American football
American football, referred to as football in the United States and Canada and known as gridiron, is a team sport played by two teams of eleven players on a rectangular field with goalposts at each end. The offense, the team controlling the oval-shaped football, attempts to advance down the field by running with or passing the ball, while the defense, the team without control of the ball, aims to stop the offense's advance and aims to take control of the ball for themselves; the offense must advance at least ten yards in four downs, or plays, otherwise they turn over the football to the defense. Points are scored by advancing the ball into the opposing team's end zone for a touchdown or kicking the ball through the opponent's goalposts for a field goal; the team with the most points at the end of a game wins. American football evolved in the United States, originating from the sports of association football and rugby football; the first match of American football was played on November 6, 1869, between two college teams and Princeton, under rules based on the association football rules of the time.
During the latter half of the 1870s, colleges playing association football switched to the Rugby Union code, which allowed carrying the ball. A set of rule changes drawn up from 1880 onward by Walter Camp, the "Father of American Football", established the snap, the line of scrimmage, eleven-player teams, the concept of downs; the sport is related to Canadian football, which evolved parallel and contemporary to the American game, most of the features that distinguish American football from rugby and soccer are present in Canadian football. American football as a whole is the most popular sport in the United States; the most popular forms of the game are professional and college football, with the other major levels being high school and youth football. As of 2012, nearly 1.1 million high school athletes and 70,000 college athletes play the sport in the United States annually all of them men, with a few exceptions. The National Football League, the most popular American football league, has the highest average attendance of any professional sports league in the world.
In the United States, American Football is called "football". The terms "gridiron" or "American football" are favored in English-speaking countries where other codes of football are popular, such as the United Kingdom, New Zealand, Australia. American football evolved from the sports of rugby football. Rugby football, like American football, is a sport where two competing teams vie for control of a ball, which can be kicked through a set of goalposts or run into the opponent's goal area to score points. What is considered to be the first American football game was played on November 6, 1869, between Rutgers and Princeton, two college teams; the game was played between two teams of 25 players each and used a round ball that could not be picked up or carried. It could, however, be kicked or batted with the feet, head or sides, with the ultimate goal being to advance it into the opponent's goal. Rutgers won the game 6 goals to 4. Collegiate play continued for several years in which matches were played using the rules of the host school.
Representatives of Yale, Columbia and Rutgers met on October 19, 1873 to create a standard set of rules for all schools to adhere to. Teams were set at 20 players each, fields of 400 by 250 feet were specified. Harvard abstained from the conference, as they favored a rugby-style game that allowed running with the ball. After playing McGill University using both Canadian and American rules, the Harvard players preferred the Canadian style having only 11 men on the field, running the ball without having to be chased by an opponent, the forward pass and using an oblong instead of a round ball. An 1875 Harvard–Yale game played under rugby-style rules was observed by two impressed Princeton athletes; these players introduced the sport to Princeton, a feat the Professional Football Researchers Association compared to "selling refrigerators to Eskimos." Princeton, Harvard and Columbia agreed to intercollegiate play using a form of rugby union rules with a modified scoring system. These schools formed the Intercollegiate Football Association, although Yale did not join until 1879.
Yale player Walter Camp, now regarded as the "Father of American Football", secured rule changes in 1880 that reduced the size of each team from 15 to 11 players and instituted the snap to replace the chaotic and inconsistent scrum. The introduction of the snap resulted in unexpected consequences. Prior to the snap, the strategy had been to punt. However, a group of Princeton players realized that, as the snap was uncontested, they now could hold the ball indefinitely to prevent their opponent from scoring. In 1881, both teams in a game between Yale-Princeton used this strategy to maintain their undefeated records; each team held the ball. This "block game" proved unpopular with the spectators and fans of both teams. A rule change was necessary to prevent this strategy from taking hold, a reversion to the scrum was considered. However, Camp proposed a rule in 1882 that limited each team to three downs, or tackles, to adva
Century of Progress
A Century of Progress International Exposition was a World's Fair registered under the Bureau International des Expositions, held in Chicago, as The Chicago World's Fair, from 1933 to 1934 to celebrate the city's centennial. The theme of the fair was technological innovation; the fair's motto was "Science Finds, Industry Applies, Man Adapts", giving out a message that science and American life were wedded. Its architectural symbol was the Sky Ride, a transporter bridge perpendicular to the shore on which one could ride from one side of the fair to the other. One description of the fair noted that the world, "then still mired in the malaise of the Great Depression, could glimpse a happier not-too-distant future, all driven by innovation in science and technology." Fair visitors saw the latest wonders in rail travel, automobiles and cigarette-smoking robots. The exhibition "emphasized technology and progress, a utopia, or perfect world, founded on democracy and manufacturing." A Century of Progress was organized as an Illinois nonprofit corporation in January 1928 for the purpose of planning and hosting a World's Fair in Chicago in 1934.
