1.
John Hughes (filmmaker)
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John Wilden Hughes, Jr. was an American film director, producer, and screenwriter. Hughes was born in Lansing, Michigan, to a mother who volunteered in charity work and John Hughes and he spent the first twelve years of his life in Grosse Pointe, Michigan. Hughes described himself as kind of quiet as a kid, I grew up in a neighborhood that was mostly girls and old people. There werent any boys my age, so I spent a lot of time by myself, and every time we would get established somewhere, we would move. Life just started to get good in seventh grade, and then we moved to Chicago, I ended up in a really big high school, and I didnt know anybody. But then The Beatles came along changed my whole life, and then Bob Dylans Bringing It All Back Home came out and really changed me. Thursday I was one person, and Friday I was another and my heroes were Dylan, John Lennon and Picasso, because they each moved their particular medium forward, and when they got to the point where they were comfortable, they always moved on. In 1963, Hughess family moved to Northbrook, Illinois, a suburb of Chicago and this is where Hughess father found work selling roofing materials. There Hughes attended Glenbrook North High School, which gave him inspiration for the films made his reputation in later years. After dropping out of the University of Arizona, Hughes began selling jokes to well-established performers such as Rodney Dangerfield and Joan Rivers. Hughes used his jokes to get a job at Needham, Harper & Steers as an advertising copywriter in Chicago in 1970. During this time, he created became the famous Edge Credit Card Shaving Test ad campaign. Hughes work on the Virginia Slims account frequently took him to the Philip Morris headquarters in New York City and this gave him the opportunity to hang around the offices of the National Lampoon magazine. Hughes subsequently penned a story, inspired by his trips as a child. That piece, Vacation 58, later became the basis for the film National Lampoons Vacation and his first credited screenplay, Class Reunion, was written while still on staff at the magazine. The resulting film became the second attempt by the flagship to duplicate the runaway success of Animal House. It was Hughess next screenplay for the imprint, National Lampoons Vacation and that films success, along with the success of another of Hughes scripts, Mr. Mom, earned Hughes a three-movie deal with Universal Studios. It was the first in a string of efforts set in or around high school, including The Breakfast Club, Pretty in Pink, Weird Science, Ferris Buellers Day Off and Some Kind of Wonderful
2.
20th Century Fox
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Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation is an American film studio currently owned by 21st Century Fox. It is one of the Big Six major American film studios and is located in the Century City area of Los Angeles, the studio was formerly owned by News Corporation. 20th Century Fox is a member of the Motion Picture Association of America, in 2015, 20th Century Fox celebrated its 80th anniversary as a studio. Spyros Skouras, then manager of the Fox West Coast Theaters, the studios biggest star, Will Rogers, died in a plane crash weeks after the merger. Its leading female star, Janet Gaynor, was fading in popularity and promising leading men James Dunn, at first, it was expected that the new company was originally to be called Fox-20th Century, even though 20th Century was the senior partner in the merger. However, 20th Century brought more to the bargaining table besides Schenck and Zanuck, the new company, 20th Century-Fox Film Corporation, began trading on May 31,1935, the hyphen was dropped in 1985. Schenck became Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, while Kent remained as President, Zanuck became Vice President in Charge of Production, replacing Foxs longtime production chief Winfield Sheehan. The company established a training school. The contracts included an option for renewal for as long as seven years. For many years, 20th Century Fox claimed to have founded in 1915. For instance, it marked 1945 as its 30th anniversary, however, in recent years it has claimed the 1935 merger as its founding, even though most film historians agree it was founded in 1915. The companys films retained the 20th Century Pictures searchlight logo on their credits as well as its opening fanfare. Also on the Fox payroll he found two players who he built up into the studios leading assets, Alice Faye and seven-year-old Shirley Temple, favoring popular biographies and musicals, Zanuck built Fox back to profitability. Thanks to record attendance during World War II, Fox overtook RKO, while Zanuck went off for eighteen months war service, junior partner William Goetz kept profits high by going for light entertainment. The studios—indeed the industrys—biggest star was creamy blonde Betty Grable, in 1942, Spyros Skouras succeeded Kent as president of the studio. Together with Zanuck, who returned in 1943, they intended to make Foxs output more serious-minded. During the next few years, with pictures like The Razors Edge, Wilson, Gentlemans Agreement, The Snake Pit, Boomerang, and Pinky, Zanuck established a reputation for provocative, adult films. Fox also specialized in adaptations of best-selling books such as Ben Ames Williams Leave Her to Heaven, starring Gene Tierney and they also made the 1958 film version of South Pacific
3.
Home Alone (franchise)
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Home Alone is a 2006 game released for the PlayStation 2 and based on the film of the same name. The game was released in Europe only, the aim of the game is to go through five areas and dispose of the burglars while locking all the doors and windows to stop more getting in. The player is able to collect and use tools to close the entrances, unless the player locks all the entrances on the level, however, defeating a burglar simply means another takes his place. The game only saves the high scores and does not save game data, home Alone was released to extremely negative reviews from critics, and much like every other video game produced by Blast Entertainment, it sold poorly. Its existence is unknown to the gaming world
4.
Macaulay Culkin
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Macaulay Carson Culkin is an American actor. He became famous as an actor for his role as Kevin McCallister in the family comedy Home Alone and its sequel Home Alone 2. He is also known for his roles in Uncle Buck, My Girl, The Good Son, The Pagemaster, Richie Rich, Party Monster, at the height of his fame, he was regarded as the most successful child actor since Shirley Temple. Culkin ranked at two on VH1s list of the 100 Greatest Kid-Stars and E. s list of the 50 Greatest Child Stars. Culkin was born in New York City and his father, Christopher Cornelius Kit Culkin, is a former actor known for his productions on Broadway and is the brother of actress Bonnie Bedelia. His mother is Patricia Brentrup, who never married Culkin and he was raised Roman Catholic, and attended a Catholic school for five years before moving on to Professional Childrens School. He also studied ballet at the School of American Ballet, Macaulay Carson Culkin was named after Thomas Babington Macaulay. He was given the middle name Carson so he would then be named after Kit Carson of the old west, Culkin was the third of seven children, five boys and two girls, Shane, Dakota, Kieran, Quinn, Christian, and Rory. During Culkins early childhood, the family lived in an apartment, his mother was a telephone operator. Culkin began acting at the age of four, early roles saw him appearing in a stage production of Bach Babies at the New York Philharmonic. He continued appearing in roles on stage, television, and films throughout the 1980s, notable parts in this period included an episode of the popular action series The Equalizer, in which he played a kidnapping victim, and in the TV movie The Midnight Hour. In 1989, he starred in Uncle Buck with John Candy and he reprised the role of Kevin in the 1992 sequel Home Alone 2, Lost in New York. Culkin also starred in a Saturday morning cartoon entitled Wish Kid, despite the huge success of Uncle Buck, Home Alone, Home Alone 2, Lost in New York and My Girl, other films Culkin acted in, such as The Good Son, only did reasonably well. Getting Even with Dad, The Pagemaster, and Richie Rich and he appeared in the 1998 music video for the song Sunday by the rock band Sonic Youth. After several years of inactivity, Culkin returned to acting, in 2000, with a role in the play Madame Melville, in the spring of 2003, he made a guest appearance on the NBC sitcom Will & Grace. His role as Karen Walkers deceptively immature divorce lawyer won him favorable reviews and he quickly followed that with a supporting part in Saved. as a cynical wheelchair-using, non-Christian student in a conservative Christian high school. Though Saved. only had modest success at the box office, Culkin received positive reviews for his role in the film, Culkin began doing voice-over work, with appearances in Seth Greens Robot Chicken. In 2006, he published an experimental, semi-autobiographical novel, Junior, Culkin starred in Sex and Breakfast, a dark comedy written and directed by Miles Brandman
5.
