1.
Chicago Comic & Entertainment Expo
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The Chicago Comic & Entertainment Expo is a Chicago fan convention dedicated to comics, pop culture, graphic novels, anime, manga, video games, toys, movies, and television. The inaugural event was held April 16–18,2010 at the McCormick Place in Chicago, C2E2 was held for the first time April 16–18,2010, with an estimated attendance between 20,000 and 30,000 attendees. The convention included dozens of professional and amateur comic book artists, the convention also featured a special auction with the actual props from the original Iron Man movie. The second C2E2 was held March 18–20,2011 and included Thor actor Chris Hemsworth, other guests included Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Dollhouse actress Eliza Dushku, The Walking Dead actors Laurie Holden and Jon Bernthal, and Supernatural actor Mark Sheppard. The third C2E2 was held April 13–15,2012, and 41,000 attendees were reported and it included Doctor Who and Torchwood actor John Barrowman, Lord of the Rings actor Sean Astin, and The Walking Dead actors Steven Yeun and Lauren Cohan. The fourth C2E2 was held April 26–28,2013, and 53,000 attendees were reported, C2E22014 was held April 25–27,2014. C2E22015 was held April 24–26,2015, Comic legend Stan Lee appeared once again this year. Other notable guests included Agent Carter actress Hayley Atwell, Agents of S. H. I. E. L. D, C2E22016 was held March 18–20,2016. Some of the spotlight entertainment guests included Agents of S. H. I. E. L. D, actors Chloe Bennet and J. August Richards, Supergirl actresses Melissa Benoist and Chyler Leigh, and Sons of Anarchy actors Ryan Hurst and Tommy Flanagan. C2E2 has panels by the comics and anime industry, entertainment guests, since 2013, C2E2 and We Are Cosplay organize a march in the Chicago St. Patricks Day Parade with cosplayers. 2016, Live Drawing Broadcasting with Autodesk, C2E2 Crown Championships of Cosplay, claimed to be the largest and most prestigious cosplay competition in the world, began in 2014. It is an award show with a pre-judging session and a stage display. All entries must represent a character or element from the pop culture realm – including Comic Books, Movies & Television, Video Games and it is live-streamed over the internet during the Saturday contest on stage. Cosplayers will battle it out for over $10,000 in cash prizes, in 2016, CCC featured regional cosplay champions from around the world. Countries represented include the United States, Australia, China, Austria, Singapore, Indonesia, India, past judges include Yaya Han, Ivy DoomKitty, Ann Foley, Leri Greer, Stephanie Maslansky, Ashley Eckstein, Austin Scarlett, Neville Page, and Nan Cibula-Jenkins
2.
Tashkent
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Tashkent is the capital and largest city of Uzbekistan. The officially registered population of the city in 2012 was about 2,309,300, due to its position in Central Asia, Tashkent came under Sogdian and Turkic influence early in its history, before Islam in the 8th century AD. After its destruction by Genghis Khan in 1219, the city was rebuilt, in 1865 it was conquered by the Russian Empire, and in Soviet times witnessed major growth and demographic changes due to forced deportations from throughout the Soviet Union. Today, as the capital of an independent Uzbekistan, Tashkent retains a multi-ethnic population with ethnic Uzbeks as the majority, during its long history, Tashkent has had various changes in names and political and religious affiliations. Tashkent was settled by ancient people as an oasis on the Chirchik River, in ancient times, this area contained Beitian, probably the summer capital of the Kangju confederacy. In pre-Islamic and early Islamic times, the town and the province were known as Chach, the Shahnameh of Ferdowsi also refers to the city as Chach. Later the town came to be known as Chachkand/Chashkand, meaning Chach City, the principality of Chach had a square citadel built around the 5th to 3rd centuries BC, some 8 kilometres south of the Syr Darya River. By the 7th century AD, Chach had more than 30 towns, the Buddhist monk Xuánzàng 玄奘, who travelled from China to India through Central Asia, mentioned the name of the city as Zhěshí 赭時. The Chinese chronicles Suí shū 隋書, Běi shǐ 北史 and Táng shū 唐書, in the early 8th century, the region was conquered by Muslim Arabs. The modern Turkic name of Tashkent comes from Kara-Khanid rule in the 10th century, after the 16th century, the name evolved from Chachkand/Chashkand to Tashkand. The modern spelling of Tashkent reflects Russian orthography and 20th-century Soviet influence, the city was destroyed by Genghis Khan in 1219 and lost much of its population as a result of the Mongols destruction of the Khwarezmid Empire in 1220. Under the Timurid and subsequent Shaybanid dynasties the citys population and culture gradually revived as a prominent strategic center of scholarship, commerce, in 1809, Tashkent was annexed to the Khanate of Kokand. At the time, Tashkent had a population of around 100,000 and was considered the richest city in Central Asia and it prospered greatly through trade with Russia, but chafed under Kokand’s high taxes. The Tashkent clergy also favored the clergy of Bukhara over that of Kokand, however, before the Emir of Bukhara could capitalize on this discontent, the Russian army arrived. While a small contingent staged an attack, the main force penetrated the walls. Although defense was stiff, the Russians captured the city two days of heavy fighting and the loss of only 25 dead as opposed to several thousand of the defenders. Chernyayev, dubbed the Lion of Tashkent by city elders, staged a campaign to win the population over. The Tsar liberally rewarded Chernyayev and his men with medals and bonuses, but regarded the general as a loose cannon
3.
Uzbek Soviet Socialist Republic
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The Uzbek Soviet Socialist Republic, also referred to as Soviet Uzbekistan or the Republic of Uzbekistan was one of the republics of the Soviet Union existed from 1924 to 1991. It was governed by the Uzbek branch of the Soviet Communist Party, from 1990 to 1991, it was the sovereign part of the Soviet Union with its own legislation. Beginning 20 June 1990, Uzbek SSR adopted the Declaration of State Sovereignty within its borders, Islam Karimov became the republics inaugural president. On 31 August 1991, the Uzbek Soviet Socialist Republic was renamed the Republic of Uzbekistan, a doubly landlocked Soviet republic in Central Asia. Uzbekistan was bordered by Kazakhstan to the north, Tajikistan to the southeast, Kirghizia to the northeast, Afghanistan to the south, the name, Uzbekistan, literally means Home of the Free, taken from an amalgamation of uz, bek, and -stan. Officially, the name Uzbek Soviet Socialist Republic was the name as defined by its 1937 and 1978 Constitutions. In 1924, the borders of political units in Central Asia were changed along ethnic lines determined by Vladimir Lenin’s Commissar for Nationalities, the next year Uzbekistan became one of the republics of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. In 1928, the collectivization of land into state farms was initiated, Uzbekistan included the Tajik ASSR until 1929, when the Tajik ASSR was upgraded to an equal status. In 1930, the Uzbek SSR capital was relocated from Samarkand to Tashkent, in 1936, Uzbekistan was enlarged with the addition of the Karakalpak ASSR taken from the Kazakh SSR in the last stages of the national delimitation in the Soviet Union. That same year in December, it was renamed to the Uzbek Soviet Socialist Republic, further bits and pieces of territory were transferred several times between Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan after World War II. In 1937–38, during the Great Purge, a number of alleged nationalists were executed, including Faizullah Khojaev, during World War II, many industries were relocated to Uzbekistan from vulnerable locations in western regions of the USSR to keep them safe. Large numbers of Russians, Ukrainians and other nationalities accompanied the factories and this included large numbers of ethnic Koreans, Crimean Tatars, and Chechens. During the Soviet period, Islam became a point for the anti-religious drives of Communist authorities. The government closed most mosques, and religious schools became anti-religious museums, on the positive side was the virtual elimination of illiteracy, even in rural areas. Only a small percentage of the population was literate before 1917, another major development, one with future catastrophic impact, was the drive initiated in the early 1960s to substantially increase cotton production in the republic. This drive led to overzealous irrigation withdrawals of irrigation water from the Amu Darya, towards the end of the Soviet–Afghan War, several troops crossed the Uzbek border from Afghanistan as part of the its withdrawal on 15 February 1989. The Communist Party was the legal party in the Uzbek SSR until 1990. The first secretary, or head, of the Communist Party of Uzbekistan was consistently an Uzbek, long-time leader of the Uzbek SSR was Sharof Rashidov, head of the Communist Party of Uzbekistan from 1959 to 1983
4.
Soviet Union
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The Soviet Union, officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics was a socialist state in Eurasia that existed from 1922 to 1991. It was nominally a union of national republics, but its government. The Soviet Union had its roots in the October Revolution of 1917 and this established the Russian Socialist Federative Soviet Republic and started the Russian Civil War between the revolutionary Reds and the counter-revolutionary Whites. In 1922, the communists were victorious, forming the Soviet Union with the unification of the Russian, Transcaucasian, Ukrainian, following Lenins death in 1924, a collective leadership and a brief power struggle, Joseph Stalin came to power in the mid-1920s. Stalin suppressed all opposition to his rule, committed the state ideology to Marxism–Leninism. As a result, the country underwent a period of rapid industrialization and collectivization which laid the foundation for its victory in World War II and postwar dominance of Eastern Europe. Shortly before World War II, Stalin signed the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact agreeing to non-aggression with Nazi Germany, in June 1941, the Germans invaded the Soviet Union, opening the largest and bloodiest theater of war in history. Soviet war casualties accounted for the highest proportion of the conflict in the effort of acquiring the upper hand over Axis forces at battles such as Stalingrad. Soviet forces eventually captured Berlin in 1945, the territory overtaken by the Red Army became satellite states of the Eastern Bloc. The Cold War emerged by 1947 as the Soviet bloc confronted the Western states that united in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization in 1949. Following Stalins death in 1953, a period of political and economic liberalization, known as de-Stalinization and Khrushchevs Thaw, the country developed rapidly, as millions of peasants were moved into industrialized cities. The USSR took a lead in the Space Race with Sputnik 1, the first ever satellite, and Vostok 1. In the 1970s, there was a brief détente of relations with the United States, the war drained economic resources and was matched by an escalation of American military aid to Mujahideen fighters. In the mid-1980s, the last Soviet leader, Mikhail Gorbachev, sought to reform and liberalize the economy through his policies of glasnost. The goal was to preserve the Communist Party while reversing the economic stagnation, the Cold War ended during his tenure, and in 1989 Soviet satellite countries in Eastern Europe overthrew their respective communist regimes. This led to the rise of strong nationalist and separatist movements inside the USSR as well, in August 1991, a coup détat was attempted by Communist Party hardliners. It failed, with Russian President Boris Yeltsin playing a role in facing down the coup. On 25 December 1991, Gorbachev resigned and the twelve constituent republics emerged from the dissolution of the Soviet Union as independent post-Soviet states
5.
United States
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Forty-eight of the fifty states and the federal district are contiguous and located in North America between Canada and Mexico. The state of Alaska is in the northwest corner of North America, bordered by Canada to the east, the state of Hawaii is an archipelago in the mid-Pacific Ocean. The U. S. territories are scattered about the Pacific Ocean, the geography, climate and wildlife of the country are extremely diverse. At 3.8 million square miles and with over 324 million people, the United States is the worlds third- or fourth-largest country by area, third-largest by land area. It is one of the worlds most ethnically diverse and multicultural nations, paleo-Indians migrated from Asia to the North American mainland at least 15,000 years ago. European colonization began in the 16th century, the United States emerged from 13 British colonies along the East Coast. Numerous disputes between Great Britain and the following the Seven Years War led to the American Revolution. On July 4,1776, during the course of the American Revolutionary War, the war ended in 1783 with recognition of the independence of the United States by Great Britain, representing the first successful war of independence against a European power. The current constitution was adopted in 1788, after the Articles of Confederation, the first ten amendments, collectively named the Bill of Rights, were ratified in 1791 and designed to guarantee many fundamental civil liberties. During the second half of the 19th century, the American Civil War led to the end of slavery in the country. By the end of century, the United States extended into the Pacific Ocean. The Spanish–American War and World War I confirmed the status as a global military power. The end of the Cold War and the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991 left the United States as the sole superpower. The U. S. is a member of the United Nations, World Bank, International Monetary Fund, Organization of American States. The United States is a developed country, with the worlds largest economy by nominal GDP. It ranks highly in several measures of performance, including average wage, human development, per capita GDP. While the U. S. economy is considered post-industrial, characterized by the dominance of services and knowledge economy, the United States is a prominent political and cultural force internationally, and a leader in scientific research and technological innovations. In 1507, the German cartographer Martin Waldseemüller produced a map on which he named the lands of the Western Hemisphere America after the Italian explorer and cartographer Amerigo Vespucci
6.
