1.
Paradise, Nevada
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Paradise is an unincorporated town and census-designated place in Clark County, Nevada, United States, adjacent to the city of Las Vegas. The population was 223,167 at the 2010 census, making it the most populous unincorporated community in Nevada, as an unincorporated town, it is governed by the Clark County Commission with input from the Paradise Town Advisory Board. Paradise was formed on December 8,1950, Paradise contains McCarran International Airport, the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, and most of the Las Vegas Strip. Paradise contains most tourist attractions in the Las Vegas area, excluding downtown, despite this, the name Paradise remains relatively unknown. All Paradise ZIP codes have Las Vegas mailing addresses, the southern part of the Las Vegas Valley was referred to as Paradise Valley as early as 1910, owing to a high water table that made the land particularly fertile for farming. County commissioners established a Paradise school district in 1914, the commission voted to create the unincorporated township of Paradise on December 8,1950. In 1975, Nevada enacted a law that would have incorporated Paradise into the City of Las Vegas, before it could take effect, however, the bill was struck down as unconstitutional by the Nevada Supreme Court. According to the United States Census Bureau, the place of Paradise has a total area of 46.7 square miles. At the census of 2010, there were 223,167 people residing in Paradise. The racial makeup was 59. 8% White,8. 9% African American,0. 8% Native American,9. 5% Asian,1. 0% Pacific Islander, and 5. 5% from two or more races. Hispanic or Latino of any race were 31. 2% of the population and 46. 3% of the population was non-Hispanic White. As of the census of 2000, there were 186,070 people,77,209 households, the population density was 3,947.3 people per square mile. There were 85,398 housing units at a density of 1,811.6 per square mile. The racial makeup of the CDP was 72. 51% White,6. 59% African American,0. 77% Native American,6. 52% Asian,0. 59% Pacific Islander,8. 37% from other races, and 4. 65% from two or more races. Hispanic or Latino of any race were 23. 47% of the population,31. 9% of all households were made up of individuals and 7. 5% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 2.39 and the family size was 3.04. In the CDP, the population was out with 21. 2% under the age of 18,10. 8% from 18 to 24,33. 3% from 25 to 44,23. 6% from 45 to 64. The median age was 35 years, for every 100 females there were 109.1 males
2.
Las Vegas Boulevard
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Las Vegas Boulevard is a major road in the Las Vegas Valley of Nevada, best known for the Las Vegas Strip portion of the road and its casinos. Las Vegas Boulevard runs the length of the Las Vegas metropolitan area in Clark County, the Boulevard, as it is sometimes called by longtime Las Vegas residents, starts at Apex, and continues south to about 2 mi south of Jean, in the Mojave Desert. The Boulevard shows up again in Primm, Nevada but is not connected to the northern sections. There are tentative plans to connect the section at Primm to the northern section at Jean. The north/south street address demarcation boundary is located at Fremont Street, at its northern end in Apex, the Boulevard starts in an industrial complex of manufacturing plants and power plants running along the Union Pacific Railroad line. Traveling south, the road meets Nellis Air Force Base on the east side, as the road enters the city of North Las Vegas, it passes through some of the older commercial areas in the region. On crossing Washington Avenue, the Boulevard is designated as the Downtown Las Vegas Boulevard Scenic Byway by the state and this designation continues south to Sahara Avenue. Further south is a stretch of road that has many of the older motels, bars, the Boulevard leaves the city of Las Vegas at Sahara Avenue and assumes its unofficial name the Las Vegas Strip for the next 4 miles. This portion of Las Vegas Boulevard begins a few blocks to the north at the Stratosphere and this is the section of the road most people are familiar with, it is home to casino megaresorts with their world-famous lights, huge video signs and other attractions. It is designated as an All-American Road, just past the end of The Strip, the road passes the Welcome to Fabulous Las Vegas sign as it abuts the western edge of the McCarran International Airport property. The South Strip is now used to describe the section of Las Vegas Boulevard between Russell Road and Blue Diamond Road. Along this stretch, development thins out except for newer shopping malls, hotels and condominiums as the Boulevard continues to travel south, Route 117 serves the southern end of Las Vegas Boulevard from the SSTT south towards Las Vegas Premium Outlet Stores, South Point Casino and Silverado Ranch. Las Vegas Boulevard has had names, including 5th Street, Main Street. South of the city, Las Vegas Boulevard was commonly known as the Los Angeles Highway, just north of Jean is the place where the last spike on the San Pedro, Los Angeles and Salt Lake Railroad line was driven. With the construction of I-15, Las Vegas Boulevard went from being the main road to one that only served as a city street for locals. Its current name, in effect since 1959, reflects its importance to the Valley rather than past names when it served as a main intra-city road, on October 16,2009, the Federal Highway Administration announced the designation of a new National Scenic Byway on the boulevard. The 3. 5-mile section starting at Sahara Avenue and running north to Washington Avenue was designated the City of Las Vegas, Las Vegas Boulevard State Scenic Byway, Nevada portal Las Vegas portal U. S. Roads portal Tropicana – Las Vegas Boulevard intersection Las Vegas Strip Media related to Las Vegas Boulevard at Wikimedia Commons
3.
Venice
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Venice is a city in northeastern Italy and the capital of the Veneto region. It is situated across a group of 118 small islands that are separated by canals and these are located in the shallow Venetian Lagoon, an enclosed bay that lies between the mouths of the Po and the Piave Rivers. Parts of Venice are renowned for the beauty of their settings, their architecture, the lagoon and a part of the city are listed as a World Heritage Site. In 2014,264,579 people resided in Comune di Venezia, together with Padua and Treviso, the city is included in the Padua-Treviso-Venice Metropolitan Area, with a total population of 2.6 million. PATREVE is a metropolitan area without any degree of autonomy. The name is derived from the ancient Veneti people who inhabited the region by the 10th century BC, the city was historically the capital of the Republic of Venice. Venice has been known as the La Dominante, Serenissima, Queen of the Adriatic, City of Water, City of Masks, City of Bridges, The Floating City, and City of Canals. The City State of Venice is considered to have been the first real international financial center which gradually emerged from the 9th century to its peak in the 14th century and this made Venice a wealthy city throughout most of its history. It is also known for its several important artistic movements, especially the Renaissance period, Venice has played an important role in the history of symphonic and operatic music, and it is the birthplace of Antonio Vivaldi. Venice has been ranked the most beautiful city in the world as of 2016, the name Venetia, however, derives from the Roman name for the people known as the Veneti, and called by the Greeks Eneti. The meaning of the word is uncertain, although there are other Indo-European tribes with similar-sounding names, such as the Celtic Veneti, Baltic Veneti, and the Slavic Wends. Linguists suggest that the name is based on an Indo-European root *wen, so that *wenetoi would mean beloved, lovable, a connection with the Latin word venetus, meaning the color sea-blue, is also possible. The alternative obsolete form is Vinegia, some late Roman sources reveal the existence of fishermen on the islands in the original marshy lagoons. They were referred to as incolae lacunae, the traditional founding is identified with the dedication of the first church, that of San Giacomo on the islet of Rialto — said to have taken place at the stroke of noon on 25 March 421. Beginning as early as AD166 to 168, the Quadi and Marcomanni destroyed the center in the area. The Roman defences were again overthrown in the early 5th century by the Visigoths and, some 50 years later, New ports were built, including those at Malamocco and Torcello in the Venetian lagoon. The tribuni maiores, the earliest central standing governing committee of the islands in the Lagoon, the traditional first doge of Venice, Paolo Lucio Anafesto, was actually Exarch Paul, and his successor, Marcello Tegalliano, was Pauls magister militum. In 726 the soldiers and citizens of the Exarchate rose in a rebellion over the controversy at the urging of Pope Gregory II
4.
Italy
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Italy, officially the Italian Republic, is a unitary parliamentary republic in Europe. Located in the heart of the Mediterranean Sea, Italy shares open land borders with France, Switzerland, Austria, Slovenia, San Marino, Italy covers an area of 301,338 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate and Mediterranean climate. Due to its shape, it is referred to in Italy as lo Stivale. With 61 million inhabitants, it is the fourth most populous EU member state, the Italic tribe known as the Latins formed the Roman Kingdom, which eventually became a republic that conquered and assimilated other nearby civilisations. The legacy of the Roman Empire is widespread and can be observed in the distribution of civilian law, republican governments, Christianity. The Renaissance began in Italy and spread to the rest of Europe, bringing a renewed interest in humanism, science, exploration, Italian culture flourished at this time, producing famous scholars, artists and polymaths such as Leonardo da Vinci, Galileo, Michelangelo and Machiavelli. The weakened sovereigns soon fell victim to conquest by European powers such as France, Spain and Austria. Despite being one of the victors in World War I, Italy entered a period of economic crisis and social turmoil. The subsequent participation in World War II on the Axis side ended in defeat, economic destruction. Today, Italy has the third largest economy in the Eurozone and it has a very high level of human development and is ranked sixth in the world for life expectancy. The country plays a prominent role in regional and global economic, military, cultural and diplomatic affairs, as a reflection of its cultural wealth, Italy is home to 51 World Heritage Sites, the most in the world, and is the fifth most visited country. The assumptions on the etymology of the name Italia are very numerous, according to one of the more common explanations, the term Italia, from Latin, Italia, was borrowed through Greek from the Oscan Víteliú, meaning land of young cattle. The bull was a symbol of the southern Italic tribes and was often depicted goring the Roman wolf as a defiant symbol of free Italy during the Social War. Greek historian Dionysius of Halicarnassus states this account together with the legend that Italy was named after Italus, mentioned also by Aristotle and Thucydides. The name Italia originally applied only to a part of what is now Southern Italy – according to Antiochus of Syracuse, but by his time Oenotria and Italy had become synonymous, and the name also applied to most of Lucania as well. The Greeks gradually came to apply the name Italia to a larger region, excavations throughout Italy revealed a Neanderthal presence dating back to the Palaeolithic period, some 200,000 years ago, modern Humans arrived about 40,000 years ago. Other ancient Italian peoples of undetermined language families but of possible origins include the Rhaetian people and Cammuni. Also the Phoenicians established colonies on the coasts of Sardinia and Sicily, the Roman legacy has deeply influenced the Western civilisation, shaping most of the modern world
5.
Baz Luhrmann
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His 2008 film Australia is an epic historical romantic drama film starring Hugh Jackman and Nicole Kidman. His 2013 drama The Great Gatsby, based on F. Scott Fitzgeralds 1925 novel of the name, stars Leonardo DiCaprio. His mother, Barbara Carmel, was a dance teacher and dress shop owner, and his father, Leonard Luhrmann, ran a petrol station. He was raised in Herons Creek, a rural settlement in northern New South Wales. Luhrmann received the nickname Baz from his father Leonard and he officially changed his given name from Mark to Baz sometime around 1979. In 1983, he commenced a course at the National Institute of Dramatic Art. He graduated in 1985 alongside Sonia Todd, Catherine McClements and Justin Monjo, on 26 January 1997, he married Catherine Martin, a production designer, the couple have two children. Luhrmann supports the Melbourne Demons in the Australian Football League, Australia The Great Gatsby The modern film interpretation Romeo + Juliet, starring Leonardo DiCaprio and Claire Danes, defeated Titanic at the BAFTAs for best direction, music and screenplay. The film was celebrated at the Berlin Film Festival, where it was recognised with the Gold Bear award for direction, Luhrmann also produced the soundtrack albums for the film. Was named one of the AFIs top ten films of 2001, the film also gave birth to a successful soundtrack album, selling more than seven million copies, led by the Grammy-winning number one hit single Lady Marmalade. Luhrmanns 2008 romantic epic Australia starred Nicole Kidman and Hugh Jackman and it is the second-highest grossing Australian film of all time, next to Crocodile Dundee and ahead of Happy Feet. In 2016, Luhrmann collaborated with award-winning playwright Stephen Adly Guirgis on the Netflix series The Get Down about the birth of hip-hop in the 1970s. 1981, A young Luhrmann can be seen in an acting role in the film Winter of Our Dreams. Luhrmann has a part playing opposite Judy Davis. 1992, Luhrmann directed a video for John Paul Youngs Love Is in the Air,1993, Luhrmann staged his interpretation of Benjamin Brittens version of A Midsummer Nights Dream, set in colonial India, for the Australian Opera. After successful seasons in Sydney and Melbourne, the production went on to win the Critics Prize at the Edinburgh Festival, music extracts can be heard on his album Something for Everybody. 1993, Luhrmann assisted in the campaign of former Australian prime minister Paul Keating. 1997, The CD of Something for Everybody was released, featuring music from Luhrmanns films, moreover, Luhrmann created his own company with his wife Catherine Martin, Bazmark
6.
