A skateboard is a single flexible board mounted on wheels and steerable by weight positioning. As a land alternative for surfing, skateboards developed in California in the 1960s and became a craze among urban youth the world over in the 1970s.
Skateboarding was once called "sidewalk surfing".
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Skateboard City skatepark in Port Orange, Florida and Carlsbad Skatepark in San Diego County, California were the first two skateparks to be opened to the public, just a week apart in March 1976.
Skateboarding started to appear in China in 1986 after an American skateboarder traveled to Beijing to study Chinese. There wasn't a Chinese word for skateboarding at the time he arrived.
The U.S. military experimented with using skateboards in combat situations. During a pilot program called Urban Warrior '99, the military experimented with the potential use of skateboards "for maneuvering inside buildings in order to detect tripwires and sniper fire".
On June 27, 1999, Tony Hawk made history by becoming the first skateboarder to successfully land a 900, a highly difficult and dangerous trick involving 2-and-a-half rotations. This achievement was a major milestone in skateboarding and is remembered as one of the most iconic moments in the sport's history.
A 2009 report found that the skateboarding market is worth an estimated $4.8 billion in annual revenue with 11.08 million active skateboarders in the world.
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In 2016, it was announced that skateboarding would be represented for the first time at the 2020 Olympic Games in Tokyo, Japan.
The longest journey by skateboard is 12,159 kilometers (7,555 miles). It was completed by Rob Thomson (New Zealand) starting in Leysin, Switzerland on 24 June 2007 and finishing in Shanghai, China, on September 28, 2008.
Thomson's attempt was part of a longer trip of 20,000 kilometers including legs by bicycle, sailing, rafts, train around the world, but only the skateboarding part, which was the last part of the journey was counted for the record.
The record for the most people riding on a single skateboard belongs to a group of 22 sidewalk surfers who achieved the feat in Los Angeles on August 21, 2008. This impressive balancing act was captured on film for the music video of Weezer's song "Troublemaker."
Peter Connolly set the record for the Fastest skateboard speed downhill (standing) at the 2017 L’Ultimate Descente competition, an annual gravity sports event held in Quebec, Canada. The English skater achieved the speed of 146.73 km/h (91.17 mph).
Jason Lee, the main actor in My Name Is Earl used to be a professional skateboarder and is credited with inventing the '360 flip'.
British comedian Tony Hawks became so frustrated with being mistaken for pro skateboarder Tony Hawk that he published a book on June 13, 2019 titled Tony Hawk's The A to Z of Skateboarding. It contains nothing about skateboarding.
At 92 years of age Kevin Bacon's father rode a skateboard in protest of the city banning skaters from the park that he had designed.
At the age of seventy-eight, Fred Astaire broke his left wrist while riding his grandson's skateboard. He was later awarded a life membership in the National Skateboard Society.
Ice skating was first developed in Northern Europe. The first skate blades were small animalbones with the joints cut off and ground down to make smooth runners. They were attached to feet with leather straps.
Finnish people strapped animal bones to their feet around 5,000 years ago to glide across frozen lakes rather than walk around them. This was important for the Finns to save energy in harsh winter conditions when hunting in Finnish Lakeland. Scientists believe they might have also used wooden poles to propel themselves forward.
bone skates on display at the Museum of London. By Steven G. Johnson
The earliest known skate to use a metal blade was found in Scandinavia. Dated to 200 A.D, it was fitted with a thin strip of copper folded and attached to the underside of a leather shoe.
Wooden skates were first used in 14th-century Holland, where the network of canals formed "highways" over which skaters traveled during the winter.
Ice skates have narrow pieces of metal on the bottom of the boots called blades. The figure skaters glide across the ice by sliding on their blades. The Dutch added in the 15th century a double-edged blade to the bottom of ice skates, which meant poles were no longer necessary. Skaters could propel themselves by pushing and gliding with their feet.
A woodcut printed in Holland in 1498 is the oldest portrayal of skating. It pictures an accident on the ice; the victim of the mishap, a girl of 15 - was to become the patron saint of all skaters, St Lidwina.
Though skating was first developed in north Europe, the first skates with iron blades were made in Scotland in 1572.
King Charles II of England learned skating while in exile in Holland and, on his return home, brought with him the Dutch skate. John Evelyn in his Memoirs recalled in an entry for December 1, 1662 about his admiration on seeing "on the new canal in St James Park. . . the strange and wonderful dexterity of the sliders... after the manner of Hollanders" - "with what swiftness they passe, how suddenly they stop in full carriere upon the ice."
