title: Viva Las Vegas

text: David Winters from the original cast of "West Side Story" was the film's choreographer and was recommended by Ann-Margret for the job. This was Winters' first job as a choreographer on a feature film and Ann-Margret was his dance student at the time. Because the film went over budget, Parker would slash budgets for all remaining films in Presley's career.


title: Viva Las Vegas

text: Little Church of the West, the oldest wedding chapel in Las Vegas, is the location used in the closing scene.


title: Viva Las Vegas

text: The scene where Presley sings "Viva Las Vegas" is performed in one single unedited shot; the only known example of such a technique in Presley's film career.


title: Viva Las Vegas

text: For his role in "Viva Las Vegas", Elvis Presley received a third place prize 1965 Laurel Award for best male performance in a musical film. "Viva Las Vegas" also received the 1965 Laurel Award for runner-up in the category of the best musical of 1964. Ann-Margret was praised for her on screen chemistry with Elvis, as she nearly stole the film from him.


title: Viva Las Vegas

text: Some critics in 1964 were lukewarm about "Viva Las Vegas", such as one for "The New York Times", who wrote: ""Viva Las Vegas", the new Elvis Presley vehicle, is about as pleasant and unimportant as a banana split." However, many others deduced the reasons why many members of the North American public liked the movie so much. "Variety" stated in its review: "Beyond several flashy musical numbers, a glamorous locale, and one electrifying auto race sequence, the production is a pretty trite and 'heavyhanded' affair". Critical reaction notwithstanding, "Viva Las Vegas" has become one of Elvis Presley's most popular and iconic films.


title: Viva Las Vegas

text: This DVD release contains the movie in two formats on a flipper disc. One side contains the movie in the Aspect Ratio: 1.33:1 (4:3), the other side is in Widescreen (Letterbox). The soundtrack is presented in mono.


title: Viva Las Vegas

text: This film is the first of only two Elvis movies (the other being "Jailhouse Rock") to be officially released onto every home media format distributed in the U.S. (Beta, VHS, CED Disc, Laserdisc, DVD, HD DVD and Blu-ray Disc)


title: Contra Costa County, California

text: Contra Costa County (; "Contra Costa", Spanish for "Opposite Coast") is a county located in the U.S. state of California, in the East Bay of the San Francisco Bay Area. As of the 2020 United States Census, the population was 1,165,927. The county seat is Martinez. It occupies the northern portion of the East Bay region of the San Francisco Bay Area and is primarily suburban. The county's name refers to its position on the other side of the bay from San Francisco. Contra Costa County is included in the San Francisco–Oakland–Berkeley, CA Metropolitan Statistical Area.


title: Contra Costa County, California

text: In prehistoric times, particularly the Miocene epoch, portions of the landforms now in the area (then marshy and grassy savanna) were populated by a wide range of now extinct mammals, known in modern times by the fossil remains excavated in the southern part of the county. In the northern part of the county, significant coal and sand deposits were formed in even earlier geologic eras. Other areas of the county have ridges exposing ancient but intact (not fossilized) seashells, embedded in sandstone layers alternating with limestone. Layers of volcanic ash ejected from geologically recent but now extinct volcanoes, compacted and now tilted by compressive forces, may be seen at the site of some road excavations. This county is an agglomeration of several distinct geologic terranes, as is most of the greater San Francisco Bay Area, which is one of the most geologically complex regions in the world. The great local mountain Mount Diablo has been formed and continues to be elevated by compressive forces resulting from the action of plate tectonics and at its upper reaches presents ancient seabed rocks scraped from distant oceanic sedimentation locations and accumulated and lifted by these great forces. Younger deposits at middle altitudes include pillow lavas, the product of undersea volcanic eruptions.


title: Contra Costa County, California

text: There is an extensive but little-recorded human history pre-European settlement in this area, with the present county containing portions of regions populated by a number of Native American tribes. The earliest definitively established occupation by modern man ("Homo sapiens") appears to have occurred six to ten thousand years ago. However, there may have been human presence far earlier, at least as far as non–settling populations are concerned. The known settled populations were hunter-gatherer societies that had no knowledge of metals and that produced utilitarian crafts for everyday use (especially woven reed baskets) of the highest quality and with graphic embellishments of great aesthetic appeal. Extensive trading from tribe to tribe transferred exotic materials such as obsidian (useful for the making of arrowheads and other stone tools) throughout the region from far distant Californian tribes. Unlike the nomadic Native American of the Great Plains it appears that these tribes did not incorporate warfare into their culture but were instead generally cooperative. Within these cultures the concept of individual or collective land "ownership" was nonexistent. Early European settlers in the region, however, did not record much about the culture of the natives. Most of what is known culturally comes from preserved contemporaneous and excavated artifacts and from inter-generational knowledge passed down through northerly outlying tribes of the larger region.


title: Contra Costa County, California

text: Early interaction of these Native Americans with Europeans came with the Spanish colonization via the establishment of missions in this area, with the missions in San Jose, Sonoma, and San Francisco and particularly the establishment of a Presidio (a military establishment) in 1776. Although there were no missions established within this county, Spanish influence here was direct and extensive, through the establishment of land grants from the King of Spain to favored settlers.


title: Contra Costa County, California

text: In 1821 Mexico gained independence from Spain. While little changed in ranchero life, the Mexican War of Independence resulted in the secularization of the missions with the re-distribution of their lands, and a new system of land grants under the Mexican Federal Law of 1824. Mission lands extended throughout the Bay Area, including portions of Contra Costa County. Between 1836 and 1846, during the era when California was a province of independent Mexico, the following 15 land grants were made in Contra Costa County.


title: Contra Costa County, California

text: The smallest unit was one square league, or about seven square miles, or , maximum to one individual was eleven leagues, or , including no more than of irrigable land. Rough surveying was based on a map, or "diseño", measured by streams, shorelines, and/or horseman who marked it with rope and stakes. Lands outside rancho grants were designated "el sobrante", as in surplus or excess, and considered common lands. The law required the construction of a house within a year. Fences were not required and were forbidden where they might interfere with roads or trails. Locally a large family required roughly 2000 head of cattle and two square leagues of land (fourteen square miles) to live comfortably. Foreign entrepreneurs came to the area to provide goods that Mexico could not, and trading ships were taxed.


title: Contra Costa County, California

text: The exclusive land ownership in California by the approximate 9,000 Hispanics in California would soon end. John Marsh, owner of Rancho Los Meganos in Contra Costa County, had a lot to do with this. He sent letters to influential people in the eastern United States extolling the climate, soil, and potential for agriculture in California, with the deliberate purpose of encouraging Americans to immigrate to California and lead to its becoming part of the United States. He succeeded. His letters were published in newspapers throughout the East and started the first wagon trains rolling toward California. He also invited them to stay on his ranch until they could get settled, so the Rancho Los Meganos became the terminus of the California trail.


title: Contra Costa County, California

text: This led to the Bear Flag Revolt in 1846 when about 30 settlers originally from the United States declared a republic in June 1846 and were enlisted and fighting under the U.S. flag by July 1846. Following the Mexican–American War of 1846–48, California was controlled by U.S. settlers organized under the California Battalion and the U.S. Navy's Pacific Squadron. After some minor skirmishes, California was under U.S. control by January 1847 and formally annexed and paid for by the U.S. in 1848. By 1850, California’s population of over 100,000 was rapidly growing due to the gold rush and the large amount of gold being exported east, which gave California enough clout to choose its own boundaries, write its own constitution, and be admitted to the Union as a free state in 1850 without going through territorial status as required for most other states.


title: Contra Costa County, California

text: In 1850 California had a non-Indian population of over 100,000. The number of Indians living in California in 1850 has been estimated to be from 60,000 to 100,000. By 1850 the Mission Indian populations had largely succumbed to disease and abuse and only numbered a few thousand. California's 1852 state Census gives 31,266 Indian residents, but this is an under-count since there was little incentive and much difficulty in getting it more correct.


title: Contra Costa County, California

text: Contra Costa County was one of the original 27 counties of California, created in 1850 at the time of statehood. The county was originally to be called Mt. Diablo County, but the name was changed prior to incorporation as a county. The county's Spanish language name means "opposite coast", because of its location opposite San Francisco, in an easterly direction, on San Francisco Bay. Southern portions of the county's territory, including all of the bayside portions opposite San Francisco and northern portions of Santa Clara County, were given up to form Alameda County effective March 25, 1853.


title: Contra Costa County, California

text: The land titles in Contra Costa County may be traced to multiple subdivisions of a few original land grants. The grantee's family names live on in a few city and town names such as "Martinez", "Pacheco" and "Moraga" and in the names of streets, residential subdivisions, and business parks. A few mansions from the more prosperous farms have been preserved as museums and cultural centers and one of the more rustic examples has been preserved as a working demonstration ranch, Borges Ranch.


title: Contra Costa County, California

text: During World War II, Richmond hosted one of the two Bay Area sites of Kaiser Shipyards and wartime pilots were trained at what is now Concord/Buchanan Field Airport. Additionally, a large Naval Weapons Depot and munitions ship loading facilities at Port Chicago remain active to this day, but with the inland storage facilities recently declared surplus, extensive redevelopment is being planned for this last large central-county tract. The loading docks were the site of a devastating explosion in 1944. Port Chicago was bought out and demolished by the Federal Government to form a safety zone near the Naval Weapons Station loading docks. At one time the Atlas Powder Company (subsequently closed) produced gunpowder and dynamite. The site of the former Atlas Powder Company is located at Point Pinole Regional Shoreline, part of the East Bay Regional Parks District.


title: Contra Costa County, California

text: With the postwar baby boom and the desire for suburban living, large tract housing developers would purchase large central county farmsteads and develop them with roads, utilities and housing. Once mostly rural walnut orchards and cattle ranches, the area was first developed as low-cost, large-lot suburbs, with a typical low-cost home being placed on a "quarter-acre" (1,000 m) lot — actually a little less at 10,000 square feet (930 m). Some of the expansion of these suburban areas was clearly attributable to white flight from decaying areas of Alameda County and the consolidated city-county of San Francisco, but much was due to the postwar baby boom of the era creating demand for three- and four-bedroom houses with large yards that were unaffordable or unavailable in the established bayside cities.


