Official name	City of Chicago
Settlement type	City
Nickname	The Windy City, The Second City, Chi-Town, Hog Butcher for the World, City of Big Shoulders, The City That Works, and others found at List of nicknames for Chicago
Motto	(), Make Big Plans (Make No Small Plans), I Will
Named for	("Wild onion")
Website	www.cityofchicago.org
Image seal	Chicago city seal.png
Map caption	Location in the Chicago metropolitan area and Illinois
Pushpin map	USA
Pushpin map caption	Location in the United States
Coordinates display	inline,title
Coordinates region	US-IL
Unit pref	Imperial
Subdivision type	Country
Subdivision type1	State
Subdivision type2	Counties
Subdivision name
Subdivision name1
Subdivision name2	Cook, DuPage
Government type	Mayor–council
Leader title	Mayor
Leader name	Richard M. Daley
Leader title1	City Council
Leader name1
Leader title2	State House
Leader name2
Leader title3	State Senate
Leader name3
Leader title4	U.S. House
Leader name4
Area magnitude	1 E+8
Area total sq mi	234.0
Area total km2	606.1
Area land sq mi	227.2
Area water sq mi	6.9
Area water percent	3.0
Area urban sq mi	2122.8
Area metro sq mi	10874
Population as of	2009
Population total	2,853,114 (3rd US)
Population urban	8711000
Population metro	9785747
Population density sq mi	12557
Population blank1 title	Demonym
Population blank1	Chicagoan
Timezone	CST
Utc offset	−6
Timezone dst	CDT
Utc offset dst	−5
Area code	312, 773, 872
Elevation ft	597
Latns	N
Coordinates	41°52′55″N87°37′40″N
Longew	W
Established title	Settled
Established date	1770s
Established title2	Incorporated
Established date2	March 4, 1837
Seat	Cook County
Footnotes

Chicago ( or ) is the largest city in the state of Illinois. With over 2.8 million residents, it is the most populous city in the Midwestern United States and the third most populous city in the USA. Its metropolitan area, commonly named "Chicagoland," is the 28th most populous in the world, home to an estimated 9.7 million people spread across the U.S. states of Illinois, Wisconsin, and Indiana. Chicago is the county seat of Cook County.

Chicago was founded in 1833, near a portage between the Great Lakes and the Mississippi River watershed. Today, the city retains its status as a major hub for industry, telecommunications and infrastructure, with O'Hare International Airport being the second busiest airport in the world. , the city hosted 45.6 million domestic and overseas visitors. As of 2010, Chicago's metropolitan area has the 4th largest Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of all metropolitan areas in the world.

The city is a center for business and finance and is listed as one of the world's top ten Global Financial Centers. The World Cities Study Group at Loughborough University rated Chicago as an "alpha world city". In a 2010 survey collaboration between Foreign Policy and A.T Kearney ranking cities, Chicago ranked 6th just after Paris and Hong Kong. In recent times, it is also used to boost Chicago's status as the second most prestigious city in the United States in many areas, such as entertainment, culture, and finance.|group="footnote"}} and the "City of Big Shoulders."|group="footnote"}} Chicago has also been called "the most American of big cities."

History

During the mid 18th century, the area was inhabited by a native American tribe known as the Potawatomi, who had taken the place of the Miami and Sauk and Fox peoples. The first known non-indigenous permanent settler in Chicago, Jean Baptiste Point du Sable, is believed to be of African and European decent. In 1795, following the Northwest Indian War, an area that was to be part of Chicago was turned over by some Native Americans in the Treaty of Greenville to the United States for a military post.

In 1803, the United States Army built Fort Dearborn, which was destroyed in the War of 1812 Battle of Fort Dearborn. The Ottawa, Ojibwe, and Potawatomi later ceded additional land to the United States in the 1804 Treaty of St. Louis. The Potawatomi were eventually forcibly removed from their land following the Treaty of Chicago in 1833. On August 12, 1833, the Town of Chicago was organized with a population of around 200 at that time. Within seven years it would grow to a population of over 4,000. The City of Chicago was incorporated on Saturday, March 4, 1837—the same day that Martin van Buren was inaugurated as President (succeeding Andrew Jackson).

The name "Chicago" is derived from a French rendering of the Native American word shikaakwa, meaning "wild onion" or "wild garlic," from the Miami-Illinois language. The first known reference to the site of the current city of Chicago as "Checagou" was by Robert de LaSalle around 1679 in a memoir written about the time. The wild garlic plants, Allium tricoccum, were described by LaSalle's comrade, naturalist-diarist Henri Joutel, in his journal of LaSalle's last expedition.

and Madison Streets, the busiest corner in Chicago (1897)]] As the site of the Chicago Portage, the city emerged as an important transportation hub between the eastern and western United States. Chicago's first railway, Galena and Chicago Union Railroad, opened in 1848, which also marked the opening of the Illinois and Michigan Canal. The canal allowed steamboats and sailing ships on the Great Lakes to connect to the Mississippi River. A flourishing economy brought residents from rural communities and immigrants abroad. Manufacturing and retail sectors became dominant among Midwestern cities, influencing the American economy, particularly in meatpacking, with the advent of the refrigerated rail car and the regional centrality of the city's Union Stock Yards.

Chicago experienced some of the fastest population growth in the world, requiring infrastructure investments. In February 1856, the Chesbrough plan for the building of Chicago's and the United States' first comprehensive sewerage system was approved by the Common Council. The project raised much of central Chicago to a new grade. While raising Chicago out of its mud and sewage, and at first improving the health of the city, the untreated sewage and industrial waste now flowed into the Chicago River, thence into Lake Michigan, polluting the primary source of fresh water for the city. Chicago responded by tunneling two miles (3 km) out into Lake Michigan to newly built water cribs. In 1900, the problem of sewage was largely resolved when the city undertook a major engineering feat. The city reversed the flow of the Chicago River so that water flowed from Lake Michigan into the river, instead of the water flowing from the river into the lake. It began with the construction and improvement of the Illinois and Michigan Canal, and completed with the Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal leading to the Illinois River which joins the Mississippi River. After the Great Chicago Fire of 1871 destroyed a third of the city, including the entire central business district, Chicago experienced rapid rebuilding and growth. During its rebuilding period, Chicago constructed the world's first skyscraper in 1885, using steel-skeleton construction. Labor conflicts and unrest followed, including the Haymarket affair on May 4, 1886. Concern for social problems among Chicago's lower classes led Jane Addams to be a co-founder of Hull House in 1889. Programs developed there became a model for the new field of social work. The city also invested in many large, well-landscaped municipal parks, which also included public sanitation facilities.

In 1893, Chicago hosted the World's Columbian Exposition on former marshland at the present location of Jackson Park. The Exposition drew 27.5 million visitors, and is considered the most influential world's fair in history. The University of Chicago was founded in 1892 on the same South Side location. The term "midway" for a fair or carnival referred originally to the Midway Plaisance, a strip of park land that still runs through the University of Chicago campus and connects Washington and Jackson Parks.

20th and 21st centuries

is the south border (right) of the Near North Side and Streeterville and the north border (left) of Chicago Loop, Lakeshore East and Illinois Center (from Lake Shore Drive's Link Bridge with Trump International Hotel and Tower at jog in the river in the center)]] The 1920s brought notoriety to Chicago as gangsters, including the notorious Al Capone, battled each other and law enforcement on the city streets during the Prohibition era. Chicago had over 1,000 gangs in the 1920s.

The 1920s also saw a major expansion in industry. The availability of jobs attracted African Americans from the South. Between 1910 and 1930, the black population of Chicago increased from 44,103 to 233,903. Arriving in the hundreds of thousands during the Great Migration, the newcomers had an immense cultural impact. It was during this wave that Chicago became a center for jazz, with King Oliver leading the way.

In 1933, Chicago Mayor Anton Cermak was fatally wounded in Miami during a failed assassination attempt on President-elect Franklin D. Roosevelt. In 1933 and 1934, the city celebrated its centennial by hosting the Century of Progress International Exposition Worlds Fair. The theme of the fair was technological innovation over the century since Chicago's founding.

On December 2, 1942, physicist Enrico Fermi conducted the world's first controlled nuclear reaction at the University of Chicago as part of the top-secret Manhattan Project.

Mayor Richard J. Daley was elected in 1955, in the era of machine politics. Starting in the 1960s, many residents, as in most American cities, left the city for the suburbs. Structural changes in industry caused heavy losses of jobs for lower skilled workers. In 1966 James Bevel, Martin Luther King, Jr., and Albert Raby led the Chicago Open Housing Movement, which culminated in agreements between Mayor Richard J. Daley and the movement leaders. Two years later, the city hosted the tumultuous 1968 Democratic National Convention, which featured physical confrontations both inside and outside the convention hall, including full-scale riots, or in some cases police riots, in city streets. Major construction projects, including the Sears Tower (now known as the Willis Tower, which in 1974 became the world's tallest building), University of Illinois at Chicago, McCormick Place, and O'Hare International Airport, were undertaken during Richard J. Daley's tenure. When Richard J. Daley died, Michael Anthony Bilandic served as mayor for three years. Bilandic's subsequent loss in a primary election has been attributed to the city's inability to properly plow city streets during a heavy snowstorm. In 1979, Jane Byrne, the city's first female mayor, was elected. She popularized the city as a movie location and tourist destination.

In 1983, Harold Washington became the first African American to be elected to the office of mayor, in one of the closest mayoral elections in Chicago. After Washington won the Democratic primary, racial motivations caused a few Democratic alderman and ward committeemen to back the Republican candidate Bernard Epton, who ran on the race-baiting slogan Before it's too late. Washington's term in office saw new attention given to poor and minority neighborhoods. Washington died in office of a heart attack in 1987, shortly after being elected to a second term. Current mayor Richard M. Daley, son of Richard J. Daley, was elected in 1989. His accomplishments included improvements to parks and creating incentives for sustainable development. He does not plan to run in the next election.

Geography

Topography

Chicago is located in northeastern Illinois at the southwestern tip of Lake Michigan. It sits on a continental divide at the site of the Chicago Portage, connecting the Mississippi River and the Great Lakes watersheds. The city lies beside freshwater Lake Michigan, and two rivers—the Chicago River in downtown and the Calumet River in the industrial far South Side—flow entirely or partially through Chicago. The Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal connects the Chicago River with the Des Plaines River, which runs to the west of the city. Chicago's history and economy are closely tied to its proximity to Lake Michigan. While the Chicago River historically handled much of the region's waterborne cargo, today's huge lake freighters use the city's Lake Calumet Harbor on the South Side. The lake also provides another positive effect, moderating Chicago's climate; making waterfront neighborhoods slightly warmer in winter and cooler in summer.

When Chicago was founded in 1833, most of the early building began around the mouth of the Chicago River, as can be seen on a map of the city's original 58 blocks. The overall grade of the city's central, built-up areas, is relatively consistent with the natural flatness of its overall natural geography, generally exhibiting only slight differentiation otherwise. The average land elevation is above sea level. The lowest points are along the lake shore at , while the highest point, at , is a landfill located in the Hegewisch community area on the city's far south side.

on Lake Shore Drive next to Burnham Park in the South Side]] The Chicago Loop is the central business district but Chicago is also a city of neighborhoods. Lake Shore Drive runs adjacent to a large portion of Chicago's lakefront. Some of the parks along the waterfront include Lincoln Park, Grant Park, Burnham Park and Jackson Park. Twenty-nine public beaches are also found along the shore. Landfill extends into portions of the lake providing space for Navy Pier, Northerly Island, the Museum Campus, and large portions of the McCormick Place Convention Center. Most of the city's high-rise commercial and residential buildings can be found close to the waterfront.

An informal name for the Chicago metropolitan area is Chicagoland, used primarily by copywriters, advertising agencies, and traffic reporters. There is no precise definition for the term "Chicagoland," but it generally means the city and its suburbs together. The Chicago Tribune, which coined the term, includes the city of Chicago, the rest of Cook County, eight nearby Illinois counties: Lake, McHenry, DuPage, Kane, Kendall, Grundy, Will and Kankakee, and three counties in Indiana: Lake, Porter, and LaPorte. The Illinois Department of Tourism defines Chicagoland as Cook County without the city of Chicago, and only Lake, DuPage, Kane and Will counties. The Chicagoland Chamber of Commerce defines it as all of Cook and DuPage, Kane, Lake, McHenry and Will counties. house]]

Climate

The city lies within the humid continental climate zone, and experiences four distinct seasons. Summers are warm and humid , with a July daily average of . In a normal summer temperatures exceed on 21 days. at O'Hare Airport. The city can experience extreme winter cold spells that may last for several consecutive days.

Cityscape

Architecture

at Trump Tower and the Wrigley Building, with John Hancock Center in the distance on the left side.]]

The outcome of the Great Chicago Fire led to the largest building boom in the history of the nation. Perhaps the most outstanding of these events was the relocation of many of the nation's most prominent architects from New England to the city for construction of the 1893 World Columbian Exposition.

In 1885, the first steel-framed high-rise building, the Home Insurance Building, rose in Chicago, ushering in the skyscraper era. Today, Chicago's skyline is among the world's tallest and most dense. The nation's two tallest buildings are both located in Chicago; Willis Tower (formerly Sears Tower), and Trump International Hotel and Tower. The Loop's historic buildings include the Chicago Board of Trade Building, the Fine Arts Building, 35 East Wacker, and the Chicago Building, 860-880 Lake Shore Drive Apartments by Mies van der Rohe, along with many others. The Merchandise Mart, once first on the list of largest buildings in the world, and still listed as twentieth with its own ZIP code, stands near the junction of the North and South branches of the Chicago River. Presently, the four tallest buildings in the city are Willis Tower, Trump International Hotel and Tower, the Aon Center (previously the Standard Oil Building), and the John Hancock Center. Industrial districts, such as on the South Side, the areas along the Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal, Chicago Southland, and Northwest Indiana are clustered.

Chicago gave its name to the Chicago School and was home to the Prairie School, movements in architecture. Multiple kinds and scales of houses, townhouses, condominiums, and apartment buildings can be found in Chicago. Large swaths of Chicago's residential areas away from the lake are characterized by bungalows built from the early 20th century through the end of World War II. Chicago is also a prominent center of the Polish Cathedral style of church architecture. One of Chicago's suburbs, Oak Park, was home to the architect Frank Lloyd Wright.

Neighborhoods

Chicago has four main sections: Downtown (which contains the Loop), the North Side, the South Side, and the West Side. The three sides of the city are represented on the Flag of Chicago by three horizontal white strips. These sections can further be informally subdived or grouped, for example as shown on the map (right). Also popular are further sectional references to the Northwest side and the Southwest side. In the late 1920s, sociologists at the University of Chicago subdivided the city into 77 distinct community areas, which can further be subdivided into over 200 neighborhoods.

Downtown is the center of Chicago's cultural, commercial and financial institutions, and home to Grant Park and many of the city's skyscapers. Many of the city's financial institutions (e.g., CBOT, Chicago Fed) are located within a section of downtown called "The Loop", which is an eight block by five block square of city streets that are encircled by elevated rail tracks. The central commercial area often is portrayed, as in the map at right, to include parts of Near North Side and Near South Side, as well as the Loop. These areas contribute famous skyscrapers, shopping, museums, a stadium for the Chicago Bears and convention facilities. Similarly, the area just west of the Loop and the Chicago River contributes to the commercial core.

The North Side is the most densely populated residential section of the city and many high-rises are located on this side of the city along the lakefront. Lincoln Park is a park stretching for along the waterfront and is also home to the Lincoln Park Zoo. The River North neighborhood features the nation's largest concentration of contemporary art galleries outside of New York City. As a Polonia center, due to the city having a very large Polish population, Chicago celebrates every Labor Day weekend at the Taste of Polonia Festival in the Jefferson Park area. The Chicago Cubs play in the North Side's Wrigleyville.

The South Side is the largest section of the city, encompassing roughly 60% of the city's land area. The South Side is home to the University of Chicago, and the Museum of Science and Industry. It also hosts one of the city's largest parades, the annual African American Bud Billiken Day parade. Burnham Park stretches along the waterfront of the South Side. Two of the city's largest parks are located here: Jackson Park, bordering the waterfront, hosted the World's Columbian Exposition in 1893 and is home of the aforementioned museum; slightly west sits Washington Park. U.S. automaker, Ford Motor Company, has an assembly plant located on the South Side. Also, most of the facilities of the Port of Chicago are here. The Chicago White Sox play at 35th Street.

The West Side holds the Garfield Park Conservatory, one of the largest collections of tropical plants of any US city. Prominent Latino cultural attractions found here include Humboldt Park's Institute of Puerto Rican Arts and Puerto Rican Day Parade, as well as the National Museum of Mexican Art and St. Adalbert's Church in Pilsen. The Near West Side holds the television production company of Oprah Winfrey's Harpo Studios and the University of Illinois at Chicago. The Chicago Bulls and Chicago Blackhawks call the West Side home at the United Center sports arena.

Street grid

and the Gold Coast, Chicago]]

Chicago's streets were laid out in a street grid that grew from the city's original townsite plat. Streets following the Public Land Survey System section lines later became arterial streets in outlying sections. As new additions to the city were platted, city ordinance required them to be laid out with eight streets to the mile in one direction and 16 in the other direction. The grid's regularity would provide an efficient means to develop new real estate property. A scattering of diagonal streets, many of them originally Indian trails, also cross the city. Many additional diagonal streets were recommended in the Plan of Chicago, but only the extension of Ogden Avenue was ever constructed.

One of the city's most famous thoroughfares, Western Avenue, is one of the longest urban streets in the world. Other famous streets include Belmont Avenue, Pulaski Road and Division Street. The City Beautiful movement inspired Chicago's Boulevards and Parkways.

Culture and contemporary life

The city's lakefront allure and nightlife has attracted residents and tourists alike. Over one-third of the city population is concentrated in the lakefront neighborhoods (from Rogers Park in the north to South Shore in the south). Two North Side neighborhoods in particular, Lakeview and the Andersonville area of the Edgewater neighborhood, are home to many LGBT businesses and organizations. The area surrounding the North Side intersections of Halsted, Belmont, and Clark is a gay district known as "Boystown." The city has many upscale dining establishments as well as many ethnic restaurant districts. These include the Mexican villages, such as Pilsen on 18th street and La Villita on 26th street, the Puerto Rican enclave Paseo Boricua in the Humboldt Park neighborhood, "Greektown" on South Halsted, "Little Italy" on Taylor Street, just west of Halsted, "Chinatown" on the near South Side, Polish fare reigns at Belmont-Central, "Little Seoul" on and around Lawrence Avenue, a cluster of Vietnamese restaurants on Argyle Street and South Asian (Indian/Pakistani) on Devon Avenue.

Entertainment and performing arts

Chicago's theatre community spawned modern improvisational theatre. Two renowned comedy troupes emerged—The Second City and I.O. (formerly known as ImprovOlympic). Renowned Chicago theater companies include the Steppenwolf Theatre Company (on the city's north side), the Goodman Theatre, and the Victory Gardens Theater. Chicago offers Broadway-style entertainment at theaters such as Ford Center for the Performing Arts Oriental Theatre, Bank of America Theatre, Cadillac Palace Theatre, Auditorium Building of Roosevelt University, and Drury Lane Theatre Water Tower Place. Polish language productions for Chicago's large Polish speaking population can be seen at the historic Gateway Theatre in Jefferson Park. Since 1968, the Joseph Jefferson Awards are given annually to acknowledge excellence in theater in the Chicago area.

