title: Ilhan Omar

text: In February 2019, Republican House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy threatened to "take action" against Omar and Rashida Tlaib for their support of the BDS movement. When journalist Glenn Greenwald responded that it was remarkable "how much time U.S. political leaders spend defending a foreign nation even if it means attacking free speech rights of Americans", and tagged Omar for a comment, she replied with a quote from a hip hop song, "It's All About the Benjamins", alluding to the $100 bill of that name. Omar later clarified that she was referring to the well-documented influence pro-Israeli lobbyists, especially AIPAC, exert in Washington. Subsequent criticism of Omar's comments often included misleading or false claims about not only her background but what she had actually said, leading some to accuse her critics of indulging in "anti-Jewish paranoia".


title: Ilhan Omar

text: A number of Democratic leadersincluding House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, and Majority Whip Jim Clyburncondemned the tweet, which was interpreted as implying that money was fueling American politicians' support of Israel. The Democratic House leadership released a statement accusing Omar of "engaging in deeply offensive anti-Semitic tropes." The Jewish Democratic Council of America (JDCA) also denounced her statements. Omar issued an apology the next day, saying, "I am grateful for Jewish allies and colleagues who are educating me on the painful history of anti-Semitic tropes," and adding, "I reaffirm the problematic role of lobbyists in our politics, whether it be AIPAC, the NRA or the fossil fuel industry." The Anti-Defamation League accused her of promoting an 'ugly conspiracy theory' concerning putative Jewish influence in politics. Peter Beinart, after tweeting that the controversy was about 'policing the American debate over Israel,' thought Omar's statement inaccurate, wrong and irresponsible, but argued that her congressional critics were more 'bigoted' on Israeli-Palestinian issues by comparison.


title: Ilhan Omar

text: On February 27, 2019, Omar said of her critics: "I want to talk about the political influence in this country that says it is OK for people to push for allegiance to a foreign country." The statements were quickly criticized as allegedly drawing on anti-Semitic tropes of dual loyalty. House Foreign Affairs Committee chairman Eliot Engel said it was "deeply offensive to call into question the loyalty of fellow American citizens" and asked Omar to retract her statement. House Appropriations Committee chairwoman Nita Lowey also called for an apology and criticized the statements in a March 3 tweet, which led to an online exchange between the two. In response, Omar reaffirmed her remarks, insisting that she "should not be expected to have allegiance/pledge support to a foreign country in order to serve my country in Congress or serve on committee." Omar said she was simply criticizing Israel, drawing a distinction between criticism of Benjamin Netanyahu and being anti-Semitic. Omar's spokesman, Jeremy Slevin, said Omar was speaking out about "the undue influence of lobbying groups for foreign interests."


title: Ilhan Omar

text: Reaction among Democratic presidential candidates was mixed. Senators Elizabeth Warren, Kamala Harris, and Bernie Sanders defended Omar. Senators Cory Booker and Kirsten Gillibrand and New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio regarded her statements as disturbing. According to "The Guardian", election records archived by OpenSecrets "suggest a correlation between pro-Israel lobby campaign contributions and Democratic presidential candidates' position on the controversy." Some members of the Congressional Black Caucus believed Omar was unfairly targeted because she is a black Muslim, noting that "the Democratic leadership did not draft a resolution condemning Donald Trump or other white male Republicans over their antisemitic remarks." The second round of remarks prompted the Democratic leadership to introduce a resolution condemning antisemitism that did not specifically refer to Omar. Following objections from a number of congressional progressive Democrats, the resolution was amended to include Islamophobia, racism, and homophobia. On March 7, the House passed the amended resolution. Omar called the resolution "historic on many fronts," and said, "We are tremendously proud to be part of a body that has put forth a condemnation of all forms of bigotry including anti-Semitism, racism, and white supremacy." Some Minnesota Jewish and Muslim community leaders subsequently expressed continued concern over Omar's rhetoric and language and indicated that the issue remained divisive with Omar's district.


title: Ilhan Omar

text: In August 2019, Omar and Representative Rashida Tlaib were banned from entering Israel, a reversal from the July 2019 statement by Israeli Ambassador to the United States Ron Dermer that "any member of Congress" would be allowed in. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu attributed the ban to Israeli law preventing the entry of people who call for a boycott of Israel (as Omar and Tlaib had done with their support for BDS). Netanyahu also cited Omar and Tlaib listing their destination as Palestine instead of Israel, claiming he thus viewed their visit as an attempt to "hurt Israel and increase its unrest". Netanyahu also said that Omar and Tlaib did not plan on visiting or meeting with any Israeli officials from the government or the opposition, and additionally accused Miftah, the sponsor of Omar's trip, of having members who support terrorism against Israel (in 2016, Israel approved a visit by five U.S. Representatives to Israel that Miftah co-sponsored, but that was before Israel enacted its anti-BDS law). Less than two hours before the ban, President Trump tweeted that Israel allowing the visit would "show great weakness" when Omar and Tlaib "hate Israel & all Jewish people". Omar said that Netanyahu had caved to Trump's demand and that "Trump's Muslim ban is what Israel is implementing". She responded to Netanyahu that she had intended to meet members of Israel's legislative Knesset and Israeli security officials. Both Democratic and Republican legislators criticized the ban and requested that Israel rescind it. AIPAC released a statement saying that it disagreed with Israel's move and that Omar and Tlaib should have been allowed to "experience Israel firsthand", while the head of the American Jewish Committee put out a statement agreeing with AIPAC on the matter. U.S. Representative Max Rose (who is Jewish) also criticized the move to ban Omar, adding that Omar and Tlaib did not speak for the Democratic Party.


title: Ilhan Omar

text: In March 2019, Omar addressed a rally in support of a Minnesota bill that would ban gay conversion therapy in the state. She co-sponsored a similar bill when she was a member of the Minnesota House. In May 2019, Omar introduced legislation that would sanction Brunei over a recently introduced law that would make homosexual sex and adultery punishable by death. In June 2019, she participated in Twin Cities Pride in Minnesota. In August 2019, Omar wrote on Twitter in support of the Palestinian LGBT rights group Al Qaws after the Palestinian Authority banned Al Qaws's activities in the West Bank.


title: Ilhan Omar

text: Omar has been critical of U.S. foreign policy, and has called for reduced funding for "perpetual war and military aggression," saying, "knowing my tax dollars pay for bombs killing children in Yemen makes my heart break," with "everyone in Washington saying we don't have enough money in the budget for universal health care, we don't have enough money in the budget to guarantee college education for everyone." Omar has criticized the U.S. government's drone assassination program, citing the Obama administration's policy of "droning of countries around the world." She has said, "we don't need nearly 800 military bases outside the United States to keep our country safe."


title: Ilhan Omar

text: In 2019, Omar signed a letter led by Representative Ro Khanna and Senator Rand Paul to President Trump asserting that it is "long past time to rein in the use of force that goes beyond congressional authorization" and that they hoped this would "serve as a model for ending hostilities in the futurein particular, as you and your administration seek a political solution to our involvement in Afghanistan."


title: Ilhan Omar

text: In May 2020, Omar signed a letter backed by AIPAC calling for the continuation of the UN embargo against Iran, with her office noting that it was a "narrow ask that we couldn’t find anything wrong with." Her office said that she has opposed human rights abuse "for a long time" and that signing onto it should be not be seen as a sign she supports the Trump administration's policy on Iran.


title: Ilhan Omar

text: In June 2020, the "defund the police" slogan gained widespread popularity following the murder of George Floyd. Black Lives Matter and other activists used the phrase to call for police budget reductions and a plan to delegate certain police responsibilities to other organizations. Reacting to the murder of Floyd, the majority of the Minneapolis City Council voted to dismantle the city's police department. In a statement, the Minneapolis mayor said they planned to work to address "systemic racism in police culture." Following the murder of Floyd, Omar supported the police abolition movement in Minneapolis that sought to dismantle the Minneapolis Police Department, saying that the department had "proven themselves beyond reform." Omar hoped to see a new police department that would be modeled after the Camden County Police Department in New Jersey.


title: Ilhan Omar

text: In January 2019, amid the 2019 Venezuelan presidential crisis, Omar joined Democrats Ro Khanna and Tulsi Gabbard in denouncing the Trump administration's decision to recognize Juan Guaidó, the president of the Venezuelan National Assembly, as Venezuela's interim president. She described Trump's action as a "U.S. backed coup" and said that the U.S. should not "hand pick" foreign leaders and should support "Mexico, Uruguay & the Vatican's efforts to facilitate a peaceful dialogue." In response to criticisms of her comments, Omar wrote that "No one is defending Maduro" and that opposing US intervention is not the equivalent of supporting the existing leadership of a country.


title: Ilhan Omar

text: In February 2019, Omar questioned whether Elliott Abrams, whom Trump appointed as Special Representative for Venezuela in January 2019, was the correct choice given his past support of right-wing authoritarian regimes in El Salvador and Guatemala, his initial doubts about the number of reported deaths in the El Mozote massacre in 1982, and his two 1991 misdemeanor convictions for withholding information from Congress about the Iran–Contra affair, for which he was later pardoned by George H. W. Bush.


title: Ilhan Omar

text: In May 2019, Omar said in an interview on "Democracy Now!" that she believed U.S. foreign policy and economic sanctions are aimed at regime change and have contributed to the "devastation in Venezuela."


title: Ilhan Omar

text: On February 4, 2014, Omar was attacked and wounded by multiple attendees during a DFL caucus for Minnesota's House of Representatives District 60B. She was organizing the event and was a policy aide to Minneapolis City Councilman Andrew Johnson at the time. She sustained a concussion and was sent to the hospital.


title: Ilhan Omar

text: In February 2019, the FBI arrested United States Coast Guard Lieutenant Christopher Paul Hasson, who was allegedly plotting to assassinate various journalists and political figures in the United States, including Omar. According to prosecutors, Hasson is a self-described "long time White Nationalist" and former skinhead who wanted to use violence to "establish a white homeland." Prosecutors also alleged that Hasson was in contact with an American neo-Nazi leader, stockpiled weapons, and compiled a hit list.


title: Ilhan Omar

text: On April 7, 2019, Patrick Carlineo Jr., was arrested for threatening to assault and murder Omar in a phone call to her office. He reportedly told investigators that he did not want Muslims in the government. In May 2019, Carlineo was released from custody and placed on house arrest. He pleaded guilty to the offense on November 19. Omar asked the court to be lenient with him.


