Aleksis Dreimanis

Aleksis Dreimanis (August 13, 1914 – July 8, 2011) was a Canadian Quaternary geologist. He was born in Valmiera, Latvia.

He first studied geology at the Institute of Palaeontology at the University of Latvia in Riga. In 1939, he worked as a lecturer at the University. As World War II was being fought, he also took on the responsibility of consulting in Quaternary mapping in the Latvian Institute of Mineral Resources. He was conscripted into the Latvian Legion. After the war Dreimanis was appointed Associate Professor in the Baltic University in the Displaced Persons camps at Hamburg and Pinneberg in Germany.

In 1948, Dreimanis immigrated to Canada to assume a lecturer position at the University of Western Ontario in London, Ontario. Several Canadian institutions called on him for his Quaternary expertise, including the Geological Survey of Canada, the Ontario Department of Mines, and the Ontario Department of Planning and Development for the St. Lawrence Seaway Authority, the Thames River Conservation Authority and various private companies. The university promoted him to Associate Professor in 1956, then to Professor in 1964. In 1980 the university gave made him an Emeritus Professor. In the over 40 years with the university, he has produced over 200 papers, notes and abstracts in the field of Quaternary research.

Celine Dion

Céline Marie Claudette Dion, CC OQ ChLD (/ˈdiːɒn/;French: [selin d(z)ijɔ̃]; born 30 March 1968) is a Canadian singer, songwriter, businesswoman and occasional actress. Born into a large family from Charlemagne, Quebec, Dion emerged as a teen star in the French-speaking world after her manager and future husband René Angélil mortgaged his home to finance her first record. Dion first gained international recognition in the 1980s by winning both the 1982 Yamaha World Popular Song Festival and the 1988 Eurovision Song Contest where she represented Switzerland. Following a series of French albums in the early 1980s, she signed on to CBS Records Canada in 1986. In 1990, she released the English-language album Unison, establishing herself as a viable pop artist in North America and other English-speaking areas of the world.

During the 1990s, with the help of Angélil, she achieved worldwide fame after signing with Epic Records and releasing several English albums along with additional French albums, becoming one of the most successful artists in pop music history. Two of her albums, Falling Into You (1996) and Let's Talk About Love (1997), were both certified diamond in the US. In addition, her 1995 album D'eux, is the best-selling French-language album of all time. However, in 1999 at the height of her success, Dion announced a hiatus from entertainment in order to start a family and spend time with her husband, who had been diagnosed with cancer. She returned to the top of pop music in 2002 and signed a three-year (later extended to almost five years) contract to perform nightly in a five-star theatrical show at the Colosseum at Caesars Palace, Paradise, Nevada.