Classical music offerings include the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, recognized as one of the finest orchestras in the world, which performs at Symphony Center. Also performing regularly at Symphony Center is the Chicago Sinfonietta, a more diverse and multicultural counterpart to the CSO. In the summer, many outdoor concerts are given in Grant Park and Millennium Park. Ravinia Park, located north of Chicago, is also a favorite destination for many Chicagoans, with performances occasionally given in Chicago locations such as the Harris Theater. The Civic Opera House is home to the Lyric Opera of Chicago. The Lithuanian Opera Company of Chicago was founded by Lithuanian Chicagoans in 1956, and presents operas in Lithuanian. It celebrated fifty years of existence in 2006, and operates as a not-for-profit organization. It is noteworthy for performing the rarely staged Rossini's William Tell (1986) and Ponchielli's I Lituani (1981, 1983 and 1991), and also for contributing experienced chorus members to the Lyric Opera of Chicago. The opera Jūratė and Kastytis by Kazimieras Viktoras Banaitis was presented in Chicago in 1996.

The Joffrey Ballet and Chicago Festival Ballet perform in various venues, including the Harris Theater in Millennium Park. Chicago is home to several other modern and jazz dance troupes, such as the Hubbard Street Dance Chicago.

Other live music genre which are part of the city's cultural heritage include Chicago blues, Chicago soul, jazz, and gospel. The city is the birthplace of house music and is the site of an influential hip-hop scene. In the 1980s, the city was a center for industrial, punk and new wave. This influence continued into the alternative rock of the 1990s. The city has been an epicenter for rave culture since the 1980s. A flourishing independent rock music culture brought forth Chicago indie. Annual festivals feature various acts such as Lollapalooza, the Intonation Music Festival and Pitchfork Music Festival.

Tourism

from the 23rd floor of Lake Point Tower.]] hosts numerous upscale stores, as well as landmarks like the Chicago Water Tower.]] , Chicago attracted 32.4 million domestic leisure travelers, 11.7 million domestic business travelers and 1.3 million overseas visitors.

In 1998, the city officially opened the Museum Campus, a lakefront park, surrounding three of the city's main museums, each of which is of national importance: the Adler Planetarium & Astronomy Museum, the Field Museum of Natural History, and the Shedd Aquarium. The Museum Campus joins the southern section of Grant Park, which includes the renowned Art Institute of Chicago. Buckingham Fountain anchors the downtown park along the lakefront. The University of Chicago Oriental Institute has an extensive collection of ancient Egyptian and Near Eastern archaeological artifacts. Other museums and galleries in Chicago include the Chicago History Museum, the DuSable Museum of African American History, the Museum of Contemporary Art, the Peggy Notebaert Nature Museum, the Polish Museum of America, the Museum of Broadcast Communications and the Museum of Science and Industry.

The top activity while visitors tour Chicago for leisure is entertainment, approximately 33% of all leisure travelers. Facilities such as McCormick Place and the Chicago Theatre contribute to this percentage.

Parks

When Chicago was incorporated in 1837, it chose the motto Urbs in Horto, a Latin phrase which translates into English as "City in a Garden". Today, the Chicago Park District consists of 552 parks with over of municipal parkland. There are 33 sand Chicago beaches, a plethora of museums, two world-class conservatories, 16 historic lagoons, and 10 bird and wildlife gardens. Lincoln Park, the largest of the city's parks, covers and has over 20 million visitors each year, making it second only to Central Park in New York City in number of visitors. With berths for more than 5,000 boats, the Chicago Park District operates the nation's largest municipal harbor system; even larger than systems in cities such as New York City, Los Angeles, or Miami. In addition to ongoing beautification and renewal projects for the existing parks, a number of new parks have been added in recent years, such as the Ping Tom Memorial Park in Chinatown, DuSable Park on the Near North Side, and most notably, Millennium Park in the Chicago Loop.

The wealth of greenspace afforded by Chicago's parks is further augmented by the Cook County Forest Preserves, a network of open spaces containing forest, prairie, wetland, streams, and lakes that are set aside as natural areas which lie along the city's periphery, home to both the Chicago Botanic Garden in Glencoe and the Brookfield Zoo in Brookfield.

Cuisine

with a rich tomato topping]] market in Chicago]] Chicago lays claim to a large number of regional specialties, all of which reflect the city's ethnic and working class roots. Included among these are its nationally renowned deep-dish pizza, This style is said to have originated at Pizzeria Uno. The Chicago-style thin crust is popular in the city as well. The number of authentic Chicago pizzerias specializing in the thin crust version is much higher, with many being "Mom and Pop" style shops.

The Chicago-style hot dog, typically a Vienna Beef dog loaded with an array of fixings that often includes neon green pickle relish, yellow mustard, pickled sport peppers, tomato wedges, dill pickle spear and topped off with celery salt. Ketchup on a Chicago hot dog is frowned upon by enthusiasts of the Chicago-style dog, but may prefer to add giardiniera.

There are several distinctly Chicago sandwiches, among them the Italian beef sandwich, which is thinly sliced beef slowly simmered au jus and served on an Italian roll with sweet peppers or spicy giardiniera. A popular modification is the Combo – an Italian beef sandwich with the addition of an Italian sausage. Another is the Maxwell Street Polish, a grilled or deep-fried kielbasa – on a hot dog roll, topped with grilled onions, yellow mustard, and hot sport peppers.

Ethnically originated creations include chicken Vesuvio, which started as an Italian specialty in the 1930s, with roasted bone-in chicken cooked in oil and garlic next to garlicky oven-roasted potato wedges and a sprinkling of green peas. Another is the Puerto Rican-influenced jibarito, a sandwich made with flattened, fried green plantains instead of bread. Yet another is the Greek saganaki, an appetizer of cheese served flambé at the table.

The Taste of Chicago in Grant Park runs from the final week of June through Fourth of July weekend. Hundreds of local restaurants take part.

A number of well-known chefs have restaurants in Chicago, including Charlie Trotter, Rick Tramonto, Grant Achatz, and Rick Bayless. In 2003, Robb Report named Chicago the country's "most exceptional dining destination."

The city is home to 23 Michelin starred restaurants, with Alinea and L2O receiving three stars.

Chicago features a wide selection of vegetarian cuisine, with 22 fully vegetarian restaurants and many vegetarian-friendly establishments within the city.

Religion

, one of the city's "Polish Cathedrals" was intentionally modeled on St. Peter's Basilica.]] Due to its cosmopolitan history, Chicago has a rich blend of religious heritage as displayed by the architecture and institutions throughout the city. Christianity is predominant among the city's population represented by the various denominations including Catholic, Protestant, Oriental and Orthodox churches. The city also includes adherents of Judaism, Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism, Sikhism, the Bahá'í, and others. Because of this diversity, Chicago has a wealth of sacred architecture.

Through the city's size and notoriety, it has gained recognition as a religious center. The city played host to the first two Parliament of the World's Religions in 1893 and 1993. Chicago contains many theological institutions, which include seminaries and colleges such as the Moody Bible Institute and DePaul University. Chicago is the seat of numerous religious leaders from a host of bishops of a wide array of Christian denominations as well as other religions. In the northern suburb of Wilmette, Illinois, is the Bahá'í Temple, the only temple for the Bahá'í Faith in North America. .

Sports

Chicago was named the Best Sports City in the United States by The Sporting News in 1993, 2006, 2010. The city is home to two Major League Baseball (MLB) teams: the Chicago Cubs of the National League (NL), who play in Wrigley Field on the North Side, and the Chicago White Sox of the American League (AL), who play in U.S. Cellular Field on the South Side. Chicago is the only city in North America that has had more than one MLB franchise every year since the AL began in 1900. The Chicago Machine, a member of Major League Lacrosse play at Toyota Park. The Chicago Bears, one of the last two remaining charter members of the National Football League (NFL), have won nine NFL Championships, including Super Bowl XX. The other remaining charter franchise, the Chicago Cardinals, also started out in the city, but are now known as the Arizona Cardinals. The Bears play their home games at Soldier Field in the downtown area.

The Chicago Bulls of the National Basketball Association (NBA) are one of the most recognized basketball teams in the world. During the 1990s with Michael Jordan leading them, the Bulls took six NBA championships in eight seasons (only failing to do so in the two years of Jordan's absence). The Chicago Blackhawks of the National Hockey League (NHL), who began play in 1926, have won four Stanley Cups. The Blackhawks are the 2010 Stanley Cup champions, and hosted the 2009 NHL Winter Classic at Wrigley Field. Both the Bulls and Blackhawks play at the United Center on the Near West Side. The Chicago Fire are members of Major League Soccer and reside at Toyota Park in suburban Bridgeview, after playing its first eight seasons at Soldier Field. The Fire have won one league title and four U.S. Open Cups since their founding in 1997.

The Chicago Marathon has been held each year since 1977 except for in 1987, when a half marathon was run in its place. The Chicago Marathon is one of five World Marathon Majors. In 1994, the United States hosted a successful FIFA World Cup with games played at Soldier Field on Chicago's downtown lakefront. After a months long process that saw the elimination of several American and international cities, Chicago was selected on April 14, 2007, to represent the United States internationally in the bidding for the 2016 Summer Olympics. Chicago had previously hosted the 1959 Pan American Games and the 2006 Gay Games. Chicago was selected to host the 1904 Olympics, but they were transferred to St. Louis to coincide with the World's Fair. On June 4, 2008, the International Olympic Committee narrowed the field further and selected Chicago as one of four candidate cities for the 2016 games. On October 2, 2009, Rio de Janeiro was selected instead of Chicago.

Starting just off Navy Pier is Chicago Yacht Club's Race to Mackinac, a offshore sailboat race held each July that is the longest annual freshwater sailing distance race in the world. 2010 marks the 102nd running of the "Mac".

At the collegiate level, Chicago and suburban Evanston have two national athletic conferences represented, the Big East Conference with DePaul University, and the Big Ten Conference with Northwestern University in Evanston. Loyola University Chicago and the University of Illinois at Chicago play Division I sports as members of the Horizon League.

Literature

Chicago literature found its roots in the city's tradition of lucid, direct journalism, lending to a strong tradition of social realism. Consequently, most notable Chicago fiction focuses on the city itself, with social criticism keeping exultation in check. Writers such as Mike Royko, Studs Terkel, Stuart Dybek, Carl Sandburg, James T. Farrell, Upton Sinclair, Saul Bellow and John Guzlowski have all drawn the city's literary portrait in diverse ways, united by the fact that their observations brought the world's attention to focus on Chicago.

Media

.]]

The Chicago metropolitan area is the third-largest media market in North America, after New York City and Los Angeles. Each of the big four U.S. television networks, CBS, ABC, NBC and Fox, directly owns and operates a high-definition television station in Chicago (WBBM, WLS, WMAQ and WFLD, respectively). WGN-TV, which is owned by the Tribune Company, is carried with some programming differences, as "WGN America" on cable TV nationwide and in parts of the Caribbean. The city is also the home of several talk shows, including The Oprah Winfrey Show on WLS-TV, while Chicago Public Radio produces programs such as PRI's This American Life and NPR's Wait Wait... Don't Tell Me! Chicago's PBS station can be seen on WTTW, producer of shows, such as Sneak Previews, The Frugal Gourmet, Lamb Chop's Play-Along and The McLaughlin Group, just to name a few and WYCC.

There are two major daily newspapers published in Chicago, the Chicago Tribune and the Chicago Sun-Times, with the former having the larger circulation. There are also several regional and special-interest newspapers and magazines, such as Chicago, the Dziennik Związkowy (Polish Daily News), Draugas (the Lithuanian daily newspaper), the Chicago Reader, the SouthtownStar, the Chicago Defender, the Daily Herald, Newcity, StreetWise and the Windy City Times.

Chicago is a filming-friendly location. Since the 1980s, many motion pictures have been filmed in the city, most notably The Blues Brothers, Ferris Bueller's Day Off, Home Alone, The Fugitive, Blade Trinity, I,Robot, Wanted, Batman Begins, The Dark Knight, , and

Chicago is also home to a number of national radio shows, including Beyond the Beltway with Bruce DuMont on Sunday evenings.

Economy

Chicago has the third largest gross metropolitan product in the United States—approximately US$506 billion according to 2007 estimates. The city has also been rated as having the most balanced economy in the United States, due to its high level of diversification. Chicago was named the fourth most important business center in the world in the MasterCard Worldwide Centers of Commerce Index. Additionally, the Chicago metropolitan area recorded the greatest number of new or expanded corporate facilities in the United States for six out of the seven years from 2001 to 2008. The Chicago metropolitan area has the third largest science and engineering work force of any metropolitan area in the nation. In 2009, Chicago placed 9th on the UBS list of the world's richest cities. Chicago was the base of commercial operations for industrialists John Crerar, John Whitfield Bunn, Richard Teller Crane, Marshall Field, John Farwell, Morris Selz, Julius Rosenwald and many other commercial visionaries who laid the foundation for Midwestern and global industry.

Chicago is a major world financial center, with the second largest central business district in the US The city is the headquarters of the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago (the Seventh District of the Federal Reserve). The city is also home to major financial and futures exchanges, including the Chicago Stock Exchange, the Chicago Board Options Exchange (CBOE), and the Chicago Mercantile Exchange (the "Merc"), which is owned, along with the Chicago Board of Trade (CBOT) by Chicago's CME Group. The CME Group, in addition, owns the New York Mercantile Exchange (NYMEX), the Commodities Exchange Inc. (COMEX) and the Dow Jones Indexes. Perhaps due to the influence of the Chicago school of economics, the city also has markets trading unusual contracts such as emissions (on the Chicago Climate Exchange) and equity style indices (on the U.S. Futures Exchange). Chase Bank has its commercial and retail banking headquarters in Chicago's Chase Tower.

The city and its surrounding metropolitan area are home to the second largest labor pool in the United States with approximately 4.25 million workers. In addition, the state of Illinois is home to 66 Fortune 1000 companies, including those in Chicago. The city of Chicago also hosts 12 Fortune Global 500 companies and 17 Financial Times 500 companies. The city claims one Dow 30 company: aerospace giantBoeing, which moved its headquarters from Seattle to the Chicago Loop in 2001. Two more Dow 30 companies, Kraft Foods and McDonalds are in Chicago suburbs. Chicago is also home to United Continental Holdings and its United Airlines.

Manufacturing, printing, publishing and food processing also play major roles in the city's economy. Several medical products and services companies are headquartered in the Chicago area, including Baxter International, Boeing, Abbott Laboratories, and the Healthcare Financial Services division of General Electric. Moreover, the construction of the Illinois and Michigan Canal, which helped move goods from the Great Lakes south on the Mississippi River, and of the railroads in the 19th century made the city a major transportation center in the United States. In the 1840s, Chicago became a major grain port, and in the 1850s and 1860s Chicago's pork and beef industry expanded. As the major meat companies grew in Chicago many, such as Armour and Company, created global enterprises. Though the meatpacking industry currently plays a lesser role in the city's economy, Chicago continues to be a major transportation and distribution center. Lured by a combination of large business customers, federal research dollars, and a large hiring pool fed by the area's universities, Chicago is also home to a growing number of startup companies like 37signals, Groupon, Doejo and Feedburner.

Late in the 19th century, Chicago was part of the bicycle craze, as home to Western Wheel Company, which introduced stamping to the production process and significantly reduced costs, while early in the 20th century, the city was part of the automobile revolution, hosting the Brass Era car builder Bugmobile, which was founded there in 1907. Chicago was also home to the Schwinn Bicycle Company.

Chicago is a major world convention destination. The city's main convention center is McCormick Place. With its four interconnected buildings, it is the largest convention center in the nation and third largest in the world. Chicago also ranks third in the U.S. (behind Las Vegas and Orlando) in number of conventions hosted annually.

Demographics

During its first 100 years as a city, Chicago grew at a rate that ranked among the fastest growing in the world. Within the span of forty years, the city's population grew from slightly under 30,000 to over 1 million by 1890. By the close of the 19th century, Chicago was the fifth largest city in the world, and the largest of the cities that did not exist at the dawn of the century. Within fifty years of the Great Chicago Fire of 1871, the population had tripled to over 3 million, and reached its highest ever-recorded population of 3.6 million for the 1950 census.

As of the 2000 census, there were 2,896,016 people, 1,061,928 households, and 632,558 families residing within Chicago. More than half the population of the state of Illinois lives in the Chicago metropolitan area. The population density of the city itself was , making it one of the nation's most densely populated cities. There were 1,152,868 housing units at an average density of . Of the 1,061,928 households, 28.9% had children under the age of 18 living in them, 35.1% were married couples living together, 18.9% had a female householder with no husband present, and 40.4% were non-families. The median income for a household in the city was $38,625, and the median income for a family was $42,724. Males had a median income of $35,907 versus $30,536 for females. About 16.6% of families and 19.6% of the population lived below the poverty line.

According to the 2006–2008 American Community Survey, the population of Chicago is 2,851,206 people; the racial composition of the city was 39.9% White (Non-Hispanic Whites: 31.5%), 34.6% Black or African American, 0.2% American Indian, 4.9% Asian, 18.6% from some other race, and 1.7% from two or more races. Hispanics or Latinos (of any race) make up 27.8% of the total population (20.5% are Mexican, 3.7% Puerto Rican, 0.3% Cuban, and 3.4% other Hispanic or Latino).

According to the 2008 American Community Survey 1-Year Estimates for Total Ancestry Reported, for the city of Chicago, the majority of residents, or 64% of 2,986,974 people, reported their ancestry as "other groups". Of the 36% of residents that reported their ancestries in groups that were measured by the U.S. Census Bureau, the largest groups, based on the total population, were: Irish (6.6%); German (6.5%); Polish (5.8%); Italian (3.5%); Assyrian (3.5%); English (2.0%); Sub-Saharan African (1.2%); American (1.1%); Russian (0.97%); Swedish (0.91%); French (except Basque) (0.9%); Arab (0.7%); Greek (0.6%); Dutch (0.5%); Norwegian (0.5%); Scottish (0.5%); European (0.5%); West Indian (0.5%); Lithuanian (0.4%); Ukrainian (0.38%); Czech (0.4%); Hungarian (0.3%); Scotch-Irish (0.2%); Welsh (0.2%); Danish (0.2%); French Canadian (0.2%); Slovak (0.2%); British (0.1%); Swiss (0.1%); and Portuguese (0.1%).

Law and government

statue and City Hall in background]] Chicago is the county seat of Cook County. The government of the City of Chicago is divided into executive and legislative branches. The Mayor of Chicago is the chief executive, elected by general election for a term of four years, with no term limits. The mayor appoints commissioners and other officials who oversee the various departments. In addition to the mayor, Chicago's two other citywide elected officials are the clerk and the treasurer.

The City Council is the legislative branch and is made up of 50 aldermen, one elected from each ward in the city. The council enacts local ordinances and approves the city budget. Government priorities and activities are established in a budget ordinance usually adopted each November. The council takes official action through the passage of ordinances and resolutions.

