title: Little House on the Prairie

text: Four series of books expand the "Little House" series to include five generations of Laura Ingalls Wilder's family. The "Martha Years" and "Charlotte Years" series, by Melissa Wiley, are fictionalized tales of Laura's great-grandmother in Scotland in the late 18th century and grandmother in early 19th century Massachusetts. The "Caroline Years" series narrates Wilder's mother, Caroline Quiner's, childhood in Wisconsin. The Rose Years (originally known as the "Rocky Ridge Years") series follows Rose Wilder Lane from childhood in Missouri to early adulthood in San Francisco. It was written by her surrogate grandson Roger MacBride.


title: Little House on the Prairie

text: Two volumes of Wilder's letters and diaries have also been issued under the "Little House" imprint: "On The Way Home" and "West From Home", published by HarperCollins in 1962 and 1974 respectively.


title: Little House on the Prairie

text: Little House in the Big Woods was published in 1932. Written by Laura Ingalls Wilder, the book is autobiographical, though some parts of the story were embellished or changed to appeal more to an audience, such as Laura’s age. In the book, Laura herself turns five years old, when the real-life author had only been three during the events of the book. According to a letter from her daughter, Rose, to biographer William Anderson, the publisher had Laura change her age in the book because it seemed unrealistic for a three-year-old to have specific memories such as she wrote about. The story of "Little House in the Big Woods", revolves around the life of the Ingalls family. The family includes mother Caroline Ingalls, father Charles Ingalls, elder daughter Mary Amelia Ingalls, and younger daughter (and protagonist), Laura Ingalls Wilder. Also in the story, though not yet born historically, is Laura's baby sister Carrie.


title: Little House on the Prairie

text: The setting of this book is different from the rest of the series, as the story takes place in the Ingalls' small cabin in the state of Wisconsin, near a town called Pepin". Little House in the Big Woods" describes the homesteading skills Laura observed and began to practice during her fifth year. The cousins come for Christmas that year, and Laura receives a doll, which she names Charlotte. Later that winter, the family goes to Grandma Ingalls’ home and has a “sugaring off,” when they harvest sap and make maple syrup. They return home with buckets of syrup, enough to last the year. Laura remembered that sugaring off and the dance that followed for the rest of her life.


title: Little House on the Prairie

text: The book also describes other farm work duties and events, such as the birth of a calf; the availability of milk, butter and cheese; gardening; field work; hunting; gathering; and more. Everyday housework is also described in detail. When Pa went into the woods to hunt, he usually came home with a deer and then smoked the meat for the coming winter. One day he noticed a bee tree and returned from hunting early to get the wash tub and milk pail to collect the honey. When Pa returned home on winter evenings, Laura and Mary always begged him to play his fiddle, but he was too tired from farm work to play during the summertime. Later in the series, the family moved away from Wisconsin to a homestead in Kansas, as territory in the West was being given to settlers. Later they moved on to Minnesota. This reflects the time period in the 1800's during which farmers and many others were migrating westward into the American frontier.


title: Little House on the Prairie

text: "Farmer Boy" was published in 1933. It is the second Little House book, although its story is unrelated to the first few books in the series. It features a different protagonist named Almanzo Wilder, who later became Laura’s husband. In "Farmer Boy", Almanzo is featured from before his ninth birthday until after his tenth. Throughout the novel, Laura recounts the experiences and adventures of Almanzo in his late childhood and adolescence. Living in a successful farm in the state of New York in the late 19th century, Almanzo endures hardships such as the long walk to school with his older siblings. Through Farmer Boy, readers catch a glimpse of the daily routine of early farmers, and learn about activities such as candle making, shearing sheep, threshing wheat, and even making donuts. The story also walks readers through Almanzo’s favorite pastimes, which include sledding, berry picking, swimming, and fishing.


title: Little House on the Prairie

text: "Little House on the Prairie", published in 1935, is the third book in the Little House series but only the second that features the Ingalls family; it continues directly the story of the inaugural novel, "Little House in the Big Woods".


title: Little House on the Prairie

text: The book tells about the months the Ingalls family spent on the prairie of Kansas, around the town of Independence, Kansas. At the beginning of this story, Pa Ingalls decides to sell the house in the Big Woods of Wisconsin and move the family, via covered wagon, to the Indian Territory near Independence, Kansas, as there were widely circulating stories that the land (under Osage ownership) would be opened to settlement by homesteaders imminently. So Laura, along with Pa and Ma, Mary, and baby Carrie, move to Kansas. Along the way, Pa trades his two horses for two Western mustangs, which Laura and Mary name Pet and Patty.


title: Little House on the Prairie

text: When the family reaches Indian Territory, they meet Mr. Edwards, who is extremely polite to Ma but tells Laura and Mary that he is "a wildcat from Tennessee." Mr. Edwards is an excellent neighbor, who helps the Ingalls in every way he can, beginning with helping Pa erect their house. Pa builds a roof and a floor for their house and digs a well, and the family is finally settled.


title: Little House on the Prairie

text: At their new home, unlike their time in the Big Woods, the family meets difficulty and danger. The Ingalls family becomes terribly ill from a disease called at that time "fever 'n' ague" (fever with severe chills and shaking), which was later identified as malaria. Laura comments on the varied ways they believe to have acquired it, with "Ma" believing it came from eating bad watermelon. Mrs. Scott, another neighbor, takes care of the family while they are sick. Around this time, Mr. Edwards brings Laura and Mary their Christmas presents from Independence, and in the spring the Ingallses plant the beginnings of a small farm.


title: Little House on the Prairie

text: Ma's fears about American Indians and Laura's observations at the time are contrasted with Pa's liberal view of them, and all these views are shown side by side with the older Laura's objective portrayal of the Osage tribe that lived on that land.


title: Little House on the Prairie

text: At the end of this book, the family is told that the land must be vacated by settlers as it is not legally open to settlement yet, and in 1870 Pa elects to leave the land and move before the Army forcibly requires him to abandon the land.


title: Little House on the Prairie

text: "On the Banks of Plum Creek", published in 1937 and fourth in the series, follows the Ingalls family as they move from Pepin, Wisconsin to Kansas to an area near Walnut Grove, Minnesota, and settle in a dugout "on the banks of Plum Creek (Redwood County, Minnesota)".


title: Little House on the Prairie

text: Pa trades his horses Pet and Patty to the property owner (a man named Hanson) for the land and crops, but later he gets two new horses, Sam and David, called the “Christmas horses". Pa soon builds a new, above-ground, wooden house for the family, borrowing against the wheat crop he’s planted. During this story, Laura and Mary go to school in town for the first time, and they meet their teacher, Miss Eva Beadle. They also meet Nellie Oleson, who makes fun of Laura and Mary for being "country girls". Laura plays with her bulldog Jack when she is home, and she and Mary are invited to a party at the Olesons' home. Laura and Mary invite all the girls (including Nellie) to a party at their house to reciprocate. A church is founded in town, led by Reverend Alden, and the family attends a Christmas service where the children see their first Christmas tree. The family soon goes through hard times when a plague of Rocky Mountain locusts decimates their crops. Pa must leave to work the harvest farther east. The book ends with Pa returning safely to the house after being unaccounted for during a severe four-day blizzard.


title: Little House on the Prairie

text: The story begins when the family is about to leave Plum Creek shortly after the family has recovered from the scarlet fever which caused Mary to become blind. The family welcomes a visit from Aunt Docia, whom they had not seen for several years. She suggests that Pa and Ma move west to the rapidly developing Dakota Territory, where Pa could work in Uncle Henry’s railroad camp at very good wages for that era. Ma and Pa agree, since it will allow Pa to look for a homestead while he works. The family has endured many hardships at Plum Creek, and Pa especially is anxious for a new start. After selling his land and farm to neighbors, Pa goes ahead with the wagon and team. Mary is still too weak to travel, so the rest of the family follows later by train.


title: Little House on the Prairie

text: The day Pa leaves, however, their beloved bulldog Jack is found dead, which saddens Laura greatly. In actuality, the dog upon whom Jack was based was no longer with the family at this point, but the author inserted his death here to serve as a transition between her childhood and her adolescence. Laura also begins to play a more mature role in the family due to Mary's blindness. Pa instructs Laura to "be Mary's eyes" and to assist her in daily life as she learns to cope with her disability. Mary is strong and willing to learn.


title: Little House on the Prairie

text: The family travels to Dakota Territory by train. This is the children's first train trip and they are excited by the novelty of this new mode of transportation that allows them to travel in one hour the distance it would take a horse and wagon an entire day to cover.


title: Little House on the Prairie

text: With the family reunited and situated at the railroad camp, Laura meets her cousin Lena, and the two become good friends.


title: Little House on the Prairie

text: As winter approaches and the railroad workers take down the cabins and head back east, the family wonders where they might stay for the winter. As luck would have it, the county surveyor needs a house-sitter while he is back east for the winter, and Pa signs up. It is a winter of luxury for the Ingalls family as they are given all the provisions they need in the large, comfortable house. They spend a cozy winter with their new friends, Mr. and Mrs. Boast, and both families look forward to starting their new claims in the spring.


title: Little House on the Prairie

text: But the "spring rush" comes early. The large mobilization of pioneers to the Dakotas in early March prompts Pa to leave immediately on the few days' trip to the claims office. The girls are left alone to spend their days and nights boarding and feeding all the pioneers passing through. They charge 25 cents for dinner and boarding and start a savings account toward sending Mary to the School for the Blind in Vinton, Iowa.


title: Little House on the Prairie

text: Pa successfully files his claim, with the aid of old friend Mr. Edwards. As the spring flowers bloom and the prairie comes alive with new settlers, the Ingalls family moves to their new piece of land and begins building what will become their permanent home.


title: Little House on the Prairie

text: "The Long Winter", published in 1940 and sixth in the series, covers the shortest time span of the novels, only an eight-month period. The winter of 1880–1881 was a notably severe winter in history, sometimes known as "The Snow Winter."


title: Little House on the Prairie

text: The story begins in Dakota Territory at the Ingalls homestead in South Dakota on a hot September day in 1880 as Laura and her father ("Pa") are haying. Pa tells Laura that he knows the winter is going to be hard because muskrats always build a house with thick walls before a hard winter, and this year they have built the thickest walls he has ever seen. In mid October the Ingallses wake with an unusually early blizzard howling around their poorly insulated claim shanty. Soon afterward, Pa receives another warning from an unexpected source: a dignified old Native American man comes to the general store in town to warn the white settlers that there will be seven months of blizzards. Impressed, Pa decides to move the family into town for the winter.


