Native Americans in the United States
Native Americans known as American Indians, Indigenous Americans and other terms, are the indigenous peoples of the United States, except Hawaii. There are over 500 federally recognized tribes within the US, about half of which are associated with Indian reservations; the term "American Indian" excludes Native Hawaiians and some Alaska Natives, while Native Americans are American Indians, plus Alaska Natives of all ethnicities. Native Hawaiians are not counted as Native Americans by the US Census, instead being included in the Census grouping of "Native Hawaiian and other Pacific Islander"; the ancestors of modern Native Americans arrived in what is now the United States at least 15,000 years ago much earlier, from Asia via Beringia. A vast variety of peoples and cultures subsequently developed. Native Americans were affected by the European colonization of the Americas, which began in 1492, their population declined precipitously due to introduced diseases as well as warfare, territorial confiscation and slavery.
After the founding of the United States, many Native American peoples were subjected to warfare and one-sided treaties, they continued to suffer from discriminatory government policies into the 20th century. Since the 1960s, Native American self-determination movements have resulted in changes to the lives of Native Americans, though there are still many contemporary issues faced by Native Americans. Today, there are over five million Native Americans in the United States, 78% of whom live outside reservations; when the United States was created, established Native American tribes were considered semi-independent nations, as they lived in communities separate from British settlers. The federal government signed treaties at a government-to-government level until the Indian Appropriations Act of 1871 ended recognition of independent native nations, started treating them as "domestic dependent nations" subject to federal law; this law did preserve the rights and privileges agreed to under the treaties, including a large degree of tribal sovereignty.
For this reason, many Native American reservations are still independent of state law and actions of tribal citizens on these reservations are subject only to tribal courts and federal law. The Indian Citizenship Act of 1924 granted U. S. citizenship to all Native Americans born in the United States. This emptied the "Indians not taxed" category established by the United States Constitution, allowed natives to vote in state and federal elections, extended the Fourteenth Amendment protections granted to people "subject to the jurisdiction" of the United States. However, some states continued to deny Native Americans voting rights for several decades. Bill of Rights protections do not apply to tribal governments, except for those mandated by the Indian Civil Rights Act of 1968. Since the end of the 15th century, the migration of Europeans to the Americas has led to centuries of population and agricultural transfer and adjustment between Old and New World societies, a process known as the Columbian exchange.
As most Native American groups had preserved their histories by oral traditions and artwork, the first written sources of the conflict were written by Europeans. Ethnographers classify the indigenous peoples of North America into ten geographical regions with shared cultural traits, called cultural areas; some scholars combine the Plateau and Great Basin regions into the Intermontane West, some separate Prairie peoples from Great Plains peoples, while some separate Great Lakes tribes from the Northeastern Woodlands. The ten cultural areas are as follows: Arctic, including Aleut and Yupik peoples Subarctic Northeastern Woodlands Southeastern Woodlands Great Plains Great Basin Northwest Plateau Northwest Coast California Southwest At the time of the first contact, the indigenous cultures were quite different from those of the proto-industrial and Christian immigrants; some Northeastern and Southwestern cultures, in particular, were matrilineal and operated on a more collective basis than that with which Europeans were familiar.
The majority of Indigenous American tribes maintained their hunting grounds and agricultural lands for use of the entire tribe. Europeans at that time had patriarchal cultures and had developed concepts of individual property rights with respect to land that were different; the differences in cultures between the established Native Americans and immigrant Europeans, as well as shifting alliances among different nations in times of war, caused extensive political tension, ethnic violence, social disruption. Before the European settlement of what is now the United States, Native Americans suffered high fatalities from contact with new European diseases, to which they had not yet acquired immunity. Smallpox epidemics are thought to have caused the greatest loss of life for indigenous populations. William M Denevan, noted author and Professor Emeritus of Geography at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, said on this subject in his essay "The Pristine Myth: The Landscape of the Americas in 1492".
