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Another interesting,but sad find at the Franks' House.This a pretty elaborate, old bible that surely cost plenty in its day--a book collector may cherish it.But probably not in this condition...
Rockjumper’s comprehensive tour of Peninsula Malaysia and Malaysian Borneo (Sabah) certainly offers some of the best birding and mammal viewing in all of Asia, and this year’s tour was no exception. Glen Valentine’s recent tour through this bird and mammal rich region encountered an exceptional number of the area’s most prized birds and unique mammals.
Birding highlights included 6 species of pitta (Blue-headed, Black-crowned, Bornean Banded, Malayan Banded, Hooded and Garnet), the endemic and monotypic Bornean Bristlehead, the once mythical Mountain Peacock-Pheasant, Malaysian Partridge, the endangered Storm’s Stork, the rare and beautiful Jambu Fruit Dove, Barred Eagle-Owl, Blyth’s Frogmouth, Malaysian Eared Nightjar, Malaysian Plover, 6 species of trogon – including the sought-after Whitehead’s variety – the superb and seldom-seen Rufous-collared Kingfisher, 8 species of magnificent hornbill – including the regal Rhinoceros and Helmeted Hornbills – 10 species of barbet, an incredible 18 species of woodpecker – including Great Slaty, the world’s largest extant woodpecker – White-fronted Falconet, 7 species of broadbill, the unique Crested Jay, Bornean Stubtail, Bare-headed and Black Laughingthrushes, Blue Nuthatch, the very rare Everett’s Thrush and a wealth of raptors, Spiderhunters, flowerpeckers, Leafbirds, tailorbirds, flycatchers, dazzling sunbirds, cuckooshrikes, malkohas, bulbuls and babblers!
On the mammal front, they enjoyed sightings of Bornean Orangutan, Proboscis Monkey, Bornean and White-handed Gibbons, the rarely-seen Siamang, beautiful Leopard Cat, Malay Civet, Malay Weasel and Malayan Colugo amongst a number of other wonderful and eye-catching species.
This is the old part of what is now Cwrt Sart Comprehensive. This has just been made redundant by the opening of the new super school in Baglan.
This image is a scan of a photographic reproduction of an old postcard of Briton Ferry. I have a number of these which I bought as a job lot. They had been used as part of a display of historic local images.
In this comprehensive book, David Stone describes and analyses every aspect of the German Army as it existed under Kaiser Wilhelm II, encompassing its development and antecedents, organisation, personnel, weapons and equipment, its inherent strengths and weaknesses, and its victories and defeats as it fought on many fronts throughout World War I.
The book deals in considerable detail with the origins and creation of the German army, examining the structure of power in German politics and wider society, and the nation's imperial ambitions, along with the ways in which the high command and general staff functioned in terms of strategy and tactical doctrine. The nature, background, recruitment, training and military experiences of the officers, NCOs and soldiers are examined, while personal and collective values relating to honour, loyalty and conscience are also analysed. There is also an evaluation of all aspects of army life such as conscription, discipline, rest and recuperation and medical treatment.
In addition the army's operations are set in context with an overview of the army at war, covering the key actions and outcomes of major campaigns from 1914 to 1918 up to the signature of the Armistice at Compiègne. For anyone seeking a definitive reference on the German Army of the period – whether scholar, historian, serving soldier or simply a general reader – this remarkable book will prove an invaluable work.
A comprehensive re-editing of one of my earliest Flickr postings, from 2008, zeroing in on the superb St. Pancras girder work by Andrew Handyside & Company of Derby, and dated 1867. The original photo was taken on my Rollei 35 camera, using Fujichrome slide film. The exposure was pure guesswork.
Safeguards Comprehensive Training Exercise at Dukovany NPP. Czech Republic, 11 June 2015
Photo Credit: Dean Calma / IAEA
The importance of testing cannot be overstated in software development. Individual units of code must be tested as they are written, then retested as they are combined into larger and larger software components. Tests need to be rerun every time a bug is fixed, or a feature added, to verify the changed code doesn’t propagate unexpected and unwanted behaviors in the system.
More on Webb's recent comprehensive systems test here:
Credit: Northrop Grumman
With the completion of this latest systems evaluation, testing teams can confidently move forward knowing that the full assembly of the observatory was a success.
More here: www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard/2020/nasa-s-james-webb-space...
Image credit: Northrop Grumman
By far the finest window in the church is the late Arts & Crafts style Annunciation in the north aisle dating from 1936. In the latest edition of Pevsner Chris Pickford identifies it as probably the work of Birmingham-based artist Benjamin Warren (which seems entirely plausible given the high standard of Warren's work) and the open book below Mary with the initials 'BJ & WA' on the pages may well be confirmation of this.
St Botolph's church at Farnborough is a medieval building but so much restored and added to in the Victorian period that it can seem otherwise upon first inspection. The work has been done well with additions by the great George Gilbert Scott from 1874-5 that blend well with the old parts of the building, thus the north aisle and the upper part of the tower and spire form a uniform whole with the remainder, all rendered in the richly hued local ironstone which adds considerable charm.
The interior of the church is largely again defined by the Victorian restoration, though the elaborate carving of the chancel arch does incorporate some old elements. The furnishings are mainly Victorian too as is much of the stained glass, though there are a couple of more notable early 20th century windows too, one by Powells' on the south side but best of all is the lovely Arts & Crafts Annunciation in the north aisle, the most rewarding feature in the church in my opinion.
Farnborough church is sadly usually kept locked outside of services though was open on this occasion as I was accompanying a colleague who was meeting a member of the parish here, which enabled me to have a proper look inside without arranging an opening (though frustratingly I was still using my old camera at this time and thus my photos aren't anywhere near as good or comprehensive as I' would have liked).
www.farnboroughparishcouncil.co.uk/index.php/st-botolph-s...
THE TWELVE AGES OF ULTRON - THE TWELFTH AGE (PART ONE)
HULKBUSTERS SMASH TINY ULTRON!
In the twelfth Age Of UItron
Joss Whedon gave to me
Twelve ‘Busters busting
Eleven wipers wiping
Ten broads a leaping
Nine blasters blasting
Eight ladies chilling
Seven spiders spinning
Six gaussed a-laying
Five Mandarins
Four brawling nerds
Three drenched men
Two mortal foes
And a Rocket in a Groot tree
———————————————
Right-o, for the penultimate (!) shot in this series, I wanted to play with the idea of Ultron and his drone army pitted against the Stark/Banner Hulkbuster armour, A.K.A, Veronica. Or to be precise, an even dozen of the big bruisers comprehensively kicking Ultron’s adamantium (and/or vibranium, depending on whether you favour the comics or the movie) shiny metal arse.
What IS the collective noun for a Stark load of Hulkbusters? Given that Veronica is named after the character in “The Archies” comics (Joss Whedon’s logic is invincible, if Bruce Banner’s best girl is Betty Ross, then…) perhaps a Riverdale of Veronicas wouldn’t be out of line?
Okay, so it’s not JUST about the HBs going all metal evil on Ulty and his terrible Tinions. It’s generally not enough to pummel the killer chrome robot’s body, as he is traditionally able to transmit his cybernetic intelligence the-silicon-hell-outta a smashed body and into a factory fresh one.
I saw Tony Stark use an empty, remote piloted Model 52 Veronica-like suit against the horrific Hank Pym/Ultron cyborg in the Marvel comic book, The Uncanny Avengers (Issues # 11, and 12, 2016). The tactic he employed was nicknamed “Project Icarus” and involved popping open the super tuff suit unexpectedly in battle, capturing and confining Ultron within it, and then booping the suit into the Sun!
Somewhat similar, come to think of it, of the tactic Stark used against the Extremis enhanced Aldrich Killian in the Ironman 3 movie, where he self destructed the suit to exploderate his foe. (Didn’t quite work that time either, oh well.)
Anyway, how cool was it in Avengers: Age Of Ultron when Tony in the Hulkbuster actually fought the Other Guy to a standstill, which is highly unusual (practically unique!) in the long history of HB vs Hulk stoushes. Hulkbuster actually smashed Hulk! Of course, all due credit to the fact that Bruce Banner helped design Veronica…which makes entirely good, practical sense! Tony Stark’s an (THE!) engineer and he doesn’t care where an idea comes from, so long as it works. Same same with Bruce, apparently, as I think he may end up wearing the Hulkbuster suit in Avengers: Infinity Wars. Tony's not the only one who is Irony Man, apparently. How very meta!
Oh, and there’s Joss Whedon off to the left there lining up, ‘The Shot’! Yay, Joss! Thankyouthankyouthankyou for giving us a movie with a Hulkbuster in it! That’s the Joss Whedon figurine that was packaged with DVDs of Morgan Spurlock’s geek-culture documentary Comic-Con Episode IV: A Fan’s Hope.
And ta also to filmmaker Simon Imberger, who loaned me the wee ornamental metal camera a very long time ago! (Just as well I didn’t rent it from a gear store…the fee by now would be $tarkrageous!
I dithered around with the backdrop for this shot.
The first attempt was against a green screen. (That’s green screen, not ‘ol Greenskin!) but I found that the red of the massed Hulkbusters against it looked rather predictably hideous.
There’s some other ideas that didn’t pan out, so in the end I went for something entirely neutral, so it wouldn’t detract from the ‘characters’. 'Ironically', I still went with a green, gridded cutting board as a floor, but that's not too bad, especially since mostly it's the Ultrons and other 'bots that are shown against it.
Okay, to the cast!
THE 'BUSTERS
Twelve good mecha men and true. Truly!
