1.
Hartford, Connecticut
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Hartford is the capital of the U. S. state of Connecticut. It was the seat of Hartford County until Connecticut disbanded county government in 1960, as of the 2010 Census, Hartfords population was 124,775, making it Connecticuts third-largest city after the coastal cities of Bridgeport and New Haven. Census Bureau estimates since then have indicated Hartfords subsequent fall to fourth place statewide as a result of sustained growth in the coastal city of Stamford. Nicknamed the Insurance Capital of the World, Hartford houses many insurance company headquarters, founded in 1635, Hartford is among the oldest cities in the United States. In 1868, resident Mark Twain wrote, Of all the towns it has been my fortune to see this is the chief. Following the American Civil War, Hartford was the richest city in the United States for several decades, today, Hartford is one of the poorest cities in the nation with 3 out of every 10 families living below the poverty line. In sharp contrast, the Hartford metropolitan area is ranked 32nd of 318 metropolitan areas in total economic production, various tribes, all part of the loose Algonquin confederation, lived in or around present-day Hartford. The area was referred to as Suckiaug, meaning Black Fertile River-Enhanced Earth, the first Europeans known to have explored the area were the Dutch, under Adriaen Block, who sailed up the Connecticut in 1614. Dutch fur traders from New Amsterdam returned in 1623 with a mission to establish a trading post, the original site was located on the south bank of the Park River in the present-day Sheldon/Charter Oak neighborhood. This fort was called Fort Hoop, or the House of Hope, in 1633, Jacob Van Curler formally bought the land around Fort Hoop from the Pequot chief for a small sum. It was home to perhaps a couple families and a few dozen soldiers, the area today is known as Dutch Point, and the name of the Dutch fort, House of Hope, is reflected in the name of Huyshope Avenue. The fort was abandoned by 1654, but its neighborhood in Hartford is still known as Dutch Point, the Dutch outpost, and the tiny contingent of Dutch soldiers that were stationed there, did little to check the English migration. The Dutch soon realized they were vastly outnumbered, the House of Hope remained an outpost, but it was steadily swallowed up by waves of English settlers. The English began to arrive 1637, settling upstream from Fort Hoop near the present-day Downtown, the settlement was originally called Newtown, but was changed to Hartford in 1637 in honor of Stones hometown of Hertford, England. Hooker also created the town of Windsor. The etymology of Hartford is the ford where harts cross, the Seal of the City of Hartford features a male deer, which in full maturity was referred to by the medieval hunting term hart. The fledgling colony along the Connecticut River had issues with the authority by which it was to be governed because it was outside of the jurisdiction of the Massachusetts Bay Colonys charter. Historians suggest that Hookers conception of self-rule embodied in the Fundamental Orders went on to inspire the Connecticut Constitution, today, one of Connecticuts nicknames is the Constitution State
2.
Vaudeville
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Vaudeville is a theatrical genre of variety entertainment. It was especially popular in the United States and Canada from the early 1880s until the early 1930s, a typical vaudeville performance is made up of a series of separate, unrelated acts grouped together on a common bill. A vaudeville performer is often referred to as a vaudevillian, Vaudeville developed from many sources, including the concert saloon, minstrelsy, freak shows, dime museums, and literary American burlesque. Called the heart of American show business, vaudeville was one of the most popular types of entertainment in North America for several decades, the origin of this term is obscure, but is often explained as being derived from the French expression voix de ville. A second speculation is that it comes from the songs on satire by poet Olivier Basselin. Some, however, preferred the term variety to what manager Tony Pastor called its sissy. Thus, vaudeville was marketed as variety well into the 20th century, with its first subtle appearances within the early 1860s, vaudeville was not initially a common form of entertainment. The form gradually evolved from the saloon and variety hall into its mature form throughout the 1870s and 1880s. This more gentle form was known as Polite Vaudeville, in the years before the American Civil War, entertainment existed on a different scale. Certainly, variety theatre existed before 1860 in Europe and elsewhere, in the US, as early as the first decades of the 19th century, theatregoers could enjoy a performance consisting of Shakespeare plays, acrobatics, singing, dancing, and comedy. As the years progressed, people seeking diversified amusement found a number of ways to be entertained. Vaudeville was characterized by traveling companies touring through cities and towns, a significant influence also came from Dutch minstrels and comedians. Vaudeville incorporated these various itinerant amusements into a stable, institutionalized form centered in Americas growing urban hubs, pastors experiment proved successful, and other managers soon followed suit. B. F. Keith took the step, starting in Boston. Later, E. F. Albee, adoptive grandfather of the Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Edward Albee, circuits such as those managed by Keith-Albee provided vaudevilles greatest economic innovation and the principal source of its industrial strength. They enabled a chain of allied vaudeville houses that remedied the chaos of the booking system by contracting acts for regional and national tours. These could easily be lengthened from a few weeks to two years, Albee also gave national prominence to vaudevilles trumpeting polite entertainment, a commitment to entertainment equally inoffensive to men, women and children. Acts that violated this ethos were admonished and threatened with expulsion from the remaining performances or were canceled altogether
3.
