1.
Chinese name
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Chinese personal names are names used by those from mainland China, Hong Kong, Macau, Taiwan, and the Chinese diaspora overseas. Prior to the 20th century, educated Chinese also utilized a courtesy name or style name called zi by which they were known among those outside of their family and closest friends. From at least the time of the Shang dynasty, the Han Chinese observed a number of naming taboos regulating who may or may not use a given name. In general, using the given name connoted the speakers authority, peers and younger relatives were barred from speaking it. Owing to this, many historical Chinese figures – particularly emperors – used a half-dozen or more different names in different contexts and those possessing names identical to the emperors were frequently forced to change them. Although some terms in the ancient Chinese naming system, such as xìng and míng, are used today, they were used in different. Commoners possessed only a name, and the modern concept of a surname or family name did not yet exist at any level of society.3 billion citizens. In fact, just the top three – Wang, Li, and Zhang – cover more than 20% of the population. This homogeneity results from the majority of Han family names having only one character. Chinese surnames arose from two separate traditions, the xìng and the shì. The original xìng were clans of royalty at the Shang court, the shì did not originate from families, but denoted fiefs, states, and titles granted or recognized by the Shang court. Apart from the Jiang and Yao families, the original xìng have nearly disappeared, xìng is now used to describe the shì surnames which replaced them, while shì is used to refer to maiden names. The enormous modern clans sometimes share ancestral halls with one another, nonetheless, however tenuous these bonds sometimes are, it remains a minor taboo to marry someone with the same family name. In modern mainland China, it is the norm that a woman keeps her name unchanged. A child usually inherits his/her fathers surname, though the law explicitly states that a child may use either parents or the grandparents. It is also possible, though far less common, for a child to both parents surnames. In the older generations, it was common for a married woman to prepend her husbands surname to her own. This practice is now almost extinct in mainland China, though there are a few such as the name change of Gu Kailai, but survives in some Hong Kong, Macau
2.
Chinese surname
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Chinese surnames are used by Han Chinese and Sinicized ethnic groups in Mainland China, Hong Kong, Macau, Malaysia, Taiwan, Korea, Singapore, Vietnam and among overseas Chinese communities. In ancient times two types of surnames existed, namely xing or lineage names, and shi or clan names, Chinese family names are patrilineal, passed from father to children. Women do not normally change their surnames upon marriage, except in places with more Western influences such as Hong Kong, traditionally Chinese surnames have been exogamous. The colloquial expressions laobaixing and bǎixìng are used in Chinese to mean ordinary folks, prior to the Warring States period, only the ruling families and the aristocratic elite had surnames. Historically there was also a difference between clan names or xing and lineages names or shi, Xing were surnames held by the noble clans. They generally are composed of a nü radical which has taken by some as evidence they originated from matriarchal societies based on maternal lineages. Another hypothesis has been proposed by sinologist Léon Vandermeersch upon observation of the evolution of characters in oracular scripture from the Shang dynasty through the Zhou, the female radical seems to appear at the Zhou period next to Shang sinograms indicating an ethnic group or a tribe. This combination seems to designate specifically a female and could mean lady of such or such clan, prior to the Qin Dynasty China was largely a fengjian society. In this way, a nobleman would hold a shi and a xing, after the states of China were unified by Qin Shi Huang in 221 BC, surnames gradually spread to the lower classes and the difference between xing and shi blurred. Many shi surnames survive to the present day, according to Kiang Kang-Hu, there are 18 sources from which Chinese surnames may be derived, while others suggested at least 24. The following are some of the sources, Xing, These were usually reserved for the central lineage of the royal family. Of these xings, only Jiang and Yao have survived in their form to modern days as frequently occurring surnames. Royal decree by the Emperor, such as Kuang, state name, Many nobles and commoners took the name of their state, either to show their continuing allegiance or as a matter of national and ethnic identity. These are some of the most common Chinese surnames, name of a fief or place of origin, Fiefdoms were often granted to collateral branches of the aristocracy and it was natural as part of the process of sub-surnaming for their names to be used. An example is Di, Marquis of Ouyangting, whose descendants took the surname Ouyang, there are some two hundred examples of this identified, often of two-character surnames, but few have survived to the present. Names of an ancestor, Like the previous example, this was also a common origin with close to 500 or 600 examples,200 of which are two-character surnames, often an ancestors courtesy name would be used. For example, Yuan Taotu took the character of his grandfathers courtesy name Boyuan as his surname. Sometimes titles granted to ancestors could also be taken as surnames, seniority within the family, In ancient usage, the characters of meng, zhong, shu and ji were used to denote the first, second, third and fourth eldest sons in a family
3.
Wang (surname)
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Wang is the pinyin romanization of the Chinese surnames 王 and 汪. Wáng was listed 8th on the famous Song Dynasty list of the Hundred Family Surnames, Wāng was 104th of the Hundred Family Surnames, it is the 58th-most-common surname in mainland China. 汪 is typically romanized identically, despite its distinct tone and it is also Wong in Cantonese, Ong or Ang in Hokkien, Wang in Korean, and Ō or Oh in Japanese. However, in Vietnamese, it is written Uông.88 million bearers and it was the 6th most common surname in Taiwan in 2005, comprising 4. 12% of the general population. Wāng was listed by the NCIIS survey as the 58th most common surname in mainland China, Ong is the 5th-most-common surname among Chinese Singaporeans and Wong the 6th. There were 88,000 Wongs during the year 2000 US Census, making it the 7th-most-common surname among Asians and Pacific Islanders, the 63,800 Wangs ranked 10th and 440th, respectively. Wang is a rare surname in South Korea. The year 2000 South Korean Census listed only 23,447 Wangs. 王 is the Chinese word for king, william Baxter and Laurent Sagart reconstructed the Old Chinese form of Wáng as *ɢʷaŋ and the Middle Chinese as hjwang. The most ancient family name of Wáng was originated from the surname Zi, the Chinese legend mentions that near the end of Shang Dynasty, King Zhou of Shangs uncle Bi Gan, Ji Zi, and Wei Zi were called The Three Kindhearted Men of Shang. King Zhou was violent in his rule, and Bi Gan repeatedly remonstrated to the king regarding his behavior, the king shunned his comments and killed Bi Gan instead. Bis descendants used Wáng as their surname as they are descendants of a prince and were known as The Bi clan of the Wáng family, the Zi clan has existed for about 3100 years through Qin Dynasty to Tang Dynasty and exists today. The Zi clan of Wáng lived predominantly in Henan during these times, more Wáng were originated from the royal family of Zhou Dynasty. The original surname of the family of Zhou Dynasty was Ji. However, many of them have separated out of the due to the loss of power. Because they once belonged to the family, they used Wáng as their surname. This family of Wáng traced its ancestry to Wang Ziqiao According to the records, after King Wu of Zhou defeated the Shang Dynasty. During the reign of the 21st king, King Ling of Zhou, the capital was in Chengzhou, a son of King Ling, Wangzi Qiao or Prince Qiao, was reduced to civilian status due to his remonstration to the king. His son Zong Jin remained as a Situ in the palace, when the 8th generation Wang Cuo became a general in the State of Wei, the clan finally regained its status
4.
World Economic Forum
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The World Economic Forum is a Swiss nonprofit foundation, based in Cologny, Geneva. The Forum is best known for its meeting at the end of January in Davos. The meeting brings together some 2,500 top business leaders, international leaders, economists. Often this location alone is used to identify meetings, participation, and participants with such phrases as, a Davos panel, beside meetings, the foundation produces a series of research reports and engages its members in sector specific initiatives. The forum was founded in 1971 by Klaus Schwab, a German-born business professor at the University of Geneva and he then founded the WEF as a nonprofit organization based in Geneva and drew European business leaders to Davos for the annual meetings each January. Political leaders soon began to use the meeting as a neutral platform. The Davos Declaration was signed in 1988 by Greece and Turkey, in 1992, South African President F. W. de Klerk met with Nelson Mandela and Chief Mangosuthu Buthelezi at the annual meeting, their first joint appearance outside South Africa. At the 1994 annual meeting, Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres and PLO chairman Yasser Arafat reached an agreement on Gaza. In late 2015, the invitation was extended to include a North Korean delegation for the 2016 forum, in view of positive signs coming out of the country, North Korea has not been attending the WEF since 1998. In 2017, the World Economic Forum in Davos attracted considerable attention when for the first time and he sharply rebuked the current populist movements that would introduce tariffs and hinder global commerce, warning that such protectionism could foster isolation and reduced economic opportunity. Headquartered in Cologny, the forum also has offices in New York, Beijing, on October 10,2016, the Forum announced the opening of its new Center for the Fourth Industrial Revolution in San Francisco. The World Economic Forum strives to be impartial and is not tied to any political, partisan, the foundation is committed to improving the State of the World. Until 2012, it had observer status with the United Nations Economic and Social Council, the foundations highest governance body is the foundation board. During its annual meeting, more than 2,500 participants from slightly fewer than 100 countries gather in Davos, approximately 1,500 are business leaders, drawn from its members,1,000 of the worlds top companies. The foundation is funded by its 1,000 member companies and these enterprises rank among the top companies within their industry and/or country and play a leading role in shaping the future of their industry and/or region. Membership is stratified by the level of engagement with forum activities, with the level of membership fees increasing as participation in meetings, projects, and initiatives rises. As of 2011, an annual membership costs $52,000 for a member, $263,000 for Industry Partner. An admission fee costs $19,000 per person, in 2014, WEF raised annual fees by 20 percent, making the cost for Strategic Partner from SFr500,000 to SFr600,000
5.
Dalian
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Dalian is a major city and seaport in the south of Liaoning Province, China. It is the southernmost city of Northeast China and at the tip of the Liaodong Peninsula, Dalian is the provinces second largest city and has sub-provincial administrative status, only the provincial capital is larger. The Shandong Peninsula lies southwest across the Bohai Strait, Korea lies across the Yellow Sea to the east, today, a financial, shipping and logistics centre for Northeast Asia, Dalian has a significant history of being used by foreign powers for its ports. Dalian was previously known as both Dalniy and Dairen, however the city was better known as Port Arthur and Ryojun from the original Port Arthur, now the citys Lüshunkou district. In 2012, Dalian ranked 82nd in the Global City Competitiveness Index, in 2006, Dalian was named Chinas most livable city by China Daily. Modern Dalian originated from Qingniwa or Qingniwaqiao, a fishing village. Russia built a town for the Kwantung Leased Territory after assuming control in 1898. After the Russo-Japanese War, Japan occupied the Kwantung Leased Territory, English sources called the city Dairen in this period, from the Japanese. In 1981, the State Council again renamed the city, from Lüda to Dalian, in the Qin and Han periods, Chinese expanded their territories into northern Korea through the Dalian region, then under the jurisdiction of Liaodong county. During the Sixteen Kingdoms era, the kingdom of Goguryeo controlled this region, in the early Tang Dynasty, the Dalian region was part of Andong Prefecture in Jili state, during the Liao Dynasty, it was part of Dong Jing Tong Liaoyang county. Dalian was named Sanshan in the period of Wei Jin, San Shanpu in the Tang Dynasty, Sanshan Seaport in the Ming Dynasty, and Qingniwakou during the Qing Dynasty. In the 1880s, Jinzhou, the north of downtown within Dalian, now Jinzhou District, was a town and centre for political intrigue. The Qing government built bridges and heavily fortified the peninsula, mining camps on the northern coast of Dalian Bay became the small town of Qingniwa or Qingniwaqiao, near what became downtown Dalian. The British occupied Qingniwa in 1858, but it returned to Chinese control in the 1880s, Port Arthur at the peninsulas tip took its English name from Royal Navy Lieutenant William C. Arthur, but Chinese called it Lüshun, in April 1895, China conceded defeat in the First Sino-Japanese War, ceding Liaodong Peninsula, Taiwan and Penghu, and making many other concessions in the Treaty of Shimonoseki. For Russia the region of the peninsula was of particular interest as one of the few areas in the region that had the potential to develop ice-free ports. The Russians built a commercial port city, which they wanted to become the Paris of the Far East. Linked to the Trans-Siberian Railways branch line from Harbin, Dalniy became Russias primary port-city in Asia, Russia spent more than 10 million golden rubles building the new ice-free port city
6.
