1.
Madison, Wisconsin
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Madison is the capital of the U. S. state of Wisconsin and the county seat of Dane County. As of July 1,2015, Madisons estimated population of 248,951 made it the second largest city in Wisconsin, after Milwaukee, and the 84th largest in the United States. The city forms the core of the United States Census Bureaus Madison Metropolitan Statistical Area, which includes Dane County and neighboring Iowa, Green, the Madison Metropolitan Statistical Areas 2010 population was 568,593. When the Wisconsin Territory was created in 1836 the territorial legislature convened in Belmont, One of the legislatures tasks was to select a permanent location for the territorys capital. Doty lobbied aggressively for Madison as the new capital, offering buffalo robes to the freezing legislators and he had James Slaughter plat two cities in the area, Madison and The City of Four Lakes, near present-day Middleton. Doty named the city Madison for James Madison, the fourth President of the U. S. who had died on June 28,1836 and he named the streets for the other 39 signers of the U. S. Constitution. Being named for the founding father James Madison, who had just died. The cornerstone for the Wisconsin capitol was laid in 1837, on October 9,1839, Kintzing Prichett registered the plat of Madison at the registrars office of the then-territorial Dane County. Madison was incorporated as a village in 1846, with a population of 626, when Wisconsin became a state in 1848, Madison remained the capital, and the following year it became the site of the University of Wisconsin. The Milwaukee & Mississippi Railroad connected to Madison in 1854, Madison incorporated as a city in 1856, with a population of 6,863, leaving the unincorporated remainder as a separate Town of Madison. The original capitol was replaced in 1863 and the capitol burned in 1904. The current capitol was built between 1906 and 1917, during the Civil War, Madison served as a center of the Union Army in Wisconsin. Camp Randall, on the west side of Madison, was built and used as a camp, a military hospital. After the war ended, the Camp Randall site was absorbed into the University of Wisconsin, in 2004 the last vestige of active military training on the site was removed when the stadium renovation replaced a firing range used for ROTC training. The City of Madison continued annexations from the Town of Madison almost from the date of the citys incorporation, Madison is located in the center of Dane County in south-central Wisconsin,77 miles west of Milwaukee and 122 miles northwest of Chicago. The city completely surrounds the smaller Town of Madison, the City of Monona, Madison shares borders with its largest suburb, Sun Prairie, and three other suburbs, Middleton, McFarland and Fitchburg. The citys boundaries also approach the city of Verona, and the villages of Cottage Grove, DeForest, and Waunakee. According to the United States Census Bureau, the city has an area of 94.03 square miles
2.
New York City
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The City of New York, often called New York City or simply New York, is the most populous city in the United States. With an estimated 2015 population of 8,550,405 distributed over an area of about 302.6 square miles. Located at the tip of the state of New York. Home to the headquarters of the United Nations, New York is an important center for international diplomacy and has described as the cultural and financial capital of the world. Situated on one of the worlds largest natural harbors, New York City consists of five boroughs, the five boroughs – Brooklyn, Queens, Manhattan, The Bronx, and Staten Island – were consolidated into a single city in 1898. In 2013, the MSA produced a gross metropolitan product of nearly US$1.39 trillion, in 2012, the CSA generated a GMP of over US$1.55 trillion. NYCs MSA and CSA GDP are higher than all but 11 and 12 countries, New York City traces its origin to its 1624 founding in Lower Manhattan as a trading post by colonists of the Dutch Republic and was named New Amsterdam in 1626. The city and its surroundings came under English control in 1664 and were renamed New York after King Charles II of England granted the lands to his brother, New York served as the capital of the United States from 1785 until 1790. It has been the countrys largest city since 1790, the Statue of Liberty greeted millions of immigrants as they came to the Americas by ship in the late 19th and early 20th centuries and is a symbol of the United States and its democracy. In the 21st century, New York has emerged as a node of creativity and entrepreneurship, social tolerance. Several sources have ranked New York the most photographed city in the world, the names of many of the citys bridges, tapered skyscrapers, and parks are known around the world. Manhattans real estate market is among the most expensive in the world, Manhattans Chinatown incorporates the highest concentration of Chinese people in the Western Hemisphere, with multiple signature Chinatowns developing across the city. Providing continuous 24/7 service, the New York City Subway is one of the most extensive metro systems worldwide, with 472 stations in operation. Over 120 colleges and universities are located in New York City, including Columbia University, New York University, and Rockefeller University, during the Wisconsinan glaciation, the New York City region was situated at the edge of a large ice sheet over 1,000 feet in depth. The ice sheet scraped away large amounts of soil, leaving the bedrock that serves as the foundation for much of New York City today. Later on, movement of the ice sheet would contribute to the separation of what are now Long Island and Staten Island. The first documented visit by a European was in 1524 by Giovanni da Verrazzano, a Florentine explorer in the service of the French crown and he claimed the area for France and named it Nouvelle Angoulême. Heavy ice kept him from further exploration, and he returned to Spain in August and he proceeded to sail up what the Dutch would name the North River, named first by Hudson as the Mauritius after Maurice, Prince of Orange
3.