During much of the last half of the 19th century, Chicago's politics were dominated by a growing Democratic Party organization dominated by ethnic ward-heelers. During the 1880s and 1890s, Chicago had a powerful radical tradition with large and highly organized socialist, anarchist and labor organizations. For much of the 20th century, Chicago has been among the largest and most reliable Democratic strongholds in the United States, with Chicago's Democratic vote the state of Illinois has been "solid blue" in presidential elections since 1992. The citizens of Chicago have not elected a Republican mayor since 1927, when William Thompson was voted into office. The strength of the party in the city is partly a consequence of Illinois state politics, where the Republicans have come to represent the rural and farm concerns while the Democrats support urban issues such as Chicago's public school funding. Chicago contains close to 25% of the state's population, and as such, eight of Illinois' nineteen U.S. Representatives have part of Chicago in their districts.

Former Chicago Mayor Richard J. Daley's mastery of machine politics preserved the Chicago Democratic Machine long after the demise of similar machines in other large U.S. cities. During much of that time, the city administration found opposition mainly from a liberal "independent" faction of the Democratic Party. The independents finally gained control of city government in 1983 with the election of Harold Washington. Since 1989, Chicago has been under the leadership of Richard M. Daley, the son of Richard J. Daley. Because of the dominance of the Democratic Party in Chicago, the Democratic primary vote held in the spring is generally more significant than the general elections in November.

Crime

Murders in the city peaked first in 1974, with 970 murders when the city's population was over three million people (resulting in a murder rate of around 29 per 100,000), and again in 1992 with 943 murders, resulting in a murder rate of 34 per 100,000. Chicago, along with other major US cities, experienced a significant reduction in violent crime rates through the 1990s, eventually recording 448 homicides in 2004, the lowest total since 1965 (15.65 per 100,000.) Chicago's homicide tally remained steady throughout 2005, 2006, and 2007 with 449, 452, and 435 respectively.

In 2008, murders rebounded to 510, 2^nd highest in the country, breaking 500 for the first time since 2003. For 2009 the murder count was down about 10% for the year, to 458.

2010 saw Chicago's murder rate at its lowest levels since 1965. Overall, 435 homicides were recorded for the year, a 5% decrease from 2009.

Education

Schools and libraries

There are 675 public schools, 394 private schools, 83 colleges, and 88 libraries in the Chicago proper. Chicago Public Schools (CPS) is the governing body of the school district that contains over 600 public elementary and high schools citywide, including several selective-admission magnet schools. There are 9 selective enrollment high schools in the Chicago Public Schools. They are designed to meet the needs of Chicago’s most academically advanced students. The schools offer a rigorous curriculum with mainly honors and Advanced Placement (AP) courses. Northside College Preparatory High School is ranked number one in the city of Chicago. Whitney M. Young Magnet High School is ranked number two. The Chicago high school rankings are determined by the average test scores on state achievement tests. The district, with an enrollment exceeding 400,000 students (2005 stat.), ranks as the third largest in the US

Chicago's private schools are largely run by religious groups, with the two largest systems being the Catholic and Lutheran schools. The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Chicago operates the city's Catholic schools, including the Jesuit preparatory schools. Some of the more prominent Catholic schools are: De La Salle Institute, Gordon Technical High School, Cristo Rey Jesuit High School, Brother Rice High School, St. Ignatius College Preparatory School, St. Scholastica Academy, Mount Carmel High School, Mother McAuley Liberal Arts High School, Marist High School, St. Patrick High School and Resurrection High School. In addition to Chicago's network of 32 Lutheran schools, there are also several private schools run by other denominations and faiths, such as the Ida Crown Jewish Academy in West Ridge. Additionally, a number of private schools are run in a completely secular educational environment, such as the Latin School of Chicago, the University of Chicago Laboratory Schools in Hyde Park, the Francis W. Parker School, the Chicago City Day School in Lake View, the Feltre School in River North and the Morgan Park Academy. Chicago is also home of the private Chicago Academy for the Arts, a high school focused on six different categories of the arts, such as Media Arts, Visual Arts, Music, Dance, Musical Theatre and Theatre.

The Chicago Public Library system operates 79 public libraries including the central library, two regional libraries, and numerous branches distributed throughout the city..

Colleges and universities

, as seen from the Midway Plaisance]] Since the 1850s, Chicago has been a world center of higher education and research with several universities that are in the city proper or in the immediate environs. These institutions consistently rank among the top "National Universities" in the United States, as determined by U.S. News & World Report. Three top-tier research (RU/VH) universities are found in or adjacent to the city: the University of Chicago; Northwestern University; and, the University of Illinois at Chicago. Other selective national universities include the Illinois Institute of Technology; Loyola University Chicago; and, DePaul University. Other notable schools include: Chicago State University; the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, the Illinois Institute of Art - Chicago East–West University; National-Louis University; North Park University; Northeastern Illinois University; Columbia College Chicago; Robert Morris University; Roosevelt University; Saint Xavier University; Dominican University; and Rush University.

William Rainey Harper, the first president of the University of Chicago, was instrumental in the creation of the junior college concept, establishing nearby Joliet Junior College as the first in the nation in 1901. His legacy continues with the multiple community colleges in the Chicago proper, including the seven City Colleges of Chicago, Richard J. Daley College, Kennedy–King College, Malcolm X College, Olive–Harvey College, Harry S Truman College, Harold Washington College and Wilbur Wright College, in addition to the privately held MacCormac College.

Chicago proper also has a large concentration of graduate schools, seminaries and theological schools such as the Adler School of Professional Psychology, The Chicago School of Professional Psychology, the Catholic Theological Union, Moody Bible Institute and the University of Chicago Divinity School.

Transportation

train leaving the Madison/Wabash station in the Chicago Loop.]]

Chicago is a major transportation hub in the United States. It is an important component in global distribution, as it is the third largest inter-modal port in the world after Hong Kong and Singapore.

Rail

Six of the seven Class I railroads meet in Chicago, with the exception being the Kansas City Southern Railway. As of 2002, severe freight train congestion caused trains to take as long to get through the Chicago region as it took to get there from the West Coast of the country (about 2 days). About one-third of the country's freight trains pass through the city, making it a major national bottleneck. Announced in 2003, the Chicago Region Environmental and Transportation Efficiency (CREATE) initiative is using about $1.5B in private railroad, state, local, and federal funding to improve rail infrastructure in the region to reduce freight rail congestion by about one third. This is also expected to have a positive impact on passenger rail and road congestion, as well as create new greenspace.

Chicago is one of the largest hubs of passenger rail service in the nation. Many Amtrak long distance services originate from Union Station. The services terminate in San Francisco, Washington D.C., New York City, Indianapolis, New Orleans, Portland, Seattle, Milwaukee, Quincy, St. Louis, Carbondale, Boston, Grand Rapids, Port Huron, Pontiac, Los Angeles, and San Antonio. An attempt was made in the early 20th century to link Chicago with New York City via the Chicago – New York Electric Air Line Railroad. Parts of this were built, but it was ultimately never completed.

Freeways

tollbooths at the entrance to Chicago's southern city limits]] Nine interstate highways run through Chicago and its suburbs. Segments that link to the city center are named after influential politicians, with four of them named after former U.S. Presidents. When referring to the expressways, local citizens tend to use the names of the expressways rather than the interstate numbers, primarily because the names denote certain sections of the interstate(s).

The Kennedy Expressway and the Dan Ryan Expressway are the busiest state maintained routes in the City of Chicago and its suburbs.

Public transportation

The Regional Transportation Authority (RTA) coordinates the operation of the three service boards: CTA, Metra, and Pace.

The Chicago Transit Authority (CTA) handles public transportation in the city of Chicago and a few adjacent suburbs outside of the Chicago city limits. The CTA operates an extensive network of buses and a rapid transit elevated and subway system known as the Chicago 'L' (for "elevated"), with lines designated by colors. These rapid transit lines also serve both Midway and O'Hare Airports. The CTA's rail lines consist of the Red, Blue, Green, Orange, Brown, Purple, Pink, and Yellow lines. Both the Red and Blue lines offer 24 hour service which makes Chicago one of the few cities in the world (and one of only three cities in the United States of America) to offer rail service every day of the year for 24 hours around the clock. A new subway/elevated line, the Circle Line, is also in the planning stages by the CTA.

Metra, the nation's second-most used passenger regional rail network, operates an 11-line commuter rail service in Chicago and its suburbs. The Metra Electric Line shares its trackage with Northern Indiana Commuter Transportation District's South Shore Line, which provides commuter service between South Bend and Chicago. Pace provides bus and paratransit service in over 200 surrounding suburbs with some extensions into the city as well. A 2005 study found that one quarter of commuters used public transit.

Greyhound Lines provides inter-city bus service to and from the city, and Chicago is also the hub for the Midwest network of Megabus (North America).

Cycling

Chicago offers a wide array of bicycle transportation facilities and events, including several miles of on-street bike lanes, 10,000 bike racks, of bike route signage, a state-of-the-art central bicycle commuter station in Millennium Park and the annual Bike Chicago festival. The network has of on-street bike lanes and of off-street trails. Bicycles are permitted on CTA trains and their fleet of over 2,000 buses that have been equipped with racks that carry bikes. The successes of the Bike Program are due in large part to Mayor Daley's leadership and the incorporation of bicycling into the mandates and programs of the Chicago Department of Transportation, CTA, Chicago Park District and the Mayor's Office of Special Events, in partnership with the Active Transportation Alliance. The Chicago Park District maintains an multi-use path, popular with bicycle commuters, along Lake Michigan called the Lakefront Trail.

Air transportation

Chicago is served by Midway International Airport on the South Side and O'Hare International Airport, the world's second busiest airport, on the far Northwest Side. In 2005, O'Hare was the world's busiest airport by aircraft movements and the second busiest by total passenger traffic (due to government enforced flight caps). Both O'Hare and Midway are owned and operated by the City of Chicago. Gary/Chicago International Airport, located in nearby Gary, Indiana, serves as the third Chicago area airport. Chicago is the world headquarters for United Airlines, the world's second-largest airline by revenue-passenger-kilometers and the city is a hub for American Airlines. Midway is a hub for low-cost carrier Southwest Airlines.

Ports

The Port of Chicago consists of several major port facilities within the city of Chicago, Illinois operated by the Illinois International Port District (formerly known as the Chicago Regional Port District). The central element of the Port District, Calumet Harbor, is maintained by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.

Facilities

Iroquois Landing Lakefront Terminal: at the mouth of the Calumet River, it includes of warehouses and facilities on Lake Michigan with over 780,000 square meters (8,390,000 square feet) of storage. Lake Calumet terminal: located at the union of the Grand Calumet River and Little Calumet River inland from Lake Michigan. Includes three transit sheds totaling over 29,000 square meters (315,000 square feet) adjacent to over 900 linear meters (3000 linear feet) of ship and barge berthing.

Grain (14 million bushels) and bulk liquid (800,000 barrels) storage facilities along Lake Calumet.

The Illinois International Port district also operates Foreign Trade Zone #22, which extends from Chicago's city limits.

Infrastructure

Utilities

Electricity for most of northern Illinois is provided by Commonwealth Edison, also known as ComEd. Their service territory borders Iroquois County to the south, the Wisconsin border to the north, the Iowa border to the west and the Indiana border to the east. In northern Illinois, ComEd (a division of Exelon) operates the greatest number of nuclear generating plants in any US state. Because of this, ComEd reports indicate that Chicago receives about 75% of its electricity from nuclear power. Recently, the city started the installation of wind turbines on government buildings with the aim to promote the use of renewable energy.

Domestic and industrial waste was once incinerated but it is now landfilled, mainly in the Calumet area. From 1995 to 2008, the city had a blue bag program to divert certain refuse from landfills. In the fall of 2007 the city began a pilot program for blue bin recycling similar to that of other cities due to low participation rates in the blue bag program. After completion of the pilot the city will determine whether to roll it out to all wards.

of Northwestern University.]]

Health systems

Chicago is home to the Illinois Medical District, on the Near West Side. It includes Rush University Medical Center, the University of Illinois Medical Center at Chicago, Jesse Brown VA Hospital, and John H. Stroger, Jr. Hospital of Cook County, the largest trauma-center in the city.

The University of Chicago Medical Center was ranked the fourteenth best hospital in the country by U.S. News & World Report. It is the only hospital in Illinois ever to be included in the magazine's "Honor Roll" of the best hospitals in the United States.

The Chicago campus of Northwestern University includes the Feinberg School of Medicine, Northwestern Memorial Hospital, Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago (rated best U.S. rehabilitation hospital by U.S. News & World Report), the new Prentice Women's Hospital, and Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children's Hospital of Chicago, which is currently under construction.

The University of Illinois College of Medicine at UIC is the largest medical school in the United States (2600 students including those at campuses in Peoria, Rockford and Urbana–Champaign).

In addition, the Chicago Medical School and Loyola University Chicago's Stritch School of Medicine are located in the suburbs of North Chicago and Maywood, respectively. The Midwestern University Chicago College of Osteopathic Medicine is in Downers Grove.

The American Medical Association, Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education, Accreditation Council for Continuing Medical Education, American Osteopathic Association, American Dental Association, Academy of General Dentistry, American Dietetic Association, American Association of Nurse Anesthetists, American College of Surgeons, American Society for Clinical Pathology, American College of Healthcare Executives and the American Hospital Association, and Blue Cross and Blue Shield Association are all based in Chicago.

Telecommunications

Using only 3% of the total available bandwidth capacity and 13% of the available fiber pairs, Chicago area data centers move data for local, area, regional and international networks. Like Chicago, many of them are or were, the second city of their country, or they are the main city of a country that has had many immigrants settle in Chicago. Paris is a Partner City, due to the one sister city policy of their respective French commune.

To celebrate the sister cities, Chicago hosts a yearly festival in Daley Plaza, which features cultural acts and food tastings from the other cities.

{| cellpadding="10" |- style="vertical-align:top;" | Warsaw (Poland) 1960 Milan (Italy) 1973 Osaka (Japan) 1973 Casablanca (Morocco) 1982 Shanghai (China) 1985 Shenyang (China) 1985 Gothenburg (Sweden) 1987 Accra (Ghana) 1989 Prague (Czech Republic) 1990 Kyiv (Ukraine) 1991 Mexico City (Mexico) 1991 Toronto (Canada) 1991 Birmingham (United Kingdom) 1993 Vilnius (Lithuania) 1993 Hamburg (Germany) 1994 || Petah Tikva (Israel) 1994 Paris (France) 1996 – Partner City Athens (Greece) 1997 Durban (South Africa) 1997 Galway (Ireland) 1997 Moscow (Russia) 1997 Lucerne (Switzerland) 1998 Delhi (India) 2001 Amman (Jordan) 2004 Belgrade (Serbia) 2005 Lahore (Pakistan) 2007 Busan (South Korea) 2007 Bogotá (Colombia) 2009 São Paulo (Brazil) 2010 |}

==Bibliography==

Notes

References

Further reading

External links

City of Chicago official website

Chicagoland Chamber of Commerce

Choose Chicago: Chicago Convention & Tourism Bureau website

Explore Chicago: City of Chicago's official tourism website

Chicago's tourism website

Category:Cities in Illinois Category:Communities on U.S. Route 66 Category:County seats in Illinois Category:Irish-American culture Category:Polish American history Category:Port settlements in the United States Category:Populated places established in 1833 Category:Populated places in Cook County, Illinois Category:Populated places on the Great Lakes Category:United States places with Orthodox Jewish communities Category:Populated places in DuPage County, Illinois

Name	Tori Amos
Background	solo_singer
Birth name	Myra Ellen Amos
Born	August 22, 1963, Newton, North Carolina, United States
Instrument	Piano, harpsichord, clavichord, Hammond organ, harmonium, Fender Rhodes, Wurlitzer, Kurzweil, clavinet, vocals
Genre	Alternative rockBaroque popElectronicaPiano rock
Voice type	Soprano
Occupation	Musician, vocalist, songwriter, record producer
Years active	1986–present
Label	Atlantic (1988–2001) Epic (2002–2008)Universal Republic (2009–present)
Url	toriamos.com everythingtori.com
Notable instruments	Bösendorfer piano

Tori Amos (born Myra Ellen Amos; August 22, 1963) is an American pianist and singer-songwriter. She was at the forefront of a number of female singer-songwriters in the early 1990s and was noteworthy early in her career as one of the few alternative rock performers to use a piano as her primary instrument. Some of her charting singles include "Crucify", "Silent All These Years", "God", "Cornflake Girl", "Caught a Lite Sneeze", "Professional Widow", "Spark", "1000 Oceans", and "A Sorta Fairytale", her most commercially successful single in the U.S. to date.

As of 2005, Amos had sold 12 million albums worldwide.

Early life

Amos was born in Newton, North Carolina. When she was two, her family moved to Baltimore, Maryland, where she began to play the piano. By age five, she had begun composing instrumental pieces on piano and, while living in Rockville, Maryland, she won a full scholarship to the Preparatory Division of the Peabody Conservatory of Music. Her scholarship was discontinued at age 11 and she was asked to leave. Amos has asserted that she lost the scholarship because of her interest in rock and popular music, coupled with her dislike for reading from sheet music. At age 21, Amos moved to Los Angeles to pursue her music career after several years performing on the piano bar circuit of the D.C. area.

Atlantic years (1986–2001)

Y Kant Tori Read

In 1986, Amos formed a music group, Y Kant Tori Read, the name of which was a reference to her days at the Peabody Conservatory, where she was able to play songs on her piano by ear, but was never successful at sight reading. In addition to Amos, the group was composed of Steve Caton (who would later play guitars on all her subsequent albums until 1999), drummer Matt Sorum, bass player Brad Cobb and, for a short time, keyboardist Jim Tauber. Following several phases of writing and recording, during which Amos has since asserted that the band lost their musical edge and direction due to interference from record executives, in July 1988, the Y Kant Tori Read's self-titled debut album was released. Although its producer, Joe Chiccarelli, has stated that Amos was very happy with the album at the time, it is now out of print and Amos has expressed no interest in reissuing it. Following the album's commercial failure and the group's subsequent disbanding, Amos began working with other artists (including Stan Ridgway, Sandra Bernhard, and Al Stewart) as a backup vocalist. She also recorded a song called "Distant Storm" for the film China O'Brien; in the credits, the song is attributed to a band called Tess Makes Good. It was the only song recorded by the band, and its only commercial release was in the film.

Solo career

Despite the disappointing reaction to Y Kant Tori Read, Amos still had to comply with her six record contract with Atlantic Records, who in 1989 wanted a new record by March 1990. The initial recordings were declined by the label, which Amos felt was because the album had not been properly presented. The album was reworked and expanded under the guidance of Doug Morris and the musical talents of Steve Caton, Eric Rosse, Will MacGregor, Carlo Nuccio, and Dan Nebenzal, resulting in Little Earthquakes, an album recounting her religious upbringing, sexual awakening, struggle to establish her identity, and sexual assault.

Amos traveled to New Mexico with personal and professional partner Eric Rosse in 1993 to write and largely record her second solo record, Under the Pink. The album was received with mostly favorable reviews and sold enough copies to chart at #12 on the Billboard 200, a significantly higher position than the preceding album's position at #54 on the same chart.