Chinese language
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Chinese is a group of related, but in many cases mutually unintelligible, language varieties, forming a branch of the Sino-Tibetan language family. Chinese is spoken by the Han majority and many ethnic groups in China. Nearly 1.2 billion people speak some form of Chinese as their first language, the varieties of Chinese are usually described by native speakers as dialects of a single Chinese language, but linguists note that they are as diverse as a language family. The internal diversity of Chinese has been likened to that of the Romance languages, There are between 7 and 13 main regional groups of Chinese, of which the most spoken by far is Mandarin, followed by Wu, Min, and Yue. Most of these groups are mutually unintelligible, although some, like Xiang and certain Southwest Mandarin dialects, may share common terms, all varieties of Chinese are tonal and analytic. Standard Chinese is a form of spoken Chinese based on the Beijing dialect of Mandarin. It is the language of China and Taiwan, as well as one of four official languages of Singapore. It is one of the six languages of the United Nations. The written form of the language, based on the logograms known as Chinese characters, is shared by literate speakers of otherwise unintelligible dialects. Of the other varieties of Chinese, Cantonese is the spoken language and official in Hong Kong and Macau. It is also influential in Guangdong province and much of Guangxi, dialects of Southern Min, part of the Min group, are widely spoken in southern Fujian, with notable variants also spoken in neighboring Taiwan and in Southeast Asia. Hakka also has a diaspora in Taiwan and southeast Asia. Shanghainese and other Wu varieties are prominent in the lower Yangtze region of eastern China, Chinese can be traced back to a hypothetical Sino-Tibetan proto-language. The first written records appeared over 3,000 years ago during the Shang dynasty, as the language evolved over this period, the various local varieties became mutually unintelligible. In reaction, central governments have sought to promulgate a unified standard. Difficulties have included the great diversity of the languages, the lack of inflection in many of them, in addition, many of the smaller languages are spoken in mountainous areas that are difficult to reach, and are often also sensitive border zones. Without a secure reconstruction of proto-Sino-Tibetan, the structure of the family remains unclear. A top-level branching into Chinese and Tibeto-Burman languages is often assumed, the earliest examples of Chinese are divinatory inscriptions on oracle bones from around 1250 BCE in the late Shang dynasty
7.
Sichuan
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In antiquity, Sichuan was the home of the ancient states of Ba and Shu. Their conquest by Qin strengthened it and paved the way for the First Emperors unification of China under the Qin Dynasty, during the Three Kingdoms era, Liu Beis Shu was based in Sichuan. The area was devastated in the 17th century by Zhang Xianzhongs rebellion and the areas subsequent Manchu conquest, during the Second World War, Chongqing served as the temporary capital of the Republic of China, making it the focus of Japanese bombing. It was one of the last mainland areas to fall to the Communists during the Chinese Civil War and was divided into four parts from 1949 to 1952, with Chongqing restored two years later. It suffered gravely during the Great Chinese Famine of 1959–61 but remained Chinas most populous province until Chongqing Municipality was again separated from it in 1997, the people of Sichuan speak a unique form of Mandarin, which took shape during the areas repopulation under the Ming. The family of dialects is now spoken by about 120 million people, in Modern Chinese, the name Sichuan has the meaning four rivers and this folk etymology is usually extended to list the provinces four major rivers, the Jialing, Jinsha, Min, and Tuo. In addition to its map and Wade-Giles forms, the name has also been irregularly romanized as Szű-chuan and Szechuan. In antiquity, the area of modern Sichuan was known to the Chinese as Ba and Shu, in reference to the ancient states of Ba and it was the refuge of the Tang court during the An Lushan Rebellion of the mid-8th century. The region had its own religious beliefs and worldview. The most important native states were those of Ba and Shu, Ba stretched into Sichuan from the Han Valley in Shaanxi and Hubei down the Jialing River as far as its confluence with the Yangtze at Chongqing. Shu occupied the valley of the Min, including Chengdu and other areas of western Sichuan, the existence of the early state of Shu was poorly recorded in the main historical records of China. It was, however, referred to in the Book of Documents as an ally of the Zhou and this site, believed to be an ancient city of Shu, was initially discovered by a local farmer in 1929 who found jade and stone artefacts. The Sichuan basin is surrounded by the Himalayas to the west, the Qin Mountains to the north, Qin armies finished their conquest of the kingdoms of Shu and Ba by 316 BC. Any written records and civil achievements of earlier kingdoms were destroyed, Qin administrators introduced improved agricultural technology. Li Bing, engineered the Dujiangyan irrigation system to control the Min River and this innovative hydraulic system was composed of movable weirs which could be adjusted for high or low water flow according to the season, to either provide irrigation or prevent floods. The increased agricultural output and taxes made the area a source of provisions, Sichuan was subjected to the autonomous control of kings named by the imperial family of Han Dynasty. Shu-Han claimed to be the successor to the Han Dynasty, in 263, the Jin dynasty of North China, conquered the Kingdom of Shu-Han as its first step on the path to unify China again, under their rule. Salt production becomes a business in Ziliujing District
8.
Beijing
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Beijing is the capital of the Peoples Republic of China and the worlds third most populous city proper. It is also one of the worlds most populous capital cities, the city, located in northern China, is governed as a direct-controlled municipality under the national government with 16 urban, suburban, and rural districts. Beijing is the second largest Chinese city by population after Shanghai and is the nations political, cultural. It is home to the headquarters of most of Chinas largest state-owned companies, and is a hub for the national highway, expressway, railway. The citys history dates back three millennia, as the last of the Four Great Ancient Capitals of China, Beijing has been the political centre of the country for much of the past eight centuries. Beijing was the largest city in the world by population for much of the second millennium A. D, the city is renowned for its opulent palaces, temples, parks, gardens, tombs, walls and gates. Its art treasures and universities have made it centre of culture, encyclopædia Britannica notes that few cities in the world have served for so long as the political headquarters and cultural centre of an area as immense as China. Siheyuans, the traditional housing style, and hutongs, the narrow alleys between siheyuans, are major tourist attractions and are common in urban Beijing. The city hosted the 2008 Summer Olympics and was chosen to host the 2022 Winter Olympics, many of Beijings 91 universities consistently rank among the best in China, of which Peking University and Tsinghua University are ranked in the top 60 universities in the world. Beijings Zhongguancun area is known as Chinas Silicon Valley and Chinas center of innovation. According to the 2016 InterNations Expat Insider Survey, Beijing ranked first in Asia in the subcategory Personal Finance Index, expats live primarily in urban districts such as Dongcheng and Chaoyang in the east, or in suburban districts such as Shunyi. Over the past 3,000 years, the city of Beijing has had other names. The name Beijing, which means Northern Capital, was applied to the city in 1403 during the Ming Dynasty to distinguish the city from Nanjing, the English spelling is based on the pinyin romanisation of the two characters as they are pronounced in Standard Mandarin. Those dialects preserve the Middle Chinese pronunciation of 京 as kjaeng, the single Chinese character abbreviation for Beijing is 京, which appears on automobile license plates in the city. The official Latin alphabet abbreviation for Beijing is BJ, the earliest traces of human habitation in the Beijing municipality were found in the caves of Dragon Bone Hill near the village of Zhoukoudian in Fangshan District, where Peking Man lived. Homo erectus fossils from the date to 230,000 to 250,000 years ago. Paleolithic Homo sapiens also lived more recently, about 27,000 years ago. Archaeologists have found neolithic settlements throughout the municipality, including in Wangfujing, the first walled city in Beijing was Ji, a city from the 11th to 7th century BC
9.
Liaoning University
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Liaoning University is one of the leading universities listed in the nations Project 211 and affirmed by the Ministry of Education. It is a university in Liaoning, Peoples Republic of China and it is located in the northern part of Shenyang. September 1958 saw the amalgamation of the Northeast Institute of Finance and Economics, Shenyang Normal College and Shenyang Institute of Russian, marshal Zhu De, one of the founders of the Peoples Republic of China, wrote the inscription of the school name for the university. At present, the university has an area of 2,138 mu, i. e.1,420,000 square meters, altogether, the University has forty-three undergraduate disciplines, fifty-three master-degree-granting disciplines, including MBA and JM. The University is also invested with authority to grant doctorate of philosophy in theoretical economics, the University has eleven province-level key disciplines and one test and detection center. At present, Liaoning University has a body of 1,116 full-time faculty members, among whom there are six hundred and fourteen professors. The university has 18,700 students of different kinds, ranging from undergraduates, the University also has a history museum and a museum of natural history. They have a collection of two thousand pieces of art treasures and eleven thousand pieces of biological specimens respectively. Official English language website real 3D map
10.
Wanda Group
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The company operates in four major industries—commercial property, luxury hotels, culture and tourism, and department stores. It was established in Dalian, Liaoning and is now headquartered in Beijing, the company was founded in Dalian, Liaoning, in 1988 as a residential real estate company by Wang Jianlin. Incorporated in 1992, the company was one of the first shareholding companies in the PRC after the economic reform, since 2005, recent years Chinese property developers like Dalian Wanda and Evergrande have made forays into alternative, income-generating businesses away from the property market. It noted that it was also building theme parks across China, Dalian Wanda acquired the U. S. -based cinema operator AMC Theatres in May 2012 for $2.6 billion, the largest Chinese acquisition of an American company to that date. The acquisition went through successfully in August 2012, making Wanda Cinemas the world’s largest cinema operator, as of 2016, Wanda owns approximately 6% of all commercial movie screens in China, and about 13% in the U. S. The company made major changes in AMC theater design and layout, including generously sized reclining seats, waiter service, ticket sales at AMC nearly doubled in the 18 months following the acquisition, and by the end of 2014 Wanda had reaped a reported profit of about US$900 million. AMC also owns 50% of Open Road Films, in June 2013, Dalian Wanda planned to invest $1.1 billion to develop a new five-star hotel in London next to the Thames River in Vauxhall, South London, as part of the Nine Elms regeneration. Mayor of London Boris Johnson welcomed this move and it is building Western Europe’s tallest residential building. Plans were scrapped in 2015, In June 2013, Dalian Wanda acquired Sunseeker International and this acquisition will give them a 92% stake in the company. In January 2015, Dalian Wanda purchased a building in Sydney, Australia. The company is aggressively expanding overseas to move away from Chinas property market, in June 2015, Wanda Cinemas announced that it had acquired Australian cinema chain Hoyts. In November 2015, it was announced that a company, Wanda Film Holdings. Dalian Wanda plans for a skyscraper in Chicago to be called Wanda Vista, designed by Chicago architect Jeanne Gang, if completed, it will become the tallest building in the world designed by a woman, passing Chicagos Aqua Tower. In January 11,2016, Wanda Group acquired Legendary Entertainment for $3.5 billion, the acquisition of Legendary made Wanda Film Holdings the highest revenue-generating film company in the world. In May 2016, Wanda Group acquired Propaganda GEM, the Entertainment Marketing and product placement agency becomes part of Wanda Groups focus on entertainment but also Hollywood content. Wanda Group also owns 20% of Mtime, in September 2016, Wanda announced a major partnership with Sony Pictures Entertainment, in which it will take minority investments in a number of upcoming releases. Sony stated that Wanda planned to highlight the China element in the films in which it invests, the deal came in the wake of Wandas failed bid to acquire a stake in Paramount Pictures. In November 2016, Wanda announced it would buy Dick Clark Productions for around $1 billion, the IPO made founder Wang Jianlin worth more than $25 billion, making him one of Chinas richest men
11.
