France

France, officially French Republic, French France or République Française,  country of northwestern Europe. Historically and culturally among the most important nations in the Western world, France has also played a highly significant role in international affairs, with former colonies in every corner of the globe. Bounded by the Atlantic Ocean and the Mediterranean Sea, the Alps and the Pyrenees, France has long provided a geographic, economic, and linguistic bridge joining northern and southern Europe. It is Europe’s most important agricultural producer and one of the world’s leading industrial powers.

France is among the globe’s oldest nations, the product of an alliance of duchies and principalities under a single ruler in the Middle Ages. Today, as in that era, central authority is invested in the state, even though a measure of autonomy has been granted to the country’s 22 régions in recent decades. The French people look to the state as the primary guardian of liberty, and the state in turn provides a generous program of amenities for its citizens, from free education to health care and pension plans. Even so, this centralist tendency is often at odds with another long-standing theme of the French nation: the insistence on the supremacy of the individual. On this matter historian Jules Michelet remarked, “England is an empire, Germany is a nation, a race, France is a person.” Statesman Charles de Gaulle, too, famously complained, “Only peril can bring the French together. One can’t impose unity out of the blue on a country that has 265 kinds of cheese.”

Jerusalem

Jerusalem, Hebrew Yerushalayim, Arabic Bayt al-Muqaddas or Al-Quds,  ancient city of the Middle East that since 1967 has been wholly under the rule of the State of Israel.

Long an object of veneration and conflict, the holy city of Jerusalem has been governed, both as a provincial town and a national capital, by an extended series of dynasties and states. In the early 20th century the city, along with all of historic Palestine, became the focus of the competing national aspirations of Zionists and Palestinian Arabs. This struggle often erupted in violence. The United Nations (UN) attempted to declare the city a corpus separatum (Latin: “separate entity”)—and, thus, avert further conflict—but the first Arab-Israeli war, in 1948, left Jerusalem divided into Israeli (west Jerusalem) and Jordanian (east Jerusalem) sectors. The following year, Israel declared the city its capital. During the Six-Day War of 1967, the Jewish state occupied the Jordanian sector and shortly thereafter expanded the city boundaries—thereby annexing some areas of the West Bank previously held by the Jordanians—and extended its jurisdiction over the unified city. Although Israel’s actions were repeatedly condemned by the UN and other bodies, Israel reaffirmed Jerusalem’s standing as its capital by promulgating a special law in 1980. The status of the city remained a central issue in the dispute between Israel and the Palestinian Arabs. Area 49 square miles (126 square km). Pop. (2004 est.) 693,200.

Character of the city

Jerusalem plays a central role in the spiritual and emotional perspective of the three major monotheistic religions. For Jews throughout the world it is the focus of age-old yearnings, a living proof of ancient grandeur and independence and a centre of national renaissance; for Christians it is the scene of their Saviour’s agony and triumph; for Muslims it is the goal of the Prophet Muhammad’s mystic night journey and the site of one of Islam’s most sacred shrines. For all three faiths it is a holy city, a centre of pilgrimage, and an object of devotion.


Despite a rapidly changing demography, Jerusalem has retained a diverse and cosmopolitan character, particularly in the walled Old City with its Armenian, Christian, Jewish, and Muslim quarters. Arabs in traditional and modern attire; Christians, Western and Oriental, in their infinite variety of secular garb and monastic vestments; Jews in casual and Orthodox dress; and hosts of tourists combine in colourful, kaleidoscopic patterns. Synagogues, churches, mosques, and dwellings in various styles make up the city’s unique architectural mosaic. Sunlight falling on the white and pink stone used for all construction gives even quite mundane buildings an aura of distinction. The scent of Oriental cooking and spices, the peal of church bells, the calls of muezzins from minarets, and the chanting of Jewish prayers at the Western (Wailing) Wall all add flavour to the life of the city. The absence of vehicular traffic within most of the Old City helps preserve its special character. In recognition of its central place in the traditions and histories of numerous peoples, the Old City was designated a UNESCO World Heritage site in 1981. Yet outside the walls Jerusalem is in every sense a modern city, with its network of streets and transportation, high-rise buildings, supermarkets, businesses, schools, restaurants, and coffeehouses. The persistent mingling of Hebrew, Arabic, English, and other languages in the streets brings to mind the multicultural and political complexities of life in this revered city.