title: Ilhan Omar

text: In April 2019, Omar said that she had received more death threats after Trump made comments about her and 9/11, "many directly referencing or replying to the president's video". In August 2019, she published an anonymous threat she had received of being shot at the Minnesota State Fair, saying that such threats were why she now had security protection. In September 2019, she asserted Trump was putting her life in danger by retweeting a tweet falsely claiming she had "partied on the anniversary of 9/11".


title: Ilhan Omar

text: Two Republican candidates for congressional office have called for Omar's execution. In November 2019, Danielle Stella, Omar's Republican opponent for Congress, was banned from Twitter for suggesting that Omar be hanged for treason if found guilty of passing information to Iran. In December 2019, George Buck, another Republican running for Congress, also suggested that Omar be hanged for treason. In response, Buck was removed from the National Republican Congressional Committee's Young Guns program. Neither candidate won their primary election.


title: Ilhan Omar

text: On July 14, 2019, Trump tweeted that The Squad—a group that consists of Omar and three other young congresswomen of color, all of whom were born and raised in the U.S.—should "go back" to the "places from which they came". In response, Omar said Trump was "stoking white nationalism" because he was "angry that people like us are serving in Congress and fighting against your hate-filled agenda." Two days later, the House of Representatives voted 240–187 to condemn Trump's "racist comments". On July 17, it was reported that the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission lists the phrase "Go back to where you came from" as an example of "harassment based on national origin".


title: Ilhan Omar

text: At a July 17 campaign rally in North Carolina, Trump made additional comments about The Squad: "They never have anything good to say. That's why I say, 'Hey if you don't like it, let 'em leave, let 'em leave, and "I think in some cases they hate our country". He made a series of false and misleading claims about Omar, including allegations that she had praised al-Qaeda and "smeared" American soldiers who had fought in the Battle of Mogadishu by bringing up the numerous Somali civilian casualties. The crowd reacted by chanting, "Send her back, Send her back." Trump later called the crowd "incredible people, incredible patriots" and accused Omar of racism and antisemitism. On July 19, he falsely claimed that Omar and the rest of The Squad had used the term "evil Jews".


title: Ilhan Omar

text: Foreign media has widely covered Trump's remarks about Omar and The Squad. The social media hashtag #IStandWithIlhanOmar was soon trending in the United States and other countries. Many foreign politicians condemned Trump's comments. On July 19, German Chancellor Angela Merkel said, "I reject [Trump's comments] and stand in solidarity with the congresswomen he targeted."


title: Ilhan Omar

text: Omar has frequently been the target of online hate speech. According to a study by the Social Science Research Council of more than 113,000 tweets about Muslim candidates in the weeks leading up to the 2018 midterm elections, Omar "was the prime target. Roughly half of the 90,000 tweets mentioning her included hate speech or Islamophobic or anti-immigrant language." According to the study, "Key themes included Muslims as subhumans or 'Trojan horses' seeking to impose Shariah law on America... A large proportion of these trolls were likely bots or automated accounts run by people, organizations or state actors seeking to spread political propaganda and hate speech. That's based on telltale iconography, naming patterns, webs of linkages and the breadth of the postelection scrubbing."


title: Ilhan Omar

text: On April 11, 2019, the front page of the "New York Post" carried an image of the World Trade Center burning following the September 11 terrorist attacks and a quotation from a speech Omar gave the previous month. The headline read, "REP. ILHAN OMAR: 9/11 WAS 'SOME PEOPLE DID SOMETHING, and a caption underneath added, "Here's your something ... 2,977 people dead by terrorism." The "Post" was quoting a speech Omar had given at a recent Council on American–Islamic Relations (CAIR) meeting. In the speech Omar said, "CAIR was founded after 9/11 because they recognized that some people did something and that all of us [Muslims in the U.S.] were starting to lose access to our civil liberties." (CAIR was founded in 1994, but many new members joined after the 9/11 attacks in 2001.)


title: Ilhan Omar

text: On April 12, President Trump retweeted a video that edited Omar's remarks to remove context, showing her saying, "Some people did something." Some Democratic representatives condemned Trump's retweet, predicting that it would incite violence and hatred. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi called on Trump to "take down his disrespectful and dangerous video" and asked the U.S. Capitol Police to increase its protection of Omar.


title: Ilhan Omar

text: Speaking at an April 30 protest by black women calling for formal censure of Trump, Omar blamed Trump and his allies for inciting Americans against both Jews and Muslims.


title: Ilhan Omar

text: In November 2021, Republican Representative Lauren Boebert said she had shared an elevator with Omar, and that she and a Capitol Police officer both mistook Omar for a terrorist. Boebert referred to Omar as the "Jihad Squad". Omar said that she had not shared an elevator with Boebert, that the story was made up, and that Boebert's comments were "anti-Muslim bigotry".


title: Ilhan Omar

text: Omar received the 2015 Community Leadership Award from "Mshale", an African immigrant media outlet based in Minneapolis. The prize is awarded annually on a readership basis.


title: Ilhan Omar

text: In 2017, "Time" magazine named Omar among its "Firsts: Women who are changing the world," a special report on 46 women who broke barriers in their respective disciplines, and featured her on the cover of its September 18 issue. Her family was named one of the "five families who are changing the world as we know it" by "Vogue" in their February 2018 issue featuring photographs by Annie Leibovitz.


title: Ilhan Omar

text: The 2018 documentary film "Time for Ilhan" (directed by Norah Shapiro, produced by Jennifer Steinman Sternin and Chris Newberry) chronicles Omar's political campaign. It was selected to show at the Tribeca Film Festival and the Mill Valley Film Festival.


title: Ilhan Omar

text: Following a July 2019 tweet by Trump that The Squad—a group that consists of Omar and three other congresswomen of color who were born in the United States—should "go back" to the "places from which they came", Omar and the other members of the Squad held a press conference that was taped by CNN and posted to social media.


title: Ilhan Omar

text: On October 19, 2020, Omar joined Ocasio-Cortez, Disguised Toast, Jacksepticeye, and Pokimane in a Twitch stream playing the popular game "Among Us", encouraging streamers to vote in the 2020 election. This collaboration garnered almost half a million views.


title: Ilhan Omar

text: In 2002, Omar became engaged to Ahmed Abdisalan Hirsi (né Aden). She has said that they had an unofficial faith-based Islamic marriage. The couple had two children together. Omar has said that they divorced within their faith tradition in 2008.


title: Ilhan Omar

text: In 2009, Omar married Ahmed Nur Said Elmi, a British Somali. According to Omar, in 2011 she and Elmi had a faith-based divorce and she reconciled with Hirsi, with whom she had a third child in 2012. In 2017, Elmi and Omar legally divorced, and Omar and Hirsi legally married in 2018. On October 7, 2019, Omar filed for divorce from Hirsi, citing an "irretrievable breakdown" of the marriage. The divorce was finalized on November 5, 2019.


title: Ilhan Omar

text: In March 2020, Omar married Tim Mynett, a political consultant whose political consulting firm, the E Street Group, received $2.78 million in contracts from Omar's campaign during the 2020 cycle. The campaign's contract with Mynett's firm became a focus of criticism by her Democratic primary opponent and conservative critics that received significant local and national media attention. On November 17, 2020, Omar's campaign terminated its contract with Mynett's firm, saying the termination was to "make sure that anybody who is supporting our campaign with their time or financial support feels there is no perceived issue with that support."


title: Ilhan Omar

text: Omar's daughter Isra Hirsi is one of the three principal organizers of the school strike for climate in the US.


title: Primal Fear (film)

text: Primal Fear is a 1996 American legal thriller film directed by Gregory Hoblit, based on William Diehl's 1993 novel of the same name, and written by Steve Shagan and Ann Biderman. It stars Richard Gere, Laura Linney, John Mahoney, Alfre Woodard, Frances McDormand and Edward Norton in his film debut. The film revolves around a Chicago defense attorney who believes that his altar boy client is not guilty of murdering an influential Catholic archbishop.


title: Primal Fear (film)

text: The film was a box office success and received positive reviews, with Norton's breakthrough performance earning critical praise. He was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor and a BAFTA Award for Best Actor in a Supporting Role, and won the Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actor – Motion Picture.


title: Primal Fear (film)

text: Martin Vail is a Chicago defense attorney, who loves the spotlight on winning acquittals for high-profile clients on legal technicalities. He meets Janet Venable, a former lover and prosecutor, who rejects his advances. Meanwhile, Archbishop Rushman, a beloved figure and head of Chicago's Catholic diocese, is ambushed and killed by Aaron Stampler, a 19-year-old altar boy from Kentucky, who is arrested by the police. Vail meets with Aaron in his holding cell and offers to defend him pro bono. Aaron reveals that he had admired the archbishop. Vail believes that Aaron is innocent, being meek and with a severe stutter. Venable is assigned to prosecute him for capital murder.


title: Primal Fear (film)

text: As the trial begins, Vail discovers that powerful civic leaders, including the corrupt state's attorney, John Shaughnessy, recently lost millions in real-estate investments, due to Rushman's decision to not develop church-owned land. Following a tip from Alex, a former altar boy, about a videotape involving Aaron, Vail steals the VHS cassette from the crime scene. The tape shows the archbishop forcing Aaron, his girlfriend Linda and Alex to engage in sexual acts. When Vail confronts Aaron and accuses him of having lied, he breaks down crying and uses his short name Roy, a violent sociopath without a stutter. He confesses to the archbishop's death and becomes physically violent. Soon after he becomes passive and shy again, with no recollection of the personality switch.


title: Primal Fear (film)

text: Molly Arrington, the neuropsychologist examining Aaron, is convinced that he has dissociative identity disorder, caused by years of physical and sexual abuse at the hands of his father and Rushman. Vail is troubled by this information, because he cannot enter an insanity plea in an ongoing trial. He decides whether to introduce the evidence that might elicit sympathy from the jury for Aaron, but could provide the motive that Venable cannot establish. He has the videotape anonymously delivered to Venable's doorstep, knowing that she will realize who had sent it, as she is under intense pressure to deliver a guilty verdict and will use the tape as a proof of motive.


title: Primal Fear (film)

text: During the trial, Vail calls Aaron to the witness stand and questions him about the sexual abuse he had suffered at Rushman's hands. He introduces the evidence that Shaughnessy had covered it up and Rushman had molested another man. During Venable's harsh questioning and cross-examination, Aaron attacks and threatens to kill her, but he is subdued and returned to his cell. The judge informs Vail and Venable that she intends to dismiss the jury in favor of a bench trial, and will declare Aaron not guilty by reason of insanity, remanding him to a psychiatric hospital. Venable is fired for losing the case and for allowing Rushman's crimes to be publicly exposed, but it is implied that she will resume her relationship with Vail.


