Dennis Morgan
Dennis Morgan was an American actor-singer. He used the acting pseudonym Richard Stanley before adopting the name under which he gained his greatest fame. According to one obituary, he was "a twinkly-eyed handsome charmer with a shy smile and a pleasant tenor voice in carefree and inconsequential Warner Bros musicals of the forties, accompanied by Jack Carson." Another said, "for all his undoubted star potential, Morgan was cast once too as the likeable, clean-cut, easy-going but uncharismatic young man who loses his girl to someone more sexually magnetic." David Shipman said he "was comfortable, good-looking, well-mannered: the antithesis of the gritty Bogart." Morgan was born in the village of Prentice in Price County in northern Wisconsin, the son of Grace J. and Frank Edward Morner. He was of Swedish descent on his father's side, he enrolled at Carroll College, now known as Carroll University, in Waukesha, Wisconsin as a member of the 1930 graduating class. He was awarded the Carroll College Distinguished Alumnus Award in 1983.
He began his career as a radio announcer in Milwaukee and went on to broadcast Green Bay Packers football games. He became a radio singer in Chicago. After relocating to Los Angeles, Morgan began appearing in films, he signed a contract with MGM as "Stanley Morner". Unbilled, he sang the Irving Berlin song, in The Great Ziegfeld, he was billed as "Stanley Morner" in Suzy and could be seen in Piccadilly Jim, Old Hutch. He was given a decent role in Mama Steps Out and Song of the City but went back to small parts in Navy Blue and Gold, he signed with Paramount who billed him as "Richard Stanley". He was in Men with Wings, King of Alcatraz, Illegal Traffic, Persons in Hiding, he went over to Warner Bros who billed him as "Dennis Morgan". According to Shipman the stdio "put him on the assembly-line with Wayne Morris, Arthur Kennedy, Jeffrey Lynn, Eddie Albert and Ronald Reagan - likeable young lugs squiring the heroine till Bogart, Cagney or Flynn came crashing down to sweep her up."He was given the lead in a B, followed by No Place to Go and The Return of Doctor X. Morgan was promoted to "A" films with The Fighting 69th, supporting James Cagney and Pat O'Brien.
He supported Priscilla Lane in Three Cheers for the Irish and went back to "B"s for Tear Gas Squad, Flight Angels, River's End. Morgan's career received a boost when RKO borrowed him to play Ginger Rogers' love interest in Kitty Foyle, a big hit. Warners put him in some comedies, Affectionately Yours and Kisses for Breakfast a Western, Bad Men of Missouri, he supported Cagney again in Captains of the Clouds and Bette Davis and Olivia de Havilland in In This Our Life. Morgan co-starred with Ann Sheridan in Wings for the Ida Lupino in The Hard Way, he had the lead in some big Warners musicals: Thank Your Lucky Stars, full of cameos from Warner stars. The latter featured Jack Carson in a key role, he and Morgan would go on to be a notable team. Morgan cameoed in Hollywood Canteen, he had the lead in Christmas in Connecticut with Barbara Stanwyck. Morgan was teamed with fellow Wisconsinite Jack Carson in One More Tomorrow. Warners liked them as a combination, seeing them as similar to Bing Crosby and Bob Hope at Paramount.
In the words of Shipman, the films would feature "Morgan as the easy-going singer who always got the girl and Carson as the loud-mouthed but cowardly braggard-comic, given the air. No one thought they were Hope and Crosby, least of all themselves."They were reunited in Two Guys from Milwaukee and The Time, the Place and the Girl. Without Carson, Morgan made a Western, Cheyenne, a musical My Wild Irish Rose, To the Victor. In 1947 he was voted Singer of the Year, he was back with Carson for Two Guys from Texas made One Sunday Afternoon with Janis Paige. He and Carson were. Exhibitors voted him the 21st most popular star in the US for 1948. Morgan made The Lady Takes a Sailor Perfect Strangers with Rogers and Pretty Baby with Betsy Drake, he made a Western Raton Pass, a musical Painting the Clouds with Sunshine. He supported Joan Crawford in This Woman Is Dangerous went back to Westerns with Cattle Town. After that his contract with Warners ended. Morgan said "my mistake was I stayed at one studio too long.
