1.
Boathouse Row
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Boathouse Row is a historic site located in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, on the east bank of the Schuylkill River, just north of the Fairmount Water Works and the Philadelphia Museum of Art. It consists of a row of 15 boathouses housing social and rowing clubs, each of the boathouses has its own history, and all have addresses on both Boathouse Row and Kelly Drive. Boathouses #2 through #14 are part of a known as the Schuylkill Navy. Boathouse #1 is Lloyd Hall and is the only public boathouse facility on the Row, Boathouse #15 houses the Sedgeley Club, which operates the Turtle Rock Lighthouse. The boathouses are all at least a century old, and some were built over 150 years ago. Boathouse Row hosts several major rowing regattas, including the Aberdeen Dad Vail Regatta, Stotesbury Cup Regatta, the Navy Day Regatta, the Independence Day Regatta, the boathouses are seen as centers of the rowing community around the United States. Rowers from the boathouses compete at level, including local clubs, high schools, colleges, summer racing programs. He proposed the lights after hearing talk of destroying the decaying Victorian boathouses, lights on the buildings at night would serve to make them more noticed and appreciated. In 2005, after two refurbishings, the houses were outfitted with computerized LEDs that can light up in various colors, Boathouse Row is a National Historic Landmark and was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1987. Local universities including Drexel, Penn, and La Salle row out of houses on Boathouse Row, temple and Saint Josephs row out of other boathouses along the Schuylkill that are not part of the Row. The history of Boathouse Row begins with the construction of the Fairmount Dam, the Dam was built in 1821 to keep brackish tidal waters from entering the citys water supply through the Fairmount Water Works, which had been completed in 1815. The Lehigh Coal & Navigation Company would become involved in the improvements. The placid man-made surface was ideal for ice skating in winter, in 1835, the first regatta took place between the Blue Devils and the Imps Barge clubs. The excitement from the race sparked the formation of several barge clubs, a secondary effect of taming the Schuylkill was that the calm water provided a breeding ground for mosquitoes, which drove wealthy residents from their riverside mansions. The abandoned estates were bought by the City of Philadelphia, in 1844, the City purchased the Lemon Hill Estate. The leaseholder of Lemon Hill operated a beer garden and allowed rowing, in 1855, the City founded Fairmount Park by converting the Lemon Hill Estate, upon which the frame boathouses were built, into a public park. At the same time, some of the established clubs wanted to regulate the sport of rowing to prevent unscrupulous practices, as a result, in 1858, the Schuylkill Navy was founded, which eventually transformed the professional sport of rowing into an amateur sport. In 1859, the City condemned the boathouses along the Schuylkill, between 1869 and 1871, Pennsylvania Barge Club and Crescent Boat Club erected a double boathouse at #4 and #5 Boathouse Row
2.
Philadelphia
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In 1682, William Penn, an English Quaker, founded the city to serve as capital of the Pennsylvania Colony. Philadelphia was one of the capitals in the Revolutionary War. In the 19th century, Philadelphia became an industrial center. It became a destination for African-Americans in the Great Migration. The areas many universities and colleges make Philadelphia a top international study destination, as the city has evolved into an educational, with a gross domestic product of $388 billion, Philadelphia ranks ninth among world cities and fourth in the nation. Philadelphia is the center of activity in Pennsylvania and is home to seven Fortune 1000 companies. The Philadelphia skyline is growing, with a market of almost 81,900 commercial properties in 2016 including several prominent skyscrapers. The city is known for its arts, culture, and rich history, Philadelphia has more outdoor sculptures and murals than any other American city. Fairmount Park, when combined with the adjacent Wissahickon Valley Park in the watershed, is one of the largest contiguous urban park areas in the United States. The 67 National Historic Landmarks in the city helped account for the $10 billion generated by tourism, Philadelphia is the only World Heritage City in the United States. Before Europeans arrived, the Philadelphia area was home to the Lenape Indians in the village of Shackamaxon, the Lenape are a Native American tribe and First Nations band government. They are also called Delaware Indians and their territory was along the Delaware River watershed, western Long Island. Most Lenape were pushed out of their Delaware homeland during the 18th century by expanding European colonies, Lenape communities were weakened by newly introduced diseases, mainly smallpox, and violent conflict with Europeans. Iroquois people occasionally fought the Lenape, surviving Lenape moved west into the upper Ohio River basin. The American Revolutionary War and United States independence pushed them further west, in the 1860s, the United States government sent most Lenape remaining in the eastern United States to the Indian Territory under the Indian removal policy. In the 21st century, most Lenape now reside in the US state of Oklahoma, with communities living also in Wisconsin, Ontario. The Dutch considered the entire Delaware River valley to be part of their New Netherland colony, in 1638, Swedish settlers led by renegade Dutch established the colony of New Sweden at Fort Christina and quickly spread out in the valley. In 1644, New Sweden supported the Susquehannocks in their defeat of the English colony of Maryland
3.