title: Primal Fear (film)

text: Vail visits Aaron in his cell to inform him of the dismissal. Aaron claims to have no recollection of his violent reaction in the courtroom, but as Vail is leaving, he slips by asking him about Venable. When Vail confronts Aaron, he reveals that he had faked the personality disorder. No longer stuttering, he brags about killing Rushman and Linda. When Vail asks him if there was ever a Roy, he replies "there was never an Aaron". Stunned and disillusioned, Vail leaves the courthouse, as Aaron taunts him from his cell.


title: Primal Fear (film)

text: Several Chicago television news personalities made cameos as themselves as they deliver reports about the case, including WLS's Diann Burns and Linda Yu, WBBM-TV's Mary Ann Childers, Lester Holt and Jon Duncanson, and WGN-TV's Bob Jordan and Randy Salerno.


title: Primal Fear (film)

text: Review aggregation website Rotten Tomatoes reports an approval rating of 77% based on 47 reviews, with an average rating of 6.8/10. The site's critics consensus reads: ""Primal Fear" is a straightforward, yet entertaining thriller elevated by a crackerjack performance from Edward Norton." Metacritic, which uses a weighted average, lists the film with a weighted average score of 46/100 based on 18 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews". Audiences surveyed by CinemaScore awarded the film an average grade of B+ on an A+-to-F scale.


title: Primal Fear (film)

text: Janet Maslin of "The New York Times" wrote that the film has a "good deal of surface charm" but "the story relies on an overload of tangential subplots to keep it looking busy." Roger Ebert of the "Chicago Sun-Times" awarded "Primal Fear" three and a half stars, writing that "the plot is as good as crime procedurals get, but the movie is really better than its plot because of the three-dimensional characters." Ebert described Gere's performance as one of the best in his career, praised Linney for rising above what might have been a stock character and applauded Norton for offering a "completely convincing" portrayal.


title: Santa Monica, California

text: Santa Monica (; Spanish: "Santa Mónica") is a city in Los Angeles County, situated along Santa Monica Bay on California's South Coast. Santa Monica's 2020 U.S. Census population was 93,076. Santa Monica is a popular resort town, owing to its climate, beaches, and hospitality industry. It has a diverse economy, hosting headquarters of companies such as Hulu, Universal Music Group, Lionsgate Films, and The Recording Academy.


title: Santa Monica, California

text: Santa Monica traces its history to Rancho San Vicente y Santa Monica, granted in 1839 to the Sepúlveda family of California. The rancho was later sold to John P. Jones and Robert Baker, who in 1875, along with his Californio heiress wife Arcadia Bandini de Stearns Baker, founded Santa Monica, which incorporated as a city in 1886. The city developed into a seaside resort during the late 19th and early 20th centuries, with the creation of tourist attractions such as Palisades Park, the Santa Monica Pier, Ocean Park, and the Hotel Casa del Mar.


title: Santa Monica, California

text: The first non-indigenous group to set foot in the area was the party of explorer Gaspar de Portolà, which camped near the present-day intersection of Barrington and Ohio Avenues on August 3, 1769.


title: Santa Monica, California

text: There are two different accounts of how the city's name came to be. One says it was named in honor of the feast day of Saint Monica (mother of Saint Augustine), but her feast day is May 4. Another version says it was named by Juan Crespí on account of a pair of springs, the Kuruvungna Springs, that were reminiscent of the tears Saint Monica shed over her son's early impiety.


title: Santa Monica, California

text: In 1839, Governor Juan Bautista Alvarado granted Rancho San Vicente y Santa Mónica to Francisco Sepúlveda II, of the Sepúlveda family of California. As the definitions of the rancho grant were not precise, the Sepúlveda family came into conflict with the neighboring Rancho Boca de Santa Mónica, owned by Ysidro Reyes and Francisco Márquez. A small Californio community grew up on Rancho San Vicente y Santa Mónica, made up primarily of vaqueros working on the rancho and their families.


title: Santa Monica, California

text: After the American conquest of California, Mexico signed the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, which gave Mexicans and Californios living in state certain unalienable rights. U.S. government sovereignty in California began on February 2, 1848.


title: Santa Monica, California

text: In the 1870s, the Los Angeles and Independence Railroad connected Santa Monica with Los Angeles, and a wharf out into the bay. The first town hall was an 1873 brick building, later a beer hall, and now part of the Santa Monica Hostel. By 1885, the town's first hotel was the Santa Monica Hotel.


title: Santa Monica, California

text: Amusement piers became popular in the first decades of the 20th century and the extensive Pacific Electric Railway brought people to the city's beaches from across the Greater Los Angeles Area.


title: Santa Monica, California

text: Around the start of the 20th century, a growing population of Asian Americans lived in and around Santa Monica and Venice. A Japanese fishing village was near the Long Wharf while small numbers of Chinese lived or worked in Santa Monica and Venice. The two ethnic minorities were often viewed differently by White Americans, who were often well-disposed toward the Japanese but condescending to the Chinese. The Japanese village fishermen were an integral economic part of the Santa Monica Bay community.


title: Santa Monica, California

text: Donald Wills Douglas Sr. built a plant in 1922 at Clover Field (Santa Monica Airport) for the Douglas Aircraft Company. In 1924, four Douglas-built planes took off from Clover Field to attempt the first aerial circumnavigation of the world. Two planes returned after covering in 175 days, and were greeted on their return September 23, 1924, by a crowd of 200,000. The Douglas Company (later McDonnell Douglas) kept facilities in the city until the 1970s.


title: Santa Monica, California

text: The Great Depression hit Santa Monica deeply. One report gives citywide employment in 1933 of just 1,000. Hotels and office building owners went bankrupt. In the 1930s, corruption infected Santa Monica (along with neighboring Los Angeles). The federal Works Project Administration helped build several buildings, most notably City Hall. The main Post Office and Barnum Hall (Santa Monica High School auditorium) were also among other WPA projects.


title: Santa Monica, California

text: Douglas's business grew with the onset of World War II, employing as many as 44,000 people in 1943. To defend against air attack, set designers from the Warner Brothers Studios prepared elaborate camouflage that disguised the factory and airfield. The RAND Corporation began as a project of the Douglas Company in 1945, and spun off into an independent think tank on May 14, 1948. RAND acquired a 15-acre (61,000 m) campus across the street from the Civic Center and is still there today.


title: Santa Monica, California

text: The completion of the Santa Monica Civic Auditorium in 1958 eliminated Belmar, the first African American community in the city, and the Santa Monica Freeway in 1966 decimated the Pico neighborhood that had been a leading African American enclave on the Westside.


title: Santa Monica, California

text: Beach volleyball is believed to have been developed by Duke Kahanamoku in Santa Monica during the 1920s.


title: Santa Monica, California

text: Santa Monica has two hospitals: Saint John's Health Center and Santa Monica-UCLA Medical Center. Its cemetery is Woodlawn Memorial.


title: Santa Monica, California

text: Santa Monica has several local newspapers including "Santa Monica Daily Press", "Santa Monica Mirror", and "Santa Monica Star".


title: Santa Monica, California

text: Santa Monica rests on a mostly flat slope that angles down toward Ocean Avenue and toward the south. High bluffs separate the north side of the city from the beaches. Santa Monica borders the L.A. neighborhoods of Pacific Palisades to the north and Venice to the south. To the west, Santa Monica has a 3-mile coastline fronting Santa Monica Bay, and to the east of the city are the L.A. communities of West Los Angeles and Brentwood.


title: Santa Monica, California

text: Santa Monica has a coastal Mediterranean climate (Köppen "Csb"). It enjoys an average of 310 days of sunshine a year. It is in USDA plant hardiness zone 11a. Because of its location, nestled on the vast and open Santa Monica Bay, morning fog is a common phenomenon in May, June, July and early August (caused by ocean temperature variations and currents). Like other inhabitants of the greater Los Angeles area, residents have a particular terminology for this phenomenon: the "May Gray", the "June Gloom" and even "Fogust". Overcast skies are common on June mornings, but usually the strong sun burns the fog off by noon. In the late winter/early summer, daily fog is a phenomenon too. It happens suddenly and it may last some hours or past sunset time. Nonetheless, it will sometimes stay cloudy and cool all day during June, even as other parts of the Los Angeles area enjoy sunny skies and warmer temperatures. At times, the sun can be shining east of 20th Street while the beach area is overcast. As a general rule, the beach temperature is from 5 to 10 degrees Fahrenheit (3 to 6 degrees Celsius) cooler than it is inland during summer days, and 5 to 10 degrees warmer during winter nights.


title: Santa Monica, California

text: It is also in September that the highest temperatures tend to be reached. It is winter, however, when the hot, dry winds of the Santa Anas are most common. In contrast, temperatures exceeding 10 degrees below average are rare.


title: Santa Monica, California

text: The rainy season is from late October through late March. Winter storms usually approach from the northwest and pass quickly through the Southland. There is very little rain during the rest of the year. Yearly rainfall totals are unpredictable as rainy years are occasionally followed by droughts. There has never been any snow or frost, but there has been hail.


title: Santa Monica, California

text: Santa Monica usually enjoys cool breezes blowing in from the ocean, which tend to keep the air fresh and clean. Therefore, smog is less of a problem for Santa Monica than elsewhere around Los Angeles. However, from September through November, the Santa Ana winds sometimes blow from the east, bringing smoggy and hot inland air to the beaches.


title: Santa Monica, California

text: The hottest temperature ever reported in Santa Monica was on November 1, 1966, while the lowest is on March 1, 1945, and again on March 21, 1952. The highest minimum temperature is on October 24, 2007, and the lowest maximum temperature is on 4 dates in February 2001 and again March 10, 2006. The snowiest months on record are January 1954 and March 1955, both with trace amounts. They are the only months to ever report snowfall. Many months have reported no rainfall at all. Conversely, the wettest month on record is January 1995 with a total of of rainfall. The wettest year on record is 1998, with a total of of rainfall; the driest is 1989, with a total of of rainfall.


title: Santa Monica, California

text: The city first proposed its Sustainable City Plan in 1992 and in 1994, was one of the first cities in the nation to formally adopt a comprehensive sustainability plan, setting waste reduction and water conservation policies for both public and private sector through its Office of Sustainability and the Environment. Eighty-two percent of the city's public works vehicles run on alternative fuels, including most of the municipal bus system, making it among the largest such fleets in the country. Santa Monica fleet vehicles and buses source their natural gas from Redeem, a Southern California-based supplier of renewable and sustainable natural gas obtained from non-fracked methane biogas generated from organic landfill waste.


