The Mojave Desert is a desert in the rain shadow of the southern Sierra Nevada mountains and Transverse Ranges in the Southwestern United States. It is named for the indigenous Mojave people. It is located primarily in southeastern California and southwestern Nevada, with small portions extending into Arizona and Utah.
George Kuchar was an American underground film director and video artist, known for his "low-fi" aesthetic.
Nicholas Peter Conte, known professionally as Richard Conte, was an American actor. He appeared in more than 100 films from 1939 through the 1970s, including I'll Cry Tomorrow, Ocean's 11, and The Godfather.
Scott O'Dell was an American writer of 26 novels for young people, along with three novels for adults and four nonfiction books. He wrote historical fiction, primarily, including several children's novels about historical California and Mexico. For his contribution as a children's writer he received the biennial, international Hans Christian Andersen Award in 1972, the highest recognition available to creators of children's books. He received The University of Southern Mississippi Medallion in 1976 and the Catholic Libraries Association Regina Medal in 1978.
Iram of the Pillars, also called "Irum", "Irem", "Erum", "Ubar", or the "City of the pillars", is considered a lost city, region or tribe mentioned in the Quran.
Newberry Springs is an unincorporated community in the western Mojave Desert of Southern California, located at the foot of the Newberry Mountains in San Bernardino County, California, United States. Newberry Spring is a spring that in the 19th century supplied water to the local Santa Fe Railway and originally was a camping place. The population at the 2000 census was 2,895.
Joseph Smeaton Chase was an English-born American author, traveler, and photographer. He has become an integral part of California literature: revered for his poignant descriptions of California landscapes. An Englishman who toured the Santa Rosa and San Jacinto mountains in 1915 with his burro, Mesquit, Chase published poetic diary entries detailing his escapades through the Sierra Nevada mountains and California desert.
The fifteenth season of Saturday Night Live, an American sketch comedy series, originally aired in the United States on NBC between September 30, 1989 and May 19, 1990.
The twelfth season of Saturday Night Live, an American sketch comedy series, originally aired in the United States on NBC between October 11, 1986 and May 23, 1987.
The first season of Saturday Night Live, an American sketch comedy series, originally aired in the United States on NBC from October 11, 1975, to July 31, 1976. The show served as a vehicle that launched to stardom the careers of a number of major comedians and actors, including Chevy Chase, John Belushi, and Dan Aykroyd.
Greenwood Publishing Group, Inc. (GPG), also known as ABC-Clio/Greenwood, is an educational and academic publisher which is today part of ABC-Clio. Established in 1967 as Greenwood Press, Inc. and based in Westport, Connecticut, GPG publishes reference works under its Greenwood Press imprint, and scholarly, professional, and general interest books under its related imprint, Praeger Publishers. Also part of GPG is Libraries Unlimited, which publishes professional works for librarians and teachers.
James Thomas Flexner was an American historian and biographer best known for the four-volume biography of George Washington that earned him a National Book Award in Biography and a special Pulitzer Prize. His one-volume abridgment, Washington: the Indispensable Man (1974) was the basis of two television miniseries, George Washington (1984) and George Washington II: The Forging of a Nation (1986), starring Barry Bostwick as Washington.
George Reynolds Hedges was a lawyer with a list of celebrity clients including Mel Gibson and David Lynch who gained attention in the field of archaeology for what at the time was thought to be the discovery of the ancient city of Ubar.
Jonathan Miles is an American journalist and novelist. His debut novel, Dear American Airlines, was published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt in 2008. The novel, written in the form of a complaint letter to the titular airline, was reviewed by Richard Russo in The New York Times Book Review. His second novel, Want Not, was published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt in 2013.
Atlantis of the Sands refers to a legendary lost city in the southern deserts of the Arabian Peninsula, thought to have been destroyed by a natural disaster or as a punishment by God. The search for it was popularised by the 1992 book Atlantis of the Sands – The Search for the Lost City of Ubar by Ranulph Fiennes. Apart from the English name, coined by T. E. Lawrence, the city is commonly also called Ubar, Wabar or Iram.
Michael Anthony DiSpezio is an American author, television host and stage edutainment performer who specializes in science and science education. He is known for his quick wit and playful style. Along with infusing his performances with humor and theatrics, he often engages audiences in hands-on activities, puzzle solving and 3D illusions.
Donkey Punch is a crime novel by Scottish author Ray Banks. It was first published in the United Kingdom by Edinburgh-based company Birlinn Ltd in 2007, and again by the same publisher in 2008. In the United States it was published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt in 2009, titled Sucker Punch, and was reprinted in 2011.
K. C. Cole is an American science writer, author, radio commentator and professor emerita at the USC Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism. She has covered science for The Los Angeles Times since 1994, as well as writing for many other publications, and has been described as "the queen of the metaphor in science writing".
Robert Cyril Stebbins was an American herpetologist and illustrator known for his field guides and popular books as well as his studies of reptiles and amphibians. His Field Guide to Western Reptiles and Amphibians, first published in 1966, is still considered the definitive reference of its kind, owing to both the quality of the illustrations and the comprehensiveness of the text. A professor of zoology at the University of California, Berkeley, for over 30 years, he was the first curator of herpetology at the Museum of Vertebrate Zoology, a 1949 Guggenheim fellow, and author of over 70 scientific articles. His discovery of the ring species phenomenon in Ensatina salamanders is now a textbook example of speciation, and he performed extensive research on the parietal eye of reptiles. He produced nature films, supported science education in primary grades, and organized conservation efforts that aided in the passing of the 1994 California Desert Protection Act. After retirement he continued to paint, collect field notes, and write books. Stebbins is commemorated in the scientific names of three species: Batrachoseps stebbinsi, the Tehachapi slender salamander; Anniella stebbinsi, a legless lizard; and Ambystoma tigrinum stebbinsi, the endangered Sonora tiger salamander.
Foster Andersen was an American football player and coach. An accomplished athlete at UCLA, he was drafted by the Los Angeles Rams in 1962 NFL Draft. Andersen embarked on a long coaching tenure in the junior college, college and National Football League (NFL) ranks. He served as the head football coach at Cal State Los Angeles from 1971 to 1973, compiling a record of 9–21–1. He also had coaching stints at University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), University of Southern California (USC), and with the Los Angeles Rams.
