1.
Spike Lee
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Shelton Jackson Spike Lee is an American film director, producer, writer, and actor. His production company,40 Acres and a Mule Filmworks, has produced over 35 films since 1983, Lee has acted in ten of his own films. Lees movies have examined race relations, colorism in the community, the role of media in contemporary life, urban crime and poverty. Lee was born in Atlanta, Georgia, the son of Jacqueline Carroll, a teacher of arts and black literature, and William James Edward Lee III, a jazz musician and composer. Lee also had three younger siblings Joie, David, and Cinqué, who all worked in different positions in Lees films. Director Malcolm D. Lee is his cousin, when he was a child, the family moved to Brooklyn, New York. His mother nicknamed him Spike during his childhood and he attended John Dewey High School in Brooklyns Gravesend neighborhood. Lee enrolled in Morehouse College, a black college, where he made his first student film. He took film courses at Clark Atlanta University and graduated with a B. A. in mass communication from Morehouse and he did graduate work at New York Universitys Tisch School of the Arts, where he earned a Master of Fine Arts in film & television. In 1991, Lee taught a course at Harvard about filmmaking and it was there that he received his Master of Fine Arts and was appointed Artistic Director in 2002. Lees independent film, Joes Bed-Stuy Barbershop, We Cut Heads, was the first student film to be showcased in Lincoln Centers New Directors/New Films Festival, in 1985, Lee began work on his first feature film, Shes Gotta Have It. With a budget of $175,000, he shot the film in two weeks, when the film was released in 1986, it grossed over $7,000,000 at the U. S. box office. Lees 1989 film Do the Right Thing was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay in 1989, many people, including Hollywoods Kim Basinger, believed that Do the Right Thing also deserved a Best Picture nomination. Driving Miss Daisy won Best Picture that year, after the 1990 release of Mo Better Blues, Lee was accused of antisemitism by the Anti-Defamation League and several film critics. They criticized the characters of the club owners Josh and Moe Flatbush, Lee denied the charge, explaining that he wrote those characters in order to depict how black artists struggled against exploitation. Lee said that Lew Wasserman, Sidney Sheinberg or Tom Pollock and he said he could not make an antisemitic film because Jews run Hollywood, and thats a fact. His 1997 documentary 4 Little Girls, about the killed in the 16th Street Baptist Church bombing in Birmingham. On May 2,2007, the 50th San Francisco International Film Festival honored Spike Lee with the San Francisco Film Societys Directing Award and he received the 2008 Wexner Prize
2.
Wesley Snipes
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Wesley Trent Snipes is an American actor, film producer and martial artist. His prominent film roles include New Jack City, White Men Cant Jump and he formed a production company, Amen-Ra Films, in 1991, and a subsidiary, Black Dot Media, to develop projects for film and television. He has been training in martial arts since the age of 12, earning a 5th dan black belt in Shotokan Karate, Snipes was born in Orlando, Florida, the son of Maryann, a teachers assistant, and Wesley Rudolph Snipes, an aircraft engineer. He grew up in the Bronx, New York and he attended the High School of Performing Arts of Fiorello H. LaGuardia High School of Music & Art and Performing Arts but moved back to Florida before he could graduate. After graduating from Jones High School in Orlando, Snipes returned to New York and he also attended Southwest College in Los Angeles, California. At the age of 23, Snipes was discovered by an agent while performing in a competition and he made his film debut in the 1986 Goldie Hawn vehicle Wildcats. Later that year, he appeared on the TV show Miami Vice as a pimp in the episode Streetwise. In 1987, he appeared as Michael Jacksons nemesis in the Martin Scorsese–directed music video Bad and that same year, Snipes was also considered for the role of Geordi La Forge in the TV series Star Trek, The Next Generation, but the role eventually went to LeVar Burton. Snipes performance in the music video Bad caught the eye of director Spike Lee, Snipes turned down a small role in Lees Do the Right Thing for the larger part of Willie Mays Hayes in Major League, beginning a