title: Santa Monica, California

text: Santa Monica adopted a Community Energy Independence Initiative, with a goal of achieving complete energy independence by 2020 (vs. California's already ambitious 33% renewables goal). The city exceeded that aspiration when, in February 2019, it switched over to electricity from the Clean Power Alliance, with a citywide default of 100% renewably sourced energy. That same year, the Santa Monica City Council adopted a Climate Action and Adaptation Plan aimed at achieving an 80% cut in carbon emissions by 2030, and reaching community-wide carbon neutrality by 2050 or sooner.


title: Santa Monica, California

text: An urban runoff facility (SMURFF), the first of its kind in the US, catches and treats of water each week that would otherwise flow into the bay via storm-drains and sells it back to end-users within the city for reuse as gray-water, while bioswales throughout the city allow rainwater to percolate into and replenish the groundwater. The groundwater supply plays an important role in the city's Sustainable Water Master Plan, whereby Santa Monica has set a goal of attaining 100% water independence by 2020. The city has numerous programs designed to promote water conservation among residents, including a rebate for those who convert lawns to drought-tolerant gardens that require less water.


title: Santa Monica, California

text: Santa Monica has also instituted a green building-code whereby merely constructing to code automatically renders a building equivalent to the US Green Building Council's LEED Silver standards. The city's Main Library is one of many LEED certified or LEED equivalent buildings in the city. It is built over a 200,000 gallon cistern that collects filtered stormwater from the roof. The water is used for landscape irrigation.


title: Santa Monica, California

text: Since 2009, Santa Monica has been developing the Zero Waste Strategic Operations Plan by which the city will set a goal of diverting at least 95% of all waste away from landfills, and toward recycling and composting, by 2030. The plan includes a food waste composting program, which diverts 3 million pounds of restaurant food waste away from landfills annually. , 77% of all solid waste produced citywide is diverted from landfills.


title: Santa Monica, California

text: Environmentally focused initiatives include curbside recycling, curbside composting bins (in addition to trash, yard-waste, and recycle bins), farmers' markets, community gardens, garden-share, an urban forest initiative, a hazardous materials home-collection service, and a green business certification.


title: Santa Monica, California

text: As in other coastal beach communities, coastal erosion due to coastal infrastructure and high human usage is an increasing challenge, and will become worse due to sea level rise. Starting in 2016, local environmental groups began dune and beach restoration projects.


title: Santa Monica, California

text: The 2010 United States Census reported Santa Monica had a population of 89,736. The population density was . The racial makeup of Santa Monica was 69,663 (77.6%) White (70.1% Non-Hispanic White), 3,526 (3.9%) African American, 338 (0.4%) Native American, 8,053 (9.0%) Asian, 124 (0.1%) Pacific Islander, 4,047 (4.5%) from other races, and 3,985 (4.4%) from two or more races. Hispanic or Latino of any race were 11,716 persons (13.1%), with Mexican Americans, Spanish Americans, and Argentine Americans making up 64.2%, 6.4%, and 4.7% of the Hispanic population respectively.


title: Santa Monica, California

text: The Census reported 87,610 people (97.6% of the population) lived in households, 1,299 (1.4%) lived in non-institutionalized group quarters, and 827 (0.9%) were institutionalized.


title: Santa Monica, California

text: There were 46,917 households, out of which 7,835 (16.7%) had children under the age of 18 living in them, 13,092 (27.9%) were opposite-sex married couples living together, 3,510 (7.5%) had a female householder with no husband present, 1,327 (2.8%) had a male householder with no wife present. There were 2,867 (6.1%) unmarried opposite-sex partnerships, and 416 (0.9%) same-sex married couples or partnerships. 22,716 households (48.4%) were made up of individuals, and 5,551 (11.8%) had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 1.87. There were 17,929 families (38.2% of all households); the average family size was 2.79.


title: Santa Monica, California

text: The population was spread out, with 12,580 people (14.0%) under the age of 18, 6,442 people (7.2%) aged 18 to 24, 32,552 people (36.3%) aged 25 to 44, 24,746 people (27.6%) aged 45 to 64, and 13,416 people (15.0%) who were 65 years of age or older. The median age was 40.4 years. For every 100 females, there were 93.2 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there were 91.2 males.


title: Santa Monica, California

text: There were 50,912 housing units at an average density of , of which 13,315 (28.4%) were owner-occupied, and 33,602 (71.6%) were occupied by renters. The homeowner vacancy rate was 1.1%; the rental vacancy rate was 5.1%. 30,067 people (33.5% of the population) lived in owner-occupied housing units and 57,543 people (64.1%) lived in rental housing units.


title: Santa Monica, California

text: According to the 2010 United States Census, Santa Monica had a median household income of $73,649, with 11.2% of the population living below the federal poverty line.


title: Santa Monica, California

text: As of the census of 2000, there were 84,084 people, 44,497 households, and 16,775 families in the city. The population density was 10,178.7 inhabitants per square mile (3,930.4/km). There were 47,863 housing units at an average density of . The racial makeup of the city was 78.29% White, 7.25% Asian, 3.78% African American, 0.47% Native American, 0.10% Pacific Islander, 5.97% from other races, and 4.13% from two or more races. 13.44% of the population were Hispanic or Latino of any race.


title: Santa Monica, California

text: There were 44,497 households, out of which 15.8% had children under the age of 18, 27.5% were married couples living together, 7.5% had a female householder with no husband present, and 62.3% were non-families. 51.2% of all households were made up of individuals, and 10.6% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 1.83 and the average family size was 2.80.


title: Santa Monica, California

text: The city of Santa Monica is consistently among the most educated cities in the United States, with 23.8 percent of all residents holding graduate degrees.


title: Santa Monica, California

text: The population was diverse in age, with 14.6% under 18, 6.1% from 18 to 24, 40.1% from 25 to 44, 24.8% from 45 to 64, and 14.4% 65 years or older. The median age was 39 years. For every 100 females, there were 93.0 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there were 91.3 males.


title: Santa Monica, California

text: According to a 2009 estimate, the median income for a household in the city was $71,095, and the median income for a family was $109,410. Males had a median income of $55,689 versus $42,948 for females. The per capita income for the city was $42,874. 10.4% of the population and 5.4% of families were below the poverty line. Out of the total population, 9.9% of those under the age of 18 and 10.2% of those 65 and older were living below the poverty line.


title: Santa Monica, California

text: In 2006, crime in Santa Monica affected 4.41% of the population, slightly lower than the national average crime rate that year of 4.48%. The majority of this was property crime, which affected 3.74% of Santa Monica's population in 2006; this was higher than the rates for Los Angeles County (2.76%) and California (3.17%), but lower than the national average (3.91%). These per-capita crime rates are computed based on Santa Monica's full-time population of about 85,000. However, the Santa Monica Police Department has suggested the actual per-capita crime rate is much lower, as tourists, workers, and beachgoers can increase the city's daytime population to between 250,000 and 450,000 people.


title: Santa Monica, California

text: Hate crime has typically been minimal in Santa Monica, with only one reported incident in 2007. The city experienced a spike of anti-Islamic hate crime in 2001 after the September 11 attacks, but hate crime levels returned to their minimal 2000 levels by 2002.


title: Santa Monica, California

text: The Pico neighborhood of Santa Monica (south of the Santa Monica Freeway) experiences some gang activity. The city estimates there are about 50 gang members based in Santa Monica, although some community organizers dispute this claim. Gang activity has been prevalent for decades in the Pico neighborhood.


title: Santa Monica, California

text: In October 1998, alleged Culver City 13 gang member Omar Sevilla of Culver City was killed. A couple of hours after the shooting of Sevilla, German tourist Horst Fietze was killed. Several days later Juan Martin Campos, a Santa Monica city employee, was shot and killed. Police believe this was a retaliatory killing in response to Sevilla's killing. Less than 24 hours later, Javier Cruz was wounded in a drive-by shooting outside his home on 17th and Michigan.


title: Santa Monica, California

text: In 1998, there was a double homicide in the Westside Clothing store on Lincoln Boulevard. During the incident, Culver City gang members David "Puppet" Robles and Jesse "Psycho" Garcia entered the store masked and began opening fire, killing Anthony and Michael Juarez. Police say the incident was in retaliation for a shooting committed by the Santa Monica 13 gang days before the Juarez brothers were shot down.


title: Santa Monica, California

text: Santa Monica is home to the headquarters of many notable businesses, such as Beachbody, Fatburger, Hulu, Illumination, Otter Media, Lionsgate Films, Macerich, Miramax, the RAND Corporation, Saban Capital Group, The Recording Academy (which presents the annual Grammy Awards), TOMS Shoes, and Universal Music Group. Atlantic Aviation is at the Santa Monica Airport. The National Public Radio member station KCRW is on the Santa Monica College campus. VCA Animal Hospitals is just outside the eastern city limit.


title: Santa Monica, California

text: A number of game development studios are based in Santa Monica, making it a major location for the industry. These include:


title: Santa Monica, California

text: Recently, Santa Monica has emerged as the center of the Los Angeles region called Silicon Beach, and serves as the home of hundreds of venture capital funded startup companies.


title: Santa Monica, California

text: Former Santa Monica businesses include Douglas Aircraft (now merged with Boeing), GeoCities (which in December 1996 was headquartered on the third floor of 1918 Main Street in Santa Monica), Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, and MySpace (now headquartered in Beverly Hills).


title: Santa Monica, California

text: According to the city's 2020 Comprehensive Annual Financial Report, the top employers in the city were:


title: Santa Monica, California

text: The Santa Monica Looff Hippodrome (carousel) is a National Historic Landmark. It sits on the Santa Monica Pier, which was built in 1909. The La Monica Ballroom on the pier was once the largest ballroom in the US and the source for many New Year's Eve national network broadcasts.


title: Santa Monica, California

text: The Santa Monica Civic Auditorium was an important music venue for several decades and hosted the Academy Awards in the 1960s. McCabe's Guitar Shop is a leading acoustic performance space as well as retail outlet. The "Santa Monica Playhouse" is a popular theater in the city.


title: Santa Monica, California

text: Bergamot Station is a city-owned art gallery compound that includes the Santa Monica Museum of Art. The city is also home to the California Heritage Museum and the Angels Attic dollhouse and toy museum.


title: Santa Monica, California

text: The New West Symphony is the resident orchestra of Barnum Hall. They are also resident orchestra of the Oxnard Performing Arts Center and the Thousand Oaks Civic Arts Plaza.


