1.
National Register of Historic Places
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The National Register of Historic Places is the United States federal governments official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures, and objects deemed worthy of preservation. The passage of the National Historic Preservation Act in 1966 established the National Register, of the more than one million properties on the National Register,80,000 are listed individually. The remainder are contributing resources within historic districts, each year approximately 30,000 properties are added to the National Register as part of districts or by individual listings. For most of its history the National Register has been administered by the National Park Service and its goals are to help property owners and interest groups, such as the National Trust for Historic Preservation, coordinate, identify, and protect historic sites in the United States. While National Register listings are mostly symbolic, their recognition of significance provides some financial incentive to owners of listed properties, protection of the property is not guaranteed. During the nomination process, the property is evaluated in terms of the four criteria for inclusion on the National Register of Historic Places, the application of those criteria has been the subject of criticism by academics of history and preservation, as well as the public and politicians. Occasionally, historic sites outside the proper, but associated with the United States are also listed. Properties can be nominated in a variety of forms, including individual properties, historic districts, the Register categorizes general listings into one of five types of properties, district, site, structure, building, or object. National Register Historic Districts are defined geographical areas consisting of contributing and non-contributing properties, some properties are added automatically to the National Register when they become administered by the National Park Service. These include National Historic Landmarks, National Historic Sites, National Historical Parks, National Military Parks/Battlefields, National Memorials, on October 15,1966, the Historic Preservation Act created the National Register of Historic Places and the corresponding State Historic Preservation Offices. Initially, the National Register consisted of the National Historic Landmarks designated before the Registers creation, approval of the act, which was amended in 1980 and 1992, represented the first time the United States had a broad-based historic preservation policy. To administer the newly created National Register of Historic Places, the National Park Service of the U. S. Department of the Interior, hartzog, Jr. established an administrative division named the Office of Archeology and Historic Preservation. Hartzog charged OAHP with creating the National Register program mandated by the 1966 law, ernest Connally was the Offices first director. Within OAHP new divisions were created to deal with the National Register, the first official Keeper of the Register was William J. Murtagh, an architectural historian. During the Registers earliest years in the late 1960s and early 1970s, organization was lax and SHPOs were small, understaffed, and underfunded. A few years later in 1979, the NPS history programs affiliated with both the U. S. National Parks system and the National Register were categorized formally into two Assistant Directorates. Established were the Assistant Directorate for Archeology and Historic Preservation and the Assistant Directorate for Park Historic Preservation, from 1978 until 1981, the main agency for the National Register was the Heritage Conservation and Recreation Service of the United States Department of the Interior. In February 1983, the two assistant directorates were merged to promote efficiency and recognize the interdependency of their programs, jerry L. Rogers was selected to direct this newly merged associate directorate
2.
Oxford, Mississippi
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Oxford is a city in, and the county seat of, Lafayette County, Mississippi, United States. Founded in 1837, it was named after the British university city of Oxford in hopes of having the university located there. As of the 2010 US Census, the population is 18,916, Oxford is the home of the University of Mississippi, founded in 1848, also commonly known as Ole Miss. Oxford has been named by USA Today as one of the top six college towns in the nation and it is included in The Best 100 Small Towns in America. Lafayette County consistently leads the state rankings in the lowest unemployment rate per quarter, Oxford City Schools are ranked as Star schools, the highest ranking available, and Lafayette County school systems are consistently ranked as 5-star systems. Oxford and Lafayette County were formed from lands ceded by the Chickasaw in the treaty of Pontotoc Creek in 1832. The county was organized in 1836, and in 1837 three pioneers—John Martin, John Chisom, and John Craig—purchased land from Hoka, a female Chickasaw landowner and they named it Oxford, intending to promote it as a center of learning in the Old Southwest. In 1841, the Mississippi legislature selected Oxford as the site of the state university, in the postwar Reconstruction Era, the town recovered slowly, aided by federal judge Robert Andrews Hill, who secured funds to build a new courthouse in 1872. Even after