Hendrick Avercamp - A Scene on the Ice
The poet William Wordsworth was an ardent skater who is said always to have been the first on the ice and to have been so expert in its art that he could cut his name with skates.
In 1848 Edward W. Bushnell of Philadelphia invented the first all-metal skates (with blades of hard steel). This type of skate eliminated the cumbersome wooden footplate. To begin with, his skates still used straps - at times as many as four. However, eventually Bushnell discarded them and manufactured skates that were fastened to the boot by clamps, selling his invention at $30 a pair. This more secure method of fastening made more elaborate moves possible and enabled ice dancing.
American ballet dancer and figure skater Jackson Haines (1840–1875) developed a special skate in the mid 1860s, which could be screwed directly onto his boots. This added stability and allowed him to accomplish new skating moves, jumps, and spins. The typical practice of the time was to strap the blades onto the boot. A few years later, Haines added the toe pick to his skates, which allowed him to master all sorts of new leaps and jumps.
Tube skate
Modern roller skates was the invention of James L Plympton, who opened the first rink at Newport, Rhode Island, in 1866.
Sitting Bull was born on land later included in the Dakota Territory in c1831.
In September 1864, Sitting Bull and some of his fellow Hunkpapa Lakota encountered a wagon train commanded by Captain James L. Fisk. He was shot in the hip while leading an attack on the wagon train.
Following the creation of the Great Sioux Reservation in 1868, many traditional Sioux warriors, such as Red Cloud of the Oglala and Spotted Tail of the Brulé, moved to reside permanently on the reservations. Sitting Bull and his fellow Hunkpapa Lakota, however remained on the plains refusing to adopt any dependence on the US government.
Sketch of Sitting Bull; Harper's Weekly, December 8, 1877 issue.
As Native Americans became threatened by the United States, numerous members from various Sioux bands and other tribes, such as the North Cheyenne, came to Sitting Bull's camp along the Little Bighorn River in the Crow Indian Reservation in southeastern Montana Territory. By June 1876, Sitting Bull's camp was an extensive village estimated at more than 10,000 people. By this time Sitting Bull had become known as the leader of the Native Indian resistance to the US invasions of the Black Hills,
Lt. Col. George Armstrong Custer came across Sitting Bull's large camp on June 25, 1876. Underestimating its size and against orders he attacked the Indian encampment. 2,500 Sioux warriors counter attacked and defeated Custer's 655 men.
Sitting Bull did not take a direct military role in the Battle of the Little Bighorn; instead he acted as a spiritual leader.
Following the death of Custer, soldiers flooded into the Black Hills, intent on capturing Sitting Bull. The Hunkpapa Lakota leader along with family members and followers left the United States for Wood Mountain, North-West Territories (now Saskatchewan), where he remained until 1881.
In 1881, Sitting Bull and most of his band returned to US territory and surrendered to U.S. forces. The government kept Sitting Bull isolated on a reservation, but four years he was allowed to leave to join Buffalo Bill Cody's Wild West Show.
In 1885 Chief Sitting Bull started playing himself in reconstructions of Custer’s Last Stand for Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show. He made $50 per week. Historians are divided as to whether he cursed the audiences in the Lakota language during his performance.
Sitting Bull quit the Wild West Show after four months and returned to his people saying "I would rather die an Indian than live a white man."
Sitting Bull by D F Barry ca 1883 original cabinet card
After leaving Buffalo Bill's Wild West show, Sitting Bull returned to the Standing Rock Agency in South Dakota. In 1890 Indian Service agent James McLaughlin at Fort Yates ordered his arrest as the US government feared he was an instigator of the Ghost Dance, a religious movement among Indians.
During the ensuing struggle on December 15, 1890 between Sitting Bull's followers and the agency police, the Native American leader was shot in the side and head by two Native-American policemen Lieutenant Bull Head and Red Tomahawk. Sitting Bull dropped to the ground and died.
Capture and death of Sitting Bull
Sitting Bull's body was taken to Fort Yates, where it was placed in a coffin and buried.
In 1953 Lakota family members exhumed what they believed to be Sitting Bull's remains, transporting them for reinterment near Mobridge, South Dakota, his birthplace
A sitcom, short for "situation comedy", is a genre of comedy centered on a fixed set of characters who carry over from episode to episode. Sitcoms usually have the same characters in the same places (for example; a home, a workplace, a bar, a city or town) on every episode.