succession of box-office hits for Snipes. Lee would later cast Snipes as the jazz saxophonist Shadow Henderson in Mo Better Blues and he then played Thomas Flanagan in King of New York opposite Christopher Walken. He played the drug lord Nino Brown in New Jack City and he also played a drug dealer in the 1994 film Sugar Hill. Julie Newmar where he played a drag queen, Snipes has appeared in dramas like The Waterdance and Disappearing Acts. In 1997, he won the Best Actor Volpi Cup at the 54th Venice Film Festival for his performance in New Line Cinemas One Night Stand, in 1998, Snipes had his largest commercial success with Blade, which has grossed over $150 million worldwide. The film turned into a series and he also received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame and an honorary doctorate from his alma mater, SUNY/Purchase. In 2005, Snipes sued New Line Cinema, and David S. Goyer, director of Blade, Trinity, the suit was later settled, but no details were released. He has discussed reprising the role of Blade as part of the Marvel Cinematic Universe and he later appeared in The Contractor, filmed in Bulgaria and the UK, Gallowwalkers, released in 2012, and Game Of Death. Snipes was originally slated to play one of the four leads in Spike Lees 2008 war film Miracle at St. Anna but had to leave the film due to tax problems, his role eventually went to Derek Luke. Snipes made a performance in Brooklyns Finest as Casanova Caz Phillips
3.
Ruby Dee
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Ruby Dee was an American actress, poet, playwright, screenwriter, journalist and civil rights activist. She is perhaps best known for originating the role of Ruth Younger in the stage and her other notable film roles include The Jackie Robinson Story, and Do the Right Thing. She was a Grammy, Emmy, Obie and Drama Desk winner and she was also a National Medal of Arts, Kennedy Center Honors and Screen Actors Guild Life Achievement Award recipient. She was married to Ossie Davis, with whom she frequently performed, Dee was born Ruby Ann Wallace on October 27,1922, in Cleveland, Ohio, the daughter of Gladys and Marshall Edward Nathaniel Wallace, a cook, waiter and porter. After her mother left the family, Dees father remarried, to Emma Amelia Benson, Dee was raised in Harlem, New York. She attended Hunter College High School and went on to graduate from Hunter College with a degree in Romance languages in 1945 and she was a member of Delta Sigma Theta. Dee joined the American Negro Theater as an apprentice, working with Sidney Poitier, Harry Belafonte and she made several appearances on Broadway. Her first onscreen role was in That Man of Mine in 1946 and she received national recognition for her role in the 1950 film The Jackie Robinson Story. She played both roles opposite Poitier, during the 1960s, Dee appeared in such politically charged films as Gone Are the Days and The Incident, which is recognized as helping pave the way for young African-American actors and filmmakers. In 1969, Dee appeared in 20 episodes of Peyton Place and she appeared as Cora Sanders, a Marxist college professor, in the Season 1/Episode 14 of Police Woman, entitled “Target Black which aired on Friday night, January 3,1975. The character of Cora Sanders was obviously, but loosely, influenced by the real-life Angela Y and she appeared in one episode of The Golden Girls sixth season. She played Queen Haley in Roots, The Next Generations, a 1979 miniseries, Dee was nominated for eight Emmy Awards, winning once for her role in the 1990 TV film Decoration Day. She was nominated for her television guest appearance in the China Beach episode and her husband Ossie Davis also appeared in the episode. She appeared in Spike Lees 1989 film Do the Right Thing, in 1995, she and Davis were awarded the National Medal of Arts. They were also recipients of the Kennedy Center Honors in 2004, in 2003, she narrated a series of WPA slave narratives in the HBO film Unchained Memories. In 2007 the winner of the Grammy Award for Best Spoken Word Album was shared by Dee and Ossie Davis for With Ossie And Ruby, In This Life Together, and former President Jimmy Carter. Dee was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress in 2007 for her portrayal of Mama Lucas in American Gangster and she won the Screen Actors Guild award for the same performance. At 83 years of age, Dee is currently the second oldest nominee for Best Supporting Actress and this was Dees only Oscar nomination
4.