title: Contra Costa County, California

text: A number of large companies followed their employees to the suburbs, filling large business parks. The establishment of a large, prosperous population in turn fostered the development of large shopping centers and created demand for an extensive supporting infrastructure including roads, schools, libraries, police, firefighting, water, sewage, and flood control.


title: Contra Costa County, California

text: The establishment of the Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) system, the modernization of Highway 24, and the addition of a fourth Caldecott Tunnel bore all served to reinforce the demographic and economic trends in the Diablo Valley area, with cities such as Walnut Creek and Concord becoming edge cities.


title: Contra Costa County, California

text: The central county cities have in turn spawned their own suburbs within the county, extending east along the county's estuarine north shore; with the older development areas of Bay Point and Pittsburg being augmented by extensive development in Antioch, Oakley, and Brentwood.


title: Contra Costa County, California

text: The effects of the housing value crash (2008–2011) varied widely throughout the county. Values of houses in prosperous areas with good schools declined only modestly in value, while houses recently built in outlying suburbs in the eastern part of the county experienced severe reductions in value, accelerated by high unemployment and consequent mortgage foreclosures, owner "strategic walk-aways", and the too-rapid conversion of neighborhoods from owner-occupancy to rentals. Home values rebounded as the economy recovered from the recession.


title: Contra Costa County, California

text: According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the county has a total area of , of which is land and (11%) is water.


title: Contra Costa County, California

text: Contra Costa County's physical geography is dominated by the bayside alluvial plain, the Oakland Hills–Berkeley Hills, several inland valleys, and Mount Diablo, an isolated 3,849-foot (1,173 m) upthrust peak at the north end of the Diablo Range of hills. The summit of Mount Diablo is the origin of the Mount Diablo Meridian and Base Line, on which the surveys of much of California and western Nevada are based.


title: Contra Costa County, California

text: The Hayward Fault Zone runs through the western portion of the county, from Kensington to Richmond. The Calaveras Fault runs in the south-central portion of the county, from Alamo to San Ramon. The Concord Fault runs through part of Concord and Pacheco, and the Clayton-Marsh Creek-Greenville Fault runs from Clayton at its north end to near Livermore. These strike-slip faults and the Diablo thrust fault near Danville are all considered capable of significantly destructive earthquakes and many lesser related faults are present in the area that cross critical infrastructure such as water, natural gas, and petroleum product pipelines, roads, highways, railroads, and BART rail transit.


title: Contra Costa County, California

text: The most notable natural landmark in the county is the Mount Diablo, at the northerly end of the Diablo Range. Mount Diablo and its neighboring North Peak are the centerpiece of Mt. Diablo State Park (MDSP), created legislatively in 1921 and rededicated in 1931 after land acquisitions had been completed. At the time this park comprised a very small portion of the mountain.


title: Contra Costa County, California

text: In the 1960s, suburban development expanding from the surrounding valleys began to threaten the open space of the mountain. In 1971, MDSP consisted of . That year, concerned residents formed the non-profit organization Save Mount Diablo to raise funds and awareness to protect more open space. In addition to encouraging acquisition by the state and local authorities, SMD started fundraising and acquiring properties to transfer to the park. MDSP was the first of twenty-nine Diablo-area parks and preserves that have been created around the peaks; today these preserves protect more than .


title: Contra Costa County, California

text: These Diablo public lands stretch southeast and include the Concord Naval Weapons Station, Shell Ridge Open Space and Lime Ridge Open Spaces near Walnut Creek, to the State Park, and east to the Los Vaqueros Reservoir watershed and four surrounding East Bay Regional Park District preserves, including Morgan Territory Regional Preserve, Brushy Peak Regional Preserve, Vasco Caves Regional Preserve, and Round Valley Regional Preserve. The new Marsh Creek State Park, formerly known as Cowell Ranch State Park, and Black Diamond Mines Regional Preserve, are among the open spaces that stretch to the north. The open spaces controlled by cities, the East Bay Regional Park District, Mount Diablo State Park, and various regional preserves now adjoin and protect most of the elevated regions of the mountain.


title: Contra Costa County, California

text: The name Mount Diablo is said to originate from an incident involving Spanish soldiers who christened a thicket as "Monte del Diablo" when natives they were pursuing apparently disappeared into the thicket. Anglo settlers later misunderstood the use of the word ‘monte’ (which can mean ‘mountain’, or ‘thicket’), and applied the name to the most obvious local landmark.


title: Contra Costa County, California

text: According to the "Contra Costa Times", in 2011, there were rumors that Contra Costa County was going to rename the mountain as "Mt. Ronald Reagan" or "Mt. Reagan", after the former US President and California governor. Residents have generated multiple petitions to change the name of the mountain, one in 2005 and another in 2011, but these were not successful.


title: Contra Costa County, California

text: "Note: the US Census treats Hispanic/Latino as an ethnic category. This table excludes Latinos from the racial categories and assigns them to a separate category. Hispanics/Latinos can be of any race."


title: Contra Costa County, California

text: The 2010 United States Census reported that Contra Costa County had a population of 1,049,025. The racial makeup of Contra Costa County was 614,512 (58.6%) White; 97,161 (9.3%) African American; 6,122 (0.6%) Native American; 151,469 (14.4%) Asian (4.6% Filipino, 3.8% Chinese, 2.1% Indian); 4,845 (0.5%) Pacific Islander; 112,691 (10.7%) from other races; and 62,225 (5.9%) from two or more races. There were 255,560 people (24.4%) of Hispanic or Latino ancestry, of any race; 17.1% of Contra Costa County's population was of Mexican ancestry, while 1.9% was of Salvadoran heritage.


title: Contra Costa County, California

text: As of the census of 2000, there were 948,816 people, 344,129 households, and 242,266 families residing in the county. The population density was . There were 354,577 housing units at an average density of .


title: Contra Costa County, California

text: Of residents who identified with European ethnicities, 9.0% were German, 7.7% Irish, 7.3% English, and 6.5% Italian ancestry according to Census 2000. 74.1% spoke English, 13.1% Spanish, and 2.6% Tagalog.


title: Contra Costa County, California

text: By 2005, 53.2% of Contra Costa County's population were non-Hispanic whites. African Americans made up 9.6% of the population, while ethnic Asians constituted 13.1%. Latinos, representing people of Spanish, Portuguese, indigenous and mestizo populations of the Western hemisphere, comprised 21.1% of the county population.


title: Contra Costa County, California

text: In 2000, there were 344,129 households, out of which 35.4% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 54.5% were married couples living together, 11.5% had a female householder with no husband present, and 29.6% were non-families. 22.9% of all households were made up of individuals, and 8.00% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 2.72 and the average family size was 3.23.


title: Contra Costa County, California

text: The median age was 36 years. For every 100 females there were 95.4 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there were 92.2 males.


title: Contra Costa County, California

text: The median income for a household in the county was $63,675, and the median income for a family was $73,039 (these figures had risen to $75,483 and $87,435 respectively as of a 2007 estimate).


title: Contra Costa County, California

text: Males had a median income of $52,670 versus $38,630 for females. The per capita income for the county was $30,615. About 5.4% of families and 7.6% of the population were below the poverty line, including 9.8% of those under age 18 and 6.0% of those age 65 or over.


title: Contra Costa County, California

text: In 2000, the largest denominational groups were Catholics (with 204,070 adherents) and Evangelical Protestants (with 74,449 adherents). The largest religious bodies were the Catholic Church (with 204,070 members) and The Baptist General Conference (with 24,803 members). The Rohr Jewish Learning Institute teaches courses in the county.


title: Contra Costa County, California

text: Since 1932, Contra Costa County has been a Democratic stronghold in presidential elections. It temporarily leaned toward the Republican Party in the 1970s and 1980s, with successive presidential wins by Richard Nixon in 1972, Gerald Ford in 1976, and Ronald Reagan in 1980 and 1984. Reagan was the last Republican presidential candidate to win the county.


title: Contra Costa County, California

text: In the United States House of Representatives, Contra Costa County is split among four congressional districts:


title: Contra Costa County, California

text: According to the California Secretary of State, as of October 19, 2019, Contra Costa County has 703,021 registered voters. Of those, 369,254 (52.52%) are registered Democrats, 134,553 (19.14%) are registered Republicans, and 163,047 (23.19%) have declined to state a political party, also known as "No Party Preference" or "NPP."


title: Contra Costa County, California

text: Democrats hold wide advantages in voter registration numbers in all political subdivisions in Contra Costa County. The Democrats' largest registration advantage in Contra Costa is in the cities of Richmond, where there is a 60.3% registration advantage with 3,192 Republicans (6.2%) out of 51,395 registered voters compared to 34,159 Democrats (66.5%) and 12,095 voters who have no party preference (23.5%); El Cerrito, where there is a 59.0% registration advantage with 1,169 Republicans (7.4%) out of 15,877 registered voters compared to 10,543 Democrats (67.6%) and 3,654 voters who have no party preference (23.0%); and San Pablo, where there is a 58.3% registration advantage with 641 Republicans (6.1%) out of 10,550 registered voters compared to 6,793 Democrats (64.4%) and 2,746 voters who have no party preference (26.0%).


title: Contra Costa County, California

text: The following table includes the number of incidents reported and the rate per 1,000 persons for each type of offense.


title: Contra Costa County, California

text: The great rancheros of the Spanish period were divided and sold for agricultural uses, with intensively irrigated farming made possible in some areas by the development of canals that brought water from the eastern riverside portions of the county to the central portion. Other areas could use the more limited water available from local creeks and from wells. Orchards dominated where such water was available, while other, seasonally dry areas were used for cattle ranching. In central parts of the county walnuts were an especially attractive orchard crop, using the thin-shelled English Walnut branches grafted to the hardy and disease-resistant American Walnut root stock. In the Moraga region, pears dominated, and many old (but untended) roadside trees are still picked seasonally by passers-by. In eastern county, stone fruit, especially cherries, is still grown commercially, with seasonal opportunities for people to pick their own fruit for a modest fee.


