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Name | National Broadcasting Company (NBC) |
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Logo | |
Type | Former broadcast radio network; Broadcast television network |
Country | United States |
Available | National |
Founder | David Sarnoff in 1926 |
Slogan | more colorful. |
Market share | 42.3%Steve Capus, President, NBC News |
Launch date | November 15, 1926 (radio)July 1, 1938 (television) |
Dissolved | 2003 (radio) |
Picture format | 480i (SD)1080i (HD) |
Former names | NBC Red Network |
Callsign meaning | National Broadcasting Company |
Website | http://www.nbc.com |
Formed in 1926 by the Radio Corporation of America (RCA), NBC was the first major broadcast network in the United States. In 1986, control of NBC passed to General Electric (GE), with GE's $6.4 billion purchase of RCA. GE had previously owned RCA and NBC until 1930, when it had been forced to sell the company as a result of antitrust charges. After the acquisition, the chief executive of NBC was Bob Wright, until he retired, giving his job to Jeff Zucker. The network is currently part of the media company NBC Universal, a unit of General Electric, which, on December 1, 2009, purchased the remaining 20% stake of NBC Universal which it did not already own from Vivendi. On December 3, 2009, Comcast announced it will purchase a 51% stake of NBC Universal.
NBC is available in an estimated 112 million households, 98.6% of those with televisions. NBC has 10 owned-and-operated stations and nearly 200 affiliates in the United States and its territories. the broadcast company occupied floor designed by Raymond Hood — who designed the tenants multiple studios as "a Gothic church, the Roman forum, a Louis XIV room and, in a space devoted to jazz, something “wildly futuristic, with plenty of color in bizarre designs.” NBC outgrew 711 Fifth Avenue in 1933.
In 1930, General Electric was compelled by antitrust charges to divest itself of RCA, which it had founded. RCA moved its corporate headquarters into the new Rockefeller Center in 1933, signing the leases in 1931. RCA was the lead tenant at 30 Rockefeller Plaza, the RCA Building (now the GE Building). The building housed NBC studios, as well as theaters for RCA-owned RKO Pictures. Rockefeller Center's founder and financier John D. Rockefeller, Jr., arranged the deal with the chairman of GE, Owen D. Young, and the president of RCA, David Sarnoff. Conversely, industry executives criticized the network for abandoning a history of airing quality dramas at that hour, and that it would hurt NBC by undermining a reputation built on successful scripted shows. The schedule originally consisted of only live-action series, including a kid-themed version of Trading Spaces and J. D. Roth's Emmy-nominated reality game show Endurace, but later expanded to include some animated series such as Kenny the Shark, Tutenstein, and Time Warp Trio.
In May 2006, in order to replace the Discovery Kids Saturday Morning block, NBC announced plans to launch a new children's block on Saturday mornings starting in September 2006 as part of the qubo endeavor teaming parent company NBC Universal with Ion Media Networks, Scholastic Press, Classic Media and Corus Entertainment's Nelvana. Qubo will include blocks to air on NBC, Telemundo (the Spanish-language network owned by NBC Universal), and Ion Media Networks's Ion Television, as well as a 24/7 digital broadcast kids channel, video on demand services and a branded website.
The "Discovery Kids on NBC" block aired for the final time on September 2, 2006. On Saturday, September 9, 2006, NBC started airing the following qubo programs: VeggieTales, Dragon, VeggieTales Presents: 3-2-1 Penguins!, Babar, Jane and the Dragon, and Jacob Two-Two, and Postman Pat.
In 1999, NBC briefly changed its web address to "NBCi.com", in a heavily advertised attempt to launch an Internet portal and homepage. This move saw NBC teaming up with XOOM.com, e-mail.com, AllBusiness.com, and Snap.com (eventually acquiring all four of them), launching a multi-faceted internet portal with e-mail, webhosting, community, chat, personalization and news capabilities. This experiment lasted roughly one season, failed, and NBCi was folded back into NBC. The NBC-TV portion of the website reverted to NBC.com. However, the NBCi web site continued as a portal for NBC-branded content (NBCi.com redirected to NBCi.msnbc.com), using a co-branded version of InfoSpace to deliver minimal portal content. In mid 2007, NBCi.com began to mirror NBC.com.