Uzbekistan
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Uzbekistan, officially the Republic of Uzbekistan, is one of only two doubly landlocked countries in the world. Located in Central Asia, it is a unitary, constitutional, presidential republic, comprising twelve provinces, one autonomous republic and a capital city. Uzbekistan is bordered by five landlocked countries, Kazakhstan to the north, Tajikistan to the southeast, Kyrgyzstan to the northeast, Afghanistan to the south, and Turkmenistan to the southwest. Once part of the Turkic Khaganate and later Timurid Empires, the region that includes the Republic of Uzbekistan was conquered in the early 16th century by Eastern Turkic-speaking nomads. Following the breakup of the Soviet Union, it declared independence as the Republic of Uzbekistan on 31 August 1991, Uzbekistan is officially a democratic, secular, unitary, constitutional republic with a diverse cultural heritage. The countrys official language is Uzbek, a Turkic language written in the Latin alphabet and spoken natively by approximately 85% of the population, however, Uzbeks constitute 81% of the population, followed by Russians, Tajiks, Kazakhs, and others. A majority of Uzbeks are non-denominational Muslims, Uzbekistan is a member of the Commonwealth of Independent States, Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe, UN, and the SCO. While officially a republic, non-governmental human rights organizations define Uzbekistan as an authoritarian state with limited civil rights. Uzbekistans economy relies mainly on commodity production, including cotton, gold, uranium, despite the declared objective of transition to a market economy, its government continues to maintain economic controls which imports in favour of domestic import substitution. Uzbekistan has an area of 447,400 square kilometres and it is the 56th largest country in the world by area and the 42nd by population. Among the CIS countries, it is the 4th largest by area, Uzbekistan lies between latitudes 37° and 46° N, and longitudes 56° and 74° E. It stretches 1,425 kilometres from west to east and 930 kilometres from north to south, Uzbekistan also shares a short border with Afghanistan to the south. Uzbekistan is a dry, landlocked country and it is one of two doubly landlocked countries in the world, the other being Liechtenstein. In addition, due to its location within a series of endorheic basins, less than 10% of its territory is intensively cultivated irrigated land in river valleys and oases. The rest is vast desert and mountains, the climate in the Republic of Uzbekistan is continental, with little precipitation expected annually. The average summer high temperature tends to be 40 °C, while the winter low temperature is around −23 °C. Uzbekistan has a rich and diverse natural environment, the Aral Sea used to be the fourth-largest inland sea on Earth, acting as an influencing factor in the air moisture and arid land use. Since the 1960s, the decade when the misuse of the Aral Sea water began, it has shrunk to less than 50% of its former area, reliable, or even approximate data, have not been collected, stored or provided by any organization or official agency
7.
University of California, San Diego
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The University of California, San Diego is a public research university located in the La Jolla neighborhood of San Diego, California, in the United States. The university occupies 2,141 acres near the coast of the Pacific Ocean with the main campus resting on approximately 1,152 acres, UC San Diego is organized into six undergraduate residential colleges, three graduate schools, and two professional medical schools. UC San Diego is also home to Scripps Institution of Oceanography, one of the first centers dedicated to ocean, earth and atmospheric science research and education. UC San Diego Health, the only academic health system, provides patient care, conducts medical research. According to the National Science Foundation, UC San Diego spent $1.101 billion on research and development in fiscal year 2015, ranking it 5th in the nation. UC San Diego faculty, researchers, and alumni have won 20 Nobel Prizes, eight National Medals of Science, eight MacArthur Fellowships, two Pulitzer Prizes, and three Fields medals. Local citizens supported the idea, voting the same year to transfer to the university 59 acres of land on the coast near the preexisting Scripps Institution of Oceanography. This outraged local conservatives, as well as Regent Edwin W. Pauley, UC President Clark Kerr satisfied San Diego city donors by changing the proposed name from University of California, La Jolla, to University of California, San Diego. The city voted in agreement to its part in 1958, because of the clash with Pauley, Revelle was not made chancellor. Herbert York, first director of Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, was designated instead, York planned the main campus according to the Oxbridge model, relying on many of Revelles ideas. UC San Diego was the first general campus of the University of California to be designed from the top down in terms of research emphasis, local leaders disagreed on whether the new school should be a technical research institute or a more broadly based school that included undergraduates as well. John Jay Hopkins of General Dynamics Corporation pledged one million dollars for the former while the City Council offered free land for the latter, maria Goeppert-Mayer, later the second female Nobel laureate in physics, was appointed professor of physics in 1960. The graduate division of the school opened in 1960 with 20 faculty in residence, with instruction offered in the fields of physics, biology, chemistry, before the main campus completed construction, classes were held in the Scripps Institution of Oceanography. By 1963, new facilities on the mesa had been finished for the School of Science and Engineering, ten additional faculty in those disciplines were hired, and the whole site was designated the First College, later renamed after Roger Revelle, of the new campus. York resigned as chancellor that year and was replaced by John Semple Galbraith, the undergraduate program accepted its first class of 181 freshman at Revelle College in 1964. Second College was founded in 1964, on the land deeded by the federal government, the School of Medicine also accepted its first students in 1966. Political theorist Herbert Marcuse joined the faculty in 1965, a champion of the New Left, he reportedly was the first protestor to occupy the administration building in a demonstration organized by his student, political activist Angela Davis. Further student unrest was felt at the university, as the United States increased its involvement in the Vietnam War during the early 1960s, protests escalated as the war continued and were only exacerbated after the National Guard fired on student protesters at Kent State University in 1970
8.
Bachelor of Arts
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A Bachelor of Arts is a bachelors degree awarded for an undergraduate course or program in either the liberal arts, the sciences, or both. Bachelor of Arts degree programs take three to four years depending on the country, academic institution, and specific specializations, majors or minors. The word baccalaureus or baccalarium should not be confused with baccalaureatus, degree diplomas generally are printed on high-quality paper or parchment, individual institutions set the preferred abbreviation for their degrees. In Pakistan, the Bachelor of Arts degree can also be attained within two years as an external degree, in colleges and universities in Australia, New Zealand, Nepal and South Africa, the BA degree can be taken over three years of full-time study. Unlike in other countries, students do not receive a grade for their Bachelor of Arts degree with varying levels of honours. Qualified students may be admitted, after they have achieved their Bachelors program with an overall grade point average. Thus, to achieve a Bachelor Honours degree, a postgraduate year. A student who holds a Honours degree is eligible for entry to either a Doctorate or a very high research Master´s degree program. Education in Canada is controlled by the Provinces and can be different depending on the province in Canada. Canadian universities typically offer a 3-year Bachelor of Arts degrees, in many universities and colleges, Bachelor of Arts degrees are differentiated either as Bachelors of Arts or as honours Bachelor of Arts degree. The honours degrees are designated with the abbreviation in brackets of. It should not be confused with the consecutive Bachelor of Arts degree with Honours, Latin Baccalaureatus in Artibus Cum Honore, BA hon. de jure without brackets and with a dot. It is a degree, which is considered to be the equivalent of a corresponding maîtrise degree under the French influenced system. Going back in history, a three-year Bachelor of Arts degree was called a pass degree or general degree. Students may be required to undertake a long high-quality research empirical thesis combined with a selection of courses from the relevant field of studies. The consecutive B. cum Honore degree is essential if students ultimate goal is to study towards a two- or three-year very high research masters´ degree qualification. A student holding a Baccalaureatus Cum Honore degree also may choose to complete a Doctor of Philosophy program without the requirement to first complete a masters degree, over the years, in some universities certain Baccalaureatus cum Honore programs have been changed to corresponding master´s degrees. In general, in all four countries, the B. A. degree is the standard required for entry into a masters programme, in science, a BA hons degree is generally a prerequisite for entrance to a Ph. D program or a very-high-research-activity master´s programme
9.
Actor
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An actor is a person who portrays a character in a performance. Simplistically speaking, the person denominated actor or actress is someone beautiful who plays important characters, the actor performs in the flesh in the traditional medium of the theatre, or in modern mediums such as film, radio, and television. The analogous Greek term is ὑποκριτής, literally one who answers, the actors interpretation of their role pertains to the role played, whether based on a real person or fictional character. Interpretation occurs even when the actor is playing themselves, as in forms of experimental performance art, or, more commonly, to act, is to create. Formerly, in societies, only men could become actors. When used for the stage, women played the roles of prepubescent boys. The etymology is a derivation from actor with ess added. However, when referring to more than one performer, of both sexes, actor is preferred as a term for male performers. Actor is also used before the name of a performer as a gender-specific term. Within the profession, the re-adoption of the term dates to the 1950–1960s. As Whoopi Goldberg put it in an interview with the paper, Im an actor – I can play anything. The U. K. performers union Equity has no policy on the use of actor or actress, an Equity spokesperson said that the union does not believe that there is a consensus on the matter and stated that the. subject divides the profession. In 2009, the Los Angeles Times stated that Actress remains the term used in major acting awards given to female recipients. However, player remains in use in the theatre, often incorporated into the name of a group or company, such as the American Players. Also, actors in improvisational theatre may be referred to as players, prior to Thespis act, Grecian stories were only expressed in song, dance, and in third person narrative. In honor of Thespis, actors are commonly called Thespians, the exclusively male actors in the theatre of ancient Greece performed in three types of drama, tragedy, comedy, and the satyr play. Western theatre developed and expanded considerably under the Romans, as the Western Roman Empire fell into decay through the 4th and 5th centuries, the seat of Roman power shifted to Constantinople and the Byzantine Empire. Records show that mime, pantomime, scenes or recitations from tragedies and comedies, dances, from the 5th century, Western Europe was plunged into a period of general disorder
10.
Comedian
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A comedian or comic is a person who seeks to entertain an audience, primarily by making them laugh. This might be through jokes or amusing situations, or acting a fool, as in slapstick, a comedian who addresses an audience directly is called a stand-up comic. Since the 1980s, a new wave of comedy, called alternative comedy, has grown in popularity with its more offbeat and this normally involves more experiential, or observational reporting, e. g. Alexei Sayle, Daniel Tosh, Louis C. K. and Malcolm Hardee. Many comics achieve a cult following while touring famous comedy hubs such as the Just for Laughs festival in Montreal, the Edinburgh Fringe, often a comics career advances significantly when they win a notable comedy award, such as the Edinburgh Comedy Award. Comics sometimes foray into other areas of entertainment, such as film and television, however, a comics stand-up success does not guarantee a films critical or box office success. Comedians can be dated back to 425 BC, when Aristophanes and he wrote 40 comedies,11 of which survive and are still being performed. Aristophanes comedy style took the form of satyr plays, the English poet and playwright William Shakespeare wrote many comedies. A Shakespearean comedy is one that has an ending, usually involving marriages between the unmarried characters, and a tone and style that is more light-hearted than Shakespeares other plays. Charles Chaplin was the most popular comedian of the first half of the 20th century. He wrote comedic silent films such as Modern Times and The Kid and his films still have a major impact on comedy in films today. One of the most popular forms of comedy is stand-up comedy. Stand-up comedy is a monologue performed by one or more people standing on a stage. Bob Hope was the most popular comedian of the 20th century. Other noted stand-up comedians include George Carlin, Jerry Seinfeld, Lenny Bruce, Mort Sahl, Louis CK, another popular form of modern-day comedy is talk shows where comedians make fun of current news or popular topics. Such comedians include Jay Leno, Conan OBrien, Daniel Tosh, Chris Hardwick, Jimmy Fallon, David Letterman, a third form of modern-day comedy is television programs in which many comedians band together to make skits, such as Saturday Night Live. These shows often receive high ratings, likely because many comedians band together to create jokes, one of the most successful comedians is Ellen Degeneres, who has parlayed her comic career into film, television shows, and hosting major media events. In 1986, Ellen DeGeneres appeared for the first time on The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson since she began gaining popularity as a comic in the 1980s. Johnny Carson, who launched many contemporary comics careers, would invite them to join him on the couch for one-on-one conversation after their set
11.