Carnegie Mellon University
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Carnegie Mellon University is a private research university in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Founded in 1900 by Andrew Carnegie as the Carnegie Technical Schools, in 1967, the Carnegie Institute of Technology merged with the Mellon Institute of Industrial Research to form Carnegie Mellon University. The universitys 140-acre main campus is 3 miles from Downtown Pittsburgh, john Heinz III College of Information Systems and Public Policy, and the School of Computer Science. The university also has campuses in Qatar and Silicon Valley, with degree-granting programs in six continents, Carnegie Mellon consistently ranks in the top 25 in the national U. S. News & World Report rankings. It is home to the world’s first degree-granting Robotics and Drama programs, the university spent $242 million on research in 2015. Carnegie Mellon counts 13,650 students from 114 countries, over 100,000 living alumni, Carnegies vision was to open a vocational training school for the sons and daughters of working-class Pittsburghers. Carnegie was inspired for the design of his school by the Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, in 1912 the institution changed its name to Carnegie Institute of Technology and began offering four-year degrees. The Mellon Institute of Industrial Research was founded in 1913 by banker and industrialist brothers Andrew, Mellon in honor of their father, Thomas Mellon, the patriarch of the Mellon family. The Institute began as an organization which performed work for government. In 1927, the Mellon Institute incorporated as an independent nonprofit, in 1938, the Mellon Institutes iconic building was completed and it moved to its new, and current, location on Fifth Avenue. In 1967, with support from Paul Mellon, Carnegie Tech merged with the Mellon Institute of Industrial Research to become Carnegie Mellon University, Carnegie Mellons coordinate womens college, the Margaret Morrison Carnegie College closed in 1973 and merged its academic programs with the rest of the university. The industrial research mission of the Mellon Institute survived the merger as the Carnegie Mellon Research Institute and continued doing work on contract to industry, CMRI closed in 2001 and its programs were subsumed by other parts of the university or spun off into independent entities. Carnegie Mellons 140-acre main campus is three miles from downtown Pittsburgh, between Schenley Park and the Squirrel Hill, Shadyside, and Oakland neighborhoods, Carnegie Mellon is bordered to the west by the campus of the University of Pittsburgh. Carnegie Mellon owns 81 buildings in the Oakland and Squirrel Hill neighborhoods of Pittsburgh, for decades the center of student life on campus was Skibo Hall, the Universitys student union. Built in the 1950s, Skibo Halls design was typical of Mid-Century Modern architecture, the original Skibo was razed in the summer of 1994 and replaced by a new student union that is fully wi-fi enabled. Known as University Center, the building was dedicated in 1996, in 2014, Carnegie Mellon re-dedicated the University Center as the Cohon University Center in recognition of the eighth president of the university, Jared Cohon. A large grassy area known as the Cut forms the backbone of the campus, the Cut was formed by filling in a ravine with soil from a nearby hill that was leveled to build the College of Fine Arts building. The northwestern part of the campus was acquired from the United States Bureau of Mines in the 1980s, the sculpture was controversial for its placement, the general lack of input that the campus community had, and its aesthetic appeal
4.
