Westinghouse Electric Corporation
The Westinghouse Electric Corporation was an American manufacturing company. It was founded on January 8, 1886, as Westinghouse Electric Company and renamed Westinghouse Electric Corporation by its founder George Westinghouse. George Westinghouse had founded the Westinghouse Air Brake Company; the corporation purchased the CBS broadcasting company in 1995 and became the original CBS Corporation in 1997. Westinghouse Electric was founded by George Westinghouse in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania in 1886; the firm became active in developing electric infrastructure throughout the United States. The company's largest factories were located in East Pittsburgh Pennsylvania, Lester, Pennsylvania and in Hamilton, where they made turbines, generators and switch gear for generation and use of electricity. In addition to George Westinghouse, early engineers working for the company included Frank Conrad, Benjamin Garver Lamme, Oliver B. Shallenberger, William Stanley, Nikola Tesla, Stephen Timoshenko and Vladimir Zworykin.
Early on, Westinghouse was a rival to Thomas Edison's electric company. In 1892, Edison was merged with Westinghouse's chief AC rival, the Thomson-Houston Electric Company, making an bigger competitor, General Electric. Westinghouse Electric & Manufacturing Company changed its name to Westinghouse Electric Corporation in 1945. Westinghouse purchased CBS Inc. in 1995. Westinghouse Electric Corporation changed its name to and became CBS Corporation in 1997. In 1998, the Power Generation Business Unit, headquartered in Orlando, was sold to Siemens AG, of Germany. A year CBS sold all of its commercial nuclear power businesses to British Nuclear Fuels Limited. In connection with that sale, certain rights to use the Westinghouse trademarks were granted to the newly formed BNFL subsidiary, Westinghouse Electric Company; that company was sold to Toshiba in 2006. In 1990, Westinghouse experienced a financial catastrophe when the Corporation lost over one billion dollars due to bad high-risk, high-fee, high-interest loans made by its Westinghouse Credit Corporation lending arm.
In an attempt to revitalize the corporation, the Board of Directors appointed outside management in the form of CEO Michael Jordan, who brought in numerous consultants to help re-engineer the company in order to realize the potential that they saw in the broadcasting industry. Westinghouse reduced the work force in many of its traditional industrial operations and made further acquisitions in broadcasting to add to its substantial Group W network, purchasing CBS in 1995. Shortly after, Westinghouse purchased Infinity Broadcasting, TNN, CMT, American Radio Systems, rights to NFL broadcasting; these investments cost the company over fifteen billion dollars. To recoup its costs, Westinghouse sold many other operations. Siemens purchased non-nuclear power generation, while other firms bought the defense electronics, office furniture company Knoll, Thermo King, residential security. With little remaining of the company aside from its broadcasting, Westinghouse renamed itself CBS Corporation in 1997.
During the 20th century, Westinghouse engineers and scientists were granted more than 28,000 US government patents, the third most of any company. The company pioneered the power generation industry and in the fields of long-distance power transmission and high-voltage alternating-current transmission, unveiling the technology for lighting in Great Barrington, Massachusetts; the first commercial Westinghouse steam turbine driven generator, a 1,500 kW unit, began operation at Hartford Electric Light Co. in 1901. The machine, nicknamed Mary-Ann, was the first steam turbine generator to be installed by an electric utility to generate electricity in the US. George Westinghouse had based his original steam turbine design on designs licensed from the English inventor Charles Parsons. Today a large proportion of steam turbine generators operating around the world, ranging to units as large as 1,500 MW were supplied by Westinghouse from its factories in Lester, Pennsylvania. Major Westinghouse licensees or joint venture partners included Mitsubishi Heavy Industries of Japan and Harbin Turbine Co. and Shanghai Electric Co. of China.
Westinghouse boasted 50,000 employees by 1900, established a formal research and development department in 1906. While the company was expanding, it would experience internal financial difficulties. During the Panic of 1907, the Board of Directors forced George Westinghouse to take a six-month leave of absence. Westinghouse retired in 1909 and died several years in 1914. Under new leadership, Westinghouse Electric diversified its business activities in electrical technology, it acquired the Copeman Electric Stove Company in 1914 and Pittsburgh High Voltage Insulator Company in 1921. Westinghouse moved into radio broadcasting by establishing Pittsburgh's KDKA, the first commercial radio station, WBZ in Springfield, Massachusetts in 1921. Westinghouse expanded into the elevator business, establishing the Westinghouse Elevator Company in 1928. Throughout the decade, diversification engendered considerable growth. Westinghouse produced the first operational American turbojet for the US Navy program in 1943.
