1.
Sydney
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Sydney /ˈsɪdni/ is the state capital of New South Wales and the most populous city in Australia and Oceania. Located on Australias east coast, the metropolis surrounds the worlds largest natural harbour, residents of Sydney are known as Sydneysiders. The Sydney area has been inhabited by indigenous Australians for at least 30,000 years, the first British settlers, led by Captain Arthur Phillip, arrived in 1788 to found Sydney as a penal colony, the first European settlement in Australia. Since convict transportation ended in the century, the city has transformed from a colonial outpost into a major global cultural. As at June 2016 Sydneys estimated population was 5,005,358, in the 2011 census,34 percent of the population reported having been born overseas, representing many different nationalities and making Sydney one of the most multicultural cities in the world. There are more than 250 different languages spoken in Sydney and about one-third of residents speak a language other than English at home and it is classified as an Alpha+ World City by the Globalization and World Cities Research Network, indicating its influence in the region and throughout the world. Ranked eleventh in the world for economic opportunity, Sydney has a market economy with strengths in finance, manufacturing. Its gross regional product was $337 billion in 2013, the largest in Australia, there is a significant concentration of foreign banks and multinational corporations in Sydney and the city is promoted as one of Asia Pacifics leading financial hubs. Its natural features include Sydney Harbour, the Royal National Park, man-made attractions such as the Sydney Opera House, Sydney Tower and the Sydney Harbour Bridge are also well known to international visitors. The first people to inhabit the now known as Sydney were indigenous Australians having migrated from northern Australia. Radiocarbon dating suggests human activity first started to occur in the Sydney area from around 30,735 years ago, the earliest British settlers called them Eora people. Eora is the term the indigenous used to explain their origins upon first contact with the British. Its literal meaning is from this place, prior to the arrival of the British there were 4,000 to 8,000 native people in Sydney from as many as 29 different clans. Sydney Cove from Port Jackson to Petersham was inhabited by the Cadigal clan, the principal language groups were Darug, Guringai, and Dharawal. The earliest Europeans to visit the area noted that the people were conducting activities such as camping and fishing, using trees for bark and food, collecting shells. Development has destroyed much of the citys history including that of the first inhabitants, there continues to be examples of rock art and engravings located in the protected Ku-ring-gai Chase National Park. The first meeting between the people and the British occurred on 29 April 1770 when Lieutenant James Cook landed at Botany Bay on the Kurnell Peninsula. He noted in his journal that they were confused and somewhat hostile towards the foreign visitors, Cook was on a mission of exploration and was not commissioned to start a settlement
2.
Australia
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Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania and numerous smaller islands. It is the worlds sixth-largest country by total area, the neighbouring countries are Papua New Guinea, Indonesia and East Timor to the north, the Solomon Islands and Vanuatu to the north-east, and New Zealand to the south-east. Australias capital is Canberra, and its largest urban area is Sydney, for about 50,000 years before the first British settlement in the late 18th century, Australia was inhabited by indigenous Australians, who spoke languages classifiable into roughly 250 groups. The population grew steadily in subsequent decades, and by the 1850s most of the continent had been explored, on 1 January 1901, the six colonies federated, forming the Commonwealth of Australia. Australia has since maintained a liberal democratic political system that functions as a federal parliamentary constitutional monarchy comprising six states. The population of 24 million is highly urbanised and heavily concentrated on the eastern seaboard, Australia has the worlds 13th-largest economy and ninth-highest per capita income. With the second-highest human development index globally, the country highly in quality of life, health, education, economic freedom. The name Australia is derived from the Latin Terra Australis a name used for putative lands in the southern hemisphere since ancient times, the Dutch adjectival form Australische was used in a Dutch book in Batavia in 1638, to refer to the newly discovered lands to the south. On 12 December 1817, Macquarie recommended to the Colonial Office that it be formally adopted, in 1824, the Admiralty agreed that the continent should be known officially as Australia. The first official published use of the term Australia came with the 1830 publication of The Australia Directory and these first inhabitants may have been ancestors of modern Indigenous Australians. The Torres Strait Islanders, ethnically Melanesian, were originally horticulturists, the northern coasts and waters of Australia were visited sporadically by fishermen from Maritime Southeast Asia. The first recorded European sighting of the Australian mainland, and the first recorded European landfall on the Australian continent, are attributed to the Dutch. The first ship and crew to chart the Australian coast and meet with Aboriginal people was the Duyfken captained by Dutch navigator, Willem Janszoon. He sighted the coast of Cape York Peninsula in early 1606, the Dutch charted the whole of the western and northern coastlines and named the island continent New Holland during the 17th century, but made no attempt at settlement. William Dampier, an English explorer and privateer, landed on the north-west coast of New Holland in 1688, in 1770, James Cook sailed along and mapped the east coast, which he named New South Wales and claimed for Great Britain. The first settlement led to the foundation of Sydney, and the exploration, a British settlement was established in Van Diemens Land, now known as Tasmania, in 1803, and it became a separate colony in 1825. The United Kingdom formally claimed the part of Western Australia in 1828. Separate colonies were carved from parts of New South Wales, South Australia in 1836, Victoria in 1851, the Northern Territory was founded in 1911 when it was excised from South Australia
3.
Geographic coordinate system
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A geographic coordinate system is a coordinate system used in geography that enables every location on Earth to be specified by a set of numbers, letters or symbols. The coordinates are chosen such that one of the numbers represents a vertical position. A common choice of coordinates is latitude, longitude and elevation, to specify a location on a two-dimensional map requires a map projection. The invention of a coordinate system is generally credited to Eratosthenes of Cyrene. Ptolemy credited him with the adoption of longitude and latitude. Ptolemys 2nd-century Geography used the prime meridian but measured latitude from the equator instead. Mathematical cartography resumed in Europe following Maximus Planudes recovery of Ptolemys text a little before 1300, in 1884, the United States hosted the International Meridian Conference, attended by representatives from twenty-five nations. Twenty-two of them agreed to adopt the longitude of the Royal Observatory in Greenwich, the Dominican Republic voted against the motion, while France and Brazil abstained. France adopted Greenwich Mean Time in place of local determinations by the Paris Observatory in 1911, the latitude of a point on Earths surface is the angle between the equatorial plane and the straight line that passes through that point and through the center of the Earth. Lines joining points of the same latitude trace circles on the surface of Earth called parallels, as they are parallel to the equator, the north pole is 90° N, the south pole is 90° S. The 0° parallel of latitude is designated the equator, the plane of all geographic coordinate systems. The equator divides the globe into Northern and Southern Hemispheres, the longitude of a point on Earths surface is the angle east or west of a reference meridian to another meridian that passes through that point. All meridians are halves of great ellipses, which converge at the north and south poles, the prime meridian determines the proper Eastern and Western Hemispheres, although maps often divide these hemispheres further west in order to keep the Old World on a single side. The antipodal meridian of Greenwich is both 180°W and 180°E, the combination of these two components specifies the position of any location on the surface of Earth, without consideration of altitude or depth. The grid formed by lines of latitude and longitude is known as a graticule, the origin/zero point of this system is located in the Gulf of Guinea about 625 km south of Tema, Ghana. To completely specify a location of a feature on, in, or above Earth. Earth is not a sphere, but a shape approximating a biaxial ellipsoid. It is nearly spherical, but has an equatorial bulge making the radius at the equator about 0. 3% larger than the radius measured through the poles, the shorter axis approximately coincides with the axis of rotation
4.
Australian dollar
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Within Australia, it is almost always abbreviated with the dollar sign, with A$ or AU$ sometimes used to distinguish it from other dollar-denominated currencies. It is subdivided into 100 cents, in 2011, the Australian dollar was the fifth most traded currency in the world, accounting for 7. 6% of the worlds daily share. It trades in the foreign exchange markets behind the US dollar, the euro, the yen. The currency is referred to by foreign-exchange traders as the Aussie dollar. With pounds, shillings and pence to be replaced by decimal currency on 14 February 1966, in 1963, the Prime Minister, Sir Robert Menzies, a monarchist, wished to name the currency the royal. Other proposed names included more exotic suggestions such as the austral, the oz, the boomer, the roo, the kanga, the emu, the digger, the quid, the dinkum and the ming. Menzies influence resulted in the selection of the royal, and trial designs were prepared and printed by the Reserve Bank of Australia, the Treasurer, Harold Holt, announced the decision in Parliament on 5 June 1963. The royal would be subdivided into 100 cents, but the existing names shilling, florin, the name royal for the currency proved very unpopular, with Holt and his wife even receiving death threats. On 24 July Holt told the Cabinet the decision had been a terrible mistake, on 18 September Holt advised Parliament that the name was to be the dollar, of 100 cents. The Australian pound, introduced in 1910 and officially distinct in value from the pound sterling since devaluation in 1931, was replaced by the dollar on 14 February 1966. The rate of conversion for the new currency was two dollars per Australian pound, or ten Australian shillings per dollar. The exchange rate was pegged to the pound sterling at a rate of $1 =8 shillings, in 1967, Australia effectively left the sterling area, when the pound sterling was devalued against the US dollar and the Australian dollar did not follow. It maintained its peg to the US dollar at the rate of A$1 = US$1.12, on 27 September 2012, the Reserve Bank of Australia stated that they had ordered work on a project to upgrade the current banknotes. The upgraded banknotes will incorporate a number of new features so that they remain secure into the future, the first new banknotes were issued from the 1st of September 2016, with the remaining denominations to be issued in the coming years. In 1966, coins were introduced in denominations of 1,2,5,10,20 and 50 cents. The initial 50-cent coins contained high silver content and were withdrawn after a year after the value of the silver content was found to exceed the face value of the coins. One-dollar coins were introduced in 1984, followed by two-dollar coins in 1988, the one- and two-cent coins were discontinued in 1991 and withdrawn from circulation. In commemoration of the 40th anniversary of decimal currency, the 2006 mint proof and uncirculated sets included one-, in early 2013, Australias first triangular coin was introduced, to mark the 25th anniversary of the opening of Parliament House
5.
Merlin Entertainments
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Merlin Entertainments is a British-based company headquartered in Poole, Dorset, which operates 127 attractions,19 hotels and 7 holiday villages in 24 countries. Apax sold the company to another investor, Hermes Private Equity. When the Legoland theme parks came up for sale, Varney wanted to buy it but Hermes did not want to invest more capital, Blackstone negotiated to buy control of Legoland for about £250 million, then merged it with Merlin. As part of the deal, KIRKBI AS, the investment arm of LEGO owners, under The Blackstone Group in 2006, Merlin went on to buy Gardaland, an Italian theme park. Early in 2007 Merlin also purchased The Tussauds Group, owner of the Madame Tussauds celebrity wax attractions, after the Tussauds acquisition, Dubai International Capital held 20% of Merlin Entertainment. Although the attraction sites are owned by Leslau, the attractions themselves are to be operated by Merlin, chessington World of Adventures was not included in the deal due to being the most profitable. On 15 January 2010, Merlin Entertainments bought a defunct Winter Haven, Florida-based theme park, Cypress Gardens, and reopened it as Legoland Florida theme park. The sale would include Sydney Aquarium, Sydney Wildlife World, Oceanworld Manly, Sydney Tower, on 3 March 2011, the deal was finalised. Merlin had planned to go public in early 2010, but market turbulence postponed those plans, instead, Blackstone sold 20% of the company to the private equity firm CVC Capital Partners, reducing Blackstones holding to 34%. CVC acquired another 8% from the Dubai investment fund which is no longer involved with the company, KIRKBI, a Danish family trust that owns LEGO, also increased its stake, emerging as the largest shareholder, with 36%. CVC paid a price that valued Merlin at £2.25 billion – more than six times what Merlin, Blackstones investment was by that point worth more than three and a half times what it had paid. On 8 November 2013 Merlin floated 30% of the company on the London Stock Exchange valuing the private equity-backed company at almost £3. 4bn, in October 2013 mental health campaigners accused Merlins Thorpe Park attraction of putting profit before the welfare of those with mental illness. Its Halloween attractions included mazes which draw on classic horror film content including one called The Asylum, the attraction was contrasted unfavourably in some media, Twitter and by mental health campaigners who believed The Asylum perpetrated stigmatising and damaging images of mental illness. Thorpe Park issued a statement indicating the subject would be reviewed, on 2 June 2015 two carriages on The Smiler ride at The Alton Towers Resort collided. One of the cars was empty, and the car contained 16 people. Merlin issued a statement that the incident was under investigation, on 19 March 2016, The Smiler reopened to the public after 9 months. The investigation found that the crash was, according to Merlin Entertainments, in February 2016, Merlin purchased a 15% shareholding in Big Bus Tours
6.
