The creation of a large park in San Francisco was first proposed in the 1860s. In 1865, landscape architect Frederick Law Olmsted proposed a park designed with species native to San Francisco. The plan was rejected for a Central Park-style park designed by engineer William Hammond Hall. The park was built atop sand and shore dunes in an unincorporated area known as the Outside Lands. Construction centered on planting trees and non-native grasses to stabilize the dunes that covered three-quarters of the park. The park opened in 1870. (Full article...)
Roy Edward DisneyKCSG (January 10, 1930 – December 16, 2009) was an American businessman. He was the longtime senior executive for the Walt Disney Company, which was founded by his uncle, Walt Disney, and his father, Roy O. Disney. At the time of his death, he held more than 16 million shares (about 1% of the company), and served as a consultant for the company, as well as director emeritus for the board of directors. During his tenure, he organized ousting of the company's top two executives: Ron W. Miller in 1984 and Michael Eisner in 2005.
As the last member of the Disney family to be actively involved in the company, Disney was often compared to his uncle and to his father. In 2006, Forbes magazine estimated his personal fortune at $1.2 billion. (Full article...)
William Denby Hanna (July 14, 1910 – March 22, 2001) was an American animator, voice actor, and occasional musician who is best known for co-creating Tom and Jerry and providing the vocal effects for the series' title characters. Alongside Joseph Barbera, he also founded the animation studio and production company Hanna-Barbera.
Michael Joseph Jackson (August 29, 1958 – June 25, 2009) was an American singer, songwriter, dancer, and philanthropist. Known as the "King of Pop", he is regarded as one of the most significant cultural figures of the 20th century. During his four-decade career, his contributions to music, dance, and fashion, along with his publicized personal life, made him a global figure in popular culture. Jackson influenced artists across many music genres. Through stage and video performances, he popularized complicated street dance moves such as the moonwalk, which he named, as well as the robot.
He was the eighth child of the Jackson family, and made his public debut in 1964 with his older brothers Jackie, Tito, Jermaine, and Marlon as a member of the Jackson 5 (later known as the Jacksons). The Jackson 5 signed with Motown in 1968 and achieved worldwide success with Michael as lead singer. Jackson began his solo career in 1971 while at Motown and recorded multiple successful singles outside of Jackson 5. He became a global solo star with his 1979 album Off the Wall. His music videos, including those for "Beat It", "Billie Jean", and "Thriller" from his 1982 album Thriller, are credited with breaking racial barriers and transforming the medium into an art form and promotional tool. He helped propel the success of MTV and continued to innovate with the videos for his subsequent albums: Bad (1987), Dangerous (1991), HIStory: Past, Present and Future, Book I (1995), and Invincible (2001). Thriller became the best-selling album of all time, while Bad was the first album to produce five US Billboard Hot 100 number-one singles. (Full article...)
Pelosi was born and raised in Baltimore, and is the daughter of mayor and congressman Thomas D'Alesandro Jr. She graduated from Trinity College, Washington in 1962 and married businessman Paul Pelosi the next year; the two had met while both were students. They moved to New York City before settling down in San Francisco with their children. Focused on raising her family, Pelosi stepped into politics as a volunteer for the Democratic Party in the 1960s. After years of party work, rising to chair the state party, she was first elected to Congress in a 1987 special election and is now in her 19th term; she is the longest-serving member of California's Congressional delegation. Pelosi steadily rose through the ranks of the House Democratic Caucus to be elected House minority whip in 2001 and elevated to House minority leader a year later, becoming the first woman to hold each of those positions in either chamber of Congress. (Full article...)
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Martin with the Yankees in 1954
Alfred Manuel Martin Jr. (May 16, 1928 – December 25, 1989), commonly called "Billy", was an American Major League Baseballsecond baseman and manager who, in addition to leading other teams, was five times the manager of the New York Yankees. First known as a scrappy infielder who made considerable contributions to the championship Yankee teams of the 1950s, he then built a reputation as a manager who would initially make bad teams good, before ultimately being fired amid dysfunction. In each of his stints with the Yankees he managed them to winning records before being fired by team owner George Steinbrenner or resigning under fire, usually amid a well-publicized scandal such as Martin's involvement in an alcohol-fueled fight.
