Alaska

Alaska the largest state in the United States by area. It is situated in the northwest extremity of the North American continent, with Canada to the east, the Arctic Ocean to the north, and the Pacific Ocean to the west and south, with Russia further west across the Bering Strait. Alaska is the 4th least populous and the least densely populated of the 50 United States. Approximately half of Alaska's 722,718 residents live within the Anchorage metropolitan area.

Alaska was purchased from Russia on March 30, 1867, for $7.2 million ($120 million in today's dollars) at approximately two cents per acre ($4.74/km²). The land went through several administrative changes before becoming an organized (or incorporated) territory on May 11, 1912, and the 49th state of the U.S. on January 3, 1959.

The name "Alaska" (Аляска) was already introduced in the Russian colonial period, when it was used only for the peninsula and is derived from the Aleut alaxsxaq, meaning "the mainland" or, more literally, "the object towards which the action of the sea is directed". It is also known as Alyeska, the "great land", an Aleut word derived from the same root.

Ed Sheeran

Edward Christopher "Ed" Sheeran (born 17 February 1991) is an English singer-songwriter who is currently signed to Asylum / Atlantic Records. broke through commercially in June 2011, when his debut single "The A Team" debuted at number 3 on the UK chart.

Sheeran was born in Halifax, West Yorkshire to Irish, before moving to Framlingham, Suffolk; he is a cousin of TV journalist and presenter Gordon Burns.^[6] He learned guitar at a very young age, and began writing songs during his time at Thomas Mills High School in Framlingham. His early childhood memories, referred to in a interview on the Zane Lowe show, included listening to Van Morrison on his countless trips to London with his parents and going to an intimate gig with Damien Rice in Ireland when he was 11. He also opened for Nizlopi in Norwich in April 2008 after being one of their guitar technicians.

Sheeran at Academy 1, Manchester Dot to Dot Festival on Monday 30 May 2011

Sheeran began recording in 2005, which led to the release of his first EP, The Orange Room EP. Sheeran also released 2 albums, a self-titled one in 2006 and Want Some? in 2007. He moved to London in 2008 to play gigs, starting off in very small venues, playing every day, to as little as five people. In 2008, he auditioned for the ITV series Britannia High.^{[citation needed]}

In 2009, Sheeran played 312 gigs. He said that he read an interview with James Morrison that said that Morrison had done 200 gigs in a year, and Sheeran wanted to beat him on this number. Also in 2009, he released another EP, You Need Me, just before going on tour with Just Jack. He also did a few collaborations with Leddra Chapman, including Cee Lo Green's F**k You. In February 2010 Sheeran posted a video through SB.TV, which led to mainstream rapper Example asking Sheeran to tour with him. Also in February 2010 he released his critically acclaimed Loose Change EP, which featured his later debut single "The A Team".

In April 2010, after leaving his old management company, Sheeran bought a ticket to Los Angeles, with no contacts other than one poetry night. He played open mic nights all over the city, before his talent was spotted at The Foxxhole by Jamie Foxx, who was so impressed that he offered Sheeran the use of his recording studio and the run of his Hollywood home for the rest of his stay. Throughout 2010, Sheeran began to be seen by more people over the internet through YouTube and his fan-base grew, with him also getting credit from The Independent newspaper, England football captain Rio Ferdinand and Elton John.^[10] Sheeran also self-released two other EPs in 2010; Ed Sheeran: Live at the Bedford and Songs I Wrote With Amy, which is a collection of love songs he wrote in Wales with fellow singer songwriter Amy Wadge.

Jimmy Page

James Patrick "Jimmy" Page, OBE (born 9 January 1944) is an English guitarist, songwriter, and record producer. He began his career as a studio session guitarist in London and was subsequently a member of The Yardbirds from 1966 to 1968, after which he founded the English rock band Led Zeppelin.

Jimmy Page is viewed by critics, fans and fellow musicians alike as one of the most influential and important guitarists and songwriters in rock music.^[3][4][5] Rolling Stone magazine has described him as "the pontiff of power riffing & probably the most digitally sampled artist in pop today after James Brown."^[6] In 2010, Jimmy Page was ranked No.2 in Gibson's list of "Top 50 Guitarists of All Time"^[7] and, in 2007, No.4 on Classic Rock Magazine's "100 Wildest Guitar Heroes".^[8] Page was ranked third in Rolling Stone magazine's list of the "100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time" in 2011.^[9] He has been inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame twice; once as a member of The Yardbirds (1992), and once as a member of Led Zeppelin (1995).

