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Galaxie 500

Galaxie 500 was an American alternative rock band that formed in 1987 and split up in 1991 after releasing three albums: Today, On Fire and This Is Our Music.

The band membership comprised guitarist/vocalist Dean Wareham, drummer Damon Krukowski and bassist and vocalist Naomi Yang.

History
Guitarist Dean Wareham, drummer Damon Krukowski and bassist Naomi Yang had met at the Dalton School in New York City in 1981, but began playing together during their time as students at Harvard University. Wareham and Krukowski had formed a series of punk-influenced student bands, before Wareham returned to New York. When he returned in 1987 he and Krukowski formed a new band, with Yang joining the group on bass guitar, the new group deciding on the name Galaxie 500, after a friend's car, a Ford Galaxie 500.

The band began playing gigs in Boston and New York City, and recorded a demo which they sent to Shimmy Disc label boss and producer Mark Kramer, who agreed to produce the band. With Kramer at the controls, the band recorded the "Tugboat" single in February 1988, and the "Oblivious" flexi-disc, and moved on to record their debut album, Today, which was released on the small Aurora label. The band toured the United Kingdom in late 1988 and in 1989, then signed to Rough Trade and released their second album, On Fire, which has been described as "lo-fi psychedelia reminiscent of Jonathan Richman being backed by The Velvet Underground", and is considered the band's defining moment. On Fire reached number 7 in the UK Indie Chart, and met with much critical acclaim in the United Kingdom, but was less well received by the US music press, who cited Wareham's 'vocal limitations' as a weakness.

Galaxie 500 recorded two sessions for John Peel's BBC Radio 1 programme, these later released on the Peel Sessions album. Their cover of Jonathan Richman's "Don't Let Our Youth Go To Waste" was also voted into number 41 in 1989's Festive 50 by listeners to the show.

The band split up in the spring of 1991 after the release of their third album, This Is Our Music. Wareham, who had already moved back to New York, quit the band after a lengthy American tour, as preparations were underway for a tour of Japan. As Wareham later said, "Galaxie 500 broke up because it was time. We broke up as a result of internal contradictions. Columbia Records was interested in signing us, but the making of the previous album had been very difficult--and clearly we weren't getting along--so why should we continue to sit in a room and make music together?" Their last performance was on April 5, 1991, at Bowdoin College for the campus radio station, WBOR.

Galaxie 500's records were released in the US and UK on the independent Rough Trade label. When Rough Trade went bankrupt in 1991, Krukowski and Yang purchased the masters at auction, reissuing them on Rykodisc in 1996 as a box set containing all three albums and another disc of rarities.

Musical style and influences
Galaxie 500 used fairly simple instrumental techniques enhanced with an atmospheric production style. The Velvet Underground and Jonathan Richman have been identified as key influences. In interviews on the Galaxie 500 DVD Don't Let Our Youth Go to Waste, Wareham cites Spacemen 3 as another key inspiration.

Post-Galaxie 500 activities
After leaving Galaxie 500, Wareham tried his hand at production, working with Mercury Rev. He released a solo single, "Anesthesia," in February 1992, and formed a new band, Luna. Krukowski and Yang continued to record under the moniker Pierre Etoile (French for "Rock Star"), and then Damon and Naomi (whose first two releases were also produced by Kramer), and as members of Magic Hour. They also began the avant-garde press Exact Change.

In June 2010 Wareham announced on his website that he would be going on an autumn tour under the moniker "Dean Wareham plays Galaxie 500," where he would, as the moniker suggests, only play Galaxie 500 songs.

Influence
Galaxie 500's music had an influence on many later indie music groups, including Low. Their music has been covered and referenced by several well known artists. In Liz Phair's song "Stratford-on-Guy", she sings, "And I was pretending that I was in a Galaxie 500 video." In Xiu Xiu's song "Dr. Troll", Jamie Stewart sings, "Listen to On Fire and pretend someone could love you." On Neutral Milk Hotel's debut album, On Avery Island, the song "Naomi" was written about Naomi Yang, and includes the line "There is no Naomi in view/She walks through Cambridge stocks and strolls"; in 2011, Yang created a music video for the song, including an anecdote recounting how Neutral Milk Hotel member Julian Koster gave her a copy of the album and told her the song was written about her. The Brian Jonestown Massacre's And This Is Our Music was titled in reference to the group's album This Is Our Music (which itself was titled after Ornette Coleman's album This Is Our Music). Sonic Youth frontman Thurston Moore has cited Galaxie 500's album Today as "the guitar record of 1988".

"Tugboat" has been covered by many artists, including The Submarines, who recorded it with indie rock producer Adam Lasus for their iTunes Live Session EP, British Sea Power, on Rough Trade compilation Stop Me If You Think You've Heard This One Before..., Welsh lo-fi band Joanna Gruesome, and Portastatic, Kiwi Jr., for a planned concert of Galaxie 500 covers at Rough Trade Brooklyn set to coincide with Record Store Day and the release of Galaxie's Copenhagen on vinyl. In 2010 the bands Cloudland Canyon and Citay, appeared on a 7-inch EP together wherein they both covered Galaxie 500, the former taking on "Temperature's Rising" and the latter doing a version of "Tugboat". English artist World Of Fox covered "Flowers" in his 2011 release on Where It's At Is Where You Are Records.

In 2012 the song "Tugboat" was featured in the film The Perks of Being a Wallflower, directed by Stephen Chbosky and based on his book of the same name.

Studio albums

 * Today (Aurora, 1988)
 * On Fire (Rough Trade, 1989)
 * This Is Our Music (Rough Trade, 1990)

Compilations

 * Galaxie 500 (box set) (Rykodisc, 1996)
 * The Portable Galaxie 500 (best-of) (Rykodisc, 1998)
 * Uncollected (rarities) (2004)

Post-split releases

 * Copenhagen (live, 1990) (Rykodisc, 1997)
 * Peel Sessions (2005)

Singles

 * "Tugboat"/"King of Spain" (Aurora, 1988)
 * "Oblivious" included on a hard-vinyl compilation 7-inch free with Chemical Imbalance magazine
 * "Blue Thunder"/"Hail" (split w/ Straitjacket Fits) (1989)
 * "Blue Thunder EP" (Rough Trade, 1990)
 * "Rain"/"Don't Let Our Youth Go to Waste" (1990) Caff
 * "Fourth of July"/"Here She Comes Now" (Rough Trade, 1990)
 * "Snowstorm" (live)/"Pictures" (live) (2004)

Promotional videos

 * "Tugboat" (1988)
 * "Blue Thunder" (1989)
 * "When Will You Come Home" (1989)
 * "Fourth of July" (1990)

DVDs

 * Don't Let Our Youth Go to Waste (2004)

title: Galaxie 500


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Christina of Lorraine

Christina of Lorraine (Christine de Lorraine, Cristina di Lorena) (16 August 1565 – 19 December 1637) was a French noblewoman of the House of Lorraine who became a Grand Duchess of Tuscany by marriage. She served as Regent of Tuscany jointly with her daughter-in-law during the minority of her grandson from 1621 to 1628.

Princess of Lorraine
Born in Nancy, she was the daughter of Charles III of Lorraine and his wife Claude of Valois, and granddaughter of Catherine de' Medici. She was named after her paternal grandmother, Christina of Denmark.

Grand Duchess of Tuscany
In 1584, Mary, Queen of Scots, hoped that Christina would marry her son James VI of Scotland. Mary thought that Christina, as her family relation, would be a useful ally to her. Mary wrote to Catherine de' Medici, Queen of France, about this marriage plan, but nothing came of it.

In 1587 Francesco I de' Medici, Grand Duke of Tuscany died without a legitimate male heir; his brother Ferdinando immediately declared himself the third Grand Duke of Tuscany. Seeking a marriage that would preserve his political independence, Ferdinando chose his distant cousin, Christine of Lorraine, the favourite granddaughter of Catherine de' Medici. Catherine had influenced her towards this marriage, to re-align the Medici with France, not Spain.

The sumptuous and well-documented wedding festivities, celebrated in Florence in 1589, were designed to impress the royal houses of Europe. The wedding ceremony in Florence Cathedral was followed by outdoor events for the public, as well as banquets and balls, comedies and musical interludes, and a mock sea battle in the flooded courtyard of Palazzo Pitti for the aristocratic guests. PJ Mariette takes note of the various artists including Santi di Tito, Gregorio Pagani, Camillo Pagni, and Giovanni Battista Paggi, who worked on the ephemeral decorations. Altogether the wedding spectacles cost approximately fourteen million pounds in today's currency. These lavish and innovative forms of entertainment proved to be more than showmanship. They greatly influenced theatrical practices in European courts throughout the 17th century.

On 28 July 1603 she wrote to Anne of Denmark to congratulate her and King James coming to the throne of England. The letter was brought to London by Count Alfonso Montecuccoli.

Grand Duke Cosimo II
Christina's husband died in early 1609, shortly after her son had wed. Grand Duke Cosimo II was only 19 when he assumed power, and Christina remained a dominant force at the court. In 1610 the Venetian ambassador Giacomo Vendramin wrote home: "the grand duchess wants thus to govern everything absolutely, without any thought to the reputation and the benefit of her son". Christina was keen to bolster the dynastic claim of the Medici, and commissioned a biography of the first grand duke and her father-in-law Cosimo I. She also commissioned engravings by Jacques Callot to showcase the life of her late husband Ferdinando I.

Co-Regency of Tuscany
Her son Cosimo II died in February 1621, leaving his ten-year-old son Ferdinando II as grand duke. Christina and her daughter-in-law, Maria Maddalena of Austria, acted as regents until the boy came of age. Their regency is known as the Tutrici. Little is known about the relationship of the two women, though they coexisted at court. Maria Maddalena took on the public political role by taking the seat in the primo luogo. Christina took charge of engaging with the Florentine religious establishment. Maria Maddalena assumed the title of archduchess. Christina became known as the Dowager Grand Duchess, and sent Ferdinando II on a tour of Europe in 1627. Maria Maddalena died in November 1631, shortly after her son Ferdinando II had formally assumed the position of grand duke.