Her third solo album, Boys for Pele, was released in January 1996. The album was recorded in an Irish church, in Delgany, County Wicklow, with Amos taking advantage of the church recording setting to create an album ripe with baroque influences, lending it a darker sound and style. She added harpsichord, harmonium, and clavichord to her keyboard repertoire, and also included such anomalies as a gospel choir, bagpipes, church bells, and drum programming. The album garnered mixed reviews upon its release, with some critics praising its intensity and uniqueness while others bemoaned its comparative impenetrability. Despite the album's erratic lyrical content and instrumentation, the latter of which kept it away from mainstream audiences, Boys for Pele is Amos's most successful simultaneous transatlantic release, reaching #2 on both the Billboard 200 and the UK Top 40 upon its release at the height of her fame.

Fueled by the desire to have her own recording studio to distance herself from record company executives, Amos had the barn of her home in Cornwall converted into a state-of-the-art recording studio, Martian Engineering Studios. Amos enlisted principal band mates Steve Caton on guitars, Jon Evans on bass, and Matt Chamberlain on drums, with whom Amos would record her next two studio albums and embark on world tours.

From the Choirgirl Hotel and To Venus and Back, released in May 1998 and September 1999, respectively, differ greatly from previous albums as Amos's trademark acoustic piano-based sound is largely replaced with arrangements that include elements of electronica, dance music, vocal washes and sonic landscapes. The underlying themes of both albums deal with womanhood, and Amos's own miscarriages and marriage. Reviews for From the Choirgirl Hotel were mostly favorable and praised Amos's continued artistic originality. While not her highest chart debut, debut sales for From the Choirgirl Hotel are Amos's best to date, selling 153,000 copies in its first week. To Venus and Back, a two-disc release of original studio material and live material recorded from the previous world tour, received mostly positive reviews and included the first major-label single available for sale as a digital download.

Motherhood inspired Amos to produce a cover album, recording songs written by men about women and reversing the gender roles to show a woman's perspective. That idea grew into Strange Little Girls, released in September 2001, one year after giving birth to her daughter. The album is Amos's first concept album, with artwork featuring Amos photographed in character of the women portrayed in each song. Amos would later reveal that a stimulus for the album was to end her contract with Atlantic without giving them new original songs; Amos felt that since 1998, the label had not been properly promoting her and had trapped her in a contract by refusing to sell her to another label.

Epic Records years (2002–07)

With her Atlantic contract fulfilled after a 15-year stint, Amos signed to Epic in late 2001. In October 2002, Amos released Scarlet's Walk, another concept album. Described as a "sonic novel", the album explores Amos's alter ego, Scarlet, intertwined with her cross-country concert tour following 9/11. Through the songs, Amos explores such topics as the history of America, American people, Native American history, pornography, masochism, homophobia and misogyny. The album had a strong debut, demonstrating that Amos' fan base remained intact through the label change. However, Scarlet's Walk is Amos' last album to date to reach certified gold status.

Not long after Amos was ensconced with her new label, she received unsettling news when Polly Anthony resigned as president of Epic Records in 2003. Anthony had been one of the primary reasons Amos signed with the label and as a result of her resignation, Amos formed the Bridge Entertainment Group. Further trouble for Amos occurred the following year when her label, Epic/Sony Music Entertainment, merged with BMG Entertainment as a result of the industry's decline. Amos would later hint in interviews that during the creation of her next album, those in charge at the label following the aforementioned merger were interested "only in making money", the effects of which on the album have not been disclosed.

Amos released two more albums with the label, The Beekeeper (2005) and American Doll Posse (2007). Both albums received mixed reviews, some of which stated that the albums suffered from being too long. The Beekeeper was conceptually influenced by the ancient art of beekeeping, which she considered a source of female inspiration and empowerment. Through extensive study, Amos also wove in the stories of the Gnostic gospels and the removal of women from a position of power within the Christian church to create an album based largely on religion and politics. The album debuted at #5 on the Billboard 200, placing her in an elite group of women who have secured five or more US Top 10 album debuts. American Doll Posse, another concept album, was fashioned around a group of girls (the "posse") who are used as a theme of alter-egos of Amos's. Musically and stylistically, the album saw Amos return to a more confrontational nature. Like its predecessor, American Doll Posse debuted at #5 on the Billboard 200. In September of the same year, Amos released a live album and DVD, Live at Montreux 1991/1992, through Eagle Rock Entertainment, of two performances she gave at the Montreux Jazz Festival very early on in her career while promoting her debut solo-album, Little Earthquakes. By December, after a chance encounter with chairman and CEO of Universal Music Group, Doug Morris, Amos signed a "joint venture" deal Universal Republic Records.

Abnormally Attracted to Sin, Amos's tenth solo studio-album and her first album released through Universal Republic, was released in May 2009 to mostly positive reviews. The album debuted in the top 10 of the Billboard 200, making it the Amos' seventh album to do so. Abnormally Attracted to Sin, admitted Amos, was a "personal album", not a conceptual one. Continuing her distribution deal with Universal Republic, Amos released Midwinter Graces, her first seasonal album, in November of the same year. The album features reworked versions of traditional carols, as well as original songs written by Amos.

During her contract with the label, Amos recorded vocals for two songs for David Byrne's collaboration album with Fatboy Slim, entitled Here Lies Love, which was released in April 2010. In July of the same year, the DVD Tori Amos- Live from the Artists Den was released exclusively through Barnes & Noble.

After a brief tour from June to September 2010, Amos released the highly exclusive live album "From Russia With Love" in December the same year, recorded live in Moscow on 03 September 2010. The limited edition set included a signature edition Lomography Diana F+ camera, along with 2 lenses, a roll of film and 1 of 5 photographs taken of Tori during her time in Moscow. The set was released exclusively through toriamos.com and only 2000 were produced. It is currently unknown as to whether the album will receive a mass release.

Currently, Amos is writing the music for Samuel Adamson's musical adaptation of the George MacDonald story The Light Princess for the Royal National Theatre, which is expected to debut in 2012, as well as on her own new project.

Discography

To date, Amos has released eleven studio albums throughout her solo career, nine of which were self-produced.

Little Earthquakes (1992)

Under The Pink (1994)

Boys For Pele (1996)

From the Choirgirl Hotel (1998)

To Venus and Back (1999)

Strange Little Girls (2001)

Scarlet's Walk (2002)

The Beekeeper (2005)

American Doll Posse (2007)

Abnormally Attracted to Sin (2009)

Midwinter Graces (2009)

Additionally, Amos has released over 30 singles, over 60 B-sides, and has contributed to nine film soundtracks, including Higher Learning (1995), Great Expectations (1998) and (2000) among others.

Tours

Amos, who has been performing in bars and clubs from as early as 1976 and under her professional name as early as 1991, remains one of the most active touring artists in the world, having performed more than 1,000 shows since her first world tour in 1992. In 2003, Amos was voted fifth best touring act by the readers of Rolling Stone magazine. Her concerts are notable for their changing set lists from night to night.

; Little Earthquakes Tour : Amos's first world tour began on January 29, 1992 in London and ended on November 30, 1992 in Auckland. She performed solo with a Yamaha CP-70 unless the venue was able to provide a piano. The tour included 142 concerts around the globe. ; Under the Pink Tour : Amos's second world tour began on February 24, 1994 in Newcastle upon Tyne and ended on December 13, 1994 in Perth, Western Australia. Amos performed solo each night on her iconic Bösendorfer piano, and on a pianino during "Bells for Her". The tour included 181 concerts. ; Dew Drop Inn Tour : The third world tour began on February 23, 1996 in Ipswich, England, and ended on November 11, 1996 in Boulder. Amos performed each night on piano, harpsichord, and harmonium, with Steve Caton on guitar on some songs. The tour included 187 concerts. ; Plugged '98 Tour : Amos's first band tour. Amos, on piano and Kurzweil keyboard, was joined by Steve Caton on guitar, Matt Chamberlain on drums, and Jon Evans on bass. The tour began on April 18, 1998 in Fort Lauderdale and ended on December 3, 1998 in East Lansing, Michigan, including 137 concerts. ; Five and a Half Weeks Tour / To Dallas and Back : Amos's fifth tour was North America–only. The first part of the tour was co-headlining with Alanis Morissette and featured the same band and equipment line-up as in 1998. Amos and the band continued for eight shows before Amos embarked on a series of solo shows. The tour began on August 18, 1999 in Fort Lauderdale, Florida and ended on December 9, 1999 in Denver, including 46 concerts. ; Strange Little Tour : This tour was Amos's first since becoming a mother in 2000 and her first tour fully solo since 1994 (Steve Caton was present on some songs in 1996). It saw Amos perform on piano, Rhodes piano, and Wurlitzer electric piano, and though the tour was in support of her covers album, the set lists were not strictly covers-oriented. Having brought her one-year-old daughter on the road with her, this tour was also one of Amos's shortest ventures, lasting just three months. It began on August 30, 2001 in London and ended on December 17, 2001 in Milan, including 55 concerts. ; On Scarlet's Walk / Lottapianos Tour : Amos's seventh tour saw her reunited with Matt Chamberlain and Jon Evans, but not Steve Caton. The first part of the tour, which featured Amos on piano, Rhodes, and Wurlitzer, was six months long and Amos went out again in the summer of 2003 for a tour with Ben Folds opening. The tour began on November 7, 2002 in Tampa and ended on September 4, 2003 in West Palm Beach, featuring 124 concerts. The final show of the tour was filmed and released as part of a DVD/CD set titled Welcome to Sunny Florida (the set also included a studio EP titled Scarlet's Hidden Treasures, an extension of the Scarlet's Walk album). ; Original Sinsuality Tour / Summer of Sin : This tour began on April 1, 2005 in Clearwater, Florida, with Amos on piano, two Hammond B-3 organs, and Rhodes. The tour also encompassed Australia for the first time since 1994. Amos announced at a concert on this tour that she would never stop touring but would scale down the tours. Amos returned to the road in August and September for the Summer of Sin North America leg, ending on September 17, 2005 in Los Angeles. The tour featured "Tori's Piano Bar", where fans could nominate cover songs on Amos's website which she would then choose from to play in a special section of each show. One of the songs chosen was the Kylie Minogue hit "Can't Get You Out of My Head", which Amos dedicated to her the day after Minogue's breast cancer was announced to the public. Other songs performed by Amos include The Doors' "People are Strange", Depeche Mode's "Personal Jesus", Joni Mitchell's "The Circle Game", Madonna's "Live to Tell" and "Like a Prayer", Björk's "Hyperballad", Led Zeppelin's "When the Levee Breaks" (which she debuted in Austin, Texas, just after the events of Hurricane Katrina), Kate Bush's "And Dream of Sheep" and Crowded House's "Don't Dream It's Over", dedicating it to drummer Paul Hester who had died a week before. The entire concert tour featured 82 concerts, and six full-length concerts were released as The Original Bootlegs. ; American Doll Posse World Tour : This was Amos's first tour with a full band since her 1999 Five and a Half Weeks Tour, accompanied by long-time band mates Jon Evans and Matt Chamberlain, with guitarist Dan Phelps rounding out Amos's new band. Amos's equipment included her piano, a Hammond B-3 organ, and two Yamaha S90 ES keyboards. The tour kicked off with its European leg in Rome, Italy on May 28, 2007, which lasted through July, concluding in Israel; the Australian leg took place during September; the North American leg lasted from October to December 16, 2007, when the tour concluded in Los Angeles. Amos opened each show dressed as one of the four non-Tori personae from the album, then Amos would emerge as herself to perform for the remaining two-thirds of the show. The entire concert tour featured 93 concerts, and 27 full-length concerts of the North American tour were released as official bootlegs in the Legs and Boots series. ; Sinful Attraction Tour : For her tenth tour, Amos returned to the trio format of her 2002 and 2003 tours with bassist Jon Evans and drummer Matt Chamberlain while expanding her lineup of keyboards by adding three M-Audio MIDI controllers to her ensemble of her piano, a Hammond B-3 organ, and a Yamaha S90 ES keyboard. The North American and European band tour began on 10 July 2009 in Seattle, Washington and ended in Warsaw on 10 October 2009. A solo leg through Australia began in Melbourne on 12 November 2009 and ended in Brisbane on 24 November 2009. The entire tour featured 63 concerts.

Award nominations

In print

Released in conjunction with The Beekeeper, Amos co-authored an autobiography with rock music journalist Ann Powers entitled Piece by Piece (2005). The book's subject is Amos's interest in mythology and religion, exploring her songwriting process, rise to fame, and her relationship with Atlantic Records.

released Comic Book Tattoo (2008), a collection of comic stories, each based on or inspired by songs recorded by Amos. Editor Rantz Hoseley worked with Amos to gather 80 different artists for the book, including Pia Guerra, David Mack, and Leah Moore.

Other publications include Tori Amos: Lyrics (2001) and an earlier biography, Tori Amos: All These Years (1996). Additionally, Amos and her music have been the subject of numerous official and unofficial books, as well as academic criticism.

Personal life

Amos is the third child of Rev. Dr. Edison and Mary Ellen Amos. She was born at the Old Catawba Hospital in Newton, North Carolina, during a trip from their Georgetown home in Washington, D.C.. Her maternal grandparents were of mixed European and Eastern Cherokee ancestry; of particular importance to her as a child was her grandfather, Calvin Clinton Copeland, who was a great source of inspiration and guidance to her as a young child, offering a more pantheistic spiritual alternative to her father and paternal grandmother's traditional Christianity.

Early in her professional career, Amos befriended author Neil Gaiman, who became a fan after she referenced him in the song "Tear In Your Hand" and also in print interviews. Although created before the two met, the character Delirium from Gaiman's The Sandman series (or even her sister Death) is inspired by Amos; Gaiman has stated that "they steal shamelessly from each other". She wrote the foreword to his collection ; he in turn wrote the introduction to Comic Book Tattoo. Gaiman is godfather to her daughter and a poem written for her birth, Blueberry Girl, was published as a children's book of the same name in 2009.

In June 1994, Amos co-founded RAINN, The Rape, Abuse and Incest National Network, a toll-free help line in the US connecting callers with their local rape crisis center. Amos, herself a survivor of sexual assault, was seen as unlocking the silence of her assault through her music; thus "Unlock the Silence" went on to become a year-long campaign for RAINN when Amos became a national spokesperson for the organization. By the summer of 2006, RAINN had received its one millionth caller and the organization's success has led to it ranking in "America's 100 Best Charities" by Worth, and one of the "Top 10 Best Charities" by Marie Claire.

Amos married English sound engineer Mark Hawley on February 22, 1998. Their only child, a daughter named Natashya "Tash" Lórien Hawley, was born on September 5, 2000. They divide their time between Sewall's Point in Florida and Cornwall in England.

Notes and references

External links

Official website

Synthesis.net April 2007 podcast interview

Tori Amos on Synthesis.net

Allmusic entry for Tori Amos

Tori Amos on Virb.com

Tori Amos on Advocate.com

Category:Tori Amos Category:1963 births Category:1980s singers Category:1990s singers Category:2000s singers Category:2010s singers Category:Living people Category:American alternative rock musicians Category:American female singers Category:American feminists Category:American harpsichordists Category:American immigrants to the United Kingdom Category:American expatriates in the United Kingdom Category:American pop pianists Category:American pop singers Category:American rock pianists Category:American rock singers Category:American singer-songwriters Category:American people of Cherokee descent Category:Atlantic Records artists Category:English-language singers Category:Epic Records artists Category:Female rock singers Category:Feminist artists Category:Musicians from Maryland Category:Musicians from North Carolina Category:Naturalised citizens of the United Kingdom Category:People from Baltimore, Maryland Category:People from Catawba County, North Carolina Category:People from Los Angeles, California Category:People from Washington, D.C. Category:Rape victim advocates Category:Island Records artists

Name	Sufjan Stevens
Landscape	yes
Background	solo_singer
Born	July 01, 1975
Origin	Detroit, Michigan, United States
Instrument	Vocals, guitar, bass guitar, banjo, sitar, piano, xylophone, vibraphone, English Horn, oboe, drums, recorder
Genre	Indie folk, baroque pop, folk rock, alternative, progressive rock, electronica, art rock, experimental
Occupation	Musician, singer-songwriter
Years active	1999–present
Label	Asthmatic KittySounds FamilyreOrchard
Associated acts	Cryptacize, Danielson Famile, Denison Witmer, Marzuki, My Brightest Diamond, Rosie Thomas, The Welcome Wagon, Jeffrey Lewis, The National
Url	www.asthmatickitty.com/sufjan-stevens

Sufjan Stevens ( ; born July 1, 1975) is an American singer-songwriter and musician born in Detroit, Michigan. Stevens first began releasing his music on Asthmatic Kitty, a label co-founded with his stepfather, beginning with the 2000 release, A Sun Came. He is best known for his 2005 album, Illinois, which hit number one in the Billboard Top Heatseekers chart, and for the song "Chicago".

Stevens has released albums of varying styles, from the electronica of Enjoy Your Rabbit and the lo-fi folk of Seven Swans to the symphonic instrumentation of Illinois and Christmas-themed Songs for Christmas. Stevens makes use of a variety of instruments, often playing many of them himself on the same track, and writes music in various time signatures. He is considered part of the folk revival in indie pop, but his influences are very broad. His music has been likened to electronica and aesthetically compared to the minimalism of Steve Reich. Stevens' music often has spiritual themes, and many songs (most notably on Seven Swans) draw inspiration from Bible stories.

Biography

Early life

Stevens was born in Detroit and lived there until the age of nine, when his family moved to Petoskey, Michigan. In Petoskey he attended Harbor Light Christian School as well as the prestigious Interlochen Arts Academy. He went on to attend Hope College in Holland, Michigan and earned a Master of Fine Arts from The New School in New York City.

Sufjan is a Persian name that predates Islam and most famously belonged to Abu Sufyan, a figure from early Islamic history. The name was given to Stevens by the founder of Subud, an inter-faith spiritual community to which his parents belonged when he was born. The name "Sufjan" means "comes with a sword."

Stevens' parents later gave him the option to change his name, but he was unable to think of a name that he liked; his parents later admitted that they did not really have the money for him to legally change his name.

A multi-instrumentalist, Stevens is known for his use of the banjo, but also plays guitar, piano, drums, and several other instruments, often playing all of these on his albums through the use of multitrack recording. While in school, he studied the oboe and English horn, which he also plays on his albums. This multitude of instruments, including string and horn orchestrations, figure prominently in his compositions, giving his music a symphonic sound.

Stevens currently lives in Kensington, Brooklyn, in New York City, where he makes up the Brooklyn staff of Asthmatic Kitty Records. His brother Marzuki Stevens is a nationally recognized marathon runner.

Career

Stevens began his musical career as a member of Marzuki, a folk-rock band from Holland, Michigan. He also played (and continues to play) various instruments for Danielson Famile. While in school at Hope College, Stevens wrote and recorded his debut solo album, A Sun Came, which he released on Asthmatic Kitty Records. He later moved to New York City, where he was enrolled in a writing program at the New School for Social Research.

While in New York, Stevens composed and recorded the music for his second album, Enjoy Your Rabbit, a song cycle based around the animals of the Chinese Zodiac that delved into electronica.