title: Contra Costa County, California

text: The Contra Costa Canal, a concrete-lined and fenced irrigation canal still makes a loop through central county and provided industrial and agricultural grade water to farms and industry. While no longer used for extensive irrigation, it is still possible for adjoining landowners (now large suburban lot owners) to obtain pumping permits. Most of this water is destined for the heavy industry near Martinez. As with the railroad rights of way there is now an extensive public trail system along these canals.


title: Contra Costa County, California

text: The development of commuter railroads proceeded together with the subdivision of farms into parcels. In some cases, such as the development of Saranap, the same developer controlled both the railroad (Sacramento Northern) and the development. These early suburbanization developments were an extension of the earlier development of trolley car suburbs in what are now considered the highly urban environments of the near East Bay.


title: Contra Costa County, California

text: Owing to its extensive waterfront on San Francisco, San Pablo, and Suisun bays the northwestern and northern segments have long been sites for heavy industry, including a number of still active oil refineries (particularly Chevron in Richmond, Shell Oil and Tesoro - in Martinez), chemical plants (Dow Chemical) and a once substantial integrated steel plant, Posco Steel (formerly United States Steel), now reduced to secondary production of strip sheet and wire. The San Joaquin River forms a continuation of the northern boundary turns southward to form the eastern boundary of the county. Some substantial Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta "islands" (actually leveed former marshes) are included in this corner of the county.


title: Contra Costa County, California

text: The West County is the area near or on San Francisco and San Pablo bays. The housing stock in the region was extensively developed after the great San Francisco earthquake of 1906. Much of the housing stock in these areas is becoming quite expensive. As an alternative to moving to either the expensive central county, or the too-distant East County, this area is becoming gentrified, with a mix of races and income levels — a character actively sought by some housing purchasers. The downside of this is a corresponding lack of affordable housing for those working lower-paying service jobs — a problem endemic throughout the region. There has recently been a housing boom or tract housing in Richmond and also in the Hercules areas. These gentrifying areas are the most diverse in Contra Costa County.


title: Contra Costa County, California

text: The central part of the county is a valley traversed by Interstate 680 and Highway 24. The towns east of the hills, on or near Highway 24 and their surrounding areas (Lafayette, Moraga and Orinda) are collectively known as "Lamorinda". The major central county cities along Interstate 680 are Martinez, Concord, Pleasant Hill, Walnut Creek, Danville, San Ramon, and unincorporated Alamo. Owing to the high quality of its public schools (due largely to both demographics and added support from prosperous parents), this area has become a magnet for well–off families with children. During the real estate boom, housing prices were driven to astounding levels. From 2007, home prices in the region have seen substantial decreases and the affordability rate has risen. During the real estate boom, the high price of homes and scarcity of land resulted in many speculators purchasing older, smaller homes and partially or completely tearing them down to construct larger homes.


title: Contra Costa County, California

text: In this way the central county region has become a mix of older suburbs, newer developments, small lot "infill" developments, and extensive shopping areas.


title: Contra Costa County, California

text: Lower cost modern tract developments continue along Suisun Bay in the "East County" towns of Pittsburg, Antioch, and Oakley - new "bedroom" communities" to serve the now "edge cities". The median income of a family in the two relatively affluent East County towns of Brentwood and Discovery Bay is approaching $100k/yr. placing them in the top fifteen percent of affluent towns in the United States. California Distinguished Schools, golf courses, vineyards, and upscale homes are found in Brentwood and Discovery Bay. Discovery Bay is based on a waterfront community of 3,500+ homes with private docks with access to the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta. Discovery Bay also features gated and non-gated "off-water" communities with homes from 1,400 square feet (130 m2) up to 4,700 square feet (440 m2).


title: Contra Costa County, California

text: In 2011, Vasco Road is undergoing further construction/improvement to reduce the driving time between East County/Brentwood and Livermore. Highway 4 is currently undergoing multimillion-dollar improvements that are scheduled to add lanes through Brentwood, Antioch and Pittsburg by 2015 to reduce the driving time between East County and Concord/Walnut Creek.


title: Contra Costa County, California

text: Across 30 years, two forces combined to create county budget problems, peaking in 2008. First, rather than compensate police, medical, and firefighting personnel directly, health and retirement benefits were granted without proper actuarial examination, leading to unexpected but predictable high costs as personnel aged and ultimately retired with continued "first class" health and retirement benefits. Second, the collapse of the "housing bubble" enabled purchasers of distressed properties — many of which were owned by banks and other mortgage holders — to petition for lower property assessments, in many cases reducing by half the revenue to the county for specific parcels. Continuing downturns in employment prospects further increased the needs for various social services. These deficits and demands, combined with a lack of support from a similarly stressed California state government and the United States Federal government, required county supervisors and service providers to allocate limited resources in a time of increasing demand. The projected budget deficit was $45 million as of early 2011. Perhaps more significantly, the total unfunded liability for retiree benefits is $2.4 billion.


title: Contra Costa County, California

text: In the 1970s and 1980s, many small and innovative technical firms started in Contra Costa. Most of these are no longer present, either failing, being absorbed into larger corporations, or outgrowing their original location and moving elsewhere in the Bay Area.


title: Contra Costa County, California

text: By the early 1990s, 22 million square feet of office space had been built along the "680 corridor", that segment of Interstate Highway 680 that extends from Concord in the north to San Ramon in the south, continuing into inland Alameda County from Dublin to Pleasanton. During the 1980s and early 1990s, many corporations that were formerly housed in the more central metropolitan area followed their employees by moving to these large suburban and edge city office areas and office parks.


title: Contra Costa County, California

text: There are currently political fights over the potential redevelopment of the county seat (Martinez), with long-term residents and many elsewhere in the county concerned that it will lose its remaining small-town charm and utility in an effort to become more like the county's major recreational shopping center of Walnut Creek.


title: Contra Costa County, California

text: The inland portions of the Concord Naval Weapons Station have been declared surplus by the Federal government and this area is expected to provide what is likely the last opportunity to plan and build city-sized development within the central county. This area will become a portion of the city of Concord, and planners expect that development will be confined to the lower and flatter portions of the depot, with the remainder becoming a substantial addition to the county's open space. Much of the land to be developed is relatively flat grassland and the most prominent structures are ammunition bunkers that will be removed, so future uses of the property are largely unconstrained by previous uses.


title: Contra Costa County, California

text: The City of Concord is served by the daily newspaper, the "East Bay Times" published by the Bay Area News Group-East Bay (part of the Media News Group, Denver, Colorado), with offices in Walnut Creek. The paper was originally a paper run and owned by the Lesher family. Since the death of Dean Lesher in 1993, the paper has had several owners. The publisher also issues weekly local papers, such as the "Concord Transcript," which is the local paper for Concord and nearby Clayton.


title: Contra Costa County, California

text: In December 2019, there was a flurry of reports from reliable sources including the Associated Press and the San Francisco Chronicle that the 161-year-old Martinez News-Gazette, one of the longest-running newspapers in California, may have to cease publication. But as of late May 2020, the threatened cessation did not materialize and the newspaper appears to have weathered that storm. The newspaper did cease publication of a print edition effective April 2, 2020, but this was characterized as a temporary measure arising from a lack of advertising revenue. Since March 2020, this in turn arose as many local businesses were forced to suspended operations or even ceased to exist, when the area was under shelter-in-place regulations arising from COVID-19 pandemic. The newspaper plans to resume a full print edition when the local shelter-in-place restrictions are lifted.


title: Contra Costa County, California

text: Prior to 1903, most travel to central Contra Costa County was by boat or rail to Martinez on the northern waterfront and from there to the industrial areas east along the waterfront as well as farming regions to the south.


title: Contra Costa County, California

text: In 1903, the first tunnel through the Oakland hills (now Old Tunnel Road) was built, principally as a means of bringing hay by horse-, mule-, or ox-drawn wagons from central and eastern agricultural areas to feed the draft animals that provided the power to public and private transportation in the East Bay at the time. The tunnel exited in the hills high above the crossroads of Orinda with the road continuing on to Lafayette, Walnut Creek, and Danville. The road was just wide enough for one car in each direction and had no shoulders.


title: Contra Costa County, California

text: In 1937, the two-bore Caldecott Tunnel for road vehicles was completed, making interior Contra Costa County much more accessible. After World War II, the tunnels allowed waves of development to proceed, oriented toward Oakland rather than the northern shoreline, and the northern shoreline cities began to decline. The tunnel has since been augmented with a third bore, completed in 1964, and a fourth, completed in 2013.


title: Contra Costa County, California

text: The county has two general aviation airports that are not currently providing scheduled passenger service:


title: Contra Costa County, California

text: Concord Airport now houses two charter airlines that offer on-demand and scheduled passenger service to select destinations in California, Nevada, and Washington, plus cargo service worldwide.


title: Contra Costa County, California

text: The western termini of several original transcontinental railroad routes have been located in Oakland, in Alameda County, including Union Pacific, Southern Pacific, and Santa Fe railroads. From Oakland, there are two primary routes east:


title: Contra Costa County, California

text: Formed in 1909, the Oakland Antioch Railway was renamed the "Oakland Antioch & Eastern Railway" in 1911. It extended through a tunnel in the Oakland Hills, from Oakland to Walnut Creek, Concord and on to Bay Point.


title: Contra Costa County, California

text: The current owner of the Santa Fe Railroad's assets, BNSF Railway, has the terminus of its transcontinental route in Richmond. Originally built by the San Francisco and San Joaquin Valley Railroad in 1896, the line was purchased by the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway shortly thereafter. The line leaves Richmond through industrial and residential parts of West County before striking due east through Franklin Canyon and Martinez on its way to Stockton, Bakersfield, and Barstow.


title: Contra Costa County, California

text: These railroads spurred the development of industry in the county throughout the late 19th and early 20th centuries, particularly driving development of the Standard Oil (now Chevron) refinery and port complex in Richmond.