Samuel L. Jackson
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Samuel Leroy Jackson is an American actor and film producer. With Jacksons permission, his likeness was used for the Ultimate version of the Marvel Comics character Nick Fury. He has also portrayed the character in the second and final episodes of the first season of the TV show Marvels Agents of S. H. I. E. L. D and he is married to LaTanya Richardson, with whom he has a daughter, Zoe. Samuel L. Jackson is ranked as the highest all-time box office star with over $4.9053 billion total box office gross, Jackson was born in Washington, D. C. the son of Elizabeth and Roy Henry Jackson. He grew up as a child in Chattanooga, Tennessee. His father lived away from the family in Kansas City, Missouri, Jackson only met his father twice during his life. Jackson was raised by his mother, who was a worker and later a supplies buyer for a mental institution. According to DNA tests, Jackson partially descends from the Benga people of Gabon, Jackson attended several segregated schools and graduated from Riverside High School in Chattanooga. Between the third and twelfth grades, he played the French horn, during childhood, he had a stuttering problem. While he eventually learned to pretend to be people who didnt stutter and use the curse word motherfucker as an affirmation word. Initially intent on pursuing a degree in biology, he attended Morehouse College in Atlanta. After joining a local acting group to earn points in a class, Jackson found an interest in acting. Before graduating in 1972, he co-founded the Just Us Theatre, after the 1968 assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr. Jackson attended the funeral in Atlanta as one of the ushers. Jackson then flew to Memphis to join an equal rights protest march, in a Parade interview Jackson revealed, I was angry about the assassination, but I wasnt shocked by it. I knew that change was going to something different – not sit-ins. In 1969, Jackson and several other students held members of the Morehouse College board of trustees hostage on the campus, demanding reform in the schools curriculum and governance. The college eventually agreed to change its policy, but Jackson was charged with and eventually convicted of unlawful confinement, Jackson was then suspended for two years for his criminal record and his actions. He would later return to the college to earn his Bachelor of Arts in Drama in 1972, while he was suspended, Jackson was employed as a social worker in Los Angeles
5.
Halle Berry
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Halle Maria Berry is an American actress. She won the 2002 Academy Award for Best Actress for her performance in the romantic drama Monsters Ball, as of 2017, she is the only black woman to have won a Best Actress Academy Award. Berry was one of the highest paid actresses in Hollywood during the 2000s and has involved in the production of several of the films in which she performed. She is also a Revlon spokesmodel, before becoming an actress, she started modeling and entered several beauty contests, finishing as the 1st runner-up in the Miss USA Pageant and coming in 6th place in the Miss World Pageant in 1986. She then appeared in the X-Men sequels, X2 and X-Men, in the 2010s, she appeared in movies such as the science fiction film Cloud Atlas, the crime thriller The Call and X-Men, Days of Future Past. Berry was formerly married to baseball player David Justice, and singer-songwriter Eric Benét and she has a daughter by model Gabriel Aubry, and a son by actor Olivier Martinez. Berry was born Maria Halle Berry, her name was changed to Halle Maria Berry at age five. Her parents selected her name from Halles Department Store, which was then a local landmark in her birthplace of Cleveland. Her mother, Judith Ann, who is of English and German ancestry, was a psychiatric nurse and her father, Jerome Jesse Berry, was an African-American hospital attendant in the psychiatric ward where her mother worked, he later became a bus driver. Berrys maternal grandmother, Nellie Dicken, was born in Sawley, Derbyshire, England, while her maternal grandfather, Berrys parents divorced when she was four years old, she and her older sister, Heidi Berry-Henderson, were raised exclusively by their mother. Berry has said in published reports that she has been estranged from her father since her childhood, noting in 1992 and her father was very abusive to her mother. Berry has recalled witnessing her mother being beaten daily, kicked down stairs, Berry graduated from Bedford High School where she was a cheerleader, honor student, editor of the school newspaper and prom queen. She worked in the department at Higbees Department store. She then studied at Cuyahoga Community College, in the 1980s, she entered several beauty contests, winning Miss Teen All American in 1985 and Miss Ohio USA in 1986. She was the 1986 Miss USA first runner-up to Christy Fichtner of Texas, in the Miss USA1986 pageant interview competition, she said she hoped to become an entertainer or to have something to do with the media. Her interview was awarded the highest score by the judges and she was the first African-American Miss World entrant in 1986, where she finished sixth and Trinidad and Tobagos Giselle Laronde was crowned Miss World. According to the Current Biography Yearbook, Berry. pursued a career in Chicago. Berrys first weeks in New York were less than auspicious, She slept in a homeless shelter, in 1989, Berry moved to New York City to pursue her acting ambitions
6.