Communist Party of China
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The Communist Party of China is the founding and ruling political party of the Peoples Republic of China. It was founded in 1921, chiefly by Chen Duxiu and Li Dazhao, the CPC is currently the worlds second largest political party with a membership of 88.76 million as of 2016. It also controls the worlds largest armed force, the Peoples Liberation Army, the highest body of the CPC is the National Congress, convened every fifth year. The partys leader holds the offices of General Secretary, Chairman of the Central Military Commission, through these posts the party leader is the countrys paramount leader. The current party leader is Xi Jinping, elected at the 18th National Congress, the CPC is still committed to communist thought and continues to participate in the International Meeting of Communist and Workers Parties each year. The official explanation for Chinas economic reforms is that the country is in the stage of socialism. The planned economy established under Mao Zedong was replaced by the socialist market economy, the CPC has its origins in the May Fourth Movement of 1919, during which radical ideologies like Marxism and anarchism gained traction among Chinese intellectuals. Other influences stemming from the Bolshevik revolution and Marxist theory inspired the Communist Party of China, Li Dazhao was the first leading Chinese intellectual who publicly supported Leninism and world revolution. In contrast to Chen Duxiu, Li did not renounce participation in the affairs of the Republic of China, both of them regarded the October Revolution in Russia as groundbreaking, believing it to herald a new era for oppressed countries everywhere. The CPC was modeled on Vladimir Lenins theory of a vanguard party, Study circles were, according to Cai Hesen, the rudiments. Several study circles were established during the New Culture Movement, the founding National Congress of the CPC was held on 23–31 July 1921. With only 50 members in the beginning of 1921, the CPC organization, while it was originally planned to be held in Shanghai French Concession, police officers interrupted the meeting on 3 July. Because of that, the congress was moved to a tourist boat on South Lake in Jiaxing, Zhejiang province, only 12 delegates attended the congress, with neither Li nor Chen being able to attend. Chen sent a representative to attend the congress. The resolutions of the called for the establishment of a communist party. The communists dominated the left wing of the KMT, a party organized on Leninist lines, when KMT leader Sun Yat-sen died in March 1925, he was succeeded by a rightist, Chiang Kai-shek, who initiated moves to marginalize the position of the communists. Fresh from the success of the Northern Expedition to overthrow the warlords, Chiang Kai-shek turned on the communists, ignoring the orders of the Wuhan-based KMT government, he marched on Shanghai, a city controlled by communist militias. Although the communists welcomed Chiangs arrival, he turned on them, Chiangs army then marched on Wuhan, but was prevented from taking the city by CPC General Ye Ting and his troops
12.
Simplified Chinese characters
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Simplified Chinese characters are standardized Chinese characters prescribed in the Table of General Standard Chinese Characters for use in mainland China. Along with traditional Chinese characters, it is one of the two character sets of the contemporary Chinese written language. The government of the Peoples Republic of China in mainland China has promoted them for use in printing since the 1950s and 1960s in an attempt to increase literacy and they are officially used in the Peoples Republic of China and Singapore. Traditional Chinese characters are used in Hong Kong, Macau. Overseas Chinese communities generally tend to use traditional characters, Simplified Chinese characters may be referred to by their official name above or colloquially. Strictly, the latter refers to simplifications of character structure or body, character forms that have existed for thousands of years alongside regular, Simplified character forms were created by decreasing the number of strokes and simplifying the forms of a sizable proportion of traditional Chinese characters. Some simplifications were based on popular cursive forms embodying graphic or phonetic simplifications of the traditional forms, some characters were simplified by applying regular rules, for example, by replacing all occurrences of a certain component with a simplified version of the component. Variant characters with the pronunciation and identical meaning were reduced to a single standardized character. Finally, many characters were left untouched by simplification, and are identical between the traditional and simplified Chinese orthographies. Some simplified characters are very dissimilar to and unpredictably different from traditional characters and this often leads opponents not well-versed in the method of simplification to conclude that the overall process of character simplification is also arbitrary. In reality, the methods and rules of simplification are few, on the other hand, proponents of simplification often flaunt a few choice simplified characters as ingenious inventions, when in fact these have existed for hundreds of years as ancient variants. However, the Chinese government never officially dropped its goal of further simplification in the future, in August 2009, the PRC began collecting public comments for a modified list of simplified characters. The new Table of General Standard Chinese Characters consisting of 8,105 characters was promulgated by the State Council of the Peoples Republic of China on June 5,2013, cursive written text almost always includes character simplification. Simplified forms used in print have always existed, they date back to as early as the Qin dynasty, One of the earliest proponents of character simplification was Lubi Kui, who proposed in 1909 that simplified characters should be used in education. In the years following the May Fourth Movement in 1919, many anti-imperialist Chinese intellectuals sought ways to modernise China, Traditional culture and values such as Confucianism were challenged. Soon, people in the Movement started to cite the traditional Chinese writing system as an obstacle in modernising China and it was suggested that the Chinese writing system should be either simplified or completely abolished. Fu Sinian, a leader of the May Fourth Movement, called Chinese characters the writing of ox-demons, lu Xun, a renowned Chinese author in the 20th century, stated that, If Chinese characters are not destroyed, then China will die. Recent commentators have claimed that Chinese characters were blamed for the problems in China during that time
13.
Pinyin
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Pinyin, or Hànyǔ Pīnyīn, is the official romanization system for Standard Chinese in mainland China, Malaysia, Singapore, and Taiwan. It is often used to teach Standard Chinese, which is written using Chinese characters. The system includes four diacritics denoting tones, Pinyin without tone marks is used to spell Chinese names and words in languages written with the Latin alphabet, and also in certain computer input methods to enter Chinese characters. The pinyin system was developed in the 1950s by many linguists, including Zhou Youguang and it was published by the Chinese government in 1958 and revised several times. The International Organization for Standardization adopted pinyin as a standard in 1982. The system was adopted as the standard in Taiwan in 2009. The word Hànyǔ means the language of the Han people. In 1605, the Jesuit missionary Matteo Ricci published Xizi Qiji in Beijing and this was the first book to use the Roman alphabet to write the Chinese language. Twenty years later, another Jesuit in China, Nicolas Trigault, neither book had much immediate impact on the way in which Chinese thought about their writing system, and the romanizations they described were intended more for Westerners than for the Chinese. One of the earliest Chinese thinkers to relate Western alphabets to Chinese was late Ming to early Qing Dynasty scholar-official, the first late Qing reformer to propose that China adopt a system of spelling was Song Shu. A student of the great scholars Yu Yue and Zhang Taiyan, Song had been to Japan and observed the effect of the kana syllabaries. This galvanized him into activity on a number of fronts, one of the most important being reform of the script, while Song did not himself actually create a system for spelling Sinitic languages, his discussion proved fertile and led to a proliferation of schemes for phonetic scripts. The Wade–Giles system was produced by Thomas Wade in 1859, and it was popular and used in English-language publications outside China until 1979. This Sin Wenz or New Writing was much more sophisticated than earlier alphabets. In 1940, several members attended a Border Region Sin Wenz Society convention. Mao Zedong and Zhu De, head of the army, both contributed their calligraphy for the masthead of the Sin Wenz Societys new journal. Outside the CCP, other prominent supporters included Sun Yat-sens son, Sun Fo, Cai Yuanpei, the countrys most prestigious educator, Tao Xingzhi, an educational reformer. Over thirty journals soon appeared written in Sin Wenz, plus large numbers of translations, biographies, some contemporary Chinese literature, and a spectrum of textbooks
14.
China
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China, officially the Peoples Republic of China, is a unitary sovereign state in East Asia and the worlds most populous country, with a population of over 1.381 billion. The state is governed by the Communist Party of China and its capital is Beijing, the countrys major urban areas include Shanghai, Guangzhou, Beijing, Chongqing, Shenzhen, Tianjin and Hong Kong. China is a power and a major regional power within Asia. Chinas landscape is vast and diverse, ranging from forest steppes, the Himalaya, Karakoram, Pamir and Tian Shan mountain ranges separate China from much of South and Central Asia. The Yangtze and Yellow Rivers, the third and sixth longest in the world, respectively, Chinas coastline along the Pacific Ocean is 14,500 kilometers long and is bounded by the Bohai, Yellow, East China and South China seas. China emerged as one of the worlds earliest civilizations in the basin of the Yellow River in the North China Plain. For millennia, Chinas political system was based on hereditary monarchies known as dynasties, in 1912, the Republic of China replaced the last dynasty and ruled the Chinese mainland until 1949, when it was defeated by the communist Peoples Liberation Army in the Chinese Civil War. The Communist Party established the Peoples Republic of China in Beijing on 1 October 1949, both the ROC and PRC continue to claim to be the legitimate government of all China, though the latter has more recognition in the world and controls more territory. China had the largest economy in the world for much of the last two years, during which it has seen cycles of prosperity and decline. Since the introduction of reforms in 1978, China has become one of the worlds fastest-growing major economies. As of 2016, it is the worlds second-largest economy by nominal GDP, China is also the worlds largest exporter and second-largest importer of goods. China is a nuclear weapons state and has the worlds largest standing army. The PRC is a member of the United Nations, as it replaced the ROC as a permanent member of the U. N. Security Council in 1971. China is also a member of numerous formal and informal multilateral organizations, including the WTO, APEC, BRICS, the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, the BCIM, the English name China is first attested in Richard Edens 1555 translation of the 1516 journal of the Portuguese explorer Duarte Barbosa. The demonym, that is, the name for the people, Portuguese China is thought to derive from Persian Chīn, and perhaps ultimately from Sanskrit Cīna. Cīna was first used in early Hindu scripture, including the Mahābhārata, there are, however, other suggestions for the derivation of China. The official name of the state is the Peoples Republic of China. The shorter form is China Zhōngguó, from zhōng and guó and it was then applied to the area around Luoyi during the Eastern Zhou and then to Chinas Central Plain before being used as an occasional synonym for the state under the Qing
15.
Real estate development
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Real estate developers are the people and companies who coordinate all of these activities, converting ideas from paper to real property. Real estate development is different from construction, although many developers also manage the construction process, developers buy land, finance real estate deals, build or have builders build projects, create, imagine, control and orchestrate the process of development from the beginning to end. Developers usually take the greatest risk in the creation or renovation of real estate—and receive the greatest rewards, sometimes property developers will only undertake part of the process. For example, some developers source a property and get the plans and permits approved before selling the property with the plans and permits to a builder at a premium price. Developers work with different counterparts along each step of this process, including architects, city planners, engineers, surveyors, inspectors, contractors, lawyers, leasing agents. In the Town and Country Planning context in the United Kingdom, development is defined in the Town, there is no specific credential required, nor license necessary, for a person or company to call himself a real estate developer. A real estate developer is not a designation, there are no schools or associations who recognize or protect the term as a trademark. Some real estate developers, often involved in marketing properties through traditional real estate channels. Licensed contractors who follow blueprints designed by licensed architects and licensed engineers and this definition is clarified by the remainder of s55 and the inclusion of the Generally Permitted Development Order 1995 and the Use Classes Order 1987. No single path leads automatically to success in real estate development, developers come from a variety of disciplines— construction, urban planning, lending, architecture, law and accounting, among others. Recent specialized programs that award a Master of Real Estate Development degree are also available, the graduate programs in real estate development are the most comprehensive education in the real estate industry. Other formal education includes a Master of Science in Real Estate, a development team can be put together in one of several ways. At one extreme, a company might include many services. At the other end of the spectrum, a development company might consist of one principal, assembling a team of professionals to address the environmental, economic, private, physical and political issues inherent in a complex development project is critical. A developers success depends on the ability to coordinate and lead the completion of a series of interrelated activities efficiently, the general contractor of the project hires subcontractors to put the architectural plans into action. Purchasing unused land for a development is sometimes called speculative development. Subdivision of land is the mechanism by which communities are developed. Technically, subdivision describes the legal and physical steps a developer must take to convert raw land into developed land, after subdivision is complete, the developer usually markets the land to a home builder or other end user, for such uses as a warehouse or shopping center
16.