Pennsylvania
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Pennsylvania /ˌpɛnsᵻlˈveɪnjə/, officially the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, is a state located in the northeastern and Mid-Atlantic regions of the United States. The Appalachian Mountains run through its middle, Pennsylvania is the 33rd largest, the 5th most populous, and the 9th most densely populated of the 50 United States. The states five most populous cities are Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Allentown, Erie, the state capital, and its ninth-largest city, is Harrisburg. Pennsylvania has 140 miles of shoreline along Lake Erie and the Delaware Estuary. The state is one of the 13 original founding states of the United States, it came into being in 1681 as a result of a land grant to William Penn. Part of Pennsylvania, together with the present State of Delaware, had earlier been organized as the Colony of New Sweden and it was the second state to ratify the United States Constitution, on December 12,1787. Independence Hall, where the United States Declaration of Independence and United States Constitution were drafted, is located in the states largest city of Philadelphia, during the American Civil War, the Battle of Gettysburg, was fought in the south central region of the state. Valley Forge near Philadelphia was General Washingtons headquarters during the winter of 1777–78. Pennsylvania is 170 miles north to south and 283 miles east to west, of a total 46,055 square miles,44,817 square miles are land,490 square miles are inland waters, and 749 square miles are waters in Lake Erie. It is the 33rd largest state in the United States, Pennsylvania has 51 miles of coastline along Lake Erie and 57 miles of shoreline along the Delaware Estuary. Cities include Philadelphia, Reading, Lebanon and Lancaster in the southeast, Pittsburgh in the southwest, the tri-cities of Allentown, Bethlehem, the northeast includes the former anthracite coal mining communities of Scranton, Wilkes-Barre, Pittston City, and Hazleton. Erie is located in the northwest, the state has 5 regions, namely the Allegheny Plateau, Ridge and Valley, Atlantic Coastal Plain, Piedmont, and the Erie Plain. Straddling two major zones, the majority of the state, with the exception of the corner, has a humid continental climate. The largest city, Philadelphia, has characteristics of the humid subtropical climate that covers much of Delaware. Moving toward the interior of the state, the winter climate becomes colder, the number of cloudy days increase. Western areas of the state, particularly locations near Lake Erie, can receive over 100 inches of snowfall annually, the state may be subject to severe weather from spring through summer into fall. Tornadoes occur annually in the state, sometimes in large numbers, the Tuscarora Nation took up temporary residence in the central portion of Pennsylvania ca. Both the Dutch and the English claimed both sides of the Delaware River as part of their lands in America
4.
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
5.
Schuylkill River
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The Schuylkill River is an important river running west to east in eastern Pennsylvania, which was improved by navigations into the Schuylkill Canal. Several of its tributaries drain parts of the center-southern and easternmost Coal Regions in the state. It flows for 135 miles before joining the Delaware River as one of its largest tributaries in Philadelphia, in 1682 William Penn chose the left bank of the confluence upon which he founded the planned city of Philadelphia on lands purchased from the native Delaware nation. It is a designated Pennsylvania Scenic River, and its length was once part of the Delaware peoples southern territories. The waters of its upper end rise in what are called the richest anthracite coal fields in the world. The West Branch starts near Minersville and joins the branch at the town of Schuylkill Haven. It then combines with the Little Schuylkill River downstream in the town of Port Clinton, the Tulpehocken Creek joins it at the western edge of Reading. Wissahickon Creek joins it in northwest Philadelphia, other major tributaries include, Maiden Creek, Manatawny Creek, French Creek, and Perkiomen Creek. The Schuylkill joins the Delaware at the site of the former Philadelphia Navy Yard, now the Philadelphia Naval Business Center, the Lenape or Delaware Indians were the original inhabitants of the area around this river, which they called Tool-pay Hanna or Tool-pay Hok Ing. The river was discovered by European explorers from the Netherlands, Sweden and it was through historical documents called various names, including Manayunk, Manajungh, Manaiunk, and Lenni Bikbi. The Swedish explorer called it Menejackse kill or alternately Skiar kill or the Linde River, the headwaters of the river, up near Reading, was later called Tulpehocken by the English. The river was given the Dutch name Schuylkill. Another explanation is that the name translates to hideout creek in one of the Algonquian languages spoken by a Delaware tribe in their confederation. The two then backed the flagging effort to improve navigation on the Schuylkill, which efforts date back to legislation measures as early as 1762. The success, along with the opening of the first operable sections of New Yorks Erie Canal spurred stockholders of the Schuylkill Canal to finally fund the works. In the 1830s railway technology and new railroads grew in leaps and bounds, from 1820 to the 1860s Iron works, foundries, manufacturing mills, blast furnaces, rolling mills, rail yards, rail roads, warehouses and train stations sprang up throughout the valley. Tiny farm villages grew into vibrant company towns then transitioned into small cities as an industry and supporting businesses transformed local economics. Restoration of the river has been funded by money left for that purpose in Benjamin Franklins will, silt and coal dust from upstream industries, particularly coal mining and washing operations in the headwaters, led to extensive silting of the river through the early 20th century
6.