Another mistake: I turned down early television, believing then... that people should pay to see us." He appeared in sporadic television guest roles in the 1950s, including the ABC religion anthology series, Crossroads, in the 1955 episode "The Gambler" and as Senator designate Fairchild in an episode of the dramatic anthology series Stage 7, titled "Press Conference" in 1955. Morgan made films for Sam Katzman, The Gun That Won the West and Uranium Boom and went to RKO for Pearl of the South Pacific, he was cast as Dennis O'Finn in the 1958 episode "Bull in a China Shop" on Alfred Hitchcock Presents. In 1959, Morgan appeared as a regular, Dennis Chase, in eleven episodes of the crime drama, 21 Beacon Street, with Joanna Barnes and Brian Kelly. By 1956, he had retired from films but still made occasional appearances on television, such as the role of Chad Hamilton in the 1962 episode "Source of Information" of t
Broadway theatre
Broadway theatre known as Broadway, refers to the theatrical performances presented in the 41 professional theatres, each with 500 or more seats located in the Theater District and Lincoln Center along Broadway, in Midtown Manhattan, New York City. Along with London's West End theatre, Broadway theatre is considered to represent the highest level of commercial theatre in the English-speaking world; the Theater District is a popular tourist attraction in New York City. According to The Broadway League, for the 2017–2018 season total attendance was 13,792,614 and Broadway shows had US$1,697,458,795 in grosses, with attendance up 3.9%, grosses up 17.1%, playing weeks up 2.8%. The majority of Broadway shows are musicals. Historian Martin Shefter argues that "'Broadway musicals', culminating in the productions of Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein, became enormously influential forms of American popular culture" and contributed to making New York City the cultural capital of the Western Hemisphere.
New York did not have a significant theatre presence until about 1750, when actor-managers Walter Murray and Thomas Kean established a resident theatre company at the Theatre on Nassau Street, which held about 280 people. They presented Shakespeare ballad operas such as The Beggar's Opera. In 1752, William Hallam sent a company of twelve actors from Britain to the colonies with his brother Lewis as their manager, they established a theatre in Williamsburg and opened with The Merchant of Venice and The Anatomist. The company moved to New York in the summer of 1753, performing ballad operas and ballad-farces like Damon and Phillida; the Revolutionary War suspended theatre in New York, but thereafter theatre resumed in 1798, the year the 2,000-seat Park Theatre was built on Chatham Street. The Bowery Theatre opened followed by others. By the 1840s, P. T. Barnum was operating an entertainment complex in Lower Manhattan. In 1829, at Broadway and Prince Street, Niblo's Garden opened and soon became one of New York's premiere nightspots.
The 3,000-seat theatre presented all sorts of non-musical entertainments. In 1844, Palmo's Opera House opened and presented opera for only four seasons before bankruptcy led to its rebranding as a venue for plays under the name Burton's Theatre; the Astor Opera House opened in 1847. A riot broke out in 1849 when the lower-class patrons of the Bowery objected to what they perceived as snobbery by the upper class audiences at Astor Place: "After the Astor Place Riot of 1849, entertainment in New York City was divided along class lines: opera was chiefly for the upper middle and upper classes, minstrel shows and melodramas for the middle class, variety shows in concert saloons for men of the working class and the slumming middle class."The plays of William Shakespeare were performed on the Broadway stage during the period, most notably by American actor Edwin Booth, internationally known for his performance as Hamlet. Booth played the role for a famous 100 consecutive performances at the Winter Garden Theatre in 1865, would revive the role at his own Booth's Theatre.
Other renowned Shakespeareans who appeared in New York in this era were Henry Irving, Tommaso Salvini, Fanny Davenport, Charles Fechter. Theatre in New York moved from downtown to midtown beginning around 1850, seeking less expensive real estate. In the beginning of the 19th century, the area that now comprises the Theater District was owned by a handful of families and comprised a few farms. In 1836, Mayor Cornelius Lawrence opened 42nd Street and invited Manhattanites to "enjoy the pure clean air." Close to 60 years theatrical entrepreneur Oscar Hammerstein I built the iconic Victoria Theater on West 42nd Street. Broadway's first "long-run" musical was a 50-performance hit called The Elves in 1857. In 1870, the heart of Broadway was in Union Square, by the end of the century, many theatres were near Madison Square. Theatres did not arrive in the Times Square area until the early 1900s, the Broadway theatres did not consolidate there until a large number of theatres were built around the square in the 1920s and 1930s.