Pittsburgh
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Pittsburgh is a city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania in the United States, and is the county seat of Allegheny County. The city proper has a population of 304,391. The metropolitan population of 2,353,045 is the largest in both the Ohio Valley and Appalachia, the second-largest in Pennsylvania, and the 26th-largest in the U. S. The city features 30 skyscrapers, two inclines, a fortification and the Point State Park at the confluence of the rivers. Aside from steel, Pittsburgh has led in manufacturing of aluminum, glass, shipbuilding, petroleum, foods, sports, transportation, computing, autos, and electronics. For part of the 20th century, Pittsburgh was behind only New York and Chicago in corporate headquarters employment, Americas 1980s deindustrialization laid off area blue-collar workers and thousands of downtown white-collar workers when the longtime Pittsburgh-based world headquarters moved out. The area has served also as the federal agency headquarters for cyber defense, software engineering, robotics, energy research. The area is home to 68 colleges and universities, including research and development leaders Carnegie Mellon University, the region is a hub for Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design, sustainable energy, and energy extraction. Pittsburgh was named in 1758 by General John Forbes, in honor of British statesman William Pitt, 1st Earl of Chatham. The current pronunciation, which is unusual in English speaking countries, is almost certainly a result of a printing error in some copies of the City Charter of March 18,1816. The error was repeated commonly enough throughout the rest of the 19th century that the pronunciation was lost. After a public campaign the original spelling was restored by the United States Board on Geographic Names in 1911. The area of the Ohio headwaters was long inhabited by the Shawnee, the first known European to enter the region was the French explorer/trader Robert de La Salle from Quebec during his 1669 expedition down the Ohio River. European pioneers, primarily Dutch, followed in the early 18th century, Michael Bezallion was the first to describe the forks of the Ohio in a 1717 manuscript, and later that year European fur traders established area posts and settlements. In 1749, French soldiers from Quebec launched an expedition to the forks to unite Canada with French Louisiana via the rivers, during 1753–54, the British hastily built Fort Prince George before a larger French force drove them off. The French built Fort Duquesne based on LaSalles 1669 claims, the French and Indian War, the North American front of the Seven Years War, began with the future Pittsburgh as its center. British General Edward Braddock was dispatched with Major George Washington as his aide to take Fort Duquesne, the British and colonial force were defeated at Braddocks Field. General John Forbes finally took the forks in 1758, Forbes began construction on Fort Pitt, named after William Pitt the Elder while the settlement was named Pittsborough
5.
Academy Awards
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The various category winners are awarded a copy of a golden statuette, officially called the Academy Award of Merit, which has become commonly known by its nickname Oscar. The awards, first presented in 1929 at the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel, are overseen by AMPAS, the awards ceremony was first broadcast on radio in 1930 and televised for the first time in 1953. It is now live in more than 200 countries and can be streamed live online. The Academy Awards ceremony is the oldest worldwide entertainment awards ceremony and its equivalents – the Emmy Awards for television, the Tony Awards for theater, and the Grammy Awards for music and recording – are modeled after the Academy Awards. The 89th Academy Awards ceremony, honoring the best films of 2016, were held on February 26,2017, at the Dolby Theatre, in Los Angeles, the ceremony was hosted by Jimmy Kimmel and was broadcast on ABC. A total of 3,048 Oscars have been awarded from the inception of the award through the 88th, the first Academy Awards presentation was held on May 16,1929, at a private dinner function at the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel with an audience of about 270 people. The post-awards party was held at the Mayfair Hotel, the cost of guest tickets for that nights ceremony was $5. Fifteen statuettes were awarded, honoring artists, directors and other participants in the industry of the time. The ceremony ran for 15 minutes, winners were announced to media three months earlier, however, that was changed for the second ceremony in 1930. Since then, for the rest of the first decade, the results were given to newspapers for publication at 11,00 pm on the night of the awards. The first Best Actor awarded was Emil Jannings, for his performances in The Last Command and he had to return to Europe before the ceremony, so the Academy agreed to give him the prize earlier, this made him the first Academy Award winner in history. With the fourth ceremony, however, the system changed, for the first six ceremonies, the eligibility period spanned two calendar years. At the 29th ceremony, held on March 27,1957, until then, foreign-language films had been honored with the Special Achievement Award. The 74th Academy Awards, held in 2002, presented the first Academy Award for Best Animated Feature, since 1973, all Academy Awards ceremonies always end with the Academy Award for Best Picture. The Academy also awards Nicholl Fellowships in Screenwriting, see also § Awards of Merit categories The best known award is the Academy Award of Merit, more popularly known as the Oscar statuette. The five spokes represent the branches of the Academy, Actors, Writers, Directors, Producers. The model for the statuette is said to be Mexican actor Emilio El Indio Fernández, sculptor George Stanley sculpted Cedric Gibbons design. The statuettes presented at the ceremonies were gold-plated solid bronze
6.
