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Acapulco

Acapulco de Juárez, commonly called Acapulco ( , ; Acapolco), is a city and major seaport in the state of Guerrero on the Pacific Coast of Mexico, 380 km south of Mexico City. Located on a deep, semicircular bay, Acapulco has been a port since the early colonial period of Mexico's history. It is a port of call for shipping and cruise lines running between Panama and San Francisco, California, United States. The city of Acapulco is the largest in the state, far larger than the state capital Chilpancingo. Acapulco is also Mexico's largest beach and balneario resort city. Acapulco de Juárez, Guerrero is the municipal seat of the municipality of Acapulco, Guerrero.

The city is one of Mexico's oldest beach resorts, coming into prominence in the 1940s through the 1960s as a getaway for Hollywood stars and millionaires. Acapulco was once a popular tourist resort, but due to a massive upsurge in gang violence and homicide numbers since 2014, Acapulco no longer attracts many foreign tourists, and most now only come from Mexico itself. It is both the ninth deadliest city in Mexico and the tenth-deadliest city in the world as of 2022; the US government has warned its citizens not to travel there. In 2016 there were 918 murders, and the homicide rate was one of the highest in the world: 103 in every 100,000. In September 2018 the city's entire police force was disarmed by the military, due to suspicions that it had been infiltrated by drug gangs.

The resort area is divided into three parts: the north end of the bay and beyond is the "traditional" area, which encompasses the area from Parque Papagayo through the Zócalo and onto the beaches of Caleta and Caletilla, the main part of the bay known as "Zona Dorada" ('golden zone' in Spanish), where the famous in the mid-20th century vacationed, and the south end, "Diamante" ('diamond' in Spanish), which is dominated by newer luxury high-rise hotels and condominiums.

The name "Acapulco, Guerrero" comes from Nahuatl language Aca-pōl-co, and means "where the reeds were destroyed or washed away" or "at the big reeds", which inspired the city's seal, which is an Aztec-type glyph showing two hands breaking reeds.

The "de Juárez" was added to the official name in 1885 to honor Benito Juárez, former president of Mexico (1806–1872). The island and municipality of Capul, in the Philippines, derives its name from Acapulco, Guerrero. Acapulco, Guerrero was the eastern end of the trans-Pacific sailing route from Acapulco to Manila, in what was then a Spanish colony.

Pre-Columbian
By the 8th century around the Acapulco Bay area, there was a small culture which would first be dominated by the Olmecs, then by a number of others during the pre-Hispanic period before it ended in the 1520s. At Acapulco Bay itself, there were two Olmec sites, one by Playa Larga and the other on a hill known as El Guitarrón. Olmec influence caused the small spread-out villages here to coalesce into larger entities and build ceremonial centers.

Later, Teotihuacan influence came to the area via Cuernavaca and Chilpancingo. Then Mayan influence arrived from the Isthmus of Tehuantepec and through what is now Oaxaca. This history is known through the archaeological artifacts that have been found here, especially at Playa Hornos, Pie de la Cuesta, and Tambuco.

In the 11th century, new waves of migration of Nahuas, including the Coixcas, came through here. These people were the antecedents of the Aztecs. In the later 15th century, after four years of military struggle, Acapulco became part of the Aztec Empire during the reign of Ahuizotl (1486–1502). It was annexed to a tributary province named Tepecuacuilco. However, this was only transitory, as the Aztecs could only establish an unorganized military post at the city's outskirts. The city was in territory under control of the Yopis, who continued defending it and living there until the arrival of the Spanish in the 1520s.

16th century
There are two stories about how Acapulco bay was discovered by Europeans. The first states that two years after the Spanish conquest of the Aztec Empire, Hernán Cortés sent explorers west to find gold. The explorers had subdued this area after 1523, and Captain Saavedra Cerón was authorized by Cortés to found a settlement here. The other states that the bay was discovered on December 13, 1526, by a small ship named the El Tepache Santiago captained by Santiago Guevara.

The first encomendero was established in 1525 at Cacahuatepec, which is still part of the modern Acapulco municipality. In 1531, a number of Spaniards, most notably Juan Rodriguez de Villafuerte, left the Oaxaca coast and founded the village of Villafuerte where the city of Acapulco now stands. Villafuerte was unable to subdue the local native peoples, and this eventually resulted in the Yopa Rebellion in the region of Cuautepec. Hernán Cortés was obligated to send Vasco Porcayo to negotiate with the indigenous people giving concessions. The province of Acapulco became the encomendero of Rodriguez de Villafuerte who received taxes in the form of cocoa, cotton and corn.

Cortés established Acapulco as a major port by the early 1530s, with the first major road between Mexico City and the port constructed by 1531. The wharf, named Marqués, was constructed by 1533 between Bruja Point and Diamond Point. Soon after, the area was made an "alcadia" (major province or town).

Spanish trade in the Far East would give Acapulco a prominent position in the economy of New Spain. In 1550, thirty Spanish families were sent to live here from Mexico City to have a permanent base of European residents. Galleons started arriving in Acapulco from Asia by 1565. Acapulco would become the second most important port, after Veracruz, due to its direct trade with the Philippines. This trade would focus on the yearly Manila-Acapulco Galleon trade, which was the nexus of all kinds of communications between New Spain, Europe and Asia. In 1573, the port was granted the monopoly of the Manila trade.

17th–19th centuries
On January 25, 1614, a delegation led by samurai Hasekura Tsunenaga, which included over one hundred Japanese Christians as well as twenty-two samurai under the shōgun Tokugawa Ieyasu, arrived from Japan to Acapulco as part of a mission to form closer relations with Catholic Europe. A fight soon broke out in which a Japanese samurai stabbed a Spanish colonial soldier in Acapulco. This was witnessed and recorded by historian Chimalpahin, who was the grandson of an Aztec nobleman. Some of Tsunenaga's delegation would stay and marry with the locals.

The galleon trade made its yearly run from the mid-16th century until the early 19th. The luxury items it brought to New Spain attracted the attention of English and Dutch pirates, such as Francis Drake, Henry Morgan and Thomas Cavendish, who called it "The Black Ship". A Dutch fleet invaded Acapulco in 1615, destroying much of the town before being driven off. The Fort of San Diego was built the following year to protect the port and the cargo of arriving ships. The fort was destroyed by an earthquake in 1776 and was rebuilt between 1778 and 1783.

At the beginning of the 19th century, King Charles IV declared Acapulco a Ciudad Official and it became an essential part of the Spanish Crown. However, not long after, the Mexican War of Independence began. In 1810, José María Morelos y Pavón attacked and burnt down the city, after he defeated royalist commander Francisco Parés at the Battle of Tres Palos. The independence of Mexico in 1821 ended the run of the Manila Galleon. Acapulco's importance as a port recovered during the California Gold Rush in the mid-19th-century, with ships going to and coming from Panama stopping here. This city was besieged on 19 April 1854 by Antonio López de Santa Anna after Guerrero's leadership had rebelled by issuing the Plan de Ayutla. After an unsuccessful week of fighting, Santa Anna retreated.

20th century
In 1911, revolutionary forces took over the main plaza of Acapulco. In 1920, the Prince of Wales (the future King Edward VIII) visited the area. Impressed by what he saw, he recommended the place to his compatriots in Europe, making it popular with the elite there. Much of the original hotel and trading infrastructure was built by a businessman named Albert B. Pullen from Corrigan, Texas, in the area now known as Old Acapulco. In 1933 Carlos Barnard started the first section of Hotel El Mirador, with 12 rooms on the cliffs of La Quebrada. Albert Pullen built the Las Americas Hotel. In the late 1930s, “La Fraccionadora de Acapulco, S.A.” (FASA), consisting of William Pullen, Anacleto Martínez, Juan M. Salcedo, and Wolf Schoenburg, who was especially instrumental, started tourism development in earnest.

In the mid-1940s, the first commercial wharf and warehouses were built. In the early 1950s, President Miguel Alemán Valdés upgraded the port's infrastructure, installing electrical lines, drainage systems, roads and the first highway to connect the port with Mexico City.

The economy grew and foreign investment increased with it. During the 1950s, Acapulco became the fashionable place for millionaire Hollywood stars such as Elizabeth Taylor, Frank Sinatra, Eddie Fisher and Brigitte Bardot. The 1963 Hollywood movie Fun in Acapulco, starring Elvis Presley, is set in Acapulco although the filming took place in the United States. Former swing musician Teddy Stauffer, the so-called "Mister Acapulco", was a hotel manager ("Villa Vera", "Casablanca"), who attracted many celebrities to Acapulco.

From a population of only 4,000 or 5,000 in the 1940s, by the early 1960s, Acapulco had a population of about 50,000. In 1958, the Diocese of Acapulco was created by Pope Pius XII. It became an archdiocese in 1983.

During the 1960s and 1970s, new hotel resorts were built, and accommodation and transport were made cheaper. It was no longer necessary to be a millionaire to spend a holiday in Acapulco; the foreign and Mexican middle class could now afford to travel here. However, as more hotels were built in the south part of the bay, the old hotels of the 1950s lost their grandeur. For the 1968 Summer Olympics in neighboring Mexico City, Acapulco hosted the sailing (then yachting) events.

In the 1970s, there was a significant expansion of the port.

The Miss Universe 1978 pageant took place in the city. In 1983, singer-songwriter Juan Gabriel wrote the song "Amor eterno", which pays homage to Acapulco. The song was first and most famously recorded by Rocío Dúrcal. Additionally, Acapulco is the hometown of actress, singer, and comedian Aída Pierce, who found fame during the 1980s, 1990s and the first decade of the 21st century.

