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Piaggio Vespa
Vespa () is an Italian brand of scooters and mopeds manufactured by Piaggio. The name means wasp in Italian. The Vespa has evolved from a single model motor scooter manufactured in 1946 by Piaggio & Co. S.p.A. of Pontedera, Italy, to a full line of scooters and one of seven companies today owned by Piaggio. From their inception, Vespa scooters have been known for a painted, pressed steel body which combines, in a unified structure: a full cowling enclosure around the engine concealing dirt or grease, a flat floor panel protecting the feet, and a prominent front fairing to divert wind and rain. History After World War II, in light of its agreement to cease war activities with the Allies, Italy had its aircraft industry severely restricted in both capability and capacity. Piaggio emerged from the conflict with its Pontedera bomber plane plant demolished by bombing. Italy's crippled economy, and the disastrous state of its roads, were not immediately conducive to the redev ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Enrico Piaggio
Enrico Piaggio (22 February 1905 – 16 October 1965) was an Italian industrialist. Life Piaggio was born in Pegli, which at that time was an independent municipality. His father was Rinaldo Piaggio, the founder of Piaggio. He graduated with a degree in economics from University of Genoa in 1927, and would later receive an honorary degree in engineering from the University of Pisa, in 1951. Piaggio and his brother Armando inherited the family engineering business on their father's death in 1938. This had initially manufactured rolling-stock but had moved into aircraft production by the outbreak of World War II. Their factory was seriously damaged by Allied bombing and was unable to continue aircraft production when the war ended. Enrico Piaggio took the decision to diversify into manufacturing Vespa scooters. This proved to be a far-sighted move, as Piaggio would eventually become one of the biggest manufacturers of two-wheel vehicles in the world. Piaggio had also be ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Antenna (biology)
An antenna (plural: antennae) is one of a pair of appendages used for Sensory system, sensing in arthropods. Antennae are sometimes referred to as ''feelers''. Antennae are connected to the first one or two Segmentation (biology), segments of the arthropod head. They vary widely in form but are always made of one or more jointed segments. While they are typically sensory organs, the exact nature of what they sense and how they sense it is not the same in all groups. Functions may variously include sensing tactition, touch, air motion, heat, vibration (sound), and especially insect olfaction, smell or gustation, taste. Antennae are sometimes modified for other purposes, such as mating, brooding, swimming, and even anchoring the arthropod to a substrate (biology), substrate. Larval arthropods have antennae that differ from those of the adult. Many crustaceans, for example, have free-swimming larvae that use their antennae for swimming. Antennae can also locate other group members i ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
John Wayne
Marion Robert Morrison (May 26, 1907 – June 11, 1979), known professionally as John Wayne, was an American actor. Nicknamed "Duke", he became a Pop icon, popular icon through his starring roles in films which were produced during Hollywood's Golden Age, especially in Western film, Western and war film, war movies. His career flourished from the silent film era of the 1920s through the American New Wave, as he appeared in a total of 179 film and television productions. He was among the top box-office draws for three decades and appeared with many other important Hollywood stars of his era. In 1999, the American Film Institute selected Wayne as one of the AFI's 100 Years...100 Stars, greatest male stars of classic American cinema. Wayne was born in Winterset, Iowa, but grew up in Southern California. After losing his Athletic scholarship, football scholarship to the University of Southern California due to a bodysurfing accident, he began working for the 20th Century Fox, Fox ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Roman Holiday (1953 Film)
''Roman Holiday'' is a 1953 American romantic comedy film directed and produced by William Wyler. It stars Audrey Hepburn as a princess out to see Rome on her own and Gregory Peck as a reporter. Hepburn won an Academy Award for Best Actress for her performance; the film also won the Academy Award for Best Story and the Academy Award for Best Costume Design. The script was written by Dalton Trumbo and John Dighton, though with Trumbo on the Hollywood blacklist, he did not receive a credit, and Ian McLellan Hunter front (identity), fronted for him. Trumbo's name was reinstated when the film was released on DVD in 2003, and on December 19, 2011, full credit for Trumbo's work was restored. Blacklisted director Bernard Vorhaus worked on the film as an assistant director under a pseudonym. The film was shot at the Cinecittà studios and location shooting, on location around Rome during the "Hollywood on the Tiber" era. The film opened the 14th Venice International Film Festival wit ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Gregory Peck
Eldred Gregory Peck (April 5, 1916 – June 12, 2003) was an American actor and one of the most popular film stars from the 1940s to the 1970s. In 1999, the American Film Institute named Peck the AFI's 100 Years...100 Stars, 12th-greatest male star of Classic Hollywood Cinema. After studying at the Neighborhood Playhouse with Sanford Meisner, Peck began appearing in stage productions, acting in over 50 plays and three Broadway theatre, Broadway productions. He first gained critical success in ''The Keys of the Kingdom (film), The Keys of the Kingdom'' (1944), a John M. Stahl–directed drama that earned him his first Academy Award nomination. He starred in a series of successful films, including romantic-drama ''The Valley of Decision'' (1944), Alfred Hitchcock's ''Spellbound (1945 film), Spellbound'' (1945), and family film ''The Yearling (1946 film), The Yearling'' (1946). He encountered lukewarm commercial reviews at the end of the 1940s, his performances including ''The Para ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Audrey Hepburn
Audrey Kathleen Hepburn ( Ruston; 4 May 1929 – 20 January 1993) was a British actress. Recognised as a film and fashion icon, she was ranked by the American Film Institute as the third-greatest female screen legend from the Classical Hollywood cinema, inducted into the International Best Dressed Hall of Fame List, and is one of a few entertainers who have won competitive Academy, Emmy, Grammy and Tony Awards. Born into an aristocratic family in Ixelles, Brussels, Hepburn spent parts of her childhood in Belgium, the UK, and the Netherlands. She attended boarding school in Kent from 1936 to 1939. With the outbreak of World War II, she returned to the Netherlands. During the war, Hepburn studied ballet at the Arnhem Conservatory, and by 1944 she was performing ballet to raise money to support the Dutch resistance. She studied ballet with Sonia Gaskell in Amsterdam beginning in 1945 and with Marie Rambert in London from 1948. Hepburn began performing as a chorus girl in ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cinema Of The United States
The cinema of the United States, primarily associated with major film studios collectively referred to as Hollywood, has significantly influenced the global film industry since the early 20th century. Classical Hollywood cinema, a filmmaking style developed in the 1910s, continues to shape many American films today. While French filmmakers Auguste and Louis Lumière are often credited with modern cinema's origins, American filmmaking quickly rose to global dominance. As of 2017, more than 600 English-language films were released annually in the U.S., making it the fourth-largest producer of films, trailing only India, Japan, and China. Although the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand also produce English-language films, they are not directly part of the Hollywood system. Due to this global reach, Hollywood is frequently regarded as a transnational cinema with some films released in multiple language versions, such as Spanish and French. Contemporary Hollyw ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ford Motor Company
Ford Motor Company (commonly known as Ford) is an American multinational corporation, multinational automobile manufacturer headquartered in Dearborn, Michigan, United States. It was founded by Henry Ford and incorporated on June 16, 1903. The company sells automobiles and commercial vehicles under the List of Ford vehicles, Ford brand, and luxury cars under its Lincoln Motor Company, Lincoln brand. The company is listed on the New York Stock Exchange under the single-letter ticker symbol F and is controlled by the Ford family (Michigan), Ford family. They have minority ownership but a plurality of the voting power. Ford introduced methods for large-scale manufacturing of cars and large-scale management of an industrial workforce using elaborately engineered manufacturing sequences typified by moving assembly lines. By 1914, these methods were known around the world as Fordism. Ford's former British subsidiaries Jaguar Cars, Jaguar and Land Rover, acquired in 1989 and 2000, r ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Magneto
A magneto is an electrical generator that uses permanent magnets to produce periodic pulses of alternating current. Unlike a dynamo, a magneto does not contain a commutator to produce direct current. It is categorized as a form of alternator, although it is usually considered distinct from most other alternators, which use field coils rather than permanent magnets. Hand-cranked magneto generators were used to provide ringing current in telephone systems. Magnetos were also adapted to produce pulses of high voltage in the ignition systems of some gasoline-powered internal combustion engines to provide power to the spark plugs. Use of such ignition magnetos for ignition is now limited mainly to engines without a low-voltage electrical system, such as lawnmowers and chainsaws, and to aircraft engines, in which keeping the ignition independent of the rest of the electrical system ensures that the engine continues running in the event of alternator or battery failure. For redund ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Twistgrip
A twistgrip is a handle that can be twisted to operate a control. It is commonly found as a motorcycle's right handlebar grip to control the throttle, but is sometimes found elsewhere, such as on a bicycle as a gearshift, and in helicopters. History The first use of the twist grip throttle control was on the Roper steam velocipede of 1867-69. Rather than a sleeve that rotated around the handlebar, Sylvester H. Roper's steam motorcycle's entire handlebar rotated, with a dual mode operation. When rotated forward it opened the throttle, and when rotated backwards it applied the spoon brake. '' Motorcycle Consumer News'' design columnist Glynn Kerr said that pioneering this technology was a point in favor of the Roper's precedence as the first motorcycle, in response to '' Cycle World'' Technical Editor Kevin Cameron's position that the 1885 Daimler ''Reitwagen'' was more deserving because it used the more successful technology, internal combustion rather than steam. The de ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Two-stroke Engine
A two-stroke (or two-stroke cycle) engine is a type of internal combustion engine that completes a Thermodynamic power cycle, power cycle with two strokes of the piston, one up and one down, in one revolution of the crankshaft in contrast to a four-stroke engine which requires four strokes of the piston in two crankshaft revolutions to complete a power cycle. During the stroke from bottom dead center to top dead center, the end of the exhaust/intake (or Scavenging (automotive), scavenging) is completed along with the compression of the mixture. The second stroke encompasses the combustion of the mixture, the expansion of the burnt mixture and, near bottom dead center, the beginning of the scavenging flows. Two-stroke engines often have a higher power-to-weight ratio than a four-stroke engine, since their power stroke occurs twice as often. Two-stroke engines can also have fewer moving parts, and thus be cheaper to manufacture and weigh less. In countries and regions with stringe ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