New York runs continued to lag far behind those in London, but Laura Keene's "musical burletta" The Seven Sisters shattered previous New York records with a run of 253 performances. It was at a performance by Keene's troupe of Our American Cousin in Washington, D. C. that Abraham Lincoln was shot. The first theatre piece that conforms to the modern conception of a musical, adding dance and original music that helped to tell the story, is considered to be The Black Crook, which premiered in New York on September 12, 1866; the production was five-and-a-half hours long, but despite its length, it ran for a record-breaking 474 performances. The same year, The Black Domino/Between You, Me and the Post was the first show to call itself a "musical comedy". Tony Pastor opened the first vaudeville theatre one block east of Union Square in 1881, where Lillian Russell performed. Comedians Edward Harrigan and Tony Hart produced and starred in musicals on Broadway between 1878 and 1890, with book and lyrics by Harrigan and music by his father-in-law David Braham.
These musical comedies featured characters and situations taken from the everyday life of New York's lower classes and represented a significant step forward from vaudeville and burlesque, towards a more literate form. They starred high quality singers, instead of the women of questionable repute who had starred in earlier m
John Boles (actor)
John Boles was an American singer and actor best known for playing Victor Moritz in the 1931 film Frankenstein. Boles was born in Texas to a middle-class family, he graduated from the University of Texas in 1917. He returned to Greenville, where he was selected by an out-of-town producer to act in an opera at the King Opera House; this experience convinced John that he preferred music and the stage to the preference of his parents, who wanted him to pursue a medical degree. While en route to a career as actor and singer, Boles earned a living by teaching French and singing in a high school in New York state and working as business manager and interpreter for a one-year tour of Europe by a student group; the latter venture led to his studying under tenor Jean de Reszke. Boles married Marcelite Dobbs in 1917, they remained married until his death, he became a huge star with the advent of talkies. After the war, Boles moved to New York to study music, he became well known for his talents and was selected to replace the leading man in the 1923 Broadway musical Little Jesse James.
He became an established star on Broadway and attracted the attention of Hollywood producers and actors. Boles' Broadway credits include One Touch of Venus, Kitty's Kisses, Mercenary Mary, Little Jessie James, he was hired by MGM to appear in a silent film in 1924. He starred in two more films for that studio before returning to the stage. In 1927, he returned to Hollywood to star in The Love of Sunya opposite Gloria Swanson, a big success for him; because the movies were still silent he was unable to show off his singing ability until late in the decade. In 1929, Warner Brothers hired him to star in their lavish musical operetta The Desert Song; this film was a box-office success. Soon after, Radio Pictures selected him to play the leading man in their extravagant production of Rio Rita, opposite Bebe Daniels. Audiences were enthralled by his beautiful voice, John Boles found himself in huge demand. RCA Victor hired him to make phonograph records of songs that he had sung in his films; as soon as Rio Rita was completed, Boles went back to Warner Brothers as the leading man in an more extravagant musical entitled Song of the West, filmed in Technicolor.
Shortly after this film, Universal Pictures offered John Boles a contract. He starred in a number of pictures for them, most notably the all-Technicolor musical revue entitled The King of Jazz and a historical operetta entitled Captain of the Guard. In 1931, he starred in One Heavenly Night. Boles portrayed Victor Moritz in Frankenstein, he starred with Irene Dunne in a 1934 film adaptation of Edith Wharton's 1920 novel The Age of Innocence directed for RKO Radio Pictures by Philip Moeller, took the role of Edward Morgan in Curly Top, starring Shirley Temple In 1937, Boles starred alongside Barbara Stanwyck in the King Vidor classic Stella Dallas. In 1943, he co-starred with Kenny Baker in One Touch of Venus. Boles retired from the screen and stage in 1952, after starring opposite Paulette Goddard in Babes in Baghdad, he went into the oil business and lived the last 13 years of his life in San Angelo, Texas. For his contributions to the film industry, Boles was inducted into the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 1960 with a motion pictures star located at 6530 Hollywood Boulevard.