Human Nature (band)
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Human Nature is an Australian harmony pop group, which formed in 1989, with Toby Allen, Phil Burton and brothers, Andrew and Mike Tierney. Originally they were a group, the 4 Trax, while the members were schoolmates. After signing with Sony Music as Human Nature, they released their album, Telling Everybody. Three of their albums have reached number one on the ARIA Albums Charts, Counting Down, Reach Out, The Motown Record and Dancing in the Street, Two other albums reached number two, Get Ready and Jukebox. Their top 10 hits on the related ARIA Singles Chart are Wishes, Dont Say Goodbye, Everytime You Cry, Dont Cry, Eternal Flame, He Dont Love You and When You Say You Love Me. Three of their albums received certification from ARIA, and four have received platinum, with a total shipment of over 1.6 million records in Australia. The group have toured nationally and internationally including as a support act for Celine Dion on her Falling Into You Around the World Tour. They also opened for Michael Jackson on the HIStory World Tour, at the ARIA Music Awards of 2006 they won Highest Selling Album for Reach Out, The Motown Record. In May 2009 they began a residency performing a Motown-themed show on the Las Vegas Strip, Human Nature started as the 4 Trax when Toby Allen and Phil Burton joined with brothers Andrew and Mike Tierney. They represented Hurlstone Agricultural High School in a combined regional schools concert at the Bankstown Town Hall, all four members had choir backgrounds and were inspired by groups from the Motown era, including the Four Tops. In Bankstown, they had sung The Penguins hit Earth Angel, Andrew later told Megan Riggs of Whats on Highway Radio that it was the only song they knew and they were encouraged to listen to more Motown groups. Mike, the youngest member of the group, was doing his Higher School Certificate in his year of secondary school. The 4 Trax initially gave street performances in the doo-wop style, the group sent demo recordings to record labels. On a visit to Sony CEO, Denis Handlin, they performed an a cappella version of People Get Ready, by 1995 the group felt the 4 Trax name was dated, so they brainstormed alternatives, Mike suggested Human Nature. Allen said, At first we thought it was probably a bit obvious, because its such a well-used term and we were singing a cappella at the time, and it represented what we were about, Singing was our human nature. On 1 March 1996 Human Nature released their first single, Got It Goin On and it was co-written by the Tierney brothers with their producer, Paul Begaud. At the ARIA Music Awards of 1996 they received their first nomination and they followed up with Tellin Everybody in July, which reached the top 30. The third single, Wishes, peaked at No.6, Wishes was co-written by Alan Glass with its producer, Andrew Klippel
7.
Grand Canal Shoppes
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The Grand Canal Shoppes is a 500,000 sq ft upscale shopping mall inside The Venetian Hotel & Casino and The Palazzo on the Las Vegas Strip in Paradise, Nevada. The mall was opened along with the Venetian in 1999, the mall has indoor canals, where gondolas take people around the mall. The mall is anchored by a flagship, high-fashion Barneys New York store and contains many designer, live performances can be found throughout the mall. As of 2008, the mall had 20 million visitors a year, general Growth Properties acquired the 400,000 sq ft mall from Las Vegas Sands in 2004 for $776 million. Grand Canal Shoppes opened in 1999, the place was a Venetian-styled shopping mall with 91 shops for retail, dining, and entertainment. Retail includes Ann Taylor, Banana Republic, Sephora, and more, in 2005, plans were made for an expansion to add 50 more shops for retail, dining, and more theater space. Plans were approved and built in 2007, the mall was originally named The Grand Canal Shoppes, but later was renamed The Shoppes at the Palazzo to give credit for the hotel which the mall is in. Now the mall has over 140 shops and eateries, GGP will continue to manage and lease the center which has sales of $1,000 per square foot. Barneys New York A replica of the Grand Canal Shoppes is built at The Venetian Macao in Macau SAR, China
8.
Las Vegas Sands
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Las Vegas Sands Corporation is an American casino and resort operating company based in Paradise, Nevada, United States. Its resorts feature accommodations, gaming and entertainment, convention and exhibition facilities, restaurants and clubs, as well as an art and it has several resorts in the United States and Asia. Among its properties in the United States are two resorts on the Las Vegas Strip, The Venetian and The Palazzo, also in the United States is the Sands Casino Resort Bethlehem, located in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. In Asia, the Marina Bay Sands located in Singapore is the most recent addition to the companys portfolio, through its majority-owned subsidiary Sands China Ltd. The company has opened a 6, 400-room complex at the Sands Cotai Central in 2012, which featured the Sheraton, St. Regis, Holiday Inn and it is the largest casino company worldwide. Entrepreneur Sheldon Adelson and his partners Richard Katzeff, Irwin Chafetz, Ted Cutler and they opened the Sands Expo and Convention Center across from the hotel in 1990. The 1. 2-million-square-foot center is currently the largest privately owned facility in the world. The Sands Hotel was having trouble competing with the resorts on the Las Vegas Strip. Construction of the Venetian began in 1997, when themed hotels were the fashion, modeled on Venice, Italy, it joined Excalibur, New York-New York, Paris Las Vegas and other themed hotels on the Las Vegas Strip. When the trend in Las Vegas then shifted to more understated and elegant hotels, Adelson got his start through the trade show business. As early as the 1970s, he saw the potential in personal computers and he and his partners founded the computer trade show COMDEX in 1979. They then sold it in 1995 for more than $800 million, in 2004, Adelson took the Venetians parent company public, Las Vegas Sands Inc. became Las Vegas Sands Corp. Perhaps because of his start in the show business, Adelson focused his hotel efforts on courting the convention. Adelson, however, had all his hotel rooms made into luxury suites, he put in mini-bars and big screen televisions, by doing all this, he counted on business from the Sands Expo and Convention Center to keep mid-week occupancy strong. This proved correct, the company now makes more money in Las Vegas from conventions than gambling, and Adelsons convention-centered approach is no longer considered unorthodox, but rather the paradigm in the hospitality industry in Las Vegas. Adelson was also among the first to foresee the potential of Asia. Before his American competitors, he made the move to locate his company nearer to the Asian market, Macau, the former Portuguese colony turned over to China in late 1999, is the only place on mainland China where casino gambling is legal. Las Vegas Sands opened the Sands Macao in 2004, Adelson next saw that 1 billion people are within a three-hour flight of Macau, and around 3 billion people are estimated to live within a five-hour flight
9.
KlingStubbins
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In 1982, the Franklin Institute awarded Vincent G. Kling the Frank P. Brown Medal. KlingStubbins was formed through the merger of two offices, the first, The Kling-Lindquist Partnership, Inc. was founded by Vincent Kling in 1946, and grew to become the largest firm in Philadelphia. One of the most recognizable buildings designed by Kling is the Bell Atlantic Tower, Kling also collaborated with Philadelphia city planner Edmund Bacon. The Stubbins Associates was founded by Hugh Stubbins, FAIA, in 1949 and based in Cambridge, Kling became affiliated with The Stubbins Associates in 2003, and the two officially merged on January 1,2007. The company has grown to include engineering, interior design, landscape architecture, in 2011, KlingStubbins was acquired by Jacobs Engineering Group and operates as part of their Global Buildings sector. Their first combined volume, KlingStubbins, Palimpsest, was published in 2009 by Images Publishing, with their Autodesk Headquarters in Waltham, MA, KlingStubbins became the first architectural firm in New England to employ an Integrated Project Delivery model. Autodesk AEC Headquarters, Waltham, MA, USA,2008 Kling elected into the National Academy of Design,1964 Official website DesignIntelligence article on Kling-Stubbins affiliation
10.
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
11.
Hotel
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A hotel is an establishment that provides paid lodging on a short-term basis. Small, lower-priced hotels may offer only the most basic guest services and facilities, Hotel rooms are usually numbered to allow guests to identify their room. Some boutique, high-end hotels have custom decorated rooms, some hotels offer meals as part of a room and board arrangement. In the United Kingdom, a hotel is required by law to serve food, in Japan, capsule hotels provide a tiny room suitable only for sleeping and shared bathroom facilities. The precursor to the hotel was the inn of medieval Europe. For a period of about 200 years from the mid-17th century, inns began to cater to richer clients in the mid-18th century. One of the first hotels in a sense was opened in Exeter in 1768. Hotels proliferated throughout Western Europe and North America in the early 19th century, Hotel operations vary in size, function, and cost. Most hotels and major hospitality companies have set standards to classify hotel types. Full service hotels often contain upscale full-service facilities with a number of full service accommodations, an on-site full service restaurant. Boutique hotels are independent, non-branded hotels that often contain upscale facilities. Small to medium-sized hotel establishments offer a limited amount of on-site amenities, economy hotels are small to medium-sized hotel establishments that offer basic accommodations with little to no services. Extended stay hotels are small to medium-sized hotels that offer full service accommodations compared to a traditional hotel. Timeshare and destination clubs are a form of property ownership involving ownership of a unit of accommodation for seasonal usage. A motel is a small-sized low-rise lodging with direct access to rooms from the car park. Boutique hotels are typically hotels with an environment or intimate setting. A number of hotels have entered the public consciousness through popular culture, some hotels are built specifically as a destination in itself, for example at casinos and holiday resorts. The organizational chart and volume of job positions and hierarchy varies by size, function and class
12.
Casino
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A casino is a facility which houses and accommodates certain types of gambling activities. The industry that deals in casinos is called the gaming industry, casinos are most commonly built near or combined with hotels, restaurants, retail shopping, cruise ships or other tourist attractions. There is much debate whether or not the social and economic consequences of casino gambling outweigh the initial revenue that may be generated. Some casinos are also known for hosting live entertainment events, such as comedy, concerts. The term casino is a confusing linguistic false friend for translators, Casino is of Italian origin, the root casa originally meant a small country villa, summerhouse, or social club. In modern-day Italian, the term designates a bordello, while the gambling house is spelled casinò with an accent. Not all casinos were used for gaming, the Copenhagen Casino was a theatre, known for the mass public meetings often held in its hall during the 1848 Revolution, which made Denmark a constitutional monarchy. Until 1937, it was a well-known Danish theatre, the Hanko Casino in Hanko, Finland—one of that towns most conspicuous landmarks—was never used for gambling. Rather, it was a hall for the Russian nobility which frequented this spa resort in the late 19th century and is now used as a restaurant. In military and non-military usage in German and Spanish, a casino or kasino is an officers mess, in Italian—the source-language of the word—a casino is either a brothel, a mess, or a noisy environment, while a gaming house is called a casinò. The precise origin of gambling is unknown and it is generally believed that gambling in some form or another has been seen in almost every society in history. From the Ancient Greeks and Romans to Napoleons France and Elizabethan England and it was closed in 1774 as the city government felt it was impoverishing the local gentry. In American history, early gambling establishments were known as saloons, the creation and importance of saloons was greatly influenced by four major cities, New Orleans, St. Louis, Chicago and San Francisco. It was in the saloons that travelers could find people to talk to, drink with, during the early 20th century in America, gambling became outlawed and banned by state legislation and social reformers of the time. However, in 1931, gambling was legalized throughout the state of Nevada, Americas first legalized casinos were set up in those places. In 1976 New Jersey allowed gambling in Atlantic City, now Americas second largest gambling city, most jurisdictions worldwide have a minimum gambling age. Customers gamble by playing games of chance, in cases with an element of skill, such as craps, roulette, baccarat, blackjack. Most games played have mathematically determined odds that ensure the house has at all times an overall advantage over the players and this can be expressed more precisely by the notion of expected value, which is uniformly negative
13.
Las Vegas Strip
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The Las Vegas Strip is a stretch of South Las Vegas Boulevard in Clark County, Nevada, known for its concentration of resort hotels and casinos. The Strip is approximately 4.2 miles in length, located south of the Las Vegas city limits in the unincorporated towns of Paradise. However, the Strip is often referred to as being in Las Vegas, most of the Strip has been designated an All-American Road, and is considered a scenic route at night. Many of the largest hotel, casino, and resort properties in the world are located on the Las Vegas Strip, fourteen of the worlds 25 largest hotels by room count are on the Strip, with a total of over 62,000 rooms. One of the most visible aspects of Las Vegas cityscape is its use of dramatic architecture, historically, the casinos that were not in Downtown Las Vegas along Fremont Street were limited to outside of the city limits on Las Vegas Boulevard. In 1959 the Welcome to Fabulous Las Vegas sign was constructed exactly 4.5 miles outside of the city limits, the sign is today about 0.4 miles south of the southernmost entrance to Mandalay Bay. In the strictest sense, the Strip refers only to the stretch of Las Vegas Boulevard that is roughly between Sahara Avenue and Russell Road, a distance of 4.2 miles. However, the term is used to refer not only to the road but also to the various casinos and resorts that line the road. The traditional definition considers the Strips northern terminus as the SLS, Mandalay Bay, located just north of Russell Road, is the southernmost resort considered to be on the Strip. Because of the number and size of the resorts, the Resort Corridor can be quite wide, Interstate 15 runs roughly parallel and 0.5 to 0.8 miles to the west of Las Vegas Boulevard for the entire length of the Strip. Paradise Road runs to the east in a fashion. The eastern side of the Strip is bounded by McCarran International Airport south of Tropicana Avenue, north of this point, the Resort Corridor can be considered to extend as far east as Paradise Road, although some consider Koval Lane as a less inclusive boundary. Interstate 15 is sometimes considered the edge of the Resort Corridor from Interstate 215 to Spring Mountain Road. North of this point, Industrial Road serves as the western edge, the famous Welcome to Fabulous Las Vegas sign is located in the median just south of Russell Road, across from the now-demolished Klondike Hotel & Casino. Marketing for these casinos usually states that they are on southern Las Vegas Boulevard and not Strip properties. The first casino to be built on Highway 91 was the Pair-o-Dice Club in 1931 and that casino stood for almost 20 years before being destroyed by a fire in 1960. Its success spawned a second hotel on what would become the Strip, the funding for many projects was provided through the American National Insurance Company, which was based in the then notorious gambling empire of Galveston, Texas. Las Vegas Boulevard South was previously called Arrowhead Highway, or Los Angeles Highway, the Strip was named by Los Angeles police officer and businessman Guy McAfee, after his hometowns Sunset Strip
14.