Maria Maddalena' brother was the Holy Roman Emperor Ferdinand II and she supported his anti-Protestant politics. Together with her brother she supported the militant wing of the Jesuits, with their Counter-Reformation ideology. Contemporary sources did not pass judgement on the quality of the co-regency, but focused on detailing the daily going-on at court. The 18th Century historian Jacopo Riguccio Galluzzi remarked on the co-regency "everything started to decline from the moment of Cosimo II' death". Galluzzi criticised that in the co-regency religious men were allowed to enter administrative ranks in the Tuscan government. Galluzzi also lamented that both women continued to influence Ferdinando II after he had come of age. Angelo Solerti, an important source on the Florentine court lamented that "the Jesuits acted as if they were in charge". The co-regents did abolish a century old law in 1623 to allow patricians to participate in the government of Florence. As a consequence patricians started to occupy positions in a range of institutions of the Medici government and in the civil service. This move was intended to weaken the power of the Roman aristocrats in Florentine government. This strategy was continued by Ferdinando II.

Christina of Lorraine died at the Medici villa in Castello, aged 72, in December 1636.

Science
Christina was chosen by Fernando as bride, not only because she was a devout Catholic, but also because she was intelligent and well educated. Christina had received a scholarly education due to the efforts of Catherine de Medici. In 1605, she invited Galileo Galilei to tutor her son Cosimo II de' Medici. Among other things, Galilei taught Cosimo the use of the geometric and military compass. In 1608 Christina asked Galileo to attend Cosimo's wedding to Maria Maddalena of Austria and in the same year asked him to cast a horoscope for her ill husband. Following the death of his father, Cosimo assumed the throne in February 1609, and Galileo applied for patronage at the Medici court.

Christina and the Medici Court also offered patronage to the philosopher Cosimo Boscaglia. When the court was in Pisa during winter, in December 1613, Galileo's former student Benedetto Castelli was invited to court. At a breakfast attended by Cosimo II, his wife, his mother Christina and Boscaglia the Medicean stars were discussed. These were the four moons of Jupiter Galileo had discovered and named after Cosimo II and his brothers. Boscaglia conceded that these moons were real, and not an illusion produced by the lens of the telescope. But Boscaglia argued that Galileo's interpretation of his discoveries was wrong, mainly because "the motion of the Earth seemed incredible and could not be true, all the more so since Holy Scripture was clearly against this opinion." Christina asked Castelli for his opinion on the matter, not as a mathematician but as a theologian. Castelli responded that with regards to the exact workings of nature, he gave precedence to natural philosophers, and that theologians should in the light of these findings determine the meaning of the Bible. In the letter to Galileo, Castelli stated that Christina criticized heliocentrism, and Galileo did not like this. However, Christina's disagreement was prompted by Boscaglia rather than by her own thought.

Galileo had been attacked in front of his paymasters, and after being warned by Castelli and an exchange of views with his former student, he drafted a response. In his Letter to Grand Duchess Christina Galileo expounded on the relationship between science and revelation. He argued that the Scripture does not intend to teach natural philosophy, but conveys the message of salvation. Thus there was not need to reconcile the Bible with science, and that it would damage the authority of the Church in the unbelieving world if it was to make rash pronouncements about science. This line of argument resembled Christina's own views on the matter, and is in essence the position the Catholic Church takes today on questions of science.

Female monasteries
Christina's reputation for piety stems from her patronage for Florentine religious institutions, particularly female monasteries. She became an active patron immediately after her marriage. In 1592 she and her daughters were granted permission by Pope Clement VIII to enter Florentine convents during the day. Through her patronage the Monastero di Santa Croce (or La Crocetta) became the principal residence for unmarried Medici princesses. As a young women Christina had expressed the wish to finish her life in a convent, but she never withdrew from political affairs. Though she did build for herself a residence next to Crocetta, and spend less time at the Medici court in Pitti Palace. In 1627 she purchased a villa, renamed it La Quiete and had it decorated in iconographic style by Giovanni da San Giovanni.

Issue

 * Cosimo II de' Medici, Grand Duke of Tuscany (1590–1621) married Maria Maddalena of Austria and had issue.
 * Eleonora de' Medici (1591–1617) died unmarried.
 * Caterina de' Medici (1593–1629) married Ferdinando Gonzaga, Duke of Mantua, later Governor of Siena;
 * Francesco de' Medici (1594–1614) died unmarried.
 * Carlo de' Medici (1595–1666) died unmarried.
 * Filippino de' Medici (1598–1602) died unmarried.
 * Lorenzo de' Medici (1599–1648) died unmarried.
 * Maria Maddalena de' Medici (1600–1633) died unmarried.
 * Claudia de' Medici (1604–1648) married (1) Federico della Rovere and had issue (2) Leopold V, Archduke of Austria and had issue.

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

title: Christina of Lorraine


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Fred Willard

Frederic Charles Willard (September 18, 1933 – May 15, 2020) was an American actor and comedian. He is best known for his work with Christopher Guest in This Is Spinal Tap (1984), Waiting for Guffman (1996), Best in Show (2000), A Mighty Wind (2003), For Your Consideration (2006), and Mascots (2016), and for playing Ed Harken in the Anchorman films. He also appeared in films like Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me (1999), American Wedding (2003) and WALL-E (2008). He received two Primetime Emmy Award nominations for playing Frank Dunphy on the sitcom Modern Family.

Early life
Frederic Charles Willard was born in Cleveland, Ohio, on September 18, 1933. Willard's mother, Ruth (née Weinman) was a housewife. His father, Frederick Charles Willard, died in 1945 when he was 12 years old. He was raised in Shaker Heights, Ohio.

Willard graduated from the Kentucky Military Institute in 1951 and the Virginia Military Institute in 1955. He was stationed in Germany while serving in the United States Army.

Early career
Willard's stage career began when he moved to New York in the late 1950s. His initial work included a production of Desperate Hours at a local YMCA where he worked with future comedy partner Vic Grecco. They later performed as Willard & Grecco in the Greenwich Village area, found some success touring, and appeared on The Dean Martin Show, The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour and The Tonight Show. They were offered roles in the television series Get Smart and The Carol Burnett Show, but the offers fell through due to poor management. The two parted ways in 1968.

Willard's film debut was in the 1967 exploitation film Teenage Mother. He later reported that the audience at one screening booed when his character interrupted an attempted sexual assault of the female lead.

One of Willard's earliest performing jobs was at The Second City, Chicago, where he shared the stage with Robert Klein and David Steinberg. He was a founding member of the improvisational comedy group Ace Trucking Company, whose other members included Michael Mislove and Bill Saluga. They performed sketches on The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson over 50 times, and appeared regularly on This is Tom Jones.

Rise to prominence
Willard achieved wider fame in 1977–78 as Barth Gimble's (Martin Mull) sidekick and announcer Jerry Hubbard on the Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman spinoffs Fernwood 2 Night, Forever Fernwood and America 2-Night, which parodied the nighttime talk shows of the day. He was an original cast member of the NBC series Real People in 1979, then again from 1981 to 1983. He played Tom Osbourne in the 1987 Academy Award–winning short film Ray's Male Heterosexual Dance Hall. From 1987 to 1989 he starred as a bartender/straightman in Sid and Marty Krofft's D.C. Follies, and was host to the Krofft puppets portraying political figures of the time.

Willard hosted the talk show What's Hot, What's Not, which aired from 1985 to 1986 and earned him a Daytime Emmy Award nomination for Outstanding Talk Show Host.

In 1990, Willard hosted the cable TV show Access America on the Ha! Comedy Network. As part of that show, on September 21, 1990, he appeared in episode 7 of the cult public-access television show Decoupage with Summer Caprice.

In 1995, Willard reunited with his Fernwood co-star, Martin Mull, playing Scott, the romantic partner of Mull's character Leon Carp, on Roseanne. The couple married in the episode "December Bride", and Scott became a recurring character during the series' final two seasons.

That same year, Willard guest-starred in three episodes of Sister, Sister, starring Tia and Tamera Mowry; Willard played Carl Mitushka, a teacher at Roosevelt High who often spoke popular teenage slang terms in order to sound cool to his students. Willard voiced travel agent Wally Kogen in the 1999 episode "Sunday, Cruddy Sunday" for The Simpsons.

From 2001 to 2002, he played the father of five children on Maybe It's Me, and also guest-starred in an episode of The Weird Al Show. In 1985, he and Mull joined up again for the mockumentary The History of White People in America. He played Mayor Deebs in Roxanne, starring Steve Martin.

Sustained success

Willard appeared in several Christopher Guest films, such as A Mighty Wind, in which he played Mike LaFontaine (known for his catchphrase "Eh—whahappen'?"); Best in Show, where he played Buck Laughlin, a dog show announcer with an unending stream of bad jokes and off-color comments; Waiting for Guffman, playing Ron Albertson, a travel agent who performs in amateur stage productions with his wife; This Is Spinal Tap, where he played a lieutenant on the military base where Spinal Tap perform; and For Your Consideration as an obnoxious entertainment television show anchor. For his performance in Waiting for Guffman, Willard received an American Comedy Award nomination and a Screen Actors Guild nomination for Funniest Supporting Actor. He received the Boston Film Critics Award, an American Comedy Award, a Sierra Award and a tribute from AFI for his portrayal of Buck Laughlin in Best in Show. He also appeared in American Wedding, and as KVWN news director Ed Harken in Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy.

Willard had a recurring role as Hank MacDougall on the later seasons of CBS's Everybody Loves Raymond, which brought him Emmy Award nominations in 2003, 2004, and 2005. He also hosted a VH1 documentary series, Totally Obsessed, about people obsessed with their hobbies. He appeared as Captain Ribmanman in Episode 21 of Channel Frederator, a podcast from Kansas. He provided the voices of nudist family dad Dave Campbell in Family Guy (first in the episode "From Method to Madness"), and of Officer Brown in King of the Hill, and appeared on That '70s Show. On The Tonight Show with Jay Leno, Willard appeared in 100 sketches as a government official, businessman, or other authority figure who was always drinking. In 2006, he voiced Dad in the Academy Award nominated animated film Monster House. He also hosted Saturday Night Live in 1978 (with musical guests Devo), and appeared twice on MADtv.

He was the voice of a clueless companion to a lazy robot (played by Martin Mull) in one episode of the series Dexter's Laboratory and guest-starred on the Adult Swim cartoon Tom Goes to the Mayor. He acted in the Cartoon Network movie Re-Animated and played Vala Mal Doran's "father" in an episode of Stargate SG-1 in 2007. He appeared in two episodes of the Adult Swim program Tim and Eric Awesome Show, Great Job!. He also starred as the "Boogey Man" in an episode of The Grim Adventures of Billy & Mandy and reprised his role in a 2006 video game and the movie Billy & Mandy's Big Boogey Adventure. His final appearance as "Boogey" occurred in Billy & Mandy: Wrath of the Spider Queen. In 2007, he made a guest appearance on the children's TV series Come on Over. He also guest-starred on an episode of The Boondocks, providing the voice of "Joe Petto."