Jack Johnson (boxer)
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John Arthur Jack Johnson, nicknamed the Galveston Giant was an American boxer, who—at the height of the Jim Crow era—became the first African American world heavyweight boxing champion. Johnson was faced with controversy when he was charged with violating the Mann Act in 1912, even though there was an obvious lack of evidence. In a documentary about his life, Ken Burns notes that for more than thirteen years, Jack Johnson was the most famous and his father Henry served as a civilian teamster of the Union’s 38th Colored Infantry, and was a role model for his son. As Jack once said, his father was The most perfect physical specimen that he had seen, although his father was only 5 ft 5 in. Growing up in Galveston, Texas, Johnson attended five years of school and was known as a bright, talkative, like all of his siblings, Jack was expected to work to keep the family going while he was growing up. He helped sweep classrooms to ease the work for his father, for this work he was paid 10 cents and a red pair of socks, which his boss had a seemingly endless supply of, every Saturday. Johnson remembers growing up with a gang of boys, in which he never felt victimized or excluded. Remembering his childhood, Johnson said, As I grew up, I ate with them, played with them and slept at their homes. Their mothers gave me cookies, and I ate at their tables, no one ever taught me that white men were superior to me. Jack carried this mentality to his career, as he would not be intimidated to fight any man. During his days as a child Johnson was a young boy and not much of a fighter. Jack was usually able to avoid quarrels until he was years old. About to run away from the quarrel Johnson remembers Grandma Gilmore, or his mother, after winning the fight, Johnson developed a new mentality, and toughness to carry with him through his life. After Johnson quit attending school, he began a job working at the local docks and he made several other attempts at working other jobs around town, until one day he made his way to Dallas, finding work at the race track exercising horses. Jack stuck with this job until he would find a new apprenticeship for a painter by the name of Walter Lewis. Lewis, who had a passion for boxing, enjoyed watching friends spar, Johnson later claimed that it was thanks to Lewis that he would become a boxer. After returning home for a period of time, Johnson once again left at the age of 16. While in Manhattan, Jack found living arrangements with Joe Walcott, once again Johnson found work exercising horses for the local stable, until he was fired for exhausting a horse
4.
Barbara Stanwyck
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Barbara Stanwyck was an American actress, model and dancer. She was a film and television star, known during her 60-year career as a consummate and versatile professional with a strong, realistic screen presence, deMille, Fritz Lang, and Frank Capra. After a short but notable career as an actress in the late 1920s, she made 85 films in 38 years in Hollywood. Orphaned at the age of four and partially raised in foster homes and she was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actress four times, for Stella Dallas, Ball of Fire, Double Indemnity and Sorry, Wrong Number. For her television work she won three Emmy Awards, for The Barbara Stanwyck Show, The Big Valley and The Thorn Birds, the Thorn Birds also won her a Golden Globe. She received an Honorary Oscar at the 1982 Academy Award ceremony and she was also the recipient of honorary lifetime awards from the American Film Institute, the Film Society of Lincoln Center, the Los Angeles Film Critics Association and the Screen Actors Guild. Stanwyck received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 1960, Barbara Stanwyck was born Ruby Catherine Stevens on July 16,1907, in Brooklyn, New York. She was the child of Byron E. and Catherine Ann Stevens. Her father was a native of Massachusetts and her mother was an immigrant from Nova Scotia, Ruby was of English and Scottish ancestry, by her father and mother, respectively. When Ruby was four, her mother died of complications from a miscarriage after a drunken stranger accidentally knocked her off a moving streetcar, two weeks after the funeral, Byron Stevens joined a work crew digging the Panama Canal and was never seen again. Ruby and her brother, Byron, were raised by their elder sister Mildred, when Mildred got a job as a showgirl, Ruby and Byron were placed in a series of foster homes, from which young Ruby often ran away. Ruby toured with Mildred during the summers of 1916 and 1917, watching the movies of Pearl White, whom Ruby idolized, also influenced her drive to be a performer. At the age of 14 she dropped out of school, to take a job wrapping packages at a department store in Brooklyn, Ruby never attended high school, although early biographical thumbnail sketches had her attending Brooklyns famous Erasmus Hall High School. Soon afterward, she took a job filing cards at the Brooklyn telephone office for a wage of $14 a week and she disliked both jobs, her real goal was to enter show business, even as her sister Mildred discouraged the idea. She then took a job cutting dress patterns for Vogue magazine and her next job was as a typist for the Jerome H. Remick Music Company, a job she reportedly enjoyed. However, her ambition was to work in show business. In 1923, a few months before her 16th birthday, Ruby auditioned for a place in the chorus at the Strand Roof, a night club over the Strand Theatre in Times Square. A few months later, she obtained a job as a dancer in the 1922 and 1923 seasons of the Ziegfeld Follies, I just wanted to survive and eat and have a nice coat, Stanwyck said
5.