Most of NBC Europe's prime time programming was produced in Europe due to rights restriction associated with US primetime shows, but after 11 p.m. Central European Time on weekday evenings, the channel aired The Tonight Show, Late Night with Conan O'Brien and Later, hence its slogan "Where the Stars Come Out at Night." Many NBC News programs were broadcast on NBC Europe, including Dateline NBC, Meet the Press and NBC Nightly News, which was aired live. The Today Show was also initially shown live in the afternoons, but was later broadcast the following morning instead, by which time it was more than half a day old.
In 1999, NBC Europe stopped broadcasting to most of Europe. At the same time the network was relaunched as a German language computer channel, targeting a young demographic. The main show on the new NBC Europe was called NBC GIGA. In 2005, the channel was relaunched once again, this time as a free-to-air movie channel under the name "Das Vierte". GIGA started an own digital channel then, which can be received via satellite and many cable networks in Germany, Austria and Switzerland.
The Tonight Show and NBC Nightly News continue to be broadcast on CNBC Europe.
In 2009, NBC and Seven Network used Guy Sebastian's #1 Aria selling song Like it Like That for their summer station promo.
Notable in-house productions of NBC included Get Smart, Bonanza, Little House on the Prairie, Las Vegas and Crossing Jordan. NBC sold the rights to its pre-1973 shows to National Telefilm Associates in 1973. Today, those rights are owned by CBS Television Distribution.
NBC continues to own its post-1973 productions, through sister company NBC Universal Television Group, the successor to Universal TV. As a result, NBC in a way now owns several other series aired on the network prior to 1973, such as Wagon Train.
Category:American television networks Category:Companies based in New York City Category:Companies established in 1926 Category:NBC Universal Category:NBC television network Category:Rockefeller Center
This text is licensed under the Creative Commons CC-BY-SA License. This text was originally published on Wikipedia and was developed by the Wikipedia community.
Name | David Letterman |
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Caption | Speaking at the opening of the Ronald O. Perelman Heart Institute (September 2009) |
Pseudonym | Earl Hofert |
Birth name | David Michael Letterman |
Birth date | April 12, 1947 |
Birth place | Indianapolis, Indiana |
Medium | Stand-up, talk show |
Nationality | American |
Genre | Observational comedy, surreal humor, deadpan |
Subject | Self-deprecation, everyday life |
Influences | Steve Allen, Johnny Carson, Jack Paar, Paul Dixon |
Influenced | Jimmy Kimmel, Jim Gaffigan, Jon Stewart, Conan O'Brien, Jimmy Fallon |
Website | CBS.com/latenight/lateshow |
Active | 1974–present |
Domesticpartner | Regina Lasko (1986–2009) |
Spouse | Michelle Cook (1969–1977)Regina Lasko (2009–present) |
Religion | Lutheran |
Name | Letterman, David |
Alternative names | Letterman, Dave |
Short description | American television personality |
Date of birth | April 12, 1947 |
Place of birth | Indianapolis, Indiana, United States |
This text is licensed under the Creative Commons CC-BY-SA License. This text was originally published on Wikipedia and was developed by the Wikipedia community.
Name | Ted Williams |
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Position | Left fielder |
Bats | Left |
Throws | Right |
Birthdate | August 30, 1918 |
Birthplace | San Diego, California |
Deathdate | July 05, 2002 |
Deathplace | Inverness, Florida |
Debutdate | April 20 |
Debutyear | 1939 |
Debutteam | Boston Red Sox |
Finaldate | September 28 |
Finalyear | 1960 |
Finalteam | Boston Red Sox |
Stat1label | Batting average |
Stat1value | .344 |
Stat2label | Home runs |
Stat2value | 521 |
Stat3label | Hits |
Stat3value | 2,654 |
Stat4label | Runs batted in |
Stat4value | 1,839 |
Teams | |
Highlights | |
Hofdate | |
Hofvote | 93.38% (first ballot) |
In 1941, he entered the last day of the season with a batting average of .39955. This would have been rounded up to .400, making him the first man to hit .400 since Bill Terry in 1930. Manager Joe Cronin left the decision whether to play up to him. Williams opted to play in both games of the day's doubleheader and risk falling short, explaining that "if I can't hit .400 all the way, I don't deserve it." He singled in his first at-bat, raising his average to .401, and followed it with a home run and two more hits in the first game. Williams went 2 for 3 in the second game, for a total of 6 hits in his last 8 at-bats, for a final average of .406. No player has hit .400 in a season since Williams. (Williams also hit .407 in 1953 (just 37 games), and in a six-game cameo in 1952.)
