1.
Bellingham, Washington
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Bellingham is the largest city in and the county seat of Whatcom County in the U. S. state of Washington. The boundaries of the city encompass the towns of Fairhaven, Whatcom, Sehome. Bellingham is the northernmost city in the contiguous United States with a population of more than 50,000 residents and it is acclaimed for its easy access to outdoor opportunities in the San Juan Islands and North Cascades as well as proximity to the cities of Vancouver and Seattle. It is also famous for the quantities of Canadian tourists and shoppers who visit daily to take advantage of relatively cheap gasoline, airfare. The name of Bellingham is derived from the bay on which the city is situated, George Vancouver, who visited the area in June 1792, named the bay for Sir William Bellingham, the controller of the storekeepers account of the Royal Navy. Prior to Euro-American settlement, Bellingham was in the homeland of Coast Salish peoples of the Lummi, the first Caucasian settlers reached the area in 1854. In 1858, the Fraser Canyon Gold Rush caused thousands of miners, storekeepers, Coal was mined in the Bellingham area from the mid-19th to the mid-20th centuries. It was Henry Roeder who had discovered coal off the shore of Bellingham Bay. The mine extended to hundreds of miles of tunnels as deep as 1200 feet and it ran southwest to Bellingham Bay, on both sides of Squalicum Creek, an area of about one square mile. At its peak in the 1920s, the mine employed some 250 miners digging over 200,000 tons of coal annually, Whatcom is todays Old Town area and was founded in 1852. Sehome was an area of downtown founded in 1854, Bellingham was further south near Boulevard Park, founded in 1853, while Fairhaven was a large commercial district with its own harbor, also founded in 1853. In 1890, Fairhaven developers bought Bellingham, Whatcom and Sehome had adjacent borders and both towns wanted to merge, thus they formed New Whatcom. Later, on October 27,1903, the word New was dropped from the name, because the Washington State Legislature outlawed the use of the new in city. At first, attempts to combine Fairhaven and Whatcom failed, Whatcom citizens wouldnt support a city named Fairhaven, and Fairhaven residents would not support a city named Whatcom. They eventually settled on the name Bellingham, which remains today, voting a second time for a final merger of the four towns into a single city, the resolution passed by 2163 votes for and 596 against. In the early 1890s, three railroad lines arrived, connecting the bay cities to a market of builders. The foothills around Bellingham were clearcut after the 1906 San Francisco earthquake to provide the lumber for the rebuilding of San Francisco. In time, lumber and shingle mills sprang up all over the county to accommodate the byproduct of their work, in 1889, Pierre Cornwall and an association of investors formed the Bellingham Bay Improvement Company
2.
Arlington County, Virginia
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Arlington County is a county in the Commonwealth of Virginia. It is coterminous with the U. S. Census Bureau-census-designated place of Arlington, as a result, the county is often referred to in the region simply as Arlington or Arlington, Virginia. In 2015, the population was estimated at 229,164. The land that became Arlington was originally donated by Virginia to the United States government to form part of the new federal district of Columbia. In 1846, Congress returned the land southwest of the Potomac River donated by Virginia due to issues involving Congressional representation, the General Assembly of Virginia changed the countys name to Arlington in 1920 to avoid confusion with the adjacent City of Alexandria. The county is situated in Northern Virginia on the bank of the Potomac River directly across from Washington. Arlington is also bordered by Fairfax County and City of Falls Church to the northwest, west and southwest, as of the 2010 census, the population was 207,627. Due to the proximity to downtown Washington, D. C. It is also home to Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport, the many federal agencies, government contractors, and service industries contribute to Arlingtons stable economy. It is the county in the United States by median family income. According to a 2016 study by Bankrate. com, Arlington is the best place to retire, the area that now constitutes Arlington County was originally part of Fairfax County in the Colony of Virginia. Land grants from the British monarch were awarded to prominent Englishmen in exchange for political favors, one of the grantees was Thomas Fairfax, 6th Lord Fairfax of Cameron, who lends his name to both Fairfax County and the City of Fairfax. George Washington Parke Custis, grandson of First Lady Martha Washington, the estate was eventually passed down to Mary Anna Custis Lee, wife of General Robert E. Lee. The property later became Arlington National Cemetery during the American Civil War, the area that now contains Arlington County was ceded to the new United States federal government by the Commonwealth of Virginia. With the passage of the Residence Act in 1790, Congress approved a new permanent capital to be located on the Potomac River, the Residence Act originally only allowed the President to select a location within Maryland as far east as what is now the Anacostia River. However, President Washington shifted the federal territorys borders to the southeast in order to include the city of Alexandria at the Districts southern tip. In 1791, Congress amended the Residence Act to approve the new site, however, this amendment to the Residence Act specifically prohibited the erection of the public buildings otherwise than on the Maryland side of the River Potomac. As permitted by the U. S. Constitution, the shape of the federal district was a square, measuring 10 miles on each side
3.