Boles died on February 27, 1969, in San Angelo, Texas, at age 73. John Boles on IMDb John Boles at the Internet Broadway Database https://www.playbill.com/person/john-boles-vault-0000111975 John Boles at AllMovie Photographs of John Boles
Riffians
Riffians, by others known as Riyafa or Rwafa, are a Berber-speaking people of Northwestern Africa, who derive their name from the Riff region in the northern edge of Morocco. Being a part to Gibraltar Arc and living close to the Iberian peninsula, communities of Riffians are found both in northeastern Morocco and southern Spain, as well as elsewhere in Western Europe and North Africa, their native settlements were Arabized and Islamized in and after the 7th-century, during the early expansion of Islam. They are overwhelmingly maraboutic Sunni Muslims, but retain their pre-Islamic traditions such as high status for Riffian women. According to Irina Casado i Aijon, Riffians have traditionally organized themselves under "patrilineality and patrilocality principles"; the oldest man in the household commands authority and responsibility for decisions, while women jointly care for the young and sick without any discrimination. Like other Berbers, temporary migration is an accepted tradition; the Riffians have been a significant source of Morocco emigrants into some European countries such as the Netherlands.
Riffians speak the Tamazight group of Berber languages Tarifit or Zenatiya. The languages spoken depend on the region, with many Riffians who speak a Berber language speaking Arabic or Spanish. Nineteen groups or social units of Riffians are known: 5 in the west along the Mediterranean coast which speak Arabic, 7 in the centre of which one speaks Arabic and rest Riff language, 5 in the east and 2 in the southeastern desert area speak the Riff-Berber language, they have inhabited an impoverished and an eroded, poorly irrigated region. Poverty rate and infant mortality rates among Riffians has been high, according to a study published in 1980 by Terri Joseph; the Riffians have lived a settled, agricultural lifestyle, using hand tools and cattle to plow the steeply terraced land in their valleys. Horticultural produce along with sheep and goat meat and milk provide the traditional sustenance; some practice sardine-seining along the Mediterranean coast. Riffians have experienced numerous wars over their history.
Some of their cultural traditions reflects and remembers this history, such as the singing and dancing of Ayara Liyara, Ayara Labuya, which means "Oh Lady oh Lady, oh Lady Buya" and is accompanied by izran and addjun. This tradition, states Hsain Ilahiane, is linked to the 11th-century destruction and deaths of the Riffian fathers during the raid by the Almoravid leader Yusuf ibn Tashfin. In more modern times, the Riff War caused numerous deaths of Riffian people and of Spanish as well as French soldiers; the Riff War witnessed the use of chemical weapons in the 1920s by the Spanish army. In 1958, some Riffian communities launched a modern nationalist movement. In the decades that followed, the Riff region has witnessed Riffian demonstrations and demands for recognition of Riffian language and Berber studies at schools and universities. A resurgent Riffian nationalism in 2010, their protests in 2013 and protests in 2017 for hogra – a humiliating treatment by an abusive state, has drawn public attention, as well as claims of brutal suppression by Moroccan authorities.
The Riffians are divided into tribal groups: Ibuqquyen, a tribal group. Ayt Uryaɣel, a tribal group. Ayt Ɛammart, a tribal group. Igzinnayen, a tribal group. Ait Touzine, a tribal group. Timsaman, a tribal group. Ayt Sɛid, a tribe. Ayt Wuricik, a tribe. Tafarsit, a tribe. Ibdarsen, a tribe. Ayt Bu Yihyi Iqarɛayen, five tribal confederacies. Ikebdanen Ayt Yittuft Ayt Bu Frah arabic-speaking. Ghomara language Senhaja de Srair language
Technicolor
Technicolor is a series of color motion picture processes, the first version dating to 1916, followed by improved versions over several decades. It was the second major color process, after Britain's Kinemacolor, the most used color process in Hollywood from 1922 to 1952. Technicolor became known and celebrated for its saturated color, was most used for filming musicals such as The Wizard of Oz and Down Argentine Way, costume pictures such as The Adventures of Robin Hood and Gone with the Wind, animated films such as Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, Gulliver's Travels, Fantasia; as the technology matured it was used for less spectacular dramas and comedies. A film noir—such as Leave Her to Heaven or Niagara —was filmed in Technicolor. "Technicolor" is the trademark for a series of color motion picture processes pioneered by Technicolor Motion Picture Corporation, now a division of the French company Technicolor SA. The Technicolor Motion Picture Corporation was founded in Boston in 1914 by Herbert Kalmus, Daniel Frost Comstock, W. Burton Wescott.