In his book, Williams acknowledges that "There was some great batting done that year [1941]" and mentions Joe DiMaggio and Cecil Travis, who hit .359. He continued, "I think, surely, to hit .400 you have to be an outstanding hitter having everything go just right, and in my case the hitter was a guy who lived to hit, who worked at it so hard he matured at the bat at a time when he was near his peak physically. The peaks met.".United States Marine Corps |serviceyears= 1942-1946, 1952-53 |rank= Captain |commands= |unit= |battles=World War IIKorean War |awards= |relations= |laterwork= Baseball player }}
Williams could have received an easy assignment and played baseball for the Navy. Instead, he joined the V-5 program to become a Naval aviator. Williams was first sent to the Navy's Preliminary Ground School at Amherst College for six months of academic instruction in various subjects including math and navigation, where he achieved a 3.85 grade point average.
Fellow Red Sox player Johnny Pesky, who went into the same training program, said about Ted "He mastered intricate problems in fifteen minutes which took the average cadet an hour, and half of the other cadets there were college grads."
Pesky again described Williams' acumen in the advance training for which Pesky personally did not qualify: “I heard Ted literally tore the `sleeve target' to shreds with his angle dives. He'd shoot from wingovers, zooms, and barrel rolls, and after a few passes the sleeve was ribbons. At any rate, I know he broke the all-time record for hits." Ted went to Jacksonville for a course in air gunnery, the combat pilot's payoff test, and broke all the records in reflexes, coordination, and visual-reaction time. "From what I heard. Ted could make a plane and its six 'pianos' (machine guns) play like a symphony orchestra," Pesky says. "From what they said, his reflexes, coordination, and visual reaction made him a built-in part of the machine."
On February 16, 1953, Williams was part of a 35-plane strike package against a tank and infantry training school just south of Pyongyang, North Korea. During the mission a piece of flak knocked out his hydraulics and electrical systems, causing Williams to have to "limp" his plane back to K-13, an Air Force base close to the front lines. For his actions of this day he was awarded the Air Medal.
Williams stayed on K-13 for several days while his plane was repaired. Because he was so popular, GI's from all around the base came to see him and his plane. After it was repaired, Williams flew his plane back to his Marine station.
Williams eventually flew 39 combat missions before being pulled from flight status in June 1953 after a hospitalization for pneumonia resulted in discovery of an inner ear infection that disqualified him from flight status. John-Henry said that his father was a believer in science and was willing to try cryonics if it held the possibility of reuniting the family. Citing financial difficulties, Ferrell dropped her lawsuit in exchange that a $645,000 trust fund left by Williams would immediately pay the sum out equally to the three children. Inquiries to cryonics organizations increased after the publicity from the case.
In Ted Williams: The Biography of an American Hero, author Leigh Montville claims that the family cryonics pact was a practice Ted Williams autograph on a plain piece of paper, around which the agreement had later been hand written. The pact document was signed "Ted Williams", the same as his autographs, whereas he would always sign his legal documents "Theodore Williams", according to Montville. However, Claudia testified to the authenticity of the document in a sworn affidavit. Ted's two 24-hour private caregivers who were with him the entire period the note was said to be created also stated in sworn affidavits that John-Henry and Claudia were never present at any time for that note to be produced.
Following John-Henry's unexpected illness and death from acute myelogenous leukemia on March 6, 2004, John-Henry's body was also transported to Alcor, in fulfillment of the family agreement.
According to the book "Frozen", co-authored by Larry Johnson (who is a former executive from Alcor), Williams' head was damaged by a worker when Alcor employees were handling the head. Although Johnson didn't work at Alcor when Ted was initially preserved, he claimed witness of the handling of the frozen head during a transfer to its final container (though numerous other Alcor employees refute this claim).
The Tampa Bay Rays home field, Tropicana Field, has installed the Ted Williams Museum (formerly in Hernando, Florida) behind the right field fence. From the Tampa Bay Rays website: "The Ted Williams Museum and Hitters Hall of Fame brings a special element to the Tropicana Field. Fans can view an array of different artifacts and pictures of the 'Greatest hitter that ever lived.' These memorable displays range from Ted Williams' days in the military through his professional playing career. This museum is dedicated to some of the greatest players to ever 'lace 'em up,' including Willie Mays, Joe DiMaggio, Mickey Mantle, Roger Maris."