Theatre in Pittsburgh
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Theatre in Pittsburgh has existed professionally since the early 1800s and has continued to expand, having emerged as an important cultural force in the city over the past several decades. These students included Henry Marie Brackenridge, the son of university founder Hugh Henry Brackenridge, Morgan Neville, the son of Presley Neville, and future U. S. Throughout the 1800s, Pittsburgh was home to stock companies, beginning with the Theatre on Third Street, Pittsburghs first free-standing playhouse. Other theatres followed Hendersons lead, including the Pittsburgh Opera House, sam Nixon and Fred Zimmermans building of the Nixon and the Gayety attracted touring productions of successful Broadway plays as well as international ballet and opera companies. During the Great Depression in the 1930s, noncommercial theater became more important and political in nature, exemplified by the New Theater of Pittsburgh. Black theater also became an important cultural force at this time. The Negro Drama League was formed in 1932 to support the vibrant theatrical activity of African-Americans in Pittsburgh, Jewish theatrical activity also became more prominent in Pittsburgh at this time, notably with the Irene Kaufmann Settlement Players. German and Catholic theatre developed a presence as well, civic theaters devoted to a sense of civic theatrical identity grew in popularity, the still-active Pittsburgh Playhouse, established in 1934, is the most enduring theatre of this movement. Over the years, the company has moved to locations throughout the city. The university company became professionally oriented in 1981, and continues to stage productions throughout the year in their primary facility. Saint Vincent Summer Theatre, another major fixture of the Pittsburgh area, the theatre has staged many different kinds of productions over the years, and now produces mostly light farces for a summer theatre audience. Mountain Playhouse, one of the oldest professional theatres in the Pittsburgh area, similar to St. Vincent, Mountain Playhouse also stages light summer stock fare, including comedies and musicals. Apple Hill Playhouse in nearby Delmont also stages light comedies and musicals as well as childrens theater, Pittsburgh Playhouse, currently home to Point Park Universitys conservatory students and resident professional theatre company Playhouse Rep, opened its doors in 1934 as a community theater. Stage Right was established in the mid-1960s and continues to produce theatre in the Fox Chapel area of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh Public Theater was chartered in 1974 by Joan Apt, Margaret Rieck and Ben Shaktman and held its first production in 1975. Staging a wide variety of plays and musicals, from classical to contemporary, City Theatre also staged its first production in 1975 as the City Players, a group of recent college graduates that gave free performances in schools, parks, and housing projects. The company has evolved to become a major regional theatre that has staged premieres of new works by Christopher Durang, Adam Rapp, Jeffrey Hatcher, Eric Simonson. In the 1990s and early 2000s, a new generation of companies emerged and contributed to Pittsburghs expanding. Quantum Theatre was founded in 1990 by Karla Boos, it has staged productions of plays, musicals, the Pittsburgh New Works Festival was established in 1990 as well to provide a venue for new plays by playwrights from all over the country
7.