Mississippi disfranchised most African Americans in the Constitution of 1890, during the Civil Rights Movement, Oxford drew national attention in the Ole Miss riot of 1962. Thousands of armed volunteers flowed into the Oxford area, Meredith traveled to Oxford under armed guard to register, but riots by segregationists broke out in protest of his admittance. That evening, cars were burned, federal marshals were pelted with rocks, bricks and small arms fire, two men were killed by gunshot wounds. The riot spread into adjacent areas of the city of Oxford, order was finally restored to the campus with the early morning arrival of nationalized Mississippi National Guard and regular U. S. Army units, who camped in the City. More than 3000 journalists came to Oxford on September 26,2008 to cover the first presidential debate of 2008, Oxford is within 100 miles of Memphis, Tennessee. According to the United States Census Bureau, the city has an area of 10.0 square miles. The city is located in the North Central Hills region of Mississippi, the region is known for its heavily forested hills made up of red clay. The area is higher and greater in relief than areas to the west, the changes in elevation can really be noticed when traveling on the Highway 6 bypass since the east-west highway tends to transect many of the north-south ridges. Downtown Oxford sits on one of these ridges and the University of Mississippi sits on another one, the streets in the downtown area follow a grid pattern with two naming conventions. Many of the streets are numbered from west to east, beginning at the old railroad depot
3.
Greek Revival architecture
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The Greek Revival was an architectural movement of the late 18th and early 19th centuries, predominantly in Northern Europe and the United States. A product of Hellenism, it may be looked upon as the last phase in the development of Neoclassical architecture, the term was first used by Charles Robert Cockerell in a lecture he gave as Professor of Architecture to the Royal Academy of Arts, London in 1842. With a newfound access to Greece, or initially the books produced by the few who had actually been able to visit the sites, archaeologist-architects of the period studied the Doric and Ionic orders. This was especially the case in Britain, Germany and the United States, Greek Revival architecture took a different course in a number of countries, lasting until the Civil War in America and even later in Scotland. Despite the unbounded prestige of ancient Greece amongst the elite of Europe. The monuments of Greek antiquity were known chiefly from Pausanias and other literary sources, visiting Ottoman Greece was difficult and dangerous business prior to the period of stagnation beginning with the Great Turkish War. Few Grand Tourists called on Athens during the first half of the 18th century and it would take until the expedition funded by the Society of Dilettanti of 1751 by James Stuart and Nicholas Revett before serious archaeological inquiry began in earnest. Access to the originals in Greece itself only became easier after the Greek War of Independence ended in 1832, Lord Byrons participation, following James Stuarts travels to Greece in the early 1750s, intellectual curiosity quickly led to a desire to emulate. Stuart was commissioned after his return from Greece by George Lyttelton to produce the first Greek building in England, arguably the greatest British exponent of the style was Decimus Burton. In London twenty three Greek Revival Commissioners churches were built between 1817 and 1829, the most notable being St. Pancras church by William and Henry William Inwood. Such was the popularity of the Doric in Edinburgh that the city now enjoys a striking visual uniformity, nevertheless, Greek continued to be in favour in Scotland well into the 1870s in the singular figure of Alexander Thomson, known as Greek Thomson. In Germany, the Greek revival is predominantly found in two centres, Berlin and Munich, the earliest Greek building was the Brandenburg Gate by Carl Gotthard Langhans, who modelled it on the Propylaea. Ten years after the death of Frederick the Great, the Berlin Akademie initiated a competition for a monument to the king that would promote morality, similarly, in Munich von Klenzes Glyptothek and Walhalla were the fulfilment of Gillys vision of an orderly and moral German world. The purity and seriousness of the style was intended as an assertion of German national values and partly intended as a riposte to France. By comparison, the Greek revival in France was never popular with either the state or the public, what little there is started with Charles de Waillys crypt in the church of St Leu-St Gilles, and Claude Nicolas Ledouxs Barriere des Bonshommes. It would take until Laboustres Neo-Grec of the Second Empire for the Greek revival to flower briefly in France, the style was especially attractive in Russia, if only because they shared the Eastern Orthodox faith with the Greeks. The historic centre of Saint Petersburg was rebuilt by Alexander I of Russia, the Saint Petersburg Bourse on Vasilievsky Island has a temple front with 44 Doric columns. Leo von Klenzes expansion of the palace that is now the Hermitage Museum is another example of the style, following the Greek War of Independence, Romantic Nationalist ideology encouraged the use of historically Greek architectural styles in place of Ottoman or pan-European ones
4.