Willard was cast as a sportscaster in the television series Back to You, which premiered on the Fox Network on September 19, 2007. He played Shelby Forthright, the CEO of the Buy 'n' Large Corporation, in the first ever live-action speaking segments by Pixar in the animated film WALL-E.

Willard completed a sold-out run of Fred Willard: Alone At Last!, advertised as a "one-man show" but actually featuring a cast of twelve, and received Los Angeles Artistic Director Awards for Best Comedy and Best Production. Willard had several stage roles to his credit, including Off-Broadway performances in Little Murders, directed by Alan Arkin, and Arf, directed by Richard Benjamin. His regional roles include Call Me Madam in Chicago and the musicals Promises, Promises, with Jason Alexander, and Anything Goes with Rachel York, both in Los Angeles. He starred in Wendy Wasserstein's Isn't It Romantic and off Broadway in Elvis and Juliet.

On October 5, 2008, he hosted the Nickelodeon Fido Awards.

Willard played Frank Dunphy, father of Phil (Ty Burrell), in several episodes of the show Modern Family. For his performance, he was nominated at the 62nd Primetime Emmy Awards for Outstanding Guest Actor in a Comedy Series and in the same category at the 72nd Primetime Creative Arts Emmy Awards, a posthumous nomination.

On September 16, 2011, Willard was honored as a Pioneer in Comedy at Burbank International Film Festival. Also in 2011, Willard starred as "Santa Jack," a comical—and somewhat pervy—owner of a local Christmas carnival in episode 12 of the final season of The Closer.

In 2012, he played Al Kaiser in Rob Reiner's film The Magic of Belle Isle. In 2013, he starred in The Bird Men (originally called The Birder) alongside Tom Cavanagh, a film centered around a mild-mannered birder who seeks revenge on a younger rival, after losing the highly coveted Head of Ornithology position at the National Park.

Pacific Pioneer Broadcasters presented Willard with the Art Gilmore Career Achievement Award at their celebrity luncheon on June 19, 2015.

On August 10, 2018, Willard made a special guest appearance on Jimmy Kimmel Live!, reprising his role from a 1970s television pilot for an unmade series called Space Force, in light of President Donald Trump's announcement that he will create a space force for the United States military. Following the sketch, Willard made guest appearances on the show on a frequent basis, often portraying comedic, misguided characters parodying current news topics which Jimmy would interview "live via satellite". The characters included the ghosts of Fred Trump and George Washington, a Trump-supporting Santa Claus, and Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg.

On October 23, 2019, it was announced that Willard was cast as Fred Naird in the 2020 Netflix comedy series, Space Force. This was Willard's final acting role, with the series being released two weeks after his death.

Willard's final voice-acting performance was in the 2017 Disney animated cartoon Mickey and the Roadster Racers as the character Mr. Doozy.

Willard's final role was in the 2021 television film Captain Daddy, where he played the role of Daddy, it was released in the summer a year after his death.

Marriage and family
In 1968, Willard married Mary Lovell (1947–2018). They had a daughter and a grandson.

Legal issues
On July 18, 2012, Willard was arrested on suspicion of engaging in masturbation at an adult theater on Santa Monica Boulevard and was brought to the Los Angeles Police Department's Hollywood Station. However, there was no proof of any misconduct and no charges were filed. Despite the outcomes, PBS fired Willard from Market Warriors immediately following his arrest, and Mark L. Walberg replaced him on the show. In an appearance on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon shortly thereafter, Willard stated that the incident was "very painful" and "very embarrassing", but that he "did nothing wrong". Willard was subsequently required to take a sex education diversion program.

Death
Willard died at his home in Los Angeles on May 15, 2020, at age 86, according to his daughter and his representative. His cause of death was subsequently reported as cardiac arrest, with coronary artery disease and myelodysplastic syndrome listed as contributing factors. Jamie Lee Curtis and her husband, Christopher Guest, who frequently worked with Willard, were the first to reveal the news of Willard's death. Willard is buried at Forest Lawn Memorial Park (Hollywood Hills).

title: Fred Willard


text:
Olive warbler

The olive warbler (Peucedramus taeniatus) is a small passerine bird. It is the only member of the genus Peucedramus and the family Peucedramidae.

This species breeds from southern Arizona and New Mexico, USA, south through Mexico to Nicaragua. It is the only bird family endemic to North America (including Central America). It was in the past classed with the Parulidae (New World warblers), but DNA studies suggest that it split early from the other related passerines, prior to the differentiation of the entire New World warbler/American sparrow/Icterid group. It is therefore now given a family of its own.

It is an insectivorous species of coniferous forests. Though it is often said to be non-migratory, most New Mexican birds leave the state from November to late February. It lays 3–4 eggs in a tree nest.

Taxonomy
The olive warbler was originally placed in the New World warbler (family Parulidae) genus Dendroica, a group which it closely resembles, particularly in having nine primaries and similar skin. In spite of being assigned to its own genus in 1875, its affinities were a source of contention. The shape of the basihyal bone in the skull, and aspects of its behaviour led to the suggestion that it was instead an Old World warbler in the family Sylviidae. That it was not in the family Parulidae was supported by the arrangement of muscles in the legs. DNA–DNA hybridization placed the olive warbler as an early branch of the finch clade (which included the finches, cardinals and Hawaiian honeycreepers) and the New World sparrow clade (which includes the tanagers, icterids and New World warblers), and a 1998 study of mitochondrial DNA confirmed its status as being far removed from the New World warblers.

The generic name of the olive warbler, Peucedramus, is derived from the Greek peuke for a fir tree and dromos for runner, (from trekho, meaning run), a reference to its feeding habitat and behaviour. The species name, taeniatus, is from the Latin taenia for a headband, and atus for possessing, a reference to its facial markings. The original specific name for the species was olivaceus; however that name was preoccupied and the name was changed.

Description
The olive warbler is a medium-sized warbler, 13 to(-) in length and weighing 9.5 to(-). It shows clinal variation in size, with more northern populations being larger than southern ones, a phenomenon known as Bergmann's rule. The olive warbler is a long-winged bird. The plumage of the male is mostly grey body with some olive-green on the wings and two white wing bars. The male's head and breast are "tawny-orange", and there is a black patch through the eye. In the female and juvenile, the orange is replaced by yellow, and the black mask is more diffuse. In addition to differences in size, plumage varies geographically as well, with southern birds having more brightly coloured plumage.

The song consists of clear whistles rendered as hirrJI hirrJI hirrJI, plida plida plida chir chir, etc. The male sings throughout the year, with the frequency of the singing increasing in late winter and reaching a peak in early spring. During the year the male sings the most during the midmorning, but during spring the male sings constantly during mornings and late afternoon. Song is usually delivered from the canopy or other tall trees.

Distribution and habitat
The olive warbler is distributed from the southwestern United States to Nicaragua, making it the only bird family endemic to North America. In the northern part of its range it has a continuous distribution from Yavapai County, Arizona and the southwestern tip of New Mexico along central Mexico to southern Mexico. It has a disjunct distribution across the rest of its range, with populations in Tamaulipas, Coahuila and Sonora and Chihuahua in Mexico, and further south in southwest Guatemala and from northern El Salvador and central Honduras to northern Nicaragua.

The olive warbler is a bird of mountains and highlands. In northern areas of its range it occurs from 2600 m above sea level or more, in some parts of its range it may not occur below 3500 m. In Oaxaca in Mexico it occupies a range of between 1700 – further south in Guatemala it ranges down to 1850 m and at the southern end of its range it can be found as low as 1000 m in Honduras and in Nicaragua it occupies a belt of forest from 1070 –. They typically inhabit conifer forests, such as ponderosa and sugar pine forests in Arizona, Abies common fir forests, oak, and pine forests in central Mexico, Guatemala, and Honduras. These forests range from humid to semi-arid. In coastal regions stands of palms may be used, and in the Valley of Mexico pine and alder forests are inhabited.

Over most of its range the species is, but there is evidence that the most northerly populations are partial migrants. Birds in Arizona, New Mexico, and Mexico apparently move away from their breeding grounds, although what exact movements are made is unclear. It has been suggested that they are either "down slope migrants", moving to lower elevations, or dispersive, as some records show their presence in Texas. Birds attributed to the northern race P. t. arizonae have been recorded near Tepic, in Nayarit. Nevertheless, some birds remain in the northern areas of their range year round.

Diet and feeding
The olive warbler is an insectivore, taking insects and other arthropods. No specific information exists about the actual prey species taken, except that they will take the larvae of Tortricidae moths. It forages in forests in the canopy and subcanopy. In feeds in the outer branches and twigs. It mostly feeds in the branches of ponderosa pines, but also feeds in the branches of grey and silverleaf oaks.

title: Olive warbler


text:
Yaz

Yaz may refer to:

People

 * Yazmith Bataz (born 1972), Mexican sprinter
 * Yaz Mubarakai (born 1975), Australian politician
 * Carl Yastrzemski (born 1939), American Hall-of-Fame baseball player
 * Mike Yastrzemski (born 1990), American professional baseball player, grandson of Carl

Other uses

 * Yaz culture, an early Iron Age culture of Bactria and Margiana, c. 1500-1100 BC
 * Yaz-class river patrol craft, Russian Coast Guard vessels
 * YAZ, IATA code for Tofino Airport in Tofino, British Columbia, Canada
 * yaz, ISO 639-3 code for the Yakö language, spoken by the Yakö people of Nigeria
 * Yaz (band) or Yazoo, an English synth-pop band
 * Yaz Pistachio, a female character from the comic strip Bloom County
 * Yaz (drug), a brand name of the birth control pill ethinylestradiol/drospirenone
 * YAZ, a programmer toolkit for development of Z39.50 clients and servers
 * The Yaroslavl Motor Plant, formerly abbreviated ЯАЗ ("YAZ")

title: Yaz


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Mesopotamian Half Flight

The Mesopotamian Half-Flight (MHF), or Australian Half-Flight, was the first Australian Flying Corps (AFC) unit to see active service during World War I. Formed in April 1915 at the request of the Indian Government, the half-flight's personnel were sent to Mesopotamia (modern-day Iraq) where they were equipped with a small number of outdated and barely serviceable aircraft. They later operated in the Tigris Valley in support of British and Indian forces under the command of Major General Charles Townshend. The unit's operations came to an end in December 1915 and the following month the flight was subsumed into other units of the AFC which were being formed in Egypt. It was officially disbanded in October 1916.

