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J. Presper Eckert

J. Presper Eckert

John Presper Eckert, a computer pioneer, was born April 9, 1919 in Philadelphia and died June 3, 1995 in Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania. Together with John W. Mauchly he constructed the ENIAC, sometimes considered the first electronic digital computer, from 1941-1945 (but see John Vincent Atanasoff and Atanasoff Berry Computer for conflicting claims). Mauchly concentrated on the overall design while Eckert constructed the electronic circuits. Both Eckert and Mauchly left the Moore School at the University of Pennsylvania in March 1946, mainly because of two reasons: (1) in that year, the University of Pennsylvania adopted a new patent policy to protect the intellectual purity of the research it sponsored, which would have required Eckert and Mauchly to assign all their patents to the university had they stayed beyond March; and (2) the conflict over widely-adopted term von Neumann architecture that ignores the developers of the ENIAC, viz. Mauchly and Eckert among others who also devised the stored-program concept when they understood the limitations of ENIAC. Herman Lukoff credits Eckert with the idea of the stored program.) Eckert and Mauchly's agreement with the University of Pennsylvania was that Eckert and Mauchly retained the patent rights to the ENIAC but the University could license it to the government and non-profit organizations. The University wanted to change the agreement so that they would also have commercial rights to the patent. Eckert and Mauchly started up the Electronic Control Company which built the Binary Automatic Computer (BINAC). One of the major advances of this machine, which was used from August 1950, was that data was stored on magnetic tape rather than on punched cards. Electronic Control Company soon became the Eckert-Mauchly Computer Corporation and it received an order from the National Bureau of Standards to build the Universal Automatic Computer (UNIVAC). In 1950, Eckert-Mauchly Computer Corporation ran into financial troubles and was acquired by Remington Rand Corporation. The UNIVAC I was finished in December 1950. Eckert remained with Remington Rand and became an executive within the company. He continued with Remington Rand as it merged with the Burroughs Corporation to become Unisys in 1986. In 1989, Eckert retired from Unisys but continued to act as a consultant for the company. He died of leukemia in Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania, USA.

References


- ENIAC: The Triumphs and Tragedies of the World's First Computer, Scott McCartney, 1999, Walker and Company, ISBN 0-8027-1348-3
- From Dits to Bits... : A Personal History of the Electronic Computer, Herman Lukoff, 1979. Robotics Press, ISBN 89661-002-0 Eckert, John Presper Eckert, J. Presper Eckert, J. Presper Eckert, J. Presper ja:ジョン・エッカート

Computer

A computer is a device capable of processing data according to a program — a list of instructions. The data to be processed may represent many types of information including numbers, text, pictures, or sound. Computers can be extremely versatile. In fact, they are universal information processing machines. According to the Church-Turing thesis, a computer with a certain minimum threshold capability is in principle capable of performing the tasks of any other computer, from those of a personal digital assistant to a supercomputer. Therefore, the same computer designs have been adapted for tasks from processing company payrolls to controlling industrial robots. Modern electronic computers also have enormous speed and capacity for information processing compared to earlier designs, and they have become exponentially more powerful over the years (a phenomenon known as Moore's Law). Computers are available in many physical forms. The original computers were the size of a large room, and such enormous computing facilities still exist for specialized scientific computation - supercomputers - and for the transaction processing requirements of large companies, generally called mainframes. Smaller computers for individual use, called personal computers, and their portable equivalent, the notebook computer, are ubiquitous information-processing and communication tools and are perhaps what most non-experts think of as "a computer". However, the most common form of computer in use today is the embedded computer, small computers used to control another device. Embedded computers control machines from fighter planes to digital cameras.

History of computing

Originally, a "computer" was a person who performed numerical calculations under the direction of a mathematician, often with the aid of a variety of mechanical calculating devices from the abacus onward. An example of an early computing device was the Antikythera mechanism, an ancient Greek device for calculating the movements of planets, dating from about 87 BCE. The technology responsible for this mysterious device seems to have been lost at some point. The end of the Middle Ages saw a reinvigoration of European mathematics and engineering, and by the early 17th century a succession of mechanical calculating devices had been constructed using clockwork technology. A considerable number of technologies that would later prove vital for the digital computer were developed in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, such as the punched card and the vacuum tube ((or valve). Charles Babbage was the first to conceptualize and design a fully programmable computer as early as 1837, but due to a combination of the limits of the technology of the time, limited finance, and an inability to resist tinkering with his design (a trait that would in time doom thousands of computer-related engineering projects), the device was never actually constructed in his lifetime. During the first half of the 20th century, many scientific computing needs were met by increasingly sophisticated, special-purpose analog computers, which used a direct physical or electrical model of the problem as a basis for computation. These became increasingly rare after the development of the digital computer. A succession of steadily more powerful and flexible computing devices were constructed in the 1930s and 1940s, gradually adding the key features of modern computers, such as the use of digital electronics (invented by Claude Shannon in 1937) and more flexible programmability. Defining one point along this road as "the first computer" is exceedingly difficult. Notable achievements include the Atanasoff Berry Computer, a special-purpose machine that used valve-driven computation and binary numbers; Konrad Zuse's Z machines; the secret British Colossus computer, which had limited programmability but demonstrated that a device using thousands of valves could be made reliable and reprogrammed electronically; and the American ENIAC — the first general purpose machine, but with an inflexible architecture that meant reprogramming it essentially required it to be rewired. The team who developed ENIAC, recognizing its flaws, came up with a far more flexible and elegant design, which has become known as the stored program architecture, which is the basis from which virtually all modern computers were derived. A number of projects to develop computers based on the stored program architecture commenced in the late 1940s; the first of these to be up and running was the Small-Scale Experimental Machine, but the EDSAC was perhaps the first practical version. Valve-driven computer designs were in use throughout the 1950s, but were eventually replaced with transistor-based computers, which were smaller, faster, cheaper, and much more reliable, thus allowing them to be commercially produced, in the 1960s. By the 1970s, the adoption of integrated circuit technology had enabled computers to be produced at a low enough cost to allow individuals to own a personal computer of the type familiar today.