Sydney Tower
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Sydney Tower is Sydneys tallest structure and the second tallest observation tower in the Southern Hemisphere. Aucklands Sky Tower is taller but Sydney Towers main observation deck is almost 50 m higher than the deck on Aucklands Sky Tower. The name Sydney Tower has become common in usage, however the tower has been known as the Sydney Tower Eye, AMP Tower, Westfield Centrepoint Tower. The Sydney Tower is a member of the World Federation of Great Towers, the tower stands 309 m above the Sydney central business district, located on Market Street, between Pitt and Castlereagh Streets. It is accessible from the Pitt Street Mall, Market Street or Castlereagh Street, the tower is open to the public, and is one of the most prominent tourist attractions in the city, being visible from a number of vantage points throughout town and from adjoining suburbs. Designed by Australian architect Donald Crone the first plans for Sydney Tower were unveiled in March 1968, construction of the office building commenced in 1970, and tower construction began in 1975. Prior to construction of the tower, the limit in Sydney had been set at 279 m. Public access to the tower began in August 1981, the total cost of construction was A$36 million. In 1998, the addition of a rod to the top of spire extended the towers overall height to 309 m. While AMP managed the Centrepoint shopping centre, the tower was referred to as AMP Tower. After the Westfield Group took over ownership of Centrepoint in December 2001, in 2009, the base building was closed and stripped for a major refurbishment. This involved the connection of the centre to other arcades. The shopping centre was reopened from 2010 and was renamed Westfield Sydney. On 25–26 June 2011 the AMP banner was removed from the tower and this was achieved by helicopter after two previous attempts on 22 May and 12 June were aborted due to bad weather. In 2011, Merlin Entertainments acquired the rights to operate the observation deck tower, four sections of the tower are open to public, three being occupied by Sydney Tower Dining. 360 Bar and Dining, which offers revolving views of the Sydney skyline, is located on one of the Sydney Tower. Sydney Tower Buffet, a contemporary self-select restaurant, is located on the second level. STUDIO, located on three, is the highest event space in the Southern Hemisphere, and can cater for cocktail functions for 200 people and 156 sit-down guests
7.
Southern Hemisphere
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The Southern Hemisphere is the half sphere of Earth which is south of the equator. It contains all or parts of five continents, four oceans and its surface is 80. 9% water, compared with 60. 7% water in the case of the Northern Hemisphere, and it contains 32. 7% of Earths land. Due to the tilt of Earths rotation relative to the Sun, September 22 or 23 is the vernal equinox and March 20 or 21 is the autumnal equinox. The South Pole is in the middle of the southern hemispherical region, Southern Hemisphere climates tend to be slightly milder than those at similar latitudes in the Northern Hemisphere, except in the Antarctic which is colder than the Arctic. This is because the Southern Hemisphere has significantly more ocean and much land, water heats up. In the Southern Hemisphere the sun passes from east to west through the north, sun-cast shadows turn anticlockwise throughout the day and sundials have the hours increasing in the anticlockwise direction. Cyclones and tropical storms spin clockwise in the Southern Hemisphere due to the Coriolis effect, the southern temperate zone, a subsection of the Southern Hemisphere, is nearly all oceanic. Forests in the Southern Hemisphere have special features which set apart from those in the Northern Hemisphere. Both Chile and Australia share, for example, unique species or Nothofagus. The eucalyptus is native to Australia but is now planted in Southern Africa and Latin America for pulp production and, increasingly. Approximately 800,000,000 humans live in the Southern Hemisphere and this is due to the fact that there is significantly less land in the Southern Hemisphere than in the Northern Hemisphere. Africa Antarctica Asia Australia South America Zealandia Media related to Southern Hemisphere at Wikimedia Commons
8.
Sydney central business district
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The Sydney central business district is the main commercial centre of Sydney, New South Wales, Australia. It extends southwards for about 3 km from Sydney Cove, the point of first European settlement in which the Sydney region was initially established, due to its pivotal role in Australias early history, it is one of the oldest established areas in the country. Geographically, its north–south axis runs from Circular Quay in the north to Central railway station in the south, at the 2011 Australian Census, the CBD recorded a population of 14,308. Sydney CBD is very used to refer not only to the CBD proper. The Sydney CBD is Australias main financial and economic centre, as well as a hub of economic activity for the Asia-Pacific region. The city centre employs approximately 13% of the Sydney regions workforce and it produced $64.1 billion worth of goods and services in 2011–12. Culturally, the city centre is Sydneys focal point for nightlife and it is also home to some of the citys most significant buildings and structures. The Sydney CBD is an area of very densely concentrated skyscrapers and other buildings, interspersed by parks such as Hyde Park, The Domain, Royal Botanic Gardens. George Street is the Sydney CBDs main north–south thoroughfare, the CBD runs along two ridge lines below Macquarie Street and York Streets. Between these ridges is Pitt Street, running close to the course of the original Tank Stream, bridge Street, took its name from the bridge running east–west that once crossed this stream. Pitt Street is the heart of the city which includes the Pitt Street Mall. Macquarie Street is a historic precinct that houses such buildings as the State Parliament House, administratively, the Sydney CBD falls under the authority of the local government area of the City of Sydney. The New South Wales state government also has authority over some aspects of the CBD, the Sydney CBD is home to some of the largest Australian companies, as well as serving as an Asia-Pacific headquarters for many large international companies. Sydneys CBD is serviced by rail, light rail, buses. There is a largely-underground CBD rail loop, accessed in both directions via Central, which services five additional CBD stations, plus a spur line to Bondi Junction which services two. The only light rail line currently operating links the southern part of the CBD, buses, both government-run and privately owned, service the CBD along several dozen routes to both inner and more remote suburbs. NightRide is an bus service that operates between midnight and 5, 00am, with most services running from George Street outside the Sydney Town Hall. Sydney Ferries operate largely from Circular Quay, on the edge of the CBD
9.
Pitt Street Mall
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Pitt Street Mall is the pedestrianised section of Pitt Street in the Sydney central business district, in the Australian state of New South Wales. Running for approximately 200 metres between Market Street and King Street, it is one long and one of Australias busiest and most cosmopolitan shopping precincts. Floorspace rents are the highest in Australia, in due to other cities shopping precincts being longer. In 2015, its rents were the fifth-highest in the world in terms of city streets, despite its small size, Pitt Street Mall hosts many flagship chain stores and more than 400 specialty stores. Formerly a vehicular street, the mall was closed off to traffic in the 1990s and this was commonplace in various Australian cities at the time, in an effort to encourage walk-in business. Many prominent Australian businesses had flagship stores along Pitt Street, namely Sportsgirl, along with extensive upgrades to retail areas, the Pitt Street Malls pedestrian area saw a A$10 million refurbishment during 2010-11. This included the provision of new seating as well as new pavers, visited by 43.8 million people annually, Westfield Sydney is home to 353 retailers. The Strand Arcade - Opened in 1891, The Strand Arcade is the last remaining Victorian era arcade in the Sydney CBD, visited by approximately 5.4 million people annually, The Strand Arcade is home to 76 retailers including designer boutiques. MidCity Centre - Opened in 2010, MidCity Centre is a four storey shopping centre with 23 retailers, Sydney Arcade - A small arcade located at the northern end of Pitt Street Mall. Stockland Glasshouse - Located on the end of Pitt Street Mall, list of leading shopping streets and districts by city
10.
Auckland
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Auckland is a city in the North Island of New Zealand. It is the most populous area in the country. Auckland has a population of 1,495,000, which constitutes 32 percent of New Zealands population, a diverse and multicultural city, Auckland is home to the largest Polynesian population in the world. It has also been called Ākarana, the Māori pronunciation of Auckland, the Auckland urban area ranges to Waiwera in the north, Kumeu in the northwest, and Runciman in the south. It is not contiguous, the section from Waiwera to Whangaparāoa Peninsula is separate from its nearest neighbouring suburb of Long Bay, the surrounding hills are covered in rainforest and the landscape is dotted with dozens of dormant volcanic cones. The central part of the area occupies a narrow isthmus between the Manukau Harbour on the Tasman Sea and the Waitemata Harbour on the Pacific Ocean. It is one of the few cities in the world to have harbours on two major bodies of water. The isthmus on which Auckland resides was first settled around 1350 and was valued for its rich, Māori population in the area is estimated to have peaked at 20,000 before the arrival of Europeans. After a British colony was established in 1840, the new Governor of New Zealand, William Hobson and he named the area Auckland for George Eden, Earl of Auckland, British First Lord of the Admiralty. It was replaced as the capital in 1865, but immigration to the new city stayed strong, today, Aucklands Central Business District is the major financial centre of New Zealand. Auckland is classified as a Beta World City because of its importance in finance, commerce, media, entertainment, arts, education and tourism. Aucklands landmarks such as the Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki, the Harbour Bridge, the Sky Tower, the isthmus was settled by Māori around 1350, and was valued for its rich and fertile land. Many pā were created, mainly on the volcanic peaks, Māori population in the area is estimated to have been about 20,000 people before the arrival of Europeans. As a result, the region had relatively low numbers of Māori when European settlement of New Zealand began, there is, however, nothing to suggest that this was the result of a deliberate European policy. Auckland was officially declared New Zealands capital in 1841 and the transfer of the administration from Russell in the Bay of Islands was completed in 1842. However, even in 1840 Port Nicholson was seen as a choice for an administrative capital because of its proximity to the South Island. After losing its status as capital, Auckland remained the city of the Auckland Province until the provincial system was abolished in 1876. Each of the four settlements had about 800 settlers, the men being fully armed in case of emergency but spent nearly all their time breaking in the land and establishing roads
11.
Sky Tower (Auckland)
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The Sky Tower is an observation and telecommunications tower located at the corner of Victoria and Federal Streets in the Auckland CBD, Auckland, New Zealand. It is 328 metres tall, as measured from ground level to the top of the mast, making it the tallest freestanding structure in the Southern Hemisphere and it has become an iconic landmark in Aucklands skyline due to its height and unique design. The tower is part of the SkyCity Auckland casino complex, originally built in 1994–1997 for Harrahs Entertainment, several upper levels are accessible to the public, attracting an average of 1,150 visitors per day. There is also a brasserie-style buffet located one floor above the main observatory level and it has three observation decks at different heights, each providing 360-degree views of the city. The main observation level at 186 m has 38 mm thick sections of flooring giving a view straight to the ground. The top observation deck labeled Skydeck sits just below the antenna at 220 m. The tower also features the SkyJump, a 192-metre jump from the observation deck, the jump is guide-cable-controlled to prevent jumpers from colliding with the tower in case of wind gusts. Climbs into the antenna mast portion are also possible for tour groups, the tower is also used for telecommunications and broadcasting with the Auckland Peering Exchange being located on Level 48. The aerial at the top of the hosts the largest FM combiner in the world which combines with 58 wireless microwave links located above the top restaurant to provide a number of services. These include television, wireless internet, RT, and weather measurement services, a total of twenty-three FM radio stations and six digital terrestrial television multiplexes broadcast from the tower. Two VHF analogue television channels broadcasting from the tower were switched off in the hours of Sunday 1 December 2013 as part of New Zealands digital television transition. It was designed by Gordon Moller of Craig Craig Moller architects and has received a New Zealand Institute of Architects National Award as well as regional awards, the Project Architect was Les Dykstra. Taking two years and nine months to construct, the tower was opened on 3 August 1997, the tower is constructed of high-performance reinforced concrete. Its 12-metre diameter shaft is supported on eight legs based on 16 foundation piles drilled over 12 m deep into the local sandstone, the main shaft was built using climbing formwork. The upper levels were constructed from composite materials, structural steel, precast concrete and reinforced concrete, a structural steel framework supports the upper mast structure. During construction 15,000 cubic metres of concrete,2,000 tonnes of reinforcing steel, the mast weighs over 170 tonnes. It had to be lifted into place using an attached to the structure. The tower is designed to wind in excess of 200 km/h
12.
Lightning rod
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Lightning rods are also called finials, air terminals or strike termination devices. In a lightning protection system, a rod is a single component of the system. The lightning rod requires a connection to earth to perform its protective function, copper and its alloys are the most common materials used in lightning protection. As buildings become taller, lightning becomes more of a threat, a lightning conductor may have been intentionally used in the Leaning Tower of Nevyansk. The spire of the tower is crowned with a rod in the shape of a gilded sphere with spikes. This lightning rod is grounded through the rebar carcass, which pierces the entire building, the Nevyansk Tower was built between 1721 and 1745, on the orders of industrialist Akinfiy Demidov. The Nevyansk Tower was built 28 years before Benjamin Franklins experiment, however, the true intent behind the metal rooftop and rebars remains unknown. The church tower of many European cities, which was usually the highest structure in the city, was likely to be hit by lightning, Early on, Christian churches tried to prevent the occurrence of the damaging effects of lightning by prayers. Peter Ahlwardts advised individuals seeking cover from lightning to go anywhere except in or around a church, divišs apparatus was, according to his private theories, aimed towards preventing thunderstorms altogether by constantly depriving the air of its superfluous electricity. The apparatus was, however, mounted on a pole and probably better grounded than Franklins lightning rods at that time. After local protests, Diviš had to cease his weather experiments around 1760, although not the first to suggest a correlation between electricity and lightning, Franklin was the first to propose a workable system for testing his hypothesis. Franklin speculated that, with an iron rod sharpened to a point, The electrical fire would, I think, be out of a cloud silently. Franklin speculated about lightning rods for several years before his reported kite experiment and this experiment, it is said, took place because he was tired of waiting for Christ Church in Philadelphia to be completed so he could place a lightning rod on top of it. In the 19th century, the lightning rod became a decorative motif, Lightning rods were embellished with ornamental glass balls. The ornamental appeal of these balls has been used in weather vanes. The main purpose of these balls, however, is to provide evidence of a strike by shattering or falling off. If after a storm a ball is discovered missing or broken, the property owner should then check the building, rod, balls of solid glass occasionally were used in a method purported to prevent lightning strikes to ships and other objects. The idea was that objects, being non-conductors, are seldom struck by lightning
13.