Old World diseases were the primary killer. In many regions the tropical lowlands, populations fell by 90 percent or more in the first century after the contact. "Estimates of the pre-Columbian population of what today constitutes the U. S. vary ranging from William M Denevan's 3.8 million in his 1992 w
Twelfth grade
Twelfth grade, senior year, or grade 12 is the final year of secondary school in most of North America. In other regions it is equivalently referred to as class 12 or Year 13. In most countries students graduate at age 18; some countries have a thirteenth grade. Twelfth grade is the last year of high school. In Australia, the twelfth grade is referred to as Year 12. In New South Wales, students are 16 or 17 years old when they enter Year 12 and 17–18 years during graduation. A majority of students in Year 12 work towards getting an ATAR or OP, which will allow them access to courses at university. In South Australia, this is achieved by completing the SACE. In New South Wales, when completing the, students are required to satisfactorily complete at least 10 units of study in ATAR courses which must include: eight units from Category A courses two units of English three Board Developed courses of two units or greater four subjectsSome Year 12s may receive a Year 12 Jersey. Schools choose the design and writing which are printed or stitched onto the jersey.
Sometimes the last two digits of the year they are graduating are printed on the back along with a personalised nickname. The front may show the school emblem and the student's name, stitched in. Many schools conduct end of year "formals", they are held from any time between graduation in September to November. Australian private schools conduct Year 12 balls in January or February of Year 12 instead of an end of year formal. In Belgium, the 12th grade is called 6de middelbaar or laatste jaar in Dutch, rétho or 6e année in French. In the General Education, this year guides and prepares students for their first year in University by recalling everything learned during the past six years of secondary school. In the Skills Education, this year prepares the students for the professional life with an Intership in the chosen domain. In Brazil, the 12th grade is called terceiro ano do ensino médio informally called terceiro colegial, meaning third grade of high school, it is attended by 17–18 years old students.
During this grade, most students apply to what is called Exame Nacional do Ensino Médio, the Brazilian equivalent of the SATs in the US, vestibular, the individual entrance examination particular to each university. As in many countries, Grade 12 students attend Graduation, which involves a formal official ceremony, a party where students and friends are invited and another party just for the students. In Bulgaria the twelfth grade is the last year of high-school. Twelfth-grade students tend to be 18–19 years old. Students are preparing to take the Matriculation exam in the end of their 2nd semester. In Canada, the twelfth grade is referred to as Grade 12. Students enter their Grade 12 year when they are 16 or 17 years old. If they are 16 years old, they will be turning 17 by December 31 of that year. In many Canadian high schools, student during their year, hold a series of fundraisers, grade-class trips, other social events. Grade 12 Canadian students attend Graduation which involves an official ceremony and a dinner dance.
Ontario had Grade 13, renamed Ontario Academic Credit, before being phased out, leaving Grade 12 as the final year. Grades 12 and 13 were similar to sixth form in England. Quebec is the lone province that does not have Grade 12. Thus, when a student is in Grade 12 in Ontario, for instance, the student in Quebec is in his first year of college. Newfoundland and Labrador did not introduce Grade 12 until 1983. In Denmark, the twelfth grade is the 3rd G, the final year of secondary school. G is equivalent to gymnasium; this is not compulsory. Students are 18-19 or older when they finish secondary school; the age of graduation is caused by the fact that Danish children first start school at 6. The reason that many students will be at the age of 20 when they graduate is because some people choose to have one-year gap between the 9th grade and gymnasium's 1st G, where students go to special art- or sport-oriented boarding schools or become exchange students all over the world; this is optional though. The twelfth grade is the third and last year of High School or secondary school The students graduate from High School the year they turn 19.
The twelfth grade is shorter than the previous ones because the twelfth graders lessons end in February and they go on to take their final exams shortly afterwards. Compulsory education ends after the ninth grade, so the upper grades are optional; the equivalent grade in this country is Terminale, it is the third and last year of lycée, equivalent to High-School, upon completion of which students sit for a test, the Baccalauréat. French-language schools that teach the French government curriculum use the same system of grades as their counterparts in France; this is not compulsory, as education is only
Chicago
Chicago the City of Chicago, is the most populous city in Illinois, as well as the third most populous city in the United States. With an estimated population of 2,716,450, it is the most populous city in the Midwest. Chicago is the principal city of the Chicago metropolitan area referred to as Chicagoland, the county seat of Cook County, the second most populous county in the United States; the metropolitan area, at nearly 10 million people, is the third-largest in the United States, the fourth largest in North America and the third largest metropolitan area in the world by land area. Located on the shores of freshwater Lake Michigan, Chicago was incorporated as a city in 1837 near a portage between the Great Lakes and the Mississippi River watershed and grew in the mid-nineteenth century. After the Great Chicago Fire of 1871, which destroyed several square miles and left more than 100,000 homeless, the city made a concerted effort to rebuild; the construction boom accelerated population growth throughout the following decades, by 1900 Chicago was the fifth largest city in the world.