Unlike a lot of tech, Ultron can’t hack these suits, they’re specifically shielded against cyber-subversive hacking. You’d think that wouldn't be something a Hulkbuster suit would need (“Hulk smash puny keyboard!”) but perhaps they wanted to guard against Banner himself going rogue, rather than “The Other Guy”.
I'm going to list these blokes from front row to back row, left to right. (The viewer's left.)
These are the five smallest, in the front rank, left to right.
-The first one riffs off the original comic book design for the Hulkbulkster suit, which was an add on package to the so-called Modular Armour, or Model 13 suit. The MCU suits tend to vary across "Mark" numbers, whereas the comic book major variations are listed as "Models".
It first appeared in Iron Man Volume 1, # 304, in May, 1994, which, even though it has the Thor-like villain, Thunderstrike, featured on the cover, ends up with Tony confronting Banner/Hulk in an old Stane International plant that was manufacturing Gamma Bombs. Stark fights the Hulk when he shows up, but after the obligatory battle, the two Avengers end up working together to destroy the facility, having 'Ironed out' their differences....this time.
Anyway! The figure is 11 cm (4 1/2 inches) tall, with 16 points of articulation and was released by Hasbro, spinning off the Iron Man 2 movie, pre-dating, of course, the H.B's movie screen debut in The Avengers film. This is a quite well detailed figure, and I like the 'cranberry' red colour scheme, even if you can't move the helmet much on those mighty shoulders!
-7cm (2 3/4 inches) 2008 Hasbro Super Hero Squad Hulkbuster from The Genius Of Tony Stark four figure boxset. This one only has three points of articulation, but I think it’s the only World War Hulk story arc Hulkbuster toy available so far. The suit was destroyed by Hulk when he collapsed Avengers Tower onto it. If this looks odd in this cute toy, trust me, it looked weirder in the comic books! One of a long line of expensive suits that Hulk SMASHED! (I'm sure Tony gets to write them off on his tax. The paperwork must be apocalyptic reading!) it's not the smallest one there is, when it comes to Hulkbuster toys, of course, because there are the wee Heroclix ones that have obviously been subjected to Pym Particles.
-I had to get a LEGO Hulkbuster piece in here. This is the 13 cm (5 inch) one from the 2015 LEGO Hulkbuster Smash # 76031 playset. It's got about nine basic points of artic. Hard to tell with LEGO, but there are additional ones 'cos the whole front can hinge open, and the helmet pivots back to reveal a LEGO Iron Man figure wearing a Mark XLIII suit. Oh, and all the four fingers can move on the mitts! I quite like this wee bloke, especially its ability to launch a couple of projectiles from the right gauntlet, using a simple mechanism. Madly, the LEGO Marvel Avengers Game features a playable Squirrel Girl, 'Squirrelbuster', variant of this suit, complete with a big LEGO foofy squirrel tail, nutty expression on the visor, and S.G mini-fig piloting the rig. Even more madness! There's also a Stan Lee, 'Stanbuster' variant in the game! ('Nuff said!) The playset also includes Hulk, Ultron, and Black Widow figures, along with a Hulk trap and amusing little 'launchers' to catapult some characters acrobatically through the air.
-The next cool figure is the 2015 10 cm (4 inches) Disney Infinity 3.0 Edition Hulkbuster toy. It’s not articulated, and I cut the interface stand off it so I could use the figure in isolation. It’s one of the biggest characters in the Infinity game series, very powerful, and voiced in the game by Adrian Pasdar. Pasdar also voices Iron Man in Marvel Anime, Ultimate Spider-Man and Avengers Assemble. He’s also played Hawkeye and Captain America in other animated productions. You may know him in person on the live action screen as Nathan Petrelli in Heroes, or as Glenn Talbot in Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. I think I first saw him in the cool ‘80s vampire movie, Near Dark. Anyhoo! The figure is based on the Veronica Hulkbuster, as shown in Joss Whedon’s Avengers: Age Of Ultron.
-Again, this 'SHINY' older 13 cm (5 inch) figure represents the original Iron Man Volume 1, # 304 - May, 1994 comic book Hulkbuster. It's the 1995 Toy Biz H.B, Series 3 in the toy line created to back the 1994 to 1996 Iron Man animated series, that, along with a Fantastic Four show, formed the Marvel Action Hour on television. It ran for two series, for a total of 26 episodes. The first season was pretty awful, but a production house change saw the second season ramp up considerably to deliver some quite decent stories. Actor Robert Hays (who also played the title role in the Starman television series) provided the voice for Iron Man/Tony Stark across several mid-'90s Marvel animated shows.
Anyway, the toys were, and are, terrific, and contained lots of armour variants based on existing canon but also many ones simply made up for the line. They are semi-modular, in that the high gloss metallic armour 'accessories' plug into the base plastic figures. Theoretically, they can be mixed and matched between figures, though you had to be careful doing that, both back in the day, and now, as the pins on the pieces can break off. The Toy Biz Hulkbuster captures the heavy metal presence of this iconic design and has nine articulations.
The second rank is a bit uneven as the two middle figures are staggered. Again, from left to right....
-The winged bloke holding the flank is the 2015 Super Hero Masher Hulkbuster from the 2015 Hasbro Iron Man Vs Hulk two-pack. At 26cm (8 inches) tall, with about eleven articulations, the oddest thing about him is that he's standing on an extra pair of platform boots, oh, and has wings! Because...well, just because! The Mashers are a popular line of multi-franchise toys which also include D.C, Star Wars, Transformers and a number of other properties. They all break down into pieces that can be easily reconfigured, which means that yes, you could create your own combo of Hulkbuster/Superman Buster for Batman to brood around in! Or you could maybe jigger the bits onto a Tony Starch Mr Potato Head toy, to create the Sensational Spudbuster...
Good luck with the wings, matey! I suppose it would provide a distraction while Hulk is pulling them off...before he beats you to scrap with them.
-Next is a particular fave. It's the Hasbro 2014 Playskool Heroes, Marvel Superhero Adventures Hulkbuster from the Stark Tech Armor two-pack.
17 cm (6 three quarter inches) tall, this one has a lot of neat features, in spite of only having six articulations. One of THOSE is the amusing, spinning left arm, whose fingers are spring loaded and can hold the Hulk figure that comes with the set. The Hulk is also spring loaded, and can jump up to headbutt the Buster! ("Hulk's skull thickest one there is!") The whole front of the torso hinges down to reveal a small, helmetless Iron Man figure, in scale with others in the range, who virtually catapults out when the panel is pressed, all feisty for fightin'.
-Taking a step back, behind the Playskool piece, is the 2015 Hasbro Marvel Legends Build-A-Figure Hulkbuster, another stand-out BAF in the range. This is...a beast of a figure! Standing 23 cm (9 inches) tall, weighing in at a very hefty 888 grams (1 pound, 15 ounces) this big bloke has 14 articulations, though you can't do much with his mitts, as their movement is restricted by the humungous forearm guards. This figure has been released twice as a BAF, with the following individuals in each case, which of course each had one component of the Buster included in their packaging. The colours between the two different BAF Hulkbusters released were also noticably different, with the second issue being a deeper, more 'hot rod red' screen accurate colour plastic than the first, which the punters thought looked a bit too 'toylike'.
BAF Hulkbuster Release 1 - The first somewhat eclectic set features Doctor Strange/Valkyrie/Blizzard/Vision/War Machine/Thundra and black and gold armoured Marvel NOW! Iron Man.
BAF Hulkbuster Release 2 - The actual Age Of Ultron set is naturally Avengers heavy and includes Hulk/War Machine/Iron Man/Captain America/War Machine/Black Widow/Hawkeye/Loki and Thor.
The third and final row...
-On the left, the Hasbro 2015 Titan Hulkbuster, regular sized figure. This is the 'bog standard' Titan Hulkbuster, which is reduced in size so it's not actually in proper scale with the regular line, but is around the same size as them. It has seven points of articulation and stands 29 cm (11 inches) tall.
-Dominating the middle is the Biggest Bloke there is! Well, very nearly. 45 cm (17 1/2 inches) of the 2015 Hasbro Titan Hulkbuster. Which held the record as the largest Hulkbuster toy until the Hot Toys version hits the pavement at a colossal 55 cm (21 inches). The Titan weighs in at 1.039 kilos (2.29 pounds) and has even less than the usual Titan series limited articulation, with only two points of articulation beyond the shoulder swivelling beefy arms. But those two points are pretty swish! A large section of the front rachets upwards on hinges, allowing you to place a regular Hasbro Titan Iron Man figure inside of the beastie, which is the main feature that has delayed the Hot Toys 'Buster's production so long, achieved here with elegant simplicity. The helmet pivots open 'n all, which allows you to see the other figure inside. It's a neat trick, which perfectly represents the prudent habit that Stark has of wearing the Hulkbuster armour over one of his less invincible suits. Always a good idea, as the most common fate of many, but not all, of his 'Buster wardrobe is that they get busted by Hulk, often being literally punched off him by old Greenskin's SMASHING fists! So, he kinda needs a regular suit to boost him the heck out of his tax write off! Anyway, he's more or less the right size to also trap the Titan Ultron inside; more of which, anon.
-On the right end of the line is the 2015 Hasbro Titan Electronic Hulkbuster. At 34 cm (13 inches) tall, this is a chunkier version of the regular Titan, with five articulations, one of which is a wicked cool 'Iron Man SMASH!" 'jackhammer' action on the right arm, bringing to toy pummeling life one of the key features of the on-screen 'Veronica' suit. It activates suitable punching sound FX, though lacks the appropriate humourous dialogue, "GOTOSLEEPGOTOSLEEPGOTOSLEEP!"