How computers work: the stored program architecture

While the technologies used in computers have changed dramatically since the first electronic, general-purpose, computers of the 1940s, most still use the stored program architecture (sometimes called the von Neumann architecture; as the article describes the primary inventors were probably ENIAC designers J. Presper Eckert and John William Mauchly). The design made the universal computer a practical reality. The architecture describes a computer with four main sections: the arithmetic and logic unit (ALU), the control circuitry, the memory, and the input and output devices (collectively termed I/O). These parts are interconnected by a bundle of wires (a "bus") and are usually driven by a timer or clock (although other events could drive the control circuitry). Conceptually, a computer's memory can be viewed as a list of cells. Each cell has a numbered "address" and can store a small, fixed amount of information. This information can either be an instruction, telling the computer what to do, or data, the information which the computer is to process using the instructions that have been placed in the memory. In principle, any cell can be used to store either instructions or data. The ALU is in many senses the heart of the computer. It is capable of performing two classes of basic operations: arithmetic operations, the core of which is the ability to add or subtract two numbers but also encompasses operations like "multiply this number by 2" or "divide by 2" (for reasons which will become clear later), as well as some others. The second class of ALU operations involves comparison operations, which, given two numbers, can determine if they are equal, and if not, which is bigger. The I/O systems are the means by which the computer receives information from the outside world, and reports its results back to that world. On a typical personal computer, input devices include objects like the keyboard and mouse, and output devices include computer monitors, printers and the like, but as will be discussed later a huge variety of devices can be connected to a computer and serve as I/O devices. The control system ties this all together. Its job is to read instructions and data from memory or the I/O devices, decode the instructions, providing the ALU with the correct inputs according to the instructions, "tell" the ALU what operation to perform on those inputs, and send the results back to the memory or to the I/O devices. One key component of the control system is a counter that keeps track of what the address of the current instruction is; typically, this is incremented each time an instruction is executed, unless the instruction itself indicates that the next instruction should be at some other location (allowing the computer to repeatedly execute the same instructions). Physically, since the 1980s the ALU and control unit have been located on a single integrated circuit called a Central Processing Unit or CPU. The functioning of such a computer is in principle quite straightforward. Typically, on each clock cycle, the computer fetches instructions and data from its memory. The instructions are executed, the results are stored, and the next instruction is fetched. This procedure repeats until a halt instruction is encountered. Larger computers, such as some minicomputers, mainframe computers, servers, differ from the model above in one significant aspect; rather than one CPU they often have a number of them. Supercomputers often have highly unusual architectures significantly different from the basic stored-program architecture, sometimes featuring thousands of CPUs, but such designs tend to be useful only for specialized tasks.

Digital circuits

The conceptual design above could be implemented using a variety of different technologies. As previously mentioned, a stored program computer could be designed entirely of mechanical components like Babbage's. However, digital circuits allow Boolean logic and arithmetic using binary numerals to be implemented using relays - essentially, electrically controlled switches. Shannon's famous thesis showed how relays could be arranged to form units called logic gates, implementing simple Boolean operations. Others soon figured out that vacuum tubes - electronic devices, could be used instead. Vacuum tubes were originally used as a signal amplifier for radio and other applications, but were used in digital electronics as a very fast switch; when electricity is provided to one of the pins, current can flow through between the other two. Through arrangements of logic gates, one can build digital circuits to do more complex tasks, for instance, an adder, which implements in electronics the same method - in computer terminology, an algorithm - to add two numbers together that children are taught - add one column at a time, and carry what's left over. Eventually, through combining circuits together, a complete ALU and control system can be built up. This does require a considerable number of components. CSIRAC, one of the earliest stored-program computers, is probably close to the smallest practically useful design. It had about 2,000 valves, some of which were "dual components", so this represented somewhere between 2 and 4,000 logic components. Vacuum tubes had severe limitations for the construction of large numbers of gates. They were expensive, unreliable (particularly when used in such large quantities), took up a lot of space, and used a lot of electrical power, and, while incredibly fast compared to a mechanical switch, had limits to the speed at which they could operate. Therefore, by the 1960s they were replaced by the transistor, a new device which performed the same task as the tube but was much smaller, faster operating, reliable, used much less power, and was far cheaper. transistor In the 1960s and 1970s, the transistor itself was gradually replaced by the integrated circuit, which placed multiple transistors (and other components) and the wires connecting them on a single, solid piece of silicon. By the 1970s, the entire ALU and control unit, the combination becoming known as a CPU, were being placed on a single "chip" called a microprocessor. Over the history of the integrated circuit, the number of components that can be placed on one has grown enormously. The first IC's contained a few tens of components; as of 2005, modern microprocessors such from AMD and Intel contain over 100 million transistors. Tubes, transistors, and transistors on integrated circuits can be and are used as the "storage" component of the stored-program architecture, using a circuit design known as a flip-flop, and indeed flip-flops are used for small amounts of very high-speed storage. However, few computer designs have used flip-flops for the bulk of their storage needs. Instead, earliest computers stored data in Williams tubes - essentially, projecting some dots on a TV screen and reading them again, or mercury delay lines where the data was stored as sound pulses traveling slowly (compared to the machine itself) along long tubes filled with mercury. These somewhat ungainly but effective methods were eventually replaced by magnetic memory devices, such as magnetic core memory, where electrical currents were used to introduce a permanent (but weak) magnetic field in some ferrous material, which could then be read to retrieve the data. Eventually, DRAM was introduced. A DRAM unit is a type of integrated circuit containing huge banks of an electronic component called a capacitor which can store an electrical charge for a period of time. The level of charge in a capacitor could be set to store information, and then measured to read the information when required.

I/O devices

I/O is a general term for devices that send computers information from the outside world and that return the results of computations. These results can either be viewed directly by a user, or they can be sent to another machine, whose control has been assigned the computer: In a robot, for instance, the controlling computer's major output device is the robot itself. The first generation of computers were equipped with a fairly limited range of input devices. A punch card reader, or something similar, was used to enter instructions and data into the computer's memory, and some kind of printer, usually a modified teletype, was used to record the results. Over the years, a huge variety of other devices have been added. For the personal computer, for instance, keyboards and mice are the primary ways people directly enter information into the computer; and monitors are the primary way in which information from the computer is presented back to the user, though printers, speakers, and headphones are common, too. There is a huge variety of other devices for obtaining other types of input. One example is the digital camera, which can be used to input visual information. There are two prominent classes of I/O devices. The first class is that of secondary storage devices, such as hard disks, CD-ROMs, key drives and the like, which represent comparatively slow, but high-capacity devices, where information can be stored for later retrieval; the second class is that of devices used to access computer networks. The ability to transfer data between computers has opened up a huge range of capabilities for the computer. The global Internet allows millions of computers to transfer information of all types between each other.

Instructions

The instructions interpreted by the control unit, and executed by the ALU, are not nearly as rich as a human language. A computer responds only to a limited number of instructions, but they are well defined, simple, and unambiguous. Typical sorts of instructions supported by most computers are "copy the contents of memory cell 5 and place the copy in cell 10", "add the contents of cell 7 to the contents of cell 13 and place the result in cell 20", "if the contents of cell 999 are 0, the next instruction is at cell 30". All computer instructions fall into one of four categories: 1) moving data from one location to another; 2) executing arithmetic and logical processes on data; 3) testing the condition of data; and 4) altering the sequence of operations. Instructions are represented within the computer as binary code - a base two system of counting. For example, the code for one kind of "copy" operation in the Intel line of microprocessors is 10110000. The particular instruction set that a specific computer supports is known as that computer's machine language. To slightly oversimplify, if two computers have CPUs that respond to the same set of instructions identically, software from one can run on the other without modification. This easy portability of existing software creates a great incentive to stick with existing designs, only switching for the most compelling of reasons, and has gradually narrowed the number of distinct instruction set architectures in the marketplace.