Chicago made noted contributions to urban planning and zoning standards, including new construction styles, the development of the City Beautiful Movement, the steel-framed skyscraper. Chicago is an international hub for finance, commerce, technology, telecommunications, transportation, it is the site of the creation of the first standardized futures contracts at the Chicago Board of Trade, which today is the largest and most diverse derivatives market gobally, generating 20% of all volume in commodities and financial futures. O'Hare International Airport is the one of the busiest airports in the world, the region has the largest number of U. S. highways and greatest amount of railroad freight. In 2012, Chicago was listed as an alpha global city by the Globalization and World Cities Research Network, it ranked seventh in the entire world in the 2017 Global Cities Index; the Chicago area has one of the highest gross domestic products in the world, generating $680 billion in 2017. In addition, the city has one of the world's most diversified and balanced economies, not being dependent on any one industry, with no single industry employing more than 14% of the workforce.
Chicago's 58 million domestic and international visitors in 2018, made it the second most visited city in the nation, behind New York City's approximate 65 million visitors. The city ranked first place in the 2018 Time Out City Life Index, a global quality of life survey of 15,000 people in 32 cities. Landmarks in the city include Millennium Park, Navy Pier, the Magnificent Mile, the Art Institute of Chicago, Museum Campus, the Willis Tower, Grant Park, the Museum of Science and Industry, Lincoln Park Zoo. Chicago's culture includes the visual arts, film, comedy and music jazz, soul, hip-hop and electronic dance music including house music. Of the area's many colleges and universities, the University of Chicago, Northwestern University, the University of Illinois at Chicago are classified as "highest research" doctoral universities. Chicago has professional sports teams in each of the major professional leagues, including two Major League Baseball teams; the name "Chicago" is derived from a French rendering of the indigenous Miami-Illinois word shikaakwa for a wild relative of the onion, known to botanists as Allium tricoccum and known more as ramps.
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 eponymous wild "garlic" grew abundantly in the area. According to his diary of late September 1687:...when we arrived at the said place called "Chicagou" which, according to what we were able to learn of it, has taken this name because of the quantity of garlic which grows in the forests in this region. The city has had several nicknames throughout its history such as the Windy City, Chi-Town, Second City, the City of the Big Shoulders, which refers to the city's numerous skyscrapers and high-rises. In the mid-18th century, the area was inhabited by a Native American tribe known as the Potawatomi, who had taken the place of the Miami and Sauk and Fox peoples; the first known non-indigenous permanent settler in Chicago was Jean Baptiste Point du Sable. Du Sable arrived in the 1780s, he is known as the "Founder of Chicago".
In 1795, following the Northwest Indian War, an area, to be part of Chicago was turned over to the United States for a military post by native tribes in accordance with the Treaty of Greenville. In 1803, the United States Army built Fort Dearborn, destroyed in 1812 in the Battle of Fort Dearborn and rebuilt; the Ottawa 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. Receiver of Public Monies; the City of Chicago was incorporated on Saturday, March 4, 1837, for several decades was the world's fastest-growing city. As the site of the Chicago Portage, the city became an important transportation hub between the eastern and western United States.
Chicago's first railway and Chicago Union Railroad, the Illi
NASCAR Now
NASCAR Now was a NASCAR news and analysis show that aired year round Tuesday through Saturday as a thirty-minute show at 2:00am ET on ESPN2. NASCAR Now, that debuted on February 5, 2007, was broadcast in HD from Bristol and had a daily segment on SportsCenter. ESPN2 aired editions of the show on the day of all NASCAR Sprint Cup Series races, starting with the Daytona 500. A race preview show aired at 10 A. M. ET on race day, with a post-race edition running on ESPN2 on the evening following the event. Unlike its predecessor, RPM 2Night, NASCAR Now covered only NASCAR news and information and there were no highlight restrictions on the program, it was part of ESPN's new television package with NASCAR, which gave them the opportunity to produce and air a daily show about the sanctioning body. Speed Channel had the exclusive rights to produce daily NASCAR magazine shows. Beginning in 2012, the start time of the show was moved from a 5:00pm ET to a 2:00am ET start time due to other conflicts on the network.
