1.
Hilton Worldwide
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Hilton Inc. is an American multinational hospitality company that manages and franchises a broad portfolio of hotels and resorts. Founded by Conrad Hilton in 1919, the corporation is now led by Christopher J. Nassetta, Hilton is headquartered in Tysons Corner, Virginia. As of December 2016, its portfolio includes 4,922 properties with 804,097 rooms in 104 countries and territories, prior to their December 2013 IPO, Hilton was ranked as the 36th largest privately held company in the United States by Forbes. On December 12,2013, Hilton again became a public company, the Blackstone Group holds a 45.8 percent stake in the company. In October 2016, HNA Group agreed to acquire a 25 percent equity interest in Hilton from Blackstone, the transaction is expected to close in the first quarter of 2017. Hilton was founded by Conrad Hilton in Cisco, Texas, in 1919 and had its headquarters in Beverly Hills, California, in August 2009, the company moved to Tysons Corner, unincorporated Fairfax County, Virginia, near McLean. In 1919, Conrad Hilton purchased his first hotel, the 40-room Mobley Hotel in Cisco, Texas, in 1925, the Dallas Hilton became the first hotel to use the Hilton name. In 1927, Hilton expanded to Waco, Texas where he opened the first hotel with air-conditioning in public areas, in 1943, Hilton purchased the Roosevelt Hotel and the Plaza Hotel in New York, establishing the first hospitality company to span the contiguous United States. The company incorporated in 1946 as the Hilton Hotels Corporation, Hilton International was born a few years later with the opening of the Caribe Hilton Hotel in Puerto Rico. Barman Ramon Monchito Marreno claimed he created the piña colada cocktail at this resort, Hilton purchased the Waldorf Astoria New York in the same year. Conrad Hilton was featured on the cover of Time Magazine, the only hotelier at the time to have been so, the Hotels Statler Company was acquired in 1954 for $111 million in what was then the worlds most expensive real estate transaction. One year later, Hilton created the worlds first central reservations office titled HILCRON, the reservations team in 1955 consisted of eight members on staff booking reservations for any of Hiltons then 28 hotels. Reservations agents would use the availability board to track records, the chalk board measured 30 feet by 6 feet, and allowed HILCRON to make over 6,000 reservations in the year. Bookings could be made for any Hilton via telephone, telegram, later in 1955, Hilton launched a program to ensure every hotel room would include air conditioning. In late 1955, Hilton opened the first post-World War II property in Istanbul, Hilton is credited with pioneering the airport hotel concept with the opening of the San Francisco Airport Hilton in 1959. In 1965, Hilton launched Lady Hilton, the first hotel concept created specifically for women guests, to appeal to female travelers, a number of properties offered floors occupied by only women along with distinct amenities for their usage. In 1969, the first DoubleTree Hotel opened, at the time, Hilton was not affiliated with the brand until its acquisition of the parent company in 1999. When Hilton purchased the Flamingo Las Vegas in 1970, the company would become the first in the gaming business to be listed on the NYSE
2.