Coen brothers
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Joel David Coen and Ethan Jesse Coen, collectively referred to as the Coen brothers, are American filmmakers. Their films span many genres and styles, which they frequently subvert or parody and their best-reviewed works include Fargo, The Big Lebowski, No Country for Old Men, A Serious Man, True Grit, and Inside Llewyn Davis. The brothers write, direct, and produce their films jointly, although until The Ladykillers, Joel received sole credit for directing and they often alternate top billing for their screenplays while sharing film credits for editor under the alias Roderick Jaynes. The duo also won the Palme dOr for Barton Fink, and were nominated for Fargo, the Coen brothers have written a number of films that neither of the two directed. Ethan is also a writer of stories, theater. Their films No Country for Old Men, A Serious Man, Joel and Ethan Coen were born and raised in St. Louis Park, Minnesota, a suburb of Minneapolis. Their mother, Rena, was an art historian at St. Cloud State University, when they were children, Joel saved money from mowing lawns to buy a Vivitar Super 8 camera. Together, the brothers remade movies they saw on television, with a kid, Mark Zimering. Their first attempt was a romp entitled Henry Kissinger, Man on the Go, cornel Wildes The Naked Prey became their Zeimers in Zambia, which also featured Ethan as a native with a spear. Joel Coen has said, in regards to whether our background influences our film making, theres no doubt that our Jewish heritage affects how we see things. Joel and Ethan graduated from St. Louis Park High School in 1973 and 1976 and they both also graduated from Bard College at Simons Rock in Great Barrington, Massachusetts. Joel then spent four years in the film program at New York University. Ethan went on to Princeton University and earned a degree in philosophy in 1979. His senior thesis was a 41-page essay, Two Views of Wittgensteins Later Philosophy, Joel has been married to actress Frances McDormand since 1984. They adopted a son from Paraguay, named Pedro McDormand Coen and she also did a voice-over in Barton Fink. Ethan married film editor Tricia Cooke in 1990 and they have two children, daughter Dusty and son Buster Jacob, who goes to Vassar College. Both couples live in New York, after graduating from New York University, Joel worked as a production assistant on a variety of industrial films and music videos. He developed a talent for film editing and met Sam Raimi while assisting Enda Ruth Paul in editing Raimis first feature film, in 1984, the brothers wrote and directed Blood Simple, their first commercial film together
5.