"The way those clubs shift against Ted Williams, I can't understand how he can be so stupid not to accept the challenge to him and hit to left field." - Ty Cobb
"They can talk about Babe Ruth and Ty Cobb and Rogers Hornsby and Lou Gehrig and Joe DiMaggio and Stan Musial and all the rest, but I'm sure not one of them could hold cards and spades to (Ted) Williams in his sheer knowledge of hitting. He studied hitting the way a broker studies the stock market, and could spot at a glance mistakes that others couldn't see in a week." - Carl Yastrzemski
"Ted Williams was the greatest hitter of our era. He won six batting titles and served his country for five years, so he would have won more. He loved talking about hitting and was a great student of hitting and pitchers." - Stan Musial
"He wanted fame, and wanted it with a pure, hot eagerness that would have been embarrassing in a smaller man. But he could not stand celebrity. This is a bitch of a line to draw in America's dust." - Richard Ben Cramer
"If he'd just tip his cap once, he could be elected Mayor of Boston in five minutes." - Eddie Collins
“Our father was not a religious man. The faith that many people place in god, we place in science and other human endeavors.” — Children of baseball legend Ted Williams, Reuters, July 25, 2002
"Baseball is the only field of endeavor where a man can succeed three times out of ten and be considered a good performer."
"Baseball's future? Bigger and bigger, better and better! No question about it, it's the greatest game there is!"
"I hope somebody hits .400 soon. Then people can start pestering that guy with questions about the last guy to hit .400."
"If there was ever a man born to be a hitter it was me."
"Hitting is fifty percent above the shoulders."
"If I was being paid thirty-thousand dollars a year, the very least I could do was hit .400."
"A man has to have goals—for a day, for a lifetime—and that was mine, to have people say, 'There goes Ted Williams, the greatest hitter who ever lived."
"They give you a round ball and a round bat and tell you to hit it square." (Pete Rose and Willie Stargell have also been credited with similar versions of this quote.)
"The greatest team I played for was the Marine Corps."
{| class="toccolours collapsible collapsed" width=100% align="center" |- ! style="background:#ccccff"| Accomplishments |- | |}
Category:500 home run club Category:American League Most Valuable Player Award winners Category:American League All-Stars Category:American League batting champions Category:American League home run champions Category:American League RBI champions Category:American League Triple Crown winners Category:American military personnel of the Korean War Category:Boston Red Sox players Category:Cardiovascular disease deaths in Florida Category:Cryonically preserved people Category:Major League Baseball left fielders Category:Baseball players from California Category:Major League Baseball players with retired numbers Category:American baseball players of Mexican descent Category:National Baseball Hall of Fame inductees Category:People from Boston, Massachusetts Category:People from San Diego, California Category:Recipients of the Air Medal Category:Presidential Medal of Freedom recipients Category:San Diego Padres (minor league) players Category:American sportspeople of Scotch-Irish descent Category:American sportspeople of Russian descent Category:Texas Rangers managers Category:United States Marine Corps pilots of World War II Category:United States Marine Corps officers Category:Washington Senators (1961–1971) managers Category:American sportspeople of Welsh descent Category:American people of Mexican descent Category:1918 births Category:2002 deaths Category:American people of Basque descent Category:American people of Spanish descent
This text is licensed under the Creative Commons CC-BY-SA License. This text was originally published on Wikipedia and was developed by the Wikipedia community.
Name | Harvey Milk| image = Harvey Milk in 1978 at Mayor Moscone's Desk crop.jpg |
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Caption | Milk in 1978 |
Alt | A black and white photograph of Harvey Milk sitting at the mayor's desk |
Office | Member of theSan Francisco Board of Supervisorsfrom District 5 |
Term start | January 8, 1978 |
Term end | November 27, 1978 |
Predecessor | District Created |
Successor | Harry Britt(appointed) |
Constituency | The Castro, Haight-Ashbury,Duboce Triangle, Noe Valley |
Birth date | May 22, 1930 |
Birth place | Woodmere, New York |
Death date | November 27, 1978 (assassinated) |
Death place | San Francisco, California |
Nationality | American |
Party | Democratic |
Residence | San Francisco, California |
Alma mater | State University of New York at Albany |
Profession | Politician, business owner |
Religion | Judaism |
Allegiance | United States of America |
Branch | United States Navy |
Serviceyears | 1951–1955 |
Rank | Lieutenant, junior grade |
Unit | USS Kittiwake (ASR-13) |
Battles | Korean War Era |
Milk moved from New York City to settle in San Francisco in 1972 amid a migration of gay men to the Castro District. He took advantage of the growing political and economic power of the neighborhood to promote his interests, and ran unsuccessfully for political office three times. His theatrical campaigns earned him increasing popularity, and Milk won a seat as a city supervisor in 1977, part of the broader social changes the city was experiencing.