Virginia
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Virginia is a state located in the Mid-Atlantic region of the United States, as well as in the historic Southeast. The geography and climate of the Commonwealth are shaped by the Blue Ridge Mountains and the Chesapeake Bay, the capital of the Commonwealth is Richmond, Virginia Beach is the most populous city, and Fairfax County is the most populous political subdivision. The Commonwealths estimated population as of 2014 is over 8.3 million, the areas history begins with several indigenous groups, including the Powhatan. In 1607 the London Company established the Colony of Virginia as the first permanent New World English colony, slave labor and the land acquired from displaced Native American tribes each played a significant role in the colonys early politics and plantation economy. Although the Commonwealth was under one-party rule for nearly a century following Reconstruction, the Virginia General Assembly is the oldest continuous law-making body in the New World. The state government was ranked most effective by the Pew Center on the States in both 2005 and 2008 and it is unique in how it treats cities and counties equally, manages local roads, and prohibits its governors from serving consecutive terms. Virginias economy changed from agricultural to industrial during the 1960s and 1970s. Virginia has an area of 42,774.2 square miles, including 3,180.13 square miles of water. Virginias boundary with Maryland and Washington, D. C. extends to the mark of the south shore of the Potomac River. The southern border is defined as the 36° 30′ parallel north, the border with Tennessee was not settled until 1893, when their dispute was brought to the U. S. Supreme Court. The Chesapeake Bay separates the portion of the Commonwealth from the two-county peninsula of Virginias Eastern Shore. The bay was formed from the river valleys of the Susquehanna River. Many of Virginias rivers flow into the Chesapeake Bay, including the Potomac, Rappahannock, York, and James, the Tidewater is a coastal plain between the Atlantic coast and the fall line. It includes the Eastern Shore and major estuaries of Chesapeake Bay, the Piedmont is a series of sedimentary and igneous rock-based foothills east of the mountains which were formed in the Mesozoic era. The region, known for its clay soil, includes the Southwest Mountains around Charlottesville. The Blue Ridge Mountains are a province of the Appalachian Mountains with the highest points in the state. The Ridge and Valley region is west of the mountains and includes the Great Appalachian Valley, the region is carbonate rock based and includes Massanutten Mountain. The Cumberland Plateau and the Cumberland Mountains are in the southwest corner of Virginia, in this region, rivers flow northwest, with a dendritic drainage system, into the Ohio River basin
3.
United States
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Forty-eight of the fifty states and the federal district are contiguous and located in North America between Canada and Mexico. The state of Alaska is in the northwest corner of North America, bordered by Canada to the east, the state of Hawaii is an archipelago in the mid-Pacific Ocean. The U. S. territories are scattered about the Pacific Ocean, the geography, climate and wildlife of the country are extremely diverse. At 3.8 million square miles and with over 324 million people, the United States is the worlds third- or fourth-largest country by area, third-largest by land area. It is one of the worlds most ethnically diverse and multicultural nations, paleo-Indians migrated from Asia to the North American mainland at least 15,000 years ago. European colonization began in the 16th century, the United States emerged from 13 British colonies along the East Coast. Numerous disputes between Great Britain and the following the Seven Years War led to the American Revolution. On July 4,1776, during the course of the American Revolutionary War, the war ended in 1783 with recognition of the independence of the United States by Great Britain, representing the first successful war of independence against a European power. The current constitution was adopted in 1788, after the Articles of Confederation, the first ten amendments, collectively named the Bill of Rights, were ratified in 1791 and designed to guarantee many fundamental civil liberties. During the second half of the 19th century, the American Civil War led to the end of slavery in the country. By the end of century, the United States extended into the Pacific Ocean. The Spanish–American War and World War I confirmed the status as a global military power. The end of the Cold War and the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991 left the United States as the sole superpower. The U. S. is a member of the United Nations, World Bank, International Monetary Fund, Organization of American States. The United States is a developed country, with the worlds largest economy by nominal GDP. It ranks highly in several measures of performance, including average wage, human development, per capita GDP. While the U. S. economy is considered post-industrial, characterized by the dominance of services and knowledge economy, the United States is a prominent political and cultural force internationally, and a leader in scientific research and technological innovations. In 1507, the German cartographer Martin Waldseemüller produced a map on which he named the lands of the Western Hemisphere America after the Italian explorer and cartographer Amerigo Vespucci
4.