AMP Limited
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AMP formed in 1849 as the Australian Mutual Provident Society, a non-profit life insurance company and mutual society. In 1998, it was demutualised and listed on the Australian, AMP has one of Australia’s largest shareholder registers, with most shareholders living in Australia and New Zealand. This is because when the society demutualised, all policy holders received shares in the new company and its UK operation was the subject of a demerger in 2003, separating out the Henderson Group. The company provides planning and advice, banking, life insurance, managed funds, superannuation, property, listed assets. AMP is Australias largest retail and corporate superannuation provider, and is the largest life risk business in Australia. One of AMPs subsidiaries, AMP Capital, is the aligned wealth manager, with more than A$128 billion in assets under management, AMP has four main business areas, Advice and banking provides financial planning and advice, superannuation services for businesses, and selected banking products. These products and services are distributed through a network of self-employed financial planners. AMP has been granted a authority, enabling it to continue to receive default superannuation contribution from 1 January 2014, insurance and superannuation provides superannuation, personal risk insurance products and self-managed super fund administration, support and design. AMP Capital is one of Asia Pacifics largest investment managers, through a team of investment professionals across the world, it invests in equities, fixed interest, infrastructure, property, diversified funds and multi-manager funds. It is the top 10 global investment manager in infrastructure and top 25 in real estate, david Jones was a foundation director in 1848. George King was chairman for fifteen years from the 1850s, richard Teece was general manager and actuary from 1890 and a director from 1917 to 1927. Many of the older AMP buildings are now heritage-listed and feature the Amicus statue group, the central figure in the statue group is the goddess of Peace and Plenty, holding a palm branch and a cornucopia. The male figure of Labour sits to her left and also holds the cornucopia, while the figures of the wife, under the statue is AMP Societys Latin motto Amicus certus in re incerta. AMP Shares rose to almost $22.00 per share in June 2001, see 5 May 2003 article On 15 November 2010, AMP announced a bid to merge its business with AXA Asia Pacific Holdings. The transaction was a joint proposal with AXA SA under which AXA SA would acquire AMPs Asian business and AMP would acquire AXAs Australian, the Australasian holdings included the former National Mutual business which was demutualised in 1996. AXA had gained majority ownership of National Mutual in 1999 and renamed the company as AXA Asia Pacific
14.
Westfield Group
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Westfield Group undertook ownership, development, design, construction, funds/asset management, property management, leasing, and marketing activities. The Westfield Group had origins in the suburbs of Sydney. The first development was named Westfield Place, and opened in July 1959 in Blacktown, the name Westfield is derived from west related to the West Sydney location, and field due to having located on subdivided farmland. The centre was opened by John Saunders and Frank Lowy, the company was floated on the Australian Stock Exchange in 1960 and built another five centres in New South Wales before expanding into Victoria and Queensland in 1966-67. For the first half of 1971, Westfield reported earnings of $886,382, in 1994 Westfield joined together with General Growth and Whitehall Real Estate to purchase 19 centres for US$1 billion. Westfield seems to form clusters of centres on particular cities or within a number of states. They built considerable holdings on the east coast and in California before expanding in the Mid-West, by 2005, the company owned centres in 15 US states. In the 1990s, Westfield began an expansion to New Zealand. Only in 2007, with Westfield Albany, has the company opened a new centre in the country. The funds would be used to repay debt and invest in businesses offering higher return, the sales were expected to be completed by mid–2012. Despite the Westfield Groups asset dimensions, the Westfield Group was strongly controlled by the Lowy Family Group, including chairman, Frank Lowy. Lowys two younger sons, Steven and Peter, were joint managing directors, having been established in Australia, with their original premises being at Blacktown, the Westfield Group continued to operate a large number of shopping centres in Australia. This feature was removed in 2016 due to concerns that the system could be used to track the movements of others by giving the wrong car numberplate on registration of the phone number, Westfield entered the United States market in 1977. In September 2003 the company received $17.3 million as a party in the claim following the terrorist attack on the World Trade Center. On 18 February 2006, the Los Angeles Times reported that Westfield had agreed to acquire 15 stores from Federated Department Stores, all, as of 2014, Westfield owned 38 malls in the United States. Westfield entered the New Zealand market in 1997 and acquired an interest in the St. Lukes Group portfolio in 1998, Westfield Malls were by far the most numerous chain in New Zealand, with 6 of its 11 centres in Auckland including their largest development located in Albany. The group reportedly also had three of its smaller malls, Pakuranga, Glenfield, and Chartwell in Hamilton up for sale, as of 2014, before Westfield Corporation was created, Westfield had an interest in two shopping centres in England and Northern Ireland. By far its most significant asset was Westfields 50% partnership in the £1. 6b Westfield London development in Shepherds Bush, the development included the construction of a new railway station for the London Overground and Southern services, and a new entrance for the London Underground station
15.
Westfield Sydney
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Westfield Sydney is an upscale world class shopping centre operated by Scentre Group and located beneath the Sydney Tower in the Sydney central business district. It is located on Pitt Street Mall and is adjacent to the Mid City Centre, The Strand Arcade, the site of the A$860 million Westfield Sydney redevelopment was once occupied by the Centrepoint Shopping Centre, Sydney Central Plaza and the smaller Skygarden and Imperial Arcade. Centrepoint Shopping Centre opened in 1972 with 52 stores, many of which are still trading today, the centre was refurbished in 1984 and further upgraded in 1996 and 2000. Centrepoint purchased by The Westfield Group in December 2001 and was later renamed Westfield Centrepoint, Sydney Central Plaza featured the Myer Department Store and featured over 50 stores, it was later purchased by the Westfield Group in 2003. Imperial Arcade opened in 1891 and was designed by prominent Sydney architect Thomas Rowe, the Westfield Centrepoint provided sky bridge connections to two of Australias major department stores, Myer and David Jones. There was also a connection to Imperial Arcade which featured the Sydney central business districts Angus & Robertson bookstore, Westfield has invested approximately $930 million in redeveloping Westfield Centrepoint, Sydney Central Plaza, Skygarden and Imperial Arcade. The four shopping centres including Westfield Centrepoint, Sydney Central Plaza, Skygarden and Imperial Arcade merged and was redeveloped, stage 1 of the development opened in October 2010 with approximately 130 specialty stores. Stage 2 opened a further 120 stores between November 2010 and late-2011, the opening of a 25-storey commercial tower at 85 Castlereagh Street marked the completion of the total project in early 2012. Westfield Sydney is home to numerous stores and has over 350 stores. Anchor tenants in the centre include Sydney Tower Myer Zara Gap JB Hi-Fi Microsoft Store Official website
16.
Wild Life Sydney
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Wild Life Sydney Zoo is a wildlife park in the heart of the city of Sydney, Australia. Officially opened in September 2006, it is located on the city side of the Darling Harbour leisure and retail precinct, next to Sydney Aquarium, in May 2006, Sydney Aquarium Pty Ltd announced plans to expand the existing aquarium site, in order to incorporate a wildlife park. Following this announcement, and after the acquisition of the tourist attractions at Sydney Tower and of Manly Oceanarium, Village Roadshow Limited purchased Sydney Attractions Group in late 2007. UK attractions group Merlin Entertainments bought Sydney Wildlife World as part of its acquisition of Village Roadshow assets in March 2011, the park changed its name to Wild Life Sydney Zoo and re-opened on 13 September 2011. The attraction won the Award for the best family-focused tourism at The Australians 2007 Travel, construction began in November 2004 on the site, and was completed in August 2006. Wild Life Sydney is unusual for a zoo or wildlife park in that the areas are almost entirely enclosed and air-conditioned. The A$52 million development features a 1 kilometre walkway which snakes through 7,000 square metres of enclosures and this open-air feature has enabled the exhibits to be landscaped naturally with live plants, including full-sized trees. The largest exhibit is the 800-square-metre semi-arid habitat, featuring 250 tonnes of red sand trucked in from central Australia and this habitat houses a mob of adult red kangaroos. The enclosure is bordered by viewing galleries both above and below the waterline, several species of fishes and bird are also kept in the enclosure. As of February 2016, WILD LIFE Sydney Zoo have acquired a new Platypus Display, Merlin Entertainments Sydney Aquarium Taronga Zoo Sydney Tower Manly Sea Life Media related to Sydney Wildlife World at Wikimedia Commons Official website
17.
Sea Life Sydney Aquarium
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Additionally, the aquarium features 14 themed zones including Jurassic Seas, Discovery Rockpool, Shark Walk, and the world’s largest Great Barrier Reef display. Along the way, visitors encounter animals unique to each habitat, including two of only five dugongs on display in the world, sharks, stingrays, penguins and tropical fish and it is a public aquarium located in the city of Sydney, New South Wales, Australia. It is located on the side of Darling Harbour to the north of the Pyrmont Bridge. It is a institutional member of the Zoo and Aquarium Association. The Great Barrier Reef complex which opened in October 1998 continues this same theme, the Sydney Aquarium was opened in 1988, during Australias bicentenary celebrations, and is one of the largest aquariums in the world. It is regarded as one of Sydneys premier tourist attractions with over 55% of its visitors each year coming from overseas, a crocodile exhibit was added in 2008. In December 1991, the first Seal Sanctuary was opened, since then, Sydney Aquarium has upgraded the facilities and a new oceanarium to house seals opened in September 2003. The Seal Sanctuary features Australian sea lions, Australian fur seals, subantarctic fur seals, in this floating oceanarium, the seals can be seen below the waters surface from underwater viewing tunnels, and from above on an open-air deck. The Seal Sanctuary is incorporated into the Southern Oceans exhibit, which also features little penguins, the Open Ocean Oceanarium, and Sydney Harbour displays. In October 1998, the Great Barrier Reef complex opened comprising a tropical touch pool, the water is kept at a constant temperature of 25 °C. The Oceanarium is 33 metres long and 13 metres wide, with an area of about 370 square metres. The final exhibit is a theatre where activity in a coral canyon can be observed through a window 7 by 4 metres and 26 centimetres in thickness. In 2006, Wild Life Sydney opened next to Sydney Aquarium, on 20 December 2007, the glass-bottomed boat, or Shark Explorer, began operating, giving guests a tour of the Great Barrier Reef tank. In 2008 the seal sanctuary was closed and the seals were sent to Sea World, Gold Coast, the seal sanctuary was then renovated and reopened as Dugong Island in December 2008. Dugong Island is the new permanent home of Pig and Wuru, Dugong Island has above-water viewing areas as well as underwater viewing tunnels. Other animals kept in the include a shark ray, shovelnose rays, zebra sharks, eagle rays. In March 2012, SEA LIFE Sydney Aquariums owners, Merlin Entertainments, as part of the process, the aquarium was rebranded as a Sea Life Centre and was relaunched on 24 September 2012. Exhibits cover the rivers of Australia, exploring the Southern and Northern River habitats, as well as the oceans of Australia, the complex and fragile nature of Australias very different and unique aquatic environments is emphasised
18.
Multilingualism
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Multilingualism is the use of two or more languages, either by an individual speaker or by a community of speakers. It is believed that multilingual speakers outnumber monolingual speakers in the worlds population, more than half of all Europeans claim to speak at least one other language in addition to their mother tongue. Multilingualism is becoming a social phenomenon governed by the needs of globalization, people who speak several languages are also called polyglots. Multilingual speakers have acquired and maintained at least one language during childhood, the first language is acquired without formal education, by mechanisms heavily disputed. Children acquiring two languages in this way are called simultaneous bilinguals, even in the case of simultaneous bilinguals, one language usually dominates the other. People who know more than one language have been reported to be adept at language learning compared to monolinguals. Multilingualism in computing can be considered part of a continuum between internationalization and localization, the definition of multilingualism is a subject of debate in the very same way as the definition of language fluency. On one end of a sort of continuum, one may define multilingualism as complete competence. The speaker would presumably have complete knowledge and control over the language so as to sound native, on the opposite end of the spectrum would be people who know enough phrases to get around as a tourist using the alternate language. Since 1992, Vivian Cook has argued that most multilingual speakers fall somewhere between minimal and maximal definitions, in addition, there is no consistent definition of what constitutes a distinct language. For instance, scholars disagree whether Scots is a language in its own right or a dialect of English. Many small independent nations schoolchildren are today compelled to learn multiple languages because of international interactions, for example, in, all children are required to learn at least two foreign languages, the other national language and one alien language. Many Finnish schoolchildren also select further languages, such as German or Russian, in some large nations with multiple languages, such as India, school children may routinely learn multiple languages based on where they reside in the country. In major metropolitan areas of Central, South and East India, thus a child of Telugu parents living in Bangalore will end up speaking his or her mother tongue at home and the state language, Hindi and English in school and his or her surroundings. Many myths and much prejudice has grown around the notions of bi- and these are all harmful convictions which have long been debunked, yet still persist among many parents. A multilingual person is someone who can communicate in more than one language, more specifically, the terms bilingual and trilingual are used to describe comparable situations in which two or three languages are involved. A multilingual person is referred to as a polyglot. Multilingual speakers have acquired and maintained at least one language during childhood, the first language is acquired without formal education, by mechanisms heavily disputed
19.