History
At the start of World War I, the air forces of the Allied forces were small and primitive. Most of the available aircraft and pilots were assigned to the Western Front. This meant that the Indian Army, which was attacking the Ottoman Empire in Mesopotamia, had no air support. On 8 February 1915, the Australian government received a request for air assistance from the British Government of India. The AFC was still in its infancy and could provide enough aircrews and ground staff for only half a flight: the unit therefore became known as the Mesopotamian Half-Flight, or Australian Half-Flight and Captain Henry Petre was appointed commander.

The Mesopotamian Half-Flight was formed at the Central Flying School on 1 April 1915. Upon establishment, the unit consisted of four officers and 41 enlisted personnel. The personnel assigned to the Half-Flight included four of the seven trained pilots in Australia at the time. The Australians were to be augmented by personnel from the Indian Army and New Zealand. The AFC contingent sailed for Bombay, and on 20 April it left for Basra.

The half-flight's aircraft were to be provided by the Indian Government, and on its arrival in Basra on 26 May, two Maurice Farman Shorthorns and a Maurice Farman Longhorn were handed over. These three biplanes were of a "pusher" design, so-called because the propeller was placed aft of the engine, behind the cockpit. The planes were already obsolete and were not suitable for the desert conditions. To start with, their top speed was only 50 mph (80 km/h), while the desert wind (known as the shamal) often reached 80 mph (129 km/h). Secondly, the warm desert air reduced the aircraft lift capability, rendering them unable to take off on occasions. The Longhorn was a second-hand aircraft and had persistent mechanical problems, meaning that it spent much time being repaired.

After arrival, the aircraft were immediately put to use on reconnaissance missions, operating in the Tigris Valley in support of British and Indian forces under the command of Major General Charles Townshend. Shortly afterwards, the Indian Army captured the town of Amarah, and after arriving there in early June, the half-flight began operations in support of an advance towards Kut from Amarah, with intervening operations in Nasiriyeh. On 4 July, the half-flight's equipment was augmented with two Caudron G.3 aircraft, which were still not up-to-date, but generally preferred to the Farmans. On 30 July, one of the Caudrons was forced to land in enemy territory due to mechanical problems. It was later reported that the crew – Lieutenants George Pinnock Merz (a medical doctor and formerly of the Melbourne University Rifles) and William Burn (a New Zealander) – were killed by armed civilians after a running gun-battle over several miles. They were Australia's first air-war casualties. In August the half-flight received four Martinsyde S.1s. On 24 August, it was officially attached to No. 30 Squadron Royal Flying Corps, although the rest of 30 Squadron remained in Egypt for several weeks. The half-flight's personnel and aircraft were incorporated into "B" Flight, No. 30 Squadron.

During September, three Royal Naval Air Service (RNAS) Short 827 floatplanes and their crews, under Squadron Commander Robert Gordon, arrived and were attached to the half-flight. Because the Tigris river was too shallow for the seaplanes to use at that time of year, they were converted into Shorthorns. On 27 September, Kut was captured and the half-flight moved there. Four B.E.2c aircraft and their RFC crews arrived from Egypt in late October.

The Australian personnel of "B" Flight suffered an increasing number of losses with at least two crews being taken prisoner, either after being shot down or suffering engine failure. The Indian Army soon met with stiff opposition outside Baghdad, and were forced back to Kut on 4 December, where the city was besieged. After five months of siege, the garrison at Kut surrendered. Nine Australian ground staff became prisoners of war. Like the rest of the Allied prisoners, AFC personnel taken prisoner in Mesopotamia endured a punishing forced march to Turkey proper and only two of them survived captivity. Petre, the last remaining Australian airman in Mesopotamia, left No. 30 Squadron and flew the only remaining Shorthorn to Egypt on 7 December, where he and it were eventually incorporated into the Australian Flying Corps squadrons that were forming there.

The Mesopotamian Half Flight was officially disbanded in October 1916. A total of nine pilots flew with the unit, and of them two were lost, presumed killed, and six were captured. Historian Alan Stephens has written that "overshadowed by the Australian public’s interest in the contemporary events at Gallipoli, the Half Flight’s heroic and pioneering achievements went largely unrecognised".

title: Mesopotamian Half Flight


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User:Crooks c

Christopher W. Crooks is a native of Springfield, VA. Crooks is an avid sportsman. He played soccer, basketball, tennis, football, lacrosse, and was on the swim team at his local pool. Crooks played on his high school's varsity football team while at Lake Braddock Secondary School.

Crooks earned a bachelor of science in computer science from James Madison University. Crooks has also earned certifications as a Microsoft Certified Systems Engineer and Novell Certified Network Administrator. Crooks is a member of American Mensa.

Crooks is currently a information technology consultant for Booz Allen Hamilton, specializing in information assurance/information security, especially through the use of biometric technology.

title: User:Crooks c


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User talk:Crooks c

Hi Chris,

I moved the stuff about you to the correct page.

Let me know if you need any help

jimfbleak 07:09 24 Jul 2003 (UTC)

 * (later) several people feel that your fantasy football league article and those for your friends do not rate encyclopedia articles. See Votes for deletion - Jim

title: User talk:Crooks c


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Petrified Forest National Park

Petrified Forest National Park is an American national park in Navajo and Apache counties in northeastern Arizona. Named for its large deposits of petrified wood, the park covers about 346 mi2, encompassing semi-desert shrub steppe as well as highly eroded and colorful badlands. The park's headquarters is about 26 mi east of Holbrook along Interstate 40 (I-40), which parallels the BNSF Railway's Southern Transcon, the Puerco River, and historic U.S. Route 66, all crossing the park roughly east–west. The site, the northern part of which extends into the Painted Desert, was declared a national monument in 1906 and a national park in 1962. The park received 644,922 recreational visitors in 2018.

Averaging about 5400 ft in elevation, the park has a dry windy climate with temperatures that vary from summer highs of about 100 F to winter lows well below freezing. More than 400 species of plants, dominated by grasses such as bunchgrass, blue grama, and sacaton, are found in the park. Fauna include larger animals such as pronghorns, coyotes, and bobcats; many smaller animals, such as deer mice, snakes, lizards, and seven kinds of amphibians; and more than 200 species of birds, some of which are permanent residents and many of which are migratory. About one third of the park is designated wilderness—50260 acres.

The Petrified Forest is known for its fossils, especially fallen trees that lived in the Late Triassic Epoch, about 225 million years ago. The sediments containing the fossil logs are part of the widespread and colorful Chinle Formation, from which the Painted Desert gets its name. Beginning about 60 million years ago, the Colorado Plateau, of which the park is part, was pushed upward by tectonic forces and exposed to increased erosion. All of the park's rock layers above the Chinle, except geologically recent ones found in parts of the park, have been removed by wind and water. In addition to petrified logs, fossils found in the park have included Late Triassic ferns, cycads, ginkgoes, and many other plants as well as fauna including giant reptiles called phytosaurs, large amphibians, and early dinosaurs. Paleontologists have been unearthing and studying the park's fossils since the early 20th century.

The park's earliest human inhabitants arrived 13,000 years ago. These Clovis-era people are the ancestors of Native Americans. By about 2,500 years ago Ancestral Pueblo farmers were growing corn and living in subterranean pit houses in what would become the park. By one-thousand years ago Ancestral Pueblo farmers lived in above-ground, masonry dwellings called pueblos and gathered in large communal buildings called great kivas. By AD 1450 Ancestral Pueblo farmers in the Petrified Forest migrated to join rapidly growing communities on the Hopi Mesas to the northwest and the Pueblo of Zuni to the east–these locations are still home to thousands of descendant community members today. More than 1000 archeological sites, including petroglyphs, have been discovered in the park. These ancestral places remain important to descendant communities. In the 16th century, Spanish explorers visited the area, and by the mid-19th century a U.S. team had surveyed an east–west route through the area where the park is now located and noted the petrified wood. Later, roads and a railway followed similar routes and gave rise to tourism and, before the park was protected, to large-scale removal of fossils. Theft of petrified wood remains a problem in the 21st century.

Geography

Petrified Forest National Park straddles the border between Apache County and Navajo County in northeastern Arizona. The park is about 30 mi long from north to south, and its width varies from a maximum of about 12 mi in the north to a minimum of about 1 mi along a narrow corridor between the north and south, where the park widens again to about 4 to 5 mi.

I-40, former U.S. Route 66, the BNSF Railway, and the Puerco River bisect the park generally east–west along a similar route. Adamana, a ghost town, is about 1 mi west of the park along the BNSF tracks. Holbrook, about 26 mi west of park headquarters along I-40, is the nearest city. Bisecting the park north–south is Park Road, which runs between I-40 near park headquarters on the north and U.S. Route 180 on the south. Historic Highway 180, an earlier alignment of the modern route, crosses the southern edge of the park. Like Route 66, it has deteriorated and is closed. Many unpaved maintenance roads, closed to the public, intersect Park Road at various points.

The fee area of the park owned by NPS covers about 230 mi2. The Navajo Nation borders the park on the north and northeast. State-owned land, federal land controlled by the Bureau of Land Management, and private land, much of it used for cattle ranching, adjoin the other borders. The park's elevation above sea level varies from a low of 5340 ft along the Puerco River to a high of 6230 ft at Pilot Rock; the average elevation is about 5,400 ft. The terrain varies from gentle hills and major petrified wood deposits in the south to eroded badlands in the north. Most of the park's intermittent streams—including Lithodendron Wash, Dead Wash, Ninemile Wash, and Dry Wash—empty into the Puerco River. In the southern part of the park, Cottonwood Wash and Jim Camp Wash flow into the Little Colorado River.

Geology
Petrified Forest National Park is known for its fossils, especially of fallen trees that lived in the Late Triassic Epoch of the Mesozoic era, about 225-207 million years ago. During this period, the region that is now the park was near the equator on the southwestern edge of the supercontinent Pangaea, and its climate was humid and sub-tropical. What later became northeastern Arizona was a low plain flanked by mountains to the south and southeast and a sea to the west. Streams flowing across the plain from the highlands deposited inorganic sediment and organic matter, including trees as well as other plants and animals that had entered or fallen into the water. Although most organic matter decays rapidly or is eaten by other organisms, some is buried so quickly that it remains intact and may become fossilized. Within the park, the sediments containing the fossil logs for which the park is named are part of the Chinle Formation.

The colorful Chinle, which appears on the surface in many parts of the southwestern United States and from which the Painted Desert gets its name, is up to 800 ft thick in the park. It consists of a variety of sedimentary rocks including beds of soft, fine-grained mudstone, siltstone, and claystone—much of which is bentonite—as well as harder sandstone and conglomerate, and limestone. Exposed to wind and water, the Chinle usually erodes differentially into badlands made up of cliffs, gullies, mesas, buttes, and rounded hills. Its bentonite clay, which swells when wet and shrinks while drying, causes surface movement and cracking that discourages plant growth. Lack of plant cover makes the Chinle especially susceptible to weathering.