United States
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Forty-eight of the fifty states and the federal district are contiguous and located in North America between Canada and Mexico. The state of Alaska is in the northwest corner of North America, bordered by Canada to the east, the state of Hawaii is an archipelago in the mid-Pacific Ocean. The U. S. territories are scattered about the Pacific Ocean, the geography, climate and wildlife of the country are extremely diverse. At 3.8 million square miles and with over 324 million people, the United States is the worlds third- or fourth-largest country by area, third-largest by land area. It is one of the worlds most ethnically diverse and multicultural nations, paleo-Indians migrated from Asia to the North American mainland at least 15,000 years ago. European colonization began in the 16th century, the United States emerged from 13 British colonies along the East Coast. Numerous disputes between Great Britain and the following the Seven Years War led to the American Revolution. On July 4,1776, during the course of the American Revolutionary War, the war ended in 1783 with recognition of the independence of the United States by Great Britain, representing the first successful war of independence against a European power. The current constitution was adopted in 1788, after the Articles of Confederation, the first ten amendments, collectively named the Bill of Rights, were ratified in 1791 and designed to guarantee many fundamental civil liberties. During the second half of the 19th century, the American Civil War led to the end of slavery in the country. By the end of century, the United States extended into the Pacific Ocean. The Spanish–American War and World War I confirmed the status as a global military power. The end of the Cold War and the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991 left the United States as the sole superpower. The U. S. is a member of the United Nations, World Bank, International Monetary Fund, Organization of American States. The United States is a developed country, with the worlds largest economy by nominal GDP. It ranks highly in several measures of performance, including average wage, human development, per capita GDP. While the U. S. economy is considered post-industrial, characterized by the dominance of services and knowledge economy, the United States is a prominent political and cultural force internationally, and a leader in scientific research and technological innovations. In 1507, the German cartographer Martin Waldseemüller produced a map on which he named the lands of the Western Hemisphere America after the Italian explorer and cartographer Amerigo Vespucci
15.
Sands Hotel and Casino
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The Sands Hotel and Casino was a historic hotel and casino on the Las Vegas Strip in Nevada, United States, that operated from 1952 to 1996. Designed by the architect Wayne McAllister, with a prominent 56-foot high sign, during its heyday, the Sands was the center of entertainment and cool on the Strip, and hosted many famous entertainers of the day, most notably the Rat Pack. The hotel was established in 1952 by Texan oil tycoon Jake Freedman, who bought up the LaRue Restaurant, which had opened two years earlier. The hotel was opened on December 15,1952 as a casino with 200 rooms, the hotel rooms were divided into four two-story motel wings, each with fifty rooms, and named after famous race tracks. The opening was widely publicized, and every guest was given a Chamois bag with silver dollars, crime bosses such as Meyer Lansky and Frank Costello acquired shares in the hotel and attracted Frank Sinatra, who made his performing debut at Sands in October 1953. Sinatra later bought a share in the hotel himself, Sinatra and Sammy Davis, Jr. were instrumental throughout the late 1950s and early 1960s in bringing a change in racial policy in Sands, and after an incident in 1961, it began employing blacks. In 1960 the classic caper film Oceans 11 was shot at the hotel, red Skelton and others, who performed regularly in the hotels world-renowned Copa Room. In the mid 1960s, Sands and its adjacent properties were bought by the reclusive businessman Howard Hughes, after the 1970s it fell into decline until its final owner, Sheldon Adelson, made the decision to shut it down and to build a brand new resort. The last dice in the casino was rolled by Bob Stupak just after 6pm on June 30,1996, on November 26 of that year, it was finally imploded and demolished, much to the dismay of longtime employees and sentimentalists. Today, The Venetian stands where the Sands once stood, the LaRue Restaurant was established in December 1950 by Billy Wilkerson. The following year, oil tycoon Jake Freedman of Houston, Texas bought LaRue for $15,000, Freedmans idea was to build the best hotel and casino in Las Vegas to specifically cater to the glamorous Hollywood film stars and executives in a $600,000 project. Construction began on Sands Hotel in early 1952, built to a design by Wayne McAllister. Freedman had initially intended naming the hotel Holiday Inn after the film of the same name starring Bing Crosby, but after noticing that his socks became so full of sand decided to name it Sands. The tag line would be A Place in the Sun, named after a recently released film starring Montgomery Clift and Elizabeth Taylor, and quite suitable to the hot desert location of Las Vegas. The hotel was opened on December 15,1952 as a casino with 200 rooms, the opening was widely publicized, and the hotel was visited by some 12,000 people within a few hours. At the inauguration were 146 journalists and special guests such as Arlene Dahl, Fernando Lamas, Esther Williams, every guest was given a Chamois bag with silver dollars, and Sands ended up losing $200,000 within the first eight hours. Jack Entratter, who was formerly in charge of the New York nightclub, Entratter made many show business friends during his time at the nightclub, he was able to use these connections to sign performers for the Sands Copa Room. Entratter was also able to offer entertainers an additional incentive to perform at the Sands, headlining stars received points, or a percentage of ownership in the hotel and casino
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Sands Expo
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The Sands Expo and Convention Center is a large convention center. It opened in 1990 across the street from the original Sands Hotel, was the second largest convention center in the world when it opened, the Sands Expo is owned and operated by the Las Vegas Sands Corporation. It is frequently used for conventions booked at the adjoining Venetian and Palazzo hotels and casinos, in 2008, an expansion for the Sands Expo Center was announced. The first part would add another story to the building and build a new two-million square foot Expo center. A long pedestrian bridge will be built between the two Expos, also, half of the existing building will be covered by a new condo tower and hotel, adding to the already large complex, which also includes The Venetian and Palazzo. There has been a new plan floated in may,2015, to build a fill-in station on the Las Vegas Monorail
17.
The Palazzo
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The Palazzo /pəˈlɑːtsoʊ/ is a luxury hotel and casino resort located on the Las Vegas Strip in Paradise, Nevada. It is the tallest completed building in Nevada, designed by the Dallas based HKS, Inc. the hotel offers luxury in an Italian Renaissance ambiance. This all-suite hotel offers the largest standard accommodations on the Las Vegas Strip at 720 square feet per guest room, the hotel complex is named the largest hotel in the world by the Guinness Book of World Records. In its first year of eligibility, The Palazzo was awarded the AAA Five Diamond Award for 2009, after 2014, The Venetian and The Palazzo no longer receive AAA Diamond awards, as the management has refused further AAA inspections. By 1949, the property was occupied by the Ottilia Villa Motel, the eight-room Park Lane Motel, the Carousel Motel opened on the property in 1953, and the adjacent Park Lane Motel was incorporated into the Carousel around 1954. The Ottilia Villa was renamed as the Spanish Trail Motel in 1957, the Tam OShanter motel was built and opened in 1959, on 1.5 acres of the land. The motel was owned by Bernie Zeldin, and was named after Illinois Tam OShanter Golf Course, the motel had 100 rooms, and featured a distinctive neon sign resembling a tam o shanter cap. The sign was donated to the citys Neon Museum. The Spanish Trail Motel went out of business around 1960, in 1962, it reopened as the Imperial 400 Motel. Zeldin declined numerous offers to purchase the Tam OShanter, billionare Howard Hughes attempted to purchase the Tam OShanter at some point, initially offering $3 million. However, Hughes was late in delivering the money, and Zeldin subsequently raised the price to $6 million, when Hughes was late again in delivering the money, Zeldin called off negotiations. The Carousel Motel became the Sand Dunes Motel in 1973, and was demolished in 1998, in 1990, the Imperial 400 became a Days Inn. In 1996, it became the Vagabond Inn, before his death in June 1997, Zeldin finalized a $12.5 million deal to sell the Tam OShanter to Sheldon Adelsons Las Vegas Sands, which later opened the adjacent Venetian resort in 1999. Adelson was a friend of Zeldin, Venetian officials purchased 11.4 acres of land, including the Tam OShanter, in October 1998. Bernie Zeldins daughter, Leah Zeldin, operated the Tam OShanter until its closure, in December 2003, the Zeldin family was informed of the Venetians plans to demolish the motel for a future resort. Tam OShanter closed on January 12,2004, an asbestos-removal project for the motel took 19 days to complete. Tam OShanter was subsequently demolished on February 6,2004, to room for The Palazzo. The Vagabond Inn, which contained asbestos as well, was demolished in February 2004
18.
The Venetian Macao
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The Venetian Macao is a luxury hotel and casino resort in Macau owned by the American Las Vegas Sands company. The Venetian is a 39-story, casino hotel on the Cotai Strip in Macau, the 10,500, 000-square-foot Venetian Macao is modeled on its sister casino resort The Venetian Las Vegas, and is the seventh-largest building in the world by floor area. The Venetian Macao is also the largest casino in the world, the main hotel tower was finished in July 2007 and the resort officially opened on 28 August 2007. The lead architect for the Venetian Macao were Aedas and HKS, Inc. joint venture, the casino measures 546,000 sq ft. It is further divided into 4 themed gaming areas namely Golden Fish, Imperial House, Red Dragon, the casino consists of over 3400 slot machines and 800 gambling tables. The hotel offers a club called Paiza Club which caters to premium guests, the club comes with its own entrance, lobby, reception, and guest lifts to the rooms. The hotel tower offers 2,905 suites, the accommodation floors go from level 7 up to level 38. These floors are served by guest lifts, Paiza suites are reserved for premium guests. The largest is the Presidente, a 12-bay suite with four bedrooms, the Cotai Arena is an indoor arena, opened in 2007 with a seating capacity of 15,000. It hosts sporting events such as basketball, tennis, and boxing, as well as concerts, zaia, a 90-minute stage production by the Canadian entertainment company Cirque du Soleil, ran between 27 August 2008 and 19 February 2012 in a custom-built theater at the Venetian Macao. The show, directed by Neilson Vignola and Gilles Maheu, featured a cast of 75 circus artists, the shows theme was a young girls perception of the stars and planets, space and infinity, populated by otherworldly creatures. The theater housing the performance seated 1,800 spectators at a time, on 12 November 2008, the gates were locked to the construction labour force from a variety of Asian countries as projects were suspended. Hsin Chong, the manager for the Venetian, laid off approximately 400 staff. As many workers had been there for less than two years, no severance was due, the next day, Sands president for Asia announced that up to 11,000 workers would be losing their jobs as the company was halting building projects in Macao. In 2010 the Chinese press reported that as part of a sex-trade crackdown authorities had more than 100 prostitutes inside the casino
19.
Sheldon Adelson
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Sheldon Gary Adelson is an American business magnate, investor, and philanthropist. He also owns the Israeli daily newspaper Israel Hayom, and the Las Vegas Review-Journal, Adelson, a lifelong donor and philanthropist to a variety of causes, founded with his wifes initiative the Adelson Foundation. As of August 2016, Adelson was listed by Forbes as having a fortune of US$32.2 billion and he is a major contributor to Republican Party candidates. He has been one of the largest donors, of any party and he was the largest donor to Donald Trumps 2016 presidential campaign with a total of $125 million. Sheldon Gary Adelson was born into a family and grew up in the Dorchester neighborhood of Boston, Massachusetts. His family was of Ukrainian and Lithuanian Jewish ancestry and his mother immigrated from England, and one of his grandfathers was a Welsh coalminer. His father drove a taxi, and his mother ran a knitting shop and he started his business career at the age of 12, when he borrowed $200 from his uncle and purchased a license to sell newspapers in Boston. At age 16 in 1948, he then borrowed $10,000 from his uncle to start a candy-vending-machine business and he attended trade school to become a court reporter and subsequently joined the army. Adelson attended City College of New York, but decided to out to dedicate his full time to entrepreneurship. He established a business selling toiletry kits after being discharged from the army then started another business named De-Ice-It, in the 1960s, he started a charter tours business. He had soon become a millionaire, although by his 30s he had built, over the course of his business career, Adelson has created almost 50 of his own businesses. In the late 1970s, Adelson and his partners developed the trade shows COMDEX, for the computer industry. It was the computer trade show through much of the 1980s and 1990s. In 1995, Adelson and his partners sold the Interface Group Show Division, including the COMDEX shows, to SoftBank Corporation of Japan for $862 million, Adelsons share was over $500 million. In 1988, Adelson and his partners purchased the Sands Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas, the hangout of Frank Sinatra. The following year, Adelson and his partners constructed the Sands Expo and Convention Center, in 1991, while honeymooning in Venice with his second wife, Miriam, Adelson found the inspiration for a mega-resort hotel. He razed the Sands and spent $1.5 billion to construct The Venetian, the Venetian opened May 3,1999. In 2003, The Venetian added the 1, 013-suite Venezia tower – giving the hotel 4,049 suites,18 restaurants, Adelson said that he planned to open more hotels under brands such as Four Seasons, Sheraton and St. Regis
20.