Asia
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Asia covers an area of 44,579,000 square kilometres, about 30% of Earths total land area and 8. 7% of the Earths total surface area. The continent, which has long been home to the majority of the population, was the site of many of the first civilizations. Asia is notable for not only its large size and population. In general terms, Asia is bounded on the east by the Pacific Ocean, on the south by the Indian Ocean, the western boundary with Europe is a historical and cultural construct, as there is no clear physical and geographical separation between them. The most commonly accepted boundaries place Asia to the east of the Suez Canal, the Ural River, and the Ural Mountains, and south of the Caucasus Mountains, China and India alternated in being the largest economies in the world from 1 to 1800 A. D. The accidental discovery of America by Columbus in search for India demonstrates this deep fascination, the Silk Road became the main East-West trading route in the Asian hitherland while the Straits of Malacca stood as a major sea route. Asia has exhibited economic dynamism as well as robust population growth during the 20th century, given its size and diversity, the concept of Asia—a name dating back to classical antiquity—may actually have more to do with human geography than physical geography. Asia varies greatly across and within its regions with regard to ethnic groups, cultures, environments, economics, historical ties, the boundary between Asia and Africa is the Red Sea, the Gulf of Suez, and the Suez Canal. This makes Egypt a transcontinental country, with the Sinai peninsula in Asia, the border between Asia and Europe was historically defined by European academics. In Sweden, five years after Peters death, in 1730 Philip Johan von Strahlenberg published a new atlas proposing the Urals as the border of Asia, the Russians were enthusiastic about the concept, which allowed them to keep their European identity in geography. Tatishchev announced that he had proposed the idea to von Strahlenberg, the latter had suggested the Emba River as the lower boundary. Over the next century various proposals were made until the Ural River prevailed in the mid-19th century, the border had been moved perforce from the Black Sea to the Caspian Sea into which the Ural River projects. The border between the Black Sea and the Caspian is usually placed along the crest of the Caucasus Mountains, the border between Asia and the loosely defined region of Oceania is usually placed somewhere in the Malay Archipelago. The terms Southeast Asia and Oceania, devised in the 19th century, have had several different geographic meanings since their inception. The chief factor in determining which islands of the Malay Archipelago are Asian has been the location of the possessions of the various empires there. Lewis and Wigen assert, The narrowing of Southeast Asia to its present boundaries was thus a gradual process, Asia is larger and more culturally diverse than Europe. It does not exactly correspond to the borders of its various types of constituents. From the time of Herodotus a minority of geographers have rejected the three-continent system on the grounds there is no or is no substantial physical separation between them
17.
Guangyuan
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Guangyuan is a prefecture-level city in Sichuan Province, China. It has an area of 16313.78 square kilometers and a population of 2,484,123 in 2010 Guangyuans economy is based on an array of heavy industry, as well as mining. It is an ancient city, notable for its relics and tombs, plant 821, a large plutonium producing reactor is located near Guangyuan. On May 12,2008 a magnitude 7.9 earthquake occurred,4,822 people were killed,28,245 injured, and 125 missing in the city as of June 7,2008. Formerly known as Lizhou, Guangyuan was the birthplace of Wu Zetian, China National Highway 212 Baoji–Chengdu Railway Xian–Chengdu High-Speed Railway Lanzhou–Chongqing High-Speed Railway Official website of Guangyuan Government
18.
Mao Zedong
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His Marxist–Leninist theories, military strategies, and political policies are collectively known as Maoism or Marxism-Leninism-Maoism. Mao adopted Marxism–Leninism while working at Peking University and became a member of the Communist Party of China. On October 1,1949, Mao proclaimed the foundation of the Peoples Republic of China, in the following years Mao solidified his control through land reform campaigns against landlords, and perceived enemies of the state he termed as counter-revolutionaries. In 1957, he launched the Great Leap Forward campaign that aimed to rapidly transform Chinas economy from an economy to an industrial one. The campaign contributed to a famine, whose death toll is estimated at between 15 and 45 million. In 1972, Mao welcomed American President Richard Nixon in Beijing, signalling a policy of opening China, Mao suffered a series of heart attacks in 1976, and died in September, aged 82. He was succeeded as Paramount leader by Hua Guofeng, who was sidelined and replaced by Deng. A controversial figure, Mao is regarded as one of the most important individuals in modern world history, Mao Zedong was born on December 26,1893 in Shaoshan village, Hunan Province, China. His father, Mao Yichang, was an impoverished peasant who had become one of the wealthiest farmers in Shaoshan. Growing up in rural Hunan, Mao Zedong described his father as a stern disciplinarian, Maos mother, Wen Qimei, was a devout Buddhist who tried to temper her husbands strict attitude. Zedong too became a Buddhist, but abandoned this faith in his mid-teenage years, at age 8, Mao was sent to Shaoshan Primary School. At age 13, Mao finished primary education, and his father united him in a marriage to the 17-year-old Luo Yigu. Mao refused to recognise her as his wife, becoming a critic of arranged marriage. Luo was locally disgraced and died in 1910, interested in history, Mao was inspired by the military prowess and nationalistic fervour of George Washington and Napoleon Bonaparte. The famine spread to Shaoshan, where starving peasants seized his fathers grain and he disapproved of their actions as morally wrong, but claimed sympathy for their situation. At age 16, Mao moved to a primary school in nearby Dongshan. In 1911, Mao began middle school in Changsha, Revolutionary sentiment was strong in the city, where there was widespread animosity towards Emperor Puyis absolute monarchy and many were advocating republicanism. The republicans figurehead was Sun Yat-sen, an American-educated Christian who led the Tongmenghui society, in Changsha, Mao was influenced by Suns newspaper, The Peoples Independence, and called for Sun to become president in a school essay
19.
People's Liberation Army
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The Chinese Peoples Liberation Army is the armed forces of the Communist Party of China and the Peoples Republic of China. The PLA consists of five service branches, the Ground Force, Navy, Air Force, Rocket Force. The PLA is the worlds largest military force, with a strength of approximately 2,183,000 personnel. In September 2015, Xi Jinping, the General Secretary of the Communist Party of China, the PLAs insignia consists of a roundel with a red star bearing the Chinese characters for Eight One, referring to the Nanchang Uprising which began on August 1,1927. The PLA is under the command of the Central Military Commission of the CPC and its commander in chief is the Chairman of the Central Military Commission. The Ministry of National Defense, which operates under the State Council and this conception of the role of the PLA requires the promotion of specialised officers who can understand modern weaponry and handle combined arms operations. Units around the country are assigned to one of five Theater commands by geographical location, Military service is compulsory by law, however, compulsory military service in China has never been enforced due to large numbers of military and paramilitary personnel. In times of emergency, the Peoples Armed Police and the Peoples Liberation Army militia act as a reserve. They were then known as the Chinese Workers and Peasants Red Army, between 1934 and 1935, the Red Army survived several campaigns led against it by Chiang Kai-Shek and engaged in the Long March. After the Japanese surrendered in 1945, the Communist Party merged the Eighth Route Army and New Fourth Army and they eventually won the Chinese Civil War, establishing the Peoples Republic of China in 1949. The PLA then saw a reorganisation with the establishment of the Air Force leadership structure in November 1949 followed by the Navy leadership the following April. In 1950, the structures of the artillery, armoured troops, air defence troops, public security forces. The chemical warfare defence forces, the forces, the communications forces. During the 1950s, the PLA with Soviet assistance began to transform itself from a peasant army into a modern one, part of this process was the reorganisation that created thirteen military regions in 1955. The PLA also contained many former National Revolutionary Army units and generals who had defected to the PLA, Ma Hongbin and his son Ma Dunjing were the only two Muslim generals who led a Muslim unit, the 81st corps, to ever serve in the PLA. Han Youwen, a Salar Muslim general, also defected to the PLA, in November 1950, some units of the PLA under the name of the Peoples Volunteer Army intervened in the Korean War as United Nations forces under General Douglas MacArthur approached the Yalu River. Under the weight of offensive, Chinese forces drove MacArthurs forces out of North Korea and captured Seoul. The war also served as a catalyst for the modernisation of the PLAAF
20.
Long March
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The Long March was a military retreat undertaken by the Red Army of the Communist Party of China, the forerunner of the Peoples Liberation Army, to evade the pursuit of the Kuomintang army. There was not one Long March, but a series of marches, as various Communist armies in the south escaped to the north, the best known is the march from Jiangxi province which began in October 1934. The Communists, under the command of Mao Zedong and Zhou Enlai, escaped in a circling retreat to the west and north. The route passed through some of the most difficult terrain of western China by traveling west, then north, the Long March began Mao Zedongs ascent to power, whose leadership during the retreat gained him the support of the members of the party. 1931, Unofficial founding of the Jiangxi–Fujian Soviet by Mao Zedong,1931, December, Zhou Enlai arrived in Ruijin and replaced Mao as leader of the CCP. 1932, October, at the Ningdu Conference, the majority of CCP military leaders criticized Maos tactics,1933, Bo Gu and Otto Braun arrived from the USSR, reorganized the Red Army, and took control of Party affairs. 1933, September 25, the Fifth Encirclement Campaign started, Bo and Braun were eventually defeated. 1934, October 16,130,000 soldiers and civilians, led by Bo Gu and Otto Braun,1934, November 25 – December 3, Battle of Xiang River. The leadership of Bo and Braun was denounced, Zhou became the most powerful person in the Party, Mao became Zhous assistant. 1935, June–July, troops under Zhou and Mao met with Zhang Guotaos troops, the two forces disagreed on strategy, and separated. 1935, April 29 – May 8, crossing of the Jinsha River,1935, May 22, Yihai Alliance, the red army allied with the Yi people. 1935, May 29, CCP forces captured Luding Bridge,1935, July, CCP forces crossed the Jade Dragon Snow Mountains. 1935, August, CCP forces crossed the Zoigê Marsh,1935, September 16, CCP forces crossed the Lazikou Pass. 1935, October 22, three Red Army fronts met in Shaanxi,1935, November, Mao became the leader of the CCP. Although the literal translation of the Chinese Cháng Zhēng is “Long March”, in this sense, the Long March lasted from October 16,1934 to October 19,1935. In a broader view, the Long March included two other forces retreating under pressure from the Kuomintang, the Second Red Army and the Fourth Red Army. The retreat of all the Red Armies was not complete until October 22,1935, the divisions of the Chinese Workers and Peasants Red Army were named according to historical circumstances, not by chronological order. Indeed, early Communist units would form by defection from existing Kuomintang forces
21.
Jiangyin
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Jiangyin is a county-level city on the southern bank of the Yangtze River, and is administered by Wuxi, Jiangsu province. It has a population of 0.8 million, the total GDP reached RMB171.3 billion yuan in 2009, an increase of 11. 6% from 2008. The GDP per capita reached RMB142,572 yuan, Jiangyin is one of the most important transport hubs on the Yangtze River, and it is one of the most developed counties in China. Since 2003, its overall competitiveness is the first of China’s hundred counties, east of the city is Huaxi Village, the so-called richest village in China. Road South to Wuxi - approximately 45 minutes, southeast to Suzhou - approximately 1 hour. Southwest to Changzhou - approximately 1 hour, southeast to Shanghai - approximately 2-2.5 hours. West to Nanjing - approximately 2-2.5 hours, the Jiangyin Suspension Bridge which spans the Yangtze River links the southern half of Jiangsu with the northern half. Bus The old bus station in urban Jiangyin offers frequent connections to most cities in the region including nearby Shanghai, Nanjing, Wuxi, There is also a newly built bus station on the outskirts of the city that is much larger and more modern. Rail There is no rail station in Jiangyin, though the city does have industrial rail connections. To ride a train, one must go to the station in Wuxi. Air There is no airport in Jiangyin, one must either go to the airport in Wuxi or in Changzhou. Ship Jiangyin Port is one of the five major river ports of the Yangtze River in Jiangsu Province and it located at the end of river and the start of sea, and the port has 35 km deep-water shoreline of Yangtze River. There are 50 inland waterways with different size, the mileage is 383 km. Jiangyins name means River Shade, from its location on the south or shady side of the Yangtze River, the area has been settled for approximately 2,500 years. It has been an important city from a military standpoint due to its position alongside the Yangtze River. Jiangyin is also known as “The City Of Loyalty”（忠義之邦）, in 1645, Qing Government conquered the Northern China and reached its ruled area into Jiangnan. Regent Dorgon issuees an edict ordering all Han Chinese men to shave their forehead. The slogan adopted by the Qing was Keep your hair and lose your head, or keep your head, the people in Jiangyin are certainly not accepting this order and fought against the army that form by both the traitors and invaders
22.