City officials designated three and a half miles of newly reclaimed land along the shore of Lake Michigan between 12th and 39th streets on the Near South Side for the fairgrounds. Held on a 427 acres portion of Burnham Park, the $37,500,000 exposition was formally opened on May 27, 1933, by US Postmaster General James Farley at a four hour ceremony at Soldier Field; the fair's opening night began with a nod to the heavens. Lights were automatically activated; the star was chosen as its light had started its journey at about the time of the previous Chicago world's fair—the World's Columbian Exposition—in 1893. The rays were focused on photoelectric cells in a series of astronomical observatories and transformed into electrical energy, transmitted to Chicago; the fair buildings were multi-colored, to create a "Rainbow City" as compared to the "White City" of Chicago's earlier World's Columbian Exposition. The buildings followed Moderne architecture in contrast to the neoclassical themes used at the 1893 fair.
One famous feature of the fair were the performances of fan dancer Sally Rand. Other popular exhibits were the various auto manufacturers, the Midway, a recreation of important scenes from Chicago's history; the fair contained exhibits that would seem shocking to modern audiences, including offensive portrayals of African-Americans, a "Midget City" complete with "sixty Lilliputians", an exhibition of incubators containing real babies. The fair included an exhibit on the history of Chicago. In the planning stages, several African-American groups from the city's newly growing population campaigned for Jean Baptiste Point du Sable to be honored at the fair. At the time, few Chicagoans had heard of Point du Sable, the fair's organizers presented the 1803 construction of Fort Dearborn as the city's historical beginning; the campaign was successful, a replica of Point du Sable's cabin was presented as part of the "background of the history of Chicago". Admiral Byrd's polar expedition ship the City of New York was visited by President Franklin D. Roosevelt when he came to the fair on October 2, 1933.
The City was on show for the full length of the exhibition. One of the highlights of the 1933 World's Fair was the arrival of the German airship Graf Zeppelin on October 26, 1933. After circling Lake Michigan near the exposition for two hours, Commander Hugo Eckener landed the 776-foot airship at the nearby Curtiss-Wright Airport in Glenview, it remained on the ground for twenty-five minutes took off ahead of an approaching weather front bound for Akron, Ohio. For some Chicagoans, the appearance of the Graf Zeppelin over their fair city was not a welcome sight, as the airship had become a prominent reminder of the ascendancy of Adolf Hitler to power earlier that same year; this triggered dissension in the days following its visit within the city's large German-American population. The "dream cars" which American automobile manufacturers exhibited at the fair included Cadillac's introduction of its V-16 limousine, but it was Packard. One interesting and enduring exhibit was the 1933 Homes of Tomorrow Exhibition that demonstrated modern home convenience and creative practical new building materials and techniques with twelve model homes sponsored by several corporations affiliated with home decor and construction.