Vice Chief of Staff of the United States Air Force
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The Vice Chief of Staff of the United States Air Force is the second highest-ranking military officer in the United States Air Force. In the event that the Chief of Staff of the Air Force is absent or is unable to perform his duties, the VCSAF may also perform other duties that the Secretary of Defense, the Secretary of the Air Force or the CSAF assigns to him. The VCSAF is appointed by the President of the United States, by statute, the VCSAF is appointed as a four-star general. The current Vice Chief of Staff of the Air Force is General Stephen W. Wilson
4.
World War I
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World War I, also known as the First World War, the Great War, or the War to End All Wars, was a global war originating in Europe that lasted from 28 July 1914 to 11 November 1918. More than 70 million military personnel, including 60 million Europeans, were mobilised in one of the largest wars in history and it was one of the deadliest conflicts in history, and paved the way for major political changes, including revolutions in many of the nations involved. The war drew in all the worlds great powers, assembled in two opposing alliances, the Allies versus the Central Powers of Germany and Austria-Hungary. These alliances were reorganised and expanded as more nations entered the war, Italy, Japan, the trigger for the war was the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria, heir to the throne of Austria-Hungary, by Yugoslav nationalist Gavrilo Princip in Sarajevo on 28 June 1914. This set off a crisis when Austria-Hungary delivered an ultimatum to the Kingdom of Serbia. Within weeks, the powers were at war and the conflict soon spread around the world. On 25 July Russia began mobilisation and on 28 July, the Austro-Hungarians declared war on Serbia, Germany presented an ultimatum to Russia to demobilise, and when this was refused, declared war on Russia on 1 August. Germany then invaded neutral Belgium and Luxembourg before moving towards France, after the German march on Paris was halted, what became known as the Western Front settled into a battle of attrition, with a trench line that changed little until 1917. On the Eastern Front, the Russian army was successful against the Austro-Hungarians, in November 1914, the Ottoman Empire joined the Central Powers, opening fronts in the Caucasus, Mesopotamia and the Sinai. In 1915, Italy joined the Allies and Bulgaria joined the Central Powers, Romania joined the Allies in 1916, after a stunning German offensive along the Western Front in the spring of 1918, the Allies rallied and drove back the Germans in a series of successful offensives. By the end of the war or soon after, the German Empire, Russian Empire, Austro-Hungarian Empire, national borders were redrawn, with several independent nations restored or created, and Germanys colonies were parceled out among the victors. During the Paris Peace Conference of 1919, the Big Four imposed their terms in a series of treaties, the League of Nations was formed with the aim of preventing any repetition of such a conflict. This effort failed, and economic depression, renewed nationalism, weakened successor states, and feelings of humiliation eventually contributed to World War II. From the time of its start until the approach of World War II, at the time, it was also sometimes called the war to end war or the war to end all wars due to its then-unparalleled scale and devastation. In Canada, Macleans magazine in October 1914 wrote, Some wars name themselves, during the interwar period, the war was most often called the World War and the Great War in English-speaking countries. Will become the first world war in the sense of the word. These began in 1815, with the Holy Alliance between Prussia, Russia, and Austria, when Germany was united in 1871, Prussia became part of the new German nation. Soon after, in October 1873, German Chancellor Otto von Bismarck negotiated the League of the Three Emperors between the monarchs of Austria-Hungary, Russia and Germany
5.