AMC Theatres
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Founded in 1920, AMC has the largest share of the American theater market ahead of Regal Entertainment Group and Cinemark Theatres. The chain has 346 locations in North America, and 86 more locations in mainland China, the companys headquarters are located in Leawood, Kansas. AMC Theatres was founded in 1920 by the Dubinsky Brothers, who had been traveling the Midwest performing melodramas and they purchased the Regent Theatre on 12th Street between Walnut and Grand in downtown Kansas City, Missouri. The Dubinskys eventually changed their name to Durwood, and the company formed was called Durwood Theatres. In 1961, Edwards son Stanley took control of Durwood Theatres, then a small 10-theatre chain, Stanley had attended Harvard University and served as a navigator in the U. S. Air Force during World War II. He renamed Durwood Theatres as American Royal Cinema on October 1,1968, as he later explained to Variety magazine, We needed to define what our company was doing in the business. It was structured under the belief that every customer was a guest, under its new name, AMC opened the two-screen Parkway Twin theatre in a shopping center on Kansas Citys Ward Parkway in 1963. This marked the companys first foray into using the multiplex model, the industry quickly embraced the multiplex concept, where additional screens meant very little difference in staff and operating costs, but resulted in a significant increase in profits. The concept also provided more film choices at one location, drawing bigger crowds and it also gave owners the flexibility to show big hits on more screens, and less reliance on any individual film that could turn out as a bust. By the 1980s, the company was experiencing strong growth, AMC had built and was operating a number of ten-screen multiplex cinemas in the United Kingdom, including sites at locations such as Dudley and Tamworth. These were subsequently bought and taken over by UCI, in the later part of the decade, AMC MeyerPark in Houston, Texas opened with 14 screens, and became the largest theatre in the United States under one roof at the time. AMCs megaplexes were a success overseas as well, on December 20,1996, AMC opened the AMC Arrábida 20 in Portugal. At the time, AMC was publicly traded on AMEX under the code AEN, the company filed for a $450 million IPO in its third such filing since 2006 on 14 July 2010. Stanley Durwood died in 1999, and was succeeded by Peter Brown, gerardo I. Lopez succeeded Brown as CEO and president on March 2,2009. Previously, Lopez was the Executive Vice President of President Consumer Products Group, Seattles Best Coffee and Foodservice at Starbucks. Under new leadership, one of the first major announcements came in March of the same year, the company used to have its headquarters in downtown Kansas City. The state of Kansas had offered $47 million in incentives to get the 400 jobs to move, the company continues to officially be headquartered in Kansas City, although it has moved its headquarters to the Ten Main Center, where it now leases space. The disability rights group had accused the company of only providing closed captioning or audio description systems at some of its locations in the state, AMC was acquired by Dalian Wanda Group, a Chinese conglomerate headquartered in Dalian, in May 2012
23.
New York Stock Exchange
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The New York Stock Exchange, is an American stock exchange located at 11 Wall Street, Lower Manhattan, New York City, New York. It is by far the worlds largest stock exchange by market capitalization of its companies at US$19.3 trillion as of June 2016. The average daily trading value was approximately US$169 billion in 2013, the NYSE trading floor is located at 11 Wall Street and is composed of 21 rooms used for the facilitation of trading. A fifth trading room, located at 30 Broad Street, was closed in February 2007, the main building and the 11 Wall Street building were designated National Historic Landmarks in 1978. The NYSE is owned by Intercontinental Exchange, an American holding company that it also lists, previously, it was part of NYSE Euronext, which was formed by the NYSEs 2007 merger with Euronext. NYSE and Euronext now operate as divisions of Intercontinental Exchange, the NYSE has been the subject of several lawsuits regarding fraud or breach of duty and in 2004 was sued by its former CEO for breach of contract and defamation. The earliest recorded organization of securities trading in New York among brokers directly dealing with each other can be traced to the Buttonwood Agreement, previously securities exchange had been intermediated by the auctioneers who also conducted more mundane auctions of commodities such as wheat and tobacco. In 1817 the stockbrokers of New York operating under the Buttonwood Agreement instituted new reforms, after sending a delegation to Philadelphia to observe the organization of their board of brokers, restrictions on manipulative trading were adopted as well as formal organs of governance. Several locations were used between 1817 and 1865, when the present location was adopted, the invention of the electrical telegraph consolidated markets, and New Yorks market rose to dominance over Philadelphia after weathering some market panics better than other alternatives. The Civil War greatly stimulated speculative securities trading in New York, by 1869 membership had to be capped, and has been sporadically increased since. The latter half of the century saw rapid growth in securities trading. Securities trade in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries was prone to panics. The Stock Exchange Luncheon Club was situated on the floor from 1898 until its closure in 2006. The main building, located at 18 Broad Street, between the corners of Wall Street and Exchange Place, was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1978, as was the 11 Wall Street building. The NYSE announced its plans to merge with Archipelago on April 21,2005, NYSEs governing board voted to merge with rival Archipelago on December 6,2005, and became a for-profit, public company. It began trading under the name NYSE Group on March 8,2006, Wall Street is the leading US money center for international financial activities and the foremost US location for the conduct of wholesale financial services. It comprises a matrix of wholesale financial sectors, financial markets, financial institutions, the principal sectors are securities industry, commercial banking, asset management, and insurance. Prior to the acquisition of NYSE Euronext by the ICE in 2013, Marsh Carter was the Chairman of the NYSE, presently, the chairman is Jeffrey Sprecher
24.
Leonardo DiCaprio
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Leonardo Wilhelm DiCaprio is an American actor and film producer. He began his career by starring as Josh in Critters 3. He starred in the adaptation of the memoir This Boys Life. Since 2000, DiCaprio has received acclaim for his work in a wide range of film genres. Edgar, the western Django Unchained, and the period drama The Great Gatsby and he also won his first Academy Award and BAFTA Award for his performance in The Revenant. DiCaprio is the founder of his own company, Appian Way Productions. Leonardo Wilhelm DiCaprio was born on November 11,1974 in Los Angeles and he is the only child of Irmelin, a legal secretary, and George DiCaprio, an underground comics artist and producer/distributor of comic books. DiCaprios father is of Italian and German descent, DiCaprios maternal grandfather, Wilhelm Indenbirken, was German. His maternal grandmother, Helene Indenbirken, was a Russian-born German citizen, in an interview in Russia, DiCaprio referred to himself as half-Russian and said that two of his grandparents were Russian. DiCaprios parents met while attending college and subsequently moved to Los Angeles, DiCaprio was named Leonardo because his pregnant mother was looking at a Leonardo da Vinci painting in a museum in Italy when he first kicked. His parents separated when he was an old, and he lived mostly with his mother. The two lived in several Los Angeles neighborhoods, such as Echo Park and Los Feliz, while his mother worked several jobs, DiCaprio attended Seeds Elementary School and John Marshall High School a few blocks away, after attending the Los Angeles Center for Enriched Studies for four years. However, he dropped out of school following his third year. DiCaprio spent part of his childhood in Germany with his grandparents, Wilhelm. He is conversant in German and Italian, DiCaprios career began with his appearance in several commercials and educational films. In 1990, he got his break on television when he was cast in the series based on the movie Parenthood. After Parenthood, DiCaprio had bit parts on several shows, including The New Lassie and Roseanne, as well as a stint on the soap opera Santa Barbara. His involvement in Parenthood and the daily soap earned him a nomination for the Young Artist Award for Best Young Actor each, released in 1991, the movie went direct-to-video
25.
Kate Beckinsale
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Kathrin Romary Kate Beckinsale is a British actress. After some minor roles, she made her film debut in Much Ado About Nothing while still a student at the University of Oxford. She then appeared in British costume dramas such as Prince of Jutland, Cold Comfort Farm, Emma and she followed those with appearances in The Aviator and Click. Since being cast as Selene in the Underworld film series, Beckinsale has become known primarily for her work in films, including Van Helsing, Whiteout, Contraband. She also continues to make appearances in smaller projects such as Snow Angels, Nothing but the Truth. In 2016, she appeared in Whit Stillmans Jane Austen comedy Love & Friendship, Beckinsale was born in Chiswick, London, England. She is the child of actor Richard Beckinsale and actress Judy Loe. She is the younger half-sister of Samantha Beckinsale and her father was of one-quarter Burmese descent. She made her first television appearance at the age of four, when she was five years old, her 31-year-old father died suddenly of a heart attack. Beckinsale was deeply traumatised by the loss and started expecting bad things to happen and her widowed mother moved in with director Roy Battersby when Beckinsale was nine and she was brought up alongside his four sons and daughter. She has a relationship with her step-father, who was a member of the Workers Revolutionary Party during her childhood. Beckinsale helped to sell The News Line, a Trotskyist newspaper, family friends included Ken Loach and Vanessa Redgrave. Beckinsale has a paternal half-sister, actress Samantha Beckinsale, but they have not had regular contact, Beckinsale was educated at Godolphin and Latymer School, an independent school for girls in Hammersmith, West London and was involved with the Orange Tree Youth Theatre. She was a winner of the WH Smith Young Writers Award for both fiction and poetry. She has described herself as a late bloomer, All of my friends were kissing boys, I found it really depressing that we werent making camp fires and everyone was doing grown-up stuff. She had a breakdown and developed anorexia at the age of 15. Beckinsale read French and Russian literature at New College, Oxford, and was described by a contemporary, journalist Victoria Coren Mitchell, as whip-clever, slightly nuts. She was involved with the Oxford University Dramatic Society, most notably being directed by fellow student Tom Hooper in a production of A View from the Bridge at the Oxford Playhouse
26.
John Travolta
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John Joseph Travolta is an American actor, producer, dancer, and singer. Travolta first became known in the 1970s, after appearing on the television series Welcome Back, Kotter and starring in the box office successes Saturday Night Fever, Travolta was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actor for performances in Saturday Night Fever and Pulp Fiction. He won his only Golden Globe Award for Best Actor in a Motion Picture – Musical or Comedy for his performance in Get Shorty and has received a total of six nominations, in 2014, he received the IIFA Award for Outstanding Achievement in International Cinema. Travolta, the youngest of six children, was born and raised in Englewood, New Jersey and his father, Salvatore Travolta, was a semi-professional American football player turned tire salesman and partner in a tire company. His mother, Helen Cecilia, was an actress and singer who had appeared in The Sunshine Sisters, a vocal group. His siblings, Joey, Ellen, Ann, Margaret, and his father was a second-generation Italian American and his mother was Irish American, he grew up in an Irish-American neighborhood and has said that his household was predominantly Irish in culture. He was raised Roman Catholic, but converted to Scientology in 1975, Travolta attended Dwight Morrow High School, but dropped out as a junior at age 17 in 1971. After attending Dwight Morrow High School, Travolta moved across the Hudson River to New York City and landed a role in the company of the musical Grease. Singing the Sherman Brothers song Dream Drummin and he then moved to Los Angeles to further his career in show business. Travoltas first California-filmed television role was as a victim in Emergency. In September 1972, but his first significant movie role was as Billy Nolan, around the same time, he landed his star-making role as Vinnie Barbarino in the TV sitcom Welcome Back, Kotter, in which his sister, Ellen, also occasionally appeared. Travolta had a hit single entitled Let Her In, peaking at ten on the Billboard Hot 100 chart in July 1976. In the next few years, he appeared in two of his most noted screen roles, Tony Manero in Saturday Night Fever and as Danny Zuko in Grease, the films were among the most commercially successful pictures of the decade and catapulted Travolta to international stardom. Saturday Night Fever earned him an Academy Award nomination for Best Actor, at age 24, Travolta became one of the youngest performers ever nominated for the Best Actor Oscar. His mother and his sister Ann appeared in roles in Saturday Night Fever. Travolta performed several of the songs on the Grease soundtrack album, in 1980, Travolta inspired a nationwide country music craze that followed on the heels of his hit film, Urban Cowboy, in which he starred with Debra Winger. After Urban Cowboy, Travolta starred in a series of financial and critical failures that sidelined his acting career and these included Perfect, co-starring Jamie Lee Curtis, and Two of a Kind, a romantic comedy reteaming him with Olivia Newton-John. During that time he was offered, but turned down, lead roles in what would become box office hits, including American Gigolo and An Officer and a Gentleman, both of which went to Richard Gere
27.