After many successes, the ill-fated J40 project, started soon after WWII, was abandoned in 1955 and led to Westinghouse exiting the aircraft engine business with closure of the Westinghouse Aviation Gas Turbine Division in 1960. During the late 1940s Westinghouse applied its aviation gas turbine technology and experience to develop its first industrial gas turbine. A 2,0
John Mauceri
John Francis Mauceri is an American conductor, producer and writer. Since making his professional conducting debut half a century ago, Mauceri has appeared with most of the world's great orchestras, guest conducted at the premiere opera houses and musically supervised Tony and Olivier Award-winning Broadway musicals, served as university faculty and administrator. Through his varied career, he has taken the lead in the preservation and performance of many genres of music and has supervised/conducted important premieres by composers as diverse as Debussy, Korngold, Bernstein, Ives and Shore, he is a leading performer of music banned by the Third Reich and music of Hollywood's émigré composers. Born in New York City, Mauceri studied Music Theory and Composition at Yale University earning a BA in 1967 and a Master of Philosophy in Music Theory in 1972, his teachers included William G. Waite, Claude Palisca, Beekman Cannon, Leon Plantinga, Robert Bailey in musicology. In addition he studied 20th-century architecture with Vincent Scully, French literature with Henri Peyre and psychology.
In his senior year he made his conducting debut, composed the music for a production of Brecht's A Man Is a Man, guest conducted the Yale Symphony Orchestra, produced and music directed Benjamin Britten's Curlew River at Yale's St. Thomas More Chapel and brought the production to New York City for its New York premiere, which took place at the Catholic Chapel of the United Nations on May 13 and 14, 1967, he graduated cum laude, won the Wrexham Prize "for highest musical achievement," the Francis Vernan Prize for composition, the Branford Arts Prize for his "devotion to the advancement of the arts."Accepted with a full scholarship into Yale's Graduate School in music theory, he was soon appointed to the faculty as music director of the Yale Symphony Orchestra and continued on for a total of fifteen years as both a guest conductor and music director of Yale's opera school. Mauceri is credited for building the Yale Symphony Orchestra into one of the most respected student orchestras in the world.
During his tenure with the YSO he brought the orchestra to Paris for Paris premieres of Ives's Symphony No. 4, Debussy's Khamma and Scriabin's Prométhée. He produced and conducted the YSO for the European premiere of Leonard Bernstein's Mass in Vienna, the world premiere of Charles Ives's Three Places in New England in its original, large orchestra version, as well as the world premiere of the critical edition of Ives's Orchestral Set No. 2. His programs drew capacity audiences for seven years and included the American premiere of Debussy's 1913 ballet Khamma, the American premiere of Strauss's silent film of Der Rosenkavalier, the world premiere of a staged pageant-version of Karlheinz Stockhausen's Hymnen involving 1000 performers on Yale's Cross Campus, the American premiere of Hindemith's orchestrated songs Das Marienleben and rare performances of Scriabin's Prometheus: The Poem of Fire, John Cage's Atlas Eclipticalis, Wagner's Das Rheingold, Schoenberg's Gurre-Lieder, Messiaen's Réveil des oiseaux and Stravinsky's Agon.
In 1973, Mauceri made both his professional orchestral debut with the Los Angeles Philharmonic and his operatic debut conducting Menotti's The Saint of Bleecker Street at the Wolf Trap Festival. Committed to preserving two American art forms, the Broadway musical, Hollywood film scores, he has edited and performed many restorations and first performances, including a full restoration of the original 1943 production of Rodgers & Hammerstein's Oklahoma!, performing editions of Gershwin's Porgy and Bess, Girl Crazy and Strike up the Band, Bernstein's Candide and A Quiet Place, film scores by Miklós Rózsa, Franz Waxman, Erich Wolfgang Korngold, Max Steiner, Elmer Bernstein, Jerry Goldsmith, Danny Elfman and Howard Shore. As one of two conductors in Decca Records' award-winning series Entartete Musik, Mauceri made a number of historic first recordings of music banned by the Nazis as degenerate music; the intersection of the "degenerate composers" of Europe and the refugee composers of Hollywood is the subject of much of his research and his writings.
