Deng went on the Long March with Mao. During the Japanese Occupation of China, he joined the Eighth Route Army commanded by Liu Bocheng. After World War II he was part of peace talks between the Communists and the Kuomintang. These talks failed. On 1 October 1949, Deng was at proclamation of the People's Republic of China in Beijing. Deng became mayor of Chongqing and stayed there until 1952. From 1952 until the early 1960s Deng had many powerful positions in government in Beijing. But, he became the target of two political purges: the Cultural Revolution and the Criticize Deng campaign in 1976. Deng said that the Cultural Revolution had been bad for China in 1977 and started the "Beijing Spring." China started to open more in 1978-79. Deng worked to reform the Chinese economy and increase exports during the 1980s. The Tiananmen Square protests in 1989 weakened him. He retired from politics in 1992.
Wenatchee, Washington
Wenatchee is a city in Washington State, the United States of America. The city has a population of about 30,000 people. It is served by Pangborn Memorial Airport.
Reform
Reform means a useful change, or sometimes to a pure original state.
“Reform” means changes. The UK government frequently uses the term "reform" to describe changes to public services, such as the National Health Service. But these changes are not accepted by all people as useful.
A note about grammar: when used to describe something which is "physically" formed again, such as re-casting it in a mold/mould, or a band that gets back together, the proper term is re-form (with a hyphen), not "reform".
Battle of Granada
The Battle of Granada was a siege of the city of Granada. It was fought several months and lead to the surrender of Granada on January 2, 1492. The forces of King Ferdinand II of Aragon and Queen Isabella I of Castile fought against the armies of the Muslim Emirate of Granada.
This relatively small campaign was of enormous consequences because Granada was the last outpost of Al-Andalus in Spain and its fall meant the end of 780 years of Muslim control in the Iberian Peninsula. It also was the last act in the Reconquista, the campaign by the medieval Christian states of Spain to drive out the Moorish invaders.
Granada still celebrates the 2nd of January.
Emirate of Granada
The Emirate of Granada was established in 1238. As the Reconquista was very successful after the conquest of Cordoba in 1236, the emirate officially became a tributary state in 1238 and was called the Kingdom of Granada. The Nasrid emirs and kings were responsible for building most of the palaces in the Alhambra. The "taifa" became a vassal state of the Christian kingdom of Castile for the next 250 years. The Nasrid sultans and kings paid tribute to the Christian kings and cooperated with them in the battle against rebellious Muslims under Castilian rule.
On January 2, 1492, the last Muslim leader, Muhammad XII, surrendered complete control of Granada, to Ferdinand and Isabella, after the city was besieged in the Battle of Granada.
Sylvester Stallone
Michael Sylvester ″Sly″ Gardenzio Stallone (born July 6, 1946), nicknamed Sly Stallone, is an American actor, director, movie producer, body-builder, and screenwriter. Sylvester Stallone has been in many action movies. He has played two famous movie characters: Rocky Balboa, the boxer who overcame challenges to fight for love and glory, and John Rambo, a brave soldier who did violent missions.
Sylvester Gardenzio Stallone was born on July 6, 1946 in New York City, and he is the son of Frank Stallone Sr. (1919 – 2011), a hairdresser, and Jackie Stallone (1921 – 2020), an astrologer, former dancer, and supporter of wrestling for women. During his birth, doctors used , an instrument that looks like a pair of pincers or tongs, that damaged a nerve and caused paralysis in parts of Stallone's face. The paralysis caused his well known speech and drooping lower lip.
Stallone's grandfather, Silvestro Staglione, was an immigrant from Gioia del Colle, in the province of Bari (Apulia, Italy). Stallone's mother was born in Washington, D.C., and she was the daughter of a Parisian socialite. When Stallone was between the ages of two and five he boarded in Queens, and he only saw his parents on the weekends. In 1951 he went back to live with his parents in Maryland where they owned beauty salons. In 1960s he attended Abraham Lincoln High School (living in the Tacony section of Philadelphia which inspired the Rocky stories) after being rejected for the Catholic High School Father Judge and after that he went to beauty school.
In the 1960s, Stallone stopped going to beauty school after he won a scholarship for the American College of Switzerland in Leysin. There, he studied drama and was well received in school productions. When he went back to America he went to the Theater Arts Department at University of Miami Florida for three years. He came within a few credit hours of graduation before he decided to drop out and try a career at writing screenplays under the pen names Q. Moonblood and J.J. Deadlock. At the same time he started acting in small parts in movies.
Later, Stallone asked that his acting and life experiences be accepted in exchange for his remaining credits, and the President of the University of Miami gave him a Bachelors of Fine Arts (BFA) degree in 1999.
Stallone had his first role in the softcore pornography movie "Party at Kitty and Stud's" (1970), which was later re-released as "Italian Stallion". He was paid US$200 for two days work. An "uncut" version of the movie was released in 2007, and it claimed to show actual hardcore footage of Stallone. However, trade journal "AVN", said that Stallone was not in the hardcore scenes. In 2008, a DVD was released of "White Fire" (1976), a dubbed, German edit of 'Party at Kitty and Stud's', which was alleged to include hardcore footage of Stallone.
Stallone also starred in the play called "Score" which had 23 performances at the Martinique Theatre from October 28 - November 15, 1971. It was later made into a movie by Radley Metzger.
Stallone's other first few movie roles were small, and he did brief appearances that he did not get credit for in Woody Allen's "Bananas" (1971) as a subway thug, in the thriller "Klute" (1971) as an extra dancing in a club, and with Jack Lemmon in"The Prisoner of Second Avenue" (1975), as a young person. In the Lemmon movie, Jack Lemmon chases, tackles and Stallone, thinking that Stallone's character is a thief. He also starred in the hit "The Lords of Flatbush" (1974). In 1975, he played supporting roles in "Farewell, My Lovely", "Capone" and, another hit, "Death Race 2000". He also made guest appearances on the TV series "Police Story" and "Kojak".
Stallone was not very well known by a lot of people until his role in "Rocky" (1976). On March 24, 1975, he saw the Muhammed Ali–Chuck Wepner fight which gave him the idea for "Rocky". That night Stallone went home, and in three days he had written the script for "Rocky". After that, he tried to sell the script with the intent of playing the lead role. Robert Chartoff and Irwin Winkler both liked the script (which Stallone submitted to them after a casting), and planned on having a star like Burt Reynolds or James Caan to play the lead character. "Rocky" was nominated for ten Academy Awards, this included Best Actor and Best Original Screenplay nominations for Stallone.
The second movie "Rocky II" which Stallone had also written and directed was released in 1979 and also became a huge success. The money it made was over US$200 million.