Granada (Spanish pronunciation: [ɡɾaˈnaða]) is a city and the capital of the province of Granada, in the autonomous community of Andalucia, Spain. Granada is located at the foot of the Sierra Nevada mountains, at the confluence of three rivers, the Beiro, the Darro and the Genil. It sits at an elevation of 738 metres above sea level, yet is only one hour from the Mediterranean coast, the Costa Tropical. Nearby is the Sierra Nevada Ski Station, where the FIS Alpine World Ski Championships 1996 were held.

In the 2005 national census, the population of the city of Granada proper was 236,982, and the population of the entire urban area was estimated to be 472,638, ranking as the 13th-largest urban area of Spain. About 3.3% of the population did not hold Spanish citizenship, the largest number of these people (31%) coming from South America. Its nearest airport is Federico García Lorca Airport Granada-Jaén Airport.

The Alhambra, a Moorish citadel and palace, is in Granada. It is the most renowned building of the Andalusian Islamic historical legacy with its many cultural attractions that make Granada a popular destination among the touristic cities of Spain. The Almohad influence on architecture is preserved in the area of the city called the Albaicín with its fine examples of Moorish and Morisco construction. Granada is also well-known within Spain for the prestigious University of Granada which has about 80,000 students spread over five different campuses in the city. The pomegranate (in Spanish, granada) is the heraldic device of Granada.

Juan Diego Cuauhtlatoatzin or Juan Diego (1474–May 30, 1548) was, according to Mexican Catholic tradition, an indigenous Mexican who reported a Marian apparition, Our Lady of Guadalupe, in 1531. The apparition has had a significant impact on the spread of the Catholic faith within Mexico. The Roman Catholic Church canonized him in 2002, as its first indigenous American saint.

The reality of Juan Diego's existence has been questioned by a number of experts on the early religious history of New Spain including Bernardino de Sahagun, Joaquin Garcia Icazbalceta, Stafford Poole, Louise Burkhart and David Brading, who argue that there is a complete lack of sources about Juan Diego's existence prior to the publication of the Nican Mopohua a century later, in 1649 (they do not accept the validity of the Codex Escalada as historical evidence). Notwithstanding these doubts, the findings of an interdisciplinary study, by nearly two dozen experts involving a prominent Mexican university and a noted American scholar of pre-Columbian Mesoamerican linguistics and anthropology, all indicated authenticity of the document and 16th century origin.

Elīna Garanča (born September 16, 1976) is a Latvian operatic mezzo-soprano.

Garanča was born in the Latvian city of Riga into a musical family, her father a choral director, her mother a lieder singer and singing teacher. Her mother Anita is a professor at the Latvian Academy of Music, an associated professor at the Latvian Academy of Culture, a vocal music teacher at the Latvian National Opera, and also a private voice tutor. Her brother Jānis (aka Jaanis) Garančs, three years older than Elīna, started out in music studies, but is now an interactive computer generated visual media artist and consultant.

She entered the Latvian Academy of Music in 1996 to study singing with Sergej Martinov. She continued her studies in Vienna with Irina Gavrilović and in the United States with Virginia Zeani. Garanča began her professional career at the Südthüringisches Staatstheater in Meiningen and later worked at the Frankfurt Opera. In 1999 she won the Mirjam Helin Singing Competition in Helsinki, Finland.

Francis Albert "Frank" Sinatra,  /sɨˈnɑːtrə/, (December 12, 1915 – May 14, 1998) was an American singer and film actor.

Beginning his musical career in the swing era with Harry James and Tommy Dorsey, Sinatra became an unprecedentedly successful solo artist in the early to mid-1940s, after being signed to Columbia Records in 1943. Being the idol of the "bobby soxers", he released his first album, The Voice of Frank Sinatra in 1946. His professional career had stalled by the 1950s, but it was reborn in 1953 after he won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his performance in From Here to Eternity.

He signed with Capitol Records in 1953 and released several critically lauded albums (such as In the Wee Small Hours, Songs for Swingin' Lovers, Come Fly with Me, Only the Lonely and Nice 'n' Easy). Sinatra left Capitol to found his own record label, Reprise Records in 1961 (finding success with albums such as Ring-a-Ding-Ding!, Sinatra at the Sands and Francis Albert Sinatra & Antonio Carlos Jobim), toured internationally, was a founding member of the Rat Pack and fraternized with celebrities and statesmen, including John F. Kennedy. Sinatra turned 50 in 1965, recorded the retrospective September of My Years, starred in the Emmy-winning television special Frank Sinatra: A Man and His Music, and scored hits with "Strangers in the Night" and "My Way".

Connie Francis (born Concetta Rosa Maria Franconero; December 12, 1938) is an American pop singer of Italian heritage and the top-charting female vocalist of the 1950s and 1960s. Although her chart success waned in the second half of the 1960s, Francis remained a top concert draw. Despite several severe interruptions in her career, Francis is still active as a recording and performing artist (as of November 2011).

Concetta Rosa Maria Franconero was born in the Italian Down Neck, or Ironbound, neighborhood of Newark, New Jersey, as first child to George Franconero, Sr., and Ida Franconero née Ferrari-di Vito, spending her first years in a Brooklyn neighborhood on Utica Avenue/St. Marks Avenue before the family moved to New Jersey.

In her autobiography Who's Sorry Now?, published in 1984, Francis recalls that she was encouraged by her father, George Franconero, Sr., to appear regularly at talent contests, pageants and other neighborhood festivities from the age of 4 as a singer and accordion player.