In addition, Mauceri has conducted significant premieres of works by Verdi, Hindemith, Ives and Weill. John Mauceri made his Broadway debut on March 10, 1974, as music director of Hal Prince's production of Leonard Bernstein's Candide which had begun as a limited run at the Brooklyn Academy of Music; this version of the show was given a Special Tony Award for "The Advancement of the American Musical Theatre." He subsequently served as music director for the "Opera House" version of Candide that premiered at the New York City Opera in 1982. Its 1986 recording won Mauceri a Grammy for "Best Opera Recording." In 1988, as Music Director of Scottish Opera, Mauceri initiated a third version based on a reading of Voltaire adapted by John Wells and directed by Jonathan Miller. Mauceri was able to make use of all the music Bernstein had composed for various versions of Candide between 1956 and 1971; this final version had its world premiere at the Theatre Royal, with Bernstein in attendance, broadcast on BBC television.
It was transferred to the Sadler's Well
Jacques Offenbach
Jacques Offenbach was a German-French composer and impresario of the romantic period. He is remembered for his nearly 100 operettas of the 1850s–1870s and his uncompleted opera The Tales of Hoffmann, he was a powerful influence on composers of the operetta genre Johann Strauss, Jr. and Arthur Sullivan. His best-known works were continually revived during the 20th century, many of his operettas continue to be staged in the 21st; the Tales of Hoffmann remains part of the standard opera repertory. Born in Cologne, the son of a synagogue cantor, Offenbach showed early musical talent. At the age of 14, he was accepted as a student at the Paris Conservatoire but found academic study unfulfilling and left after a year. From 1835 to 1855 he earned his living as a cellist, achieving international fame, as a conductor, his ambition, was to compose comic pieces for the musical theatre. Finding the management of Paris' Opéra-Comique company uninterested in staging his works, in 1855 he leased a small theatre in the Champs-Élysées.
There he presented a series of his own small-scale pieces. In 1858, Offenbach produced his first full-length operetta, Orphée aux enfers, exceptionally well received and has remained one of his most played works. During the 1860s, he produced at least 18 full-length operettas, as well as more one-act pieces, his works from this period included La belle Hélène, La Vie parisienne, La Grande-Duchesse de Gérolstein and La Périchole. The risqué humour and gentle satiric barbs in these pieces, together with Offenbach's facility for melody, made them internationally known, translated versions were successful in Vienna and elsewhere in Europe. Offenbach became associated with the Second French Empire of Napoleon III. Napoleon III granted him French citizenship and the Légion d'Honneur. With the outbreak of the Franco-Prussian War in 1870, Offenbach found himself out of favour in Paris because of his imperial connections and his German birth, he remained successful in London, however. He re-established himself in Paris during the 1870s, with revivals of some of his earlier favourites and a series of new works, undertook a popular U.
S. tour. In his last years he strove to finish The Tales of Hoffmann, but died before the premiere of the opera, which has entered the standard repertory in versions completed or edited by other musicians. Offenbach was born Jacob or Jakob Offenbach to a Jewish family, in the German city of Cologne, a part of Prussia, his birthplace in the Großen Griechenmarkt was a short distance from the square, now named after him, the Offenbachplatz. He was the second son and the seventh of ten children of Isaac Juda Offenbach né Eberst and his wife Marianne, née Rindskopf. Isaac, who came from a musical family, had abandoned his original trade as a bookbinder and earned an itinerant living as a cantor in synagogues and playing the violin in cafés, he was known as "der Offenbacher", after his native town, Offenbach am Main, in 1808 he adopted Offenbach as a surname. In 1816 he settled in Cologne, where he became established as a teacher, giving lessons in singing, violin and guitar, composing both religious and secular music.
When Jacob was six years old, his father taught him to play the violin. As he was by the permanent cantor of the local synagogue, Isaac could afford to pay for his son to take lessons from the well-known cellist Bernhard Breuer. Three years the biographer Gabriel Grovlez records, the boy was giving performances of his own compositions, "the technical difficulties of which terrified his master", Breuer. Together with his brother Julius and sister Isabella, Jacob played in a trio at local dance halls and cafés, performing popular dance music and operatic arrangements. In 1833, Isaac decided that the two most musically talented of his children and Jacob needed to leave the provincial musical scene of Cologne to study in Paris. With generous support from local music lovers and the municipal orchestra, with whom they gave a farewell concert on 9 October, the two young musicians, accompanied by their father, made the four-day journey to Paris in November 1833. Isaac had been given letters of introduction to the director of the Paris Conservatoire, Luigi Cherubini, but he needed all his eloquence to persuade Cherubini to give Jacob an audition.
