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Smithsonian Magazine
''Smithsonian'' is the official journal published by the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C. The first issue was published in 1970. History The history of ''Smithsonian'' began when Edward K. Thompson, the retired editor of ''Life'' magazine, was asked by the then-Secretary of the Smithsonian, S. Dillon Ripley, to produce a magazine "about things in which the Smithsonian nstitutionis interested, might be interested or ought to be interested." Thompson would later recall that his philosophy for the new magazine was that it "would stir curiosity in already receptive minds. It would deal with history as it is relevant to the present. It would present art, since true art is never dated, in the richest possible reproduction. It would peer into the future via coverage of social progress and of science and technology. Technical matters would be digested and made intelligible by skilled writers who would stimulate readers to reach upward while not turning them off with jargon. W ...
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History
History (derived ) is the systematic study and the documentation of the human activity. The time period of event before the History of writing#Inventions of writing, invention of writing systems is considered prehistory. "History" is an umbrella term comprising past events as well as the memory, discovery, collection, organization, presentation, and interpretation of these events. Historians seek knowledge of the past using historical sources such as written documents, oral accounts, art and material artifacts, and ecological markers. History is not complete and still has debatable mysteries. History is also an Discipline (academia), academic discipline which uses narrative to describe, examine, question, and analyze past events, and investigate their patterns of cause and effect. Historians often debate which narrative best explains an event, as well as the significance of different causes and effects. Historians also debate the historiography, nature of history as an end in ...
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Rosanne Cash
Rosanne Cash (born May 24, 1955) is an American singer-songwriter and author. She is the eldest daughter of country musician Johnny Cash and Vivian Liberto Cash Distin, Johnny Cash's first wife. Although she is often classified as a country artist, her music draws on many genres, including folk, pop, rock, blues, and most notably Americana. In the 1980s, she had a string of genre-crossing singles that entered both the country and pop charts, the most commercially successful being her 1981 breakthrough hit "Seven Year Ache", which topped the U.S. country singles chart and reached the Top 30 on the U.S. pop chart. In 1990, Cash released ''Interiors'', a spare, introspective album which signaled a break from her pop country past. The following year she ended her marriage and moved from Nashville to New York City where she continues to write, record, and perform, having since released six albums, written three books, and edited a collection of short stories. Her fiction and essays ...
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Al Franken
Alan Stuart Franken (born May 21, 1951) is an American comedian, politician, media personality, and author who served as a United States senator from Minnesota from 2009 to 2018. He gained fame as a writer and performer on the television comedy show ''Saturday Night Live,'' where he worked from the 1970s until the 1990s. After decades as an entertainer, he became a prominent liberal political activist, hosting '' The Al Franken Show'' on Air America Radio. Franken was elected to the United States Senate in 2008 as the nominee of the Minnesota Democratic–Farmer–Labor Party (DFL, an affiliate of the Democratic Party), defeating incumbent Republican Senator Norm Coleman by 312 votes out of nearly three million cast (a margin of just over 0.01%) in one of the closest elections in the history of the Senate. He was reelected in 2014 with 53.2% of the vote over Republican challenger Mike McFadden. Franken resigned on January 2, 2018, after allegations of sexual misconduct were ...
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Art Spiegelman
Art Spiegelman (; born Itzhak Avraham ben Zeev Spiegelman on February 15, 1948) is an American cartoonist, editor, and comics advocate best known for his graphic novel ''Maus''. His work as co-editor on the comics magazines ''Arcade (comics magazine), Arcade'' and ''Raw (magazine), Raw'' has been influential, and from 1992 he spent a decade as contributing artist for ''The New Yorker''. He is married to designer and editor Françoise Mouly, and is the father of writer Nadja Spiegelman. In September 2022, the National Book Foundation announced that he would receive the Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters. Spiegelman began his career with Topps (a bubblegum and trading card company) in the mid-1960s, which was his main financial support for two decades; there he co-created parodic series such as ''Wacky Packages'' in the 1960s and ''Garbage Pail Kids'' in the 1980s. He gained prominence in the underground comix scene in the 1970s with short, experimental, and ...
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Bill Nye
William Sanford Nye (born November 27, 1955), popularly known as Bill Nye the Science Guy, is an American mechanical engineer, science communicator, and television presenter. He is best known as the host of the science television show ''Bill Nye the Science Guy'' (1993–1999) and the Netflix show ''Bill Nye Saves the World'' (2017–2018), and for his many appearances in popular media as a science educator. Born in Washington, D.C., Nye began his career as a mechanical engineer for Boeing in Seattle, where he invented a hydraulic resonance suppressor tube used on Boeing 747, 747 airplanes. In 1986, he left Boeing to pursue comedy—writing and performing for the local Sketch comedy, sketch television show ''Almost Live!'', where he regularly conducted wacky science experiments. Aspiring to become the next Don Herbert, Mr. Wizard, Nye successfully pitched the children's television program ''Bill Nye the Science Guy'' to Seattle's public television station, KCTS-TV. The show ...