Sonja Henie
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Sonja Henie was a Norwegian figure skater and film star. She was a three-time Olympic Champion in Ladies Singles, a ten-time World Champion, Henie won more Olympic and World titles than any other ladies figure skater. Henie was born in Kristiania, current Oslo, the daughter of Wilhelm Henie, a prosperous Norwegian furrier. In addition to the income from the fur business, both of Henies parents had inherited wealth, Wilhelm Henie had been a one-time World Cycling Champion and the Henie children were encouraged to take up a variety of sports at a young age. Henie initially showed talent at skiing, and then followed her older brother Leif to take up figure skating, as a girl, Henie was also a nationally ranked tennis player and a skilled swimmer and equestrienne. Once Henie began serious training as a skater, her formal schooling ended. She was educated by tutors, and her father hired the best experts in the world, including the famous Russian ballerina Tamara Karsavina, Henie won her first major competition, the senior Norwegian championships, at the age of 10. She then placed eighth in a field of eight at the 1924 Winter Olympics, during the 1924 program, she skated over to the side of the rink several times to ask her coach for directions, but by the next Olympiad, she needed no such assistance. Henie won the first of an unprecedented ten consecutive World Figure Skating Championships in 1927 at the age of fourteen, Henie went on to win first of her three Olympic gold medals the following year. She defended her Olympic titles in 1932 and in 1936, and she also won six consecutive European championships from 1931 to 1936. Henies unprecedented three Olympic gold medals havent been matched by any ladies single skater since, neither are her achievements as ten-time consecutive World Champion, towards the end of her career, she began to be strongly challenged by younger skaters including Cecilia Colledge, Megan Taylor and Hedy Stenuf. Indeed, after the school section at the 1936 Olympic competition, Colledge. The draw for the free skating came under suspicion after Henie landed the position of skating last. The early start was seen as a disadvantage, with the not yet whipped into a clapping frenzy. Years later, a fairer, staggered draw was adopted to counteract this situation, during her competitive career, Henie traveled widely and worked with a variety of foreign coaches. At home in Oslo, she trained at Frogner Stadium, where her coaches included Hjørdis Olsen, during the latter part of her competitive career she was coached primarily by the American Howard Nicholson in London. In addition to traveling to train and compete, she was much in demand as a performer at figure skating exhibitions in both Europe and North America. Henie became so popular with the public that police had to be called out for control on her appearances in various disparate cities such as Prague
6.