title: Santa Monica, California

text: The city's oldest movie theater is the Majestic. Opened in 1912 and also known as the Mayfair Theatre, it has been closed since the 1994 Northridge earthquake. The Aero Theater (now operated by the American Cinematheque) and Criterion Theater were built in the 1930s and still show movies.


title: Santa Monica, California

text: Notable restaurants have included Madame Wu's Garden, Batterfish, Stout Burgers and Beers, and The Misfit.


title: Santa Monica, California

text: Santa Monica has three main shopping districts: Montana Avenue on the north side, the Downtown District in the city's core, and Main Street on the south end. Each has its own unique feel and personality. Montana Avenue is a stretch of luxury boutique stores, restaurants, and small offices that generally features more upscale shopping. The Main Street district offers an eclectic mix of clothing, restaurants, and other specialty retail.


title: Santa Monica, California

text: The Downtown District is the home of the Third Street Promenade, a major outdoor pedestrian-only shopping district that stretches for three blocks between Wilshire Blvd. and Broadway. Third Street is closed to vehicles for those three blocks to allow people to stroll, congregate, shop and enjoy street performers.


title: Santa Monica, California

text: The Santa Monica Place, featuring Bloomingdale's and Nordstrom in a three-level outdoor environment, is at the Promenade's southern end. After a period of redevelopment, the mall reopened in the fall of 2010 as a modern shopping, entertainment and dining complex with more outdoor space.


title: Santa Monica, California

text: The Santa Monica Public Library consists of a Main Library in the downtown area, plus four neighborhood branches: Fairview, Montana Avenue, Ocean Park, and Pico Boulevard.


title: Santa Monica, California

text: The men's and women's marathon ran through parts of Santa Monica during the 1984 Summer Olympics. The Santa Monica Track Club has many prominent track athletes, including many Olympic gold medalists. Santa Monica is the home to Southern California Aquatics, which was founded by Olympic swimmer Clay Evans and Bonnie Adair. Santa Monica is also home to the Santa Monica Rugby Club, a semi-professional team that competes in the Pacific Rugby Premiership, the highest-level rugby union club competition in the United States.


title: Santa Monica, California

text: Palisades Park stretches out along the crumbling bluffs overlooking the Pacific and is a favorite walking area to view the ocean. It includes public art, a totem pole, camera obscura, benches, picnic areas, pétanque courts, and restrooms.


title: Santa Monica, California

text: Tongva Park occupies 6 acres between Ocean Avenue and Main Street, just south of Colorado Avenue. The park includes an overlook, amphitheater, playground, garden, fountains, picnic areas, and restrooms.


title: Santa Monica, California

text: The Santa Monica Stairs, a long, steep staircase that leads from north of San Vicente down into Santa Monica Canyon, is a popular spot for outdoor workouts. Some area residents have complained that the stairs have become too popular, and attract too many exercisers to the wealthy neighborhood of multimillion-dollar properties.


title: Santa Monica, California

text: Ishihara Park opened to the public in 2017 and acts as a buffer between the Los Angeles Metro Rail and the surrounding residential community.


title: Santa Monica, California

text: Santa Monica is governed by the Santa Monica City Council, a Council-Manager governing body with seven members elected at-large. The mayor is Sue Himmelrich, and the Mayor Pro Tempore is Kristin McCowan. The other five council members are Gleam Davis, Phil Brock, Christine Parra, Kevin McKeown, and Oscar de la Torre.


title: Santa Monica, California

text: The Santa Monica–Malibu Unified School District provides public education at the elementary and secondary levels. In addition to the traditional model of early education school houses, SMASH (Santa Monica Alternative School House) is "a K–8 public school of choice with team teachers and multi-aged classrooms". The district maintains eight elementary schools, three middle schools, and three high schools in Santa Monica.


title: Santa Monica, California

text: Asahi Gakuen, a weekend Japanese supplementary school system, operates its Santa Monica campus (サンタモニカ校･高等部 "Santamonika-kō kōtōbu") at Webster Middle in the Sawtelle neighborhood of Los Angeles. All high school classes in the Asahi Gakuen system are held at the Santa Monica campus.


title: Santa Monica, California

text: Santa Monica College is a community college founded in 1929. Many SMC graduates transfer to the University of California system. It occupies 35 acres (14 hectares) and enrolls 30,000 students annually. The Frederick S. Pardee RAND Graduate School, associated with the RAND Corporation, is the U.S.'s largest producer of public policy PhDs. The Art Institute of California – Los Angeles is also in Santa Monica near the Santa Monica Airport.


title: Santa Monica, California

text: Universities and colleges within a radius from Santa Monica include Santa Monica College, Antioch University Los Angeles, Loyola Marymount University, Mount St. Mary's University, Pepperdine University, California State University, Northridge, California State University, Los Angeles, UCLA, USC, West Los Angeles College, California Institute of Technology (Caltech), Occidental College (Oxy), Los Angeles City College, Los Angeles Southwest College, Los Angeles Valley College, and Emperor's College of Traditional Oriental Medicine.


title: Santa Monica, California

text: Santa Monica has a bike action plan and launched a bicycle sharing system in November 2015. The city is traversed by the Marvin Braude Bike Trail. Santa Monica has received the Bicycle Friendly Community Award (Bronze in 2009, Silver in 2013) by the League of American Bicyclists. Local bicycle advocacy organizations include Santa Monica Spoke, a local chapter of the Los Angeles County Bicycle Coalition. Santa Monica is thought to be one of the leaders for bicycle infrastructure and programming in Los Angeles County although cycling infrastructure in Los Angeles County in general remains very poor compared to other major cities.


title: Santa Monica, California

text: The city implemented a 5-year and 20-year Bike Action Plan with a goal of attaining 14 to 35% bicycle transportation mode share by 2030 through the installation of enhanced bicycle infrastructure throughout the city.


title: Santa Monica, California

text: In terms of number of bicycle accidents, Santa Monica ranks as one of the worst (#2) out of 102 California cities with population 50,000–100,000, a ranking consistent with the city's composite ranking.


title: Santa Monica, California

text: In 2007 and 2008, local police cracked down on Santa Monica Critical Mass rides that had become controversial, putting a damper on the tradition.


title: Santa Monica, California

text: The Santa Monica Freeway (Interstate 10) begins in Santa Monica near the Pacific Ocean and heads east. The Santa Monica Freeway between Santa Monica and downtown Los Angeles has the distinction of being one of the busiest highways in all of North America. After traversing the Greater Los Angeles area, I-10 crosses seven more states, terminating at Jacksonville, Florida. In Santa Monica, there is a road sign designating this route as the Christopher Columbus Transcontinental Highway. State Route 2 (Santa Monica Boulevard) begins in Santa Monica, barely grazing State Route 1 at Lincoln Boulevard, and continues northeast across Los Angeles County, through the Angeles National Forest, crossing the San Gabriel Mountains as the Angeles Crest Highway, ending in Wrightwood. Santa Monica is also the western terminus of Historic U.S. Route 66. Close to the eastern boundary of Santa Monica, Sepulveda Boulevard reaches from Long Beach at the south, to the northern end of the San Fernando Valley. Just east of Santa Monica is Interstate 405, the San Diego Freeway, a major north–south route in Los Angeles and Orange counties.


title: Santa Monica, California

text: Santa Monica has purchased the first ZeroTruck all-electric medium-duty truck. The vehicle will be equipped with a Scelzi utility body, it is based on the Isuzu N series chassis, a UQM PowerPhase 100 advanced electric motor and is the only US built electric truck offered for sale in the United States in 2009.


title: Santa Monica, California

text: The city of Santa Monica runs its own bus service, the Big Blue Bus, which also serves much of West Los Angeles and the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). A Big Blue Bus was featured prominently in the action movie "Speed".


title: Santa Monica, California

text: The city of Santa Monica is also served by the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority's (Metro) bus lines. Metro also complements Big Blue service, as when Big Blue routes are not operational overnight, Metro buses make many Big Blue Bus stops, in addition to MTA stops.


title: Santa Monica, California

text: Design and construction on the of the Expo Line from Culver City to Santa Monica started in September 2011, with service beginning on May 20, 2016. Santa Monica Metro stations include 26th Street/Bergamot, 17th Street/Santa Monica College, and Downtown Santa Monica. Travel time between the downtown Santa Monica and the downtown Los Angeles termini is approximately 47 minutes.


title: Santa Monica, California

text: Historical aspects of the Expo line route are noteworthy. It uses the former Los Angeles region's electric interurban Pacific Electric Railway's right-of-way that ran from the Exposition Park area of Los Angeles to Santa Monica. This route was called the Santa Monica Air Line and provided electric-powered freight and passenger service between Los Angeles and Santa Monica beginning in the 1920s. Passenger service was discontinued in 1953, but diesel-powered freight deliveries to warehouses along the route continued until March 11, 1988. The abandonment of the line spurred future transportation considerations and concerns within the community, and the entire right-of-way was purchased from Southern Pacific by Los Angeles Metropolitan Transportation Authority. The line was built in 1875 as the steam-powered Los Angeles and Independence Railroad to bring mining ore to ships in Santa Monica harbor and as a passenger excursion train to the beach.


title: Santa Monica, California

text: The city owns and operates a general aviation airport, Santa Monica Airport, which has been the site of several important aviation achievements. Commercial flights are available for residents at LAX, a few miles south of Santa Monica.


title: Santa Monica, California

text: Like other cities in Los Angeles County, Santa Monica is dependent upon the Port of Long Beach and the Port of Los Angeles for international ship cargo. In the 1890s, Santa Monica was once in competition with Wilmington, California, and San Pedro for recognition as the "Port of Los Angeles" (see History of Santa Monica, California).


title: Santa Monica, California

text: Since the mid-1980s, various proposals have been made to extend the Purple Line subway to Santa Monica under Wilshire Boulevard. There are no current plans to complete the "subway to the sea," an estimated $5 billion project.


title: Santa Monica, California

text: In August 2018, Santa Monica issued permits to Bird, Lime, Lyft, and Jump Bikes to operate dockless scooter-sharing systems in the city.


title: Santa Monica, California

text: Two major hospitals are within the Santa Monica city limits, UCLA Medical Center, Santa Monica and Saint John's Health Center. Four fire stations provide medical and fire response, staffed with six Paramedic Engines, a Truck company, a Hazardous Materials team and an Urban Search & Rescue team. Santa Monica Fire Department has its own Dispatch Center. Ambulance transportation is provided by McCormick Ambulance Services.