Activism
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Activism consists of efforts to promote, impede, or direct social, political, economic, and/or environmental reform or stasis with the desire to make improvements in society. One can also express activism through different forms of art, daily acts of protest such as not buying clothes from a certain clothing company because they exploit workers is another form of activism. One view holds that acknowledging privileges and oppressions on a daily basis ranks as a form of activism, research has begun to explore how activist groups use social media to facilitate civic engagement and collective action. The Online Etymology Dictionary records the English words activism and activist from 1920, Activists can function in roles as public officials, as in judicial activism. Arthur Schlesinger, Jr. introduced the term judicial activism in a January 1946 Fortune magazine article titled The Supreme Court,1947, some activists try to persuade people to change their behavior directly, rather than to persuade governments to change or not to change laws. Other activists try to persuade people to remain the same, in an effort to counter change, the cooperative movement seeks to build new institutions which conform to cooperative principles, and generally does not lobby or protest politically. Activism is not always an action by Activists, every year more than 100 environmental activists are killed, in 2014116 environmental activists were assassinated, in 2015185 activists were killed around this planet. Since the 1990s, the Internet has been a tool used by activists for mobilization and communication of causes, specific platforms like MoveOn. org, founded in 1998, allow individuals to establish petitions and movements for social change. Protesters in Seattle in 1999 used email to organize protests against the WTO Ministerial Conference, throughout the 2000s, protesters continued to use social media platforms to generate interest. The power of Internet Activism came into a lens with the Arab Spring protests. They use different means to political persecution, such as Tor Browser. The activism industry consists of organizations and individuals engaged in activism, Activism is often done full-time, as part of an organizations core business. Many organizations in the industry are either non profit organizations or non-governmental organizations. Most activist organizations do not manufacture goods, the term activism industry has often been used to refer to outsourced fundraising operations. However, activist organizations engage in activities as well. Lobbying, or the influencing of decisions made by government, is another activist tactic, many groups, including law firms, have designated staff assigned specifically for lobbying purposes. In the United States, lobbying is regulated by the federal government, many government systems encourage public support of non-profit organizations by granting various forms of tax relief for donations to charitable organizations. Governments may attempt to deny these benefits to activists by restricting the political activity of tax-exempt organizations, randy Shaw, The Activists Handbook, A Primer for the 1990s and Beyond
12.
AT&T
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AT&T Inc. is an American multinational telecommunications conglomerate, headquartered at Whitacre Tower in downtown Dallas, Texas. AT&T is the third-largest company in Texas, as of February 2017, AT&T is the 12th largest company in the world as measured by a composite of revenues, profits, assets and market valuation. AT&T is the largest telecommunications company in the world by revenue, as of 2017, it is also the 18th-largest mobile telecom operator in the world, with 135 million mobile customers. AT&T was ranked at #4 on the 2017 rankings of the worlds most valuable brands published by Brand Finance, Southwestern Bell changed its name to SBC Communications Inc. in 1995. In 2005, SBC purchased former parent AT&T Corp. and took on its branding, with the merged entity naming itself AT&T Inc. and using the iconic AT&T Corp. logo and stock-trading symbol. The current AT&T reconstitutes much of the former Bell System and includes ten of the original 22 Bell Operating Companies, AT&T can trace its origin back to the original Bell Telephone Company founded by Alexander Graham Bell after his invention of the telephone. This monopoly was known as the Bell System, and during this period, for periods of time, the former AT&T was the worlds largest phone company. In 1982, U. S. regulators broke up the AT&T monopoly, requiring AT&T to divest its regional subsidiaries and these new companies were known as Regional Bell Operating Companies, or more informally, Baby Bells. AT&T continued to long distance services, but as a result of this breakup, faced competition from new competitors such as MCI. Southwestern Bell was one of the created by the breakup of AT&T. The architect of divestiture for Southwestern Bell was Robert G. Pope, the company soon started a series of acquisitions. This includes the 1987 acquisition of Metromedia mobile business, and the acquisition of several companies in the early 1990s. In the later half of the 1990s, the company acquired several other companies, including some Baby Bells. During this time, the changed its name to SBC Communications. By 1998, the company was in the top 15 of the Fortune 500, in 2005, SBC purchased AT&T for $16 billion. After this purchase, SBC adopted the better-known AT&T name and brand, the current AT&T claims the original AT&Ts history as its own, though its corporate structure only dates from 1983. It also retains SBCs pre-2005 stock price history, in September 2013, AT&T announced it would expand into Latin America through a collaboration with Carlos Slims América Móvil. In December 2013, AT&T announced plans to sell its Connecticut wireline operations to Stamford-based Frontier Communications, in July 2015, AT&T purchased DirecTV for $48.5 billion, or $67.1 billion including assumed debt
13.
Advertisement film
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A television advertisement is a span of television programming produced and paid for by an organization, which conveys a message, typically to market a product or service. Advertisers and marketeers may refer to television commercials as TVCs, Advertising revenue provides a significant portion of the funding for most privately-owned television networks. As of 2016 the vast majority of television advertisements consist of advertising spots. Advertisements of this sort have promoted a variety of goods, services. The effects of television advertising upon the public have been the subject of philosophical discourse by such luminaries as Marshall McLuhan. In many countries, including the United States, television advertisements are considered indispensable for a political campaign. In other countries, such as France, political advertising on television is heavily restricted, while some countries, such as Norway, completely ban political advertisements. The announcement for Bulova watches, for which the company paid anywhere from $4.00 to $9.00, displayed a WNBT test pattern modified to look like a clock with the hands showing the time. The Bulova logo, with the phrase Bulova Watch Time, appeared in the lower quadrant of the test pattern while the second hand swept around the dial for one minute. The first TV ad broadcast in the UK went to air on ITV on September 22,1955, the first TV ad broadcast in Asia appeared on Nippon Television in Tokyo on August 28,1953, advertising Seikosha, it also displayed a clock with the current time. To accomplish the first step means different things in different parts of the world depending on the regulation in place, in the UK for example, clearance must be given by the body Clearcast. Another example is Venezuela where clearance is governed by a body called CNAC, the clearance provides guarantee to the broadcasters that the content of the advertisement meets legal guidelines. Because of this, special extended clearance sometimes applies to food, after the advent of cheap video software and consumer cameras, numerous individuals have offered video production services on the internet. Some of these ad jingles or catch-phrases may take on lives of their own, spawning gags that appear in films, television shows, magazines, comics, or literature. These long-lasting advertising elements may be said to have taken a place in the pop culture history of the demographic to whom they appeared. An example is the phrase, Winston tastes good like a cigarette should. Variations of this dialogue and direct references to it appeared as long as two decades after the advertising campaign expired, another example is Wheres the Beef. which grew so popular it was used in the 1984 presidential election by Walter Mondale. Another popular catch-phrase is Ive fallen and I cant get up, Advertising agencies often use humor as a tool in their creative marketing campaigns
14.
Cyrillic script
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The Cyrillic script /sᵻˈrɪlɪk/ is a writing system used for various alphabets across eastern Europe and north and central Asia. It is based on the Early Cyrillic, which was developed in the First Bulgarian Empire during the 9th century AD at the Preslav Literary School. As of 2011, around 252 million people in Eurasia use it as the alphabet for their national languages. With the accession of Bulgaria to the European Union on 1 January 2007, Cyrillic became the official script of the European Union, following the Latin script. Cyrillic is derived from the Greek uncial script, augmented by letters from the older Glagolitic alphabet and these additional letters were used for Old Church Slavonic sounds not found in Greek. The script is named in honor of the two Byzantine brothers, Saints Cyril and Methodius, who created the Glagolitic alphabet earlier on, modern scholars believe that Cyrillic was developed and formalized by early disciples of Cyril and Methodius. In the early 18th century the Cyrillic script used in Russia was heavily reformed by Peter the Great, the new form of letters became closer to the Latin alphabet, several archaic letters were removed and several letters were personally designed by Peter the Great. West European typography culture was also adopted, Cyrillic script spread throughout the East and South Slavic territories, being adopted for writing local languages, such as Old East Slavic. Its adaptation to local languages produced a number of Cyrillic alphabets, capital and lowercase letters were not distinguished in old manuscripts. Yeri was originally a ligature of Yer and I, iotation was indicated by ligatures formed with the letter І, Ꙗ, Ѥ, Ю, Ѩ, Ѭ. Sometimes different letters were used interchangeably, for example И = І = Ї, there were also commonly used ligatures like ѠТ = Ѿ. The letters also had values, based not on Cyrillic alphabetical order. The early Cyrillic alphabet is difficult to represent on computers, many of the letterforms differed from modern Cyrillic, varied a great deal in manuscripts, and changed over time. Few fonts include adequate glyphs to reproduce the alphabet, the Unicode 5.1 standard, released on 4 April 2008, greatly improves computer support for the early Cyrillic and the modern Church Slavonic language. In Microsoft Windows, Segoe UI is notable for having complete support for the archaic Cyrillic letters since Windows 8, the development of Cyrillic typography passed directly from the medieval stage to the late Baroque, without a Renaissance phase as in Western Europe. Late Medieval Cyrillic letters show a tendency to be very tall and narrow. Peter the Great, Czar of Russia, mandated the use of westernized letter forms in the early 18th century, over time, these were largely adopted in the other languages that use the script. The development of some Cyrillic computer typefaces from Latin ones has also contributed to the visual Latinization of Cyrillic type, Cyrillic uppercase and lowercase letter forms are not as differentiated as in Latin typography
15.
Short film
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A short film, is a cinema format, denoting any film not long enough to be considered a feature film. The term featurette originally applied to a longer than a short subject. The increasingly rare term short subject means approximately the same thing and it is an industry term which carries more of an assumption that the film is shown as part of a presentation along with a feature film. Short is an abbreviation for either term, Short films are often screened at local, national, or international film festivals and made by independent filmmakers for non profit, either with a low budget or no budget at all. They are usually funded by grants, non profit organizations. Short films are used by filmmakers to gain experience or prove their talent in order to gain funding for future films from private investors, entertainment companies. Longer and shorter films coexisted with similar popularity throughout the days of film. However, comedy films were produced in large numbers compared to lengthy features such as D. W. Griffiths The Birth of a Nation. By the 1920s, a ticket purchased a varied program including a feature and several supporting works from such as second feature, short comedy, 5–10 minute cartoon, travelogue. Short comedies were popular, and typically came in a serial or series. Even though there was no set release schedule, these series could be considered somewhat like a modern TV sitcom – lower in status than feature films. Animated cartoons came principally as short subjects, in the 1930s, the distribution system changed in many countries owing to the Great Depression. Instead of the cinema owner assembling a program of their own choice, the studios sold a package centered on a main and supporting feature, with the rise of the double feature, two reel shorts went into decline as a commercial category. Hal Roach, for example, moved Laurel and Hardy full-time into feature films after 1935, by the mid-1950s, with the rise of television, the commercial live-action short was virtually dead, The Three Stooges being the last major series of 2-reelers, ending in 1959. Short films had become a medium for student, independent and specialty work, cartoon shorts had a longer life, due in part to the implementation of lower-cost limited animation techniques, but also declined in this period. Warner Bros. one of the most prolific of the golden era, the Pink Panther was the last regular theatrical cartoon short series, having begun in 1964 and ended in 1980. By the 1960s, the market for animated shorts had largely shifted to television, a few animated shorts continue within mainstream commercial distribution. For instance, Pixar has screened a short along with each of its feature films during its theatrical run since 1995
16.
Yahoo! View
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View is a video on demand service operated by Yahoo. It was initially established as Yahoo, later on, the ability to upload video was removed, and the website began operating as a portal for curated video content hosted by Yahoos properties. In 2011, the service was re-launched as Yahoo, screen, placing a larger focus on original content and web series. Screen also acquired the sitcom Community for a season, following its cancellation after the fifth season on NBC. As of September 2013, the service had more than 1,000 hours of content, in January 2016, following a $42 million write-down on the poor performance of its original content, Yahoo. In August 2016, Yahoo. announced a partnership with subscription video-on-demand service Hulu to move its free video library to a de facto successor known as Yahoo, video, a video sharing website on which users could upload and share videos. Video was a video search engine. Yahoo added the ability to upload and share video clips in June 2006, a re-designed site was launched in February 2008 that changed the focus to Yahoo. -hosted video only. Videos functionality to upload video was removed for its relaunch as Yahoo, all user-generated content was removed on March 15,2011. Deleted was saved by the Archive Team, screen rebrand was launched October 2011, alongside eight original programs. Screen has streamed three seasons of its Emmy-nominated original series, Burning Love, which was syndicated for TV through E. in 2013, Yahoo. holds non-exclusive international rights to the archive content, and non-exclusive rights to clips from the current season. In June 2014, Yahoo. announced that it had picked up former NBC sitcom Community for its sixth season, which premiered via Yahoo. Within a month of Communitys season six premiere, Yahoo. had premiered full first seasons of two new series, Sin City Saints and Other Space, but available only in the United States. Screen won the rights to distribute the National Football Leagues International Series game between the Buffalo Bills and Jacksonville Jaguars, set to take place October 25. The one-off stream was the first NFL game to be broadcast almost exclusively through the Internet, with no television broadcast outside, Buffalo, Jacksonville and other international markets. On January 4,2016, following a $42 million write-down in the quarter of 2015 as a result of the poor performance of its three original series, Yahoo. Screen as a portal was discontinued, Yahoos original video content was re-located to relevant portals of the site, in particular, its original television series were moved to an originals section on the Yahoo. It features the five most recent episodes of the networks series and it also integrates with Tumblr to provide access to fan content related to programs
17.