title: Contra Costa County, California

text: There were a large number of short lines in the county between the late 19th century and the early 20th century. The rights of way of a number of these railroads also served as utility rights of way, particularly for water service, and so were preserved and in the late 20th century enhanced as walking, jogging, and bicycle riding trails in the central portion of the county.


title: Contra Costa County, California

text: Since 2003, four Indian gaming casinos have been proposed in Richmond and the surrounding area of West Contra Costa County.


title: Contra Costa County, California

text: Ohmer was a rail station located on the Oakland, Antioch and Eastern Railroad 6 miles (10 km) east of Martinez, which still appeared on maps as of 1947. Though primarily just a rail station, it was sometimes referred to as a community.


title: History of beer

text: Beer is one of the oldest drinks humans have produced. The first chemically confirmed barley beer dates back to the 5th millennium BC in modern-day Iran, and was recorded in the written history of ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia and spread throughout the world.


title: History of beer

text: As almost any cereal containing certain sugars can undergo spontaneous fermentation due to wild yeasts in the air, it is possible that beer-like drinks were independently developed throughout the world soon after a tribe or culture had domesticated cereal. Chemical tests of ancient pottery jars reveal that beer was produced as far back as about 7,000 years ago in what is today Iran. This discovery reveals one of the earliest known uses of fermentation and is the earliest evidence of brewing to date.


title: History of beer

text: Author Thomas Sinclair says in his book, "Beer, Bread, and the Seeds of Change: Agriculture's Imprint on World History" that the discovery of beer may have been an accidental find. The precursor to beer was soaking grains in water and making a porridge or gruel, as grain were chewy and hard to digest alone. Ancient peoples would heat the gruel and leave it throughout the days until it was gone. A benefit to heating the gruel would be to sanitize the water and the temperature required to denature grain proteins would also denature disease microbes. Leaving the gruel to sit would change it. Fermentation would occur and they noticed the change in taste and effect. Yeasts would settle on the mixture and rapidly consume the oxygen in the mixture. The low oxygen would force the yeast to digest sugars by anaerobic respiration. Then the yeast would release ethanol (alcohol) and carbon dioxide as by-products and, hence, beer was born.


title: History of beer

text: In Mesopotamia, the oldest evidence of beer is believed to be a 6,000-year-old Sumerian tablet depicting people consuming a drink through reed straws from a communal bowl. A 3,900-year-old Sumerian poem honouring Ninkasi, the patron goddess of brewing, contains the oldest surviving beer recipe, describing the production of beer from bread made from barley.


title: History of beer

text: In China, residue on pottery dating from around 5,000 years ago shows beer was brewed using barley and other grains.


title: History of beer

text: The invention of bread and beer has been argued to be responsible for humanity's ability to develop technology and build civilization. The earliest chemically confirmed barley beer to date was discovered at Godin Tepe in the central Zagros Mountains of Iran, where fragments of a jug, from between 5,400 and 5,000 years ago was found to be coated with beerstone, a by-product of the brewing process.


title: History of beer

text: Beer may have been known in Neolithic Europe as far back as 5,000 years ago, and was mainly brewed on a domestic scale.


title: History of beer

text: Beer produced before the Industrial Revolution continued to be made and sold on a domestic scale, although by the 7th century AD beer was also being produced and sold by European monasteries. During the Industrial Revolution, the production of beer moved from artisanal manufacture to industrial manufacture, and domestic manufacture ceased to be significant by the end of the 19th century. The development of hydrometers and thermometers changed brewing by allowing the brewer more control of the process, and greater knowledge of the results.


title: History of beer

text: Today, the brewing industry is a global business, consisting of several dominant multinational companies and many thousands of smaller producers ranging from brewpubs to regional breweries. More than 133 billion liters (35 billion gallons) are sold per year—producing total global revenues of $294.5 billion (£147.7 billion) in 2006.


title: History of beer

text: As almost any cereal containing certain sugars can undergo spontaneous fermentation due to wild yeasts in the air, it is possible that beer-like drinks were independently developed throughout the world soon after a tribe or culture had domesticated cereal. Chemical tests of ancient pottery jars reveal that beer was produced about 3,500 BC in what is today Iran, and was one of the first-known biological engineering tasks where the biological process of fermentation is used. Also, archaeological findings show that Chinese villagers were brewing fermented alcoholic drinks as far back as 7000 BC on small and individual scale, with the production process and methods similar to that of ancient Egypt and ancient Mesopotamia.


title: History of beer

text: Author Thomas Sinclair says in his book, "Beer, Bread, and the Seeds of Change: Agriculture's Imprint on World History" that the discovery of beer may have been an accidental find. The precursor to beer was soaking grains in water and making a porridge or gruel, as grain were chewy and hard to digest alone. Ancient peoples would heat the gruel and leave it throughout the days until it was gone. A benefit to heating the gruel would be to sanitize the water and the temperature required to denature grain proteins would also denature disease microbes. Leaving the gruel to sit would change it. Fermentation would occur and they noticed the change in taste and effect. Yeasts would settle on the mixture and rapidly consume the oxygen in the mixture. The low oxygen would was a significant consequence of allowing the yeast to digest sugars by anaerobic respiration. The yeast would release ethanol (alcohol) and carbon dioxide as by-products and, hence, beer was born.


title: History of beer

text: The earliest archaeological evidence of fermentation consists of 13,000-year-old residues of a beer with the consistency of gruel, used by the semi-nomadic Natufians for ritual feasting, at the Raqefet Cave in the Carmel Mountains near Haifa in Israel.


title: History of beer

text: The first written records of brewing come from Mesopotamia (ancient Iraq), with the oldest in the Sumerian language from approximately 4,000 BC. These include early evidence of beer in the 3,900-year-old Sumerian poem honoring Ninkasi, the patron goddess of brewing, which contains the oldest surviving beer recipe, describing the production of beer from barley via bread.


title: History of beer

text: Approximately 5,000 years ago, workers in the city of Uruk were paid by their employers in beer. Beer is also mentioned in the "Epic of Gilgamesh", in which the 'wild man' Enkidu is given beer to drink. "... he ate until he was full, drank seven pitchers of beer, his heart grew light, his face glowed and he sang out with joy."


title: History of beer

text: In February 2019, archaeologists from Mola Headland Infrastructure and experts from Highways England found evidence of first Iron Age beer dated back over 2,000 years during road works in Cambridgeshire. In February 2021, archaeologists found a 5,000-old beer factory in Abydos, Egypt, dating back to the reign of King Narmer, Early Dynastic Period.


title: History of beer

text: "It's a well-known fact that ancient populations used the beer-making process to purify water and create a safe source of hydration, but this is potentially the earliest physical evidence of that process taking place in the UK", said archaeologist Steve Sherlock.


title: History of beer

text: Confirmed written evidence of ancient beer production in Armenia can be obtained from Xenophon in his work Anabasis (5th century BC) when he was in one of the ancient Armenian villages in which he wrote:


title: History of beer

text: Beer became vital to all the grain-growing civilizations of Eurasian and North African antiquity, including Egypt—so much so that in 1868 James Death put forward a theory in "The Beer of the Bible" that the manna from heaven that God gave the Israelites was a bread-based, porridge-like beer called "wusa".


title: History of beer

text: These beers were often thick, more of a gruel than a drink, and drinking straws were used by the Sumerians to avoid the bitter solids left over from fermentation. Though beer was drunk in Ancient Rome, it was replaced in popularity by wine. Tacitus wrote disparagingly of the beer brewed by the Germanic peoples of his day. Thracians were also known to consume beer made from rye, even since the 5th century BC, as the ancient Greek logographer Hellanicus of Lesbos says. Their name for beer was "brutos", or "brytos". The Romans called their brew "cerevisia", from the Celtic word for it. Beer was apparently enjoyed by some Roman legionaries. For instance, among the Vindolanda tablets (from Vindolanda in Roman Britain, dated c. 97–103 AD), the cavalry decurion Masculus wrote a letter to prefect Flavius Cerialis inquiring about the exact instructions for his men for the following day. This included a polite request for beer to be sent to the garrison (which had entirely consumed its previous stock of beer).


title: History of beer

text: In ancient Mesopotamia, clay tablets indicate that the majority of brewers were probably women, and that brewing was a fairly well respected occupation during the time, being the only profession in Mesopotamia which derived social sanction and divine protection from female deities/goddesses, specifically: Ninkasi, who covered the production of beer, Siris, who was used in a metonymic way to refer to beer, and Siduri, who covered the enjoyment of beer. Mesopotamian brewing appears to have incorporated the usage of a twice-baked barley bread called bappir, which was exclusively used for brewing beer. It was discovered early that reusing the same container for fermenting the mash would produce more reliable results; brewers on the move carried their tubs with them.


title: History of beer

text: The Ebla tablets, discovered in 1974 in Ebla, Syria, show that beer was produced in the city in 2500 BC. Early traces of beer and the brewing process have been found in ancient Babylonia as well. At the time, brewers were women as well, but also priestesses. Some types of beers were used especially in religious ceremonies. In 2100 BC, the Babylonian king Hammurabi included regulations governing tavern keepers in his law code for the kingdom.


title: History of beer

text: In Ancient India, the Vedas and Ramayana mention a beer-like drink called "sura" consumed during the Vedic Period (c. 1500 – c. 500 BCE). It was the favourite of the god Indra. Kautilya has also mentioned two intoxicating beverages made from rice called "Medaka" and "Prasanna".


title: History of beer

text: Beer was part of the daily diet of Egyptian pharaohs over 5,000 years ago. Then, it was made from baked barley bread, and was also used in religious practices. During the building of the Great Pyramids in Giza, Egypt, each worker got a daily ration of four to five liters of beer, which served as both nutrition and refreshment that was crucial to the pyramids' construction.


title: History of beer

text: The Greek writer Sophocles (450 BCE) discussed the concept of moderation when it came to consuming beer in Greek culture, and believed that the best diet for Greeks consisted of bread, meats, various types of vegetables, and beer or "ζῦθος" ("zythos") as they called it. The ancient Greeks also made barleywine (Greek: "κρίθινος οἶνος" – "krithinos oinos", "barley wine") mentioned by Greek historian Polybius in his work "The Histories", where he states that Phaeacians kept barleywine in silver and golden kraters.