Hotel
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A hotel is an establishment that provides paid lodging on a short-term basis. Small, lower-priced hotels may offer only the most basic guest services and facilities, Hotel rooms are usually numbered to allow guests to identify their room. Some boutique, high-end hotels have custom decorated rooms, some hotels offer meals as part of a room and board arrangement. In the United Kingdom, a hotel is required by law to serve food, in Japan, capsule hotels provide a tiny room suitable only for sleeping and shared bathroom facilities. The precursor to the hotel was the inn of medieval Europe. For a period of about 200 years from the mid-17th century, inns began to cater to richer clients in the mid-18th century. One of the first hotels in a sense was opened in Exeter in 1768. Hotels proliferated throughout Western Europe and North America in the early 19th century, Hotel operations vary in size, function, and cost. Most hotels and major hospitality companies have set standards to classify hotel types. Full service hotels often contain upscale full-service facilities with a number of full service accommodations, an on-site full service restaurant. Boutique hotels are independent, non-branded hotels that often contain upscale facilities. Small to medium-sized hotel establishments offer a limited amount of on-site amenities, economy hotels are small to medium-sized hotel establishments that offer basic accommodations with little to no services. Extended stay hotels are small to medium-sized hotels that offer full service accommodations compared to a traditional hotel. Timeshare and destination clubs are a form of property ownership involving ownership of a unit of accommodation for seasonal usage. A motel is a small-sized low-rise lodging with direct access to rooms from the car park. Boutique hotels are typically hotels with an environment or intimate setting. A number of hotels have entered the public consciousness through popular culture, some hotels are built specifically as a destination in itself, for example at casinos and holiday resorts. The organizational chart and volume of job positions and hierarchy varies by size, function and class
5.
Wi-Fi
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Wi-Fi or WiFi is a technology for wireless local area networking with devices based on the IEEE802.11 standards. Wi-Fi is a trademark of the Wi-Fi Alliance, which restricts the use of the term Wi-Fi Certified to products that successfully complete interoperability certification testing. Devices that can use Wi-Fi technology include personal computers, video-game consoles, smartphones, digital cameras, tablet computers, digital audio players, Wi-Fi compatible devices can connect to the Internet via a WLAN network and a wireless access point. Such an access point has a range of about 20 meters indoors, hotspot coverage can be as small as a single room with walls that block radio waves, or as large as many square kilometres achieved by using multiple overlapping access points. Wi-Fi most commonly uses the 2.4 gigahertz UHF and 5 gigahertz SHF ISM radio bands, having no physical connections, it is more vulnerable to attack than wired connections, such as Ethernet. In 1971, ALOHAnet connected the Hawaiian Islands with a UHF wireless packet network, ALOHAnet and the ALOHA protocol were early forerunners to Ethernet, and later the IEEE802.11 protocols, respectively. A1985 ruling by the U. S. Federal Communications Commission released the ISM band for unlicensed use and these frequency bands are the same ones used by equipment such as microwave ovens and are subject to interference. In 1991, NCR Corporation with AT&T Corporation invented the precursor to 802.11, the first wireless products were under the name WaveLAN. They are the credited with inventing Wi-Fi. In 1992 and 1996, CSIRO obtained patents for a method used in Wi-Fi to unsmear the signal. The first version of the 802.11 protocol was released in 1997 and this was updated in 1999 with 802. 11b to permit 11 Mbit/s link speeds, and this proved to be popular. In 1999, the Wi-Fi Alliance formed as an association to hold the Wi-Fi trademark under which most products are sold. Wi-Fi uses a number of patents held by many different organizations. In April 2009,14 technology companies agreed to pay CSIRO $1 billion for infringements on CSIRO patents and this led to Australia labeling Wi-Fi as an Australian invention, though this has been the subject of some controversy. In 2016, the local area network Test Bed was chosen as Australias contribution to the exhibition A History of the World in 100 Objects held in the National Museum of Australia. The name Wi-Fi, commercially used at least as early as August 1999, was coined by the brand-consulting firm Interbrand, the Wi-Fi Alliance had hired Interbrand to create a name that was a little catchier than IEEE802. 11b Direct Sequence. Phil Belanger, a member of the Wi-Fi Alliance who presided over the selection of the name Wi-Fi, has stated that Interbrand invented Wi-Fi as a pun upon the word hi-fi. Interbrand also created the Wi-Fi logo, the yin-yang Wi-Fi logo indicates the certification of a product for interoperability
6.