Chris Columbus (filmmaker)
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Chris Joseph Columbus is an American filmmaker. Home Alone received a British Comedy Award for Best Comedy Film, Columbus received an Academy Award nomination for producing The Help. Columbus was born in Spangler, Pennsylvania and raised in Champion, Ohio, the son of Mary Irene, a worker, and Alex Michael Columbus. Columbus is of Italian and Czech descent, Columbus worked as a screenwriter with Steven Spielbergs Amblin Entertainment, working on Gremlins, The Goonies and Young Sherlock Holmes. He wrote the first episodes of the animated series Galaxy High and later made his debut with the teen comedy Adventures in Babysitting. His directorial work includes Home Alone, Only the Lonely, Home Alone 2, Lost in New York, the character types preferred by Columbus are the everyday American men, women, and children who struggle to uphold family traditions against a changing, sometimes intimidating society. In 1993, he said, I can understand the validity of showing people the ugliness of the world, if your film isnt going to do that, I just dont think its worth making. Columbus created the House of Secrets book series with Ned Vizzini and co-founded a new studio called ZAG Animation Studios with Saban Capital Group. In 1982, Columbus married Monica Devereux, with whom he has four children, Eleanor, Violet, Brendan, Columbus lives in San Franciscos Pacific Heights. Columbus and his wife listed their Pacific Heights home for sale in September 2013 for $12. 995M and his children attend or previously attended Saint Ignatius College Preparatory. He donated money to the school for a new building, many of Columbus family members —including his children, his wife, his mother, his father-in-law, and his cousin Robert Ayres— have appeared in cameo roles in his films. Particularly, his own daughter, Eleanor, portrayed the Hogwarts student Susan Bones in the first two Harry Potter films
6.
John Williams
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John Towner Williams is an American composer, conductor, and pianist. T. The Extra-Terrestrial, the Indiana Jones series, Jurassic Park, Schindlers List, Williams has been associated with director Steven Spielberg since 1974, composing music for all but two of his feature films. Williams has won five Academy Awards, four Golden Globe Awards, seven British Academy Film Awards, with 50 Academy Award nominations, Williams is the second most-nominated individual, after Walt Disney. In 2005, the American Film Institute selected Williams score to 1977s Star Wars as the greatest American film score of all time. The soundtrack to Star Wars was additionally preserved by the Library of Congress into the National Recording Registry, for being culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant. Williams was inducted into the Hollywood Bowls Hall of Fame in 2000, and was a recipient of the Kennedy Center Honors in 2004, Williams composed the score for eight movies in the Top 20 highest-grossing films at the U. S. box office. John Towner Williams was born on February 8,1932 in Floral Park, New York, the son of Esther and Johnny Williams, Williams has said of his lineage, My father was a Maine man—we were very close. My fathers parents ran a department store in Bangor, Maine, people with those roots are not inclined to be lazy. In 1948, the Williams family moved to Los Angeles where John attended North Hollywood High School graduating in 1950 and he later attended the University of California, Los Angeles, and studied privately with the Italian composer Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco. Williams had originally briefly attended Los Angeles City College for one semester as the school had a Studio Jazz Band. In 1952, Williams was drafted into the U. S. Air Force, in 1955, following his Air Force service, Williams moved to New York City and entered The Juilliard School where he studied piano with Rosina Lhévinne. During this time Williams worked as a jazz pianist in the many jazz clubs. After moving to Los Angeles he began working as a session musician, Williams has two brothers, Donald and Jerry, both of whom work as percussionists in Los Angeles. After his studies at Juilliard, and the Eastman School of Music, Williams returned to Los Angeles, among other composers, Williams worked with Franz Waxman, Bernard Herrmann, and Alfred Newman, and also with his fellow orchestrators Conrad Salinger and Bob Franklyn. Williams was also a studio pianist, performing on film scores by composers such as Jerry Goldsmith, Elmer Bernstein, Williams recorded with Henry Mancini the film scores of 1959s Peter Gunn, 1962s Days of Wine and Roses, and 1963s Charade. Williamss first film composition was for the 1958 B movie Daddy-O and he soon gained notice in Hollywood for his versatility in composing jazz, piano, and symphonic music. Williams received his first Academy Award nomination for his score for 1967s Valley of the Dolls. Williams broke through to win his first Academy Award for his score in the 1971 film Fiddler on the Roof
7.
Home Alone 4
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Home Alone 4 is a 2002 American made-for-television Christmas family comedy film directed by Rod Daniel, which first aired on ABC on November 3,2002. It is the installment in the Home Alone series. The film brings back several of the characters from the first two films including Kevin McCallister, but with all of the roles played by different actors. The film also features culture and technology from the late 1990s and it is also the only film in the series to be filmed outside the United States. Although set in Chicago, it was shot in South Africa. The plot revolves around Kevin McCallister trying to defend his future stepmothers house from his old nemesis Marv, at the McCallisters house, Peter is about to get divorced from Kate and announces that hes living with his new and rich girlfriend Natalie at her mansion. He tells his three children Buzz, Megan, and Kevin that they are hosting the visit of a family and invites everyone to spend Christmas with him. After initially refusing, Kevin takes his father up on his offer after being tormented by Buzz, Kevin enjoys his time at Natalies mansion with his new bedroom, latest gadgets and his life. The next morning, Natalie and Peter go out for a bit while Kevin stays at the mansion with Natalies butler Mr. Prescott, while Prescott makes Kevin a milkshake, he goes into the security room and gets caught by Prescott who gives Kevin another chance. Kevin tries to get Mr. Prescott to answer the intercom, Kevin then attempts to use the security camera footage to prove himself, but discovers that the camera had been turned off and is caught by Prescott, who Kevin now believes to be Marv and Veras ally. Molly then appears and gets Kevin out of trouble, Peter and Natalie then realize they gave Kevin a hard time and decide to make him feel better, so the three of them decorate the tree. The next morning, Peter and Kevin wake up and realize their tree was re-decorated because of Natalie, Kate, Buzz and Megan then arrive to visit Kevin. Kate meets Natalie in person and Kevin shows the house to Buzz. At a party for the family while Peter and Natalie have gone to pick them up, Kevin notices Marv. Mr. Prescott warns Kevin about tonight so he then tricks Mr. Prescott into going into the room and he ends up locked in the freezer room. Kevin then spies on Marv and Vera in his bedroom and hears them planning about kidnapping the prince, unfortunately for them, Kevin makes sure that their plan was a failure and has them fall out and break the window. The royal family are unable to attend the party because their flight was cancelled, so Peter, Marv and Vera run back into the house and Kevin hits Marv with a frying pan, flips the table and get soup spilled on Marv and Vera. Then they chase Kevin, causing him to ruin the party
8.
North Korea
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North Korea, officially the Democratic Peoples Republic of Korea, is a country in East Asia, constituting the northern part of the Korean Peninsula. Pyongyang is both the capital as well as its largest city. To the north and northwest the country is bordered by China and by Russia along the Amnok, the country is bordered to the south by South Korea, with the heavily fortified Korean Demilitarized Zone separating the two. Negotiations on reunification failed, and in 1948 two separate governments were formed, the communist Democratic Peoples Republic of Korea in the north, an invasion initiated by North Korea led to the Korean War. The Korean Armistice Agreement brought about a ceasefire, and no peace treaty was ever signed. North Korea officially describes itself as a self-reliant socialist state and formally holds elections, critics regard it as a totalitarian dictatorship. Various outlets have called it Stalinist, particularly noting the elaborate cult of personality around Kim Il-sung, International organizations have assessed human rights violations in North Korea as belonging to a category of their own, with no parallel in the contemporary world. Over time, North Korea has gradually distanced itself from the world communist movement, Juche, an ideology of national self-reliance, was introduced into the constitution as a creative application of Marxism–Leninism in 1972. The means of production are owned by the state through state-run enterprises, most services such as healthcare, education, housing and food production are subsidized or state-funded. From 1994 to 1998, North Korea suffered from a famine that resulted in the deaths of between 0.24 and 3.5 million people, and the continues to struggle with food production. North Korea follows Songun, or military-first policy and it is the country with the highest number of military and paramilitary personnel, with a total of 9,495,000 active, reserve, and paramilitary personnel. Its active duty army of 1.21 million is the fourth largest in the world, after China, North Korea is an atheist state with no official religion and where public religion is discouraged. The name Korea derives from the name Goryeo, the name Goryeo itself was first used by the ancient kingdom of Goguryeo in the 5th century as a shortened form of its name. The 10th-century kingdom of Goryeo succeeded Goguryeo, and thus inherited its name, the modern spelling of Korea first appeared in the late 17th century in the travel writings of the Dutch East India Companys Hendrick Hamel. After the division of the country into North and South Korea, the two sides used different terms to refer to Korea, Chosun or Joseon in North Korea, in 1948, North Korea adopted Democratic Peoples Republic of Korea as its new legal name. After the First Sino-Japanese War and the Russo-Japanese War, Korea was occupied by Japan, Japan tried to suppress Korean traditions and culture and ran the economy primarily for its own benefit. Korean resistance groups known as Dongnipgun operated along the Sino-Korean border, some of them took part in allied action in China and parts of South East Asia. One of the leaders was the communist Kim Il-sung, who later became the leader of North Korea
9.