The show remained on ESPN2. On June 23, 2014 ESPN announced; the lead host of the show was former Speed Channel anchor Nicole Briscoe. Mike Massaro was another regular host, Allen Bestwick hosted a special "roundtable" edition of the show on Mondays from 2008 to 2010. Bestwick hosted regular editions of the show on other days. In 2008, Marty Smith was named lead reporter for the program after being a "NASCAR Insider" for the show in 2007. NASCAR Insiders for the program included award-winning journalists Tim Cowlishaw, Angelique Chengelis, Terry Blount and David Newton; the program included current drivers Stacy Compton and Boris Said. Here is a list of all of the past personalities on NASCAR Now. Hosts Allen Bestwick: Mike Massaro: Nicole Briscoe: Shannon Spake: Doug Banks: Erik Kuselias: Chris Fowler: Ryan Burr: Analysts Tim Brewer: Stacy Compton: Tim Cowlishaw: Brad Daugherty: Mark Johnson: Boris Said: Rusty Wallace: Ray Evernham: Christopher Harris: Reporters Marty Smith: David Newton: Terry Blount: Angelique Chengelis: Ryan McGee: Ricky Craven: Mike Yam: Marty Reid: Jonathan Coachman: NASCAR Now featured numerous segments that appear both during the show and during evening editions of SportsCenter.
Some of the segments are listed below. Pit Pass: This segment appeared during SportsCenter, when they ran through the top stories in NASCAR with news and debate. Starting Grid: This was the opening segment of the program when they run through the top stories at the hour in the world of NASCAR. Under the Hood: This segment appeared before every commercial break when the host runs through everything coming up on the show. Over the Wall: This segment appeared every week when D. J. Copp goes over. On April 29, 2008, the show hosted a special one-hour edition of NASCAR Now to commemorate Dale Earnhardt Day. On August 19, 2009, President Barack Obama did a live interview on the program after honoring the defending Sprint Cup Series champion Jimmie Johnson and the rest of the 2008 Chase for the Sprint Cup drivers at the White House. NASCAR on ESPN NASCAR Countdown ESPN2 Garage TruckSeries.com: Musburger, Punch Headline ESPN/ABC NASCAR Team Press Release: BREWER, SMITH, CHENGELIS, BLOUNT, NEWTON JOIN ESPN Motor Sports at ESPN.tv NASCAR at ESPN.com
Mixed martial arts
Mixed martial arts is a full-contact combat sport that allows striking and grappling, both standing and on the ground, using techniques from various combat sports and martial arts. The first documented use of the term mixed martial arts was in a review of UFC 1 by television critic Howard Rosenberg in 1993; the term gained popularity when newfullcontact.com one of the largest websites covering the sport and republished the article. The question of who coined the term is subject to debate. During the early 20th century, various mixed-style contests took place throughout Japan, in the countries of the Four Asian Tigers. In Brazil, there was the sport of Vale Tudo, in which fighters from various styles fought with little to no rules; the Gracie family was known to promote Vale Tudo matches as a way to promote their own Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu style. An early high-profile mixed martial arts bout was Masahiko Kimura vs. Hélio Gracie in 1951, fought between judoka Masahiko Kimura and Brazilian jiu jitsu founder Hélio Gracie in Brazil.
In the West, the concept of combining elements of multiple martial arts was popularized by Bruce Lee's Jeet Kune Do during the late 1960s to early 1970s. A precursor to modern MMA was the 1976 Muhammad Ali vs. Antonio Inoki bout, fought between boxer Muhammad Ali and wrestler Antonio Inoki in Japan, where it inspired the foundation of Pancrase in 1993 and Pride Fighting Championships in 1997. In 1980, CV Productions, Inc. created the first regulated MMA league in the United States, called Tough Guy Contest, renamed Battle of the Superfighters. The company sanctioned ten tournaments in Pennsylvania. However, in 1983 the Pennsylvania State Senate passed a bill prohibiting the sport. In 1993, the Gracie family brought Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, developed in Brazil from the 1920s, to the United States by founding the Ultimate Fighting Championship MMA promotion company; the company held an event with no rules due the influence of Art Davie and Rorion Gracie attempting to replicate Vale Tudo fights that existed in Brazil, would implement a different set of rules, which differed from other leagues which were more in favour of realistic fights.