United States Army
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The United States Armed Forces are the federal armed forces of the United States. They consist of the Army, Marine Corps, Navy, Air Force, from the time of its inception, the military played a decisive role in the history of the United States. A sense of unity and identity was forged as a result of victory in the First Barbary War. Even so, the Founders were suspicious of a permanent military force and it played an important role in the American Civil War, where leading generals on both sides were picked from members of the United States military. Not until the outbreak of World War II did a standing army become officially established. The National Security Act of 1947, adopted following World War II and during the Cold Wars onset, the U. S. military is one of the largest militaries in terms of number of personnel. It draws its personnel from a pool of paid volunteers. As of 2016, the United States spends about $580.3 billion annually to fund its military forces, put together, the United States constitutes roughly 40 percent of the worlds military expenditures. For the period 2010–14, the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute found that the United States was the worlds largest exporter of major arms, the United States was also the worlds eighth largest importer of major weapons for the same period. The history of the U. S. military dates to 1775 and these forces demobilized in 1784 after the Treaty of Paris ended the War for Independence. All three services trace their origins to the founding of the Continental Army, the Continental Navy, the United States President is the U. S. militarys commander-in-chief. Rising tensions at various times with Britain and France and the ensuing Quasi-War and War of 1812 quickened the development of the U. S. Navy, the reserve branches formed a military strategic reserve during the Cold War, to be called into service in case of war. Time magazines Mark Thompson has suggested that with the War on Terror, Command over the armed forces is established in the United States Constitution. The sole power of command is vested in the President by Article II as Commander-in-Chief, the Constitution also allows for the creation of executive Departments headed principal officers whose opinion the President can require. This allowance in the Constitution formed the basis for creation of the Department of Defense in 1947 by the National Security Act, the Defense Department is headed by the Secretary of Defense, who is a civilian and member of the Cabinet. The Defense Secretary is second in the chain of command, just below the President. Together, the President and the Secretary of Defense comprise the National Command Authority, to coordinate military strategy with political affairs, the President has a National Security Council headed by the National Security Advisor. The collective body has only power to the President
6.
Signal Corps (United States Army)
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The United States Army Signal Corps develops, tests, provides, and manages communications and information systems support for the command and control of combined arms forces. It was established in 1860, the brainchild of United States Army Major Albert J. Myer, support for the command and control of combined arms forces. Signal support includes Network Operations and management of the electromagnetic spectrum, while serving as a medical officer in Texas in 1856, Albert James Myer proposed that the Army use his visual communications system, called aerial telegraphy. When the Army adopted his system on 21 June 1860, the Signal Corps was born with Myer as the first, Major Myer first used his visual signaling system on active service in New Mexico during the early 1860s Navajo expedition. For nearly three years, Myer was forced to rely on detailed personnel, although he envisioned a separate, myers vision came true on 3 March 1863, when Congress authorized a regular Signal Corps for the duration of the war. Some 2,900 officers and enlisted men served, although not at any single time, even in the Civil War, the wigwag system, restricted to line-of-sight communications, was waning in the face of the electric telegraph. Initially, Myer used his office downtown in Washington, D. C. to house the Signal Corps School, when it was found to need additional space, he sought out other locations. First came Fort Greble, one of the Defenses of Washington during the Civil War, the size and location were outstanding. The school remained there for over 20 years and ultimately was renamed Fort Myer, Signal Corps detachments participated in campaigns fighting Native Americans in the west, such as the Powder River Expedition of 1865. The electric telegraph, in addition to signaling, became a Signal Corps responsibility in 1867. Within 12 years, the Corps had constructed, and was maintaining and operating, in 1870, the Signal Corps established a congressionally mandated national weather service. Within a decade, with the assistance of Lieutenant Adolphus Greely, Myer died in 1880, having attained the rank of brigadier general and the title of Chief Signal Officer. The weather bureau became part of the U. S. Department of Agriculture in 1891, the Signal Corps role in the Spanish–American War of 1898 and the subsequent Philippine Insurrection was on a grander scale than it had been in the Civil War. In 1908, on Fort Myer, Virginia, the Wright brothers made test flights of the Armys first airplane built to Signal Corps specifications, reflecting the need for an official pilot rating, War Department Bulletin No. 2, released on 24 February 1911, established a Military Aviator rating, Army aviation remained within the Signal Corps until 1918, when it became the Army Air Service. The Signal Corps lost no time in meeting the challenges of World War I, Chief Signal Officer George Owen Squier worked closely with private industry to perfect radio tubes while creating a major signal laboratory at Camp Alfred Vail. Early radiotelephones developed by the Signal Corps were introduced into the European theater in 1918, while the new American voice radios were superior to the radiotelegraph sets, telephone and telegraph remained the major technology of World War I. A pioneer in radar, Colonel William Blair, director of the Signal Corps laboratories at Fort Monmouth, even before the United States entered World War II, mass production of two radar sets, the SCR-268 and the SCR-270, had begun
7.