Marine artist Hilda Goldblatt Gorenstein painted twelve murals for the Navy's exhibit in the Federal Building for the fair. The frieze was composed of twelve murals depicting the influence of sea power on America, beginning with the settlement of Jamestown, Virginia in 1607 when sea power first reached America and carrying through World War I; the first Major League Baseball All-Star Game was held at Comiskey Park in conjunction with the fair. In May 1934, the Union Pacific Railroad exhibited its first streamlined train, the M-10000, the Chicago and Quincy Railroad its famous Zephyr which, on May 26, made a record-breaking dawn-to-dusk run from Denver, Colorado, to Chicago in 13 hours and 5 minutes
San Francisco Police Department
The San Francisco Police Department is the city police department of the City and County of San Francisco, California. The department's motto is the same as that of the city and county: Oro en paz, fierro en guerra, Spanish for Gold in peace, iron in war; the SFPD should not be confused with the San Francisco Sheriff's Department, another county law enforcement agency within San Francisco. The SFPD serves an estimated population of 1.2 million, including the daytime-commuter population and the thousands of other tourists and visitors, in the second most densely populated large city in North America. It is the 11th largest police department in the United States; the SFPD began operations on August 13, 1849, during the Gold Rush under the command of Captain Malachi Fallon. At the time, Chief Fallon had a force of three sergeants and 30 officers. In 1851, Albert Bernard de Russailh wrote about the nascent San Francisco police force: As for the police, I have only one thing to say; the police force is made up of ex-bandits, the members are interested above all in saving their old friends from punishment.
Policemen here are quite as much to be feared as the robbers. You pay them well to watch over your house, they set it on fire. In short, I think that all the people concerned with justice or the police are in league with the criminals; the city is in a hopeless chaos, many years must pass before order can be established. In a country where so many races are mingled, a severe and inflexible justice is desirable, which would govern with an iron hand. On October 28, 1853, the Board of Aldermen passed Ordinance No. 466, which provided for the reorganization of the police department. Sections one and two provided as follows: The People of the City of San Francisco do ordain as follows: Sec. 1. The Police Department of the City of San Francisco, shall be composed of a day and night police, consisting of 56 men, each to be recommended by at least ten tax-paying citizens. Sec. 2. There shall be one Captain and one assistant Captain of Police, who shall be elected in joint convention of the Board of Aldermen and assistant Aldermen.
The remainder of the force, viz. 54 men, shall be appointed as follows: By the Mayor, 2. In July 1856, the "Consolidation Act" went into effect; this act abolished the office of City Marshal and created in its stead the office of Chief of Police. The first Chief of Police elected in 1856 was James F. Curtis a former member of the San Francisco Committee of Vigilance; the SFPD is known for being one of the pioneering forces for modern law enforcement, beginning in the early 1900s. In early August 1975, the SFPD went on strike over a pay dispute, violating a California law prohibiting police from striking; the city obtained a court order declaring the strike illegal and enjoining the SFPD back to work. The court messenger delivering the order was met with violence and the SFPD continued to strike. Only managers and African-American officers remained on duty, with 45 officers and three fire trucks responsible for a city population of 700,000. Supervisor Dianne Feinstein pleaded Mayor Joseph Alioto to ask Governor Jerry Brown to call out the National Guard to patrol the streets but Alioto refused.
When enraged civilians confronted SFPD officers at the picket lines, the officers arrested them. Heavy drinking on the picket line became common and after striking SFPD officers started shooting out streetlights, the ACLU obtained a court order prohibiting strikers from carrying their service revolvers. Again, the SFPD ignored the court order. On August 20 a bomb detonated at the Mayor's Presidio Terrace home with a sign reading "Don't Threaten Us" left on his lawn. On August 21 Mayor Alioto advised the San Francisco Board of Supervisors that they should concede to the strikers' demands; the Supervisors unanimously refused. Mayor Alioto then declared a state of emergency, assumed legislative powers, granted the strikers' demands. City Supervisors and taxpayers sued but the court found that a contract obtained through an illegal strike is still enforceable. In 1997, the San Francisco International Airport Police merged with SFPD, becoming the SFPD Airport Bureau. Prior to officers carrying the SIG Sauer pistols the Beretta Model 96GT, the.40 caliber version of the well known Beretta 92 was carried by officers starting in the early to mid 1990's replacing.38 Special 6 shot revolvers.