The "Tech" in the company's name was inspired by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where both Kalmus and Comstock received their undergraduate degrees and were instructors. Technicolor, Inc. was chartered in Delaware in 1921. Most of Technicolor's early patents were taken out by Comstock and Wescott, while Kalmus served as the company's president and chief executive officer; the term "Technicolor" has been used to describe at least five concepts: Technicolor: an umbrella company encompassing all of the below as well as other ancillary services. Technicolor labs: a collection of film laboratories across the world owned and run by Technicolor for post-production services including developing and transferring films in all major color film processes, as well as Technicolor's proprietary ones. Technicolor process or format: several custom image origination systems used in film production, culminating in the "three-strip" process in 1932. Technicolor IB printing: a process for making color motion picture prints that allows the use of dyes which are more stable and permanent than those formed in ordinary chromogenic color printing.
Used for printing from color separation negatives photographed on black-and-white film in a special Technicolor camera. Prints or Color by Technicolor: used from 1954 on, when Eastmancolor supplanted the three-film-strip camera negative method, while the Technicolor IB printing process continued to be used as one method of making the prints; this meaning of the name applies to nearly all Wikipedia articles about films made from 1954 onward in which Technicolor is named in the credits. Technicolor existed in a two-color system. In Process 1, a prism beam-splitter behind the camera lens exposed two consecutive frames of a single strip of black-and-white negative film one behind a red filter, the other behind a green filter; because two frames were being exposed at the same time, the film had to be photographed and projected at twice the normal speed. Exhibition required a special projector with two apertures, two lenses, an adjustable prism that aligned the two images on the screen; the results were first demonstrated to members of the American Institute of Mining Engineers in New York on February 21, 1917.
Technicolor itself produced the only movie made in Process 1, The Gulf Between, which had a limited tour of Eastern cities, beginning with Boston and New York on September 13, 1917 to interest motion picture producers and exhibitors in color. The near-constant need for a technician to adjust the projection alignment doomed this additive color process. Only a few frames of The Gulf Between, showing star Grace Darmond, are known to exist today. Convinced that there was no future in additive color processes, Comstock and Kalmus focused their attention on subtractive color processes; this culminated in what would be known as Process 2. As before, the special Technicolor camera used a beam-splitter that exposed two consecutive frames of a single strip of black-and-white film, one behind a green filter and one behind a red filter; the difference was that the two-component negative was now used to produce a subtractive color print. Because the colors were physically present in the print, no special projection equipment was required and the correct registration of the two images did not depend on the skill of the projectionist.
The frames exposed behind the green filter were printed on one strip of black-and-white film, the frames exposed behind the red filter were printed on another strip. After development, each print was toned to a color nearly complementary to that of the filter: orange-red for the green-filtered images, cyan-green for the red-filtered ones. Unlike tinting, which adds a uniform veil of color to the entire image, toning chemically replaces the black-and-white silver image with transparent coloring matter, so that the highlights remain clear, dark areas are colored, intermediate tones are colored proportionally; the two prints, made on film stock half the thickness of regular film, we
Wilmington, Delaware
Wilmington is the largest and most populous city in the U. S. state of Delaware. The city was built on the site of the first Swedish settlement in North America, it is at the confluence of the Christina River and Brandywine River, near where the Christina flows into the Delaware River. It is the county seat of New Castle County and one of the major cities in the Delaware Valley metropolitan area. Wilmington was named by Proprietor Thomas Penn after his friend Spencer Compton, Earl of Wilmington, prime minister in the reign of George II of Great Britain; as of the 2017 United States Census estimate, the city's population is 72,846. It is the fifth least populous city in the U. S. to be the most populous in its state. The Wilmington Metropolitan Division, comprising New Castle County, DE, Cecil County, MD and Salem County, NJ, had an estimated 2016 population of 719,876; the Delaware Valley metropolitan area, which includes the cities of Philadelphia and Camden, New Jersey, had a 2016 population of 6,070,500, a combined statistical area of 7,179,357.