The sitcom format was born on January 12, 1926 with the initial broadcast of Sam 'n' Henry on WGN radio in Chicago, Illinois. The ten-minute program starred Freeman Gosden and Charles Correll as Sam Smith and Henry Johnson, two African-Americans from Birmingham who moved north to Chicago to seek their fortune. The final episode of Sam 'n' Henry aired on July 14, 1928, after which Gosden and Correll reworked the premise on a more ambitious scale to create their long-running radio show Amos 'n' Andy.
Pinwright's Progress was a British sitcom that aired on the BBC Television Service from 1946 to 1947 and was the world's first regular half-hour televised sitcom. It was about the adventures of J. Pinwright, the proprietor of the smallest multiple store in the world. The first of the ten episodes, which aired fortnightly in alternation with the light entertainment show Kaleidoscope, was broadcast live from the BBC studios at Alexandra Palace on November 29, 1946.
Mary Kay and Johnny was the first sitcom broadcast on a network television in the United States. The first 15-minute episode debuted on the DuMont Television Network on Tuesday, November 18, 1947. After a year on DuMont, the show moved to CBS for half a year, then ran for another year each Saturday night on NBC. It broadcast the final episode on March 11, 1950.
The stars, Mary Kay and Johnny Stearns, were married in real life and played themselves. Most of the action took place in the couple’s apartment..
Mary Kay became pregnant in 1948 and after unsuccessfully trying to hide her pregnancy, the producers wrote it into the show. As a result, Mary Kay and Johnny was the first series to show a woman's pregnancy on television.
Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz began the television sitcom I Love Lucy in 1951 in the hopes of saving their crumbling marriage. The first episode aired on the Columbia Broadcasting System (CBS) on October 15, 1951. New episodes were produced for six years.
I Love Lucy still airs every hour of every day somewhere in the world.
Desi Arnaz, Lucille Ball, Vivian Vance, and William Frawley Wikipedia
Last of the Summer Wine is a British sitcom set in Yorkshire It premiered as an episode of Comedy Playhouse on January 4, 1973, and the first series of episodes followed on November 12, 1973. The show was set in the fictional village of Holmfirth in Yorkshire, and followed the antics of a group of elderly men who got up to all sorts of mischief. Last of the Summer Wine ran for 37 years and 31 series, making it the longest-running sitcom in the world.
Tom Hanks got his first big break starring in the TV sitcom Bosom Buddies. It aired for two seasons on ABC from November 27, 1980, to March 27, 1982, and although the ratings were never strong, television critics gave the program high marks.
Cartoonist Matt Groening's dysfunctional family sitcom The Simpsons started life as short gags on The Tracy Ullman Show beginning on April 19, 1987. In 1989, a team of production companies adapted The Simpsons into a half-hour prime time entertainment series for the Fox Broadcasting Company. The Simpsons is now the longest-running US sitcom.
Singer Brandy Norwood's first role in the entertainment business was playing schoolgirl Denesha on the short-lived ABC sitcom Thea between 1993-94. Thea was the first television show to be named after and star a black female comedienne.
Although Friends ended in 2004, the show still brings $1 billion for Warner Bros. every year in royalties. This means each of the six main cast member get $20 million every year doing absolutely nothing.
In 2009, Everybody Loves Raymond series creator/producer Philip Rosenthal traveled to Russia to adapt the show for local audiences. The Russian version of Everybody Loves Raymond, titled The Voronins, holds the Guinness World Record for the longest-running sitcom adaptation by episode count. As of February 17, 2024, it boasts a whopping 460 episodes under its belt, surpassing any other adapted sitcom in terms of sheer quantity.
The Golden Girls, All in the Family and Will and Grace are the only three sitcoms where every performer in the main cast has won at least one Emmy.
Most canned laughter that you hear on TV today, was recorded in the 1950s.
Married With Children never had canned laughter. They used only original laughter, applause, shouts etc. that came from the viewers while the series was filmed in front of them. Sometimes the audience had to be shut down for the show to continue.
The word "Sitcom,” meaning situation comedy, first appeared in 1964.
Singing is probably the way that music started many thousands of years ago.
There is a theory that human speech may have begun as singing by Neanderthals.
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Singing was a staple element of the Ancient Greek symposium, an all-male drinking and eating party. After eating, the men each sang a song (skolia) with an aulos, lyre, or barbiton providing backing music. Often they sang amusing satirical songs (silloi).
The singing of a hymn regularly accompanied everyday activities and formal acts of worship in ancient Greece. Shepherds piped to their flocks, oarsmen and soldiers kept time to music, and women sung as they did household chores such as weaving and baking. Children too sang songs (agermos) at people’s doors to receive money and candy just as carol-singers do today.