There's some other sound FX: heavy metal walking, flight, plus some battle winning banter:
"Cap, we have to stop Ultron!"
"Oh yeah, this is power!"
"Whoa, big guy!"
"Rerouting power to ARC reactor."
"Hulkbuster, powering up!"
"Repulsor blast!" (BIG PEW!!)
"Thor, lightning strike, NOW!"
"Cap, cover the perimeter!"
"Ultron, you're just a cheap copy!"
"Avengers! Assemble!"
"Bruce, it's time to calm down."
"Mk 43, hit Ultron, Now!"
It can also interact, vocally, with other electronic Titans, which is a hoot 'n a holler.
"Let's armour up!"
Next, the dishonourable opposition.
All of the robots, cyborgs and other metallic bods that Ultron either manufactured or has ‘turned’ and which the Hulkbusters have subsequently quelled.
These are scattered all over the battlefield..literally in the case of the broken ‘bitzers’, so it’s rather difficult for me to pinpoint them. No worries, you have fun ‘bot spotting!
The Ultrons.
-Well then the biggest bloke (does my bot look big in this?) is the 2015 30 cm (12 inch) Hasbro Avengers: Age Of Ultron Titan electronic Ultron. This is the same one that the ladies knocked about in The Tenth Age Of Ultron. All stashed safely in a bloody great Hulkbuster and bound for sunnier climes in…the Sun! (So, nah, not Aussie! A bit cooler.) Ooroo, maniacal metal matey…NOT!!
-17 cm (7 inch) 2012 Hasbro Marvel Legends Comic Book-ish Ultron. This was part of the Iron Man 3 movie tie-in Build-A-Figure wave that gave you all the components to put together a large, blue, Iron Monger figure. The body’s essentially a re-purposed Titanium Man, only cast in silvery plastic, but still has a pretty good look to it, with a fair range of articulation.
-2015 4 cm (1 inch) Wizkids/NECA Heroclix Ultron made from Iron Legion parts. I’ve never actually played the game that these wee folks are from, but I like them ‘cos they’re teeny tiny and intricate.
-3 x Avengers Iron Legion Stark Industries drones re-purposed by Ultron, who got to them before Tony tumbled to Ultron’s ability to control hardware. These 7cm (2 3/4 inch) figures are part of the 2015 Hasbro Avengers: Age Of Ultron tie-in wave. The Ultron came with two untainted Iron Legionnaires to fight. These lil blokes only have five points of articulation. I thought it would be cool if the three of them were falling over in a kind of stop motion sequence after being punched…
-The big mix ’n match Hasbro Marvel Super Hero Mashers have tiny micro figure versions. This 6 cm (2 and change inch) 2016 one came from the Iron Man Vs Ultron battle pack. These figures, interestingly, are made in Vietnam, instead of China. It only has three points of articulation, which of course are also where the parts can be swapped with others in the line.
-Hasbro also has a line of Playskool Marvel Super Hero Adventures. Again, this 2014 6 cm (2 and a bit inch) comic book inspired Ultron came in a battle pack with Iron Man.
-The 2005 Toy Biz Hasbro Series 8 Modern Armour Iron Man figure, sculpted by Dave Cortez, came with an elaborate base that depicts a wall that Stark has (presumably) blasted through, with a pile of comprehensively broken Ultron drone parts. Avengers Disassemble! The parts are strewn around the set.
-The 18 cm (7 inch) Hasbro Marvel Select Black Widow figure, came with a base littered with smashed robot parts. Way to go Widow! Some of the metals limbs are being used as clubs by the Hulkbusters…that's Irony, Man!
-Weirdest of all is the tottering “Ultimate Ultron” build-a-figure that looks like a big mess made from multi coloured gelatine. That creepy composite drone is made from assorted components included in the 7cm (2 3/4 inch) 2015 Hasbro Avengers: Age Of Ultron tie-in wave. The semi-transparent gel colours, along with the not too well engineered peg and socket joints let down what might have been a cool toy. Longer pegs and deeper sockets would help, and I am very tempted to fix that, and repaint the whole thing silver.
It doesn’t hold together well when assembled and there’s a bit of guesswork involved there too, as the pictures on the back of the carded packs are so small that it’s a little hard to follow. Well, okay then, there’s some small fun to be had plugging in additional bits beyond the design, so there’s that in its favour. I recall this toy caused a little stir when it can out before the movie, as fan punters guessed it might reveal a plot point where Ultron creates a ginormous robot from all his drones…thankfully, Joss Whedon didn’t go where so many other robot based movies have gone before. It doesn't look like much but a jumble of parts, unless filmed in isolation.
-4 cm (2 inch) LEGO Ultron Mini-Fig that belongs to the 2015 LEGO Hulkbuster Smash playset, #76031. This naughty little spud can be attached to the pivoting flying rig arm in the playset, or you can use him as a target for the projectiles from the Hulk Buster suit. You can rotate the head to give two ranges of evil electronic emotions….
The Rest Of The Robots
Literally a mixed bag straight from the robots and cyborgs toy box….Ultron preaching to the subverted, there. Essentially I selected them on the basis of them being grey, black or silverish in colour.
-There's a quick New Battlestar Galactica Cylon knocked out in Super Sculpey that I needed for a Chrissy themed shoot, where I had its toasty torso peeking out evilly from behind a blood smeared bauble.
-One of the larger Hulkbusters is clutching some of the tentacles from a bootleg Doctor Octopus figure. I don’t know what happened to poor Octavius himself!
-A disembodied mecha arm belongs to a 1989 Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle Krang ‘Walker Exoframe’. I seem to recall legendary Star Trek fan, Bjo Trimble, gifting that to me at a convention back in the ‘90s.
-Speaking of TMNT, there are two shark jawed Baxter Stockman Mouser robots trying to bite through Hulkbuster armour. They came with the 2003 Playmates April O’Neil figure and are wickedly cool, with their big, spring loaded chompy jaws!
-Upended in the aftermath is a 10 cm (3.75 inch) Davros, Doctor Who villain supreme, in his distinctive Dalek travel machine. It’s actually a 2014 Christmas ornament…how remarkably festive!
-16 cms (6.25 inches) from his footpads to the tip of his antenna, lies a 2000 robot Bender, from Futurama. I’m not sure if he got caught up in the battle or whether he happened to be merely passed out there before the stoush. Neat figure, by the way, as he’s very…well, bendy, and his torso door opens to reveal either stacks of cash or intoxicating cans of motor oil. It came with a nifty Suicide Booth stand ’n all.
-Marvel build-a-figure waves will often leave you with extra bits n’ bobs if you don’t collect all the figures. Somewhere in the ruination is the double gatling gun arm from a Mandroid Build-A-Figure wave..
-2014 Captain America:Winter Soldier. Poor, brainwashed Bucky! Twice subverted!
-Some genuine Iron Man enemies here. 2009 5.5 cm (2 inch) Super Hero Squad Hasbro Iron Man 2 movie tie-in Hammeroids…er, Hammerdroids! The green drone comes from the Final Battle 3-Pack, and the silver and grey drone is from the Hi-Tech Showdown set. They didn’t fare well against Iron Man and War Machine in the film, so I wouldn’t give them a rat’s against a dozen Hulkbusters.
-Another Whovian reference, this time a 2006 15 cm (6 inch) New Doctor Who Cyberman. "Delete THIS!"
-There’s a 3 cm (1 inch) LEGO Ultron figure being held by the Lego Hulkbuster. Both do come from the 2015 LEGO Marvel Super Heroes Hulk Buster Smash set.
-A 10 cm (4 inch) Iron Giant figure spun off from the 1999 animated movie based on Ted Hughe's 1968 novel, The Iron Man. This one was a giveaway with the VHS video tape release.
-2008 Hasbro 15 cm (6 inch) Titanium Man. Again, an actual traditional Iron Man enemy, though this is a tie-in with the original Iron Man movie, albeit of a character who never appeared in it. Really an aftermarket ‘target-of-opportunity’ piece.
-Star Trek time, with a 12 cm (5 inch), 1992 Playmates Borg drone. “Assimilate THIS!!”
-More Iron Mongery. There’s a wee 2008 Hasbro Super Hero Squad Iron Monger, inexplicably painted in Iron Man gold, which vaguely echoes Tony Stark’s original comic book first armour being that colour after his initial outings in the grey Model I suit. This one came from the Iron Monger Attacks battle pack.
-Some cyborg action in the form of a 12 cm (5 inch) Robocop 1988 Kenner movie tie-in figure. I’d forgotten this little fella has a cap firing mechanism built into his back! (That's 'cap, not 'Cap'! No worries Mr Rogers.)
-Okay, there’s a certain resemblance between Skynet and Ultron (Marvel got there way first, of course) so it made sense to throw in a Terminator endoskeleton or two. The 10 cm (4 inch) ( flesh-free one comes from 2009, so I’m sure it’s a tie-in for the Terminator: Salvation movie. Quite impressively detailed for something so small, actually.
-Doctor Who again. 2014 Character Options Wave 4 Skovox Blitzer….isn’t that a great name! It’s a four legged alien war robot that the 12th Doctor, played by Peter Capaldi, encountered and defeated in the Doctor Who episode, The Caretaker.
-I threw in another Terminator, this ‘time’ (see what I did there?) a 2009 13 cm (6 inch) Playmate, with a bit more synthetic skin on it. Again, another movie tie-in.
-One last Marvel toy. A 2011 13 cm (6 inch) Hasbro Destroyer, fresh from Asgard and the first Thor movie. A red L.E.D lights up its chest when you press its tummy. As you would.