Other Space
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Other Space is an American science fiction comedy television series. The show has been described as Red Dwarf USA, take two. R. T, TV in the U. S. following the shuttering of Yahoo. It is expected that the show will become available in further territories in the following months, the first season has received positive reviews from critics. On Metacritic, it has a score of 66 out of 100 based on 6 reviews, on Rotten Tomatoes, the show currently holds an 91% approval rating from critics with an average rating of 6.3 out of 10. In April 2015, creator Paul Feig stated that the future of the show is up in the air, Feig confirmed that he was still waiting for a decision from Yahoo. in September 2015. On January 6,2016, Feig suggested there may be episodes of Other Space despite Yahoo. Screen cancelling their service in 2016 due to low viewership and financial writeoffs, season 1 of Other Space remains available for viewing in the TV section of Yahoos website. On February 21,2016, Paul Feig posted on his Twitter account and it will be back if I have to shoot it on my iPhone. But it wont come to that, after the future of the series was called into question when Yahoo. Screen was shut down in late 2015, list of original programs distributed by Yahoo. Other Space at the Internet Movie Database
18.
Jews
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The Jews, also known as the Jewish people, are an ethnoreligious group originating from the Israelites, or Hebrews, of the Ancient Near East. Jews originated as a national and religious group in the Middle East during the second millennium BCE, the Merneptah Stele appears to confirm the existence of a people of Israel, associated with the god El, somewhere in Canaan as far back as the 13th century BCE. The Israelites, as an outgrowth of the Canaanite population, consolidated their hold with the emergence of the Kingdom of Israel, some consider that these Canaanite sedentary Israelites melded with incoming nomadic groups known as Hebrews. The worldwide Jewish population reached a peak of 16.7 million prior to World War II, but approximately 6 million Jews were systematically murdered during the Holocaust. Since then the population has risen again, and as of 2015 was estimated at 14.3 million by the Berman Jewish DataBank. According to the report, about 43% of all Jews reside in Israel and these numbers include all those who self-identified as Jews in a socio-demographic study or were identified as such by a respondent in the same household. The exact world Jewish population, however, is difficult to measure, Israel is the only country where Jews form a majority of the population. The modern State of Israel was established as a Jewish state and defines itself as such in its Declaration of Independence and its Law of Return grants the right of citizenship to any Jew who requests it. The English word Jew continues Middle English Gyw, Iewe, according to the Hebrew Bible, the name of both the tribe and kingdom derive from Judah, the fourth son of Jacob. The Hebrew word for Jew, יְהוּדִי ISO 259-3 Yhudi, is pronounced, with the stress on the syllable, in Israeli Hebrew. The Ladino name is ג׳ודיו, Djudio, ג׳ודיוס, Djudios, Yiddish, ייִד Yid, ייִדן, Yidn. The etymological equivalent is in use in languages, e. g. but derivations of the word Hebrew are also in use to describe a Jew, e. g. in Italian. The German word Jude is pronounced, the corresponding adjective jüdisch is the origin of the word Yiddish, in such contexts Jewish is the only acceptable possibility. Some people, however, have become so wary of this construction that they have extended the stigma to any use of Jew as a noun, a factual reconstruction for the origin of the Jews is a difficult and complex endeavor. It requires examining at least 3,000 years of ancient human history using documents in vast quantities, as archaeological discovery relies upon researchers and scholars from diverse disciplines, the goal is to interpret all of the factual data, focusing on the most consistent theory. In this case, it is complicated by long standing politics and religious, Jacob and his family migrated to Ancient Egypt after being invited to live with Jacobs son Joseph by the Pharaoh himself. The patriarchs descendants were later enslaved until the Exodus led by Moses, traditionally dated to the 13th century BCE, Modern archaeology has largely discarded the historicity of the Patriarchs and of the Exodus story, with it being reframed as constituting the Israelites inspiring national myth narrative. The growth of Yahweh-centric belief, along with a number of practices, gradually gave rise to a distinct Israelite ethnic group
19.
West Hollywood, California
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West Hollywood, occasionally referred to locally as WeHo, is a city in Los Angeles County, California, United States. Incorporated in 1984, it is home to the Sunset Strip, as of the 2010 census, its population was 34,399. It is considered one of the most prominent gay villages in the United States, the citys irregular boundary is featured in its logo, it was largely formed from the unincorporated Los Angeles County area that had not become part of the surrounding cities. West Hollywood benefits from a dense, compact urban form with small lots, mixed land use. According to Walkscore, a website that ranks cities based on walkability, commercial corridors include the nightlife and dining focused on the Sunset Strip, along Santa Monica Boulevard, and the Avenues of Art & Design along Robertson, Melrose, and Beverly Boulevard. Major intersecting streets typically provide amenities within walking distance of adjacent neighborhoods, West Hollywood has a Subtropical-semi-arid climate with year-round warm weather. The record high temperature of 111 °F was recorded September 26,1963, snow is rare in West Hollywood, with the last accumulation occurring in 1949. Rainfall is sparse, and falls mainly during winter months, around 5,000 of the indigenous inhabitants from the Tongva Indian tribe canoed out to greet Juan Cabrillo. The Tongva tribe was a nation of hunter-gatherers known for their reverence of dance, by 1771, these native people had been severely ravaged by diseases brought in by the Europeans from across wide oceans. The Spanish mission system changed the name to Gabrielinos, in reference to the Mission de San Gabriel. The Gabrielinos are believed to have burned the pitch for fuel, by 1780, what became the Sunset Strip was the major connecting road for El Pueblo de Los Angeles, and all ranches westward to the Pacific Ocean. This land passed through the hands of owners during the next one hundred years. Most of this area was part of the Rancho La Brea, Sherman became the location of the railroads main shops, railroad yards, and car barns. Many working-class employees of the railroad settled in this town and it was during this time that the city began to earn its reputation as a loosely regulated, liquor-friendly place for eccentric people wary of government interference. Despite several annexation attempts, the town elected not to part of the City of Los Angeles. For many years, the area that is now the city of West Hollywood was an area in the midst of Los Angeles. Because gambling was illegal in the city of Los Angeles, but still legal in Los Angeles County and these businesses were immune from the sometimes heavy-handed law-enforcement of the L. A. Some people connected with movie-making were attracted to this area of the County
20.
Mattel
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Mattel, Inc. is an American multinational toy manufacturing company founded in 1945 with headquarters in El Segundo, California. In 2014, it ranked #403 on the Fortune 500 list, in the early 1980s, Mattel produced video game systems, under both its own brands and under license from Nintendo. The company has presence in 40 countries and territories and sells products in more than 150 nations, the company operates through three business segments, North America, international, and American Girl. It is the worlds largest toy maker in terms of revenue, on January 17,2017 Mattel named Google executive Margaret Margo Georgiadis as its next CEO. The companys name is a portmanteau of those of Harold Matt Matson and Elliot Handler, Mattel Creations was founded in 1945 by Harold Matt Matson and Elliot Handler. The company initially sold picture frames, then dollhouse furniture, Matson soon sold his share to Handler due to poor health, and Handlers wife Ruth took over Matsons role. In 1947, the company had its first hit toy, a ukulele called Uke-A-Doodle, the company was incorporated the next year in California. Mattel became the first year-round sponsor of the Mickey Mouse Club TV series in 1955, the Barbie doll was introduced in 1959, becoming the companys best selling toy ever. In 1960, Mattel introduced Chatty Cathy, a doll that revolutionized the toy industry. The company went public in 1960 and was first listed on the New York Stock Exchange in 1963, Mattel also acquired a number of companies during the 1960s. In 1965, the built on its success with the Chatty Cathy doll to introduce the See n Say talking toy which spawned a line of products. Hot Wheels was first released to the market in 1968, in May 1970, Mattel formed a joint venture film production company, Radnitz/Mattel Productions, with producer Robert B. The Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus was purchased by the Mattel company in 1971 for $40 million from the Feld family, who were retained as management. Mattel had placed the circus corporation up for sale despite its profit contributions to Mattel by December 1973 as Mattel showed a $29.9 million loss in 1972. An investigation in 1974 concluded false and misleading financial reports had been issued, arthur S. Spear, a Mattel vice president was selected to run the company in 1975 and led it back to profitability in 1977. Ruth Handler sold back her stock in 1980, the Mattel Electronics line was started in 1977 with an all-electronic handheld game. The success of the led to the expansion of the line with game console then the line becoming its own corporation in 1982. Mattel Electronics forced Mattel to take a $394 million loss in 1983, in 1979, through Feld Productions, Mattel purchased the Holiday on Ice and Ice Follies for $12 million
21.
Barbie
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Barbie is a fashion doll manufactured by the American toy company Mattel, Inc. and launched in March 1959. American businesswoman Ruth Handler is credited with the creation of the using a German doll called Bild Lilli as her inspiration. Barbie is the figurehead of a brand of Mattel dolls and accessories, including family members. Mattel has sold over a billion Barbie dolls, making it the company’s largest and most profitable line, however, sales have declined sharply since 2014. The doll transformed the toy business in affluent communities worldwide by becoming a vehicle for the sale of related merchandise, Ruth Handler watched her daughter Barbara play with paper dolls, and noticed that she often enjoyed giving them adult roles. At the time, most childrens toy dolls were representations of infants, realizing that there could be a gap in the market, Handler suggested the idea of an adult-bodied doll to her husband Elliot, a co-founder of the Mattel toy company. He was unenthusiastic about the idea, as were Mattels directors, during a trip to Europe in 1956 with her children Barbara and Kenneth, Ruth Handler came across a German toy doll called Bild Lilli. The adult-figured doll was exactly what Handler had in mind, so she purchased three of them and she gave one to her daughter and took the others back to Mattel. The Lilli doll was based on a character appearing in a comic strip drawn by Reinhard Beuthin for the newspaper Bild. Lilli was a bombshell, a working girl who knew what she wanted and was not above using men to get it. The Lilli doll was first sold in Germany in 1955, and although it was sold to adults. Upon her return to the United States, Handler redesigned the doll, the doll made its debut at the American International Toy Fair in New York on March 9,1959. This date is used as Barbies official birthday. The first Barbie doll wore a black and white zebra striped swimsuit and signature topknot ponytail, the doll was marketed as a Teen-age Fashion Model, with her clothes created by Mattel fashion designer Charlotte Johnson. The first Barbie dolls were manufactured in Japan, with their clothes hand-stitched by Japanese homeworkers, around 350,000 Barbie dolls were sold during the first year of production. Louis Marx and Company sued Mattel in March 1961, after licensing Lilli, they claimed that Mattel had “infringed on Greiner & Haussers patent for Bild-Lilli’s hip joint, and also claimed that Barbie was a direct take-off and copy of Bild-Lilli. The company additionally claimed that Mattel falsely and misleadingly represented itself as having originated the design, Mattel counter-claimed and the case was settled out of court in 1963. In 1964, Mattel bought Greiner & Haussers copyright and patent rights for the Bild-Lilli doll for $21,600
22.
Beverly Hills High School
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Beverly Hills High School is the only major public high school in Beverly Hills, California. The other public school in Beverly Hills, Moreno High School, is a small alternative school located on Beverlys campus. Beverly is part of the Beverly Hills Unified School District and located on 19.5 acres on the west side of Beverly Hills, the land was previously part of the Beverly Hills Speedway board track, which was torn down in 1924. Beverly, which all of Beverly Hills, was founded in 1927. The original buildings were designed by Robert D. Farquhar in the French Normandy style, the school also receives its funding from its on-campus oil tower. Beverly Hills High School was originally in the Los Angeles City High School District, newsweek ranked Beverly Hills High School as the 267th best public high school in the country. Most students are residents of Beverly Hills, students in that program, which was financed by state funds tied to student enrollment, were required to supply their own transportation. The program accepted 30 students each year, the program began in the 1970s in order to expose the then-predominately Anglophone white/Caucasian students to other cultures. Until 1991 the program admitted students who graduated from Emerson Middle School in Westwood. It was expanded since there were complaints that it was taking away the best students from University High School, as of 1991 19% of the students were Iranian, and almost 20% of the students were either Asian, Black, and/or Latino. In 2008, Beverly Hills High School had 2,412 students, 70% Caucasian, 17% Asian, 5% African-American, in 2014, the student body was 72% white, 16% Asian, 6% black, and 5% Hispanic. The student body is, as of 2008, predominantly Jewish, many students are Iranian Americans, the majority of whom at the school are also Jewish. Due to the number of students of Iranian origin, the school has historically scheduled a staff development day on or around Nowruz. As of 2012 about 35% of Beverlys current student body was born outside the United States, as of 1991 home languages other than English included Mandarin Chinese, French, Hebrew, Korean, and Russian. Some television shows like Beverly Hills,90210 have been criticized for not accurately portraying the student body, the 1988 non-fiction book Hard Lessons by Michael Leahy documents the life of six Beverly seniors for a full school year. In 1984, Beverly had a 100% graduation rate but three students committed suicide and these suicides piqued Leahys interest in Beverly, and in 1985 he began writing Hard Lessons. Leahy had heard stories about Beverly having intense academic pressure, rampant cocaine abuse. However, after speaking to Beverly students he concluded that sex, Beverlys social attitudes and morals were also nearly identical to these schools
23.