The tollway known as the Ruta del Sol was built during the 1990s, crossing the mountains between Mexico City and Acapulco. The journey takes only about three-and-a-half hours, making Acapulco a favorite weekend destination for Mexico City inhabitants. It was in that time period that the economic impact of Acapulco as a tourist destination increased positively, and as a result new types of services emerged, such as the Colegio Nautilus. This educational project, backed by the state government, was created for the families of local and foreign investors and businessmen living in Acapulco who were in need of a bilingual and international education for their children.

The port continued to grow and in 1996, a new private company, API Acapulco, was created to manage operations. This consolidated operations and now Acapulco is the major port for car exports to the Pacific.

The city was devastated by Hurricane Pauline in 1997. The storm stranded tourists and left more than 100 dead in the city. Most of the victims were from the shantytowns built on steep hillsides that surround the city. Other victims were swept away by thirty-foot (9 m) waves and 150 mph winds. The main road, Avenida Costera, became a fast-moving river of sludge three feet (1 m) in depth.

21st century
In the 21st century, the Mexican Drug War has had a negative effect on tourism in Acapulco as rival drug traffickers fight each other for the Guerrero coast route that brings drugs from South America as well as soldiers that have been fighting the cartels since 2006.

A major gun battle between 18 gunmen and soldiers took place in the summer of 2009 in the Old Acapulco seaside area, lasting hours and killing 16 of the gunmen and two soldiers. This came after the 2009 swine flu pandemic outbreak earlier in the year nearly paralyzed the Mexican economy, forcing hotels to give discounts to bring tourists back. However, hotel occupancy for 2009 was down five percent from the year before. The death of Arturo Beltrán Leyva in December 2009 resulted in infighting among different groups within the Beltrán Leyva cartel.

Gang violence continued to plague Acapulco through 2010 and into 2011, most notably with at least 15 dying in drug-related violence on March 13, 2010, and another 15 deaths on January 8, 2011. Among the first incident's dead were six members of the city police and the brother of an ex-mayor. In the second incident, the headless bodies of 15 young men were found dumped near the Plaza Sendero shopping center. On August 20, 2011, Mexican authorities reported that five headless bodies were found in Acapulco, three of which were placed in the city's main tourist area and two of which were cut into multiple pieces.

On February 4, 2013, six Spanish men were tied up and robbed and the six Spanish women with them were gang-raped by five masked gunmen who stormed a beach house on the outskirts of Acapulco, though after these accusations, none of the victims decided to press charges. On September 28, 2014, Mexican politician Braulio Zaragoza was gunned down at the El Mirador hotel in the city. He was the leader of the conservative opposition National Action Party (PAN) in southern Guerrero state. Several politicians have been targeted by drug cartels operating in the area. Investigations are under way, but no arrests have yet been made as of September 29. The insecurity due to individuals involved with drug cartels has cost the city of Acapulco its popularity among national and international tourists. It was stated by the Dirección General de Aeronáutica Civil that the number of international flyers coming to Acapulco decreased from 355,760 flyers registered in 2006 to 52,684 flyers in the year 2015, the number of international tourists flying to Acapulco dropped 85% in the interval of nine years. In 2018, the Mexican Armed Forces entered the city, placing it under occupation. The police department was disarmed after allegations of the latter being linked to the cartels.

Hurricane Otis
On October 25, 2023, Hurricane Otis, a Category 5 hurricane with 1-minute sustained winds of 160 mph, caused widespread devastation throughout the city while making landfall nearby.

Geography
The city, located on the Pacific coast of Mexico in the state of Guerrero, is classified as one of the state's seven regions, dividing the rest of the Guerrero coast into the Costa Grande and the Costa Chica. Forty percent of the municipality is mountainous terrain; another forty percent is semi-flat; and the other twenty percent is flat. Elevation varies from sea level to 1699 m. The highest peaks are Potrero, San Nicolas, and Alto Camarón. One major river runs through the municipality, the Papagayo, along with a number of arroyos (streams). There are also two small lagoons, Tres Palos and Coyuca, along with a number of thermal springs.

Climate
Acapulco features a tropical wet and dry climate (Köppen: Aw): hot with distinct wet and dry seasons, with more even temperatures between seasons than resorts farther north in Mexico, but this varies depending on altitude. The warmest areas are next to the sea where the city is. Pacific hurricanes and tropical storms are threats from May through November; notably, the city was struck directly by Category 5 Hurricane Otis on October 25, 2023, which caused extensive damage. The forested area tends to lose leaves during the winter dry season, with evergreen pines in the highest elevations. Fauna consists mostly of deer, small mammals, a wide variety of both land and seabirds, and marine animals such as turtles. Oddly enough, January, its coolest month, also features its all-time record high.

The temperature of the sea is quite stable, with lows of 82 °F between January – March, and a high of 86 °F in August. These sea surface temperatures are much warmer than those further north along the Pacific coast, and indeed warmer than most places further south, as sea surface temperatures begin to decline with proximity to the Southern Hemisphere's Humboldt Current.

Government
As the seat of a municipality, the city of Acapulco is the government authority for over 700 other communities, which together have a territory of 1,880.60 km2. This municipality borders the municipalities of Chilpancingo, Juan R Escudero (Tierra Colorada), San Marcos, Coyuca de Benítez with the Pacific Ocean to the south.

The metropolitan area is made up of the municipalities of Acapulco de Juárez and Coyuca de Benitez. The area has a population of 786,830.

For the names and terms of some Acapulco mayors, you can check a List of municipal presidents of Acapulco.

Population
Acapulco is the most populated city in the state of Guerrero, according to the results of the II Population and Housing Census 2010 carried out by the National Institute of Statistics and Geography (INEGI) with a census date of June 12, 2010, The city had until then a total population of 673,479 inhabitants, of that amount, 324,746 were men and 348,733 women. It is considered the twenty-second most populous city in Mexico and the tenth most populous metropolitan area in Mexico. It is also the city with the highest concentration of population of the homonymous municipality, representing 85.25 percent of the 789,971 inhabitants. In the 2020 census of 658,609 people where counted in the locality and 779,566 in the municipality of Acapulco, a small drop from the last census.

The metropolitan area of Acapulco is made up of six towns in the municipality of Acapulco de Juárez and four in the municipality of Coyuca de Benítez. In agreement with the last count and official delimitation realized in 2010 altogether by the National Institute of Statistics and Geography, the National Council of Population and the Secretariat of Social Development, the metropolitan area of Acapulco grouped a total of 863,431 inhabitants in a surface of 3,538.5 km2, which placed it as the tenth most populated district in Mexico.

 * Notes:
 * Source: Instituto Nacional de Estadística y Geografía
 * Population census (1895 – 1990, 2000 and 2010)
 * Population Counts (1995 and 2005)

Economy
Tourism is the main economic activity of the municipality and most of this is centered on Acapulco Bay. About seventy-three percent of the municipality's population is involved in commerce, most of it related to tourism and the port. Mining and manufacturing employ less than twenty percent and only about five percent is dedicated to agriculture. Industrial production is limited mostly to bottling, milk products, cement products, and ice and energy production. Agricultural products include tomatoes, corn, watermelon, beans, green chili peppers, and melons.

Tourism
Acapulco is one of Mexico's oldest coastal tourist destinations, reaching prominence in the 1950s as the place where Hollywood stars and millionaires vacationed on the beach in an exotic locale. In modern times, tourists in Acapulco have been facing problems with corrupt local police who steal money by extortion and intimidate visitors with threats of jail.

The city is divided into three tourist areas.

Traditional Acapulco is the old part of the port, where hotels like Hotel Los Flamingos, owned by personalities Johnny Weissmuller and John Wayne are located, is on the northern end of the bay. Anchored by attractions such as the beaches of Caleta and Caletilla, the cliff divers of La Quebrada, and the city square, known as El Zocalo. The heyday of this part of Acapulco ran from the late 1930s until the 1960s, with development continuing through the 1980s. This older section of town now caters to a mostly middle-class, almost exclusively Mexican clientele, while the glitzier newer section caters to the Mexican upper classes, many of whom never venture into the older, traditional part of town.

Acapulco Dorado had its development between the 1950s and the 1970s, and is about 25 minutes from the Acapulco International Airport. It is the area that presents the most tourist influx in the port, runs through much of the Acapulco bay, from Icacos, passing through Costera Miguel Aleman Avenue, which is the main one, to Papagayo Park. It has several hotels,

Acapulco Diamante, also known as Punta Diamante, is the newest and most developed part of the port, with investment having created one of the greatest concentrations of luxury facilities in Mexico, including exclusive hotels and resorts of international chains, residential complexes, luxury condominiums and private villas, spas, restaurants, shopping areas and a golf course. Starting at the Scenic Highway in Las Brisas, it includes Puerto Marqués and Punta Diamante and extends to Barra Vieja Beach. It is 10 minutes from the Acapulco International Airport. In this area, all along Boulevard de las Naciones, almost all transportation is by car, limousine or golf cart.

Acapulco's reputation of a high-energy party town and the nightlife have long been draws of the city for tourists. From November to April, luxury liners stop here daily and include ships such as the MS Queen Victoria, the MS Rotterdam, Crystal Harmony, and all the Princess line ships. Despite Acapulco's international fame, most of its visitors are from central Mexico, especially the affluent from Mexico City. Acapulco is one of the embarkation ports for the Mexican cruise line Ocean Star Cruises.

For the Christmas season of 2009, Acapulco received 470,000 visitors, most of whom are Mexican nationals, adding 785 million pesos to the economy. Eighty percent arrive by land and eighteen percent by air. The area has over 25,000 condominiums, most of which function as second homes for their Mexican owners. Acapulco is still popular with Mexican celebrities and the wealthy, such as Luis Miguel and Plácido Domingo, who maintain homes there.