Promoted as a competition to find the most effective martial arts for real unarmed combat, competitors from different fighting styles were pitted against one another in contests with few rules. Individual fighters incorporated multiple martial arts into their style. MMA promoters were pressured to adopt additional rules to increase competitors' safety, to comply with sport regulations and to broaden mainstream acceptance of the sport. Following these changes, the sport has seen increased popularity with a pay-per-view business that rivals boxing and professional wrestling. In Ancient Greece, there was a sport called pankration, which featured a combination of grappling and striking skills similar to those found in modern MMA. Pankration was formed by a combination of the established wrestling and boxing traditions and, in Olympic terms, first featured in the 33rd Olympiad in 648 BC. All strikes and holds were allowed with the exception of gouging, which were banned; the fighters, called pankratiasts, fought until someone could not continue or signaled submission by raising their index finger.
According to E. Norman Gardiner,'No branch of athletics was more popular than the pankration.' From its origins in Ancient Greece, pankration was passed on to the Romans. In Ancient China, combat sport appeared in the form of Leitai, a no-holds-barred mixed combat sport that combined Chinese martial arts and wrestling. There is evidence of similar mixed combat sports in Ancient Egypt and Japan; the mid-19th century saw the prominence of the new sport savate in the combat sports circle. French savate fighters wanted to test their techniques against the traditional combat styles of its time. In 1852, a contest was held in France between French savateurs and English bare-knuckle boxers in which French fighter Rambaud alias la Resistance fought English fighter Dickinson and won using his kicks. However, the English team still won the four other match-ups during the contest. Contests occurred in the late 19th to mid-20th century between French Savateurs and other combat styles. Examples include a 1905 fight between French savateur George Dubois and a judo practitioner Re-nierand which resulted in the latter winning by submission, as well as the publicized 1957 fight between French savateur and professional boxer Jacques Cayron and a young Japanese karateka named Mochizuki Hiroo which ended when Cayron knocked Hiroo out with a hook.
No-holds-barred fighting took place in the late 1880s when wrestlers representing style of Catch wrestling and many others met in tournaments and music-hall challenge matches throughout Europe. In the USA, the first major encounter between a boxer and a wrestler in modern times took place in 1887 when John L. Sullivan heavyweight world boxing champion, entered the ring with his trainer, wrestling champion William Muldoon, was slammed to the mat in two minutes; the next publicized encounter occurred in the late 1890s when future heavyweight boxing champion Bob Fitzsimmons took on European wrestling champion Ernest Roeber. In September 1901, Frank "Paddy" Slavin, a contender for Sullivan's boxing title, knocked out future world wrestling champion Frank Gotch in Dawson City, Canada; the judo-practitioner Ren-nierand, who gained fame after defeating George Dubois, would fight again in another similar contest, which he lost to Ukrainian Catch wrestler Ivan Poddubny. Another early example of mixed martial arts was Bartitsu, which Edward William Barton-Wright founded i
Ultimate Fighting Championship
The Ultimate Fighting Championship is an American mixed martial arts promotion company based in Las Vegas, owned and operated by parent company William Morris Endeavor. It is the largest MMA promotion company in the world and features the highest-level fighters on the roster; the UFC produces events worldwide that showcase twelve weight divisions and abide by the Unified Rules of Mixed Martial Arts. As of 2018, the UFC has held over 400 events. Dana White serves as the president of the UFC. White has held that position since 2001; the first event was held in 1993 at the McNichols Sports Arena in Colorado. The purpose of the early Ultimate Fighting Championship competitions was to identify the most effective martial art in a contest with minimal rules and no weight classes between competitors of different fighting disciplines like boxing, Brazilian jiu-jitsu, wrestling, Muay Thai and judo. In subsequent events, fighters began adopting effective techniques from more than one discipline, which indirectly helped create an separate style of fighting known as present-day mixed martial arts.