-Finally, I included a Kenner 1998 10 cm (4 inch) Darth Vader. Ancient religious sorcerer's ways vs Starktech, lightsaber vs repulsor ray. Stark Wars for the win.
LOL. All this and it’s “Part One”? Sure! See, I set out a long time ago to do this photo-folksong with the idea that I’d be incorporating Hot Toy’s invincible Hulkbuster toy, which was announced in 2014. Several years later, I’m still waiting for what will undoubtedly be the greatest action figure ever made…when it’s shipped! (First quarter of 2018, reportedly!) Meanwhile, here’s “Part One”. There's an upgraded Veronica in Avengers: Infinity War. Hot Toys, don't you DARE to delay just to retool to add variant components to the Hulkbuster!
Doubtless, wee Whedon will learn much from this dress rehearsal, and will incorporate fresh insights into the eventual re-shoot!
Found in box 21, folder 12, Don Sherwood Parks History Collection (Record Series 5801-01), Seattle Municipal Archives.
Following the complete assembly of NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope, testing teams performed a comprehensive systems evaluation which allowed them to confidently assess Webb’s software and electronic performance as a single fully connected vehicle. Read more about that testing here: www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard/2020/nasa-s-james-webb-space...
Image: This image is from February 2020 when the telescope went through a mirror deployment test. Read more about that here: www.flickr.com/photos/nasawebbtelescope/49722253141/in/da...
Credits: NASA/Chris Gunn
Cloud Gate is a public sculpture by Indian-born British artist Anish Kapoor, that is the centerpiece of AT&T Plaza at Millennium Park in the Loop community area of Chicago, Illinois. The sculpture and AT&T Plaza are located on top of Park Grill, between the Chase Promenade and McCormick Tribune Plaza & Ice Rink. Constructed between 2004 and 2006, the sculpture is nicknamed "The Bean" because of its shape, a name Kapoor initially disliked, but later grew fond of. Kapoor himself even uses this title when referring to his work. Made up of 168 stainless steel plates welded together, its highly polished exterior has no visible seams. It measures 33 by 66 by 42 feet (10 by 20 by 13 m), and weighs 110 short tons (100 t; 98 long tons).
Kapoor's design was inspired by liquid mercury and the sculpture's surface reflects and distorts the city's skyline. Visitors are able to walk around and under Cloud Gate's 12-foot (3.7 m) high arch. On the underside is the "omphalos" (Greek for "navel"), a concave chamber that warps and multiplies reflections. The sculpture builds upon many of Kapoor's artistic themes, and it is popular with tourists as a photo-taking opportunity for its unique reflective properties.
The sculpture was the result of a design competition. After Kapoor's design was chosen, numerous technological concerns regarding the design's construction and assembly arose, in addition to concerns regarding the sculpture's upkeep and maintenance. Various experts were consulted, some of whom believed the design could not be implemented. Eventually, a feasible method was found, but the sculpture's construction fell behind schedule. It was unveiled in an incomplete form during the Millennium Park grand opening celebration in 2004, before being concealed again while it was completed. Cloud Gate was formally dedicated on May 15, 2006, and has since gained considerable popularity, both domestically and internationally.
Sir Anish Mikhail Kapoor, CBE, RA (born 12 March 1954) is a British-Indian sculptor specializing in installation art and conceptual art. Born in Mumbai, Kapoor attended the elite all-boys Indian boarding school The Doon School, before moving to the UK to begin his art training at Hornsey College of Art and, later, Chelsea School of Art and Design.
His notable public sculptures include Cloud Gate (2006, also known as "The Bean") in Chicago's Millennium Park; Sky Mirror, exhibited at the Rockefeller Center in New York City in 2006 and Kensington Gardens in London in 2010; Temenos, at Middlehaven, Middlesbrough; Leviathan, at the Grand Palais in Paris in 2011; and ArcelorMittal Orbit, commissioned as a permanent artwork for London's Olympic Park and completed in 2012. In 2017, Kapoor designed the statuette for the 2018 Brit Awards.
An image of Kapoor features in the British cultural icons section of the newly designed British passport in 2015. In 2016, he was announced as a recipient of the LennonOno Grant for Peace.
Kapoor has received several distinctions and prizes, such as the Premio Duemila Prize at the XLIV Venice Biennale in 1990, the Turner Prize in 1991, the Unilever Commission for the Turbine Hall at Tate Modern, the Padma Bhushan by the Indian government in 2012, a knighthood in the 2013 Birthday Honours for services to visual arts, an honorary doctorate degree from the University of Oxford in 2014. and the 2017 Genesis Prize for "being one of the most influential and innovative artists of his generation and for his many years of advocacy for refugees and displaced people".
Millennium Park is a public park located in the Loop community area of Chicago, operated by the Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs. The park, opened in 2004 and intended to celebrate the third millennium, is a prominent civic center near the city's Lake Michigan shoreline that covers a 24.5-acre (9.9 ha) section of northwestern Grant Park. Featuring a variety of public art, outdoor spaces and venues, the park is bounded by Michigan Avenue, Randolph Street, Columbus Drive and East Monroe Drive. In 2017, Millennium Park was the top tourist destination in Chicago and in the Midwest, and placed among the top ten in the United States with 25 million annual visitors.
Planning of the park, situated in an area occupied by parkland, the Illinois Central rail yards, and parking lots, began in October 1997. Construction began in October 1998, and Millennium Park was opened in a ceremony on July 16, 2004, four years behind schedule. The three-day opening celebrations were attended by some 300,000 people and included an inaugural concert by the Grant Park Orchestra and Chorus. The park has received awards for its accessibility and green design. Millennium Park has free admission, and features the Jay Pritzker Pavilion, Cloud Gate, the Crown Fountain, the Lurie Garden, and various other attractions. The park is connected by the BP Pedestrian Bridge and the Nichols Bridgeway to other parts of Grant Park. Because the park sits atop parking garages, the commuter rail Millennium Station and rail lines, it is considered the world's largest rooftop garden. In 2015, the park became the location of the city's annual Christmas tree lighting.
Some observers consider Millennium Park the city's most important project since the World's Columbian Exposition of 1893. It far exceeded its originally proposed budget of $150 million. The final cost of $475 million was borne by Chicago taxpayers and private donors. The city paid $270 million; private donors paid the rest, and assumed roughly half of the financial responsibility for the cost overruns. The construction delays and cost overruns were attributed to poor planning, many design changes, and cronyism. Many critics have praised the completed park.
From 1852 until 1997, the Illinois Central Railroad owned a right of way between downtown Chicago and Lake Michigan, in the area that became Grant Park and used it for railroad tracks. In 1871, Union Base-Ball Grounds was built on part of the site that became Millennium Park; the Chicago White Stockings played home games there until the grounds were destroyed in the Great Chicago Fire. Lake Front Park, the White Stockings' new ball grounds, was built in 1878 with a short right field due to the railroad tracks. The grounds were improved and the seating capacity was doubled in 1883, but the team had to move after the season ended the next year, as the federal government had given the city the land "with the stipulation that no commercial venture could use it". Daniel Burnham planned Grant Park around the Illinois Central Railroad property in his 1909 Plan of Chicago. Between 1917 and 1953, a prominent semicircle of paired Greek Doric-style columns (called a peristyle) was placed in this area of Grant Park (partially recreated in the new Millennium Park). In 1997, when the city gained airspace rights over the tracks, it decided to build a parking facility over them in the northwestern corner of Grant Park. Eventually, the city realized that a grand civic amenity might lure private dollars in a way that a municipal improvement such as ordinary parking structure would not, and thus began the effort to create Millennium Park. The park was originally planned under the name Lakefront Millennium Park.
The park was conceived as a 16-acre (6.5 ha) landscape-covered bridge over an underground parking structure to be built on top of the Metra/Illinois Central Railroad tracks in Grant Park. The parks overall design was by Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, and gradually additional architects and artists such as Frank Gehry and Thomas Beeby were incorporated into the plan. Sponsors were sought by invitation only.
In February 1999, the city announced it was negotiating with Frank Gehry to design a proscenium arch and orchestra enclosure for a bandshell, as well as a pedestrian bridge crossing Columbus Drive, and that it was seeking donors to cover his work. At the time, the Chicago Tribune dubbed Gehry "the hottest architect in the universe"[19] in reference to the acclaim for his Guggenheim Museum Bilbao, and they noted the designs would not include Mayor Richard M. Daley's trademarks, such as wrought iron and seasonal flower boxes. Millennium Park project manager Edward Uhlir said "Frank is just the cutting edge of the next century of architecture," and noted that no other architect was being sought. Gehry was approached several times by Skidmore architect Adrian Smith on behalf of the city. His hesitance and refusal to accept the commission was overcome by Cindy Pritzker, the philanthropist, who had developed a relationship with the architect when he won the Pritzker Prize in 1989. According to John H. Bryan, who led fund-raising for the park, Pritzker enticed Gehry in face-to-face discussions, using a $15 million funding commitment toward the bandshell's creation. Having Gehry get involved helped the city realize its vision of having modern themes in the park; upon rumors of his involvement the Chicago Sun-Times proclaimed "Perhaps the future has arrived", while the Chicago Tribune noted that "The most celebrated architect in the world may soon have a chance to bring Chicago into the 21st Century".
Plans for the park were officially announced in March 1998 and construction began in September of that year. Initial construction was under the auspices of the Chicago Department of Transportation, because the project bridges the railroad tracks. However, as the project grew and expanded, its broad variety of features and amenities outside the scope of the field of transportation placed it under the jurisdiction of the city's Public Buildings Commission.