Terrorism
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Terrorism is, in its broadest sense, the use of intentionally indiscriminate violence as a means to create terror or fear, in order to achieve a political, religious, or ideological aim. It is classified as fourth-generation warfare and as a violent crime, in modern times, terrorism is considered a major threat to society and therefore illegal under anti-terrorism laws in most jurisdictions. It is also considered a war crime under the laws of war when used to target non-combatants, such as civilians, neutral military personnel, a broad array of political organizations have practiced terrorism to further their objectives. It has been practiced by both right-wing and left-wing political organizations, nationalist groups, religious groups, revolutionaries, and ruling governments, there is no universally agreed upon definition of the term, and many definitions exist. According to data from the Global Terrorism Database, more than 61,000 incidents of non-state terrorism, Terrorism comes from the French word terrorisme, and originally referred specifically to state terrorism as practiced by the French government during the 1793–1794 Reign of Terror. The French word terrorisme in turn derives from the Latin verb terrere meaning to frighten, the Jacobins, coming to power in France in 1792, are said to have initiated the Reign of Terror. After the Jacobins lost power, the word terrorist became a term of abuse, although terrorism originally referred to acts committed by a government, currently it usually refers to the killing of innocent people for political purposes in such a way as to create a spectacle. This meaning can be traced back to Sergey Nechayev, who described himself as a terrorist, Nechayev founded the Russian terrorist group Peoples Retribution in 1869. It is a form of state-terrorism, the concept was however developed long before the Second Gulf War by Harlan Ullman as chair of a forum of retired military personnel. The definition of terrorism has proven controversial, various legal systems and government agencies use different definitions of terrorism in their national legislation. Moreover, the community has been slow to formulate a universally agreed. These difficulties arise from the fact that the term terrorism is politically and emotionally charged, in this regard, Angus Martyn, briefing the Australian parliament, stated, The international community has never succeeded in developing an accepted comprehensive definition of terrorism. The international community has adopted a series of conventions that define. U. S. Bruce Hoffman, a scholar, has noted, experts and other long-established scholars in the field are equally incapable of reaching a consensus. Four years and a second later, Schmid was no closer to the goal of his quest. Walter Laqueur despaired of defining terrorism in both editions of his work on the subject, maintaining that it is neither possible to do so nor worthwhile to make the attempt. Hoffman believes it is possible to some key characteristics of terrorism. A definition proposed by Carsten Bockstette at the George C, such acts are meant to send a message from an illicit clandestine organization
10.
San Francisco International Airport
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San Francisco International Airport is an international airport 13 miles south of downtown San Francisco, California, United States, near Millbrae and San Bruno in unincorporated San Mateo County. It has flights to points throughout North America and is a gateway to Europe. SFO is the largest airport in Northern California and the second busiest in California, in 2014, it was the seventh busiest in the United States and the twenty-first busiest airport in the world by passenger count. It is the fifth largest hub for United Airlines and functions as United Airliness primary transpacific gateway and it also serves as Virgin Americas principal base of operations. It is the sole hub of United Airlines, and houses the Louis A. Turpen Aviation Museum. SFO is owned and policed by the City and County of San Francisco, between 1999 and 2004 the San Francisco Airport Commission operated city-owned SFO Enterprises, Inc. to oversee its business purchases and operations of ventures. San Francisco held a ceremony for Mills Field Municipal Airport on May 7,1927 on 150 acres of cow pasture. The land was leased from Ogden L. Mills who had leased it from his grandfather Darius O. Mills, San Francisco International Airport was named Mills Field Municipal Airport until 1931, when it became San Francisco Municipal Airport. Municipal was replaced by International in 1955, United Airlines served SFO and Oakland Municipal Airport beginning in the 1930s. The March 1939 Official Aviation Guide shows 18 airline departures on weekdays— seventeen United flights, the aerial view c.1940 looks west along the runway that is now 28R, the seaplane harbor at right is still recognizable north of the airport. Earlier aerial looking NW1943 vertical aerial The August 1952 chart shows runway 1L7000 feet long, 1R7750 feet, 28L6500 feet and 28R8870 feet. Competition with United led Pacific Seaboard to move all of its operations to the eastern U. S. and rename itself Chicago and it became a large domestic and international air carrier. Chicago & Southern was acquired by and merged into Delta Air Lines in 1953 thus providing Delta with its first international routes, United Airlines Douglas DC-6 propliners flying to and from Hawaii used the Pan American World Airways terminal beginning in 1947. The first nonstops to the U. S. east coast were flown by United with Douglas DC-7 propliners in 1954, also in 1954 the airports Central Passenger Terminal opened on August 27 of that year. Included in the static display of aircraft on that day was a Convair B-36 Peacemaker bomber. The Central Passenger Terminal was heavily rebuilt as the terminal in 1984. As for international flights, Pan American had 21 departures a week, Japan Airlines had five, the jet age arrived at SFO in March 1959 when TWA introduced Boeing 707-131 jetliners with nonstop service to New York Idlewild Airport. United then constructed a large facility at San Francisco for its new Douglas DC-8 jets
11.
Chicago
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Chicago, officially the City of Chicago, is the third-most populous city in the United States. With over 2.7 million residents, it is the most populous city in the state of Illinois, and it is the county seat of Cook County. In 2012, Chicago was listed as a global city by the Globalization and World Cities Research Network. Chicago has the third-largest gross metropolitan product in the United States—about $640 billion according to 2015 estimates, the city has one of the worlds largest and most diversified economies with no single industry employing more than 14% of the workforce. In 2016, Chicago hosted over 54 million domestic and international visitors, landmarks in the city include Millennium Park, Navy Pier, the Magnificent Mile, Art Institute of Chicago, Museum Campus, the Willis Tower, Museum of Science and Industry, and Lincoln Park Zoo. Chicagos culture includes the arts, novels, film, theater, especially improvisational comedy. Chicago also has sports teams in each of the major professional leagues. The city has many nicknames, the best-known being the Windy City, the name Chicago is derived from a French rendering of the Native American word shikaakwa, known to botanists as Allium tricoccum, from the Miami-Illinois language. The first known reference to the site of the current city of Chicago as Checagou was by Robert de LaSalle around 1679 in a memoir, henri Joutel, in his journal of 1688, noted that the wild garlic, called chicagoua, grew abundantly in the area. In the mid-18th century, the area was inhabited by a Native American tribe known as the Potawatomi, the first known non-indigenous permanent settler in Chicago was Jean Baptiste Point du Sable. Du Sable was of African and French descent and arrived in the 1780s and he is commonly known as the Founder of Chicago. In 1803, the United States Army built Fort Dearborn, which was destroyed in 1812 in the Battle of Fort Dearborn, the Ottawa, Ojibwe, and Potawatomi tribes had ceded additional land to the United States in the 1816 Treaty of St. Louis. The Potawatomi were forcibly removed from their land after the Treaty of Chicago in 1833, on August 12,1833, the Town of Chicago was organized with a population of about 200. Within seven years it grew to more than 4,000 people, on June 15,1835, the first public land sales began with Edmund Dick Taylor as U. S. The City of Chicago was incorporated on Saturday, March 4,1837, as the site of the Chicago Portage, the city became an important transportation hub between the eastern and western United States. Chicagos first railway, Galena and Chicago Union Railroad, and the Illinois, the canal allowed steamboats and sailing ships on the Great Lakes to connect to the Mississippi River. A flourishing economy brought residents from rural communities and immigrants from abroad, manufacturing and retail and finance sectors became dominant, influencing the American economy. The Chicago Board of Trade listed the first ever standardized exchange traded forward contracts and these issues also helped propel another Illinoisan, Abraham Lincoln, to the national stage
12.