title: Santa Monica, California

text: The Los Angeles County Department of Health Services operates the Simms/Mann Health and Wellness Center in Santa Monica. The Department's West Area Health Office is in the Simms/Mann Center.


title: Santa Monica, California

text: Santa Monica has a municipal wireless network which provides several free city Wi-Fi hotspots distributed around the city.


title: Santa Monica, California

text: One of the oldest exterior shots in Santa Monica is Buster Keaton's "Spite Marriage" (1929) which shows much of 2nd Street. The comedy "It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World" (1963) included several scenes shot in Santa Monica, including those along the California Incline, which led to the movie's treasure spot, "The Big W". The Sylvester Stallone film "Rocky III" (1982) shows Rocky Balboa and Apollo Creed training to fight Clubber Lang by running on the Santa Monica Beach, and Stallone's "Demolition Man" (1993) includes Santa Monica settings. In "Pee-wee's Big Adventure" (1985), the theft of Pee-wee's bike occurs on the Third Street Promenade. Henry Jaglom's indie "Someone to Love" (1987), the last film in which Orson Welles appeared, takes place in Santa Monica's venerable Mayfair Theatre. "Heathers" (1988) used Santa Monica's John Adams Middle School for many exterior shots. "The Truth About Cats & Dogs" (1996) is set entirely in Santa Monica, particularly the Palisades Park area, and features a radio station that resembles KCRW at Santa Monica College. "17 Again" (2009) was shot at Samohi. Other films that show significant exterior shots of Santa Monica include "Fletch" (1985), "Species" (1995), "Get Shorty" (1995), and "Ocean's Eleven" (2001). Richard Rossi's biopic "Aimee Semple McPherson" opens and closes at the beach in Santa Monica. "Iron Man" features the Santa Monica pier and surrounding communities as Tony Stark tests his experimental flight suit.


title: Santa Monica, California

text: The documentary "Dogtown and Z-Boys" (2001) and the related dramatic film "Lords of Dogtown" (2005) are both about the influential skateboarding culture of Santa Monica's Ocean Park neighborhood in the 1970s.


title: Santa Monica, California

text: Santa Monica (and in particular the Santa Monica Airport) was featured in Roland Emmerich's disaster film "2012" (2009). A magnitude 10.9 earthquake destroys the airport and the surrounding area as a group of survivors escape in a personal plane. The Santa Monica Pier and the whole city sinks into the Pacific Ocean after the earthquake.


title: Santa Monica, California

text: A number of television series have been set in Santa Monica, including "Baywatch", "Goliath", "Pacific Blue" (1996-2000), "Private Practice" (2007-2013), and "Three's Company" (1977-1984). The Santa Monica pier is shown in the main theme of CBS series "". In "Buffy the Vampire Slayer", the main exterior set of the town of Sunnydale that includes the infamous "sun sign", was in Santa Monica in a lot on Olympic Boulevard.


title: Santa Monica, California

text: Horace McCoy's 1935 novel "They Shoot Horses, Don't They?" is set at a dance marathon held in a ballroom on the Santa Monica Pier.


title: Santa Monica, California

text: Raymond Chandler's most famous character, private detective Philip Marlowe, frequently has a portion of his adventures in a place called "Bay City", which is modeled on Depression-era Santa Monica. In Marlowe's world, Bay City is "a wide-open town", where gambling and other crimes thrive due to a massively corrupt and ineffective police force.


title: Santa Monica, California

text: Tennessee Williams lived (while working at MGM Studios) in a hotel on Ocean Avenue in the 1940s. At that location he wrote the play "The Glass Menagerie" (that premiered in 1944). His short story "" (1954) is set near Santa Monica Beach and mentions the clock visible in much of the city, high up on The Broadway Building, on Broadway near Second Street.


title: Laura Ingalls Wilder

text: Laura Elizabeth Ingalls Wilder (February 7, 1867 – February 10, 1957) was an American writer, mostly known for the "Little House on the Prairie" series of children's books, published between 1932 and 1943, which were based on her childhood in a settler and pioneer family.


title: Laura Ingalls Wilder

text: The television series "Little House on the Prairie" (1974–1983) was loosely based on the books, and starred Melissa Gilbert as Laura and Michael Landon as her father, Charles Ingalls.


title: Laura Ingalls Wilder

text: Laura Elizabeth Ingalls was born to Charles Phillip and Caroline Lake (née Quiner) Ingalls on February 7, 1867. At the time of Ingalls' birth, the family lived seven miles north of the village of Pepin, Wisconsin, in the Big Woods region of Wisconsin. Ingalls' home in Pepin became the setting for her first book, "Little House in the Big Woods (1932)." She was the second of five children, following older sister, Mary Amelia. Three more children would follow, Caroline Celestia (Carrie), Charles Frederick, who died in infancy, and Grace Pearl. Ingalls Wilder's birth site is commemorated by a replica log cabin at the Little House Wayside in Pepin.


title: Laura Ingalls Wilder

text: Ingalls was a descendant of the Delano family, the ancestral family of U.S. President Franklin Delano Roosevelt. One paternal ancestor, Edmund Ingalls, from Skirbeck, Lincolnshire, England, emigrated to America, settling in Lynn, Massachusetts.


title: Laura Ingalls Wilder

text: Laura is the 7th great granddaughter of the Mayflower passenger Richard Warren. She was a third cousin, once removed, of U.S. President Ulysses S. Grant.


title: Laura Ingalls Wilder

text: When she was two years old, Ingalls Wilder moved with her family from Wisconsin in 1869. After stopping in Rothville, Missouri, they settled in the Indian country of Kansas, near modern-day Independence, Kansas. Her younger sister, Carrie, was born in Independence in August 1870, not long before they moved again. According to Ingalls Wilder, her father Charles Ingalls had been told that the location would be open to white settlers, but when they arrived this was not the case. The Ingalls family had no legal right to occupy their homestead because it was on the Osage Indian reservation. They had just begun to farm when they heard rumors that settlers would be evicted, so they left in the spring of 1871. Although in her novel, "Little House on the Prairie," and "Pioneer Girl" memoir, Ingalls Wilder portrayed their departure as being prompted by rumors of eviction, she also noted that her parents needed to recover their Wisconsin land because the buyer had not paid the mortgage.


title: Laura Ingalls Wilder

text: The Ingalls family went back to Wisconsin where they lived for the next three years. Those experiences formed the basis for Wilder's novels "Little House in the Big Woods" (1932) and the beginning of "Little House on the Prairie" (1935).


title: Laura Ingalls Wilder

text: "On the Banks of Plum Creek" (1939), the third volume of her fictionalized history which takes place around 1874, the Ingalls family moves from Kansas to an area near Walnut Grove, Minnesota, settling in a dugout on the banks of Plum Creek. They moved there from Wisconsin when Ingalls was about seven years old, after briefly living with the family of her uncle, Peter Ingalls, first in Wisconsin and then on rented land near Lake City, Minnesota. In Walnut Grove, the family first lived in a dugout sod house on a preemption claim; after wintering in it, they moved into a new house built on the same land. Two summers of ruined crops led them to move to Iowa. On the way, they stayed again with Charles Ingalls' brother, Peter Ingalls, this time on his farm near South Troy, Minnesota. Her brother, Charles Frederick Ingalls ("Freddie"), was born there on November 1, 1875, dying nine months later in August 1876. In Burr Oak, Iowa, the family helped run a hotel. The youngest of the Ingalls children, Grace, was born there on May 23, 1877.


title: Laura Ingalls Wilder

text: The family moved from Burr Oak back to Walnut Grove where Charles Ingalls served as the town butcher and justice of the peace. He accepted a railroad job in the spring of 1879, which took him to eastern Dakota Territory, where they joined him that fall. Ingalls Wilder omitted the period in 1876–1877 when they lived near Burr Oak, skipping to Dakota Territory, portrayed in "By the Shores of Silver Lake" (1939).


title: Laura Ingalls Wilder

text: Wilder's father filed for a formal homestead over the winter of 1879–1880. De Smet, South Dakota became home for her parents and her blind sister Mary for the remainder of their lives. After spending the mild winter of 1879–1880 in the surveyor's house, they watched the town of De Smet rise up from the prairie in 1880. The following winter, 1880–1881, one of the most severe on record in the Dakotas, was later described by Ingalls Wilder in her novel, "The Long Winter" (1940). Once the family was settled in De Smet, Ingalls attended school, worked several part-time jobs, and made friends. Among them was bachelor homesteader Almanzo Wilder. This time in her life is documented in the books "Little Town on the Prairie" (1941) and "These Happy Golden Years" (1943).


title: Laura Ingalls Wilder

text: On December 10, 1882, two months before her 16th birthday, Ingalls accepted her first teaching position. She taught three terms in one-room schools when she was not attending school in De Smet. (In "Little Town on the Prairie" she receives her first teaching certificate on December 24, 1882, but that was an enhancement for dramatic effect.) Her original "Third Grade" teaching certificate can be seen on page 25 of William Anderson's book "Laura's Album" (1998). She later admitted she did not particularly enjoy it, but felt a responsibility from a young age to help her family financially, and wage-earning opportunities for women were limited. Between 1883 and 1885, she taught three terms of school, worked for the local dressmaker, and attended high school, although she did not graduate. (According to the books, this was due to her first teaching job starting before her schooling finished.)


title: Laura Ingalls Wilder

text: Ingalls' teaching career and studies ended when the 18-year-old Laura married 28-year-old Almanzo Wilder on August 25, 1885, in De Smet, South Dakota. From the beginning of their relationship, the pair had nicknames for each other: she called him "Manly" and he called her "Bess," from her middle name Elizabeth, to avoid confusion with his sister, who was also named Laura. Almanzo had achieved a degree of prosperity on his homestead claim; the newly married couple started their life together in a new home, north of De Smet.


title: Laura Ingalls Wilder

text: On December 5, 1886, Wilder gave birth to her daughter, Rose. In 1889, she gave birth to a son who died at 12 days of age before being named. He was buried at De Smet, Kingsbury County, South Dakota. On the grave marker, he is remembered as "Baby Son of A. J. Wilder."