Levis

Levi Strauss & Co. known as LS&CO or simply Levi's, is a privately held American clothing company known worldwide for its Levi's brand of denim jeans. It was founded in 1853 when Levi Strauss came from Buttenheim, Bavaria, to San Francisco, California to open a west coast branch of his brothers' New York dry goods business. In 1873 Levi Strauss and tailor Jacob Davis received a U.S. patent to make the first riveted men's work pants out of denim: the first blue jeans. The company briefly experimented (in the 1970s) with a public stock listing, but remains owned and controlled by descendants and relatives of Levi Strauss's four nephews. The company's corporate headquarters is located at Levi's Plaza in San Francisco.

Led Zeppelin

Led Zeppelin were an English rock band, active in the late 1960s and throughout the 1970s. Formed as the New Yardbirds in 1968, the band consisted of guitarist Jimmy Page, singer Robert Plant, bassist/keyboardist John Paul Jones, and drummer John Bonham. They are widely considered to be one of the most successful, innovative and influential rock groups in the history of music.

After changing their name, the band signed a favourable deal with Atlantic Records that allowed them considerable artistic freedom. Led Zeppelin disliked the releasing of tracks as singles, preferring their albums to be viewed as indivisible, whole listening experiences, helping to promote the concept of album-orientated rock. Their first two albums, with their heavy, guitar-driven blues rock sound, led to Led Zeppelin being regularly cited as one of the progenitors of heavy metal and hard rock, even though the band's individualistic style drew from varied sources and transcends any single music genre. Their next two albums incorporated wider musical influences, particularly from folk music; the fourth, untitled album, which featured the track "Stairway to Heaven", is among the most popular and influential works in rock music, and it cemented the status of the group as "superstars". Subsequent albums saw greater musical experimentation and were accompanied by record-breaking tours, which, like the group's previous tours, earned them a reputation for excess. Although they remained commercially and critically successful, in the later 1970s the band's output and touring schedule were limited by the personal difficulties and circumstances of the members. Led Zeppelin disbanded following Bonham's sudden death in 1980.

Since 1980, the surviving members have pursued solo careers and have been involved in a series of collaborations and one-off reunions. In 2007, 27 years after the group disbanded, the surviving members of Led Zeppelin reunited (along with John Bonham's son, Jason) for the Ahmet Ertegun Tribute Concert at The O2 Arena in London. The band were honoured with the "Best Live Act" prize for their one-off reunion at MOJO Awards 2008, where they were described as the "greatest rock and roll band of all time".

Led Zeppelin are one of the best-selling music artists—various sources estimate the group's sales at more than 200 or 300 million albums worldwide. Their 111.5 million certified units in the United States rank them as the second-best-selling band in the US. Each of their nine studio albums reached the top 10 of the Billboard album chart in the US, with six reaching the number-one spot.^[3] Rolling Stone magazine described them as "the heaviest band of all time","the biggest band of the '70s"^[5] and "unquestionably one of the most enduring bands in rock history"., the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame stated that in the 1970s the band were "as influential in that decade as The Beatles were in the prior one".

Google

Google is an American multinational corporation which provides Internet-related products and services, including Internet search, cloud computing, software and advertising technologies. Advertising revenues from AdWords generate almost all of the company's profits.

The company was founded by Larry Page and Sergey Brin while both attended Stanford University. Together, Brin and Page own about 16 percent of the company's stake. Google was first incorporated as a privately held company on September 4, 1998, and its initial public offering followed on August 19, 2004. The company's mission statement from the outset was "to organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful", and the company's unofficial slogan is "Don't be evil".^[9][10] In 2006, the company moved to its current headquarters in Mountain View, California.

Rapid growth since incorporation has triggered a chain of products, acquisitions, and partnerships beyond the company's core web search engine. The company offers online productivity software including email, an office suite, and social networking. Google's products extend to the desktop as well, with applications for web browsing, organizing & editing photos, and instant messaging. Google leads the development of the Android mobile operating system, as well as the Google Chrome OS browser-only operating system,^[11] found on specialized netbooks called Chromebooks.

Google has been estimated to run over one million servers in data centers around the world, and process over one billion search requests^[13] and about twenty-four petabytes of user-generated data every day.

As of September 2009 Alexa listed the main U.S.-focused google.com site as the Internet's most visited website, and numerous international Google sites as being in the top hundred, as well as several other Google-owned sites such as YouTube, Blogger and Orkut.^[18] Google also ranks number two in the BrandZ brand equity database.^[19] The dominant market position of Google's services has led to criticism of the company over issues including privacy, copyright, and censorship.