Programs

Computer programs are simply lists of instructions for the computer to execute. These can range from just a few instructions which perform a simple task, to a much more complex instruction list which may also include tables of data. Many computer programs contain millions of instructions, and many of those instructions are executed repeatedly. A typical modern PC (in the year 2005) can execute around 3 billion instructions per second. Computers do not gain their extraordinary capabilities through the ability to execute complex instructions. Rather, they do millions of simple instructions arranged by people known as programmers. In practice, people do not normally write the instructions for computers directly in machine language. Such programming is incredibly tedious and highly error-prone, making programmers very unproductive. Instead, programmers describe the desired actions in a "high level" programming language which is then translated into the machine language automatically by special computer programs (interpreters and compilers). Some programming languages map very closely to the machine language, such as Assembly Language (low level languages); at the other end, languages like Prolog are based on abstract principles far removed from the details of the machine's actual operation (high level languages). The language chosen for a particular task depends on the nature of the task, the skill set of the programmers, tool availability and, often, the requirements of the customers (for instance, projects for the US military were often required to be in the Ada programming language). Computer software is an alternative term for computer programs; it is a more inclusive phrase and includes all the ancillary material accompanying the program needed to do useful tasks. For instance, a video game includes not only the program itself, but also data representing the pictures, sounds, and other material needed to create the virtual environment of the game. A computer application is a piece of computer software provided to many computer users, often in a retail environment. The stereotypical modern example of an application is perhaps the office suite, a set of interrelated programs for performing common office tasks. Going from the extremely simple capabilities of a single machine language instruction to the myriad capabilities of application programs means that many computer programs are extremely large and complex. A typical example is the Firefox web browser, created from roughly 2 million lines of computer code in the C++ programming language; there are many projects of even bigger scope, built by large teams of programmers. The management of this enormous complexity is key to making such projects possible; programming languages, and programming practices, enable the task to be divided into smaller and smaller subtasks until they come within the capabilities of a single programmer in a reasonable period. Nevertheless, the process of developing software remains slow, unpredictable, and error-prone; the discipline of software engineering has attempted, with some partial success, to make the process quicker and more productive and improve the quality of the end product.

Libraries and operating systems

Soon after the development of the computer, it was discovered that certain tasks were required in many different programs; an early example was computing some of the standard mathematical functions. For the purposes of efficiency, standard versions of these were collected in libraries and made available to all who required them. A particularly common task set related to handling the gritty details of "talking" to the various I/O devices, so libraries for these were quickly developed. By the 1960s, with computers in wide industrial use for many purposes, it became common for them to be used for many different jobs within an organization. Soon, special software to automate the scheduling and execution of these many jobs became available. The combination of managing "hardware" and scheduling jobs became known as the "operating system"; the classic example of this type of early operating system was OS/360 by IBM. The next major development in operating systems was timesharing - the idea that multiple users could use the machine "simultaneously" by keeping all of their programs in memory, executing each user's program for a short time so as to provide the illusion that each user had their own computer. Such a development required the operating system to provide each user's programs with a "virtual machine" such that one user's program could not interfere with another's (by accident or design). The range of devices that operating systems had to manage also expanded; a notable one was hard disks; the idea of individual "files" and a hierarchical structure of "directories" (now often called folders) greatly simplified the use of these devices for permanent storage. Security access controls, allowing computer users access only to files, directories and programs they had permissions to use, were also common. Perhaps the last major addition to the operating system were tools to provide programs with a standardized graphical user interface. While there are few technical reasons why a GUI has to be tied to the rest of an operating system, it allows the operating system vendor to encourage all the software for their operating system to have a similar looking and acting interface. Outside these "core" functions, operating systems are usually shipped with an array of other tools, some of which may have little connection with these original core functions but have been found useful by enough customers for a provider to include them. For instance, Apple's Mac OS X ships with a digital video editor application. Not all operating systems provide all of the above functions; operating systems for smaller computers typically provide fewer, such as the highly minimal operating systems for early microcomputers. Embedded computers may have a specialized operating system, or sometimes none at all. Instead, the custom programs written for their task perform all necessary functions that would be performed by an operating system in less specialized roles.

Computer applications

Embedded computer The first electronic digital computers, with their large size and cost, mainly performed scientific calculations, often to support military objectives. The ENIAC was originally designed to calculate ballistics-firing tables for artillery, but it was also used to calculate neutron cross-sectional densities to help in the design of the hydrogen bomb. This calculation, performed in December, 1945 through January, 1946 and involving over a million punch cards of data, showed the design then under consideration would fail. (Many of the most powerful supercomputers available today are also used for nuclear weapons simulations.) The CSIR Mk I, the first Australian stored-program computer, evaluated rainfall patterns for the catchment area of the Snowy Mountains Scheme, a large hydroelectric generation project. Others were used in cryptanalysis, for example the first programmable (though not general-purpose) digital electronic computer, Colossus, built in 1943 during World War II. Despite this early focus of scientific and military engineering applications, computers were quickly used in other areas. From the beginning, stored program computers were applied to business problems. The LEO, a stored program-computer built by J. Lyons and Co. in the United Kingdom, was operational and being used for inventory management and other purposes 3 years before IBM built their first commercial stored-program computer. Continual reductions in the cost and size of computers saw them adopted by ever-smaller organizations. Moreover, with the invention of the microprocessor in the 1970s, it became possible to produce inexpensive computers. In the 1980s, personal computers became popular for many tasks, including book-keeping, writing and printing documents, calculating forecasts and other repetitive mathematical tasks involving spreadsheets. spreadsheet (1989) marked the acceptance of CGI in the visual effects industry.]] As computers have become cheaper, they have been used extensively in the creative arts as well. Sound, still pictures, and video are now routinely created (through synthesizers, computer graphics and computer animation), and near-universally edited by computer. They have also been used for entertainment, with the video game becoming a huge industry. Computers have been used to control mechanical devices since they became small and cheap enough to do so; indeed, a major spur for integrated circuit technology was building a computer small enough to guide the Apollo missions and the Minuteman missile, two of the first major applications for embedded computers. Today, it is almost rarer to find a powered mechanical device not controlled by a computer than to find one that is at least partly so. Perhaps the most famous computer-controlled mechanical devices are robots, machines with more-or-less human appearance and some subset of their capabilities. Industrial robots have become commonplace in mass production, but general-purpose human-like robots have not lived up to the promise of their fictional counterparts and remain either toys or research projects. Robotics, indeed, is the physical expressions of the field of artificial intelligence, a discipline whose exact boundaries are fuzzy but to some degree involves attempting to give computers capabilities that they do not currently possess but humans do. Over the years, methods have been developed to allow computers to do things previously regarded as the exclusive domain of humans - for instance, "read" handwriting, play chess, or perform symbolic integration. However, progress on creating a computer that exhibits "general" intelligence comparable to a human has been extremely slow.

