Sentosa
Sentosa called Pulau Blakang Mati, is a resort island in Singapore. It was once a Japanese prisoner-of-war camp; the island was renamed Sentosa and turned into a tourist destination in 1972, it is now home to a popular resort that receives some twenty million visitors per year. Attractions include a 2 km long sheltered beach, Fort Siloso, two golf courses, the Merlion, 14 hotels, the Resorts World Sentosa, featuring the theme park Universal Studios Singapore and one of Singapore's two casinos; the name Sentosa translates as "peace and tranquility" in Malay, in turn derived from the Sanskrit term Santosha, meaning "contentment, satisfaction". Sentosa was known as Pulau Blakang Mati which in Malay means the "Island of Death Behind"; the name Blakang Mati is old. Other early references to the island of Blakang Mati include Burne Beard Island in Wilde's 1780 MS map, Pulau Niry, Nirifa from 1690 to 1700, the nineteenth century reference as Pulau Panjang. However, early maps did not separate Blakang Mati from the adjacent island of Pulau Brani, so it is uncertain to which island the seventeenth century place names referred.
The island has changed name several times. Up to 1830, it was called Pulau Panjang. In an 1828 sketch of Singapore Island, the island is referred to as Po. Panjang. According to Bennett, the name Blakang Mati was only given to the hill on the island by the Malay villagers on the island; the Malay name for this island is translated as "dead back" or "behind the dead". It is called the "dead island" or the "island of the dead" or "island of after death". Different versions of how the island came to acquire such an unpropitious name abound: One account attributed the ominous name to murder and piracy in the island's past. A second claimed that the island is the material paradise for the spirits of warriors said to have been buried at Pulau Brani. A third account claims that an outbreak of disease on the island in the late 1840s wiped out the original Bugis settlers on the island. Dr Robert Little, a British coroner investigating the deaths, stumbled upon what was called Blakang Mati Fever, purportedly a type of fever caused by miasmastic fumes arising from decaying leaves and swampy water on the island.
This event led to a controversy in medical circles at that time as to the causes of what was recognised in 1898 as malaria spread by the Anopheles mosquito. The government's malaria research station was located here. A fourth interpretation is that "dead back island" was so-called because of the lack of fertile soil on the hills. However, since the island creates an area of dead water behind it with no wind it may be as simple as this — less romantic but believable from a nautical viewpoint. In 1827, Captain Edward Lake of the Bengal Engineer Group in his report on public works and fortifications had proposed an alternative name for Blakang Mati as the "Island of St George". However, the island was seen as too unhealthy for habitation and his proposed name was never realised. In a 1972 contest organised by the Singapore Tourist Promotion Board, the island was renamed Sentosa, a Malay word meaning "peace and tranquility", from Sanskrit, Santosha. Through the 1980s and 1990s, a number of pay-to-get-in tourist destinations were built on the island, most of which the local people found uninteresting.
There was a joke that the name Sentosa stood for "So Expensive and Nothing to See Also". In the nineteenth century, the island was considered important because it protected the passage into Keppel Harbour. Plans to fortify the island as part of the defence plan for Singapore were drawn up as early as 1827, but few fortifications materialised until the 1880s, when the rapid growth of the harbour led to concern over the protection of coal stocks against enemy attack; the four forts built on the island were Fort Siloso, Fort Serapong, Fort Connaught and the Mount Imbiah Battery. The western end of Pulau Belakang Mati, the place where Fort Siloso is now, used to be called sarang rimau. Selusuh is a kind of herb used as a remedy in childbirth, but there is no explanation of how the fort came to be so called, the orang laut of Kampong Kopit only knowing the place by the name of sarang rimau. By the 1930s, the island was fortified and a crucial component of Fortress Singapore, the base of the Royal Artillery.
