Portal:Philadelphia

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The Philadelphia skyline from the South Street Bridge, January 2020

Philadelphia, commonly referred to as Philly, is the most populous city in the U.S. state of Pennsylvania. Philadelphia is the nation's sixth-most populous city, with a population of 1,603,797 in the 2020 census and is the urban core of the larger Delaware Valley (or Philadelphia metropolitan area), the nation's seventh-largest and one of the world's largest metropolitan regions consisting of 6.245 million residents in the metropolitan statistical area and 7.366 million residents in its combined statistical area. Philadelphia is known for its extensive contributions to United States history, especially the American Revolution, and served as the nation's capital until 1800. It maintains contemporary influence in business and industry, culture, sports, and music.

Philadelphia is a national cultural center, hosting more outdoor sculptures and murals than any other city in the nation. Fairmount Park, when combined with adjacent Wissahickon Valley Park in the same watershed, is 2,052 acres (830 ha), representing one of the nation's largest and the world's 45th-largest urban park. The city is known for its arts, culture, cuisine, and colonial and Revolution-era history; in 2016, it attracted 42 million domestic tourists who spent $6.8 billion, representing $11 billion in economic impact to the city and its surrounding Pennsylvania counties. With five professional sports teams and one of the nation's most loyal fan bases, Philadelphia is often ranked as the nation's best city for professional sports fans. The city has a culturally and philanthropically active LGBTQ+ community. Philadelphia also has played an immensely influential historic and ongoing role in the development and evolution of American music, especially R&B, soul, and rock. (Full article...)

The Blue Route north of US 1.
The Blue Route north of US 1.

Interstate 476 is a 132.10 mi (212.59 km)-long auxiliary Interstate Highway, designated between Interstate 95 near Chester, Pennsylvania and Interstate 81 near Scranton, Pennsylvania. It serve as the primary north-south Interstate corridor through eastern Pennsylvania. It consists of both the 21.5-mile Mid-County Expressway, locally referred to as the "Blue Route", through the suburban-Philadelphia counties of Delaware and Montgomery, and the 110.6-mile Northeast Extension of the Pennsylvania Turnpike, which connects the Philadelphia metropolitan area with the Lehigh Valley, the Poconos, and the Scranton-Wilkes-Barre metropolitan area. Proposed as early as 1929, construction of the Mid-County Expressway through Delaware County was not completed until 1991 due to massive community and environmental opposition during the freeway revolts of the 1960s and 1970s. After completion of the Mid-County Expressway, in 1996 the Interstate 476 designation was extended to include the entire length of the existing Northeast Extension. Since the extension, I-476 has been the longest auxiliary Interstate highway in the United States.

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Runaway advertisement in The Pennsylvania Gazette, May 23, 1796

Oney Judge was a slave at George Washington's plantation, Mount Vernon, in Virginia. A servant in Washington's presidential households beginning in 1789, she escaped to freedom from the Philadelphia President's House on Saturday, May 21, 1796, and defied his attempts to recapture her. More is known about her than any other Mount Vernon slave because she was twice interviewed by abolitionist newspapers in the 1840s.

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John Barton "Bart" King
John Barton "Bart" King

Bart King was an American cricketer, active in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. King was one of the Philadelphian cricketers that played from the end of the 19th century until the outbreak of World War I. This period of cricket in the United States was dominated by gentleman players—men of independent wealth who did not need to work. King was an amateur from a middle-class family, who was able to devote time to cricket thanks to a job set up by his teammates. King was a skilled batsman, but proved his worth as a bowler. During his career, he set numerous records in North America and led the first-class bowling averages in England in 1908. He successfully competed against the best cricketers from England and Australia. King was the dominant bowler on his team when it toured England in 1897, 1903, and 1908. He dismissed batsmen with his unique delivery, which he called the "angler," and helped develop the art of swing bowling in the sport. Many of the great bowlers of today still use the strategies and techniques that he developed. Sir Pelham Warner described Bart King as one of the finest bowlers of all time, and Donald Bradman called him "America's greatest cricketing son."

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"Here lies W. C. Fields. I would rather be living in Philadelphia."

W. C. Fields proposing his epitaph.

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