Proud Mary

"Proud Mary" is a rock song written by John Fogerty and first recorded by his band Creedence Clearwater Revival. The song was released by Fantasy Records as a single from the band's second studio album, Bayou Country, which was released by the same record company in January 1969. The single is generally considered to have been released in early January 1969 although at least one source states that it came out just before Christmas 1968. The song became a major hit in the United States, peaking at #2 on the Billboard Hot 100 in March 1969, the first of five non-consecutive singles to peak at #2 for the group.

Background and recording

In a 1969 interview, Fogerty said that he wrote it in the two days after he was discharged from the National Guard. In the liner notes for the 2008 expanded reissue of Bayou Country, Joel Selvin explained that the songs for the album started when John Fogerty was in the National Guard, that the riffs for "Proud Mary," "Born on the Bayou," and "Keep on Chooglin'" were conceived by Fogerty at a concert in the Avalon Ballroom, and "Proud Mary" was arranged from parts of different songs, one of which was about a "washerwoman named Mary." The line "Left a good job in the city" was written following Fogerty's discharge from the National Guard, and the line "rollin' on the river" was from a movie by Will Rogers.

China

China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a sovereign state in East Asia. It is the world's most populous country, with a population of over 1.35 billion. The PRC is a one-party state governed by the Communist Party, with its seat of government in the capital city of Beijing. It exercises jurisdiction over 22 provinces; five autonomous regions; four direct-controlled municipalities (Beijing, Tianjin, Shanghai and Chongqing); two mostly self-governing special administrative regions (Hong Kong and Macau); and claims sovereignty over Taiwan.

Covering approximately 9.6 million square kilometers, China is the world's second-largest country by land area, and either the third or fourth-largest by total area, depending on the method of measurement. China's landscape is vast and diverse, ranging from forest steppes and the Gobi and Taklamakan deserts in the arid north to subtropical forests in the wetter south. The Himalaya, Karakoram, Pamir and Tian Shan mountain ranges separate China from South and Central Asia. The Yangtze and Yellow Rivers, the third- and sixth-longest in the world, run from the Tibetan Plateau to the densely populated eastern seaboard. China's coastline along the Pacific Ocean is 14,500 kilometres (9,000 mi) long, and is bounded by the Bohai, Yellow, East and South China Seas.

Tina Turner

Tina Turner (born November 26, 1939), née Anna Mae Bullock, is a singer, dancer, actress, and author, whose career has spanned more than half a century, earning her widespread recognition and numerous awards. Born and raised in the Southeastern United States, she is now a Swiss citizen.

She began her musical career in the mid-1950s as a featured singer with Ike Turner's Kings of Rhythm, first recording in 1958 under the name "Little Ann". Her introduction to the public as Tina Turner began in 1960 as a member of the Ike & Tina Turner Revue. Success followed with a string of notable hits credited to the duo, including "A Fool in Love", "River Deep – Mountain High" (1966), "Proud Mary" (1971) and "Nutbush City Limits" (1973), a song which she herself wrote. In her autobiography, I, Tina, she revealed several instances of severe domestic abuse against her by Ike Turner prior to their 1976 split and subsequent 1978 divorce. Raised as a Baptist, she melded her faith with Buddhism in 1971, crediting the religion and its spiritual chant of Nam Myoho Renge Kyo for helping her to endure during difficult times.

South Vietnam

South Vietnam, officially the Republic of Vietnam (Vietnamese: Việt Nam Cộng Hòa) was a state governing the southern half of Vietnam from 1955 to 1975. It received international recognition in 1949 as the "State of Vietnam" (1949–55), and later as the "Republic of Vietnam" (1955–75). Its capital was Saigon. The term "South Vietnam" became common usage in 1954, when the Geneva Conference provisionally partitioned Vietnam into communist and non-communist parts.

South Vietnam's origins can be traced to the French colony of Cochinchina, which consisted of the southern third of Vietnam and was a subdivision of French Indochina. After World War II, the Viet Minh, led by Ho Chi Minh, proclaimed the establishment of a Democratic Republic of Vietnam in Hanoi in September, 1945. In 1949, anti-communist Vietnamese politicians formed a rival government in Saigon led by former emperor Bảo Đại. Bảo Đại was deposed by Prime Minister Ngô Đình Diệm in 1955, who proclaimed himself president after a referendum. After Diệm was killed in a military coup led by general Dương Văn Minh in 1963, there was a series of short-lived military governments. General Nguyễn Văn Thiệu led the country from 1967 until 1975. The Vietnam War began in 1959 with an uprising by Viet Cong forces armed and controlled by Democratic Republic of Vietnam. Fighting climaxed during the Tet Offensive of 1968, when there were over 1.5 million South Vietnamese soldiers and 500,000 U.S. soldiers in South Vietnam. Despite a peace treaty concluded in January 1973, fighting continued until the North Vietnamese and Viet Cong armies overran Saigon on 30 April 1975, marking the end of the South Vietnamese state.