Salman Rushdie
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Sir Ahmad Salman Rushdie, FRSL is a British Indian novelist and essayist. Much of his fiction is set on the Indian subcontinent and he combines magical realism with historical fiction, his work is concerned with the many connections, disruptions, and migrations between Eastern and Western civilizations. His epic fourth novel, The Satanic Verses, was the subject of a major controversy, death threats were made against him, including a fatwā calling for his assassination issued by Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the Supreme Leader of Iran, on 14 February 1989. The British government put Rushdie under police protection, in 1983 Rushdie was elected a fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, the UKs senior literary organisation. He was appointed Commandeur de lOrdre des Arts et des Lettres of France in January 1999, in June 2007, Queen Elizabeth II knighted him for his services to literature. In 2008, The Times ranked him thirteenth on its list of the 50 greatest British writers since 1945, since 2000, Rushdie has lived in the United States. He was named Distinguished Writer in Residence at the Arthur L. Carter Journalism Institute of New York University in 2015, earlier, he taught at Emory University. He was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Letters, in 2012, he published Joseph Anton, A Memoir, an account of his life in the wake of the controversy over The Satanic Verses. Rushdie was strongly favoured to have received the Nobel Prize in Literature but the Nobel organisers were later quoted as saying that they would have been too predictable, Rushdie was born in Bombay, then British India, into a Muslim family of Kashmiri descent. He is the son of Anis Ahmed Rushdie, a Cambridge-educated lawyer-turned-businessman, and Negin Bhatt and he wrote in his 2012 memoir that his father adopted the name Rushdie in honour of Averroes. He was educated at Cathedral and John Connon School in Bombay, Rugby School in Warwickshire, and Kings College, University of Cambridge and his father Anis Rushdie was rusticated from the Indian Civil Service after the British government found out that he had changed his date of birth. Collaborating with the musician Ronnie Bond, Rushdie wrote the words for a record on behalf of the now defunct Burnley Building Society which was recorded at Good Earth Studios. The song was called The Best Dreams and was sung by George Chandler and it was while he was at Ogilvy that he wrote Midnights Children, before becoming a full-time writer. Rushdies first novel, Grimus, a fiction tale, was generally ignored by the public. His next novel, Midnights Children, catapulted him to literary notability and this work won the 1981 Booker Prize and, in 1993 and 2008, was awarded the Best of the Bookers as the best novel to have received the prize during its first 25 and 40 years. The character of Saleem Sinai has been compared to Rushdie, in that sense, I’ve never felt that I’ve written an autobiographical character. After Midnights Children, Rushdie wrote Shame, in which he depicts the political turmoil in Pakistan, basing his characters on Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, Shame won Frances Prix du Meilleur Livre Étranger and was a close runner-up for the Booker Prize. Both these works of literature are characterised by a style of magic realism
6.
National Park Service
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It was created on August 25,1916, by Congress through the National Park Service Organic Act and is an agency of the United States Department of the Interior. As of 2014, the NPS employs 21,651 employees who oversee 417 units, the National Park Service celebrated its centennial in 2016. National parks and national monuments in the United States were originally individually managed under the auspices of the Department of the Interior, the movement for an independent agency to oversee these federal lands was spearheaded by business magnate and conservationist Stephen Mather, as well as J. Horace McFarland. With the help of journalist Robert Sterling Yard, Mather ran a publicity campaign for the Department of the Interior and they wrote numerous articles that praised the scenic and historic qualities of the parks and their possibilities for educational, inspirational, and recreational benefits. This campaign resulted in the creation of a National Park Service, Mather became the first director of the newly formed NPS. On March 3,1933, President Herbert Hoover signed the Reorganization Act of 1933, the act would allow the President to reorganize the executive branch of the United States government. It wasnt until later that summer when the new President, Franklin D. Roosevelt, President Roosevelt agreed and issued two Executive orders to make it happen. In 1951, Conrad Wirth became director of the National Park Service, the demand for parks after the end of the World War II had left the parks overburdened with demands that could not be met. In 1952, with the support of President Dwight D. Eisenhower, he began Mission 66, New parks were added to preserve unique resources and existing park facilities were upgraded and expanded. In 1966, as the Park Service turned 50 years old, emphasis began to turn from just saving great and wonderful scenery, Director George Hartzog began the process with the creation of the National Lakeshores and then National Recreation Areas. Since its inception in 1916, the National Park Service has managed each of the United States national parks, Yellowstone National Park was the first national park in the United States. In 1872, there was no government to manage it. Yosemite National Park began as a park, the land for the park was donated by the federal government to the state of California in 1864 for perpetual conservation. Yosemite was later returned to federal ownership, at first, each national park was managed independently, with varying degrees of success. In Yellowstone, the staff was replaced by the U. S. Army in 1886. Due to the irregularities in managing these national treasures, Stephen Mather petitioned the government to improve the situation. In response, Secretary of the Interior Franklin K. Lane challenged him to lobby for creating a new agency, Mather was successful with the ratification of the National Park Service Organic Act in 1916. Later, the agency was given authority over other protected areas, the National Park System includes all properties managed by the National Park Service
7.
