin, USSR Deputy Defense Minister General Valentin Varennikov flew to Crimea for a meeting with Gorbachev, they demanded that Gorbachev either declare a state of emergency or resign and name Yanayev as acting president to allow the members of the GKChP "to restore order" in the country. Gorbachev has always claimed. Varennikov has insisted. Do what you want, but report my opinion!" However, those present at the dacha at the time testified that Baklanov, Boldin and Varennikov had been disappointed and nervous after the meeting with Gorbachev.
With Gorbachev's refusal, the conspirators ordered.