Broadway theatre
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Along with Londons West End theatres, Broadway theatres are widely considered to represent the highest level of commercial theatre in the English-speaking world. The Theater District is a popular tourist attraction in New York City, the great majority of Broadway shows are musicals. They presented Shakespeare plays and ballad operas such as The Beggars Opera, in 1752, William Hallam sent a company of twelve actors from Britain to the colonies with his brother Lewis as their manager. They established a theatre in Williamsburg, Virginia and opened with The Merchant of Venice, the company moved to New York in the summer of 1753, performing ballad operas and ballad-farces like Damon and Phillida. The Revolutionary War suspended theatre in New York, but thereafter theatre resumed in 1798, the Bowery Theatre opened in 1826, followed by others. Blackface minstrel shows, a distinctly American form of entertainment, became popular in the 1830s, by the 1840s, P. T. Barnum was operating an entertainment complex in lower Manhattan. In 1829, at Broadway and Prince Street, Niblos Garden opened, the 3, 000-seat theatre presented all sorts of musical and non-musical entertainments. In 1844, Palmos Opera House opened and presented opera for four seasons before bankruptcy led to its rebranding as a venue for plays under the name Burtons Theatre. The Astor Opera House opened in 1847, booth played the role for a famous 100 consecutive performances at the Winter Garden Theatre in 1865, and would later revive the role at his own Booths Theatre. Other renowned Shakespeareans who appeared in New York in this era were Henry Irving, Tommaso Salvini, Fanny Davenport, lydia Thompson came to America in 1868 heading a small theatrical troupe, adapting popular English burlesques for middle-class New York audiences. Thompsons troupe called the British Blondes, was the most popular entertainment in New York during the 1868–1869 theatrical season, the six-month tour ran for almost six extremely profitable years. Theatre in New York moved from downtown gradually to midtown beginning around 1850, in 1870, the heart of Broadway was in Union Square, and by the end of the century, many theatres were near Madison Square. Broadways first long-run musical was a 50-performance hit called The Elves in 1857, New York runs continued to lag far behind those in London, but Laura Keenes musical burletta The Seven Sisters shattered previous New York records with a run of 253 performances. It was at a performance by Keenes troupe of Our American Cousin in Washington, the production was a staggering five-and-a-half hours long, but despite its length, it ran for a record-breaking 474 performances. The same year, The Black Domino/Between You, Me and the Post was the first show to call itself a musical comedy, Tony Pastor opened the first vaudeville theatre one block east of Union Square in 1881, where Lillian Russell performed. Comedians Edward Harrigan and Tony Hart produced and starred in musicals on Broadway between 1878 and 1890, with book and lyrics by Harrigan and music by his father-in-law David Braham. They starred high quality singers, instead of the women of repute who had starred in earlier musical forms. Plays could run longer and still draw in the audiences, leading to better profits, as in England, during the latter half of the century, the theatre began to be cleaned up, with less prostitution hindering the attendance of the theatre by women
8.
Cats (musical)
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Cats is a musical composed by Andrew Lloyd Webber, based on Old Possums Book of Practical Cats by T. S. Eliot, and produced by Cameron Mackintosh. Cats introduced the song standard Memory, the first performance of Cats was in 1981. Directed by Trevor Nunn and choreographed by Gillian Lynne, Cats first opened in the West End in 1981 and it won numerous awards, including Best Musical at both the Laurence Olivier Awards and the Tony Awards. The London production ran for years and the Broadway production ran for eighteen years. Actresses Elaine Paige and Betty Buckley became particularly associated with the musical, One actress, Marlene Danielle, performed in the Broadway production for its entire run. As of 2016, Cats is the show in Broadway history. Cats is the sixth-longest-running West End musical and it has been performed around the world many times and has been translated into more than 20 languages. In 1998, Cats was turned into a made-for-television film, composed by Andrew Lloyd Webber, the production of Cats is based on T. S. Eliots Old Possums Book of Practical Cats, which the composer recalled as having been a childhood favorite. Also, a song entitled The Moments of Happiness was taken from a passage in Eliots Four Quartets. Andrew Lloyd Webber began composing the songs in late 1977 and premiered the compositions at the Sydmonton Festival in 1980, the concert was attended by T. S. Eliots wife, Valerie Eliot and she loved the songs that Webber had composed. She gave her blessing for the songs to be adapted into a stage play. Rehearsals for the musical began in early 1981 at the New London Theatre, an unusual musical in terms of its construction, the overture incorporates a fugue and there are occasions when the music accompanies spoken verse. The show is told through music with virtually no spoken dialogue in between the songs. Dance is also a key element in the musical especially during the 10-minute Jellicle Ball dance sequence, the set, consisting of an oversized junk yard, remains the same throughout the show without any scene changes. Lloyd Webbers eclecticism is very strong here, musical genres range from classical to pop, music hall, jazz, rock, Cats premiered in the West End at the New London Theatre on May 11,1981. There was trouble initially as Judi Dench, cast in the role of Grizabella and she was replaced by Elaine Paige. It played a total of 8,949 performances in London and it held the record as Londons longest running musical until 8 October 2006, when it was surpassed by Les Misérables. The show made its debut on Broadway on 7 October 1982, on 19 June 1997, Cats became the longest-running musical in Broadway history with 6,138 performances
9.