Forbidden City

Forbidden City, Chinese (Pinyin) Zijincheng, (Wade-Giles romanization) Tzu-chin-ch’eng ,  imperial palace complex at the heart of Beijing (Peking), China. Commissioned in 1406 by the Yongle emperor of the Ming dynasty, it was first officially occupied by the court in 1420. It was so named because access to the area was barred to most of the subjects of the realm. Government functionaries and even the imperial family were permitted only limited access; the emperor alone could enter any section at will. The 178-acre (72-hectare) compound was designated a UNESCO World Heritage site in 1987 in recognition of its importance as the centre of Chinese power for five centuries, as well as for its unparalleled architecture and its current role as the Palace Museum of dynastic art and history.

The architecture of the walled complex adheres rigidly to the traditional Chinese geomantic practice of feng shui. The orientation of the Forbidden City, and for that matter all of Beijing, follows a north-south line. Within the compound, all the most important buildings, especially those along the main axis, face south to honour the Sun. The buildings and the ceremonial spaces between them are arranged to convey an impression of great imperial power while reinforcing the insignificance of the individual. This architectural conceit is borne out to the smallest of details—the relative importance of a building can be judged not only from its height or width but also by the style of its roof and the number of figurines perched on the roof’s ridges.
Among the more notable landmarks are the Wu (Meridian) Gate, the Hall of Supreme Harmony (Taihedian), and the Imperial Garden (Yuhuayuan). The Wu Gate is the imposing formal southern entrance to the Forbidden City. Its auxiliary wings, which flank the entryway, are outstretched like the forepaws of a guardian lion or sphinx. The gate is also one of the tallest buildings of the complex, standing 125 feet (38 metres) high at its roof ridge. One of its primary functions was to serve as a backdrop for imperial appearances and proclamations. Beyond the Wu Gate lies a large courtyard, 460 feet (140 metres) deep and 690 feet (210 metres) wide, through which the Golden River (Golden Water River) runs in a bow-shaped arc. The river is crossed by five parallel white marble bridges, which lead to the Gate of Supreme Harmony (Taihemen).

North of the Gate of Supreme Harmony lies the Outer Court, heart of the Forbidden City, where the three main administration halls stand atop a three-tiered marble terrace overlooking an immense plaza. The area encompasses some seven acres (three hectares)—enough space to admit tens of thousands of subjects to pay homage to the emperor. Towering above the space stands the Hall of Supreme Harmony, in which the throne of the emperor stands. This hall, measuring 210 by 122 feet (64 by 37 metres), is the largest single building in the compound, as well as one of the tallest (being approximately the same height as the Wu Gate). It was the centre of the imperial court. To the north, on the same triple terrace, stand the Hall of Central (or Complete) Harmony (Zhonghedian) and the Hall of Preserving Harmony (Baohedian), also loci of government functions.

Farther north lies the Inner Court, which contains the three halls that composed the imperial living quarters. Adjacent to these palaces, at the northernmost limit of the Forbidden City, is the 3-acre (1.2-hectare) Imperial Garden, the organic design of which seems to depart from the rigid symmetry of the rest of the compound. The garden was designed as a place of relaxation for the emperor, with a fanciful arrangement of trees, fish ponds, flower beds, and sculpture. In its centre stands the Hall of Imperial Peace (Qin’andian), a Daoist temple where the emperor would retreat for contemplation.

The Forbidden City ceased to be the seat of Qing (Manchu) imperial government with the Chinese Revolution of 1911–12. Although some of the ancient buildings (which had been repaired and rebuilt since the 15th century) were lost to the ravages of the revolution and during the war with Japan (1937–45), the site was maintained as a whole. Puyi, the last Qing emperor, was permitted to live there after his abdication, but he secretly left the palace (and Beijing) in 1924. In the late 20th century several of the palace buildings were restored.

The film The Last Emperor (1987), which portrays the life of Puyi, was filmed in part within the Forbidden City.