In 2016, UFC's parent company, was sold to a group led by William Morris Endeavor for $4.025 billion. With a TV deal and expansion in Australia, Asia and new markets within the United States, the UFC has increased in popularity, has achieved greater mainstream media coverage. Art Davie proposed to John Milius and Rorion Gracie an eight-man single-elimination tournament called "War of the Worlds"; the tournament was inspired by the Gracies in Action video-series produced by the Gracie family of Brazil which featured Gracie jiu-jitsu students defeating martial-arts masters of various disciplines such as karate, kung fu, kickboxing. The tournament would feature martial artists from different disciplines facing each other in no-holds-barred combat to determine the best martial art and would aim to replicate the excitement of the matches Davie saw on the videos. Milius, a noted film director and screenwriter, as well as a Gracie student, agreed to act as the event's creative director. Davie drafted the business plan and twenty-eight investors contributed the initial capital to start WOW Promotions with the intent to develop the tournament into a television franchise.
In 1993, WOW Promotions sought a television partner and approached pay-per-view producers TVKO and SET, as well as Campbell McLaren and David Isaacs at the Semaphore Entertainment Group. Both TVKO and SET declined, but SEG – a pioneer in pay-per-view television which had produced such offbeat events as a gender versus gender tennis match between Jimmy Connors and Martina Navratilova – became WOW's partner in May 1993. SEG contacted video and film art director Jason Cusson to design the trademarked "Octagon", a signature piece for the event. Cusson remained the Production Designer through UFC 27. SEG devised the name for the show as The Ultimate Fighting Championship. WOW Promotions and SEG produced the first event called UFC 1, at McNichols Sports Arena in Denver, Colorado on November 12, 1993. Art Davie functioned as the show's matchmaker; the show proposed to find an answer for sports fans' questions such as: "Can a wrestler beat a boxer?" As with most martial arts at the time, fighters had skills in just one discipline and had little experience against opponents with different skills.
The television broadcast featured kickboxers Patrick Smith and Kevin Rosier, savate fighter Gerard Gordeau, karate expert Zane Frazier, shootfighter Ken Shamrock, sumo wrestler Teila Tuli, boxer Art Jimmerson, 175 lb Brazilian jiu-jitsu black belt Royce Gracie—younger brother of UFC co-founder Rorion, whom Rorion handpicked to represent his family in the competition. Royce Gracie's submission skills proved the most effective in the inaugural tournament, earning him the first UFC tournament championship after submitting Jimmerson and Gordeau in succession; the show proved successful with 86,592 television subscribers on pay-per-view. It's disputed whether the promoters intended for the event to become a precursor to a series of future events. "That show was only supposed to be a one-off", eventual UFC president Dana White said. "It did so well on pay-per-view they decided to do another, another. Never in a million years did these guys think they were creating a sport." Art Davie, in his 2014 book Is This Legal?, an account of the creation of the first UFC event, disputes the perception that the UFC was seen by WOW Promotions and SEG as a one-off, since SEG offered a five-year joint development deal to WOW.
He says, "Clearly, both Campbell and Meyrowitz shared my unwavering belief that War of the Worlds would be a continuing series of fighting tournaments—a franchise, rather than a one-night stand."With no weight classes, fighters faced larger or taller opponents. Keith "The Giant Killer" Hackney faced Emmanuel Yarbrough at UFC 3 with a 9 in height and 400 pounds weight disadvantage. Many martial artists believed that technique could overcome these size disadvantages, that a skilled fighter could use an opponent's size and strength against him. With the 175 lb Royce Gracie winning three of the first four events, the UFC proved that size does not always determine the outcome of the fight. During this early part of the organization, the UFC would showcase a bevy of different styles and fighters. Aside from the aforementioned Royce Gracie, Ken Shamrock, Pat
NASCAR
The National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing is an American auto racing sanctioning and operating company, best known for stock-car racing. Its three largest or National series are the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series, the Xfinity Series, the Gander Outdoors Truck Series. Regional series include the NASCAR K&N Pro Series East and West, the Whelen Modified Tour, NASCAR Pinty's Series, NASCAR Whelen Euro Series, NASCAR PEAK Mexico Series. NASCAR sanctions over 1,500 races at over 100 tracks in 48 US states as well as in Canada and Europe. NASCAR has presented races at the Suzuka and Motegi circuits in Japan, the Calder Park Thunderdome in Australia. NASCAR ventures into eSports via the PEAK Antifreeze NASCAR iRacing Series and a sanctioned ladder system on that title; the owned company was founded by Bill France Sr. in 1948, Jim France has been CEO since August 6, 2018. The company's headquarters is in Florida. Internationally, its races are broadcast on television in over 150 countries. In the 1920s and 30s, Daytona Beach became known as the place to set world land speed records, supplanting France and Belgium as the preferred location for land speed records, with 8 consecutive world records set between 1927 and 1935.
