Two anniversaries in 2012: Coleridge-Taylor and Coleridge
Samuel Coleridge-Taylor (1875-1912)
Afro-British composer, conductor & professor
Centennial of his death is
on September 1, 1912
Samuel Taylor Coleridge, a leader of the British Romantic movement (1772-1834) Find selected bibliography at: http://www.poets.org/poet.php/prmPID/292
Printing was first conceived and developed in China
and Korea. The oldest printed book
using woodblock printing, a Korean Buddhist scripture, dates to 751 AD. The oldest surviving book printed using block
printing, the Chinese Diamond Sutra, dates to 868. The movable type printer was invented by Bi
Sheng in 1041 during Song Dynasty China. The movable type metal printing press was
invented in Korea in 1234 by Chwe Yoon Eyee during the Goryeo Dynasty -216
years ahead of Gutenberg in 1450. By the
12th and 13th century many Chinese libraries contained tens of thousands of
printed books. The name of Gutenberg
first appears, in connection with printing, in a law case in Strasbourg in
1439. He is being sued by two of his
business partners. Witnesses, asked
about Gutenberg's stock, describe a press and a supply of metal type. It sounds as though he is already capable of
printing small items of text from movable type, and it seems likely that he
must have done so in Strasbourg. But
nothing from this period survives. By
the time he is next heard of in connection with printing, he is in Mainz. He borrows 800 guilders in 1450 from Johann
Fust with his printing equipment as security.
http://cs-exhibitions.uni-klu.ac.at/index.php?id=469
Holyoke is a city in Hampden County, Massachusetts,
United
States, between the western bank of the Connecticut
River and the Mount Tom Range of mountains. As of the 2010 Census, the city had a population of
39,880. Sitting only 8 miles north of the major city of Springfield, Massachusetts, Holyoke is
considered part of the Springfield Metropolitan
Area - one of the two distinct metropolitan areas in the Commonwealth of
Massachusetts. The City of Holyoke was
named for Elizur Holyoke, a Springfielder who first explored
the area in 1664. Holyoke was one of the
first planned industrial communities in the United States. Its rectilinear grid pattern is notable in Western Massachusetts, where few roads are
straight. The city's advantageous
location on the Connecticut River - the largest river in New England
- beside Hadley Falls, the river's steepest drop (60 feet), attracted the Boston
Associates, who had successfully developed Lowell, Massachusetts' textile industry.
From the late 19th century until the mid-20th
century, Holyoke was the world's biggest paper manufacturer. The elaborate Holyoke Canal System, a system of canals built
to power paper and textile mills, distinguishes it from other Connecticut River
cities. Holyoke is nicknamed The
Paper City due to its fame as the world's greatest paper producer. The sport of volleyball
was invented in Holyoke in 1895. The Volleyball Hall of Fame is located there. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holyoke,_Massachusetts
The auto industry has a long tradition of
adapting military technology to improve passenger cars for civilians, said John Wolkonowicz, an
independent auto analyst in Boston
who specializes in automotive history. “Just
about any material used in a passenger car was probably improved with military
research,” he said. Boosting fuel
economy has become a high priority for automakers that face a doubling of
efficiency standards to 54.5 mpg by 2025 or face fines. Among U.S. car-shoppers’ priorities this year,
mileage soared to the top of the list, surpassing reliability, a good deal and
exterior styling, according to a survey by researcher J.D. Power &
Associates. The military research at
Tardec, 17 miles (27 km) north of General Motors Co. (GM)’s Detroit headquarters, offers
the possibility of breakthroughs that may also someday benefit Ford and Chevy
cars and trucks. The site has long been
an engine of progress. The U.S. Army contracted
with then-Chrysler Corp. in August 1940 to create the country’s first
government-owned, contractor-operated factory at the Detroit Arsenal Tank Plant
in Warren --later heralded as the “Arsenal of Democracy.” The first prototype tank was finished in April
1941, according to the official history of the facility. http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-05-14/detroit-54-5-mpg-mandate-gets-help-from-u-s-army-s-tanks.html
In 2002,
Hormel attempted to assert its trademark rights against Spam Arrest, a software company, Spam Buster,
an e-mail blocker, and Spam Cube, an Internet security firm, but no dice. Hormel even sued Jim Henson Productions for