The people of Israel

The people

Religious and ethnic groups

Jews constitute about four-fifths of the total population of Israel. Almost all the rest are Palestinian Arabs, of whom most (roughly three-fourths) are Muslim; the remaining Arabs are Christians and Druze, who each make up only a small fraction of the total population. Arabs are the overwhelming majority in the Gaza Strip and the occupied territory of the West Bank.

Jews

The Jewish population is diverse. Jews from eastern and western Europe, the Middle East and North Africa, Central Asia, North America, and Latin America have been immigrating to this area since the late 19th century. Differing in ethnic origin and culture, they brought with them languages and customs from a variety of countries. The Jewish community today includes survivors of the Holocaust, offspring of those survivors, and émigrés escaping anti-Semitism. The revival of Hebrew as a common language and a strong Israeli national consciousness have facilitated the assimilation of newcomers to Israel but not completely eradicated native ethnicities. For example, religious Jews immigrating to Israel generally continue to pray in synagogues established by their respective communities.

Religious Jewry in Israel constitutes a significant and articulate section of the population. As such, it is often at odds with a strong secular sector that seeks to prevent religious bodies and authorities from dominating national life. The two main religious-ethnic groupings are those Jews from central and eastern Europe and their descendants who follow the Ashkenazic traditions and those Jews from the Mediterranean region and North Africa who follow the Sephardic. There are two chief rabbis in Israel, one Ashkenazi and one Sephardi. Tension is frequent between the two groups, largely because of their cultural differences and the social and political dominance of the Ashkenazim in Israeli society. Until recently, it was generally true that the Sephardim tended to be poorer, less educated, and less represented in higher political office than the Ashkenazim.

Samaritans

Samaritans trace their roots to those Jews not dispersed when the Assyrians conquered Israel in the 8th century bce. About half of the few hundred surviving members of the Samaritan community live near Tel Aviv in the town of Ḥolon. The rest live on Mount Gerizim (Arabic: Jabal al-Ṭūr), near Nāblus in the West Bank. They preserve their separate religious and communal organizations and speak Arabic but pray in an archaic form of Hebrew. They participate in national life as part of the Jewish section of the population.

Arabs

Arabs constitute the largest single minority in Israel, and though most are Muslims of the Sunnite branch, Arab Christians form a significant minority, particularly in the Galilee region in northern Israel. Arabs, whether Christian, Muslim, or Druze, speak a dialect of Levantine Arabic and learn Modern Standard Arabic in school. An increasing number also avail themselves of higher education within Israel’s public schools and colleges, and many younger Arabs are now bilingual in Hebrew. Although most Israeli Arabs consider themselves Palestinians, all are full Israeli citizens with political and civil rights that are, with the exception of some limitations on military service, equal to those of Israeli Jews. Many Arabs participate actively in the Israeli political process, and several Arab political parties have members in the Israeli Knesset. Despite this inclusiveness, however, many Israeli Arabs still see themselves as living in an occupied state, and suspicions and antagonism persist.

Muslims

The overwhelming majority of Israel’s Muslims are Arabs. Like all other religious communities, Muslims enjoy considerable autonomy in dealing with matters of personal status. They have separate religious courts for issues such as marriage, divorce, and inheritance. The state oversees their religious institutions. Israel’s Bedouin, roughly one-tenth of the Arab population, are exclusively Muslim.

Christians

Most Christians in Israel are Arabs, and Christian communities in Israel, regardless of ethnicity, have a wide degree of autonomy in religious and communal affairs. The Greek Catholic and Greek Orthodox churches are the largest denominations, and most of them are found in Jerusalem. Apart from the Greek Orthodox church, which has a patriarchate in Jerusalem, each church is dependent to a degree on a supreme hierarch abroad. These communities include Roman Catholics and Uniates (Melchites, Maronites, Chaldean Catholics, Syrian Catholics, and Armenian Catholics). Jerusalem also has a Russian Orthodox community. The Evangelical, Episcopal, and Lutheran churches are small and primarily Arabic-speaking.