Sophia Loren
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Sophia Loren is an Italian film actress. Encouraged to enroll in acting lessons after entering a beauty pageant and she appeared in several bit parts and minor roles in the early part of the decade, until her five-picture contract with Paramount in 1956 launched her international career. Notable film appearances around this time include The Pride and the Passion, Houseboat, after starting her family in the early 1970s, Loren spent less time on her acting career and chose to make only occasional film appearances. In later years, she has appeared in American films such as Grumpier Old Men, in 1995, she received the Cecil B. DeMille Award for lifetime achievements, one of such awards. In 1999, Loren was acknowledged as one of the top 25 female American Screen Legends in the American Film Institutes survey, AFIs 100 Years.100 Stars. Loren was born Sofia Villani Scicolone in the Clinica Regina Margherita in Rome, Italy, the daughter of Romilda Villani and Riccardo Scicolone, Riccardo Scicolone refused to marry Villani, leaving the piano teacher and aspiring actress without support. Lorens parents had another child together, her sister Maria, in 1938, Loren has two younger paternal half-brothers, Giuliano and Giuseppe. Romilda, Sofia, and Maria lived with Lorens grandmother in Pozzuoli, during World War II, the harbour and munitions plant in Pozzuoli was a frequent bombing target of the Allies. During one raid, as Loren ran to the shelter, she was struck by shrapnel, after that, the family moved to Naples, where they were taken in by distant relatives. After the war, Loren and her returned to Pozzuoli. Lorens grandmother Luisa opened a pub in their room, selling homemade cherry liquor. Romilda Villani played the piano, Maria sang, and Loren waited on tables, the place was popular with the American GIs stationed nearby. When she was 14, Sofia entered a beauty pageant, Miss Italia 1950 and, later, she enrolled in acting class and was selected as an uncredited extra in Mervyn LeRoys film Quo Vadis, at the age of 15. In 1951, she appeared in Italian film Era lui. sì. sì. where she played an odalisque. She appeared in bit parts and minor roles in the early part of the decade. She began using her current stage name in La Favorita, the new name being a twist on the name of the Swedish actress Märta Torén and was suggested by Goffredo Lombardo or Carlo Ponti and her first starring role was in Aida, for which she received critical acclaim. After playing the role in Two Nights with Cleopatra, her breakthrough role was in The Gold of Naples
21.
InterContinental Hotels Group
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InterContinental Hotels Group PLC, informally InterContinental Hotels or IHG, is a British multinational hotels company headquartered in Denham, UK. IHG has over 742,000 rooms and 5,028 hotels across nearly 100 countries and its brands include Candlewood Suites, Crowne Plaza, Even, Holiday Inn, Holiday Inn Express, Hotel Indigo, Hualuxe, InterContinental, Kimpton Hotels and Resorts and Staybridge Suites. Of the 4,602 hotels,3,934 operate under franchise agreements,658 are managed by the company but separately owned, the origins of InterContinental Hotels Group can be traced back to 1777, when William Bass established the Bass Brewery in Burton-upon-Trent. In 1876, its red triangle logo was the first ever registered in the United Kingdom. In 1989, the British Government limited the number of pubs which brewers could directly own, in 1990, it purchased Holiday Inn International from Kemmons Wilson and expanded into North America. Pan American Airways founder Juan Trippe established the InterContinental brand as a division of PanAm and opened the first hotel in Belém, on August 19,1981, PanAm sold holding company InterContinental Hotels Corporation to UK-based Grand Metropolitan for $500 million. As GrandMet focused its business and expanded into fast food through the purchase of Burger King. In March 1998, Saison Group sold IHC to British brewery Bass, which traces its roots back to 1777, when William Bass established the Bass Brewery in Burton-upon-Trent. In 1988, in reaction to the British government limiting the number of pubs which brewers could directly own, in 2000, Bass sold its brewing assets to the major Belgian brewer Interbrew for £2.3 billion and changed its name to Six Continents. IHG retained Britvic, the drinks division, until December 2005 when it sold its interest in the company by an initial public offering. In April/May 2014 the company rejected a $10 billion takeover bid from an unknown suitor. The company worldwide headquarters and Europe offices are in Denham, Buckinghamshire in England, the Americas office is in Dunwoody, Georgia in Greater Atlanta. The Asia, Middle East, and Africa offices are in Singapore, the Greater China offices are in Pudong, Shanghai. In 2006, IHG and Lend Lease Group, joined forces in the Privatization of Army Lodging program, IHG Army Hotels is a division of IHG that manages on-post hotels and lodgings in 39 different locations in the U. S. including Puerto Rico. The InterContinental Hotels Group became the target of a boycott campaign in May 2013 over their plan to operate an Intercontinental-brand luxury hotel in Lhasa. According to campaigners from the Free Tibet campaign, the hotel was a PR coup for the Chinese government and its notable art deco features led to its listing as a heritage building, and subsequent adaption as a hotel. The hotel in the Wilshire Grand Tower, under construction in downtown Los Angeles, will be the largest InterContinental in the Americas, a history of the Intercontinental Hotels Group by cosmopolis. ch Information of Public Interest - Holiday Inn Express Leigh
22.
Sportsbook
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The method of betting varies with the sport and the type of game. In the US, the Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act of 1992 allows only Nevada, Oregon, Montana, winning bets are paid when the event finishes, or if not finished, when played long enough to become official, otherwise all bets are returned. This policy can cause confusion since there can be a difference between what the sportsbook considers official and what the sports league consider official. Customers should carefully read the rules before placing their bets. The betting volume at sportsbooks varies throughout the year, bettors have more interest in certain types of sports and increase the money wagered when those sports are in season. Major sporting events that dont follow a schedule, like boxing. Most of the United States sportsbooks are located in Nevada, in 1949, Nevada allowed bookmakers to accept bets on horse racing and professional sports. The first Nevada sportsbooks were called Turf Clubs and they were independent from the casinos and had an informal agreement with the hotels that they would stay out of the casino business as long as the hotels stayed out of the sportsbook business. The sportsbooks had to pay a 10 percent tax so they charged a high vigorish to gamblers, but they still brought enough business to make a profit. In 1974 the tax was lowered to 2 percent, and in 1975 Frank Rosenthal, who ran the Stardust Casino, convinced legislators to allow them in the casinos, the turf clubs were no longer able to compete and eventually all closed. Some casinos use third-party operators for their sportsbooks, such as Cantor Gaming, Leroys, Luckys, and Club Cal Neva. In 2011, British bookmaker William Hill agreed to buy the Leroys, the Luckys, and the Cal Neva chains, the Super Bowl is the most popular event for the Nevada sportsbooks. They earned $7.2 million on the $99 million wagered on it in 2013. Because it attracts many unsophisticated bettors, as of January 2014 the books had made money on 21 of the previous 23 Super Bowls, with an average win of $5.5 million over the previous 10 years. The most profitable Super Bowl was in 2005, when the Philadelphia Eagles covered the spread against the favored New England Patriots, earning the books $15.4 million. The two losses were in 1995—when the San Francisco 49ers defeated the San Diego Chargers—and 2008—when the favored Patriots lost to the New York Giants, in 2009, a bill passed to allow sports betting on almost every sport. That year, the NFL, MLB, NHL, NBA, the US Supreme Court ruled that the law partially violated the federal law, and Delaware was only allowed to offer parlays on NFL games. Delawares three racetrack casinos—Dover Downs, Harrington Raceway & Casino, and Delaware Park Racetrack—have sports books, each sportsbook has multiple televisions, large tote boards and stations for people to wager
23.
Blue Man Group
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Blue Man Group is a performance art company formed in 1991. It is best known for its productions around the world. It combines many different categories of music and art, both popular and unpopular in these shows, Blue Man Group currently has continuing theatrical productions in Las Vegas, Orlando, Boston, Chicago, New York City and Berlin. Blue Man Group was referenced in a storyline of the TV series Arrested Development, Blue Man Group grew out of a collaboration between three close friends, Chris Wink, Matt Goldman and Phil Stanton, on Manhattan’s Lower East Side in 1988. It originated as a celebration to the end of the 1980s, the three men wore blue masks and led a procession that included the burning of a Rambo doll and a piece of the Berlin Wall. The stunt caught the attention of MTV’s Kurt Loder, who covered the event, Germany Berlin at the Bluemax Theater United States Live at Luxor in Las Vegas “How to be a Megastar” national arena rock concert tour “How to be a Megastar 2. Although it contained some of the music from their productions, it was less of a soundtrack. In 2002, the participated in Mobys Area2 tour, giving a more rock-oriented performance than in the theatrical shows. Songs developed during this tour appeared on 2003s album The Complex, unlike Audio, The Complex, released in 2003, featured a variety of vocalists and guests including Tracy Bonham, Dave Matthews, Gavin Rossdale and Venus Hum. The record spawned its own 2003 tour, How to Be a Megastar, the tour deconstructed the traditional rock concert experience into its often clichéd parts and was chronicled in a 2004 DVD release. The tour featured Tracy Bonham and Venus Hum as supporting acts, the DVD included a surround sound mix of some of the studio recordings. Blue Man Group launched its tour, The How to Be a Megastar Tour 2.0. The tour added some new material to material from the original Complex Rock Tour, dJ/VJ Mike Relm was the opening act for the second leg of this tour, which ended April 22,2007 in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania. The fourth leg, using 2.1 in its title, included more U. S. following that, the Megastar World Tour visited France, Korea, Canada, Germany, and a few other European countries throughout 2008. As Typhoon Morakot hit the island and caused damage in mid August. The group performed with Ricky Martin at the 2007 Latin Grammy Awards, in 2008, the group collaborated on the track No More Heroes with the Dutch DJ and producer Tiësto for the remixed version of the Elements of Life album. Announced in 2009, Blue Man Group began performing for the first time at sea on Norwegian Cruise Lines ship, Epic began alternating 7-Day Eastern and Western Caribbean sailings from Miami with Blue Man Group shows nightly in July 2010 until its close in March 2015. A Blue Man Group national tour in 2010 visited various cities in the United States, Canada and this tour included both elements from their then-current theatrical performances, plus new elements created just for this tour
24.
Monte Carlo Resort and Casino
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The Monte Carlo Resort and Casino is a megaresort hotel and casino on the Las Vegas Strip in Paradise, Nevada, United States. The hotel, with a height of 360 ft, has 32 floors, featuring a 102, 000-square-foot casino floor with 1,400 slot machines,60 table games and it is owned and operated by MGM Resorts International. The hotel offers 2,992 guest rooms, including 259 luxury suites and it is being converted from late 2016 to 2018 into the Park MGM, with the upper floors converted into a boutique hotel, NoMad Las Vegas. The hotel, named to invoke the Place du Casino in Monte Carlo, features chandelier domes, marble floors, neoclassical arches, ornate fountains, as of 2010, Monte Carlo has a AAA-Four-Diamond rating. A21,000 sq ft pool area includes a pool with constantly changing wave patterns. The CityCenter Tram offers access to the Bellagio and Crystals retail district in the CityCenter complex, on October 7,2010, the JabbaWockeeZ - described as a modern dance/hip-hop crew - began performance of their permanent headline show at Monte Carlo, entitled MÜS. I. C. In 2012, the JabbaWockeeZ show moved to the 800-seat Monte Carlo Pavilion, on October 11,2015, Blue Man Group discontinued their show at the Monte Carlo and moved back to the Luxor to open a new show, which opened on November 18,2015. The hotel seeks to provide an unpretentiously luxurious experience, as of 2009, the Monte Carlo print advertising campaign features humorously misspelled French words coupled with glamorous images. The campaigns tagline is Unpretentiously luxurious, ground was broken for the hotel in March 1995. It was originally known as the Grand Victoria, the palatial style was a reminiscent of the Belle Epoque, which is how the French refer to the architecture of the Victorian era in England. After much criticism by MGM Grand officials, it was shortened to Victoria and then changed to Monte Carlo, named after the Monte Carlo Casino in Monte Carlo, Monaco. Monte Carlo was built as a joint venture between Mirage Resorts and Circus Circus Enterprises, and cost US$344 million to build, the resort sits on 44 acres, occupied by the Dunes Hotel golf course until its demolition in October 1993. The Monte Carlo opened to the public on June 21,1996, at 12,01 a. m. following invitation-only VIP pre-opening celebration the prior day, including a fireworks show. On January 25,2008, at 10,57 AM, portions of the hotel facades Exterior Insulation Finishing System burned with some debris falling off and starting smaller secondary fires on ledges three floors below. The fire was contained a hour after it began. It was a fire, although there was water damage to parts of several floors. The Hotel & Casino reopened to guests on February 15,2008, MGM Mirage officials put the total losses due to fire damage and loss of business at just under $100 million. The 5, 200-seat Park Theater at the Monte Carlo was built and it will feature the new Eataly restaurant
25.