Which made SFPD one of the last large agencies in California to adopt semi-automatic pistols. As of September 8, 2011, ground was broken for San Francisco's new Public Safety Building in Mission Bay. A replacement facility for the San Francisco Police Department Headquarters and Southern District Police Station, the PSB contains a fire station to serve the burgeoning neighborhood. In 2014, the San Francisco Police Academy graduated its first publicly reported transgender police officer, Mikayla Connell. A new study conducted by the California Policy Lab and researchers at the University of California, found that after the San Francisco Police Department doubled its foot patrols last year, it resulted in a reduction by about 16% in larceny theft and 19% in assaults across the city and 10 police station districts; the San Francisco Police Department is led by a Chief of Police, appointed by the Mayor of San Francisco. The chief works with two assistant chiefs and five deputy chiefs dir
Body painting
Body painting is a form of body art where artwork is painted directly onto the human skin. Unlike tattoos and other forms of body art, body painting is temporary, lasting several hours or sometimes up to a few weeks. Body painting, limited to the face is known as "face painting". Body painting is referred to as "temporary tattoo". Large scale or full-body painting is more referred to as body painting, while smaller or more detailed work can sometimes be referred to as temporary tattoos. Body painting with a grey or white paint made from natural pigments including clay, chalk and cattle dung is traditional in many tribal cultures. Worn during cultural ceremonies, it is believed to assist with the moderation of body heat and the use of striped patterns may reduce the incidence of biting insects, it still survives in this ancient form among Indigenous Australians and in parts of Africa and Southeast Asia, as well as in New Zealand and the Pacific islands. A semi-permanent form of body painting known as Mehndi, using dyes made of henna leaves, is practiced in India on brides.
Since the late 1990s, Mehndi has become popular amongst young women in the Western world. Many indigenous peoples of Central and South America paint jagua tattoos, or designs with Genipa americana juice on their bodies. Indigenous peoples of South America traditionally use annatto, huito, or wet charcoal to decorate their faces and bodies. Huito is semi-permanent, it takes weeks for this black dye to fade. Body painting is not always large pieces on nude bodies, but can involve smaller pieces on displayed areas of otherwise clothed bodies. There has been a revival of body painting in Western society since the 1960s, in part prompted by the liberalization of social mores regarding nudity and comes in sensationalist or exhibitionist forms. Today there is a constant debate about the legitimacy of body painting as an art form; the current modern revival could be said to date back to the 1933 World's Fair in Chicago when Max Factor, Sr. and his model Sally Rand were arrested for causing a public disturbance when he body-painted her with his new make-up formulated for Hollywood films.
Body art today evolves to the works more directed towards personal mythologies, as Jana Sterbak, Rebecca Horn, Youri Messen-Jaschin, Jacob Alexander Figueroa or Javier Perez. Body painting is sometimes used as a method of gaining attention in political protests, for instance those by PETA against Burberry. Body painting led to a minor alternative art movement in the 1950s and 1960s, which involved covering a model in paint and having the model touch or roll on a canvas or other medium to transfer the paint. French artist Yves Klein is the most famous for this, with his series of paintings "Anthropometries"; the effect produced by this technique creates an image-transfer from the model's body to the medium. This includes all the curves of the model's body being reflected in the outline of the image; this technique was not monotone. Joanne Gair is a body paint artist whose work appeared for the tenth consecutive year in the 2008 Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue, she came to prominence with an August 1992 Vanity Fair Demi's Birthday Suit cover of Demi Moore.
Her Disappearing Model was part of an episode of Ripley's Believe It or Not!. Body painting festivals happen annually across the world, bringing together professional body painters and keen amateurs. Body painting can be seen at some football matches, at rave parties, at certain festivals; the World Bodypainting Festival is a three-day festival which originated in 1998 and, held in Klagenfurt, Austria since 2017. Participants attend from over fifty countries and the event has more than 20,000 visitors. Body painting festivals that take place in North America include the North American Body Painting Championship and Body Art International Convention in Orlando, Bodygras Body Painting Competition in Nanaimo, BC and the Face Painting and Body Art Convention in Las Vegas, Nevada. Australia has a number of body painting festivals, most notably the annual Australian Body Art Festival in Eumundi and the Australian Body Art Awards. In Italy, the Rabarama Skin Art Festival, is a different event focused on the artistic side of body painting, highlighting the emotional impact of the painted body in a live performance more than the decorative and technical aspects of it.