During the Second World War, the island was a British military fortress. The British set up large-calibre gun fortifications at various points along the island that were aligned to the south, facing the sea in expectation of a seaward Japanese assault; the myth that the guns were incapable of pointing north developed after the War but this was wrong, they could swivel to point north but they were only equipped with armour-piercing shells for ships which made the shells ineffective against land based forces. The Japanese captured Singapore from the north, after having done the same to Malaya. Following the surrender of the Allied Forces on 15 February 1942, Fort Siloso became a prisoner of war camp, housing Australian and British prisoners of the Japanese. During the Japanese Occupation, under the Sook Ching Operation, Chinese men who were suspected arbitrarily, of being involved in anti-Japanese activities were brutally killed. 300 bodies, riddled with bullet wounds, washed up on the beach of Pulau Belakang Mati, were buried by the British prisoners.
Af
National September 11 Memorial & Museum
The National September 11 Memorial & Museum is a memorial and museum in New York City commemorating the September 11, 2001 attacks, which killed 2,977 people, the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, which killed six. The memorial is located at the World Trade Center site, the former location of the Twin Towers that were destroyed during the September 11 attacks, it is operated by a non-profit institution whose mission is to raise funds for and operate the memorial and museum at the World Trade Center site. A memorial was planned in the immediate aftermath of the attacks and destruction of the World Trade Center for the victims and those involved in rescue and recovery operations; the winner of the World Trade Center Site Memorial Competition was Israeli architect Michael Arad of Handel Architects, a New York- and San Francisco-based firm. Arad worked with landscape-architecture firm Peter Walker and Partners on the design, creating a forest of swamp white oak trees with two square reflecting pools in the center marking where the Twin Towers stood.
In August 2006, the World Trade Center Memorial Foundation and the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey began heavy construction on the memorial and museum. The design is consistent with the original master plan by Daniel Libeskind, which called for the memorial to be 30 feet below street level—originally 70 feet —in a plaza, was the only finalist to disregard Libeskind's requirement that the buildings overhang the footprints of the Twin Towers; the World Trade Center Memorial Foundation was renamed the National September 11 Memorial & Museum in 2007. A dedication ceremony commemorating the tenth anniversary of the attacks was held at the memorial on September 11, 2011, it opened to the public the following day; the museum was dedicated on May 15, 2014, with remarks from Michael Bloomberg and President Barack Obama. The museum opened to the public on May 21. In September 2007 the Memorial & Museum began a four-month national-awareness tour of 25 cities in 25 states, thousands participated in tour activities.
The tour began at Finlay Park in Columbia, South Carolina, ending at Steinbrenner Field in Tampa, Florida. Highlights included an exhibition of photographs, artifacts from the site and a film with firsthand accounts from individuals who had directly experienced the attacks. At the opening ceremony in South Carolina, the students of White Knoll Middle School were honored and retired New York City police officer Marcelo Pevida presented the city with an American flag which had flown over Ground Zero; the main attractions of the 2007 national tour were steel beams used in the construction of the memorial, for visitors to sign. The National September 11 Memorial & Museum conducts a "cobblestone campaign", in which a contributor may sponsor a cobblestone which will line the Memorial plaza. Donors are recognized on the Memorial's website. Donors are able to locate their cobblestone by entering their name at a kiosk on the Memorial plaza. In 2008 the Memorial conducted two holiday cobblestone campaigns: the first for Father's Day, the second for the December holiday season.
On September 9, 2011, Secretary Shaun Donovan of the United States Department of Housing and Urban Development said that the department had given $329 million to the National September 11 Memorial & Museum through HUD's Community Development Block Grant program. According to CNN, the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey dropped its claim that the 9/11 Memorial & Museum owed it $300 million in construction costs in return for "financial oversight of the museum and memorial". Senator Daniel Inouye of Hawaii sponsored S.1537, the National September 11 Memorial and Museum Act of 2011, which would provide $20 million in federal funds annually toward the Memorial's operating budget. The legislation was presented to the U. S. Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources on October 19, 2011. In return for federal funding S.1537 would authorize the Secretary of the Interior to accept the donation by the memorial's board of directors of title to the National September 11 Memorial, contingent on agreement by the board, the governors of New York and New Jersey, the Mayor of New York and the Secretary of the Interior.