Cisco, Texas
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Cisco is a city in Eastland County, Texas, United States. The population was 3,899 at the 2010 census, about six families were already living nearby, and W. T. Caldwell was running a store a mile to the west. Ethan Everett once worked on chapter 9 Magnetic and Solid-State Storage Devices here, once settlers arrived, agricultural agents employed by the railroad advised them what and when to plant and on occasion provided the seed. During the 1880s a Mrs. Haws built and managed the first hotel, following a practice common at the time, religious groups in Cisco met together for prayer meetings in the schoolhouse until they could build separate churches. By 1892 Cisco was a community with two newspapers, a bank, and an economy based on trade, ranching, fruit farming, and the limestone, coal. A broom factory and roller corn and flour mills were among the towns 56 businesses, in 1893 a tornado hit Cisco, killing 28 people and destroying or damaging most of its homes and businesses. Conrad Hilton started the Hilton Hotel chain with a single hotel bought in Cisco, Hilton came to Cisco to buy a bank, but the bank cost too much, so he purchased the Mobley Hotel in 1919. The hotel is now a museum and community center. During the 1920s, Cisco, like nearby Ranger, Eastland, in 1925, the first annual meeting of the West Texas Historical Association was held in Cisco. The association, formed in 1924, was based at Hardin–Simmons University in Abilene. The Santa Claus Bank Robbery occurred in Cisco on December 23,1927, as of August 2009, the bank site is occupied by an auto parts store, with a Texas Historical Commission sign commemorating the event. On May 9,2015, an area just south of the city was hit by a tornado, destroying several homes, killing one. Cisco in its early days was plagued with water supply. In the 1920s the Williamson Dam was built north of town, the dam was named after James Milton Williamson, long-time mayor and survivor of the 1893 tornado. At its base was built what was billed as the largest concrete swimming pool in the world, the complex boasted a two story building with a skating rink upstairs, a zoo, an amusement park with rides, and a park. Bob Wills was only one of the celebrities to entertain there, for decades it was a major attraction for folks from miles around. The hollow dam was at one time open to the public, the pool closed in the 1970s and the vacant skating rink burned a few years later
7.
Caribe Hilton Hotel
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The Caribe Hilton, located in San Juan, Puerto Rico, is one of the best-known hotels in the Caribbean. It was the first facility ever operated by Hilton Hotels outside of the continental United States, in early 1946, as part of the Puerto Rican industrialization effort known as Operation Bootstrap, the Puerto Rico Industrial Development Co. decided to erect a modern luxury hotel. The facility would be owned by the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, the hotel would have 300 bedrooms, the necessary ancillary facilities, and be located adjacent to Fort San Jerónimo in Puerta de Tierra. A competition was held to select the design, with three firms in Puerto Rico invited, Schimmelpfennig, Ruiz y González, The Office of Henry Klumb. Two additional firms from Florida were also invited to participate, Frederick G. Seelman from Palm Beach and these two firms submitted Spanish Renaissance-style designs, while the three Puerto Rican firms presented modern designs inspired by the International style. The final design chosen was by Toro-Ferrer, who designed the Modern Movement-style Supreme Court Building in San Juan. To operate the hotel, the Puerto Rico Industrial Development Co. invited seven leading American hotel firms, conrad Hilton, being from New Mexico, opened his letter back with Mi estimado amigo and won over the Puerto Ricans. The hotel opened on December 9,1949 and it was Hiltons first hotel outside the continental United States and made Hilton the first international hotel company. The government-backed Puerto Rico Industrial Development Corp. spent $7 million to build, after it was built, the government leased the hotel to the Hilton Corp. on a 20-year lease. The hotel was the first in Puerto Rico to offer radios in every room, guests for the opening included Gloria Swanson, Eastern Air Lines President Eddie Rickenbacker, David Rockefeller and numerous other celebrities and notables. The hotel claims to be the birthplace of the Piña Colada, in 1954, bartender Ramón “Monchito” Marrero spent three months creating a mix of rum, coconut cream, and pineapple juice. The drink was first served on August 15,1954, the original hotel was expanded over the years from 300 rooms to 646 rooms. After managing the hotel for 48 years, Hilton International bought the property in 1998, Hilton closed the hotel the following year for a complete renovation, lasting nine months. It reopened on December 25,1999 celebrating its 50th anniversary after $50 million in renovations, in 2005, the hotel was expanded with the huge Paseo Caribe complex, including shops, restaurants, and 264 villas marketed as the Condado Lagoon Villas. Its first of many guests were Gloria Swanson and Gertrude Ederle. Between the 1960s and 1980s, many important performers either worked or stayed at the Caribe Hilton, other famous guests have included many world champion boxers during Puerto Ricos golden era of boxing. The national basketball teams of twelve countries also stayed there for 2003s pre-Olympic tournament of the Americas, some scenes from Wizards of Waverly Place, The Movie were filmed in various areas of the hotel, which was called the Caribe Paradise Resort. It is also the setting for Hunter S. Thompsons The Rum Diary,22 Jump Street was also filmed in the lobby of the hotel
8.