Stevens followed this with the first album to be released as a part of his "Fifty States Project", a collection of folk songs and instrumentals inspired by his home state of Michigan. The result, the expansive Michigan included odes to cities including Detroit and Flint, the Upper Peninsula, and vacation areas such as Tahquamenon Falls. Melded into the scenic descriptions and characters are his own declarations of faith, sorrow, love, and the regeneration of Michigan.

Following the release of Michigan, Stevens compiled a collection of songs recorded previously into a side project, the album Seven Swans, which was released in March 2004.

Next he released the second in the 50 states project, titled Illinois. Among the subjects explored on Illinois are the cities of Chicago, Decatur and Jacksonville; the World's Columbian Exposition of 1893, the state's observance of a holiday in honor of Casimir Pulaski, the poet Carl Sandburg, and the serial killer John Wayne Gacy.

Over the 2005 winter holidays, Stevens recorded an album with Rosie Thomas and Denison Witmer playing banjo and providing vocals. In April 2006, Pitchfork erroneously announced that Stevens and Thomas were having a baby together, but were forced to print a retraction. Witmer and Thomas later admitted it was an April Fools' prank. In December 2006, the collaborative recordings were digitally released by Nettwerk as a Rosie Thomas album titled These Friends of Mine. The album was released in physical form on March 13, 2007.

On September 11, 2006, in Nashville, Tennessee, Stevens debuted a new composition, a ten minute-plus piece titled "Majesty Snowbird". On November 21, 2006, a five CD box set Songs for Christmas was released, which contains originals and Christmas standards recorded every year since 2001 (except 2004). Stevens undertook in the project initially as an exercise to make himself 'appreciate' Christmas more. The songs were the work of an annual collaboration between Stevens and different collaborators, including minister Vito Aiuto; the songs themselves were distributed to friends and family.

In April 2007, in Brooklyn and Philadelphia, Stevens made unannounced appearances on Thomas's tour in support of this album. In 2007 he did a Take-Away Show acoustic video session shot by Vincent Moon standing on a roof in Cincinnati. In 2007, he played shows sporadically, including playing at the Kennedy Center to celebrate the tenth anniversary of the Millennium Stage concerts. He was commissioned by the Brooklyn Academy of Music to create a "music and film work" titled The BQE, described as "a symphonic and cinematic exploration of New York City's infamous Brooklyn-Queens Expressway". It premiered at BAM's Next Wave festival on November 1–3, 2007. Stevens has also worked as an essayist, contributing to Asthmatic Kitty Records' "Sidebar" feature and Topic Magazine. He wrote the introduction to the 2007 edition of The Best American Nonrequired Reading, a short story about his early childhood education and learning to read titled How I Trumped Rudolf Steiner and Overcame the Tribulations of Illiteracy, One Snickers Bar at a Time. That winter, he hosted an "Xmas Song Exchange Contest" in which winner Alec Duffy won exclusive rights to the original Stevens song "The Lonely Man of Winter." The track has never been uploaded, and can now only be heard by attending private listening parties at Duffy's home in Brooklyn.

Stevens has contributed to the music of Denison Witmer, Soul Junk, Half-handed Cloud, Brother Danielson, Danielson Famile, Serena Maneesh, Castanets, Will Stratton, Shannon Stephens, Clare & the Reasons, and Liz Janes. In 2007 alone, Stevens played piano on The National's album Boxer, produced and contributed many instrumental tracks to Rosie Thomas's album These Friends of Mine, multiple instruments on Ben + Vesper's album All This Could Kill You and oboe and vocals to David Garland's new album Noise in You.

He has contributed covers of Tim Buckley ("She Is"), Joni Mitchell ("Free Man in Paris"), Daniel Johnston ("Worried Shoes"), John Fahey ("Variation on 'Commemorative Transfiguration & Communion at Magruder Park"), The Innocence Mission ("The Lakes of Canada"), Bob Dylan ("Ring Them Bells") and The Beatles ("What Goes On") to various tribute albums. His versions of "Free Man in Paris" and "What Goes On" are notable for only retaining the lyrics of the original, as Stevens has taken his own interpretation on the melody and arrangement. His rendition of "The Star Spangled Banner" has a similar rearranged melody and arrangement as well as a whole new verse.

His song "The Tallest Man, The Broadest Shoulders" was featured in the 2006 British comedy-drama Driving Lessons, starring Harry Potter's Julie Walters and Rupert Grint. In 2008, he produced Welcome to the Welcome Wagon, the debut album of Brooklyn-based husband and wife duo Vito and Monique Auito, The Welcome Wagon.

In February 2009, Stevens contributed "You Are the Blood" to the AIDS benefit album Dark Was the Night produced by the Red Hot Organization. In April 2009, Stevens uploaded a song about director Sofia Coppola online. This song was written while Stevens was in college, from a series of songs about names.

Stevens recalled:

"[...] A few weeks later, our dog got hit by a snowplow and I forgot all about the problem of names. Until college, when I learned to play the guitar, and, as an exercise, started writing songs (very poorly executed) in the same way that Henry Ford produced the automobile: assembly-line-style. I wrote songs for the days of the week (poor Monday!). Songs for the planets (poor Pluto!). Songs for the Apostles (poor Judas!). And, finally, when all else failed, I started a series of songs for names. [...] Each piece was a rhetorical, philosophical, musical rumination on all the possible names I had entertained years before when my parents had given me the one chance to change my own. Oh fates! I sang these songs in the privacy of my dorm room, behind closed doors, pillows and cushions stuffed in the air vents so no one would hear. And then I almost failed Latin class, my grades plummeted, my social life dissolved into ping pong tournaments in the residence halls, and, gradually, my interest in music (or anything divine, creative, fruitful, enriching) completely waned. I turned to beer. And cigarettes. And TV sitcoms. And candy bars. Oh well! A perfectly good youth wasted on junk food! That is, until a few months ago, when I came across some of the old name songs, stuffed onto tape cassettes, 4-track recorders, forgotten boxes, forgotten shelves, forgotten hard drives. It was like finding an old diary, or a high school yearbook, senior picture with lens flare and pockmarks, slightly cute and embarrassing. What was I thinking? [...]" That year Stevens contributed to an album with his step father, Lowell Brams, entitled Music For Insomnia. The album was released December 8, 2009.

In November 2009, Stevens admitted to Exclaim! Magazine, in regard to the fact that he recently called his fifty-state project a joke, that "I don't really have as much faith in my work as I used to, but I think that's healthy. I think it's allowed me to be less precious about how I work and write. And maybe it's okay for us to take it less seriously."

In June 2010, The National's Bryce Dessner claimed Stevens is currently at work on his next full length album and stated the band is playing on the new album.

The Fifty States Project

Beginning with Michigan, Stevens announced an intent to write an album for each of the fifty U.S. states.

Stevens spent the second half of 2004 researching and writing material for the second of these projects, this time focusing his efforts on Illinois. As with Michigan, Stevens used the state of Illinois as a leaping-off point for his more personal explorations of faith, family, love, and location. Though slated for general release on July 5, 2005, the album was briefly delayed by legal issues regarding the use of Superman in the original album cover artwork. In the double vinyl release, a balloon sticker has been placed over Superman on the cover art of the first 5,000 copies. The next printings had an empty space where the Superman image was, as with the CD release.

The widely acclaimed Illinois was the highest-rated album of 2005 on the Metacritic review aggregator site, based on glowing reviews from Pitchfork Media, The Onion A/V Club, Spin, Billboard, Entertainment Weekly, Rolling Stone, The New York Times, KEXP, and The Guardian. The 2006 PLUG Independent Music Awards awarded Stevens with the Album Of The Year, Best Album Art/Packaging, and Male Artist Of The Year. Pitchfork Media, No Ripcord, and Paste Magazine named Illinois as the editors' choice for best album of 2005 and Stevens received the 2005 Pantheon prize, awarded to noteworthy albums selling fewer than 500,000 copies, for Illinois. In April 2006, Stevens announced that 21 pieces of music he had culled from the Illinois recording sessions would be incorporated into a new album, called The Avalanche, which was released on July 11, 2006.

The next states to be taken on in the project have been reported as Oregon and Rhode Island. In late 2005 and early 2006 Stevens played a new instrumental track titled "The Maple River". There are various Maple Rivers in the U.S., in Minnesota, Iowa, North or South Dakota. There is also evidence to suggest the possibility of a New York album. Not only is Stevens's current residence in New York City, but at the footnote of his writing piece titled "Friend Rock", Stevens stated that he was reading a biography on Robert Moses, who is a notable New Yorker. In late 2007, Stevens debuted several new songs about New York, including "BQE", a track about the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway, one of many urban developments designed and spearheaded by Robert Moses.

Stevens made brief mention to a possible collaboration with Asthmatic Kitty labelmate Rafter on an album about California. Stevens also recorded "The Lord God Bird" about the reported sighting of an ivory-billed woodpecker, thought to be extinct, in Arkansas (known as the 'lord god' or 'great god' bird because of its breathtaking appearance). This was in connection with a National Public Radio piece in which "independent radio producers Dan Collison and Elizabeth Meister were curious about how Stevens writes his songs."

"Sufjan Stevens is not going to write a record for each of the 50 states after all" was the original text included on the online liner notes for their Mews Too: An Asthmatic Kitty Compilation disc released on February 7, 2006. This statement was possibly included as a joke, as the text has since been removed and the current liner notes related to Stevens reads, "18. Sufjan Stevens can fold a fitted-sheet (he once worked as a professional folder in a commercial laundromat)."

In an article published on February 24, 2008, in New York Magazine, Stevens implied that New Jersey could be the target of his next state project. After he gave a brief quote about the New Jersey Turnpike, he was asked, "So is this the next musical project?" Sufjan joked, "New Jersey, the musical—an ode to the turnpike."

The Guardian published an interview with Stevens on October 27, 2009, in which he stated in relation to the Fifty States Project: "I have no qualms about admitting it was a promotional gimmick".

The BQE

On May 31, 2007, Asthmatic Kitty announced that Stevens would be premiering a new project titled The BQE in early November 2007. The project, dubbed a "symphonic and cinematic exploration of New York City's infamous Brooklyn-Queens Expressway", was manifested in a live show. The BQE featured an original film by Stevens (shot in Super 8 mm film and standard 16 mm), while Stevens and a backing orchestra provided the live soundtrack. The performance used 36 performers which included a small band, a wind and brass ensemble, string players, horn players, and hula hoopers. There were no lyrics to the music. The BQE was commissioned by the Brooklyn Academy of Music as part of their Next Wave Festival and performed on three consecutive nights from November 1–3, 2007.

The performance sold out the 2,109 seat BAM Opera House without any advertising. After three weeks of rehearsing the piece with the three dozen musicians involved, he presented the 30-minute composition. The BQE was followed by an additional one hour of concert by Stevens and his orchestra. The BQE won the 2008 Brendan Gill Prize.

The multimedia package was released on October 20, 2009. The release included a CD of the show's soundtrack, a DVD of Brooklyn-Queens Expressway footage that accompanied the original performance (not a film of the performance itself), a 40-page booklet with liner notes and photos, and a stereoscopic 3D View-Master reel. A limited edition version that features the soundtrack on 180-gram vinyl and a 40-page BQE-themed comic book starring the show's hula hooping wonder women, the Hooper Heroes, was also released.

Run Rabbit Run

On October 6, 2009 Stevens' label released an album of versions of his 2001 album Enjoy Your Rabbit rearranged for strings and performed by the Osso String Quartet, entitled Run Rabbit Run.

All Delighted People and The Age of Adz

In 2010 Stevens was featured on The National's album High Violet in May and sang backing vocals for the band on The Late Show with David Letterman. Following the release of High Violet, band frontman Matt Berninger mentioned that Stevens was recording a new album in the band's studio and that The National would appear on some of the tracks. In early August, Stevens announced North American tour dates across dozens of cities. On August 20, 2010, Stevens suddenly and unexpectedly released a new collection of tracks, the All Delighted People EP, for digital download. The EP is built around two versions of the title track, "All Delighted People." The EP surprisingly rose to #27 on the Billboard 200 albums solely through its digital sales. On August 26, Asthmatic Kitty announced that Stevens would release his newest full length album, The Age of Adz, on October 12. NPR streamed the album until it released October 12, 2010.

The two albums featured a wide range of arrangements, from orchestral to electronic. Song lengths were also extended as the track "Djohariah" from All Delighted People is 17 minutes long while "Impossible Soul" from The Age of Adz is 25 minutes long. The albums also feature many styles from disco to folk to hip hop.

In interviews, Stevens has stated that, in 2009/10, he suffered from a mysterious debilitating virus infection that affected his nervous system. He experienced chronic pain, and was forced to stop working on music for several months. He said: "The Age of Adz, is, in some ways, a result of that process of working through health issues and getting much more in touch with my physical self. That's why I think the record's really obsessed with sensation and has a hysterical melodrama to it."

On October 12, 2010, Stevens began his North American tour in Montreal featuring virtually all new material from his newly released albums. The tour lasted a month and ended on November 15, 2010 in New York.

Themes

Many of his songs have spiritual allusions. He says he does not try to make music for the sake of preaching. "I don't think music media is the real forum for theological discussions," says Stevens. "I think I've said things and sung about things that probably weren't appropriate for this kind of forum. And I just feel like it's not my work or my place to be making claims and statements, because I often think it's misunderstood."

Such themes are most notable on his album Seven Swans, the songs "Abraham", "Seven Swans", "To Be Alone with You", "He Woke Me Up Again", "We Won't Need Legs to Stand" and "The Transfiguration" refer to Christian themes. In "Abraham", Stevens recounts the Old Testament story in the Book of Genesis. The lyrics of "The Transfiguration" appear to follow the Biblical accounts of Matthew 17:1–8, Mark 9: 1–8, and Luke 9:28–36. The title of "All the Trees of the Fields Will Clap Their Hands" is a quote from Isaiah 55:12.

During a 2004 interview with Adrian Pannett for Comes with a Smile magazine, when asked how important faith was to his music, he responded, "I don't like talking about that stuff in the public forum because, I think, certain themes and convictions are meant for personal conversation."

Discography

{|class="wikitable" style="text-align:center;" |- ! rowspan="2"|Year ! rowspan="2"|Album ! colspan="5"|Peak chart positions |- ! style="width:35px;"|US ! style="width:35px;"|US H.S. ! style="width:35px;"|CAN ! style="width:35px;"|IRL ! style="width:35px;"|UK |- | 2000 | style="text-align:left;"|A Sun Came | — | — | — | — | — |- | 2001 | style="text-align:left;"|Enjoy Your Rabbit | — | — | — | — | — |- | 2003 | style="text-align:left;"|Michigan | — | — | — | — | — |- | 2004 | style="text-align:left;"|Seven Swans | — | — | — | — | — |- | 2005 | style="text-align:left;"|Illinois | 121 | 1 | 23 | — | — |- | 2006 | style="text-align:left;"| | 71 | — | 93 | — | — |- | 2006 | style="text-align:left;"|Songs for Christmas | 122 | — | — | — | — |- | 2009 | style="text-align:left;"|The BQE | — | — | — | — | — |- | 2010 | style="text-align:left;"|All Delighted People | 27 | — | — | — | — |- | 2010 | style="text-align:left;"|The Age of Adz | 7 | — | 13 | 23 | 30 |}

References

External links

Sufjan Stevens - official site

Asthmatic Kitty - label page

Sounds Familyre - label page

Purevolume - official Purevolume site

Sufjan Stevens - Rateyourmusic

Photos from Town Hall

Interview with Vish Khanna

Interview with Sufjan Stevens by Gerry Visco, New York Press, "Give Me Your Ugly"

"All Quiet on the Midwestern Front," Cover Story by Susan Moll, Stomp & Stammer, September 2005

Sufjan Stevens performance from Austin City Limits, September 17, 2006

Category:1975 births Category:Living people Category:American banjoists Category:American composers Category:American folk musicians Category:American folk singers Category:American folk guitarists Category:American multi-instrumentalists Category:American oboists Category:American rock guitarists Category:American rock singer-songwriters Category:Cor anglais players Category:People from Detroit, Michigan Category:People from Holland, Michigan Category:Rough Trade Records artists Category:Waldorf school alumni Category:Winners of the Shortlist Music Prize Category:American performers of Christian music Category:American Episcopalians Category:Musicians from Michigan Category:Musicians from Detroit, Michigan

Name	John Hancock
Caption	Portrait by John Singleton Copley, c. 1770–72
Alt	Half-length portrait of a man with a hint of a smile. His handsome features suggests that he is in his 30s, although he wears an off-white wig in the style of an English gentleman that makes him appear older. His dark suit has fancy embroidery.
Order3	1st and 3rd
Office3	Governor of Massachusetts
Term start3	October 25, 1780
Term end3	January 29, 1785May 30, 1787 – October 8, 1793
Office1	President of the Massachusetts Provincial Congress
Term start1	1774
Term end1	1775
Office2	President of the Continental Congress
Term start2	May 24, 1775
Term end2	October 31, 1777
Birth date	January 23, 1737
Birth place	Braintree (now Quincy), Province of Massachusetts Bay
Death date	October 08, 1793
Death place	Hancock Manor, Boston, Massachusetts
Spouse	Dorothy Quincy
Signature	JohnHancocksSignature.svg
Signature alt	John Hancock's stylish signature. The handwriting, which slants slightly to the right, is firm and legible. The final letter loops back to underline his name in a flourish.

John Hancock ( – October 8, 1793) was a merchant, statesman, and prominent Patriot of the American Revolution. He served as president of the Second Continental Congress and was the first and third Governor of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. He is remembered for his large and stylish signature on the United States Declaration of Independence, so much so that the term "John Hancock" became, in the United States, a synonym for signature.

Before the American Revolution, Hancock was one of the wealthiest men in the Thirteen Colonies, having inherited a profitable shipping business from his uncle. Hancock began his political career in Boston as a protégé of Samuel Adams, an influential local politician, though the two men would later become estranged. As tensions between colonists and Great Britain increased in the 1760s, Hancock used his wealth to support the colonial cause. He became very popular in Massachusetts, especially after British officials seized his sloop Liberty in 1768 and charged him with smuggling. Although the charges against Hancock were eventually dropped, he has often been described as a smuggler in historical accounts, but the accuracy of this characterization has been questioned.

Hancock was one of Boston's leaders during the crisis that led to the outbreak of the American Revolutionary War in 1775. He served more than two years in the Continental Congress in Philadelphia, and as president of Congress, was the first to sign the Declaration of Independence. Hancock returned to Massachusetts and was elected governor of the Commonwealth, serving in that role for most of his remaining years. He used his influence to ensure that Massachusetts ratified the United States Constitution in 1788.

Early life

John Hancock was born on January 23, 1737; according to the Old Style calendar then in use, the date was January 12, 1736. His birthplace was Braintree, Massachusetts, in a part of town which eventually became the separate city of Quincy. He was the son of the Reverend John Hancock of Braintree and Mary Hawke Thaxter, who was from nearby Hingham. As a child, Hancock became a casual acquaintance of young John Adams, whom the Reverend Hancock had baptized in 1734. The Hancocks lived a comfortable life, and owned one slave to help with household work.