On October 19, 2011 William D. Shaddox of the National Park Service voiced concerns to the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources about the agency's ability to provide the funds required by S.1537, testifying that NPS ownership of a property over which it would not have operational and administrative control was unprecedented. The World Trade Center Memorial Foundation, the National September 11 Memorial & Museum was formed as a 501 non-profit corporation to raise funds and manage the memorial's planning and construction, its board of directors met for the first time on January 4, 2005, it reached its first-phase capital-fundraising goal in April 2008. This money and additional funds raised will be used to build the memorial and museum and endow the museum. In 2003, the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation launched the World Trade Center Site Memorial Competition, an international competition to design a memorial at the World Trade Center site to commemorate the lives lost on 9/11.
Individuals and teams from around the world submitted design proposals. On November 19, 2003, the thirteen-member jury selected eight finalists. Reflecting Absence, designed by Michael Arad and Peter Walker, was chosen as the winning design on January 6, 2004, it consists of a field of trees interrupted by two large, recessed pools, the footprints of the Twin Towers. The deciduous trees (swamp white oak
Universal Studios Hollywood
Universal Studios Hollywood is a film studio and theme park in the San Fernando Valley area of Los Angeles County, California. About 70% of the studio lies within the unincorporated county island known as Universal City while the rest lies within the city limits of Los Angeles, California, it is one of the oldest and most famous Hollywood film studios still in use. Its official marketing headline is "The Entertainment Capital of LA", it was created to offer tours of the real Universal Studios sets and is the first of many full-fledged Universal Studios Theme Parks located across the world. Outside the theme park, a new, all-digital facility near the Universal Pictures backlot was built in an effort to merge all of NBCUniversal's West Coast operations into one area; as a result, the current home for KNBC, KVEA and NBC News with Telemundo Los Angeles Bureaus with new digital facility is on the Universal lot occupied by Technicolor SA. Universal City includes hotels Universal Hilton & Towers, the Sheraton Universal Hotel, Universal CityWalk, which offers a collection of shops, restaurants, an 18-screen Universal Cinema and a seven-story IMAX theater.
In 2017, the park hosted 9,056,000 guests, ranking it 15th in the world and 9th among North American parks. From the beginning, Universal had offered tours of its studio. After Carl Laemmle opened Universal City on March 14, 1915, he invited the general public to see all the action for an admission fee of just five cents, which included a boxed lunch with chicken. There was a chance to buy fresh produce, since then-rural Universal City was still in part a working farm; this original tour was discontinued in around 1930, due to the advent of sound films coming to Universal. Universal Studios Hollywood's back lot has been damaged by fire nine times throughout its history; the first was in 1932 when embers from a nearby brush fire were blown toward the back lot causing four movie sets to be destroyed and resulting in over $100,000 damage. Seventeen years in 1949, another brush fire caused the complete destruction of one building and damage to two others. In 1957, the New York street film studio set was destroyed by an arson fire causing half a million dollars in damage.
Ten years in 1967, twice as much damage was done when the Little Europe area and part of Spartacus Square was destroyed. It destroyed the European and Laramie street sets. In 1987, the remaining portion of Spartacus Square was destroyed along with street sets and other buildings; as with the 1957 fire, this was suspected to be the result of an arsonist. Just three years another deliberate fire was started in the back lot; the New York Street set, the Ben Hur set and the majority of Courthouse Square were destroyed. In 1997, the seventh fire occurred at the back lot. A portion of the Courthouse Square was again destroyed; the most damage was done on June 1, 2008 when a three alarm fire broke out on the back lot of Universal Studios. The fire started when a worker was using a blowtorch to warm asphalt shingles being applied to a facade; the Los Angeles County Fire Department had reported that Brownstone Street, New York Street, New England Street, the King Kong attraction, some structures that make up Courthouse Square, the Video Vault had burned down.
