Florence Annie Bridgwood (also known as Florence Lawrence; January 2 1886-December 28 1938) was a Canadian actress. She acted in silent movies and on stage. She acted in almost three hundred movies. She was very involved in stage and Broadway plays. She was born in 1886 near Hamilton, Ontario. Her death happened in Hollywood, California almost three days after Christmas 1938. She poisoned herself using ant paste. Her age was fifty-two when she died.
Exosphere
The exosphere is the highest and top layer of the Earth's atmosphere. It marks the edge of space. There are very few molecules in this layer. The lightest atmospheric gases such as hydrogen and helium exist throughout the exosphere. Heavier ones like carbon dioxide and atomic oxygen are near the base. The molecules collide so rarely, that the idea of atmospheric pressure has little meaning. There are two borders to the exosphere; the lower boundary and the upper boundary. The lower boundary is about 500-800 km (300-500 miles) above the surface and is called the exobase. It is also called the thermopause because it is in between the exosphere and the thermosphere. The molecules are moving very fast, so the temperature in this zone is estimated to be thousands of degrees celsius.
Elspet Gray
Elspeth Jean Gray, Baroness Rix (Elspet Jean MacGregor, April 12, 1929 – February 18, 2013) was a Scottish actress and activist. She played Mrs. Palmer in "Solo" and as Lady Collingford in "Catweazel".
Gray was born on April 12, 1929 in Inverness, Inverness-shire, Scotland. She was married to Brian Rix from 1949 until her death in 2013. They had four children. Gray died on February 18, 2013 from unknown causes, aged 83.
W. Watts Biggers
William Watts "Buck" Biggers (June 2, 1927 – February 10, 2013) was an American novelist, composer, and co-creator of the "Underdog". He wrote many books. His first book was "The Man Inside".
Biggers was born on June 2, 1927 in Atlanta, Georgia. He studied at the North Georgia Military College. Watts was married to Gracie Biggers from 1950 until her death in 1990. They had two children. Biggers died on February 10, 2013 in his home in Plymouth, Massachusetts from a heart attack, aged 85.
Phyllis Hyman
Phyllis Hyman (July 6, 1949 – June 30, 1995) was an American actress and singer. She was born in Philadelphia. She performed pop and R&B music. She starred in the movie "School Daze" (1988). Her music was mainly melancholy from 1984 and afterwards. She killed herself with drugs and pentobarbital in her apartment in New York City on June 30, 1995. Three years after her death, a record, "Forever with You", was released with other songs she had recorded before her death.
Stephen Foster
Stephen Collins Foster (July 4, 1826 - January 13, 1864) was an American composer. He was the first American composer to be paid for his songs. Music publishers paid him for his music. He was born in Lawrenceville, Pennsylvania which is now part of Pittsburgh. His parents were wealthy. His most well-known and successful song is "Oh! Susanna". It was first performed in the Eagle Ice Cream Saloon in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania in 1847.
Foster married Jane Denny MacDowell in July 1850, They had one daughter named Marion. The marriage was troubled and the couple separated. Foster moved to New York City to do professional songwriting. He died in New York City on January 13, 1864. HE was 37 years old.
Foster wrote mainly in three musical genres: plantation songs ("Oh! Susanna", "Camptown Races"), parlor songs ("Jeannie with the Light Brown Hair", "Beautiful Dreamer") and Civil War songs ("We Are Coming, Father Abraham").
Stephen Collins Foster was born on July 4, 1826 to William Barclay Foster (September 7, 1779 - July 27, 1855) and Elisa Clayland [Tomlinson] Foster (January 1788 - January 1855). Stephen Collins was born in his father's home, "The White Cottage", at Lawrenceville, Pennsylvania near Pittsburgh.
He was baptized on April 22, 1827 in Trinity Episcopal Church, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. He was the youngest of the Foster children, and was named for Stephen Collins, a child friend of the family who died at age 12, and for William Collins, a family friend and well known attorney.
The Fosters were married on November 14, 1807 in Chambersburg, Pennsylvania. William Barclay Foster was a leader on the western frontier of Pennsylvania. He had settled near Pittsburgh. The Fosters had several children: Charlotte Susanna (1809), Ann Eliza (1812), Henry Baldwin (1816), Henrietta Angelica (1818), Dunning McNair (1821), Morrison (1823), and Stephen Collins (1826). A son was born in 1829, but died in 1830.
William Barclay Foster had sired an illegitimate son before his marriage. This boy was raised in the Foster family. The Fosters lived in an elegant cottage high on a hillside above the Allegheny River in Lawrenceville, Pennsylvania, a suburb of Pittsburgh planned and developed by William Barclay Foster.
Stephen's great-grandfather, Alexander Foster, migrated from Londonderry, Northern Ireland to the American colonies in 1725. He settled in Little Britain Township, Lancaster County, Pennsylvania. His son, James Foster, married Ann Barclay and moved to Virginia. Their son, James, Jr. served in the American Revolution, and sired Stephen's father William Barclay Foster in 1779.
After the Revolution, many of the Scots-Irish families of Virginia (including the Fosters) migrated to western Pennsylvania. William Barclay Foster settled near Pittsburgh. He was a merchant who sometimes traveled as far away as Louisiana. He returned to Pittsburgh via New York City or Philadelphia after buying supplies for his Pittsburgh store.
He met his wife, Eliza Clayland Tomlinson, in Philadelphia. She was a Scots-Irish aristocrat of Wilmington, Delaware. The couple were married in Chambersburg, Pennsylvania, and traveled 300 miles overland to Pittsburgh. The couple were among the social elite of the frontier and associated with the best families.
William Barclay Foster had serious financial troubles. In 1827, The White Cottage and other Foster properties were seized by the government when Foster failed to pay the mortgages. Stephen thereafter was moved about, sometimes living with relatives. His mother remembered him later in her life as a boy marching about with a feather in his cap and pounding on a drum while whistling "Auld Lang Syne". She noted that there was something "original" about the boy.
Stephen's eldest sister died in October 1829. The morbid sorrow that afflicted the Foster family at this time probably marked Stephen's view of dead young women for the rest of his life. Beautiful dead young women appear in some of his best songs including "Little Annie", "Jeanie with the Light Brown Hair" and "Beautiful Dreamer".
Stephen was five when he attended an "infant school". In 1833 he went to the Alleghany Academy, a school for the social elite founded by the Presbyterian clergyman Rev. Joseph Stockton. In 1834, Stephen went to a black church with Olivia Pise, a mulatto servant. In 1836, the family left The White Cottage for ever and moved to Allegheny City when Stephen's father was appointed Collector of the Pennsylvania Canal.
Family legends say Stephen played harmonies on a guitar at age two, and played a flageolet with perfection in a music store at age seven. At age nine, he sang and performed with other boys in their own neighborhood theatrical productions. African melodies were popular and Stephen sung these tunes with gusto.
The creation of the American minstrel show is credited to Thomas Dartmouth "Daddy" Rice, an actor whose performance of the song "Jump Jim Crow" in the dress of an aged African American created an overnight sensation in Pittsburgh. The tune was written down and given a piano accompaniment by W. C. Peters, a music shop owner in Pittsburgh.