Seattle
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Seattle is a seaport city on the west coast of the United States and the seat of King County, Washington. With an estimated 684,451 residents as of 2015, Seattle is the largest city in both the state of Washington and the Pacific Northwest region of North America. In July 2013, it was the major city in the United States. The city is situated on an isthmus between Puget Sound and Lake Washington, about 100 miles south of the Canada–United States border, a major gateway for trade with Asia, Seattle is the fourth-largest port in North America in terms of container handling as of 2015. The Seattle area was inhabited by Native Americans for at least 4,000 years before the first permanent European settlers. Arthur A. Denny and his group of travelers, subsequently known as the Denny Party, arrived from Illinois via Portland, the settlement was moved to the eastern shore of Elliott Bay and named Seattle in 1852, after Chief Siahl of the local Duwamish and Suquamish tribes. Logging was Seattles first major industry, but by the late-19th century, growth after World War II was partially due to the local Boeing company, which established Seattle as a center for aircraft manufacturing. The Seattle area developed as a technology center beginning in the 1980s, in 1994, Internet retailer Amazon was founded in Seattle. The stream of new software, biotechnology, and Internet companies led to an economic revival, Seattle has a noteworthy musical history. From 1918 to 1951, nearly two dozen jazz nightclubs existed along Jackson Street, from the current Chinatown/International District, to the Central District, the jazz scene developed the early careers of Ray Charles, Quincy Jones, Ernestine Anderson, and others. Seattle is also the birthplace of rock musician Jimi Hendrix and the alternative rock subgenre grunge, archaeological excavations suggest that Native Americans have inhabited the Seattle area for at least 4,000 years. By the time the first European settlers arrived, the people occupied at least seventeen villages in the areas around Elliott Bay, the first European to visit the Seattle area was George Vancouver, in May 1792 during his 1791–95 expedition to chart the Pacific Northwest. In 1851, a party led by Luther Collins made a location on land at the mouth of the Duwamish River. Thirteen days later, members of the Collins Party on the way to their claim passed three scouts of the Denny Party, members of the Denny Party claimed land on Alki Point on September 28,1851. The rest of the Denny Party set sail from Portland, Oregon, after a difficult winter, most of the Denny Party relocated across Elliott Bay and claimed land a second time at the site of present-day Pioneer Square, naming this new settlement Duwamps. For the next few years, New York Alki and Duwamps competed for dominance, david Swinson Doc Maynard, one of the founders of Duwamps, was the primary advocate to name the settlement after Chief Sealth of the Duwamish and Suquamish tribes. The name Seattle appears on official Washington Territory papers dated May 23,1853, in 1855, nominal land settlements were established. On January 14,1865, the Legislature of Territorial Washington incorporated the Town of Seattle with a board of managing the city
8.
