An ecozone is the broadest biogeographic division of the Earth's land surface, based on distributional patterns of terrestrial organisms.

Ecozones delineate large areas of the Earth's surface within which organisms have been evolving in relative isolation over long periods of time, separated from one another by geographic features, such as oceans, broad deserts, or high mountain ranges, that constitute barriers to migration. As such, ecozone designations are used to indicate general groupings of organisms based on their shared biogeography. Ecozones correspond to the floristic kingdoms of botany or zoogeographic regions of zoology.

Ecozones are characterized by the evolutionary history of the organisms they contain. They are distinct from biomes, also known as major habitat types, which are divisions of the Earth's surface based on life form, or the adaptation of plants and animals to climatic, soil, and other conditions. Biomes are characterized by similar climax vegetation. Each ecozone may include a number of different biomes. A tropical moist broadleaf forest in Central America, for example, may be similar to one in New Guinea in its vegetation type and structure, climate, soils, etc., but these forests are inhabited by plants and animals with very different evolutionary histories.

Rosa Louise McCauley Parks (February 4, 1913 – October 24, 2005) was an African-American civil rights activist, whom the U.S. Congress called "the first lady of civil rights", and "the mother of the freedom movement".

On December 1, 1955, in Montgomery, Alabama, Parks refused to obey bus driver James F. Blake's order that she give up her seat to make room for a white passenger. Parks' action was not the first of its kind to impact the civil rights issue. Others had taken similar steps, including Lizzie Jennings in 1854, Homer Plessy in 1892, Irene Morgan in 1946, Sarah Louise Keys in 1955, and Claudette Colvin on the same bus system nine months before Parks, but Parks' civil disobedience had the effect of sparking the Montgomery Bus Boycott.

Parks' act of defiance became an important symbol of the modern Civil Rights Movement and Parks became an international icon of resistance to racial segregation. She organized and collaborated with civil rights leaders, including boycott leader Martin Luther King, Jr., helping to launch him to national prominence in the civil rights movement.

Mariel Hadley Hemingway (born November 22, 1961) is an American actress.

Hemingway was born in Mill Valley, California, the third daughter of Byra Louise (née Whittlesey) Hemingway and Jack Hemingway, a writer. Her sisters are Joan Hemingway (born 1950) and Margaux Hemingway (born 1954). Margaux, who became an actress and model, died of a barbiturate overdose in 1996 at age 42.

Her paternal grandparents were Hadley Richardson and writer Ernest Hemingway (who committed suicide several months before she was born). She was named after the Cuban port of Mariel—her father and grandfather visited the village regularly to go fishing. Her middle name is from her paternal grandmother.

Hemingway grew up primarily in Ketchum, Idaho, where her father lived, and where her paternal grandfather had spent a great deal of time as a sportsman and writer. Mariel also spent part of her adolescence growing up in Los Angeles and New York City.

Hemingway's first role was with her sister Margaux in the film Lipstick (1976). The movie was not considered especially good, but Mariel received notice for her acting and was nominated as "Best Newcomer" for the Golden Globes Award that year.