Hollywood
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Hollywood is an ethnically diverse, densely populated neighborhood in the central region of Los Angeles, California. It is notable as the home of the U. S. film industry, including several of its studios, and its name has come to be a shorthand reference for the industry. Hollywood was a community in 1870 and was incorporated as a municipality in 1903. It was consolidated with the city of Los Angeles in 1910, in 1853, one adobe hut stood in Nopalera, named for the Mexican Nopal cactus indigenous to the area. By 1870, an agricultural community flourished, the area was known as the Cahuenga Valley, after the pass in the Santa Monica Mountains immediately to the north. According to the diary of H. J. Whitley, known as the Father of Hollywood, along came a Chinese man in a wagon carrying wood. The man got out of the wagon and bowed, the Chinese man was asked what he was doing and replied, I holly-wood, meaning hauling wood. H. J. Whitley had an epiphany and decided to name his new town Hollywood, Holly would represent England and wood would represent his Scottish heritage. Whitley had already started over 100 towns across the western United States, Whitley arranged to buy the 500-acre E. C. Hurd ranch and disclosed to him his plans for the land. They agreed on a price and Hurd agreed to sell at a later date, before Whitley got off the ground with Hollywood, plans for the new town had spread to General Harrison Gray Otis, Hurds wife, eastern adjacent ranch co-owner Daeida Wilcox, and others. Daeida Wilcox may have learned of the name Hollywood from Ivar Weid, her neighbor in Holly Canyon and she recommended the same name to her husband, Harvey. In August 1887, Wilcox filed with the Los Angeles County Recorders office a deed and parcel map of property he had sold named Hollywood, Wilcox wanted to be the first to record it on a deed. The early real-estate boom busted that year, yet Hollywood began its slow growth. By 1900, the region had a post office, newspaper, hotel, Los Angeles, with a population of 102,479 lay 10 miles east through the vineyards, barley fields, and citrus groves. A single-track streetcar line ran down the middle of Prospect Avenue from it, but service was infrequent, the old citrus fruit-packing house was converted into a livery stable, improving transportation for the inhabitants of Hollywood. The Hollywood Hotel was opened in 1902 by H. J. Whitley who was a president of the Los Pacific Boulevard, having finally acquired the Hurd ranch and subdivided it, Whitley built the hotel to attract land buyers. Flanking the west side of Highland Avenue, the structure fronted on Prospect Avenue, the hotel was to become internationally known and was the center of the civic and social life and home of the stars for many years. Whitleys company developed and sold one of the residential areas
28.
Qingdao
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Qingdao is a city in eastern Shandong Province on the east coast of China. It is the largest city in its province, administered at the sub-provincial level, Qingdao has jurisdiction over six districts and four county-level cities. As of 2014 Qingdao had a population of 9,046,200 with a population of 6,188,100. Lying across the Shandong Peninsula and looking out to the Yellow Sea, it borders Yantai to the northeast, Weifang to the west, qīng in Chinese means cyan or greenish-blue, while dǎo means island. Qingdao is a seaport, naval base, and industrial centre. The worlds longest sea bridge, the Jiaozhou Bay Bridge, links the urban area of Qingdao with Huangdao district. It is also the site of the Tsingtao Brewery, the second largest brewery in China, in 2007, Qingdao was named as among Chinas top ten cities by the Chinese Cities Brand Value Report, which was released at the 2007 Beijing Summit of China Cities Forum. In 2009, Qingdao was named Chinas most livable city by the Chinese Institute of City Competitiveness, jiāoào, former name during the Qing dynasty. Qindao, additional modern name for the area, refers according to locals to the shape of the coastline, Tsingtao, Postal romanization Tsingtau, German name during the concession period, written in German romanization of Chinese. Jiaozhou, a name which refers to the Jiaozhou Bay. Kiaochow, Kiauchau, Kiautschou, romanizations of Jiaozhou, human settlement in the area dates back 6,000 years. The Dongyi nationality, one of the important origins of the Chinese nation, lived here and created the Dawenkou, Longshan, in the Eastern Zhou Dynasty, the town of Jimo was established, which was then the second largest one in the Shandong region. The area in which Qingdao is located today was named Jiaoao when it was administered by the Qing Dynasty on 14 June 1891, in 1891, the Qing government decided to make coastal Tsingtao a defense base against naval attack and began to improve Qingdaos existing fortifications. German naval officials observed and reported on this Chinese activity during a survey of Jiaozhou Bay in May 1897. Subsequently, German troops seized and occupied the fortification, China conceded the area to Germany the following year, and the Kiautschou Bay concession, as it became known, existed from 1898 to 1914. With an area of 552 square kilometres, it was located in the province of Shandong on the southern coast of the Shandong Peninsula in northern China. Jiaozhou was romanized as Kiaochow, Kiauchau or Kiao-Chau in English, the so-called Marktstrasse was nothing more than the old main street of the Chinese village of Tsingtao, and the buildings lining it were the former homes of fishermen and farmers. Having sold their property, they resettled their homes and fields in the further east
29.
Madrid
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Madrid is the capital city of the Kingdom of Spain and the largest municipality in both the Community of Madrid and Spain as a whole. The city has a population of almost 3.2 million with an area population of approximately 6.5 million. It is the third-largest city in the European Union after London and Berlin, the municipality itself covers an area of 604.3 km2. Madrid lies on the River Manzanares in the centre of both the country and the Community of Madrid, this community is bordered by the communities of Castile and León. As the capital city of Spain, seat of government, and residence of the Spanish monarch, Madrid is also the political, economic, the current mayor is Manuela Carmena from Ahora Madrid. Madrid is home to two football clubs, Real Madrid and Atlético de Madrid. Madrid is the 17th most liveable city in the according to Monocle magazine. Madrid organises fairs such as FITUR, ARCO, SIMO TCI, while Madrid possesses modern infrastructure, it has preserved the look and feel of many of its historic neighbourhoods and streets. Cibeles Palace and Fountain have become one of the monument symbols of the city, the first documented reference of the city originates in Andalusan times as the Arabic مجريط Majrīṭ, which was retained in Medieval Spanish as Magerit. A wider number of theories have been formulated on possible earlier origins, according to legend, Madrid was founded by Ocno Bianor and was named Metragirta or Mantua Carpetana. The most ancient recorded name of the city Magerit comes from the name of a built on the Manzanares River in the 9th century AD. Nevertheless, it is speculated that the origin of the current name of the city comes from the 2nd century BC. The Roman Empire established a settlement on the banks of the Manzanares river, the name of this first village was Matrice. In the 8th century, the Islamic conquest of the Iberian Peninsula saw the changed to Mayrit, from the Arabic term ميرا Mayra. The modern Madrid evolved from the Mozarabic Matrit, which is still in the Madrilenian gentilic, after the disintegration of the Caliphate of Córdoba, Madrid was integrated in the Taifa of Toledo. With the surrender of Toledo to Alfonso VI of León and Castile, the city was conquered by Christians in 1085, Christians replaced Muslims in the occupation of the centre of the city, while Muslims and Jews settled in the suburbs. The city was thriving and was given the title of Villa, since 1188, Madrid won the right to be a city with representation in the courts of Castile. In 1202, King Alfonso VIII of Castile gave Madrid its first charter to regulate the municipal council, which was expanded in 1222 by Ferdinand III of Castile
30.
Banco Santander
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The Santander Group /ˌsɑːntɑːnˈdɛər/ is a Spanish banking group centered on Banco Santander, S. A. As its name suggests, the company originated in Santander, Cantabria, the group has expanded since 2000 through a number of acquisitions, with operations across Europe, Latin America, North America and Asia. Many subsidiaries, such as Abbey National, have been rebranded under the Santander name, the company is a component of the Euro Stoxx 50 stock market index. In May 2016, Santander was ranked as 37th in the Forbes Global 2000 list of the Worlds biggest public companies, Banco Santander was founded in 1857. In 1999 it merged with Banco Central Hispano, which had in turn been formed through the 1991 merger of Banco Central, soon after the merger former BCH executives accused Banco Santander chairman Emilio Botín of trying to push his own agenda and threatened to take legal action. The large termination payouts generated negative press and Botín was eventually brought to trial on charges of misappropriation of funds. However, in April 2005 the court cleared him of all charges, also that year, the anti-corruption division of the Spanish public prosecutors office cleared Botín of all charges in a separate case, in which he was accused of insider trading. In 2007 the bank changed the official name back to Banco Santander S. A. In 1996 Banco Santander acquired Grupo Financiero InverMexico, in 2000, Banco Santander Central Hispano acquired Grupo Financiero Serfin of Mexico. On 26 July 2004 Banco Santander Central Hispano announced the acquisition of Abbey National plc, following shareholders approval at the EGM of Abbey and Santander, the acquisition was formally approved by the courts and Abbey became part of the Santander Group on 12 November 2004. In June 2006, Banco Santander Central Hispano purchased almost 20% of Sovereign Bank, in May 2007 Banco Santander Central Hispano announced that in conjunction with The Royal Bank of Scotland and Fortis it would make an offer for ABN AMRO. BSCHs share of the offer added up to 28% and the offer would have to be made up of a capital increase through a new share issue, then in October 2007 the consortium outbid Barclays and acquired ABN AMRO. As part of the deal, Grupo Santander acquired ABN AMROs subsidiary in Brazil, Banco Real, on 13 August 2007, Banco Santander Central Hispano changed its legal name to Banco Santander. In November that year, it sold Banca Antonveneta to Banca Monte dei Paschi di Siena, in July 2008 the group announced it intended to purchase the UK bank Alliance & Leicester, which held £24bn in deposits and had 254 branches. Santander also purchased the business of Bradford & Bingley in September 2008. The acquisition of Alliance & Leicester completed in October 2008 when the B&Bs shares were delisted from the London Stock Exchange, by the end of 2010 the two banks merged with Abbey National under the Santander UK brand. In October 2008, the Group announced to acquire 75. 65% of Sovereign Bancorp it did not own for approximately US$1.9 billion, the acquisition of Sovereign gave Santander its first retail bank in the mainland United States. Santander renamed the bank to enhance its global recognition in October 2013
31.
Wilshire Boulevard
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Wilshire Boulevard is one of the principal east-west arterial roads in Los Angeles, California. This road was used by Spanish explorers and settlers, calling it El Camino Viejo. The route that ultimately became Wilshire crossed the original pueblo of Los Angeles and five of the original Spanish land grants, Wilshire was pieced together from various streets over several decades. It began in the 1870s as Nevada Avenue in Santa Monica, Nevada and Orange were later renamed as parts of Wilshire. The boulevard was named for Henry Gaylord Wilshire, an Ohio native who made and lost fortunes in real estate, farming, the road first appeared on a map under its present name in 1895. A historic apartment building on the corner of Wilshire Blvd. and S. Kenmore Ave. the Gaylord, aon Center, at one point Los Angeles largest tower, is at 707 Wilshire Boulevard in downtown Los Angeles. The Wilshire Boulevard home of J. Paul Getty was used as the filmset for the 1950 film Sunset Boulevard, one particularly famous stretch of the boulevard between Fairfax and Highland Avenues is known as the Miracle Mile. Many of Los Angeles largest museums are located there, the area just to the east of that, between Highland Avenue and Wilton Place, is referred to as the Park Mile. Between Westwood and Holmby Hills, several tall glitzy condominium buildings overlook this part of Wilshire and this section is also known as the Wilshire Corridor and Condo Canyon. The Wilshire Corridor, located next to Century City, is one of Los Angeles busiest districts, the Fox and MGM studios are located in a series of skyscrapers, along with many historic Los Angeles hotels. Wilshire Blvd is also the street of Los Angeles Koreatown. Koreatown and Mid Wilshire are among Los Angeless densest districts, the construction of the future Purple Line Extension Section 1 commenced in November 2014. The phase two and three of the Purple Line, when completed, will extend to Westwood/VA Hospital. Phase four to Santa Monica Beach are still in the planning stages, Metro Local Line 20, Metro Rapid Line 720, and Santa Monica Transit Line 2 operate along Wilshire Boulevard. Due to the ridership of line 720, 60-foot NABI articulated buses are used on this route. All of the boulevard is at least four lanes in width, the widest portion is in the business district of central Westwood, where mobs of pedestrians crossing Wilshire at Westwood Boulevard must traverse ten lanes. According to a 1991 study by the Los Angeles Department of Transportation, this, the boulevards widest portion is in Westwood and Holmby Hills, where it expands to six, and briefly, eight lanes. The sections of Wilshire Boulevard in the city of Los Angeles are notorious for their giant potholes, Wilshire Boulevard formerly ended at the MacArthur Park lake, but in 1934 a berm was built for it to cross and link up with the existing Orange Street into downtown Los Angeles
32.