In April 1999, the city announced that the Pritzker family had donated $15 million to fund Gehry's bandshell and an additional nine donors committed $10 million. The day of this announcement, Gehry agreed to the design request. In November, when his design was unveiled, Gehry said the bridge design was preliminary and not well-conceived because funding for it was not committed. The need to fund a bridge to span the eight-lane Columbus Drive was evident, but some planning for the park was delayed in anticipation of details on the redesign of Soldier Field. In January 2000, the city announced plans to expand the park to include features that became Cloud Gate, the Crown Fountain, the McDonald's Cycle Center, and the BP Pedestrian Bridge. Later that month, Gehry unveiled his new winding design for the bridge.
Mayor Daley's influence was key in getting corporate and individual sponsors to pay for much of the park. Bryan, the former chief executive officer (CEO) of Sara Lee Corporation who spearheaded the fundraising, says that sponsorship was by invitation and no one refused the opportunity to be a sponsor. One Time magazine writer describes the park as the crowning achievement for Mayor Daley, while another suggests the park's cost and time overages were examples of the city's mismanagement. The July 16–18, 2004, opening ceremony was sponsored by J.P. Morgan Chase & Co.
The community around Millennium Park has become one of the most fashionable and desired residential addresses in Chicago. In 2006, Forbes named the park's 60602 zip code as the hottest in terms of price appreciation in the country, with upscale buildings such as The Heritage at Millennium Park (130 N. Garland) leading the way for other buildings, such as Waterview Tower, The Legacy and Joffrey Tower. The median sale price for residential real estate was $710,000 in 2005 according to Forbes, also ranking it on the list of most expensive zip codes. The park has been credited with increasing residential real estate values by $100 per square foot ($1,076 per m2).
Millennium Park is a portion of the 319-acre (129.1 ha) Grant Park, known as the "front lawn" of downtown Chicago, and has four major artistic highlights: the Jay Pritzker Pavilion, Cloud Gate, the Crown Fountain, and the Lurie Garden. Millennium Park is successful as a public art venue in part due to the grand scale of each piece and the open spaces for display. A showcase for postmodern architecture, it also features the McCormick Tribune Ice Skating Rink, the BP Pedestrian Bridge, the Joan W. and Irving B. Harris Theater for Music and Dance, Wrigley Square, the McDonald's Cycle Center, the Exelon Pavilions, the AT&T Plaza, the Boeing Galleries, the Chase Promenade, and the Nichols Bridgeway.
Millennium Park is considered one of the largest green roofs in the world, having been constructed on top of a railroad yard and large parking garages. The park, which is known for being user friendly, has a very rigorous cleaning schedule with many areas being swept, wiped down or cleaned multiple times a day. Although the park was unveiled in July 2004, some features opened earlier, and upgrades continued for some time afterwards. Along with the cultural features above ground (described below) the park has its own 2218-space parking garage
Chicago is the most populous city in the U.S. state of Illinois and in the Midwestern United States. With a population of 2,746,388 in the 2020 census, it is the third-most populous city in the United States after New York City and Los Angeles. As the seat of Cook County, the second-most populous county in the U.S., Chicago is the center of the Chicago metropolitan area, which is often colloquially called "Chicagoland".
Located on the shore of Lake Michigan, Chicago was incorporated as a city in 1837 near a portage between the Great Lakes and the Mississippi River watershed. It grew rapidly in the mid-19th century. In 1871, the Great Chicago Fire destroyed several square miles and left more than 100,000 homeless, but Chicago's population continued to grow. Chicago made noted contributions to urban planning and architecture, such as the Chicago School, the development of the City Beautiful Movement, and the steel-framed skyscraper.
Chicago is an international hub for finance, culture, commerce, industry, education, technology, telecommunications, and transportation. It has the largest and most diverse derivatives market in the world, generating 20% of all volume in commodities and financial futures alone. O'Hare International Airport is routinely ranked among the world's top six busiest airports by passenger traffic, and the region is also the nation's railroad hub. The Chicago area has one of the highest gross domestic products (GDP) of any urban region in the world, generating $689 billion in 2018. Chicago's economy is diverse, with no single industry employing more than 14% of the workforce.
Chicago is a major tourist destination. Chicago's culture has contributed much to the visual arts, literature, film, theater, comedy (especially improvisational comedy), food, dance, and music (particularly jazz, blues, soul, hip-hop, gospel, and electronic dance music, including house music). Chicago is home to the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and the Lyric Opera of Chicago, while the Art Institute of Chicago provides an influential visual arts museum and art school. The Chicago area also hosts the University of Chicago, Northwestern University, and the University of Illinois Chicago, among other institutions of learning. Chicago has professional sports teams in each of the major professional leagues, including two Major League Baseball teams.
In the mid-18th century, the area was inhabited by the Potawatomi, an indigenous tribe who had succeeded the Miami and Sauk and Fox peoples in this region.
The first known permanent settler in Chicago was trader Jean Baptiste Point du Sable. Du Sable was of African descent, perhaps born in the French colony of Saint-Domingue (Haiti), and established the settlement in the 1780s. He is commonly known as the "Founder of Chicago."
In 1795, following the victory of the new United States in the Northwest Indian War, an area that was to be part of Chicago was turned over to the U.S. for a military post by native tribes in accordance with the Treaty of Greenville. In 1803, the U.S. Army constructed Fort Dearborn, which was destroyed during the War of 1812 in the Battle of Fort Dearborn by the Potawatomi before being later rebuilt.
After the War of 1812, the Ottawa, Ojibwe, and Potawatomi tribes ceded additional land to the United States in the 1816 Treaty of St. Louis. The Potawatomi were forcibly removed from their land after the 1833 Treaty of Chicago and sent west of the Mississippi River as part of the federal policy of Indian removal.
On August 12, 1833, the Town of Chicago was organized with a population of about 200. Within seven years it grew to more than 6,000 people. On June 15, 1835, the first public land sales began with Edmund Dick Taylor as Receiver of Public Monies. The City of Chicago was incorporated on Saturday, March 4, 1837, and for several decades was the world's fastest-growing city.
As the site of the Chicago Portage, the city became an important transportation hub between the eastern and western United States. Chicago's first railway, Galena and Chicago Union Railroad, and the Illinois and Michigan Canal opened in 1848. The canal allowed steamboats and sailing ships on the Great Lakes to connect to the Mississippi River.
A flourishing economy brought residents from rural communities and immigrants from abroad. Manufacturing and retail and finance sectors became dominant, influencing the American economy. The Chicago Board of Trade (established 1848) listed the first-ever standardized "exchange-traded" forward contracts, which were called futures contracts.
In the 1850s, Chicago gained national political prominence as the home of Senator Stephen Douglas, the champion of the Kansas–Nebraska Act and the "popular sovereignty" approach to the issue of the spread of slavery. These issues also helped propel another Illinoisan, Abraham Lincoln, to the national stage. Lincoln was nominated in Chicago for U.S. president at the 1860 Republican National Convention, which was held in a purpose-built auditorium called the Wigwam. He defeated Douglas in the general election, and this set the stage for the American Civil War.
To accommodate rapid population growth and demand for better sanitation, the city improved its infrastructure. In February 1856, Chicago's Common Council approved Chesbrough's plan to build the United States' first comprehensive sewerage system. The project raised much of central Chicago to a new grade with the use of jackscrews for raising buildings. While elevating Chicago, and at first improving the city's health, the untreated sewage and industrial waste now flowed into the Chicago River, and subsequently into Lake Michigan, polluting the city's primary freshwater source.
The city responded by tunneling two miles (3.2 km) out into Lake Michigan to newly built water cribs. In 1900, the problem of sewage contamination was largely resolved when the city completed a major engineering feat. It reversed the flow of the Chicago River so that the water flowed away from Lake Michigan rather than into it. This project began with the construction and improvement of the Illinois and Michigan Canal, and was completed with the Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal that connects to the Illinois River, which flows into the Mississippi River.
In 1871, the Great Chicago Fire destroyed an area about 4 miles (6.4 km) long and 1-mile (1.6 km) wide, a large section of the city at the time. Much of the city, including railroads and stockyards, survived intact, and from the ruins of the previous wooden structures arose more modern constructions of steel and stone. These set a precedent for worldwide construction. During its rebuilding period, Chicago constructed the world's first skyscraper in 1885, using steel-skeleton construction.
The city grew significantly in size and population by incorporating many neighboring townships between 1851 and 1920, with the largest annexation happening in 1889, with five townships joining the city, including the Hyde Park Township, which now comprises most of the South Side of Chicago and the far southeast of Chicago, and the Jefferson Township, which now makes up most of Chicago's Northwest Side. The desire to join the city was driven by municipal services that the city could provide its residents.
Chicago's flourishing economy attracted huge numbers of new immigrants from Europe and migrants from the Eastern United States. Of the total population in 1900, more than 77% were either foreign-born or born in the United States of foreign parentage. Germans, Irish, Poles, Swedes, and Czechs made up nearly two-thirds of the foreign-born population (by 1900, whites were 98.1% of the city's population).
Labor conflicts followed the industrial boom and the rapid expansion of the labor pool, including the Haymarket affair on May 4, 1886, and in 1894 the Pullman Strike. Anarchist and socialist groups played prominent roles in creating very large and highly organized labor actions. Concern for social problems among Chicago's immigrant poor led Jane Addams and Ellen Gates Starr to found Hull House in 1889. Programs that were developed there became a model for the new field of social work.
During the 1870s and 1880s, Chicago attained national stature as the leader in the movement to improve public health. City laws and later, state laws that upgraded standards for the medical profession and fought urban epidemics of cholera, smallpox, and yellow fever were both passed and enforced. These laws became templates for public health reform in other cities and states.