Glock
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It entered Austrian military and police service by 1982 after it was the top performer on an exhaustive series of reliability and safety tests. Glocks are also popular firearms among civilians for recreational and competition shooting, home and self-defense, the companys founder, engineer Gaston Glock, had no experience with firearms design or manufacture at the time their first pistol, the Glock 17, was being prototyped. Glock introduced ferritic nitrocarburizing into the industry as an anticorrosion surface treatment for metal gun parts. In 1980, the Austrian military announced that it would seek tenders for a new, the Austrian Ministry of Defence formulated a list of 17 criteria for the new generation service pistol, The design was to be self loading. The pistol was to fire the NATO-standard 9×19 mm Parabellum round, the magazines were not to require any means of assistance for loading. The magazines were to have a capacity of eight rounds. It was to be possible to all actions one handed which are necessary to prepare the pistol for firing. The pistol was to be secure against accidental discharge from shock, strike. Disassembly of the parts for maintenance and reassembling was to be possible without the use of any tools. Maintenance and cleaning of the pistol was to be accomplished without the use of tools, the pistols construction was not to exceed 58 individual parts. Gauges, measurement tools, and precise testing devices were not to be necessary for the maintenance of the pistol. The manufacturer was to be required to provide the ministry of defence with a set of engineering drawings. These were to be supplied all the relevant details for the production of the pistol. All components were to be interchangeable between pistols. No more than 20 malfunctions were to be permitted during the first 10,000 rounds fired, after firing 15, 000-rounds of standard ammunition, the pistol was to be inspected for wear. The pistol was to then be used to fire an overpressure test cartridge generating 5,000 bar, the critical components were to continue to function properly and be up to specifications, otherwise the pistol was to be disqualified. When handled properly, under no circumstances was the user to be endangered by case ejection, the muzzle energy was to be at least 441.5 J when firing a 9×19 mm S-round/P-08 by Hirtenberger AG. Pistols scoring less than 70% of the available points were not to be considered for military use
13.
New York City
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The City of New York, often called New York City or simply New York, is the most populous city in the United States. With an estimated 2015 population of 8,550,405 distributed over an area of about 302.6 square miles. Located at the tip of the state of New York. Home to the headquarters of the United Nations, New York is an important center for international diplomacy and has described as the cultural and financial capital of the world. Situated on one of the worlds largest natural harbors, New York City consists of five boroughs, the five boroughs – Brooklyn, Queens, Manhattan, The Bronx, and Staten Island – were consolidated into a single city in 1898. In 2013, the MSA produced a gross metropolitan product of nearly US$1.39 trillion, in 2012, the CSA generated a GMP of over US$1.55 trillion. NYCs MSA and CSA GDP are higher than all but 11 and 12 countries, New York City traces its origin to its 1624 founding in Lower Manhattan as a trading post by colonists of the Dutch Republic and was named New Amsterdam in 1626. The city and its surroundings came under English control in 1664 and were renamed New York after King Charles II of England granted the lands to his brother, New York served as the capital of the United States from 1785 until 1790. It has been the countrys largest city since 1790, the Statue of Liberty greeted millions of immigrants as they came to the Americas by ship in the late 19th and early 20th centuries and is a symbol of the United States and its democracy. In the 21st century, New York has emerged as a node of creativity and entrepreneurship, social tolerance. Several sources have ranked New York the most photographed city in the world, the names of many of the citys bridges, tapered skyscrapers, and parks are known around the world. Manhattans real estate market is among the most expensive in the world, Manhattans Chinatown incorporates the highest concentration of Chinese people in the Western Hemisphere, with multiple signature Chinatowns developing across the city. Providing continuous 24/7 service, the New York City Subway is one of the most extensive metro systems worldwide, with 472 stations in operation. Over 120 colleges and universities are located in New York City, including Columbia University, New York University, and Rockefeller University, during the Wisconsinan glaciation, the New York City region was situated at the edge of a large ice sheet over 1,000 feet in depth. The ice sheet scraped away large amounts of soil, leaving the bedrock that serves as the foundation for much of New York City today. Later on, movement of the ice sheet would contribute to the separation of what are now Long Island and Staten Island. The first documented visit by a European was in 1524 by Giovanni da Verrazzano, a Florentine explorer in the service of the French crown and he claimed the area for France and named it Nouvelle Angoulême. Heavy ice kept him from further exploration, and he returned to Spain in August and he proceeded to sail up what the Dutch would name the North River, named first by Hudson as the Mauritius after Maurice, Prince of Orange
14.
Rya Kihlstedt
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Rya Kihlstedt is an American actress. Kihlstedt was born in Lancaster, Pennsylvania and is a 1991 graduate of Skidmore College in Theatre Arts, in 1994, Kihlstedt married actor Gil Bellows They have two children, Ava Emanuelle, and Giovanni. She is the sister of Oakland-based violinist, Carla Kihlstedt, in 1995, Kihlstedt played Lizzie Elmsworth in the BBC adaptation of Edith Whartons last novel, The Buccaneers. However, she is best known for her role as Alice Ribbons, in 1998, she starred with Peter Gallagher in the TV movie Brave New World loosely based on Aldous Huxleys 1932 novel of the same name. She had recurring roles in the Showtime crime drama Dexter as Dr. Michelle Ross, and in the ABC musical drama Nashville as Marilyn Rhodes, from 2015 to 2016, she starred as Erica Kravid in the NBC science fiction drama miniseries Heroes Reborn. In 2016, she was cast as Tig Notaros mother Caroline in the Amazon Video original series One Mississippi, Rya Kihlstedt on Twitter Rya Kihlstedt at the Internet Movie Database
15.
Marian Seldes
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Marian Hall Seldes was an American stage, film, radio and television actress whose career spanned over 60 years. She also won a Drama Desk Award for Fathers Day and her other Broadway credits included Equus, Ivanov and Deuce. She was inducted into the American Theater Hall of Fame in 1995, Seldes was born in Manhattan, the daughter of Alice Wadhams Hall, a socialite, and Gilbert Seldes, a journalist, author and editor. Her uncle was journalist George Seldes, seldess paternal grandparents were Russian Jewish immigrants, and her mother was from a prominent WASP family, the Episcopalian blue-blooded Halls. She grew up in an environment, studying acting at the Neighborhood Playhouse. Her maternal aunt, Marian Wells Hall, was a prominent interior decorator, trained for the stage, Seldes made her Broadway theatre debut in 1948 in a production of Medea. She went on to a career in which she earned five Tony Award nominations. In addition to performing in theatre, Seldes began acting in television in 1952 in a Hallmark Hall of Fame production that marked the first of many guest star roles. She also performed in a number of pictures and in radio plays. In the mid-1960s, Seldes recorded five albums for Folkways Records of famous works of literature, between 1974 and 1982, she appeared in 179 episodes of the CBS Radio Mystery Theater. In 1992 she appeared as Murphy Browns eccentric Aunt Brooke, Seldes studied with Sanford Meisner, Katharine Cornell and Martha Graham. Actor Laura Linney said, Marian is our touchstone to those theatrical ancestors and she provides an inspiration that makes you want to reach outside of yourself to something more potent and powerful. Seldes was a member of the faculty of The Juilliard School from 1967 to 1991. Her students included Christopher Reeve, Robin Williams, Kelsey Grammer, Kevin Kline, William Hurt, Patti LuPone, Val Kilmer, in 2002 Marian Seldes began teaching at Fordham University, Lincoln Center. Seldes appeared in one of the 1,809 Broadway performances of Ira Levins play Deathtrap. Seldes was also known for her readings of short stories in the Selected Shorts series hosted by Isaiah Sheffer at New York Citys Symphony Space. Marian Seldes was the recipient of a 2010 Antoinette Perry Lifetime Achievement Award, all Ive done is live my life in the theater and loved it, she said at the time. If you can get an award for being happy, thats what Ive got, Seldes had a daughter, Katharine, by her first marriage to Julian Claman
16.
