New Orleans

New Orleans (/nuː ˈɔːrlɪnz/,/nuː ˈɔːrliənz/, /nuː ɔːrˈliːnz/, or /ˈnɔːrlənz/; French: La Nouvelle-Orléans [la nuvɛlɔʁleɑ̃]) is a major United States port and the largest city and the center of the metropolitan area in the state of Louisiana. The population of the city was 343,829 as of the 2010 U.S. Census. The New Orleans metropolitan area (New Orleans–Metairie–Kenner Metropolitan Statistical Area) had a population of 1,167,764 in 2010 and was the 46th largest in the United States. The New Orleans–Metairie–Bogalusa Combined Statistical Area, a larger trading area, had a 2010 population of 1,452,502.

The city is named after the Duke of Orleans, who reigned as Regent for Louis XV from 1715 to 1723, as it was established by French colonists and strongly influenced by their European culture. It is well known for its distinct French and Spanish Creole architecture, as well as its cross-cultural and multilingual heritage. New Orleans is also famous for its cuisine, music (particularly as the birthplace of jazz), and its annual celebrations and festivals, most notably Mardi Gras, dating to French colonial times. The city is often referred to as the "most unique" in the United States.

Battle of New Orleans

The Battle of New Orleans was an engagement fought between January 8 and January 18, 1815, constituting the final major and most one-sided battle of the War of 1812. American combatants, commanded by Major General Andrew Jackson, prevented the British Army, Royal Marines and a large Royal Navy fleet, commanded by Admiral Alexander Cochrane and General Edward Pakenham, from seizing New Orleans as a strategic tool to end the war by using it as a starting point for an occupation of the vast territory the United States had acquired from the Louisiana Purchase. The British at the time were occupying the Florida Panhandle and attempting a westward expansion through the territory which is the present day Gulfport–Biloxi Mississippi metropolitan area. Strategically, New Orleans would have anchored these conquests. Conditions were harsh for the British who were used to Northern European conditions.

The British defeat convinced the Spanish to sell these territories to the US, as ratified in the Adams–Onís Treaty, thus depriving the British of a larger stake in the Caribbean.

Gulf of Mexico

The Gulf of Mexico (Spanish: Golfo de México) is an ocean basin largely surrounded by the North American continent. as well as Central America. It is bounded on the northeast, north, and northwest by the Gulf Coast of the United States, on the southwest and south by Mexico, and on the southeast by Cuba. The U.S. states of Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, and Florida border the Gulf on the north, which are often referred to as the "Third Coast" in comparison with the U.S. Atlantic and Pacific coasts, or sometimes the "south coast", in juxtaposition to the Great Lakes region being the "north coast."

The Gulf of Mexico formed approximately 300 million years ago as a result of plate tectonics. The Gulf's basin is roughly oval and is approximately 810 nautical miles (1,500 km; 930 mi) wide and floored by sedimentary rocks and recent sediments. It is connected to part of the Atlantic Ocean through the Florida Straits between the U.S. and Cuba, and with the Caribbean Sea (with which it forms the American Mediterranean Sea) via the Yucatan Channel between Mexico and Cuba. With the narrow connection to the Atlantic, the Gulf experiences very small tidal ranges. The size of the Gulf basin is approximately 1.6 million km² (615,000 sq mi). Almost half of the basin is shallow continental shelf waters. The basin contains a volume of roughly 2500 quadrillion litres (550 quadrillion Imperial gallons, 660 US quadrillion gallons, 2.5 million cu km or 600,000 cu mi).

Akim Tamiroff

Akim Mikhailovich Tamiroff (Russian: Аким Михайлович Тамиров; birth name` Hovakim, Armenian: Հովակիմ; 29 October 1899 – 17 September 1972) was an ethnic Armenian actor. He won the first Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actor, was nominated twice for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor, and appeared in at least 80 American motion pictures in a career spanning thirty-seven years.

Biography

Tamiroff was born in Tiflis, Russian Empire (now Tbilisi, Georgia), of Armenian ancestry. He trained at the Moscow Art Theatre drama school. He arrived in the U.S. in 1923 on a tour with a troupe of actors and decided to stay. Tamiroff managed to develop a career in Hollywood despite his thick Russian accent.

Film career

Tamiroff's film debut came in 1932 in an uncredited role in Okay, America!. He performed in several more uncredited roles until 1935, when he co-starred in The Lives of a Bengal Lancer. He also appeared in the lavish epic China Seas in 1935 with Clark Gable, Wallace Beery, Jean Harlow, Rosalind Russell and Robert Benchley. The following year, he was cast in the titular role in The General Died at Dawn with Gary Cooper, for which he was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor. He appeared in the 1937 musical High, Wide, and Handsome with Irene Dunne and Randolph Scott, and the 1938 proto-noir Dangerous to Know opposite Anna May Wong, frequently singled out as his best role.

Johnny Horton

John Gale "Johnny" Horton (April 30, 1925 – November 5, 1960) was an American country music and rockabilly singer most famous for his semi-folk, so-called "saga songs" which began the "historical ballad" craze of the late 1950s and early 1960s. With them, he had several major successes, most notably in 1959 with the song "The Battle of New Orleans" (written by Jimmy Driftwood), which was awarded the 1960 Grammy Award for Best Country & Western Recording. The song was awarded the Grammy Hall of Fame Award and in 2001 ranked No. 333 of the Recording Industry Association of America's "Songs of the Century". His first hit, a number 1 song in 1959, was "When It's Springtime in Alaska (It's Forty Below)".

During 1960, Horton had two other successes with "North to Alaska" for John Wayne's movie, North to Alaska and "Sink the Bismarck". Horton is a member of the Rockabilly Hall of Fame and the Louisiana Music Hall of Fame.

Early life

Horton was born in Los Angeles, to John Loly Horton (1889–1959) and the former Ella Claudia Robinson (1892–1966), the youngest of five siblings, and reared in Rusk in Cherokee County in east Texas. His family often traveled to California to work as migrant fruit pickers. After graduation from high school in Gallatin, Texas, in 1944, Horton attended the Methodist-affiliated Lon Morris Junior College in Jacksonville, Texas, with a basketball scholarship. He later attended Seattle University and briefly Baylor University in Waco, although he did not graduate from any of these institutions.