San Juan, Puerto Rico
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San Juan is the capital and most populous municipality in the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, an unincorporated territory of the United States. As of the 2010 census, it had a population of 395,326 making it the 46th-largest city under the jurisdiction of the United States, San Juan was founded by Spanish colonists in 1521, who called it Ciudad de Puerto Rico. Puerto Ricos capital is the second oldest European-established capital city in the Americas, after Santo Domingo, today, San Juan is Puerto Ricos most important seaport, and is the islands manufacturing, financial, cultural, and tourism center. San Juan is also a city of the San Juan-Caguas-Fajardo Combined Statistical Area. In 1508, Juan Ponce de León founded the settlement which he called Caparra. In 1521, the settlement was given its formal name. On the other hand, the name for the island became the name for the city only after the occupation of the island by the United States. San Juan, as a settlement of the Spanish Empire, was used by merchant, because of its prominence in the Caribbean, a network of fortifications was built to protect the transports of gold and silver from the New World to Europe. Because of the cargoes, San Juan became a target of the foreign powers of the time. The city was witness to attacks from the English led by Sir Francis Drake in 1595 and by George Clifford, Earl of Cumberland, artillery from San Juans fort, El Morro, repelled Drake, however, Clifford managed to land troops and lay siege to the city. After a few months of English occupation, Clifford was forced to abandon the siege when his troops began to suffer from exhaustion, in 1625 the city was sacked by Dutch forces led by Captain Balduino Enrico, but El Morro withstood the assault and was not taken. The Dutch were counterattacked by Captain Juan de Amezquita and 50 members of the militia on land. The land battle left 60 Dutch soldiers dead and Enrico with a wound to his neck which he received from the hands of Amezquita. The Dutch ships at sea were boarded by Puerto Ricans who defeated those aboard, after a long battle, the Spanish soldiers and volunteers of the citys militia were able to defend the city from the attack and save the island from an invasion. On October 21, Enrico set La Fortaleza and the city ablaze, captains Amezquita and Andre Botello decided to put a stop to the destruction and led 200 men in an attack against the enemys front and rear guard. They drove Enrico and his men from their trenches and into the ocean in their haste to reach their ships, the British attack in 1797, during the French Revolutionary Wars, led by Sir Ralph Abercromby. His army laid siege to the city but was forced to withdraw in defeat as the Puerto Rican defenses proved more resilient than those of Trinidad. The USS Yale captured a Spanish freighter, the Rita in San Juan Bay, on May 9, Yale fought a brief battle with an auxiliary cruiser of Spain, name unknown, resulting in a Spanish victory
9.