University of Washington
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The University of Washington, commonly referred to as simply Washington, UW, or informally U-Dub, is a public flagship research university in Seattle, Washington, United States. Founded in 1861, Washington is one of the oldest universities on the West Coast, the university has three campuses, the oldest and largest in the University District of Seattle and two others in Tacoma and Bothell. Washington is a member of the Association of American Universities and is ranked among the top 15 universities in the world by a variety of international publications. In athletics, the university competes in the NCAA Division I Pac-12 Conference and its athletic teams are called the Huskies. Seattle was one of several settlements in the mid to late 19th century vying for primacy in the new Washington Territory, in 1854, territorial governor Isaac Stevens recommended the establishment of a university in Washington. Several prominent Seattle-area residents, chief among them Methodist preacher Daniel Bagley and they convinced early founder of Seattle and member of the territorial legislature Arthur A. Denny of the importance of Seattle winning the school. When no site emerged, the legislature, encouraged by Denny, in 1861, scouting began for an appropriate 10 acres site in Seattle to serve as the campus for a new university. Arthur and Mary Denny donated eight acres, and fellow pioneers Edward Lander and Charlie and this tract was bounded by 4th and 6th Avenues on the west and east and Union and Seneca Streets on the north and south. UW opened on November 4,1861, as the Territorial University of Washington, the following year, the legislature passed articles incorporating the University and establishing a Board of Regents. The school struggled initially, closing three times, in 1863 for lack of students, and again in 1867 and 1876 due to shortage of funds. However, Clara Antoinette McCarty Wilt became the first graduate of UW in 1876 when she graduated from UW with a degree in science. By the time Washington entered the Union in 1889, both Seattle and the University had grown substantially, enrollment increased from 30 students to nearly 300, and the relative isolation of the campus had given way to encroaching development. A special legislative committee headed by UW graduate Edmond Meany was created to find a new campus able to serve the growing student population. The committee selected a site on Union Bay northeast of downtown, the university relocated from downtown to the new campus in 1895, moving into the newly built Denny Hall. The regents tried and failed to sell the old campus, the University still owns what is now called the Metropolitan Tract. In the heart of the city, it is among the most valuable pieces of estate in Seattle. The original Territorial University building was torn down in 1908 and its former site houses the Fairmont Olympic Hotel. The sole surviving remnants of UWs first building are four 24-foot, white, hand-fluted cedar and they were salvaged by Edmond S. Meany—one of the Universitys first graduates and the former head of the history department
9.
Pancho Villa
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Francisco Pancho Villa was a Mexican Revolutionary general and one of the most prominent figures of the Mexican Revolution. As commander of the División del Norte in the Constitutionalist Army, given the areas size and mineral wealth, it provided him with extensive resources. Villa was also provisional Governor of Chihuahua in 1913 and 1914, Villa can be credited with decisive military victories leading to the ousting of Victoriano Huerta from the presidency in July 1914. Villa then fought his erstwhile leader in the coalition against Huerta, Villa was in alliance with southern revolutionary Emiliano Zapata, who remained fighting in his own region of Morelos. The two revolutionary generals briefly came together to take Mexico City after Carranzas forces retreated from it, later, Villas heretofore undefeated División del Norte engaged the military forces of Carranza under Carrancista general Álvaro Obregón and was defeated in the 1915 Battle of Celaya. Villa was again defeated by Carranza,1 November 1915, at the Second Battle of Agua Prieta 1 November 1915, after which Villas army collapsed as a significant military force. Villa subsequently led a hit and run raid against the small U. S. -Mexican border town in the Battle of Columbus 9 March 1916, the U. S. government sent U. S. Army General John J. In 1923, as elections approached, he re-involved himself in Mexican politics. Shortly thereafter he was assassinated, most likely on the orders of Obregón, after his death, he was excluded from the pantheon of revolutionary heroes until the Sonoran generals Obregón and Calles, whom he battled during the Revolution, were gone from the political stage. Villas exclusion from the narrative of the Revolution might have contributed to his continued posthumous popular acclaim. He