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Ruben Blades
Reuben or Reuven is a Hebrew Bible, Biblical male first name from Hebrew רְאוּבֵן (Re'uven), meaning "behold, a son". In the Bible, Reuben (son of Jacob), Reuben was the Reuben (son of Jacob), firstborn son of Jacob. Variants include Rúben in European Portuguese; Rubens in Brazilian Portuguese; Rubén in Spanish language, Spanish; Rubèn in Catalan language, Catalan; Ruben in Dutch language, Dutch, German language, German, French language, French, Italian language, Italian, Swedish language, Swedish, Norwegian language, Norwegian, Danish language, Danish, and Armenian language, Armenian; and Rupen/Roupen in Western Armenian. The form Ruben can also be a form of the name Robin (name), Robin, itself a variation of the Germanic name Robert in several Celtic languages. It preserves the "u" sound from the name's first component "hruod" (compare Rory, Ruairí, the Irish language, Irish form of Roderick (name), Roderick). Mononym * Ruben I, Prince of Armenia (1025/1035 – ...
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Erin Brockovich
Erin Brockovich (née Pattee; born June 22, 1960) is an American legal clerk, consumer advocate, and environmental activist who, despite her lack of education in the law, was instrumental in building a case against Pacific Gas & Electric Company (PG&E) involving groundwater contamination in Hinkley, California with the help of attorney Ed Masry in 1993. Their successful lawsuit was the subject of the Oscar-winning film, ''Erin Brockovich'' (2000), starring Julia Roberts as Brockovich and Albert Finney as Masry. Since then, Brockovich has become a media personality as well, hosting the TV series ''Challenge America with Erin Brockovich'' on ABC and ''Final Justice'' on Zone Reality. She is the president of Brockovich Research & Consulting. She also works as a consultant for the New York law firm of Weitz & Luxenberg, which has a focus on personal injury claims for asbestos exposure, and Shine Lawyers in Australia. She worked as a consultant for the now-defunct California law ...
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Herbie Hancock
Herbert Jeffrey Hancock (born April 12, 1940) is an American jazz pianist, keyboardist, bandleader, and composer. Hancock started his career with trumpeter Donald Byrd's group. He shortly thereafter joined the Miles Davis Quintet, where he helped to redefine the role of a jazz rhythm section and was one of the primary architects of the post-bop sound. In the 1970s, Hancock experimented with jazz fusion, funk, and electro styles, utilizing a wide array of synthesizers and electronics. It was during this period that he released perhaps his best-known and most influential album, ''Head Hunters''. Hancock's best-known compositions include " Cantaloupe Island", " Watermelon Man", " Maiden Voyage", and " Chameleon", all of which are jazz standards. During the 1980s, he enjoyed a hit single with the electronic instrumental " Rockit", a collaboration with bassist/producer Bill Laswell. Hancock has won an Academy Award and 14 Grammy Awards, including Album of the Year for his 200 ...
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David Byrne
David Byrne (; born 14 May 1952) is a Scottish-American singer, songwriter, record producer, actor, writer, music theorist, visual artist and filmmaker. He was a founding member and the principal songwriter, lead singer, and guitarist of the American new wave band Talking Heads. Byrne has released solo recordings and worked with various media including film, photography, opera, fiction, and non-fiction. He has received an Academy Award, a Grammy Award, a Tony Award, and a Golden Globe Award, and he is an inductee to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as part of Talking Heads. Early life David Byrne was born on 14 May 1952 in Dumbarton, Dunbartonshire, Scotland, the elder of two children born to Tom (from Lambhill, Glasgow) and Emma Byrne. Byrne's father was Catholic and his mother Presbyterian. Two years after his birth, the family moved to Canada, settling in Hamilton, Ontario. The family left Scotland in part because there were few jobs requiring his father's engin ...
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Stephen Colbert
Stephen Tyrone Colbert ( ; born May 13, 1964) is an American comedian, writer, producer, political commentator, actor, and television host. He is best known for hosting the satirical Comedy Central program ''The Colbert Report'' from 2005 to 2014 and the CBS talk program ''The Late Show with Stephen Colbert'' beginning in September 2015. Colbert originally studied to be a dramatic actor, but became interested in improvisational theater while attending Northwestern University, where he met Second City director Del Close. Colbert first performed professionally as an understudy for Steve Carell at Second City Chicago, where his troupemates included Paul Dinello and Amy Sedaris, comedians with whom he developed the sketch comedy series ''Exit 57''. He wrote and performed on ''The Dana Carvey Show'' before collaborating with Sedaris and Dinello again on the television series ''Strangers with Candy''. He gained attention for his role on the latter as closeted gay history teacher ...
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David Lynch
David Keith Lynch (born January 20, 1946) is an American filmmaker, visual artist and actor. A recipient of an Academy Honorary Award in 2019, Lynch has received three Academy Award nominations for Best Director, and the César Award for Best Foreign Film twice, as well as the Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival and a Golden Lion award for lifetime achievement at the Venice Film Festival. In 2007, a panel of critics convened by ''The Guardian'' announced that "after all the discussion, no one could fault the conclusion that David Lynch is the most important film-maker of the current era", while AllMovie called him "the Renaissance man of modern American filmmaking". His work led to him being labeled "the first populist surrealist" by film critic Pauline Kael. Lynch studied painting before he began making short films in the late 1960s. His first feature-length film, the surrealist ''Eraserhead'' (1977), became a success on the midnight movie circuit, and he followed that ...
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