After Hancock's father died in 1744, John was sent to live with his uncle and aunt, Thomas Hancock and Lydia (Henchman) Hancock. Thomas Hancock was the proprietor of a firm known as the House of Hancock, which imported manufactured goods from Britain and exported rum, whale oil, and fish. Thomas Hancock's highly successful business made him one of Boston's richest and best-known residents. He and Lydia, along with several servants and slaves, lived in Hancock Manor on Beacon Hill. The couple, who did not have any children of their own, became the dominant influence on John's life.

After graduating from the Boston Latin School in 1750, Hancock enrolled in Harvard University and received a bachelors degree in 1754. Upon graduation, he began to work for his uncle, just as the French and Indian War (1754–1763) began. Thomas Hancock had close relations with the royal governors of Massachusetts, and secured profitable government contracts during the war. John Hancock learned much about his uncle's shipping business during these years, and was trained for eventual partnership in the firm. Hancock worked hard, but he also enjoyed playing the role of a wealthy aristocrat, and developed a fondness for expensive clothes.

From 1760 to 1761, Hancock lived in England while building relationships with customers and suppliers. Back in Boston, Hancock gradually took over the House of Hancock as his uncle's health failed, becoming a full partner in January 1763. He became a member of the Masonic Lodge of St. Andrew in October 1762, which connected him with many of Boston's most influential citizens. When Thomas Hancock died in August 1764, John inherited the business, Hancock Manor, two or three household slaves, and thousands of acres of land, becoming one of the wealthiest men in the colonies. The household slaves continued to work for John and his aunt, but were eventually freed through the terms of Thomas Hancock's will; there is no evidence that John Hancock ever bought or sold slaves.

Growing imperial tensions

After its victory in the Seven Years' War (1756–1763), the British Empire was deep in debt. Looking for new sources of revenue, the British Parliament sought, for the first time, to directly tax the colonies, beginning with the Sugar Act of 1764. The act provoked outrage in Boston, where it was widely viewed as a violation of colonial rights. Men such as James Otis and Samuel Adams argued that because the colonists were not represented in Parliament, they could not be taxed by that body; only the colonial assemblies, where the colonists were represented, could levy taxes upon the colonies. Hancock was not yet a political activist; however, he criticized the tax for economic, rather than constitutional, reasons. Soon after, Parliament passed the 1765 Stamp Act, a wildly unpopular measure in the colonies that produced riots and organized resistance. Hancock initially took a moderate position: as a loyal British subject, he thought that the colonists should submit to the act, even though he believed that Parliament was misguided. Within a few months, Hancock had changed his mind, although he continued to disapprove of violence and the intimidation of royal officials by mobs. Hancock joined the resistance to the Stamp Act by participating in a boycott of British goods, which made him popular in Boston. After Bostonians learned of the impending repeal of the Stamp Act, Hancock was elected to the Massachusetts House of Representatives in May 1766.

Hancock's political success benefited from the support of Samuel Adams, the clerk of the House of Representatives and a leader of Boston's "popular party", also known as "Whigs" and later as "Patriots". The two men made an unlikely pair. Fifteen years older than Hancock, Adams had a somber, Puritan outlook that stood in marked contrast to Hancock's taste for luxury and extravagance. Some traditional stories suggest that Adams masterminded Hancock's political ascendancy so that the merchant's great wealth could be used to further Adams's agenda. In some of these tales, Hancock is portrayed as shallow and vain, easily manipulated by Adams. In other versions, Hancock is moderate and reasonable, while Adams is radical and dangerous. Historian William M. Fowler, who wrote biographies of both men, argued that these stories contain a grain of truth, but are mostly folklore. Fowler characterized the relationship between the two as symbiotic, with Adams as the mentor and Hancock the protégé.

Townshend Acts crisis

After the repeal of the Stamp Act, Parliament took a different approach to raising revenue, passing the 1767 Townshend Acts, which established new duties on various imports and strengthened the customs agency by creating the American Customs Board. The British government believed that a more efficient customs system was necessary because many colonial American merchants had been smuggling. Smugglers violated the Navigation Acts by trading with ports outside of the British Empire and avoiding import taxes. Parliament hoped that the new system would reduce smuggling and generate revenue for the government.

Colonial merchants, even those not involved in smuggling, found the new regulations oppressive. Other colonists protested that new duties were another attempt by Parliament to tax the colonies without their consent. Hancock joined other Bostonians in calling for a boycott of British imports until the Townshend duties were repealed. In their enforcement of the customs regulations, the Customs Board targeted Hancock, Boston's wealthiest Whig. They may have suspected that he was a smuggler, or they may have wanted to harass him because of his politics, especially after Hancock snubbed Governor Francis Bernard by refusing to attend public functions when the customs officials were present.

On April 9, 1768, two customs employees (called tidesmen) boarded Hancock's brig Lydia in Boston Harbor. Hancock was summoned, and finding that the agents lacked a writ of assistance (a general search warrant), he did not allow them to go below deck. When one of them later managed to get into the hold, Hancock's men forced the tidesman back on deck. Customs officials wanted to file charges, but the case was dropped when Massachusetts Attorney General Jonathan Sewell ruled that Hancock had broken no laws. Later, some of Hancock's most ardent admirers would call this incident the first act of physical resistance to British authority in the colonies and credit Hancock with initiating the American Revolution.

Liberty affair

On the evening of May 9, 1768, Hancock's sloop Liberty arrived in Boston Harbor, carrying a shipment of Madeira wine. When custom officers inspected the ship the next morning, they found that it contained 25 pipes of wine, just one fourth of the ship's carrying capacity. Hancock paid the duties on the 25 pipes of wine, but officials suspected that he had arranged to have additional pipes of wine unloaded during the night to avoid paying the duties for the entire cargo. They did not have any evidence to prove this, however, since the two tidesmen who had stayed on the ship overnight gave a sworn statement that nothing had been unloaded.

One month later, while the British warship HMS Romney was in port, one of the tidesmen changed his story: he now claimed that he had been forcibly held on the Liberty while it had been illegally unloaded. On June 10, customs officials seized the Liberty, which had since been loaded with new cargo, and towed it out to the Romney. Bostonians, already angry because the captain of the Romney had been impressing sailors in Boston Harbor, began to riot. The next day, customs officials, claiming that they were unsafe in town, relocated to the Romney, and then to Castle William, an island fort in the harbor.

Two lawsuits stemming from the Liberty incident were brought up against Hancock: an in rem suit against the ship, and an in personam suit against him. As was the custom, any penalties assessed by the court would be awarded to the governor, the informer, and the Crown, each getting a third. The first suit, filed on June 22, 1768, resulted in the confiscation of the Liberty in August. Customs officials then used the ship to enforce trade regulations until it was burned by angry colonists in Rhode Island the following year.

The second trial began in October 1768, when charges were filed against Hancock and five others for allegedly unloading 100 pipes of wine from the Liberty without paying the duties. If convicted, the defendants would have had to pay a penalty of triple the value of the wine, which came to £9,000. With John Adams serving as his lawyer, Hancock was prosecuted in a highly publicized trial by a vice admiralty court, which had no jury and did not always allow the defense to cross-examine the witnesses. After dragging out for nearly five months, the proceedings against Hancock were dropped without explanation.

The Liberty incident created two popular images of Hancock: supporters celebrated him as a martyr to the Patriot cause, while critics portrayed him as a scheming smuggler. Historians have been similarly divided. "Hancock's guilt or innocence and the exact charges against him", wrote historian John W. Tyler in 1986, "are still fiercely debated." Historian Oliver Dickerson argued that Hancock was the victim of an essentially criminal racketeering scheme perpetrated by Governor Bernard and the customs officials. Dickerson believed that there is no reliable evidence that Hancock was guilty in the Liberty case, and that the purpose of the trials was to punish Hancock for political reasons and to plunder his property. Opposed to Dickerson's interpretation were Kinvin Wroth and Hiller Zobel, the editors of John Adams's legal papers, who argued that "Hancock's innocence is open to question", and that the British officials acted legally, if unwisely.

Aside from the Liberty affair, the degree to which Hancock was engaged in smuggling, which was widespread in the colonies, has been questioned. Given the clandestine nature of smuggling, records are of course scarce. If Hancock was a smuggler, no documentation of this has been found. John W. Tyler identified 23 smugglers in his study of more than 400 merchants in revolutionary Boston, but found no written evidence that Hancock was one of them. Biographer William Fowler concluded that while Hancock was probably engaged in some smuggling, most of his business was legitimate, and his reputation as the "king of the colonial smugglers" is a myth without foundation.

Massacre to Tea Party

The Liberty affair reinforced a previously made British decision to suppress unrest in Boston with a show of military might. The decision had been prompted by Samuel Adams's 1768 Circular Letter, which was sent to other British American colonies in hopes of coordinating resistance to the Townshend Acts. Lord Hillsborough, secretary of state for the colonies, sent four regiments of the British Army to Boston to support embattled royal officials, and instructed Governor Bernard to order the Massachusetts legislature to revoke the Circular Letter. Hancock and the Massachusetts House voted against rescinding the letter, and instead drew up a petition demanding Governor Bernard's recall. When Bernard returned to England in 1769, Bostonians celebrated.

The British troops remained, however, and tensions between soldiers and civilians eventually resulted in the killing of five civilians in the Boston Massacre of March 1770. Hancock was not involved in the incident, but afterwards he led a committee to demand the removal of the troops. Meeting with Bernard's successor, Governor Thomas Hutchinson, and the British officer in command, Colonel William Dalrymple, Hancock claimed that there were 10,000 armed colonists ready to march into Boston if the troops did not leave. Hutchinson knew that Hancock was bluffing, but the soldiers were in a precarious position when garrisoned within the town, and so Dalrymple agreed to remove both regiments to Castle William. Hancock was celebrated as a hero for his role in getting the troops withdrawn. His reelection to the Massachusetts House in May was nearly unanimous.

After Parliament partially repealed the Townshend duties in 1770, Boston's boycott of British goods ended. Politics became quieter in Massachusetts, although tensions remained. Hancock tried to improve his relationship with Governor Hutchinson, who in turn sought to woo Hancock away from Adams's influence. In April 1772, Hutchinson approved Hancock's election as colonel of the Boston Cadets, a militia unit whose primary function was to provide a ceremonial escort for the governor and the General Court. In May, Hutchinson even approved of Hancock's election to the Council, the upper chamber of the General Court, whose members were elected by the House but subject to veto by the governor. Hancock's previous elections to the Council had been vetoed, but now Hutchinson allowed the election to stand. Hancock declined the office, however, not wanting to appear to have been co-opted by the governor. Nevertheless, Hancock used the improved relationship to resolve an ongoing dispute. To avoid hostile crowds in Boston, Hutchinson had been convening the legislature outside of town; now he agreed to allow the General Court to sit in Boston once again, to the relief of the legislators.

Hutchinson had dared to hope that he could win over Hancock and discredit Adams. To some, it seemed that Adams and Hancock were indeed at odds: when Adams formed the Boston Committee of Correspondence in November 1772 to advocate colonial rights, Hancock declined to join, creating the impression that there was a split in the Whig ranks. But whatever their differences, Hancock and Adams came together again in 1773 with the renewal of major political turmoil. They cooperated in the revelation of private letters of Thomas Hutchinson, in which the governor seemed to recommend "an abridgement of what are called English liberties" to bring order to the colony. The Massachusetts House, blaming Hutchinson for the military occupation of Boston, called for his removal as governor.

Even more trouble followed Parliament's passage of the 1773 Tea Act. On November 5, Hancock was elected as moderator at a Boston town meeting that resolved that anyone who supported the Tea Act was an "Enemy to America". Hancock and others tried to force the resignation of the agents who had been appointed to receive the tea shipments. Unsuccessful in this, they attempted to prevent the tea from being unloaded after three tea ships had arrived in Boston Harbor. Hancock was at the fateful meeting on December 16, where he reportedly told the crowd, "Let every man do what is right in his own eyes." Hancock did not take part in the Boston Tea Party that night, but he approved of the action, although he was careful not to publicly praise the destruction of private property.

Over the next few months, Hancock was disabled by gout, which would trouble him with increasing frequency in the coming years. By March 5, 1774, he had recovered enough to deliver the fourth annual Massacre Day oration, a commemoration of the Boston Massacre. Hancock's speech denounced the presence of British troops in Boston, who he said had been sent there "to enforce obedience to acts of Parliament, which neither God nor man ever empowered them to make". The speech, probably written by Hancock in collaboration with Adams, Joseph Warren, and others, was published and widely reprinted, enhancing Hancock's stature as a leading Patriot.

Revolution begins

Parliament responded to the Tea Party with the Boston Port Act, one of the so-called Intolerable Acts intended to strengthen British control of the colonies. Hutchinson was replaced as governor by General Thomas Gage, who arrived in May 1774. On June 17, the Massachusetts House elected five delegates to send to the First Continental Congress in Philadelphia, which was being organized to coordinate colonial response to the Intolerable Acts. Hancock did not serve in the first Congress, possibly for health reasons, or possibly to remain in charge while the other Patriot leaders were away.

Gage soon dismissed Hancock from his post as colonel of the Boston Cadets. In October 1774, Gage canceled the scheduled meeting of the General Court. In response, the House resolved itself into the Massachusetts Provincial Congress, a body independent of British control. Hancock was elected as president of the Provincial Congress and was a key member of the Committee of Safety. The Provincial Congress created the first minutemen companies, consisting of militiamen who were to be ready for action on a moment's notice.

in Lexington when the Revolutionary War began.|alt=The main part of the home is a wooden, two-and-a-half story rectangular building with large windows, one central door, and a central chimney. A smaller wing extends back from the right side. There are large trees in the background and a low rock wall in the foreground. Before Hancock reported to the Continental Congress in Philadelphia, the Provincial Congress unanimously reelected him as their president in February 1775. Hancock's multiple roles gave him enormous influence in Massachusetts, and as early as January 1774 British officials had considered arresting him. After attending the Provincial Congress in Concord in April 1775, Hancock and Samuel Adams decided that it was not safe to return to Boston before leaving for Philadelphia. They stayed instead at Hancock's childhood home in Lexington.

Gage received a letter from Lord Dartmouth on April 14, 1775 advising him "to arrest the principal actors and abettors in the Provincial Congress whose proceedings appear in every light to be acts of treason and rebellion". On the night of April 18, Gage sent out a detachment of soldiers on the fateful mission that would spark the American Revolutionary War. The purpose of the British expedition was to seize and destroy military supplies that the colonists had stored in Concord. According to many historical accounts, Gage also instructed his men to arrest Hancock and Adams, but, as historian John Alden pointed out in 1944, the written orders issued by Gage made no mention of arresting the Patriot leaders. Gage apparently decided that he had nothing to gain by arresting Hancock and Adams, since other leaders would simply take their place, and the British would be portrayed as the aggressors.

Although Gage had evidently decided against seizing Hancock and Adams, Patriots initially believed otherwise. From Boston, Joseph Warren dispatched messenger Paul Revere to warn Hancock and Adams that British troops were on the move and might attempt to arrest them. Revere reached Lexington around midnight and gave the warning. Hancock, still considering himself a militia colonel, wanted to take the field with the Patriot militia at Lexington, but Adams and others convinced him to avoid battle, arguing that he was more valuable as a political leader than as a soldier. As Hancock and Adams made their escape, the first shots of the war were fired at Lexington and Concord. Soon after the battle, Gage issued a proclamation granting a general pardon to all who would "lay down their arms, and return to the duties of peaceable subjects"—with the exceptions of Hancock and Samuel Adams. Singling out Hancock and Adams in this manner only added to their renown among Patriots.

President of Congress

, c. 1772]]

With the war underway, Hancock made his way to the Continental Congress in Philadelphia with the other Massachusetts delegates. On May 24, 1775, he was unanimously elected President of the Continental Congress, succeeding Peyton Randolph after Henry Middleton declined the nomination. Hancock was a good choice for president for several reasons. He was experienced, having often presided over legislative bodies and town meetings in Massachusetts. His wealth and social standing inspired the confidence of moderate delegates, while his association with Boston radicals made him acceptable to other radicals. His position was somewhat ambiguous, because the role of the president was not fully defined, and it was not clear if Randolph had resigned or was on a leave of absence. Like other presidents of Congress, Hancock's authority was limited to that of a presiding officer. He also had to handle a great deal of official correspondence, and he found it necessary to hire clerks at his own expense to help with the paperwork.

In Congress on June 15, 1775, Massachusetts delegate John Adams nominated George Washington as commander in chief of the army then gathered around Boston. Many years later, Adams wrote that Hancock had shown great disappointment at not getting the command for himself. If true, Hancock did not let his disappointment interfere with his duties, and he always showed admiration and support for General Washington, even though Washington politely declined Hancock's request for a military appointment.

Hancock was criticized for what was considered his lavish lifestyle while President of the Continental Congress. Hancock rode in a highly decorative chariot; accompanied by 50 armed horsemen along with many servants. He associated himself with Philadelphia's elite society having dined and dressed luxuriously. Samuel Adams wrote, "Does it become us to lead the People to such publick diversions as promote Superfluity of Dress & ornament, when it is as much as they can bear to support the Expense of a naked Army."

When Congress recessed on August 1, 1775, Hancock took the opportunity to wed his fiancée, Dorothy "Dolly" Quincy. The couple was married on August 28 in Fairfield, Connecticut. John and Dorothy would have two children, neither of whom survived to adulthood. Their daughter Lydia Henchman Hancock was born in 1776 and died ten months later. Their son John George Washington Hancock was born in 1778 and died in 1787 after suffering a head injury while ice skating.

Hancock served in Congress through some of the darkest days of the Revolutionary War. The British drove Washington from New York and New Jersey in 1776, which prompted Congress to flee to Baltimore, Maryland. Hancock and Congress returned to Philadelphia in March 1777, but were compelled to flee six months later when the British occupied Philadelphia. Hancock wrote innumerable letters to colonial officials, raising money, supplies, and troops for Washington's army. He chaired the Marine Committee, and took pride in helping to create a small fleet of American frigates, including the USS Hancock, which was named in his honor.

Signing the Declaration

Hancock was president of Congress when the Declaration of Independence was adopted and signed. He is primarily remembered by Americans for his large, flamboyant signature on the Declaration, so much so that "John Hancock" became, in the United States, an informal synonym for signature. According to legend, Hancock signed his name largely and clearly so that King George could read it without his spectacles, but this fanciful story did not appear until many years later.

Contrary to popular mythology, there was no ceremonial signing of the Declaration on July 4, 1776. After Congress approved the wording of the text on July 4, a copy was sent to be printed. As president, Hancock may have signed the document that was sent to the printer, but this is uncertain because that document is lost, perhaps destroyed in the printing process. The printer produced the first published version of the Declaration, the widely distributed Dunlap broadside. Hancock, as President of Congress, was the only delegate whose name appeared on the broadside, although the name of Charles Thomson, secretary of the Continental Congress, but not a delegate, was also on it. This meant that until a second broadside was issued six months later with all of the signers listed, Hancock was the only delegate whose name was publicly attached to the treasonous document. Hancock sent a copy of the Dunlap broadside to George Washington, instructing him to have it read to the troops "in the way you shall think most proper".