Damon Runyon
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Alfred Damon Runyon was an American newspaperman and short story writer. He was best known for his short stories celebrating the world of Broadway in New York City that grew out of the Prohibition era, to New Yorkers of his generation, a Damon Runyon character evoked a distinctive social type from the Brooklyn or Midtown demi-monde. The adjective Runyonesque refers to type of character as well as to the type of situations. His distinctive vernacular style is known as Runyonese, a mixture of formal speech and colorful slang, almost always in present tense and he is credited with coining the phrase Hooray Henry, a term now used in British English to describe an upper-class, loud-mouthed, arrogant twit. Runyons fictional world is known to the general public through the musical Guys. The musical additionally borrows characters and story elements from a few other Runyon stories, the film Little Miss Marker grew from his short story of the same name. Runyon was also a newspaper reporter, covering sports and general news for decades for various publications. Damon Runyon was born Alfred Damon Runyan to Alfred Lee and Elizabeth Runyan and his relatives in his birthplace of Manhattan, Kansas included several newspapermen. His grandfather was a printer from New Jersey who had relocated to Manhattan, Kansas in 1855. In 1882 Runyons father was forced to sell his newspaper, the family eventually settled in Pueblo, Colorado in 1887, where Runyon spent the rest of his youth. By most accounts, he attended school only through the fourth grade and he began to work in the newspaper trade under his father in Pueblo. In present-day Pueblo, Runyon Field, the Damon Runyon Repertory Theater Company, in 1898, when still in his teens, Runyon enlisted in the U. S. Army to fight in the Spanish–American War. While in the service, he was assigned to write for the Manila Freedom, after his military service, he worked for various Colorado newspapers, beginning in Pueblo. His expertise was in covering the teams in Colorado, he even briefly managed a semi-pro team in Trinidad. At one of the newspapers where he worked, the spelling of his last name was changed from Runyan to Runyon, after a notable failure in trying to organize a Colorado minor baseball league, which lasted less than a week, Runyon moved to New York City in 1910. In his first New York byline, the American editor dropped the Alfred, for the next ten years he covered the New York Giants and professional boxing for the New York American. Perhaps as confirmation, Runyon was inducted into the wing of the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1967. He is also a member of the International Boxing Hall Of Fame and is known for dubbing heavyweight champion James J. Braddock, Runyon frequently contributed sports poems to the American on boxing and baseball themes, and also wrote numerous short stories and essays
7.
NBC
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The National Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcast television network that is the flagship property of NBCUniversal, a subsidiary of Comcast. The network is part of the Big Three television networks, founded in 1926 by the Radio Corporation of America, NBC is the oldest major broadcast network in the United States. Following the acquisition by GE, Bob Wright served as executive officer of NBC, remaining in that position until his retirement in 2007. In 2003, French media company Vivendi merged its entertainment assets with GE, Comcast purchased a controlling interest in the company in 2011, and acquired General Electrics remaining stake in 2013. Following the Comcast merger, Zucker left NBC Universal and was replaced as CEO by Comcast executive Steve Burke, during a period of early broadcast business consolidation, radio manufacturer Radio Corporation of America acquired New York City radio station WEAF from American Telephone & Telegraph. Westinghouse, a shareholder in RCA, had an outlet in Newark, New Jersey pioneer station WJZ. This station was transferred from Westinghouse to RCA in 1923, WEAF acted as a laboratory for AT&Ts manufacturing and supply outlet Western Electric, whose products included transmitters and antennas. The Bell System, AT&Ts telephone utility, was developing technologies to transmit voice- and music-grade audio over short and long distances, the 1922 creation of WEAF offered a research-and-development center for those activities. WEAF maintained a schedule of radio programs, including some of the first commercially sponsored programs. In an early example of chain or networking broadcasting, the station linked with Outlet Company-owned WJAR in Providence, Rhode Island, AT&T refused outside companies access to its high-quality phone lines. The early effort fared poorly, since the telegraph lines were susceptible to atmospheric. In 1925, AT&T decided that WEAF and its network were incompatible with the companys primary goal of providing a telephone service. AT&T offered to sell the station to RCA in a deal that included the right to lease AT&Ts phone lines for network transmission, the divisions ownership was split among RCA, its founding corporate parent General Electric and Westinghouse. NBC officially started broadcasting on November 15,1926, WEAF and WJZ, the flagships of the two earlier networks, were operated side-by-side for about a year as part of the new NBC. On April 5,1927, NBC expanded to the West Coast with the launch of the NBC Orange Network and this was followed by the debut of the NBC Gold Network, also known as the Pacific Gold Network, on October 18,1931. The Orange Network carried Red Network programming, and the Gold Network carried programming from the Blue Network, initially, the Orange Network recreated Eastern Red Network programming for West Coast stations at KPO in San Francisco. The Orange Network name was removed from use in 1936, at the same time, the Gold Network became part of the Blue Network. In the 1930s, NBC also developed a network for shortwave radio stations, in 1927, NBC moved its operations to 711 Fifth Avenue in Manhattan, occupying the upper floors of a building designed by architect Floyd Brown
8.