Druze

The Druze, who live in villages in Galilee and around Mount Carmel, have traditionally formed a closed, tight-knit community and practice a secretive religion founded in 11th-century Fāṭimid Egypt. Though Israeli Druze maintain contact with coreligionists in Lebanon and Syria, members of each group adhere to the authority of the country of their residence. Israel has recognized the Druze as a separate Arab community since 1957, and Israeli Druze serve in the armed forces. Druze have traditionally been agriculturists, but younger members have found employment throughout the economy.

Israel

Israel, officially State of Israel, Hebrew Medinat Yisraʾel, Arabic Isrāʾīl,  country in the Middle East, located at the eastern end of the Mediterranean Sea. It is bounded to the north by Lebanon, to the northeast by Syria, to the east and southeast by Jordan, to the southwest by Egypt, and to the west by the Mediterranean Sea. Jerusalem is the seat of government and the proclaimed capital, although the latter status has not received wide international recognition.
Israel is a small country with a relatively diverse topography, consisting of a lengthy coastal plain, highlands in the north and central regions, and the Negev desert in the south. Running the length of the country from north to south along its eastern border is the northern terminus of the Great Rift Valley.

The State of Israel is the only Jewish nation in the modern period, and the region that now falls within its borders has a lengthy and rich history that dates from prebiblical times. The area was a part of the Roman Empire and, later, the Byzantine Empire before falling under the control of the fledgling Islamic caliphate in the 7th century ce. Although the object of dispute during the Crusades, the region, then generally known as Palestine, remained under the sway of successive Islamic dynasties until the collapse of the Ottoman Empire at the end of World War I, when it was placed under British mandate from the League of Nations.

Even before the mandate, the desire for a Jewish homeland prompted a small number of Jews to immigrate to Palestine, a migration that grew dramatically during the second quarter of the 20th century with the increased persecution of Jews worldwide and subsequent Holocaust perpetrated by Nazi Germany. This vast influx of Jewish immigrants into the region, however, caused tension with the native Palestinian Arabs, and violence flared between the two groups leading up to the United Nations plan to partition Palestine into Jewish and Palestinian sectors and Israel’s ensuing declaration of statehood on May 14, 1948.

Israel fought a series of wars against neighbouring Arab states during the next 35 years, which have resulted in ongoing disputes over territory and the status of refugees. Despite continuing tensions, however, Israel concluded peace treaties with several neighbouring Arab states during the final quarter of the 20th century.

Saint Patrick’s Day

Saint Patrick’s Day, feast day (March 17) of St. Patrick, patron saint of Ireland. Born in Roman Britain in the late 4th century, he was kidnapped at the age of 16 and taken to Ireland as a slave. He escaped but returned about 432 to convert the Irish to Christianity. By the time of his death on March 17, 461, he had established monasteries, churches, and schools. Many legends grew up around him—for example, that he drove the snakes out of Ireland and used the shamrock to explain the Trinity. Ireland came to celebrate his day with religious services and feasts.

It was emigrants, particularly to the United States, who transformed St. Patrick’s Day into a largely secular holiday of revelry and celebration of things Irish. Cities with large numbers of Irish immigrants, who often wielded political power, staged the most extensive celebrations, which included elaborate parades. Boston held its first St. Patrick’s Day parade in 1737, followed by New York City in 1762. Since 1962 Chicago has coloured its river green to mark the holiday. (Although blue was the colour traditionally associated with St. Patrick, green is now commonly connected with the day.) Irish and non-Irish alike commonly participate in the “wearing of the green”—sporting an item of green clothing or a shamrock, the Irish national plant, in the lapel. Corned beef and cabbage are associated with the holiday, and even beer is sometimes dyed green to celebrate the day. Although some of these practices eventually were adopted by the Irish themselves, they did so largely for the benefit of tourists.

