The American Museum of Natural History (abbreviated as AMNH), located on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, New York City, is one of the largest museums in the world. Located in park-like grounds across the street from Central Park, the museum complex comprises 27 interconnected buildings housing 45 permanent exhibition halls, in addition to a planetarium and a library. The museum collections contain over 32 million specimens of plants, humans, animals, fossils, minerals, rocks, meteorites, and human cultural artifacts, of which only a small fraction can be displayed at any given time, and occupies 2,000,000 square feet (190,000 m2). The museum averages about five million visits annually. read more…
Bar-le-Duc is a commune in the Meuse département, of which it is the capital. The department is in Lorraine in northeastern France. The highly rarefied Bar-le-duc jelly, also known as Lorraine Jelly, is a spreadable preparation of white currant or red currantfruit preserves, hailing from this town. First referenced in the historical record in 1344, it is also colloquially referred to as Bar Caviar. read more…
The Festival International de Jazz de Montréal (FIJM) (English: Montreal International Jazz Festival) is an annual jazz festival held in Montreal, Quebec. The Montreal Jazz Fest holds the 2004 Guinness World Record as the world’s largest jazz festival. Every year it features roughly 3,000 artists from 30-odd countries, more than 650 concerts (including 450 free outdoor performances), and welcomes close to 2.5 million visitors (34% of whom are tourists) as well as 400 accredited journalists. The festival takes place at 10 free outdoor stages and 10 indoor concert halls. read more…
Thionville is a commune in the Moselle department in Alsace-Champagne-Ardenne-Lorraine in north-eastern France. The city is located on the left bank of the river Moselle, opposite its suburb Yutz. The population of Thionville has increased mainly in the first half of the 20th century due to industrial development of the upper Moselle basin. read more…
Georges-Eugène Haussmann, commonly known as Baron Haussmann, 27 March 1809 – 11 January 1891), was the Prefect of the Seine Department in France, who was chosen by the Emperor Napoleon III to carry out a massive program of new boulevards, parks and public works in Paris, commonly called Haussmann’s renovation of Paris. Critics forced his resignation for extravagance, but his vision of the city still dominates Central Paris. Haussmann was born in Paris on 27 March 1809, at 55 rue du Faubourg-du-Roule, in the neighborhood called Beaujon, in a house which he later demolished during his renovation of the city. Haussmann’s family originated from Alsace. He was the son of Nicolas-Valentin Haussmann (1787–1876), a senior official in the military establishment of Napoleon Bonaparte, and of Ève-Marie-Henriette-Caroline Dentzel, the daughter of a general and a deputy of French National Convention, Georges Frédéric Dentzel, a baron of Napoleon’s First Empire. He was the grandson of Nicolas Haussmann (1759–1847), a deputy of the Legislative Assembly and of the National Convention, an administrator of the Department of Seine-et-Oise, and a commissioner to the army. read more…
Épinal is a commune in northeastern France and the capital of the Vosges department. Inhabitants are known as Spinaliens. The commune has a land area of 59.24 square kilometres (22.87 sq mi). It is situated on the Moselle River, 60 kilometres (37 miles) south of Nancy. read more…
Lorraine (German: Lothringen) is a cultural and historical region in north-eastern France. From 1982 until January 2016, Lorraine was an administrative region of France, when it became part of the new region Alsace-Champagne-Ardenne-Lorraine. Lorraine’s name stems from the medieval kingdom of Lotharingia, which in turn was named for either Emperor Lothair I or King Lothair II. It became later the Duchy of Lorraine before it was annexed to France in 1766. read more…