Doge's Palace
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The Doges Palace is a palace built in Venetian Gothic style, and one of the main landmarks of the city of Venice in northern Italy. The palace was the residence of the Doge of Venice, the authority of the former Republic of Venice. Today, it is one of the 11 museums run by the Fondazione Musei Civici di Venezia. In 810, Doge Angelo Partecipazio moved the seat of government from the island of Malamocco to the area of the present-day Rialto, when it was decided a palatium duci, a ducal palace, should be built. However, no remains of that 9th-century building as the palace was partially destroyed in the 10th century by a fire. The following reconstruction works were undertaken at the behest of Doge Sebastiano Ziani, a great reformer, he would drastically change the entire layout of the St. The new palace was built out of fortresses, one façade to the Piazzetta, political changes in the mid-13th century led to the need to re-think the palaces structure due to the considerable increase in the number of the Great Councils members. The new Gothic palaces constructions started around 1340, focusing mostly on the side of the building facing the lagoon, in 1483, a violent fire broke out in the side of the palace overlooking the canal, where the Doges Apartments were. Once again, an important reconstruction became necessary and was commissioned from Antonio Rizzo, another huge fire in 1547 destroyed some of the rooms on the second floor, but fortunately without undermining the structure as a whole. However, there are some classical features — for example, since the 16th century, as well as being the ducal residence, the palace housed political institutions of the Republic of Venice until the Napoleonic occupation of the city in 1797, when its role inevitably changed. Venice was subjected first to French rule, then to Austrian, over this period, the palace was occupied by various administrative offices as well as housing the Biblioteca Marciana and other important cultural institutions within the city. In 1923, the Italian State, owner of the building, since 1996, the Doge’s Palace has been part of the Venetian museums network, which has been under the management of the Fondazione Musei Civici di Venezia since 2008. The ground floor arcade and the loggia above are decorated with 14th- and 15th-century capitals, in 1438–1442, Giovanni Bon and Bartolomeo Bon built and adorned the Porta della Carta, which served as the ceremonial entrance to the building. In the space above the cornice, there is a portrait of the Doge Francesco Foscari kneeling before the St. This is, however, a 19th-century work by Luigi Ferrari, nowadays, the public entrance to the Doges Palace is via the Porta del Frumento, on the waterfront side of the building. The north side of the courtyard is closed by the junction between the palace and St, mark’s Basilica, which used to be the Doge’s chapel. At the center of the courtyard stand two well-heads dating from the mid-16th century, in 1485, the Great Council decided that a ceremonial staircase should be built within the courtyard. Since 1567, the Giants’ Staircase is guarded by Sansovino’s two colossal statues of Mars and Neptune, which represents Venice’s power by land and by sea, members of the Senate gathered before government meetings in the Senator’s Courtyard, to the right of the Giants’ Staircase
26.
Piazza San Marco
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Piazza San Marco, often known in English as St Marks Square, is the principal public square of Venice, Italy, where it is generally known just as la Piazza. All other urban spaces in the city are called campi, the Piazzetta is an extension of the Piazza towards the lagoon in its south east corner. The two spaces together form the social, religious and political centre of Venice and are considered together. This article relates to both of them, a remark usually attributed to Napoleon calls the Piazza San Marco the drawing room of Europe. The Square is dominated at its end by the great church of St Mark. It is described here by a perambulation starting from the west front of the church, the Piazzetta dei Leoncini is an open space on the north side of the church named after the two marble lions, but now officially called the Piazzetta San Giovanni XXIII. The neo-classic building on the east side adjoining the Basilica is the Palazzo Patriarcale, beyond that is the Clock Tower, completed in 1499, above a high archway where the street known as the Merceria leads through shopping streets to the Rialto, the commercial and financial centre. To the right of the clock-tower is the church of San Basso, designed by Baldassarre Longhena. Mark, high officers of state in the days of the republic of Venice and they were built in the early 16th century. The arcade is lined with shops and restaurants at ground level, turning left at the end, the arcade continues along the west end of the Piazza, which was rebuilt by Napoleon about 1810 and is known as the Ala Napoleonica. It holds, behind the shops, a staircase which was to have led to a royal palace. Turning left again, the arcade continues down the side of the Piazza. Again, the floor has shops and also the Caffè Florian, a famous cafe opened in 1720 by Floriano Francesconi. The upper floors were intended by Napoleon to be a palace for his stepson Eugène de Beauharnais, his viceroy in Venice, at the far end the Procuratie meet the north end of Sansovinos Libreria, whose main front faces the Piazzetta and is described there. The arcade continues round the corner into the Piazzetta, opposite to this, standing free in the Piazza, is the Campanile of St Marks church, rebuilt in 1912 comera, dovera after the collapse of the former campanile on 14 July 1902. Across the Piazza in front of the church are three large mast-like flagpoles with bronze bases decorated in relief by Alessandro Leopardi in 1505. The Venetian flag of St Mark used to fly them in the time of the republic of Venice. The Piazzetta di San Marco is not part of the Piazza, the Piazzetta lies between the Doges Palace on the east and Jacopo Sansovinos Biblioteca which holds the Biblioteca Marciana on the west
27.
Lion of Venice
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The Lion sculpture has had a very long and obscure history, probably starting its existence as a winged lion-griffin statue on a monument to the god Sandon at Tarsus in Cilicia about 300 BC. The figure, which stands on the column, at some point came to represent the “Lion of Saint Mark”. The figure standing on the column is St. Theodore of Amasea, patron of the city before St Mark. It is also made up of parts of statues and is a copy. The Lion weighs approximately 3,000 kilograms, the book under its front paws is a later addition. The Lion, in its present form, is a composite of different pieces of bronze created at different times. It has undergone restoration and repair work at various times. The original bronze figure, taken as a whole, was significantly different from the Lion of today. It is likely that the statue was assembled into something like its present form by or during the Medieval period, the earliest textual reference to the Lion is from 1293, when it is recorded as having been restored after long neglect. The Lion was taken to France after Napoleons conquest of the Venetian Republic and it was damaged in the course of removal and transport, lacking wings, paws, tail, and Gospel-book. After being restored by French sculptors, possibly Edme Gaulle or Jean Guillaume Moitte, the fountain, completed in 1804, was located at the Place des Invalides, Paris. After Napoleons downfall the Lion was returned to Venice, now a part of the Austrian Empire, on 2 October 1815, during the process of removal, it was again badly damaged. A rope broke, the fell, and smashed apart, whether by accident. As a result, the figure was broken into approximately 20 pieces. Having lost its main ornament, the Fontaine des Invalides was eventually redesigned, repatriated to Venice, the fragments of the Lion were stored at the Arsenal before it was repaired by Bartolomeo Ferrari and returned to its column, officially, on 13 April 1816. This restoration included an alteration to the Lions tail, now extended, the book beneath its paws was again recast, the French replacement having been lost, stolen, or abandoned. Ultimately, the image of the Lion appeared on the flag of the Venetian Republic, media related to Lion of Venice at Wikimedia Commons Includes material from the French Wikipedia article about the Fontaine des Invalides
28.
St Mark's Campanile
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St Marks Campanile is the bell tower of St Marks Basilica in Venice, Italy, located in the Piazza San Marco. It is one of the most recognizable symbols of the city, the tower is 98.6 metres tall, and stands alone in a corner of St Marks Square, near the front of the basilica. It has a form, the bulk of which is a fluted brick square shaft,12 metres wide on each side and 50 metres tall, above which is a loggia surrounding the belfry. The belfry is topped by a cube, alternate faces of which show the Lion of St. Mark, the tower is capped by a pyramidal spire, at the top of which sits a golden weathervane in the form of the archangel Gabriel. The campanile reached its present form in 1514, the current tower was reconstructed in its present form in 1912 after the collapse of 1902. Construction was finished in the century, during the reign of Domenico Morosini. Adjoining the base of the campanile is the built by Sansovino, completed in 1549. One of the models for the tower was the St. Mercuriales Campanile, the campanile suffered damage by lightning on many occasions. It was severely damaged in 1388, set on fire and destroyed in 1417, the campanile assumed its definitive shape in the sixteenth century thanks to the restorations made to repair further damage caused by the earthquake of March 1511. The work was completed on 6 July 1513, with the placement of the wooden statue of the Archangel Gabriel in the course of a ceremony recorded by Marin Sanudo. In the following centuries numerous other interventions were made to repair the damage from fires caused by lightning and it was damaged in 1548 and 1565. In 1653, Baldassarre Longhena took up the restorations, the campanile was damaged by lightning again in 1658. More work was done after a fire caused by a strike on April 13,1745, which caused some of the masonry to crack. The campanile was damaged by lightning again in 1761 and 1762, finally, in 1776, it was equipped with a lightning rod. In 1820, the statue of the angel was replaced with a new one by Luigi Zandomeneghi, in July 1902, the north wall of the tower began to show signs of a dangerous crack that in the following days continued to grow. Finally, on Monday, July 14, around 9,45 am, remarkably, no one was killed, except for the caretakers cat. Because of the position, the resulting damage was relatively limited. Apart from the logetta, only a corner of the Biblioteca Marciana was destroyed, the pietra del bando, a large porphyry column from which laws used to be read, protected the basilica itself
29.
Rialto Bridge
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The Rialto Bridge is one of the four bridges spanning the Grand Canal in Venice, Italy. It is the oldest bridge across the canal, and was the line for the districts of San Marco. The first dry crossing of the Grand Canal was a bridge built in 1181 by Nicolò Barattieri. It was called the Ponte della Moneta, presumably because of the mint that stood near its eastern entrance, the development and importance of the Rialto market on the eastern bank increased traffic on the floating bridge, so it was replaced in 1255 by a wooden bridge. This structure had two inclined ramps meeting at a central section, that could be raised to allow the passage of tall ships. The connection with the market led to a change of name for the bridge. During the first half of the 15th century, two rows of shops were built along the sides of the bridge, the rents brought an income to the State Treasury, which helped maintain the bridge. Maintenance was vital for the timber bridge and it was partly burnt in the revolt led by Bajamonte Tiepolo in 1310. In 1444, it collapsed under the weight of a crowd watching a boat parade, the idea of rebuilding the bridge in stone was first proposed in 1503. Several projects were considered over the following decades, in 1551, the authorities requested proposals for the renewal of the Rialto Bridge, among other things. Plans were offered by famous architects, such as Jacopo Sansovino, Palladio and Vignola, but all involved a Classical approach with several arches, michelangelo also was considered as designer of the bridge. The present stone bridge, a single designed by Antonio da Ponte, was finally completed in 1591. It is similar to the bridge it succeeded. Two inclined ramps lead up to a central portico, on either side of the portico, the covered ramps carry rows of shops. The engineering of the bridge was considered so audacious that architect Vincenzo Scamozzi predicted future ruin, the bridge has defied its critics to become one of the architectural icons of Venice. Today, the Bridge is one of the top attractions in Vence. In 2017 police arrested Fisnik Bekaj, Dake Haziraj, and Arian Babaj and it was called Shylocks bridge in Robert Brownings poem A Toccata of Galuppis. Miracle of the Relic of the Cross at the Ponte di Rialto Rialto Bridge at Structurae Satellite image from Google Maps
30.
The Phantom of the Opera (1986 musical)
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The Phantom of the Opera is a musical with music by Andrew Lloyd Webber and lyrics by Charles Hart with additions from Richard Stilgoe. Lloyd Webber and Stilgoe also wrote the book together. The musical opened in Londons West End in 1986, and on Broadway in 1988 and it won the 1986 Olivier Award and the 1988 Tony Award for Best Musical, and Michael Crawford won the Olivier and Tony Awards for Best Actor in a Musical. It is the longest running show in Broadway history by a margin, and celebrated its 10, 000th Broadway performance on 11 February 2012. It is the second longest-running West End musical, after Les Misérables, by 2011, it had been seen by over 130 million people in 145 cities across 27 countries, and continues to play in London and New York. In 1986, Lloyd Webber contacted Cameron Mackintosh, the co-producer of Cats and Song and Dance and he was aiming for a romantic piece, and suggested Gaston Lerouxs book The Phantom of the Opera as a basis. They screened both the 1925 Lon Chaney and the 1943 Claude Rains motion picture versions, but neither saw a way to make the leap from film to stage. Then with the Phantom, it was there, Lloyd Webber first approached Jim Steinman to write the lyrics because of his dark obsessive side, but he declined in order to fulfill his commitments on a Bonnie Tyler album. Alan Jay Lerner was then recruited, but he became ill after joining the project and was forced to withdraw. Richard Stilgoe, the lyricist for Starlight Express, wrote most of the lyrics for the production. Charles Hart, a young and then-relatively unknown lyricist, later many of the lyrics. Some of Stilgoes original contributions are still present in the final version, inspired in part by an earlier musical version of the same story by Ken Hill, Lloyd Webbers score is sometimes operatic in style but maintains the form and structure of a musical throughout. The full-fledged operatic passages are reserved principally for subsidiary characters such as Andre and Firmin, Carlotta, and Piangi. They are also used to provide the content of the operas that are taking place within the show itself, viz. Hannibal, Il Muto. Here, Lloyd Webber pastiched various styles from the operas of Meyerbeer through to Mozart and even Gilbert. These pieces are presented as musical fragments, interrupted by dialogue or action sequences in order to clearly define the musicals show within a show format. Maria Björnson designed the sets and over 200 costumes, including the elaborate gowns in the Masquerade sequence and her set designs, including the chandelier, subterranean gondola, and sweeping staircase, earned her multiple awards. A preview of the first act was staged at Sydmonton in 1985, starring Colm Wilkinson as the Phantom, Sarah Brightman as Kristin, and Clive Carter as Raoul
31.