Anthony Quinn
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Antonio Rodolfo Quinn Oaxaca, more commonly known as Anthony Quinn, was a Mexican-born American actor, painter and writer. He won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor twice, for Viva Zapata. in 1952, Quinn was born Antonio Rodolfo Quinn Oaxaca on April 21,1915 in Chihuahua, Mexico during the Mexican Revolution to Manuela Nellie and Francisco Frank Quinn. Francisco Quinn was born in Mexico, to an Irish immigrant father from County Cork, Frank Quinn rode with Mexican revolutionary Pancho Villa, then later moved to the East Los Angeles neighborhood of City Terrace and became an assistant cameraman at a movie studio. In Quinns autobiography, The Original Sin, A Self-portrait by Anthony Quinn, he denied being the son of an Irish adventurer, when he was six years old, Quinn attended a Catholic church. At age eleven, however, he joined the Pentecostals in the International Church of the Foursquare Gospel, for a time he played in the churchs band and was an apprentice preacher with the renowned evangelist. Quinn grew up first in El Paso, Texas, and later the Boyle Heights, tucson High School in Arizona, many years later, awarded him an honorary high school diploma. As a young man, Quinn boxed professionally to earn money, then studied art and architecture under Frank Lloyd Wright, at Wrights Arizona residence and his Wisconsin studio, when Quinn mentioned that he was drawn to acting, Wright encouraged him. Quinn said he had been offered $800 per week by a film studio, Wright replied, Take it, youll never make that much with me. During a 1999 interview on the show Private Screenings with Robert Osborne, after a short time performing on the stage, Quinn launched his film career performing character roles in the 1936 films Parole and The Milky Way. He played ethnic villains in Paramount films such as Dangerous to Know and Road to Morocco, and played a more sympathetic Crazy Horse in They Died with Their Boots On with Errol Flynn. By 1947, he had appeared in more than fifty films and had played Indians, Mafia dons, Hawaiian chiefs, Filipino freedom-fighters, Chinese guerrillas, and Arab sheiks and he returned to the theater, playing Stanley Kowalski in A Streetcar Named Desire on Broadway. In 1947, he became a citizen of the United States. He came back to Hollywood in the early 1950s, specializing in tough roles and he was cast in a series of B-adventures such as Mask of the Avenger. His big break came from playing opposite Marlon Brando in Elia Kazans Viva Zapata, Quinns performance as Zapatas brother won Quinn an Oscar while Brando lost the Oscar for Best Actor to Gary Cooper in High Noon. Quinn was the first Mexican-American to win an Academy Award, Quinn won his second Oscar for Best Supporting Actor for his portrayal of painter Paul Gauguin in Vincente Minnellis Lust for Life. The following year, he received an Oscar nomination for his part in George Cukors Wild Is the Wind and he starred in The Savage Innocents 1959 as Inuk, an Eskimo who finds himself caught between two clashing cultures. As the decade ended, Quinn allowed his age to show and his physique filled out, his hair grayed, and his once smooth, swarthy face weathered and became more rugged. He played a Greek resistance fighter in The Guns of Navarone, a boxer in Requiem for a Heavyweight
7.