The boy's age and nationality were both obstacles to admission. Cherubini had several years earlier refused the 12-year-old Franz Liszt admission on similar grounds, but he agreed to hear the young Offenbach play, he listened to his playing and stopped him, saying, "Enough, young man, you are now a pupil of this Conservatoire." Julius was admitted. Both brothers adopted French forms of Julius becoming Jules and Jacob becoming Jacques. Isaac failed to do so and returned to Cologne. Before leaving, he found a number of pupils for Jules. At the conservatoire, Jules was a diligent student. By contrast, Jacques was bored by ac
Culture of Pittsburgh
The Culture of Pittsburgh stems from the city's long history as a center for cultural philanthropy, as well as its rich ethnic traditions. In the 19th and 20th centuries, wealthy businessmen such as Andrew Carnegie, Henry J. Heinz, Henry Clay Frick, nonprofit organizations such as the Carnegie Foundation donated millions of dollars to create educational and cultural institutions; the Frank Lloyd Wright masterpiece Fallingwater is about an hour's drive from Downtown Pittsburgh. The North Shore has an 1895 neogothic church, Calvary Methodist, with an interior designed by Louis Comfort Tiffany; the church's stained glass windows are some of the largest and most elaborate work Tiffany created. The Church of the Immaculate Heart of Mary in Pittsburgh, an opulently decorated edifice with elaborate Old World flourishes is one of the finest examples of the so-called Polish Cathedral style, dominating the skyline over Polish Hill; the Allegheny County Courthouse, designed by H. H. Richardson, is a influential building.
At 42 stories, the University of Pittsburgh's Cathedral of Learning is the second tallest collegiate building in the world. The tallest skyscraper in Pittsburgh is the triangular U. S. Steel Tower. Both Heinz Field and PNC Park are designed to give fans a view of the city skyline; the David L. Lawrence Convention Center, located on the south bank of the Allegheny River, is becoming some of the most sought after convention space in the country, as it is able to accommodate all sizes of conventions and conferences. Certified with a Gold rating by the U. S. Green Building Council's Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design initiative, the building is considered the first "green" convention center and world's largest "green" building; the region has hosted over 1,000 film and television works since the first production filmed in the city in 1898. Since 1990 the Pittsburgh Film Office has marketed the greater southwestern Pennsylvania region as a great location for movie and commercial productions.
The PFO has assisted more than 102 feature films and television productions to southwestern Pennsylvania to generate an economic impact of more than $575 million for the region. Pittsburgh Filmmakers teaches media arts and runs three "arthouse" movie theaters and since 1981 the Three Rivers Film Festival has brought national attention to local talent and artists of the region; the Pittsburgh Playhouse at Point Park University has four resident theatre companies. Other theater companies include Bald Theatre Company, barebones productions, Bricolage Production Company, City Theatre, Jewish Theatre of Pittsburgh, Quantum Theatre, Phase 3 Productions, Prime Stage Theatre, Pittsburgh Public Theater, Attack Theater, Unseam'd Shakespeare Company, Terra Nova Theatre Group, Cup-A-Jo Productions, Hiawatha Project, 12 Peers Theater, Organic Theater Pittsburgh, Three Rivers Theatre Company, Carrnivale Theatrics, Theatre Sans Serif, The Summer Company, Throughline Theatre Company, No Name Players, Pittsburgh Musical Theater, Caravan Theatre of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh Civic Light Opera, Pittsburgh Playwrights Theatre Company, Stage Right, Pittsburgh Irish and Classical Theatre.