About 60 million years ago, tectonic movements of the Earth's crust began to uplift the Colorado Plateau, of which the Painted Desert is part. Eventually parts of the plateau rose to 10000 ft above sea level. This warping of the Earth's surface led to the gradual and continuing destruction of the plateau by erosion. An unconformity (break in the rock record) of about 200 million years occurs within the park, where erosion has removed all the rock layers above the Chinle except geologically recent ones. The Bidahochi Formation, laid down only 4 to 8 million years ago, rests directly atop the Chinle, and rocks laid down in the Jurassic, Cretaceous, and much of the Tertiary are absent.

During the period of the Bidahochi deposition, a large lake basin covered much of northeastern Arizona. The older (lower) layers of the formation consist of fluvial and lacustrine (lake-related) deposits of silt, sand, and clay. The younger (upper) Bidahochi contains ash and lava from volcanoes that erupted nearby and as far away as southwestern Nevada. Although much of the Bidahochi has since eroded, a small part of it outcrops in the northern part of the park—on Pilot Rock in the park's wilderness section and along the rim of the Painted Desert between Pintado and Tawa points. Exposed by erosion of the Bidahochi are volcanic landforms called maars (flat-bottomed, roughly circular volcanic craters of explosive origin). A maar vent can be seen from the Pintado Point lookout.

During the Quaternary Period (2.6 million years ago up to today), deposits of windblown sand and alluvium covered much of the Chinle and Bidahochi. Older dunes range in age from 500,000 years at higher elevations in the northern part of the park to about 10,000 years in sandy drainage areas such as Lithodendron Wash. Stabilized by grasses and other vegetation, young dunes of about 1,000 years old are found throughout the park.

Fossils
During the Late Triassic, downed trees accumulating in river channels in what became the park were buried periodically by sediment containing volcanic ash. Groundwater dissolved silica (silicon dioxide) from the ash and carried it into the logs, where it formed quartz crystals that gradually replaced the organic matter. Traces of iron oxide and other substances combined with the silica to create varied colors in the petrified wood.

In Petrified Forest National Park, most of the logs in the park retained their original external form during petrification but lost their internal structure. However, a small fraction of the logs and most of the park's petrified animal bones have cells and other spaces that are mineral-filled but still retain much of their original organic structure. With these permineralized fossils, it is possible to study the cellular make-up of the original organisms with the aid of a microscope. Other organic matter—typically leaves, seeds, pine-cones, pollen grains, spores, small stems, and fish, insect, and animal remains—have been preserved in the park as compression fossils, flattened by the weight of the sediments above until only a thin film remains in the rock. Much of the park's petrified wood is from Araucarioxylon arizonicum, an extinct conifer tree, while some found in the northern part of the park is from Woodworthia arizonica and Schilderia adamanica trees. At least nine species of fossil trees from the park have been identified; all are extinct. The park has many other kinds of fossils besides trees. The Chinle, considered to be one of the richest Late Triassic fossil-plant deposits in the world, contains more than 200 fossil plant taxa. Plant groups represented in the park include lycophytes, ferns, cycads, conifers, ginkgoes, as well as unclassified forms. The park has also produced one of the most diverse assemblages of fossil vertebrates from the Late Triassic. Among the groups represented are early theropod dinosaurs, crocodile-line archosaurs,   temnospondyl amphibians,   lissamphibians, non-archosauromorph diapsids, and other dinosauromorphs  and archosauromorphs. Dicynodonts are extremely rare despite being abundantly represented at the Placerias Quarry near St. Johns. Fossil invertebrates include freshwater snails and clams. The oldest fossil crayfish, Enoploclytia porteri, was also described from the park, although it is not considered a crayfish proper (instead placed in Erymidae).

New animal species that were first identified from localities within the current park boundaries, some of which remain known only from the park, are listed below.

Climate
According to the Köppen climate classification system, Petrified Forest National Park has a cold semi-arid climate (BSk). According to the United States Department of Agriculture, the plant hardiness zone at the Painted Desert Visitor Center 5764 ft is 7a with an average annual extreme minimum temperature of 3.1 F.

Winter winds can reach 60 mph. Summer breezes are lighter, but the 10 mph average wind causes frequent sandstorms and dust devils, some of which reach altitudes of several thousand feet.

Rain is heaviest from July through September, when 42 percent of the park's annual average precipitation falls. August is the wettest month. At an elevation of more than 5000 ft, Petrified Forest National Park has a chance of light snow from October through March, although snow cover rarely persists. The annual average relative humidity of the area is below 50 percent and at times less than 15 percent.

Pre-United States
More than 1200 archeological sites have been found inside the boundaries of Petrified Forest National Park. Evidence suggests that the earliest inhabitants of the park arrived over 12,000 years ago. Clovis and Folsom-type spear points made from petrified wood are among the earliest artifacts of Paleoindians found in the park. Between, the Archaic Period, nomadic groups established seasonal camps in the Petrified Forest from which they hunted game such as rabbits, pronghorn antelope, and deer and harvested seeds from Indian ricegrass and other wild plants. By at least and through the Basketmaker II period (–)Ancestral Puebloan farmers began to grow corn. Between population size grew rapidly. Many families built houses in the Petrified Forest and for the first time began to stay there year-round.

During the Basketmaker III period,, families occupied shallow subterranean pit structures, at first on mesas or other vantage points and later at the base of bluffs and in lowlands, where the soil was better. Settlement patterns shifted and population size grew during the Pueblo I era between 700 and 900 CE and for the first time large groups of families aggregated together and formed large villages. During this period, each household built large well-insulated subterranean residential pit structures to keep warm during the cold winter months and several adjacent above ground rooms made from stone and jacal similar to adobe—used for food storage and daily activities during the warmer months. During the early Pueblo II period Ancestral Pueblo farmers began constructing above-ground masonry architecture (for example Agate House, a small masonry structure built from petrified wood that is open to the public) signaling a greater degree of residential permanence. During the Late Pueblo II and Early Pueblo III periods 1050–1225 local population size grew rapidly. Similar to much of the Ancestral Pueblo world, population density increased rapidly at this time and nearly 1,000 sites dating to this period have been identified in the park at a wide variety of locations—at the mouths of washes, near seeps, and on moisture-holding sand dunes.

Between 1250 and 1450 CE Ancestral Pueblo families gathered into large apartment building-like masonry structures (also known as pueblos) with several hundred people living together in close quarters These large villages were often located near important water sources. Ancestral Pueblo people constructed more than two of these large pueblos, one called Stone Axe, about 0.5 mi east of the park, and the other at Puerco Pueblo, which overlooks the Puerco River near the middle of the park. There they built roughly 200 rooms around an open plaza. Some rooms had no windows or doors and could be entered by climbing a ladder and descending through a hole in the roof. At its peak, perhaps 200 people lived in this pueblo. Over time, however, Ancestral Pueblo families undertook migrations and joined rapidly growing towns on the Hopi Mesas in Northern Arizona and at the Pueblo of Zuni in northern New Mexico, where the descendants of the ancient Petrified Forest farmers still live today. Some researchers have argued that a persistently dry climate led to out-migration, and the last residents left Puerco Pueblo in about 1380 CE.

At Puerco Pueblo and many other sites within the park, petroglyphs—images, symbols, or designs—have been scratched, pecked, carved, or incised on rock surfaces, often on a patina known as desert varnish. Most of the petroglyphs in Petrified Forest National Park are thought to be between 650 and 2,000 years old.

From the 16th through the 18th centuries, explorers looking for routes between Spanish colonies along the Rio Grande to the southeast and other Spanish colonies on the Pacific coast to the west passed near or through the area, which they called El Desierto Pintado, the Painted Desert. However, the park's oldest Spanish inscriptions, left by descendants of the region's early Spanish colonists, date only to the late 19th century.

United States

After the Southwest became part of the U.S., explorers continued to look for good east–west routes along the 35th parallel. In 1853, a crew led by U.S. Army Lieutenant Amiel Whipple surveyed along a sandy wash in the northern part of the Petrified Forest. So impressed was Whipple by the petrified wood along the banks of the arroyo that he named it Lithodendron Creek (Stone Tree Creek). Geologist Jules Marcou, a member of the Whipple expedition, observed that the petrified trees were from the Triassic.

A slightly later route along the parallel was a wagon road, built between 1857 and 1860, that involved experimental use of camels as transport. In the late 19th century, settlers and private stagecoach companies followed similar east–west routes. Homesteaders who stayed in the area developed cattle ranches on the grasslands, and cattle grazed in the Petrified Forest until the mid-20th century.

Also close to the 35th parallel was the Atlantic and Pacific Railroad. Its opening in the early 1880s led to the founding of towns like Holbrook and Adamana. Visitors could stop at the Adamana train station, book a hotel room, and take a tour of what was then called the Chalcedony Forest. Over the years, the line changed hands, becoming the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway, and then the BNSF. More than 60 BNSF trains, mostly carrying freight, pass through the park every day. U.S. Route 66, a former transcontinental auto highway developed in 1926 from part of the National Old Trails Road, ran parallel to the railroad tracks until it was decommissioned in 1985. The park has preserved within its boundaries a small grassy section of the road. Interstate 40, which crosses the park, replaced the older highway.

Increasing tourist and commercial interest in petrified wood during the late 19th century began to alarm residents of the region. In 1895, the Arizona Territorial Legislature asked the U.S. Congress to create a petrified forest national park. Although this first attempt failed, in 1906 the Antiquities Act signed by President Theodore Roosevelt was used to create the Petrified Forest National Monument as the second national monument. Between 1934 and 1942, the federal Civilian Conservation Corps built road, trails, and structures in the monument, and the government acquired additional land in the Painted Desert section. The monument became a national park in 1962. Six years after the signing of the Wilderness Act in 1964 by President Lyndon B. Johnson, wilderness areas (where human activity is limited), were designated in the park. In 2004, President George W. Bush signed a bill authorizing the eventual expansion of the park from 93,353 acres (about 146 mi2 or 378 km2) to 218,533 acres (about 341 mi2 or 884 km2). Theft of petrified wood is still a problem. Despite a guard force of seven National Park Service rangers, fences, warning signs, and the threat of a $325 fine, an estimated 12 ST of the fossil wood is stolen from the Petrified Forest every year.

