1.
George M. Cohan
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George Michael Cohan, known professionally as George M. Cohan, was an American entertainer, playwright, composer, lyricist, actor, singer, dancer and producer. Cohan began his career as a child, performing with his parents, beginning with Little Johnny Jones in 1904, he wrote, composed, produced, and appeared in more than three dozen Broadway musicals. Cohan published more than 300 songs during his lifetime, including the standards Over There, Give My Regards to Broadway, The Yankee Doodle Boy, as a composer, he was one of the early members of the American Society of Composers, Authors, and Publishers. He displayed remarkable theatrical longevity, appearing in films until the 1930s, known in the decade before World War I as the man who owned Broadway, he is considered the father of American musical comedy. His life and music were depicted in the Academy Award-winning film Yankee Doodle Dandy, a statue of Cohan in Times Square in New York City commemorates his contributions to American musical theatre. Cohan was born in 1878 in Providence, Rhode Island, to Irish Catholic parents. A baptismal certificate from St. Josephs Roman Catholic Church indicated that he was born on July 3, but Cohan and his family always insisted that George had been born on the Fourth of July. Georges parents were traveling vaudeville performers, and he joined them on stage while still an infant, first as a prop, learning to dance, Cohan started as a child performer at age 8, first on the violin and then as a dancer. He was the member of the family vaudeville act called The Four Cohans. In 1890, he toured as the star of a show called Pecks Bad Boy and then joined the family act and he and his sister made their Broadway debut in 1893 in a sketch called The Lively Bootblack. Temperamental in his years, Cohan later learned to control his frustrations. During these years, Cohan originated his famous speech, My mother thanks you, my father thanks you, my sister thanks you. The family generally gave a performance at the hall there each summer. Cohans memories of those happy summers inspired his 1907 musical 50 Miles from Boston, as Cohan matured through his teens, he used the quiet summers there to write. When he returned to the town in the cast of Ah, in 1934, he told a reporter, Ive knocked around everywhere, but theres no place like North Brookfield. Cohan began writing original skits and songs for the act in both vaudeville and minstrel shows while in his teens. Soon he was writing professionally, selling his first songs to a publisher in 1893. In 1901 he wrote, directed and produced his first Broadway musical, The Governors Son and his first big Broadway hit in 1904 was the show Little Johnny Jones, which introduced his tunes Give My Regards to Broadway and The Yankee Doodle Boy
2.
World war
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A world war is a war involving many of the countries of the world or many of the most powerful and populous ones. World wars span multiple countries on multiple continents, with battles fought in multiple theaters. The Oxford English Dictionary cited the first known usage in the English language to a Scottish newspaper, the term World War I was coined by Time magazine in its issue of June 12,1939. In the same article, the term World War II was first used speculatively to describe the upcoming war, the first use for the actual war came in its issue of September 11,1939. m. Speculative fiction authors had been noting the concept of a Second World War in 1919 and 1920, due to this fact, a very minute conflict between two countries had the potential to set off a domino effect of alliances, triggering a world war. The fact that the powers involved had large overseas empires virtually guaranteed that such a war would be worldwide, the same strategic considerations also ensured that the combatants would strike at each others colonies, thus spreading the wars far more widely than those of pre-Colombian times. Both world wars had also seen war crimes, the First World War had seen major use of chemical weapons despite the Hague Conventions of 1899 and 1907 outlawing the use of such weapons in warfare. The Ottoman Empire had been considered responsible for the death of one million Armenians during the First World War. The Second World War was the first conflict in which atomic bombs had been used, nazi Germany had been responsible for multiple genocides, most notably the Holocaust, killing six million Jews. The outcome of the wars had a profound effect on the course of world history. The old European empires had collapsed or been dismantled as a result of the wars crushing costs. The United States of America had been established as the dominant global superpower, along with its ideological foe. These two superpowers exerted political influence over most of the worlds nation-states for decades after the end of the Second World War, the modern international security, economic and diplomatic system had been created in the aftermath of the wars. Institutions such as the United Nations were established to collectivize international affairs, the wars had also greatly changed the course of daily life. Technologies developed during wartime had an effect on peace-time life as well, for instance, advances in, jet aircraft, penicillin, nuclear energy. Since the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki during the Second World War, there has been a widespread and this war has been anticipated and planned for by military and civil authorities, and explored in fiction in many countries. Concepts have ranged from purely conventional scenarios, to limited use of nuclear weapons, among these are former American, French, and Mexican government officials, military leaders, politicians, and authors, Despite their efforts, none of these wars are commonly deemed world wars. The Second Congo War involved nine nations and led to ongoing low-level warfare despite an official peace and it has often been referred to as Africas World War
3.