Networking and the Internet

In the 1970s, computer engineers at research institutions throughout the US began to link their computers together using telecommunications technology. This effort was funded by ARPA, and the computer network that it produced was called the ARPANET. The technologies that made the Arpanet possible spread and evolved. In time, the network spread beyond academic and military institutions and became known as the Internet. The emergence of networking involved a redefinition of the nature and boundaries of the computer. In the phrase of John Gage and Bill Joy (of Sun Microsystems), "the network is the computer". Computer operating systems and applications were modified to include the ability to define and access the resources of other computers on the network, such as peripheral devices, stored information, and the like, as extensions of the resources of an individual computer. Initially these facilities were available primarily to people working in high-tech environments, but in the 1990s the spread of applications like email and the World Wide Web, combined with the development of cheap, fast networking technologies like Ethernet and ADSL saw computer networking become ubiquitous almost everywhere. In fact, the number of computers that are networked is growing phenomenally. A very large proportion of personal computers regularly connect to the Internet to communicate and receive information.

Computing professions and disciplines

In the developed world, virtually every profession makes use of computers. However, certain professional and academic disciplines have evolved that specialize in techniques to construct, program, and use computers. Terminology for different professional disciplines is still somewhat fluid and new fields emerge from time to time: however, some of the major groupings are as follows:
- Computer engineering is that branch of electronic engineering devoted to the physical construction of computers and their attendant components.
- Computer science is an academic study of the processes related to computation, such as developing efficient algorithms to perform specific tasks. It has tackled questions as to whether problems can be solved at all using a computer, how efficiently they can be solved, and how to construct efficient programs to compute solutions. A huge array of specialties has developed within computer science to investigate different classes of problem.
- Software engineering concentrates on methodologies and practices to allow the development of reliable software systems while minimizing, and reliably estimating, costs and timelines.
- Information systems concentrates on the use and deployment of computer systems in a wider organizational (usually business) context.
- Many disciplines have developed at the intersection of computers with other professions; one of many examples is experts in geographical information systems who apply computer technology to problems of managing geographical information.

See also


- Computer hardware
- Computability theory
- Computer datasheet
- Computer expo
- Computer science
- Computer types: desktop, laptop, desknote, roll-away computer, embedded computer, cart computer
- Computing
- Computers in fiction
- Digital
- History of computing
- List of computing topics
- Personal computer
- Word processing
- Computer Programming
- Quantum Computer

References


- [http://www.andrew.mallett.net/tech Learn to configure your computer at Andy's Tech Page] category: computer science ja:コンピュータ ko:컴퓨터 ms:Komputer nb:Datamaskin simple:Computer th:คอมพิวเตอร์

1919

1919 (MCMXIX) was a common year starting on Wednesday (see link for calendar).

Events

January


- January 1 - Iolaire sinking disaster
- January 1 - Edsel Ford succeeds his father as head of the Ford Motor Company
- January 5 - Spartacist uprising - Socialist demonstrations in Berlin turn into attempted communist revolution
- January 9 - Spartacus revolutionary council folds – Friedrich Ebert orders Freikorps into action
- January 10-January 12 - Freikorps attack Spartacus supporters around Berlin
- January 11 - Romania annexes Transylvania.
- January 13 - Worker’s councils in Berlin end the general strike - Spartacus week is over
- January 15 - Murder of Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht in the aftermath of Spartacus uprising
- January 15 - The Boston Molasses Disaster: Wave of molasses sweeps through Boston, killing 21 and injuring 150
- January 15 - Ignacy Jan Paderewski becomes Premier of Poland
- January 16 - The 18th Amendment, authorizing Prohibition, goes into effect in the United States
- January 18 - World War I: A peace conference opens in Versailles, France.
- January 18 - Bentley Motors is founded
- January 21 - the First Dáil Éireann meets in the Mansion House in Dublin. It is from this meeting that the Irish state dates its existence.
- January 25 - The League of Nations is founded

February-April


- February 1 - The first Miss America is crowned (New York City).
- February 3 - Soviet troops occupy Ukraine
- February 11 - Friedrich Ebert (SPD), is elected President of Germany.
- February 14 - Polish-Soviet War begins
- February 25 - Oregon places a 1 cent per US gallon (26 ¢/L) tax on gasoline, becoming the first U.S. state to levy a gasoline tax.
- February 26 - An act of the United States Congress establishes most of the Grand Canyon as a United States National Park (see Grand Canyon National Park).
- March 1 - March 1st Movement against Japanese colonial rule in Korea.
- March 2 - The first Communist International meets in Moscow
- March 15 - The American Legion forms in Paris
- March 21 - The Chinese High School was established in Singapore by Mr. Tan Kah Kee
- March 23 - In Milan, Italy, Benito Mussolini founds his Fascist political movement.
- March 31 - General strike begins in the Ruhr
- April 6-April 7 - Communist People’s Republic of Munich founded
- April 13 - At the Amritsar Massacre, British and Gurkha troops massacre 379 Indians.
- April 14 - Emperor of Austria moves to exile in Switzerland
- April 25 - Bauhaus movement founded
- April 25 - ANZAC day is celebrated for the first time in Australia.
- April 25 - Pancho Villa takes Parral in Mexico - hangs mayor and his two sons

