1.
San Diego Comic-Con
–
San Diego Comic-Con International is a multi-genre entertainment and comic convention held annually in San Diego, California. The name, as given on its website, is Comic-Con International, San Diego and it is a four-day event held during the summer at the San Diego Convention Center in San Diego. On the Wednesday evening prior to the opening of the event, there is a preview for professionals, exhibitors. Comic-Con International also produces two other conventions, WonderCon, held in Los Angeles, and the Alternative Press Expo and it is also the home of the Will Eisner Awards. In 2010, it filled the San Diego Convention Center to capacity with more than 130,000 attendees, the convention was founded in 1970 by Shel Dorf, Richard Alf, Ken Krueger, Mike Towry, Barry Alfonso, Bob Sourk, and Greg Bear. Detroit, Michigan-born, comics fan Shel Dorf, had, in the mid-1960s, mounted the Detroit Triple-Fan Fairs, one of the first commercial comics-fan conventions. When he moved to San Diego, California, in 1970, he organized a convention on March 21,1970. Dorf went on to be associated with the convention as president or manager, variously, Alf co-chaired the first convention with Krueger and became chairman in 1971. Following the initial gathering, Dorfs first three-day San Diego comics convention, other locations in the conventions early years included the El Cortez Hotel, the University of California, San Diego, and Golden Hall, before being moved to the San Diego Convention Center in 1991. I was quietly walking the floor stunned and in awe of just how much bigger it really was, the convention is organized by a panel of 13 board members,16 to 20 full-time and part-time workers, and 80 volunteers who assist via committees. Comic Con International is an organization, and proceeds of the event go to funding it, as well as the Alternative Press Expo. The convention logo was designed by Richard Bruning and Josh Beatman in 1995, in September 2010, the convention announced that it would stay in San Diego through 2015. In 2015, working with Lionsgate, a channel was created to host Comic-Con related content. According to the San Diego Convention and Visitors Bureau, the convention has a regional economic impact of $162.8 million. Along with panels, seminars, and workshops with comic book professionals, there are previews of upcoming feature films, like most comic-book conventions, Comic-Con features a large floorspace for exhibitors. These include media companies such as studios and TV networks, as well as comic-book dealers. And like most comics conventions, Comic-Con includes an area, as well as the Artists Alley where comics artists can sign autographs. Despite the name, artists alleys can include writers and even models, academics and comic industry professionals annually hold the Comics Arts Conference at Comic-Con, presenting scholarly studies on comics as a medium
2.
Ponchatoula, Louisiana
–
Ponchatoula is a small city in Tangipahoa Parish, Louisiana, United States. The population was 5,180 at the 2000 census, Ponchatoula is known as the Strawberry Capital of the World. It is part of the Hammond Micropolitan Statistical Area, Ponchatoula was originally established as a mining camp in 1820, incorporating as a town on February 12,1861. William Akers was the first mayor and is credited with founding the town, at the turn of the 20th century the local area changed its chief industry from lumber to commercial farming. The main produce was the strawberry, the families who were major farmers during this era, which lasted about eighty years, have their last names engraved on a large plaque in front of city hall. The Strawberry Festivals roots go back to when farmers joined to sell the spring harvest of strawberries, today it is the second largest event in the state, after Mardi Gras. During the 1980s the local economy changed to tourism, when farming no longer earned enough to sustain the town, the mayor at the time devised a plan to open antique shops where former businesses had been located. There are still about six of these shops in operation and this gave the town a second nickname, Americas Antique City. Ponchatoula is a name signifying falling hair or hanging hair or flowing hair from the Choctaw Pashi hair and it was the Indians way of expressing the beauty of the location, with much Spanish moss hanging from the trees. Ponche is an Indian word meaning location, object, or person, the name is eponymous with the Ponchatoula Creek, which flows from points north of the city into the Natalbany River southwest of town. Ponchatoula was pillaged in 1863 by the Union Army during the American Civil War, after a light skirmish, Confederate troops withdrew, and the Sixth Michigan occupied the town. Winters describes the fate of Ponchatoula, Women and children scampered about, there was no Confederate force to be found, and suddenly all discipline crumbled. The men went wild, and they were joined in the orgy of pillage by their corpulent commander Colonel Clark, first the depot was sacked, and the men grabbed up bundles and boxes they found stored within. The next targets were the two stores in the village. The doors were battered in, and the soldiers rushed in. The liquor supply was quickly confiscated, the post office was. to be loaded aboard waiting schooners. The citizens of the town who remained behind were administered the Federal oath of allegiance, Ponchatoula is located at 30°26′21″N 90°26′33″W and has an elevation of 26 feet. According to the United States Census Bureau, the city has an area of 4.2 square miles
3.
University of Texas at Austin
–
Founded in 1881 as The University of Texas, its campus is in Austin, Texas—approximately 1 mile from the Texas State Capitol. The institution has the nations seventh-largest single-campus enrollment, with over 50,000 undergraduate and graduate students and over 24,000 faculty, UT Austin was inducted into the American Association of Universities in 1929, becoming only the third university in the American South to be elected. It is a center for academic research, with research expenditures exceeding $550 million for the 2014–2015 school year. J. Pickle Research Campus and the McDonald Observatory, among university faculty are recipients of the Nobel Prize, Pulitzer Prize, the Wolf Prize, the Emmy Award, the Turing Award, and the National Medal of Science, as well as many other awards. UT Austin student athletes compete as the Texas Longhorns and are members of the Big 12 Conference and its Longhorn Network is the only sports network featuring the college sports of a single university. The first mention of a university in Texas can be traced to the 1827 constitution for the Mexican state of Coahuila y Tejas. Although Title 6, Article 217 of the Constitution promised to establish education in the arts and sciences. On April 18,1838, An Act to Establish the University of Texas was referred to a committee of the Texas Congress. On January 26,1839, the Texas Congress agreed to set aside fifty leagues of land towards the establishment of a publicly funded university, in addition,40 acres in the new capital of Austin were reserved and designated College Hill. In 1845, Texas was annexed into the United States, interestingly, the states Constitution of 1845 failed to mention higher education. On February 11,1858, the Seventh Texas Legislature approved O. B,102, an act to establish the University of Texas, which set aside $100,000 in United States bonds toward construction of the states first publicly funded university. The legislature also designated land reserved for the encouragement of railroad construction toward the universitys endowment, Texas secession from the Union and the American Civil War delayed repayment of the borrowed monies. At the end of the Civil War in 1865, The University of Texas endowment was just over $16,000 in warrants, the more valuable lands reverted to the fund to support general education in the state. The legislature additionally appropriated $256,272.57 to repay the funds taken from the university in 1860 to pay for frontier defense, the 1883 grant of land increased the land in the Permanent University Fund to almost 2.2 million acres. Under the Act of 1858, the university was entitled to just over 1,000 acres of land for every mile of railroad built in the state. On March 30,1881, the legislature set forth the structure and organization. By popular election on September 6,1881, Austin was chosen as the site, galveston, having come in second in the election was designated the location of the medical department. On November 17,1882, on the original College Hill, smite the earth, smite the rocks with the rod of knowledge and fountains of unstinted wealth will gush forth
4.
Academy Awards
–
The various category winners are awarded a copy of a golden statuette, officially called the Academy Award of Merit, which has become commonly known by its nickname Oscar. The awards, first presented in 1929 at the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel, are overseen by AMPAS, the awards ceremony was first broadcast on radio in 1930 and televised for the first time in 1953. It is now live in more than 200 countries and can be streamed live online. The Academy Awards ceremony is the oldest worldwide entertainment awards ceremony and its equivalents – the Emmy Awards for television, the Tony Awards for theater, and the Grammy Awards for music and recording – are modeled after the Academy Awards. The 89th Academy Awards ceremony, honoring the best films of 2016, were held on February 26,2017, at the Dolby Theatre, in Los Angeles, the ceremony was hosted by Jimmy Kimmel and was broadcast on ABC. A total of 3,048 Oscars have been awarded from the inception of the award through the 88th, the first Academy Awards presentation was held on May 16,1929, at a private dinner function at the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel with an audience of about 270 people. The post-awards party was held at the Mayfair Hotel, the cost of guest tickets for that nights ceremony was $5. Fifteen statuettes were awarded, honoring artists, directors and other participants in the industry of the time. The ceremony ran for 15 minutes, winners were announced to media three months earlier, however, that was changed for the second ceremony in 1930. Since then, for the rest of the first decade, the results were given to newspapers for publication at 11,00 pm on the night of the awards. The first Best Actor awarded was Emil Jannings, for his performances in The Last Command and he had to return to Europe before the ceremony, so the Academy agreed to give him the prize earlier, this made him the first Academy Award winner in history. With the fourth ceremony, however, the system changed, for the first six ceremonies, the eligibility period spanned two calendar years. At the 29th ceremony, held on March 27,1957, until then, foreign-language films had been honored with the Special Achievement Award. The 74th Academy Awards, held in 2002, presented the first Academy Award for Best Animated Feature, since 1973, all Academy Awards ceremonies always end with the Academy Award for Best Picture. The Academy also awards Nicholl Fellowships in Screenwriting, see also § Awards of Merit categories The best known award is the Academy Award of Merit, more popularly known as the Oscar statuette. The five spokes represent the branches of the Academy, Actors, Writers, Directors, Producers. The model for the statuette is said to be Mexican actor Emilio El Indio Fernández, sculptor George Stanley sculpted Cedric Gibbons design. The statuettes presented at the ceremonies were gold-plated solid bronze
5.
Track and field
–
Track and field is a sport which includes athletic contests established on the skills of running, jumping, and throwing. The name is derived from the sports venue, a stadium with an oval running track enclosing a grass field where the throwing and jumping events take place. Track and field is categorised under the sport of athletics, which also includes road running, cross country running. The foot racing events, which include sprints, middle- and long-distance events, the jumping and throwing events are won by the athlete who achieves the greatest distance or height. Regular jumping events include long jump, triple jump, high jump and pole vault, while the most common throwing events are shot put, javelin, discus and hammer. There are also combined events or multi events, such as the pentathlon consisting of five events, heptathlon consisting of seven events, in these, athletes participate in a combination of track and field events. Most track and field events are individual sports with a victor, the most prominent team events are relay races. Events are almost exclusively divided by gender, although both the mens and womens competitions are held at the same venue. It is one of the oldest sports, in ancient times, it was an event held in conjunction with festivals and sports meets such as the Ancient Olympic Games in Greece. The ancient Olympic Games began in the year 776 BC, when Koroibos, a cook from the city of Elis, won the stadium race. According to some traditions, this was the only athletic event of the games for the first 13 Olympic festivals. In modern times, the two most prestigious track and field competitions are athletics competition at the Olympic Games and the IAAF World Championships in Athletics. The International Association of Athletics Federations is the governing body. Records are kept of the best performances in specific events, at world and national levels, however, if athletes are deemed to have violated the events rules or regulations, they are disqualified from the competition and their marks are erased. In North America, the track and field may be used to refer to other athletics events, such as the marathon. The sport of track and field has its roots in human prehistory, Track and field-style events are among the oldest of all sporting competitions, as running, jumping and throwing are natural and universal forms of human physical expression. The first recorded examples of organized track and field events at a festival are the Ancient Olympic Games. At the first Games in 776 BC in Olympia, Greece, only one event was contested, Track and field events were also present at the Panhellenic Games in Greece around this period, and they spread to Rome in Italy around 200 BC
6.