American entry into World War I
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The American entry into World War I came in April 1917, after two and a half years of efforts by President Woodrow Wilson to keep the United States neutral. Apart from an Anglophile element supporting the British, American public opinion went along with neutrality at first, the sentiment for neutrality was strong among Irish Americans, German Americans and Scandinavian Americans, as well as among church leaders and women. On the other hand, even before World War I broke out, the citizenry increasingly came to see the German Empire as the villain after news of atrocities in Belgium in 1914, and the sinking of the passenger liner RMS Lusitania in May 1915. Wilson made all the key decisions and kept the economy on a basis, while allowing banks to make large-scale loans to Britain. However, he did enlarge the United States Navy, in early 1917, Germany decided to resume all-out submarine warfare on every commercial ship headed toward Britain, realizing that this decision would almost certainly mean war with the U. S. Germany also offered to help Mexico regain territories lost in the Mexican–American War in the Zimmermann Telegram, publication of that offer outraged Americans just as German U-boats started sinking American ships in the North Atlantic. Wilson asked Congress for a war to end all wars that would make the safe for democracy. On December 7,1917, the U. S. declared war on Austria-Hungary, United States insisted on maintaining the traditional rights of neutrals, protested strongly against violations by Britain and especially by Germany. The British seized American ships for supposed violations, the Germans sank them without warning, in violation of international law that said sailors must be allowed an opportunity to reach their lifeboats. A critical indirect strategy used by both sides was the blockade, the British Royal Navy successfully stopped the shipment of most war supplies and food to Germany. Neutral American ships that tried to trade with Germany were seized or turned back by the Royal Navy who viewed such trade as in conflict with the Allies war efforts. The strangulation came about slowly, because Germany and the Central Powers controlled extensive farmlands. It was eventually successful because Germany and Austria-Hungary had decimated their agricultural production by taking so many farmers into their armies, by 1918, German cities were on the verge of starvation, the front-line soldiers were on short rations and were running out of essential supplies. England wants to starve us, said Admiral Alfred von Tirpitz, the man who built the German fleet and we can play the same game. We can bottle her up and destroy every ship that endeavors to break the blockade, unable to challenge the more powerful Royal Navy on the surface, Tirpitz wanted to scare off merchant and passenger ships en route to Britain. While Germany had only nine long-range U-boats at the start of the war, furthermore, Americans insisted that the drowning of innocent civilians was barbaric and grounds for a declaration of war. The British frequently violated Americas neutral rights by seizing ships, Wilsons top advisor, Colonel Edward M. House commented that, The British have gone as far as they possibly could in violating neutral rights, though they have done it in the most courteous way. When Wilson protested British violations of American neutrality, the British backed down, German submarines torpedoed ships without warning, causing sailors and passengers to drown
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.
Allies of World War I
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The Allies of World War I were the countries that opposed the Central Powers in the First World War. The members of the original Triple Entente of 1907 were the French Republic, the British Empire, Belgium, Serbia, Greece, Montenegro, and Romania were affiliated members of the Entente. The 1920 Treaty of Sèvres defines the Principal Allied Powers as the British Empire, French Republic, Italy, the Allied Powers comprised, together with the Principal Allied Powers, Armenia, Belgium, Greece, Hejaz, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Serb-Croat-Slovene state and Czechoslovakia. The U. S. declaration of war on Germany, on 6th April 1917 was on the grounds that Germany had violated its neutrality by attacking international shipping and it declared war on Austria-Hungary in December 1917. The U. S. entered the war as a power, rather than as a formal ally of France. Although the Ottoman Empire and Bulgaria severed relations with the United States, the Dominion governments did control recruiting, and removed personnel from front-line duties as they saw fit. From early 1917, the War Cabinet was superseded by the Imperial War Cabinet, in April 1918, operational control of all Entente forces on the Western Front passed to the new supreme commander, Ferdinand Foch of France. The Austrian Empire followed with an attack on the Serbian ally Montenegro on 8 August, on the Western Front, the two neutral States of Belgium and Luxembourg were immediately occupied by German troops as part of the German Schlieffen Plan. On 23 August Japan joined the Entente, which then counted seven members, the entrance of the British Empire brought Nepal into the war. In 1916, Montenegro capitulated and left the Entente, and two nations joined, Portugal and Romania, on 6 April 1917, the United States entered the war. Liberia, Siam and Greece also became allies and this was followed by Romanian cessation of hostilities, however the Balkan State declared war on Central Powers again on 10 November 1918. In response to the Germans invasion of neutral Belgium, the United Kingdom declared war on Germany on 4 August 1914, gibraltar, Cyprus and Malta were British dependencies in Europe. The UK held several colonies, protectorates, and semi-autonomous dependencies at the time of World War I, in Eastern Africa the East Africa Protectorate, Nyasaland, both Northern and Southern Rhodesia, the Uganda Protectorate, were involved in conflict with German forces in German East Africa. In Western Africa, the colonies of Gold Coast and Nigeria were involved in actions against German forces from Togoland. In Southwestern Africa, the dominion of South Africa was involved in military actions against German forces in German South-West Africa. Canada and Newfoundland were two autonomous dominions during the war that made major contributions to the British war effort. Other British dependent territories in the Americas included, British Honduras, the Falkland Islands, British Guiana, and Jamaica. The UK held large possessions in Asia, including the Indian Empire which was an assortment of British imperial authorities in the territory now defined as India, Bangladesh, Burma, australia and New Zealand were two autonomous dominions of the UK in Oceania during the war
6.