title: Little House on the Prairie

text: Laura attends school with her younger sister Carrie until the weather becomes too severe to permit them to walk to and from the school building. Blizzard after blizzard sweeps through the town over the next few months. Food and fuel become scarce and expensive, as the town depends on the trains to bring supplies but the frequent blizzards prevent the trains from getting through. Eventually, the railroad company suspends all efforts to dig out the train, stranding the town. For weeks, the Ingallses subsist on potatoes and coarse brown bread, using twisted hay for fuel. As even this meager food runs out, Laura's future husband Almanzo Wilder and his friend Cap Garland risk their lives to bring wheat to the starving townspeople – enough to last the rest of the winter.


title: Little House on the Prairie

text: Laura's age in this book is accurate. (In 1880, she would have been 13, as she states in the first chapter.) However, Almanzo Wilder's age is misrepresented in this book. Much is made of the fact that he is 19 pretending to be 21 in order to illegally obtain a homestead claim from the US government. But in 1880, his true age would have been 23. Scholar Ann Romines has suggested that Laura made Almanzo younger because it was felt that more modern audiences would be scandalized by the great difference in their ages in light of their young marriage.


title: Little House on the Prairie

text: As predicted, the blizzards continue for seven months. Finally, the trains begin running again, bringing the Ingallses a Christmas barrel full of good things, including a turkey. In the last chapter, they sit down to enjoy their Christmas dinner in May.


title: Little House on the Prairie

text: The story begins as Laura accepts her first job performing sewing work in order to earn money for Mary to go to a college for the blind in Iowa. Laura's hard work comes to an end by summer when she is let go, and the family begins planning to raise cash crops to pay for Mary's college. After the crops are destroyed by blackbirds, Pa sells a calf to earn the balance of the money needed. When Ma and Pa escort Mary to the college, Laura, Carrie, and Grace are left alone for a week. In order to stave off the loneliness stemming from Mary's departure, Laura, Carrie, and Grace do the fall cleaning. They have several problems, but the house is sparkling when they are done. Ma and Pa come home, and are truly surprised.


title: Little House on the Prairie

text: In the fall, the Ingallses quickly prepare for a move to town for the winter. Laura and Carrie attend school in town, and Laura is reunited with her friends Minnie Johnson and Mary Power, and she meets a new girl, Ida Brown. There is a new schoolteacher for the winter term: Eliza Jane Wilder, Almanzo’s sister. Nellie Oleson, Laura's nemesis from Plum Creek, has moved to De Smet and is attending the school. Nellie turns the teacher against Laura, and Miss Wilder loses control of the school for a time. A visit by the school board restores order; however, Miss Wilder leaves at the end of the fall term, and she is eventually replaced by Mr. Clewett and then by Mr. Owen, the latter of whom befriends Laura. Through the course of the winter, Laura sets herself to studying, as she only has one year left before she can apply for a teaching certificate.


title: Little House on the Prairie

text: At the same time, Almanzo Wilder begins escorting Laura home from church. By Christmas, Almanzo has offered to take Laura on a sleigh ride after he completes the cutter he is building.


title: Little House on the Prairie

text: At home, Laura is met by Mr. Boast and Mr. Brewster, who ask Laura if she would be interested in a teaching position at a settlement led by Brewster, twelve miles (19 km) from town. The school superintendent, George Williams, comes and tests Laura. Though she is two months too young, he never asks her age. She is awarded a third-grade teaching certificate.


title: Little House on the Prairie

text: "These Happy Golden Years", published in 1943 and eighth in the series, originally ended with a note alone on the last page: "The end of the Little house books." It takes place between 1882 and 1885. As the story begins, Pa is taking Laura 12 miles (19 km) from home to her first teaching assignment at the Brewster settlement. Laura, only 15 and a schoolgirl herself, is apprehensive, as this is both the first time she has left home and the first school at which she has taught. She is determined to complete her assignment and earn $40 to help her sister Mary, who is attending Vinton College for the Blind in Iowa.


title: Little House on the Prairie

text: This first assignment proves difficult for her. Laura must board with the Brewsters in their two-room claim shanty, sleeping on their sofa. The Brewsters are an unhappy family, and Laura is deeply uncomfortable observing husband and wife quarrel. In one particularly unsettling incident, she wakes in the night to see Mrs. Brewster standing over her husband with a knife. It is a bitterly cold winter, and neither the claim shanty nor the school house can be heated adequately. The children she is teaching, some of whom are older than she is herself, test her skills as a teacher. Laura grows more self-assured, and she successfully completes the two-month term.


title: Little House on the Prairie

text: To Laura's surprise and delight, homesteader Almanzo Wilder (with whom she became acquainted in "Little Town on the Prairie") appears at the end of her first week of school in his new two-horse cutter to bring her home for the weekend. Already fond of Laura and wanting to ease her homesickness, Almanzo takes it upon himself to bring her home and back to school each weekend.


title: Little House on the Prairie

text: The relationship continues after the school term ends. Sleigh rides give way to buggy rides in the spring, and Laura impresses Almanzo with her willingness to help break his new and often temperamental horses. Laura's old nemesis, Nellie Oleson, makes a brief appearance during two Sunday buggy rides with Almanzo. Nellie's chatter and flirtatious behavior towards Almanzo annoy Laura. She finally tells Almanzo to choose between them. Shortly thereafter, Nellie moves back to New York after her family loses its homestead.


title: Little House on the Prairie

text: Laura's Uncle Tom (Ma's brother) visits the family and tells of his failed venture with a covered-wagon brigade seeking gold in the Black Hills. Laura helps out seamstress Mrs. McKee by staying with her and her daughter on their prairie claim for two months to "hold it down" as required by law. The family enjoys summer visits from Mary.


title: Little House on the Prairie

text: The family finances have improved to the point that Pa can sell a cow to purchase a sewing machine for Ma. Laura continues to teach and work as a seamstress.


title: Little House on the Prairie

text: Almanzo invites Laura to attend summer "singing school" with him and her classmates. On the last evening of singing school, while driving Laura home, Almanzo, after courting Laura for three years, proposes to her. During their next ride, Almanzo presents Laura with a garnet-and-pearl ring and they share their first kiss.


title: Little House on the Prairie

text: Several months later, after Almanzo has finished building a house on his tree claim, he asks Laura if she would mind getting married within a few days, as his sister and his mother have their hearts set on a large church wedding, which Pa cannot afford. Laura agrees, and she and Almanzo are married in a simple ceremony by the Reverend Brown. After a wedding dinner with her family, Laura drives away with Almanzo, and the newlyweds settle contentedly into their new home.


title: Little House on the Prairie

text: "The First Four Years", published in 1971, is commonly considered the ninth and last book in the original Little House series. It covers the earliest years of Laura and Almanzo's marriage. The style is less polished than the other books because it was discovered among Laura’s papers after her death and published unedited.


title: Little House on the Prairie

text: "The First Four Years" derives its title from a promise Laura made to Almanzo when they became engaged. Laura did not want to be a farm wife, but she consented to try farming for three years. Their daughter Rose is born, then a son who dies at a few weeks old. Wheat crops fail, and Almanzo becomes partially paralyzed as a result of diphtheria. At the end of that time, Laura and Almanzo mutually agree to continue for one more year, a "year of grace", in Laura's words. That summer a fire destroys their house. The book ends at the close of that fourth year, on a rather optimistic note. Laura compares a farmer’s hope for success year to year to her father’s lifelong hope for a better life farther west. In reality, the continually hot, dry Dakota summers, and overwhelming debt eventually drove them from their land, but they later founded a very successful fruit and dairy farm in Missouri, where they lived comfortably until their respective deaths.


title: Little House on the Prairie

text: "Jackanory" is a British television series intended to encourage children to read; it ran from 1965 to 1996, and was revived in 2006. From October 24 through October 28, 1966, five short episodes aired that were based on "Little House in the Big Woods", with Red Shively as the storyteller. From October 21 through October 25, 1968, five more were released, this time based on "Farmer Boy", with Richard Monette as the storyteller.


title: Little House on the Prairie

text: The television series "Little House on the Prairie" aired on the NBC network from 1974 to 1983. The show was a loose adaptation of Laura Ingalls Wilder's Little House on the Prairie semi-autobiographical novel series, although the namesake book was represented in the premiere only; the ensuing television episodes primarily followed characters and locations from the follow-up book, "On the Banks of Plum Creek" (1937), although the continuity of the television series greatly departed from this book as well. Some storylines were borrowed from Wilder's later books but were portrayed as having taken place in the "Plum Creek" setting. Michael Landon starred as Charles Ingalls, Karen Grassle played Caroline Ingalls, Melissa Gilbert played Laura Ingalls, Melissa Sue Anderson played Mary Ingalls, and the twins Lindsay and Sidney Greenbush (credited as Lindsay Sidney Greenbush) played Carrie Ingalls. Victor French portrayed long-time friend Mr. Edwards. Dean Butler portrayed Laura's husband, Almanzo Wilder. Some characters were added in the show, such as Albert, played by Matthew Laborteaux, an orphan whom the family adopted.


title: Little House on the Prairie

text: Although it deviated from the original books in many respects, the television series, which was set in Walnut Grove, Minnesota, was one of a few long-running successful dramatic family shows. It remained a top-rated series, and garnered 17 Emmy and three Golden Globe nominations, along with two People’s Choice Awards.


title: Little House on the Prairie

text: A Japanese anime television series of 26 episodes (about 24 minutes each), originally entitled "Sōgen no Shōjo Laura".


title: Little House on the Prairie

text: Two made for television movies by Marcus Cole, with Meredith Monroe as Laura. Part 1 tells the story of teenage Laura in DeSmet, while the second part is about Laura and Almanzo's (Walton Goggins) marriage and their life in Mansfield, Missouri. It also focuses a lot on the character of Wilder's young daughter; Rose (Skye McCole Bartusiak).


title: Little House on the Prairie

text: The 2005 ABC five-hour (six-episode) miniseries "Little House on the Prairie" attempted to follow closely the books "Little House in the Big Woods" and "Little House on the Prairie". It starred Cameron Bancroft as Charles Ingalls; Erin Cottrell as Caroline Ingalls; Kyle Chavarria as Laura Ingalls; Danielle Chuchran as Mary Ingalls; and Gregory Sporleder as Mr Edwards. It was directed by David L. Cunningham. In 2006 the mini-series was released on DVD and the 2-disc set runs approximately 255 minutes long.


title: Little House on the Prairie

text: A musical version of the "Little House" books premiered at the Guthrie Theater, Minnesota on July 26, 2008. The musical has music by Rachel Portman and lyrics by Donna DiNovelli and is directed by Francesca Zambello with choreography by Michele Lynch. The cast includes Melissa Gilbert as "Ma". The musical began a US national tour in October 2009.


title: Little House on the Prairie

text: "Little House on the Prairie: The Legacy of Laura Ingalls Wilder" is a one-hour documentary film that looks at the life of Wilder. Wilder's story as a writer, wife, and mother is explored through interviews with scholars and historians, archival photography, paintings by frontier artists, and dramatic reenactments.


title: Passions

text: Passions is an American television soap opera that originally aired on NBC from July 5, 1999, to September 7, 2007, and on DirecTV's The 101 Network from September 17, 2007, to August 7, 2008. Created by screenwriter James E. Reilly and produced by NBC Studios, "Passions" follows the lives, loves and various romantic and paranormal adventures of the residents of Harmony, a small town in New England with many secrets.


title: Passions

text: Storylines center on the interactions among members of its multi-racial core families: the African American Russells, the white Cranes and Bennetts, and half-Mexican half-Irish Lopez-Fitzgeralds. The series also features supernatural elements, which focus mainly on town witch Tabitha Lenox (Juliet Mills) and her doll-come-to life, Timmy (Josh Ryan Evans).


title: Passions

text: NBC cancelled "Passions" on January 16, 2007. The series was subsequently picked up by DirecTV. The series aired its final episode on NBC on September 7, 2007, with new episodes continuing on DirectTV's 101 Network starting on September 17. In December 2007, just months after picking up the series, DirecTV decided not to renew its contract for "Passions", and the studio was subsequently unable to sell the series elsewhere. The final episode was broadcast in August 2008. As of 2021, "Passions" is the last daytime television soap opera created for American network television.


title: Passions

text: "Passions" debuted on NBC broadcast television in July 1999 with major fanfare. Creator Reilly had been credited for a large surge in the ratings for "Days of Our Lives" years before, thanks to innovative storylines like that of heroine Dr. Marlena Evans being possessed by Satan that drew new viewers, but also tended to alienate stalwart fans. With "Passions", Reilly was able to start with a blank slate and no pre-existing fan base to please. The series replaced the Procter & Gamble-produced serial "Another World", which ended a 35-year run on June 25, 1999, on NBC's daytime schedule. In the early days of the show, "Passions" heroine Sheridan Crane is identified as a close friend of Diana, Princess of Wales; soon Sheridan recalls speaking to Diana on the phone immediately before the 1997 car accident in which Diana was killed. Sheridan also has a similar accident in the same Paris tunnel, and speaks to a "guardian Angel Diana" who urges her to fight to survive, which drew considerable controversy. Sheridan later adopts the name Diana after a boating accident that results in amnesia.


title: Passions

text: The opening days of the show also introduced the Theresa/Ethan/Gwen love triangle that persisted as an ongoing main story line to the very last episode of the series.


title: Passions

text: For much of the first three to four years of the series, supernatural elements such as witches, warlocks, and closet doors leading to Hell were major plot points, many surrounding the machinations of the centuries-old witch Tabitha Lenox and her doll-brought-to-life sidekick, Timmy — named by "Entertainment Weekly" as one of their "17 Great Soap Supercouples" in 2008. In 2001, HarperEntertainment released "Hidden Passions", a tie-in novelization presented as Tabitha's diary, exposing the secrets and pasts of the town's residents. "Passions" featured a story-line involving Tabitha and Timmy promoting the book, which reached #4 on the real-life "New York Times" Best Seller list and garnered the series two alternative covers of "TV Guide" in July 2001.


title: Passions

text: In 2003, "Passions" submitted an orangutan named BamBam, who had been portraying the recurring role of Precious, for a Daytime Emmy Award. Precious was the non-speaking live-in nurse and caregiver for elderly Edna Wallace, and held an unrequited love for Luis Lopez-Fitzgerald, which was depicted in elaborate fantasy sequences. In early 2004, the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences, which administers the awards, disallowed the entry with the following statement:


title: Passions

text: "Our ruling is based on the belief that the Academy must draw a line of distinction between animal characters that aren't capable of speaking parts and human actors whose personal interpretation in character portrayal creates nuance and audience engagement that uniquely qualifies those performers for consideration of television's highest honor."


title: Passions

text: In summer 2005, the prominent character Simone Russell came out as gay; "Passions" made daytime history by being the first serial to show two women — Simone and love interest Rae Thomas — in bed making love. In 2007, it was revealed that longtime hero Chad Harris-Crane was cheating on his wife with another man. This was also a daytime first, with the men portrayed in bed together, committing -albeit unknowingly- incest. "Passions" also portrayed Vincent as an intersex person who became pregnant with his own father's son.


title: Passions

text: Nearly seven years after the debut of "Passions" on July 5, 1999, the NBC-owned Sci Fi Channel began airing the series from its first episode starting February 13, 2006. Due to low ratings, the reruns were taken off the air as of May 25, 2006. On August 15, 2006, "Passions" became the first daytime drama to make full episodes available for download and purchase from the online music store iTunes. On November 6, 2006, the show also became the first daytime drama to make full episodes available for free viewing via streaming on NBC.com.


title: Passions

text: Though plagued since its inception by low overall Nielsen ratings, "Passions" was historically top-rated in key demographics, namely the female 12–17 demographic; "Passions" and "Days of Our Lives" usually occupied the top two positions among all soaps in this age group.


title: Passions

text: The series was not renewed by NBC for a full ninth season in 2007, with NBC instead deciding to extend its morning news and talk show "Today" to a fourth hour. NBC began shopping the series to other networks. In April 2007, paid subscription service satellite provider DirecTV bought exclusive broadcasting rights from NBC to continue airing "Passions", with most principal cast members staying on. As the series was coming to an end on NBC, the "Passions Live" talk show hosted by Eric Martsolf premiered in August 2007 every Thursday night on original-programming channel The 101, giving fans the chance to telephone the show and interact live with "Passions" cast members, making "Passions" the first and only soap opera to ever have a live talk show in U.S. history. "Passions Live" continued to air on Thursday nights after the series moved to DirecTV, until October 2007. The live show was also streaming live on the official "Passions" website at NBC.com. "Passions" ended its NBC run on September 7, 2007, and new episodes began airing on The 101 on September 17, 2007. The series ran Monday to Thursday at 2:00 pm ET/11 am PT on DirecTV, with repeats airing later in the day and on weekends. NBC.com continued to maintain "Passions" official website after the series move from NBC to DirecTV, however new episodes were no longer available at NBC.com for free streaming or for purchase at iTunes. Initially, the new episodes were only supposed to be exclusively available on DirecTV after NBC ended its broadcast to the series, however on September 27, 2007, DirecTV announced they would provide an "All Access Pass to "Passions"" to view all new episodes at NBC.com for a monthly fee as an alternative for the viewers who were unable to subscribe to DirecTV to continue watching the series after moving from NBC to DirecTV. This service began on October 1, 2007 for $19.99 a month then reduced to $14.99 a month when "Passions" schedule was cut from four episodes a week to three episodes a week. After the series moved to DirecTV, the subscription service added a special feature where a trivia question relating to "Passions" would pop up, on each episode airing on The 101, for viewers to use their remote control to answer. "Passions" was the first soap opera to ever have this type of feature.


title: Passions

text: On December 10, 2007, "Variety" magazine and various cast members confirmed that DirecTV had decided not to renew "Passions" for another year, but ordered 52 additional episodes to be taped through March 2008. New episodes of the series were broadcast until August 7, 2008, with DirecTV airing three new episodes per week starting January 2008. Universal Media Studios wrapped up production of "Passions" on March 28, 2008. The cast and crew were told at the wrap party that efforts to find a new outlet had failed and that the cancellation was final. Cast member McKenzie Westmore confirmed the news. Though "Passions" had been the highest-rated original program on DirecTV's The 101, it was reported that the network had failed to meet the projected number of new subscribers they had hoped to attract with the series.


title: Passions

text: Over its run, "Passions" featured several storylines and sequences paying homage to or parodying other television series, films, books, and musicals like "Gone with the Wind", "Carrie", "Titanic", "I Dream of Jeannie", "Brokeback Mountain", "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland", "", "The Wizard of Oz", "The Da Vinci Code", "The Little Mermaid", and "Wicked". A 2003 fantasy sequence imitated the "Cell Block Tango" number from the 2002 film "Chicago"; "Passions" version of the song, "I Ain't Sorry", received a 2004 Daytime Emmy Award for Outstanding Original Song. A 2006 Bollywood homage featured the song "Love is Ecstasy," which earned the show another Daytime Emmy for Outstanding Original Song and was made available on the NBC website. In nods to "Bewitched", Bernard Fox appeared as that series' "Dr. Bombay" twice on "Passions" in scenes with Tabitha (not to be confused with own Tabitha Stephens). When "Passions" Tabitha has a child in 2003, she names the baby "Endora" which was Tabitha's grandmother's name, and later notes that her parents had been "Samantha" and a mortal named "Darrin."


title: Passions

text: One of "Passions" most notorious trademarks is the false "dream sequence" or fakeout. Often, the show would play out an outlandish event, or explode a huge secret which viewers have long been waiting to see, only to reveal it to be a daydream. This dream sequence would last anywhere from a few scenes to a few episodes, typically beginning without warning. On "Passions", often a dream sequence would begin with no visual cues of any sort whatsoever, often going as far as to include contradictory elements to give the dream sequence credence (for instance, another character may show up within the dream wearing an outfit, or revealing information that the daydreamer had no possible way of knowing about beforehand).


title: Passions

text: Characters on the show have flashbacks to earlier events quite often, so much so that a significant portion of an episode may be repeated scenes.


title: Passions

text: Another trademark of the serial is its pre-occupation with the concepts of fate and soulmates. For the run of the series, the show established a few couples as "fated" and, with few short-lived exceptions, never mixed up any of the relationships. Some of the early "fated" couples were considered to be those of Luis and Sheridan, Ethan and Theresa, Miguel and Charity, and Chad and Whitney. Common indications of a couple's status as "fated" include (but are not necessarily limited to) Tabitha's desire to split said couple up, an unshakeable love that survives numerous break-ups and relationships with third parties, and/or an ability of one character, or perhaps both characters, to "sense" when his/her "soulmate" is in danger, as well as having shared past lives together in the case of Luis and Sheridan. However, despite the fact that each of these couples has existed as a storyline since the first episodes, the show seems to have given up on the "fated" angle as it approached its end. Ethan and Theresa are still in love and marry in the final episode, but Miguel is now in love with and marries Kay, Luis falls in love with and marries Sheridan's niece Fancy, while Sheridan's formerly presumed dead husband Antonio returns to Harmony alive and well. Whitney left Chad after finding out about his affair with Vincent, and Chad later was shot dead by his father Alistair, leaving Whitney widowed and pregnant.


title: Passions

text: Likely due to "Passions" school-aged target audience, the show often presented large, wild storylines for the summer, which often took place outside of Harmony. In 1999, a carnival came to town as characters were introduced; 2000 saw the Prom Boat Disaster storyline and 2001 witnessed the failed double-wedding of popular couples Luis and Sheridan and Ethan and Theresa, and their subsequent journey to Bermuda, where Sheridan apparently perished in a boat explosion and Theresa wound up married to Ethan's ex-stepfather, Julian Crane. In 2002, Julian and Timmy set out on a journey in the magical land of Oz as Theresa was "executed" for Julian's "murder"; 2003 saw six characters (Chad, Whitney, Fox, Theresa, Ethan, and Gwen) travel to Los Angeles for the summer (and into October), while, in 2004, Luis and Sheridan traveled to Puerto Arena, Mexico, to retrieve his younger sister, Paloma (and ended up finding his missing father, Martin, and her "dead" mother, Katherine). The plot of the summer in 2005 was a deadly earthquake and tsunami, which destroyed much of Harmony and resulted in the death of James' mother, Maureen, while 2006 saw the extravagant "Passions" Vendetta plot, in which Alistair lured 19 people (Whitney, Simone, Paloma, Chad, Ethan, Theresa, Gwen, Lena, Spike, Jessica, Maya, Noah, Esmé, Fancy, Luis, Edna Wallace, Norma Bates, Beth, and Marty) to Rome, where he planned to take over the world with a chalice stolen from the Pope's private chambers; the plot saw the death of Lena, Maya, Alistair, Beth, and Marty. Summer 2007 saw the resolution of the "blackmailer" storyline as Vincent Clarkson was revealed to be the half-man/half-woman blackmailer, and Luis Lopez-Fitzgerald was saved from execution for Vincent's crimes by Endora's spell that turned back time in the execution chamber. In 2008, the show spent its final summer on the air wrapping up its plotlines at a rapid pace, with Alistair Crane being killed once and for all, the final showdowns between the main characters and the newly introduced villains Viki, Juanita, Pretty, and Vincent, Tabitha's redemption as a born again Christian who sacrifices her powers to save the residents of Harmony, the return of Antonio and his reunion with Sheridan, the mass weddings of Fancy and Luis, Paloma and Noah, Miguel and Kay, and Edna and Norma (the first gay couple ever to go down the aisle on a soap opera), and Gwen and Rebecca being exposed for their crimes as Theresa and Ethan finally married.


title: Passions

text: Another recurring theme on "Passions" is sexual violence. Many storylines, especially since 2005, have included rape as a plot point.


title: Passions

text: In 2005, Paloma Lopez-Fitzgerald was sexually assaulted and nearly raped during a club raid. The show then carried a plotline over whether they should do a rape test while Paloma was in a coma (at the time she was a virgin) and Jessica Bennett was also raped a few weeks later while at a club. Also early in the year, Alistair Crane repeatedly raped his wife, Katherine Crane, while at the Crane Compound. Late in May, heiress Fancy Crane was nearly raped by a man in Las Vegas who demanded "payment" for letting her into a party after she lost her invitation. During the tsunami and later in November, Liz Sanbourne attempted to rape Julian Crane at knife point. In August, Theresa Lopez-Fitzgerald was raped by Alistair Crane when she refused to pay him (with sex) for helping her with visitation of her infant daughter, Jane; Theresa later married Alistair, and he continued to rape her throughout their marriage. Also in August or September, Kay Bennett was attacked by a gang of men while walking through the park at night, though Fox Crane soon arrived and the two defeated the group. Liz Sanbourne also revealed during the tsunami that Julian Crane had raped her in Boston many years previously (she later revealed that it had been Alistair who had done the deed, thus producing a son, Chad Harris-Crane).


title: Passions

text: The most prominent rape storyline began in December 2006, when Crane heiress and police cadet Fancy Crane was raped during a sting operation designed to catch a peeping tom. The brutal attack left Fancy in a brief coma and emotionally traumatized the young woman. Fancy was also the show's first rape victim to visibly experience prolonged effects; her bubbly demeanor disappeared, and she became extremely nervous and could not stand to be touched for several months. Fancy was eventually raped for a second time in January 2007, and her boyfriend, Luis Lopez-Fitzgerald, was framed for the crimes; the rapist was later revealed to be Vincent Clarkson, Fancy's paternal half-brother through their father.


title: Passions

text: Rape also played prominently into the 2007—2008 storyline involving Mexican drug cartel leader Juanita Vasquez. Sometime between the births of Pilar's second and third children, the Lopez-Fitzgerald matriarch returned to her native Mexico to visit with her childhood best friend, Juanita Vasquez. There, she discovered that Juanita's husband, Carlos, was still involved with his family's drug cartel and was planning a hit on a rival family; when Pilar confronted Carlos, he raped her, and she accidentally killed him in self-defense. Pilar then called the police in an attempt to stop the hit, but the police ended up murdering the entire Vasquez family, including Juanita and Carlos' young children, except for Juanita. Juanita refused to believe that her husband had raped Pilar and made it her life's mission to murder Pilar's entire family, eventually murdering Pilar's sister and two nephews.


title: Passions

text: Men on the show were equally as likely to be violated as women. Fox Crane, Julian Crane, and Luis Lopez-Fitzgerald have all been victims of sexual assault.


title: Passions

text: One unfortunate trademark for "Passions" has been eerie deaths. In 2002, Josh Ryan Evans, who played Tabitha's doll sidekick Timmy, died while on medical leave, just as scenes were airing where Timmy died in the hospital and went to Heaven. "Passions" had planned to revive the character in a few months once Evans returned from his own surgery, but instead had to write Timmy out. After five years of evil Crane patriarch Alistair being heard but never having his face seen (voiced by Alan Oppenheimer), "Passions" cast the role with longtime daytime veteran David Bailey. Bailey was a hit with the cast as well as the fans, but on Thanksgiving Day 2004, Bailey drowned in his pool, just as scenes were airing where various characters tried to kill Alistair, who actually suffered clinical death before being magically revived by Tabitha. Again, the viewers and the producers were stunned, but the show had no choice but to recast the pivotal role (with John Reilly).


title: Passions

text: With its humor and occasional tongue-in-cheek tone, "Passions" has been known to "break the fourth wall", or somehow call attention to the fact that the show is fictional. In an early episode, Kay, Simone, and Zombie Charity were seen actually watching "Passions", and when the television in the Bennett's kitchen covered what would have been Theresa's execution, the news report actually pre-empted "Passions", cutting in during the theme song just after the appearance of the logo. In a 2002 episode Theresa was giving birth while stuck in a cabin with Ethan and Gwen; she had a hallucination in which the three of them did a dance together and sang the show's theme song "Breathe." In a 2004 episode, TC commented on "that crazy soap after "Days of our Lives"", referring to "Passions" itself. In a 2005 episode, Fancy Crane used a magazine to hide her face from Noah; the magazine had an image of the then-unrevealed Rachel Barrett with the sentence "Who is she?" under the "Passions" logo. In the same episode, Fancy later commented that "soaps are like life; you never know what's going to happen next!" In an early 2006 episode, Ivy and assistant Valerie were searching on the internet for Miguel to bring him back to Harmony and interfere with Fox and Kay's relationship. They could not find him, but Valerie tracked down his last place of employment: he was last seen working as a gardener in some suburban town on a street called Wisteria Lane. At that time, Jesse Metcalfe (ex-Miguel) was playing a gardener on the prime-time serial "Desperate Housewives", which takes place on a street called Wisteria Lane. In the March 30, 2006 episode, while "Passions" reruns were airing on the Sci-Fi Channel, Simone compared life in Harmony to living in a show on the Sci-Fi Channel. Similarly, in the August 10, 2006 episode, Theresa commented that her office was not like an NBC daytime serial, and that she would not hire somebody just because he looked like Jesse Metcalfe (who had portrayed her brother Miguel from 1999 to 2004). A similar inside joke occurred when the character Fancy had a dream that she was a cheerleader; in real life, Fancy's portrayer Emily Harper was a "Laker Girl" (cheerleader for the Los Angeles Lakers) from 2000 to 2003.


title: Passions

text: In April 2007, Kay was watching the sixth hour of "The Today Show" (an apparent jab at NBC's decision to extend it at the expense of the "Passions" timeslot) when it was interrupted with a news report that Luis had been arrested. In one August 2007 episode, Tabitha said that a certain soap opera was starting on DirecTV and she would have to tell her friends not to call her between the hours of 2:00 and 3:00 pm, blatantly referring to "Passions" itself. At the beginning of the show's final week on NBC, as Whitney was preparing to move to New Orleans, Theresa asked if she was sure she wanted to go, and Whitney commented that she had already arranged to have her DirecTV hooked up in Louisiana so she could "keep up on everything happening in Harmony." And also in 2007, Endora flat-out made a reference to the "audience" in one of her thought balloons, prompting Norma to look in the camera and respond, "Audience? What audience?" Endora also pointed out in one of her thought balloons that when Miguel returned to "Passions", he looked nothing like Jesse Metcalfe ("Nope, not even close!"). In May 2008 while Juanita was looking for clues in a bookstore as to where Pilar was, the bargain shelf was full of copies of "Hidden Passions". In June 2008, Tabitha mentions the fourth hour of "Today" being a ratings-grabber, poking fun as to how they canceled the soap making way for this fourth hour trying to bring the ratings on NBC up.


title: Passions

text: In the June 30, 2008, episode, Sheridan mentions Pretty's fake scar with references to her real family the Westmores. Michael Westmore did make up for all four "Star Trek" spin-off series.


title: Passions

text: In the July 30, 2008, episode, Tabitha tells Endora about the volcano in Harmony referring to it as how "Passions" was canceled at the last moment and the actors not knowing. She tells Endora to look in the bowl and Endora says she sees a man sitting at a desk with the initials "J. Z." this is referring to NBC President Jeff Zucker. Tabitha looks at the audience mentioning Universal forces and Direct Intervention. This is a nod at both Universal Studios and DirecTV for canceling the series twice in one year.


title: Passions

text: During its NBC run, "Passions" was known to "promote" other NBC programming within its storylines, and to incorporate commercial products into the plot in a promotional tactic known as product placement.


title: Passions

text: Shortly after "Passions" debuted, Campbell tomato soup was featured as an ingredient in Grace Bennett's tomato soup cake. Also, Nestlé Purina Dog Chow was used to feed Tabitha Lenox's pet cat Fluffy.


title: Passions

text: In a 2004 episode, TC watched an NBC ad for "Days of Our Lives" on his TV, and went on to praise the writers of "Days of our Lives" for coming up with such good storylines; "Days", at that time, was under the helm of James E. Reilly, head writer of "Passions". In the September 4, 2006, episode, Fox was sucked into a black hole; he then told Tabitha that it was the kind of black hole that one gets sucked into on the Sci Fi Channel, which was the channel on which "Passions" repeats aired in 2006. Tabitha then told him stick with NBC ("Passions"' network). In an episode later in September 2006, Siren tried to get Miguel into bed by singing her Siren's song. Miguel told her that she should not audition for "America's Got Talent", which airs on NBC. In another episode, Tabitha talked about "The Biggest Loser" season finale, which was also aired on NBC. A more recent episode featured characters watching a trailer for the 2007 Diane Keaton film "Because I Said So" (produced by Universal Studios, which, like NBC, is owned by General Electric).


title: Passions

text: For a time, Jessica Bennett was an Avon mark saleswoman, and more recently the show featured Johnson & Johnson's K-Y Jelly personal lubricant, and characters were seen drinking from Brita water pitchers. Both Jessica and Theresa were seen using Clearblue Easy pregnancy test products. After Kay and Miguel's wedding in 2008, Norma gave Miguel the 2-in-1 K-Y Jelly personal lubricant by Johnson & Johnson, telling him how it is so great for her and Edna and that Miguel and Kay will find great enjoyment in it.


title: Passions

text: In July 2007, "Passions" began to promote its own move to DirecTV for the following September. Several characters' homes were seen sporting DirecTV dishes on their roofs, and characters began to make frequent references to switching to DirecTV.


title: Passions

text: The theme song for "Passions" is titled "Breathe"; it was performed by Jane French and written by French and John Henry Kreitler. A long version of this theme was also released but was never used on the show.


title: Passions

text: The opening title sequence used since the show's premiere in 1999 features shots of the city of Harmony and its landmarks (actually the real-life town of Camden, Maine). The sequence opens and closes with the show's logo in an italic typeface and in an Arial Black typeface in generic caps posted in front of the cursive form of the title. The opening theme is sometimes shortened to the last two verses to fit in extra scene time.


title: Passions

text: A replacement for the serial "Another World" (which ended on June 25, 1999 after a 35-year run) on NBC's daytime schedule, "Passions" debuted ahead of fellow NBC soap "Sunset Beach" with a 2.1 rating (1.9 million viewers) and remained there until "Sunset Beach" was cancelled in December 1999. From January 2000 until early May, the show came in last place in the ratings among the ten soaps on the air at the time. During May 2000 sweeps, "Passions" gained in popularity and pulled ahead of ABC's "Port Charles". "Passions" remained ahead of "Port Charles" until the latter show's cancellation in October 2003. From then on, "Passions" once again was last in the American daytime ratings, where it would stay for virtually the rest of its run. It did top "Guiding Light" on occasion, but never for more than one week at a time. From 2001 to 2003, when "Passions" was at the peak of its popularity, it averaged a weekly 2.1-2.3 rating (roughly 2.4 million viewers). However, the ratings slowly declined each year afterwards; by the 2006-2007 season, the show averaged a 1.5 weekly rating (about 1.9 million viewers). The final episode on NBC had a household rating of 1.3/4 (1.68 million viewers). No ratings information was ever released for the show's run on DirecTV.


title: Passions

text: While "Passions" was never a big hit in household ratings, the show was a powerhouse in the younger-skewing demographics. For its entire NBC run it ranked as the #1 soap in Girls 12-17 and Women 18-24. The show also ranked #2 in Women 18-34 and even overtook fellow NBC soap "Days of Our Lives" for a short period during the 2004-2005 season. In the crucial 18-49 demographic, "Passions" usually ranked #7, ahead of CBS soaps "As the World Turns", and "Guiding Light". The highest ranking "Passions" ever achieved in the 18-49 demographic was 4th place in November 2002 and once again in January 2007.


title: Passions

text: During its NBC run, "Passions" ran for 60 minutes every weekday (excluding some holidays). In the final NBC 2006-07 season, episodes were available online at NBC.com for free viewing and for purchase on iTunes. After the move to DirecTV, the schedule was shortened to four days a week (Monday through Thursday) plus weekend marathon encores, then later three days a week (Monday through Wednesday) starting in January 2008 until the finale. Initially, DirecTV episodes were only available on its own exclusive channel; later they were made available for a paid subscription fee at NBC.com.


title: Passions

text: "Passions" aired in Canada for its entire NBC run, first on CTV in 1999 and then on Global TV in 2000. The series lasted there until its final airdate on NBC in September 2007, at which time it was then succeeded by "Guiding Light" in the same time slot. NTV in Newfoundland and Labrador also aired "Passions" for almost its entire NBC run and was replaced by "As the World Turns" just before the series ended on NBC. On July 3, 2007 it was reported that new Canadian premium television service Super Channel would air the DirecTV episodes of "Passions" in Canada when the channel launched in October 2007. Those episodes premiered on Super Channel on October 8, 2007 (airing two new episodes at a time only until it caught up to the DirecTV episodes) and ran until the series finale on August 7, 2008. On August 11, 2008, Super Channel began to air "Passions" from the premiere episode. Season 2 re-ran on Super Channel starting August 2009 and season 3 in 2010. Season 4 premiered on July 14, 2011. Passions run on Super Channel ended on July 3, 2012. Super Channel chose not to renew their contract due to technical issues.


title: Passions

text: "Passions" was broadcast nationally in Australia on the Seven Network each weekday at 3:00pm, beginning on 29 January 2001 with the series' 1999 episodes. In 2005, the series was moved to an earlier 9:30am time slot, before the show's international licensing was cancelled due to the music copyright fees. "Passions" then went into re-runs in a 2am weekday morning time-slot, before ultimately ending with a "series finale."


title: Passions

text: In Croatia, private televizor Nova TV aired the first two seasons of the show (520 episodes). The show was well received by the public, but badly by the critics.


title: Passions

text: "Passions" has been honored with numerous awards and nominations during its run, including Daytime Emmy Awards, Imagen Foundation Awards, and a GLAAD Media Award.


title: Passions

text: At its debut, reviews for the series were mixed. The "Orlando Sentinel" gave "Passions" a "bleak prognosis" regarding the Princess Diana controversy. Their critic wrote: "A show's dearth of creativity is evident when it shamelessly keeps picking over the bones of the dead. "Passions" seems to have a death wish." "TIME" magazine wrote that apart from the show's supernatural elements, ""Passions" would appear indistinguishable from almost any other soap opera." Unlike the "Orlando Sentinel", Time approved of the Princess Diana link, stating that it showed that "Passions" was not "devoid of promise" and that the storyline showed "flashes of a certain kind of genius."


title: Passions

text: By 2001, Michael Logan of "TV Guide" remarked of "Passions", "There hasn't been this sort of buzz about a soap since the Luke and Laura days on "General Hospital"...It's unlike anything else out there. There's a real sense of hipness to it."


title: Passions

text: Craig Tomashoff of "The New York Times" praised the campy storylines by calling "Passions" the ""Twin Peaks" of daytime": "It's a staggeringly psychotic blend of supernatural thriller, melodramatic soap opera and situation comedy, featuring acting that would make a pro wrestler blush. I'm never quite sure whether this is a "laughing at" or a "laughing with" kind of show; either way, I'm still laughing."


title: Passions

text: In a nod to "Bewitched", Bernard Fox appeared as that series' "Dr. Bombay" on "Passions" in 1999 and 2000. Alice Ghostley, who portrayed bumbling witch Esmeralda on "Bewitched", also appeared on "Passions" in 2000 as the ghost of Matilda Matthews, a friend and rival witch from Tabitha's past in colonial New England. Comedian Ruth Buzzi portrayed Nurse Kravitz, an eccentric nurse who discovers that the character Endora has a demon tail, in 2003. Marla Gibbs appeared in 2004 and 2005 as Irma Johnson, the cantankerous, wheelchair-bound aunt of Eve Russell and Liz Sanbourne. Gibbs was nominated for a NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Actress in a Daytime Drama Series for the role. From 2005 to 2006, Julia Duffy portrayed the Mother Superior at the convent to which Whitney Russell flees, and Georgia Engel played Esmeralda, Tabitha's childhood rival, in a 2007 "Wicked"-themed storyline.


title: Passions

text: Professional basketball player Robert Horry appeared as himself in 1999, as did singer Mýa in 2003 and the band Scissor Sisters in 2007. Judge Mablean Ephriam also portrayed herself in a 2003 fantasy sequence in which the character T. C. and Eve Russell go on the "Divorce Court" television program.


title: Passions

text: Juliet Mills' daughter Melissa Caulfield appeared in 1999 and 2005 as Nanny Phoebe Figalilly, a role played by Mills in the sitcom "Nanny and the Professor". Gabby Tamargo, daughter of Eva Tamargo, portrayed a young version of the elder Tamargo's character, Pilar Lopez-Fitzgerald, in 2008.


title: Passions

text: In 2001, HarperEntertainment released "Hidden Passions: Secrets from the Diaries of Tabitha Lenox", a tie-in novelization presented as Tabitha's diary, exposing the secrets and pasts of the town's residents. "Passions" featured a storyline involving Tabitha and Timmy promoting the book, which reached #4 on the real-life "New York Times" Best Seller list and garnered the series two alternative covers of "TV Guide" in July 2001. While the novel was billed as being canonical, by the show's final episode, the televised canon had diverged significantly from the novel since its publication.


title: Pompoir

text: Pompoir is a sexual technique in which the woman uses her vaginal muscles to stimulate the man's penis. Both partners remain still, while the woman strokes the man's erection using rhythmic, rippling pulses of the pubococcygeus muscles, so this practice is best performed in a woman on top position.


title: Pompoir

text: Performing Kegel or pelvic floor exercises can increase a woman's skill in pompoir by strengthening the relevant muscles, and allow her to identify, and isolate, individual muscles, to contract them in turn to provide the rippling sensation.


title: Pompoir

text: Other names for this technique include the Singapore grip. The title of "The Singapore Grip", a novel by J. G. Farrell, as well as its 2020 television adaptation, refers to this phrase.


title: Pompoir

text: "Kabzah" or "Kabza" (, ) is a variant technique that originates from South Asia, where the female additionally uses her abdominal muscle contractions to stimulate the penis of the male partner, who must remain totally passive. The word translates as 'holder', and the sensation can be likened to that of 'milking'. Women are reported to have spent many years in training before becoming proficient in this technique, and as such this technique is considered highly difficult to perform. The act itself is a variety of tantra, its purpose being to enhance and increase the duration and intensity of intercourse.


title: Pompoir

text: It is a millenary technique of the East. It originated in India and was perfected in Thailand. The first exercises came with a transformation of the extensive preparatory tantric exercises for the Maithuna. This transformation was initially developed by the priestesses of the Great Mother temples to be used in fertility rituals. With time the technique expanded and became increasingly popular.


title: Pompoir

text: A similar exercise was developed in the 1950s by gynecologist Arnold Kegel, who in 1952 developed some exercises for women who had a problem with urinary incontinence. With the research he discovered that the pubococcygeus muscle was out of shape and not working properly. By exercising these muscles, the medical problem was solved and the potential for genital sensations and orgasm increased.


title: Pompoir

text: In part this was due to blood flow increasing in exercised muscles, and the increase in blood flow is related to the ease of arousal and orgasm. When the strength of a muscle increases, the blood supply increases, with the side effect being an increase of blood flow to the pelvis resulting in higher levels of arousal and more intense orgasms.


title: Shellback (record producer)

text: Karl Johan Schuster (; born 1 February 1985), known professionally as Shellback, is a Swedish record producer, songwriter and multi-instrumentalist. Shellback was listed as the No. 1 producer of 2012 on "Billboard" magazine's year end chart, and he also topped the list of their "Top 10 Songwriters Airplay Chart" the same year; he has won four Grammy Awards.


title: Shellback (record producer)

text: He regularly collaborates with songwriter Max Martin and together they have produced, written, or co-written songs for various artists such as P!nk, Taylor Swift, Adam Lambert, Britney Spears, Usher, Avril Lavigne, Ariana Grande, Adele and Maroon 5. Shellback has also collaborated with fellow producer Benny Blanco and has produced songs by himself, including "Want U Back" by Cher Lloyd and "Animals" by Maroon 5. He co-wrote and co-produced the song "Can't Stop the Feeling!" along with Martin and Justin Timberlake for the animated film "Trolls" (2016), earning a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Original Song in 2017.


title: Shellback (record producer)

text: Karl Johan Schuster was born and raised in Karlshamn, Sweden. He started as a drummer in local indie rock bands in Karlshamn, as well as recording all instruments on the 2003 Meriah demo "...Turn Him Your Other Cheek" (a strictly black metal recording), before joining the hardcore-metal scene as a vocalist in 2004 for Blinded Colony, with whom he recorded 2005's "Promo Demo" and 2006's "Bedtime Prayers", drawing comparisons to fellow Swedish melodic death metal band In Flames, before leaving in 2007. In 2005 he also performed as a guest musician on the Faith album "Sorg".


title: Shellback (record producer)

text: At the age of 16, Schuster met Max Martin through their mutual friend Julius. By that time, according to an interview in the Swedish music magazine "Stim-magasinet", Schuster's taste in music was "too cool for school" and he had no interest in pop music whatsoever. Julius kept sending Schuster's indie rock-death metal demos to Martin, who became curious about what it would sound like if Schuster would make pop music. So in 2006 Martin invited Schuster to his studio in Stockholm to record a demo with him, and since 2007 Schuster has been signed to Martin's production company Maratone.


title: Shellback (record producer)

text: Among the first songs Schuster co-wrote with Martin are Pink's 2008 single "So What" and Britney Spears' 2008 single "If U Seek Amy". In 2012 Schuster won the STIM Platinum guitar prize.


title: Shellback (record producer)

text: In 2015, Shellback collaborated with Swedish hardcore punk band Refused, as he is both a fan of the band's music and friends with the band's drummer David Sandstrom. Sandstrom sent him the versions of the songs "Elektra" and "366" that Refused had recorded with producer Nick Launay, and Shellback replied with his own arrangements of the two songs. Refused frontman Dennis Lyxzen explained in June 2015 that Shellback's versions were "far more Refused than our versions" and "were better" than the Launay-produced versions. The two songs appear on Refused's comeback album "Freedom"—"Elektra" was released as a single on 27 April 2015—which was released on the label Epitaph Records on 26 June 2015.


title: Fulton County, Georgia

text: Fulton County is located in the north-central portion of the U.S. state of Georgia. As of the 2020 United States census, the population was 1,066,710, making it the state's most-populous county and its only one with over one million inhabitants. Its county seat and largest city is Atlanta, the state capital. Approximately 90% of the City of Atlanta is within Fulton County; the other 10% lies within DeKalb County. Fulton County is part of the Atlanta-Sandy Springs-Roswell, GA Metropolitan Statistical Area.


title: Fulton County, Georgia

text: Fulton County was created in 1853 from the western half of DeKalb County. It was named in honor of Robert Fulton, the man who created the first commercially successful steamboat in 1807.


title: Fulton County, Georgia

text: After the American Civil War, there was considerable violence against freedmen in the county. During the post-Reconstruction period, violence and the number of lynchings of blacks increased in the late 19th century, as whites exercised terrorism to re-establish and maintain white supremacy. Whites lynched 35 African Americans here from 1877 to 1950; According to the Georgia Lynching Project, 24 were killed in 1906. This was the highest total in the state. With a total of 589, Georgia was second to Mississippi in its total number of lynchings in this period.


title: Fulton County, Georgia

text: In addition to individual lynchings, during the Atlanta Race Riot of 1906, whites killed at least 25 African Americans; the number may have been considerably higher. Two white persons died during the riot; one a woman who died of a heart attack. The violence affected black residential and business development in the city afterward. The Georgia legislature effectively completed disenfranchisement of African Americans in 1908, with constitutional amendments that raised barriers to voter registration and voting, excluding them from the political system.


title: Fulton County, Georgia

text: At the beginning of 1932, as an austerity measure to save money during the Great Depression, Fulton County annexed Milton County to the north and Campbell County to the southwest, to centralize administration. That resulted in the current long shape of the county along of the Chattahoochee River. On May 9 of that year, neighboring Cobb County ceded the city of Roswell and lands lying east of Willeo Creek to Fulton County so that it would be more contiguous with the lands ceded from Milton County.


title: Fulton County, Georgia

text: In the second half of the 20th century, Atlanta and Fulton county became the location of numerous national and international headquarters for leading companies, attracting highly skilled employees from around the country. This led to the city and county becoming more cosmopolitan and diverse.


title: Fulton County, Georgia

text: In 1992, Fulton County elected the first African-American woman, Jacquelyn Harrison Barrett, to the position of Sheriff in the history of the United States.


title: Fulton County, Georgia

text: According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the county has a total area of , of which is land and (1.4%) is water. The county is located in the Piedmont region of the state in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains to the north. The shape of the county resembles a sword with its handle at the northeastern part, and the tip at the southwestern portion.


title: Fulton County, Georgia

text: Going from north to south, the northernmost portion of Fulton County, encompassing Milton and northern Alpharetta, is located in the Etowah River sub-basin of the ACT River Basin (Alabama-Coosa-Tallapoosa River Basin). The rest of north and central Fulton, to downtown Atlanta, is located in the Upper Chattahoochee River sub-basin of the ACF River Basin (Apalachicola-Chattahoochee-Flint River Basin). The bulk of south Fulton County, from Atlanta to Palmetto, is located in the Middle Chattahoochee River-Lake Harding sub-basin of the larger ACF River Basin, with just the eastern edges of south Fulton, from Palmetto northeast through Union Hill to Hapeville, in the Upper Flint River sub-basin of the same larger ACF River Basin.


title: Fulton County, Georgia

text: As of the 2020 United States census, there were 1,066,710 people, 439,578 households, and 238,444 families residing in the county.


title: Fulton County, Georgia

text: As of the 2010 United States Census, there were 920,581 people, 376,377 households, and 209,215 families residing in the county. The population density was . There were 437,105 housing units at an average density of . The racial makeup of the county was 46.4% white, 44.3% black or African American, 6.9% Asian, 0.2% American Indian, 3.4% from other races, and 2.2% from two or more races. Those of Hispanic or Latino origin made up 7.5% of the population. In terms of ancestry, 7.7% were English, 7.2% were German, 6.3% were Irish, and 5.4% were "American".


title: Fulton County, Georgia

text: Of the 376,377 households, 30.9% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 35.7% were married couples living together, 15.7% had a female householder with no husband present, 44.4% were non-families, and 35.4% of all households were made up of individuals. The average household size was 2.36 and the average family size was 3.15. The median age was 34.2 years.


title: Fulton County, Georgia

text: The median income for a household in the county was $56,709 and the median income for a family was $75,579. Males had a median income of $56,439 versus $42,697 for females. The per capita income for the county was $37,211. About 12.0% of families and 15.3% of the population were below the poverty line, including 22.0% of those under age 18 and 12.0% of those age 65 or over.


title: Fulton County, Georgia

text: Companies headquartered in Fulton County include AFC Enterprises (Popeyes Chicken/Cinnabon), AT&T Mobility, Chick-fil-A, Children's Healthcare of Atlanta, Church's Chicken, The Coca-Cola Company, Cox Enterprises, Delta Air Lines, Earthlink, Equifax, First Data, Georgia-Pacific, Global Payments, Inc., InterContinental Hotels Group, IBM Internet Security Systems, Mirant Corp., Newell Rubbermaid, Northside Hospital, Piedmont Healthcare, Porsche Cars North America, Saint Joseph's Hospital, Southern Company, Spectrum Brands, SunTrust Banks, United Parcel Service, and Wendy's/Arby's Group are based in various cities throughout Fulton County.


title: Fulton County, Georgia

text: MaggieMoo's and Marble Slab Creamery had their headquarters in an unincorporated area in the county, however, now those companies are located in neighboring Gwinnett County in Norcross.


title: Fulton County, Georgia

text: Fulton County is governed by a seven-member board of commissioners, whose members are elected from single-member districts. They serve staggered four-year terms. The county has a county manager system of government, in which day-to-day operation of the county is handled by a manager appointed by the board. The chairman of the Board of Commissioners is elected at-large for the county-wide position. The vice chairman is elected by peers on a yearly basis.


title: Fulton County, Georgia

text: Atlanta is the largest city in Fulton County, occupying the county's narrow center section and thus geographically dividing the county's northern and southern portions. Atlanta's last major annexation in 1952 brought over into the city, including the affluent suburb of Buckhead.


title: Fulton County, Georgia

text: The movement to create a city of Sandy Springs, launched in the early 1970s and reaching fruition in 2005, was largely an effort to prevent additional annexations by the city of Atlanta, and later to wrest local control from the county commission.


title: Fulton County, Georgia

text: Fulton County is one of the most reliably Democratic counties in the entire nation. It has voted Democratic in every presidential election since 1876 except those of 1928 and in 1972, when George McGovern could not win a single county in Georgia. The demographic character of the Democratic Party has changed, as conservative whites, previously its chief members in the South, have mostly shifted to the Republican Party. In Fulton County, Democrats are composed primarily of liberal urbanites of various ethnicities and a growing contingent of suburban voters. Except for a small sliver of Buckhead, the entire county is represented by Democrats in the U.S. House of Representatives, with David Scott representing the southern suburbs, Lucy McBath representing most of the northern suburbs, which had historically been reliably Republican, and John Lewis representing the core of Atlanta until his death on July 17, 2020. Lewis' seat is currently represented by Nikema Williams.


title: Fulton County, Georgia

text: Geographically remote from each other, the northern and southern sections of the county have grown increasingly at odds over issues related to taxes and distribution of services. Residents of the affluent areas of North Fulton have increasingly complained that the Fulton County Board of Commissioners has ignored their needs, taking taxes collected in North Fulton, and spending them on programs and services in less wealthy South Fulton. In 2005, responding to pressure from North Fulton, the Georgia General Assembly directed Fulton County, alone among all the counties in the state, to limit the expenditure of funds to the geographic region of the county where they were collected. The Fulton County Commission contested this law, known as the "Shafer Amendment" after Sen. David Shafer (Republican from Duluth), in a lawsuit that went to the Georgia Supreme Court. On June 19, 2006, the Court upheld the law, ruling that the Shafer Amendment was constitutional.


title: Fulton County, Georgia

text: The creation of the city of Sandy Springs stimulated the founding of two additional cities, resulting in no unincorporated areas remaining in north Fulton. In a domino effect, the residents of southwest Fulton voted in referendums to create additional cities. In 2007, one of these two referendums passed and the other was defeated, but later passed in 2016.


title: Fulton County, Georgia

text: Since the 1970s, residents of Sandy Springs had waged a long-running battle to incorporate their community as a city, which would make it independent of county council control. They were repeatedly blocked in the state legislature by Atlanta Democrats, but when control of state government switched to suburban Republicans after the 2002 and 2004 elections, the movement to charter the city picked up steam.


title: Fulton County, Georgia

text: The General Assembly approved creation of the city in 2005, and for this case, it suspended an existing state law that prohibited new cities (the only type of municipality in the state) from being within three miles (4.8 km) of an existing one. The citizens of Sandy Springs voted 94% in favor of ratifying the city charter in a referendum held on June 21, 2005. The new city was officially incorporated later that year at midnight on December 1.


title: Fulton County, Georgia

text: Creation of Sandy Springs was a catalyst for municipalization of the entire county, in which local groups would attempt to incorporate every area into a city. Such a result would essentially eliminate the county's home rule powers (granted statewide by a constitutional amendment to the Georgia State Constitution in the 1960s) to act as a municipality in unincorporated areas, and return it to being entirely the local extension of state government.


title: Fulton County, Georgia

text: In 2006, the General Assembly approved creation of two new cities, Milton and Johns Creek, which completed municipalization of North Fulton. The charters of these two new cities were ratified overwhelmingly in a referendum held July 18, 2006.


title: Fulton County, Georgia

text: Voters in the Chattahoochee Hills community of southwest Fulton (west of Cascade-Palmetto Highway) voted overwhelmingly to incorporate in June 2007. The city became incorporated on December 1, 2007.


title: Fulton County, Georgia

text: The General Assembly approved a proposal to form a new city called South Fulton. Its proposed boundaries were to include those areas still unincorporated on July 1, 2007. As a direct result of possibly being permanently landlocked, many of the existing cities proposed annexations, while some communities drew-up incorporation plans.


title: Fulton County, Georgia

text: Voters in the area defined as the proposed city of South Fulton overwhelmingly rejected cityhood in September 2007. It was the only remaining unincorporated section of the county until the residents voted in November 2016 to incorporate as the city of South Fulton, Georgia. Prior to that vote North Fulton, which is overwhelmingly Republican, and members of the state legislature, had discussed forcing South Fulton residents to incorporate as a city in order to force Fulton County out of the municipal services business.


title: Fulton County, Georgia

text: Some residents of suburban north Fulton have advocated that they be allowed to secede and re-form Milton County, after the county that was absorbed into Fulton County in 1932 during the Great Depression. Fulton County, in comparison to the state's other counties, is physically large. Its population is greater than that of each of the six smallest U.S. states.


title: Fulton County, Georgia

text: The demographic make-up of Fulton County has changed considerably in recent decades. The northern portion of the county, a suburban area, is among the most affluent areas in the nation and is majority white. It was formerly a Republican stronghold, but has seen a shift toward the Democratic Party since the early 2010s. In 2018, Lucy McBath won the 6th Congressional District, the majority of which is in North Fulton. The central and southern portion of the county, which includes the city of Atlanta and its core satellite cities to the south, is overwhelmingly Democratic and majority black. It contains some of the poorest sections in the metropolitan area, but also has wealthy sections, particularly in Midtown Atlanta, many east Atlanta neighborhoods, and in the suburban neighborhoods along Cascade Road beyond I-285. Cascade Heights and Sandtown, located in the southwest region of Fulton County, are predominantly affluent African American in population.


title: Fulton County, Georgia

text: The chief opponents to the proposed division of the county comes from the residents of south Fulton County, who say that the proposed separation is racially motivated. State Senator Vincent Fort, an Atlanta Democrat and a member of the Georgia Legislative Black Caucus, very strongly opposes the plan to split the county. "If it gets to the floor, there will be blood on the walls", Fort stated. "As much as you would like to think it's not racial, it's difficult to draw any other conclusion", he later added.


title: Fulton County, Georgia

text: In 2006 a political firestorm broke out in Atlanta when State Senator Sam Zamarripa (Democrat from Atlanta) suggested that the cities in North Fulton be allowed to secede and form Milton County in exchange for Atlanta and Fulton County consolidating their governments into a new "Atlanta County". South Fulton residents were strongly opposed to Fulton County's possible future division.


title: Fulton County, Georgia

text: Fulton County has a 7% total sales tax, including 4% state, 1% SPLOST, 1% homestead exemption, and 1% MARTA. Sales taxes apply through the entire county and its cities, except for Atlanta's additional 1% Municipal Option Sales Tax to fund capital improvements to its combined wastewater sewer systems (laying new pipes to separate storm sewers from sanitary sewers), and to its drinking water system. Fulton County has lowered its general fund millage rate by 26% over an eight-year period.


title: Fulton County, Georgia

text: In early 2017, the state's first (and so far only) fractional-percent sales taxes took effect in Fulton. Atlanta added an additional 0.5% for MARTA and 0.4% TSPLOST for other transportation projects, while anti-transit Republican legislators from north Fulton blocked a countywide referendum on improving and extending MARTA, and instead allowed only a vote on a 0.75% TSPLOST for more roads in the areas outside Atlanta. This puts the total sales tax at 8.9% in Atlanta and 7.75% in the rest of the county, with 4% less on groceries.


title: Fulton County, Georgia

text: Fulton County's budget of $1.2 billion funds an array of resident services. With 34 branches, the Atlanta-Fulton Public Library System is one of the largest library systems in Georgia. Human services programs include one of the strongest senior center networks in metro Atlanta, including four multi-purpose senior facilities. The county also provides funding to nonprofits with FRESH and Human Services grants.


title: Fulton County, Georgia

text: The responsibilities of the Fulton County Sheriff's Office include process serving, providing security at county buildings, courtrooms, jail and other public areas, and administration of the Fulton County Jail. In 1992 Jacquelyn Harrison Barrett was elected Sheriff, making her the first African-American woman to serve as Sheriff in the United States. However, Barrett was suspended from office in 2004 by governor Sonny Perdue.


title: Fulton County, Georgia

text: Almost every major highway, and every major Interstate highway, in metro Atlanta passes through Fulton County. Outside Atlanta proper, Georgia 400 is the major highway through north Fulton, and Interstate 85 to the southwest.


title: Fulton County, Georgia

text: MARTA serves most of the county, and along with Clayton and Dekalb County, Fulton pays a 1% sales tax to fund it. MARTA train service in Fulton is currently limited to the cities of Atlanta, Sandy Springs, East Point, and College Park, as well as the airport. Bus service covers most of the remainder, except the rural areas in the far southwest and Johns Creek. North Fulton residents have been asking for service, to extend the North Line ten miles (16 km) up the Georgia 400 corridor, from Perimeter Center to the fellow edge city of Alpharetta. However, as the only major transit system in the country that its state government will not fund, there is no money to expand the system. Sales taxes now go entirely to operating, maintaining, and refurbishing the system. Xpress GA/ RTA provides commuter bus service from the outer suburbs of Fulton County, the city of Sandy Springs to Midtown and Downtown Atlanta.


title: Fulton County, Georgia

text: Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport straddles the border with Clayton County to the south and is the busiest airport in the world. The Fulton County Airport, often called Charlie Brown Field after politician Charles M. Brown, is located just west-southwest of Atlanta's city limit. It is run by the county as a municipal or general aviation airport, serving business jets and private aircraft.


title: Fulton County, Georgia

text: All portions of Fulton County outside of the city limits of Atlanta are served by the Fulton County School System. All portions within Atlanta are served by Atlanta Public Schools.


title: Fulton County, Georgia

text: The Atlanta-Fulton County Library system began in 1902 as the Carnegie Library of Atlanta, one of the first public libraries in the United States. In 1935, the city of Atlanta and the Fulton County Board of Commissioners signed a contract under which library service was extended to all of Fulton County. Then in 1982, Georgia voters passed a constitutional Amendment authorizing the transfer of responsibility for the Library system from the city of Atlanta to the county. On July 1, 1983, the transfer finally became official, and the system was renamed the Atlanta-Fulton Public Library System.


title: Fulton County, Georgia

text: Under the leadership of Ella Gaines Yates, who was the first African American director of the Library System, a new Central library was opened to the public in May 1988. The building was designed by Marcel Breuer, a participant in the innovative Bauhaus movement, working side by side with his associate Hamilton Smith. The Central Library was dedicated on May 25, 1980, and Breuer would die a year later on July, 1981 at the age of 81.


title: Fulton County, Georgia

text: In 2002 after a hundred years of library service to the public, a major renovation of the Central Library was completed.


title: Fulton County, Georgia

text: There are 15 cities within Fulton County. Four cities include land outside of the county (Atlanta, College Park, Palmetto, and Mountain Park) but still have their center of government and the majority of their land within Fulton County. After the formation of South Fulton in 2017, the only unincorporated part of the county is Fulton Industrial Boulevard, from roughly Fulton Brown Airport (Brown's Field) down to Fairburn Rd. (concurrent with GA-158 and GA-166) This led to Fulton County becoming the first county in Georgia to suspend all city services.


title: Ontario, California

text: Ontario is a city in southwestern San Bernardino County in the U.S. state of California, east of downtown Los Angeles and west of downtown San Bernardino, the county seat. Located in the western part of the Inland Empire metropolitan area, it lies just east of Los Angeles County and is part of the Greater Los Angeles Area. As of the 2020 Census, the city had a population of 175,265.


title: Ontario, California

text: The city is home to the Ontario International Airport, which is the 15th-busiest airport in the United States by cargo carried. Ontario handles the mass of freight traffic between the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach and the rest of the country.


title: Ontario, California

text: It takes its name from the Ontario Model Colony development established in 1882 by the Canadian engineer George Chaffey and his brothers William Chaffey and Charles Chaffey. They named the settlement after their home province of Ontario.


title: Ontario, California

text: Ontario was originally inhabited by only the Tongva Indians until Franciscans arrived developing the Spanish mission system.


title: Ontario, California

text: Juan Bautista de Anza is said to have passed through the area on his 1774 expedition, and to this day a city park and a middle school bear his name. Following the 1819 establishment of San Bernardino Asistencia, which may have served as an outpost of the San Gabriel mission, it became part of a large, vaguely identified area called "San Antonio".


title: Ontario, California

text: In 1826, Jedediah Smith passed through what is now Upland on the first overland journey to the West coast of North America via the National Old Trails Road (present-day Foothill Blvd).


title: Ontario, California

text: The 1834 secularization of California land holdings resulted in the land's transferral to private hands. In 1881, the Chaffey brothers, George and William, purchased the land (which at that time also included the present-day city of Upland) and the water rights to it. They engineered a drainage system channeling water from the foothills of Mount San Antonio (colloquially known as "Mount Baldy") down to the flatter lands below that performed the dual functions of allowing farmers to water their crops and preventing the floods that periodically afflict them. They also created the main thoroughfare of Euclid Avenue (California Highway 83), with its distinctive wide lanes and grassy median. The new "Model Colony" (called so because it offered the perfect balance between agriculture and the urban comforts of schools, churches, and commerce) was originally conceived as a dry town, early deeds containing clauses forbidding the manufacture or sale of alcoholic beverages within the town. The two named the town "Ontario" in honor of the province of Ontario in Canada, where they were born.


title: Ontario, California

text: Ontario attracted farmers (primarily citrus) and ailing Easterners seeking a drier climate. To impress visitors and potential settlers with the "abundance" of water in Ontario, a fountain was placed at the Southern Pacific railway station. It was turned on when passenger trains were approaching and frugally turned off again after their departure. The original "Chaffey fountain", a simple spigot surrounded by a ring of white stones, was later replaced by the more ornate "Frankish Fountain", an Art Nouveau creation now located outside the Ontario Museum of History and Art.


title: Ontario, California

text: Agriculture was vital to the early economy, and many street names recall this legacy. The Sunkist plant remains as a living vestige of the citrus era. The Chaffey brothers left to found the settlements of Mildura, Australia and Renmark, Australia, which met with varying success. Charles Frankish continued their work at Ontario.


title: Ontario, California

text: Mining engineer John Tays refined the design of the novel "mule car", used from 1887 for public transportation on Euclid Avenue to 24th Street. At that point, the two mules were loaded onto a platform at the rear of the car and allowed to ride, as gravity propelled the trolley back down the avenue to the downtown Ontario terminus. Soon replaced by an electric streetcar, the mule car is commemorated by a replica in an enclosure south of C Street on the Euclid Avenue median.


title: Ontario, California

text: Ontario was incorporated as a city in 1891, and North Ontario broke away in 1906, calling itself Upland. Ontario grew quickly, increasing 10 times in the next half a century. The population of 20,000 in the 1960s grew 10 times more by 2007. Ontario was viewed as an "Iowa under Palm trees", with a solid Midwestern/Mid-American foundation, but it had a large German and Swiss community. Tens of thousands of European immigrants came to work in agriculture, and in the early 1900s the first Filipinos and Japanese farm laborers arrived, later to display nursery ownership skills.


title: Ontario, California

text: Ontario has over two centuries of Hispanic residents, starting from the Californio period of Spanish colonial and Mexican rule in the 1840s. The first wave of Mexican settlers was in the 1880s brought as workers in the railroad industry (see traquero) and another wave from the Mexican Revolution of the 1910s. Mexican Americans resided in the city's poorer central side facing State Route 60 and Chino.


title: Ontario, California

text: According to the United States Census Bureau, the city has a total area of . Of that, is land and is water. The total area is 0.13% water.


title: Ontario, California

text: The climate of Ontario is influenced by "BSh" semi-arid conditions, with hot summers and mild winters. Santa Ana Winds hit the area frequently in autumn and winter. Extremes range from down to . According to the Köppen Climate Classification system, Ontario has a hot-summer Mediterranean climate, abbreviated "Csa" on climate maps.


title: Ontario, California

text: The 2010 United States Census reported that Ontario had a population of 163,924. The population density was . The racial makeup of Ontario was 83,683 (51.0%) White (18.2% Non-Hispanic White), 10,561 (6.4%) African American, 1,686 (1.0%) Native American, 8,453 (5.2%) Asian, 514 (0.3%) Pacific Islander, 51,373 (31.3%) from other races, and 7,654 (4.7%) from two or more races. Hispanic or Latino of any race were 113,085 persons (69.0%).


title: Ontario, California

text: The Census reported that 163,166 people (99.5% of the population) lived in households, 411 (0.3%) lived in non-institutionalized group quarters, and 347 (0.2%) were institutionalized.


title: Ontario, California

text: There were 44,931 households, out of which 23,076 (51.4%) had children under the age of 18 living in them, 23,789 (52.9%) were opposite-sex married couples living together, 7,916 (17.6%) had a female householder with no husband present, 3,890 (8.7%) had a male householder with no wife present. There were 3,470 (7.7%) unmarried opposite-sex partnerships, and 384 (0.9%) same-sex married couples or partnerships. 6,741 households (15.0%) were made up of individuals, and 2,101 (4.7%) had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 3.63. There were 35,595 families (79.2% of all households); the average family size was 3.98.


title: Ontario, California

text: The population was spread out, with 49,443 people (30.2%) under the age of 18, 19,296 people (11.8%) aged 18 to 24, 49,428 people (30.2%) aged 25 to 44, 34,703 people (21.2%) aged 45 to 64, and 11,054 people (6.7%) who were 65 years of age or older. The median age was 29.9 years. For every 100 females, there were 99.0 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there were 96.8 males.


title: Ontario, California

text: There were 47,449 housing units at an average density of , of which 24,832 (55.3%) were owner-occupied, and 20,099 (44.7%) were occupied by renters. The homeowner vacancy rate was 2.0%; the rental vacancy rate was 5.8%. 90,864 people (55.4% of the population) lived in owner-occupied housing units and 72,302 people (44.1%) lived in rental housing units.


title: Ontario, California

text: During 2009–2013, Ontario had a median household income of $54,249, with 18.1% of the population living below the federal poverty line.


title: Ontario, California

text: As of the census of 2000, there were 158,007 people, 43,525 households, and 34,689 families residing in the city. The population density was 3,173.9 inhabitants per square mile (1,225.5/km). There were 45,182 housing units at an average density of . The racial makeup of the city was 47.8% White, 7.5% African American, 1.1% Native American, 3.9% Asian, 0.4% Pacific Islander, 34.1% from other races and 5.3% were from two or more races. 59.9% were Hispanic or Latino of any race.


title: Ontario, California

text: There were 43,525 households, out of which 49.4% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 56.9% were married couples living together, 15.5% had a female householder with no husband present, and 20.3% were non-families. 15.1% of all households were made up of individuals, and 4.6% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 3.6 and the average family size was 4.0.


title: Ontario, California

text: In the city, the population was spread out, with 34.4% under the age of 18, 11.2% from 18 to 24, 32.4% from 25 to 44, 16.1% from 45 to 64, and 5.9% who were 65 years of age or older. The median age was 28 years. For every 100 females, there were 100.6 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there were 98.7 males.


title: Ontario, California

text: The median income for a household in the city was $42,452, and the median income for a family was $44,031. Males had a median income of $31,664 versus $26,069 for females. The per capita income for the city was $14,244. 15.5% of the population and 12.2% of families were below the poverty line. 19.1% of those under the age of 18 and 7.6% of those 65 and older were living below the poverty line.


title: Ontario, California

text: In the years following Ontario's founding, the economy was driven by its reputation as a health resort. Shortly thereafter, citrus farmers began taking advantage of Ontario's rocky soil to plant lemon and orange groves. Agricultural opportunities also attracted vintners and olive growers. The Graber Olive House, which continues to produce olives, is a city historical landmark and one of the oldest institutions in Ontario. Dairy farming is also prevalent, as it continues to be in neighboring Chino. Much of southern Ontario still contains dairy farms and other agricultural farms. However, the area is currently under planning to be developed into a mixed-use area of residential homes, industrial and business parks, and town centers, collectively known as the New Model Colony.