Montreal

Montreal (ⁱ/ˌmʌntriːˈɒl/;French: Montréal,pronounced: [mɔ̃ʁeal]) is the largest city in the Canadian province of Quebec. It is the second largest city in Canada and the 26th largest in the Americas. Originally called Ville-Marie, or "City of Mary," it is named after Mount Royal, the triple-peaked hill in the heart of the city. The city is on the Island of Montreal, which took its name from the same source as the city, and a few much smaller peripheral islands, the largest of which is Île Bizard. It has a distinct four-season continental climate with warm to hot summers and cold snowy winters.

In 2011 the city had a population of 1,649,519. Montreal's metropolitan area had a population of 3,824,221 and a population of 1,886,481 in the urban agglomeration, with all of the municipalities on the Island of Montreal included. The 2014 estimate of the population of the metropolitan area of Montreal is 4.1 million.

French is the city's official language and is the language spoken at home by 56.9% of the population of the city, followed by English at 18.6% and 19.8% other languages (in the 2006 census). In the larger Montreal Census Metropolitan Area, 67.9% of the population speaks French at home, compared to 16.5% who speak English. Montreal is one of the most bilingual cities in Quebec and Canada with 56% of the population able to speak both English and French. Montreal is the second largest primarily French-speaking city in the world, after Paris.

Jimmy Kimmel

James Christian "Jimmy" Kimmel (born November 13, 1967) is an American television host, producer, writer, comedian, voice actor, musician and radio personality. He is the host and executive producer of Jimmy Kimmel Live!, a late-night talk show that premiered on ABC in 2003. Kimmel also hosted the 64th Primetime Emmy Awards on September 23, 2012.

Prior to hosting Jimmy Kimmel Live!, he was best known as the co-host of Comedy Central's The Man Show and Win Ben Stein's Money. Kimmel has also produced such shows as Crank Yankers, Sports Show with Norm Macdonald, and The Andy Milonakis Show.

Early life

Kimmel was born in Brooklyn, New York, and grew up in the neighborhood of Mill Basin the eldest of three children of Joan (née Iacono), a homemaker, and James John Kimmel, an IBM executive.

He is, and was raised, Catholic, and as a child served as an altar boy. Kimmel's mother is of Italian ancestry; two of his paternal great-great-grandparents were German emigrants, and his family's surname was "Kümmel" several generations back. The family moved to Las Vegas, Nevada, when he was nine years old. He graduated from Ed W. Clark High School.

Jimmy Kimmel Live!

Jimmy Kimmel Live! is an American late-night talk show, created and hosted by Jimmy Kimmel, and broadcast on ABC. The nightly hour-long show made its debut on January 26, 2003, as the first program to air immediately following ABC's coverage of Super Bowl XXXVII. Jimmy Kimmel Live! is produced by Jackhole Productions in association with ABC Studios. Having aired for more than twice as long as either the The Dick Cavett Show (1969–1975) or Politically Incorrect (1997–2002), it is the longest running late-night talk show in ABC's history at 13 years and counting as of 15 February 2016.

For its first ten years, the show aired at either the Midnight or 12:05 AM timeslot before moving to 11:35 pm ET beginning on January 8, 2013 to more directly compete with The Tonight Show with Jay Leno and Late Show with David Letterman while bumping the ABC nightly news program Nightline to 12:35 am ET. Following the subsequent retirements of Leno in February 2014 and Letterman in May 2015, Kimmel is now the longest serving host in network late-night television.

Mount Royal

Mount Royal (French: mont Royal, IPA: [mɔ̃ ʁwajal]) is a large hill or small mountain in the city of Montreal, immediately west of downtown Montreal, Quebec, Canada, the city to which it gave its name.

The hill is part of the Monteregian Hills situated between the Laurentians and the Appalachians. It gave its Latin name, Mons Regius, to the Monteregian chain.

The hill consists of three peaks: Colline de la Croix (or Mont Royal proper) at 233 m (764 ft), Colline d'Outremont (or Mount Murray, in the borough of Outremont) at 211 m (692 ft), and Westmount Summit at 201 m (659 ft) elevation above mean sea level.

Geology

Some tourist guidebooks, such as the Michelin Guide to Montréal, state that Mount Royal is an extinct volcano. The mountain is not a traditional volcano as such. However, it is the deep extension of a vastly eroded ancient volcanic complex, which was probably active about 125 million years ago. The mountain was created when the North American Plate moved westward over the New England hotspot, along with the other mountains of the Monteregian Hills, by a process known as intrusion: The magma intruded into the sedimentary rocks underneath the area, producing at least eight igneous stocks. The main rock type is a gabbro composed of pyroxene, olivine and variable amounts of plagioclase. During and after the main stage of intrusion, the gabbros and surrounding rocks were intruded by a series of volcanic dikes and sills. Subsequently, the surrounding softer sedimentary rock was eroded, leaving behind the resistant igneous rock that forms the mountain.

Ground zero

In terms of nuclear explosions and other large bombs, the term ground zero (sometimes also known as surface zero as distinguished from zero point) describes the point on the Earth's surface closest to a detonation. In the case of an explosion above the ground, ground zero refers to the point on the ground directly below the nuclear detonation and is sometimes called the hypocenter. Generally, it is also used in relation to earthquakes, epidemics, and other disasters to mark the point of the most severe damage or destruction.

Pearl Harbor

On December 7, 1941, the Empire of Japan carried out a surprise attack on Pearl Harbor, the headquarters of the United States Pacific Fleet in Honolulu, Hawaii. At the time of the attack, the U.S. and Japan were not officially at war and were still negotiating for a possible peace treaty. The event was described as ground zero due to the catastrophic damage inflicted upon the fleet and facilities within the naval base and other areas, as well as the nature surrounding the attack. The attack started at 7:55 am with 353 Japanese planes and lasted for 110 minutes. The most famous example of ground zero was Turret II of the USS Arizona, when an armor-piercing bomb penetrated through that turret towards the forward ammunition compartment which blew the ship apart and sunk it within seconds, killing 1,177 out of the 1,512 people on board. Hickam Field was also described as ground zero due to the devastation the Japanese caused to the airfield, killing 189 people and destroying many aircraft on the ground. In total, 2,467 people were killed in the attack, including 2,403 victims and 64 attackers, and eight battleships and 217 aircraft (including 19 from the attackers) were destroyed, making it the largest peacetime loss of life and property on American soil.