Sprint (running)
–
Sprinting is running over a short distance in a limited period of time. It is used in sports that incorporate running, typically as a way of quickly reaching a target or goal. In athletics and track and field, sprints are races over short distances and they are among the oldest running competitions. The first 13 editions of the Ancient Olympic Games featured only one event—the stadion race, there are three sprinting events which are currently held at the Summer Olympics and outdoor World Championships, the 100 metres,200 metres, and 400 metres. The set position differs depending on the start, body alignment is of key importance in producing the optimal amount of force. Ideally the athlete should begin in a 4-point stance and push off using both legs for maximum force production, athletes remain in the same lane on the running track throughout all sprinting events, with the sole exception of the 400 m indoors. Races up to 100 m are largely focused upon acceleration to a maximum speed. All sprints beyond this distance increasingly incorporate an element of endurance, the 60 metres is a khaled and Rion indoor event and it is an indoor world championship event. Less common events include the 50 metres,55 metres,300 metres, biological factors that determine a sprinters potential include, The 60 metres is normally run indoors, on a straight section of an indoor athletic track. Since races at this distance can last around six or seven seconds, having good reflexes and this is roughly the distance required for a human to reach maximum speed and can be run with one breath. It is popular for training and testing in other sports, the world record in this event is held by American sprinter Maurice Greene with a time of 6.39 seconds. 60-metres is used as a distance by younger athletes when starting sprint racing. Note, Indoor distances are less standardized as many facilities run shorter or occasionally longer distances depending on available space, the 100 metres sprint takes place on one length of the home straight of a standard outdoor 400 m track. Often, the holder in this race is considered the worlds fastest man/woman. The current world record of 9.58 seconds is held by Usain Bolt of Jamaica and was set on 16 August 2009, the womens world record is 10.49 seconds and was set by Florence Griffith-Joyner. World class male sprinters need 41 to 50 strides to cover the whole 100 metres distances, the 200 metres begins on the curve of a standard track, and ends on the home straight. The ability to run a good bend is key at the distance, as a well conditioned runner will typically be able to run 200 m in an average speed higher than their 100 m speed. Usain Bolt, however, ran 200 m in the time of 19.19 sec, an average speed of 10.422 m/s, whereas he ran 100 m in the world-record time of 9.58 sec
7.
Sport of athletics
–
Athletics is a collection of sporting events that involve competitive running, jumping, throwing, and walking. The most common types of competitions are track and field, road running, cross country running. The results of racing events are decided by finishing position, while the jumps, the simplicity of the competitions, and the lack of a need for expensive equipment, makes athletics one of the most commonly competed sports in the world. Athletics is mostly an individual sport, with the exception of relay races and competitions which combine athletes performances for a team score, organized athletics are traced back to the Ancient Olympic Games from 776 BCE. The rules and format of the events in athletics were defined in Western Europe and North America in the 19th and early 20th century. Most modern top level meetings are conducted by the International Association of Athletics Federations, the athletics meeting forms the backbone of the Summer Olympics. The foremost international athletics meeting is the IAAF World Championships in Athletics, other top level competitions in athletics include the IAAF World Cross Country Championships and the IAAF World Half Marathon Championships. Athletes with a disability compete at the Summer Paralympics and the IPC Athletics World Championships. The word athletics is derived from the Ancient Greek ἀθλητής from ἆθλον or ἆθλος, initially, the term was used to describe athletic contests in general – i. e. sporting competition based primarily on human physical feats. In the 19th century, the term acquired a more narrow definition in Europe. This definition continues to be the most prominent one in the United Kingdom, furthermore, foreign words in many German and Roman languages which are related to the term athletics also have a similar meaning. In much of North America, athletics is synonymous with sports in general, the word athletics is rarely used to refer to the sport of athletics in this region. Track and field is preferred, and is used in the United States and Canada to refer to most athletics events, including racewalking, Athletic contests in running, walking, jumping and throwing are among the oldest of all sports and their roots are prehistoric. Athletics events were depicted in the Ancient Egyptian tombs in Saqqara, with illustrations of running at the Heb Sed festival, the Tailteann Games were an ancient Celtic festival in Ireland, founded around 1800 BCE, and the thirty-day meeting included running and stone-throwing among its sporting events. The original and only event at the first Olympics in 776 BCE was a running event known as the stadion. This later expanded to include throwing and jumping events within the ancient pentathlon, Athletics competitions also took place at other Panhellenic Games, which were founded later around 500 BCE. The Cotswold Olimpick Games, a festival which emerged in 17th century England. Annually, from 1796 to 1798, LOlympiade de la République was held in revolutionary France, the premier event of this competition was a running event, but various ancient Greek disciplines were also on display
8.
United States
–
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
United States
.jpg)