Touchscreen
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A touchscreen is a input and output device normally layered on the top of an electronic visual display of an information processing system. A user can give input or control the processing system through simple or multi-touch gestures by touching the screen with a special stylus and/or one or more fingers. Some touchscreens use ordinary or specially coated gloves to work while others may only work using a special stylus/pen, the user can use the touchscreen to react to what is displayed and to control how it is displayed, for example, zooming to increase the text size. The touchscreen enables the user to interact directly with what is displayed, rather using a mouse, touchpad. Touchscreens are common in such as game consoles, personal computers, tablet computers, electronic voting machines, point of sale systems. They can also be attached to computers or, as terminals and they also play a prominent role in the design of digital appliances such as personal digital assistants and some e-readers. The popularity of smartphones, tablets, and many types of appliances is driving the demand and acceptance of common touchscreens for portable. The application of technology for air traffic control was described in an article published in 1968. Frank Beck and Bent Stumpe, engineers from CERN, developed a transparent touchscreen in the early 1970s, then manufactured by CERN, it was put to use in 1973. A resistive touchscreen was developed by American inventor George Samuel Hurst, the first version was produced in 1982. This arrangement can sense any fingertip-sized opaque object in close proximity to the screen, a similar touchscreen was used on the HP-150 starting in 1983, this was one of the worlds earliest commercial touchscreen computers. HP mounted their infrared transmitters and receivers around the bezel of a 9 Sony Cathode Ray Tube, in 1984, Fujitsu released a touch pad for the Micro 16, to deal with the complexity of kanji characters, which were stored as tiled graphics. In 1985, Sega released the Terebi Oekaki, also known as the Sega Graphic Board, for the SG-1000 video game console and it consisted of a plastic pen and a plastic board with a transparent window where the pen presses are detected. It was used primarily for a software application. A graphic touch tablet was released for the Sega AI Computer in 1986, touch-sensitive Control-Display Units were evaluated for commercial aircraft flight decks in the early 1980s. In 1985, the University of Toronto group including Bill Buxton developed a tablet that used capacitance rather than bulky camera-based optical sensing systems. In 1986, the first graphical point of sale software was demonstrated on the 16-bit Atari 520ST color computer and it featured a color touchscreen widget-driven interface. In 1987, Casio launched the Casio PB-1000 pocket computer with a touchscreen consisting of a 4x4 matrix, until 1988 touchscreens had the bad reputation of being imprecise
20.
4D film
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4D film or 4-D film is a marketing term for an entertainment presentation system combining a 3D film with physical effects that occur in the theatre in synchronization with the film. Effects simulated in a 4D film may include rain, wind, strobe lights, seats in 4D venues may vibrate or move a few centimeters during the presentations. Other common chair effects include air jets, water sprays, and leg, hall effects may include smoke, rain, lightning, air bubbles, and smell. Because physical effects can be expensive to install, 4D films are most often presented in theatres at special venues such as theme parks. However, some movie theatres have the ability to present 4D versions of wide-release 3D films, there is no consistent standard for using the term 4D when describing the presentation of a film. 4D films have occasionally been marketed as 5D, 6D, 7D, 8D, 9D, 11D, 15D. This is scientifically different from actual fourth dimensional space, notable formats for providing different aspects of a fourth dimension to films include Human 4D, Sensurround, Smell-O-Vision and 4DX. As of June 2015, about 530 screens worldwide have installed the technology, the following is a list of 4D screening formats developed for film theatres. Are 4D movies the next big thing, high quality stereoscopic HFR 3D, 4D, 5D rides for cinema and attractions
21.
Movie theater
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A movie theater or movie theatre is a venue, usually a building, that contains an auditorium for viewing films, for entertainment. Most, but not all, movie theaters are commercial operations catering to the general public, Some movie theaters, however, are operated by non-profit organizations or societies which charge members a membership fee to view films. The film is projected with a projector onto a large projection screen at the front of the auditorium while the dialogue, sounds. Since the 1970s, subwoofers have used for low-pitched sounds. In the 2010s, most movie theaters are equipped for digital cinema projection, removing the need to create, a great variety of films are shown at cinemas, ranging from animated films for children, blockbusters for general audiences and documentaries for patrons who are interested in non-fiction topics. The smallest movie theaters have a viewing room with a single screen. In the 2010s, most movie theaters have multiple screens, the largest theater complexes, which are called multiplexes—a design developed in the U. S. in the 1960s—have up to 25 screens. The audience members sit on padded seats which in most theaters are set up on a sloped floor. Movie theaters typically sell soft drinks, popcorn and candy and some theaters also sell hot fast food, in some jurisdictions, movie theaters are licensed to sell alcoholic drinks. A movie theater may also be referred to as a theatre, movie house, film house. In the US, theater has long been the preferred spelling, while in the UK, Canada, the latter terms, as well as their derivative adjectives cinematic and kinematic, ultimately derive from Greek κινῆμα, κινήματος —movement, motion. In the countries where those terms are used, the theatre is usually reserved for live performance venues. Colloquial expressions, mostly applied to motion pictures and motion picture theaters collectively, include the silver screen, specific to North American term is the movies, while specific terms in the UK are the pictures, the flicks and for the facility itself the flea pit. A screening room is a theater, often a private one. Open air place in ancient times for viewing spectacles and plays, the term theater comes from the Old French word theatre, from the 12th century and. The use of the theatre to mean a building where plays are shown dates from the 1570s in the English language. The earliest precursors to movies were magic lantern shows, magic lanterns used a glass lens, a shutter and a powerful lamp to project images from glass slides onto a white wall or screen. The invention of the Argand lamp in the 1790s, limelight in the 1820s, the magic lantern could project rudimentary moving images, which was achieved by the use of various types of mechanical slides
22.
Double-deck elevator
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A double-deck elevator or double-deck lift is an elevator with two cabs attached together, one on top of the other. This allows passengers on two floors to be able to use the elevator simultaneously, significantly increasing the passenger capacity of an elevator shaft. Such a scheme can improve efficiency in buildings where the volume of traffic would normally have an elevator stopping at every floor. For example, a passenger may board the deck on the concourse level while another passenger may board the upper deck on the ground floor. The cab serving even floors is actually on top of the cab serving odd floors in the elevator shaft. When a passenger disembarks from the even-floor serving cab at level 30, for instance, architecturally, this is important, as double-deck elevators occupy less building core space than traditional single-deck elevators do for the same level of traffic. In skyscrapers, this allows for more efficient use of space. The other main technique is shared-shaft elevators, where multiple elevators use different sections of the shaft to serve different floors. Not all double-deck elevators are used to transport passengers simultaneously in both decks, sometimes one or more elevators in a building has a double-deck car, where the second deck is used for transportation of goods, typically outside of peak traffic periods. This technique has the advantages of preventing damage to interior fixtures due to impact from trolleys, during peak periods, the car is switched back to passenger mode, where it can expedite passenger movement into or out of the building. As of 2011, no triple-deck elevators have been built, although such a design had been considered for the 163-floor Burj Khalifa before the design was scaled back to double-deck. Also, Frank Lloyd Wright had envisioned five-deck elevators in his 1956 proposed Mile High Illinois, louis Bank of America Plaza in Dallas Bentall Centre Complex in Vancouver C. D. Skytrak
23.
2000 Summer Olympics
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It was the second time that the Summer Olympics were held in Australia, and also the Southern Hemisphere, the first being in Melbourne, Victoria, in 1956. Sydney was selected as the host city for the 2000 games in 1993, the United States won the most medals with 93, while Australia came in 4th with 58. The games cost was estimated to be A$6.6 billion, the Games received universal acclaim, with the organisation, volunteers, sportsmanship and Australian public being lauded in the international media. Bill Bryson from The Times called the Sydney Games one of the most successful events on the world stage, admit there can never be a better Olympic Games, and be done with it, as Sydney was both exceptional and the best. These were the final Olympic Games under the IOC presidency of Juan Antonio Samaranch and these were also the second Olympic Games to be held in spring. The final medal tally was led by the United States, followed by Russia, several World and Olympic records were broken during the games. With little or no controversies, the games were deemed successful with the rising standard of competition amongst nations across the world. The Australian city of Melbourne had lost out to Atlanta for the 1996 Summer Olympics four years earlier, the Oxford Olympics Study 2016 estimates the outturn cost of the Sydney 2000 Summer Olympics at USD5 billion in 2015-dollars and cost overrun at 90% in real terms. This includes sports-related costs only, that is, operational costs incurred by the committee for the purpose of staging the Games. The competition venues, the Olympic village, international broadcast center, and media and press center, which are required to host the Games. The cost and cost overrun for Sydney 2000 compares with a cost of USD4.6 billion, average cost for the Summer Games since 1960 is USD5.2 billion, average cost overrun is 176%. In 2000, the Auditor-General of New South Wales reported that the Sydney Games cost A$6.6 billion, many venues were constructed in the Sydney Olympic Park, which failed in the years immediately following the Olympics to meet the expected bookings to meet upkeep expenses. In the years leading up to the games, funds were shifted from education and it has been estimated that the economic impact of the 2000 Olympics was that A$2.1 billion has been shaved from public consumption. Economic growth was not stimulated to a net benefit and in the years after 2000, in the years after the games, infrastructure issues have been of growing concern to citizens, especially those in the western suburbs of Sydney. Proposed rail links to Sydneys west have been estimated to cost in the order of magnitude as the public expenditure on the games. Although the Olympic Games Opening Ceremony was not scheduled until 15 September, among the pre-ceremony fixtures, host nation Australia lost 1–0 to Italy at the Melbourne Cricket Ground, which was the main stadium for the 1956 Melbourne Olympics. The opening ceremony began with a tribute to the Australian pastoral heritage of the Australian stockmen and it was produced and filmed by Sydney Olympic Broadcasting Organisation and the home nation broadcaster, Channel 7. This was introduced by a rider, Steve Jefferys
24.
Sydney Olympic Park
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Sydney Olympic Park is a large sporting, cultural and leisure complex in western Sydney. It is also a suburb of Sydney, commonly known as Olympic Park. Sydney Olympic Park is located 16 kilometres west of the Sydney central business district, the area was redeveloped for the 2000 Olympics. The suburb also contains commercial development and extensive parklands, the area was originally part of the suburb of Homebush Bay, but was designated a suburb in its own right in 2009. The Wangal clan of Indigenous Australians lived in the area before British settlement, the area was called The Flats by a scouting party shortly after the arrival of the First Fleet in 1788. It became part of the Newington Estate in 1807, which was acquired by John Blaxland, the Government acquired some of the land for an aged womens home in the late 19th century. Much of the land was reclaimed from the river and wetlands by landfill, in the mid-1980s, an area bounded by Australia Avenue and what are now Herb Elliott Avenue and Sarah Durack Avenue was promoted as a technology park called the Australia Centre. However, apart from a few relatively high tech businesses like AWA Microelectronics, BASF, Philips and Sanyo, the idea did not catch on, in any event, a decade later the entire area became the site for the Sydney 2000 Olympics. Before its transformation, a part of Olympic Park was derelict former industrial land, after more than a century of industrial. The site was home to a brickworks, abattoir and an armaments depot as well as being the site for eight of Sydneys rubbish dumps. These activities resulted in a contaminated site with little natural ecology. Sixty-five percent of the soils were required to be excavated and contained on-site, commercial developments now sit alongside sporting facilities with tenants in office buildings such as Commonwealth Bank from September 2007. A five-star Pullman hotel and a two-star Formule 1 hotel were completed in mid-2008, the parklands have undergone redevelopment with Blaxland Riverside Park being transformed into an urban park along Parramatta River. The Park opened on 3 March 2007, in addition the Wentworth Common area was upgraded with significant adventure playground facilities for children aged 8–13 years. Auburn Council sought public comment on a proposal to rename the Homebush Bay area and it hosts the Big Day Out music festival and has been the venue for free, open air performances as part of the Sydney Festival such as Movies in the Overflow and Music by Moonlight. The Newington Armory has in the past been the venue for the now-defunct Great Escape and Acoustica at the Armory music festivals, in August 2009, the funerals for the murdered Lin family were held here. Every December since 2009, the V8 Supercar event, the Sydney 500, is held through the streets of the Olympic precinct, however, it was announced in March 2016 that the event would no longer take place at Sydney Olympic Park following its final edition in December 2016. EB Games Expo has been held at The Sydney Showgrounds from 2012 to present
25.