WikiLeaks

WikiLeaks, media organization and Web site that functioned as a clearinghouse for classified or otherwise privileged information. WikiLeaks was founded in 2006 by Australian computer programmer and activist Julian Assange.
Assange, a noted computer hacker, pleaded guilty to a host of cybercrime charges in 1991, but because of his youth he received only minimal punishment. He was inspired to create WikiLeaks by Daniel Ellsberg’s 1971 release of the Pentagon Papers. Observing that two years had elapsed between Ellsberg’s obtaining the Pentagon Papers and their publication in The New York Times, Assange sought to streamline the whistle-blowing process. In 2006 he created the basic design for the site on a computer in Australia, but wikileaks.org soon moved to servers in Sweden (later adding redundant systems in other countries) because of that country’s robust press-protection laws. Although WikiLeaks relied on volunteer labour for much of its daily operation, it deviated from the traditional “wiki” formula in that its content was not editable by end users.

WikiLeaks received its first batch of sensitive documents not from a whistle-blower but from The Onion Router (Tor), an encryption network designed to allow users to transmit data anonymously. A WikiLeaks volunteer mined the data emerging from Tor, eventually collecting more than a million documents and providing the site with its first scoop—a message from a Somali rebel leader encouraging the use of hired gunmen to assassinate government officials. It was posted to the site in December 2006. The document’s authenticity was never verified, but the story of WikiLeaks and questions regarding the ethics of its methods soon overshadowed it.

In November 2007 the site posted the standard operating procedures for the U.S. military’s detention facility at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba. The following year the wikileaks.org site was briefly shut down as a result of legal action in the United States, but mirrors of the site, registered in Belgium (wikileaks.be), Germany (wikileaks.de), and the Christmas Islands (wikileaks.cx), were unaffected.
It was not the site’s only legal challenge. After WikiLeaks published internal material from the Scientology movement in 2008, that group threatened suit on the grounds of copyright infringement. WikiLeaks responded by releasing thousands of Scientology documents.

In 2010 WikiLeaks posted a flurry of documents—almost half a million in total—relating to the U.S. wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. While much of the information was already in the public domain, the administration of Pres. Barack Obama criticized the leaks as a threat to U.S. national security. The site also made public an edited video, filmed in 2007 from the gun camera of a U.S. attack helicopter, that depicted the killing of a dozen people, including two Reuters employees. In November 2010 WikiLeaks released selections from a trove of some 250,000 classified diplomatic cables between the U.S. State Department and its embassies and consulates around the world. Those documents dated mostly from 2007 to 2010 but included some dating back as far as 1966. Among the wide-ranging topics covered in those secret documents were behind-the-scenes U.S. efforts to politically and economically isolate Iran, primarily in response to fears of Iran’s development of nuclear weapons.

In the wake of those leaks, lawmakers in the United States pushed for the prosecution of Assange and any journalists or government insiders who had collaborated with WikiLeaks. The first formal charges were filed in May 2010, when Bradley Manning, a low-level U.S. Army intelligence analyst, was arrested in connection with the release of the 2007 helicopter video. Investigators later accused him of the diplomatic cable leak as well. After a lengthy pretrial detention, Manning pleaded guilty to 10 of the charges against him, and he faced a potential 20-year prison sentence.

In December 2010 wikileaks.org faced a flurry of setbacks. It was forced off-line once again when the site’s domain name provider terminated its account in the wake of a series of distributed denial-of-service attacks; as with previous service interruptions, WikiLeaks remained available on mirror sites or by directly linking to its IP address. Days later Assange was arrested by British police on an outstanding Swedish warrant for alleged sex crimes. That same week the organization’s fund-raising efforts took an enormous hit when PayPal, Visa, and Mastercard suspended online payment processing for donations to WikiLeaks, a move that Assange characterized as a “financial blockade.”

WikiLeaks began publishing another round of secret files from the Guantánamo Bay facility in April 2011. The documents contained detailed information about the majority of prisoners detained at Guantánamo from 2002 to 2008, including photographs, health records, and assessments of the potential threat posed by each prisoner. The files also indicated that dozens of detainees had passed through radicalized British mosques prior to their departure for Afghanistan and, ultimately, their capture by U.S. forces. In August 2011 the German newspapers Der Freitag and Der Spiegel uncovered a massive cache of unedited WikiLeaks documents in a password-protected file that was circulating on the Internet. The password was easily discovered, and the raw documents—the entirety of the U.S. diplomatic cable collection—could be viewed online. WikiLeaks responded to this revelation by posting more than 130,000 unedited cables onto its Web site. This was a radical departure from the organization’s previous methods, which involved redacting the names of sources or informants in the interest of preserving the safety of those individuals.