May-June


- May 1 - Large left-wing demonstration in France leads to a violent confrontation with the police
- May 1 - Weimar Republic troops and Freikorps take over Munich and crush the Soviet Republic of Bavaria
- May 1 - The May Day Riots break out in Cleveland, Ohio – two people killed, forty injured, and one hundred and sixteen arrested
- May 3 - People's Republic of Munich is crushed
- May 4 - May Fourth Movement opposes foreign colonizers in China
- May 15 - Winnipeg launches general strike for better wages and working conditions.
- May 16 - US Navy Naval Curtiss aircraft NC-4 commanded by Albert Cushing Read departs Trepassey, Newfoundland, for Lisbon via the Azores on the first transatlantic flight
- May 17 - Committee of One Thousand forms to oppose Winnipeg General Strike
- May 23 - The University of California opens it second campus in Los Angeles. Initially called Southern Branch of the University of California (SBUC), it is eventually renamed the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA).
- May 25 - Volcano Kelut erupts in Java – 16.000 dead
- May 29 - Einstein's theory of general relativity confirmed by Arthur Eddington's observation of a total eclipse of the Sun.
- June 4 - Women's rights: The United States Congress approves the 19th Amendment to the United States Constitution, which would guarantee suffrage to women, and sends it to the U.S. states for ratification.
- June 14 - John Alcock and Arthur Brown depart St. John's, Newfoundland on the first nonstop transatlantic flight (they landed at Clifden, County Galway, Ireland the next day). [http://www.aviation-history.com/airmen/alcock.htm]
- June 15 - Pancho Villa attacks Ciudad Juarez. When the bullets begin to fly to the US side of the border, 2 units of the US 7th Cavalry regiment cross the border and repulse Villa's forces
- June 21 - Royal Canadian Mounted Police fire a volley into a crowd of unemployed war veterans, killing two, during Winnipeg General Strike.
- June 21 - Admiral Ludvig von Reuter scuttles the German fleet in Scapa Flow, Orkney. The nine sailors killed were the last casualties of the First World War.
- June 28 - The Treaty of Versailles is signed, ending World War I with Germany.

July-November


- July 6 - The British dirigible R-34 lands in New York, completing the first crossing of the Atlantic by an airship.
- July 31 - Strike of policemen in London and Liverpool for recognition of the National Union of Police and Prison Officers. Over 2,000 strikers are dismissed.
- August 11 - In Germany, the Weimar Constitution is passed into law.
- August 19 - Afghanistan gains independence from the United Kingdom.
- 16 August-26 August - First Silesian Uprising, the Poles in Upper Silesia rise against the Germans
- August 31 - American Communist Party is established
- September 10 - Treaty of Saint-Germain is signed, ending World War I with Austria.
- September 10-September 15: The Florida Keys Hurricane kills 600 in the Gulf of Mexico, Florida and Texas.
- September 23 - Belenenses is founded.
- September 27 - Last British troops leave Archangel, Russia and leave fighting to the Russians
- September 28 - Omaha Riot - lynch mob besieges the police station and courthouse in Omaha, Nebraska and lynch alleged black rapist Will Brown
- October 1 - Elaine Race Riot breaks out in Arkansas
- October 2 - US President Woodrow Wilson suffers a massive stroke, leaving him partially paralyzed.
- October 9 - Black Sox scandal: The Cincinnati Reds "win" the World Series.
- October 9 - Boston police strike
- October 13 - Convention relating to the Regulation of Aerial Navigation signed.
- October 28 - Prohibition begins: The United States Congress passes the Volstead Act over President Woodrow Wilson's veto.
- November - At end of month health officials declare the global Spanish Flu Pandemic over
- November 10 - The first national convention of the American Legion is held in Minneapolis, Minnesota (convention ended on November 12).
- November 11 - The Centralia Massacre in Centralia, Washington results the deaths of four members of the American Legion and the lynching of a local leader of the IWW.
- November 16 - Admiral Horthy conquers Budapest from Bela Kuns Soviet Republic
- November 27 - The Treaty of Neuilly is signed between Allies and Bulgaria.
- November 28 - The American-born Lady Astor is elected to the British House of Commons, becoming the first female MP to take a seat on December 1.

December


- December 5 - Turkish ministry of war releases Greeks, Armenians and Jews from military service
- December 12 - Gabriele D'Annunzio with his entourage marches into Fiume and convinces the Italian troops to join him
- December 30 - Lincoln's Inn, in London admits its first female bar student.
- The Paris Peace Conference

Unknown dates


- The Åland Islands vote for a return to Swedish rule in a referendum.
- Les Champs Magnetiques, the first automatic book, is written by Andre Breton and Philippe Soupault.
- XWA (now CFCF), in Montreal, Quebec, is the first public radio station in North America to go on the air.
- Various strikes in USA: Strike of US railroad workers; Longshoreman’s strike; The Great Steel Strike; General strike in Seattle, Washington.
- Female suffrage in Germany and Luxembourg
- Henri Desire Landru captured
- Marcel Tolkowsky's Diamond Design is published.
- The International Astronomical Union is founded.
- World League Against Alcoholism established by Anti-Saloon League.

Births


- Langdon Brown Gilkey - American Christian Protestant Ecumenical theologian (d. 2004)

January-April


- January 1 - J. D. Salinger, American novelist
- January 13 - Robert Stack, American actor (d. 2003)
- January 14 - Andy Rooney, American journalist
- January 23 - Hans Hass, Austrian zoologist
- January 23 - Ernie Kovacs, American comedian (d. 1962)
- January 25 - Edwin Newman, American journalist and writer
- January 26 - Valentino Mazzola, Italian footballer (d. 1949)
- January 27 - Ross Bagdasarian, American musician and actor (d. 1972)
- January 31 - Jackie Robinson, baseball player (d. 1972)
- February 5 - Red Buttons, American actor
- February 5 - Andreas Papandreou, Prime Minister of Greece (d. 1996)
- February 11 - Eva Gabor, Hungarian actress (d. 1995)
- February 11 - Eddie Robinson, American football coach
- February 12 - Forrest Tucker, American actor (d. 1986)
- February 13 - Tennessee Ernie Ford, American musician (d. 1991)
- February 26 - Rie Mastenbroek, Dutch swimmer (d. 2003)
- March 2 - Jennifer Jones, American actress
- March 15 - Lawrence Tierney, American actor (d. 2002)
- March 17 - Nat King Cole, American singer (d. 1965)
- March 24 - Lawrence Ferlinghetti, American author and publisher
- March 24 - Robert Heilbroner, American economist (d. 2005)
- March 29 - Eileen Heckart, American actress (d. 2001)
- March 30 - McGeorge Bundy, U.S. National Security Advisor (d. 1996)
- April 1 - Joseph Murray, American surgeon, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine
- April 8 - Ian Douglas Smith, Prime Minister of Rhodesia
- April 19 - Merce Cunningham, American dancer and choreographer
- April 22 - Donald J. Cram, American chemist, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 2001)

May-August


- May 1 - Dan O'Herlihy, Irish film actor (d. 2005)
- May 3 - John Cullen Murphy, American comic strip artist (d. 2004)
- May 3 - Pete Seeger, American singer and musician
- May 7 - Eva Peron, wife of Argentine President Juan Peron (d. 1952)
- May 8 - Lex Barker, American actor (d. 1973)
- May 16 - Liberace, American pianist (d. 1987)
- May 18 - Dame Margot Fonteyn, English ballet dancer (d. 1991)
- May 20 - George Gobel, American comedian (d. 1991)
- May 23 - Betty Garrett, American actress and dancer
- June 4 - Robert Merrill, American baritone (d. 2004)
- June 5 - Richard Scarry, American children's author (d. 1994)
- June 19 - Pauline Kael, American film critic (d. 2001)
- June 21 - Gérard Pelletier, French journalist, politician, and diplomat (d. 1997)
- June 26 - Richard Neustadt, American political historian (d. 2003)
- July 6 - Ernst Haefliger, Swiss tenor
- July 7 - Jon Pertwee, British actor (d. 1996)
- July 15 - Iris Murdoch, Irish novelist (d. 1999)
- July 20 - Edmund Hillary, New Zealand mountaineer
- July 31 - Maurice Boitel, French painter
- August 11 - Ginette Neveu, French violinist (d. 1949)
- August 28 - Godfrey Hounsfield, English electrical engineer and inventor, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (d. 2004)