Chicago (musical)
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Chicago is an American musical with music by John Kander, lyrics by Fred Ebb, and a book by Ebb and Bob Fosse. Set in Prohibition-era Chicago, the musical is based on a 1926 play of the name by reporter Maurine Dallas Watkins about actual criminals. The story is a satire on corruption in the administration of criminal justice, the original Broadway production opened in 1975 at the 46th Street Theatre and ran for 936 performances until 1977. Bob Fosse choreographed the production, and his style is strongly identified with the show. Following a West End debut in 1979 which ran for 600 performances, Chicago was revived on Broadway in 1996, the Broadway revival holds the record as the longest-running musical revival and the longest-running American musical in Broadway history. It is the second longest-running show in Broadway history, behind only The Phantom of the Opera, having played its 7, 486th performance on November 23,2014, surpassing Cats. The West End revival ran for nearly 15 years, becoming the longest-running American musical in West End history, the 2002 film version of the musical won the Academy Award for Best Picture. In the early 1920s, Chicagos press and public became riveted by the subject of homicides committed by women, several high-profile cases arose, which generally involved women killing their lovers or husbands. These cases were tried against a backdrop of changing views of women in the Jazz age, a lore arose that, in Chicago, feminine or attractive women could not be convicted. The Chicago Tribune generally took a pro-prosecution hang-them-high stance, while presenting the details of these womens lives. Regardless of stance, the press covered several of these women as celebrities, Annan, the model for the character of Roxie Hart, was 23 when she was accused of the April 3,1924, murder of Harry Kalstedt. The Tribune reported that Annan played the foxtrot record Hula Lou over and over for two hours before calling her husband to say she killed a man who tried to love to her. She was found not guilty on May 25,1924, Velma Kelly is based on Gaertner, who was a cabaret singer, and society divorcée. The body of Walter Law was discovered slumped over the wheel of Gaertners abandoned car on March 12,1924. Two police officers testified that they had seen a woman getting into the car, a bottle of gin and an automatic pistol were found on the floor of the car. Gaertner was acquitted on June 6,1924, lawyers William Scott Stewart and W. W. OBrien were models for a composite character in Chicago, Billy Flynn. Watkins sensational columns documenting these trials proved so popular that she decided to write a play based on them, the show received both popular and critical acclaim and even made it to Broadway in 1926, running for 172 performances. DeMille produced a silent film version, Chicago, starring former Mack Sennett bathing beauty Phyllis Haver as Roxie Hart and it was later remade as Roxie Hart starring Ginger Rogers, but, in this version, Roxie was accused of murder without having really committed it
10.
Academy Award for Best Director
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The Academy Award for Best Director is an award presented annually by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. It is given in honor of a director who has exhibited outstanding directing while working in the film industry. However, these categories were merged for all subsequent ceremonies, nominees are determined by single transferable vote within the directors branch of AMPAS, winners are selected by a plurality vote from the entire eligible voting members of the Academy. For the first eleven years of the Academy Awards, directors were allowed to be nominated for multiple films in the same year, the Academy Awards for Best Director and Best Picture have been very closely linked throughout their history. Of the 89 films that have been awarded Best Picture,63 have also been awarded Best Director, since its inception, the award has been given to 69 directors or directing teams. John Ford has received the most awards in this category with four, william Wyler was nominated on twelve occasions, more than any other individual. As of the 2017 ceremony, Damien Chazelle is the most recent winner in category for his work on La La Land. Chazelle also became the youngest director in history to receive this award, two directing teams have shared the award, Robert Wise and Jerome Robbins for West Side Story in 1961 and Joel and Ethan Coen for No Country for Old Men in 2007. The Coen brothers are the siblings to have won the award. For the first five ceremonies, the eligibility period spanned twelve months from August 1 to July 31, for the 6th ceremony held in 1934, the eligibility period lasted from August 1,1932 to December 31,1933. Since the 7th ceremony held in 1935, the period of eligibility became the full calendar year from January 1 to December 31. org The Academy Awards Database Oscar. com