Milk served 11 months in office and was responsible for passing a stringent gay rights ordinance for the city. On November 27, 1978, Milk and Mayor George Moscone were assassinated by Dan White, another city supervisor who had recently resigned but wanted his job back. Milk's election was made possible by and was a key component of a shift in San Francisco politics. The assassinations and the ensuing events were the result of continuing ideological conflicts in the city.
Despite his short career in politics, Milk became an icon in San Francisco and "a martyr for gay rights", according to University of San Francisco professor Peter Novak. who helped to organize the first synagogue in the area. In 1955, he was discharged from the Navy at the rank of lieutenant, junior grade. However, he decided to remain in New York, where he secretly pursued gay relationships. In 1962 Milk became involved with Craig Rodwell, who was ten years younger. Though Milk courted Rodwell ardently, waking him every morning with a call and sending him notes, Milk was discouraged by Rodwell's involvement with the New York Mattachine Society, a gay activist organization. When Rodwell was arrested for walking in Riis Park, and charged with inciting a riot and with indecent exposure (the law required men's swimsuits to extend from above the navel to below the thigh), he spent three days in jail. The relationship soon ended as Milk became alarmed at Rodwell's tendency to agitate the police. Craig Rodwell read the description of the formerly uptight man and wondered if it could be the same person.
Milk met Scott Smith, 18 years his junior, and began another relationship. Milk and Smith returned to San Francisco, where they lived on money they had saved. In March 1973, after a roll of film Milk left at a local shop was ruined, he and Smith opened a camera store on Castro Street with their last $1,000. At first, his inexperience showed. He tried to do without money, support, or staff, and instead relied on his message of sound financial management, promoting individuals over large corporations and government. He supported the reorganization of supervisor elections from a city-wide ballot to district ballots, which was intended to reduce the influence of money and give neighborhoods more control over their representatives in city government. He also ran on a socially liberal platform, opposing government interference in private sexual matters and favoring the legalization of marijuana. Milk's fiery, flamboyant speeches and savvy media skills earned him a significant amount of press during the 1973 election. He earned 16,900 votes—sweeping the Castro District and other liberal neighborhoods and coming in 10th place out of 32 candidates.
Tensions between the older citizens of the Most Holy Redeemer Parish and the gays entering the Castro District were growing, however, and in 1973, when two gay men tried to open an antique shop, the Eureka Valley Merchants Association (EVMA) attempted to prevent them from receiving a business license. Milk and a few other gay business owners founded the Castro Village Association, with Milk as the president. He often repeated his philosophy that gays should buy from gay businesses. Milk organized the Castro Street Fair in 1974 to attract more customers to the area. He enthusiastically embraced a local independent weekly magazine's headline: "Harvey Milk vs. The Machine".
Milk's role as a representative of San Francisco's gay community expanded during this period. On September 22, 1975, President Gerald Ford, while visiting San Francisco, walked from his hotel to his car. In the crowd, Sara Jane Moore raised a gun to shoot him. A former Marine who had been walking by grabbed her arm as the gun discharged toward the pavement. Sipple, however, was besieged by reporters, as was his family. His mother, a staunch Baptist in Detroit, now refused to speak to him. Although he had been involved with the gay community for years, even participating in Gay Pride events, Sipple sued the Chronicle for invasion of privacy. Milk said that Sipple's sexual orientation was the reason he received only a note, rather than an invitation to the White House. The campaign manager's assistant was an 11-year-old neighborhood girl who joyfully ordered the volunteers to work.
If the candidate was manic, he was also dedicated and filled with good humor, and he had a particular genius for getting media attention. With the large numbers of volunteers, he had dozens at a time stand along the busy thoroughfare of Market Street as human billboards, holding "Milk for Assembly" signs while commuters drove into the heart of the city to work. Milk led marchers that night on a five-mile (8 km) course through the city, constantly moving, aware that if they stopped for too long there would be a riot. He declared, "This is the power of the gay community. Anita's going to create a national gay force."