title: History of beer

text: During the £1.5bn upgrade of the A14 in Cambridgeshire evidence beer brewed in the UK, dating back more than 2,000 years was found. Steve Sherlock, the Highways England archaeology lead for the A14 project said, “It’s a well-known fact that ancient populations used the beer-making process to purify water and create a safe source of hydration, but this is potentially the earliest physical evidence of that process taking place in the UK.” Roger Protz, the former editor of the Campaign for Real Ale’s Good Beer Guide, said, "When the Romans invaded Britain they found the local tribes brewing a type of beer called curmi."


title: History of beer

text: In Europe during the Middle Ages, a brewers' guild might adopt a patron saint of brewing. Arnulf of Metz (c. 582–640) and Arnulf of Oudenburg (c. 1040–1087) were recognized by some French and Flemish brewers. Belgian brewers, too, venerated Arnulf of Oudenburg (aka Arnold of Soissons), who is also recognized as the patron saint of hop-pickers. Christian monks built breweries, to provide food, drink, and shelter to travelers and pilgrims.


title: History of beer

text: Charlemagne, Frankish king and ruler of the Holy Roman Empire during the 8th century, considered beer to be an important part of living, and is often thought to have trained some brewers himself.


title: History of beer

text: Beer was one of the most common drinks during the Middle Ages. It was consumed daily by all social classes in the northern and eastern parts of Europe where grape cultivation was difficult or impossible. Though wine of varying qualities was the most common drink in the south, beer was still popular among the lower classes. The idea that beer was consumed more commonly than water during medieval times is a myth. Water was cheaper than beer, and towns/villages were built close to sources of fresh water such as rivers, springs, and wells to facilitate easy access to the resource. Though probably one of the most popular drinks in Europe, beer was frequently disdained as being unhealthy, possibly because ancient Greek and more contemporary Arab physicians had little or no experience with the drink. In 1256, the Aldobrandino of Siena described the nature of beer in the following way:


title: History of beer

text: The use of hops in beer was written of in 822 by the Carolingian Abbot Adalard of Corbie. Flavoring beer with hops was known at least since the 9th century, but was only gradually adopted because of difficulties in establishing the right proportions of ingredients. Before that, gruit, a mix of various herbs, had been used, but did not have the same preserving properties as hops. Beer flavored without it was often spoiled soon after preparation and could not be exported. The only other alternative was to increase the alcohol content, which was rather expensive. Hopped beer was perfected in the medieval towns of Bohemia by the 13th century. German towns pioneered a new scale of operation with standardized barrel sizes that allowed for large-scale export. Previously beer had been brewed at home, but the production was now successfully replaced by medium-sized operations of about eight to ten people. This type of production spread to Holland in the 14th century and later to Flanders and Brabant, and reached England by the late 15th century.


title: History of beer

text: English ale and beer brewing were carried out separately, no brewer being allowed to produce both. The Brewers Company of London stated "no hops, herbs, or other like thing be put into any ale or liquore wherof ale shall be made – but only liquor (water), malt, and yeast." This comment is sometimes misquoted as a prohibition on hopped beer. However, hopped beer was opposed by some:


title: History of beer

text: Ale is made of malte and water; and they the which do put any other thynge to ale than is rehersed, except yest, barme, or goddesgood [three words for yeast], doth sophysticat there ale. Ale for an Englysshe man is a naturall drinke. Ale muste haue these properties, it muste be fresshe and cleare, it muste not be ropy, nor smoky, nor it must haue no wefte nor tayle. Ale shulde not be dronke vnder .v. dayes olde …. Barly malte maketh better ale than Oten malte or any other corne doth … Beere is made of malte, of hoppes, and water; it is a naturall drynke for a doche [Dutch] man, and nowe of late dayes it is moche vsed in Englande to the detryment of many Englysshe men … for the drynke is a colde drynke. Yet it doth make a man fatte, and doth inflate the bely, as it doth appere by the doche mennes faces and belyes.


title: History of beer

text: In Europe, beer brewing largely remained a home activity in medieval times. By the 14th and 15th centuries, beermaking was gradually changing from a family-oriented activity to an artisan one, with pubs and monasteries brewing their own beer for mass consumption.


title: History of beer

text: In the late Middle Ages, the brewing industry in northern Europe changed from a small-scale domestic industry to a large-scale export industry. The key innovation was the introduction of hops, which began in northern Germany in the 13th century. Hops sharply improved both the brewing process and the quality of beer. Other innovations from German lands involved larger kettle sizes and more frequent brewing. Consumption went up, while brewing became more concentrated because it was a capital-intensive industry. Thus in Hamburg per capita consumption increased from an average of 300 liters per year in the 15th century to about 700 in the 17th century.


title: History of beer

text: The use of hops spread to the Netherlands and then to England. In 15th century England, an unhopped beer would have been known as an ale, while the use of hops would make it a beer. Hopped beer was imported to England from the Netherlands as early as 1400 in Winchester, and hops were being planted on the island by 1428. The popularity of hops was at first mixed—the Brewers Company of London went so far as to state ""no hops, herbs, or other like thing be put into any ale or liquore wherof ale shall be made—but only liquor (water), malt, and yeast."" However, by the 16th century, "ale" had come to refer to any strong beer, and all ales and beers were hopped, giving rise to the verse noted by the antiquary John Aubrey:


title: History of beer

text: In 1516, William IV, Duke of Bavaria, adopted the "Reinheitsgebot" (purity law), perhaps the oldest food regulation still in use through the 20th century (the Reinheitsgebot passed formally from German law in 1987). The "Gebot" ordered that the ingredients of beer be restricted to water, barley, and hops; yeast was added to the list after Louis Pasteur's discovery in 1857. The Bavarian law was applied throughout Germany as part of the 1871 German unification as the German Empire under Otto von Bismarck, and has since been updated to reflect modern trends in beer brewing. To this day, the "Gebot" is considered a mark of purity in beers, although this is controversial.


title: History of beer

text: Most beers until relatively recent times were top-fermented. Bottom-fermented beers were discovered by accident in the 16th century after beer was stored in cool caverns for long periods; they have since largely outpaced top-fermented beers in terms of volume. For further discussion of bottom-fermented beers, see Pilsner and Lager.


title: History of beer

text: Documented evidence and recently excavated tombs indicate that the Chinese brewed alcoholic drinks from both malted grain and grain converted by mold from prehistoric times, but that the malt conversion process was largely considered inefficient in comparison with the use of molds specially cultivated on rice carrier (the resulting molded rice being called 酒麴 (Jiǔ qū) in Chinese and Koji in Japanese) to convert cooked rice into fermentable sugars, both in the amount of resulting fermentable sugars and the residual by products (the Chinese use the dregs left after fermenting the rice, called 酒糟 (Jiǔzāo), as a cooking ingredient in many dishes, frequently as an ingredient to sauces where Western dishes would use wine), because the rice undergoes starch conversion after being hulled and cooked, rather than whole and in husks like barley malt. Furthermore, the hop plant being unknown in East Asia, malt-based alcoholic drinks did not preserve well over time, and the use of malt in the production of alcoholic drinks gradually fell out of favor in China until disappearing from Chinese history by the end of the Tang Dynasty. The use of rice became dominant, such that wines from fruits of any type were historically all but unknown except as imports in China.


title: History of beer

text: The production of alcoholic drink from cooked rice converted by microbes continues to this day, and some classify the different varieties of Chinese 米酒 (Mǐjiǔ) and Japanese sake as beer since they are made from converted starch rather than fruit sugars. However, this is a debatable point, and such drinks are generally referred to as "rice wine" or "sake" which is really the generic Chinese and Japanese word for all alcoholic drinks.


title: History of beer

text: Some Pacific island cultures ferment starch that has been converted to fermentable sugars by human saliva, similar to the chicha of South America. This practice is also used by many other tribes around the world, who either chew the grain and then spit it into the fermentation vessel or spit into a fermentation vessel containing cooked grain, which is then sealed up for the fermentation. Enzymes in the spittle convert the starch into fermentable sugars, which are fermented by wild yeast. Whether or not the resulting product can be called beer is sometimes disputed, since:


title: History of beer

text: Some Taiwanese tribes have taken the process a step further by distilling the resulting alcoholic drink, resulting in a clear liquor. However, as none of the Taiwanese tribes are known to have developed systems of writing, there is no way to document how far back this practice goes, or if the technique was brought from Mainland China by Han Chinese immigrants. Judging by the fact that this technique is usually found in tribes using millet (a grain native to northern China) as the ingredient, the latter seems much more likely.


title: History of beer

text: Asia's first brewery was incorporated in 1855 (although it was established earlier) by Edward Dyer at Kasauli in the Himalayan Mountains in India under the name Dyer Breweries. The company still exists and is known as Mohan Meakin, today comprising a large group of companies across many industries.


title: History of beer

text: Following significant improvements in the efficiency of the steam engine in 1765, industrialization of beer became a reality. Further innovations in the brewing process came about with the introduction of the thermometer in 1760 and hydrometer in 1770, which allowed brewers to increase efficiency and attenuation.


title: History of beer

text: Prior to the late 18th century, malt was primarily dried over fires made from wood, charcoal, or straw, and after 1600, from coke.


title: History of beer

text: In general, none of these early malts would have been well shielded from the smoke involved in the kilning process, and consequently, early beers would have had a smoky component to their flavors; evidence indicates that maltsters and brewers constantly tried to minimize the smokiness of the finished beer.


title: History of beer

text: Writers of the period describe the distinctive taste derived from wood-smoked malts, and the almost universal revulsion it engendered. The smoked beers and ales of the West Country were famous for being undrinkable – locals and the desperate excepted. This is from "Directions for Brewing Malt Liquors" (1700):


title: History of beer

text: In most parts of the West, their malt is so stenched with the Smoak of the Wood, with which 'tis dryed, that no Stranger can endure it, though the inhabitants, who are familiarized to it, can swallow it as the Hollanders do their thick Black Beer Brewed with Buck Wheat.


title: History of beer

text: An even earlier reference to such malt was recorded by William Harrison, in his "Description of England", 1577:


title: History of beer

text: In some places it [malt] is dried at leisure with wood alone, or straw alone, in other with wood and straw together, but, of all, the straw-dried is the most excellent. For the wood-dried malt, when it is brewed, beside that the drink is higher of colour, it doth hurt and annoy the head of him that is not used thereto, because of the smoke. Such also as use both indifferently do bark, cleave, and dry their wood in an oven, thereby to remove all moisture that should procure the fume ...


title: History of beer

text: Brown Malts are dryed with Straw, Wood and Fern, etc. The straw-dryed is the best, but the wood sort has a most unnatural Taste, that few can bear with, but the necessitous, and those that are accustomed to its strong smoaky tang; yet it is much used in some of the Western Parts of England, and many thousand Quarters of this malt has been formerly used in London for brewing the Butt-keeoing-beers with, and that because it sold for two shillings per Quarter cheaper than Straw-dryed Malt, nor was this Quality of the Wood-dryed Malt much regarded by some of its Brewers, for that its ill Taste is lost in nine or twelve Months, by the Age of the Beer, and the strength of the great Quantity of Hops that were used in its preservation.


title: History of beer

text: The hydrometer transformed how beer was brewed. Before its introduction beers were brewed from a single malt: brown beers from brown malt, amber beers from amber malt, pale beers from pale malt. Using the hydrometer, brewers could calculate the yield from different malts. They observed that pale malt, though more expensive, yielded far more fermentable material than cheaper malts. For example, brown malt (used for Porter) gave 54 pounds of extract per quarter, whilst pale malt gave 80 pounds. Once this was known, brewers switched to using mostly pale malt for all beers supplemented with a small quantity of highly coloured malt to achieve the correct colour for darker beers.


title: History of beer

text: The invention of the drum roaster in 1817 by Daniel Wheeler allowed for the creation of very dark, roasted malts, contributing to the flavour of porters and stouts. Its development was prompted by a British law of 1816 forbidding the use of any ingredients other than malt and hops. Porter brewers, employing a predominantly pale malt grist, urgently needed a legal colourant. Wheeler's patent malt was the solution.


title: History of beer

text: Louis Pasteur's 1857 discovery of yeast's role in fermentation led to brewers developing methods to prevent the souring of beer by undesirable microorganisms.


title: History of beer

text: In 1912, the use of brown bottles began to be used by "Joseph Schlitz Brewing Company" of Milwaukee, Wisconsin in the United States. This innovation has since been accepted worldwide and prevents harmful rays from destroying the quality and stability of beer.


title: History of beer

text: Many European nations have unbroken brewing traditions dating back to the earliest historical records. Beer is an especially important drink in countries such as Belgium, Germany, Austria, Ireland, the UK (England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland), France, the Scandinavian countries, Poland, the Czech Republic, Spain and others having strong and unique brewing traditions with their own history, characteristic brewing methods, and styles of beer.


title: History of beer

text: Unlike in many parts of the world, there is a significant market in Europe (the UK in particular) for beer containing live yeast. These unfiltered, unpasteurised brews are more challenging to handle than the commonly sold "dead" beers; "live" beer quality can suffer with poor care, but many people prefer its taste. While beer is usually matured for relatively short times (a few weeks to a few months) compared to wine, some of the stronger so-called real ales have been found to develop character and flavour over the course of as much as several decades.


title: History of beer

text: In some parts of the world, breweries that had begun as a family business by Germans or other European émigrés grew into large companies, often passing into hands with more concern for profits than traditions of quality, resulting in a degradation of the product.


title: History of beer

text: In 1953, New Zealander Morton Coutts developed the technique of continuous fermentation. Coutts patented his process, which involves beer flowing through sealed tanks, fermenting under pressure, and never coming into contact with the atmosphere, even when bottled. His process was introduced in the US and UK, but is now used for commercial beer production only in New Zealand.


title: History of beer

text: In some sectors brewers are reluctant to embrace new technology for fear of losing the traditional characteristics of their beer. For example, Marston's Brewery in Burton on Trent still uses open wooden Burton Union sets for fermentation in order to maintain the quality and flavour of its beers, while Belgium's lambic brewers go so far as to expose their brews to outside air in order to pick up the natural wild yeasts which ferment the wort. Traditional brewing techniques protect the beer from oxidation by maintaining a carbon dioxide blanket over the wort as it ferments into beer.


title: History of beer

text: Modern breweries now brew many types of beer, ranging from ancient styles such as the spontaneously-fermented lambics of Belgium; the lagers, dark beers, wheat beers and more of Germany; the UK's stouts, milds, pale ales, bitters, golden ale and new modern American creations such as chili beer, cream ale, and double India pale ales.


title: History of beer

text: Today, the brewing industry is a huge global business, consisting of several multinational companies, and many thousands of smaller producers ranging from brewpubs to regional breweries. Advances in refrigeration, international and transcontinental shipping, marketing and commerce have resulted in an international marketplace, where the consumer has literally hundreds of choices between various styles of local, regional, national and foreign beers.


title: History of beer

text: Prior to Prohibition, there were thousands of breweries in the United States, mostly brewing heavier beers than modern US beer drinkers are used to. Beginning in 1920, most of these breweries went out of business, although some converted to soft drinks and other businesses. Bootlegged beer was often watered down to increase profits, beginning a trend, still on-going today, of the American markets heavily advertising the weaker beers and keeping them popular. Consolidation of breweries and the application of industrial quality control standards have led to the mass-production and the mass-marketing of huge quantities of light lagers. Advertising became supreme, and bigger companies fared better in that market. The decades after World War II saw a huge consolidation of the American brewing industry: brewing companies would buy their rivals solely for their customers and distribution systems, shutting down their brewing operations. Despite the record increases in production between 1870 and 1895, the number of firms fell by 46%. Average brewery output rose significantly, driven partly by a rapid increase in output by the largest breweries. As late as 1877, only four breweries topped 100,000 barrels annually. By 1895, the largest sixteen firms had greatly increased their productive capacity and were all brewing over 250,000 barrels annually; and imports have become more abundant since the mid-1980s. The number of breweries has been claimed as being either over 1,500 in 2007 or over 1,400 in 2010, depending on the source. As of June 2013, The Brewers Association reports the total number of currently operating US breweries to be 2,538, with only 55 of those being non-craft breweries.


title: History of beer

text: The Finnish epic Kalevala, collected in written form in the 19th century but based on oral traditions many centuries old, devotes more lines to the origin of beer and brewing than it does to the origin of mankind.


title: History of beer

text: The mythical Flemish king Gambrinus (from Jan Primus (John I)), is sometimes credited with the invention of beer.


title: History of beer

text: In Egyptian mythology, the immense blood-lust of the fierce lioness goddess Sekhmet was only sated after she was tricked into consuming an extremely large amount of red-coloured beer (believing it to be blood): she became so drunk that she gave up slaughter altogether and became docile.


title: History of beer

text: In Norse mythology the sea god Ægir, his wife Rán, and their nine daughters, brewed ale (or mead) for the gods. In the "Lokasenna", it is told that Ægir would host a party where all the gods would drink the beer he brewed for them. He made this in a giant kettle that Thor had brought. The cups in Ægir's hall were always full, magically refilling themselves when emptied. Ægir had two servants in his hall to assist him; Eldir [Fire-Kindler] and Fimafeng [Handy].


title: History of beer

text: In Nart sagas, Satanaya (Ubykh , Adyghe , Ossetian ), the mother of the Narts, a fertility figure and matriarch, invented beer.


title: History of beer

text: The word "beer" comes from old Germanic languages, and is with variations used in continental Germanic languages, "bier" in German and Dutch, but not in Nordic languages. The word was imported into the British Isles by tribes such as the Saxons. It is disputed where the word originally comes from.


title: History of beer

text: Many other languages have borrowed the Dutch/German word, such as French "bière", Italian "birra", Romanian "bere" and Turkish "bira". The Nordic languages have "öl"/"øl", related to the English word "ale". Spanish, Portuguese and Catalan have words that evolved from Latin "cervisia", originally of Celtic origin. Slavic languages use "pivo" with small variations, based on a pre-Slavic word meaning "drink" and derived from the verb meaning "to drink".


title: History of beer

text: Chuvash "pora" its r-Turkic counterpart, which may ultimately be the source of the Germanic beer-word.


title: To'hajiilee

text: "To'hajiilee" is the 13th episode of the fifth season of the American television drama series "Breaking Bad", and the 59th episode overall. Written by George Mastras and directed by Michelle MacLaren, it aired on AMC in the United States and Canada on September 8, 2013.


title: To'hajiilee

text: Todd Alquist receives a call from Walter White, asking his uncle, Jack Welker, to put a hit on Jesse Pinkman. Jack tells Walt that he will only kill Jesse if Walt teaches Todd to cook his signature blue meth, which Walt reluctantly agrees to do. Meanwhile, Jesse tells Hank Schrader and Steven Gomez about his plan to capture Walt through his money. At Jesse's lead, Hank visits Huell Babineaux at a Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) safe house and tricks him into cooperating by having Huell believe that Walt has killed Jesse, Patrick Kuby, and Saul Goodman. Hank shows Huell a staged photo of Jesse shot in the head as proof. Huell confesses that he and Kuby stored Walt's money in barrels, and Walt collected the barrels with a rental van and shovel, but he does not know where the money is hidden. Hank advises Huell not to answer any calls or leave the house.


title: To'hajiilee

text: Jesse sends Walt a photo of a barrel filled with money, claiming that he has found Walt's fortune, and threatens to burn it all if the call ends. Walt frantically rushes to the location. During the heated conversation, Walt confesses to poisoning Brock Cantillo but says that he ensured Brock's survival and that all the murders he has committed were also committed to protect Jesse. Walt arrives at the desert location where his money is buried but finds no one there. He then sees another car approaching carrying Jesse and hides, believing Jesse is going to kill him. He calls Jack and gives the brotherhood the coordinates of his buried fortune, but then calls it off when he sees that Hank and Gomez are with Jesse.