Stevie Wonder
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Stevland Hardaway Morris, known by his stage name Stevie Wonder, is an American musician, singer, songwriter, record producer, and multi-instrumentalist. A child prodigy, he is considered to be one of the most critically and commercially successful musical performers of the late 20th century, Wonder signed with Motowns Tamla label at the age of 11, and he continued performing and recording for Motown into the 2010s. He has been blind since shortly after birth, Wonder is also noted for his work as an activist for political causes, including his 1980 campaign to make Martin Luther King Jr. s birthday a holiday in the United States. In 2009, Wonder was named a United Nations Messenger of Peace, in 2013, Billboard magazine released a list of the Billboard Hot 100 All-Time Top Artists to celebrate the US singles charts 55th anniversary, with Wonder at number six. Stevie Wonder was born in Saginaw, Michigan, in 1950, the third of six children of Calvin Judkins and Lula Mae Hardaway, when Wonder was four, his mother left his father and moved to Detroit with her children. She changed her back to Lula Hardaway and later changed her sons surname to Morris. Wonder has retained Morris as his legal surname and he began playing instruments at an early age, including piano, harmonica and drums. He formed a partnership with a friend, calling themselves Stevie and John, they played on street corners. Before signing, producer Clarence Paul gave him the name Little Stevie Wonder, because of Wonders age, the label drew up a rolling five-year contract in which royalties would be held in trust until Wonder was 21. He and his mother would be paid a stipend to cover their expenses, Wonder received $2.50 a week. Wonder was put in the care of producer and songwriter Clarence Paul, tribute to Uncle Ray was recorded first, when Wonder was still 11 years old. Mainly covers of Ray Charless songs, it included a Wonder and Paul composition, the Jazz Soul of Little Stevie was recorded next, an instrumental album consisting mainly of Pauls compositions, two of which, Wondering and Session Number 112, were co-written with Wonder. At the end of 1962, when Wonder was 12 years old, he joined the Motortown Revue, at the Regal Theater, Chicago, his 20-minute performance was recorded and released in May 1963 as the album Recorded Live, The 12 Year Old Genius. A single, Fingertips, from the album was released in May. The song, featuring a confident and enthusiastic Wonder returning for a spontaneous encore that catches out the replacement bass player, was a No.1 hit on the Billboard Hot 100 when Wonder was aged 13, making him the youngest artist ever to top the chart. The single was simultaneously No.1 on the R&B chart and his next few recordings, however, were not successful, his voice was changing as he got older, and some Motown executives were considering cancelling his recording contract. During 1964, Wonder appeared in two films as himself, Muscle Beach Party and Bikini Beach, but these were not successful either, sylvia Moy persuaded label owner Berry Gordy to give Wonder another chance. He also began to work in the Motown songwriting department, composing songs both for himself and his mates, including The Tears of a Clown, a No.1 hit for Smokey Robinson
8.
Universal Pictures
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Universal Pictures is an American film studio owned by Comcast through the Universal Filmed Entertainment Group division of its wholly owned subsidiary NBCUniversal. The company was founded in 1912 by Carl Laemmle, Mark Dintenfass, Charles O. Baumann, Adam Kessel, Pat Powers, William Swanson, David Horsley and its studios are located in Universal City, California, and its corporate offices are located in New York City. Universal Pictures is a member of the Motion Picture Association of America and is one of Hollywoods Big Six studios. Universal Studios was founded by Carl Laemmle, Mark Dintenfass, Charles O. Baumann, Adam Kessel, Pat Powers, William Swanson, David Horsley, Robert H. Cochrane, one story has Laemmle watching a box office for hours, counting patrons and calculating the days takings. Within weeks of his Chicago trip, Laemmle gave up dry goods to buy the first several nickelodeons, for Laemmle and other such entrepreneurs, the creation in 1908 of the Edison-backed Motion Picture Trust meant that exhibitors were expected to pay fees for Trust-produced films they showed. Soon, Laemmle and other disgruntled nickelodeon owners decided to avoid paying Edison by producing their own pictures, in June 1909, Laemmle started the Yankee Film Company with partners Abe Stern and Julius Stern. Laemmle broke with Edisons custom of refusing to give billing and screen credits to performers, by naming the movie stars, he attracted many of the leading