Homebush, New South Wales
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Homebush is a suburb in the Inner West of Sydney, in the state of New South Wales, Australia. It is located 15 kilometres west of the Sydney central business district, Homebush is located south of Homebush Bay, an inlet of the Parramatta River. The first name of settlement at what is today called Homebush was Liberty Plains and this was a group of grants given to the Colonys first free settlers, who came on the ship Bellona, in 1793. Most of the settlers soon departed for agriculturally more attractive places. One of them, Edward Powell, later returned and established there the Half Way House Inn, on Parramatta Road just west of the creek that now bears his name. Later, when the Great Western Railway line came through there, with a station just behind Powells inn, the name Homebush was borrowed from the nearest large estate, a shopping centre by the name of Homebush has since grown around the railway station of that name. There also used to be a Ford factory in Homebush, which manurfactured the Telstar, but the factory closed in 1994. It is commonly thought that the property and house with the name of Homebush was established and named by the Colonys then assistant surgeon DArcy Wentworth. It is considered unlikely that it was named after the village in Kent as DArcy Wentworth was Irish and had no links to the English county. According to local historian David Patrick it wasn’t DArcy Wentworth who named Homebush and it would appear that after Laycock became mentally ill, following his direct involvement in suppressing the Castle Hill convict rebellion DArcy Wentworth became his doctor. It has been reputed that DArcy Wentworth either bought the Laycock Homebush Farm from Laycock or, more fancifully, Wentworth retained Thomas Laycocks name of the property and added to its extent. Laycock had been granted 40 hectares in 1794 and increased this to 318 hectares by 1803, a notice that Laycock placed in the newspapers about his property Home Bush is from before when Wentworth acquired the land from him. Later on, Wentworth acquired more land there himself and the estate had grown to 990 acres by 1811, Homebush once had a very famous racecourse, established by Wentworth. The Village of Homebush estate was a section of the Underwood Estate located to the south of the railway, the land had boundaries of The Crescent, Homebush, Beresford, Coventry and Bridge Roads, was subdivided in 1878. Within the estate, Broughton, Abbotsford and Burlington Roads and Rochester, in the December of that year,381 house blocks were auctioned. By the end of the many large houses and substantial villas had been built. In the 20th century house construction continued and most blocks had been built on by the end of the 1920s, billesdon,104 Burlington Road, was built in 1915 for Stephen Rabone to a design by Rupert Minnett. Broughlea,82 Abbotsford Road, was built c.1881 for Horatio Aylward, camden Lodge,102 Burlington Road, was built c.1917 for Robert Trevethan
26.
Sikorsky S-64 Skycrane
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The Sikorsky S-64 Skycrane is an American twin-engine heavy-lift helicopter. It is the version of the United States Armys CH-54 Tarhe. The S-64 Aircrane is the current production version, manufactured by the Erickson Air-Crane company, the Sikorsky S-64 was designed as an enlarged version of the prototype flying crane helicopter, the Sikorsky S-60. The S-64 had a main rotor and was powered by two 4,050 shaft horsepower Pratt & Whitney JFTD12A turboshaft engines. The prototype S-64 first flew on 9 May 1962 and was followed by two examples for evaluation by the German armed forces. The Germans did not place an order, but the United States Army placed an order for six S-64A helicopters. Seven S-64E variants were built by Sikorsky for the civil market, originally a Sikorsky Aircraft product, the type certificate and manufacturing rights were purchased from them by Erickson Air-Crane in 1992. The Aircrane can be fitted with a 2, 650-gallon fixed retardant tank to assist in the control of bush fires, S-64 Aircranes have been sold to the Italian and Korean Forest Services for fire suppression and emergency response duties. Erickson is manufacturing new S-64s, as well as remanufacturing existing CH-54s, Erickson gives each of its S-64s an individual name, the best-known being Elvis, used in fighting fires in Australia alongside The Incredible Hulk and Isabelle. Other operators, such as Siller Brothers, have followed with their Sikorsky S-64E, the Erickson S-64E nicknamed Olga was used to lift the top section of the CN Tower into place in Toronto, Canada. S-64 Twin-engined heavy-lift helicopter,3 built, S-64A Six test and evaluation helicopters for the US Army. S-64B Civil version of CH-54A,7 built, S-64E Upgraded & certified CH-54A helicopters, plus one new build aircraft. S-64F Upgraded & certified CH-54B helicopters, powered by two Pratt & Whitney JFTD12-5A engines. Italy Corpo Forestale dello Stato South Korea Korea Forest Service United States Columbia Helicopters Erickson Air-Crane Evergreen Helicopters, while operating for the USFS The Erickson S-64 snagged a dip tank and the helicopter rolled over and crashed. N198AC Shirley Jean – S-64F, sold to European Air-Crane c.2006 as I-SEAD, Aircraft was destroyed in a post-crash fire. N248AC Aurora – S-64E, named after Aurora State Airport, home to Columbia Helicopters, former owner of aircraft. Crashed on 26 August 2004 in Corsica, killing its Canadian pilot, the Air-Crane was chartered by the interior ministry to fight fires on the French Mediterranean island of Corsica
27.
Elvis (helicopter)
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Elvis is the nickname of Erickson S-64 Air-Crane, tail number OB-2081-P, which has gained fame in Australia as a highly visible and valuable tool in bushfire suppression. The helicopter, which can hold 9,500 litres of water or foam mix, has brought out by the Victorian Government from the United States for each fire season since 2001-2002. The aircraft obtained its nickname due to the time that it spent working for the United States National Guard in Memphis, Erickson Air-Crane helitankers were first brought out to Victoria in December 1997. It was also credited with helping save the lives of 14 firemen in the Burragorang Valley in New South Wales, Elvis has also lifted transmission towers in Alberta, Canada, portrayed in the 2014 TV documentary Rise of the Machines. k. a. Elsie, New South Wales, Malcolm & Clancy a. k. a, christine, spare Delilah, for the period of Australian operations, some aircraft have been temporarily renamed with Australian themed names. 2009–2010 Victoria, Elvis 2011–2012, Western Australia, Elsie 2012–2013 Victoria, Elvis and Gypsy Lady
28.
Fireworks
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Fireworks are a class of low explosive pyrotechnic devices used for aesthetic and entertainment purposes. The most common use of a firework is as part of a fireworks display, Fireworks competitions are also regularly held at a number of places. Fireworks take many forms to produce the four primary effects, noise, light, smoke and they may be designed to burn with colored flames and sparks including red, orange, yellow, green, blue, purple, and silver. Displays are common throughout the world and are the point of many cultural. Fireworks were invented in ancient China in the 7th century to scare evil spirits. Such important events and festivities as Chinese New Year and the Mid-Autumn Moon Festival were, China is the largest manufacturer and exporter of fireworks in the world. Fireworks are generally classified as to where they perform, either as a ground or aerial firework, in the latter case they may provide their own propulsion or be shot into the air by a mortar. The most common feature of fireworks is a paper or pasteboard tube or casing filled with the combustible material, a number of these tubes or cases are often combined so as to make, when kindled, a great variety of sparkling shapes, often variously colored. The skyrocket is a form of firework, although the first skyrockets were used in war. The aerial shell, however, is the backbone of todays commercial aerial display, such rocket technology has also been used for the delivery of mail by rocket and is used as propulsion for most model rockets. The earliest documentation of fireworks dates back to 7th century China, the fireworks were used to accompany many festivities. It is thus a part of the culture of China and had its origin there, the art and science of firework making has developed into an independent profession. In China, pyrotechnicians were respected for their knowledge of techniques in mounting firework displays. Chinese people originally believed that the fireworks could expel evil spirits and bring about luck, during the Song Dynasty, many of the common people could purchase various kinds of fireworks from market vendors, and grand displays of fireworks were also known to be held. In 1110, a fireworks display in a martial demonstration was held to entertain Emperor Huizong of Song. A record from 1264 states that a rocket-propelled firework went off near the Empress Dowager Gong Sheng, rocket propulsion was common in warfare, as evidenced by the Huolongjing compiled by Liu Bowen and Jiao Yu. In 1240 the Arabs acquired knowledge of gunpowder and its uses from China, with the development of chinoiserie in Europe, Chinese fireworks began to gain popularity around the mid-17th century. Lev Izmailov, ambassador of Peter the Great, once reported from China and his writings would be translated in 1765, resulting in the popularization of fireworks and further attempts to uncover the secrets of Chinese fireworks
29.
Empire State Building
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The Empire State Building is a 102-story skyscraper located on Fifth Avenue between West 33rd and 34th Streets in Midtown, Manhattan, New York City. It has a height of 1,250 feet, and with its antenna included. Its name is derived from the nickname for New York, the Empire State and it stood as the worlds tallest building for nearly 40 years, from its completion in early 1931 until the topping out of the original World Trade Centers North Tower in late 1970. Following the September 11 attacks in 2001, the Empire State Building was again the tallest building in New York, the Empire State Building is currently the fifth-tallest completed skyscraper in the United States and the 34th-tallest in the world. It is also the fifth-tallest freestanding structure in the Americas, when measured by pinnacle height, it is the fourth-tallest building in the United States. The Empire State Building is an American cultural icon and it is designed in the distinctive Art Deco style and has been named as one of the Seven Wonders of the Modern World by the American Society of Civil Engineers. The building and its street floor interior are designated landmarks of the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission and it was designated as a National Historic Landmark in 1986. In 2007, it was ranked number one on the AIAs List of Americas Favorite Architecture, the site of the Empire State Building was first developed as the John Thompson Farm in the late 18th century. At the time, a stream ran across the site, emptying into Sunfish Pond, beginning in the late 19th century, the block was occupied by the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel, frequented by The Four Hundred, the social elite of New York. The limestone for the Empire State Building came from the Empire Mill in Sanders, Indiana which is a town adjacent to Bloomington. The Empire Mill Land office is near State Road 37 and Old State Road 37 just south of Bloomington, the Bloomington, Bedford, and Oolitic area is known locally as the limestone capital of the world. The Empire State Building was designed by William F, the building was designed from the top down. The general contractors were The Starrett Brothers and Eken, and the project was financed primarily by John J. Raskob, the construction company was chaired by Alfred E. Smith, a former Governor of New York and James Farleys General Builders Supply Corporation supplied the building materials. John W. Bowser was project construction superintendent, excavation of the site began on January 22,1930, and construction on the building itself started on March 17—St. Patricks Day—per Al Smiths influence as Empire State, Inc. president, the project involved 3,400 workers, mostly immigrants from Europe, along with hundreds of Mohawk iron workers, many from the Kahnawake reserve near Montreal. According to official accounts, five died during the construction. Governor Smiths grandchildren cut the ribbon on May 1,1931, lewis Wickes Hines photography of the construction provides not only invaluable documentation of the construction, but also a glimpse into common day life of workers in that era. The construction was part of a competition in New York for the title of worlds tallest building
30.
Mission: Impossible 2
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Mission, Impossible 2 is a 2000 American-Australian action spy film directed by John Woo and starring Tom Cruise, who also served as the films producer. It is the sequel to the 1996 film Mission, Impossible, production began after the successful release of the first film. Brian De Palma declined the offer to direct, during production, several action sequences were added. It is the first film in the Mission, Impossible series where Ethan Hunt is actually working for the IMF, Mission, Impossible 2 was released in theatres worldwide on May 24,2000. It grossed more than $546.4 million worldwide, becoming the highest grossing film of 2000, but the critical response was mixed, praise was directed at Tom Cruises performance and the action sequences, but the plot and dialogue were criticized. Ethan Hunt is alerted by the IMF that someone has used his identity to assist bio-chemical expert Dr. Vladimir Nekhorvich to enter the United States, only to kill him in a subsequent plane crash. Nekhorvich, an old friend of Ethan, had forewarned the IMF of his arrival, planning to deliver to them a new bioweapon, Chimera and he was forced to develop these by Biocyte Pharmaceuticals. IMF determines that rogue IMF agent Sean Ambrose is responsible, IMF assigns Ethan to recover the virus and its cure. It also insists that he recruits Nyah Nordoff-Hall, a professional thief presently operating in Seville, later, Ethan finds out that she is Ambroses ex-girlfriend. After recruiting Nyah, Ethan assembles his team, computer expert Luther Stickell and pilot Billy Baird, in Sydney, Australia, as Ethan stakes out Biocyte, Nyah gets close to Ambrose and begins to learn about the Chimera virus. At a horse racing event, Ambrose meets with Biocytes CEO and he shows McCloy a video of Chimera affecting one of Nekhorvichs colleagues. He then blackmails McCloy into cooperating with him, Nyah steals video footage and transfers it to Ethan. Ethans team learn that Chimera has a 20-hour dormant period before it causes death by mass destruction of the red blood cells. Bellerophon can only save the victim if used within that 20-hour window, the IMF team kidnaps McCloy to force him to give up Bellerophon. However, they learn that the samples of Bellerophon were taken by Nekhorvich. Ambrose has the cure, but does not have the virus, as a result, Ambrose forced McCloy to exchange a sample of the virus for a sample of Bellerophon. The team break into Biocyte to destroy the virus, Ambrose, posing as Ethan, tricks Nyah into revealing his plan. Ambrose captures Nyah and raids Biocyte to secure the virus, Ethan is able to destroy all but one sample of the virus before Ambrose intervenes, and a firefight ensues
31.
Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: The Movie
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Mighty Morphin Power Rangers, The Movie is a 1995 American superhero film based on the television series of the same name. It stars the ensemble cast of Karan Ashley, Johnny Yong Bosch, Steve Cardenas, Jason David Frank, Amy Jo Johnson, much like the television season that followed the release, it used concepts from the Japanese Super Sentai series Ninja Sentai Kakuranger. It is the first Power Rangers production from Saban Entertainment not to feature any archived footage from Super Sentai and it was released by 20th Century Fox on 30 June 1995. The film grossed $66.43 million worldwide, but received middling and polarizing reviews from critics, the Rangers participate with Bulk and Skull in a charity skydive for the Angel Grove observatory, in anticipation of Ryans Comet which is scheduled to pass by in two days. Bulk and Skull miss the landing zone and accidentally land on a construction site where a giant egg has been unearthed. Ivan lays siege to the Rangers Command Center and incapacitates Zordon, as the Rangers return to the Command Center, they find it destroyed and Zordon dying. Zordons assistant Alpha 5 sends the Rangers to the distant planet Phaedos to obtain the Great Power, on Earth, Ivan usurps Rita and Zedd, trapping them in a snow globe. Ivan sends his Tengu warriors to Phaedos and begins building an army and he uses his ooze to hypnotize the adults, forcing them to be his workforce to dig up his Ecto-Morphicon Titans, twin war machines built during his reign. When Fred Kelman, a friend of the Rangers, discovers his missing, he finds him working at the construction site. On Phaedos, the Rangers are almost killed by the Tengu, after hearing of Zordons plight, she agrees to help them and takes them to an ancient ruined temple where the Rangers will have to overcome obstacles to acquire the power of the Ninjetti. Dulcea awakens each Rangers animal spirit, Aisha is the bear, Billy is the wolf, Rocky is the ape, Kimberly is the crane, Tommy is the falcon, and Adam is the frog. The Rangers make their way to the Monolith housing the Great Power, defeat its four guardians, on Earth, Ivans Ecto-Morphicons are completely unearthed, and he unleashes them on Angel Grove, ordering the parents to commit suicide at the construction site. Fred, Bulk, Skull and other head to the construction site to save their parents. The Rangers return with their new animal-themed Ninja Zords and destroy one of Ivans Ecto-Morphicons, Ivan takes control of the other and battles the Rangers himself. The Rangers lead Ivan into space right into the path of Ryans Comet and his destruction breaks the hypnosis and the parents are reunited with their children. The Rangers then use the Great Power to restore the Command Center, in a mid-credits scene, Goldar briefly lounges in Zedds throne being served by Mordant only to panic when Zedd and Rita appear having been released after Ivan was destroyed. Marvel Comics released a book adaptation and a photo comic book adaptation of the film in September 1995. The comic book was printed two different covers, one featuring fully morphed Rangers and the other featuring them in their Ninjetti uniforms
32.
Godzilla: Final Wars
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Godzilla, Final Wars is a 2004 Japanese kaiju film featuring Godzilla, produced and distributed by Toho. It is the 29th film in the Godzilla franchise, the 28th Godzilla film produced by Toho, and it is also the last Godzilla film to be produced by any studio until Godzilla and the last Godzilla film to be produced by Toho until Shin Godzilla. As the franchises 50th anniversary film, a variety of actors and monsters from previous Godzilla films make appearances in the film, Godzilla, Final Wars held its premiere on November 29,2004 in Los Angeles, California and was released in Japan on December 4,2004. Before the world premiere, Godzilla received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, in Antarctica, Godzilla is entrapped in ice after a battle with the original Gotengo. In 203X, environmental disasters cause the appearance of giant monsters and superhumans, dubbed mutants, an upgraded Gotengo, commanded by Captain Gordon, battles and destroys Manda, but in the process, the ship is wrecked and Gordon is suspended from the EDF. Mutant soldier Shinichi Ozaki is tasked with guarding a U. N. biologist, Dr. Miyuki Otonashi and they warn that a battle between good and evil will happen soon and that Ozaki must choose a side. Giant monsters begin attacking several major cities, the EDF engage the creatures, who mysteriously vanish at the same moment when an alien mothership appears over Tokyo. The aliens, named Xiliens, warn that a planet called Gorath will soon impact the Earth. A peace pact is signed between Earth and the Xiliens, meanwhile, Minilla, Godzillas son, is found in the forest by a boy and his grandfather. After exposing them on television, the Xilien Controller reveals their plans to use mankind as a food source. The Controller assumes control of all of the mutants except Ozaki, the others escape while the Controller awakens Gigan and unleashes it along with the other monsters once again. Gordon convinces the group that only Godzilla can defeat the monsters, Gigan is sent to destroy them but is easily destroyed by Godzilla. The Gotengo then guides Godzilla into battle with the other monsters, after penetrating the mothership, the group is captured and taken to the Controller. Godzilla destroys Gorath just before it crashes, unleashing Monster X, an upgraded Gigan aids Monster X but is intercepted by Mothra, who both perish in the end. The Controller reveals that both he and Ozaki are Keizers, super-beings with unimaginable power, and attempts to control Ozaki but is stopped by Miyuki, Ozaki defeats the Controller, who sets the ship to self-destruct. The humans escape in the Gotengo moments before the mothership explodes, Godzilla and Monster X continue their battle but Monster X transforms into its true form, Keizer Ghidorah. Keizer Ghidorah initially gets the upper-hand but Godzilla emerges victorious in the end, Minilla shows up at the scene and convinces Godzilla not to destroy the Gotengo. The survivors watch Godzilla and Minilla return to the ocean and they lost that touch in the ’80s
33.
Hyperboloid structure
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Hyperboloid structures are architectural structures designed using a hyperboloid in one sheet. The first hyperboloid structures were built by Russian engineer Vladimir Shukhov, the worlds first hyperboloid tower is located in Polibino, Dankovsky District, Lipetsk Oblast, Russia. Hyperbolic structures have a negative Gaussian curvature, meaning they curve inward rather than outward or being straight. As doubly ruled surfaces, they can be made with a lattice of beams, hence are easier to build than curved surfaces that do not have a ruling. With cooling towers, a structure is preferred. At the bottom, the widening of the tower provides an area for installation of fill to promote thin film evaporative cooling of the circulated water. In the 1880s, Shukhov began to work on the problem of the design of systems to use a minimum of materials, time. His calculations were most likely derived from mathematician Pafnuty Chebyshevs work on the theory of best approximations of functions, Shukhovs mathematical explorations of efficient roof structures led to his invention of a new system that was innovative both structurally and spatially. The steel gridshells of the pavilions of the 1896 All-Russian Industrial. Two pavilions of this type were built for the Nizhni Novgorod exposition, one oval in plan, the roofs of these pavilions were doubly curved gridshells formed entirely of a lattice of straight angle-iron and flat iron bars. Shukhov himself called them azhurnaia bashnia, the patent of this system, for which Shukhov applied in 1895, was awarded in 1899. Shukhov also turned his attention to the development of an efficient and his solution was inspired by observing the action of a woven basket holding up a heavy weight. Again, it took the form of a curved surface constructed of a light network of straight iron bars. Over the next twenty years, he designed and built close to two hundred of these towers, no two alike, most with heights in the range of 12m to 68m. At least as early as 1911, Shukhov began experimenting with the concept of forming a tower out of stacked sections of hyperboloids. Stacking the sections permitted the form of the tower to taper more at the top, increasing the number of sections would increase the tapering of the overall form, to the point that it began to resemble a cone. By 1918 Shukhov had developed this concept into the design of a nine-section stacked hyperboloid radio transmission tower for Moscow, Shukhov designed a 350m tower, which would have surpassed the Eiffel Tower in height by 50m, while using less than a quarter of the amount of material. In July 1919, Lenin decreed that the tower should be built to a height of 150m, construction of the smaller tower with six stacked hyperboloids began within a few months, and Shukhov Tower was completed by March 1922
34.
Internet Archive
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The Internet Archive is a San Francisco–based nonprofit digital library with the stated mission of universal access to all knowledge. As of October 2016, its collection topped 15 petabytes, in addition to its archiving function, the Archive is an activist organization, advocating for a free and open Internet. Its web archive, the Wayback Machine, contains over 150 billion web captures, the Archive also oversees one of the worlds largest book digitization projects. Founded by Brewster Kahle in May 1996, the Archive is a 501 nonprofit operating in the United States. It has a budget of $10 million, derived from a variety of sources, revenue from its Web crawling services, various partnerships, grants, donations. Its headquarters are in San Francisco, California, where about 30 of its 200 employees work, Most of its staff work in its book-scanning centers. The Archive has data centers in three Californian cities, San Francisco, Redwood City, and Richmond, the Archive is a member of the International Internet Preservation Consortium and was officially designated as a library by the State of California in 2007. Brewster Kahle founded the Archive in 1996 at around the time that he began the for-profit web crawling company Alexa Internet. In October 1996, the Internet Archive had begun to archive and preserve the World Wide Web in large quantities, the archived content wasnt available to the general public until 2001, when it developed the Wayback Machine. In late 1999, the Archive expanded its collections beyond the Web archive, Now the Internet Archive includes texts, audio, moving images, and software. It hosts a number of projects, the NASA Images Archive, the contract crawling service Archive-It. According to its web site, Most societies place importance on preserving artifacts of their culture, without such artifacts, civilization has no memory and no mechanism to learn from its successes and failures. Our culture now produces more and more artifacts in digital form, the Archives mission is to help preserve those artifacts and create an Internet library for researchers, historians, and scholars. In August 2012, the Archive announced that it has added BitTorrent to its file download options for over 1.3 million existing files, on November 6,2013, the Internet Archives headquarters in San Franciscos Richmond District caught fire, destroying equipment and damaging some nearby apartments. The nonprofit Archive sought donations to cover the estimated $600,000 in damage, in November 2016, Kahle announced that the Internet Archive was building the Internet Archive of Canada, a copy of the archive to be based somewhere in the country of Canada. The announcement received widespread coverage due to the implication that the decision to build an archive in a foreign country was because of the upcoming presidency of Donald Trump. Kahle was quoted as saying that on November 9th in America and it was a firm reminder that institutions like ours, built for the long-term, need to design for change. For us, it means keeping our cultural materials safe, private and it means preparing for a Web that may face greater restrictions
35.
Portable Document Format
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The Portable Document Format is a file format used to present documents in a manner independent of application software, hardware, and operating systems. Each PDF file encapsulates a complete description of a fixed-layout flat document, including the text, fonts, graphics, PDF was developed in the early 1990s as a way to share computer documents, including text formatting and inline images. It was among a number of competing formats such as DjVu, Envoy, Common Ground Digital Paper, Farallon Replica, in those early years before the rise of the World Wide Web and HTML documents, PDF was popular mainly in desktop publishing workflows. Adobe Systems made the PDF specification available free of charge in 1993 and these proprietary technologies are not standardized and their specification is published only on Adobe’s website. Many of them are not supported by popular third-party implementations of PDF. So when organizations publish PDFs which use proprietary technologies, they present accessibility issues for some users. In 2014, ISO TC171 voted to deprecate XFA for ISO 32000-2, on January 9,2017, the final draft for ISO 32000-2 was published, thus reaching the approval stage. The PDF combines three technologies, A subset of the PostScript page description programming language, for generating the layout, a font-embedding/replacement system to allow fonts to travel with the documents. A structured storage system to bundle these elements and any associated content into a single file, PostScript is a page description language run in an interpreter to generate an image, a process requiring many resources. It can handle graphics and standard features of programming such as if. PDF is largely based on PostScript but simplified to remove flow control features like these, often, the PostScript-like PDF code is generated from a source PostScript file. The graphics commands that are output by the PostScript code are collected and tokenized, any files, graphics, or fonts to which the document refers also are collected. Then, everything is compressed to a single file, therefore, the entire PostScript world remains intact. PDF supports graphic transparency, PostScript does not, PostScript is an interpreted programming language with an implicit global state, so instructions accompanying the description of one page can affect the appearance of any following page. Therefore, all preceding pages in a PostScript document must be processed to determine the appearance of a given page. A PDF file is a 7-bit ASCII file, except for elements that may have binary content. A PDF file starts with a header containing the magic number, the format is a subset of a COS format. A COS tree file consists primarily of objects, of which there are eight types, Boolean values, representing true or false Numbers Strings, enclosed within parentheses, objects may be either direct or indirect
36.