September-December


- September 11 - Ota Sik, Czech economist and politician (d. 2004)
- September 21 - Fazlur Rahman, Pakistani Islamic scholar (d. 1988)
- September 27 - James H. Wilkinson, English mathematician (d. 1986)
- October 3 - James M. Buchanan, American economist, Nobel Prize laureate
- October 5 - Donald Pleasence, English actor (d. 1995)
- October 11 - Art Blakey, American jazz drummer (d. 1990)
- October 12 - Doris Miller, U.S. Navy cook (d. 1943)
- October 16 - Kathleen Winsor, American writer (d. 2003)
- October 18 - Pierre Elliott Trudeau, Prime Minister of Canada (d. 2000)
- October 22 - Doris Lessing, British writer
- October 26 - James E. Myers, American songwriter (d. 2001)
- October 26 - Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, Shah of Iran (d. 1980)
- November 3 - Jesús Blasco, Spanish comic book author (d. 1995)
- November 5 - Myron Floren, American accordionist (d. 2005)
- November 10 - Mikhail Kalashnikov, Russian firearms inventor
- November 14 - Lisa Otto, German soprano
- November 15 - Roy Burden, Canadian World War II pilot (d. 2005)
- November 18 - Andrée Borrel, French World War II heroine (d. 1944)
- November 28 - Keith Miller, Australian sportsman (d. 2004)
- December 6 - Paul de Man, Belgian-born literary critic (d. 1983)
- December 8 - Moisei Vainberg, Polish composer (d. 1996)
- December 9 - William Lipscomb, American chemist, Nobel Prize laureate
- December 31 - Tommy Byrne, baseball player

Deaths


- January 6 - Theodore Roosevelt, 26th President of the United States, recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize (b. 1858)
- January 6 - Max Heindel, Christian occultist, astrologer, and mystic (b. 1865)
- January 15 - Karl Liebknecht, German politician (executed) (b. 1871)
- January 15 - Rosa Luxemburg, German politician (executed)
- January 18 - Prince John of the United Kingdom (b. 1905)
- January 27 - Endre Ady, Hungarian poet (b. 1877)
- February 17 - Wilfrid Laurier, seventh Prime Minister of Canada (b. 1841)
- April 4 - Sir William Crookes, English chemist and physicist (b. 1832)
- April 15 - Jane Delano, American nurse and founder or the American Red Cross Nursing Service (b. 1862)
- May 6 - L. Frank Baum, American writer (b. 1856)
- May 14 - Henry John Heinz, American businessman (b. 1844)
- June 29 - José Gregorio Hernández, Venezuelan medician and saint (b. 1864)
- June 30 - John Strutt, 3rd Baron Rayleigh, English physicist, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1842)
- July 15 - Hermann Emil Fischer, German chemist, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1852)
- July 26 - Sir Edward Poynter, British painter (b. 1936)
- August 9 - Ruggiero Leoncavallo, Italian composer (b. 1857)
- August 11 - Andrew Carnegie, Scottish-born businessman and philanthropist (b. 1835)
- October 7 - Alfred Deakin, second Prime Minister of Australia (b. 1856)
- October 13 - Karl Adolph Gjellerup, Danish writer, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1857)
- October 18 - Viscount William Astor, American financier and statesman (b. 1848)
- November 15 - Alfred Werner, German chemist, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1866)
- December 3 - Pierre-Auguste Renoir, French painter (b. 1841)

Nobel Prizes


- Physics - Johannes Stark
- Chemistry - not awarded
- Physiology or Medicine - Jules Bordet
- Literature - Carl Friedrich Georg Spitteler Category:1919 ko:1919년 ms:1919 ja:1919年 simple:1919 th:พ.ศ. 2462

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

Philadelphia (sometimes referred to as "Philly" or "the City of Brotherly Love") is the fifth most populous city in the United States and the largest city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, both in area and population. Since 1854, the city has been coterminous with Philadelphia County. Since 1952, the city and the county have shared a common government, yet the county still exists as a separate entity within Pennsylvania. As of June 30, 2005, the population estimate for the city was 1,470,151. The Philadelphia metropolitan area is the fourth largest in the United States by the current official definition, with some 6.2 million people, though some other definitions place it sixth behind the San Francisco Bay Area and Washington-Baltimore. Philadelphia is the central city for the Delaware Valley metropolitan area. Philadelphia is one of the oldest and most historically significant cities in the United States. It has played a critical role in American history and the birth of American independence, democracy, and freedom. During part of the 18th century, the city was the second capital and most populous city of the United States. At that time, it eclipsed Boston and New York City in political and social importance, with Benjamin Franklin playing an extraordinary role in Philadelphia's rise. The city limits have been coterminous with Philadelphia County since The Act of Consolidation in 1854. Prior to that, the city of Philadelphia consisted only of those areas between South Street, Vine Street, the Delaware River, and the Schuylkill River. The city's expansion incorporated the neighborhoods of West Philadelphia, South Philadelphia, North Philadelphia, and Northeast Philadelphia, as well as smaller communities such as Roxborough, Manayunk, Mt. Airy and Chestnut Hill. Philadelphia is also one of the largest college/university towns in the United States with over 120,000 students studying within the city limits alone and nearly 300,000 total college and university students in the metropolitan area.