Hancock's name was printed, not signed, on the Dunlap broadside; his iconic signature appears on a different document—a sheet of parchment that was carefully handwritten sometime after July 19 and signed on August 2 by Hancock and those delegates present. Known as the engrossed copy, this is the famous document on display at the National Archives in Washington, D.C.

Return to Massachusetts

's famous painting The Declaration of Independence, Hancock, as presiding officer, is seated on the right as the drafting committee presents their work.]]

In October 1777, after more than two years in Congress, President Hancock requested a leave of absence. He asked George Washington to arrange a military escort for his return to Boston. Although Washington was short on manpower, he nevertheless sent fifteen horsemen to accompany Hancock on his journey home. By this time Hancock had become estranged from Samuel Adams, who disapproved of what he viewed as Hancock's vanity and extravagance, which Adams believed were inappropriate in a republican leader. When Congress voted to thank Hancock for his service, Adams and the other Massachusetts delegates voted against the resolution, as did a few delegates from other states.

Back in Boston, Hancock was reelected to the House of Representatives. As in previous years, his philanthropy made him popular. Although his finances had suffered greatly because of the war, he gave to the poor, helped support widows and orphans, and loaned money to friends. According to biographer William Fowler, "John Hancock was a generous man and the people loved him for it. He was their idol." In December 1777, he was reelected as a delegate to the Continental Congress and as moderator of the Boston town meeting.

Hancock rejoined the Continental Congress in Pennsylvania in June 1778, but his brief time there was unhappy. In his absence, Congress had elected Henry Laurens as its new president, which was a disappointment to Hancock, who had hoped to reclaim his chair. Hancock got along poorly with Samuel Adams, and missed his wife and newborn son. On July 9, 1778, Hancock and the other Massachusetts delegates joined the representatives from seven other states in signing the Articles of Confederation; the remaining states were not yet prepared to sign, and the Articles would not be ratified until 1781.

Hancock returned to Boston in July 1778, motivated by the opportunity to finally lead men in combat. Back in 1776, he had been appointed as the senior major general of the Massachusetts militia. Now that the French fleet had come to the aid of the Americans, General Washington instructed General John Sullivan of the Continental Army to lead an attack on the British garrison at Newport, Rhode Island, in August 1778. Hancock nominally commanded 6,000 militiamen in the campaign, although he let the professional soldiers do the planning and issue the orders. It was a fiasco: French Admiral d'Estaing abandoned the operation, after which Hancock's militia mostly deserted Sullivan's Continentals. Hancock suffered some criticism for the debacle but emerged from his brief military career with his popularity intact.

After much delay, the new Massachusetts Constitution finally went into effect in October 1780. To no one's surprise, Hancock was elected Governor of Massachusetts in a landslide, garnering over 90% of the vote. He governed Massachusetts through the end of the Revolutionary War and into an economically troubled postwar period. Hancock took a hands-off approach to governing, avoiding controversial issues as much as possible. According to William Fowler, Hancock "never really led" and "never used his strength to deal with the critical issues confronting the commonwealth."

Hancock was easily reelected to annual terms as governor, until his surprise resignation on January 29, 1785. Hancock cited his failing health as the reason, but he may also have been aware of growing unrest in the countryside and wanted to get out of office before the trouble came. Hancock's critics often suspected that he suffered from "political gout", which is when an official allegedly uses an illness to avoid a difficult political situation. The turmoil that Hancock avoided became known as Shays' Rebellion, which Hancock's successor James Bowdoin had to deal with. After the uprising, Hancock was reelected in 1787, and he promptly pardoned all the rebels. Hancock was reelected to annual terms as governor for the remainder of his life.

Final years

, dedicated in 1896.]]

When he had resigned as governor in 1785, Hancock was again elected as a delegate to the Continental Congress, known as the Confederation Congress after the ratification of the Articles of Confederation in 1781. Congress had declined in importance after the Revolutionary War, and was frequently ignored by the states. Congress elected Hancock to serve as its president, but he never attended because of his poor health and because he was not interested. He sent Congress a letter of resignation in 1786.

In 1787, in an effort to remedy the perceived defects of the Articles of Confederation, delegates met at the Philadelphia Convention and drafted the United States Constitution, which was then sent to the states for ratification or rejection. Hancock, who was not present at the Philadelphia Convention, had misgivings about the new Constitution's lack of a bill of rights and its shift of power to a central government. In January 1788, Hancock was elected president of the Massachusetts ratifying convention, although he was ill and not present when the convention began. Hancock mostly remained silent during the contentious debates, but as the convention was drawing to close, he gave a speech in favor of ratification. For the first time in years, Samuel Adams supported Hancock's position. Even with the support of Hancock and Adams, the Massachusetts convention narrowly ratified the Constitution by a vote of 187 to 168. Hancock's support was probably a deciding factor in the ratification.

Hancock was put forth as a candidate in the 1789 U. S. presidential election. As was the custom in an era where political ambition was viewed with suspicion, Hancock did not campaign or even publicly express interest in the office; he instead made his wishes known indirectly. Like everyone else, Hancock knew that George Washington was going to be elected as the first president, but Hancock may have been interested in being vice president, despite his poor health. Hancock received only four electoral votes in the election, however, none of them from his home state; the Massachusetts electors all voted for another native son, John Adams, who became the vice president. Hancock was disappointed with his poor showing, but he remained as popular as ever in Massachusetts. By order of acting governor Samuel Adams, the day of Hancock's burial was a state holiday; the lavish funeral was perhaps the grandest given to an American up to that time.

Legacy

Many places and things in the United States have been named in honor of John Hancock. The U.S. Navy has named vessels USS Hancock and USS John Hancock; a World War II Liberty ship was also named in his honor. Ten states have a Hancock County named for him; other places named after him include Hancock, Massachusetts; Hancock, Michigan; Hancock, New York; and Mount Hancock in New Hampshire. The insurance company has passed on the name to famous office buildings such as the John Hancock Tower in Boston, the John Hancock Center in Chicago, and the John Hancock Student Village at Boston University.

Notes

References

Bibliography

Adams, James Truslow. "Portrait of an Empty Barrel". Harpers Magazine 161 (September 1930), 425–34.

Alden, John R. "Why the March to Concord?" The American Historical Review 49 (1944), 446–54.

Allan, Herbert S. John Hancock: Patriot in Purple. New York: Macmillan, 1948.

Boyd, Julian P. "The Declaration of Independence: The Mystery of the Lost Original". Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography 100, number 4 (October 1976) , 438–67. Available online from the Historical Society of Pennsylvania.

Brown, Richard D. Revolutionary Politics in Massachusetts: The Boston Committee of Correspondence and the Towns, 1772–1774. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1970. ISBN 0-393-008-10-X.

Brown, Robert E. Middle-Class Democracy and the Revolution in Massachusetts, 1691–1789. Ithaca, New York: Cornell University Press, 1955.

Dickerson, O. M. "John Hancock: Notorious Smuggler or Near Victim of British Revenue Racketeers?" The Mississippi Valley Historical Review 32, no. 4 (March 1946), 517–40. This article was later incorporated into Dickerson's The Navigation Acts and the American Revolution (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1951).

Fischer, David Hackett. Paul Revere's Ride. New York: Oxford University Press, 1994. ISBN 0-19-508847-6.

Fowler, William M., Jr. The Baron of Beacon Hill: A Biography of John Hancock. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1980. ISBN 0-395-27619-5.

———. Samuel Adams: Radical Puritan. New York: Longman, 1997. ISBN 0-673-99293-4.

Gannett, Henry. The Origin of Certain Place Names in the United States. 2nd ed. Baltimore: Genealogical Pub. Co., 1973. ISBN 0806305444.

Nobles, Gregory. "Yet the Old Republicans Still Persevere: Samuel Adams, John Hancock, and the Crisis of Popular Leadership in Revolutionary Massachusetts, 1775–90" in Ronald Hoffman and Peter J. Albert, eds., The Transforming Hand of Revolution: Reconsidering the American Revolution as a Social Movement. Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1995, 258–85.

Proctor, Donald J. "John Hancock: New Soundings on an Old Barrel". The Journal of American History 64, no. 3 (December 1977), 652–77.

Reid, John Phillip. In a Rebellious Spirit: The Argument of Facts, the Liberty Riot, and the Coming of the American Revolution. University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1979. ISBN 0-271-00202-6.

Tyler, John W. Smugglers & Patriots: Boston Merchants and the Advent of the American Revolution. Boston: Northeastern University Press, 1986. ISBN 0-930350-76-6.

Wroth, L. Kinvin and Hiller B. Zobel, eds. Legal Papers of John Adams, volume 2. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1965.

Unger, Harlow Giles. John Hancock: Merchant King and American Patriot. New York: Wiley & Sons, 2000. ISBN 0-471-33209-7.

Further reading

Baxter, William T. The House of Hancock: Business in Boston, 1724–1775. 1945. Reprint, New York: Russell & Russell, 1965. Deals primarily with Thomas Hancock's business career.

Brandes, Paul D. John Hancock’s Life and Speeches: A Personalized Vision of the American Revolution, 1763–1793. Lanham, Maryland: Scarecrow Press, 1996. ISBN 0810830760. Contains the full text of many speeches.

Brown, Abram E. John Hancock, His Book. Boston, 1898. Mostly extracts from Hancock's letters.

Sears, Lorenzo. John Hancock, The Picturesque Patriot. 1912. The first full biography of Hancock.

Wolkins, George G. "The Seizure of John Hancock's Sloop Liberty". Proceedings of the Massachusetts Historical Society 55 (1923), 239–84. Reprints the primary documents.

External links

Category:1737 births Category:1793 deaths Category:People from Quincy, Massachusetts Category:American Congregationalists Category:American philanthropists Category:Boston Latin School alumni Category:Businesspeople in shipping Category:Colonial American merchants Category:Continental Congressmen from Massachusetts Category:Governors of Massachusetts Category:Harvard University alumni Category:Massachusetts militiamen in the American Revolution Category:Members of the colonial Massachusetts House of Representatives Category:Militia generals in the American Revolution Category:People from Braintree, Massachusetts Category:People of Massachusetts in the American Revolution Category:Signers of the United States Declaration of Independence Category:United States presidential candidates, 1789

Coordinates	41°52′55″N87°37′40″N
Honorific-prefix	His Highness
Name	Aga Khan IV
Given name	Sayyid Karīm al-Hussaynī
Rank	49th Nizari Ismaili Imām
Birth	December 13, 1936 (age )
Birthplace	Geneva, Switzerland
Duration	Before Imamate: (1936- 1957) Imamate: (1957 - present)
Titles	His Highness Prince Aga Khan IV
Spouse	Princess Salimah Āgā Khān (1969 – 1995)Begum Inaara Āgā Khān (1998 – divorce pending since 2004
Father	Prince Aly Khan
Mother	Princess Tajuddawlah Aly Khan
Children	Princess Zahra Āgā Khān Prince Rahim Āgā Khān Prince Hussain Āgā Khān Prince Aly Muhammad Aga Khan|
Religion	Shia İsmaili Islam
Residence and secretariat	Aiglemont, Paris, France

Shāh Karīm al-Ḥussaynī, The Āgā Khān IV, KBE, CC, GCC, GCIH () (born December 13, 1936) is the 49th and current Imam of the Shia Imami Nizari Ismailis. He has held this position under the title of Āgā Khān since July 11, 1957, when, at the age of 20, he succeeded his grandfather, Sultan Mahomed Shah Aga Khan. The Āgā Khān is responsible for the interpretation of the faith for his followers and as part of the office of the Imamate, endeavors to improve the quality of their lives and the communities where they live.

The Āgā Khān is the direct descendant of the Islamic prophet Mohammad through his cousin and son-in-law, Ali, the first Imam, and his wife Fatimah, Mohammad’s daughter, and is referred to by members of his community as Mawlana Hāzir Imām (حاضر إمام مولانا , "Our Lord, the Present Imām"). Since his ascension to the Imamate, the Āgā Khān has been involved in complex political and economic changes which have affected his followers, including the independence of African countries from colonial rule, expulsion of Asians from Uganda, the independence of Central Asian countries such as Tajikistan from the former Soviet Union and the continuous turmoil in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

The Āgā Khān is particularly interested in the elimination of global poverty; the advancement of women; the promotion of Islamic culture, art, and architecture; and promoting pluralistic values in society. He is the founder and chairman of the Aga Khan Development Network, one of the largest private development networks in the world, which toils towards social, economic, and cultural development in Asia and Africa.

During his visit to India in 1983, the Aga Khan said,

"There are those who enter the world in such poverty that they are deprived of both the means and the motivation to improve their circumstances. Unless they can be touched with the spark which ignites the spirit of individual enterprise and determination, they will only sink into apthy, degradation and despair. It is for us, who are more fortunate, to provide that spark."

Early life

while visiting the Los Alamos National Laboratory in 1959.]] Born Prince Karim Aga Khan, the Aga Khan IV is the eldest son of Prince Aly Khān, (1911–1960) and his first wife, Princess Tajuddawlah Aly Khan, formerly the Hon. Joan Barbara Yarde-Buller (1908–1997), the eldest daughter of the 3rd Baron Churston. Born in Geneva, Switzerland on December 13, 1936, Prince Karim was declared healthy despite being born prematurely. The Āgā Khān's brother, Prince Amyn, was born less than a year later. Their parents divorced in 1949 and Prince Aly Khān later married Rita Hayworth, with whom he had a daughter, Princess Yasmin Āgā Khān, half-sister of the Āgā Khān. He also had a half-brother, Patrick Benjamin Guinness (1931–1965), from his mother's first marriage.

The Āgā Khān spent his childhood in Nairobi, Kenya, where his early education was done by private tutoring. His grandfather, Āgā Khān III, engaged Mustafa Kamil, a scholar from Aligarh Muslim University, for both Prince Karim and Prince Amyn. The Āgā Khān later attended the Institut Le Rosey in Switzerland for nine years. He graduated from Harvard University in 1959 with a BA honors degree in Islamic history. Significantly, Aga Khan skied for Turkey and Iran at the 1960 and 1964 Olympic Games.

Marriages

The Āgā Khān married his first wife, famous model Sarah "Sally" Frances Croker-Poole, who assumed the name HH Begum Salima Āgā Khān, on 22 October 1969 (civil) and 28 October 1969 (religious), at his home in Paris, France. The couple were married for 25 years, during which they had three children. Their marriage ended by divorce in 1995.

The Āgā Khān married his second wife, née Gabriele Thyssen, who assumed after marriage the name Begum Inaara Aga Khan, "Inaara" (derived from Arabic noor, meaning "light") at his vast walled compound and chateau near Chantilly, France : Aiglemont estate (unrelated to the commune of Aiglemont in the Ardennes) on 30 May 1998. By her, the Āgā Khān has a son. On 8 October 2004, an announcement was made that the Āgā Khān and the Begum Āgā Khān were to seek a divorce.

Children

By HH Begum Salima Āgā Khān (formerly Sarah (Sally) Croker-Poole);

Princess Zahra Āgā Khān (b. September 18, 1970)

Prince Rahim Āgā Khān (b. October 12, 1971)

Prince Hussain Āgā Khān (b. April 10, 1974)

By HH Begum Inaara Aga Khan HSH (formerly Dr Gabriele Princess of Leiningen (née Gabriele Thyssen));

Prince Aly Muhammad Āgā Khān (b. March 7, 2000)

Ismaili Imamat

Following the death of his grandfather, Sultan Muhammed Shah Āgā Khān, Prince Karim, at the age of 20, became the 49th Imām of the Ismailis, bypassing his father, Prince Aly Khān, and his uncle, Prince Sadruddin Āgā Khān, who were in direct line of succession.

In his will, the Āgā Khān III explained the rationale for choosing his eldest grandson as his successor:

"In view of the fundamentally altered conditions in the world has provoqued many changes , including the discoveries of atomic science, I am convinced that it is in the best interests of the Ismaili community that I should be succeeded by a young man who has been brought up and developed during recent years and in the midst of the new age, and who brings a new outlook on life to his office."

In light of the request expressed in his grandfather's will, the Āgā Khān has sometimes been referred to by Ismailis as the Imam of the Atomic Age.

Upon taking the position of Imam, the Āgā Khān stated that he intended to continue the work his grandfather had pursued in building modern institutions to improve the quality of life of the Ismaili community. Takht nashini (installation) ceremonies occurred at several locations over 1957 and 1958. During this time, the Āgā Khān emphasized to his followers the importance of fostering positive relations among different ethnicities; this message was highly appropriate considering the racially tense atmosphere in East Africa. During the installation ceremonies in the Indian subcontinent, he stressed his commitment to improving the quality of life of Ismailis and encouraged cooperation with individuals of other religions and ethics. The main themes that the Āgā Khān emphasized during these first few months of his Imamat were development, education, interracial harmony, and confidence in religion.

In Africa, Asia and the Middle East, a major objective of the Community's social welfare and economic programs, until the mid-fifties, had been to create a broad base of businessmen, agriculturists, and professionals. The educational facilities of the community tended to emphasize secondary-level education. With the coming of independence, each nation's economic aspirations took on new dimensions, focusing on industrialization and modernization of agriculture. The community's educational priorities had to be reassessed in the context of new national goals, and new institutions had to be created to respond to the growing complexity of the development process.

In 1972, under the regime of the then President Idi Amin, Ismā'īlīs and other Asians were expelled despite being citizens of the country and having lived there for generations. The Imam undertook urgent steps to facilitate the resettlement of Ismāʿīlīs displaced from Uganda, Tanzania, Kenya and also from Burma. Owing to his personal efforts most found homes, not only in Asia, but also in Europe and North America. Most of the basic resettlement problems were overcome remarkably rapidly. This was due to the adaptability of the Ismāʿīlīs themselves and in particular to their educational background and their linguistic abilities, as well as the efforts of the host countries and the moral and material support from Ismāʿīlī community programs.

In view of the importance that Islām places on maintaining a balance between the spiritual well-being of the individual and the quality of his life, the Imām's guidance deals with both aspects of the life of his followers. The Aga Khan has encouraged Ismā'īlī Muslims, settled in the industrialized world, to contribute towards the progress of communities in the developing world through various development programs. Indeed the Economist noted: that Isma'ili immigrant communities, integrated seamlessly as an immigrant community, and did better at attaining graduate and post graduate degrees, "far surpassing their native, Hindu, Sikh, fellow Muslims, and Chinese communities".

The Āgā Khān has described his role as Imam as being a guide to Ismailis in the daily practice of Shia Islam, a duty which requires an understanding of Ismailis and their relationship with their geographic location and their time. This engagement is not limited to the Ismaili community but also extends to the people with whom the Ismailis share their lives, locally and internationally.

During the Pope Benedict XVI Islam controversy, he said: "I have two reactions to the pope's lecture: There is my concern about the degradation of relations and, at the same time, I see an opportunity. A chance to talk about a serious, important issue: the relationship between religion and logic"

Silver Jubilee Year

From July 1982 to July 1983, to celebrate the present Aga Khan's Silver Jubilee, marking the 25th anniversary of his accession to the Imāmat, many new social and economic development projects were launched. These range from the establishment of the US$450 million international Aga Khan University with its Faculty of Health Sciences and teaching hospital based in Karachi, the expansion of schools for girls and medical centers in the Hunza region, one of the remote parts of Northern Pakistan bordering on China and Afghanistan, to the establishment of the Aga Khan Rural Support Program in Gujarat, India, and the extension of existing urban hospitals and primary health care centers in Tanzania and Kenya. These initiatives form part of an international network of institutions involved in fields that range from education, health and rural development, to architecture and the promotion of private sector enterprise and together make up the Aga Khan Development Network.