Aerial news footage captured the Courthouse building surviving fire for the third time in its history, with only the west side of it being charred. Over 516 firefighters from various local fire departments, as well as two helicopters dropping water, had responded to the fire. Fourteen firefighters and three Los Angeles County sheriffs' deputies sustained minor injuries; the fire was put out after twelve hours, during which time firefighters encountered low water pressure. Destroyed were 40,000 to 50,000 archived digital video and film copies chronicling Universal's movie and TV show history, dating back to the 1920s, including the films Knocked Up and Atonement, the NBC series Law & Order, The Office, Miami Vice, CBS's I Love Lucy. Universal president Ron Meyer stated that nothing irreplaceable was lost, meaning everything could be rebuilt again at a price of at least $50 million. While this may be true of the archive of video material, the fire destroyed a huge and irreplaceable archive of analogue audio master tapes belonging to Universal Music, including all of Decca's masters from the 1930s to the 1950s and most of the original Chess masters which included artists such as Otis Redding, Howlin' Wolf and Muddy Waters.
Days after the fire, it was reported that the King Kong attraction would not be rebuilt and would be replaced by a new attraction that had yet to be announced. In August 2008, Universal changed its position and announced plans to rebuild the King Kong attraction, basing the new attraction on the 2005 film adaptation. Shortly after Music Corporation of America took over Universal Pictures in 1962, accountants suggested a new tour in the studio commissary would increase profits. On July 15, 1964, the modern tour was established to include a series of dressing room walk-through's, peeks at actual production, staged events; this grew over the years into a full-blown theme park. The narrated tram tour still runs through the studio's active backlot, but the staged events, stunt demonstrations and high-tech rides overshadow the motion-picture production that once lured fans to Universal Studios Hollywood. In 1965, the War Lord Tower opened as one of the first attractions in the theme park. One of the early struggles for Universal was coming up with things for young children to do.
The existing small Ma & Pa Kettle Petting Zoo was expan
Universal Studios Florida
Universal Studios Florida is a theme park and production studio located in Orlando, United States. Opened on June 7, 1990, the park's theme is the entertainment industry, in particular movies and television. Universal Studios Florida inspires its guests to "ride the movies", it features numerous attractions and live shows; the park is one component of the larger Universal Orlando Resort. In 2017, the park hosted an estimated 10,198,000 visitors, ranking as the sixth most attended theme park in the United States, as well as the ninth most attended theme park worldwide. Many of the park's past and present attractions were developed with the actual creators of the films they were based on, feature the original stars as part of the experience. Steven Spielberg helped create E. T. Adventure and was a creative consultant for Back to the Future: The Ride, Twister... Ride it Out, An American Tail Theatre, Men in Black: Alien Attack and Transformers: The Ride. In many current rides, the original stars reprised their film roles including: Rip Torn and Will Smith from Men in Black for Men in Black: Alien Attack, Dan Castellaneta, Julie Kavner, Nancy Cartwright, Yeardley Smith, Hank Azaria and Kelsey Grammer reprised their roles from The Simpsons for The Simpsons Ride, Brendan Fraser and Arnold Vosloo from The Mummy for Revenge of the Mummy, Mike Myers, Eddie Murphy, Cameron Diaz, John Lithgow from Shrek for Shrek 4-D, Steve Carell, Miranda Cosgrove, Dana Gaier, Elsie Fisher from Despicable Me for Despicable Me Minion Mayhem, Peter Cullen and Frank Welker reprised their roles as Optimus Prime and Megatron for Transformers: The Ride 3D, Vin Diesel, Michelle Rodriguez, Tyrese Gibson, Dwayne Johnson, Luke Evans and Jordana Brewster reprised their roles from the Fast & Furious franchise for Fast & Furious: Supercharged.
In many former rides, the original stars reprised their film roles such as: Christopher Lloyd and Thomas F. Wilson in Back to the Future: The Ride, Roy Scheider recorded a voice over for the conclusion of Jaws, Alfred Hitchcock and Anthony Perkins appeared in Alfred Hitchcock: The Art of Making Movies, various Nicktoon voice actors and actresses reprised their roles for Jimmy Neutron's Nicktoon Blast, Bill Paxton and Helen Hunt introduced the pre-show for Twister... Ride it Out, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Edward Furlong and Linda Hamilton reprised their roles for Terminator 2: 3-D Battle Across Time. Over the years, Universal Studios Florida has not limited itself to attractions based on its own vast film library, it has licensed popular characters from other rival studios, many of whom did not operate theme parks themselves, as attractions and present. Some examples include: Animal Planet Barney & Friends Ghostbusters and Men in Black Hanna-Barbera properties, Harry Potter films and Beetlejuice Nickelodeon, Transformers film series Star Trek and I Love Lucy The Simpsons Terminator From its inception in 1982, Universal Studios Florida was designed as a theme park and a working studio.
It was the first time that Universal Studios had constructed an amusement park "from the ground up." However, the proposed project was put on hold until 1986, when a meeting between Steven Spielberg, a co-founder for the park, Peter N. Alexander prompted for the creation of a Back to the Future simulator ride in addition to the planned King Kong based ride. Spielberg had noticed how competitive the park could be if it could compete with the nearby Walt Disney World and Seaworld. A major component of the original park in Hollywood is its studio tour, which featured several special-effects exhibits and encounters built into the tour, such as an attack by the great white shark from the film Jaws. For its Florida park, Universal Studios took the concepts of the Hollywood tour scenes and developed them into larger, stand-alone attractions; as an example, in Hollywood, the studio tour trams travel close to a shoreline and are "attacked" by Jaws before they travel to the next part of the tour. In Florida, guests entered the "Jaws" attraction and would board a boat touring the fictitious Amity Harbor, where they encountered the shark exited back into the park at the conclusion of the attraction.
Universal Studios Florida had a Studio Tour attraction that visited the production facilities, but that tour has since been discontinued. Previous slogans for Universal Studios Florida were: See the Stars. Ride the Movies.. Experience The Movies The current slogan is Vacation Like You Mean It. Like all theme parks, attractions are sometimes closed due to aging and replaced with more contemporary attractions. Universal has seen this happen several times; some notable closures include Kongfrontation, Back to the Future: The Ride, The Funtastic World of Hanna-Barbera and Nickelodeon Studios. The closures of Kongfrontation, Back to the Future, Jaws have been given homages by the park to honor veteran visitors who revered the former rides; the large area that once housed the Jaws attraction was reconstructed to make way for the new Diagon Alley, part of The Wizarding World of Harry Potter attraction. As an homage to the Jaws attraction, available to so many visitors of the years, references to Jaws are sprinkled throughout the new Diagon Alley.
One being a set of shark jawbones appearing behind the herbs and potions of Mr. Mulpepper's Apothecary. Nickelodeon Studios became a Blue Man Group attraction in 2007. Universal Studios Flo
Titanic Belfast
Titanic Belfast is a visitor attraction opened in 2012, a monument to Belfast's maritime heritage on the site of the former Harland & Wolff shipyard in the city's Titanic Quarter where the RMS Titanic was built. It tells the stories of the ill-fated Titanic, which hit an iceberg and sank during her maiden voyage in 1912, her sister ships RMS Olympic and HMHS Britannic; the building contains more than 12,000 square metres of floor space, most of, occupied by a series of galleries, private function rooms and community facilities, plus the addition of Hickson’s Point destination bar in March 2018. The building is located on Queen's Island, an area of land at the entrance of Belfast Lough, reclaimed from the water in the mid-19th century, it was used for many years by the shipbuilders Harland and Wolff, who built huge slipways and graving docks to accommodate the simultaneous construction of Olympic and Titanic. The decline of shipbuilding in Belfast left much of the area derelict. Most of the disused structures on the island were demolished.
A number of heritage features were given listed status, including the Olympic and Titanic slipways and graving docks, as well as the iconic Samson and Goliath cranes. The derelict land was earmarked for regeneration. Development rights over 185 acres was subsequently bought by Harcourt Developments at a cost of £47 million, with 23 more acres set aside for a science park; the redevelopment plans included houses and entertainment amenities plus a maritime heritage museum and science centre. In 2005, plans were announced to build a museum dedicated to Titanic to attract tourists to the area, with the aim of completing it by 2012 to mark the centenary of Titanic's maiden voyage. A number of ideas were put forward for the attraction. Among ideas considered were reconstructing the massive steel gantry in which Titanic and Olympic were constructed, or building an illuminated wire frame outline of Titanic in the dock in which she was fitted out. In June 2008, details of a project – known as the "Titanic Signature Project" – were announced.
Northern Ireland's Tourism Minister, Arlene Foster, announced that the Northern Ireland Executive would provide 50 per cent of the attraction's funding through the Northern Ireland Tourist Board, with the remaining 50 per cent coming from the private sector, in the shape of Titanic Quarter Ltd, a sister company of Harcourt Developments, the Belfast Harbour Commissioners. Additional funding was pledged by Belfast City Council; the task of creating the visitor attraction was taken on by Harcourt Developments, who enlisted the help of the American architect Eric Kuhne and British exhibition designers Event Communications. The building, now known as Titanic Belfast, was expected to attract 425,000 visitors annually, of whom between 130,000–165,000 would come from outside Northern Ireland, it is intended to serve a similar transformational function to that of the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao, designed by Frank Gehry, as a focus for the regeneration of the city. It forms part of the Titanic–related heritage sites in Titanic Quarter, including the disused headquarters and drawing offices of Harland & Wolff, the SS Nomadic – the last surviving White Star Line ship – and Hamilton Dock, Titanic's Dock and Pump house and the Titanic and Olympic slipways.
First year visitor numbers exceeded projections, with 807,340 visitors passing through its doors, of which 471,702 were from outside Northern Ireland, according to Titanic Belfast. The attraction has sold 1,376 bottles of champagne and hosted over 350 conferences. In 2015 there were 625,000 visitors. Eric Kuhne and Associates were commissioned as concept architects, with Todd Architects appointed as lead consultants; the building's design is intended to reflect Belfast's history of shipmaking and the industrial legacy bequeathed by Harland & Wolff. Its angular form recalls the shape of ships' prows, with its main "prow" angled down the middle of the Titanic and Olympic slipways towards the River Lagan. Alternatively, it has been suggested that the building looks like an iceberg, locals have nicknamed it "The Iceberg". Most of the building's façade is clad in 3,000 individual silver anodised aluminium shards, it stands 126 feet high, the same height as Titanic's hull. The interior of the eight-storey building provides 12,000 square metres of space.
Its centrepiece is a series of interpretive galleries exploring aspects of the building, design and legacy of Titanic. On the top floor of the museum is Belfast's largest conference and reception space, the Titanic Suite, a banqueting facility capable of seating 750 people. A reproduction of the original staircase on the Titanic, made famous by the James Cameron film Titanic in 1997, is located in this conference centre; the building provides education, community and restaurant facilities plus a community resource centre. The construction of the building cost £77 million with an additional £24 million spent on pre-planning, enabling works, underground car park and public realm enhancements; the foundations to the building involved one of the country's largest-ever concrete pours with 4,200 cubic metres of concrete delivered by 700 concrete lorries in 24 hours. Harcourt Construction Ltd oversaw the building phase of the project. A subsidiary of Dublin-based property development company Harcourt Developments Ltd.
In front of the building is Titanica, a sculpture by Rowan Gillespie depicting a diving female figure. Made of bronze, it is mounted on a brass base, evoking the design of figureheads on ships' prows, is meant to represent hope and positivity; the figure was dedicated by representatives of the Anglican, Catholic and Presby
Disney's Animal Kingdom
Disney's Animal Kingdom is a zoological theme park at the Walt Disney World Resort in Bay Lake, near Orlando. Owned and operated by The Walt Disney Company through its Parks and Consumer Products division, it is the largest theme park in the world, covering 580 acres; the park opened on Earth Day, April 22, 1998, was the fourth theme park built at the resort. The park is dedicated and themed around the natural environment and animal conservation, a philosophy once pioneered by Walt Disney himself. Disney's Animal Kingdom is distinguished from the rest of Walt Disney World's theme parks in that it features traditional attractions while exhibiting hundreds of species of live animals. Due to these sensitive conditions, special designs and provisions were incorporated throughout the park to protect the animals' welfare; the park is located on the western edge of the resort, is isolated from the resort's other theme parks and properties to minimize external disruptions to the animals. The park uses biodegradable paper straws and prohibits plastic straws and balloons.
Disney's Animal Kingdom is accredited by the Association of Zoos and Aquariums and the World Association of Zoos and Aquariums, which indicates they have met or exceeded the standards in education and research. In 2017, Disney's Animal Kingdom hosted about 12.5 million guests, ranking it as the third-most-visited theme park in North America and the sixth-most-visited theme park in the world. The park's icon is the Tree of a 145-foot-tall, 50-foot-wide artificial baobab tree. Welcome to a kingdom of animals... real and imagined: a kingdom ruled by lions and dragons. Disney began planning a new park shortly after the opening of MGM Studios in 1989. Animal Kingdom was the brainchild of Imagineer Joe Rohde, who had designed the Adventurers Club at Pleasure Island; when presenting the idea of the new Animal-themed park, Rohde brought a 400-pound Bengal tiger into the meeting with Disney CEO Michael Eisner. Slated as Disney's "Wild Animal Kingdom," Disney announced plans for the construction of the park in 1995 at an estimated cost of $600-$800 million dollars.
To design the theme park, Disney Imagineers traveled to Africa and Asia to study the landscapes and wildlife. By July 1996, construction was underway on the animal holding facilities as well as the installation of trees and grasses to shape the park's African Savanna-inspired landscape. Disney Imagineers collected seeds from 37 countries to be used for the plants and grasses in the park; the landscaping efforts included spreading four million cubic yards of dirt, planting 40,000 mature trees, constructing 60 miles of underground utilities and structures built by over 2,600 construction workers. Many buildings contained. 1,500 hand-painted wooden horses were crafted in Bali under Disney supervision. Many details of the park were designed to look "aged", such as creating potholes in the safari roads and peppering the boats with dents and rust. Most of the park's animals were acquired by Fall of 1997, in which they were held at a rented holding facility in North Florida for quarantine and observation.
Disney hired staff from 69 zoos around the United States to care for the animals. The grand opening of the park was preceded by a two-hour ABC prime time special about the making of Animal Kingdom, as part of its The Wonderful World of Disney anthology series. Disney CEO Michael Eisner and Vice Chairman Roy Disney hosted an opening day party for 14,000 corporate partners, travel agents, media figures, which included celebrities such as Michael J. Fox, Drew Carey, Stevie Wonder, David Copperfield, Jane Goodall. Broadcasts of Good Morning America and Live with Regis and Kathie Lee aired live from the park on April 22, 1998, its first day open to visitors; as part of a promotional tie-in, ABC filmed an episode Sabrina the Teenage Witch at Animal Kingdom prior to the opening of the park. In 2011, Disney announced a major expansion to the park, Pandora - The World of Avatar, a joint venture with director James Cameron and his production company, Lightstorm Entertainment, with the intention of transforming Animal Kingdom into a full-day operation with added attraction capacity and nighttime experiences.
Construction on the area began on January 10, 2014, the land opened to the public on May 27, 2017. Between the parking lot and the turnstiles sits a Rainforest Cafe. Disney's Animal Kingdom is divided into seven themed areas; the park's Discovery River separates Discovery Island from the other lands. Five of the themed areas at Disney's Animal Kingdom The Oasis is the park's logistic equivalent to Main Street U. S. A. and provides the transition from the park's entrance to the world of animals. The main paths feature animal exhibits and dense vegetation and trees lead deeper into the park and onto Discovery Island. Discovery Island is located at the center of the park, is an island within the park's Discovery River waterway, it serves as the "central hub" connecting the other sections of the park by bridges, with the exception of Rafiki's Planet Watch. It was called Safari Village, as Discovery Island was the name for the small zoological park located in Walt Disney World's Bay Lake, but renamed after that area closed in 1999.
The Tree of Life, the park's
Victoria and Albert Museum
The Victoria and Albert Museum in London is the world's largest museum of applied and decorative arts and design, as well as sculpture, housing a permanent collection of over 2.27 million objects. It was named after Queen Victoria and Prince Albert; the V&A is located in the Brompton district of the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea, in an area that has become known as "Albertopolis" because of its association with Prince Albert, the Albert Memorial and the major cultural institutions with which he was associated. These include the Natural History Museum, the Science Museum, the Royal Albert Hall and Imperial College London; the museum is a non-departmental public body sponsored by the Department for Culture and Sport. As with other national British museums, entrance is free; the V&A covers 145 galleries. Its collection spans 5,000 years of art, from ancient times to the present day, from the cultures of Europe, North America and North Africa. However, the art of antiquity in most areas is not collected.
The holdings of ceramics, textiles, silver, jewellery, medieval objects, sculpture and printmaking, drawings and photographs are among the largest and most comprehensive in the world. The museum owns the world's largest collection of post-classical sculpture, with the holdings of Italian Renaissance items being the largest outside Italy; the departments of Asia include art from South Asia, Japan and the Islamic world. The East Asian collections are among the best in Europe, with particular strengths in ceramics and metalwork, while the Islamic collection is amongst the largest in the Western world. Overall, it is one of the largest museums in the world. Since 2001 the museum has embarked on a major £150m renovation programme. New 17th- and 18th-century European galleries were opened on 9 December 2015; these restored the original Aston Webb interiors and host the European collections 1600–1815. The V&A Museum of Childhood in East London is a branch of the museum, a new branch in London is being planned.
The Victoria and Albert Museum has its origins in the Great Exhibition of 1851, with which Henry Cole, the museum's first director, was involved in planning. It was known as the Museum of Manufactures, first opening in May 1852 at Marlborough House, but by September had been transferred to Somerset House. At this stage the collections covered both applied science. Several of the exhibits from the Exhibition were purchased to form the nucleus of the collection. By February 1854 discussions were underway to transfer the museum to the current site and it was renamed South Kensington Museum. In 1855 the German architect Gottfried Semper, at the request of Cole, produced a design for the museum, but it was rejected by the Board of Trade as too expensive; the site was occupied by Brompton Park House. The official opening by Queen Victoria was on 20 June 1857. In the following year, late night openings were introduced, made possible by the use of gas lighting; this was to enable in the words of Cole "to ascertain what hours are most convenient to the working classes"—this was linked to the use of the collections of both applied art and science as educational resources to help boost productive industry.
In these early years the practical use of the collection was much emphasised as opposed to that of "High Art" at the National Gallery and scholarship at the British Museum. George Wallis, the first Keeper of Fine Art Collection, passionately promoted the idea of wide art education through the museum collections; this led to the transfer to the museum of the School of Design, founded in 1837 at Somerset House. From the 1860s to the 1880s the scientific collections had been moved from the main museum site to various improvised galleries to the west of Exhibition Road. In 1893 the "Science Museum" had come into existence when a separate director was appointed; the laying of the foundation stone of the Aston Webb building on 17 May 1899 was the last official public appearance by Queen Victoria. It was during this ceremony that the change of name from the South Kensington Museum to the Victoria and Albert Museum was made public. Queen Victoria's address during the ceremony, as recorded in The London Gazette, ended: "I trust that it will remain for ages a Monument of discerning Liberality and a Source of Refinement and Progress."The exhibition which the museum organised to celebrate the centennial of the 1899 renaming, "A Grand Design", first toured in North America from 1997, returning to London in 1999.
To accompany and support the exhibition, the museum published a book, Grand Design, which it has made available for reading online on its website. The opening ceremony for the Aston Webb building by King Edward VII and Queen Alexandra took place on 26 June 1909. In 1914 the construction commenced of the Science Museum, signalling the final split of the science and art collections. In 1939 on the outbreak of World War II, most of the collection was sent to a quarry in Wiltshire, to Montacute House in Somerset, or to a tunnel near Aldwych tube station, with larger items remaining in situ, sand-bagged and bricked in. Between 1941 and 1944 some galleries were used as a school for chil