Other causes were also important to Milk: he promoted larger and less expensive child care facilities, free public transportation, and the development of a board of civilians to oversee the police. He advanced important neighborhood issues at every opportunity. Milk used the same manic campaign tactics as in previous races: human billboards, hours of handshaking, and dozens of speeches calling on gay people to have hope. This time, even The San Francisco Chronicle endorsed him for supervisor. adding: "If a bullet should enter my brain, let that bullet destroy every closet door". Organizers asked participants to carry signs indicating their hometowns for the cameras, to show how far people came to live in the Castro District. Milk rode in an open car carrying a sign saying "I'm from Woodmere, N.Y."
On November 10, 1978, 10 months after being sworn in, White resigned his position on the San Francisco Board of Supervisors, claiming that his annual salary of $9,600 was not enough to support his family. Milk was 48 years old. Moscone was 49.
Within an hour, White called his wife from a nearby diner; she met him at a church and escorted him to the police, where White turned himself in. Many residents left flowers on the steps of City Hall. That evening, a spontaneous gathering began to form on Castro Street, moving toward City Hall in a candlelight vigil. Their numbers were estimated between 25,000 and 40,000, spanning the width of Market Street, extending the mile and a half (2.4 km) from Castro Street. The next day, the bodies of Moscone and Milk were brought to the City Hall rotunda where mourners paid their respects. Six thousand mourners attended a service for Mayor Moscone at St. Mary's Cathedral. Two memorials were held for Milk; a small one at Temple Emanu-El and a more boisterous one at the Opera House. Governor Jerry Brown ordered all flags in California to be flown at half staff, and called Milk a "hard-working and dedicated supervisor, a leader of San Francisco's gay community, who kept his promise to represent all his constituents". "A City in Agony" topped the headlines in The San Francisco Examiner the day after the murders; inside the paper stories of the assassinations under the headline "Black Monday" were printed back to back with updates of bodies being shipped home from Guyana. An editorial describing "A city with more sadness and despair in its heart than any city should have to bear" went on to ask how such tragedies could occur, particularly to "men of such warmth and vision and great energies". He was to have received an award the next week for rescuing a woman and child from a 17-story burning building when he was a firefighter in 1977. Though he was the only supervisor to vote against Milk's gay rights ordinance earlier that year, he had been quoted as saying, "I respect the rights of all people, including gays". Milk and White at first got along well. One of White's political aides (who was gay) remembered, "Dan had more in common with Harvey than he did with anyone else on the board".
After Milk's vote for the mental health facility in White's district, however, White refused to speak with Milk and only communicated with one of Milk's aides. Other acquaintances remembered White as very intense. "He was impulsive ... He was an extremely competitive man, obsessively so ... I think he could not take defeat," San Francisco's assistant fire chief told reporters. The aide who had handled communications between White and Milk remembered, "Talking to him, I realized that he saw Harvey Milk and George Moscone as representing all that was wrong with the world".
Dan White's arrest and trial caused a sensation, and illustrated severe tensions between the liberal population and the city police. The San Francisco Police were mostly working-class Irish descendants who intensely disliked the growing gay immigration, as well as the liberal direction of the city government. After White turned himself in and confessed, he sat in his cell while his former colleagues on the police force told Harvey Milk jokes; police openly wore "Free Dan White" T-shirts in the days after the murder. The chief of police ordered the police not to retaliate, but to hold their ground. The White Night riots, as they became known, lasted several hours.
Later that evening, May 21, 1979, several police cruisers filled with officers wearing riot gear arrived at the Elephant Walk Bar on Castro Street. Harvey Milk's protégé Cleve Jones and a reporter for the San Francisco Chronicle, Warren Hinckle, watched as officers stormed into the bar and began to beat patrons at random. After a 15-minute melee, they left the bar and struck out at people walking along the street.
