Laurentia (North American craton) is a large area of continental craton, which forms the ancient geological core of the North American continent. Many times in its past, Laurentia has been a separate continent as it is now in the form of North America, although originally it also included the cratonic areas of Greenland and also the northwestern part of Scotland, known as the Hebridean Terrane. During other times in its past, Laurentia has been part of larger continents and supercontinents. It is named after the Laurentian Shield, which in turn is named after the St. Lawrence River.

Laurentia owes its existence to a network of Early Proterozoic orogenic belts. Small microcontinents and oceanic islands collided with the ever-growing Laurentia, and together formed the stable Archean craton we see today.

In eastern and central Canada, much of the stable craton is exposed at the surface as the Canadian Shield. In the United States the craton bedrock is covered with sedimentary rocks of the interior platform except in northern Minnesota, Wisconsin, the Adirondacks of New York and the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. The sequence of rocks varies from approximately 1,000 to in excess of 6,100 metres (3,500–20,000 ft) in thickness. The cratonic rocks are metamorphic and igneous while the overlying sedimentary rocks are composed mostly of limestones, sandstones, and shales. These sedimentary rocks were deposited from 650 to 290 million years ago.

Laurentia Tan Yen Yi (English pronunciation: /lɒˈrɛnʃə/ lo-REN-shə; Chinese: 陈雁仪; pinyin: Chén Yànyí, pronounced [tʂə̌n jɛ̂n í]) (born 24 April 1979) is a United Kingdom-based Singaporean Paralympic equestrienne. Tan developed cerebral palsy and profound deafness after birth, and moved to the United Kingdom with her parents at the age of three. She took up horse riding at age of five years as a form of physiotherapy. She subsequently completed her A-levels at the Mary Hare Grammar School, a residential special school for the deaf, and graduated with an honours degree from Oxford Brookes University in hospitality management and tourism.

In March 2007, the Riding for the Disabled Association Singapore (RDA) invited Tan to join the Singapore team for the World Para Dressage Championships at Hartpury College in Hartpury, Gloucester, in England in July that year. At this event, her first international competition, she did well enough to qualify for the 2008 Paralympic Games. In September 2008, at the Hong Kong Olympic Equestrian Centre at Sha Tin, she achieved bronze medals in the Individual Championship and Individual Freestyle Tests (class IA). These were Singapore's first Paralympic medals and Asia's first equestrian medals at the Paralympic Games. Tan was conferred the Pingat Bakti Masyarakat (Public Service Medal) by the President of Singapore at a ceremony at the Istana Singapore on 20 September 2008.

James Sun (born 1977 in Seoul) is an entrepreneur, television host, and public speaker. He is the CEO and Founder of GeoPage.com. He was the host of a BBC television program called "Sun Tzu War on Business".

James Sun immigrated to the United States when he was four. He grew up in Houston, Texas and settled in Seattle, Washington. While studying for his degree in business and computer information systems from the University of Washington, he started a technology investment fund, which over five years increased from $5000 to over $2 million.^{[citation needed]}

After graduating cum laude Sun joined Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu, offering management consulting services to Fortune 500 companies.^{[citation needed]} After he left Deloitte he started three technology companies, and is the Chairman, managing director, and major shareholder of several companies.

James is the first Asian male to land a spot on Donald Trump's reality show "The Apprentice." He was selected out of 800,000 applicants. The show aired for 14 weeks, and James was the first Asian finalist in the history of the show.

Maya Mikhailovna Plisetskaya (Russian: Ма́йя Миха́йловна Плисе́цкая, transliteration: Majja Michajlovna Pliseckaja), born November 20, 1925 is a Russian ballet dancer, frequently cited as one of the greatest ballerinas of the 20th century. Maya danced during the Soviet era at the same time as the great Galina Ulanova, and took over from her as prima ballerina assoluta of the Bolshoi in 1960. Maya Plisetskaya is a naturalized Lithuanian and Spanish citizen.

Maya Plisetskaya was born in Moscow into a prominent Jewish family. She went to school in Spitzbergen, where her father worked as an engineer and mine director.

In 1938, her father, Michael Plisetski was executed during the Stalinist purges, possibly because he had hired a friend who had been a secretary to Leon Trotsky. Her mother Rachel Messerer-Plisetskaya (aka Ra Messerer), a silent-film actress, was arrested and sent to a labor camp (Gulag) in Kazakhstan, together with Maya's seven-month old baby brother. Thereupon Maya was adopted by her maternal aunt, the ballerina Sulamith Messerer, until her mother was released in 1941.

Jason Mraz ( /məˈræz/; born June 23, 1977 in Mechanicsville, Virginia) is an American singer-songwriter. Mraz released his debut album, Waiting for My Rocket to Come, which contained the hit single "The Remedy (I Won't Worry)", in 2002, but it was not until the release of his second album, Mr. A-Z, in 2005, that Mraz achieved major commercial success. The album peaked at number five on the Billboard 200 and sold over 100,000 copies in the US. In 2008, Mraz released his third studio album, We Sing. We Dance. We Steal Things. The album debuted at number three on the Billboard 200 and was a commercial success worldwide, peaking in the top ten of many international charts.

Mraz's international breakthrough came with the release of the single "I'm Yours" from the album We Sing. We Dance. We Steal Things. The single peaked at number six on the Billboard Hot 100, giving Mraz his first top ten single. The song was on the Hot 100 for 76 weeks, beating the previous record of 69 weeks held by LeAnn Rimes' "How Do I Live". The song was a huge commercial success in the US, receiving a 5x platinum certification from the RIAA for sales of over five million. The song was successful internationally, topping the charts in New Zealand and Norway and peaking in the top ten of multiple international charts.