This particular form of creative art is known as "Skin Art". The 1960s supermodel. Images of her in the book Transfigurations by photographer Holger Trulzsch have been emulated. Other well-known works include Serge Diakonoff's books A Fleur de Peau and Diakonoff and Joanne Gair's Paint a licious. More Dutch art photographer Karl Hammer has taken center stage with his combinations of body painting and narrative art. Following the established trend in Western-Europe, body painting has become more accepted in the United States since the early 1990s. In 2006 the first gallery dedicated to fine art body painting was opened in New Orleans by World Bodypainting Festival Champion and Judge, Craig Tracy; the Painted Alive Gallery is on Royal Street in the French Quarter. In 2009, a popular late night talk show Last Call with Carson Daly on NBC network, featured a New York-based artist Danny Setiawan who creates reproductions of masterpieces by famous artists such as
Ringling Brothers Circus
Ringling Bros. World's Greatest Shows was a circus founded in Baraboo, United States in 1884 by five of the seven Ringling brothers: Albert, Otto, Alfred T. Charles and Henry; the Ringling brothers were sons of a German immigrant, August Frederick Rüngeling, who changed his name to Ringling once in America. Four brothers were born in McGregor, Iowa: Alf T. Charles and Henry; the Ringling family lived in McGregor, Iowa for twelve years, from 1860 until 1872. The family lived in Prairie du Chien and moved to Baraboo, Wisconsin in 1875. In 1907 Ringling Bros. acquired the Barnum & Bailey Circus, merging them in 1919 to become Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus, promoted as The Greatest Show on Earth. Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey closed on May 21, 2017 following weakening attendance and high operating costs. In 1882, before the Ringling brothers created their first circus, the five brothers performed skits and juggling routines in town halls around the state of Wisconsin, their first show was on November 1882, in Mazomanie, Wisconsin.
They called this the "Ringling Bros. Variety Performance" when they took the show to the next town. With two wandering performers the next year, the brothers toured the Northwest. After the Northwest tour, they used, they expanded their acts into a one ring show in 1884. The show added a bear at the end of the season; the circus started traveling by trains in 1888 allowing the show to expand. Ringling Circus purchased the Yankee Robinson Circus and opened a joint show on May 19, 1884; this brought them to the attention of James Anthony Bailey of Barnum and Bailey's Circus as a viable competitor. The brothers met with Bailey thus agreeing to a division of areas; this was followed by them purchasing a half share of the Adam Forepaugh Sells Brothers Circus from Bailey. Bailey, under the area division, prohibited the Ringlings from playing at the Madison Garden, a location, the brothers' ambition to perform at. In 1887 Ringling Circus changed its official title to the "Ringling Bros. United Monster Shows, Great Double Circus, Royal European Menagerie, Museum and Congress of Trained Animals."In 1906, Bailey died which led to the Ringlings taking over Forepaugh-Sells, which continued to operate separately.
In October 1907, the stockholders of Barnum and Bailey's Circus approved the sale of the circus to the Ringlings. Due to World War I, Ringling Circus and Barnum and Bailey's Circus were merged in 1919 as Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus. Ringling Collection of images of 19th century American and British actors and actresses
BC Lions
The BC Lions are a professional Canadian football team competing in the West Division of the Canadian Football League. Based in Vancouver, British Columbia, the Lions play their home games at BC Place; the Lions played their first season in 1954, have played every season since. As such, they are the oldest professional sports franchise in the city of Vancouver and in the province of British Columbia, they have appeared in the league's Grey Cup championship game 10 times, winning six of those games, with their most recent championship occurring in 2011. The Lions were the first Western Canadian team to have won the Grey Cup at home, having done so in 1994 and 2011, before Saskatchewan won in 2013, while becoming the only team to beat an American-based franchise in a championship game, a feat accomplished in 1994; the Lions hold the second longest playoff streak in CFL history, making the playoffs every season from the 1997 CFL season to the 2016 CFL season, failing to make the playoffs for the first time in over 20 seasons in 2017.