Wilmington is built on the site of Fort Christina and the settlement Kristinehamn, the first Swedish settlement in North America. The area now known as Wilmington was settled by the Lenape band led by Sachem Mattahorn just before Henry Hudson sailed up the Len-api Hanna in 1609; the area was called "Maax-waas Unk" or "Bear Place" after the Maax-waas Hanna. It was called the Bear River because it flowed west to the "Bear People", who are now known as the People of Conestoga or the Susquehannocks; the Dutch heard and spelled the river and the place as "Minguannan." When settlers and traders from the Swedish South Company under Peter Minuit arrived in March 1638 on the Fogel Grip and Kalmar Nyckel, they purchased Maax-waas Unk from Chief Mattahorn and built Fort Christina at the mouth of the Maax-waas Hanna. The area was known as "The Rocks", is located near the foot of present-day Seventh Street. Fort Christina served as the headquarters for the colony of New Sweden which consisted of, for the most part, the lower Delaware River region, but few colonists settled there.
Dr. Timothy Stidham was a prominent doctor in Wilmington, he was born in 1610 in Hammel and raised in Gothenburg, Sweden. He is recorded as the first physician in Delaware; the most important Swedish governor was Colonel Johan Printz, who ruled the colony under Swedish law from 1643 to 1653. He was succeeded by Johan Rising, who upon his arrival in 1654, seized the Dutch post Fort Casimir, located at the site of the present town of New Castle, built by the Dutch in 1651. Rising governed New Sweden until the autumn of 1655, when a Dutch fleet under the command of Peter Stuyvesant subjugated the Swedish forts and established the authority of the Colony of New Netherland throughout the area controlled by the Swedes; this marked the end of Swedish rule in North America. Beginning in 1664 British colonization began. A borough charter was granted in 1739 by King George II, which changed the name of the settlement from Willington, after Thomas Willing, to Wilmington after Spencer Compton, Earl of Wilmington.
Although during the American Revolutionary War only one small battle was fought in Delaware, British troops occupied Wilmington shortly after the nearby Battle of Brandywine on September 11, 1777. The British remained in the town until they vacated Philadelphia in 1778. In 1800, Eleuthère Irénée du Pont, a French Huguenot, emigrated to the United States. Knowledgeable in the manufacture of gunpowder, by 1802 DuPont had begun making the explosive in a mill on the Brandywine River north of Brandywine Village and just outside the town of Wilmington; the DuPont company became a major supplier to the U. S. military. Located on the banks of the Brandywine River, the village was annexed by Wilmington city; the greatest growth in the city occurred during the Civil War. Delaware, though remaining a member of the Union, was a border state and divided in its support of both the Confederate and the Union causes; the war created enormous demand for goods and materials supplied by Wilmington including ships, railroad cars, gunpowder and other war-related goods.
By 1868, Wilmington was producing more iron ships than the rest of the country combined and it rated first in the production of gunpowder and second in carriages and leather. Due to the prosperity Wilmington enjoyed during the war, city merchants and manufacturers expanded Wilmington's residential boundaries westward in the form of large homes along tree-lined streets; this movement was spurred by the first horsecar line, initiated in 1864 along Delaware Avenue. The late 19th century saw the development of the city's first comprehensive park system. William Poole Bancroft, a successful Wilmington businessman influenced by the work of Frederick Law Olmsted, led the effort to establish open parkland in Wilmington. Rockford Park and Brandywine Park were created due to Bancroft's efforts. Both World Wars stimulated the city's industries. Industries vital to the war effort – shipyards, steel foundries, machinery, a
Morocco
Morocco the Kingdom of Morocco, is a country located in the Maghreb region of North West Africa with an area of 710,850 km2. Its capital is the largest city Casablanca, it overlooks the Mediterranean Sea to the Atlantic Ocean to the west. Morocco claims the areas of Ceuta, Melilla and Peñón de Vélez de la Gomera, all of them under Spanish jurisdiction. Since the foundation of the first Moroccan state by Idris I in 788 AD, the country has been ruled by a series of independent dynasties, reaching its zenith under the Almoravid and Almohad dynasties, spanning parts of Iberia and northwestern Africa; the Marinid and Saadi dynasties continued the struggle against foreign domination, allowing Morocco to remain the only northwest African country to avoid Ottoman occupation. The Alaouite dynasty, which rules to this day, seized power in 1631. In 1912, Morocco was divided into French and Spanish protectorates, with an international zone in Tangier, it regained its independence in 1956, has since remained comparatively stable and prosperous by regional standards.