Scarlett Johansson
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Scarlett Johansson is an American actress, model and singer. She made her debut in the fantasy comedy North. Johansson subsequently starred in Manny & Lo, and garnered acclaim and prominence with roles in The Horse Whisperer. She shifted to roles with her performances in Girl with a Pearl Earring and Lost in Translation. Since 2010, Johansson has also portrayed the Marvel Comics character Black Widow in the Marvel Cinematic Universe and she won the Tony Award for Best Performance by a Featured Actress in a Play for her performance in the 2010 Broadway revival of A View from the Bridge. As a singer, Johansson has released two albums, Anywhere I Lay My Head and Break Up, Johansson is considered one of Hollywoods modern sex symbols, and has frequently appeared in published lists of the sexiest women in the world. As of February 2017, she is the actress of all time in North America. In 2016, she added another $1.2 billion to that box office record and her father, Karsten Johansson, is an architect originally from Copenhagen, Denmark, and her paternal grandfather, Ejner Johansson, was an art historian, screenwriter, and director. Her mother, Melanie Sloan, a producer, comes from an Ashkenazi Jewish family from the Bronx, Sloans ancestors were Jewish immigrants from Poland and Minsk in the Russian Empire. Scarlett Johansson has a sister, Vanessa, also an actress, an older brother, Adrian, a twin brother, Hunter. She holds both United States and Danish passports and citizenship, Johansson grew up in a household with little money, and with a mother who was a film buff. She and her brother attended PS41 elementary school in the Greenwich Village neighborhood of Manhattan. Johansson began her training by attending and graduating from Professional Childrens School in Manhattan in 2002. Johansson began acting during childhood, after her mother started taking her to auditions and she would audition for commercials but took rejection so hard her mother began limiting her to film tryouts. She made her debut at the age of 9, as John Ritters daughter in the fantasy comedy North. Following minor roles in the mystery thriller Just Cause, as the daughter of Sean Connery and Kate Capshaw, and If Lucy Fell, she played the role of Amanda in Manny & Lo. Her performance in Manny & Lo garnered a nomination for the Independent Spirit Award for Best Lead Female, after appearing in minor roles in Fall and Home Alone 3, Johansson garnered widely spread attention for her performance in the film The Horse Whisperer, directed by Robert Redford. She received a nomination for the Chicago Film Critics Association Award for Most Promising Actress for the film, in 1999, she appeared in My Brother the Pig and in the neo-noir Coen brothers film The Man Who Wasnt There
17.
Neil Flynn
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Neil Richard Flynn is an American actor and comedian, known for his role as Janitor on the NBC/ABC medical comedy-drama Scrubs. He currently portrays Mike Heck on the ABC sitcom The Middle, in many of his acting roles, he has portrayed a police officer. Flynn was born on the side of Chicago. He is of Irish descent and was raised Roman Catholic and he moved to Waukegan, Illinois, at an early age. As a student at Waukegan East High School in 1978, he and he attended Bradley University in Peoria, Illinois, where he was a member of Sigma Nu fraternity and participated on the Bradley University Speech Team. After graduating in 1982, Flynn returned to Chicago to pursue an acting career, in Chicago, he acted with the renowned Goodman and Steppenwolf theaters. Flynn was nominated for a Joseph Jefferson Award and he also performed at the Improv Olympic and the Second City Comedy Troupe. This role was used in a subplot of the Scrubs episode My Friend the Doctor when J. D. notices Flynns character in the film, and believes that Flynns Janitor character is the actor in the film. In 2008, he worked with Harrison Ford again, playing a law enforcement official as FBI agent Smith in Indiana Jones. Flynn had a role in Mean Girls as the father of Lindsay Lohans character. He had a role in Major League as a longshoreman and fan of the Cleveland Indians. Flynn had a role on Phil Hendries animated pilot that was not picked up by FOX and he was also the first baseman in the movie Rookie of the Year. Flynn once appeared in an episode of The Drew Carey Show and he appeared on an episode of Seinfeld, playing a police officer. For Scrubs, Flynn auditioned for the role of Dr. Cox, but was given the role of Janitor, instead. Flynn was originally only cast for the first episode, but he became a regular, playing a character only as the Janitor. His name is not revealed in the series until the Season 8 finale when, upon J. D. s first time asking about it, he simply says his name is Glenn Matthews. When the Janitor confirms he was in the movie at the end of the episode, Flynn was a series regular with Scrubs through the first eight seasons. The Middle was picked up, although he did guest star in the Season 9 premiere of Scrubs, Flynn plays Heck family patriarch Mike Heck on the ABC show, The Middle
18.
Home Alone 2: Lost in New York
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Home Alone 2, Lost in New York is a 1992 American Christmas comedy film written and produced by John Hughes and directed by Chris Columbus. It is the film in the Home Alone series and the sequel to Home Alone. Macaulay Culkin reprises his role as Kevin McCallister, while Joe Pesci and Daniel Stern reprise their roles as the Wet Bandits, catherine OHara, John Heard, Tim Curry, and Brenda Fricker are also featured. Kevin and his family decide to take a trip to Florida and he tries to make due with what he has, such as using his fathers credit card to stay at the Plaza Hotel, but is soon confronted by the Wet Bandits and must outrun and out-prank them again. The film was shot in Winnetka, Illinois, OHare International Airport in Chicago, Evanston, Illinois, the exterior of Duncans Toy Chest in New York City was filmed outside of the Rookery Building in downtown Chicago. The exterior of Haven Middle School in Evanston, Illinois is shown prior to the Christmas pageant, the Miami scenes were filmed in Los Angeles, including an exterior of Miami International Airport which was filmed at Los Angeles International Airport. The film became the second most financially successful film of 1992, earning over $173 million in revenue in the United States, Home Alone 3 followed five years later in 1997, but the original cast and director did not return this film. In Chicago, Illinois, the McCallister family is preparing for a Christmas vacation in Miami, during the school Christmas pageant, Kevins older brother Buzz humiliates him during his solo, causing Kevin to retaliate. Refusing to apologize for his actions, Kevin goes up to the floor of the house. During the night, Peter unknowingly causes the clock to reset, consequently. In New York, Kevin tours the city and convinces the staff at the Plaza Hotel into renting him a room using Peters credit card, during a visit to Central Park, Kevin is frightened by the appearance of a homeless woman tending to pigeons. On Christmas Eve, Kevin tours the city in a limousine and visits a toy store where he meets its philanthropic owner, Kevin learns that the proceeds from the stores Christmas sales will be donated to a childrens hospital. Duncan offers Kevin a pair of ceramic turtledoves as a gift, after encountering Harry and Marv, a pair of burglars who recently escaped from prison and are now called the Sticky Bandits, Kevin retreats to the Plaza. The hotels concierge Mr. Hector confronts Kevin about the card which has been reported stolen. Kevin flees after evading Mr. Hector, but is captured by Harry, the duo discuss plans for breaking into the toy store that night, before Kevin escapes. Kevins family travels to New York after tracking the whereabouts of the credit card. Meanwhile, Kevin goes to his uncle Robs townhouse only to find the house vacant and undergoing renovations while Rob, in Central Park, he encounters the pigeon lady. When Kevin gets his foot caught while running away, she frees him, at Carnegie Hall, the pair watch an orchestra perform O Come, All ye Faithful
19.