Milk strongly believed that neighborhoods promoted unity and a small-town experience, and that the Castro should provide services to all its residents. He opposed the closing of an elementary school; even though most gay people in the Castro did not have children, Milk saw his neighborhood having the potential to welcome everyone. He told his aides to concentrate on fixing potholes and boasted that 50 new stop signs had been installed in District 5. Responding to city residents' largest complaint about living in San Francisco—dog feces—Milk made it a priority to enact the ordinance requiring dog owners to take care of their pets' droppings. Randy Shilts noted, "some would claim Harvey was a socialist or various other sorts of ideologues, but, in reality, Harvey's political philosophy was never more complicated than the issue of dogshit; government should solve people's basic problems." His most famous talking points became known as the "Hope Speech", which became a staple throughout his political career. It opened with a play on the accusation that gay people recruit impressionable youth into their numbers: "My name is Harvey Milk—and I want to recruit you." A version of the Hope Speech that he gave near the end of his life was considered by his friends and aides to be the best, and the closing the most effective:
And the young gay people in the Altoona, Pennsylvanias and the Richmond, Minnesotas who are coming out and hear Anita Bryant in television and her story. The only thing they have to look forward to is hope. And you have to give them hope. Hope for a better world, hope for a better tomorrow, hope for a better place to come to if the pressures at home are too great. Hope that all will be all right. Without hope, not only gays, but the blacks, the seniors, the handicapped, the us'es, the us'es will give up. And if you help elect to the central committee and other offices, more gay people, that gives a green light to all who feel disenfranchised, a green light to move forward. It means hope to a nation that has given up, because if a gay person makes it, the doors are open to everyone.
However, Milk's assassination has become entwined with his political efficacy, partly because he was killed at the zenith of his popularity. Historian Neil Miller writes, "No contemporary American gay leader has yet to achieve in life the stature Milk found in death."
In 1982, freelance reporter Randy Shilts completed his first book: a biography of Milk, titled The Mayor of Castro Street. Shilts wrote the book while unable to find a steady job as an openly gay reporter. The Times of Harvey Milk, a documentary film based on the book's material, won the 1984 Academy Award for Documentary Feature. Director Rob Epstein spoke later about why he chose the subject of Milk's life: "At the time, for those of us who lived in San Francisco, it felt like it was life changing, that all the eyes of the world were upon us, but in fact most of the world outside of San Francisco had no idea. It was just a really brief, provincial, localized current events story that the mayor and a city council member in San Francisco were killed. It didn't have much reverberation." Milk's life has been the subject of a musical theater production, an opera, a children's picture book, and the biopic Milk, released in 2008 after 15 years in the making. The film was directed by Gus Van Sant and starred Sean Penn as Milk and Josh Brolin as Dan White, and won two Academy Awards for Best Original Screenplay and Best Actor. It took eight weeks to film, and often used extras who had been present at the actual events for large crowd scenes, including a scene depicting Milk's "Hope Speech" at the 1978 Gay Freedom Day Parade.
from President Barack Obama in August 2009 on behalf of his uncle]]
Milk was included in the "Time 100 Heroes and Icons of the 20th Century" as "a symbol of what gays can accomplish and the dangers they face in doing so". Despite his antics and publicity stunts, according to writer John Cloud, "none understood how his public role could affect private lives better than Milk ... [he] knew that the root cause of the gay predicament was invisibility". The Advocate listed Milk third in their "40 Heroes" of the 20th century issue, quoting Dianne Feinstein: "His homosexuality gave him an insight into the scars which all oppressed people wear. He believed that no sacrifice was too great a price to pay for the cause of human rights.”
In August 2009, President Barack Obama posthumously awarded Milk the Presidential Medal of Freedom for his contribution to the gay rights movement stating "he fought discrimination with visionary courage and conviction". Milk's nephew Stuart accepted for his uncle. Later in the year, California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger designated May 22 as "Harvey Milk Day", and inducted Milk in the California Hall of Fame.
Harry Britt summarized Milk's impact the evening Milk was shot in 1978: "No matter what the world has taught us about ourselves, we can be beautiful and we can get our thing together ... Harvey was a prophet ... he lived by a vision ... Something very special is going to happen in this city and it will have Harvey Milk's name on it."