title: Laura Ingalls Wilder

text: Their first few years of marriage were difficult. Complications from a life-threatening bout of diphtheria in 1888 left Almanzo partially paralyzed. Although he eventually regained nearly full use of his legs, he needed a cane to walk for the remainder of his life. This setback, among many others, began a series of unfortunate events that included the death of their newborn son, the destruction of their barn along with its hay and grain by a mysterious fire, the total loss of their home from a fire accidentally set by Rose, and several years of severe drought that left them in debt, physically ill, and unable to earn a living from their 320 acres (129.5 hectares) of prairie land. These trials were documented in Wilder's book "The First Four Years" (published in 1971). Around 1890, they left De Smet and spent about a year resting at the home of Almanzo's parents on their Spring Valley, Minnesota, farm before moving briefly to Westville, Florida, in search of a climate to improve Almanzo's health. They found, however, that the dry plains they were used to were very different from the humidity they encountered in Westville. The weather, along with feeling out of place among the locals, encouraged their return to De Smet in 1892, where they purchased a small home.


title: Laura Ingalls Wilder

text: In 1894, the Wilders moved to Mansfield, Missouri, and used their savings to make the down payment on an undeveloped property just outside town. They named the place Rocky Ridge Farm and moved into a ramshackle log cabin. At first, they earned income only from wagon loads of fire wood they would sell in town for 50 cents. Financial security came slowly. Apple trees they planted did not bear fruit for seven years. Almanzo's parents visited around that time and gave them the deed to the house they had been renting in Mansfield, which was the economic boost Wilder's family needed. They then added to the property outside town, and eventually accrued nearly 200 acres (80.9 hectares). Around 1910, they sold the house in town, moved back to the farm, and completed the farmhouse with the proceeds. What began as about 40 acres (16.2 hectares) of thickly wooded, stone-covered hillside with a windowless log cabin became in 20 years a relatively prosperous poultry, dairy, and fruit farm, and a 10-room farmhouse.


title: Laura Ingalls Wilder

text: The Wilders had learned from cultivating wheat as their sole crop in De Smet. They diversified Rocky Ridge Farm with poultry, a dairy farm, and a large apple orchard. Wilder became active in various clubs and was an advocate for several regional farm associations. She was recognized as an authority in poultry farming and rural living, which led to invitations to speak to groups around the region.


title: Laura Ingalls Wilder

text: An invitation to submit an article to the "Missouri Ruralist" in 1911 led to Wilder's permanent position as a columnist and editor with that publication, which she held until the mid-1920s. She also took a paid position with the local Farm Loan Association, dispensing small loans to local farmers.


title: Laura Ingalls Wilder

text: Wilder's column in the "Ruralist", "As a Farm Woman Thinks," introduced her to a loyal audience of rural Ozarkians, who enjoyed her regular columns. Her topics ranged from home and family, including her 1915 trip to San Francisco, California to visit her now-married daughter, Rose Wilder Lane, and see the Pan-Pacific exhibition, to World War I and other world events, and to the fascinating world travels of Lane as well as her own thoughts on the increasing options offered to women during this era. While the couple were never wealthy until the "Little House" books began to achieve popularity, the farming operation and Wilder's income from writing and the Farm Loan Association provided them with a stable living.


title: Laura Ingalls Wilder

text: "[By] 1924", according to the Professor John E. Miller, "[a]fter more than a decade of writing for farm papers, Wilder had become a disciplined writer, able to produce thoughtful, readable prose for a general audience."


title: Laura Ingalls Wilder

text: Around this time her daughter, Lane, began intensively encouraging Wilder to improve her writing skills with a view toward greater success as a writer than Lane had already achieved. The Wilders, according to Miller, had come to "[depend] on annual income subsidies from their increasingly famous and successful daughter." They both had concluded that the solution for improving their retirement income was for Wilder to become a successful writer herself. As a start, Lane helped Wilder publish two articles describing the interior of the farmhouse, in "Country Gentleman" magazine. However, the "project never proceeded very far."


title: Laura Ingalls Wilder

text: In 1928, Lane hired out the construction of an English-style stone cottage for her parents on property adjacent to the farmhouse they had personally built and still inhabited. She remodeled and took it over.


title: Laura Ingalls Wilder

text: The Stock Market Crash of 1929 wiped the Wilders out; Lane's investments were devastated as well. They still owned the 200-acre (81-hectare) farm, but they had invested most of their savings with Lane's broker.


title: Laura Ingalls Wilder

text: In 1930, Wilder requested Lane's opinion about an autobiographical manuscript she had written about her pioneering childhood. The Great Depression, coupled with the deaths of Wilder's mother in 1924 and her older sister in 1928, seem to have prompted her to preserve her memories in a life story called "Pioneer Girl". She also hoped that her writing would generate some additional income.


title: Laura Ingalls Wilder

text: The original title of the first of the books was "When Grandma Was a Little Girl". On the advice of Lane's publisher, she greatly expanded the story. As a result of Lane's publishing connections as a successful writer and after editing by her, Harper & Brothers published Wilder's book in 1932 as "Little House in the Big Woods". After its success, she continued writing. The close and often rocky collaboration between her and Lane continued, in person until 1935, when Lane permanently left Rocky Ridge Farm, and afterward by correspondence.


title: Laura Ingalls Wilder

text: The collaboration worked both ways: two of Lane's most successful novels, "Let the Hurricane Roar" (1932) and "Free Land" (1938), were written at the same time as the "Little House" series and basically retold Ingalls and Wilder family tales in an adult format.


title: Laura Ingalls Wilder

text: Some, including Lane's biographer William Holtz, have alleged that Wilder's daughter was her ghostwriter. Existing evidence including ongoing correspondence between the women about the books' development, Lane's extensive diaries, and Wilder's handwritten manuscripts with edit notations shows an ongoing collaboration between the two women.


title: Laura Ingalls Wilder

text: Miller, using this record, describes varying levels of involvement by Lane. "Little House in the Big Woods" (1932) and "These Happy Golden Years" (1943), he notes, received the least editing. "The first pages...and other large sections of ["Big Woods"]," he observes, "stand largely intact, indicating...from the start...[Laura's] talent for narrative description." Some volumes saw heavier participation by Lane, while "The First Four Years" (1971) appears to be exclusively a Wilder work.


title: Laura Ingalls Wilder

text: Miller concludes that, "[i]n the end, the lasting literary legacy remains that of the mother more than that of the daughter... Lane possessed style; Wilder had substance."


title: Laura Ingalls Wilder

text: The controversy over authorship is often tied to the movement to read the Little House series through an ideological lens. Lane emerged in the 1930s as an avowed conservative polemicist and critic of the Franklin D. Roosevelt administration and his New Deal programs. According to a 2012 article in the "New Yorker", "When Roosevelt was elected, she noted in her diary, 'America has a dictator.' She prayed for his assassination, and considered doing the job herself." Whatever Lane's politics, "attacks on [Wilder's] authorship seem aimed at infusing her books with ideological passions they just don't have."


title: Laura Ingalls Wilder

text: On the topic of historical fiction and its influence on modern views of race relations, literary scholar Rachelle Kuehl notes that Laura Ingalls Wilder’s "Little House" series has received backlash for her problematic portrayal of Native Americans. They have also been the subject of postcolonial writing including Kathy Jetnil-Kijiner's "To Laura Ingalls Wilder" included in her 2017 collection "Iep Jaltok: Poems from a Marshallese Daughter".


title: Laura Ingalls Wilder

text: The original Little House books, written for elementary school–age children, became an enduring, eight-volume record of pioneering life late in the 19th century based on the Ingalls family's experiences on the American frontier. As Irene Smith pointed out shortly after "These Happy Golden Years (1943) was published, Wilder began "with a style appealing to the eight-year-olds and continuing in volumes of increasing length and difficulty. This graduation is a distinguishing feature of the Little House books." "The First Four Years", about the early days of the Wilder marriage, was discovered by her literary executor Roger MacBride after Lane's 1968 death and published in 1971, unedited by Lane or MacBride. It is now marketed as the ninth volume.


title: Laura Ingalls Wilder

text: Since the publication of "Little House in the Big Woods" (1932), the books have been continuously in print and have been translated into 40 other languages. Wilder's first—and smallest—royalty check from Harper, in 1932, was for $500, . By the mid-1930s the royalties from the "Little House" books brought a steady and increasingly substantial income to the Wilders for the first time in their 50 years of marriage. The collaboration also brought the two writers at Rocky Ridge Farm the money they needed to recoup the loss of their investments in the stock market. Various honors, huge amounts of fan mail, and other accolades were bestowed on Wilder.


title: Laura Ingalls Wilder

text: In 1929–1930, already in her early 60s, Wilder began writing her autobiography, titled "Pioneer Girl." It was rejected by publishers. At Lane's urging, she rewrote most of her stories for children. The result was the "Little House" series of books. In 2014, the South Dakota State Historical Society published an annotated version of Wilder's autobiography, titled "Pioneer Girl: The Annotated Autobiography".


title: Laura Ingalls Wilder

text: "Pioneer Girl" includes stories that Wilder felt were inappropriate for children: e.g., a man accidentally immolating himself while drunk, and an incident of extreme violence of a local shopkeeper against his wife, which ended with his setting their house on fire. She also describes previously unknown facets of her father's character. According to its publisher, "Wilder's fiction, her autobiography, and her real childhood are all distinct things, but they are closely intertwined." The book's aim was to explore the differences, including incidents with conflicting or non-existing accounts in one or another of the sources.


title: Laura Ingalls Wilder

text: Wilder has been referred to by some as one of America's first libertarians. She was a longtime Democrat, but became dismayed with Roosevelt's New Deal and what she and her daughter, Rose Wilder Lane, saw as Americans' increasing dependence on the federal government. Wilder grew disenchanted with her party and resented government agents who came to farms like hers and grilled farmers about the number of acres they were planting. Her daughter was similarly a strong libertarian.


title: Laura Ingalls Wilder

text: Wilder supported women's rights (though she worried that women would vote according to what their husbands wanted, and not as they wanted) and education reform. She also became infamous for a short period for shaking the hand of an African American man, which was controversial for segregated Missouri. Indeed, part of the plot of Little House on the Prairie involves an African American doctor saving the Ingalls family's lives.


title: Laura Ingalls Wilder

text: Upon Lane's departure from Rocky Ridge Farm, Laura and Almanzo moved back into the farmhouse they had built, which had most recently been occupied by friends. From 1935 on, they were alone at Rocky Ridge Farm. Most of the surrounding area (including the property with the stone cottage Lane had built for them) was sold, but they still kept some farm animals, and tended their flower beds and vegetable gardens. Almost daily, carloads of fans stopped by, eager to meet the "Laura" of the "Little House" books.


title: Laura Ingalls Wilder

text: The Wilders lived independently and without financial worries until Almanzo's death at the farm in 1949 at age 92. Wilder remained on the farm. For the next eight years, she lived alone, looked after by a circle of neighbors and friends. She continued an active correspondence with her editors, fans, and friends during these years.


