Washington Referendum 74
Referendum 74 (R-74 or Ref 74) was a Washington state referendum to approve or reject the February 2012 bill that would legalize same-sex marriage in the state. On June 12, 2012, state officials announced that enough signatures in favor of the referendum had been submitted and scheduled the referendum to appear on the ballot in the November 6 general election. The law was upheld by voters in the November 6, 2012 election by a final margin of 7.4% (53.7% approve, 46.3% reject) and the result was certified on December 5. Ballot measure The ballot title read as follows: The following summary accompanied the ballot measure: History Title 26 of the Revised Code of Washington, entitled "domestic relations", governs marriage in Washington state. A 2012 bill, Senate Bill 6239, would legalize same-sex marriage and convert into a marriage on June 30, 2014, any undissolved state registered domestic partnership that does not involve at least one party aged 62 years or older. It ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Steve Ballmer
Steven Anthony Ballmer (; March 24, 1956) is an American businessman and investor who served as chief executive officer of Microsoft from 2000 to 2014. He is the owner of the Los Angeles Clippers of the National Basketball Association (NBA). He is a co-founder of Ballmer Group, a philanthropic investment company. As of May 2025, Bloomberg Billionaires Index estimated his personal wealth at around $151 billion, making him the eighth-richest person in the world, and the Forbes ''Real-Time Billionaires List'' ranked him as the ninth-richest person with a net worth of $118 billion. Ballmer was hired by Bill Gates at Microsoft in 1980, and subsequently left the MBA program at Stanford University. He eventually became president in 1998, and replaced Gates as CEO on January 13, 2000. On February 4, 2014, Ballmer retired as CEO and was replaced by Satya Nadella; Ballmer remained on Microsoft's board of directors until August 19, 2014. Under Ballmer's leadership, a 14-year period, the ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Roman Catholic Archdiocese Of Seattle
The Archdiocese of Seattle () is a Latin Church ecclesiastical territory, or archdiocese, of the Catholic Church in western Washington State in the United States. The diocese was known as the Diocese of Nesqually from 1850 to 1907. The mother church of the archdiocese is St. James Cathedral in Seattle. The former cathedral is the Proto-Cathedral of St. James the Greater in Vancouver. Its archbishop since 2019 is Paul D. Etienne. The archdiocese succeeded to the Diocese of Nesqually headquartered in Vancouver, Washington, established in 1850 as a suffragan diocese of the Archdiocese of Oregon City. In 1903, the episcopal see was moved to Seattle, and the diocese's name was changed to Diocese of Seattle in 1907. The diocese was elevated to metropolitan archdiocesan status in 1951. Ecclesiastical province The Archdiocese of Seattle encompasses 144 parishes west of the Cascade Range. It is the metropolitan archdiocese of two suffragan dioceses: * Diocese of Spokane, with terri ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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National Organization For Marriage
The National Organization for Marriage (NOM) is an American non-profit political organization established to work against the legalization of same-sex marriage in the United States. It was formed in 2007 specifically to pass California Proposition 8, a state prohibition of same-sex marriage. The group has opposed civil union legislation and gay adoption, and has fought against allowing transgender individuals to use bathrooms that accord with their gender identity. Brian S. Brown has served as the group's president since 2010. Leadership NOM's founding board of directors consisted of: * Maggie Gallagher, president * Brian S. Brown, executive director (former executive director of Family Institute of Connecticut) * Robert P. George, chairman of the board * Neil Corkery, treasurer * Chuck Stetson (chairman of the board, Bible Literacy Project) * Ken Von Kohorn (chairman of the board, Family Institute of Connecticut) * Luis Tellez (president, Witherspoon Institute Board o ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Seattle Times
''The Seattle Times'' is an American daily newspaper based in Seattle, Washington. Founded in 1891, ''The Seattle Times'' has the largest circulation of any newspaper in the state of Washington and the Pacific Northwest region. The Seattle Times Company, which owns and publishes the paper, is mostly owned by the Blethen family, which holds 50.5% of the company; the other 49.5% is owned by the McClatchy Company. The Blethen family has owned and operated the newspaper since 1896. ''The Seattle Times'' had a longstanding rivalry with the ''Seattle Post-Intelligencer'' until the latter ceased print publication in 2009. ''The Seattle Times'' has received 11 Pulitzer Prizes and is widely renowned for its investigative journalism. History ''The Seattle Times'' originated as the ''Seattle Press-Times'', a four-page newspaper founded in 1891 with a daily circulation of 3,500, which Maine teacher and attorney Alden J. Blethen bought in 1896. Renamed the ''Seattle Daily Times'', it do ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Barack Obama
Barack Hussein Obama II (born August 4, 1961) is an American politician who was the 44th president of the United States from 2009 to 2017. A member of the Democratic Party, he was the first African American president in American history. Obama previously served as a U.S. senator representing Illinois from 2005 to 2008 and as an Illinois state senator from 1997 to 2004. Born in Honolulu, Hawaii, Obama graduated from Columbia University in 1983 with a Bachelor of Arts degree in political science and later worked as a community organizer in Chicago. In 1988, Obama enrolled in Harvard Law School, where he was the first black president of the ''Harvard Law Review''. He became a civil rights attorney and an academic, teaching constitutional law at the University of Chicago Law School from 1992 to 2004. In 1996, Obama was elected to represent the 13th district in the Illinois Senate, a position he held until 2004, when he successfully ran for the U.S. Senate. In the 2008 pre ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Nordstrom