Yellow
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Yellow is the color between green and orange on the spectrum of visible light. It is evoked by light with a predominant wavelength of roughly 570–590 nm, in traditional color theory, used in painting, and in the subtractive color system, used in color printing, yellow is a primary color. In the RGB color model, used to create colors on television and computer screens, yellow is made by combining red, the word yellow comes from the Old English geolu, geolwe, meaning yellow, yellowish, derived from the Proto-Germanic word gelwaz yellow. It has the same Indo-European base, gʰel-, as the gold and yell. In Iran it has connotations of pallor/sickness, but also wisdom and it plays an important role in Asian culture, particularly in China, where it is seen as the color of happiness, glory, wisdom, harmony, and culture. The word yellow comes from the Old English geolu, geolwe, meaning yellow, yellowish and it has the same Indo-European base, gʰel-, as the words gold and yell, gʰel- means both bright and gleaming, and to cry out. The English term is related to other Germanic words for yellow, namely Scots yella, East Frisian jeel, West Frisian giel, Dutch geel, German gelb, and Swedish and Norwegian gul. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the oldest known use of word in English is from The Epinal Glossary in 700. Yellow, in the form of yellow pigment made from clay, was one of the first colors used in prehistoric cave art. The cave of Lascaux has an image of a horse colored with yellow estimated to be 17,300 years old, in Ancient Egypt, yellow was associated with gold, which was considered to be imperishable, eternal and indestructible. The skin and bones of the gods were believed to be made of gold, the Egyptians used yellow extensively in tomb paintings, they usually used either yellow ochre or the brilliant orpiment, though it was made of arsenic and was highly toxic. A small paintbox with orpiment pigment was found in the tomb of King Tutankhamun, men were always shown with brown faces, women with yellow ochre or gold faces. The ancient Romans used yellow in their paintings to represent gold and it is found frequently in the murals of Pompeii. During the Post-Classical period, yellow became firmly established as the color of Judas Iscariot, from this connection, yellow also took on associations with envy, jealousy and duplicity. The tradition started in the Renaissance of marking non-Christian outsiders, such as Jews, in 16th century Spain, those accused of heresy and who refused to renounce their views were compelled to come before the Spanish Inquisition dressed in a yellow cape. The color yellow has been associated with moneylenders and finance. The National Pawnbrokers Associations logo depicts three golden spheres hanging from a bar, referencing the three bags of gold that the saint of pawnbroking, St. Nicholas, holds in his hands. Additionally, the symbol of three golden orbs is found in the coat of arms of the House of Medici, a fifteenth century Italian dynasty of bankers and lenders
7.
Blue
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Blue is the colour between violet and green on the optical spectrum of visible light. Human eyes perceive blue when observing light with a wavelength between 450 and 495 nanometres, which is between 4500 and 4950 ångströms. Blues with a frequency and thus a shorter wavelength gradually look more violet, while those with a lower frequency. Pure blue, in the middle, has a wavelength of 470 nanometers, in painting and traditional colour theory, blue is one of the three primary colours of pigments, along with red and yellow, which can be mixed to form a wide gamut of colours. Red and blue mixed together form violet, blue and yellow together form green, Blue is also a primary colour in the RGB colour model, used to create all the colours on the screen of a television or computer monitor. The clear sky and the sea appear blue because of an optical effect known as Rayleigh scattering. When sunlight passes through the atmosphere, the wavelengths are scattered more widely by the oxygen and nitrogen molecules. An optical effect called Tyndall scattering, similar to Rayleigh scattering, explains blue eyes, distant objects appear more blue because of another optical effect called atmospheric perspective. Blue has been used for art and decoration since ancient times and it is the most important color in Judaism. In the Middle Ages, cobalt blue was used to colour the stained glass windows of cathedrals, beginning in the 9th century, Chinese artists used cobalt to make fine blue and white porcelain. Blue dyes for clothing were made from woad in Europe and indigo in Asia, in 1828 a synthetic ultramarine pigment was developed, and synthetic blue dyes and pigments gradually replaced mineral pigments and vegetable dyes. Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Vincent van Gogh and other late 19th century painters used ultramarine and cobalt blue not just to depict nature, in the late 18th century and 19th century, blue became a popular colour for military uniforms and police uniforms. In the 20th century, because blue was associated with harmony, it was chosen as the colour of the flags of the United Nations. Surveys in the US and Europe show that blue is the colour most commonly associated with harmony, faithfulness, confidence, distance, infinity, the imagination, cold, and sometimes with sadness. In US and European public opinion polls it is the most popular colour, Blue is the colour of light between violet and green on the visible spectrum. Blues also vary in shade or tint, darker shades of blue contain black or grey, darker shades of blue include ultramarine, cobalt blue, navy blue, and Prussian blue, while lighter tints include sky blue, azure, and Egyptian blue. Today most blue pigments and dyes are made by a chemical process, the modern English word blue comes from Middle English bleu or blewe, from the Old French bleu, a word of Germanic origin, related to the Old High German word blao. In heraldry, the azure is used for blue
8.
White
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White is an achromatic color, a color without hue. An incoming light to the eye that stimulates all its three types of color sensitive cone cells in nearly equal amounts results in white. White is one of the most common colors in nature, the color of sunlight, snow, milk, chalk, limestone, in many cultures white represents or signifies purity, innocence, and light, and is the symbolic opposite of black, or darkness. According to surveys in Europe and the United States, white is the color most often associated with perfection, the good, honesty, cleanliness, the beginning, the new, neutrality, and exactitude. In ancient Egypt and ancient Rome, priestesses wore white as a symbol of purity, in the Middle Ages and Renaissance a white unicorn symbolized chastity, and a white lamb sacrifice and purity, the widows of kings dressed in white rather than black as the color of mourning. It was also used in 20th century modern architecture as a symbol of modernity, simplicity. White is an important color for almost all world religions, the Pope, the head of the Roman Catholic Church, has worn white since 1566, as a symbol of purity and sacrifice. In Islam, and in the Shinto religion of Japan, it is worn by pilgrims, in Western cultures and in Japan, white is the most common color for wedding dresses, symbolizing purity and virginity. In many Asian cultures, white is also the color of mourning, the white color on television screens and computer monitors is created with the RGB color model by mixing red, green and blue light at equal intensities. The word white continues Old English hwīt, ultimately from a Common Germanic *χwītaz also reflected in OHG wîz, ON hvítr, the root is ultimately from Proto-Indo-European language *kwid-, surviving also in Sanskrit śveta to be white or bright and Slavonic světŭ light. The Icelandic word for white, hvítur, is derived from the Old Norse form of the word hvítr. Common Germanic also had the word *blankaz, borrowed into Late Latin as *blancus, the antonym of white is black. Some non-European languages have a variety of terms for white. The Inuit language has seven different words for seven different nuances of white, Japanese has six different words, depending upon brilliance or dullness, or if the color is inert or dynamic. White was one of the first colors used in art, the Lascaux Cave in France contains drawings of bulls and other animals drawn by paleolithic artists between 18,000 and 17,000 years ago. Paleolithic artists used calcite or chalk, they sometimes as a background, sometimes as a highlight, along with charcoal and red, in ancient Egypt, white was connected with the goddess Isis. The priests and priestesses of Isis dressed only in white linen, in Greece and other ancient civilizations, white was often associated with mothers milk. In Greek mythology, the chief god Zeus was nourished at the breast of the nymph Amalthea, in the Talmud, milk was one of four sacred substances, along with wine, honey, and the rose
9.