Jessee Walter Fewkes, the first archeologist to visit Puerco Ruin, predicted in the late 19th century that it would yield many artifacts. Conservationist John Muir conducted the first excavations of the ruin in 1905–06. Although he did not publish his findings, he urged the federal government to preserve Petrified Forest. Professional archeological work in the park began in the early 20th century when Walter Hough conducted excavations at Puerco Ruin and other sites. In the 1930s, the Civil Works Administration funded research in the park by archeologists H.P. Mera and C.B. Cosgrove. A National Park Service resurvey of the Petrified Forest in the early 1940s identified most of the large sites with stone ruins, and subsequent surveys since 1978 have identified a total of more than 600 artifact sites, many of them small.

The earliest paleontological exploration of the region that is now the park was made in 1899 by paleobotanist Lester Ward, material of which is now deposited in the Smithsonian Institution. Muir also collected some fossil material, which is now deposited at the University of California Museum of Paleontology. In 1919, a phytosaur skull was discovered near Blue Mesa in the Petrified Forest by Ynez Mexia and sent to the Museum of Paleontology in Berkeley. In 1921, Annie Alexander, founder of the museum, visited Blue Mesa to collect more of the phytosaur and other specimens; this led to further excavations by paleontologist Charles Camp. Camp was the most prolific collector in the early 20th century, but collections were also made by Maurice Mehl (University of Missouri), Edwin Colbert (American Museum of Natural History), and park naturalists like Myrl Walker. In the latter half of the 20th century, the park was inventoried by staff at the Museum of Northern Arizona (Richard Cifelli, Will Downs), with renewed collection made by researchers from Berkeley (Robert Long, Kevin Padian), the University of Chicago (Michael Parrish), the Field Museum of Natural History (John Bolt), and Yale University (Paul Olsen). Since then, more than 300 fossil sites have been documented in the park. Research in paleontology and archeology continues at the park in the 21st century.

Flora

According to the A. W. Kuchler U.S. Potential natural vegetation Types, Petrified Forest National Park encompasses two classifications; a Grama Bouteloua/Galleta Hilaria (plant) Steppe (53) potential vegetation type with a Desert Grassland (12) vegetation form and a Juniper/Pinyon pine (23) vegetation type with a Great Basin montane forest/Southwest Forest (4) vegetation form.

A 2005 survey found that 447 species of flora, of which 57 species are invasive, occur in the park. Although the park is known for its fossils and eroded badlands, its main environment is semi-desert shrub steppe. Protected from development and overgrazing for many years, the park has some of the best grassland in northeastern Arizona. In the northern part of the park, the volcanic soils of the Bidahochi Formation support abundant plant life along the Painted Desert rim. In contrast to the relatively bare badlands below, the rim is covered with shrubs, small trees, grasses, and herbs.

The dominant plants in the park include more than 100 grass species, many native to the region. Growing among the grasses are flowering species such as evening primrose, mariposa lily, and blue flax, and shrubs such as sagebrush, saltbush, and rabbitbrush. Among the wide variety of grasses are native perennial bunchgrass, blue grama, sacaton, sideoats grama, bearded sprangletop, and bush muhly. Invasive species that crowd out slower-spreading natives include annual lovegrass and brome (cheat grass).

Trees and shrubs grow in riparian zones along the park's washes. Willows and cottonwoods are the larger plants, joined by rushes and sedges. Here the invasive Eurasian tamarisk, also known as saltcedar, threatens native plants by crowding, using most of the available water, and increasing soil salinity by exuding salt through its leaves.

Fauna

Some of the larger animals roaming the grasslands include pronghorns, black-tailed jackrabbits (hares), Gunnison's prairie dogs, coyotes, bobcats and foxes. Pronghorns, the fastest land animals in North America, are capable of 60 mph sprints. They are the second fastest land animal on Earth. The blood vessels in the huge, thin-walled ears of the jackrabbits act as heat exchangers. These hares are known for their bursts of speed, long leaps, and zigzag routes, all of which protect them from being eaten by golden eagles and other predators. The prairie dogs live in large colonies or "towns", near which many other species find food and shelter. Coyotes dine largely on rodents but also eat fruits, reptiles, insects, small mammals, birds, and carrion.

Bobcats and bullsnakes hunt smaller animals, such as deer mice and white-tailed antelope squirrels in the park's riparian zones. Western pipistrelle bats feast on insects, and pallid bats eat beetles, centipedes, cicadas, praying mantises, scorpions, and other arthropods. On the Painted Desert rim, small animals find food and shelter among the denser foliage, and mule deer sometimes frequent the area.

More than 16 kinds of lizards and snakes live in various habitats in the park and consume large quantities of insects, spiders, scorpions, other reptiles, and small mammals. The collared lizard, which occurs in every habitat, is the largest and most often seen. Plateau striped whiptails, a species consisting entirely of females, prefer grasslands and developed areas. Side-blotched lizards live in rocky areas of the park but are seldom seen. Gopher snakes, which sometimes imitate rattlesnakes when disturbed, are among the most common snakes in the park. The Prairie rattlesnake, the only venomous snake found in the park, prefers grasslands and shrub areas.

Seven kinds of amphibians, which drink no water but absorb it through their permeable skins, have been identified in Petrified Forest National Park. Tiger salamanders, found in grassland and near major drainages, are the only salamander species known in Arizona. Woodhouse's toads, which are seldom seen, are the largest toads in the park. They like grasslands, riparian corridors, and developed areas. Red-spotted toads, most active in the rainy season, July through September, are found in rocky areas near streams and in canyons. The Great Plains toad, the most common toad in the park, prefers grasslands. Resident spadefoot toads include the New Mexico, plains, and Couch's varieties.

A survey conducted in 2006 identified 216 species of birds known to have occurred in Petrified Forest National Park since the park became a protected area in 1906. Of those, 33 species breed within the park, 6 other species probably do, and 18 species live in the park year-round. Thirty-five species live in the park only during the summer and 11 species only during the winter. The greatest diversity of birds occurs during fall and winter migrations.

Raptors, songbirds, and ground birds are found in the park's grassland, while the Puerco River's riparian corridor is a good place for year-round residents as well as migrants such as warblers, vireos, avocets, and killdeer. Developed areas around the visitor center and museum attract western tanagers, hermit warblers, house finches, and others. Occasional shorebirds and eastern birds also visit the park.

Birds commonly seen in the park include the common raven and the western meadowlark, known for its charming song. Anna's hummingbird, which can hover and fly backwards as well as forwards, is among the smallest birds in the park. The largest is the golden eagle, with a wingspan of up to 7 ft.

Activities
The park is open every day except Christmas on a schedule that varies slightly with the seasons. In 2010, it and its Painted Desert Visitor Center and Rainbow Forest Museum were open from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. from May 9 through September 6 but opened as early as 8 a.m. and closed as late as 5 p.m. during other parts of the year. The Painted Desert Inn (a historic museum and bookstore) is open from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. year-round except Christmas. Park clocks are always set to Mountain Standard Time, as Arizona does not observe Daylight Saving Time.

The Painted Desert Visitor Center, designed by modernist architect Richard Neutra, is part of the Painted Desert Community Complex Historic District listed on the National Register of Historic Places. Eight other sites within the park are also on the National Register, including the Painted Desert Inn and associated cabins, the Agate House Pueblo, the Painted Desert Petroglyphs and Ruins Archeological District, Newspaper Rock Petroglyphs Archeological District, Puerco Ruin and Petroglyphs, the Flattop Site (an archeological site), the Twin Buttes Archeological District, and the 35th Parallel Route (also known as the Beale Camel Trail). The Painted Desert Inn was upgraded to a National Historic Landmark in 1987.

The visitor center, which is near the north entrance to the park, offers visitor information and shows a 20-minute orientation movie, "Timeless Impressions", once every half-hour. It has a bookstore, exhibits, a restaurant open from 8 a.m. to 3 p.m., a gift shop, a gas station, a post office open from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. Monday through Friday, a postal drop box, and public restrooms. The Rainbow Forest Museum complex 2 mi north of the park's south entrance offers services including information and "Timeless Impressions" showings once every half-hour. It has a bookstore, fossil exhibits, an interactive Triassic Virtual Tour, limited food service, a gift shop, and public restrooms. The Painted Desert Inn, 2 mi north of the Painted Desert Visitor Center, offers visitor information. It has a bookstore, museum exhibits (including the building itself), and public restrooms.

No campgrounds or overnight lodging are available in the park, although nearby communities such as Holbrook offer motels and other accommodations. Overnight parking is not allowed except in the case of backpackers with wilderness hiking permits. Sightseeing is available by private automobile, motorcycle, commercial tour, bicycle, and hiking. The park road, parking lots, and turn-outs are big enough to accommodate large recreational vehicles. Off-road vehicle travel, including by mountain bike, is not allowed. With a few exceptions such as unpaved Old Highway 66, bicycles must stay on paved roads such as the 28 mi main park road and stay off trails and unpaved surfaces.

The park's seven maintained hiking trails, some paved, vary in length from less than 0.5 mi to nearly 3 mi. Pets are allowed on these trails if kept on a leash, but bicycles are not. These named trails are Painted Desert Rim, Puerco Pueblo, Blue Mesa, Crystal Forest, Giant Logs, Long Logs, and Agate House. There are also nine recently developed day-hike routes on unpaved and largely unmarked routes called "Off the Beaten Path" hikes. Hikers and backpackers may also visit the park's wilderness areas. Free permits are required for overnight stays; they are issued from the Painted Desert Visitor Center, Painted Desert Inn, and Rainbow Forest Museum. Most backpackers enter the wilderness at the north end of the park, where parking and an access trail are available at Painted Desert Inn. Group camping is limited to eight people. Horseback riding is allowed in the wilderness areas; water for horses is available at the service station near the Painted Desert Visitor Center. Riders and hikers are asked to travel along dry washes as much as possible to reduce the impact on fragile desert soils.