Tim McGraw
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Samuel Timothy Tim McGraw is an American singer, songwriter and actor. He has been married to singer Faith Hill since 1996, and is the son of the baseball player Tug McGraw. McGraw has released fourteen studio albums,10 of those albums have reached number 1 on the Top Country Albums charts, with his 1994 breakthrough album Not a Moment Too Soon being the top country album of 1994. All of these albums have produced 65 singles,25 of which have reached number 1 on the Hot Country Songs or Country Airplay charts. Three of these singles — Its Your Love, Just to See You Smile, and Live Like You Were Dying — were the top songs of 1997,1998. He has also won three Grammy Awards,14 Academy of Country Music awards,11 Country Music Association awards,10 American Music Awards, and three Peoples Choice Awards. His Soul2Soul II Tour with Faith Hill is one of the highest grossing tours in music history. McGraw has ventured into acting, with supporting roles in The Blind Side, Friday Night Lights, The Kingdom, Tomorrowland, and Four Christmases and he was a minority owner of the Arena Football Leagues Nashville Kats. McGraw is of Italian and Irish descent on his mothers side, and of Scots-Irish, English, Scottish, Swiss, Dutch, Czech, and German descent on his fathers side. In 1966, Tug was a pitcher for the Jacksonville Suns, and he lived in an apartment above Betty DAgostino, the pair had a relationship, and when Betty became pregnant, her parents sent her to Louisiana to live with relatives and to have the baby. Raised by his mother in Start, also in Richland Parish, east of Monroe, McGraw grew up believing his stepfather, from the time of his mothers marriage until the time he met his biological father, his last name was Smith. At age 11, McGraw discovered his birth certificate while searching his mothers closet to look for Christmas presents, after his discovery, his mother revealed that his biological father was Tug McGraw, and took Tim to meet him for the first time. For seven years, Tug denied being Tims father, Tim was 18 years old when Tug first realized how much Tim looked like him at that age, and he acknowledged paternity. They remained close until Tugs death in 2004, as a child, McGraw loved to play competitive sports, including baseball, even though he did not know his biological father was a professional athlete. He was also a member of the FFA, a knee injury sustained while playing baseball prevented him from pursuing a career in sports and therefore, he decided to drop out of college and move to Nashville. During his college period, he learned to play guitar, and would perform and sing for tips. His mother, Betty, returned to Jacksonville, Florida in 1987 and he attended Florida Community College at Jacksonville for one term, and occasionally sat in with local bands. In 1989, on the day his hero Keith Whitley died, McGraw dropped out of college to head to Nashville, McGraw came to the attention of Curb Records in 1990
32.
Faith Hill
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Faith Hill is an American singer, actress and record producer. She is one of the most successful artists of all time. Hill is married to American singer Tim McGraw, with whom she has recorded several duets, Hills first two albums, Take Me as I Am and It Matters to Me, were major successes and placed a combined three number ones on Billboards country charts. She then achieved mainstream and crossover success with her two albums, Faith and Breathe. It had massive sales worldwide and earned Hill three Grammy Awards, in 2001, she recorded There Youll Be for the Pearl Harbor soundtrack and it became an international hit and her best-selling single in Europe. Hill has won five Grammy Awards,15 Academy of Country Music Awards, six American Music Awards and her Soul2Soul II Tour 2006 with McGraw became the highest-grossing country tour of all time. In 2001, she was named one of the 30 Most Powerful Women in America by Ladies Home Journal, in 2009, Billboard named her as the No.1 Adult Contemporary artist of the 2000 decade and also as the 39th best artist. From 2007 to 2012, Hill was the voice of NBC Sunday Night Footballs intro song, Hill was born in Ridgeland, Mississippi, north of Jackson, Mississippi. She was adopted as an infant, and named Audrey Faith Perry and she was raised in the nearby town of Star,20 miles outside of Jackson. Her adoptive parents, Edna and Ted Perry, raised her with their two sons in a devout Christian environment. Hills vocal talent was apparent early, and she had her first public performance, at a 4-H luncheon, in 1976, a few days before her 9th birthday, she attended a concert by Elvis Presley at the State Fair Coliseum, in Jackson, which impressed her deeply. By the time she was a teenager, Hill was a performer at area churches. At 17, Hill formed a band played in local rodeos. She graduated from McLaurin Attendance Center in 1986, and briefly attended college at Hinds Junior College in Raymond, at times, she sang for prisoners at the Hinds County Jail, her song of choice being Amazing Grace. At age 19 she quit school to move to Nashville and pursue her dream of being a country singer, in her early days in Nashville, Hill auditioned to be a backup singer for Reba McEntire, but failed to secure the job. After a stint selling T-shirts, Hill became a secretary at a publishing firm. Additionally, Hill also landed a job at a local McDonalds restaurant franchise, fries, burgers, cash register – I did it all, I hated it, she has said. In 1988, she married music publishing executive Daniel Hill, a co-worker heard Hill singing to herself one day, and soon the head of her music publishing company was encouraging her to become a demo singer for the firm
33.
Infinity pool
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An infinity pool is a reflecting or swimming pool where the water flows over one or more edges, producing a visual effect of water with no boundary. Such pools are designed such that the edge appears to merge with a larger body of water such as the ocean. They are often seen at resorts, estates, and in other luxurious places, the infinity pool design concept is said to have originated in France, where one of the first vanishing edge designs was utilized in the Stag Fountain at the Palace of Versailles in the early 1400s. Infinity pools are very expensive and require extensive structural, mechanical, since they are often built in precarious locations, sound structural engineering is paramount. The high costs of these pools are found in the foundation systems that anchor them to hillsides. The infinite edge of the pool terminates at a weir that is 1⁄16 to 1⁄4 inch lower than the required pool water level, a trough or catch basin is constructed below the weir. The water spills into the basin, from where it is pumped back into the pool. Infinity Pools, A Special Collection of Dramatic Pools—Built to Inspire, media related to Infinity edge pools at Wikimedia Commons
34.
Koi
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Koi or more specifically nishikigoi, are ornamental varieties of domesticated common carp that are kept for decorative purposes in outdoor koi ponds or water gardens. Koi varieties are distinguished by coloration, patterning, and scalation, some of the major colors are white, black, red, yellow, blue, and cream. The most popular category of koi is the Gosanke, which is made up of the Kohaku, Taisho Sanshoku, carp are a large group of fish originally found in Central Europe and Asia. Various carp species were domesticated in East Asia, where they were used as food fish. Carp are coldwater fish, and their ability to survive and adapt to many climates and water allowed the domesticated species to be propagated to many new locations. Natural color mutations of these carp would have occurred across all populations, carp were first bred for color mutations in China more than a thousand years ago, where selective breeding of the Prussian carp led to the development of the goldfish. Members of the carp species complex were aquacultured as a food fish at least as long ago as the fifth century BC in China. Western Jin Dynasty mentioned carp with various colors, carp were bred for color in Japan in the 1820s, initially in the town of Ojiya in the Niigata prefecture on the northeastern coast of Honshu island. The outside world was not aware of the development of color variations in Japanese koi until 1914, from that time, interest in koi spread throughout Japan. From this original handful of koi, all other Nishikigoi varieties were bred, the hobby of keeping koi eventually spread worldwide. Koi are now sold in many pet shops, with higher-quality fish available from specialist dealers. Extensive hybridization between different populations coupled with widespread translocations have muddled the historical zoogeography of the common carp, traditionally, East Asian carp were included as a subspecies of the common carp under the scientific name C. carpio haematopterus. These differ in meristics from the common carp of Europe and Western Asia, leading recent authorities to recognize them as a separate species, C. rubrofuscus. Consequently, recent authorities have suggested that the species of the koi is C. rubrofuscus or at least an East Asian carp species instead of C. carpio. The word koi comes from Japanese, simply meaning carp and it includes both the dull grey fish and the brightly colored varieties. What are known as koi in English are referred to specifically as nishikigoi in Japan. In Japanese, koi is a homophone for another word that means affection or love, koi are therefore symbols of love, Koi varieties are distinguished by coloration, patterning, and scalation. Some of the colors are white, black, red, yellow, blue
35.
Cabana (structure)
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Cabana or Cabaña may refer to either an indigenous hut or a recreational structure. A small hut built with a roof, most commonly built in tropical climates near natural bodies of water. A temporary, seasonal, or permanent free standing structure with, adjustable curtains or shades, and/or decorative drapes or solid walls. These are often at beach clubs, or adjacent to swimming pools at resorts and hotels and these are often small rooms with ground-level porches that have chairs and tables for relaxation and dining as well as storage for chairs, umbrellas and surfboards or other beach or pool playthings. The etymology of the word comes from the Spanish cabaña. A cabana can be fabricated from a variety of materials and in sizes, cabana frames can be made of, aluminum or steel with a polyester powder coat paint or other durable finish, treated wood, or composite construction grade plastics. Roofs or top covers, side walls, and curtains can made of exterior grade fabrics, thatched materials, prefabricated panels of lumber, more elaborate cabanas can include utilities such as power, communications and entertainment connections, potable water, and/or natural gas. Accessories can include lighting, ceiling fans, outdoor heaters, entertainment equipment, cold-hot food appliances. Furnishings can range from simple patio furniture to more designed outdoor furnishings
36.
Xbox 360
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The Xbox 360 is a home video game console developed by Microsoft. As the successor to the original Xbox, it is the console in the Xbox series. The Xbox 360 competed with Sonys PlayStation 3 and Nintendos Wii as part of the generation of video game consoles. The Xbox 360 was officially unveiled on MTV on May 12,2005, with detailed launch, the Xbox 360 features an online service, Xbox Live, which was expanded from its previous iteration on the original Xbox and received regular updates during the consoles lifetime. In addition to multimedia features, the Xbox 360 allows users to stream media from local PCs. Several peripherals have been released, including controllers, expanded hard drive storage. The release of additional services and peripherals helped the Xbox brand grow from gaming-only to encompassing all multimedia. Launched worldwide across 2005–2006, the Xbox 360 was initially in short supply in many regions, including North America, the earliest versions of the console suffered from a high failure rate, indicated by the so-called Red Ring of Death, necessitating an extension of the devices warranty period. Microsoft released two redesigned models of the console, the Xbox 360 S in 2010, and the Xbox 360 E in 2013. As of June 2014,84 million Xbox 360 consoles have sold worldwide, making it the sixth-highest-selling video game console in history. The Xbox 360s successor, the Xbox One, was released on November 22,2013, on April 20,2016, Microsoft announced that it would end the production of new Xbox 360 hardware, although the company will continue to support the platform. Known during development as Xbox Next, Xenon, Xbox 2, Xbox FS or NextBox, in February 2003, planning for the Xenon software platform began, and was headed by Microsofts Vice President J Allard. That month, Microsoft held an event for 400 developers in Bellevue, also that month, Peter Moore, former president of Sega of America, joined Microsoft. On August 12,2003, ATI signed on to produce the graphic processing unit for the new console, before the launch of the Xbox 360, several Alpha development kits were spotted using Apples Power Mac G5 hardware. This was because the systems PowerPC970 processor running the same PowerPC architecture that the Xbox 360 would eventually run under IBMs Xenon processor, the cores of the Xenon processor were developed using a slightly modified version of the PlayStation 3s Cell Processor PPE architecture. According to David Shippy and Mickie Phipps, the IBM employees were hiding their work from Sony and Toshiba, jeff Minter created the music visualization program Neon which is included with the Xbox 360. The Xbox 360 was released on November 22,2005, in the United States and Canada, December 2,2005, in Europe and December 10,2005, in Japan. It was later launched in Mexico, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Hong Kong, Singapore, South Korea, Taiwan, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, India, and Russia
37.
Lottery
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A lottery is a form of legalized government gambling that involves the drawing of numbers for a prize. Lotteries are outlawed by some governments, while others endorse it to the extent of organizing a national or state lottery. It is common to some degree of regulation of lottery by governments. This remained so well after World War II. In the 1960s casinos and lotteries began to re-appear throughout the world as a means for governments to raise revenue without raising taxes, for example, the prize can be a fixed amount of cash or goods. In this format there is risk to the organizer if insufficient tickets are sold, more commonly the prize fund will be a fixed percentage of the receipts. A popular form of this is the 50–50 draw where the promise that the prize will be 50% of the revenue. Many recent lotteries allow purchasers to select the numbers on the lottery ticket, the purchase of lottery tickets cannot be accounted for by decision models based on expected value maximization. The reason is that lottery tickets cost more than the gain, as shown by lottery mathematics. Yet, lottery purchases can be explained by decision models based on expected utility maximization, more general models based on utility functions defined on things other than the lottery outcomes can also account for lottery purchase. In addition to the prizes, the ticket may enable some purchasers to experience a thrill. If the entertainment value obtained by playing is enough for a given individual. The first recorded signs of a lottery are keno slips from the Chinese Han Dynasty between 205 and 187 BC and these lotteries are believed to have helped to finance major government projects like the Great Wall of China. From the Chinese The Book of Songs comes a reference to a game of chance as the drawing of wood, from the Celtic era, the Cornish words teulel pren translates into to throw wood and means to draw lots. The Iliad of Homer refers to lots being placed into Agamemnons helmet to determine who would fight Hector, the first known European lotteries were held during the Roman Empire, mainly as an amusement at dinner parties. Each guest would receive a ticket, and prizes would often consist of items such as dinnerware. Every ticket holder would be assured of winning something and this type of lottery, however, was no more than the distribution of gifts by wealthy noblemen during the Saturnalian revelries. The earliest records of a lottery offering tickets for sale is the organized by Roman Emperor Augustus Caesar
38.
Mercedes-Benz
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Mercedes-Benz is a global automobile manufacturer and a division of the German company Daimler AG. The brand is known for vehicles, buses, coaches. The headquarters is in Stuttgart, Baden-Württemberg, the slogan for the brand is the best or nothing and Mercedes-Benz was one of the top growing brands in 2014 with 18% growth. The Mercedes automobile was first marketed in 1901 by Daimler-Motoren-Gesellschaft, emil Jellinek, an Austrian automobile entrepreneur who worked with DMG created the trademark in 1902, naming the 1901 Mercedes 35 hp after his daughter Mercedes Jellinek. The first Mercedes-Benz brand name vehicles were produced in 1926, following the merger of Karl Benzs, on 28 June 1926, Mercedes Benz was formed with the merger of Karl Benz and Gottlieb Daimlers two companies. Gottlieb Daimler was born on 17 March 1834 in Schorndorf, after training as a gunsmith and working in France, he attended the Polytechnic School in Stuttgart from 1857 to 1859. After completing various activities in France and England, he started work as a draftsman in Geislingen in 1862. At the end of 1863, he was appointed inspector in a machine tool factory in Reutlingen. Throughout the 1930s, Mercedes-Benz produced the 770 model, a car that was popular during Germanys Nazi period, Adolf Hitler was known to have driven these cars during his time in power, with bulletproof windshields. Most of the models have been sold at auctions to private buyers. One of them is currently on display at the War Museum in Ottawa, the pontiffs Popemobile has often been sourced from Mercedes-Benz. In 1944,46,000 forced laborers were used in Daimler-Benzs factories to bolster Nazi war efforts, the company later paid $12 million in reparations to the laborers families. Mercedes-Benz has introduced many technological and safety innovations that became common in other vehicles. Mercedes-Benz is one of the best-known and established automotive brands in the world, for information relating to the famous three-pointed star, see under the title Daimler-Motoren-Gesellschaft including the merger into Daimler-Benz. As part of the Daimler AG company, the Mercedes-Benz Cars division includes Mercedes-Benz, mercedes-AMG became a majority owned division of Mercedes-Benz in 1999. The company was integrated into DaimlerChrysler in 1999, and became Mercedes-Benz AMG beginning on 1 January 1999, Daimlers ultra-luxury brand Maybach was under Mercedes-Benz cars division until 2013, when the production stopped due to poor sales volumes. It now exists under the Mercedes-Maybach name, with the models being ultra-luxury versions of Mercedes cars, Daimler coorporates with BYD Auto to make and sell a battery-electric car called Denza in China. In 2016, Daimler announced plans to sell Mercedes-Benz branded all-electric battery cars in China, beside its native Germany, Mercedes-Benz vehicles are also manufactured or assembled in, Since its inception, Mercedes-Benz had maintained a reputation for its quality and durability
39.
Miss Congeniality 2: Armed and Fabulous
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Miss Congeniality 2, Armed and Fabulous is a 2005 comedy film directed by John Pasquin, starring Sandra Bullock. It is the sequel to the 2000 film Miss Congeniality, why does it always have to be a romantic comedy. Why does the girl have to end up with the guy, why cant it be a buddy film. Three weeks after the events of the first film, FBI agent Gracie Hart has become a celebrity after she infiltrated a beauty pageant on her last assignment and her fame results in her cover being blown while she is trying to prevent a bank heist. To capitalize on the publicity, the FBI decide to make Gracie the new face of the FBI, Gracie, ten months later, she begins appearing on morning television giving out fashion advice and promoting her book. However, when Miss United States Cheryl Fraser, and Gracies friend Stan Fields are kidnapped in Las Vegas and she goes undercover to try to rescue Cheryl and Stan accompanied by her bodyguard Sam Fuller, whom she despises. This puts her at odds with the FBI, as they are unwilling to lose their mascot and are unsure if shes still up to the tasks, brian Cosford, Gracies closest confidant, assures her that she is still armed and fabulous. While working on Two Weeks Notice, Bullock and Lawrence joked about ideas for a Miss Congeniality sequel, Las Vegas was featured in an early version of the first film, but was ultimately written out of the script. A five-week shoot in southern Nevada began on April 12,2004, approximately half of the films scenes were scheduled to be shot in Las Vegas. Major filming locations included the Treasure Island and Venetian resorts, scenes shot at Treasure Island included its Sirens of TI pirate show, which had never been featured in a film before and was closed to the public for filming. Other filming locations included the Welcome to Fabulous Las Vegas sign, in May 2004, filming took place at the Lloyd D. George Federal District Courthouse, which served as FBI headquarters within the film. Filming in Las Vegas concluded in mid-May 2004, and moved to Los Angeles for six weeks of shooting, Bullock also produced the film, and said, It does make for a schizophrenic experience. There are times when Id rather be performing, the film grossed $101 million worldwide. It was generally panned by critics, and has received a 15% approval rating on the review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes based on 145 reviews
40.
Rat Race (film)
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The film has a plot similar to the films Its a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World and Scavenger Hunt. It received mixed reviews from critics but was a box office success, donald Sinclair, the eccentric owner of The Venetian Resort Hotel Casino in Las Vegas, devises a new game to entertain the high rollers who visit his hotel. Each team is given a key to the locker and told to race across the desert to the train station, unbeknownst to the competitors, Sinclairs wealthy patrons are placing bets on who will win. The group of patrons continue to make smaller bets throughout the course of the film, facilitated by Sinclairs assistant Grisham, unable to get on the earliest flight, Duane and Blaine manage to destroy the radar with their Ford Bronco, grounding everybody else. However their car is wrecked in the sabotage, so they steal another before deciding to split up to double their chances of winning by creating a replica key, the locksmith overhears their plan, and makes off with the key, trying to escape in a hot air balloon. Duane and Blaine catch up to him, leaving the locksmith, the brothers later accidentally swerve their vehicle into a monster truck rally, where it is destroyed. They therefore steal a truck and continue on to Silver City. Merrill and Vera crash their car thanks to malicious road directions given by a crazed squirrel saleswoman and they steal a rocket car, which races across the desert until it runs out of fuel. The women dizzily stumble onto a bus full of patients which eventually drives toward Silver City. Owen is left stranded in the desert by a cab driver who lost $20,000 on his bad call in a football game. He comes across a coach bus filled with Lucille Ball impersonators going to an I Love Lucy convention, just outside Silver City, the bus hits the cow dangling from the hot air balloon, swerving off the road and suffering a puncture. Owen breaks down, reveals he is not a coach driver, after hiding, he steals some clothes from a scarecrow and rides a stolen horse the rest of the way. Randy Pear deceives his family accompanying him in the race. After the Cody brothers vandalize their car, the Pears steal Adolf Hitlers staff car to continue. After being chased away, the family tell Randy they want to stop the race, but he drugs them with sleeping pills and they pass over Tracys boyfriends house but spot him with his ex-girlfriend, enraging Tracy to the point that she attacks and chases him in the helicopter. It stalls out, causing her and Nick to steal her boyfriends truck, now without a job and on the run, Tracey accompanies Nick to Silver City. Narcoleptic Enrico falls asleep at the start of the race and only hours later. He rushes out of the casino to be run down by ambulance driver Zack, wishing to avoid trouble, Zack agrees to take Enrico to Silver City
41.
Resident Evil: Extinction
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Resident Evil, Extinction is a 2007 science fiction action horror film and the third installment in the Resident Evil film series based on the Capcom survival horror video game series Resident Evil. The film follows the heroine Alice, along with a group of survivors from Raccoon City, as they attempt to travel across the Mojave desert wilderness to Alaska, the film was directed by Russell Mulcahy and produced by Paul W. S. Anderson. The film received negative reviews. It was released on DVD and Blu-ray in North America on January 1,2008 and this film was initially titled Resident Evil, Afterlife according to the leaked script. For unknown reasons, it was renamed to Resident Evil, Extinction, the title Afterlife was used for the fourth installment of the series. Alice wakes up disoriented in a mansion and she wanders through the halls, where she defeats several obstacles, including a deadly laser beam obstacle and a giant blade that falls from the ceiling. However, she is killed by a bounding mine. Her body is dumped into a pit filled with dozens of Alice clones and is revealed to be a clone. The camera zooms out to show a shack camouflaging the facilitys above-ground entrance - with the rest of the facility located underground, surrounded by a high fence and thousands of zombies. As the virus spread, it affected not only humans, but other animals as well, and the environment deteriorated, turning cities into desolate landscapes, the real Alice wanders the wastelands of the Southwestern U. S. She responds to an asking for help on the radio. It turns out that they are bandits who first attempt to rape her and then have her killed by infected dogs, on her travels, she finds a dead mans diary which states that there is an uninfected area in Alaska. He tries to persuade the Umbrella board, operating via holograms from the world-wide Umbrella facility, the new Umbrella chairman Albert Wesker orders Isaacs to use the clones to create a cure, and he refuses to authorize Alices recapture until they are informed of her location. Meanwhile, a convoy of survivors led by Claire Redfield travels across the country in search of supplies, the convoy includes Raccoon City survivors Carlos Oliveira and L. J. along with new survivors K-Mart, Mikey, Chase, Otto and Nurse Betty and others. While searching a motel for supplies, L. J. is bitten by a zombie, the next morning the convoy is attacked by crows that had been feeding on the infected. The crows almost overwhelm the convoy, killing Nurse Betty and Otto and taking out the flamethrower operator, Alice finally appears and saves Carlos and the others from a fiery death, using her telekinesis to fill the sky with fire, killing the crows and leaving her unconscious. After recovering, Alice is introduced to Claire and gives her a diary she found, while she and they agree to go to Las Vegas to search for gasoline and supplies for their trip to Alaska. Dr. Isaacs attempts to domesticate the infected have led to a new breed that remembers basic things, such as how to use phones
42.
Megastructures
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Each episode is an educational look of varying depth into the construction, operation, and staffing of various structures or construction projects, but not ordinary construction products. Generally containing interviews with designers and project managers, it presents the problems of construction, in some cases this involved the development of new materials or products that are now in general use within the construction industry. Megastructures focuses on constructions that are extreme, in the sense that they are the biggest, tallest, longest, alternatively, a project may appear if it had an element of novelty or are a world first. This type of project is known as a megaproject
43.