players of the time, contributing to the creation of the star system. In 1910, he promoted Florence Lawrence, formerly known as The Biograph Girl, the Universal Film Manufacturing Company was incorporated in New York on April 30,1912. Laemmle, who emerged as president in July 1912, was the figure in the partnership with Dintenfass, Baumann, Kessel, Powers, Swanson, Horsley. Eventually all would be out by Laemmle. Following the westward trend of the industry, by the end of 1912 the company was focusing its efforts in the Hollywood area. On March 15,1915, Laemmle opened the worlds largest motion picture production facility, Universal City Studios, studio management became the third facet of Universals operations, with the studio incorporated as a distinct subsidiary organization. Unlike other movie moguls, Laemmle opened his studio to tourists, Universal became the largest studio in Hollywood, and remained so for a decade. However, it sought an audience mostly in towns, producing mostly inexpensive melodramas, westerns. In its early years Universal released three brands of feature films — Red Feather, low-budget programmers, Bluebird, more ambitious productions, and Jewel, their prestige motion pictures. Directors included Jack Conway, John Ford, Rex Ingram, Robert Z. Leonard, George Marshall and Lois Weber, despite Laemmles role as an innovator, he was an extremely cautious studio chief. Unlike rivals Adolph Zukor, William Fox, and Marcus Loew and he also financed all of his own films, refusing to take on debt. Character actor Lon Chaney became a card for Universal in the 1920s
9.
Miscegenation
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Miscegenation is the mixing of different racial groups through marriage, cohabitation, sexual relations, or procreation. The term miscegenation has been used since the 19th century to refer to marriage and interracial sexual relations. Historically, the term has been used in the context of laws banning marriage and sex. The Latin term entered historical records during European colonialism and the Age of Discovery, in the present day, the word miscegenation is avoided by many scholars, because the term suggests a concrete biological phenomenon, rather than a categorization imposed on certain relationships. The term remains in use among scholars when referring to past practices concerning multiraciality, in Spanish, Portuguese and French, the words used to describe the mixing of races are mestizaje, mestiçagem and métissage. These words, much older than the term miscegenation, are derived from the Late Latin mixticius for mixed, Portuguese also uses miscigenação, derived from the same Latin root as the English word. Today, the mixes among races and ethnicities are diverse, so it is considered preferable to use the term mixed-race or simply mixed, Intermarriage occurred significantly from the very first settlements, with their descendants achieving high rank in government and society. To this day, there are controversies if Brazilian class system would be drawn mostly around socio-economic lines, conversely, people classified in censuses as black, brown or indigenous have disadvantaged social indicators in comparison to the white population. The concept of miscegenation is tied to concepts of racial difference, Mestizo are people of mixed white and indigenous, usually Amerindian ancestry, who do not self-identify as indigenous peoples or Native Americans. Thus the Comte de Montlosier, in exile during the French Revolution, Mixture of all races and of all times. Miscegenation comes from the Latin miscere, to mix and genus, the word was coined in an anonymous propaganda pamphlet published in New York City in December 1863, during the American Civil War. The pamphlet was entitled Miscegenation, The Theory of the Blending of the Races, Applied to the American White Man and Negro. It purported to advocate the intermarriage of whites and blacks until they were mixed, as a desirable goal. There was already much opposition to the war effort, the pamphlet and variations on it were reprinted widely in both the north and south by Democrats and Confederates. Only in November 1864 was the pamphlet exposed as a hoax, the hoax pamphlet was written by David Goodman Croly, managing editor of the New York World, a Democratic Party paper, and George Wakeman, a World reporter. By then, the word miscegenation had entered the language of the day as a popular buzzword in political and social discourse. The issue of miscegenation, raised by the opponents of Abraham Lincoln, in the United States, miscegenation has referred primarily to the intermarriage between whites and non-whites, especially blacks. Before the publication of Miscegenation, the amalgamation, borrowed from metallurgy, had been in use as a general term for ethnic
10.
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