Founded: 1954 Name: the team is named for the Lions, a pair of mountain peaks overlooking the team's home city of Vancouver Helmet design: black background, with an orange mountain lion's head Uniform colours: orange and black Nickname: Leos Mascot: Leo the Lion Fight song: "Roar, You Lions, Roar" composed by Dal Richards and His Orchestra Stadiums: Empire Stadium, Empire Field and BC Place Stadium Main rivals: Montreal Alouettes and Saskatchewan Roughriders Western Division 1st place: 13—1963, 1964, 1983, 1984, 1985, 1987, 1999, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2011, 2012 Western Division championships: 10—1963, 1964, 1983, 1985, 1988, 1994, 2000, 2004, 2006, 2011 Grey Cup championships: 6—1964, 1985, 1994, 2000, 2006, 2011 2018 regular season record: 9 wins, 9 losses The BC Lions Football Club is owned by businessman David Braley, who purchased the club in 1997. Braley was a member of the Canadian Senate; as of 2017, the BC Lions Football Club executive committee consisted of five people: David Braley and governor Rick LeLacheur, team president Ed Hervey, general manager George Chayka, vice president of business Compared to the rest of the country, senior football arrived late in British Columbia.
Rugby unions had been organized in all of the Prairie provinces by 1907 and the Western Canada Rugby Football Union had been formed in 1911. However, it would not be until 1926 that the British Columbia Rugby Football Union was formed, not until 1930 that the BCRFU would challenge for the right to represent the West in the Grey Cup; the Vancouver Meralomas were the most successful British Columbian team of the era. They played in the Western Final in 1930 and again in 1934, only to lose on both occasions to the Regina Roughriders of the Saskatchewan Rugby Football Union; the BCRFU stopped challenging for the Grey Cup following the formation of the Western Interprovincial Football Union. After the BCRFU's collapse in 1941, the Vancouver Grizzlies joined the WIFU, they played only one season, finishing 1-7, before the WIFU suspended operations for the duration of the Second World War. The Grizzlies did not return after the war. In 1951, a group led by Ken Stauffer and Tiny Radar were inspired by Vancouver Sun columnist Andy Lytle's article to start a new football team in Vancouver that would play in the WIFU.
The ownership group sent Radar and Orville Burke to represent them at the off-season WIFU meetings to initiate Vancouver's bid for a team. Radar and Burke were told to return to the meetings the following year with a $25,000 good-faith bond if they could generate sufficient interest in the Vancouver area; the first meetings were held at the Arctic Club in November and a committee headed by Burke and Harry Spring of the Meraloma Rugby Club, set out to sell memberships at $20 each. Though Burke, Vic Spencer, John Davidson offered the good-faith bond to the WIFU in 1952, the idea of having a Vancouver team was rejected when both Winnipeg and Saskatchewan voted against the idea of a fifth team; the group in Vancouver, did not give up their efforts to have a franchise in the WIFU. On January 22, 1953, the first annual meeting of the club was held. In that meeting, Arthur E. Mercer was hired as the club's first president. In the year, Bill Morgan, Bill Ralston, Whit Matthews went back to the WlFU meetings.
This time, they sold the idea of a fifth Western team, Vancouver was granted a conditional franchise. They were required to provide a 15,000-seat stadium, sell at least 6,500 season tickets, guarantee travel expenses for the visiting teams. All the pieces began to fall into place when it was announced that Vancouver would host the 1954 British Empire and Commonwealth Games, that it would mean the building of a new stadium – Empire Stadium, which seated 32,300 people. By Easter of 1953, Annis Stukus was lured away from the Toronto Argonauts to return to the West to become the first public relations manager, general manager, head coach of the franchise. During the rest of 1953, a fan contest was held by all of the local media to pick the team's new name; the nickname was chosen because it represented a local legend of the area. The nickname of the team was based on the Lions, twin mountain peaks that can be seen toward the north of Vancouver; the twin mountain peaks name was based on legend that the mountains looked like two lions guarding the city.
Through this landmark and legend, the "Lions" nickname became the winner in the fan contest to become
Cinema of the United States
The cinema of the United States metonymously referred to as Hollywood, has had a large effect on the film industry in general since the early 20th century. The dominant style of American cinema is classical Hollywood cinema, which developed from 1917 to 1960 and characterizes most films made there to this day. While Frenchmen Auguste and Louis Lumière are credited with the birth of modern cinema, American cinema soon came to be a dominant force in the industry as it emerged, it produces the total largest number of films of any single-language national cinema, with more than 700 English-language films released on average every year. While the national cinemas of the United Kingdom, Canada and New Zealand produce films in the same language, they are not considered part of the Hollywood system. Hollywood has been considered a transnational cinema. Classical Hollywood produced multiple language versions of some titles in Spanish or French. Contemporary Hollywood offshores production to Canada and New Zealand.