title: Laura Ingalls Wilder

text: In autumn 1956, 89-year-old Wilder became severely ill from undiagnosed diabetes and cardiac issues. She was hospitalized by Lane, who had arrived for Thanksgiving. She was able to return home on the day after Christmas. However, her health declined after her release from the hospital, and she died at home in her sleep on February 10, 1957, three days after her 90th birthday. She was buried beside Almanzo at Mansfield Cemetery in Mansfield. Lane was buried next to them upon her death in 1968.


title: Laura Ingalls Wilder

text: Following Wilder's death, possession of Rocky Ridge Farm passed to the farmer who had earlier bought the property under a life lease arrangement. The local population put together a non-profit corporation to purchase the house and its grounds for use as a museum. After some wariness at the notion of seeing the house rather than the books be a shrine to Wilder, Lane came to believe that making a museum of it would draw long-lasting attention to the books. She donated the money needed to purchase the house and make it a museum, agreed to make significant contributions each year for its upkeep, and donated many of her parents' belongings.


title: Laura Ingalls Wilder

text: In compliance with Wilder's will, Lane inherited ownership of the Little House literary estate, with the stipulation that it be for only her lifetime, with all rights reverting to the Mansfield library after her death. Following her demise in 1968, however, her chosen heir, Roger MacBride, gained control of the books' copyrights. as well as her business agent and lawyer. The copyrights to each of Wilder's "Little House" books, as well as those of Lane's own literary works, were renewed in his name after the original copyright had expired.


title: Laura Ingalls Wilder

text: Controversy arose following MacBride's death in 1995, when the Laura Ingalls Wilder Branch of the Wright County Library in Mansfield—the library founded in part by Wilder—tried to recover the rights to the series. The ensuing court case was settled in an undisclosed manner, with MacBride's heirs retaining the rights to Wilder's books. From the settlement, the library received enough to start work on a new building.


title: Laura Ingalls Wilder

text: The popularity of the Little House books has grown over the years following Wilder's death, spawning a multimillion-dollar franchise of mass merchandising under MacBride's impetus. Results of the franchise have included additional spinoff book series—some written by MacBride and his daughter, Abigail—and the long-running television series, starring Melissa Gilbert as Wilder and Michael Landon as her father.


title: Laura Ingalls Wilder

text: Because she died in 1957, Wilder's works are now public domain in countries where the term of copyright lasts 50 years after the author's death, or less; generally this does not include works first published posthumously. Works first published before 1924 or where copyright was not renewed, primarily her newspaper columns, are also public domain in the United States.


title: Laura Ingalls Wilder

text: The eight "original" Little House books were published by Harper & Brothers with illustrations by Helen Sewell (the first three) or by Sewell and Mildred Boyle.


title: Laura Ingalls Wilder

text: "" (February 2015) is a one-hour documentary film that looks at the life of Wilder. Wilder's story as a writer, wife, and mother is explored through interviews with scholars and historians, archival photography, paintings by frontier artists, and dramatic reenactments.


title: Laura Ingalls Wilder

text: Multiple adaptations of Wilder's "Little House on the Prairie" book series have been produced for screen and stage. In them, the following actresses have portrayed Wilder:


title: Laura Ingalls Wilder

text: Wilder was five times a runner-up for the annual Newbery Medal, the premier American Library Association (ALA) book award for children's literature. In 1954, the ALA inaugurated a lifetime achievement award for children's writers and illustrators, named for Wilder, of which she was the first recipient. The Laura Ingalls Wilder Medal recognizes a living author or illustrator whose books, published in the United States, have made "a substantial and lasting contribution to literature for children". As of 2013, it has been conferred nineteen times, biennially starting in 2001. In 2018, the award was renamed the Children's Literature Legacy Award in light of language in Wilder's works which the Association perceived as biased against Native Americans and African Americans.


title: Elizabeth of Russia

text: Elizabeth Petrovna () (), also known as Yelisaveta or Elizaveta, reigned as Empress of Russia from 1741 until her death in 1762. She remains one of the most popular Russian monarchs because of her decision not to execute a single person during her reign, her numerous construction projects, and her strong opposition to Prussian policies.


title: Elizabeth of Russia

text: The second-eldest daughter of Tsar Peter the Great (), Elizabeth lived through the confused successions of her father's descendants following her half-brother Alexei's death in 1718. The throne first passed to her mother Catherine I of Russia (), then to her nephew Peter II, who died in 1730 and was succeeded by Elizabeth's first cousin Anna. After the brief rule of Anna's infant great-nephew, Ivan VI, Elizabeth seized the throne with the military's support and declared her own nephew, the future Peter III, her heir.


title: Elizabeth of Russia

text: During her reign Elizabeth continued the policies of her father and brought about a remarkable Age of Enlightenment in Russia. Her domestic policies allowed the nobles to gain dominance in local government while shortening their terms of service to the state. She encouraged Mikhail Lomonosov's foundation of the University of Moscow, the highest-ranking Russian educational institution. Her court became one of the most splendid in all Europe, especially regarding architecture: she modernized Russia's roads, encouraged Ivan Shuvalov's foundation of the Imperial Academy of Arts, and financed grandiose Baroque projects of her favourite architect, Bartolomeo Rastrelli, particularly in Peterhof Palace. The Winter Palace and the Smolny Cathedral in Saint Petersburg are among the chief monuments of her reign.


title: Elizabeth of Russia

text: Elizabeth led the Russian Empire during the two major European conflicts of her time: the War of Austrian Succession (1740–1748) and the Seven Years' War (1756–1763). She and diplomat Aleksey Bestuzhev-Ryumin solved the first event by forming an alliance with Austria and France, but indirectly caused the second. Russian troops enjoyed several victories against Prussia and briefly occupied Berlin, but when Frederick the Great was finally considering surrender in January 1762, the Russian Empress died. She was the last agnatic member of the House of Romanov to reign over the Russian Empire.


title: Elizabeth of Russia

text: Elizabeth was born at Kolomenskoye, near Moscow, Russia, on 18 December 1709 (O.S.). Her parents were Peter the Great, Tsar of Russia and Catherine. Catherine was the daughter of Samuel Skowroński, a subject of Grand Duchy of Lithuania. Although no documentary record exists, her parents were said to have married secretly at the Cathedral of the Holy Trinity in Saint Petersburg at some point between 23 October and 1 December 1707. Their official marriage was at Saint Isaac's Cathedral in Saint Petersburg on 9 February 1712. On this day, the two children previously born to the couple (Anna and Elizabeth) were legitimized by their father and given the title of Tsarevna ("princess") on 6 March 1711. Of the twelve children born to Peter and Catherine (five sons and seven daughters), only the sisters survived to adulthood. They had one older surviving sibling, crown prince Alexei Petrovich, who was Peter's son by his first wife, noblewoman Eudoxia Lopukhina.


title: Elizabeth of Russia

text: As a child, Elizabeth was the favorite of her father, whom she resembled both physically and temperamentally. Even though he adored his daughter, Peter did not devote time or attention to her education; having both a son and grandson from his first marriage to a noblewoman, he did not anticipate that a daughter born to his former maid might one day inherit the Russian throne, which had until that point never been occupied by a woman; as such, it was left to Catherine to raise the girls, a task met with considerable difficulty due to her own lack of education. Despite this, Elizabeth was still considered to be a bright girl, if not brilliant, and had a French governess who gave lessons of mathematics, arts, languages, and sports. She grew interested in architecture, became fluent in Italian, German, and French, and became an excellent dancer and rider. Like her father, she was physically active and loved horseriding, hunting, sledging, skating, and gardening.


title: Elizabeth of Russia

text: From her earliest years, Elizabeth was recognised as a vivacious young woman, and was regarded as the leading beauty of the Russian Empire. The wife of the British ambassador described Grand Duchess Elizabeth as "fair, with light brown hair, large sprightly blue eyes, fine teeth and a pretty mouth. She is inclinable to be fat, but is very genteel and dances better than anyone I ever saw. She speaks German, French and Italian, is extremely gay, and talks to everyone..."


title: Elizabeth of Russia

text: With much of his fame resting on his effective efforts to modernize Russia, Tsar Peter desired to see his children married into the royal houses of Europe, something which his immediate predecessors had consciously tended to avoid. Peter's son Aleksei Petrovich, born of his first marriage to a Russian noblewoman, had no problem securing a bride from the ancient house of Brunswick-Lüneburg. However, the Tsar experienced difficulties in arranging similar marriages for the daughters born of his second wife. When Peter offered either of his daughters in marriage to the future Louis XV, the Bourbons of France snubbed him due to the girls' post-facto legitimization.


title: Elizabeth of Russia

text: In 1724, Peter betrothed his daughters to two young princes, first cousins to each other, who hailed from the tiny north German principality of Holstein-Gottorp and whose family was undergoing a period of political and economic turmoil. Anna Petrovna (aged 16) was to marry Charles Frederick, Duke of Holstein-Gottorp, who was then living in exile in Russia as Peter's guest after having failed in his attempt to succeed his maternal uncle as King of Sweden and whose patrimony was at that time under Danish occupation. Despite all this, the prince was of impeccable birth and well-connected to many royal houses; it was a respectable and politically useful alliance. In the same year, Elizabeth was betrothed to marry Charles Frederick's first cousin, Charles Augustus of Holstein-Gottorp, the eldest son of Christian Augustus, Prince of Eutin. Anna Petrovna's wedding took place in 1725 as planned, even though her father had died () a few weeks before the nuptials. In Elizabeth's case, however, her fiancé died on 31 May 1727, before her wedding could be celebrated. This came as a double blow to Elizabeth, because her mother (who had ascended to the throne as Catherine I) had died just two weeks previously, on 17 May 1727.


title: Elizabeth of Russia

text: By the end of May 1727, 17-year-old Elizabeth had lost her fiancé and both of her parents. Furthermore, her half-nephew Peter II had ascended the throne. Her marriage prospects continued to fail to improve three years later, when her nephew died and was succeeded on the throne by Elizabeth's first cousin Anna, daughter of Ivan V. There was little love lost between the cousins and no prospect of either any Russian nobleman or any foreign prince seeking Elizabeth's hand in marriage. Nor could she marry a commoner because it would cost her royal status, property rights and claim to the throne. The fact that Elizabeth was something of a beauty did not improve marriage prospects, but instead earned her resentment. When the Empress Anna asked the Chinese minister in Saint Petersburg to identify the most beautiful woman at her court, he pointed to Elizabeth, much to Anna's displeasure.