It was one of the first hotels in Europe to provide a bathroom "en suite", a telephone and electricity for each room. It established a reputation for luxury. The clients have included royalty, politicians, writers, film stars and singers. Several of its suites are named in honour of famous guests of the hotel, for example Coco Chanel and Ernest Hemingway who lived at the hotel for years. One of the bars of the hotel, "Bar Hemingway", is devoted to Hemingway.
The Ritz has the reputation of being the most expensive hotel in Paris. The rooms as of May 2011 started at €850 a night. Suites start at €3,600 and cost up to €13,900 a night for the most expensive ones (the "Suite Impériale" is the most expensive). The Ritz employs more than 600 people.
"L'Espadon" is a world-renowned restaurant. It attracts aspiring chefs from all over the world who come to learn at the nearby Ritz-Escoffier School. The cuisine is run by the award-winning chef Michel Roth, the ninth head chef of the hotel. The restaurant was awarded a second star by the 2009 edition of the influential Michelin Red Guide.
During the Second World War, the German Luftwaffe used the hotel as local headquarters in Paris. The son of César Ritz, Charles, died in 1976. The last members of the Ritz family who owned the hotel sold it to the Egyptian businessman Mohamed Al-Fayed in 1979. In August 1997, Diana, Princess of Wales and Al-Fayed's son, Dodi, dined in the hotel's Imperial Suite before their fatal car crash.
The hotel is being entirely renovated. It has been closed since 1 August 2012 and will open its doors in March 2016, after a delay of nearly two years. Because of its status as a symbol of high society and luxury, the hotel has featured in many novels (for example F. Scott Fitzgerald's "Tender Is The Night" and Hemingway's "The Sun Also Rises"),
a play (Noël Coward's "Semi-Monde"), and films (such as Billy Wilder's 1957 comedy "Love in the Afternoon" and William Wyler's 1966 comedy "How to Steal a Million").
Christian Gottfried Ehrenberg
Christian Gottfried Ehrenberg (19 April 1795 – 27 June 1876) was a German naturalist, zoologist, comparative anatomist, geologist, and microscopist. He was one of the most famous and productive scientists of his time.
Ehrenberg was appointed professor of medicine at Berlin University in 1827. In 1829 he accompanied Alexander von Humboldt through eastern Russia to the Chinese frontier. After his return he began to concentrate his studies on microscopic organisms, which then were not much studied.
For nearly 30 years Ehrenberg examined samples of water, soil, sediment, blowing dust and rock and described thousands of new species, among them well-known flagellates such as Euglena, ciliates such as "Paramecium aurelia" and "Paramecium caudatum", and many fossils, in nearly 400 scientific publications. He was particularly interested in a unicellular group of protists called diatoms, but he also studied, and named, many species of radiolaria, foraminifera and dinoflagellates.
These researches built up our knowledge of the microorganisms of certain geological formations, especially of the chalk, and of the marine and freshwater accumulations. Until Ehrenberg took up the study it was not known that considerable masses of rock were composed of minute forms of animals or plants. He also demonstrated that the phosphorescence of the sea was due to organisms.
He was a member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences from 1836 and a foreign member of the Royal Society of London from 1837. In 1839, he won the Wollaston Medal, the highest award granted by the Geological Society of London. He continued until late in life to investigate the microscopic organisms of the deep sea and of various geological formations. He died in Berlin on 27 June 1876.
After his death in 1876, his collections of microscopic organisms were deposited in the Humboldt Museum at the University of Berlin. The "Ehrenberg Collection" includes 40,000 microscope preparations, 5,000 raw samples, 3,000 pencil and ink drawings, and nearly 1,000 letters of correspondence. His collection of scorpions, and other arachnids from the Middle East, is also held in the Berlin Museum.
Afro-Haitian
Afro-Haitians or Black Haitians, are Haitian people whose ancestors were Africans. Most Afro-Haitians are descended from West African slaves. The slaves were brought over to work in plantations, mainly for sugar canes.
The vast majority (about 90%) of Haitians are of African descent. Of them, about 25-30% are of mixed race or mulatto.
Haiti, just like in any region in the Americas, received slaves from all over West and Central Africa. Although Haitian slaves were from all over Africa, the most common were Kongos from the Congo region, and Ewe and Fon tribes of current-day Benin or Togo. There was also a lot of Igbo people from Nigeria.
Haitian Voodoo is obviously from the Fon people of Benin, when they came in large numbers as slaves to work in plantations as maids, farmers, and sugar cane cutters have kept their traditions strong and alive till this day after 300 years away from their original home.
The African influence can also be seen in the language Haitians use to speak; Haitian Creole is a French-based language with strong African influence in the phonetics, vocabulary, syntax, grammar, pronunciations. There are many words of African origin used in every day speech. Haitian food is mostly of African origin, including the names of the food. The music of Haiti is filled with African rhythms and instruments, the use of call and response as well as vocal African songs.
Mark Fitzpatrick
Mark Fitzpatrick (born November 13, 1968 in Toronto, Ontario) is a Canadian retired ice hockey goaltender.
Before playing in the NHL, Cloutier played 1 season in the BCJHL with the Revelstoke Rangers and 3 seasons in the WHL with the Medicine Hat Tigers whom he won the Memorial Cup twice with.
He was drafted by the Los Angeles Kings with the 27th overall pick in the 1987 NHL Entry draft. He played 17 games with the Kings and on February 22, 1989 he was traded along with Wayne McBean to the New York Islanders in exchange for Kelly Hrudey. He played 2 seasons with the Islanders. During his time with them, Fitzpatrick contracted Eosinophilia–myalgia syndrome, which is a potentially fatal neurological disease and it cost him almost all of the 1990-91 NHL season. He was able to recover and he returned to the ice in February 1992. He won the Bill Masterton Memorial Trophy for his efforts in returning to the league after the illness in 1992.
On June 20, 1993, during the expansion draft for the Florida Panthers and the Mighty Ducks of Anaheim, he was traded to the Quebec Nordiques for Ron Hextall and a swap of first-round picks. After only four days, he was claimed in the expansion draft by the Panthers. He played 5 seasons with the Panthers where he played as a backup goaltender to John Vanbiesbrouck.
On January 16, 1998, he was traded to the Tampa Bay Lightning with Jody Hull for Dino Ciccarelli and Jeff Norton. During his time in Tampa, he only managed record 7 wins in 34 games for the struggling Lightning who finished the season with the worst record in the NHL.
He was traded to the Chicago Blackhawks for Michal Sykora where he spent the season as a backup capacity to Jocelyn Thibault. He moved to Carolina Hurricanes for the 1999–2000 NHL season but spent most of the year playing in the International Hockey League for the Cincinnati Cyclones. He only played 3 games for the Carolina Hurricanes and spent another season in the IHL for the Detroit Vipers before he retired from playing professional ice hockey in 2001.
Emile Francis
Emile Francis (born September 13, 1926 in North Battleford, Saskatchewan), nicknamed "The Cat", is a Canadian retired ice hockey goaltender, coach and general manager.