The Sierra Nevada subalpine zone occurs between 2,450–3,660 metres (8,000–12,000 ft), and is characterized by an open woodland of several conifer species, including
whitebark pine,
lodgepole pine,
western white pine,
mountain hemlock, and
Sierra juniper. The vegetation and ecology is determined by the harsh climate, with extensive snow and wind. In addition, soils are thin and nutrient-poor. Due to these harsh conditions, vegetation grows slowly and to reduced heights. In addition, the stressful environment suppress species competition and promotes
mutualism. (Full article...)
Ruth E. Norman (born Ruth Nields; August 18, 1900 – July 12, 1993), also known as Uriel, was an American religious leader who co-founded the
Unarius Academy of Science, based in
Southern California. Raised in California, Norman received little education and worked from an early age in a variety of jobs. In the 1940s, she developed an interest in
psychic phenomena and
past-life regression. These pursuits led to her introduction to
Ernest Norman, a self-described psychic, in 1954. He engaged in
channeling, past-life regression, and attempts at
communication with extraterrestrials. She married Ernest, her fourth husband, in the mid-1950s. Together they published several books about his revelations and formed Unarius, an organization which later became known as the Unarius Academy of Science, to popularize his teachings. The couple discussed numerous details about their alleged past lives and spiritual visits to other planets, forming a
mythology from these accounts.
After Ernest died in 1971, Ruth succeeded him as their group's leader and primary channeler. She subsequently began publishing accounts of her experiences and
revelations. In early 1974, she predicted that a space fleet of benevolent extraterrestrials, the Space Brothers, would land on Earth later that year, which led the Unarius Academy to purchase a property to serve as the landing site. After the extraterrestrials failed to appear, Norman said that trauma she had suffered in a past life had caused her to make an inaccurate prediction. Undaunted, she rented a building for Unarius' meetings and sought publicity for the movement, claiming to have united the Earth with an interplanetary confederation. She revised the Space Brothers' expected landing date several times, before finally settling on 2001. Her health declined in the late 1980s, prompting her students to try to heal her with rituals of past-life regression. Despite predicting that she would live to see the extraterrestrials land, Norman died in 1993. Unarius has continued to operate after her death, and formed a board of directors. Since the 2000s, leaders have concentrated on individual transformation leading to spiritual change in humankind. (Full article...)
Image 2
The GFDL logo
The GNU Free Documentation License (GNU FDL or simply GFDL) is a
copyleftlicense for free documentation, designed by the
Free Software Foundation (FSF) for the
GNU Project. It is similar to the
GNU General Public License, giving readers the rights to copy, redistribute, and modify (except for "invariant sections") a work and requires all copies and derivatives to be available under the same license. Copies may also be sold commercially, but, if produced in larger quantities (greater than 100), the original document or source code must be made available to the work's recipient.
The GFDL was designed for
manuals, textbooks, other reference and instructional materials, and documentation which often accompanies GNU software. However, it can be used for any text-based work, regardless of subject matter. For example, the free online encyclopedia
Wikipedia uses the GFDL (coupled with the
Creative Commons Attribution Share-Alike License) for much of its text, excluding text that was imported from other sources after the 2009 licensing update that is only available under the Creative Commons license. (Full article...)
Calvin Cordozar Broadus Jr. (/ˈbroʊdɪs/; born October 20, 1971), known professionally as Snoop Dogg (previously Snoop Doggy Dogg and briefly Snoop Lion), is an American rapper. His initial fame dates back to 1992 following his guest appearance on
Dr. Dre's debut solo single, "
Deep Cover", and later on Dre's debut album, The Chronic that same year. Broadus has since sold over 23 million albums in the United States, and 35 million albums worldwide.
His accolades include an
American Music Award, a
Primetime Emmy Award, and 17
Grammy Award nominations.
Picture of Stafford from the New York Sunday News, September 21, 1947
Jo Elizabeth Stafford (November 12, 1917 – July 16, 2008) was an American
traditional pop singer, whose career spanned five decades from the late 1930s to the early 1980s. Admired for the purity of her voice, she originally underwent classical training to become an
opera singer before following a career in popular music, and by 1955 had achieved more worldwide record sales than any other female artist. Her 1952 song "
You Belong to Me" topped the charts in the United States and United Kingdom, becoming the second single to top the
UK Singles Chart, and the first by a female artist to do so.
Born in remote oil-rich
Coalinga, California, near Fresno in the
San Joaquin Valley, Stafford made her first musical appearance at age 12. While still at high school, she joined her two older sisters to form a vocal trio named the Stafford Sisters, who found moderate success on radio and in film. In 1938, while the sisters were part of the cast of
Twentieth Century Fox's production of Alexander's Ragtime Band, Stafford met the future members of
the Pied Pipers and became the group's lead singer. Bandleader
Tommy Dorsey hired them in 1939 to perform vocals with his orchestra. From 1940 to 1942, the group often performed with Dorsey's new male singer, Frank Sinatra. (Full article...)
Image 6
Knight in June 2007
Marion Hugh "Suge" Knight Jr. (/ʃʊɡ/SHUUG; born April 19, 1965) is an American music executive and convicted felon who is the co-founder and former CEO of
Death Row Records. Knight was a central figure in
gangsta rap's commercial success in the 1990s. This feat is attributed to the record label's first two album releases:
Dr. Dre's The Chronic in 1992 and
Snoop Dogg's Doggystyle in 1993. Knight is serving a 28-year sentence in prison for a fatal hit-and-run in 2015.