History

Before Europeans arrived, the Delaware (Lenape) Indian town of Shackamaxon was located where Philadelphia now stands, specifically, the Germantown neighborhood. Although the area was within the bounds described in the 1632 Charter of Maryland, the Calvert family's actual reach never came this far, and Swedish colonists became the first Europeans to settle the area (see New Sweden), calling it Wiccacoa. A congregation was formed in 1646 on Tinicum Island by Swedish missionary Johannes Campanius. In 1700, the group built the Gloria Dei Church, also known as Old Swedes. Philadelphia is a planned city founded and developed by William Penn, a Quaker. The city's name means "city of brotherly love" in Greek (Φιλαδέλφια). Penn hoped that the city, as the capital of his new colony founded on principles of freedom and religious tolerance, would be a model of this philosophy. During early immigration by Quakers and others, when immigrants purchased land in the city, they also received farm land outside of the city. This was intended to allow the city's population to leave the city easily. Penn also required lots of alleyways and open spaces in hopes of controlling fires and disease, which were then common problems in London and other major cities. London Philadelphia was a major center of the independence movement during the American Revolutionary War. The Declaration of Independence and US Constitution were drafted in Philadelphia and signed in the city's Independence Hall. The United States Marine Corps also began here on Nov. 10, 1775 when Samuel Nicholas began recruiting men at Tun Tavern. For a time in the 18th century, Philadelphia was the largest city in the Americas north of Mexico City, and was the fourth largest city under Crown rule (after London, Bristol, and Dublin). In 1790, as the result of a compromise between a number of Southern congressmen and Alexander Hamilton, then serving as Secretary of the Treasury, the seat of the United States Government was temporarily moved from Federal Hall in New York to Congress Hall in Philadelphia before taking its current residence in Washington, DC. In exchange for locating a permanent capital on the banks of the Potomac River, the congressmen agreed to support Hamilton's financial proposals. Philadelphia served as the temporary capital for a decade, until 1800, when the Capitol building in the new Federal city of Washington, DC was opened. Washington, DC, separating Pennsylvania from New Jersey.]] An early railroad center, Philadelphia was the original home of the Baldwin Locomotive Works, the world's largest builder of steam locomotives, which eventually relocated to nearby Eddystone, Pennsylvania). The Pennsylvania Railroad, once America's largest railroad by revenue and traffic volume and at one time the largest public corporation in the world, was headquartered on Broad Street, as was its merger successor, the Penn Central, and in turn its freight railroad successor, Conrail. In 1876 Philadelphia hosted the World's Fair, known as the Centennial Exposition. Memorial Hall and the expansive mall in front of it are remnants of this fair. In 1926, the city held the Sesquicentennial Exposition, but Philadelphia was not the central focus of the United States Bicentennial observances that took place nationwide in the United States in 1976, a distinction that went to New York City. New York City

Geography and climate

Geography

New York City satellite. The Delaware River is visible in this shot.]] Philadelphia is located at . According to the United States Census Bureau, the city has a total area of 369.4 km² (142.6 mi²). 349.9 km² (135.1 mi²) of it is land and 19.6 km² (7.6 mi²) of it is water. The total area is 5.29% water. Bodies of water include the Delaware River, Schuylkill River, Cobbs Creek, Wissahickon Creek, and Pennypack Creek. The lowest point in the city is 10 feet above sea level near Fort Mifflin in Southwest Philadelphia at the convergence of the Delaware and Schuylkill Rivers. The highest point in the city is Chestnut Hill, with an elevation of 432 feet above sea level located near Evergreen Place, just north and west of Evergreen Avenue.

Climate

The climate in Philadelphia is temperate, with four seasons. Summers tend to be hot and often muggy, with the humidity tending to be high during July and August. Fall and spring are mild and generally the most pleasant seasons. The rainfall pattern is generally spread throughout the year, with between six and nine wet days per month. Winters are cold, but seldom does the temperature drop below zero. Snow is unpredictable, some winters experiencing little and others characterised by continual snowstorms. The city center and inner New Jersey suburbs generally have light snow, with heavier falls being experienced to the north and west of the metropole. The lowest temperature ever recorded was -7° F on January 22 1984, and the highest temperature ever recorded was 104° F on July 3 1966.

Cityscape

1966 Penn's surveyor, Thomas Holme, laid out the city in a strict grid, with all streets running either north-south or east-west. The north-south streets are numbered sequentially from Front (instead of First), along the Delaware River, to 13th, followed by the main north-south thoroughfare, Broad Street (instead of 14th). The numbered streets then resume, continuing in the original plan to 28th at the Schuylkill River. The east-west streets, many of them named for trees, e.g., Chestnut, Walnut, Locust, and Spruce (laid out in increasing hardness from softwood Pine in the South to hardwood Chestnut in the North) parallel the main thoroughfare named High Street by Penn, but called Market Street since at least the early 18th century. Six blocks south of Market is South Street, noted in recent decades for its raucous night life and the subject of the 1963 hit single by The Orlons of the same name, was the original southern boundary of the city. Vine Street, located three blocks north of Market, served as the original northern boundry. The Orlons Holme also planned five public parks, one at the intersection of High and Broad Streets in the very center of the city, now occupied by City Hall, and four others surrounding it now called Washington Square, Rittenhouse Square, Logan Square and Franklin Square. The eastern edge of Rittenhouse Square is on 18th St., four blocks west of City Hall, while the western edge of Washington Square is between 7th and 8th, about six and a half blocks east of City Hall. Both are the same distance south of City Hall. Concurently both Logan Square and Franklin Square are located the same distances east and west of City Hall as Washington and Rittenhouse and two to three blocks north of Market Street, reflecting the southern squares. The post World War II era would see further changes in the cityscape. Under the leadership of Edmund N. Bacon, the Philadelphia City Planning Commission organized a master plan for the city, creating a variety of special planning, redevelopment, development districts and areas to coordinate their efforts. Projects that were headed by the new master plan, ere major redevelopment of Center City, including the Penn Center Area (a large area of previous rail road land located north of Market and West of Broad), Market East and Penns Landing, new development and expansion in University City (focused mainly on the University of Pennsylvania), as well as the opening up of development on the fringes of the city, the Far Northeast and South Philadelphia Sports Complex. Bacons efforts would also see changes in the transportation of the city, with the inclusion of the Center City Rail Connector, Vine Street Expressway, Delaware Expressway, and improvements to the Schykull Expressway. Many of Bacons ideas, though not entirely as he had envisioned, can be seen today, with the basis of his master plan still being the governance of development in the city today.

Neighborhoods

Philadelphia has many neighborhoods, each of which has its own identity. Many of these neighborhoods coincide with the borough and townships that made up Philadelphia County before their absorption by the city. These include Logan Square, Andorra, Roxborough, Northern Liberties, Old City, Bustleton, Brewerytown, Oxford Circle, Feltonville, Somerton, Juniata Park, Manayunk, Center City, Queen Village, Kensington, Frankford, University City, Strawberry Mansion, Chestnut Hill, Fishtown, Olney, Logan, Port Richmond, Germantown, Mount Airy, Mayfair, Tacony, Wynnefield, Chinatown, Fox Chase, South Philly, Graduate Hospital/Southwest Center City, Society Hill, the Museum District and many others.

Suburbs

see Delaware County, Pennsylvania and Montgomery County, Pennsylvania Philadelphia also has a significant immediete suburban area which depend on its economy and public transportation, such as Yeadon, Upper Darby, Lansdowne, Ardmore, King Of Prussia, Abington, Jenkintown, Cheltenham, Willow Grove, Bala Cynwyd, Glenside, and Norristown.