What Not to Wear (U.S. TV series)
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What Not to Wear was an American makeover reality television series based on the British show of the same name. The show premiered on January 18,2003, and aired on TLC in the United States, what Not to Wear was hosted by Stacy London and Clinton Kelly. On March 6,2013, TLC announced that the season of What Not to Wear would be its last. Episodes featured participants nominated by friends, co-workers, or relatives, some episodes involved self-nominations, such as the class reunion specials or mall nominations. In the latter, What Not to Wear set up a 360-degree mirror in various malls across the United States, early episodes featured both men and women, however, as the mens transformations did not prove to be as remarkable, all later episodes featured women exclusively. Some episodes featured both the nominee and the nominator being selected for a makeover, when a woman was selected, the show secretly followed and videotaped her for two weeks. Sometimes the nominee would be asked to participate in research by a camera crew which was actually the What Not To Wear crew filming her pre-makeover look for the show. Also, the nominators sometimes gained access to the closet to point out specific items of clothing that they considered particularly bad. Afterward, the group would go to meet the soon-to-be-surprised nominee. If the nominee accepted the terms of the offer then Stacy and Clinton would give them the gift card, if she declined, nothing further is filmed and there is no show. Nominees were sometimes reluctant to agree and had to be persuaded by Stacy and Clinton. After reviewing the footage, the nominee was brought to New York City for a week of evaluation, shopping. Throughout the week, the nominee frequently declared she was unable to find properly fitting clothes, she disliked her body, or she didnt care what other people thought. After critiquing each outfit, Stacy and Clinton presented a more appropriate outfit to the participant to help illustrate the rules for the participant to follow when shopping for new clothes. Throughout the sorting process, most of the clothes were symbolically tossed in a garbage can, however. Stacy and Clinton watched the videotaped footage and commented, for the benefit of the viewers/audience, on the third day, Stacy and Clinton would surprise the participant, comment on whether the previous days purchases followed the rules, and help her with the remainder of the shopping. If the participant had not followed the rules, the clothes may have to be returned, on the fourth day, hair stylist Ted Gibson and make-up artist Carmindy transformed the participants appearance. At this stage, Stacy and Clinton were not present, on the fifth and last day in New York, the participant showed off her new look to Stacy and Clinton—in three of her new outfits
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Las Vegas Valley
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The Las Vegas Valley is a major metropolitan area located in the southern part of the U. S. state of Nevada. The largest urban agglomeration in the state, it is the heart of the Las Vegas–Paradise-Henderson, the Valley is largely defined by the Las Vegas Valley landform, a 600 sq mi basin area surrounded by mountains to the north, south, east and west of the metropolitan area. The Valley is home to the three largest incorporated cities in Nevada, Las Vegas, Henderson and North Las Vegas, six unincorporated towns governed by the Clark County government are part of the Las Vegas Township and constitute the largest community in the state of Nevada. Since the 1990s the Las Vegas Valley has seen exponential growth, in 2014, a record breaking 41 million visited the Las Vegas area, producing a gross metropolitan product of more than $100 billion. The first reported non-Native American visitor to the Las Vegas Valley was the Mexican scout Rafael Rivera in 1829. Las Vegas was named by Mexicans in the Antonio Armijo party, including Rivera, in the 19th century, areas of the valley contained artesian wells that supported extensive green areas, or meadows, hence the name Las Vegas. The area was settled by Mormon farmers in 1854 and later became the site of a United States Army fort in 1864. Since the 1930s, Las Vegas has generally been identified as a center as well as a resort destination. Nellis Air Force Base is located in the northeast corner of the valley, the ranges that the Nellis pilots use and various other land areas used by various federal agencies, limit growth of the valley in terms of geographic area. Businessman Howard Hughes arrived in the late 1960s and purchased many casino hotels, as well as television, legitimate corporations began to purchase casino hotels as well, and the mob was run out by the federal government over the next several years. The constant stream of tourist dollars from the hotels and casinos was augmented by a new source of money from the establishment of what is now Nellis Air Force Base. The influx of personnel and casino job-hunters helped start a land building boom which is now leveling off. The Las Vegas area remains one of the top entertainment destinations. The valley is contained in the Las Vegas Valley landform and this includes the cities of Las Vegas, North Las Vegas, and Henderson, and the unincorporated towns of Paradise, Spring Valley, Sunrise Manor, Enterprise, Winchester, and Whitney. The valley is located within the larger metropolitan area, as the metropolitan area covers all of Clark County -including parts that do not fall within the valley. The government of Clark County has an Urban Planning Area of Las Vegas and this definition is a roughly rectangular area, about 20 mi from east to west and 30 miles from north to south. Notable exclusions from the Urban Planning Area include Red Rock, Blue Diamond, the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department is the largest police department in the valley and the state and exercises jurisdiction in the entire county. The department does not exercise jurisdiction in areas with separate police forces such as North Las Vegas, Henderson, Boulder City, Nellis Air Force Base
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Aria Resort and Casino
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Aria Resort and Casino is a luxury resort and casino, part of the CityCenter complex on the Las Vegas Strip in Paradise, Nevada. Aria consists of two curved glass and steel highrise towers adjoined at the center and it opened on December 16,2009 as a joint venture between MGM Resorts International and Infinity World Development. At 4,000,000 sq ft and 600 ft in height, among the most notable aspects of Aria is its incorporation of technology in the exterior and interior design of the hotel, specifically for the reduction of energy consumption. It is the largest hotel in the world to have earned LEED Gold certification, Aria was conceived by MGM Mirage as part of the broader CityCenter development project, which was announced on November 10,2004. The architectural design of Aria was conducted by Pelli Clarke Pelli Architects and this site was previously occupied by the former Boardwalk Hotel and Casino, retail stores, and a large parking lot, all of which were excavated beginning in April 2006. Following excavation, Arias foundation was poured in June 2006, vertical progression commenced in September 2007, at which point construction workers built upwards at a rate of one floor every seven days until reaching the final height of 61 floors. Amid ongoing construction in 2007, Infinity World Development, a subsidiary of Dubai World, from this point on, Aria was jointly owned by MGM Resorts International and Infinity World Development, with MGM solely responsible for operations and management. The resort opened on December 16,2009, in the month as several other CityCenter properties such as The Crystals. The completed structure comprises two glass towers, measuring 61 stories tall. At the base of the connected high-rise towers is a casino and a lobby that incorporates natural materials including foliage, flowers, glass, wood. Arias design is described as not adhering to an overarching theme and it was named Aria due to its placement as the central feature of CityCenter, as arias are focal points in operas. Artwork is incorporated throughout the lobby and interior of the building, the main entrance contains a lighted water feature called Lumia which syncs water bursts to music. A result of its design, Aria is the largest hotel in the world to have received LEED Gold certification, Aria contains 4,004 hotel rooms within its 4,000,000 sq ft. The suites make up 568 of the rooms, and a portion are referred to as Sky Suites, at the time of its opening in 2009, Aria was the 9th-largest hotel in the world as measured by the total number of rooms. All rooms have an automation system which automatically adjusts curtains, turns off unused lights and electronics. Room dimensions begin at 520 sq ft, the standard suites range in size from 1,050 to 2,060 sq ft. The two top floors of the hotel consist of a designated room category entitled Sky Villas. A three-story,300,000 sq ft convention center includes four ballrooms,38 meeting rooms, as of 2009, the window was the largest glass-curtain wall of its type ever constructed in a public building
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Bally's Las Vegas
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Ballys Las Vegas is a hotel and casino on the Las Vegas Strip in Paradise, Nevada, owned and operated by Caesars Entertainment. The hotel features 2,814 extra-sized guestrooms that are 450 sq ft or larger and over 175,000 sq ft of banquet, the casino occupies 67,000 sq ft. About 75% of the rooms are in the Indigo Tower, and were renovated in 2004, the remaining rooms are located in the Jubilee Tower, constructed in 1981. The resort has a shopping area a floor below its gaming level, including several restaurants. Ballys was home for the long-running production show Jubilee, which opened in 1981 and ended on February 11,2016. On November 21,1980, the hotel, then operating as the MGM Grand, was the site of one of the worst high-rise fires in United States history, the 43 acres site was first occupied by the Three Coins Motel, which opened in 1963. The Bonanza Hotel and Casino opened on the site in July 1967 and it was later renamed the New Bonanza Hotel and Casino in 1973 shortly before construction of the MGM Grand Hotel and Casino, owned by Kirk Kerkorian, began. It opened in 1973 with 2,084 rooms for the then-staggering cost of $106m and was the largest hotel in the world at that time, the MGM Grand opened as one of Las Vegass first megaresorts on December 5,1973. Dean Martin was the entertainer on opening night and it was the largest hotel in the world at its opening and would remain so for several years. The hotel had a theme to reflect Kirk Kerkorians interest in movies from his ownership of MGM. The hotel was designed by architect Martin Stern, Jr and it featured many amenities, including numerous entertainment options. It offered live jai alai for betting and a shopping arcade with numerous shops. It was also one of the Strips most popular entertainment destinations and it featured two large theaters, The Ziegfeld Stage and the Celebrity Room. The Ziegfeld regularly featured productions by famed Las Vegas choreographer Donn Arden including the long running Jubilee. Dean Martin was the starring act for the Grand Opening on December 23,1973. Sergio Franchi was the first entertainer signed to star in the Celebrity Room, franchis frequent co-star was comedian Joan Rivers. The Celebrity Room also hosted such acts as The Carpenters and Barry Manilow, the Dean Martin Celebrity Roast shows were filmed at the hotel. On November 21,1980 the MGM Grand suffered a fire started in a casino restaurant and traveled up into the hotel, killing 87 guests. The Grand was rebuilt in only eight months, and remodeling added a tower opened in 1981
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Bellagio (resort)
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Bellagio is a resort, luxury hotel and casino on the Las Vegas Strip in Paradise, Nevada. It is owned and operated by MGM Resorts International and was built on the site of the demolished Dunes hotel, inspired by the Lake Como town of Bellagio in Italy, Bellagio is famed for its elegance. One of its most notable features is an 8-acre lake between the building and the Strip, which houses the Fountains of Bellagio, a dancing water fountain synchronized to music. Inside Bellagio, Dale Chihulys Fiori di Como, composed of over 2,000 hand-blown glass flowers, covers 2,000 sq ft of the lobby ceiling, Bellagio is home to Cirque du Soleils aquatic production O. The main tower of Bellagio, with 3,015 rooms, has 36 floors, the Spa Tower, which stands to the south of the main tower, has 33 floors, a height of 392 ft and contains 935 rooms. Bellagio was designed by DeRuyter Butler and Atlandia Design, construction on the Bellagio began in May 1996. Bellagio had a construction cost of US$1.6 billion. The interior design on the Bellagio was designed by Architectural Digest 100 four time winner Roger Thomas, Roger Thomas is the executive vice president of design for Wynn Design & Development, and principal of the Roger Thomas Collection. Bellagio opened on October 15,1998, just before 11 pm, when it opened, it was the most expensive hotel ever built. In 2000 it became an MGM Mirage property when Mirage Resorts merged with MGM Grand Inc. to create MGM Mirage, in 2010, the company was renamed MGM Resorts International in a move to go worldwide with its brands. In the fall of 2006, the floor was remodeled and new uniforms were issued. On December 15,2010, a helmet-wearing gunman robbed the casino of $1.5 million in chips, in August 2011, he was convicted to a prison term of 9–27 years. The stakes at the Big Game can range up to $4, 000/$8,000, and are frequented by such poker pros as Doyle Brunson, Daniel Negreanu and it is reported that the pots during this game can far exceed $1 million. Bellagio has also partnered with the World Poker Tour to host several of their tournaments, the performances take place in front of the Bellagio hotel and are visible from numerous vantage points on the Strip, both from the street and neighboring structures. The show takes place every 30 minutes in the afternoons and early evenings, two minutes before a water show starts, the nozzles begin to break the water surface and the lights illuminating the hotel tower turn to a purple hue, or red-white-and-blue for certain music. Shows may be cancelled without warning because of wind, although shows usually run with less power in face of wind. A single show may be skipped to avoid interference with a planned event, additional shows can occur for special occasions including weddings. The fountain display is choreographed to various pieces of music, including Time To Say Goodbye, God Bless the USA, Your Song, Viva Las Vegas, Luck Be a Lady, the fountains are set in a 8-acre manmade lake
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Caesars Palace
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Caesars Palace is a AAA Four Diamond luxury hotel and casino in Paradise, Nevada, United States, situated on the west side of the Las Vegas Strip, between Bellagio and The Mirage. It is one of the most prestigious hotels in the world. Caesars Palace was established in 1966 by Jay Sarno, who sought to create an opulent facility that gave guests a sense of life during the Roman Empire. It contains many statues, columns and iconography typical of Hollywood Roman period productions, Caesars Palace is now owned and operated by Caesars Entertainment. As of July 2016, the hotel has 3,976 rooms and suites in six towers, the hotel has a large range of restaurants, including several serving authentic Chinese cuisine to cater to wealthy East Asian gamblers. From the outset, Caesars Palace has been oriented towards attracting high rollers, the hotel is closely associated with the entertainment industry and has served as a venue for boxing since the late 1970s, and hosted the Caesars Palace Grand Prix from 1981 to 1982. Notable entertainers who have performed at Caesars Palace include Frank Sinatra, the main performance venue is The Colosseum, a 4, 296-seat stadium with a 22, 450-square-foot stage, which was originally built at a cost of $95 million for Celine Dions show, A New Day. After departing in 2007, Dion returned to the Colosseum with her new show entitled Celine in March 2011, in 1962, cabana motel owners Jay Sarno and Stanley Mallin applied for a $10.6 million loan from the Teamsters Central States Pension Fund. He began plans to build a hotel on land owned by Kirk Kerkorian, Sarno would later act as designer of the hotel he planned to construct. He wanted to emulate life under the Roman Empire, to come up with a palace in which everybody staying at the hotel would feel like a Caesar. Caesars Palace was instrumental in beginning a new era of lavish casinos from the late 1960s onward, Architectural writer Alan Hess stated, Caesars Palace needed only a sumptuous array of Classical statuary and a host of marble-white columns to establish its theme. The visitors imagination, in league with well-placed publicity, filled in the opulence, jefferson Graham wrote that the result was the gaudiest, weirdest, most elaborate, and most talked about resort Vegas had ever seen. Emblem was a chesty female dipping grapes into the mouth of a recumbent Roman, fitted out in toga, laurel wreath. Cocktail waitresses in Greco-Roman wigs would greet guests and say Welcome to Caesars Palace, among the performers at the opening were Andy Williams and Phil Richards. According to author Ovid Demaris, Caesars Palace was a casino from the day it opened its doors. By the time it opened, the significant publicity of the new hotel had generated $42 million in advanced bookings. On December 31,1967, stunt performer Evel Knievel arrived at the hotel to watch a boxing match and convinced Sarno that he could jump over the distance of 140 feet over the fountains. ABC came in to film the jump, in which Knievel hit the top of the safety ramp after the jump, fracturing his pelvis, several bones and suffering a concussion, he lay in a hospital unconscious for 29 days in a coma before recovering
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