Beverly Hills, California
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Beverly Hills is a city in Los Angeles County, California, United States, surrounded by the cities of Los Angeles and West Hollywood. By 2013, its population had grown to 34,658, sometimes referred to as 90210, one of its primary ZIP codes, it was home to many actors and celebrities throughout the 20th century. The city includes the Rodeo Drive shopping district and the Beverly Hills Oil Field, gaspar de Portolá arrived in the area that would later become Beverly Hills on August 3,1769, travelling along native trails which followed the present-day route of Wilshire Boulevard. The area was settled by Maria Rita Quinteros de Valdez and her husband in 1828 and they called their 4,500 acres of property the Rancho Rodeo de las Aguas. in 1854, she sold the ranch to Benjamin Davis Wilson and Henry Hancock. By the 1880s, the ranch had been subdivided into parcels of 75 acres and was being bought up by anglos from Los Angeles. Henry Hammel and Andrew H. Denker acquired most of it, at this point, the area was known as the Hammel and Denker Ranch. By 1888, Denker and Hammel were planning to build a town called Morocco on their holdings and they did not find enough to exploit commercially by the standards of the time, though. In 1906, therefore, they reorganized as the Rodeo Land and Water Company, renamed the property Beverly Hills, subdivided it, the development was named Beverly Hills after Beverly Farms in Beverly, Massachusetts and because of the hills in the area. The first house in the subdivision was built in 1907, although sales remained slow, Beverly Hills was one of many all-white planned communities started in the Los Angeles area around this time. Restrictive covenants prohibited non-whites from owning or renting property unless they were employed as servants by white residents and it was also forbidden to sell or rent property to Jews in Beverly Hills. Burton Green began construction on The Beverly Hills Hotel in 1911, the hotel was finished in 1912. The visitors drawn by the hotel were inclined to purchase land in Beverly Hills and that same year, the Rodeo Land and Water Company decided to separate its water business from its real estate business. The Beverly Hills Utility Commission was split off from the company and incorporated in September 1914, buying all of the utilities-related assets from the Rodeo Land. In 1919, Douglas Fairbanks and Mary Pickford bought land on Summit Drive and built a mansion, finished in 1921, the glamor associated with Fairbanks and Pickford as well as other movie stars who built mansions in the city contributed to its growing appeal. By the early 1920s the population of Beverly Hills had grown enough to make the water supply a political issue, in 1923 the usual solution, annexation to the city of Los Angeles, was proposed. There was considerable opposition to annexation among such famous residents as Pickford, Fairbanks, Will Rogers, the Beverly Hills Utility Commission, opposed to annexation as well, managed to force the city into a special election and the plan was defeated 337 to 507. In 1925, Beverly Hills approved an issue to buy 385 acres for a new campus for UCLA. The cities of Los Angeles, Santa Monica and Venice also issued bonds to pay for the new campus
33.
Dick Clark
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Richard Augustus Wagstaff Dick Clark Jr. was an American radio and television personality, as well as a cultural icon who remains best known for hosting American Bandstand from 1957 to 1987. He also hosted the game show Pyramid and Dick Clarks New Years Rockin Eve, Clark was also well known for his trademark sign-off, For now, Dick Clark — so long. As host of American Bandstand, Clark introduced rock & roll to many Americans, the show gave many new music artists their first exposure to national audiences, including Ike and Tina Turner, Smokey Robinson and the Miracles, Stevie Wonder, Talking Heads and Simon & Garfunkel. Episodes he hosted were among the first in which blacks and whites performed on the same stage, singer Paul Anka claimed that Bandstand was responsible for creating a youth culture. Due to his youthful appearance and his fame as the host of American Bandstand. In his capacity as a businessman, Clark served as Chief Executive Officer of Dick Clark Productions and he also founded the American Bandstand Diner, a restaurant chain modeled after the Hard Rock Cafe. In 1973, he created and produced the annual American Music Awards show, Clark suffered a stroke in December 2004. With speech ability still impaired, Clark returned to his New Years Rockin Eve show a year later on December 31,2005, subsequently, he appeared at the 58th Primetime Emmy Awards in 2006, and every New Years Rockin Eve show through the 2011–12 show. Clark died on April 18,2012 of an attack at the age of 82 following a medical procedure. Clark was born and raised in Mount Vernon, New York, to Richard Augustus Clark and his only sibling, older brother Bradley, was killed in the Battle of the Bulge during World War II. Clark attended A. B. Davis High School in Mount Vernon, at age 10, Clark decided to pursue a career in radio. In pursuit of that goal, he attended Syracuse University in Syracuse, New York, graduating in 1951 with a degree in advertising, while at Syracuse, he was a member of Delta Kappa Epsilon fraternity. In 1945, Clark began his working in the mailroom at WRUN, an AM radio station in Rome, New York. Almost immediately, he was asked to fill in for the vacationing weatherman, while attending Syracuse, Clark worked at WOLF-AM, then a country music station. After graduation, he returned to WRUN for a time where he went by the name Dick Clay. After that, Clark got a job at the television station WKTV in Utica and his first television-hosting job was on Cactus Dick and the Santa Fe Riders, a country-music program. He would later replace Robert Earle as a newscaster, Clark was principal in pro broadcasters operator of 1440 KPRO in Riverside, California, from 1962 to 1982. In the 1960s, he was owner of KGUD AM/FM in Santa Barbara, in 1952, Clark moved to Drexel Hill, Pennsylvania, a suburb of Philadelphia, where he took a job as a disc jockey at radio station WFIL, adopting the Dick Clark handle
34.
Golden Globe Award
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Golden Globe Awards are accolades bestowed by the 93 members of the Hollywood Foreign Press Association, recognizing excellence in film and television, both domestic and foreign. The annual ceremony at which the awards are presented is a part of the film industrys awards season. The 74th Golden Globe Awards, honoring the best in film, the 1st Golden Globe Awards, honoring the best achievements in 1943 filmmaking, was held in January 1944, at the 20th Century-Fox studios. Subsequent ceremonies were held at venues throughout the next decade, including the Beverly Hills Hotel. In 1950, the Hollywood Foreign Press Association made the decision to establish an honorary award to recognize outstanding contributions to the entertainment industry. Recognizing its subject as a figure within the entertainment industry. The official name of the award became the Cecil B. In 1963, the Miss Golden Globe concept was introduced, in its inaugural year, two Miss Golden Globes were named, one for film and one for television. The two Miss Golden Globes named that year were Eva Six and Donna Douglas, respectively, in 2009, the Golden Globe statuette was redesigned. It was unveiled at a conference at the Beverly Hilton prior to the show. The broadcast of the Golden Globe Awards, telecast to 167 countries worldwide, generally ranks as the third most-watched awards show each year, behind only the Oscars, gervais returned to host the 68th and 69th Golden Globe Awards the next two years. Tina Fey and Amy Poehler hosted the 70th, 71st and 72nd Golden Globe Awards in 2015, the Golden Globe Awards theme song, which debuted in 2012, was written by Japanese musician and songwriter Yoshiki Hayashi. On January 7,2008, it was announced due to the 2007–2008 Writers Guild of America strike. The ceremony was faced with a threat by striking writers to picket the event, the Hollywood Foreign Press Association was forced to adopt another approach for the broadcast. In acting categories, Meryl Streep holds the record for the most competitive Golden Globe wins with eight, however, including honorary awards, such as the Henrietta Award, World Film Favorite Actor/Actress Award, or Cecil B. DeMille Award, Barbra Streisand leads with nine, additionally, Streisand won for composing the song Evergreen, producing the Best Picture, and directing Yentl in 1984. Jack Nicholson, Angela Lansbury, Alan Alda and Shirley MacLaine have six awards each, behind them are Rosalind Russell and Jessica Lange with five wins. Meryl Streep also holds the record for most nominations with thirty, at the 46th Golden Globe Awards an anomaly occurred, a three way-tie for Best Actress in a Motion Picture – Drama
35.
Legendary Entertainment
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Legendary Entertainment is an American media company based in Burbank, California. The company was founded by Thomas Tull in 2000 and in 2005, concluded an agreement to co-produce and co-finance films with Warner Bros. since 2016, Legendary has been a subsidiary of the Chinese conglomerate Wanda Group. Thomas Tull founded Legendary Entertainment after raising $500 million from private equity firms, Legendary Pictures, Inc. was incorporated in California in 2000 and in 2005 it signed an agreement with Warner Bros. to co-produce and co-finance up to 40 films over seven years. In 2010, Tull, Fidelity Investments, and Fortress Investment Group bought all the shares of the original investors, the buyout also included a $25 million-investment by Orange Sky Golden Harvest Entertainment. Following the transaction, Tull became the largest shareholder, thus enabling him to more direct the companys operations. Golden Harvest later sold its stake in the company for $30 million, in 2011, Accel Partners bought $40 million-worth of shares and Accel partner Jim Breyer joined the companys board of directors. That same year the company was reported to have been valued at more than $1 billion, in September 2011, Chief Creative Officer Jon Jashni was appointed to the new position of President. In December 2012, Waddell & Reed bought around 20% of Legendarys shares for $443 million, in October 2014, SoftBank bought $250 million shares, a 10% stake, in Legendary. The transaction increased the total value to around $3 billion. On January 17,2017, it was announced that Tull has exited as Legendary Entertainment CEO, in addition to producing American films, Legendary Entertainment has announced various other business endeavors. The goal of the division was reoriented in 2012 with the acquisition of Nerdist Industries, LLC, in 2014, Legendary acquired both Geek & Sundry, Inc. a YouTube channel and production company, and the website Smart Girls at the Party. On June 10,2016, LDN announced a streaming service, Alpha. In 2010, the announced the launch of a comic book division called Legendary Comics. The first graphic novel published by the company was Holy Terror by Frank Miller, in 2011, the company announced the creation of Legendary Television, LLC to focus on developing television productions. The division was headed by Jeremy Elice and a contract with Warner Bros. In 2013, Legendary purchased film marketing agency Five33 Ltd, the company, which in the past has worked on marketing campaigns for various studios, will now work exclusively on marketing Legendarys films. Also in 2013, Legendary invested in hiring former head of Warner Bros, Television, Bruce Rosenblum, to head Legendarys television and digital media operations. In 2011, the announced the formation of Legendary East Ltd. a joint venture film production company based in Hong Kong
36.
Jurassic World
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Jurassic World is a 2015 American science-fiction adventure film and the fourth installment of the Jurassic Park series. The film was directed and co-written by Colin Trevorrow, produced by Frank Marshall and Patrick Crowley, the production companies were Steven Spielbergs Amblin Entertainment, also responsible for the rest of the Jurassic Park franchise, and Thomas Tulls Legendary Pictures. The park plunges into chaos when a genetically created dinosaur breaks loose, following a suggestion from Spielberg, writers Rick Jaffa and Amanda Silver explored the idea of a functional dinosaur park. Once Trevorrow was hired as director in 2013, he followed the idea while developing a whole new script with Derek Connolly. Principal photography rolled from April to August 2014, primarily in Louisiana while also using the original Jurassic Park filming locations in Hawaii, Jurassic World was released on June 12,2015, in over 60 countries. After a record-breaking opening weekend where it grossed $500 million worldwide, a sequel is scheduled for release on June 22,2018. Following the demise of dinosaur-themed Jurassic Park, Jurassic World, a new resort opened in its place in Isla Nublar years later, has become a successful tourist destination. The Masrani Global Corporation – owner of the genetics company InGen that creates the dinosaurs – has been operating the park on the island for the past ten years. Brothers Zach and Gray Mitchell visit Jurassic World to see their aunt Claire Dearing, Claire, a busy workaholic, assigns her assistant Zara to be their guide, but the boys evade her and explore the resort on their own. Owen Grady, a Navy veteran, has been researching the intelligence of the parks Velociraptors, InGen security chief Vic Hoskins believes the raptors should be trained for military use despite Owens objections. Park owner Simon Masrani has Owen evaluate the paddock of the new hybrid dinosaur, Indominus rex. Owen warns Claire about the danger of raising Indominus in isolation, when the staff learns that the Indominus appears to have escaped its paddock, Owen and two others enter the enclosure. Able to camouflage itself and mask its heat signature, the Indominus suddenly appears and devours Owens companions before escaping into the islands interior, Owen orders the Indominus to be killed, but Masrani instead sends a specialized unit to capture it. When most of the unit is killed, Claire orders the evacuation of the northern sector. While exploring in a ride, Zach and Gray enter a restricted area. The nearby Indominus attacks and destroys their sphere, but both manage to escape to the ruins of the original Jurassic Park visitor center and they repair an old Jeep Wrangler and drive back to the park resort. While Claire and Owen are searching for the boys, they encounter the Indominus, the pterosaurs then attack the resort itself, and in the chaos, Zara falls into the nearby lake and is devoured by a Mosasaurus. Gray and Zach eventually find Owen and Claire at the resort as armed personnel subdue the pterosaurs with tranquilizers, assuming command, Hoskins orders that the raptors be used to track the Indominus, Owen is forced to accept Hoskins plan and lead the raptors
37.