Daniel Stern (actor)
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Daniel Jacob Stern is an American film and television actor, director and screenwriter. He is known for his roles in the Hollywood films Breaking Away and he also starred in the horror comedy film Otis. Stern was born in Bethesda, Maryland, to a social worker father and his brother is television writer David M. Stern. During his years at Bethesda-Chevy Chase High School, Stern starred in theater productions. Baxter in Promises, Promises and Tevye in Fiddler on the Roof. Stern applied for a job as an engineer for a Shakespeare Festival in Washington, D. C. but was hired as a walk-on in their production of The Taming of the Shrew. He dropped out of school in his senior year and soon moved to New York. He acted in productions at The Public Theater, Ensemble Studio Theater, Cherry Lane Theater. In 1979, Stern made his debut as Cyril in Breaking Away. The following year he played a student who raised objections during Jill Clayburghs proof of the lemma in the film Its My Turn. His breakthrough role as Laurence Shrevie Schreiber came in Barry Levinsons Diner and he had another early film role in the 1984 horror film C. H. U. D. as the soup kitchen C. H. U. D. He appeared in two films with Woody Allen, Stardust Memories and Hannah and Her Sisters, however, he declined to play the character once again in the future installments of the franchise. He also starred as Max in Bushwhacked and he provided the voice of the narrator on the TV series The Wonder Years, which starred Fred Savage as Kevin Arnold. As narrator, Stern played the adult Kevin Arnold, remembering his youth, Stern and Savage were also featured together in Little Monsters, in which Stern played the father of Savages character. In the late 1990s, Stern took on a serious role in the black comedy Very Bad Things with Christian Slater, Cameron Diaz. Stern provided the voice for the character of the Dilbert animated TV series. Stern directed several episodes of The Wonder Years and the 1993 feature film Rookie of the Year, Stern created, wrote and starred in the CBS television show Danny. He wrote the off-Broadway hit Barbras Wedding, which was produced by The Dodgers and it starred John Pankow and Julie White and ran for six months
20.
Joe Pesci
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Joseph Frank Joe Pesci is an American actor, singer, musician and comedian. Known for playing tough, volatile characters, in a variety of genres and he is best known for a trio of Martin Scorsese films in which he co-starred with Robert De Niro, Raging Bull, Goodfellas and Casino. Pesci was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his role in Raging Bull, Pesci was born on February 9,1943, in Newark, New Jersey. His mother, Mary, worked part-time as a barber, and his father, Angelo Pesci, was a driver for General Motors. Pesci, of Italian descent, was raised in Belleville, New Jersey, by the time Pesci was five years old, he was appearing in plays in New York. At age 10, he was a regular on a variety show called Startime Kids which also featured Connie Francis. In the 1960s, Pesci began working as a barber, following in his mothers footsteps, at the same time, he tried to start a musical career, playing guitar with several bands. In 1968, he released the album Little Joe Sure Can Sing. on which he sang covers of pop hits. In the late 1960s and early 1970s, Pesci joined fellow actor Frank Vincent in performing in clubs including the Arlington Lounge and other venues around North Jersey as Vincent. The comedy duos material was a play on Martin and Lewis and Abbott, in 1975, they appeared in the Broadway show The New Vaudevillians, which only lasted one week. The first film Pesci starred in was the 1976 low-budget crime film The Death Collector alongside Frank Vincent, after the film Pesci returned to The Bronx and lived above Amicis Restaurant, where he was an employee. Pesci won the BAFTA Film Award for Newcomer to Leading Film Roles in 1981 and was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor, over the next few years, Pesci appeared in several smaller films, including Dear Mr. Wonderful, Easy Money and Eureka. In 1984, he was cast in Once Upon a Time in America, next year he starred as private detective Rocky Nelson in the short-lived television comedy series Half Nelson. In 1988, Pesci appeared in the Michael Jackson musical anthology film Moonwalker, in the sixth and longest segment. He played the antagonist, crime boss Frankie Mr. Big LiDeo and he appeared as Leo Getz in the Lethal Weapon sequels, released in 1989,1992 and 1998. In 1990, he reunited with Scorsese and De Niro for Goodfellas, Pesci received the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for the role, which he accepted with one of the shortest speeches in Oscar history, saying simply, Its my privilege. Thank you, before leaving the stage, Pesci also co-starred in the blockbuster Home Alone in 1990, playing Harry Lime, one of two bumbling burglars who attempt to burgle the house of the young character played by Macaulay Culkin. In the films climactic scene, Pesci accidentally bit one of Culkins fingers, two years later, Pesci reprised his role in the sequel Home Alone 2, Lost in New York
21.
Evanston, Illinois
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It is one of the North Shore communities that adjoin Lake Michigan and is the home of Northwestern University. The boundaries of the city of Evanston are coterminous with those of the former Evanston Township, prior to the 1830s, the area now occupied by Evanston was mainly uninhabited, consisting largely of wetlands and swampy forest. However, Potawatomi Indians used trails along higher lying ridges that ran in a general direction through the area. French explorers referred to the area as Grosse Pointe after a point of land jutting into Lake Michigan about 13 miles north of the mouth of the Chicago River. The area remained sparsely settled, supporting some farming and lumber activity on some of the higher ground. The 1850 census shows a few hundred settlers in this township, in 1851, a group of Methodist business leaders founded Northwestern University and Garrett Biblical Institute. They chose a bluffed and wooded site along the lake as Northwesterns home, purchasing several hundred acres of land from Dr. John Foster, a Chicago farm owner. In 1854, the founders of Northwestern submitted to the county judge their plans for a city to be named Evanston after John Evans, in 1857, the request was granted. The township of Evanston was split off from Ridgeville Township, at approximately the same time, the nine founders, including John Evans, Orrington Lunt, and Andrew Brown, hoped their university would attain high standards of intellectual excellence. Today these hopes have been fulfilled, as Northwestern consistently ranks with the best of the nations universities, Evanston was formally incorporated as a town on December 29,1863, but declined in 1869 to become a city despite the Illinois legislature passing a bill for that purpose. Evanston expanded after the Civil War with the annexation of the village of North Evanston, finally, in early 1892, following the annexation of the village of South Evanston, voters elected to organize as a city. The 1892 boundaries are largely those that exist today, during the 1960s, Northwestern University changed the citys shoreline by adding a 74-acre lakefill. In 1939, Evanston hosted the first NCAA basketball championship final at Northwestern Universitys Patten Gymnasium, in August 1954, Evanston hosted the second assembly of the World Council of Churches, still the only WCC assembly to have been held in the United States. President Dwight Eisenhower welcomed the delegates, and Dag Hammarskjöld, secretary-general of the United Nations, Evanston first received power in April 1893. Many people lined the streets on Emerson St. where the first appearance of lights were lined and turned on. Evanston is the birthplace of Tinkertoys, and Evanston, along with Ithaca, New York, Two Rivers, Wisconsin, Evanston was the home of the Clayton Mark and Company, which for many years supplied the most jobs. Evanston was a dry community from 1858 until 1972, when the City Council voted to allow restaurants, in 1984, the Council voted to allow retail liquor outlets within the city limits. According to the 2010 census, Evanston has an area of 7.802 square miles
22.