Library of Congress
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The Library of Congress is the research library that officially serves the United States Congress and is the de facto national library of the United States. It is the oldest federal cultural institution in the United States, the Library is housed in three buildings on Capitol Hill in Washington, D. C. it also maintains the Packard Campus in Culpeper, Virginia, which houses the National Audio-Visual Conservation Center. The Library of Congress claims to be the largest library in the world and its collections are universal, not limited by subject, format, or national boundary, and include research materials from all parts of the world and in more than 450 languages. Two-thirds of the books it acquires each year are in other than English. The Library of Congress moved to Washington in 1800, after sitting for years in the temporary national capitals of New York. John J. Beckley, who became the first Librarian of Congress, was two dollars per day and was required to also serve as the Clerk of the House of Representatives. The small Congressional Library was housed in the United States Capitol for most of the 19th century until the early 1890s, most of the original collection had been destroyed by the British in 1814, during the War of 1812. To restore its collection in 1815, the bought from former president Thomas Jefferson his entire personal collection of 6,487 books. After a period of growth, another fire struck the Library in its Capitol chambers in 1851, again destroying a large amount of the collection. The Library received the right of transference of all copyrighted works to have two copies deposited of books, maps, illustrations and diagrams printed in the United States. It also began to build its collections of British and other European works and it included several stories built underground of steel and cast iron stacks. Although the Library is open to the public, only high-ranking government officials may check out books, the Library promotes literacy and American literature through projects such as the American Folklife Center, American Memory, Center for the Book, and Poet Laureate. James Madison is credited with the idea for creating a congressional library, part of the legislation appropriated $5,000 for the purchase of such books as may be necessary for the use of Congress. And for fitting up an apartment for containing them. Books were ordered from London and the collection, consisting of 740 books and 3 maps, was housed in the new Capitol, as president, Thomas Jefferson played an important role in establishing the structure of the Library of Congress. The new law also extended to the president and vice president the ability to borrow books and these volumes had been left in the Senate wing of the Capitol. One of the only congressional volumes to have survived was a government account book of receipts and it was taken as a souvenir by a British Commander whose family later returned it to the United States government in 1940. Within a month, former president Jefferson offered to sell his library as a replacement
7.
William Jerome
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William Jerome was an American songwriter, born in Cornwall-on-Hudson, New York of Irish immigrant parents, Mary Donnellan and Patrick Flannery. By the time he was seventeen, Jerome was singing and dancing in vaudeville and he toured with minstrel shows and performed in blackface. He met Eddie Foy while on tour and they became friends, by the late 1880s Jerome was performing as a parody-singer at Tony Pastors. He also began to write songs and his efforts met with some success, in 1891, Jerome composed He Never Came Back, sung by Foy in the musical Sinbad, which became the hit of the show. Throughout the 1890s he continued to perform, and his reputation as a lyricist grew gradually and he wrote My Pearl is a Bowery Girl with Andrew Mack which became a number one record for Dan W. Quinn. He met and married another singer, Maude Nugent, probably in the early 1890s. He and Nugent had at least one child, Florence, born in 1896, Jerome is sometimes credited with suggesting the bicycle lyric of Daisy Bell to Harry Dacre. His first collaboration with songwriter Jean Schwartz was the song, When Mr. Shakespeare Comes to Town. The duo came up with Mr. Dooley, which was interpolated into the 1902 American staging of the London musical A Chinese Honeymoon, Chinese Honeymoon was successful and Mr. Dooley became popular. Later that year the song was interpolated into The Wizard of Oz, Mr. Dooley reputedly sold over a million copies. Their next big hit was Bedelia, interpolated into The Jersey Lily and sung by Blanche Ring, it sold over three million copies. By 1904, Bedelia had been recorded by four different artists on the three major phonograph labels, in 1904 they scored the musical Piff. They went on to seven more musicals together. Although it was not a success, Chinatown, My Chinatown is considered by some to be their biggest hit. Four years after it was written, it was interpolated into Up and Down Broadway by Foy, another five years passed and it went on to become a jazz standard. In 1911, Jerome and Schwartz formed their own music publishing company. They chiefly published titles with music by Schwartz, many with lyrics by Jerome—such as If It Wasnt for the Irish and the Jews —but also many with lyrics by Grant Clarke. Jerome also began to work more with other composers, in 1912 he wrote the lyrics of Row, Row, Row for the Ziegfeld Follies, in 1913, he worked with Andrew B
8.
International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement
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The movements parts are, The International Committee of the Red Cross is a private humanitarian institution founded in 1863 in Geneva, Switzerland, by Henry Dunant and Gustave Moynier. Its 25-member committee has a unique authority under international law to protect the life. The ICRC was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize on three occasions, on an international level, the Federation leads and organizes, in close cooperation with the National Societies, relief assistance missions responding to large-scale emergencies. The International Federation Secretariat is based in Geneva, Switzerland, in 1963, the Federation was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize jointly with the ICRC. National Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies exist in every country in the world. Currently 190 National Societies are recognized by the ICRC and admitted as members of the Federation. Each entity works in its home country according to the principles of humanitarian law. In many countries, they are linked to the respective national health care system by providing emergency medical services. When he arrived in the town of Solferino on the evening of June 24, he toured the field of the Battle of Solferino. In a single day, about 40,000 soldiers on both sides died or were wounded on the field. Jean-Henri Dunant was shocked by the aftermath of the battle, the suffering of the wounded soldiers. He completely abandoned the original intent of his trip and for days he devoted himself to helping with the treatment. He succeeded in organizing an overwhelming level of assistance by motivating the local villagers to aid without discrimination. Back in his home in Geneva, he decided to write a book entitled A Memory of Solferino which he published using his own money in 1862. He sent copies of the book to leading political and military figures throughout Europe, in addition, he called for the development of international treaties to guarantee the protection of neutral medics and field hospitals for soldiers wounded on the battlefield. In 1863, Gustave Moynier, a Geneva lawyer and president of the Geneva Society for Public Welfare, received a copy of Dunants book, eight days later, the five men decided to rename the committee to the International Committee for Relief to the Wounded. In October 1863, the conference organized by the committee was held in Geneva to develop possible measures to improve medical services on the battlefield. Only one year later, the Swiss government invited the governments of all European countries, as well as the United States, Brazil, sixteen countries sent a total of twenty-six delegates to Geneva
9.
Nora Bayes
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Nora Bayes was a popular American singer, comedian and actress of the early 20th century. Born Eleanora Sarah Goldberg to Elias and Rachel Goldberg, with Dora being a pet or nickname, to a Jewish family in Joliet, Illinois, she had a brother, Harry, Bayes was performing professionally in vaudeville in Chicago by age 18. She toured from San Francisco, California to New York City, in 1908, she married singer-songwriter Jack Norworth. Bayes and Norworth divorced in 1913, after America entered World War I Bayes became involved with morale boosting activities. George M. Cohan asked that she be the first to record a performance of his patriotic song Over There and her recording was released in 1917 and became an international hit. She also performed shows for the soldiers, in 1919, she recorded How Ya Gonna Keep em Down on the Farm. for Columbia which became a hit for that year. Bayes made many records for the Victor and Columbia labels. From 1924–28, her accompanist was pianist Louis Alter, who composed the popular songs Manhattan Serenade, Nina Never Knew. Bayes established her own theater, The Nora Bayes Theater, on West 44th Street in New York and her first husband was Otto Gressing, a Chicago businessman, and Norworth was her second. Husband number three was a dancer named Harry Clarke who also performed with her in vaudeville, husband number four was New York business man Arthur Gordoni. Her fifth and last husband was Benjamin Friedland, a New York City businessman, Bayes bore no biological children in any of her marriages. The oldest was Norman Bayes, adopted by Bayes and Gordoni in March 1918, Bayes second adopted child was a daughter named Lea Nora, adoption date July 25,1919. Her third adopted child was Peter Oxley Bayes, born March 9,1921 in London, in 1928, Nora Bayes was diagnosed with cancer and died following surgery. She was buried 18 years later with her husband, Ben Friedland, in the Woodlawn Cemetery in the Bronx, New York, although inexplicably. On April 11,2006, under the terms of the National Recording Preservation Act of 2000, the citation stated that she was Inextricably associated in popular imagination with World War I. Bayes was portrayed by Ann Sheridan in the 1944 musical biopic Shine On, Harvest Moon and she was also portrayed by Frances Langford in the movie Yankee Doodle Dandy, where she and James Cagney perform Over There. In the 1941 play, Arsenic and Old Lace, drama critic Mortimer Brewster arrives home from reviewing a play and he then says, My God – Im still there. The 1980 Garson Kanin novel Smash is about an attempt to make a Broadway musical out of Nora Bayes life, the novel serves as the inspiration for the 2012 television series Smash, although the subject of the shows fictional musical is not Bayes but Marilyn Monroe