naming a warthog character “Spa’am” in Muppet Treasure Island. The judge dismissed the suit, noting, “One
might think Hormel would welcome the association with a genuine source of
pork.” Powerless to stop the widely
accepted usage, the company watched helplessly as “spam” entered the Oxford
English Dictionary in 2001 not as a pork product but as unsolicited
messages. Spam has not only survived,
it’s thrived. Hormel sold 122 million
cans of Spam last year, an increase of 11 percent over 2009, continuing a
string of three consecutive years of strong growth. Company executives attribute the resurgence to
the recession (which drew consumers to the affordable lunchmeat), a tireless
parade of brand extensions, and, crucially, a willingness to be in on the joke
that Spam had become. Geo. A. Hormel
& Co. canned the first ham in 1926. Hormel’s
hams became popular among hotels and restaurants but the cans were considered
too bulky to break into the home market. Eleven years later, Jay C. Hormel, the
founder’s son, devised a solution: a
rectangular, 12-ounce can of ham and shoulder meat named, by the brother of one
of his VPs, Spam, short for SPiced hAM. The
original cans were labeled “The Meat of Many Uses” and at 10¢ each were an
immediate hit with depression-era families.
http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2012-05-17/how-spam-meat-has-survived-spam-e-mail
The
Glass-Steagall Act, also known as the Banking Act of 1933 (48 Stat. 162), was
passed by Congress in 1933 and prohibits commercial banks from engaging in the
investment business.
It was enacted as an emergency response to the failure of
nearly 5,000 banks during the Great Depression. The act was originally part of President
Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal program and became a permanent measure in
1945. It gave tighter regulation of
national banks to the Federal Reserve System; prohibited bank sales of
securities; and created the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC), which
insures bank deposits with a pool of money appropriated from banks. Beginning in the 1900s, commercial banks
established security affiliates that floated bond issues and underwrote
corporate stock issues. (In underwriting, a bank guarantees to furnish a
definite sum of money by a definite date to a business or government entity in
return for an issue of bonds or stock.) The
expansion of commercial banks into securities underwriting was substantial
until the 1929 stock market crash and the subsequent Depression. In 1930, the Bank of the United States failed,
reportedly because of activities of its security affiliates that created
artificial conditions in the market. In
1933, all of the banks throughout the country were closed for a four-day
period, and 4,000 banks closed permanently.
Search about 50 articles including
A Brief History Lesson: How We Ended
Glass Steagall published May 17, 2012
at: http://topics.nytimes.com/topics/reference/timestopics/subjects/g/glass_steagall_act_1933/index.html
It will still be months before they are available for rent, and a few days
before their precise locations will be revealed. But the 10,000 bicycles in New York’s much
anticipated bike-sharing program have a name: Citi Bike. The name did not come cheaply: Citigroup,
which runs Citibank, is paying $41 million to be the lead sponsor of the
program for five years. Mayor Bloomberg in
recalling the bicycle’s new name — called it Citibank
several times. Citi may have struck a good deal. At the end of July, the first bikes
are scheduled to reach the streets in parts of Manhattan and Brooklyn. By next summer, all 10,000 bikes, docked at
600 stations, are expected to be available for use. http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/08/nyregion/new-york-cycle-sharing-gets-a-name-citi-bike.html
Facebook Inc.
has reached a “settlement agreement in principle” with a group of users who
allege the social network used their names and likeness in paid advertisements
without their consent. The agreement was
disclosed in
a court filing Monday, May 21 in federal court in San Jose; the terms of it
were not. U.S. District Judge Lucy H. Koh has requested that the parties file a
report on the progress of the settlement discussions by Friday. The lawsuit targets Facebook’s “Sponsored
Story,” a type of ad that is created when a Facebook user “likes” a product or
service. That endorsement is then
visible to his or her friends. http://blogs.wsj.com/law/2012/05/22/facebook-reaches-settlement-in-principle-in-lawsuit-over-ads/
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