Stating that the “blockade” enacted by financial companies in December 2010 had crippled WikiLeaks operations, in October 2011 Assange announced that the organization would stop publishing and focus its efforts on fund-raising.

Michael Ray

Hollywood

Hollywood, district within the city of Los Angeles, California, U.S., whose name is synonymous with the American film industry. Lying northwest of downtown Los Angeles, it is bounded by Hyperion Avenue and Riverside Drive (east), Beverly Boulevard (south), the foothills of the Santa Monica Mountains (north), and Beverly Hills (west). Since the early 1900s, when moviemaking pioneers found in southern California an ideal blend of mild climate, much sunshine, varied terrain, and a large labour market, the image of Hollywood as the fabricator of tinseled cinematic dreams has been etched worldwide. The first house in Hollywood was an adobe building (1853) on a site near Los Angeles, then a small city in the new state of California. Hollywood was laid out as a real-estate subdivision in 1887 by Harvey Wilcox, a prohibitionist from Kansas who envisioned a community based on his sober religious principles. Real-estate magnate H.J. Whitley, known as the “Father of Hollywood,” subsequently transformed Hollywood into a wealthy and popular residential area. At the turn of the 20th century, Whitley was responsible for bringing telephone, electric, and gas lines into the new suburb. In 1910, because of an inadequate water supply, Hollywood residents voted to consolidate with Los Angeles.

In 1908 one of the first storytelling movies, The Count of Monte Cristo, was completed in Hollywood after its filming had begun in Chicago. In 1911 a site on Sunset Boulevard was turned into Hollywood’s first studio, and soon about 20 companies were producing films in the area. In 1913 Cecil B. DeMille, Jesse Lasky, Arthur Freed, and Samuel Goldwyn formed Jesse Lasky Feature Play Company (later Paramount Pictures). DeMille produced The Squaw Man in a barn one block from present-day Hollywood Boulevard and Vine Street, and more box-office successes soon followed. Hollywood had become the centre of the American film industry by 1915 as more independent filmmakers relocated there from the East Coast. For more than three decades, from early silent films through the advent of “talkies,” figures such as D.W. Griffith, Goldwyn, Adolph Zukor, William Fox, Louis B. Mayer, Darryl F. Zanuck, and Harry Cohn served as overlords of the great film studios—Twentieth Century-Fox, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, Paramount Pictures, Columbia Pictures, Warner Brothers, and others. Among the writers who were fascinated by Hollywood in its “golden age” were F. Scott Fitzgerald, Aldous Huxley, Evelyn Waugh, and Nathanael West.

After World War II, film studios began to move outside Hollywood, and the practice of filming “on location” emptied many of the famous lots and sound stages or turned them over to television show producers. With the growth of the television industry, Hollywood began to change, and by the early 1960s it had become the home of much of American network television entertainment.

Among the features of Hollywood, aside from its working studios, are the Hollywood Bowl (1919; a natural amphitheatre used since 1922 for summertime concerts under the stars), the Greek Theatre in Griffith Park (also a concert venue), Mann’s (formerly Grauman’s) Chinese Theatre (with footprints and handprints of many stars in its concrete forecourt), and the Hollywood Wax Museum (with more than 350 wax figures of celebrities). The Hollywood Walk of Fame pays tribute to many celebrities of the entertainment industry. The most visible symbol of the district is the Hollywood sign that overlooks the area. First built in 1923 (a new sign was erected in 1978), the sign originally said “Hollywoodland” (to advertise new homes being developed in the area), but the sign fell into disrepair, and the “land” section was removed in the 1940s when the sign was refurbished.

Many stars, past and present, live in neighbouring communities such as Beverly Hills and Bel Air, and the Hollywood Forever Cemetery contains the crypts of such performers as Rudolph Valentino, Douglas Fairbanks, and Tyrone Power. Hollywood Boulevard, long a chic thoroughfare, became rather tawdry with the demise of old studio Hollywood, but it underwent regeneration beginning in the late 20th century; the Egyptian Theatre (built in 1922), for example, was fully restored in the 1990s and became the home of the American Cinematheque, a nonprofit organization dedicated to the presentation of the motion picture.