The city established many large, well-landscaped municipal parks, which also included public sanitation facilities. The chief advocate for improving public health in Chicago was John H. Rauch, M.D. Rauch established a plan for Chicago's park system in 1866. He created Lincoln Park by closing a cemetery filled with shallow graves, and in 1867, in response to an outbreak of cholera he helped establish a new Chicago Board of Health. Ten years later, he became the secretary and then the president of the first Illinois State Board of Health, which carried out most of its activities in Chicago.
In the 1800s, Chicago became the nation's railroad hub, and by 1910 over 20 railroads operated passenger service out of six different downtown terminals. In 1883, Chicago's railway managers needed a general time convention, so they developed the standardized system of North American time zones. This system for telling time spread throughout the continent.
In 1893, Chicago hosted the World's Columbian Exposition on former marshland at the present location of Jackson Park. The Exposition drew 27.5 million visitors, and is considered the most influential world's fair in history. The University of Chicago, formerly at another location, moved to the same South Side location in 1892. The term "midway" for a fair or carnival referred originally to the Midway Plaisance, a strip of park land that still runs through the University of Chicago campus and connects the Washington and Jackson Parks.
During World War I and the 1920s there was a major expansion in industry. The availability of jobs attracted African Americans from the Southern United States. Between 1910 and 1930, the African American population of Chicago increased dramatically, from 44,103 to 233,903. This Great Migration had an immense cultural impact, called the Chicago Black Renaissance, part of the New Negro Movement, in art, literature, and music. Continuing racial tensions and violence, such as the Chicago race riot of 1919, also occurred.
The ratification of the 18th amendment to the Constitution in 1919 made the production and sale (including exportation) of alcoholic beverages illegal in the United States. This ushered in the beginning of what is known as the gangster era, a time that roughly spans from 1919 until 1933 when Prohibition was repealed. The 1920s saw gangsters, including Al Capone, Dion O'Banion, Bugs Moran and Tony Accardo battle law enforcement and each other on the streets of Chicago during the Prohibition era. Chicago was the location of the infamous St. Valentine's Day Massacre in 1929, when Al Capone sent men to gun down members of a rival gang, North Side, led by Bugs Moran.
Chicago was the first American city to have a homosexual-rights organization. The organization, formed in 1924, was called the Society for Human Rights. It produced the first American publication for homosexuals, Friendship and Freedom. Police and political pressure caused the organization to disband.
The Great Depression brought unprecedented suffering to Chicago, in no small part due to the city's heavy reliance on heavy industry. Notably, industrial areas on the south side and neighborhoods lining both branches of the Chicago River were devastated; by 1933 over 50% of industrial jobs in the city had been lost, and unemployment rates amongst blacks and Mexicans in the city were over 40%. The Republican political machine in Chicago was utterly destroyed by the economic crisis, and every mayor since 1931 has been a Democrat.
From 1928 to 1933, the city witnessed a tax revolt, and the city was unable to meet payroll or provide relief efforts. The fiscal crisis was resolved by 1933, and at the same time, federal relief funding began to flow into Chicago. Chicago was also a hotbed of labor activism, with Unemployed Councils contributing heavily in the early depression to create solidarity for the poor and demand relief; these organizations were created by socialist and communist groups. By 1935 the Workers Alliance of America begun organizing the poor, workers, the unemployed. In the spring of 1937 Republic Steel Works witnessed the Memorial Day massacre of 1937 in the neighborhood of East Side.
In 1933, Chicago Mayor Anton Cermak was fatally wounded in Miami, Florida, during a failed assassination attempt on President-elect Franklin D. Roosevelt. In 1933 and 1934, the city celebrated its centennial by hosting the Century of Progress International Exposition World's Fair. The theme of the fair was technological innovation over the century since Chicago's founding.
During World War II, the city of Chicago alone produced more steel than the United Kingdom every year from 1939 – 1945, and more than Nazi Germany from 1943 – 1945.
The Great Migration, which had been on pause due to the Depression, resumed at an even faster pace in the second wave, as hundreds of thousands of blacks from the South arrived in the city to work in the steel mills, railroads, and shipping yards.
On December 2, 1942, physicist Enrico Fermi conducted the world's first controlled nuclear reaction at the University of Chicago as part of the top-secret Manhattan Project. This led to the creation of the atomic bomb by the United States, which it used in World War II in 1945.
Mayor Richard J. Daley, a Democrat, was elected in 1955, in the era of machine politics. In 1956, the city conducted its last major expansion when it annexed the land under O'Hare airport, including a small portion of DuPage County.
By the 1960s, white residents in several neighborhoods left the city for the suburban areas – in many American cities, a process known as white flight – as Blacks continued to move beyond the Black Belt. While home loan discriminatory redlining against blacks continued, the real estate industry practiced what became known as blockbusting, completely changing the racial composition of whole neighborhoods. Structural changes in industry, such as globalization and job outsourcing, caused heavy job losses for lower-skilled workers. At its peak during the 1960s, some 250,000 workers were employed in the steel industry in Chicago, but the steel crisis of the 1970s and 1980s reduced this number to just 28,000 in 2015. In 1966, Martin Luther King Jr. and Albert Raby led the Chicago Freedom Movement, which culminated in agreements between Mayor Richard J. Daley and the movement leaders.
Two years later, the city hosted the tumultuous 1968 Democratic National Convention, which featured physical confrontations both inside and outside the convention hall, with anti-war protesters, journalists and bystanders being beaten by police. Major construction projects, including the Sears Tower (now known as the Willis Tower, which in 1974 became the world's tallest building), University of Illinois at Chicago, McCormick Place, and O'Hare International Airport, were undertaken during Richard J. Daley's tenure. In 1979, Jane Byrne, the city's first female mayor, was elected. She was notable for temporarily moving into the crime-ridden Cabrini-Green housing project and for leading Chicago's school system out of a financial crisis.
In 1983, Harold Washington became the first black mayor of Chicago. Washington's first term in office directed attention to poor and previously neglected minority neighborhoods. He was re‑elected in 1987 but died of a heart attack soon after. Washington was succeeded by 6th ward alderperson Eugene Sawyer, who was elected by the Chicago City Council and served until a special election.
Richard M. Daley, son of Richard J. Daley, was elected in 1989. His accomplishments included improvements to parks and creating incentives for sustainable development, as well as closing Meigs Field in the middle of the night and destroying the runways. After successfully running for re-election five times, and becoming Chicago's longest-serving mayor, Richard M. Daley declined to run for a seventh term.
In 1992, a construction accident near the Kinzie Street Bridge produced a breach connecting the Chicago River to a tunnel below, which was part of an abandoned freight tunnel system extending throughout the downtown Loop district. The tunnels filled with 250 million US gallons (1,000,000 m3) of water, affecting buildings throughout the district and forcing a shutdown of electrical power. The area was shut down for three days and some buildings did not reopen for weeks; losses were estimated at $1.95 billion.
On February 23, 2011, Rahm Emanuel, a former White House Chief of Staff and member of the House of Representatives, won the mayoral election. Emanuel was sworn in as mayor on May 16, 2011, and won re-election in 2015. Lori Lightfoot, the city's first African American woman mayor and its first openly LGBTQ mayor, was elected to succeed Emanuel as mayor in 2019. All three city-wide elective offices were held by women (and women of color) for the first time in Chicago history: in addition to Lightfoot, the city clerk was Anna Valencia and the city treasurer was Melissa Conyears-Ervin.
On May 15, 2023, Brandon Johnson assumed office as the 57th mayor of Chicago.
Illinois is a state in the Midwestern region of the United States. It borders Great Lakes to its northeast, the Mississippi River to its west, and the Wabash and Ohio rivers to its south. Its largest metropolitan areas are Chicago and the Metro East region of Greater St. Louis. Other metropolitan areas include Peoria and Rockford, as well as Springfield, its capital, and Champaign-Urbana, home to the main campus of the state's flagship university. Of the fifty U.S. states, Illinois has the fifth-largest gross domestic product (GDP), the sixth-largest population, and the 25th-largest land area.
Illinois has a highly diverse economy, with the global city of Chicago in the northeast, major industrial and agricultural hubs in the north and center, and natural resources such as coal, timber, and petroleum in the south. Owing to its central location and favorable geography, the state is a major transportation hub: the Port of Chicago has access to the Atlantic Ocean through the Great Lakes and Saint Lawrence Seaway and to the Gulf of Mexico from the Mississippi River via the Illinois Waterway. Chicago has been the nation's railroad hub since the 1860s, and its O'Hare International Airport has been among the world's busiest airports for decades. Illinois has long been considered a microcosm of the United States and a bellwether in American culture, exemplified by the phrase Will it play in Peoria?.
Present-day Illinois was inhabited by various indigenous cultures for thousands of years, including the advanced civilization centered in the Cahokia region. The French were the first Europeans to arrive, settling near the Mississippi and Illinois River in the 17th century in the region they called Illinois Country, as part of the sprawling colony of New France. Following U.S. independence in 1783, American settlers began arriving from Kentucky via the Ohio River, and the population grew from south to north. Illinois was part of the United States' oldest territory, the Northwest Territory, and in 1818 it achieved statehood. The Erie Canal brought increased commercial activity in the Great Lakes, and the small settlement of Chicago became one of the fastest growing cities in the world, benefiting from its location as one of the few natural harbors in southwestern Lake Michigan. The invention of the self-scouring steel plow by Illinoisan John Deere turned the state's rich prairie into some of the world's most productive and valuable farmland, attracting immigrant farmers from Germany and Sweden. In the mid-19th century, the Illinois and Michigan Canal and a sprawling railroad network greatly facilitated trade, commerce, and settlement, making the state a transportation hub for the nation.