O'Hare International Airport
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It is the primary airport serving the Chicago metropolitan area, with Midway International Airport, about 10 miles closer to the Loop, serving as a secondary airport. It is operated by the City of Chicago Department of Aviation, OHare was the busiest airport in the world by number of takeoffs and landings in 2014, topping Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport, however, it lost the title to Atlanta a year later. Until 1998, OHare was also the worlds busiest airport in number of passengers and it was surpassed mainly due to limits the federal government imposed on the airport to reduce flight delays. As of 2016, OHare is the sixth-busiest airport in the world by passenger traffic, the third-busiest airport in the United States, OHare also has eight runways, more than any major international airport. OHare is a hub for American Airlines and United Airlines, as well as a hub for regional carrier Air Choice One. OHare was voted the Best Airport in North America for 10 years by two sources, Readers of the U. S. Edition of Business Traveler Magazine and Global Traveler Magazine, in contrast, Travel and Leisure magazines 2009 Americas Favorite Cities ranked Chicagos Airport System the second-worst for delays, behind the New York City airport system. OHare accounts for nearly 20% of the flight cancellations and delays. OHare was constructed in 1942–43 as part of a plant for Douglas C-54s during World War II. The site was chosen for its proximity to the city and transportation, the two-million-square-foot factory needed easy access to the workforce of the nations then-second-largest city, as well as its extensive railroad infrastructure. Orchard Place was a small farming community. Douglas Companys contract ended in 1945 and though plans were proposed to build commercial aircraft, with the departure of Douglas, the airfield took the name of Orchard Field Airport, the source of its three-letter IATA code ORD. In 1945, the city of Chicago chose Orchard Field as the site for a facility to meet future aviation demands, Matthew Laflin Rockwell was the director of planning for the U. S. Army Corps of Engineers and responsible for the site selection and design. He was the great-grandson of Matthew Laflin, a founder and pioneer of Chicago, in 1949, the airport was renamed OHare International Airport to honor Edward OHare, the U. S. Navys first flying ace and Medal of Honor recipient in World War II. (This is similar to, sourced from McCoy Air Force Base, being used for todays Orlando International Airport, by the early 1950s Midway Airport, Chicagos main airport since 1931, was the worlds busiest airport and was too crowded despite multiple expansions. Midways runways were known to be too short for the planned first generation of jets, so the city of Chicago, traveling with him, LT Whitey Feightner was redirected to land at OHare. The runway had just been completed and was covered with peach baskets to prevent aircraft from landing until it was opened, LT Feightner was told to ignore the baskets and land on the new runway, and his F7U became the first aircraft to land there. OHare opened a $1 million Skymotive terminal for corporate aircraft in 1955, the April 1957 Official Airline Guide shows 10 weekday departures on United,9 on American,6 on Capital,3 Eastern,3 TWA,2 Delta,2 North Central, and 1 Braniff
23.
Universal Music Group
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Universal Music Group is an American-French global music corporation that is a subsidiary of the Paris-based French media conglomerate Vivendi. UMGs global corporate headquarters are in Santa Monica, California and it is considered one of the Big Three record labels, along with Warner Music Group and Sony Music Entertainment. Universal Music was once the music attached to film studio Universal Pictures and its origins go back to the formation of the American branch of Decca Records in September 1934. The Decca Record Co. Ltd. of England spun American Decca off in 1939, MCA Inc. merged with American Decca in 1962. The present organization was formed when its parent company Seagram purchased PolyGram in May 1998, however, the name had first appeared in 1996 when MCA Music Entertainment Group was renamed Universal Music Group. The PolyGram acquisition included Deutsche Grammophon which traces its ancestry to Berliner Gramophone making Deutsche Grammophon UMGs oldest unit, UMGs Canadian unit traces its ancestry to a Berliner Gramophone breakaway firm the Compo Company. With the 2004 acquisition of Universal Studios by General Electric and merging with GEs NBC and this is the second time a music company has done so, the first being the separation of Time Warner and Warner Music Group. On June 25,2007, Vivendi completed its €1.63 billion purchase of BMG Music Publishing, after receiving European Union regulatory approval, doug Morris stepped down from his position as CEO on January 1,2011. Former chairman/CEO of Universal Music International Lucian Grainge was promoted to CEO of the company, Grainge later replaced him as chairman on March 9,2011. Morris became the chairman of Sony Music Entertainment on July 1,2011. With Grainges appointment as CEO at UMG, Max Hole was promoted to COO of UMGI, starting in 2011 UMGs Interscope Geffen A&M Records will be signing contestants from American Idol/Idol series. On January 2011, UMG announced it was donating 200,000 master recordings from the 1920s to 1940s to the Library of Congress for preservation, in March 2011, Barry Weiss became chairman & CEO of The Island Def Jam Music Group & Universal Republic Records. Both companies are restructuring under Weiss, in December 2011, David Foster was named Chairman of Verve Music Group. Among the other companies that had competed for the music business was Warner Music Group which was reported to have made a $2 billion bid. However, IMPALA has said it would fight the merger, coincidentally, UMG sister company StudioCanal has owned the EMI Films library for several years. On September 21,2012, the sale of EMI to UMG was approved in Europe, UMG divested Mute Records, Parlophone, Roxy Recordings, MPS Records, Cooperative Music, Now Thats What I Call Music. Jazzland, Universal Greece, Sanctuary Records, Chrysalis Records, EMI Classics, Virgin Classics, the Beatles recorded music library was allowed to remain with UMG despite being considered part of Parlophone and is now managed by UMGs reorganized Capitol Music Group worldwide. Robbie Williams, who had recorded for Chrysalis, had his transferred to Universals Island Records
24.
Almost Grown (song)
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Almost Grown is a song written and recorded by Chuck Berry. It was released as a double A-side with Little Queenie, the song is featured in the 1973 film American Graffiti. The background vocals on Berrys recording are by Etta James and Harvey & the New Moonglows,7 Vinyl Almost Grown Little Queenie The song reached number thirty-two on the Billboard Hot 100 chart and number three on the Billboard R&B chart
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Chuck Berry
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Charles Edward Anderson Chuck Berry was an American guitarist, singer and songwriter and one of the pioneers of rock and roll music. With songs such as Maybellene, Roll Over Beethoven, Rock and Roll Music, Goode, Berry refined and developed rhythm and blues into the major elements that made rock and roll distinctive. Writing lyrics that focused on teen life and consumerism, and developing a style that included guitar solos and showmanship. Born into a middle-class African-American family in St. Louis, Missouri, Berry had an interest in music from an early age, while still a high school student he was convicted of armed robbery and was sent to a reformatory, where he was held from 1944 to 1947. After his release, Berry settled into married life and worked at an assembly plant. By early 1953, influenced by the guitar riffs and showmanship techniques of the blues musician T-Bone Walker and his break came when he traveled to Chicago in May 1955 and met Muddy Waters, who suggested he contact Leonard Chess, of Chess Records. With Chess, he recorded Maybellene—Berrys adaptation of the country song Ida Red—which sold over a million copies, reaching number one on Billboard magazines rhythm and blues chart. By the end of the 1950s, Berry was a star, with several hit records and film appearances. He had also established his own St. Louis nightclub, Berrys Club Bandstand, but in January 1962, he was sentenced to three years in prison for offenses under the Mann Act—he had transported a 14-year-old girl across state lines. After his release in 1963, Berry had several hits, including No Particular Place to Go, You Never Can Tell. His insistence on being paid in cash led in 1979 to a jail sentence and community service. Berry is included in several of Rolling Stone magazines greatest of all time lists, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fames 500 Songs That Shaped Rock and Roll includes three of Berrys, Johnny B. Goode, Maybellene, and Rock and Roll Music, Berrys Johnny B. Goode is the only rock-and-roll song included on the Voyager Golden Record. Born in St. Louis, Missouri, Berry was the child in a family of six. He grew up in the north St. Louis neighborhood known as the Ville and his father, Henry William Berry, was a contractor and deacon of a nearby Baptist church, his mother, Martha Bell, was a certified public school principal. His upbringing allowed him to pursue his interest in music from an early age, Berrys account in his autobiography is that his car broke down and he flagged down a passing car and stole it at gunpoint with a nonfunctional pistol. He was convicted and sent to the Intermediate Reformatory for Young Men at Algoa, near Jefferson City, Missouri, the singing group became competent enough that the authorities allowed it to perform outside the detention facility. Berry was released from the reformatory on his 21st birthday in 1947, on October 28,1948, Berry married Themetta Toddy Suggs, who gave birth to Darlin Ingrid Berry on October 3,1950
26.