William Penn Charter School
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Today, Penn Charter enrolls boys and girls in pre-kindergarten through 12th grade. It is considered to be a private school in terms of admission criteria and is ranked among the top schools in the Philadelphia area. According to Worth Magazine, Penn Charter ranks within the nations top 100 private and public schools that send the most students to the Ivy League, particularly Harvard, Princeton, the school motto, taken from one of Penns writings, is Good instruction is better than riches. Penn Charter is among the first schools in the United States to offer education to all religions, financial aid, matriculation to girls, the Charter in the schools name does not, as might be assumed, mean that it is a modern charter school. Rather, it is a reference to the document that was signed by William Penn to establish the first Quaker school in America. Originally located on the east side of Fourth Street below Chestnut, Penn Charter moved to its current forty-seven acre East Falls campus in 1925. In 1980 the school became fully co-educational by allowing girls to continue past the second grade, jeffrey Reinhold is the current clerk of the Overseers. All students attend a weekly Meeting for Worship, faculty meetings and all-school assemblies and some classes begin with a moment of silence. Service learning is integral to the school and incorporated in the pre-K to 12 curriculum, the schools Senior Stairs are a central stairway that only current seniors, faculty and alumni are permitted to use during school hours. A Penn Charter graduate is known as an OPC, the honorific OPC1689 is bestowed, rarely, by the Overseers upon significant faculty and staff in recognition of their service to Old Penn Charter. The school newspaper, The Mirror, is the oldest secondary school student newspaper in the United States, the Upper School Quakers Dozen is the schools select co-ed a cappella group. During the last week of classes before the recess, the group greets the community in the morning with holiday music on the Senior Stairs. It also hosts enrichment activities for its own students as well as a number of programs for local public middle and high school students. As of 2016 the game has been played 130 times, more times than the Army–Navy Game, on the 47-acre campus, the three divisions of the school have their own designated buildings. All classrooms are equipped with SMART Board interactive whiteboards, john Flagg Gummere, scion of a long line of talented and prominent Quaker educators, was headmaster from 1941 to 1968. He was a noted Latin scholar and author of widely used textbooks. Gummere was a loquacious raconteur with seemingly encyclopedic knowledge on many topics, regarding Penn Charter sports, his variation on Penns motto for the school says volumes about his attitude toward a coachs teaching role with students. He was followed by Wilbert L. Braxton, a longtime dedicated Penn Charter faculty member, Braxton was headmaster from 1968 until 1976
10.
Historic districts in the United States
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Buildings, structures, objects and sites within a historic district are normally divided into two categories, contributing and non-contributing. Districts greatly vary in size, some have hundreds of structures, the U. S. federal government designates historic districts through the United States Department of Interior under the auspices of the National Park Service. Federally designated historic districts are listed on the National Register of Historic Places, state-level historic districts may follow similar criteria or may require adherence to certain historic rehabilitation standards. Local historic district designation offers, by far, the most legal protection for historic properties because most land use decisions are made at the local level, local districts are generally administered by the county or municipal government. The first U. S. historic district was established in Charleston, South Carolina in 1931, Charleston city government designated an Old and Historic District by local ordinance and created a board of architectural review to oversee it. New Orleans followed in 1937, establishing the Vieux Carré Commission, other localities picked up on the concept, with the city of Philadelphia enacting its historic preservation ordinance in 1955. The Supreme Court case validated the protection of resources as an entirely permissible governmental goal. In 1966 the federal government created the National Register of Historic Places, conference of Mayors had stated Americans suffered from rootlessness. By the 1980s there were thousands of federally designated historic districts, Historic districts are generally two types of properties, contributing and non-contributing. In general, contributing properties are integral parts of the historic context, in addition to the two types of classification within historic districts, properties listed on the National Register of Historic Places are classified into five broad categories. They are, building, structure, site, district and object, all but the eponymous district category are also applied to historic districts listed on the National Register. A listing on the National Register of Historic Places is governmental acknowledgment of a historic district, however, the Register is an honorary status with some federal financial incentives. The National Register of Historic Places defines a historic district per U. S. federal law, a district may also comprise individual elements separated geographically but linked by association or history. Districts established under U. S. federal guidelines generally begin the process of designation through a nomination to the National Register of Historic Places, the National Register is the official recognition by the U. S. government of cultural resources worthy of preservation. While designation through the National Register does offer a district or property some protections, if the federal government is not involved, then the listing on the National Register provides the site, property or district no protections. If, however, company A was under federal contract the Smith House would be protected, a federal designation is little more than recognition by the government that the resource is worthy of preservation. Usually, the National Register does not list religious structures, moved structures, reconstructed structures, however, if a property falls into one of those categories and are integral parts of districts that do meet the criteria then an exception allowing their listing will be made. Historic district listings, like all National Register nominations, can be rejected on the basis of owner disapproval, in the case of historic districts, a majority of owners must object in order to nullify a nomination to the National Register of Historic Places
