The Life and History of Whitney E. Houston Essay Example

The Life and History of Whitney E. Houston Essay Example The Life and History of Whitney E. Houston Paper The Life and History of Whitney E. Houston Paper THE GOOD, THE BAD AND THE UGLY Shirley Carter Everest Online| [the good, the bad, and the ugly†¦]| The Good, the Bad and the ugly The lady that was known as â€Å"The Voice† stated (Winfrey, 2009 interview) was someone special above and beyond. People paid hundreds of dollars and waited in line for tickets; some bought her CD’s and soon learned the lyrics to some of her songs was this beautiful diva name Whitney E. Houston. Born and raised in Newark New Jersey (Wikipedia, 2012 para. 2 first line) Whitney was the daughter of the famous Gospel singer Dr. Cissy Houston (Vibe Magazine 2012) and is the cousin to famous song writer Dionne Warwick (VH1 Bio March, 2012). Having a Gospel mother as a singer, Whitney also had a gift that was yet to be discovered she enjoyed singing in the choir at New Hope Baptist Church (Pastor Carter Feb. 18, 2012) her passion was singing and making her mother proud. Whitney loved hearing her mother sing and once her mother saw she was also blessed with the same gift she started teaching her daughter about music. Whitney went with her mother on tour and she also did some back-up singing for other famous artists Aretha Franklin, Gladys Knight, Chaka Kahn (Ebony 2012 April article) to name a few. Performing and doing little skits got her discovered and drew a lot of attention to other known singers and managers such as the famous CEO Clive Davis. Clive saw Whitney perform for the first time in the 80s and was blow away that he wanted to sign her to his record label because he knew the two of them would work well together but who would have know she was going to be this big. Once Whitney was able to take off there was no stopping in the early 90s she met famous Ramp;B singer Bobby Brown and in 1992 they had a beautiful daughter and named her Bobbi Kristina (VH1 Bio March 2012). Whitney Houston life changed when she signed her contract with Clive Davis with a voice as powerful as hers, she was performing on late night talk shows doing interviews for VH1 and making commercials as well. Being young and beautiful she still enjoyed life and was also introduced to new things such as Marijuana and Cocaine. In the beginning when she would perform, you could hardly tell there was anything wrong with her. When she performed, she gave her audience what they paid for but before she came out her choice of drugs starting taking a toll on her which gave outsiders looking in something to talk about. Throughout her years of making music and going on tour; When she would perform instead of getting a standing ovation she started getting booed because her performance was not what people paid for. England April 2010 CNN live) After her performance in England everyone knew that her drug use turned into drug abuse which led to questions and interviews. When she was interviewed by (Sawyer 2002 ABC) she talked about several drugs that she and her husband did together everyone remembers that interview because she was high and her voice was hoarse. During her interview she admitted to using cocaine and marijuana then was asked about using Crack Cocaine she stated that â€Å"Crack was Whack† and she made to much money to smoke such a cheap drug (Houston 2002 ABC interview). Everyone started saying that Bobby Brown was the one that introduced her to drugs but no one knew that she partied just as much as he did Being able to act and sing was a gift that everyone wanted a lot of young female artist looked up to her because her voice was so powerful and strong. As the years past by Whitney started getting tired in 2004 she and her family took a trip to Lake Tiberius to cleanse her soul she got baptized. Whitney tried to gain her strength back because she knew she was letting her fans down not only her fans her mother and daughter as well she knew it was time for her to make a comeback and that is what is did but she may have done it a little too late. When Whitney returned to the States, she started on her new journey with just her and Bobbi Kristina. The struggles of life and the drug abuse led to violence from husband Bobby Brown that led to several court dates and nights in jail but through all her abuse she stood by her husband until she was tired of living that way as well. In October 2006 she filed for divorce which did not get finalized until April 2007 and things started to go back to normal she contacted Clive told him she was ready to hit the studio and do what she loved best and was singing. Whitney started working her project which was released Sept. 2009 â€Å"I look to you† and she even got back in the movies with the remake of Sparkle which comes out Aug. 17, 2012 she look so healthy in front of the camera but she only wanted her fans not to worry about her so putting on a smile for them as well as her daughter is what she did. After a while, she was using drugs once again but she did not let that stop her from performing she appeared on the BET Awards in 2010 and she also performed on Xfactor. Oprah did an interview with Whitney in 2010 she talked about her struggles and how her daughter stuck by her every step of the way. During her interview, she stated how she was able to set the devil free and she talked about how happy she was to be singing and giving her fans back the love that some gave to her. Being a celebrity is not an easy life you have your struggles and you are going to hit rock bottom sometimes you can pull yourself out before it is too late other times you can’t and you end up with no career or something worst like death. Everyone talked about Whitney but no one really knew what was going on because we are all on the outside looking in she gave us the basics of what she wanted us to know some stood by her while other talked down on her. Being off and on with drugs and dealing with the struggles throughout her legacy, on February 11th 2012 Whitney Houston passed away at the age of forty eight. I enjoyed her good her bad and the ugly because she was fairly misunderstood. Many of her fans including myself find it difficult at times because she seemed to be doing well. Whitney Houston will always be remembered through her voice, and her beautiful heart. I love her good, bad, and ugly because she was human and I was taught to never judge a book by its cover you have to learn how to read that person and that is what I done throughout my years of following her career. Everyone has a number no one knows when it will be their time and for what it’s worth I will cherish her legacy because I have a heart and now she lives in mine