The Pittsburgh New Works Festival utilizes local theatre companies to stage productions of original one-act plays by playwrights from all parts of the country. Future Ten showcases new ten-minute plays. Saint Vincent Summer Theatre, Off the Wall Productions, Mountain Playhouse, Stage Right! in nearby Latrobe, Carnegie and Greensburg employ Pittsburgh actors and contribute to the culture of the region. August Wilson, one of the best known playwrights of his generation, was a Pittsburgh native; the majority of his plays are set in the city as well including the two that he won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama for. Friday Nite Improvs, an improv show at the University of Pittsburgh's Cathedral of Learning, is Pittsburgh's longest-running theatre show, it has produced a number of professional actors. Since 1991 the Gene Kelly Awards have honored students in drama in the region, giving a platform to some who have gone on to both theater and film careers. Traditional Pittsburgh foods reflect the city's multicultural heritage that of the European immigrants of the early 20th century.
While these immigrant populations introduced dishes such as pierogis to the city, they are now enjoyed by Pittsburghers in general. Other Pittsburgh food specialties were developed in the city. In general, these dishes are still popular because for many years, they satisfied the hearty appetite of the archetypal Pittsburgher: the hard-working, blue-collar steelworker. Cabbage rolls –– Beef, rice, green pepper, wrapped in cabbage and baked with sauerkraut and tomato soup or juice. Chipped Ham – thinly-sliced processed ham, from Isaly's since 1933. City Chicken – cubes of pork and/or veal baked or fried on a wooden skewer. Clark Bar – chocolate candy bar. Essie's Original Hot Dog shop - an Oakland staple since 1960. Halušky – noodles with fried cabbage, or cottage cheese. Iron City Beer – native brew. Italian sausage – with grilled peppers and onions. Kielbasa – eastern European sausages. Pierogi – Polish dish, pasta dough filled with potato and cheese, onion or sauerkraut. Primanti Brothers – sandwich with fries and coleslaw in it.
Sarris Candies - chocolates and ice cream originating in Canonsburg Teutonia Männerchor - Deutschtown German food. Wholey's – Founded in 1912 in Pittsburgh's market square and now located on Penn Ave.
Benedum Center
The Benedum Center for the Performing Arts is a theater and concert hall located at 237 7th Street in the Cultural District of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Designed by the Philadelphia architectural firm Hoffman-Henon, it was built in 1928 as the Stanley Theatre; the former movie palace was renovated and reopened as the Benedum Center for the Performing Arts in 1987. The Stanley Theatre, built at a cost of $3 million, opened as a deluxe movie palace February 27, 1928, with seating for 3,800 people, it was designed by the architectural firm Hoffman−Henon who were best known for their design of 35 theaters in the Philadelphia area. The Stanley Theatre was the largest movie theater in Western Pennsylvania. Operated by the Stanley Warner Theatres circuit division of Warner Bros. it was Pittsburgh's main first run house for all Warner Bros. film releases. Frank Sinatra played here December 10, 1943. In 1974 War and King Crimson played at the Stanley. On April 29, 1974, the King Biscuit Flower Hour recorded a show at the Stanley by Robin Trower for a broadcast.
In 1976, the Stanley was purchased and renovated by the Cinemette Corporation to be operated as a movie theater. In 1977, DiCesare Engler Productions bought the theater. September 23, 1978, Frank Zappa played 2 sets at the Stanley Theatre. Ticket picture at: Frank Zappa - Full Concert - 10/13/78 - Capitol Theatre + ticket Live rock and roll concerts presented through 1984; the Grateful Dead performed four shows at the venue, reggae musician Bob Marley performed his last live concert there in 1980, before his death in 1981. The only known photographs from the show were featured in Kevin Macdonald's documentary film Marley. Prince kicked off his Controversy Tour in 1981 at the Stanley; the rock band Kansas chose the Benedum Center to host its 40th Anniversary Fan Appreciation Concert on August 17, 2013, which all the original members were to attend. The Stanley Theater was named "Number One Auditorium in the U. S." by Billboard several times during the DiCesare-Engler years. On September 25, 1987, after a $43 million restoration was completed, the Stanley reopened as the Benedum Center for the Performing Arts.
In converting the former movie palace into a full performing arts center, a new building including an extension to the stage and support facilities was built at the rear of the theater. The interior was preserved and restored to its original design, with the addition of a new acoustical baffle covering the original proscenium; the centerpiece of the auditorium is the large chandelier in the dome above the balcony. It weighs 4,700 lb, its restoration was dedicated to the late H. J. Heinz II. Today the center is the home of the Pittsburgh Opera, Pittsburgh Ballet Theatre, Pittsburgh Civic Light Opera, all of which used to be based at Heinz Hall; the 2,800-seat Benedum Center is a centerpiece of the Pittsburgh Cultural District and is one of the most utilized theaters in the nation today. The center has hosted several PBS doo-wop television concert specials including Doo Wop 50; the TV game show Wheel of Fortune taped two weeks of shows at the theater in 1998. 2011's Live Forever: The Stanley Theatre, Pittsburgh, PA, September 23, 1980 was recorded at the center.