C-SPAN
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C-SPAN, an acronym for Cable-Satellite Public Affairs Network, is an American cable and satellite television network that was created in 1979 by the cable television industry as a public service. C-SPAN televises many proceedings of the United States federal government, as well as public affairs programming. Its coverage of political and policy events is unedited, thereby providing viewers with unfiltered information about politics, non-political coverage includes historical programming, programs dedicated to non-fiction books, and interview programs with noteworthy individuals associated with public policy. The network operates independently, and neither the cable industry nor Congress has control of the content of its programming, Congress and other public affairs event and policy discussions. Lamb shared his idea with several executives, who helped him launch the network. Among them were Bob Rosencrans who provided $25,000 of initial funding in 1979 and John D. Evans who provided the wiring and access to the headend needed for the distribution of the C-SPAN signal. C-SPAN was launched on March 19,1979, in time for the first televised session made available by the House of Representatives, upon its debut, only 3.5 million homes were wired for C-SPAN, and the network had just three employees. The second C-SPAN channel, C-SPAN2, followed on June 2,1986 when the U. S. Senate permitted itself to be televised, C-SPAN Radio began operations on October 9,1997, covering similar events as the television networks and often simulcasting their programming. The station broadcasts on WCSP in Washington, D. C. is also available on XM Satellite Radio channel 120 and is streamed live at c-span. org and it was formerly available on Sirius Satellite Radio from 2002 to 2006. Lamb semi-retired in March 2012, coinciding with the channels 33rd anniversary, on January 12,2017, the online feed for C-SPAN1 was interrupted and replaced by a feed from the Russian television network RT for approximately 10 minutes. C-SPAN announced that they were troubleshooting the incident and were operating under the assumption that it was an internal routing issue, C-SPAN celebrated its 10th anniversary in 1989 with a three-hour retrospective, featuring Lamb recalling the development of the network. Five years later, the series American Presidents, Life Portraits, in 2004, C-SPAN celebrated its 25th anniversary, by which time the flagship network was viewed in 86 million homes, C-SPAN2 was in 70 million homes and C-SPAN3 was in eight million homes. Also included in the 25th anniversary was an essay contest for viewers to write in about how C-SPAN has influenced their life regarding community service. For example, one essay contest winner wrote about how C-SPANs non-fiction book programming serves as a resource in his mission to record non-fiction audio books for people who are blind. The network also had an essay contest, the winner of which was invited to host an hour of the broadcast from C-SPANs Capitol Hill studios. C-SPAN continues to expand its coverage of government proceedings, with a history of requests to government officials for greater access, in December 2009, Lamb wrote to leaders in the House and Senate, requesting that negotiations for health care reform be televised by C-SPAN. Committee meetings on health care were broadcast subsequently by C-SPAN and may be viewed on the C-SPAN website, in November 2010, Lamb wrote to incoming House Speaker John Boehner requesting changes to restrictions on cameras in the House. In particular, C-SPAN asked to add some of its own robotically operated cameras to the existing government-controlled cameras in the House chamber, in February 2011, Boehner denied the request
8.
