Illinois Bell

Illinois Bell Telephone Company is the name of the Bell Operating Company serving Illinois. It is owned by AT&T through AT&T Teleholdings, formerly Ameritech.

Their headquarters are at 225 West Randolph St., Chicago, IL. After the 1984 Bell System Divestiture, Illinois Bell became a part of Ameritech, one of the 7 original Regional Bell Operating Companies. The Illinois Bell name continued to be used until January 1993, when Ameritech dropped all of their individual Bell Operating Company names in favor of using their corporate name, Ameritech, for marketing purposes. Illinois Bell started doing business as Ameritech Illinois.

Illinois Bell, in 1971, became the first ever telephone company to offer Call waiting, Three-way calling, Speed Calling, and Call forwarding, all popular local exchange carrier telephone service options to this day.

In 1997, Illinois Bell acquired lines in the Chicago metro area from Central Telephone Company of Illinois, a Sprint company.

In 1998, Ameritech announced intentions to merge with SBC, another former RBOC. Though the merger wasn't well received at first, it was allowed to occur with some conditions. The two companies were officially merged as of October 8, 1999. The Ameritech name continued to be used until 2002, despite the merger.

Illinois

Illinois (ⁱ/ˌɪlᵻˈnɔɪ/ IL-i-NOY) is a state in the midwestern region of the United States. It is the 5th most populous state and 25th largest state in terms of land area, and is often noted as a microcosm of the entire country. With Chicago in the northeast, small industrial cities and great agricultural productivity in central and northern Illinois, and natural resources like coal, timber, and petroleum in the south, Illinois has a diverse economic base and is a major transportation hub. The Port of Chicago connects the state to other global ports from the Great Lakes, via the Saint Lawrence Seaway, to the Atlantic Ocean, as well as the Great Lakes to the Mississippi River, via the Illinois River. For decades, O'Hare International Airport has been ranked as one of the world's busiest airports. Illinois has long had a reputation as a bellwether both in social and cultural terms and politics.

Although today the state's largest population center is around Chicago in the northern part of the state, the state's European population grew first in the west, with French Canadians who settled along the Mississippi River, and gave the area the name, Illinois. After the American Revolutionary War established the United States, American settlers began arriving from Kentucky in the 1810s via the Ohio River, and the population grew from south to north. In 1818, Illinois achieved statehood. After construction of the Erie Canal increased traffic and trade through the Great Lakes, Chicago was founded in the 1830s on the banks of the Chicago River, at one of the few natural harbors on southern Lake Michigan.John Deere's invention of the self-scouring steel plow turned Illinois' rich prairie into some of the world's most productive and valuable farmlands, attracting immigrant farmers from Germany and Sweden. Railroads carried immigrants to new homes, as well as being used to ship their commodity crops out to markets.

Bell Telephone

Bell Telephone may refer to:

See also

Bell

A bell is a simple idiophone percussion instrument. Although bells come in many forms, most are made of metal cast in the shape of a hollow cup, whose sides form a resonator which vibrates in a single tone upon being struck. The strike may be made by a "clapper" or "uvula" suspended within the bell, by a separate mallet or hammer, or—in small bells—by a small loose sphere enclosed within the body of the bell.

Bells are usually made by casting metal, but small bells can also be made from ceramic or glass. Bells range in size from tiny dress accessories to church bells 5 metres tall, weighing many tons. Historically, bells were associated with religious rituals, and before mass communication were widely used to call communities together for both religious and secular events. Later, bells were made to commemorate important events or people and have been associated with the concepts of peace and freedom. The study of bells is called campanology.

A set of bells, hung in a circle for change ringing, is known as a ring or peal of bells.

Angela Bofill

HIDDEN ERROR: Usage of "Birth Name" is not recognized

Angela Tomasa Bofill (born May 3, 1954) is an American R&B and jazz singer and songwriter.

Early life and success

Angela Bofill was born to a Cuban father and an Afro Puerto Rican mother. Growing up, listening to latin music, she was also inspired by the African-American performers in those days. During her childhood, her weekends were taken up studying classical music and singing in a city chorus. It was as a teenager that her professional singing began. She performed with Ricardo Marrero & the Group and Dance Theater of Harlem chorus prior to being introduced to Dave Grusin and Larry Rosen (of the jazz label GRP Records) by her friend, the jazz flautist Dave Valentin. Grusin and Rosen signed Bofill and produced her first album, Angie, in 1978. Angie was well received both critically and commercially and included the chart single "This Time I'll Be Sweeter" (co-written by Gwen Guthrie), as well as Bofill's sprawling jazz composition, "Under the Moon and Over the Sky". Less than a year later, a second album, Angel of the Night was released and outperformed its predecessor. The album included the chart singles "What I Wouldn't Do (For the Love of You)" and the up tempo title track, as well as the self-written song "I Try" (covered by Will Downing in 1991). The reception of these albums positioned Bofill as one of the first Latina singers to find success in the R&B and jazz markets.