Before the murders, Manson had spent more than half of his life in correctional institutions. While gathering his cult following, he was a
singer-songwriter on the fringe of the
Los Angeles music industry, chiefly through a chance association with
Dennis Wilson of
the Beach Boys, who introduced Manson to record producer
Terry Melcher. In 1968, the Beach Boys recorded Manson's song "Cease to Exist", renamed "
Never Learn Not to Love" as a single B-side, but without a credit to Manson. Afterward, Manson attempted to secure a record contract through Melcher, but was unsuccessful. (Full article...)
Image 9
Publicity photo of Anna May Wong from Stars of the Photoplay, 1930
Wong Liu Tsong (January 3, 1905 – February 3, 1961), known professionally as Anna May Wong, was an American actress, considered the first
Chinese American film star in
Hollywood, as well as the first Chinese American actress to gain international recognition. Her varied career spanned
silent film, sound film, television, stage, and radio.
Born in Los Angeles to first-generation
Taishanese Chinese American parents, Wong became engrossed with films and decided at the age of 11 that she would become an actress. Her first role was as an extra in the movie The Red Lantern (1919). During the silent film era, she acted in The Toll of the Sea (1922), one of the first films made in color, and in
Douglas Fairbanks' The Thief of Bagdad (1924). Wong became a fashion icon and had achieved international stardom in 1924. Wong had been one of the first to embrace the
flapper look. In 1934, the Mayfair Mannequin Society of New York voted her the "world's best dressed woman." In the 1920s and 1930s, Wong was acclaimed as one of the top fashion icons. (Full article...)
Chastain developed an interest in acting from an early age and made her professional stage debut in 1998 as
Shakespeare's
Juliet. After studying acting at the
Juilliard School, she was signed to a
talent holding deal with the television producer
John Wells. She was a recurring guest star in several television series, and took on roles in several stage productions. After making her film debut at age 31 in the drama Jolene (2008), Chastain had her breakthrough in 2011 with six film releases, including the dramas Take Shelter (2011) and The Tree of Life (2011). She received Academy Award nominations for playing an aspiring socialite in the period drama The Help (2011) and a CIA analyst in the thriller Zero Dark Thirty (2012). (Full article...)
Reagan was born in New York City. After her parents separated, she lived in
Maryland with an aunt and uncle for six years. When her mother remarried in 1929, she moved to Chicago and later was adopted by her mother's second husband. As Nancy Davis, she was a Hollywood actress in the 1940s and 1950s, starring in films such as The Next Voice You Hear..., Night into Morning, and Donovan's Brain. In 1952, she married Ronald Reagan, who was then president of the
Screen Actors Guild. He had two children from his previous marriage to
Jane Wyman and he and Nancy had two children together. Nancy Reagan was the First Lady of California when her husband was
governor from 1967 to 1975, and she began to work with the
Foster Grandparents Program. (Full article...)
Adams was a life-long advocate for
environmental conservation, and his photographic practice was deeply entwined with this advocacy. At age 14, he was given his first camera during his first visit to
Yosemite National Park. He developed his early photographic work as a member of the
Sierra Club. He was later contracted with the
United States Department of the Interior to make photographs of national parks. For his work and his persistent advocacy, which helped expand the National Park system, he was awarded the
Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1980. (Full article...)
Image 13
Jackson in 1988
Michael Joseph Jackson (August 29, 1958 – June 25, 2009) was an American singer, songwriter, dancer, and philanthropist. Known as the "King of Pop", he is widely regarded as
one of the most significant cultural figures of the 20th century. During his four-decade career, his contributions to music, dance, and fashion, along with his publicized personal life, made him a global figure in popular culture. Jackson influenced artists across many music genres. Through stage and video performances, he popularized complicated street dance moves such as the
moonwalk, which he named, as well as the
robot.
Randy Shilts (August 8, 1951 – February 17, 1994) was an American journalist and author. After studying journalism at the
University of Oregon, Shilts began working as a
reporter for both The Advocate and the San Francisco Chronicle, as well as for
San Francisco Bay Area television stations. In the 1980s, he was noted for being the first openly gay reporter for the San Francisco Chronicle.
Pelosi was born and raised in
Baltimore, and is the daughter of mayor and congressman
Thomas D'Alesandro Jr. She graduated from
Trinity College, Washington in 1962 and married businessman
Paul Pelosi the next year; the two had met while both were students. They moved to New York City before settling down in San Francisco with their children. Focused on raising her family, Pelosi stepped into politics as a volunteer for the Democratic Party in the 1960s. After years of party work, she was first elected to Congress in a
1987 special election and is now in her 19th term; she is the dean of
California's congressional delegation. Pelosi steadily rose through the ranks of the House Democratic Caucus to be elected
House minority whip in 2001 and elevated to
House minority leader a year later, becoming the first woman to hold each of those positions in either chamber of Congress. (Full article...)
... that Jack Mitchell and his heiress wife Lolita transformed El Mirador into "one of the most fabulous estates in
Montecito", complete with a dairy, a zoo, and a floating tea pavilion on a lake?
... that in the late 2000s the
Campbell Soup Company began producing a spicier canned cheese sauce in their California and Texas plants than they did elsewhere to cater for different consumer tastes?
... that at the time, the Fountain Fire was the third-most destructive wildfire in
California's recorded history?
... that in 2000, the
Sacramento County Policy Planning Commission decided that humans would never be allowed to live on Kimball Island again?
... that Baillieu Myer and his siblings were born in California because
their father's prior divorce was not recognised under Australian law?
... that the opening day of a California TV station was affected by a strike when workers refused to cross a two-man picket line?
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