Hippocrates, considered the "Father of Medicine," once suggested a woman with a flat bustline could enlarge it by singing loudly and often.
An operatic style of singing co-existed alongside Roman choral music, and became well-known throughout the Mediterranean.
One of the events at the ancient Olympic Games in Greece was singing. At the 67AD Olympic Games, the Emperor Nero entered the singing contest and was judged the winner even though according to a source, Suetonius, some male listeners fell off the wall and feigned death in order to remove themselves from earshot without causing imperial offence.
Troubled that in the Mass one individual sang all the Psalms and hymns whilst the congregation merely listened. Bishop Ambrose introduced to the western church in the 4th century congregational singing.
St. Ambrose is considered to have introduced the antiphonant method of chanting, or one side of the choir alternately responding to the other; from whence that particular mode obtained the name of the "chant," while the plain song was introduced by St. Gregory a couple of centuries later. That form of singing, still practiced in the Romish service, is called the "Gregorian," or "Romish chant."
Benedictine monk Guido of Arezzo developed a method to learn music by ear in the early 11th century at Pomposa Monastery near Ravenna. He fitted the initial syllables of the first six lines of a Latin hymn to the notes of the hexachord to make ut (later changed to do), re, mi, fa, sol, la; si was added later. Textless singing exercises using these syllables are called solfeggio.
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Martin Luther made singing a central part of Protestant worship. In his German Mass of 1526, he dispensed with the choir and assigned all singing to the congregation. He would often call congregational rehearsals during the week so the people could learn new hymns.
William Billings (1746-1800), the first American composer, founded the continent's first singing class in Stoughton, Massachusetts in 1774 and the first church choir as well.
The singing telegram was invented by George P. Oslin, the public relations director of The New York City-based Postal Telegraph Company. He was inspired to create the singing telegram after a fan sent Hollywood singing star Rudy Vallee a birthday telegram. Oslin thought that this would be a good opportunity to make telegrams, which had been associated with deaths and other tragic news, into something more popular.
The first singing telegram was sent on July 28, 1933, to Rudy Vallee on his 32nd birthday. A Western Union operator named Lucille Lipps sang "Happy Birthday" to Vallee over the phone. The singing telegram was a hit, and the Postal Telegraph Company soon began offering singing telegram services nationwide.
Singing telegrams were popular throughout the 1930s and 1940s. They were often used as birthday greetings, but they were also used for other occasions, such as weddings, anniversaries, and graduations. However, the popularity of singing telegrams declined in the 1950s and 1960s, as other forms of entertainment, such as television and the movies, became more popular.
The first singing reality show was Sa Re Ga Ma Pa. It was launched by India's Zee TV on May 1, 1995. Until 2005, the show used to follow a format wherein experts in the field of music would judge the contestants and score them. Since then, the scoring has primarily been dependent on public voting.
TYPES OF SINGING
Acappella singing is vocal music specifically without instrumental accompaniment. The name is from Latin a (without) and cappella (musical accompaniment).
In Western classical music, singers learn to sing in a bel canto voice which uses lots of resonance in the head and makes a smooth sound. Bel canto was used in Italian opera. Later, in the 19th century, Richard Wagner wrote operas in which the singers needed to be more dramatic.
In church choirs the singers are often trained to use a lot of head voice because this sounds beautiful in large cathedrals.
Pop music singers generally sing more from the throat. They do not need to develop powerful voices like opera singers because they sing into microphones so that their voices are electronically amplified.
Bono from U2 Pixiebay
Rap is a kind of singing in which the words are spoken with rhythm and in the text there are rhymes. Its roots come from ancient African music rituals of call and response and from groups of singing poets who traveled from town to town spreading news and messages.
Voices singing music from different parts of the world may sound very different. Inuit throat singing, or katajjaq, is a form of musical performance uniquely found among the Eskimo Inuits. In Mongolia there is a technique of overtone singing which sounds rather like a finger being rubbed against the rim of a wineglass. In Switzerland men often yodel.
FUN SINGING FACTS
It is against the law to sing out of tune in North Carolina.
Sound comes out of our mouths at approximately 75 miles per hour when we sing.
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When learning new phrases in a foreign language, hearing those phrases sung and then singing them has been shown to lead to better results than hearing them spoken normally and then repeating them the same way.
The author James Joyce had a good singing voice and once won a bronze medal in a Dublin singing contest. He threw it into the River Liffey.
A favorite recreation of the British Prime MinisterDavid Lloyd George was standing around the piano at his 10 Downing Street home on a Sunday with his nearest and dearest singing Welsh hymns.
While singing in Rigoletto at Covent Garden, London, in 1948, Walter Midgely swallowed a false mustache.
Michael Jackson's pre-concert ritual included drinking Ricola candy dissolved in hot water. He claimed the beverage helped to keep his throat and his singing voice clear.
Beyoncé can run a mile while singing, which helps her to perform on stage without becoming exhausted.
NON HUMAN SINGING
Some animals, such as many types of bird and whale, sing. Other animals, such as many types of cats, make musical purring sounds. Currently, there are about 5400 species of animals that are known to sing.
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Birds sing in the morning to get the clearest, crispest sound quality they can.
With some animal species such as the gibbon, singing is a group activity.
A singer is someone who produces musical sounds with their voice and augments regular speech by the use of sustained tonality, rhythm, and a variety of vocal techniques. Some people do it as a job (professional singer), others may sing without being paid (amateur singer).
Greek tragedy had its beginnings in choral performances, in which a group of men danced and sang lyric hymns in honor of the god Dionysus.
Mask of Dionysus stored at the Louvre.
The chorus originally consisted of fifty members, but some later playwrights changed the size. Aeschylus likely lowered the number to twelve, and Sophocles raised it again to fifteen. Saint Celila is the patroness of musicians. A 2nd century Christian Roman maiden of patrician birth, she was compelled to marry a young pagan, Valerian, despite a vow of celibacy. It is written that while the profane music was played at Saint Cecilia's wedding she was "singing in her heart a hymn of love for Jesus, her true spouse" hence her association with music-making.
Umayyad Caliph Yazid bin Abd al-Malik or Yazid II died in Damascus on January 26, 724. He is said to have pined away from grief following the death of his favorite singing girl and passed away the following week.
When he was working for the Duke of Milan, one of Leonardo Da Vinci's responsibilities was playing the lute and singing to him.
The first professional female singers in Europe for several centuries appeared in England in 1631 for a production of Chloridia, a court masque produced by Ben Jonson and Inigo Jones.
Scottish singer and comedian Sir Harry Lauder (August 4, 1870 – February 26, 1950) was the highest-paid performer in the world in the 1910. He rose from being a coal miner singing in occasional town concerts to commanding over £12,000 per night. He was the first British artist to sell a million records. Among his most popular songs were "Roamin' in the Gloamin", "The End of the Road" and, a particularly big hit for him, "I Love a Lassie".
Before the advent of the microphone, popular singers like Al Jolson had to be able to "belt" out a song so that the person in the very last row could hear. as did opera singers, which made for a very loud vocal style.
Al Jolson
The invention of the electric microphone enabled a soft, intimate vocal tone to be amplified and projected into a large hall, thus making possible the art of crooners such as Bing Crosby and torch singers such as Morgana King.
The crooners were a new breed of entertainer who could now softly "croon" into the microphone. It was the aural equivalent of a movie close-up. Al Bowlly, Gene Austin and Art Gillham are often credited as inventors of the crooning style, but Rudy Vallée became far more popular, beginning in 1928.
Rudy Vallée on The Fleischmann's Yeast Hour in 1933.
Ethel Waters became the first African-American singer to perform on television on June 14, 1939 when she appeared in an NBC variety show. Waters was also the first African-American woman to be given equal billing with white stars in Broadway shows, and to play leading roles in Hollywoodfilms.
Waters circa 1945.
When Singer-Songwriter Woody Guthrie recorded The Dust Bowl Ballads in 1940, he became the first in the American singer-songwriter tradition. Guthrie had become a welcome figure in the hobo and migrant camps of the Great Depression of the 1930s. He was close to the struggles of the common people, and became a musical spokesman for working people in his songs.
Tony Bennett first started singing as "Joe Bari" but Bob Hope told him it was a "phony name" so he changed it to Tony Bennett.
Elvis Presley received a 'C' in his 8th grade music class. His teacher told him he "had no aptitude for singing."
At the age of 10, Jackie Evancho became the youngest singer in history to go platinum with her O Holy Nightalbum in 2010.
A record for the longest sustained vocal note was set by American singer Richard Fink IV in Las Vegas on November 17, 2019. The note was sustained for 2 minutes 1.07 seconds above the required decibel threshold breaking the previous record of 1 minute 52 seconds set by Turkish singer Alpaslan Durmuş in 2016.
Asha Bhosle is an Indian singer best known as a playback singer in Hindi cinema. In 2011, she was officially acknowledged by the Guinness Book of World Records as the most recorded artist in music history.
Singapore is a city-state in South East Asia, off the tip of the Malay peninsular.
Singapore By Chensiyuan
HISTORY
British official, Sir Stamford Raffles first stepped on an island known locally as ‘Singapura’ on January 29, 1819. A week later, on February 6, 1819, he signed a treaty with Sultan Hussein Shah of Johor , which established Singapore as a trading post for the British East India Company.
1825 survey map of Singapore.
The name of Singapore comes from the Sanskrit for "Lion City" after Sang Nila Utama, the Srivijayan prince said to have founded and named the island Singapura thought he saw a lion there in 1299. It is unlikely that lions ever lived on the island; the Srivijayan prince perhaps saw a Malayan tiger.
Singapore's Fort Tanjong Katong, one of the oldest military forts built by the British colonial government, never saw combat action and was nicknamed the "Wash-out Fort".
Japanese forces led by General Tomoyuki Yamashita captured Singapore on February 15, 1942. About 80,000 Indian, United Kingdom and Australian soldiers become prisoners of war, the largest surrender of British-led military personnel in history.
The national flag of Singapore was adopted on December 3, 1959, the year Singapore became self-governing within the British Empire. The five stars on Singapore’s flag represent democracy, peace, progress, justice and equality. The crescent moon is a rising, young nation.
Singapore gained independence from the UK in 1963 by federating with other former British territories to form Malaysia, but was forced to separate two years later over ideological differences, becoming a sovereign nation in 1965.
When Singapore was expelled from Malaysia on August 9, 1965, it became the first and only country to date to gain independence unwillingly.
Singapore's first Mass Rapid Transit line was opened on November 7, 1987, starting with train services between Yio Chu Kang and Toa Payoh stations.
In 2012, Singapore, a country of over 5 million people, experienced 80 days in which no robberies or thefts were reported.
GEOGRAPHY
Singapore consists of 63 islands, including the main island, Pulau Ujong.
An outline of Singapore and the surrounding islands and waterways
Singapore is an island, a city and a sovereign state. It is held to be one of only three modern city-states together with Monaco and Vatican City.
Singapore is situated only 85 miles north of the equator.
All the land in Singapore is owned by the government.
The highest natural point is Bukit Timah Hill at 163.63 m (537 ft).
FUN SINGAPORE FACTS
The national symbol of Singapore is the merlion, a mythical creature, half lion and half fish, which was created in 1964.
The merlion by Erwin Soo from Singapore
Worldwide, the average woman gives birth to an estimated 6.89 children. The lowest fertility rate is in Singapore, where women give birth to an average of 0.8 children.
Everyone in Singapore above the age of 21 is automatically registered as an organ donor. Opting out from this Act will result in you being put at the very bottom of the organ priority list, should you need an organ transplantation.
Due to a shortage of space, burials in cemeteries are limited in Singapore to a maximum of 15 years, after which the deceased must be dug up and cremated.
World Toilet Day became an official United Nations day in 2013 thanks to a proposal to its General Assembly from Singapore. It was the first time Singapore had ever put a resolution to the General Assembly.
Singapore's crime rate is so low that many shops do not even bother to close the door when they close at night.
It's illegal to import chewing gum into Singapore except for medical use, because it's not clean to have it on the streets.
Singapore’s street food is so good that some street vendors are awarded Michelin stars for their food.
Spitting in a coffee shop or urinating in a public toilet without flushing it are also illegal in Singapore.
The Port of Singapore is the world's busiest for transshipment traffic and the world's biggest ship refueling center,
Buildings in Singapore must not be higher than 280 metres. Three buildings are exactly that high.
In 2002, the Great Singapore Duck Race set a world record of 123,000 rubber ducks taking part in the same event. The last such race was in 2007.
The words of the Singapore national anthem are printed in micro-text on the back of their $1,000 bank note.
Singapore won their first Olympic goldmedal at the 2016 RioOlympics when swimmer Joseph Schooling came first in the Men's 100 metre butterfly. It was also the first ever gold Olympic medal by a Southeast Asian male swimmer.
Francis Albert Sinatra was born on December 12, 1915, in an upstairs tenement at 415 Monroe Street in Hoboken, New Jersey.
He was the only child of Italian immigrants. His father Antonino Martino "Marty" Sinatra was a firefighter and his mother Natalina "Dolly" Garaventa, a Democratic ward boss.
Sinatra in 1957's Pal Joey
At Francis's birth, the doctor thought he was a stillborn. Blue and not breathing, the doctor laid him on the counter while he attended to Sinatra’s mother. It was only when his grandmother picked up the newborn, ran him under cold water and slapped his back that Sinatra started breathing.
He weighed 13 pounds and 7oz when he was born in 1915 — almost double the average of a newborn. Francis was so big he suffered scars to his ear and the side of his face from the forceps used to help deliver him.
Francis' mom also served as the neighborhood's midwife/abortionist. She ran her illegal abortion business from her home.
Though well-loved, Francis was a terror in school. He attended David E. Rue Jr. High School from 1928, and A. J. Demarest High School (since renamed as Hoboken High School) in 1931. He was expelled from the latter 47 days later for "general rowdiness". Sinatra's school principal wrote that he "showed no real talent for anything."
At the age of 17 Francis decided to become a singer after seeing Bing Crosby perform, a decision which got him thrown out of home. However, his mother soon relented, helping him to get local gigs with a group called the 3 Flashes, later renamed the Hoboken Four.
Sinatra (far right) with the Hoboken Four on Major Bowes' Amateur Hour in 1935
Frank Sinatra and The Hoboken Four, performed in blackface in a short film aired at Radio City Music Hall.
CAREER
After gaining his job as a singing waiter at a nearby resort, Frank Sinatra boasted that he would "become so big that no one could ever touch him".
When Frank Sinatra was just starting out as a singer, he carried his own P.A. system to the dives in which he typically performed.
Frank Sinatra got his big break when bandleader Harry James' wife heard him sing as a waiter and recommended him to her husband.
Frank Sinatra made his first commercial recording on July 13, 1939 — "From The Bottom Of My Heart" and "Melancholy Mood" with Harry James and his Orchestra for the Brunswick label. No more than 8,000 copies of the record were sold.
It was only when bandleader Tommy Dorsey bought out Sinatra's contract with James that he became the most popular big-band vocalist in the land, but the singer became upset that his allowance from Dorsey didn't match his fame, so he lit out for a solo stint on Columbia.
Sinatra copied Trombone player Tommy Dorsey's breathing style to hold notes for longer. He also took up jogging to improve his lung capacity.
In 1942 Sinatra became the first band singer to go solo after breaking his contract with Tommy Dorsey. This move led to other singers to try to establish themselves as individual performers rather than being tied to a particular bandleader.
When Sinatra made his solo nightclub debut at New York's Riobamba the following year, he sang two songs "with trembling lips" and brought the house down.
When Frank Sinatra opened at New York's Paramount Theatre on December 30, 1942, he was dubbed "The Sultan of Swoon," as teen girls screamed and cried.
Frank Sinatra’s publicist auditioned and paid girls $5 to scream at his early performances to get the crowd excited.
Frank Sinatra became the idol of "bobbysoxer" teenage fans everywhere, culminating in the "Columbus Day Riot" of 1944, when 35,000 teenage girls mobbed the New York Paramount to see him sing.
At first, Sinatra was mostly known as a crooner, a singer of love songs and his professional career had stalled by the early 1950s. He turned to Las Vegas, where he became one of its best known residency performers.
Sinatra in November 1950
Sinatra's career was reborn when he released several critically lauded albums featuring jazz and swing numbers, as well as love songs. They included In the Wee Small Hours (1955), Songs for Swingin' Lovers! (1956), Come Fly with Me (1958), Only the Lonely (1958) and Nice 'n' Easy (1960).
Frank Sinatra recorded concept records years before rock groups had the same idea. For a decade, he had pushed to make a cohesive LP at a time when no one in the record business was thinking beyond singles. Finally, his break-up with Ava Gardner provided the perfect catalyst. The 16 ballads he recorded for In The Wee Small Hours, a brooding cycle of torch songs, was arguably pop music’s first concept album.
He continued to release themed LPs. In 1965's September of My Years, a newly-50 Sinatra wrestles poignantly with mortality. Five years later, he released Watertown, a song cycle about a down and out divorcee in upstate New York, pondering his broken life in the Big Apple.
Frank Sinatra hated Rock and Roll, calling it, "the most brutal, ugly, desperate, vicious form of expression it has been my misfortune to hear." He later formed a great friendship with Elvis Presley after the two performed a jazzy duet on one of Sinatra's shows.
Sinatra was also an actor. He was in movies such as The Manchurian Candidate, High Society, From Here to Eternity, and The Man With The Golden Arm. He won an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his performance in From Here To Eternity.
Sinatra and Grace Kelly on the set of High Society (1956)
Frank Sinatra ad-libbed the "Dooby dooby doo" closing scat part of "Strangers In the Night" as he disliked the lyrics. Iwao Takamoto, the animator who created the cartoondog Scooby-Doo, said that he got the inspiration to name his character from Sinatra’s ad-lib.
Sinatra despised "Strangers In The Night", calling it "a piece of s----." Even though it was his biggest hit of the decade, the singer never included this number in any of his late 1960s specials.
Sinatra is the "father" half of the only father-daughter duet to ever hit #1, "Something Stupid" (which he sang with Nancy) topped the charts in 1967 in both the US and UK.
"My Way" originated as French song called "Comme D'habitude" (translation: "As Usual") by Claude Francois. Paul Anka discovered this song while visiting France, and re-wrote the lyrics as "My Way." Upon returning to the US, he gave it to Frank Sinatra, and it became one of his signature songs.
Frank Sinatra briefly retired in 1971, but returned to the entertainment industry less than two years later, with his comeback album Ol' Blue Eyes is Back.
During a 1974 tour of Australia, Frank Sinatra insulted the media, especially female media. The stagehands union refused to work his show until he apologized. Sinatra threatened to cancel his shows. The transport union refused to prepare his airplane for departure.
In 1985 "New York, New York" became the official anthem of the Big Apple. The announcement was made by then New York mayor, Ed Koch.
Frank Sinatra was an avid supporter of civil rights. He was a generous financial supporter of Martin Luther King Jr, and was recruited by him to join the civil rights marches in the south. He would go on to receive a lifetime award from the NAACP.
In 1985, Ronald Reagan presented Sinatra with the Presidential Medal of Freedom, remarking, "His love of country, his generosity for those less fortunate ... make him one of our most remarkable and distinguished Americans."
Sinatra is awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by Ronald Reagan
175,000 people assembled at the Maracaña Stadium in Rio de Janeiro to listen to Frank Sinatra perform on January 26, 1980. At the time, this set a Guinness World Record for the largest paying audience for a solo performer.
PRIVATE LIFE
Sinatra was married 4 times. He was married to Nancy Barbato from 1939 to 1951, to Ava Gardner from 1951 to 1957, to Mia Farrow from 1966 to 1968, and to Barbara Marx from 1976 until his death.
When the 50-year-old Frank Sinatra married the 20-year-old actress Mia Farrow in New York in 1966, it caused a predictable media event. Their marriage lasted just two years.
Sinatra's son, Frank Sinatra, Jr., was kidnapped in 1963, but was eventually released unharmed. During his son's kidnapping, Frank Sinatra Sr spoke with the kidnappers via payphone often. Worried that he wouldn't have enough change for the call he started to carry 10 dimes wherever he went. He continued to do this for the rest of his life, and was even buried with 10 dimes in his pocket.
Sinatra was also part of the Rat Pack, a group of entertainers (musicians and actors), in the 1950s and 1960s. Other members included Dean Martin, Sammy Davis, Jr., Joey Bishop, Peter Lawford. The name was informal, and the group was not an official organization of any sort, but a group of friends, who also referred to themselves as The Summit.
Frank Sinatra often visited the barber shop in the basement of the Hollywood Plaza Hotel to play gin rummy with the barber.
Sinatra in 1957
Sinatra owned an orange Lamborghini Miura in the 60s and famously said : "you buy a Ferrari when you want to be somebody. You buy a Lamborghini when you are somebody."
Kris Kristofferson got the idea for "Help Me Make It Though The Night" after reading an Esquire interview with Frank Sinatra. When asked what he believed in, Frank replied, "Booze, broads, or a bible... whatever helps me make it through the night."
LAST YEARS AND DEATH
Frank Sinatra played his final full concert at the Fukuoka dome baseball stadium in Japan on December 20, 1994. He forgot his lyrics several times and repeatedly introduced his conductor and son, Frank Jr.
The last song Sinatra ever performed live was "The Best Is Yet to Come." On February 25, 1995, Frank sang this number for a group of 1200 people on the last night of a golf tournament named for him.
Frank Sinatra died at the Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, Los Angeles on May 14, 1998 at 10.50pm aged 82, after suffering a heart attack. His wife Barbara was at his side.
Sinatra had been seriously ill for some time and had lived as a recluse in his final years.
The lights on the Las Vegas Strip were dimmed - and the roulette wheels stopped spinning for a minute - to mark the passing of Ol' Blue Eyes.
The words "The best is yet to come" are written on his tombstone.