It is this commitment to man's dignity and relief of humanity that inspires the Ismā'īlī Imāmat's philanthropic institutions. Giving of one's competence, sharing one's time, material or intellectual ability with those among whom one lives, for the relief of hardship, pain or ignorance is a deeply ingrained tradition which shapes the social conscience of the Ismā'īlī Muslim community.

Golden Jubilee Year

July 11, 2007 marked the 50th Anniversary of the Aga Khan's reign of Imamat. On this occasion, leaders representing the Ismaili Community from all over the world gathered at the Aga Khan's residence to pay homage to the Imam on behalf of the global Jamat. During his Golden Jubilee from 2007-2008 marking 50 years of Imamate, the Aga Khan commissioned a number of projects. As part of the Jubilee Year, Aga Khan made official visits to various countries, using these occasions to recognise the friendship and longstanding support of leaders of state, government and other partners in the work of the Ismaili Imamat, and to set the direction for the future, including the launching and laying of foundations for major initiatives and programmes.

The countries visited include:

East Africa, Mozambique, Madagascar, United Arab Emirates, the United States of America, West Africa, India, Bangladesh, the United Kingdom, Portugal, Syria, Central Asia, Canada, Far East and France.

A number of International Programmes were launched as part of the commemoration of Aga Khan's Golden Jubilee. The programmes addressed themes such as heritage, culture, devotional music and physical well-being, while promoting Jamati unity and worldwide collaboration.

Aga Khan also organised a sports meet in Kenya, and teams from all over the world came to play this event.

A Tradition of International Service

In recent generations, the Aga Khan’s family has followed a tradition of service in international affairs. The Aga Khan’s grandfather was President of the League of Nations and his father, Prince Aly Khan, was Pakistan’s Ambassador to the United Nations. His uncle, Prince Sadruddin Aga Khan, was the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, United Nations’ Coordinator for assistance to Afghanistan and United Nations Executive Delegate of Iraq-Turkey border areas.

The Aga Khan’s brother, Prince Amyn Aga Khan, joined the United Nations Secretariat, Department of Economic and Social Affairs following his graduation from Harvard in 1965. Since 1968, Prince Amyn has been closely involved with the governance of the principal development institutions of the Imamat. He is Director of the Aga Khan Foundation (AKF) and a member of the Board of the Aga Khan Fund for Economic Development (AKFED) and Chairman of its Executive Committee. Prince Amyn was also deeply involved in the establishment and the development of the Tourism Promotion Services (TPS). He is also a Director of the Aga Khan Trust for Culture (AKTC).

The Aga Khan’s eldest child and daughter, Princess Zahra Aga Khan, graduated from Harvard in 1994 with a BA (Honours) Degree in Development Studies, and is the Head of the Social Welfare Department (SWD) located within the Secretariat of the Aga Khan in France. She has policy and management responsibility for the health, education, and planning and building service companies of the Aga Khan Development Network (AKDN). She also plays a key policy role with respect to the other social development institutions of the Network.

Prince Rahim Aga Khan was born on 12 October 1971, in Geneva, Switzerland, and is the second of His Highness the Aga Khan’s four children. Based at the Secretariat of His Highness the Aga Khan at Aiglemont, north of Paris, France, Prince Rahim is an executive Director of the Aga Khan Fund for Economic Development (AKFED) -- the economic development arm of the Aga Khan Development Network (AKDN). He also serves as an Executive Director at the Aga Khan Agency for Microfinance (AKAM). A graduate of Brown University, Rhode Island, USA with a Bachelor of Arts Degree in Comparative Literature awarded in 1996, Prince Rahim received his secondary education at Phillips Academy, Andover, Massachusetts. In 2006, Prince Rahim completed an executive development programme in Management and Administration at the University of Navarra IESE Business School in Barcelona, Spain. Prince Rahim travels regularly to Asia and Africa to oversee the industrial plants, hotel properties and financial institutions, including microfinance programmes, of the Aga Khan Development Network.

The Aga Khan’s second son, Prince Hussain Aga Khan, graduated from Williams College (USA) with a Bachelor of Arts degree and has a Master of International Affairs degree from Columbia’s School of International and Public Affairs (SIPA) where his main area of study was Economic and Political Development with a regional focus on the Middle East and North Africa.

His youngest son Prince Aly Muhammad was born in 2000.

In consonance with this vision of Islam and a long-standing tradition of service to humanity, the Ismailis have elaborated a well-defined institutional framework to build capacity and improve the quality of life within the communities in which they live. Under the Aga Khan’s leadership, this framework expanded and evolved into the Aga Khan Development Network, a group of institutions working to improve living conditions and opportunities in specific regions of the developing world. In every country, these institutions work for the common good of all citizens regardless of their origin or religion. Their individual mandates range from architecture, education and health to the promotion of private sector enterprise, the enhancement of non-government organisations and rural development.

United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees

The Aga Khan served as United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees from 1965 to 1977.

Promotion of Islamic architecture

In 1977, the Aga Khan established the Aga Khan Award for Architecture, an award recognizing excellence in architecture that encompasses contemporary design and social, historical, and environmental considerations. It is the largest architectural award in the world and is granted triennially. The award grew out of the Aga Khan’s desire to revitalize creativity in Islamic societies and acknowledge creative solutions for buildings facilities and public spaces. The prize winner is selected by an independent master jury convened for each cycle.

In 1979, Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) respectively, established the Aga Khan Program for Islamic Architecture (AKPIA), which is supported by an endowment from Aga Khan. These programs provide degree courses, public lectures, and conferences for the study of Islamic architecture and urbanism. Understanding contemporary conditions and developmental issues are key components of the academic program. The program engages in research at both institutions and students can graduate with a Master of Science of Architectural Studies specializing in the Aga Khan program from MIT's Department of Architecture.

Aga Khan Development Network

The Aga Khan is founder and chairman of the Aga Khan Development Network (AKDN), one of the largest private development networks in the world, which coordinates the activities of over 200 agencies and institutions, employing a total of 70,000 paid staff. Its partners include numerous governments and several international organizations. AKDN agencies operate in social and economic development as well as in the field of culture, with special focus on countries of the Third World. The network operates in more than 35 of the poorest countries in the world and is statutorily secular.

The network includes the Aga Khan University (AKU), the University of Central Asia (UCA), the Aga Khan Fund for Economic Development (AKFED), the Aga Khan Trust for Culture (AKTC), the Aga Khan Foundation (AKF), the Aga Khan Health Services (AKHS), the Aga Khan Education Services (AKES), the Aga Khan Planning and Building Services (AKPBS), and the Aga Khan Agency for Microfinance (AKAM). The Aga Khan Award for Architecture (AKAA)is the largest architectural award in the world.

Focus Humanitarian Assistance (FOCUS), an affiliate of the AKDN, is responsible for emergency response in the face of disaster. Recent examples include the massive earthquake in Pakistan (AKDN earthquake response) and the South Asian Tsunami.

He is also the chairman of the Board of Governors of the Institute of Ismaili Studies, which he founded in 1977. He is also a Vice-President of the Royal Commonwealth Society.

Significant recent or current projects led by the Āgā Khān include the Delegation of the Ismaili Imamat and the Global Centre for Pluralism (GCP) in Ottawa, the Aga Khan Museum in Toronto, the Al-Azhar Park () in Cairo, the Bagh-e Babur restoration in Kabul, and a network of full IB residential schools known as the Aga Khan Academies (AKA). See Since 2001, the Aga Khan Development Network has mobilized over $750 million in Afghanistan. His personal contribution has been larger than any single donor and more than most countries.

The Aga Khan has expressed concern about the work of the AKDN being described as philanthropy. In his address to the Tutzing Evangelical Academy in Germany, he described this concern:

Reflecting a certain historical tendency of the West to separate the secular from the religious, they often describe [the work of the AKDN] either as philanthropy or entrepreneurship. What is not understood is that this work is for us a part of our institutional responsibility -- it flows from the mandate of the office of Imam to improve the quality of worldly life for the concerned communities.

Styles

The title of ‘His Highness’ was granted by Her Majesty the Queen of the United Kingdom (1957),

and ‘His Royal Highness’ by His Imperial Majesty the Shah of Iran (1959).

Decorations

Brilliant Star of Zanzibar, Zanzibar (1957)

Commander of the Order of Merit, Mauritania (1960)

Grand Cross of the Order of Infante D. Henrique, Portugal (1960)

Grand Cross of the National Order, the Ivory Coast's highest order, Ivory Coast (1965)

Grand Cross of the National Order, Upper Volta (1965)

Grand Cross of the National Order, Madagascar's highest honour, Madagascar (1966)

Grand Cross of the Order of the Green Crescent, Comoros, (1966)

Grand Cordon of the Order of the Crown of Iran, Nishan-i-Taj-i-Iran, Iran (1967)

Nishan-i-Imtiaz, Pakistan, (1970)

Knight Grand Cross of the Order of Merit of the Italian Republic, The Aga Khan is the first Muslim to receive the honour, Italy (1977)

Grand Officer of the National Order of the Lion, Senegal (1982)

Nishan-e-Pakistan, Pakistan's Highest Civil Award, Pakistan (1983)

Grand Cordon of Ouissam-al Arch, Morocco (1986)

Knight of Labour, Cavaliere del Lavoro, Italy (1988)

Commander of the Legion of Honour, France (1990)

Grand Cross of the Order of Civil Merit, Spain (1991)

Grand Cross of the Order of Merit, Portugal (1998)

Order of Friendship, Tajikistan's highest civilian award, Tajikistan (1998)

Order of Bahrain (First Class), Bahrain (2003)

Knight Commander of the Order of the British Empire (KBE), United Kingdom (2004) Honourary Companion of the Order of Canada (2005)

Grand Cross of the Military Order of Christ, Portugal (2005)

Chief of the Order of the Golden Heart, Kenya (2007)

Grand Cross of the National Order of Mali, Mali (2008)

Honoured Educator of the Republic of Kazakhstan, Kazakhstan (2008)

Ordre des Arts et des Lettres, Commander of the Order of Arts and Letters, France (2010)

Honorary degrees

LL.D. (honoris causa) University of Peshawar, Pakistan (1967)

LL.D. (honoris causa) University of Sindh, Pakistan (1970)

LL.D. (honoris causa) McGill University, Canada (1983)

LL.D. (honoris causa) McMaster University, Canada (1987)

D. Litt. (honoris causa) University of London, United Kingdom (1989)

LL.D. (honoris causa) University of Wales, United Kingdom (1993)

LL.D. (honoris causa) Khorugh State University, Tajikistan (1995)

LL.D. (honoris causa) Brown University, USA (1996)

Honorary Professorship of the Osh State University, Kyrgyzstan (2002)

LL.D. (honoris causa) University of Toronto, Canada (2004)

Honorary Doctorate of Humane Letters, American University of Beirut, Lebanon (2005)

Honorary Doctorate, University of Évora, Portugal (2006)

Honorary Doctorate of Humane Letters, American University in Cairo, Egypt (2006)

Honorary Doctorate, University of Sankore, Mali (2008)

LL.D. (honoris causa) Harvard University, USA (2008)

LL.D.(honoris causa), National University of Ireland, Maynooth, Ireland (2008)

LL.D.(honoris causa), University of Alberta, Canada (2009)

Honorary Doctorate of Divinity, University of Cambridge, United Kingdom, (2009)

He is the first Muslim in the World to be conferred with this degree in the university's 800 year history.

Awards

Freeman of Abidjan, and presented with a Key to the City of Abidjan, Côte d'Ivoire (1960)

Honorary Citizen of the Town of Arzachena (Sardinia), Italy (1962)

Key to the city of Majunga, Madagascar (1966)

Honorary Colonel of the 6th Lancers by the Pakistani Army, Pakistan (1970)

Honorary Citizen of Lahore, and presented with a key to the city of Lahore, Pakistan (1980)

Honorary Membership, Pakistan Medical Association, Sindh, Pakistan (1981)

Key to the city of Karachi, Pakistan (1981)

Honorary Citizen of the Town of Kisumu, Kenya (1981)

Gold Mercury Ad Personam Award, Non-State Organization (1982)

Thomas Jefferson Memorial Foundation Medal in Architecture, University of Virginia, USA (1984)

Institute Honor of the American Institute of Architects, USA (1984)

Honorary Fellowship of the College of Physicians and Surgeons Pakistan (CPSP), Pakistan (1985)

Gold Medal of the Consejo Superior de los Colegios de Arquitectos de España, The Aga Khan is the first recipient outside Spain to receive this honour, Spain (1987)

Honorary Citizen of Granada, Spain (1991)

Honorary Fellowship, Royal Institute of British Architects, United Kingdom (1991)

Silver Medal of the Académie d'Architecture, France (1991)

Guest of Honour of Granada, Spain (1991)

Honorary Member of the American Institute of Architects, USA (1992)

Honorary Citizen of the City of Samarkand and presented with a key to the city of Samarkand, Uzbekistan (1992)

His Highness the Aga Khan delivers the commencement address at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (Cambridge), the first Muslim to do so in its 130 year history, USA (1994)

His Highness the Aga Khan delivers the Baccalaureate (address) at Brown University, the first Muslim to do so in its 232 year history, USA (1996)

Hadrian Award, World Monuments Fund, USA (1996)

Key to the City of Lisbon, Portugal (1996)

Gold Medal of the City of Granada, Spain (1998)

Panellist at the White House Conference on Culture and Diplomacy, USA (2000)

Archon Award, International Nursing Honour Society, Sigma Theta Tau International, Sweden (2001)

Insignia of Honour, International Union of Architects, France (2001)

State Award for Peace and Progress, Kazakhstan (2002)

Honorary Citizen of the Islamic Ummah of Timbuktu, Mali (2003)

Carnegie Medal for Philanthropy, Scotland (2005)

Vincent Scully Prize, National Building Museum, USA (2005)

Honorary Citizen of Dar es Salaam, Tanzania (2005)

Key to the City of Ottawa, Canada (2005)

Die Quadriga Award, Germany (2005)

Andrew Carnegie Medal of Philanthropy, UK (2005)

Addresses the Nobel Institute at the invitation of the Government of Norway, Norway (2005)

Winner of the 10th annual Peter O'Sullivan Award at the Savoy in London, United Kingdom (2006)

Tolerance Prize of the Evangelical Academy of Tutzing, Germany (2006)

Named Personality of the Year by Apollo, the international magazine for collectors, United Kingdom (2007)

Key to the City of Austin, USA (2008)

Citizen of Honour of the Municipality of Timbuktu, Mali (2008)

Associate Foreign Member, Académie des Beaux-Arts, France (2008)

Named Personality of the Year by the International Association for Spiritual Renewal ("Ruhaniat"), Kyrgyzstan (2009)

Foreign Member, Class of Humanities, by Lisbon Academy of Sciences, Portugal (2009)

Honorary Citizen of Canada (2009)

Philanthropic Entrepreneur of the Year, by Le Nouvel Economiste, France (2009)

One of The 500 Most Influential Muslims in the world, by Royal Islamic Strategic Studies Centre, Amman, Jordan (2009)

Receives the titles Grand Mécène (Grand Patron) and Grand Donateur (Grand Donor), France (2009)

One of The 500 Most Influential Muslims in the world, by Royal Islamic Strategic Studies Centre, Amman, Jordan (2010)

Thoroughbred horse racing

At his Aiglemont estate, at Gouvieux in the Picardie region of France, about 4 kilometres west of the Chantilly Racecourse, he operates the largest horse racing and breeding operation in the country. In 1977, he paid £1.3 million for the bloodstock owned by Anna Dupré and in 1978, £4.7 million for the bloodstock of the late Marcel Boussac.

The Aga Khan owns Gilltown Stud near Kilcullen, Ireland and Haras de Bonneval breeding farm at Le Mesnil-Mauger in France. In March 2005, he purchased the famous Calvados stud farms, the Haras d'Ouilly in Pont-d'Ouilly and the Haras de Val-Henry in Livarot. Haras d'Ouilly had been owned by such famous horsemen as the Duc Decazes, François Dupré and Jean-Luc Lagardère.

In 2006, the Aga Khan became the majority shareholder of Arqana, a French horse auction house.

On October 27, 2009 it was announced that the Epsom Derby (Eng-G1), Coral Eclipse Stakes (Eng-G1), Juddmonte International Stakes (Eng-G1), Tattersalls Millions Irish Champion Stakes (Ire-G1), and $5.8 million Prix de l'Arc de Triomphe winner Sea The Stars will stand stud at the Aga Khan's Gilltown Stud in Ireland.

Ancestry

Silent Prince of Islam

HH The Aga Khan is also known as the "Silent Prince Of Islam" because of his services to Muslim Ummah. He is the Prince of the Islamic world, because in one’s humble views he and his family have contributed more for the well-being of the world, and the world of Islam, more than any other Muslim prince, king, prime minister, president, general, or philanthropist in the contemporary history of the Islamic world. The most impressive contribution of the Aga Khan is in the field of education. His motto has been education for the sake of social and economic empowerment, education on scientific lines to produce leaders, education which can enable individuals to comprehend global changes, which prepares her or him to face new challenges — a kind of education so lacking in the world of Islam today.

For the Aga Khan, education is a family tradition as knowledge runs in his blood. It was his forefathers — the Fatimid Caliphs of Egypt – who established Al Azhar University and the Academy of Knowledge in Cairo. It was his grandfather Sir Sultan Mohammad Shah Aga Khan who was the moving soul behind the Aligarh University and a network of schools imparting quality education during those equally depressing years of colonialism. It is the Prince himself who founded the Aga Khan University in Karachi, and the University of Central Asia. And the countless schools, study centres, and professional development institutes which have sprung up lately under his various education initiatives.

Also a book titled "Dunya-e-Islam Ka Khamosh Shehzadah" ("Silent Prince Of Muslim World" title: Urdu) was written by Syed Jah Jafferi (a Shi'a writer) in which he presents HH The Aga Khan as the silent prince.

See also

Aga Khan

Ismaili Centre

Nizari Ismaili

Ismailis

Aga Khan Development Network

Aga Khan University

References and notes

External links

About His Highness the Aga Khan (AKDN)

AN ISLAMIC CONSCIENCE: the Aga Khan and the Ismailis - Film of HH the Aga Khan IV

About His Highness the Karim Aga Khan

About Her Highness the Begum Aga Khan (PIF)

Aga Khan Development Network

The Institute of Ismaili Studies

The Institute of Ismaili Studies: Introduction to His Highness the Aga Khan and Selected Speeches

The Institute of Ismaili Studies

Aga Khan article at SIPA (Columbia University)

Brown University President Vartan Gregorian's introduction of the Aga Khan (1996 baccalaureate address)

The Ismaili website

Aga Khan IV honored as Interfaith Hero on ReadTheSpirit.com

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