Nordstrom, Inc. () is an American Luxury goods, luxury department store chain headquartered in Seattle, Washington, and founded by John W. Nordstrom and Carl F. Wallin in 1901. The original store operated exclusively as a shoe store, and a second location opened in 1923. The growing chain began selling clothing in 1963, and became the full-line retailer that presently exists by 1971. The company founded its off-price Nordstrom Rack division in 1973, and grew both full-line and off-price divisions throughout the United States in the following years. The full-line division competes with department stores including Bloomingdale's, Macy's, Neiman Marcus, and Saks Fifth Avenue, while the off-price division competes with retailers including the TJX Companies and Ross Stores. Previous expansions beyond the contiguous United States include Puerto Rico (2015–2020) and Canada (2014–2023). Early history John W. Nordstrom was born on February 15, 1871, in the village Alvik, Lu ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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T-Mobile US
T-Mobile US, Inc. is an American wireless network operator headquartered in Bellevue, Washington. Its majority shareholder and namesake is the German telecommunications company Deutsche Telekom. T-Mobile is the second largest wireless carrier in the United States, with 131 million subscribers as of March 31, 2025. The company was founded in 1994 by John W. Stanton of the Western Wireless Corporation as VoiceStream Wireless. Deutsche Telekom then gained plurality ownership in 2001 and renamed it after its global T-Mobile brand. , the German company holds a 51.4% stake in the company. T-Mobile US operates two main brands: T-Mobile and Metro by T-Mobile (acquired in a 2013 reverse takeover of MetroPCS that also led to T-Mobile's listing on the NASDAQ). In 2020, T-Mobile expanded through the acquisition of Sprint, which also made T-Mobile the operator of Assurance Wireless, a service subsidized by the federal Lifeline program. The company's growth continued in 2024 wit ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Expedia, Inc
Expedia Group, Inc. is an American travel technology company that owns and operates travel fare aggregators and travel metasearch engines, including Expedia, Hotels.com, Vrbo, Travelocity, Hotwire.com, Orbitz, Ebookers, CheapTickets, CarRentals.com, Expedia Cruises, Wotif, and Trivago. Over 3.5 million lodging facilities and flights on over 500 airlines are bookable on the company's websites. It has 16,500 employees, and its headquarters are located in Seattle, Washington. The word "Expedia" is derived from a combination of "exploration" and "speed". The company is listed on Nasdaq under the ticker symbol EXPE. History Founded as a division of Microsoft in October 1996, Expedia was spun off into a public company in 1999. IAC, known at the time as USA Networks Inc, acquired a controlling interest in the company in 2001 and acquired the remainder of the company in 2003. In August 2005, IAC spun off the company. In December 2011, Expedia, Inc. spun off TripAdvisor. Man ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Alcoa
Alcoa Corporation (an acronym for "Aluminum Company of America") is an American industrial corporation. It is the world's eighth-largest producer of aluminum. Alcoa conducts operations in 10 countries. Alcoa is a major producer of primary aluminum, fabricated aluminum, and alumina combined, through its active and growing participation in all major aspects of the industry: technology, mining, refining, smelting, fabricating, and recycling. Alcoa emerged in 1888 as the brainchild of Charles Martin Hall, with the funding of Alfred E. Hunt and Arthur Vining Davis. Alcoa was the first mass producer of aluminum. Before Alcoa's formation, aluminum was difficult to refine and, as a result, was more expensive than silver or gold. In 1886, Hall discovered the Hall–Héroult process, the first inexpensive technique for refining aluminum, drastically reducing the price of aluminum while increasing its availability. Hall approached Hunt and Davis to form a company to bring his process to ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Recreational Equipment, Inc
Recreational Equipment, Inc., Trade name, doing business as REI, is an American retail and outdoor recreation services corporation. It was formerly governed, and continues to brand itself, as a consumers' co-operative. REI sells camping gear, hiking, climbing, cycling, water, running, fitness, snow, travel equipment, and men, women and kids clothing. Unlike other outdoor sports stores, it does not sell hunting or fishing equipment. REI operates 181 retail stores in 41 states. It also receives orders via mail-order catalogs and the internet. History Lloyd Anderson, Lloyd (1902–2000) and Mary (Gaiser) Anderson (1909–2017) founded REI in Seattle, Washington state, Washington in 1938. The Andersons had imported an Akadem Pickel ice axe from Austria, for themselves, as part of The Mountaineers (club), The Mountaineers Basic Climbing Course; from there, the two decided to set up a co-operative to help other outdoor enthusiasts in the club acquire good-quality climbing gear at re ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Nike, Inc
Nike, Inc. (stylized as ''NIKE'') is an American athletic footwear and apparel corporation headquartered near Beaverton, Oregon. It is the world's largest supplier of Sneakers, athletic shoes and apparel and a major manufacturer of sports equipment, with revenue in excess of US$46 billion in its fiscal year 2022. The company was founded on January 25, 1964, as "Blue Ribbon Sports", by Bill Bowerman and Phil Knight, and officially became Nike, Inc. on May 30, 1971. The company takes its name from Nike (mythology), Nike, the Greek goddess of victory. Nike markets its products under its own brand, as well as Nike Golf, Nike Pro, Nike+, Nike Blazers, Air Force 1 (shoe), Air Force 1, Nike Dunk, Air Max, Foamposite, Nike Skateboarding and Nike CR7. The company also sells products under its Air Jordan brand and its Converse (brand), Converse subsidiary. Nike also owned Bauer Hockey from 1995 to 2008, and previously owned Cole Haan, Umbro, and Hurley International. In addition to manu ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |