Paris

Paris (UK: /ˈpærɪs/ PARR-iss; US: ⁱ/ˈpɛərɪs/ PAIR-iss; French: [paʁi]) is the capital and most populous city of France. Situated on the Seine River, in the north of the country, it is in the centre of the Île-de-France region, also known as the région parisienne, "Paris Region". The City of Paris has an area of 105 km² (41 mi²) and a population of 2,241,346 (2014 estimate) within its administrative borders essentially unchanged since 1860.

Since the 19th century, the built-up area of Paris has grown far beyond its administrative borders; together with its suburbs, the whole agglomeration has a population of 10,550,350 (Jan. 2012 census).Paris' metropolitan area spans most of the Paris region and has a population of 12,341,418 (Jan. 2012 census), or one-fifth of the population of France. The administrative region covers 12,012 km² (4,638 mi²), with approximately 12 million inhabitants as of 2014, and has its own regional council and president.

Paris was founded in the 3rd century BC by a Celtic people called the Parisii, who gave the city its name. By the 12th century, Paris was the largest city in the western world, a prosperous trading centre, and the home of the University of Paris, one of the first in Europe. In the 18th century, it was the centre stage for the French Revolution, and became an important centre of finance, commerce, fashion, science, and the arts, a position it still retains today.

Arc de Triomphe

The Arc de Triomphe de l'Étoile (French pronunciation: [aʁk də tʁijɔ̃f də letwal], Triumphal Arch of the Star) is one of the most famous monuments in Paris. It stands in the centre of the Place Charles de Gaulle (originally named Place de l'Étoile), at the western end of the Champs-Élysées. It should not be confused with a smaller arch, the Arc de Triomphe du Carrousel, which stands west of the Louvre. The Arc de Triomphe honours those who fought and died for France in the French Revolutionary and the Napoleonic Wars, with the names of all French victories and generals inscribed on its inner and outer surfaces. Beneath its vault lies the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier from World War I.

The Arc de Triomphe is the linchpin of the Axe historique (historic axis) – a sequence of monuments and grand thoroughfares on a route which runs from the courtyard of the Louvre to the Grande Arche de la Défense. The monument was designed by Jean Chalgrin in 1806 and its iconographic program pits heroically nude French youths against bearded Germanic warriors in chain mail. It set the tone for public monuments with triumphant patriotic messages.

Champs-Élysées

The Avenue des Champs-Élysées (French pronunciation: [av(ə).ny de ʃɑ̃z‿e.li.ze]) is a boulevard in the 8th arrondissement of Paris, 1.9 kilometres (1.2 mi) long and 70 metres (230 ft) wide, which runs between the Place de la Concorde and the Place Charles de Gaulle, where the Arc de Triomphe is located. It is known for its theatres, cafés and luxury shops, and for the military parade that takes place each year on the avenue on 14 July to celebrate Bastille Day. The name is French for the Elysian Fields, the paradise for dead heroes in Greek mythology. The French proudly nickname this world-famous avenue "la plus belle avenue du monde" ("the world's most beautiful avenue").

Description

The avenue runs for 1.91 km (1.18 mi) through the 8th arrondissement in northwestern Paris, from the Place de la Concorde in the east, with the Obelisk of Luxor, to the Place Charles de Gaulle (formerly the Place de l'Étoile) in the west, location of the Arc de Triomphe. The Champs-Élysées forms part of the Axe historique.

New Year

New Year is the time at which a new calendar year begins and the calendar's year count increments by one. Many cultures celebrate the event in some manner. The New Year of the Gregorian calendar, today mostly in use, falls on 1 January (New Year's Day), as was the case both in the old Roman calendar (at least after about 713 BCE) and in the Julian calendar that succeeded it. The order of months was January to December in the Old Roman calendar during the reign of King Numa Pompilius in about 700 BCE, according to Plutarch and Macrobius, and has been in continuous use since that time. Many countries, such as the Czech Republic, Italy, Spain, the UK, and the United States, mark 1 January as a national holiday.

During the Middle Ages in western Europe, while the Julian calendar was still in use, authorities moved New Year's Day variously, depending upon locale, to one of several other days, among them: 1 March, 25 March, Easter, 1 September, and 25 December. These New Year's Day changes generally reverted to using January 1 before or during the various local adoptions of the Gregorian calendar, beginning in 1582. The change from March 25 – Lady Day, one of the four quarter days – to January 1 took place in Scotland in 1600, before the ascension of James VI of Scotland to the throne of England in 1603 and well before the formation of the Kingdom of Great Britain in 1707. In England and Wales (and in all British dominions, including Britain's American colonies), 1751 began on March 25 and lasted 282 days, and 1752 began on January 1. For more information about the changeover from the Julian calendar to the Gregorian calendar and the effect on the dating of historical events etc., see Old Style and New Style dates.

Joe Dassin

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Joseph Ira "Joe" Dassin (5 November 1938 – 20 August 1980) was an American-born French singer-songwriter.

Early life

Dassin was born in New York city to American film director Jules Dassin (1911–2008) and Béatrice Launer (1913–1994), a New York-born violinist, who after graduating from a Hebrew High School in the Bronx studied with the British violinist Harold Berkely at the Juilliard School of Music. His father was of Ukrainian- and Polish-Jewish extraction, his maternal grandfather was an Austrian Jewish immigrant, who arrived in New York with his family at age 11.

He began his childhood first in New York City and Los Angeles. However, after his father fell victim to the Hollywood blacklist in 1950, he and his family moved from place to place across Europe.

Dassin studied at the International School of Geneva and the Institut Le Rosey in Switzerland, and graduated in Grenoble. Dassin moved back to the United States, where he attended the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, Michigan from 1957 to 1963, winning an undergraduate Hopwood Award for fiction in 1958 and earning a Bachelor of Arts in 1961 and a Master of Arts in 1963, both in Anthropology.