Communication
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Communication is the act of conveying intended meanings from one entity or group to another through the use of mutually understood signs and semiotic rules. The main steps inherent to all communication are, The forming of communicative motivation or reason, transmission of the encoded message as a sequence of signals using a specific channel or medium. Noise sources such as forces and in some cases human activity begin influencing the quality of signals propagating from the sender to one or more receivers. Reception of signals and reassemblying of the message from a sequence of received signals. Decoding of the encoded message. Interpretation and making sense of the original message. The channel of communication can be visual, auditory, tactile and haptic, olfactory, electromagnetic, human communication is unique for its extensive use of abstract language. Development of civilization has been linked with progress in telecommunication. Nonverbal communication describes the process of conveying information in the form of non-linguistic representations, examples of nonverbal communication include haptic communication, chronemic communication, gestures, body language, facial expressions, eye contact, and how one dresses. Nonverbal communication also relates to intent of a message, examples of intent are voluntary, intentional movements like shaking a hand or winking, as well as involuntary, such as sweating. Speech also contains nonverbal elements known as paralanguage, e. g. rhythm, intonation, tempo and it affects communication most at the subconscious level and establishes trust. Likewise, written texts include nonverbal elements such as handwriting style, spatial arrangement of words, Nonverbal communication demonstrates one of Wazlawicks laws, you cannot not communicate. Once proximity has formed awareness, living creatures begin interpreting any signals received, Nonverbal cues are heavily relied on to express communication and to interpret others’ communication and can replace or substitute verbal messages. There are several reasons as to why non-verbal communication plays a role in communication. Written communication can also have non-verbal attributes, e-mails and web chats allow individual’s the option to change text font colours, stationary, emoticons, and capitalization in order to capture non-verbal cues into a verbal medium. Many different non-verbal channels are engaged at the time in communication acts. “Non-verbal behaviours may form a language system. ”Smiling, crying, pointing, caressing. Such non-verbal signals allow the most basic form of communication when verbal communication is not effective due to language barriers, Verbal communication is the spoken or written conveyance of a message
24.
Improvisational theatre
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Improvisational theatre exists in performance as a range of styles of improvisational comedy as well as some non-comedic theatrical performances. It is sometimes used in film and television, both to develop characters and scripts and occasionally as part of the final product. Improvisational techniques are used extensively in drama programs to train actors for stage, film. However, the skills and processes of improvisation are used outside of the context of performing arts. It is sometimes used in psychotherapy as a tool to gain insight into a persons thoughts, feelings, the earliest well documented use of improvisational theatre in Eastern history is found in the Atellan Farce of Africa 391 BC. From the 16th to the 18th centuries, commedia dellarte performers improvised based on an outline in the streets of Italy. Some people credit American Dudley Riggs as the first vaudevillian to use audience suggestions to create improvised sketches on stage, Spolin influenced the first generation of modern American improvisers at The Compass Players in Chicago, which led to The Second City. Her son, Paul Sills, along with David Shepherd, started The Compass Players, following the demise of the Compass Players, Paul Sills began The Second City. They were the first organized troupes in Chicago, and the modern Chicago improvisational comedy movement grew from their success. Many of the current rules of comedic improv were first formalized in Chicago in the late 1950s and early 1960s, initially among The Compass Players troupe, which was directed by Paul Sills. From most accounts, David Shepherd provided the vision of the Compass Players. Mike Nichols, Ted Flicker, and Del Close were her most frequent collaborators in this regard, during this time, Forsberg trained many of the performers who went on to star on The Second City stage. Simultaneously, Keith Johnstones group The Theatre Machine, which originated in London, was touring Europe and this work gave birth to Theatresports, at first secretly in Johnstones workshops, and eventually in public when he moved to Canada. Toronto has been home to a rich improv tradition, in 1984, Dick Chudnow founded ComedySportz in Milwaukee, WI. Expansion began with the addition of ComedySportz-Madison, in 1985, the first Comedy League of America National Tournament was held in 1988, with 10 teams participating. The league is now known as World Comedy League and boasts a roster of 24 international cities, in San Francisco, The Committee theater was active in North Beach during the 1960s. It was founded by alumni of Chicagos Second City, Alan Myerson, when The Committee disbanded in 1972, three major companies were formed, The Pitchell Players, The Wing, and Improvisation Inc. The only company that continued to perform Closes Harold was the latter one and its two former members, Michael Bossier and John Elk, formed Spaghetti Jam in San Franciscos Old Spaghetti Factory in 1976, where shortform improv and Harolds were performed through 1983
25.
Upright Citizens Brigade
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The Upright Citizens Brigade is an improvisational and sketch comedy group that emerged from Chicagos ImprovOlympic in 1990. The original incarnation of the group consisted of Matt Besser, Amy Poehler, Ian Roberts, Matt Walsh, Adam McKay, Rick Roman, Horatio Sanz and Drew Franklin, other early members included Neil Flynn, Armando Diaz, Ali Farahnakian and Rich Fulcher. In 2013, Besser, Roberts and Walsh wrote The Upright Citizens Brigade Comedy Improvisation Manual, the Upright Citizens Brigade began performing improv and sketch comedy at Kill the Poet in Chicago. Their first show was called Virtual Reality, the group followed with shows titled UCBTV, Conference on the Future of Happiness, Thunderball, Bucket of Truth, Big Dirty Hands, The Real Real World, and Punch Your Friend in the Face. In 1993, the Upright Citizens Brigade were regular guests on stage at the New Variety produced and hosted by Richard ODonnell at the Chicago Improv comedy club,504 N. Wells. In 1996, the Upright Citizens Brigade relocated to New York and began performing shows, on April 1,2003, they moved to a new space at 307 W. 26th Street. In July 2005, the UCB opened at the Tamarind Theatre in Los Angeles at 5919 Franklin Avenue, UCB also operates a second theater and bar space in the East Village, UCB East, which runs smaller-scale shows for $10 or less. The Upright Citizens Brigade have also been a performance in the Comedy Tent at the annual Bonnaroo Music and Arts Festival in Manchester, Tennessee. The original group, Matt Besser, Matt Walsh, Ian Roberts, in addition to this they had a TV movie called Escape From Its a Wonderful Life and appeared weekly on Late Night with Conan OBrien in the 90s. In the way of film, in 2002 they created and starred in the film Martin & Orloff, neither film was particularly successful or well received, and the group has overall avoided the media. There is also a web series titled UCB Comedy Originals, created in 2008. In 2016, Universal Cable Productions announced signing Upright Citizens Brigade to a production deal. The Second City The Groundlings ImprovOlympic Under the Gun Theater Raftery, high-Status Characters, How The Upright Citizens Brigade Stormed A City, Started A Scene, And Changed Comedy Forever. Official website Audio Interview with Matt Besser on The Sound of Young America, MP3 Link Video interview with Michael Delaney
26.
VidCon
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VidCon is a multi-genre online video conference, held annually in Southern California since 2010. The first VidCon was held in July 9–11,2010 at the Hyatt Regency Century Plaza hotel in Los Angeles, thursday featured an industry day with panels and presentations by industry leaders and video creators. VidCon 2011 was held in July 29–30,2011, with an industry day on July 28. The event sold out sixty days prior to its opening, with 2,500 people in attendance, VidCon 2012, the third annual conference, was held in June 28–30,2012 at the Anaheim Convention Center. The new venue offered a larger capacity with room for future expansion. VidCon 2013 was held in August 1–3,2013 at the Anaheim Convention Center, the conference sold out a month in advance with attendance reaching 12,000 people. YouTube signed a deal in 2013 to become the sponsor of VidCon for two years. VidCon 2014 was held in June 26–28,2014 at the Anaheim Convention Center, the industry track featured talks given by YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki, Dreamworks co-founder Jeffrey Katzenberg, and Fullscreen CEO George Strompolos, as well as VidCon cofounder John Green. Troye Sivan also announced his EP, TRXYE, there were various concerts during the convention including We The Kings and Meghan Tonjes. VidCon 2015 took place on July 23–25,2015, at the Anaheim Convention Center, the number of people attending was limited, so there would only be slightly more people than in 2014. However, the space was enlarged, with the taking up the entire Convention Center. There were over 300 YouTube creators who performed, exhibited and connected with the attendees, troye Sivan announced his new EP, WILD. VidCon 2015 used a new system for fans to meet the creators, VidCon 2016 was held from June 23 through June 25 at the Anaheim Convention Center. Bratayley made a special appearance talking about their sons death which shocked many due to the fact that Bratayley doesnt share much about their son, VidCon 2017 will be held in Amsterdam. It will be held on April 7–9,2017, at the Amsterdam RAI Exhibition and Convention Centre and it has also been confirmed that VidCon 2017 will launch in Australia. It will be held September 9–10,2017, at the Melbourne Convention and Exhibition Centre, VidCon has also confirmed it will be returning to the Anaheim Convention Center in the United States for VidCon 2017 in June along with its two new venues in Europe and Australia. VidCon attendees may purchase one of three types of passes, also called badges or tracks, a rolled out during the 2015 VidCon. At the lowest price, the Community track allows access to the floor of the Anaheim Convention Center, several stages, the signing and photo hall, the Expo Hall
27.
YouTube
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YouTube is an American video-sharing website headquartered in San Bruno, California. The service was created by three former PayPal employees—Chad Hurley, Steve Chen, and Jawed Karim—in February 2005, Google bought the site in November 2006 for US$1.65 billion, YouTube now operates as one of Googles subsidiaries. Unregistered users can watch videos on the site, while registered users are permitted to upload an unlimited number of videos. Videos deemed potentially offensive are available only to registered users affirming themselves to be at least 18 years old, YouTube earns advertising revenue from Google AdSense, a program which targets ads according to site content and audience. YouTube was founded by Chad Hurley, Steve Chen, and Jawed Karim, Hurley had studied design at Indiana University of Pennsylvania, and Chen and Karim studied computer science together at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Karim could not easily find video clips of either event online, Hurley and Chen said that the original idea for YouTube was a video version of an online dating service, and had been influenced by the website Hot or Not. YouTube began as a venture capital-funded technology startup, primarily from an $11.5 million investment by Sequoia Capital between November 2005 and April 2006, YouTubes early headquarters were situated above a pizzeria and Japanese restaurant in San Mateo, California. The domain name www. youtube. com was activated on February 14,2005, the first YouTube video, titled Me at the zoo, shows co-founder Jawed Karim at the San Diego Zoo. The video was uploaded on April 23,2005, and can still be viewed on the site, YouTube offered the public a beta test of the site in May 2005. The first video to reach one million views was a Nike advertisement featuring Ronaldinho in November 2005. Following a $3.5 million investment from Sequoia Capital in November, the site grew rapidly, and in July 2006 the company announced that more than 65,000 new videos were being uploaded every day, and that the site was receiving 100 million video views per day. The site has 800 million unique users a month and it is estimated that in 2007 YouTube consumed as much bandwidth as the entire Internet in 2000. The choice of the name www. youtube. com led to problems for a similarly named website, the sites owner, Universal Tube & Rollform Equipment, filed a lawsuit against YouTube in November 2006 after being regularly overloaded by people looking for YouTube. Universal Tube has since changed the name of its website to www. utubeonline. com, in October 2006, Google Inc. announced that it had acquired YouTube for $1.65 billion in Google stock, and the deal was finalized on November 13,2006. In March 2010, YouTube began free streaming of certain content, according to YouTube, this was the first worldwide free online broadcast of a major sporting event. On March 31,2010, the YouTube website launched a new design, with the aim of simplifying the interface, Google product manager Shiva Rajaraman commented, We really felt like we needed to step back and remove the clutter. In May 2010, YouTube videos were watched more than two times per day. This increased to three billion in May 2011, and four billion in January 2012, in February 2017, one billion hours of YouTube was watched every day
28.
NewMediaRockstars
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NewMediaRockstars is an online magazine which was launched in December 2011 and primarily covers YouTube performers, entrepreneurs, and artists with videos and interviews. In 2013, NewMediaRockstars closed because of lack of funding, but was acquired by Danny Zappin with the aim of building an online entertainment weekly. The online magazine was started by Benny Luo towards the end of 2011, at that time, the stated aim was to cover new media primarily on YouTube. In August,2013, NewMediaRockstars investor pulled funding and it had to shut down, two months later, in October 2013, the online magazine was acquired by Danny Zappin. His goal in acquiring it was to broaden its coverage of new media, in 2014, screenwriter and producer, Rory Haines was appointed CEO with the aim of expanding NMR into producing more video content
29.
Life Happens
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Life Happens is a 2011 comedy film directed by Kat Coiro and written by Coiro and Krysten Ritter. The film stars Ritter, Kate Bosworth, Kristen Johnston, Geoff Stults, Jason Biggs, Ritter plays the main character, Kim, who lives with her two roommates, Deena and Laura, in Los Angeles. Kim becomes pregnant after a stand so she turns to her friends for help. L. fe Happens opened in theaters on April 13,2012, Deena and Kim each bring home a guy one night. Realizing they have no condoms, they go looking around in their house where Deena ultimately finds the last one, one year later, Kim is a single mother. She still lives with her two girlfriends, Deena and Laura while trying to juggle her son named Max and she takes Max to his father Mark but he announces that he is not interested in being a father. Kim brings Max along to work with her one day, as a dog service company assistant to her youth-obsessed boss Francesca, franchesca reprimands Kim for bringing Max with her and says that she would be fired if she does it again. Kim then takes Max to her grandfather who is living in a retirement home. Meanwhile, Deena tries to finish writing her book in a library, one night, as Kim works as a bouncer in one of Francescas party, she falls for a guy named Nicolas who was with two of his friends, Henri and Sergei, attending the party. That night, Francesca finally allows Kim to have a break and meet up with Nicolas who promised to buy her a drink earlier and they quickly form a relationship after Nicolas intently asks Francesca to have Kim take his dog in his house. Kim brings along Max with her yet again where she lies to Nicolas that Max is a child of one of her roommates, Kim asks Deena to come with her on her date with Nicolas that evening where Deena agrees. Nicholas arrives along with his friend Henri, where they look to Deena as her roommate with the baby. Kim begs Deena to just go with the lie theyve come up with where Deena responds that it wouldnt take long enough for them to know that Kim is the one with a baby. They have a date where it seems that Deena and Henri are attracted to each other. The next day, Deena seems promoted from her career as a writer when someone could recognize her from an article she wrote, Kim on the other hand, seems to be an underdog as Francesca wouldnt allow to invest in her own dog service business. Laura, the other seems to be unstable as she has been shifting jobs every week. Kim asks her to care of Max since she has a date with Nicholas that night. She then freaks out and calls Deena who isnt answering her calls, finally, she asks a young boy to babysit Max for her
30.
CollegeHumor
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CollegeHumor is a comedy website based in Los Angeles and owned by IAC/InterActiveCorp. The site features daily original comedy videos and articles created by its writing and production team, in addition to user-submitted videos, pictures, articles. It was created by Josh Abramson and Ricky Van Veen, in early 2009, CollegeHumors editorial staff wrote and starred in their own TV show, The CollegeHumor Show, on MTV. CollegeHumor is operated by CHMedia, a New York company that also owns Defunker, Sports Pickle, CHMedia is also a partner of the website BustedTees, an online clothing website. Many of its staff operate the sister website Dorkly, centering on video games. The site was created in December 1999 by Josh Abramson and Ricky Van Veen, Abramson and Van Veen were high school friends from Baltimore, Maryland. The site traffic averages over 7 million monthly visitors, according to Quantcast direct measurement. Their aim was to create a site that would appeal to the advertiser-friendly college-aged demographic. CollegeHumor, along with its parent company, Connected Ventures, was acquired by Barry Dillers IAC in August 2006, in recent years, CollegeHumor has become known for its original comedy content. The site has been nominated for the Webby Award in the humor category, recent winners include Pixar Intro Parody for Best Animation, Web Site Story for Best Individual Short or Episode, and Jake and Amir for Best Series. Their shorts Awkward Rap and Hand Vagina were nominated for the Webby Award for Best Comedy, Individual Short or Episode in 2008 and 2009 with other nominees and winners since. In 2014, the two parts of their short Furry Force won the Ursa Major Award for Best Dramatic Series or Short Work, in 2014, CollegeHumor was listed on New Media Rockstars Top 100 Channels, ranked at number 76. CollegeHumor produces original comedy videos under the CH Originals banner, in addition, the site hosts a large collection of user-submitted viral videos, encompassing home movies, bizarre sports highlights, sketches, and such. These videos are released one month prior to being posted on YouTube, the CollegeHumor YouTube channel has reached over 5 billion views, and over 11.4 million subscribers. CollegeHumors pictures section features user-submitted photographs, like the sites videos, CollegeHumors pictures are of a humorous or bizarre nature. CollegeHumor also occasionally holds photo-based contests for its users, CollegeHumor posts original writing from its staff and users, including humorous essays, comics, interviews and weekly columns on sports, video games, college life, and dating. Andrew Bridgman curates the articles and edits the websites front page, CH Originals is CollegeHumors original comedy video section, featuring sketches and short films written and produced by the CollegeHumor staff. The site releases over ten new videos per week, CH Originals videos include sketch comedy, film and television parodies, animation, and music videos
31.
Silicon Valley (TV series)
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Silicon Valley is an American comedy television series created by Mike Judge, John Altschuler and Dave Krinsky. The series focuses on six young men who found a company in Silicon Valley. The series premiered on April 6,2014, on HBO, the first season consisted of eight episodes. HBO renewed the series for a season, which premiered on April 12,2015. On April 13,2015, HBO renewed Silicon Valley for a third season, on April 21,2016, HBO announced it had renewed the series for a fourth season to premiere on April 23,2017. Richard Hendricks is a shy, reclusive programmer who works at an internet company called Hooli. He is also developing an app called Pied Piper in a live-in startup business incubator run by entrepreneur Erlich Bachman. After a rocky post-TED elevator pitch of Pied Piper to venture capitalist Peter Gregory, within hours, however, Hooli executive Donald Jared Dunn and Gregorys assistant Monica discover that the app contains a revolutionary data compression algorithm. This leads Belson to increase his offer to $10 million, with encouragement from Monica and the support of Bachman, Hendricks chooses Gregorys offer. He hires the residents of the incubator, except for his friend Nelson Big Head Bighetti, to become the Pied Piper team, along with Dunn, Hooli works to reverse engineer Pied Pipers algorithm based on the version he demonstrated, developing a copycat product called Nucleus. Gregory and Belson later each learn that Hendricks has been slated to present Pied Piper at TechCrunch Disrupt, Belson is confounded by the news, and responds by scheduling the announcement of Nucleus at the event. Hendricks explains to Monica that he meant to withdraw from the competition, the countdown to the event means that Pied Piper has to be ready to show in less than eight weeks rather than Gregorys initial plan of five months. The team rushes to produce a cloud storage platform based on their compression technology. At the TechCrunch event, Bachman takes the lead in a dramatic presentation of Pied Piper. However the presentation is cut short when one of the judges assaults Bachman for having sex with both his current and ex-wives. Pied Piper automatically advances to the round as recompense for the assault on Bachman. Belson presents Nucleus, which is integrated with all of Hoolis services and has compression performance equal to Pied Piper, watching from the audience, the Pied Piper team generally admits defeat. The discussion sparks a sudden revelation in Hendricks, who spends the entire night coding, the next morning, Hendricks takes the lead in making Pied Pipers final presentation
32.
Greece
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Greece, officially the Hellenic Republic, historically also known as Hellas, is a country in southeastern Europe, with a population of approximately 11 million as of 2015. Athens is the capital and largest city, followed by Thessaloniki. Greece is strategically located at the crossroads of Europe, Asia, situated on the southern tip of the Balkan peninsula, it shares land borders with Albania to the northwest, the Republic of Macedonia and Bulgaria to the north, and Turkey to the northeast. Greece consists of nine regions, Macedonia, Central Greece, the Peloponnese, Thessaly, Epirus, the Aegean Islands, Thrace, Crete. The Aegean Sea lies to the east of the mainland, the Ionian Sea to the west, the Cretan Sea and the Mediterranean Sea to the south. Greece has the longest coastline on the Mediterranean Basin and the 11th longest coastline in the world at 13,676 km in length, featuring a vast number of islands, eighty percent of Greece is mountainous, with Mount Olympus being the highest peak at 2,918 metres. From the eighth century BC, the Greeks were organised into various independent city-states, known as polis, which spanned the entire Mediterranean region and the Black Sea. Greece was annexed by Rome in the second century BC, becoming a part of the Roman Empire and its successor. The Greek Orthodox Church also shaped modern Greek identity and transmitted Greek traditions to the wider Orthodox World, falling under Ottoman dominion in the mid-15th century, the modern nation state of Greece emerged in 1830 following a war of independence. Greeces rich historical legacy is reflected by its 18 UNESCO World Heritage Sites, among the most in Europe, Greece is a democratic and developed country with an advanced high-income economy, a high quality of life, and a very high standard of living. A founding member of the United Nations, Greece was the member to join the European Communities and has been part of the Eurozone since 2001. Greeces unique cultural heritage, large industry, prominent shipping sector. It is the largest economy in the Balkans, where it is an important regional investor, the names for the nation of Greece and the Greek people differ from the names used in other languages, locations and cultures. The earliest evidence of the presence of human ancestors in the southern Balkans, dated to 270,000 BC, is to be found in the Petralona cave, all three stages of the stone age are represented in Greece, for example in the Franchthi Cave. Neolithic settlements in Greece, dating from the 7th millennium BC, are the oldest in Europe by several centuries and these civilizations possessed writing, the Minoans writing in an undeciphered script known as Linear A, and the Mycenaeans in Linear B, an early form of Greek. The Mycenaeans gradually absorbed the Minoans, but collapsed violently around 1200 BC and this ushered in a period known as the Greek Dark Ages, from which written records are absent. The end of the Dark Ages is traditionally dated to 776 BC, the Iliad and the Odyssey, the foundational texts of Western literature, are believed to have been composed by Homer in the 7th or 8th centuries BC. With the end of the Dark Ages, there emerged various kingdoms and city-states across the Greek peninsula, in 508 BC, Cleisthenes instituted the worlds first democratic system of government in Athens
33.
Syrian Civil War
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The Syrian Civil War is an armed conflict taking place in Syria. Syrian opposition groups formed the Free Syrian Army and seized control of the area surrounding Aleppo, over time, some factions of the Syrian opposition split from their original moderate position to pursue an Islamist vision for Syria, joining groups such as al-Nusra Front and ISIL. In 2015, the Yekîneyên Parastina Gel joined forces with Arab, Assyrian, Armenian, Russia and Hezbollah militarily engaged in support of the Syrian government, while beginning in 2014, a coalition of NATO countries began launching airstrikes against ISIL. International organizations have accused the Syrian government, ISIL, and some groups of severe human rights violations. The conflict has caused a major refugee crisis, over the course of the war a number of peace initiatives have been launched, including the March 2017 Geneva peace talks on Syria led by the United Nations, but fighting continues. Syria became an independent republic in 1946, although democratic rule ended with a coup in March 1949, a popular uprising against military rule in 1954 saw the army transfer power to civilians. From 1958 to 1961, a union with Egypt replaced Syrias parliamentary system with a highly centralized presidential government. The secular Baath Syrian Regional Branch government came to power through a successful coup détat in 1963, for the next several years Syria went through additional coups and changes in leadership. In March 1971, Hafez al-Assad, an Alawite, declared himself President, on 31 January 1973, Hafez al-Assad implemented a new constitution, which led to a national crisis. They labeled Assad the enemy of Allah and called for a jihad against his rule, the government survived a series of armed revolts by Sunni Islamists, mainly members of the Muslim Brotherhood, from 1976 until 1982. Upon Hafez al-Assads death in 2000, his son Bashar al-Assad was elected as President of Syria, Bashar al-Assad and his wife Asma, a Sunni Muslim born and educated in Britain, initially inspired hopes for democratic reforms. The Damascus Spring, a period of social and political debate, the Damascus Spring largely ended in August 2001 with the arrest and imprisonment of ten leading activists who had called for democratic elections and a campaign of civil disobedience. In the opinion of his critics, Bashar al-Assad had failed to deliver on promised reforms, Syrian Arabs, together with some 600,000 Palestinian Arabs, make up roughly 74 percent of the population. Syria Muslims are 74 percent Sunnis, and 13 percent Shias,3 percent were Druze, not all of the Sunnis are Arabs. Bashar is married to a Sunni, with whom he has several children and he is affiliated with the sect that his parents belong to, the minority Alawite sect which comprises an estimated 8-12 percent of the total population. Assyrians, an indigenous Eastern Aramaic-speaking Christian Semitic people, numbering approximately 500,000, are mainly in northeast Syria. A larger population lives over the border in northern Iraq, other ethnic groups include Armenians, Circassians, Turkmens, Greeks, Mhallami, Kawliya, Yezidi, Shabaks, and Mandeans. Socioeconomic inequality increased significantly after free market policies were initiated by Hafez al-Assad in his later years, the country also faced particularly high youth unemployment rates
34.