Problems
From the latter 20th century on, the city has also taken on other less-positive reputations. Some consider it a passé resort, eclipsed by the newer Cancún and Cabo San Lucas. Over the years, a number of problems have developed here, especially in the bay and the older sections of the city. The large number of wandering vendors on the beaches, who offer everything from newspapers to massages, are a recognized problem. It is a bother to tourists who simply want to relax on the beach, but the government says it is difficult to eradicate, as there is a lot of unemployment and poverty in the city. Around the city are many small shantytowns that cling to the mountainsides, populated by migrants who have come to the city looking for work. In the last decade, drug-related violence has caused massive problems for the local tourism trade.

Another problem is the garbage that has accumulated in the bay. Although 60.65 tons have recently been extracted from the bays of Acapulco and nearby Zihuatanejo, more needs to be done. Most of trash removal during the off seasons is done on the beaches and in the waters closest to them. However, the center of the bay is not touched. The reason trash winds up in the bay is that it is common in the city to throw it in streets, rivers and the bay itself. The most common items cleaned out of the bay are beer bottles and car tires. Acapulco has seen some success in this area, having several beaches receiving the high "blue flag" certifications for cleanliness and water quality.

Cuisine
Acapulco's cuisine is very rich. The following are typical dishes from the region: Relleno is baked pork with a variety of vegetables and fruits such as potatoes, raisins, carrots and chiles. It is eaten with bread called bolillo. Pozole is a soup with a salsa base (it can be white, red or green), hominy, meat that can be either pork or chicken and it is accompanied with antojitos (snacks) like tostadas, tacos and tamales. This dish is served as part of a weekly Thursday event in the city and the state, with many restaurants offering the meal with special entertainment, from bands to dancers to celebrity impersonators.

Attractions
Acapulco's main attraction is its nightlife, as it has been for many decades. Nightclubs change names and owners frequently. For example, Baby 'O has been open to the national and international public since 1976 and different celebrities have visited their installations such as Mexican singer Luis Miguel, Bono from U2 and Sylvester Stallone. Another nightclub is Palladium, located in the Escénica Avenue, the location gives the nightclub a view of the Santa Lucia Bay at night. Various DJs have had performances in Palladium among them DVBBS, Tom Swoon, Nervo and Junkie KID.

Informal lobby or poolside cocktail bars often offer free live entertainment. In addition, there is the beach bar zone, where younger crowds go. These are located along the Costera road, face the ocean and feature techno or alternative rock. Most are concentrated between the Fiesta Americana and Continental Plaza hotels. These places tend to open earlier and have more informal dress. There is a bungee jump in this area as well.

Another attraction at Acapulco is the La Quebrada Cliff Divers. The tradition started in the 1930s when young men casually competed against each other to see who could dive from the highest point into the sea below. Eventually, locals began to ask for tips for those coming to see the men dive. Today the divers are professionals, diving from heights of 40 m into an inlet that is only 7 m wide and 4 m deep, after praying first at a shrine to the Virgin of Guadalupe. On the evening before December 12, the feast day of this Virgin, freestyle cliff divers jump into the sea to honor her. Dives range from the simple to the complicated and end with the "Ocean of Fire" when the sea is lit with gasoline, making a circle of flames which the diver aims for. The spectacle can be seen from a public area which charges a small fee or from the Hotel Plaza Las Glorias/El Mirador from its bar or restaurant terrace.

There are a number of beaches in the Acapulco Bay and the immediate coastline. In the bay proper there are the La Angosta (in the Quebrada), Caleta, Caletilla, Dominguillo, Tlacopanocha, Hornos, Hornitos, Honda, Tamarindo, Condesa, Guitarrón, Icacos, Playuela, Playuelilla and Playa del Secreto. In the adjoining, smaller Bay of Puerto Marqués there is Pichilingue, Las Brisas, and Playa Roqueta. Facing open ocean just northwest of the bays is Pie de la Cuesta and southeast are Playa Revolcadero, Playa Aeromar, Playa Encantada and Barra Vieja. Two lagoons are in the area, Coyuca to the northwest of Acapulco Bay and Tres Palos to the southeast. Both lagoons have mangroves and offer boat tours. Tres Palos also has sea turtle nesting areas which are protected.

In addition to sunbathing, the beaches around the bay offer a number of services, such as boat rentals, boat tours, horseback riding, scuba diving and other aquatic sports. One popular cruise is from Caletilla Beach to Roqueta Island, which has places to snorkel, have lunch, and a lighthouse. There is also an underwater statue of the Virgin of Guadalupe here, created in 1958 by Armando Quesado in memory of a group of divers who died here. Many of the scuba-diving tours come to this area as well, where there are sunken ships, sea mountains, and cave rock formations. Another popular activity is deep-sea fishing. The major attraction is sail fishing. Fish caught here have weighed between 89 and 200 pounds. Sailfish are so plentiful that boat captains have been known to bet with a potential customer that if he does not catch anything, the trip is free.

In the old part of the city, there is a traditional main square called the Zócalo, lined with shade trees, cafés and shops. At the north end of the square is Nuestra Señora de la Soledad cathedral, with blue onion-shaped domes and Byzantine towers. The building was originally constructed as a movie set, but was later adapted into a church. Acapulco's most historic building is the Fort of San Diego, located east of the main square and originally built in 1616 to protect the city from pirate attacks. The fort was partially destroyed by the Dutch in the mid-17th century, rebuilt, then destroyed again in 1776 by an earthquake. It was rebuilt again by 1783 and this is the building that can be seen today, unchanged except for renovations done to it in 2000. Parts of the moats remain as well as the five bulwarks and the battlements. Today the fort serves as the Museo Histórico de Acapulco (Acapulco Historical Museum), which shows the port's history from the pre-Hispanic period until independence. There are temporary exhibits as well. For many years tourists could ride around the city in colorful horse-drawn carriages known as calandrias, but the practice ended in February 2020 due to concerns about mistreatment of the animals.

The El Rollo Acapulco is a sea-life and aquatic park located on Costera Miguel Aleman. It offers wave pools, water slides and water toboggans. There are also dolphin shows daily and a swim with dolphins program. The center mostly caters to children. Another place that is popular with children is the Parque Papagayo: a large family park which has a life-sized replica of a Spanish galleon, three artificial lakes, an aviary, a skating rink, rides, go-karts and more.

The Dolores Olmedo House is located in the traditional downtown of Acapulco and is noted for the murals by Diego Rivera that adorn it. Olmedo and Rivera had been friend since Olmedo was a child and Rivera spent the last two years of his life here. During that time, he painted nearly nonstop and created the outside walls with tile mosaics, featuring Aztec deities such as Quetzalcoatl. The interior of the home is covered in murals. The home is not a museum, so only the outside murals can be seen by the public.

There is a small museum called Casa de la Máscara (House of Masks) which is dedicated to masks, most of them from Mexico, but there are examples from many parts of the world. The collection contains about one thousand examples and is divided into seven rooms called Masks of the World, Mexico across History, The Huichols and the Jaguar, Alebrijes, Dances of Guerrero, Devils and Death, Identity and Fantasy, and Afro-Indian masks. The Botanical Garden of Acapulco is a tropical garden located on lands owned by the Universidad Loyola del Pacífico. Most of the plants here are native to the region, and many, such as the Peltogyne mexicana or purple stick tree, are in danger of extinction.

One cultural event that is held yearly in Acapulco is the Festival Internacional de la Nao, which takes place in the Fort of San Diego, located near the Zócalo in downtown of the city. The Festival honors the remembrance of the city's interaction and trades with Oriental territories which started back in the Sixteenth Century. The Nao Festival consists of cultural activities with the support of organizations and embassies from India, China, Japan, Philippines, Thailand, Indonesia and South Korea. The variety of events go from film projections, musical interpretations and theatre to gastronomical classes, some of the events are specifically for kids.

The annual French Festival takes place throughout Acapulco city and offers a multitude of events that cement cultural links between Mexico and France. The main features are a fashion show and a gourmet food fair. The Cinépolis Galerías Diana and the Teatro Juan Ruíz de Alarcón present French and French literary figures who give talks on their specialised subjects. Even some of the local nightclubs feature French DJs. Other festivals celebrated here include Carnival, the feast of San Isidro Labrador on 15 May, and in November, a crafts and livestock fair called the Nao de China.

There are a number of golf courses in Acapulco including the Acapulco Princess and the Pierre Marqués course, the latter designed by Robert Trent Jones in 1972 for the World Cup Golf Tournament. The Mayan Palace course was designed by Pedro Guericia and an economical course called the Club de Golf Acapulco is near the convention center. The most exclusive course is that of the Tres Vidas Golf Club, designed by Robert von Hagge. It is located next to the ocean and is home to flocks of ducks and other birds.

Another famous sport tournament that has been held in Acapulco since 1993 is the Abierto Mexicano Telcel tennis tournament, an ATP 500 event that takes place in the tennis courts of the Princess Mundo Imperial, a resort located in the Diamante zone of Acapulco. Initially it was played in clay courts but it changed to hard court. The event has gained popularity within the passing of the years, attracting some of the top tennis players in the world including Novak Djokovic, Rafael Nadal and Marin Cilic. The total prize money is US$250,000.00 for WTA (women) and US$1,200,000.00 for ATP (men).

Acapulco also has a bullring, called the Plaza de Toros, near Caletilla Beach. The season runs during the winter and is called the Fiesta Brava.

Spring break
Before 2010, over 100,000 American teenagers and young adults traveled to resort areas and balnearios throughout Mexico during spring break each year. The main reason students head to Mexico is the drinking age of 18 years (versus 21 for the United States), something that has been marketed by tour operators along with the sun and ocean. This has become attractive since the 1990s, especially since more traditional spring break places such as Daytona Beach, Florida, have enacted restrictions on drinking and other behaviors. This legislation has pushed spring break tourism to various parts of Mexico, with Acapulco as one of the top destinations.