Beverly Hills

Beverly Hills, city, western Los Angeles county, California, U.S., completely surrounded by the city of Los Angeles. The original inhabitants of the region, the Tongva (or Gabrielino) Indians, first made contact with the Spanish in 1769. In 1838 the land was deeded to Maria Rita Valdez Villa, the widow of a Spanish soldier, who there built the Rancho Rodeo de las Aguas. The land was used mostly for cattle and sheep ranching until 1906, when it was organized as a residential area called Beverly, for Beverly Farms, Massachusetts; in 1912 the Beverly Hills Hotel was erected. In 1919 film stars Mary Pickford and Douglas Fairbanks built their estate, Pickfair, there, which began the fashion among Hollywood celebrities and executives to build lavish homes in the city; these are among the city’s most popular tourist attractions. Among the many celebrities who have resided in the city are Fred Astaire, Marlon Brando, George Burns and Gracie Allen, Charlie Chaplin, Cher, Marlene Dietrich, Harrison Ford, Charlton Heston, Rock Hudson, Boris Karloff, Gene Kelly, Groucho Marx, Marilyn Monroe, Paul Newman, Jack Nicholson, Elvis Presley, Frank Sinatra, Bruce Springsteen, and Rudolph Valentino.

Beverly Hills is transected east-west by three main boulevards: north of Sunset Boulevard are foothills containing the Beverly Hills Hotel (with its famous Polo Lounge and pink bungalows) and luxurious mansions among the winding drives; south of Sunset Boulevard are the flatlands, containing other expensive homes and, between Santa Monica Boulevard and Wilshire Boulevard, many chic shops, boutiques, and department stores. The most exclusive of these are on the old Rodeo Drive and the newer Two Rodeo Drive, a multilevel shopping street in mock Mediterranean style. The city also has some light manufacturing south of Wilshire Boulevard, though tourism is its economic mainstay. The area of Beverly Hills—5.7 square miles (14.8 square km)—contains several parks and is profusely planted with trees, shrubbery, and lawns. The city is bordered to the southwest by the studios of Twentieth Century-Fox, whose lots, however, have now largely been converted into Century City, a shopping mall, office-building centre, and theatre complex. The city contains a branch of the Museum of Television and Radio. Inc. 1914. Pop. (2000) 33,784; (2010) 34,109.

[movie]Nicole Kidman

Nicole Kidman,  (born June 20, 1967, Honolulu, Hawaii, U.S.), American-born Australian actress known for her considerable range and versatility as well as for her glamorous looks and cool demeanour.
Born in Honolulu to Australian parents, Kidman was raised in Sydney and launched her acting career as a teenager. She appeared in made-for-television films and miniseries during her adolescence and debuted as a lead actress in the thriller Dead Calm (1989).

The offer of a role in Days of Thunder (1990) drew her to the United States, and while working on that film she began a relationship with costar Tom Cruise; the two were married in 1990 (divorced 2001). Over the next decade Kidman appeared in a dozen films. Her roles included a gangster-loving socialite in Billy Bathgate (1991), an aspiring television journalist in the black comedy To Die For (1995), and an American living in Europe during the 1800s in the 1996 screen adaptation of Henry James’s The Portrait of a Lady.

In 1998 Kidman made her stage debut in London, playing five different roles in Sir David Hare’s The Blue Room, a well-received series of vignettes based on Arthur Schnitzler’s La Ronde. In early 1999 she transferred with the play to New York City for her Broadway debut. That year also saw the release of Eyes Wide Shut, which was an adaptation of another Schnitzler work and was the final film by director Stanley Kubrick. Although billed as a steamy romance featuring real-life couple Kidman and Cruise, it bowed to mixed reviews and disappointing box-office numbers.