European migrant crisis
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And a small number of hostile agents including Islamic State militants. Of the unauthorized entrants arriving in Europe by sea in 2015, 58% were adult males over 18 years of age, 17% were adult females over 18 years of age, and 25% were minors under 18 years of age. According to Eurostat, EU member states received over 1.2 million first-time asylum applications in 2015, four states received around two-thirds of the EUs asylum applications in 2015, with Hungary, Sweden, and Austria being the top recipients of asylum applications per capita. Countries may reinstate internal border controls for a maximum of two months for public policy or national security reasons, by default, the first member state that an asylum seeker entered and in which they have been fingerprinted is responsible. If the asylum seeker then moves to another state, they can be transferred back to the member state they first entered. Further clauses on this topic are found in EU directive 2001/51/EC and this has had the effect that migrants without a visa are not allowed on aircraft, boats or trains going into the Schengen Area, so migrants without a visa have resorted to migrant smugglers. Humanitarian visas are in general not given to refugees who want to apply for asylum, the laws on migrant smuggling ban helping migrants to pass any national border if the migrants are without a visa or other permission to enter. This has caused many airlines to check for visas and refuse passage to migrants without visas, after being refused air passage, many migrants then attempt to travel overland to their destination country. The foreign-born population residing in the EU in 2014 amounts to 33 million people, by comparison, the foreign-born population is 1. 63% of the total population in Japan,7. 7% in Russia, 13% in the United States, 20% in Canada and 27% in Australia. Between 2010 and 2013, around 1.4 million non-EU nationals, excluding asylum seekers and refugees, immigrated into the EU each year using regular means, prior to 2014, the number of asylum applications in the EU peaked in 1992,2001, and 2013. According to the UNHCR, the EU countries with the biggest numbers of recognised refugees at the end of 2014 were France, Germany, Sweden, no European state was among the top ten refugee-hosting countries in the world. Prior to 2014, the number of border crossings detected by Frontex at the external borders of the EU peaked in 2011. According to the UNHCR, the number of displaced people worldwide reached 59.5 million at the end of 2014. Of these 59.5 million,19.5 million were refugees, the rest were persons displaced within their own countries. The 14.4 million refugees under UNHCRs mandate were around 2.7 million more than at the end of 2013, among them, Syrian refugees became the largest refugee group in 2014, overtaking Afghan refugees, who had been the largest refugee group for three decades. Six of the ten largest countries of origin of refugees were African, Somalia, Sudan, South Sudan, the Democratic Republic of Congo, developing countries hosted the largest share of refugees, the least developed countries alone provided asylum to 25% of refugees worldwide. The largest single recipient of new asylum seekers worldwide in 2014 was the Russian Federation, with 274,700 asylum requests, 99% of them lodged by Ukrainians fleeing from the war in Donbass. In 2012, immigrant influx into Greece by land decreased by 95% after the construction of a fence on that part of the Greek–Turkish frontier which does not follow the course of the Maritsa River
35.
Marvel Comics
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Marvel Comics is the common name and primary imprint of Marvel Worldwide Inc. formerly Marvel Publishing, Inc. and Marvel Comics Group, an American publisher of comic books and related media. In 2009, The Walt Disney Company acquired Marvel Entertainment, Marvel Worldwides parent company, Marvel started in 1939 as Timely Publications, and by the early 1950s had generally become known as Atlas Comics. Marvels modern incarnation dates from 1961, the year that the company launched The Fantastic Four and other superhero titles created by Stan Lee, Jack Kirby, Steve Ditko and many others. Most of Marvels fictional characters operate in a reality known as the Marvel Universe. Martin Goodman founded the later known as Marvel Comics under the name Timely Publications in 1939. Martin Goodman, a magazine publisher who had started with a Western pulp in 1933, was expanding into the emerging—and by then already highly popular—new medium of comic books. The issue was a success, with it and a second printing the following month selling, combined. While its contents came from an outside packager, Funnies, Inc, Timely had its own staff in place by the following year. It, too, proved a hit, with sales of one million. Goodman formed Timely Comics, Inc. beginning with comics cover-dated April 1941 or Spring 1941, Goodman hired his wifes cousin, Stanley Lieber, as a general office assistant in 1939. Lee wrote extensively for Timely, contributing to a number of different titles, Goodmans business strategy involved having his various magazines and comic books published by a number of corporations all operating out of the same office and with the same staff. One of these companies through which Timely Comics was published was named Marvel Comics by at least Marvel Mystery Comics #55. As well, some covers, such as All Surprise Comics #12, were labeled A Marvel Magazine many years before Goodman would formally adopt the name in 1961. The post-war American comic market saw superheroes falling out of fashion and this globe branding united a line put out by the same publisher, staff and freelancers through 59 shell companies, from Animirth Comics to Zenith Publications. Atlas also published a plethora of childrens and teen humor titles, including Dan DeCarlos Homer the Happy Ghost, Atlas unsuccessfully attempted to revive superheroes from late 1953 to mid-1954, with the Human Torch, the Sub-Mariner, and Captain America. Atlas did not achieve any hits and, according to Stan Lee, Atlas survived chiefly because it produced work quickly, cheaply. During this time, the Comic Code Authority made its debut in September 1954, Wertham published the book Seduction of the Innocent in order to force people to see that comics were impacting American youth. He believed violent comics were causing children to be reckless and were turning them into delinquents, in September 1954, comic book publishers got together to set up their own self-censorship organization—the Comics Magazine Association of America—in order to appease audiences
36.
Squirrel Girl
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Squirrel Girl is a fictional superheroine appearing in American comic books published by Marvel Comics. Her first appearance was in Marvel Super-Heroes vol, Marvel Super-Heroes Winter Special, in a story plotted and drawn by Steve Ditko and scripted by character conceptualizer Will Murray. Her ability to communicate with squirrels is surprisingly effective and has allowed her to defeat major supervillains and she joined the Great Lakes Avengers, but left to move to New York City, where she served as nanny to Danielle Cage, the daughter of Luke Cage and Jessica Jones. In her solo series, the character splits her time between studying computer science at Empire State University, and fighting crime both solo and as a member of the Avengers. Squirrel Girls creation arose from Murray wanting to write a superhero story as opposed to the often heavily dramatic tales that were the norm in mainstream comics at the time. Squirrel Girl was created by writer Will Murray and artist Steve Ditko, Squirrel Girl in Marvel Super-Heroes vol. She ambushes the superhero Iron Man, teams up with him, the story also introduces her squirrel sidekick, Monkey Joe. Murray has since described the genesis, Actually I created Squirrel Girl in script form without any artist input. Tom Morgan was originally going to draw it, but when he dropped out, I requested Ditko, Ditko did a great job in bringing my baby to life. I based Squirrel Girl ironically enough on a long–ago girlfriend who read comics and was into critters—wild animals of all types, coincidentally, she was big Ditko fan. I think I got the idea because I had a bunch of squirrels running around my roof and sometimes coming in through my open bedroom window, later, she was slated to join the New Warriors, but writer Fabian Nicieza left Marvel before going through with his plan. In 1997 Fleer-Skybox released cards based on Marvel Superheroes, one of which was a more mature version of Squirrel Girl. Following this, she did not appear again for nearly a decade and she was referenced only once in comics during that time, In Deadpool #7, Deadpools friend/maid/mother-figure/prisoner Blind Al mentions accidentally putting bleach in with Squirrel Girl Underoos. In 2005, comic writer Dan Slott wrote a miniseries for the superhero team the Great Lakes Avengers. Created in 1989, this team was made up of enthusiastic heroes with bizarre and they had appeared only a handful of times over their 16-year history, serving as comic relief. As part of the series, roster changes were made. The miniseries satirized comic book deaths, and it was announced that a member would die in every issue. After Squirrel Girl made a fuss to ensure that Monkey Joe would be an member of the team
37.
New Warriors
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The New Warriors is a Marvel Comics superhero team, traditionally consisting of teenage and young adult heroes. They often are seen to serve as a counterpart to The Avengers in much the same way that the New Mutants/X-Force did with the X-Men. They first appeared in The Mighty Thor #411, over the years the New Warriors, in their various incarnations, have been featured in five different volumes. Through the 75 issue comic series the team fought a number of adversaries, including the second Sphinx, over time the team is joined by Silhouette, Rage, Hindsight Lad, Bandit, Timeslip, Dagger, Darkhawk, Powerpax, Turbo and the Scarlet Spider. The second volume of New Warriors was published in 1999-2000 and ran for 11 issues before being cancelled and this team consisted of Namorita, Nova, Speedball and Turbo, joined by new members Bolt and Aegis. The comic book was published from 2007 to 2009 and lasted for 20 issues in total, when they try to travel back in time the team ends up in a dystopic future where the original Night Thrasher is a ruthless dictator. When the New Warriors returned to their own time they disbanded, the fifth New Warriors series was launched as part of the All-New Marvel NOW. initiative in 2014. The book lasted for 12 issues before being cancelled, the story saw original New Warriors members Justice, Speedball, and Silhouette return to team up with the new Nova, Scarlet Spider, Hummingbird, Sun Girl, Haechi and Water Snake. The New Warriors first appeared in issues 411 and 412 of the Marvel Comics title The Mighty Thor, to this mix DeFalco added Night Thrasher, an original character to serve as the teams founder and leader. The New Warriors were not sidekicks, as some prior teen superhero teams had been, the New Warriors were featured in an eponymous series from 1990 until 1996, written by Fabian Nicieza with art by Mark Bagley. Nicieza wrote the series for the first 53 issues, the series lasted for 75 issues and four annuals, spinning off a number of titles, including mini-series featuring Night Thrasher and Marvel Boy and ongoing series with Nova and Night Thrasher. A short-lived revival was launched in 1999, lasting for ten issues, in the mini-series, the New Warriors agreed to star in a reality television show to fund their team. A fourth series was launched in June 2007, spinning off of events in the Civil War crossover, Dwayne Taylor, the vigilante known as Night Thrasher meticulously researches a group of young heroes to help him wage a war on crime. They are Vance Astrovik aka Marvel Boy, Angelica Jones aka Firestar and Richard Rider, during their first battle with Terrax, a former herald of Galactus, they are joined by Robbie Baldwin aka Speedball and Namorita. They defeat Terrax, but the Avengers unintentionally end up taking the credit, the team decides to stay together and Speedball dubs them the New Warriors after a news report he had seen on the battle. The newly created team gets involved in a fight between Thor and Juggernaut, helping Thor to send the Juggernaut to another dimension, in the teams second issue Night Thrashers past comes back to haunt him as the brother and sister team of Midnights Fire and Silhouette is introduced. The Warriors travel to stop a superhuman named Star Thief that is destroying space launches, with Firestar, Marvel Boy, the Team minus Night Thrasher travels to Brazil to rescue Speedballs mother from an environmental terrorist group and battle the Force of Nature. Night Thrasher stays behind to patch things up with Silhouette and confronts the Punisher, upon the Warriors return to New York, their headquarters is trashed in a battle with the Hellions for the claim of Firestar
38.
ER (TV series)
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It was produced by Constant c Productions and Amblin Television, in association with Warner Bros. ER follows the life of the emergency room of fictional County General Hospital in Chicago, Illinois. The show became the longest-running primetime medical drama in American television history and it won 23 Primetime Emmy Awards, including the 1996 Outstanding Drama Series award, and received 124 Emmy nominations, which makes it the most nominated drama program in history. ER won 116 awards in total, including the Peabody Award, in 1974, author Michael Crichton wrote a screenplay based on his own experiences as a resident physician in a busy hospital emergency room. The screenplay went nowhere and Crichton focused on other topics, in 1990, he published the novel Jurassic Park, and in 1993 began a collaboration with director Steven Spielberg on the film adaptation of the book. Crichton and Spielberg then turned to ER, but decided to film the story as a pilot for a television series rather than as a feature film. Spielbergs Amblin Entertainment provided John Wells as the executive producer. The script used to shoot the pilot was virtually unchanged from what Crichton had written in 1974. Because of a lack of time and money necessary to build a set, the episode of ER was filmed in the former Linda Vista Hospital in Los Angeles. After Spielberg had joined as a producer, NBC ordered six episodes, ER premiered opposite a Monday Night Football game on ABC and did surprisingly well. Then we moved it to Thursday and it just took off, ERs success surprised the networks and critics alike, as David E. Kelleys new medical drama Chicago Hope was expected to crush the new series. Crichton remained executive producer until his death in November 2008, although he was credited as one throughout that entire final season. Wells, the other initial executive producer, served as showrunner for the first three seasons. He was one of the shows most prolific writers and became a director in later years. Lydia Woodward was a part of the first season production team and she took over as showrunner for the fourth season while Wells focused on the development of other series, including Trinity, Third Watch, and The West Wing. She left her executive position at the end of the sixth season. Joe Sachs, who was a writer and producer of the series, believed keeping a commitment to medical accuracy was important, Wed bend the rules. A medication that would take 10 minutes to work might take 30 seconds instead, a 12- to 24-hour shift gets pushed into 48 minutes
39.