Rangers offer a variety of programs about the park. Regularly scheduled events include a Painted Desert Inn tour, a Triassic program at the Rainbow Forest Museum sunroom, a talk or walk along the Giant Logs Trail behind the museum, and a Puerco Pueblo guided walk. The park hosts special events related to Earth Science Week and National American Indian Heritage Month. On Saturdays from Memorial Day weekend through Labor Day at the Painted Desert Inn, artisans from the region give cultural demonstrations related to ancient peoples, intertribal relationships, and European-descent cultures. For students and teachers, the rangers offer educational materials and field-trip talks. In some years during the summer months, artists-in-residence work in the park.

title: Petrified Forest National Park


text:
User talk:EACH

Hello and Welcome! Great job on the geyser rewrite - when I first saw that poor article I was horrified but didn't have time to fix it (it was on my ToDo list though). --mav

Thanks, pleased to be here. I appreciate your rapid and excellent copyediting, too. --Evan

question about geyser
Hi, are you able to answer my question on the talk page talk:geyser? --141.53.194.251 13:27, 11 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Sustainability category/project/series
Hi. I noticed you have worked on the Sustainability page. There has been, as you might expect, a little heat recently at the Hubbert Peak page, and some of us are discussing ways we might better organize the information about energy sources and developments. Articles/subjects that we are discussing the organization/hierarchy of include Hubbert Peak, Energy development, Sustainability, Future energy development, Alternatives to oil. It occurred to me that you might have some fresh ideas about how to go about organizing a rational hierarchy, whether it be a project, a system of categories, a series, or simply an informal vision. Please give your input at the bottom of Talk:Hubbert Peak. Tom - Talk 17:26, Dec 16, 2004 (UTC)

WikiProject Good Articles May Newsletter
The May Newsletter for WikiProject Good Articles has now been published. Dr. Cash (talk) 22:16, 2 May 2008 (UTC)

WikiProject Good articles newsletter
Delivered by the automated Giggabot (stop!) 01:29, 9 June 2008 (UTC)

WikiProject Good Articles Newsletter
Sorry about the delay. AWB has been having a few issues lately. Here is the august issue of the WikiProject Good Articles Newsletter! Dr. Cash (talk) 20:32, 19 August 2008 (UTC)

GA Sweeps invitation
Hello, I hope you are doing well. I am sending you this message since you are a member of the GA WikiProject. I would like to invite you to consider helping with the GA sweeps process. Sweeps helps to ensure that the oldest GAs still meet the criteria, and improve the quality of GAs overall. Unfortunately, last month only two articles were reviewed. This is definitely a low point after our peak at the beginning of the process when 163 articles were reviewed in September 2007. After nearly two years, the running total has just passed the 50% mark. In order to expediate the reviewing, several changes have been made to the process. A new worklist has been created, detailing which articles are left to review. All exempt and previously reviewed articles have already been removed from the list. Instead of reviewing by topic, you can consider picking and choosing whichever articles interest you.

We are always looking for new members to assist with the remaining articles, so if you are interested or know of anybody that can assist, please visit the GA sweeps page. In addition, for every member that reviews 100 articles or has a significant impact on the process, s/he will get an award when they reach that threshold. If only 14 editors achieve this feat starting now, we would be done with Sweeps! Of course, having more people reviewing less articles would be better for all involved, so please consider asking others to help out. Feel free to stop by and only review a few articles, something's better than nothing! Take a look at the list, and see what articles interest you. Let's work to complete Sweeps so that efforts can be fully focused on the backlog at GAN. If you have any questions about the process, reviewing, or need help with a particular article, please contact me or OhanaUnited and we'll be happy to help. --Happy editing! Nehrams2020 (talk • contrib) 08:11, 8 May 2009 (UTC)

April 2010 GAN backlog elimination drive
–MuZemike delivered by MuZebot 17:33, 25 March 2010 (UTC)

March 2011 GAN backlog elimination drive a week away
 WikiProject Good Articles will be running a GAN backlog elimination drive for the entire month of March. The goal of this drive is to bring the number of outstanding Good Article nominations down to below 50. This will help editors in restoring confidence to the GAN process as well as actively improving, polishing, and rewarding good content. If you are interested in participating in the drive, please place your name here. Awards will be given out to those who review certain numbers of GANs as well as to those who review the most. On behalf of my co-coordinator Wizardman, we hope we can see you in March. MuZemike delivered by MuZebot 00:24, 22 February 2011 (UTC)

WikiProject Good articles (Participant Clean-Up)
Hello, you are receiving this message because you are currently a participant of WikiProject Good articles. Since the creation of the WikiProject, over 200 user's have joined to help review good article nominations and contribute to other sections of the WikiProject. Over the years, several of these users have stopped reviewing articles and/or have become inactive with the project but are still listed as participates. In order to improve communications with other participants and get newsletters sent out faster (newsletters will begin to be sent out monthly starting in October) all participants that are no longer active with the WikiProject will be removed from the participants list.

If you are still interested in being a participant for this WikiProject, please sign your user name here and please help review some articles so we can reduce the size of the backlog. If you are no longer interested, you do not need to sign your name anywhere and your name will be removed from the participants list after the deadline. Remember that even if you are not interested at this time, you can always re-add your name to the list whenever you want. The deadline to sign your name on the page above will be November 1, 2012. Thank-you. 13:25, 22 September 2012 (UTC)

Update for: WikiProject Good articles (Participant Clean-Up)
Sorry for having to send out a second message but a user has brought to my attention that a point mentioned in the first message should be clarified. If user's don't sign on this page, they will be moved to an "Inactive Participants" list rather then be being removed from the entire WikiProject. Sorry for any confusion.--Dom497 (talk)15:15, 22 September 2012 (UTC)

WikiProject Good Articles Newsletter - October 2012
Delivered October 3, 2012 by ENewsBot. If you do not wish to receive this newsletter any longer, please remove your name from this list. → Please direct all enquiries regarding this newsletter to the WikiProject talk page. → Newsletter delivered by ENewsBot (info) · 05:35, 3 October 2012 (UTC)

WikiProject Good Articles - Participant Clean-up (Second Call)
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WikiProject Good Articles - Participant Clean-up (Final Call)
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The GAN Newsletter (November 2012)
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The WikiProject: Good Articles Newsletter (December 2012)
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The WikiProject: Good Articles Newsletter (January 2013)
This newsletter was delivered by EdwardsBot (talk) 14:17, 3 January 2013 (UTC)

April - National Contribution Month
Good day Evan,

During the month of April, Wikimedia Canada is preparing the National Contribution Month, and we are looking for experienced contributors to organize a contribution day (or half-day) in their region.

Contribution days are activities where Wikipedia's contributors, students, or anybody interested in contributing to Wikipedia meets together to collectively improve a predetermined theme. This meetings generally take place in library where references are easy of access, but can be organized in any communal room. Beside improving articles, a goal of this participatory workshops is to initiate neophyte in the cooperative contribution of Wikipedia.

If you are interested in organizing or participating in a contribution day in your region, communicate witht he national team on the project's talk page. The exact agenda of each local event is left to the discretion of the organizer. Help is available for the organization from contributors who already organized these type of days, so don't be worried. If you have any questions or want more information, don't hesitate to contact us.

Benoit Rochon (talk) 00:37, 11 February 2013 (UTC)

WikiProject Good Articles Recruitment Centre
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DYK RfC

 * As a listed GA participant, you are invited to contribute to a formal Request for Comment on the question of whether Good Articles should be eligible to appear in the Did You Know? slot in future. Please see the proposal on its subpage here, or on the main DYK talk page. To add the discussion to your watchlist, click this link. Thank you in advance. Gilderien Chat|Contributions 02:47, 1 August 2013 (UTC)

GAN December 2013 Backlog Drive
{| |}

March 2014 GAN Backlog Drive
It's that time again! Starting on March 1, there will be another GAN Backlog Drive! There will be several changes compared to previous drives:

 * This drive will introduce a new component to it; a point system. In a nutshell, older nominations are worth more points than newer nominations. The top 3 participants who have the points will be awarded the Golden, Silver, or Bronze Wikipedia Puzzle Piece Trophy, respectively.
 * Unlike the December 2013 Backlog Drive, earning an additional barnstar if you reached your goal has been removed.
 * The allowance to have insufficient reviews has been lowered to 2 before being disqualified.
 * An exception to the rule that all reviews must be completed before the deadline has been created.

Also, something that I thought I would share with all of you is that we raised $20.88 (USD) for the WMF in the December 2013 drive. It may not sound like a lot but considering that that was raised just because we reviewed articles, I would say that's pretty good! With that success, pledges can be made for the upcoming drive if you wish.

More info regarding the drive and full descriptions regarding the changes to this drive can be found on the the drive page. If you have any questions, feel free to leave a message on the drive talk page.

I look forward to your participation and hope that because of it, some day the backlog will be gone!

--Dom497

--MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 00:58, 22 February 2014 (UTC)

GAN March 2014 Backlog Drive
The March 2014 GAN Backlog Drive has begun and will end on April 1, 2014! Sent by Dom497 on behalf of MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 21:01, 1 March 2014 (UTC)

WikiProject Good articles Future GAN Backlog Drive
Hello everyone! Hope you've all been having a great summer!

TheQ Editor recently proposed the idea of having another Backlog Drive in either September/October or November/December of this year. For those of you who have participated in the past two drives you know I was the one who organized them, however, come September, this will be my most important year in school so I will not be able to coordinate this drive (if it happens). TheQ Editor has volunteered to be a coordinator for the drive. If any of you would like to co-coordinator, please notify TheQ Editor on his talk page.

If you would be interested in participating in a Backlog Drive sometime before the end of this year, please notify TheQ Editor. Also, make sure to specify what month(s) work best for you.

At the time this message was sent out, the backlog was at 520 nominations. Since May, the backlog has been steadily increasing and we are currently near an all time high. Even though the backlog will not disappear over one drive, this drive can lead to several others which will (hopefully) lead to the day where there is no longer a backlog.

As always, the more participants, the better, and everyone is encouraged to participate!

Sent by Dom497 --MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 15:52, 16 August 2014 (UTC)

GA Cup
Hello everyone! We hope you have all been having a great summer!

As we all know, the recent GAN Backlog Drives have not had any big impact on the backlog. Because of that, me (Dom497), Figureskatingfan, and TheQ Editor have worked on an idea that could possibly finally put a dent into the massive backlog. Now, I will admit, the idea isn't entirely ours as we have took the general idea of the WikiCup and brought it over to WikiProject Good Articles. But anyways, here's what we have in mind:

For all of you that do not know what the WikiCup is, it is an annual competition between several editors to see who can get the most Good Articles, Featured Article's, Did You Know's, etc. Based of this, we propose to you the GA Cup. This competition will only focus on reviewing Good articles.

For more info on the proposal, click here. As a FYI, the proposal page is not what the final product will look like (if you do go ahead with this idea). It will look very similar to WikiCup's page(s).

The discussion for the proposal will take place here. Please let us know if you are interested, have any concerns, things to consider, etc.