After a historic race between Ransom Olds and Alexander Winton in 1903, the beach became a mecca for racing enthusiasts and 15 records were set on what became the Daytona Beach Road Course between 1905 and 1935. By the time the Bonneville Salt Flats became the premier location for pursuit of land speed records, Daytona Beach had become synonymous with fast cars in 1936. Drivers raced on a 4.1-mile course, consisting of a 1.5–2.0-mile stretch of beach as one straightaway, a narrow blacktop beachfront highway, State Road A1A, as the other. The two straights were connected by two tight rutted and sand covered turns at each end. Stock car racing in the United States has its origins in bootlegging during Prohibition, when drivers ran bootleg whiskey made in the Appalachian region of the United States. Bootleggers needed to distribute their illicit products, they used small, fast vehicles to better evade the police. Many of the drivers would modify their cars for speed and handling, as well as increased cargo capacity, some of them came to love the fast-paced driving down twisty mountain roads.
The repeal of Prohibition in 1933 dried up some of their business, but by Southerners had developed a taste for moonshine, a number of the drivers continued "runnin' shine", this time evading the "revenuers" who were attempting to tax their operations. The cars continued to improve, by the late 1940s, races featuring these cars were being run for pride and profit; these races were popular entertainment in the rural Southern United States, they are most associated with the Wilkes County region of North Carolina. Most races in those days were of modified cars. Street vehicles were lightened and reinforced. Mechanic William France Sr. moved to Daytona Beach, from Washington, D. C. in 1935 to escape the Great Depression. He was familiar with the history of the area from the land speed record attempts. France entered the 1936 Daytona event, he took over running the course in 1938. He promoted a few races before World War II. France had the notion. Drivers were victimized by unscrupulous promoters who would leave events with all the money before drivers were paid.
In 1947, he decided this racing would not grow without a formal sanctioning organization, standardized rules, regular schedule, an organized championship. On December 14, 1947, France began talks with other influential racers and promoters at the Ebony Bar at the Streamline Hotel at Daytona Beach, that ended with the formation of NASCAR on February 21, 1948; the first Commissioner of NASCAR was Erwin "Cannonball" Baker. A former stock car and open-wheel racer who competed in the Indianapolis 500 and set over one hundred land speed records. Baker earned most of his fame for his transcontinental speed runs and would prove a car's worth by driving it from New York to Los Angeles. After his death, the famous transcontinental race the'Cannonball Run' and the film, inspired by it were both named in his honor. Baker is enshrined in the Automotive Hall of Fame, the Motorcycle Hall of Fame, the Indianapolis Motor Speedway Hall of Fame; this level of honor and success in each diverse racing association earned Baker the title of "King of the Road".
In the early 1950s, the United States Navy stationed Bill France Jr. at the Moffett Federal Airfield in northern California. His father asked him to look up Bob Barkhimer in California. Barkhimer was a star of midget car racing from the World War II era, ran about 22 different speedways as the head of the California Stock Car Racing Association. Young Bill developed a relationship with his partner, Margo Burke, he went to events with them, stayed weekends with them and became familiar with racing on the west coast. "Barky", as he was called by his friends, met with Bill France Sr.. In the spring of 1954, NASCAR became a stock car sanctioning body on the Pacific Coast under Barky. Wendell Scott was the first African-American to win a race in the Grand National Series, NASCAR's highest level, he was posthumously inducted into the NASCAR Hall of Fame in Charlotte, N. C. January 30, 2015. On March 8, 1936, a collection of drivers gathered at Florida; the drivers brought coupes, hardtops and sports cars to compete in an event to determine the fastest cars, best dr