Wayback Machine
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The Internet Archive launched the Wayback Machine in October 2001. It was set up by Brewster Kahle and Bruce Gilliat, and is maintained with content from Alexa Internet, the service enables users to see archived versions of web pages across time, which the archive calls a three dimensional index. Since 1996, the Wayback Machine has been archiving cached pages of websites onto its large cluster of Linux nodes and it revisits sites every few weeks or months and archives a new version. Sites can also be captured on the fly by visitors who enter the sites URL into a search box, the intent is to capture and archive content that otherwise would be lost whenever a site is changed or closed down. The overall vision of the machines creators is to archive the entire Internet, the name Wayback Machine was chosen as a reference to the WABAC machine, a time-traveling device used by the characters Mr. Peabody and Sherman in The Rocky and Bullwinkle Show, an animated cartoon. These crawlers also respect the robots exclusion standard for websites whose owners opt for them not to appear in search results or be cached, to overcome inconsistencies in partially cached websites, Archive-It. Information had been kept on digital tape for five years, with Kahle occasionally allowing researchers, when the archive reached its fifth anniversary, it was unveiled and opened to the public in a ceremony at the University of California, Berkeley. Snapshots usually become more than six months after they are archived or, in some cases, even later. The frequency of snapshots is variable, so not all tracked website updates are recorded, Sometimes there are intervals of several weeks or years between snapshots. After August 2008 sites had to be listed on the Open Directory in order to be included. As of 2009, the Wayback Machine contained approximately three petabytes of data and was growing at a rate of 100 terabytes each month, the growth rate reported in 2003 was 12 terabytes/month, the data is stored on PetaBox rack systems manufactured by Capricorn Technologies. In 2009, the Internet Archive migrated its customized storage architecture to Sun Open Storage, in 2011 a new, improved version of the Wayback Machine, with an updated interface and fresher index of archived content, was made available for public testing. The index driving the classic Wayback Machine only has a bit of material past 2008. In January 2013, the company announced a ground-breaking milestone of 240 billion URLs, in October 2013, the company announced the Save a Page feature which allows any Internet user to archive the contents of a URL. This became a threat of abuse by the service for hosting malicious binaries, as of December 2014, the Wayback Machine contained almost nine petabytes of data and was growing at a rate of about 20 terabytes each week. Between October 2013 and March 2015 the websites global Alexa rank changed from 162 to 208, in a 2009 case, Netbula, LLC v. Chordiant Software Inc. defendant Chordiant filed a motion to compel Netbula to disable the robots. Netbula objected to the motion on the ground that defendants were asking to alter Netbulas website, in an October 2004 case, Telewizja Polska USA, Inc. v. Echostar Satellite, No.02 C3293,65 Fed. 673, a litigant attempted to use the Wayback Machine archives as a source of admissible evidence, Telewizja Polska is the provider of TVP Polonia and EchoStar operates the Dish Network
37.
International Standard Book Number
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The International Standard Book Number is a unique numeric commercial book identifier. An ISBN is assigned to each edition and variation of a book, for example, an e-book, a paperback and a hardcover edition of the same book would each have a different ISBN. The ISBN is 13 digits long if assigned on or after 1 January 2007, the method of assigning an ISBN is nation-based and varies from country to country, often depending on how large the publishing industry is within a country. The initial ISBN configuration of recognition was generated in 1967 based upon the 9-digit Standard Book Numbering created in 1966, the 10-digit ISBN format was developed by the International Organization for Standardization and was published in 1970 as international standard ISO2108. Occasionally, a book may appear without a printed ISBN if it is printed privately or the author does not follow the usual ISBN procedure, however, this can be rectified later. Another identifier, the International Standard Serial Number, identifies periodical publications such as magazines, the ISBN configuration of recognition was generated in 1967 in the United Kingdom by David Whitaker and in 1968 in the US by Emery Koltay. The 10-digit ISBN format was developed by the International Organization for Standardization and was published in 1970 as international standard ISO2108, the United Kingdom continued to use the 9-digit SBN code until 1974. The ISO on-line facility only refers back to 1978, an SBN may be converted to an ISBN by prefixing the digit 0. For example, the edition of Mr. J. G. Reeder Returns, published by Hodder in 1965, has SBN340013818 -340 indicating the publisher,01381 their serial number. This can be converted to ISBN 0-340-01381-8, the check digit does not need to be re-calculated, since 1 January 2007, ISBNs have contained 13 digits, a format that is compatible with Bookland European Article Number EAN-13s. An ISBN is assigned to each edition and variation of a book, for example, an ebook, a paperback, and a hardcover edition of the same book would each have a different ISBN. The ISBN is 13 digits long if assigned on or after 1 January 2007, a 13-digit ISBN can be separated into its parts, and when this is done it is customary to separate the parts with hyphens or spaces. Separating the parts of a 10-digit ISBN is also done with either hyphens or spaces, figuring out how to correctly separate a given ISBN number is complicated, because most of the parts do not use a fixed number of digits. ISBN issuance is country-specific, in that ISBNs are issued by the ISBN registration agency that is responsible for country or territory regardless of the publication language. Some ISBN registration agencies are based in national libraries or within ministries of culture, in other cases, the ISBN registration service is provided by organisations such as bibliographic data providers that are not government funded. In Canada, ISBNs are issued at no cost with the purpose of encouraging Canadian culture. In the United Kingdom, United States, and some countries, where the service is provided by non-government-funded organisations. Australia, ISBNs are issued by the library services agency Thorpe-Bowker
38.
The Sydney Morning Herald
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The Sydney Morning Herald is a daily compact newspaper published by Fairfax Media in Sydney, Australia. Founded in 1831 as the Sydney Herald, the SMH is the oldest continuously published newspaper in Australia, the newspaper is published six days a week. It is available at outlets in Sydney, regional New South Wales, Canberra, the Sydney Morning Herald includes a variety of supplements, including the magazines Good Weekend, and Sunday Life. By February 2016, average circulation had fallen to 104,000, similarWeb rates the site as the fifth most visited news website in Australia and as the 42nd newspapers website globally, attracting more than 15 million visitors per month. In 1931 a Centenary Supplement was published, the original four-page weekly had a print run of 750. In 1840, the newspaper began to publish daily, in 1841, an Englishman named John Fairfax purchased the operation, renaming it The Sydney Morning Herald the following year. Fairfax, whose family were to control the newspaper for almost 150 years, based his editorial policies upon principles of candour, honesty and we have no wish to mislead, no interest to gratify by unsparing abuse or indiscriminate approbation. During the decade 1890, Donald Murray worked there, the SMH was late to the trend of printing news rather than just advertising on the front page, doing so from 15 April 1944. Of the countrys metropolitan dailies, only The West Australian was later in making the switch, in 1949, the newspaper launched a Sunday edition, The Sunday Herald. Four years later, this was merged with the newly acquired Sun newspaper to create The Sun-Herald, in 1995, the company launched the newspapers web edition smh. com. au. The site has grown to include interactive and multimedia features beyond the content in the print edition. Around the same time, the organisation moved from Jones Street to new offices at Darling Park and built a new printing press at Chullora, the SMH has since moved with other Sydney Fairfax divisions to a building at Darling Island. In May 2007, Fairfax Media announced it would be moving from a format to the smaller compact or tabloid-size, in the footsteps of The Times. Fairfax Media dumped these plans later in the year, however, in June 2012, Fairfax Media again announced it planned to shift both broadsheet newspapers to tabloid size, in March 2013. Fairfax also announced it would cut staff across the group by 1,900 over three years and erect paywalls around the papers websites. The subscription type is to be a model, limiting readers to a number of free stories per month, with a payment required for further access. In July 2013 it was announced that the SMHs news director, Darren Goodsir, would become Editor-in-Chief, on 22 February 2014, the final Saturday edition was produced in broadsheet format with this too converted to compact format on 1 March 2014. Ahead of the decommissioning of the plant at Chullora in June 2014
39.
Alton Towers
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Alton Towers Resort, commonly referred to as Alton Towers, is a theme park, water park, and hotel complex in Staffordshire, England. It is operated by Merlin Entertainments Group, the site opened in 1860 with flower shows and garden tours until a theme park was built on the site, opening in 1980. Alton Towers Hotel opened in 1996, it was the first onsite accommodation to be built at the resort and it was followed in 2003 by the Caribbean-themed Splash Landings Hotel with an adjoining water park. The Enchanted Village opened in 2015 which includes 120 Lodges built, the complex also includes conference facilities, crazy golf and a high ropes course. The new CBeebies Land Hotel is currently scheduled to open on 8 July 2017, the park hosts special events throughout the year, such as concert nights, a Scarefest event for Halloween, and an end-of-season fireworks display. Early ride time does not operate during Scarefest or Fireworks, Rides available for early ride time for 2017 are Nemesis, The Blade, Oblivion, Enterprise and the majority of CBeebies Land The Alton Towers estate was a former seat of the Earl of Shrewsbury. Following its sale in 1924 a group of businessmen formed Alton Towers Ltd. In the 1950s this included the operation of a fairground, and by the 1970s included a boating lake, after millionaire property developer John Broome married the daughter of majority shareholder Denis Bagshaw in 1973, he bought out the controlling stake in Alton Towers. Over the next few years he laid the foundation for the theme park by installing various permanent rides. In the 1980s Broome marketed the park by installing a new ride every year - including Corkscrew, Pirate Ship, Alpine Bobsleigh, The Flume. Ride designer John Wardley was behind the concepts and layouts of the attractions in the 1990s that brought success to the themepark. 2005 saw the acquisition of Alton Towers by the investment group Dubai International Capital when it purchased Tussauds for £800 million, the Tussauds Group was then bought by Merlin Entertainments in March 2007 for over £1billion from DIC, placing Alton Towers under their control. In July 2007, the resort and park was sold to Nick Leslau and his investment firm Prestbury who now lease the park back to Merlin Entertainments to operate on a 35-year lease. the theme park is also home to the historic Towers and Gardens. The SkyRide cable car system travels between Towers Street, Forbidden Valley, and Cloud Cuckoo Land and takes in views of the gardens, the parks maximum capacity at any one time is set at 28,000 guests. According to the TEA attendance report, the park was estimated to have attracted 1,925,000 people in 2015, the park has cited The Smilers crash in June as the main reason for the parks large decrease. The decrease demoted Alton Towers to Britains 2nd most visited theme park after Legoland Windsor, in 2014, it was Britains most visited theme park and the 9th most visited theme park in Europe. The launch of the Thirteen rollercoaster saw the park attract 3 million admissions in the 2010 season. Timeline of park areas Gallery Opened in 1986, Towers Street is the first area that visitors to the park encounter, themed loosely as a town street, it leads to views of the gardens and the Towers across the lake in the distance
40.