The Tech That Ignited the Communication Revolution

The Tech That Ignited the Communication Revolution The 19th century saw a revolution in communications systems that brought the world closer together. Innovations like the telegraph allowed information to travel over vast distances in little or no time, while institutions such as the postal system made it easier than ever for people to conduct business and connect with others. Postal System People have been using delivery services to exchange correspondence and share information since at least 2400 B.C. when the ancient Egyptian pharaohs used couriers to spread royal decrees throughout their territory. Evidence indicates similar systems were used in ancient China and Mesopotamia as well.   The United States established its postal system in 1775 before independence had been declared. Benjamin Franklin was appointed the nations first postmaster general. The founding fathers believed so strongly in a postal system that they included provisions for one in the Constitution. Rates were established for the delivery of letters and newspapers based on delivery distance, and postal clerks would note the amount on the envelope. A schoolmaster from England, Rowland Hill, invented the adhesive postage stamp in 1837, an act for which he later was knighted.Hill also created the first uniform postage rates that were based on weight rather than size. Hills stamps made the prepayment of mail postage possible and practical. In 1840, Great Britain issued its first stamp, the Penny Black, featuring the image of Queen Victoria. The U.S. Postal Service issued its first stamp in 1847. Telegraph The electrical telegraph was invented in 1838 by a Samuel Morse, an educator and inventor who made a hobby of experimenting with electricity. Morse wasnt working in a vacuum; the principal of sending electrical current via wires over long distances had been perfected in the previous decade. But it took Morse, who developed a means of transmitting coded signals in the form of dots and dashes, to make the technology practical.   Morse patented his device in 1840, and three years later Congress granted him $30,000 to build the first telegraph line from Washington D.C. to Baltimore.  On May 24, 1844, Morse transmitted his famous message, What hath God wrought?, from the U.S. Supreme Court in Washington, D.C., to the B O Railroad Depot in Baltimore. The growth of the telegraph system piggybacked on the expansion of the nations railway system, with lines often following rail routes and telegraph offices established at train stations large and small across the nation. The telegraph would remain the primary means of long-distance communication until the emergence of the radio and telephone in the early 20th century. Improved Newspaper Presses Newspapers as we know them have been printed regularly in the U.S. since the 1720s when James Franklin (Ben Franklins older brother) began publishing the New England Courant in Massachusetts. But early newspaper had to be printed in manual presses, a time-consuming process that made it difficult to produce more than a few hundred copies. The introduction of the steam-powered printing press in London in 1814 changed that, allowing publishers to print more than 1,000 newspapers per hour. In 1845, the American inventor Richard March Hoe introduced the rotary press, which could print up to 100,000 copies per hour. Coupled with other refinements in printing, the introduction of the telegraph, a sharp drop in the cost of newsprint, and an increase in literacy, newspapers could be found in nearly every town and city in the U.S. by the mid-1800s. Phonograph Thomas Edison is credited with inventing the phonograph, which could both record sound and play it back, in 1877. The device converted sound waves into vibrations that in turn were engraved on a metal (later wax) cylinder using a needle. Edison refined his invention and began marketing it to the public in 1888. But early phonographs were prohibitively expensive, and wax cylinders were both fragile and hard to mass produce. By the turn of the 20th century, the cost of photographs and cylinders had dropped considerably and they became more commonplace in American homes. The disc-shaped record we know today was introduced by Emile Berliner in Europe in 1889 and appeared in the U.S. in 1894. In 1925, the first industry standard for playing speeds was set at 78 revolutions per minute, and the record disc became the dominant format.   Photography The first photographs were produced by Frenchman Louis Daguerre in 1839, using silver-plated metal sheets treated with light-sensitive chemicals to produce an image. The images were incredibly detailed and durable, but the photochemical process was very complicated and time-consuming. By the time of the Civil War, the advent of portable cameras and new chemical processes allowed photographers like Matthew Brady to document the conflict and average Americans to experience the conflict for themselves. In 1883, George Eastman of Rochester, New York, had perfected a means of putting film on a roll, making the process of photography more portable and less expensive. The introduction of his Kodak No. 1 camera in 1888 put cameras in the hands of the masses. It came pre-loaded with film and when users had finished shooting, they sent the camera to Kodak, which processed their prints and sent the camera back, loaded with fresh film. Motion Pictures A number of people contributed innovations that led to the motion picture we know today. One of the first was the British-American photographer Eadweard Muybridge, who used an elaborate system of still cameras and trip wires to create a series of motion studies in the 1870s. George Eastmans innovative celluloid roll film in the 1880s was another crucial step, allowing large quantities of film to be packaged in compact containers.   Using Eastmans film,  Thomas Edison and William Dickinson had invented a means of projecting motion picture film called the Kinetoscope in 1891. But the Kinetoscope could only be viewed by one person at a time. The first motion pictures that could be projected and shown to groups of people were perfected by the French brothers Auguste and Louis Lumià ¨re. In 1895, the brothers demonstrated their Cinematographe with a series of 50-second films that documented everyday activities like workers leaving their factory in Lyon, France. By the 1900s, motion pictures had become a common form of entertainment in vaudeville halls throughout the U.S., and a new industry was born to mass-produce films as a means of entertainment. Sources Alterman, Eric. Out of Print. NewYorker.com. 31 March 2008.Cook, David A., and Sklar, Robert. History of the Motion Picture. Brittanica.com. 10 November 2017.Longley, Robert. About the U.S. Postal Service. ThoughtCo.com. 21 July 2017.McGillem, Clare. Telegraph. Brittanica.com. 7 December 2016.Potter, John, U.S. Postmaster General. The United States Postal Service An American History 1775 – 2006. USPS.com. 2006.History of the Cylinder Phonograph. Library of Congress. Accessed 8 March 2018.