HBO's Boardwalk Empire mentioned a tap dancing act as having played "the Stanley" in Pittsburgh for three weeks during its season 4 premier. The Benedum Center was featured prominently in the 2006 mockumentary film Pittsburgh directed by Jeff Goldblum; the film follows Goldblum's appearances in the Pittsburgh Civic Light Opera production of The Music Man staged at the theater. List of concert halls Theatre in Pittsburgh Benedum Center Pittsburgh Opera Stanley Theater History -Big Band Era Stanley Theater History -Rock Era
Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh
The Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh is the public library system in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Its main branch is located in the Oakland neighborhood of Pittsburgh, it has 19 branch locations throughout the city. Like hundreds of other Carnegie libraries, the construction of the main library, which opened in 1895, several neighborhood branches, was funded by industrialist Andrew Carnegie; the Pittsburgh area holds the distinction of housing the first branches in the United States. The Pittsburgh Photographic Library is a photography repository held by the Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh of over 50,000 prints and negatives relating to history of Pittsburgh; the City of Pittsburgh was home to eight Carnegie libraries constructed at the turn of the 20th century. In 1881, Andrew Carnegie offered a US$250,000 grant to the city for the construction of a public library on the condition that the city provided the land and annual funding for the maintenance of the property; the city declined Carnegie's initial offer out of concern that a publicly funded library was not a state-sanctioned use of public tax funds.
With the passing of several years and the state legislature's endorsement of the project, the city reconsidered the offer and reached out to Carnegie in the interest of accepting his grant. In 1890, the City of Pittsburgh accepted an expanded grant of $1 million for the building of the main library in Oakland and five branches in the neighborhoods of Lawrenceville, West End, Wylie Avenue, Mount Washington, Hazelwood. While the initial plan only called for those five branches, the Pittsburgh would go on to receive another three Carnegie libraries in the East Liberty, South Side, Homewood neighborhoods. Construction on the main library was finished in 1895 while the branch libraries were constructed over the following fifteen years, ending with the completion of the Homewood branch in 1910. Six of the original Carnegie library branch locations continue to serve as public libraries in their respective neighborhoods: Lawrenceville, West End, Mount Washington, South Side, Homewood; the East Liberty branch was demolished in the 1960s as part of a redevelopment plan, the Wylie Avenue branch was moved to a new location in 1982.
Allegheny Beechview Brookline Carrick Downtown and Business East Liberty Hazelwood Hill District Homewood Knoxville Lawrenceville Library for the Blind and Physically Handicapped Main Mt. Washington Sheraden South Side Squirrel Hill West End Woods Run For decades the CLPgh has partnered with suburban area branches, in 2014 talks were started seeking innovative ways to combine some services; the Our Library, Our Future voter initiative was a campaign spearheaded by the library and community supporters to increase funding for the library by raising local property taxes. The voter initiative would raise the millage rate in the city of Pittsburgh by a quarter of a mill. On November 4, 2011, city voters voted in favor of the referendum by a 72% majority; the increase in taxes gives the Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh an additional three million dollars a year. In 2018, it was reported that nearly 320 rare books, maps and other items were stolen from the Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh's main branch in Oakland, which houses the system's rare book collection.
The items, which included a 1787 document signed by Thomas Jefferson, are valued at more than $8 million. In July 2018, a former library archivist and a Pittsburgh-area bookseller were charged with the thefts, which took place over a period of two decades, it is one of the largest rare-book theft cases in history. According to the criminal complaints detailing alleged scheme, the archivist said that he "often removed items from the Oliver Room at the library's main branch in Oakland by carrying individual plates maps in manila folders, or for books or larger items, by brazenly rolling them up and walking out." The archivist is alleged to have turned the rare items over to the bookseller, who would sell them through his store. Allegheny Regional Asset District Pennsylvania Library Association Toker, Franklin. Pittsburgh: An Urban Portrait. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press. ISBN 0-8229-5434-6. Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh Works by Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh at Project Gutenberg Works by or about Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh at Internet Archive
United States
The United States of America known as the United States or America, is a country composed of 50 states, a federal district, five major self-governing territories, various possessions. At 3.8 million square miles, the United States is the world's third or fourth largest country by total area and is smaller than the entire continent of Europe's 3.9 million square miles. With a population of over 327 million people, the U. S. is the third most populous country. The capital is Washington, D. C. and the largest city by population is New York City. Forty-eight states and the capital's federal district are contiguous 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 and across the Bering Strait from Russia to the west. The State of Hawaii is an archipelago in the mid-Pacific Ocean; the U. S. territories are scattered about the Pacific Ocean and the Caribbean Sea, stretching across nine official time zones. The diverse geography and wildlife of the United States make it one of the world's 17 megadiverse countries.
Paleo-Indians migrated from Siberia to the North American mainland at least 12,000 years ago. European colonization began in the 16th century; the United States emerged from the thirteen British colonies established along the East Coast. Numerous disputes between Great Britain and the colonies following the French and Indian War led to the American Revolution, which began in 1775, the subsequent Declaration of Independence in 1776; the war ended in 1783 with the United States becoming the first country to gain independence from a European power. The current constitution was adopted in 1788, with the first ten amendments, collectively named the Bill of Rights, being ratified in 1791 to guarantee many fundamental civil liberties; the United States embarked on a vigorous expansion across North America throughout the 19th century, acquiring new territories, displacing Native American tribes, admitting new states until it spanned the continent by 1848. During the second half of the 19th century, the Civil War led to the abolition of slavery.
By the end of the century, the United States had extended into the Pacific Ocean, its economy, driven in large part by the Industrial Revolution, began to soar. The Spanish–American War and World War I confirmed the country's status as a global military power; the United States emerged from World War II as a global superpower, the first country to develop nuclear weapons, the only country to use them in warfare, a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council. Sweeping civil rights legislation, notably the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Voting Rights Act of 1965 and the Fair Housing Act of 1968, outlawed discrimination based on race or color. During the Cold War, the United States and the Soviet Union competed in the Space Race, culminating with the 1969 U. S. Moon landing; the end of the Cold War and the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 left the United States as the world's sole superpower. The United States is the world's oldest surviving federation, it is a representative democracy.
The United States is a founding member of the United Nations, World Bank, International Monetary Fund, Organization of American States, other international organizations. The United States is a developed country, with the world's largest economy by nominal GDP and second-largest economy by PPP, accounting for a quarter of global GDP; the U. S. economy is post-industrial, characterized by the dominance of services and knowledge-based activities, although the manufacturing sector remains the second-largest in the world. The United States is the world's largest importer and the second largest exporter of goods, by value. Although its population is only 4.3% of the world total, the U. S. holds 31% of the total wealth in the world, the largest share of global wealth concentrated in a single country. Despite wide income and wealth disparities, the United States continues to rank high in measures of socioeconomic performance, including average wage, human development, per capita GDP, worker productivity.
The United States is the foremost military power in the world, making up a third of global military spending, is a leading political and scientific force internationally. In 1507, the German cartographer Martin Waldseemüller produced a world map on which he named the lands of the Western Hemisphere America in honor of the Italian explorer and cartographer Amerigo Vespucci; the first documentary evidence of the phrase "United States of America" is from a letter dated January 2, 1776, written by Stephen Moylan, Esq. to George Washington's aide-de-camp and Muster-Master General of the Continental Army, Lt. Col. Joseph Reed. Moylan expressed his wish to go "with full and ample powers from the United States of America to Spain" to seek assistance in the revolutionary war effort; the first known publication of the phrase "United States of America" was in an anonymous essay in The Virginia Gazette newspaper in Williamsburg, Virginia, on April 6, 1776. The second draft of the Articles of Confederation, prepared by John Dickinson and completed by June 17, 1776, at the latest, declared "The name of this Confederation shall be the'United States of America'".
The final version of the Articles sent to the states for ratification in late 1777 contains the sentence "The Stile of this Confederacy shall be'The United States of America'". In June 1776, Thomas Jefferson wrote the phrase "UNITED STATES OF AMERICA" in all capitalized letters in the headline of his "original Rough draught" of the Declaration of Independence; this draft of the document did not surface unti