--Dom497, Figureskatingfan, and TheQ Editor

MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 01:28, 31 August 2014 (UTC)

Your account will be renamed
Hello,

The developer team at Wikimedia is making some changes to how accounts work, as part of our on-going efforts to provide new and better tools for our users like cross-wiki notifications. These changes will mean you have the same account name everywhere. This will let us give you new features that will help you edit and discuss better, and allow more flexible user permissions for tools. One of the side-effects of this is that user accounts will now have to be unique across all 900 Wikimedia wikis. See the announcement for more information.

Unfortunately, your account clashes with another account also called Evan. To make sure that both of you can use all Wikimedia projects in future, we have reserved the name Evan~enwiki that only you will have. If you like it, you don't have to do anything. If you do not like it, you can pick out a different name. If you think you might own all of the accounts with this name and this message is in error, please visit Special:MergeAccount to check and attach all of your accounts to prevent them from being renamed.

Your account will still work as before, and you will be credited for all your edits made so far, but you will have to use the new account name when you log in.

Sorry for the inconvenience.

Yours, Keegan Peterzell Community Liaison, Wikimedia Foundation 23:48, 19 March 2015 (UTC)

Renamed
 This account has been renamed as part of single-user login finalisation. If you own this account you can |log in using your previous username and password for more information. If you do not like this account's new name, you can choose your own using this form after logging in: . -- Keegan (WMF) (talk) 12:43, 22 April 2015 (UTC)

title: User talk:EACH


text:
Kristin Davis

Kristin Landen Davis (also listed as Kristin Lee Davis; born February 23, 1965) is an American actress and producer. She is known for playing Charlotte York Goldenblatt in the HBO romantic comedy series Sex and the City (1998–2004). She received nominations at the Emmys and the Golden Globes in 2004 for her role as Charlotte, and reprised the role in the films Sex and the City (2008) and Sex and the City 2 (2010), as well as the revival of the show And Just Like That... (2021–present) on Max.

Davis's big break came in 1995, when she was cast as the villainous Brooke Armstrong in the Fox prime time soap opera Melrose Place (1995–1996). Her film credits include The Shaggy Dog (2006), Deck the Halls (2006), Couples Retreat (2009), Journey 2: The Mysterious Island (2012) and Holiday in the Wild (2019). Davis made her Broadway debut playing Mabel Cantwell in the 2012 revival of The Best Man, and her West End debut playing Beth Gallagher in the original 2014 stage production of Fatal Attraction.

Early life and education
Davis was born on February 23, 1965, in Boulder, Colorado. She is an only child, and her parents divorced when she was a baby. She was adopted by her stepfather, then-University of Colorado Boulder professor Keith Davis, after he married her mother, Dorothy, a university data analyst, in 1968. She has three step sisters from her father's first marriage. Early in her childhood, she and her parents moved to Columbia, South Carolina, where her father served as provost and taught psychology at the University of South Carolina.

Davis wanted to be an actress from the age of nine, when she was cast in the Workshop Theatre production of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. Davis lived in South Carolina until she graduated from A.C. Flora High School in 1983. She then moved to New Jersey, where she attended Rutgers University. Davis graduated with a BFA degree in acting from Rutgers University's Mason Gross School of the Arts in 1987.

Television
After graduation in 1987, Davis moved to New York and waited tables before opening a yoga studio with a friend. In 1991, she acted in a couple of episodes of the daytime drama (soap opera) General Hospital. She later guest-starred on Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman and ER, and acted on made-for-television movies. Her big break came in 1995 when she landed the role of villainess Brooke Armstrong Campbell on the Fox nighttime soap opera Melrose Place. She left the show after one year when producers decided to kill off the character. The following year, Davis guest-starred in two episodes of Seinfeld.

In 1998, Davis was cast as Charlotte York in the HBO romantic comedy series Sex and the City and remained an integral cast member until the series ended in 2004. In 1999, along with the rest of the cast, she was awarded the Women in Film Lucy Award in recognition of her excellence and innovation in her creative works that have enhanced the perception of women through the medium of television. She received Primetime Emmy Award nomination for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series her role as Charlotte in the final season, and well as Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actress – Series, Miniseries or Television Film nomination. During her time in the show, Davis guest-starred on Friends in the episode "The One with Ross's Library Book", and Will & Grace episode "Will & Grace & Vince & Nadine". She played leading roles in the 1999 miniseries Atomic Train alongside Rob Lowe, and television movies including Blacktop (2000), Three Days (2001) and The Winning Season (2004). Davis hosted the VH1 show 200 Greatest Pop Culture Icons in 2003. In 2005, she starred in a television pilot entitled Soccer Moms in which she and Gina Torres star as suburban mothers who moonlight as private detectives. She starred as Miss Spider in the animated television series Miss Spider's Sunny Patch Friends and was a guest judge on the Lifetime program Project Runway.

In 2012, Davis starred in and produced the Lifetime television film Of Two Minds In 2014, she returned to series television with starring role in the short-lived CBS sitcom Bad Teacher. In 2016, she starred in Hallmark Channel film A Heavenly Christmas. In 2020, she hosted Fox reality series Labor of Love.

Films
Davis made her movie debut in the 1988 comedy slasher film Doom Asylum. In 1990s, she had secondary roles in films Nine Months (1995) and Sour Grapes (1998). Her later films include The Adventures of Sharkboy and Lavagirl in 3D (2005), opposite David Arquette and George Lopez; the 2006 version of The Shaggy Dog, opposite Tim Allen, and Deck the Halls, opposite Matthew Broderick and Danny DeVito. Davis appeared in 2008's Sex and the City feature film, under the direction of executive producer Michael Patrick King. The film was a box office success and amassed $415 million at the worldwide box office, despite mixed reviews. It was Davis' first movie to reach #1 at the US box office. Davis reprised her role of Charlotte York a second time in 2010's Sex and the City 2, which grossed $290 million worldwide but was widely panned by critics. She remained interested in a third installment of the franchise.

In 2009, Davis co-starred in the romantic comedy film Couples Retreat, a comedy chronicling four couples who partake in therapy sessions at a tropical island resort. Jon Favreau, who also co-wrote the script, played her husband. The film opened at No. 1 during its opening weekend at the US box office, making it her second film to do so. In 2010, Davis was cast as the mother of Josh Hutcherson's character in the adventure movie Journey 2: The Mysterious Island. The film opened theatrically in February 2012 and passed the $100 million mark at the US box office, being Davis' third film to achieve this.

In 2015, Davis was credited as producer on the documentary Gardeners of Eden, that comments on the illegal ivory trade. In 2019, Davis starred in and produced romantic comedy-drama film Holiday in the Wild for Netflix. The film was pitched to her, after the producers had noticed her philanthropic work with elephants. She later played a leading role and produced the 2021 thriller film Deadly Illusions about a bestselling female novelist (Davis) who is suffering from writer's block and hires an innocent young woman to watch over her twin children.

Stage
Davis made her Broadway debut in July 2012, when she replaced Kerry Butler in the revival of Gore Vidal's The Best Man at the Gerald Schoenfeld Theatre. She made her West End debut playing Beth Gallagher in Fatal Attraction at the Theatre Royal, Haymarket, in March 2014.

Additional ventures
Shortly after the wide release of the Sex and the City feature film, in June 2008, Belk, the nation's largest privately owned department store chain, announced a partnership with Davis. The arrangement includes a ladies' apparel and accessories line that debuted in 2008 in 125 store locations and online, with eventual plans for expanding availability to other store locations. In Belk's press release about the product line launch, Davis cited her upbringing in South Carolina as part of her inspiration for working with the chain. In late 2009 Belk cancelled the arrangement, citing the difficult economic conditions prevailing, while Davis said she hoped to take the line elsewhere.

Philanthropic work and recognition
Davis is a Global Ambassador for Oxfam, and has campaigned in support of their work since 2004, travelling to locations including Haiti, Mozambique, and South Africa. In 2011 she gave a tearful interview with BBC News describing the situation at the Dadaab refugee camp in Kenya where she witnessed the impact of drought.

The cosmetics company Maybelline named Davis as a celebrity spokeswoman in 2004.

During her 2009 visit to Africa, Davis, a lifelong lover of elephants, discovered an abandoned baby elephant and arranged for it to be taken to a wildlife rehabilitation center. In recognition of the attention she has brought to the plight of orphaned African elephants, Davis won the Humane Society's 2010 Wyler Award, which is bestowed on a celebrity or public figure who has made news on behalf of animals. She is also a patron of the David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust which works to protect elephants and other wildlife in Kenya.

Davis has worked with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) and is included on their list of "High Profile Supporters". In 2015 she visited the Democratic Republic of Congo and Uganda. Davis later filmed a fund-raising appeal supporting the UNHCR, and in 2016 visited Australia to promote the UNHCR's work, focussing on the plight of women victims of sexual violence in Congo.

Personal life
Davis has dated Steve Martin, Alec Baldwin, and Aaron Sorkin.

In 2011, Davis adopted a daughter, Gemma Rose Davis. In 2018, she adopted a son, Wilson. They reside in the hills of Brentwood, Los Angeles, California.

Davis is a recovering alcoholic and says she was introduced to alcohol early as part of her Southern upbringing. "Alcohol freed me. I was really shy and I didn't know how to come out of my shell. I drank for the same reason I loved acting. I wanted to feel things and express myself and be free. And I'm not naturally that way."

title: Kristin Davis


text:
Talk:One Canada Square

Why is the height in feet first? The uk hasn’t taught feet in schools for decades

Archive pages
/Archive 1 /Archive 2

title: Talk:One Canada Square


text:
Yazoo lands

The Yazoo lands were the central and western regions of the U.S. state of Georgia, when its western border stretched back to the Mississippi. The Yazoo lands were named for the Yazoo nation, that lived on the lower course of the Yazoo, in what is now Mississippi.

The Yazoo lands would later become large portions of the present-day states of Alabama and Mississippi, along with portions of Spanish West Florida, which became the lower third of each state, and a narrow northern strip of land claimed by South Carolina in the Treaty of Beaufort that also stretched westward to the river, which became the two states' border counties with Tennessee.

In the 1790s, the Yazoo lands were the subject of a major political scandal in the state of Georgia, called the Yazoo land scandal. It led to Georgia's cession of the land to the U.S. government in the Compact of 1802.

title: Yazoo lands


text:
User:ThomasStrohmann~enwiki

Here is a link to my Google+ page: https://plus.google.com/106379449841826887490/about

title: User:ThomasStrohmann~enwiki


text:
Talk:Open Directory License

Untitled
"Netscape owns the copyright to its unique "compilation" of editor submissions (in practice, of links)"? Actually it's not the collection of links they claim copyright on, but on the titles and descriptions. // Liftarn

title: Talk:Open Directory License