Days of Our Lives
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Days of Our Lives is an American daytime soap opera broadcast on the NBC television network. It is one of the scripted television programs in the world. It has since been syndicated to many countries around the world and it rebroadcast same-day episodes on SOAPnet weeknights at 8 and 10 p. m. until the networks closure in 2013. The series was created by husband-and-wife team Ted Corday and Betty Corday. Irna Phillips was an editor for Days of Our Lives. In February 2016, the received a one-year renewal through 2017. Due to the success, it was expanded from 30 minutes to 60 minutes on April 21,1975. The series focuses on its core families, the Hortons and the Bradys, several other families have been added to the cast, and many of them still appear on the show. Frances Reid, the matriarch of the series Horton family remained with the show from its inception to her death on February 3,2010. Suzanne Rogers celebrated 40 years on Days of Our Lives this year, Susan Seaforth Hayes is the only cast member to appear on Days of Our Lives in all five decades it has been on air. Days of Our Lives aired its 10, 000th episode on February 21,2005, the soap was given the title of most daring drama in the seventies due to covering topics other soaps would not dare to do. The shows executive producer is Ken Corday, and co-executive producers are Greg Meng, Days of Our Lives is the most widely distributed soap opera in the United States. The show has had high-profile fans such as actress Julia Roberts, the Cordays and Bell combined the hospital soap idea with the tradition of centering a series on a family, by making the show about a family of doctors, including one who worked in a mental hospital. Former executive producer Al Rabin took pride in the characters passion, critics originally praised the show for its non-reliance on nostalgia and its portrayal of real American contemporary families. The January 12,1976 cover of Time magazine featured Days of Our Lives Bill Hayes and Susan Seaforth Hayes, Days of Our lives actors have also won awards, Macdonald Carey won Best Actor in 1974 and 1975. Susan Flannery and Eileen Davidson won Best Actress in 1975 and 2014, suzanne Rogers, Leann Hunley, and Tamara Braun won Best Supporting Actress for, respectively,1979,1986, and 2009 and Billy Warlock won Best Younger Actor for 1988. In January 2007 it was suggested by NBC that the show is unlikely to continue past 2009, in November 2008, in an eleventh-hour decision, it was announced the show had been renewed through September 2010. The 18-month renewal was down from its previous renewal, which was for five years, the show made somewhat of a comeback in 2009, with ratings increasing as the year progressed. The series received a renewal in January 2014 that is set to last until September 2016
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Lizzie McGuire
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Lizzie McGuire is an American live-action scripted teen sitcom, which features an animated version of the title character performing soliloquy. The animated sequences were interspersed with the shows live-action sequences and it premiered on the Disney Channel on January 12,2001, following the premiere of Zenon, The Zequel, and ended February 14,2004. A total of 65 episodes were produced and aired and its target demographic was preteens and adolescents. The series won Favorite TV Show at the Nickelodeon Kids Choice Awards in 2002 and 2003. The series follows 13-year-old Lizzie McGuire, a shy, compassionate, episodes center on Lizzies life, dealing with her family, mostly her parents Jo and Sam and her younger brother Matt, and normal teenage life issues. Lizzie has an animated alter-ego that represents her feelings, the series was created by Terri Minsky. The shows working title was Whats Lizzie Thinking, before being changed to Lizzie McGuire. The shows producer Stan Rogow says the visual look of the show was inspired by the film Run Lola Run. Though production wrapped in June 2002, the show did not end its run on Disney Channel until 2004. In 2014, Hilary Duff announced that she would be open to a Lizzie McGuire reunion, elizabeth Lizzie Brooke McGuire is portrayed as a shy, compassionate, and clumsy teen who dreams to fit in and be popular, although her animated alter ego often tells her true feelings. Lizzie constantly gets into arguments with her brother, Matt. Shes a Straight B student and is good at rhythmic gymnastics. Always the first to apologize and incredibly loyal, Lizzie sometimes loses herself in her nature and impulsiveness. Lizzies allergic to strawberries and oysters, Miranda Isabella Sanchez is Lizzies best friend. Despite showcasing great confidence, she is the most self-conscious of the three friends and her family is Mexican American, but she speaks very little Spanish. Like Lizzie, Miranda struggles with being a girl and growing up. She did not appear in the last six episodes, nor in The Lizzie McGuire Movie, during this time, her character was said to be sick, visiting her aunt, and vacationing with her family in Mexico City. During the events of The Lizzie McGuire Movie, Miranda is still on vacation in Mexico with her family, Miranda sings and in Season 2 its shown that she plays the violin
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The Division
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The Division is an American crime drama television series created by Deborah Joy LeVine and starring Bonnie Bedelia. The series focused on a team of police officers in the San Francisco Police Department. The series premiered on Lifetime on January 7,2001 and ended on June 28,2004 after 88 episodes, the show focused on the lives of five policewomen in the felony division headed by Captain Kate McCafferty. Storylines revolved around the personal and professional lives, and their attempts to balance both. The series tackled such topics as alcoholism, drug addiction, homophobia, the series premiered on January 7,2001, earning a 3.1 rating and drew the largest audience of any basic cable original series premiere in 2001. After 4 seasons, the show was canceled on June 28,2004, the Division later was rebroadcast on the Lifetime network after its cancellation in various timeslots until 2007. As of 2008, reruns of the air on Lifetime Real Women. James L. Avery, Sr. com The Division at epguides. com
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Zach Stone Is Gonna Be Famous
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Zach Stone Is Gonna Be Famous is an American television comedy series created by comedian Bo Burnham and Dan Lagana that aired on MTV from May 2 to June 29,2013. The sitcom stars Burnham as Zach Stone, a school teenager who opts to pursue a life of fame. The series follows Zach, who hires a crew to film him throughout his daily life as a part of his quest to become an over-night celebrity. On June 26,2013, it was announced that Zach Stone is Gonna Be Famous had been cancelled after one season, Zach Stone, an 18-year-old high school graduate from Boston, opts to pursue his dream to reach the life of fame and stardom instead of attending college. From Zachs attempts to become a celebrity chef or a recording artist or purposely going missing, he will try any avenue he can to get noticed. He has the entire summer vacation to get noticed and to hang out with his friends before they all leave to go to college, the series was commissioned in September 2010 by MTV. The pilot was filmed in 2011, while the rest of the season was filmed over the course of 2012, the show was primarily inspired by the original British The Office, The Larry Sanders Show and The Comeback. Bo Burnham as Zach Stone, the eponymous protagonist, a recently graduated teen who pursues fame, Stone will do anything to get famous, including attempts to become a celebrity chef, a ring-tone recording artist, and purposefully going missing. Kari Coleman as Sydney Stone, Zachs patient mother Tom Wilson as Andrew Drew Stone, Zachs exasperated father Cameron Palatas as Andrew Michael Andy Stone, caitlin Gerard as Amy Page, Zachs best friend who lives four houses down and love interest. Armen Weitzman as Greg LeBlanc, Zachs shy, Jewish best friend, outwardly, the character of Zach Stone projects the image he feels will most make him famous and casts a thin layer over his true feelings. Stone, in reality, is insecure and the idea of fame presents a fix-all to him. Australia — The series premiered on October 21,2013 on MTV Australia, canada - The series premiered on May 3,2013 on Muchmusic but stopped airing halfway through the series. Zach Stone is Gonna Be Famous struggled in the ratings during its run, the series premiered to 650,000 viewers and saw its numbers decrease to half of that midway through its season. The show originally aired at 10,30 p. m. on Thursdays, MTV scheduled its eighth and ninth episodes to air back to back, and burned off the following three the next week. MTV officially cancelled the series on June 26,2013, Zach Stone is Gonna Be Famous has received mixed reviews from television critics. Indeed, even MTV appears oddly oblivious to the ironies of this dichotomy, while noting the premise of parodying reality shows covered no new ground, The New York Times did commend the shows attempt to aim straight for the dark underbelly of all these fantasies. It’s one thing to put on a show, it’s another to do so to mask huge holes within, it’s clear that the writers are so knowledgeable of this particular world that the end result is smarter than you’d expect the average reality show send-up to be. But theres a core gentleness here, too, and while Zachs frenetic attention span is extremely splintered, hank Stuever of The Washington Post gave the series a scathing review, claiming that this show is so bad, it’s beneath even MTV
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Food Network Star
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Food Network Star is a reality television series that premiered June 5,2005. It was produced by CBS EYEtoo Productions for Seasons 1-8 before production was taken over by Triage Entertainment for subsequent seasons and it aired on the Food Network in the United States, and is known as the channels flagship show. Prior to season seven, the show was known as The Next Food Network Star and it is a competition among 12 chefs that awards the winner his or her own series on the Food Network, and the title of The Next Food Network Star. The final three make their own pilots for their TV shows on Food Network, the first season of The Next Food Network Star series was taped in February 2005, and was composed of five episodes in June 2005. The runner-up, Deborah Fewell, was chosen to host a special on food at beaches, Surf N Turf, michael Thomas was the recurring chef on The Tyra Banks Show. Susannah Locketti made an appearance on The Tony Danza Show, and is also a chef for Publix grocery stores in the southern United States. The second season of The Next Food Network Star series was taped in December 2005, Guy Fieri was announced as the winner on April 23,2006, beating Reggie Southerland. Fieri has achieved success at Food Network since his victory. Guys Big Bite premiered in June 2006 and was picked up for a season in 2008. Originally intended as a special, Fieris second series, Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives. He went on to the series, Ultimate Recipe Showdown, premiering February 17,2008 and he has also started a new successful show called Guys Grocery Games. Fourth-place contestant Nathan Lyon began hosting his own series, A Lyon In the Kitchen, the third season began on June 3,2007, and the winner was announced on Sunday, July 22. In season 3, judges sent 1 or 2 contestants home weekly, once the field was down to 2 final contestants, the viewers picked the winner. Marc Summers only returned for this seasons finale, Bobby Flay would host subsequent season finales. During the season, the contestants lived in a house in New York City. The contestants challenges included cooking concession food for an NBA game to a version of Food Networks Iron Chef America. The Selection Committee consisted of Food Network executives Bob Tuschman and Susie Fogelson along with one guest, guest judges included Alton Brown, Giada De Laurentiis, Duff Goldman, season two winner Guy Fieri, and Robert Irvine. Paula Deen and Rachael Ray participated in contestant challenges, and Bobby Flay also played a role in the guidance, Amy Finley was chosen by America as The Next Food Network Star on July 22,2007
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Key & Peele
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Key & Peele is an American sketch comedy television series created by Keegan-Michael Key and Jordan Peele for Comedy Central. Both Key and Peele previously worked on MADtv, each episode of the show consists mainly of several pre-taped sketches starring the two actors. The sketches cover a variety of topics, often with a focus on American popular culture, ethnic stereotypes. Key & Peele premiered on January 31,2012 and ended on September 9,2015, with a total of 53 episodes, a special entitled Key & Peeles Super Bowl Special aired on January 30,2015. An episode usually consists of an opening, with a short sketch. After the intro plays, the two introduce themselves to a studio audience and explain a possible situation, with the following sketch having a similar situation. The show then follows this pattern, with number of sketches, not all the segments are introduced by a studio segment. In Season 4, the changed format, eschewing a studio audience in favor of a pre-shot narrative, featuring the duo discussing a concept during a car ride. The series was first announced in June 2011 by Comedy Central, in anticipation of the show, Key and Peele launched a web series in support of the program. The series premiered in January 2012 on Comedy Central in the U. S. the first episode drew 2.1 million viewers, making it the most-watched Comedy Central launch since 2009. The series was renewed for four seasons, beginning in September 2012, September 2013, September 2014. The last episode aired in September 2015, Barack Obama – The 44th President of the United States, played by Peele, who often has difficulty expressing his true feelings. Luther – President Obamas anger translator, played by Key, who works to interpret the Presidents low-key statements into raging tirades, one sketch reveals that Obamas wife and daughters each have their own anger translators as well, whom they request help from to speak with each other. Key appeared briefly in-character as Luther at the Annual White House Correspondents Dinner as a translator for the real Barack Obama in early 2015. On January 5,2017, Key debuted an Obama-Luther sketch on The Daily Show with Trevor Noah, Wendell Sanders – Played by Peele, Wendell is a nerdy, extremely overweight, friendless man who loves sci-fi and fantasy. He often comes up with stories to convince others that he is not a stereotypical nerd. This includes a very attractive woman named Claire, with whom he claims to have a relationship, and a 15-year-old son named Stimpy they have. Though his stories are lies, they are elaborate enough that he usually manages to convince the person on the other end of the phone line that the people in his stories exist
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