The Economist
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The Economist is an English-language weekly magazine-format newspaper owned by the Economist Group and edited at offices in London. Continuous publication began under its founder, James Wilson, in September 1843, in 2015 its average weekly circulation was a little over 1.5 million, about half of which were sold in the United States. The publication belongs to the Economist Group and it is 50% owned by the English branch of the Rothschild family and by the Agnelli family through its holding company Exor. The remaining 50% is held by investors including the editors. The Rothschilds and the Agnellis are represented on the board of directors, a board of trustees formally appoints the editor, who cannot be removed without its permission. Although The Economist has an emphasis and scope, about two-thirds of the 75 staff journalists are based in the London borough of Westminster. For the year to March 2016 the Economist Group declared operating profit of £61m, previous major shareholders include Pearson PLC. The Economist takes a stance of classical and economic liberalism which is supportive of free trade, globalisation, free immigration. The publication has described itself as a product of the Caledonian liberalism of Adam Smith and it targets highly educated readers and claims an audience containing many influential executives and policy-makers. The publications CEO described this recent global change, which was first noticed in the 1990s and accelerated in the beginning of the 21st century, on the contents page of each issue, The Economists mission statement is written in italics. The Economist was founded by the British businessman and banker James Wilson in 1843, to advance the repeal of the Corn Laws, articles relating to some practical, commercial, agricultural, or foreign topic of passing interest, such as foreign treaties. An article on the principles of political economy, applied to practical experience, covering the laws related to prices, wages, rent, exchange, revenue. Parliamentary reports, with focus on commerce, agriculture and free trade. Reports and accounts of popular movements advocating free trade, general news from the Court of St. Jamess, the Metropolis, the Provinces, Scotland, and Ireland. Law reports, confined chiefly to areas important to commerce, manufacturing, books, confined chiefly, but not so exclusively, to commerce, manufacturing, and agriculture, and including all treatises on political economy, finance, or taxation. A commercial gazette, with prices and statistics of the week, correspondence and inquiries from the news magazines readers. It has long respected as one of the most competent. Its logo was designed in 1959 by Reynolds Stone, in January 2012 The Economist launched a new weekly section devoted exclusively to China, the first new country section since the introduction of a section about the United States in 1942
38.
Napoleon
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Napoleon Bonaparte was a French military and political leader who rose to prominence during the French Revolution and led several successful campaigns during the French Revolutionary Wars. As Napoleon I, he was Emperor of the French from 1804 until 1814, Napoleon dominated European and global affairs for more than a decade while leading France against a series of coalitions in the Napoleonic Wars. He won most of these wars and the vast majority of his battles, one of the greatest commanders in history, his wars and campaigns are studied at military schools worldwide. Napoleons political and cultural legacy has ensured his status as one of the most celebrated and he was born Napoleone di Buonaparte in Corsica to a relatively modest family from the minor nobility. When the Revolution broke out in 1789, Napoleon was serving as an officer in the French army. Seizing the new opportunities presented by the Revolution, he rose through the ranks of the military. The Directory eventually gave him command of the Army of Italy after he suppressed a revolt against the government from royalist insurgents, in 1798, he led a military expedition to Egypt that served as a springboard to political power. He engineered a coup in November 1799 and became First Consul of the Republic and his ambition and public approval inspired him to go further, and in 1804 he became the first Emperor of the French. Intractable differences with the British meant that the French were facing a Third Coalition by 1805, in 1806, the Fourth Coalition took up arms against him because Prussia became worried about growing French influence on the continent. Napoleon quickly defeated Prussia at the battles of Jena and Auerstedt, then marched the Grand Army deep into Eastern Europe, France then forced the defeated nations of the Fourth Coalition to sign the Treaties of Tilsit in July 1807, bringing an uneasy peace to the continent. Tilsit signified the high watermark of the French Empire, hoping to extend the Continental System and choke off British trade with the European mainland, Napoleon invaded Iberia and declared his brother Joseph the King of Spain in 1808. The Spanish and the Portuguese revolted with British support, the Peninsular War lasted six years, featured extensive guerrilla warfare, and ended in victory for the Allies. The Continental System caused recurring diplomatic conflicts between France and its client states, especially Russia, unwilling to bear the economic consequences of reduced trade, the Russians routinely violated the Continental System and enticed Napoleon into another war. The French launched an invasion of Russia in the summer of 1812. The resulting campaign witnessed the collapse of the Grand Army, the destruction of Russian cities, in 1813, Prussia and Austria joined Russian forces in a Sixth Coalition against France. A lengthy military campaign culminated in a large Allied army defeating Napoleon at the Battle of Leipzig in October 1813, the Allies then invaded France and captured Paris in the spring of 1814, forcing Napoleon to abdicate in April. He was exiled to the island of Elba near Rome and the Bourbons were restored to power, however, Napoleon escaped from Elba in February 1815 and took control of France once again. The Allies responded by forming a Seventh Coalition, which defeated Napoleon at the Battle of Waterloo in June, the British exiled him to the remote island of Saint Helena in the South Atlantic, where he died six years later at the age of 51
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Dress code
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Dress codes are written and, more often, unwritten rules with regard to clothing. Clothing like other aspects of physical appearance has a social significance, with different rules and expectations being valid depending on circumstance. Different societies and cultures will have different dress norms although Western styles are commonly accepted as valid, the dress code has built in rules or signals indicating the message being given by a persons clothing and how it is worn. For example, wearing expensive clothes can communicate wealth, the image of wealth, all factors apply inversely to the wearing of inexpensive clothing and similar goods. The observer sees the resultant, expensive clothes, but may incorrectly perceive the extent to which these apply to the person observed. Clothing can convey a message, even if none is intended. If the receivers code of interpretation differs from the code of communication, misinterpretation follows. In every culture, current fashion governs the manner of consciously constructing, assembling, the rate of change of fashion varies, clothes and its accessories within months or days, especially in small social groups or in communications media-influenced modern societies. More extensive changes, requiring time, money, and effort to effect. When fashion changes, the messages communicated by clothing change, in the Middle Ages, the European royalty and nobility used a dress code to differentiate themselves from other classes of people. The indigenous peoples of the Pacific Northwest Coast had a social structure, including slaves, commoners, and nobles. John R. Jewitt resented the imposition of this code, finding the loose untailored garments very cold. He was not allowed to cut his hair, and had to paint his face, in some traditions, certain types of clothing are worn exclusively or predominantly by either men or women. For example, the wearing of a skirt or a dress tends to be associated with female dress, hairdressing in some societies may also conform to a dress code, such as long hair for women and short hair for men. In many societies, particular clothing may be a status symbol, in China before the establishment of the republic, only the emperor could wear yellow. Many school districts in the United States took up the idea, by requiring students to wear a school uniform they are less likely to have something to make fun of other students for. This would cause the students to get to one another by their personality. Military, police, and firefighters usually wear uniforms, as do workers in many industries, school children often wear school uniforms, while college and university students sometimes wear academic dress
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National People's Congress
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The National Peoples Congress is the national legislature of the Peoples Republic of China. With 2,987 members in 2013, it is the largest parliamentary body in the world, the NPC is elected for a term of five years. It holds annual sessions every spring, usually lasting from 10 to 14 days, the fourth session of the 12th NPC was held from March 5 to March 16,2016. In theory, the NPC is the highest organ of power in China. However, in practice it usually acts as a stamp for decisions already made by the states executive organs. One of its members, Hu Xiaoyan, told the BBC in 2009 that she has no power to help her constituents and she was quoted as saying, As a parliamentary representative, I dont have any real power. In 2014, the party pledged to unswervingly adhere to the leadership of Chinese Communist Party. Since the 1990s, the NPC has become a forum for mediating policy differences between different parts of the Party, the government, and groups of society, there are mainly four functions and powers of the NPC,1. To amend the Constitution and oversee its enforcement Only the NPC has the power to amend the Constitution, Amendments to the Constitution must be proposed by the NPC Standing Committee or 1/5 or more of the NPC deputies. In order for the Amendments to become effective, they must be passed by 2/3 majority vote of all deputies, to enact and amend basic law governing criminal offences, civil affairs, state organs and other matters 3. To elect and appoint members to the state organs The NPC elects the Chairman, Vice Chairmen, Secretary-General. It also elects the President of the Peoples Republic of China, NPC also appoints the Premier of the State Council and many other crucial officials to the central state organs. The NPC also has the power to remove the officials from the office. The drafting process of NPC legislation is governed by the Organic Law of the NPC and it begins with a small group, often of outside experts, who begin a draft. Over time, this draft is considered by larger and larger groups, by the time the full NPC or NPCSC meets to consider the legislation, the major substantive elements of the draft legislation have largely been agreed to. However, minor wording changes to the draft are often made at this stage, the process ends with a formal vote by the Standing Committee of the NPC or by the NPC in a plenary session. The NPC mainly exists to give sanction to decisions already made at the highest levels of the government. However, it is not completely without influence and it functions as a forum in which legislative proposals are drafted and debated with input from different parts of the government and outside technical experts
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China Central Television
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China Central Television, commonly abbreviated as CCTV, is the predominant state television broadcaster in the Peoples Republic of China. CCTV has a network of 50 channels broadcasting different programmes and is accessible to more than one billion viewers. Most of its programmes are a mixture of news, documentary, social education, comedy, entertainment, and drama, as of present, there are 50 television channels, and the broadcaster provides programming in six different languages. CCTV broadcast its first program on 2 September 1958, due to increasing demands, it soon launched its second channel in 1963 and third channel in 1969, followed by the first simultaneous satellite broadcasts nationwide in 1972. The network changed its name to CCTV on 1 May 1978, until the late 1970s, CCTV held only evening broadcasts, usually closing down at midnight. During the summer and winter vacations, it occasionally transmitted daytime programming for students. In 1980 CCTV experimented with news relays from local and central television studios via microwave, by 1985, CCTV had already become a leading television network in China. In 1987 CCTVs popularity soared due to the adaptation and presentation of Dream of the Red Chamber, the 36-episode TV series—the first Chinese television drama to enter the global market— still remains popular in the international market. In the same year, CCTV exported 10,216 programmes to 77 foreign television stations, initially, the Publicity Department of the Communist Party of China Central Committee issued directive censorship of programs. During reform in the 1990s, the Party adopted new standards for CCTV, affordability and acceptability, on 2 September 2008 the new CCTV Headquarters was opened on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of CCTV. In July 2009 CCTV expanded its coverage and target audience by launching CCTV-العربية, today, CCTV has 24 channels, most of them airing 24 hours a day. On 17 June 2013, CCTV announced General channel, News channel, China Central Television falls under the supervision of the State Administration of Radio, Film, and Television which is in turn subordinate to the State Council of the Peoples Republic of China. A Vice Minister of the council serves as chairman of CCTV. The organisation has relationships with television stations run by local governments. The organization is considered one of the big three outlets in China, along with the Peoples Daily and Xinhua. In 2011, former newspaper editor Hu Zhanfan was appointed the head of CCTV, in 2015, Nie Chenxi was appointed the new head of CCTV. China Network Television is a broadcaster of China Central Television which launched on 28 December 2009. CNTV offers six foreign languages services, including English, French, Spanish, Russian, Korean, from 1979 to 2001, the CCTV logo consisted of two crossing ellipses, and was designed by Zhang Desheng, a former CCTV employee