Bad, Bad Leroy Brown
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Bad, Bad Leroy Brown is a song written by American folk rock singer Jim Croce. Released as part of his 1973 album Life and Times, the song was a Number One pop hit for him, Billboard ranked it as the No.2 song for 1973. Croce was nominated for two 1973 Grammy awards in the Pop Male Vocalist and Record of the Year categories for Bad, Bad Leroy Brown and it was his last number-one single before his death on September 20. The songs title character is a man from the South Side of Chicago who, due to his size and attitude, has a reputation as the baddest man in the whole damn town. One day, in a bar, he makes a pass at a pretty, married woman named Doris, in the end, Leroy Brown learns a lesson from this painful experience. During the lyrics about the fight, some background voices are heard quietly speaking, in the song, Jim Croce refers to a custom Continental and an El Dorado. People often wonder what this means, both these names referred to very luxury American cars back in the day. A custom Continental is a Lincoln, and an El Dorado is a Cadillac, only very wealthy people could afford these cars, and Leroy Brown was one of them. The story of a feared man being bested in a fight is similar to Croces earlier song You Dont Mess Around With Jim. Croces inspiration for the song was a friend he met in his time in the US Army, I met him at Fort Jackson. We were in school together. He stayed there about a week, and one evening he turned around and said he was fed up. He went AWOL, and then back at the end of the month to get his paycheck. They put handcuffs on him and took him away, just to listen to him talk and see how bad he was, I knew someday I was gonna write a song about him. He told a variation of this story on The Helen Reddy Show in July 1973 and it was at Fort Dix, in New Jersey, that I met this guy. So he went AWOL—which means to take your own vacation—and he did, but he made the mistake of coming back at the end of the month to get his paycheck. I dont know if ever seen handcuffs put on anybody, but it was SNAP and that was the end of it for a good friend of mine. I got to know many junkyards well, and they all have those dogs in them
27.
Jim Croce
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James Joseph Jim Croce was an American folk and popular rock singer of the late 1960s and early 1970s. Between 1966 and 1973, Croce released five albums and singles. His songs Bad, Bad Leroy Brown and Time in a Bottle reached No.1 on the U. S. Billboard Hot 100 chart, Croce was born in South Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, to James Albert Croce and Flora Mary Croce, both Italian Americans. Croce took a strong interest in music at a young age, at five, he learned to play his first song on the accordion, Lady of Spain. Croce attended Upper Darby High School in Upper Darby Township, Delaware County, graduating in 1960, he studied at Malvern Preparatory School for a year before enrolling at Villanova University, where he majored in psychology and minored in German. He graduated with a degree in 1965. Croce was a member of the Villanova Singers and the Villanova Spires, when the Spires performed off-campus or made recordings, they were known as The Coventry Lads. Croce was also a student disc jockey at WKVU. anything, Croces band was chosen for a foreign exchange tour of Africa, the Middle East, and Yugoslavia. He later said, We just ate what the people ate, lived in the woods, of course they didnt speak English over there but if you mean what youre singing, people understand. On November 29,1963 Croce met his future wife Ingrid Jacobson at the Philadelphia Convention Hall during a hootenanny, Croce released his first album, Facets, in 1966, with 500 copies pressed. The album had been financed with a wedding gift from Croces parents. They hoped that he would give up music after the album failed, however, the album proved a success, with every copy sold. From the mid-1960s to early 1970s, Croce performed with his wife as a duo, at first, their performances included songs by artists such as Ian & Sylvia, Gordon Lightfoot, Joan Baez, and Woody Guthrie, but in time they began writing their own music. During this time, Croce got his first long-term gig at a bar and steakhouse in Lima, Pennsylvania. His set list covered several genres, including blues, country, rock and roll, Croce married his wife Ingrid in 1966, and converted to Judaism, as his wife was Jewish. He and Ingrid were married in a traditional Jewish ceremony and he enlisted in the Army National Guard that same year to avoid being drafted and deployed to Vietnam, and served on active duty for four months, leaving for duty a week after his honeymoon. Croce, who was not good with authority, had to go through basic training twice and he said he would be prepared if theres ever a war where we have to defend ourselves with mops. In 1968, the Croces were encouraged by record producer Tommy West to move to New York City, the couple spent time in the Kingsbridge section of the Bronx and recorded their first album with Capitol Records
28.
Green-Eyed Lady
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Green-Eyed Lady is a popular single by the 1970s rock band Sugarloaf. Written by band member Jerry Corbetta along with J. C. Phillips and David Riordan, the song was featured on the debut album, Sugarloaf. It peaked at three on the Billboard Hot 100 in 1970 and was RPM Magazines number one single for two weeks. It remains the bands most popular song, according to the Last. fm rankings and it has been featured on dozens of compilation albums. The original single release was a 5,58 version with no edits but an early fadeout and this was later trimmed down to 2,58 in which the entire organ and guitar solos are edited out. Aside from other minor edits, the two shorter tracks begin with the third bar and also end with early fadeouts. All three versions were released under the catalog number. The song received positive reviews. One reviewer called the jazzy and memorable, while John Laycock of the Windsor Star called it a bewitching single. Four years later, Sugarloaf described the process of recording the song and selling it to the industry in its song Dont Call Us, Well Call You. The song is featured in the 1997 comedy film Home Alone 3, starring Alex D. Linz, the song has been covered by Pat Travers, Lifeunderwater and My Sisters Machine. San Francisco experimental rock band Thinking Fellers Union Local 282 released a version of the song on their 1991 album Lovelyville and it was also sampled by Jordan Knight for his song, A Different Party. Lyrics of this song at MetroLyrics
29.
Sugarloaf (band)
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Sugarloaf was an American rock band in the 1970s. The band, which originated in Denver, Colorado, scored two Top 10 hits, with the singles Green-Eyed Lady and Dont Call Us, Well Call You, lead vocalist and keyboardist Jerry Corbetta, along with guitarist Bob Webber, played together in the Denver-based band Moonrakers. The Moonrakers had evolved from the early 1960s band The Classics —various members of all three incarnations would later appear on Sugarloaf songs. In late 1968, Corbetta and Webber formed the band Chocolate Hair, including drummer Myron Pollock, whod played previously with Corbetta, plus Webbers friend, Corbetta and Webber were signed to Frank Slay at this time and began recording demos during 1969. Slay got Chocolate Hair signed to Liberty Records after Liberty liked the demos the band presented to them, Slay then ended up having them put the demos on the album since they sounded so good. In September 1969 Myron Pollock decided to leave the group and the drummer for The Surfin Classics. Just before the release, however, the legal department at Liberty suggested the name Chocolate Hair might be taken as having racial overtones. The bandmembers agreed to change their moniker to Sugarloaf, the name of a mountain outside of Boulder, Colorado, Green-Eyed Lady was written by Corbetta along with Ray Paynes Sweet Pain collaborators J. C. Phillips and David Riordan. The single went on to peak at No.3 on the Billboard chart in October 1970, just after the first albums release, the group added member singer/guitarist/composer Bob Yeazel. Yeazel had previously played in Superband with Jimmy Greenspoon, who would go on to join Three Dog Night, Yeazel would feature heavily on Sugarloafs second album, Spaceship Earth, which would only manage to make No. 111, while the two taken from it, Tongue-In-Cheek and Mother Natures Wine, would peak at No.55. During 1970 and 1971, Sugarloaf had a touring schedule that included appearances with The Who, Deep Purple, Eric Burdon & War. On March 16,1971 they performed at a party for the 13th Annual Grammy Awards with Aretha Franklin, Three Dog Night. The band became a sextet when they welcomed bassist Bobby Pickett on May 16,1971 and six days later, they appeared on American Bandstand to play Green Eyed Lady, in 1972 Sugarloaf played on the single I. O. I. O. A cover of a Bee Gees song recorded by TV actor Butch Patrick that was produced by Frank Slay, Bob Yeazel and Bobby Pickett left Sugarloaf sometime in mid to late 1972. Pickett later went on to perform with Etta James, Gregg Allman, Yeazel stayed in music for a while playing in various bands, then took an eight-year break from performing before he once again began touring, writing songs and recording demos. This iteration of Sugarloaf played a spot on The Midnight Special that aired on April 19,1974 and this song was notable because it contained a practical joke at the expense of CBS Records, which had just turned them down for a recording contract. The song includes the sound of a telephone number being dialed near the beginning and ending of the song