title: To'hajiilee

text: Cornered, Walt surrenders to Hank, who handcuffs him and reads him his Miranda rights. Jesse feigned that the rental van had GPS tracking, the photo was staged from his backyard, and they have tracked Walt through his phone. Walt attacks Jesse until Gomez and Hank break them up. Walt is put in the backseat of Gomez's SUV while Jesse is escorted to Walt's car. Hank then calls Marie Schrader to inform her that he has caught Walt. However, Jack and his brotherhood approach from the desert, having ignored Walt's cancellation, and confront Hank and Gomez. A panicked Walt attempts to defuse the situation to no avail. The gang opens fire, while Jesse and Walt take cover in their cars to avoid the fusillade of bullets.


title: To'hajiilee

text: The episode is named after the Tohajiilee-Navajo-Native-American-Reservation, where Walt and Jesse did their first meth-cook, Walt's money is buried, and the gunfight takes place at the end of the episode.


title: To'hajiilee

text: The scene where Walt is sent racing after Jesse texts him a photo of money barrel was entirely filmed in green screen. According to Vince Gilligan, this is the only way to shoot it because they cannot afford to shut down all the streets needed to film it in-camera.


title: To'hajiilee

text: The episode was viewed by 5.11 million people on its original broadcast, which was an increase from the 4.41 million of the previous episode.


title: To'hajiilee

text: The episode has been extensively praised by critics, with several reviewers calling it one of the best in the series' history and praising Michelle MacLaren's directing work as having created a perfect hour of television. Tim Surette at TV.com calls "To'hajiilee" '"a direct hit and one of the best (episodes) of the season, maybe even the series".


title: To'hajiilee

text: Seth Amitin from IGN gave this episode a score of 10 out of 10, praising the direction and the twists and turns the episode took.


title: To'hajiilee

text: In 2019 "The Ringer" ranked "To'hajiilee" as the 11th best out of the 62 total "Breaking-bad"-episodes.


title: To'hajiilee

text: For her work on this episode, Kelley Dixon was nominated for Outstanding Single-Camera Picture Editing for a Drama Series, losing to Skip Macdonald for Felina.


title: Mid-size car

text: Mid-size—also known as intermediate—is a vehicle size class which originated in the United States and is used for cars larger than compact cars and smaller than full-size cars. "Large family car" is a UK term and a part of the D-segment in the European car classification. Mid-size cars are manufactured in a variety of body styles, including sedans, coupes, station wagons, hatchbacks, and convertibles. Compact executive cars can also fall under the mid-size category.


title: Mid-size car

text: The automobile that defined this size in the United States was the Rambler Six that was introduced in 1956, although it was called a "compact" car at that time. Much smaller than any standard contemporary full-size cars, it was called a compact to distinguish it from the small imported cars that were being introduced into the marketplace.


title: Mid-size car

text: By the early 1960s, the car was renamed the Rambler Classic and while it retained its basic dimensions, it was now competing with an array of new "intermediate" models from General Motors, Ford, and Chrysler. The introduction of the 1962 Ford Fairlane was viewed by consumers as too close to the compact Falcon in size and performance as well as too close to the full-sized Ford models in price. It was the introduction of General Motors "senior compacts" that grew the mid-size market segment as the line of cars themselves kept increasing in size. By 1965, these GM "A platform" mid-size models matched the size of 1955 full-size cars.


title: Mid-size car

text: During the 1970s, the intermediate class in the U.S. was generally defined as vehicles with wheelbases between and . Once again, the cars grew and by 1974 they were "about as large as the full-size cars of a decade or so ago ... best sellers include Ford Torino, Chevrolet Chevelle, AMC Matador, Plymouth Satellite ..." The domestic manufacturers began changing the definition of "medium" as they developed new models for an evolving market place.


title: Mid-size car

text: A turning point occurred in the late 1970s, when rising fuel costs and government fuel economy regulations caused all car classes to shrink, and in many cases to blur. Automakers moved previously "full-size" nameplates to smaller platforms such as the Ford LTD II and the Plymouth Fury. A comparison test by "Popular Science" of four intermediate sedans (the 1976 AMC Matador, Chevrolet Malibu, Ford Torino, and Dodge Coronet) predicted that these will be the "big cars of the future." By 1978, General Motors made its intermediate models smaller.


title: Mid-size car

text: New "official" size designations in the U.S. were introduced by the EPA, which defined market segments by passenger and cargo space. Formerly mid-sized cars that were built on the same platform, like the AMC Matador sedan, had a combined passenger and cargo volume of , and were now considered "full-size" automobiles.


title: Mid-size car

text: Cars that defined the mid-size market in the 1980s and 1990s included the Chrysler K-Cars (Dodge Aries and Plymouth Reliant), the Ford Taurus, and the Toyota Camry, which was upsized into the midsize class in 1991. The Taurus and Camry came to define the mid-size market for decades.


title: Mid-size car

text: Mid-size cars were the most popular category of cars sold in the United States, with 27.4 percent during the first half of 2012, ahead of crossovers at 19 percent.


title: Mid-size car

text: The United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) "Fuel Economy Regulations for 1977 and Later Model Year" (dated July 1996) includes definitions for classes of automobiles. Based on the combined passenger and cargo volume, mid-size cars are defined as having an "interior volume index" of .


title: Soteriology

text: Soteriology (; ' "salvation" from σωτήρ ' "savior, preserver" and λόγος "" "study" or "word") is the study of religious doctrines of salvation. Salvation theory occupies a place of special significance in many religions. In the academic field of religious studies, soteriology is understood by scholars as representing a key theme in a number of different religions and is often studied in a comparative context; that is, comparing various ideas about what salvation is and how it is obtained.


title: Soteriology

text: Buddhism is devoted primarily to liberation from "Duḥkha" or suffering by breaking free of "samsara", the cycle of compulsory rebirth, by attaining nirvana. Many types of Buddhism, Theravada, Mahayana and Vajrayana (or Tantric), emphasize an individual's meditation and subsequent liberation from "samsara", which is to become enlightened.


title: Soteriology

text: However, the Pure Land traditions of Mahayana Buddhism generally focus on the saving nature of the Celestial Buddha Amitābha. In Mahayana Buddhist eschatology, it is believed that we are currently living in the Latter Day of the Law, a period of 10,000 years where the corrupt nature of the people means the teachings of the Buddha are not listened to. Before this era, the "bodhisattva" Amitābha made 48 vows, including the vow to accept all sentient beings that called to him, to allow them to take refuge in his Pure land and to teach them the pure "dharma". It is therefore considered ineffective to trust in personal meditational and even monastic practices, but to only trust in the primal vow of Amitābha.


title: Soteriology

text: In Christianity, salvation, also called "deliverance" or "redemption", is the saving of human beings from sin and its consequences. Variant views on salvation are among the main lines dividing the various Christian denominations, being a point of disagreement between Eastern Orthodoxy, Roman Catholicism and Protestantism, as well as within Protestantism, notably in the Calvinist–Arminian debate. These lines include conflicting definitions of depravity, predestination, atonement, and most pointedly, justification. Christian soteriology ranges from exclusive salvation to universal reconciliation concepts.


title: Soteriology

text: While some of the differences are as widespread as Christianity itself, the overwhelming majority agrees that salvation is made possible by the life, crucifixion, death, and resurrection of Jesus.


title: Soteriology

text: Soteriology is discussed in Hinduism through its principle of "moksha", also called "nirvana" or "kaivalya". "In India", wrote Mircea Eliade, "metaphysical knowledge always has a soteriological purpose." "Moksha" refers to freedom from "saṃsāra", the cycle of death and rebirth. There are various principles and practices that can lead to the state of "moksha" including the "Vedas" and the "Tantras" being the basic scriptures for guidance along with many others like "Upanishads", "Puranas" and more.


title: Soteriology

text: Muslims believe that everyone is responsible for their own actions. So even though Muslims believe that Adam and Hawwa (Eve), the parents of humanity, committed a sin by eating from the forbidden tree and thus disobeyed God, they believe that humankind is not responsible for such an action. They believe that God ("Allah") is fair and just and one should request forgiveness from him to avoid being punished for not doing what God asked of them and for listening to Satan. Muslims believe that they, as well as everyone else, are vulnerable to making mistakes and thus they need to seek repentance repeatedly at all times.


title: Soteriology

text: Muhammad said, "By Allah, I seek the forgiveness of Allah and I turn to Him in repentance more than seventy times each day." (Narrated by al-Bukhaari, no. 6307) God wants his servants to repent and forgives them, he rejoices over it, as Muhammad said: "When a person repents, Allah rejoices more than one of you who found his camel after he lost it in the desert." (Agreed upon. Narrated by al-Bukhaari, no. 6309) Islamic tradition has generally held that it is relatively straightforward to enter "Jannah" (Paradise). In the Quran, God says: "If you avoid the great sins you have been forbidden, We shall wipe out your minor misdeeds and let you through the entrance of honor [Paradise]."


title: Soteriology

text: However, by direct implication of these tenets and beliefs, Man's nature is spiritually and morally flawed such that he needs salvation from himself. Finding appreciation,forgiveness, and joy in Allah is the only (or best) practice to be saved from this terrible fate of corruption and meaninglessness. al-Tahreem 66:8


title: Soteriology

text: In Jainism, the soteriological concept is "moksha", but it is explained differently than the similar term found in Hinduism. "Moksha" is a blissful state of existence of a soul, completely free from the karmic bondage, free from "saṃsāra", the cycle of birth and death. It is the highest state of existence of a soul, even higher than the gods living in heavens. In the state of moksha, a soul enjoys infinite bliss, infinite knowledge and infinite perception. This state is achieved through realisation of self and achieving a completely desireless and unattached state.


title: Soteriology

text: In contemporary Judaism, redemption (Hebrew "ge'ulah") is God's redeeming the people of Israel from their various exiles. This includes the final redemption from the present exile. Judaism holds that adherents do not need personal salvation, as Christians believe. Jews do not believe in original sin. Instead, they place a high value on individual morality as defined in the law of God—embodied in what Jews know as the Torah or The Law, given to Moses by God on Mount Sinai, the summary of which is comprised in the Ten Commandments. The Jewish sage Hillel the Elder states that The Law can be further compressed in just one line, popularly known as the Golden Rule: "That which is hateful to you, do not do unto your fellow".