Economy

Philadelphia's economy is heavily based upon manufacturing, refining, food, and financial services. The city also has its own stock exchange. The city is home to many major Fortune 500 companies, including cable television and internet provider Comcast, insurance companies CIGNA and Lincoln Financial Group, energy company Sunoco, food services company Aramark, Crown Holdings Incorporated, Rohm and Haas Company, the pharmaceutical company GlaxoSmithKline, Boeing helicopters division, and automotive parts retailer Pep Boys. The Federal government plays a large role in Philadelphia as well. The city served as the first capital city of the United States, before the construction of Washington, D.C.. Today, the east-coast operations of the United States Mint are based near the historic district, and the Federal Reserve Bank's Philadelphia division is based there as well. Due in part to the historical presence of the Pennsylvania Railroad, and the large ridership at 30th Street Station, Amtrak also maintains a significant presence in the city. These jobs include customer service representatives and ticket processing and other behind the scenes personnel, in addition to the normal functions of the railroad. Because of the presence of the federal government, the city has a large contingent of law firms. The city is also a national center of law due to the prestigious University of Pennsylvania Law School and the Temple University Beasley School of Law.

People and culture of Philadelphia

Amtrak, will soon be eclipsed in height by the Comcast Center, currently under construction.]]

Demographics

As of the census of 2000, there are 1,517,550 people, 590,071 households, and 352,272 families residing in the city. The population density is 4,337.3/km² (11,233.6/mi²). There are 661,958 housing units at an average density of 1,891.9/km² (4,900.1/mi²). The racial makeup of the city is 45.02% White, 43.22% African American, 0.27% Native American, 4.46% Asian, 0.05% Pacific Islander, 4.77% from other races, and 2.21% from two or more races. 8.50% of the population are Hispanic or Latino of any race. The ethnic makeup of the city is 32.5% Black, 13.6% Irish, 9.2% Italian, 8.1% Puerto Rican, 6.4% German, and 4.3% Polish. Of the 590,071 households, 27.6% have children under the age of 18 living with them, 32.1% are married couples living together, 22.3% have a female householder with no husband present, and 40.3% are non-families. 33.8% of all households are made up of individuals and 11.9% have someone living alone who is 65 years of age or older. The average household size is 2.48 and the average family size is 3.22. In the city the population is spread out with 25.3% under the age of 18, 11.1% from 18 to 24, 29.3% from 25 to 44, 20.3% from 45 to 64, and 14.1% who are 65 years of age or older. The median age is 34 years. For every 100 females there are 86.8 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there are 81.8 males. The median income for a household in the city is $30,746, and the median income for a family is $37,036. Males have a median income of $34,199 versus $28,477 for females. The per capita income for the city is $16,509. 22.9% of the population and 18.4% of families are below the poverty line. Out of the total population, 31.3% of those under the age of 18 and 16.9% of those 65 and older are living below the poverty line.

Culture

Philadelphia has long been a Black and White city, with hardly any Asians or Hispanics to speak of. Recently however, starting in the Nineties, tens of thousands of Asian and Hispanic peoples entered the city, raising the Asian and Hispanic percentage, but decreasing the White and Black percentages, as whites continued to flee and Blacks not growing as fast. The immigration of Asian and Hispanic peoples, as well as many others, have slowed the city's decreasing population, and the city is predicted to have a growth rate of zero, or an increase in population by 2010. The city has the second largest Irish, Italian, and Jamaican populations in America. Increases in Latino immigration have created a diverse Hispanic community centered around El Centro de Oro in North Philadelphia. There is also a large Puerto Rican and Dominican population in the city. The Asian community has long been established in the city's bustling Chinatown district, but recent Vietnamese immigrants have also forged neighborhoods and bazaars alongside the venerable Italian market. Numerous Korean immigrants have come to the melting-pot of Olney. Many other cultures can also be found throughout the city, including Subsaharan Africans and West Indians in the Cedar Park neighborhood, Poles in the Port Richmond neighborhood, and many Russian, Greek and Ukrainian immigrants in the Near Northeast. Recent immigration from Asia to Philadelphia are of mainly Indian, Chinese, Vietnamese, Cambodian, and Thai backgrounds. Also the skyrocketing Latino population continues to grow as Mexican, Colombian, Guatemalan, and Puerto Rican, although Puerto Rican immigration to the United States is diminishing, move to the city. Philadelphia also has a large population of Ethiopians,Somalians, Jamaicans, Haitians, Sudanese, and Nigerians making up a large part of the city's African population.

Annual fairs and events


- The Mummers Parade, held every New Year's Day on Broad Street
- The Greek Picnic, a reunion and celebration of African-American college fraternities
- Philadelphia St. Patrick's Day Parade
- The Wing Bowl, a chicken wing eating competition
- Philadelphia Flower Show
- First Friday
- Philadelphia Fringe Festival
- Philadelphia Folk Festival
- Philadelphia Film Festival
- Philadelphia Auto Show
- Unity Day
- [http://www.phillypride.org OutFest/PrideFest]

Food

Philadelphia has great diversity, depth, and quality among its restaurants. Notable restaurants include Iron Chef Masaharu Morimoto's self-named Morimoto, Rouge, Old Original Bookbinder's, Vetri, La Croix, City Tavern, and Le Bec-Fin. Little known facts:
- In the 2005 Zagat Restaurant Guide, Philadelphia had more restaurants score 29 than any other city in the United States.
- Philadelphia routinely finishes first in food service industry surveys for the best tipping cities. Distinctive Philadelphian dishes include:
- Cheesesteaks, a kind of humble culinary masterpiece, made of paper-thin chipped ribeye steak fried on a griddle, cheese (usually either Cheez Whiz™, provolone, or American) and fried onions on an Italian hoagie roll. There tends to be some fairly fierce competition over the coveted "Best Cheesesteak" title, and many will often share their opinions vigorously on this topic. (Easiest place to get one is at 9th and Passyunk, where both Pat's Steaks and Geno's Steaks are located. Both are 24-hour operations, with trademark south-Philly Italian market awnings and tables on the sidewalks. Both being triangular shaped buildings, they stare at each other like opposing battleships facing an impasse while splitting clientele fairly evenly.) Cheesesteaks (be it of lower or higher quality than the aforementioned restaurants) can also be obtained at thousands of neighborhood delis and restaurants through the Philadelphia, South Jersey, and Delaware area.
- Hoagies -- a sandwich made with cold cuts and veggies on an Italian roll, similar to the submarine sandwich. Sandwich is so-named because of its popularity among Italian-immigrants employed at the former shipyards on Hog Island, with the sandwich originally being called a "hoggie".
- Scrapple -- corn meal mush cooked up with every part (scrap) of the pig, from the Pennsylvani