By 1900, the growth of industrial jobs in the northern cities and coal mining in the central and southern areas attracted immigrants from Eastern and Southern Europe. Illinois became one of America's most industrialized states and remains a major manufacturing center. The Great Migration from the South established a large community of African Americans, particularly in Chicago, who founded the city's famous jazz and blues cultures. Chicago became a leading cultural, economic, and population center and is today one of the world's major commercial centers; its metropolitan area, informally referred to as Chicagoland, holds about 65% of the state's 12.8 million residents.
Two World Heritage Sites are in Illinois, the ancient Cahokia Mounds, and part of the Wright architecture site. Major centers of learning include the University of Chicago, University of Illinois, and Northwestern University. A wide variety of protected areas seek to conserve Illinois' natural and cultural resources. Historically, three U.S. presidents have been elected while residents of Illinois: Abraham Lincoln, Ulysses S. Grant, and Barack Obama; additionally, Ronald Reagan was born and raised in the state. Illinois honors Lincoln with its official state slogan Land of Lincoln. The state is the site of the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum in Springfield and the future home of the Barack Obama Presidential Center in Chicago.
Chicago is the most populous city in the U.S. state of Illinois and in the Midwestern United States. With a population of 2,746,388 in the 2020 census, it is the third-most populous city in the United States after New York City and Los Angeles. As the seat of Cook County, the second-most populous county in the U.S., Chicago is the center of the Chicago metropolitan area, which is often colloquially called "Chicagoland".
Located on the shore of Lake Michigan, Chicago was incorporated as a city in 1837 near a portage between the Great Lakes and the Mississippi River watershed. It grew rapidly in the mid-19th century. In 1871, the Great Chicago Fire destroyed several square miles and left more than 100,000 homeless, but Chicago's population continued to grow. Chicago made noted contributions to urban planning and architecture, such as the Chicago School, the development of the City Beautiful Movement, and the steel-framed skyscraper.
Chicago is an international hub for finance, culture, commerce, industry, education, technology, telecommunications, and transportation. It has the largest and most diverse derivatives market in the world, generating 20% of all volume in commodities and financial futures alone. O'Hare International Airport is routinely ranked among the world's top six busiest airports by passenger traffic, and the region is also the nation's railroad hub. The Chicago area has one of the highest gross domestic products (GDP) of any urban region in the world, generating $689 billion in 2018. Chicago's economy is diverse, with no single industry employing more than 14% of the workforce.
Chicago is a major tourist destination. Chicago's culture has contributed much to the visual arts, literature, film, theater, comedy (especially improvisational comedy), food, dance, and music (particularly jazz, blues, soul, hip-hop, gospel, and electronic dance music, including house music). Chicago is home to the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and the Lyric Opera of Chicago, while the Art Institute of Chicago provides an influential visual arts museum and art school. The Chicago area also hosts the University of Chicago, Northwestern University, and the University of Illinois Chicago, among other institutions of learning. Chicago has professional sports teams in each of the major professional leagues, including two Major League Baseball teams.
In the mid-18th century, the area was inhabited by the Potawatomi, an indigenous tribe who had succeeded the Miami and Sauk and Fox peoples in this region.
The first known permanent settler in Chicago was trader Jean Baptiste Point du Sable. Du Sable was of African descent, perhaps born in the French colony of Saint-Domingue (Haiti), and established the settlement in the 1780s. He is commonly known as the "Founder of Chicago."
In 1795, following the victory of the new United States in the Northwest Indian War, an area that was to be part of Chicago was turned over to the U.S. for a military post by native tribes in accordance with the Treaty of Greenville. In 1803, the U.S. Army constructed Fort Dearborn, which was destroyed during the War of 1812 in the Battle of Fort Dearborn by the Potawatomi before being later rebuilt.
After the War of 1812, the Ottawa, Ojibwe, and Potawatomi tribes ceded additional land to the United States in the 1816 Treaty of St. Louis. The Potawatomi were forcibly removed from their land after the 1833 Treaty of Chicago and sent west of the Mississippi River as part of the federal policy of Indian removal.
On August 12, 1833, the Town of Chicago was organized with a population of about 200. Within seven years it grew to more than 6,000 people. On June 15, 1835, the first public land sales began with Edmund Dick Taylor as Receiver of Public Monies. The City of Chicago was incorporated on Saturday, March 4, 1837, and for several decades was the world's fastest-growing city.
As the site of the Chicago Portage, the city became an important transportation hub between the eastern and western United States. Chicago's first railway, Galena and Chicago Union Railroad, and the Illinois and Michigan Canal opened in 1848. The canal allowed steamboats and sailing ships on the Great Lakes to connect to the Mississippi River.
A flourishing economy brought residents from rural communities and immigrants from abroad. Manufacturing and retail and finance sectors became dominant, influencing the American economy. The Chicago Board of Trade (established 1848) listed the first-ever standardized "exchange-traded" forward contracts, which were called futures contracts.
In the 1850s, Chicago gained national political prominence as the home of Senator Stephen Douglas, the champion of the Kansas–Nebraska Act and the "popular sovereignty" approach to the issue of the spread of slavery. These issues also helped propel another Illinoisan, Abraham Lincoln, to the national stage. Lincoln was nominated in Chicago for U.S. president at the 1860 Republican National Convention, which was held in a purpose-built auditorium called the Wigwam. He defeated Douglas in the general election, and this set the stage for the American Civil War.
To accommodate rapid population growth and demand for better sanitation, the city improved its infrastructure. In February 1856, Chicago's Common Council approved Chesbrough's plan to build the United States' first comprehensive sewerage system. The project raised much of central Chicago to a new grade with the use of jackscrews for raising buildings. While elevating Chicago, and at first improving the city's health, the untreated sewage and industrial waste now flowed into the Chicago River, and subsequently into Lake Michigan, polluting the city's primary freshwater source.
The city responded by tunneling two miles (3.2 km) out into Lake Michigan to newly built water cribs. In 1900, the problem of sewage contamination was largely resolved when the city completed a major engineering feat. It reversed the flow of the Chicago River so that the water flowed away from Lake Michigan rather than into it. This project began with the construction and improvement of the Illinois and Michigan Canal, and was completed with the Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal that connects to the Illinois River, which flows into the Mississippi River.
In 1871, the Great Chicago Fire destroyed an area about 4 miles (6.4 km) long and 1-mile (1.6 km) wide, a large section of the city at the time. Much of the city, including railroads and stockyards, survived intact, and from the ruins of the previous wooden structures arose more modern constructions of steel and stone. These set a precedent for worldwide construction. During its rebuilding period, Chicago constructed the world's first skyscraper in 1885, using steel-skeleton construction.
The city grew significantly in size and population by incorporating many neighboring townships between 1851 and 1920, with the largest annexation happening in 1889, with five townships joining the city, including the Hyde Park Township, which now comprises most of the South Side of Chicago and the far southeast of Chicago, and the Jefferson Township, which now makes up most of Chicago's Northwest Side. The desire to join the city was driven by municipal services that the city could provide its residents.
Chicago's flourishing economy attracted huge numbers of new immigrants from Europe and migrants from the Eastern United States. Of the total population in 1900, more than 77% were either foreign-born or born in the United States of foreign parentage. Germans, Irish, Poles, Swedes, and Czechs made up nearly two-thirds of the foreign-born population (by 1900, whites were 98.1% of the city's population).
Labor conflicts followed the industrial boom and the rapid expansion of the labor pool, including the Haymarket affair on May 4, 1886, and in 1894 the Pullman Strike. Anarchist and socialist groups played prominent roles in creating very large and highly organized labor actions. Concern for social problems among Chicago's immigrant poor led Jane Addams and Ellen Gates Starr to found Hull House in 1889. Programs that were developed there became a model for the new field of social work.
During the 1870s and 1880s, Chicago attained national stature as the leader in the movement to improve public health. City laws and later, state laws that upgraded standards for the medical profession and fought urban epidemics of cholera, smallpox, and yellow fever were both passed and enforced. These laws became templates for public health reform in other cities and states.
The city established many large, well-landscaped municipal parks, which also included public sanitation facilities. The chief advocate for improving public health in Chicago was John H. Rauch, M.D. Rauch established a plan for Chicago's park system in 1866. He created Lincoln Park by closing a cemetery filled with shallow graves, and in 1867, in response to an outbreak of cholera he helped establish a new Chicago Board of Health. Ten years later, he became the secretary and then the president of the first Illinois State Board of Health, which carried out most of its activities in Chicago.
In the 1800s, Chicago became the nation's railroad hub, and by 1910 over 20 railroads operated passenger service out of six different downtown terminals. In 1883, Chicago's railway managers needed a general time convention, so they developed the standardized system of North American time zones. This system for telling time spread throughout the continent.
In 1893, Chicago hosted the World's Columbian Exposition on former marshland at the present location of Jackson Park. The Exposition drew 27.5 million visitors, and is considered the most influential world's fair in history. The University of Chicago, formerly at another location, moved to the same South Side location in 1892. The term "midway" for a fair or carnival referred originally to the Midway Plaisance, a strip of park land that still runs through the University of Chicago campus and connects the Washington and Jackson Parks.
During World War I and the 1920s there was a major expansion in industry. The availability of jobs attracted African Americans from the Southern United States. Between 1910 and 1930, the African American population of Chicago increased dramatically, from 44,103 to 233,903. This Great Migration had an immense cultural impact, called the Chicago Black Renaissance, part of the New Negro Movement, in art, literature, and music. Continuing racial tensions and violence, such as the Chicago race riot of 1919, also occurred.