Something for the Boys (film)
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Something for the Boys is a 1944 musical comedy Technicolor film. Supporting players included Michael OShea, Vivian Blaine, Phil Silvers, Sheila Ryan, written by Robert Ellis, Helen Logan and Frank Gabrielson, the screenplay is based on an eponymous Broadway musical, starring Ethel Merman with Cole Porters songs. The films story revolves around the adventures of three cousins who find themselves joint heirs to a mansion in Masonville, Georgia. Judy Holliday can be spotted in a brief role six minutes into the film, jefferson L. Calhoun, meet for the first time. As they are all poor, they are thrilled by the inheritance, in addition, paying the plantations various property and inheritance taxes will put them deeply in debt. While the cousins are bemoaning their fate, Staff Sgt, ronald Rocky Fulton, who was a well-known orchestra leader before joining the military, arrives with some of his men, including Sgt. The men pitch in and help the cousins fix up the manor, Rocky, who has begun a romance with Blossom, suggests that they put on a musical show to raise funds for the renovations. On the day that The Old Southern Corn Revue is to open, Blossom is stunned by the arrival of Melanie Walker, a snobbish, rich woman, who Rocky is forced to admit is his fiancé. Melanie, believing that Rocky has arranged for the manor to be let just for her, imperiously announces the changes she intends to make, before the show, Rocky explains to a disapproving Chiquita that he loves only Blossom. The show is a big success, and the next morning, the snooty Melanie ends up covered with eggs after she tries to work one of Harrys new inventions, and she seeks solace from Lt. Ashley Crothers. While the lieutenant is there, he discovers that Harry is hosting a game for some of the soldiers. Crothers arrests the soldiers and recommends that the house be posted as off-limits for all military personnel, col. Grubbs approves Crothers suggestion, and soon the wives are packing to leave. Meanwhile, after Harry learns that carborundum from the plant got into Chiquitas fillings and is causing her to receive radio programs. One afternoon, Rocky comes to the house to try to talk to Blossom, Rocky is supposed to be on duty for war games, and is captured by the enemy army, which has taken over the manor as its headquarters. Hoping to save both his stripes and the manor, Rocky enlists the aid of Chiquita and Harry, who begin building a transmitter to send a message to Rockys unit via Chiquitas teeth. The message is sent, and the cousins distract the army with a song. At a celebratory party, Rocky announces that he has selected for officers candidate school. The film is based on the 1943 Broadway Musical of the name, which featured songs by Cole Porter and was a starring vehicle for Ethel Merman
9.
Dallas
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Dallas is a major city in the U. S. state of Texas. It is the most populous city in the Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex, the citys population ranks ninth in the U. S. and third in Texas after Houston and San Antonio. The citys prominence arose from its importance as a center for the oil and cotton industries. The bulk of the city is in Dallas County, of which it is the county seat, however, sections of the city are located in Collin, Denton, Kaufman, and Rockwall counties. According to the 2010 United States Census, the city had a population of 1,197,816, the United States Census Bureaus estimate for the citys population increased to 1,300,092 as of July 1,2015. In 2016 DFW ascended to the one spot in the nation in year-over-year population growth. In 2014, the metropolitan economy surpassed Washington, D. C. to become the fifth largest in the U. S. with a 2014 real GDP over $504 billion, as such, the metropolitan areas economy is the 10th largest in the world. As of January 2017, the job count has increased to 3,558,200 jobs. The citys economy is based on banking, commerce, telecommunications, technology, energy, healthcare and medical research. The city is home to the third-largest concentration of Fortune 500 companies in the nation. Located in North Texas, Dallas is the core of the largest metropolitan area in the South. Dallas and nearby Fort Worth were developed due to the construction of railroad lines through the area allowing access to cotton, cattle. Later, France also claimed the area but never established much settlement, the area remained under Spanish rule until 1821, when Mexico declared independence from Spain, and the area was considered part of the Mexican state of Coahuila y Tejas. In 1836, the Republic of Texas, with majority Anglo-American settlers, in 1839, Warren Angus Ferris surveyed the area around present-day Dallas. John Neely Bryan established a permanent settlement near the Trinity River named Dallas in 1841, the origin of the name is uncertain. The Republic of Texas was annexed by the United States in 1845, Dallas was formally incorporated as a city on February 2,1856. With construction of railroads, Dallas became a business and trading center and it became an industrial city, attracting workers from Texas, the South and the Midwest. The Praetorian Building of 15 stories, built in 1909, was the first skyscraper west of the Mississippi and it marked the prominence of Dallas as a city