1968 Democratic National Convention
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The 1968 National Convention of the U. S. Democratic Party was held August 26–29 at the International Amphitheatre in Chicago, the keynote speaker was Senator Daniel Inouye. Vice President Hubert H. Humphrey and Senator Edmund S. Muskie of Maine were nominated for President and Vice President, respectively. The convention was held during a year of violence, political turbulence, the convention also followed the assassination of Democratic presidential hopeful Senator Robert F. Kennedy of New York, on June 5. Both Kennedy and Senator Eugene McCarthy of Minnesota had been running for the Democratic Nomination at the time, in 1968 the Democratic Party was divided. Senator Eugene McCarthy entered the campaign in November 1967, challenging incumbent President Johnson for the Democratic nomination, Robert F. Kennedy entered the race in March 1968. Johnson, facing dissent within his party, and having only won the New Hampshire primary. After Kennedys assassination on June 5, the Democratic Partys divisions grew, at the moment of Kennedys death the delegate count stood at Humphrey 561.5, Kennedy 393.5, McCarthy 258. Kennedys murder left his delegates uncommitted, in the end, the Democratic Party nominated Humphrey. Even though 80 percent of the voters had been for anti-war candidates. The loss was perceived to be the result of President Johnson, Humphrey, who had not entered any of 13 state primary elections, won the Democratic nomination, and went on to lose the election to the Republican Richard Nixon. Source, Keating Holland, All the Votes, really, CNN Chicago Mayor Richard J. Daley intended to showcase his and the citys achievements to national Democrats and the news media. Rioting took place by the Chicago Police Department and the Illinois National Guard against the demonstrators, the disturbances were well publicized by the mass media, with some journalists and reporters being caught up in the violence. Network newsmen Mike Wallace, Dan Rather, and Edwin Newman were assaulted by the Chicago police while inside the halls of the Democratic Convention, the Democratic Presidential Nominating Convention had been held in Chicago 12 years earlier. Chicago Mayor Richard J. Daley had played a role in the election of John F. Kennedy in 1960. In 1968, however, it did not seem that Daley had maintained the clout which would allow him to bring out the voters again to produce a Democratic victory as he had in 1960. On October 7,1967, Daley and Johnson had a meeting at a fund raiser for President Johnsons re-election campaign. Johnsons pro-war policies had already created a division within the party
10.
Grant Park (Chicago)
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Grant Park is a large urban park in the Loop community area of Chicago. Located in Chicagos central business district, the parks most notable features are Millennium Park, Buckingham Fountain, the Art Institute of Chicago, originally known as Lake Park, and dating from the citys founding, it was renamed in 1901 to honor Ulysses S. Grant. The parks area has expanded several times through land reclamation. It is bordered on the north by Randolph Street, on the south by Roosevelt Road and McFetridge Drive, on the west by Michigan Avenue, the park contains performance venues, gardens, art work, sporting, and harbor facilities. It hosts public gatherings, and several annual events. The park is often called Chicagos front yard and it is governed by the Chicago Park District. The original plans for the town of Chicago left the area east of Michigan Avenue unsubdivided and vacant, when the former Fort Dearborn Reserve became part of the townsite in 1839, the plan of the area east of Michigan Avenue south of Randolph was marked Public ground. Forever to remain vacant of buildings, the city officially designated the land as a park on April 29,1844, naming it Lake Park. When the Illinois Central Railroad was built into Chicago in 1852, the resulting lagoon became stagnant, and was largely filled in 1871 with debris from the Great Chicago Fire, increasing the parkland. In 1896, the city began extending the park into the lake with landfill, on October 9,1901, the park was renamed Grant Park in honor of American Civil War commanding General and United States President Ulysses S. Grant. At the 1868 Republican National Convention in Chicago, Grant had been nominated for his first presidential term, the legal restrictions prohibiting any buildings in the park were ignored in the 19th century, as various civic buildings were sited there. At various times, a post office, exposition center, armory, a 1904 plan prepared by the Olmsted Brothers recommended locating the Field Museum as the parks centerpiece, an idea integrated into Daniel Burnham and Edward H. Bennetts 1909 Plan of Chicago. Chicago businessman Aaron Montgomery Ward ultimately fought four court battles, opposed by nearly every civic leader, the one exception Ward consented to was for the Art Institute of Chicago, constructed in 1892. More landfill in the 1910s and 1920s provided sites for the Adler Planetarium, Field Museum of Natural History, and Shedd Aquarium, in 2004, a section of northern Grant Park, previously occupied by Illinois Central railyards and parking lots, was covered and redeveloped as Millennium Park. The park has been the site of large civic events. It served as the ground for the citys funeral procession for Abraham Lincoln. In 1911, the hosted the major Chicago International Aviation Meet. The park was the scene of clashes between Chicago Police and demonstrators during the 1968 Democratic National Convention, pope John Paul II celebrated an outdoor mass to a large crowd here in 1979