The ratification of the 18th amendment to the Constitution in 1919 made the production and sale (including exportation) of alcoholic beverages illegal in the United States. This ushered in the beginning of what is known as the gangster era, a time that roughly spans from 1919 until 1933 when Prohibition was repealed. The 1920s saw gangsters, including Al Capone, Dion O'Banion, Bugs Moran and Tony Accardo battle law enforcement and each other on the streets of Chicago during the Prohibition era. Chicago was the location of the infamous St. Valentine's Day Massacre in 1929, when Al Capone sent men to gun down members of a rival gang, North Side, led by Bugs Moran.
Chicago was the first American city to have a homosexual-rights organization. The organization, formed in 1924, was called the Society for Human Rights. It produced the first American publication for homosexuals, Friendship and Freedom. Police and political pressure caused the organization to disband.
The Great Depression brought unprecedented suffering to Chicago, in no small part due to the city's heavy reliance on heavy industry. Notably, industrial areas on the south side and neighborhoods lining both branches of the Chicago River were devastated; by 1933 over 50% of industrial jobs in the city had been lost, and unemployment rates amongst blacks and Mexicans in the city were over 40%. The Republican political machine in Chicago was utterly destroyed by the economic crisis, and every mayor since 1931 has been a Democrat.
From 1928 to 1933, the city witnessed a tax revolt, and the city was unable to meet payroll or provide relief efforts. The fiscal crisis was resolved by 1933, and at the same time, federal relief funding began to flow into Chicago. Chicago was also a hotbed of labor activism, with Unemployed Councils contributing heavily in the early depression to create solidarity for the poor and demand relief; these organizations were created by socialist and communist groups. By 1935 the Workers Alliance of America begun organizing the poor, workers, the unemployed. In the spring of 1937 Republic Steel Works witnessed the Memorial Day massacre of 1937 in the neighborhood of East Side.
In 1933, Chicago Mayor Anton Cermak was fatally wounded in Miami, Florida, during a failed assassination attempt on President-elect Franklin D. Roosevelt. In 1933 and 1934, the city celebrated its centennial by hosting the Century of Progress International Exposition World's Fair. The theme of the fair was technological innovation over the century since Chicago's founding.
During World War II, the city of Chicago alone produced more steel than the United Kingdom every year from 1939 – 1945, and more than Nazi Germany from 1943 – 1945.
The Great Migration, which had been on pause due to the Depression, resumed at an even faster pace in the second wave, as hundreds of thousands of blacks from the South arrived in the city to work in the steel mills, railroads, and shipping yards.
On December 2, 1942, physicist Enrico Fermi conducted the world's first controlled nuclear reaction at the University of Chicago as part of the top-secret Manhattan Project. This led to the creation of the atomic bomb by the United States, which it used in World War II in 1945.
Mayor Richard J. Daley, a Democrat, was elected in 1955, in the era of machine politics. In 1956, the city conducted its last major expansion when it annexed the land under O'Hare airport, including a small portion of DuPage County.
By the 1960s, white residents in several neighborhoods left the city for the suburban areas – in many American cities, a process known as white flight – as Blacks continued to move beyond the Black Belt. While home loan discriminatory redlining against blacks continued, the real estate industry practiced what became known as blockbusting, completely changing the racial composition of whole neighborhoods. Structural changes in industry, such as globalization and job outsourcing, caused heavy job losses for lower-skilled workers. At its peak during the 1960s, some 250,000 workers were employed in the steel industry in Chicago, but the steel crisis of the 1970s and 1980s reduced this number to just 28,000 in 2015. In 1966, Martin Luther King Jr. and Albert Raby led the Chicago Freedom Movement, which culminated in agreements between Mayor Richard J. Daley and the movement leaders.
Two years later, the city hosted the tumultuous 1968 Democratic National Convention, which featured physical confrontations both inside and outside the convention hall, with anti-war protesters, journalists and bystanders being beaten by police. Major construction projects, including the Sears Tower (now known as the Willis Tower, which in 1974 became the world's tallest building), University of Illinois at Chicago, McCormick Place, and O'Hare International Airport, were undertaken during Richard J. Daley's tenure. In 1979, Jane Byrne, the city's first female mayor, was elected. She was notable for temporarily moving into the crime-ridden Cabrini-Green housing project and for leading Chicago's school system out of a financial crisis.
In 1983, Harold Washington became the first black mayor of Chicago. Washington's first term in office directed attention to poor and previously neglected minority neighborhoods. He was re‑elected in 1987 but died of a heart attack soon after. Washington was succeeded by 6th ward alderperson Eugene Sawyer, who was elected by the Chicago City Council and served until a special election.
Richard M. Daley, son of Richard J. Daley, was elected in 1989. His accomplishments included improvements to parks and creating incentives for sustainable development, as well as closing Meigs Field in the middle of the night and destroying the runways. After successfully running for re-election five times, and becoming Chicago's longest-serving mayor, Richard M. Daley declined to run for a seventh term.
In 1992, a construction accident near the Kinzie Street Bridge produced a breach connecting the Chicago River to a tunnel below, which was part of an abandoned freight tunnel system extending throughout the downtown Loop district. The tunnels filled with 250 million US gallons (1,000,000 m3) of water, affecting buildings throughout the district and forcing a shutdown of electrical power. The area was shut down for three days and some buildings did not reopen for weeks; losses were estimated at $1.95 billion.
On February 23, 2011, Rahm Emanuel, a former White House Chief of Staff and member of the House of Representatives, won the mayoral election. Emanuel was sworn in as mayor on May 16, 2011, and won re-election in 2015. Lori Lightfoot, the city's first African American woman mayor and its first openly LGBTQ mayor, was elected to succeed Emanuel as mayor in 2019. All three city-wide elective offices were held by women (and women of color) for the first time in Chicago history: in addition to Lightfoot, the city clerk was Anna Valencia and the city treasurer was Melissa Conyears-Ervin.
On May 15, 2023, Brandon Johnson assumed office as the 57th mayor of Chicago.
Illinois is a state in the Midwestern region of the United States. It borders Great Lakes to its northeast, the Mississippi River to its west, and the Wabash and Ohio rivers to its south. Its largest metropolitan areas are Chicago and the Metro East region of Greater St. Louis. Other metropolitan areas include Peoria and Rockford, as well as Springfield, its capital, and Champaign-Urbana, home to the main campus of the state's flagship university. Of the fifty U.S. states, Illinois has the fifth-largest gross domestic product (GDP), the sixth-largest population, and the 25th-largest land area.
Illinois has a highly diverse economy, with the global city of Chicago in the northeast, major industrial and agricultural hubs in the north and center, and natural resources such as coal, timber, and petroleum in the south. Owing to its central location and favorable geography, the state is a major transportation hub: the Port of Chicago has access to the Atlantic Ocean through the Great Lakes and Saint Lawrence Seaway and to the Gulf of Mexico from the Mississippi River via the Illinois Waterway. Chicago has been the nation's railroad hub since the 1860s, and its O'Hare International Airport has been among the world's busiest airports for decades. Illinois has long been considered a microcosm of the United States and a bellwether in American culture, exemplified by the phrase Will it play in Peoria?.
Present-day Illinois was inhabited by various indigenous cultures for thousands of years, including the advanced civilization centered in the Cahokia region. The French were the first Europeans to arrive, settling near the Mississippi and Illinois River in the 17th century in the region they called Illinois Country, as part of the sprawling colony of New France. Following U.S. independence in 1783, American settlers began arriving from Kentucky via the Ohio River, and the population grew from south to north. Illinois was part of the United States' oldest territory, the Northwest Territory, and in 1818 it achieved statehood. The Erie Canal brought increased commercial activity in the Great Lakes, and the small settlement of Chicago became one of the fastest growing cities in the world, benefiting from its location as one of the few natural harbors in southwestern Lake Michigan. The invention of the self-scouring steel plow by Illinoisan John Deere turned the state's rich prairie into some of the world's most productive and valuable farmland, attracting immigrant farmers from Germany and Sweden. In the mid-19th century, the Illinois and Michigan Canal and a sprawling railroad network greatly facilitated trade, commerce, and settlement, making the state a transportation hub for the nation.
By 1900, the growth of industrial jobs in the northern cities and coal mining in the central and southern areas attracted immigrants from Eastern and Southern Europe. Illinois became one of America's most industrialized states and remains a major manufacturing center. The Great Migration from the South established a large community of African Americans, particularly in Chicago, who founded the city's famous jazz and blues cultures. Chicago became a leading cultural, economic, and population center and is today one of the world's major commercial centers; its metropolitan area, informally referred to as Chicagoland, holds about 65% of the state's 12.8 million residents.
Two World Heritage Sites are in Illinois, the ancient Cahokia Mounds, and part of the Wright architecture site. Major centers of learning include the University of Chicago, University of Illinois, and Northwestern University. A wide variety of protected areas seek to conserve Illinois' natural and cultural resources. Historically, three U.S. presidents have been elected while residents of Illinois: Abraham Lincoln, Ulysses S. Grant, and Barack Obama; additionally, Ronald Reagan was born and raised in the state. Illinois honors Lincoln with its official state slogan Land of Lincoln. The state is the site of the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum in Springfield and the future home of the Barack Obama Presidential Center in Chicago.
Safeguards Comprehensive Training Exercise at Dukovany NPP. Czech Republic, 11 June 2015
Photo Credit: Dean Calma / IAEA