Hollywood is considered the oldest film industry where earliest film studios and production companies emerged, it is the birthplace of various genres of cinema—among them comedy, action, the musical, horror, science fiction, the war epic—having set an example for other national film industries. In 1878, Eadweard Muybridge demonstrated the power of photography to capture motion. In 1894, the world's first commercial motion-picture exhibition was given in New York City, using Thomas Edison's kinetoscope; the United States produced the world's first sync-sound musical film, The Jazz Singer, in 1927, was at the forefront of sound-film development in the following decades. Since the early 20th century, the US film industry has been based in and around the 30 Mile Zone in Hollywood, Los Angeles, California. Director D. W. Griffith was central to the development of a film grammar. Orson Welles's Citizen Kane is cited in critics' polls as the greatest film of all time; the major film studios of Hollywood are the primary source of the most commercially successful and most ticket selling movies in the world, such as The Birth of a Nation, Gone with the Wind, The Sound of Music, The Godfather, Star Wars, E.
T. the Extra-Terrestrial, Jurassic Park and Avatar. Moreover, many of Hollywood's highest-grossing movies have generated more box-office revenue and ticket sales outside the United States than films made elsewhere. Today, American film studios collectively generate several hundred movies every year, making the United States one of the most prolific producers of films in the world and a leading pioneer in motion picture engineering and technology; the first recorded instance of photographs capturing and reproducing motion was a series of photographs of a running horse by Eadweard Muybridge, which he took in Palo Alto, California using a set of still cameras placed in a row. Muybridge's accomplishment led inventors everywhere to attempt to make similar devices. In the United States, Thomas Edison was among the first to produce such a device, the kinetoscope; the history of cinema in the United States can trace its roots to the East Coast where, at one time, Fort Lee, New Jersey was the motion-picture capital of America.
The industry got its start at the end of the 19th century with the construction of Thomas Edison's "Black Maria", the first motion-picture studio in West Orange, New Jersey. The cities and towns on the Hudson River and Hudson Palisades offered land at costs less than New York City across the river and benefited as a result of the phenomenal growth of the film industry at the turn of the 20th century; the industry began attracting both capital and an innovative workforce, when the Kalem Company began using Fort Lee in 1907 as a location for filming in the area, other filmmakers followed. In 1909, a forerunner of Universal Studios, the Champion Film Company, built the first studio. Others followed and either built new studios or who leased facilities in Fort Lee. In the 1910s and 1920s, film companies such as the Independent Moving Pictures Company, Peerless Studios, The Solax Company, Éclair Studios, Goldwyn Picture Corporation, American Méliès, World Film Company, Biograph Studios, Fox Film Corporation, Pathé Frères, Metro Pictures Corporation, Victor Film Company, Selznick Pictures Corporation were all making pictures in Fort Lee.
Such notables as Mary Pickford got their start at Biograph Studios. In New York, the Kaufman Astoria Studios in Queens, was built during the silent film era, was used by the Marx Brothers and W. C. Fields; the Edison Studios were located in the Bronx. Chelsea, Manhattan was frequently used. Picture City, Florida was a planned site for a movie picture production center in the 1920s, but due to the 1928 Okeechobee hurricane, the idea collapsed and Picture City returned to its original name of Hobe Sound. Other major centers of film production included Chicago, Texas and Cuba; the film patents wars of the early 20th century led to the spread of film companies across the US Many worked with equipment for which they did not own the rights and thus filming in New York could be dangerous. By 1912, most major film companies had set up production facilities in Southern California near or in Los Angeles because of the region's favorable year-round weather. In early 1910, director D. W. Griffith was sent by the Biograph Company to the west coast with his acting troupe, consisting of actors Blanche Sweet, Lillian Gish, Mary Pickford, Lionel Barrymore and others.
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