Kidman quickly rebounded, however, with a series of diverse roles that highlighted the range of her talent. In the Baz Luhrmann musical fantasy Moulin Rouge! (2001), she starred as a dying courtesan, and the performance earned Kidman her first Academy Award nomination. In 2001 she also appeared in The Others, an atmospheric horror film, and the dark comedy Birthday Girl, in which she played a Russian mail-order bride. Two years later she earned an Academy Award for best actress for her portrayal of Virginia Woolf in The Hours (2002), an adaptation of the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel by Michael Cunningham. A string of critical successes followed, including Dogville (2003), The Human Stain (2003), Cold Mountain (2003), and Margot at the Wedding (2007).

In 2007 Kidman starred as the coolly menacing Mrs. Coulter in The Golden Compass, an adaptation of Philip Pullman’s controversial fantasy novel. She reteamed with Luhrmann for the romantic drama Australia (2008), playing a prim Englishwoman who arrives in Australia just after World War II to defend land she has inherited. In 2009 she appeared in Nine; the musical featured an all-star cast that included Daniel Day-Lewis, Penélope Cruz, and Marion Cotillard.

The following year Kidman portrayed a grieving mother in Rabbit Hole, a film adaptation of David Lindsay-Abaire’s acclaimed play; for her performance, she received a third Academy Award nomination. She subsequently took a role as a catty rival of Jennifer Aniston’s character in the romantic comedy Just Go with It (2011). In the thriller Trespass (2011), Kidman and Nicolas Cage played a married couple whose home is invaded by thieves. In 2012 she starred as the writer Martha Gellhorn, who was briefly married to Ernest Hemingway, in the HBO movie Hemingway & Gellhorn, and she vamped as the fiancée of a death-row inmate in 1960s Florida in the pulp drama The Paperboy. In the psychological horror film Stoker (2013), Kidman appeared as the emotionally distant mother of a troubled teenage girl.

Baseball

Baseball, game played with a bat, a ball, and gloves between two teams of nine players each on a field with four white bases laid out in a diamond (i.e., a square oriented so that its diagonal line is vertical). Teams alternate positions as batters (offense) and fielders (defense), exchanging places when three members of the batting team are “put out.” As batters, players try to hit the ball out of the reach of the fielding team and make a complete circuit around the bases for a “run.” The team that scores the most runs in nine innings (times at bat) wins the game.

Play of the game

Baseball is a contest between two teams of 9 or (if a designated hitter is allowed to take the pitcher’s turn at bat) 10 players each. The field of play is divided into the infield and the outfield. Within the infield is a square area called the diamond, which has four white bases, one on each corner. The bases are 90 feet (27.4 metres) apart.
The teams alternate between being fielders (playing defense) and batters (playing offense). The nine fielders take up assigned positions in the playing field; one fielder, called the pitcher, stands on a mound in the centre of the diamond and faces the base designated as home plate, where a batter, holding a formed stick (a bat), waits for him to throw a hard leather-covered ball. The goal of the batter is to hit the ball out of the reach of the fielders and eventually (most often with the help of hits by subsequent batters) to run from base to base counterclockwise completely around the diamond, thus scoring a run. If a batter fails to advance in an appropriate manner (discussed later) to at least the first base, he is out; after three outs, the teams switch roles. When both teams have batted, an inning is completed. After nine innings, the team with the most runs wins the game. If there is a tie, extra innings are played.

The ball and bat

The ball has a cork-and-rubber core, around which yarn is tightly wrapped; the cover consists of two snugly fitted pieces of white leather sewn together. The circumference is 9 to 9.25 inches (23 to 23.5 cm) and the weight between 5 and 5.25 ounces (142 and 149 grams). The bat is a smooth rounded stick of solid or laminated wood, not longer than 42 inches (107 cm) or thicker at the barrel end than 2.75 inches (7 cm), tapering to the handle end. (Usually, however, in major league baseball, players prefer a bat no longer than 35 inches [89 cm] that weighs about 30 ounces [850 grams] or less.) There is no weight restriction on the bat, but no metal or other reinforcement can be used in construction of the bat. (Amateur players, however, are permitted to use aluminum bats.) The handle may have tape and adhesive material, such as pine tar, applied to it to improve the grip (but such substances may not be applied more than 18 inches [46 cm] from the tip of the handle in major league play).