Light in August
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Light in August is a 1932 novel by the Southern American author William Faulkner. It belongs to the Southern gothic and modernist literary genres, the woman on whose property Christmas and Burch have been living, Joanna Burden, a descendant of Yankee abolitionists hated by the citizens of Jefferson, is murdered. Burch is caught at the scene of the crime and reveals that Christmas had been involved with her and is part black. While Burch sits in jail awaiting his reward for turning in Christmas, Lena is assisted by Byron Bunch, Bunch seeks the aid of another outcast in the town, the disgraced former minister Gail Hightower, to help Lena give birth and protect Christmas from being lynched. Though Hightower refuses the latter, Christmas escapes to his house and is shot, in a loose, unstructured modernist narrative style that draws from Christian allegory and oral storytelling, Faulkner explores themes of race, sex, class and religion in the American South. By focusing on characters that are misfits, outcasts, or are otherwise marginalized in their community, he portrays the clash of alienated individuals against a Puritanical, early reception of the novel was mixed, with some reviewers critical of Faulkners style and subject matter. However, over time, the novel has come to be considered one of the most important literary works by Faulkner, the novel is set in the American South in the 1930s, during the time of Prohibition and Jim Crow laws that legalized racial segregation in the South. It begins with the journey of Lena Grove, a young pregnant white woman from Doanes Mill, Alabama, who is trying to find Lucas Burch, the father of her unborn child. He has been fired from his job at Doanes Mill and moved to Mississippi, not hearing from Burch and harassed by her older brother for her illegitimate pregnancy, Lena walks and hitchhikes to Jefferson, Mississippi, a town in Faulkners fictional Yoknapatawpha County. There she expects to find Lucas working at another planing mill and those who help her along her four-week trek are skeptical that Lucas Burch will be found, or that he will keep his promise when she catches up with him. When she arrives in Jefferson, Lucas is there, but he has changed his name to Joe Brown, looking for Lucas, sweet, trusting Lena meets shy, mild-mannered Byron Bunch, who falls in love with Lena but feels honor-bound to help her find Joe Brown. Thoughtful and quietly religious, Byron is superior to Brown in every way, the novel then switches to the second plot strand, the story of Lucas Burch/Joe Browns partner Joe Christmas. The surly, psychopathic Christmas has been on the run for years, although he has light skin, Christmas suspects that he is of African American ancestry. Consumed with rage, he is a bitter outcast who wanders between black and white society, constantly provoking fights with blacks and whites alike. Christmas comes to Jefferson three years prior to the events of the novel and gets a job at the mill where Byron. The job at the mill is a cover for Christmass bootlegging operation and he has a sexual relationship with Joanna Burden, an older woman who descended from a formerly powerful abolitionist family whom the town despises as carpetbaggers. Though their relationship is passionate at first, Joanna begins menopause and turns to religion, at the end of her relationship with Christmas, Joanna tries to force him, at gunpoint, to kneel and pray. Joanna is murdered soon after, her throat is slit and she is nearly decapitated, the novel leaves readers uncertain whether Joe Christmas or Joe Brown is the murderer
9.
National Historic Landmark
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A National Historic Landmark is a building, district, object, site, or structure that is officially recognized by the United States government for its outstanding historical significance. Of over 85,000 places listed on the countrys National Register of Historic Places, a National Historic Landmark District may include contributing properties that are buildings, structures, sites or objects, and it may include non-contributing properties. Contributing properties may or may not also be separately listed, prior to 1935, efforts to preserve cultural heritage of national importance were made by piecemeal efforts of the United States Congress. The first National Historic Site designation was made for the Salem Maritime National Historic Site on March 17,1938. In 1960, the National Park Service took on the administration of the data gathered under this legislation. Because listings often triggered local preservation laws, legislation in 1980 amended the procedures to require owner agreement to the designations. On October 9,1960,92 properties were announced as designated NHLs by Secretary of the Interior Fred A. Seaton, more than 2,500 NHLs have been designated. Most, but not all, are in the United States, there are NHLs in all 50 states and the District of Columbia. Three states account for nearly 25 percent of the nations NHLs, three cities within these states all separately have more NHLs than 40 of the 50 states. In fact, New York City alone has more NHLs than all but five states, Virginia, California, Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, there are 74 NHLs in the District of Columbia. Some NHLs are in U. S. commonwealths and territories, associated states, and foreign states. There are 15 in Puerto Rico, the Virgin Islands, and other U. S. commonwealths and territories,5 in U. S. -associated states such as Micronesia, over 100 ships or shipwrecks have been designated as NHLs. About half of the National Historic Landmarks are privately owned, the National Historic Landmarks Program relies on suggestions for new designations from the National Park Service, which also assists in maintaining the landmarks. A friends group of owners and managers, the National Historic Landmark Stewards Association, works to preserve, protect, if not already listed on the National Register of Historic Places, an NHL is automatically added to the Register upon designation. About three percent of Register listings are NHLs, american Water Landmark List of U. S