Chessington World of Adventures
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Chessington World of Adventures Resort is a theme park, zoo and hotel complex that lies 12 miles southwest of Central London, England in the Chessington area of the Kingston upon Thames borough. Historically opened as Chessington Zoo in 1931, a park was developed by The Tussauds Group alongside the zoo, opening on 7 June 1987. The park was inherited by Merlin Entertainments after the buyout of Tussauds in 2007, under Merlin, Chessington has been increasingly developed into a resort tourist destination, including two on-site hotels, a high ropes course and camp site. Chessington Zoo has over 1,000 animals, including western lowland gorillas, sea lions, and Sumatran tigers. It is split up several areas, Trail of the Kings, Creepy Caves, Sealion Bay, Childrens Zoo, Amazu, Penguin Bay. Chessington World of Adventures theme park consists of themed areas styled on a range of world cultures and it currently has 10 discrete areas including the Adventure Point, Mystic East, Mexicana, Pirates Cove, Wild Woods, and Forbidden Kingdom. Land of the Dragons opened in 2004 for children although it includes the intense spinning coaster Dragons Fury, in the English Civil War it became a royalist stronghold, and Oliver Cromwells Parliamentary forces razed it to the ground. The Burnt Stub site was rebuilt as an inn, until the 18th century, the resort has its roots in the Chessington Zoo, which opened in 1931, it was started by Reginald Goddard, who had bought the estate to showcase his private collection of animals. In 1946 when Goddard died, the Pearson Publishing Company took over the zoo and managed it until 1978, in 1984, due to the zoos declining attendance, Tussaudss Director of Development, Ray Barratt commissioned John Wardley to come up with plans to revitalize the park. The decision was made to open a park to complement the zoo. On 7 June 1987 Chessington World of Adventures opened to the public, the park was built on a relatively small budget of around £12 million, in case the project failed. The new rides were to operate on a pay-one-price admission basis, other support rides were also opened, and the park opened just five themed areas, Calamity Canyon, Mystic East, Market Square, Toy Town and Circus World. The attractions were all themed with emphasis on atmosphere and effects. The 1990 season bought two of Chessingtons more popular rides with the opening of Transylvania, Vampire and Professor Burps Bubbleworks, both of these rides had significant impact on the park, and are still exceedingly popular today. Opening Transylvania cost around £10 million, by this time Smugglers Galleon and the Smugglers Cove area had been created, both opening in 1988. The 1995 season arrived with the intense Rameses Revenge, the parks first inverting ride, Rameses Revenge was new in the Forbidden Kingdom area, an area which had opened the previous year, bringing the Terror Tomb dark ride in replacement of the 5th Dimension. Also new for 1995 was SeaStorm in Pirates Cove, and the Carousel, in 1999, Chessington opened the hardcore thrill ride Samurai in the Mystic East. 1999 also saw the rename of Calamity Canyon into Mexicana, following the opening of Rattlesnake the year before,2000 saw Beanoland open on the former site of Circus World, bringing two new rides to the park, Billys Whizzer and Rodger the Dodgers Dodgems
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Gardaland
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Gardaland is an amusement park located in North-Eastern Italy. Opened 19 July 1975, the resort includes Gardaland, Gardaland Sea-Life, and it is adjacent to Lake Garda, but does not actually face the water. The entire complex covers an area of 445,000 m2, sporting both traditional attractions and entertainment shows, it attracts nearly 3 million visitors every year. Since October 2006, the park is owned by the British company Merlin Entertainments, major attractions at the park include Mammut, Jungle Rapids, Fuga Da Atlantide, Blue Tornado, Ramses, Il Risveglio, Raptor and Oblivion, The Black Hole which opened on 28 March 2015. Built on the shore of Lake Garda at Castelnuovo del Garda, Gardaland opened on 19 July 1975. It has expanded steadily in size and attendance, topping 1 million visitors annually for the first time in 1984. By 2007, attendance reached 3 million, Gardaland is now the eighth-most-popular theme park in Europe, and is run and operated by the Merlin Entertainments Group. It has a total of 32 rides, including seven roller coasters, the coasters are Blue Tornado, Magic Mountain, Sequoia Adventure, Raptor, Orto Bruco, Mammut and Oblivion, The Black Hole. Fuga da Atlantide is a Shoot the Chute, the park has a number of themed areas, including Fantasy Kingdom. The Energy area has a number of roller coasters. Note, the following list is incomplete
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Heide Park
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The Heide Park Resort is a theme park in Soltau, Lower Saxony, Germany. With an overall area of over 850,000 m², it is the largest amusement park in Northern Germany and it is part of the British-based Merlin Entertainments. The site originally belonged to the Heidenhof Wildlife Park, which was named after the chapel that was there in 1350. After the zoo was closed in 1972 following a devastating storm, when Heide Park opened in August 19,1978 it offered only six rides, the Monzapiste, the Heide Park Express, the Oldtimerrundkurs, the Floßfahrt, the Wichtelhausenbahn and the Hochbahn. In its first season, the Heide Park had just under 200,000 visitors,1979 saw the first dolphin show, for which they built a large domed roof a year later. The Heide-Dorf, a detailed replica of typical buildings from the Lüneburg Heath, was inaugurated in the 1988 season. In 1996/97 the Dutch section of the park was built with a windmill, with the growth of the park, the catchment area grew as well. In the 1990s, up to two people visited Heide-Park each season with 2.100.000 guests in 2001. The following year the UK-based Tussauds Group bought the park and since then attendance to the park has decreased to 1.5 -1.6 million visitors per annum, Hans-Jürgen Tiemann still has influence in the park by shares and as an advisory director of the Tussauds Group. In early 2007 the Merlin Entertainments Group bought the majority of the shares of Tussauds Group from Dubai International Capital, which had taken over the shares in 2005. The most recognizable landmark in the park is a 1/3 scale replica of the Statue of Liberty, at the end of 2011 the whole structure was relocated to stand within the roller coaster Colossos. The parks mascot is a bear called Wumbo, in the 1990s, Hans-Jurgen Tiemann was successful as a driver and sponsor on the touring-car racing circuit, while his son Marcel Tiemann began a career as a professional race car driver. The music played at Heide Park is a combination of tracks, library music. The following composers have had their music played at the park, Graham Smart, Ian Habgood, David Buckley, Crispin Merrell, halloween in October is a special event. Hotel Port Royal was opened in 2007 with 150 family rooms and 16 suites, there is also a Holiday Camp that opened in 2005 with 81 wooden houses in Caribbean style with a total of 536 beds. The park is divided into five areas, Heide Park currently has about 40 rides which are mainly aimed at families but its thrill rides are also very popular. The latest attraction is the wing coaster Flug der Dämonen and it is Germanys first wing coaster and reaches a maximum of 4G positive during the ride. - a 7 min horror maze, Heide Park and this indoor horror maze has 7 different scenes in the 300 sq m building with plenty of special effects and live actors as well
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Thorpe Park
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Thorpe Park, styled THORPE PARK Resort, is a theme park with a hotel in between the towns of Chertsey and Staines, Surrey, England, UK. It is operated and owned by Merlin Entertainments, after demolition of the Thorpe Park Estate in the 1930s, the site became a gravel pit. Thorpe Park was built in the 1970s on the pit which was partially flooded. This essentially allows guests to view the park as an island and it was officially opened to the public by the late Lord Louis Mountbatten in 1979. Major attractions include Tidal Wave, Colossus, Nemesis Inferno, Stealth, SAW - The Ride, The Swarm, the park is mainly geared towards a young adult/teenage audience due to the vast majority of signature attractions being roller coasters and thrill rides. The tallest of these being Stealth, an Intamin Accelerator Coaster, as well as this, The Swarm, which is the only B&M wing coaster in the UK, has a total of 5 inversions and is 127 feet tall. The demolition of the Thorpe Park Estate in the 1930s saw the site transform into a gravel pit, in the late 1970s they decided to flood part of the site and create an educational theme park. The park opened as an attraction, building slowly up to RMCs first large installation of X. In 1998, The Tussauds Group bought the park, from the outset the park started opening key attractions such as Tidal Wave in 2000, Colossus in 2002, Nemesis Inferno in 2003 and Stealth in 2006. Thorpe Park is split into themed areas, Port & Basecamp, Amity, The Jungle, Old Town, Lost City, Swarm Island, Angry Birds Land. Amity, previously Amity Cove and also Amity Beach, is themed as a 1950s fishing village that has been devastated by a tidal wave. The attractions in this area are, Tidal Wave, Stealth, Flying Fish, Storm in a Teacup, Depth Charge, Wet Wet Wet, Amity Beach, Old Town, previously Canada Creek and SAW Island, opened in 1989 and 2009 respectively. It is themed around the Canadian Rockies, the main attraction of the area, is Saw - The Ride a Gerstlauer Eurofighter with three inversions. It is the coaster in the world themed around a horror film. This area also has the UKs tallest water ride, called Loggers Leap, the worlds only Sky Swat, Slammer, Old Town is also home to the now defunct Canada Creek Railway, which closed in late 2011. The Jungle, previously Calypso Quay, is an area in the park themed around a tropical caribbean jungle, four rides reside within this area, Nemesis Inferno, Mr Monkeys Banana Ride, Rumba Rapids and the Im a Celebrity Get Me Out of Here Maze. Lost City opened in 2001 and is themed around an ancient Aztec land, main attractions include, Colossus, Quantum, Rush, X, Samurai, Vortex, Zodiac. Swarm Island was the new area for 2012, the land was reclaimed from the water that surrounds the island and it paints a picture of an apocalyptic end to the world with the roller coaster The Swarm
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Legoland
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Legoland is a chain of childrens/family theme parks. They are not fully owned by Lego Group itself, rather they are owned and operated by the British theme park company Merlin Entertainments, the Legoland Billund Resort opened in Billund, Denmark in 1968, followed by the Legoland Windsor Resort in Windsor, England in 1996. Further parks opened in California, Germany, Florida, Malaysia, Dubai, parks in South Korea and Shanghai are currently under construction, with a future Legoland planned in Orange County, New York. For example, all six of the include a Lego miniland. An important aspect of Legoland is education, epistemology, and learning and they tend to be based on one particular line of Lego, for example, a popular ride at all six parks is the Dragon Coaster, which is loosely based on the Knights Kingdom Lego sets. Another popular ride is the Driving school, in children can drive small electric cars made to look like Lego cars around a small road network. Despite the commonality of the attractions, the exact set of rides varies between parks, although as with the Disney parks there is some overlap. Legoland in Billund, Denmark, is the oldest Legoland and was built near the original Lego factory. It is divided into ten different worlds, Duplo Land, Imagination Zone, LEGOREDO Town, Adventure Land, Miniland, Pirate Land, Lego City, Knights Kingdom, Viking Land, and Polar Land. The park opened in 1968 and has 1.6 million visitors annually, Legoland Deutschland is located in Günzburg, Germany, and opened in 2002. As of 2009, there are seven areas in the park, including, Imagination Center, Miniland, LEGO X-treme, LEGO City, Knights Kingdom, Adventure Land, and Land of the Pirates. Legoland Windsor was built on the site of the previous Windsor Safari Park in Windsor, Berkshire and it is the largest Legoland park in the world in terms of area – its area is approximately 5 times greater than that of Legoland Billund. Legoland Dubai opened in Dubai, United Arab Emirates on October 31,2016 and it will have 6 areas, Factory, Lego City, Imagination, Kingdoms, Adventure, and the first indoor Miniland. Legoland California is in Carlsbad, California, in northern San Diego County, a Sea Life aquarium is adjacent to Legoland California. In 2010, a park opened on its grounds, as one of the only three of Legoland parks to feature a water park. On May 24,2014, an add-on was built for the water park, the park was built on the former site of Cypress Gardens, a historically famous Florida theme park. Legoland Florida opened a water park replacing the former Cypress Gardens Splash Island water park on May 26,2012. On 30 June 2014, Merlin and Nagoya city officially announced that they had signed a contract to construct Legoland Japan, to open in Nagoya harbour, Japan, construction officially began on April 15,2015
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Legoland Billund Resort
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Legoland Billund, the original Legoland park, opened on June 7,1958 in Billund, Denmark. The park is located next to the original Lego factory and Denmarks second busiest airport Billund Airport, over 1.9 million guests visited the park in 2011 and since the opening more than 50 million guests have visited the park. This makes Legoland the largest tourist attraction in Denmark outside of Copenhagen, the Legoland parks that have since been built are modelled upon Legoland Billund, most noticeably the Miniland area which is made up of millions of Lego bricks. The first Legoland was built next door to the Lego factory that was founded by Ole Kirk Christiansen in 1949 and his son, Godtfred, took over the family business in 1957 when his father died and just two years later he bought out his three brothers. In 1958 Godtfred decided to open a 14-acre Legoland Park to promote his toy business, the park became an instant success and has over the years added many original rides and been divided into specific themed worlds. The now 45-acre park is divided into 9 themed areas,1, today, Legoland Billund is the most visited tourist attraction in Jylland. In 2005 the investment firm Blackstone bought a 70% controlling stake in Legoland, the parks are operated under the Merlin banner. Mini Land is the heart of any Legoland park, the Lego Top offers a nice view of the entire park. The structures were made using more than 25 million Lego Bricks, Duplo Land contains rides and attractions for young children, with the Lego Duplo brand name. The Duplo Playhouse is an area for children ages 2–6. They can build using Lego, or play on fake planes, there are also slides, stairs, interactive elements and a role-play area. The Duplo train, which is a train ride that looks like a train made of Duplo Bricks. Duplo Planes is a ride similar to Disneys Dumbo ride. Duplo driving school is a car ride for children ages 2–6 and this zone contains the Lego Studio, a purpose built 600 seat 4-D Theater, complete with special effects and a giant screen. There are 4 movies that play daily, these are Lego Racers, Spellbreaker, Bob the Builder 4D, Lego Atlantis by Sea Life was added in 2007. The attraction starts off with a movie, featuring Lego figures. There is also a Sea Life aquarium and other hands on activities with more than 800 sea creatures, numerous Lego figures and models are in and around the aquarium. LEGOREDO Town is a Western-themed land which contains the rides Lego Canoe, LEGOLDMINE, Westernride, Timber Ride, there is also an Indian camp led by the popular Chief Long Ears
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Legoland California
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Legoland California is a theme park, miniature park, and aquarium located in Carlsbad, California, based on the Lego toy brand. Opening on March 20,1999, it was the third Legoland park to open, the park is currently owned by Merlin Entertainments, which took a controlling interest in 2005. A second park in the United States, Legoland Florida, opened in 2011, the Legoland California Resort currently encompasses the original park, a Lego-themed Sea Life Aquarium, a Chima-themed water park and a hotel. Explorer Island is a section with themes of dinosaurs and exploration and it was installed by Ride Entertainment Group, who handles all of Gerstlauers operations in the Western Hemisphere. Fun Town is an amusement area where guests simulate adult skills or professional identities. Miniland USA is a 1,20 scale model miniature park featuring prominent architecture, certain models are visible throughout the Legoland park. It was constructed over the course of three years using more than 20 million LEGO bricks, miniland includes the Model Shop, the main design and building office for Legolands US parks. A large viewing window allows guests to watch master model builders working on new models, repairs and refurbishment of existing models are also conducted in the Model Shop. Miniland officials insist all such scenes are incorporated with full management knowledge, castle Hill is a medieval castle-themed area. The area includes a golf course. The space had previously housed a rock band or singing rock garden, the rocks original recording can still be heard on holes 12-18 on the course. Kids can also race Lego cars that they build themselves in Build n Test, play the Maniac Challenge in which guests play LEGO PC games, and program robots in Mindstorms. Guests can also ride on Bionicle Blaster, which is a version of the ride, or the Aquazone Wave Racers. Pirate Shores is a park with six water-oriented rides and attractions. This section is designed to replicate the 1920s in Egypt, pharaohs Revenge involves guests firing foam balls at targets and at each other. On Beetle Bounce guests bounce nearly 15 feet to touch the enormous beetles above. Cargo Ace, lets guests board one of eight planes to fly six feet into the air, in Lost Kingdom Adventure, guests board and ride a roadster to recover stolen treasure by blasting targets with laser guns along their journey. Another recently opened attraction is Dune Raiders, which is a slide and this is a water park area in Legoland California