Morocco claims the non-self-governing territory of Western Sahara Spanish Sahara, as its Southern Provinces. After Spain agreed to decolonise the territory to Morocco and Mauritania in 1975, a guerrilla war arose with local forces. Mauritania relinquished its claim in 1979, the war lasted until a cease-fire in 1991. Morocco occupies two thirds of the territory, peace processes have thus far failed to break the political deadlock; the unitary sovereign state of Morocco is a constitutional monarchy with an elected parliament. The King of Morocco holds vast executive and legislative powers over the military, foreign policy and religious affairs. Executive power is exercised by the government, while legislative power is vested in both the government and the two chambers of parliament, the Assembly of Representatives and the Assembly of Councillors; the king can issue decrees called dahirs. He can dissolve the parliament after consulting the Prime Minister and the president of the constitutional court.
Morocco's predominant religion is Islam, its official languages are Arabic and Berber. E; the Moroccan dialect of Arabic, referred to as Darija, French are widely spoken. Moroccan culture is a blend of Berber, Sephardi Jews, West African and European influences. Morocco is a member of the Union for the Mediterranean and the African Union, it has the fifth largest economy of Africa. The full Arabic name al-Mamlakah al-Maghribiyyah translates to "Kingdom of the West". For historical references, medieval Arab historians and geographers sometimes referred to Morocco as al-Maghrib al-Aqṣá to distinguish it from neighbouring historical regions called al-Maghrib al-Awsaṭ and al-Maghrib al-Adná; the basis of Morocco's English name is Marrakesh, its capital under the Almoravid dynasty and Almohad Caliphate. The origin of the name Marrakesh is disputed, but is most from the Berber words amur akush or "Land of God"; the modern Berber name for Marrakesh is Mṛṛakc. In Turkish, Morocco is known as a name derived from its ancient capital of Fes.
However, this was not the case in other parts of the Islamic world: until the middle of the 20th century, the common name of Morocco in Egyptian and Middle Eastern Arabic literature was Marrakesh. The English name Morocco is an anglicisation of the Spanish "Marruecos", from which derives the Tuscan "Morrocco", the origin of the Italian "Marocco"; the area of present-day Morocco has been inhabited since Paleolithic times, sometime between 190,000 and 90,000 BC. A recent publication may demonstrate an earlier habitation period, as Homo sapiens fossils discovered in the late 2000s near the Atlantic coast in Jebel Irhoud were dated to 315,000 years before present. During the Upper Paleolithic, the Maghreb was more fertile than it is today, resembling a savanna more than today's arid landscape. Twenty-two thousand years ago, the Aterian was succeeded by the Iberomaurusian culture, which shared similarities with Iberian cultures. Skeletal similarities have been suggested between the Iberomaurusian "Mechta-Afalou" burials and European Cro-Magnon remains.
The Iberomaurusian was succeeded by the Beaker culture in Morocco. Mitochondrial DNA studies have discovered the Saami of Scandinavia; this supports theories that the Franco-Cantabrian refuge area of southwestern Europe was the source of late-glacial expansions of hunter-gatherers who repopulated northern Europe after the last ice age. Northwest Africa and Morocco were drawn into the wider emerging Mediterranean world by the Phoenicians, who established trading colonies and settlements in the early Classical period. Substantial Phoenician settlements were at Chellah and Mogador. Mogador was a Phoenician colony as early as the early 6th century BC. Morocco became a realm of the Northwest African civilisation of ancie