title: Soteriology

text: In Judaism, salvation is closely related to the idea of redemption, saving from the states or circumstances that destroy the value of human existence. God, as the universal spirit and creator of the world, is the source of all salvation for humanity, provided an individual honors God by observing his precepts. So redemption or salvation depends on the individual. Judaism stresses that salvation cannot be obtained through anyone else or by just invoking a deity or believing in any outside power or influence.


title: Soteriology

text: Some passages in Jewish religious texts assert that no afterlife exists, even for the good and just, with the Book of Ecclesiastes telling the faithful: "The dead know nothing. They have no reward and even the memory of them is lost." For many centuries, rabbis and Jewish laypeople have often wrestled with such passages.


title: Soteriology

text: In the mystery religions, salvation was less worldly and communal, and more a mystical belief concerned with the continued survival of the individual soul after death. Some savior gods associated with this theme are dying-and-rising gods, often associated with the seasonal cycle, such as Osiris, Tammus, Adonis, and Dionysus. A complex of soteriological beliefs was also a feature of the cult of Cybele and Attis.


title: Soteriology

text: The similarity of themes and archetypes to religions found in antiquity to later Christianity has been pointed out by many authors, including the Fathers of the early Christian church. One view is that early Christianity borrowed these myths and motifs from contemporary Hellenistic mystery religions, which possessed ideas such as life-death-rebirth deities and sexual relations between gods and human beings. While Christ myth theory is not accepted by mainstream historians, proponents attempt to establish causal connections to the cults of Mithras, Dionysus, and Osiris among others.


title: Soteriology

text: More than a century after the establishment of the Garden, the school in which Epicurus taught philosophy, some people in the Roman world were calling Epicurus their Savior. The most prominent soul saved by Epicurus was the Roman Empress Pompeia Plotina. Lucretius, author of "De Rerum Natura", also depicts the salvific power of philosophy, and of his Scholarch Epicurus, by employing literary devices like the "Broken Jar parable" (where the Scholarch is credited with helping mortals to easily enjoy pleasure), poetry, and imagery.


title: Soteriology

text: The salvation of Epicurus has no otherworldly connotations whatsoever. Judging from his Principal Doctrines and Letter to Menoeceus, he salves his disciples from supernatural fears and excessive desires for what is not natural and gives his disciples clear ethical guidelines that lead to happiness. Lucretius says Epicurus has set the boundaries for the limits of nature. His followers in Roman times developed Epicurus into a cultural hero and revered him as the founding figure of his School, and as the first to have developed a fully naturalistic cosmology that emancipated mortals from all fear-based superstition.


title: Soteriology

text: Sikhism advocates the pursuit of salvation through disciplined, personal meditation on the Naam Japo (name) and message of God, meant to bring one into union with God. But a person's state of mind has to be detached from this world, with the understanding that this world is a temporary abode and their soul has to remain untouched by pain, pleasure, greed, emotional attachment, praise, slander, and above all, egotistical pride. Thus their thoughts and deeds become "nirmal" or pure, and they merge with God or attain union with God, just as a drop of water falling from the skies merges with the ocean.


title: Soteriology

text: Shinto and Tenrikyo similarly emphasize working for a good life by cultivating virtue or virtuous behavior.


title: Soteriology

text: In an age that still saw salvation as primarily collective - based on the religion of the family, clan, or state - rather than the emerging province of the individual (as popularized by Buddhism and the mystery religions such as Mithraism) and Hellenistic ruler cults from about 300 BCE sometimes promoted the revering of a king as the savior of his people. Prominent examples included Ptolemy I Soter of Egypt and the Seleucids Antiochus I Soter and Demetrius I Soter. In the Egyptian context, the deification of a ruler was built on traditional pharaonic religious ideas.


title: The Groundlings

text: The Groundlings is an American improvisational and sketch comedy troupe and school based in Los Angeles. The troupe was formed by Gary Austin in 1974 and uses an improv format influenced by Viola Spolin, whose improvisational theater techniques were taught by Del Close and other members of the Second City, located in Chicago and later St. Louis. They used these techniques to produce sketches and improvised scenes. Its name is taken from Shakespeare's "Hamlet", Act III, Scene II: "...to split the ears of the groundlings, who for the most part are capable of nothing but inexplicable dumbshows and noise." In 1975 the troupe purchased and moved into its current location on Melrose Avenue.


title: The Groundlings

text: The Groundlings School holds new sessions every six weeks with over 300 students per session, with more than 2,000 students per year going through the program. The competitive program with admission by audition, consists of five levels (Basic, Intermediate, Advanced Improv, Writing Lab, and Advanced Lab). Participants must satisfy instructors' requirements in order to advance.


title: The Groundlings

text: The program takes years to complete, as 18-month to two-year wait-lists between upper levels are common. Students may be asked to repeat Basic and Intermediate classes multiple times. By the late 2000s, students had only one chance to complete classes in Improv and Writing. Failure to pass either of these classes means a student cannot complete the program, nor be invited into the Sunday Company.


title: The Groundlings

text: Students may be voted into the Sunday Company, where they may remain for no more than two years. Many move on sooner than that. Many Groundlings performers have found success in movies and television, including several who have become cast members and writers on "Saturday Night Live", "MADtv", "Reno 911!", and the network G4 while also being active on the internet, mainly YouTube.


title: The Groundlings

text: In 1972, Gary Austin Jr. (a veteran of San Francisco's "The Committee") assembled a group of performers in Los Angeles to work on their craft. They would improvise, perform monologues, scenes, characters, songs, dances, and classic plays. After about a year, they started doing performances and inviting friends to come and watch. Word got out about the workshop, more people started coming, and soon a core group of performers began to showcase their material at various venues around Hollywood.


title: The Groundlings

text: In January 1974, Austin announced that he wanted to create a theatre company. There were fifty founding members of the company (membership at that time required payment of $25 to attend workshops). They developed material in the workshops and performed the best pieces in the weekend shows. The new group produced its first show in the 30-seat basement of the Oxford Theatre (now The Met) near the corner of Santa Monica Boulevard and Western Avenue. Esteemed LA Times theatre critic, Sylvie Drake, was in the audience that first weekend, and wrote a rave review. "This could be the start of something big," Drake predicted.


title: The Groundlings

text: As the buzz about the new company increased, the entertainment industry started taking notice. Comedian Lily Tomlin was a regular in the audience, and she hired several Groundlings to perform on her eponymous "The Lily Tomlin Show". Later that year Lorne Michaels, who produced Tomlin's TV special, asked Groundling Laraine Newman to be a cast member for his new late night comedy series "Saturday Night Live".


title: The Groundlings

text: Before long, membership in the company grew to 90. To keep the size of the company down, it required selection by audition. Phil Hartman, then a graphic designer, tried out in the first audition. He was accepted but, due to stiff competition, he had to wait more than a year before starting to perform in shows. With such a large company, workshops seven days a week, and sold-out shows going up three nights a weekend, The Groundlings needed a place to call their own.


title: The Groundlings

text: The Groundlings School of improvisation officially began in 1978 with 17 students and staff members Gary Austin, Tom Maxwell, Phyllis Katz, Cherie Kerr, Laraine Newman, and Tracy Newman. In the 21st century, it has an annual enrollment of more than 4200 students. The Sunday Company was formed by Suzanne Kent in 1982 to further develop the talent coming through the school.


title: The Groundlings

text: In 1975 the company acquired what became The Groundlings Theatre at 7307 Melrose Avenue (the building was previously used as an interior decorator’s studio, a furniture showroom, a gay bar, and a massage parlor). Through equity and with the use of their own funds, company members set out to modernize the building and convert it into a performance space. They battled through four years of red tape, building codes, and parking restrictions before producing any shows on the stage. During that time The Groundlings performed their revues at a handful of theaters all over town, including The Improv, The Matrix, The Hollywood Canteen, and the White House. Finally in April 1979, the revitalized 99-seat theater opened its doors to audiences.


title: The Groundlings

text: In November 1979, Gary Austin stepped down from his position as artistic director. Tom Maxwell was elected as his successor, and he served for the next ten years. In 1989, The Groundlings began the enduring tradition of having Groundlings or Groundlings alumni direct each new revue. The Main Company of no more than 30 members, collectively makes artistic, business and creative decisions. In April 2017 The Groundlings paid tribute to passing of their founder, Gary Austin, by gathering at the theatre and laying flowers at his plaque.


title: The Groundlings

text: Students must pass an audition to get into the Basic class. If a student passes the audition, their results are valid for one year. If a student does not pass the audition, they are allowed to audition again in four months. Students are allowed to audition a total of three times.


title: The Groundlings

text: After completing the Advanced Lab level, a student may be voted into the Sunday Company, which performs every Sunday at 7:30pm. During this time, students write, rehearse and perform new material every week. After six months of performing in the Sunday Company, students are either voted to remain in the company for another six months, voted to be dismissed from the school, or voted into the Main Company (aka "The Groundlings"). No one can stay in the Sunday Company for longer than 24 months nor less than six months.


title: The Groundlings

text: All members of the Main Company are selected from members of the Sunday Company. All of the Main Company members can remain in the company for as long as they desire. Usually members do not stay for longer than a decade; most of the Groundlings retire sooner from the company. The Main Company (capped at no more than 30 members at any time) collectively acts as the organization's artistic director, democratically making business and creative decisions as a group.


title: The Groundlings

text: The Groundlings Revues (now commonly referred to as the Main Shows) were the first shows performed by the company and they established the Groundlings improv, character, and sketch comedy style. In 1981, the revue was given a title, "L.A. 200, Groundlings 3". Since that time every revue has had its own name, and has the word "Groundling" in the title. Initially one or two revues were performed in a year, increasing to three by the 1990s, and four in 2007, in addition to a special holiday show in December. Main Shows are performed every Friday at 8:00 p.m. and every Saturday at 8:00 p.m. and 10:00 p.m.