In the late 1990s and early 2000s, Cancún had been favored as the spring break destination of choice. However, Cancún has taken some steps to control the reckless behavior associated with the event, and students have been looking for someplace new. This led many more to choose Acapulco, in spite of the fact that for many travelers, the flight is longer and more expensive than to Cancún. Many were attracted by the glitzy hotels on the south side and Acapulco's famous nightlife. In 2008, 22,500 students came to Acapulco for spring break. Hotels did not get that many in 2009, due mostly to the economic situation in the United States, and partially because of scares of drug-related violence.

In February 2009, the US State Department issued a travel alert directed at college students planning spring break trips to Acapulco. The warning—a result of violent activity springing from Mexico's drug cartel débâcle—took college campuses by storm, with some schools going so far as to warn their students about the risks of travel to Mexico over spring break. Bill O'Reilly devoted a segment of his show, The O'Reilly Factor, to urge students to stay away from Acapulco. In June 2009, a number of incidents occurred between the drug cartel and the government. These included coordinated attacks on police headquarters and open battles in the streets, involving large-caliber weapons and grenades. However, no incidents of violence against travelers on spring break were reported.

Transportation
Nine passenger airlines, including four international ones, fly to Acapulco International Airport. In the city, there are many buses and taxi services one can take to get from place to place, but most of the locals choose to walk to their destinations. However, an important mode of transportation is the government-subsidized 'Colectivo' cab system. These cabs cost 13 pesos per person to ride, but they are not private. The driver will pick up more passengers as long as seats are available, and will transport them to their destination based on first-come, first-served rules. The colectivos each travel a designated area of the city, the three main ones being Costera, Colosio, Coloso, or a mixture of the three. Coloso cabs travel mainly to old Acapulco. Colosio cabs travel through most of the tourist area of Acapulco. Costera cabs drive up and down the coast of Acapulco, where most of the hotels for visitors are located, but which includes some of old Acapulco. Drivers have discretion over destinations; some are willing to travel to the other designated areas, especially during slow periods of the day.

The bus system is highly complex and can be rather confusing to an outsider. As far as transportation goes, it is the cheapest form, other than walking, in Acapulco. The most expensive buses have air conditioning, while the cheaper buses do not. For tourists, the Acapulco city government has established a system of yellow buses with Acapulco painted on the side of them. These buses are not for tourists only, but are certainly the nicest and most uniform of the bus systems. These buses travel the tourist section of Acapulco, driving up and down the coast. There are buses with specific routes and destinations, generally written on their windshields or shouted out by a barker riding in the front seat. Perhaps the most unusual thing about the privately operated buses is the fact that they are all highly decorated and personalized, with decals and home-made interior designs that range from comic book scenes, to pornography, and even to "Hello Kitty" themes.

The bus network was simplified on 25 June 2016 with the implementation of the Acabús. The bus rapid transit system spans 36.2 km, with 16 stations spread throughout the city of Acapulco along five routes. Boarding is sped by pre- payment at stations.

International

 * 🇵🇭 Manila, 1969
 * 🇮🇱 Netanya, 1980
 * 🇯🇵 Sendai, 1983
 * 🇨🇳 Qingdao, 1985
 * 🇨🇦 Quebec City, 1986
 * 🇮🇹 Naples, 1986
 * 🇺🇸 Beverly Hills, 1988
 * 🇯🇵 Onjuku, 1988
 * 🇫🇷 Cannes, 1994
 * 🇺🇸 McAllen, 1997
 * 🇨🇴 Santa Marta, 2005
 * 🇪🇨 Manta, 2005
 * 🇪🇸 Ordizia, 2008
 * 🇺🇦 Yalta, 2012
 * 🇩🇴 Sosúa, 2012
 * 🇧🇸 Nassau, 2012
 * 🇵🇪 Callao, 2014
 * 🇨🇴 Cartagena, 2017
 * 🇮🇱 Eilat, 2017

Domestic

 * 🇲🇽 Teocaltiche, 2005
 * 🇲🇽 Dolores Hidalgo, 2009
 * 🇲🇽 Guanajuato City, 2010
 * 🇲🇽 Boca del Río, 2012
 * 🇲🇽 Morelia, 2013

UNESCO World Heritage Site nominations

In 2014, the idea to nominate the Manila-Acapulco Galleon Trade Route was initiated by the Mexican ambassador to UNESCO with the Filipino ambassador to UNESCO.

An Experts' Roundtable Meeting was held at the University of Santo Tomas (UST) on April 23, 2015, as part of the preparation of the Philippines for the possible transnational nomination of the Manila-Acapulco Galleon Trade Route to the World Heritage List. The nomination will be made jointly with Mexico.

The following are the experts and the topics they discussed during the roundtable meeting: Dr. Celestina Boncan on the Tornaviaje; Dr. Mary Jane A. Bolunia on Shipyards in the Bicol Region; Mr. Sheldon Clyde Jago-on, Bobby Orillaneda, and Ligaya Lacsina on Underwater Archaeology; Dr. Leovino Garcia on Maps and Cartography; Fr. Rene Javellana, S.J. on Fortifications in the Philippines; Felice Sta. Maria on Food; Dr. Fernando Zialcita on Textile; and Regalado Trota Jose on Historical Dimension. The papers presented and discussed during the roundtable meeting will be synthesized into a working document to establish the route's Outstanding Universal Value.

The Mexican side reiterated that they will also follow suit with the preparations for the route's nomination.

Spain has also backed the nomination of the Manila-Acapulco Trade Route in the UNESCO World Heritage Site list and has also suggested the Archives of the Manila-Acapulco Galleons to be nominated as part of a separate UNESCO list, the UNESCO Memory of the World Register.

title: Acapulco


text:
August 16

Pre-1600

 * 1 BC – Wang Mang consolidates his power in China and is declared marshal of state. Emperor Ai of Han, who died the previous day, had no heirs.
 * 942 – Start of the four-day Battle of al-Mada'in, between the Hamdanids of Mosul and the Baridis of Basra over control of the Abbasid capital, Baghdad.
 * 963 – Nikephoros II Phokas is crowned emperor of the Byzantine Empire.
 * 1328 – The House of Gonzaga seizes power in the Duchy of Mantua, and will rule until 1708.
 * 1513 – Battle of the Spurs (Battle of Guinegate): King Henry VIII of England and his Imperial allies defeat French Forces who are then forced to retreat.
 * 1570 – The Principality of Transylvania is established after John II Zápolya renounces his claim as King of Hungary in the Treaty of Speyer.

1601–1900

 * 1652 – Battle of Plymouth: Inconclusive naval action between the fleets of Michiel de Ruyter and George Ayscue in the First Anglo-Dutch War.
 * 1777 – American Revolutionary War: The Americans led by General John Stark rout British and Brunswick troops under Friedrich Baum at the Battle of Bennington in Walloomsac, New York.
 * 1780 – American Revolutionary War: Battle of Camden: The British defeat the Americans near Camden, South Carolina.
 * 1792 – Maximilien de Robespierre presents the petition of the Commune of Paris to the Legislative Assembly, which demanded the formation of a revolutionary tribunal.
 * 1793 – French Revolution: A levée en masse is decreed by the National Convention.
 * 1812 – War of 1812: American General William Hull surrenders Fort Detroit without a fight to the British Army.
 * 1819 – Peterloo Massacre: Seventeen people die and over 600 are injured in cavalry charges at a public meeting at St. Peter's Field, Manchester, England.
 * 1841 – U.S. President John Tyler vetoes a bill which called for the re-establishment of the Second Bank of the United States. Enraged Whig Party members riot outside the White House in the most violent demonstration on White House grounds in U.S. history.
 * 1844 – Governor-general of the Philippines Narciso Claveria, signed a decree to reform the country's calendar to get in sync within the rest of Asia by skipping Tuesday, December 31. As a solution to the time zone discrepancy of the Philippines with China, Dutch East Indies and neighboring territories to ease the trade system, since Mexico became independent from Spain 23 years earlier on September 27, 1821. Claveria ordered that Monday, December 30, 1844, should be followed immediately by Wednesday, January 1, 1845.
 * 1858 – U.S. President James Buchanan inaugurates the new transatlantic telegraph cable by exchanging greetings with Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom. However, a weak signal forces a shutdown of the service in a few weeks.
 * 1859 – The Grand Duchy of Tuscany formally deposes the exiled House of Lorraine.
 * 1863 – The Dominican Restoration War begins when Gregorio Luperón raises the Dominican flag in Santo Domingo after Spain had recolonized the country.
 * 1869 – Battle of Acosta Ñu: A Paraguayan battalion largely made up of children is massacred by the Brazilian Army during the Paraguayan War.
 * 1870 – Franco-Prussian War: The Battle of Mars-la-Tour is fought, resulting in a Prussian victory.
 * 1876 – Richard Wagner's Siegfried, the penultimate opera in his Ring cycle, premieres at the Bayreuth Festspielhaus.
 * 1891 – The Basilica of San Sebastian, Manila, the first all-steel church in Asia, is officially inaugurated and blessed.
 * 1896 – Skookum Jim Mason, George Carmack and Dawson Charlie discover gold in a tributary of the Klondike River in Canada, setting off the Klondike Gold Rush.
 * 1900 – The Battle of Elands River during the Second Boer War ends after a 13-day siege is lifted by the British. The battle had begun when a force of between 2,000 and 3,000 Boers had surrounded a force of 500 Australians, Rhodesians, Canadians and British soldiers at a supply dump at Brakfontein Drift.