Martin was born in a working-class section of Berkeley, California. His skill as a baseball player gave him a route out of his home town. Signed by the Pacific Coast LeagueOakland Oaks, Martin learned much from Casey Stengel, the man who would manage him both in Oakland and in New York, and enjoyed a close relationship with Stengel. Martin's spectacular catch of a wind-blown Jackie Robinson popup late in Game Seven of the 1952 World Series saved that series for the Yankees, and he was the hitting star of the 1953 World Series, earning the Most Valuable Player award in the Yankee victory. He missed most of two seasons, 1954 and 1955, after being drafted into the Army, and his abilities never fully returned; the Yankees traded him after a brawl at the Copacabana club in New York during the 1957 season. Martin bitterly resented being traded, and did not speak to Stengel for years, a time during which Martin completed his playing career with various teams. (Full article...)
His books, letters and essays describing his adventures in nature, especially in the Sierra Nevada, have been read by millions. His activism helped to preserve the Yosemite Valley and Sequoia National Park, and his example has served as an inspiration for the preservation of many other wilderness areas. The Sierra Club, which he co-founded, is a prominent American conservation organization. In his later life, Muir devoted most of his time to his wife and the preservation of the Western forests. As part of the campaign to make Yosemite a national park, Muir published two landmark articles on wilderness preservation in The Century Magazine, "The Treasures of the Yosemite" and "Features of the Proposed Yosemite National Park"; this helped support the push for US Congress to pass a bill in 1890 establishing Yosemite National Park. The spiritual quality and enthusiasm toward nature expressed in his writings has inspired readers, including presidents and congressmen, to take action to help preserve large nature areas. (Full article...)
John Griffith Chaney (January 12, 1876 – November 22, 1916), better known as Jack London, was an American novelist, journalist and activist. A pioneer of commercial fiction and American magazines, he was one of the first American authors to become an international celebrity and earn a large fortune from writing. He was also an innovator in the genre that would later become known as science fiction.
Sharon Marie Tate Polanski (January 24, 1943 – August 9, 1969) was an American actress and model. During the 1960s, she appeared in advertisements and small television roles before appearing in films as well as working as a model. After receiving positive reviews for her comedic and dramatic acting performances, Tate was hailed as one of Hollywood's most promising newcomers, being compared favorably with the late Marilyn Monroe.
She made her film debut in 1961 as an extra in Barabbas with Anthony Quinn. She next appeared in the British mystery horror film Eye of the Devil (1966). Her first major role was as Jennifer North in the 1967 American drama film Valley of the Dolls, which earned her a Golden Globe Award nomination. The role would help her to become a rising sex symbol of Hollywood, appearing in a Playboy photoshoot where she would be shot by filmmaker Roman Polanski, Tate's future husband. That year, she also performed in the comedy horror film The Fearless Vampire Killers, directed by Roman Polanski. Tate's last completed film, 12+1, was released posthumously in 1969. (Full article...)
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Picture of Stafford from the New York Sunday News, September 21, 1947
Jo Elizabeth Stafford (November 12, 1917 – July 16, 2008) was an American traditional pop singer, whose career spanned five decades from the late 1930s to the early 1980s. Admired for the purity of her voice, she originally underwent classical training to become an opera singer before following a career in popular music, and by 1955 had achieved more worldwide record sales than any other female artist. Her 1952 song "You Belong to Me" topped the charts in the United States and United Kingdom, becoming the second single to top the UK Singles Chart, and the first by a female artist to do so.
Born in remote oil-rich Coalinga, California, near Fresno in the San Joaquin Valley, Stafford made her first musical appearance at age 12. While still at high school, she joined her two older sisters to form a vocal trio named the Stafford Sisters, who found moderate success on radio and in film. In 1938, while the sisters were part of the cast of Twentieth Century Fox's production of Alexander's Ragtime Band, Stafford met the future members of the Pied Pipers and became the group's lead singer. Bandleader Tommy Dorsey hired them in 1939 to perform vocals with his orchestra. From 1940 to 1942, the group often performed with Dorsey's new male singer, Frank Sinatra. (Full article...)
... that in 1888, Edward P. Duplex became the first African American to be elected a mayor in California?
... that Ward v. Flood was the legal basis for racially segregated education in California?
... that in the late 2000s the Campbell Soup Company began producing a spicier canned cheese sauce in their California and Texas plants than they did elsewhere to cater for different consumer tastes?
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