Category:1930 births Category:1978 deaths Category:Activists from the San Francisco Bay Area Category:American Jews Category:American LGBT military personnel Category:American people of Lithuanian-Jewish descent Category:Ashkenazi Jews Category:Assassinated activists Category:Assassinated American politicians Category:California Democrats Category:Deaths by firearm in California Category:Gay politicians from the United States Category:Jewish American military personnel Category:Jewish American politicians Category:LGBT history in San Francisco, California Category:LGBT Jews Category:LGBT rights activists from the United States Category:People from Nassau County, New York Category:People murdered in California Category:Presidential Medal of Freedom recipients Category:San Francisco Board of Supervisors members Category:State University of New York at Albany alumni Category:United States Navy officers
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Name | George Moscone |
---|---|
Order | 37th |
Office | Mayor of San Francisco |
Term start | January 8, 1976 |
Term end | November 27, 1978 |
Predecessor | Joseph Alioto |
Successor | Dianne Feinstein |
State senate2 | California |
State2 | California |
District2 | 6th |
Term start2 | 1971 |
Term end2 | 1976 |
Predecessor2 | (redistricted from 10th) |
Successor2 | John Francis Foran |
State senate3 | California |
State3 | California |
District3 | 10th |
Term start3 | 1967 |
Term end3 | 1971 |
Predecessor3 | Harold Thomas Sedgwick |
Successor3 | (redistricted into 6th) |
Office4 | Member of theSan Francisco Board of Supervisors |
Term start4 | 1963 |
Term end4 | 1966 |
Birth date | November 24, 1929 |
Birth place | San Francisco, California |
Death date | November 27, 1978 |
Death place | San Francisco City Hall (assassinated) |
Nationality | American |
Party | Democratic |
Spouse | Gina Bodanza |
Children | Jenifer, Rebecca, Christopher and Jonathan |
Profession | Attorney |
Religion | Roman Catholic |
George Richard Moscone (November 24, 1929 – November 27, 1978) () was an American attorney and Democratic politician. He was the mayor of San Francisco, California, US from January 1976 until his assassination in November 1978. Moscone served in the California State Senate from 1967 until becoming Mayor. In the Senate, he served as Majority Leader.
Moscone attended St. Brigid's, and then St. Ignatius College Preparatory, where he was an all-city basketball star. He then attended University of the Pacific. While in college, Moscone befriended John L. Burton, who would later become a member of the U.S. House of Representatives.
Moscone then studied at University of California, Hastings College of the Law, where he received his law degree. He met and married Gina Bondanza, in 1954. After serving in the United States Navy, Moscone started private practice in 1956.
As a heterosexual, Moscone was considered ahead of his time as an early proponent of gay rights. In conjunction with his friend and ally in the Assembly, Willie Brown, Moscone managed to pass a bill repealing California's sodomy law. The repeal was signed into law by California Governor Jerry Brown.
Moscone originally indicated a willingness to reconsider, but more liberal city leaders, including Harvey Milk, lobbied him against the idea, and Moscone ultimately decided not to appoint White. On November 27, 1978, White went to San Francisco City Hall to meet with Moscone and make a final plea for appointment. When Moscone declined to reconsider his decision, White pulled a gun out of his suit jacket and shot and killed Moscone. White then went to Milk's office and shot Milk, killing him as well.
Dianne Feinstein, President of the Board of Supervisors, was sworn in as the city's new mayor and in the following years would emerge as one of California's most prominent politicians.
White later turned himself in at the police station where he was formerly an officer. The term "Twinkie defense" has its origins in the murder trial that followed, in which Dan White was convicted of the lesser crime of manslaughter. White would commit suicide in 1985, shortly after his release from prison.
Today, both he and Milk are mourned as martyrs of the gay rights movement, but Milk has received far more attention in popular media, despite the fact that Moscone outranked him. In the LGBT community, Moscone is revered as a gay icon.
Moscone Center, San Francisco's largest convention center and exhibition hall, and Moscone Recreation Center are named in his honor. Moscone and Milk also have schools named after them: George Moscone Elementary, Harvey Milk Elementary and Harvey Milk High School.
In 1980, sculptor Robert Arneson was commissioned to create a monument to Moscone to be installed in the new Moscone Convention Center. The bust portraying Moscone was done in Arneson's expressionistic style and was considered acceptable by San Francisco's Art Commission. However, the pedestal which the former Mayor's head rested on was deemed inappropriate and Arneson was asked to change it. At issue were references to Harvey Milk, the assassinations, the "Twinkie Defense," the White Night Riots, and Dianne Feinstein's mayoral succession that Arneson had included on the surface of the pedestal. Arneson refused to make alterations to the work, returned the commission, and later resold the sculpture.
Category:1929 births Category:1978 deaths Category:American Roman Catholic politicians Category:Assassinated American politicians Category:Assassinated mayors Category:Burials at Holy Cross Cemetery (Colma) Category:California Democrats Category:California State Senators Category:Deaths by firearm in California Category:American people of Italian descent Category:American politicians of Italian descent Category:LGBT history in San Francisco, California Category:Mayors of San Francisco, California Category:People murdered in California Category:Peoples Temple Category:University of California, Hastings alumni Category:University of the Pacific alumni
This text is licensed under the Creative Commons CC-BY-SA License. This text was originally published on Wikipedia and was developed by the Wikipedia community.