1901–present

 * 1906 – The 8.2 Valparaíso earthquake hits central Chile, killing 3,882 people.
 * 1913 – Tōhoku Imperial University of Japan (modern day Tohoku University) becomes the first university in Japan to admit female students.
 * 1913  – Completion of the Royal Navy battlecruiser HMS Queen Mary.
 * 1916 – The Migratory Bird Treaty between Canada and the United States is signed.
 * 1918 – The Battle of Lake Baikal was fought between the Czechoslovak Legion and the Red Army.
 * 1920 – Ray Chapman of the Cleveland Indians is hit on the head by a fastball thrown by Carl Mays of the New York Yankees. Next day, Chapman will become the second player to die from injuries sustained in a Major League Baseball game.
 * 1920  – The congress of the Communist Party of Bukhara opens. The congress would call for armed revolution.
 * 1920  – Polish–Soviet War: The Battle of Radzymin concludes; the Soviet Red Army is forced to turn away from Warsaw.
 * 1923 – The United Kingdom gives the name "Ross Dependency" to part of its claimed Antarctic territory and makes the Governor-General of the Dominion of New Zealand its administrator.
 * 1927 – The Dole Air Race begins from Oakland, California, to Honolulu, Hawaii, during which six out of the eight participating planes crash or disappear.
 * 1929 – The 1929 Palestine riots break out in Mandatory Palestine between Palestinian Arabs and Jews and continue until the end of the month. In total, 133 Jews and 116 Arabs are killed.
 * 1930 – The first color sound cartoon, Fiddlesticks, is released by Ub Iwerks.
 * 1930  – The first British Empire Games are opened in Hamilton, Ontario, by the Governor General of Canada, the Viscount Willingdon.
 * 1933 – Christie Pits riot takes place in Toronto, Ontario.
 * 1942 – World War II: US Navy L-class blimp L-8 drifts in from the Pacific and eventually crashes in Daly City, California. The two-man crew cannot be found.
 * 1944 – First flight of a jet with forward-swept wings, the Junkers Ju 287.
 * 1945 – The National Representatives' Congress, the precursor of the current National Assembly of Vietnam, convenes in Sơn Dương.
 * 1946 – Mass riots in Kolkata begin; more than 4,000 people would be killed in 72 hours.
 * 1946  – The All Hyderabad Trade Union Congress is founded in Secunderabad.
 * 1954 – The first issue of Sports Illustrated is published.
 * 1960 – Cyprus gains its independence from the United Kingdom.
 * 1960  – Joseph Kittinger parachutes from a balloon over New Mexico, United States, at 102800 ft, setting three records that held until 2012: High-altitude jump, free fall, and highest speed by a human without an aircraft.
 * 1964 – Vietnam War: A coup d'état replaces Dương Văn Minh with General Nguyễn Khánh as President of South Vietnam. A new constitution is established with aid from the U.S. Embassy.
 * 1966 – Vietnam War: The House Un-American Activities Committee begins investigations of Americans who have aided the Viet Cong. The committee intends to introduce legislation making these activities illegal. Anti-war demonstrators disrupt the meeting and 50 people are arrested.
 * 1972 – In an unsuccessful coup d'état attempt, the Royal Moroccan Air Force fires upon Hassan II of Morocco's plane while he is traveling back to Rabat.
 * 1975 – Australian Prime Minister Gough Whitlam symbolically hands over land to the Gurindji people after the eight-year Wave Hill walk-off, a landmark event in the history of Indigenous land rights in Australia, commemorated in a 1991 song by Paul Kelly and an annual celebration.
 * 1987 – Northwest Airlines Flight 255, a McDonnell Douglas MD-82, crashes after takeoff in Detroit, Michigan, killing 154 of the 155 on board, plus two people on the ground.
 * 1989 – A solar particle event affects computers at the Toronto Stock Exchange, forcing a halt to trading.
 * 1991 – Indian Airlines Flight 257, a Boeing 737-200, crashes during approach to Imphal Airport, killing all 69 people on board.
 * 2005 – West Caribbean Airways Flight 708, a McDonnell Douglas MD-82, crashes in Machiques, Venezuela, killing all 160 people on board.
 * 2008 – The Trump International Hotel and Tower in Chicago is topped off at 1389 ft, at the time becoming the world's highest residence above ground-level.
 * 2010 – AIRES Flight 8250 crashes at Gustavo Rojas Pinilla International Airport in San Andrés, San Andrés y Providencia, Colombia, killing two people.
 * 2012 – South African police fatally shoot 34 miners and wound 78 more during an industrial dispute at Marikana near Rustenburg.
 * 2013 – The ferry St. Thomas Aquinas collides with a cargo ship and sinks at Cebu, Philippines, killing 61 people with 59 others missing.
 * 2015 – More than 96 people are killed and hundreds injured following a series of air-raids by the Syrian Arab Air Force on the rebel-held market town of Douma.
 * 2015  – Trigana Air Flight 267, an ATR 42, crashes in Oksibl, Bintang Mountains Regency, killing all 54 people on board.
 * 2020 – The August Complex fire in California burns more than one million acres of land.

Pre-1600

 * 1355 – Philippa, 5th Countess of Ulster (d. 1382)
 * 1378 – Hongxi Emperor of China (d. 1425)
 * 1401 – Jacqueline, Countess of Hainaut (d. 1436)
 * 1557 – Agostino Carracci, Italian painter and etcher (d. 1602)
 * 1565 – Christina, Grand Duchess of Tuscany (d. 1637)
 * 1573 – Anne of Austria, Queen of Poland (d. 1598)

1601–1900

 * 1637 – Countess Emilie Juliane of Barby-Mühlingen (d. 1706)
 * 1645 – Jean de La Bruyère, French philosopher and author (d. 1696)
 * 1650 – Vincenzo Coronelli, Italian monk, cosmographer, and cartographer (d. 1718)
 * 1682 – Louis, Duke of Burgundy (d. 1712)
 * 1744 – Pierre Méchain, French astronomer and surveyor (d. 1804)
 * 1761 – Yevstigney Fomin, Russian pianist and composer (d. 1800)
 * 1815 – John Bosco, Italian priest and educator (d. 1888)
 * 1816 – Octavia Taylor, daughter of Zachary Taylor (d. 1820)
 * 1820 – Andrew Rainsford Wetmore, Canadian lawyer and politician, 1st Premier of New Brunswick (d. 1892)
 * 1821 – Arthur Cayley, English mathematician and academic (d. 1895)
 * 1824 – John Chisum, American cattle baron (d. 1884)
 * 1831 – John Jones Ross, Canadian lawyer and politician, 7th Premier of Quebec (d. 1901)
 * 1832 – Wilhelm Wundt, German physician, psychologist, and physiologist (d. 1920)
 * 1842 – Jakob Rosanes, Ukrainian-German mathematician, chess player, and academic (d. 1922)
 * 1845 – Gabriel Lippmann, Luxembourger-French physicist and academic, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1921)
 * 1848 – Vladimir Sukhomlinov, Russian general (d. 1926)
 * 1855 – James McGowen, Australian politician, 18th Premier of New South Wales (d. 1922)
 * 1856 – Aparicio Saravia, Uruguayan general and politician (d. 1904)
 * 1858 – Arthur Achleitner, German author (d. 1927)
 * 1860 – Martin Hawke, 7th Baron Hawke, English-Scottish cricketer (d. 1938)
 * 1860  – Jules Laforgue, Uruguayan-French poet and author (d. 1887)
 * 1862 – Amos Alonzo Stagg, American baseball player and coach (d. 1965)
 * 1864 – Elsie Inglis, Scottish surgeon and suffragette (d. 1917)
 * 1865 – Mary Gilmore, Australian socialist, poet and journalist (d. 1962)
 * 1868 – Bernarr Macfadden, American bodybuilder and publisher, founded Macfadden Publications (d. 1955)
 * 1876 – Ivan Bilibin, Russian illustrator and stage designer (d. 1942)
 * 1877 – Roque Ruaño, Spanish priest and engineer (d. 1935)
 * 1882 – Désiré Mérchez, French swimmer and water polo player (d. 1968)
 * 1884 – Hugo Gernsback, Luxembourger-American author and publisher (d. 1967)
 * 1888 – T. E. Lawrence, British colonel, diplomat, writer and archaeologist (d. 1935)
 * 1888  – Armand J. Piron, American violinist, composer, and bandleader (d. 1943)
 * 1892 – Hal Foster, Canadian-American author and illustrator (d. 1982)
 * 1892  – Otto Messmer, American cartoonist and animator, co-created Felix the Cat (d. 1983)
 * 1894 – George Meany, American plumber and labor leader (d. 1980)
 * 1895 – Albert Cohen, Greek-Swiss author and playwright (d. 1981)
 * 1895  – Liane Haid, Austrian-Swiss actress and singer (d. 2000)
 * 1895  – Arthur Rose Eldred, First Eagle Scout in the Boy Scouts of America (d. 1951)
 * 1900 – Ida Browne, Australian geologist and palaeontologist (d. 1976)