was celebrated during the Revolution and long afterward by corridos, movies about his life, in 1976, his remains were reburied in the Monument to the Revolution in Mexico City in a huge public ceremony not attended by his widow Luz Corral. Villa told a number of conflicting stories about his early life, according to most sources, he was born on 5 June 1878, and named José Doroteo Arango Arámbula at birth. His father was a sharecropper named Agustín Arango, and his mother was Micaela Arámbula and he grew up at the Rancho de la Coyotada, one of the largest haciendas in the state of Durango. The familys residence now houses the Casa de Pancho Villa historic museum in San Juan del Rio, Doroteo later claimed to be the son of the bandit Agustín Villa, but according to at least one scholar, the identity of his real father is still unknown. He wasthe oldest of five children, as a child, he received some education from a local church-run school, but was not proficient in more than basic literacy. He quit school to help his mother after his father died and he became a bandit at some point early on, but also worked as a sharecropper, muleskinner, butcher, bricklayer, and foreman for a U. S. railway company. However, the veracity of this story is questionable, eventually, he became a member of a bandit band headed by Ignacio Parra, one of the most famous bandits in Durango at the time. As a bandit, he went by the name Arango, in 1902, the rurales, the crack rural police force of President Porfirio Díaz, arrested Pancho for stealing mules and for assault
10.
Berkeley, California
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Berkeley is a city on the east shore of San Francisco Bay in northern Alameda County, California. It is named after the 18th-century Anglo-Irish bishop and philosopher George Berkeley and it borders the cities of Oakland and Emeryville to the south and the city of Albany and the unincorporated community of Kensington to the north. Its eastern border with Contra Costa County generally follows the ridge of the Berkeley Hills, the 2010 census recorded a population of 112,580. It also has the Graduate Theological Union, one of the largest religious studies institutions in the world and it is one of the most politically liberal cities in the United States. The site of todays City of Berkeley was the territory of the Chochenyo/Huchiun band of the Ohlone people when the first Europeans arrived, other artifacts were discovered in the 1950s in the downtown area during remodeling of a commercial building, near the upper course of the creek. The first people of European descent arrived with the De Anza Expedition in 1776, today, this is noted by signage on Interstate 80, which runs along the San Francisco Bay shoreline of Berkeley. The De Anza Expedition led to establishment of the Spanish Presidio of San Francisco at the entrance to San Francisco Bay, luis Peralta was among the soldiers at the Presidio. For his services to the King of Spain, he was granted a vast stretch of land on the east shore of San Francisco Bay for a ranch, luis Peralta named his holding Rancho San Antonio. The primary activity of the ranch was raising cattle for meat and hides, eventually, Peralta gave portions of the ranch to each of his four sons. What is now Berkeley lies mostly in the portion that went to Peraltas son Domingo, with a little in the portion that went to another son, no artifact survives of the Domingo or Vicente ranches, but their names survive in Berkeley street names. However, legal title to all land in the City of Berkeley remains based on the original Peralta land grant, the Peraltas Rancho San Antonio continued after Alta California passed from Spanish to Mexican sovereignty after the Mexican War of Independence. The lands of the brothers Domingo and Vicente were quickly reduced to reservations close to their respective ranch homes, the rest of the land was surveyed and parceled out to various American claimants. Politically, the area that became Berkeley was initially part of a vast Contra Costa County, on March 25,1853, Alameda County was created from a division within Contra Costa County, as well as from a small portion of Santa Clara County. The area of Berkeley was at this period mostly a mix of land, farms and ranches. It was not yet Berkeley, but merely the part of the Oakland Township subdivision of Alameda County. In 1866, Oaklands private College of California looked for a new site, according to the Centennial Record of the University of California, In 1866…at Founders Rock, a group of College of California men watched two ships standing out to sea through the Golden Gate. Although the philosophers name is pronounced bark-lee, the pronunciation of the name has evolved to suit American English as burk-lee. The College of Californias College Homestead Association planned to raise funds for the new campus by selling off adjacent parcels of land, to this end, they laid out a plat and street grid that became the basis of Berkeleys modern street plan