1901–present

 * 1902 – Georgette Heyer, English author (d. 1974)
 * 1902  – Wallace Thurman, American author and playwright (d. 1934)
 * 1904 – Minoru Genda, Japanese general, pilot, and politician (d. 1989)
 * 1904  – Wendell Meredith Stanley, American biochemist and virologist, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1971)
 * 1908 – Orlando Cole, American cellist and educator (d. 2010)
 * 1908  – William Keepers Maxwell, Jr., American editor, novelist, short story writer, and essayist (d. 2000)
 * 1909 – Paul Callaway, American organist and conductor (d. 1995)
 * 1910 – Gloria Blondell, American actress (d. 1986)
 * 1910  – Mae Clarke, American actress (d. 1992)
 * 1911 – E. F. Schumacher, German economist and statistician (d. 1977)
 * 1912 – Ted Drake, English footballer and manager (d. 1995)
 * 1913 – Menachem Begin, Belarusian-Israeli politician, Prime Minister of Israel, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1992)
 * 1915 – Al Hibbler, American baritone singer (d. 2001)
 * 1916 – Iggy Katona, American race car driver (d. 2003)
 * 1917 – Matt Christopher, American author (d. 1997)
 * 1917  – Roque Cordero, Panamanian composer and educator (d. 2008)
 * 1919 – Karl-Heinz Euling, German captain (d. 2014)
 * 1920 – Charles Bukowski, German-American poet, novelist, and short story writer (d. 1994)
 * 1922 – James Casey, English comedian, radio scriptwriter and producer (d. 2011)
 * 1922  – Ernie Freeman, American pianist and bandleader (d. 2001)
 * 1923 – Millôr Fernandes, Brazilian journalist and playwright (d. 2012)
 * 1924 – Fess Parker, American actor (d. 2010)
 * 1924  – Inez Voyce, American baseball player (d. 2022)
 * 1925 – Willie Jones, American baseball player (d. 1983)
 * 1925  – Mal Waldron, American pianist and composer (d. 2002)
 * 1927 – Lois Nettleton, American actress (d. 2008)
 * 1928 – Ann Blyth, American actress and singer
 * 1928  – Eydie Gormé, American singer (d. 2013)
 * 1928  – Ara Güler, Turkish photographer and journalist (d. 2018)
 * 1928  – Eddie Kirkland, American singer-songwriter and guitarist (d. 2011)
 * 1928  – Wyatt Tee Walker, American pastor, theologian, and activist (d. 2018)
 * 1929 – Bill Evans, American pianist and composer (d. 1980)
 * 1929  – Helmut Rahn, German footballer (d. 2003)
 * 1929  – Fritz Von Erich, American wrestler and trainer (d. 1997)
 * 1930 – Robert Culp, American actor, director, and screenwriter (d. 2010)
 * 1930  – Frank Gifford, American football player, sportscaster, and actor (d. 2015)
 * 1930  – Leslie Manigat, Haitian educator and politician, 43rd President of Haiti (d. 2014)
 * 1930  – Flor Silvestre, Mexican singer and actress (d. 2020)
 * 1933 – Reiner Kunze, German poet and translator
 * 1933  – Tom Maschler, English author and publisher (d. 2020)
 * 1933  – Julie Newmar, American actress
 * 1933  – Stuart Roosa, American colonel, pilot, and astronaut (d. 1994)
 * 1934 – Angela Buxton, British tennis player (d. 2020)
 * 1934  – Diana Wynne Jones, English author (d. 2011)
 * 1934  – Douglas Kirkland, Canadian-American photographer (d. 2022)
 * 1934  – Ketty Lester, American singer and actress
 * 1934  – Pierre Richard, French actor, director, and screenwriter
 * 1934  – John Standing, English actor
 * 1934  – Sam Trimble, Australian cricketer (d. 2019)
 * 1935 – Cliff Fletcher, Canadian businessman
 * 1935  – Andreas Stamatiadis, Greek footballer and coach
 * 1936 – Anita Gillette, American actress and singer
 * 1936  – Alan Hodgkinson, English footballer and coach (d. 2015)
 * 1937 – David Anderson, Canadian journalist, lawyer, and politician
 * 1937  – David Behrman, American composer and producer
 * 1937  – Ian Deans, Canadian politician (d. 2016)
 * 1937  – Boris Rõtov, Estonian chess player (d. 1987)
 * 1939 – Seán Brady, Irish cardinal
 * 1939  – Trevor McDonald, Trinidadian-English journalist and academic
 * 1939  – Billy Joe Shaver, American singer-songwriter and guitarist (d. 2020)
 * 1939  – Eric Weissberg, American singer, banjo player, and multi-instrumentalist (d. 2020)
 * 1940 – Bruce Beresford, Australian director and producer
 * 1942 – Lesley Turner Bowrey, Australian tennis player
 * 1942  – Barbara George, American R&B singer-songwriter (d. 2006)
 * 1942  – Robert Squirrel Lester, American soul singer (d. 2010)
 * 1943 – Woody Peoples, American football player (d. 2010)
 * 1944 – Kevin Ayers, English singer-songwriter and guitarist (d. 2013)
 * 1945 – Bob Balaban, American actor, director, and producer
 * 1945  – Russell Brookes, English race car driver (d. 2019)
 * 1945  – Suzanne Farrell, American ballerina and educator
 * 1945  – Gary Loizzo, American guitarist, singer, recording engineer, and record producer (d. 2016)
 * 1945  – Nigel Terry, British stage and film actor (d. 2015)
 * 1946 – Masoud Barzani, Iranian-Kurdish politician, President of Iraqi Kurdistan
 * 1946  – Lesley Ann Warren, American actress
 * 1947 – Carol Moseley Braun, American lawyer and politician, United States Ambassador to New Zealand
 * 1947  – Katharine Hamnett, English fashion designer
 * 1948 – Earl Blumenauer, American politician, U.S. Representative from Oregon
 * 1948  – Barry Hay, Indian-born Dutch rock musician
 * 1948  – Mike Jorgensen, American baseball player and manager
 * 1948  – Pierre Reid, Canadian educator and politician (d. 2021)
 * 1948  – Joey Spampinato, American singer-songwriter and bass player
 * 1949 – Scott Asheton, American drummer (d. 2014)
 * 1949  – Paul Pasqualoni, American football player and coach
 * 1949  – Bill Spooner, American guitarist and songwriter
 * 1950 – Hasely Crawford, Trinidadian runner
 * 1950  – Marshall Manesh, Iranian-American actor
 * 1950  – Jeff Thomson, Australian cricketer
 * 1951 – Umaru Musa Yar'Adua, Nigerian businessman and politician, 13th President of Nigeria (d. 2010)
 * 1952 – Reginald VelJohnson, American actor
 * 1953 – Kathie Lee Gifford, American talk show host, singer, and actress
 * 1953  – James "J.T." Taylor, American R&B singer-songwriter
 * 1954 – James Cameron, Canadian director, producer, and screenwriter
 * 1954  – George Galloway, Scottish-English politician and broadcaster
 * 1955 – Jeff Perry, American actor
 * 1955  – James Reilly, Irish surgeon and politician, Minister for Children and Youth Affairs
 * 1956 – Vahan Hovhannisyan, Armenian soldier and politician (d. 2014)
 * 1957 – Laura Innes, American actress and director
 * 1957  – R. R. Patil, Indian lawyer and politician, Deputy Chief Minister of Maharashtra (d. 2015)
 * 1958 – Madonna, American singer-songwriter, producer, actress, and director
 * 1958  – Angela Bassett, American actress
 * 1958  – Anne L'Huillier, French physicist
 * 1958  – José Luis Clerc, Argentinian tennis player and coach
 * 1959 – Marc Sergeant, Belgian cyclist and manager
 * 1960 – Rosita Baltazar, Belizean choreographer, dancer, and dance instructor (d. 2015)
 * 1960  – Timothy Hutton, American actor, producer and director
 * 1960  – Franz Welser-Möst, Austrian-American conductor and director
 * 1961 – Christian Okoye, American football player
 * 1962 – Steve Carell, American actor, director, producer, and screenwriter
 * 1963 – Aloísio Pires Alves, Brazilian footballer and manager
 * 1963  – Christine Cavanaugh, American voice artist (d. 2014)
 * 1964 – Jimmy Arias, American tennis player and sportscaster
 * 1966 – Eddie Olczyk, American ice hockey player, coach, and commentator
 * 1967 – Mark Coyne, Australian rugby league player
 * 1967  – Ulrika Jonsson, Swedish journalist, actress, and author
 * 1968 – Arvind Kejriwal, Indian civil servant and politician, 7th Chief Minister of Delhi
 * 1968  – Andy Milder, American actor
 * 1968  – Mateja Svet, Slovenian skier
 * 1968  – Wolfgang Tillmans, German photographer
 * 1970 – Bonnie Bernstein, American journalist and sportscaster
 * 1970  – Manisha Koirala, Nepalese actress in Indian films
 * 1970  – Seth Peterson, American actor
 * 1971 – Stefan Klos, German footballer
 * 1972 – Stan Lazaridis, Australian footballer
 * 1972  – Emily Strayer, American singer and musician
 * 1974 – Shivnarine Chanderpaul, Guyanese cricketer
 * 1974  – Didier Cuche, Swiss skier
 * 1974  – Krisztina Egerszegi, Hungarian swimmer
 * 1974  – Iván Hurtado, Ecuadorian footballer and politician
 * 1974  – Ryan Longwell, American football player
 * 1975 – Didier Agathe, French footballer
 * 1975  – Jonatan Johansson, Finnish footballer, coach, and manager
 * 1975  – George Stults, American actor
 * 1975  – Taika Waititi, New Zealand director, screenwriter and actor
 * 1979 – Paul Gallacher, Scottish footballer
 * 1979  – Ian Moran, Australian cricketer
 * 1980 – Vanessa Carlton, American singer-songwriter
 * 1980  – Bob Hardy, English bass player
 * 1980  – Emerson Ramos Borges, Brazilian footballer
 * 1980  – Piet Rooijakkers, Dutch cyclist
 * 1981 – Roque Santa Cruz, Paraguayan footballer
 * 1982 – Cam Gigandet, American actor
 * 1982  – Joleon Lescott, English footballer
 * 1983 – Nikolaos Zisis, Greek basketball player
 * 1984 – Matteo Anesi, Italian speed skater
 * 1984  – Candice Dupree, American basketball player
 * 1984  – Konstantin Vassiljev, Estonian footballer
 * 1985 – Cristin Milioti, American actress
 * 1986 – Yu Darvish, Japanese baseball player
 * 1986  – Martín Maldonado, Puerto Rican baseball player
 * 1986  – Shawn Pyfrom, American actor
 * 1987 – Carey Price, Canadian ice hockey player
 * 1987  – Eri Kitamura, Japanese voice actress and singer.
 * 1988 – Ismaïl Aissati, Moroccan footballer
 * 1988  – Ryan Kerrigan, American football player
 * 1988  – Rumer Willis, American actress
 * 1989 – Cedric Alexander, American wrestler
 * 1989  – Wang Hao, Chinese race walker
 * 1989  – Moussa Sissoko, French footballer
 * 1990 – Godfrey Oboabona, Nigerian footballer
 * 1991 – José Eduardo de Araújo, Brazilian footballer
 * 1991  – Evanna Lynch, Irish actress
 * 1991  – Jeffery Lamar Williams, American rapper, singer and songwriter
 * 1992 – Diego Schwartzman, Argentinian tennis player
 * 1993 – Cameron Monaghan, American actor and model
 * 1996 – Caeleb Dressel, American swimmer
 * 1997 – Greyson Chance, American musician
 * 1999 – Karen Chen, American figure skater

Pre-1600

 * AD 79 – Empress Ma, Chinese Han dynasty consort (b. 40)
 * 856 – Theutbald I, bishop of Langres
 * 963 – Marianos Argyros, Byzantine general (b. 944)
 * 1027 – George I of Georgia (b. 998)
 * 1153 – Bernard de Tremelay, fourth Grand Master of the Knights Templar
 * 1225 – Hōjō Masako, Japanese regent and onna-bugeisha (b. 1156)
 * 1258 – Theodore II Laskaris, Byzantine-Greek emperor (b. 1222)
 * 1285 – Philip I, Count of Savoy (b. 1207)
 * 1297 – John II of Trebizond (b. 1262)
 * 1327 – Roch, French saint (b. 1295)
 * 1339 – Azzone Visconti, founder of the state of Milan (b. 1302)
 * 1358 – Albert II, Duke of Austria (b. 1298)
 * 1419 – Wenceslaus IV of Bohemia (b. 1361)
 * 1443 – Ashikaga Yoshikatsu, Japanese shōgun (b. 1434)
 * 1492 – Beatrice of Silva, Dominican nun
 * 1518 – Loyset Compère, French composer (b. 1445)
 * 1532 – John, Elector of Saxony (b. 1468)

1601–1900

 * 1661 – Thomas Fuller, English historian and author (b. 1608)
 * 1678 – Andrew Marvell, English poet and author (b. 1621)
 * 1705 – Jacob Bernoulli, Swiss mathematician and theorist (b. 1654)
 * 1733 – Matthew Tindal, English philosopher and author (b. 1657)
 * 1791 – Charles-François de Broglie, marquis de Ruffec, French soldier and diplomat (b. 1719)
 * 1836 – Marc-Antoine Parseval, French mathematician and theorist (b. 1755)
 * 1855 – Henry Colburn, English publisher (b. 1785)
 * 1861 – Ranavalona I, Queen consort of Kingdom of Madagascar and then sovereign (b. 1778)
 * 1878 – Richard Upjohn, English-American architect (b. 1802)
 * 1886 – Sri Ramakrishna Paramahamsa, Indian mystic and philosopher (b. 1836)
 * 1887 – Webster Paulson, English civil engineer (b. 1837)
 * 1888 – John Pemberton, American pharmacist and chemist, invented Coca-Cola (b. 1831)
 * 1893 – Jean-Martin Charcot, French neurologist and academic (b. 1825)
 * 1899 – Robert Bunsen, German chemist and academic (b. 1811)
 * 1900 – José Maria de Eça de Queirós, Portuguese journalist and author (b. 1845)

1901–present

 * 1904 – Prentiss Ingraham, American soldier and author (b. 1843)
 * 1911 – Patrick Francis Moran, Irish-Australian cardinal (b. 1830)
 * 1914 – Carl Theodor Schulz, German-Norwegian gardener (b. 1835)
 * 1916 – George Scott, English footballer (b. 1885)
 * 1920 – Henry Daglish, Australian politician, 6th Premier of Western Australia (b. 1866)
 * 1921 – Peter I of Serbia (b. 1844)
 * 1938 – Andrej Hlinka, Slovak priest, journalist, and politician (b. 1864)
 * 1938  – Robert Johnson, American singer-songwriter and guitarist (b. 1911)
 * 1945 – Takijirō Ōnishi, Japanese admiral (b. 1891)
 * 1948 – Babe Ruth, American baseball player and coach (b. 1895)
 * 1949 – Margaret Mitchell, American journalist and author (b. 1900)
 * 1952 – Lydia Field Emmet, American painter and academic (b. 1866)
 * 1956 – Bela Lugosi, Hungarian-American actor (b. 1882)
 * 1957 – Irving Langmuir, American chemist and physicist, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1881)
 * 1958 – Jacob M. Lomakin, Soviet Consul General in New York City, journalist and economist (b. 1904)
 * 1959 – William Halsey, Jr., American admiral (b. 1882)
 * 1959  – Wanda Landowska, Polish-French harpsichord player (b. 1879)
 * 1961 – Abdul Haq, Pakistani linguist and scholar (b. 1870)
 * 1963 – Joan Eardley, British artist (b. 1921)
 * 1971 – Spyros Skouras, Greek-American businessman (b. 1893)
 * 1972 – Pierre Brasseur, French actor and screenwriter (b. 1905)
 * 1973 – Selman Waksman, Ukrainian-American biochemist and microbiologist, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1888)
 * 1977 – Elvis Presley, American singer, guitarist, and actor (b. 1935)
 * 1978 – Alidius Tjarda van Starkenborgh Stachouwer, Dutch soldier and politician, Governor-General of the Dutch East Indies (b. 1888)
 * 1979 – John Diefenbaker, Canadian lawyer and politician, 13th Prime Minister of Canada (b. 1895)
 * 1983 – Earl Averill, American baseball player (b. 1902)
 * 1984 – Duško Radović, Serbian children's writer, poet, journalist, aphorist and TV editor (b. 1922)
 * 1986 – Ronnie Aird, English cricketer and administrator (b. 1902)
 * 1986  – Jaime Sáenz, Bolivian author and poet (b. 1921)
 * 1989 – Amanda Blake, American actress (b. 1929)
 * 1990 – Pat O'Connor, New Zealand wrestler and trainer (b. 1925)
 * 1991 – Luigi Zampa, Italian director and screenwriter (b. 1905)
 * 1992 – Mark Heard, American singer-songwriter, guitarist, and producer (b. 1951)
 * 1993 – Stewart Granger, English-American actor (b. 1913)
 * 1997 – Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, Pakistani musician and Qawwali singer (b. 1948)
 * 1997  – Sultan Ahmad Nanupuri, Bangladeshi Islamic scholar and teacher (b. 1914)
 * 1998 – Phil Leeds, American actor (b. 1916)
 * 1998  – Dorothy West, American journalist and author (b. 1907)
 * 2002 – Abu Nidal, Palestinian terrorist leader (b. 1937)
 * 2002  – Jeff Corey, American actor (b. 1914)
 * 2002  – John Roseboro, American baseball player and coach (b. 1933)
 * 2003 – Idi Amin, Ugandan field marshal and politician, 3rd President of Uganda (b. 1928)
 * 2004 – Ivan Hlinka, Czech ice hockey player and coach (b. 1950)
 * 2004  – Balanadarajah Iyer, Sri Lankan journalist and poet (b. 1957)
 * 2004  – Carl Mydans, American photographer and journalist (b. 1907)
 * 2004  – Robert Quiroga, American boxer (b. 1969)
 * 2005 – Vassar Clements, American fiddler (b. 1928)
 * 2005  – Tonino Delli Colli, Italian cinematographer (b. 1922)
 * 2005  – William Corlett, English novelist and playwright (b. 1938)
 * 2005  – Frère Roger, Swiss monk and mystic (b. 1915)
 * 2006 – Alfredo Stroessner, Paraguayan general and dictator; 46th President of Paraguay (b. 1912)
 * 2007 – Bahaedin Adab, Iranian engineer and politician (b. 1945)
 * 2008 – Dorival Caymmi, Brazilian singer-songwriter and actor (b. 1914)
 * 2008  – Ronnie Drew, Irish musician, folk singer and actor (b. 1934)
 * 2008  – Masanobu Fukuoka, Japanese farmer and author (b. 1913)
 * 2010 – Dimitrios Ioannidis, Greek general (b. 1923)
 * 2011 – Mihri Belli, Turkish activist and politician (b. 1916)
 * 2012 – Princess Lalla Amina of Morocco (b. 1954)
 * 2012  – Martine Franck, Belgian photographer and director (b. 1938)
 * 2012  – Abune Paulos, Ethiopian patriarch (b. 1935)
 * 2012  – William Windom, American actor (b. 1923)
 * 2013 – David Rees, Welsh mathematician and academic (b. 1918)
 * 2014 – Patrick Aziza, Nigerian general and politician, Governor of Kebbi State (b. 1947)
 * 2014  – Vsevolod Nestayko, Ukrainian author (b. 1930)
 * 2014  – Mario Oriani-Ambrosini, Italian-South African lawyer and politician (b. 1960)
 * 2014  – Peter Scholl-Latour, German journalist, author, and academic (b. 1924)
 * 2015 – Jacob Bekenstein, Mexican-American physicist, astronomer, and academic (b. 1947)
 * 2015  – Anna Kashfi, British actress (b. 1934)
 * 2015  – Shuja Khanzada, Pakistani colonel and politician (b. 1943)
 * 2015  – Mile Mrkšić, Serb general (b. 1947)
 * 2016 – João Havelange, Brazilian water polo player, lawyer, and businessman (b. 1916)
 * 2016  – John McLaughlin, American television personality (b. 1927)
 * 2018 – Aretha Franklin, American singer-songwriter (b. 1942)
 * 2018  – Atal Bihari Vajpayee, Indian prime minister (b. 1924)
 * 2018  – Wakako Yamauchi, American-Japanese writer (b. 1924)
 * 2019 – Peter Fonda, American actor, director, and screenwriter. (b. 1940)
 * 2019  – Richard Williams, Canadian-British animator (b. 1933)
 * 2021 – Sean Lock, English comedian and actor (b. 1963)
 * 2023 – Howard S. Becker, American sociologist (b. 1928)

Holidays and observances

 * Bennington Battle Day (Vermont, United States)
 * Children's Day (Paraguay)
 * Christian feast day:
 * Ana Petra Pérez Florido
 * Armel (Armagillus)
 * Diomedes of Tarsus
 * Roch
 * Stephen I of Hungary
 * Translation of the Acheiropoietos icon from Edessa to Constantinople. (Eastern Orthodox Church)
 * August 16 (Eastern Orthodox liturgics)
 * Gozan no Okuribi (Kyoto, Japan)
 * National Airborne Day (United States)
 * Restoration Day (Dominican Republic)
 * The first day of the Independence Days, celebrates the independence of Gabon from France in 1960.
 * Xicolatada (Palau-de-Cerdagne, France)

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

title: August 16


text:
Alan Kay

Alan Curtis Kay (born May 17, 1940) is an American computer scientist best known for his pioneering work on object-oriented programming and windowing graphical user interface (GUI) design. At Xerox PARC he led the design and development of the first modern windowed computer desktop interface. There he also led the development of the influential object-oriented programming language Smalltalk, both personally designing most of the early versions of the language and coining the term "object-oriented." He has been elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the National Academy of Engineering, and the Royal Society of Arts. He received the Turing award in 2003.

Early life and work
In an interview on education in America with the Davis Group Ltd., Kay said:

"I had the misfortune or the fortune to learn how to read fluently starting about the age of three, so I had read maybe 150 books by the time I hit first grade, and I already knew the teachers were lying to me."

Originally from Springfield, Massachusetts, Kay's family relocated several times due to his father's career in physiology before ultimately settling in the New York metropolitan area.

He attended Brooklyn Technical High School. Having accumulated enough credits to graduate, he then attended Bethany College in Bethany, West Virginia, where he majored in biology and minored in mathematics.

Kay then taught guitar in Denver, Colorado for a year. He was drafted in the United States Army, then qualified for officer training in the United States Air Force, where he became a computer programmer after passing an aptitude test.

After his discharge, he enrolled at the University of Colorado Boulder and earned a Bachelor of Science (B.S.) in mathematics and molecular biology in 1966.

In the autumn of 1966, he began graduate school at the University of Utah College of Engineering. He earned a Master of Science in electrical engineering in 1968, then a Doctor of Philosophy in computer science in 1969. His doctoral dissertation, FLEX: A Flexible Extendable Language, described the invention of a computer language named FLEX. While there, he worked with "fathers of computer graphics" David C. Evans (who had recently been recruited from the University of California, Berkeley to start Utah's computer science department) and Ivan Sutherland (best known for writing such pioneering programs as Sketchpad). Kay credits Sutherland's 1963 thesis for influencing his views on objects and computer programming. As he grew busier with research for the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), he ended his musical career.

In 1968, he met Seymour Papert and learned of the programming language Logo, a dialect of Lisp optimized for educational purposes. This led him to learn of the work of Jean Piaget, Jerome Bruner, Lev Vygotsky, and of constructionist learning, further influencing his professional orientation.

In 1969, Kay became a visiting researcher at the Stanford Artificial Intelligence Laboratory in anticipation of accepting a professorship at Carnegie Mellon University. Instead, in 1970, he joined the Xerox PARC research staff in Palo Alto, California. Through the decade, he developed prototypes of networked workstations using the programming language Smalltalk.

Along with some colleagues at PARC, Kay is one of the fathers of the idea of object-oriented programming (OOP), which he named. Some original object-oriented concepts, including the use of the words 'object' and 'class', had been developed for Simula 67 at the Norwegian Computing Center. Kay said:

"I'm sorry that I long ago coined the term 'objects' for this topic because it gets many people to focus on the lesser idea. The big idea is 'messaging'."

While at PARC, Kay conceived the Dynabook concept, a key progenitor of laptop and tablet computers and the e-book. He is also the architect of the modern overlapping windowing graphical user interface (GUI). Because the Dynabook was conceived as an educational platform, he is considered one of the first researchers into mobile learning; many features of the Dynabook concept have been adopted in the design of the One Laptop Per Child educational platform, with which Kay is actively involved.

Subsequent work
From 1981 to 1984, Kay was Chief Scientist at Atari. In 1984, he became an Apple Fellow. After the closure of the Apple Advanced Technology Group in 1997, he was recruited by his friend Bran Ferren, head of research and development at Disney, to join Walt Disney Imagineering as a Disney Fellow. He remained there until Ferren left to start Applied Minds Inc with Imagineer Danny Hillis, leading to the cessation of the Fellows program.

In 2001, Kay founded Viewpoints Research Institute, a nonprofit organization dedicated to children, learning, and advanced software development. For their first ten years, Kay and his Viewpoints group were based at Applied Minds in Glendale, California, where he and Ferren worked on various projects. Kay served as president of the Institute until its closure in 2018.

In 2002 Kay joined HP Labs as a senior fellow, departing when HP disbanded the Advanced Software Research Team on July 20, 2005. He has been an adjunct professor of computer science at the University of California, Los Angeles, a visiting professor at Kyoto University, and an adjunct professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). Kay served on the advisory board of TTI/Vanguard.

Squeak, Etoys, and Croquet
In December 1995, while still at Apple, Kay collaborated with many others to start the open source Squeak version of Smalltalk. As part of this effort, in November 1996, his team began research on what became the Etoys system. More recently he started, with David A. Smith, David P. Reed, Andreas Raab, Rick McGeer, Julian Lombardi, and Mark McCahill, the Croquet Project, an open-source networked 2D and 3D environment for collaborative work.

Tweak
In 2001, it became clear that the Etoy architecture in Squeak had reached its limits in what the Morphic interface infrastructure could do. Andreas Raab, a researcher in Kay's group then at Hewlett-Packard, proposed defining a "script process" and providing a default scheduling mechanism that avoided several more general problems. The result was a new user interface, proposed to replace the Squeak Morphic user interface. Tweak added mechanisms of islands, asynchronous messaging, players and costumes, language extensions, projects, and tile scripting. Its underlying object system is class-based, but to users (during programming) it acts as if it were prototype-based. Tweak objects are created and run in Tweak project windows.

The Children's Machine
In November 2005, at the World Summit on the Information Society, the MIT research laboratories unveiled a new laptop computer for educational use around the world. It has many names, including the $100 Laptop, the One Laptop per Child program, the Children's Machine, and the XO-1. The program was founded and is sustained by Kay's friend Nicholas Negroponte, and is based on Kay's Dynabook ideal. Kay is a prominent co-developer of the computer, focusing on its educational software using Squeak and Etoys.

Reinventing programming
Kay has lectured extensively on the idea that the computer revolution is very new, and all of the good ideas have not been universally implemented. His lectures at the OOPSLA 1997 conference, and his ACM Turing Award talk, "The Computer Revolution Hasn't Happened Yet", were informed by his experiences with Sketchpad, Simula, Smalltalk, and the bloated code of commercial software.

On August 31, 2006, Kay's proposal to the United States National Science Foundation (NSF) was granted, funding Viewpoints Research Institute for several years. The proposal title was "STEPS Toward the Reinvention of Programming: A compact and Practical Model of Personal Computing as a Self-exploratorium". STEPS is a recursive acronym that stands for "STEPS Toward Expressive Programming Systems". A sense of what Kay is trying to do comes from this quote, from the abstract of a seminar at Intel Research Labs, Berkeley: "The conglomeration of commercial and most open source software consumes in the neighborhood of several hundreds of millions of lines of code these days. We wonder: how small could be an understandable practical 'Model T' design that covers this functionality? 1M lines of code? 200K LOC? 100K LOC? 20K LOC?"

Personal life
Kay is a former professional jazz guitarist, composer, and theatrical designer. He also is an amateur classical pipe organist.

Awards and honors
Kay has received many awards and honors, including:
 * UdK 01-Award in Berlin, Germany for pioneering the GUI; J-D Warnier Prix D'Informatique; NEC C&C Prize (2001)
 * Telluride Tech Festival Award of Technology in Telluride, Colorado (2002)
 * ACM Turing Award "For pioneering many of the ideas at the root of contemporary object-oriented programming languages, leading the team that developed Smalltalk, and for fundamental contributions to personal computing" (2003)
 * Kyoto Prize; Charles Stark Draper Prize with Butler W. Lampson, Robert W. Taylor and Charles P. Thacker (2004)
 * UPE Abacus Award, for individuals who have provided extensive support and leadership for student-related activities in the computing and information disciplines (2012)
 * Honorary doctorates:
 * – Kungliga Tekniska Högskolan (Royal Institute of Technology) in Stockholm (2002)
 * – Georgia Institute of Technology (2005)
 * – Columbia College Chicago awarded Doctor of Humane Letters, Honoris Causa (2005)
 * – Laurea Honoris Causa in Informatica, Università di Pisa, Italy (2007)
 * – University of Waterloo (2008)
 * – Kyoto University (2009)
 * – Universidad de Murcia (2010)
 * – University of Edinburgh (2017)

 * Honorary Professor, Berlin University of the Arts
 * Elected fellow of:
 * – American Academy of Arts and Sciences
 * – National Academy of Engineering for inventing the concept of portable personal computing. (1997)
 * – Royal Society of Arts
 * – Computer History Museum "for his fundamental contributions to personal computing and human-computer interface development." (1999)
 * – Association for Computing Machinery "For fundamental contributions to personal computing and object-oriented programming." (2008)
 * – Hasso Plattner Institute (2011)

His other honors include the J-D Warnier Prix d'Informatique, the ACM Systems Software Award, the NEC Computers & Communication Foundation Prize, the Funai Foundation Prize, the Lewis Branscomb Technology Award, and the ACM SIGCSE Award for Outstanding Contributions to Computer Science Education.

title: Alan Kay